So, quite a few people don't like/watch video content, and don't like seeing the homepage filled with videos. Let's try something new, see if it sticks.
What are the best videos you have watched this past week/fortnight?
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films 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.
After my lease is up in my current apartment, I am hoping to purchase a home somewhere in the US and am just now in the beginning stages. I'm not too far into my search but am generally looking for 2-3 bedroom with 1.5 bath, a basement, and a decent backyard. My budget is <$250k and I am looking at east Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, and maybe Michigan. Fortunately, I work from home and am not terribly dependent on being near a job, but unfortunately it seems like all houses have exploded in price the past 3 years in pretty much every area. It is crazy to look at a house that sold in 2019 for $100k being listed now at the top of my budget at $250k! It kind of makes me want to put in an offer at 65% of the listing price for some of these egregious increases. Especially as the higher interest rates making the house way more expensive than what they originally purchased at when the rates were at all time lows. It seems like the market for a $150k starter home is non-existent for most parts of the country these days.
Anyways, I was curious who here is a homeowner?
What is your experience like going from renting to buying, or if you were a homeowner and went back to renting?
What are some things you wish that you had known to do prior and what advice would you give yourself back then?
How long did you search and how long are you planning to stay in your home?
What do you think of the current market dynamics? Is there any hope for prices to come back down to Earth?
Any other thoughts you want to share?
This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?
Or is there another way that I don't know of? It's weird that this isn't the case already. Make it easier to browse Tildes-native contents especially for new users.
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.
Ok, so the "Going on a trip and have zero idea what to do as a non-tourist..." isn't entirely true like it was in my post about NYC last year, but everyone was extremely helpful and threw out suggestions I wouldn't have even thought about looking for. So here I am again to bug you wonderful people for Tildes Travel Guide 2: Electric Denver Boogaloo
Same as before, staying for a week, I do have a rental car this time (trying to decide between the comfort of a Lexus or sportiness of an Alfa Romeo, damn car guy indecisiveness) so transport is less of an issue, anything that you'd suggest to see/do?
What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
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.
Stories involving dragons tend to be in medieval periods so maybe we can try to extrapolate forward in time a bit. Dragons could be from any mythologies or fictions of your fancy!
For my take, a dragon is a flying fire-breathing giant lizard with the size and toughness of a big building. I believe a critical factor is how tamable dragons are. If not at all, they'd go from something humans fear and run away from, then being hunted for glory and materials, then being protected in conservation areas to prevent going extinct. If they can be fully domesticated (like dogs), they could expedite for warfare, transportation and industrialized metalwork. The most interesting scenario imo is the in-between where they could only be partially trained. Maybe a skilled trainer can get them to behave 80% of the time but there's a low but significant chance that they get agitated and wreck havoc. How do we make use of them while ensuring safety and intervenability?
On the cultural side, we might not have as many myths and legends about dragons anymore. We might find the idea of giant flying fire creatures utterly mundane (phoenixes might be less interesting by relation even if they still don't exist in this universe). What would we mythologize about instead?
Meta note: this series has been restarted by request.
Choose one album
that you love
that you think deserves more love
Tell us what it is, and why.
It's a new post series I'm trying out! Each month people can use the AlbumLove thread to post an album they love and explore those posted by others.
I'm planning to put up a new AlbumLove thread on the first of each month for a few months to see how these go as a trial run. If people like it we can keep it going — if they don’t it’ll fizzle out and I’ll stop.
In this day and age, algorithmic recommendations for music are easy to come by, and it's trivial to seek out new music that interests you by searching online. AlbumLove offers an opportunity to sift through music loved by others, including those who might have divergent tastes from you. Think of this as an opportunity to listen outside of your comfort zone, with music that you know someone else adores, from a small pool of thoughtful hand-selected options.
Any album that you love and that you feel deserves more appreciation. There are no restrictions on genre, year, or anything else, and nothing is “too popular” or “too niche”. If you think it needs more love — for whatever reason — then it’s welcome in AlbumLove.
Name the artist and the album, and then, most importantly, share what you love about the album. It could be the music itself, but it could also be your associations with it -- maybe the album reminds you of someone you love, or you saw the band live and got a new appreciation for the studio songs.
Also, commenting on others' recommendations is encouraged! If you love something that someone else shared, let them know!
Nope. You don't have to listen to anything if you don't want to. This is about creating a menu of options that people can explore as they wish.
