• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
    1. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of October 28

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

      This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      24 votes
    2. The case for left-handed representation in gaming

      Hi and hello all and fellow southpaws, With the increasing option to pick from genders between characters (unless heavily tied into story and designed that way) it feels like the next option would...

      Hi and hello all and fellow southpaws,

      With the increasing option to pick from genders between characters (unless heavily tied into story and designed that way) it feels like the next option would be to have left-handedness become an option.
      As a lefty I always felt a little "left" out (pardon the pun) in games as soon as I saw a gun or weapon being held in the "wrong" hand.

      I know CS2 makes the option available if you dig a little, which is a great start.

      So my question is, do you know of any other games that deserve a call out for already having this? Games that might need this (character fantasy) or just a shout out in support of the idea, feel free to discuss below.

      Cheers!

      17 votes
    3. Vegan recipe log

      Hi all. I cook as often as I can and thought it might be fun to chat about any recipes you’ve tried or would like to try! I’m vegan so anything I post in this thread will be too. Maybe even share...

      Hi all. I cook as often as I can and thought it might be fun to chat about any recipes you’ve tried or would like to try! I’m vegan so anything I post in this thread will be too. Maybe even share snacks or restaurants that are you’ve tried that you’ve liked!

      To start is a simple sauce/stir fry recipe I make when I’m pretty tired after a long day:

      Spicy salty sweet sauce:

      1-2 tbsp gochugaru
      1 tbsp white or black rice vinegar
      1 tbsp mirin
      1 tbsp soy sauce
      1 tbsp agave or maple syrup
      1 tsp corn starch

      I usually put all of the ingredients together except for the corn starch and then set aside as I do the rest of the prep.

      The rest of the recipe is a bit more variable as I have certain ingredients but looks like this:

      1 cup cooked white rice OR hand pulled noodles

      Noodle recipe:
      250g all purpose flour
      125 ml water
      1/4-1/2 tsp salt
      Canola oil

      I add the flour, water, and salt to a bowl, mixing with my fingers. It starts to form pretty quickly into a mass. I knead the mass of dough into a ball until uniform. With the large, smooth dough ball I cut it into 8 pieces with a knife, roll them into a sort of prolate spheroid shape, and coat with canola oil. Put the oiled dough shapes into a bowl and cover with a damp towel. Let them rest for about an hour or so.

      Heat a pot of water. Flatten the dough pieces into rectangles with a rolling pin. Use the rolling pin (if it’s a thin one, otherwise I use large chopsticks), to press the dough lengthways to create a sort of seam. Hold each end of the dough and slowly pull to stretch. Slap on counter as you pull a few times. Stretch it as long or short as you’d like. On the seam you made with the rolling pin, split the noodle apart so that the noodle is now a large loop. Put into the boiling water and wait roughly a minute /or until it’s floating. Can cook a few noodles at a time, though I usually do one or two and roll/pull while they boil.

      With the noodles or rice done or going and the sauce almost ready, start to chop vegetables, maybe a cup or so of 2-3 types. I like Napa cabbage, squash, green onions, bell pepper, and carrots but really get whatever you’d like or have on hand at the time. Sauté the vegetables in a tbsp or so of oil (I use canola or olive), starting with onions/garlic and then adding others as you see fit. Once the vegetables are done to your liking, add the noodles or rice, then the sauce (adding in the corn starch to the sauce at this point) and stir.

      Often I’ll actually fry a half block or block of tofu I’ve cubed before adding vegetables into the oil. I usually do this as the noodles (or if I’m doing a pot of rice, as it begins to cook) are about done resting, maybe with 15-20 mins to go, since frying tofu can take awhile.

      I like to serve in bowls, topping with a dash of sesame oil, black sesame seeds, and fresh green onion.

      I’ll post more recipes in the thread as I make them but this is probably the most frequent thing I make in a given week. Feel free to share your own!

