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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   2214 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 20, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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About three weeks ago my laptop got stolen so I need to buy a new computer. I was thinking of building a desktop, but I'm about to move into a small apartment with my girlfriend and I don't think we'll have the floor space to spare, so it'll have to be a laptop.

What I need it for, in descending order of importance/time spent:

  1. Music production: I'll be using Propellerhead Reason and the shareware version of Reaper a lot. Obviously this means that a good integrated sound card is a must. With my old laptop, Reason would sometimes stop playing the track, I presume because my laptop couldn't keep up with the number of concurrent MIDI tracks. I presume this is caused by insufficient RAM, so it'd be nice if that was less of an issue with my new laptop.
  2. Photo editing/graphic design: Using Photoshop.
  3. Video editing: Using Premiere Pro. I'll be making short music videos which will require a great deal of colour correction. 1080p is fine, I don't need a 4k monitor, and I expect most of my editing will be 24fps.
  4. Gaming: Admittedly I've kind of gone off gaming a bit and don't spend nearly as much of my free time playing video games as I used to, but it'd be nice to have the option should the mood strike. I don't know if it makes a difference but I'm exclusively a single-player gamer. I own several games that I bought on a whim and only realised after the fact that my old laptop wasn't powerful enough to run them (e.g. Mirror's Edge Catalyst, Wolfenstein: The New Order, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Metro), so it'd be a plus if the laptop I get for the three tasks above is also powerful enough to run at least some of the aforementioned games. I rarely buy games on release, so a laptop which could reliably play games from 5-6 years ago at 60fps 1600x900 would be fine for me.

Budget, let's say somewhere between €1000-1500.

May the PCMR gods forgive me, but you sound like you'd be best served with a Mac (🤢)

That's what's hip for music production, but in terms of actual differences, you need to consider your work flow or software compatibility, and I can't specifically comment on that.

An M1 MacBook is perfectly sufficient, though you can get an M2 or higher if you really feel like it.

In terms of games, it's still a mixed bag, but since it's not a real priority you can probably get away with using a compatibility layer or dual booting.

If not, your needs aren't particularly demanding, and most laptops of any description in your price range should more than suffice.

If you don't mind a somewhat unrelated question:

I have a 2015 MacBook Pro. Is it possible to manually control the battery charge, so it doesn't charge all the way when plugged in all the time, or is that functionality only available on newer models?

I usually recommend a desktop, but it all depends on your living arrangements. If you can dedicate a desk to your PC, then there's no point in buying a laptop. If your desk space is also your dinner table or your GF's desk, then you need a laptop.

I have a mini-ITX desktop in a CoolerMaster NR200 case, the goldilocks small case. Easy to assemble, easy to disassemble, still small enough. There are newer versions like NR200P and NR200P Max, which make it better for gaming, but even the old version is good enough. I played with the newegg builder, and $1200 will get you a pretty good PC.

Congrats on moving in with your girlfriend!

Don't have much thoughts on the laptop, but shadow of mordor is a fun game.

Depending on how much you want The Best Performance possible, you may be able to go significantly under your budget target. This isn't a great machine performance-wise, but it'll hit most of your targets (albeit a little slow for video editing).

For your requirements list and current equipment costs, buying new I would recommend starting by looking for 16-32GB RAM and an nvidia 1650 or better. The ideal storage situation would be 512GB+ nvme boot drive and a 2TB SATA SSD storage drive for video editing, but that can be hard to find in compact or ultracompact laptops; if you have to compromise, 1TB or greater NVME boot drives are table stakes at the price range you're looking at. Video editing takes an obscene amount of storage, and games have started to get pretty bloated, and having to fuck around with a USB drive is bad enough before dealing with UK prices.

For used or refurbished machines, you can probably get away with 8GB RAM if the computer is otherwise a steal, but RAM's cheap and it's better to have more. That's doubly true for ultracompact and compact laptops, where getting access to memory to upgrade it may be difficult or near-impossible. The gaming list you have can go back a few generations if you're buying used, but I wouldn't go lower on this chart than an nVidia 1650 or so; the games only 'need' an nVidia 970 or so to run with decent settings, but any GPU that old will be inviting reliability problems down the road. For CPU, you'll probably want to stick to an Intel i5-84xx or higher on this chart. The Ryzen numbers are... complicated in a way that just adding price doesn't necessarily get you much performance, but that chart's not the worst way to look at them so long as you don't pay a bunch of extra money for a tiny boost.

