I’m looking for a search engine just for news; kind of a Google News competitor but something independent. Any ideas?

I know of Ground News, it’s already pretty good though it’s less search engine and more aggregator. Open to hear more.

I like that music app algorithms are able to suggest similar songs to add to my playlist, but I wish there were a way to specify bpm for the song suggestions. I get extra motivation from a playlist with a specific and consistent bpm when I'm doing jump rope or using the treadmill.

Is there an easy way to search for songs based on both "vibes" and bpm?

Or alternatively, music playing app that can auto adjust songs in a playlist to all play at the same bpm.

While there were conversations about this in the past, those were much more generalized.

Now, I personally don't have issues creating world maps, regional maps, or 'battle' maps, as it were, but when it comes to city maps... I'm consistently at a loss. That said, I don't want this to just be me begging and whining into the void about how I can't find something that I prefer to make city maps in, so here's what I've used and would recommend over the past 15 years or so:

• World Maps: Wonderdraft, Photoshop, Campaign Cartographer (probably about ten years ago, and I never finished a map with it)

Of these, I definitely recommend Wonderdraft the most. I think if you put in enough time and effort, Photoshop can turn out better (and most detailed), but if you're interested in a style that Wonderdraft has support (and assets) for, it's pretty much perfect. It's a one-time cost, has been getting consistent updates and support since it was in beta years ago, and the community assets are pretty much unending. The one caveat to Wonderdraft is that if you want to make an absolute behemoth of a map (like I'm apt to do), it will eat some serious resources and can begin to lag, due to how it handles each individual tree/mountain/path as a singular, editable asset.

Campaign Cartographer is an oldie that I tried about ten years ago, had some success with (mostly in how it designed continent outlines and things), but just didn't feel like it had enough malleability to create things the way I saw fit.

• Region/Continent Maps: Wonderdraft, Photoshop, Inkarnate

I think everything I said about world maps applies here, as well. I haven't used Inkarnate in the better part of a decade, but I know the free version was very limiting and there were some concerns about the company 'owning' anything you created in the program. That said, a brief look at it now makes it look like a more closed-off version of Wonderdraft, but with a subscription instead of a one-time purchase.

• Battle Maps: Dungeondraft, Photoshop, a plethora of generators that I can't even begin to remember dating back 10+ years

Before Dungeondraft, I pretty much hated making maps for combat. Early in my GMing 'career', I would just have a blank canvas on Roll20 and draw on details as it was needed, and eventually I just pivoted completely to theater of the mind for all of my combat. And then Dungeondraft rolled around, and it was pretty quick to export from there, incredibly quick to import to Foundry (with a module), and Just WorkedTM. Before that, I did occasionally try and make things in Photoshop, and would follow tutorials from time to time, but it was all just so time-consuming, and with a lot of asset hunting if you wanted consistent art style and detail to what you were doing. It was just so much.

Which, of course, brings me to...

• City Maps: Wonderdraft, Dungeondraft, City Designer 3, Photoshop, Watabou's Medieval City/District/Village generators, AI...?

Ah, the problems. So, I tried to make city maps in Wonderdraft, but it's very obvious that it was built for a larger scale, and there are a lot of 'hacks' (or workarounds, I guess?) you need to do to make it work, and it can be frustrating and very time-consuming, as there's nothing there to really automate the process at all. For example, Wonderdraft has this beautiful 'paint brush' for assets such as trees or mountains that will 'spatter' them across a set radius, with a set density, etc. This is very helpful for something random like forests, but essentially useless for placing buildings. Dungeondraft is a little better in this regard, but has the opposite issue: Everything is too 'small' and focuses on more grid-based, rigid design, given that it's built for, well, dungeons. And battle maps in general.

I purchased City Designer 3 (along with a big pack of Campaign Cartographer add-ons) as part of a Humble Bundle a while ago, and I kind of enjoyed it, but it really felt like the amount of effort required wasn't worth the end result, which - at best - would be using art assets designed to give the feel of the maps from D&D 5E. And even then, that limited the asset options because it didn't seem like there was a lot of additional third party support for the program (which is definitely showing age). That said, it's the only one I've used that seemed able to handle good building placement along roads, able to do it automatically. That said, Photoshop?

Probably the best time I had making city maps. I had to stylize them, but with enough ingenuity, good knowledge of automation (through recording Actions), and following some art style tutorials, you can make a "cheap" city map that's able to have a lot of variation. If you're interested in map design in Photoshop, I highly recommend the tutorials of Jonathan Roberts, who is very much my 'gold standard' for map creation. Unfortunately, he doesn't really update his site any more, and some of the tutorials show their age, but all of the content there is still great.

Then, we have generators. The ones linked above are the best ones I've found, though the city ones leave a lot to be desired as far as graphics and specific details go. But the village generator for small towns and the like? Beautiful. It's genuinely just a perfect little generator if you don't care all that much about the specifics of the map. So, for most towns and villages, it's fine. But what if it's a town built up against a mountain, that sprouted up around a mine? Well... that's not gonna work. What if it's a town that's split on two sides of a river, protecting passage? No such luck. A swamp town, or one in tree-tops? No, not really gonna work all that well.

And just last year, I was turned towards AI generation here on tildes, thanks to @atomicshoreline and his fairly extended description of how to set things up. But, I eventually gave up bothering him after my old video card kept having VRAM issues with only 8GB.

I have seen some very good city maps made in Inkarnate, but I don't know that I'm interested in something that has a yearly subscription, and I can imagine it being very frustrating long-term to invest in something that I've seen issues with in the past.

So, all of this is to say that I really enjoy making detailed content for my world, but I've always had issues with cities. There's just so much content that needs to be hand-placed in almost every program, and even an un-finished city has taken me well over a hundred hours in Dungeondraft, and that was with me still actively hating looking at it..

So, if anyone has other suggestions, I am quite literally always searching for new ways to make city maps, and I've tried just about every suggestion given to me at least once, often to the detriment of my bank account.

Oh, if someone can think of a better title to this post and wants to change it, please be my guest. I just wanted to contribute my knowledge and recommendations, rather than just throw a "give suggestions" post out into the ether, and wasn't sure how to phrase that.

Hullo! I'm very much a list person, but I'm also very much a visual person. So, I've found that simple grids of images work really well for me when I want to plan and organize information, aesthetics, etc. However, I've struggled to find my ideal website or program that allows me to do this.

My wants:

• To upload images with minimal clicks. (My workflow would likely be to find an image somewhere, get the image's URL, navigate to a page, and upload via URL, without necessarily needing to enter form fields or save an image locally first.)
• To display medium resolution images as clear thumbnails (e.g. anywhere from 200x200 to 500x500). Enough for detail, but not necessarily "HD".
• To offer the ability to crop (or even just display) images as square thumbnails (for the purposes of a neat and uniform grid) without me having to go through https://squareanimage.com (real website!) for every single image.
• To categorize images into groups (i.e. to display a set of images as a coherent little grid/gallery). I'm not picky about whether this is done via fixed category pages, or tags + filtering.
• To maybe add extra information attached to each image (e.g. descriptions, links, etc.) without necessarily cluttering the grid.
• As for whether the service is public or private, cloud-based or local, I don't really mind!

