I'm asking this as a genuine question, not as a hot take.

Where I'm coming from:

My husband and I went to dinner the other night -- apologies from the waitress on being shortstaffed. A sign on a local store asks for patience with the lack of staff. The people staffing order pickup at a nearby department store aren't enough to keep up with orders. At my most recent doctor's appointment I spent almost 45 minutes in the exam room waiting to be seen (for an appointment I had to make over a year ago). A few hours after the appointment I went to pick up a prescription, and it hadn't even begun to be processed yet. There was only one cashier working, and she was having to jump between the in-person line and the drive-thru lane. At my job we don't have enough substitute teachers, so we're dependent on regular teachers covering classes during their "prep" periods.

This is merely a recent snapshot from my own life that I'm using as a sort of representative sample, but it feels like something that's been building for a while -- like something that was going to be temporary due to COVID but has stuck around and is now just what we're supposed to get used to. I remember that I used to keep thinking that understaffing would eventually go away over time, but it seems like it's just standard practice now?

Is this something specific to my experiences or my local area (I'm in the US, for context)? Are other people seeing the same thing?

Assuming it isn't just me, is there anything out there besides anecdotes that addresses this phenomenon? I don't want to lean solely on gut reactions, but I also can't deny that nearly every business I go to seems visibly short-staffed all of the time.

How old were they and how long did it take you to get to a place where you were confident enough in their recall to let your dog(s) run around off-leash at the park or in a field?

My boy is 6 months old now and we've had him with us for 3 months. He's loose/ off-leash at home and his recall/ general engagement at home is very good but obviously there are still lots of exciting distractions out in the wider world. We still do plenty of recall games with him every week to build on it.

At the park we switch to a 15m long leash clipped to his harness and let him trot out in front of us and have a good sniff around. When we find a clear space to have a game of fetch, we'll let go of the leash but leave it attached to the harness just in case we need to stomp on it and retrieve him quickly.

Recall still seems decent at the park but I don't trust him enough to take that leash off completely yet - I don't think he'd come back straight away if there was a football or another dog that he could run to and play with. What have your experiences been like?

Edit: starting to realise this might be a very Europe-centric question, the laws for keeping dogs on a leash/ lead are very different in the UK

I really like pickled jalapenos, but my go to recipes are nachos and jalapeno poppers wrapped in bacon. I'm trying to eat healthier, but I seem to be lacking some good recipes or ideas. I found a potato salad recipe which sounds really tasty, but still not terribly healthy.

My tomato and pepper harvest this year is going to be negligible (thanks, deer!), but I have tomatillos coming out of my ears. My favorite Salsa Verde recipe freezes well.

To the extent that everyone who grows tomatoes will have lots of green ones, here's a good chutney recipe that works well for water-bath canning:

Green Tomato Chutney

Servings: 3 pints

Ingredients:

2 1/2 lbs green tomatoes (a few ripe or partially ripe are fine to be included)
1 1/4 cups light brown sugar, packed
1 cup chopped red onion
1 cup golden raisin
1 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons chopped candied ginger
1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
1 teaspoon chili pepper flakes
1 teaspoon coriander seed
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1/16 teaspoon ground nutmeg
(***For my taste, I'll mince in a couple of whatever fresh hot peppers I have in the garden, and increase other spices to taste, and add a chopped large knob of fresh ginger.)

Directions:

Place all of the ingredients in a medium sized (about 4 qt) thick-bottomed pot. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove lid and simmer uncovered for an additional 15 minutes to thicken.

Notes:

Note: If desired, this recipe can be canned by processing filled (sterilized!) jars in a boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Recipe will fill six 8-oz jars or three 16-oz jars. Otherwise, chutney will keep in the refrigerator for a few months.

The other garden success story this year, heavy rain, weird weather, bugs, and pestiferous ungulates notwithstanding, is basil. Freaking huge bushes of every variety I planted: Italian Mountain, Genovese, Persian, Thai Kaprow, Thai Holy, and Purple Opal.

I'll be processing fresh Italian basil with olive oil and freezing it in silicone trays. Internet rumor has it that freezing doesn't treat fresh garlic well, and you're better off making pesto from frozen basil as needed.

I may do the same thing with neutral oil for the Persian basil, and peanut oil for the Thai, unless someone else has suggestions.

We'll also have about 50 lbs. of apples from a single tree. They're a little too organic for eating out of hand, unless you're comfortable with inadvertent insect protein ingestion. But drying, pies, and cake are definitely in the picture. This is a simple, reliable apple cake recipe that's easy to share around. I'm still digging for my old bakery Caramel Apple Torte recipe.

I recently started classes again a little over a week ago. One of the classes I am taking is Computer science 2. One of the things it includes is openGL based graphics programming. They have us using glut, which is not bad in it self. However what they do is provide us a wrapper library for glut. In the form of a header named "graph1.h" and a precompiled library. Which goes by various names, such as "graphLib1.lib", "graphLib2010.lib", "graphLib2022.lib", "graphicLib2015.lib", etc. It's provided in the form of Windows flavored x86, Macos flavored x86_64 and arm. However, no forms for Linux. While I have been using Windows and VS Studio for classes so far, I strongly prefer my current Linux based tool chain. (text editor, build system, debugger). I have tried cross compiling with mingw-w64, but it fails when I try to link it. I would very much like to use it natively. To do this I would need either the library or the sources to compile it myself. That is what I would really like to find.

Here is more about the library it self. It is based off of BMPLoader, a small library for loading bitmaps as openGL textures. It also inherits its license from BMPLoader too, because it is a derivative of BMPLoader. (GPLv2; and has been distributed). When you unpack the library there are 3 object files, BMPLoader.o, loadPNG.o, and example2.o. (.o/.obj) I have found traces of it online, however they all link back to my University, University of Central Arkansas. I have also found evidence of it being used at GSU too, but it is from one of the professors that is now here at UCA. (They even provided a pdf on using it, I hashed them and they were the same). Here is a copy of the header graph1.h.

/*BMPLoader - loads Microsoft .bmp format
    Copyright (C) 2006  Chris Backhouse

    This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along
    with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
    51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA.


  cjbackhouse@hotmail.com 		www.backhouse.tk
  
  I would appreciate it if anyone using this in something cool would tell me
  so I can see where it ends up.

