Week 3 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 2 Discussion
• Week 1 Discussion

Week 2 Recap

11 participants played 9 bingo cards and moved 28 games out of their backlogs!

Team Mellow

• u/BailerAppleby
• u/Bullmaestro
• u/CannibalisticApple
• u/dannydotcafe
• u/Durinthal
• u/JCPhoenix

Team Motivated

• u/1338
• u/kfwyre
• u/ShroudedScribe
• u/SingedFrostLantern

All but one are listed above.

u/Wes

Is he still Mellow? Or did he join the Motivateds?

He played three different games, which seems very motivated...

...but mellow is also a state of mind, a pace, a vibe that he rolls with.

So the question lingers: with whom will he stand?

Game list:

• 911 Operator
• Agent Intercept
• Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles
• Bendy and the Ink Machine
• Berserk Boy
• Cards and Towers
• Curious Expedition
• Doki Doki Literature Club
• Dorfromantik
• Heeey! Park-Boy
• Hue
• The Hundred Line - Last Defense Academy
• Knights of Pen and Paper
• Library of Ruina
• Lucid
• Machinika: Museum
• Node Farm
• Ocean's Heart
• Pokemon Trading Card Game 2
• Programming Factory
• Pyre
• Say No! More
• Subserial Network
• Tametsi
• THOR.N
• Transistor
• Understand
• Wolfenstein: The Old Blood

Earlier today we had a post about dream jobs, and that had me thinking, what was the best job you ever had? Why did you leave that job? Did you know it was the dream job while you were at that job or did you only realize it years later?

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.

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

Week 1 Recap

⚔️🛡️ Battle lines have been drawn. 🛡️⚔️

Team Mellow

Calm, easygoing, relaxed (<3 games played this week)

• u/CannibalisticApple
• u/dannydotcafe
• u/Durinthal
• u/J-Chiptunator
• u/JCPhoenix
• u/ShroudedScribe
• u/Wes

Team Motivated

Driven, energized, results-oriented (≥3 games played this week, or, like, only one game played but for a LONG time)

• u/1338
• u/BailerAppleby
• u/kfwyre
• u/SingedFrostLantern

Who will come out on top? Which team will reign supreme? What metric will we even use to determine what counts as a win? STAY TUNED.

11 participants played 10 bingo cards and moved 24 games out of their backlogs!

Game list:

• 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
• Aris Arcanum
• Assault on Proxima
• AtmaSphere
• Blue Maiden
• Death and Taxes
• DigDigDrill
• Donna: The Canine Quest
• FINAL FANTASY IV
• Hades
• Hatoful Boyfriend
• Marble Mayhem: Fragile Ball
• Not Tonight 2
• The Pedestrian
• Pokémon: Kanto Expansion Pak
• Polarity
• Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom
• Ravenswatch
• The Shapeshifting Detective
• shapez
• Strange Horticulture
• The Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia
• Vartio
• Yellow Taxi Goes Vroom

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 love writing, it's one of the most human things about humanity. It's communication, art and sharing all at once. It's been fundamental to culture and progress for 1000's of years.

LLMs are, in a way, really good at writing. They have the larger part of human creative output distilled into their weights. So it was inevitable that more and more people would start publishing articles and blog posts written (all or in part) by AI agents.

I don't like it but I accept it, there really isn't anything I can do about it. What I was hoping, though, is that high signal to noise ratio places on the internet (Tildes among them) would reject it and we could go on consuming 100% organic prose, at least for a while.

And for while that's exactly what happened. In techy places like Hacker News, AI posts were quickly flagged and downvoted into oblivion. At Tildes they mostly didn't show up at all, or if they did I missed them.

That seems to be ending though. Now I see agent written pieces on the front page of HN with 100's of comments. There's always a highly upvoted comment pointing out that the piece is slop, but you have to scroll to find it.

The reason I use HN as an example is that it's full of people with extensive experience using AI agents who are in a position to tell if something is slop. And it looks like the larger part of readers (or at least commenters) can't tell the difference anymore. If that's true at HN, it's going to be true everywhere.

It is getting harder to tell when something is slop, people are post editing, handwriting intros and getting better at prompting to remove obvious LLM tells. But if you have any practical experience with these tools, it's still pretty easy to tell. Somewhere during post training certain patterns end up getting heavily favored. Interestingly, many of them happen across all of the frontier models. Em-dashes are the most famous but there are so many more. Most are rhetorical tricks or formatting patterns rather than punctuation.

Reading LLM prose, many of the tropes don't stand out at first, instead they land as strong writing. But after you see them repeat enough times they start to become obvious. Even putting the tropes aside, the hallmark of a lot of LLM writing is that it's more rhetoric than substance. Low signal, lots of noise.

I don't have a solution, it's starting to look like many (maybe most) people aren't going to be able to tell when they're consuming something that required minimal thought by the "author" who prompted the AI. Which is sad because, up until now, we could assume that, when we read something, someone cared enough to put time and mental bandwidth into creating it. That's become increasingly less true.

