Recently there has been a discussion thread about how many people (myself included) are recently finding it difficult to find meaningful, lasting friendships. Let's change that. I don't know if we've ever had a thread like this, but if we did then it must have been a while ago (or my search juju failed me).

Normally, the "finding friends 101" involves finding a small community that revolves around one of your interests, then make friends within that community. Finding those kinds of small communities on the internet has become nigh-on impossible, at least for me. Discord is no substitute; most Discord servers revolving around a certain interest are massive in size, with text channels flying by faster than a popular streamer's Twitch chat.

So we're breaking the code. Instead of finding a specialized community for your interests, just type up a list of your interests, quirks, or whatever other things you'd like to lure new potential friends with as a response to this thread. Go into as much detail as you'd like. If anyone has mentioned an interest you share, send them a DM and start a conversation! (That goes for the lurkers too – if you are one, don't be shy; you play an essential part in making this thread work.)

Note: it may be helpful to add other details too, like your age (if you want friends in a similar age group) and what kind of friends you're looking for in your post. Some people may be looking for people to hang in voice chat and play games with; others may just look for people to discuss topics via Discord DM; and others still may not even necessarily be looking to take their new friendship outside of Tildes. All of these are completely valid.

I'm looking for some recommendations. I'm not a voracious reader, so just about anything you can recommend will be new to me.

I'm not sure how to describe the genre I'm after, which is really why I'm here. I just got done binging Petscop on YouTube; the surreal and Lynchian story telling coupled with the dark subject matter really sucked me in. I'm also somewhat enthralled by some of the higher quality Backrooms content.

I'm interested in short stories or novels.

Edit: sorry for not tagging. I completely forgot!

I have been overly obsessing about getting a new backpack for the past week without any reasonable way to move forward. I came across this bag because I was searching for something that holds my lunch box and laptop in a tinier volume. Here is what I found from Decathlon UK which not only fits my needs but looks stylish as well! Now, although I can work around with other backpacks for my use case, I really want to get my hands on this one.

Although the same backpack is available in other countries like Ireland, Italy and other EU countries, I have been unable to obtain this on the US site. Writing to the customer care has not been helpful as they asked me to get it from a third-party forwarded from elsewhere.

While I have acquaintances in EU, I wouldn't consider them close enough to have it shipped to the US as a gift (de minimis rule is going away by 29th August, so there will be extra tariffs!). I looked into it getting from a forwarding service and eat the cost, but it is stupid expensive and overall I am looking at about 80-100€. As a student, that is not viable either.

I kinda grew too attached to the idea of using this for my everyday carry for college since I only carry a laptop, a notebook and a lunch box. And I love small backpacks. At this point, I am giving up on getting it :(

Do you have any suggestions on how to get this backpack to the States?

I had an idea for a game some weeks ago, just as the title says. It would be something like Crusader Kings, it's all about dinasties and roleplay, but set in more modern eras, from the beginning of the industrial revolution until today, or maybe the future, we'll see. And instead of kingdoms, it's all about businesses. It's all about owning global company empires. Being a kind hearted local chain owner, or a sociopathic cutthroat in the 1% that owns the world. Up to you.

And this idea is still stuck with me, and I wanted to get back into game development, so I might as well just try it for fun and see what happens.

I picked Godot, 1) because it's open source, 2) it's going to be fun to see how much it developed in the last decade and 3) it's free, and especially 4) I don't want to use commercial engines and risk being affected by something similar to the runtime fee fiasco

I still have to finish some tutorials and make some simple games to get a grip on the engine and see how everything works, but as a data analyst I already have programming foundations and, I think, this project is monumental for someone like me, but I also think it's doable.

I have a very rough idea of how the code will work for the AI. It will incorporate "ticks" like CK, each tick being a day, and some events fire weekly or monthly, where based on the stats and traits, each individual character will calculate how likely they are to accept or reject that event. This event can be about buying shares, accepting proposal marriages, going on a trip, etc.

My main worry here is if GDScript is good enough to handle "intensive" algorithms. If not, I can always use C#, or C++ if I really have to, and adapt the problematic algorithms.

