I'm a hobby chess player. I play on Lichess. And whenever I find the time, I love watching live tournaments. But I have a recurring issue: the moment I start watching, I inevitably end up rooting for one of the players. It feels almost compulsive.

The thing is, my bias isn't even consistent. It shifts based on the format, the tournament context, off-board drama, and sometimes just pure whims. Here are some specific examples from my own viewing habits:

Format matters: When it's Gukesh vs. Nihal, I root for Gukesh in classical time controls, but I switch sides completely and root for Nihal in bullet.

Leaderboard dynamics: When it's Gukesh vs. Pragg, my support entirely depends on the standings:

• If one of them is already mathematically out of title contention, I root for the one still fighting for the top spot.
• If they are right next to each other on the leaderboard, I root for the guy in second place (the chaser).
• If one is at the absolute top and uncatchable, I'll root for the other guy, even if he's not even on the leaderboard.
• If they are tied neck-and-neck on the leaderboard, I genuinely don't care about the result and just watch neutrally.

Controversy and personality override nationality: Despite being my fellow countrymen, Vidit and Samay have never been my favorites. In fact, I actively root against them. This is purely due to off-board reasons Vidit's public spat with the Liver Doc and Samay's insensitive jokes in his shows have completely turned me off.

This bias creeps in through identity, personality, context and sometimes just a completely irrational subconscious pull, like instinctively rooting for Gukesh against one opponent and then rooting for that same opponent against someone else.

The consequence is pretty frustrating. When the player I'm rooting for loses, I genuinely struggle to accept the outcome. Sometimes, it even ruins my mood for a while. This emotional toll has gotten so bad that I've completely stopped watching live chess for the past six months.

My question to you: Have you ever experienced this kind of shifting, irrational emotional bias while watching live games? How do you personally deal with it? Is it even possible to remain completely neutral as a spectator? And if bias does creep in, do you have any mental tricks or mindset shifts that help you accept a loss gracefully?

I really miss watching chess live, but I don't want to keep putting myself through this stress. I'd love to hear your experiences and advice.

(translated with help of AI)

I got a Medusa tattoo over the weekend and I'm tryna come up with names for the 4 cute lil viper gals that now inhabit my arm.

Edit: here's a pic. Art and tat done by Maura at Nice Ink in Canonsburg, Pa

For example [vaguely]: writer creates a character who behaves like X, despite nobody actually behaving like X in real life. Then characters behaving like X become a wide-ranging trope. People in the real world begin to think it’s normal to behave like X, and subsequently start actually behaving like X themselves.

Any actual examples of this phenomenon happening?

If so, why do you want them / how do you like it?

I hope this can be more of a wholesome post about cute stories, instead of more dooming and glooming.

I need some good news to lift my otherwise shitty situation. What was the last thing that brought you to tears from happiness?

Yesterday it kinda hit me that the feed left a lot more "reddit-y" suddenly. More american politics for one.

There is a also aspecific thing that alerted me: Sudden appearance of this pattern plagueing reddit where a post about some bad muslim person escalates into edgy atheism which is also kinda racist and lowkey fascist in a very specific way.

I don't have a lot of empiric evidence, just the vibe seems to have shifted.

Hindsight is 20/20 and I realize this probably wasn't the best idea to begin with....

(Scott Kirkland, if you were wondering..)

I had a dream recently where I was guiding a civilisation over multiple thousands of years. Att the end of the dream when they had finally overcome their problems, one of them said to me 'being a person, when really you're just a blob of goo, is the most profound thing you could ever do.'

And it hit me so hard. All I am is a bunch of cells held together in a skin bag. And yet I'm a person with feelings and experiences and desires. And I did that, I live it. It makes us all so valuable.

Have your dreams ever had effects on you like that?

In the past week I've been absolutely roasted for criticising two different countries. Normally I'd be okay with that, I can handle a mild toasting and after all debate is a good thing.

On both occasions though I was flamed for mentioning human rights issues that are established facts and have been known for many, many years. I was critical of the actions/laws of their governments and not the people, their race, religion, general political ideology or nationality.

