Right now, the search function only works by searching the titles of posts made.

I'd like to be able to search through my comments on an occasion where I'd like to link someone to it to further the information provided. If I'd already written on the subject somewhere, I'd like to be able to provide the source, and add commentary more pertaining to the subject matter if necessary.

Lacking that, is there a way to use Tildes' API to perform automated search myself?

Hi everyone.

Hello to all the new faces who don't know my name - (or how out of character it is that there are capital letters in this post!) This isn't really for you - or for anyone in particular I guess; I just wanted to write something to those who have followed my work on here.

So, you.

Howdy.

It's been a minute.

I just wanted to give you all a quick update; let you know that I'm safe. I've had a few of you reach out to me since my last post. I hope I didn't scare anybody.

For those interested - things... aren't all that better now, hahaha. Sorry.

But the good news is, they're trending up in a really good way.

I've decided to stop drinking for awhile; I figured that isn't really helping my cause at this point. I'll pick that back up when there's something worth celebrating, when I'm in better company, and when I'm back in control of myself.

I've started getting a lot more interviews for work; shouldn't be long now until I have a position landed and I'm back to being a functioning adult.

And uh - I started therapy. Been about a month now. I like my therapist, they're very sweet, very weird in a fun/eclectic kind of way. (My kinda person.) And that's been going well.

In fact, that's part of this.

It's not just Tildes I abandoned.

I've let a lot of very important people to be fall to the wayside lately - total isolation. Tonight, I started calling them back, apologizing, letting them know what was going on. And that's gone well so far.

Now I'm here doing the same for you.

I don't know if I'll be back on Tildes all too frequently. There's a lot on here I might just need to let rest.

So I just wanted to say that I'm here. I love you. I'm sorry. And, bye.

For now.

eyes crackle open

half past three

stomach on fire and

my body feels meek

i stumble out my chair

and here the creak in my knees

you're only in your twenties

and you're living ninety

.

my head feels funny

and i'm tired of the numbing

and there's too much week

at the end of my money

a little bumblebee lost

wishing for his honey

beat my head against the hive

until the world starts buzzing

and it falls.

.

and i

set

foot

down

on that unpaved road

step

forward like an orphan

on a search for a home

walk

forward hand to God

if he answers my call

honey (i'll) be

leaving for now

hope it won't be long

.

soul

full of gravel and

a heart made of gold

imma

face my music and

play my song

send

me down to hell

if it rights my wrongs

honeybee

i'm leaving for now

hope it won't be long.

Here's a list of a lot of things that came out in this past week, including many which are set to release on Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and I avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

(oh and don't bully me for the genre tags, a lot of these things have very limited resources available and I couldn't individually listen to everything and determine what fits best, so I'm pulling from third parties and an artist's past work a lot of the time)

Thanks for the help this week, @Cleb!

88GLAM - 88GLAM2.5 (Trap Rap)

Aaron Lewis - State I’m In (Contemporary Country)

ALL TVVINS - Just To Exist (Alternative Dance, Indie Rock)

All Your Sisters - Trust Ruins (Industrial Rock, Post-Punk)

Anderson .Paak - Ventura (Neo-Soul, Contemporary R&B)

Andy Black - The Ghost of Ohio (Pop Rock)

Astrid - Fall, Stand, Dance (Indie Pop, Pop Rock)

Band of Skulls - Love Is All You Love (Garage Rock Revival, Alternative Rock)

Bars Of Gold - Shelters (New Wave, Indie Rock, Post-Hardcore)

Beat Music - Beat Music! Beat Music! Beat Music! (Jazz-Rock, Electronic)

Bibio - Ribbons (Folktronica, Hypnagogic Pop)

Big Business - The Beast You Are (Hard Rock, Heavy Metal)

Big Search - Slow Fascination (Indie Pop)

Black Flower - Future Flora (Afro-Jazz, Jazz-Funk)

Broken Social Scene - Let's Try the After - Vol. 2 (Indie Pop, Indie Rock)

Bruce Hornsby - Absolute Zero (Art Pop, Singer/Songwriter)

BTS - Map of the Soul: Persona (K-Pop)

The Budos Band - V (Jazz-Funk, Heavy Psych, Afrobeat)

Caskey - Black Sheep 4 (Trap Rap)

The Chemical Brothers - No Geography (Big Beat, Acid House)

The Cradle - The Glare of Success (Indie Folk)

Cris Jacobs - Color Where You Are (Singer/Songwriter, Acoustic Blues)

Damien Jurado - In the Shape of a Storm (Indie Folk, Singer/Songwriter)

Eli "Paperboy" Reed - 99 Cent Dreams (Soul, Rhythm & Blues)

Emily Reo - Only You Can See It (Indie Pop)

Emma Bunton - My Happy Place (Pop Soul)

Eric Reed - Everybody Gets The Blues (Jazz)

Fontaines D.C. - Dogrel (Post Punk Revival)

Glen Hansard - The Wild Willing (Singer/Songwriter, Electronic)

Gone Cosmic - Sideways In Time (Psychedelic Rock)

​iann dior - nothings ever good enough (Emo Rap)

Intellexual (Nico Segal & Nate Fox of The Social Experiment) - Intellexual (Indie Pop)

Inter Arma - Sulphur English (Post Metal)

Jesse Rutherford - GARAGEB& (Alternative R&B, Electropop)

Jess Ribeiro - Love Hate (Singer/Songwriter)

John Paul White - The Hurting Kind (Singer/Songwriter, Folk Rock)

Junodream - Terrible Things That Could Happen EP (Indie Rock)

Khalid - Free Spirit (Contemporary R&B, Neo-Soul)

KSI & Randolph - New Age (UK Hip Hop)

The Leisure Society - Arrivals & Departures (Chamber pop, Indie pop)

Lloyd - Black Haze (Pop Rock)

Lowly - Hifalutin (Indie Pop)

LSD - Labrinth, Sia & Diplo Present… LSD (Psychedelic Pop, Electronic)

Marshmello & SOB X RBE - Roll the Dice - EP (Pop Rap)

Melby - VCR (Psychedelic Pop, Indie Pop)

Melissa Etheridge - The Medicine Show (Pop Rock, Singer/Songwriter)

M Huncho - Utopia (Trap Rap)

MISSIO - The Darker the Weather // The Better the Man (Electropop)

MONKEY3 - Sphere (Stoner Rock, Space Rock)

Mystery Skulls - Back to Life (Electropop)

Native Harrow - Happier Now (Indie Folk, Folk Pop)

Norah Jones - Begin Again (Jazz Pop)

NUMENOREAN - Adore (Atmospheric black metal)

Odonis Odonis - Reaction EP (Electro-Industrial, Industrial Rock)

Pixel Grip - Heavy Handed (Synthpop)

Reese McHenry - No Dados (Garage Rock)

RiFF RAFF - PiNK PYTHōN (Trap Rap)

Rory Fresco - True Story (Pop Rap)

Sara Evans - The Barker Family Band (Country Pop)

Sebastián Yatra - FANTASÍA (Reggaeton)

Shovels & Rope - By Blood (Alt. Country)

Sophie Auster - Next Time (Singer/Songwriter)

Tellavision - Add Land (Electronic, Pop)

Theories - Vessel (Grindcore)

Thomas Henley - Epoque EP (Electronic)

Through The Noise - Dualism (Nu Metal, Post Hardcore)

Tom Speight - Collide (Singer Songwriter)

Walking On Cars - Colours (Pop Rock)

Yours Truly - Afterglow EP (Progressive Pop)

Zvi - Deer Pink (Drone Metal, Experimental Rock)

I'm in search for new ones to watch, but can't seem to find anything. I'm curious about what they are going to do with the new Child's Play reboot.

