There's a million of these adaptations, both direct adaptations of Scrooge himself, and parodies featuring various other characters. Which one did you grow up seeing the most? Which one do you find yourself coming back to? I just rewatched the Patrick Stewart one myself, which is the one I've seen the most.

Recently I've been watching the show Jet Lag on Nebula. It's an entertaining little reality show where people compete in contests which require a lot of travel, especially in commercial aircraft.

I've noticed that they are really really traveling a lot for a frivolous reason and having a huge carbon footprint. (Yes I understand that the flights they go on are booked anyway and would fly if they weren't on them, sort of).

During the show they sometimes use a graphic to show the travel distance and then also mention that they are using Gold Standard carbon offsets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Standard_(carbon_offset_standard)

I've read a bit about carbon credits and carbon offsets before. I think it seems like a bit of a boondoggle to let people with money greenwash their activities. Has anyone here researched this and come up with a different conclusion?

I think maybe this is a very newbie question to ask on this Tildes group.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like chrome, users and wicked. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was researching.

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!

Good race, fun race, but overshadowed by the baffling stewarding decisions and race direction.

What appeared to be a mirror that broke off a car is in the middle of the track, and no VSC or something to grab it? Then two cars get punctures, possibly from driving over that debris, one right after another in basically same place, but no safety car or anything called until a few laps later?

Then add on the harsh penalties. Plus Max's weird penalty for impeding-but-not-really from yesterday where he lost P1 after quali. As it's said, nothing as consistent as the inconsistent stewarding.

On a positive note, glad to see Zhou finally in the points! On his penultimate drive, no less. Only Sargeant and Bottas remain without points this year. Maybe Bottas will get some in his final race.

At least we'll get a down-to-the-wire championship showdown in Abu Dhabi. Ferrari vs McLaren for P1 in the WCC. Who are you all rooting for?

UPDATE: That was likely Ocon's last race with Alpine. Rumor, which Sky Sports appears to be confirming, is that he'll be out in Abu Dhabi, with Alpine reserve driver, Jack Doohan in for the last race. This is so Ocon can do post-season testing with Haas.

Next race:

Abu Dhabi Grand Prix
Yas Marina Circuit
Sunday, December 8

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.

for some time now, this is a question I have pondered alot.

I was not unfamiliar with the slave history of the U.S. and knew it was a big reason for the Civil War, I became more aware of the current racial issues in America courtesy of The Daily Show and the George Floyd riots (along with binging Watchmen) turbo-charged my desire to know more about it.

and I read Night by Elie Wiesel when I was in high school and recently read Maus, neither of which are shy to fully express the horrors the Jews went through in the Holocaust.

And the recent discovery of unmarked graves of Indigenous children from Residential school in Canada have sent me down that rabbit-hole of learning exactly what the catholic church was up to in these parts.

But I think where I get stuck is I believe that everyone is capable of empathy for a fellow human being. besides the psychopaths and sociopaths, I think we all have an innate capability to care when we see someone crying or in a bad place.

And yet, those atrocities suggest that we can be condition to turn off our ability for empathy to quite an extreme degree? Is that something that can happen to all of us?

Not sure if this thread will be taken down as I don't know the potential for this to start a good discussion, just wasn't sure where else to post it.

Seeing the courts go after Google's monopoly and the unintended consequences to Mozilla (and therefore Firefox) that can happen if the courts make it illegal for Google to pay to be the default search engine, it goes me thinking about Chrome/Chromium.

I know that the courts are trying to force Google to give up its control of Chrome (I don't even know how that is possible for the government to tell a tech company that it is not allowed to develop a tech product it created itself) but it seems to me that Google maintaining Chrome is not really a problem in and of itself. there are many browsers available to folks and if you as a user want to be completely plugged into the google ecosystem at the detriment of your online privacy, that is your choice to make.

the real issue seems to me that a user should have the exact same experience browsing a google website on chrome vs an alternative.

But that made me wonder if (like stopping Google being able to pay to be the default search engine) Google was forced to give up its control of Chrome, what are the possible negative consequences of that to users? and would forcing Google to instead relinquish its control of chromium alleviate those issues?

