This is just a fun little part of a story I put together a little while ago. Might go somewhere later, but probably not.

The symbols looking like: [^1] are footnote links. (Pandoc's format, a kind of extended Markdown).

Edit: It may be easy to read as rendered html

A leaf was slowly falling towards their face.

It was golden, three-tongued, and burning with fire.

Last one wasn't hyperbole.

Unfortunately.

It was all sort of their fault.

But then, everything always was.

That's why everyone called them Slag.

The trees hadn't always been on fire, but they had been on fire before.

That had been their fault too.

Being the smallest Ork in a tiny Orkin village, reporting to a tiny Orkin warlord who somehow believed he had the brass balls of a god, Slag wasn't exactly well cared for.

Their name was their job. They were an Ork, after all.

The blacksmith beat the metal, made the weapons. Tossed the slag in a pile.

Molten metal twisted and smouldered, and Slag would grab it by the handful, and toss it into a cauldron of water, and when that was full, kick it down the hill into the dumpsite.

When the dumpsite was full, Slag would summon the demon, who would demand some strange price, then vanish with the lot.

The demon's prices weren't helping their standing with the rest of the tribe.

Like today.

Slag craned their neck, looking up at the red fiery, and rather horned creature, "Say again?"

The deep earth-rumbling voice laughed, "I want you to sing! Sing like a girl! Like a tiny little human girl!"

Slag winced, "I am a girl, demon." [^1]

The creature blinked in surprise, "You? Little squelchling?"

Slag shrugged, "I'm a girl. I don't got tits... I ain't pretty. But I am."

The demon winced, "Figure out which god cursed you little girl... After you sing."

Singing? An Ork?

Orkcakes.

The demon would go, and she'd be blamed there was no room in the dump, and then the Orklord would be in her face. Again.

Then threaten to marry her to his son. Again.

She blanched.

The demon laughed, "Last chance, little orkling."

She coughed nervously, and then a squeaking voice emerged, singing a quiet rhyme she'd overheard one day.

Something about stars and diamonds. Humans were weird. [^2]

Unfortunately, her voice was less like a starlet, and more like diamonds scraping across sandglass.

The demon shreiked and disappeared back into their realm.

Without the slag.

She winced, glancing towards the village, "Orkcakes."

A hand like iron clasped her head, "Slag."

She smiled weakly up at her father, and at his one eyes staring out from a bushy grey beard. [^3]

The warrior released her and spoke gruffly, "Was that you singing, again?" [^4]

She blushed, looking down in shame, "The demon's price."

The old man groaned and reached for a whip on the wall, "Please tell me he took the slag."

"I don't lie, father." She answered. [^5]

He winced and glared at the doorway, unravelling the whip, preparing to hit the next person who came in. "Go to you room, Slag."

"It's my honour." She crossed her arms, pretending not to notice that her chest didn't show any bigger, "I want to defend it."

"Now, Slag." He growled through his tusks.

She turned and moped away into her bedroom.

She couldn't fight, all she could do was listen to the glorious blood-curling screams as the emissaries dies. [^6]

Slag picked some metal from beneath her fingernails and flung it into the wall, pinning a fly by one wing. [^7]

It wasn't fair.

She wanted a real fight.

Why did boys get all the fun?

The guts and the murder?

All she got was... Slag.

An axe blade broke through her wall briefly, before being pulled back quickly, followed by a strangled sound.

She rolled her eyes and flopped onto her straw bed, staring at the ceiling tiredly.

Humans made life look so simple.

Find a man, get pregnant, take care of the litter until you died.

Just cooking, singing and cleaning.

She licked the edge of her tusk, yawning. This was going to be another, she must get married because she's useless argument with the Orklord. Which would inevitable lead to my son is too stupid, fat and ugly to possibly get married, and then... Ew.

She didn't want the bastard.

He certainly wanted her though, all drooling and slurping.

She wanted to be a Knight. [^8]

That was it. All of it. Her only dream.

A glorious warrior, protecting the weak, hunting the monsters that pray on people in the dark. [^9]

Her sword would have a name, and glow with power when evil was near. [^10]

She would yell out it's name, and light up the dark.

Then she'd kill the bad guy, cut off his head, and ride home with it, and stake it to her wall. [^11]

[^1]: Really? Wow. Never would have guessed... But orks are always hard to apply gender to.

[^2]: Understatement. What other species looks around themselves in wonder and decides blowing stuff up is the best way to get something out of the ground?

[^3]: Stories on exactly how he lost his eye vary. Most involve a dragon, a bet, and a gallon ale. And perhaps a wet, old sock.

[^4]: Oh gods. She'd tried to sing before? Had birds died?

[^5]: Not strictly true. She did lie, but only about unimportant stuff. Like what she wanted for dinner. Or what job she wished she had. Or who she wanted to marry. Nothing big.

[^6]: It's an Orkin thing. Send some messenger to die when your upset with your opponent, and then turn up when their bloodlust was sated. Good way to not die.

[^7]: She was a practiced hand at this now. Sociopath, or bored teenager? Let the public decide! Blast her in this week's Orks magazine!

[^8]: ... Should someone tell her human knights usually hunt down orks?

[^9]: So... Hungry orks. Seriously. Someone should tell her.

[^10]: So, it would always be lit up. Because you're on Ork, girl.

[^11]: Oh geeze. Are you the hero, or the villain, Slag?

bishop.

tw: death

i remember the day that they died.
you called me at work in the
middle of my shift shooken up,
you wailed and cried
you were hours away
divorce was on the horizon
your mother
she went to get the last of her things
brothers in tow, each under her wings
wanting to grab their toys, their cars,
living in an apartment, left the trampoline

the pool's mostly empty now, and green.

i was always taught that ghosts scream
that any haunted house is a broken record
out of a low-budget horror scene
blood on the walls, ripped at the seams,
what they never tell you in the movies
is that the real scare is going to the house
six months later and finding it empty

and silent.

all that's left is the memory of the violent
no one left to water the yard
grass is yellow, in the garden
wilted violets
and the paintings still hang on the walls.
the lamp is still there on the nightstand
the pots and pans are still in the kitchen
the paper is still on the desk
everything is still where it should be
every item right where it was left
except this sudden void in your soul
and the unending feeling of being depressed
and lost,

scared

a lost lamb in a land once shared
a home where you would draw or write
and now all that's left is light
flittering in through the windows
that just feels so out of place
paintings on the floor covering up
the holes where the bullets laid
open casket you broke down
at the sight of his little face

god what a fucking monster

two years now since the day you lost her
and i have no idea how you are.
i took it upon myself to watch over you, a foster
and hoped to show you real love after this imposter
came into your life and ripped it in pieces
with this targeted hatred and ceaseless screaming
god if i could go back in time.

even still now i wish to trade their lives for mine

even if it just meant another day,
maybe one last time for you to
share a smile or say goodbye
to make peace and hug your mom
or read harry potter to your brothers here
in person and not occasionally from beyond
the grave that plays that same god-fucking-forsaken
song as the house does when you visit.

silence.

why dont they play music in the graveyards.

why dont they play music in the graveyards.

Link to Google doc: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Hc-Ti6Pff_qUZLAfzzL7WjhFNh2m_XPvMkdYBL6mLzI/edit?usp=sharing

I created this document a while back and update it every couple months. There's an Introduction tab with guidance on how to browse the spreadsheets, which I've copied below for reference:

(1) This document outlines various TV shows and is broken up into 3 tabs: Watched, Watching, and Want to Watch.

Watched: Shows I've completed through series finale or given up on. Some of these were canceled early.

Watching: Shows I'm actively watching day-to-day or shows in between seasons that will air new episodes in the future.

Want to Watch: Shows I haven't started and want to watch. Many of them are recommendations I jotted down to avoid forgetting, so this list will sometimes be unalphabetized.

(2) Certain columns of information were exported directly from IMDB, and the page for each show is linked in the rating from the IMDB column.

(3) On the Watched and Watching tabs, there are columns for Recommend? and Notes to provide background that will help decide what to watch. Don't let any of my negative comments stop you from watching a show you're interested in.

(4) The Recommended? column is divided into the following categories: Must Watch, Yes, Maybe, No. These are all based on personal opinion with extra discussion/information in the Notes column.

(5) I've shared this with most people using View Only permissions, so download the Excel file (or copy to your Drive account) to filter columns by genre, rating, and personal recommendation.

Disclaimer: not everyone will have the same tastes as me - that's okay. I welcome any disagreement about how I've rated shows and hope to get some discussion going.

• What shows have I missed that I need to watch?

• What shows did I strongly recommend that you didn't like?

• What shows did I give up on too early?

I expect to take some heat for quitting Brooklyn 99 around season 3.

• What shows haven't come out that I should keep an eye out for?

Like Jack Ryan which debuts this month.

• How can I improve the document?

I considered including a column with the show's network or where it can be legally streamed, but this is pretty tedious given the nature of broadcast rights.

As mentioned in part 1: Diversity, I'm currently rewatching Gotham on Netflix, and just writing up a whatever thoughts I have about the show. I find this show to be really good and really bad in a lot of places, both in storytelling in general and as a comic adaptation.

Warning, there will be spoilers for the first three seasons (what I've seen up to).

