I decided to spin off this topic based on the discussion in the Leaker reveals which Pixels are vulnerable to Cellebrite phone hacking.

Since I kinda by chance got rid of my dependency on Google Photos (as I installed Immich on my server which does the same but on my own hardware) I decided I want to try and de-Google my life more.

I was thinking about using my own domain to send e-mail from, but since I don't run e-mail server myself and I don't even want to - because of security reasons from multiple directions - I would like to use some paid e-mail service provider that would host the e-mail for me and I would append my domain to it.

I probably know technicalities on how to do that - through setting DNS MX record on my domain provider and pointing it to my e-mail provider. But I don't know which provider to choose.

I would like to sync my contacts (not through import/export feature via .vcf file, rather automatic synchronization like Google/Microsoft/Apple accounts do), I would like to sync calendar and have the ability to share it with other people (can be another account on the service if not outsiders) and of course e-mail, preferably one that doesn't rely on their own app so I can use ie. Thunderbird.

I would like to kindly ask anyone here in audience to share their experience with their providers, if you use some. It would be great if you used the service as I would do or if you could try my proposed usage on your account.

Thank you all who respond to me. I may have questions if you do :-)

I know about Fastmail which is appealing for not being US (things are kinda unsettling there right now), for having contacts, calendar and plenty space, but isn't exactly cheap - not expensive though. I know about Tuta, which is cheaper for 1-3 accounts but not for 4 and above, it has less space (still enough) but I don't know about contacts there at the moment. I found this Wikipedia comparison page and had a look there, but I would like to hear personal experiences and thoughts.

TL;DR: NASA's public Planetary Data System is at risk of being shut down. Anyone have any ideas for backing it up?

Hi everyone,

Bit of a long-shot here, but I wanted to try on high-quality tildes before jumping back into the cesspool of reddit. I'm posting it in ~science rather than ~space as I figure interest in backing up public data is broader than just the space community.

I work regularly with NASA's Planetary Data System, or PDS. It's a massive (~3.5petabytes!!) archive of off-world scientific data (largely but not all imaging data). PDS is integral for scientific research - public and private - around the world, and is maintained, for free, by NASA (with support of a number of Academic institutions).

The current state of affairs for NASA is grim:

• NASA Lays Off ISS Workers at Marshall Space Flight Center
• More layoffs at JPL
• NASA is sinking its flagship science center during the government shutdown — and may be breaking the law in the process, critics say

And as a result, I (and many of my industry friends) have become increasingly concerned that PDS will be taken down as NASA is increasingly torn down for spare parts and irreparably damaged. This administration seems bent on destroying all forms of recording-keeping and public science, so who knows how long PDS will be kept up. Once it's down, it'll be a nightmare to try and collect it all again from various sources. I suspect we'll permanently lose decades worth of data - PDS includes information going all the way back to the Apollo missions!

As such, we've been pushing to back-up as much of PDS as we can, but have absolutely no hope of downloading it all within the next year or two, nevermind in a few months if the current cuts impact us soon.

If you or someone you know would be interested in helping figure out how we can back-up PDS before it's too late, please let me know here or in a DM. I've already tried reaching out to the Internet Archive, but did not hear anything back from them.

Edit: to clarify, the larger problem is download speeds - we've topped out at 20mb/s with 8 connections.

A new entry to go with my previous two posts in the same vein NYC and Denver, but this time in...

TOKYO!

The "Going on a trip and have zero idea what to do as a non-tourist..." isn't entirely true like it was in my post about NYC as anyone that has seen me talk about sumo can imagine, but everyone was extremely helpful and threw out suggestions I wouldn't have even thought about looking for in previous posts. So here I am again to bug you wonderful people for Tildes Travel Guide III: Tokyo Trilogy Part Minus One

The overarching details:

• 7 days in Tokyo from Friday, January 9th to Friday, January 16th.
• Except for Jan 9, I am completely solo for the entire trip.
• There are two specific events I will be attending, one is Friday the 9th, the other is TBD but can be nearly any day during the trip.
• I don't know where I'm staying yet. Where is kinda dependent on what I decide to do/be regularly near, am open for accommodation recommendations. I would prefer to stay in one place the entire trip, not real interested in packing up all of my things to move to another part of Tokyo (or another city) unless I can be convinced to do so.
• I'm not the sightseeing tourist-y type so there's little interest in the things that are on every "Tokyo Top 10" list.

And so I beseech you fellow Tilderinos, as someone that doesn't care about being a tourist and doesn't have a social media presence to feed I'm-here-and-you're-not selfies to, what should someone with nearly a week entirely alone with nothing but free time in Tokyo actually do?

