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.

Yesterday I discovered that you can ask ChatGPT what it knows and It will tell you. I’m curious about what it says for other people.

Obviously, don’t post anything you’re unwilling to share publicly on the Internet! For me it seems pretty harmless, though.

The prompt I use is:

What "user knowledge memories" do you have?

Hi, Tildes!

I'm being pressed to pick a present for myself (around 100€) and it happens the headphones I use for gaming at home (HyperX Cloud II) are starting to fall apart after several years of use. Whenever I buy tech, I usually spend a long time researching with the goal of finding the highest price-quality ratio for my budget, something that would last me a long time without glaring issues; but I've been having trouble doing that in this case.

I often hear from audiophiles that gaming headphones are generally overpriced for their quality - something I can definitely imagine - and that you should try and go for a good headset with a separate mic. But despite my searching, I haven't seen anyone actually recommend any specific combo of headset and mic that fit my budget. If I may say, I'm also somewhat starting to doubt the advice of audiophiles: I've seen threads of people saying they didn't sense a difference in audio quality between their gaming headphones and the new audiophile headphones they were recommended, or even that they found it to be worse, and the response was that they'll get used to it or that they just have a bad ear (said a lot more aggressively than how I'm paraphrasing), which is making me think it's more of a subjective difference. Then again, I'm not very well educated about audio!

What I need is a pair with surround sound, appropriate quality for the price point, that will last me a long time and without mandatory crappy software associated. This is for gaming, enjoying music and general use (I've been meaning to pick up some music production casually but this is very much secondary). For the mic, I just need something decent that won't be a pain to listen to for my friends on call and that doesn't cut me out when I laugh or whistle as my current mic does (sometimes someone tells me a joke and then doesn't hear my reaction at all and I feel very bad about that). Preferably one that doesn't take too much space on my desk but I have no scale of that, so I won't be picky about it. (EDIT: to be clear, it can be an attached mic, desktop mic, whatever mic, so long as it works!)

Before considering the headphone + mic combo idea, I was looking at the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 or Logitech G PRO X because both were recommendations I saw, but the former has a fairly bad mic and the latter forces you to use G HUB, which pains me. What is there that's better for this usage?

Thanks in advance!

tl;dr: disconnect from your VPN (or allow LAN connections)

I recently got an iPhone 17 and was being driven mad because, at first, CarPlay worked flawlessly on my 2019 Honda Fit (EX). However, next time I plugged in CarPlay refused to open. The phone was charging, the icon on the infotainment showed CarPlay, but it would hang for ~10s and close with a "no devices found, check cable, etc.". Android Auto worked for years without hiccups.

Nothing changed after a factory reset, reboot, etc. of the infotainment as many recommended.

I saw an offhand comment with how a VPN can cause problems. I'm connected to one 24/7 and I'm sure it worked earlier when I didn't set it up yet. I disconnected from the VPN and CarPlay immediately worked. The VPN I use has a "Allow LAN connections" setting which made disconnecting from the VPN unnecessary.

Wanted to throw this out there for people troubleshooting in the future. Not sure if this is specific to Honda or Apple, but my money is on how Apple devices do networking.

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?

This is the eighteenth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang. We will be discussing The Poisoners Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine by Deborah Blum at the end of October.

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.

Im trying to get into the habit of setting a daily/weekly routine of hobbies, chores, meal planning etc.

Right now, they happen when they need to happen but its not the most efficient or well coordinated. And i'd like to spend less time thinking about when to do things or what to do for routine activities.

What are some routines that work for you 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?

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.

Singapore Grand Prix
Marina Bay Street Circuit
October 3-5, 2025

Next race:

United States Grand Prix
Circuit of the Americas
October 17-19, 2025

I know! It seems obvious, right? We are a hot, humid, colorful, vibrant Latin American country. Of course, our literature is the same! But that wasn't always the case! In the 1990s, Rubem Fonseca was a huge hit with his dry, ruthless Brazilian noir. Luís Fernando Veríssimo often mirrored Ernest Hemingway with long dialogues with little to no explanation.

Well, for better or worse, this is how I write most of the time. Trying to get the most from a minimal amount of words and not many adjectives and adverbs.

That seems to confuse paid Brazilian readers. There's never any consideration of style or why I choose to write the story that way. They stamp my writing for infringing on half a dozen rules and proceed to completely ignore the content.

The idea is that writing must be riddled with metaphors, poetic language, and sensorial anchors through extensive descriptions. Something I only do when I feel that it is necessary.

I sent a dry, minimalist story written in language that reflected the harshness of those people with an equally dry open ending. One reader essentially suggested turning it into an emotional journey with a Black Mirror ending.

That is often what happens with Brazilian readers: they just don't get it.

English speakers, on the other hand, get everything, including the style. They understand that the ideas are the important bit, speculate on them, and bring their own references. They seem to get everything I do easily.

I am starting to think that I should make writing in English my priority.

I’m sure most people know of the common examples (“Hold me closer, Tony Danza”), but I’m interested in lyrics that you or someone you know has gotten wrong in the songs you regularly listen to.

Also, I’m interested in the story of how you found out it was a misheard lyric.

