I want something like typingmind but for free, and that doesn't require installation. mainly for gemini and mistral (or perhaps groq too) I just want to be able to paste my API key and just use it. I know about OpenWebUI and msty but OpenWebUI requires installation, and msty doesn't have an android version.

anyone know something like this ? (would also be nice if it supports LaTeX)

Hi folks--I am very excited about a gaming PC that I just bought for my family (mainly 13yo son into gaming, coding, and digital art).

I installed the video card (only piece sent separately), went through Windows setup/updates. Installed peripherals. Updated video card drivers. Installed Steam/GIMP/Krita. Made 13yo an adult in my Steam Family. Installed a few of the games so something is ready to run right away. I even have the small Wacom tablet working in GIMP and Inkscape with a good pressure profile!

All that said, I used to set up my own Windows PCs (looooong) ago, and I'm wondering if it's really that simple. It was very easy.

I did small utility things like run Startallback and install PowerToys. I figured MS Visual Code is next?

Anything else you all can suggest?

(P.S. is there a way to move all his Minecraft stuff to his new Microsoft account? He's tired of logging in as me, and I'm tired of sending him auth codes.)

Good evening, everyone. I was wondering if any of my fellow Tilders had experience with using Android's Private DNS feature on unconventional android devices e.g. WearOS, Android TVs etc.

It was quite easy to figure out exactly how to set up an alternative DNS server on these devices. By default, Google has hidden the private DNS setting on them, but it is still accessible from ADB. In both of my examples it is likely easiest to enable “Wireless Debugging”, pair the devices successfully, and then run the commands.

settings put global private_dns_specifier one.one.one.one (replace this with the pertinent server!!)
settings put global private_dns_mode hostname

The issue I have been running into, however, is if there is seemingly any form of content filtering enabled on the DNS server of your choice, the WearOS device seems to think internet is unavailable when first connecting. If you open the Settings app and leave it open for long enough on the Wi-Fi page, it will switch from “Internet not available” to “Connected”. Contrary to this, if you open an app like Samsung Internet for, it does not take this time and just refuses to use any configured Wi-Fi network.

To go into my specific situation in a little more detail, I use NextDNS configured with Hagezi Multi PRO++ block list. I have no issues on my S24+ with regard to internet being deemed unavailable by the OS (sure the occasional public Wi-Fi network blocks DoT—I just use mobile data then). I have also yet to try it on my Smart TV, which is frankly the more important target device than my watch (I will get around to it in the new year once the holidays are over).

This is all a potentially very convoluted way to ask what people's experiences are with this, and if they have faced similar problems to me when using providers like NextDNS, AdGuard etc. that provide content filtering options on their encrypted DNS connections.

Merci beaucoup !

This is the ninth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing The City We Became by N K Jemisin. Our next book will be Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson at the end of January.

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.

Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you.

It could be one quirky video that you feel deserves some eyeballs on it, or perhaps you've got a curated list of videos that you'd love to talk us through...

Share some of the best video content you've watched this past week/fortnight with us!

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.

Hello Tildutes!

I have an elderly relative (91) who spends a lot of time alone in her house. I was thinking it would be nice to do an offbeat bonding activity in town somewhere to relax her.

I’m looking for suggestions on things she might enjoy, ideally something interactive but low-stakes.

Requirements/notes:

• Something one can do in a place like Newark, Wilmington, or maybe Philadelphia.
• She can walk and stand (her cane helps), but not too fast or for too long. She would need to sit.
• She can see alright with her glasses and can hear you with hearing aids, but not from a distance.
• She is astute and can follow conversations just fine, thought it can take a moment for her to put together her thoughts.
• I’d like to get her out of the house—managing her own living space is stressful and she is more relaxed when she does not feel obliged to be hostly.
• I would like this to be calming or relaxing or refreshing for her. She has some obsessive/compulsive habits and I kind of want her to zen out more. Or just have fun—she’s often worrying.