What I'm calling a makeover trope

I'm basically defining any transformation, usually from undesirable/imperfect to desirable/perfect in the eyes of someone (usually a love interest). How this trope plays out is generally very gender specific, so I'm breaking it up into men and women. This trope is definitely not limited to what I'm going to cover.

Women and the power of makeup
When this trope is applied to a woman, there's generally shopping, hair and make-up involved. Examples includes:

• creepy kidnapping, bathing and redress of a woman before presenting her to usually a man
• common whip off her glasses and let down her hair
• evil or sad all-black with heavy eyeliner
• crazy/mad extra sexy make-up and clothes
• girl-power shopping/spa day

Men and the power of pushups
When this trope is applied to a man, there's generally a training montage. Examples include:

• hitting the gym
• arming themselves with new weapons
• new sharp tailored clothes
• spiking up their hair, or shaving
• turning evil after a betrayal

Why I hate them

I admit, it's a bit unfair to say I hate them, since this trope is pretty central to a lot of stories and will go unnoticed if done well. Character growth (in either direction) move stories. However, they stick out so much when tossed in poorly or for no reason, and I really do hate them then. Generally when I see them:

• they are often shallow, such as just changing their hair (sure you can argue the symbolism of this, but it's cliche it's likely to be a reach to do so)
• they change an individual character, but doesn't add to their relationships in a meaningful matter
• (for women) they come with a sense of "taming", usually including a "breaking" phase, and usually by a man who just knows better

How they can be good

The makeover trope can be a very powerful character development tool. It can be driven by the plot or drive the plot. For me a good makeover trope will likely include:

• internal desires to change, such as acknowledging a personal fault and wanting to improve
• natural transformations, such as growing up or learning from experience
• improves (or breaks down) existing relationships by comparing or contrasting our character with their close ones. This can work great to emphasis who they were to who they are or who they want to be

Finally getting to Gotham

Gotham, as a prequel to Batman, are origin stories, which by definition are transformation stories. We're watching the city of Gotham being transformed, Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, Oswald becoming the Penguin, and so on.

In no particular order, here are some makeovers that stood out to me:

Ivy Pepper (Hotness makeover)
She's a tiny stupid kid with frizzy hair, who magically grows ten years and becomes super hot. So now you have childlike innocents meet boobs. But she's Poison Ivy, and she grew like a weed...get it?

Safe to say, I did not like this change.

Leslie Thompkins (Evil makeover)
She's hurting after her husband is killed, and decides to use a drug to "free" herself. Though I didn't like this plot, I actually have no issues with this transformation, except for two things:

• Why the booby black clothes and eyeliner? This is just a pet peeve of mine. I just want to see a woman turn evil and not become some sexy fetish.
• No follow through. There are no consequences to this transformation. Jim, being the hero, will force her to take the antidote, and that's that. As cliche as it would be, I would prefer Jim somehow talk her into taking it, instead of just forcing it on her. Now it's just a weird take on the damsel in distress trope.

I should also add, I actually don't like how characters need an excuse to do bad things. I think it would have been better if she just decided to screw Jim over, instead of this whole roundabout way of doing so, but still basically saying she loves him. Guess this saves the writers a redemption line.

Barbara Kean (Madness makeover)
Barbara is kidnapped and tortured by the Orge who believes she's his soulmate. Though this has makeover tropes I really dislike, specifically the "breaking/taming" and the "I see you for who you are and I will set you free" that comes with a huge dose of patriarchy, I actually thought this was pretty well done and revealed to the audience. I just wished they had more follow through regarding Barbara herself after this, instead of the shift to simply crazy, but still obsessed with Jim.

Isabella (Dead girlfriend makeover)
After learning that Ed (the Riddler) accidentally murdered his old girlfriend, who she looks exactly alike, Isabella decides to dress up as his dead girlfriend to prove "he won't hurt her". Little bit of a reverse of the the common trope, as she puts on glasses and ties her hair in a pony tail for this one. She's a disposable refrigerator girl, so my expectations were pretty low here. Still annoying to watch though.

Oswald Cobblepot (Evil/power-up makeover)
This character actually probably transforms the most through the series. There are lots of cliche bits, including sharp new clothes, but his transformations are generally a result of his own work and are fun.

Selina Kyle (Dress-up makeover)
The writers generally handle this character really well, so I'm not sure why they decided to toss in a random "guy sends over boxes and bags of shoes and clothes so you can dress up". She does dress up for the charity event, but easily goes back to herself. So, this was cliche, but has no consequences, ...so meh?

Bruce Wayne (Toughness/reality makeover)
The entire series basically has Bruce's slow transformation to Batman in the subplot. His interactions with Selina gives him the reality checks he's looking for, while contrasting his believes, specifically with Batman's infamous "no killing" rule. His makeover is deliberate, strongly internally motivated and permanent. His growth is believable.

Final thoughts

So this turned out way longer than I intended, and I actually didn't include nearly as much detail as I was going to.

Thoughts? How does Gotham compare to other shows or stories?

Hi,

I want to make a personal website, as basic as possible (I don't even want SEO or stuff like that).

This is totally a personal project, I don't want to generate revenue from it or anything like that (at least for now), I just want an old school website to link it to possible employers and contacts. I have about 12 years of coding experience but mostly low-level (DSP, ASM, C, C++) and scientific code (Python, R, Julia). So I'm not scared of doing it from scratch (even though it will be much uglier in the beginning than pre-generated websites) or using some basic lightweight libraries.

Until now I have been using github pages but I want to put some projects that require server side work, so I'll probably have to host somewhere else. I really like tildes' technical goals, but I don't know if the stack it uses is overkill for a personal website (I know I will need some database for some of the projects though).

My questions are:

• Is Pyramid a good choice or is it more appropriate for huge multiuser platforms? I do need some level of interaction between users (some of my more artsy projects are related to NLP) as well as interaction between user-server (some projects include simulations with parameters etc.).
• How does hosting/DNS work? How much should I expect to spend per year? I know there exist hosting services and also places like Heroku, I don't really know the difference between them or what should I be looking for.
• How much should I worry about security? In other words, what is the threat level? I don't plan to have confidential info in the website, or information about the users (other than a hash value). But should I be worried about other kind of threats?
• Is making a website as basic as possible and then keep on improving it as time goes a sound plan for a long-term personal project? With this I mean, will it be fun or will it be 100% frustrating and I should just go to (whatever hosting service that has premade web applications) and make my website there even though it will be bloated with scripts and stuff?
• Is there something I'm not asking that I should be asking? As I said I know how to code but it feels like web development is a completely different beast sometimes.
• Is there any compelling reason for me to use google analytics, SEO, all that stuff that big websites use? I have never understood the point for it in, for example, github pages.

Thanks for your help! Feel free to correct me on any stupid thing I may have said, I definitely speak from ignorance.

Edit: My biggest issue with this kind of format for conversations is that I cannot thank everybody at the same time, and responding to everyone with a thanks is definitely not contributing anything to the conversation. So I'll put it in an edit. Thanks for all your help! I'll probably be coming for more advice soon...

Hello everyone,

I plan on going back to college in the Spring while working full time. I think taking two online courses or a 1-1 split of online / in-person courses per semester would be more than manageable while working full time but my particular job is so slow (office environment) and I'm allowed to study during downtime that I'm considering taking at least three courses per semester. What do you guys think is a non-overwhelming amount of classes to take while working full time and have any of you been in this position as well?

I took a break from Tildes for a week and came back to look at things again with a fresh perspective.

One of the things I immediately noticed was how the earliest comments are the ones that get the upvotes to the top of the comment list, and tend to stay there, even when better comments and chains flow below.

I started thinking about why this is so pervasive. Not just on tildes, but everywhere. Reddit and tumblr both suffer this issue to a degree. At the end of the day, going through any comments requires a certain amount of time, and a certain approach to the existing library of commentary. If we lock in the amount of time an average person will examine comments (which...is not much), we’re left with the only thing to address: the approach to going through the existing library.

Plenty of proposals (mostly already done) come to mind. Perhaps you go by most active or most recent comments. Controversial perhaps, or sorting by newest, rather than most popular. Maybe some secret mix of it all (the reddit “hot” formula). What about complete and utter randomness? ...yeah remember that Certain Amount of Time we discussed earlier? It’ll only be a couple posts before the user will switch back to another sort method.

So what should we try? What HASN’T been tried?

What about multiple panes? User-selectable, arrangable, 1-4. Vertical columns of different views, updated dynamically synchronously or asynchronously for the most controversial, new, and active. You could see all the views at once, side by side, so that your time switching between views and waiting for page loads evaporates and 100% of that limited attention span is spent on the comments in each of the sorts.

Having the more rapidly-changing columns (newest, active) update synchronously (every # seconds, configurable) would allow a user to engage those comments in time for the next refresh. The less-rapidly changing columns could be set to be asynchronous- updating as the orders change (top, controversial). This can also be tweaked as the site gets either more or less active as a whole. So what might need to be asynchronous now while things are quiet, can be made synchronous later.

Again, all of this is just a possibility, or perhaps starting point for a way to address the overall issue of the first comments being the most voted on.

First post: hello Tildeans!

