I was thinking about this during my run today. I have a playlist where I put songs that I consider to be the "most iconic" and I want help filling it out a bit. I'd also like help determining if some of these aren't iconic enough, but the main ones I'm asking about are literal theme songs, so that may give them some extra points.

Now, this is of course at least semi-subjective, but I have tried to not put songs that are just really great or that everybody knows or that nobody will be singing next summer.

There are certainly multiple ways to define "iconic." I'm really trying to stick to the songs where you don't have to explain how or why it's iconic. It just is, and "everybody" knows it. The way I see it, this could actually exclude some of the biggest songs of all time because yeah, they're popular, but they aren't an icon.

So, before I use any more awful, self-justifying logic, let's get into my list so far!

In the Air Tonight
Born in the USA
Roundball Rock
CBS March Madness Theme
Monday Night Football Theme
Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley
Hey Jude
American Pie

Some songs from Grease because I'm sure at least one qualifies, but I grew up hating it because my sister loved it so I don't know which one(s) to include (or exclude, rather)

I can obviously think of a lot of other obviously extremely iconic songs but I've only added songs when I happened to listen to them. So what are Tildes' thoughts?

I've been slowly getting into sewing, mainly with the goal of making cosplay, but for now mostly repairing and altering clothing by hand sewing. Since I've stuck with it for some time now I am thinking of getting a sewing machine, since hand sewing larger things is a bit of a pain.

So now I am looking at some sewing machines and I have a few questions: Is buying a cheaper machine a waste of money? I've read some older topics here on Tildes and saw that Singer machines have a terrible reputation, so I probably should avoid those? What kind of features should a machine definitely have? For example I am looking at something like the Janome Juno J15, is this still basically a toy or would it be enough for most things?

A little over a week ago I picked up a 3x3 Rubik's cube after seeing a coworker mess with one. I love fidgety things either as a stimming activity or as a puzzle. Do any of you have other fidgety puzzles to recommend?

Have had a bicycle for most of my life and was a particularly avid biker as a teen - taking out my Sekine 10 speed and doing 40 miles just for the heck of it was a regular weekend ritual.

And then middle age and family intruded. Still had a bike but it got pretty dusty in the garage.

But last year I saw a classic recumbent in the local ads. I've tried a recumbent trike and absolutely loved it, but where I live, riding a trike with your head only a couple of feet above the road is a sure fire way to get run over by a lifted truck that didnt see you. So I bought the bike, a RANS Stratus XL for a mere $300. With an aluminum frame, its surprisingly light for a long bike.

The only real con is that this bike is a bit unstable at really slow speeds, but once you get rolling its very comfortable and stable. The frame absorbs some of the worst road bumps so its smooth and the long wheelbase is great for my tall frame, I can really stretch out.

But the best part is that Im laying back in a sweet lounge chair, as God intended, instead of bent forward with a kinked neck, sitting on a tiny seat that is certified torture device after an hour of riding.

Its still early in the year and Im still outta shape but riding a recumbent has brought back the joy of biking. And I havent even been run over once.

Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix
Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari
May 16-18, 2025

Qualification:
Saturday, May 17, 2025 - 14:00 UTC / 10:00a US EDT

Grand Prix:
Sunday, May 18, 2025 - 13:00 UTC / 9:00a US EDT

See your local time here

Next race:

Monaco Grand Prix
Circuit de Monaco
Sunday, May 25, 2025

A couple of things for me:

What is the significance of the monster group ? Is there some upper limit on the symmetry of the universe ?

Is the Riemann hypothesis true ? This looks weirdly abstract but has some significance for cryptography. It also seems part of intuitive but is one maths hardest problems to solve!

What the hell are black holes in the context of space time and reality ? I watched this really good interview of Brian Cox by Cloe Abrams. I was sort of semi comfortable with what I thought they were, but after watching this I am more profoundly confused by them than before

Dark energy/matter… ok. I stop. your turn.

Hi Tildes, I would like to share a DIY backpack repair I recently completed.

I have had the LTT backpack since it was launched. It has been incredibly durable, but I have used it so much that some parts wearing out is to be expected. I got one of the zipper replaced through the warranty, but the bottom of the back side was wearing out too. Here is a picture showing the damage. The white fabric sticking out is some internal padding. The stitching didn't come out, the black fabric just wore down enough to start disintegrating. Right after that picture, I secured the worn edge with a simple whip stitch to prevent it from falling apart more.

