by Wes Davis

A key cold medicine ingredient is basically worthless

The FDA’s 16-member advisory panel unanimously voted yesterday that oral phenylephrine, a common active ingredient in cold medications, is no better than a placebo for treating congestion.

Link to the article

The call by the panel sets up potential FDA action that could force the removal of certain over-the-counter medications containing the ingredient — including certain formulations of Mucinex, Sudafed, Tylenol, and NyQuil — from store shelves.
But FDA may hold off for many months, pending contested findings by drug makers and other considerations.

Data

Newer data from studies the panel says are more consistent with modern clinical trial standards showed phenylephrine simply “was not significantly different from placebo” in the recommended dosage, including trials from 2007 that the FDA had reviewed when considering the drug after a citizen petition prompted it to do so.

Bioavailability

The panel cited the drug’s low bioavailability, a term referring to qualities that allow the drug to be absorbed by the human body, as the main reason the drug should be removed from the market.

Jennifer Schwartzott said the drug “should have been removed from the market a long time ago,” while Dr. Stephen Clement said that although the drug itself isn’t dangerous, its usage by patients should be considered unsafe because it potentially delays actual treatment of disease symptoms.

Alternative

The panel cited pseudoephedrine as an effective alternative though while it’s technically available without a prescription, you must talk to a pharmacist to get it because, in large quantities, it can be used to make methamphetamines.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

** I wrote this a few years ago using 'wiki-how to write a constitution' as my basic outline. As you can see, I never finished. I realized that this is not something that can or should be written as a singular person, and due to a lack of access to those who might find such a project interesting, albiet wholly theoretical, I never finsihed it. What you see at the bottom is the copy paste from the wiki how where I left off.

I don't know if any of y'all will find this interesting or worth editing and expanding with me, but I thought this would be an interesting place to put this and test the waters.

I tried really hard to figure out how to format this in tildes but I may have failed. Hopefully it's clear enough.

Here is the beginnings of a constitution I wrote for a hypothetical expeirmental community: **

We, the citizens of this community, in order to enact the willful abandonment of all other governing bodies and establish an independent mode of community-organization and self-rule, do ordain and establish this constitution for the government of our association.

Article I:

Section 1:

The name of this community shall be {}, hereafter referred to as ‘the community.’

Section 2:

The Heads of the community shall make up the ruling body of {}, hereafter referred to as ‘Those Responsible.’

Article II:

Section 1:

the purpose of this community is to establish and maintain a self-sustaining and self-perpetuating place and manner in which to live and live well, outside and beyond the current social paradigms subject to political, military, monetary, or any and all other coercive forms of power and control, including but not limited to all other authoritative bodies either public or private. This community intends to act as a sustaining reservoir and dispensary for human knowledge and creative culture. This community aims to secure a manner of human cohabitation and relation founded upon unconditional love and mutual respect for self, others, and the land.

Section 2:

Those Responsible shall ratify, guide, lead, and organize all actions of the community towards the aims of self-sustainability, cohabitation, co-creation, and social evolution, foremost and always with a prime consideration for all the offspring of the community in mind, whether of direct biological relation or otherwise. Those Responsible are tasked with representing and upholding the example and execution of communion and action under the fundamental philosophy of unconditional love and mutual respect for self, others, and the land. Those Responsible are beholden to the task of observing and evaluating the exact realities faced by the community at any given point in time, and in view of that Those Responsible are required to coordinate all community efforts in appropriate response to the imminent needs of the citizenry and the land.

Article III:

Section 1:

The general body of the community will be comprised of Citizen Families of no less than two adults and no more than ten adults, and all of their accompanying children and creature companions. In order to gain membership into the community a Citizen Family must be endorsed by a Family Head already a part of the community, and voted in unanimously by all Those Responsible. Appeals can be made and cases reassessed as depends on the situation, but finalization of familial citizenship requires the unanimous consent of all and every current Citizen Family through representative vote.

Section 2:

the privileges and responsibilities of every individual citizen, those granted to the Citizen Family, and those allowed to the community as a whole include but are not limited to:

Individual rights:

The right to appropriate understanding and care from family and community in times of physiological, psychological, and/or theological need due to age, injury, mental or bodily transition, trauma, or illness.
The right to formally express grievance, great or small, to all grievous parties with the option of third party witness with previously established all party agreement on third party power of decision-input and sway.

The right to request and expect communion with specific individuals, the family whole, or the community at large for a specified time within the confines of the boundaries and privacy requested.

The right to request and expect celebration with specific individuals, the family whole, or the community at large for a specified time within the confines of the boundaries and privacy requested.

The right to give and receive without incurring debt.

Sufficient and sustainable food, shelter, and water, tailored to the individual needs of each citizen, with consideration insofar as possible to individual ability, desire, and proclivity.

Free access to all available community physical, psychological, and theological health resources and programs without bias to reason or cause.

Free access to all available community infrastructure, resources, and technologies insofar as it does not impede the well being of any other, the land, or the community at large.

Freedom of thought and expression and access to public outlet insofar as no permanent physical or psychological damage incurs.

Free access to all available information and means to education. Freedom of inquiry into all intellectual matters and free permission to explore all avenues of discovery not leading to permanent physical or psychological damage.

Full liberty of movement without untoward monitoring, self-delegation of personal time and energies beyond regulated family and community requirements and tasks, and a right to mental, physical, and spiritual regulation and privacy.

The right to call for a family or community hearing and action for whatever reason, and to expect due diligence in response to such a call.

The right to dictate placement, care and use of any personal property of which one is responsible for maintenance, re-purposing, and proper disposal.

The right to anonymity in all voting processes.

The right to vote on family leadership through unanimous consensus of all eligible family members.

The right to vote on family projects and endeavors through unanimous consensus of all eligible family members.

The right to decide the vote for the Heads on community projects through unanimous consensus of all eligible family members.

