/hob/ - Hobbies

>>34675
Salut "magicien" (Je sais pas si on pourrais le dire comme ça), je parle Français aussi.

>>64162
on devrait dire «une wizoune»

Oui oui

i watched asterix and obelix in the middle kingdom last night and it was great. i appreciated all the puns (even when translated into english they were still great) and the prop comedy was good. there's a bunch of others, and they are based on an old french comic. i will probably watch the rest of the movies and then look into the comics

>>65426
i feel like i should note that i don't care at all about french language or culture, and maybe this is why i liked this so much. it glorified in a comedic way ancient france's origin as gaul, and made fun of modern french culture. most of the comedy was situational and via props and actions. it was just a good movie, but it was french so i felt like posting about it here. apparently the first movie in the series reignited french filmmaking and received so much attention and praise, so it seems to have become a cherished series over in france i think

Finally off my fantasy book kick.
This one is Pig. Short but good.

>>63776
Myanonymouse is a private torrent site, they have interviews a few days a week where they check you have read the rules. They have a lot of audiobooks if you want.

Looks like this is the last of the early magic the gathering books that have any sort of audio book version. Pain in the butt to find digital copies for the other ice age books, so I might just have to be satisfied with plot summaries and skip a huge chunk until I get back to fan audios again.

Even the physical books beyond this point are rare and expensive.


Oh, and as a brief book review, The Gathering Dark was pretty good in my opinion. I enjoyed it more than both The Brothers War and The Thran.

>>63776
I personally have a library card at my local library and then get audiobooks via the Libby app. Not ideal as I don't get to keep them, but it gets the job done.

>>63776 You began this, but since I'm so sharing and caring, I'll share my scripts for dealing with audiobook, be it searching and downloading, or creating.

For files and plaintext from stdin, I use this script[1]. It's mostly commented. It expected voices [2,3] or the built-in kal16 in certain places (since the files are newer than what comes in my distribution's repository).

For searching audiobookbay I used [4] and for adding torrent therefrom [5].

Afterwards listen from whatever media player at whatever speed. Reading alongside from a pager or ebook reader, physical or digital, facilitates comprehension. I just like low voices.

I give y'all permission to use and or edit these. Save, shit expires in 30 days.

[1] https://termbin.com/ogo9
[2] https://www.festvox.org/flite/packed/flite-2.1/voices/cmu_us_fem.flitevox
[3] https://www.festvox.org/flite/packed/flite-2.1/voices/cmu_us_slt.flitevox
[4] https://termbin.com/4j5o
[5] https://termbin.com/s32d

>>61086
Very cool.
What condition is it in?

Just a very cool video about the history of money in America.

>>61344
that guy is cool and knowledgable and makes colonial america seem interesting with every video

>>58298
It's been over a year since I wrote this post and I still haven't gotten a new job and still haven't restarted this fun hobby yet.

I remember in 2019 and 2020 I enjoyed getting brand new quarter rolls, because some of the new ones had the West Point W mint mark, rather than the P or D mark. I had relatively good luck finding at least one for every handful of new quarters.

In 2021 I probably could have found more if I had kept up with the hobby. Now in 2022 I haven't encountered a single one. I regret not coin roll hunting these past two years, I could have built a good collection of those W quarters (which I think can sell for $5-10 on Ebay a pop, depending on their condition).

I mentioned in my previous post that I liked collecting paper currency with interesting serial numbers. Well I went broke recently and finally had to spend these bills. I should have tried to at least sell them on Ebay. But the same depression/anxiety combo that prevented me from keeping my job and going to banks for coin rolls also prevented me from even bothering to try. And the fact that I no longer have those neat bills makes me hate myself even more. I had a $10 with a number 01000010, a $1 with number 66606660, and a $20 with number 45454455, among others. And a couple dozen rare star notes. Now they're all gone because I'm a lazy, mentally ill retard.

>>63131
I've spent every single wheat penny, every silver quarter, every silver dime, even the neat silver proof quarter I had. Spent that one on ice cream for my mom.

