I read through He Who Fights with Monsters and it was not only my first read into the genre, so far it's been my favorite. I've come to absolutely love the characters, especially the protagonist, and the humor. Interesting and likeable characters are what makes or breaks a book for me.

I'm waiting on the next book to release, and in the mean time I've tried reading some others, but I've disliked what I've read so far. I read through the first three and a half books of Defiance of the Fall, but not only is the main character just hands down boring and contradictory, it's made worse by the fact that I don't believe the author is a very good writer. The amount of times a character has "snorted" and "rolled their eyes" is honestly a bad running joke.

After this I tried reading the Iron Druid Chronicles. It's not a LitRPG book, just a fantasy novel that takes place in modern times, but the author spent very little time on anything but the major plot points. Everything happens in such rapid succession that there's no depth given to the characters. I don't think it's poorly written, I just think it's just written for a different kind of reader. The books are also incredibly short for me, and I finished the first three in just a few days.

I'm halfway through the first book of The Primal Hunter now, and the writing is far better than Defiance of the Fall, the protagonist much better written, except I'm not sure I like him all that much. Very much the "I'm quiet, smart, and better than everyone" kind of attitude you'd get out of the know it all in high school, except supposedly this guy is a grown adult.

I've read all of these through Kindle Unlimited and they were all suggested to me by the app itself. I've only recently picked up reading again since dropping Reddit altogether, so I'm not super well versed into the best ways of finding new series to read.

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?

It's been a while since we had a lighthearted talk on here about something silly, and this question has been bouncing around my head for years now. Figured it'd be fun to ask and see what people come up with!

So, you can take one person from any time period and send them to any historic event for a duration of your choice. You can go for serious stuff, like sending a bodyguard to save someone from an assassination, or yourself to some moment in history you're curious about... Or you could send Stephen Hawking to his own time traveler party. Maybe throw some conspiracy theorist at Roswell 1947 or let some ancient king crash Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee.

The options are literally limitless. I'm just interested to see what everyone comes up with!

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.

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!

I really want to try out bead crochet, I found a decent yt tutorial for starting and this pintrest board has enough patterns to last a lifetime, but i have absolutely no idea where to start in terms of buying supplies.

Does anyone here do bead crochet? could you point me in the right direction for the correct floss & beads to use? (and also the needed findings, I think each one needs 2 caps and a tube to stabilize it; I have plenty of jump rings and lobster clasps already cos I do chainmaille so that's not an issue) or any other tips would be appreciated too!!

I’ve casually discussed with several of other printers on here, but would love to casually chat about the hobby

What you print with, materials, settings, slicer, etc.

Me personally, I use a heavily modified Ender 3V2 that runs klipper with a dual z axis and direct drive extruder hotend (orbiter 2.0 on a V6)

I print a variety of PLA, PETG, and just recently got into ABS and ASA

I’m currently working on wiring up a stealth burner setup for the X axis though (in preparation for my Voron build 👀)

And I just recently finished printing the Input Labs Alpakka controller! (which is super duper cool)

But yeah I’m down to answer any questions or talk about anything 3D Printer related

Heavily inspired by last week's thread as well as my recent dental health kick, I'm looking for some toothpaste recommendations.

Previously, I used an imported UK version of Sensodyne, because it was the only way to get the version with novomin. I've run out of that stuff and have started using an interesting toothpaste I picked up from a Japanese store called AcessL from Sato Pharmaceuticals. It's got a unique herbal flavor to it that I like in small bits, but it's not great for my tongue because it's actually pretty salty-flavored, which turns me off of it.

Hello fellow Tildians,

I'm considering a move from Northern Virginia (NoVa) to Raleigh, NC, and would love some insight from those familiar with the area. I'm in my 20s and curious about the scene down there.

Although I haven’t spent much time in NoVa, one of the main reasons I’m looking at Raleigh is that NoVa feels like it has a more transient population. There's nothing inherently wrong with that (and I realize I’m contributing to it myself), but I’m hoping for something with more rooted connections.

