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.

This thread also applies to every other annoying website.

Medium is one of the most annoying sites out there. It's slow, cluttered, always greets me with a despicable banner (no, I do not pardon the interruption!) and manages to consistently bypass uBlock Origin. I'm tired of complaining on individual threads (and attracting well-deserved reproach for my grumpiness), so here's my proposal: let's establish an informal rule that every Medium article should be shared in a sanitized version. outline.com seems to be the best tool to accomplish that, but I'm open to suggestions. As a safety measure, in case outline.com goes offline, the original Medium link could be posted in the body of the new thread.

What you lovely people think about this idea?

After our discussion about Tempest-like games, I looked at what else could at least scratch a similar fast-paced space-theme racing, with optional shooting itch on Switch.

To kick off the discussion, these are the games I already tried that I kinda like. I‘ll update this list, once people suggest other entries. I realise it’s a bit of a mish-mash, but it’s more about the feel than a specific genre.

Fast RMX is a very fast-paced pod-racer, with a similar feel to Wipeout, if you take away the weapons, and add a boost mechanic where you need to switch your booster’s code with the speed lane. I prefer playing it with motion/gyro controls, which admittedly makes it harder to play, but with that actually feels a lot more like you’re travelling at massive speed where every unintentional jerk of the steering wheel can cause you to wipe out.

Velocity 2X is a very successful mix of a vertical shooter where time matters with added platforming levels in between. Boosting for speed and warping/teleporting to solve puzzles is a huge part of the game.

The Next Penelope is a top-down 2D (pod?) racing game with weapons, where the acceleration happens automatically, but is influenced by boost, boost markers on the track and bumping into stuff. I haven’t played it for a long time yet, but once you learn the controls it seems to be a very good game.

VSR is a pure zero-gravity, zero-friction 3D space racer. Which makes mastering the controls very hard for anyone who is not used to it. To be honest, I haven’t mastered them yet either, but haven’t given up, as I really liked RPGs and shooters with such a mechanic. It just gives a specific type of zennish “in the zone” feeling, once you get into it.

Fast RMX
price: 20 € 14 € until 2019-07-25
reviews: 81 % on MetaCritic
length: 3½ h main game (57 h completionist) on HowLongToBeart

Velocity 2X
price: 20 € 8 € until 2019-07-18
reviews: 87 % on MetaCritic
length: 5 h main game (26 h completionist) on HowLongToBeat

The Next Penelope: Race to Odysseus
price: 13 € 2 € until 2019-07-11
reviews: 79 % on MetaCritic
length: 2½ h main game (5½ h completionist) on HowLongToBeat

VSR: Void Space Racing
price: 5 €
reviews: 66 % on MetaCritic
length: (no HowLongToBeat entry yet)

I'm not sure if this is the case for everyone but the new reddit can't load any data, at least for me. However, old.reddit.com works, and all mobile apps seem to work which obviously use the reddit API. I am curious, does reddit have a different version of their API for the redesign, and that's what's been down for hours?

edit: I know that reddit must allow their own product to do things that other products don't.. Like it seems the chat api is not open to 3rd parties.. but I assumed that they would have just blocked certain api endpoints from public exposure. But based on my blind troubleshooting of this case, it seems that they must be using a totally different interface all together for the redesign?

Hmm, so I've heard reddit is super-cached... is this possibly a caching fault then?

reddit uses redis, correct? And it must be sharded, right? So maybe some redis cluster nodes are down?

I'm trying to learn here, and I am likely asking the wrong questions.. The goal of my post was to understand this type of failure, as I realize that it must be partial as in if all of reddit resign was down, it would be news. If anyone could correct any of my statements or assumptions I would really appreciate it.

I realize I'm behind the curve on this one, as it made headlines a full year ago, but I just watched Nanette, which is a stand-up comedy performance by Australian lesbian comic Hannah Gadsby. I don't love stand-up comedy at all, but the person who recommended it to me knew this about me and encouraged me to watch it anyway.

I'm glad I did.

And a big part of that is because her show isn't really stand-up. It starts out that way, and I legitimately enjoyed her humor, but about halfway through she shifts from telling jokes to more serious monologuing, and the show moves from being funny and incisive to become a flat out emotional sledgehammer. I cried through a good portion of it.

She tackles a lot in her hour, and it's given me a lot to think about--most of which I haven't really had adequate time to digest yet. I found it remarkable that so much of her story was so similar to my own. She framed aspects of myself in ways I needed to hear. I think what she has to say has resonance for everyone, but I think it's especially relevant for LGBT people, and especially for those of us that grew up in environments that were toxic to us.

I just wanted to see if anyone else here has watched it and, if not, put it out there as something worth your time--even if you don't usually like stand-up.

I'm in no rush to buy but I am considering getting a Switch. From my brief bit of duckduckgo-ing, it appears that a new Switch is on the horizon, either a newer version (Switch 2) or a mini-Switch and the current release may drop in price.

Any thoughts? What would you do at this point? Most of the shops around here that sell them are out of stock anyway so unless I was to buy online, it's not necessarily an option.

Thanks all!

Update: I bought a Switch. With Mario Kart and Zelda. It's brilliant!

