Hello! Could you please recommend some hard science fiction books? I am struggling to find a good one. My favorites are Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts, but I have failed to find anything similar.

I also enjoyed The Martian by Andy Weir and The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, though in my opinion, these aren't quite what I would call hard science fiction.

Additionally, I enjoyed books that blend fiction and non-fiction, like Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky and Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter.

What are your favorite hard science fiction books?

CES 2025 kicked off with some big hardware announcements.

• AMD CPUS for desktop, mobile, and handhelds
• Nvidia 5000 GPUs (see separate discussion here)

But what else are people excited (or not excited) for that doesn't necessarily deserve its own thread?

Hi all. I need to set up an outdoor CCTV camera and since there seem to be a hundred different brands and as many pitfalls I'm wondering if anyone here can help me navigate that minefield. I have zero experience.

I have the following basic requirements:

• Waterproof: It's outdoors, it will be rained on, plus there will often be high humidity, pollen and dust. It should not get fogged up. (IP66 or higher I think?) This also means there shouldn't be exposed plugs, otherwise it's not really waterproof.
• NOT battery powered. If there's a battery power option, battery degradation shouldn't prevent the camera from working, since otherwise that will massively impact longevity. I'm looking for something that can be wired directly to AC power.
• Wifi support: Comms cannot be wired in this installation. Norm will probably be n (2.4ghz) but ac+ should ideally be supported for future proofing.
• I probably can't buy it if it's not available in Europe (this often excludes some american startups).

With regard to what happens to the footage:

• I think IP streaming would be ideal?
• Abso-fucking-lutely no "cloud" based services. I have no interest in having to bounce footage through the US or china, or paying a monthly fee for unnecessary nonsense. I'm afraid of brands not being clear about this being a requirement before I spend my money.
• Some brands seem to have their own "server"/hub hardware? Why? No! I already own computers, so I don't need to waste money on a proprietary unitasker for talking to my camera.
• I think there are some open standards for camera streaming and open source software for handling the cameras. Support for these would be great. I'm accepting software recommendations too.
• I'm not in theory opposed to SD card support, but I'd rather not have to use local storage at all, and don't mind if it's not an option. If a setup requires storing in an SD card and then reading from it that's not the worst, I suppose (it's not that expensive to replace dead SD cards once every few years).

Optional bells and whistles:

• There is some illumination in the location at night, but some form of night vision would be highly desirable. Optional built in lights are probably also a good idea.
• Microphone is a nice plus.
• Motion detection and human tracking are a nice plus. The camera doesn't have to rotate 360 degrees; probably a ~60 degree angle of vision would be plenty. At the extreme, I'd say more than ~120 degrees is literally useless due to obstacles. (Obviously if an ideal solution has full rotation, I'll just take it.)
• Resolution+framerate (bitrate) can be as high as wireless-n can comfortably handle, but I don't really think I need more than 1080p.

Thanks in advance if anyone knows enough to be able to help.

edit: It's been a surprisingly active thread in a way I hadn't expected. Thank you everyone for the light debate, and I'm sorry if any of this was a source of discomfort. The internet has historically been a safe place to find out things that would be difficult to ask in person even if you know who to ask, and I appreciate the fact-checking, reality-checking, what-have-you that comes with that.

Things like:

• What things felt free to do and not free to do? Was that a quality of law or society? (e.g., freedom of speech, gay relationships, zoning, running a business, jaywalking, etc.)
• Trust or reliability in government
• Educational quality
• Relationship to the media
• What luxuries people tended to have (e.g. modern imported gaming consoles, domestically produced products, number of cars, etc.)

Posting from America here. As the great power politics seems to have heated up these past 3-10 years, it feels like the environment has become more polarized as well. Eventually I started to ask myself what exactly I was supporting or opposing philosophically, in wanting my country to have the largest influence. The measures I came up with were not things that my own country did well on, and often felt like things I couldn't get the most accurate picture on without Russian or Chinese language acquisition. I happened upon a BBC article about new Chinese graduates I guess going through what millennials did in 2008, and found the general similarity of it interesting.

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OK, maybe they did something wrong; not actually giving people all potentially available discount codes when you say you will is wrong. But I don't think they did anything wrong by overriding affiliate links, and I think it's dangerous to let people convince you otherwise.

