I have a reputation for being an atrocious cook. No one wants me to cook for them (I've had outright refusals), and my 'meals' have been the butt of jokes. Having had so many kitchen disasters I fear trying anything new or complicated. I try my best to follow a recipe, but things often start to derail and I don't know what I've done wrong. I have zero intuition then I can get into a spiral where things turn from bad to inedible.

Much I can attribute to how I grew up around food. The parent with the cooking duties didn't like to cook and didn't get to grips with it, but I didn't know any better. For most of my life, the dinner meal fit the same template: over-cooked (but not charred or burnt) plain meat, a carbohydrate (usually a root vegetable plain or mashed, but without any other ingredients), and over-boiled vegetables (soggy and tasteless). Table salt, pepper, and commercial tomato sauce were available for seasoning on plate - nothing was ever seasoned prior to being plated. We had no gravy, mayo/aoli, marinades, chutneys, dressings or the like, except for the Christmas day meal. Fresh herbs and whole spices did not exist in this reality, but some packet ground herbs and spices were kept and only to be used for the Christmas Day meal.

Needless to say, leaving home has been a bit of a revelation for me. I love flavorful food, and eating herbs and spices every day, but I struggle with cooking and don't have much confidence. I would like to learn how to cook, with an emphasis on health and nutrition. I know plenty about those topics, the problem is with the execution! I need to go back to the basics - learn techniques, experiment and fail, but still somehow improve over time. My primary motivation is to do this for myself, but it would be nice to one day be able to offer to cook for someone! I'm not very ambitious, I'd be happy with just doing a few things very competently and am patient and ready to work on this for the next few years.

I've hunted around on this site and found a discussion about the 'Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat' book/series, which I'm currently reading/watching and have learned a lot so far. I also found an old thread about culinary theory, but I think that's a bit over my head! (https://tild.es/6pc).

So, Tildes, has anyone taught themselves successfully as an adult? Any advice on how to start or any resources you can point me in the direction of? Ideally, I'd like to learn about the 'why' as well as the 'how', because I am just so clueless! Also, are there any food channels/blogs etc. that you follow that have an emphasis on healthy and fresh food? Very open to all cuisines. Thanks all!

Last weekend, my girlfriend and I drove down to attend the Monte Vista Sandhill Crane Festival. It's a roughly 4 hour/200 mile drive from Denver down to Monte Vista, with lots of variation in elevation. I got a Tesla Model Y last June, and since then haven't really had the chance to go out into the remote mountains of Colorado with it.

This weekend would be my first such excursion. Getting down to Monte Vista is absolutely no problem. At about the halfway point in the trip, there's a Tesla Supercharger. That, combined with the range of the car meant that conserving battery was no problem at all.

I was worried, however, about how the car would fare down in Monte Vista for the three days we would be there for the festival. There are no charging stations of any kind in downtown Monte Vista itself (though there are a couple of slow chargers on the outskirts of town, slow chargers with nothing around them are kind of useless). However, there were fast chargers in the towns nearby! One in Del Norte, and another couple in Alamosa, both a 20 minute drive out of Monte Vista. My plan was to charge up at those every evening while we were down there.

On the trip there, we left Denver at 100% SoC, and the battery and cabin preheated for 30 minutes beforehand. We arrived at the Poncha Springs supercharger with about 17% SoC, plugged in and charged to 90%, which took about 40 minutes. The reason for charging this high was because I wasn't sure what state the non-Tesla fast chargers would be at when we got down to our destination area. My plan was to head from Poncha Springs toward the Del Norte fast charger; arrive at 60% and charge back up to 90% before driving around to look for the cranes.

We arrived in Del Norte at 60% SoC as expected, but we found the one fast charger already occupied when we got there. Thankfully, we waited less than 5 minutes for the owners to get back finish charging, after which I was able to plug in and start charging.

This charger was advertised as a 62 kW charger, but for the hour we spent charging there, the charge rate never went above 30. I'm sure part of this was that I was charging from 60-90%, and part of it was that it was cold out, and the Tesla lacks the ability to precondition the battery en route to non-Tesla fast chargers. We ended up charging there for about an hour to get the same charge that the supercharger gave us in 15-ish minutes.

Luckily, there was a brewery/pizzeria and a neat antique shop just a block away.

At some point in the trip, I became aware through Plugshare that the fast chargers down in Alamosa were being taken down that weekend for upgrades. They were installing more stalls, and I guess that necessitated taking the existing ones offline. Now instead of 3-4 fast charging options in this area, I was down to just one. I was certain that because those chargers were down in Alamosa, many more people would come up to use the single charger in Del Norte. Further, I knew that lots of people came down for the crane festival, and so I was worried that there would be an increase in the number of EVs competing for this one charger.

When we got to our hotel in Monte Vista, I noticed there were outlets near the parking lot. I asked the front desk for permission to charge my car in the lot overnight, but was denied because "it would cost them too much money". I thought about offering to pay for the privilege, but the person at the desk didn't really seem interested in pursuing that line of conversation further.

Overnight, the battery stayed charged at pretty much the same level, only losing 1% indicated charge. We got up at 5 AM in order to see the cranes take off from their roosting location in the wetlands, and go out into the fields to loaf (this is the technical term :D). We spent the rest of the day driving around the back roads and farm roads, watching the cranes in the fields.

