It’s that time of year in the Northern Hemisphere- lots of sun and (often) inadequate sunblock usage.

What are your tried-and-true remedies, excluding aloe since that one seems common knowledge at this point.

What domain registrar do you suggest? I have several domains with GoDaddy. I have them there because one of them is a .it domain, and several other registrars didn't offer them at the time. So I kept everything at GD to have it all in one place. And for the longest time, they were giving me great deals, but not so much anymore.

They send me a lot of coupons and try to sell me on the domain club here and there. They sent me a coupon for 20% off renewals. I thought great, but when I checked my control panel the prices of renewing had doubled. GD is really overcharging at this point. I plan to let several domains just lapse and keep the ones worth money and the ones I use personally. Which makes this even more of an ideal time to switch.

I was hoping Name Silo finally offered .it, but they don't. At this point I have been waiting several years for them to offer .it support, and they keep saying check back in 6 months. So I'll just bite the bullet and leave my .it and .me at GD and move everything else out if they end up being the best deal. I'd like the keep them together because I use those two for email, and I'd like them in one place for management ease.

Thanks

Anyone play an instrument as a hobby?

I'm currently learning how to play the violin I started about 2 weeks ago and really like it so far!

I noticed my G string's fine tuner was not quite working so I removed tension off the string to fix the screw--when I re-added tension I ended up breaking my string. This gave me an excuse to buy some nice starter strings! I can't wait to start playing on them I'm still waiting a few hrs to let them "settle in" on their own.

These have been fairly popular and I really like hearing from the community, so here's this week's thread.

I've been playing Golf Story for the Switch (got it on recent sale). I've found it relaxing and amusing, a good combo for evening wind-down. I'm not sure if I mastered the mechanics yet, putting is surprisingly hard when you can't see the slope in 3D. Story is fun, and the variety in courses is refreshing, highly recommended.

Just purchased Football Manager 2018. I'm not actually a football fan or anything, I just really like the RPG-like nature of assembling a good team and seeing my amateur tactics play out on the field. Games can be surprisingly tense and exciting. I wish I had a deeper understanding of the game, but it's fun enough regardless.

Let me be straight and clear because it might be hard to explain and come up with words to explain it.
How do you guys take a side/stand when you have seen the both side of the argument/situation (anything similar to it), and both are correct in their own way. If you take one's side, you know you're not being fair to other one because you can rationalise it and know that other side is also correct. But if you're forced to take one. How do you come to the conclusion.

I always tend to avoid this type of scenario but it eventually happens again. And if you avoid it, people will be left to wonder it they were right or wrong (but you know both sides are right) in the decision/situation/you get the point.

P.S sorry for the bad english

Website: https://hacksummit.org

Honestly I'm not following this block-chain thing that much closely (apart from knowing the theory of how it works on a basic level) and I'm curious to see if this event can help me get what it is all about :)

Anyone interested in a free pass can send a PM to me (do not reply here please) and it would be interesting if we use this topic to talk about your previous experience with the event or block-chain in general.

In governance, sortition (also known as allotment or demarchy) is the selection of political officials as a random sample from a larger pool of candidates. The logic behind the sortition process originates from the idea that “power corrupts.” For that reason, when the time came to choose individuals to be assigned to empowering positions, the ancient Athenians resorted to choosing by lot. In ancient Athenian democracy, sortition was therefore the traditional and primary method for appointing political officials, and its use was regarded as a principal characteristic of true democracy.

Today, sortition is commonly used to select prospective jurors in common law-based legal systems and is sometimes used in forming citizen groups with political advisory power (citizens' juries or citizens' assemblies).

The mechanics would be something like this: users report a post/comment, when there's enough reports the systems randomly selects 3/5/7/... currently active users and ask them to determine if the reported post contravene to the rules. The decision is then automatically taken with a majority rule.

Why ?

1. It's the only system that scales (to my knowledge). More users mean more content to moderate, but since the users are also moderators the system works at any scale. Systems that don't scale lead to all kind of problems when the number of users become large.
2. It's very robust to manipulation. As moderators are chosen randomly it's very hard to coordinate or try to influence the decisions.
3. It promotes a participatory attitude and a sense of responsibility in the users. There's no "them against us" (the bad mods against the users).

Irrational Exuberance is a seminal work on market valuations.