The last cool coin I had was a 1885-S Morgan dollar coin. A few weeks ago I pawned it for $20 which I then spent on an ounce of kratom and a benzedrex inhaler and a Coke.

I only bump this thread in the hopes that maybe I'll eventually be inspired to fix my life, and then reignite my interest in coins, and then as I rebuild my collection I'll actively post in this thread and get other people interested as well.
But I'm much more likely to kill myself before anything like that ever comes close to happening.

This was the best hobby I ever had and the only silver lining is that it wouldn't technically be THAT hard for me to rebuild my collection. Given enough time, I could get 95% of it through coin roll hunting and would have fun doing it. I could use my electronic microscope and upload closeups of neat coins and show differences between things like, 1982 small date and large date pennies.
But I'll never do anything ever. Never have never will.

>>65411
Thanks anon, I needed to hear that. Last night I deleted the episodes like an idiot and had to redownload again this morning after waking up. I'll stick to it this time. Are there other shows you like not on >>65371 that is sci-fi or space themed? I'm trying to build a small list of shows to binge for escapism.

>It was the dawn of the third age of mankind, ten years after the Earth/Minbari war. The Babylon Project was a dream given form. Its goal: to prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call, home away from home for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers. Humans and aliens wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night. It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace. This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.

I just started watching Babylon 5 and I like looking back after a while and reading my impressions of a show I'm watching for the first time. I figure this might be interesting for others to read as well and maybe it will even get you into watching it too, so I'll be reviewing every episode for now, let's see how far I get.

The first thing I want to say is that Babylon 5 is definitely not science fiction, but a space opera. There's enough magic in the first 5 episodes to be in equal standing to a D&D session and there's no particular effort to technobabble through any of the science of what we see and no real effort to clarify any of the technology involved to build the space station, the space ships, weapons, medical tools or how all aliens can breathe and live in the same space as humans or any other technicality, really. A science fiction show would love to explain those things to you, but no Babylon 5. The focus here are the political and ethical intricacies that entails having this space station filled with diplomats from different places and with different goals. It's also very theatrical and over the top at times, as one can safely assume by looking at the alien called Londo >>65412, believe or not that's an alien, a Centauri, if he appears like a farcical version of a bubbly Italian type from some XIX century opera that's just your impression, I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

For the first 2 episodes I'll do a quick review on this post and then I'll try longer reviews for the third episode on. The first episode Midnight on the Firing Line is pretty much just an introduction of the main characters, let's go to them one by one.

Sinclair is the commander and the person inPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

This post contains spoilers.

I confess episode 3, Born to the Purple, is the one that made me want to quit the show prematurely. It's this tale about old Londo falling in love with a young slave succubus. She pretends to love him but is actually trying to fetch some secret information from his computer in order to purchase her freedom and get rid of her master, Trakis. To be brutally honest I just didn't care at all about the slave (called Adira) trying to start a new life as a free succubus. We're inside a space station supposedly filled with strange alien life everywhere and this is the story you want to tell? I almost quit.

The only fun part of this episode is the apparently unending incompetence of Londo as a head of state. Honestly I wouldn't trust this guy to sell gum, much less deal in interplanetary politics. Fortunately Sinclair is there and he helps Londo to retrieve the sensitive data (a file containing dirt on Centauri powerful families, enough to destabilize the Centauri republic) and at the same time they manage to arrest Trakis and free Adira, who apparently really like Londo, just not enough to stay with him. She boards back to her home planet the minute she has the chance. Oh well, I'm sure he can find another baldy bimbo somewhere.

The B plot is there to expose more of Ivanova's tragic past. On episode 1 it's revealed her mom was a telepath just like Talia but she didn't want to register with the telepath club. That left her with two choices: telepath castration in the form of injections or prison. Ivanova's mom chooses the injections but that fucks her mind so badly she ends up committing suicide. And that's why Ivanova doesn't like telepaths (something hinted at on the first episode.)