In fairness, the title question no doubt applies to those on traditional courses/paths too - such is software.

Anyway -- in my experience, reading technical material which is too advanced is without a doubt the most intellectually confusing, emotionally damaging, and personally rewarding part of learning about software development. How about you?

I started basically from scratch last September without any knowledge about programming or Linux except a very brief stint in 2010. I'm a somewhat disorganised person (to say the least), and my learning habits have reflected that: I've followed my nose and impulse, reading pretty much whatever I've felt like. But I've ended up with a presumably ridiculous ratio of hours reading about code vs hours actually coding.

I'm a lazy person, so I'd rather sit and struggle with something I am definitely not ready to understand than go sit in front of a REPL, working from the ABCs til I can do the A-Zs. But the longer I look into things, and the more I play, the more I realise how much coding is like an instrument -- you really do have to just sit down and practice your damn scales! My experiences also support the argument for that 'T-shape' style of mastery (learn one thing very well, then branch). 20-odd Project Euler problems in a week or two has taught me far more than several months half-reading or half-listening to online material.

(Though, I think my 'inverse-T' approach simply has it's own set of trade-offs, rather than being plainly weaker, but that's for another discussion...)

The most ridiculous thing about this field is that there is no end to things you've never heard of: and I hate not having heard of things. My usual style when getting into a new obsession is to read very widely, but it feels like this is at best wasted effort here, if not actively counter-productive. It takes just a few clicks through HackerNews (or say, a read of some of the comments on Systems Programming topics) to find a paragraph that is entirely impenetrable to me. Man, that pisses me off. I think maybe as an ego-defense thing, I've always tried to get a 'gist' of the conversation or topic, but I reckon now this probably just breeds half-formed misunderstandings at best (Alexander Pope, "a little learning is a dangerous thing" etc etc).

Over the past couple months I've made far more visible progress than in any before, and I think a large part of that is learning how to admit when I am completely unable to access some sentences written in English, and how that's totally fine. My path is a lot clearer, and a visceral notion of sub-goals and stages of learning is a really nice thing to have. It's very relaxing to skim a blog post that goes completely over my head and think 'NBD'.

So, what are your experiences? Blocked by hubris/a short attention span like me? Or perhaps the opposite problem - finding you could grasp way more than you gave yourself credit for, after sticking too long with what you already knew? (These questions definitely intersect with things like perfectionism and imposter syndrome.)

I'm really curious to hear how you've dealt with things you feel you 'should' understand -- or how you manage the sheer volume of potentially-useful information out there (RSS, Pocket, something else?). Thanks for reading.

I'm posting this as a text post so I can give some additional background.

For those not in the loop, BronyCon is an annual convention hosted in the Baltimore Convention Center organized by fans of TV show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It started in 2011 and it peaked in attendance in 2015 with 10,011 present. This year was the 10th BronyCon, and they had 5,465 attendees. That's nothing to sneeze at, but it's a far cry from 2015, and it would be expected to go down further as Bronies continue to go on in life and become less involved with the community. In addition, the show is expected to end with either season 9 or 10, which would shrink the community even further.

Rather than attempt to convert into a general entertainment convention (and try to compete with the likes of Comic-Con) or become a small convention like they started out, the organizers have decided to make 2019 the last BronyCon, and to make it a 4-day event (August 1-4) to go out with a bang.

There are other MLP conventions (you can find a list of those that have/will happen here), but BronyCon was the original convention for fans of Friendship is Magic, and none are as big as it.

With all this being said, you can see the announcement on the website, and in the video from the closing ceremony. I was there, and it was a huge shock. The lower-level staff were not told either, so as to prevent the news from leaking early.

So, what are your thoughts? To any current or former Bronies, do you plan on attending? For those who never cared for or watched the show, have any similar things happened to TV shows/movies/etc you are a fan of?

So I have a few high school friends in Facebook who recently have become more radical (islamophobia, racism, sexism, identitarianism, etc.). As I said in a recent thread I have almost everyone but family blocked on my feed, but sometimes I make it a point to go to their profiles and see what they have posted. It usually is a lot of disinformation, misdirection, and dog whistling. I try to call them out because younger kids in my town look up to people like them and I'm worried they will become a bad influence. I also hope that, even though they will probably not become anarchists (or even run-of-the-mill conservatives) tomorrow, at least they will be a bit more empathetic to other people's pain.

My question is, do you think it is useful to do this? Will their posts or my rebuttals make any difference at all? How do you react in these situations?

More broadly speaking, is it important to have people calling bullshit when other people say blatant lies? Or is it useless and that energy would be better spent somewhere else?
On the one hand even if it is just for signaling to other people (in my particular example, muslims, the LGBTQ community, etc.) that they are not alone it seems like a good thing to do. On the other hand, I'm finding it less and less likely every day that anyone will change their opinion on anything without a massive investment in bots/shills/astroturfers. Or a good psychedelic trip :-D.

I am curious to hear your experiences regarding this and it is something I have discussed in person with other people and I always hear good arguments from both (and more) sides. Hopefully this is the right group/kind of thread and I'm doing the tag thing correctly, it is my first thread here !

Wondering what’s your favorite self-help book, with the most practical, down-to-earth advice that maybe changed your life.
I’ll go first: I really liked Mindfullness in Plain English, removed all the myths around meditation and broke it down to very digestible concepts allowing me to practice the same on a daily basis.

Looking forward to hear yours!

After seeing some interest in philosophical discussion threads in this group last night, here's one for all of you.

Ever since I watched the movie Arrival and saw this quote, I've had this set of questions about humans and how our minds and our perception of reality is influenced by language. I'm going to throw some of those questions out below as a discussion starter and see where we end up. Sorry they're a bit general, feel free to restate any of them to be more specific or more interesting to you.

How does language limit us? Is our inability to really understand and explain concepts such as quantum reality, existence past an event horizon, or a scenario without spacetime (e.g. prior to the big bang) a product of the limitations of language or is it a fundamental limitation of humanity? Can language evolve to be able to capture such concepts? If language does evolve, how will it affect our perception of reality?

Astralis 2-0 Team Liquid

Inferno: 16-5
Map stats: https://www.hltv.org/stats/matches/mapstatsid/70988/astralis-vs-liquid

Nuke: 16-12
Map stats: https://www.hltv.org/stats/matches/mapstatsid/70995/liquid-vs-astralis

Astralis win the Grand Final!

If you've lived long enough, read widely or suffered through the usual collegiate education requirements, you may find that your head has vast stores of disconnected knowledge which don't necessarily relate to anything necessary for daily life. That is, until the moment some dusty lump of data becomes a relevant jewel.

J.R.R. Tolkien coined the word "mathom" to describe questionably valuable clutter that you can't throw out:

Mathom
Last but not least, here’s a word you can use to switch up your everyday vocab. Next time you go to visit your grandparents, keep your eyes peeled for mathoms, a popular Hobbit possession.
Mathom comes from the Old English ‘maðm’, meaning treasure, which fell out of use in the 13th century. In the Shire, it’s commonly known as a Hobbit’s trinket, typically a useless heirloom. Tolkien went further and revived ‘mathom-house’ as a museum stuffed with old curiosities.

Do you find yourself collecting and seeking out information in odd corners just on the off-chance it will be useful?

Have you a story of the time when some obscure, trivial factoid suddenly saved the day?

To clarify I'm not incompetent at computers, I'm sure people don't tend to install Linux if they aren't familiar with technology in a decent capacity. But for instance I can't code, can't operate the command line short of copying and pasting command, and don't really know what I'm doing with the technical aspect other than following online guides. I have used windows all my life. I'm Linux illiterate for lack of a better description.

I decided I wanted some form of USB bootable computer, i'm familiar with chrome books, enjoy the light weight OS, and am bed bound to the google ecosystem so I when I saw how you could plug in a USB and have the computer boot into Chrome OS running off the USB I thought that sounded perfect. But during my research of discovery I found that Linux seemed like a very good alternative, I had always had it in my head that it was very technical and finicky system where to do a simple google search you had to code in half a dozen lines into the control terminal in some bizarre 2018 text adventure to use the web, I do exaggerate of course but the image I had conjured up over the years was of a very non-user friendly experience and a system made for those running technical aspects such as web servers and system management.

I decided you can't knock it to you try it and besides turns out you can't get chrome OS on a 32GB USB it has to be 8GB or 16GB apparently. So I installed Ubuntu on my USB, no clue if this is some snooty distro, or a version of Linux that's mocked in the community, or the perfect distro but after minimal research it seemed the most popular and well received version to put it on a USB and booted into it.

Instantly all my preconceived notions we're erased. It's clean, modern, simple, light weight, and easy to use with a very intuitive and familiar UI. It's pretty much a more open and degooglified (That's a nice word) version of Chrome OS. Since Firefox Quantum was released I emigrated over to try break some ties with google for privacy reasons like it's some pervy conjoined twin of mine, I know it's not good for me, I don't want it there but I can't get rid of it without harming me.

