Many of us listen to whatever music strikes our mood, but there are some out there who, in addition to mood, listen to and appreciate music in focused listening projects. It could be a discography of an artist you want to finish, or it could be listening to all the top 10 albums from each year. There's really no end to the listening projects we get ourselves involved in. I'd like to open a discussion about this.

I've been involved in a number of listening/appreciation projects over the years. For example, even though half the year hasn't elapsed, I've already finished my 2023 Listening Challenge, in which I listened to 50 albums on a variety of criteria.

Right now I'm discog diving some of my favorite artists, and the experience has really opened my ears to the lesser-known avenues of exploration. I've completed so many already, satisfying my urge to always be doing something goal-oriented. Right now, for example, I'm listening to The Musings of Miles as part of my Miles Davis discog dive.

So what are you into project-wise? Please share your experiences!

eBooks and eBook readers feel a little stagnant at the moment. No significant increases in tech, the storefronts are stagnant and locked down with DRM, and it just isn't really an exciting field.

That said, I love my Kindle Paperwhite because it lets me get English books for cheaper (I live in Japan) and it lets me carry them around.

Do you use an eBook reader? Do you read eBooks on a standard tablet or phone? Or are you married to paper?

So while megathreads are a thing, I think we can really benefit from making them more prominent. Because right now there are two topics about the Titan submersible on my front page (and two more if I go to the second page), multiple surveys about movies, and at least one new thread per day about the current reddit fiasco. It's getting a bit cluttered.

So my proposal: make megathreads more prominent.

• Give designated megathreads a colored border or some other simple decoration to make them grab the eye and stand out.
• Pin some megathreads so they show at the top of their respective tildes, especially if they relate to ongoing or developing events. I don't think this is necessary for all megathreads like recurring ones, but it will help cut down clutter. (Note: I did check, and this is indeed on Gitlab. Deimos left a comment three years ago that code was made, just hadn't been merged into Tildes yet due to not being needed at the time.)
• A little more advanced: for ongoing events, maybe have some way that multiple people can edit a post with updates on new developments or links. That way even if the original poster is offline when some big event happens, someone can update it or add new links.
  • Related to above: have a pinned comment on such megathreads to help collect links and such. This would probably be the ideal editable comment rather than the original post.
• To help cut down on the survey threads that typically just ask for lists without much discourse (e.g. "favorite X movie"): Have recurring survey megathreads asking the most common such questions, possibly each week or every other week
  • You could either cycle through different questions each time (particularly in movies where you can just go through the different genres), or just collate the most common questions
  • Also, have a list somewhere of previous times a question has been asked, and then have a "cool down" period before a question can be asked again. Maybe a wiki-style list that people can edit and add links to previous threads?

Of these suggestions, I think the first two would be the most effective and also the simplest to implement. Adding some visual indicator for a megathread would be a simple CSS change, and apparently the code already exists for pinning threads. Just a couple thoughts!

The original IBM 360 had a 24-bit address space.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_System/360

Microprocessors of the golden age of home computing (Apple ][, TRS-80, Commodore 64, CP/M machines based on the 8080 and Z80) usually had a 16-bit address space, the 8086/8088 was a bit of an exception because it had a segmentation scheme to access 1 MB. (People thought it was awkward but I liked programming it in assembly language and Turbo Pascal) I remember the PDP-11 minicomputer having a 16-bit address space for user programs as well, the machine as a whole could be a lot bigger but an individual logged into it had access to a virtual "home computer" that ran BASIC and all.

24-bit was a natural evolution and by the late 1980s you started to see 24-bit chips like the 80286 (PC AT) the 65C816 (Apple IIgs, Ninteno SNES), the eZ80 and such. Even the bigger AVR8 processors (I love AVR8 assembly) can have more than 64kb of program memory (flash, read-only in operation) so they use 24-bit addresses for program memory.

In my mind we never saw a product of this generation that really took advantage of the address space, the 80286 in particular was called "brain damaged" by Bill Gates and operating systems struggled to exploit it. My take is that most of the chips of that generation were flawed in one way or another and were pretty quickly washed away by 32-bit machines when they became affordable in the early 1990s.