• How long had you heard the wrong thing?
• How did you find out the what the actual line was supposed to be?
• Was there a dawning realization or comedy wrapped up in it?
• Do you still sing it your way in spite of the actual lyrics?
• Is the song actually improved by your lyric swap?

If it’s not a burden, link to the timestamp of the song(s) where your misheard lyrics occurs.

If you want to prime people to hear things your way, feel free to put the actual lyrics in a <details> dropdown to hide them, so people can listen to the song with your words in mind first.

With October approaching, it's time to play some horror games! Horror is my favorite genre. It's chock full of emotion and creative game design. It's a genre that has to continuously reinvent itself to avoid getting stale, which leads to dozens of incredible games.

The games I'd like to play for the first time are:

• Silent Hill 2 - I was holding out for a proper remaster for over a decade. It's finally here, but it's $70! I'll probably have to bite the bullet.
• Resident Evil Village - I've been meaning to play this for years and already own it! On sale for $10.
• Resident Evil 4 (Remaster) - I played the original but not the new remaster. On sale for $20.
• Dead Space - Just bought this on sale a few weeks ago. It looks really good! On sale for $12.
• Alien Isolation - Alien is one of my favorite movies of all time, so I should really play this.

Now for some recommendations:

• Resident Evil (REmake) - This is where you start if you're new to horror. Absolutely iconic, and not too scary thanks to its cheesy B-movie script, which can be humorous. On sale for $5.
• Resident Evil 7 Biohazard - This game was a true return to form in the horror department. Absolutely loved it. On sale for $8. Genuine steal.
• Inscryption - Not very spooky. Has a fun card game and a lot of intriguing ideas.

Are there any games you're looking forward to playing?

Do you have any recommendations?

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like search engines, ea and jane goodall. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was inquisitive.

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!

So I have a car that's ~10 years old and I like to listen to music as I drive. I was relying on the CD player, but it only works intermittently these days, so I'm looking into alternatives.

I'm not big on connecting my phone via Bluetooth for security reasons, battery life concerns, and poor connection for streaming. I've got radio of course, but it's slim pickings where I live.

I starting looking into digital audio players. They sound ideal - compact, big offline library, physical controls - so I was hoping someone on Tildes can recommend one to me. Alternatively, if you've another solution, I'd love to hear it.

It's been a while since I've watched an old TV show. We've had widescreen TVs in our houses for decades now. When HD and digital video came into the scene, it basically came hand in hand with the 16:9 aspect ratio. It was more cinematic. It was basically a mark of quality in and of itself.

On a whim, I decided to watch Wolf's Rain, an original Bones anime that was produced in 4:3. I thought it would be difficult to adapt to the more narrow screen. I was thinking what I'd be missing out on by the missing part of the screen.

In hindsight, those thoughts were pretty rediculous. The people who made the show knew they were going to target that aspect ratio, so they built the entire show around it. It's animation: every frame is literally a painting. The aspect ratio was never a limitation to the artist because it was effectively the same limitation any given piece of paper or canvas they would apply their art to.

By no longer producing video in 4:3, we have lost something important to framing: verticality and angularity. 16:9 means there's a lot more room to the left and right than there is up and down, and because you have so much more horizontal view dutch angles tend to be extra disorienting. While Wolf's Rain doesn't use dutch angles very often, vertical framing is extremely common. One early episode has a particularly striking scene where a white wolf is running vertically up a cliff towards the moon. Other times it's used to show off the scale of large structures, which can better express a sense of dread or oppression. The show also often has circular framing; where characters and objects are arranged in a circle, which doesn't seem to work quite as well aesthetically on widescreen formats.

Now that I've started thinking about this, I started to think about what a shame it is that we are actually losing some of our treasured 4:3 shows from the past. TV shows aren't terribly well archived in general outside of ultra-popular shows, and even then many old shows that were made for 4:3 have been bowdlerized into 16:9. Many shows have been stretched out or had their tops and bottoms deleted in order to fit into 16:9. Some shows were shot on film and had new scans done in order to use the parts that were originally designed to be cropped out. But because they are ruining the intent of the cinematographers, the addition is not necessarily a good one.

But what do you think? I know this is probably not a popular opinion, but I'm sure that I'm not the only one who thinks this.

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!

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.

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!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like late night, dark patterns and commingling. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was perturbed.

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!

Hi! I'm looking for some fun and interesting casual puzzle games. Some of my favorites, in no particular order, are:

• Sudoku
• Nonogram - like the recent Every 5x5 Nonogram or Picross.
• Tetris - Apotris on GBA is great!
• A few from the Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection
• Sokoban
• Catrap on Gameboy, a bit similar to Sokoban
• Dragonsweeper and Mamono Sweeper that people recommended here a while ago.
• Chip's Challenge - Lexy's Labyrinth is a browser-based reimplementation.

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.

Welcome to the 2025 NFL Season Weekly Discussion Thread! 🏈

Share your thoughts on Week 4 — wins, losses, fantasy fumbles, predictions, or anything else football-related. Sorry for the delay posting today, I was away from a computer all day and just now have time to post this :)

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.