On both occasions I was bombarded by long posts that parroted propaganda, and in the case of one country I was told (on multiple occasions) that I was ignorant, racist and even fascist for mentioning the issues I did. I'm not complaining about how I was treated, but as a reminder, I was discussing internationally-recognised human rights concerns that can be verified and based in fact.

I could just be paranoid but I'm fairly convinced the responses weren't from patriotic citizens. I think they were paid trolls or bots, and I think their purpose was to quiet negative talking points about the countries that were mentioned.

Has anyone else had a similar experience?

If you would like additional framing: you have only 30 seconds to prepare and you can talk for 10-30 minutes.

so, most people don't have any clue of scales involved with economy at large. let's play a game:

without looking it up, give estimates for the following:

• how many kg of concrete / steel are being produced per person per year (worldwide average)
• how many kg of cereals per person per year
• how many kWh of energy per person per year

• ---

• what’s the average population density for rural areas / cities?

So I'm watching a movie, im 37 in September ( BS 2013, Still feel meh), but damn it seems like every movie is teens or "other genre" like horror (still focused around young audience or w.e So I want to ask, if you could play one moment , one spaghetti of your life over, what's that fuck up.... Or leave it in _____ and tell us what you wish you did instead

How long will it take for the moon to drift far enough away from earth that the lunar month extends by a day? Or two days?

@asklemmy

Working on a worldbuilding project for a dnd campaign, and want to subtly hint that its super far into the future with the lunar calendar. If you also know of any websites that can generate star charts of what the night sky will look like in millions of years, that would also be great.

Do you ever catch yourself reacting to things the exact way your parents did, even when you don't want to?

I've noticed impatience and snapping at small stuff in myself lately, and it lines up with patterns I grew up around. Knowing where it came from hasn't been enough to actually stop it in the moment.

How did you actually change an inherited reaction pattern, not just understand it, but genuinely respond differently next time?

Seriously, I keep waiting for that 'Triumph the Comic Insult Dog' moment to kick in, where he explains that the whole thing was a joke in bad taste, you know..?

"For me to poop on!"
But no, that context is seemingly lacking, wtf?

I'm honestly baffled, here. Jim Jefferies is normally GOLD in everything he touches, but... *&$@# is this anti-woman shizzle?

I MUST be missing the joke, right? Right..?

For a good yawn I need to really open my mouth and push/strain my jaw muscles. If that doesnt happen, then the yawn feels incomplete to my body and it happens again and again till it works "right"

What is the reason/body function behind that?

To be honest, I would like to find something like this: the world is ruled by a small group of people living in paradise without denying themselves anything, the world's population is small, robots work everywhere instead of people, all entertainment content is done by AI, ordinary people live in poverty, often take cheap drugs to escape from reality.

I just want to look at our very likely future and how writers describe it. I want to get a taste of despair. It would be Ironic funny if the book was called something like: when hell looks like heaven.

About a year ago, I think I found a similar book, but I forgot the name.

EDIT: wow you rock!! woke up to a huge list lol thanks everyone I ll give everything a try

I need some more psy-trance, like old Infected Mushroom ("None of this is real", "Albibeno", "Red Filter!", "Dracul", "Astrix on Mushrooms"; not a big fan of their new stuff), because I keep listening to the same songs in a loop, as nothing comes close. I tried Astrix as they often do feat with IM, couple of good songs, but not as elaborate.

For example, I'd like to see a Lois Lane movie

Or maybe a tv series or comic book

And by immigrants I really mean immigrants: you don't have the nationality and live in the country = you're an immigrant.

I keep reading about the plans of parties to kick out all immigrants, stop letting in any, and some parties even advocate to revoke dual-nationalities and kick those people out too. I've never really understood what the point of it is and have trouble imagining what the effects of such actions would be within the country.

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/questions/p/1265973/is-this-photo-ai

This photo is currently the top post in the r/pics community on Reddit, with close to 50k upvotes.

I have my suspicions about the photo and wanted other people's opinions about it.

Is this AI?