TimesEcho

There’s a picture of the mayor being sworn in and another of one of the accused men. The article does not mention the race of the attackers nor how they self-identify.

Apologies. Some federated content comes through with (kbin.social) after the thread title. I’m sure it’s one of the bugs Ernest is working on.

Just a reminder that regardless of what kbin.social decides, you can block federated domains for yourself. Go to:
https://kbin.social/d/domainname
So I just blocked Threads and it was:
https://kbin.social/d/threads.net
On the right side, click the “don’t” icon (circle with a slash through it). When it’s red, that means that domain is blocked.

Heaven’s Vault was fantastic and can be played multiple times to get different versions of the story. It’s also on sale right now. What I thought was especially well done is how they tied the narrative to replaying aspect.

Listening to To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf while I do chores. It’s literature so I have to listen to it since there’s no plot, really, and it’s all thoughts inside people’s heads, so far all on the same day.
Just finished book 2 in the Seraphina series, Shadow Scale, by Rachel Hartman. I almost didn’t finish it because for most of the book the main character didn’t have anything going in her favor and the relentless piling on of bad news made me anxious.
I’ve got to finish the other stories in Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang, because I got it to read “Story of Your Life” after reading a thread on Kbin about the movie Arrival (which I had really enjoyed by apparently hadn’t understood fully).

TotK. I’m going the maximum exploration route, so I’ve only gotten the Travel Medallions, Tulin’s Sage, and the locator so far. I’m leaving the main story until much later. 135 hours in, though, and only playing an hour or two most days.

Pinky: What are we doing this weekend, Brain?
Brain: The same thing we do every weekend…We’re going to take over Hyrule!

How on Earth have you done all the temples in only 50 hours?

It can be a bit overwhelming, yes. I purposely did enough of the main story line in ToTK so that I could get the Hero’s Path and the Travel Medallions. And now I’m ignoring the main story and just exploring the world bit-by-bit, like I did with Breath of the Wild. I’m still thoroughly exploring Central Hyrule. I’m racking up side quests and adventures, but only doing them if I want a break from exploring or want to better my gear or something. It takes the pressure off for me to do it this slow, relaxing way. The game feels like it has hundreds of hours in it, which is what I tell myself when I get antsy. I have almost literally all the time in the world.

I’ve discovered that my brain will only accept certain content certain ways. If I’m really into a fun book, then text is perfect. If it’s any kind of “literature” or non-fiction, I need to listen to it at the fastest setting my brain can absorb (usually 2x speed) while doing things that would otherwise not be fun (unloading the dishwasher, cleaning, doing laundry, whatever). And I pay attention to my emotional reactions to stuff. If something is too heavy to be fun (or to handle in general), I don’t make myself go back to it. I evaluate whether I want to continue. I have more than 1,000 books on my Libby wishlist, so I feel no guilt about moving on to the next thing.

Oh, so auditory hallucinations are not normal, then. Just last night “someone ringing my doorbell” (I don’t have a doorbell, which I didn’t realize until the morning) made me wake in a panic to cautiously look out my windows to see who might be at my door. And, yes, like others, I often “fall” while falling asleep, and wake up when I “land”. “Landing” is usually a full body jerk.

This seriously brought me down the other day when I first read it. I’m glad that BBC is doing this important work, but also, this is so dark my brain just can’t go there.

The Orville is closer in spirit and execution to Roddenberry’s Star Trek. Post-Roddenberry Star Trek is a different type of entertainment that isn’t trying to accomplish the same goals. Applying “good” and “bad” to either is counterproductive and subjective. They serve different purposes and it’s fine to like or dislike either.

You use tags. You can see this for yourself if you want to know if a tag will get picked up and where it might either pull from or go to: https://kbin.social/tag/food. This FAQ talks about how tags work.

Sure, this talks briefly about tags. I’m trying to find the guide for new users that was written early this week, but can’t at the moment. I believe it talked more about them. When posting on kbin, add tags to the tags field. Try to make them relevant and likely that someone has set their magazine or other instance community to look for it.

Edit: This is also how Related Magazines and Related Threads are pulled into the sidebar within magazines.

Edit 2: There’s also /m/gettingstarted but they don’t have a ton of stuff there, though they do link to that FAQ above.

Edit 3: To see if a tag will work for your purposes this is the link: https://kbin.social/tag/food where you replace “food” with whatever your tag is. This lets you see where people are posting about that as well as what kind of content will pull into your magazine if you use that tag in your magazine settings.

If things are being tagged, they should be picked up in related threads within magazines and microblogs (on kbin, but I think in other instances, too). So tag a lot.

My favorite thing is that I use mine connected to the dock, but handheld, so that it’s the controller to what is on my TV. It also has an ethernet cable connected to the dock. Not sure if this would work for everyone. I sit on the floor on a tatami mat and the 40-something-inch TV is also on the floor. It is heavy, so my hands tend to rest on my folded legs while playing, or I’ll put a pillow on my lap for it to be a bit higher.

Yes, same! I loved primes on Number Munchers so much. I was truly terrible at Oregon Trail, but just kept trying and dying. Also, Odell Lake in which you were a fish.

I put olive oil on the popcorn first, make sure it’s nice and coated and then sprinkle on a mix I previously stirred together in a little bowl:
1/2 teaspoon Chicken Bouillon powder
shake in as much of the following as I want:
Italian Seasoning (usually more of this than the others)
Cinnamon (couple shakes)
Taco Seasoning (or any other kind of premade seasoning mix - the Chili flavor packet from Top Ramen is good) about a teaspoon, maybe
And finish with a lot of nutritional yeast.
Stir really well. I use the end of a wooden spoon kind of like a pestle in the bowl to break up the nutritional yeast flakes.

I’ll pop a cup of popcorn at a time and put on maybe 1/3 to half a cup of seasoning. I made it last night for dinner. It takes about a minute to do the seasoning mix.

If you have an -ism (and some would argue that we all have -isms) there is likely a 12-step group for that. What is needed for friendships to develop:

1. Repeated exposure over time. This means being able to count on seeing someone regularly, like once a week at a thing during which you actually talk to each other (so movie nights don’t work).
2. Trust. This comes either from how an event is structured (like the meeting format and principles found in a 12-step group, or the Unitarians have Small Group Connection Circles that function similarly, but without the -isms) OR from spending enough time together that sharing sensitive stuff is accepted and encouraged.
3. Reciprocity. Both people have to put in the same amount of effort. (And share the same level of sensitive stuff. One can’t overshare about their personal life if together they’ve only ever talked about books.) This means you both commit to being the one to ask to meet up if the other one did it last time, or what have you.

I’ve spent a lot of time in my adult life trying to find ways to bring people together and develop friendships. It isn’t easy and most people aren’t willing to commit to one of the three things above, so you’ll have to go to places where they do.

If you want a community without the religion, I suggest trying out the Unitarians. Each congregation is different, but they don’t have any dogma and each person is free to believe what they like. They have all the good social aspects of belonging to church without any of the toxicity in other religions.