Hello ~hobbies, I've come to you in hopes of getting some guidance as a newbie.

I have never owned a camera before and am afraid of choosing the wrong one for my use case, so I was hoping some people could enlighten me, if not with model suggestions, then with what I should be looking for.

My main goal is to shoot video, not take photos (though of course I want it to take good photos but the primary use will be shooting videos wherever I go). And specifically 4k 60fps video. I have a 65 inch TV where I want to play these videos so that resolution is a must, as any picture quality flaws will be noticed.

I have a gimbal, a hohem iSteady MT2, which I use with my phone and would like to use with the camera, so whatever camera I get can't go above its 1.2kg payload limit. I really don't want to pay for a separate gimbal for the camera.

I plan on using a separate mic, probably the sennheiser mke 200 based on reviews I saw, so the camera must also be able to support external mics.

And lastly, the budget is roughly 1000€.

There are so many brands and models I really don't know where exactly to turn to. I've mostly been leaning towards cameras like the Sony ZV-E10L and similar as they seem geared towards vloggers and that's more or less the type of video I'll be making (not content creation though, these are just personal videos), but I'm wondering if I'm falling into a trap as the price is so much lower than say an A7 III.

Any advice, pointers, or recommendations would be greatly appreciated as I really don't know much about the world of cameras. I'm frankly not even sure what type of camera (DSLR, point and shoot, etc.) I should even be looking at so yeah.

I've found I need to use the noise label a lot more than I used to.

Given the influx of new user, this was to be expected in some way but I also found that, at least in the first couple of weeks, new people were behaving a lot better.

So this is a friendly reminder to try to keep the noise level low. Recurring themes I would like to see less of:

• Shallow dismissals / dismissals based on zero evidence.
• Pointless cynicism
• Taking cheap shots

I don't want to see these being normalized. If this isn't you, then great, but this post is also for you: It's an invitation to (very politely) call these things out when you see them.

I had a stroke last year, which left me partially paralyzed. I'm doing much better and only my left hand and arm are still somewhat affected. Even though my stroke wasn't related to my lifestyle, I would like to get in better shape, and my PT has recommended getting an indoor bike. I would like one with pulse readers in the handle bars and preferably USB port to connect a tablet or phone to keep track of my progress. I live in Europe, so something available here would also be preferable. Does ~health have any experience or suggestions?

Last year (June 2022) I was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. I had surgery (which left me with a permanent stoma) and I had a bit of adjuvant chemo to kill off any remaining cells. I've been discharged from oncology, and I've started my 5 year surveillance. Staging is complicated but my I was pT3pN2bM0 (tumour was stage three, I had lots of lymph node involvement, but no metastasis).

Alongside that I've had problems with gall stones, starting in April 2022, and ending this year when my gall bladder was removed.

When I tell people about the cancer they pull on their serious face and say things like "oh no how awful hope you're okay glad to see you're doing so well now it's good news that you're in remission", and when I tell them about the gall bladder they're kind of baffled and not at all concerned.

But here's the thing: cancer was not such a big deal. I do have a permanent stoma, but for some reason my brain has disconnected that from being a cancer thing. I had a relatively gentle chemo regimen (short, and it was CAPOX which is less rough than other meds) -- don't get me wrong, chemo SUCKED, and left me with neuropathy in my feet, but I got through it. When I compare that to repeated[1] hospitalisation for cholangitis (a gall stone stuck in a bile duct causes bile to back up and that causes pretty severe problems), well, those repeated hospitalisations were a much bigger deal for me.

English NHS hospitals tend to have dorm wards. In the ward I was on there were 6 beds to a bay, and 5 bays to the ward, and then a further 6 or 7 single occupancy rooms. Some of the bays were smaller, and had 4 beds. Once the hospital was very full, so I spent a night in a bed (proper bed, not a trolley) but in the ward corridor. I spent over 60 days in hospital for the gall bladder stuff, and just 7 as an inpatient for the cancer. (And Sartre was right, hell is other people ).