I considered a few different repair methods, but nothing seemed too appealing. I considered trying to learn how to darn for this repair, but I thought that I wouldn't like the edges of the darn patch. Also, the fabric in that area was so thin that I didn't think it would hold a direct darn repair. I also got a quote from a local repair shop, but they wanted to just cover the area with a new piece of fabric, which wouldn't have looked good.

Around this same time, I bought myself a cross stitch kit for Christmas, to pass the time on the many train trips I was taking. I got quite interested in the hobby, and that got me thinking: maybe I could make a cross stitch repair? Cross stitch isn't very durable, or used for repair, but if it only lasted a few months, it would at least be a fun project.

At first, I was looking into simple cross stitch border patterns like this one. I ruled those out simply because most would have been too tall for the repair I was hoping for. I also liked the idea of creating my own pattern. Since it was an LTT backpack, I wanted to keep with the tech theme. I was also inspired by the dbrand circuit board pattern that was released around the time I started this project. I liked how it evoked the design of a functional circuit board. So I decided to make my own cross stitch pattern.

I eventually came up with this pattern. I liked the idea of the central chip being rotated 45 degrees, since many geometric cross stitch patterns focus on 90 degree angles. I also wanted some different symmetries in different places. The traces connected to the central chip are rotationally symmetric, then a dissimilar patch, and then mirror symmetry traces after that, and dissimilar edges. The left side was meant to represent a USB or similar port soldered to the board. The right side is a wireless chip, with a PCB antenna.

For anyone who is experienced with cross stitch, there is already some unique features of this pattern. Cross stitch typically deals with complete X stitches, shown as pixels in the pattern. My pattern has a bunch of partial stitches, where the X has half of it with a different color. I wanted to use partial stitches to make what looked like thin PCB traces without having everything be 90 degrees (and 90 degree angles are a big no-no in PCB design). I also have some singleton stitches that are off the standard grid for the rest of the piece (supposed to represent vias).

Next for the materials. Originally I considered metallic filament. It is shiny and sparkly, which would fit in with the PCB aesthetic. However basically everyone on the internet says that metallic embroidery filament is incredibly annoying and difficult to use, and that it should be used sparingly. Then I stumbled onto DMC étoile, which means star in french. These are standard embroidery filaments that also have a plastic sparkly thread with the cotton threads, so they give some sparkly effect without being too loud. The effect is quite difficult to see on camera, but looks very good in person. I also decided to use 28 count linen in black. (The internet also heavily recommended against using black, and it definitely made the stitching experience more difficult.)

Et voilà ! I think it came out absolutely fantastic. Also, bonus pic of the back so you can critique my stitches. The partial stitches weren't too difficult once I got the hang of it. I buried the start and end threads under as many other stitches I could for extra strength, and didn't cut/restart stitches if possible. I also experimented with different floss thread counts, but I decided on 3 instead of the standard 2. Then I washed it and applied an iron-on interface backing material to try and keep the floss from coming out.

Finally, after a few months of having my backpack in the repair shop for the zipper (long story), I had it back and could try and finish the repair. Sewing it on was surprisingly difficult, mostly because I didn't have access to the back of the work piece. I managed to get a sloppy stitch in that would at least hold it in place, and went back to add a secure whip stitch with a curved needle and double thread. But I think it came out very nice. Final picture 1, and final picture 2. The black fabric doesn't exactly match the black of the backpack, but it isn't too noticeable in person.

And now I have probably the most unique LTT backpack in existence!

Everyone, proud to announce that after a week and nine hours the tildes archipelago is complete as of 6:51 AM ET! We, astoundingly, had only one release due to excessive backtracking and only one technical DNF out of sixteen games. (As a first-time host I'll take that as a win!) Otherwise two Radiances and the Hollow Knight said good night, the Ender Dragon ended, the Spire was (mostly) Slayed, Red ...'d, Bowser blasted big, Ganon's gone, Ganon's gone again, Rogues Legacied, John Darksoul prevailed, Doomguy doomed all over the place, and... Poker. Also we found that last strawberry. Jesus.