Some of the options I've tried:

• Wordpress: Really nice grid-based themes, but the "blog post"-based system feels cumbersome for what I'm trying to do (images only). So many clicks to add images and make new posts.
• Tumblr: Lovely for content discovery, the quick reblog feature saves a lot of clicks, and tagging is flexible. But, this has many of the same downsides as Wordpress (lots of clicks to upload your own images, post-based system), and Tumblr as a platform is so much more than what I'm looking for (don't want/need social features).
• Pinterest: 10/10 for content discovery -- their image similarity algorithms and image search are unmatched. Wonderful for quickly spinning up a collage of themed pictures. But, horrid for uploading new pictures, given that they'll become public pins with comments/links/etc. Too many clicks + unnecessary fields. I worry about attribution for artists with Pinterest specifically -- I don't want to perpetuate a lack of attribution with publicly re-shareable images. Also, the collages are very busy with ads and unnecessary text. Plus, it's kind of cumbersome to reorganize images between boards if you want to change your board scheme.
• Pinry: Open source, self-hosted version of Pinterest. Was a bit too rough around the edges the last time I tried to use it, but maybe it's good enough now?
• Are.na: A bit too... New York trendy? For my tastes. Also, the social elements aren't really my thing... Also, costly!!!
• Google Keep: Surprisingly good? Perhaps the best option I've tried? For image notes, it's very flexible with regards to grid-based layouts, tagging, adding optional details, adding multiple images to a single note, etc. My main criticisms are that uploading images and tagging notes does take quite a few clicks; the grid stops being aligned the moment your notes begin to differ (e.g. add images of varying size, add titles/details, etc.), so it can start to look a bit visually cluttered; the UI doesn't seem to be designed with many tags in mind; the default layout shows all notes (I never want this).
• Local files and folders: Dead simple, but with very few features. Thumbnail views in file explorers are really space inefficient compared to grid-based image galleries.
• Random photo organizing software: Largely geared towards actual photos taken with an actual camera (real life subjects, camera EXIF data, organizing by date taken, etc.). Too many unnecessary features for my needs, not enough features geared towards digital non-photo images (e.g. graphics).
• "Speed dial" new tab pages for browsers: Helps me organize bookmarks! I like being able to see the icons, like a desktop for webapps. I will use image grids for everything.
• Artwork grids in media libraries / tracking websites: Plex, MusicBee, Letterboxd, Goodreads, Anime-Planet... you are heaven to me.

Here is a gallery of screenshots for websites/services I have tried, to give you an idea of how I use these services. The first one (tumblr) is the closest to visually ideal (dense + uniform grid), but Keep is the closest to ideal feature-wise. Surely there is a website or service I'm missing that could be the best of both worlds!

Time Period: 2005-2009

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I've recently found myself reaching for some of my favorite philosophy books as I enter another year of navigating a chaotic, painful world, and navigating my own depression and quest for meaning within it. Exploring philosophy really helps give me the language and mental framework to make sense and meaning out of an existence that often overwhelms me with fear and meaninglessness.

One big problem, though: a lot of philosophy books absolutely suck to read. They're overlong, impenetrably dense, and often awkwardly translated from another language.

TL;DR:
Can anyone recommend approachable, readable philosophy (or philosophy-adjacent) books that can help me navigate the world, find reasons to live, and develop a durable sense of meaning?

Some more background info: The philosophies that have resonated most with me over the years are the works of Camus, the broader world of existentialists and existentialist-adjacent philosophies, stoicism, and utilitarianism. While I recognize that things like logic, epistemology, and religion are important branches of philosophy I'm more interested in things that help me navigate the daily questions of existence such as meaning, suffering, purpose, and so on.

The most impactful philosophical ideas I've ever encountered are those of Camus in The Myth of Sisyphus. Camus' conception of the absurd and the challenges of navigating it resonated so deeply with me that it essentially kickstarted my entire interest in philsophy. Before that I had never done any philosophical reading that felt like it really applied to me. Suddenly it felt like Camus had taken what was in my brain and put it on the page. However, I still consider the Myth of Sisyphus not an approachable, readable philosophy book, and not really a good book at all. I found his philosophy impactful despite the fact that it's overly long, often boring, and weighed down by an English translation that may have been good in the 1950s but in the 21st century is extremely stilted and hard to read.

For that reason my favorite philosophy book is At The Existentialist Cafe by Sarah Bakewell. It's half biography of Sartre, Beauviour, and Heidigger, and half overview of the wide world of existentialist philosophies. It's an smooth, pleasant read written in plain English that both helped me understand more philosophical concepts than any other single book I've ever read and introduced me to tons of things I want to learn more about. I highly recommend it.

Some other books I've read:

• The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin is tremendous. I know this isn't technically philosophy, but it definitely feels philosophy adjacent to me since it fit the bill of "help me make sense of the world" and as a bonus is a very smooth read. I plan to re-read this soon.
• Man's Search of Meaning by Viktor Frankl was a solid 4/5 for me.
• Being Mortal by Atul Gawande is another philosophy-adjacent book that is a tremendous exploration of how we cope with death. It really impacted how I think about end-of-life issues.
• Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments is a collection of essays meant to make philsophy and ethics approachable for normal people - hence why I picked it up. I read most of it, but the essays were just too hit and miss so I ended up putting it down about 2/3rds of the way through.
• The Stranger by Camus. I did not necessarily enjoy this book (and I have no desire to re-read it) but I do appreciate it for being thought-provoking. Plus it was a way smoother read than The Myth of Sisyphus.

Some I'm considering reading:

• The Rebel by Camus. This is the other Camus text I'm considering picking up given that both his general philosophy and the subject matter here are of interest to me ... but the idea of actually having to sit down to read it is giving me pause, given what a slog The Myth of Sisyphus was.
• How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell is the second most well-received of her books. I don't know anything about Montaigne but obviously with a title like "How to Live" it's hitting upon exactly the sort of questions I'm asking...
• The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. We have a copy of this lying around and the passages I've read over the years have been both insightful and readable.

I deeply appreciate breadcrumbs anyone can provide as I try to learn how (and why) to keep living in this world and to develop a sense of meaning within it.

I'm looking for a black & white laser printer with a scanner for home office use. The only fancy thing about it is that I'm running Linux and I don't want to install any driver packages from the manufacturer. I want to plug it into any laptop running any Linux distro and start printing and scanning with no fuss.

Brother printers are very popular, but if I search for any Brother printer and "linux", all I can find is stuff about the drivers and how to fix the various issues that come with those.

If I understand correctly, modern printers should just work via something called IPP/AirPrint and they should also work over USB. Is that correct?

What about the scanner? Does that also just work over IPP?

I've tried hundreds of searches (variations of this) on google and either I have no idea what to search for, or it doesn't exist.

I'll keep it short, the best way to explain is that I'm looking for a game in the style of the Total War franchise, but focused (mostly) on the top down battle view:

Example 1

Example 2

I'm not that interested in manually managing tens of regions, I don't want to 3d my way through a battle front while the soldiers gore eachother, I just want to focus on being a general that wins battles through tactics. Where I can apply strategies like Oblique Formation and False Gap to outmaneuver my enemies.

Do you have any recommendations for me? Is there any game that even comes close to this? (apart from the Total War franchise - which I love by the way, but the games tend to last too long, and they're getting bigger and bigger with each release)

I'm looking for an article that was posted on Tildes in the last year I believe, on online communities and moderation.

I think it was a link to someones personal blog and the author was female. It talked about the challenges of moderating communities with free speech as a core value, because all it takes is a few bad actors pushing that to it's limits and it completely derails the community and puts too much strain on moderators.

The article itself was very good, but I also remember the discussion on tildes was a very good read as well. I have tried searching tildes, using google and chatGPT4 and while I can find a lot of good threads related to this topic, I can't seem to find this one with the article.

Does anyone remember this article/thread?

I realize it's maybe a long shot and it's just a vague memory, so I apologize if this is an annoying post, but it doesn't hurt to ask?

I work remotely for a US tech start-up, and my work is flying me out for our company kickoff in Santa Barbara at the end of February. Because I want to spend as little time in Berlin February weather as possible and I want to meet up with some local(-ish) relatives, I'm flying in a week earlier than necessary. As a result, however, I'm going to have some free time to fill.

The biggest thing is that I'm going to have to find and pay for my own lodging while I'm there until the work event starts and I can check into the hotel my company booked. So if anyone has any personal experience with some cheap-but-not-sketchy lodging options in LA or Santa Barbara, I especially welcome that. I'm flying into LAX so I'm able to stay there before going down to Santa Barbara for the actual work event if it's cheaper or there's more to do there (which I kinda assume is the case on both counts, idk).

I've heard LA is generally pretty expensive. I'm not a huge party animal by any means, but I figure I should do more when I'm there than sitting in my hotel reading (especially if I want to kick the jetlag before all the work stuff starts). So I'd also love any recommendations for cheap but interesting stuff to do while I'm there. My cursory Google searches have turned up a bunch of Hollywood tourist type stuff and recommendations for outdoorsy activities like hiking, neither of which is my speed. But surely there's gotta be some interesting stuff for a nerdy introvert to check out!