It's got a simple UI that's familiar to windows albeit without all the bloatware and ads spread everywhere, it doesn't track you like window does (that's as far as I'm aware it did ask to collect anonymised telemetry data which I opted out of). With windows I'm so used to having to go through 3 different pop up windows to change a setting that in Ubuntu it feels like I'm missing features although I'm yet to find one that's not there. The best bit about Linux, is if theirs a setting you want to change and can't find, than someone online has wrote a guide giving you a command line code to copy paste into the terminal to fix it.

Although to me it feels more on par with Chrome OS than Windows as a bare bones OS with simple apps and a web browser to use the internet with, in this regard Linux wins easy, way more open, no profit based motivation, and more accessible allowing itself to be used anywhere.

All though that comparison holds up for the normal user and if you are someone who just browses the web and uses apps like Spotify than Linux is amazing it's not complex or difficult, truly wonderful.

What makes Linux even better is the fact it's not a fair comparison, sure to me it's like Chrome OS due to the simple purposes I use it for but what's truly great is all that nerdy technical stuff I thought Linux was for you can do, if you are hosting a web server than linux gives you a free platform to do it, it feels like you are directly modding the PCB of the computer it's that open.

In retrospect to typing all that I feel I've just blurted out a generic description of Linux and for those that use it I'm sure they just think I was naive, but this is more aimed at the average user, Linux, or at least Ubuntu, is great, it's: simple, easy, fresh, clean, open, modern, intuitive, versatile, multi-purpose, and free. It's not some difficult to use system, it's alarmingly simple, but infinitely useful

It's easy to learn and difficult to master.

Natus Vincere 0-2 Team Liquid

Dust 2: 13-16
Map stats: https://www.hltv.org/stats/matches/mapstatsid/70934/natus-vincere-vs-liquid

Overpass: 9-16
Map stats: https://www.hltv.org/stats/matches/mapstatsid/70939/liquid-vs-natus-vincere

Team Liquid upset NaVi to move on to the Grand final

For me personally I'm excited because I really like what they've done with the MCU. It's not perfect but I think they've done a fine job so far and would prefer them to have a go at the X-Men (and FF) franchise. As a long time fan the movies have been hit and miss with the Fox X-Men for me so far. For example:

Love:

First Class
X2
Logan

Like:

DOFP
X1
The Wolverine

Don't care for whatsoever:

Wolverine Origins
X3
Apocalypse

So really Fox did okay with the rights but not as good as they could have. The Fantastic Four specifically movies are laughable. Hell the Roger Corman flick was better than it's successors. I didn't even bother with the most recent as you could tell it was slap dashed together.

So what do you guys think?

Background:
I was deciding what to do since we use Atlassian’s Stride and it will be sunsetted. For us, the options are Teams or Slack. I’m going to give Teams a try since we already pay for it. Someone I know also happens to be a PM there. I texted him “wow, Teams iOS has a 4.7 rating in the App Store!” He said, yes, it’s probably our best client. It made me realize that this is very often the case. The iOS client is often the best client for many services.

Questions:
Do you all find this to be true as well?

If so, why do you think this is? iOS itself? iOS app guidelines? iOS devs are more product minded? Android device fragmentation?

Any and all thoughts appreciated.

note: I am mobile OS agnostic, I use them all (both) regularly.

I'm doubling down here folks :) My prior post was called-out for being click-baity and rightfully so. The title was especially poor. I'll try to do better moving forward.

I'm starting a discussion here because my hope is that we can talk about the ideas within the article, rather than the article itself.

Here was the original post for those interested: https://tildes.net/~humanities/3y1/mark_cuban_says_the_ability_to_think_creatively_will_be_critical_in_10_years_and_elon_musk_agrees

I posted the article because at it's core are several interesting observations/propositions from two billionaires, Mark Cuban and Elon Musk, that presumably know a lot about business, and in Musk's case, a lot about STEM, and have a history of making winning bets on the future.

The article supposes that:

• Many (most?) STEM jobs will become automated
• This will happen very quickly; more quickly than we anticipate
• Creative skills will soon become more highly valued than STEM skills

There was a time when parents told their kids to "become a lawyer or a doctor" but after enough time we end up with too many people going into the same profession and there is more competition for those jobs as the market becomes flooded. I know anecdotally that's happened for lawyers (not sure about doctors).

I can see this happening with STEM as well.

Should parents encourage kids to pursue STEM but pair this with equal study in the humanities? Is STEM the next target of automation? Will creative skills be more highly valued? Will engineers find themselves in the bread line?

I started writing this a couple days ago and it's turning into a bit of a novel with no plot, so I thought I'll break it up a bit. Warning, there will be spoilers. I'm not caught up - only watched the three seasons available on Netflix, so if you're in the same boat, you're safe.

Diversity in shows is not something I actively look for, but will generally notice if done really poorly or really well, the former more than the latter. Gotham as a whole swings in both directions.

There's lots of different ways for a show to be diverse, I'm going to focus on women, race and sexuality in this post. Disability is going to be its own topic (when I get around to writing it).

Women

I'll start with the easiest check - yes there are women in this show, and they appear in frequency and numbers that more or less make sense for where they are. For example, in the bull pen, it's mostly men with a handful of women around, at a party they're about equal numbers, and so on. For named characters, they are in a variety of roles, both traditionally female and not. A short list includes, Sarah Essen, Barbara Kean, Selina Kyle, Renee Montoya, Fish Mooney, Ivy Pepper, Leslie Thompkins, and Tabitha.

There are stereotypes and caricatures, but mostly they feel like dramatized comic archetypes more than sexist, though it can definitely be both. There's plenty to write on each character, which in of itself is a good sign.

Now let's look at a few specific cases that caught my eye:

Spirit of the goat victims
This is just a little peeve. They went out of their way to specify that the victims are Gotham's first born to the point that Alfred points out that Bruce is a first born. Generally in stories, when referring to first born children, it's usually sons, but here, all victims are women. I'm going to guess it's for visual reasons, since the whole sacrificing a virgin in white on an alter is a pretty common trope. Still, can't decide how I feel about this one.

Barbara Kean
Now we're finally getting to who I really want to talk about - Barbara Kean, specifically from season 1.

Comic book fans will recognize Barbara as Gordon's first wife and mother of the original Batgirl (also named Barbara). In the comics, she has a mental breakdown and leaves Jim and Gotham (their daughter refuses to leave and stays with Jim). She's the character that Gotham literally broke, and though she is not an unsympathetic character in the comics, her relationship with Jim is pretty glossed over for an emphasize on her lack of a relationship with her daughter. There is also an implied break in her and Jim's relationship where she supported him in his extremely stressful career as best she could, but he didn't support her when she needed him (and depending on the version, he actually cheats on her because he was so stressed...).

This little background is why I was super excited to see Gotham's take on Barbara. This is probably the first time we get more than a flashback or half mention of this character in any medium. And she's treated with a lot of respect. She's supportive and compassionate, but still very human. At the start of the series, she's on relatively equal ground with Jim, asking to share his life, believing him (and in him), and just generally being supportive.

As an audience, we see Jim take from this relationship, and never really give anything back, so we know it's doomed.

She's not a flawless character, and suffers from what a lot of supporting casts do, which is that they are defined by the main character. Her fall, her mental break, can still arguably be classified as a women-in-refrigerator trope. She becomes a different person, but is generally there to haunt Jim, or help him, as the plot requires.

Honestly, her flip to the dark side, will check of every bad sexist trope you can think of, including magician's assistant. So, she's easily one of the best and worst written characters of Gotham.

Leslie Thompkins
She is everything I wanted Le to be...until she's in a relationship with Jim. She starts off being a strong, competent doctor. She stands up for her patients and what she believes in, and is unafraid of sticking around when things get tough. Then she starts dating Jim, and does crazy things like demand PDA at work that is unprofessional and more importantly, that Jim is uncomfortable with. Nobody should ever kiss someone if they feel uncomfortable. Demanding it doesn't make you confident, it makes you creepy!

From there she ranges from damsel to pregnant to evil. There are too many incidents to really cover, but, I do want to talk about the gas-lighting, which is a particularly poor choice of plot in my opinion.

There's an entire arch where she, as the medical examiner, discovers evidence that a murder occurred, but is asked to believe it's suicide. She points out the inconsistently and basically points out that Jim is lying, which he was. She takes this from co-worker to co-worker, and literally every guy tells her she's just seeing things because she's grieving the death of husband. This is never addressed for what it is. The resolution comes when she turns herself to her "darkest desire", which is to wear lots of dark eyeliner and f*** Jim.

This, compared to her comic character, who let Batgirl (Brown) die to prove a point to Batman. She's not a strictly good character in the comics, but she's definitely a strong character. So yeah...she's probably the worst written woman in Gotham, and is unfortunately the main female protagonist.

Race

Sure, the good competent guys are mostly white, and I'm always up for seeing more Asians, but the casting in general feels fine to me. No one feels out of place or token. I would say there's more stereotyping based on class than on race. So we have "hats" like Russian gangster, Italian mob, posh 1%-ers, and circus freaks.

Not to say there aren't awkward parts, like Alfred's British(?) accent.

Sexuality

Identity
As far as I can tell, there's no real representation here at all.

