What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.

Notes

We're coming up on #30! Exciting!

Previous topics

Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

This is obviously a thought-experiment, but maybe an interesting one. Let's say we get a super-efficient, eco-friendly alternative fuel that can do whatever rocket fuel does now with 1/100 of the cost, 1/100 of volume and 100% more efficiency. What does it change in the short term?

Let's mix things up a bit and talk about musicians and bands from our local areas. There's often some really great music happening in a local scene, which rarely sees the light of day. So hit us up with links to the music makers in your local scene (or your own band even!) so we can have a listen and maybe discover something new and amazing :)

If there's a better or more commonly used term for this let me know, but my idea of an "expired classic" is a game that was acclaimed and beloved at the time of its release but that would be nearly unplayable or unacceptable by modern standards. Not just less impressive or weaker, mind you, but outright bad. Think "aged poorly" but like, REALLY poorly.

The quintessential example is Goldeneye 007. While absolutely landmark for its time, gamers that pick it up now would likely be baffled by its controls and appalled by its significant, unforgivable framerate issues. Even some people that used to love playing it have a hard time enjoying it now (myself included). It is a game that has "expired" over time.

The expiration doesn't have to be due to technical issues either. It could be due to cultural issues, design issues, or any other factor that makes the same significantly less palatable today, even to those that want to play it!

What are some other examples, and why have they expired?

The question follows the lead of our community name: LGBT in the title refers to the LGBT umbrella and isn't limited to the identities represented by the initials.

The character can be from any media source: shows, movies, anime, books, comics, videogames, even song lyrics, or anything else I've missed. The only criteria is that they have to be fictional.

• Who is the character and how are they portrayed?
• What do you like about them?
• Do they resonate with your own experience or those of people you know in any way?

Did something cool recently, and no one’s bothered to ask?

Got some stuff on your chest, and no one’s checking in?

Super passionate about a niche topic that not too many people think of?

Toss your question-hopeful here, and let someone pop it!

1. You're with your wife at a party. At your eyes, she looks absolutely stunning. But, with the years, she gained a lot of weight. She asks you: "Honey, does this dress makes me look fat?". And it does. It definitely does. Is lying virtuous in this situation?

2. You're in a relationship. He's handsome, tender, caring and perfect. You feel a bundle of good feelings towards him, but you don't even know what "love" really is. You don't know the true nature of your sentiments, but you know they're strong and you don't wanna hurt his feelings. He asks if you love him. Saying no would be false. Saying yes would be false too. Is lying virtuous in this situation?

3. A three-year-old is dying of cancer. He's only got a few days. He asks you if he's gonna live. You say "yes". Is lying virtuous in this situation?

4. Your fellow soldier lost his legs and torso. He's bleeding through his mouth and high on morphine. He asks you if everything's gonna be okay. You say yes. Is lying virtuous in this situation?

5. You've been married for 5 years and, after some problems, you decide to take a real break (not like Ross and Rachael). During this break, you have sex with several woman/men. You decide to resume the relationship, but you know your partner would not be able to deal with your sexual adventures. When he/she ask about it, you say you didn't see anyone in the time you were apart. Is lying virtuous in this situation?

6. You know the project is dead. You also know that saying so will have absolutely no effect on its direction. Do you say the project is shit, or do you say it's got a shot just to save face? In that case, is there any virtue in telling the truth?

7. You believe A is true, but you also know that declaring A right now will lead to unfavorable result C. Do you declare A right now, or do you wait to declare it when it will lead to favorable result D? This guy knows what I'm talking about...

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.

Notes

I'm finally going to update the wiki today, hopefully. FYI.

Previous topics

Previous topics will be ARE listed in the UPDATED wiki!!! as soon as I update it.

What are the Big Problems? I'm leaving this open-ended, there's no specific criteria for responses.

I'm interested in both your list and the reasons why. Submitting your list before reading others' contributions would be preferred.

Optionally: who is (or isn't) successfully addressing them. Individuals, organizations, companies, governments, other. How and/or why not?

I've asked this question periodically on several forums (G+, Reddit, HN) for seven years now.

