Hungarian Grand Prix
Hungaroring
August 1-3, 2025

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Dutch Grand Prix
Circuit Zandvoort
August 29-31, 2025

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

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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.

hey there tildes—

the job i’ve had for the past year has included heavy graphic design. i’ve never really done graphic design before so i’ve just been winging it and learning as i go. as time has gone on and the projects have become more complicated, i wonder if there’s a standardized way of organizing complex (or complex to me at least) projects in Illustrator (or for me, Affinity Designer).

one example— i create labels with 3-9 slight variations to be printed and attached to physical items (jars, in my case). these variations of the same design are roughly 75% the same, with the 25% being the “flavor” and associated text/colors. i also have to export as a layered pdf for the printing company since we don’t have the necessary equipment in-house.

another example (more related to InDesign or in my case Affinity Publisher)— a product catalogue. there are something like 30 pages and it’s just a huge click-fest of layers and nested groups.

are there any graphic designers here that have any insight on best practices when organizing large files or even practical ways to split up files?

TL; DR: how do I start building a collection cheaply with versatile/staple cards?

A couple of friends have started playing Magic: The Gathering with a virtual tabletop, and while I have learned a lot from playing Arena and reading cards (and watching the Prof) there's just something not working for me in the digital space; Archidekt is tough for me to read through, and even something like Tabletop Simulator doesn't work for me for learning the game (or rather...it's not sticking). I know that I do pretty well with physical objects, so I wanted to get some physical cards to get the hang of the game but immediately ran up against the cost.
I don't know if you guys know this, but Magic: The Gathering is expensive. Way more expensive than I can justify for a hobby I've just started and haven't really gotten the hang of. My question is: how do I start building a collection without breaking the bank?

The things I know, but might need to be corrected on:
"Don't buy bulk"; apparently most boxes of bulk have a bunch of repeats and are generally the cards left over when the good ones have been extracted. I would love to be wrong about this, because even getting common/uncommon cards in enough volume to play in a physical space would be neat.
"Buy singles"; it seems like this is a good way to spend $50-$1000 blindly in the dark if you don't know what you're doing.
"Play what you enjoy"; I've played some jump-start decks and those are neat, but I haven't played enough to know what I like, making this difficult. I also haven't played enough to know the difference between what I enjoy because it's neat and what I enjoy because I won with it one time.
"Buy a precon deck"; from what I've read the commander precons would be a good way to get a lot of single cards, but I've read/heard mixed things about them: reviewers discussing how to "fix" them to be good.
"Buy jump start packs"; I would love to grab a bunch of the jump start decks to mess around with and find synergies, but how do you avoid getting repeats of the packs?
"Buy the Foundations Starter Collection"; Foundations Starter Collection is apparently sold out (or only being sold used/resold at a higher price?), but seems exactly what I'm looking for: a decent collection of classic/useful cards that you can build with and supplement as you learn the game.
"Look for garage sales or ebay for collections"; I'm pretty sure my chances of edging out an experienced card hunter on a good deal is slim to none, especially in my area.

I would, in an ideal world, like to have a small collection with 300-500 of the cards that "everybody knows" for kitchen table Magic (fake draft/jump start, casual commander, casual...modern?), but this seems out of reach. Any guidance would be appreciated!

I have watched all of Dave Chapelle's specials and I occasionally watch Bill Maher whenever I can stomach his supposed "free speech" show.

Don't remember it verbatim but Dave Chappelle made fun of the trans community and took an empathetic approach to individuals such as J. Rowling who view the trans issue as a threat to womanhood (or something to that effect). He also however expressed support for a trans-woman being allowed to use a woman's bathroom so his opinions on this subject seem a bit mixed.

However, Bill Maher acts as if trans issue is the biggest issue of our time and that its the real reason that Kamala Harris lost the election. And is opposed to any sort of gender-affirming care as far as I can tell and thinks that cause L.A. has more people who identify as trans than Texas, that it's almost mostly a geographically based fad and what not. I will also never forget a clip of his show where him and Piers Morgan were telling Katie Porter about the threat that trans-women have to cis-women. It struck me as funny that 2 white dudes decided to take it upon themselves to tell a woman that trans-women pose a threat to her and she was just like ".....no I think I'm fine.".

