This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

We took the Amtrak Zephyr route across the West. As usual, seats were comfortable. I had done this once before, but not in the Winter. The route between Salt Lake and Denver winds through some extremely remote canyons with no roads. The canyons are narrow and the scenery is spectacular. My mountain climbing days are behind me and this was the next best thing. I recommend the experience but don't expect gourmet food. We brought our own except for one meal in the dining car and that was about the right proportion for us.

I am an experienced programmer (mostly M$ stack -- C#, etc).

I started learning mobile Android development a few months ago, learning both Kotlin and the larger Android development environment at the same time. I got bogged down in tutorials and guides, because half of them teach Jetpack Compose methodology and half teach XML layout ... and, often enough, don't bother to mention which method they're using.

Which should I learn first? I am initially interested in learning Android dev for my own hobby/fun/side projects, but I would--ultimately--like to be able to put "Android developer" on my resume.

Jetpack definitely looks better, more modern, more OO, and I expect it will eventually become the new standard ... but that could still be many years down the road. Also, while it might be "better"--especially for larger projects--it also smells more complicated.

So, ultimately, I guess I should learn both if I actually intend to become an Android dev ... but I should definitely get comfortable with one, first ... so, which one?

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/21

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>

I recently took the Amtrak/Via Rail "Maple Leaf" train all the way from New York City, NY, USA to Toronto, ON, Canada. It took about 13 hours each way. I had taken portions of this route before but never the whole thing. There is only one trip each direction per day. It stops at several points in the US and Canada.

I was pleased with the journey even though I would have preferred the train to run at twice the speed it did. It was a beautiful and scenic ride punctuated by a number of historic cities. The Amtrak personnel on longer-distance routes like this are particularly pleasant, funny, and personable.

• NYC (Penn) to Albany–Rensselaer (~150 miles): about 2.5 hours on paper plus a slightly excessive wait at the Albany station (which is quite nice, through located nowhere near Albany proper). I believe this time is used to change the locomotive. This was the most gorgeous part of the trip by far: the train follows the east side of the Hudson River for the entire stretch and you have a constant view of the Palisades across the water. This is the fastest part of the journey. Going north, you want to be on the left side of the train; going south, the right (but it gets dark early this time of year).
• Albany–Rensselaer to Canadian border (~300 miles): about 6.5 hours on paper. Here, the train turns to meet each of the western cities, including Schenectady, Utica, Rome, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo (twice). This segment isn't as scenic as the Hudson, but it takes you through a lot of farm country, which is nice to look at too. The train's average speed along this route is considerably slower than the southern section. I assume this is because there are more at-grade crossings or some track alignment slowdowns.
• Canadian border to Toronto (Union) (~80 miles): about 2 hours on paper. Not the most aesthetically pleasing section of the route, and dark for me going north. The train runs abysmally slowly in this section both because there are a lot of stops in short intervals and more importantly because there are an absurd number of at-grade crossings throughout the route, plus, I assume, various engineering-based speed restrictions from windy track alignments. But Union Station is a gorgeous building and very easy to navigate. Connections to the UP Express and subway are trivial.

You'll notice that the times I listed don't add up to 13 hours, the full length of the trip (on paper). This was because the train stops for an irritating amount of time at the border, the only part I didn't like, which unnecessarily adds ~2 hours to the trip. What happens is:

1. Amtrak personnel provide you a customs declaration form to fill out about 30 minutes before you arrive at Niagara Falls. Have a pen handy.
2. Train stops at the Niagara Falls, NY (NFL) station for upwards of 45 minutes, nominally so that the border control agents can "get ready" to receive you. Why they did not prepare during the 10+ hours they had all day I could not say. If you're crossing the border, you do not get out here, but wait until the train starts moving again.
3. Train goes to the Niagara Falls, ON (NFS) station in about 5 minutes. Now you disembark with all luggage and walk into the building for security screening. On the Canadian side, they just ask you a couple questions: no complex screening. It took about 15 minutes. Then, for some indecipherable reason, they direct you outside the station and instruct you to walk around and go into the main entrance to wait. (Yes, truly magnificent routing.)
4. You sit in their waiting room for at least 30 minutes with the other passengers. The reason you are waiting is so that they can search the entire train for contraband. When finished, you are ushered back on board. The business class passengers reboard the train (the same train) first, then coach passengers. The rest of the trip is operated by Via Rail. (Note: you don't have to buy anything from Via except maybe if you are starting in Ontario and going to Toronto. Amtrak's ticket covers the whole route from the US and back.)

Going from Canada to the US, the process is basically the same, except that the Americans force you to go through an airport-style bag screening check, which I consider utterly redundant. They also have multiple dogs sniffing you for drugs (I assume). The dogs are cute, but do not touch, for they are deadly creatures hard at work. All the scanning and sniffing and waiting takes at least 45 minutes to an hour. Thankfully you can keep your shoes on. I'm a US citizen with TSA Pre-Check and whatnot, so they don't give me trouble with the security questions, but they have no problem interrogating people for a long time and painstakingly searching multiple bags because the dog thought it smelled a piece of bacon.

