Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/8

Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

<details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>

hey there folks!

a couple of friends have been encouraging me to share my music online. it’s hard for me to share things i’ve made because self-promotion mostly feels weird and out-of-place but tildes has felt like a welcoming environment, so i figured i would share it here.

i checked the code of conduct for tildes before making this post to make sure it was acceptable, so i hope this is alright

my music

i make slow, moody instrumental music and sometimes ambient music. no vocals but there are samples of dialogue from film and tv. it’s not “fun”/upbeat music, but i hope you enjoy some of it.

recent releases

mabry - vulnerary (a mixtape)

mabry - miles away (ep)

if possible, listen with headphones for the best experience.

share your music

i would love to hear what music other tildes folks make. also curious what software you like using (i use Logic).

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

Hi

I figured before I start venturing into other forums dedicated to this sort of thing, I'd ask here on Tildes since I'm at least comfortable with the community and how helpful they can be here.

I'm tired of all of the subscription services I have, movies and TV shows disappearing from them, buying a film on Prime and only being able to watch it offline through a specific app. Even then, half the time we're watching comfort TV shows that we have on DVD already (X-Files and Friends for instance).

So I figured that building a home media server would give me the chance to cut the cord with a couple of these services and allow us to start using and controlling our own data again.

I have a budget of around £300 (I could perhaps push to £400 if needed) and I'm honestly not sure at all where to start. I have knowledge on how to build brand new, medium to high end gaming PCs as I've done it since I was in my late teens and built my first PC with the wages from my very first job but building a budget minded PC for use as a home media server goes completely over my head.

I've noticed that a lot of the pre-built NAS or media server boxes are very expensive so my first thought was to buy a refurbed workstation or small form factor PC that has enough "oomph" to do the trick but I don't know what ones to even start looking at and then I start to feel a little bit out of my comfort zone.

Things like getting the right CPU in these refurbed machines that offers the features I'm looking for like hardware transcoding etc., integrated GPU's, ensuring there's enough SATA ports for multiple hard drives and an SSD for a boot drive, and then to top it all off ensuring that while achieving these features the thing shouldn't draw too much power when idling as it'll be on for long stretches of time, if not left on 24/7.

I've also got no knowledge of Linux, I've never even looked at it but if it's genuinely easy enough (for someone with next to no Linux experience) then I'd be happy to give it a shot if it offers better performance compared to using Windows 10 or something.

All the server will be used for is watching TV shows, perhaps the odd film, listening to a bit of music perhaps and the odd podcast now and again. Simultaneous streaming will be fairly minimal, perhaps 2 streams as me or my partner watch one thing and our daughter watches another on her tablet. In regards to streaming outside the house that will also be almost non-existent, perhaps, again our daughter watching a kids TV show like Pokemon or Fireman Sam on her tablet when we're out but me and my partner don't tend to watch anything when we're outside the house, certainly not TV shows or movies anyway.

Redundancy isn't something I'm too horrendously worried about, I wouldn't be storing anything like photos that we wouldn't want to lose on it and while it'd be annoying, losing a drive with TV shows or films on it wouldn't be the end of the world.

Any help would be massively appreciated, thanks.

Hey everyone! I thought since the community has grown quite substantially since I last asked this question^[1] it would be nice to bring it back up again. Without getting into whether or not the specific idea that "strong opinions, weakly held" may or may not have merit, I think having flexibility in your thinking and not holding on to opinions out of loyalty or inertia is a valuable skill to have. So, small or big, what is something that you changed your mind about this year?

[1] https://tildes.net/~talk/11mw/what_is_something_you_have_changed_your_mind_about_in_the_last_year

Today when I opened Messenger Lite there was a message from Meta saying " your chats will be moving to Messenger" and that Messenger Lite will stop working on September 18. I actively switched from Messenger to Messenger Lite several years ago because the regular Messenger app was draining my battery. Are there any alternatives to Messenger Lite on Android? Perhaps even FOSS?Or will my only option be to move to the old Messenger app if I want to use Facebook messenger? I have some work related groups on Messenger that would be tough to move to another platform, so Please don't just say "use Signal" or something similar.

Sorry for the delay in posting this month.

December's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games:

Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/7

Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

<details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/6

Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

<details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>

Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2023/day/5

Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

<details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>