This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

I have a new niece and I'm making a list of songs which we can play for her naptime when we babysit. I have some Raffi songs and my childhood lullabies (Edelweiss from my mom and Moonshadow from my dad), as well as some calm songs from my Spotify playlist.

But it made me wonder, what songs did your parents sing when you were young? Children's songs? Disney? Pop? Metallica?

I'm also interested in whether you think it's best to keep a small list and rotate through, for comfort's sake, or if it's also okay to have a wider variety of songs as lullabies.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

I'm going to set up my first home server with an Intel NUC, but I can't decide what OS to use. Ubuntu seems popular but I like Pop!_OS and am not sure if that would be a good option. Then there's TrueNas and Unraid, but as a newbie, what's the best choice?

I'm also just curious what everyone else is using :)

Edit: Thank you for your great responses!

Have you done pride events with or at your company? Mine is going to be in the parade and I can walk with them. CFO is gay and they have been very helpful with my transition so I don't feel like they are faking it.

For others, how has your workplace acted or have they done anything related?

I'm curious who has made it to ~music now that the influx has settled down a bit. What were your old musical haunts? Old blogs? Obscure youtube channels? Various music subreddits? /mu/? Tell us a bit about your musical tastes and take the time to drop a couple tracks in the favorite songs thread. Also, welcome to Tildes. :)

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Hey all. I’m sure there’s a lot of new users making their way to Tildes this week. Let’s share some Letterboxd profiles to get the community going. I guess I’ll be first! Follow me if you have similar taste and I’ll do the same: https://letterboxd.com/plo/

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

I've got a K40 laser engraver that I've had a lot of fun getting up and running with K40 whisperer on a Raspberry pi, and lately I've been thinking about getting a cheap 3d printer. Does anyone have an entry level 3d printer they like and want to recommend? What kinds of projects do you like to make? Anybody have a desktop cnc or other fun toys? Let's hear about 'em.

The vast majority of free and open source software available is well known for being clunky, having very unintuitive UI/UX and being very inaccessible to non-nerds.

We can see this in Linux distros, tools, programs and even fediverse sites.

I understand that a lot of it is because "it's free", but I also feel like a lot of people who make and use FOSS don't actually value user-friendliness at all. I feel like some of it is in order to gatekeep the less tech savvy out, and some of it is "it's good enough for me".

What are the best theories for why this is the case?

EDIT: A lot of replies I've been getting are focusing on the developers. I'm asking more why the users seem okay with it, rather than why the developers make it that way.

While maybe only hitting zero four or five times in the last ten years, I've subscribed to the "inbox zero" / getting things done (GTD) philosophy and have used my email as a to-do list. The people that I lead know to send me emails if they or I are meant to perform work born from the conversation that we've shared. Its been great in not missing anything -- its been horrible from a prioritization standpoint. A third to half of my email are bodiless emails to myself where the subject line would look like a to-do list entry to most others.

I'm curious how you approach your day and keep yourself organized if you're getting and giving work. Do you have a master to-do list that you work off of? Are you living in email all day? How do you keep track of prioritization and ensure that nothing slips between the cracks.

Disclosure: I am a skeptical and science-minded person with an interest in paranormal encounters. Does any of this stuff actually exist? I don't know, but I do know that I find it interesting when people share their first hand encounters of things that they can't quite explain.

One thing I loved about Reddit is that it was a treasure trove for paranormal stories, and it is a shame those stories will be lost to the sands of time.

Please feel free to share any stories you might have experienced firsthand, or even share stories from others that you think fits the mark.

Talk rules:

1. Share stories or reply to others.
2. Skepticism is welcome, just don't be a dick.
3. True stories only. This isn't a thread for creative writing or 'campfire' stories.

I got into it at the beginning of this year and I have to say this is the most fun hobby I've ever picked up. I've always loved plushies but have been greatly intimidated by sewing. But I've also always been good at modeling with clay and being able to visually break down objects into shapes. Needlefelting is like being able to make plushies using the skillset of modeling clay vs the skillset of sewing. At least that's how my brain sees it.