  Takes a filename, returns an array of RGB pixel data
  Loads:
  24bit bitmaps
  256 colour bitmaps
  16 colour bitmaps
  2 colour bitmaps  (Thanks to Charles Rabier)

  This code is designed for use in openGL programs, so bitmaps not correctly padded will not
  load properly, I believe this only applies to: 
  256cols if width is not a multiple of 4
  16cols if width is not a multiple of 8
  2cols if width is not a multiple of 32

  Sample code:

	BMPClass bmp;
	BMPLoad(fname,bmp);
	glTexImage2D(GL_TEXTURE_2D,0,3,bmp.width,bmp.height,0,GL_RGB,GL_UNSIGNED_BYTE,bmp.bytes);
*/
#include <windows.h>
#include <gl/glut.h>
#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>
#include <string>
#define endg "_endg_"


#ifndef BMPLOADER_H
#define BMPLOADER_H

#include <iostream>
#include <cstring>

using namespace std;

typedef unsigned char BYTE;

class BMPClass
{
public:
	BMPClass();
	~BMPClass();
	BYTE& pixel(int x,int y,int c);
	void allocateMem();
	int width,height;
	BYTE* bytes;			//OpenGL formatted pixels
};

#define BMPError char
#define BMPNOTABITMAP 'b'	//Possible error flags
#define BMPNOOPEN 'o'
#define BMPFILEERROR 'f'
#define BMPBADINT 'i'
#define BMPNOERROR '\0'
#define BMPUNKNOWNFORMAT 'u'

//Loads the bmp in fname, and puts the data in bmp
BMPError BMPLoad(string fname,BMPClass& bmp);

//Translates my error codes into English	
std::string TranslateBMPError(BMPError err);	

//Load and select in OpenGL
BMPError BMPLoadGL(string fname);

struct Precision
{
  int precision;
  bool precisionFlag;
};

struct GraphColor
{
  int r;
  int g;
  int b;
};

class Gout
{
  private:
    int x;
    int y;
    int r;
    int g;
    int b;
    int precision;
    bool precisionFlag;


  public:
    Gout() { r= 0; g=255; b= 0; precisionFlag = false; };
    void setX(int x) { this->x = x;}
    void setY(int y) { this->y = y;}
    int getX() { return x;}
    int getY() { return y;}
    void setR(int r) {this->r = r;}
    void setG(int g) {this->g = g;}
    void setB(int b) {this->b = b;}
    int getR() {return r;}
    int getG() { return g;}
    int getB() {return b;}
    void setPrecisionFlag(bool flag) { precisionFlag = flag;}
    bool getPrecisionFlag() {return precisionFlag;}
    void setPrecision(int precision) {this->precision = precision;}
    int  getPrecision() {return precision;}
    friend Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, int int_val);
    friend Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, double int_val);
    friend Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, char* char_val);
    friend Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, string string_val);
   
};

extern Gout gout;

struct Point
{
  int x;
  int y;
};



struct GraphObject
{
  char* str;
  int id;
  int no_points;
  Point* points;
  double* colors;
  int radius;
  int no_objects;
  BMPClass* bmp;
  int remove;
  int width;
  int height;
  int del;
  BYTE* bytes; //PNG BYTES
};

void reshape(int w, int h);
void display(void);
void init(char* title);
int drawPoint(int x, int y);
int drawCircle(int radius, int x, int y);
void drawMyCircle( int Radius, int numPoints, int x, int y );
int drawLine(int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2, int width);
int drawRect(int x1, int y1, int width, int height);
void displayGraphics();
int displayBMP(char* fn,int x, int y);
int displayBMP(string fn, int x, int y);
int displayPNG(string fn, int x, int y);
int displayPNG(char* fn, int x, int y);
int displayText(char* str, int x, int y, int r, int g, int b);
void clearGraphics();
void setColor(int obj_no, int r, int g, int b);
GraphColor setColor(int r, int g, int b);
void timerColor(int value);
void moveObject(int obj_no, int x, int y);
void processSpecialKeys(int key, int x, int y);
DWORD WINAPI display1(LPVOID lpParam);
void processMouse(int button, int state, int x, int y);
void removeObject(int id);
void clearText();
void GRAPH_SS();
bool up();
bool down();
bool left();
bool right();
bool leftMouse(int&x, int&y);
bool rightMouse(int&x, int&y);
bool middleMouse(int&x, int&y);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, int int_val);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, double int_val);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, char* char_val);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, char char_val);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, Gout&(*pt2Func)(int x, int y));
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, Gout&(*pt2Func)(int r, int g, int b));
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, Point a);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, GraphColor gc);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, Precision p);
Gout& operator<<(Gout& g, Gout&(*pt2Func)(int precision));
Precision setPrecision(int precision);
Point setPos(int x, int y);
void getPos(int obj_no, Point points[], int& no_points);
bool mouseDragged(int& x, int& y);
void processMouseDragged(int x, int y);
void replaceObject(int orig_obj, int new_obj);
void closeGraphics();

#endif

Right now I am of the opinion that it is a in-house "hackjob". That is how it feels with the GPLed BMPLoader glued together with other graphics functions. In an attempt to not have to use new literature or new style libraries with the new ".net 2008" style ide, as they were likely transitioning out of a codewarrior environment, and before that a borland environment.

So far, I have asked our computer science club about it. The main thing I was told was that the professor just wants us to use windows. That I can understand, but I still want to see how far I can go. I have also tried sending an email about it to the professor, but all I got sent was a link to the glut downloads. I did reply back asking about the graphlib sources too, but I haven't heard anything back yet. I don't want to push too hard, I still have a whole semester ahead of me. So now I am asking here on tildes. I understand if nothing can be found, but at least information and experiences can be collected.

Minor hoarder here. Can't seem to let go of small items like pencil stubs and erasers from childhood, and other small seemingly insignificant things. Im a full blown adult but every time i move, those things come with me, and get stored away in the closet or under the bed.

Anyone else do this? What are some things you are forever attached to?

Said to my friend while we were minding our own business yesterday when walking from A to B in the city. For this old bigoted man that we happened to walk past, simply (gasp) looking at a trans person was too much for him. How dare she go outside while being transgender? Nope, gotta call that out! Gotta tell this stranger that I find her disgusting! That's super important and I am doing the right thing..!

At least, that's what I imagine his train of thought was like. Who knows.

Blows my mind that people can't just keep homophobia/transphobia to themselves. For reference, there was no pride event or anything, like we weren't dressed in kinky outfits, we weren't waving dildos around or something. Not that being dressed a certain way would have excused his behavior, but it's just to say we were wearing very normal clothing and looked decidedly ordinary and neutral. The only thing that revealed to this guy that my friend is trans is that she hasn't done voice training. She passes perfectly fine outside of that, and so do I - we've both been on hormones and transitioning for 3-4 years.

So perhaps the crime we committed was to make him think we weren't transgender? And then he heard her voice, and felt fooled? I suppose to him, it's the end of the world if he was accidentally attracted to a trans woman if even for a second.

My friend thankfully doesn't let this kind of stuff get to her. She grew up extremely conservative (her family still has a "don't ask, don't tell" policy for example) so she's always had nerves of steel to deal with everything, and I'm glad for her that she can shut this kind of stuff out. I really admire her for how strong she is and how she's able to always persevere. She's probably already forgotten about it but for me, I need to work on similarly not letting this stuff get to me. The man wasn't even talking to/about me but I think the reason I'm so upset about it is that it may just as well have been said to me.

I'm trying to focus on the good, and to not let one vile person ruin it. Because me and my friend had such a nice day together.

