This sci-fi book starts out as a first contact novel. Aliens show up and say "Your planet is dying--we're here to rescue you! Come join our galactic federation!"

Here's the twist: the protagonist emphatically refuses. The world is sick, but humanity is healing it. Successfully. They have been for decades. And they refuse to leave Earth and go explore the stars until the job is done.

Thus begins this story's major conflict. The aliens have visited a few other planets with signs of advanced civilization, and in every case they've arrived too late--the other civilizations have extincted themselves by the time they arrive. The aliens are emphatic that technological societies cannot thrive on a planet's surface; in every other case, either the planet or the civilization dies. The humans are unfazed. Repairing an ecosystem is possible, they say. We've proven it. Are proving it. Yes, there's a hurricane bearing down on us, but the storms get a little less intense every year.

This is a story about meeting people utterly unlike you and finding common ground with them. It's about imagining a better future and working doggedly toward it.

Eco-focused stories usually have a back-to-the-land, pastoral vibe; they want to get in touch with nature by reducing our use of technology as much as possible. That's not this book at all. Our heroes use neural interfaces and networked decision-making algorithms to manage the restoration of the ecology. They write algorithms that weight the vote in favor of community-defined ethical preferences. Technology isn't the enemy--corporations are, which is why the corps were exiled decades ago. Networks and algorithms can be powerfully good when they're used to benefit the many instead of the few.

This book has so much heart and so much beautiful imagery. It is gloriously weird in lots of ways I'm not going to spoil. It's a hopeful book that's giving me ideas I'm starting work on now. You can find it here or in your local library.

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.

The link to join is
tildes.modded.fun
It is whitelisted, so just drop your username either in the comments or in my DMs and I'll add you as soon as I see it.

I saw that @teaearlgraycold is possibly deciding to reopen the vanilla Minecraft server at some point. So, I decided that I'd start up a modded server instead of a vanilla one. Let's see how it goes. It's still in its early stages, like it doesn't have an icon as of now (still working on figuring out why not).

The spawn is at x:0 y:74 z:0 and is on the southern mooshroom island (there's two big islands, so ofc I couldn't resist that seed). The main land isn't too far away, but I'd recommend going east or west if you want a quick trip. We have a horse+boat compatibility datapack, as well. There are trees on the island and I set up a little starting area to the north, on the shore of the southern island. Just replant, breed, etc if you need anything. Also, there's a (very slow) egg farm in the cobble/water near the animals.

I figured we could have two main areas, one on the northern island and southern island (and put a Create train/monorail & bridge between them?). One for living, but also maybe we can create a shopping & gaming district to avoid the rapid progression for players via farming everything and then just taking. Hopefully that staves off boredom and losing interest. Let me know what you think. Right now, Idk what currency it would be other than diamonds or winning prizes.

The main mods we have are:

• Create (and its side mods),
• Rechiseled,
• Adorn,
• ChoiceTheorem's Overhauled Villages (CTOV),
• Bobby,
• MouseTweaks,
• Traveler's Backpack,
• Clickthrough (toggle with F9),
• McPaint (custom drawings for paintings),
• No Chat Reports.
  There are some more that go with these, like smaller ones and required libraries.
  This is a Fabric 1.20.1 server. I recommend downloading the zip for all the proper files, as there's a resource pack for McPaint to work, the list of mods and datapacks, and the config files if you need/want them.

You can download the zip of mod configs/mods/required resourcepack/datapacks here:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/pz76nmyxgk7lamagg1opq/TildesModdedMinecraft.zip?rlkey=wepd36lr7g022vy4bh5juz2pq&dl=0

Some things to note:

• Hold "W" to ponder items/blocks in Create to learn how they work.

• Throw an egg on a painting to turn it into an easel to draw on. After drawing, save your work first, then export while holding a regular painting in your hand. Then place your drawing anywhere!

• We have recipe fix datapacks as well as custom head drops from mobs and players.

• Ask questions and report bugs to this thread/in my DMs.

• Don't break any spawners.

• FireTick is off.

• Phantoms don't spawn.

• keepInventory is off.

• PVP is on.

• The seed is -3315377300917012846.

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 over a week ago, I got an official diagnosis of hypothyroidism from my GP. Fair warning, this post is going to be a little bit of a rambly discussion of my thoughts and feelings surrounding my diagnosis and other circumstances surrounding it.

I'm a US American, but I moved to Germany to do my master's degree in 2018 and have lived here ever since. I've struggled with depression and social anxiety since before I moved to Germany, but my symptoms got notably worse in 2020 (perhaps unsurprisingly). In late summer of 2020 my psychotherapist finally suggested I go on an SSRI, but she wanted me to get a blood test to rule out any physical causes. I went to my then-doctor and got such a blood test. Everything was within the normal range except for my TSH.