Anyway, the ones i liked so far:

• Hereditary
• Suspiria
• The Ritual
• Halloween
• The Clovehitch Killer
• The Void
• Gerald’s Game
• It
• Get Out

I was fed up with the chores of writing consistent git commit messages, so a while ago I started developing a hook in Emacs which I used with Magit (actually git-commit-mode) which uses some crude heuristics to fill out the COMMIT_EDITMSG buffer for me. Here is what it does (| stands for the cursor):

• If only a single file modified, insert <filename>: |

  • If can figure out function name, insert <filename> (<functionname>): |

• If only a single file added, insert Add <filename>|

• If a TODO added to Readme.org, insert ; TODO <headline>|

• If a TODO was DONE, insert ; DONE <headline>|

• If the files are Readme.org and Readme.org_archive, and no new TODO's were added anywhere, insert ; Archive DONE|

• If the file is .gitignore, insert ; Ignore |

• If the file is TAGS, insert ; Update TAGS|

I extend this when I find new cases where I repeatedly do the same thing. The code is below. It's probably a good idea to use it as a starting point and personalise it because this reflects how I like to write my commit messages (and I like pretending how they do it over at Emacs git repo). It is sloppy and probably buggy, but I don't think it can be destructive.

Final note: I can't figure out how to set this up so that after this takes effect, the buffer is marked as modified. I want to flip the modified bit so that in some cases I can just hit C-c C-c and go. But I need to modify the buffer somehow to commit in some cases (I just type C-o to open a new line in those cases). Here is the function:

(defun gk-git-commit-mode-hook ()
  "Set up git commit buffer."
  ;; If a single file is modified, prefix the message w/ it.
  (let ((modified-re "^#	modified:")
        (new-re "^#	new file:")
        (issue-re "^[+\\- ]\\*+ \\(TODO\\|DONE\\) ")
        current-defun filename addp onlyp issuep)
    (save-excursion
      (with-current-buffer "COMMIT_EDITMSG"
        (goto-char (point-min))
        (re-search-forward "^# Changes to be committed:" nil t)
        (forward-line)
        (beginning-of-line)
        (cond ((looking-at modified-re)
               (re-search-forward ":   " nil t)
               (setf filename (thing-at-point 'filename t)))
              ((looking-at new-re)
               (re-search-forward ":   " nil t)
               (setf filename (thing-at-point 'filename t)
                     addp t)))
        (setq onlyp (progn
                      (forward-line)
                      (not (or (looking-at modified-re)
                               (looking-at new-re)))))
        (when (and onlyp (equal filename "Readme.org"))
          (goto-char (point-min))
          (when-let* ((pos (re-search-forward issue-re nil t)))
            (setq issuep (progn
                           (re-search-backward "\\*" nil t)
                           (buffer-substring (1+ (point))
                                             (line-end-position))))))
        ;; Try to set ‘current-defun’.
        (when onlyp
          (save-excursion
            (goto-char (point-min))
            ;; Error if not found, means verbose diffs
            ;; not enabled.
            (re-search-forward "^diff --git")
            (goto-char (line-beginning-position))
            (let ((str (buffer-substring (point) (point-max)))
                  (default-directory (expand-file-name "..")))
              (with-temp-buffer
                (insert str)
                (diff-mode)
                (goto-char (point-min))
                (setq current-defun (diff-current-defun))))))))
    (if onlyp
        (cond
         ((and issuep (not addp))
          (goto-char (point-min))
          (insert ";" issuep))
         ((equal filename "TAGS")
          (goto-char (point-min))
          (insert "; Update TAGS"))
         ((equal filename ".gitignore")
          (goto-char (point-min))
          (insert "; Ignore "))
         (filename
          (goto-char (point-min))
          (if addp
              (insert "Add " filename)
            (insert
             filename
             (if (and current-defun)
                 (format " (%s)" current-defun)
               "")
             ": "))))
      (when (and (equal filename "Readme.org")
                 (save-excursion
                   (goto-char (point-min))
                   (re-search-forward (concat modified-re " +Readme.org_archive")
                                      nil t))
                 (save-excursion
                   (goto-char (point-min))
                   (re-search-forward "\\-\\*+ DONE" nil t))
                 (not
                  (save-excursion
                    (goto-char (point-min))
                    (re-search-forward "\\+\\*[\\+\\-] TODO" nil t))))
        (goto-char (point-min))
        (insert "; Archive DONE")))))

(add-hook 'git-commit-mode-hook #'gk-git-commit-mode-hook)

Hope you find it useful.

I recently did a search for "Wikipedia" and got quite a few results. I think it would be nice if somewhere it showed how many results were found as I had a search term or two I could've added to narrow things down. Is this something anybody else would find useful?

Previous challenges

Hi, it's been very long time from last Programming Challenge, and I'd like to revive the tradition.

The point of programming challenge is to create your own solution, and if you're bored, even program it in your favourite programming language. Today's challenge isn't mine. It was created by ČVUT FIKS (year 5, season 2, challenge #4).

You need to transport plans for your quantum computer through Totalitatia. The problem is, that Totalitatia's government would love to have the plans. And they know you're going to transport the computer through the country. You'll receive number N, which denotes number of cities on the map. Then, you'll get M paths, each going from one city to another. Each path has k traffic controls. They're not that much effective, but the less of them you have to pass, the better. Find path from city A to city B, so the maximum number of traffic controls between any two cities is minimal. City A is always the first one (0) and city B is always the last one (N-1).

Input format:

N
M
A1 B1 K1
A2 B2 K2
...

On the first two lines, you'll get numbers N (number of cities) and M (number of paths). Than, on next M lines, you'll get definition of a path. The definition looks like 1 2 6, where 1 is id of first city and 2 is id of second city (delimited by a space). You can go from city 1 to city 2, or from city 2 to city 1. The third number (6) is number of traffic controls.

Output format:

Single number, which denotes maximum number of traffic controls encountered on one path.

Hint: This means, that path that goes via roads with numbers of traffic controls 4 4 4 is better than path via roads with numbers of traffic controls 1 5 1. First example would have output 4, the second one would have output 5.

Example:

IN:

4
5
0 1 3
0 2 2
1 2 1
1 3 4
2 3 5

OUT:

4

Solution: The optimal path is either 0 2 1 3 or 0 1 3.

Bonus

• Describe time complexity of your algorithm.
• If multiple optimal paths exist, find the shortest one.
• Does your algorithm work without changing the core logic, if the source city and the target city is not known beforehand (it changes on each input)?
• Do you use special collection to speed up minimum value search?

Hints

Special collection to speed up algorithm

Just got curious as to how other people ended up here. Personally, I came across Tildes through random searching on the internet (ADHD) and then learned more about it through Reddit. That said, as a follow up question - What site or platform do you use the most?

Haven't been here long, but I can already tell that there's a great community here and it's a site I will frequent the most. Plus I like the simplicity/layout and the intentions of the developers.

The new Startpage.com Anonymous View feature has been tweaked since it was first released at the end of last year.

Startpage.com developed Anonymous View to fix a major privacy gap with any private search engine: once you click on one of the links you find and establish a direct connection with the third party website, you're back in the Wild West of Tracking. This website can see who you are, place cookies on your browser and track your behavior, including the links you click on and pages you view. This defeats part of the benefits of private search.

Anonymous View fixes this privacy problem AND fixes the perennial problem of proxies that only display part of a page or break without JavaScript. Anonymous View uses JS while protecting your privacy -- even preventing fingerprinting by masking your user agent information

PS : This is from a reddit post

Oof Grandma... Get your head out of your ass woman.(This is in Jest, Grandma knows and thought it was funny. ya'll chill)* Where are you getting your news lately because I just sent you an article from our national news organization and you just told me you can't believe it... Why?

We live and love in the beautiful free country of Canada and despite any individual political leader, we can find comfort in the fact that we have many elected officials that listen to their constituents and ultimately intend to better the lives for our nation. Canada is a mighty developed country and she has designated important bodies to help protect us from the wolves that prey on the weak. We have the CBC a nationally funded non profit organization that has authorship and integrity to the journalists they hire and a long history of helping the truth and redacting and outright dismissing disinformation (now more commonly called fake news). In this article I've sent you, it has sources directly involved in the measles outbreak, including doctors who are licensed through a board that verifies their integrity and ethics and authority in medicine. Also sourced is the CDC; another body that was appointed by Canada herself to keep her citizens healthy and safe, these are not groups of scientists with a vested interest to lie to anyone as that would jeopardize the safety to our entire nature... Yet these highly educated and well funded scientists are refuting your hypothesis grandma.