      28 votes
    4. Weekly Middle East war megathread - week of October 28

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant Middle East war content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant Middle East war content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

      Please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      11 votes
    5. Tildes Minecraft Survival Weekly

      Server host: tildes.nore.gg (Running Java 1.21.1) Dynmap: https://tildes.nore.gg Playtime Tracker: https://tildes.nore.gg/playtimes.html Tildes website extension (shows online status & location):...

      Server host: tildes.nore.gg (Running Java 1.21.1)
      Dynmap: https://tildes.nore.gg
      Playtime Tracker: https://tildes.nore.gg/playtimes.html
      Tildes website extension (shows online status & location): Firefox (Desktop and Android) - Chrome
      Verification site: https://verify.tildes.nore.gg
      Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TildesMC

      The server operates on a soft whitelist. Anyone can log in and walk around, but you need a Tildes account to gain build access.

      18 votes
    6. Cmake strategies or alternatives for building (different) code for different platforms

      Okay, so this is getting really long, I'll put the ask up front: I have a strategy, I think it is reasonable. Now is a point where I can easily change things, and it won't be so easily later. So...

      Okay, so this is getting really long, I'll put the ask up front: I have a strategy, I think it is reasonable. Now is a point where I can easily change things, and it won't be so easily later. So I'm looking to see if anyone has trod this road before and can recommend any of:

      1. a different build system that will be easier to manage for this use case
      2. a different strategy for using cmake that will be easier to manage
      3. any gotchas I should be aware of, even if you don't have better solutions.

      Background

      I have a project I'm working on where the ultimate deliverable will be a hardware device with 3-4 different microcontrollers coordinating with each other and interacting with a PC-ish platform. This is a clean rewrite of a C++ codebase. Due to the microcontroller (and some of the PC APIs) being C++, the language of choice for most of it is likely to remain C/C++.

      I'm succeeded in setting up a build system for embedded code. The old code was arduino, so it relies a lot on those libraries, but I've managed to set up enough custom cmake to get off of the ardunio tools altogether, even if I am borrowing their libraries and some of the "smarts" built into the system about setting build flags, etc. So far, I have a dockerized toolchain (cmake + make + gcc-arm-none-eabi) that can successfully build ARM binaries for the target platform.

      The thing that I'm up against now is that I'd like to have a robust off-target unit testing infrastructure. My ideal case is that everything in the embedded system will be broken down into libraries that have clear interfaces, then to use unit tests with mocks to get high coverage of test cases. I'll still need some HIL tests, but because those are harder to set up and run, I want to use those for integration and validation.

      In terms of OSes available, we're mostly working on Windows systems using WSL for linux. I'd like things to be as linux-based as possible to support CI on github, etc.

      Goals and Cmake limitations

      I started out using cmake because I hate it least of the tools I've used, and I am at least pretty far up the learning curve with it. But a limitation I'm hitting is that you can't do a mixed compile with two different toolchains in one build. The reasons why cmake has this limitation seem reasonable to me, even if it is annoying. You can easily change the toolchain that your code is built with, but that seems to be largely targeted at cross-compiling the same binaries for different systems. What I want to do is:

      • build my code libraries with embedded settings for linking to the embedded binaries and build those embedded binaries (the end product)
      • build my code libraries with linux-ish tools and link them against unit tests to have a nice CI test process
      • (eventually) also be able to build windows binaries for the PC components -- when I get to that point, I'd like to get away from the MSVC compilers, but will use them if I have to

      Current strategy

      My current plan is to configure a library build like this (pseudocode):

      add_library(mylib sources)
      if (BUILD_TYPE STREQUAL BUILD_TYPE_EMBEDDED)
      <embedded config>
      elseif (BUILD_TYPE STREQUAL BUILD_TYPE_LINUX)
      <linux config, if any>
      endif()
      
      #unit tests are built for each library
      if (BUILD_TYPE STREQUAL BUILD_TYPE_LINUX)
      add_executable(mylib_test sources test_sources)
      target_link_libraries(mylib gtest etc.)
      endif()
      

      For the rollup binaries, I make the whole target conditional

      if (BUILD_TYPE STREQUAL BUILD_TYPE_EMBEDDED)
      add_executable(myembedap sources)
      target_link_libraries(mylib)
      endif()
      