Some ideas I had (input/feedback/additional suggestions welcome):

• Some sort of guided meditative or zen garden-type relaxation thing, but suitable for a kinda tired senior with OCD. I don’t know what to look for exactly. Maybe even something a little New Age. She is nominally Quaker and I would say a good-natured and open-minded person.
• She mentioned once that her dream job was to be an artist. I was thinking about an abstract painting session at a studio where they provide all the materials. Some way for her to let out her inner Jackson Pollock?
• I thought about a spa day. Do they have specialists who work with seniors? She has some aches and pains but is obviously fragile and extremely unused to being “treated.” She might have to overcome some… guilt (?) for being attended to.
• Some sort of guided cultural experience—but maybe more engaging than walking around a museum? She is well-traveled and remains interested in world cultures. She used to be a teacher of English and French, spent a considerable amount of time volunteering in Mexico (before it was developed), and seems to often appreciate learning about cultural things on Wikipedia or in magazines.
• She seems to be quite pleased with animals, at least cats and dogs. I considered going to a cat cafe but, having been in those before, I know the animals are not always accessible. Are puppy cafes a thing? Indoor petting zoos?

In contrast it would be unsuitable for us to play any sort of competitive game, or to do something requiring a lot of physical strength or dexterity, or anything that would be emotionally overwhelming.

If you have experiences of activities or programs that might be fulfilling to my relative, I would love to hear them!

My goal is mostly just for her to have a nice time for that day. If I can get her to be more relaxed generally, that’s great too.

Thank you!

Important: This will be a noisy topic. If you do not wish to see it in your feed, please use the Ignore feature to hide it!

Tip: If the large number of comments are cluttering up the topic and you just want to see the main giveaway posts, click Collapse Replies at the top of the comments.

🎵 It's the most wonderful time of the year 🎵

This is our annual holiday game giveaway topic. Spread some goodwill and holiday cheer with others!

Before you participate, please make sure you read the rules below.

Rules

-Gifters

Post your available games, the platform and method of delivery, rules for your giveaways (e.g. first-come first-serve, random draw, etc.), and any additional info or requirements. Feel free to get creative!

-Giftees

Request giveaways. Please make sure you follow the gifter's posted guidelines.

-Guidelines

Anyone can choose to be a gifter, giftee, or both! Giveaway rules are set by individual gifters, but there are handful of guidelines everyone should follow:

1. No grey market keys! Only give away games from reputable sources. If you're not sure what this means, please ask.
2. Requests for games should be done in this topic, but if the gift is a key, those should be delivered by PMs only. Please don't post keys publicly in this topic, even obfuscated ones.

If you're new to these, check out previous giveaway threads to see how these usually go.

I didn't "get" the horse thing

Like some (most?) people, I looked at horse people and wondered "why". My Mum is a horse person, she'd rave about how much she loved her horse, but the words never really meant much to me. I always empathised with my Dad who, like me, found things like motorbikes and tractors more interesting and fun.
I thought, why would you want to invest time, energy and money into this 500+ kg animal which, as far as I could tell, didn't do much other than stand completely still all day and eat grass?
And then there's the actual riding, horses are animals, they are famous for getting scared of things such as a puddle, a plastic bag and the wind. Why would I not just use a reliable thing like a bike or car and master that? I honestly couldn't think of anything worse than wanting to go on a trek somewhere and your dumbass horse going "nah I don't like that brush" and you having to take a detour. It sounds frustrating!

So I tried horse riding

I started dating someone who was also a horse person, my Mum is a horse person and I felt like I was both missing something and also maybe it would be good for my relationship. So I thought, fuck it, why not let's give it a go. A new hobby is always a good thing.
My initial thoughts were luke warm. It was difficult as hell, which probably was the main thing that kept my interest. I feel confident getting on any machine and learning the controls in an afternoon, but a horse was like learning to drive again, but worse because each time I went to learn the car had a different opinion that day.
I felt like I struggled. I got laughed at and I laughed with the people at the stables as kids the age of 10 or 12 were running circles around me.
I could go one day and feel like I had it, the horse would listen and I knew what I was doing only to go back the day later and struggle to get the thing to go forward.
It took a year, minimum because it's hard to really put a finger on when it clicked, to actually sit on a horse and consistently get basic forward, stop and turn, never mind everything else. And I swear to god there is a lot of everything else.