If you want a mobile machine, I'd caution to watch out for any laptops with very exposed hinges -- see this for an example of a reasonable deal except the first time you drop it on a corner one of the hinges will bust. Similarly, watch out for compact or ultracompacts with very few USB connections (or where the only connections are USB-C); at best this will require you to get a dock, and often it's a sign the machine is meant as a very light use device and will burn the hell out of you.

Unless you absolutely need video editing or gaming on the go, I wouldn't exclude small (~cfe Lian Li Air at 384 x 288 x 400 mm) compact desktop PCs or a laptop with an eGPU. These are a little more annoying to assemble, but they vastly improve usability and can be meaningfully upgraded at very little floor space cost (though some fan noise), and they're much less likely to be damaged or stolen than something you can take around the world with you. In most cases, they'll cost so much less you can get a gaming desktop and a lightweight mid-performance laptop, though in turn expect to spend some time fucking with cable management. While most gaming laptops will have okay integrated sound, there's very few that are anything outstanding, while desktop machines will have a lot more options there.

((Contra ToaKraka, I don't recommend NUCs or NUC-likes. There are some with the performance you need, if not necessarily the price range, but getting the performance and significant storage for fast video editing will bust your budget, and they're prone to fan failures. They have great uses cases, but this isn't one of them unless you're willing to jettison gaming and accept a USB storage drive.))

The only meaningfully upgradable laptop is the Framework, and it will bust your budget in the performance range you're aiming for, and has very long wait times. For other laptops, you basically will only be able to upgrade RAM a little (usually no more than 2x) and you can replace or add one disk drive, and some won't let you do that (either soldered to the motherboard, or with a sealed frame).

Thank you for such a detailed response, this is a big help.

I can't help too much, because I've always gone desktop, even when I didn't necessarily have tons of space. I feel like the difference between a laptop on a desk and a desktop on a desk is usually very minimal. The Tower for a desktop computer can also go under the desk, and the wires just poke up to operate the screen. The screen can be placed farther back from the keyboard so you can have a healthier eye distance for a screen. A Tower also has far more flexibility on the type of plugs available. Usually as much as your hardware can handle you can manage to get plugs on the outside of the tower connecting it all together.

Here are my current desktop specs:

CPU Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-10700K CPU @ 3.80GHz

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070

RAM: 64GB

SSD sizes: 2000G,1000G

I think that would break your budget, but I'm able to play modern tripple A games at mid or high graphics settings, so its also overkill from your perspective.

I was thinking of building a desktop, but I'm about to move into a small apartment with my girlfriend and I don't think we'll have the floor space to spare, so it'll have to be a laptop.

There's a third option: miniature desktops.

Interesting, are these any good for gaming?

I put together a mini-ITX based computer for my parents many years ago that was decent for its time, barely (IIRC it was mostly for MythTV but I had a few contemporary 3D games set up too) ... but I don't think I'd go with such a small form factor again, even for something sitting in a living room where aesthetics is a concern. Having a giant computer case in (realistically: next to) your entertainment center can hurt the ambiance, but at least a big case has room for lots of bigger slower quieter fans. With a small case you have to choose between CPU/GPU options with low cooling requirements (annoyingly underpowered) or small fans with high cooling capacity (annoyingly whiny sounding). That tiny computer eventually went to my daughter but soon got junked and replaced because trying to upgrade the GPU a little further led to overheating problems.

The 7735U's integrated GPU apparently is approximately equivalent to a 130-$ GTX 1630—extremely weak (between "entry—suitable for 900p gaming" and "modest—modern games at medium settings" on the Logical Increments scale), but not totally worthless. The CPU has 8 cores and 16 threads.

Most enjoyable documentary I’ve seen in a while

In the Highest Tradition, 1989, UK

First transmitted in 1989, this is the first episode in a six-part series that delves into the world of regimental tradition. This programme includes looks at the origins of Emperor Joseph Bonaparte's chamber pot, a druid oration, and the story of a goat who escaped being eaten to become a regimental mascot.

Resistance training has two benefits when it comes to making sauerkraut:

  • you can mash more cabbage into the curing vessel
  • you can put dumbbell plates into the pot you're using to weigh it down instead of water

What do you use for your fermentation vessel? I've been sticking with the Chinese ones with a water lip (guessing other cultures have something similar), along with ceramic weight stones. I'd have guessed that the acidity of the brine would be bad for metal plates, but apparently not?

I start the fermentation in a steel pot. Usually enamelled or inox steel. The cabbage stays there for just three days, not enough time to leech anything from the steel in my experience. Yesterday I transferred the cabbage to glass jars and moved them into cold storage (my balcony).

