Hi Everyone,

I am looking for recommendations of your favorite “comfort” movies. Movies, I don’t have to take too seriously and can be watched over and over and can fall asleep to.

As an example a few of mine would be:

MoneyBall
Jesse Stone movies
Dave
Avengers Infinity War and Endgame
Star Trek Generations
Major League
Clear and Present Danger
Ghostbusters Afterlife
Batman Begins
Batman Returns
Grinch animated movie
Indiana jones dial of destiny
Rocky balboa
Moonfall
Goldeneye
X-men 1 & 2, Days of Futures Past
Rainmaker
Runaway Jury

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

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

I always loved magazines. Like, real paper magazines. Lately I realized that I can find digital versions or scans somewhat easily and it sparked a new obsession. I'm weird, I know. But there are so many beautifully designed magazines, such as the Japanese travel-related Transit or the men's lifestyle Brutus. Even their websites are beautiful and worth visiting. There's also this independent Brazilian retro gaming magazine called Jogo Véio that is almost like a love letter to the classic video game magazines.

I think I've been craving creativity lately, in a World of AI slop and "content" creators. So any magazines you like? What do you like about them?

The recruitment agency I temp with are a major multinational player in the market, have a bit of a reputation for being sharks (based on feedback I've seen about them on Reddit and Trustpilot.) They're a publicly listed company who absolutely 100% should know better.

I caught a really nasty virus two weekends ago and had been practically bedridden for nearly a week. For the first two days of calling in sick, I logged into my work laptop and messaged my line manager via Teams. On Wednesday morning, I was advised that I should also keep my agency in the loop, so I instead sent her an email, ensuring to copy in the recruitment consultant who is my point-of-contact (I'll just call him Ben.)

At roughly 3:40 PM, Ben sends me a snarky WhatsApp message out of the blue. "you know we can see your details on job boards lol." I left him on read because 1. I'm in bed and 2. My job search is frankly none of his business.

He then called me and proceeded to all-but-accuse me of pulling sickies to attend interviews, going behind his back to apply for jobs. He asked me if I even considered how bad I was going to make him and the agency look if I quit my job, then proceeded to interrogate me about my contact I had with other recruiters and warned me to delist myself any job boards moving forwards. I complied, purely because I wanted to shut him up and didn't want to start a further argument, when in my head I just wanted to verbally chew him out.

I don't appreciate being intimidated and guilt-tripped about my job search, especially when I am genuinely unwell, and I am seriously thinking about lodging a formal complaint with the agency, but I'm also worried about facing retaliation for this.

AFAIK, I have not signed into a contract preventing me from applying for roles with other employers or agencies. I'm also on a temp zero-hours contract that is due to finish in less than three weeks where either party can terminate it without notice or liability. There is the possibility of the work assignment being extended, or me being offered a permanent role but I don't intend to stay beyond this. This was a decision I made to myself weeks before Ben's recent asshole behaviour. Other than that, I literally have nothing lined up.

Has anybody had experiences raising formal complaints with recruitment agencies? The agency does have a complaints procedure and a dedicated quality care team that investigates formal complaints.

In this edition of the Good News thread, I'd love it if folks shared not just a positive news story, but perhaps a video, article, story, something that can function as a happy moment, a chill vibe, a memory that makes you smile. We're all just trying to deal with the world, so if you cannot find joy in current events, consider sharing something else joyful.

For this thread, even if something happy also reveals the sadness at the heart of the world, we're going to focus on the joy here. (Posting in misc due to the extended ask this time)

Short in question

This short popped up in my recommended. It's clearly AI (tinny voice, random jump in scenes in the middle of one of her sentence, very awkward "oh yeah, stop me"), but, unlike older AI videos, virtually nobody in the comments realizes. With how good AI is getting, we'll very probably have actual riots and political conflict breaking out over AI hoaxes and AI-fueled sentiment campaigns (if the WhatsApp lynchings in 2017-2018 are any measure of how bad social media hoaxes can get). On the other side, citizen journalism of atrocities may come to be worthless and easily dismissed as AI. Humanity is cooked, as the kids say.

(Reposted as a text post and with a better title. Previous comments can be viewed here)

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

Some background here - I have a niche YouTube channel, mostly doing longform (often 3+ hour) commentaries on a board game with a friend. We're both very skilled at the game and are apparently entertaining to listen to, but it's all very amateur - I don't really know anything about videomaking except what I've picked up as I go.

That had never really been an issue, because the topic is so niche that only people really interested in the game watch, and they didn't really mind. But last year we got a shout-out from a big YouTuber and the subscriber count has gone up a lot since, to the point where it feels like I really should figure out how to make it a little less amateurish.

I want to start with audio, because that's 90% of what we do. But I don't even know where to start with it.

I got Blue Yetis for both of us a few years ago because I was vaguely aware that was a good mic, but if anything it made it slightly worse than just using headsets (quite a bit more echoey) - I don't know if that was a mistake, and if there are better mics to go for?

I'm also aware that you're supposed to have some kind of padding on the walls to stop the echoing, but that isn't really feasible for me both because I rent, and because all the rooms of the apartment I'm in are absolutely massive. I've heard that you can throw a blanket over your head, which I've tried for a short video but I absolutely couldn't handle for a three hour one. I'm lost on how to solve that too.

If anyone here knows much about it, I'd love either direct advice about it or a recommendation for how/where to learn about this stuff. It's super appreciated!