The right to decide the vote for the Family Head on the delegation of communal resources through unanimous consensus of all eligible family members.

The right to decide the vote for the Heads on all constitutional amendments through unanimous consensus of all eligible family members.

The right to request personal advocacy and counsel from outside the immediate family grouping in regards to internal family affairs.

The right to third-party mediation and safe sanctuary in times of unresolved conflict.

The right to propose projects for personal or community benefit, and to solicit the needed resources and work from the community at large.

The right to apply for membership in a different Citizen Family from their own, or to apply for the establishment of a new Citizen Family, without untoward consequences despite affirmation or denial of said application, and with the understanding that individual membership is restricted to a single Citizen Family.

The right to personal emancipation from the community in full for whatever reason, and the grant of sufficient supply of basic needs from the community, per the requirements of the current social paradigms, for the most benevolent and efficient plan and execution of exit.

Citizen family rights:

the right to family residence sufficient to the exact needs of the individual family and its members, with consideration to ability, preference and proclivity insofar as possible, and full dominion over space, design, and utility of family residence.

The right to equal representation in the community by an internally elected Family Head, Auxiliary Head, and Junior Head (a.k.a. The Heads).

The right to represented vote on all community affairs including but not limited to adoption of new Citizen Families, allocation of community resources, constitutional amendment, foreign affairs, military action and defense, and the introduction and use of new technologies and materials.

The right to volunteer or withhold labor from any non-essential community effort.

The right through the unanimous vote of all eligible family members to excommunicate individual members due to permanent physical or psychological damages to the family.

The right to handle internal family affairs as seen fit insofar as no permanent physical or psychological damages incur, and without rebuke so long as such affairs have no significant impact on community production or well being.

The right to confidentiality and privacy in personal family matters despite possible recruitment by one or more individual for external representation.

Community rights:

The right to excommunicate whole Citizen Families per Family Head and Auxiliary Head’s unanimous vote, excluding the family in question, in the event of permanent physical or psychological damages to the community.

The right to enact emergency measures in times of crisis per Family Head’s unanimous vote, including but not limited to the overrule of individual or familial privacy and individual or familial propriety over labor and resources.

The right to purchase or acquire additional lands and resources from outside the community per Family Head and Auxiliary Head’s unanimous vote.

The right of the Arbiters to oversee and mediate conflict between Citizen Families.

The right of the Heads to demand, organize and enforce labor and resources from all citizen families for the sake of community sustainability and well-being.

Individual responsibilities:

Primary responsibility for self care, self direction, self advocacy, and self representation in all matters related to personal development and involvement.

Responsibility to family wants, needs and concerns, insofar as they do not impede the well being of self, others, the land, or the community at large.

Responsibility to community wants, needs and concerns, insofar as they do not impede the well being of self, others, the land, or the Citizen Family.

Responsibility to fulfill all necessary labor requirements of family and community as per the changing requirements of sustainability and growth.

Responsibility to the land and its well being.

Responsibility to teach, care for and nurture all children and creature companions of the community whether or not blood related, insofar as it does not impede the well being of self, others, and the land.

Responsibility, insofar as it does not impede personal well being or privacy, to share all knowledge and resources within one’s possession and ability with any other citizen upon their request.

Responsibility to critically seek out knowledge and understanding of the current affairs and concerns of the Citizen Family and the community at large, and thereby cast vote based upon study and reason rather than selfish motive or emotional appeal.

Citizen Family responsibilities:

Prime responsibility for the care, representation and advocacy of the Citizen Family in all matters related to familial development and involvement.

Responsibility to individual wants, needs and concerns, insofar as they do not impede the well being of the family, individual citizens, others, the land, or the community.

Responsibility to community wants, needs and concerns, insofar as they do not impede the well being of the family, individual citizens, others, the land, or the community.

Responsibility to organize and deploy all labor requirements of the family as per the changing requirements of sustainability and growth.

Responsibility to fulfill all necessary labor requirements of the community as per the changing requirements of sustainability and growth.

Responsibility to the land and its well being.

Responsibility to teach, care for, and nurture all children and creature companions of the community whether or not blood related, insofar as it does not impede the well being of the family, individual citizens, others, and the land.

Responsibility, insofar as it does not impede familial well being or privacy, to share all knowledge and resources within the family’s possession and ability with any other citizen or Citizen Family upon request.

Responsibility to critically seek out knowledge and understanding of the current affairs and the concerns of individual members and the community at large, and thereby cast vote based upon study and reason rather than selfish motive or emotional appeal.

Responsibility to gather weekly all citizens of the family to report, evaluate, vote upon, and organize action for all family interests and concerns.

Community responsibilities:

Prime responsibility for the care, representation and advocacy of the community in all matters related to community development and involvement.

Responsibility to individual wants, needs and concerns, insofar as they do not impede the well being of the community, individual citizens, Citizen Families, others, or the land.

Responsibility to Citizen Families’ wants, needs and concerns, insofar as they do not impede the well being of the community, individual citizens, other Citizen Families, others, or the land.

Responsibility to organize and deploy all labor requirements of the community as per the changing requirements of sustainability and growth.

Responsibility to the land and its well being.

Responsibility to acquire, establish, organize, and maintain resources, infrastructure, and continuing education for the benefit of all citizens and Citizen Families.

Responsibility, insofar as it does not impede the community’s well being or privacy, to share all knowledge and resources within the community’s possession and ability with any citizen or Citizen Family upon their request.

Responsibility to critically seek out knowledge and understanding of the current affairs and concerns of individual members and all Citizen Families, and thereby organize all community efforts based upon study and reason rather than selfish motive or emotional appeal.

Responsibility to establish and maintain a means for citizens and Citizen Families to continuously participate and vote in all community endeavors and affairs through representation by the Heads or directly through survey and ballot.

Responsibility to organize and execute community outreach and relations with outside governments and organizations insofar as it does not impede the well being of citizens, Citizen Families, the community at large, or the land.

