So I'm looking for a solution that's basically just a remote to scroll the web while I'm slouched down in the couch. Something that doesn't require a flat surface to work.

I'd also be interested to hear your solutions for your living room PCs. Thanks!

I'm in the market for a set of dishes. The consensus is:

• Corelle - lightweight and solid
• Fiestaware - built to last

I'm not a fan of either unfortunately. Not because these brands are bad, but I'm looking for a particular look. Something akin to stoneware with a darker color. I also prefer heavier dishes. Unfortunately stoneware is known (or said) to chip easily. I'm not looking for something that will survive being dropped (I don't remember the last time I dropped a plate). This is the first selling point that gets brought up I've noticed.

What did you choose and what has been your experience? Has your stoneware chipped after washing & stacking?

EDIT
I forgot to provide more details about my situation to help with recommendations.

• I'm in the US
• No family/single, but plan to host for a small group on an occasion (~4 people)
• I'm starting from scratch and would like a set that works in all situations + everyday use. I'm willing to splurge (assuming it's quality and lasts).

Let me start by saying I really enjoyed playing the Mass Effect games. They are awesome.

I found the plot, though, incoherent. Especially in ME3. I don't mind small conveniences like "good thing this random teleporter beam designed to suck up corpses has easy entrée to the reaper's command center," because it's a game.

But how on earth did Cerberus amass seemingly billions of elite special operations forces with nobody noticing? What do you mean the secret weapon against the reapers has been improved each cycle by people who didn't know what it was supposed to do? How could that possibly result in a functional device?

It's clear, I think, that this wasn't necessarily the direction the first game was going. Cerberus was the subject of a side quest, but nothing more. The authors of the lore seemed to be taking great pains to ensure everything was logical, based on the in-universe rules they had established.

...and then ME2 kicks off and the series is almost as much about Cerberus, from this point on, as it is about the reapers.

What did you think about how the plot unrolled?

(You may also wish to read this series of essays. It's about 18 billion words long, though - fair warning. https://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792)

https://www.noemamag.com/the-seductive-vision-of-green-aviation/

Picture yourself in an airship pushing into the northern latitudes. From the vantage of a barstool in the center of a luxurious lounge, you look through panoramic windows to see an Arctic vista scroll past. The ride is as smooth as a cruise liner cutting through a mirror sea. Above you is a white canopy, the base of the great bladder of gas keeping you airborne. Down below, a huge oval shadow glides across the pack ice.

I disembarked from this flight of fancy and came back to reality in an industrial estate on the outskirts of the town of Bedford, a couple hours north of London. For now, the airship of my imagination sat disassembled in front of me — an engine, the top section of a tail fin, a salubrious sample cabin.

Hybrid Air Vehicles calls it the Airlander: a colossal, state-of-the-art dirigible that was originally conceived as a military surveillance platform for the U.S. Air Force. That idea was scrapped as America de-escalated its operations in Afghanistan, but by then a new application for airships was emerging. Aviation is the most energy-intensive form of transport, and in recent years the industry has come under intense scrutiny for its environmental footprint. Unlike a passenger airplane, a passenger airship — buoyant and slow — doesn’t have to burn much fuel to stay in the air.

“We’ve completely normalized flying in an aluminum tube at 500 miles an hour, but I think we’ve got some big changes coming,” said Tom Grundy, an aerospace engineer and HAV’s CEO, who was showing me around the research facility.

Many of the scientific principles behind Grundy’s airship are a throwback to a bygone age, when Goodyears and Zeppelins carried affluent clientele around America and Europe and occasionally between the two. Other aspects are cutting-edge. The cambered twin hulls will be inflated with 1.2 million cubic feet of inert helium, not flammable hydrogen like most of the Airlander’s interwar forebears. The skin, a composite of tenacious, space-age materials, is barely a tenth of an inch thick but so strong that there is no need for any internal skeleton. Grundy handed me a handkerchief-sized off-cut. “You could probably hang an SUV off that,” he said. When it goes into production later this year, it will be the world’s largest commercial airliner: around 300 feet long, nearly the length of a soccer field.

But arguably its key selling point — the reason HAV resuscitated a mode of aerial transport once thought to have gone down in flames with the Hindenburg — is that it’s green. Even powered by today’s kerosene-based jet fuel, the total emissions per kilometer from its four vectored engines will be 75% less than a conventional narrow-bodied jet covering the same distance. The Airlander of course is much slower. A maximum velocity of under 100mph means that it’s never going to compete directly with jet airliners. “We tend to think of it as sitting between the air and ground markets — a railway carriage for the skies,” Grundy told me.

“When it enters service, perhaps as soon as 2026, the Airlander will offer premium, multi-day cruises to hard-to-reach places like the Arctic Circle.”

A 100-seat cabin designed for regional travel has already attracted orders from carriers in Spain and Scotland. The prototype we were sitting in, with a futuristic carbon-fiber profile and wine glasses dangling above a wraparound bar, is the central section of another configuration called the “expedition payload module.” When it enters service, perhaps as soon as 2026, it will offer premium, multi-day cruises to hard-to-reach places like the Arctic Circle. Behind the communal lounge, a central corridor will lead to eight double ensuite bedrooms. “You’ll even be able to open the windows,” Grundy said.

Good morning ~ This is a thread to discuss new album releases that have arrived on our doorstep this week. Feel free to share albums and EPs that have caught your eye and interest!

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!