I'm old enough that I watched the Simpsons, South Park and more recently Bojack Horseman change the perception of animation in the US. I'm only a casual anime fan, who started watching because my husband studies japanese. However, I think Aggretsuko for example could appeal to fans of the Office. What else is out there in the anime world that is not stereotypical and might appeal to a wider audience?

Steam Sale time again! Post any amazing games or hidden gems you think others would like. I'll start: Mr Shifty is an amazing 2d top-down that's crazy fun (especially for its price!). I'm about to get a SteamDeck, so am hunting these style of games in particular.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant Israel-Hamas war 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.

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.

I took a 25 mile or so bike ride yesterday. I intentionally brought NO technology at all... no phone, no music, no whatever gadgets. No maps either but I knew where I was going (mostly). Was only planning on a short ride but the weather was just perfect and hey, I had my water and I was on a fully-separated trail.

My thoughts:

1. I do not have the lungs I used to have. Or the back. Heavens.
2. It was nice to get out of the busy parts of town. I like the quiet places. Reminds me of being a kid. Saw some nice flowers. Appreciating the temperature for the 2 weeks it's bearable.
3. It was VERY nice to not have the distraction of my phone at any point during the trip. Also, when I got slightly lost at one point, I was forced to speak to another human to ask for directions. Ah yes, what a concept. Going to do this more often, go places and leave the phone at home, haven't looked at it all day today either... makes a big difference and grounds me a lot better in whatever I'm doing.
4. I always forget how far you can go on a bike and not realize you went that far. It's so fast. I usually walk places, so that's my speed. On my bike, which I mainly use to buy groceries, I don't usually go more than five miles at a time these days, and I'm in the city so I'm usually stopping at red lights and stuff.
5. The part of the trail nearest the city was ridiculously overcrowded and the path definitely needed to be widened. Cycling/pedestrian traffic should probably be separated for that section. Just sooo much weaving back and forth right now, hah. I think this might be partially alleviated with the southern extension that's happening soon (I don't know when exactly but there's visible construction progress), as it could maybe slightly spread out the people, but that will also bring in more foot traffic. Well, it will still be nice.
6. Not so keen on the loooong stretch of trail that is literally 1 foot from vehicles on an arterial road. I have been here plenty of times before, I just don't like how fast the traffic goes and the fact that there are no physical barriers between the "trail" (sidewalk, in that section) and the cars. No driver on there was respecting the speed limit and I think a lane of traffic needs to be taken away to turn into a green buffer zone... ideally with a wall.
7. Only one obvious mile-long (idk) gap for the distance I traveled. It's a surprisingly well-connected trail. I have no idea how they ought to connect the two current segments, but the infrastructure would be a little expensive no matter what (it would probably require a bridge?), so I understand why it hasn't happened yet. At least it was short.
8. Parts of the trail I was riding on were blocked off in areas where construction contractors should have made basic effort to install a temporary surface instead of leaving a massive ditch in the ground for literally no reason (and it's been there for months, apparently!). A literal plank of wood would have sufficed. Lazy! Oh well.
9. A few areas of the boardwalk near the canal were rotted and some thoughtful people had stuck wood poles in the holes and marked them with bright flags for visibility. Helpful. Ought to be repaired though.

For eastern PA people, this was the Schuylkill River Trail between Christian St in Philadelphia and up to Shawmont or so (just past the Manayunk Canal, but not all the way to Conshohocken), plus some cycling in the city to get to the trail. I thought about going further but decided not to because I did not have a snack.

The trail does go more or less to Reading and AFAIK is quite continuous most of the way there, but I haven't taken it that far in a single go. Next time I'll bring a granola bar or two.

Next week I will see how far I can go on the Del & Lehigh canal trail before my heart gives out. Pretty dangerous to get out there as the city has made meh effort to connect the Delaware River Trail downtown to the start of the Canal Trail by Bristol. The suburbs in Bucks Cty past Glen Foerd... even less effort. The East Coast Greenway route has you going on some insanely dangerous roads. State Rd sucks. Might take the train out to Bristol or Yardley instead. Not my favorite activity with a bike. SEPTA regional rail not designed with bikes in mind.