I think in order to understand what is happening here we need to both step back and ground ourselves in a neutral territory towards a scholarly pursuit and work towards the advancement of our society. To do this we need to frame our perspective to that of a scholar to which I think you and I both agree we are proud to call ourselves anyway. Me, a university student and you an independent researcher: truth be told, as a student of an organization like Ryerson, I have access to a wider breadth of knowledge in our online resources and databases of peer reviewed articles that I can search through with ease, but our goal will be the same and can be achieved only if you think critically with everything you read - you seem well versed in this regard so kudos let's proceed.

As a critical thinker and scholar we are nothing without our authority which is provided through our knowledge-base in factual information. I don't need to be an expert in biology, medicine, or even journalism to be able to have confidence in reading the news article I sent you; but as a scholar I have the ability to verify the authority to the people making the claims in the article. Every person involved in a professionally investigated article are sourced and cited and provide proof to their authority. It's why the CBC discloses their journalists and is also why they'll happily fire them if they fuck up - their integrity is on the line - same with every scientist working for the CDC. Canada does not have a vested interest in the perpetuation of fake news and disinformation, this isn't fucking Russia! (or the U.S. for that matter - Fox news is GOP run television FYI).

This is critical thinking and needs to be understood before you assume authority to the Facebook posts you read. Think of the platform you are getting your news from - Facebook: an American company with a vested interest in advertising to its users. They are NOT a news agency and have zero regulation in verifying the authority of authorship. Anyone can write any shit they like, and the more clicks they get, the more money Facebook makes. In-fact they will happily sell any message you like so long as you're willing to pay for it. I can post just about anything under the guise of "free speech" so long as it does not contain "hate speech" (technically a crime in Canada) and then pay Facebook a couple hundreds of dollars to get that post higher up on my friend's walls. It's how their platform works and regardless of whether a post has been promoted by Facebook themselves or not they are in the business of clicks. In this age of terrorism and fear mongering, the posts, articles, links, and videos that induce the most controversy and fear will gain the most clicks - this is human nature! Facebook doesn't care, they got their money as they are now one of the largest messaging services in the world, second only to WeChat which is a government controlled chinese messaging app linked to their social credit system meant to repress their citizens... hmm...

As Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan famously said in his thesis Understanding Media, “For any medium has the power of imposing its own assumption on the unwary… But the greatest aid to this end is simply in knowing that the spell can occur immediately upon contact, as in the first bars of a melody.” unfortunately the advent of social media has only perpetuated the scaling of the media, the importance of the messages, and the shallow knowledge-base of its users to apply the unwary en masse.

To quote a larger bit of McLuhan to drive this point home:

“The American stake in literacy as a technology or uniformity applied to every level of education, government, industry, and social life is totally threatened by the electric technology. The threat of Stalin or Hitler was external. The electric technology is within the gates, and we are numb, deaf, blind, and mute about its encounter with the Gutenberg technology, on and through which the American way of life was formed. It is, however, no time to suggest strategies when the threat has not even been acknowledged to exist. I am in the position of Louis Pasteur telling doctors that their greatest enemy was quite invisible, and quite unrecognized by them.” (McLuhan was a man before his time., this was written in 1954) “For the “content” of a medium is like the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind. The effect of the medium is made strong and intense just because it is given another medium as “content.” The content of a movie is a novel or a play or an opera.
The effect of the movie form is not related to its program content. The “content” of writing or print is speech, but the reader is almost entirely unaware either of print or of speech.”

Do not kid yourself, social media is no different than any other media. The content of the message is NOT the message. Who is posting the dribble and fake news and WHY? understand the author and their authority and you will begin to think critically again. You wouldn't pick up a history book without knowing who authored it would you? Facts are facts, and fake-news is disinformation by another name.

Now to return to our CBC article about measles and your claim that there is a connection to the MMR vaccine which has the potential to cause autism (despite how fucking stupid this shit is, I'll entertain your hypothesis for a moment).

1. Where are your critical sources and statistics to prove any semblance to propose such an outlandish hypothesis? Because I can't seem to find any real ones in my databases here and every time I've asked you for your proof you've failed to provide any.

2. If the vaccine were to cause autism you accept that there is a chance this vaccine may put a child at harms risk. The reality is you are saying you'd rather risk your child potentially getting a deadly disease and potentially becoming maimed and permanently injured through contact with the disease and worse contaminating others and spreading the harmful pathogens to others just out of fear of potentially could get autism... again, supported without any fact or evidence? Janet's post from Antivax-moms facebook group is non an authority of fact and no medical body has rightfully confirmed a case of autism to the MMR vaccine... so where is our proof again? Big-vaccine is out to give autism to our children?

3. By not immunizing your children you are immorally upholding your child's life over that of your nations and against those you interact with on a day to day basis. You are no longer in a small town - we are a massive country with very loose borders so we can invite friends and family to visit. But when we don't protect our basecamp, the wolves will get in. That goes for fake news just as much as it goes for measles. We already have guards on duty to protect our children, our sick, our immune deficient elders and infants from harmful diseases. These treatments work and you and I are the proof in the pudding. Where is this form of tribalism coming from where you would rather "protect" from autism but not measles, mumps, and rubella? These are the wolves we must fight, and we can't let our guard down just because a post of Facebook has a few thousand clicks.

We are in the age of disinformation and globalization, whether we like it or not there are a select few who are controlling the messages we perpetuate online. Unfortunately it's the confusion and lack of authority to the messages that has guided us towards a harmful future that is now killing children all over the world.
https://medium.com/the-method/anti-vaccination-is-killing-children-in-europe-658415c54a04

stop spreading misinformation and think critically. You are better than that... you are a scholar!

I love you, and I hope you take this to heart.

EDIT*
Seeing that the post was more appropriately moved to ~talk I'm hoping I can start a bit more of a dialogue that has unraveled from talking with the rest of my family. I told my internal family about my conversation with Grandma which we've all had by now, we bring fact, she still isn't sure there isn't a bigger picture that she isn't seeing. She's been fed too many stories to really believe the true ones. How are we meant to respond to this? My dad kinda pissed me off, he said it's like pushing on rope and said it wasn't even worth the effort - especially since someone like my Grandmother doesn't intend to have anymore children and all her family members are well ingrained in the Ontario health system... despite his position, we get issues where families are believing information and causing significant harm to our society... what do?

My bad argument style aside, has anyone else felt like they've been pushing on rope lately?

Just as with the Wii, I think the motion controls are a big and fun feature of the Switch.

I have already searched online, but could not find a list of games that have motion controls (and in what way). I did see some attempt to put it on Wikipedia, but it was removed due to being too specific to be on Wikipedia itself.

If anyone found anything or is willing to help out, we could collaboratively write one up. What the best place for it would be, I do not know yet, but WikiData pops to mind.

I see votes, but I see no comments ...no idea how to interpret that.

I was using Antergos for like 15 days and I really loved it! Not Antergos but Arch, I like how simple everything is in arch. Before installing antergos I tried to install arch on vm but failed. so i installed antergos with i3wm. somewhere i wanted to install vanilla arch.

Initially I was referring to the wiki with elinks and doing it carefully but failed. my setup was going to be arch + grub + luks, for some reason grub didn't show up while booting. i also encountered other error which made grub-mkconfig to hang. later i decided to drop luks so arch + grub, but again same error.

i've used debian family distros for a long time and grub was the most used bootloader so i wanted to install that. next i looked for a guide online and followed another guide which had same commands as arch wiki. again that failed.

after some more searching i found archfi, so basically it is a script that will ask me questions and install everything. again that grub thing failed so i went with systemd for the second time with this script. & voila!

later i used archdi to setup lightdm-gtk-greeter and installed i3wm.

i didn't install it myself but i am happy with my arch and probably someday would do it myself.

btw, i use arch

I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard a manager complain, “The HR department included ‘must have college degree’ in the job req even though I don’t care” or “They asked for 5 years of experience in a technology that’s only been around for 3” or “I have no idea why they rejected this candidate without even contacting me.”