For an example of the difficulties, there is this project to make a retrocomputer that is a bit better than anything we had in the 1980s,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oYcu43N-lw

they are using the 65C816 but not taking advantage of the 24-bit nature. Instead there is a simple bank switching scheme which I think they thought would be easier to program and probably faster. The 65C816 just doesn't have enough registers and addressing modes for it to be really easy to work with far pointers.

So my question is, if I am a hobbyist who wants to revive the 24-bit generation and I want to have easy access to a 16MB address space, is there some CPU better that doesn't suck? I'd be happy with a CPU that doesn't have virtual memory or other facilities for an advanced operating system (write everything in "real mode") but something that supports an OS would be interesting too. Any ideas?

Suddenly, inventory mostly works. NPCs sit on chairs (!!!) but also move and fight worth a damn. There's less lag. The game hasn't crashed for me 2 days in a row! I've run more missions than I ever have!

It can't last, right? I just jinxed it?

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?

A little indie game made by three people is currently the 11th most played game on steam.
64k players playing at the time of writing, just 10k behind Activision's Modern Warfare 2.

Anyone else having a great time in BattleBit?

Any stage actors, agents, designers, directors, managers, playwrights, producers, stage managers, etc. in the house?

What are you working on right now? How's it going?

Sincerely,
A fellow theatre person

I haven't seen a post talking about or sharing pets on Tildes yet. My pets are a huge part of my life, and I'm sure others are the same way. Tell their stories, and post some pictures!

Lily was my wife and I's first pet. We got her at an adoption event, and she was a wonderful animal. Unfortunately, she did not like getting a lot less attention when we had kids. It got to the point where we gave her up to a new home because she was violent with our children. She needed lots of attention, and we couldn't do that for her, she found an only-cat home and is much happier.

Solo was our second pet, and the old man of the house, being now 10 years old with FIV. My MIL fed the neighborhood cats before they moved, and we noticed this guy in terrible condition. He had no chip, and it looks like no home for a while. My wife originally said we would keep him until he got better, then we would put him up for adoption. Instead, we decided to keep him. At night he comes upstairs and lays on me before bed, purring heavily. Best anti-anxiety medicine ever!

Aurora is our newest addition to our family. She's a total goofball and brings joy and silliness to our home. even though she's a Husky, she doesn't "talk" much, but all the other melodrama is still there. She always wants to hold my hand as a sign of affection, and wants all the love all the time, just like she gives. She helps me stick to my running regiment being my running buddy, and has done noticeable wonders for my mental health, something both my parents and siblings have told me.

I have been a product designer and experience architect since before “UX” even meant anything.

I’ve never wanted for work, and I’ve always been confident in my skills as a leader both on the product and business strategy side.

But especially recently, I’ve started to feel some tremors I’ve never felt before:

1. A massive amount of young talent has flooded the industry via UX programs and boot camps - and much of them are quite talented!
2. Layoffs have further upped the available workers
3. AI and Automation have made good designers even more efficient, and even inexperienced designers can now move at the speed of light.

I also have some personal situations at play:

1. I took the last few years to launch and grow my own product business - scaling that eventually to an exit. So I’ve been out of the “product designer” game a bit - as I’ve been immersed in everything that comes with being a founder and startup growth.
2. I now have a family - I can’t grind as hard as I used to.

All this gives me some qualms about the ability to find work in the future.

With an industry now flooded in talent, and AI that commodifies and democratizes UI design - making it easier than ever to spit out good design - is there job security for product designers the next few years?

What does that look like? How will pay be affected? Where will the opportunity be?

I just recently joined Tildes (absolutely loving it so far, by the way) and also recently left Reddit.

r/Tasker will probably be the hardest for me to let go of since I'm an avid Tasker fan/user, so I'm just trying to gauge the audience for that type of discussion and topics here on Tildes.

I'm not as big of a power user in phone automation as I would like to become but I'm fairly savvy and am learning more all the time.

My absolute favorite sub even before getting defaulted was writingprompts. Basically people posted a prompt to spark an idea, and everyone would type up little stories. It's be cool to see some stories here so if you guys wanna try it, let's make Top Level Replies restricted to prompts, Second Level Replies the stories, and Third nested can just be the comments.

