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    1. Fortnightly Programming Q&A Thread

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget to format your code using the triple...

      General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads.

      Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:

      Here is my schema:
      
      ```sql
      CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse (
        article_id   INTEGER
      , warehouse_id INTEGER
      )
      ;
      ```
      
      How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
      
      5 votes
    2. Megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - April 8-10

      This thread is posted Monday/Wednesday/Friday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted Monday/Wednesday/Friday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.

      If you'd like to help support Ukraine, please visit the official site at https://help.gov.ua/ - an official portal for those who want to provide humanitarian or financial assistance to people of Ukraine, businesses or the government at the times of resistance against the Russian aggression.

      14 votes
    3. What are good British TV comedies that are not too specific to the UK?

      By "not too specific to the UK", I mean something that can be enjoyed and understood (on a cultural level, not the language - subtitles take care of that) by someone who is not part of that...

      By "not too specific to the UK", I mean something that can be enjoyed and understood (on a cultural level, not the language - subtitles take care of that) by someone who is not part of that culture. For reference, I really enjoyed The IT Crowd and Peep Show. Thanks!

      8 votes
    4. I need help with gender options in my game

      I'm making a video game, which is sort of a mixture of a puzzle game and interactive fiction. I'm a little uncertain about some name and pronoun choices that I currently offer to the player and I...

      I'm making a video game, which is sort of a mixture of a puzzle game and interactive fiction. I'm a little uncertain about some name and pronoun choices that I currently offer to the player and I thought that you guys might be able to help me.

      The game is in English. At the beginning of the game, the player chooses the main character's name and pronoun. This is presented through two screens that offer the choices through textual narrative. It goes something like this, with [brackets] marking the options that the player can currently choose between.


      This is the story of...
      [...Alice Aster.]
      [...Alan Aster.]
      [...Al Aster.]


      It is...
      [...her story.]
      [...his story.]
      [...their story.]


      Detached from the wider narrative context, this method may seem clunky, but I believe it works within the game itself. Mechanically, that is. I'm less sure about the options that I'm offering.

      The player can choose any of the three options in the first screen and again any in the second, regardless of what they chose in the first. This affects the player character's name and pronouns used throughout the game.

      Now, there clearly are also many other pronouns that people identify with in English, just like there are many other names. However, for technical and design reasons, it would be challenging for me to have the player freely type in their preferred name or pronouns, and neither can I really present a long list of options. At the same time, by condensing all non-binary choices into the most common (?) "their" and by assuming that "her" also equates to "she" and so on, I wonder if I end up coming across as someone who thinks they are on top of things, but clearly has only a very superficial understanding of the topic. Which, to be honest, might not be that far from the truth.

      Similarly, of the three names offered, "Al" is intended as a more gender-neutral or non-binary option than the other two. Does that make sense? Would there be a better way to handle this? Are there names that better signal non-binary or gender-neutral identity?

      Or am I simply approaching this wrong?

      The game itself does not deal with gender identity. As you can see, I'm not the right person to write about the topic. The choice of gender in fact has relatively little effect on the story itself. The player also has no choice over other matters of identity, including their character's cultural background or family structure. The character is not intended to be the player, but someone whose story the player follows. But it still feels important for me and for the story to offer a choice about the name and the pronoun. And I wouldn't be comfortable with it being just a "traditional" choice between male and female, as it would quite explicitly imply and reinforce assumptions about the world that I think we should move away from as a society.

      Not that my game is of course going to change the world in any meaningful way. But having worked on it for about six years now, it has been one long personal learning experience for me. And this feels like another opportunity to understand something better.

      Thanks in advance for any thoughts and advice.

      14 votes
    5. What’s something about you that people don’t often believe is true?

      (If there’s a better way to word this question, feel free to edit my title.) I’m interested in aspects of your self-disclosure that others are often surprised by or that they disregard as...

      (If there’s a better way to word this question, feel free to edit my title.) I’m interested in aspects of your self-disclosure that others are often surprised by or that they disregard as false/overblown/fabricated.

      It can be anything, big or small. What is it and what is it like to have people disregard it so regularly?

      19 votes
    6. PC cases without transparent side panels

      Hi folks! I am, unfortunately, probably going to have to build a new PC soon; my beloved Thelio-r1 is slowly failing, and while my original plan was to buy a Ryzen 7 5800X and keep riding this PC...

      Hi folks! I am, unfortunately, probably going to have to build a new PC soon; my beloved Thelio-r1 is slowly failing, and while my original plan was to buy a Ryzen 7 5800X and keep riding this PC for another three to five years, I don't know that I'll actually be able to make that work.

      I like the NXT H510 I used for my boyfriend's gaming build, but the thermal performance isn't amazing and, most importantly, I hate tempered glass!

      Yes, I understand that people want to show off their (ridiculously!) expensive components. I understand that lots of things have RGB. However, metal is cheaper, easier to work with, doesn't shatter, and I can modify it if I need to.

      So, does anyone know of a good mid-tower PC case with decent airflow, up-to-date features (no 5 inch bays, good cable management hardpoints, a cable hiding bay, etc.), and no tempered glass or, preferably, acrylic?

      Thank you!

      16 votes
    7. What did you do this week?

      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...

      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!

      7 votes
    8. Fitness Weekly Discussion

      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...

      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?

      6 votes
    9. Beat Saber thread

      I just wanted a pretext to share my first successful Expert+ song on 150% speed + Ghost Notes :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HQIvNCF9RA (two-part video, first half on Ghost Arrows, second...

      I just wanted a pretext to share my first successful Expert+ song on 150% speed + Ghost Notes :)
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HQIvNCF9RA (two-part video, first half on Ghost Arrows, second half on Ghost Notes)

      I got back into Beat Saber a week ago after a 2 months hiatus. I like the new OST and mechanics and I love the new Fall Out Boy DLC. Highly recommend it!

      Has anyone else been playing it lately?

      I'm working on opening a VR arcade in Brussels and thinking of promoting Beat Saber quite a bit there :)

      11 votes
    10. TV Tuesdays Free Talk

      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...

      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.

      7 votes
    11. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of April 4

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

      This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      7 votes
    12. Interest in a 0-downtime managed Postgres migration tool?

      I recently discovered how much of a hassle it is to migrate off of Heroku Postgres. Both to keep the user from screwing themselves and as a vendor lock-in mechanism there's no possibility of...

      I recently discovered how much of a hassle it is to migrate off of Heroku Postgres. Both to keep the user from screwing themselves and as a vendor lock-in mechanism there's no possibility of running an external replica for your Heroku Postgres database. Unless I'm missing something (after a bunch of Googling) it seems like there is a market gap for a tool that allows for a seamless migration away from a Postgres DB that won't allow for replicas.

      I imagine that, given some constraints on what queries you allow on your database, you could proxy connections to a managed Postgres database while feeding them simultaneously to a new database. Starting from a snapshot of the old database one could catch the new database up to a live state of the old database and then swap over all connections to the new one.

      Does such a proxy already exist? I'd love to know as I could use it. If not it might be fun to build and a good side-project.

      4 votes
    13. Megathread for news/updates/discussion of Russian invasion of Ukraine - April 6-7

      This thread is posted Monday/Wednesday/Friday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted Monday/Wednesday/Friday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.

      If you'd like to help support Ukraine, please visit the official site at https://help.gov.ua/ - an official portal for those who want to provide humanitarian or financial assistance to people of Ukraine, businesses or the government at the times of resistance against the Russian aggression.

      15 votes