I'm currently living in a place where we have a bit of backyard space, complete with a porch and a raised planter bed down in the yard.

We wanted to take advantage of this and try to grow some plants this summer, even though it might already be getting late to plant. According to this USDA site, we live in a 10a plant hardiness zone.

Currently, the plan is to plant some tomatoes and possibly hot peppers in the raised planter bed, and to grow some basil and oregano in pots on the porch. I don't have much of a plan other than to buy the plants, buy some soil, and plant, so I wanted to check here to see if anyone had good resources for getting started with gardening for the first time. In general I'm just wondering if anyone has advice for a new gardener to get off on the right foot — I'm novice enough to not even know the questions to ask!

EDIT:

I was busy the last few days so just came back and wow! Such good advice from everyone, I'm very excited to get planting. Even if I haven't replied to you I've read your post and appreciate the information!

Everyone, proud to announce that after a week and nine hours the tildes archipelago is complete as of 6:51 AM ET! We, astoundingly, had only one release due to excessive backtracking and only one technical DNF out of sixteen games. (As a first-time host I'll take that as a win!) Otherwise two Radiances and the Hollow Knight said good night, the Ender Dragon ended, the Spire was (mostly) Slayed, Red ...'d, Bowser blasted big, Ganon's gone, Ganon's gone again, Rogues Legacied, John Darksoul prevailed, Doomguy doomed all over the place, and... Poker. Also we found that last strawberry. Jesus.

Big thanks to everyone who participated and hope you had fun! I'm thinking I'll throw a sign-up thread in a month or two to gather YAMLs and we'll trek through it again. Definitely excited to try some new games!

_{(FAQ for those out of the loop)}

How do my fellow KH fans on tildes feel? I'm honestly kind of relieved. Gacha is an inherently predatory business model, and the game by all accounts was extremely unfun. It's still the first KH game to be outright cancelled mid development, so I'm still worried about what this means for the series.

I'm hoping that the devs never return to the mobile space.

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.

I've seen some discussion on self-hosted stuff, but a lot of it depends on docker or droplets or some such.

As a user of dedicated servers and the shared hosting environment on them, although Virtualmin gives me much more freedom than cPanel did, I still can't run a lot of the fun stuff I want to play with.

So I'm curious to know what you run in that sort of environment that's awesome.

Although I will start with one: NextCloud has been around for a while - taking over from whatever-Cloud they forked from that I've now forgotten the name of. heh. It was not a bad project, but it really wasn't featured enough for my needs.

But recently, I've discovered that they have been expanding their features rapidly. What I love and use:

• NextCloud Talk is almost on par with Teams. Featureful chat. Shared files. Links to various things on NextCloud.
• With the local app installed, syncing a folder to the server, I can edit files locally or in the browser and it's a really nice synced environtment. The web view works well, almost like File Explorer - dragging and dropping files around, etc.
• Ability to share files publicly. And even the ability to have a chat with users visiting the file page if you want. Ability to "hotlink" shared pics - like to embed in a forum
• The "Cards" app is... I forget the original name for teh layout, but you get cards in lists. Cards have details, due dates if you want, things like lists you can check off items, embed pics, etc. Also, each card has a chat related to that card and you can @ people
• Passwords app - share passwords with certain people, click to opy to the clipboard. Storing credit cards means I can copy-paste easily to use on my phone instead of typing.
• Calendar that can sync to other sources
• Tables - lke Microsoft Lists - custom set up of columns, handy for any number of things from making a ticket system / issue tracker, to lists of resources for a particular site. Can ahve edit access, or make it into an "app" where it gets stuck up on the nav bar and view-only for your clients, for example

Basically, while there are still some rough spots, it is really pretty slick and works well. And the awesome part is that being self-hosted, I control it. There's a large number of apps you can add to it, of varying quality.

