Good morning. This is a thread to discuss new album releases arriving at our doorsteps today (and until next week!). Feel free to comment albums that have caught your eye and interest.

Looks like Lil Uzi spotted a slower week to release what is likely the biggest album in terms of sheer numbers (the best thing about it might be the interview from Nardwuar). I think folks here will get the most from the new Japanese House - sleepy, melodic, nostalgic indie pop. I'm looking forward to hearing this new Angelo De Augustine after his fantastic collab with Sufjan Stevens in 2021.

Discussion Points

What are you looking forward to listen to?
Have you listened to any of these releases?
What are your thoughts?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past?

Why Friday?

Most (but not all) new LPs release on a Friday, as labels want to give the the release a full week of sales before entering the charts.

~~ Any feedback on the format welcome!

Hey tabletilders,

It's been another week. Let's share what we all played this week!

For me it was a single play of Pax Renaissance with a promo expansion that changes the starting state of the board. I completely dominated the trade routes and accumulated a huge stash of cash, but was unable to get the comet out to activate the win condition that would leverage it. My opponents then mowed down my commissions, so I had to pivot quite heavily. But I wasn't too worried as I had so much cash, so could nab any card I wanted, including the next comet.

Unfortunately two of us took our eyes of the ball and our third player managed a sneaky protestant victory. Annoyingly there was an apostasy I could have bought that would have nixed this, but I totally didn't see it coming. Great game.

After that we wound down with a quick game of Scout. Fun little game that makes me want to explore the trick-taking space a bit more, but it seems all the highly praised ones I read about are out of stock. I might see if any of these can be played with a poker deck.

So what have you all been playing?

In the next few months, I'm going to be on the rental market again for the first time in a couple of years. The last time I rented, I lucked into a very nice condo that was being rented out by the owner, and it was fantastic. We developed a great rapport. I looked after the place and paid the rent on time. She was kind and responsive whenever I had a problem. It felt like we were both getting exactly what we needed out of the arrangement.

She wanted to raise the rent when my lease renewed, but it was a very reasonable ask to cover an increase in her HOA fees. It was significantly less any increase than I had been subjected to on any prior lease renewal, which I appreciated.

After experiencing this, I decided I was done with corporate landlords who use algorithms (i.e., price fixing) to make sure they're extracting as much cash as possible and churning through tenants as they progressively price out more and more people without any regard for them and with no connection to the communities they're hollowing out on the way to more profit.

I ended up leaving that condo for a reason unrelated to the rent increase, and I'm trying to find a similar setup again… but I'm not sure where to look honestly. Pretty sure I found that place on Craigslist which seems to have since devolved into a playground for scammy "landlords" whose dear old mothers have all come up sick in some far away corner of the country so they can't show me the furnished apartment they're renting for 20% below market rate, but if I'll kindly send the deposit, they'll gladly mail me the keys.

Does anyone have any hot tips for how to find rentals like this in major metropolitan areas in the US?

I've been seeing some cool software in the church space lately with lots of fancy bells and whistles that handle many different aspects of running a church (social, presentation, tithing, etc.). However, not all churches, especially small ones, can afford them or have members savvy enough to set it all up and maintain/operate them. I thought this could be a cool thread for free and or open source software that churches can use can use (Does not necessarily need to be design specifically for churches).

EDIT
Here is a list of paid examples:

• Renewed Vision
  • ProPresenter
  • ProVideoPlayer
  • ProVideoServer
  • Scoreboard
  • ProContent
• Microsoft Office
  • PowerPoint
  • Excel
• Google
  • Slides
  • Sheets
  • Forms

Here is a short list of FOSS alternatives:

• Free Show
• Owncast
• Rock RMS
• Choyr
• OBS
• OpenLP
• WorshipTools

I realised I relied on Reddit a lot for my news sources, but I generally meant to get my news closer to the source of possible, even before deleting my account. I already follow ISW, but that's daily and quite conservative in its analysis (which is good). Do you have good more frequent sources that you trust?

Dungeon Crawl Classics

I think this game is great and I was surprised to see nobody recommended it in their non-D&D game lists. At the system level, Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) is a rules-light version of 3.5. You never need more than one sourcebook and there are quick-start rules to play for free on the website.