I'm also a very food-motivated traveler, so any particular restaurant recommendations for while I'm there are very welcome -- especially stuff that's hard for me to find in Germany. Latin American food is especially high on my list ofc, and I'm also on the lookout for good wing places, since I know both of those things are very hard to find at home in Berlin. But I also welcome other recommendations, especially stuff that isn't gonna come up in a quick google search. Or authentic Chinese food (even though I'm not going to SF, I learned how to say 洛杉矶 in Chinese class back in the day so LA's gotta have at least somthing 😅). I'm also a coffee person, so I'd love to know about any particular standout local coffee shops (even though I'm sure there's way more than I could try in even a month in a city the size of LA).

When I was reading a Psmith novel, I couldn't help but notice that Psmith had a certain similarity with Douglas Addams character Dirk Gently. I can't say for sure if it has any validity, or if it is just make-believe patterns in random chaos. But regardless, these are my observations.

Svlad Cjelli. Popularly known as Dirk, though, again, ‘popular’ was hardly right.
Notorious, certainly; sought after, endlessly speculated about, those too were true. But popular? Only in the sense that a serious accident on the motorway might be popular -- everyone slows down to have a good look, but no one will get too close to the flames. Infamous was more like it. Svlad Cjelli, infamously known as Dirk.

—Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Addams

Thus were Dirk Gently introduced. But who is this Psmith fellow anyways? He is the titular character in a series of novels by P. G. Wodehouse, a great humorist who happens to be Douglas Adams favorite author. Douglas Addams writing, I’ve noticed, share the same whimsical mastery of language:

Deep in the rain forest it was doing what it usually does in rain forests, which was raining: hence the name.

and

Richard stood transfixed for a moment or two, wiped his forehead again, and gently replaced the phone as if it were an injured hamster.

—Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Addams

While both characters have changed their name to something much more fancyful, their motivation contrasts greatly. Psmith wanted a fancier name, simple as that; Dirk Gently, on the other hand, changed his name repeatedly to avoid being held accountable for a lifetime of blatant hustling and has finally ended up with Dirk Gently:

'My dear Svlad.'
'Dirk, please, if you would,' said Dirk, grasping his hand warmly, 'I prefer it. It has more of a sort of Scottish dagger feel to it, I think. Dirk Gently is the name under which I now trade. There are certain events in the past, I'm afraid, from which I would wish to disassociate myself.
—Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Addams

Enter Psmith:

A small maid-of-all-work appeared in answer to the bell, and stood transfixed as the visitor, producing a monocle, placed it in his right eye and inspected her through it.
“A warm afternoon,” he said cordially.
“Yes, sir.”
“But pleasant,” urged the young man. “Tell me, is Mrs. Jackson at home?”
“No, sir.”
“Not at home?”
“No, sir.”
The young man sighed.
“Ah well,” he said, “we must always remember that these disappointments are sent to us for some good purpose. No doubt they make us more spiritual. Will you inform her that I called? The name is Psmith. P-smith.”
“Peasmith, sir?”
“No, no. P-s-m-i-t-h. I should explain to you that I started life without the initial letter, and my father always clung ruggedly to the plain Smith. But it seemed to me that there were so many Smiths in the world that a little variety might well be introduced. Smythe I look on as a cowardly evasion, nor do I approve of the too prevalent custom of tacking another name on in front by means of a hyphen. So I decided to adopt the Psmith. The p, I should add for your guidance, is silent, as in phthisis, psychic, and ptarmigan. You follow me?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“You don’t think,” he said anxiously, “that I did wrong in pursuing this course?”
“N-no, sir.”
“Splendid!” said the young man, flicking a speck of dust from his coat-sleeve. “Splendid! Splendid!”

— Leave it to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse

As mentioned, Dirk Gently is a hustler. One of those enterprising characters who will push themselves tirelessly and unrelenting in order to aquire cash or commodities without labour. Earlier, he had cast himself as a psychic, something which backfired with terrible hybris. When we finally encounter him, he has ended up as a detective, seemingly specializing in searching for, but not actually finding, the lost cats of old ladies:

'Yes,' continued Dirk into the phone, 'but as I have endeavoured to explain to you, Mrs Sauskind, over the seven years of our acquaintance, I incline to the quantum mechanical view in this matter. My theory is that your cat is not lost, but that his waveform has temporarily collapsed and must be restored. Schrödinger. Planck. And so on.'
—Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Addams

Psmith, by contrast, is no hustler, but fall squarely into the trickster archetype. Think Loki, who tricks the blind Hodr into killing Balder. Think the Joker, whose terror is its own reasoning. Psmith, by his own admission, is bored. He may steal umbrellas and impersonate poets in order to woe a certain girl, but one suspect that the girl is merely a pretext for the means.

Both characters share the same flamboyant ignorance of the fuckedupness of their antics. Compare Dirk Gentlys quantum cat theory to Psmiths approach to being accused of umbrella thievery:

“Mr. Walderwick was in here a moment ago, sir,” said the attendant.

“Yes?” said Psmith, mildly interested. “An energetic, bustling soul, Comrade Walderwick. Always somewhere. Now here, now there.”

“Asking about his umbrella, he was,” pursued the attendant with a touch of coldness.

“Indeed? Asking about his umbrella, eh?”

“Made a great fuss about it, sir, he did.”

“And rightly,” said Psmith with approval. “The good man loves his umbrella.”

“Of course I had to tell him that you had took it, sir.”

“I would not have it otherwise,” assented Psmith heartily. “I like this spirit of candour. There must be no reservations, no subterfuges between you and Comrade Walderwick. Let all be open and above-board.”

“He seemed very put out, sir. He went off to find you.”

“I am always glad of a chat with Comrade Walderwick,” said Psmith. “Always.”

— Leave it to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse

When the girl feel some reservations upon learning that the umbrella he so gallantly lend her was stolen gods, he casually brush it off:

“Merely practical Socialism. Other people are content to talk about the Redistribution of Property. I go out and do it.”

Psmiths outre clash of upperclass lifestyle and socialist glamour is mirrored in Dirk Gentlys clash between the private detective business and holistic new-age mumble-jumble:

'I'm very glad you asked me that, Mrs Rawlinson. The term 'holistic' refers to my conviction that what we are concerned with here is the fundamental interconnectedness of all things. I do not concern myself with such petty things as fingerprint powder, telltale pieces of pocket fluff and inane footprints. I see the solution to each problem as being detectable in the pattern and web of the whole. The connections between causes and effects are often much more subtle and complex than we with our rough and ready understanding of the physical world might naturally suppose, Mrs Rawlinson.
'Let me give you an example. If you go to an acupuncturist with toothache he sticks a needle instead into your thigh. Do you know why he does that, Mrs Rawlinson?'
'No, neither do I, Mrs Rawlinson, but we intend to find out. A pleasure talking to you, Mrs Rawlinson. Goodbye.'

Psmiths socialism bend is merely a humble joke. The quirky disrespect for property laws and insistance on calling other men "Camrade" is highly amusing, surely, but also a bit on the nose, lazy creativity which everyone else knowing nothing about socialism would come up with. On the other hand, with Dirk Gently, the holistic approach to detective work is mirrored in the novel themes and plotting. In contrast to the way Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy gleefully throws around outlandish scifi mindfuckery with absolutly no relevance to the plot, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency is a beautifully orchestrayed mystery where "everything is connected". (for another tightly plotted mystery novel in the fantastic genre, I can recommend Who Censored Roger Rabbit)

Another difference is that Dirk Gently is much more complex and deep, his casual money grapping contrasted with a moral compass of sorts. Both are clowns, but we get to see one of them after the show, devoid of pancake makeup.

