Stories put together by larger studios are made to suck every penny out of it they can. They make formulaic stories, distilled down to an average denominator of the population. Predictable, mediocre, and bland have become the norm, in order to mass market one thing after anothrt. We are inundated with heartless, soulless content.

Look for more indie or low budget things. Those are put together by people who want to do it. By people who want to tell their story, show their art, and make something great. Great stories are still being told, you just have to find them.

*Edit: spelling

After seeing how Amazon fucked up Wheel of Time, I’m not holding my breath for a good interpretation of Mass Effect.

Agreed. When using a hosted font, the browser sends a full GET request. That includes all headers that service has access to. IP address, browser agent, referrer, origin, etc. Some of this depends on the site’s CORS (which are often incorrectly configured) and other settings, along with browser cache; but in general it’s just another GET.

By using the hosted font, Google is absolutely getting tracking information. Yes, they say it’s not tied to an account, though it’s easily done since they have the IP and browser / device info. True, it’s not as intensive as an analytics api, but it’s still tracking. I have no doubt that they map the font usage to account metadata in order to build and sell usage profiles. It is speculative, in the same way the person standing over a body, holding a bloody knife is speculative of the killer. It’s close enough for their purposes. Also, many ad blockers block analytics urls, fonts are a different matter (though you can enable font blocking in some.)

For stronger security, and to prevent data leakage, when building a web application, host your own fonts. When using the web, block third party fonts. Or if you care to go all-out, setup a forced redirect to locally hosted fallbacks instead of going out to the open web to get a font.

Google isn’t freely hosting fonts as a kindness.

I still say it to mine.

It’s a creased area that doesn’t get a lot of attention. Creases such as elbows, armpits, knees, and groin are places where sweat and dead skin gather and should be cleaned. Behind the ears, especially if someone has long hair, is another, but tends to be forgotten, especially by kids.

I can confirm. I have the family plan and got ads when I was listening earlier today. Contacted support. Got no where. Canceled my subscription.

My caffeine intake fluctuates in an almost cyclical pattern. I’ll injest a lot to the point of ineffectivness, then scale back to nothing, then slowly ramp up again. It’s not purposefull, just a natural progression I tend to follow.

Right now, I’m off it completely. I’ll stay this way until I have a day where I’m really tired. I’ll break down and have a cup of coffee. That’s usually the breaking point for me.

At the max, a day could be two Monster energy drinks, four to five 12oz cups of coffee, and an occasional cup of black tea. A few days at this point and I feel nothing from it, and begin to scale back.

I haven’t gotten to that level since starting on ADHD meds. Turns out I was self medicating without realizing it.

I’m going to be that person, and disagree with the common opinion here. Of course, my take is my own, so take everything below with the finest grain of salt.

I think it’s perfectly fine to have friends of the opposite gender. And by opposite gender, I mean the gender you’re attracted to. However, I do think it’s an issue to have a best friend of the opposite gender. A best friend is the person you confide in, you can lean on when everything else is rough, who will be there no matter what. If that person is the opposite gender, and isn’t your SO, then it’s an affair; not necessarily a physical affair, but an emotional one at the very least.

The “waiting his turn” comment sounds like a little bit of immaturity mixed with jealousy. I don’t mean immaturity as a negative; more like someone who has room to grow. Based on that comment though, it sounds like they aren’t comfortable with the situation, even if they say they are.

I’m not saying you should break up. I’m not saying your SO thinks the same way I do. People are nuanced and I only have the very limited information you gave. Based purly on that, it sounds like your SO’s thoughts lean the way mine do.

What it comes down to is what you and your SO think. If you’re not on the same wavelength, then there will always be a wedge between you two. You can still make a relationship work, it’s just going to be harder. On the flip side, if you’re both, deep down, truly fine with it, then there is nothing to worry about, and you should go live your best lives.

Whatever happens, this random internet stranger wishes you both the best.

I don’t understand why they keep adding AI crap to everything. There can’t be a huge market of people who want it. It’s incredibly expensive to develop and run. Just from an economics point of view it doesn’t add up.

Is it just the corporate equivalent of FOMO? Wouldn’t it make more economic sense for them to release a base device that is capable of having AI apps/agents installed if and when the consumer wants it, rather than defaulting to it? Or are they so tightly bound in their own bubble that they don’t see the problem?

It’s like basic economic theory, has been thrown out the window; along with common sense.

Could be either, depending how you write it.

Lean into the creepy factor and ramp up the anxiety by adding recent events found in the tape and a feeling of en-ease as they’re discovered. Deja vu can solidify it further, causing chills down the spine. Add an event that is then found on the tape before it happens, proving it’s a prediction. As the tape is repaired, more is discovered. Your indication of progress is how much tape is left to repair, providing a mystery, and anxiety, of what will be found next.