      Then the build script (outside cmake) is something like

      cd build/embedded
      cmake <path to src> <set embedded toolchain> -DBUILD_TYPE=embedded
      make
      cd ../../build/linux
      cmake <path to src> -DBUILD_TYPE=linux
      make
      

      Things I like about this strategy:

      • It's relatively simple to do all the builds or just one of the builds (that control would go in the shell script)
      • I have one source tree for the whole build
      • It lets configuration be near code
      • It lets tests be near code.
      • I think it's extensible to cover the PC component builds in the future

      Things that worry me:

      • It feels like a hack
      • Support for off-target tests feels like it should be solved problem and I'm worried I'm missing something

      Thanks for reading. If you made it this far, you have my gratitude. Here's a video with funny out of office messages that I enjoyed.

      6 votes
    7. Formula 1 Sao Paulo Grand Prix 2024 - Results

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      And Sao Paulo completes the triple-header!

      What a weekend. What a day. What a race! Rain, amiright? Gotta be the most expensive weekend all year, in terms of destruction.

      Congrats to Ocon, Gasly, and all of Alpine! P2 & P3, respectively. No one would've predicted that.

      As an RB fan, it's great to see Max back at P1 and extending his championship lead over Norris! The gap has increased to 62pts. Amazing drive, starting at P17 and finishing P1. Plus he kept banging out fastest lap after fastest lap at the front, even with the rain and wet track. Yeah he got lucky with the safety car and red flag, but even before that, he was on form.

      On the other side of the garage...Checo, WTH. Can't even pass your junior team's rookie driver? And then letting Hamilton through, as well? I'll just leave it at that.

      Props to all the mechanics and engineers for having to fix and rebuild all those cars that got destroyed in Qualifying this morning. Especially Williams. I think Albon's crash was the most disappointing for me. He was provisionally P2 with 3min left of Q3, and I was stoked that he might actually keep it. But then he spun out into the wall. I actually yelled out "NOOOOOOO!" when I saw it happen 😭

      Lastly, remember that there are potential penalties for Norris and a few others on the aborted start weirdness at the beginning.

      3 weeks until the next race; enjoy the break. REMEMBER: Vegas is a SATURDAY NIGHT race in the US. Adjust accordingly to your local time.

      Next race:

      Las Vegas Grand Prix
      Las Vegas Strip Circuit
      Saturday, November 24

      Provisional GRAND PRIX Results -- SPOILER
      Pos No Driver Car Laps Time/retired Pts
      1 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT 69 2:06:54.430 26
      2 31 Esteban Ocon Alpine Renault 69 +19.477s 18
      3 10 Pierre Gasly Alpine Renault 69 +22.532s 15
      4 63 George Russell Mercedes 69 +23.265s 12
      5 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 69 +30.177s 10
      6 4 Lando Norris McLaren Mercedes 69 +31.372s 8
      7 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB Honda RBPT 69 +42.056s 6
      8 81 Oscar Piastri McLaren Mercedes 69 +44.943s 4
      9 30 Liam Lawson RB Honda RBPT 69 +50.452s 2
      10 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 69 +50.753s 1
      11 11 Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT 69 +51.531s 0
      12 50 Oliver Bearman Haas Ferrari 69 +57.085s 0
      13 77 Valtteri Bottas Kick Sauber Ferrari 69 +63.588s 0
      14 14 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes 69 +78.049s 0
      15 24 Zhou Guanyu Kick Sauber Ferrari 69 +79.649s 0
      NC 55 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 38 DNF 0
      NC 43 Franco Colapinto Williams Mercedes 30 DNF 0
      NC 27 Nico Hulkenberg Haas Ferrari 30 DNF 0
      NC 23 Alexander Albon Williams Mercedes 0 DNF 0
      NC 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes 0 DNF 0

