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    1. Can VLC or some other Windows program shuffle through a playlist without ever repeating a file, while also storing that state for future sessions?

      I am using Windows 10. That is perhaps a silly question to ask, but I did not find an answer. Suppose that I have a playlist with 100 videos on VLC or some other video player. I wish for it to...

      I am using Windows 10.

      That is perhaps a silly question to ask, but I did not find an answer.

      Suppose that I have a playlist with 100 videos on VLC or some other video player. I wish for it to play all the one hundred files in random order, with the exception that any video that was already played (or, possibly, played to completion) will be excluded, and will not be played again. A video not played to completion would resume from where it stopped.

      This should be persistent, so the next time I fire up the playlist it starts from where I left it and also remembers the videos that were already played and should be skipped. Ideally, upon completion of the playlist, I should be able to learn that it was complete, so I could get new videos/episodes of whatever shows I am shuffling.

      Thanks!

      EDIT: I understand I can actually pre-shuffle the playlist to get something very similar to what I am asking. However, I would rather not know what is coming next. Like it used to be when I watched TV back in the day. Thanks! ;)

      12 votes
    2. Looking for an Android tablet with some probably unreachable requirements

      Hello. I'm currently in the market for an Android tablet, not strictly for my personal usage, but for my family so there's one easily reachable touch screen computer around the house. The problems...

      Hello. I'm currently in the market for an Android tablet, not strictly for my personal usage, but for my family so there's one easily reachable touch screen computer around the house. The problems start with my requirements, which are... not exactly tablet market friendly:

      • Available in France (and without overly high shipping costs)
      • Long term manufacturer support so it isn't subject to suddenly become e-waste because they decided to stop providing updates after like 1 major Android release
      • Ability to install an Android distribution that doesn't rely on Google apps such as LineageOS + microG
      • Sufficient specs to use a web browser and play videos without issues.
      • I'd like the model to be easy to repair in the same vein as the Fairphone but that's lower priority

      The budget is best defined as "probably not enough" (I don't think I can afford to spend much more than ~400€). Given that I suspect from my initial search not yielding much that fitting all the requirements is impossible especially within that budget, do you have pointers on models that provide an acceptable compromise for what I'm looking for, or that somehow do match all the criteria?

      Hilariously, the closest candidate so far within budget seems to be... The Google Pixel tablet, which despite being a Google product has a fairly straightforward way to get an unGoogled ROM on it.

      15 votes
    3. Tildes Video Thread

      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...

      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!

      4 votes
    4. Do you think stressful games are kind of bad for your health?

      I like to play games, but lately I've been avoiding certain types because I think they are not good for my health. At least, they don't make me feel well afterward. For me, this is a particular...

      I like to play games, but lately I've been avoiding certain types because I think they are not good for my health. At least, they don't make me feel well afterward. For me, this is a particular type of game that requires a very high level of skill, concentration, and dexterity.
      I noticed this years ago when I would play online multiplayer. After the game, I would feel extremely aggressive and I could tell that my blood pressure must have been much higher than normal.

      More recently, I notice this on very difficult games such as Elden Ring, specifically the boss fights. After playing for a while I have the same feeling that I would have if I had just walked away from a near fatal accident or something. Then sometimes that evening I would have trouble sleeping.

      I'm sure my physiology is different than other people. I seem to retain adrenaline/cortisol levels longer than most others. And I know that some people find the adrenaline high to be one of the main points of gaming. Still, I wonder if in general it isn't good for people to stress themselves like this when they aren't burning it off with physical activity.

      I read about this online a little bit. There seem to have been some studies about it that were mostly inconclusive. Most of the findings are more interested in games being a substitute for more physical activity, so gamers may be more sedentary or overweight than normal.

      27 votes
    5. AI video editing helpers are changing my life

      If you are like me then you are kinda over hearing about AI all the time; I get it, believe me. I've written about jobs on here before: my day job is absolutely infested with AI jargon, most of it...

      If you are like me then you are kinda over hearing about AI all the time; I get it, believe me. I've written about jobs on here before: my day job is absolutely infested with AI jargon, most of it pretty meaningless (flashbacks to "The Cloud"), and it's a constant everywhere else too, so yeah it's a lot and it's largely unimpressive. Image gen has gotten pretty ridiculous in the last 6-12 months, and video gen seems to be taking off next, and I've successfully wrangled various chatbots into helping with coding projects, etc.

      Probably none of this is news to you, but I just found out that I can get AI to edit video. I've done a lot of short-form editing, and recently picked up some side work that is much lengthier, without realizing that the time I would spend hunkered over going through it would be exponentially more lengthy. Painfully so. Cue signing up for a trial of AutoCut, and hot damn it's like living in the future. I am as we speak watching it delete gaps, cut to speakers, add captions that are mostly correct & even formatted & unbelievably also do the VHS singalong/Tiktok "highlight the word being spoken" thing that all the cool kids are doing these days. It's not perfect, it's kinda finicky—I'm having to use a V1 when V2 is supposedly much better, and I'm having to chunk these beastly premiere timelines to get it to do anything at all, but wow—if this is your day job, are you worried? Cause it's a game changer for me but no one is going to replace me because no one else would bother messing with it lol, but on a corporate scale do people know about this stuff yet? I'm thinking our jobs may not be replaced by AI, our jobs will probably just become AI babysitting.

      29 votes
    6. Looking for a visualization of North American political boundaries over time

      Lately I've been taking an interest in American westward expansion and trying to get a better understanding of how the lines were drawn on maps in the past. Can anyone recommend a good video or...

      Lately I've been taking an interest in American westward expansion and trying to get a better understanding of how the lines were drawn on maps in the past. Can anyone recommend a good video or interactive visualization that I can scroll back and forward through time to see the changes in detail?

      Things I'm particularly interested in tracking:

      • Indigenous lands (specifically how the boundaries of traditional/ancestral lands evolved into modern-day reservations)
      • European claims like those of Britain, France, and Spain
      • What was considered US/Canada/Mexico territory vs. no man's land or frontier at different points in time, from the governance standpoint of each of those nations
      • Large and rapid settling movements like the Mormons into Utah, Oklahoma land rush, California gold rush, etc.
      • Other factors like homesteading programs (I don't know much about this) and the transcontinental railroad, confederacy borders, trail of tears, etc.
      • Notable battles/massacres marking bloody land disputes

      I mean I guess that's a lot, this is basically "tell me about all of American history." 😂

      I feel like I have a pretty decent grasp of the general political timeline and important events, I'm just realizing lately that I don't have a cohesive mental model of how it all fits on a map and changed over the years. I did find the Wikipedia page on Territorial Evolution of the United States to be interesting but it's a bit overwhelming and not very digestible. It contains this animated gif, which is awesome but I can't scroll through it at my own pace, and it's USA only.

      13 votes
    7. USA: What happened in the American 2024 Presidential election?

      Like many people the results of the 2024 election felt like a punch in the gut. I've been a news fast since then. I'm ready to start looking at what happened. I'm sure there are a lot of articles...

      Like many people the results of the 2024 election felt like a punch in the gut. I've been a news fast since then. I'm ready to start looking at what happened.

      I'm sure there are a lot of articles and videos.

      Could anyone recommend a fact based analysis of why Trump won? Something in the style of The Economist versus hyperbole laden news videos. :-)

      30 votes