At its core, though, DCC is an old school sword and sorcery setting heavily inspired by the authors of Appendix N. For those not familiar, in the first edition of D&D, Gary Gygax published a list of authors that inspired D&D in an appendix in the back of the Dungeon Master's Guide. It has some obvious ones that I think most RPGs pull from (Tolkien and Jack Vance {of the Vancian magic system}, for instance), but there are also some deeper cuts that I don't think are really leveraged in many tabletop RPGs (Robert Howard of Conan the Barbarian and Solomon Kane, and H.P. Lovecraft). Those last two in particular, pulp-y fantasy writers who defined a genre, heavily influence DCC in my experience.

Aside from this, though, there are a few very unique and fun mechanics that got me totally hooked on this game.

The 0-level funnel and death as a narrative device

Traditionally in D&D, you end up spending the majority of your first session designing and building a character. In my experience, it usually takes around 2-4 hours depending on complexity. This results in mechanically unique characters, but it also ups the stakes for the DM. When was the last time you played a game of D&D and the survival of your character was ever truly in question? Nobody wants to spend 4 hours on their character only to have it killed off in the first play session -- that's not fun. But, in the end, it's also not challenging.

In DCC, it takes about 5-10 minutes to create a character (and there are online tools like The Purple Sorcerer that will generate them by the dozen). Every character starts with a profession (and by extension, a tool of their trade), a random piece of gear, and a block of random stats (3d6 rolled in order, none of these "points" or "4d6 drop the lowest" business). In the first session, you roll 4 of them and you play all 4 in what is termed the 0-level funnel. Over the course of this adventure, 2-3 of your characters will die -- after all, adventuring is a treacherous business fraught with peril -- and your surviving character(s) become level 1. At this point, they get a class and a couple additional abilities.

The core interesting thing to me about this is the emergent gameplay that results. Oftentimes, the character that rolled the best stats aren't the ones that actually survive. A single unlucky roll or an undiscovered trap results in unceremoniously striking down another one of the PCs, whereby they pick up the gear leftover from them and continue on their grim quest. I've seen the character with the lowest luck somehow being the one that survived and it forging a bond with the person playing it unlike anything I've seen in D&D. What did they do to earn that? What is in store for the doomed character that somehow managed to outlast 3 of his fellow villagers? It gives you a ton of tools as a DM and as a player to craft interesting narratives. And it also reminds the players that this character probably won't last forever. That opens the door for dramatic moments involving death that you don't really get to explore with D&D. Magic that restores life is exceedingly rare and would require a quest of comparable bravery to discover.

Magic as a dangerous and unpredictable tool

I've heard some complaints about Vancian magic in other topics and DCC also does away with this, but it does it with two chaotic and, at times, hilarious mechanics: the mercurial magic table and the spell table.

The Mercurial Magic Table

Magic is, by nature, a chaotic tool for the desperate. No two casters cast the same spell in the same way and the mercurial magic table is a representation of that. The first time a character casts a spell, they have to roll on the table to determine how they invoke that spell. There's a big chunk of the table that's just 'as normal,' but there are also things like 'every time you cast this, a digit on your hand or foot disintegrates. Take a -1 to dex for every two digits that disappear.'

How badly do you need to cast that magic missile? Is it worth invoking the unpredictable elemental energies required to do so? Is it worth....your thumb?

The Spell Table

Once you invoke the spell, you roll your spellcasting check and consult the spell table. The quality of your roll (of which there are a couple mechanics to affect this) determines what the spell actually does -- and they can be wildly different! That magic missile might fire a single missile that does 1 damage or it might summon 1d4 that do 1d4 damage each. Your darkness spell might allow you to create a 20' sphere of darkness at a point of your choosing or it might center a 5' magical darkness sphere on you.

Magic is chaotic and difficult to control. But as a result, it is almost always very powerful. Your spell might not do exactly what you expected, but it makes for much more interesting combat and on-the-fly thinking.

Should I play it?

Emphatically, yes! The rules-light nature of the game allows you to focus more on story-telling and mood-setting than being buried in the books all the time (except for looking up spell effects, everyone at the table seems to get excited when we have to do that). The deadly nature of the game has resulted in both better and heavier storytelling than anything I've done before -- stakes without it getting personal, as it were. And the adventure content is awesome -- there are some great resources on Sample Adventure Paths, but even the starting 0-level adventure in the back of the sourcebook is strong. I swear I'm not a shill, I just want more DCC in the universe.

Hey all, my partner is newly paraplegic post spine surgery and while he's been disabled through our ten years together this is new. He's using a power wheelchair and has to transfer by Hoyer lift. And in the six days since he was discharged from the rehab (PT and OT) hospital he's been to the ER twice. We have home health set up. But all of a sudden my life is a lot more... Stressful is understating it. He's going through his own emotional journey and getting support so I was hoping to find some connections, suggestions and the like here.