Big thanks to everyone who participated and hope you had fun! I'm thinking I'll throw a sign-up thread in a month or two to gather YAMLs and we'll trek through it again. Definitely excited to try some new games!

_{(FAQ for those out of the loop)}

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

With round two wrapping up we're seeing some pretty great basketball this year. The Nuggets are my local team and this OKC-Denver series has been brutal; finals caliber ball. Watching these teams play with grit and determination every other night really is what I like about sports.

Excited for game 7, OKC at home are definitely the favorites, but would love to see the Nuggets advance. I am a bit apprehensive about taking a clearly exhausted team into a series against a rested Timberwolves.

What are some storylines you're following, what do you think about the state of the playoffs?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I have been thinking about this issue lately because I own some devices that still work as normal, but are really old (one being almost eight, and the other almost seven years old).

The dilemma is the following:

I don’t actually need to upgrade these devices, because newer models don’t have any new features that I have any need of. What my current devices do is all that I need them to do, and that could probably still be true for many more years to come.

In other words, if I get an upgrade now, then I would be wasting money because I could just stick with my current device until it breaks for good and then buy a new one instead.

The problem is that, if I wait until that point, then I’ll be left without a device that I need for everything that I do on a daily basis, until I have been able to save up the money to buy a new one.

This makes me think that I should maintain a “critical device failure” fund, just in case. But even if I do, that doesn’t solve all the problems.

With my smartphone, for example, I use it for online banking authentication. There is no alternative system that I can use where I live, and this system can only be tied to one device at a time. There is always the risk that if I lose my phone, then I would also lose access to my online banking app, which is a service that due to certain circumstances, my wife and I use on a daily basis. We truly depend on it. I would have to quickly buy a new device, and then rush to the bank, to go through a long and gruesome process of getting the permission to install the app on the new phone (true story).

Ironically, I can “transfer” the app between devices, but that feature is useless if I let my smartphone completely die first.

And there are many other similar apps and services that I regularly use, which I can hold on one device only.

I also know, however, that whatever date I choose to upgrade these devices on, will be a mostly arbitrary one. So... shrug

Just to give you a final example: The battery on my smartphone wasn’t doing too well, so after almost six years, I finally got it replaced. It was surprisingly cheap, considering how it breathed new life into my device. Maybe I was just imagining it, but it suddenly seemed to work faster, not to mention that the battery lasts way longer now, obviously. Many people that I know though, would just have tossed this six-year-old device and gotten a new one. For them, a dying battery is synonymous with a dying phone, and at the six year mark, that’s... maybe not a completely unreasonable way of thinking?

But anyway.

How do you device when you upgrade a device?

I'm in the planning stages of a Viking-themed game I'll be running sometime next year, and I'm noticing a nice little progression in the armor types that ends with chain mail. When combined with a silver-based economy that cares more about the weight of the silver over the number of coins you have, that puts a lot of emphasis on looking towards magic for your better AC values, as armor will generally be more expensive and the (typically) highest tiers of armor--namely, plate mail, but also things like splint and banded mails--are simply unavailable for sale or amongst the majority of the enemies you might face.

That magic will most commonly be from the runecaster, probably, since there's a rune available that can be worn like a necklace and improve AC, as well as another that can reduce damage taken. Magic armor will still be--likely even moreso--coveted and sought out by the players.

A PC with average Dexterity can reasonably hit AC 3 (or AC 17 if you're used to ascending values); this assumes chain mail, shield, and a protection rune. Normally AC 3 (banded mail and a shield) is the best a starting PC (with no adjustment from Dex) can hope for in a traditional game.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like seismology, minimalism.digital and charles dickens. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was nerding out.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

I have a thing for rock songs that include a piano playing the same note every eighth-note. For example:

• Go With the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age has it going for the entire song.
• The Sweetness by Jimmy Eat World has it at the end.
• Do It or Die by Die Mannequin has it during the intro and chorus.
• In It Doesn't Matter Why by Silversun Pickups, it's not a piano, I'm not even sure what it is, but it's a high pitch repetitive percussive sound.
• Party Hard by Andrew W.K. gets an honorary mention, but the piano note is only every quarter note rather than every eighth note.

Can anyone think of any other songs like this? I know I've heard a bunch, but when I try and come up with any more examples, I can't.