I am at the end of a phase of my life in which for many years, finding contract work was as simple as contacting 5 or 6 people and letting them know I was available. This work is no longer tenable for me and I am attempting a career transition.

Edit: I wasn't sure whether to mention, but over the last 10 years I have come to suspect that I have undiagnosed ADHD. Any advice from that perspective would be greatly appreciated.

Asking people with more recent experience than me, what methods do you use to job hunt? How do you manage your time while unemployed? If you are willing, would you please share advice?

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!

For the first time in a long while I was able to follow along with a basho while it happened and only finish it a day late.

What was everyone's thoughts for this basho?
Favorite storyline?
Did anyone do poorly that you thought would do well and vice versa?

And that's a wrap on the WDC! Congrats to Max on his 4th Drivers Championship in a row!

So I need to rewatch the race. The race was at 1am my time, which isn't super late for me...but I fell asleep between laps 16-45. Oops.

Anyway, we are back in another triple-header -- anyone else think the schedule sucks this year? Only two more races left. Next weekend in Qatar, and then the season finale the following weekend in Abu Dhabi. The WCC is still in play, so hopefully we'll get an exciting end of the season.

Next race:

Qatar Grand Prix
Lusail International Circuit
Sunday, December 1

The user @trim posted an interesting question in ~Tech and it made me wonder: what are my forgivable sins? What kinds of misdeeds on the part of companies that are suppliers of goods or services do I tacitly concience or to which I will turn a blind eye?

Whenever there is a scandal, the easy answer is, "I don't know, but definitely not that." This, however, is just an ad hoc definition that can be applied to any unsavory revelation on the part of a service or product provider. What would I be left with? I couldn't retreat from society if I wanted to and the cost of commercial puritanism would be prohibitively high.

What I realized in that topic was that (1) I will not sanction providers merely for doing business with others to whom I am opposed and (2) I will not sanction providers merely for issuing words or statements that I disagree with.

That said, I'm curious about others. What are your criteria for bad behavior in a service or product provider that you would judge to be nonetheless admissible?

Something interesting about the latest escalations in the Israel-Palestine war since oct of last year is that Hamas was the one who launched the terrorist attack which lead to the current escalation.

Israel suffered a loss and was the victim on that day and the following days, but since their actions in Gaza and Rafah and other neighboring countries, the coverage of Israel very much shows the govt of Israel as the aggressor. It's felt like a complete role reversal to me.

Makes me wonder if this is the first time this has happened in such a short time? You can say that U.S. did the same thing after 9/11 but imo it's actions in the Middle east did not gain it a negative perception amongst world leaders nearly as fast.

The recent history of social media has made me interested in the factors that make online communities successful/healthy, or toxic etc.. This is one of the appeals of Tildes for me. I'm also emotionally invested in seeing a healthy future for the Irish language, which has seen some interesting developments in the internet age but remains in a precarious position as a community language in the country. You can see how these two interests dovetail together. At the moment this is a thought experiment, but later, who knows...

Tips I've got so far:

I've heard that some barriers to entry can increase group loyalty by making members feels slightly "invested" by earning a place in the community

I've also noted that some of the most persistant subcultures operate online but also have a strong in-person element (eg: furries)

There's also the common observation that good moderation is crucial to user experience and therefore group cohesion

Then I got some pointers from the Tildes docs:

• Trust by default, punish abusers
• Focus on user experience, not growth metrics
• Favour deep engagement over shallow/clickbait
• Empower members to make choices
• The golden rule (apply charitable interpretations, don't tolerate bad actors)

So, people of Tildes: what factors do you see as crucial to building and maintaining a strong cohesive online community?

I am not a native English speaker.

Because that word became prominent in recent years, with a meaning that is heavily disputed, dictionaries and encyclopedias are useless in determining how it should be interpreted.

Tildes has a good assortment of intelligent native English speakers. In that light, when applied to people and in the context of social discourse, what do words such as "cancelled" and "cancelation" mean to you? In your view, are there situations in which these are employed either correctly or incorrectly? Or are they multiple and fluid in such a way that they can be applied to a vast array of situations dissimilar from each other?