Even if replacing affiniate codes has negative consequences, in the form of lost revenue and uncounted sales, for the affiliates, it is happening entirely in the end user's browser, and in that environment the user has the right to do whatever they want. One can get extensions that strip off all affiliate codes. A user might have a case that their informed consent was not obtained by Honey for one feature or another, but if a user wants to install a browser extension that replaces all the affiliate codes in links they click, they have a right to do that and no affiliate marketer can be rightly empowered to stop them.

If we admit some right to control the user's browser's behavior on the part of affiliate marketers, why would that right stop at interference by Honey? Wouldn't any extension interfering with the sanctity of the affiliate marketing referral data then be a legally actionable offense?

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.

I saw a similar thread recently and since I also happen to be looking for a gpu, I thought I'd ask here as well.

Soo, I suppose I should start by saying that I really do not know much about hardware. All the computers I had were purchased pre-built and I didn't really open them up apart from occasional cleaning or plugging in a new drive. Either way, my current hardware is as follows:

• CPU: Intel i7-8700
• RAM: 16GB DDR4
• GPU: integrated Intel CoffeeLake-S GT2
• Displays: 2560x1080@60hz and 1920x1080 up to 165hz but usually sitting at 60
• Motherboard: 0NC2VH (from Dell OptiPlex 7060 SFF)
• PSU: 200W

So the 2 things worrying me here are:

1. The PSU power output is probably too low
2. The entire case is kind of on the smaller side, I'm not sure what gpu would be able to fit there (though that's a thing I asked about when buying this pc, and apparently small form factor gpus should be fine?)

As I said earlier I'm really clueless about this kind of things and I'm not sure where to start, so I don't even have any candidates. Generally, I don't do too much gpu-intensive stuff (which is why for a long time I've been fine with an iGPU) and most of the games (2d stuff like various roguelikes or Factorio) I play run fine, but recently I've been playing some more games like Fall Guys or Supermarket Together with friends and it's been a bit frustrating to lower the graphics settings to the very lowest they can be and also decrease the resolution to have them run at a playable framerate (though even Factorio has been having some frame drops recently as my factory keeps growing, but I'm not sure if it's actually the igpu causing the bottleneck).

Any advice would be appreciated! I can provide more information if there's something relevant I haven't mentioned (which I imagine is quite possible)

Edit: I am now instead considering a full upgrade, since it might make more sense as people pointed out

There have been a few interesting bits of news here and there over the holiday period as well as notable developments, along with the usual political squabbling, that people might be interesting in skimming or catching up on. These posts are grouped by topic and in reverse chronological order (except the pledges of support section that reads better chronologically) as best as possible (mods feel free to edit the post itself if needed).

Also, just today there is news that Finland seizes Russia-linked tanker suspected of cutting vital undersea cables (please take discussion to the Tildes thread) and now Sweden's Social Democrats want to activate NATO's Article 4 after the cable sabotage in the Baltic Sea.

(Thank you to @KapteinB, @cffabro, @skybrian, and the other people who have helped post many of these links and alternative sources!)

December 2024:

Russia and Ukraine swap at least 300 prisoners in exchange deal

Russia suffered 421,000 casualties in 2024, 'highest price' since start of invasion, Syrskyi says and allegedly ~785,000 Russian troops since the beginning of the invasion in February of 2022.

Injured North Korean soldier captured by Ukraine has died, says South Korea

‘I thought it was fake news’: secrecy around North Koreans fighting in Kursk

“We were told in the morning to prepare for a special type of patient,” said one of the medical staff at the hospital who treated North Koreans.

“We’d heard rumours that North Koreans were fighting there, but I didn’t believe it. No one had actually seen them before,” the medic said.

More than 1,000 North Korean military casualties in Ukraine war, says South Korea

Ukraine faces difficult decisions over acute shortage of frontline troops - "Depleted army is increasingly made up of older men, but Zelenskyy is reluctant to lower mobilisation age from 25"

Kyiv reveals total Ukraine casualties in Putin’s war for first time - "Zelenskyy said 43,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed and 370,000 wounded. That compares with 600,000 dead and wounded reported for Russia."