I'm returning home from a trip and am on my 4th layover in a nightmarish series of delayed flights and last minute changes; when I get home it will be 5 degrees (F) which was not the forecasted temp when I left, so I did not make any kind of preparations and left my car in uncovered long term parking, a 5-ish minute walk from the airport. It dipped into negative temps while I was gone and I'm terrified that I'll get back to a car with frozen locks and no lighter, lock de-freezer, hair dryer, etc, anything to help me get in. I've searched for advice but everything I've read seems to assume you're at home, not at a airport. I'm already so drained and exhausted and it will be late when I get there so I'm just trying to find something, anything that might be helpful in advance before I'm stuck standing outside in unexpectedly, dangerously frigid weather with no plan in jeans, sneakers, and a hoodie. Apologies if something like this has been posted, I couldn't find anything and feel like I'm about to collapse. Any advice is appreciated, even obvious things, I'm sure I may have overlooked something that would be clear to someone else. Posting this before I board my next flight in the hopes there may be some replies by the time I get home. Thank you for reading

Update: made it back, took an Uber home and will pick up my car either tomorrow or the day after during the day. I should have thought of it myself and feel silly that I didn't. Thank you all so much for the feedback, really saved me some stress, I probably shouldn't have driven home even had it not been so cold out with how tired I was. Will definitely use all the advice here to be more prepared when leaving during the winter in the future, no matter the forecast.

Time Period: 2000-2004

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I live in the EU. I recently applied for a credit card, and the banker asked me (about my job): "Is it a management role?"

I realized that it is a question I have been asked several times in the past by banks. I tried a cursory google & Reddit search, but I haven't found anyone being curious about this.

I'll try here then. Does anyone know why bankers ask this question? How does it matter? Are "individual contributors" seen as worse/riskier customers than managers?

I have my own informal, anecdotal opinion, but I'm hoping to hear some more informed answer.

Paradise is an exciting action sci fi with a really interesting premise. What if eternal youth, was available to anyone with money... yet it involved literally sucking the life force out of others less fortunate than yourself?



The movie focuses on Max, who after his wife is unexpectedly forced to give up 40 years of her life, he desperately searches for a way to get her youth back.

The movie is filled with the usual plot twists, cool sci fi graphics, true love and the like.



There are two truly interesting elements to this movie. The first is the cynical idea that if the rich could live forever, then they would be much more motivated to think about and solve for the long term health of the planet.

In this movie, only the rich can afford to extend their lives for as long as they choose, so we also see how that would severely impact wealth inequality. 



The second interesting element of this movie is a series of questions very similar to the trolley problem. If you could extend your life, at the cost of someone else's youth, would you, assuming they were somehow reimbursed financially?

What if your youth had been taken from you; or what if youth had been taken from someone you loved. Would you take it back? Would you take it back as ethically as possible, or ethics be damned?

Could you give up your youth to save a loved one from an extremely unkind yet uncertain end, or is it easier to risk your life to save theirs than it is to give up eternal youth once you have it?



At one point in the movie, we learn it is easier to take someones life passively through the forces of economics and medical science, than it is to actively kill someone with a gun to their head. Which is the essence of the trolley problem. But it is also the essence of wealth inequality.

We could easily flip the switch, to improve the quality of life and length of life for many people, at the cost of one rich persons riches, but those with power passively choose to not do so. The movie doesn't philosophize anywhere near as much as I am doing right now, instead focusing on fast action, true love and cool sci fi. But I think perhaps this movie is a very subtle warning to the rich. At a certain point of wealth inequality, some portion of the population will want their fair share of the wealth, ethics be damed.

https://www.netflix.com/title/81288179

One of my favorite rabbit holes is lost media. There are two definitions for how it usually comes up: first is media which is considered lost or otherwise inaccessible. The second isn't necessarily lost for sure, but simply relatively obscure media people can't identify. A lot of searches start with people recounting some vaguely traumatizing memory of some TV show, movie or book from their childhood, which can then turn into a vicious hunt that takes years to solve. The most famous example is probably the "Clock Man" which played a big role in drawing general attention to the concept of lost media.

Famous examples include the early seasons of Doctor Who, London After Midnight (and many, many, many other silent films), the first Superbowl, an extended version of the ending of Freaks, the original 9-hour cut of Greed... You can find countless ongoing searches today for all sorts of media ranging from songs to video games to commercials and even commercial bumpers.

It's a fun rabbit hole, particularly when you look into the searches themselves and how media gets found. Does anyone have any particular pieces of lost media you're looking for or invested in, or a search or piece you just find interesting? Feel free to talk about cases that have been found, too!

It's hard to find hopeful sci-fi these days. The zeitgeist is that things are bad and they will keep getting worse. That's a problem, because before you can build a better future, you must first imagine one. This is the first book I've found in a long time that does a credible job of that.

This post is about a pair of novels by Daniel Suarez. The first one is Delta-V, the physics term for a change in velocity; the second one is called Critical Mass. Together they're a heavily-researched look at asteroid mining, offworld economics, and space-based solar power.

The series takes place in the mid 2030s. By this point, the symptoms of climate change are becoming serious, creating what people call "the Long Emergency": famines, storms, and waves of climate refugees. There is real concern that the global economy will collapse under the strain. To avert financial apocalypse, an expedition is launched to mine the asteroid Ryugu; the first book covers the miners' training, their long journey through space, and the hazards of mining an asteroid in deep space. In the second book, they use those mined materials to build a space station in lunar orbit, to set up a railgun for launching materials from the moon's surface into its orbit, and to begin building the first space-based solar power satellites.

I was surprised to learn that space-based solar power is a real thing that the US, China, and several other countries and companies are actively pursuing. Basically, you have a bunch of solar panels in orbit, which beam power down to receiving antennas ("rectennas") on Earth. You lose a lot of efficiency converting the electricity to microwaves and back, but solar panels on orbit have access to ~7-10x more energy than those on the ground, since there's no atmosphere in the way and it's always solar noon. In exchange for a large initial investment, space-based solar power offers always-on, 100% renewable energy that can be switched from New York to California at a moment's notice.

That initial investment is a doozy, though. SpaceX is working on lowering launch costs, but launching material from Earth's surface into orbit is going to be very expensive for a very long time. So these books look at what might be possible if we could avoid those costs. What if we could create mining and manufacturing operations in space? What if we could use those to generate clean power in heretofore undreamt-of amounts?

I’m going to excerpt a conversation from the second book:

[At dinner,] chemist Sofia Boutros described the unfolding water crisis in the Nile watershed back on Earth—and the resulting regional conflict. This elicited from around the table a litany of other climate-change-related calamities back home, from wildfires, to floods, to famines, to extinctions.

The Russian observer, Colonel Voloshin, usually content to just listen, chimed in by saying, "Nations which have contributed least to carbon emissions suffering worst effects." He looked first to Lawler and then Colonel Fei. "Perhaps the biggest polluters should pay reparations."

Dr. Ohana looked down the table toward him. "It's my understanding that Russia has actually benefitted from warmer climate."

Yak replied instead. "Not overall. Soil in Siberia is poor. Wildfires and loss of permafrost also disruptive."

Lawler added. "You guys sell plenty of fossil fuels, too, Colonel."

The electrical engineer, Hoshiko Sato, said, "Complete decarbonization is the only way to solve climate change."

Most of the group groaned in response.

She looked around the table. "That might sound unrealistic, but there's no other choice if we want to save civilization."

Chindarkar said, "We've been saying the same thing for fifty years, Hoshiko. It's barely moved the needle."

"We’ve brought carbon emissions down considerably since 2020."

Boutros said, "You mean we slowed their growth."

Ohana said, "We should be planting more trees."

Monica Balter countered, "Trees require water and arable land. Climate change is causing deserts to spread, pitting food versus trees. Plus, whatever carbon a tree captures gets released when it dies—which could happen all at once in a wildfire."

Chindarkar looked down the table at her. "Nathan Joyce claimed we could use solar satellites to power direct carbon capture. Could that really be done at the scale necessary to reduce global CO2 levels?"

Colonel Voloshin let out a laugh. "That's not even in the realm of possibility. It wouldn't even make a dent."

Monica Balter said, "I respectfully disagree, Colonel." She looked to Boutros. "And Sofia, I understand we must do everything possible down on Earth to reduce carbon emissions: solar panels, wind turbines, geothermal—all of it. But that won't remove what's already in the atmosphere."

Voloshin shook his head. "We must adapt."

Lawler couldn't resist. "Easy for Russia to say."

