I just got home after a long, extraordinarily stressful, and sensory overload inducing appointment at a government office that I had to do to get some paperwork dealt with. Partway through it, I realized that some sort of stim/fidget toy would probably help stave off some of the worst of it, if I had something small I could keep in my purse. (Ideally something that wouldn't be too awkward to use in public... though I'm not concerned about looking a little awkward, that ship sailed long ago, haha.) Wondering if anyone here has some good recommendations on stim toys suitable for adults that I could bring with me next time, and/or any suggestions for unobtrusive ways to stim that I could do just on my own without needing anything special. I only found out I was autistic relatively recently (in my 30s), so most of this is still very new to me - any guidance is very appreciated!

Having moved away from Reddit, one of the communities I miss most is r/ValorantCompetitive. I’ll probably end up slogging through the main reddit interface just for the post match threads there.

I was wondering if anyone else here follows the scene. If so, how do you keep up with it? Reddit, VLR, elsewhere ?

Cheers :)

For me, I love seeing parts of missions occur before and after we (the playable character) are involved. Like how after a cut scene a character will contribute out that action.

It really helps with the immersion and continuity.

Share what you like to see!

The history of the web is littered with with many a dead image/video hosting service. Echos of their existence plague older forums in the form of broken links and images. It seems like they all follow the same path, starting up as the new "simple" service that just hosts images, no fuss. But then as interest grows, so do costs, and the service owners have to scramble to monetize. Generally this is done by stuffing the place full of ads until everyone leaves. Alternatively the owners are stubborn and stick to their guns, until they inevitably have to shut down due to drowning in costs. When they do shut down, millions of assets are lost and the graveyard of broken images across the web grows some more.

https://gfycat.com/ is the latest notable victim of this.

With all the recent social media turmoil, there as been lots of exploration of alternative sites, and all of them have to overcome the problem of hosting media in one way or another.

Tildes obviously does this by avoiding it entirely which, while a very effective solution, is just handballing the problem elsewhere. Users will still want to post images and videos but they will just have to find alternative hosts. Over time those hosts will die and Tildes posts will be filled with dead links.

Mastodon has similar problems,the biggest cost of hosting a mastodon instance is the storage and bandwidth required to facilitate media posts. And there's a real danger of an instance incurring high costs if a particular post becomes popular and is hotlinked on a big centralised social media site.

It seems like a really tricky problem to solve, something peer-to-peer could sort of solve the costs created by traffic peaks but has problems when there is many small files viewed by few individuals each.

Are there any other solutions out there? Web3, IPFS? Or is it just not that much of a problem, do we accept that media on the web is ephemeral and will be lost after a while?

Every time I would be in the market for something particular, say, a keyboard, or a camping tent, I would ask google, “What is the best air fryer, Reddit.”

I would get the link to the subject, however niche it was, and see discussions from assumedly real folks talking about the subject I was curious about. It was informative, and I could research deeper into brands or products I didn’t know about before.

Is there another site that even comes close to that? Or are we currently in a dark period until something like that comes along? I don’t typically use advertised websites to tell me “lists of the top ten handheld gaming consoles.”

Just wondering if there’s an alternative to my previous method of research.

I have a PS VR2 and it's my first headset. I played call of the mountain, a bit of no man's sky, swordsman, tentacular, and beat saber. I was thinking I would buy Synapse tonight, but it has mediocre reviews. I want to start a new game, but am having trouble deciding which one. Here is my short list.

• Synapse - looks super fun, and I like that it's an exclusive, but mediocre reviews
• Song in the smoke - I enjoy survival games and in general prefer non shooter games, so this has an appeal to me.
• Red Matter 2 - this one has some pretty good reviews and I do enjoy sci-fi tv and movies, but don't go out of my way to play sci-fi games
• Moss - I know it's critically acclaimed, but I was really hoping for a first person experience
• the light brigade - I could see myself enjoying this.

Since I can't decide, I think I'll be happy with just about any of these. I'll play the most voted comment!

So me and my wife have temporarily moved in with my parents to save up for a down payment (boy houses are expensive right now). Their house is in a more rural part of Arizona and they have a tons of trails and fire roads that I'm looking at riding when it gets cooler. I have a Canyon Grizl AL 6 with 45mm tires and a rigid carbon fork. The tires are set up tubeless and have pretty good dry grip so I think I should be fine and I would be less than 5 miles from a car accessible road at all times. I have under biked a bit before but not on a desert trail. I was curious if any riders here have any experience and/or advice for taking a gravel bike on single track.