Still, in many cases you don’t have a choice. If you want to hire someone, you need to deal with HR, at least to a small degree – especially if you work in a big company.

So I’m writing a feature story for technology managers, collecting real-world advice from people who learned their lessons the hard way. Here’s the questions I’d like you to answer:

• Tell me about a frustration you had with the HR department (in regard to hiring). That is, tell me a personal story of HR-gone-wrong. Because we all love schadenfreude, and that gives me an emotional example with which to begin.
• Let’s say you have a new opening in your department. In what ways do you involve HR? (That could be anything from, “give them general guidelines and let them choose the best candidates for me to interview” to “I do the search myself, and use HR only for on-boarding.”) What makes you choose that path? How much choice do you have in the matter?
• What weaknesses have you discovered in your HR department’s ability to serve the needs of a tech-focused department?
• What have you done to cope with those weaknesses? Which of those efforts worked, and which failed?
• What do you wish you knew “n” years ago about dealing with your company’s HR department?
• So that I can give the reader some context: Let me know how to refer to you in the article (at least, “Esther, a software architect at a Midwest insurance company”), and give me some idea of your company size (because the processes appropriate for a 70-person company aren’t the same for one with 7,000 employees).

You don’t have to answer all those questions! I asked these to get the conversation going. Tell me as much or as little as you like.

Please don’t assume that I think HR always sucks. However, there isn’t as much to learn from “why HR is your friend.” The idea here is to help techie managers cope when HR doesn’t offer what you hoped for.

A little bit about me -- I'm in my mid-to-late-20s, male, single, recently graduated college, and I quit drinking about a year and a half ago. I never really considered myself an addict; there was never a point where I wanted to quit but I couldn't and it never interfered with work or school. I just woke up one day and told myself, "I don't want to do this anymore," so I just stopped.

The problem, for me at least, is that I live in a relatively rural part of the world. There's not a lot to do here on Friday night other than go to the bars, which never really bothered me anyways because I work nights anyways and don't really like crowded scenes. Most of my free time is in front of my computer, I've recently started getting into distance running as a hobby, and I like playing board games when I can. All of this is fine except for the fact that I can't really seem to make friends in those mutual areas of interest without alcohol anymore.

I signed up for meetup, which seems like a great way to meet new people, and I'm sure it is, in bigger cities at least. But around here, both the closest board game meetup and run club are an hour and a half away. It seems like everyone around here just wants to meet up to drink, and maybe do some other stuff along the way. (Don't get me started on making my own events here -- crowded bars already give me anxiety so organizing my own meetup with people I've never met before would be a new, special type of hell)

I think at least part of this is compounded with the fact that since I graduated, I've had a hard time making new friends. I work a very isolating job, and teetotaling only further compounds the issue that I haven't met very many new people. It's something I've thought a lot about while searching for a partner as well -- I can't/don't want to meet people at bars, and I don't really find much use out of dating apps.

Sorry if this is unorganized or hard to read, it's just a lot of thoughts I've had over the past year.

edit: another part of it too is that, since I quit without the assistance of AA or any support group, I don't have any like-minded people to do things with.

[LONG POST - 4 months of trying different planners)

I always wanted to use one but I never thought of analog (paper) planners and tried a lot of digital ones - link to a post.

About 4 months ago I saw my friend at school using a pocket diary - similar to this image, he was writing down his tasks on it (he didn't use it again). That day I bought a good pocket diary of around 200 pages, till date I've not used more than 10 pages and its still lying around.

I realised that I was not going to use it because it was very thick and I couldn't carry it in my pocket. I bought this pocket diary. This was thin and simple, perfect for me. I've used it the longest before switching.

Initially I used to dump all the tasks and cross it after completion, later I introduced a date system and it was one date for one page. I wrote down tasks for the day and crossed after completion if something was incomplete I migrated it to next day. This worked well but I needed a place to dump tasks that I had to do in future so I made a future section from backside and added tasks to it. This was the final tweak and I used it for like a month. I used it for daily tasks, future tasks, some notes and contacts (I used to make contact.txt before this).

Later IIRC I wanted to change because it was already half full and a mess because I was trying to do a lot with it. Next I mindlessly bought a notebook - something like this but with 5 sections, I didn't know what to do with it. I also don't remember why I bought it so I used it to write down stuff that I learned online and wanted to remember. It replaced my reddit save and I wrote what I wanted to remember, it is still with me and has been changed a lot (usecase).

I made a calendar on a single page of that notebook and tracked down basic stuff on it, I started using small square sticky notes to write down tasks and that's how I left my pocket diary. Not long after I lost interest in that notebook thing and updating calendar daily was not interesting. I left that and searched a lot online. Again tried a lot of digital options but I know it will never work for me so I left it and didn't use anything for like a day before I stumbled across Strikethru.

Strikethru is something like Bullet Journal. If you want to look at strikethru then see this video & this for Bullet Journal.

I took that notebook and turned it into a bullet journal, I used it for ~a week before trying strikethru and then again switching to bullet journal after a week. That was testing period and I chosed bulletjournal (bujo) over strikethru. That book was also thick so not long after I made a new bujo notebook (normal 200 pages). Again it felt like a big task that I had to do daily and I lost interest, I again restarted it with a new design. In this month I switched to different notebooks/design a lot and was never satisfied. I also tried Nextcloud tasks for 3 days before again trying out bujo.

Last year in december around a week before christmas I wanted to change it all so I went to a store and bought a new grid notebook (we used it for doing math in 1st grade). I used it for 10 days and everything broke during the last week of december, I was not at home and we went on a vacation. I took it with me but didn't update it because it was boring. It has been 5 days I was busy organising everything else again and now I've settled on what I started with (slightly better idea).

During that time I read a lot on nosurf, pornfree, internet addiction, sleep cycles, polyphasic society, tulpas, made new friends, tried a lot of todo managers, used different journaling apps and this is what I've decided to stay with.

I went to the store today to buy the same pocket diary that I've used the longest (1 month one). Its cheap, for 15 INR and works well for me. Over there I saw a box that said monthly planner, I took it and it had 13 small pocket diaries (similar to what I've used the longest but more thin) and with that a small case that would hold a notebook. There was one contacts pocket diary (perfect) and 12 pocket diaries one for each month. It was for this year and costed 170 INR, I didn't had money so I asked the storeman (idk what we call them, here we call them uncle) did he have cheaper option. He showed me the same piece that costed 140 INR but was for 2016, he said he would give it to me for 70 INR because he would have to throw it anyways.

I thought that was a great deal and bought it. So now I have 12 mini diaries for each month and one contacts diary that has my big list of 10 friends contacts. After trying a lot of different options I came back to what I used for the first time. Its simple and stupid & fits in my pocket.

It has one page for one day and I just have to cross 2016 and the day (mon, tue, etc.) thing and update it with 2019 days. In the middle it has a big two page calendar for current month, page before it has previous months small one page date list to write down events and on page after it has next months small one page date list. The last page is for notes and the cover has 2017 calender that I won't use and ignore.

Theres little patch work todo but for that price I think I bought a good set and if I actually use this for full year then I would buy a new one next one (for 2020 & not 2017 :|)

I've spent around 300 INR for all these (~ 4.5 USD)

Tl;dr -> Used a lot of systems and in the end switched to what I used for the first time which is simple and fits in my pocket.

# What do you use for managing your tasks? Do you use it daily?

I am a Russian and recently I started to really like the song “Take Me Home, Country Roads”. I searched for images of things mentioned in the song, like Blue Ridge mountains and Shenandoah river, and they do look pretty. Definitely somewhere I would like to hike. I've also heard that the local BBQ is good, which is relevant to my interests.