Canadian Thanksgiving is just around the corner. My wife and I usually host a small gathering for my wife’s immediate (mom, dad, sister, and grandparents) family at my house. Last year my sister-in-law asked whether she could bring her fiancé, which we were absolutely happy to have him over.

This year however, things are weird. They just got married within the last month, and I got a text from my SIL letting me know that she invited her mother-in-law to my house. I don’t have any problems with the woman, but I found it to be really rude for her to invite someone over to my house without even asking if it was okay.

My SIL is very self-centred most of the time. She expects people to just do whatever she wants to do, and rarely contributes anything. Usually for Thanksgiving I will cook the turkey and a couple of sides, and everyone else is responsible for bringing something (sides, dessert, buns, appies… anything they feel like bringing). She never brings anything except a container to bring leftovers home with her. She is like this with many other things. She has come camping with us and not brought any food for herself, because she is just assuming that we are going to feed her.

I love my wife’s family, but my SIL drives me insane. I find it incredibly rude that she just decided to invite someone to my house without asking. I don’t know what to do though. I feel like I need to call her out on it, but I also don’t want to ruin Thanksgiving.

I guess I have two questions:

Am I wrong to be upset about this?

If I’m not wrong, then what do I do about it?

I'm currently working on a research paper (low-threat undergrad coursework), and I keep alternating between Lofi hip-hop and gentle acoustic pop covers to keep me motivated and on task. I've tried to get into a variety of classical music for this purpose, but I always end up rolling back to my Samuel Barber playlist and end up burning out on it. What's your go-to for productivity enhancement?

I feel like I'm the only one noticing this and it's driving me crazy. With everyone transitioning away from incandescent, it seems like anywhere you go now there are these blindingly bright and high color temperature LED lights. Of course, if LEDs are better and more energy efficient we should use them. But whenever I've tried buying LED bulbs, they've been consistently brighter and higher color temperature than the stated lumens and Kelvin. And a lot of times, it's just extremely difficult to find LED bulbs for certain shapes at a reasonable luminosity. Like our house uses a lot of BR30 bulbs that are supposed to be around ~400 lumens, but the lowest you can possibly find is 650.

I'm genuinely concerned what effect this is going to have on our shared spaces and even potentially our psychology/circadian rhythm. There's an especially egregious example on an important cultural street in the city, where there's this truly blinding light in a parking lot about a third the way from the edge to the center of the district that makes the entire immediate area extremely unpleasant to be in. Someone tell me I'm not crazy.

I've only thought about series, but here are the top five that are seared into my mind.

#5 Katanagatari

Having been pretty skeptical of watching this in the first place, I made it that far and did not see this coming at all. I was totally dumbstruck. I'm thankful that I didn't see this when it originally aired, because there was no way I would have been able to wait a month for the next episode.

#4 Mononoke

The exorcism sequences.

I would link the first scene, but the only high-quality sources I can find are on YouTube, and their video compression simply cannot do it justice. If you are interested in this show at all (and you definitely should be, it's truly a work of art!), don't try to find out too much, just go in blind.

This just blew me away when I first saw it. I still think of this anime as the benchmark for art direction, and any of those scenes could probably qualify as the best-looking clip I've seen in the animated visual medium, period.

#3 Shigurui: Death Frenzy

Irako Seigen vs. Iwamoto Kogan fight

Even without knowing how the details of this scene fit into the wider context of this near-masterpiece of a show, this video speaks for itself.

#2 Aku no Hana

The classroom scene.

This show is SO good at building tension, and this scene was almost as cathartic a release for me as it was the characters. At the end of this episode, I was just stunned. Lovely cinematography as well.

#1 Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex: 2nd Gig

The Tachikoma are one of the best examples of character development I've seen in anime, if not the best. By the time this played out, I couldn't believe those silly little spider tank robots managed to make me shed a tear..

So, what are yours, and why? Please tag spoilers as necessary!

We all have something that makes us stand out. Sometimes it’s seen by others as a good thing; sometimes it’s not. Sometimes we love it ourselves; sometimes we don’t.

Tell me the story of when you discovered a meaningful difference about yourself.

(Any difference works here: major stuff, minor stuff, identities, abilities, preferences, etc.)

Also, I hope it should go without saying, but please make the comments an inclusive and supportive space.

I lift regularly and I think I have good numbers. For information:

• age: 37
• Height: 178cm
• Weight: 72kg now
• Bench: 7 reps wkth 71kg
• Squat: 8 reps with 79kg (i recently recovered from a knee injury)
• Pull up: 1 rep with 35kg attached to a weight belt
• Kneeling ab-wheel rollot: I can do a straight set of 30 reps, followed by another of 25 and then more 20. Am working om doing it standing, but it's hard.

My SO decided to go on a diet and I joined her to help. My goal is to have a six pack abs for the first time in my life.

I don't even plan to maintain it all around. I just want to reach this milestone for a day or two and call it a day. After that I'll maintain weight for a month or two then start bulking. I am counting calories and macros.

I know it is a bullshit goal, but why not.

Anyway, I dropped from 77kg to 72kg and reached a point where she pointed out that my cheeks are sucked in. And I agree, my face is skinny right now.

I feel like I'm close, but I don't really know. Here are some pics I took this morning when flexing for reference: (1) (2)

My unflexed belly is not much bigger than this tho. I don't have fat hanging anymore.

I'm looking into insulating the attic above a closed-in back porch & the estimate also included adding additional insulation on top of the blown-in in the attic.

What kinds of factors can be used to think about the value of additional insulation?

For reference, I'm in Florida & keep setpoint around 80 degrees F most of the time when home, and 86 when not home. Power bills in the summer are in the $150-$180 USD range.

It's currently R27 and the quote is to add R11 to bring it up to R38. Code here appears to put new construction at R38 as a minimum, but looking at some charts - it looks like I might have already hit diminishing returns?

This chart I found on "Energy Vanguard" seems to suggest that going from 27 to 38 isn't much of a difference.

Does anyone else have any insight on when those diminishing returns are hit, and if it can make any appreciable difference in power bills? The house itself is comfortable enough, without large swings in temperature.

For context, this was neither in the US nor Europe. This is not my first language and some terms are direct translations since I am not aware of actual usage.

I'm coming from an intense experience: my first son is born. In the days before that, I cared for my pregnant wife during the passing of her mother, who spent 3 months in the hospital fighting multiple conditions, chiefly neurological.

Two days after the burial, we went to the hospital for several exams. My wife was diagnosed with pre-eclampsia, a potentially dangerous pregnancy complication characterized by high blood pressure.

We spent almost a week in the hospital. My wife did not want a c-section, so our doctor employed multiple methods to induce labor over the course of several days.

There are no men in the maternity ward. Men do not sweep floors, do not take calls, or take any position of care.

I did not see any men in the hallway, although I assumed there were some hidden in the bedrooms.

When the nurses entered the room, they did not look at me. I was not a father, but rather a "companion" whatever you would use in English for someone who is just kind of there. When they had instructions pertaining to the care of my wife and son, they never addressed me. They only addressed me in matters lacking importance, like "Get me a towel", or "Is there any cotton left?".