For those unfamiliar, TSH is the hormone your pituitary gland sends to tell your thyroid to get a move on. It doesn't directly measure your thyroid function, but it's a pretty good indicator something's up, so doctors use it to screen for thyroid issues. High TSH is a sign of hypothyroidism, and low TSH is a sign of hyperthyroidism. Your average person with a healthy thyroid will probably have TSH between 1.0 and 2.0, but some variation exists. The normal range that doctors use here has 4.2 as its upper limit. In 2020, my TSH value was 4.8. My doctor then said that people with hypothyroidism have higher numbers than that, so I was fine. She wrote my a prescription for a low dose of an SSRI, which did help me to an extent.

I've been fat for a long time, to different degrees. After I first moved to Germany in Fall of 2018, I quickly lost a lot of weight. There were likely a lot of factors -- I wasn't living at home where snacks were constantly stocked, I was buying food on a student's budget, I was eating out and ordering takeout less because of my social anxiety and shitty German skills, and I was walking a lot more. When I came back to the US for family vacation in 2019, I constantly got compliments about having lost weight, which felt weird. I was still overweight according to the BMI, but more of a classic midsize chubby at that time. But it wasn't to last, and I did start gaining the weight back. For a while it, I attributed this to my getting more takeout and walking less. But a year or two ago it felt like it stopped being directly attached to my activity or food consumption. I went on medication that suppressed my appetite as a side-effect, but I continued to gain weight. Since I was already fat and had been gaining weight for a while, I didn't mention anything to my doctors because I was already getting lectures about how I needed to lose weight and exercise more. I don't know for sure what I weigh right now because I've avoided weighing myself for months, because I'm scared I weigh over 100kg and I can't handle seeing that triple digit on a scale.

I've tried and failed to become more active and start an exercise routine several times. I joined a sports course at university with some of my friends, but I quit after a couple sessions because I was hyperventilating before warm-up was over. I've tried to do some basic strength training, but I'd be sore for days after even incredibly beginner-level stuff. More recently, my wife and I tried to take regular walks through the nearby park during last spring and summer. But I'd tire out after an embarrassingly short distance, not even enough to get to where we see the ducks (the highlight of the park for me). As the weather got worse in winter I basically stopped leaving the apartment. It's a struggle to put my shoes on without an extra long shoehorn so I don't have to bend over, and anything that requires me to tie my shoelaces is basically off the table.

I've been struggling with work for the past several months. I can't seem to focus on it, even if I take my ADHD medication. I look at the computer screen and I just can't mentally handle the work. Every day of work is exhausting, even though I work a pretty cushy job as a data scientist and I work from home. I do way less than 40 hours of actual work a week but I'm still too physically and mentally exhausted all the time to do anything but the most trivial household chores. I haven't cooked dinner for myself in months (thank God for my wife).

I switched to a new GP at the beginning of 2024 bc I was having trouble getting timely appointments at my last one. We agree to do one big blood test covering everything, since I have a myriad of small complaints and it's been years since I've had one. That test comes back mostly normal, except my cholesterol is a little high and my TSH is a smidge above 5. My new GP then says we should do a follow-up blood test to look at other thyroid measurements (this would be directly measuring the hormones my thyroid produces) to see if I have hypothyroidism. I mention offhandedly the interaction I had with my old GP in 2020 and she says that's not how you're supposed to do that; high TSH means further testing even if it's not that high. A few weeks and another blood test later and I've now got a new diagnosis and a prescription for artificial thyroid hormone.

It turns out that pretty much everything I've been struggling with for years now? May be because of my underactive thyroid. Your thyroid is apparently pretty damn important and it not working right (in either direction) can result in a truly dizzying amount of things going wrong. Depression, brain fog, fatigue, and weight gain are all pretty classic symptoms, but apparently it can also cause problems with your lungs or even contribute to carpal tunnel syndrome. Everyone with a properly-functioning thyroid, take a moment to thank that lil butterfly-shaped guy in your neck.

I'm so glad to have something that's basically a "feel better" pill now. But I'm left with a sense of deep frustration that I've had so many problems that even I dismissed to myself because I assumed they were just cause I was a stupid out-of-shape Fatty. It turns out it's actually not normal for someone in their mid-20s at my age to struggle to put on their own shoes without assistance, even when they're obese. Being unable to take a short walk without needing to sit down because I'm exhausted and out of breath isn't just because I'm fat and out of shape. I've had no shortage of symptoms heavily impacting my life, but most of them I hadn't even bothered to mention to my doctor because I assumed they were just Me Being Fat and that all I'd get was (yet another) lecture.

