kfwyre's recent activity

  1. TV: Your personal year in review for 2025

    ~tv Ask (survey)
    This is your place to share any and all thoughts on your TV watching for 2025. What you talk about does NOT have to be limited to this year’s releases. Feel free to share: Favorites...

    This is your place to share any and all thoughts on your TV watching for 2025.

    What you talk about does NOT have to be limited to this year’s releases.

    Feel free to share:

    • Favorites
    • Disappointments
    • Surprises
    • Memorable moments
    • Self-reflections
    • Anything else!

    Let us know how your 2025 went.

    6 votes

  2. Comment on Steam Replay 2025 in ~games

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    @vicvision and @Requirement talked it up in last December’s hidden gems topic. I played it based on their recommendations and also loved it! It was #4 on my Steam Replay.

    @vicvision and @Requirement talked it up in last December’s hidden gems topic. I played it based on their recommendations and also loved it! It was #4 on my Steam Replay.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on Tildes Book Club 2025 retrospective in ~books

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    Thanks, bdd! I appreciate the kind words.

    Thanks, bdd! I appreciate the kind words.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on Steam Replay 2025 in ~games

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    The Backlog Burner is a hell of a drug. 😁

    (what kinda crack was I on then?)

    The Backlog Burner is a hell of a drug. 😁

    4 votes

  5. Comment on Games: Your personal year in review for 2025 in ~games

  7. Comment on Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of December 14 in ~games

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    This is honestly great to hear from someone with your incredible knowhow. I dabbled with Godot for Timasomo a few years ago, but it was beyond intimidating for me. I assumed that was just a lack...

    This is honestly great to hear from someone with your incredible knowhow.

    I dabbled with Godot for Timasomo a few years ago, but it was beyond intimidating for me. I assumed that was just a lack of my programming knowledge in general, so it’s nice to hear someone so experienced share similar thoughts. I picked up this bundle on your recommendation. Going through the tutorials might be my next fun summer project.

    4 votes

  8. Comment on Tildes Book Club 2025 retrospective in ~books

    kfwyre
    Link
    Great roundup, @Wes! And as always, thanks to @boxer_dogs_dance for organizing our lovely little club. I only missed three months this year. Hyperion and We Are Bob were because I didn’t want to...

    Great roundup, @Wes!

    And as always, thanks to @boxer_dogs_dance for organizing our lovely little club.

    I only missed three months this year. Hyperion and We Are Bob were because I didn’t want to start a new series, and The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store was because I was busy with other things.

    Overall, there wasn’t a single book I disliked. The weakest one for me was A People’s Future, in that I did like some of the stories in it, but there were more misses than hits for me. On the other hand, Born a Crime, Cat’s Cradle, Stories of Your Life and Others, and The Poisoner’s Handbook were all standouts, I thought. I’d say our choices are pretty solid when 4 of the 9 books I read are competing with each other for the status of favorite!

    For this coming year, I’m going to try to be better about jotting down my thoughts as I’m reading so that I have more to say in the discussion topics. Despite reading most of the books, I don’t feel I contributed to the comments as much as I wanted to (I think some months I didn’t even write anything?).

    I read The Metamorphosis back in high school and don’t really remember it, so I’m excited to return to it. I’ve also already read (and liked) Light from Uncommon Stars, so I’m excited to hear what other people have to say about that one.

    Everything else on the docket is something that does sound interesting to me, but that I probably wouldn’t pick up on my own. This is, I feel, the ideal way to Book Club, because it’s nice to read outside of my comfort zone but not stray too far from its parameters.

    I love that we had 50(!!!) different contributors over the course of the year. I thought there were maybe a dozen of us at most. Big thanks to everyone who participates. The Book Club is one of the things we have here that gives Tildes that “small internet feel” I love so much. Think: indie coffee shop vibes rather than corporate megamall energy.

    6 votes

  9. Comment on Brown University shooting leaves two dead, nine injured as police search for killer in ~news

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    Yeah, the younger the kids are the more dystopian it feels. The one saving grace I feel (if you can call it that) is that my students are old enough that I can have “real” conversations with them...

    Yeah, the younger the kids are the more dystopian it feels. The one saving grace I feel (if you can call it that) is that my students are old enough that I can have “real” conversations with them about this. I’d dread having to do it at the level your wife taught at, and I hate that it’s even necessary.

    When the drills first started, my students took them seriously. Every drill had a panicky, fraught quality to it.

    As they started becoming more common and the kids started doing them every year, however, they quickly became like the fire drills: something that just happens because, well, that’s what you do in schools.