Horse riding is really complicated

A horse, as mentioned, is a real living breathing animal. What that guy had for breakfast today is going to effect your ride today. You don't get that on a motorbike.
I'm writing this section before I even get as far as owning a horse too, so bare in mind these are all riding school horses, not my own.
So you sit on a horse and you know the mechanical signals to move the animal the way you want. I won't go into detail. As a rider, you have to both read the animal, as you would a person in a social setting, and also set the tone on the horse too. By sitting on that horse and giving clear, no nonsense instructions, the animal also builds trust with you too. Both on a momentary and a long term basis.
This means that, you could sit on a horse and give it the right mechanical cues, but the horse will go "nah" or it half ass it. As a rider, it take so, so much practice to learn how to pick up on these cues and also correct them and, even better, avoid them in the first place! And it's obviously even harder when you are learning at a stable and you aren't sure you are going to get the same horse every lesson.
OK, still with me? Because so far we've sat on a horse.
The horse can spook, the horse can be lazy, the horse can be really energetic, the horse can be stronger on one "rein" (the direction of travel around a riding school) than the other, the horses tackle may be uncomfortable for the horse, the horse may have sore feet, the horse might have a really boucy trot or a slow canter or goes straight into gallop from walk. The variables are impossible to list. As a software engineer, the thought of trying to ride a horse programaticially sounds nigh on impossible. It's all vibes.
And that's part one of this massive post, it's all vibes.
It's the vibes. You spend years learning how to vibe check a half ton dog so you know ahead of time it's probably not to pleased about the upcoming bush which is a slightly different colour and you can do something about it.

Horses are weird animals

So far in this post, I've been learning to ride and I've started to understand, ok, there's a lot going on there. I can trot, I can move the horse but I can't really do much with that beyond go for a nice walk really. There's a lot more to do.
Around this point, thanks to the aforementioned partner, I was gifted a horse. He's a handsome quarter horse named Brego (yes, named after that Brego).
I was told "Brego is lazy, he'd rather stand there than throw you off, perfect for learning" I was dubious.
I met this horse, he didn't say much, or do much. I can read dogs, but this man was giving me nothing.
Needless to say, I started riding him and it was a rocky start. He lived up to expectations and he refused to go out of sight of the house, and I didn't have the skillset to know what to do with him.
I got a horse trainer over and she gave me the tools, which springboarded Brego and I off into the woods for some adventures together.
It's taken another year, a lot of questions, getting thrown off (not Brego as promised) and many, many neck scratches but I'm getting it now.
They don't really communicate like other animals, a lot of it is silent and very subtle. Posture, ears, eyes, jaws and being tense are all little signs of horse language.
Nowadays Brego will see me across the field and push all the other horses out the way to see me, then just stand there. He just likes to hang out with the boys, you know?
So that's part two, the animal bond and it's a great feeling! It is like a big, weird dog. They all are full of this bizzare personality that horse people keep trying to put into buckets, but it doesn't really seem to always work.

Putting it together

Having an animal you love and trust, who also loves and trusts you, through hard work ontop of the honestly rediculous amount of skill and patience required to vibe check a horse and ride it is a huge payoff.
Riding a bike or car feels to me like refining a process. I can learn it reasonably quickly and then it's years of practice to get various experience and learn various niches.
Horse riding it seems like there is always more to learn, I don't know how to format it in this post without it going on for thousands of lines.
Just consider learning to ride, learning to jump and learning dressage on one horse, then having to apply that to another with a different temperament. There's obviously a lot of crossover, and you can learn how to ride a horse with a similar personality but every horse is unique, so you're learning how to adapt and thrive with each different animal.