The whole day I was checking the charge point app to see if the one fast charger available to us was in use, in order to judge how busy it was, and to plan when we might go charge there. Surprisingly, not once did I see it in use!

Since we had had a great day watching cranes, we decided to leave a day early. We had enough charge to get to the Poncha Springs supercharger, and from there back home with no issues.

I thought I would conclude with a few bullet point takeaways from this trip:

• Range anxiety is real. I spent a lot more time thinking about where to charge and if I could charge enough on this trip
• Being away from the Tesla Supercharger network sucks. A whole set of fast chargers I was relying on was taken down exactly when I needed them. They're slower, you have to worry about them not functioning much more.
• Tesla is opening a supercharger site in Alamosa! They filed for the permit just this week. This will basically erase the anxiety I had last weekend on future trips
• Total energy costs for this 500 mile trip were about $35. That feels pretty cheap to me!

Pop-Up Event: Twenty-Twenty Vision

Community Task: Our goal is, as a community, to watch movies and fill in the following chart below that spans an entire century of film: from the 1920s to 2020s!

Choose an empty decade, watch a movie (any movie!) from it, and report back here when you're finished. Tell us why you chose that movie and what you thought about it.

I'll fill in the chart as we go, and once we have collectively watched at least one movie from each decade, we will have completed the Pop-Up and it will be closed!

Time Period: The Pop-Up remains open until the chart is filled!

I’m going to be in Washington, D.C. for the next week (give or take a day). I’ll be staying in Arlington, VA and plan on utilizing public transportation while I’m there.

Any unconventional recommendations or things I should know?

Recently I've been reading about the benefits of doing an extended water fast. There are apparently benefits when it comes to entering autophagy for cell repair, as well as increases in stem cell production in the a couple of parts of the body. I believe there is also some data to suggest that it increases sensitivity to insulin and does some lasting things to ghrelin and leptin levels. Many people also report clearer thinking, feelings of euphoria, and increased levels of focus after the first day of fasting.

After reading these benefits I decided to try a 72 hour water fast. Unfortunately, I did not feel almost any of the acute effects that were described in most all places that fasting is discussed. For both of the nights that I was fasted I woke up slowly and felt lethargic for a couple hours after waking. I had fairly severe brain fog throughout most of the second and third days. I was drinking electrolyte water, as is suggested (trying to hit 3g sudium/potassium and taking 250mg magnesium supplement/day), but when I drank that at a rate where I would be able to get all of the electrolytes in throughout the day I would have GI distress. I was only able to stomach about 1-2g of sodium/potassium per day

There were times where I felt the focus/energy that was described by other posters online, but it always came with an asterisk. I felt as though I was slightly detached from myself? Almost as through I was sitting inside my own mind/body and driving it as a third party. I will say that after the 18 hour mark I only felt hungry a couple of times. I did have a lot of thoughts about food, but those came from being very introspective about the fact that I was fasting more than anything else.

I want to believe that I did something wrong and thats the reason that I was not able to get the experience that it seems most others do; I would be willing to give it a second shot, but I want to try and figure out what could be improved.

Has anyone else here tried a 3+ day extended fast? What were your experiences?

Oh no! My friend thinks she shouldn't use her nice ornamental coffee pot, because it is made of aluminum! Nevermind that there might be science developing somewhere that this substance may be some kind of innocuous which is not total. It's just horrible that that is how people make decisions
sometimes!

I got really defensive when I started hearing that people would avoid plastic bottles. Seemed like the kind of discernment that could only put me out of touch with things which are available. Go get your coffee pot! I doubt that you'll ever be able to tell if it ever impacted your health. Another friend of mine has a whole crop of prohibitions. He liked some of my clothes and talked about borrowing them until he found out they included polyesters, at which point he completely dropped interest and then I just felt put down for going on with something he had rejected. I thought, why did he speculate to me at all, knowing he had that sort of judgment still pending? Disgust should be unspeakable! but people bring it out with such righteousness, like "wouldn't you like to be healthier, away from all these awful things"? I also feel this way about smells. I hate how people respond to perceptible odors. Everyone is so sure of their opinions. Someone please come out with me for this. Unless you're struggling to breathe I really do not want to hear what you think about a smell. You're just going to interpret the world as being a worse place to be and that habit is what disgusts me!

Well, as the headline says my son wants to join Discord to talk to his friends while playing Roblox on the iPad. Up until now he's been using Teams to communicate while playing. Recently his friends have been switching to Discord so naturally he wants that too.

I only know Discord by name so I'm looking for insight into how it works and how safe it is for children and in general. I'm aware that the age limit is 13.

Pretty much what the title says - I’ve been looking for something small and not too expensive to run a few VMs on recently, and I’m just genuinely amazed at where the tiny SBC space is at right now.

The Celeron N5105 seems to be the go to choice at the moment. You can get an entire machine running that CPU that’s slightly smaller than an old double CD jewel case, for $150. Less than $200 if you want 16GB RAM and a fast NVMe SSD in there too. Four decent quality 2.5GbE NICs thrown in as a bonus. And it’s not that much slower than my expensive full size desktop from late 2020.

Part of me thinks I’m just getting old - phones have been plenty of people’s primary computer for years now, after all - but there’s something about having a real standalone x86 PC that size for literally 1/5th the price of a flagship phone that just blows my mind.