Another is what would be the best database manager for this, but I'll cross that bridge when I get there.

As for the world, initially I was thinking about being about the real one, but I realized that I may not want to deal with... Well, accuracies. For example, I don't want these businesses to exist in a vacuum, I'm going to try to make a system that interacts both the world's political events and these businesses. I want to create events, like, a country invades another, which creates demands for weapons, and if you own a weapon factory, good news for you! If you own businesses in the invaded country, well, sucks to be you.

So, I want to do those kind of events, but without needing to worry about things like "Portugal would never invade Japan. What is your AI thinking!?" or "Why is Greece an industrial power house?". If a big studio like Paradox has trouble fine tuning their hundreds of nations in their games, me by my alonesome certainly will not be able to do it.

So I'm thinking just making a fictional world, populated by several countries and empires but not as many as the real world. This way I can fine tune it to my liking and without worrying about being accurate with the real world. This is another challenge by itself, with its own cliffs, but it's more doable.

And so far, that's it. After I'm done with the learning phase, I'm going to start a proper planning phase, lay down some key mechanics and develop a prototype.

I wrote this post as a way to put my thoughts down, double check with myself if the idea is good.

But also, to check with the tildes community if you have any inputs. It can be anything: ideas, suggestions, warnings, problems that you know that I'll face, etc. I'll appreciate anything that you can give me

We all have words we dislike for one reason or another. I am specifically talking about words that are non-problematic, so slurs and politically incorrect words are out of the scope of this post. I am talking about words that you find inane, dense, overly broad, vague, imprecise, pedantic, confusing, or inadequate for any reason. Maybe you just don't like how they sound.

As long as it is not a slur or politcally incorrect, for the purposes of this post, anything goes! Any language too!

Not quite sure how to start this post, but I guess maybe a little bit of my own background could be useful?

I'm 41, Father of two young kids (almost 8 and 5), been gaming my entire life. I have a PC games library that's well over 20+ years old and 1000 games deep (not to brag, just for context) that my kids mostly (curated for them) have access too. My first multiplayer game was at about 11-years old with the Quake demo in 1996, later got heavily in to MMO's (Everquest, DAOC, WoW, etc) and in the early 2010's, I was heavily in to World of Tanks/Warplanes.

My oldest really wants to play Fortnite (which means the youngest will also play) and I'm a little torn on if I should allow that or not. They've played it a decent amount at their Uncles house and I'm well familiar with the game, though I've never played it or a Battle Royale style game myself and I don't really find anything objectionable about the content of the game itself, but I'm pretty reticent to put it on my own computers and make accounts for them to be able to play at home.

I can't exactly put my finger on why that might be, but I'm currently attributing it to the FOMO mechanics with skins, as well as the generally addictive nature of online games themselves, given I've been addicted to them myself. My kids only have a limited amount of time to play games or watch TV on any given day anyway, so I'm not necessarily concerned that they'll play it all day, but I am worried about their mental health when it comes to it. They both already get frustrated with games (but in different ways) and I feel like that would be exacerbated when they have a bad match or when they're called away to do something (which is a primary reason I quit multiplayer games when I had children. It became too difficult to disengage from a "match" of something and I'd become very frustrated and angry.) Now, I'm not afraid to take away things if they become a problem (they have been banned from Youtube) and while there's some short term pain associated with that, they tend to get over it after awhile. Also, I do generally feel that it's more wholesome to engage with stuff like Subnautica, Minecraft and other games that they're currently playing.

Anyway, I'm curious what other people's thoughts are on this subject. My wife proposed letting the older one have an account when they turn 8 here very soon, but I've told her about my reticence about it all, which she is understanding of. But I wanted to see if I'm being too anxious or paranoid about it and if Fortnite is actually fine for an 8 and 5 year old. I'm not generally one to wholesale ban things in the house and I'm open to all types of games and experiences, just not sure if it's totally appropriate yet.

Side note: there is the side benefit that I might (probably not often) play with them, but that they also have the possibility of playing with their (much older) cousins and their Uncles. Though I'm not sure any of them are able to play during the times my kids have their screentime.

