I've always found a fresh desktop wallpaper now and then is a good way to stop your PC feeling stale, and keeps me enthusiastic/more productive.

That said, I always have a hard time finding one when the time comes.

Unsplash seems like a good resource, but can feel so impersonal just having a nice picture of some mountains or a field. I have some friends who I know just rock whatever the default wallpaper for the OS is -- I can't verbalize why but something that feels tailored, or an image that brings me some joy, makes me much more comfortable using the computer.

Unfortunately the popular spots online I'm aware of for sharing wallpapers tend to lean toward certain subsets of interests (such as contemporary geek culture and/or lewd anime women) which you may or may not be into.

I've toyed with the idea of just having a solid colour to avoid any kind of decision fatigue, but it feels like staring at a wall - it's nice to have something with some depth behind all the flat windows.

Curious what others here on tildes use for their wallpaper, how often they change it, and where they might source a new one.

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!

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 didn’t make a post for Katie Couric. Discuss her here. I thought she was okay as a host. Ultimately not my cup of tea. However, I still prefer her over the next guest host (he started tonight), Dr. Oz. I’m not going to be watching him for the next two weeks in protest (okay, maybe one episode to see how he does). In any case, March Madness preempted it tonight. Did anyone catch tonight’s episode?

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 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.

My old TTRPG group hasn’t met in months now, and listening to actual play podcasts only scratches the itch.

Probably a long shot given the size of the site, but anyone interested in playing a TTRPG sometime soon?

I’m thinking something easy and low pressure, like Stewpot, or Fiasco or maybe a world builder like the Quiet Year/Microscope/Anomaly/The Ground Itself; I have the PDF for most of those.

But hey, if you have something you’ve been waiting forever to play: I’m here for it.

I have literally nothing to do tomorrow so drop a message if you’re interested! I’m in CST

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!

Posted this over on r/highereducation, thought it might be interesting here.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately, especially in the context of "free college" proposals. Subsidizing private colleges and universities would be a political non-starter. I'm assuming the government would have a "teach-out" style plan to transition schools off federal dollars. Regardless, the impact would be massive. I've briefly glanced at financial aid and revenue data for one R1 school, and it seems federal money makes up a significant (20-30%) portion of annual operating revenue. While that doesn't seem like much at first, I suspect enrollment would drop significantly at many schools if there was the alternative of going to a public university for free. Several thoughts come to mind:

• What percent of schools would close or merge?

• What would be some of the most surprising schools to close?

• How quickly would schools close? Would they immediately shutter, close at the end of the transition period, or struggle on for a few years?

• What is the breakdown of institution types (R1/2 vs SLAC vs engineering schools)?

• What would be the impact on religiously-affiliated colleges, especially Catholic schools (there's already many little-known ones in the middle of nowhere)?

• Of the schools that survive, what sort of strategies would they employ to remain solvent (lean heavier on foreign students, reduce admissions standards, have mandatory work-study programs to reduce administrative costs, create alumni contracts akin to tithing, invest more in the financial sector/Wall Street)?

Edit: Whoops, I thought I posted this in ~misc. Oh 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?

Is anyone else finding time for crafting these days? I'd love to see/hear about what you're working on!

I have spent the last month very slowly drafting a pattern for a skirt. After much time spent feeling apprehensive about cutting fabric (it's only an old bed sheet, but still) to test my first effort, last week I finally put scissors to cloth and sewed it together. I made several mistakes, but was so happy to have finally gotten that far, I didn't even feel bad about them.

I have a new basic block pattern drafted, and have even added a kick pleat so I can practice making that part. The new pattern has been cut and is ready to sew. 🤞 Here's hoping I did a better job this time!

I got a cheap mop at the grocery store last year thinking that would be enough, but it broke like a month ago and always left smudges all over my floors anyway. I never really liked it. It was one of those fixed sponges with a handle to squeeze it out rather than one that looks like Medusa.

I have wood laminate floors throughout my house, not true wood floors. Unfortunately, they're dark brown and show a ton of crumbs and smudges, so I'm looking for something sorta in the buy-it-for-life category. I.e. willing to shell out a little more if it makes a difference. I've had a vacuum for a year that has been good for all the crumbs (Miele), and I really love it.

Also what soap should I be using for best results?

Thanks, all!

This thread is posted weekly, 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 is an NFT and what makes them valuable?

I know I can just Google this, but Tilders are smart and will provide an accessible, nuanced and complete comment on the technology that I won't get elsewhere.

Besides the technology itself, I'm interested in knowing why it drew so much attention recently. What prompted NFT's sudden notoriety?

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?

