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25 votes
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Writer, woman, playwright, spy: Aphra Behn, author of Oroonoko was the first known woman to be paid for writing in English
8 votes -
Swedish land owner wins legal battle to keep 14kg meteorite – appeals court ruled that such rocks should be considered “immovable property” and part of the land where they are found
23 votes -
Deciding whether to continue with chemotherapy and immunotherapy
I have stage four colo-rectal cancer. It's not curable. It's not particularly treatable. I'm getting palliative care, but I'm not yet end of life. They're not offering surgery or radiotherapy...
I have stage four colo-rectal cancer. It's not curable. It's not particularly treatable. I'm getting palliative care, but I'm not yet end of life. They're not offering surgery or radiotherapy (yet, that may change). They are giving me chemotherapy (capecitabine and irinotecan) and immunotherapy (cetuximab).
Prognosis is difficult, but if everything goes well I have about 18 months.
I've had 6 cycles of treatment. I had a re-staging PET CT scan and the results were very good.
But, here's the thing: chemo & immuno therapy suck. I don't just mean "I feel a bit bad sometimes", I mean "I feel awful most of the time."
We've just about got nausea under control, but those meds cause constipation and that's causing problems with my stoma. And because the nausea meds are only used for the first week it means the second week I have problems with fast output, and that's causing other problems with my stoma. My stoma team and my oncology team are not particularly joined up. In theory I can build in laxido for the first week and loperamide for the second week but that's complicated because side effects are so variable. And that's just stoma output -- there's a bunch of other stuff around pain, fatigue, skin toxicity (I'm not allowed in the sun, even on bright but overcast days. I have to use three different creams, but not too much of any of them, and they're not compatible with each other), loss of appetite, etc.
One example of how healthcare isn't joined up and I'm getting conflicting advice (there are lots of these): My stoma team want me to wear a hernia support belt to prevent my hernia getting worse, and to help my stoma work properly. But this is a tight broad elastic belt going round my lower abdomen, right where my diaphragm is, and so it makes it harder for me to breath. My physio doesn't want me to wear the belt because it's interfering with fatigue treatment (which is "do more stuff, but do it slowly, and build in breaks, and FOCUS ON YOUR BREATHING"). My oncology team have no opinion and are leaving it to the other teams.
I know some people just want more life, and they don't care about side effects. "Do anything you can to give me more life". But that's not me. I'd much rather have 3 months of mostly feeling okay and then a month of active death over a year of mostly feeling fucking lousy and then a few months of active death.
I don't know how to talk to my family about this. I have spoken to my care team and they're giving me all the options - (1) continue chemo and immuno therapy on 2 week cycles until I die or until it stops working, and try to buidl in better support meds. (2) continue chemo & immuno on 2 week cycles, but build in breaks (3) stop chemo & immuno and focus on pain relief.
Some tricky decisions to be made.
77 votes -
Tildes Book Club discussion - Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Warning: this post may contain spoilers
This is the first of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing Cloud Atlas.
Our next book will be Piranesi, sometime in the third week of April.I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.
For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.24 votes -
Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news
Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like glassdoor, monopolies and steam.families. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone...
Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like glassdoor, monopolies and steam.families. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was curious.
But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched
offbeat
stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!4 votes -
Fun programming challenge: figure out which sets of passports grant visa-free access to the whole world
Hey there, I wanted to know which sets of passports grant together visa-free access to every country in the world, but I could not easily find that info online. So I figured that I could try to...
Hey there,
I wanted to know which sets of passports grant together visa-free access to every country in the world, but I could not easily find that info online. So I figured that I could try to write a small program to determine these sets of passports myself, and then it occurred to me that it would probably be a fun programming challenge to organize, so here we go.
Here's the challenge.
- Scrape the data you need for instance from The Henley Passport Index.
- Design a clever algorithm to efficiently find out which are the smallest sets of passports that will grant you visa-free access to every country in the world.
- Optional. Allow the user to specify which passports they already hold and find out which sets of passports would complement their passports well.
- Optional. Rank the sets of passports by how easy it is to acquire citizenship in those countries.
The choice of the programming language is yours, bonus points if you write it in assembly 😂
Feel free to collaborate and share your solutions (the algorithms and the actual results) in the comments, and feel free to share your own twists to the challenge that could make it even more fun & interesting.
The person with the most clever, efficient and elegant algorithm wins!
Happy coding folks!
32 votes -
A new service is trying to fight California's loneliness epidemic
19 votes -
In the AI era, is translation already dead?
18 votes -
Stardew Valley 1.6 update released on PC
51 votes -
Trains on the Moon
8 votes -
Tastes like chicken? Think again—edible ants have distinctive flavor profiles.
16 votes -
Why do some companies borrow and others sell shares?
