Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films 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.

My evening flight from Gatwick to Milan was delayed, resulting with my arrival at 2:45am when there was no public transportation available (apart from taxis).

According to EU rules any delayed flights over 3 hours can be reimbursed (partially) as can any inconveniences.
This is the email I received from Wizzair's claims Dept:

Thank you for contacting Wizz Air Customer Service Department.

We would like to extend our sincerest apologies regarding the inconvenience caused by the delay of your flight. After thoroughly investigating your case we can confirm that the delay of flight W4 5786 MXP-LGW on the 3d of July 2023 was 02:57 h, based on the arrival at your destination airport.

Please be kindly informed that passengers are entitled to the compensation specified in Regulation (EC) No 261/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council when there is an arrival delay of minimum 3 hours.

Therefore, unfortunately we regret to inform you that no compensation is due in this specific situation.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us by replying to this email.

Have a pleasant day!

Kind regards,

I am at a loss for words (and taxi fare!)

I used to absolutely love DayZ when it was still a mod. Even over a decade later I've yet to find a game with the sheer level of adrenaline that it could induce. I fell off the genre when it started moving towards crafting and base building since the systems just ended up feeling like busywork and detracted from the intensity of the core gameplay.

Is there anything newer that captures that experience from early DayZ, or is the Rust/Ark style gameplay loop completely ubiquitous now? I'd love something with good gunplay, a focused set of systems, and a punishing difficulty curve.

Ever since I learned how easy homemade hot sauce is, I try to experiment with a new batch or recipe from time to time. My most recent batch highlights carrot and Ginger, with mild jalapeno heat.

It tastes good, and the ginger is very apparent, but my SO and I feel it's missing something. Of course you can't taste it through the internet, but based on the recipe, can you provide any suggestions for what can help round it out or take it from good to great?

Ingredients:

• 3 carrots, 4 oz
• 1 knob of ginger, peeled, 2.5 oz
• 4 jalapeños, 8 oz
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1/4 of a red onion, didn't weigh
• 1/2c apple cider vinegar
• 1/2c water
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 bunch of cilantro, maybe a couple of tsp after chopping

Method:

1. Thinly sliced carrots, ginger, peppers, onion, and garlic
2. Sautee until brown around the edges (carrots and ginger took longer, garlic was just for a minute to avoid burning)
3. Blend with salt, water, vinegar, and cilantro.
4. Strain solids

Any ideas on what it's missing? Some kind of tomato product? Something earthy like cumin? More garlic or onion? Something else entirely?

EDIT: Thanks for all the great feedback! I poured a few small samples to test various additions based on your suggestions, and I ended up adding another 1/2 tsp of salt (for a total of 1 tsp), 1/2 tsp MSG, the juice of half a small lime, 1 squeeze of honey (estimated just shy of 1 tsp) and then thickened with 1/8 tsp of xanthan gum since it was really thin.

Next time, I definitely want to try roasting the peppers and veggies, and I'll try a blend of peppers. I'm curious about other ginger preparation methods, too, such as raw, roasted, or powder. But for a mildly hot ginger sauce, I'm calling this experiment a success!

Hello! Привіт! Pryvit!

I started learning Ukrainian on Duolingo in February 2022 following Russia's attacks. It was my first time attempting to learn a language for 10+ years and it just clicked. I grew to love the language, became entranced with the culture, and had desires to keep learning. Prior to Duolingo's redesign, I had a year+ streak and made it fairly far in the course.

The redesign has absolutely killed that passion. Maybe it's just the Ukrainian course, but it felt like I was going in circles and not really progressing as I once had. I've shelved my learning for a few months, but I really desire an alternative to Duolingo. Unfortunately, there's not many options that offer Ukrainian and I want to ensure I am learning the language as intended. I've read into how Russian influences have attempted to modify the language and I desire to learn the form that Ukrainian's would use.

I'm not quite at a level to learn from books or more static resources, and would prefer the interactivity of an app to help get me to that comfort level again. I've tried Pimsleur and wasn't as much of a fan of their format that reminded me of language tapes. One of the things I enjoyed with Duolingo was the verbal parts of it that helped with my pronunciation, and Pimsleur didn't appear to offer that.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated! I have seen old posts referring to a SubStack and other resources, but at this time I need a refresher before I feel comfortable diving into those. I would love to incorporate learning a little bit of Ukrainian everyday again! Слава Україні!