I think "ahead of its time" is a fairly commonly understood phrase, but just in case it's more regional or idiomatic than I'm aware of, it means to be far forward of where everybody else currently is. This often isn't apparent in the moment and isn't until later, when advancements are made and the rest of the world catches up, that it's clear that the [whatever] was really "living in the future" all along.

So, what's something you believe was ahead of its time and why?

Anything is fair game -- it can be an idea, a device, a person, a book/movie/game, etc.

Hello Tildes,

I've been doing bokashi composting for pretty much all my vegetable and fruit scraps since last year. Lately, I've been wanting to level up my game and recycle meat scraps and chicken/fish bones as well. That's how I came across these "foodcycler" devices. They basically chop up and dry food scraps in a sealed container. I assume it works much like how industrial composting machines work, except it's scaled way down. At around 300-400 dollars, they're certainly not cheap, and probably generate a lot of greenhouse gasses during the manufacturing process. What's more is, every time you run a cycle, it has to run for 4-8 hours, though the manufacturer says the device is "energy conscious."

I'm trying to assess whether I'll do more harm than good by buying one of these things to convert more of my food scraps. My ultimate goal is to try many different ways to recycle food waste and try to get my friends to try it out as well. Some of them have already shown interest in bokashi composting, but none has actually tried it out (too much work).

Do you think commercial "foodcycler" devices do more harm than good? How should we go about evaluating this?

Edit: I've asked this question on many different places, and it looks like the general consensus is there's no strong need for something like this unless you live in apartments, in a city/town that does not collect food waste. Some believe recycling food waste via the more traditional methods (e.g. bokashi, vermicomposting) would yield better results because the foodcycler would dry up and kill a lot of the bacterial presence, though I believe the dried up scraps can be somewhat "revived" by mixing them in wet soil. Nobody seems to be able to definitively tell whether using the foodcycler would be a net positive or negative, because there's no way to verify its manufacturing process. I may do an experiment on how much power it draws if I get my hands on one in the future.

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.

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!

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'm currently developing a minimal userscript manager who's main goal is to be fully auditable by any user in only ten minutes or so - my prototype uses less than 300 lines of javascript, and I'm trying to keep it that way.

To get the codebase this small, however, I have to be very picky with what features I implement - most notably, the code editor has to be very barebones. Are there any features that I'd be shooting myself in the foot by not including?

For example:

• syntax highlighting
• cloud sync
• regex url matching
• fullscreen editor (currently, it's just a browser popup - the intention is that you write code elsewhere and paste it in)

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

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.

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?

My girlfriend and I have had a habit of going straight to watching movies and tv-series when we hang out, because due to lockdown almost everything is closed, so we don't really have a lot of activities to choose from.

We also play games occassionally, recently scrabble on our phones. But what other boardgames work well when there are only 2 players?

Edit: Wow! I can't possibly respond to everyone but I didn't expect so many people to comment with help. Thank you so much!

This thread is posted weekly, 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?

When learning something new, often available resources are lacking in some departments - whether they're missing information, poorly written, or tedious and dry. But occasionally, some content just stands out as above and beyond the rest, serving to not only make the learning process enjoyable but also to kindle interest in further exploration. What is that for you?

This could encompass everything from computer programming to literary criticism, and could be in the form of a website, book, video tutorial, or the like.

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!

I've started seeing lots of stories or posts elsewhere on the internet about people managing to schedule appointments for their COVID vaccinations even if they're not in the current phase and I'm curious what people's thoughts are about it.

To be clear, I am specifically not asking about people who are able to snag leftover or "thawed" doses that would otherwise have to be tossed at the end of the day.

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.

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?

(Topics like this need people to have more sympathy for the other because we're talking about real people's sexualities and discrimination these people often face every day and have deep feeling abouts, so be nice.)

If I had to (uneducatedly) guess, some of them would be:

• Your sexuality (and the word allosexual) being as good as unknown by most people.

• Asexuality being a big umbrella (hence the title being demisexual/demiromantic/asexual/aromantic rather than just asexual)

• Allosexual and aromantic people being confused for "people who only want sex"

• People not believing you when you say that.

• Being perceived as an anomaly or lying, along with people promising that you will realize the truth one day.

• Overly religious people seeing your sexuality as a virtuous rejection of degenerate lust/sin and as an unnatural anomaly simultaneously.

• People seeing your sexuality as being "free" from dating or porn consumption or above identifying yourself by how un-sexed you are. (True, but obviously very reductive and usually contingent on the insecurities of the people seeing you that way.) (This is admittedly something I struggle with.)