9 votes -
Rage Against the Machine's first public performance (10/23/91 @ Cal State North Ridge)
29 votes -
Memecoin trading at levels last seen before crypto bubble burst
20 votes -
Jacob’s Dream - MAGA meets the Age of Aquarius
3 votes -
"The university campus is rapidly becoming a locus of infantilizing social control that any independent-minded student should seek to escape"
42 votes -
The Israeli settlers shrugging off sanctions to menace the West Bank – Measures against extremists do little to temper a movement emboldened by the Gaza war
18 votes -
Alien: Romulus | Official teaser trailer
23 votes -
Tesla's gear-shifting problems known long before Angela Chao's death
36 votes -
Athletes likely to have higher levels of PFAS after play on artificial turf – study
9 votes -
Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra | Story trailer
7 votes -
Investigating touchscreen ergonomics to improve tablet-based enrichment for parrots
19 votes -
Chappell Roan: Tiny Desk Concert (2024)
7 votes -
Seems like all socials are being scraped for AI and personal/aggregate data. Is Tildes?
I was just reminded of that again when going back and looking at some of my old posts on reddit which is openly selling online data. Prompted me to use Redact which erases and overwrites comments...
I was just reminded of that again when going back and looking at some of my old posts on reddit which is openly selling online data. Prompted me to use Redact which erases and overwrites comments before deleting them. But that got me wondering if the same is true of Tildes? And how would we know?
34 votes -
Solar viewer for the upcoming eclipse
21 votes -
The creeping politicization of the US Military
17 votes -
How do you keep your home smelling nice?
Assume cleaning is done on a regular basis. My apartment has a subtle "scent" from, what I assume to be, the vinyl flooring wax. I'd like that to not be the smell visitors first experience. I'm...
Assume cleaning is done on a regular basis. My apartment has a subtle "scent" from, what I assume to be, the vinyl flooring wax. I'd like that to not be the smell visitors first experience.
I'm considering an air purifier/diffuser, but don't know if they're effective.
32 votes -
A pill to make exercise obsolete (2017)
19 votes -
New Music Fridays: Kacey Musgraves, Four Tet, Tierra Whack and more
This is a thread to discuss 2024 releases that have recently arrived on our doorstep, or been announced for the future. Feel free to share albums, singles, EPs or reissues that have caught your...
This is a thread to discuss 2024 releases that have recently arrived on our doorstep, or been announced for the future. Feel free to share albums, singles, EPs or reissues that have caught your eye and interest, or share your thoughts about any new music that you've had the chance to listen to this week.
Discussion Points
Is there anything you've been looking forward to listening to?
Any releases that have surprised you?
Have you listened to any new music recently? What are your thoughts?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past? How does their latest work compare?Links:
Pitchfork - Out This Week
AllMusic - All New Releases
Stereogum - New Music~~ Feedback on the format welcome
7 votes -
Teemu Pukki: ‘It is a big thing, one of the biggest games in Finnish football history’
4 votes -
Show Tildes: mapping almost every law, regulation and case in Australia
14 votes -
Populist parties’ divisions jeopardise chances of setting EU agenda
6 votes -
Scientific research suggests it might be a good idea to add python to your diet
20 votes -
100,000 years and counting – how do we tell future generations about highly radioactive nuclear waste repositories?
20 votes -
Novo Nordisk Foundation is entering into a partnership with Nvidia to establish a national AI research centre in Denmark – will be home to one of the world's most powerful supercomputers
5 votes -
Has anyone here received any benefit as a consumer from algorithmic ad targeting?
I always get ads for items I have already purchased and won't need again for years if ever.
40 votes -
Indonesia’s e-bike shops are building their own batteries
10 votes -
Let's talk about Eurovision Song Contest 2024
The contest is still 6 weeks away, but the national finals season is over and all songs have been released. So let's hear your favourites, predictions, opinions, hot takes, and wild speculations!
15 votes -
Root cause of Alzheimer's may be fat buildup in brain cells, research suggests
22 votes -
Queer time: The alternative to “adulting”
23 votes -
US judge rules YouTube, Facebook and Reddit must face lawsuits claiming they helped radicalize a mass shooter
47 votes -
Please proofread this AI-generated AutoHotkey script
For my job I need to copy a person's name out of a field and split it into first and last names. I have a AHK script that can do this but my version only works with simple, one-word,...
For my job I need to copy a person's name out of a field and split it into first and last names. I have a AHK script that can do this but my version only works with simple, one-word, non-hyphenated names. I tried prompting Gemini as below.
