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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?”

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• No grey market sales
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If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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I use hearing aids with Bluetooth, which is fantastic for phone call clarity, watching videos, and listening to audiobooks. I use my iPad often for watching videos, so they’re constantly paired.

My particular model of hearing aid has a flaw where the ambient sound gets adjusted during streaming in such a way that it causes a static like sound that’s loud enough to require turning the sound up to hear whatever I’m streaming. I seriously doubt this is good for my hearing.

I can go into the app and adjust the ambient sound balance, which reduces the static sound but makes the sounds around me quieter. This will reset back randomly, sometimes even when I pause. Annoying, but I can live with it.

My issue is that if I play a game on my iPad, it turns on streaming even if I have the sound turned off in the game. So I’ll be sitting here listening to static while I’m playing a card game or something, it’s loud enough that it’s then harder to hear the people around me.

Does anyone know if there’s a way to force the sound off so I don’t have to mess with switching Bluetooth on and off and having to restart the hearing aids because suddenly they don’t pair even though it was working 5 minutes ago?

Hearing aids: Phonak Audio L90-RL (lumity)

iPad Air, 4th gen, WiFi only

iPad os:26.5

I've wanted to get into the remote controlled (RC) hobby for awhile now, but scratching just a bit deeper than the cheap toys you can buy at a department store can start to get quite expensive. I also feel like the fun will wear quite quickly buying a complete car. A kit car could be interesting, but I wanted something more.

I recently had the idea (definitely not novel) to make it more of project and build my own RC car, relying on 3D printing, laser cut, and metal components where necessary (though I'm sure after a few crashes, it'll start to feel like every component). My skill level with electronics is relatively low and I know I'll enjoy the mechanical challenges more, so I'm coming to you on the question of electrics.

In my cursory searches for the electrical components, I believe I need the following:

1. Transmitter & Receiver
2. Electronic Speed Controller (ESC) & Motor
3. Battery & some sort of battery charger
4. Servo motor

I've mostly been looking for brands that offer the full suite. Probably limiting my assessment, but made it easier to get started exploring. So far it seems like Spektrum might be the best price point for the whole set (though still not cheap by any means):

1. Spektrum Dx3 Transmitter w/ SR315 Receiver
2. Spektrum Firma 70A Brushed ESC w/ Brushed Motor
3. 5000mAh 2S LiPo Battery w/ Charger
4. Standard Digital Servo

I'm mostly wondering if I'm missing anything component-wise. Or if I'm going completely off-base with jumping to these types of components when I could be fine with something much cheaper. I tried to start with looking at what entry-level RC recommendations there are, but most of those lead to kit cars. Also, my overall lack of familiarity with electrical components means I haven't even considered what sort of simple DC motors I could get by with, though I guess I'm not looking to program anything at the moment.

I've not invested anything besides time researching so any input/advice is welcome. Thanks for reading!

COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURES PRESENTS: 🕹️🔥⚔️ Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals

Hi everyone, zod000 here! Unlike many of our previous CGA hosts, I'm not much of a writer so this "insert cartridge" will likely feel a bit brief. Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals is hands down one of my favorite SNES games, and in fact possibly my favorite RPGs of all time. I'll do my best to prevent spoiling anything in the game, but I'll give you a quick rundown of the game itself, what to expect, and what to look out for to (hopefully) enjoy. This game is a proper 90s turn based jRPG, so I realize this game has a longer official runtime than we are used to, but I still feel that it is more than doable in a month of casual play as this was before the days of role playing games inflating their play times (I mostly blame Final Fantasy 7 on the PS1 for that trend).

Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals

Now despite the name, Lufia II is a prequel and is canonically the first game as far as the story goes, so don't worry about thinking that you should play Lufia 1 first. If anything, that would spoil some of it, ironically. As I said, I don't want to spoil any story, but will say that the story starts as trope-y as it gets, but soon gets far more interesting so please don't drop off after an hour or so.

So what sets Lufia II apart from the many other fantastic jRPGs of its time? Well, I'll give you some highlights:

• Monster sidekicks! You get pet-like monster companions that fight with your party during battles referred to as "capsule monsters". They all start as essentially babies and they "grow" by you feeding them items. They are NPC sidekicks that you do not directly control, but they are always beneficial in some ways. Some are better than others, and there are ways to game the cryptic items they prefer and want to be fed, but unless you feel like going down that rabbit hole you can just passively feed them items you don't want/need and build up your little buddy. I don't feel like this is spoiler territory, but if anyone disagrees let me know and I'll hide away.