I've written fairly extensively on my own views, reasonably findable if you wish, but my interest here is in gaining fresh input, resetting my own biases, and not colouring the discussion overly myself.

If I had a really rough day or accomplished more than expected, I make sure to reward myself as such. I've found that I treat myself to a local pizzeria or take a bath in steaming hot water and zone out from the world for an hour.

I currently have a personal "portfolio" site that I haven't updated in close to a year. I'm planning now on revamping it, and I am using this opportunity to reconsider the static site generator I am using.

I host my site on Github pages, which means that Jekyll was originally very appealing due to its nice integration with Github. However, I have found it difficult to greatly customize the themes I find, and I'm the type of person that likes to get everything "just right". It seems like Hugo might be more extensible in this regard, but I'm not sure if that alone makes it worth the switch from my current setup. Anecdotally, a lot of the blogs I find whose layouts I really like tend to use Hugo.

Pure HTML/CSS is an option but that seems like a big overhead for what I want. I'm no web developer and I don't plan on becoming one.

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!

In English-speaking countries, the name "John Smith" is often used as a placeholder name because it's boring and common: John is one of the most common first names among English-speaking men, and Smith is the most common surname/family name among English-descended people. Together, they make a very boring and bland name.

What's the equivalent in your country? What's the most boring, common name? What do people use as a placeholder when they need to use a name that isn't a real person but looks like it could be a real person?

What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.

Sorry, I usually post this on Monday and just realized I didn't do it this week. I'm bad at this and obviously need to add a proper scheduled-posting feature.

I've been in a bit of a late 90s, early 00s aesthetic and was wondering what people's favorite oldschool wallpapers are.

I'm partial to crystal, clouds, Cheetah, carved stone, and Dapper Drake. I'm probably forgetting a bunch.

Note these don't need to be default OS wallpapers, those that reflect the aesthetic of the time are fine too.

Edit: Might as well share my current desktop.

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.

Notes

Hi everyone! I'm @acdw, I'm taking over this thread from @cadadr. This is my first one, and I'm excited for the discussion!

If anyone has any suggestions about how to run this thread, please feel free to PM me (I don't want to clog up this thread with suggestions). If there's enough messages, I'll start a thread to discuss them publicly.

Previous topics

Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

Some of the works of Peckinpah had been on my watch list for months, sitting there in a subfolder of a subfolder. From the choice of Straw Dogs and Cross of Iron, I chose the aforetitled, liking the idea of embarking on a bit of a journey through Mexico with a gritty protagonist as we experience splatterings of violence and negotiate the thoughts of a down and out vagabond making a ran for his riches.

The film left me with mixed feelings. I enjoyed the path of Benny, experiencing how his character is unwavering in his desire to take that last lucky ticket out of debauchery street, but didn't care much for his journey's partner. While I appreciated the dynamic of the relationship, the understanding they both had that they weren't in love with each other, but all they both had, the chemistry and dialogue didn't really resonate with me at parts. I actually was rather glad when this relationship came to its abrupt end as the film entered its final 3rd.

On top of that, there was major issues with the sound which made it difficult to fully immerse myself in the journey at times. I found myself feeling I was watching a caricature of a 70s movie now and again, as opposed to be engrossed in a gritty noir-esque adventure.

But all in all, an enjoyable film which has left an impression. I always appreciate watching unpolished characters navigating circumstances plotted outside their usual courses, then watching how they deal with the inevitable implosion. From what I've read since, the film was one which perhaps accurately portrayed the director's life at the time of filming; dealing with various booze-infused demons. That rawness definitely shows, as does the inevitable imperfections in this movie's execution.

7.5/10

I have been thinking recently, if a climate crisis is almost inevitable at this point what actions could an individual take to stay safe? I'm thinking some kind of underground bunker able to to sustain life. The main things you would need is power, water and food. The power is fairly simple since you could set up solar and wind generation and probably use that to grow food underground but I'm wondering what you would do for water. How possible would it be to collect barrels from the sea and have a personal desalination plant.

So I've spent the last few days trying to sync everything up between devices, with the following thoughts in mind:

1. how fucked am I going to be if a device gets corrupted/stolen/lost?
2. how can I easily access everything I need from a mobile device/device not belonging to me?
3. how can I avoid using services from the big tech companies, and keep things open source, as much as possible?

