Oh no! My friend thinks she shouldn't use her nice ornamental coffee pot, because it is made of aluminum! Nevermind that there might be science developing somewhere that this substance may be some kind of innocuous which is not total. It's just horrible that that is how people make decisions
sometimes!

I got really defensive when I started hearing that people would avoid plastic bottles. Seemed like the kind of discernment that could only put me out of touch with things which are available. Go get your coffee pot! I doubt that you'll ever be able to tell if it ever impacted your health. Another friend of mine has a whole crop of prohibitions. He liked some of my clothes and talked about borrowing them until he found out they included polyesters, at which point he completely dropped interest and then I just felt put down for going on with something he had rejected. I thought, why did he speculate to me at all, knowing he had that sort of judgment still pending? Disgust should be unspeakable! but people bring it out with such righteousness, like "wouldn't you like to be healthier, away from all these awful things"? I also feel this way about smells. I hate how people respond to perceptible odors. Everyone is so sure of their opinions. Someone please come out with me for this. Unless you're struggling to breathe I really do not want to hear what you think about a smell. You're just going to interpret the world as being a worse place to be and that habit is what disgusts me!

It has been one year since the Steam Deck officially launched.

At the time:

• you had to wait a long time, months even, to be able to get the hardware
• the number of supported games was low
• the software was still highly buggy and rough around the edges

Currently:

• it is available on-demand, though unfortunately not for all countries
• there are nearly 3,000 Verified and 5,000 Playable games on the device (with many more unconfirmed titles that work anyway)
• the software is much more mature and a healthy ecosystem of third-party applications and support has sprung up

For those here who have Steam Decks, let us know your thoughts on the device, this past year, and the future to come.

Happy Birthday, Steam Deck!

I just watched an old movie on television: The Boy With Green Hair. It’s a boring afternoon, with nothing to do, and I thought this old 1948 movie would be a pleasant way to kill an hour or two.

I was wrong.

It moved me to tears.

It stars Dean Stockwell, whose name I recognised from ‘Battlestar Galactica’, as a child actor, which is one reason I decided to watch it. He gives a great performance. Doing a bit of research, it looks like he was dragged into acting by his performer parents. His Wikipedia page quotes him as saying he didn’t enjoy acting. Despite that, he was great in this movie.

It also has ‘Nature Boy’ as its theme song, which I know from ‘Moulin Rouge’.

The movie itself is a powerful anti-war message. The central character is Peter, a war orphan (the aforementioned Stockwell). After being placed with a number of different relatives, he ends up with a kindly old ex-Vaudeville performer he calls “Gramp” (who he’s not actually related to). Gramp’s a sweet old man, played very sympathetically by an actor called Pat O’Brien.

Peter doesn’t know he’s a war orphan. He thinks his parents are still on a trip. (A very long trip!) His school holds a charity drive to collect clothes for war orphans, and one of Peter’s classmates tells him, quite matter-of-factly, that Peter is a war orphan: their teacher said so. Peter rejects this, and they get into a fight. Gramp is there, and he confirms the news.

Later that evening, Gramp is reminiscing to Peter about his old flame Eileen, who loved having “a spot o’ green” around the place (a plant) to remind her of Spring and hope. To cheer Peter up, he promises him a surprise in the morning.

The next morning, after taking a bath, Peter’s hair has turned green. He assumes this is Gramp’s surprise, and it cheers him up. It’s not. Gramp knows nothing about it. In fact, the cause of the green hair is never revealed.

When Peter finds out the green hair is not from Gramp, he hates it and wants to get rid of it. However, they’re unable to figure out a cause, and Peter’s unwilling to “paint” his hair (dye it) or cut it off, so he’s stuck with it.

It’s hard to explain why this movie moved me, without giving away certain important plot points. If you don’t want too many spoilers, watch this trailer and stop reading now, until you’ve watched the movie for yourself.

If, like me, you’re not fussed about spoilers, read on. (Spoiler alert: spoilers make you enjoy stories more)

I have to say there were some plotholes in this movie. It’s far from perfect.

Reading the backstory, it’s based on a short story which doesn’t mention war: it’s originally an allegory for racism, which is reflected in one scene in the movie where Peter’s teacher takes a roll call of students by hair colour. The adaptations to make it an anti-war message were inserted by the director, which makes it a bit clunky and obvious.

