I'm about to finish my semester and, since I've been taking a lot of walks lately, I figured I should listen to some audiobooks. In particular, I'd love some suggestions for nonfiction audiobooks. I recently read Boom Town by Sam Anderson, a sort of pop history about Oklahoma City and its basketball team, and I listened to Silver Screen Fiend, by Patton Oswalt, about his addiction to movies.

Are there any audiobooks you recommend? Preferably they would be good books that also have particularly good audio versions (well-produced).

Thanks!

I ask people this all the time, especially lately to check in with them, and everybody says they're fine. I get it, because I say the same thing to everyone who asks me that too. It's just "what you do" with that question, especially over text.

So, here's a chance to let someone know how you're doing beyond "I'm fine", even if it just us random internet strangers here on the site. I'd love to hear where you're honestly at: good or bad, up or down, stable or unstable, happy or sad, or anywhere in between or outside any of those.

I'm finally in a position in my life to afford a personal domain. The name I'd like to use is name of an episode from a moderately popular TV series. The series ended its run few years ago, but I'm not sure how copyright/trademarks work.

So far, I'm planning a strictly noncommercial personal use only. Will the choice of domain name be any trouble down the road?

Hello everyone. I consider myself fairly competent when it comes to my work with LaTeX, but as everyone who uses it knows, it is definetely strange sometimes. And right now I have a problem which just irks me in the wrong ways:

I use XeTeX and a number of custom fonts for my documents, but when writing mathematical formulas I found out that the font I set for Greek letters (Gentium Plus) is used for letter commands like \alpha, \Alpha, ... but not for commands like \sum, \prod. As you can see in this example here. You can see XeTeX defaults to Computer Modern.

I've looked all over the net for solutions but I can't find one. I'm using mathspec, amsmath, amsfonts, amssymb as my font related packages and I set my fonts like this:

\setmainfont{Charis SIL}
\setsansfont{Helvetica Now Display}
\setmonofont[Scale=MatchLowercase]{Fira Code Retina}
\setmathfont(Digits,Latin){Charis SIL}
\setmathfont(Greek){Gentium Plus}

I feel like I'm going insane not solving this problem. Should you require it, my entire LaTeX template is here on Github. Please help, thank you.

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?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

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!

I moved into a new apartment and was surprised to see that all my rooms have CAT 5 Ethernet ports in the wall. However, cue my disappoint when I try to naively plug my router and machine in two separate ports to find that the ports don't actually work. After searching various forums, I found that I have to:

1. Locate the panel where all the ethernet ports connect
2. Wire them to an ethernet switch.

I found the panel but all the wires look like this:

https://i.imgur.com/Qzm72g0.jpg

I'm not sure what I need to do from here to plugging into my network switch. Any guides or advice would be extremely helpful. I don't need every port connected to the switch, only one or two. None of these look labelled so I might have a difficult time isolating which cable runs where.

And about the network switch... Any qualms about using an old router that has the AP turned off?

I'd probably want a tail with features similar to other primates. I'd use it for better balance, and also wag it to demonstrate I'm happy or excited. It would probably need some fur, otherwise it would look hideous. I don't think any tail can really support my whole 90kg adult body, but it would certainly make it easier to climb trees and other stuff. Not that I have a need to climb, but I might give a try if I had a tail.

And it might also come in handy to swing a Brazilian hammock or hold a cold beverage.

This can be anything, big or small, serious or funny. What's something you've learned about yourself recently? How and why did it happen?

I was mostly thinking of this in terms of what the pandemic has brought to light for us, as it's undoubtedly caused a lot of self-reflection, but answers don't have to be related to that (though they certainly can be). The question is fully open to any realizations you've had for any reason.

EDIT: I probably should've said up-front that I live in the UK.

I've started to really dig shaving over the years. It's gone from a chore to an enjoyable regimen. Watching or just listening to shaving ASMR videos provides considerable satisfaction, though it's really always nice to see a professional at work. I only shave every few days, once my stubble has become quite unsightly, and just give it a single pass in order to save on the cost of razor cartridges. At the moment I'm going through my remaining Cornerstone cartridges after canceling my subscription with them due to the cost, and I can get a few uses out of each before having to discard them. My shaving gel is just a cheapo brand, and the aftershave is an old Christmas gift.

I'd like to be be able to save some more money when it comes to shaving. Anyone got any recommendations for a good brand I could switch to, or advice on keeping the handle clean and getting more uses out of the heads?

This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

Hi all,

I am a PhD student focusing in cosmology. I wanted to up the science content here on Tildes, and I thought that one way to do so is to have an informal little Q&A session. As such, feel free to use this post to ask any questions you might have about cosmology specifically, and physics in general.

This may not be as exciting as some other science AMAs given that I am a rather early graduate student, so there may be a lot of questions I don't know the answer to. However, I'm willing to try my best and answer over the next few days, and to let you know I don't know if I don't!

A bit about myself: I did my undergraduate degree at the University of Chicago where I studied physics and mathematics, and then I was a student researcher in a computational cosmology group at a national lab. I subsequently enrolled at UC Davis to continue studying cosmology. Ask me anything about physics, cosmology, or high performance computing!

I also invite anyone else with expertise to chime in as well!

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.