How easy is it to make friends or date in Raleigh? I know it’s a broad question, but if anyone has lived in both places and can compare, that would be super helpful!

Additionally, are there any neighborhoods or locations I should avoid? I’m considering purchasing a home but want to stay within 15-20 minutes of Raleigh.

Any insights or advice would be greatly appreciated!

A question for the more tech-savvy here.

I seem to recall an article about Google trying to eliminate competition by making it so that searches or other content would work well on Chrome but not on Firefox. I think I also heard they both run on Chromium, so the engine under the end is the same? I don't fully remember.

But where I'm going with this: I'm noticing lately that certain websites or searches won't work well with Firefox, but when i switch to Chrome, they go off without a hitch. I admit that this often involves personal information being entered (side note- I even had one incident where it didn't work on laptop and had to resort to my phone instead to get it to work). The problem is... I HATE using Chrome. There are some issues with Firefox occasionally, but I'm going to use FF about 90% of the time. And I think I heard that people are becoming more aware of how much of a bastard Chrome is... so is Chrome fighting back dirty to force people to come back over? Or could it possibly be some completely unrelated issue?

Hey ho, so I'm taking over running one of my existing D&D groups. I have a campaign in my pocket that I have run part of before, A dystopian Narnia. If somehow my players meet just the right overlaps of nerd and techness to have ended up here. Leave now .

But it's really a set up for a longer campaign that I hope bridges into more worlds. I have the Narnian World really fleshed out, but if somebody feels particularly passionate and has ideas, please let me know. I can provide any detail folks would like into being asked a tricky question just helps me World build so please go for it.

The general gist is that our adventurers are pulled by a much weakened aslan from faerun or whatever default world we start from into Narnia. There they find it has been a thousand years of winter and rule by The White Witch. I'm familiar enough with the lore that if they decide to leave the country of Narnia or seek out another witch as an ally I have some options. Hopefully they save the day and free Narnia from Christmas-less winter. (I'm leaning hard into all the broad references to mythology in Narnia, Dionysus and the Maenads, the River God

If they do, they will receive a set of the magic rings used in The magician's nephew to allow people to pop between Narnia and the wood between the worlds. Allowing them to hop into other stories that have been similarly messed up.

I am looking for One Big Idea But also some other suggestions

1. The suggestions I'm looking for are other stories from about the same realm of stories that could be similarly messed up, ideas I had included Dinotopia, Wrinkle in Time, The Rats of NIMH, maybe one of the Discworld stories (I feel like half of those characters would be self aware) particularly thinking middle grade books with a dip towards children's or younger YA stuff, particularly fantasy stories, particularly those with some nostalgia for my fellow millennial PCs. I don't want to touch Harry Potter.

2. My idea for the reason why the story went wrong is that someone is rewriting it, possibly due to hating children or hating happy endings or something. I wanted a BBEG but I can't think of one. Umbridge is out for the Harry Potter reasons, but who else would go to the trouble? I am planning on the villain having acquired "magical book mcguffin" (that I also need to figure out) that's letting them do this. I like the idea of a villain who gets a lot of power but uses it in such a petty way, to rewrite children's stories

It'll take a long time to get out of Narnia, we don't play very often, and we may not continue depending on how players feel but as someone who's worked this idea over and over in their head for a while, I would love to get past these things.

Spouse fell in love with Rancho Gordo's premium dry beans, and got a subscription.

We're now swimming in beans, but I'm not a bean lover - they usually taste bitter to me unless huge amounts of spice and vegetables are added. I prefer Asian cuisine flavor profiles, and dry beans don't seem to figure in much Chinese, Thai, or Vietnamese cookery.

But I'm game to try anything - please hit me with your favorite bean recipes. Vegetarian or vegan for preference, but I'll look at recipes that include animal products for flavoring and come up with my own alternatives.

Hi DnD friends,

I'm tackling a new DM challenge and could use some guidance. I'm designing a dungeon where humanoid beavers are attempting to awaken a sleeping god. Their efforts get derailed when they offer the god a magical plant that overgrows their entire base, warping the rooms and fusing many surviving beavers into half-plant, half-beaver creatures.