This is, of course, coupled with a lot of anger at my old doctor for not even running any follow-up tests. I've only been on levothyroxine for about a week and I already feel like I have a little more energy. I could have been spared years of suffering if that doctor had only done what she was supposed to. Fuck that.

But at the same time, I feel such relief. This all wasn't just me being a bad and lazy person. There was actually something wrong. And, even better, hypothyroidism is pretty easy to treat. I just wish I hadn't gone through over three years of unnecessary suffering when I could have gotten this treatment then.

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.

It's funny. I've been using Linux since the old Mandrake days (year 2000 I think). I've used Slackware, Gentoo, Void, Fedora, OpenSuse, Arch and so on. I love Linux in general, there is not other OS I would use.

Every distro has it's ups and downs and the only one I am content with is Void Linux, but I still don't really love it.

Void uses runit instead of systemd, which I prefer as an init system, but this means that if you want to use a major DE like Plasma you end up with some functionalities not working right.

So I want a minimalish system like Void that has access to the latest KDE Plasma, uses systemd and all the regular stuff, but IT IS NOT ARCH.

Why I don't like Arch? I think it tends to break too often, you have to stay on top of updates and having only one version of the kernel installed bugs me. Void Linux is rolling and NEVER breaks. I'm not exaggerating here. It never broke on me.

OpenSuse Tumbleweed is an alternative, but like Fedora, it does not ship with proprietary codecs so you have to jump through hoops to install the correct packages. It is just a matter of installing opi and typing "opi codecs", but you can bet that in the next weeks some breakage when updating will happen.

This happens to me with Fedora too. I install the RPMFusion repository and install the codecs. Every now and then things break because of it and I need to troubleshoot things.

Not to mention that when you install Plasma with Fedora or Opensuse, it ends up installing a thousand unnecessary things. I can disable the recommended packages/weak dependencies, trim things down and cut here and there, but I always feel like i lost control of things.

Oh and OpenSuse TW always gave me trouble with the wayland session of Plasma not working properly.

Gentoo is out of the question. I used it for years and had fun, but I don't care about all the compilation anymore.

Debian would be a great choice if packages weren't too old. I prefer a rolling release model or at least something like Fedora that is pretty up to date.

So in the end I stick with Void (without using Plasma), but still bitter about it.

I have a project where I interview people on my twitch live, as if it were a talk show. I mainly focus on people in the gaming world, so if you would like to be interviewed about your hobby for 30-40 minutes let me know!

I interviewed speedrunners, gaming musicians, challenge runners, and tournament hosters before, but I'm open to anyone that is interested and in the gaming sphere. I don't have many viewers or influence it's simply because I love to do it. If you would like to collaborate on something like this, let me know! Thanks!

So to celebrate St. Patricks day this year I decided to watch all 8 Leprechaun movies (each one for the first time, incidentally), and did so over the course of 3 days. While they're still somewhat fresh in my mind I wanted to document all of the "lore" from the franchise and how it changes from sequel to sequel because... um... well I don't really know. Fun?

Leprechaun (1993)

• Four leaf clovers repel and can harm the Leprechaun (think crosses and vampires). If he eats one he'll explode.
• Trapping the Leprechaun in a box and putting a four leaf clover on top of it will make it so the Leprechaun can't escape until the clover is removed.
• The Leprechaun bites at least one person with no ill effect other than a bite wound (this becomes pertinent in a later sequel).
• Possessing the Leprechaun's gold essentially marks you for death as he will take it back and kill you as revenge for having it in the first place (also becomes pertinent later).
• The Leprechaun is a cobbler by trade and can't resist the urge to shine dirty shoes (so throwing dirty shoes at him can be used as an effective distraction technique).
• If you leave tiny vehicles or other cute methods of transportation around the Leprechaun will use them and it will be amazing.

Leprechaun 2 (1994)

• Contrary to what was pretty firmly established in the first movie, now if you have a piece of the Leprechaun's gold he can attack you but you can't actually be hurt or killed by him.
• The Leprechaun can be hurt by weapons, or trapped within containers made of wrought iron (it glows red like it's burning him when he comes into contact with it).
• If you trap the Leprechaun he has to grant you three wishes, but it's like monkey's paw on steroids. (It's not actually clear to me whether this is true, or if the Leprechaun was just bluffing and playing along with the idea in order to escape. He does "grant" some wishes but basically just used his powers to turn the wishes against his captor.)
• No mention of four leaf clovers in this one.