    My students now don’t know that training for a shooter to enter the building is an abnormal thing, because, for them, it’s been their normal. I think they take them seriously in the sense that “we know we need to act serious because adults tell us we have to right now” but the fraught, panicky quality of those original drills has now been supplanted by a sense of mundanity.

    4 votes

  10. Comment on Brown University shooting leaves two dead, nine injured as police search for killer in ~news

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    I can’t speak for the whole country, but the schools I’ve taught in started doing consistent active shooter drills after the Sandy Hook shooting. I also know there has been a pretty widespread...

    I can’t speak for the whole country, but the schools I’ve taught in started doing consistent active shooter drills after the Sandy Hook shooting. I also know there has been a pretty widespread push for them in the years since, meaning that college age kids now have probably been through them for most (if not all) of their academic careers.

    Also, in terms of numbers, we genuinely do have more active shooter drills than fire drills. A fire drill is a once-a-year thing, but we usually do 2-3 different active shooter drills each year so that people get the chance to respond to different scenarios. Some of these are staff-only though.

    Nothing in this world makes me feel more dystopian than prepping kids for the idea of getting shot at.

    9 votes

  11. Movies: Your personal year in review for 2025

    ~movies Ask (survey)
    This is your place to share any and all thoughts on your movie viewing for 2025. Movies you talk about do NOT have to be limited to this year’s releases. Feel free to share: Favorites...

    This is your place to share any and all thoughts on your movie viewing for 2025.

    Movies you talk about do NOT have to be limited to this year’s releases.

    Feel free to share:

    • Favorites
    • Disappointments
    • Surprises
    • Memorable moments
    • Self-reflections
    • Anything else!

    Let us know how your movie watching for 2025 went.

    21 votes

  12. Comment on Brown University shooting leaves two dead, nine injured as police search for killer in ~news

  13. Comment on Eleven killed in shooting targeting Jewish community at Australia's Bondi Beach, police say in ~news

    kfwyre
    Link

    New South Wales Police say 11 people have been killed in a shooting at Bondi Beach targeting the Jewish community, with 29 taken to hospital - including a child

    An event being held at the beach to mark the start of Hanukkah had more than 1,000 in attendance, police say

    A rescue bomb disposal unit has also been deployed after police found a vehicle which they believe has several improvised explosive devices

    11 votes

  15. Comment on Brown University shooting leaves two dead, nine injured as police search for killer in ~news

    kfwyre
    Link

    More than 400 law enforcement personnel were deployed on Saturday as police sought the suspect in a shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island that left two students dead and another nine people wounded at the Ivy League school, officials said.

    The Providence university remained in lockdown hours after a suspect with a firearm entered a building where students were taking exams. Officials do not believe there is any "specific, ongoing threat" from the suspect, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said late Saturday, but with law enforcement agencies canvassing the area and conducting a manhunt, a shelter-in-place order for the campus and the surrounding neighborhood will remain for now.

    9 votes

  17. Comment on Games: Your personal year in review for 2025 in ~games

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    I think you might have posted a draft of your comment? All of your highlights are blank.

    I think you might have posted a draft of your comment? All of your highlights are blank.

    1 vote

  18. Comment on Humble Book Bundle: Adrian Tchaikovsky's Epic Fantasy in ~books

    kfwyre
    Link Parent
    I knew he was prolific for sci-fi, but I had no idea he did fantasy too! Here’s hoping it’s available worldwide again. It doesn’t redeem through Kobo, so that’s a good sign.

    I knew he was prolific for sci-fi, but I had no idea he did fantasy too!

    Here’s hoping it’s available worldwide again. It doesn’t redeem through Kobo, so that’s a good sign.

    5 votes

  19. Comment on System76 launches first stable release of COSMIC desktop and Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS in ~tech

    kfwyre
    Link
    According to one of the System76 engineers over on reddit, current Pop installs are only upgradable through the command line at the moment: I’m probably going to wait until January to upgrade my...

    Based on the Ubuntu 24.04 LTS (Noble Numbat) operating system series, Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS ships with the brand-new COSMIC desktop environment written in the Rust programming language, designed and developed by System76 for all GNU/Linux distributions.

    According to one of the System76 engineers over on reddit, current Pop installs are only upgradable through the command line at the moment:

    To upgrade you must run pop-upgrade release upgrade -f. Upgrades through the GUI won't be enabled until January.

    I’m probably going to wait until January to upgrade my install, but if anyone here does, let us know how it goes and how COSMIC is.

    11 votes