Since our group is relatively new, I've found that combat can be a bit slow. To speed things up and make combat more dynamic, I want to include environmental elements and traps—things like shelves that can be pushed over or a chandelier that can be dropped on enemies. I hope this will make the players feel more impactful when they pull off creative moves.

I plan to design a large building that encourages investigation, puzzle solving, and backtracking. My goal is for the players to get familiar with the map before combat, allowing them to discover useful items or environmental features they can take advantage of when enemies appear.

Since I've never done anything like this, I'm seeking advice on how to approach the design. Are there common pitfalls I should avoid to keep the building fun? How large should the maps be if I want to run this over 3 sessions, each about 3 hours long? And what types of puzzles would fit well in this environment?

Thanks a ton for your ideas! I’m already feeling like I may be reaching too high, but I’m excited to give it a shot!

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?

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.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like internet archive, queerphobia and concord. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was bamboozled.

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!

This about sums it up. I'm looking for good magazines to read. I'm probably going to do a Vogue from Italy, UK, etc, some sort of techy magazines... a wide variety. I've been out of the magazine world for a time, though, so all I seem to know are Conde Nast titles.. which is depressing.

Stuff available in PDF is ideal, since I'll be pulling these from a library. The magazines don't have to be available in Libby or whatever, though.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows 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.

Edit: Apache OR Nginx? Could someone fix my title - I posted without proofing.

My wife is having half decent success with ecommerce. She's doing great on Etsy and eBay, and now her website is starting to pick up.

It's currently hosted on 20i who pride themselves on being an excellent WordPress and Woocommerce provider, with a half decent CDN. In reality, I think it's pretty shit for what you pay for.

I'm tempted to either grab a VPS or even go as far as a bare metal at a CoLo with public IP and run the full stack myself. If I do, shall I go Apache or Nginx? I've done both and I'm pretty agnostic. OS would be Debian.

Before I go to this length though, does anyone know of a fair priced but good performing Woocommerce platform? She's got hundreds of hours already, the plugins and over 300 products listed, so I'm loathe to move to a different solution, however, I'm not ruling it out.

The reason to not all in on Etsy or eBay is the 25% cut they take of everything. Using a personal site and Stripe payment platform means it's more 1% + 20p for processing.

Ideas, thoughts and suggestions please?

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!

I miss playing D&D with a group, but hanging out for 5+ hours at a time every week just doesn't fit into my schedule. However, I was thinking about how some mobile games have handled this - Words with Friends has (had?) a mode where you would get notified when it was your turn, and you could play whenever you had free time. I think there's at least one chess game that operated this way as well.

I can't imagine many human players would appreciate long waits between moves, when D&D is designed to be very immersive. So I'm being realistic and wondering what options there are as a single player.

Baulder's Gate 3 is fun, but I don't expect anything with that level of graphical fidelity. And something I could play on my phone would be ideal (but not a dealbreaker if I can't).

Are there options like this out there, or do I just have to accept that D&D doesn't have a place in my life?

I love westerns and would like to hear about your favorites and thoughts on the genre. Preferably a bit more than just a list of titles.

What is your relationship with the western genre and do you have some favorites you want to recommend?

Do you prefer spaghetti westerns, neo westerns, animated western or classic John Wayne westerns?

Does the western genre have a future?

How many friends do you have? Good good friends vs more casual friends. What's the dividing line or definition of one vs the other for you? Related question: what life stage are you in, and what was friendship like at a different stage?

How do you keep in touch, esp for friends not in your city? Do you call them randomly or call / video chat with them regularly? Do texts count? Do people welcome phone calls out of the blue or is it more like, "oh gosh you have cancer" if one gets a call from a friend these days?