I suppose this post is me feeling wistful for the internet we used to have, written exclusively by humans. I continue to hope that people will reject slop at places like Tildes, but in order for them to do that they have to be able to identify it. Maybe people will get better at that, there is definitely a point where you've consumed enough slop that you can smell it from a mile away. But of course the slop is going to keep getting harder to detect.

I don't want to go as far as to say that slop will take over the internet, I think (hope) that people will keep wanting to read organic, human, writing. And that as a result we'll come up with strategies and solutions to support that.

It's a weird time. Right now every LLM blog post and article that goes viral is signalling to the prompter, and anyone watching who can tell what's happening, that there is demand for slop. And of course with demand comes profit. I think we're at the beginning of a steep curve.

I have always know there are satellites going around the earth, but more often that not now when I casually inspect the night sky I see at least one moving satellite. It’s obvious and no need for any telescope. It feels so different than when I was younger: instead of a sense of wonder at the scale of the universe and nature, it’s a constant reminder of the pervasiveness of humanity’s technology and scope for surveillance.

I don’t really have a specific point from this post other than to express a sorrow for the loss of a night sky from my youth.

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?

Background:

While playing games for the Backlog Burner, I was surprised to learn that the Humble App (which is a "free" perk of having a Humble Choice subscription) has a few games that are actually exclusive to it.

Part of the reason I chose to play games from the Humble App is that I don't expect it'll be around much longer. It isn't getting updates or new games added to it. Also, Humble Games, the publishing arm of Humble which released many of the games available through the app, was abruptly dissolved in 2024.

With this in mind, I went through the entire current library for the Humble App and tried to identify games that I could not find available for purchase/download elsewhere.

Below is a list of games that I consider to be "endangered" because they might become unplayable/lost media if (i.e. when) the Humble App does shut down or stop working.

If you've got the Humble App, it might be worth playing some of these sooner rather than later.

If you've got game preservation sensibilities, it might make sense to download and archive these for posterity.

Game List:

Here are the games that are, as best as I can tell, Humble App exclusives and in danger of being lost permanently.

For each title below, I tried to find a decent link that gave information about the game. Many of these simply don't have a lot of online presence.

Some of them have Steam pages linked, but in those cases, they're just placeholders and you cannot actually buy the game.

• A2Be - A Science Fiction Narrative - Steam page

• after HOURS - info link

• Crescent Bay - info link

• Divinoids - Steam page

• Elephant in the Room - trailer

• fistful of nothing - homepage

• Heeey! Park-Boy - Steam page

• Jawns - playable on the web but no download available

• Keyboard Sports - Steam page (note: I found an itch.io page with it available for download, but it is clearly unofficial)

• Lyric Sonata - gameplay video

• Operator - trailer

• Quiet City - trailer

• Rogue Mansion - Steam page

• Roman Sands - gameplay video

• Space Routine - Steam page

• Spoolside - trailer

• The Groundz - gameplay video

• THOR.N - gameplay video

• Woten - Steam page

• Yojimbrawl - gameplay video

• Zodiac XX - trailer

Feel free to check my work and let me know if I missed any, or if some of these games are actually officially obtainable outside Humble and I didn't find them.

Also let me know if I whiffed any of the links or if you find better ones for any of the games.

One thing that drivers me crazy is how cluttered my social feeds are these days due to all the photos and videos and link previews. It just takes up so much screen space these days.

Is there anyway to turn the photos/videos/previews into normal links like old school twitter? Maybe a chrome extension?

Inspired by a youtube video thumbnail I saw saying "Which Link would function the best in society?" I didn't watch the video, but that did get me thinking to how weird player characters can behave. You know, with all the walking into strangers' houses, constantly crouching and jumping while moving, breaking any containers we see in hopes of loot, using special powers for silly things... Destroying stuff just for the heck of it...

So! Here's my extended question: how long would a society comprised mainly of video game protagonists last? And I mean protagonists who behave the way players make them behave, not just how they're written by the story. And that includes still having all potential powers.

Can be based on specific past playthroughs, could just be generalizations of how they're typically played. How many protagonist characters could actually hold down proper jobs without getting fired? Who would be able to avoid causing heavy destruction in daily life? Or get arrested fastest?

How long would they be able to put up with other protagonists' weirdness before snapping and starting a city-wide battle?

Iranians right now are using a javascript based proxy to access the internet somewhat, it's what i'm using to access tildes.

I thought it'd be interesting to share, we don't have access to script.google.com but we do have access to www.google.com, so there's another method to access it and set it up.

Someone wrote a quick android app for it. link

It's limited from google's side as they've put a 20,000 requests daily limit on scripts, but it gets us online somewhat and... feels nice, to be able to have a way through.

We're also using github actions to download files to private repo's and download them from there (releases is still blocked, raw is not) which also seems to have a 2000 minute monthly limit.

From one side google colab also has Iran sanctioned so we can't access that, but that would be another way to get online aswell.

