This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

I'm thinking about getting a new printer. My needs are basically to print out textual documents 2-3 times per month from macOS. I don't need to print photos. I will not buy an inkjet because of the outrageous price of the ink. I would like to have fax support (my spouse sees a lot of doctors and they still use fax machines a lot, and we're not comfortable sending personal medical info via a fax service on the web), and it would be nice if we could also scan documents. So I'm thinking a multi-function device.

We currently have a Brother 7840W MFC with print, fax, copy, and scan. It's over 10 years old (maybe 15?) and I dislike it. It's been slowly losing functionality over the past 5+ years. The WiFi went out, but I was able to connect it via wired ethernet to a computer and share it from there. The drivers insist that there's a paper jam, but there isn't and it prints just fine (but sounds like some of the internal mechanical components are going to die any day now.) The UI of the printer is awful. I recall having to use the phone pad to enter my WiFi password, and it was like texting on a Motorola StarTAC. (Like if you want the letter "C" press the number "2" three times, etc.) The drivers and related software don't work like normal macOS software. (Disclosure: I also once wrote a scanner driver for Brother and it was horrible, but they shipped it, so I'm not real comfortable putting their software on my computer. But that was 25 years ago, so maybe they're better now?)

I've heard horrible things about the drivers and software of most other major printer makers - HP, Epson, Lexmark, etc. I'm guessing what I'm looking for doesn't exist, but I just want a multi-function device in as small a package as is reasonable, and with a UI on the device and software that doesn't suck and that won't die on me in < 5 years. Does such a thing exist?

I do some astrophotography for fun in my spare time. I'd like to get into doing deep sky photography. In order to do that, I need a moving mount that can keep the camera aligned with the stars for minutes to hours at a time. I'll be using (at least initially) a Canon 7D (original version) with Canon lenses rather than a telescope. I currently have a 200mm lens with 2x extender, which makes it 600mm equivalent on that body.

I'd like to know if others here have ever done this and what type of hardware they've used for the motor and mount? Prices seem to be all over the place and options vary greatly on different devices. For example, I see the following:

Sky-watcher EQM-35 - $623.00US - Seems pretty full-featured for the price, as it includes tripod, motorized mount, alignment scope, and database of astronomical objects.
Celestron Advanced VX Computerized Mount - $899.00US - Seems very similar to the above, but does not include a scope, but is ~$250 more
Orion AstroView EQ Mount & EQ-3M Motor Drive Kit - $269.99US - Like the first one, but without the scope and holds less weight, and no database of objects to look at

I get the difference in price between the first and last, but not the middle one.

In any event, curious if anyone has used any of the above or any others and what their thoughts are on the quality of different brands, and anything I should be looking for or avoiding.

I just watched the first episode and it's amazing how they got everything right! The fight choreographies capture the nuance of Geralt's dance, mixing magic with strength in a compelling and original way. They clearly took a lot of inspiration from the game, and in this case that is not a bad thing. The music is subtle and authentic, and the production is beautiful in all aspects: Netflix clearly spared no expenses. Henry Cavill is a superb Geralt. His voice is a lot like in the game: seasoned, dry and petulant. The story is extremely faithful to the book, and the small deviations only enhance the narrative. Unlike the first book, which is entirely episode, this show starts a lot more epic and serialized. A demand of the media. As a fan of the universe, I'm impressed. It is very rare to encounter an adaptation that respects the source material while having a life of its own.

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.

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?

Asked in the spirit of the new decade.

I am 14, so mostly growing up and realizing that the world is probably going to enter a recession when I reach adulthood which will suck for reaching financial independence.

Going through puberty, even if it's just the beginning of it and seeing one of my cats die from kidney failure and hearing that my grandma died from cancer, which is very sad :(

Hive mind: What advice would you give to someone who has to give a presentation to a non-technical person, and it's important that the listener actually understand the details?

How do you go about it? Specific tips appreciated. Pretend it's for a friend you care about.

(This is for an article. Ideally we could refer to you by reference for context and credibility, eg "an IT security pro at a midwest insurance company" or "aerospace engineer" so please give some kind of identification to use).

I'm looking for some feedback on a feasible mechanism for structuring a few API endpoints where a purely RFC-spec compliant REST API wouldn't suffice.

I have an endpoint which returns $child entries for a $parent resource, let's call it: /api/parent/:parentId/children. There could be anywhere from a dozen to several hundred children returned from this call. From here, a child entity is related to a single userOrganization, which itself is a pivoting entity on a single user. The relationship between a child and user is not strictly transitive, but can each child only has one userOrganization which only has one user, so it is trivial to reach a user from a child resource.

Given this, the data I need for the particular request involves retrieving all user's for a parent. The obvious, and incorrect solution to the problem is to make the request mentioned above, and then iterate through and make an API request to retrieve each user. This is less than very good as this would obviously be up to several hundred API calls.

There's a few more scalable solutions that could solve this problem, so any input on these ideas is great; but if you have a better proposal that also works, I'm keen to explore that!

Include user relationships in the call by default.

