You know how sometimes there's that hit song (or artist) that's super popular but you just don't like it? Sometimes it's because it's ubiquitous to the point you begin to resent it, but sometimes it's actually because the song isn't really that good. Those songs will be considered classics in a couple decades though, and there probably won't be too much push back on that from people who were around when it first came out. Some of my uncles used to be DJs, and they've put me onto old bands I'd never heard of before, but by all accounts the music they think was the best was popular back then too.

I'm sure we can all name examples of current music hits/acts that probably will perhaps undeservedly achieve that classic status in the future, but what about past music? Personally, I'm all about the deep cuts, and sometimes I wonder if I would have liked some of the bigger acts if I came up during those eras. For example, no matter how I try I can't really get into the Beatles, but I'm not sure how much of that is taste and how much is just being from a subsequent era that had already absorbed all the changes they made to pop music.

Of course, radio was a lot more important in the old days, and people having a lot less access to their own choice of music back then as compared to now would have shaped their tastes, but let's try to leave that aside.

Edit: I'm not just talking about rock music, btw. If you think Chopin is overrated, by all means, make your case.

The longer I use Tildes, the more I question the effectiveness of ~news.

/r/news made sense on reddit, where they didn't have a robust cross-group tagging and filtering system. I think Tildes be better served by eliminating ~news entirely and replacing it with a news tag with a date property, which would allow for nice chronological filtering for catching up on news stories, especially if the article date could be scraped somehow. Miss a week of news? Search the tag with a date range, get all news stories for last week, perhaps with a minimum comment threshold to see what sparked discussion.

I think ~gov (or politics) would be needed as a replacement, as it's a major driver of most news stories, but there's so much more to politics than just news, and those discussions don't exactly fit anywhere nicely at the moment, esp if it's a random blog post relating to recent events in the news. Almost every other group serves as a nice catch-all for most other common news categories.

The only issue I would see would be when ~gov would overlap with the other categories, which would likely happen a lot..but that happens with the current ~news too. I think that could be further mitigated by having a sort of x-post system blurring the lines of tags and groups even more, where ~gov would take precedence but posts would then also appear in the tagged groups for users not following governance otherwise.

That's actually a foundation of my more insane idea of completely eliminating traditional groups by letting people build their own groups in the form of prioritized tags, but that's another post for another time.

The month of May brings my birthday and wedding anniversary, so we usually end up making a cake or two. We don't usually do anything fancy. Usually a store-made cake. But this year with the pandemic, we ended up just getting some boxed cakes - Betty Crocker, Duncan Hines. Those sorts of things.

The problem is that they call for eggs and I'm allergic to egg yolks. (Not egg whites, oddly enough - just egg yolks.) So I've found some egg substitute. It works pretty well considering there's no egg in it. But I've found that when I use it in cakes, sometimes they turn out just fine, and other times they end up falling apart.

I know that eggs can be used for flavor, as a rising agent, as a binder, etc. but it's not clear to me how to tell which thing it's being used for in a given recipe. So my question is, in the case of a cake, are there other things I could substitute for egg yolks? The stuff I'm using has potato starch, baking powder, and psyllium husks. I guess the baking powder handles the rising aspect and the psyllium husks are probably like a binder? Are there other things I could be using?

I'm an undoubted pleb when it comes to just about everything artistic (with the exception of music, in which I have impeccable taste). A while back, I suggested I'd be interested in seeing some critique or general discussion of already-known or published poetry, if only so I could get others' opinions on things that usually go over my head. This is an effort to get the ball rolling, with a poem that is one of my favorites.

Also, I'm not sure if this belongs here or in ~arts, please classify as appropriate.

Morning - Frank O'Hara

I've got to tell you
how I love you always
I think of it on grey
mornings with death

in my mouth the tea
is never hot enough
then and the cigarette
dry the maroon robe

chills me I need you
and look out the window
at the noiseless snow

At night on the dock
the buses glow like
clouds and I am lonely
thinking of flutes

I miss you always
when I go to the beach
the sand is wet with
tears that seem mine

although I never weep
and hold you in my
heart with a very real
humor you'd be proud of

the parking lot is
crowded and I stand
rattling my keys the car
is empty as a bicycle

what are you doing now
where did you eat your
lunch and were there
lots of anchovies it

is difficult to think
of you without me in
the sentence you depress
me when you are alone

Last night the stars
were numerous and today
snow is their calling
card I'll not be cordial

there is nothing that
distracts me music is
only a crossword puzzle
do you know how it is

when you are the only
passenger if there is a
place further from me
I beg you do not go

If you are tracking your time, how many hours of focused work are you doing per day on average?