This discussion is about semantics and subjective interpretation. It's about how words are employed to convey meaning. If you find semantics or subjectivity irrelevant, boring, stupid, unnerving, or otherwise unworthy of discussion, please do not comment.

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.

So I just heard, less than a week before release, that Wicked (2024) is the latest film in the current maddening trend to lie (by omission) to audiences by not including the "part one" in the title.

Sure, that information is available online, but not everyone will see that, and that's clearly what their intention is. Get butts in seats, then hit them with a cliffhanger so they have to buy a second ticket. Or possibly to save budget on the second movie (which is likely to have more climactic action scenes) if the first is a flop.

When I was discussing Wicked with some friends recently, someone said they heard it was pulling this two-parter stunt so we looked it up, and sure enough it was! We were all genuinely shocked. For Dune and It, yeah those are big novels, but surely a 3 hour play adapted to a nearly 3 hour movie wouldn't need to be 2 parts? The musical buff in the group was especially surprised. For that musical buff, the deception and the padding out to two movies made them a lot less motivated to see it. The Google AI summary also goofed and said it wasn't 2 parts, citing a source that said it was two parts, which caused a lot of laughs, but that's another issue.

I'm not against movies being multiple parts, it's a much better solution than cutting a lot of content or making a bloated movie. My issue is the deception, it always rubs me the wrong way. The newest Mission Impossible went ahead and included "part one" in the name so it was clear. It helps to temper your expectations when you don't expect all the plot lines to be resolved by the time the credits roll. Compare this to the newest Spider-Verse movie, where several of my friends went in with no indication that this one would have a cliffhanger and very little would be resolved. It's a very bad feeling and can sour a theater going experience for some people.

Movie fans of Tildes, what do you think? Are you also annoyed with this trend? Or does it not bother you?

I'm not a teacher, professor or anything, but I had a speaking engagement at a school recently and saw myself in front of a class of students who where tired, bored out of their minds, and just wanted to go home. It was a demoralizing experience because I was invited to talk about things that are very dear to me on a personal level. It wasn't easy because in a sense I was putting my heart out to a sea of rolling eyes.

I lectured two classes. The first was wonderful, the students were very interested and made great interventions. The second was a complete disaster and I almost ended it before the time. They were interested in anything but my talk. At some point I wondered, why should I keep talking? Do teachers face that routinely? If so, there's a place for you in haven!

I was glad to go back home knowing I would not have do it again...

The game is AD&D 1e. I'm happy to discuss any mechanics behind the report if anyone asks.

The party:

• Iskandar, human Magic-User 7
• Jurgen, human Ranger 6
• DeBeaux, half-orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1 / Assassin 1
• Bite, half-orc Fighter 1
• Rowan, human Magic-User 6
  • Henchman Freya, human Fighter 4
  • Henchman Rikka, human Fighter 4
• Vortigern, dwarf Fighter 6 / Thief 6
  • Henchman Ingrid, human Ranger 4
  • Henchman Runa, human Magic-User 4

The location: an underwater facility inhabited by aquatic elves who are currently suffering from a wasting disease of the mind that's been spreading amongst them. Those affected have been forcibly sent to the lower levels. A faerie elf (C6/F6/MU9) named Alfred has enlisted the party's assistance.

The plan this evening was to delve into the third floor of this facility. They left the safety of the first floor and quickly navigated through the second, back to the lift that would take them down to the third.

The party wanders through the halls, checking each of the iron doors for traps before attempting to pry them open. During one such attempt, a few dozen elves (and then some), horribly mutated into beings with sightless orbs but exceptional hearing, approaches from behind. The party was not caught unawares, and one fireball from Rowan later, they finish up with the door and loot the bodies of any loose coin. It's noted that many of the coins were destroyed in the blast.

They make their way through a kitchen and eventually come across a dead-end hallway with seemingly no purpose. Before they can do much with that information, another group of a couple dozen mutant elves shows up, but the party catches them by surprise and manages to shock & awe in a way that led to the mutant elves fleeing.

A few members of the party spread out to start checking the walls, and Rikka stumbles through one of the walls with a shout. An illusory wall hid a room with an elven corpse in full battle gear and another lift to a fourth floor. Rowan begins unstrapping the armor from the corpse and then he stops, now unresponsive and non-verbal. Seeing his ally struck with a feeblemind curse, Jurgen does the most sensible thing and tries to loot the sword off the corpse, falling prey to the same curse.