So I'm curious to know what other projects you love and find useful! :)

I'm in the planning stages of a Viking-themed game I'll be running sometime next year, and I'm noticing a nice little progression in the armor types that ends with chain mail. When combined with a silver-based economy that cares more about the weight of the silver over the number of coins you have, that puts a lot of emphasis on looking towards magic for your better AC values, as armor will generally be more expensive and the (typically) highest tiers of armor--namely, plate mail, but also things like splint and banded mails--are simply unavailable for sale or amongst the majority of the enemies you might face.

That magic will most commonly be from the runecaster, probably, since there's a rune available that can be worn like a necklace and improve AC, as well as another that can reduce damage taken. Magic armor will still be--likely even moreso--coveted and sought out by the players.

A PC with average Dexterity can reasonably hit AC 3 (or AC 17 if you're used to ascending values); this assumes chain mail, shield, and a protection rune. Normally AC 3 (banded mail and a shield) is the best a starting PC (with no adjustment from Dex) can hope for in a traditional game.

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!

PSA: If you don’t know what the Eurovision Song Contest is, then I recommend you to watch this funny but highly informative video, ironically made by an American.

What is your favorite entry this year and why?

Mine is Latvia’s song, Bur man laimi by Tautumeitas. You can watch their live performance at Latvia’s national contest (which took place in February) here.

Full disclosure: My wife is Latvian, and I have lived in Latvia with her since 2018, so I’m 100% biased in this opinion. In my defense though, Latvia’s entries throughout the last few years have been underwhelming in my opinion. I did enjoy Eat Your Salad by Citi Zēni in 2022, because it was catchy, but that’s about it.

But this year, Latvia shot it out of the park for me. I will go as far as to say that Bur man laimi is the best song in terms of “artistic value” at the contest. I hope that it makes it at least to the finals. I would be very happy if it placed in the top ten.

I was over the moon when they won the Latvian Supernova 2025 contest. Apparently, the jury tied them with two other participants out of the ten finalists, but ultimately took the title because they had been given the most votes by the public:

They took to the Supernova stage, where Latvia decide upon their Eurovision entry, against 9 other finalists. Tautumeitas performed their song Bur Man Laimi, which means “A chant for happiness,” in amongst a floaty fringe curtain and a series of rainstorms. They delivered catchy folk pop with a dreamy vibe, tight dance moves, and some impressively high notes. Both the public and jury were rightly impressed. But when all the votes were counted, the points were tied three ways.

I have known the Tautumeitas for many years and love a lot of their songs. They are commonly thought of as an “ethno-pop” group, but they have created all kinds of music. It is true though that a lot of their pieces are centered about folklore, and are inspired by the famous dainas:

A daina or tautas dziesma [“folk song”] is a traditional form of music or poetry from Latvia. (...) Latvian dainas often feature drone vocal styles and pre-Christian themes and legends, and can be accompanied by musical instruments such as Baltic psalteries (e.g. kokles). Dainas tend to be very short (usually four-liners) and are usually in a trochaic or a dactylic metre. Dainas are being translated into English by Latvian American Ieva Auziņa-Szentivanyi.

Lyrically, dainas concern themselves with native mythology and traditional festivals but, in contrast to most similar forms, do not have any legendary heroes. Stories often revolve around pre-Christian deities like the sun goddess Saule and the moon god Mēness. There are dainas that do not have a mythical theme as well – many simply describe the daily life of agrarian society and nature. However, these still often include personifications of natural phenomena. Another major theme is the human life cycle, especially the three major events: birth, wedding, and death (including burial). The dainas concerning birth are deeply emotional, and usually feature a mother figure not only as the person who gives birth but also as the one who determines the fate of the child. These also often feature the fate deity Laima and were historically sung immediately after birth, which traditionally took place in a bathhouse. (...) The dainas devoted to death describe an individual preparing for death and often relate to funeral customs. These often feature a female god related to the world of the dead, variously known as kapu māte, veļu māte, zemes māte or smilšu māte (mother of graves, mother of dead, mother Earth, mother of sand). The first collection of dainas was published between 1894 and 1915 as Latvju Dainas by Krišjānis Barons. There are well over two hundred thousand collected dainas in written form.

