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'll be visiting Taipei for a little over a week in mid-January. I'm going to attend a conference, but have most evenings free and will be staying a few days after it ends too. Looking for good recommendations on activities in the city (museums, sights, etc.). I've heard Taipei has a very good nightlife, but unfortunately I don't know if I'll be able to experience much of that due to with whom I'm traveling.

I got my friend a midi beatpad a while ago and he's about to start using it to experiment with music. Does anyone have any tips I can pass on? Any help with software/equipment would be greatly appreciated.

I personally don't love most anime I've been recommended. Admittedly, shonen anime is pretty predictable and boring to watch to me, and I've only mostly been recommended anime in that genre since it's the most popular. There are some exceptions of course, but nothing has grabbed me too hard. I'm not super into the exaggerated reaction shots and repeating everything that's happening on screen like I can't already see it happening. Announcing your feelings and actions is so tiring.

Really looking for something that makes me laugh or feel something.

I've been getting bored of current TV offerings and I'm trying to boost my Japanese learning so I'm wondering if there's anything out there for me. I do try to watch at least a couple of episodes every time I get something suggested, nothing really clicked for me. Even the ones I do like, I feel like I had to force myself to sit through sometimes.

Some anime I do enjoy:

• Cyberpunk: Edgerunners - Even though I really dislike super over the top things, there's something about the relatively simple story and heart in this one. I really loved it and it's probably my favorite so far.
• most Studio Ghibli things - I mean, who doesn't, right?
• Your Name and Suzume - both kinda in the same vein of interesting stories and something different that is hard to pull off in conventional live-action, and beautifully drawn to boot
• Ju Jutsu Kaisen season 1 - I enjoyed it, will probably watch season 2, but waiting for it to finish
• Persona 5 The Animation - Honestly mostly because I liked the game, the anime was not as great tbh.

Things I've seen and are already on the list and will probably(?) continue -

• FMA:B (1 episode)
• Cowboy Bebop (1 episode)
• Undead Murder Farce
• Chainsaw Man season 1 (this one's a bit iffy imo, I really can't stand the main character's fascination with boobs, the action is good though and the story is actually kinda interesting)

Things I've seen and won't continue/didn't particularly enjoy -
(17 episodes of) Death Note, One Punch Man season 1, Demon Hunter season 1

Edit: Western shows/movies I enjoyed:
Background shows I'll put on:
Community
Brooklyn Nine Nine

Shows that made me feel things:
Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul
The Last of Us
Mr. Robot

Not shows but things I enjoy:
Spider-verse movies
Everything Everywhere All at Once (my favorite movie of all time)
The Planet of the Apes trilogy remakes
Lord of the Rings

Paradise is an exciting action sci fi with a really interesting premise. What if eternal youth, was available to anyone with money... yet it involved literally sucking the life force out of others less fortunate than yourself?



The movie focuses on Max, who after his wife is unexpectedly forced to give up 40 years of her life, he desperately searches for a way to get her youth back.

The movie is filled with the usual plot twists, cool sci fi graphics, true love and the like.



There are two truly interesting elements to this movie. The first is the cynical idea that if the rich could live forever, then they would be much more motivated to think about and solve for the long term health of the planet.

In this movie, only the rich can afford to extend their lives for as long as they choose, so we also see how that would severely impact wealth inequality. 



The second interesting element of this movie is a series of questions very similar to the trolley problem. If you could extend your life, at the cost of someone else's youth, would you, assuming they were somehow reimbursed financially?

What if your youth had been taken from you; or what if youth had been taken from someone you loved. Would you take it back? Would you take it back as ethically as possible, or ethics be damned?

Could you give up your youth to save a loved one from an extremely unkind yet uncertain end, or is it easier to risk your life to save theirs than it is to give up eternal youth once you have it?



At one point in the movie, we learn it is easier to take someones life passively through the forces of economics and medical science, than it is to actively kill someone with a gun to their head. Which is the essence of the trolley problem. But it is also the essence of wealth inequality.