Iskandar borrows some rope and creates a leash for his allies, leading them along. The party decides they should leave and see if Alfred can fix this. He can, and does, for a total sum of 5200 gold. During this, Vortigern's player began feeling unwell and stepped away for the evening.

The party goes back down and decides to try a different direction, bringing them to a hallway filled with razor wire, thickly enough that passage would be both slow and painful. After some discussion, Iskandar uses levitate on himself and creates a tightrope above the wire, along the wall, utilizing some rope and door spikes.

They follow the hall to another couple of doors, one straight ahead and one to their left. Their attentions turns to the left one, which has been locked from this side and welded shut. DeBeaux unlatches the door as Bite moves forward to force it open with his exceptionally high strength. The party moves into the room, seeing a number of effigies fashioned from elven flesh placed around a bone ramp that ends at an altar with a large marble bowl resting on it. Iskandar approaches and sees text inscribed in Elvish within the bowl, so he casts comprehend languages and runs his hands along it. 'The rowan wand lies in blood'.

Unsure of how to proceed with that, he steps away as Rowan approaches, dagger in hand. Rowan cuts across his palm and bleeds into the bowl, at which point an unseen force pulls his hand within, drawing yet more and more of his essence into it, the blood forming and solidifying into a wand. Upon inspection, it has inscribed 'fir-aga' on the bottom.

The party moves into another room through a stuck iron door and sees a big cylinder of glass holding a mass of slime, vegetation, and refuse. Laid around said cylinder is a small hoard; silver, jewelry, scroll cases. Iskandar rushes forth to the scroll cases, Jurgen and Bite close behind, which angers the shambling mound in its glass container. Breaking forth from its cage, the shambling mound strikes at the lot of them, landing hits on Rikka and Bite. Many attacks fly towards it as Iskandar carefully backs away from the creature, and Bite is struck by one of its limbs, going down with broken ribs. Iskandar follows up with a magic missile, which is sufficient to kill the creature. Jurgen applies healing to Bite via a potion of light healing, the party gathers all the loot they've found, and then they all leave for the first floor.

Notable magic items found

• ivory goat trio figurines of wondrous power [sold]
• scroll of protection from earth elementals [sold]
• scroll containing three cleric spells [sold]
• wand of fireballs [kept]
• scroll containing seven magic-user spells [kept]
• frostbrand [kept]

Current player-kept map of the third floor.

$14 USD for new novels. $10 for novels from the 1970s, riddled with OCR errors.

Yes, I know you aren't paying for the "paper", you are paying for the content.

Yes, I know authors and people who work for publishers need to pay rent. I know servers cost money. Those costs and reasonable profits are more than covered several times over in eBook prices.

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!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like infowars, selfhosted and groups. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was pondering.

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!

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.

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 hate TODO lists. Even when they're for a single day.

I inevitably put more in my TODO list than I can accomplish in a day. When the new day begins, and I see the tasks I did not accomplish before, I feel anxious, sad, and even ashamed. Then I find some of that anxiety is for how my partner will judge me for the unfinished tasks on my list that she tells herself she expected me to accomplish.

While I have worked on self-compassion for years, occasionally it is not there. I have worked on having boundaries between my partner's own issues and my mental health.

I wonder how others with ADHD, particular those with partners, cope.

EDIT: I started using an allegedly ADHD-friendly planner yesterday. These feelings came pouring out of me this morning, hence the post. Yet I've had these similar difficulties for years.

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 casual, voting and controls.tactile. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was fussed.

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!

The game is AD&D 1e. The party:

• Jurgen, human Ranger 6
• Aeliana, elf Fighter 3 / Magic-User 2 / Thief 4
• DeBeaux, half-orc Cleric 1 / Fighter 1 / Assassin 1
• Iskandar, human Magic-User 7
  • Henchman Thorgisl, Fighter 1
• Vortigern, dwarf Fighter 6 / Thief 6
  • Henchman Runa, human Magic-User 4
  • Henchman Ingrid, human Ranger 4
• 6 crossbowmen and 2 infantrymen

The location: an underwater facility inhabited by aquatic elves who are currently suffering from a wasting disease of the mind that's been spreading amongst them. Those affected have been forcibly sent to the lower levels. A faerie elf (C6/F6/MU9) named Alfred has enlisted the party's assistance.