Orientation
There's three women, one man:

• Renee is gay
• Barbara is bi
• Tabitha is bi
• Penguin is gay

They're a bit shallow, but probably because these women aren't as core as other characters. Renee and Barbara's relationship feels a bit more authentic than Barbara and Tabitha's. Maybe because Renee really is gay and an alcoholic in the comic, so the writers had more to draw from. Maybe because Barbara and Tabitha's relationship seems more for plot, or worst for easter-egging (not-Harley and not-Catwoman running the Sirens, with mini-Ivy popping in).

Penguin being gay is actually really cute, in a creepy way. He spends a good deal of the show wanting a "friend" and finds one in Ed. Though there is an extreme selfishness to his love, it's still a pretty good subplot.

Final thoughts

So these are my quick thought on diversity in Gotham. What are your thoughts? Anything else stand out from the series (or comics) for you?

Edit to add: I forgot about Penguin being gay.

So recently, No Man's Sky has put out probably their biggest update yet. Prominently featuring Multiplayer, Cargo Freighters, and many QoL changes, Hello Games is determined not to drop their baby just yet. Has anyone been having more fun since the update? Less fun? Did anyone pick it up because of the update? How are your guys' adventures going?

Even if you're only lightly aware of superhero movie tropes and the criticisms of the genre in general, you will have a lot of gags to laugh at.

I know a lot of people my age (20s-30s) will be reluctant to see the movie if they were fans of the original Teen Titans show and haven't watched Teen Titans Go! (which I think is fair). But those are the people who will enjoy it the most.

It is a kids' movie, no doubt about it. But I'd put it in the vein of the Lego Movie, which still had a lot to offer if you're an adult.

You're home alone and watching TV. Yawning, you tilt your head to loosen up the knots in your neck and out of the corner of your eye see a dark, fast, blur. When you focus on that spot, you can't see anything, so you turn back and continue watching. It happens again during a blink, but as you turn your head you almost catch it. Another round of this and you are positive you aren't going crazy, so you blink but turn your head as you open your eyes.

Shout-out to Mozzribo for the idea. I hope this is inspiring enough to the writers out there! If anyone is interested in doing a prompt next week just say so in the comments. Thanks everyone!

Week six it is! This week we focus on another user-voted record: Postcards by Meadowlark.

Pulling @Gyrfalcon's original nomination:

I'm going to suggest Postcards by Meadowlark again. I'm not great at describing why music is good, so I will just leave the music video of the title track.

Here's the place to discuss your thoughts on the record, your history with it or the band, and basically talk about whatever you want to that goes along with Postcards. Remember that this is intended to be a slow moving thing, feel free to take your time and listen / comment at any point in the week!

If you'd like to stream or buy the album, it can be found on most platforms here.

I'm re-reading through some investment books right now and thought I'd throw one them out here with my thoughts and questions.

Investing and the Irrational Mind: Rethink Risk, Outwit Optimism, and Seize Opportunities Others Miss

by Robert Koppel

The title of this one intrigued me. Author Robert Koppel is a former investor/trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He covers a lot of research on what psychologists have discovered about biases and irrational thinking, particularly as it relates to investing and trading. He's also interviewed many other investors and offers his own observations from extensive experience.

He goes back and forth between having and investment plan and using intuition, which as it turns out are both tactics investors have used. I think the valuable part of this book is the way he ties in research by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman and others on biases to what happens when we make good and not so good decisions in finance. An example of one of those common pitfalls:

We also experience a reflection effect whereby individuals make irrational choices to enter or exit an investment based on a subjective reference point determined by whether they have already experienced a gain or a loss. An example of this would be someone waiting for a “breakeven” price before exiting from an investment that is performing poorly rather than looking at the market objectively, without reference to the purchase price.

The book isn't so much an investment strategy but rather a good overview of what's involved in the process. As someone who has handled his own investments for years, I found that Koppel's book is realistic and practical, especially for those of us who've had to make those hard decisions on buying and selling, either for the long term or short term.

My own particular problem is watching things too closely and losing a sense of longer term movement. Investing And The Irrational Mind is a great tool for giving me pause and reflecting on the mistakes I've fallen into over the years.

Even as basic a rule as "cut your losses short" is hard to follow and really give me pause to think about issues I've held onto for too long as well as others that went on to go up and away. I've love to hear your thoughts.

This post is taken from one made several years ago on /r/fragrance by /u/acleverpseudonym. It's very well written, but I've edited and added to it a bit.

The concept of a perfume house probably isn't that familiar to most of you - it's a fairly niche topic even for those who wear the stuff. Generally speaking, there are a few "great" perfume houses: Chanel, Lanvin, and Creed for example, but the greatest among them, the one considered "legendary", is Guerlain.

When approaching a history as long and a catalogue as extensive as Guerlain's, it can be intimidating. It's hard to know where to start and olfactory fatigue limits the number of fragrances you can really appreciate in a single outing. It can be hard to tell which fragrances are the important and good ones and which are the fillers and by the time you smell some of the really complex and beautiful classics, your nose might be blown out already and unable to appreciate them.

This is a guide to those important scents, and why they matter.

About Guerlain

Guerlain is one of the oldest and most respected perfume houses in the world. They first opened in a small shop in Paris in 1828 making custom fragrances for the moneyed classes (and royalty - Pierre-François Guerlain was His Majesty's Official Perfumer to Emperor Napoleon III of France). Guerlain sold the first fragrance marketed as a parfum (Jicky, 1889). This was also among the first fragrances to use synthetic ingredients. Guerlain also sold the first Oriental fragrance (Shalimar, 1925) (my personal favourite, and one I wear very often).

Guerlain fragrances are famous for sharing a common olfactory accord called "Guerlinade" that was originally created back 1800s, This accord can be found in most all of their famous fragrances. It was developed by Aimé Guerlain, the creator of Jicky, and is said to contain bergamot, rose, jasmine, tonka bean, iris, and vanilla. Once you become familiar with it, it's very easy to pick up on it in many Guerlain scents.

There have been 5 master perfumers for Guerlain over their almost 200 year life; 4 of them have been from the Guerlain family. The most recent, Theirry Wasser, is not.

The Perfumers

• Pierre-François Pascal Guerlain, active 1828-1864 - founder. So far as I can tell, only a single fragrance of his is still made, Eau de Cologne Imperiale, 1860, made for the Emperor Napoleon III's wife.

• Aimé Guerlain, active 1864-~1900. 3 of his fragrances are still around. Jicky, 1889 is by far the most famous and most important.

• Jacques Guerlain, active ~1900-1955. He made most of Guerlain's most famous women's fragrances. He hold's 40% of the slots in Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez's top 10 women's fragrances ever made, including the fragrance that is LT's favorite Mitsouko, 1919. He made the first Oriental fragrance as well. If one were trying to decide on the best perfumer to ever live, he would certainly be on the short list. His fragrances are complex, subtle and deep.

• Jean-Paul Guerlain, active 1955-current, though he hasn't been the official master perfumer for years. He made most of Guerlain's most famous men's fragrances...and some pretty famous women's fragrances as well. I think of him as one of the last old-school perfumers. He might think that "aquatic" is a bad word. His fragrances are more bold than Jacques Guerlain, but not in a bad way.

• Thierry Wasser, active 2008-current. I was skeptical, but I've been won over. He's certainly taking Guerlain in a slightly different direction, but he's also made several amazing fragrances. His are by far the most modern of Guerlains, but they still manage to keep the signature Guerlain flair. He also has done something awesome: try to fix the reformulations of the old stuff. He’s spent significant amounts of time and money on better synthetic oakmoss and on reformulating Guerlain’s classics so that they smell more like the originals. Mitsouko, in particular, has benefited from this.

Where can I smell them

If you live in the US and you only shop at Sephora and mid range department stores, you’ve probably only seen a very limited selection of Guerlains, many of which are poor examples.

The common ones are:

• La Petite Robe Noir, 2009 - a very new line, done under the direction of Theirry Wasser by Delphine Jelk. People like it, but it’s not really the classic Guerlain I’m trying to introduce to all of you. It's not something I'd personally wear.

• Shalimar, 1925 - One of the classics, but not department store sniff friendly. Shalimar is made to smell amazing on the skin 2 hours after being put on, not smell amazing on a paper strip 30 seconds after being put on. Also, It wasn’t made to be sold in EdT concentration like you find it in many stores (EdC concentration in drug stores). It was made to be smelled in parfum extrait concentration. I’ll talk more about Shalimar in a bit.

• Guerlain Homme, 2008 - This is a HUGE departure for Guerlain. Not characteristic of them at all.

• Samsara, 1989 - A feminine masterpiece from Jean-Paul Guerlain and an good example of Guerlain, but it also probably smells to many like their mothers (or grandmothers) and their mother's friends

To get a good selection of Guerlain fragrances, you need to go somewhere like Neiman Marcus. The best place in the US is the Guerlain boutique in the Venetian in Las Vegas. Canadians have a distinct advantage here: we have one of the few actual Guerlain Institutes in North America, located in Toronto on Bloor Street. It's one of my "must visit" destinations whenever I'm in the area. The best place in the world is at their flagship store in Paris.

How expensive are they?