What I mean with focused work is only the time that you are working. Not counting the time you take a break, not counting the time you go to the bathroom, not counting the time you get up to drink water, etc. If you don't stop your time-tracker during non-work activities, please mention it.

Short of drugs, I find music to be one of the most effective ways of inducing an emotional state on demand. If you want to hype yourself up, get that adrenaline flowing, what's your go-to song?

For me, it's definitely DJ Mehdi - Signatune (Thomas Bangalter edit). Hard-hitting French House. It's repetitive and brutal, and not at all what I would choose for a cozy, relaxed listening experience. But god damn if it doesn't get the adrenaline flowing.

What's yours?

I've been on a long and steady roll reading classic literature, both fiction and non-fiction. I think it's important to get a perspective from earlier times that influenced our current culture and also because many of these works have withstood the test of time.

However, I'm having real trouble reading some of the non-fiction e.g. Plato's Republic and Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals. With both fiction and non-fiction I accompany my readings with Sparknotes to make sure I'm not missing anything important. In the case of non-fiction I often can barely get a cohesive thought out of the original text. In some cases the text is too old to be understood on it's own and in others the author has great ideas but poor writing (e.g. Nietzsche, famously). But Sparknote's is much too brief—I'd like a more involved experience.

My request is this: I'm looking for books (or resources to find such books) about classic non-fiction that

1. distill the concepts without watering them down
2. provide context with either modern culture and/or other works that are related
3. are written for an intelligent layman; prose meant to communicate to a non-expert audience but with scholarly rigor

Basically, I read at a high level but I am not a professional scholar of literature, philosophy or history, yet I would like to have a bridge to such an understanding.

EDIT: I found this site to be exactly what I was looking for: https://plato.stanford.edu/index.html

Some years ago, I wrote a book about telecommuting, including a section about the reasons people don't want to be remote workers. High on the list was, "It's too hard to move up in the company" because if you're out of sight, you're out of mind.

Well, now suddenly nearly everybody is a telecommuter, whether or not they like the idea. So that particular skill is particularly relevant. And I've been assigned an article on "How to 'manage up' when you work from home." I'd like your input.

My article is meant to compile practical how-to tips for people working from home on “how to stay on your boss's radar.” What advice do you have to share?

Ideally: Give me a bullet point (“Do XYZ”), why (“It accomplishes this”), and perhaps an anecdote sharing how it made a difference.

Please don’t expend energy telling me why it’s important, or what the barriers are. Take that as a given. I’m looking for solid “Do this” suggestions.

hello hello dear friends !

I am here once again a little late on my curry posting this week... the whole world is just so in shambles right now! It's a bit of a heavy subject so I'll refrain from talking too much about it, but it's certainly affected me personally if I am honest. Might be a factor in why I decided for something so simple this week hahaha.

Anyways, we've got another Chana Masala this week ! Yes yes, the third week I do this recipe, and it's still quite a kicker ! This time, I used a recipe from the trusty ol' Bon Appetit, which was honestly probably the easiest one of all the ones I have made. Just put some tomatoes on some onions and add curry powder and chickpeas and BLAMO ! a delicious, hearty meal ! It's still crazy to me that such things like this exist... It took me like, what, a few minutes to dice and brown an onion ? then wait 20 minutes ? and then I get to have such a nice and happy time with my parents eating at the table together and cherishing moments together... all from something as simple as this! it really is a marvel, I tell ya.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/MORtjiv
Recipe: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/chana-masala
Question of the day: What is a food that you absolutely adore that is also quite healthy ?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

You know, I can't get over how good DuckTales is. It's clever, funny, beautiful and well-animated. The voice actors are fantastic (Tennant is Scrooge! Lin-Manuel Miranda is Gizmoduck!).