At the same time, almost every time I see West Virginia mentioned on e.g. Reddit, there is always someone pointing out that WV is, for lack of a better term, a shithole. I've seen that occurring several times on several different subreddits. What is up with that? Is that just a thing where the people from one US state always feel the need to throw crap at other states? Are there economical reasons? Is it too conservative/racist/what-have-you?

Just in case, I am not trying to start something, I am genuinely curious, how can one place be called “almost heaven” by one group of people and at the same called a “shithole” by another.

I've tried using search (both by keyword and by tag) but I couldn't find anything about this. What's Tildes opinion about posting old news that haven't been discussed yet? I'm not talking about your regular news post from a newspaper that is already too late to be discussed about, I'm talking about things such as software releases or old blog posts that have never been posted but would be interesting to discuss about. How would one tag them? Where should we post them if allowed?

Edit: I'm sorry but I won't be here for discussing this tomorrow or during the weekend. I'm not staying at home, but I hope I can come back to some good responses next week.

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Black Mirror Season 4 Episode 5 - Metalhead

At an abandoned warehouse, scavengers searching for supplies encounter a ruthless foe and flee for their lives through a bleak wasteland.

Black Mirror Netflix link

Warning: this thread contains spoilers about this episode! If you haven't seen it yet, please watch it and come back to this thread later.

You can talk about past episodes, but please don't discuss future episodes in this thread!

If you don't know what to say, here are some questions to get the discussion started:

• How does the title relate to the episode itself?
• Are there any similarities between real life events and the episode?
• Are there any references or easter eggs in the episode, such as references to past episodes?

Please rate the episode here!

Sorry for being late with this one!

I was wondering where one can find (and submit) how long it takes to finish a game.

After a quick online search I did find one or two pages where petiole post this, but none looked really good. So I'm wondering if more regular gamers here have a recommendation.

I admittedly didn't reread the docs, but a search for "self" showed no results.

EDIT
a search for "self-promotion", and not "self promotion", pointed me to this previous thread:
https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/3i5/daily_tildes_discussion_approaches_to_self_promotion

OC from me when I was a college student. Also a good excuse to watch some cartoons and call it study ;-P Mods - feel free to move this if this isn't the appropriate sub. Thanks!

Who Has the Power? He-Man and the Masters of Marketing

Once upon a time the sole purpose of children’s television was to educate. But this changed in the 1980s when the Federal Communications Commission refused to enforce a ban on children’s programming tied to commercial products. Mattel took advantage of this to market a line of toys with their show He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. This was the crown jewel of the toy-based children’s programming in the 1980s and made Mattel over a billion dollars in revenue from toys and accessories. The program sparked controversy over marketing and violence in children’s programming.

The F.C.C. and Deregulation
In 1969 the F.C.C. found that the ABC children’s show Hot Wheels to be nothing more than an episode-length commercial for the Mattel product. The commission banned product-based programs saying that they are not designed to entertain or inform the public (New York Times, February 3, 1986). This regulation was enforced throughout most of the 1970s, but the F.C.C.’s position on children’s programming changed drastically during the 1980s to become market-driven. By 1986 this change was explicit when F.C.C. Chairman Mark Fowler told the New York Times that “‘The public’s interest determines the public interest.’”
Fowler had replaced Charles D. Ferris as chairman when President Reagan took office. Ferris had been a proponent for government-mandated children’s programming aimed at specific age groups (New York Times, July 25, 1982). Ferris said in the article:

We are well aware that it is not in the economic interest of the broadcasters to aim this kind of programming at an audience amounting to 16 to 18 percent of the population- age 12 and younger- but if the obligation falls evenly on all, then no one is particularly disadvantage.

For 27 years Captain Kangaroo served this function for CBS, but in July 1982 it went off the air leading New York Times reporter Holsendolph to ask “how could the situation reach a point where no children’s fair is regularly scheduled on weekdays on the commercial networks?” Like Ferris, Holsendolph did not realize that the door was being opened for commercialism. But Bob Keeshan, aka Captain Kangaroo, had an idea of what was coming, “‘Frankly, I think the needs of our nation’s children are just too important to be left to the networks and their profit motives, or to Mark Fowler’s market concept.’” With Fowler’s F.C.C. backing off from enforcing bans and also calling for deregulation of the industry, the market was ripe for the picking and the toy-maker Mattel was ready and waiting.

Marketing to Children
Before the popular show He-Man and the Masters of the Universe ever existed, the toys were designed and sold starting in 1982. He-Man was not the creation of a lone artist at Mattel but rather the product of marketing research. According to a People Weekly article by Carl Arrington, the research began as a response to the highly profitable Kenner Star Wars action figures. Mattel conducted 17 studies on everything from boys’ play habits to the preferred hair color of the hero (blond). Mattel examined such classic works as Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces to develop archetypes for the characters. The characters were given a fantastic flair because the research indicated a preference for high-fantasy and made it easy to capitalize off of the success of the Star Wars toy line.

The first toys came with mini-comic books that explained some of the background behind the characters. Originally, He-Man was a wandering barbarian similar to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in Conan the Barbarian but this changed as the toy-line evolved. The toys were priced around $5 apiece and the accessories ranged between $20 and $40. Mattel eventually made 70 characters and urged kids to collect them all.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe first aired in September 1983. Prior to that almost all children’s shows were on the networks (ABC, NBC and CBS), but with the number of independent TV stations tripling since 1972, a new market had opened up. He-Man took advantage of this by airing on 166 independent networks. The toy companies shared the cost of the programs with the producers. The producers then made a deal with a syndicator, who traded air time with the station managers for the use of the show. The syndicator then sold some of the air time to advertisers and funneled the cash back to the producer. Many independent TV stations also received a cut of the toy profits for airing a show, a practice the F.C.C. condoned (New York Times, February 3, 1986).

Many critics called the show “a program-length advertisement” for the toys. The Boston-based Action for Children’s Television, who lamented the end of Captain Kangaroo and advocated a government mandate to ensure children’s programming earlier in the decade, was infuriated that the F.C.C. had allowed the market to determine children’s programming. They said that programs based on toys constituted a commercial. Peggy Charren, the group’s president, said “‘What makes matters worse is that most of the products are being advertised on children’s television as well, making it hard to distinguish between product and programming.’” The president of the National Association of Broadcasters, Edward O. Fritts, said that the complaints were “‘an outrageously shortsighted and overly idealistic approach,’” and he added that the industry had made incredible progress in children’s programming (New York Times, October 12, 1983). Dr. William H. Dietz, chairman of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ task force on children and television, also opposed the programs. “‘They sell a product while claiming to be entertainment. And kids don’t know the difference. It is unfair and deceptive advertising. It is unethical to do that, in my opinion,’” said Dietz (New York Times, February 3, 1986).

The Success of the Show and the Toys
The show became the No. 1 children’s program in America and was aired five days a week, something that had never before happened with a children’s program. Besides the 166 U.S. stations that aired the show, 37 foreign countries were invaded by He-Man. It quickly became a favorite of boys age 4 to 8, but around 30 percent of the viewers were female, according to the show’s executive producer Lou Scheimer (New York Times, December 18, 1984). He-Man had 9 million viewers after only 15 months on the air, wrote Patricia Blake in a 1985 Time Magazine article.

The show was a cultural phenomenon and parents everywhere were berated with demands for the toys from their children. Paula Higgins recalled how her son wanted the toys so badly that she took him to five toy stores in search of the He-Man action figure. She noted in her New York Times column that “He-Man and company have an advantage over their Star Wars counterparts, [because] they are on a cartoon five afternoons a week, every week.” Although she approved of the cartoon she did not like the marketing. She wrote “I also know I do not like what is happening, but this is all new territory for us. Our son has never got caught up in this kind of advertising hype before” (New York Times, April 29, 1984).