I'm by no means an expert in the field, and I'm hoping in this thread to get a discussion going as to the pros and cons of using different services/setups, to get a general idea as to what others are doing to keep their daily lives simpler and more secure, and to perhaps see what are the future steps for me to take when I feel like playing around again.

Servers & Storage
I span up a 25GB VPS with Vultr for 'active use data', and also took out some 'deep storage'(?) from Wasabi for things which I need to keep, but not really access that much.

Mail
Protonmail with custom domain. Using the ProtonMail app for mobile, and Linux ProtonMail bridge with Evolution mail for desktop.

Pics/Vids
Nextcloud autoupload feature on mobile automatically uploads my pics to an 'autoupload' folder on Nextcloud server. Here, I categorise pics into folders and share what needs sharing before deleting anything I don't need and wiping the pics on my phone.

Passwords
Nothing yet. Looking at getting KeyPass synced across devices.

Bookmarks
Again, nothing yet. Had Firefox Sync running to connect Fennec and Firefox, but am looking for a more open approach which involves Nextcloud somehow, and allows me to tag and order things more effectively as opposed to dragging things around in the sidebar.

Calendar/Contacts
Evolution calendar on desktop, simple calendar on mobile, hooked up to Nextcloud and all synced using davx5

Programs and General Setup
Here, I'd like to somehow take an image/backup of my Ubuntu configs of importance and experiment with getting my setup and customisaitons replicated on another machine quickly and without taking up too much space in storage (i.e. don't need to bakckup all my files as they're already on cloud).

Also, I am very curious as to whether anybody is using Syncthing across their devices? And if so, how are they finding the experience?

What's your dream laptop for running *nix?

I'm currently using a Lenovo Thinkpad T410s, and it's getting ready to die. I think it's a great machine, but every computer eventually dies. It runs Debian 8 (Jessie), but it can't handle 9 (Stretch) without overheating. On top of that, I need to use the proprietary drivers! My computer got dropped on the floor today (not my fault!), and it got me thinking that maybe it's time to start shopping for a new laptop.

What are your ideas about what a good laptop for *nix OS's? Any recommendations? What should I look for? What should I avoid?

I love having a SSD HDD, and playing with different distros, but I'd like to avoid the headache I've had with the propitiatory Intel drivers. I like to have control of my hardware, but still use the latest software. If a Raspberry Pi or BeagleBone could match the performance of a laptop then I'd seriously consider using one.

Doesn't necessarily have to be that you cried, though it certainly can be. It can also be that you connected with the characters or plot, or maybe you clicked with the game's sense of humor. Maybe it creeped you out something fierce, or maybe it forced you into difficult ethical decisions. Any strong personal response counts.

• Why was the game so meaningful for you?
• How did the game use the medium to enhance its resonance?

Please give adequate spoiler warnings!
(You can use a <details> block to make a convenient collapsible section.)

Inspired by similar topics such as "what are you reading" and "what creative project are you working on", and being obsessed with structured self-development, I thought I'd start this.
As the title says. Share what your goal is, why you want to achieve it and how you will go about it (the steps/behaviors). You can include a timeline/target date which hopefully will instill a sense of accountability and increase motivation.
I'm also hoping to get some inspiration and/or tips for my own life goals.

If this gains interest I might post this once a quarter for follow-ups and new goals.

I'll share mine in a comment below.

I'm about to do my full motorbike licence here in the UK (direct access course) and currently looking at my first big bike, thinking about a 600cc Triumph at the moment. Wondered if there are any other riders here on tildes, what do you ride, what's your history with bikes etc.?

Today I just learned about the uncaught third strike rule in baseball:

On an uncaught third strike with (1) no runner on first base, or (2) with a runner on first base and two outs, the batter immediately becomes a runner. The strike is called, but the umpire does not call the batter out. The umpire may also signal that there is "no catch" of the pitch. The batter may then attempt to reach first base and must be tagged or forced out.