The tone and body language were of contempt and distrust.

When my wife was soon to go into labor, I decided to go to the bathroom, since I expected to be locked in a room for many hours. When I left the bathroom (which was in the same room where she was), my wife was not there. She was gone. I looked for information and realized she was in the delivery room.

When I was in the bathroom, someone asked me to get something for the doula (a woman), but didn't tell me why. I did. You see, they had time to request me to get something for the doula, but couldn't use the same time to warn me that my wife was being taken to another floor.

That was incredibly traumatizing.

At every step, the message was very clear: "You are not welcome here". "You are not qualified to care for your wife and son". "You are man, and, therefore, a menace to this environment".

Well, fuck them. I was there for my wife since day one. In every contraction, every second she needed me, I was there.

I was the first person to touch my son when he left the womb.

We had to revolt to leave that place as soon as we could. Our personal pediatrician had to intervene because apparently, the maternity ward didn't really trust my wife either -- they just pretended. The kid was slightly underweight. I was convinced that the long stay at the hospital was the main factor impacting breastfeeding. My wife needed to mourn the loss of her mother and required some sense of normality and routine (we are so incredibly happy in our day-to-day, I was confident she would improve!). Turns out that I (and our doctor) were right. We're home now, and the kid's gaining weight again.

At every step of this process, I was invited not to care. "Get out, father, you are not needed here." "That is not a job for men, let the women do it for you".

Earlier today, a neighbor came asking "Are the girls helping you out?". I gotta be honest, I snapped. "No", I said. "This kid has a father". "Oh, but the feminine touch is special!". "It is not", I answered.

Well, fuck them, because I do care for my son, and I will continue to do so. I fully acknowledge and respect the special connection a mother has with their kids. I cannot bear a child, and I lack the ability to produce milk. Other than that, there are no tasks my wife can do that I cannot do as well.

I am not an angry person. Thinking about this makes me very angry and I hate that feeling. I feel a long-lasting trauma is forming. I'm pretty shook-up.

I love my son, I guess that ultimately that is all that matters.

I'm just glad I'm now home, and that I am no longer the only man in a place that considered me a foreign body, trying to eject me at every chance.

I am a reddit refugee and I was drawn to this network by its mission, its decisive rebuff of chasing capital at all costs, and the overall vibe.

I lurked for a while before I was invited to join, but shortly after joining I noticed something. While a good discussion from opposing viewpoints can help everyone broaden their horizons a bit, it felt like white supremacists were testing the waters. While I can't directly cite any threads, there were a couple instances where I felt one side was seeing just how close they could get without being obvious. But it felt like some of the subtler dog whistles were there.

It felt very similar to how QAnon got a lot of people with the disinformative statistic about child abductions. After all, who's going to be on the other side "child abductions are bad?"

After seeing a few threads and getting the same vibe, I stopped visiting the site for the last couple months. Life getting pretty busy also helped.

I haven't been back long enough to determine for myself whether I'm in a "Nazi bar" or not. I would be happy to admit that it was all in my head. But it is a major concern for any up-and-coming social network. And that's an opposing viewpoint no one needs to take seriously. Was it in my head? Was I reading too much into things? Did all the nazis just go to X? More generally, how has moderation been with the influx of new users? The same, but more? A couple extra reminders doing the trick? Uptick in bans? Is this information already somewhere and I'm a bad user for not having seen it?

Don’t get me wrong. I love Ray Porter narrated audiobooks. Sometimes I’ll give listen simply BECAUSE it’s Ray Porter.

But at some point, every book starts to sound the same, and his tendencies and flavour as a voice actor start to color the story. You can almost predict what voice he’s going to use and when, and it starts to take away from the story a bit.

So I was wondering if you all had any recommendations for great audiobooks that came to mind simply because the narrator was amazing?

I think I feel the same way about RC Bray. There’s always a Skippy just waiting to make an appearance.

Marc Thompson (of Thrawn and Star Wars) is tremendous and memorable as well.

Edit: I've just purchased an Unraid license. I'll give it a go and it may not turn out well, but for the time being, the question is settled. I appreciate everyone for providing insightful and informative answers!

Hey everyone,

I've recently bought myself a NUC (NUC11TNHi3) that I intend to run as a home server, using many of my external USB drives as the storage.

My use case is very narrow. I'll use it as a Plex server and seed/leech torrents with it.

I've never built a home server like this before (I did dabble with it on a RPi, but that was just for PiHole), so I've never had to research what operating systems are available to me. After some research, I narrowed it down to two options.

1. Windows
   This option is the most straightforward given that it's the system I'm familiar with the most. My use case is also very narrow, so I could set everything up in a couple of hours. All I'd have to do is install Plex server, a torrent client, exposing them to the outside world with port forwarding or Tailscale (never used it before but seems easy enough), and share my external USB drives locally so that I can access them using my regular desktop computer at home. The downside of this is that Windows can be finicky. I'd also prefer to have my drives pooled under a single drive. A cursory research suggests that Windows can do this as well, but not in a way that inspires confidence.

2. Unraid
   I hadn't heard about this since last week, but it seems like a nice option. It costs money, it's proprietary, and I'd likely have to reformat all my NTFS drives to be able to use it but I was wondering if this would be the best long term solution. The learning curve will be there. Arrays, cache drives, share drives etc. are terms I'm not familiar with (though I can guess what purpose they serve) so it will be more time consuming to set things up properly. But given how narrow my use case is, as elegant a solution as it seems, is it necessary? I'm only considering this because seems like this is the best purpose built OS in the market right now.

Some clarifications:

• I'm sure someone will suggest a Linux distro. I have used Fedora as my main OS for a couple of years and I was quite happy with it, however I could never wrap my head around the Linux permissions structure, which Plex is awful with, as it creates its own user and look for drives under that user. I must have spent hours and hours to make Plex read my external drives properly before, but I've never managed to make it do so without some sort of hacky way and I don't want to do that with my home server. I don't want to have any doubts that things can go wrong. I want something that just works. (If only Synology had a capable device that could handle multiple simultaneous 4K transcodings. I'd have just throw my money at them instead of buying a NUC.)

• My use case will remain narrow. Maybe way down the road I can automate stuff with Sonarr or Radarr or stuff like that, but I don't think I'll ever consume enough recently released stuff to justify it. One thing is for certain, I'm never going to host my password server, feed reader, or something like that on this device.

That's about it. What should I do?

Given that I'm a novice is this area, I'd be all ears to listen any other related or unrelated advice for someone who's just starting to build their first home server.

Thank you in advance.

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.

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!

My buddy and I grew up in the 80's and 90's together in a mostly analog world, so we spent a bunch of time outside on bikes and getting dirty. We played board games a lot with each other and our family, but as the turn of the century hit we were more engrossed in technology.

We both ended up in careers around creative design and technology, but still have that nostalgia from our past. We have been hanging out this past year and started streaming on Twitch so we can put our skills to use in a fun hobby.