Notice the “fate” (or “fortune”) deity “Laima” mentioned there. I’ll come back to her.

I showed the song to an American friend who told me that she liked it, but didn’t appreciate the repetition of the stanzas. Well, that’s intentional. Dainas are usually short poems with just two or three stanzas. Hundreds of thousands of them were written by ancient Latvians, who survived the horrors that their people endured under the Russians and Germans since the 12th century, preserving their way of life and wisdom through song and poetry in written format (and previously through oral transmission) once Europe acquired the printing press.

I’m not Latvian nor an expect on the subject matter, but the way that I see it, the vast majority of these dainas are themed around nature and perseverance. These are two traits that really define Latvian culture and the Latvian people as a whole.

First, they are very connected to nature. Even young Latvians today still know a lot about the natural world and enjoy spending their time outdoors, participating in traditional rituals and seasonal activities throughout the year, all around the many beautiful forests, plains, and lakes of this green country. Latvians gift each other flowers for absolutely no reason, all the time. When my wife manages to get me out of the house, she loves pointing at random plants and telling me what they are called and how they can be used. Foraging berries and mushrooms is a popular family activity. Whenever there is a weekend that’s extended by holidays, the capital city turns into a ghost town, because they all retreat to their countryside homes. They’ve even managed to grow their forests.

Second, perseverance is one of their defining traits of character because they have an attitude of “better things are yet to come”. That’s why, I think, you also often find words like ozols (“oak tree”, which I see as a symbol of strength and endurance) as well as laime (“good fortune”, I would translate it as, rather than the usual “luck” or “happiness”). And yes, the word “laime” and the name of the fate deity “Laima” are related. Even a famous brand of delicious chocolate is named after her. The depth of the word “laime” can’t be summarized by a single English word, I think. Latvians use it in so many different contexts, but there’s almost always an undertone of “gratitude for the blessings that fortune brought about” to it. It’s really hard to convey the word’s breadth of meaning, but I think that the ladies conveyed it really well through their performance.

I don’t know about the translation of the title of the song. I would have gone for “conjure me good fortune” instead, but my own Latvian is still only at an intermediary level. Probably best to ask a Latvian about all of this if you want an informed opinion. Maybe the Tautumeitas (“tautumeita”, or “folk girl” itself being an ancient, archaic word with a much deeper meaning) chose to go with “a chant for happiness” to keep it simple for international audiences. I feel confident telling you that the title means a lot more than that though.

Yesterday I collected some 10 or more reaction videos to the song and watched four of them. In one, the lady actually started crying. All of the others loved it. Nothing but praise for the song can be found in all the comment sections. People say (and I agree) that they feel connected to nature listening to it.

This song is the winner of the contest for me. These six stunningly beautiful ladies put a lot of thought behind it’s composition. It masterfully integrates ancient Latvian lyrical and music culture with modern instruments. The vocal harmony is as professional as only Latvia’s best-trained vocalists can be (and let me tell you, music education is a big deal in Latvia). The performance spectacularly illustrates the deeper meaning of the lyrics. The song and visuals are an explosion of Latvian culture.

I have a thing for rock songs that include a piano playing the same note every eighth-note. For example:

• Go With the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age has it going for the entire song.
• The Sweetness by Jimmy Eat World has it at the end.
• Do It or Die by Die Mannequin has it during the intro and chorus.
• In It Doesn't Matter Why by Silversun Pickups, it's not a piano, I'm not even sure what it is, but it's a high pitch repetitive percussive sound.
• Party Hard by Andrew W.K. gets an honorary mention, but the piano note is only every quarter note rather than every eighth note.

Can anyone think of any other songs like this? I know I've heard a bunch, but when I try and come up with any more examples, I can't.

There's a lot of amazing stuff out there that we take for granted these days, but today's normal is yesterday's dream for the future.