I'm talking Really Big Projects.

NASA plans to have astronauts skinny-dipping in Shackleton Crater by 2030. Norway wants to build the first ever commercial ship tunnel, done by 2030.

That's the level I'm talking about.

And also, I'm not talking about cost overruns or resource requirements, or anything like that.

I just mean, really big, really public, engineering projects -- typically chock full of political complications -- get announced in the news, like ...

"NASA to build Super-Duper-Big Telescope on Olympus Mons, for $8B, by 2034"

-- and everyone knows it's actually going to cost 6-16x that amount, and be ready to use in the late-2040s ... assuming it gets built at all.

I want something vaguely formulaic to calculate how much and how long it will actually take NASA to build that telescope.

Back before he became universally hated, it was kind of a meme-level joke that Elon Musk was already living on Mars time, so all of his project-completion estimates had to be multiplied by 1.88 (to convert from Martian back to Earth years). The funny thing, as a rough guideline ... that was actually a pretty reliable formula.

I want something like that formula, but given a bit more thought and research, maybe some optional variables to take into account the project circumstances.

There are plenty of studies (I've been looking) that seek to identify and calculate the causes of large-project delays and cost-overruns, and how to minimize/avoid them. But I'm not trying to rein in the delays and overruns ... I just want to have a way of semi-realistically calculating, right at the start, just exactly how badly people are underestimating the timeline for building their Big Shiny New Thing.

I have Tinnitus and I love the sound of crickets. Recordings are nice but they don't hit nearly as well. I have a hearing aid which is nice but real crickets are much better. They hit a whole bunch of frequencies that provide me with great relaxation.

Has anyone here raised crickets? I do not intend to eat them. Just hear some real crickets every night when I go to sleep. Perhaps on a small box near my bed.

I live in a house with some space I can use. I"m in Northeast Brazil (Salvador, Bahia).

Too crazy or actually possible?

You tell me!

The Party

• Jeff, half-elf Druid 6 / Fighter 4 / Magus 4
• Lee, gray elf Fighter 4 / Magic-User 4 / Thief 5
• Oryn, high elf Magic-User 5 / Thief 6
• Rudy, halfling Druid 2 / Thief 3
• Takeshi, human Ranger 4
• Varda, human Cleric 6 / Magic-User 4
• Vordt, half-ogre Cleric 4 / Fighter 5

Ran the group through some werewolf hunting the other day. Thanks to the local army scouts, they knew where the hideout was; a chapel on a hill in the badlands, about ten miles from town. The party arrives, takes a look in one of the side windows, climbs the bell tower for a vantage point around the thing, including the graveyard and mausoleum, and then pushes their way into the building.

There's no light inside, but Takeshi has a broadsword with continual light on it, as well as a ring that increases the radius of light sources he commands, so the hall and sanctuary ahead are well lit through the 80' of luminescence in his hands. As they enter the sanctuary, three people materialize behind the altar, outlanders in appearance, claiming to be using this building as protection from the elements. Some players noted the lack of a "lived in" feeling here, no bedrolls or typical litter you'd expect of a temporary living space, and these people appeared well-fed and hale. Sensing that the party is about to lash out, the werewolves attack pre-emptively and gain surprise.

(Round 1) Takeshi and Lee ended up targets between these three werewolves. Four more tried to ambush from behind, but Vordt was in the back filling up the hallway, blocking their way. Oryn casts amplify damage at one while Varda fires magic missile and Jeff fills the hallway with web as Takeshi and Lee retaliate in melee; Rudy provides missile support with their sling. (R2) Oryn and Varda wait for an an opportunity to capitalize on while Takeshi and Lee continue trading blows, with Rudy continuing to provide missile support and Jeff casting a magic missile; Vordt is 5' deep in the web begins to leverage his obscene Strength to break free of them. One werewolf lies dead. (R3) Varda continues waiting, confident in their allies' abilities as Oryn charges in, Rudy provides missile support, Jeff supplies another magic missile, Takeshi and Lee continue trading blows with the two remaining werewolves, and Vordt is working himself free of the webs. Three werewolves lie dead.

