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Something I've noticed after looking at the presidential election, is how sort of, let's say, divided the US is politically between city and countryside. It's a lot of blue dots and spots where the cities are while the countryside is very much more red.

It is a bit similar here in Sweden. But it is actually the opposite, the cities are (and are the only parts which are) blue (bourgoiose, right-wing) and the countryside is red (socialist, left-wing).

Yeah, that's pretty accurate for the US. Typically, being in large cities forces people to be exposed to other viewpoints (and forces them to get along with people who come from different origins), which tends to result in people leaning more left.

I don't know enough about Sweden and its demographics to say for certain, but I'm guessing that fact that Sweden has fewer large cities (and likely less immigration) than the US may play a difference.

So uh...

Medical problems blew up in my face and life became REALLY difficult (on top of an overcrowded semester). But, I learned that the issue is actually something I've been dealing with since I was a baby (according to my grandmother), and the most recent case was just a really, really bad flare-up. But now that I'm (mostly) out of the woods from this most recent incident, it's caused me to think a lot about the chronic medical problems I deal with and have done so since I was a baby. ADHD (undiagnosed properly, but it's there and I can give a lot of points to back me up on this if people are curious), food allergies and this other issue that, for the sake of being a decent human, I will not bring up on an online forum X')

So I've been doing some research into the three issues, and there's apparently a ton of literature on them and their interactions (though there is a notable dearth in addressing all 3 at once, which is understandable, that's very difficult to pull off properly without solid knowledge of the underlying interactions). But, there's no... definitive cause that has been able to be named? It sucks bc I'm in the middle of a PhD and I don't really have a ton of time to research this, but I really want to look into some self-experimentation that I can do to try and see if, somehow, there's an environmental factor (like a deficiency or presence of something bad) that is bringing the three of these issues together. Thinking about documenting my journey as well, since I know that these three problems are rather common, and this would be a documented process of "doing science" as it happens, and on myself as the guinea pig.

Anyway, health scare over, now I have the slightly less significant scare of being thoroughly behind on my work, which is going to be incredibly harmful and in-the-way for my returning to a normal, healthy life. Yayyyyyyyyyyy.

Sorry to hear that you're dealing with chronic medical problems I know they aren't often taken as seriously as more immediate, severe problems and don't always have a clear diagnosis (especially if they're autoimmune diseases) and treatment plan.

I think documenting what you're dealing with, both for the aid of yourself and others, is a good idea. Keeping track of how things develop over time and what steps work best to manage it is definitely helpful information to keep track of.

A couple months ago I listened to Red Wine Supernova by Chappell Roan because a lot of my friends seemed to really like the song and I wasn't impressed. Yesterday I decided to to give her music another chance and listened to Hot to Go and actually enjoyed it; it's a pretty nice song overall. Sounds almost like a cross between Mickey and Material Girl, in a good way. After that I decided to listen to the rest of the album it's from (The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess) and my conclusion is that it's a'ight, probably like a 7/10 album imo. Aside from the last two songs and Hot to Go I don't think there are any songs on the album that will end up being especially memorable to me. I wish more pop music sounded like this though. It's a nice chance of pace compared to most stuff nowadays.

I quit liking things entirely by 2012.

I've only recently started having more of an appreciation for modern artists. I've always been a fan of Freezepop ever since I played Frequency, but some other modern artists I like are Des Rocs, Kings Elliot, Poppy, and I Dont Know How But They Found Me (thanks Gadd! ).

Y saw this. I guess instead of mus-files we could use xml files. Maybe?

That's mentioned in the post. There are some issues with using exclusively MusicXML files, but we'll likely be adding for support for them in addition to a native file (e.g. the mus equivalent for other notation software).

Oh I've no interest in speedrunning much of anything I was at one point, looking to 100% speedrun Wario Land: Shake It! for the world record, but the amount of time it'd take to learn the lines... I just don't have it anymore. That said, I do manage to find one track in every Mario Kart game since 7 to get really good at and get within 7ish seconds of the WR with my acceleration-heavy setup (7: MK7 Rainbow Road | 8: Mute City @ 200cc | 8BCP: MKWii Rainbow Road @ 200cc). But even then, I don't have the time needed to get consistently good at any of it. :') But that's okay! Priorities and whatnot.

Yeah, actual speedrunning takes a lot of patience and skill. Though it is fun to try and play familiar games quickly.

Makes you wonder if the devs ran out of time/grew impatient, or if it's more so an intentional move for some reason? No earthly idea, just spitballing there.

The studio was definitely on the smaller side, and I think they broke up back in 2016 (and then one of the founders died, from what I can tell). Shame, because it seems like most if not all of their games were solid.