First published in March 2000, it compared the US stock market valuations to historical market valuations using both the tradition price earnings (PE) metric as well as a cyclically adjusted price earnings (CAPE) measure. The conclusion was the US stock market was overvalued compared to earnings.

A few months later, the dot com market crashed.

Revised in 2005, it compared US housing prices to historical prices using Shillers' own inflation adjustments as well as by comparing housing prices to housing rents. The conclusion was the US housing market was overvalued compared to historical inflation adjusted prices and compared to current rents.

A few years later, the US housing market crashed.

Revised a third time in 2015, it concluded that bond yields were globally unattractive, the stock market was overheated, the global housing market was frothy, and only the US housing market seemed reasonably priced.

The penny has not yet dropped, but that doesn't stop the media trotting out Shiller whenever the market drops a few percentage points.

This book has created the Case-Shiller housing index, and has generated substantial debate about the usefulness of CAPE vs PE.

As someone who is relatively removed from the programming world (I do basic Python scripting and not much else), I'm curious to see an argument opposing what I perceive as the majority viewpoint. Those against the acquisition have cited examples of Microsoft "ruining" services such as Skype and Minecraft.

I finished my second Mass Effect original trilogy run two days ago, and today is one year since I first played ME. Below I have my goodbye to my second Shepard, Alana, a Renegade Vanguard. (Spoilers below)

Alana Shepard

October 18th, 2017, to June 23rd, 2018

Alana Shepard was not what you might think of when you think of a hero. Born on Earth, she was orphaned at a young age, and survived on the streets of some of the planet’s worst slums. Though the vids told the story of her enlisting in the Alliance Navy, she was essentially conscripted. Even as an untrained 18 year old, her biotics made her a danger to herself and others.

The structure of the Navy changed Shepard’s life, but it didn’t change who she was. Both the anger she harbored from her abandonment and the stubborn determination that kept her alive on the streets remained. Her rage drove her to kill countless Batarians on Torfan, despite the loss of her squad. Her actions on Torfan were at once monstrous and impressive, and they caught the eye of the N7 program. The Butcher of Torfan became one of the Alliance’s top operatives.

Watching Alana Shepard fight was awesome in the truest sense of the word. That a combatant could be so efficient and powerful was beautiful; that she might be heading for you next was terrifying. Many wondered if, somehow, her unknown parents were Krogan and Turian. In each of her biotic charges, there was the power of a Battlemaster and the precision of a Legionnaire. It was this combat prowess that drew Shepard and Garrus Vakarian together.

As the saying goes, there is no Shepard without Vakarian. Alana and Garrus were partners on and off the battlefield, ever since Garrus’ stint as Archangel on Omega. Despite all the bullets that tried, the only thing to make it past their armor was their love for one another. This love kept them at each other’s side all the way to the conduit.

On the Citadel, Alana Shepard did what she did best. When the Catalyst was done speaking to her, she leveled her pistol, and fired. This failed to activate the Crucible, dooming her cycle to be defeated by the Reapers. The same strength that helped Alana resist the Reapers in the entire campaign was her undoing. Alana Shepard was not what you might think of when you think of a hero, because she could not save the galaxy in its darkest hour.

I do intend to come back to these games, as I feel there are at least a few more Shepards whose stories I need to tell. That said, I will be waiting a bit longer before I start my next run, either starting on N7 day, or next summer on the two year anniversary from my start. I'm open to discussion, either about Mass Effect (I've only played the OT), or about Alana Shepard.

Since it doesn't look like @basicbaconbitch is around (or they just intended it to be a one-time thing), I guess I'll post this!

What have you been reading? What do you think of it? No need to do a big review if you don't feel like it, but I think we'd all love to hear your thoughts! Recs or discussion of each others' reading habits is encouraged!

--

Quick question: Do we want regular threads like these? Personally I think ~books is lacking a place to just drop in and talk about something that isn't news or a specific discussion topic, but maybe I'm alone on that.

I'm sure some of you might have this as a hobby or more of a profession.

I'm pretty new to it as I haven't really done much at all yet, and I'm looking to create a sheath for a knife. Are there any good videos to watch before diving into it, or any articles that come to mind?

Think of this as a place to discuss this topic as I didn't see one posted yet. Any input will be helpful!

write something cool this week?

want to freestyle into the comments and see what you make?

this is your place to share something you wrote that youre proud of.

doesnt have to be a specific style or length, its just gotta be yours.