What's something possible/happening now that is decidedly futuristic?

You know, like the idea that I can type these words and within seconds they can be read by people across the globe!

My MSI motherboard recently had an audio issue and crashed/corrupted my PC.

I RMA'd it and did a fresh install of windows.

I fire up my PC - no internet. After some fiddle-fucking around, I try an Ethernet to USB-C adapter. Works fine.

I try a wifi dongle, no issues.

Okay, motherboard issue related to the Ethernet port then, right?

Except, I plug my Ethernet cable directly into my modem, and now it's working totally fine.

Hmm, router issue? But why is it working with the usb-C adapter? Why does it work when I plug it into my steam deck? Factory reset. No dice.

Drivers updated, windows updated, everything has been disabled, re-enabled, reset, turned off and back on, etc. I'm losing my mind.

I would really like to be able to plug my expensive PC directly into my router via Ethernet, but I can't seem to make it happen. Tried two different cables (which work with other devices).

When I connect, it says it's identifying network and then gives me a 169 IP address - DHPS error then? But why wouldn't that be resolved by the clean install and the factory reset?

Everything is set to auto in terms of IP and DHPS. Everything is enabled as it should be. No firewall. No security. No blacklisted devices. Why won't my router assign an IP address to my PC when connected directly via Ethernet? And why is it working fine when connected to my modem?

msi motherboard and TP-link router by the way.

Edit: Alright folks, I'm just going to squeeze in a network card. I don't want to do another three weeks with no PC and this mobo is just old enough that I don't feel like RMA'ing repeatedly unless I have to. I really tried everything and have ruled out the router and Ethernet cable. Thank you all so much for your help.

Edit: Threw a new network card in. Used my second PCIEx16 slot. Nothing will fit there anyway since it's microatx and my gpu takes up so much space. Working great. So probably the mobo having an ethernet defect - not terribly surprising considering this was just RMA'd and they sent me back the same mobo after repair. If it shits the bed again, I'll just get a new mobo entirely. it's not an expensive one luckily. Thanks again everyone!

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 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?

Hey everyone, I am attempting to go vegan.

I just wanted to do a "vegan weekend", but I’m about a month in, and I'm feeling like I can keep this up. I've tried in the past, but there are far more vegan options than there were several years ago. If you are a vegan, please let me know any tips, tricks, etc. that you wish you knew sooner. If you are on the fence or curious about it, ask questions! Post your favorite vegan recipes in the comments or any online resources you recommend on veganism. General veganism thread.

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?

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like windows.10, tech industry and changemyview. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was curious.

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 just got back from the 'Nintendo Switch 2 Experience', so I though I'd share my thoughts on the console for those who didn't/won't get a chance to check it out.

The Console Itself - 8/10

The S2 is a decent amount larger than the original, which really helps with the ergonomics. Pretty much all the controls are bigger, and the rounder shape might alleviate fatigue when holding it (I never got to hold it for long, the demos were mostly on TVs). I think it looks a lot worse than the original, but that's neither here nor there. The pro controller was a huge upgrade from the (already great) original, super comfortable materials and nice buttons. The screen is not OLED, which I think is ridiculous for the price tag. It theoretically has HDR, but I could not tell. Overall, it's bigger and better, but nothing super special.

Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour - 0/10

For the price of $10, Welcome Tour is a complete joke. There's absolutely nothing to say about it, it's basically an ad for hardware you'll already own. Should be free, don't buy it.

Donkey Kong Bananza - 5/10

This is the Mario Odyssey formula applied to Donkey Kong, you run around, collect bananas in some semi-open worlds. All the environments are destructible, which is super fun but adds one huge caveat: the game runs like shit. A nice 60fps when running around, but as soon as you try smashing stuff (the main gimmick of the game) the framerate jumps all over the place, and going to the world map tanks the fps to 20-30. I enjoyed surfing on chunks of the ground I pulled up, but I was constantly pulled out of the fun by performance hiccups. It looked about as good as Mario Odyssey (but at native 4k ~60pfs, of course).