      Fastest Lap: Max Verstappen, Lap 67

      Source: F1.com

      SPRINT RACE Results -- SPOILER
      Pos No Driver Car Laps Time/retired Pts
      1 4 Lando Norris McLaren Mercedes 24 29:46.045 8
      2 81 Oscar Piastri McLaren Mercedes 24 +0.593s 7
      3 16 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 24 +5.656s 6
      4 1 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT 24 +6.497s 5
      5 55 Carlos Sainz Ferrari 24 +7.224s 4
      6 63 George Russell Mercedes 24 +12.475s 3
      7 10 Pierre Gasly Alpine Renault 24 +18.161s 2
      8 11 Sergio Perez Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT 24 +18.717s 1
      9 30 Liam Lawson RB Honda RBPT 24 +20.773s 0
      10 23 Alexander Albon Williams Mercedes 24 +24.606s 0
      11 44 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 24 +29.764s 0
      12 43 Franco Colapinto Williams Mercedes 24 +33.233s 0
      13 31 Esteban Ocon Alpine Renault 24 +34.128s 0
      14 50 Oliver Bearman Haas Ferrari 24 +35.507s 0
      15 22 Yuki Tsunoda RB Honda RBPT 24 +41.374s 0
      16 77 Valtteri Bottas Kick Sauber Ferrari 24 +43.231s 0
      17 24 Zhou Guanyu Kick Sauber Ferrari 24 +54.139s 0
      18 14 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes 24 +56.537s 0
      19 18 Lance Stroll Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes 24 +57.983s 0
      NC 27 Nico Hulkenberg Haas Ferrari 19 DNF 0

      Source: F1.com

      9 votes
    8. What is your favorite museum?

      Inspired by a recent conversation I had with a fellow museum lover: what is your favorite museum or favorite museums? Why? Curious to learn about some really interesting and unique places that...

      Inspired by a recent conversation I had with a fellow museum lover: what is your favorite museum or favorite museums? Why? Curious to learn about some really interesting and unique places that other users might have been to.

      30 votes
    9. Is there an alternative to Nexus Mods?

      I was looking into getting a whole bunch of mods for Fallout and Skyrim and it seems like Nexus is the only game in town. I am not really in the mood to go back and forth 600 times between client...

      I was looking into getting a whole bunch of mods for Fallout and Skyrim and it seems like Nexus is the only game in town. I am not really in the mood to go back and forth 600 times between client and webpage to click on every time I wish to try a collection. I wouldn't mind it if they just severely throttled my downloads, they could just run in the background. But if I have to click the mouse thousands of times every once in a while, I'd rather not mod any game, to be honest.

      And although I understand that this is a service and "there is no free lunch", the price they are charging in Brazil is too much for me to be okay with paying. A month of Nexus costs R$51.82, which is 12 bucks more expensive than a month of WoW. I really don't wanna be a "choosing beggar" here, as I know that it is not Nexus's fault that my currency is worth shit. But if there's a cheaper alternative I'll have no problem whatsoever paying for it.

      28 votes
    10. November 2024 Backlog Burner: Week 1 Discussion

      The blaze has officially ignited! The November 2024 Backlog Burner is officially live. Use this topic to post about the games that you play. Quicklink: Backlog Bingo Etiquette: It is fine to make...

      The blaze has officially ignited!

      The November 2024 Backlog Burner is officially live. Use this topic to post about the games that you play.

      Quicklink: Backlog Bingo

      Etiquette:

      • It is fine to make multiple top-level posts throughout the week.

      • It is also fine to respond to your own posts.

      • If you are playing Backlog Bingo, you can share your table either by markdown or through screenshots.

      Gameplay guidelines:

      • Goals for this event (if any) are entirely individual and self-determined.

      • Playing Bingo is optional and not required.

      • You do NOT need to finish games unless you want to. The point is to try out games and have fun, not force ourselves to play things we're not interested in.


      Backlog Burner FAQ

      What exactly is the Backlog Burner?

      Your "backlog" is all those games you've been meaning to play or get around to, but never have yet. This event is an attempt to get us to collectively dig into that treasure trove of experiences, scratch some long-standing itches, and knock a few titles off our to-play lists.

      It runs every May and November. New discussion topics will go up once a week during those months.