Balter spoke to Voloshin. "Back in 1850, atmospheric carbon was at two hundred eighty parts per million. Now it's at four hundred fifty-seven parts per million. We put over a trillion tons of CO2 into Earth's atmosphere over that time. Humans caused the problem, and humans can solve it."

The colonel was unfazed. "Yes. All of humanity worked hard to cause this, and it still required almost two centuries to accomplish. It is naïve to think a few machines will correct it."

"Half of that excess carbon was emitted in the last forty years, and direct air carbon capture powered by solar satellites can actually work at a global scale. I can show you the numbers, if you like."

He scoffed. "Even billionaire Jack Macy says that solar power satellites are idiotic—that very little energy beamed from space reaches the terrestrial power grid due to transmission and conversion losses."

Balter nodded. "The number is 9 percent."

The crew around the table murmured.

He spread his hands. "I rest my case."

"But 9 percent of what? Jack Macy neglects to mention that a solar panel up in orbit is seven times more productive than one on the Earth's surface. The fact that he runs a rooftop solar company might have something to do with that.

Boutros asked, "A sevenfold difference just from being in space?"

Balter turned to her. "The best you can hope for on the Earth's equator at high noon is 1,000 watts of energy per square meter—and that's without factoring in nighttime, cloudy days, seasons, latitude. But a power sat in geosynchronous orbit would almost always be in 1,368 watts of sunlight per square meter. So you get a whole lot more energy from a solar panel in space even after transmission inefficiencies are factored in. Plus, a power sat won't be affected by unfolding chaos planetside."

Voloshin shrugged. "What if it is cloudy above your rectenna? You would not be able to beam down energy."

"Not true. We use microwaves in the 2.45-gigahertz range. The atmosphere is largely invisible at that frequency. We can beam the energy down regardless of weather—and directly to where it's needed. No need for long distance power lines."

"But to what purpose? It could not be done on a scale sufficient to impact Earth."

"Again, I could show you the numbers."

Chindarkar said, "I'd like to see them, Monica. Please."

Balter put down her fork and after searching through virtual UIs for a moment, put up a shared augmented-reality screen that appeared to float over the end of the table on the station's common layer. It displayed an array of numbers and labels. "Sorry for the spreadsheet."

Colonel Fei said, "We are quite interested in seeing it, Ms. Balter."

She looked to the faces around the table. "There are four reasons I got involved in space-based solar power... " She pealed them off on her fingers. "...electrification, desalination, food generation, and decarbonization. First: electricity. We all know the environmental, economic, and political havoc back on Earth from climate change. Blackouts make that chaos worse, but a 2-gigawatt solar power satellite in geosynchronous orbit could instantly transmit large amounts of energy anywhere it's needed in the hemisphere below it. Even several locations at once. All that's needed is a rectenna on the ground, and those are cheap and easy to construct."

Chindarkar nodded. "We saw one on Ascension Island."

Jin added, "J.T. and I are building sections of the lunar rectenna. It is fairly simple."

"Right. For example, space-based energy could be beamed to coastal desalination plants in regions suffering long-term drought-providing fresh water. It can also be used to remove CO2 directly from seawater, through what's known as single step carbon sequestration and storage, converting the CO2 into solid limestone and magnesite—essentially seashells. This would enable the oceans themselves to absorb more atmospheric CO2. Or we could power direct air capture plants that pull CO2 straight out of the atmosphere."

Voloshin interjected. "Again, a few satellites will not impact Earth's atmospheric concentrations, and where would you sequester all this CO2?"

"Just a few satellites wouldn't impact climate, no—but there's definitely a use for the CO2—in creating food. Droughts in equatorial zones are causing famine, but hydrogenotrophic bacteria can be used to make protein from electricity, hydrogen, and CO2. The hydrogen can be electrolyzed from seawater and CO2 from the air. All that's needed is clean energy." She glanced to Chindarkar. "NASA first experimented with this in the 1960s as a means for making food here in deep space."

"Really? Even back then."

"The bioreactor for it is like a small-batch brewery. You feed in what natural plants get from soil: phosphorus, sulfur, calcium, iron, potassium—all of which, incidentally, can be extracted from lunar regolith. But I digress..."

Colonel Fei's eyebrows raised. "That is indeed interesting."

"The bioreactor runs for a while, then the liquid is drained and the solids dried to a powder that contains 65 percent protein, 20 to 25 percent carbohydrates, and 5 percent fatty acids. This can be made into a natural food similar to soy or algae. So with energy, CO2, and seawater, we could provide life-saving nutrition just about anywhere on the planet via solar power satellites."

Voloshin was unimpressed. "Yet it would still not resolve climate change."

"At scale it could. Do the math ... " Balter brought up her spreadsheet. "We're emitting 40 billion tons of CO2 per year, 9 billion tons of which can't be sequestered by the natural carbon cycle and which results in an annual increase of roughly two parts per million atmospheric CO2—even after decades of conservation efforts."

She tapped a few screens and a virtual image of an industrial structure covered in fan housings appeared. "A direct air capture facility like this one could pull a million tons of CO2 out of the atmosphere each year at a cost of one hundred dollars a ton. All of the components are off-the-shelf and have existed for decades. Nothing fancy. But it needs 1.5 megawatts of constant clean energy to power it—and that's where solar power satellites come in."

Voloshin said, "But who would pay? Governments? Do not count on this."

Chindarkar asked, "Monica, seriously: How many carbon capture plants would it take to make a difference in the atmosphere of the entire Earth?"

Jin added, "And how many solar power satellites to power them?"

Balter brought her spreadsheet back up. "Merely to cancel out Earth's excess annual emissions—9 billion tons of CO2—we'd need nine thousand 1-megaton DAC plants worldwide, each requiring 150 to 300 acres."

The group groaned.

Tighe said, "That's a lot of hardware and a lot of real estate, Monica."

"It doesn't have to be on land. Just 2.7 million acres total—smaller than Connecticut. And that would be spread across the entire globe. More importantly, doing that stops the advance of climate change. If we reduce emissions, then it would actually help reverse climate change."

Chindarkar studied the numbers. "Powered by how many solar satellites?"

Balter highlighted the number. "It would take 1.6 terawatts of electricity—or 818 2-gigawatt SPS-Alphas. Each about 7,400 tons. But again: that halts the advance of climate change."

The group groaned again.

"Eight hundred eighteen satellites?" Jin shook his head. "That would take decades to build."

"Not with automation and sufficient materials here on orbit. You've seen the SPS-Alpha I'm building—it's made of simple, modular components."

"Yours is one-fortieth the size of these 7,400-ton monsters."

"But it's the same design. We just need the resources up here in space, and we could scale it rapidly with automation."

Voloshin picked up his fork. "As I said: it is a technological fantasy."

Chindarkar ignored him. "Monica, what would it require to not just halt climate change—but reverse it?"

Balter clicked through to another screen. "To return Earth to a safe level—say, three hundred fifty parts per million CO2-you'd need to pull three-quarters of a trillion tons out of the atmosphere." She made a few changes to her model. "So with forty thousand DAC plants, powered by thirty-six hundred 2-gigawatt satellites in geosynchronous orbit, you could accomplish that in eighteen years."

Fei asked, "At what cost?"

"Roughly seventy-two trillion dollars."

Again groans and an impressed whistle.

Voloshin shook his head. "I told you."

Balter added, "That's four trillion a year, over eighteen years. Spread across the entire population of Earth."

This was met with a different reaction.

Jin said, "That is actually less than I thought."

"And bear in mind the fossil fuel industry has been supported by half a trillion dollars in direct government subsidies worldwide every year for ages. Whereas this four trillion is for just a limited time and would permanently solve climate change, and we'd see significant climate benefits within a decade as CO2 levels came down. And once it was accomplished, all that clean energy could be put toward other productive uses, either on Earth or in space."

She studied the faces around her. "But to accomplish it, we'd need tens of millions of tons of mass in orbit. Launching all that mass up from Earth would never work because all those rockets would damage the atmosphere, too. However, with your lunar mass-driver—and the ones that follow it—we could make this work. This is why I'm here."

Those around the table pondered this. For the moment, even Voloshin was silent.

Boutros asked, "Is it not risky to tinker with the Earth's atmosphere?"