Right now I'm feeling a ton of pressure not to let any of the various balls I'm juggling drop. Something that feels unsustainable, particularly with my ADHD. I feel like I'm only getting this far due to stress compensating for my lack of medication (it's packed from our recent move, I'll find it or get a new script I just haven't yet). My partner's in a rush to get a wheelchair van and I don't know if we're making a good purchase and it feels like everything has to be handled right now but also for the rest of our lives.

Are there devices that are must haves? Things I need to know about wheelchair vans? Empathy from fellow caretakers?

Curious how many of you use Linux as your main gaming OS? I started 3 years ago and switched to Arch about a year and a half ago.

I play a lot of total war (mainly historical). Recently got into Isonzo which has been a lot of fun.

Some years ago, I bought the Philips OneBlade around the time it was announced. My beard grows very fast and covers a large portion of my face, so daily shaving with a razor blade is often a chore and can leave some pretty nasty rashes on my face sometimes.

The Philips OneBlade was perfect for my situation as it was a quick and painless solution to shaving. I even changed my style to something like a permanent stubble using the guards included in the package. However, after some time, I decided that I preferred my beard longer and ended up abandoning my electric razor.

Recently, though, I've decided to go back to the old stubble look and have been searching for a decent electric razor. I was pretty disappointed to see that the best product for me would still be the Philips OneBlade. It just seems that there is no other competitor in this type of electric razor (or maybe I just haven't looked enough), which I think is a bit strange considering it has been more than 5 years since the OneBlade was released. Even the OneBlade models from Philips still seem to be the same ones made back in 2016. Is the market for electric razors really so stagnant? Or is that Philips hold such a heavy monopoly on this kind of razor? I'm thinking of maybe buying the pro version this time, but even that seems to be only a fancy clipper attached to the same old product that I had.

I would like to hear your thoughts on this and know if you have any recommendations for electric razors that would be just as small and practical.

I’m creating a special video for my parents’ anniversary and want to share it privately. I don’t want anyone to see ads before, during or right after it. I’m not monetizing it and don’t care about viewer metrics.

Right now I’m trying to decide between subscribing to Vimeo or just placing the file in my Google Drive and sharing out the link.

The file won’t exceed 5GB.

Would paying for a service like Vimeo really be worth it when I could just share out the file for free?

Would appreciate any suggestions or recommendations from content creators.

I just wanted to share a handy feature in Firefox that can be used to create shorthanded keywords. For instance, you could make it so that typing "t ~books" brings you to "https://tildes.net/~books". Or "ts banana" that brings you to Tildes search engine, searching for "banana".
I've been using a similar trick on another browser I use for years (Qutebrowser), but lately I've been using Firefox more and a post on the Ferdiverse reminded me that I could do this in Firefox as well.

Instructions

• In FIrefox, open the Bookmark Manager. (Keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+O , alt: Burger-menu in the upper right > Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks)
• Select a folder where you want to save your bookmark
• Go to "Organise > Add Bookmark"
• Enter whatever name you like.
• In the URL textbox, enter the static part of the url you want to use. Replace the part that can change (like the page name or the search term with this: "%s"
  • Example for switching communities or go to the frontpage: "https://tildes.net/%s"
  • Example for searching: "https://tildes.net/search?q=%s"
• Optionally, add tags seperated by a comma in the tags textbox.
• At last, choose a keyword. This is the word that replaces the static part of the URL when you use the bookmark. For example, I use "t" for the community-switching and "ts" for searching.
• Save you bookmark and try it out. When you now type just the letter "t" in your URL-bar and press enter, it should bring you to the home page. When you type "t ~books" , it should bring you to the books community page.

You can use this feature with any website, so I encourage you to play around with it :)

Apologies if this is the wrong place to ask this question, but is there a way to search which would list comments made on any topic in chronological order regardless of how old the original post was made? Meaning, even if a post was one of the first on Tilde, if someone commented within it in the last few minutes, it would be displayed before a newly created post that hadn't had a comment in several hours.

I tried all of the sorting options and didn't seem to find one that performed this function. Any assistance would be appreciated.

I've been trying to work out which Odie Leigh song to post here and I can't decide, so here are five from a session that she's called the Treehouse Tapes. At the moment I'm a real sucker for this kind of thing - one person, minimal production, their own songs.

Odie Leigh - A month or two
Odie Leigh - Habits held
Odie Leigh - Take back
Odie Leigh - Nine lives
Odie Leigh - [Crop circles]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_fWR3klRKo)

(For some reason this really reminds me of the Michelle Shocked Texas Campfire Tapes which is a fantastic album but tricky to listen to because of the hateful things she's said.)

