Hey! We're on week 11, and it's time for another classic record discussion: Godspeed You! Black Emperor's Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven!

Here's the place to discuss your thoughts on the record, your history with it or the artist, and basically talk about whatever you want to that goes along with Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven! Remember that this is intended to be a slow moving thing, feel free to take your time and 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.

Don't forget to nominate and vote for next week's obscure record in response to this comment!

Album link

So we have had this popcorn machine for ages and just recently it completely stopped working. Being a fan of bigclive on youtube I though why not try fix it and maybe get a sense of how it works.

The guts

The insides honestly are pretty underwhelming - both the impeller and heating elements are quite small considering it only takes a few minutes to make a bowl of popcorn.

Circuit board and Another shot

Considering how few components there it was not too time-consuming to draw up a diagram. Please excuse the crude drawing.

From what I can tell it uses a bridge rectifier with a some caps to convert DC and even out the signal - and what looks like two resistors to further drop the voltage to the motor, maybe two offered better cooling? idk why they didn't use one. It's also kind of interesting how they used two separate coils for the heating with one of them in series with the motor, that will drop the voltage right?

They also have overheating protection here, with a an sefuse and a thermo switch, it actually has the piece of metal and a contact that will bend away when it's hot, I've only seen these in a textbook. Not sure why there are two types of thermo fuses?

The fault

Finding the fault ended up being quite easy, the main heating coil that comes off blue wire had melted. A piece of corn, oil, bits of salt or a mixture had found their way in and somehow melted the wire in multiple places. It cut the circuit so not even the motor was working which was my initial though when it stopped. I wound some solid core wire around the two ends, hopefully it will not unfurl or melt in the heat.

Are we using "eu" or "europe" for topics about Europe? I think we need to pick one or the other.

I prefer "europe".

EDIT

The people have spoken, and the vast majority is in favour of "europe" (not "eu") for topics related to continental Europe. Topics related to the European Union itself can be tagged "europe.eu" (as per @nothis' excellent suggestion.

Almost every content provider online tries to access some of your personal info, whether it's to keep itself afloat, improve functionality, or create profits. In 2014, Google made [89.4%] (https://revenuesandprofits.com/how-google-makes-money/) of its profits from advertising, all of which attempts to target users with their interests (though Google does allow this to be disabled).

What do you do to try and protect yourself from data collection? What software, programs, or browser extensions do you trust to protect you, and not just also monitor your activities?

If you don't do any of this, why not? To what extent do you think companies should be allowed to use your data?

I've run a number of one shots before based off GURPS Lite, and I've come to like the system and its versatility. So, I've taken the next step and drafted a couple interested players from the one shots into a campaign.

Essentially, it's a 150 point campaign in the Infinity Patrol setting, based one of the alternate timelines (Gernsback) developing world jumping tech, and the PCs being one of the first teams assembled from said world to scout out and investigate other timelines. The overarching plot is going to be them defending their world from incursions from Centrum and Homeline and building alliances with other parachronically enabled third parties, like Merlin. The main plot hook is going to be a series of kidnappings, by parties including the Homeline Mafia, Reich 5 Nazis, and Centrum. Because of the nature of their travel, all Quanta are accessible by the party, but not as easily as by projector/conveyor. The worlds they're going to be visiting run the gamut from high fantasy to hard science fiction.

Now that background info's out of the way, basically what I'm asking is: are there any interesting items, characters, or plot beats you've used or seen used in tabletop games that could fit well into this kind of story and setting? I want to put some originality into the worlds they visit so they all feel alive and memorable, and side quests and artifacts are a great way to do that. By no means am I interested only in GURPS stuff, the nature of the system makes it pretty easy to graft in stuff from others.

Hey all,

I'm interested in knowing what music would you say is unmistakably yours, in the sense that when you hear it you remember nights with the family/friends, parties, or maybe they remind you of your grandparents' musky apartment, or nights at the beach, whatever.

For me there is a story behind almost every style of music I listen to, so my spotify lists are "nostalgia_parents", "nostalgia_grandpa", "nostalgia_home" etc. lol, and I think it's similar for everybody, so I was curious... what are your stories?

(mine in comments)

I've seen some discussion of what voting should be used for here on tildes.

Here are the things I try to follow when voting on comment:

• Does it have a reputable looking source ( I open the source and check it out)?
• Does it have new information?
• Is this a comment whose votes are acting as a form of population polling?
• Does it contain a well thought out point/ multiple paragraphs?

Here are the things I try to follow when voting on a post:

• Is it important for other people to see?
• Is it reputable?
• Does it contribute to the greater tildes dialogue?

I try to make sure it takes more than one of these for me to vote on a comment or page but that certainly isn't always the case. The one thing I try to stay away from is from voting just because I liked the title or because I agreed with an easy 1-3 sentence opinion unless I think that opinion is really important.

Hi, I'm filling in for @Whom, since she told me she wouldn't be around to post this and asked that I make sure to post it.

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!

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.

i just started getting into drugs and have found that it's more comfortable to smoke around two bowls a day after lunch and after dinner, i only smoke after i've finished all my tasks for the next few hours, and i don't let it drain my wallet. opinons? also if anybody here is starchy against legalization please give me your reasons i want to understand both sides of the issue.

I've been trying to simplify my life for a few years now, from an environmental and mental health angle. One small change I found made a surprisingly significant difference is wearing an outfit for four days at a time.

Why four days? The original news article that inspired me, had a woman wear the same dress for 1 whole year! That was too much for me. My work has casual Fridays, so this sort just covers me switching to jeans on Friday. At least that was my reasoning when I started. Now, I wear everything for four days at a time regardless.

Obvious exceptions for if any item is dirty, clothing is not sufficient for weather or if I have to change an outfit for an event. I'm also not super hard on myself, so if I woke up feeling like a different shirt, I will just switch.

How this helped me? I don't spend any time in the morning thinking about what to wear anymore. Also don't wonder which clothes are clean, and don't accumulate as large a pile of "not clean enough to go back in the drawer" and "not dirty enough to wash" clothes in my bathroom/bedroom. I do laundry noticeably less, as I'm not just dumping my previously mentioned pile into my basket all the time. Clothes I do wash, all fit on my laundry line now, so I just air dry them. Previously, I machine dried anything that didn't fit.

Surprisingly, no one's really noticed me doing this, and definitely no one's said anything. I did tell a few people a few months in, including some coworkers and family I see everyday. They were shocked, lol.

This is also a bit of an anti-consumption thing for me. I currently have more than enough clothes, but thought if I reduced the amount I needed day-to-day, what I already own can last longer and I would be more aware of what I actually need to replace when it comes up.

So, thoughts on this or other things you may have tried to simplify your life?