      You do not need to sign up in advance -- the topics are open to all. If you would like to be included in the notification list, comment in this topic to be added.

      How do I participate?
      • Choose some games from your backlog and play them.
      • Then tell us about your experiences in the discussion thread for the week.

      That's it!

      Optionally: you can play Backlog Bingo which is a fun way of cutting down the choices you have to make and playing games you might not have normally selected on your own.

      Do I need to finish the games that I play?

      Nope! Not at all.

      There aren't really any requirements for the event so much as this is an incentive to get us to play games we've been avoiding starting up, for whatever reason. Play as much or as little as you like of a given game.

      Try out dozens for ten minutes each or dive into one for 40 hours. There's no wrong way to participate!

      Can I make multiple posts in the same topic?

      Yes! Each discussion thread stays live for a full week, so feel free to make multiple comments in the topic as you play different games. This isn't considered noise -- it's considered valuable participation in the event!


      Backlog Bingo FAQ

      Important: All data for your Backlog Bingo card is stored on your device, not the server. Clearing your browser data will irrecoverably delete your card.

      I'm a returning player. How do I reset my previous card?

      If you've already created a card and wish to start over, click the Edit Rules button in the header to access your card settings. Then click the Reset button, and confirm the prompt. This will irrevocably delete your present card, allowing you to start fresh.

      Where is my data stored?

      All data is stored by your browser in local storage. There are no accounts, and nothing is sent to the server, so it's privacy-friendly by design. This does mean that you are responsible for not deleting any browser data on wescook.ca, either manually or through automatic cleanups performed on browser close.

      Backlog Bingo is open-source, and licensed permissively under MIT.

      What is the difference between the "Standard" and "Golf" modes?

      In Standard Mode, each square on the bingo card corresponds with one single game. Duplicate games cannot be entered into different squares. A winning card would have a row of five different games that each filled in one square.

      In Golf Mode, duplicates are not only allowed -- they are encouraged! The purpose of Golf mode is to try to find a single game that will fill multiple categories at the same time. For example: Stardew Valley might fulfill You got it on sale, A solo-dev project, and Has romanceable characters all at the same time. A winning card would have all twenty five squares filled, but possibly only six or seven different games.

      What is the star space in the middle?

      That is the "wildcard" or "free space."

      In Standard Mode, there are no requirements to fill it. You can choose any game you want! Anything goes!

      In Golf Mode, it does not need to be filled. Because Golf is all about stacking up categories on a single game, any game used in Golf would fill it automatically, meaning it has no real function. As such, the square will be pre-filled for you if you play in Golf mode.

      Can I create custom bingo categories for this, or other events?

      Absolutely! The Backlog Bingo app reads in simple JSON files which define the available categories. We've created a couple prebuilt lists for this event, but you're free to tweak our categories, or create completely new ones. You could even use them for books, anime, movies, recipes -- anything!

      If you are interested in learning more, you can find documentation on the wiki, and use an example JSON category file. You can also ask for help in the topic!

      9 votes
    11. best option for a bare-bones message board/forum?

      hello tildes, i am searching for a bare-bones forum/message board. i'll describe what i need and perhaps someone can point me in the right direction: must have the ability to create an account...

      hello tildes,

      i am searching for a bare-bones forum/message board. i'll describe what i need and perhaps someone can point me in the right direction:

      must have the ability to

      • create an account
      • create topics with the ability to reply
      • fully customizable front-end (html/css) so i can make it match my website
      • either self-host or use a custom domain on ext hosting

      unimportant but nice to have

      • display images in posts via external urls
      • different boards (categories?) to post into (would be nice but not vital)
      • nested replies (or some visual way to see what you're replying to)

      free would be ideal (dreams are nice) but probably wouldn't want to spend more than $5/month as this is a supplement to a website where i don't expect much traffic at all due to the nature of the project. no images/video/audio will be hosted ideally.

      i'm ok with "hacker news" or "reddit-like" software but my backend knowledge if very limited. for instance, i looked into self-hosting lemmy but i don't understand how to setup docker. options like phpbb would be fine if i could strip away everything aside from the above-mentioned features.

      i want it to be extremely simplistic in appearance and for the end-user (tildes is a great example of the simplistic end-user experience). tildes could be a cool option but i think getting it setup is a bit out of my skill-range.

      can anyone offer any suggestions/guidence?

      edited to emphasize important aspects and clarify things that are not vital but would be nice to have.