"That's what we're doing now, Sofia. This would just reverse what we've done and return Earth to the conditions we evolved in."

Chindarkar pointed to the virtual spreadsheet. "Does that seventy-two trillion dollars include the cost of the solar power satellites?"

"Yes. And doing nothing will cost us far more. Best estimates are that by the year 2100, continued climate change will reduce global GDP by 20 percent—which is about two thousand trillion dollars. Not to mention the cost of possibly losing civilization.

"But if, as your CEO Mr. Rochat says, we intend to prove the SPS concept at scale here in lunar orbit, well... then you will make this commercially feasible. In other words, you can make this future happen. Everyone else has talked it to death. The bean counters and decision makers back on Earth clearly won't do it, no matter how critical it is. And this needs to be started as soon as possible—before the situation on Earth gets truly untenable."

This book is not afraid to think big. That's what sci-fi is for, right? And it's extensively researched; there's a bibliography at the end of each book that I've used to start my own research journeys.

I like these books because they're ambitious. They never downplay the scale of the problems we face, but they maintain that these problems are solvable, and they expose me to new ideas I'd never heard of. I found them in my local library. Thanks for reading this wall of text!

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!

Long story short--I don't want to connect my mac to my iCloud account, but every time I login to my laptop, I get three popups in a row that say "This Mac Can't connect to iCloud because of a problem with [my email] ...".

I can't find a setting that allows me to disable this, and online searches have been fruitless.

Edit2: I'm a mac user who doesn't understand how windows explorer works. Leaving the post for some hapless mac user who may come along. Windows explorer doesn't report how it is traversing the directory tree, leading to some confusion about where the search result is, which happens to be waaaay down in a zip of a mac application installer I had inadvertantly archived on the Windows disk. I would ask any windows users, how do I make powershell ls | select-string "text" behave like ls | grep "text" on unix?

edit3: Also, why the fudge would windows explorer search find <weird characters>net but not dotnet when typing 'net' into the search box?

So I download the occasional, um, linux distro installation video. I use a vpn and private firefox windows for most.

I'm doing some clean up today, and find a file with a bunch of strange characters, including the text characters, "net." "M⌐⌐v├▒├┼⌐▒net" is the filename listed in the properties window. Inside are a series of .ase files with mostly unrecognizable names.

I don't see the filename when doing an ls in powershell of the directory reported in explorer.

doing ls | select-string "net" in powershell results in an unending peristalsis of weird text like you might get from a binary file viewed in a text editor. I do notice, however, that some of the text might be from inside a zip file. But why is select-string searching inside the zip file? ls seems to ouptut only filepath information. Upon further investigation, the zip file is several directories down, it appears adding | select-string to ls makes ls travel the full tree. Wut?

And when I say undending, I mean it kept going until I hit ctrl-c.

Any ideas to what is happening here?

Incidentally, I opened one of the ASE files by right-click->view file in notepad+, which never launched.

Edit: lots of edits.

Hi all,

There is a tar.gz whose contents I would like to access. The file itself is quite old, last being updated ~20 years ago if I had to guess (I am not sure if this is relevant). The file contains legacy scientific code that I would like for archival purposes and can be found via the "code site" link here. However:

• When I download the file and run tar -xvzf radpack.tar.gz I get an error: tar: Error opening archive: Unrecognized archive format.
• Likewise, if I try to gunzip it I get gunzip: radpack.tar.gz: not in gzip format.
• Running file radpack.tar.gz only yields radpack.tar.gx: data, indicating file cannot find anything out about it.
• head radpack.tar.gz outputs a string of unintelligible unicode.

These are the different solutions I have come across after searching this problem, and to me is good evidence that the file has been corrupted in some way and that may very well be the case. However, for archival and historical purposes it would be great if I could access the contents, so I am compelled to search out other solutions. Are there other options I can try here? Is there some way to confirm that the file is in fact corrupted beyond recovery? Any help on this point would be greatly appreciated. I posted this on stack exchange as well but figured maybe the smart folks here might know.

EDIT:

Just to be clear this has been solved — a functioning copy of the archive was found.

Time Period: 1995-1999

Choose one album
that you love
that you think deserves more love

Tell us what it is, and why.

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I recently started having an issue on my windows machine with folder permissions. The start menu folder suddenly became inaccessible to any program that tried to create a shortcut there. I worked around it by just taking ownership.

Now I'm facing a much worse problem where many operations that require admin elevation suddenly doesn't work even after a UAC prompt. This has really become a problem now that I want to install wsl on this machine. Running wsl --install just returns the wsl usage info and wsl --update throws a UAC prompt, but fails saying "The requested operation requires elevation" even while logged into the built in Administrator windows account.

Normal programs can still use admin elevation (mostly), but everything that windows prompts for behaves as if I'm a regular user despite still giving and accepting a UAC prompt. The Microsoft Store has also seemingly lost the ability to update or repair itself also so that's probably related.

I've tried all the usual stuff with /DISM, /sfc, every Microsoft troubleshooter. They found no issues. Creating a new admin account lets me create the account but then it inherits the same issues. I can't even gain admin elevation in safe mode. I'm really at a loss. I don't want to have to do a system refresh because it takes so much time to get set back up, but at this point I don't know what else to do.

Has anyone else ever encountered an issue like this? I've tried searching for this and just end up on a bunch of identical 'help' pages telling me to right click -> run as admin or the generic Microsoft employee pointing me to reinstall again.

Windows version 10.0.19045 Build 19045 in case that matters

Edit: I never did find a solid reason why this was happening. It wasn't my university Maya account. While reinstalling windows on a freshly formatted drive I kept getting errors that eventually led me to discoving my ram was going bad. Got it replaced and installed windows just fine. I have to assume the problem started because of memory errors. Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Set your Wayback machine to the early 2000s, and you'll find me in hog heaven, building and racing old muscle cars from a catalogue of real world parts that interacted as they would in real life. EA released this game as a racing MMO, but I spent most of my time treating it as a single player game, building my hot rods and racing against the computer.

In 2003, they pulled the plug. Since then, nothing has come close. There are mechanic simulators, but you don't get to drive the cars when you finish them. Then there are the racing games, but none of those have the.level of detail in the build and tuning portion that MCO did. In MCO, you needed to actually build your engine in a way that the parts would work well with each other in order to get the best performance. It wasn't simply an upgrade chain, as you could easily spend ten grand on parts and come out with a 200hp brick.

Most recently, my search has led me to a.game called Revhead from Australia. It scratches a LOT of the itch, but it's still missing a lot of the stuff I miss from MCO. You can build cars with parts and race.them, but the build still feels like a more money=more power equation instead of an exercise in research and testing to figure out the perfect recipe for my particular driving style.

Am I chasing a pipe dream in the hopes that there is a.modern equivalent for that old gem?

Hi Tildestrians! I recently acquired a broken Sony TV from work. Its older, but its 4K, and would be a substantial upgrade over my current TV, so I am hoping to fix it. My usual willingness to tinker and google prowess has failed me. I am hoping one of you can provide some guidance.

Its a Sony XBR-55X850B. It is showing an error code of 7 flashing red lights. I tracked down the service manual (Sony, you should really have this available to customers and not locked behind an "authorized service center" certification), and it says the motherboard needs to be replaced. I found a replacement motherboard on ebay (it was for the 65 inch version, but that should not make a difference). I installed, and it gave a different error code. I think it was flashing green and orange. Based on my research, that means it needs new firmware to be flashed. Sony's website doesn't still have the firmware file for that TV (should be illegal in my opinion), and tells you to contact support. Support seemingly can't give out the firmware file either. I found a firmware file on Softpedia, but I have no idea if it is legitimate or even still a working file. Threw that on a fat32 drive, and couldn't manage to get it to update. I tried multiple drives and all usb ports over the course of 2 weeks. I ended up pulling the new motherboard and returning it (thankfully I was able to return it for full price). Now I am stuck with a TV panel that works perfectly, except for the motherboard, and I seemingly can't replace the motherboard.