Responsibility to gather and allocate shared resources for the procurement and establishment of a new community on tenable land any time that the current community reaches maximum capacity.

Responsibility to establish and maintain co-beneficial relations and exchange, including relief efforts in times of crisis, with all extended communities whether or not directly derivative from the immediate community insofar as possible.

Responsibility to organize resources and efforts for the defense and rebuilding of the community when faced with internal or external aggression or biological or climate catastrophe.

Responsibility to procure and dispense all technological, medical, or otherwise necessary resources not internally available but required by a citizen or Citizen Family for their continued well being.

Responsibility to provide requested transportation and the means to initial basic survival, per the requirements of the current social paradigms, for any citizen looking to emancipate from the community and reenter the world at large.

Responsibility to provide and organize opportunities for travel to all citizens, upon request yet within community ability and reason.

Responsibility to gather weekly all Those Responsible to report, evaluate, and organize action for all voted upon community interests and concerns.

Responsibility to organize and coordinate weekly community celebration insofar as it does not impede the immediate needs of the community.

Responsibility to establish and maintain a central garden sanctuary for silent meditation, worship and reflection, open to all citizens at any time.

Responsibility, insofar as the community is able, to take in, protect, and provide for the basic necessities of any individual seeking asylum from the outside world, insofar as they adhere to the laws, customs, and requirements of the community, and within the agreed amount of time voted upon by Those Responsible in a case by case basis.

Section 3:

Membership may be revoked via a unanimous vote by the Family and Auxiliary Heads due to irrevocable physical or psychological harm to an individual, Citizen Family, the community at large, or the land. Membership shall be open to all those vetted and unanimously voted in by the Family and Auxiliary Heads regardless of age, creed, race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, disability, national origin, or status as a veteran. This list is not exhaustive.

Article IV:

Section 1:

Family meetings run by the Family Head will be held weekly, or as otherwise decided upon by majority vote within the family in order to discuss any general family business, upcoming and continuing family and community projects, and any other pressing comments or concerns of its members.

All Heads within a family shall weekly meet with each other to gather, discuss and organize all current concerns to be addressed in the next family meeting.

Community meetings composed of all Heads and run by the current Arbiters selected quarterly from the Heads by all Those Responsible will be held weekly in order to evaluate and coordinate all community efforts past, continuing, or new.

Each separate group of Heads from every family shall meet weekly in order to gather, discuss and organize all current concerns of their constituents to be addressed in the next community meeting.

Any individual can call for an auxiliary family or community meeting run by the Head of their choice or one of the current Arbiters at any time and for any reason and will be granted such a meeting within 72 hours of the request.

Section 2:

All policy decisions within the Citizen Family shall be voted upon by all family members of any age or identification who capably understands and willingly ratifies via signature the constitution of the community. Each voting citizen is allowed one vote. For sanctioned approval, all Citizen Family policy decisions require a unanimous vote. Family voting shall be counted and tallied by the Family Head.

All policy decisions for the community at large shall be voted upon by all Heads inline with the vote of their constituents. Each Head is allowed one vote. For sanctioned approval all community policy decisions require a unanimous vote by all Heads. Community voting shall be counted and tallied by the current Arbiter.

All voting shall be done anonymously, and no decision can be ratified without a submitted ballot from all voting parties.

Article V:

Section 1:

The community shall have the following officials:

One Family Head per Citizen Family. Any family member aged fifteen or older who has already ratified the constitution is eligible for election. Whereas campaigning is prohibited, any eligible family member can be nominated by any other family member. Selection must be voted upon annually and requires a unanimous vote by all eligible voters within the Citizen Family.

One Auxiliary Head per Citizen Family. Any family member aged fifteen or older who has already ratified the constitution is eligible for election. Whereas campaigning is prohibited, any eligible family member can be nominated by any other family member. Selection must be voted upon annually and requires a unanimous vote by all eligible voters within the Citizen Family.

One Junior Head per Citizen Family. Any family member below the age of fifteen who has already ratified the constitution is eligible for election. Whereas campaigning is prohibited any eligible family member can be nominated by any other family member. Selection must be voted upon annually and requires a unanimous vote by all eligible voters within the Citizen Family.

One Arbiter of the community. All Family Heads are eligible for election. Whereas campaigning is prohibited any Family Head can be nominated by any other Head. Selection must be voted upon quarterly and requires a unanimous vote by all Heads within the community.

One Auxiliary Arbiter of the community. All Auxiliary Heads are eligible for election. Whereas campaigning is prohibited any Auxiliary Head can be nominated by any other Head. Selection must be voted upon quarterly and requires a unanimous vote by all Heads within the community.

One Junior Arbiter of the community. All Junior Heads are eligible for election. Whereas campaigning is prohibited any Junior Head can be nominated by any other Head. Selection must be voted upon quarterly and requires a unanimous vote by all Heads within the community.

Section 2:

The duties of these officials are as follows:

Family Heads:

Responsible for tallying family vote taken during family meetings.

Responsible during all community meetings for representing fairly and impartially their own Citizen Family’s needs and affairs expressed through an internally decided vote.

Responsible during all family meetings for representing community needs and affairs fairly and impartially.

Responsible for community representation and outreach in the world at large.

Responsible for leading the community in its continued sustainability and growth through the organization of community projects and the establishment of new communities when need arises.

Auxiliary Heads:

Responsible during all community meetings for representing fairly and impartially family land and resource needs and affairs expressed through an internally decided vote.

Responsible during all family meetings for representing community land and resource needs and affairs fairly and impartially.

Responsible for advising the Family Head, and taking on the duties of the Family Head in times of their temporary absence, and organizing the vote for instating a new Family Head upon the current Family Head’s inability to continue in their duties.

Responsible for leading the community in its continued sustainability and growth through the organization of community projects and the establishment of new communities when need arises.

Junior Heads:

Responsible during all community meetings for representing fairly and impartially the community youth and creature companion’s needs and affairs expressed through an internally decided vote.