How much effort are regular people* putting into maintaining/strengthening their friendships in their late-30s onwards? (Regular people being, maybe, folks who aren't terminally online, folks who are neurotypical, folks without social anxiety etc?) [edit: oh no I messed up!! I mean that I super want to hear from others who fit one or more of these boxes as well, but since I'm 3/3 plus all kinds of crazy I am interested to know if these are factors in friendships, particularly because most people are of the "normal" sort who would have to put up with me.....my apologies.]

Do folks suddenly realise maybe they don't have many/any close friends, or they're not as close anymore as they thought they were decades ago? How do folks maintain friendship as people age and move apart? Or is it just normal that once you're not in the same city to hang out, they stop being good friends?

Have you ever made conscious and serious efforts to make / rekindle friendships before? How, and how'd that turn out ?

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?

This is the sixth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing Small Gods by Terry Pratchett. Our next book will be This is How You Lose the Time War around the end of September.

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.

I’ve been shaving for about five years, and in that time I’ve always been using an electric razor. I’m not sure why, but that was the first way that I learned to shave, and I’d never bothered to try a different tool - until 10 minutes ago, when I shaved with a cartridge razor for the first time.

Oh, my, word. It’s like magic - as if I’m just wiping the hairs off my face. I don’t think I’ll ever go back now, this shave was easier, less messy, and closer, plus since I can easily see where I’ve already been and what I have left to do because of the shaving foam I don’t accidentally miss a patch.

Now I’m wondering, how do other Tilderinos shave, and what has your experience been with different types of razor?

I used the Kindle ecosystem for a while before souring on Amazon. Now I’m bought into the Kobo ecosystem, which is great in some ways but frustrating in others.

I’m curious if there’s a sort of DIY book cloud platform out there. I’ve come across a few, but they all seem to lack what, to me, is the killer feature of the Kobo/Kindle platforms:

Cross-syncing between mobile (iOS), ereader, and web reader

Most of the ones I’ve found can do this with some of those devices, but not all three.

I ask because I regularly hop between reading on different devices to the point that I avoid reading books that I can’t do this with (e.g. all my DRM free books, physical books, etc.). I’ve even re-bought books I already own in other formats just so I can have them inside the “sync loop” because it’s so much easier for me. I’d rather not have to do that though.

Are there any independent options out there that cover this use case? I primarily want to use it for DRM free books I got from bundles, as well as books that I de-DRMed from my Kindle. I would also happily buy a different ereader device that supports this (currently I use a Kobo Forma).

Meta note: wasn’t sure if this topic was better in ~books or ~tech — feel free to move it if needed!

I have been having a lot of trouble finding a digital clock. I don't even know where to ask for recs, I tried a couple subreddits but there is no /r/digitalclocks so I'm trying a more general place here and maybe someone can help?

My requirements (I'm in the USA so that's where the time finding needs to happen):

1. It autosets the time based on the radio signal
2. It automatically detects DST
3. Backup battery so if I get a power failure it doesn't lose the time
4. The time is the only thing on the display. (Although, this seems to be the hardest one to find, so, if it also shows the temperature or something, that's ok, as long as the time is a lot bigger than anything else)
5. Not willing to spend more than $50 on a clock
6. Needs to be LED not LCD, i.e. I want to be able to see the time in a dark room without pressing a light-up button or anything

Additional bonuses:

1. If it has a rainbow display
2. If it has a USB charging port
3. Big numbers, like at least 1.5" tall

I don't care about the alarm or any overhead projection features.

If you have a digital clock that you love that meets these requirements (or at least mostly does) I would like to hear about it!! Thanks!!

To be clear, I'm a native Texan. But I'm tired of the goings-on of the county that I've always lived in. I feel like I've already done everything there is to do. I want to meet people that feel genuinely 'new' to me and have as many novel experiences as I can in a short period of time.
I'm planning on moving during January since that's when my lease is up at my apartment. What things should I expect? What should I seek?

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 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.

I use keepassxc as my password manager and it sits in the system tray quietly until it is requisited by a login form in firefox.

Gnome does not have a system tray, so you just open keepassxc on startup and it just stays there floating in the background?

It's been months since I last used Gnome. Did anything change or it's still like this?

