How this show is now in its twelfth season without being more well known baffles me. It's a Dutch reality television show where they collect a group of singers, then send them off to a resort and pamper them. The singers get to know each other and take turns covering songs for each other that have influenced them in some way.

Each episode has one of the singers being serenaded by the rest of the group. The songs are in every language and style you can imagine, most of them being performed by singers who are stepping well outside of their own comfort zones/styles (and native languages in some cases). There are amazing performances on this show.

It's blowing up this season because Floor Jansen is one of the guests, and that means the Nightwish army is pimping it all over the net which is how I stumbled on it. I want to know where I can find the past eleven seasons, and why this hasn't been syndicated all over the globe yet, it's a genius idea for a music television show.

There's a youtube channel that posts entire episodes with english captions so you can follow the conversation.

A couple of highlights so far this season...

• Floor Jansen covering Vilja Lied
• Henk Poort covering The Sound of Silence
• Tim Akkerman covering Bring Him Home

Turn of Mind is a mystery. It's for the most part written in journal format. Interestingly it's a journal that sits in the house of a person with Alzheimer's disease.

Jennifer White was an orthopedic surgeon in Chicago. Once brilliant, Dr. White is now in the later stages of the disease and the journal is written in by family members and housekeepers to help her remember who she was and who she is. A fractured portrait emerges of a cold and strong minded woman who has had a full life that she remembers in bits and pieces. Amidst the pages is mention of a neighbor, Amanda, who has been murdered. Slowly things come together for the reader while Dr. White's disease progresses into confusion.

Yet she still has moments of lucidity, remembering the details of her profession, where she was considered one of the best and most respected hand surgeons in the country. Her deterioration is something she's at times very aware of, and it is this that makes the book so powerful.

The narrative often lapses into Jennifer's past memories of both her parents and her children. This adds authenticity to her mental condition but also made me impatient for what seemed to be more important details. As Jennifer is interviewed by police officers and pulled into interaction with her grown son and daughter, we can begin to understand the horror of this disease, especially regarding how hard it is to trust people who may be trying to manipulate the sufferer for their own purposes.

I'd put this near the top of my list for books enjoyed in 2019. It brings to mind The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon, narrated by an Aspberger's spectrum person. Turn of Mind is a hard book to read, but it's even harder to put down once you get into it.

So, I've been going through Project Euler and solving problems as a way to brush up on my programming abilities, but it's mostly a math-focused set of problems. Which is cool..they're nice little puzzles that get the gears turning...

BUT I'm wondering if anyone here has suggestions for a website/course that teaches software design in a piece-wise way. Like... each problem is a nugget of software design that builds off previous problems and eventually you're creating an entire application utilizing different algorithms/design patterns/data structures/etc.

I'd appreciate any resources similar to that idea. Thanks!

I'm really curious if they have, because on this thread, there's a bunch of comments from "unknown user." If whispers have been implemented, how do I use them? I can't seem to find any information about them.

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.

Notes

I'm finally going to update the wiki today, hopefully. FYI.

Previous topics

Previous topics will be ARE listed in the UPDATED wiki!!! as soon as I update it.

What are the Big Problems? I'm leaving this open-ended, there's no specific criteria for responses.

I'm interested in both your list and the reasons why. Submitting your list before reading others' contributions would be preferred.

Optionally: who is (or isn't) successfully addressing them. Individuals, organizations, companies, governments, other. How and/or why not?

I've asked this question periodically on several forums (G+, Reddit, HN) for seven years now.

I've written fairly extensively on my own views, reasonably findable if you wish, but my interest here is in gaining fresh input, resetting my own biases, and not colouring the discussion overly myself.

If I had a really rough day or accomplished more than expected, I make sure to reward myself as such. I've found that I treat myself to a local pizzeria or take a bath in steaming hot water and zone out from the world for an hour.

The UK Supreme Court just ruled that the prorogation of parliament was unlawful, which means it didn't happen.

https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/uksc-2019-0193.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-49810261

This is a pretty big deal.

It's hard to see how Johnson can continue as PM.