Not happy with just one tragedy for Ivanova, we also have the fact her dad is now dying after a lifetime of not giving a shit about his own daughter. Actually he loves her but because Ivanova decided to follow a military career, something he's against, their relationship got strained. So Ivanova is making these illegal phone calls to earth in order to patch things up with her dad. Why she can't just contact him legally is a mystery. Poor Garibaldi on this episode is just running back and forth trying to discover who's making the illegal use of the network just to find out it's Ivanova all along. He listens to the conversation and decides to let it slide because he's a bit of an idiot that can't think properly when the isPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

This post contains spoilers for Babylon 5 season 1 episode 4.

It's a good thing this episode was a monster of the week type of thing. Here Sinclair gets to flex his morals a bit (racial supremacy is bad m'kay?) as well as showing some heroism. This was also the opportunity to show a little bit more of Dr. Franklin and his idiocy.

The whole thing begins when Dr. Franklin gets a visit from old friend and mentor, xenoarcheologist Dr. Hendricks. He wants Franklin's help to analyze hi-tech organic artifacts he found on a dead world. I just copied that sentence from the Babylon 5 wiki, it's easier that way. Anyway it turns out the artifacts are actual biological weapons that target any race without the specific DNA of its builders. Turns out they make a mistake and their bio weapon ends up killing everyone, including the ones they were suppose to protect.

This bio weapon is like a armor that binds itself with a host and then becomes a frightning and cool looking super soldier monster. It's up to Sinclair and Garibaldi to stop it from destroying Babylon 5 and, surprise surprise, they manage to do it. This is a fast paced, fun episode that has enough technobabble, fantasy, action and mystery and a very welcome palat cleanser from Londo and the baldy slave from last episode.

The reason I mentioned Dr. Franklin is an idiot is because of the comments he makes when talking to Dr. Hendricks. He's against Hendricks going around finding invaluable alien technology in other planets because he feels it's A WASTE OF TIME DOING SO when they should instead be working to come up with their own tech. How much of an idiot can you be to actually believe that? He's basically suggesting humans should waste time reinventing the wheel instead of learning from other more advanced aliens. What a god damned moronic statement that was. Besides, that's the whole point of the Babylon space station, so humans can learn from aliens. Jesus Christ, Franklin is an imbecile.

On a side note, many of the negative reviews I read on IMDB and elsewhere regarding Babylon 5 talks about the shitty special effects and bad CGI but I have to tell I find this show very good looking. I like the CGI and also the effects. The monster here looks pretty cool, too.

In order to not flood this thread I'll be posting 3 reviews at a time starting next episode.

This review contains spoilers for the episode The Parliament of Dream (S01E05)

In this episode, The Parliament of Dream, we witness a weeklong festival when humans and aliens demonstrate their religious beliefs on board of Babylon 5. Surprisingly (maybe not for the fans of the series that know better but it was surprising to me), the show doesn't really care at all about this opportunity to better flesh out the cultures of the various aliens races living in the station but instead use it as a background event for an attempt assassination on the life of ambassador G'Kar, Londo's rival.

Actually this assessment is not entirely fair because the episode is in fact an attempt to better flesh out G'Kar, the Narn ambassador, giving him some background story. Since G'Kar is a high rank politician, he has many enemies, one of them hates him so bad that on his deathbed he gave all his belongings to an assassin guild that promises to kill G'Kar. The agent he sends to Babylon 5 fails. The end. There's not much to see here, really, so far G'Kar is not that different from Londo: Over the top, silly, maybe not all that fit for his position. Granted, he's much more competent than Londo, he can actually show up on time and has a little more organized lifestyle but that's about it.

In the B plot, the only religious ceremony we see is that of the Minbari. They hit some drums and eat a cherry tomato. On the C plot we have Sinclair going out with his former girlfriend. Garibaldi is pretty much useless here going back and forth trying to find the assassin but he never gets anywhere. It's up to G'Kar and Na'Toth, G'Kar assistant, to get the job done. Overall an OK outing.

-

This review contains spoilers for the episode Mind War (S01E06)

This is a very good one as we get some grit of what the hell is actually going on back on Earth and it's not looking good.