I finally got around to upgrading my mom’s computer (an Asus laptop from 2015) from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10. I’ve already deleted a few apps she won’t use (e.g., Xbox) and disabled/stopped some unneeded services. What else can I do to keep her computer fast? Particularly interesting in more services I can disable and the best browser/ad blocker combo. Thanks y’all!

Drama: Elvis

Comedy: Everything Everywhere All At Once

Director: Daniels - Everything Everywhere All At Once

Screenplay: Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin

Lead Actor - Drama: Austin Butler - Elvis

Lead Actress - Drama: Cate Blanchett - TÁR

Lead Actor - Comedy: Colin Farrell - The Banshees Inisherin

Lead Actress - Comedy: Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All At Once

Supporting Actor: Ke Huy Quan - Everything Everywhere All At Once

Supporting Actress: Kerry Condon - The Banshees of Inisherin

Original Score: The Banshees of Inisherin

Original Song: Hold My Hand from Top Gun: Maverick

Animated Feature: Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

International Feature: All Quiet on the Western Front

BAFTA, aka the British Oscar’s recently released a longlist. In recent years BAFTA has moved onto a juried system. This was made in order to make the nominees more diverse (as BAFTA has often been the worst offenders in keeping the nominees white). So if you see some weird nominations from movies you’ve never heard of that’s why.

There are some categories that are not juried: Film and Screenplay being the above-the-line categories to not be juried at all. But the rest are partially juried, meaning the top 3 of normal vote getters get nominated, and the next 3 are juried. Here we go.

Best Film

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Everything Everywhere All At Once
3. TÁR
4. Top Gun: Maverick
5. Triangle of Sadness

Best Director

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Everything Everywhere All At Once
3. TÁR
4. Aftersun
5. Saint Omer
6. Corsage

Original Screenplay

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Everything Everywhere All At Once
3. TÁR
4. The Fabelmans
5. Triangle of Sadness

Adapted Screenplay

1. Living
2. All Quiet on the Western Front
3. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
4. Women Talking
5. The Wonder

Lead Actress

1. Cate Blanchett - TÁR
2. Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All At Once
3. Michelle Williams - The Fabelmans
4. Danielle Deadwyler - Till
5. Lesley Manville - Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris
6. Ana De Armas - Blonde

Lead Actor

1. Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Austin Butler - Elvis
3. Brendan Fraser - The Whale
4. Bill Nighy - Living
5. Paul Mescal - Aftersun
6. Darryl McCormack - Good Luck To You, Leo Grande

Supporting Actress

1. Kerry Condon - The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Jamie Lee Curtis - Everything Everywhere All At Once
3. Dolly De Leon - Triangle of Sadness
4. Aimee Lou Wood - Living
5. Janelle Monae - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
6. Hong Chau - The Whale

Supporting Actor

1. Ke Huy Quan - Everything Everywhere All At Once
2. Brendan Gleeson - The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Brad Pitt - Babylon
4. Barry Keoghan - The Banshees of Inisherin
5. Albert Schuck - All Quiet on the Western Front
6. Michael Ward - Empire of Light

Casting

1. Everything Everywhere All At Once
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Triangle of Sadness
4. Aftersun
5. All Quiet on the Western Front

Best British Film

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Living
3. Aftersun
4. Good Luck To You, Leo Grande
5. The Wonder
6. Brian and Charles
7. Mrs Harris Goes To Paris
8. Lady Chatterley’s Lover
9. Blue Jean
10. Roald Dahl’s Matilda The Musical
11. Emily

Pop-Up Event: Feelin’ ‘22

Task: Listen to an album featured in any end-of-year music list for 2022 and let us know what you thought of it. Also, tell us what list you got it from, as well as why you chose it.

Time Period: Saturday, November 10 through Sunday, November 18

Help from Our Staff: Need a place to start? Try one of these:

• AOTY’s list of lists for the best albums of 2022
• RateYourMusic’s customizable chart builder
• Tildes’ very own Year in Review for music

I usually browse Tildes logged out, however today I decided to log in to participate. Before doing so, I wanted to explore Tildes' user interface a little. I opened the "Invite Users" page and was greeted with a message stating: "You aren't able to generate more invite links right now.".

To the best of my knowledge, I have never invited anyone before. I have a strong, random password on my Tildes account so I believe it to be unlikely I was compromised.

Are invites globally disabled, or could a site administrator take a look at my account and check what's going on?

Name a movie or story that should get the Muppet treatment, like the Muppet Christmas Carol.

Name the token human headlining character and justify your Muppet picks. Bonus points for some dialog or song lyrics.

I'm spending 5 days in NYC starting next week. While I've traveled plenty, it's almost always been alone, frequently short term (2-3 days including flights in and out), and work related so I had people to either ask for suggestions or just went out on my own. If the trip didn't fit into the above categories it was typically to somewhere I'm relatively familiar with or had a lot of lead time to prepare my trip.

That is not the case right now. I've never had any interest in NYC so I don't have a list of places I'd like to experience in my head, I don't have a ton of time to research a plan and filter out all the "top 10 things to do in NYC" websites, I'll be with my wife so going off wandering on my own isn't an option, and this will be the first trip where I don't have a rental car to just go get lost in and see where my randomness takes me. I'm also not the tourist type so there's no interest in "the tree" or Times Square, etc.

