Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films 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.

Mine is this:

Run up, swing your left leg behind you while popping up with your right angle into a corkscrewing front flip. Pull your right leg and kick into the opponents temple at a 45 degree angle before landing on your left leg and spinning a full 360 before standing up facing the opposite direction, and walk away.

I'm probably never using that in a fight but it'd be a cool party trick.

I have a roughly 23kg/50lb furball who is approaching 12. She had a CCL rupture 4 years ago, but the vet missed it and thought it was just strained; it wasn't until a year later and she was having leg weakness that I brought her to a different vet who assessed the old CCL injury and that as a result, the knee had developed arthritis. Since then, we have been treating it with pain management, weight loss, and joint supplements. I had asked that vet about surgery but their advice was that it's much more effective immediately and less so once the arthritis is settled in. Her right CCL ruptured later in that year since she'd been overexerting that leg (apparently most dogs who injure one will later injure the other); she immediately had the suture surgery and it went fantastically, with her regaining essentially normal use of that leg.

A few years on and the right leg remains strong but the left leg is weakening, with her starting to show some pain reactions to its use, and I'd like to get some opinions on paths forward. Despite her age she is still in excellent physical shape apart from the leg and I want to be sure her hopefully many years are happy and comfortable. Note this is not in lieu of vet advice (I am writing this from the vet waiting room), but more looking for people's experiences who have tried some of these.

So things I have been considering:

• Surgery of some kind - suture, TPLO, even artificial knee? Pro, fix the knee weakness. Con, with the recovery and risk, I am not confident it would save her more pain and discomfort long term than the procedure would cause. I also have a feeling a full joint replacement might be exorbitantly expensive.
• Physical therapy
• Orthopedic brace
• Accepting that I have an elder pupper and just trying to manage the symptoms :(

In the mood for a manga with certain themes but don't know where to look? Just finish a good one and need more like it? Want to know if a manga is worth reading? Looking for new manga to read can be challenging so if you don't feel like making a full post, here's a thread for everyone to ask each others for recommendations.

If there's any manga that you think everyone should read, feel free to recommend anyway. Don't let the lack of question stop you!

^{Edit: You can also ask for anime recommendation here or share about your current watch/read here.}

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.

I've recently gotten into the board gaming hobby and picked up a few solo games for when I want to play but don't have anyone to play with. I was wondering what everyone's favorite solo board games were, fully solo, solo modes, or 3rd party solo rules.

So far my favorites have been the two lcgs I picked up, Marvel Champions and Lord of the Rings the card game. They both have similar gameplay but are different enough to keep things interesting. I really enjoy the deckbuilding aspect too, though I'm new to it so theres lots of trial and error involved.

I've also played a bit of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, a pandemic spinoff, which seems like it could be fun once I get into it more.

I have way too many bookmarks. Currently, I use firefox's bookmark manager to categorize my bookmarks within folders, and to assign tags. However, I'm looking for alternate solutions. I am not a fan of online services where you need an account, personally. Curious if anyone knows of any offline software to store your bookmarks, that you have found useful?

Tbh I was thinking of just throwing together some web page that I can just host myself, but I don't want to reinvent the wheel. That said, I hate depending on more and more software, as none of this stuff lasts forever.

I'm open to other software that could be used for this purpose, not just something devoted to storing bookmarks. Ideally something that is simple, and just allows you to visually categorize into folders. Tags are a huge plus.

For the past 5 years or so, Ive been using a Samsung J36v as my primary mobile phone. I mostly bought it in the wake of my CDMA based dumbphone being, effectively, bricked by verizon shutting down the 3G network in my area. It wasnt my first choice, but it was dirt cheap and served my needs well enough.

However, the last couple of months, the microphone has just... died. Got quieter and quieter, until now I need to plug in headphones in order for a person at the other end of a call to hear me, let alone understand me. I think I need a new phone.

While Im not a fan with the software side of my current phone (locked bootloader, loaded with bloatware from the factory), I rather liked the hardware, as it had a swappable battery (like, not just easily replaceable, but swappable with only ones fingernails), an sd card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. All of these features are ones that I regularly use.

Because of this, anytime I look for a new phone, they just seem like an expensive downgrade. I dont care too much about the SOC performance so long as its reasonably modern and can be expected to be usable for 5ish years. (I dont do gaming, YT watching, etc. Just signal, discord, call, text, and gps navigation). The things I do care about is a user-replaceable battery (screws are fine, but no solvents or heat needed), the ability to install either stock android or lineage-os or /e os (to get rid of carrier bloat), an sd card slot and physical SIM card slot, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.

