Timasomo is "Tildes' Make Something Month": a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of October.

This is its eighth year, so I guess you could say WE ATE EIGHT.

The best way to get a feel for Timasomo is to check out our previous Showcase topics, where creators share their creations with the community at the end of the event:

• 2025 Showcase
• 2024 Showcase
• 2023 Showcase
• 2022 Showcase
• 2021 Showcase
• 2020 Showcase
• 2019 Showcase

There are no hard and fast rules on what you can create. You can make anything!

All of the Timasomo topics will be over in ~creative.timasomo, so if you're interested in participating or following along, make sure you're subscribed there.

All people who respond to this topic will be added to a notification list that I will ping each time I put up a new Timasomo topic. If you do not wish to be added to the list, or you wish to only be notified for the final Timasomo showcase, please let me know.

The Roll Call thread will be posted in ~creative.timasomo on October 1st. That is the official beginning to the event and is where people will formally commit to their projects for Timasomo.

FAQs

This Topic: Planning!

Post your ideas.

Give feedback to others.

Set up collaborations.

Ask questions.

Everything in this thread is non-commital! Bounce around ideas and figure out what you'd like to do in our communal brainstorming session.

Also, please do NOT start work on your project yet! Stage setting, planning, and other preparations are allowed (e.g. getting supplies/materials, setting up workspaces, etc.), but save the creation initiation for the 1st.

Get excited for another GREAT Timasomo!

The Reboot!

I used to run a series of "Screenless Day" monthly posts that were aimed at nudging people to put a short pause on the toxic aspects of tech in their life. They never got much traction, but it was also hard to tell if people were participating because they wouldn't necessarily be here commenting on it and would instead be, you know, off doing other things.

There has been some renewed interest in the idea recently, so I decided to reboot the series and see how it goes now (especially because the wider tech landscape is arguably worse than it was back when I first started them).

The spirit of Screenless Day remains the same as it always has been:

a simple event aimed at encouraging people to take a temporary step away from toxic or consuming aspects of technology and spend their time and energies elsewhere

Anyone can choose to take a Screenless Day at any time, but the idea is to nudge people towards doing it over the first weekend of the month. Each new discussion topic will go live on the first Friday of the month, and it will remain open for the duration of the month.

It is strongly encouraged that you talk about your Screenless Day here, as part of the fun of the event is that, even though you might be doing something independently, your actions fit into a larger community picture of other people here sharing the same values.

Also, to promote both reflection and discussion on the goals of Screenless Day, each month I will be including a new discussion question to provide people the opportunity to reflect on their relationship with technology and keep the topic more “alive” and visible.

This Month

In addition to the once again regularly scheduled Screenless Day, there are a couple of housekeeping things for our first month back:

1. Building a notification list.

I will be building a notification list to be pinged each time a monthly Screenless Day topic goes up. Anyone commenting in this topic will be included by default. If you do NOT want to be included in the list, please let me know in your comment.

2. Changing the name?

"Screenless Day" can be a bit misleading (see the FAQ below), so I'm open to other name ideas. Everything I can come up with tends to sound negative however (e.g. "Pause Toxic Tech" day or something), and I want the name to be a simple but positive one.

Monthly Discussion

Use this topic to:

1. Talk about your plans for an upcoming Screenless Day.
2. Tell everyone what you chose to do for your Screenless Day, and how it went.
3. Reflect on your relationship with technology.

This month's discussion question:

• Of all the tech you use in your life, what platform/app/device/etc do you feel has the most overall negative impact on you? Why do you think that is?

FAQ

I thought this was a comedy, instead it just made me feel sad.

Hi!

I just watched the TV show Widow's Bay (highly recommended). One episode explored the classic trolley problem and got my mind rolling over its fascinating nuances. I see this problem was already discussed on tildes, but hope a 2026 revisit is worthwhile.

The episode promoted not pulling the lever. It argued that we can't stop all the horrible things that happen in the world. But we can control our own moral status:

"The runaway trolley is life. The lever is me... if I pull that lever it's a choice and I'm choosing to kill that person. I could never do that."

and this lovely message:

"The world is violent and mercurial. It will have its way with you…We live in a perpetually burning building, and what we must save from it all the time is love."