      14 votes
    12. I'm liking Webflow - is there a (free?) way to get the similar design experience on WordPress?

      Hiya, coming off as cheapskate since if I love Webflow so much why not just pay for it? Well a few reasons, but mostly because I'd rather like to be not tied to any single service that can just do...

      Hiya,

      coming off as cheapskate since if I love Webflow so much why not just pay for it? Well a few reasons, but mostly because I'd rather like to be not tied to any single service that can just do away with me with a snap of the fingers.

      I've been playing around locally with WordPress and the block editor actually gets me to the finish line. It's pretty easy to design what I want to design -- just everything's lacking that final little detail, I can't easily overlap text with images etc.

      So am I just incompetent and the WordPress' block editor is actually capable of these things? Most of the plugins (like Elementor) you need to pay for before you can actually do anything custom, which is kinda no-go for me. I'm also not opposed of trying something else, just that it needs to be free (as I want to be certain I know how to use it before I commit).

      (Sorry for the rushed post, I'll make corrections it if need be.)

      6 votes
    13. Announcing the Tildes Backlog Burner event for November 2024: Shrink your unplayed games list this coming month!

      It's almost time... ...for another Tildes Backlog Burner -- the event where you try out games you've always wanted to play (but haven't yet -- for whatever reason). The Backlog Burner for November...

      It's almost time...

      ...for another Tildes Backlog Burner -- the event where you try out games you've always wanted to play (but haven't yet -- for whatever reason).

      The Backlog Burner for November 2024 will officially begin in two days on November 1st.

      If you're new to the Backlog Burner, check out our previous events to get an idea of what's going on:


      Backlog Bingo returns again!

      Backlog Bingo is a backbone of this event, so it's of course back and better than ever! u/Wes has made some new tweaks to his amazing site, and we've also further developed our category sets.

      For this event, you can choose between two different official Bingo lists:

      • Flow: A conceptually abstract list of ideas to guide you. Let your imagination flow.
      • Flux: A tweaked and updated version of the May 2024 category list.

      If you participated last time, clear your old card and start fresh with a new one. If you're new to the event, simply go to the Backlog Bingo site to generate your card.


      Notification List

      If you are interested in participating in the Backlog Burner, please comment in this topic. Anyone commenting/replying here will automatically be added to a notification list for the Backlog Burner, unless you specify otherwise.


      Start Planning (or Playing)

      Technically the event starts in two days, so you have time to roll your cards (if you're playing Bingo) and plan out what you'd like to play for the month. That said, if you're eager to jump right in, and start early, I certainly won't stop you!

      Let's get ready to burn through these backlogs!


      Backlog Burner FAQ

      What exactly is the Backlog Burner?

      Your "backlog" is all those games you've been meaning to play or get around to, but never have yet. This event is an attempt to get us to collectively dig into that treasure trove of experiences, scratch some long-standing itches, and knock a few titles off our to-play lists.

      It runs every May and November. New discussion topics will go up once a week during those months.

      You do not need to sign up in advance -- the topics are open to all. If you would like to be included in the notification list, comment in this topic to be added.

      How do I participate?
      • Choose some games from your backlog and play them.
      • Then tell us about your experiences in the discussion thread for the week.

      That's it!

      Optionally: you can play Backlog Bingo which is a fun way of cutting down the choices you have to make and playing games you might not have normally selected on your own.

      Do I need to finish the games that I play?

      Nope! Not at all.

      There aren't really any requirements for the event so much as this is an incentive to get us to play games we've been avoiding starting up, for whatever reason. Play as much or as little as you like of a given game.

      Try out dozens for ten minutes each or dive into one for 40 hours. There's no wrong way to participate!