From another side we're also using DNS servers to tunnel traffic, but they get blacklisted after the user count goes up.

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.

I feel as though I have lost touch with the idea of the OS as software.

I’ve spent a lot of time looking for that all in one solution. Notes, reminders, calendar, etc. in one convenient app. Notion first, then AI came and fucked it all up. Obsidian was cool, super customisable, but I found that I don’t really need what it offers, stuff like linking and graph view aren’t that useful to me. The idea of a ‘second brain’ has always been interesting to me, but I could never find anything that made sense.

Recently, the thought hit me… “isn’t an OS just an super all-in-one app?”. This sounds stupid, but I haven’t actually considered the power of—in my case—macOS itself. I’ve just been using it as a portal for all these other bits of complex software, when surely it’s all built in?

Obviously finder would be the core of the system, but does anyone have experience with just… using the desktop metaphor as intended? Folders with files in them, that get opened in a program, and when you’re done, get saved back into the folder. Put things you use regularly on the desktop (or shortcuts to them, to maintain organisation) and delete them from the desktop when you don’t need them anymore. Again, it sounds stupid typing it out, surely the answer is “yeah dummy, that’s how you use a computer!!!!!” but… why do I have obsidian, and the photos app, and all this extra junk?

Going back to obsidian, for example. Surely, textedit (which has relatively simple rich-text editing, as well as plaintext) and some well thought out folders can get me where I need to go. It’s also widely compatible, since I can just… copy a file, should I choose to switch to Linux completely at some point.

I suspect this disconnect is a result of the iphoneification of personal computers, there’s a lot of layers between you and the file when you’re on a mobile device.

So, am I just talking nonsense? Or is it time, after these years of searching, for me to finally start using the computer as a computer again?

Hey Steam users, I'm wondering if you can help me troubleshoot an issue I am having with Steam Link. Some games work flawlessly, and some games just show a black screen (with game audio) on the Steam Link Client. I have tried this in various configurations and devices, but my host machine remains the same (PC running Bazzite)

I have tried this wired via router (to Steam Link on raspberrypi OS), wifi (to steam deck), and cellular via remote streaming to the android app.

The symptoms are the same on each setup. Games like Helldivers 2 and NMS run flawlessly, others are just a black screen.

Also, big picture mode runs great until you bring up the menu, and then the screen goes black.

Do you guys have any ideas?

SOLVED

thank you everyone for your suggestions! I switched to an X11 session and everything is working now with steam link!

I'm not some big psychonaut or anything. I haven't even had a proper trip outside of smoking some laced weed a decade or so ago. I microdosed shrooms (golden teacher) for a few years, but I topped out at 100mg twice a week. I've done about 2g of shrooms (different varieties), but at that level its more like a really great buzz off of alcohol with a little euphoria on top. Nothing crazy.

Anyway, I have a cartridge of NN DMT. I'm going to start light with only one hit, which should last only five minutes or so. I have a connect for ayahuasca, but it all seems to intense and drawn out and... just more than I want to do for a first go. I also don't really want to be that deep into something around a bunch of randos who also coughed up a couple hundred bucks to trip in some lady's living room.

I've been reading up on it for a while and have absolutely no anxiety about it. Even though its light, I'm still going to have a friend sit for me just to play it safe.

Ultimately, I don't have any grand expectations or anything. What I get out of it, positive or negative, will be good. I've read about higher doses actually improving the task-switching in the brain, which would be nice for my ADHD. I don't take any drugs for ADHD, depression, or anything, so I'm in a great spot on that front too.

Tell me your experiences (good or bad!)

Submit your response here!

• Direct link: https://survey.tildes.community/form/what-languages-can-you-speak-4
• This survey closes on May 17, 2026 at 10:00 UTC
• The results will be published on May 17 shortly after the survey has closed. I'll edit this topic and post a comment about it!

The current plans for questions that will be asked in the coming weeks are as follows:

Please submit your ideas for questions here! Even if they've been submitted already by someone else. All input is valuable! You can view all submitted questions on this dashboard.

Thank you all for participating!

The survey has been closed and the results are in!

Thank you to all the 174 people that responded! Check out the dashboard for the visualizations and a rough comparison with the previous survey! Here's a few quick stats:

• 41 distinct countries are represented!
• Spread across the following continents:
  • America at 45.7%
  • Europe at 39.9%
  • Asia at 8.7%
  • Oceania at 5.8%
• With the top 5 countries of most responses:
  • United States at 36.2%
  • United Kingdom at 8.6%
  • Canada at 6.9%
  • France at 4.0%
  • Australia at 3.4%
• And the results for whether people were living in the country they were born in:
  • Yes at 74.7%
  • No at 23.0%
  • No answer at 2.3%

• View the full results dashboard here
  • If you have any ideas for vizualisations or stats I can add I'd love to hear them!
• ZIP download of the data

Thank you all again for participating! I hope to see you in the next survey. :)