I moved across the world from my friends, and as a dad I don't have much time for gaming. I really enjoy the idea of play by email (PBEM) or cloud format games, and got into playing ranked Advance Wars by Web for a little while that goes in that format. I then stopped playing as much due to spending more time than I had set aside for gaming thinking through my turns to try and improve my ELO.

Sadly, I haven't been able to get my friends to buy into playing a game in this format yet, but I'm holding out hope that when my kids are older, and I have a bit more time to game regularly, I can start up a game in this format with some internet strangers.

What got me thinking of this topic was remembering that I had bought Shadow Empires for my birthday with a Steam Gift card my brother gave me after my oldest was born, and it has been sitting in my library with 8 minutes of gameplay since then. I know it support PBEM, and I think my friends would enjoy it if I could get them to give it a try.

I'd thought I'd see what my fellow Tilders think about this style of game.

Do you have a favorite game you play in this format?
Any long-running games that you've had going on with a group? I know games in this format can take years to finish.
Are there any games that you wish would adopt this format?
Anything else/stories you felt like sharing about this kind of games?

So I have a have maybe a few hundred books at home and I think it's time I put together a collection of what I have. I'd love a database of author / title / publication year / physical location that I could search through ideally.

Is there software that can help with this? I had a brief look at LibraryThing, but I think it costs money for the quantity of books I'm looking at. I briefly toyed with the concept of making my own app that could scan an ISBN to speed up the process (since most will have ISBNs). I wonder what the people of Tildes suggest? Has anyone here done something similar?

I just had two brand new tires (Michelin Defender 2) installed on my car (2022 Ford Maverick XLT, a four-door cyber-orange truck) and they have boosted my average MPG by 25, going from from 25-33 to 50-57mpg. Insane.

The ride is also so smooth it's practically ludicrous, almost feels like a brand new suspension system was installed.

Highly worth it. Always invest in good tires.

Since buying my house nearly two years ago, I have been working on various home improvement tasks. One of the first things I did when I moved in was to re-paint the walls in certain rooms because of ugly paint jobs from the past or visible damage that required me to fix cracks or other imperfections. The problem is that I don't really have an eye for color matching or designs so every room that I have painted, is just white. I want to make my home feel more cozy during the Michigan winters so I am thinking of getting some high-quality wallpaper to put up as opposed to painting. Especially because I did a complete remodel of my attic living space, replacing wood paneling with drywall, and I am soon approaching the beautification of the space.

So I am conflicted because it seems like there is many prevailing thoughts in the American design psyche:

1. Fuck wallpaper - this seems to be due to the difficulty of removing wallpapers from 60s to 80s, where the designs were also not very good and quality bad. I removed wallpaper when I moved into my home, and it really wasn't that bad. I did it all in a day, but I can relate to hating the patterns that former owners put up.

2. Accent wall only - put wallpaper just on a single wall in a room. Would still need to color match this to paint and kind of seems like the worst of both worlds. However, wallpaper can be expensive if you go the premium route so this could save money.

My wife is European, and while the attitudes towards wallpaper in various parts of the continent can vary, she is also very pro-wallpaper. She is thinking of doing whole room wallpapering.

So what are your thoughts, experiences, and opinions? If you have experience in America doing it, what vendors and advice do you have?

My elderly father has an android phone and so do I. Is there a reputable remote assistance app that we can both install so I can help him with basic phone stuff from far away?

It has to be as easy to use as possible: it won't work if he has to open an app or toggle settings or punch in a buncha code. He doesn't even know how to take a screenshot and send it over WhatsApp. Ideally the app would just be sleeping until I send him a request, it'll have a pop up to allow, and he just has to click yes. I won't need full control, just be able to see what he sees and tell him what thingy to click.

On the desktop front, I'm considering getting Mint for him to upgrade. All he wants to do is open browser and go to bookmark sites. Is there a Mint compatible remote assistance app that's super easy? Again I'm okay with minimal control trade off with ease of use from his side.

Thanks Tildes :)

I was looking through some old posts this afternoon and noticed several users posted but had since been banned. I was wondering if anyone knows the approximate number of users that have been banned and what the most common reasons were.

Hello, Tildes Tech Support Team,

I'm doing some Homelab stuff. And I'm looking for a way to set up an inexpensive back-up Internet connection. Less about having a connection when I'm home and Internet goes out (Phone hotspot works in a pinch), but more about getting in and getting statuses of stuff when I'm not home and Internet drops.

For background, I have a Ubiquiti Unifi Dream Machine Pro that can do WAN failover. My primary Internet connection is through Verizon Fios. The UDM and the Fios ONT are directly connected via ethernet; I'm not using Verizon's crappy home router. Also, I rarely lose Internet connectivity. This really is just a Homelab experiment to see if it can be done.

I've seen some stuff about getting a cheap, refurb smartphone and a cheap MVNO plan like Google Fi that nets me a handful of GB a month, and then tethering the UDM to the phone somehow (maybe through some cheap router in bridge/passthrough mode like a GLinet travel router). Has anyone had any experience doing this?

But...I actually have a secondary Internet connection already. My apartment complex has WiFi across the complex and for each unit. That I unfortunately have to pay for, even though I don't use it -- I want FULL control over my home network. But since I do have it, is there a way I can take advantage of this? I'm thinking something like a reverse AP, if that exists. But it has to pass through the IP from the apartment WiFi.

I know there will likely be issues with double NATing. But depending on the services/things I'm trying to access or keep access to, that may not be a factor. Like my Unifi hardware talking with the Unifi cloud access stuff. I think double NAT shouldn't matter.

Anyway, appreciate whatever you all got!

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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.