Since January we had the idea to see how far we could push AI to help us create a board game! It's been a fun time starting from nothing and producing something. While the AI craze and controversy are out there. We realized that going all AI to make a fun game wasn't going to work. We've been using it as a tool but adding a lot of ourselves to it.

We hope to give a free downloadable and 3d printable version out. We are excited to get where we are and have an actual fun game. We figured we'd share our progress of the game. Frostbite: The Curse of Doctor Frost

Does anybody know of communities that would be into downloading, printing, and playing board games?

Hello! I live in an area where a great part of socializing is done by going to bars and having a drink (or several). I don't drink alcohol, and always get weird stares after the third Nestea/Aquarius, plus I get bored from drinking the same thing over and over again. Sometimes the places we go to have the option of alcohol-free cocktails, but it's not the usual thing.

So, what are you suggestions of other drinks I could order, that do not contain alcohol? Things that I could drink in hot weather, day or night? I'm open to all sorts of flavours.

The ones I have listed:

• Coke
• Tea
• Coffee
• Aquarius
• Nestea

Thank you all for your help in advance!

I've always been a bit of a privacy enthousiast. Have had everything blocked that Google and by extension YouTube wants to scrape off you. This means I've also blocked my view history.

Recently YouTube started giving out a warning on the homepage that you have blocked your view history, that you can change it in your privacy settings and that it helps them serve you better content. What it also means is that your homepage is just one big popup to guilt trip you into sharing your data. The homepage won't show any suggested content anymore.

While it is in their interest to do so and since they are a company wanting to make money it is understandable. Nevertheless it seems harsh from going to see content that you might like to only seeing a big warning sign right now.

What are you experiences with this?

I'm going to start with three questions but feel free to propose your own:

1. What if anything have you tried around finding and using more ethical sources of meat?

2. What cooking methods and recipes do you use that reduce the amount of meat you eat in a meal?

3. What vegetarian protein sources do you find palatable and tasty?

Here's the article in Danish

First of all, I hope it's ok to post links to sites that aren't in English because this is a really good opinion piece.

For context, there has been a lot of news about activists burning the Quran in Sweden and Denmark - Turkey has withheld Sweden's Nato bid because of it, and Russia has been accused of influencing events in order to attempt to destabilize western countries. So it's a whole thing.

I translated the article through DeepL and did some small edits and added occasional context in [brackets]:

Apostate Muslims - this is why we protest the Quran

It is an insult to apostate Muslims if the government gives in and criminalises the burning or desecrating of the Quran - we have fought to free ourselves from the Quran, now you want to protect the perpetrator.

I'm an apostate - ex-Muslim. It's hard to get there. Doing away with Islam can have completely incalculable consequences. And if the government gives in to the Islamic countries that want to restrict freedom of speech in Denmark with threats of violence and economic pressure, it will be much harder to break free from Islam and live a free life in the future.

Because it's not just about Quran burnings or Rasmus Paludan [very controversial far-right activist who has done Quran burnings in Denmark and Sweden many times]. It's about criticising Islam, which will not be tolerated. To signal this to the Islamic countries - that they should focus on legislation in their own countries - The Association of Apostates is therefore protesting on 22 August in front of the Turkish embassy in Copenhagen.

But it is just as much a signal to the Danish government.

The Association of Apostates is Denmark's first organisation for ex-Muslims, and we know how difficult it is to come to terms with Islam - because we have done it ourselves. But if criticism or mockery of Islam is criminalised as it is in Islamic countries, the apostasy process becomes even more difficult, because you also have the law against you.

A conformist who defends their abuser

Many Muslim apostates lead double lives: Outwardly, they live by Islamic rules. Some go to the mosque, pray and fast because it is expected and because they have to keep up appearances even though they have lost their faith. This is due to a fear of the incalculable consequences that an apostasy from Islam can have for the individual person.

It is not Allah's punishment that is feared, but rather the traumatic consequences of societal pressure or ostracisation. As a result, many often end up complying with Islamic traditions and expectations from family and friends.

This can range from marriage, which must be to a Muslim, to the circumcision of male children. To survive in this situation, many choose self-deception, trying to fit in with the group by denying reality and defending Islam, despite feeling no connection to the religion.

People who have been victims of domestic violence often describe that after the breakup, they find it difficult to let go of their partner. Apostate Muslims also experience this dependency. You end up as a conformist who defends your abuser. You keep the label of 'Muslim' because it is far more unsafe and full of conflict to call yourself an apostate.

The law is a slippery slope

In many of the Muslim countries that will now dictate legislation in Denmark, there is death penalty and imprisonment for apostasy and blasphemy. Gay rights are violated and women are treated as second-class citizens. As ex-Muslims, we see how Islamic dogmas and traditions are gaining more and more influence in Denmark.

Hijab, which represents discrimination and inequality between men and women, is promoted as the norm. But the reality is that for ex-Muslim women in Denmark, removing the hijab often has serious consequences.

The month of Ramadan is promoted in the same way as Christmas, even though for many ex-Muslims, Ramadan is a month where social control is heightened because Ramadan is about getting closer to Allah - a god you don't believe in.

If the government yields in regards to blasphemy or desecration of the Quran, it's just another step down that slippery slope. A slippery slope where ex-Muslims live under social control or in exclusion.

But fortunately, we live in a free country like Denmark, where there is room for critical thinking and where you have the right to believe what you do and do not believe. Where you have the right to draw what you want [reference to drawings of the Prophet that caused an international incident in the 2000s] and, in protest, burn, shred or make paper aeroplanes out of a book whose content you find repulsive or disagree with. Like when Poul Nyrup demonstratively tore the pages out of Fogh's book back in 2001. [Nyrup is a Social Democrat and debated Fogh of Venstre, a right-wing party, on TV during the election campaign]

Protect the victim, not the Quran

At The Association of Apostates, some of our members say that one of the things that bothers them about Islam is that Islam calls itself the religion of peace, but at the same time believes that you should receive 100 lashes if you have sex before marriage. Here, the members refer to the Quran's Sura 24:2 which reads: "As for female and male fornicators, give each of them one hundred lashes, and do not let pity for them make you lenient in enforcing the law of Allah, if you truly believe in Allah and the Last Day. And let a number of believers witness their punishment."

Should a woman who is critical of this content of the Quran also be punished by the government if she tore out the pages of the Quran in protest? Or burned it? If the woman had been subjected to the act prescribed by the Quran, should she just keep quiet and respect the holy scriptures?

I certainly don't think so. But that's what's being suggested in the government's proposal. [They want to ban burnings of the Quran in places like in front of embassies]

Doesn't necessarily have to be war, could be a fist fight, music for killing demons, etc. Anything that makes you feel like a badass.

It's cheesy as hell but Hells Bells by AC/DC has gotta be top of my list.

Just wondering how other technically inclined individuals go about this.

