Anyone can participate. CGA does not require membership and is always open to all.

Ballot Formatting

• Ballot entries are NAME (VOTES) e.g. Pong (3)
• Copy and paste the game titles from the list so they match exactly.
• The ballots will be tallied using this script from u/Spore_Prince.
• Any improper ballots will not be counted (but you will get a polite message from me or someone else asking you to fix them beforehand).

Topic Rules

• All top-level comments must be ballots and ballots only.
• Child comments can be anything -- feel free to talk about why you chose what you did.

Voting Process

• Each person has 20 votes to distribute among games as they see fit.
• Each person can allocate a maximum of 5 points per Single Game/Arcade Special.
• Arcade Specials count as one block (do not vote for each game in them individually).
• Voting closes 4 days (96 hours) from the posting of this topic.

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing (5)
Portal 3 (5)
Half-Life 3 (3)
Team Fortress 3 (2)
Night Trap (2)
Xexyz (1)
Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon (1)
Left 4 Dead 3 (1)

Big Rigs: Over the Road Racing (10)
Protal 3 (7)
Wand of Gamelon (5)

Voting Outcomes

• The top 6 games/Arcade Specials will become the next 6 months of CGA (or more in case of a tie).
• Of the remaining games, the bottom 50% will be cut from the list.
• The remaining 50% will stay on the list and will enter the next voting round with 30% of their final vote totals.

Game List

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!

My partner and I have long been on the fence about whether or not to have a child. Now we're approaching middle age, it feels like it's a 'now or never' decision point, and ... well, I'm still torn.

On the one hand, I see the state the world is in. I'm keenly aware of the latest climate projections and what they mean (I also know enough to know how much we can still improve things if we decide to). I'm afraid of escalating instability and societal strife. What if I can't get my medications? I don't know how I'd go on even without a child in the picture. I still struggle to accept the world as it is, which is quite a bit bleaker than it was portrayed to me growing up. I spent years of my life wishing I was not born. How could I bring a child into that circumstance?

On the other hand, I'm really, really good with kids (and teenagers!) and find relationships with them really rewarding. I love spending time with my nieces, nephews, and friends' kids, and it leaves me wishing I could also shape a human with the values and priorities that are most important to me - stewardship, patience, music. I don't want the religious wingnuts to be the only ones shaping the next generation! My partner and I have a lot of privileges and would be able to offer a lot to a child, from quality education, to a fantastic extended family, to multiple powerful citizenships / passports. Hell, our parents would even move in to help us out with childcare for at least the first few years. You can't ask for much more than that.

Obviously this is a big question, and it's one my partner and I are talking about extensively. I'm also going to return to counseling soon to piece through things.

I'm certain that others on Tildes have also navigated this question. Do any of my thoughts resonate with you? What did you decide and why? Are you happy with your choice?

And has anyone adopted? Adoption is the dark horse here. Once upon a time that was my preferred route, but now that I've spent a lot more time reading about the risks and realities I've cooled on it a bit. I am certain I can deal with many challenges of raising a child, but not stuff like oppositional defiance or connection disorders, which occur at ~2x the rate in adopted children, many of whom have trauma. They deserve love too, but unfortunately I have limits due to my own mental health troubles. And all of that is to say nothing of the often sketchy or uncomfortable legal and societal circumstances of adoption.

I deeply appreciate any and all thoughts and experiences you take the time to share.

I moved from Europe back to the US Midwest this spring. While I'm still getting my financial situation stabilized, I will at some point in the next year or so need to buy my own car (currently I am living with my parents and borrowing their cars as needed). Given the state of the world and gas prices, an electric car seems like a no-brainer to me. Less maintenance and with current gas prices I'd save money even if I could only charge at the stations in my neighborhood, much less if I install something simple at home. I'm an anxious driver and have incredibly little desire to drive long distances, so range is also not super important to me.

The problem I've found is that I'm not a "car person" and I'm not sure how to find and pick the right car for me. I figure we've got some car people here on Tildes who will have a better idea of the market and manufacturers involved.

