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 suffered from depression and anxiety disorders for a while now. I take medication daily and I am seeing a therapist. However, I feel that I should know more about the disease. I think it would be useful for when I'm talking to my therapist and psychiatrist for example.

Recently I had a healthy debate with my therapist because she believes I am too young to be dependent on meds and that I should aim to get out of them long-term. I explained her that before I started taking drug mix that (kinda) works for me, I was falling into an abyss. I couldn't function, I couldn't be independent. And, with my current knowledge and experience, I think I will be a chronic user of medication.

So I got the impression (I might be wrong on this and we will discuss it more in the future) that my therapist believes in some kind of separation of the brain from the biological world. For example, if someone is diagnosed with a heart disease and starts taking meds, no one bats an eye. When it comes to psychiatric drugs people get concerned. I am skeptical of this double standard.

I also believe that the current umbrella of depression will be revised in the future. I think for some people it is caused by a life event but for others, the brain just isn't working well and we can't (yet) identify a source for the depression. My therapist doesn't like this theory. She thinks that it all comes down to your emotional and behavioral landscape, both in the present and in the past. Now, I know that the brain is a "special" organ because, unlike the heart, we use it to think and feel. So there is definitely SOME relationship between depression and what you feel and act, but I think that is a simplistic way of seeing things. I have done brain exams before and nothing was found. But did someone test my brain chemistry for example? No. So There is probably much more to learn with regards to the disease.

So I guess this was a long way of reaching my request: I am looking for up to date and thorough literature on depression, mostly on it's causes, treatments and current undergoing research. I want to be more informed so that I can better communicate with my caregivers. I want to know what the hell is wrong (at least, most likely) with me. I want to know that there is hope in current research.
This literature can be books, papers or another medium.

I would like to finish by saying that I like my therapist a lot and the objective of this post is not to bash her. It's about explaining the context for my request.

Thanks.

The IFSC is an international governing body for competitive climbing, recognised by the Olympic Committee. Sport climbing is now an Olympic sport. There are three disciplines: lead, boulder, and speed. In the Olympics the climbers will do all three disciplines.

In speed climbing there are two 15 meter tall walls with hand and footholds attached. The two walls are the same as each other. The layout is fixed -- the same layout is used for each competition. Two climbers race each other up the wall, and the winners go on to race each other up the wall.

Here's Wired with a useful introduction to speed climbing: Why it's almost impossible to climb 15 meters in 5 seconds I like this video because it gives a good "elevator pitch" introduction to the 3 disciplines, and then gives a good detailed intro to speed climbing. They talk about beta and some of the beta-breaks that have decreased the time taken to get up the wall.

Here's Albert Ok with a quite personal video about his training for speed climbing. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil it, but it's a nice description of training. 5 Lessons I learned speed climbing for 150+ hours

Here's Magnus Midtbø and Pete Whittaker having fun in a gym, challenging each other to a speed climbing dual. (The whole video is a fun watch - they both seem like nice, chill, people and they have good on screen chemistry with each other). I challenge Pete to a speed climbing dual

The most recent speed world cup was in Chamonix 2019. The next one (for speed and boulder) will be 28th - 30th May in Salt Lake City. The IFSC tend to live stream the events.

On my desk I have two screens -- one off to the side for movies, TV, etc and my main in front. Sometimes I find myself wanting subtitles on my main screen. The main issue I've found, at least with macOS, is that the SRT players suck.

I figured, why not just generate a tiny black video with embedded subtitles?

ffmpeg -i subs.srt -t 3:00:00 -s 40x10 -f rawvideo -pix_fmt rgb24 -r 25 -i /dev/zero subs.mpeg

Set the ratio to be super small without being too small. This video is 40px by 10px and the video only takes a few seconds to generate. For me, this generated at ~850x speed.

From there, jack up the subtitle font size and shift it up a little bit so nothing gets cut off. This also works really well with tiling window managers.

Screenshot

I once heard about a website that does this, but I cannot find it. You would give the website an RSS feed, and it would give you a new feed to subscribe to. It would then release “new” episodes on a set schedule. This way you could listen to, for example, a weekly podcast starting at the very beginning, released on a weekly schedule as if you were listening to it when it first released.

I hope one of you awesome tilderinos know a website that does this. Thanks in advance!

The IFSC held the 2021 boulder world cup in Salt Lake City on 21st to 22nd May.

Semi-finals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwvwGG6AGdw
Finals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXC52wxDCGg

Bouldering is a form of climbing short routes without ropes. Bouldering is a test of both strength and puzzle solving. In competition bouldering there's a "boulder" made of large panels to which various holds have been placed by a route setter. Three of these are special holds - start, zone, and top. Climbers have to start from the start hold position. The aim is to climb the wall and place both hands on the "top" hold and keep them there for 3(?) seconds. Not all climbers will "top" all boulders! Top and zone are used for scoring.

The setter will have an intended method to complete the boulder. This is called the beta. Climbers who use some modification are said to "break the beta".

The winner is the person with most tops. If there is a tie for tops the person with the most zones will win that tie. If there's a tie for tops and zones they'll look at the number of attempts to top. If there's still a tie they'll look at number of attempts to zone.

There are four boulders in the semi finals, and four in the finals.