For my daily driver machines I usually buy Macs and build towers, which are simple enough — on the Mac, figure out needs and slightly overbuy, and on towers put some research into parts to find those with the best reviews and bang for buck. Pretty straightforward.

I also keep around a generic x86 laptop though, and I might be replacing the one I have currently in the coming months. Shopping for its replacement unfortunately is not so clean and simple. There is to my knowledge no laptop-shopper analogue of PCPartPicker for laptops for instance and retailer search tools are terrible (especially Amazon's), which makes filtering out the noise practically impossible. It gets even harder if you're looking for certain features and especially less tangible things like build quality, QC, and battery life. Review sites often aren't of much help, with skin-deep reviews that frequently miss major points and pay little mind to things that may become issues in long-term usage.

And yet clearly, plenty of people are buying laptops, which brings me back to the topic question. How does everybody go about their laptop shopping?

After trusting my nana to pass on the details in anticipation of a small family gathering, this has turned into something else! I'm currently smoking a bunch of chicken drumsticks over maple wood chips but some of my lower effort choices going into battle today are:

Chocolate sorbet. I love this one because it's stupidly easy to make, can be made way in advance and is a naturally vegan/ dairy free option. Blending the mixture at the end is an essential, unskippable step. I used 80% cocoa solids and this time I've replaced the Grand Marnier with some 42% chocolate rum.

Ready made dolmedes from a tin. Another easy vegan/ veggie option, assuming you just get the ones stuffed with rice and herbs.

Caprese skewers. Easy veggie canapé with only some assembly required! Baby plum tomato, fresh basil leaf and mini mozzarella pearl on a skewer. Maybe drizzle over some pesto. Looks fancy arranged on a slate serving tray.

Boiled potatoes with really, really good butter. Cultured, unpasteurised stuff. It helps that these are potatoes from my garden too, instantly made fancier with the addition of fresh herbs.

This is quite possibly one of the greatest struggles to writers: choosing a title. You'd think that writing a chapter or story would be the hard part, and to an extent it is, but somehow I almost always draw a blank at the title. Sometimes, I get lucky and a title just comes to me instantly. Usually though, I'm left staring at the top of the page after finishing trying to figure out what to call it. This doesn't just include the overall story, but even the title of individual chapters. Last year when submitting a short story for a contest, I had no clue what the heck to title it and ended up going with something like "Hawksbills and Ospreys" because the deadline was right there.

I know this is a common problem for writers. As someone who's active in the fan fiction sphere, the most common trick I see (and that I've used myself) is to pull a title from song lyrics or poems.

What about you? What are your tricks for trying to get inspiration for titles, and what sorts of "guidelines" do you follow to try to make them stand out?

About this one: https://tildes.net/~news/19bm/regional_news_thread

First of all I want to thank everyone who participated and gave it a shot despite the weird setup, and apologize for ghosting the meta-discussion about it. Y'all have many suggestions which convinced me that my original idea was flawed.

For one, I agree with Algernon_Asimov that splitting into a separate 'US-local news' and 'non-US global news' would have made more sense. If there's a next round, I think I'd focus on US states first, then non-US countries in another thread. But before that I want to get some feedback to make sure.

Do you think general news threads like that are necessary?

Algernon_Asimov said that news should just be posted directly to the frontpage to be more visible.

spit-evil-olive-tips made a point about the distinction between local news of general interests vs. local news of local interests, and the latter could benefit from having dedicated threads.

For me, I believe megathreads are fine as long as they're optional. In my experience, people do sometimes prefer to post in comments instead of as full topics. As long as people are free to choose either way (which is different than on Reddit where if there's a megathread then posts outside it got removed), overall we should end up with more activity not less.

Does the comment-to-comment format make sense?

In my head I imagine that to be a natural way to generate location-based grouping, but I could see the convoluted setup might be confusing and unenforceable. One the one hand, if each location only has 1 post then the extra step is unnecessary. On the other hand, if there are multiple locations, each with multiple posts then trying to find your regions of interest would be a pain.

Is the scope of the thread too broad?

This was a point made by skybrian here, which was in the context of the original thread being both US and non-US. But even if we divided them into separate US and non-US, are they still too broad?

Having one thread for each location is probably the most natural way, I fear that currently that would ended up being too niche. This was touched on by merry-cherry here as well. I could imagine that would work for a US state (which ever has the most people here) but since no one tried it yet, it's hard to know which states are most likely to succeed. And we probably shouldn't just make one each for all them (which would fill the entire frontpage with nothing but state names).

Should these threads be news-focused?

While that was my original goal, maybe megathreads could be more useful if they fills the needs of the people posting in it rather than just the one starting it. Usually that requires guesswork by the poster but since I'm already asking, might as well.

For the US-local thread, if the goal is to serve as testing grounds to see whether there's enough activity to make the case for local groups, maybe news is not necessarily the most popular when it comes to local content? If anyone support this direction, please share some examples of what types of content you'd like the most when visiting local groups. If you do, please also rank them in order of importance. That way the scope of the thread could be made to focus on the most needed activity as starter.

For the non-US global thread, do you still want dedicated global news? If so how should we set it apart from just regular posting? boxer_dogs_dance mentioned r/anime_titties being quite high quality for global news, any lessons we can adopt from them?

Digging around and I found this post asking about how to do cultural exchange on Tildes, maybe shifting the focus from global news to this might be more fruitful? (people are probably more willing to share nice things about their country than drama). Each subthread can be something like this Turkey Information Thread, or something else maybe.

Should they be recurring?

News probably make sense as recurring, others depend. Since this is still in trial whatever arrangement we agree on, I'll probably just make one and see from there.

Anything else you want to let me know (like maybe don't do this anymore haha), shoot away. Also it's not like I'm an official thread maker or anything, if any of y'all have your own take, go for it! The more people trying out stuff the better.

Getting to that age that I know my hearing is declining and I have steady tinnitus, which I'm pretty used to already. Conversation in a quiet room is no problem but in a busy restaurant I have to concentrate and strain to pick up what's being said. I can tell I have to play things a bit louder than I used to. I'm delaying going to an audiologist for a test out of anxiety that I'll have to get hearing aids.

Which makes me wonder what they're really like - How does using them change your hearing? Do you get back the crisp highs and lows in music? Is conversation in a noisy place easier? How much maintenance do they require?

I'm curious to hear about the people or things in your city or region that add their own unique charm or character -- perhaps they're unknown or barely known to the rest of the world but are important culturally to your area.

I'll throw out a few of my picks for Dallas, Texas:

• The Ticket is a local sports radio station that's been around since 1995, which is an eternity when it comes to AM/FM radio. On the surface, this doesn't sound that interesting, but the station goes way deeper than just sports. Most of the listeners are loyal and almost cult-like in their dedication. People say that when they listen, it's as if they're just hearing some of their friends talk on the radio. I'd go as far as to say it has introduced some vernacular into the Dallas area lexicon that you don't typically find in other places (i.e. you can have a conversation with someone and they'll say a phrase in a way that instantly tips you off that they're a listener).
• Robert Wilonsky is a local writer/historian/everything Dallas guy. Not only is he passionate about Dallas, but he has a knack for writing and can turn a very boring civil matter into an exciting read.