Responsible during all family meetings for representing fairly and impartially their family youth and creature companion’s needs and affairs expressed through an internally decided vote.

Responsible for advising both the Family and Auxiliary Heads, and studying the methods, tasks and duties, undertaken by the Heads and Arbiters.

Arbiter:

Responsible for tallying community vote during all community meetings.

Responsible for mediating upon request.

Responsible for running Family Head meetings and co-running community meetings.

Auxiliary Arbiter:

Responsible for mediating upon request.

Responsible for running Auxiliary Head meetings and co-running community meetings.

Responsible for taking on the duties of Arbiter in the current Arbiter’s temporary absence, and organizing the vote for instating a new Arbiter upon the current Arbiters inability to continue in their duties.

Junior Arbiter:

Responsible for mediating upon request.

Responsible for running Junior Head meetings and co-running community meetings.

Section 3:

Family Heads can hold office for up to a year until reelections are held. Family Heads can hold office indefinitely insofar as their family members continue to unanimously elect them annually.

Auxiliary Heads can hold office for up to a year until reelections are held. Auxiliary Heads can hold office indefinitely insofar as their family members continue to unanimously elect them annually.

Junior Heads can hold office for up to a year until reelections are held. Junior Heads can hold office until surpassing the age of fifteen insofar as their family members continue to unanimously elect them annually.

Arbiters can hold office for up to three months until reelections are held. Arbiters can hold office for up to a year insofar as the Heads continue to unanimously elect them quarterly.

Auxiliary Arbiters can hold office for up to three months until reelections are held. Auxiliary Arbiters can hold office for up to a year insofar as the Heads continue to unanimously elect them quarterly.

Junior Arbiters can hold office for up to three months until reelections are held. Junior Arbiters can hold office for up to a year insofar as they are under the age of fifteen and the Heads continue to unanimously elect them quarterly.

Article VI:

Section 1:

Elections of The Heads must take place at least once per year. Elections of the Arbiters must take place at least quarterly. The winners of the elections for Those Responsible shall be determined by unanimous vote. No individual, however, shall be elected as a Head or Arbiter unless having already ratified the constitution.

Section 2:

Before Heads can be instated for a new term each family must meet to nominate individuals for the roles of Family Head, Auxiliary Head, and Junior Head. In the case that more than one individual is nominated for one appointment, elections must be held within the week to determine through unanimous vote who shall fill the role in question. Voting in order to reach a unanimous decision will be held for consecutive days until such a consensus is reached by all family members eligible to vote. Similarly, appointment of the Arbiters shall follow quarterly the same route as Head appointments in the context of the meeting of Heads. Any individual nominated and unanimously voted into an official role must perform their duties as laid out in this consititution to the best of their abilities despite any explicit desire, or lack thereof, on the part of the nominated to hold office of any kind. Elected officials may only abdicate their possision in the case of severe physical or psychological disablilities which impede the ability to perform the required duties of the role.

Section 3:

An offical can be impeached and removed from office through an unanimous vote called for due to their failure to perform the neccessessary duties of their appointed role, or due to their neglect or outright affront of the constition and its tenets. In the case of the latter, a character hearing shall be called to evaluate the reasons for consititional neglect and/or affront and decide upon what, if any, diciplinary actions need take place to ammend the infraction.

Section 4:

In the event of a mid-term vacancy of a Family Head the Auxiliary Head of the family will take on the duties and responsibilities of Family Head in addition to their own duties, until an early election can be held to fill the vacancey with an interim offical upinto the time of the normal election cycle where a permanent official can be once again instated .

In the event of a mid-term vacancy of an Auxiliary Head the Family Head will take on the duties and responsibilities of Auxiliary Head in addition ot their own duties, until an early election can be held to fill the vacancey with an interim official upinto the time of the normal election cycle where a permanent official can be once again instated.

In the event of a mid-term vacancy of a Junior Head the post shall be appointed to the youngest family member eligible for the possition until an early election can be held to fill the vacancey with an interim official upinto the time of the normal election cycle where a permanent official can be once again instated.

In the event of a mid-term vacancy of an Arbiter, Auxiliary Arbiter, or Junior Arbiter early elections are to be held immediately to fill the vacancey with an interim official upinto the time of the normal election cycle where a permanent official can be once again instated.

• Write the rules on elections, appointments, and removal of officers. Article 6 of your constitution should provide the rules on elections, appointment procedures, and removal of members. This article should also provide the rules on interim appointments or elections in the case of a mid-term vacancy.[19]
  • Section 1 of Article 6 can say, for example: “Organizational elections must take place at least once per year.”[20] This section should also provide the general rules on elections, whereas more specific election rules can be written in the organization’s bylaws.[21] The general rules on elections may include, for example, rules on voting procedure. You can write, for example: "The winners of the elections for representatives shall be determined by plurality vote. No student, however, shall be elected as class representative unless he or she receives the vote of ten percent (10%) of the class from which he or she was elected."[22]
  • Section 2 of Article 6 should provide the general appointment procedures for appointing officers, whereas more specific appointment procedures can be written in the bylaws.[23]
  • Section 3 of Article 6 can say, for example: “The members of the Board may be impeached and removed (enter grounds for impeachment and removal and enter impeachment and removal procedures).”[24]
  • Section 4 of Article 6 can say, for example: “In the event of a mid-term vacancy of an elected officer…” followed by the procedure for electing an interim or permanent replacement officer.[25]