Retail is generally $100/100ml for EdTs, $125/100ml for EdPs and $330/oz for perfum extraits. (US prices)
Some special edition items are more than the standard EdT/EdP price, running from $200/bottle-$300/bottle. Many of the common ones are available on Fragrancenet and other online fragrance discounters. There isn’t a huge counterfeit market for Guerlain like there is for Creed and Chanel. I've bought a number of items in my collection on fragrancenet, and can attest to their authenticity.

What should I smell

That depends on whether you want an education, or you’re looking for something for the club. Guerlain has many, many, beautifully constructed, classic fragrances that are wearable on a daily basis, but they reflect a different aesthetic than mainstream fragrances today do. You’ll notice an almost complete lack of aquatics, for example. Guerlain fragrances are made for the dry down, not the opening like many of today’s fragrances. They show better on the skin than on test strips.

I’m going to create 2 lists for this: one for education and one for some additional modern scents.

A note on reformulations

Guerlain has been forced to reformulate most of their most famous fragrances throughout the ages due to changes in IFRA regulations limiting the amounts of certain ingredients that can be uses. Many of these are only a shadow of their former glory. Vintage bottles are often still available on ebay, and this is where most of my personal collection comes from.

Smelling the History of Guerlain

This list covers the most famous and influential of their fragrances. I’ll note if a particular fragrance is REALLY hard to find (Mouchoir de Monsieur, I’m looking at you, bud)

Also, as a note, a couple of the classic women’s fragrances have a “matching” men's fragrance that smells similar, but is named differently. It’s a quirk of Guerlain that they did it this way, possibly because it was before the “pour homme” and “pour elle” stuff caught on.

• Eau de Cologne Imperiale
• Jicky
• Apres l’Ondee
• L’Heure Bleu
• Mitsouko
• Shalimar
• Vol de Nuit
• Vetiver
• Habit Rouge
• Samsara

The list, in depth

• Eau de Cologne Imperiale, 1860 - Pierre-François Pascal Guerlain - This was the fragrance made for Napoleon III’s wife. Unisex, though it’s officially for women. Citrus, neroli and lemon verbena with rosemary and a bit of Tonka bean. If you try wearing this as a fragrance now, you will be sorely disappointed in the longevity. It was meant to only last for a few minutes as a refreshing scent or to scent handkerchiefs. It’s certainly pleasant and wearable, but it’s like the fragrance version of the Model T, not hugely complex and not very long lasting. As a side note, though, it’s become traditional for every master perfumer to make a traditional Eau De Cologne. Theirry Wasser’s is brilliant and relatively long lasting (Eau de Cologne du Parfumeur, 2010).

• Jicky, 1889 - Aimé Guerlain - Considered the first modern perfume. Before this, fragrances were used differently and constructed differently. It was considered to be a fougere back then, though it doesn’t really meet the modern definition. It’s officially for women, but it very unisex. The legend is that it was originally meant for men, but the fashion of the time didn’t call for men to wear fragrances so they sold it to women instead. It was famously worn by Sean Connery though. It smells of lavender, citrus, herbs, tonka bean, vanilla…and civet. It has a very animalic smell that is certainly out of fashion now, but was very much considered sexy back then. It was supposed to be like a summer garden party with an edge of sexuality to it. Jaques Guerlain made a something that was very clearly supposed to be a men’s version of it (even though Jicky is very unisex) in 1904 called Mouchoir de Monsieur. Good luck finding somewhere to smell in the US outside of the Guerlain boutique in Vegas.

I love this description of Jicky from /r/fragrance:

Oh my. Regardless of what you think about a man who aspired to expose (and sell!) his mistress's bottom to the general public, Aime Guerlain certainly nailed it. Yes, a revolutionary fragrance, bold, modern, enduring, etc... Jicky smells like taint.

I've been lucky enough to try this scent in Extrait concentration (thank you, GI Toronto!), and on me it was... not that. There IS a distinct note of civet, but it was very soft and wearable.

• Apres l’Ondee, 1906 - Jacques Guerlain - For women. This is supposed to be one of Jacques Guerlain’s best fragrances, a mix of violet, orange blossom, and heliotrope. A light, easy to wear scent, perfect for a summer's afternoon.

• L’Heure Bleue, 1912 - Jacques Guerlain - For women. It’s considered a masterpiece because, well, it is. Where Apres l'Ondee is all about the violet, L'Heure Bleue is all about the iris. This is rich, decadent, while retaining a lightness that makes it approachable.

• Mitsouko, 1919 - Jacques Guerlain - This fragrance is amazing, one of the first Chypres. It’s a woman’s scent, but can be worn by a confident man - it's peach and woods and oakmoss and vetiver. I also catch a fair amount of labdanum from it. It’s gloriously complex and exotic, moody and introspective, and lingers close to the skin. This is Luca Turin’s favorite fragrance, and also one of mine. It’s also the fragrance that benefited the most from Theirry Wasser’s attempt to improve the reformulations. The most recent version is MUCH better than the one from 7 years ago. Guerlain has the best synthetic oak moss out there, and it shines in Mitsouko.

• Shalimar, 1925 - Jacques Guerlain - For women. Vanilla, incense, leather, citrus and florals. This was the first Oriental fragrance, and remains the classic example of it for a reason. Often imitated by inferior perfumeries (if you've ever smelled BPAL's Snake Oil, this is what it's trying to be), it’s shocked many a woman idly spritzing the latest from Gucci and Jessica Simpson and Marc Jacobs onto test strips. It is not meant to be smelled on test strips, it’s meant to be worn. The opening can smell a bit medicinal, but it dries down to a glorious, sexy vanilla. A sample of vintage Shalimar extrait is what started me on my Guerlain perfume obsession, and I have since amassed quite the collection. The men’s companion to this scent is Habit Rouge, 1965

• Vol de Nuit, 1933 - Jacques Guerlain - For women, but wearable by men. A lovely cool, oakmossy, green, aldehydic scent. Cool, yet warm. It name means “Night flight” and it smells like a flight on a cool, autumn night across moonlit vistas.

• Vetiver, 1961 - Jean-Paul Guerlain - For men. I fell in love the first time I sniffed this. It was so different from what I had been smelling that I was shocked. It’s not sweet at all. It’s citrus is a very dry citrus and with heavy overtones of pepper and nutmeg. It dries down to grass and pipe tobacco and vetiver with an incense smell to it. I’ve heard it described as “what a board room must have smelled like in 1950.” Very grown up. I had sprayed some on my skin and kept going back to it. If you’ve smelled Tom Ford’s Grey Vetiver, it’s an homage to Guerlain Vetiver, a modernized version of it.

• Habit Rouge, 1965 - Jean-Paul Guerlain - For men. The masculine version of Shalimar. Definitely a fall/Winter scent. It opens smelling of very dry citrus and an almost paraffin scent. It dries down to a sweet vanilla leather scent. Apparently it’s best experiences as a vintage EdC. I haven’t gotten a bottle of the vintage, but it’s readily available

• Samsara, 1989 - Jean-Paul Guerlain - For women. A gorgeous, luxurious, sandalwood jasmine and ylang-ylang fragrance. I personally love it, but it does have that 1980’s “I’m here!” boldness to it. I suspect that many folks here will associate it with older women in their lives.

BONUS

• Derby, 1985 - Jean Paul Guerlain - For men. I've never personally smelled this. I think the only source of it may be vintage stock on ebay; the reformulation isn't worth persuing. The old one made Luca Turin’s top 10 list of all time for men. An oakmossy, nutmeg and leather chypre.

Some great modern Guerlains to smell

Here’s where I’m putting the things that are a bit more modern (post 1990) that I really like.

• Eau de Cologne du Parfumeur
• Encense Mythique d'Orient
• Tonka Imperiale

The second list, in depth

• Eau de Cologne de Parfumeur, 2010 - Theirry Wasser - Unisex. This is a beautiful, traditional eau de cologne with fresh juicy citrus, neroli, lavender and just enough green notes to keep it interesting (galbanum, fresh cut grass and mint primarily). Unlike most colognes in this style though, it lasts for several hours (though it turns more into a fresh citrusy musk after 2-3 hours).

• Encens Mythique d’Orient, 2012 - Theirry Wasser - Unisex. Incense, rose, aldehydes and ambergris (either real ambergris or the best synthetic anyone has ever smelled). Wow. This is a stunner. Available to smell at maybe a dozen places in the US. It was originally intended only for the middle eastern market, but has since become more widely available, comparatively speaking.

• Tonka Imperiale, 2010 - Theirry Wasser - Unisex. Tonka, rosemary, spices, white honey, vanilla, almond, woody notes, amber and tobacco. This is my go-to winter scent, it's like being wrapped in a warm amber and vanilla cloud. Hard to find, but worth it.

How's it going? What's the best thing to happen today? What's the worst thing to happen today? Why did it happen?