It is an incredibly stupid and unnecessary process. Bags are not scanned when driving through the border by car. Dogs do not sniff your belongings and person when driving by car. You do not have to exit your car, take out all your belongings, and sit around in a waiting room for an hour when driving by car. Frankly airport security is faster than this was. It's no wonder this train isn't the preferred method of travel!

Despite the pointless border security, the trip was enjoyable and I will do it again the next time I visit Toronto from New York. It was also cheaper than flying at the time I booked it: ~$134 in coach (minus 10% for my Rail Passengers Association discount! So really $121) vs. ~$185 for a one-way flight (when I was looking). I think if you book far enough in advance, you can get a flight for as little as $90, but you usually have to fly out of LaGuardia or JFK for the cheap tickets, which are the worst airports known to mankind and also are not on the NEC. LGA is particularly hard to access. (I almost always fly out of Newark for these reasons.)

It does take... the entire day, though. So you have to treat it more like an experience than strictly transit. If you have friends in upstate New York, this is a good opportunity to visit for a night or two!

I have been having fun learning about generative AI. All in the cloud -- I got some models on hugging face to work, tried out Colab Pro, and found another cloud provider that runs SD models (dreamlook.ai if anyone is interested).

It's got me curious about trying to run something locally (mostly stable diffusion/dreambooth, possibly ollama).
I currently have a Thinkpad T490 with 16 gb ram and the base-level graphics card. I haven't actually tried to run anything locally, on the assumption that it would be extremely slow. I saw that you can get an external GPU, though I also saw some reports of headaches trying to get external GPUs up and running.

I am curious what a workstation might cost that could do a reasonable job running local models. I am not a huge gamer or have any other high performance needs that are not currently served by the Thinkpad; not sure I can justify a $3000 workstation just to make a few jpgs.

I would be happy to buy something secondhand, like if there was a good source of off-lease workstations.

Alternatively-- if you have a similar computer to the T490 and do run models locally, what sort of performance is reasonable to expect? Would it be enough to buy some more RAM for this laptop?

Thanks for any advice!

Hey, good people of Tildes!

I'm building a self-help web app, a small part of which I'd like to involve some pixel pets. I like pixel art and it'd be great if I could create some. Though, the truth is, I can't draw for shit, I have little to no imagination, and I'm afraid even if I put the time and effort into it, I still may not produce something I'd call good enough to put on the website. I also lack the motivation to spend a lot of time learning how to create good pixel art, as I only need it for this project.

I thought about paying some professional(s) to do it but that would probably break the bank for me, as I want to offer the users a lot of pixel pet options, which brings us to what I guess is the only remaining option.

I found some services that offer AI-generated pixel art. This one in particular looks like what I'm looking for and also offers animations. While watching a demo of it on YouTube, I noticed a few comments voicing concern about the ethics of selling art that's generated using models trained off of unpaid artists' work. While this is not a new topic, I admittedly hadn't given it much thought before, as I've never used, or planned to use AI-generated art in a meaningful capacity.

While I'm not sure whether it changes much, for what it's worth, I should note that my web app is going to be free, open-source, and ad-free forever.

What are your thoughts? Also, I'd love to know if there are options that I missed!

1. When did you stop celebrating?
2. Why did you stop celebrating?
3. How have family and friends responded?
4. What do you do instead, if anything?

Disclaimer - I am not aiming to shame or undermine those who do celebrate, this is just friendly a discussion for those who don’t.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Just for a moment, forget all of the technical pros and cons, the static typing, just-in-time compilation, operator overloading, object orientation to the max...

Is there a programming language that you've just found to be... fun?

Is there one that you'd pick above all else for personal or company projects, if you had your druthers, because you would simply be so excited to use it?

And then, is there something missing in that "fun" language that's preventing it from actually becoming a reality (i.e. small community, lack of libraries, maintenance ended in the 80s, etc.)?

I am interested in the amount of variety there is in Christmas dinners. In the UK it tends to be roast meat (and turkey is popular) and a lot of roast veg. The table ends up being quite complicated because Aunt Mabel really wants cauliflower cheese and Cousin Bert needs that braised red cabbage and etc so you end up with a lot of stuff set out.

And that's just the UK - I'd be really interested to know about what people eat in other places.

For me it's going to be simple and quiet this year. Chemotherapy and immunotherapy mean my immune system is struggling and I feel very gently nauseous. I am going to have roast chicken, glazed roast parsnips, carrots (not sure whether mashed, or roasted, or gently steamed), roast potatoes, and roast sprouts. And then my sister made me a Christmas pudding so I'll have that for after.

Here's a description of and recipe for Christmas Pudding: https://www.nigella.com/recipes/ultimate-christmas-pudding

Hey all, hope you're doing well today. I'm visiting NYC for the first time with my wife in January (she's been a couple of times already), and I would greatly appreciate any advice or recommendations you could offer! Of course I have to do the obligatory Broadway show and pizza, and I have this nifty little guidebook, and wow as I write this I am such a tourist.

Thanks!

Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you.