I was impressed with our community’s response to this same question for the PlayStation.

I’m thinking of focusing my gaming habits on the Dreamcast for the month of September by emulating some old classics and hidden gems. I’d love to hear this community’s recommendations for the greatest underdog console of all time.

Let me know what games for Dreamcast you think are still worth playing today, especially less well-known ones, and why!

Homebrew and fan translations are also eagerly welcome!

UPDATE: the surgery went well amd she is recovering now

I talked in the past about my mother here.

She's been diagnosed with abdominal aortic aneurysm and keeping an eye on it.

Now it's time for surgery because it's big and in danger of rupture.

She's already in the hospital and will operate today or tomorrow.

She is still frail and eating less since my brother's death. Weight is only 44k/97lbs. She is 74 years old.

I keep reading that the endovascular surgery is not that dangerous. Just a minor cut in the groin, but I'm really afraid due to her weakness. Doctor assured is OK and he is the best in town. Last year he did 25 of these and this year 15.

Guess I'm just venting and afraid. Lost a brother a year and half ago and now it's my mother.

Feels like I'm just living between tragedies.

Hey Tildes,

Recently I picked up WoW again and I've felt a rush and focus I haven't felt for a while. I can play the game for an entire day. I feel nothing but guilt doing so. The one thing that gives me joy feels like something I'm not allowed to do at this stage of my life; I'm 35.

I'm in grouptherapy until march next year but I feel I'm not making any sensible progress. Others around me seem to open and loosen up, finding tangible changes that help their lives. Meanwhile I just keep resenting myself, dread doing anything that might even cost effort.

I feel I'm a fraud, a selfless good-for-nothing profiteer who blames anything but me. It fuels my self-hatred and my wish to self-isolate and act in self-destructive behavior. I also notice a growing bitterness as I get older.

I was asked to recommend a phone to an older relative that is bad with technology and wanted to ask some advice.

It is important that the phone is reliable and clean. That is no bloatware, popups, adware, nagware or anything like that. Other than that the requirements are simply as good a camera as is available at the budget and maps.

The options I can see are:

• standard Android phone - Personally I have Samsung A34 which would fit the hw and price but the sw is horrible. I also have no current experience with custom ROMs as I went with adb(and Universal Android Debloater for ease of use) to remove the worst of it. From what I have heard the Google Pixel comes with least amount of bloat as Android(single source) but they seemed to have different problems with hw each generation and the price would mean an older one. Maybe something else would be better choice here.

• iPhone - honestly I have zero experience here as I never had it so I don't even know how much it would fit. The price would also mean an older or used model

• Dumb or KaiOS phone would fail the camera requirement and the minimal phones mentioned here(eg. Light phone, Minimal phone) are expensive for what they are and I am not convinced a good choice here given the usual problems with niche hw and sw(but maybe I am wrong?)

I am in EU and the budget is less than 500EUR, preferably less than 350EUR.

This is something I've been thinking about for a long while. I will try to briefly explain my reasoning.

I live in a country that's not a western country. It has plenty of its problems with right-wingers, and they certainly do hate queer people. However, for years I've been observing and interacting with these people. Many of them, especially teenagers, 20 and 30 year olds, use the language and rhetoric of the American/Western right-wing.

They constantly talk and complain about SJWs, even though there is barely any left-wing in this country, much less a "SJW" type. They talk about "blacks" infiltrating the tv shows, movies, games. They talk about black people as if they are invaders. An ex-friend of mine, whom I cut contact with because of his increasing radicalization due to right-winger brainrot on Twitter, even said they will come here and ruin our country, "like they did to Europe". He doesn't talk to or have any friends from another nation, and has said this due to the American and Western brainrot spreading on Twitter.

This is extremely weird, because nobody before recent times had a major problem with black people here, because it's an extremely rare occurance whenever you see a black person. So, even right-wingers didn't seem to pay any attention to them. But this all changed with the utter shit rhetoric spread by the American and Western right-wingers on social media sites.

