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 originally decided to review this book for Tildes because I know that there are music lovers here. I made this choice before I finished the book. This is a music focused novel. People who love music will likely get a lot out of it. But the music content provides a context for a great novel.

The first half of the story focuses on two music obsessed young men who become friends. One has a strong interest in sound technology. (I'm sure that there is a more precise way to describe it but I'm not a musician. Bear with me here.) The other is a collector, focused on old Blues recordings.

Without giving away too much the plot, a new character is introduced part way in, an older Blues collector and there is a journey into the deep South to find Blues recordings and buy them from individuals who have family connections to the Blues musicians.

About two thirds of the way through reading the book, I started to wonder about recommending it without caveats. It is extremely well written and tells a compelling story. I'm glad I read it. However, there are aspects that will probably make it difficult for some people to enjoy it. Other people will, I suspect love it, for the exact same content.

Here are some aspects of the book that might need trigger/content warnings.

Violence: There is a particularly brutal police encounter among other episodes.

Revenge: Race and racism is one of several themes of the book and African American rage over mistreatment and abuse is bluntly expressed and enacted at a few points.

Narrator (and reader) lacking real time contemporaneous understanding of what is happening:
Part of the book contains content representing what might be a fever dream or a psychotic episode or a drug induced experience. Late in the book a possible supernatural/uncanny explaination is offered, but the question of why the episode is surreal is not definitively resolved.

Strong contrast and vivid descriptions of wealth vs middle class vs poverty:

Death:

As I said, I think the book is exceptionally well written and the author quite skilled. I found it compelling, interesting, entertaining, but certain parts more fascinating than enjoyable. If someone reads it, I would love to know what you think.

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.

I'm failing. My usual tricks aren't working and I don't know what to do with my clothes anymore.

One of my ADHD symptoms is that needs to see everything. My "pantry" is open shelves in my kitchen. Everything in the fridge is up near the front of the shelves. I have a giant desk so I can spread out when I'm working. I need to see it all at all times.
So the issue becomes, how do I do that with clothes. My alligator brain wants them all over the floor so I can see everything. That's not gonna work lol. I used to be good with a closet with no doors, but my new apartment isn't laid out in a way I can do that.

Does anyone have any interesting clothes storage advice? The clutter is stressing me out, so I need to figure out whatever my new system is going to be.

Curious to hear what the people of tildes think.

As we close in on 3 years of use with these newer consoles, what are every one’s thoughts? Has “next gen” been what you thought it’d really be or are you kinda just feeling whelmed?

I have a PS5 and I use it every now and then for pretty much the first party games. PC is my main platform but as I think back, I’ve been pretty happy with my PS5 and the games to come so far. I also really enjoy the UI (although custom backgrounds would be great).

I don’t know how the Xbox side is so I’d love to hear your thoughts to!

Thanks for taking the time to read.

I'm curious on how to get started in self hosting. I have computer experience, being an Android Developer, but I hardly have experience in Linux and backend/networking work.

I've been wanting to start up a Plex/Jellyfin server for a while, and I have an old system sitting around with a Ryzen 1700 with a graphics card in there as well that's been begging for attention, and maybe I can throw on a Minecraft server in there as well. Since I travel a bunch, it would be nice too to be able to access my media for when I'm traveling, or to let my parents or friends access some shows if they so desire!

What I'm worried about is exposing my network to the internet basically. I used to run a Minecraft server with port forwarding and such on a personal computer but now I'm realizing that that's probably a bit unsafe lol.

Basically, are there any guides that I can look at, or any of your own experiences that could potentially help me or anyone who's interested?

Edit: I love the films too, but I'm really looking for examples in the text, even if the adaptation does the scene justice, I'm interested in how Tolkien himself wrote it.

I'm on a bit of a JRR Tolkien kick recently and revisiting some of my favorite bits from the books. One thing I really appreciate about Tolkien's writing is the outright poetry of some of the paragraphs and lines. I think the only "wordsmith" who appeals this much to me is Cormac McCarthy (and to some extent GRR Martin) -- but for very different reasons. Anyways, I'll share my favorite section from the Legendarium.

Théoden's charge at Minas Tirith - The Return of the King

To set the stage, the Rohirrim have navigated to Minas Tirith and are greeted by a dying besieged city steeped in darkess and fire. Upon seeing this, we get this line about Théoden:

But the king sat upon Snowmane, motionless, gazing upon the agony of Minas Tirith, as if stricken suddenly by anguish, or by dread. He seemed to shrink down, cowed by age.

Merry utterly loses hope at seeing the city and the reaction of the king. Then as all hope seems lost, we get one of the best sections in the whole trilogy:

At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before:

Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

With that he seized a great horn from Guthláf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.

Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Éomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Théoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

This might be my favorite bit in all of LOTR because we see good king Théoden shed all his fears and doubts and actualize into the man he was meant to be. And to be compared to the Valar Oromë to boot! Wow. I am also a total sucker for any moment in the trilogy when a deed or character gets compared to events or characters of the First Age. Anytime that happens, you know it's a big deal since the First Age was so much "larger than life" than the events of the Third Age. Tolkien does a similar thing when Sam faces off Shelob noting that not even Túrin or Beren with any craft of the elves could have injured her -- yet Sam stood his ground, nonetheless.

I am not a Tolkien scholar, but I know Tolkien was incredibly steeped in medieval and ancient literature (I mean, he was a Professor of English literature) so I know his heart was really in old mythologies in Germanic or Norse traditions (for example Túrin Turambar's story is directly inspired by the Finnish tale of Kullervo, or how almost word-for-word bits of The Wanderer poem end up in Rohan's culture and song). Because of his Christian faith though, I suspect he had qualms with the often-brutal mortality of those tales and the cultures which produced them. This section with Théoden charging bravely against hopelessness and despair I think represents the "merger" of all the positive qualities he found in heroes like Beowulf with his more temperate worldview. It's an idealization of the heroic good-pagan Germanic king.

Hi folks. I am searching for songs that, for lack of a better word, build up via "layers" as the song progresses. For example, Beethoven's 7th Symphony, Second Movement, The Boxer Rebellion's "Soviets", or Dave Matthew's Band's "Dancing Nancies". Do you have any recommendations? Perhaps a musician would be able to tell me what this type of music/structure is called?

EDIT: Thank you so much to everyone who responded. There are some GREAT suggestions! I have a lot of listening to do!

Pretty much the title. We all play all sorts of games, and they generally are all good games. However, every once in a while you start a game that just hits the right notes and you hate putting your controller or device down, and you can't stop thinking about things you want to do when you get back in front of that game. I figure we could post up our current addicting games so others can search them out as well :)

My current addiction is Frostpunk. Got it on a whim from the Steam Summer sale, and my Lord am I addicted. It's a really good (to me) post civilization survival game where you try to establish and rebuild life with a new world around you. Surprisingly challenging and the scenarios are very fun. I bought it 2 weeks ago and have 63 hours into it.

For the last few summers I've tried (and failed) to get a silent disco system working for a small group of friends. The requirements are

1. Anyone should be able to join (locally) with a phone and a pair of bluetooth headphones. With the absence of headphone jacks I've found most people rely on bluetooth headphones.
2. Low enough latency.
3. Decent enough audio fidelity.
4. No weird monetized apps you have to sign in to.

In a post covid age where we all had low latency video calls, it seems crazy there isn't an obvious way to have <10 people connected to one 128kbps audio stream. Here are the shortcomings

• Most silent disco systems (for events) use FM to broadcast to FM receivers. Broadcasting without a license is technically illegal, but easy enough to do. The lack of wired headphones means most phones no longer support receiving FM frequencies, as they used the headphone wire as an antenna. It's not ideal checking up on everyone's phone models to see whether or not they support FM ahead of time.

• Throughout covid we used Discord to listen to music together many miles apart. The trouble is bluetooth does not have enough bandwidth for speakers and a microphone. So - those with wired headphones it worked perfectly, but with bluetooth headphones the audio drops to landline phone quality, far below what's listenable. Discord supports 'Stage' calls where some participants are talking and others are only listening. Unfortunately this doesn't disable the microphone for the audience, and so the audio is still poor.

• Lastly is streaming. This solves everything above but the latency is too high. Using software called 'Stream What You Hear' allowed us to create a webpage with a stream running, but each person could be many seconds ahead or behind depending on when they loaded the stream. Attempts to sync everyone up would fail if someone accidentally locked their phone.

I'm wondering if the solution is going to have to be a bit more technically minded, which I'm open to investigating, but wondered if anyone here had any ideas to bounce.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I tried SnapCast as recommendation by @arch and it seems to do exactly what I was setting out to achieve, and FOSS software too! Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and help, I'm really excited to trial it.

Hey people :)

Friendly reminder to look again at your songs in your Soundhund, Shazam, etc! I don't even seem to have half of them in my favorites playlist but that's definitely not intended.

I'm listening to my recognized songs in random order right now and it's just song after song and whoa after whoa. Well, that's no surprise, these songs are "curated" by me precisely because they grabbed my attention when I was out and about enough that I felt the need to try and recognize them !!

I hope you also find a couple golden tracks as I've done today :)

Hello everyone :)

I write as a hobby and have had an article in my drafts for a long, long time. In essence, I'd like to discuss the "repetitive nature of human tribulations/suffering/life", that is, the fact that regardless of superficial characteristics we all are confronted with extremely similar circumstances throughout our lives.

Whether it's 10 years into our lives or 40, there's joy, heartbreak, loss, a need to belong, some desire for freedom, a need for a purpose, lack of direction, obsession with a newly found direction, etc.

I'd love to come across poets, philosophers, psychologists, etc who have touched upon this subject: we are not defined by our circumstances, as they are, in very broad strokes, largely the same, but by how we are able to adapt and reinvent ourselves amidst those same circumstances.