And, supposedly, the progressive movie studio executive who signed off on the movie was replaced by a conservative executive during production, who tried to change it into a pro-war movie. The movie is therefore a bit patchy and disconnected at points.

But it has heart. The two central actors, playing Peter and Gramp, carry most of the movie. The actor playing the teacher is also sympathetic and warm.

It's not a great movie, but the central performances are strong and the messages are powerful.

Some sources I found tell of Stockwell talking back to the conservative executive when the executive lectured him in favour of war, so Stockwell supported the message of the movie, even as a 12-year-old boy.

This was just supposed to be an old movie to distract me for an hour and a half on a boring afternoon. Instead, it grabbed my attention for the whole 90 minutes, and moved me deeply. So deeply that I just had to share it with someone. I considered putting this in @kfwyre’s Tildes Pop-Up Movie Event thread, but the 1940s slot is already taken. Not that I’m upset by that. I’m very glad I watched this movie, for its own sake.

Recently I've been reading about the benefits of doing an extended water fast. There are apparently benefits when it comes to entering autophagy for cell repair, as well as increases in stem cell production in the a couple of parts of the body. I believe there is also some data to suggest that it increases sensitivity to insulin and does some lasting things to ghrelin and leptin levels. Many people also report clearer thinking, feelings of euphoria, and increased levels of focus after the first day of fasting.

After reading these benefits I decided to try a 72 hour water fast. Unfortunately, I did not feel almost any of the acute effects that were described in most all places that fasting is discussed. For both of the nights that I was fasted I woke up slowly and felt lethargic for a couple hours after waking. I had fairly severe brain fog throughout most of the second and third days. I was drinking electrolyte water, as is suggested (trying to hit 3g sudium/potassium and taking 250mg magnesium supplement/day), but when I drank that at a rate where I would be able to get all of the electrolytes in throughout the day I would have GI distress. I was only able to stomach about 1-2g of sodium/potassium per day

There were times where I felt the focus/energy that was described by other posters online, but it always came with an asterisk. I felt as though I was slightly detached from myself? Almost as through I was sitting inside my own mind/body and driving it as a third party. I will say that after the 18 hour mark I only felt hungry a couple of times. I did have a lot of thoughts about food, but those came from being very introspective about the fact that I was fasting more than anything else.

I want to believe that I did something wrong and thats the reason that I was not able to get the experience that it seems most others do; I would be willing to give it a second shot, but I want to try and figure out what could be improved.

Has anyone else here tried a 3+ day extended fast? What were your experiences?

I'm a full stack dev and my current use of JavaScript language is limited to making the best (read trivial) use of jquery for DOM manipulation in my web apps which primarily use PHP or Python (Flask/Django) as backend.

Now, have you watched that popular thriller movie called Inception which is based on a radical sci-fi concept that an idea or thought can be implanted into someone remotely?

Just like that, I often find myself facing this strange idea that JavaScript is supposed to be just a toy running inside the web browser. No idea where exactly this idea came from! Each time I try to learn JS or think of getting deeper with things like npm, react, etc., this idea just pops up and kinda stops me from doing anything!

Is there any way to get rid of this idea somehow?

So I'm on a movie kick after realising I haven't paid attention to movies for a number of years now. I may have seen less than 10 movies last year.

One thing I miss from when I was growing up is when a trip to the cinema always started with a short followed by the main film.

So here's my pr(e/o)mise:

Recommend me your favourite short movies (from any director / year / genre) and I will do my best to track down and watch it (by fair means or foul!)

Also let me know the best way to follow up - add a comment in this thread, make a new post or just shut up (I won't be offended).

I thought it might be interesting to compare notes and ideas.

Pop-Up Event: Twenty-Twenty Vision

Community Task: Our goal is, as a community, to watch movies and fill in the following chart below that spans an entire century of film: from the 1920s to 2020s!

Choose an empty decade, watch a movie (any movie!) from it, and report back here when you're finished. Tell us why you chose that movie and what you thought about it.

I'll fill in the chart as we go, and once we have collectively watched at least one movie from each decade, we will have completed the Pop-Up and it will be closed!