      Can I make multiple posts in the same topic?

      Yes! Each discussion thread stays live for a full week, so feel free to make multiple comments in the topic as you play different games. This isn't considered noise -- it's considered valuable participation in the event!


      Backlog Bingo FAQ

      Important: All data for your Backlog Bingo card is stored on your device, not the server. Clearing your browser data will irrecoverably delete your card.

      I'm a returning player. How do I reset my previous card?

      If you've already created a card and wish to start over, click the Edit Rules button in the header to access your card settings. Then click the Reset button, and confirm the prompt. This will irrevocably delete your present card, allowing you to start fresh.

      Where is my data stored?

      All data is stored by your browser in local storage. There are no accounts, and nothing is sent to the server, so it's privacy-friendly by design. This does mean that you are responsible for not deleting any browser data on wescook.ca, either manually or through automatic cleanups performed on browser close.

      Backlog Bingo is open-source, and licensed permissively under MIT.

      What is the difference between the "Standard" and "Golf" modes?

      In Standard Mode, each square on the bingo card corresponds with one single game. Duplicate games cannot be entered into different squares. A winning card would have a row of five different games that each filled in one square.

      In Golf Mode, duplicates are not only allowed -- they are encouraged! The purpose of Golf mode is to try to find a single game that will fill multiple categories at the same time. For example: Stardew Valley might fulfill You got it on sale, A solo-dev project, and Has romanceable characters all at the same time. A winning card would have all twenty five squares filled, but possibly only six or seven different games.

      What is the star space in the middle?

      That is the "wildcard" or "free space."

      In Standard Mode, there are no requirements to fill it. You can choose any game you want! Anything goes!

      In Golf Mode, it does not need to be filled. Because Golf is all about stacking up categories on a single game, any game used in Golf would fill it automatically, meaning it has no real function. As such, the square will be pre-filled for you if you play in Golf mode.

      Can I create custom bingo categories for this, or other events?

      Absolutely! The Backlog Bingo app reads in simple JSON files which define the available categories. We've created a couple prebuilt lists for this event, but you're free to tweak our categories, or create completely new ones. You could even use them for books, anime, movies, recipes -- anything!

      If you are interested in learning more, you can find documentation on the wiki, and use an example JSON category file. You can also ask for help in the topic!

      30 votes
    14. Advice Needed: Simple and Reliable notifications

      I have a long standing problem that probably has several good solutions, I just haven't been able to figure them out. So here I am, asking you. I'm selfhosting some services, a mix of selfbuilt...

      I have a long standing problem that probably has several good solutions, I just haven't been able to figure them out. So here I am, asking you.

      I'm selfhosting some services, a mix of selfbuilt and open source software. But some things I don't want to selfhost. Notably backups and alerts/notifications. For backups I have a solution which works well in every regard except one - I don't always get alerted when things fail, because the way I send myself those alerts is failing more than the actual backups.

      Currently I'm using python and gmails smtp interface to send myself email, but gmail disables my smtp access from time to time, and it's really easy not to notice not getting an email. I've tried sending the email regardless of whether the backup failed or not, but I've noticed several times that I still don't notice if the they stop coming.

      Now on to my requirements/wishlist.

      1. I'm already using s3 glacier at aws for the backups, so preferrably something in the aws space.
      2. I would like to get an popup/toast on my phone when a message is being sent. And the ability to review messages later.
      3. I would like as few moving parts as possible.
      4. I don't want to write my own client.
      5. I want it to be cheap, and if there's a cost I prefer to pay it at a place where I'm already paying, meaning aws (or possibly proton).
      6. I want a stable service.
      7. I prefer to manage as little as possible of the infrastructure.
      8. I'd like a simple programmable interface that can't easily fail. E.g. http based.
      9. It's no problem if messages are not received instantly, I could easily tolerate delays up to 24 hours.

      As you may have noticed I'm pretty much expecting there to be something in aws that I can use, but aws documentation is so abstract, that I often don't understand what the point of something is or how I'm supposed to use it.

      8 votes