As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I've been researching internet privacy and fell down the rabbit hole of...well, internet privacy. I started with deleting Facebook/Instagram and switching to fire fox + plugins. I would like to make more improvements but I really have no idea how, it started with deleting socials and next thing you know I'm looking at LineageOS and de-googling.

If anyone has any suggestions on where to go next while staying realistic/not going crazy, i would love to hear them. I am not really sure where to set my expectations, basically I would like to have more control of my data. The other day Google photos gave me a memory recap which kind of creeped me out! I am suddenly not fond of whatever is going on under the surface of Google photos that's making collages and trying to sell my photo books. Also g-board giving me a pop up in the text prediction row asking me to rate the app??? Ew.

I am a fan of self hosting and run a small NAS (open media vault) but this too quickly turns into the privacy spiral and leaves me thinking I should throw my phone into a river and live in the forest. Would love to hear your thoughts/advice/opinions!

With Christmas around the corner I'm wondering if anyone has tabletop/card games they enjoy that are quick to play (in my mind less than 30 minutes). I enjoy longer games like Betrayal at House on the Hill immensely, but I'd like to add some games to my collection that are fun and light hearted, easy to learn, and idealy travel easy. I often play games with family over the holidays and want some that aren't as intimidating for my parents and older relatives to pick up and try. I often played with at least 2 other people, but I've been looking for fun 2 player games as well.

Can you please share what the gameplay is like and what you enjoy about playing it? Thanks all!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like three cheers, fintech and tunnel of fudge. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was alert.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

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 doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

New Thread

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Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2024/day/4

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/2024/day/3

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/2024/day/2

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>

This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app.

I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.

Recently:

Version 1.2.2 (Dec 5, 2024):

• Added advanced settings to auto-vote on topics when opening them
• Added advanced setting to hide "Reply" from text long-press menu
• Fixed inserting markdown links with parentheses
• Fixed UI bugs in profiles
• Fixed crashes opening certain topics

Happy Thanksgiving! Three Cheers version 1.2 is out for Android and iOS! (Nov 27, 2024)

• Save drafts of comment replies, edits, and private message replies
• Manage drafts via Settings
• Improved some error messages

Does not yet support saving drafts of new submissions

I know some of you were hoping for topic submission drafts, but I wanted to release what I've implemented so far with comment drafts. This version took a decent amount of time to develop, and I didn't want to delay it further by adding submission drafts in this release. Thanks for your patience!

Previous topic: September 2024

Where to get it

Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

Or sideloadable APK at https://www.talklittle.com/three-cheers/

iOS version on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/three-cheers-for-tildes/id6470950557

Join TestFlight for iOS beta testing: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

I've always found this to be a fun conversation topic among geeky, mechanically-inclined, or DIY-enthusiast friends, and it might be interesting to what see bubbles up from the Tildes crowd:

Other than standard things like dishwasher detergent or window cleaning spray, what chemicals or other substances do you keep at home? And what do you do with them? And if you need to take any special precautions for storage, use or disposal, what are those precautions?

Mine are not actually all that interesting, but I'll start:

• Powdered citric acid - for descaling plumbing or kitchen appliances
• Acetone - cleaning gunk off of all sorts of tools, labels off glass items, etc.
• WD40 - cleaning greasy car or bicycle parts
• Glycerin - making "fog juice" for a fog machine

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Hey Tildes, I'm super super out of the loop for gaming PCs. If I wanted to play AAA games like Stalker 2 on higher (!) settings, what kind of specs am I looking at, ballpark prices, makes that are good vs red flag don't buy? Everything seems way too expensive now I guess due to demands for AI and crypto stuff. Does it maybe make more sense to wait half a year or won't get any better?

Thoughts on GeForce rtx 4070? Need some kind of solid state hard drive, and it'll be a windows box it looks like for games. Or has Linux OS for gaming a good contender now esp when paired with steam ?

I should have done my homework well before cybermonday etc, but figure even weeks of work still isn't as good as copying you guy's homework. :) thanks in advance

Edit: Thank you everyone :D I've been leaning on the community for two big things this week (this, and learning to type software) and you guys really came through like eagles at Mt Doom.