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?

Wondering if we have tilde fellows playing it. I’ve become addicted since last year and it’s fully taken over my regular board game nights… I’ve been storytelling and doing custom scripts and characters.

As someone who DM's a lot of short, casual sessions with rotating members, I burn through a lot of maps. I'd love to hear some of your recommendations for how you guys either find or create maps that suit your situations.

For me: r/battlemaps has some really high quality stuff and gets me 90% of the time. I usually type in a key word or two (e.g. bridge; throne room) and usually I'll find something that gets close to the mark.

I know that some have been using generative AI to delve into this space as well, so if anyone has any experience there, I'd love to hear it!

Hello everyone,

Gamers’ I need your advice. Due to a serious family illness, my nieces and nephews age 4 to 15 will be spending a lot of time at my home for the foreseeable future.

I also have a college age kid, who is home occasionally and will play a few sports games and fighting games. He is head of the Fighting Game club at his universities club.

I am looking to entertain the kids as we move towards winter and also keep my house in one piece.

I purchased a NS2 w/ Mario Kart World, Minecraft, Shinobi, SFVI, NBA 2k26, Star Wars Outlaws and BoTW.

I am going to purchase a few more Switch 2 titles and a few Switch 1 games. (Hopefully on a B2G1) sale. I do not need to purchase all at once. Likely, I’ll buy 1 or 2 a month. Or hope for a b2g1 sale.

I am LOOKING FOR RECOMMENDATIONS from everyone.

I already preordered Dragon Quest 1&2HD2D and Mario Galaxy 2.

Games I am considering.

Luigi mansion 3
Sonic racing Cross World
Persona 3 reload
Super Mario Bros U Deluxe (you can play as Peach?)
Mortal Kombat Collection
Madden or EA FC
Metroid Prime 4 ( I don’t know what to make of this game. Is it Metroid BoTW?)
Bomberman R
Paper Mario Thousand year door
Links awakening or echoes of wisdom?

I am looking to have some variety so there is something for everyone.

These kids already have a Switch 1 w/ mario kart 8D, smash, Mario 3d World, Minecraft and a bunch of Kirby games.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

Side note: My kids had a Wii U when they were young and i am somewhat familiar with those games.

Kind of an awkward title, but I'm talking about settings for your phone, your OS, your coffee maker, etc.

With all the tech in our lives, and with so many devices and software having quite a robust set of options for how they work, it's easy for us to not even know that something is available. How many cool things are we missing out on if we're just accepting the defaults?

So, what's a setting, on anything you have or use regularly, that you recommend to others?

What makes it so worthwhile?

I have traditionally used APC's UPS products for my NAS, router, media centre and desktop computer. Nothing fancy, just something to survive short power outages and to allow graceful shutdowns if such an outage lasts longer than a few minutes.

Unfortunately, I have had three of APC's devices malfunction in the past decade and while their customer support has always been excellent, I would prefer products that just work and don't cause me additional headaches. Do you know of any UPSs that you would recommend for home use and are reasonably priced? I'm located in the EU, if that makes a difference.

A general thought that came from a more specific one I had the other day: I've been trying to make sure I eat breakfast by making overnight oats, but it can be a pain on tired nights to get it set up.

Are there any gotchas with making your own mixes of dry goods? I feel like I know enough to scare myself with things like "oh well that might not be shelf-stable when mixed since xyz pathogen from it grows well when provided with abc".

At the moment, I'm just imagining prepping like a weeks worth of oats, chia seeds, raisins, etc. so that I can dump milk in each night, which seems like it would be totally fine.

A photographer I knew passed away, and I was trying to see if there was any information. This was the top result I got on google. The part after the ellipses says “killed in a plane accident in Pantanal.”

He did not die in the plane accident! That’s another piece of Brazilian news, about the architect Kongjian Yu. The search result is even tagged with Yu’s Sponge City/Cidade Esponja.

So why is this showing up for a post summary about José Bassit? There’s nothing in the post comments or the post itself saying anything like this.

I'm attempting to be more active on Tildes (after my last attempt), and I noticed that there hadn't been a new fortnightly thread, so here's my contribution!

https://tildes.net/~health.mental/1oax/victories_and_challenges_an_a_u_dhd_community_and_support_fortnightly_thread

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!

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?

I don't know why but I feel like I always want validation from others for anything I do, either online or IRL. especially if I'm trying to do something new or a little different. I have no idea how to stop doing that... I'd appreciate any advice

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.

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?

I just found out that bone conduction headphones exist, and I’m admittedly intrigued.

I usually wear only one earbud because I like to still be able to hear my surroundings (transparency mode doesn’t feel the same to me). My husband feels similarly and also hates the feeling of in-ear buds. So a pair of two of these might work nicely for us.

Does anyone have any hands heads on experience with them (any make/model)?

Would you recommend them?

How is the sound quality?

Are they comfortable to wear?

How do they compare to standard headphones?

Welcome to the 2025 NFL Season Weekly Discussion Thread! 🏈

Share your thoughts on Week 3 — wins, losses, fantasy fumbles, predictions, or anything else football-related.