I’m going purely on YouTube vids for the technique. They all seem to agree to soak in water and then cook the rice cakes in stock, then add gochujang, gochugaru, soy sauce, sugar, cook until thick, top with spring onion and optionally add cheese. (I’m skipping the fish cakes).

Some recipes start by frying some garlic, some fry off the gochugaru etc for a minute, some add the white part of the spring onion much earlier… I’m not sure whether any of these steps are necessary/make a big difference.

Anyone who is familiar with the dish - is there anything extra you do to elevate this dish? Anything I should know about the cooking process?

Note: Because the post is already going to be long enough, this will only cover the movies from May to July. August still counts as the summer movie season, but there's usually not a lot of big movies released, and this August hasn't been particularly interesting so far (do we really need to wait for Blue Beetle to bomb to talk about DC?).

On paper this should have been a great summer: The last Guardians of the Galaxy movie, another installment in the highly successful Fast and Furious movies, another Disney live-action remake which have been incredibly successful, a movie featuring Michael Keaton back as Batman, Indiana Jones, and a Tom Cruise movie after his highly successful Top Gun sequel.

That was on paper.

So what actually ended up happening?

Well a lot of busts.

First let's go over the saga of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3. Early on it was a contender for a billion dollars this summer. Unfortunately for Disney Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania came out with the absolute worst reception of any Marvel movie since Eternals (and honestly even then it was definitely worse received). The Marvel brand was now tainted, at least a little. Pre-sales (that being the sale of tickets that people buy in advance) was looking bad. At one point it looked like it might open below 100 million.

In response to this, and confident in the product they had, Disney decided to drop the review embargo earlier. Resulting in similar positive critical reception that Black Panther: Wakanda Forever received . This finally made pre-sales climb higher, and once people actually started watching the movie positive word of mouth lifted it up to 118 million for the opening weekend. Still, this was much lower than what Guardians 2 opened up to six years ago (145M). It had a similar Cinemascore (the gold standard for audience reception) as Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (A) but if we look at other factors it indeed had better word of mouth. It's because of this glowing word of mouth that it was able to leg it out 358 million. Having the best multiplier of any Marvel movie since... well the first Guardians. It also had more appeal internationally than the previous two Guardians movies (maybe due to the darker tone) and it made nearly 850 million worldwide. Which is phenomenal, especially considering it got off to a shaky start that first weekend.

I should re-iterate: Marvel movies don't perform like this anymore. They usually have big openings and weak-ish legs. Having a softer opening but longer legs is a thing of the past for these types of fan driven movies, they're usually reserved for films aimed at older audiences.

I'm gonna group the next two May releases together. Fast X and The Little Mermaid also had high expectations. Both are coming from predecessors that have made billions of dollars. And actually, both didn't perform too bad overall. Fast X didn't do well domestically (it's basically a dead franchise stateside) but did very well internationally making 700M WW, and The Little Mermaid didn't do well internationally but did pretty well domestically nearly reaching 300M DOM and 550M WW. These are respectable grosses. Just one problem: their budgets. Fast X is sporting a 340 million dollar budget, making it one of the most expensive films ever made, and The Little Mermaid is sporting a 250 million dollar budget. The break-even points for these films are 850M and 625M respectively. They did not reach them. They would have been profitable if Fast X had the same budget as F9 (225M) and The Little Mermaid had the same budget as Cinderella (95M). Those would have been the responsible budgets to make these films with, but alas shit happens. They were both shooting during the pandemic, which raised costs on productions, and Fast X had to switch directors half-way through production.. Still, money losers are money losers.

June starts off with a bang. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse opens to 120 million, more than Guardians 3 and four times more than what it's predecessor opened to. With great reviews and great audience scores, it becomes the first true out and out success since Guardians 3. It also had a much lower budget than all the summer blockbusters thus far. 100-150 million, according to differing reports (we'll know by the next year when Deadline does their most profitable blockbuster list) making profitability much easier. The film basically covered it's production budget in one weekend. It legged out pretty well. Outgrossing Guardians 3 domestically (375M) but not being able to match it internationally making nearly 700 million WW. While it did "fail" to meet the high expectations of 400M DOM, it's still massively successful. And will remain in the top 5 grossing films domestically.

The rest of June is a different story. First up we got Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, which was, at one point, one of the biggest movie franchises around resulting in two billion dollar films. While it beat expectations opening weekend, opening to 61M, it did not leg it out very well. 155M DOM and 420M WW is not a great number, especially not compared to it's 200M budget. It made less than Bumblebee despite having twice the budget. It's basically a dead franchise at this point, and it was not the win Paramount needed after Dungeons and Dragons also flopped.

Then we get a double whammy. The Flash and Elemental open the same weekend. At one point The Flash was projected to open well above 100 million just for the weekend, but pre-sales told another story. Pre-sale trackers on the forum BoxOfficeTheory, saw what industry tracking couldn't: a lack of interest. The sales just weren't there. DC as a franchise is already on the decline. This was a movie about a minor character that debuted in Justice League (which also bombed heavily), with a controversial lead star, and just unappealing trailers, who would be interested? Michael Keaton fans, supposedly. That was what people were clinging onto. The older Keaton fans would come out and help the movie. Apparently there aren't any. Doesn't help that Keaton had his last Batman outing over thirty years ago, meaning no one below the age of 40 even really cares about him as Batman. It opened disastrously to 55 million. dropping throughout the weekend from toxic word of mouth. It didn't even manage to hit the lower end of those initial projections throughout it's entire run. WB dumped so much money into this, just for it to be the biggest bomb in their studio history.

Elemental, on the other hand, ended up fairing a little bit better. Not on opening weekend. God no. It opened to 29M, one of the lowest openings in Pixar's history. But, it was really well received by audiences. And people kept watching it week after week, resulting in some of the best legs Pixar has had in a while. Reaching over 150M DOM, and over 400M (and counting) WW. If it reaches 500M WW, which it still looks like it might, it would break even theatrically. That's not great, as studios would love to make money theatrically, but considering this could have been a massive money loser for Disney, it's quite an impressive run. Thanks to Disney's re-commitment to theatrical, their animation studios are slowly building themselves back up in the eyes of audiences.

To end the month came Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Supposedly the Top Gun: Maverick of 2023, at least that's what some people had pegged it as at the beginning of the year. Once again, it didn't work out that way. It premiered at Cannes to mixed reviews, and while the funko pop critics were able to get it to fresh on RottenTomatoes, the damage was done. Indiana Jones spent months with a rotten symbol. Even before that, trailer views were weak, the interest just wasn't there. Why? I think perhaps Crystal Skull was supposed to be the last outing for the character (which actually ended up being the second highest grossing film of 2008 and even outgrossed The Dark Knight internationally), and even before that The Last Crusade was supposed to be the last outing of this character. And now we're getting another last outing for the character. Except now he's 80. A fantasy wish-fulfillment character being 80 is probably not a great thing. It's also another situation where no one below 40 really cares about Indiana Jones (me excluded but I don't share the viewing habits of other people my age). So... it was over before it even started. It opened okay all things considering, 60M isn't bad. But it had mediocre drops week to week, no doubt due to mediocre word of mouth. And again, the budget was out of control. Initially reported to be 290M, the actual budget ended up being 320M. It didn't even get close to 400M WW. Making it one of the biggest bombs of all time, and certainly the biggest bomb of the year. This is probably the last straw for Lucasfilm. I can't imagine Disney letting them continue doing things this way.