Nope. Limit one! This helps us be more selective about what we choose, as well as preventing the threads from getting flooded with too many contributions to keep track of.
I like albums. :)
Seriously though, I feel like it's a very different thing to like an album as a whole versus a few songs or just an artist's general vibe. I like the idea of quantizing music for appreciation in the same way we might do with books or movies.
Fair game!
I'm using "fear" in the broadest sense, including both concrete menaces and subjective apprehensions of any kind.
As always, anything goes, except for highly divisive controversial stuff that might get this locked!
In March, I asked a question here about commissioning artwork.
I was then lucky enough to be contacted by @cc-louis. I was struck by the use of color in his portfolio and engaged with him to create some artwork as a gift for my husband.
I thought about putting this at the end for suspense, but I know people are just going to scroll to get to the good stuff, so without any further delay:
Here it is!
And here is the print!
I'm in the back holding the Pokeball cupcake from the previous batch of cupcakes (I am the de facto taste tester of my husband's baking). My adorable husband is the one pulling the current batch out of the oven. Our adorable dog is looking up, holding his favorite toy in his mouth, hoping something will fall on the floor so that he can try to eat it.
We're surrounded by my husband's Pokemon Pride Team, some of which have been helping him out with the baking, all of which are eager to get at those delicious fresh-baked goods.
My husband is a lifelong Pokemon fan and has been playing the games since he was a kid. He doesn't just keep up with the series -- he often goes back and replays old games, doing Nuzlocke runs and themed teams for his playthroughs.
I surreptitiously found out from my husband what his Pokemon team would be if he did an LGBT Pride theme, choosing six Pokemon based on the colors of the rainbow flag. He chose the following:
Red: Scizor
Orange: Kingler
Yellow: Ninetales
Green: Bellossom
Blue: Marill
Purple: Arbok
My husband also loves baking (and I love eating my husband's baking).
I wanted to get artwork of us with this Pride Team. I also wanted the Pride theme to be a bit more subdued. As much as I love the rainbow flag, it can be a little too gaudy and rigid for me sometimes. I wanted something that read as a cohesive scene, with the rainbow being more embedded and suggested than outright overt.
I cannot speak highly enough of @cc-louis.
While I think the quality of his work speaks for itself, I'll also say that he was a joy to work with. He was consistently prompt and professional in all of our interactions. Furthermore, he was eagerly collaborative throughout the entire process. He would solicit my feedback and respond to any notes I gave him, while also smartly incorporating his own ideas (that were better than mine!). He sent me multiple drafts throughout his creative process to make sure I was happy with the direction he was taking things each step of the way.
The color, overall composition, and many of the incredible details in the pieces, were all him, not me. Early on he suggested a "cozy" feel with the oven as a centerpiece and a source of warm light, and I cannot say enough how much I love how it turned out. It is so beautiful and heartwarming to me.
If any of you are looking for commissioned artwork, I strongly recommend him. If I ever commission another piece, he will be first on my list.
(Hopefully it goes without saying, but @cc-louis did NOT ask me to give this review, nor did he pay me for this endorsement. I'm doing this purely as a very satisfied customer. I actually asked him for permission to give him a plug here!)
I also asked here about printing the image, and ended up selecting a local print shop. I couldn't really judge the quality of online print services and was worried I'd end up ruining the amazing artwork with a cheap-looking print. I figured a local shop would have a bit more expertise, and that I'd also be able to speak to real people if something came out wrong.
The local print shop did an incredible job, and their price was actually better than some of the online services I was looking at. The image now lives on a 22"x36" canvas, which will be mounted on our wall shortly.
I tried taking a picture of it, but my phone camera doesn't do it justice and makes it look kinda bad. The colors look muted and it looks like there's an odd texture on it that doesn't appear in person (might be small reflections of light?).
Everyone will just have to take my word on it that the artwork looks even better in person. I actually choked up a bit when I picked up the print because it was so beautiful and heartwarming.
I was secretly hoping my husband would happy cry when I showed it to him, but instead he got incredibly giddy (which was even better!) and immediately and proudly started texting the picture out to everyone we know on every single group chat we're on to show it off.
Overall, I am incredibly happy with how it turned out. My husband absolutely loves the piece, and I am beyond grateful to @cc-louis for turning my clumsy idea into a thing of beauty.
What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)
Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.
You can make a chart if you use last.fm:
http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/
Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.
As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!