This got me thinking: I don't need anything fancy. I want a display with an HDMI input that takes 4K signal and puts it on the screen. I truly don't need anything more than that. Even an IR remote for power is optional, because I could plug it into a smart outlet. I don't need the speakers because I have a receiver. I know you can get bypass boards to turn laptop screens into monitors. They take the place of the support circuitry on the laptop motherboard and give you a display input, and nothing more. Is there anything like that I can get for this TV? I don't know where to start on that search.

Or are there any other routes I should explore before junking this TV? It feels really bad to throw out a perfectly good 4k panel just because the motherboard is broken.

His wife is murdered in the Bataclan terror attack in 2015. Shortly after, Johannes Baus meets Floriane Bernaudat,
who's fiancé was also killed there. They become a couple, and have to learn what it means to love another.

Written by Katharina Render, last updated Nov. 18th, 2023. Published in the "Christ & World" section of DIE ZEIT.

Translated by @Grzmot

When the breaking news from Israel on October 7th pop up on Johannes Baus' phone, he instantly remembers the moment when he was lying on the floor of the Paris music club Bataclan. Islamist attackers shot into the crowd of people, killing 90 attendees, his wife among them. He felt "incredibly cynical morderous energy" in the room, on the 13th of November, 2015, he tells today.

He can feel this murderous lust today, through his smartphone, when the algorithm puts the Hamas hunt for people into his timeline. Videos of young women and men, who like him then, just wanted to dance, murdered, raped, or kidnapped. Johannes Baus defends himself against this hate. The hate of the terrorists now, and even his own. Under no circumstance must he give in to the hate. Get up and live instead! But how are you supposed to do that, when one of the in total 130 victims in the Paris terror attacks in the Bataclane, the Stade de France, bars and restaurants, was the one for him?

In the past four years as a reporter I've talked multiple times with Johannes Baus and visited him in Paris. When we last video-chatted, I asked the lawyer, who's found his home in the french capital; how does one believe in the good of people, when you were forced to live through the most vile thing that people can do to another? When a stranger, because of his upside-down view of religion extinguishes the love of your life? When he makes jokes with his accomplices during the murdering? When you have to bury your wife in her wedding dress, which she wore five months earlier? I wanted to understand: How does hope work?

Two months after the terror of Paris, in January of 2016, hope stands in front of Johannes Baus. She is wearing the same hat like his late wife Maud, and knows like no other, what he has been through. She has lived through the same thing. Floriane Bernaudat, then 27, lost her fiancé Renaud in Bataclan. He was 29. The first bullet hit him in the back, the second entered his groin and exited at his jaw. It was five AM when he died, alone in the hospital, while Floriane Bernaudat was driven to the police with other survivors and a relative of hers called every hospital in the area. When
the relative was finally told, that there is a patient who fits the description, he was already dead. Twelve years they were together. Almost half their lives. Two weeks before the attacks, she had chosen her wedding dress.

And suddenly, there is this stranger, who in a Facebook group for mourners, comments on her post about Renaud: "Your message has touched me deeply, I lost my wife in Bataclan. If you want to meet..."

The so-called Islamic State quickly admitted responsibility publicly, and celebrated the killing of innocents as a "holy raid" against the "crusading France". Almost 700 people were wounded by the terrorists. Floriane Bernaudat and Johannes Baus did not suffer any bodily injuries. But the wounds, that the barbaric murder of their loved ones cut into their souls were so deep, that neither of them imagined, the lawyer nor the headmistress of a private university, they would ever heal. How could they keep on living? The day they first meet, they talk about these thoughts. Till the owner of the restaurant closes for the night, that's how they both describe it.

From a surface perspective, a romance begins to blossom here, how only Hollywood could tell it. It would maybe even be too cliché for the authors of TV soap opera scripts. Too much does this story rely on the "all ends well" trope. It's because it's not true. Not quite. Their love does not grow quick and strong, they are not made for one another. The backdrop of their tale is no idyllic Cornwall, but a Paris, where violence and murders still happen.

Guilt, jealousy, trauma

It's no innocent love between the two, like you could see it on the pictures of the two with their earlier partners. Of photoshoots in tranquil forests and colourful sunglasses on vacations. Floriane Bernaudat and Johannes Baus didn't make their love easy. There was guilt. Jealousy. Secret dreams of their dead partners. Lingering trauma. The fear of being the second choice. At some point they looked at each other and honestly asked: What keeps us together? Are we two sinking survivors who just want to drown together, or do we want something more?

The something more is now five and two years old and doesn't know or understand, what brought their parents together. The first daughter the two survivors called Bérénice. A name of ancient Greek origin, which means: The one who brings victory. The second they called Madeline, "The Illustrious".

When the terorrists storm into the concert of the Eagles of Death Metal, Baus and his wife Maud are standing close to the entry. The tickets were a surprise for them. The 37 year old Maud honestly wasn't in the mood, didn't know the band and was tired from work. In the subway still, she was unsure if she wanted to attend. But when she's there, she really likes it, is how Baus tells me. A happy grooving together. Until they hear the bangs. Like fireworks.

Screaming people run into their direction. He searches for her hand and doesn't find it. He jumps behind the bar and in a break of the shooting, runs out through the backdoor into the open air. Later the police tells him, where they found Maud, who was shot in the heart by the terrorists: Supposedly, she was next to him behind the bar. When you ask Baus to go through it by the minute, he remembers many details, for example a fan which he found and "armed" himself with, until he realised just how stupid that is against an assault rifle. To this day the idea of Maud being right next to him does not fit into his head. His memory of her blanks the moment they run and his hand doesn't reach hers. He believes that
his brain is protecting him from the thought that he could have left his wife behind.

That Madeline and Bérénice "the victory-bringer" were born, is a victory over the doubts. The choice to give in to hope, despite everything. Hope for a world, where the girls will live well. A second yes to life, and the opposite of what drove the terrorists of Paris, who sought their salvation in the next life and some of which blew themselves up.

One of the main culprits of the attacks was later caught in Belgium: Salah Abdeslam, 34, convincted to life in prison. Baus and Bernaudat didn't really follow the court case. They didn't want to give the individual any more attention. It's important that the judiciary is doing its job, they say, but at the same time they understand that the case isn't going to give them any satisfaction. A warmer idea to them is the thought that "our story inspires someone or gives them hope, especially to someone who is afraid of terrorism or the general tragedy of life. That would be wounderful. But it would be even better, if a potential suicide-attacker, who is in danger of seeing a nihilistic act of self-destruction as the best alternative to life, became inspired to see the positives of life and take small steps in a good direction."

This point of view is the result of a long process of therapy and intense work with the human condition. It's an attempt to escape the role of a victim which society attributes them with. Johannes Baus doesn't want to be damned to mourn forever. His thoughts are shared by the journalist Antoine Leiris, who put a similar impulse to paper after the attacks. His wife also died in the Bataclan club. The journalist wrote, addressed to the perpetrators: "I will not give you the gift of hating you. Even when it is what you want. To answer your hate with rage would mean to give in to the same ignorance that made you who you are."

"Make it stop"

Floriane Bernaudat likes this perspective, she tells today. If she liked it back then, when she was hiding in the little space between ceilings, which she climbed to from the wardrobe? The biting glass wool which was supposed to isolate the space, but didn't protect her from hearing the execution shots below her in the hall? When she was one of the last survivors to leave the building, and the policemen told her to look up into the air and not down at the corpses? At Renaud's funeral, when she hated the musical arangement, which her late husband would not have liked?

Both find it difficult to give general advice, for example to the survivors in the middle east. Part of the fact is, they explain, they wouldn't know where they would be without each other. At the same time they agree that love by itself is not the answer. But their example shows, that even close to the wounds on their soul, new moments of happiness can grow. Though they point out, it would be a lie to say that it is easy to remain humane after having witnessed so much inhumanity. Just recently a Algerian colleague of Bernaudat's told her that it's beautiful, that she is able to treat him as a Muslim exactly the same how she treats everyone else. There are many people in France, and not just there, who after the terror of 2015 cannot tell the difference between members of a religious group and islamist fanatics.