Preface: Sorry if this isn't the place, and if I'm cagey on some specifics. Also sorry for the length, this turned out a lot longer than I anticipated.

My partner and I have been together for nearly 8 years at this point. This was my first serious, long-term committed relationship; every other one I'd had was short-lived (<3 months) and I hadn't exactly had a lot of them. Maybe this is why I was blind to the cracks until things got unavoidable.

It started off strong and passionate of course, and things moved rather quickly. We (they, I'm not on the title) bought a house and we were expecting a child within a year. I should have kept things slower, thought with my head instead of blindly following my heart. I'd been very lonely for a very long time. I was happy those first few years, even if in hindsight the cracks were beginning to show. Even before baby came along, intimacy fell off a cliff. I had many talks about this with them, which led nowhere much really. The rest of the relationship still felt solid to me though. I pressed on.

In the beginning, they had a better job than I did. I earned far less. Luckily an opportunity came up for me to finish my schooling and further my career, and I put a lot of work into achieving just that. Now things have changed with that, and I feel like we could be doing well together... If it weren't for the financial instability I feel they bring. I'd never been great with money, but my partner's father took me under his wing and taught me a lot of financial literacy. I became adept at putting together spreadsheets and managing our finances. Our first major crisis we overcame together through being very fiscally conservative and digging our way out. We also had several windfalls that helped us out. Then... another crisis, again because of overspending on their end. We pulled from our IRAs in order to stay afloat, with promises to do better. Then... another crisis. Again. Same reasons. We put together a loan against the home's equity. More promises.

We are again heading to a crisis. We are out of windfalls and options and frankly I'm exhausted.

Finally, parenting and housekeeping. I've always loved how my partner cares so much for their children (from a prior relationship) as well as ours. They have a way of making magical moments which I envy. This is contrasted by their complete inability to parent effectively. There's no consequences, no expectations, no boundaries, and it's infuriating. Initially it wasn't quite that bad, and I felt I had equal say in parenting. Over the years, that's eroded to my partner viewing me as authoritarian and domineering. The kids know they'll get their way with them so why would they ever come to me first?

Maybe it was the extra time during COVID but they also put more effort into housekeeping early on as well. Now I feel it mostly falls on my shoulders, and my will to clean and keep up is murdered by the fact that within hours it's a mess again. It isn't helped by the fact that my partner is a hoarder. I have to gut things from the house in secret. I haven't seen the corners of my walls in ages. I spent a week while they were away cleaning the home top to bottom last year. Within a day it looked like a bomb went off.

These are all things I've tried discussing with them, multiple times, over the years. I mostly get brushed off, or (what I feel now are) empty promises. Most infuriating to me is "I don't know what you want me to say." I want you to say what's in your heart, what you feel! Don't tell me something you think I want to hear, be honest.

I feel I know where this is going, I don't want to fall in the same trap I see many couples are in where it's clearly over and yet they keep moving along. We're not married, a clean break is reasonable, I know my partner can be mature about things because their relationship with their ex is amazingly calm and chill.

I'm terrified in a way of being alone again.

I don't really know where to turn for more perspective. I've already talked with my sister, and a close co-worker who is going through some of the same feelings I am. Those conversations have been very helpful. Recently, what really put things in stark contrast was the other day when my partner's father asked "So is everything ok between you two?" If he went out and asked, it means it's really obvious things are not ok.

I've been fantasizing a lot lately about what a split would be like. Making plans for where to go, and figuring out how to reconcile things like accounts, items, and debts. Worst of all I've been fantasizing about being with other people; the intimacy and passions has been gone between us for a long time. The last time my partner initiated anything between us was a year ago, and I don't even remember the time before that. Everything feels so wrong and unsatisfactory.

I told them yesterday we need a frank talk, and not through text this time - their preferred method of communication with me for a while now... But I have no idea when we even have time for that away from the kids.

Closing thought: I don't want to feel like I've pre-determined my outcome here. I feel I've done what I can though, to make my own feelings clear. Thank you for any thoughts.

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 tried a LOT of Personal Knowledge Management software in the journey for the perfect way to record all knowledge I want to save.

TL;DR: I've tried a bunch of apps to try and replace a combination of Todoist and Obsidian. What software and system do you use to keep track of personal knowledge and tasks?

