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?

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What's the thing that was promised, not delivered, and just really upsets you?

For me, it's "The Doors of Stone" promised by Patrick Rothfuss. Every couple of months I think about how badly I'd love to read this book and it just really makes me angry. When I first read The Name of the Wind, I was awestruck. I just freaking loved this book. The Wise Man's Fear was a wait, but when delivered, it really satisfied me. Now, it's been 13 years!! Some days I think to myself, "I'm not even going to read his stupid book when it comes out." But, I'm kidding myself. Of course I'm going to read it...if he or I don't die first.

The plan only costs $1 a month. Apple can almost certainly eat that cost, and anyone who cannot complete their monthly exercise challenge because of illness or injury can probably still afford the $1 to keep the plan going.

The monthly challenge in the Fitness app is tailored to each user based on their exercise habits, right?

I've been on a hunt for a new monitor for over a year now. Something that can be for personal use and WFH with these specs:

• 4k
• 144Hz
• MiniLED
• <=34" (no curve)
• Built-in KVM switch

Having briefly experienced the INNOCN 27M2V, I expected a "perfect" monitor on the horizon.

Soon after I stumbled into a blog post announcing BenQ's reveal of a monitor that featured all the specs I wanted. I've finally got my hands on that monitor today having waited ~6 months.

First impression was the size. This monitor is a thicc boi. Made me think of a television, but not as heavy as I expected. I mounted it on my monitor arm (VESA 100) without problems.

The OSD is nifty and easy to navigate. There are 5 "quick menus" (ALPHA, BRAVO, etc.) that let you customize settings for each and quickly switch between them. These menus can be customized to select 3 "favorite" settings (e.g. brightness) so that you don't have to dig through the entire menu.

• What you see when you initially open the OSD
• Customizing quick menu favorites

After tinkering a bit, I've fired up Prince of Persia The Lost Crown. I've set the display profile to use the per-configured "Fantasy" color mode (with mini-led enabled). Honestly I don't know what I'm doing these settings, so I don't know whether this monitor is calibrated at all, but it was gorgeous. I don't think any picture I take will demonstrate how good it looks.

I don't have much to say about the KVM yet. But I connected my keyboard+mouse to the monitor, then connected the USB to USB-C to my desktop. I also connected my work laptop (USB-C to USB-C). Everything works, but it'll take a couple of days of normal use to see if there are hiccups. I like switching between desktop (waking from sleep) and my work laptop then vise-versa. I'm curious to see if the "auto scan" works like I want it to.

Unfortunately, I've discovered 2 "stuck" sub-pixels. According to BenQ's dead pixel policy, this is "acceptable". One of the sub-pixels (green) is almost in the center of the screen and I zero in on it almost immediately. I'll reach out to their support regardless because I prefer not to have defects at this price ($1199.99). If I'm lucky I'll discover another stuck sub-pixel.

BenQ's Specs

Fellow atheists, what alive religions (still practiced to a significant degree) do you find fascinating, not including Abrahamic ones and Hinduism? Are the reasons ethical, aesthetic, or something different? I'm excluding these two categories, because they are the answers of most people in English-speaking online spaces.

My reason for asking this to atheists and not all nonbelievers is because I wonder what religions pique the interest of people who don't believe in anything supernatural.

Edit: I was tired when I created the post, and accidentally wrote Hinduism. I meant Buddhism.

There are lots of localized ideas about who runs the world, like oligarchs in Russia or billionaires in America or Rupert Murdoch and his media empire, but if there was anyone coordinating the activities of these disparate groups I would think it would be someone doing things without a public presence, so as not to draw a target on their back.

I've seen this idea alluded to a lot, but never really fleshed out before.

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?

I implore anyone who can think of a better way to phrase the title, please suggest it.

Essentially, I use a self-hosted MediaWiki which is where I write everything, but when I just have an 'idea', I have a private Discord channel that I submit the information to. It can be a picture, or a character idea, or an idea for a scene or a shop or whatever-- I just have a channel where I dump all of my ideas, and then when I have time, I go back through them, iterate, add them to my wiki (making them 'canon'), and then deleting the messages.