In 1984, Mattel had sold $500 million in toys and another $500 million in other merchandise, such as He-Man toothbrushes, underwear, lunchboxes and bed sheets. That year the toys were so popular that Mattel had to hire freight airliners rather than ships to get the toys over from Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Mexico to meet demand (New York Times, December 18, 1984). This was just the beginning of a wave of toy-based cartoons such as G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, the Transformers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Violence and Morals
The 1980s was also a decade of concern about violence on television and most particularly violence in children’s programming. The National Coalition on Television Violence found that the new Walt Disney cable network was showing cartoons that contain violence unsuitable for children. They stated that 19.3 violent acts were shown in Disney cartoons each hour (New York Times, April 23, 1984). Disney’s cartoons paled in comparison to the violence in the military themed shows. Children’s shows like Rambo and G.I. Joe were at the center of the violence debate, but He-Man was not exempt. The He-Man show sparked debate among concerned parents who feared its extreme popularity spread violent play. At a viewing of He-Man at the Christ Church Day Care, Peggy Marble, a mother, said that she was concerned the show promoted violence and “unusually aggressive play” (New York Times, December 12, 1985).

Filmation, the studio that produced He-Man, hired Stanford University Communications Professor Donald Roberts as an educational consultant to ensure that the popular show kept the violence to a minimum. Roberts said that none of the characters get killed or seriously hurt, in a Time Magazine article by Patricia Blake. Furthermore, Roberts said that He-Man deplores violence and thus the battle scenes are “‘really anti-battle scenes.’” To combat the charges of violence that were occurring within the industry, the He-Man program also incorporated a moral message at the end of every show, much like another popular show of the time, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. Filmation President and He-Man Producer Lou Scheimer defended the show by saying that they have done episodes addressing drugs, child molestation and gun control (New York Times, December 12, 1985).

A 1982 National Institute of Mental Health study found that violence on TV was directly related to children’s violent behavior off-screen. Dr. Jerome L. Singer, professor of psychology at Yale University, said “‘It is true that some shows, like He-Man, have a kind of moral. But our observations of young children have been that they don’t get it. What we have noticed is that the play with toys like He-Man tends to be rather aggressive’” (New York Times, December 12, 1985).

Conclusion
The debate over toy-based programming continued longer than the popularity of Mattel’s He-Man, whose sales dropped $250 million in 1986 as kids lost interest. In 1990, Congress passed the Children’s Television Act that limited commercials to 12 minutes of every hour of programming. However, the F.C.C. declined to define shows based on toys as commercials. Instead, they ruled that a program is only a commercial if an advertisement for the related toys is run during the breaks. This provoked the ire of Peggy Charren, president of the Action for Children’s Television, who said “‘The problem is not with the four or five minutes of advertising time. The problem is the 26 minutes that the ad agency, the program producer and the toy company have prepared’” (New York Times, November 9, 1990).

He-Man’s catchphrase that he booms out at the beginning of every episode is “By the power of Grayskull, I have the Power.” And he does, or at least Mattel does along with the rest of the toy industry. By uttering the magic phrase, He-Man transforms himself from wimpy Prince Adam, his alter-ego, into a muscle-bound barbarian with flawless super powers. In much the same way, toy companies like Mattel transformed themselves from mere manufacturers of play-things to marketing giants with muscles that bulged five days a week.

Coverage of F.C.C. deregulation was prevalent but its impact on children’s programming received less coverage than other aspects such as the Fairness Doctrine. Controversy of toy-based children’s programming focused on violence and the extreme popularity of the toys and the shows. F.C.C. regulations were usually only mentioned as a backdrop for these stories.

While the debate over market-driven children’s programming began over 20 years ago it remains a concern in today’s society. Prepubescent cries of “buy me this toy” can be heard in any toy store in the country, no doubt inspired by a TV show that has followed the He-Man marketing strategy. Today, parents and doctors are more worried about the marketing of high-fat and high-sugar foods during children’s programs. The Institute of Medicine recommends legislation banning ads for such bad food during children’s shows. At a time when 31 percent of children are obese this message is one of “urgency,” according to J. Michael McGinnis, chairman of the IOM committee. ‘The prevailing pattern of food and beverage marketing to children in America represents, at best, a missed opportunity, and, at worst, a direct threat to the health of the next generation,” according the IOM report (USA Today, December 7, 2005).

Ever since I've heard about how Google tracks you and steals your data and all that, I've been gradually been moving away from their products. With the ones I could live without, like Google search, maps, Chrome, etc. the switch wasn't too bad. But with the ones like Google photos, drive, home, I actually really like these products and I'm not really sure I want to switch away from them. I have so much stuff in my Google drive that I've amassed over the years. It's very easy to use and a lot of my friends/family/teachers use it. I just really like Google drive. Same with Photos. The irony in all this (I'm probably using irony wrong), is that I don't feel good using them because of all the privacy concerns and the like. I'm not really sure what I'm seeking to get out of this. Just kind of wanted to start a conversation. Do any of you have similar feelings about Google products?

I've been thinking a lot about dark mode lately, now that macOS and Windows 10 both officially offer some implementation of it. I think dark modes make a compelling case for eye strain prevention, but the dealbreaker for me is revealed when switching between apps and one of them isn't dark. That jarring flash of bright light completely ruins whatever gentleness the dark environment provided in the first place. So despite my curiosity I've kept everything in light mode for years, tempered by f.lux to keep myself sane after sundown.

Anyway, now that there's official OS support I'm reconsidering. I think there's a growing pro-dark movement that was just waiting for that formal recognition. Today the programs I use most all offer dark modes so I'm taking an experimental plunge. My goal: 90% elimination of white flashes while in my normal workflow.

The biggest obstacle is, not surprisingly, the web. There are some beautiful dark browser themes available but that really only affects the UI elements around the page, not the page itself. I want to darken the web too. I have a few thoughts about this:

• Plugins like this one try to automate a dark mode for every site you visit. This is hit-or-miss, resulting in ugly color combinations, sometimes unreadable text. Some methods just invert the page colors, which can lead to all sort of other visual wonkiness. I haven't found a plugin like this that isn't fiddly and annoying.
• This plugin looks interesting. From what I can tell, it uses some kind of server-side heuristics to determine the optimal way to darken every page you visit. I haven't actually tried it because I'm concerned about the privacy/security implications of sending all my web activity to this unknown third party. Or what kind of performance hit that would involve. Also, they bury this information on their site, but this is a paid service with an annual subscription.
• I'm aware of Stylish and its huge library of user-maintained custom site styles. This seemed like a good approach, except that following a recent acquisition, the new owners of Stylish betrayed their users' trust in a very shady way so I'm afraid to go near it now. If there's a credible alternative with a decent style library I'd love to know about it. Especially if there's a way to automate style application so I don't have to manually activate it for every site I visit.
• Tangentially, the W3C is having an interesting conversation about adding CSS media query support for recognizing user dark-mode preferences. This could absolutely be the future of the web(!!), but I suspect it won't because it puts the responsibility on designers to basically double the amount of work they have to do. Speaking as someone in that field, I would not want to have to add this to my already-long list of design considerations.

Are there any other good web darkening methods I've overlooked? How do you deal with the white flash problem? Should I just give up and go back to black-on-white? Interested in any and all thoughts on the matter.

I've seen the occasional poetry thread, but I thought I would post some more traditional writing. This short story is background lore for my ongoing web serial, Codex, which takes place a thousand years after these events.

The research team looked like ants in the scry-screen, crawling around the laboratory as they completed the ritual’s final steps. When the spell was powered on, it let out a brief flash of brilliant orange light that made Tarrel wince and shade his eyes. The ants milled about as if their hill had just been kicked over, swarming this way and that, huddling over the piece of enchanted metal.

Tarrel stood up and left the viewing room. Renna looked up as he entered the laboratory and waved him over, a broad smile on her face. She held out her hand, offering him a bracelet made from some shiny metal; it looked like two flat chains had been woven together into a thin, knotted band. “Is that the eternium?” Tarrel asked. “Why a bracelet, and not a sword or spear?”

Renna stepped away from the five other people as an argument developed over one of the experimental readings. “It’s a gift.” She gave him an impish grin. “You’re allowed to enjoy the fruits of your labor, you know.”