But the release of Chappelle's specials were met with protests at the Netflix headquarters, whereas I don't remember people ever protesting in front of Bill Maher's studio even though I think he's far more in the camp of "trans movement has gone way too far" and says far more things that I would assume they find offensive or upsetting. what gives?

I keep getting messages in my email inbox or LinkedIn like:

> Hi, 
> I’m seeking a genuine partnership where only a USA software engineer can truly collaborate with me. 
> I value transparency and real results. 
> Things to do are very simple and I guarantee 3K~10K/month income for you.
> I’m ready to prove my credibility and discuss a win-win business. 
> Thank you!

Hello $their_name,

Why do you need a USA engineer and what do I need to do?

- $my_name

> Thanks for reaching me out.
> 
> I run a software development team with five talented developers who specialize in frontend, backend, full stack, AI/ML and blockchain technologies. Although we have a strong team, we are struggling to find enough jobs right now. As you may know, the economy in Europe is tough and low salary as well, so we are trying to find more opportunities in the US and Canada. However, this is challenging for us because of time zone differences, language barriers, and many US clients preferring to hire local people like you.
> 
> To solve these issues, I'm actively looking for someone who can help us in getting more jobs in the US. Since you are a US citizen, you can create accounts on job platforms like Indeed, Dice, Upwork and Wellfound. I think you may have already heard about Upwork. It's a world famous freelancing platform. After setting up your accounts, if you allow me to use them, I will apply for jobs by myself. When I receive interview requests from clients, I will notify you so you can attend the meetings. During the interviews, I will support you by quickly sending you the right answers to any technical questions that come up.
> 
> Once we secure a job, our team will handle all the development work, including any test projects. We will share the profits from the work we do, with a split of 30% for you and 70% for our team.
> In short, your role would be to connect with clients and help us secure jobs, while our team takes care of the technical work. This is a great opportunity for collaboration and growth.
> 
> And there is one thing I need to tell you about using your account. Several platforms have very strict policies with ip addresses. If i use your account on my own machine, your account will be risky because ip addresses are different. And also they detect VPN, VPS, and some cloud services as well. To address this, we need to use your spare laptop. I will use your account on your spare one using a remote desktop application like Anydesk. Anydesk is a secure and safe remote desktop application.

> Greeting,
> 
> I hope this message finds you well. My name is Cuong, and I came across your information on your website ( WE need it ). I am excited to share that I have a potential long-term collaboration opportunity that I believe could be mutually beneficial.
> 
> We’re a fast-growing IT consulting company based in Malaysia, with a talented team experienced in web2, web3, mobile development, and AI. As we expand into the U.S. market, we’re actively seeking a reliable business partner—someone like you—to grow together.
> 
> Here’s how we can support you:
> - Proactively apply and schedule interviews on job platforms on your behalf
> - Optimize and refine your resume and LinkedIn profile to stand out
> - Provide technical guidance to help you succeed in interviews
> - Take care of the actual development work once new projects are secured
> 
> If this sounds interesting to you, feel free to reach out. We’d love to hear your thoughts and explore how we can collaborate!
> 
> Looking forward to connecting with you.
> 
> Best Regards
> Cuong

Some of these messages are even from people who are well-connected to former bosses and managers and other talented people that I personally know. They aren't coming out of my spam folder.

I know I'm not special in this. I'm not the only one. They are throwing spaghetti on the wall until the meatballs stick, etc.

But I thought... what if I could use this to my advantage? I would still need to do the interviews but they could do the legwork applying for jobs and reaching out to companies, connections that they already have, and then when they deliver the job contract I cut off contact with these nebulous associates? And I join the company like normal.

Thoughts?

This is the sixteenth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. Our next book will be Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut at the end of August.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.

And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.