I've been on a really big Geese kick lately and the video for Cowboy Nudes made me chuckle. It made me want to watch some of my old favorites, but there is still plenty of itch left to scratch. So what are your favorite music videos, and why do you like them so much?

If anyone is curious, my two favorites are:

Typical by Mutemath. They learned how to play the song backwards, which seems impressive and is very Ok Go-esque.

Sleep Now in the Fire by Rage Against the Machine. The Who Wants to be a Millionaire spoof featuring not fun facts that have become less fun over time is good. The directing/editing is great. The bass player jamming out while the cops push him back is amazing. I'd like to say I'd never charge the NYSE floor for a music video, but I can't guarantee what I might do while under the influence of a sweet Tom Morello riff.

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 am going to be in Minneapolis soon and I have 1 free day which I want to spend going to local bookstores. Does anyone have a favorite local store in the city? I particularly like going to bookstores with good SFF sections, and also lots of book club/staff picks; and also to used bookstores with good SFF fictions. It's my first time in Minneapolis so every local bookstore there will be new to me!

A letter to CVE board members posted to bluesky a few hours ago reveals that MITRE funding for the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) program is about to expire. Haven't found any good articles that cover this news story yet, but it's spreading like wildfire over on bluesky.

Of course this doesn't mean that the CVE program will immediately cease to exist, but at the moment MITRE funding is absolutely essential for its longterm survival.

In a nutshell CVEs are a way to centrally organize, rate, and track software vulnerabilities. Basically any publicly known vulnerability out there can be referred to via their CVE number. The system is an essential tool for organizations worldwide to keep track of and manage vulnerabilities and implement appropriate defensive measures. Its collapse would be devestating for the security of information systems worldwide.

How can one guy in a position of power destroy so much in such a short amount of time..? I hope the EU will get their shit together and fund independent alternatives for all of these systems being butchered at the moment...

Edit/Update 20250415 21:10 UTC:
It appears Journalist David DiMolfetta confirmed the legitimacy of the letter with a source a bit over an hour ago and published a corresponding article on nextgov 28 minutes ago.

Edit/Update 20250415 21:25 UTC:
Brian Krebs also talked to MITRE to confirm this news. On infosec.exchange he writes:

I reached out to MITRE, and they confirmed it is for real. Here is the contract, which is through the Department of Homeland Security, and has been renewed annually on the 16th or 17th of April.
MITRE's CVE database is likely going offline tomorrow. They have told me that for now, historical CVE records will be available at GitHub, https://github.com/CVEProject

Edit/Update 20250415 21:37 UTC:
Abovementioned post has been supplemented by Brian Krebs 5 Minutes ago with this comment:

Hearing a bit more on this. Apparently it's up to the CVE board to decide what to do, but for now no new CVEs will be added after tomorrow. the CVE website will still be up.

Edit/Update 20250416 08:40 UTC:
First off here's one more article regarding the situation by Brian Krebs - the guy I cited above, as well as a YouTube video by John Hammond.

In more positive news: first attempts to save the project seem to emerge. Tib3rius posted on Bluesky about half an hour ago, that a rogue group of CVE board members has Launched a CVE foundation to secure the project's future. It's by no means a final solution, but it's at least a first step to give some structure to the chaos that has emerged, and a means to manage funding from potential alternative sources that will hopefully step up to at least temporarily carry the project.

Edit/Update 20250416 15:20 UTC:
It appears the public uproar got to them. According to a nextgov article by David DiMolfetta the contract has been extended by 11 months on short notice just hours before it expired...

Imo the events of the past 24 hours will leave their mark. It has become very clear that relying on the US government for such critical infrastructure is not a sustainable approach. I'm certain (or at least I hope) that other governments (i.e. EU) will draw appropriate consequences and build their own infrastructure to take over if needed. The US is really giving up their influence on the world at large at an impressive pace.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Howdy hey folks, I've recently been trying out ProWritingAid (for the unfamiliar: a grammar/spell checker tool) specifically the premium version with the expanded tool set. And now I want to step onto the internet soapbox and talk about it. It's been.

Okay.

To preface, I've been writing (casually) for 'bout a decade, mainly short creative fiction. (And a few novel attempts. All of which are incomplete but I'm glad I did them) Throughout my time I've gone through a few tools, text editors and what-have-you-nots. With my ever so gleaming credentials established, let's get into the ramble.

Right out of the gate, automated grammar checkers and creative writing have a rather fun relationship. Half the suggestions are useful and the other half are useless. (This ratio can also tip forward and backward). They'll catch syntax errors, spelling mistakes, missing words or punctuation, all good things to fix.

It'll also flag intentional word choice, sentence structure and other creative decisions. Sometimes this can help but more often than not it'll be sucking the You out of your own words.

ProWritingAid (PWA) tries to sidestep this particular pitfall with Style Guides where it'll be more or less rigorous depending on the selected 'genre'. It's a mixed success. This flaw I don't think will ever be truly fixable given the inherent separation between Author and Tool. So we'll have to make do with clicking "ignore."