This video is in Russian, but quite educational and entertaining even if you don't know the language. A bunch of reenactors have been trying to build a dugout boat in the old Slavic/Varangian style:

De Administrando Imperio details how the Slavs built monoxyla that they sold to Rus' in Kiev. These boats were then used against the Byzantine Empire during the Rus'–Byzantine Wars of the 9th and 10th centuries. They used dugouts to attack Constantinople and to withdraw into their lands with bewildering speed and mobility. Hence, the name of Δρομίται ("people on the run") applied to the Rus in some Byzantine sources. The monoxyla were often accompanied by larger galleys, that served as command and control centres. Each Slavic dugout could hold from 40 to 70 warriors.

I have no idea how big of a tree one would need to make a dugout for 70 warriors, but making a smaller boat out of a nine-ton oak using period-appropriate tools and tech looks like it a lot of effort. No idea why they didn't burn out the interior and decided to chop it all out, though.

How would you burn out the interior into the desired thickness and shape?

Very carefully, like this. It's not about burning it all the way to the required thickness, it's about removing most of the wood on the inside without having eight guys hack at it with adzes.

I don't really know much about canoe construction but this guy said that the burning is so slow going that they're just going to hack at it instead (9:20 timestamp).

Interesting - YouTube's automatic closed caption translations did a very admirable job handling this video. Some terms and turns of phrase throw it off, but I definitely got the gist of 80%+ of the spoken information content here. More than I expected.

Not fun but...

Im turning 26 soon and am single. I dont think that might change very soon.

I got a mini heart attack though when I realized that time is ticking and the pool will only get smaller geometrically from now onwards.

I have strong career growth and earn more than most my age. But as most men in tech know, this doesnt help as much as we'd like.

Do I continue panicking and start taking drastic measures? (Like moving to a different countries or whatever,I live in a particularly bad one in terms of m:f ratio)

My biggest hurdle is a lack of venues to meet women at. Work and friends wont help.

https://optimizeddating.substack.com/

There's a discord server too, and it overlaps with the rat sphere quite a bit.

Do you want children? I was in a similar position as you and found my wife in my 30s and it's working out pretty great, but parenthood was never a major goal of mine. The thought of raising a child in my forties is absolutely exhausting: you have time, and biologically your sperm will be fine for a long while, but I do strongly suggest having kids sooner rather than later if it's a goal. You won't have issues finding a partner who wants and is capable of having kids when you're 40, but your energy levels will have dropped precipitously.

Where do you live? If it's a tech-heavy West Coast city, I do think moving to NYC is a pretty good piece of advice, something that I wish I'd done. Plenty of jobs there, and the ratio is significantly better by all accounts. And there's more variation among the men there: in your niche, you're less likely to be drowned out by other men for women who are into that niche. I'd recommend against a developing country move: you'll have your pick of partners, but the cultural and gender expectation gaps are huge.

Im turning 26 soon and am single. I dont think that might change very soon.

I got a mini heart attack though when I realized that time is ticking and the pool will only get smaller geometrically from now onwards.

I have nothing in particular to recommend for or against any particular action, but dude, time is not really ticking, your pool isn't getting smaller geometrically, unless you have some very strong personal preference for marrying someone precisely your age or older.

If I recall your vague personal details correctly, you are professionally successful, you work out and eat right and take care of yourself, you have a good relationship with your family, I know from interacting with you that you are clever and can carry an interesting conversation on a variety of topics.. 26 isn't the cliff, it's the very start of your peak. You are just entering the years when women from 20-30 will all find you relatively hot and relatively relatable, when you will have actual accomplishments to show rather than just potential, when you can strike out on your own and do something great. At the very least, you have six-ish years before you start to be concerned in terms of a shrinking dating pool.

This is the best time to date in your life, tbh. If you want to make drastic lifestyle changes to improve your odds, it will just improve them further.

I was in a similar place and eventually met my now-wife online in my mid 30s.

Depends what your problem is. Do you not meet women at all? Do women on dating apps never respond? Do you never get past a first date?

Personally I got fucking jacked. That got me at least a date a week from online dating circa 2007-2010, ending when I met my wife. But god damned if online dating hasn't completely changed since then. All the same, rule number one is probably still "be attractive". Rule number two is probably still "don't be unattractive".

Getting in crazy good shape definitely went to my head though. Although truth be told, it's probably 50/50 whether being an arrogant asshole helped me or hurt me. Probably highly situational.

