Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Here is the schedule for the upcoming year

Last week in August - Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut,

Last week in September - Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Last week in October - The Poisoners Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine by Deborah Blum,

Last week in November - We are Legion (We are Bob) by Dennis Taylor,

December break for the holidays.

Last week in January - Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bissen,

Last week in February - The Truth by Terry Pratchett

Last week in March - The Metamorphosis by Kafka,

Last week in April - The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See,

Last week in May - Pnin by Nabokov,

Last week in June - How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Wexler,

Last week in July - A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers,

Last week in August - Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki

Last week in September - Dr. No by Ian Fleming

Welcome all to our weekly (ish) gardening group discussion!

Feel free to discuss anything related to gardening, beginner or advanced, challenge or success.

‘Seed’ questions?

Has the weather been working out for you?
What is your favourite gardening tool, or are you looking to get a new one?
What is your biggest error this year?

I've been thinking a lot about LLM assisted development, and in particular why I keep dropping the available tools after a few attempts at using them.

I realized recently that it's taking away the part of software development I enjoy: the creative problem solving that comes with writing code. What's left is code review tasks, testing, security checks, etc. Important tasks, but they all primarily involve heavy concentration, and much less creativity.

Why aren't agents focused on handling the mundane tasks instead? Tell me if I've just introduced a security vulnerability or a runtime bug. Generate realistic test data and give me info on what the likely output would be. Tell me that the algorithm I just wrote is O(n^2).

Those tasks are so much more applicable to matching against existing data, something LLMs should be extremely good at, rather than trying to get them to write something novel, which so far they've been mostly bad at, at least in my experience.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

the two examples that I have are Final destination movies and junji ito's manga "Uzumaki".

it doesn't have to be a manga or movie of course, I just would like something similar but it can be any medium. books, movies, games etc

I figure the title is good enough, but, I just want to upload/make a spreadsheet in an .ods format so others can view it. Not edit it, not have to sign in to view, but still has sorting options or whatnot. And in the .ods format.

I'm seeing a few options online, but it seems more that they offer viewing but not sorting (which is a huge aspect of spreadsheets), or no importing, or doesn't support .ods.

So I can keep searching and I'm sure something is out there, but does anyone already use a site for these requests?

I've had the itch lately to play Minecraft again. I originally played on an account my brother gave me in alpha and used that for years before he asked for it back so he could do the account migration in to his Microsoft account to avoid losing it. Microsoft sadly doesn't do regional pricing for Minecraft so I don't think I'll be picking up a copy again soon and will probably wait till my kids are older and I pick up some copies to play with them.

I realized that the game has changed a lot since I last played, and when last played with my friends (probably 5-6 years ago at this point) I remember being a bit lost with all the new things that had been added from when I last played. While it's cool seeing new stuff being added to the game, I also realized that if I were to get Minecraft I would probably get it specifically to play older versions of the game. I saw there was a whole subreddit of people playing older versions of the game over at r/GoldenAgeMinecraft which also showed me that there are mods that essentially fork development from earlier points in Minecraft's history which I think would be cool to explore when I do get the game.

I was curious if any tilders play older versions of Minecraft?
What draws you to that particular version?
Do you play the current release version of Minecraft at all?

Also, anything older Minecraft you felt like sharing, please do. I've been watching some older Minecraft videos on Youtube in my second monitor while I work today.

Edit: I wanted to add this here since I found this out after posting. It turns out that Minecraft's Java edition has a demo mode, and the check for how long you've played the demo mode was added in release version 1.3. So I can go ahead and create a demo account and play the old versions for Free: https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Demo_Mode#Trivia
I do plan on buying the full game eventually, but this will definitely scratch the itch I've been having for a long time and I will look at installing that on my computer once I've tackled my big work items.

Edit 2: I found that you can use the Betacraft launcher to access these older versions as well. I wish I had found that previously as I spent a solid ~30 minutes fiddling with my Win 10 LTSC computer getting the Windows Store and other services installed and it still wasn't letting me properly launch the old Minecraft versions.

I've always made rice in a pot on the stove and that's served me very well but I also like to steam vegetables, dumplings (usually from frozen), and eat oats for breakfast. After a bit of research, I've determined that I'm in the market for a rice cooker, an appliance I have never owned and have 0 experience with. Like most kitchen gadgets, I find that the market is oversaturated with options and my attempts at research have led me to some wildly different conclusions. Do I stick with brands I know like Cuisinart or KitchenAid? Do I spring for the fancy Japanese brands? Or do I cheap out and then upgrade when the device burns out? How large of a volume do I need? Are the fancy steamer inserts worth it? What if I want to steam rice and veges in one go? And so on

For my personal use case, I make rice 3-4 times per week easily. I need to be able to make enough rice for 4-6 adults max in one sitting. I would like to make a decent amount of dumplings in one go, say enough to get 4-6 adults started while I steam a second round. I want to be capable of steaming veggies and making oats. I want it to have a removable insert for cleaning. I'd like it to be fairly easy to use. Are these common wishlist items for a rice cooker? I am really not sure

Beyond my use case, I'm interested in what people own and use. Do you use it often? Any regrets? What other foods can I make with this gadget?

Edit: I appreciate everyone who has weighed in so far. I did want to add that I prefer not to add an instant pot. Not to discount anyone's experience but I have had bad luck with them (I've had a pair that burned out in the warranty period, one on its first use) and already have a slow cooker and pressure cooker cooker I am very happy with. I know they're amazing and do all kinds of different things but I'm interested primarily in a rice cooker that can handle a few extra tasks