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    1. Any good math textbook/book recommendations

      I would like to get slightly more educated in mathematics again - I took some basic calculus and linear algebra classes while doing my degree, but most likely forgot what I learned for the most...

      I would like to get slightly more educated in mathematics again - I took some basic calculus and linear algebra classes while doing my degree, but most likely forgot what I learned for the most part. Are there any good books that you guys would recommend for someone who wants to learn math again?

      13 votes
    2. Is searching for comments possible?

      I never noticed this before today, but I don't seem to be able to search for comments. Is that supposed to be doable on Tildes? It took me way too long to figure out that the links at the top of...

      I never noticed this before today, but I don't seem to be able to search for comments. Is that supposed to be doable on Tildes?

      It took me way too long to figure out that the links at the top of the search results page are sort options; I had been clicking "Comments" hoping to see comment search results, and I was a bit confused why only full topics were still being listed. I guess comment search doesn't currently exist?

      12 votes
    3. Marvel Snap players - How's your season going?

      Interested to hear from anybody who plays Snap. What's your thoughts on the current meta? What do you find the Ghost Spider and Silk so far? Any other cards you're saving tokens ford? Have you...

      Interested to hear from anybody who plays Snap.

      What's your thoughts on the current meta?

      What do you find the Ghost Spider and Silk so far? Any other cards you're saving tokens ford?

      Have you tried Conquest?

      I'm mostly pretty casual. I'm free to play, and the highest rank I've reached is 70. I've been playing a my own attempt at a Sera Surfer deck lately (can't bring myself to net deck), and it's been pretty going well for me.

      I've got mixed feelings about Conquest so far. Since you're matched up with the same player for several matches, it can be a bit more of a time commitment. And if you get an emote spammer, it can feel a it gruelling. But it helps me think about my matchups in more depth, which is actually kind of cool.

      17 votes
    4. Deimos, how is it going?

      Hi Deimos Its been a while since a lot of redditors started to move over to tildes, yours truly included, and I wondered how is it going for you? I know you have a full time job and tildes was...

      Hi Deimos

      Its been a while since a lot of redditors started to move over to tildes, yours truly included, and I wondered how is it going for you?

      I know you have a full time job and tildes was relatively quiet until the last few weeks but is it becoming too noisy?

      I'm guessing that you have had a lot of positive feedback but I'm also guessing you have had a lot of 'why can't we make this more like Reddit?' comments as well.

      I see you responding to comments left, right and center and while good this must mean you are reading everything as well as all comments in order to evaluate things, which takes time out of your day.

      I know that you have a clear vision of where you want tildes to go, so I guess my question still stands, how is it going?

      149 votes
    5. Tildes constitution

      Looking at the current top thread in ~talk, it seems many of us were forged in the fires of Mount Digg, and now suffer again through the great Reddit diaspora. Perhaps it is here our journey ends?...

      Looking at the current top thread in ~talk, it seems many of us were forged in the fires of Mount Digg, and now suffer again through the great Reddit diaspora. Perhaps it is here our journey ends?

      I am not from the US of A, but one thing I have always found fascinating about that country is the concept of the constitution. I believe it was so incredibly well conceived, the three legged stool, with all the thought that went into how it might be attacked and edge cases, that the founding fathers would have made excellent software testers. The fact American democracy has stood this long is some feat.

      Which brings me to my question. Should Tildes create some form of constitution? A set of principles that binds and guides it? I believe something like that would make questions like this easier to answer. A founding set of ideals from which everything else should derive.

      We have something akin to this at my company, where the founding principle is the customer is always our main priority. This has served our business well for decades; is everything we do in service of the customer and their needs. You would honestly be amazed at the loyalty and trust this builds over time.

      Anyway just some food for thought. I think I will be calling this my new home for now - it feels very much like the Reddit of old right now, a feeling I haven't felt for a great age.