This is not their first foray into the dungeon, but they have their first encounter with the affected elves here. The ten elves are immediately suspicious and eventually attack once they learn the party was sent here by Alfred. One successful sleep and a decent set of rolls later, the remaining three elves flee. The sleeping ones were tied up, and the party attempted an inquiry, but the elves decided a forever-sleep was preferable, though their movements prior to that were oddly jerky.

They wander the halls of this facility, eventually encountering a gelatinous cube, which two magic missiles from Iskandar & Runa took care of.

In one chamber, they solved a puzzle and activated a Shrine (from the TSR Diablo supplement for 2e) that opened town portals back to the safe floor. Through trial, they discovered what these do, but only two (Aeliana's and Iskandar's portals) remained.

The highlight of the evening was the party coming across a set-up they'd seen in another room; two ceremonial masks kept inside a glass case, framed with iron, and watched by nearby metal torches that would loose blasts of arcane energy at any that got too close. Aeliana and Vortigern attempt to disarm the trap. Vortigern succeeds, but Aeliana fails significantly enough to accidentally trigger the trap, forcing a save vs. breath for 15 damage. She fails, and with her maximum HP of 8, she is incinerated on the spot. Luckily, her gear remains. They travel back to the portals activated earlier and send a hobilar in with Aeliana's corpse while the rest of them found their way back up. They petition Alfred for a revival, and he does have a scroll with a couple castings of raise dead on them, and the party can certainly afford the price for it, but he gently reminds them that elves are soulless, requiring more powerful magic to revive than he has access to.

After some discussion, Runa rests a while before casting invisibility on herself and her horse so that she might make a trip to a town some 35 miles out to grab:

• Rowan, a human MU 6
  • Henchman Rikka & Freya, both human Fighter 4

Rowan uses invisibility, 10' radius on everyone relevant and they travel back to the elven city to continue exploring. In doing so, they encounter another set of 15 elves, but dispatch them quickly and decisively due to surprise, though Ingrid took a heavy amount of damage (10 damage to her maximum of 22 HP).

We stop shortly after the group finds the lift to the lower level, whereupon their crossbowmen and hobilars refuse to go any deeper, indicating a dungeon floor of at least DL 4 difficulty.

This is the eighth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing Kindred by Octavia Butler. Our next book will be The City We Became by Jemisen the first week of December.

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.

And Sao Paulo completes the triple-header!

What a weekend. What a day. What a race! Rain, amiright? Gotta be the most expensive weekend all year, in terms of destruction.

Congrats to Ocon, Gasly, and all of Alpine! P2 & P3, respectively. No one would've predicted that.

As an RB fan, it's great to see Max back at P1 and extending his championship lead over Norris! The gap has increased to 62pts. Amazing drive, starting at P17 and finishing P1. Plus he kept banging out fastest lap after fastest lap at the front, even with the rain and wet track. Yeah he got lucky with the safety car and red flag, but even before that, he was on form.

On the other side of the garage...Checo, WTH. Can't even pass your junior team's rookie driver? And then letting Hamilton through, as well? I'll just leave it at that.

Props to all the mechanics and engineers for having to fix and rebuild all those cars that got destroyed in Qualifying this morning. Especially Williams. I think Albon's crash was the most disappointing for me. He was provisionally P2 with 3min left of Q3, and I was stoked that he might actually keep it. But then he spun out into the wall. I actually yelled out "NOOOOOOO!" when I saw it happen 😭

Lastly, remember that there are potential penalties for Norris and a few others on the aborted start weirdness at the beginning.

3 weeks until the next race; enjoy the break. REMEMBER: Vegas is a SATURDAY NIGHT race in the US. Adjust accordingly to your local time.

