Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

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

Now hear me out, alright? This is a very polarizing issue but I do want some experienced opinions on the matter. There are too many bandwagoners spouting regurgitated opinions and it's hard to pick out the genuine impressions

When 76 went on sale, I decided to grab it up. Yes, I know, I'm the cancer rewarding Bethesda for a low hanging cash grab effort and I should be ashamed. However, I really wanted an educated opinion on the matter and I had the money. So, despite the hivemind having made themselves up, and myself being not so keen on the decisions, I buckled down and dived in.

So, while everyone's complaints were focused more towards gameplay, engine, and server side issues (which are completely valid complaints), I found myself blown away, and deeply saddened, by the art direction. The game honestly does look beautiful! I got sick of dilapidated buildings and browns and greens in Fallout 3 and 4, and New Vegas was nice when it wasn't brown sand and olive brush. This game looks gorgeous. They managed to throw a ton of different tiny biomes into one map, that all look interesting and appealing to the eye (once you tweak the .ini to get rid of the god awful Depth of Field). Lots of beautiful forest settings and foreboding mountains.

But overall, my favorite thing about the game is the enemy design. And no, I don't mean the stupid scorched. My favorite thing about Fallout has always been the mutation/radiation angle. I love the possibility for terrifying and disgusting mutated creatures, and the art team absolutely nailed it with creatures like the Wendigo, Snallygaster, Grafton Monster, and Gulper. Just super unsettling and creepy monsters in the most literal sense. I feel the worst for the art team, who did a fantastic job but who were ultimately drowned out by the flak thrown at the gameplay and bugs.

This, of course, does not excuse the horrendous bugs encountered during regular play. Power Armor pieces not actually being repaired yet still using up mats, constant server disconnects, poor scaling system (Did a level 70 player walk into an area first? Well expect every enemy there to be around their level even if you enter!), awful graphics setting options (for the love of god, no more depth of field), no push to talk voice (seriously?), poor economy, exploits, and lack of true endgame, among many others I've missed.

So, does anybody else want to expand?

Champions League - Matchweek 5

The following teams are already qualified to the 1/8s round:
Atlético Madrid, Borussia Dortmund, Barcellona, Porto, Shalke04, Bayern Munich, Ajax, Manchester City, Real Madrid, AS Roma, Juventus, Manchester United

Europa League - Matchweek 5

The following teams are already qualified to the 1/16s round:
Bayer Leverkusen, Zurich, Salzburb, Zenit Petersburg, Dinamo Zagreb, Fenerbahce, Arsenal, Sporting, Betis, Eintracht Frankfurt, Lazio, Dynamo Kyiv, Chelsea

English Premier League - Matchweek 14

LaLiga - Matchweek 14

Serie A - Matchweek 12

Bundesliga - Matchweek 13

Ligue 1 - Matchweek 15

I'm curious to know what you think your own parents (or the people who raised you) did right. What actions, mindsets, or philosophies did they operate by that had a positive effect on you? What techniques of theirs would you use with your own children? What important lessons did they teach you?

In mid-2012 I decided to become a vegetarian, both for health and ethical reasons. Before then I had mostly been on autopilot when it came to food - I just ate what what was the norm in my family. My choice forced me to get out of my comfort zone, to try out new foods I had never considered before. For this reason, the change has been incredibly positive to me; I'm much more conscious of what I eat now. And by setting a precedent it later helped me make more changes, like cutting down sugar. I'm currently testing to see if the bloating and stomach aches I suffer daily are because I am lactose intolerant; if it is indeed the case, that will require another drastic change, although this particular one will be by necessity rather than choice.

What is the biggest change you've ever made to your diet? Was it by choice, or did you feel obligated to do so, for example because of health issues? What did you get out of it? How much thought do you put in your daily diet, in general?

I'm interested in possibly developing a tildes client. In order to experiment with the currently disabled API, as well as to become more familiar with how Tildes works internally, I've been trying to set up a Tildes development environment on my machine following the instructions on the docs site. I've run into a problem with the 'vagrant up' stage of the setup.

...  
==> default: Running provisioner: salt...  
Copying salt minion config to vm.  
Checking if salt-minion is installed  
salt-minion was not found.  
Checking if salt-call is installed  
salt-call was not found.  
Using Bootstrap Options:  -F -c /tmp  
Bootstrapping Salt... (this may take a while)  
bash: /tmp/bootstrap_salt.sh: /usr/bin/sh: bad interpreter: No such file or directory  
The following SSH command responded with a non-zero exit status.  
Vagrant assumes that this means the command failed!  
  
/tmp/bootstrap_salt.sh  -F -c /tmp  
  
Stdout from the command:  
  
  
  
Stderr from the command:  
  
bash: /tmp/bootstrap_salt.sh: /usr/bin/sh: bad interpreter: No such file or directory  

So the Salt provisioning is failing, and it seems like it just has the wrong path to the shell it needs, but while I could probably just tweak this script, it seems like that goes against the concept of using Vagrant in the first place. I was wondering if anyone else ran into this problem, or if the bug lies between the seat and the keyboard.