• Puzzles! Lufia II has a strong leaning towards puzzles, I don't know that any dungeons in the game lack a puzzle. Some feel inspired by games like Zelda, but some of the later puzzles can be fairly challenging. There are also some optional later puzzles which stumped me as a kid. You'll know which they are if you stumble upon then; feel free to skip those or use some sort of guide online.

• Optional Content! I know you're thinking "hey, stop using exclamation points, optional content isn't that exciting". And while you are probably right, the optional dungeon known as the Ancient Cave does get me excited. While not technically the only optional content (there are the puzzles and such I previously mentioned as well as a casino area that could be worth your time for some prizes), the Ancient Cave is almost a game in itself.

Anyway, I think that is enough, please enjoy Lufia II with me for this months Colossal Game Adventure!

Mods

There aren't any mods that I am aware of; however, there are some special modes that unlock after beating the game a few times and there are save game files around that have them enabled. One of the modes is called "Gift Mode" and starts you directly on an island with the Ancient Cave with the option to switch your party to any combination of characters you ever play with in the game. It is fun to either build an "all star team" or a "no star team" and either give you a better chance at it if you had a hard time normally or to give you a challenge if you're just that awesome.

As always, mark your spoilers as such with the following text block:

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

Game Setup

Here is the rough news, to my knowledge Lufia II was never included in any sort of "virtual console" or retro console release. Pretty much the only way to legally play this game is to have a working Super Nintendo and the game cart (humble brag, I do). That being said, the game works perfectly in emulation and a simple search in basically any search engine of "play lufia 2" will let you play it directly online, though I am not sure how saves are handled, if they are handled, with these online emulators. I am sure any enterprising tilderino (did we ever actually decide on what to call ourselves?) should be able to run a rom file to play as well.

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
What about its system or era?
What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
What are you expecting from this game in particular?
Which Castlevania game has the best Death fight? 

FAQ

My 55lb German Shepherd / Husky mutt is an absolutely wonderful dog with one fatal flaw: he is deathly afraid of my irrigation system.

From inside the house, he can sense when the valves open and starts panicking before water even starts spraying. He starts running, pacing, hyperventilating, and generally won’t settle. I sit with him and pet him and try to calm him but he won’t relax until the cycle is done.

This is so much of a problem that I simply didn’t run irrigation last year or the year before.

I’ve tried desensitizing him by sitting outside with him and running one of the zones, sitting inside and running a zone, or walking him around the block while I run the sprinklers so that it’s not a surprise when they turn on. I’ve tried showering him with treats, letting him go hide wherever he wants, working on his tricks, and singing to him. Nothing seems to work.

He never chews up the system or shows aggression to it. He knows where the heads are and avoids them in the yard.

More broadly, he doesn’t like being in or around water. He’s good at taking baths. He will get up on the tub and stand there quietly, but he will be shaking and stressed. If we take him to the lake or pool, he will get in the water after a ton of encouragement (and then he proceeds to love the water).

Does anyone have advice for dealing with this kind of behavior?

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.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like national oceanic and atmospheric administration, reddit.old and pickup lines. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was tuned in.

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!

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

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 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!

I'm running out of content and need some help. Some of my notable favorites:

• Hey girl, are you a microwave? Because mmmmmmmmmmmmmm (doing my best to imitate the hum a microwave makes).

• Hey girl, are you a parking ticket? Because you have FINE written all over you.

• Hey girl, if you were a fruit, you'd be a fine-apple.

• Hey girl, did you change your name to Campbell? Because mmm mmm.

The feel I'm going for is delivering these with lots of very exaggerated eyebrow raises, often times finger guns, and my best Johnny Bravo voice.

The eclipse is over! Dracula is sealed. Again. Kinda? Who knows, man, this was a weird bout for him. Nostradamus has gotta have some more stuff in the tank for another Belmont, but for now let's just enjoy all the Axe Armor souls we farmed.

I hope you enjoyed Aria of Sorrow! Playing it again, I've found this game is comfort food - simple and straightforward, but clicky and fun. How does it match up to the rest of the genre, or series, for you? Did you try any mods? HOW DO YOU GET PAST THE WATERFALL?!

Join us in July when u/zod000 presents Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals!

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?