Time Period: The Pop-Up remains open until the chart is filled!

(paging @balooga)

...or, at the very least, the last in a very long time. This is not an article, this assortment of impressions is not meant to form a cohesive whole.

That is my attempt at leaving these thoughts and impressions behind.

The MUD community does not wish to be saved

Historically, the genres that maintain their purity either disappear or become an eternal niche. The film-noir is a kind of crime fiction made in the United States between the 1920s and late 1950s. It cannot expand over these limitations — similar movies after 1959 are, by definition, "neo-noir". The western is circumscribed to certain folk tales of the pre-20th century American frontier. Some stories outside of that are considered "neo-western", or some other kind of western. Those genres still exist, of course, but their presence in culture was greatly reduced.

That was not the case with genres such as comedy (which wasn't even necessarily humorous for much of its existence), action, or suspense. These are meta-genres par excellence, and their survival is a consequence of their promiscuity. Meta-genres will lay with anyone and are prolific in their offspring. Their malleability makes them hard to kill. So we have action-comedies, comedy horror, suspense noir, etc. The combinations are endless.

MUDs are in the purity spectrum. Most active MUDs were created in the 1990s, and their design is representative of that era of gaming. The vast majority of the users are entirely adapted and satisfied with how these games generally function. The term "graphical-MUD" was an intermediary, but it obviously didn't stick (nowadays, they're essentially MUDs with rudimentary graphics on top of them). Retroactively speaking, MUDs are text-based MMORPGs. They're defined by a relationship of similarity and opposition to MMOs. Proposals towards the implementation of additional functionalities that are not text-based will be promptly labeled as one of the following:

• Graphical MUD
• MMORPG
• Persistent Browser Based Game

Because most of the mechanical and narrative features that used to characterize MUDs were adopted by MMOs, the MUD community settled on the notion that MUDs are defined, first and foremost, by their (1) code-bases, and (2) adherence to a very specific set of text-interfaces.

MUDs are also in opposition to interactive fiction, given their focus on complex mechanics and systems (chiefly the ones related to combat). In IF, gameplay exists to support the story, while in MUDs the story exists to support gameplay.

MUDs are entrenched, with existential threats encroaching from all sides. This perception serves to reinforce purist attitudes in the community. The desire to maintain the integrity of their games prevents innovation, and the adherence to outdated designs makes it hard to achieve a wider audience. Notorious games survive with a player-base of 10 to 15, those with 30 people or more are considered successes, and only two or three ever cross the threshold of 100 concurrent users.

But still, their core base is satisfied so there are no efforts toward renewing the audience. The general attitude is that you should adapt to MUDs, and not the opposite. If that means maintaining a game with less than 10 highly-dedicated old-timers, so be it.

For the average MUDer, disappearing is preferable to change.

This makes me think: what would I have to gain by making a MUD game?

I gotta be honest, I don't like books all that much. That's just the truth. So the first thing would be the opportunity to craft a vast, living, and breathing fictional universe. As a game. Not many genres will allow a single creator (or a small team) to make a game of that scale. Making a MUD is the closest I could ever get to making an MMORPG, and to me, there's nothing as fantastic as a true MMO.

Ultimately, I'd want to show just how far MUDs can go when you approach them as you would any other modern game.

The potential is thrilling.

If I made a game with all the changes I envision (and I'm not talking about graphics!), odds are that no one would play it. MUDers would feel uneasy with systems they do not recognize. Non-MUDers are unlikely to play a text game regardless of how cool and modern it is. MUDs are really meant to be collective affairs, and I'm afraid that even the best MUD in the world would probably be played by no one.

That said...

The best alternative, in my view, would be to not make a MUD -- or at least a deceptively MUD game. By that I mean: pick up a MUD engine, deeply integrate it with either Godot or Mudlet, ship everything as one awesome package and explicitly do not call it a MUD. Yep... I can see that working beautifully[1].

That's it, I shall never write about MUDs anymore. Unless..

[1] To be clear, I'm not announcing that I will actually do a MUD game. For now that is largely hypothetical.

I noticed this while sending out lots of PMs for my game giveaway thread. It's not a huge issue at all and doesn't really have any meaningful effect on the site's usability, but I thought I would mention it anyway.