Had an interesting conversation with my colleagues this morning. We were pretty split whether phones listen to us for advertising or not.

On one hand, we anecdotally see Google news and ad suggestions based on what we say. We know our mics are on at all times for voice assistant and music detection. But we also read online talking about how there is no evidence about the phones recording us. It's hard to trust anything nowadays.

We're halfway through 2023, and I thought I'd check in and ask if anyone has a favorite book they've read this year. Doesn't have to be released this year, just a book that wow'd you in 2023 up to this point.

My contribution I read this year is Three Day Road by Joseph Boyden. Two boys with Cree upbringing find themselves enlisting in World War I. A hard book to read that doesn't pull punches, with descriptions that put you right there with them. Broke my heart several times.

How about you?

I haven't really seen this question asked often (not just here, in general), but what are your favorite themes to see explored in art and media, and why?

Personally, I really like art that explores concepts of "decay as a positive". I find it very intertesting when decay is portrayed as a positive force that prevents stagnation, as a sign of incoming change, rather than the common "decay is a sign of neglect".

My spouse and I were recently pre approved for a home loan; this evening, we will be going to look at a house for the first time. This will be our first house, and unless truly extenuating circumstances arise, we will not be looking to move or sell anytime soon.

There are plenty of existing threads and articles covering things to look for in terms of the state of the house itself, such as foundation cracks, new paint covering mold, water damage, etc; what I am looking for is more a question of things to consider potentially liking or disliking about a home, regardless of its state of repair, that we might not think of until it's too late.

For example, some things I've come across that are important and can't be changed about a house, but I wouldn't have thought to consider if I hadn't seen someone else mention them, include:

• whether we get good cell service when not using wi-fi
• whether the hallway is wide enough to move large furniture through
• what direction the house faces, and subsequently when/where light comes in

What other things might be easy to overlook about a property, but should be taken into account?

I want to get into growing chilis and I decides I want to get started with Jalapenos. I want to grow chilis but the problem is it's already the middle of Summer so if I plant now I can only harvest in fall/winter. Because of this I need to grow the indoors in pots. So my question toward my fellow chili growers:

How hard is it to grow Jalapenos in pots?

I can get my hands on 20L pots so that's not a problem, I can also get nitrogen and good soil (I found a recommendation to not get high quality one). One problem I faced is that I would need heat lamps to help the growing process. My guess is I can't go without them because in my country in late fall, winter, early spring it's pretty cold. How quickly do they grow and how tall they get? One concern I have is they will get to big to grow indoors since I don't have a ton of space inside. I have heard that there are kinds of chilis that stand the cold better (the ones with hair on them) so do you recommend me to get them? Or do you recommend me to wait till january? I'm really excited to start growing them and I'm a bit inpatient. Thanks for the advice in advance.

Before all else, I want to point out that this is a sensible topic and it is easy to go off the well-meaning path — my motives are strictly curiosity and I believe this site can actually have a fruitful discussion around it. I would also like to mention that I have a quite limited, and very Europe/West-centric history knowledge, so please acknowledge my bias/ignorance. I don’t even know enough about the Western part, let alone enough to compare it with other cultures’ respective systems at the time.

I have talked about this topic numerous times with friends and while we had some theories why it might have started there, none of them were particularly convincing. Nonetheless, here are a few reasons we could come up with (of course it is multi-faceted), please expand/argue about them if you feel, or write new ones as well (I try to be brief here, partially due to hitting the edges of my knowledge in many cases, but also to not bias people to any particular topic):

Religion, Philosophy

Christianity is/was the predominant religion of the region. Plenty of important discoveries/inventions came from monks “learning about God through the natural world”, and many branches of Christianity believed in sharing not only their religion, but knowledge as well - Jesuits being particularly famous for teaching, and collecting vast amounts of knowledge. (Obviously, the Catholic Church had plenty of wrongdoings as well, and was not opposed to keeping people in the dark)

Another notable religion which deserves a mention in this topic is Jewish. I am unfortunately even less knowledgeable about it, but the number of Jewish scientists and discoveries is staggeringly high. From what I gathered, they have a strong culture of arguments/discussions regarding the Torah, and blind acceptance is not the way (as opposed to the Bible), which might have some relevance.