So I beseech you fellow Tilderinos, as someone that doesn't care about being a tourist, doesn't have a social media presence to feed I'm-here-and-you're-not selfies to, and needs actual destinations to go to due to a lack of independent mobility, what should someone with pretty much 72 hours of completely free time in NYC actually do?

Pop-Up Event: Ludonostalgia!

Task: Replay an old, favorite game that you haven't played in a long, long time. Tell us about how your playthrough now compares to your memories of the game.

Time Period: This weekend! (November 10-14)
Update: Ludonostalgia is extending its hours through November 21st!

My child (who does not live with me) has a PC. He's pretty good at sorting problems out for himself, but he sometimes needs extra help. We've tried doing this over phone and video calls, and it's an unfun experience for both of us.

Is there a remote access software that would fit our needs? I want to be able to connect to his computer over the Internet and have some level of control when he's logged into his account. I'd need to be able to open files, I wouldn't have to be able to save them. He's using Windows 11. I think he's using the home version. I'm using Windows 10 Pro. We both have reasonably good Internet speed.

I wrote the following as a Twitter thread first but I think this idea could work for Reddit/Tildes/Mastadon and would love to know what you folks think of it.

Here is how I would monetize a social network that could work for Twitter.

First of all, don’t charge your most valuable users - the power users that create the content for you. Instead focus on the users that get more value from your system - the consumers of the content.

The idea is simple - introduce a small time delay before content gets seen from the time it is published. For example, on Twitter it could be 1 minute. On Reddit it could be 10 minutes.

Paid subscribers would have no delay. Importantly - lift the delay for the users that generate a lot of views.

You can do revenue share with your content creators in proportion to how much time paid subscribers spent on their content.

And you can also identify your most valuable audience - the paid subscribers. This will help prioritize content moderation decisions, identify abuse, and prioritize appeals.

The delay would allow you to prioritize which content needs to be indexed instantly (ie from creators that paid subscribers are following) and which you can process on a best effort basis - saving on production costs.

You can gift subscriptions to your friends and family.

As with many Twitter users, I'm finally at the point where I want to leave and join Mastodon. About a year ago I set up an account after seeing some people on Tildes talk about it, but I found it confusing and ultimately closed the account. I want to give it another go, but I'm a bit confused about all the different instance options, what the practical differences are, and more. Are there any comprehensive getting started guides? Does it matter which instance I join? How did you choose for yourself?

I don’t know how many of you watch “nerd” movie channels, or ever did. But for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m talking about stuff like ScreenJunkies, Collider and all their auxiliaries like SchmoesKnow.

These are the people that were made fun of by RedLetterMedia in their NerdCrew videos which funnily enough they don’t do anymore.

They were pillars of the YouTube film community. In fact, back when I was first getting into movies in the early 2010s, they were the majority of content. Until the video essay boom came into fruition circa 2015, and of which is now the primary style of video.

They would make dozens upon dozens of videos and podcasts talking about the latest trailer for a Marvel movie. They would speculate about what would happen in the next Star Wars movie. They would react to trailers and over-exaggerate. They would fully embrace all things that Funko Pop nerds embraced.

2019 was the height of all of this. The MCU’s Infinity Saga came to a close with Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, and the Star Wars Sequel trilogy wrapped up later in the year with The Rise of Skywalker. The hype for these movies were unbelievable, even if one of them disappointed and left everyone with a bitter after-taste.

Then the pandemic happened and all nerd movie news stopped. There was nothing to react to, there was nothing to hype. Wonder Woman 1984 came out, but nobody liked it.

The following year was a little bit better thanks to the hype machine surrounding Spider-Man: No Way Home. But still, the views that these nerd channels were getting dropped significantly. Check out the difference between the reviews on Fandom Entertainment's channel for Endgame and Spider-Man: No Way Home. The drop in audience is remarkable. And that’s for the big reviews. The day-to-day content that these channels posted are down significantly, and in the case of Fandom Entertainment (of ScreenJunkies), they have stopped producing daily videos. It’s a YouTube channel on life support.

Collider is an empty shell of itself, they canceled all of their nerd panels and only do generic press junket videos.

It’s simple really. These things ended. Interest in the MCU has dipped since Endgame (with the exception of Spider-Man). Star Wars has stopped making movies, and the TV shows have been of mixed quality. People moved on. These channels aren't needed anymore.

The era of the 2010s movie nerd YouTube channel is over. The only ones staying alive are ones that relied more on personality rather than farming content. I’m talking about JeremyJahns, Chris Stuckmann, and Mr. Sunday Movies. Their audience stayed around because their audience liked their personality.

There were a few years when RTS was a popular genre with games like Total Annihilation, Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, and Starcraft being very popular examples.

But these games have mostly died out, and I was wondering if maybe I'm just not aware of modern RTS variants, or if there are good reasons why these games died off.

Like, are Tower Defence games a form of RTS?

Are there any RTS games where teams play against each other, so 2v2 rather than 1v1?

Golden Globe nominations come out mid-December. I don’t really see anything changing from here to the end of the year. The only movies left to premiere are Avatar and Babylon. Both of which are almost guaranteed to be good, at the very least. And Avatar is guaranteed to be a huge hit.