This week let's share some of those favorite tracks that you don't usually advertise to other people - the guilty pleasures. The ones that tend to make music critics and other music lovers cringe, and garner raised eyebrows from your friends and family. We've all got them hiding in our playlists.

Thanks @ainar-g for the topic suggestion. Feel free to suggest topics for upcoming threads in the comments, and happy listening. :)

Last week's thread on uplifting earworms.

Previous recommendation on Tildes: Person of Interest

Light spoilers: Psych - S01E01 - Pilot

It's hard to convey how much I love Psych. It's one of those series that, like The Office, P&R, Community, Arrested Development etc develops its own community, through a very vivid style of comedy.

Psych goes back and forth across the series between light-hearted fun and serious episodes. The series follows Shawn, son of a retired police officer, who was taught by his father to be hyper-perceptive, and his best friend Gus. Shawn finds himself having to fake "Psychic powers" to justify his perceptiveness and ends up working for the police.

What makes the series so good is the top-notch chemistry between Shawn and Gus. Psych is one of my top "comfort" series because of this. It got me through my hardest times and it's my second-favourite full-rewatch series (first being The IT Crowd).

It's also littered with references poking fun at The Mentalist, another great TV series with a much more serious tone and a similar plot line (Fake psychic helps police force).

Psych's main flaw I would say is that it suffers from Flanderization. Over time, both Shawn and Gus become exaggerations of themselves. But as much as I wish they'd be more subtle about it sometimes, it doesn't detract from the overall quality of the series.

All in all, Psych is, in my opinion, USA Network's best work and the embodiment of their slogan "Characters welcome", with strong similarities to Monk, Suits and White Collar.

The Psych Movie, which follows the end of the series, is excellent as well. I recommend watching the series before, however. I also generally recommend watching the series starting from the beginning. My first encounter with Psych was with a Season 2 episode and turned me off for a while. There's a second movie currently being filmed. Hopefully it's good!

Releases of the week 24/11/2018 - 30/11/2018

Featured Release

Earl Sweatshirt - Some Rap Songs (Hip Hop, Abstract)

It’s always been Earl versus the world. Fame found him at the age of 16, making him an internet sensation, then a meme, then an enigma, and finally, an icon. For an introverted kid who knew he could rap but was reluctant to accept the exposure and invasions of privacy that came with being a bona fide pop culture phenomenon, it’s been an uncomfortable evolution. Voracious fans threatened to consume not just his music but his personal life too. That same entitlement caused the “FREE EARL” campaign to mutate from eager appreciation to scary obsession and stoked fans’ demand for music during the three years since his last album—even as he was mourning his father’s death earlier this year. Rather than bask in the attention, he recoiled from it, setting himself apart from peers who maintain relevance through carefully strategized ubiquity. As he receded from the spotlight, his mystique grew—as did fans’ desire to hear him to do what he does best.

Source: Pitchfork

Listen to single

Stream Links

Other Notable Relases

The 1975 - A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships (Pop, Synthpop)

Listen to single

J.I.D. - DiCaprio 2 (Hip Hop, Trap)

Listen to single

Jeff Tweedy - Warm (Indie, Alt-Country)

Listen to single

Meek Mill - CHAMPIONSHIPS (Hip Hop, Trap)

Listen to single

Feel free to discuss or feature any and all other releases in the comments below

Discussion Points

Have you listened to any of these releases?
What are your thoughts?
What are you looking forward to listen to?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past?

// All feedback on this format welcome below.

Last month my dad had a stroke. Miraculously he didn't lose much functionality at all, though he does have some minor cognitive issues that we're working on in rehab - mainly memory. Accordingly, we want to find some games he can play on his tablet to help keep his mind active and focus his attention. But the mobile game market is hard for me to navigate and sort through for what I'm looking for.

I need games that're about a dollar or less and don't have in-app purchases. Basically games you could give to your kid and trust that they're not gonna be psychologically manipulated into wanting to empty your bank card or something like that.

Brain teasers and simple puzzles are ideal for sharpening his mind but any game that's good clean straightforward fun will work. I don't think he's going to be able to handle anything with a whole lot of moving parts like an RTS right now, for instance.

I can't afford to spend much on this and I don't know what kinds of games will interest him most so I want to give him a lot of choices. I've already looked through a couple of the other mobile game rec threads on here and I'm checking out the games listed there, but I was hoping you all could help me think of some stuff more geared to my situation. Any pointers even just on where to go looking or what to google would be appreciated. Cheers!

Edit:

Thank you all for being so supportive! I've added a bunch of the games you recommended, and I also found a couple nice lists that I thought I'd add here for anyone else interested.

Short List of Totally Free Games

10 Completely Free Mobile Games

Stay awesome tildes!