So far I've made two plushies, one Black Frost from SMT and one Gammamon from Digimon Ghost Game. If it's possible to post pictures here I would be happy to show them, but I don't know how, if anyone would like to enlighten me I'd appreciate it. Otherwise I could link to a tweet with pics but I'm not sure if there's rules against self-promotion as my Twitter is linked to an online shop.

Anyone else here needlefelting? Share what you're working on! Or any tips you have!

I've recently been getting into Diplomacy (both face to face and online) and it's surprisingly fun, although requires some dedication. I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with the game or some tips for learning more in-depth strategy? It feels like online resources aren't that great or plentiful yet I'm having a hard time surviving against experienced players.

What I'm talking about are Pokemon that are given away in official events, which usually come in a Cherish Ball (after gen 4), have a ribbon, and were met in a 'fateful encounter'. I'm particularly interested in the H-Zoroark event distribution at the moment, because I love that Pokemon and the red color of the Cherish Ball matches it nicely.

Mostly just looking around for fellow traders to chat about cool shit we have, but I'm up for a trade or two if there's anyone interested!

Comic books and graphics novels are a frequently overlooked form of story telling. We often see well written stories transcend the medium and retold in movies or television where they gain popularity. What are some of your favorite overlooked or under appreciated comic book or graphic novel stories that you think other people should experience? Obviously 'overlooked or under appreciated' is subjective, but offer some recommendations anyway.

I thought The Many Deaths of Laila Starr by Filipe Andrade and Ram V was good. His work on Gravity's Wall and Swamp Thing Becoming was also great.

I recently finished the second season of a hilarious but little-known Canadian animated TV show called Gary and His Demons about a middle-aged, "Chosen One" demon slayer who just wants to retire. The amount of laughs, charm, and animation quality that this show packs into each episode's less than 10 minute run time truly blew my expectations away. I originally stumbled upon it while browsing Mondo Media's channel on the now-defunct VRV animation app and now, tragically, the show is not available to stream anywhere in the US currently. But, it got me thinking...

If I have a few favorite niche shows that are difficult to access or stream, then surely others do as well. I was also inspired by this thread about similarly obscure video games.

The other show that immediately comes to mind for me is GameCenter CX, a precursor to the traditional "Let's Play", in which Shinya Arino, a Japanese comedian, attempts to clear brutal retro games in one sitting. I randomly came across the show while searching for unique Nintendo DS titles and browsing the Wikipedia page for "Retro Game Challenge", a curious title that I assumed was shovelware. The game is actually very good and now the show is one of my favorite cozy and comfortable shows to just chill out to.

So, what are your favorite treasured and unique TV shows? I'm looking for mostly for shows that are not easily available on traditional streaming services or physical media, but feel free to suggest very underrated shows as well!

My favourite game is Crystal Version for the Game Boy Color. I've been playing Pokemon since the beginning - Red and Blue. I loved the original games, and as a kid I saw the hype for the release of Gold/Silver online. Gold/Silver's release is easily the most excited I've been for anything in my life. When they finally came out in the west, they hit all my expectations and more. The introduction of genders, time-based events with a visible day/night cycle, new types, new Pokemon, held items and so much more made the games a hugely more in-depth experience compared to the originals. No other game in the franchise has offered such a marked improvement over the previous to date.

Crystal, being a third version, is essentially an enhanced version of Gold and Silver. It doesn't blow them out of the water, but what it does add is nice. Animated sprites, some feature refinements and an improved storyline makes it the quintessential Gen II game in my opinion.

Remakes of Gold/Silver - with some Crystal features included - exist in the form of HGSS for the Nintendo DS. A top five Pokemon game in it's own right, I like it slightly less because they don't have quite the same vibe the originals had. This is almost entirely due to nostalgia, but it's what I believe.

Do you agree? Do you disagree entirely? Share with us your favourite Pokemon game and why.

For those that don't know, Art Fight is a collaborative creative project that sorts artists into two teams and lets them upload their original characters. In order to score points for your team, you have to draw the other team's characters, with more involved and polished artworks scoring higher points. I'm participating for the fourth time this year, and if you're going to as well, feel free to drop your art fight URLs in the comments so we can follow and "attack" one another!