You know, I tried watching the old one, just to have something to compare to, and it's shocking how bad it is compared to the new one (I needed several days to get through the first episode). Some examples:

• Donald Duck still has the "duck voice", but he's the only one with it, and I won't spoil it but it's more of a gag nobody acknowledges. The old ducktales has everyone with voice quirks and it is just irritating to listen to.
• In the remake, the triplets have three proper very distinct personalities. They dress differently, have different voices, behave differently.
• Scrooge really is a miser in the old series, in a "how did this guy ever become a billionaire" way (I'll walk for four hours instead of spending $10 on a taxi my time is worth zero yaaay). The new one has him be a penny-pincher, but he actually has some business sense. Hell, there's quite a few jokes at the expense of silicon valley… which I will not spoil.
• The 2017 Gyro Gearloose is kind of a dick, and it's great! The "mad scientist with dubious intent" angle is a pretty cool addition to the cast.

I've thoroughly enjoyed my first watch-through, and I'm really enjoying leaving it running in the background to rewatch it. Highly recommended as an "adult" kids show. It is 100% on the same level as Gravity Falls.

So we have all these people, and they all seem to be pissed.

So many people and they all seem to have... something amiss.

Many of these people, their concerns are just... entirely dismissed:

By other people with the same problems who somehow look at these perfectly normal people and react: "I have been nixed!"

These problems are pervasive in our memories and experiences and on a metaphorical wall they are fixed;

And yet the root causes are consistently misinterpreted, and ultimately missed.

And the result is we are betting everything for the sake of getting our cathartic and revengeful fix?

That is being delivered to us by people that if they were to meet us, would utterly reject us and loudly hiss?

And if that gamble fails I will be the one to pick up the scraps, and mop up the piss?

Man, I didn't want to grow up to this.

I recently switched operating systems on my phone and lost some of the automated workflows I had during the transition. While I've rebuilt some of it, but it sometimes feels like I'm missing something or that I could do more, I just don't know what exactly. I'd like to hear from others here and see if they can inspire me to implement what works for them. I'm using an android phone with automate and here's the workflows that I got:

• When plugging in the phone, set it to do not disturb and enable Bluetooth. This is for when I go to sleep so that I don't get woken up by notifications and I can listen to podcasts on my headband.
• If at work (Based on cell towers, not GPS) set phone to vibrate, when leaving it set it to ring. I actually lost this one but haven't rebuilt it since I've not been to the office in a while.
• Learn location. For a set time, grabs the cell towers around and stores them in a JSON file.

What kind of automation have you implemented on your phone?

I recently went through some old boxes and found my collection of mementos - birthday cards, love letters, ticket stubs, etc. - from years gone by. I'm not convinced marriage will ever be for me, but I've always imagined if I were to get to that point, I'd want to show such a collection to my SO as a way for them to fully understand my story, so to speak. On the one hand, I think of it as a pretty powerful expression of trust in your partner... but I realize the potential for that to massively backfire by introducing jealousy and insecurities. At the same time, I'm very strongly of the belief that what is shared within a relationship is not to be shared with others outside it without mutual consent. I hate gossip, and have had my share of conflict throughout the years over desiring more privacy and discretion in my various SO's conversations with their friends and family about us. That means I would probably choose to leave aside certain things out of respect for my exes, but then I'm not sure if that devalues the gesture.

Any thoughts?

So recently YouTube recommended to me this young man. His dance moves captivated me and some of the songs got stuck in my head even though I don't speak a word of Icelandic. Later I found out that Daði Freyr was in the contest for Eurovision, so I guess that's why YouTube recommended him.

My question is this: if you're from a non-English speaking country, what are some of the cool musicians would you like to share with the world?

I'll start by mentioning Theodor Bastard. You might have heard them if you played Pathologic 2, personally I adore steppe version of Darkness from the OST
I'd like to also mention Nautilus Pompilius. They have been disbanded for a long time now, their lead lyrics writer had died and their front man does not deserve much respect now, but Летучий Фрегат (Flying Frigate) from the first album still gets me every time, even though it's not very good technically. I'll throw in Крылья (Wings) too

Input wanted for an article.