The latest craze on Youtube? A guy called Sam Sulek. Sam Sulek is a 21 year old bodybuilder and mech eng. student from Ohio who has, over the past six months, gone from about 50,000 to over 1.7 million subscribers. I've heard dudes at work that don't lift mention him, either. He is, for his age, ridiculously large, and has already attracted accusations of not being 'natty' (i.e. he's using PEDs). Regardless of how he gets his gains, his appeal, however, seems pretty genuine. Unlike the deluge of overedited, attention-grabbing garbage on Youtube, Sulek's videos are lightly edited and mostly show him driving to, working out in, and then driving back to the gym with occasional meals, while he provides a kind of stream-of-consciousness of his thoughts on training and diet. There's very little groundbreaking stuff here, his videos are nearly entirely unscripted (like his workouts themselves) and Sulek saves all his intensity for his lifting. In fact he comes off as a fairly charismatic, positive, intelligent student. More than that, though, his videos scratch a desire for society and friendship. Commenters describe them as relaxing, and Sulek as authentic, but really what they are is parasocial. Sulek isn't acting as a coach or source of information or salesman (though he does have a deal with Hosstile), but more as the lifting buddy that millions of people wish they had. And though it can hardly be any good for my very poor self-esteem and body image issues, it's difficult to stop watching.

I think all its all parasocial, and all in a bad way. I'll speak as someone very much guilty myself; Youtube views numbers are driven by lonely people where an algorithm grabs your interest to keep you watching. Here it's a workout video, but I find myself watching really inane political commentators where I really don't care about what they're talking about, but I just like looking at the cute face and hair face on the screen. Intentional or not, the unscripted long form draws you in and the interest in my case manifests where I find my myself watching to learn more about the person than whatever it is they are talking about or demonstrating. The video apes a social conversation but isn't truly.

It’s interesting to me that zoomer men primarily follow “influencers” who have extremely unrealistic bodies, in that they can’t be gained naturally. Even in the previous generation, the Zyzz physique obviously requires excellent genetics, perfect training etc. The 99.9th percentile, in other words.

Women don’t tend to do this as much. Female beauty, skincare, fitness, makeup etc influencers are usually attractive, that’s a given, but the most successful are rarely 99.9th percentile for looks - those people either tend to be followed mainly by men, or are actual high fashion / runway models with comparatively small followings. Women often follow people who are somewhat hotter versions of themselves in terms of face/body/hair/skin etc.

Men seem to prefer to follow the absolute physical ideal. They are less interested in the merely 80th or 90th percentile gym bro who lifts 3-4 days a week, cares about nutrition and has a naturally attainable body.

I guess in general lifting culture is interesting to me. It’s not broadly anti-doping, but at the same time so much of the culture is ostensibly based around techniques for training naturally, efficiently gaining, diet and other stuff that pales in terms of their effect on bulking when compared to many forms of doping. Are they tricking themselves, or are they being radically honest? Clearly coping is acceptable in the bodybuilding community and doesn’t count as cheating the same way, say, cheating in chess is cheating. But the advantage gained is so much that training as someone who dopes versus someone who doesn’t is like playing two completely separate games, or having two separate hobbies. They’re incomparable, and yet treated as the same by casual followers.

But the advantage gained is so much that training as someone who dopes versus someone who doesn’t is like playing two completely separate games, or having two separate hobbies. They’re incomparable, and yet treated as the same by casual followers.

I don't think casual followers understand this

There was a period, perhaps from the 90s to the 00s, where the trend went towards toned and slender. Steroids were made illegal in 1990, and though bodybuilders continued to get bigger, Hollywood turned away from beefy bodybuilders towards more uh, human-sized action leads. The apogee of this was Brad Pitt in Fight Club in 1999. Since then, bodybuilding and lifting have become more popular. Zyzz comes at kind of the tail-end of that, as bigger physiques became more popular again. At the same time, superhero movies were starting to dominate the box office, and with them, superheroic physiques became desirable again. Thor was 2011, for example (and it even has a joke about steroids). The internet has made it easier to get access and information on steroids, and in the competition to stand out on social media, it has to be the biggest and the best.

And uh, I might have been a cause of it too. The past twenty years have seen gay men go from the butts of jokes and distrusted perverts to accepted and even celebrated. And our tastes put a small but forceful finger on the scale, almost always pushing towards bigger and more extreme. It's hard to exaggerate to what degree male beauty standards are shaped by this tiny minority who most men have no interest in - and yet it does, mysteriously, like dark energy invisibly curving spacetime around it.

the most successful are rarely 99.9th percentile for looks

I mean, I don't know if 99.9th percentile for looks really makes sense. In the realm of lifting, bigger and stronger is better and there's always someone bigger and stronger, but in the realm of physical appearance, once you're 'very attractive', the difference between you and the next very attractive lady is mostly just personal taste or vibes. But then, that's the appeal of lifting - there is a hierarchy, there is a 'better' and a 'worse', and therefore you can be driven by the desire to become better. A woman who sought to make 'constant progress' in her own makeup abilities wouldn't even make any sense.