We could easily flip the switch, to improve the quality of life and length of life for many people, at the cost of one rich persons riches, but those with power passively choose to not do so. The movie doesn't philosophize anywhere near as much as I am doing right now, instead focusing on fast action, true love and cool sci fi. But I think perhaps this movie is a very subtle warning to the rich. At a certain point of wealth inequality, some portion of the population will want their fair share of the wealth, ethics be damed.

https://www.netflix.com/title/81288179

Yes, yes, I know, the classic blunder 😅

I just have to say though, the difference is insane, I mean what the actual fuaæosiuhrfjk!?

I have been on 60 hz screens my entire life, only upgrading to 1080p in 2015 or so, and I bought my current screen from a friend a year or two ago -- I guess that's why I never realized it was 144 hz, not 60 hz!? But playing WoW with another friend yesterday, we started talking about specs and refresh rates came up, so she even offered that I could borrow her second screen because she felt so sorry about my only having 60 hz. So for fun and just to be sure, I went to check my settings and yup, it said 144 hz in there! "Surely not", I thought... so I clicked it and absolutely surely fucking yes, it instantly looked a million times better??? I laughed so hard because it is both amazing and I am an idiot because I have seen this exact meme dozens of times and I cannot believe that I am a victim too 😂

The colors are so much richer, the movement of everything was so much smoother. I mean seriously, my mind is still completely blown now a day later. This is a great christmas present for myself, and it was free!

I don't think any other computer upgrade has ever had this big an impact. Blew my mind!

I'm doing a bit of Typescript programming and started using zod for input validation. It has a fair number of convenience methods, one of which is brand(). This creates a unique type, much like the newtype operator in some languages. This is despite TypeScript not having unique types by default; TypeScript implements structural typing.

The technique used to implement unique types has been known for a long time, but it's new to me. You can declare a type with an extra field that doesn't really exist.

There seem to be several variations on how to do this. They seem to be mostly equivalent, but the ergonomics might differ. (Some might have better compiler errors that others?) The basic requirement is that the imaginary field doesn't get in the way in normal use, but it's incompatible with other types, causing a compiler error if they're mixed.

One way goes like this:

declare const brand: unique symbol;

type Brand<T, TBrand extends string> = T & {
  [brand]: TBrand;
}

It can be used to declare branded types like this:

type TopicId = Brand<bigint, "TopicId">;

const myTopicId = 123n as TopicId;

This trick relies on the fact that TypeScript's type checking is unsound. We can lie to the type checker. Intersecting T (in this case, bigint) creates a subtype of bigint with an imaginary field. The field's type is declared so the field requires a specific string, so it's going to be incompatible with just about any other type, unless you use Brand to give it the same name on purpose. (The field doesn't actually exist and no string is actually stored there.)

To create a TopicId value, you use "as" to explicitly downcast bigints to TopicId's. Then you can use them just like a bigint, except that there will be compile errors if you use them wrong.

A less strict approach is to make the imaginary field optional, described here as "flavoring" but I don't think that's in common use? Then you could assign bignums without doing a cast, but the type is still incompatible with other branded type. This reminds me of how types work in Go.

I am and have been on a bit of a quest to make my computing devices suck less.

Over the last few years I have migrated all of my laptops and desktops over to various Linux flavors. My experience with this process is that each flavor has their own quirks that need to be ironed out, but after getting things running there is little in the way of maintenance. Things kind of just work nowadays.

I have been looking into getting something like (but not necessarily) LineageOS on my phone. As I am looking into this and reading forums on the subject, it seems like a perpetual arms race between application developers and application users. One puts in a way to check for root, then there are root hiders, then there are root hider checkers, then there are root hiders that you build with custom names, etc.

I want my device to not suck.

I don’t want to be going in and fighting with my banking applications every time there is an update. I am totally willing to fight a painful setup once.

