I tend to buy 1 pair of shoes that are my "go to" shoes. Thus i like them to cover a variety of roles while fitting a few requirements. These are worn basically every day barring literal special occasions. I'll wear them to work, disc golf, a walk, a light hike, anything less than the fanciest of dinners or occasions, and can get away with them if I have to even for those. Oh and while I find it matters less these days, i'm an 11-12 foot size which tends to limit my options in physical sores.

I like slip ons at this point, both as an aesthetic and from a practicality standpoint, and due to my "do it all" requirement generally want something that is comfy, looks half decent, is in black, but also has decent grip on the bottom.

I've currently burnt through my keen slip on's. I got these almost exactly a year ago in black, and they've been "good enough" for $60-75.

That said I'm not in love with them, and I'd also like a dress shoeish equivalent like these rockports . However i've heard they're garbage, especially for the price.

I'm throwing this on here because I'm not against spending more for better quality shoes, but I've spent 2 or 3 times as much as the keens, and gotten very similar results. Hell i'd LOVE if I could just take them to a cobbler to get them fixed every X years, but seems that's really only a thing for heavy duty work boots at this point (which led me down a rabbit hole of looking for a specific kind of redwings, but those also were no longer being made)

Merrell went from quite good many years ago to just garbage that didn't even make it 6 months, and on the other side of the coin I found some Lowa "snow shoes" that fit my requirements and lasted I think 2-3 years, but were no longer being sold by the time I needed new ones.

Does anyone have some suggestions, or am I just better off getting the cheapest thing that I like the look of because they're mostly all going to be burnt through? Even then, any suggestions on half decent brands?

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 think we can do this once again. The last one went okay and there has been some other recent threads on blogging and the state of the internet and sharing good blog posts we have found is a good alternative.

So please share links to both your own recent blog posts and interesting posts you may have read recently.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

The cutoff age would be different for different people. Early music shapes us. I have read that even people with dementia respond to music from their early life. I thought of a few for me, and I was curious about people here.

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.

I've had this idea rattling around in my head all day and feel I need to get it out. I apologize in advance if my thoughts seem jumbled or unoriginal, I'd just like them to escape.

As a preface, I speak of being a step-parent to young children through adolescence. The dynamics change when you are older and your parents remarry.

What does it mean to be a step-parent? I've wrangled with this most of my life in some way - my grandparents divorced before I was born, and I had a step-grandma from the start. Being around her always came with extra rules. I would later realize this was always the case with new step-parents, after my own parents divorced. Is that really what it means to step-parent though? To come into a situation and impose your own new rules and routines on this child that isn't yours, who has no real connection with you? I chafed with these restrictions and impositions. I disagreed many times, and it hurt me when I felt that my parents didn't support me, their child, and instead agreed with this impostor.

Of course this is a simple, childish view, but it was certainly correct in some ways. Most often, I simply felt confused and angry about why these adults who were not my parents were pretending to be. Much of this is likely unresolved trauma from the divorce itself - it was very messy.

At times though, I was right to mistrust these people who had step-ed into my life. My stepmom was (is) emotionally abusive, and my dad enabled and supported that behavior. My stepfather tried to force religion on me, nearly kicking me out of the house over it. Fortunately in that case my mother was ready to leave with me (literally, with packed bags) and he backed down.

So how does one handle a step-parent? How does one be a good step-parent?

Years ago I met a woman who I came to love. She came with two children, who I became a stepfather to. Now I was in the position of the impostor, the interloper to this family dynamic which was already established. I really tried my best to figure out where I should draw what lines. How would discipline be handled? What rules did we need? How would I know that I didn't overstep some boundary or line? Given my history, I felt both prepared and utterly lost for what to do. I didn't feel that I'd ever had a positive model of a step-parent in my life. The closest was my stepmom in some moments where she truly supported us - between the abuses. I certainly wasn't going to be just like HER though.

Like any rational human being then, I talked to my wife about this at length. We established a few ground rules: We would do our best to be consistent (between mom, dad, and me), We would always keep the best interests of the children in mind, and we would never badmouth/doubt/cast shade on the decisions or actions of the other parents involved - at least not to the kids. These gave a good foundation, and we are also fortunate in that the adults in the room could get along and act in good faith with each other.

I work as a teacher, and fell back on that role often - a person of authority, who isn't a parent, but is certainly there to help you succeed and work with the parents. This seems to be a good framework to build off of.

What does it mean to be a step-parent? For me it means being a co-authority, a sort of triumvirate of care for the children. It means accepting that complex situations mean there are few easy, simple answers, and being able to navigate that. It also means knowing where your boundaries are, and not butting up against them, or worse, going over them.

If you are a step-parent, or have had one that's been a positive influence for you, I would love to hear your thoughts. Even if you aren't, or don't, I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for reading my messy opinion piece, and maybe for the next one I'll write when I have more than an hour to work on a post!

I'm using Bearblog right now and I love it but since I love tinkering a lot, I'm looking for a static site generator so that I can build mine by myself and take full control over my blog. Unfortunately my tech knowledge is not enough to build my own static site generator at the moment but I'm trying to get into that as well.

I know Hugo, Astro, 11ty etc. I'm looking for a much simpler tool.

It looks like we're getting some new sign-ups! Welcome to Tildes!

This thread is for you to ask any question you have about the site, from “what is the moderation philosophy?”to “what does that blue line next to some comments mean?” to “what is the general vibe like here?” Tildes has a lot of documentation, history, and embedded social norms that can be daunting or opaque at first glance, so here’s your opportunity to get help with anything you need.