I've been an After Effects user for 20+ years and I like to help people who are looking to learn. I would just ask that anyone asking a question has done due diligence searching for an answer already.
I also use 3D Studio Max and Vray.

Title, basically. The A Song of Ice and Fire subreddit has seemingly gone indefinitely private, so I was wondering if any other ASOIAF fans migrated here during or after the blackout. I definitely miss all the crazy theories we could read on there (I cannot believe D+D=T, the most legendary ASOIAF theory, may become lost forever if the subreddit never opens again, truly a loss of a masterpiece.)

Since it was still pretty active despite the book series being rather dormant, I wondered if any other fans came over here and wanted to chat about it. Just crazy theories, favourite characters, that sort of thing.

This is something I picked up a few years ago, but basically, my logic is that:

• It's what evolution designed us for (shoes only go back about 40,000 years)
• Objects on the ground aren't a threat if you watch where you're going, unless you're someplace you'd probably rather not walk even in shoes
• Hookworm is actually species specific, and human hookworm isn't an actual threat unless you're in a third world country (or Alabama, apparently)
• It's the thickest skin on your body (especially if it's given the chance to "properly" develop), so general dirt is a non-issue
• It's actually probably more hygienic considering you probably clean your feet much more frequently than your shoes (which are warm, moist and dark)
• As an extra, the health department (any health department) actually doesn't care what customers do - feel free to verify this yourself

You kind of have to retrain yourself, as far as both gait (forefoot strike instead of heel strike) and gaze ("scan" ahead every few seconds), but you absolutely can acclimate to it, so thoughts of "I could never!" are probably wrong.

Usually when playing a game of dnd, pathfinder, etc. You want the party to be nice to each other. But at times when done right, you just have two characters who hate each other, yet it's fun for everyone.

Do you have any such stories?

I, clearly along with many others, recently left Reddit and have personally decided not to return unless it sees drastic, lasting change. However, this has made it clear just how reliant I was on the site for multiple aspects of my life, ranging from local and world news, to hobby related announcements, to perspective, advice, and memes directly from marginalized communities. In Tildes I've already found some of what I've been missing, and I'm sure I'll find more as the community continues to grow, but Tildes doesn't have the same setup to allow for finding the same niche communities that I once had (nor should Tildes ever need to have that).

With all of that said, what gaps are you currently experiencing? Have you found any good sites or resources that have helped you or might help others in the thread?

Noticed that we didn't have a topic for what people's favorite animes are. So I created one! Leave a comment down below with what animes you really enjoy, what you like about them, who you'd recommend them to, what you think about other people favorites, etc. Be sure to tag any spoilers in a details tag.

So I was wondering if anyone else here is an immersive or maladaptive daydreamer.

If you've never heard of those terms, this site describes it pretty well:

[They are a] detailed, vivid and narrative form of daydreaming, featuring complex plots and a cast of characters (either imaginary or based on real people). Daydreams may focus on one scene for many minutes or hours at a time, and usually return to the same story in future daydreaming sessions, so that the plot evolves over weeks, months or years. Often, the topic of the daydream is unconnected to the daydreamer’s real life.

If it helps you get a clearer understanding, I personally like to describe it as never really outgrowing playing pretend. To this day I still call it "playing my game", and I use fictional worlds as a basis (which I then load with tons of original characters and lore of my own design).

The main difference between maladaptive daydreaming and immersive daydreaming is that with maladaptive, it gets in the way of life since you let it take precedence over life. One article I read when I first learned about the terms had someone describe it as an addiction to your own mind, which... Yeah, I think you can see why that's a challenge to overcome.

I personally think I'm more in the immersive category, with some maladaptive tendencies, but I think it's helped me overall more than harmed me. I'm an only child and was "the weird kid", so I spent a lot of time daydreaming as a kid. I credit it with why I'm able to relate to other people so well, and why my sense of self is so defined. I got to do all my self-exploration pretty directly inside the daydreams, and it let me explore a lot of scenarios I'd never encounter in real life. As a writer, I also use it sometimes to explore story ideas and concepts.