As sweet as that is, I find that interpretation lacking. To me, the physical act of pulling the lever isn't the core moral signal. Not pulling it isn't a get-out-of-responsibility-free card. There's still a violent outcome. That outcome happened because you made the choice to allow it. While you're not responsible for the scenario, you're still responsible for the outcome because it was entirely on you what the result would be.

I think my interpretation matches the "utilitarian" argument, which also hints at "the ends justify the means." I'm not, more generally, willing to get behind "the ends justify the means". But there is important nuance here. Sometimes we must cause harm for greater good and inaction in hard circumstances is its own moral trap. So I'm not sure what I think.

Also enjoyed exploring the variants at https://neal.fun/absurd-trolley-problems/. How would you handle them?

Another show ended this last week. Any one else also watched this one?

Overall a bit hit-and-miss for me. The art is beautiful, but the direction I felt frequently has odd moments that affected the pacing.

If there's a theme to the story I guess it'd be something along the line of don't be too obsessive in pursuing your dream (Yousuke with trying to bring Seiroku back, or the wine lady having to remind Inako that focusing on her dream of making her mom's sake is great but don't forget about the people the creation was meant for).

However, a lot of characters' actions were poorly motivated, making the story felt disjointed. While watching I kept thinking why Kihachi and Yousuke couldn't just work together instead of keep trying to steal the book from each other, it's not like they were competitors. Kihachi was said to be distrustful so maybe it was because he was suspicious of the guy, but then he kept giving out information or showing Yousuke his invention, as if enticing him to steal the book. Another example is Inako's dream to make her mom's sake and be a master brewer, which felt like should have been focused on more early on during the show, making her a foil to Kihachi's approach in chasing his dream perhaps. Instead the show seemed to put more focus on her being too trusting for most of the show, only when the electric book was randomly revealed to also contain her mom's sake recipe that this aspect of her character was brought back.

On a higher note, the OP and ED musics were the highlights for me. Quirky and sparkly which suits the story very well.

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?

Azerbaijan Grand Prix
Baku City Circuit
September 24-26, 2026

Next race:
Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia
Sepang International Circuit, Malaysia
October 2-4, 2026

We all know the big-name ones: Dune, 1984, The Martian Chronicles, etc.

What are some sci-fi books that you loved that you never hear about or that won't be making those top-of-all-time lists?

Why do they stand out to you?
What do they do well?
Why do you think they didn't get wider appreciation?

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows 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.

I've been playing Aniimo for a bit. The gameplay is fun, but some of the artwork looks blatantly AI generated to me. I've seen images with double headed animals and wheat that seems to disappear. Maybe those are placeholders, but the dialogue, some creature and NPC designs, and even the voiceacting set off my spidey sense too.

The developers claim they don't use generative AI for creating the characters, world and story, but haven't been clear about where they do and don't use it specifically as far as I know. Is it as obvious to anyone else as it is to me? Has anyone found clearer evidence either way?

I may keep playing because it's fun, but I won't spend a single bit of my money on it. The fact that it feels like a Genshin rip-off makes the whole thing kind of funny, too.

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.

I have not been a serious runner in years and never a good one. I picked up running again, having wanted to for a while. My friend randomly wanted to start a running music playlist together and the fun of choosing hyped-up songs led me to run 10-15-20-32k in the span of just a few months. I do not think I have ever run more than 7mi in my life. Now I look around at the sprawling city around me, satisfied that I can pick any point I see and run there.

If anyone else is into this would enjoy reading your stories or thoughts. I am especially interested in tips for greatly increasing distance without hurting myself. I had to simmer down a lot after doing 32k...

The US Nintendo eShop currently has sales for Pikmin 1, Pikmin 2, Pikmin 1 + 2 bundle, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, and Pikmin 4.

I've never played a Pikmin game before. Which would y'all recommend if I were to only buy one of these options?

Probably a common feeling that many eventually "grow out of". So I guess the follow-up question is if that happened to you, what made you change? And if that didn't, how did you manage to hold on to the belief?