Questions about anything and everything are fair game. Follow-up questions are encouraged! No question is too simple.

Also, a quick note: the only person who can speak in any official capacity on Tildes is our admin @Deimos. Everyone answering who is NOT him is just a helpful community member!

It is perfectly okay to ask any question — even if you think it’s been asked before, or even if you didn’t search for an answer beforehand. Just ask away, and someone will answer you!

We're excited to be closing on our first house in several week! It's a newer build but doesn't have ethernet run so in the nearish term future I'd like to run cat5 cat6 to some key locations:

• main level for TV and a mesh wifi node
• second floor offices (PCs) and entertainment area for consoles/second TV

Any really good guides that others have followed? So far the guides I've found focus on switches and crimping cables rather than how to get a cable from Point A to Point B effectively without knocking more hole that necessary in the wall.

Edit: meant cat6, thanks for the note.

I'm looking for your short stories, novelettes and novellas, and to a lesser extent novels too, that directly speak to the politics and social realities of today.

https://www.uncannymagazine.com/article/rabbit-test/ was a short story I shared here about 18 months ago that directly dealt with abortion restrictions and the future created from them.

Another user shared Better Living through Algorithms for a more optimistic sort of take on "AI"

And recently I was reminded of Mur Lafferty's The Ophelia Network, a novella which features a dystopian society where one of the changes from today was the Heritage Law. People of color needed to prove ancestory at least three generations, "preferably" descended from slaves. This plot point runs mostly in the background through the story but pops up occasionally.

I can think of a bunch of novels that say big things. The Handmaids Tale, 1984, Fahrenheit 451 etc. But I find shorter works tend to be more responsive to current events and often more cutting for their shorter length. I'd also suggest trying to avoid really common novel recs and focus on niche novels or shorter (also typically more niche I guess) works. But I'm not the boss of you.

Share your recs? Link them here if they're free to read online?

I come in search for somebody who knows a thing or two about VLANs or, if possible, had set it up for themselves at home (or work).

I have Mikrotik router and Ubiquiti Unifi APs. My goal is to have three separate SSIDs on my APs to differentiate clients. One group would be closest family (group 1), another friends (2) and the last one would be QR-setup guest wifi (3).

The reason is security. I run 24/7 server at home with many services that I don't want other people than #1 to see. But I also run ie. DNS there that I would like all to see (all three groups; or make them use other DNS via DHCP-set-DNS, ie. 1.1.1.1).

So far I believe everything from that list is doable with the right knowledge (that I have yet to achieve). But I would also like some other things and that's part of why I'm asking here.

• Is it possible to initiate connection from #1 to device in #2? Ie. from server to Raspberry that serves as temperature sensor for Home Assistant? Is it some built-in functionality like "higher number VLAN can access all lower numbers" or do I have to setup some exception on my router for speciric IP and port? Or specific LAN port (I have 24 port router, yet not everything is connected via ethernet)
• Do I have to set it all up in specific order? I have read that I can cut myself off from accessing my router if I setup VLAN incorrectly and that's what I don't want to do :-)

If you know how to setup VLAN and could provide some points to kinda carve the path I could stick to, I would be really grateful! I do not want manual of step-by-step instructions, rather some points to follow so I don't fall for something important I missed.

I will of course read up on it myself and will experiment a bit (I have old RB133 or maybe even RB433 around that I can use for learning), but it would be great to have some pointers.

Thanks in advance for any advices or recommendations.

Hi Tildes community,
I'm seeking your suggestions for spinning up Windows virtual desktop.
Allow me to set the context...
My offspring is in second semester of their first year of university, and needs to use Adobe Photoshop for one of their classes this semester. They don't use a regular laptop, and have been doing quite well at uni. with their beefy Ipad. While they have used photoshop so far on their ipad, there are some growing pains. Of course, they have access to super beefy desktop Apple Macs at their school's computer lab, but its a pain to get usage of them for a few reasons. At home, all my machines are linux except for my partner's which is an old clunker Windows laptop - which i am in progress of migrating themn away from that Windows machine towards linux laptop...Hence, I don't really have a solid, modern enough machine for my offspring to load Photoshop onto.

Then, I thought, hey, maybe i can spin up some Windows virtual desktop somewhere for my offspring to use photoshop on...Its only needed for about 10 or 12 weeks remaining this semester...and they only need to use it once per week for each week's assignments. I feel like as long as the virtual windows machine is beefy enough to suppoort photoshop workloads, it can get them through the semester...and then in summer i can decide if I need to buy them an actual laptop (like an Apple laptop, etc.).

So, may i ask of you dear Tildes community members...Does my approach make sense (of trying to use a windows virt. desktop)? And, if so, are there any recommendations for which provider to use, and how to spin these up? Like, should i try something via AWS or Google Cloud or Azure? Or, should i not even consider this virtual windows approach? I'm open to hearing any/a ll recommendations. If you have links to share for me to research, or if you actually wrote your own blog post on similar topic for example, i'd love to hear it! Thanks in advance!!

Edit: 2025-02-24 UPDATE: Wanted to update folks on where i am on this...After reviewing these comments, researching some more both online and offline, etc...I arrived at the decision of biting the bullet and just buying my kid an Apple Macbook laptop. I want to thank you all for all your greet feedback and suggestions! Thanks so much Tildes community!!!