However, I havent been able to find anything on the market like that. I tried the pinephone a year ago, and while Im a competent linux sysadmin, I was never able to even get MMS texting working reliably, and calls would not always be received while sleeping. Ive been reluctant to try other phones since then due to being afraid of spending money on something that wont work. At this point, its seriously affecting my mental health, as I go into a bit of a panic attack whenever Im reminded of the fact that my current phone is failing.

So Im asking for help. Ive compiled a ranking of the features I need/would like on a new phone, ranked from 'wont even consider a phone without it' to 'would be really nice to have, but I can still use it as a phone without it'.

Must haves (not an option without it)

• Needs to run some form of reduced-bloat android. I use signal and discord to communicate with my network, and while I could give up discord, only using it in the browser or desktop, I cannot give up signal.
• Needs to have a user replaceable battery. Doesnt need to be hot-swappable or anything like that (though that would be awesome), but needs to be replaceable without having to break the screen. (so, no requirement to break adhesives to replace the battery)
• needs to have a physical SIM card, and be carrier-unlocked. Me and my wife will be moving overseas in a year or so, and I will need to change carriers during that move.
• Must be able to use both USA and EU 4g bands. (for same reason as the SIM card)

Really, really nice to have

• Sd card slot. I dont stream music, and have a rather large collection of music on my home server. The storage space to sync that to the phone for offline playback would be a massive plus.
• capable of running a degoogled andriod version. While I could make do with stock google android (at least I wouldnt have the 'official nfl app' force-installed on me), it would be really nice if the phone was supported by either lineage-OS or /e OS.

Nice to have

• a 3.5mm headphone jack. I have trust issues with bluetooth, never had a BT device that worked reliably. I want to keep my copper wire headphones in use, and having to choose between charging the phone and using a DAC dongle doesnt really cut it.
• usb-c charging. Yah, usb-c is nice, but its actually less of a concern for me than the above categories. My micro-usb on my current phone has lasted 5 years, so I wouldnt be too fussed if my next phone used micro-usb.

I've read nice things about Amazon's S3. There are some compatible implementations from other major vendors like Google and Cloudflare. There are projects that automatically back up and replicate a sqlite database using S3. Some people have backed up Google Photos to S3.

But I've never used any of them. What would be a good way to get started? Amazon or another vendor? (And does this make sense at all?)

I really enjoy Tales of Ba Sing Se. It's really nice just watching them live their lives in the big city. It's somewhat a filler episode, but unlike the filler in Naruto or something, the plot still incrementally moves along and doesn't linger too long on any one character.

There have been a lot of complaints from DMs over the years about Critical Role and the "Matt Mercer Effect" causing new players to have unrealistic expectations of tabletop RPGs. Baldur's Gate 3 has the opportunity to introduce many new players to the d20 system/5e DnD specifically. Though it's a bit different in that the game is obviously scripted and you can't do literally anything, the game provides a ton of options and fleshed out paths, including full support of niche spells like speak with animals/speak with dead. Do you think this might have a similar influence on expectations from some new players moving forward or do you think since BG3 is a video game it will have less of an impact than CR and other tabletop shows have?

I've been participating in my first DnD sessions with a friend, and I'm greatly enjoying it. I've asked permission to DM a single session to get my feet wet, and one place I've always loved (since Planescape Torment) is Sigil. I'd love to have my party wind up there as they sleep, then have them try to learn how to get back home.

I thought it might be fun to have a heist of sorts where they need to get into a brewery to steal some items. I'd like to have some creatures working there that they could fight (if thievery goes wrong), but also some bigger creatures they might be able to avoid in the narrow hallways.

What might be some good options? I've looked at goblins with an ogre moving barrels around, or perhaps some Kua-Toa creatures.

These two videos about potters are lovely. They're long (well, 20 minutes and 30 minutes) so the people get a chance to speak. There's no jump cuts, no weird edits. You get to spend some time with these quiet, reserved, people as they go about their craft.

Everything in Batterham's studio is covered in clay. Including, sadly, probably his lungs by the sound of him.

Anne Mette Hjortshøj - Paying honest attention

Richard Batterham - Independent Potter

(I tried to tag this with Anne Mette Hjortshøj's name but tags didn't like the unicode.)