Lean into the sad factor by showing the world now and reminiscing on the lost. Ramp it up with something the character loved, maybe shown in the tape, and then showing the last of it going away. Add in the nice old man, the character’s savior, dying; not from age, but because of the destruction. Could show malnourished children, though that can be triggering. Showing malnourished animals would give a strong visceral reaction without having the same trigger. Be careful going too far in this direction as it can quickly become depression porn. You’d need to have a ray of hope or something the character is fighting for. The tape could help if it’s shown to have accurate predictions. It could show a happy, green field, blue sky, kids playing type thing at the end. This could give the character hope.

Another layer of sadness would then be an oscillation between believing in the happy prediction or not. To ramp that up, show one tape prediction as false, or presumed to be false to the character though actually true. (Think Shrek 2 when he thinks the potion is a dud until the next morning, though the audience sees it worked after he turned away). It’d be up to you to determine if the final hope is true or not, letting you end on a high note, or a low one. Either way could be impactful.

Overall, it’s a fun premise which you can take in many directions.

Looking at the water bottle, coffee mug, and Sprite can sitting on my desk right now.

Yeah, checks out.

I might be an outlier, but I enjoy working. I like what I do. I also like having money.

Most days, when I get home, I do whatever housework is needed and still have time to spend with my family, work on home projects, or relax and play a game or whatnot.

Take care of yourself by exercising and eating right, find a job you enjoy, and you won’t be dead tired after work. Granted, there are occasional days when I’m exhausted, but they’re the exception, not the norm.

I’m middle age, and as much as you are not looking forward to working, that’s how I feel about retirement. I don’t know if I will ever retire, not because of money, but because I think I’d get bored.

Counter point: It won’t.

This is like being told you could win $100M when you’re handed a lottery ticket. There is a lot of weight on the word “could.”

Except in this case the lottery doesn’t exist, the ticket is a fake, and we’re all about to be screwed when the bubble bursts.

So, in a way, he’s right. A lot of white collar (and blue collar and no collar) jobs could be gone in 12 months, due to the AI bubble popping. Nice of him to put his name out there now so we know who’s to blame.

Taylor Swift, “You Belong With Me”?

It’s like we’re in a strange, speed run, crossover episode of the fall of Rome meets WW2 Germany. Once the AI and housing bubbles pop, elements of the great depression will be mixed in. That will be the final tipping point. People are protesting now, but many more are held back by needing to keep a job and a place to live. If a large percentage of the population - as in great depression level percentages - don’t have those anymore… it’s a terrifying prospect.

Lowering interest rates let’s the bubbles continue, and worsen, while also cutting the safety net for when they do pop. This is the time to keep or slowly raise rates to deflate the bubble. Prop up single family home ownership, redduce landlords and rent gouging. Prevent company cross investment. Split large companies to soften the fall. Invest in energy infrastructure to ensure it doesn’t fail next.

Economic policy is going to be what either saves or breaks us. Unfortunately, the current administration is running in the opposite direction of sensible solutions.

Stormlight Archive 5, Wind and Truth by Sanderson is 62h 48m on Audible. It’s the longeest in the series.

Book 1, The Way of Kings, is the shortest at 45h 30m. So between 250 and 300 hours for the series so far.

I’d nominate him for one if he resigns.

I’ve had a few Samsung appliances. They are, by far, the worst appliances I’ve owned. I will not be buying another from them. If they want to make life more convenient, they need to make better devices, not shove screens, wifi, and AI into their crappy products.

Source?

I struggle with editing too much while writing too. Sometimes its not thinking of the right word, searching for it, getting distracted, then spending 30 minutes on Wikipedia. Other times its going back and editing previous paragraphs to make everything flow better. The only way I’ve been able to get around this is by writing long hand. Writing with pen on paper has forced me to get things down. Once I’m done, I’ll type it and do my first round of revisions.

As for continuity, I’m an avid outliner. I keep a notebook, and if I come up with a plot line, I’ll outline it. Sometimes it distracts from what I’m currently doing, but I don’t think of it as a distraction since I’m still writing. I have multiple, fully-outlined stories that I can pull from if stuck or try to weave into whatever I’m currently working on. When I sit down to write, I know everything that will happen. Writing becomes more about figuring out who the characters are and how they will react to the situation they’re in since the plot is already known to me.

When you take a break and struggle coming back, don’t try to catch back up. You never will. Instead, just try to move forward, get traction. This is where long hand helps me. There is a disjointedness when I step away for a while and come back. But I allow it and smooth it out in revision.

I’m not saying it will solve all your problems. This is just what has helped me get over some of the difficult humps while writing while having ADHD.

Edit: Fixed typo

Former Navy nuke here… though I’ve been out for a while now and don’t know if I’d still be considered an expert. Regardless, no, no it can’t.