The downsides for me personally: I'm definitely able to "disconnect" from reality more easily than others, for better and worse. If I don't have time or space to play for an extended period of time, I can get pretty restless too. Also, music is both my greatest motivator and my bane. I sometimes spend more time trying to find a song to fit a scene's mood than actually daydreaming. I also learned that music can actually drain my energy after working at Goodwill one Christmas. My mom described the playlist as "dirges", which is the best word because those songs were all super slow (minus one high-energy Jingle Bells cover that was honestly jarring). I'd come home from work feeling exhausted.

What about you guys? Anyone else here an immersive or maladaptive daydreamer?

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

I'm a knitter, cross stitcher, and general nerd. I can't actually create at the moment due to probable carpal tunnel, but I would love to see my fellow fiber artists of any and all genders speak up.

As for me, it's more about the process than the product! I love Grandmother's Favorite dishcloths as a mindless knitting stim, or cross stitching on a project until my hands hurt.

ETA: I'm not trying to ignore everyone. I'm really excited with the responses I'm getting. I'm just fighting some serious pain this morning. I'll try to reply to folks as soon as I can think!

ETA2: This got bigger than I had hoped! I don't think I can catch up and reply to everyone, but I do appreciate reading everyone's experiences! Thanks for humoring me today.

I know that it's mostly gacha games, but from my experience, they are usually cash grabs. Not to mention the amount of gacha IP collabs. So I'm curious if anybody knows game adaptations that are actually decent? It doesn't need to be on mobile- just any adaptation in general.

If you have no recommendation, you can just state your opinion on the state of game adaptations! Do you like seeing them? I'd love to read it.

Minidisc has to be one of my all time favourite music formats! I believe it has all the benefits of CD and cassette. Such a shame it never reached it's full potential.

Anyone here who enjoys the format? Feel free to share what player(s) you have too!

Hey all, I recently got back into gaming. Loving it so far but none of my friends play these days. I figured since Tildes has a great community it could be fun gaming with others here!

I'm thinking we could have a game as a top level comment and then sub-comments could be game IDs or people interested in connecting? I'll start off with this format but I'm open to suggestions.

(Also, this is my first post on Tildes. Hopefully it aligns with the rules/community.)

Liking a game is easy enough: they’re usually meant to be fun, engaging, or interesting.

But being impressed by a game is harder.

It could be a particularly impressive set piece in a level, or a clever, novel game mechanic. It could be quality animations or a plot twist you didn’t see coming.

Whatever it was that impressed you, share it here. What was it? How did it make you feel? What made it stand out so much from its peer games?

Note: please mark all spoilers

You can hide spoiler text inside a details block like this:

<details>
<summary>Spoilers here!</summary>

Our princess is in another castle!
</details>

Which looks like this:

I'm a journeyman crane operator. I want to talk with people who are looking for a change, or folks that have already done it. Organized labor has long been a old white dudes club, young and diverse people joining already established labor unions helps in the fight against economic injustice. Let's talk about it.

I recently earned the platinum for Riders Republic, its a fun game, takes around 40-45 hours to get the plat and outside of tricks battle mode its not too difficult, but I enjoy playing tricks battles.
I haven't moved on from the game after getting the plat though cause im levelling up to get elite level gear to win 64 player mass races, I got first place for the first time yesterday and consistently get podium finish

Personally I've received Earth and managed to get in a game at two players and another at five. I like the big stack of cards and the fact it plays so fast, but I think I prefer Ark Nova, which adds the tile laying puzzle too.

Earth does look funky by the end though, with all the shoots sprouting up from the table.

Also managed to get in a couple of rounds of Fugitive, the card based hidden movement game from Tim Fowers. I think this is an excellent little game to fill half an hour at the end of the evening. I keep eyeing up the events cards it comes with but have not yet been brave enough to actually play with them.

What have you all been playing?

Model 3 SR+ about to go out of warranty. Wondering what others have had to fix out-of-pocket since their warranties expired?

Under warranty, I’ve had service for:

• replace front passenger control arm
• replace both rear upper suspension links
• replace touchscreen
• replace metal tips that are on the charging port
• replace front passenger seat adjustment switch
• replace front passenger seat (yes the whole thing)
• replace the front driver lower camera (twice)
• resealed both front upper control arm ball joints with urethane
• replaced rear passenger door trim panel
• wipers made contact with the hood causing a small gouge in the hood
• replaced front passenger door handle

Mind you this was one of the first batch of 2019s so, yeah they had to remediate quite a bit.