Mario Kart World - 9/10

Okay, now I can start saying nice things! Mario Kart World is–as you might expect–awesome. It's a really fun twist on the formula that was perfected in 8 Deluxe. There's no more kart customisation, which I don't mind, but each kart looks really nice and detailed. I got a slight taste of free-roam mode before each knockout tour I played, and it was... fine? The open world looks great and plays well, but I'm curious to see how it's "gamified". The knockout tour was the main booth on the floor, with 24 people playing at once with the last placing racers getting eliminated at different checkpoints. It was chaos, but that classic Mario Kart chaos that works really well. I managed to come 2nd on my first race. It looks quite a lot better than 8 Deluxe, but that's mostly in the art style and animations.

Drag X Drive - 9/10

This is the gimmicky competitive game for this system (like Arms or Splatoon), showing off the mouse controls in the form of Wheelchair Basketball. I was super surprised by this game, the gimmick clicked with me instantly. I got dunked on like twice, but I also only had 5 minutes to prepare, so cut me some slack!

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond - 7/10

Again, the mouse controls work super well. It all felt pretty simple and intuitive, but that might be because I'm a PC player most of the time anyway. I don't know anything about the Metroid series, so I can't comment on the story or gameplay beyond that. It looked pretty good and ran at (I think) the full 120FPS the whole time.

Cyberpunk 2077 - 4/10

Cyberpunk was... rough. It had that classic "really really upscaled" look, and dipped down to 10fps a lot in combat. I tried both "performance" and "quality" mode, but both looked and played about the same (which might be a bug).

Breath of the Wild: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition - 2/10

I can't believe they're charging for this. It's literally just the original game running at 60fps with slightly better draw distances. You can get this look with CEMU. This is how I felt about all the "Nintendo Switch 2 Edition" games that I tried.

Conclusion

While the games were pretty good and the experience was nice, I don't think the console has justified itself costing as much as it does, and so I'm not going to buy it on launch. I'll probably pick it up used when there's a reliable jailbreak, but the preview event really dissolved any feelings of FOMO that I might have had about it, which I'm glad about because now I can save that $800! I hope there's still people playing Drag x Drive when I get to it in a few years.

Feel free to ask me any questions, and hopefully I can answer them.

What's the best way to link a photo from my gallery to share here? My go to with friends and family is a Google drive link. Is there something I'm unaware of that means I shouldn't create links through my Google drive for general public sharing?

I'm looking to better organize all the computer and electronics parts I have laying around and am looking for recommendations for software from people who are already doing this. I saw InvenTree but wasn't sure if there are other alternatives I should look at. Most of what I found so far is focused on companies and is therefore a bit more than I need. My only major requirement is that I can self-host it, or at least easily export all my data out of it. Ideally, the same software would work well for organizing home workshop parts as well (e.g. bolts, sockets, glues), though that's not a hard requirement.

Also, I'm not sure if this makes more sense here or in ~hobbies, but I figured the computer/electronics focus means it makes more sense here.

Hello everyone,

I wanted to provide a litmus test, of sorts. This test helps you figure out if you are engaging in the Sunken Cost Fallacy.

Sometimes I find myself asking if I should quit something, let something go, move on, etc.. It can be hard to figure out what the answer to those questions are. I heard a piece of advice regarding this very struggle, and wanted to share it with you all.

Ask yourself:

Knowing what I know now, would I still make the same decision that I did?

If the answer is "No" then you are most likely in a Sunken Cost Fallacy mindset. It could be argued that you should stop whatever it is you're considering stopping.

If the answer is "Yes" it is likely you are not in a Sunken Cost Fallacy and you made a decision in line with your values, even if it may not seem like it (hence the struggling).

Disclaimers:
Knowing the answer to this question does not imply you will know what to do with the information.