Years and Years is a British political near-future soft SF programme. Being British it's one short series - 6 episodes, 1 hour per episode. Mainstream broadcast SF isn't going to push all the boundaries, but this has some neat ideas. The political stuff feels realistic enough to work.

Emma Thompson is always impressive and she does excellent work here as a populist, fascist, politician. Jessica Hynes plays Edith with suitable intensity.

Here are a bunch of links:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8694364/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

[spoilers] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/years-and-years-1220415

[spoilers] https://variety.com/2019/tv/reviews/years-and-years-review-emma-thompson-hbo-1203243714/

[spoilers] https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/may/14/years-and-years-review-a-glorious-near-future-drama-from-russell-t-davies

First up: that “spoiler” tag isn’t there for fun. This essay is going to focus on a climactic moment in ‘Toy Story 4’. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know what happens, close this topic NOW.

I saw ‘Toy Story 4’ last night. I’ve been catching myself up on the previous movies over the past few weeks (I’d never seen any of them before), so they’re reasonably fresh in my mind. I surprised myself by enjoying the movies a bit more than I expected to. I had assumed they were very much children’s movies, but I found them engaging and enjoyable even as a middle-aged adult.

So I was all caught up, and went out last night to see the latest instalment in the franchise with a friend who’s a massive fan of all things Disney.

I liked it. It was yet another “toys having adventures in the big wide world” story line. That seems to be the main story line of all the Toy Story movies: the toys get lost or misplaced, or have to go rescue a toy who is lost or misplaced, so they end up having adventures outside of their home.

But there’s usually an emotional heart to each movie. And that emotional heart often comes from the character of Woody, whose goal has always been to make sure that the toys are doing what toys are supposed to do: bringing joy to children. As we often get told, mostly by Woody, being a child’s plaything is the most noble thing a toy can do. To that end, Woody seems willing to do almost anything. The toys have mounted ridiculous rescue missions, they’ve manipulated humans (it wasn’t Andy’s idea to give his toys to Bonnie), and they’ve made personal sacrifices. Even in this movie, Woody was willing to give up his voice box so that he could get brand-new toy Forky back to Bonnie who had made him, and to give Gabby the chance to belong to a kid.

Then…

Woody met Bo Peep in this movie, and found her living an independent life as a lost toy. We know they’ve had romantic feelings towards each other, but she was given away by Andy’s little sister some years back. Then she got given away again, to an antique store. Now she turns up living near a caravan park, and she’s noone’s toy except her own.

Normally, Woody would have moved heaven and earth to reunite Bo with her previous kid, or to find her a new one. But she doesn’t want one. She’s an independent toy now, and that suits her fine.

So they have their adventures. And, at the end of those adventures, Woody and his fellow toys are returning to Bonnie, while Bo is returning to her independent life. And Woody has a moment of indecision. Does he return to Bonnie, or does he go with Bo?

But, there’s not really that much tension because we know how this is going to end. Woody has told us so many times that being a child’s plaything is the most noble thing a toy can do. Of course he’s going back to Bonnie.

And then he chooses to go with Bo.

I sobbed.

Let me give some context for my reaction to this moment. I do respond emotionally to movies and television. I laugh loudly when something is funny, and I cry openly when something is sad. I jolt back in my seat in response to scary moments, and I’ve been known to cover my eyes during exceptionally gory scenes. I’m not ashamed to feel things in response to events on the screen, nor to express those feelings. That’s normal for me. However, I felt a very strong emotional reaction to this moment in the movie – much stronger than most. I wanted to burst out in loud unmanly sobs because of how upset I was. I wanted to shout at the screen. I felt a real and physical reaction in my gut: it was literally a gut-wrenching moment for me (and that almost never happens!). This was the strongest emotional reaction I’ve had to any moment in movies or television for years. It was strong enough to prompt me to write about it!

I know I was supposed to feel happy that Woody and Bo had found each other, and they loved each other, and this was the start of their romantic “happy ever after”. But that’s not why I cried. I cried because Woody turned his back on nobility and chose selfishness.

Woody had been the conscience and the heart of the whole franchise, reconciling toys to their place in life, and helping toys to achieve their goal in life. Even in this movie, he had turned Forky around from wanting to be trash to wanting to help Bonnie. Woody showed toys their noble goal in life, and did everything he could to help them achieve it.

And then he turned his back on everything he’d said and believed up till now.

Sure, Bonnie wasn’t playing with him as much as Andy did. Sure, he wasn’t top dog in Bonnie’s playroom (that place belonged to Dolly, who’d been there much longer than Woody and his fellows). But Woody was always selfless. Woody was always looking out for the children’s best interests. Woody was always putting the children’s needs ahead of his own. He had previously told his fellow toys that even being stored in the attic was a good thing because it meant their child (now a college man) still cared about them to some degree. So, even if Bonnie wasn’t playing with him all the time, he would still want to stay around to be there for her – or even to be there for the other toys she did play with.

Wouldn’t he?

Or was it all a lie? Was it all about his own selfish desire to be important and, then, when that importance was taken away, he decided to walk out?

Or was it as basic as choosing pleasure over service?

How could you do that, Woody? How could you turn your back on everything noble and good, and choose your own selfish desires instead?

Woody, you broke my heart.