Here are my previous predictions for the Globes, and it’s crazy how much things have changed.

The Globes usually have a couple of weird choices and I don’t think many of these will end up with Oscar nominations.

But here’s where I think the winds are blowing.

Motion Picture - Drama:

1. The Fabelmans
2. Women Talking
3. Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Top Gun: Maverick
5. TÁR

Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy:

1. Babylon
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Everything Everywhere All At Once
4. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
5. Spirited

Director:

1. Steven Spielberg - The Fabelmans
2. Damien Chazelle - Babylon
3. James Cameron - Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin
5. Sarah Polley - Women Talking

Screenplay:

1. The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Babylon
3. The Fabelmans
4. Women Talking
5. Everything Everywhere All At Once

Lead Actor - Drama:

1. Brendan Fraser - The Whale
2. Austin Butler - Elvis
3. Bill Nighy - Living
4. Gabriel LaBelle - The Fabelmans
5. Tom Cruise - Top Gun: Maverick

Lead Actress - Drama:

1. Danielle Deadwyler - Till
2. Naomi Ackie - I Wanna Dance With Somebody
3. Cate Blanchett - TÁR
4. Michelle Williams - The Fabelmans
5. Jennifer Lawrence - Causeway

Lead Actor - Musical or Comedy:

1. Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin
2. Diego Calva - Babylon
3. Daniel Craig - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
4. Will Ferrell - Spirited
5. George Clooney - Ticket to Paradise

Lead Actress - Musical or Comedy:

1. Margot Robbie - Babylon
2. Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All At Once
3. Julia Roberts - Ticket to Paradise
4. Sandra Bullock - The Lost City
5. Lesley Manville - Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris

Supporting Actor:

1. Ke Huy Quan - Everything Everywhere All At Once
2. Brendan Gleeson - The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Brad Pitt - Babylon
4. Paul Dano - The Fabelmans
5. Eddie Redmayne - The Good Nurse

Supporting Actress:

1. Jean Smart - Babylon
2. Claire Foy - Women Talking
3. Kerry Condon - The Banshees of Inisherin
4. Janelle Monae - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
5. Hong Chau - The Whale

Original Score:

1. The Fabelmans
2. Babylon
3. Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Women Talking
5. Pinocchio

Original Song:

1. “Hold My Hand” from Top Gun: Maverick
2. “Carolina” from Where the Crawdads Sing
3. “Lift Me Up” from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
4. “Ciao Papa” from Pinocchio
5. “Do A Little Good" from Spirited

Animated Feature

1. Pinocchio
2. Turning Red
3. Strange World
4. My Father’s Dragon
5. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

I currently have a hankering for diving into a really long book series, so was hoping to get some recommendations from fellow Tildes users.

The genres I enjoy most are scifi and fantasy, especially darkly themed ones with deep lore, but I'm open to trying anything. The only caveat is that I have absolutely no interest in starting to read a series that hasn't actually finished yet, since at this point I am honestly quite sick of waiting for the next ASOIAF and Kingkiller.

I was considering listing all the longest series I have already read in order to avoid them getting recommended to me again, but I decided against doing that so other people can use this as a resource in case they're also looking for similar recommendations.

p.s. Malazan Book of the Fallen would be my biggest recommendation, BTW. It's by far my favorite dark fantasy series, is a whopping ~3M words, ~11k pages, with hundreds of unique/memorable characters, and an insanely deep lore spanning thousands of years.

I remember I came across it here, probably posted by @Deimos in the course of a thread about Tildes' philosophy. The essence of the blog was that the truly nice, sweet people among us that make online forums a better place with their positive interactions are more sensitive to tensions and negative interactions than the average person, so they'd be likely to leave at a lower level of trolling than most of us would, resulting in a net negative for everyone on the site. Could have sworn I bookmarked it...

I love Documentary Now. I organized this mess into a table so you can easily find the documentaries to watch before the series, if you're into that.

For previous seasons, the wikipedia page has all of the originals listed.

Two episodes per night for three weeks. Soldier of Illusion is a two-parter.

EDIT: It is official!

We're happy to announce that with today’s batch of order emails, we have completed our reservation queue. We are now in-stock and Steam Deck is available for purchase!

The Docking Station is available for purchase now! Learn more about it here, or order one here.

Previous post:

I wanted to give everyone here a heads' up that it seems like Valve is through most of its preorders for the Steam Deck, so the delay between reserving one and receiving a confirmation is essentially negligible at this point (unlike the months-long waits of the past).

Anecdotally: my husband put in a reservation on Sunday and received confirmation on Monday, the next day (US 512GB model).

Less anecdotally: /r/steamdeck is unofficially confirming this for all queues except the EU 64GB model.

If you've been waiting out the wait time for a Steam Deck, it looks like your time has come! You should be able to get one almost ASAP moving forward.

Also, if you're on the fence about it, I cannot recommend it enough. I absolutely love mine.

Sometimes I like to multitask while I'm having a chill. Basically I'm looking for a game that doesn't require my full attention so that I can play while I'm watching youtube or a stream. Lately I've been playing Stellaris on easier difficulties to scratch this itch, but even on minimum time settings a Stellaris game takes multiple hours. Something with a 30-60 minute gameplay loop would be perfect.

Thanks for your suggestions!