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?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

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

(Hot take alert)

I personally think mass protests should be brought back. Many governments around the world are rejecting democracy and so can really only be held accountable with drastic measures. I'd even argue people should be armed and follow domething like in the Charlottesville gun rallies or the 1968 DNC riots as a model for protesting particularly egregious stuff like Trump's impeachment trial. A few hundred thousand armed people pointing at the US Senate saying 'A trial without witnesses is unconstitutional, the president is not above the law' would definitely send a message to the Republicans there and watching in FOX.

This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

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?

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.

This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

My sleep mask is falling apart. I'm in the market for a new one. I could just get any 15 euro mask but it seems like it's a category of products that is riddled with cheap crap and overpriced gadgetry.

I don't mind a high budget mask if it's legitimately good quality and will last a long time. I'm also open to try the "smart masks" that can play music or white noise or whatever but again, it has to be good quality.

Caveat: I'm in europe, and a lot of US brands aren't available here. But if it's really good I can import it.

I find with a lot of video-games, particularly RPGs, I have trouble just doing a casual playthrough. I just can't really stop myself from chasing down every quest marker, so if anyone has advice about how I can keep my playstyle focused on stuff I actually enjoy, I'd love to hear it.

I've found what ends up happening is I will play a game long after the point where the core gameplay loops are fun or challenging for me. This negatively impacts my impressions of games I play. It's like, chewing a stick of gum for way WAY too long. My jaw is sore, it tastes like cardboard. But I. Just. Keep. Going. I don't go into dumb collect-a-thons as much, so I'm not the worst at this, but I end up chasing every side-quest, every "do thing to befriend party member," and so on. Basically everything that counts as "content."

To be clear, I definitely blame the game designers for this. They stretch 30 hour games to 60 with a bunch of filler. And with open-world systems, it's just really hard to tell what's important and what isn't which just triggers my FoMO about missing something cool or plot critical.I just want some strategies on how to work around the bullshit and not have to bother with padding content.

Looks like governments around the world are going to start releasing tracing apps into the wild very soon. Now it's everybody's personal decision to install it or not.

So my question to you, tilderinos: Are you going to install it? Why or why not? What would change your mind?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

As the various Arctic climate feedbacks show, we are fast approaching the stage when climate change will be playing the tune for us while we stand by and watch helplessly, with our reductions in CO2 emissions having no effect in the face of, say, runaway emissions of methane.

from this article: https://e360.yale.edu/features/as_arctic_ocean_ice_disappears_global_climate_impacts_intensify_wadhams

This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

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?

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.

I've been wanting to buy some music recently from some artists that are only available through places like Amazon, iTunes, Google Play... However, I have specifically stayed away from most of these platforms for various reasons, the primary one being that I prefer Bandcamp over all of them (and up to now I never had the need to go anywhere else anyway).

So my question is, have you bought any music from these types of platforms online and what was the experience like?

Some specifics for what I'm personally looking to get out of this topic (you don't have to answer these if you don't want to, general experiences are fine too):

• Can I buy music through my browser alone? This one's primarily aimed at iTunes, because when I go to Apple Music and click on the "Also available in the iTunes Store" button for a particular song or album, nothing happens. So I'm assuming it's trying to launch iTunes which I don't have installed.
• Is the music available in multiple audio formats and can I pick whichever one I want after purchase? This is what I like a lot about Bandcamp, you buy the music once and it gives you a bunch of different audio formats to choose from.
• Did the audio files come with metadata and cover art attached (and were they accurate)? This one's not a big deal overall since stuff like Picard exists, but it's just a nice thing to not need to worry about.

Does there exist a function that does not include any trigonometric function in its definition that has similar properties (periodicity, for instance) as trigonometric functions? I can't think of any, and this strikes me as a bit surprising.

Edit: I thought of a simple answer: piecewise functions can achieve this!

I'm running out of time to finish the spend requirements on a credit card promotion. I was planning on buying a VR headset, but I realized there was something that would actually be much more useful; a new router.

The market for consumer routers has been really strange; We are on the sixth generation, yet it's super common for consumer routers to be two or three generations behind, especially the less expensive ones. So much of the stuff on the market only goes up to 802.11n, and half of the time the firmware they include is halfway broken or is missing important features.

So I'm looking for a router that is relatively future-proof. I want Wifi 6. I want something that won't be interrupted by the microwave. Open source firmware would be excellent, but not a requirement. I don't need mesh networking; my house is not that big. I do want it to be relatively inexpensive; I'd consider $300 to be a hard limit unless someone has a persuasive arguement to justify the cost.

I would also prefer to avoid Netgear. I have no idea how they stay in business with the mountains of problems I have had with their products and their horrible support. The last time I owned a Netgear product, I was forced to give them my email address to download the driver and they illegally added it to their marketing mailing list without my permission. I don't do business with people who betray me.

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.

Got it last summer and been having and absolute blast with it, got a macro tube and a bigger 55-300 lens to play with. But time and time again I keep running into annoying little limitations.

This model doesn't have a shutter release input thing, so remote shutter is locked behind a falling apart android app>bluetooth connection. There's a tonne of small little things like this that I wish I looked into before making the purchase

Essentially - right now I'm thinking that I want to upgrade the actual dslr before investing any more into lenses, but I'm a bit too out of touch to know what the good models to go for 2nd hand or whatever.

Are there any tildoes out there that have some experience with older but capable bodies?

This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

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!

This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

I'm trying to package Elmer for use with NixOS, and could use some help from any experienced Nix users. My current attempt is located here. There is some junk left around in that file from my experimenting, but it's at least a start. There are also a few lines of error included in the comment here.

Any help is appreciated!

This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

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?