What I'm looking for
There are three different attributes I am looking for in a PKM, in the following order:

1. Ease of use. I need whatever I use to be really easy and frictionless to record information with. If there's too much resistance to getting information into the application than I probably won't end up saving it and I'll just forget about it.
2. It needs to be easy to surface relevant information but also browse through less relevant information. This one is sort of a few sub categories. On one hand, I need reminders, due dates, and the UX to make sure that I don't miss certain tasks. On the other hand I need to be able to categorize and view all recorded entities - tasks, as well as pieces of information unrelated to tasks. This means I want to be able to categorize the information in a way that allows me to filter down from a larger list or from completed tasks - the best way to do this is usually tags.
3. I like to use software that doesn't allow the developers to access my information; usually this is done through end to end encryption. This is especially important in a PKM because of the volume and sensitivity of the information being recorded. However, this is last on the list because I use multiple devices which introduces additional surface vectors if someone were to try and get my information. End to end encryption is just a nice to have.
4. A bonus, being able to share tasks in a secure and easy way with my significant other.

Where I've been
Todoist
I won't make you read the whole post to find out my favorite... it's Todoist. I've used it for years! It really locks down that first attribute, ease of storing tasks. Todoist makes it really easy to add tasks, move tasks, and reschedule tasks. It's a simple and functional task manager that really works for me. I basically use it to keep track of everything across several projects. I roll over most of the tasks from day to day until I'm able to complete them. For tasks that need a reminder I add a due date - the reminder system is pretty basic but it works. It's the app I keep coming back to after trying all the others. But being primarily a task manager it lacks the ability to store information not related to tasks. Like information about people, places or things. So I searched for another app.

Obsidian
I'm trying this out on Obsidian right now! It's a wonderful piece of software that has full end to end encryption. I use it as a sort of digital "safe" for information I definitely don't want to lose. Unfortunately Obsidian lacks some critical functionality:

• Tasks are just checkboxes. There are plugins that can help you handle them better but the native UX for managing them is just copy, paste, and delete.
• There's tagging and folders but there's no real way to move through lots of semi-related pieces of information. I like a big list of stuff that can be filtered down, not lots of scattered documents. All of the linking and tagging happens in the middle of the rest of the text and a list of backlinks at the bottom of the UI.
• Maybe this sounds silly to you the reader - but basically it's all just too manual. If Obsidian had a sort of "parent note" at the top of each folder - like Notion which I'll cover next - it would make Obsidian a lot easier to use. Instead I always have to choose between a new block in a note, a whole new note or a folder. I'd love to be able to write out stuff as I think of it and then move stuff into sub folders - or lists - more easily.
• It's expensive for a journaling app with a relatively basic feature set. Note to note linking and cloud sync are just expected features at this point for an application like this.

Between Todoist and Obsidian I am able to meet all of those listed attributes:

1. Todoist makes it easy to enter information and make sure I remember it when I need to. I can write a reminder in Todoist to make sure I record information in Obsidian.
2. It's pretty easy to keep track of a lot of relevant tasks and other pieces of information in Todoist. For information that I need longer term or isn't related to a current task, it goes in Obsidian
3. Obsidian is end to end encrypted. Anything related to sensitive stuff goes in Obsidian.
4. Todoist allows setting sharing at a project level. So this makes it pretty easy to share tasks.

After using this system for awhile I started to see cracks forming. Todoist makes it easy to keep track of tasks but complex projects are often hard to manage. It's easy to lose track of tasks that are further out then a few days without using obtuse filters. Obsidian is difficult to use on mobile and having to transfer information from Todoist to Obsidian is frustrating. There are probably Obsidian plugins I could use to manage some of this but then I'd have to evaluate each one for data privacy concerns. And paying so much for Obsidian it's a little frustrating to have to rely on community plugins.
So I began looking for a new application, one that could do it all.

Notion
I still use Notion for a few different very specific things. I could probably use Obsidian or some of the other apps I'm about to talk about for these things. But I really like Notion - when it first came out it blew me away! It did so much stuff! It's great for keeping lists of well categorized pieces of information. It has great support for tagging, and the aforementioned folder / page hybrid. It's basically a wiki software combined with a task manager. A few issues keep me from using it as my main application:

• Like Obsidian it's hard to use on mobile. Especially for complicated stuff like moving through lots of different pieces of unrelated information.
• The reminder system is clunky. Since everything in Notion is a "block", reminders are tied to them. I think if I put a lot of time and effort into building a process for keeping track of my tasks it could work. But again, I don't really want to spend that much effort when I have system that already mostly works.
• There's no end to end encryption and nothing but a true / false value assigned to your user keeps employees from accessing your information easily.

A great piece of software but ultimately one I moved away from after a bit and back to Todoist.