Something that exemplify the mantra "don't judge a book by its cover".

For me it's the puzzle game SquishCraft. The mechanics is innovative and the puzzles are hard as hell. But looking at any videos of it and you might think it's a throwaway flash game from the 2000s or something. Here's a playthrough by a Youtuber in case you want to see the game in action.

^{Meta: Let me know how you feel about having a compilation of the comments included in the topic like this, first time trying so looking for feedback.}

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

So as an American whose love of poetry started in early childhood with A A Milne and Lewis Carroll, I have a theory that the teaching of poetry in typical schools (at least for my generation which may be 30 years out of date re what happens now) that poetry as taught is almost tailor made to destroy any interest in poetry. I like to compare it to introducing music by teaching music theory.

So, if anyone here reads poetry and is willing to talk about it, what poems would you use if you wanted to come up with a gateway drug. They should be easy to appreciate. And on the flip side, if you met someone who said they were really into poetry, are there sophisticated poems that you think are just cool and insightful and moving and impressive in some way? Please feel free to explain your choices or to talk about your experience with poetry in or outside of education.

As the holiday comes up, I’m building a tongue-in-cheek party playlist that speaks to the full color of this beautiful country we Americans call home.

I’m kicking it off with these songs, but what would you add to this playlist?

• Uncle Sam Goddamn by Brother Ali
• This is America by Childish Gambino
• National Anthem by Lana Del Rey
• American Pie by Shea Diamond
• Holiday / Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day
• Know Your Enemy by Rage Against the Machine
• Gentrify by Propoganda

What songs would you add to this playlist? I’ll add songs to my playlist as we go!

I'm going camping for the first time with just my partner (as opposed to a bigger group) and it's been a while since I've camped in general so I'm looking for some food ideas! Do you have any go to things you always make? Any special meals that are best enjoyed outdoors? Or simply dishes that are convenient and tasty for camping? I'll be car camping with a stove and cooler, but all suggestions are welcome!

I just noticed that when I sent an invite to family member over SMS it never arrived. After experimenting it looks like if text contains "tildes.net" it is filered. This also happens with another family member's phone. It is weird why would those companies want to filter it.

I also checked and the message didn't show up in spam & blocked. Does anyone else observe the same thing?

Back in the day https://ffffound.com/ was one of my biggest inspirations for imagery and creative ephemera.

I miss it sometimes and have a vast archive of downloaded inspiration. I discovered a lot of material under the radar of pop culture.

Kind of like picking up a circa 2009 vice magazine from a shop. I was seeing and feeling things that felt textural and well curated.

Is there something around that I haven’t seen?

Hello,

I’m soon to become a father to my firstborn child and have the opportunity to take some paternity leave through work. While the length of time I can take is very generous (as far as I know), I’m truly unsure how much is usually the norm for fathers.

I work in a stable office job, while my wife is self employed and will be taking 3 months off. I am leaning towards taking the week after birth off and intermittently working from home afterwards as needed, as even with leave I would most likely not receive my full 100% pay, which we will definitely need. In addition to the financial impact, my daily work usually consists of stuff that my coworkers would be unable or struggle with staying on top of, and I do not want to put any extra burden on them, or have tasks not completed merely to back up until my return.

Any advice or comments would be much appreciated as I am struggling to figure this out!

It can be anything, big or small! I think it's valuable to be able to change your opinions and not cling to them out of loyalty, so let's celebrate our flexibility! I'll go first.

I never used to listen to audio versions of books that I haven't already read, because I felt safety in the fact that I already knew what was going to happen and didn't feel concern over missing a passage from distraction. But in the past few months I realised that I listen to podcasts constantly, and that audiobooks (of the right kind) can be thought of as longer form podcasts.
So I've been jumping more into audiobooks for when I'm on long drives or commuting to university, and honestly it's great. I've been really enjoying Stephen Fry's Greek mythology series, and was finally able to finish "reading" the Hitchhiker's Guide series. As I have a bit of a mental block on actual reading that is unrelated to my masters, it's extremely cool to still be able to enjoy non-academic books without the feeling of guilt.

In a few weeks I'm participating in a three(ish) day nonstop sailing regatta. My friend and I have been put in charge of making and bringing food and drinks for the entire crew. We also have no idea what we are doing, so any advice would be appreciated!

My first thought is sandwiches/wraps but for morale I think it would be nice to have a variety of things.

We won't have a kitchen/stove/way to heat the food. No fridge, but a cooler full of ice. (It will probably not remain very cold the entire time.)