Everything else

I didn't know where to put this but I wanted to call out the sheer volume of knowledge in the hobby/sport. I was so unaware of this before I started to learn.
I already mentioned sitting on a horse, going forward and the intricacies there. But there is so. Much. More.
The basics, like walking, trotting, canter, gallop, turning. Multiply that by the horse itself, riding a lazy horse is a different skillset to riding a wild beast with no stop peddle. I've seen people try to bucket horses in around 6 to 10 different types. Like I said above, I'm not sure about the buckets but these are by people who have more experience than me so maybe there's something there.
Then you've got more advanced riding sports, jumping, dressage, cross coutry, racing. Obviously not everyone is going to learn and get into all of these but they are their own sports which I haven't even touched yet.
Then on top of that you have non-riding skills. That is the community is very keen you understand and you are comfortable with horse care.
We're talking stable care with mucking out, water and food, brushing before and after, tacking up and down, taking care of the tack, hoove care. To some extent there's other stuff like teeth, vaccinations, quality of life, etc etc.
I'm listing stuff and these all have depth I don't understand, there's stuff I don't know about because I keep getting told in a matter of a fact way "oh did you not know about blah?"

Horses are cool

They are massive dummies but they are cool. I used to think horse riding was a sport for lazy people.
But lord, I feel like I have to apologise! It's so damn hard and uses so much of my brain that I realize it was me on my motorbike that was the lazy one all along!
I love learning and I feel like I learn all the time riding. The fact the fatty I'm sitting on likes me too is a good feeling too.

Feel free to ask any questions and please share your thoughts and experiences with horses!
Are/were you also like me?
Are you a horse person?
Do you think you'd ever try horse riding?

I might be a little early in posting this thread but I am personally beginning to stress a lot about the holidays - have been for like a month, even, to some degree.

So I wanted to make this thread as a safe venting space.

Is there anything specific about the holidays that might affect or trigger you?

How are you?

Feel very free to vent!

Hey folks,

Since we're not reading a book this month, I thought it might be nice to have a short retrospective of the last year instead.

As some of you may know, the book club originally started back in 2023 with a "pop-up event" hosted by @cfabbro. We read Roadside Picnic after a few users expressed interest in the title. The discussion had some great comments, and that helped lay the groundwork for making the book club a regular feature.

A few months later, @boxer_dogs_dance kicked the book club off proper in January 2024 with the first nomination thread. Cloud Atlas was selected based on voter interest and ideal library wait times. Despite being a difficult first book, participation was still high and has remained so for each month thereafter.

Boxer has since organized numerous nomination and voting threads, helped establish our format and rules, and has created many discussion prompts for each book. Huge thanks to you for the efforts, @boxer_dogs_dance!

Onto some stats for 2024:

• Books Read: 9
• Total Pages: 3,277 (average of 364 per book)
• Unique Contributors: 59 (or 140 total, when counting returning participants)
• Total Comments: 476 (across 121 top-level threads)
• Nominations Submitted: 102
• Votes Cast: 508
• Repeat Nominations: 11 titles were nominated twice, and 6 were eventually chosen. Perseverance pays off!

The list of past discussions can be found here:

• March: Cloud Atlas
• April: Piranesi
• May: The Dispossessed
• June: Project Hail Mary
• July: Ocean at the End of the Lane
• Aug: Small Gods
• Sep: This is How You Lose the Time War
• Oct: Kindred
• Nov: The City We Became

A big thank you to all who have participated, helped organize, commented, or quietly read along! You folks are what make the Tildes community so great.

So just to be clear, this isn't a nomination thread or an official post. I just thought it might be nice to look back, recap our progress, and maybe touch on some of the best picks from the last year.

What were your favourite reads from this past year? What are you looking forward to most in 2025?

See you all in January when we kick off 2025 with Kim Stanley Robinson's Ministry for the Future!