Something more lighthearted:

My wife has been doing a project that requires her to get people's information over the phone much more than usual. This leads to her and them using unofficial phonetic alphabet terms ("A as in aardvark" instead of "A as in alpha"). This is usually fine except when they choose a word that is ambiguous or just a word not known to the other party. Someone said "V as in Veya" to her, and we still don't know what a Veya is.

This got me thinking about what inappropriate words you could use. I suggested "V as in Vasectomy".

So how about it, Tilderists? What are your "wrong answers only" suggestions for a NOGO phonetic alphabet?

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?

Ever since I was a kid, the kitchen TV has been on in the morning while we eat breakfast and get ready for school. I remember Flipper and Rocky and Bullwinkle being on when we were younger and then Katie Couric and Matt Lauer on The Today Show later on.

As an adult, I've been looking for something linear to watch in the morning while I eat breakfast to put a stop to my bad habit of doom scrolling. I have about 30-45 minutes between walking my dog and logging onto my work computer where I eat breakfast and sit at the kitchen table. This is kind of "me time" to get ready for the day and try to get my brain to ramp up into work mode that has taken the place of my morning commute ever since COVID now that I work remote. Here's what I've tried and why I don't like them:

• The Today Show (and other mass-market morning news): honestly these have some "real" news in them but I feel like there's too much time wasted on filler & fluff & pop culture that I don't really care about.
• CNBC, usually Squawk on the Street: I like that this is more straight to the point but it's more heavily financial than I really need it to be. I'm not an active investor so, while I like getting business/market news, I don't need 45 minutes dedicated to it.
• Bloomberg's Bloomberg Brief on YT: this is a bit broader than the previous option, but still more heavily focused on financial markets than I really need to be.

I'm mostly interested in major world events, economics, tech, and business. I specifically do not care to hear about pop culture and sports (that's for after work) and I'm so tired of hearing about American political theater (although I'd like to know when something concrete happens).

So yeah. What do you watch in the morning? Do you have any suggestions?

I have been an Android user for a long time, but I never bothered to buy a new phone when I didn't feel I needed one, so my current phone is very old (Android 7.0). There are several annoyances I see in modern smartphones that I'm kinda hoping to avoid, the biggest one being that I want to be able to replace the battery. I'm therefore eyeing the Fairphone for being modular and repairable.

• Has anyone used a Fairphone and can talk a bit about what it's like?
• Does anyone know the best time of year to get the best deal? Should I wait until after Christmas?
• Will I still be able to side-load/use F-Droid? I hear that Google is putting a stop to this but if I get one that allows it now, will it continue to allow it in perpetuity?

Would love to hear some input from fellow nerds who know more about this stuff than I.

Edit to add: I'm in Germany.

I'd say that on Tildes as on other platforms, you see a lot more posts responding to a topic than you see comments on existing posts.

I get it. Responding to a prompt with a thoughtful, top-level comment is expressive, can often be therapeutic and comes with the bonus of possible comments by others on your entry.

Comments on existing thoughts are less sexy and possibly less fulfilling because you're riffing off of another person's idea, but as a reader and a community member, seeing user to user interaction is the best part of a social network.

I'm a perennial commenter - at best because I love conversation, at worst, with the hope that I can digress from the mainline conversation.

Where do you fall?

*Edit: I've just learned the difference in terminology between a top level comment and a comment. Edited to avoid confusion.

Week 2 has begun!

Post your current bingo cards.
Continue updating us on your games!

If you did not participate in Week 1 but want to start this week, that's fine!
Reminder: playing bingo is OPTIONAL.

Quick links:

• Backlog Bingo Site
• Week 1 Discussion and Event Guidelines

Week 1 Recap

12 participants played 11 bingo cards and moved 24 games out of their backlogs!

• 25% of the games played started with the letters P and R
• 13% of the games played have ALL CAPS TITLES
• 21% of the games played have a number in their titles

Game list:

• ANIMAL WELL
• Back 4 Blood
• Cuphead
• Cyber Hook
• Darkenstein 3D
• Fabled Lands
• Gothic II
• Grand Theft Auto V
• Gunpoint
• Hypnospace Outlaw
• Hyrule Warriors
• Liberation Maiden
• PAPER BIRDS
• Pistol Whip
• Prodeus
• Proteus
• Rollerdrome
• Rune Factory 4 Special
• Splatoon
• UNLOVED
• Victor Vran
• Wander Stars
• The Witness
• Wizorb

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.

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!

She currently has apple everything, but is open to getting something like a Garmin watch.

Rough requirements are:

• Batter life of at least a few days with normal use, ideally up to a week
• Physical activity tracking for swimming. She isn't a runner and doesn't need running-specific features.
• Heart rate / sleep tracking
• Receive and view emails / texts / notifications from her iphone

Some watches she is most interested in are:

• Enduro 3 even though she's not doing multiple day expeditions, she loves the idea of the battery lasting that long, but it is a bit heavy / bulky and has a lot of features that she won't use for the price
• Another apple watch, but even the upgrade is only a day and a half of battery
• Garmin forerunner, we were taking a look at this comparison chart and if she doesn't care about all the running features, would the cheapest version like https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/1611937/pn/010-02863-33/ to just act as a budget apple watch with better battery as long as she still gets all the notifications and it works with her iphone?

Also taking suggestions from other brands, I'm just mostly familiar with Garmin and have an instinct solar 2 for 4 years that I really enjoy.

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like steam frame, tildes and pleasures. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was mystified.

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 have a Starlabs Labtop in great shape that I would like to sell. Problem is, I can't garner much interest on Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace. Are there any computer Buy/Sell sites in Canada such as Pinkbike.com for used bicycles?

I had an interesting experience this week. Not all union meetings are interesting, even if they are useful. Yesterday was a pleasant exception where it was both useful and interesting. For the first time, I witnessed AI coming up as a topic of conversation. There is no secret that people fear losing their jobs due to AI automation, and sure enough I saw proof of it to the extent that the union may consider adding some clauses around protecting jobs from AI.

How is it at your workplace? Where I work, this year I witnessed a very strong push to use AI. Messaging around using AI at town halls, messaging around using AI in team meetings, articles on the intranet site, IT events around how to craft good prompts, etc. I would not be surprised if they tied some leaders' bonuses to how much they can get their teams to use AI. This part is quite annoying to me, not to mention deceitful. If I were a leader I'd straight up tell my team about it. I am not a leader - leaders are not part of the union to begin with.

The whole thing made me also think about how my colleagues use AI. It really is a mixed bag. I see everything from the person who runs a 2-line email through AI five times to finetune every word, to myself who only reach for AI when I am stuck and it's just much faster than a search engine/forums/videos to solve my issues (for example needing a script in a programming language I am not familiar with).

I use a Mac for work, Linux for my personal machine, and the same mouse between the two. I’m accustomed to the dpi/acceleration on Mac, so when I switch to my PC at the end of the day there are slight inaccuracies with the pointer. My wrist compensates to cover the gaps and I develop wrist strain after short periods of use.

Does anyone know how to make the Linux mouse dpi/acceleration as close to identical as possible with my Mac?

chimera linux w/ gnome btw

For me:

• Cutting through an ice block with a stream of running water

• Going outside and it's the perfect temperature, or it's just a bit warmer but a breeze brings you back down to where you want to be.

• The satisfaction of completing a project.

I'm planning to launch Tildes Minecraft season 3 some time mid November. What mods should we add or remove? Any other recommendations or requests?

Edit: As per the majority of the feedback, season 3 will be delayed until the beginning of January.

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.

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.