Is a custom phone OS something that is essentially only viable to use if you are driven by spite? Am I reading too much into the struggles that are posted in various forums? I am looking for any input for anyone that has used a custom OS short or long term.

My whole life I have lived with the regret of not becoming proficient in a musical instrument. I grew up with a piano and acoustic guitar in my childhood home, and I actually took lessons for both but never committed to practicing or improving. As a result I grew up tinkering with both hit never learned how to read music or actually develop any fundamental techniques to play either.

I am an autodidact and have always felt that with the right resources, and a little discipline, I could at least learn enough to play a few songs on either instrument, and possibly with time become a sight reader.

To that end, I am curious, musicians of ~Tildes, what resources are the best to self-learn piano and guitar? Books, videos, apps, anything that you’ve used or know people have used and actually went from complete novice to reasonably proficient?

Thanks and happy new year!

One of my favorite movies to watch during the holidays is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It came out on Christmas day and helped me deal with a lot of things that were happening during the winter of 2013. When the winter days get short, I like to revisit the movie because it makes me feel better. What movies do you like watch during the holiday season, that doesn't have Christmas as a theme?

This is a silly sounding topic, but I'm unfortunately in such a situation and want to be a step ahead in self defense. My ex wife and her new boyfriend have been overheard by my kids saying that they're going to "get me" or generally do something bad to me. They are not physically strong people so I'm not worried about a violent attack, but they are intelligent people and I'm worried about all the other options the internet leaves open to them. My ex obviously knows my social security number so I have already locked my credit with the three agencies (Experian, Transunion and Equifax). I have also changed every password I can think of and have security cameras around the entrances to my home. What else should I be doing? Are there legal consulting services or routes I should be looking into to prevent possible problems? I don't want to go overboard with this (and I promise I'm not a paranoid person) but I want to take any reasonable precautions I can to prevent bigger problems.

The year is over. Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom was released, marking the official end of the DCEU. It goes out with a whimper. Aquaman won't be profitable, but it won't lose as much as The Marvels of The Flash did this year, which I suppose is some consolation prize.

As I said in my summer of busts post only two superhero movies this year made a profit theatrically. In certain corners of the box office community, there was a belief that The Marvels would beat Spider-Verse, but that never seemed realistic. It even came up short of the most conservative initial predictions for it. It did so poorly that it made The Flash's performance look decent.

So what happened? Last year Superhero movies dominated the box office. Although, Top Gun: Maverick and Avatar: The Way of Water were the top 2 grossing movies. Both domestic and worldwide. But still, all three Marvel films opened to over 100M. Two made over 400M DOM, although, one had poor word of mouth. Even Thor: Love and Thunder, with some horrendous word of mouth, almost grossed 350M DOM. And all three were some of the most profitable blockbusters of the year.

I think 2022 laid the groundwork for what happened this year. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Thor: Love and Thunder were received poorly among general audiences. I would also say even though Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was well received, its reception was still pretty tepid, especially compared to the first. And people started enjoying blockbusters with a different look and flavor with Top Gun and Avatar, which made audiences reconsider what types of movies they should watch. Something I think falls in between here is The Batman, which, of course, is a superhero movie, but one that has a distinct look and feel. So, I would place that next to the blockbusters that offered something different than the MCU formula audiences had gotten used to consuming.

Going into 2023, audiences were still interested in superhero movies and, specifically, the MCU. Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania opened to over 100M, a franchise high. The poor reception of the film was, apparently, the straw that broke the camel's back for audiences.

This wasn't evident right away since the two superhero movies that were released right after (Guardians 3 and Across the Spider-Verse) were well-received and were some of the biggest hits of the year. Even with a softer opening, Guardians 3 managed to leg out incredibly well to outgross the first installment of the franchise. The post I made directly after Guardians 3 opened was perhaps premature in this regard. But I think the superhero films to come out after Spider-Verse proved that point right. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse required fantastic word of mouth to be the hits that they were. If they were received as poorly as the 2022 MCU films, they wouldn't have become the hits they are.

