This thread talks about Discord is trying to become Steam just as Steam is trying to become Discord.

Deimos and others said

This feels like the beginning of Discord flailing around in search of a business model.

But I really like this comment from Krael,

It's a Slack/Ventrilo hybrid that requires almost zero technical knowledge to set up or join. It's nothing groundbreaking by ANY stretch of the imagination, but there's a reason it took off the way it did.

Discord is at its heart is the same as Skype/Slack/Teamspeak/IRC but the UI/UX is leagues above everything else. Using Discord is so much easier than most alternatives and with just enough integrations that if they coughed off the "gaming" mantra they would be able to attract so many more users. Perhaps enough to get the amount of Nitro subs to stay afloat.

Is there some configuration that will cause links on ~tildes to open new tabs. Is this user configurable (Firefox on Gentoo) or is it server configurable, or account preference configurable? I'd like to be able to click once and have the content open in a new tab so I can return to the main page without having to reload.

This is a bit odd. Recently I've thought typing into tildes input boxes sometimes felt laggy but today I noticed my fan spinning up when I loaded the site (until today it's been so hot my fan was spinning all day). I checked Chrome's task manager and yes, tildes.net is using 100% cpu. If I wait 2-3 minutes, usage will drop back down to the expected 0-1% and remain there. This happens every pageload. If I load a page, wait for the cpu use to drop, then either reload that page or click an in-site link, the cpu ramps up again for 2-3 minutes.

Chrome Version 68.0.3440.106 (Official Build) (64-bit) on Debian testing, which is up to date as of midnight GMT 10/08/18. I even rebooted my machine just to be extra sure. Happens on all tildes pages. No other site that I regularly visit seems to do this.

Posted here rather than to the issue tracker for visibility, to see if this is affecting anyone else before raising an issue about it.

Or phone, or after an OS reinstall, etc. Just got to thinking about it because I did a fresh install of Arch on my chromebook the other day, and I'd be curious what other people's priority software installs are. For me, after the basics like drivers, it's xfce, Firefox, Transmission, Libreoffice, and VLC on linux. Pretty much the same on Windows, plus a few utilities like 7zip, PuTTY, and notepad++. For Android installs I grab nova launcher, Hangouts Dialer, F-Droid, NewPipe and MoonReader before anything else.

EDIT: Forgot firefox on android, as well as ublock origin on all platforms.

Also not completely sure if this belongs more in ~tech or ~comp.

I like Bar Rescue. There's some ridiculous tv dramatization, a smidge of education (how service businesses work), and I can google what happens a year after the show airs (they all seem to close). Plus when I go to bars I feel like I can point out what they're doing wrong.

Does anyone play Monster Hunter around here?

The game comes out tomorrow, and I'm so stoked. I pre-ordered it for $45 here . I'm so excited to be able to play it online with so many friends that didn't have consoles. I'm so excited to be able to stream it. I'm so excited for the more "open world" aspect of it, with minimal loading screens. The graphics look so nice.

So who else plays it? What weapon do you main? What monster are you most excited to get killed by?

EDIT: I think I'm going to go hammer this time around. In the past I've use the greatsword, bow, switchaxe, and chargeblade.

I've always loved how comics evolve alongside our real world. I have very passing knowledge of the old incarnations of Batman, but know he is quite different today than he was seven decades ago. For example, he used to have a gun, wasn't a crazy paranoid doomsday preper, and wasn't all angsty about his parents' death. He was also way more a detective than a human superman.

Anyhoo, here are some modern Batman characteristics/stories that stood out to me.

Batman vs. Schrodinger's Rapist

A long while ago, I posted Schrodinger's rapist here on Tildes. If you haven't read it, you don't have to. I'm going to take it to the extreme and basically bastardize it a bit for Batman.

Basically Schrondinger's rapist is any stranger a woman meets - he is both a rapist and not until proven otherwise. It comes with a mindset of vigilance and risk assessment. The idea that a woman will evaluate the situation and the stranger for risk and react accordingly to her acceptable level of tolerance. I think this is the perfect characterization of the "trust but verify" Batman. He is hypervigilant, constantly looking for an exit and preparing for flight or fight. Everyone is both trustworthy and not until proven otherwise.

Batman vs. Branding

In the New 52's Batman, Bruce decides branding and expansion is important, and creates Batman Inc. It's a very capitalistic/entrepreneurial take on providing private security, and comes with a tone of "trust depends on branding" and "security requires big money". It may be a good service with good intentions, but has a "selling weapons for protection" franchise-y feel, that I don't think is accidental.

Gordon's Batman vs. Militarizing individuals

I'm going to start by saying I'm not at all a fan of Jim Gordon's Batman. It had potential, but honestly really failed to live up to it.

However, they did do one interesting line, which was Mr. Bloom (New 52, #41-46). I'll try not to include too many details, as to prevent spoilers, but no promises.

Gotham is in it's usual chaos, but oh no, it's extra bad right now, because the real Batman (Bruce) is gone. On the streets there's these seeds that grant superpowers until you remove them or they kill you.

The average lowly citizen of Gotham has felt so unprotected that this seems like a good option. The story starts with gangsters using this and arcs up to normal people using it.

Final thoughts

So what are you thoughts about these points or others? Are there other comics or storylines that stand out as a really good mirror of real world issues and events that stand out for you?

Why?

Quick story: I was in an elevator with a coworker I didn't really know and he told me a story of when he asked a stranger in a restaurant if she were pregnant. She was not! And he said he was so embarrassed that he had to leave.

I didn't get a chance to ask him, so I'm asking you fellow tilderinos - why ask this question at all? Especially to a stranger? What motivates this question? Is it really asking why someone looks fat?

Have you been on the receiving end of this question? (If you're a women older than 25, I'm going to guess yes). What are your stories?

I'm re-reading through some investment books right now and thought I'd throw one them out here with my thoughts and questions.

Investing and the Irrational Mind: Rethink Risk, Outwit Optimism, and Seize Opportunities Others Miss

by Robert Koppel

The title of this one intrigued me. Author Robert Koppel is a former investor/trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He covers a lot of research on what psychologists have discovered about biases and irrational thinking, particularly as it relates to investing and trading. He's also interviewed many other investors and offers his own observations from extensive experience.

He goes back and forth between having and investment plan and using intuition, which as it turns out are both tactics investors have used. I think the valuable part of this book is the way he ties in research by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman and others on biases to what happens when we make good and not so good decisions in finance. An example of one of those common pitfalls:

We also experience a reflection effect whereby individuals make irrational choices to enter or exit an investment based on a subjective reference point determined by whether they have already experienced a gain or a loss. An example of this would be someone waiting for a “breakeven” price before exiting from an investment that is performing poorly rather than looking at the market objectively, without reference to the purchase price.

The book isn't so much an investment strategy but rather a good overview of what's involved in the process. As someone who has handled his own investments for years, I found that Koppel's book is realistic and practical, especially for those of us who've had to make those hard decisions on buying and selling, either for the long term or short term.

My own particular problem is watching things too closely and losing a sense of longer term movement. Investing And The Irrational Mind is a great tool for giving me pause and reflecting on the mistakes I've fallen into over the years.

Even as basic a rule as "cut your losses short" is hard to follow and really give me pause to think about issues I've held onto for too long as well as others that went on to go up and away. I've love to hear your thoughts.