Write the rules on committees. Article 7 of your constitution should provide the names of committees, the duties of each committee, the rules on selection and removal of committee members, and the procedures for formation and dissolution of committees.[26]
• Section 1 of Article 7 can say, for example: “The standing committees of this organization shall be…” followed by a list of all standing committees.[27] Note: a standing committee is a permanent committee whose purpose is to consider all matters that relate to a particular subject.[28]
• Section 2 of Article 7 can say, for example: “The duties of each of these standing committees shall be…” followed by a list of the duties.[29]
• Section 3 of Article 7 should provide the rules on how committee members will be selected and removed.[30]
• Section 4 of Article 7 can say, for example: “Additional committees may be formed and dissolved by the organization…” followed by the procedures for adding and removing committees.[31]
Provide for the creation of bylaws. Article 8 of your constitution should provide the rules on how the organization’s and executive board’s bylaws will be created and amended and who has the power to do so.[32] Note: Bylaws are rules that an organization adopts to govern its internal operations and its dealings with others.[33] These rules are intended to complement the constitution. Bylaws can be detailed rules that cannot be covered in detail in the constitution itself.
• Section 1 of Article 8 can say, for example: “Bylaws of the organization shall be established and amended by…” followed by the procedures for creating and amending the organization’s bylaws.[34]
• Section 2 of Article 8 can say, for example: “Bylaws of the Board shall be established and amended by…” followed by the procedures for amending and creating bylaws of the executive board.[35]
• Bylaws should not contradict anything in the Constitution. Generally, bylaws contain detailed provisions on such topics as membership, dues, duties of officers, the Board, committees, order of business, amendment procedures, and other specific policies and procedures necessary for the organization or its operation.

Write how the constitution can be amended. Article 9 of your constitution should provide the rules on amendments to the constitution. This article should state how and by whom amendments can be proposed and what percentage of vote is required for the amendment to be adopted. A common example is two-thirds of the voting membership.[36] This article may state, for example, "Amendments to the Constitution may be proposed by two-thirds (2⁄3) vote of the Student Council or a petition signed by fifty (50) currently enrolled students."[37]
Write how the proposed constitution shall be ratified. Article 10 of your constitution should provide for how the constitution you are proposing shall be ratified. This article can say, for example: “This constitution shall be established by a vote of a (insert fraction) majority of the membership of the organization.”[38] A recommended fraction for ratification is a 3/4ths majority.[39]
Write how questions concerning the interpretation of the constitution shall be decided. You can write, in Article 11, for example: "Questions concerning the interpretation of this document shall be decided by the Board."[40] *

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.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

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.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

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.

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]

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

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.

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.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

I just received an Unknown Tracker alert on my Pixel 7 running Android 14 beta 5 for an Apple air tag that was on my son in laws key chain as I had borrowed his car.

I heard this was coming but didn't expect it so soon!

Quite impressed with both the information given and the general advice and steps to take offered.

The first notification was "Tracker Travelling With You: Unknown Apple air tag detected. The owner can see your location."

Touching "more info" then shows a map of where the tracker has been with me and the option to make the tracker play a sound to help locate it, with a note that the owner won't know you've done that.

Then more advice and options:

• If you feel unsafe, get help.
• Get and save tracker info
• Disable the tracker (with a how-to guide on battery removal)

And a ”need more help" link.

As I said, I had heard about this coming but was pleasantly surprised at how good it was and the general advice and help offered up.

Nice seeing things like this done right.

Yes, Trump has a real chance of winning in 2024 and that would be dangerous for the world in many ways.

On the other hand Trump seems like the easiest candidate for the presumptive nominee President Biden to beat.

1. A lot of Americans are rightly scared shitless of Trump and will turn out to vote against him.
2. Trump is likely to try to dodge debates which benefits Biden, who has a stuttering problem and a gaffe problem.
3. Trump is elderly, like Biden so that somewhat neutralizes the age issue for Biden.

If Trump was removed from the election DeSantis might become the front runner or nominee

1. He is young, and the age issue would be on Biden again
2. He might have the debates Trump would have eschewed and do well in them
3. DeSantis would likely pick up Trump's base in that situation

The worst scenario with Trump being removed from the election would if someone other than DeSantis became the nominee

1. Again, the age issue would be a thing for Biden again
2. The unknown nominee could be a better debater than Biden
3. The unknown candidate would have neither Trump's nor DeSantis's baggage, causing more voters to stay home or swing voters picking him/her over Biden

Edit:

To clarify, I mean what would happen if Trump was kept entirely out of 2024 - no 3rd party runs, no vote splitting.

This is my first Tildes post and I'll remove it if needed!

I recently dumped some photos from an old cell phone on to an old windows 10 laptop to be stored on an external hard drive.

The phone is a 4 year old Galaxy with 128g onboard storage.

The laptop is an HP running windows 10 and is a notebook-like machine with about 30g total hard drive, the max usable is like 4 or 5 gigs after the OS etc.

At the time of transferring files, I found it quicker to use the available 2.5 gigs I had to put pictures directly on the laptop and then transfer them from there to the external hard drive.

Here is my problem:

2 folders, from separate camping trips, totalling about 380 photos and a few videos are stuck on the desktop and are claiming to take up 4.02 terabytes and thus cannot be moved.

I did notice the file type .heic is not recognized by windows 10, but all my other photos (several thousand,) are the same file type and take up a normal amount of space.

These individual photos in question are claiming to be around 7 to 8 gigs each.

There's not 4 TB between the phone(128g,) laptop(30g,) and the external drive(3tb.)

So the pictures are stuck on this laptop which is only acting as a surrogate computer while I'm building a real desktop PC.

I can keep this laptop forever, even though I'd rather donate it or something, but one of these folders has pictures from the last camping trip with my brother before he took his own life last year, I'd really like to keep them archived and backed up.

Any ideas? Anyone have a similar experience? Thank you for reading and thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Again, I'll delete this post if it's inappropriate.

Cheers.

EDIT: I just realized while proof reading this, that if I can update the codecs where windows can view the files, I could screenshot the photos, but that still leaves me at a loss for the videos.
I miss his goofy laugh, and want to preserve it for his son also.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

EDIT: Post-locked topic

I didn't get the chance to reply or explain myself, ironically, as I posted this topic last night and then woke up this morning to 42 comments this topic being locked.