This applies to queer people as well. I've heard and seen so much imported rhetoric that I'm amazed at the international connectedness of right-wing hate. For example, even though trans people never were the focus of any big attention on social media before, thanks to the weird "tranvestigation/infiltration" rhetoric spread by American and Western right-wingers on social media, local sites here started fixating on trans people, especially trans women. However, this in time spread to hating on queer people in general. Just the other day I reported a major hate speech graffiti I saw in my neighbourhood. Luckily it was removed, but I heard from friends similar recent occurances of this hate speech graffiti targeting queer people. Never before in my life I had encountered such a thing. I suspect the trigger was the propaganda spread by American and Western right-wingers.

Why did I create this topic?

Well, first of all, I wanted to share my story and observation.

Second, I wanted to bring attention to a problem I deem important.

And third, the userbase of this site seems to be mostly Americans, and I wanted to challenge an assumption many Americans seem to have—that hateful propaganda on social media seems to almost exclusively come from USA's enemies. No, American and by extension western right-wing is extremely strong. It has extreme reach and powerful rhetoric. It's a global problem. I've been paying attention to this topic since 2015, and in recent years more and more American alt-right rhetoric I've seen in 2015-2016 on American internet started being voiced here more and more.

So, I guess, queers from other countries, beware of American alt-right rhetoric. It has a powerful effect on local right-wingers in other countries, and you might benefit from studying and learning to deconstruct and fight it.

This is also another reason why USA's elections are everyone's problem. The internal power struggles and ideological battles there are exported to the rest of the world.

For clarity, a mandatory arbitration agreement is when a consumer or customer must "agree to have their case reviewed by a third party—called an arbitrator—and to be bound by the arbitrator's decision." The intent is that you waive your right to sue (in a regular court of law) the party you're entering this agreement with. But these agreements can, in some cases, be ruled as invalid by a court. The examples I've seen apply to the US, but I'd be interested in examples from other countries.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been noticing how out of hand it's becoming to see these statements plastered in Terms of Service and several other locations.

The most newsworthy example recently was Disney claiming that a statement like this in their Disney+ ToS also applied to a wrongful death case on one of their properties. As the linked article says, they backpedaled on this, but it's still disgusting and disturbing they even tried it in the first place.

The most recent example I've seen is this post on Mastodon where it was included on the packaging of a supplement.

I can't help but wonder if this is just a way to deter people from seeking litigation in the first place, especially if they aren't wealthy enough to hire a legal team that could poke holes in the legitimacy of their mandatory arbitration agreement.

I'm sure there's a nearly endless supply of examples of this, especially in software service agreements. But is there anything that can be done about it? Or is this just one more way corporations get to have more power than people that won't ever change?

I'm back! I missed Zanvdoort since I was moving cross-country.

Anyway, this turned out to be a fun race! I wasn't sure how it was going to end up but the tire strategies kept it interesting. Not sure if the Ferraris, particularly Leclerc, made a big gamble, or that the McLarens snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Probably a little column A, little column B. Either way, I did not expect a Leclerc victory; they probably didn't either. The Tifosi will be partying hard tonight!

Red Bull continues to, unfortunately for me, shit the bed. During the first half of the race, Perez could barely overtake Russell, even though Russell had a damaged front wing. Later in the race, when Max switched to new mediums, with Hamilton ahead on slightly used hards, Max still couldn't close the gap. The gap even opened up! At least both RBRs finished in the Top 10 (more impressive for Perez, less so for Max).

I didn't see what happened to Yuki that caused him to retire; need to find that out.

Lastly, congrats to Colapinto finishing P12! Excellent for an F1 debut.

Onward to Baku.

Next race:

Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Baku City Circuit
Sunday, September 15

Hey guys,

I've had a Switch for a couple of years but I haven't really played it lately because I've kinda been disappointed with the last two titles I've played. I've played God of War recently and I was just blown away by how much fun I had and I kinda of want to replicate that? Sadly, my friend wants his PS5 back so I'm looking for some game recommendations for the Switch.