The primary goal is to sail fast so no stopping to assemble anything complicated- someone might even be on shift sailing and eating at the same time. Probably nothing involving sharp knives as the boat will likely be heeled over and that seems needlessly risky.

What kind of sammies? Brownies or cookies? What are we going to do about caffeine? Are two day old room temp breakfast tacos gross or okay?

Or at the very least, should there be a requirement to have users take screenshots of Twitter content if they want to link to it? It feels a little backwards to have to make an account for another website in order to consume certain content on this site.

Using iem with ANC on the street

Hello!

I'd appreciate knowing how is it to go out on the street using an iem with ANC. Especially when you are on a sidewalk next to a heavy-traffic street or when you are on the subway for example. Does the ANC eliminate completely those types of loud sounds? Or they are still present but just not on the same level?
I ask this because I use IEM with foam ear tips but with no ANC. I feel that the foam ear tips normally makes a good seal and isolate conversations next to me or other sounds in my house. But when I go to the street in those places I mentioned the sounds are still somewhat present, although not at the same level as the music I hear. So I was thinking if I could achieve more isolation using for example a ANC iem.
Any insight would be much appreciated thank you!

I was nervous to post this in ~news, because it's more of a question than a story, but here goes.

I'm looking to turn down the temperature, pace, and volume of my news consumption habits, as well as limit how much time I stare at a screen (I do that enough professionally). I've recently experimented with subscribing to fewer, higher-quality news sources and getting them delivered via RSS*. This works pretty well, but I'm still left looking for something even slower. Something like a weekly news publication, which is delivered once a week in a print format that I can read away from a screen.

I've subscribed to Sunday papers in the past, but it's too much and there's a lot in it - I think I'm looking for a little .. less. A slimmer publication, fewer pages. Almost as if someone selected the top five to seven stories covered on the Wikipedia current events page in the week, then wrote a few thousand words apiece on each. Something I can make it through with my coffee on Sunday mornings in a few hours.

Does anyone do this or have recommendations? If so, what do you read and how would you assess that publication? I think I've tried a fair number in the past, but I will take anyone's suggestions. Thank you so much in advance.

--
*I use Reeder for macOS / iOS - which is great btw, and it's shocking how much of the modern web still supports RSS. Highly recommend folks reconsider RSS in general.

Where do you think Tildes will be in 10 years? Will it still be around? How will the world be different from today? Do you think the world will be a better place? Be as positive or morbid as you want. Or, just say something, share something, post a link, tell a joke, give some advice. Then in ten years we can all come back to this thread and have a laugh... hopefully.

I lurk here at work and don't watch YouTube in general. Often it's annoying to see something of potential interest and it's a YouTube video. Is there a way to filter youtube.com here or an extension enabling that functionality?

Thank you.

Do you have any favourites?

How did you find it?

I’m completely out of the loop with discord, I’ve been randomly added to several over the years but it’s things like networking groups rather than anything with a fun and friendly community (of adults) just having a good time together.

I’m trying to find a place that aligns with a creative, game dev, film buff mindset and is fairly active.

Does a place exist?

I'm seeing a lot of doomer content lately and plenty of defeatist commentary to match. I know it sucks out there but surely there's an air balloon that looks nice in the sky or something, right? It's exhausting to see the same negative stuff that I would see on reddit.

I need something positive and maybe you do too.

Here, I'll share something nice to get us started: This 72 year old guy graduated and his 99 year old mom cheered him on.

Self-hosting has been a rabbit hole of wonder that I've explored and delved into over these past few months. I'm curious to hear what others use it for, what apps they love, and their rationale for doing so?

I'll go first.

First, in terms of rationale, this is a wonderful article that I think is worth checking out that encapsulates much my of ethos about pursuing self-hosting.

https://kylechayka.substack.com/p/essay-the-digital-death-of-collecting

The TL;DR is that we no longer have control over the things that we 'own' digitally for these massive cloud companies. For instance the songs / artists you listen to on Spotify may suddenly and unexpectedly become unavailable, certain things (most recently podcasts) may be forced upon you in unpleasant ways. Having complete control of your digital data is a very liberating feeling.

In terms of apps:

Hyperbackup - I use a synology NAS, so hyperbackup has been wonderful and use both external HD's and a cloud interface to create encrypted backups of everything which gives me peace of mind.

Plex - One of my most used apps, being able to stream anything remotely has been a dream. Plexamp has given me back control of my music library in a way I never thought I would have.

Tautulli - Great for more informatics on my plex usage

Calibre / Calibreweb - Phenomenal for keeping track of my book collections

PiHole - Ads be gone!