I guess in general lifting culture is interesting to me. It’s not broadly anti-doping, but at the same time so much of the culture is ostensibly based around techniques for training naturally, efficiently gaining, diet and other stuff that pales in terms of their effect on bulking when compared to many forms of doping.

I agree there's an interesting contradiction here. Doping is an open secret, and one that people don't really know how to deal with. The refrain is the same - bigger and stronger is better, you should be willing to do anything to succeed... but not the thing that might actually work better than anything else. That's embarrassing and shameful, except that most of the people idealized are on gear anyway. People like Sam Sulek dance around it, they talk about their training technique or how they time their carb intake or 'mindset' or a million trivial details that matter far less than raw biochemistry. And though the 'fake natties' are bad, so are the 'natty police' who lob accusations of steroid use around, and who encourage others to treat it as a shameful secret.

At the end of the day, you still need to have your training and nutrition dialed in to have a top tier physique, drugs or no. To casual followers, the dedication is what they relate to and use for motivation.

What actually draws people in is results, not dedication.

Reading the comments, nobody expects to get similar results any time soon.

It could be overcompensation, in that most men have few to no archetypically masculine men in their own lives, let alone any balanced masculine role models in media or even literature that most consume.

Unfortunately I see a lot of the hyper masculine alt right type stuff as a consequence of the masculine archetypes being forcefully eradicated from our culture via an unholy mix of feminism and jealous lower status men sniping at positive masculine role models. The surge in hyper masculine media figures is a natural response as far as I can tell.

Sampled a few videos. Maybe it's because I don't lift atm, but I don't really see the appeal. He seems like a decent person, and is clearly built as hell, seems authentic, but then there's the doubt of whether it's natural. And all he talks about is lifting and eating. Nothing else?

For many people that sounds like a good relationship!

He is, for his age, ridiculously large, and has already attracted accusations of not being 'natty' (i.e. he's using PEDs).

It's either him being a literal mutant (with much lower myostatin levels, like that "bodybuilder cattle"), or PEDs. My bet is on PEDs.

I'm 95% certain he's not natty as someone that has barely lifted 100kgs on a bench in my life. A 21yo would have the best chance of anyone, anywhere in gaining muscle mass, but I don't think you can do that without juicing. I'm not against performance enhancing drugs in the private sphere; just against influencers pushing an impossible ideal while pretending they did it without help.

Tbh, I find the 'is he natty' debate to be pretty uninteresting. Does it actually change the ground reality of what he's doing or what he's saying?

Also though steroid use is more widespread than ever, it's still, like, illegal. I don't know how strict things are in the US, but I think people are reasonable to choose not to talk openly about it, if you could get arrested, lose your job or your place at college over it. Sulek has never claimed to be natty, and at the end of the day isn't selling training programs or boutique supplements or diet plans under the promise that others can get the same results. He's not selling anything except himself... But it's worth asking if that makes it better. The pressure to look good, to be big and strong, to earn the respect of other men, to be accomplished and confident and popular are still there.

As I understand it the effect of steroids is so significant that someone who lifts regularly and cares about nutrition can be easily outbulked by a largely sedentary person who takes them.

If that’s true, it essentially means that all the healthy eating, diet, schedule, discipline stuff is invalidated, at least mostly. It’s like a PUA type ‘teaching’ men to seduce women and then it turns out all the women he’s ever been with have been prostitutes, like clearly he’s playing a different game and his advice is theoretical at best.

That’s the root of the sentiment expressed with the facetious “tren hard anavar give up” line, preaching self improvement and a way to be healthy and masculine but actually everything is just the result of illegal and often risky doping.

It depends. To me it makes sense to lift natty for two years and then add in the steroids, but I wonder if that's my Puritan heritage kicking in: why lift natty for two years when you can do the same on gear in 6 months? I think the key is discipline: steroids can be done relatively safely and effectively, but it requires a level of discipline that's best gated by first getting ripped natty.

It's usually a safe assumption that any male influencer that stands out for his hypertrophy is on gear, though. The number of natty men with impressive physiques is far outweighed by the number of men on gear with impressive physiques who want to claim to be natty for cred.