Honorary mention to the defensive possession after a touchdown in American football. I can't find it in the rulebook right now, but the essential concept is that, after a score, the team that was scored on actually has a choice on whether to receive the ball and start the next possession on offense (which is normally what happens), or whether to kick off the ball and defend (considering that the team that just scored on you gets the ball back to do it again, I don't see how this could ever be a good idea in today's game).

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!

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.

Notes

Sorry this is posted so late! I would've posted it tomorrow, even, but I'm working all day so I won't have the chance. I'll make sure and bump this thread Sunday, so we can talk about our reading. I'll set an alarm for next time!

Previous topics

Previous topics will be listed in the wiki as soon as I update it.

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.

Sorry, I was away last week and didn't post this, so it's been a couple of weeks now since the last one.

So, what have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.

It'd my understanding that C has stuck around in the UNIX world for so long, nearly half a century, mostly due to the inertia of legacy code.

If you could snap your fingers and magically port/fork the entire stack of open source codebases to the language of your choice, which would you pick and why?

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.

I was feeling great in the gym yesterday and switched up my normal deadlift by using the hex bar. It requires a slightly different posture than the straight bar deadlift but felt so good that I kept adding on weight and, evidently, speeding up. What happens when you get a little too enthusiastic under load? Zzzlip! There went my back. So I’m home from work today, barely able to hobble around. Ibuprofen is not enough. I sneezed earlier and it felt like someone had inserted a power drill into my lower spinal column. Yep, I’m feeling stupid today.

Weightlifters, what are your stories of pain? I’m sure there are some good stories out there.

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!

Since we're fast approaching the second half of the year, I think it's a good time to look back on the first half, to the movies that came out this year and to share our favorites. I'm giving my favorite 10 (though in no particular order) but if more or fewer stood out to you and you want to share all of them, feel free! Blockbusters, indies, comedies, dramas, whatever stands out to you from 2019 so far. Don't feel pressured to write anything but the title or a basic synopsis if you don't want to.

• Apollo 11: Okay, I know I said this list isn't in order, but this one is definitely #1. It's history in motion, and its images and editing will surely be seared into my mind as the way I think of the Apollo launch.
• An Elephant Sitting Still: Technically came out in 2018 in some regions, but has a 2019 release in my country, which is the order I'm organizing this list in. A beautiful and heartbreaking journey into universal pain and suffering and catharsis in the tiniest things. At nearly 4 hours and with an oppressively melancholy tone, I struggle to recommend it to everyone and anyone, but if the description interests you, definitely give it a look.
• The Farewell: Hilarious and sad, often in the same moment. My love of this may well have been colored by my experiences as an immigrant under very similar circumstances as its main character, but it's an interesting look at differing cultural philosophies of the worth of the individual on their own versus their relation to society.
• The Last Black Man in San Francisco: A layered critique of gentrification and the personal individual obsessions that keep us from truly seeing it and other issues in our world as they happen. It's filled to the brim with things to say, sometimes to a detriment, and some of the screentime spent just showing the sad beauty of San Francisco could've been used to further flesh out some of its ideas, but I still found it extremely compelling all the way through.
• John Wick: Chapter 3- Parabellum: I think the John Wick movies get a little more bloat on them every entry(much like their titles, actually), but the action only seems to get slicker. I still like the balance of the world, character work, and action in Chapter 2 the best, but while I think 3 drags itself down into its lore a bit too much, its setpieces are still top of the line. I find Keanu endlessly killing people left and right to be incredibly cathartic. Should probably talk to someone about that.
• Burial of Kojo: This doesn't say "Netflix original" on it, but it does seem to be distributed by them in all the countries I checked, so I don't know what's happening there. Regardless, there's a good chance you'll find this on Netflix in your country. I'm willing to admit this movie is heavily, deeply flawed. It overtelegraphs many of its plot points repeatedly, for one. But I also think it is filled with a gorgeous charm. It's light fantasy and grounded fairy tale feels half Tarsem and half Guillermo del Toro, and I was captivated from beginning to end.
• Booksmart: I find the new crop of female led high school movies (Booksmart, Edge of Seventeen, Eighth Grade) to be far more relatable and interesting than the dozens of high school movies of decades prior. It feels like the hands of the filmmakers is more on the pulse of the struggles of modern kids. Booksmart is very much a heightened comedy compared to the other examples I mentioned, but it is great at it. It's hilarious, even if there's one scene in particular that goes on forever. The comparisons to Superbad are mostly warranted, and I still lie awake at night, sad at the fact that I saw this opening night and the theater was mostly empty.
• Dear Ex: The Netflix revolution of every indie movie ending up on streaming services and leaving the theaters to the blockbusters isn't quite happening at the speed originally anticipated, but it definitely seems like more and more of my favorites of the year end up being a streaming original. Dear Ex is a Netflix film about different people grappling with the loss of one man, and it shows the power of the individual to connect the lives of the people they love, and of the many tools we employ to try to get over losses in our lives.
• High Flying Bird: Yet another Netflix movie. Steven Soderbergh is one of the people who can make a bearable heist movie in this day and age imo, and he lends that gift to this to make a movie where the heist isn't money or jewels, but the basic rights of human beings being trampled on by a system that creates middle men to suck up money, leaving the real workers with pennies. It's shot on an iPhone, and there are moments where that seems like a limitation, but honestly, a lot of it looks really impressive.
• Ash is Purest White: This is Jia Zhangke well within his comfort zone, looking at the strain put on human relationships by the passage of time and the everchanging effects of globalization and shifting national landscapes. The World(2004) (aka Shijie) is still my favorite of his, and it is definitely an idea he's explored before, but his ideas and commentary on it have never failed me to keep me enthralled all the same.