This test does not really "fix" anything, so to speak, but it is intended to help you realize when you are in a sunken cost fallacy situation.

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!

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've been writing, editing and designing a book in my spare time for the last four years. After a pro edit, I finally got it to the point that I was comfortable sending it out to a few people in my field for some feedback.

Meanwhile I've been reading up on self publishing and now I'm realizing how hard it is to stay in control of your work.

There are many warnings about scammers. As soon as you self publish on any of the common sites like Amazon or Ingram Spark, you will be contacted by "publishers" and "advertising experts" and "promoters" who all have an interest in trying to make a buck off you. Mostly they want to gain control of your work for their own benefit and some will post it for free even if you have it advertised at a low price elsewhere, just to gain traffic and views.

Getting your work pirated is almost a given for digital books. And how in the world do you stop THAT from happening when a PDF or ePUB file is super easy to copy and send in a second?

If that's not the greatest insult, with the help of AI, someone can easily copy your book and use AI to rewrite in a different voice or style and republish it as their own. The chances of proving that it was originally your work then become next to impossible. If it's completely rewritten is it still your work? How do you prove it?

I've done the best I can - copyright registered the book, applied for an ISBN number and have a watermark on the pre release copy. But it still feels pretty vulnerable.

I had never thought of these issues before I had something worth publishing but I suppose the same issues apply to just about any digital work - music, art, software. Trying to maintain control of your work in a digital age can easily be a game of Whack-A-Mole even if you want to spend your savings on lawyers and cease and desist letters and take down requests.

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.

after being with my gf for a while, its become very clear to me that she really appreciate a massage. part of it is just its her love language and part of it is just that her back tends to have issues.

I'm at a place where I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to taking some massage classes to provide her a better experience but I don't really have the time for classes and I am in massive saving mode right now and classes don't seem cheap.

So the next best thing seems to be get some adequate massage tools that couples can use without much expertise but quite frankly, I don't really know what qualifies as a "good massage tool". I was wondering if anyone here has gone down that hole and would be willing to share their experience?

to give you more context on where the tool[s] would be used, she tends to like a massage on the left or right side of her back, not really much in the shoulder area and maybe a little above the bum but not much tbh.

oh and she likes it when I use my knuckles or elbows.

^{I don't know if this counts as ~health.mental or ~life, so admins please feel free to move this as you see fit.}

A few days ago, I bought some Gameboy games for my Analogue Pocket from a local retro game store. I'm sitting here, looking at those cartridges and thinking only one thing.

"Why did buy these? They could just be a ROM".

This particular problem is easy to solve, I beat the games on cart and then sell it back to the store I bought it from. I lose some money, sure, but chalk that up to a learning experience. I just bought a new bag, I'd been researching options for months and finally picked one up when I was in the city. I felt like shit for the rest of the day because it was $30 more expensive than another option, even though the bag I bought:

• was available IRL so I knew it would fit all my stuff, unlike the online-only alternative.
• was made my city, with a lifetime warranty and a repair service available, unlike the alternative.

This seems like an unhealthy mentality to have towards buying things. Sure, a decent amount of restraint should be exercised when making purchases, but I have this feeling every single time I buy something. Even food does this to me to some degree (but usually that's because my eyes are bigger than my stomach, lol). I think this is a battle between my internal minimalist and my internal consumer, and I don't really know how to go about dealing with it.

Does anyone else have similar experience? I'd love to hear your thoughts on this matter. Alternatively, tell the story of your worst moment of buyers remorse :)

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.

My friend and I are going to co-present at an industry conference soon. We are comfortable with the subject matter and have finished the first draft of our slides with a very light script. I'm curious if anyone on Tildes has experience with speaking at conferences either solo or co-presenting and what tips you can share from your own experience.