*Arr apps - Specifically Sonarr/Prowlarr/Radarr, really like Overseerr for an interface tying everything together

Daily Notes - A clean interface for keeping regular notes

Some things that I'm not currently self-hosting but would love to hear if others are using alternatives...

Instapaper - I know there are a few similar FOSS apps out there but haven't found one as convenient and well laid out

TickTick - To do app, but similarly haven't found a FOSS alternative that was as robust and nice to use

OneNote

I was thinking if we can have a weekly thread on ~movies for discussing Boxoffice performance and projections, if there is enough interest for it. There are a few posts on ~movies, however they are limited to popular movie of month like Indiana Jones and Elemental ones. A dedicated post will also reduce the multiple posts.

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

I recently obtained a access to a TON of different magazines and papers from Europe, US, UK and a few from Australia and New Zealand but I have no clue about the quality of stuff outside my native country so I would like to hear some suggestions.

Which ones do you read and would recommend to others and why?

This is my running list of the strangest films I have seen (and managed to write down). This list is by no means exhaustive, so please feel free to add to it!

For list formatting purposes I don't lead with A, An, or The. An example: Fall, The (2006)

Altered States (1980)
Aria (1987)
Bad Boy Bubby (1993)
Black Moon (1975)
Blood Tea and Red String (2006)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Boxing Helena (1993)
Brazil (1985)
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The (1920)
Clerks. (1994)
Clerks II (2006)
Cowards Bend the Knee (2003)
Crash (1996)
Delicatessen (1991)
Dogtooth (2009)
Dreams That Money Can Buy (1947)
Elephant Man, The (1980)
Even Dwarfs Started Small (1970)
Fall, The (2006)
Faust (1994)
F for Fake (1973)
Freaks (1932)
Funky Forest - The First Contact (2005)
Gozu (2003)
Grizzly Man (2005)
Gummo (1997)
Holy Mountain, The (1926)
In My Skin (2002)
Kamikaze Girls (2004)
Kids (1995)
Last Wave, The (1977)
Li'l Quinquin
Liquid Sky (1982)
Lost Highway (1997)
Love Serenade (1996)
Lucio (2007)
M (1931)
Marat Sade (1967)
Meet the Feebles (1989)
Muriel's Wedding (1994)
Naked Lunch (1991)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)
Rabbit a la Berlin (2009)
Rubber (2010)
Saragossa Manuscript, The (1965)
Sick - The Life & Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist (1997)
Slacker (1991)
Sonic Outlaws (1995)
Spectres of the Spectrum (1999)
Spirited Away (2001)
Stalker (1979)
Survive Style 5+ (2004)
Sweet Movie (1974)
Talk to Her (2002)
Thing, The (1982)
Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, The (2005)
Topo, El (1970)
Tribulation 99 - Alien Anomalies Under America (1992)
Trouble Every Day (2001)
Tuvalu (1999)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010)
Videodrome (1983)
Visitor Q (2001)
Waking Life (2001)
Welcome to Woop Woop (1997)
WR - Mysteries of the Organism (1971)
You, the Living (2007)

I would like to get slightly more educated in mathematics again - I took some basic calculus and linear algebra classes while doing my degree, but most likely forgot what I learned for the most part. Are there any good books that you guys would recommend for someone who wants to learn math again?

I never noticed this before today, but I don't seem to be able to search for comments. Is that supposed to be doable on Tildes?

It took me way too long to figure out that the links at the top of the search results page are sort options; I had been clicking "Comments" hoping to see comment search results, and I was a bit confused why only full topics were still being listed. I guess comment search doesn't currently exist?

Interested to hear from anybody who plays Snap.

What's your thoughts on the current meta?

What do you find the Ghost Spider and Silk so far? Any other cards you're saving tokens ford?

Have you tried Conquest?

I'm mostly pretty casual. I'm free to play, and the highest rank I've reached is 70. I've been playing a my own attempt at a Sera Surfer deck lately (can't bring myself to net deck), and it's been pretty going well for me.

I've got mixed feelings about Conquest so far. Since you're matched up with the same player for several matches, it can be a bit more of a time commitment. And if you get an emote spammer, it can feel a it gruelling. But it helps me think about my matchups in more depth, which is actually kind of cool.

Looking at the current top thread in ~talk, it seems many of us were forged in the fires of Mount Digg, and now suffer again through the great Reddit diaspora. Perhaps it is here our journey ends?