There is a line of text consisting of one or more words, a comma, then one or more words. write an autohotkey 1.1 script to select everything before the comma, store it to a variable called firstname, then select everything after the comma and store it to a variable called lastname. thanks
(the firstname and lastname variables should be swapped as the last name would come before the comma, that was my error)
Here's the AutoHotkey 1.1 script to achieve what you described:
; This script splits a text line into first and last name based on a comma #NoEnv ; Recommended for performance and compatibility. SendMode Input ; Simulates keystrokes for reliable input. ; Function to split the text Func SplitText(_text, firstName, lastName) { StringSplit, parts, _text, `,` if (parts[1]) { firstName := parts[1] ; Assign first name lastName := SubStr(_text, 1 + StrLen(parts[1])+1) ; Extract last name after comma (including space) } else { firstName := _text ; Handle cases without a comma lastName := "" } } ; Hotkey to trigger the script (replace F2 with your desired key) F2:: Send, ^c ; Copy the selected text to clipboard clipText := ClipboardAll ; Read the clipboard content SplitText(clipText, firstName, lastName) ; Call the function to split the text MsgBox, First Name: %firstName%`nLast Name: %lastName% ; Optional: Clear clipboard to avoid unintended pasting (comment out if not desired) ; Clipboard := Return
Explanation:
#NoEnv and SendMode Input: These lines are included for performance and reliable input simulation.
Func SplitText(_text, firstName, lastName): This function takes the text (_text) as input and assigns the split parts to variables firstName and lastName.
StringSplit, parts, _text, ,:** Splits the text based on the comma (,`) delimiter.
if (parts[1]):** Checks if there's a second part (i.e., text after the comma).
If true, the first part is assigned to firstName and the text after the comma (including the space) is extracted using SubStr and assigned to lastName.
else:** If there's no comma, the entire text is assigned to firstName and lastName is set to an empty string.
F2::: This line defines a hotkey. When F2 is pressed, the following actions occur:
Send, ^c:** Copies the selected text to the clipboard.
clipText := ClipboardAll:** Reads the copied text from the clipboard and stores it in the variable clipText.
SplitText(clipText, firstName, lastName):** Calls the function to split the copied text into first and last names.
MsgBox:** Displays a message box showing the extracted first name and last name.
Optional: Clear Clipboard: The commented line Clipboard := clears the clipboard content after processing. Uncomment this line if you want to avoid accidentally pasting the copied text elsewhere.Edit: To answer questions, and provide info I probably should have from the beginning: I'm a medical transcriptionist using AHK with my job's software (Emdat Inscribe) and a word expander (Instant Text). Inscribe seems to be browser-based but functions as a standalone app. I already have dozens of AHK 1.1 macros; my .ahk file has over 2000 lines, although I'm sure it's terribly written code. This is also why I'm disinclined to switch to AHK 2.0 since I have no desire to rewrite everything unless absolutely necessary. The first part of this macro is a bunch of keypresses to jump to the relevant patient info field, then this part would be used to store the names appropriately. I already have hotkeys to use the variables as needed and most macros are limited with #ifwinactive to Inscribe.
6 votes -
The left is smeared as the angry mob again and again. In reality, it is the target of political violence.
32 votes -
Overwatch 2 devs fear story missions have been canceled
15 votes -
NASA’s x-ray telescope faces a long goodbye
12 votes -
Michael "BrolyLegs" Begum, competitive Street Fighter player with arthrogryposis, passed away at 35
18 votes -
What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)
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...
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!
5 votes -
Is a NAS for me?
Hi, I keep reading about this thing called a "NAS" and I don't have in my social network a bunch of reasonable geeks to figure out if this is something for me or if it is overkill and I can get by...
Hi, I keep reading about this thing called a "NAS" and I don't have in my social network a bunch of reasonable geeks to figure out if this is something for me or if it is overkill and I can get by with less -- trying to be frugal and all.
The Situation
At the moment, I have a Raspberry Pi 3 (that a colleague gifted me) which runs Jellyfin, mostly for music. I'd use it for watching series and movies, but given how slow it is at transferring files and the fact that it has a 1GB (maybe 2GB) RAM... I was afraid to break it. On top of that, its storage is a years-old external hard drive.
I use Jellyfin mostly to have music on my iPhone. I can access it when I'm out and about on Tailscale. I hope to find a solution for my photos as well.
I'd also occasionally use the pi to experiment with some self-hosted open-source apps.
I constantly find myself wanting to upgrade because I want to also backup my important photos (with face recognition if possible) and documents "offline" (i.e. in my local network) to something more stable than an aging hard drive. They're all in the cloud, but a second backup option could be great.
What I understand from reading about NAS's is that I basically have one, it's just not... reliable?
The Question
I understand there is definitely a buy-in cost for buying an actual NAS, I'd like to know how much... so that I can make an informed decision on if and when I would buy it. What is an entry-level NAS and how much will it cost? What could it NOT do that an RPi could, and vice-versa? Am I missing an in-between or even an alternative solution for my use case? Is it overkill and should I just upgrade the pi? What are my options?
Thanks in advance for reading my post!
20 votes -
India electrified 45% of its railway network in just five years
30 votes