Hey all!

My wife and I are waiting to board our flight to Norway to spend Christmas with her family in Sarpsborg. However, we'll be spending about 10 days there and spending out nights in a hotel in Oslo, so we'll def have time to ourselves without family obligations. If anyone (local or not) has recommendations for favorite restaurants or cafés, please share them here! Especially stuff on the cozy and cheap(er) end.

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.

So far Tildes for me has been truly refreshing. Instead of the polarizing bashing that happens on other social media platforms, the discussions over here have been more than high quality. Actual discussions on topics is the norm and people are aware that other opinions exist.

Cheers to you all and let's keep it that way.

This is Album of the Week #14 ~ This week's album is Love - Forever Changes

Year of Release: 1967
Genre(s): Psychedelic Pop
Country: United States
Length: 42 minutes
RYM | Listen! (Album.Link)

Excerpt from AV Club:

Forever Changes, for all of its gorgeous balladry, layered acoustic guitars, and silky string arrangements, is filled with passion and angst. 1967 may have been The Summer Of Love, but Forever Changes dismantles any notions of free love and social change. Opening track “Alone Again Or” boasts the overtly hippie line “You know that I could be in love with almost everyone.” Love pulls off a bait-and-switch though, undercutting that line just moments later with, “and I will be alone again tonight, my dear,” a line that closes every verse and positions the album as one of isolation and disconnect.

Discussion points:
Have you heard this artist/album before? Is this your first time hearing?
Do you enjoy this genre? Is this an album you would have chosen?
Does this album remind you of something you've heard before?
What were the album's strengths or weaknesses?
Was there a standout track for you?
How did you hear the album? Where were you? What was your setup?

--

Album of the week is currently chosen randomly (via random.org) from the top 5000 albums from a custom all-time RYM chart, with a 4/5 popularity weighting. The chart is recalculated weekly.

Missed last week? It can be found here.

Any feedback on the format is welcome ~~

The next movie from the 1990s is The Talented Mr. Ripley from 1999 directed by Anthony Minghella with a 90s moviestar lineup of Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Cate Blanchett, Philip Seymour Hoffman and many others. Based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith from 1955.

IMDb
Letterboxd
Wikipedia

Feel free to add any thoughts, opinions, reflections, analysis or whatever comments related to this film.

The rest of the schedule is:

• 25th of December: Home Alone

I'm basically very new to complicated tabletop games but I've been in love with this game for well over a year now but it's really hard to find people that want to play it multiple times with me (physically) because the setup and learning process takes 30-45 minutes for the average new-ish player. I just learned (today) that there's also an online component to it. If anybody else loves this game I'd be down to start an online game with you and your friends if they'd like to.

Edit No.1: I don't currently have a way to access steam but I should soon (assuming the Microsoft Surface Pro 9 can run games). If so I will DM everyone on here :)

Edit No. 2: I had no idea that this post would get this many comments (5 at the time of this edit). I'm very glad that my niche nerdy interest resonates with people. Whenever I get my lil computer/tablet thingy I wanna make a group chat thingy (maybe discord, never used before) with y'all so we can set up some games together. Looking forward to our future games.

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/18

Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

<details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>

So usually every couple weeks I make a pot roast on the weekend, however my crock pot broke I discovered, just prior to making it. My girlfriend and I need to eat it prior to leaving town this Thursday after work. As I have work all week, I don't have time to make an 8 hour pot roast, so I need an idea of what I can do with this thing.

I doubt I'll find any new ideas, but maybe someone here has one. I'm running out of places to turn, with no solution.

I have been in a fight with Fitbit support for a few weeks now over their push to migrate everyone to a Google-linked Fitbit account. I'm pretty sure what I've found is a rare edge case of a bug, or rather, an unaccounted for set of conditions when trying to migrate.

A long time ago, 2017 I think, I created a Google-linked Fitbit Account (via oauth, "Login with Google"). I used it briefly and then stopped, and completely forgot about its existence.

In 2022, I got a Pixel Watch and created a new/second Fitbit Account with a different email address, as I did not remember I had a Fitbit account already and I wanted to use a masked email address through my personal domain.

With the push to migrate all Fitbit accounts to Google accounts, I decided to try to do so last month. When I attempted to migrate my second account to a Google account, I got an error that I already had an account registered under my Google account. So I logged in to that old 2017 Google account and initiated its deletion. It told it me would take 30 days to delete it, so I waited 31 days.

31 days later, I tried to migrate my second account to a Google account. When I try to do so, I get an error:

Can't use Fitbit with this Google Account
This could be because you're using a Google Workspace account, or because your account is supervised.

My account is neither a child account, nor a Workspace account, it's a standard (adult) account I've had for something like 16 years.

So I tried to see if my old Google account was perhaps not deleted after all. I tried to log in to my old account via oauth (Sign In > Continue with Google), and I get a different error:

Sign in again to continue
Since you deleted Fitbit from your Google Account, you’ll need to sign in again as a new user.

I suspect that what happens when I deleted my old/original Google account is that it wasn't actually deleted, but made inactive with some "deleted" flag, but the account hasn't been purged. As a result, I'm unable to migrate my new account to the same email address I used for my old Google account.

Reaching out to Fitbit, they continually put the blame on Google for reporting my account as a workspace/supervised account, and the only solution they'll offer me is "You should create a new Google account". Google has also been unable to help, but that doesn't surprise me, as I don't think it's an issue on their end. Requests to Fitbit to escalate my case to a higher tier of support and/or someone from some type of database team have been stonewalled, and I think that Fitbit support has now just stopped responding to me entirely.

Does anyone have any idea where I could turn?

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/17

Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

<details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>

So as the title states, I am realizing that most folks don't have CD readers. I do, and I can burn my phone's videos to one, but... I also use Linux these days. I have a CD burner somewhere around here, but honestly I just want to do a "zip file" type option, where I can just group the videos and get them on a usb stick to send out.

Everything I find on the 'net is about burning CDs and whatnot... which isn't my goal. Honestly, I think windows did this just easy-peasy with select and "burn to image" or whatnot. But I dunno how with Linux (Arch/i3).

Edit: I'm asking because I don't see any options in pacman. It may be in yay, but it's my bedtime...
Edit 2: Lots of folks asking why I want an ISO and not just copy the files; my dad states their TV will play videos 'in a DVD format from a USB stick' (and I don't know how accurate it is, but it's what was requested).

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

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I have an external drive (3.5" hdd, SATA) in an enclosure (usb 3) (purchased separately), connected to a thunderbolt dock (OWC) connected alternately to an iMac and a macbook pro. The HDD goes to sleep, and causes problems. Freezes, weird internet access problems, kernel panics.

I have done some research, and can't seem to figure out:

how to know whether it is the drive, enclosure, or computer causing the sleep, although, fiddling with various settings on the mac seemed to have no effect, although it may have increased my battery usage :(

how to adjust settings on the drive, or in the enclosure.

How to determine what the sleep behavior of prospective drives will be.

As a workaround, I tried to write a zsh script to touch the drive ever few seconds. This kinda worked, but was a struggle to figure out appropriate permissions issues and how to make it run automatically.

I welcome all guidance, pointers to resources, clarifications, incantations, well-wishes.