I work long hours and can find myself alone for good stretches. I don't like to spend too much time with my inner monologue, and I haven't reached a level of mindfulness to shut it off, so I've been singing to myself. Rocky Top by the Osborne Brothers and Loch Lomond by the Corries have been my favorites. With songs I think folk music works well for its repeating melodies. Also, my brother has sung these songs for hours on end throughout my growing up, so they're in my heart already. I also keep stumbling through Hedy West's Little Sadie and The Stanley Brothers' Over in the Glory Land. Otherwise, I memorized a poem in Russian (Я вас любил by Pushkin) for a class last year, and had previously memorized one in German (Künstlers Abendlied by Goethe). I've still got the former, but will have to refresh my memory on the latter.

I'm wondering what things y'all have memorized or what you think would be cool or fun for me to memorize and rehearse (or meditate over if it's a thinker) during work.

I like the sounds of other languages and have some familiarity with Russian, German, and Chinese. I have a good ear tone-wise, so I'd take a hearty string of notes if there's one that gets to you. I have taken a liking to stoicism over the past year, and also would read any religious text that has a bit of rhythm.

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.

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2020/day/15

Join the Tildes private leaderboard! You can do that on this page, by entering join code 730956-de85ce0c.

Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

<details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>

I'm dead excited, and I just wanted to share somewhere!
Since graduating from my Bachelor's I've been working in IT support, and it's slowly killing me. Progression is slow, the work is boring, and at the end of the day all I have to show for my efforts is (hopefully) a slightly lower number of open tickets than at the start. It all feels incredibly pointless, and like I'm not making a difference in peoples' lives.

I decided earlier this year to start looking into possible Master's degree programs, to help me enter a different field, and I'm happy to say that from next September I'll be returning to my alma mater to study Linguistics and English Language Teaching. From there, I'm hoping to go into teaching English as a foreign language, first abroad, and then to immigrants and refugees back here in the UK.

I'm super excited, and also a little nervous. I coasted through my Bachelor's and the past few years of my working life, so it'll be a shock to the system to have a proper workload again. I've got to get through the next 8 months or so first, but that will be easier knowing that I have something different and exciting waiting for me at the end of this particular career path. I'm desperately saving up as much money as I can to cover my living expenses for the year (I don't intend to work during my degree), which is another thing to feel nervous about.

But right now, I'm mostly just ecstatic, and wanted to share! In the interest of discussion, I'd love to hear about your experiences studying a Master's degree, and whether or not it helped you in your life after graduation.

Unless there are any remaining holdouts still waiting to enter their works in the showcase, Timasomo 2020 has officially concluded! I couldn't be happier with how it turned out.

While the experience is fresh, I want to gather some feedback for next year's Timasomo. Use this thread to identify:

• Positives
• Negatives
• Tweaks
• Suggestions

Basically, what should we keep the same for next year, and what should we change? Feedback is welcome from anyone, but in particular I'm interested in hearing from Timasomo participants.

Also, while I would be more than happy to run next year's event, I think one of the signs of a healthy community is when community events trade hands and leadership successfully. As such, I would like to be able to hand over Timasomo to someone else. You don't have to commit right now given how far away a year is, but just know that come October of next year I'll be seeking someone to take the reins. Let me know if you'd be interested!

Notice: This has been cross-posted to another website, and re-worded

I currently work in the eCommerce industry, and have hands-on experience building up a Shopify site from the ground up. As I watch all of the developments that Shopify makes both from a technical development standpoint and logistical standpoint, it becomes more and more clear to me that Shopify can begin to take on Amazon directly.

The introduction of Shop app, which aggregates all shipments into a single application including those outside of Amazon, also allows users to browse products from any particular Shopify store. The app also notifies you of any shipping updates, and when packages have been delivered.

From a technical standpoint, Shopify's main attractions come down to a few things: order management, credit card processing, customer management, and plugin integrations. This is the core of Shopify's platform for both larger and smaller businesses. Though due to Shopify's requirement of using their CMS to serve your content, enterprise users have to look elsewhere in order to build something called "headless builds", which essentially use alternate CMS mixed with Shopify's CMS to continue serving their content.

There are a few companies that make such software in order to build out a fully custom site while still using the Shopify platform as its core, though at the moment they are a little 'hacky' but still fully functional. Given the interest in Shopify's platform at such a high level, they are very likely working on their own headless framework which could allow for 1) mainstream stores to integrate their existing platforms into a unified Shopify marketplace, and 2) to allow stores to build out fully custom websites using the Shopify platform at its core and also enroll them into a unified Shopify marketplace.

Amazon has mostly become a front for cheap Chinese-made products, laden with review manipulation and questionable product quality. By instead bringing large brands on board with a unified Shopify marketplace, those stores can sell quality products backed by their brands which can gain trust from customers, and will give rise to smaller brands that may have been unnoticed by larger populations.
[ For example, I recently bought a pair of shoes from a very popular Shopify store: they represent quality, comfort, and eco-friendliness. I personally find myself more willing to spend money on quality products from companies I know I can trust. ]

What's everyone's thoughts? Are there any general problems that could come from Shopify trying to jump-start a full-blown marketplace? Do you think that companies would be willing to integrate their ERP's and CMS's with whatever API's or headless framework Shopify decides to build out?