Hey there LEGO enthusiasts - wondering what you all do with kits after you build them? I really enjoy building LEGO (especially large complicated sets) but I don't want LEGO models taking over my house and getting dusty. What do you do?

I'm writing this post in the spirit of the powerful conversations that I had participated in on reddit in /r/adhd. I'm giving up reddit, after this recent fiasco. And, so, I hope to find a similar community here.

And, so, here we go.

I recently quit my job in Big Tech after 7 years in that space. Corporate America, and Big Tech in particular (among other fields) is a human meat grinder. Humans go in and husks come out. After taking a medical leave of absence from work due to complications from anxiety, and multiple medical interventions, I realized that I needed to evaluate whether my job, even my career, was sustainable for me. It only took a few weeks, after returning to work, to accept that, yes, this job and perhaps this career are actively harming me. After talking about it with my wife, at length, I found relief in quitting.

At the core of it: my career has simply been incongruent with my values.

Sure, I've always been a nerd. I was the "brainy" kid. I didn't know how to people well (though I'm told that I'm not on the spectrum or not in any meaningful way). I'd always been overweight and prone to stress. Throughout my life, I was often labeled as the "sensitive" one by people. I rarely felt as though I fit in with any group of people, save perhaps for the other misfits who would band together because they didn't with in with any group of people.

Just before the pandemic began, at the tender age of 47, I was diagnosed with ADHD Combined type. More recently, I was diagnosed with C-PTSD, that I have likely suffered for 40 of my 50 years.

Now I know where that weight comes from: self-medication to give me a dopamine hit and numb me to layers of trauma. I also know where the emotional reactivity comes from: emotional flashbacks resulting from the C-PTSD.

1. Lexapro for well over a decade. It helped to blunt the lows but, I've found, also the highs. I rarely feel poignancy with Lexapro. When I have occasionally been able to ween from it, I have felt a far greater range of emotions.
2. I've had an excellent therapist for going on 8 years who practices ISTDP. He's helped me learn to show up for my more challenging emotions instead of instantly reaching to numb them.
3. Adderall and Vyvanse both used to help until I received a stellate ganglion block (Disclaimer: I have been a client of Dr Mulvaney's practice though I link to it as his explanation is excellent; I'd make this a footnote alas tildes doesn't support that extension for markdown)
4. Ketamine (prescribed) to better address the depression and anxiety. Ketamine, as a psychedelic, combined with the skills learned in therapy has let me dig deeper into my layers of trauma, leading to better overall mental health and better self-understanding.
5. Stellate Ganglion Block mentioned above. Short version: it reduced my seemingly PTSD-driven emotional reactivity to about 10% of what it was prior to the SGB. It's like getting a new nervous system. Unexpected side effect: medications that act on my nervous system now respond differently. As a result, stimulants are now extremely uncomfortable for me whereas before they were effective. Before the SGB, I would say that fear was my primary emotion. Now, I feel things.

I know: I'm privileged. I'm an "old white dude who profited from being in Tech". Yep. True. But I can't retire yet; we don't have that kind of money. We do, however, have enough such that I have the luxury of time to figure out my next steps.

What I have right now is the plan to make a plan. The core of it: live a life congruent with my values--not just at some far off retirement but here, now.

At first, step 1 was to answer this question: "What is the minimum amount of money that I need to earn for us to not massively disrupt our lives?" But then I realized that this is a fear-based question. It means starting out by saying "no" to everything that doesn't earn "enough" money for some arbitrary value of enough.

Where I'm at now, Step 1 Mark II, poses a more inspiring question: "What does retirement look like for my wife and I?" I don't know that we truly get to retire in the sense of living a life of leisure as seemingly many Boomers and earlier were privileged to do. Besides, part of my sense of accomplishment and peace is knowing that I did something to make the world better.

So what do you struggle with?
How are you doing?
What are you doing about it?

Be well.

P.S. This is me trying to do my part, as a new member of this community, to encourage growth not in membership but into different areas of discussion.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.