I made good progress on angular components for work. Figured out how to test mocked http requests.
Worst thing is that I should've left about an hour earlier from work. But at least that means I can leave earlier tomorrow.

ive had this idea in the back of my head for awhile, roll with me.

sad parties.

so much emphasis on things being perfect, people being perfect, work being perfect, life being perfect. so many people caught up in social media subconsciously at battle to live a filter-perfect lifestyle.

sad parties.

a bunch of people youre close to get together at a comfortable apartment, good food, lots of drinks, lots of drugs. everyones free to indulge as they wish. all the lights go off except for a fireplace or some low-impact nightlights by an easel, and theres just a stream of sad music in the background. no words spoken unless you directly enter a conversation with someone. no forced interaction. just lots of pillows, blankets, and vibes.

really want one of these. might make it a regular thing once i head out west.

anyways, back to the reason we're all here. more sad drunk poetry<3

thank you for all those who leave the comments. i honestly wouldnt keep posting if it werent for you all giving me that little nudge of support. it means a lot.

much love.

bishop.

metal must be the best flavor of ice cream.
take a double scoop, hope i dont see the morning
leaded kiss orgasm, baby send me out moaning
dropped my puppet strings, guess im not worth controlling.
metal must be the best flavor of ice cream.
must be in a coma, two years been a bad dream.
poor lost lamb caught up with a black sheep
just another sad white kid, rest in peace Peep.

maybe some lives werent meant for the living
maybe some dreams were meant to go missing
kinda miss the way you would scream like a banshee
kinda miss the way you would threaten to leave me
wanna go back to the days when you need me
always liked how youd cut me deep, and then heal me
if it makes you smile when i cry, then abuse me.
really wouldnt mind if you came back to use me,

cant feel good enough on the nicotine therapy
oxygen coming through airily, barely
slaps on my face were a heavenly remedy
soft pink lace was a beautiful heresy.
pain, drugs, suicidal tendencies, obscurity
wanna fade to black, tell God roll the credit scene
another funeral in the wake of our legacy
metal must be the best flavor of ice cream

(beat.)

metal must be the best flavor of ice cream.
take a double scoop, hope i dont see the morning
leaded kiss orgasm, baby send me out moaning
dropped my puppet strings, guess im not worth controlling.
metal must be the best flavor of ice cream.
must be in a coma, two years been a bad dream.
poor lost lamb caught up with a black sheep
knocking back four different drugs just to get sleep

metal is the only thing i feel around me
liquor by the half cup never stops pouring
you held me down, now i feel like im falling
up to the sky, sunshine in the mourning.

I like thinking about alternative history. There are people like Harry Turtledove who write extensive alternative histories based on whether the South's main general's war plans got to the Northern armies' general in time for the Battle of Antietam. For me there's something appealing about thinking back through complex events in world history and finding critical moments and critical decisions that might have gone another way. I'm also quite taken with the idea that some historical events end up in hindsight looking like perfect storms, where a number of complex variables make the world we now know, but where any one of those variables would have produced a massively different result.

But I'm less interested in thinking about waving a magic wand to change the weather of some day or to change facts on the ground or morale or something like that. What I'm most interested in are situations where someone's individual decision might have dramatically altered the world. Can you identify one decision that happened in the past that you would have that person making it change? How might that set us up in a different reality?

A small note on housekeeping before I let you go. I know this might be a type of topic that walks the fence between something designed for ~talk and something best suited in ~humanities. I think of this as kind of an experiment to see how best to handle topics that straddle two different tildes.

I'm not sure what to make of this. I'd really like to hear others' experiences as well.

Without getting into too much detail in the OP, I find myself constantly needing to reflect upon my actions due to things that transpire in my group's weekly D&D sessions. I need to constantly examine and readjust my behavior so that our group can survive.

I don't mean "survive" as in our characters, nor reflect upon my character's actions. I mean my own. The way I express myself to others. The lack of attention I have given to my teammates when they narrate their dazzling combat maneuvers. The visible disinterest in an RP dialogue that doesn't involve my character which makes my friends uncomfortable and unable to enjoy themselves. The offhand comments I make about a character, or the DM, that has a huge impact on the player (it's easy to get hurt when you put your heart into building a world or a hero and someone slights that). The time I knocked my friend's character unconscious to beat the bad guys, which resulted in him sitting there for multiple turns just watching us play. All of these things have had a real, out-of-character impact on us as a group, and have caused major conflicts.

Our group is still going strong. We are working hard on being good friends to one another. But we're all really putting our heart into this game and it's so easy to hurt one another. It's been teaching me so much about being a patient, respectful, and "honorable" human being. I'm shocked, honestly. I hope I haven't hurt my friends too much on the road to this path.

How about you, Tilders? Has D&D just been a game to you, or have you also found an avenue for personal growth?

Choose three words to describe the kind of community you want here, and explain why you chose those words.

Diverse

More points of view makes for a more in depth, nuanced conversation that brings viewpoints I may not have considered before. I have plenty of experience as a native woman in Canada, but that isn't the only viewpoint. Much as it pains me to admit, I don't know everything and sometimes I miss layers of conversations that others can point out to me. Those viewpoints are the ones I need to read if I want to continue growing as a person.

Welcoming

I want a community that isn't full of gatekeepers, who don't arbitrarily decide who should or should not belong before they've even had a chance to contribute. I want to see people given a chance to show who they can be on a new platform, and how they can make this a better place. The last thing we need is to chase away people who might otherwise make valid contributions to the community by being dicks.

Interesting

More threads, more topics for discussion, more traffic in general. I want to see dozens of threads I can contribute to or at least read on a daily basis, whatever that topic may be. A new book series, a hobby, a viewpoint on politics. But we're not going to get there without a diverse, welcoming group to keep new people engaged.

I'm going to keep it brief, because there's not a lot to talk about:

• The font size and lightness makes it really hard to read the text for posts. It could be easier to read by changing these aspects.

• Could disabling the inline text for posts be added? I wouldn't mind if I had to view the comments page for a post to read it as I'd read the post if it interested me, so currently I have to scroll past it instead. It makes the post listings harder to skim through, especially because it's hard to read the text on them.

• It made me think of another point; maybe some kind of middle option where text can be associated with a topic, but there could be another field where a brief summary that's more descriptive than the title is placed, or just truncate the post text and explicitly show that there's more.

Solved thanks to @MrGrey in the comments! Leaving the post text here for posterity.

Whenever I join a new site one of the first things I do is customize the style to my liking with CSS skins. I'm having a little trouble here, though, specifically with the fact that no matter what I do, I can't increase the width of the paragraphs in posts and comments.

As far as I can tell, the div.topic-text-full element spans all the way across the main element, with just a little margin space. .topic-text-full's child p elements only span maybe 80% of .topic-text-full's width, though, and my attempts to make them wider have met with failure:

.topic-full-text p {
  width: 10%;
  }

successfully shrinks the element, and so do any other widths under 100%. Setting it to any number above 100% makes no changes. Similarly, setting the width in pixels can shrink the element width, but not increase it.

The same goes if you replace .topic-full-text with .comment-text.

Is there something very simple that I'm missing? It just really bugs me that the paragraphs don't go all the way across, but since that's such a small issue I'd rather fix it on my end rather than file an official complaint about it.

I made an embarrassingly verbose post yesterday attempting to put into words and seek advice on difficulties in executing sustained steps towards building a future. It's something I've struggled with all my life, coasting along, with the mirage of action towards goals forever ahead, always tomorrow, or next week, or when I get home. I think Pink Floyd wrote something about missing the starting gun.

(...Goddamn I haven't listened to Pink Floyd in years. That's some good stuff right there.)

Anyway reading and replying to the (much appreciated) comments from you lovely people got me thinking and, frankly, a little bit motivated to be an agent for some change. However something I've learned to notice by now is that that initial drive tends to have a nauseatingly short half-life. So how can we regularly stir things up to keep the reaction going?

So here's what I'm thinking: Starting a short weekly post in ~talk detailing what I've worked on or otherwise accomplished (or not accomplished) from Monday to Sunday open to input, encouragement or criticism. Actually, if other people would be interested in committing to something like this I'd almost prefer to make it a public thing where people (including myself) can log their weekly progress in the comments of a thread dedicated to such a thing.

Obviously this is a bit rough around the edges so I'll think about it this week and pending suggestions or objection will probably put the first one up next Sunday or Monday.

I think this might be a Neat Thing, yeah?

For those unaware the Librem 5 is an upcoming Linux smartphone developped by Purism that seems to be doing everything right. Frankly I think this might be humanity's last chance to have a Libre mobile option before the Google/Apple duopoly gets too far ahead.

I really, really want to back the thing but after going through the exchange rate, duties and customs I think it works out to nearly 900CAD which I just can't afford right now, though I might end up pulling the trigger anyway. Call it 400$ for a phone and 400$ to support a worthy cause, eh?

I've been into Kamen Rider and Super Sentai for a few years and I'm wondering if there are any other fans on this site. (I was going to make this a general tokusatsu topic, but I'm not into Garo or Space Sheriff or, idk, Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, so I wouldn't be able to contribute to discussions on them.)

Do you have a favorite installment of KR or Sentai? I'd have to say my fav Rider is W; the partner dynamic, and the detective noir style and subversions thereof, really tickled my fancy. For Sentai I guess my favorite was ToQger, but I feel kind of cheap saying that since it was the first series I saw all the way through; but I loved how silly and serious it was at the same time, and while I usually hate the kind of Red that ToQger had, Right had a really good reason for being that way.