Want to contribute a theme to Tildes but don't know where to start? Let's fix that.

Before we start, get yourself a development environment setup and do a quick read through of the general development info to get acquainted with how Tildes works (or at least the HTML and CSS section).

For this walkthrough I'll be using tildexample as the example name for the theme, but if you decide to contribute a theme for real, make sure it uses the proper name of your theme. :P

Step 1: Sassy _Sass

Open the Tildes codebase using your text editor of choice and navigate to the themes directory at tildes/scss/themes. Then create a copy of _default.scss at _tildexample.scss. The default White theme is the canonical source of all colors used, so it's the best place to start from.

Below is an annotated example of all the things you need to change in your new theme file.

// Add a small description of the theme here with maybe a link to its website.
// Check the other themes for examples. https://example.org/tildexample

// Change the theme variable to $theme-tildexample
// ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ 
$default-theme: (
  // A whole bunch of color definitions, edit as your theme demands.
  // ...
);

// Append ".theme-tildexample" to the body selector.
// ↓ ↙
body {
  // Don't forget to update the theme variable here too.
  //                  ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
  @include use-theme($default-theme);
}

@include theme-preview-block(
  // Change the text to tildexample.
  // ↓ ↓
  "white",
  // And again update the theme variable here.
  //       ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
  map-get($default-theme, "foreground-primary"),
  map-get($default-theme, "background-primary")
  //       ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
);

Once that's done, head to tildes/scss/styles.scss and at the bottom of the file add your theme import:

@import "themes/tildexample";

Step 2: Hardcoding a TheMe coLor

Boy that title is a stretch just to say, we need to add 2 lines to the HTML base template.

Inside the tildes/tildes/templates/base.jinja2 file is a section of if/elif/elif/elif/... statements to set the theme color meta element. Add yourself an elif block and add your theme color.

For this you probably want to use the background-primary color you used in your theme definition. I've used #ff00dd below because it spells food. I'm such a jokester.

{% elif request.current_theme == "tildexample" %}
<meta name="theme-color" content="#ff00dd">
{% endif %}

Step 3: Snakey Wakey

Finally the last step is to grab your trusty pungi and give it a blow.

Head to tildes/tildes/views/settings.py and find the THEME_OPTIONS constant. Here you want to add the theme class you used in body.theme-<this part> and a proper name that will be shown in the theme dropdown.

THEME_OPTIONS = {
    "white": "White",
    # Many other themes...
    "tildexample": "Tildes Theme Example",
}

Once that's all been done, check it out in your development site and see if it works.

Now git!

Commit. Push. Merge request. Have some water. Deimos reviews, merges and deploys your theme. Job's done.

I subscribed to NY Times for years mostly because of the OnTech email newsletter. I liked it for the critical analysis of the tech world with lots of references and perspectives. Shira has since moved to Washington Post and her work there is more on the side of consumer advice and less critical journalism. And NY Times so far haven't found a replacement.

Can anyone recommend another source worth following instead? Another newspaper, a substack, blog or whatever. The podcast Tech Won't Save Us is in the ballpark, though I find it sometimes overly critical and I prefer something to read. I do like the tech coverage done by The Atlantic but is not a consistent source.

I have been running for 10 years. Since October 2019 I have run everyday without missing a single day. During the week I have little time and run 2-3 miles but on the weekends I try for 5-6 miles. I have made the occasional 10+ mile runs and find that at some point around mile 7 it becomes "How far can I really go today if I get through this mile." The only motivator I have is not breaking my daily run streak, nothing fancy. I know others have motivators to get into shape for a marathon or other event. What's your running motivation?

Hello Tildes!

Short term lurker, first time poster here. Please let me know if I did anything incorrect. Also, not sure if this is the best place to post this question but....

Recently, I stumbled across a really slick Spotify music show called DnB All-Stars Radio (https://open.spotify.com/show/4WiHEU7mnT5n6uYRyTnWtv?si=5qFaxyvvRuSsO_tq3KPZFw) that I really enjoy. It's basically a DJ mix for Drum and Bass music. This type of show is easy to find on SoundCloud and other various websites but I really love the format Spotify has created. It's a nice mashup of audiobook, podcast, and music playlist.

Does anyone know how to find more content like this on Spotify? Given DnB is generally a nieche genre of bass music, I'm feeling like there should be more shows like this. I've looked under podcasts, audiobooks and artists, but I can't seem to find anything similar.