This certainly does solve the problem, but it's also pumping down a load of data I don't necessarily need. This would probably 2x the amount of bytes travelling along the wire, and in 8 out of 10 calls, that extra data isn't needed.

Have a separate /api/parent/:parentId/users call.

Another option that partially solves the issue: I need data from both the child and the user to format this view, so I'd still need to make the initial call I documented earlier. Semantically, it feels a bit odd to have this as a resource because I don't consider a user to be nested under a parent in terms of database topology.

Keep the original call, but add a query parameter to fetch the extra data

This comes across as the 'least worst' idea objectively, in terms of flexibility and design. Through the addition of the query parameter, you could optionally retrieve the relationship's data. This seems brittle and doesn't scale well to other endpoints where it could be useful though.

Utilize a Stripe expands-style query parameter.

Stripe implements the ability to retrieve all related records from an API endpoint by specifying the relations as strings. This is essentially the same as the above answer, but is scaled to all available API endpoints. I love this idea, but implementing it in a secure way seems fraught with disaster. For example, this is a multi-tenancied application, and it would be trivial to request userOrganization.user.organizations.users. This would retrieve all other organisations for the user, and their users! This is because my implementation of expands simply utilises the ORM of my choice to perform a database join, and of course the database has no knowledge about application tenancy!

Now, I do realise this problem could easily be solved by implementing a GraphQL API server, which I have done in the past, but unfortunately time and workload constraints dictate implementing a GraphQL-based solution is infeasible. As much as I like GraphQL, I'm not as proficient in that area as compared to implementing high quality traditional APIs, and the applications I'm working on at the moment are focusing on choosing boring technology, and not using excessive innovation tokens.

Furthermore, I do consider the conceptuals around REST APIs to be more of an aspirational sliding scale, rather than a well defined physical entity, because let's face it, the majority of popular APIs today aren't REST-compliant, even Stripe's isn't, and it's usually both financially healthier and feature-rich to choose a development path that results in a rough product that can be refined later, than aiming for a perfect initial release. All this said, I don't mind proposals or solutions to my problem that are "good enough". As long as they aren't too hacky! :)

Hey everyone, as a goal for this coming year I’d like to better put to use the small amount of savings I have.

My first idea is:

• 3k emergency fund in a NS&I Government insured account.
• 2k in a Vanguard index fund.

A few questions:

1. Is this sort of setup the best use for such a sum?

2. If so, with the impending brexit, does it makes sense to move the money out of the U.K?

3. Is there much maintenance with an index fund or is it sufficient to let the money sit? I’m aware anything of this nature is essentially a gamble.

4. How do you calculate a worthwhile amount to invest considering the on-running service costs?

5. Does anyone have experience with ethical index funds? If so which? And how have they performed for you?

Any help is most appreciated.

The end of the year has me in a movie-watching mood and I want to add the best of the best into my queue for the next few weeks. Similar to games of the decades, what are your movies of the decades and why?

I recently bought a product online. I wasn't able to find it in a bricks-and-mortar shop, so I had to buy it online to even see it, let alone try it. I received it, and it wasn't right for me. I was able to exchange it for a different version, but even the different version wasn't right. So I returned the product and got a refund. All along, the customer service was excellent, but the product itself turned out not to be what I wanted.

The way the product failed for me was connected to the "headline" description of the product. It wasn't a minor failure. It did something that they explicitly said it wouldn't do, which was one of the main selling features of the product.

After the dust settled, I wrote a review of the product. I don't normally do this: I neither write nor read reviews. However, I know that other people do rely on reviews and, seeing as this product is only available online, and its failure was linked to a major selling feature of the product, I felt duty-bound to inform other prospective buyers that it might not suit some people. I gave it a 2-star (out of 5) rating, as well as writing up why it didn't suit me (while allowing that it might still suit other people).

Since I submitted the review, I have checked the website (I'm an egotist: I wanted to see my words being published!). Other reviews with more recent timestamps have appeared, but my review has not appeared. I've now noticed that the lowest rating in their reviews is a single 3-star rating, with some 4-star reviews and lots of 5-star reviews. There are no 2-star or 1-star reviews. My only conclusion is that the company selects which reviews to publish - and which ones not to publish.

I've always wondered if companies would post negative reviews of their own products. Now I know for sure that at least one company does not.

I’m a bit tipsy, but I sincerely mean this to you all:

I wish you a prosperous year and decade. This site has been an encouraging sign the last year - May it last ever on!

I wish a peaceful and prosperous new year on all :)

I played VA-11 HALL-A quite a while ago and recently played ROM 2064. Both have similar aesthetics, sound, themes although they have different mechanics. I really liked how ROM had voice acting too which is a shame to say is not the case of VA-11 HALL-A but I still quite enjoyed both. 2064 perhaps more since it felt more engaged but perhaps that's just memory tricking me.

I know there's N1RV Ann-A and ROM Neurodriver coming in 2020 but well, after that, I'll still have nothing so, what games have you played which are similar?

PS : Have a happy new year and hope I've not posted in the wrong place, I'm not sure if it would've fit in the recurring topic.