The Arab world had an important relationship with Europe, but from this perspective it may not be as important.

With that said, I really can’t argue whether these are significantly different than, say, Eastern religions. Maybe the Abrahamic three are a bit more individualistic, which might have a bigger relevance here in the direction Western philosophy has gone.

Economic system

I know even less about this topic. One important point I do know a bit about is the question of loans, which were forbidden by the Christian Church (for a while) and Islam, but not for Jews (so loans could be obtained in Europe). Not sure if there is a difference between different parts of the world here that is of relevance.

Capitalism itself is also a result of these philosophical ideas, so there might be more to this financial aspect.

Society, societal norms

A prominent theory might be the existence of universities. While different kinds of school systems have existed earlier - to my ignorant knowledge - Europe was ahead in terms of education. This is quite self-explanatory, accumulating smart people and ideas together greatly improves their “productivity”.

Colonialism

Self-explanatory, but if this is the answer, I would also like to extend the question to why the Western world was the first at that at such an extent? That also required technological innovation and a motivation for it. Though it itself has plenty possible explanations like good geographic location.

Climate, geography

Europe has a generally mild climate, well-fit for efficient agriculture and animal husbandry. It also has numerous rivers. It is not the Biblical garden where you have fruits all year long, so you do have to rely on your own work to survive winters, but it is definitely not the desert neither. But that is not a convincing answer either, because plenty of regions are similar, and early scientific advancements come from the more desert-y Arab word, with perhaps harsher conditions.
Europe is also well-connected to other regions.

War, Politics

I quite liked this answer one of my friends came up with (within our circles that is) — due to many, small political entities being so close to each other, there were lots of conflicts, many of which resulted in wars — which are significant drivers of “innovation” even today. Pardon my ignorance, but other regions were mostly ruled by huge empires, that later fall apart and were conquered again, or small settlements with little outside contact. This necessitated less novelty in those conquests.

But even non-war conflicts themselves could have had positive effects, the aristocracy of Europe had strong connections with shared events - besides the more “romantic”/formal aspects, it was also a hub for many intellectuals from different countries to engage in deep discussions. Add to it that most research/discovery/philosophy came initially from people of aristocratic backgrounds.

I could write many more, but I am afraid that would have even less substance. I would be very interested in your input on this, what unique context allowed this intellectual growth that resulted in many aspects of our modern lives we take for granted?

Hi,

I have a planted tank of 160L/about 40 US gallons. I had a few problems and want to get a center piece fish, but I also want to ask what might've gone wrong with my betta's. So this is a long post, sorry. I'll put a tl;dr in the end.

Currently there are 6 celebes rainbowfish, 2 hillstream loaches (P. Myersi), a whole bunch of bronze corydoras (they had offspring, ~12 fish), and 4 amano xl shrimps.

No ammonia and nitrites, I did get way too high nitrates but that's more and more under control (~50ppm now). The filter is a Sicce Whale 350 and there are two bubblers (Eheim 200 split in two bubblers IIRC). Temperature is about 25-26°C (77-79F).

I used to keep a singular betta in the tank with the cories and celebes, but I have had the worst luck with them. Three died in about 1.5 years. One disappeared while I was on vacation, so I don't fully know what happened (family came to check up on them, but they were also perplexed). The second one was sickly from the start and kind of wasted away with clear dropsy at the end.
The third one got stuck in a little glass vase I put on the glass with an anubia pinto plant. I got him out but he was barely alive, and although he seemed to slowly get better he eventually died of dropsy (but without clear signs of infection) in the end too.

My current working theory is that the tank is too busy, but as long as the betta is healthy it's fine. Yet betta's can't be fine all the time, and my nitrate spikes didn't help of course.