We've already established a few things:

• In the agenda/overview slide at the beginning we'll politely ask people to save all questions for the end for when we've budgeted time. This is because I've seen from the audience other presentations be derailed and run out of time due to a single member of the audience regularly interrupting with questions.
• Keep the text on slides to a bare minimum so that the audience's attention doesn't shift away from us and onto the screen. We're working on this and plan to use images/diagrams wherever appropriate although budgeting time to create these is difficult.
• We're also planning to ensure the speaker notes cover what we're saying so if someone reviews the slides later instead of a recording they'll be able to follow along.

I’m wondering what software I should use to stream games from my desktop to my laptop. I’ve migrated from mostly using my desktop to mostly using my laptop in the last year. But my desktop has a substantially better GPU and I would love a convenient solution for streaming both Minecraft and Steam games to my Macbook. I’m personally not a fan of Steam’s client on MacOS as it is severely buggy for me. So any alternatives would be nice. I’d probably be happy with a low latency low compression full screen desktop mirroring app. But anything more targeted at games could be nice.

Edit: I'm using the free version of Parsec and it seems pretty good.

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 will admit this is somewhat of a selfish topic as I am struggling to make a decision about selling or keeping a used car I own. I have two vehicles, a relatively newer model crossover which is our primary family car, and my daily driver when running errands with the baby. Our second car is an '06 Acura RSX which is a little coupe (although, it's quite practical and spacious for a coupe)

Our current situation is that my wife works less than a mile from home, and I am a stay at home dad. My wife generally walks or rides our electric scooter to work, while very rarely (extremely snowy or rainy days) we will load up and drive her down the road. The result of this is that the RSX sits unused a lot of the time, except for specific times like when she takes the baby somewhere on the weekend and I have errands to run as well, or when the crossover is otherwise occupied (oil changes, tire rotation etc)

For these reasons, we have been considering selling the RSX. Since used car prices have been spiking it would pay off all of our remaining debt on the crossover, and leave us with a few thousand in the bank. It's not a huge amount of money but it will save us a few hundred a month. We are not well-off on a single income, but we're not struggling by any means.

My hesitancy is basically two economic reasons and one personal:

1. With the tariff insanity, used car prices do seem to be spiking and I don't think (or know if) we're necessarily at the price peak. I would regret selling it and having the price jump 25% a few months later.

2. Because of the same reasons, replacing it in a year or two when I want to go back to work might end up costing us more than we made from selling it. My daughter is 18 months now and we'll probably be looking to get her into daycare by 2.5-3 years old.

3. As for the personal reason, I just really like this car. I bought it outright from the insurance payment on my first real car getting totaled, and it has gotten me through some tough times in my life. I have done a lot of work on it to make it "my" car. I love the fact that it's from the era where cars were just machines, but its still modern enough for tech upgrades, and parts for it (both OEM and third party) are basically everywhere. It's cheap to work on and barely needs work to begin with. That being said, it does need a few things done that might be outside of my skill set in the next year or so. I might be able to manage a serpentine belt replacement, but the front control arm bushings are wearing out and it seems like you need a lot of specialized tools for that replacement so I'm not sure I'm confident in doing it myself.

As for the less "me specific" portion of the conversation, I'm just curious what the smart people of Tildes think about what's going to happen in the near/mid future in the US regarding the car market, used cars, the transition to electric vehicles, and what you're thinking about in regards buying, selling, or holding vehicles in these uncertain times.

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?

I am planning to use Plaid API and have a spring boot backend but given that I will be storing my financial information (such as whatever the Plaid API needs me to store to use their endpoints as well as just the transactions on my credit and chequing account), the security of the data is obviously crucial. and I think my problem is I don't know what I don't know.

I have a basic idea of what kind of things I need to protect against.

1. WIll have to use Spring security (or whatever is best) for thing like protecting against xss and csrf
2. I need to ensure that the PostgreSQL database is encrypted

but beyond that, I don't know much about the nuances of each type of security and customizations I should be on the look-out for. wonder if there's a trustworthy resource for at least detailing for me the kind of security I need to implement on either the Spring or PostgreSQL side of things?