I'd also note that the impressive men on gear still require discipline, healthy eating, and lots of hard work. Gear just makes that (much) easier to display.

That is a wildly incorrect understanding of steroids. They don't work on their own, they make other things you are doing work better, and make it possible to work harder. The Natty or Not debate matters at the extremes, which is to say the interesting parts.

How exactly is it incorrect? There are studies that show that muscle gain on juice without resistance training beats resistance training without juice.

That study is confounded by the effects of water retention in muscles of steroid users. It's also just looking at a ten week period, you're not going to keep gaining muscle sitting on the couch.

Also, the no steroids exercise group managed to not increase their triceps size at all which doesn't really make sense.

This is an overcorrection. Steroids help build muscle at all levels of training. You definitely don't need to be elite for it to matter.

But no one really cares about the non-elite. I don't care if a guy used test to deadlift 405 when he would have achieved the same thing Natty in a few more months.

The idea that roids will cause you to gain significant muscle sitting on the couch is false.

I mean, you personally might not care whether a given person can or can't deadlift 405, or the timeframe he achieves that in - it might matter to him.

My point is that no one deadlifting 405, natty or dirty, influences the discourse.

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Tbh, I find the 'is he natty' debate to be pretty uninteresting. Does it actually change the ground reality of what he's doing or what he's saying?

No it doesn't. I threw a comment out there (while drinking) and I don't really know if he's presenting as natural or not. I don't mean to derail on that front.

and at the end of the day isn't selling training programs or boutique supplements or diet plans under the promise that others can get the same results. He's not selling anything except himself

Fair enough. Seems like the guy is presenting himself in a 'lifestyle' way, as in 'here's me doing meal prep and driving to the gym. What a good session!' Good luck to him.

Took a look...his ad revenue must substantial. The last week of views: 400k, 550k, 530k, 770k, 620k, 1M, 400k. All are >30 minutes. Following internet rumours for CPV that's what, >$20k?

He's the heir to Rich Piana's legacy, providing a constant stream of blindingly parasocial, unfiltered, steam-of-consciousness buddy chats while going through a fitness-centric daily routine. And the great thing is that, unlike Rich, who was probably not a great role model for his young male audience, Sam Sulek is unfailingly humble, pragmatic, and down-to-earth. Real positive masculinity shit. You love to see it.

Well, in both cases their success is predicated on having outrageously developed physiques. The message I'm getting is that what really matters is the size of your biceps.

What are some good sources to find collaborators for software projects?

I have an idea that is relatively easy to build (I can do it myself in a week or two), but I want to keep the option to commercialize it, the initial architecture should be amenable to scaling. I would need a backend engineer to really add that polish/extnesibility.

Would you mind sharing what your idea is? I enjoy reading and thinking about software architectures.

No such similar thing exists at all. Not even the same ballpark, so id not wanna dox myself.

It's basically automating a really annoying thing with an llm repacked as a web app.

Architecture wise nothing crazy. A simple monolith with redis and postgres.

On a trip to Europe right now. So far in virtually every dimension Paris > London >>> Brussels. Quality/price ratio of food, hotels, public transit, attractions are all way better in Paris. London had some good stuff too but a lot of it was really unpleasant.

We toured Kensington Palace at my wife's insistence, and the Crown to Couture exhibit was both objectively bad and also utterly amazed that a man could be brave enough to wear a dress to the Met in a time when that's the fashion anyways. I think there were literally three exhibits, out of maybe 5-6, just about that one guy and his outfit. Found out later we had to pay separately for that one (we didn't) so it was a bit of a relief to know we weren't quite so directly supporting it.

Most of all I'm inpressed how similar the culture is everywhere. More to say about that later--I'm happy to say the French seem to treat their children pretty well--but generally there's a bigger difference between my hometown and Salt Lake City than between SLC and Brussels, and my hometown isn't even that rural.

Well of course three alpha cities in Western Europe are similar to one another, what did you expect?

Brussels is pretty bad indeed. Even in Belgium itself there are nicer towns to visit in my opinion. If you ever find yourself in Brussels as a tourist again, take a short train or car ride to Leuven. Not as crowded, comparable amount of pretty historic things to look at and for me at least it has a much nicer vibe. Sometimes major capitals can be too flooded with tourists and not actually be the nicest places to visit. I am Dutch myself and I can tell you, if your European trip includes a visit to the Netherlands, that for instance Utrecht, Leiden and Delft are all cities with pretty historic canals like Amsterdam, but without being overcrowded with tourists and are hence much nicer places to visit as far as I'm concerned.