My parameters:

• No Tesla. This is non-negotiable. I will buy an ICE vehicle before I get a Tesla.
• Nothing super luxury. I'm not made of money. I know there aren't any really cheap electric cars available that I'd dream of here in the States yet, but I want to stay as affordable as possible.
• I do not want anything bigger than a sedan. SUVs and crossovers make me nervous and I want to drive a small car.
  • A hatchback would actually be my preferred form factor, but I don't think there's many options of that size. The only one I've found upon searching is the Fiat 500e, which appeals to me for that reason.
  • ICE cars who appeal to me in terms of size and design include the MINI Cooper 2-door, the Volkswagen beetle, and the Kia soul.
• I'm not wed to getting a new car, but as an anxious driver (thus wanting a lot of the fancy modern safety features and alerts) and someone who isn't super knowledgeable about cars (thus not wanting to rely on my own ability to spot a dud before buying it), I'm leaning towards it. I'll take suggestions for used cars to look for, but keep in mind that since I'm in the Midwest, there may be a smaller pool of used EVs available for me to buy locally.

I struggle with this myself. And after speaking to dozens of independents, they either rely on word of mouth from previous contracts or have the one long term contract and hope it doesn’t end.

But that’s not actionable for acquiring new business, it’s kinda like waiting for the rain to fall.

Then there is the crowd that sells LinkedIn masterclasses where posting everyday just the right AI generated words will generate infinite inbound messages and business opportunities, they promise.

I don’t believe in the LinkedIn miracle, I think these courses are a scam.

But I don’t have an alternative either and need to acquire new business to remain financially sustainable.

I do custom software engineering (custom line of business applications) on my own, and devops + infra with a couple of friends (we each have a specialty and we split the work based on our strengths)

So, independent tilderinos, how do you find new business and keep your business afloat?

Family league was foiled, so couple of us are just looking for randoms to help fill out a Yahoo league. There was a few members active on here during the season last year so figured there might be some interest.

Was originally thinking of solely a Tildes fantasy football league but don't think there's enough people for that lol

What do you guys think about the anime?

I thought it was excellent. The art is impeccable and the historical matters were handled with great care. Studio Saru is on fire lately.

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!

It could be a deliberate anonymous act, or simply a knock-on effect from something you did.

Whatever it is, the person didn’t know that you did something to help them, but you absolutely did.

The help can be small or big, serious or funny, meaningful or inconsequential.

Tell us all about it.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like macklemore, steam frame and rockstar games. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was suspicious.

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!

This is my first time getting laid off. Still processing it. My job was starting to feel like a slog so it honestly feels like a burden has been lifted. But a different, more unfamiliar (maybe even somewhat interesting) burden has replaced it - financials.

I know I can file for unemployment. I have to handle some other dumb stuff like 401k, HSA, health insurance. it's kinda more annoying than anything else.

I have some severance but not sure how long it'll take to find a job and I've heard it's hard out there.
I would also love to figure out how to be financially dependent while working for myself but don't know where to start for that.

Looking for any advice from the Tilderino fam.

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?

Hi all,

I just finished building a static webpage for a local artist. She's been generous and sociable, paying me $100/hr for my work. Despite some reservations toward taking responsibility over other people's hosting, she's asked me for a monthly rate to host the site. Right now I'm looking at renting a basic Hetzner VPS for $10/month. This would come at the added benefit of scaling up over time for other clients.

I want to work toward establishing good business practices, and that means charging people fairly - i.e. never simply because I can. Aside from the cost of hosting, how do you measure the cost of responsibility over a static site? A one-time setup fee? Hoping for some input from people who have more business experience than myself.

Edit:

Part of the goal is to host multiple artist pages on the same site, and apply some server software I've developed that allows for event coordination etc. I need a VPS for that.

I've run this idea by my client, who is part of the art collective, and she's in favor of it. I'm going to charge $50 for setup and $10/month for the first three months, then adjust in the new year based on how it's going.