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    1. How often do you replace your phone?

      My phone, Samsung Galaxy S20, has finally started having some screen issues and made me start looking seriously at a new phone. I felt like I got great use out of this phone after 5 years, and I...

      My phone, Samsung Galaxy S20, has finally started having some screen issues and made me start looking seriously at a new phone. I felt like I got great use out of this phone after 5 years, and I anticipate trying to get a similar or (hopefully) longer life span from my next phone.

      Ideally I'd like to keep this phone going for another year, currently the screen issue is more annoying than actually preventing me from using the phone. The OLED can no longer properly display black colors and when the screen goes to sub 10% brightness it adds a yellow tinge to the screen, and using my blue light filter only makes it worse. This has led me to use my phone less at night or when it's dark, since it's like having a dim flashlight shining in my eyes.

      A bit of a startling realization, was that I've been putting off building a new computer since I moved over here due to the expense, but I'd happily drop more than I'd be willing to spend on that new computer on a new phone since I use it everyday throughout the day.

      This made me wonder how often others replace their phones.

      Are there any criteria you look for when picking new phones?
      Are you a brand loyalist, or do you shop around?
      Do you do camera comparisons between phones/models?
      Or simply, how do you choose your phone?

      42 votes
    2. Movie recommendations?

      Hi! I was hoping for some movie recommendations for someone that enjoys movies such as Interstellar, Inception, Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Matrix? The responses are much...

      Hi! I was hoping for some movie recommendations for someone that enjoys movies such as Interstellar, Inception, Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Matrix?

      The responses are much appreciated, thank you!

      28 votes
    3. Tildes feels like the last bastion of the Information Superhighway

      (Information Superhighway, for you youngin's, was a term that was thrown around quite a bit in the early days of the internet. See also: "world wide web" and "cyberspace") I'm writing this post to...

      (Information Superhighway, for you youngin's, was a term that was thrown around quite a bit in the early days of the internet. See also: "world wide web" and "cyberspace")

      I'm writing this post to say thanks to the developers, admins, and moderators of Tildes. This is one of the few corners of the internet that hasn't been completely taken over by bots, trolls, shills, or astroturfers. This is a tight-knit community of folks who are good at disagreeing with each other respectfully. It's the way the world should be.

      I'm thankful that I can come here and talk about things that I'm uncomfortable discussing elsewhere on the internet or even in the real world.

      I came from the great Reddit exodus of 2023. For a while, when I was actively watching the Tildes User Growth chart, I started to worry when it looked like user registrations were stagnating. I even created a post asking the community if it was time to accelerate growth. Thankfully, there was pushback from Tildes veterans who understood that bigger is not necessarily better. I now agree with that sentiment.

      Be human, everybody!

      116 votes
    4. Peeves, opinions, and hot takes about style

      The recent topic on grammar errors that actually matter got me interested in all of your opinions about style. Working in academia, I have developed a surprising number of strong opinions about...

      The recent topic on grammar errors that actually matter got me interested in all of your opinions about style. Working in academia, I have developed a surprising number of strong opinions about style and formatting over the years. I'm curious to hear what you all care about. I am also curious to see if I can be persuaded to cool down some of my own hot takes based on your responses. I'll share a few to get us started.

      1. For the love of all that is holy, do not put a footnote in a title or in an abstract.
      2. Similarly, do not put a citation in a title or an abstract!
      3. An abstract should be... an abstract, not your life story or even a summary of the paper. It most certainly should not develop and defend arguments.
      4. Does a published manuscript really need to be double spaced?
      5. I'm in the punctuation-inside-quotations camp, but I am open to the alternative. I am somewhat of a weirdo in believing that individual authors should be free to use either style (so long as they remain consistent in their usage).
      6. Bibliographies should prioritize the language of the original source; meaning, it is ridiculous to transliterate the titles of non-Latin works in a bibliography. What are you going to do with that information? If you don't know that language, then it is utterly meaningless, and even more so because you can't even do anything with that transliterated text. Plus, good luck getting a standard transliteration out of anyone. All this does is just obscure the fact that these sources were cited, at least as far as indexers are concerned. It would make more sense to just include translated titles next to the original, but eliminating the non-Latin text altogether is so absurd (looking at you APA).
      7. On a similar note, foreign words should not be italicized or emphasized any other way just because they appear in a text. All this does is fill up the text with needless emphasis that distracts from the things you do mean to emphasize.