This might seem obvious, you need a good movie that audiences like to be a hit at the box office. But, this was not the case in the prime era of superhero movies. In 2016, Suicide Squad was released with poor critical and audience reception. Yet it grossed 325M DOM and 745M WW. That same year X-Men: Apocalypse still managed to make over 500M WW also with poor reception. Venom would make over 800M WW two years later. Even as recently as 2021, the poorly received Eternals (while the pandemic was still ongoing) made over 400M WW which is double The Marvel's gross.

Quantumania was the start of it but The Flash, Blue Beetle, The Marvels, and Aquaman cemented it. This is a dead genre, and it had an explosive death this year. The top three grossing movies this year worldwide are Barbie, The Super Mario Bros Movies, and Oppenheimer. All three are quite different. And I think they show that audiences are ready for something else, and are shopping around. What used to excite audiences in the 2010s simply isn't exciting them anymore. As GenZ becomes the same age Millennials were ten years ago, they're simply not into superhero movies. The demographic for superhero movies will continue to get older as they continue to fall out of fashion. GenZ is finding interest elsewhere as they made Hunger Games and Wonka hits that outgrossed the majority of superhero movies released this year.

So what of the future?

2024 is barren in Superhero movies. There are technically five comic book movies coming out. However, three of those are from the Sonyverse; Madame Web, Kraven the Hunter, and Venom 3. Two of those seem to be guaranteed bombs and I don't think anyone expects Venom 3 to hit the same numbers as the first Venom. The only two major comic book movies to come out in 2024 are Deadpool 3 and Joker Folie à Deux.

Deadpool 3 is going to be heavily connected to the MCU. With all the plot leaks available, it's looking to be a multiverse cameo fest. This seems exactly the wrong time to be doing this type of film. Cameo porn, as coined by James Gunn, is not a guaranteed money maker as The Flash made it evident earlier this year. Mix that in with the fact that Deadpool 2 was released now almost six years ago, when the market was friendlier to superhero movies, and how heavily connected it is to a Disney+ show, I don't believe this is going to right the MCU ship the way Disney is hoping.

Joker Folie à Deux, however, should benefit from not being a typical comic book film the way something like Deadpool 3 is going to be. And the first Joker has had a long shelf life in the minds of audiences. It should be able to rise above the fatigue of the genre to interest audiences in it.

Still, I wouldn't be surprised if we end up with another top 3 without superhero films. Audiences could potentially gravitate towards other blockbusters like The Garfield Movie, Beetlejuice 2, and Dune: Part Two, or some other variation of films, to make those the three highest-grossing films of the year.

As we look even further beyond, we have Captain America 4 (which was originally set to release in 2024 but got delayed due to them doing massive reshoots), Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, and Blade for the MCU in 2025. I doubt most of these are even gonna come out in 2025 since some of them don't even have completed scripts! From here on out I think the MCU is just too messy to predict. I suppose if something like Thunderbolts is good (which is being rewritten and directed by the duo that did Beef) that could help them start rebuilding their reputation. I'm not sure if there is gonna be any immediate fix available to jump-start the box office for this universe again though. I think it's gonna take some time. And I don't see the Avengers films currently planned to be massive money-makers either. I think it's time for Disney to reconsider their continuity, start over, and move on. They got too big too fast, and it's over.

Luckily for WB, well maybe not so lucky, the DCEU was already a disaster. So they got a headstart on rebooting and starting fresh with Superman: Legacy in 2025 (they should have rebooted after Justice League but Aquaman making a billion gave them false confidence that they could right the ship). Given Gunn's track record, this should be good. It should be well-reviewed, and it should get a strong audience reception. I think it can easily gross the same amount as The Batman given how much it has going for it. There has not been a good Superman movie since the 80s, I think it's about time a Superman movie breaks out with a 21st-century audience.