Also, it might already be in the Gitlab, but I looked around and didn't see anything. I don't have an account there, so could someone (maybe @cfabbro?) add it for me if needed?

Issue: Within a PM conversation, there is no indication of the person who is being PMed unless they have responded.

Steps to recreate: send a user a PM, then click on that message from sent messages. If the person has not responded, you will only see your username and message. If the person responds, you can then see their username on their response, but that's currently the only way to know who the conversation is with from within the conversation itself.

If anyone wants to recreate this for themselves, feel free to send me a PM referencing this thread and I will not respond.

Pop-Up Event: Feelin’ ‘22

Task: Listen to an album featured in any end-of-year music list for 2022 and let us know what you thought of it. Also, tell us what list you got it from, as well as why you chose it.

Time Period: Saturday, November 10 through Sunday, November 18

Help from Our Staff: Need a place to start? Try one of these:

• AOTY’s list of lists for the best albums of 2022
• RateYourMusic’s customizable chart builder
• Tildes’ very own Year in Review for music

Some very mild spoilers for The Mandalorian

I have not been really following Star Wars since Disney took over, I think I saw one or two of the new sequels (they were forgetable) and I saw Rouge One (It's great, would even call it the most Star Wars Star Wars movie)

I had some time last weeks and I saw Andor and I was just stunned. Good to great actors, great worldbuilding, a bit on the nose but still engaging social critic and themes, an interesting and intense story based in gritty realism while still being very Star Wars. I think everybody who likes science fiction and/or spythrillers should watch it.
So I was like: oooooh so they finally found a way to do new and interesting stuff with the Galaxy far far away. Everybody says nice things about the Mandalorian, let's check that one out. It got 92% on RT so I'm shure it's nice....

I seem to hate it and it makes me angry that it turned out the way it did, because i still like a lot about it. It makes me sad that they botched it so badly.
Maybe having a main character whitout a face is not helping? so i need a robot to tell me what Mando is feeling? Pedro Pascal is actually doing an incredible job working with body language and voice, but I don't think it's enough to actually be able to salvage this dumpsterfire of an realisation. Or maybe they should have kept with Mando being an unrelatable asshole, and not make him a disney daddy?
And then they still show his face.... in the most anticlimactic way ever... why? just why do that? It makes me angry just thinking about it, how can you fuck that up so badly, that could be a series defining payoff, but no! They just waste it in the most boring and unconcequencial way ever.

Then there is the Rule of Cool or Why is Everybody a Badass?. Mando is cool, i get it. He has an amazing Look (obviously the helmet is crazy good). He has very interesting and powerful weapons. But then I he still gets mostly his as kicked by nearly everything and everybody all the time?? I mean why do you tell me with every character and all his design that he is a force of nature and than he gets his ass kicked by a fucking dinohead on two legs that looks like a joke and is a joke (I dont actually mind that, i like the design and the joke) I just makes no sense to me.
Nearly everybody else looks cool and is presented as a badass as well, there is just to much of it. there are no weak people, there are no hurt people, there are just badasses and cannonfodder.

Then there is the storytelling... It ranges from quite ok to fucking horrible. I mean, who thought it is a good Idea to NOT cut the motherfucking prisonship episode? It's some of the worst TV i saw in a long while. It does nothing for the overall story. it does nothing for the characters. It does nothing for the viewer. It does nothing for nobody. Its just full of bad acting, bad direction, bad and lazy set design, bad editing, bad jokes, and the worst storytelling. why did they leave that piece of shit in there? the whole series is worse for it. It makes me angry.

So I finally checked the wikipedia page and I understood. Jon Favreau.... Jon Favreau!!! I mean not all of his work is that bad. I liked Iron man and Chef, and I love Cowboys and Aliens (really! it's so bad it's good, but you can not expect differently with that name) I hated his Lion King.

I don't now where I'm going with this. I think I just needed to share my feelings about it. It's just so full of potential, there is so much they could have done with it. they could have explored so many themes and share so much lore... but they just fucked it up and everybody seems to like it, i dont get it.

/rant

so are the other Star Wars shows worth a watch?