I'm submitting this because the strength and skill in bouldering is amazing to me. Here's a video about Shauna Coxsey (a very good British climber): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjG9k4cJ6VY And here's Magnus Midtbø, Pete Whittaker, and Mari Salvesen trying a new crack climbing route: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0nh6HmV51A (There's a "bat hang" at 20:08 where she's dangling by her feet which is just incredible)

Some jargon to be aware of --

crimp: a very small finger hold.
pinch: a method of gripping a hold. Imagine working a sock-puppet.
volume: the very large holds.
Sloper: a type of hold that you can't really pinch, so you place your flat hand on it and apply pressure.
jam / jamb / hand-jam / fist jam: a way of climbing cracks by inserting a flat hand into the space and then flexing it or forming a fist.

The OTB Open happened this past weekend in Stockton, California. I watch a lot of disc golf, and this was a particularly enjoyable tournament, so I thought I'd give an overview of the (free) footage available. MPO is the Men's and FPO is the women's.

DGN Final Day Coverage

Disc Golf Network streamed OTB Open Presented by Innova | Final Round which is about 6.5 hours of footage. I haven't watched it, but I know it was commentated by Ian Anderson who runs Central Coast Disc Golf (who is a great commentator) and Nate Doss, who is a great player, but I've never heard commentate. I don't have a particular recommendation on whether this is watchable or not - I haven't watched it, and don't really intend to, but included it for interest. It includes both MPO and FPO coverage.

MPO

Mic'd up Practice Round on JomezPro

JomezPro runs a practice round with 3 pro disc golfers - Jeremy "Big Jerm" Koling, Paul Ulibarri, and Nate Sexton. These three are the "main" commentators for JomezPro; they tend to be a bit goofy and are very endearing. They do a lot of good natured smack talk, and they try to break down the holes so you'll understand what you'll see professionals doing. Sometimes in commentary during the tournament, they'll also make some joking references to things that happened in the practice round, like a Fox peeing on one of Sexton's discs.

Front 9 | Back 9

Feature / Lead on JomezPro

Commentators: Jeremy Koling, Nate Sexton, Paul Ulibarri: "Big Sexy Barri Commentary"

Round 1 Feature Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Paul McBeth, Calvin Heimburg, Ezra Aderhold, James Proctor. McBeth and Heimburg are both in the "1050 club" which is their player rating - they are 2 of only 4 players rated this high.

Round 2 Lead Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Paul McBeth, Eagle McMahon, Ricky Wysocki, Nate Sexton. The other two players in the "1050 club" are McMahon and Wysocki; you will frequently see these 4 names on the lead card coverage.

Round 3 Lead Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - McMahon, Ricky Wysocki, Anthony Barela, Aaron Gossage. The final round features someone relatively unknown - Gossage - who has never been on a lead card at a high level event. Each of these guys are "bombers", ie. they can throw insanely far. There are a few times when the commentators are speechless, or just laugh at the insane throws. If you only watch one MPO round, watch this one.

Feature / Chase on Gatekeeper Media

Commentators: Brian Earhart, Nate Perkins

Round 1 Feature Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Gregg Barsby, Eagle McMahon, Alex Russell, Austin Hoop. If you want to watch McMahon through the whole tournament you can start here.

Round 2 Chase Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - James Conrad, Aaron Gossage, Anthony Barela, Adam Hammes. I haven't watched this, but I'm going to guess that at some point Hammes makes a jump putt and his hat comes off. This has happened at least once every time I've ever watched him play.

FPO

Feature / Lead card on GK Pro

Commentators: Madison Walker & Erika Stinchcomb - "Two hot geese"

Round 1 Feature Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Paige Pierce, Lisa Fajkus, Madison Walker, Ella Hansen. Paige Pierce is one of the best disc golfers of all time, and there's also Walker commentating her own round, which I always find interesting. Hansen is new to disc golf, being a former Ultimate superstar, and Fajkus has had a bunch of wins this season; this is a great card to watch.

Round 2 Lead Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Jessica Weese, Paige Pierce, Lisa Fajkus, Catrina Allen. Allen and Weese are two names you'll also see a lot if you watch FPO coverage - they are frequently on the lead or chase cards. If you only watch one FPO round, watch this one. Eagles are rare in disc golf, and there is more than one in this round.

Round 3 Lead Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Jessica Weese, Paige Pierce, Lisa Fajkus, Catrina Allen. There are lots of great women in this field, but it's a bit of a testament to how great this card did in Round 2 that each of these four remained in the lead.

I'd love to get a passable alternative interface to YouTube that just shows me what I'm subscribed to, a search bar, and nothing else. Does this exist as a userscript or alternate site?

Edit:

My current solution is to have my YouTube bookmark go directly to my subscriptions listing. I also have my ad blocker cut out the recommendations feed on the side. It works okay but maybe there's a better solution out there.

This is the ad block rule:

www.youtube.com##.ytd-watch-next-secondary-results-renderer
www.youtube.com##.ytd-guide-entry-renderer[title=Explore]
www.youtube.com##.ytd-guide-entry-renderer[title=Home]

I've been married for about 20 years. Our bedroom has been mostly dead for half of that. When I left to go take care of my mother, I didn't know if I would come back home. My husband and I like each other well enough, but we have each been in our own personally narrated relationship hell for too long. While I was away, we started writing each other letters, the distance seemed to let us "get it all out." We both seem committed to making the next 20 years better than the first. If there is any interest, I'm willing to chronicle our journey back from the brink of divorce, as well as answer any questions anyone might have. I'm the one with the lower sex drive, and with sex more tied to emotional intimacy than my partner. I like Tildes as my personal space and don't really want my husband to have an account, but I would let him use mine to speak his own words if that is something someone would want to hear. If there is no interest, I'll delete this topic in about a week, as I would find it a bit embarrassing in my history.

Edit: I would also be interested in hearing how other people worked through this if anyone would like to talk about it.