I also don't give the bigger betta pellets as the main feed anymore since the last one died of dropsy without clear signs of infection (I still have a betta in another 70l/20 gallon planted tank with shrimps), but I'm not fully sure if that's a factor that really mattered. Still, I feel like they can disrupt the digestion (especially since I tend to give too much of it) (I try not to).

I also tend to go for calmer betta's in the LFS that will probably not mess too much with my other fish in the community tank, but the second one was in retrospect too calm and hidey.
In theory they like almost still water, but I have a lot of resting places (esp near the surface), choose betta's with smaller fins and keep an eye out that they don't get thrown around in the tank.

So I'm looking for a centre piece fish with lots of personality, but who will most likely leave my other fish alone. I can return them to the LFS if it doesn't really work out, or if they don't need much space I have a 30l quarantine tank running in the background. So I can manouvre if it doesn't work out, but still.

I tried honey gourami's, but my Celebes fish were scared of them and only stayed between the plants. They were also quite dominant actually. I'm pretty sensitive about agression in my tank.

I'd love to just get another betta, but I don't want to guinea pig one after another till I perhaps find out my tank truly is too busy for them.

Tl;dr: want another fish in stead of betta's, that can handle other busybodies but doesn't dominate. No honey gourami's or livebearers please.

I read an article today that referred to Foundation as "prestige television," and my first reaction was, "idk man, I didn't think it was all that great." This got me thinking, though, and I'm going down two separate paths here.

First, prestige television is a category that gets thrown about more as a marker of social context than of the quality of the show. Today, at least, these shows are typically big budget, highly marketed (specifically marketed as high quality), and likened to each other. Foundation was really hyped up in the runup to its release. There was a whole slew of articles calling it Apple TV's sci-fi Game of Thrones. More or less the same thing happened with The Rings of Power. Basically, "prestige television" feels like a term that was coopted by television studios in a landscape that has trended towards putting all their eggs into one basket. This only covers the studios' use of the term, though.

Second is the audience's use of the term. There remains the obvious question of if we're going to ward off the tv studios' coopting of the term, how are we going to use it? It really came out of a specific era of television, and regardless of anyone's assessment of relative quality, shows like that aren't really getting made anymore.

Personally, though? I wonder if we even need the term. My sort of emotional reaction to the conversation about prestige television is that it reminds me of the debate around "literature." It's not a debate I want to get into, but it's another label that has unclear boundaries and a tendency towards the old. In practice, it just gets used to snub certain books (e.g. "Dune is good, but it's not literature"). With television, I'm not saying we need to do away with the concept of prestige television, but if we do want to keep using it (and again, studios will even if we don't),
a) What should it mean?
b) How should we use it (i.e. for good, not for snobbery)?

Through the years I have struggled with perfectionism, low self worth, and an overwhelming need to make everyone else happy at my own expense. Recently I've begun wondering if this is related more to my own personal upbringing (my mom and sister share a lot of these traits) or if it's a wider experience of being a woman in modern society.

Growing up in a world where women had successfully entered the job market, there was still an unspoken urging that I had to be better than my male peers to earn my place in the world. There still felt like there were expectations that women would follow all the rules, keep the peace, and maintain the home/workspace. Is this an off base interpretation of societal pressures, or do any of you find yourselves still struggling with some of these messages?

ETA: Also, what are some positive ways being raised as a woman has impacted you?

I was playing Motorstorm: Arctic Edge emulated on my Vita and realized I have literally never seen it brought up or discussed online.

Motorstorm is a dead franchise, but the console games I occasionally see talk of but never the psp version. I think it did a great job of capturing the feel of the game on the go and has a banger soundtrack too. I played it a ton back in high school on my psp and still boot it up from time to time for a quick hit of adrenaline fueled racing.

I'm sure others have similar games, maybe it's a "bad" game that you love or just an oldie lost to time.

I'm coming as a Reddit refugee from the most recent API shenanigans. I've had a few people drop Gold on my comments over there, and it's a nice little 'oh hey, look at that' but it's never been really particularly important to me.

I just made a comment on here the other day that I put a little bit of thought and effort into - nothing crazy, but really did my best to try to explain my perspective - and every single 'exemplary' that post has gotten has meant more to me than any of the awards or upvotes I would get on Reddit. Just the simple act of including a small message of appreciation with exemplaries makes it mean so much more; every one of them has made me feel more and more like I did a good job and maybe actually informed some people, did some good in the world and all that.