I would really like something else to do this, because Discord is obviously not meant for this. Unfortunately, the caveat is that it needs to be useable on mobile, because I'd say 80%+ of my ideas like this happen when I'm not at my computer.

My first thought was to set up and self-host a ticketing system-- something like Znuny, but outside of using Zendesk for work, I don't really know that much about them, and it feels like it might be overkill (on top of not working on mobile, I don't think). It has the benefit of being able to immediately have the data organized, so I can double-check to make sure I'm not repeating character names, or ideas, or anything like that.

So, with that in mind, what all are my options?

This is possibly the biggest movie of the year, definitely the biggest R-rated movie of the year (probably all time if it has any legs after last night's huge opening), and Marvel's first R-rated flick to be part of their "Cinematic Universe", so I think it might be worthy of discussion on those grounds alone.

I saw the movie last night in the most packed movie theater I've been in since before COVID. This experience was an absolute treat, and reminded me why I've always enjoyed going to big tentpole Marvel/DC movies opening weekend despite never really being into comics or super heroes as a kid. The energy of the crowd is downright infectious, and impossible to replicate at home.

As for the movie itself, I enjoyed it. I thought the story was a little thin. Deadpool's character arc here is not as strong as what we got in either of his first two outings, with Wolverine doing more of the heavy lifting. The primary antagonists, Mr. Paradox played by Matthew Macfadyen and Cassandra Nova played by Emma Corrin, are also not as well developed as their counterparts from the prior films (Ajax, Rusty, and Cable). However both still turn in solid, funny performances.

I think this is made up for by how well executed everything else is. This is a movie that only works because it is a Deadpool movie. Act 2 in particular is a non-stop assault of cameos and references that would make me groan in almost any other context, but had me laughing my ass off. The chemistry Reynolds and Jackman have on screen is palpable, making for the most entertaining super hero team up I've seen.

Perhaps more than anything, this is a love letter to 20th Century Fox's decades-long run of super hero movies, warts and all.

7.5/10. I had a great time, but I think the central premise here only works once. If there is more Deadpool in our future, a smaller cast with more focus on character work like the first two would be welcome.

Some stand-out moments for me:

Lately I've been interested in different types of narrative structures, namely upon discovering Kishōtenketsu, the Japanese four-act structure and how it contrasts to the traditional western three-act structure.

Obviously narrative is not an exact science, and these structures are best thought of as guide rails to get you started, and a story can be told in so many unique ways. Which brings me to this post's title: The Bear.

The Bear has strong themes revolving around family and personal growth, that's for certain, but when it comes to narrative, it is very unique. Episode length can vary quite a bit, and so too can episode content. Episode 1 of the most recent season was a time-bending, heartstring-tugging montage. Episode 2 was essentially just a single conversation.

And while there are some episodes with a traditional narrative structure with a clear beginning, climax, and ending, I would say most episodes steer away from this concept. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that any sort of resolution is very rare in this show. Episodes, or even entire seasons can pass without many of the major conflicts or problems being resolved, which certainly adds to the high-pressure, anxiety-inducing mantra of the show as a whole.

I'd say The Bear leans heavily into the Slice of Life trope. Where we're being invited into brief glimpses of the lives of the characters, where relationships are complicated, problems aren't always solved, and life is simply messy and unorganized. The Bear doesn't follow any sort of formula that audiences would find satisfying (but that certainly doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable).

So, back to the question in the title. Does anyone know where I might read or learn more about the type of narrative structure that The Bear employs? Is there even a name for it? As innovative as the show is, is still has this certain air of nostalgia that reminds me a lot of Sopranos, which is another show that I believe breaks the mold of traditional story structure, especially in an episodic format.

Any insight would be greatly appreciated! Enjoy your day, and godspeed.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Have you ever read it? And what do your friends think about it?

I'm really interested in foreign (I'm from Ukraine) opinions on this subject.

Sorry for my bad English, thanks.