Been checking out the infrastructure plans for the Del trail, but they are kind of lackluster. Great, and important, but really insufficient. And mostly years out from being anywhere near complete. Unlike the Schuylkill, the Delaware is too industrial to be considered "cute" and therefore has had far less attention downstream of the canal towpath. Extension to Lehigh Ave (map) is planned but has no specific timeframe. Community-approved but land acquisition required. Guessing done by 2025-27? Lehigh to Pulaski, Bridesburg to Tacony, Tacony to Holmesburg, no idea... and dear lord the gap between Holmesburg and Bristol is nuts. Guessing 2035 for some of those, 2050 all the way to Bristol.

Just unacceptable that both the SRDC and the DWRC have to fight for scraps for ONE single trail (respectively) while govt has no prob spending bazillions on roads for cars. Just nuts. Literally one trail is all I need to escape sometimes. So BRB, going to write to my Councilmember.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films 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've always been interested in entrepreneurship, and I think I want to get serious about doing something. I checked out the Millionaire Fastlane forums, and it's just completely saturated with the whole "grindset" BS. I tried reading a couple of threads, and my eyes almost rolled out of my head. 🙄

I've also hung around on the entrepreneur subreddit, and it just seems like a bunch of people without much experience trading unproven advice and people trying to sell courses.

Does anyone know of a better community? I'd like to find some friendly, welcoming adults with actual experience to talk with. Are entrepreneurship and hustle culture always a package deal?

I have no idea how to word this, as every similar post that I've seen has had an obvious cause, in some way shape or form. I, on the other hand, feel pretty shitty even writing this up know that others have actual problems that I am taking that visibility from.

When I wake up, I get to go to work a job that mentally stimulates me, teaches me new things (both in terms of a legacy system and in terms of new technology), and lets me work from home 3/5 days a week. On top of that, I have a very solid housing situation where I don't need to worry about rent being raised. I have a (reliable) car that only needs routine maintanence, and has very good MPG. I have a dog that I love, and would easily die for without a second thought. I have family living nearby, that, while we don't agree religiously or politically most times, can all get along and enjoy holidays or get togethers.

And yet, feel like I lied about my life just now.

When I wake up, the first thought isn't that my dog is waking me up to go out, it is the feeling of the weight that merely existing seems to put on me. As I just stated earlier, my job is not the cause of stress, neither is housing, nor food, nor family. I have no reason to feel the way that I do.

I've recently (in the last 6 months) started journaling, and the main theme that I have found is that I am constantly thankful for having everything that I do. And yet, tomorrow, when I open my eyes, either due to the alarm, or due to my dog waking me up to go outside, I will have a weight laying over my chest that I can only attribute to the fact that I still exist.

I try to ignore the news (while staying informed enough to vote properly on candidates), I don't use social media except for Tildes and to share the once a week or two photo on Instagram, and I am both active physically, and creatively. None of this seems to remove the weight. I feel like I am either wasting my existence when I am consuming media, wasting my time attempting to create when others have voices or messages with stronger meaning, or wasting other's time when I hang around them.

I have no right to complain about my life. Hell, two years ago I would have killed for what I have now. And, yet, I feel like I am wasting what I have been given. I am legitimately happiest sitting out in my backyard with my dog, either sipping a beer or just watching the stars. The issue is, that when I do, a weight slowly lays itself over me, one that I do not know the cause of, or reason for. A weight that I cannot shake, and can only attribute to simply existing.

I would like so very much, even temporarily, to remove it.

I’m looking for advice about what sort of portable room cooling devices to look at and what pitfalls to avoid. Some context:

Over the past few years I’ve noticed that I do pretty badly in the heat, especially at night. I live in Zürich, the concept of air conditioning has not yet arrived in this place. The prevailing wisdom for how to survive summer is to just make sure your house doesn’t get too warm in the first place, but my apartment is pretty badly insulated and during the worst weeks it doesn’t cool down that much at night either, so it’s been pretty bad the last few years. I’ve mostly just avoided being in my room whenever possible, but I do have to sleep somehow.