      17 votes
    6. [Finale] Mashle chapter 162 / series discussion

      That's all folks! Manga MAL Anime MAL Today marks the release of the final chapter of Mashle: Magic and Muscles by Hajime Komoto. After three years, 162 chapters, and an official anime release,...

      That's all folks!

      Today marks the release of the final chapter of Mashle: Magic and Muscles by Hajime Komoto. After three years, 162 chapters, and an official anime release, it's finally time to say farewell to our muscular, magicless, creampuff loving bowl cut.

      Many of us have grown used to weekly updates on the world that seems like a farcical mix of One Punch Man / Harry Potter and will definitely feel its absence on Sundays.

      I wanted to create this thread due to the popularity of the series (more than 5 million units in circulation!) and to spark more manga discussion in the community overall. This is the largest series to end in a long while, so it deserves a bit of a sendoff.

      Topics/discussion points (feel free to address all or none):
      • What did you think of the final chapter/arc?
      • How do you feel about the series as a whole now that it has ended?
      • Was Mashle successful in its storytelling goals?
      • What are the strongest/weakest parts of the story and work as a whole in your opinion?
      6 votes
    7. What are some mindless mobile games to play while listening to audiobooks?

      Hi friends, I’ve been enjoying listening to audiobooks a lot lately but find I generally have to be doing something (e.g. going for a walk, doing dishes etc) while I listen to them since it would...

      Hi friends,

      I’ve been enjoying listening to audiobooks a lot lately but find I generally have to be doing something (e.g. going for a walk, doing dishes etc) while I listen to them since it would be strange to just sit in a chair and stare and if I closed my eyes I might fall asleep.

      I have found a couple of mindless games I can play on my phone while listening that don’t distract me from the story such as temple run, desert golf and amazing brick, but I’d be interested if anyone else had any suggestions?

      I’d also be open to more substantial games as well so long as they didn’t have a lot of dialogue or require a lot of brain power (I’ve found trying to solve chess puzzles while listening to the audiobook just distracts me too much from the book for example).

      Thanks in advance!

      28 votes
    8. AlbumLove recommendations thread: July 2023

      Choose one album that you love that you think deserves more love Tell us what it is, and why. Previous posts in series Additional Details What is this? It's a new post series I'm trying out! Each...

      Choose one album
      that you love
      that you think deserves more love

      Tell us what it is, and why.


      Previous posts in series


      Additional Details

      What is this?

      It's a new post series I'm trying out! Each month people can use the AlbumLove thread to post an album they love and explore those posted by others.

      I'm planning to put up a new AlbumLove thread on the first of each month for a few months to see how these go as a trial run. If people like it we can keep it going — if they don’t it’ll fizzle out and I’ll stop.

      Why AlbumLove?

      In this day and age, algorithmic recommendations for music are easy to come by, and it's trivial to seek out new music that interests you by searching online. AlbumLove offers an opportunity to sift through music loved by others, including those who might have divergent tastes from you. Think of this as an opportunity to listen outside of your comfort zone, with music that you know someone else adores, from a small pool of thoughtful hand-selected options.

      What do I post?

      Any album that you love and that you feel deserves more appreciation. There are no restrictions on genre, year, or anything else, and nothing is “too popular” or “too niche”. If you think it needs more love — for whatever reason — then it’s welcome in AlbumLove.

      Name the artist and the album, and then, most importantly, share what you love about the album. It could be the music itself, but it could also be your associations with it -- maybe the album reminds you of someone you love, or you saw the band live and got a new appreciation for the studio songs.

      Also, commenting on others' recommendations is encouraged! If you love something that someone else shared, let them know!

      Do I have to listen to what everyone else posts?

      Nope. You don't have to listen to anything if you don't want to. This is about creating a menu of options that people can explore as they wish.

      Can I post more than one album in a month?

      Nope. Limit one! This helps us be more selective about what we choose, as well as preventing the threads from getting flooded with too many contributions to keep track of.

      Why albums and not songs/artists?