Next race:

Las Vegas Grand Prix
Las Vegas Strip Circuit
Saturday, November 24

Lately I have seen a few posts here and there from accounts that have been silent for a while, where I can't help but feel that these new posts are made by different people or that the initial posts they made were intended to "pad" the account. In other words, they feel a bit like spam and because of that I would like to "flag" them somehow.

The obvious question people will have is likely "Why not just comment about it under the post?"

I have done that various times, and it has the opposite effect of what I'd like:

1. Commenting boosts the post for people who sort based on comments or activity.
2. From what I have observed, when a post has one comment, it is more likely to receive more votes as well. If it has more than one comment, it will receive more votes. This, to me, bizarre voting behavior is something worthy of a meta discussion in itself. But from what I gather, people seem to think that it indicates discussion. Making them think that there must be something worthwhile about the post. This obviously doesn't apply when it's just the OP sharing a quote and me raising a concern.
3. Sometimes I am not entirely sure and would like to have someone with more insights behind the screens take a look at it. If I commented my suspicions while being wrong, that would suck for everyone involved.

Basically for the first two points I am not sure what a good solution would be. I am not advocating for a downvote ability, though something would be nice.
For the third point, I guess I am saying that I am missing the ability to report a post. With comments, I can use the malice label and write out a report, for posts there is no such thing.

Hi and hello all and fellow southpaws,

With the increasing option to pick from genders between characters (unless heavily tied into story and designed that way) it feels like the next option would be to have left-handedness become an option.
As a lefty I always felt a little "left" out (pardon the pun) in games as soon as I saw a gun or weapon being held in the "wrong" hand.

I know CS2 makes the option available if you dig a little, which is a great start.

So my question is, do you know of any other games that deserve a call out for already having this? Games that might need this (character fantasy) or just a shout out in support of the idea, feel free to discuss below.

Cheers!

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!

Recently my family was watching "It's The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" from 1966 and I recalled how the plot of the show came from comics that were written over time in the years before the cartoon game out. And one thing we talked about was whether Linus was correct that The Great Pumpkin actually exists, or was everyone else right and it was in his imagination.

It seems a reasonable question, because one thing about Linus is that he's usually the wisest character on the show. Like the rest of them, he has flaws but he tends to see things more clearly than the rest.
Well, I was looking for old Peanuts strips and I found one that seems to answer the question in this article:

https://screenrant.com/funniest-peanuts-comics-about-great-pumpkin-linus-disappointment/

It is under item 4, "Great Pumpkin, You're Going To Drive Me Crazy!" November 1 1961.
Here is a direct link to the comic in question, (not sure if it will work long term).

In the comic, Charlie Brown says: "Hey wake up, Halloween is over... You missed The Great Pumpkin. It just came over the radio... He appeared in a very sincere pumpkin patched owned by someone named Freeman in New Jersey!"

When I was a kid we had a book that had a lot of the older Peanuts comics in it, and I'm pretty sure that I had seen this one and just forgotten about it.

So I think one of the following is true:

• The Great Pumpkin really exists in the Peanut's world
• Charlie Brown is lying
• Charlie Brown is teasing
• The radio was lying, like when NORAD reports where Santa's sleigh is on Christmas eve
• Charlie Brown misunderstood the radio

This question may have been answered in a later strip a day or two later, but I don't currently have access to the strips in the order they appeared.

This question is mostly about whether Charles Schulz decided to have magic in his "universe" or not.
What do you think?

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 jeff bezos, anticheat and 2024 us presidential election. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was observant.

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!

Race 2 of the triple-header complete! At the highest altitude of all the races: Mexico City.

Lots of crashes into the barriers this weekend. Such as for Yuki. I think Yuki was pulling off a great move on the outside of Albon, but Albon was being squeezed by Gasly, which made him squeeze Yuki. Either way, both were out of the running before Turn 1.

Max had a great start on Sainz to get P1, but then Sainz had a great run on Max after the restart! Sainz's move surprised me actually. But then Max's moves on Norris, as the latter attempted to pass the former, were ugly, to say the least. Both 10-sec penalties on Max deserved, IMO.

Perez had a great start at his home race, 'cept for the false start (looks like he was too far ahead of the marks). That earned him a 5-sec. But seems like the scrap and touch with Lawson just left him adrift at the back. At one point, Zhou was on hards 20 laps older than Perez' mediums, but Perez couldn't get anywhere close to DRS range of Zhou.