The obvious solution to me is to buy some sort of air conditioning device, a topic I know basically nothing about. My flatmate has one for his room, of the “dangle a tube out of the window” kind, which seems to do an okay job, but it is extremely loud and quite bulky - neither of those are dealbreakers per se, but I’d happily pay a bit more money if that gets me something quieter. In addition, our windows are not sliding windows but ones that open like a door, so any device that requires me to poke something out of the window would probably need a solution for this as well. Any sort of permanent modification to the house such as putting a hole through the wall or the window glass are not allowed.

So my questions are: What types of coolers should I look into, what types are best avoided? Any specific brand or model recommendations would also be appreciated. I looked at one electronics vendor’s website and found a huge range in prices from below 100 to over 1000; I don’t have a specific budget in mind per se, but unless it makes a big difference (e.g. in noise levels) I would rather stay below 500 dollars.

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 tried before to get input on this, but online it doesn't go anywhere and IRL people don't seem to understand. Thought about putting it in the /~finance area, but I don't know that it's really a finance issue, plus things there seem to be wider-scale financial in focus. And there's no /~advice page, so here it is:

I feel like I should be making more money lol. Now immediately, that sounds greedy or either capitalistic/anticapitalistic, depending—I know it does, but hear me out. I have a great job that pays ok but not great, and tons of free time; in my mind, and if I'm being honest in my field, chasing a 5% raise is low ROI and low likelihood of even happening. There is little room for vertical movement, but enough security that it seems crazy to make any changes. Post-college, I have had a pretty varied career background, I am very good at editing, research, training, tech, etc. but I am not an "idea person" and I don't have a lot of marketability or self-promotion ability, it seems like (also no coding abilities, which is always a suggestion; I've tried, believe me, but my brain won't do it). I'd rather edit your book than write one of my own, not because I'm afraid of rejection or can't commit to doing something/run out of steam, but because the steam just isn't there.

I don't feel the need to change careers, but I am also feeling super unfulfilled. I've worked on doing things to try and fill that gap, hobbies/other pursuits/etc, but I am haunted by the fact that I am using such a small part of my bandwidth, when it seems like I could be outputting at 2x or 3x and earning similarly. I've applied for contract work, freelance, all that stuff, but it is spotty pay at best—what I want, short of a medieval patron/wealthy benefactor, is a second job I could do on top of this one. Which leads me to side-hustle-type rabbit holes on starting an Etsy shop/a YouTube channel/a Patreon page. But when it comes down to it, I don't actually feel any passion about doing any of those things, and I can't get a narrow enough niche figured out to even come up with a potential audience. I've avoided specializing because I wanted to do all kinds of things, and now I've done that, and I feel like maybe it was a mistake. I just want to have the resources available to do what I want. Bills are paid, life is good, but I feel like I am spinning my wheels: even writing this out is like a roller coaster of feeling shame that I'm not satisfied or that I'm ungrateful, then being frustrated I can't make it happen the way I want, on my own.

Because see, I didn't say I deserve more money; I want the opportunity to earn more money. There are a ton of things I would be perfectly happy doing for a living, or for a second job. And more money might not even help—if I was a trust fund baby I be in a similar situation. But what the fuck should I be doing then? I guess what I really want is for someone to say "Hey, I need this job done, I'll give you $XXk a year to do it" like it's 1980, and then I know I am serving a purpose? And I wouldn't feel guilty about time left over, because the job is Done. But part of me is afraid that, even if that somehow magically materialized, I would feel the exact same way I do now.

so what do tilderinos?

Based off of a suggestion @lou made about special tags, I wonder if would we could make a tag that is automatically applied when a lot of comments are added all at once and then removed when it reaches a more normal level of behavior?

I'm 46 years of age. My childhood and youth and post-youth life wasn't traumatic or anything. I had an okay life. I guess I might even have had a good life. But for some reason, reminiscing about it just doesn't feel pleasant. Some folks find talking about their past highly enjoyable. So why don't I like it? Is this normal?

I realized that some games I play fall into specific categories that could be their own sub-genre, but are either too specific, haven't been around long enough, or there's a "good enough" combination of genres that could be used to describe them that makes it impossible to find more in that genre.

I'm interested if anyone else has any of these weird little sub-genres that they enjoy and wanted to share.

Feel free to add any games that you think fit into sub-genres other people describe