      I like albums. :)

      Seriously though, I feel like it's a very different thing to like an album as a whole versus a few songs or just an artist's general vibe. I like the idea of quantizing music for appreciation in the same way we might do with books or movies.

      What about EPs?

      Fair game!

      20 votes
    9. Linux Question: I think my sys m.2 is failing and want to copy my / data for backup via cli

      So, I'm using Arch i3wm. I have multiple copies of my /home/username (I am the sole user), and I have a "Spare" drive with media, games, and other goodies, some of which are also stored on...

      So, I'm using Arch i3wm. I have multiple copies of my /home/username (I am the sole user), and I have a "Spare" drive with media, games, and other goodies, some of which are also stored on partitions on the m.2 in question, but they have backups.

      And the reason I ask this question is because while I've had my m.2 fail at the end of '21 (I didn't even know that was a thing, but it barely lasted a year, and things are acting shoddy now... though the original failed without a warning), I just bought a second m.2 for my games. I guess I could swap most of the whole thing over, but I know the boot partition is easier just rebuilt from scratch... which I had to do last week.

      Ultimately, what's making me suspicious is when I upgraded to the new drive and unplugged all my non-m.2 satas, I also added some memory and a new power supply. But then after the upgrade (Monday of last week, so the 5th), the system wouldn't boot up. I used a usb to troubleshoot and my /boot partition was apparently no gouda. I redid that, and everything was fine... until this week. Then my new Games partition (basically the new drive) failed fsck and it got stuck in a boot loop on Tuesday. I could boot emergency to root, but not skip the fsck and keep the Games disk auto mounted (I know I changed something to randomize fsck on bootup, but that's something I'm still kinda looking into how I managed...), so I just removed it from my fstab and it booted fine. For two times. I just manually mounted the drive, all was great, then my SO sent me a screenshot today while I was at work stating that my / partition (on the older m.2) apparently rebooted because it bypassed my screen lock, and was stating EXT4-fs error, reading directory lblock:0 and whatnot.

      So, that's my history on what's going on, and if anyone can offer any advice [mostly] on the backup stuff, though as I said, /home and the important tangible stuff is saved, but if you also have any input on something more than I suspect the drive is failing (since the /boot partition and now the / partition are crapping out), please feel free to share.

      (Also, thanks for letting me in. This is what I'd typically post on reddit and probably have to repost 10 times depending on the sub to get the right keywords and tags and yes, I already searched the internet but my search will not match yours... sigh)

      6 votes
    10. Favorite podcast app?

      I just got an email stating that Stitcher, the podcast app that I use, "decided to discontinue operation of the Stitcher app and website effective August 29, 2023." Any good recommendations for...

      I just got an email stating that Stitcher, the podcast app that I use, "decided to discontinue operation of the Stitcher app and website effective August 29, 2023."

      Any good recommendations for another podcast app? ETA: I listen on my Android phone.

      42 votes
    11. Dating apps - Which apps attract what populations?

      I'm finally ready to sacrifice my self esteem and faith in humanity at the altar of dating apps. My question for those of you with more experience with them is this - do different apps attract...

      I'm finally ready to sacrifice my self esteem and faith in humanity at the altar of dating apps. My question for those of you with more experience with them is this - do different apps attract noticeably different pools of users? What have you noticed comparing the populations on different apps? Which wound up working best for you, if any of them did?

      Any that had particular features that bothered you? I've been using Hinge for like a day and already discovered they have a separate queue for your best matches that they demand a premium currency to message :/

      35 votes
    12. Thoughts on Final Fantasy 16

      Personally I'm none too keen on this new action focus that SquareEnix has taken the series but many people like it. What really has me second guessing myself are the graphics. They seem not...

      Personally I'm none too keen on this new action focus that SquareEnix has taken the series but many people like it.

      What really has me second guessing myself are the graphics. They seem not necessarily bad but dated and/or lower budget than I expect from a main series release. Their character models still suffer from lack of mocap especially facial details. The backgrounds are lackluster and the textures basic. Even during one of their much touted Epic Eikon battles they use a completely gray background?! I feel like my PS5 hardware is taking a nap while playing this game.