If I have a quick Tildes dev question, where should I ask it?

Do you love a good trail? Are you a hiker, backpacker, trail runner, or neighborhood saunterer? If so, this conversation is for you! Share your favorite routes, dream trips, the gear you love, where you find inspiration, or essential advice. Got any cool trips planned, in the near or distant future? Whether you’re a newbie or trail-tested veteran, share what you know!

Coming out is a different experience for everyone, for some it's a fraught and stressful experience, for others it's an easy and smooth process.

People react differently to the news, geography and demographics can play into the likelihood of a negative reaction, so many factors that can be difficult to handle or worry about.

So how did you go about it and how did it go?
How have things been since and is there anything you'd do differently?

For me personally (a trans woman) it's a long and ongoing process. I first came out to my best friend in 2018, she's trans just like me so it was easy and she and I were always very close and trusting. We've since started a relationship and are now engaged. I literally just spoke to her and talked about my feelings and she accepted me immediately.

Next was my mum, my family are friendly and loving but none of us are overly close or open about our feelings with each other, I have a long history of anxiety which created a barrier for me coming out, I don't think I came out to my mum until either late 2019 or early 2020. She was in the living room on her own and I asked to speak, we sat down and had a heart to heart and she was understanding and supportive, though she didn't know much about trans people. Things seemed fine initially but a few days later when she picked me up form work she broke down in the car crying, saying how it's a big change and how she felt like she was losing her son. It was a lot, more than I could handle and this may be selfish of me, but it was the opposite of what I needed at a time when I was feeling very fragile. We talked more and she came around and has since been very supportive and helped me a lot.

Other family members I never really formally came out to, but folks have slowly cottoned on to what's happening and it hasn't been an issue.

Work however is a different situation. That aforementioned anxiety has prevented me from coming out to this day. In work I hide my feminine features and pretend I'm a guy. It's getting harder by the day to hide it but not knowing how folks will react is worrying. Legally I'll be protected from harm, but socially this could ostracise me from my colleagues. I live in the UK and anti-trans rhetoric has been on the rise in recent years, and if the folks I work with directly don't take it well, while they couldn't openly discriminate, they could make my work life unpleasant and difficult. It'll have to happen eventually (possibly soon) but I'm putting it off until the last possible moment. The fear is paralysing.

On the topic of work, at my last employer I did come out to my two closest colleagues privately, they're still my friends to this day and have had no issues. It was difficult, my heart was pounding and we were saying farewell to another colleague who had been a strong LGBT+ ally in the workplace, it felt like the right time and things worked out well, there were hugs all around which was honestly a far better reaction than I could've hoped for.

So for me, to this day I'm still coming out, slowly, one step at a time. I'd probably do it differently if I could go back, just rip off the whole thing with everyone at once, but that would rely on me being braver than I actually am. The approach I have taken however has been safe and cautious, and has mostly worked out for me.

Apologies for the long story! I'd love to hear all of yours.

Ironmaster has well regarded adjustable weight dumbbells, among other equipment. They are pricey so I've been eagerly awaiting this sale. If you have a home gym it's definitely worth checking out.

It's not advertised on their website, but I got a marketing email about it. Anyone know of any other fitness retailer that will have any sales this weekend?

https://www.ironmaster.com/

Back when Tildes was in cozy mode we had a small contingent of LGBT users across the site who all pretty much came to know each other over time. Now that we're undergoing a huge influx of users though, there are so many new names and faces! I'd love for everyone to get to know everyone, but rather than just sharing how you identify, I'd love this to be a place where people can share their story -- the road of how you arrived at being the person you are and identify as.

So, feel free to share as much of your story as you are comfortable with, and feel free to change/omit any identifying details if maintaining your personal privacy is important to you.

Also, a note to new users: a few years ago we had a vote to determine whether we should change the name of the group from ~lgbt to something else like ~lgbtq or ~queer. The vote came out in favor of keeping it as ~lgbt, but opted to add text to the description of the group clarifying that it is inclusive:

The umbrella term "LGBT" includes all minority sexualities and gender identities. Everybody is welcome to participate.

So, even if your identity is not included in the LGBT initialism, this is still a space for you! If you're ace, pan, intersex, gender non-conforming, gender fluid, non-binary, or any of the other many identities that fall under the LGBT umbrella, this is your community too. Even if you're not sure yet -- that's okay too! We're happy to have you here.

Also, to users who are cis/straight and are still subscribed to ~lgbt, you're welcome here too. We love our allies!