I've played BOTW and I just found it so boring. I played maybe two hours and I was at no point entertained. I also played the Link Awakening remake but I didn't really like the graphics and so I just stopped playing after two hours or so. 2D Zeldas are among my favorite games of all time (OOS/OOA; Minish Cap/LADX), I'm kinda scared to say this, but I also didn't really like OOT (although I played it a good 10 years after its initial release). I don't really like open worlds and much prefer having "guided" gameplay, but I do enjoy a mix of both (like God of War).

I've played Hades and absolutely loved it, just like Rayman Origins, but since I've been disappointed with BOTW and Link's Awakening, I'm kinda scared to buy another critically acclaimed game just to not like it... Looking at the list of games and picking one seems so daunting, I don't really know what to do.

You guys have any suggestions?

Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you.

It could be one quirky video that you feel deserves some eyeballs on it, or perhaps you've got a curated list of videos that you'd love to talk us through...

Share some of the best video content you've watched this past week/fortnight with us!

I'm currently at a crossroads for how I want to spend my next few years. For context I'm 33 and considering whether or not to purchase a vehicle after being car free for 12 years.

I rent a 600 sq foot apartment downtown and walk, run or bike everywhere with the occasional trip on transit. I fill up my free time with low cost activities like gaming, magic (the gathering), disc golf, and usually one paid activity like karate or climbing. I enjoy getting out to the mountains to hike when I can get a ride with a friend or meetup group.

I'm pretty content day to day, I have a good friend group, and it feels great knowing I only have to work for 12-17 more years while I am still young enough to enjoy retirement (If I keep my 50% savings rate). I do still splurge occasionally with a few weeks of overseas vacation.

I am considering getting a car as I feel it would allow me to:

• Go hiking more often, and on my terms. Most of the hiking groups I join are 10-20 people going extremely slowly. I run in a 100 mile trail run relay every year and a vehicle would allow me to train more and see how much I can push my body. Running a 50km, 50 miler, 100km, and maybe 100 miles would be goals that I can see myself training towards.
• Provide rides for people out to the mountains. The most luck I have had in meeting new people is through hiking groups, and being on the provider end and being known as someone that regularly hosts I feel can generate a lot more clout, and is seen as more attractive for the purposes of asking people out for dates afterwards if we bonded during the hike.
• Visit family and work remotely more often. I live 500km away from family, but my work allows me to work from anywhere within 1 or 2 timezones, so I could make 1-3 week trips to visit family and work during the day.

However I have the following reservations:

• Getting a vehicle I feel is a dangerous slope of lifestyle creep. Likely at least $3-5k in yearly expenses on top of the purchase cost, pushing retirement at least a few years back
• Getting a vehicle purely for pleasure as I work from home goes against my current frugal nature. What if I don't feel like hiking every single weekend? Sometimes I like just staying in a playing some games or working on a side project. What if I get an injury or it ends up being too smoky?
• The opportunity cost. Is this the best way I would want to spend my money to enjoy life more if I was dedicated to spending it? I could instead spend months in South America doing a bunch of awesome hiking and traveling there.

Has anyone else that was on track for an early retirement give in and decide to start spending more 10+ years out? I currently don't know what I want my retirement to look like, and a house and family is a huge question mark that I feel is so far off as the longest I have dated someone is just 2 months.

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!

DMs, how do you decide if an NPC dies at 0HP (like a monster) or drops unconscious and starts making death saves (like a PC)? I'm a newish DM (been playing off and on for 10 years but never run a campaign that had legs until now), and our last session ended with the death of a recently-introduced barbarian NPC at the hands of another barbarian NPC. I made some other missteps but the big one seems to be this death - some of the players were shocked that barb #2 had done enough damage to kill barb #1 outright. I just had #1 die because she hit 0HP, and it hadn't really occurred to me that she should have gotten death saves.

Any rules of thumb for how you handle NPC death/dying? Or, if you're a player, how you would expect/like to see it handled? Happy to provide more context if desired.

Thanks!