Can you elaborate a bit on how culturally there is a bigger difference between your hometown and Salt Lake City than between Brussels and Salt Lake City? I'm quite surprised to hear that.

Can you elaborate a bit on how culturally there is a bigger difference between your hometown and Salt Lake City than between Brussels and Salt Lake City? I'm quite surprised to hear that.

In retrospect a lot of it has less to do with culture per se and more to do with the reality of life in big cities. But I'd say the following traits of the big cities I visited were all more similar to SLC than SLC's traits are to my own town:

  • Personal space (or lack thereof)
  • Distribution of stores--lots of little cafes, countless restaurants and bakeries, very few supermarkets or other stores where you buy anything other than prepared food
  • Racial composition
  • Culture war--I'd be shocked to see anyone open carrying, wearing a cross, or otherwise signaling red tribe membership
  • Racial attitudes--it's totally fine to be prejudiced against white people, but not anyone else, no matter your own race
  • Religious attitudes--it's totally inappropriate to criticize an exotic religion such as Hinduism at all; closer-to-home religions like Christianity are fair game though
  • Sexual attitudes

I could go on.

How is the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam (I assume it’s open again)? Its the primary reason I would want to visit Amsterdam again

That's a good point, the Rijksmuseum is probably worth a visit. I haven't been there in a long time and I am personally not super into art and musea, so take my words with a grain of salt, but obviously they have a lot of famous paintings there and that's something the other towns I mentioned don't have to offer.

The Netherlands is a small country, so a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam does not exclude a visit to Leiden or Utrecht, to get a taste of a historic city centre with canals, with less crowds and less tourist traps.

What about Bruges? How accurate was the film?

Bruges? It's a shithole.

I don't know what film you're referencing, so I can't attest to that, but personally I had more fun visiting Bruges than visiting Brussels. I think Bruges still has a reputation in Belgium itself of being a bit touristy, but it does have a large beautiful historic centre. I might be a little harsh on Brussels, it does have some nice historic areas, but given that it's the most famous and biggest city in Belgium it just felt a little underwhelming and at least anecdotally when I visited there myself it also felt overcrowded. Bruges also gets plenty of tourists, but it has a large historic city centre and at least when I visited there, the tourist crowds weren't quite as bad as Brussels.

The film is In Bruges

[comic sans]UAP DISCLOSURE UPDATES[/comic sans]

  • Rep. Tim Burchett confirms that a SCIF has been secured for members of Congress to receive information on UAPs in a classified setting. Two meetings are scheduled - one with the DoD IG on October 26th, and one with the IC IG on November 16th. Much ado was made about the necessity of a SCIF during the public hearing with David Grusch in July, as he claimed that much of his information could only be shared in a classified setting. It is currently unclear exactly which topics will be on the agenda during the meetings, or if Grusch himself will be present.

  • AARO's 2023 annual report on UAPs has been released. As expected, the report is largely a nothingburger; the head of AARO Dr. Sean Kirkpatrick has repeatedly made it clear in his public statements that he is skeptical of extraterrestrial explanations for UAPs. Nonetheless, the report acknowledges that some UAPs have been reported to exhibit "concerning performance characteristics" such as "high-speed travel or unusual maneuverability", and that AARO is currently unable to attribute these sightings to either US military programs or programs operated by foreign adversaries.

  • The Schumer UAP disclosure amendment did make it into the version of the NDAA that was passed by the Senate, although the bill is still awaiting final reconciliation with the House.

"Oh boy! Now THIS is going to what leads to /!\ THE DISCLOSURE /!\ ", says the UFO enthusiast for the dozenth time, trying desperately to bring even a smidgen of actual enthusiasm to their voice so as to not sound completely sarcastic.

What are some fun activities I could do with my father in law? Grillin'? Fishing? Idk I'm at a loss for manly activities to do with a man you don't know very well. What's the standard?

Don't do what I did. I took a woman from a super liberal family and turned her into a hardcore conservative. I used to be on good terms with her father, but now he barely tolerates me, and tries to pick political fights with me every time he's over. Plus he's constantly sending her WaPo or NYT articles trying to "deprogram" her. They basically thought I had signed her death warrant when she refused to get the covid vax.

Too late! No, luckily her parents are more apolitical and open to questioning with their politics. Besides I’m not the most hardcore conservative in the first place.

I’m sorry you have to deal with that though. The political divisions in our society really do cause a lot of pain in families.

I'm a bit biased because I'm an awful fisherman, but it's a bit technical if he's not already experienced at it. What should be an opportunity to just drink beer from a cooler can turn ugly if a hook goes somewhere it shouldn't.