In December, Perun released a video which quotes material about Ukraine's intelligence support of Syrian opposition forces that I hadn't heard before. At the 49:00 mark he says that Ukraine provided essential information (and basics) to Syrian rebel forces on drone usage, 3D printer schematics, and release mechanisms. Here's an imgur link to the report's summary that was posted to X/Twitter.

Pledges of support:

In June it was announced that the Annual allied military aid, [to that point, would be] $60 billion for next four years

In July 39 tanks, HIMARS and ammunition: Germany covertly hands over huge shipment of weapons to Ukraine

In late December the Biden administration pledges additional military aid to Ukraine amid Russia war - "... extensive support including a planned delivery of hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets and hundreds of armored vehicles by mid-January."

Interesting articles and information from 2024:

‘The forest will survive’: the volunteers saving Kharkiv's war-charred woodland

In September, Ukraine strikes two Russian munition depots, says military. This comes after numerous drone strikes on Russian oil facilities in August, July, and January.

‘I can do the same job as a man’: Ukraine’s first frontline female commander on war, grief – and her hope for the future - If you only read one article on this page it should be this one. This is a great interview and the person who took that portrait photo knew exactly what they were doing. I want her portrait to be painted and hung in the Louvre!

Revealed: Russia anticipated [August] Kursk incursion months in advance, seized papers show - As well, Ukraine's Kursk Offensive, launched in August and still holding their ground, has an entire wiki page.

A night with the drone squad targeting Russian forces in micro battles

Kyiv's drone suppliers are ramping up production of computer-guided drones that are cheap and can't be electronically jammed

Frontline report: Ukraine ignites Russian strategic bases, flames span from Crimea to Urals

New Yorker magazine interview: The Ukrainian President on how to end the war with Russia, the empty rhetoric of Vladimir Putin, and what the U.S. election could mean for the fate of his country

Interview with Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi: ‘I know we will win – and how’: Ukraine’s top general on turning the tables against Russia

Reuters interview excerpts: Ukraine President Zelenskiy speaks to Reuters in exclusive interview

Oleh Sentsov, Ukrainian director turns accidental footage into a film

In his home near Ukraine's front line with Russia, Yurii makes a stand

Putin's Unsustainable Spending Spree: How the War in Ukraine Will Overheat the Russian Economy

Valerii Zaluzhnyi: top Ukraine general who rivals president for popularity: Volodymyr Zelenskiy seems ready to risk firing his armed forces chief in a deepening rift that has shone a light on Kyiv’s frailties

Previous megathreads:

I'll update this more in a little while.

Mid-year 2024 updates and news megathread that covered developments such as announcements of North Korea providing materiel and manpower, changes in NATO leadership, the sacking of several Russian defense ministers, Eastern European security pacts, and changes to Ukrainian defense leadership.

February 2024 megathread that covers Ukraine's withdrawal from Avdiivka, the shooting down of more than one Russian A-50 AWACS, trade sanctions, and some articles about drone swarming tech.

To find more posts about these topics, use the 2022 russian invasion of ukraine tag.

There are, in my extremely well-informed and unbiased opinion, not enough discussions about creative writing here on Tildes. Let’s change that. If this gets any meaningful amount of interest, I’ll make it a recurring thing (hence the date in the title—look at me, being all forward-thinking)! 😸

Your goal: Write a creative short story based on the prompt provided and post it in this thread.
Deadline: Per ISO 8601, 2025-01-21T23:59:59-05:00. Here’s a link to decode that mess for non-robots. Two-weeks-ish from the posting of this topic, basically.
Prize: A $20 Proton code! I’m sure all of you insufferable delightful privacy nerds advocates already know what Proton is, but here’s a link for completeness’s sake. It’s already purchased, so you don’t have to worry about any sudden impoverishment robbing you of that sweet, sweet encryption.

Your prompt: Write about someone who finds out their everyday routine has been secretly impactful to strangers in ways they never imagined.