They want to teach their daughters that. Of course they should also know, that the "first loves of their parents" existed. But now it's too early. For everyone. That's how Baus and Bernaudat think of it. That's why there are no pictures of Maud or Renaud in the little house in the Paris suburbs, into which the family moved four years ago. But what remains still, is the close connection of the parents to their dead partners. The children have four grandmothers and four grandfathers. Sometimes, Floriane says, she feels like Maud and Renaud guided her and Johannes together from
the afterlife. "They are in our hearts, and our hearts told us, what is right".

In October 2017, almost two years after the attacks, Johannes Baus and Floriane Bernaudat marry. At the wedding, they announce that they are expecting their first child Bérénice. Bernaudat wears a dress which is very different to her first wedding dress. The best man of the wedding, Mehdi, was Baus' best man at his first wedding too. "Maud gave me a part of her gentle soul", believes Johannes Baus. Floriane got a little tattoo of a fox on her arm. In French, "renard" means fox, which almost sounds like Renaud, who is now forever under her skin.

She still sees that last image of him in front of her eyes. How he's dancing happily on the Bataclan stage and waves at her, wanting her to come closer. Floriane is standing a little bit away. She's tired and needs a short break, and it's hot on stage. Then the attacks happen, and pure chaos bhreaks out. Shots, screams, blood everywhere. A man, hit, falls on top of Floriane and begs for help. When Floriane sees the shooters reload, she crawls out from under the injured man and runs to an exit. With approximately fifteen others, one of them a mother with a young son, she ends up in the wardrobe for the musicians. A man takes her hand, "I don't want to die!" Someone manages to punch a hole into the ceiling. Bernaudat climbs into it, crawls over electric cable and fibreglass wool, until she can't anymore. She hears phones ring and shortly after shots ringing. She doesn't dare calling Renaud, but writes a message, "I'm in the ceiling, where are you?"

Johannes Baus sits next to Floriane Bernaudat on the couch. The kids are colouring in princesses. He caresses her arm, the arm with the fox tattoo on it. They talk about the Hamas attacks once more. And to the question, what gives hope in the pitch black. During therapy, the myth of the phoenix rising from the ashes played a big role repeatedly. To gain strength even when facing complete destruction. Maybe that's what it's about, says Bernaudat.

Johannes Baus finds his words in songs, which he composes. Music has always given him much. The bass of his songs plays Matt McJunkins, 40, the ex-bass player of the American band Eagles of Death Metal, who were standing on stage on the 13th of November 2015. McJunkins hid with others, in part injured ones, in the room behind the stage and survived there. Baus asked him some time ago, if he wanted to teach him. Now they make music together.

In the song Chaos Rebuild Baus writes in English how it feels when the world falls apart. When all security is lost and you are thrown into chaos. What do you do then? Then, the song goes on, it's your duty to build a new world. In the chorus of the song, Baus gives us a picture of his new world:

Make it good

Make it just

Make it clean

Make it gentle

Make it stop

Recently I've been coming back to my chrome browsers to find a tab open with the following URL:
(link disabled to prevent giving them any more clicks)

https ://theaisecrets.beehiiv.com/p/chatgpt-can-now-work-docs-apps-websites-emails

This is happening across all my computers, both linux, windows, and linux VM, so I don't think it's OS-specific malware, but I suspect a rogue chrome extension is opening the tab, because I have chrome synced across all affected devices via my google account.

I've searched for this particular problem and URL to no avail, so I wondered if there's a way to track back which extension opened the tab, other than by doing a binary search disabling half my extensions at a time (which would be annoying as hell - the tabs only seem to get opened once a day or so).

Time Period: 1990-1994

Choose one album
that you love
that you think deserves more love

Tell us what it is, and why.

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Just as a preface, I am not making this post because I oppose immigration or want to turn away imigrants, much less those who can't live safely in their home countries, I just notice immigration and misery seem to be intimately related, and it honestly makes me wonder if a world without misery is also a world without immigration, at least in the form of mass migrations of a specific people group or type of person. I also recognize that more immigration and cultural diversity does have a wide variety of benefits, regardless of it's causes or motives, and that leaving your home for some faraway country looking for some high-end job not present where you live is definitely not the fault or problem of the person migrating.

I've been thinking about immigration recently and it kind of astounds me just how much of immigration happens because of misery, Colonialism or oppression. Here's a pretty broad and varied list of mass immigration phenomena and (as I understand them) their causes:

• The USA has a southern border crisis (to some extent because Republicans like to exaggerate it to justify their xenophobia and so on) because Mexico and Latin America as a whole are much poorer than the USA (something the USA itself shares a good deal of blame for) and thus want to come to the USA, with illegal immigrants often doing so by any means necessary.

• Europe (and Turkey kinda) has an Arab migrant crisis because of the (mostly) failed Arab Spring and Syrian Civil War destabilizing the region or plunging it into war, forcing million to flee to Europe, which is in large part responsible for this crisis seing as (West) Europeans colonized the whole region and set much of the stage for conflicts.

• A large share of white people from a variety of different ethnic groups in the USA were fleeing oppression or misery in Europe (and the ones that were not came here to colonize and oppress the natives):

  • Quakers fleeing to the USA due to British persecution

  • Irish-Americans coming to the USA in largest amounts following the Potato Famine

  • The height of German-American migration to the USA followed the 1848 revolution's failure to make a more liberal and united Germany

  • Meanwhile, Black Americans, after being forcibly migrated out of the African continent to be enslaved, fled the US South in the millions starting around the 1920s as this was the nadir of race relations and the heights of the Jim Crow age. White flight to the suburbs (another large migration) was one of the main northern responses to this influx of black people.

• In early 20th century Brazil, the government encouraged immigration from European countries and Japan to them in large part due to a need for cheap labor still unmet a few decades after the end of slavery and as a way to make the country more white. Many of the European migrants were poor workers looking to make a better life for themselves.

• Zionism arguably owes it's existence and success to centuries of anti-Semitism in Europe and it's culmination in the Holocaust, alongside a sympathetic British Empire and UN being able to simply lease most of the Levant that they had colonized to a new Jewish state. This is layered on top of the fact that the reason Jewish people even left the Levant in the first place was oppression by several different foreign empires for centuries since antiquity. The modern state of Israel also owes the largest share of it's Jews from neighboring middle-eastern countries which also expelled them due to their own anti-Semitism.

• In the middle of the 20th century in Brazil, millions of Brazilian northeasterners migrated to the Southeast in search of economic opportunity they lacked (and to some extent still do) at home, as well as fleeing drought in more rural zones. Notably, in the 2010s we have seen many of these people return to the Northeast following Lula massively helping the Northeast develop over his first presidency in the 2000s. For a personal anecdote, both of my mother's parents did this, and brought my mother to where I live in São Paulo, and then they also went back to the northeast in the mid 2010s.

• Virtually the entirety of the Global South and also Eastern Europe suffers from Brain Drain, where their most educated people leave in search of better opportunity and higher incomes in developed countries and the multinationals they possess. Much of the USA's legal immigration and economic power in spite of it's numerous flaws is owed to this.

• Somewhat similarly, most Western European countries have one or more large communities of people who originate from a country they had colonized as an empire. (The USA also owes much of their Filipino American community to owning them despite it not being the same colonialism as practiced by the British on the USA or by Spain.)

Looking at this fairly long list of examples, I have to wonder if there are mass migrations that happened because of more positive reasons or if any of these already existing mass migrations can be explained by more positive reasons?

Every few months I get the itch to support journalism and expand my news from the low quality high fluff news sources that tend to be free and subscribe to some long-form sources of news, opinion, and investigative journalism, but every time I go through the same process of pricing subscriptions, struggling to decide which one, and then finally just giving up and not subscribing to any of them.

If money was no object I'd probably subscribe right now to:

• The Atlantic
• The New Yorker
• Harpers
• The Economist
• National Review
• WSJ
• NYT

(trying to focus on a variety of political leanings, but mostly from generally high-factuality sources)

I like Apple News+ in concept, and the price is decent, but after a trial subscription I felt like the UI was difficult to navigate, difficult to search and filter, and the news sources were still a subset of the entire publications. I also have to wonder whether the journalists are sufficiently compensated by Apple or whether they get pennies compared to a direct subscription.

So, I come here seeking recommendations -- perhaps somebody here has found a good solution to this problem?