Looking forward for your answers :)

Thanks!

Hi, I started trialing contact lenses (toric lenses, specifically) about a month ago, and have had a problem with them making my eyes seriously red. I've tried 3 different brands of contacts now, and the issue has persisted across all three. Has anyone else had a similar experience and figure out how to manage it? Thank you!

Here's a list of cookery books that are frequently recommended in various forums when people ask for good cookery books.

These are not in any kind of order. Please add any books that I've missed! I'm sure there are lots of great books that I haven't heard of. I wanted to link to a bookshop, but I got stuck with that so I used Wordery, unless they didn't have it in which case I link to Amazon. Some of these books have hardback and soft-cover versions, or newer editions, so go careful with the links because I just link to any version of the book. I have done no research at all into the authors or illustrators here, so if I've included people who are toxic arseholes please do let me know and I'll fix it. (This post is episode 2 of "DanBC goes down a rabbit hole and dumps the results onto Tildes").

Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking - Samin Nosrat and Wendy MacNaughton.

A review from Kitchn: 8 cooks on why "Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat" is such a special, unlikely, hit

A lot of people love this book. Beginners say it gave them a bit more confidence, and good home cooks say it helped elevate their cooking by giving them usable information.

How to Cook Everything - Mark Bittman.

A review from Kitchn

How to Cook Everything - the basics - Mark Bittman. A review from ShelfAwareness.

A lot of people don't know how to cook, and have never cooked anything. Mark Bittman's books are often recommended to this group of people. And the books are excellent sources of information, and so they're useful to lots of people. They're very clear and easy to use.

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan.

A VERY SHORT, almost bullet point, review from FiveBooks And a longer review from LitHub

She wrote two books in the 1970s, and these were combined and updated in the 1990s for this book. These books are widely credited as introducing people outside Italy to "authentic" Italian cooking. LitHub review has already said everything that I'd want to say about this, but better than I could.

On Food and Cooking: The science and lore of the kitchen - Harold McGee.

A Kitchn review

This is a heavy duty book about the science of food. It's often described as the best single reference book for the science of food and cooking.

Food Lab: Better home cooking through science - J. Kenji López-Alt.

A review from Chemistry World

Surely everyone knows J. Kenji. He's really approachable. He give you science, but it's actionable and achievable.

In Bibi's Kitchen: The Recipes and Stories of Grandmothers from the Eight African Countries that Touch the Indian Ocean - Hawa Hassan, Julia Turshen.

A mini-review from Kitchn. So, I'm cheating here because I haven't seen this recommended by anyone but I wanted more books that are not Euro-US focussed. This book focuses on food from Eritrea, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, South Africa, Madagascar, and Comoros

Each chapter starts with a short geo-political intro. You'll be familiar if you've ever read the CIA World Factbook. It then has a short interview with a grandmother, and then it gives some recipes.

Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making - Wordery link - James Peterson.

A review from MostlyFood

"Don’t be put off by the size of this book. It’s true that it’s as big as a small piece of furniture but it’s as big as that for a good reason. There isn’t any padding in Sauces. It’s cover-to-cover solid information that will be welcomed by anyone wanting to perfect sauce-making. Nothing seems to be omitted or overlooked. Every imaginable sauce is described, including Asian Sauces which have been added since the publication of the first edition."

Lots of people like that "no padding" feature.

How to Eat: The pleasures and principles of good food - Nigella Lawson.

A review by Food 52

"Thinking back on the lifespan of this formative book, I can’t help but feel that it’s to the recipes in it, and of course to Lawson herself, that I owe much of my confidence in the kitchen today."

Lots of people just want to cook tasty food and they're not bothered by The Science. Lawson's books are excellent if you want great home cooking.

The Professional Chef - The Culinary Institute of America

There are lots of versions of this book. The current version will be expensive. The older version are usually very similar and will be much cheaper.

Home cooks often get into weird habits and that's fine - it's your kitchen, do what works for you. But if you want to get better in the kitchen by improving your techniques and skills this is the book for you.

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!

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

My current round of insurance with TD / Primmum is due up. I have a 2021 Jeep Gladiator (financed) and a 2019 KIA Rio (no loan), house (no mortgage), and 2016 17' travel trailer (no loan) with them. Been with them for many many years. Supposedly have a group plan through my employer Ontario Power Generation. I'm not so sure anymore. While it's just me (47m) right now, my 17 year old son will likely get added Friday when he gets his G2 🤞.

I wonder if anyone could recommend a company that would do good for all, or separate for each. I also have some artwork and camera equipment I would probably tack on.
The letter I got from TD also said if I don't put a tracker on my Jeep (for theft) my premium will go up. They will pay for it, but if they supply it I won't even consider it. I don't want them following me! Giggle does that enough.

Searching "best xxxxx" will always give you sites that make money from the reviewed businesses. I won't trust any of them.