I’m not one much for rules, so there aren’t many:

1. It must be creative writing. Creative fiction and creative non-fiction are both allowed, but if you’re going the second route, ensure you have a strong understanding of what creative non-fiction “feels” like.
2. There aren’t any hard length limits, but the internet tells me that “short story,” as a term, tends to be defined as 1,000–7,500 words. Because I always uncritically believe whatever the first search result I read on the internet tells me, you should probably aim for that range or it may count as a soft demerit. Also, only one submission per person.
3. The winner will be decided entirely by my personal whims, not comment votes. If I let it be decided by votes, the first commenter would basically auto-win, so we’re committing the greatest internet faux pas: relying on subjective judgment. 🙀 That having been said, I have varied tastes and high media literacy (if I may say so), so you should be fine. Probably. Giving a character my name and making her the best person in the world will definitely help your chances.
4. It must be written just for this thread; no previous work. I mean, I have no way of verifying that you didn’t start before now, I guess, but I’ll spot-check a sentence or two online to ensure originality.
5. If you post your full story as a comment in this thread, use collapsible formatting. Collapsible formatting keeps the thread navigable and respectful of others’ submissions. If your work relies on formatting beyond Tildes's simple markdown/images/et cetera, you’re allowed to host a document file/webpage somewhere and link it here, too.

Have at it, and I hope y’all have fun! All of you, whether you’re writing or not, are heavily encouraged to comment your feedback for posted work as a reply! Don’t let your fellow waves feel unappreciated. Putting yourself out there is scary.

(Also, yes, the survey is closed and it’s being actively processed. I promise we’re working on it! It takes time to make pictures and read 577 individual responses to a long survey.)

I imagine most people don't save or just keep images together with the photos they've taken on their phones. But it would be nice to have a simple place to store and organize those images.

I've seen these recommendations: https://tildes.net/~tech/1l48/pinterest_alternatives , but I don't know if that's the best format. Maybe I'm just overthinking it. For now I only have a folder on iCloud with sub-folders. Quick and simple, syncs across devices, but not super organized.

You can pick just your five favorites or whatever you think is "most important" to keep or anything. The criteria is yours to decide!

Edit: Might as well add my own picks.
Hercules
Tarzan
The Emperor's New Groove
Lilo & Stitch
The Lion King (I'm not a huge fan of TLK as a film in general but I can't deny the soundtrack is too good to lose)

If the soundtrack weren't a sticking point for TLK, my fifth pick would be Brother Bear.

GPU Purchased: RX 6650XT for $330+tax

Overview

I am currently looking at replacing my GPU, as I believe it is broken. I do not want to spend a high amount as money is a bit tight for me. However, I am open to spending a bit more than the cheapest option, if it will last me longer.

Current Hardware

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5500
• RAM: 32GB DDR4
• PSU: 550W
• GPU: NVidia GTX 970
• Primary Display: 1080p60
• Secondary Display: 1600x900 60hz

Workload

I do not do need that strong of a GPU, since I primarily play games a bit older and I occasionally do video editing. For video editing, my video projects tend to be relatively lightweight, so I do not need a beefy GPU for it.

A couple game examples:

• Minecraft
• Far Cry 5
• Civ VI

Other factors

For budget, I am trying to stay as low as possible. However, I do want to buy new, as I am pretty sure my GPU is the problem, but do not know for sure so want to be able to return it. For OS, I am running Fedora KDE. I had my GTX 970 working with it, but I have heard AMD cards work better for Linux. Is switching to AMD better overall or just easier to setup?

Current GPU Considerations:

• $145 GTX 1030
• $260 RTX 3050
• $360 Radeon RX 7600
  All prices posted are in Canadian. I am open to others, these are just the first that came up as I was doing light research

Edit: After some suggestions, I am currently leaning towards the RX 6650XT for $330

I have a simple gravity fed cat food dispenser that is great but it needs a little help. No matter what gravity feed dispenser I use it never keeps up. My cat has food out 24/7 and he regulates his food on his own.

I 3d printed a new dispenser in hopes it would solve the food falling out constantly all day, but it's not working as I expected.

So what I'm hoping to do is make a simple vibrating device that will help the food fall out constantly all day long. Maybe a raspberry pi that has a cell phone vibration fob thing that will run a routine? I don't know. I'm having a really hard time finding examples of this. Does anyone have something to reference?

Also open to ideas on non-mechanical feeders that work well, or very simple battery operated options.

Thanks!