With thanks to @cfabbro, who kindly provided feedback on a previous version of this story.

I saw The Banshees of Inisherin in theaters yesterday and greatly enjoyed myself. I recommend it highly! Starring Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson (among others), the film takes place in a remote, pastoral part of Ireland with the Irish Civil War as a backdrop. But it's really about the people living on this island; their relationships, their lifestyle, and their internal conflicts. It's character-driven, personal, intimate, funny, surreal, shocking, troubling, and thought-provoking. The dialogue is fantastic and the narrative dramatic. You could do a lot of interesting thematic analysis about the plot and setting, but I don't want to spoil anything.

If you're the kind of person who likes movie trailers, you can watch the official one on YouTube. However, I think contemporary trailers take away from the natural revelations of a story. It's more interesting to go into this one more or less blind.

I'm 22 years old and have recently graduated from college. I'm a little disoriented right now. I'd appreciate some help. I'm having trouble explaining my issue precisely, but it relates to these themes: SEX, LONGING, AMBIVALENCE, PURPOSE. I feel I must provide some anecdotes for my question(s) to make sense.

In the wintertime, I made a new friend. She had pitch-black hair. We had exchanged any number of glances from across the room. She caught me one morning as I left the hall and asked if I liked [REDACTED_MEDIA]. I humored her: "Sure, as much as anyone. … No, I've not seen it. … Yes, I'll check it out." The following week I reported back with my opinions, and we spoke a great deal, warming to one another as the days remained icy.

One day I offered to take her to [REDACTED_EVENT]. She didn't come, but regretted it, and gave me a phone number as reparation. She was a little embarrassed, but I found it endearing; I was quite happy to see more of her. From here the courtship was a breeze. On a Saturday we took a drive into the country and strolled along a quiet, wooded trail, a respite from our world of books and burdens. As we rested by a stream, talking about trivialities, she laid out a moment of trauma before me. She was not looking for answers to an unanswerable tragedy so much as a good listener. I obliged, and held her closely as we walked home. She appreciated the comfort.

From here the romance was a breeze. One invitation to study at hers and we were having unbelievable sex. She was very beautiful. We would spend an entire day together, ignoring our responsibilities and enjoying each other's bodies. Never in my life had I indulged in such things as she asked for. I think it actually changed some of my brain chemistry. It was exciting, it was fun, and it was very satisfying—for both of us. I also thought our conversation was authentic and emotionally fulfilling. Apparently she did not share that feeling, because she broke up with me (suddenly) a couple weeks in. Her exact reasons were a little strange, but I was not going to push it. We said our goodbyes, and I walked home in the bitter cold, alone.

I hadn't known her long enough to be debilitatingly heartbroken, but it did hurt. And maybe I'm just being naïve, but I question whether it's possible for a future relationship to beat that sex. This prompts a greater existential question: "So why bother?"

Some time ago, a dear friend invited me to her home in a city I no longer called mine. We dined and spoke of our passing lives: exciting and intimidating in their opportunity; tiring and burdensome in their demands. There were so many choices ahead; work gave enough but took too much. It was a relief to be free from the school; it was lonely. But it warmed my heart to be in her company again.

She drew me to her bed and closed the door. I sat, and we chatted. Her expectation was obvious and the reason for my passivity was not—the dance of intimacy was familiar to both of us. After a pause, she faced me and said, "We can sleep together, but I don't want you to stay the night."

Her request was reasonable, but I found it deeply jarring. Sex had not really motivated my visit, though I had entertained the possibility, and it had certainly not motivated my behavior at dinner. (I had planned already where I would be sleeping that night, and it was far away.) I had missed her a lot. More than anything I had missed her presence. Her statement revealed a terrible disparity in how we viewed our relationship. It was my fault for not stepping out after dinner, and it was particularly my fault across many months prior for setting a series of expectations that effectively downplayed my emotional feelings.

I acknowledged her and quickly changed the top of conversation, and for a moment it was as though nothing had been said. Then, with another pause, she leaned over for a kiss. My heart was not in it. All I could hear was "I don't want you..." Still, I could not refuse. I had been sliced open, but she was very pretty, and more importantly I was reluctant to disappoint the people I cared for. The sex that followed felt passionless and transactional—different from before. She seemed impatient. I was distressed. It was consensual, but it was really weird and I did not enjoy it.