I'm in England, this is going to matter with this.

My wife's business has outgrown a small office space. She does HTV clothing and accessories, mugs, etc. Basically, personalised vinyl and sublimation. The equipment she uses is large, A3 printers, dye cutter (Cricut but about to get an A2 bad boy) and probably an A2 printer too.

I've been looking for 5m squared log cabins and similar. Something like this would be an ideal shape. One wall, floor to ceiling, will be dedicated to storage of vinyl, mugs, t shirts, etc. hence thinking there's no point in going A frame style.

I'm assuming 15cm deep concrete base by whatever size the cabin will be, squared, plus 30cm to make sure the base is big enough.

Thoughts?

Do I build something myself or spend out on the Lego cabin style everyone seems to be selling in 44mm timber? Do I put in the base and build my own cabin around it using straight timber and sheet materials from merchants?

There's two main factors for me, cost and insulation. As she's using it for storing clothing it needs to not get damp so it'll need to be a good material and probably will need a dehumidifier in and on all year round when the door is closed. Do I sheet in layers with insulation foam?

Anyway, you get the idea. Links and general advice is welcome.

Hiya -

I'm looking for some help because despite a lot of Google quality time, I'm sincerely struggling to get a solution.

I have a Plantronics 4220 wireless headset that I use for work (and also to connect with Bluetooth to my PC at the same time between calls), and somehow the audio is starting to flake out. It's like it only gets audio in one ear, but if I tilt my head slightly it'll get into the other ear or sometimes both. Pretty weird... it's something I might expect from a wired headset where the cord itself is dying, but not on a wireless one like this.

Anyhow, I'm very comfortable with tech stuff (building my own rigs for like 20 years now), but I've never really felt comfortable about iFixit kind of solutions where tools or hardware is involved with the hardware. I'd pretty much just rather throw a little money at a pro who can fix it in 5 minutes and charge me $50 or whatever, lol.

However when I am going to look for places that might offer repair services, all I'm getting are locations in the US... but I'm in Canada. Specifically Ontario. Anyone have a source (from personal experience or otherwise) on how I might best look up a place I can get this fixed at? Figuring out what to search for on this subject seems oddly arcane!

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.

Bit of a sleepy week this week, hopefully there's some gems in the smaller names.

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 release a full week of sales before entering the charts.

~~ Feedback on the format welcome!

So from earliest childhood, I have experienced that from time to time the electrical grid becomes unavailable for use and it can take days or even weeks to restore service. I'm having trouble comprehending the scope, scale and plausibility of what changes would need to be made to increase the electrification of everything in the way that is being pushed by policy advisors.

Everyone is pushing electric cars. I think it's a great idea, but I have questions about how the grid can support it.

People tell me that the next big advancement in the workplace is going to be the incorporation of artificial intelligence. Doesn't AI require servers on a massive scale? How plausible is it for AI to reach all corners of society and economy on our existing grid or reasonable expectations for plausible improvement of the grid?

The banks seem to be lobbying for the substitution of electronic accounts for cash. Again, electric power is not always available. Also some people who need to use money don't have homes and can't reliably charge electronics. If I remember correctly the payment system went down in Canada a while ago and people without cash were out of luck.

What insight can you share with me?

Recently I've found myself with my previous backpack running through its life, and its not something I'm confident I could repair myself. As such, I'm on the search for a new daily bag. I'm curious what others look for in a daily bag for work or school, and what options people like right now.

Is anyone here playing/finished with the System Shock remake? I’d love to hear your thoughts whether you’re brand new to the series, played the original, or played System Shock 2.

• What are your thoughts on the game? What’s good and bad about it?
• How well did they pull off the remake?
• Does the game still appeal to modern sensibilities?
• Did you lose faith the game would even come out between now and when it was crowdfunded seven years ago?
• What other thoughts do you have?

Please mark any spoilers, either by warning in advance or by putting them inside of a details dropdown:

Edit: I originally miscalled it a remaster. It’s a definitely a remake.