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!

After several bad experiences lately, I am interested in grinding meat at home. Does anyone have experience in this practice? I have a KitchenAid stand mixer and after some research, I am interested in buying the meat grinder attachment. However, there are literally dozens of weird Chinese brands on Amazon purporting to sell an identical set for much less. AliExpress is even cheaper.

Has anyone bought and used the KitchenAid version? Has anyone tried a cheaper version?

Thank you for your advice.

Thank you to everybody who commented; I'm going to look for the official KitchenAid attachment at a good price.

I have an M1 MacBook Air. I use UTM to run a Debian 11 virtual machine.

After the initial setup, updating and upgrading, installing Firefox and a few small programs, (I almost called them apps, d'oh), the Debian.utm file size was about 6GB. Now, less than a month later, it's almost 9GB.

The VM size increases after each use. I haven't downloaded or installed anything close to 3GB worth. I have downloaded files, then put them into the trash and emptied the trash, could the trash not be emptying properly?

I have run ncdu, but nothing stands out. When I drill down into /usr and into each large folder, no sub folder is larger than a few 100MB. I can't see any big files lurking.

I've googled using many search terms, but I can't get past results that are about how to increase the size of a VM that is running out of room.

Thanks very much for reading this, any ideas?

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.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant Israel-Hamas war content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

Please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

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.

When I was in elementary school, I found some Advanced Dungeons & Dragons books at a yardsale. I read through them, brought them to school, and played through a basic campaign with some friends. Since then, I haven't met anyone interested in pen-and-paper RPGs. I still hope that I can one day convince someone to play with me, but I don't even know which system I should try to learn. There are now so many different editions of D&D, in addition to countless alternatives and endless arguments over the merits of each.

Whatever system I decide to learn, I will need to invest time and energy into learning and teaching the game to others, and I'll most likely be the DM, so I'd like to choose one that won't be too difficult for beginners to get into. While I enjoy exploring interesting game mechanics, I think the idea of creating an interactive adventure story or a world to explore with friends is what attracts me the most. The Fate system sounded interesting, but I had a hard time understanding the core rulebook. I've recently read short summaries of several other systems that seem like they could be fun and not too hard to get into, such as Index Card RPG, Shadowdark, Tiny Dungeon, Five Torches Deep, Fantasy AGE, and Creative Card Chaos; but I can't afford to read through each of them and seven editions of D&D to determine which one is most suitable for me.

Does anyone have any advice on how to evaluate my options or a suggestion for a good one to start out with?

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 am reading Never Split the Difference right now, and while the book has a few stereotypical "salesman self-help" moments, I have found some of the strategies to be genuinely incredible.

The biggest game changer for me has been mirroring what the other person says to avoid conflict and gather more information.

Real life example: My wife has a bad habit of poorly explaining what she wants and where it's located. Then, I get her flustered when I rapid-fire follow up questions. Here is an exchange we have frequently which leaves us both frustrated as hell.

She will ask something like, "Can you get the box out of the drawer please?"

I usually reply, "What box?"

"The box. The red box."

"Okay...what drawer?"

"The drawer, you know, the drawer. Come on."

"DUDE. Can you at least tell me which room you're even talking about?"

"Nevermind, I'll get it."

Lately I've been trying mirroring to help both of us and it's awesome.

"Can you get the box please?"

"Get the box?"

"Yeah, the red box. It has a paper in it that I need."

"Okay, you want the red box with the paper in it?"

"Yeah it's in the kitchen drawer next to the sink."

It's so weird when you first start doing this intentionally, but people don't even notice. I have no idea why it works so much better but it's amazing.

So, this got me thinking, what other little human psychology tricks work? Are there other books that genuinely changed the way you approach people or situations?

I'm a teacher and my job is to teach students who mostly have behavioral problems, so I am always on the look out for more of these things.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

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If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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I have been a metalhead for over 20 years but I seem to still mostly listen to the bands I found back then. So mostly bands that started in the 80s or 90s. By the mid 2000s metalcore and its various derivatives got very popular and that wasn't for me, so I kind of stopped paying much attention to new stuff for many years. The only newer band I have been really excited about is the Finnish black metal band Havukruunu, and to some extent Uada and Spectral Wound.

Would love to get some recommendations for new names that have appeared in the last 10 or so years.

Wondering if anyone has any good books or other content to recommend on software design. I feel like when I start out on a new project I always get stuck in a rut of trying to design something good, then end up with an awful design anyways. On the other hand, I've been around professors and more experienced software engineers who seem to effortlessly come up with simple, powerful architectures and interfaces.

While I know that reading a book or two won't get me the experience I need to improve, it does seem like that might be a good jump-start. Anyone have any suggestions for me? Thanks!