      Edit: turns out that after adjusting settings on both the game and my TV everything looks much better. For some reason my usual game profile on my TV made everything look super washed out. Between that and the beginning of the game being pretty monotone for the first bit with the game look super washed out and without detail.

      One of the main driving factors of the series have always been the progression tree. Historically unique awesome visual representations of the skills you can gain with varying paths to choose from. FF16 has a basic interface that essentially amounts to equippable skills with (so far) no exploratory elements whatsoever.

      Lastly the main protagonist seems almost like a clone of final fantasy FFXV character. The clothes are similar, his backstory is similar, and his skills are similar.

      I understand that I'm probably aging out of their target demographic and I'm especially curious on younger people's thoughts on it.

      Edit: After about 30 hours and almost at the end of the game it has grown on me a bit. The combat while still super easy at least it is more fun with added Eikons. The side missions get a bit better towards the last third of the game and some of the hunts are pretty challenging. I'm still disappointed in the lack of RPG elements such as, skill trees, elemenal and status mechanics, and equipment variety but I've enjoyed the game and can at least appreciate the accessibility to a wider audience.

      43 votes
    13. Why are so many 55+ neighborhoods being built?

      Living in northern Virginia, it seems like half of newly-constructed homes are earmarked for "active adult" 55 and up communities. Is there a financial incentive above and beyond normal...

      Living in northern Virginia, it seems like half of newly-constructed homes are earmarked for "active adult" 55 and up communities.

      Is there a financial incentive above and beyond normal residential construction that these are popping up more?

      It seems like a newer trend that's picked up in the last 5 or 10 years.

      Edit 1: Thank you all for the input and sharing your perspective. It's just been a question hanging in the back of my mind as I've been driving around in recent months.

      45 votes
    14. Do you spend more time creating a Tildes reply than on other platforms?

      So like many others, I'm a refugee from the Rexxit, and the collaborative, positive enthusiasm here is infectious. I've had an odd observation about my brief time here - when I think I can...

      So like many others, I'm a refugee from the Rexxit, and the collaborative, positive enthusiasm here is infectious.

      I've had an odd observation about my brief time here - when I think I can contribute to a thread, I find myself trying to step up my posting game - doing a bit of extra research, making sure I add links, and double checking my grammar (as best as I can!). I want my thoughts to have value or be meaningful here, moreso than anywhere I've contributed to in the past.

      Do others feel the same way?

      95 votes
    15. Which Substacks fascinate, intrigue, and challenge your views?

      I have been (without paying attention) been reading more and more articles/op-eds etc from substack, usually linked from reddit or as of late, from here on Tildes. I decided to sign up and create...

      I have been (without paying attention) been reading more and more articles/op-eds etc from substack, usually linked from reddit or as of late, from here on Tildes. I decided to sign up and create an account for myself and found the list of suggested substacks to subscribe to fairly run-of-the-mill and not very enticing.

      So, what are your favourite substacks? Which substacks raise topics new to you, challenge your perspectives, captures your attention for longer than intended?

      18 votes
    16. Can you set a clock using a light sensor to detect sunrise and sunset?

      While pondering an off-grid microcontroller project, I got to wondering: A light sensor can obviously detect day vs night. So it could be used as a very cheap way to set a device's clock - but how...

      While pondering an off-grid microcontroller project, I got to wondering: A light sensor can obviously detect day vs night. So it could be used as a very cheap way to set a device's clock - but how accurately? To within an hour? A few minutes? How would you do it?

      Questions that arose from this include:

      • Should it detect dawn/dusk (light <-> dark transition), or noon/midnight (brighest/darkest time) ?
      • How do dawn/dusk times relate to clock time? Does it depend on lat/long?
      • If using dawn/dusk, what light level threshold to use?
      • The same threshold for dawn & dusk, or different ones?
      • Better to detect a darker threshold (start of dawn, end of dusk) or a lighter one?
      • Some days will be lighter/darker than others, so how to manage averaging of times?
      • How accurate could it be made?