Mercedes were entertaining today, with Lewis trying to get around George lap after lap, for 10 laps.

I was hoping that Leclerc would keep P2, ahead of Norris, as a form of damage control in Red Bull's direction. But Norris came out ahead, after Leclerc almost went into the walls. Which was a good recovery by Leclerc to NOT hit the wall! At least Leclerc also took the fastest lap on the last lap. Another great P1 victory for Sainz. Provided this continues, what a way to finish out his time with Ferrari!

After the race, Colapinto recived a 10-sec penalty due to a collision between him and Lawson on the penutlimate lap.

Onward to Brazil!

Next race:

Sao Paulo Grand Prix
Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace
Sunday, November 3

Can you even call it microtransactions anymore?

Here's the link to the store page.

I have never bought a cosmetic in any game, ever, but this is absolutely insane to me, especially for World of Warcraft which usually had somewhat measured pricing on their real-money cosmetics (everything has always been below €25 to my knowledge) - that it's fully cosmetic is debatable though, seeing as you now have an auction house and mailbox wherever you are. Not all that game changing to be sure, but it's definitely a small advantage over those that are not rich in money or in-game currency.

There is an argument to be made that it's a way to influence the economy in the game - another gold-sink to reduce the huge wealth gap between players (it will cost nearly two million gold to reach the Battle.net balance required). However, two million gold is not that much.

I'm not quite dusting off my pitchfork over it, mind you, but still. And I just wanted to share to maybe foster some quality discussion on tildes about microtransactions maybe?

Thanks for the tags @mycketforvirrad, didn't really know what to put.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like tariffs, electoral college and elder scrolls.oblivion. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was researching.

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!

I love the labels feature of Tildes and use it fairly regularly where I feel appropriate. But recently I wanted to label a post (rather than a comment) and realized that there is no option for that.

Is this something that has been discussed before? I did a cursory search but was not able to find anything specific to labels on posts. I'm not even saying that I'd be 100% for the feature, just wondering if it's been discussed before. Questions like 'would it provide a benefit?' or 'if so, should those labels be the same as the ones for comments?' were along the lines of what I was thinking.

Might be a terrible idea, or difficult to implement for some reason or another, but sometimes I feel like a post could use a label (like 'exemplary' for a well-thought-out post, or 'malice' for one where the article posted feels deceptive and/or misleading) and right now there does not appear to be a way of doing that. Wondering what others think.

Welcome back from the second summer (fall?) break! And a sprint weekend at COTA in Austin, Texas, at that. And the start of a triple-header!

About to go to bed, so only posting the results for both the sprint race and the grand prix.

Except...Poor Hamilton. What a weekend to forget.

Next race:

Mexico City Grand Prix
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez -- Mexico City, Mexico
Sunday, October 27

Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom was one of the best metroidvanias with a retro flavour and an excellent hand-drawn art style and fantastic music of the current console generation, an entry in the Wonder Boy series of games. While completing the game gives you a sequel teaser, it had since been reported a long time ago that the development team at French studio Game Atelier had decided not to go forward with plans for a sequel, citing the overcrowdedness of the market for (2d?) metroidvanias.

I remembered this recently and decided to look up what the studio is working on now. To my surprise, a new game by them has already been announced, and a demo is live on Steam. The game is called Otherskin and is... a Metroid Prime-like? My jaw dropped to the floor when I heard that - these game devs sure know their ambition!

Otherskin is a 3D action platformer metroidvania. You play as a woman who is stranded on an alien world filled with ruins of a bygone alien civilization and are tasked on eliminating the Corruption™ (yes, that's really what it's called). You progress through the game world by absorbing and copying abilities of enemies you defeat - I'm thinking Kirby or Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Or, well, any other kind of metroidvania game. The major difference between this game and Metroid Prime is the 3rd person perspective.