My go-to with my FiL is watching football. You never have to talk about anything serious. Accomplishing yardwork or home improvement tasks can be fraught but at least you're getting something out of the deal. If you both bust your ass it's an excuse to burn more time to drive somewhere and get masculine food you shouldn't normally eat.

I personally always enjoyed shooting the shit with girlfriend's dads. Some of them weren't up for it, others were very enjoyable to talk to. I talk more about serious topics with my FiL then he does with any of his kids.

Fishing and chess, like @Arnaud suggested, would provide a good opportunity to talk as little as you want, except you have no idea what your FIL actually likes. Hopefully, your wife and you are on speaking terms, so go and ask her what he likes to do in his spare time and more importantly, what he hates.

For example, my dad wouldn't mind a game of chess, but wouldn't go fishing. He also likes exploring public spaces and researching Alexander Pushkin conspiracy theories. My potential FIL died before I met my wife, so I have no idea what I would do with him.

Is the goal to know the man better? Assuming you're shtupping his daughter, he may prefer to keep you at a healthy emotional distance. I think "the standard" is avoiding each other whenever possible, and at Thanksgiving watching football in the same room without ever making eye contact.

I recognize that our new, purportedly "emotionally healthy" age would suggest you bond, say, over shared hobbies, or perhaps by sharing your individual hobbies: fishing, shooting, drinking, or for the higher-brow castes having oblique political or religious discussions. This is plausible too, though the closer you are in age to your in-laws the more likely it is to stick. On the other end of the extreme, if you have a poor relationship with your own father, some fathers-in-law seem to enjoy a kind of paternal surrogacy, especially if they have only daughters.

This strikes me as incredibly emotionally stunted. You do know that people occasionally ask their children to make grandbabies? I think the FIL can probably handle drinking a beer and talking about "how bout them Cowboys?" without being driven to distraction that his married daughter is having sex.

Indeed. There is a difference between sacred and profane love. As a decent father to your daughter, you want the former for her and not the latter.

It's so bizarre for me to see... Being close with your marital family lampooned as fruity new age emotional stuff, and the celebrated trad option is to be so sexually repressed as to poison family relations.

Hanging out with and going into business with your in laws is trad and Lindy. Anthropologists across primitive tribes have found a common answer to why incest is bad to be "Who would I go hunting with if I didn't have in laws?"

@TheDag two things

  1. Your FiL wants you to be morally staid. My FiL drinks like a fish, he prefers I have one beer after he badgers me repeatedly to do so.

  2. Get his help with something. Ask his advice on something. Take him to home Depot to help you pick out cabinets or paint or whatever, get him to help you shop for a car, ask his advice on a home improvement project, whatever as the case may be. Show him that you know what he's good at, respect him for it, and that he still has a role to play in your lives going forward.

Hah thank you for this, I was also confused. The whole point of a traditional marriage is to bind the two families, and @naraburns aren't those scriptures referring to if your family denies the truth of the Lord? Not just like, in general?

aren't those scriptures referring to if your family denies the truth of the Lord? Not just like, in general?

I am very much not a theologian, but a plain reading of the New Testament verse (as well as the Genesis verse it derives from) appears to suggest that a family unit is comprised of a husband and wife plus children--but the children are expected to eventually grow up and leave to form their own families, which become their first priority.

The Psalm is less clear to me, maybe because Christians gloss it with the bride-and-bridegroom thing that the New Testament does with Christ and the Church. But on a plain reading, the Psalm again seems to suggest that when the bride goes to marry the king, she's supposed to focus all her energies on him instead of on her family, because the king is super cool. Assuming the psalmist is David, though, it kinda reads like he's being a judge in his own cause...

Hanging out with and going into business with your in laws is trad and Lindy

Well, the Psalmist wrote,

Listen, daughter, and pay careful attention:
Forget your people and your father’s house.

And the New Testament gives similar advice to men:

For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife...

My answer was intentionally lighthearted and broad, as the question seemed lighthearted ("Grillin'? Fishing?") and broad. A more serious answer might be a boring "do whatever you want, either it will work or it won't, you can't force a relationship with anyone, not even with in-laws." Or maybe an even more boring "have you asked your father-in-law?"

But while I am sure that being close with your in-laws is "trad" sometimes, it's at least as often very much not.

I'm partial to a nice game of chess myself, provided neither of you is a Kasparov or other chess savant, it should provide a good way to pass some time together.

Chess is a great man activity like that, it provides something for you both to focus on and lets you bond without having to do anything so gay as talking about each other.

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