Over the next couple of minutes, Vordt breaks free from the web. Not wanting to try and jump through windows, the party opts to wait for the spell to expire, as the remaining four werewolves trapped in it yell muffled requests for mercy. Their progress was much slower than Vordt's, and they had to go through 8' of web rather than 5', but after about an hour they'd all suffocated. During the wait, both Takeshi and Lee ate some belladonna to stave off potential infection.

The party finds a trap door to a cellar and checks it out. There's a wight hiding in the shadows, but it doesn't surprise them. It still slaps Lee and eats about 5k XP off his thief levels, but it dies by the end of the first round. In exchange, they found an iron chest, within which was 21k gold, 13 gems, a scroll of protection from magic, dwarf-sized field plate +1, and a pouch of dust of dryness.

Then Takeshi and Lee both vomit up their lunch and pass out on the floor. Lee is no longer breathing. Ingesting belladonna does a few things: (1) small chance of curing lycanthropy if taken quickly after infection, (2) incapacitates you for 1d4 days, (3) has a 1% chance of killing you. Lee is the 1%.

They get both of their bodies and the treasure out and back to town, then broker a deal with the local lordling MU to get Lee poked with a rod of resurrection, which drops him from 20 to 19 Constitution, removing his natural regeneration. Takeshi remains incapacitated for a day and Lee for a week, due to resurrection sickness.

No holodeck adventures, no hiding in space clouds, no musical dance numbers, no soap operas ( just a tiny bit ) and no less than subtle modeling of how people should behave.

Stories that were actually interesting and that held your attention.

Some of episode 5 was derivative from other Star Trek's and other sci-fi series, but it was done well.

Episode 6 was engrossing and with a surprise ending. I like the slow buildup of King Arthur ( Kirk ) eventually pulling the sword out of the stone ( taking command of the Enterprise ).

Episode 7. I knew people in college like Beto. I thought the actor did a great portraying such a person. I even found myself getting irritated though Star Fleet is fiction. I loved how Uhura handled him. She was kind, but she completely unmasked what he was behind his behavior.

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?

The concept of song of the summer is something I’ve only recently learned about but looking back I can definitely see how that concept influenced radio play when I was younger.

Even as the radio started declining songs were still being deemed “song of the summer.”

2024: Espresso - Sabrina Carpenter

2023: Flowers - Miley Cyrus

2022: As it Was - Harry Styles

2021: Butter - BTS

2020: Levitating - Dua Lipa

There’s for sure secondary songs you can choose (Good Luck Babe by Chappelle Roan for 2024 and Watermelon Sugar by Harry Styles for 2020 as examples). But generally something broke out and became cultural moments.

It appears that Alex Warren’s Ordinary and three Morgan Wallen’s songs topped the charts this summer. Not the pop infused dance music “song of the summer” is usually referring to. It did seem like people were looking at Just Keep Watching by Tate McRae or Fame is a Gun by Addison Rae but they never really took off. It seems like Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter was the highest charting pop song but did not reach the heights of Espresso last year.

Looking at music subreddits people seem in agreement that the charts this year have been a mess, muted, with new music not breaking through. Also appears that Americans are leaning into country and/or Christian music.

I've never actually put in more fans than what a case comes with, but I have an unraid server that is running hot so I got a pack of 5 fans to put in it.

From what I understand, you want them set up so that there is a solid airflow throughout the case; ie I'm planning to set it up so that the front and bottom fans are intake and the top and back fans are exhaust, so that cool air enters from the front/bottom and exits out the back/top.

However, one of the fans will be going on the side door. I'm assuming this wants to be intake as well (so that the airflow goes through the entire case, as I assume it would disrupt the airflow as exhaust). Or would it be better to not have one on the side and just have an extra fan laying about?

This is how I plan to set it up (shout out to MS Paint): https://ibb.co/KcXx5cgW

Note: The X's are because the installed chassis block being able to put fans there; the bottom one is especially disappointing as it's the HDDs that are mostly getting hot

Just wanted to confirm that that set up looks good and that intake for the side one (where the ? is) is the proper choice