It could be one quirky video that you feel deserves some eyeballs on it, or perhaps you've got a curated list of videos that you'd love to talk us through...

Share some of the best video content you've watched this past week/fortnight with us!

This is an off-shore sweat-shop knock off variant of @Akir 's "Kitchen Towel" installment of "Someone Asks Basic Life Questions to the Internet" thread, which was very popular.

Short problem: So many different types of stuff around the house and I'm sick of it.

Longer problem:

I have dozens upon dozens of types of towels, gifted to me from teenage years from someone, and I've never managed to be able to buy my own towels. And it sucks. They're all different types and styles and sizes and fabric and....I'm old now and I hate it and I just want to fold ONE type of towel in the bathroom and ONE type of towel in the kitchen. I would like different colours for different purposes, maybe I can decorate them myself or whatever -- but I want standardization. From @Akir's thread, I learned about "Flour Sack Towels" from @tanglisha and omg where had that advice been all my life. I feel like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for kitchen towels.

What I need:

Recommendations for all types of household goods that have stood the test of time, where I can obtain the same product from multiple sources or one long standing brand that is not interested in diversification.

one common type, common functions, common properties

Example: Corelle dishes. I have "big plates" and "little plates" and "bowls" that are all the same size and form, and at thrift stores I can easily find replacements of these common types, even if they were made decades apart and in different patterns. All exactly the same: serves the same and washes the same and stacks the same. The company seems uninterested in discontinuing their line of products and I love them for it. I need the Corelle of all things.

What are your trusty brands and types of "things" that are so obvious you'd never have to think about buying any other types of? Something so standardized that in your region they're just known as "----" instead of what they are actually called or brand name or size?

Do you know a brand that just makes ONE thing forever and they'll never change? Or a public domain type of thing that's an industry standard? I need to know what they are. Nails? Screws? Tools? Computer things? Cables? Cutlery? Knives? Types of household chemicals? Spices? Meat cuts? Margarine? Storage bins? Kinds of wood? All kinds of things, please.

Side question about existing, gifted, singleton household towels and socks :

I'd like to ask about what to do with my existing million different types of socks and towels. I want to buy my own as an now older adult. At what point should I flat out tell them to stop giving me socks and towels? Do I just suck it up and keep quietly re-gifting them to food bank? What about all the ones in current rotation? I would hate to throw out stuff but at this point I'm nearly ready to do it.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

I've offered to cook Christmas Dinner for my husband's side of the family, but have one problem. While my husband and I aren't the biggest beef eaters nor big fans of steak, my in-laws are. I don't mind cooking for their requests and find it a fun challenge to cook a different type of meat, but here's the concern: due to not regularly cooking it, I'm not as well versed in the methods or approaches.

They would prefer either a prime rib roast or beef tenderloin; both cuts I have never worked with. While there are a number of recipes out there, I would like see if anyone on Tildes has a recommendation on how to cook either cut or another of similar quality. My mother-in-law does not like a lot of pink appearing in her steaks as well, so I'm having to consider how to handle that while also not over cooking the meat. I was already considering dry brining it overnight, but after that I'm unsure what direction i would go.

Any tips and advice would be greatly appreciated!

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/20

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>

Desk space at my home is very limited.

Right now I have a set of speakers hanging out behind my external monitor, but I'd really rather get rid of them entirely and just have the speakers/soundbar built-in to the monitor itself. It would give me a lot more room to work with because I'd be able to push the monitor back further on the desk.

Also, presumably (and correct me if I'm wrong here), having the speakers powered by the monitor and fed audio through HDMI would free up a lot of cabling clutter as well. My setup is already very messy (2 laptops and a KVM switch), so cleaning it up will give me some relief (my theme of 2023 is "Simplify").

I know nothing about buying computer monitors. When I look them up, I'm not even sure which type I should be looking for (IPS? OLED?).

I do plan to game on it, but most gaming-focused monitors seem like overkill for someone like me who will primarily have it hooked up to a middling 5-year-old laptop that plays mostly indie stuff. I do occasionally play the more intensive/prettier game, but those are usually usually far between and definitely not a priority that's worth spending a bunch to target. I tend to tank the graphics settings on games like that anyway to keep my laptop from becoming a cooking surface, and I'll take a smoother framerate over better eye candy all day, every day.

What are the trusted brands (if any)? What pitfalls should I look out for? If anyone can help point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it!

My use case: general browsing and (mostly casual) gaming

My computer: System76 Oryx Pro 5 (2019), NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 Mobile, Pop!_OS 22.04

My budget: ultimately whatever is necessary to get a quality product, but hopefully no more than $300 USD or so?

Preferred Size: 24" -- absolute maximum I could do is probably 27"

Key Feature: built-in speakers or soundbar

Let me know if there's any other key information I can provide that would help.

Questions I Have:

• Will buying a higher resolution monitor (e.g. 4K) tax my graphics card more because it's rendering at a higher resolution, or can I just scale down the display resolution to something less intensive?

• Same question as above, but for refresh rate.

• Would audio be transmitted over HDMI, or would I have to have a cable from the headphone jack (or some different method I'm not aware of)?