Person I am asking for read all your comments, checked out a ton of sites you guys suggested, and
ended up finding a BlackFriday/Cyber Monday deal for a laptop with (reads sheet)

GeForce RTX 4080 Ryzen 9 7945HX 32GB 1TB SSD 240Hz 16" laptop

price was $2500 CAD ($ 1785 USD) + taxes. (non affiliated product link here)

many thanks again~

The other day I had to get new glasses, and I braced myself for my lenses to be incredibly thick and expensive to boot again - but then I had them made, they look normal, and they barely cost me a Benjamin. Clearly, the optometrist crowd has made some major developments in the past decade or so, which leads me to ask - if you're working in an industry most people don't really think about, what's happened in your space in the past ten years?

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.

Could someone please recommend a text messaging app for Android that is reasonably secure?

Verizon is discontinuing their native texting (SMS) app. They recommend switching to Google Messages, but I would not like Google to have access to my entire text messaging history. I tried Signal, but my old messages don't transfer over (minor problem), and almost none of my family are willing to switch to Signal (big problem). When I search for advice, I get a bunch of AI slop articles and advertisements. So I figured I might have better luck asking here: Is there any text messaging app for Android that works well and isn't going to hoover up all my data?

I'm looking for something new to read, so I'm just selfishly posting this in the hopes that it works.

Doesn't have to be your all-time favourite I guess, if you can't decide. Feel free to do multiple books too, or maybe just whichever is on your mind a lot recently.

Australia’s proposed social media ban is deeply concerning and authoritarian. It's disturbing to see how much of the general public supports this measure.

Prominent organizations, including Amnesty International, the Australian Human Rights Commission, and Electronic Frontiers Australia, have voiced significant concerns about this legislation:

Amnesty International's Explanation of the Social Media Ban
Australian Human Rights Commission on the Proposed Social Media Ban for Under-16s
EFA's Critique of the Social Media Age Ban

Australia has a troubling history with internet legislation. Noteworthy examples include the Australian Internet Firewall under Stephen Conroy and Malcolm Turnbull's infamous statement, "The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia," regarding encryption backdoors.

While I recognize the issues with social media, "don't feed the trolls," along with maintaining online anonymity and implementing parental controls ( no phones with unfettered internet access ), should work. This law indiscriminately punishes all Australians for the missteps of a few, potentially leading to increased identity theft through phone and email scams and causing older family who are not tech literate to lose connections with their families due to the complexities of government-issued tokens.

Adults will be the ones who are going to be most impacted by this legislation.

The scope of this law is extensive. The Online Safety website suggests that this is merely the beginning, with plans to cover the entire web, including games, adult content, and more. The consequences are profound: the erosion of true anonymity and increased risk to government whistle-blowers and journalistic sources.

Requiring individuals to provide their identity to a third party to access the internet, which many have used freely for decades, is alarming. It threatens to sanitize search results and revoke access to purchased games if users refuse additional identity verification measures. There are no grandfathered exceptions, highlighting the law's intent to de-anonymize the internet.

Although Australia lacks a constitutionally protected right to free speech, this law poses significant risks to whistleblowers and marginalized youth in remote communities. Instead of banning access and creating allure through prohibition, we should address the root causes of why younger people are drawn to such content.

Once entrenched in law, any opposition will be met with accusations of perversion or indifference to child safety, compounded by the spread of misinformation. We must critically assess and address these laws to protect our freedoms and privacy.

There wouldn't be speculation if they defined how they intend the law to work. Instead of a "don't worry about it we will work it out", give people something to say that's not so bad and I can live with it

December 2024's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight nine(!) 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?

So, earlier today i read about Bagels (https://github.com/EnhancedJax/Bagels), which describes itself as "Powerful expense tracker that lives in your terminal". Not only is it really cool looking, but seems quite useful! I'm really loving the increased TUI-centric command line apps that are becoming more popular; well, it seems like they've become more popular, but i admit to not having any hard data/stats to back up my impression. However...As much as i love the command line/terminal/CLI....my daily workflows simply do not necessitate being in/using the terminal. (I only need such terminal apps on a rare basis, or i simply use old school unix/linux cli tools.) I mean, especially while on my mobile, there's not that much that i need to do from the command line. (Yes, i know there are mobile app terminal emulators, i'm simply saying that i have very little use for my daily needs.)

So, besides the expense tracking that Bagel cites, I'm very curious to learn what other common, daily sorts of use-cases and workflows do people here have that could benefit from leveraging terminal/command line apps? Please share!