I need to put Linux on a laptop, but I'm afraid I may not be around to upgrade to major versions (which usually means reinstalling everything) and maintaining the machine. Something like Arch or Manjaro (which I use) might be good because I wouldn't ever need to reinstall the OS, but stability leaves a lot to be desired for a non-technical user. So I was thinking of getting something with an enormous support lifecycle, like Rocky Linux (10 years). Is that a terrible idea?

"New place" can be a small move to a new apartment down the street or a big move to a completely different city/country/continent.

What did you learn?
How did it change you?

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?

Hello everyone,

I'll be moving to a new apartment where the kitchen does not have any kitchen appliances. From my searches on /r/BuyItForLife, it seems everyone usually recommends Bosch and Miele appliances, but they are usually a bit on the expensive side. I'm not sure about buying for life at this stage in my life because I think this is not my final home, and I think in the future I won't be bothered to take everything with me. Also, it will be always be easier to sell the apartment in the future with the equipped kitchen.

It seems Panasonic and Mitsubishi appliances are actually quite good and cheaper than Bosch and Miele, but unfortunately, these brands are basically non-existent here in Europe (regarding kitchen appliances, I mean).

So, basically, is there still any brand left that might be as good as Bosch and Miele but slightly cheaper? Maybe Whirlpool or Electrolux brands?

Okay, I promise this is the last time I’ll make one of these posts for the rest of the year.

The major fall festivals (TIFF, Telluride, and Venice) happened. So many movies got mediocre reception at these festivals (namely Alejandro Gonzalez Inaritu’s Bardo, Florian Zeller’s The Son, and Sam Mendes’s Empire of Light).

So the race has taken a more serious shape. Here are the old predictions.

Here are the renewed predictions:

Picture:

1. The Fabelmans
2. Babylon
3. Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Everything Everywhere All At Once
5. The Banshees of Inisherin
6. Women Talking
7. Elvis
8. TAR
9. The Whale
10. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Alt: Top Gun: Maverick

Director:

1. Steven Spielberg - The Fabelmans
2. Damien Chazelle - Babylon
3. James Cameron - Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Daniels - Everything Everywhere All At Once
5. Todd Field - TAR

DGA Snub: Martin McDonagh - The Banshees of Inisherin

Lead Actor:

1. Brendan Fraser - The Whale
2. Austin Butler - Elvis
3. Colin Farrell - The Banshees of Inisherin
4. Bill Nighy - Living
5. Hugh Jackman - The Son

Alt: Diego Calva - Babylon

Lead Actress:

1. Margot Robbie - Babylon
2. Naomi Ackie - I Wanna Dance With Somebody
3. Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All At Once
4. Cate Blanchett - TAR
5. Olivia Colman - Empire of Light

Alt: Jennifer Lawrence - Causeway

Supporting Actor:

1. Ke Huy Quan - Everything Everywhere All At Once
2. Brendan Gleeson - The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Paul Dano - The Fabelmans
4. Brad Pitt - Babylon
5. Ben Wishaw - Women Talking

Alt: Barry Keoghan - The Banshees of Inisherin

Supporting Actress:

1. Michelle Williams - The Fabelmans
2. Claire Foy - Women Talking
3. Sadie Sink - The Whale
4. Kerry Condon - The Banshees of Inisherin
5. Janelle Monae - Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Alt: Nina Hoss - TAR

Original Screenplay:

1. Everything Everywhere All At Once
2. The Banshees of Inisherin
3. Babylon
4. The Fabelmans
5. TAR

Adapted Screenplay:

1. Women Talking
2. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
3. The Whale
4. Living
5. Bones & All

Cinematography:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Babylon
3. The Fabelmans
4. Empire of Light
5. The Batman

Production Design:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Babylon
3. The Fablemans
4. Elvis
5. Amsterdam

Costume Design

1. Babylon
2. The Fabelmans
3. Elvis
4. Amsterdam
5. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Hair and Make-up

1. The Whale
2. Elvis
3. The Batman
4. Babylon
5. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

Original Score:

1. The Fabelmans
2. Babylon
3. Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Women Talking
5. Empire of Light

Sound:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Top Gun: Maverick
3. Babylon
4. Elvis
5. The Fabelmans

Film Editing:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Babylon
3. The Fabelmans
4. Everything Everywhere All At Once
5. Elvis

VFX:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Top Gun: Maverick
3. Everything Everywhere All At Once
4. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
5. The Batman

So my TV is broken (so no Xbox) and my laptop is a potato. Well, not a total potato, it has an i54210 1.7ghz CPU with integrated Intel HD 4400 graphics. It's a Linux machine, but since Proton I fully expect to be able to play many low spec games.

I'm looking into some low spec games. I got Papers Please and liked it a lot. For something meatier I was thinking Baldurs Gate Enhanced, but I fear that I might have a hard time with the outdated mechanics. I had a hard with the original Fallout for that reason... I loved it back in the day, but it was just too clunky for my current tastes.

It's a very broad question, but seeing the latest extremely worrying news from where I am made me wonder: how's everyone else getting on? Now that we're moving past the lockdowns and furloughs, do things look hopeful where you are?

Things in the UK are pretty bad right now - huge inflation, energy prices hitting points that will seriously harm people's financial stability just to stay warm in winter, unending political scandal, increasing pollution, and little real sign of a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm fortunate enough to be able to handle it at least for now, but I'm genuinely worried for those around me and for the country as a whole.