Let's say that your company is considering the purchase of an expensive new application to help in the company's software development. The demo looks great, and the feature list makes it sound perfect for your needs. So your Management arranges for a proof of concept license to find out if the software is worth the hefty investment. The boss comes to you to ask you to be in charge of the PoC project.

I'm aiming to write an article to help developers, devops, and testers determine if a given vendor's application meets the company's needs. The only assumption I'm making is that the software is expensive; if it's cheap, the easy answer is, "Buy a copy for a small team and see what they think." And I'm thinking in terms of development software rather than enterprise tools (e.g. cloud-based backup) though I suspect many of the practices are similar.

Aside: Note that this project is beyond "Decide if we need such a thing." In this scenario, everyone agrees that purchasing a tool is a good idea, and they agree on the baseline requirements. The issue is whether this is the right software for the job.

So, how do you go about it? I'm sure that it's more than "Get a copy and poke at it randomly." How did (or would) you go about designing a PoC project? If you've been involved in such a project in the past (particularly if the purchase wasn't ideal), what advice could someone have given you to help you make a better choice? I want to create a useful guide that applies to any "enterprise-class" purchase.

For example: Do you recommend that the PoC period be based on time (N months) or workload (N transactions)? How do you decide who should be on the PoC team? What's involved in putting together a comprehensive list of requirements (e.g. integrates with OurFavoredDatabase, meets performance goals of X), creating a test suite that exercises what the software dev product does, and evaluating the results? ...and what am I not thinking of, that I should?

TL;DR: How long should a graphics card last? What can I do to make them last longer?

This is perhaps an odd question to ask, but I've been a console gamer for most of my life and have only been all-in on PC gaming for maybe 1-2 years and I think I may be missing something.

So there has been about three times when I have spent money on a half-decent graphics card, and each time they have failed me. The first one was a genuine hardware failure, probably a memory failure judging from the artifacting. The second one failed for reasons I have been unable to figure out. It didn't appear to be overheating, but I was getting driver errors that suggested it were; reinstalling from scratch did nothing to fix it.

The last, most current one is the one that bugs me the most. I'm getting the same problems; driver crashes just like overheating, except this one has better temperature monitoring and I can see that isn't happening.

I previously thought that the reason why my graphics cards would always crap out on me was because those were cheaper cards from less reputable manufacturers, but this last one is really bugging me because it's relatively high end and from a reputable manufacturer - it's a Gigabyte Radeon RX 5700, complete with the giant AMD reference cooler. I'm getting it RMAed, but since I didn't keep the receipt I am still going to have to pay to fix it even though it should theoretically be under warranty.

I've done a ton of searching to find out how I can possibly solve this myself, but I am frankly astounded by how little information the drivers give out on Windows. I'm seeing that the device is being reported as unavailable but nothing whatsoever as to why.

To make matters worse, it seems like this isn't actually common for other people. Most people seem to be replacing their graphics card because they are obsolete, not because they physically fail.

So basically what I am asking is, how long is a graphics card actually supposed to last for? Do I just have astonishingly bad luck?

I wasn't sure if this should go in ~tech or ~tv. Feel free to move if it's more appropriate over there.

I am planning to cut the cord soon and get rid of cable TV. I have an older TiVo Premiere that's rarely over 5% full. I'd like to get an indoor HDTV antenna to connect it to for those rare occasions when we want to watch something live, or record something off broadcast TV. I know next to nothing about HDTV antennas, though. I see that BestBuy carries them for prices from ~$20 to ~$120. I'd like one that works well and can be kept out of sight. (I've read some can even be painted over!) Does anyone have any recommendations or any things I should be aware of in getting one?

I've been working on the mobile version of password for a while now, mostly lending to the fact that much of the infrastructure of the game required expansion to accomodate for that. Plus, this sort of gameplay on mobile is a new territory for me, which makes it both worrisome and exciting.

Long story short, you can preview the mobile gameplay of password with the same link:

Play the game.

The gameplay is different from the desktop version. Here, you have to tap the keys in the order of their number: 1, then 2, then 3, and so on until the last key. Tapping keys out of order (4, then 6) results in a foul, which takes away a bit of time. Tapping all keys in the correct order means you win the round and get awarded the score. Other instructions are on screen.