Workflowy
This was the first time I felt a real paradigm shift. Workflowy is basically a really big list. Every bullet on the list is a "node" and you can zoom into nodes endlessly. So you can go from seeing all of your information to seeing very specific pieces of information very quickly and easily, even on mobile. And entering information is a breeze, you just add it as a bullet and then move it to where you need it. It's amazing for what I like to do, which is start with a general idea and build more and more specific information. For example, when going on trips I could create a "trip to place" bullet. Workflowy has amazing support for two way linking lists - basically you can change a list in one place and have it updated in all the other places its linked. So I could have a packing list that I link to the trip to place bullet. Or I can copy it and add to it. You can see all the possibilities and the UX makes it seamless.

The real killer here for me was the lack of reminders. The way to handle due dates in Workflowy is to literally type the date; there are UX solutions like a pop out calendar that handles this for you. And then you can filter down to bullets that contain that date. In theory it works well but it requires me to make sure I am looking at the right information when I need to be instead of the other way around. I tried using Todoist to supplement this but ended up having to constantly check both to make sure each was properly updated. If Worflowy had a way to assign reminders to bullets so a notification popped up that would make this the perfect app. In fact, I might give it another try after writing this out!

Lastly, it doesn't offer end to end encryption.

Twos App
This is the other app that got really close to being perfect. Twos App is the software that touched the sun and lost its wings. It does everything! It's sort of similar to Workflowy where you can have checkboxes (tasks) and bullets (pieces of information). You also have lists. So you can start a "shopping list" that sits outside your daily tasks, and you can fill that list with items you need. Then when you are ready to go shopping you can move that shopping list into a "day" and it's automatically a task. It also has a pretty good reminder system.
The problem with Twos App is unfortunate: the bugs. I found it doing odd things like reordering items, separating them out of lists and just generally glitching out. My theory is that the app is so feature packed that the systems start to conflict with each other. I've seen they are going to release a new major version soon so I might give it another try.

This is getting way too long! Just real quick some others I've tried:

• Capacities. A lot of protentional, like a more structured version of Notion. It shares a ton of the same features and functions similarly. But everything revolves around "objects" which are basically just... templates. There's no inheritance or ways to compose objects that would make something like that really powerful
• Amplenote: Another app that is close in theory but one big thing is it lacks the ability to tag tasks. You can only tag notes, which tasks live inside of. There are UX solutions for this but it's pretty clunky. It also supports end to end encryption but on a note by note basis? It seems like another situation where if I put a lot of time in I might be able to get something working but just doesn't seem worth it.
• Loqseq: End to end encrypted! Great support for tasks! But I think it's just still too underbaked. The sync feature is still in beta and requires you to pay in the form of donations? They basically tie your account to the donations you make and then give you access. Seems not worth it for the current set of functionality. It also lacks task level tags, like Amplenote.
• I've also tried Day One, Daycast, Standard Notes, Legend, and probably a bunch of others I'm not listing. I almost forgot about Ticktick.

So this brings me to my question: what application and system do you use?

The blaze has officially ignited!

The November 2025 Backlog Burner is officially live. Use this topic to post about the games that you play.

• Quicklink: Backlog Bingo

Etiquette:

• It is fine to make multiple top-level posts throughout the week.

• It is also fine to respond to your own posts.

• If you are playing Backlog Bingo, you can share your table either by markdown or through screenshots.

Gameplay guidelines:

• Goals for this event (if any) are entirely individual and self-determined.

• Playing Bingo is optional and not required.

• You do NOT need to finish games unless you want to. The point is to try out games and have fun, not force ourselves to play things we're not interested in.

Backlog Burner FAQ

Backlog Bingo FAQ

Important: All data for your Backlog Bingo card is stored on your device, not the server. Clearing your browser data will delete your card. You can use the export feature to make backups or move your card between devices.

Turns out Google has been ruining Drive's speed by ramming Gemini down our throats (again). To get stuff loading quickly again, follow these steps:

From the Google Drive page, go to settings (top right, gear icon). Drop into "Manage Apps."

Find Gemini and uncheck "Use as Default." Of course it's automatically turned on despite my organization and my personal accounts having already opted out of Gemini. Once it's off things run much, much faster.

Presumably they're doing some dumb shit and having Gemini scan the contents of your entire drive, constantly.

COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURES PRESENTS:

🐶️⚡️🥤🎼😤 PlayStation WHAT? 🎤️🪵🏃🐰🚁

Here are the games:

Parappa the Rapper

Parappa the Rapper 2

Irritating Stick

Pepsiman

Vib-Ribbon

Incredible Crisis

Important

• Yes, these games are weird and rare! But any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

• Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

Share which version of the game you're playing
Share what hardware you're playing it on
Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
Ask questions if you need help
Ask what the hell is going on in Incredible Crisis
Get checked for RSI after Irritating Stick

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
What about its system or era?
What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
What are you expecting from this game in particular?
U rappin' good?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
Ask for help if you get stuck.
Offer help to others.
Share some sick beats for Vib-Ribbon.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

FAQ

One last parting thought til the 20th when we eject: there are so many games for this system that are completely out of the ordinary. But for now, let's keep the conversation on these until we hit the Eject thread on the 20th! And then I'd suggest we open the floor for more weirdo shit to ricochet off the walls.