In short, I didn't want to block swearing from Tildes, I just wanted to find out if there was a NSFW filter, as I had my first one pop up in the feed yesterday. Reddit and other sites allow you to block NSFW content from the get-go. And yes, it is the minority by far on Tildes.

As for the swearing, I don't know why I assumed that the NSFW would remove that, I must have been tired when posting this topic. (And yes, I know that this is the internet and it's filled with non-friendly content, so it is naive to expect otherwise, sadly.)

I guess it would just be nice to have a place where you can have both great quality posts (such as on Tildes), as well as the comments be free of some unnecessary, low-quality words. I think Twitter and others allow you to block some words or topics.

I apologise for @Deimos that he had to step in to bring the peace, I didn't mean for this to happen. And apologies to the community for bringing any unrest. This was never my intention.

Hi everyone, only been on Tildes for a few weeks now.

First off, I love the quality of the content and the community's camraderie.

The only question is whether there is a way to filter NSFW, adult or profane comments. There is such great content on here, with amazing contributors, but sometimes you just get the people who like to use profane language like it's an adjective, and it has no place in the topic or discussion. I know we can't block people, but is there a way of filtering out such content, comments, or users?

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

I know medium has an RSS feed that can be accessed by adding /feed/ before the username/publication name but it's truncated if the publication has a paywall. I've been looking for a way to get the full-text feed but could not find a solution, it looks like it adds a parameter to the link in the rss feed, similar to ?source=rss-d00bc5bb7954------2 but I can't figure out how to remove it. any ideas ?

I'm working on pruning the sources of information that come into my Readwise/Read Later feeds down based on usefulness/actionable in my life and quality. My priorities are for data sources to expand my 'reality tunnel', to provide unique insights (not an echo chamber), and to remove a lot of the 'noise' of the day-to-day information overload. I'm considering what those sources might be. If you have a moment, I'd appreciate your thoughts, advice, and links to any writings or videos that speak to this similar goal and how others have done it. Thanks in advance!

Nick Milo said:

The noise is deafening, but I promise to focus on the high-value signal.

I'm seeking to reduce the noise, and increase the signal of my Reader feeds.

There was a post here the other day asking women about their preferences in a partner's emotional attachment style (not the exact wording, but about as close as I can remember). The responses were overwhelmingly critical of the framing of the question and how it mischaracterized the qualities of a healthy relationship. Upon looking at life.women a day or two later, it seems to have been removed.

While I agree that the post showed problematic thinking and was kind of a nuisance post rather than one which fostered healthy discussion, I'm not sure I agree with removing it entirely. The original poster did not seem to have any malicious intent, but instead displayed a flawed internal view of healthy relationships. Though the feedback was likely not what they were hoping for, I think it could be instructional not only for that original poster but also for any other site visitors who may have a similar way of thinking. If someone were to read the post and not recognize anything wrong with it, only to then read the criticism in the comments, it's possible they may discover that their own thinking is flawed in a similar way to OP and seek to change the way they view the topic. If we hide every problematic question, people with similar thinking won't ever see that 1) other people have similar problematic views and 2) those views are problematic for reasons X, Y, and Z.

More simply, if people come here and ask questions that we find distasteful, instead of deleting them should we leave them up with the relevant feedback so that other people learn from that interaction and develop a better idea of where the poster went wrong? It feels like there are a lot of folks out there that might be simply ignorant about social and relationship norms and could learn by example. If these people never see a post where someone is getting called out for their misguided thinking, how do we expect them to learn what's acceptable and what isn't?

I'm curious to hear your opinions. Should we tolerate entertaining some troublesome questions in order to better educate others, or is it not our job to teach them proper social skills/those posts don't belong here at all?

(To be clear, I do not support leaving up anything overtly abusive or malicious/hateful, those should obviously be removed ASAP).

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

:wave: everyone, I've been thinking about where to put non-technical blog posts and what to call them since, so far, I have bookmark/, cheatsheet/, howto/, note/, snippet/ and tutorial/ folders already[1].

I think those cover most of the things I like writing about and I intend to share, but I also enjoy poetry, analyzing movies, political commentary and writing an essay here and there.

Following from that, I kept essay/, poem/ and commentary/ around for whenever I felt like sharing some of my non-technical writings, but I don't like those folders :smile:. They seem way too granular, more akin to tags than categories, both of which are contained in each file's metadata.

Tags, however, don't feel like a "pillar"/category of a Zettelkasten/ramblings/thoughts crate. They're empty at the moment and in draft/, so it's the perfect chance to do some re-structuring and avoid the issues I faced when I ditched blog/category and chose the current structure.

In case you're asking yourself why I didn't put everything in the same folder, as they reflect categories and each .md file has category metadata already, it's because the drafts in draft/ became unmanageable (+120). So, in an effort to give myself an easier way to navigate and edit, I decided /folders were going to reflect the categories that existed. I'm aware it can be that after note #50 or something I have the same problem, and thus it wouldn't have made a difference whether notes were together with tutorials or not. I've decided to deal with that problem when it arises :)

I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts! Would you keep essay/, poem/ and commentary/ or merge them into something else? note/ are short and wouldn't feel right for longer ramblings. I am not a big fan of writings/ as everything is a "writing", prose/ also doesn't quite fit and so far the only one I've sort of liked is reflection/ since essays, poems, and comments on happenings are the result of reflecting.

/rant over, I know, I'm overthinking it. Let those not guilty throw the first stone :)

[1] I've removed quite a bit of the irrelevant stuff but kept what I believe is relevant, but feel free to ask away in case something necessary is missing.