(This thread is a rehash of this thread, with the difference that you can give advice to any non-public figure you want from 10 years ago too, regardless of how old they are.)

(Also assuming they take you seriously, interpret it correctly, don't forget it immediately, don't cause a butterfly effect for doing so, etc...)

Advice for any generic 5-year old:

• If you don't know already, learn to write.

• If you don't know already, learn to read. (Neither of these are likely in most places but whatever.)

• If your parents tell you to not talk to strangers, what they mean by that is "don't talk to adults, unknown people who offer you things (which rarely happens anyway, lol) or people minding their own business." Most importantly, none of these apply to you current, or future classmates. Talk to them about things you might share in common.

(I would also include something about how watching children's cartoons are a utter waste of time but I have no replacement for those and I suspect only their parents would.)

Advice for me, 10 years ago:

• Pay attention to your future school material to make sure you don't lose it and call your teacher and interrupt class for everyone else.

• Some people will be very rude to you. You should probably tell your mom about it when you're home so she can tell the school staff about it. (You won't have time to tell your school staff unless you want to say that in fron of the people who will be rude to you. Also I have no clue if the staff will do anything about it.)

• Crying will often attract those people to you and give them satisfaction, it's better to do it at home to your parents. (Also, those people shouldn't dictate the morality of crying.)

• If you hear a word you don't know about from your classmates, it might refer to someone's genitals, particularly If it starts with X. (like a 5-year old would know what genitals are but anyway)

Some people will tell you or pressure you to do dumb things. ('Dumb' being needlessly harmful to others or humiliating to you.) Don't listen to them. (I have no clue how they will react to this however.)

To my mother, 10 years ago:

• In the future, it will be unanimous consensus that you should track everything your child does on the internet until they're a teenager and not have them spend more than like, 2 hours there. I'm not kidding about this.

• This is the ideal time to introduce your child to chores apparently.

• Telling your child to not talk to strangers will be a mistake, because your child will also assume 'strangers' to be his classmates, which is bad for obvious reasons. By 'strangers' you mean "adults, unknown people who offer you things (Have you ever seem this happen? Serious question.) or people minding their own business."

• Your child being autistic will mean your child will need more elaborate explanations for following social norms than most people.

• Children can often have their mouths not grow enough, and lack room for teeth to organize themselves properly. This will happen to your child, and if you wait too long, your child will have terrible teeth and need to use braces and palatal expanders to fix it, like your husband.

(I would probably also include something about my grandma dying of cancer, but my mom has never had problems with spending time with her parents so it's not really advice.)

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?

I've been learning a bit more Python, going through a Udemy course to expand my skills a little. One of the programs the course guides you to make is a little dictionary, but it currently only runs once and then quits.
I'd like to adapt it to use a nice TUI that keeps itself open until the user specifies they want to quit, using something along the lines of npyscreen. However, this library uses classes, and that's not something I'm yet familiar with. I'd rather have an understanding of what classes are, how they work, and why to use them before I take the plunge and start fiddling around with npyscreen (although I'd be interested to hear if you think that I should Just Do It instead).
Can anyone give or point me towards a good explanation of the what, how, and why of Python classes? Or better yet, a tutorial that will give me something to write and play with to figure out how it all fits together?
Thanks!

The US emigration thread brought back a lot of thoughts I've had about leaving the UK, and I imagine a decent number of us have at least idly wondered about a serious move - especially after a year like we've just had.

For me, the difficulty has always been figuring out where to go: politics/climate/healthcare/lifestyle/language are a delicate balancing act, and I don't think anywhere's a slam dunk. Everyone's going to have their own take on what perfect looks like, and what compromises to make mapping that to the real world!

So let's assume you're packed and ready to go, nothing holding you back. You've still got to navigate inbound immigration, handle the language, find a job, all that good stuff - but the world is your oyster. Where would you choose to go?

Compliments are, technically, to be tagged as 'noise' and often also 'offtopic' for usually being only loosely related to the commment or post they're replying to. But the warm fuzzies empathy is pretty important in a community, and I don't remember seeing an unnecessary compliment anywhere so, unsurprisingly, people don't noise compliments. But they still might clutter space for a potential reply giving advice. So do you think the current arrangement is fine? I personally would probably make a label for compliments which would either be neutral or slightly positive, and maybe publically visible so everyone can (but don't have to) see the compliments of the receiver but I haven't thought about this too deeply.

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!

Inspired by a comment here from @Don_Camillo and @Omnicrola

Show me pics of your Factorio setup, brag about how cool and automated everything is, share any blueprints you find useful (either ones you've designed yourself or found online), and any other tips & tricks.