The eternium was slick against his skin, as if it had been greased, and it had a mirror-perfect reflective surface that threw the bright overhead lights back into his eyes. He angled it away from him and stared at the gleaming metal, trying to dredge up the appropriate emotion, as if he could summon it into being by sheer willpower.

Logically, it should have been easy -- he had all the pieces: a beautiful girlfriend (if occasionally annoying), a prestigious research position, and a talent for magic that made most other wizards look like fumbling idiots. And of course, he was a Raal, entitled to all the benefits that came with higher civilization: immortality (or a very long life anyway), near-absolute freedom to do as he pleased (as long as that didn’t impinge on others’ freedoms), safety (from physical harm). Any non-Raal would kill to be where he was, and it was a safe bet that most Raal who knew him were at least a little envious of his status. But happiness, like an improperly drawn ritual, refused to manifest… and all Tarrel could feel was a bleak sense of anticlimactic fatigue as he looked into the shiny mirrored surface.

Renna moved closer and touched his arm. “Hey. What is it?”

He forced a smile onto his face and slid the bracelet onto his wrist. “Nothing.” The rest of the team was gathered around an Aether screen. Part of Tarrel wanted to join them, plunge back into the soothing distraction of work, but all at once he couldn’t stand the thought of doing so. He turned back to Renna, forcing the words through numb lips. “Let’s go out together.”

They could have taken a teleportation circle or a flier, but Tarrel wanted to walk so they strolled the floating streets of Ur-Dormoth together. It was nighttime, but the walkways were all lit with bright white mage-bulbs. Aircraft hummed overhead, like gigantic wingless insects, disappearing into the night as they left the city.

“Ever been to a mite city?” Tarrel asked as they walked.

“No.”

“I have,” Tarrel said. He brooded for a moment, staring out at Ur-Dormoth, sprawled across the clouds like a tangled pile of glittering lace. “They’re cramped, and squalid, and they stink of death. It’s like being in a corpse.”

Renna shrugged, seemingly unconcerned by the fate of however many millions of less fortunate people lived on the land below them. “Why do you bring it up?”

“I don’t know,” Tarrel said. “Have you ever wanted something and really worked for it, only to find that once you had it, you didn’t want it anymore?”

“I’m not sure I understand,” Renna said. “Why would you work for something you don’t want?”

Tarrel sighed. “Never mind.”

They went to the Eyrie, where Tarrel tried to look interested in the menu before giving up and ordering at random. The food arrived a few minutes later, looking decadent and delicious: creamy soup, flower-shaped pastries, a platter of fried onions. Tarrel ate mechanically, doing his best to appear as if he was enjoying it, but all he could think about was the emptiness he felt inside.

“How’s the food?” Renna asked.

Tarrel glanced at the pale white soup he was eating and tried to decide what to say. “It’s good.”

Renna leaned back in her chair. “I knew you would like it.”

“How long do you think it’ll be before we can start mass-producing the eternium?”

Renna blinked, caught off guard by the sudden change in topic. “A few more weeks? Once we do, the applications are immense.” Her eyes were practically glowing with excitement. “What would it be like to live in a tower taller than the highest mountain?”

Tarrel stirred his soup, wishing he could share her energetic happiness. “That’s a long way to fall.”

Renna chuckled, a delicate sound like tinkling crystal chimes, and tossed her sleek white hair over her shoulder. “I’m sure they’ll have protective enchantments. It would be quite the scandal, to be the architect responsible for the first death in centuries.”

“They don’t let you Merge,” Tarrel said, only half paying attention to the conversation.

“What?”

“Murder. If it’s deliberate, your thread is cut. No children.” Tarrel made a snipping motion with his free hand. “But if they think you meant to kill, then it’s a life for a life.”

Renna stared at him. “How do you even know that?”

Tarrel shrugged, already losing interest in the topic. “Memory spell.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“It’s too difficult to cast for most people,” Tarrel said. Though that would change, if he ever got the framework functioning.

“What’s the framework?” Renna asked.

Tarrel realized he had spoken out loud. “Just a project I’ve been working on. You speak a command, and the framework casts the appropriate spell for you. All the power of a ritual, none of the difficulty.”

“That seems pretty useful. How’s it going?”

Tarrel blinked, not sure if he had heard her correctly. “Useful?” His lips twisted. “Nobody else seems to think it would be.”

“Are you serious? The applications for research alone would be immense. Imagine never having to cast another scrying spell.”

“They said it would be too inconvenient, or that the magic would lack power, or any of a hundred other excuses.”

Renna reached across the table and put her hand on his. “It sounds amazing to me.” Tarrel met her eyes, searching for any hint of insincerity, but all he found was honest admiration. “Can I see it?”

Tarrel shifted in his seat and looked away. “I, uh, sort of abandoned it. Nobody seemed to want it and I ran into some thorny problems, so it seemed like I was just wasting my time.”

“Well take it out of storage! Don’t worry about them, once they see what it can do they’ll all change their mind. Your legacy would be etched in the stone of history, right up there with Elmar the Great and the Risen Kings.”

Renna frowned and held up a hand to forestall his reply. “One moment. Someone’s trying to talk to me on the Way.”

Tarrel watched, but Renna’s expression gave away little. Half a minute passed before she finished. “What was it?” Tarrel asked.

“The research lab.” Renna’s face twisted in disgust. “Apparently they decided to run another batch of eternium, but someone messed up one of the protective spells.”

“Oh,” Tarrel said. He knew he ought to say something more, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to care about the fate of the researchers. If they couldn’t even cast a simple set of wards, they deserved what they got.

“They’ll be fine,” Renna said, apparently mistaking his silence for concern. “At least as long as nobody screws up their healing magic too.” She hesitated, then stood up. “I’m sorry to cut this short, but I really ought to be there.”

“It’s fine,” Tarrel said. “I’ll head back to my house. Maybe work on the framework some.”

Renna smiled. “I still want to see it.”

She walked over to the teleportation circle in the corner and activated it, vanishing with a soft pop. Tarrel was left in the deserted restaurant -- or not quite deserted. There was a man, washing the tables with a cloth. Tarrel watched him as he worked his way across the room, until he was near enough to talk to.

“Why do you do that?” Tarrel asked.

The man looked up. He had a rough, honest face. “Why not?”

“You could let the golems do it. Or, if you wanted to make sure it was done properly, you could use magic. Why do it by hand?”

“Sure. The golems would probably do it better than me, and a spell could do it faster and better. But that’s not the point. Haven’t you ever found pleasure in work?”

Tarrel was on the point of saying no when he reconsidered, remembering all the times he had thrown himself head-on into inventing a new ritual or improving an old. “I suppose so. But my work isn’t something a golem can do and, when I’m done, I have something at the end.”

The man chuckled. “And when I’m done wiping a table, I have a clean table.”

“Only until someone comes in here and dirties it again,” Tarrel pointed out. He paused, struck by a sudden thought. Was that the problem, the reason for the hollowness all his achievements seemed to have? Even as one of the brightest researchers of the century, his name would inevitably be forgotten, in a hundred years, or a thousand, or ten thousand. But if he was able to create a new paradigm for magic… then he would be remembered.

“If I’m still around, I’ll get to enjoy cleaning it again. If I’m not, well, like you said: the golems can do it better anyways.”

Tarrel blinked, startled by the man’s voice. “Uh, right,” he said. He stood up. “I need to go.”

He took the teleporter back to his house and went down to his private laboratory. White mage-bulbs flared on as he entered the spacious room, illuminating the Aether screen set into one wall and the stone floor, still etched with an old circle. He cleared it, resetting the solid granite slab to its original, perfectly smooth, state.

Tarrel spent the rest of the night hunched over the Aether’s display, tweaking and changing the framework. Every so often, he would stand up and etch it into the granite floor with an eye-searing burst of brilliant orange light. Each time, the spell failed in a new, unexpected way, and Tarrel was sent back to the Aether to try to find the source of the problem.