      My naïve first stab at this would be: Pick a light threshold. Record the dawn/dusk times according to that threshold. Average them, call that "noon", and gradually tweak the clock time over several days to bring it into line with the sensed/calculated "noon" - but a searching for graphs of sunrise/sunset times quickly showed that the midpoint of sunrise & sunset is not noon.

      Googling threw up lots of results for sensor lights combining a clock and a photocell, but I couldn't find anything about using the photocell to set the clock. So does anyone know if this has been tried before? Is it a non-starter for some reason?

      Edit:

      Perhaps it's worth sharing the project I had in mind, which is a rain alarm so I can rush out and get the washing in from the line when it starts to rain. I was thinking how annoying it would be if I left it switched on and it rained in the middle of the night and the alarm woke me up. So I decided should automatically avoid triggering during the sleeping hours of night (say 10pm to 8am). My first thought was a photocell so it wouldn't trigger when it's dark. Then I remembered that it gets light at 3am at the moment, which wouldn't work. So it needs a clock. How to set the clock:

      • Manually - Needs a user interface with buttons and a display. Seems overkill just for a clock.
      • Serial port - Clunky to plug a laptop in just to set the clock.
      • WiFi - Needs a username and password or WPS, and an ESP32 or similar - again seems overkill just to get the time.
      • GPS - also overkill and expensive.
      19 votes
    17. What do you look for in cooking related YouTube content?

      (I'm not looking for simple lists of YouTube channels that you like.) even though I'm about to dump a list of channels that I like There's a lot of YouTube cooking content. I was wondering what...

      (I'm not looking for simple lists of YouTube channels that you like.) even though I'm about to dump a list of channels that I like

      There's a lot of YouTube cooking content. I was wondering what you look for in that content, and what you want to avoid?

      I don't have a particularly coherent answer - I like a mix of content.

      I do like plain and simple information, or informative content that gives details about technique or science or why a thing is done the way it is. Examples of this would be America's Test Kitchen, or J. Kenji López-Alt or Helen Rennie, or French Cooking Academy.

      I also like recipes that I can actually make. I prefer recipes that don't have a massive array of ingredients that I don't have. Examples are Brian Lagerstrom (I like the way he tends to use a limited amount of equipment and he gives alternatives for ingredients if he thinks some thing is going to be hard to get) Not another cooking show has some nice recipes (his grilled cheese and tomato soup is fantastic).

      Some channels I watch have Michelin Starred chefs discussing a recipe. I like watching this because I can't replicate most of it, but I can get ideas for improving taste or texture. Italia Squisita has a lot of content, and some of their videos are comparing a traditional Italian recipe (and these are excellent) with an elevated restaurant version. The staff canteen is a bit frustrating - it's almost exactly what I want, but it ends up missing the mark a bit. But they talk to chefs, mostly in the UK, about being a chef or about a dish. La pâte de Dom is self-taught, but they have a high level of skill in pastry.

      And here's a list of videos that I can't categorise, and why I like them.

      The Biryani Expert (sadly, channel appears not to be making content any more) taught me that biryani covers a quite wide range of different dishes.

      Sheldo's Kitchen He seems like a nice bloke, and his food looks really nice and achievable to make. Again, sadly, he doesn't seem to have made any videos for a while, and he was saying that he has a lot on. But he has a calm style and I liked his content.

      Cool Daddy, YummyBoy and Street Foods TV expose me to a lot of food that I'm not used to. I can't recreate a lot of it (I don't have a camel I can cut up and cook but it gives me ideas for new ways to combine ingredients or new flavour profiles to try.

      So, what do you look for in content?

      (In this thread I avoided dunking on creators, because there's a few that I really don't enjoy but I don't think me yelling about them is good discussion. But I'd totally join in if someone created another thread.

      18 votes