I walked out of that house wishing I could cry. It was not the time. I could betray no weakness here or the city would devour me. I did cry, later. And maybe I'm just being naïve, but this incident made me question whether it's possible for a future relationship to beat the sentimental connection we had at the peak of our fling… including another go at it (that time has evidently passed). We were emotional matches/peers/equals in a way I don't know if I will ever find again. This prompts a greater existential question: "So why bother?"

We're meant to see each other again quite soon, but this time the bed will be my own, and this time she'll stay the night. I couldn't say no when she asked. It's going to be awkward. I'm unsure what I wish to do.

Not long ago, a friend asked near midnight if there was something happening between us. I froze up and sputtered something out about not expecting that question. I was genuinely unable to say anything for a few minutes. The answer that came to mind was kind of "Yes," but it was also, "I'm confused at this time and I don't know," and also, "This is going to hurt the group dynamic." I said yes but mumbled something about not getting her hopes up because I was pretty weird and also pretty uncertain about how I wanted to shape my life in the near and far future. I did not talk about the group dynamic.

I'm proud of myself for making it clear that my wants are currently shifting and that my boundaries are unclear. I would've liked to be more specific. However, I'm not proud of saying yes before I had resolved all my emotional problems, nor about glossing over all my reservations. I feel it is irresponsible; I'm setting myself (and her) up to fail. I'm uncertain how to feel about the group dynamic. In the past year I've been the recipient of a lot of romantic attention with them and I've consistently said no. It is fine right now but it might not be fine if I change course like this.

Last year I made a post on this website about three experiences I'd had and received a few comments. One of them in particular stuck with me:

I will give you one piece of advice. There's absolutely nothing wrong with anything that you told us, but since you are young and reminds a bit of myself when I was your age, I'll say this: be careful not to inadvertently hurt anyone. Be explicit instead of implicit. People often have all kinds of expectations that differ from our own, so it's a good idea to let them know where they stand.

I really did take that to heart. I don't want to hurt anyone. I am trying so hard not to ruin everything. I broke this advice soon after it was given to me and it severely damaged a friendship. It was not on purpose, but it was incredibly foolish. Since then, I've been extra careful not to lead people on and to be really clear about my needs (or at least I hope I have). But this is hard because I live a very social lifestyle and people seem to misinterpret friendliness as flirting. Or they just have opinions. I can't say this without sounding arrogant, so please forgive me, but people often comment admiringly on my appearance. It is obvious that they treat me differently because of it. It's not that weird (or that bad honestly) for an acquaintance my age to be a little bashful in front of me—but it feels different when it becomes an increasingly significant part of my reputation. I try not to touch people or to otherwise give them the wrong idea, but it seems like I am breeding longing/jealousy just by existing.

Anyway, I feel I am struggling to move this relationship forward in part because I wasn't explicitly looking for one, and have been hit hard lately by general listlessness and uncertainty, so I wasn't prepared for it. And I'm also struggling to reconcile the physical needs of a new romance with my current incredible level of apathy toward sex. "Why bother?" I've never been this indifferent toward it before, it has always been important to me. The more I think about previous relationships, the less it seems like it's worth it to pursue anything at all. I would call it freeing to not care, except that it's fundamentally concerning. It stems from bad memories and also I think some trauma I haven't really resolved, which is not the same as "letting loose and living my life." It's been physically difficult for me to even think about sex and to be honest the thought is occasionally a little revolting to me, which I have never felt before, at least not for an extended period. And I feel like I'm too irrevocably closed-off to ever sufficiently open up emotionally in a relationship to make it last long-term. But… I also know what it feels like to fall into despair, not knowing what great things lie around the corner. This makes me reluctant to cut it off or make an ultimatum or actually do anything decisive at all.

It's all just so much.

None of that is really in question form, but it sort of explains my headspace. I'm sorry that I can't explain it better, but it's very late and I have work tomorrow. I would really appreciate some insight. Thanks.

Hello everyone, I'm going to move to a new apartment and doing full time home office while my wife is doing part home office, so I'm looking to improve my internet connectivity. I already plan to get the 400 mbps down fiber cable plan. So, I have to be honest that routers is one of those topics that I should know more than I should but don't, so I'm not sure what should I expect and the features I want or don't need.