The days merged into weeks, which flowed into months. Tarrel enchanted himself with restorative spells so he didn’t have to eat or sleep. Such behavior was considered unhealthy by most people, but it wasn’t the first time Tarrel had lost himself to the grip of work, and he no longer cared if his friends whispered behind his back or shook his head when he wasn’t looking. Like Renna had said, they would change their mind soon enough.

Renna knew enough to recognize the signs of Tarrel’s obsession, but she didn’t stop coming over to visit him. The door chimed regularly at noon every third day. They sat on one of Tarrel’s couches for ten or twenty minutes, talking until Tarrel could no longer keep himself away from the laboratory and made his excuses. For him, the time seemed one long hazy blur, interspersed only by slight, inching progress as obstacle after obstacle rose up to meet him and was defeated.

Eight months later, Tarrel stood before the granite slab and powered up the latest spell. “Fire,” he said, envisioning the unlit torch in the corner igniting. He didn’t really expect anything to happen and was thus shocked when it erupted into orange flame. His hands trembled with excitement as he stood up and approached the crackling brand. Magic! By talking! At last, it was working.

“Freeze,” Tarrel said. A chill swept over him as the torch’s flames guttered out. Water condensed on the blackened stump, then froze solid into a glittering sheen. A smile spread across his face and something warm and… happy rose inside him, like winter ice cracking and melting as summer approached. Renna’s words came back to him: Your legacy would be etched in the stone of history and he threw his head back, laughing.

Further experimentation revealed that the framework had exceeded his wildest expectations. He refined the spell, reducing the energy it consumed and increasing its potency until at last, it was fit for use in a globalization ritual. Everyone in the world, if they had the basic training necessary to use magic at all, could now access the framework.

Tarrel reached into the Way, calling for Renna. She responded at once, as if she had been waiting for him. What is it?

Come to my house, Tarrel sent back. I have something to show you.

He severed the telepathic link and stood up, unable to stop grinning. The eternium bracelet gleamed in the corner of the laboratory where he had tossed it and he went over and picked it up, turning it over in his hands. General Yenja had been excited about the eternium project. What would she think of the framework? But that was a matter for another time -- right now, he wanted to see Renna’s face when she saw what he had built. Tarrel slipped the bracelet onto his wrist and hurried up the stairs. Behind him, the mage-bulbs blinked out and the laboratory plunged into darkness.

Renna knocked on the door several minutes later. Tarrel glanced at it. “Open the door,” he said.

It swung aside, revealing a harried-looking Renna. “What is it?” she asked as she came inside.

Tarrel grinned and pointed at a glass of water sitting on the table. “Watch this,” he said. “Freeze the water in that cup.”

The surface of the water turned frosty and opaque, spreading downwards with a deep cracking sound. All at once, the glass shattered, spraying shards and chips everywhere. Tarrel jerked, surprised, then broke out into a laugh. “Sorry,” he said. “I should have been more specific in my wording.”

Renna touched the solid cylinder of ice, setting it off into a lazy spin. It twirled across the table until Tarrel caught it with one hand. “How do you like it?” he said.

“Impressive. Can I try?”

“Sure. I put it in the Way, so you should be able to access it just by thinking about it.”

Renna gestured at the ice in Tarrel’s hand. “Melt.”

Nothing happened and Tarrel chuckled. “It takes some getting used to. Try starting to cast the spell normally, then use the framework.”

“Melt.”

This time, the frozen water turned warm and started to dissolve, gushing all over Tarrel’s hands. He tossed it back onto the table before it could soak his clothes. “Freeze.”

Nothing happened and he gave Renna a rueful smile. “My mana cache is empty. I didn't even notice but I've been using the same one for all my research.”

“Here.” Renna withdrew a fat diamond pendant from beneath her shirt and held it out to him. “Take mine.”

“No,” Tarrel said. “I have a better idea.”

He reached out with his mind, drawing on the inert mana present all around and concentrating a small amount of it, refining it into the potent stuff that was normally used for spells. Only a drop, just enough to kickstart the spell he had in mind. “Refine one nex’s worth of mana. Put it into my cache, then cast two copies of this spell, using mana from the cache.”

It was the longest framework-boosted spell he had cast, but it went off without so much as a tug of mental effort. A thin trickle of mana pulsed through him, then died off as the spell became self-sustaining.

“Did you just -- ”

“That’s right,” Tarrel said. “I just revolutionized the mana collection industry.”

Renna frowned. “Maybe you ought to slow down.”

“Slow down? Why? I feel great.”

“That’s because you’re using those invigoration spells.” Renna looked around. “Do you feel that?”

It was an tingle, like an electric wind brushing over Tarrel’s skin. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the diamond cache, shielding his eyes as it began to glow an intense white. “Behold,” he said. “The future of the Raal.”

Renna stared at the diamond. “That doesn’t look right. Your new spell -- ”

“Not a new spell -- a new paradigm. For centuries, we have cast magic in essentially the same way. Spells have gotten better, thanks in large part to the tireless efforts of researchers like you, but it’s time for something different. Instead of engaging in a mental wrestling match, we shall simply give an order as if the magic is a servant.”

“Your refinement spell has a -- ”

Tarrel slammed his fist on the table. “Shut up!” The framework turned his order from wish into reality and he felt a sudden spike of shame. Using magic on a fellow Raal? What was he doing? But she wouldn’t see. He continued in a calmer voice. “It’s people like you who delayed this project by almost fifteen years. All that time, wasted.”

He felt the pulse of magic as Renna broke through the framework’s silencing spell. “Listen to me,” she said. The urgency in her tone gave Tarrel pause. “That diamond is about to overload. It’s the same mistake you made with the ice.”

Tarrel glanced at the incandescent diamond cube, mentally going over the wording he had used with the super-refinement spell. The same mistake he had made with the ice? The air around him felt… thin and weak, while the space around the cube seemed to shimmer and warp. What was going on? And then he got it.

He stared at Renna, horrified. “Quick. Give me your cache.”

He began the transfer spell, reverting to the more familiar mental casting in the moment of crisis. It was still incomplete when the cube exploded with a chiming sound that reverberated through his bones. Pain stabbed up Tarrel’s hand and he screamed, flailing around and spraying blood from his two missing fingers. Threads of orange refined mana flickered all around him like a hazy fog and the room dissolved into panic as the magic ran wild.

Renna’s hair stood straight up. She had time for a single terrified scream before lightning discharged from her body. Bolts radiated out in every direction, crackling and splitting the air apart, disintegrating her body into hot black flakes. Some of them landed on Tarrel’s face and he stumbled back, staring at the black scorch marks on the floor.

Tarrel’s weight vanished all at once and he floated off the ground, crashing into the ceiling before gravity reasserted itself and threw him back to the floor. The awful ringing of the broken cube continued to echo through the room, growing in strength instead of fading. It tore through his head as he wrapped his ruined hand in his shirt and sprinted for the door -- only to have the space in front of him warp and elongate. The door receded away, until it was like he was looking down a long corridor.

The first rips began to appear, fuelled by the still-continuing refinement spell as it pumped refined mana into the shards of the diamond cube. It was as if reality was a sheet of glass, fracturing and splitting. Black cracks shot through the room as the chiming hammered through Tarrel’s body. They began to glow, dim white at first, then growing in strength. They pulsed. Flickered. And as Tarrel’s hand reached for the door handle, they exploded.

Pure, white light surged out into the city, spilling from the research laboratory where Tarrel had conducted his fatal experiments. People screamed and fled. Some tried to cast spells, only to have their magic go awry in a wash of strange effects. Teleportation spells transported heads without their bodies. Flight enchantments sent their users hurtling into buildings. Wards imploded, crushing that which they were meant to protect.

Ur-Dormoth was just one city out of hundreds, but the Way, a global telepathic link which united all Raal, was irreversibly tainted. Less than a year passed before Tarrel’s name was forgotten, but in the end he got his wish: an eternal, undying legacy -- in the form of a vast, magical wasteland sprawling across a quarter of the continent.