So I'm in the market at the moment for a GPU upgrade. I haven't spent a dumb amount of money on something stupid in a while now and I'm thinking this Christmas season is the time. My only problem is, I've been really out of the loop since the Great Shortage. I've heard AMDs cards these days are actually more than complete jokes, and NVIDIA has been getting too big-headed and making some poor consumer choices. So a switch to AMD sounds like it might be viable for me.

At the moment, I've got an RTX 2070 8GB. I've read that lately, games have been utilizing VRAM like crazy so I want to bolster my numbers on that front. Was looking at 12GB cards since the 24GB ones are all ludicrously priced. At the moment, I'd say my budget is around 500/600 USD. Is AMD worth switching to at the moment? Or should I go for something like a 4060?

My girlfriend has started a small business and is looking into a blogging platform. What she has tried so far hasn't been great. She has decided to go the WordPress route and this is where I am involved.

Any suggestions for hosting providers? What features should I be considering or anything else I should be aware of when it comes to picking a provider?
Right now I am looking at Bluehost vs Hostinger. Bluehost just seem to be the most advertised. Hostinger seemed to offer more for the same cost.

Well, maybe they're not that odd, but I've not really been paying attention to what phone manufacturers are up to these days, so I need some help with what will work for me. I've previously had a huawei p10 lite (which I only sold after the news of them selling data to the Chinese government), Pixel 3a (i used that until it dying breath and then sold it for parts), and now I have a RealMe 8 5g, but I'm having charging issues with it. I might look at getting it fixed, but depending on the cost I might sell it on and buy something else.

MUST HAVES:

• Headphone jack. I'll die on this hill and I will get a phone with a headphone jack as long as they are available to me.
• good battery. It's the main reason I went for the RealMe 8, the battery has just been fantastic so far.
• No bloatware. I'm ruling out Samsung, and anything similar that is full of extra junk I can't get rid of. As close to pure android as possible is best.

IDEAL

• good for games. the heaviest duty game I play on my phone is TFT, and then I move around between various puzzle and idle games for when I'm travelling or on my lunch break, but I don't need it to be super powerful.
• wireless charging. Nearly put this as a must have, but I could definitely live without it.
• Not chinese made/owned. Also nearly put this as must have, but I don't want to limit myself massively.
• under £250 I very rarely spend even that much on a phone, but I'm open to treating myself a bit.

I don't care about the camera really. I'm a photography hobbyist and so if I want to take good photos for memories I'll just take a camera with me. If it's good then thats a bonus but its near the bottom of my list of things I think about.

What would there be out there for me? I've always liked the look of Sony phones but they're typically a lot of money, how do they fit in with my requirements? I've also been looking into the Fairphone but it really is out of my budget, and i don't know how it runs.

Thanks in advance for any help :)

This is Album of the Week #9 ~ This week's album is The KLF - Chill Out

Year of Release: 1990
Genre(s): Ambient, Sound Collage
Country: United Kingdom
Length: 44 minutes
Listen! (YouTube) This album isn't available on streaming services.

Excerpt from Pitchfork:

The interwoven pieces play out like a radio broadcast heard while half asleep, tapping into the same surreal aesthetic that David Lynch would explore in Twin Peaks’ debut just a few months later. Call it the American uncanny, in which familiar tropes are turned strange, and tantalizing snippets suggest hidden narratives—root systems of stories burrowing deep underground. Like the Swiss heritage of photographer Robert Frank, another eagle-eyed traveler of America’s backroads, the KLF’s foreignness gave them special purchase on American myths. It was all a product of the duo’s imagination; Drummond had never even been to the places they were evoking, and they only settled on the titles after recording. “We thought that it had the feeling of that sort of trip,” Drummond told X Magazine in 1991. “I love maps and atlases and I love place names, and I just sat down with the atlas and picked, you know, and saw the journey that it was and it all seemed to fit.”

Discussion points:
Have you heard this artist/album before? Is this your first time hearing?
Do you enjoy this genre? Is this an album you would have chosen?
Does this album remind you of something you've heard before?
What were the album's strengths or weaknesses?
Was there a standout track for you?
How did you hear the album? Where were you? What was your setup?

--

Album of the week is currently chosen randomly (via random.org) from the top 5000 albums from a custom all-time RYM chart, with a 4/5 popularity weighting. The chart is recalculated weekly.

Missed last week? It can be found here.

Any feedback on the format is welcome ~~

I recently visited my sister who has a big screen TV that shows very smooth movement including on Star Trek, the original series. Not that I don't have smooth movement on my home TV set, but hers was ridiculous. It almost looks like raw footage before it was refined down. It was like there were frames between the frames, if that makes any sense.

What am I seeing here?

Hi all,

I’m looking for advice re making a full snapshot/backup of a running Linux system (Debian).

In an ideal world, should an issue occur, I would like to be able to load a live USB with the backup, boot and write from that.

Timeshift seems to be an option but I’m wondering how the above would work in my case. A few questions.

1. My disk is fully encrypted with LUKS. Would this pose a problem?
2. I would like to write my backups to a veracrypt container. Would this pose any issue? I’m not sure how I would boot from a live USB in this case I could not decrypt the USB.

Essentially I’d like a step-by-step guide to backing up my full system (including all files in home) in such a way that I can easily roll back should the worst happen. Do any of you know of such a guide or can perhaps offer some help?

I’m having a lot of fun learning the recorder (cheap and relatively easy). I have to learn to read music too, and wrap my head around how rhythm works, but I’m finding that so much is just intuitive, even though I’ve never played anything. I like singing for fun, but that’s pretty much the extent of what I can do. (I now play a mean Hot Cross Buns though.)

Anyone else doing something similar?

How visible is your lifestyle to others in your life (personal, professional, etc)?

Have you found love recently?

What do serious relationships look like for you? Is marriage on the table, or is it contrary to polyamory?

I'm hoping to spark discussion of the topic, since I haven't seen it mentioned much on Tildes.

I don't necessarily mean your exact kinks, more the overall psychological and emotional aspects.

I just had a conversation with my girlfriend about this very topic, discussing why we liked the things we do.

Having thought through it more thoroughly, I find that giving up power makes me feel desired and objectified by the dominant in a safe environment, which is a feeling I seldom get to experience as I'm neither an 7+ out of 10 or in otherwise position to attract that kind of attention.

In addition, always feeling like I have to control every situation I'm in and often feeling somewhat anxious if I'm in an unfamiliar environment, this sort of play also allows me to safely relinquish control.

How about you?

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.