.
├── bookmark/
│   └── sample.md
├── cheatsheet/
│   ├── sample.md
│   └── sample.md-data
├── commentary/
├── draft/
│   ├── bookmark/
│   │   └── sample.md
│   ├── cheatsheet/
│   │   └── sample.md
│   └── ...
├── essay/
├── extra/
│   ├── archive/
│   ├── blob/
│   └── robots.txt
├── howto/
│   └── sample.md
├── note/
│   └── sample.md
├── poem
├── private/
│   └── sample.md
├── snippet/
│   └── sample.md
└── tutorial/
    ├── sample.md
    └── sample.md-data/
        ├── sample.png
        └── ...

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/reddit-mods-fear-spam-overload-as-botdefense-leaves-antagonistic-reddit/

the Reddit community is still reckoning with the consequences of the platform's API price hike. The changes have led to the shuttering of numerous third-party Reddit apps and have pushed several important communities, like the Ask Me Anything (AMAs) organizers, to reduce or end their presence on the site.

The latest group to announce its departure is BotDefense. BotDefense, which helps removes rogue submission and comment bots from Reddit and which is maintained by volunteer moderators, is said to help moderate 3,650 subreddits. BotDefense's creator told Ars Technica that the team is now quitting over Reddit's "antagonistic actions" toward moderators and developers, with concerning implications for spam moderation on some large subreddits like r/space.

BotDefense started in 2019 as a volunteer project and has been run by volunteer mods, known as "dequeued" and "abrownn" on Reddit. Since then, it claims to have populated its ban list with 144,926 accounts, and it helps moderate subreddits with huge followings, like r/gaming (37.4 million members), /r/aww (34.2 million), r/music (32.4 million), r/Jokes (26.2 million), r/space (23.5 million), and /r/LifeProTips (22.2 million). Dequeued told Ars that other large subreddits BotDefense helps moderates include /r/food, /r/EarthPorn, /r/DIY, and /r/mildlyinteresting.

On Wednesday, dequeued announced that BotDefense is ceasing operations. BotDefense has already stopped accepting bot account submissions and will disable future action on bots. BotDefense "will continue to review appeals and process unbans for a minimum of 90 days or until Reddit breaks the code running BotDefense," the announcement said. The announcement also advised "keeping BotDefense as a moderator through October 3rd so any future unbans can be processed."

I don't intend this to be a sales pitch or anything, I just wanted to share my impression of the Bambu Labs P1P 3D printer in case anyone on here was curious and maybe considering buying one themselves.

I have owned a few Prusa FDM printers over the years but recently tried the Bambu Labs P1P after seeing tons of rave reviews, especially in terms of how fast it prints. Anyone that has done any 3d prints knows that print time is among the least enjoyable aspects of the hobby: lots of waiting.

Right out the gate, the P1P is a solid device with impressive construction given its relatively low price tag (I got it for $600 USD). And this thing easily rivals high performance machines in it's same "category", like the Prusa mk 3 and 4. And those are typically more expensive; the P1P comes 99.5% assembled at that price but a Prusa machine fully assembled is around 60% more expensive.

Most of the "assembly" is just removing packaging, like zip ties, that kept the unit safe and secure during transit. Then you connect the power cable, screen, spool holder, and filament tube. And that's it. The whole thing took maybe 10 minutes.

Getting the WiFi to connect is impossible for me at the moment, but I don't mind copying sliced gcode to the included microsd for printing. Sure, sending the gcode over WiFi would be super cool, but my Prusa doesn't do that so it's not like I've lost something. I'm hoping to eventually figure it out but that's not a deal breaker for me. I'm guessing I just need to temporarily move the printer next to the WiFi router but I haven't made time for it because I'm enjoying just printing off the card.

With the included 0.4mm nozzle (a standard size), it prints typically 2 to 3 times faster. Something that takes 23 hours might take 11. Something that takes 3 hours might take 1. For larger and more complex prints, you can get stuff done so much faster. For smaller and simpler prints, you no longer need to plan batches either first thing in the morning or overnight, you can just start them whenever. Whatever you printed before, you can print 2 to 3 times as many in one go in the same amount of time.

I don't have the AMS system but hope to get that at some point. If it has the same high quality build and performance as the P1P then I'm certain it will bring me simple multi-filament printing. And although I'm not nearly rich enough to afford more than 1 AMS, you can technically connect up to to 4 at once. Each unit holds up to 4 filament spools, so 4x4 means you could theoretically use 16 different filaments in a single print. The colors you could have! But each unit is like $350. Ouch.

I only have 2 real gripes with it so far. First, it purges way too much filament at the start of a print. I get why it does that, it absolutely ensures that your filament is always properly primed to assist in printing that critical first layer correctly, but it feels very wasteful to have a seemingly-excessive amount of filament thrown away with each print.

Second gripe is that the default spool holder is awful to access. You are likely to put the back of the machine facing a wall and that's where the spool holder will end up facing: the wall. You need to ensure the printer is a little more than two spool's width away from the wall - at the very least - so you can slide your spools on and off. Thankfully the bed doesn't move back and forth like with traditional fdm printers, thanks to the corexy technology, so you can more easily plan out where to put it and how much space it will need.

I haven't messed around with them yet but I just got additional hotends for it that I will be testing soon. The pack I got contains 0.2mm for prints that require very fine detail, 0.6mm for prints where detail is slightly less important than speed, and 0.8mm for when you want to go fast and don't care how much detail you get. Because they use a proprietary construction of hotend, you must use theirs, but the upside is that it's fairly fast and simple to switch them out. Most hotends, you just replace the tip, the actual nozzle. But because filament can gunk up the threads, you need to run it hot to unscrew the nozzle, which is very dangerous. With the P1P, you just pull off the magnetic faceplate, undo a few screws, swap the hotend, put the screws back, and pop the faceplate back on. In just a few minutes, you're done. And no need to turn on the hotend either; just unload your filament prior, let it cool down, and swap away. A much safer and more pleasant experience.