As if Ivanova's tragic backstory with the Psi Corps wasn't enough of a sign, with this episode it seems clear the telepath club is bad news. They've been doing all sorts of experiments in order to increase their psychic powers and there's basically no one there to interfere or supervise their operations. How could there be? They can read your mind. Ivanova's comment "Who watches the watchers" sums the theme for this outing pretty well.

The main plot here is about one of Talia's professors, Ironheart, who has been the subject of some very successful experiPost too long. Click here to view the full text.

>>64340
have you never lived as a criminal? simply say you have nothing to say. or lie.

>>64340
and if you havent lived as a criminal i highly suggest it for your retreat. if you can do your practice as a layperson, can you do it in austere conditions?

Enlightenment is the problem, get rid of enlightenment and regain the way.

This topic was brought up in some book I was reading what are some of the best books on applying mindfulness preferable not to be mostly filler ?

Thanks for posting this, OP. There are some pretty good passages in there. Did you write the Afterword?

>>65167
Sorry, I don't like posting personal stuff online. Besides, my garden is a mess at the moment from building new boxes.

>>65168
I'm going to throw grass on the potato containers to keep down the weeds there, but the other beds have weed fabric down so they should need any weeding.

>>65173
I have a greenhouse, but again, it's currently a mess and I'm not using it for anything except seedlings this year. The containers I am building are going to have long poles at the corners so I can just throw a net over it to hopefully stop birds and insects. I looked into hydroponics a few years ago and like you said, it just looks like more effort than its worth.

>>65238
Window boxes are a great way to start small. I have salad leaves and herbs growing from mine.

>>65166
List of the best agrochemicals for the garden

-Diatomaceous earth, for example, is a broad spectrum product that is extremely effective against ants, worms, slugs, mites, among others, but most importantly it is very cheap. It is also relatively easy to obtain, the problem is that it is mixed with other compounds, which although they are still non-toxic, much more would have to be added. For example, for my pea crop I used less than a kilo. Just look at the costs of some poison for worms, some poison for ants, cockroaches, fleas, among others, and what's more, all these poisons can kill you, or the poor devil who fumigates, it will also be very expensive . Due to its minerals and the ph it has, it is also effective against fungi, but not so much.



-Copper oxychloride is also very effective, and cheap, technically it does not kill the fungus, but rather prevents the spores from reproducing, so if you apply it to the soil, and to the plants, you will not have any problem. Technically it is not organic, but it is not toxic.



-Deltamethrin: It is technically a synthetic pyrethrin that works against aphids, it is also very effective, and very cheap. It is not technically organic either, but in any case it also comes with natural pyrethrin but it is a little more expensive.

Alternatives to pyrethrin (Garlic pudding, tobacco tea, and anti-aphid cloth) These alternatives are either less effective but cheaper, or more effective and much more expensive, but they work if you have a greenhouse or plants at home.



-Plastic: Plastic ends up being cheaper than using fungicides, since it has an average life of about 5 years, some plastics can also be recycled.

>>65247
DE is basically caltrops for insects, it stabs them all over and they 'bleed out', or so i understand. it doesn't affect soft tissue like our skin though and shouldn't affect worms or slugs

>>65248
The diatom attacks the pores, it also hurts the insect, and in 8 hours they are already dead.

ate my first turnip ever

it was a round purple top variety, looked really cool. was easy to pull out. also had a ton of leaves. fed the leaves to the guinea pigs but they didn't seen to care for it. i will try the leaves next time, apparently they taste kind of like the turnip

i washed it off with the garden hose and then microwaved it and sprinkled some salt on it. it's kind of like a carrot and potato. but more creamy texture and not as starchy of mushy. also has a neat radish spicy flavor that isn't strong or overpowering

awesome plant to grow, had no problems whatsoever. at some point last winter i just threw seeds all around, and come spring they germinated and grew on their own all over. i am turnip pilled now, and i want to try all kinds of varieties

Look at hobby videos on youtube and see if it anything stimulates the old neurons. There's different aspects of a hobby that you might enjoy, but I think the universal thing is wanting to improve and progress deeper into that hobby. Don't be afraid to switch it up when it gets boring, then come back to it later.

