I just finished binging The Habitat, the awesome podcast about NASA's simulated mission to Mars. And I'm feeling the urge to read something along those lines: fiction or true stories and indulge my fascination with space (and things coming from it) and how that relates to contemporary imagination.

Any suggestions?

This thread is posted daily, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

1. My Friend, the Moon

When Tom was younger, he went to buy fresh bread every evening with his mother, Alice. They always walked and the bakery was far from home, so it was not uncommon for the Moon to come out along the way. "Hello, Mister Moon! Do you wanna come with us?", he liked to say. When they arrived at the bakery, he looked to his mother, excited, and said "Look ma! The Moon came with us!", and did the same when they got home.

2. Fiction

"Did you know that The Hulk was a detective once?", says Alice. Tom is 4. He puts his hand in the forehead in a gesture of superb irritation. "No, mom, this is make-believe!".

3. Cookie Conundrum

According to Tom, a mysterious group of sinister chipmunks was eating the cookies in the jar. When Alice asked for proof, Tom replied that a secret group of chipmunks got rid of all the evidence.

4. Ice Cream Dilemma

"So, mom, you have two options" — said Tom, seriously. "There are only two ice-cream flavors: chocolate and vanilla. Any choice is fine by me".

5. Tom and the Rats

Tom's house used to be infested with large disgusting rats. One day, he shouted: "Rats are the worse! No wonder we call them rats!

6. Dream Logic

Tom dreamed that his forehead could fly without him, leaving a hole in his head. When he woke up in the morning, there was a deer on the porch eating a hot-dog.

A simple web game I made to combat depression.

To play, go here. Warning: the game starts as soon as you enter the page.

To view source, visit the GitHub repo.

How to play:

• Press the keys you see before yourself. The key turns green if it's been "solved".

• Once all keys are "solved", you start a new round automatically.

• If the timer runs out before all keys are "solved", the game is over. Press [Space] to start over.

• There's no score. Play whenever and for as long as you like. Quit whenever you've had enough.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I've been reading the docs after joining the site (hi!) and noticed a few places that were either outdated or unclear. Should I ignore them, given the disclaimer on the Instructions doc that says docs may not be current? Or is it better to report them?

Here's a list of what I noticed for context:

• Docs, outdated: User settings: Marking new comments - this is now the default for logged in users and has been replaced by the "Collapse old comments when I return to a topic" setting.

• Docs, minor typo: Commenting on Tildes: "Noise" label - "with no and Offtopic labels" seems to be missing a word between "no" and "and".

• Docs, minor confusion: Navigating Tildes: Comment highlights - the meaning of "Linked comment" wasn't immediately clear to me.

• Wiki, outdated: ~tildes wiki: Introduction: Settings - mentions the "mark new comments" settings

  I recommend setting up [..] and toggle marking new comments to highlight new comments in a thread.

Some guidance on what to do with discoveries like these will be helpful for those who read docs :)
I'm not really asking them to be updated here and now, but that's a fine outcome of this post too.

This is mostly a test to see how well this will show up, but I'm experimenting with some text-based (I guess UTF-8) chord diagrams. If anyone plays guitar and/or has some feedback, feel free to chime in.

These are drop 2 chord voicings on the top 4 strings of a standard-tuned guitar. Arranged vertically, with each shape representing each chord piece. The gaps are for clarity, but each line ought to be successive and the patterns repeat themselves.

Edit: Well, it seems some of the symbols aren't rendered at a fixed-width. Though, they are in the font in my editor. Hm. I guess that's what I get for using symbols for an unintended purpose.

EditEdit: Oh, I see. Firefox is using three different fonts to render the symbols. SF Mono is my default monospace font, and it only renders the ◊ symbol. It falls back to Courier New for ○ and Segoe UI Symbol for the rest. Interesting.

▢ = Root
△ = Major 3rd
▽ = Minor 3rd
○ = Perfect 5th
◎ = Diminished 5th
◊ = Major 7th
◇ = Minor 7th
◈ = Diminished 7th

Major 7 
Drop 2 Voicings
Top 4

EADGBe
------

||||○▢
||◊△||

||▢|||
||||||
|||○◊△

||||▢|
||△|||
|||||○
|||◊||

||○▢△|
||||||
|||||◊

------

||||○▢
||◊△||

etc...




Dominant 7
Drop 2 Voicings
Top 4

EADGBe
------

||◇|○▢
|||△||

||▢|||
||||◇|
|||○|△

||||▢|
||△|||
|||◇|○
||||||

||○▢△|
|||||◇
||||||

------

||◇|○▢
|||△||

etc...




Minor 7
Drop 2 Voicings
Top 4

EADGBe
------

||◇▽○▢
||||||

||▢|||
||||◇▽
|||○||

||▽|▢|
||||||
|||◇|○

||||▽|
||○▢||
|||||◇
||||||

------

||◇▽○▢
||||||

etc...




Half-diminished 7
Drop 2 Voicings
Top 4

EADGBe
------

||||◎|
||◇▽|▢
||||||

||▢|||
|||◎◇▽
||||||

||▽|▢|
|||||◎
|||◇||

||◎|▽|
|||▢||
|||||◇

------

||||◎|
||◇△|▢
||||||

etc...

Whether it's a personality trait you have, an experience you've been through, or a way that you "come across" to others, or something else entirely, what's something that people commonly misunderstand about you? Why do you think that happens? How do you feel or respond when you're made aware of it?

My OG Pixel died last night and while I'm waiting for tech support to get back with me on how I can still use MFA to do my job, I figured I would ask you all how I should proceed with getting a new device. My first impulse is to get a Referb Pixel 2 on Amazon for $99, as I liked my original Pixel, I like having the latest Android version and I like only paying $99 for an older flagship phone. Additionally, I was considering a Pixel 3a as it would presumably last a bit longer and has had good reviews but is three times as much and hasn't devalued nearly as much when used, which is good and bad.

I'm open to anything that's relatively stock Android and still updated, and am curious about iOS, Kaios or other options. Landlines are a hard pass.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows 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.

Recently found one in a perfect state. I sterilized it and now I can have one. Just wanting people's opinions if they saw someone with an n95 mask instead of a surgical mask. Like, it could go to a hospital or something.

edit: I should mention I have type 1 diabetes