So a my building charged me for a clogged toilet repair that turned into a total replacement.

Its listed as a plumbing damage charge, I don't believe they have a basis to charge for that. What should I do?

Also my insurance company interestingly didnt renew my tenant insurance policy ive had fot years with no change.

Should I ask them to provide the documented charge and consider filing a claim with my insurance seeing as they're dropping me anyway? Should I ensure I have a new policy before I file that claim

Not proud but proudly not ashamed

In the notification setting, I have untoggled both options but then I am wondering how can I mark a comment as read if I dont actually want to vote, label, reply or anything?

I am used to the reddit interface where iirc, you can just hit a button for toggle that state on a comment.

How many languages y'all speak? From how many different language families? How many scripts can you read? Any special grammatical quirks that your languages have?

It doesn't matter if it's A2 level or C2 level, share it with us!

I wasn’t sure whether I should file this under ~movies, ~music, or ~society, so I put it here. Feel free to move it elsewhere.

I had a thought this morning: I’m confused about the attention-seeking behavior of famous and wealthy celebrities in the music or film industries, past their peak.

From my point of view, as someone who is neither famous nor wealthy, I think that if I ever reached that level, then I would be more than happy when people stop paying attention to me, and instead start swooning for newer, younger artists on their way to stardom.

It would signal to me that my time to be in the spotlight is over, that it’s my turn to pass on the torch, and that I can now ride into the sunset, content to potentially have several decades of time left for me to just enjoy a quiet, cozy life, making use of my money to amuse myself as well as to invest it in worthy causes, so that I not only leave behind a legacy of fame and wealth, but also improve the lives of other people.

Every famous and wealthy musician or actor could do this.

But so many of them don’t. They choose to, instead, do everything they can to stay in the limelight. They pull extreme stunts with which they harm themselves, which ironically, in many cases only end up embarrassing in the eyes of the world anyway. And they do all of this to retain the attention of people who have long forgotten about them.

What for? I don’t get it.

Is it really so that fame and wealth just corrupts a person to such an extent that they become addicted to being the center of attention?

This thought, by the way, came about because I’ve become aware of many such “extreme and dangerous attention-seeking stunts” from many celebrities in the last few weeks. It’s not about one celebrity in particular. It’s been a thought that has been brewing in my head for a while.

I tried looking through the docs but couldn't find an answer to this question: What is the nature of the link that is established to the sys-admin and devs of tildes for an account and the invite account?

as in, do they store the invite code that I used to create this account permanently and will be able to link that invite back to the issuing user? so that my account and the issuing user will always be linked in that way?

Hello tilderunners! Apologies for the delay on this thread, I was out of town and realized I hadn't posted last week. I'm posting to collect everyone's YAML for their intended Archipelago run and confirm if we have enough people to go.

For anyone out of the know, Archipelago is a large multiworld randomizer across multiple games. I made an FAQ over here with some details and info. If it sounds vaguely interesting, don't be intimidated and come on in! It's as crazy as it sounds, but not nearly as hard as you think it'll be.

Let's put a hard cutoff of 9 PM ET on the night of Thursday, May 8th to post your YAML(s) in this thread. The YAMLs have to bake in at the beginning - we can't add you later! So please try to get them in then, or let me know if you'll be a bit late so we can push the start a little bit. If a majority of people cannot make the Thursday night time, I can push the date, so please let me know - I'm thinking if we hit ~7 YAMLs posted and ready for the start time we'll go. There are often a lot of checks at the beginning, so it's typically best to be around for the start to be around for the opening chaos. It's still asynchronous, though - if you can start playing within the first 24 hours, that should be fine!

I'm not sure what the best way to attach the YAML would be, so I'm going to suggest posting a spoilered code block that I can throw into a text file. If anyone has a better idea, please throw it in here. I've also thrown a discord server together if you want to join and stream or chat while you play! Technically I've got a separate emojis one with Nitro if that's better for the audio quality boost, but this might be fine for now.