There are lots of health forums online and I always feel deeply uncomfortable in the cancer forums. I feel okay in the ostomy forums[2], but I don't use them because they're all a bit odd.

I dunno what the point of this post is. Maybe it's "sometimes cancer is treatable and the person isn't particularly bothered by it", or maybe "people with cancer want support, but sometimes that support won't have anything to do with cancer".

[1] When a stone gets stuck they need to do some emergency work to stabilise you and remove the stone. And if you keep getting stones stuck they want to remove your gall bladder. There's some discussion about when to take the gall bladder out. Hypothetical Bob has a stone stuck - you stabilise him, so do you take the gall bladder out then (when he's still recovering) and then monitor him for a few days and discharge him home to fully recover? Or do you stabilise him, then discharge him home to recover, and call him back for planned surgery to remove the gall bladder? Evidence is inconclusive about which is best, so there's a bit of a lottery depending where you are in England. My local hospital took the later approach. The problem was that i) I had cancer, ii) My gall bladder was very active in kicking stones out and iii) we had several Covid pandemic waves causing huge disruption. These meant that by the time I had recovered enough to have the surgery, and they had a space on their surgical list for me, my gall bladder had kicked out another stone and that reset the whole thing again. They gave up this year and took my gallbladder out.

[2] Online health forums can have this really weird dynamic. English speaking forums are usually dominated by Americans, and Americans fall into 2 groups: 1) People with bad or no insurance and 2) People with good insurance. When someone says "I'm having this problem" the replies from the first group will all be along the lines of "go the the vet and buy this fish medicine" and the second group will be "here's a huge list of tests and products to use".

EDIT: I forgot to mention, I am in England, and so I am very fortunate because all treatment is free and a cancer diagnosis opens up quite a lot of support.

I was thinking about this today as I heard about Instacart going public. I've never used Instacart because I refuse to pay the cost for the convenience of grocery delivery. I've paid for grocery delivery in other ways but instacart feels too much.
I've stopped paying for doordash, which I had never been big on, but the fees got too high

I have and will however pay for a cleaner to come clean my apartment every 3 weeks. I will also splurge on a car wash, as driving through an automatic wash with a fountain soda is a weird happy place for me.

What are your "absolutely will" spends and what are your "no way in hell" spends?

Good morning, afternoon, and evening everyone! I hope everyone's doing well, or at least hanging in there this weekend. Now let's talk about horror movies that feature monsters or animals killing people in various fashions!

Are you a fan of monsters from outer space, or a more grounded flick about an alligator terrorizing the sewers of 1980s NYC? What about man-made horrors beyond our comprehension? A dog that was having a bad day after being bitten by a rabid bat? Let your voice be heard in the comments below!

I'll start with a movie the Sci-fi channel used to show every now and then (though it originally aired as a mini-series on ABC): The Beast, based off of Peter Benchley's novel of the same name. If the author sounds familiar, he wrote a book you may have heard of: Jaws.

Featuring a giant squid terrorizing yet another idyllic New England town, The Beast isn't a very good movie when you get down to it, but it's an enjoyable watch nonetheless. It's essentially a 90s remake of Jaws with a giant squid instead of a shark, but it has a certain coziness and warmth to it that I enjoy. It's not even close to my favorite creature feature, but it was on my mind so I figured I'd let someone else talk about how awesome Lake Placid is. And this movie has Gil Grissom from CSI going up against a giant squid, so that's pretty neat.

Anyway, it's the weekend, let's watch some horror movies!

Good morning ~ This is a thread to discuss new album releases that have arrived on our doorstep this week. Feel free to share albums and EPs that have caught your eye and interest!

A little later in the day this week - was waiting for Drake's scheduled album to drop, which it never did. Inb4!

Discussion Points

What are you looking forward to listen to?
Have you listened to any of these releases?
What are your thoughts?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past?

Why Friday?

Most (but not all) new LPs release on a Friday, as labels want to give the release a full week of sales before entering the charts.

~~ Feedback on the format welcome!