Some time ago, I discovered and bookmarked the amazing website smallnetbuilder which at the time I thought, I would just trust his thorough reviews and choose the best router within my budget. Sadly, the website seems abandoned now, so I'm not sure if there is something new on the market or if the routers on his "Best" rank, are still valid options. By the way, I don't really game online.

My requirements are:

• 150€ budget, but willing to go to 200€ if really worth it;
• Mesh compatibility, just in case I need it in the future;
• Hopefully very low packet loss maybe 0-0.5%;
• Compatibility/support with open source firmware;
• Maybe VPN support (not sure, if worth it);
• 2.5Gb LAN ports would be nice for future-proofing, but I think this is not possible without going over the budget;
• Something that I don't know and never heard about, but you would really recommend it to me :).

After a first glance, the Asus RT-AX58U looks nice. Just not sure about only having two 5GHz streams and no LAN port aggregation.

Bonus dumb question(s) (sorry): Will all the routers work with my ISP modem? Or is it normal to always check with the ISP first before buying?

(Inspired by this conversation thread)

Any and all thoughts on visual novels are welcome. Some potential questions for jumping off points:

What are your thoughts on the VN genre/format?

What are some of the best VNs you’ve played/read?

What would you recommend to someone who’s new to VNs and wants to try one out?

How do you think VNs compare to games, literature, and other interactive fiction?

Toward the end of August, I signed up for a trial of Kagi -- a privacy-focused search engine.

You get 50 free searches, and then, if you want to continue, you can convert to a paid account at $10 a month.

I mentioned here that I wasn't planning on converting to paid, as $10/month felt very steep and I didn't think I could make it my default search on my iOS phone, but @pallas's comment here ultimately made me want to give it a try.

Thus, I dropped the $10 bucks to turn the free trial into a paid one-month trial.

I'm very glad that I did.

The free trial itself was actually not very convincing to me. Knowing that I had limited searches and not wanting to run through them more than I needed, my searches were in the single digits each day. I was very judicious about what I searched and how I typed it. Furthermore, I kicked myself if I instinctively typed something like "imdb everything everywhere all at once" into Firefox's search bar instead of going to imdb.com and then typing in the movie title, as that meant I'd wasted 2% of my allotment on what wasn't technically a search but more of an internet navigation optimization.

On the searches I did I felt like I got good results, but I wasn't sure if that was because of the quality of the service or if it was because I'd simply thought more about what I was actually typing in. Also, the trial made me way too aware that I was searching with limited queries to really make me feel at ease about actually using the service.

Now that I've paid for a month, however, I've just used it as a stand-in for how I used to use DuckDuckGo -- "wikipedia steam deck"-style searches and all.

Kagi doesn't track your search contents, but they do track your number of searches. I have completed roughly 400 searches this month, which Kagi says costs roughly $5.00 out of the $10.00 that I paid them. I don't know nearly enough about any of this to know whether this is an accurate accounting of actual costs or overstating things, but I will say that the $10 price that I initially felt was steep has looked a lot more worth spending after a month on the service.

Kagi generally finds what I'm looking for within the first link. If it's not the top link, it's in the top 3. Furthermore, it seems to dredge up less junk. With DuckDuckGo, I loved that I wasn't being tracked for the purposes of advertising, but it felt like DDG had no problem serving me pages that were built specifically for that purpose. I'd often look up product reviews and get re-routed to sites that appeared to be nothing more than machine-generated lists of recommendations with Amazon affiliate links. I've had to deal with less of these while on Kagi. Some of them still come up, but they're either further down the rankings or they're put into their own "Listicles" section.

Where Kagi really shines though, is local searches. Pretty much the only time I would bang through to Google from DDG was for local stuff. I don't know if it's my location in particular, but DDG is not great about giving me things that are specific to my area, often preferring to give me a smattering of things that are from similarly named locales from elsewhere around the world. Kagi, on the other hand, gives me the kind of local results I get from Google.