Now PWA does a bit more than just grammar check. During my time with it, I've currently used two versions. PWA Everywhere, and PWA Desktop. Everywhere is meant to integrate with your text editing software while Desktop is a contained application. They have similar feature-sets, but not identical. Specifically, Desktop has the Word Explorer feature: a tool that if you highlight a word it'll show some synonyms or you can dig deeper with alliteration, cliches, anagrams, rhymes, reverse dictionary and more. Pretty nifty. PWA Everywhere best to my knowledge and searching does not have this feature- which is disappointing.

Especially since everything else Desktop does, Everywhere does better. The UI alone is far more functional, without clipping or cramping. There's the convenience of direct integration. Some features like Single Chapter Critique (which I'll get into later, trust me) also blank screened in Desktop while working fine in Everywhere. Grand.

Besides the Word Explorer, PWA also gives you AI "Sparks" and Rephrases. I'll be entirely honest, I have these turned off (Which I am glad I was able to do). I don't have much to say here besides I like getting into the creative word weeds myself.

Alrighty, that then leaves me with two more things to discuss: Writing Reports and the Critique features.

Okay. The writing reports are useful. Able to be granular or extensive. They scan every selected element in the text and format the results into a nifty report (or in some modes, direct text highlighting) Having all that data visualized with tables, graphs and bars oh my, (with the occasional cross-work comparison) is a great look-at. Grammar-wise it'll run into the problems mentioned above, but otherwise, this has been the feature I've liked the most.

Finally I can get into the whole thing that inspired me to write this post. The Critique suite. Ohohoho, I have some thoughts about these. Human proofreaders are irreplaceable, just want to toss that out there (PWA also keeps that disclaimer in its header). My friends will never be escaping the random PDFs sent for their lovely review. I am ultimately writing for a human audience afterall. That in mind, I have run into a hilarious problem with the Single Chapter Critique.

Apparently I write too good to get use from it. Truly I am suffering here. In complete honesty, the actual point I'm trying to make is the AI is a kiss-ass sycophant. I fed five of my short stories from across the years into it, just to see what it'd say. It cannot be negative. In each and every one I was praised about various element of the stories. Glowing and gushing, could say no ill.

This is pretty useless. Sure it has the "Potential Improvements" section but it's... eh. In the name of curious study, I am having my non-writer friend compose a piece for me to feed to the machine spirit later. (I also only get three uses a day, compared to the unlimited reports with their nitty gritty)

Now, could this simulated praise be a sign I'm a genuinely good writer? Well I don't need the AI for that- I have friends zip-tied to chairs to feed my ego. (I forever cherish one of my close writing friends telling me: "You have a voice of a fantasy writer from the 70s with a thick series full of wondererous imagination written by a twice divorce middle aged man who is disgruntled with reality. It was never exactly reprinted as it was unknown, but the aging, withered pages hold such a gorgeous narrative that it sticks with you for the rest of your life.")

Back to the AI: Their shining critique falls apart when I look at the story myself and can point to several areas for improvement/refinement with a cursory reading. (Thank you creator's curse, you're my true reliable critic.)

Woe to me, I cannot escape personal proofreading. (Real talk: the hope was have it be able to do the cursory stuff so I could focus on the creative viscera. That's half the fun after all—)

There is two other Critique features, Full Manuscript Analysis and Virtual Beta Reader. I have used neither of these as I do not have any large manuscripts to toss into the jaws. To ensure jolly feelings, it's also a credit based system. So let's talk money.

Scrivener, a writing workhorse that even after years of using I still find new features and has long cemented itself as my text editor of choice, was $45 for a lifetime license. Fantastic software, it has earned its reputation.

ProWritingAid, a grammar and spellchecker was $115 (discounted price) for a year subscription. (Can I mention how idiosyncratic their tier system is? Free, Premium, Premium Pro? Why??? Just name it Free, Pro, Premium. Don't stack luxury words.) For $115, I get several features I don't even use, or aren't very useful. Oh, a discount for the aforementioned analysis credits. ($25 for 1, $70 for 3, $175 for 10. Full priced it's $50, $150, $500 respectively. Spend this money on an actual person please)

Now what's worst off is I wasn't even the one to spend the $115. That was someone else wanting to support me and my writing; an act I am quite grateful for and the meaning behind it. I feel bad complaining. I have hopes for PWA. Something that can act as a quick look proofreader would be wonderful. But perhaps I'm just asking for too much from what is again, a grammar and spellchecker.

So far, I don't know yet. I don't know if I'd call it good or bad. As I started with: it's okay?

Maybe I'll do a retrospective after a while once I've utilized it longer. Maybe features will be better fine tuned in the future.

And that leads me here. What have been y'all's experience with it, if any? Searching online has been miserable; I'd like to hear from other people.

[As a footnote, PWA was not used when writing this. Kinda forgot that I never set it up for browser. Tallyho]

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like accessibility, protests and rant. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was astute.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you.

It could be one quirky video that you feel deserves some eyeballs on it, or perhaps you've got a curated list of videos that you'd love to talk us through...

Share some of the best video content you've watched this past week/fortnight with us!