I went to university for computer science up until the pandemic started. It was great. I remember working on so many projects that were basic but a lot of fun and others that were a lot more complex but still fun and rewarding. For example, one of the staples of beginner projects is Conway's Game of Life. I remember building that in HTML, CSS, and Java Script. One of my other favorite projects was a website for alum to visit to see alumni news and events, and also to lookup other alum.

What were your favorite projects when learning to code?

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?

Is there a way to collapse really long comments? I find that a very small number of Tildes.net posters often write really long comments (if I were cynical I might say excessively long and I freely admit that I am sometimes among them) which makes it really hard to navigate comment threads because I can't see the child comments very easily.

Is there a setting to collapse long comments (so that one has to press a "read more" button to see them). Otherwise, I would like to suggest that this be considered for addition to Tildes at some point :)

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?

As a result of my improving health, I am looking to finally start working on exercise. I have been through a class on exercise before but I was in very poor shape and wasn't really able to do much at the time so most of the practical stuff I had learned has escaped me, and now I only know enough to hurt me, it seems. I want to do some resistance exercises and even purchased a dumbell but I'm hesitant to do much with it because I'm worried about accidentally hurting myself.

There are tons of resources on the web, but there is so much that it's actually a problem. I don't know how to evaluate their quality, and far too often do I see bad health advice on the internet so it's hard to trust any of them.

With that being said, can anyone recommend me some trustworthy resources for physical fitness information? I'm looking for information on resistance training exercises particularly, but I'd like any information you'd like to share about fitness in general.

There hasn't been a megathread for a while so I wanted to post the latest news as well as a couple other pieces of news from the past week along with a couple articles providing additional context.

The latest piece of news is Ukrainian forces withdraw from Avdiivka to avoid encirclement, army chief says. This is very concerning and I hope encourages people to continue urging their politicians to find ways of supporting Ukraine in a larger capacity than they have in recent months.

The other day there was also this article titled Rate of Russian military production worries Europe's war planners. If you don't have time to listen to Perun's hour-long PowerPoint from 4 months ago on the same subject (Russian Defence Production 2023 - Can Russia keep up with equipment attrition in Ukraine?), then The Guardian article is a decent primer.

It also links to a Foreign Affairs article published in January of 2024 going into more detail about Russia's economic expenditures and its uneven footing: Putin’s Unsustainable Spending Spree: How the War in Ukraine Will Overheat the Russian Economy (Archive.is link). This is a particularly interesting article as it details the expenses as a percent of GDP that have recently made the rounds in the news this week, as well as how military spending as spurred growth in some industries, while others also tangentially related are lagging behind despite the government's stimulus. Additionally, Russia is spending the equivalent of billions of dollars on annexed regions of Ukraine. It then details the consequences of this substantially increased spending and increased wages that may be dislocating the civilian economy in favor of maintaining enough supplies for a further extended attritional war.

The Guardian article say that:

New analysis by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) estimates that Russia has lost 3,000 armoured fighting vehicles in the last year and close to 8,800 since the war began.
Unable to produce anywhere near that number of vehicles, Russia has mainly refurbished ageing hardware ...
Russian factories claimed to have delivered 1,500 main battle tanks this year, of which 1,180 to 1,280 had been reactivated from storage, according to IISS. Those numbers, along with reactivated armoured personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles, meant Russia would “be able to sustain its assault on Ukraine at current attrition rates for another two to three years, and maybe even longer”, the group said.

For reference, the landing ship that was recently destroyed by Ukrainian Unmanned Surface Vessels (Magura V5 sea drones), Caesar Kunikov, could carry 10 main battle tanks and 340 troops or 12 armored personnel carriers and 340 troops. Though it's not clear what role that ship was playing, as trains play a significant role in deploying men and materiel to the frontlines.

Finally, an article I'd meant to post several months ago to just sort of talk about in general terms: What would happen if Russia invaded Finland? I went to a giant war game in London to find out. Has anyone ever participated in war gaming, have a background or took a class on game theory, or enjoyed the history of tabletop gaming that dates back to this war-time activity? Just interested in what people have to say.

This is Album of the Week #22 ~ This week's album is Dark Tranquillity - Fiction

Year of Release: 2006
Genre(s): Melodic Death Metal
Country: Sweden
Length: 46 minutes
RYM | Listen!

Excerpt from MetalReviews:

Dark Tranquillity stand as one of the few Gothenburg bands who have remained true to their roots throughout their careers, and it’s a welcome thing to know that such bands still exist and are putting out quality material without sounding the least bit stale or tired. On Fiction, Dark Tranquillity handles multiple strands of melody and atmosphere with a master’s touch, crafting something that easily stands against accusations of stagnancy in the genre. Simply put – this is one of the good ones.

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 ~~