Anyone watching Build and LuPat? I'm loving them both. Build feels like a shonen anime and I'm sure it's on purpose, and sometimes it makes me roll my eyes, but I like the characters and how they bounce off each other (even if Misora and Sawa could be given a bit more to do). LuPat is shaping up to be a really great Sentai; I can't wait for the two teams to inevitably team up, like we all know they're going to.

Anyway I'd really like to talk about these shows with anyone else who's a fan!

Tildes, I'd like some opinions please! I work in a genetics lab as a research assistant and I've got the opportunity to pursue a PhD under the supervision of the lab director whilst maintaining my current position and salary, with work I'd probably be doing anyway contributing to my thesis.

I feel like this is a pretty good opportunity: I'm not getting any younger and I have a young family, so going back to school to do this on a studentship is not an option, and my employer is willing to fund half the tuition fees and cover materials/ reagents etc. Word in the media is that there is a glut of PhDs at the moment, but I don't have my heart set on an academic career, so I won't be crushed if I end up in industry. I'm based in Europe, so would be looking at taking 3 years for the whole degree, which is coincidentally when my current contract is up.

Has anyone pursued a PhD under similar conditions? What was your experience like? Was getting your PhD worth it (especially in the life sciences/biotech)?

Thanks!

Quite a simple concept I've seen done on a multitude of anime forums and communities that I feel would fin in great on Tildes. I'm very excited ~anime is finally a thing and we can start filling it with more casual topics and get to know the fellow weeb Tildoos better.

So the idea is pretty straight forward. You create a new comment branch by posting a link to your Anime List (be it MAL, Kitsune, AL or whatever else) and people who are interested are going to look through it and try to recommend something you might enjoy but haven't seen yet. The hope is, people who get replies on their posts can sort of "pay it forward" and reply to some of the other comments.

But more than anything else, let's have some fun with this. I'm relatively free today so I'll try to look through as many as I can! :)

Just wanted to suggest that it would be nice to have a toggle switch button either next to our username or at least on the right in the User Menu after you click your username.

Having to go all the way into settings every evening is a bit awkward.

Whats this about?

@wanda-seldon started a thread over at ~science in hopes of generating more user created content. My plan is to post some introductions myself, in fields like mechanical engineering and automation (is anyone interested in it anyways?). But until I feel like I would do it proper, I figured I'd try something similar with a much lower barrier of entry. I'll write about some hobbies of mine, in a way that goes more indepth about the process, but still shallow enough to function as an introduction. And if folks are interested in more in-depth stuff or pointers on where to go, I'll take care of that.

So on todays topic, homebrewing. What is it, why would you bother, and what's actually involved in it?

What's Homebrewing?

Put simply, homebrewing is the art of making beer yourself. It's not really that complicated to be honest.

Why Homebrewing?

• It's (relatively) cheap.

If you got a few basic kitchen items (pots, ladle, cups, etc), you already have most items needed for brewing a small quantity. A few additional tools will be required, like a food grade plastic container, a water lock, etc. but if you treat them proper they can be used for years after years. Ingredient cost is neglible.

• Quality.

A common reaction many have with homebrewed beer is how thick and rich in flavour it is, compared to your average supermarket beer. Especially if your experience is with light beers (in which case I believe Monty Python said it best, it's fucking close to water). It's like comparing that sad pie you can buy in the cooler section, compared to something fresh out of the oven with the sweetest fruits and crispiest crust.

• Easy to learn, hard to master.

If your goal is to make a good beer, you only need two "skills". Good working hygiene and patience. Beyond that, any complication you want to add is up to you. You can start with a simple ale and work your way towards horribly complicated recipes that seem more like a chemistry exam than a hobby.

Whats actually involved in it?

So what do you actually do? I'll keep it short, even though I could write a book if I wanted to cover everything. Brewing is made out of three phases. The actual brewing, the fermenting and the bottling.

Brewing

You mix malts (and/or barley, wheat, oats, etc) with water, which you will draw a wort from. The wort will be the basis of your beer. A wort is a bit like a tea from a tea mix in this sense. Also it's sickly sweet (so taste test on your own risk). The sugar from the malt will be what is turned into alcohol during fermentation. In a similar way, that we use fruit sugar for wines/ciders or honey for mead.

Fun fact: In Sweden and Norway, elks drunk on rotten (fermented) fruit they eat from the ground is a rare but real phenomena.

Once you have a wort, the wort is boiled up and hops are supplied. Usually hops are divided in two categories. Bitter hops and aroma hops. Though that has more to do with when you add hops in the brewing process. The hops add flavour primarily from the oils (which give the fresh and fruity taste) and the resin (which gives the bitter taste). The resin takes a certain amount of boiling time to properly release, so hops added early in the process will contribute to bitterness.

The liquid is then cooled and stored in a container with a bit of yeast. That marks the start of the fermentation period.

Fermentation

Fermentation is fairly straight forward. Yeast loves sugar. And will keep eating it until most is gone. Alcohol, is a byproduct of this process.

Bottling

Once fermentation is (nearly) done, the beer is transferred into bottles. After a few days of waiting, a pressure should have built inside your bottles which will create the nice bubbliness we know from beers. Toss on a label if you wan't to brag and want to make sure that graphical designer education was not for naught.

Swell, how do I get into it?

How do you get into it? Technically speaking, you could start with no-mash brewing. Though I would recommend against it, as it takes out the charm of actually brewing, since you just add water and call it a day. Alternatively, there are several good sources on this. The american homebrewers association for instance have a good quick guide for some instructions. Though if you wan't to go serious about it, I recommend to read up on the specific processes, and what influences them.

Afterwords

Does it sound interesting? Bring a buddy, and make a day of it. Make your own labels too if you wan't to brag to friends and family. If you have questions, I will answer anything. Need help setting up or want a plan, I can help with that too.

Edit: Would recommend reading @piratepants comment in the comment section. It expands a lot of the things mentioned here, and goes a lot more into the actual processes while brewing. If you got this far, it's worth continueing.

The short version is throughout my life I've seemed to be unable to execute sustained action towards any kind of meaningful forward momentum. I know very well all the things I need to be doing, but in that precious moment called the present things always seem to slip. I can't gain traction. All reagent and no catalyst.

It goes without saying that the irony isn't lost on me of asking for advice, more information, more data, when what's really needed is action, but I simply don't know what else to do.

The details;

I think by far my biggest character flaw so to speak is a lack of an ability to execute under normal circumstances. Obviously procrastination and other related behaviours plague most people to one degree or another but I think in my case it's at a point where it presents an arguably existential risk to any kind of real future.

I'm in my late twenties working a relatively low paying job with moderate technical skill. Like many other children in the 1990s I was diagnosed with ADHD and medicated, though with little to no success. I stopped in my late teens but have recently begun to experiment anew consulting with my family doctor. I've since failed to renew my latest prescription but I think there's some small potential there. That said I think the buik of the change will still have to come from within.

I'm reticent to frame my experience within the pathology of a medical condition and would prefer to describe my experience without the artifacts and assumptions I feel would otherwise flatten the anecdotes. For years now I've been meaning to study when I get home from work, go to the gym (hell, just get a subscription), eat healthier, etc. There's a burnt out light in my kitchen I've been wanting to change for the past 3 weeks and haven't gotten around to. Everything slips. If I remember I need to do something I'm walking to the grocery store, or on the bus to work, or at a friend's house. I've been meaning to return a friend's call for over a month. Again, everything slips.

I feel like I'm at a point where I really need discipline and this scares me. I dropped out of college 10 years ago, live alone and work full time. I have no academic backing to speak of and feel this severely limits my future prospects as far as both lucrative, enjoyable and fruitful future employment goes. They say that when trying to plot future human behaviour the best predictor by far is past behaviour; so I'm at a point where personal success is probably unlikely, so I'd also be content being in a position where I can positively impact the lives of others. I feel all else aside this should even be a priority; I need not necessarily find success or happiness if I can be some part of the catalyst for a multitude of people to find it. Net positive for the cosmos and all that.

I've got a relatively strong foundation of knowledge for doing IT work, having administered a handful of Linux desktops and servers for personal use for the past 5 years (with previous albeit inconsistent dabbling prior to that). I generally believe in open source software and try to use it wherever I can. Unless something Very Bad happens computers are going to be a huge part of the human experience moving forward and if we are to truly prosper for the coming millennia it's probably best if this part of humanity wasn't closed off in boxes held by duopolies with the power to rival governments.

In regard to IT work I also want to stress that I'm not kidding myself either, there would still be a lot of work to do in terms of certifications, an exponential increase in experience, etc. Dunning–Kruger looms its head here I think. Also, though it's probably my best asset to convert into a career I'm not sure I like the culture that surrounds IT at least as far as I imagine it, and I don't have a particular fascination with things like networking or server administration which has me a bit worried. For what it's worth I'd say my true passion lies in the Sciences, namely Astronomy. Fusion seems to be the main attraction in the Universe so I like to pay attention. Words fail me a bit here but suffice to say the latter is the only subject which I feel truly fascinates me.

The world isn't lack for the musings and moans of uncomfortable souls, and this turned out much more long-winded than I intended it to. I can't imagine anyone reading this to derive much value here so I'll cut it short.

If you've made it this far and have any kind of feedback I'd appreciate hearing it.

Cheers,