Leprechaun 3 (1995)

• This is the first appearance of an unexplained gold medallion that will imprison the Leprechaun by turning him into a statue when placed around his neck.
• Each piece of the Leprechaun's gold now grants its holder one wish, but if you lose possession of that gold piece the wish will backfire (typically resulting in death).
• It's not clear whether posession of the gold still protects you at all. There's no specific mention of it, but I think in all of the kills the person being killed has already somehow lost possession of the gold piece that granted them a wish.
• In this one if the Leprechaun bites you, you slowly begin turning into another Leprechaun (think werewolves). This is the only sequel in which this is a thing, it's never brought up again (even though I'm pretty sure the Leprechaun bites more people).
• Leprechauns are extremely territorial and will fight other Leprechauns if they come across them, even if one of the Leprechauns was created via a bite from the other one.
• To kill the Leprechaun you must destroy all of his gold.
• No mention of four leaf clovers in this one that I can remember.

Leprechaun 4: In Space (1997)

• The Leprechaun may be an alien? At least he has knowledge of and interactions with other alien races in the galaxy (but humans do too at this point, so it's not really clear whether the Leprechaun was already involved in galactic affairs prior to whenever humans made contact).
• No mention of clovers, shoes, wishes, the medallion, bites, or for that matter (I think) the Leprechaun's gold at all that I can remember. In fact I don't think anyone even says the word "Leprechaun" throughout the entire movie.
• The Leprechaun can transfer himself into your body via your urine if you pee on him (or a chunk of him).

Leprechaun in the Hood (2000)

• The medallion that can turn the Leprechaun into a statue is back in this one.
• The Leprechaun possesses a magical flute that makes everyone who hears it blindly follow and adore the person who played it (think pied piper). Once its effects wear off the listeners have no memory of anything that happened while they were under its spell.
• If the Leprechaun smokes weed laced with four leaf clovers he'll lose his powers and/or pass out for a while.
• The Leprechaun has the ability to summon "zombie fly girls" from hell who will assist him in fighting and/or escaping from people who stole his gold or trapped him, and also act as backup dancers when he's performing rap numbers. The final sequence actually confuses this a bit, as it shows him turning normal girls into the zombie fly girls by touching them, so it's unclear to me if he actually ever summoned anything from hell or not.
• As mentioned, in this one the Leprechaun has the ability to mind-control or possess humans by touching them (you can tell when someone is possessed because their eyes glow green).
• No mention of wishes in this one.

Leprechaun: Back 2 Tha Hood (2003)

• Splashing the Leprechaun with holy water laced with four leaf clovers can summon demons that will drag him back to hell (maybe only if you're a priest though). The Leprechaun will only be released from hell if someone finds and takes his gold from wherever he stashed it.
• In previous films the Leprechaun's gold was always represented by a pot that typically had exactly 100 gold pieces in it (counting it is how the Leprechaun would know someone still has some of his gold). In this one that's been replaced by a small wooden chest that contains essentially unlimited gold pieces because it magically refills itself whenever closed.
• This is the first one where I don't think the Leprechaun uses any magical powers at all, instead relying purely on physical attacks (except maybe when fighting the witch, I forget now).
• Shooting the Leprechaun with bullets containing four leaf clovers will hurt him, but not very much.
• Oh yeah, and witches (or at least humans with magical powers) are real too now, but not really powerful enough to effectively fight the Leprechaun.

Leprechaun: Origins (2014)

• The Leprechaun isn't even a Leprechaun anymore, they're more like those things from the cave in The Descent.
• The Leprechaun(s) will feed on villagers unless they satiate him/them with occasional human sacrifices.
• The less said about this one the better.

Leprechaun Returns (2018)

• This is the kickoff of the Leprechaun Multiverse because it's a direct sequel to the first movie, erasing all the other ones from history (except possibly Leprechaun 4: In Space, since that one occurs in the distant future).
• Four leaf clovers can hurt the Leprechaun again. He'll explode if he eats them again.
• The Leprechaun's compulsion to shine dirty shoes is a thing again. To be fair this did come up in some of the other movies too, but only as a gag and never really utilized as a distraction like this since the first movie.
• I think wrought iron was mentioned again, but I don't recall it actually being used.
• The Leprechaun's gold is exactly 100 pieces in a pot again.
• If you leave things that he can ride laying around he'll do that again too.
• Ghosts are real.
• The Leprechaun can transfer himself into your body if he can get some of himself into your mouth. I think this is the only time some new lore established in Leprechaun 4: In Space makes an appearance in another movie.

I'm sure I forgot some things (or possibly even got some wrong), but I find it interesting and entertaining that it seems like other than "the Leprechaun likes his gold and will kill you to get it" there isn't really a single "rule" that sticks across every movie in the franchise (even if you exclude Origins, which basically isn't even a Leprechaun movie at all).