The pandemic hit us all hard, but it's difficult to gauge how hard. Obviously Brexit is an extra anchor around the UK's neck, but then the US has the legacy of Trump and mainland Europe has a war on the doorstep, so we're far from the only ones with problems. Are we in a uniquely bad position, or is this how everyone's feeling right now?

Hello everyone,

I recently moved to a new town and I'm looking forward to walking on all its streets and discover its secrets. However, it's relatively a big town and it will take me a while to do that.
I also don't like walking all that much and I'm not an outgoing person at all, so I want to gamify this a little bit to trick my monkey brain.

So, as an idea, I wondered if there was an iOS app that used the GPS on my phone (or some other trick that I can't think of) to map my route, save it, and place it on the map of the town so I can coordinate my future routes according to the places I've already visited. It's sort of like those running apps that shows you your route after you finished running, except I want it to be not about running and I want them to save the route data, preferably locally.

Thank you everyone in advance for their time.

I have a work-related ethics question, and I thought the fine people here on tildes were perfect to give feedback. I'll try to be brief but still give all of the information.

Background

I work for an energy utility. This company isn't a charity, but it is a non-profit. We are owned by the people who buy power from us (called "members"). We don't profit off of the electricity we sell to our members, but we do generate extra electricity to sell to other utilities (mostly to for-profit ones). Any profit we make is either set aside for future use or is sent out to the members as a check. Yes, our members actually get a check each year. This cooperative was built to serve rural communities since at that point in history profit-driven companies weren't willing to spend the money to run electricity to these communities. We cover 90% (geographically) of our state, along with portions of a neighboring state. We generate using wind, hydro, solar, coal, and natural gas. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I believe roughly 30%-40% of our generation comes from renewables, and we now have a dedicated team researching nuclear power (SMNR) and energy storage (which would allow us to further shift to renewables).

Context

There is a PAC (an entity that throws money at politicians in exchange for votes) for rural electric cooperatives that we participate in. This PAC can only accept donations from our members or employees. While the stated purpose is to advocate for rural cooperatives in general, I personally think that largely translates into advocating for fossil fuels.

Every year there is a 10-day period in August where they start asking us employees to donate. Anyone can donate at any time, this is just the time that they emphasize it. Leadership has REPEATEDLY emphasized that there is no pressure and that our supervisors can't see who has and hasn't donated. I've been here nearly five years, and they've said this each time. I know that under the previous CEO (he left ~10 years ago) there was pressure to donate, and that's probably why they emphasize this now.

Issue

I've discovered however that the leadership CAN see information on who has donated and how much. PAC donations are public information, and the names and amounts can be easily seen online if you know where to look. I do believe that my division leader didn't know this, though I can't really know whether the other leadership did or didn't. There's no way to know if any supervisors have looked at this data or made decisions on it. After I brought it up to my division leader he thanked me and said he will send this new information out to our division.

However, communicating this to the rest of the company is beyond his control. He's alerted the people who can do this but what they do is up to them. While my division doesn't really care who donates, I get the impression that other divisions feel differently. IT has a profoundly different culture than the rest of the company. Senior leaders say there's no pressure, but that's not neciserily the case for supervisors and managers. It's been implied to me that the teams that work in power production, transmission planning, etc still have expectations about donations.

What to do?

So here's the core ethics question: Is it unethical for senior leadership to withhold this new information about the visibility of donations from the rest of the company? The assurance of anonymity was intended to reassure us that there would be no retaliation for those who don't donate and that there would be no favoritism for those who do.

Is this just a small thing that's not really important? If this is an issue, how significant is it? It's obviously not "dumping toxic waste in the river" bad, but it still feels like it must have some level (or potential level) of impact. If this is an issue, what actions would you personally take? How much would you be willing to risk taking action on this?

Thanks in advance, I just want to do the right thing.

I wouldn’t be doing an update this early on but there were recent news of many movies being delayed to 2023 including Killers of the Flower Moon and Rustin.

Here’s the last one: https://tildes.net/~movies/11ix/early_predictions_for_the_2023_oscars

Picture:

1. The Fabelmans
2. Empire of Light
3. Bardo
4. Avatar: The Way of Water
5. Babylon
6. The Whale
7. Women Talking
8. Elvis
9. Everything Everywhere All At Once
10. White Noise

Director:

1. Steven Spielberg - The Fabelmans
2. Sam Mendes - Empire of Light
3. James Cameron - Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Damien Chazelle - Babylon
5. Alejandro G Innaritu - Bardo

Original Screenplay:

1. The Fabelmans
2. Babylon
3. Empire of Light
4. Bardo
5. Everything Everywhere All At Once

Adapted Screenplay

1. White Noise
2. Women Talking
3. The Whale
4. The Son
5. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery

Lead Actor:

1. Austin Butler - Elvis
2. Adam Driver - White Noise
3. Daniel Cacho - Bardo
4. Brendan Fraser - The Whale
5. Hugh Jackman - The Son

Lead Actress:

1. Margot Robbie - Babylon
2. Cate Blanchett - TAR
3. Michelle Yeoh - Everything Everywhere All At Once
4. Olivia Colman - Empire of Light
5. Naomie Ackie - I Wanna Dance With Somebody