It is NOT the final version. It's playable but contains some visual bugs. I'm gonna work on fixing those in the coming weeks. Right now, I'm looking for feedback:

• How does the mobile gameplay feel?
• How does the sizing of the score looks?
• Are there any problems with swiping or tapping?
• How does the timer bar look on smaller screens? (Think smaller than iPhone X.)
• How does the timer look on devices that have a notch?
• Does it load the correct version at all? (If you're on a mobile device – smartphones and tablets – you should not see keyboard references. If you do, it didn't load the correct version of gameplay.)

Desktop gameplay has only received visual updates. You can still play it with the same link.

Let me know if you encounter issues. You can post here, or you can open an issue in the GitHub repo. If you do, make sure to provide what information you can on the issue, like what sort of a device you're using (maker, model, OS version, browser etc.): this helps figure out the problem easier and quicker.

I know of these issues so far, and am working on resolving them:

• after pressing the last key of the order (8 right now), the red border flashes, as if you've received a foul (you don't)
• score has to fully animate towards the final value before it resizes to fit the screen
• swiping distance may or may not be too short, so it may feel as though it doesn't register

Datahoarders are people who will keep an absurdly large amount of data on a number of large capacity hard drives. That data can be anything from 4K movies, family photos and recordings, archives, YouTube channels... anything really. I find this practice to be intriguing. Do you feel like this description may apply to yourself?

If so, do tell us more about your endeavor: do you collect anything you can get your hands on or do you have a more specific aim? Do you share any of it? Do you have a particular setup? That could be hardware, software or some cloud subscription.

American democracy is doomed ('constitutional hardball' is a great way to describe the 'modus operandi' of the Trump-McConnell GOP.)

This is how the American system of government will die

I found their predictions to be kinda interesting (and clearly minimal)

The best-case scenario is that we wind up with an elective dictator but retain peaceful transitions of power. This is where I'd place my bet. Pure parliamentary systems, especially unicameral ones, give high levels of power to the prime minister and his cabinet, and manage to have peaceful transitions nonetheless. The same is true in Brazil, where the presidency is considerably more powerful than it is in the US.

But parliamentary systems also feature parties that are stronger than their leaders, which serve to prevent single individuals from garnering too much power. America's parties are getting more polarized, but they still aren't as strong as those of most other developed nations.

The worst-case scenario is if the presidency attains these powers and someone elected to the office decides to use them to punish political enemies, interfere with elections, suppress dissent, and so forth. Retaining an independent enough judiciary is a guard against this, but only if norms around obeying its rulings are strong. And, unusually, America allows for true independents, undisciplined by their parties, to become heads of government.

The US political system is not gonna collapse. It's gonna muddle though (A pretty interesting take. There are problems but people won't try to fix them but instead become disengaged and kinda forget about it.)

I think one of the things the authors missed while writing these this is how news became partidarized in the same manner, thus allowing outlets like Fox News to just consume the Republican electorate. They also missed how voting has been targeted too, and underestimated how willing the public was to act and how would the public react to this, which was by electing someone who didn't care about said broken Congress (or any sort of constitutionality), which is what became of Trump.

Disclaimer I was going to post this on ~tildes but thought we could have a more casual conversation about it here.

So how can tildes stop corruption from happening on its platform, it’s no secret that other similar websites have become corrupted the best example of this is Reddit they do what advertisers want them to do or who ever is giving them money, only a couple of days ago I saw this video about a guy who was running a cult on there recruiting vulnerable people and they did nothing because he was buying thousands of awards a day.

Tildes doesn’t have advertising and is a non profit with no investors so those are 2 big places it can’t get corrupted from. One place I could see problems is donations I would be interested in if all donations are Anonymous I should probably have looked into them before writing this but maybe someone else knows the answer, if they aren’t what is stopping big donators getting special treatment?

My main reason for this topic is the video mentioned above but I also thought it would make an interesting discussion on here.

Here's a fresh new thread for book recommendations! The last thread from a year ago got bumped and saw some new top-level activity but few votes or responses on the new requests. I think it's probably not visible in a lot of people's feeds due to its age, and I was planning on rebooting it anyway, so here's a fresh topic we can use for new recommendations that will be visible to all.