      Okay, I will stop here before I cross the threshold where I won't be able to get anymore work done today! :b

      24 votes
    5. TV Tuesdays Free Talk

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      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.

      6 votes
    6. What did you do this week (and weekend)?

      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...

      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!

      12 votes
    7. Siblings sentenced for imprisoning gay brother

      Happened in Denmark, so article is in Danish. Put it into DeepL to translate important bits: Four siblings, a brother and three sisters, were sentenced to prison by the Court in Glostrup on Friday...

      Happened in Denmark, so article is in Danish. Put it into DeepL to translate important bits:

      Four siblings, a brother and three sisters, were sentenced to prison by the Court in Glostrup on Friday for imprisoning their 26-year-old brother in September 2023.

      The case began in the fall of 2023 when police broke into the family's apartment in Brøndby and found a 26-year-old man in a small broom cupboard.

      In addition to imprisonment, all four will also be expelled from Denmark. The two oldest sisters will be banned from entering Denmark permanently, while the youngest sister and brother will be banned for a number of years. All four convicted siblings are Italian citizens and will therefore be deported to Italy. The siblings grew up in Sicily and have roots in Tunisia. They are Muslim, and according to the prosecution, their actions stem from that cultural background.

      Specifically what happened to him can be read in this article. Translation collapsed because of gruesomeness:

      **Content warning**: description of torture

      On a Monday in September 2023, police broke into a dark storage room in a small apartment in Brøndby.

      They found an emaciated young man lying on a thin mattress with nothing but a jug of water and a bucket in the corner.

      The young man had been locked up here for 35 days. This is stated in the indictment in the case, which is expected to end on Friday.

      According to the indictment, four siblings, three women and a man, kept their brother locked in a small locked room with no windows or light for over a month because he told them he was gay.

      He was denied food or drink at times and forced to sleep on a thin, scabies-infested mattress and defecate in a bucket.

      The young man only escaped after 35 days when a neighbor heard him crying for help and immediately called the police.

      By then he had lost 14 kilos, had symptoms of scabies and several bruises from blows.


      If anyone thinks this is too much to share then please let me know - I will delete the thread if it is. I did put the homophobia and downer tags though so hopefully everyone who do not wish to see this stuff have already filtered that. Just sharing because I'm shocked this can happen in Denmark.

      29 votes
    8. Looking for low-precision, mouse-only Steam game recommendations

      I just learned that I can use the Steam Link app (iOS link, Android link) to stream Steam games to my phone and tablet (within my home). I have no desire to play M/KB or controller-based games on...

      I just learned that I can use the Steam Link app (iOS link, Android link) to stream Steam games to my phone and tablet (within my home).

      I have no desire to play M/KB or controller-based games on these devices (I already have a computer and a Steam Deck which can do those better), but I like the idea of playing some more casual stuff that only uses mouse input (in the form of me tapping the screen).

      I'm thinking stuff like:

      • Mobile game ports meant for touch input
      • Point-and-click adventures
      • Clicker games
      • Anything else I'm not thinking of that could be easily played by tapping the screen

      I'm interested specifically in lower-precision mouse-based games that would be comfortable to play on my relatively small phone screen (the device I'm most likely to use), though that's not a hard requirement. Anything requiring more precision I could play on my much larger tablet screen instead.

      What games do you recommend?

      25 votes
    9. Tactics fans: What do you think of turn order?

      I've mentioned a few times I'm working on making a tactical RPG engine, and I'm finally at the point where I'm doing the actual important part of determining turn order. It's a harder design...

      I've mentioned a few times I'm working on making a tactical RPG engine, and I'm finally at the point where I'm doing the actual important part of determining turn order.

      It's a harder design decision than I thought, so I thought I'd ask for opinions.

      I'm trying to make a game in the style of Shining Force, where the turn order is determined by a unit's status. There's quite a few games like that, but I'm wondering if that design is actually good. The thing that makes that style of game good is that they're actually fairly easy, and the "noise" of stat-based turn order, where you can't depend on a specific turn order, seems to make the game harder. Or at the very least, it closes the door on more precise tactics. I've had plenty of experiences where I thought a unit was safe because they had enough HP for one more hit, and the enemy ended up hitting them twice before their turn came up.

      In reality, I'm actually pretty set on keeping this in my engine for better or for worse (boy, is it hard to resist expanding scope), but I'd be interested in hearing some opinions nonetheless

      18 votes