I'll post a prompt to get started, and a reply (I emailed these to myself back in 2015 so I don't have the username on hand). Don't be shy! And for any non-prompt replies just post a reply to the comment I made below for just that.

^{PS: Luna_Lovewell if you somehow find this please come back and write just a few more :]}

We are small company and have utilized COM+ on the server for the last 20 years. Strictly Windows and all LAN based communication. We are rewriting in c#. What are some alternatives that I can look in to that may be better in terms of speed or management for COM+?

Here, I am asking you to talk about the sports you love. They may be either obscure or popular and well-known. What is their place in your life? Have you practiced those sports, or are you simply a fan and an expectator? What people don't get about the sport you love? What are some common misconceptions you would like to dispel? How would you convince someone to learn more about those sports?

Here's something I want to try, a sort of here's an idea thread for things you want to write down or think that are a good idea, but have no intention of exploring. All top level posts should be similar to shower thoughts in spontaneity, but allow you to further explore them should you choose to. Effectively, it's an Adopt a Thought!

Hello,
I'm looking for resources on how to develop AI, aimed at people who already have experience with programming.

They don't have to be free, I would just like to aggregate different type of resources to pick from.

Thanks!

+1 for slashdot, mainly because of intelligent topics and conversations about science, technology, scifi, games and all that fun stuff. Community participation and quality discourse made it interesting.

Everything on popular social media "out there" now is about click bait and sound bites, even comments and replies. Posts (and communities) are reduced to nothing more than grabbing a few seconds of attention.

Let me be totally honest: this is kind of a weird thread for me to make, considering I haven't kept up with new seasonal anime (or even continuing sequels!) in a looooooooooong time. However, my absolute favorite anime is getting a remake, and because I actually live in Japan with an active-at-night schedule, I might even be able to watch the TV broadcast.

Basically, despite all the controversy and Problematic Elements with the author, I'm absolutely excited for the new Rurouni Kenshin anime. In fact, I'm kinda glad that anime discussion no longer exists on Reddit, because I could see discussion about it being turned into a Comment Graveyard/ Locked Thread.

But this is just one anime (that will have stances both for and against it). What about YOU- what are you excited for in summer for anime?

I specifically say "easiest" not "best", because sometimes we're tired after work and just want a five/ten minute thing.

I'm currently eating a bowl of my easiest salad, consisting of:

Ingredients
Can of chickpeas
Bunch of roquette (aragula for the Americans here)
Couple of handfuls of green beans
Couple of tomatoes
Alfalfa if you have it

Dressing
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
Olive oil
Swish of red wine vinegar (white wine vinegar would work as well, as would balsamic probably)
Salt/pepper
Lemon juice
Dried dill (optional)

Looks like a lot, but if you have the ingredients it's super easy.

1. Drain the chickpeas, put in a bowl, add all the dressing stuff.
2. Stir, and also maybe mash some of the chickpeas for texture (I just use a fork and do both at the same time)
3. Roughly chop up the tomatoes and green beans, add them and the roquette/alfalfa to the chickpeas, then eat.
   Takes like five minutes.

What are yours? I am so so often lazy and hungry. I need easy recipes.

I currently work for a “prestigious” company (you’ve heard the name) and have for a few years now. As a college student, my peers, friends, and my parents friends kept telling me how jealous they were of me for getting into such a great company.

I am quickly finding out that the “prestige” this company has was in reality really great marketing and that I do not particularly enjoy working there. I work way too much (12 hour days, 5am - 5pm are not uncommon) and I don’t like the toxic culture. It makes me anxious and depressed.

Is it really worth it? Should I apply to the local government jobs that pay $20k less but offer actual pensions (not 401k), are chill (my friend does Azure/AWS trainings and scrolls Reddit, and 40 hours a week if that? Everyone I bring this up to says it’s a total career downgrade and a bad idea.

The ? means, it doesn’t really need to be coded. Technically I could just do it. But i wanted to check in first.

I really like the community here, amd sometimes want to share or ask something really small. I can and have started a whole thread for it, but we might be better served by a short comment in a larger thread.

What do yall think?