Top level comments should fill in the blank with some sort of descriptor identifying a kind of book you would like suggestions for.

Replies can then recommend books to that individual.

Examples of what top level posts might be are below. Get as generic, specific, abstract, or out there as you want!

• Recommend me a book that will make me cry.
• Recommend me a book with a great twist.
• Recommend me a book that deals with loss.
• Recommend me a book about the fall of the Roman Empire.
• Recommend me a book with a main character in her 80s.
• Recommend me a book to help me learn PHP.

Thread reading tip: use the "collapse replies" button to see only top-level requests.

This is a follow up to the thread from a few days ago, and specifically my comment in that thread regarding the use of a "Escalation" label.

As many users identified in that topic, political discussion on Tildes has the potential to become very heated, very quickly, and often the standards of discussion on these topics is below what we expect elsewhere on Tildes. In that thread, many suggestions were offered in order to remedy the situation, including banning overt political content entirely, more liberal moderation by @Deimos, more liberal usage by the community of labels, addition of new labels, and more. All of these solutions have their advantages and disadvantages, but I want to talk about the one I believe would be the most effective and least disruptive to the site as is: addition of new labels.

Right now, there are two main tags that might be used on a comment that is seen as falling short of Tildes's standards: noise and malice. Users seem to have some variation in how they interpret how each tag should be used, but it seems like there is at least some agreement on the 'noise' tag being used for comments that are clearly low effort. Users seem to have more hesitation to use the 'Malice' tag, however. While it is sometimes clear when a comment is hostile or malicious, this is not always the case. Argumentative is not always hostile, and sometimes topics are naturally contentious. One takeaway from that thread (for me) is that labeling something as malice confers a judgement on intent, and users are not always comfortable doing this as it can be difficult to tell if someone truly meant to be malicious. But in political threads, the intent matters less than the effect a comment has in a discussion. Someone can not be acting maliciously, but still be clearly making the situation worse. This is the point of an 'Escalation' label.

An "Escalation" label should be applied to comments that have made the situation worse.

Furthermore, an "Escalation" label would not only affect the sorting of a comment or thread, but has the potential to halt the discussion if there is too much escalation in a short amount of time. Here is what I envision:

Define the heat of a comment (as in, "ohhh this conversation is getting heated") as follows:

H = k*n ∑ N_i / d_i

where k is a tuning constant, n is the number of escalation tags given to the comment in question, and the sum ranges over the comment's direct ancestors and descendants in the thread with N_i being the number of "Escalation" labels given to the other comment and d_i is the distance from the current comment to that other comment. Here is an example thread:

.
├── A
├── C0
│   └── C1 (N=1)
│      └── C2 (N=0)
│          └── C3 (N=2)
│               └── C4 (N=1)
└── B0
    └── B1

The heat of comment C3 would then be

H = k*2 (1/2 + 1) = 3k

Finally, define the heat H(T) of a thread T to be the sum of the heats of its comments. My proposal is that if the heat of a given thread surpasses some threshold value H_c, replies are locked in that thread only. This essentially shuts down extremely heated conversations before they get out of control and cause an entire topic to be locked.

The above definition can obviously be modified, but it has a few good properties that I think should be retained.

1. It takes into account the relative positions of comments. A thread that is 20 comments long that has a comment with 1 "Escalation" at the beginning, midpoint, and end is probably a better and more controlled situation than a thread with 3 "Escalation" labels in a row.
2. One extremely heated comment (n is large) that generates many okay or slightly heated replies (n~1) is oftentimes just as bad as many comments that each escalate a bit (a long chain of comments, each with n~1).
3. It considers a the whole thread as opposed to on a comment by comment basis. If there is only one person in a thread posting heated comments, even if the replies are measured and reasonable, there is a good chance that thread is not producing a worthwhile discussion. If that one problem user stays problematic too long, eventually the heat of the thread will surpass the threshold and the chain will be locked.

I am sure there are disadvantages that I am not thinking of right now, but I truly think a system like this could be beneficial if implemented and used by Tildes. Furthermore, if two people are genuinely interested in the discussion and want it to continue, it is in their interest to avoid posting comments that get generate a high heat score so that the thread doesn't become locked. If they are not interested and keep escalating anyway, that conversation probably shouldn't continue.

