What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

The goal of the monthly Digital Detox topic is:

to evaluate and potentially address toxic or controlling aspects of tech in ways are meaningful for you

Please make this topic what you want it to be. There's no right or wrong way to post in it.

All people posting in this topic will be automatically added to the Digital Detox notification list. If you do NOT want to be added to the list, please let me know in your comment.

Monthly Discussion Starter: What media (books, podcasts, videos, etc.) do you recommend that portray problems with modern technology and/or solutions to them?

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’m thinking about social relations in society a lot lately. How the mobile phone is filling all of the lulls in daily life, and how we don’t feel compelled to start random conversations with random people anymore. Let alone hit on other people IRL.

I’m curious about your experience: do you start conversations with random people in the street, at a bar, in a line, on a plane, on a train, etc?

And do you feel more comfortable with a particular gender, your gender, the opposite gender?

How do the people you talk to react? What were your goals if any in starting the conversation? Does it ever lead to anything beyond the initial chat?

I just opened YouTube on my iPhone and realized there was no UI at all for seeing my subscriptions. I had to relaunch the app and notice right when it opens they show a subscriptions link at the top but it auto-hides. So what you need to do is tap on the screen and then tap on the subscriptions link. There’s no other reference to subscriptions anywhere. It’s almost completely hidden now.

I have “watch history” disabled, which turns YouTube from a wannabe TikTok into its former self. You get no algorithmic suggestions and you can’t watch shorts (unless linked to them directly or through subscriptions). So now the YouTube app essentially has no content unless you dig through hidden UI. This is crazy.

I've reached the next stage in the process of reclaiming control over my tech and that entails switching my spreadsheets away from Google. Stage one was about turning off notifications, removing bloatware and changing settings to be more privacy-oriented whenever I got a new device, etc. Second stage: replacing numerous different software with Obsidian, a huge productivity and convenience win. So these days I use Obsidian for almost everything but it doesn't do spreadsheets yet (if ever).

So I did some research and it looks like LibreOffice is the only option that doesn't come with some sort of AI stuff and makes the .xls(x) file format I can display in Obsidian. This conversation is not about why I'm choosing to avoid AI features and companies that won't allow me to turn them off, but that's what I aim to do, as much as possible. Edit: I also want a local installation that works offline and doesn't send anything to some cloud.

I searched Tildes for LibreOffice and found some damning comments but they were all fairly vague and I'm unsure how much the disappointment applies to LibreOffice Calc specifically, so I thought I'd ask about people's experiences.

My use case is primarily for personal finance calculations, as well as costing sheets for work. Not super complex high level math but there are some more complicated formulas and I do like to have conditional formatting options too. Mainly I'm interested in reliability, even if the thing isn't as feature-packed as Google Sheets. I'm on MacOS if that matters.

I am sitting on my flight back from Palma de Mallorca right now, looking back on two weeks of sailing (almost) around the island.

It was my first time chartering a sailing yacht, and my fifth time sailing ever. It was exhilarating, challenging, beautiful, boring and serene, and it all started with me puking my guts out on the first day.

I'll write up more about the trip after landing, if there is any interest. In the meantime - who here is also into sailing or spending time on a vessel on the water? :)

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?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

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

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Hey team, I live in a dilapidated sharehouse that will inevitably be torn down. So we can kinda do whatever to it. It has this thin crack in the wall and I was thinking about trying to use the Kintsugi idea and applying it to a house, fill the gap with gold. Does anyone have any idea about the best way to go about this? I have some powder grout, I was thinking about mixing it with some gold acrylic paint and a tiny bit of water to make it into the right paste consistency. I like this approach as I own all the stuff.

My brother will be visiting from out of the country for Christmas, and I’m trying to put together vegan recipes we can make. Our entire family is not vegan except for him, so I’m looking for recipes to ensure he can have good food to eat while he is here (I’m sure he will do some cooking himself, but I think it would be nice if we were also to make things he could enjoy).

Really looking for anything people have made before that have turned out well, but specifically interested in

• soups/stews
• desserts (and cookies, ideally for decorating)

Thanks!

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.

Senator elect Dr. Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan was quoted on the election trail on his definition of Shawarma Law.

"If you get a shawarma and it's got lettuce in it, it's not shawarma, it's just a sandwich. Someone has lied to you."

As a corollary, a shawarma can be made into a sandwich by the addition of lettuce where it was not one before. A traditional shawarma does not have two defined bread buns which contain the rest of the sandwich, but use an flatbread as one defined piece surrounding it. Similarly, a hotdog bun is one defined piece of bread, surrounding the contents of the dog. Can we now use Dr. El-Sayed's definition of Shawarma Law to confirm that a hotdog is a sandwich and put to rest one of the greatest arguments of our generation?

The blaze has officially ignited!

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