Overall, I'm in love with 3d printing all over again. It's the same feeling I got all those years ago when I did my very first 3d print. And sure, the Prusa is still great when you want high quality detailed prints. Going slow and steady wins that particular race still. But I get quality that is 90+% comparable to what the prusa gives me in exchange for literally 2x to 3x print speeds. That's an easy trade for me. And the slicer software estimates that some of my larger and less detailed prints could print in right 2/3 the time using the 0.6mm nozzle instead of the default 0.4mm. That translates to roughly 7 hours on my Prusa (0.4), 3.5 hours in my P1P (0.4), and 2 hours on my P1P (0.6). Given how much easier it is to swap out nozzles on the P1P, I can see myself actually doing that not frequently for certain prints that, like in my example, see substantial benefit.

I'm very excited to see how this machine holds up in the long run!

At the suggestion of a certain heathen who shall remain unnamed. I'm tossing up a quick and dirty comment (and post text) formatting guide. There is a formatting guide in the docs/wiki with a link just above the comment box, but it can be a bit much to digest.

*italics*
**bold**
~~strikethrough~~
[Text goes here](URL goes here)
<small>small text</small> 
<sub>subscript</sub>
<sup>superscript</sup>
# headline
`code which removes the formatting and makes it look like this block`
* bulleted
* lists
1. and
1. numbered
1. lists

Spoilers is a bit more complicated, the <details> start and end </details> is required, but the <summary> start and end </summary> is not unless you want text in the summary or you want the summary to be blank.

<details>
<summary>Summary text!</summary>

Body text inside spoiler!
</details>

Three underscores (or dashes, but dashes require an extra line) in a row on their own line creates a blank line to divide a topic...
---

You also have a sub-headline text option by putting a single dash under text...
-
...or headline text by putting an equal sign under text.
=

If you like userscripts (who doesn't?) you can install extensions like ViolentMonkey that allow you to install little bits of code like the Tildes Formatting Toolbar that can change/improve the sites you use and make formatting here a breeze.

Do use the formatting responsibly, but here are examples for bold, italics, strikethrough, links, small text, sub_script, super^script,

headline text,

sub-headline text,

code,

• bulleted
• lists,

1. and
2. numbered
3. lists

Most formatting can be combined as well such as superscripts, lines, and small text to make...

...sentences with a...¹

¹...footnote

Hey all, so I'm a trans woman and, like a lot of other people, my biggest point of dysphoria is my facial hair. I've been going through electrolysis for the past five months. I love it when it works, but the speed of the process is really getting me down. I do one hour every two weeks (I'd do more if I had the money), and after five months of solely working on my upper lip the progress just isn't where I was hoping to be.

What are y'alls experiences with electro, and what was the regiment that worked for you? Did you do something other than electrolysis, how'd it work out? Other general hair removal tips to look as clean as possible?

I'll share one of my own:

• The Finishing Touch Flawless Razor (Walmart link) has been the best, and most affordable electric razor I've found that gets an extremely close shave without too much skin irritation (I have the most irritated skin in the world). Highly recommend!

I have wasps building hives under the eves on my house. I'm looking for a way to kill them without Raid or other harsh chemicals. Right now there seems to be about 10 hornets starting on this hive. I see a number of other places they've made hives around the house that were removed before we moved in. My current options that I've found so far are spraying with dawn soap/water/garden sprayer or peppermint. It seems a little too high to get a garbage bag around them easily before pissing them off. Any other good ideas?

I have followed numerous discussions on here lately regarding extracting oneself from being Google-reliant, and they've all deeply resonated with me. For years now I've been slowly migrating numerous Google-bound things over to my own self-hosted alternatives. I've moved my storage, contacts, documents, and some (but sadly not all) of my calendars to home solutions, fairly easily too.

But the biggest hurdle I've been facing this whole time, the one I've been putting off the longest, is the act of figuring out how to get almost twenty years of mail archive and history on my primary account away from Google and into a space where I can access it separately. I have been steadily changing the main email on my more active external accounts to a self-hosted one, and now only seeing a shrinking handful of lesser-used services still attached to the old gmail. But that history is too precious to me, and I still find multiple occasions where I need/want to reference some communications from long ago.

I've tried searching the web for options, but so far all combinations of my queries are either really elementary "here's how to set up a new email" crap, or else aimed at moving from one Gmail account to another Gmail account. I've been thinking that the simplest approach might be just to set it up as a POP3 account in my mail client (eM Client, for the record), download it all, and then when I finally pull the plug just drag it into the local client archive, and then remove the account from the app. But I figure there have to be others who have done this, right?

Howdy everyone! In talklittle's fundraiser I pledged I would fix all outstanding issues of Tildes ReExtended before 2023 is over should we reach 200 donors. Well the 200 donors mark was hit pretty quickly, so after over a year of inactivity I've gotten back to it and brought Tildes ReExtended up to speed again.

Most of the work so far has been on getting the codebase up to par with my current preferences, but there is also a new feature and some bug fixes. Namely: the long-awaited Hide Topics feature with 4 different ways of selecting topics to automatically hide. The content scripts will run as soon as the HTML is available, meaning there should be less stuff popping in or out, the Hide Votes was also fixed so it now hides the correct votes again (yay edge cases Edit: I just noticed another edge case doesn't work :^) fuck). And also the extension is about 3.5 times smaller in size now (245KB -> 70KB). :D

If you don't know what Tildes ReExtended is, it's basically the Tildes equivalent of the Reddit Enhancement Suite extension. Commonly requested features that can be implemented client-side (like the Hide Votes feature) and quality of life utilities like the Jump To New Comment and Back To Top buttons.

Hope you like it!

• Mozilla Addons
• Chrome Web Store

If you're new to Tildes and like what you see, please consider donating! Tildes is a non-profit community site driven by its users' interests and any amount of support ensures it can keep going. Thank you! 💖

The only sane way to use Twitter was to follow a bunch of cool artists, set up TweetDeck, filter it to "tweets with images only", and just look at pretty pictures.

And now that's been completely removed. Does anyone know of any alternatives? I don't need any of the other features of TweetDeck, I just need that images-only filter...

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.