I am interested in your thoughts on this idea. However, I don't intend for this topic to become a repeat of many of the suggestions and comments in the thread linked at the beginning - I don't mean to reignite that discussion.

Latest update here. Thanks to everyone who helped me out!

I have an Nvidia Shield hooked up to my TV, and it's great for Android games and emulation. I'm looking for similar hardware that will allow me to play my Steam library on the TV.¹ It doesn't have to be as small as the Shield TV, but I'm not interested in having a giant tower hooked up in my living room. Basically, I want what those old Steam Machines promised before fizzling out.

What I'm looking for:

• Pre-configured
• Able to support wireless controllers through Bluetooth
• Able to play smaller, less demanding games flawlessly
• Would be nice if it could play more demanding titles, but this is not a must
• Has decent cooling (I'm worried that boxes not designed for gaming will get way too hot)
• Price point: undetermined so far -- I'm willing to pay what I need to, but I want to see what's out there before committing to anything
• Would like to be able to set it up to basically be a seamless "console" if possible, where I can boot right into Steam (or easily get there with a controller) and not have to use a keyboard and mouse (I do have a Steam controller but I would rather use an 8BitDo SN30 Pro+ as my primary input method)

Searching around, here's what I've found so far:

• The System 76 Meerkat is a mini PC that looks great (and I'm partial to the company), but I don't know how it would perform with gaming. Also, I haven't decided if I want the (small) amounts of friction that come with gaming on Linux on my TV or not.

• Intel NUCs seems to be popular, and they have some gaming-focused models at higher price points.

• The MSI Trident 3 is explicitly gaming-focused and has a dedicated cooling system. Might be overkill for what I need though?

Here are my main questions:

1. What other hardware options are out there that I don't know about?
2. What hardware profile and price point should I be targeting for my needs? How little is too little, and how much is too much?
3. Are there any pitfalls to this kind of setup that I'm not aware of?

I'm open to any and all suggestions, as this kind of stuff is all a bit over my head so it's hard for me to even know what I'm looking for. I haven't even decided that this is definitely something I'm going to do yet, since there's such a wide range in price and performance. Instead what I'm trying to do is figure out what my needs are and then which models (if any) would fit them best.

1: I do have a Steam Link and have tried the app, but the quality for me has been spotty enough that I would rather have native hardware playing them than trying to stream it from my laptop.

this week's curry was a simple chicken korma recipe I made that I found on tesco foods' website, last place I'd expect to get a recipe for a curry hah. I'm quite happy with this experience because it's the first time in a while I've had significant leftovers after eating one of these, which means I totally ate less than I usually do. In fact, we had leftovers for over 2 more breakfasts left ! It makes me happy because I'm trying to lose a bit of weight out here... means I'm doing the good first step :P Anyhow, as it comes for the recipe, it was a quite simple recipe with not a lot of complexity to the spice mix. I do believe the added 'extra spices' it tells you to add at the bottom are real crucial for it to be extra delicious comparatively to what it would've been with just the main spices. One thing I did have to change tho was the usage of Chicken drumsticks instead of breasts as the recipe calls for, which ended up being alright as well. Honestly chicken dishes can pretty easily interchange the cut of chicken without it affecting the quality of the dish much, which is pretty great ! Another touch I found quite appealing was the use of toasted flaked almonds as a garnish, the crunchiness of the almonds made for a real nice textural contrast. Overall a simple dish and pretty by the books I think, but that doesn't mean it's any bad ! Def recommend if you're in the mood for something simple.

Picture of the dish: https://imgur.com/a/L7Ix8T9
Recipe: https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/chicken-korma-curry.html

Question of the day: Any recent culinary discoveries you'd think people should know more about?

Have a great day and STAY SAFE ! <3
Tomi, your friendly neighbourhood marshmallow~

I love comics and graphic novels, but I haven't devoted a lot of time to manga despite it being in line with my interests. A lot of the stuff I come across seems aimed at younger audiences or is highly romance-focused, neither of which really appeal to me. I'd love to get some good recommendations for manga that is more meant for adults (but is not "adult manga") or that just tells really good stories.