I am not from the US of A, but one thing I have always found fascinating about that country is the concept of the constitution. I believe it was so incredibly well conceived, the three legged stool, with all the thought that went into how it might be attacked and edge cases, that the founding fathers would have made excellent software testers. The fact American democracy has stood this long is some feat.

Which brings me to my question. Should Tildes create some form of constitution? A set of principles that binds and guides it? I believe something like that would make questions like this easier to answer. A founding set of ideals from which everything else should derive.

We have something akin to this at my company, where the founding principle is the customer is always our main priority. This has served our business well for decades; is everything we do in service of the customer and their needs. You would honestly be amazed at the loyalty and trust this builds over time.

Anyway just some food for thought. I think I will be calling this my new home for now - it feels very much like the Reddit of old right now, a feeling I haven't felt for a great age.

That's all folks!

• Manga MAL

• Anime MAL

Today marks the release of the final chapter of Mashle: Magic and Muscles by Hajime Komoto. After three years, 162 chapters, and an official anime release, it's finally time to say farewell to our muscular, magicless, creampuff loving bowl cut.

Many of us have grown used to weekly updates on the world that seems like a farcical mix of One Punch Man / Harry Potter and will definitely feel its absence on Sundays.

I wanted to create this thread due to the popularity of the series (more than 5 million units in circulation!) and to spark more manga discussion in the community overall. This is the largest series to end in a long while, so it deserves a bit of a sendoff.

Topics/discussion points (feel free to address all or none):

• What did you think of the final chapter/arc?
• How do you feel about the series as a whole now that it has ended?
• Was Mashle successful in its storytelling goals?
• What are the strongest/weakest parts of the story and work as a whole in your opinion?

Hi friends,

I’ve been enjoying listening to audiobooks a lot lately but find I generally have to be doing something (e.g. going for a walk, doing dishes etc) while I listen to them since it would be strange to just sit in a chair and stare and if I closed my eyes I might fall asleep.

I have found a couple of mindless games I can play on my phone while listening that don’t distract me from the story such as temple run, desert golf and amazing brick, but I’d be interested if anyone else had any suggestions?

I’d also be open to more substantial games as well so long as they didn’t have a lot of dialogue or require a lot of brain power (I’ve found trying to solve chess puzzles while listening to the audiobook just distracts me too much from the book for example).

Thanks in advance!

Choose one album
that you love
that you think deserves more love

Tell us what it is, and why.

Previous posts in series

Additional Details

So, I'm using Arch i3wm. I have multiple copies of my /home/username (I am the sole user), and I have a "Spare" drive with media, games, and other goodies, some of which are also stored on partitions on the m.2 in question, but they have backups.

And the reason I ask this question is because while I've had my m.2 fail at the end of '21 (I didn't even know that was a thing, but it barely lasted a year, and things are acting shoddy now... though the original failed without a warning), I just bought a second m.2 for my games. I guess I could swap most of the whole thing over, but I know the boot partition is easier just rebuilt from scratch... which I had to do last week.

Ultimately, what's making me suspicious is when I upgraded to the new drive and unplugged all my non-m.2 satas, I also added some memory and a new power supply. But then after the upgrade (Monday of last week, so the 5th), the system wouldn't boot up. I used a usb to troubleshoot and my /boot partition was apparently no gouda. I redid that, and everything was fine... until this week. Then my new Games partition (basically the new drive) failed fsck and it got stuck in a boot loop on Tuesday. I could boot emergency to root, but not skip the fsck and keep the Games disk auto mounted (I know I changed something to randomize fsck on bootup, but that's something I'm still kinda looking into how I managed...), so I just removed it from my fstab and it booted fine. For two times. I just manually mounted the drive, all was great, then my SO sent me a screenshot today while I was at work stating that my / partition (on the older m.2) apparently rebooted because it bypassed my screen lock, and was stating EXT4-fs error, reading directory lblock:0 and whatnot.

So, that's my history on what's going on, and if anyone can offer any advice [mostly] on the backup stuff, though as I said, /home and the important tangible stuff is saved, but if you also have any input on something more than I suspect the drive is failing (since the /boot partition and now the / partition are crapping out), please feel free to share.

(Also, thanks for letting me in. This is what I'd typically post on reddit and probably have to repost 10 times depending on the sub to get the right keywords and tags and yes, I already searched the internet but my search will not match yours... sigh)

I just got an email stating that Stitcher, the podcast app that I use, "decided to discontinue operation of the Stitcher app and website effective August 29, 2023."

Any good recommendations for another podcast app? ETA: I listen on my Android phone.