Supporting Actor:

1. Paul Dano - The Fabelmans
2. Seth Rogen - The Fabelmans
3. Ben Wishaw - Women Talking
4. Colin Firth - Empire of Light
5. Brad Pitt - Babylon

Supporting Actress:

1. Michelle Williams - The Fabelmans
2. Jessie Buckley - Women Talking
3. Sadie Sink - The Whale
4. Laura Dern - The Son
5. Greta Gerwig - White Noise

Animated Feature:

1. Strange World
2. My Father's Dragon
3. Turning Red
4. Pinnochio
5. Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Best Original Score:

1. The Fabelmans
2. Avatar: The Way of Water
3. Women Talking
4. Babylon
5. Empire of Light

Best Sound:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Top Gun: Maverick
3. Elvis
4. Babylon
5. Bardo

Best Production Design:

1. Babylon
2. Amsterdam
3. Avatar: The Way of Water
4. Empire of Light
5. Elvis

Best Cinematography:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Bardo
3. Babylon
4. Empire of Light
5. The Fabelmans

Best Makeup and Hairstyling:

1. Elvis
2. The Whale
3. White Noise
4. Babylon
5. The Batman

Best Costume Design:

1. Elvis
2. Amsterdam
3. Babylon
4. Empire of Light
5. The Fabelmans

Best Film Editing:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Babylon
3. The Fabelmans
4. Everything Everywhere All At Once
5. Elvis

Best Visual Effects:

1. Avatar: The Way of Water
2. Top Gun: Maverick
3. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness
4. The Batman
5. Everything Everywhere All At Once

I have a burner phone for the next month.

(Lately a number of services refuse to accept my google voice number, and I refuse to share my actual number.)

Are there any cool services I should try out that maybe require a phone number to sign up?

Hi Friends,

I'm in the (very) early stages of creating a financial endowment fund for a small non-profit community organization I help out with. I feel they're a good fit for such an investment vehicle: their current revenue stream fluctuates a bit and many of their events rely heavily on attendance fees for funding, which is unrealistic when they attempt to cater to lower-income demographics. However, they have a relatively wealthy patronage that tends to remain involved for years or decades, and I believe they have the institutional stability to operate more complex financial instruments.

I pitched the idea of an endowment at a high level to the Chairwoman last week, and the Board is interested in moving forward. We haven't decided how exactly we want to structure the endowment yet: restricted endowment, quasi-endowment, etc. We also haven't determined exactly how much money we should fundraise for a principal investment, what our portfolio spread should look like, and how much of the annual interest we can afford to spend. (I have estimates, but they're not final.) I'm particularly interested in resources that can help the institution plan for inevitable economic downturns.

Has anyone here done this kind of work before? If so, would you be willing to chat about some of the nuances of organizing it, and/or do you have recommendations on reading material to help with the creation and maintenance of such a fund? We plan to receive consultations from an accountant and a lawyer, but I don't have much formal background in finance and would welcome any experience, advice, warnings, or external resources Tildesians can offer.

Thanks,
Atvelonis

Long story short, I wiped my keyboard with a moist towel and I knocked out exactly 6 keys on my mid-2020 MacBook Pro (Magic Keyboard, A2251).

I'm now looking at either paying $300+ to have it serviced by a technician. But I have the tempting option of buying an aftermarket replacement keyboard for less than $100 and replacing it myself. That + I'm in the spirit of DIY repairs to keep my things going longer.

Has anyone attempted this before? Any tips and advice?

It seems slightly daunting because the keyboard is adhered to the aluminium body so I would have to literally tear the existing one off.

I just joined, and although it’s not extremely active, I love Tildes already! Firstly, the user interface. This is what the reddit redesign should’ve been. Clean, simple and lightweight. Loading a post on new reddit takes 10 seconds or so, because of all the useless JavaScript, but posts loads instantly here. And there’s no ads here, which is a nice bonus.

I also like the fact that it’s much calmer here, people focus on through-provoking discussion instead of attacking each other.

To everyone who works on Tildes, keep up the great work! I’m sure this has been asked many times before, but do you ever plan on allowing anyone to register in order to grow Tildes?

I was granted access to DALL-E today and I'm wondering what's a good place to collect and share silly computer-generated photos? I have quite a few places already that will do this, but none seem quite right:

• Twitter - It works, but I'm not sure I want to mix photo sharing with other stuff.
• Mastodon - My account is mostly inactive and I'm hardly following anyone I actually know, or who does much picture sharing.
• Facebook - I don't really want to spam the relatives.
• Google Photos - I use this for sharing personal photos with immediate family. I made an album for MidJourney but it isn't quite convenient enough.
• Tildes - no direct photo sharing here! I could link to an album, though.

I'm an on-again off-again smoker, currently (the past 4-5 months) on-again. Been meaning to requit, but it's been much harder for me this time.

Here's the crux. Two of my roommates just tested positive (for Covid). Not guaranteed, but it's a good bet that, within another 2-3 days, all 5 of us will be symptomatic.

Am I better off quitting right now, or will that just put added stress on my lungs during the coming illness, and I should wait until after I recover (always assuming I survive it, of course)?

ETA: Y'all are shooting holes in my, apparently, flimsy justifications to keep smoking. Just switched to vaping now.

Thanks everyone.