Which makes one wonder... does a minimalistic Metroidvania exist? What would one even look like?

Metroid II is pretty minimalistic, I'd say. There isn't a lot of backtracking and most of the path you take along the game is a straight path through the map.


In my endeavor to clear out my Steam (and soon to be GOG) backlog, I played Shadows of Adam!!! Compared to a lot of the RPGs I've played recently, this one definitely feels more traditional—basically the only "modern" mechanic is the presence of static overworld encounters instead of random encounters. Overall it's a solid game that gets better the longer the game goes on, but at around 16-20 hours to 100% the game and DLC I definitely feel it could be a longer game. Most of the overworld (before you get the airship right before the final dungeon) is essentially a straight line, and there aren't a lot of true side quests or optional dungeons before the endgame. Speaking of which, some of the endgame quests also lack direction (i.e. you don't really know how to find and trigger the quests unless you already know what you're looking for). The most difficult boss in the DLC (which took me like 50 minutes to beat, no joke) rewards you with a lot of OP gear, but by that point in the game you don't really have anything else to use it on (except for the main story's final boss, who is relatively easy compared to the DLC superboss). I kinda feel like there should've been another random superboss or two just chilling randomly around the map.

Some other minor annoyances:
- Your characters don't gain XP when they're dead, which is especially annoying for boss fights.
- Most special abilities use AP. Every character has an ability that restores AP, but it doesn't take effect until the very end of the turn or start of next turn, so if one of your other characters scores a lucky crit and knocks out all the enemies in one hit, your characters just don't gain the AP you expected them to, which makes it difficult to set yourself up for the next battle.
- Cutscenes aren't skippable.

Would maybe give the game an 8.2/10.

:thonk: That is certainly an interesting strategy, but I gotta counter; maybe the songs you feel are forgettable could resound deeply with someone else? While not in a double album, I personally find "The Trick" by AJR to be pretty... blech. But I've seen people posting thoughts on the internet that they actually resonate pretty hard with the song and that it has gotten them through difficult stuff. Do you have any specific examples you're referring to?

It's been a general thought for a while now, but the album that specifically prompted me to post this was Blue Moves by Elton John. I feel like there's a really solid single album in there, but most of the songs feel like filler. Contemporary and modern reviews of the album tend to feel similarly, from what I've seen.

[In]

In.

Also, remember to edit the title to make it clear that this is the player sign-ups!!

Well, I did bring y'all a win, just probably not in the way you were expecting. If the game started a day earlier or later, it probably would have been better, but my inability to be fully present EoD1 caused my thread position to fall apart. Still, I was able to help push the last surviving wolf into the towncore in my final moments, which payed off in the end as they were able to win the F3 without being voted. Didn't advance, but that's probably expected, but I at least kept up this site's 100% wolf winrate in champs (with a sample size of only two, but still)

I didn't follow this game as closely as your first game, but I was definitely expecting either Steex or SK to be your wolf partner after town confidently cleared both of them. Felt too good to be true.

Congrats on a wolf win!!!

At this point, we should just get the game running. A less-than-optimally-balanced game is preferable to this forum dying for whoever knows how long

Agree. I was planning to write up a revised version of the game as a suggestion, but my time has been pulled in a bunch of different directions recently. I apologize for not pushing any forward momentum.

@Nana1Popo2 You can go ahead and put up player sign-ups!

[4. The Grandfather Paradox]

4. The Grandfather Paradox

I've often considered writing a story that's basically all dialogue, perhaps even taking it a step further so that the reader only sees one side of the conversation It's certainly a challenge to limit yourself to just dialogue.

Finale has been discontinued, you are no longer able to purchase it from MakeMusic, and will only be supported for a year from today, after which it will be impossible to install on devices, even with a license.

As someone who does not make compositions, I'm curious whether proposed alternatives (recreations of Finale in Musescore), are comprehensive enough at this point to fully replace Finale for the purposes of this site?

We've been talking about this in the Discord server since the news dropped this morning. On the staff side of things, we're still working out the exact details (and hope to have more news soon!!!), but the tentative announcement is that we'll try to be software-agnostic while also trying to maintain visual consistency with the sheets as much as possible. The Finale announcement is basically expediting changes we were already planning to work out in the distant future. User input is always appreciated.

For the time being, though, we're still using Finale for sheets.

whegg

This is more of a general music opinion (inspired by music I'm currently listening to), but if you're an artist that publishes a double album, then every song on the album better be worth it. It's kinda weird to have a double album where half the songs are pretty forgettable, almost like the artist is trying to pad out the release with songs they know probably wouldn't be able to stand alone. At that point I'd rather the artist just cut out half the songs and have a single album where all the tracks are solid.