Next one comes a sad one for me personally, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning - Part One the first big movie of July. They decided to release it over a 5-day weekend. And, more importantly, decided to open the weekend before Barbenheimer. Unfortunately, that meant that no one was paying attention to Tom Cruise's latest critically acclaimed action film. It opened below 80 million for the 5-day weekend, below Indiana Jones even. It's only hope was to leg it out well. But again, two big movies would come out a week later. Mission Impossible was yet another victim of Paramount's idiotic release date decisions. Dungeons and Dragons opened a week before Mario, despite positive reviews and audience reception that ended up dropping like a rock too. If Paramount had picked more empty dates both of these movies would have done better. MI is the only blockbuster this summer to be extremely well reviewed, to get positive audience reception (same scores as Fallout) yet not be a success at the box office. The budget didn't help, 290M, it was one of the first productions to restart during the pandemic that's where this audio of Cruise yelling at crew members breaking protocols comes from. They actually set the standard for productions during the pandemic. But, money losers are money losers, and Paramount has been bleeding a lot of money.

One of the more interesting success stories so far this year is Sound of Freedom. Originally produced in 2018, 20th Century Fox held the distribution rights. When Disney bought Fox they shelved the movie. Angel Studios then got the rights to the film. They opened it on the Fourth of July weekend (America!) to rave audience reactions. It opened modestly, to 19 million, but has legged out spectacularly. Outgrossing summer blockbusters like Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Domestically anyway. It was powered by conservative influencers and the often reliable christian market. It's been debated if this should count. As they had a pay it forward service, meaning people would buy tickets for others to use for free. There were several reports of sold out screenings playing to a largely empty room. Whatever it is. It's money for movie theaters. And it's clearly playing well to an underserved market.

Now we get to the big one: Barbie and Oppenheimer. For over a year these two have been building up hype. Christopher Nolan, who usually has his films distributed by Warner Bros., was incredibly unhappy with how they sacrificed his film Tenet during the 2020 pandemic and even was even less happy when WB announced that their entire 2021 slate would be day and date on HBOMAX. He then takes his next project to Universal, after they agreed to a laundry list of demands. They pick the date July 21st, because that's the date Nolan likes and is "reserved" for him. Warner Bros originally had Coyote vs Acme there, a live-action Looney Tunes film with John Cena. However, they remove Coyote vs Acme from the schedule (it still has no release date) and instead put Barbie there. It originally started off as a "battle." Who would win, who would flop? But as we got closer, it became something else. The stark contrast between the two films, while both being from filmmakers who are lauded by younger people online, led to the creation of Barbenheimer. It wasn't "which one will win" it was "we're excited for both." It also wasn't, as some people think, manufactured by Universal and Warner Bros (why on earth would competing studios work together) it was organic. If it wasn't organic it wouldn't have worked. Barbie opened to over 160M and Oppenheimer to over 80M.

What makes their successes so great for the industry, is that they're in genres that have not been doing well post-pandemic. Even pre-pandemic comedies like Barbie were struggling. The last big comedy to hit 200M DOM was Ted back in 2012. Barbie easily blew past that. It's also a female oriented film in a time where women have been one of the slowest demographics to return to theaters. Adult dramas were also on lifeline. Elvis had been the highest grossing one post-pandemic, but pre-pandemic we would get multiple hits. In 2019: 1917, Little Women, Ford vs Ferrari, and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood all grossed over 100M DOM. In the two years since the pandemic only Elvis managed to hit that mark. But now Oppenheimer, something that on paper is tailor made for the end of the year Oscar season, opens like a blockbuster in the summer. It's the first drama to make over 200M DOM since Joker, and first non-franchise drama to make that much since Bohemian Rhapsody and A Star is Born crossed that threshold back in 2018.

Maybe it's a fluke, maybe it was just because it was these films specifically. But it's hard not to feel optimistic that this will translate to other dramas like Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon, and other female-oriented films like Wonka.

Smaller successes and optimism for the future of theatrical:

I covered the big movies. But what about the rest of the slate? Movie theaters can't just survive on 20 or so big movies a year. They need the smaller films to still deliver some money. These past two years, the box office has been incredibly top heavy. We either got films that only made a ton of money or we got movies that made no money.

Let me give you an example of the struggle of this specific market. The Peanut Butter Falcon was the 100th grossing film domestically of 2019. It grossed 20 million. In 2021 it was The Father with 2.1 million, in 2022 it was Cyrano with 3.8 million. You can see the toll the pandemic took here. But you can also see slight recovery.

I believe 2023 is the year we see substantial recovery in his part of the market. Smaller, non-franchise, and art-house films have been making more money than they have been in the past two years.

Let's look at some examples:

Asteroid City has the highest opening PTA (per-theater-average) of any film since the pandemic. Over 100k PTA something that used to be more common before the pandemic. And, once it goes wide, grosses 27 million domestic. Compare that to Wes Anderson's previous film which grossed 16 million domestic.

Past Lives also opens to a healthy PTA of 58k. That's higher than TAR and The Banshees of Inisherin. And that's without any star power and without having a well known Director. It has Oscar buzz, to be fair, but so did the other two and it still managed to outgross both of them when it went wide. So these types of awards films are already doing better than they were even six months prior.

No Hard Feelings not so much a small film, it's not an art-house film, and it's not an awards contender. It's a mid-budget comedy that relied solely on star power as a selling point. It's exactly the type of movie that failed countless times in 2021 and 2022. Yet, it outgrossed star-studded R-rated comedies from last year such as Amsterdam, The Menu, and Babylon pretty easily. Making 50 million domestic. It, perhaps, did not turn a profit theatrically, but it at least made some of its money back. Even a year ago, the thought of this type of movie making anything more than it did would have been unfathomable. Even Ticket to Paradise, which did make more than No Hard Feelings especially internationally, was PG-13 and had two old school stars headlining it instead of one young one.

I think these three movies really do show how much the market continues to improve, even as we faced massive bombs. When something as benign as Theater Camp can open with a PTA on par with Banshees of Inisherin, we're definitely heading in the right direction.

This was quite the summer for Hollywood. With so many high profile bombs, and two surprise hits, this already feels like a transformational year for the industry. Trends are changing. Franchises from the 2010s (mostly from Disney) are no longer the guaranteed money makers they were. The unions are on strike. Studios are looking to cut costs. It's a whirlwind.