Most local searches of that type tend to come from my phone, and this also helped me understand that better search on a phone matters WAY more than better search on desktop. The smaller screen and limited view means that it's significantly more important for the top result to be the one I want on my phone than it is on desktop. As such, Kagi is winning me over because it's made mobile searching frictionless -- something I couldn't say for DDG. That aspect alone is probably going to be what keeps me on the service. I'm planning on paying for at least another month, though after that I might go back to DDG for a month to see how I feel in comparison.

I mentioned earlier that I didn't think I could make it a default search on iOS. I mistakenly thought Apple had that locked down? Turns out it's actually possible through an app. Also, Kagi apparently has an entire browser for macOS/iOS. I tried it out and it works quite nicely, though AdGuard+Safari seemed to do a bit better ad-blocking than the stuff they'd built into Orion, so I've stayed on Safari.

There's actually a whole lot of cool looking power-user stuff on offer from Kagi (you can individually prioritize and de-prioritize specific domains across your searches, for example), but I'm not the kind of user that needs significant search depth, so I can't really speak to anything other than the standard search experience.

What I can say is that I've been very happy with that experience so far.

Also, it should hopefully go without saying, but this post isn't sponsored in any way nor was I requested to post it by Kagi. This is me choosing to give my own experiences with the service because I thought people here might be interested.

A few years ago when I was new to tildes a typed tildes.com directly in the URL bar. I realized I'd forgotten the correct domain extension and did a web search for "tildes community" or something similar.

One of the results was for tilde town . At the time I glanced over it and thought about joining but I never got around to it. Last July I somehow stumbled over it again and this time I applied to join.

It's a pretty cool place.

The idea is that it's a Linux server that each user gets an account on. You then ssh into it - and that's where the community lives!

They have a chat system, a forum system, microblogging that's private to that community, command line games (some of which are multi-player) and a bunch of other really neat features. Each user even gets a folder in their home directory that let's them serve up public web pages.

Technically they have about 2,000 registered users, but the number of actual active users seems to be similar to our community here.

The vibe reminds me a lot of what we have here except that tilde town is casual "slice of life" only and doesn't do news articals at all. Some of their forum posts are similar to our own, with posts for what people are reading and watching and what projects they are working on.

Ive enjoyed my time there so far and I'd encourage any one who's interested to check it out. My username over there is grendel84, stop by and say hi!

Have you ever received notice that you might be eligible for something from a class-action settlement? Ever notice that the effort required to recover is significant, and the recovery perhaps insultingly miniscule?

I don't know of any data, but I suspect that's true of nearly every class action lawsuit, even those that win in court battles. Maybe the original plaintiffs get a decent recovery, sometimes there's injunctive relief (which means the court forces the defendant to do or not do something). Every once in a while, individual members of the class get a meaningful outcome (vw's dieselgate comes to mind).

The public interest justification for the outcomes where the recover for class members is really small, if one is even ever really offered, is that the cost of the action to the defendant serves as an inducement to all defendants to keep their act together. But see, Tyler Durden's explanation of the actuarial function from Fight Club.

My thought is that instead of any recovery for the individual class members ("fuck 'em, right?"), their portion of the money should go to a public interest fund dedicated to consumer protection. My reason for this is that these small recoveries don't make any useful change for the individual class member consumers. But collectively, might add up to enough to make a meaningful difference to the future activities of producers.

Of course, all the usual caveats about corruption and accountability come into play. But there's a few reasons it might help, if those can be overcome. First, it might prompt faster, lest costly settlements. The payouts would be lower, and also the transaction costs. This shifts the litigation process from focussing on big recoveries to high volume of suits, bringing in more defendants. It would also enable smaller firms to bring suit, the hope being that smaller firms would take on more marginal cases and get more action.

Second, it might actually create a feedback loop. If the fund gets large enough, it could lobby and investigate, providing more information more new suits, and identifying the worst actors, and encouraging useful regulation. Imagine if Consumers Union could return to its glory of the 80's and have a big lobbying fund?

Or, we could just have decent government level consumer protections (hahhahahahahahahah!)

IMDb Link
TheTVDB Link

Has anyone else here watched this? If so, I would love to hear your thoughts.

I just finished it and am sorting through how I feel about it, especially after that final episode. I’ll type out longer thoughts in a comment once they’ve settled.