Also in 2025; The Batman Part II. Much like Joker, The Batman has kept a long shelf life. It resonated with the primary target audience for superhero films, that being white guys 25-35. It's dark and mature in a way that the audience wants these movies to be. People still talk about it and I don't see its relevancy dying down in another year. I think WB struck gold with The Batman, the way they did with Joker, and I think The Batman Part II could be another billion-dollar hit for WB.

It is weird to talk about a genre this way when it was dominant for most of my life. Writing a post-mortem for Superhero movies was not something I expected to do at the beginning of the year. It felt like something that was always going to be culturally dominant. But trends change and Hollywood is in an interesting place right now.

I've studied for motorcycle driving licenses in both my home country in Europe, and my work country in Asia. Something that really stood out to me was what each country said about braking. This wasn't just advice or anecdotes, it appeared on each formal theory test.

Europe: Front brakes are the strongest, they are your go-to in an emergency. Use front brakes to stop, and rear brakes to slow gently.

• https://bikesaint.com/blogs/motorcycle-safety/braking-on-a-motorcycle
• https://www.cycletrader.com/blog/2023/05/15/when-should-i-use-the-front-rear-brakes-on-a-motorcycle/

Asia: Rear brakes are the strongest, front brakes are deliberately weaker. This is because braking too hard on the front is very dangerous, you'll catapult yourself over the handlebars as the rear half of the bike still has momentum.

Direct translation of exam question:

Which of the following is wrong about using a motorcycle brake?

A use both front And rear brakes

B Front wheel brake first

C rear wheel brake first

D Do not use the front brake too early

Answer B

Look at the problem, to choose " wrong approach ", of course, is to choose " first use the front wheel brake ". The car is moving forward, then the use of front wheel brake, in the role of inertia, easy to cause rollover, we should pay attention to safety!

I guess my overall question is, what are the underlying approaches to brake engineering here? Are either of them 'more correct' or is it a case of different priorities at play?

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'll start posting a recurring topic for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app. This first one's a little early, but I wanted it to coincide with the Android v0.6.0 release.

A recurring megathread will make it easier for people to hit Ignore on each one if they want, without feeling like they're missing out on bigger announcements surrounding the app.

I'll make an effort to summarize the previous month's updates at the start of each topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates or user feedback.

Recently:

iOS hotfix v0.7.2: Fixed another Notifications crash, and fixed crash inserting emoji in reply

iOS hotfix v0.7.1: Fixed crash in Notifications tab

Android and iOS v0.7.0 (Dec 27, 2023)

• Added a markdown formatting bar when composing a comment
• Edit comments after posting them
• View markdown of other users' comments
• (Android) New setting: Quit confirmation
• Fixed comment reply preview bugs
• Fixed bugs viewing direct linked comments
• Fixed numbered list bug
• Fixed rate limit error message
• Fixed crashes and UI bugs

iOS v0.6.0 (Dec 11, 2023)

• In-app notifications of comment replies
• Added buttons to mark notifications read
• Highlight and jump to linked comments

Android v0.6.1 (Nov 30, 2023)

• Added buttons to mark notifications read
• Fixed crash tapping links in notifications
• Fixed notifications UI bugs

Android v0.6.0 (Nov 26, 2023)

• In-app notifications of comment replies
• Highlight and jump to linked comments
• Fixed tapping titles in ~music to open comments

Known bug: You can't manually mark notifications as read. I overlooked this because I have the "Automatically mark all notifications read when you view the Unread Notifications page" setting enabled on the website settings. I'll fix this soon.

Also the iOS version is still getting feedback on TestFlight after its November 1 release—thanks everyone for trying the app and giving feedback. The Android app will tend to get features sooner than iOS; I expect it to continue this way in general, just because I'm more familiar with Android development.

Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

iOS version on TestFlight: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!