I got into language learning recently. Researching how to learn a language most effectively, progressing in vocab, grammar, finding material to read and media to watch. When you get bored, you switch to another language. You can dabble in it with various apps or you can be serious and spend several hours on it daily or even immerse 24/7.

Essentially, just shop around and find something that gets you excited about progressing in it. You have to care about it in order to derive any enjoyment out of it.

1. it's over
2. cope

Try to keep similar topics to one thread

>>>/hob/64758

>>65251
I never thought of making an information blog it’s a good idea though thanks anon

>>65387
The truth lies inbetween the two extremes. As far as I know there are genuine confessions from people that were present at the facility but also there are countless exaggerated stories from Chinese people that want to paint the Japanese as inhuman monsters. There really is nothing beautiful about war and if you look at World War 2 it is nothing compared to warfare that humanity has engaged in for over 4000 years. War was way more brutal during ancient times.

Been watching Kubrick movies lately, started with Clockwork Orange and then saw Barry Lyndon. Will watch 2001 soon. I have seen other Kubrick movies in the past (The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut and Full Metal Jacket. I was thinking on doing a written review of each movie just for fun but I'm too lazy for that. For me, Barry Lyndon is his best movie from what I have seen so far, the only flaw being the actor playing the main character who is a lifeless retard.

>>65409
I mostly sage'd because my comment wasn't very constructive. I don't disagree with anything else you've said, but I just immediately have to question validity when it's something called a "semi-doc" and has a Chinese director. I certainly don't believe that Axis powers didn't do anything that would constitute a war crime, but there is certainly an overtly demonizing aspect when losers are regarded. People justify the nuclear bombs all the time, yet American military brass considered them unnecessary.

Obviously, we also know a lot of the holocaust stories are just as ridiculous. It's not to say Germans didn't do anything wrong at all, but the level of malice was probably overstated, and the amount and severity of torture probably even more so.

Could you give me some more in-depth review of Men Behind the Sun? I'm interested in the subject, but I just don't want to waste time if it's too propagandized.

Also, looks like a new movie thread is needed.

>>65420
To be as concise as possible: the movie is a portrayal of cold hearted bureaucratic leadership that affects young soldiers at the facility negatively. All sense of humanity is removed and you're left with a gore splattered nightmare that shows the true face of war. That's the movie in itself but you can, of course, question the severity of the content.

COFFEE IS THE BEST. REEEEEEEEEEEE

>>65330
Me too, I can't imagine a day without coffee

>>65330
>hey anonymous

Back to 4chan

I love Moroccan mint tea, drink it weekly with some biscuits. Delicious!

>>65368
should share some pics with us next time!

>>63744
I really like this one, very comfy to look at.

>>65362
No, you defeatist AI-Shill. People pay for commissions because they enjoy the prospect of someone (a living human bean) making them a personalized product. The fact that you have any faith in diffusion being able to consistently and efficiently produce art that people would pay for is a sign that you probably can't tell the difference between HIGH and ULTRA HIGH graphics settings.

>>65364
Most of the stuff these illustrators do can be done by AI already wether they like it or not. AI can draw furry porn just as effectively by now and it will only improve.

>>65366
I'll type again: If you think what AI does now is "just as effectively" as what humans are doing, then you are incapable seeing art for more than just very basic shapes and colors. it's not even like furry porn is nuanced with subtle elements that make it what it is, no, it's rather that AI is so haphazardly bad at doing anything beyond forming vague representations of what it's told to make that nobody who has any interest in art has reason to give it a second glance.

You have aphantasia and can't asymmetrical bicep curl 35x20.

>>65367
Lol your hostility shows that it must be true that AI will replace most of these commission illustrators because it keeps on improving and the time will come when most people rather pay a monthly fee for a good AI that does things faster and more effectively than buying single commissions from some guy. I'm don't mean all artists but I'm talking about the type of commission artists who all do the same looking stuff, they will get replaced fast.