Sadly, I think I need to reduce my coffee intake. I only ever had a cup a day, but I've always been in to light roasts... roasted within walking distance of my house*... super fancy shit. Anyway, I'm trying to nail down some health things, so coffee has to go for a time.

I am now a tea person. I don't really like it, but I need something like that in the morning. I've started with Lapsang Souchong. This is pretty much the only tea I've ever had. I don't have any dairy in my diet, either, which seems to be a big part of tea-life.

Any top tips for getting into tea? I was just mocked for weighing tea... I guess that isn't as important in this scene.

* not joking about this :)

It's that time of year again. The time where we randomly decide to delay our pets' dinner by an hour for no explicable reason.

My dog has been getting antsy and frantic for her 5 pm dinner starting at 4 pre-time change, so time change is going to be rough. Today I fed her at 4:30 EST/5:30 DT (Dog Time), but holding on that long was a challenge with how frantic she gets. We've joked about just leaving the house for an hour or so every day just to evade her. As the week goes on, I fear it may become less of a joke. (No advice needed for the record. We go through this every year, she'll adapt... Eventually.)

So how about the rest of you dealing with time change? How gracefully do your pets accept the sudden schedule change? Anyone else considering just becoming daily regulars at your nearest store?

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!

I have a friend who plays in my regular D&D game and has a pretty significant stutter. The rest of the party are great about this and are very patient and understanding, so I'm not looking for advice in that area, but this friend has also expressed a desire to create and run a campaign. I would love to play in his game, but I know he worries that his stutter would severely restrict his ability to be an effective DM. Unfortunately, at least as far as traditional DM-ing is concerned, I think he's just objectively correct. But that got me wondering - are there ways to work around his impediment or rearrange the typical flow of a D&D session that could allow him to do it?

Things we've considered:

• Asynchronous play by text (in Discord): This technically would work just fine, but it obviously doesn't feel the same as real-time play where everyone is in the moment together. IIRC, the last time we talked about this, he didn't really sound interested in pursuing it.
• Him doing the writing and prep and me actually running the game: This also would technically work, and I told him I'd be honored to do it, but I'm sure he'd prefer to not have to filter his ideas through someone else and trust that person to execute them faithfully. I know I would feel bad every time I failed to deliver something the way he intended. I also wouldn't be able to be a player for him if we did this.

Things I've wondered about but not suggested yet:

• Is there some sort of text-to-speech (TTS) engine that he could use to help him run the game in near real time? I'm thinking like a Stephen Hawking situation. This would relieve the social pressure of having to overcome the stutter, and it would also allow him to write chunks of speech ahead of time and just paste them in at game time. There would of course be delays as he types out improvised parts, but it would still be closer to a traditional experience than something like asynchronous play.
• Is there a way we could pull off a kind of co-DM arrangement where he's more involved in the moment, rather than simply writing and planning? This would still take me out of his pool of potential players, but it would be better than me just running the game by myself. What could this look like?

Are there possibilities I'm not considering? What tools and strategies could he/we use to mitigate this and help him be successful as a DM? Is there a way to dramatically reimagine what a D&D session looks like that might still be fulfilling for him and everyone involved?

Edit: Should have mentioned we play online, so computer-based tools would be excellent options. They'd fit in very naturally.

Obviously the solution will be highly specific to him personally, and I'm not trying to solve all his problems for him without taking into consideration what he wants. We've talked several times over the years about his stutter and his attempts to eliminate it, and it's a conversation we return to every so often. I'd just like to have some ideas to suggest next time this comes up.

Thanks in advance, everyone!

Important Upcoming Date:

• Timasomo Showcase Thread -- Wednesday, November 5 (one week away!)

Technically all work should be finished before November 1st (but don’t worry, it’s not enforced 😉).

November 1-4 are for putting finishing touches on the project to ready it for the showcase.

To get a feel for what the Showcase will look like and how to prep your project, check out past ones:

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

Update us on your progress so far!

• What did/didn't you get done this week?

• Anything go according to plan?

• Anything go off the rails?

• Any successes or struggles to share?

• Do you need feedback or help on anything?

This is your topic to share anything and everything you want about what you’ve made so far.