I have a list of all the 2019 movies I see that I consider "good" here (29 films at the time of writing this) if anyone wants to take a look at all of them.

99% Invisible is a podcast about "the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world". Episodes from other podcasts that have a similar theme are always welcome.

Edit: moved my favourites to a comment.

The question is open to anyone attending any level of school in any capacity.

How are you feeling?
What are you excited about?
What are you nervous about?
What are your goals?
What are you hoping to get out of your education?

I've been trying to get back into photography and love seeing what other photographers are using.

My daily driver is a Nikon D5600 with the kit 18-55mm lens, as well as a 70-300mm lens. Nothing to spectacular, but it gets the job done. I'm just a hobbyist, so I don't have any real professional-grade equipment, but hopefully with time I'll get some more stuff as I get better with what I already have.

What are you using?

I'm working on some sleep hygiene habits at the moment and would like to know if anyone has any feedback, good or bad, for using a wake up lamp/sunrise alarm clock. I have to get up for work before it's light outside so this wouldn't be replicable by just leaving my blinds open.

Part of me likes the idea of a softer, gentler wakeup from light rather than noise, but there's another part of me that's worried I'll hate it just as much as I hate my alarm clock. My bullshit detector is also ringing pretty loudly when I see that the flagship brand name model is selling for $200 USD. Two hundred dollars for... a... light... that... slowly... turns... on. What?!?!

Nevertheless, maybe there's something I'm missing here (like the other $180 worth of technology presumably hidden in there). As such, I'm interested in hearing from anyone who has one. I'd love to hear your experiences and, if you're willing to share, which model you have.

What are you coding? Or are you reading a CS paper?

and of course, have you read SICP today?

                             ___-------___
                         _-~~             ~~-_
                      _-~                    /~-_
   /^\__/^\         /~  \                   /    \
 /|  O|| O|        /      \_______________/        \
| |___||__|      /       /                \          \
|          \    /      /                    \          \
|   (_______) /______/                        \_________ \
|         / /         \                      /            \
 \         \^\\         \                  /               \     /
   \         ||           \______________/      _-_       //\__//
     \       ||------_-~~-_ ------------- \ --/~   ~\    || __/
       ~-----||====/~     |==================|       |/~~~~~
        (_(__/  ./     /                    \_\      \.
               (_(___/                         \_____)_)

it's creative thread time, gamers. here you can share/provide updates on some of the projects that you're working on. they can be of any kind--digital, physical, work related, passion project, whatever. pretty straightforward, i think.

november thread • february thread • march thread • april thread • may thread • june thread • july thread

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!