March 2025's Humble Choice is now available with the following games (2 EA, 6 Steam).

Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like diplomacy, baby boomers and great depression. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was astute.

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!

I'm about 5 percent into the book Hyperion and I am already noticing that the author is drawing on a rich context of cultural background knowledge from a wide variety of sources and disciplines.

This thread is a place to collect observations about culturally laden content within the book that might enhance understanding. It is not a place to spoil the plot.

No obligation, but feel free to contribute what you see.

(Inspired by some discussion over at the The New Lifetime Reading Plan topic)

Which authors or texts do you feel deserve a place in the literary canon, but don't currently have one?

There is, of course, not one singular, well-defined "canon" -- so interpret "the canon" as "the classics" or "required reading" or "most important works of literature" or however else you care to define it.

In particular, consider areas that the canon tends to overlook: female authors, eastern perspectives, plays (besides Shakespeare's works), etc.

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!

Welcome back to Tildes’s now officially monthly creative writing contest! Last month’s entries were a joy to read, and I’m excited to see what literary magic you all conjure this time around.

Your goal: Write a creative short story based on the prompt provided and post it in this thread.
Deadline: 2025-02-21T23:59:59-05:00.
Prize: Your choice of a $20 gift code for either Proton or Tuta! I added the other major encrypted provider as a choice this time around, so you’ll need to choose if I select your entry as the winner. If anyone wants to suggest or donate future prizes, send a DM my way.

Your prompt: Write a story that begins and ends with the same sentence, but the meaning of that sentence has completely changed by the story’s conclusion.

Rules (Streamlined and Improved!):

1. Creative Writing Only: It must be creative writing. Creative fiction, creative non-fiction, and fanfiction are all welcome! If you go the fanfic route, keep in mind that I might not be familiar with the source material. Also, your submission should be in English, unless you’re particularly confident in Google Translate’s artistic sensibilities.
2. Length: While there’s no hard limit, “short story” generally implies somewhere in the ballpark of 1,000–7,500 words. Aim for that range, give or take, or it may mildly count against you. Only one submission per person, please!
3. Judging: The winner will be chosen by my entirely subjective judgment, not by comment votes. Don’t worry, though—I have impeccable taste. Also, infallible.
4. Originality: Your story should be written specifically for this contest based on new material.
5. Formatting: Please use collapsible formatting if posting your full story in the comments to keep the thread tidy. You are allowed/encouraged to host it somewhere else and link to it from here as well.
6. Licensing: New requirement this time around! Include a clear license declaration with your submission (e.g. “All Rights Reserved,” your choice of Creative Commons license, or perhaps even the JWCL (coughcough)). This helps me know whether I can compile the stories for the community later.
7. Shameless Self-Promotion: In case the self-promotion in the last rule was a tad too subtle for your tastes, you can also always check out my own creative writing.

And everyone, whether you’re submitting a story or not, please leave feedback on the entries! It means the world to writers when their work is appreciated (or even just constructively criticized).

Today I got an email from ebay.

It says:

We wanted to let you know that your eBay account has been permanently suspended because of activity that we believe was putting the eBay community at risk...

Well this is weird because I don't use ebay. I sold some things there over 10 years ago. Since then I may have logged in once or twice. Maybe I reset my password a few years ago to make it more secure. So I couldn't have violated any of their policies.

This is a concern to me because I assume someone has been using my account. I assume they have been logging into it and scamming other people. And the account is linked to my email so the scammer has that. So I don't know if someone found out my address info, credit card, or something else. But I can't login to ebay and change my email or check account history because my account is suspended.

So I contacted customer support and they replied a few hours later that I'm banned for life and the reason can't be told to me.

By the way, I did not reply to the original email or click any links in it. I went directly to the ebay site and contacted customer support through that. I'm sure it wasn't a phishing attempt, it's really ebay and they really banned my account (which I haven't been using).

Any suggestions? In my opinion eBay has not used proper security and is exposing me to risk by not giving more information about what has happened.

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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.

The AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT launches tomorrow (6th March) for a MRRP of:

• $600 USA before taxes
• £570 UK after taxes

Reviews:

• Have They Finally Done It? - Hardware Unboxed
• Review & Benchmarks vs. 5070 Ti, 5070, 7900 XT - Gamer Nexus
• Nvidia in Trouble? The RX 9070 XT has great potential - der8auer
• AMD Radeon RX 9070 / 9070 XT review: back to winning ways - Eurogamer
• AMD, I Could Kiss You - 9070 and 9070 XT Review - Linus Tech Tips
• AMD's Radeon RX 9070 XT is the most exciting GPU to launch in years - XDA Developers

Bonus:

• AMD FSR 4 Upscaling Tested vs DLSS 3/4 - A Big Leap Forward - RDNA 4 Delivers! - Digital Foundry