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    1. Just watched 'Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia' (1974). Any fans of Sam Peckinpah in the house?

      Some of the works of Peckinpah had been on my watch list for months, sitting there in a subfolder of a subfolder. From the choice of Straw Dogs and Cross of Iron, I chose the aforetitled, liking...

      Some of the works of Peckinpah had been on my watch list for months, sitting there in a subfolder of a subfolder. From the choice of Straw Dogs and Cross of Iron, I chose the aforetitled, liking the idea of embarking on a bit of a journey through Mexico with a gritty protagonist as we experience splatterings of violence and negotiate the thoughts of a down and out vagabond making a ran for his riches.

      The film left me with mixed feelings. I enjoyed the path of Benny, experiencing how his character is unwavering in his desire to take that last lucky ticket out of debauchery street, but didn't care much for his journey's partner. While I appreciated the dynamic of the relationship, the understanding they both had that they weren't in love with each other, but all they both had, the chemistry and dialogue didn't really resonate with me at parts. I actually was rather glad when this relationship came to its abrupt end as the film entered its final 3rd.

      On top of that, there was major issues with the sound which made it difficult to fully immerse myself in the journey at times. I found myself feeling I was watching a caricature of a 70s movie now and again, as opposed to be engrossed in a gritty noir-esque adventure.

      But all in all, an enjoyable film which has left an impression. I always appreciate watching unpolished characters navigating circumstances plotted outside their usual courses, then watching how they deal with the inevitable implosion. From what I've read since, the film was one which perhaps accurately portrayed the director's life at the time of filming; dealing with various booze-infused demons. That rawness definitely shows, as does the inevitable imperfections in this movie's execution.

      7.5/10

      5 votes
    2. What would a climate crisis doomsday bunker need?

      I have been thinking recently, if a climate crisis is almost inevitable at this point what actions could an individual take to stay safe? I'm thinking some kind of underground bunker able to to...

      I have been thinking recently, if a climate crisis is almost inevitable at this point what actions could an individual take to stay safe? I'm thinking some kind of underground bunker able to to sustain life. The main things you would need is power, water and food. The power is fairly simple since you could set up solar and wind generation and probably use that to grow food underground but I'm wondering what you would do for water. How possible would it be to collect barrels from the sea and have a personal desalination plant.

      10 votes
    3. New groups added, more work still happening on rearranging, moving topics, etc.

      Alrighty, after the discussion last week, I've finally added the new groups, and everyone will have been mostly auto-subscribed to all of them. I'm still working on some of the details like adding...

      Alrighty, after the discussion last week, I've finally added the new groups, and everyone will have been mostly auto-subscribed to all of them. I'm still working on some of the details like adding descriptions, and there will be some awkward pieces and interface aspects since we're still in the transition phase before I get those larger changes to subscriptions/etc. in (which I really hope will be soon), but it should mostly be fine.

      If you want to change your subscriptions quickly, use this page: https://tildes.net/groups (linked from a button at the bottom of the home page's sidebar)

      First, here are the new groups:

      New top-level groups (everyone auto-subscribed)

      New sub-groups (auto-subscribed only if you were subscribed to the parent group)

      Some of this will be a little experimental and I'm not totally sure how it's going to work out (splitting ~science into the branches of science especially), but we'll see what happens. The names and such aren't necessarily 100% final either.

      Since we now have some real sub-groups that people other than me can post in, I made a small behavior change to how sub-groups work until those larger changes are ready. Previously, subscribing to a group would automatically include all posts from its sub-groups in your home page as well. That is, if you subscribed to ~tildes, you would also see all posts from ~tildes.official, regardless of whether you subscribed to it or not.

      Now, your home page will only include posts from groups (and sub-groups) that you are specifically subscribed to. So if you want to see topics from ~games but not ~games.tabletop, you should subscribe to ~games and unsubscribe from ~games.tabletop. However, if you visit ~games directly, posts from ~games.tabletop will still be included in the list there, regardless of whether you're subscribed or not. I know this isn't ideal, but it's not permanent and should be fine for now.

      I'm going to get back to working on updating these groups and moving some of the older topics around now, but let me know if you have any questions or thoughts.

      And as usual, I've topped everyone's invites up to 10. You can get your invite links here: https://tildes.net/invite

      51 votes
    4. Programming Q&A Thread

      An experiment I've been thinking about lately: a (recurring?) Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer other users' questions, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget...

      An experiment I've been thinking about lately: a (recurring?) Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer other users' questions, or post suggestions for future threads.

      Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:

      Here is my schema:
      
      ```sql
      CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse (
        article_id   INTEGER
      , warehouse_id INTEGER
      )
      ;
      ```
      
      How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
      

      Meta questions:

      • Should I turn this into a recurring thread?
      • If yes, should it be a weekly or a monthly thing?
      • Should DBA and SysAdmin questions be allowed or should someone else make a separate recurring thread for these?
      22 votes
    5. Kind Words (Tildes Edition)

      For those that aren't familiar with it, Kind Words is a recently released "game" where players can write a message about a difficulty they're facing or something that's troubling them. Other real...

      For those that aren't familiar with it, Kind Words is a recently released "game" where players can write a message about a difficulty they're facing or something that's troubling them. Other real people in the game can then respond, letting that person know that they're not alone. Players can also write un-addressed messages of positivity in the game, which are spread to other users via paper airplanes.

      I figured we could have a thread on Tildes with our own version of the game via comments.

      Here's how I figure it will work. We'll have three post types:

      Request: share your situation in order to get kind words in response
      Response: offer kind words to other people who have posted here
      Airplane: write general thoughts of goodwill for all the readers of the thread

      Please begin your post by naming its type in bold font. For those posing Requests, please let people know if you would rather receive public responses or PMs.

      Example post:

      Request: Sometimes I find myself wondering if there's any point to anything. It feels like I'm working so hard at meaningless stuff, just to get by. Anyone else feel this way?

      That isn't my request, just an example of what someone might type.

      Remember that the point of the thread is to let people know that they are heard and that they are not alone!

      Let's all be kind!

      27 votes