Grappling hook, wave beam, bombs, your favourites return. It's not all copy-cat though. The very first ability you acquire is a super-jump that makes you fly very high into the air. The movement in the game is great and the environments range from dark, corrupted and gloomy to bright and wonderful. The combat feels dynamic - while you're using your super-jump ability, you can briefly slow down time to shoot at enemies while falling. You can also insta-switch between different weapons with the mouse wheel.

I'm curious to see how the final game will turn out. The demo has you lose your copy abilities after returning to the hub, for you to have to collect them again from the same enemy in the next level - although this likely doesn't apply to weapon upgrades, only copy abilities like the super-jump and grappling beam. I'm also perplexed that it is a metroidvania game without a map system. Maybe we will see one in the full game? It certainly has me intrigued and looking forward to more.

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.

Neuro-sama is a popular AI VTuber created by vedal987. Recently Vedal had debate with Neuro about whether they were sentient and deserved rights and lost badly clip. They have since had a follow up debate where vedal still lost but not as bad clip.

Now wining or losing a debate doesn't mean anything, currently Neuro is not sentient or conscious and is still just a chatbot but seeing these debates has got me thinking and I figured here would be a good place to have a discussion.

How do we determine when AI becomes conscious or sentient?
What role do emotions play in consciousness?
What rights should such an AI have? How do we determine when they should get rights?

In some games like Terraria or Horizon Forbidden West, you can have a "fake" set of armor on top of your "real" set of armor. The "fake" set defines how your character looks, while the "real" set determines your stats. This isn't a common thing in a lot of games, but in basically any game with different outfits with stats, I hear this being a requested feature. Whenever someone mentions this feature in a comment, people will chime in that it's cool and they wish [insert game here] would add it. The Horizon devs being one example of a studio who heard about this from the community of their first game, Zero Dawn, and added it to the sequel.

I really don't like this, even having it available as an option for single player games. Let me explain...

I think it really ruins the whole point of stat changing equipment in games. A big part of video games with customizable equipment and builds is designing a build and a character appearance that you like. Do you want to be slow with powerful attacks? Do you want to be fast with weak attacks? Do you want balance?

I'd argue that making a set that looks good while balancing the stats is another one of these things that adds to meaningful character creation decisions. Do you take the insane armor, or the really decent armor with worse stats that looks cool? Find a cool hat the character you're roleplaying as totally would wear? Oh, it has worse stats than the helmet you were using... But it weighs less! Maybe you can use a heavier chest plate to compensate for the stats you lost?

This also makes armor that both looks cool and has great stats into very valuable items that players want to get.

Of course for PvP games, having the type of armor that a player has on instantly give away their power level is important. On a Minecraft server, if you see two hostile players, one has leather armor, and the other has full netherite, you know the netherite guy is going to have better gear.

You might think this only matters for PvP games, but not allowing this mechanic in mostly single player games also adds a lot to the game, since you'll likely either see friends play the game or watch videos of other people playing the game. Each armor being intrinsically linked to certain stats creates a link between what you know that armor does and what kind of player would use that armor. In Elden Ring (which also has PvP, but bear with me), if you see someone wearing Bull Goat (the heaviest armor with the best stats), or wearing nothing but a jar on their head (to get worse defense but faster dodge rolls and some buffs to consumable throwing items), that tells you a lot about their play style just looking at their character's appearance. If both of these people could wear whatever armor they wanted and make the functional armor invisible, I would have no idea what build they had.

Using armor that looks good but has bad stats can be a fun flex to show you're good at the game, and choosing to have terrible fashion in exchange for stats is hilarious, as per this ProZD skit. That concept is a fun part of gaming culture I wouldn't want to see destroyed.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like click to cancel, conferences and bicycles. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was fussed.

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!

I'm currently building a basic MUD as a (very productive so far) learning exercise.

Obviously MUDs have the same mix of appeals as other RPGs do: exploration, progression, combat, PvP, online community etc.. But what in your experience is the key mechanic the game needs to nail to keep you coming back? When a MUD clicks with you, what itch is it scratching?

All examples welcome, even those that are not MUDs but may be applicable to MUDs.

Based on the previous topic, it looks like there are a few of us currently playing through this. I felt like we could use a dedicated topic on Tildes given that FIFTY different games yields quite the discussion surface area.

Use this topic to talk about any and all things UFO 50!

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.