To get a feel for what I might be interested in, here's a very limited list of what I've enjoyed so far:

• My Brother's Husband was cute and resonant. I like nearly anything that tackles LGBT/queer issues.
• I read a scanlation of Homunculus and enjoyed its oddness and artwork.
• Ichi-F was really good too. I like non-fiction, which I realize is rare in manga.
• Death Note, despite not being what I'm actively looking for, was a great page-turner.
• Opus was a meta-manga that I enjoyed, despite probably not being able to appreciate it to its fullest given my lack of exposure to the form.

EDIT: I added links in case anyone is unfamiliar with those titles. Also, I forgot to add that I'd prefer manga that are finished rather than ongoing, and I'd prefer ones that don't have a huge number of volumes, though neither of these are definite requirements -- just preferences.

Recently, I have blocked both reddit and facebook on my computer and devices in order to combat the utter fatigue that engagement with those sites produces. I've always really enjoyed the atmosphere here at Tildes better than either site and have hoped (though I gather this is not currently the goal) that it would supplant reddit in the future.

In order to get my news/discussion fix, I've begun submitting more content here than I have before. In the mornings, I go through my RSS feed, and pick out articles that I feel are interesting/would spark discussion here. I also try to conduct myself better here than I might on reddit, where JAQing off and bad faith argumentation are much more common.

I don't want to flood Tildes with too much content, so I'm trying to submit fewer than 10 articles per day. What are some other tips for good etiquette here, particularly insofar as it differs from reddit? I know there is an FAQ about Tildes but I'd like to hear what the community thinks, too.

Best,
-gbbb

I hate that enemies have so low armor class. In earlier editions, you had to be tactical, use flanking manoeuvres and charge attacks, prepare the right support spells, maybe even pick the Weapon Specialization feat for your favourite weapon. In 5e, no need; just stand wherever, roll an attack, you'll probably hit. In addition to removing much of the tactics from the game, this makes it basically impossible for enemy spellcasters to use duration spells. Good luck succeeding on 4 concentration checks per turn.

I hate that enemies' proficiency bonus is based on their challenge rating. No high-attack low-damage monsters here. Don't worry; the tank in your party will never need healing, any level-appropriate monster needs to roll ridiculously high on the dice to hit them! Everyone else just stay in the back and lob your bloody cantrips, and the battle will be over in 3 turns.

I hate that attack cantrips do as much damage as a weapon attack (or more). Why even have weapons at all, when your cantrips do more damage than a longsword, with better range than a crossbow.

I hate that cantrips scale with character level. No need to learn anything new for the rest of the game, your trusty Eldritch Blast will be your most powerful attack throughout. Especially when you get access to Greater Invisibility and don't need to rely on your bloody familiar for advantage on attack rolls.

I hate that familiars can do help actions in combat. Advantage every turn! And since they're no longer a class feature but a spell, they're also available to fighters and rogues, no multi-classing necessary. And unlike in earlier editions there are no real consequences of losing your familiar. All you lose is 10 gp worth of incense to get them back, a pittance at higher levels.

I hate that a long rest fully restores hit points. No need to ever stay in one place for longer than 8 hours, no need to conserve spell slots to do end-of-the-day healing, heck; no need for a healer at all really! And it gets worse when they reach 3rd level and get access to Leomund's Tiny Hut, and don't even need to find a safe spot to camp.

I hate that wild shape is basically useless in combat, due to challenge rating restrictions and the lousy selection of beasts in the Monster Manual.

I hate that the only logical combat use of Polymorph is turning into a dinosaur. Prepare for the inevitable discussion around the table: Can my character turn into a tyrannosaurus rex, even if they've never seen one? No? But, uuuuuh, they saw a picture of one in a book at the library!

I hate that you can use Counterspell to counterspell someone else's attempt at counterspelling your own spell.

I hate that any character can use any skill. No need for a rogue, just hand those Thieves' Tools to the character with the highest Dexterity, they'll get that door open.

The worst thing is that this game went through lots and lots of play-testing before it was released. The developers must have known about all of these issues and chosen not to change them, meaning that none of these are bugs; they're all features! This is how the developers intended the game to be!

Did I forget any of your peeves about the game? Add them in the comments. Alternatively, comment with what you love about 5e, let's add some positivity to this rant.