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?

So I know that house inspectors only look at surface things. In the UK it seems like structural stuff are checked by professionals before a house sale. In Canada what are they called?

In buying older houses, I would want to evaluate how much I will expect to spend on things like well, septic, roof. But I also want evaluation on if this is a money pit with foundation, structural, or water issues that can't be fixed.

Like @Captcha_Code, I've tried calling structural engineering firms that seemed confused or give $5000 just to take a look estimates. What are they called in Canada and if possible can you provide examples of a firm in any Canadian area so I know what to look for in Atlantic Canada? Searching for geotechnical professionals bring up major infrastructure type of firms.

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.

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.

Hey there Tildes -- just checking in to see if any of y'all use Fusion for work or for hobby projects?

I've been using Resolve for a while with personal projects and have used Premiere for work for years. I have basic understanding of After Effects as I've had to use it off and on for work for many years (though, it's been a while since I've had Creative Cloud subscription) and now I'm just moving everything to Final Cut for simple stuffs and Resolve for work or big projects. Hoping to move to exclusively use Resolve since I got a new M5 iPad and their iPad app seems nearly complete (feature-parity with Desktop).

If anyone has good understanding of Fusion, how did you learn? Could you point me to specific sites/creators/etc.?

Thanks!

Right now, I have a Samsung Galaxy A12 phone, which has done everything I need for quite some time. It was bottom of the barrel in the Samsung lineup, and it quit receiving updates of any kind back in November of 2024. For a cheap phone, I've been pleased with it.

My use case is unusual. I rarely use my phone to go online, but on occasion, I am forced to do so. Most of the time I use it to make calls, or send and receive texts. SMS is fine for me. I don't play games on it, though I do use the camera now and again.

One slightly unusual task is tethering. When my internet goes down on my computers at home, the mobile network is often still available, so I tether my desktop to the phone connection. Visible will slow the connection speed tremendously, so I use an app that disguises the tether connection, and I get full speeds. So I need this app to work when the main internet connection goes wonky.

One year and eight months without security updates makes me a little more cautious about using the phone for anything online. I don't use it for bank accounts or credit cards, no instant payments of any kind, and there are no passwords saved within it. Even if I still got updates, I wouldn't use it for any type of financial transactions. I don't even check email with it.

In reality, a dumb phone would probably work for me, but Visible is notoriously picky about Android phones they will accept. And I don't use Apple for anything. No plans to change that.

I have been more and more interested in ditching Google software. I was recently forced to switch to Google Messages, since Samsung is turning their messaging app out to pasture. A Pixel 10a with GrapheneOS is something I'm considering. Visible will accept any modern Pixel phone, so they aren't a problem.

The question is, is any change necessary with how little I use the phone online? Perhaps I should just wait till the battery dies, but that doesn't help me in my efforts to de-Googlize.

COLOSSAL GAME ADVENTURES PRESENTS: 🕹️🔥⚔️ Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals

Hi everyone, zod000 here! Unlike many of our previous CGA hosts, I'm not much of a writer so this "insert cartridge" will likely feel a bit brief. Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals is hands down one of my favorite SNES games, and in fact possibly my favorite RPGs of all time. I'll do my best to prevent spoiling anything in the game, but I'll give you a quick rundown of the game itself, what to expect, and what to look out for to (hopefully) enjoy. This game is a proper 90s turn based jRPG, so I realize this game has a longer official runtime than we are used to, but I still feel that it is more than doable in a month of casual play as this was before the days of role playing games inflating their play times (I mostly blame Final Fantasy 7 on the PS1 for that trend).

Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals

Now despite the name, Lufia II is a prequel and is canonically the first game as far as the story goes, so don't worry about thinking that you should play Lufia 1 first. If anything, that would spoil some of it, ironically. As I said, I don't want to spoil any story, but will say that the story starts as trope-y as it gets, but soon gets far more interesting so please don't drop off after an hour or so.

So what sets Lufia II apart from the many other fantastic jRPGs of its time? Well, I'll give you some highlights:

• Monster sidekicks! You get pet-like monster companions that fight with your party during battles referred to as "capsule monsters". They all start as essentially babies and they "grow" by you feeding them items. They are NPC sidekicks that you do not directly control, but they are always beneficial in some ways. Some are better than others, and there are ways to game the cryptic items they prefer and want to be fed, but unless you feel like going down that rabbit hole you can just passively feed them items you don't want/need and build up your little buddy. I don't feel like this is spoiler territory, but if anyone disagrees let me know and I'll hide away.

• Puzzles! Lufia II has a strong leaning towards puzzles, I don't know that any dungeons in the game lack a puzzle. Some feel inspired by games like Zelda, but some of the later puzzles can be fairly challenging. There are also some optional later puzzles which stumped me as a kid. You'll know which they are if you stumble upon then; feel free to skip those or use some sort of guide online.

• Optional Content! I know you're thinking "hey, stop using exclamation points, optional content isn't that exciting". And while you are probably right, the optional dungeon known as the Ancient Cave does get me excited. While not technically the only optional content (there are the puzzles and such I previously mentioned as well as a casino area that could be worth your time for some prizes), the Ancient Cave is almost a game in itself.

Anyway, I think that is enough, please enjoy Lufia II with me for this months Colossal Game Adventure!

Mods

There aren't any mods that I am aware of; however, there are some special modes that unlock after beating the game a few times and there are save game files around that have them enabled. One of the modes is called "Gift Mode" and starts you directly on an island with the Ancient Cave with the option to switch your party to any combination of characters you ever play with in the game. It is fun to either build an "all star team" or a "no star team" and either give you a better chance at it if you had a hard time normally or to give you a challenge if you're just that awesome.

As always, mark your spoilers as such with the following text block:

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>

Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

Game Setup

Here is the rough news, to my knowledge Lufia II was never included in any sort of "virtual console" or retro console release. Pretty much the only way to legally play this game is to have a working Super Nintendo and the game cart (humble brag, I do). That being said, the game works perfectly in emulation and a simple search in basically any search engine of "play lufia 2" will let you play it directly online, though I am not sure how saves are handled, if they are handled, with these online emulators. I am sure any enterprising tilderino (did we ever actually decide on what to call ourselves?) should be able to run a rom file to play as well.

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

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?
Which Castlevania game has the best Death fight? 

FAQ

I've been slowly convincing myself that I want to go to Africa, mostly because I haven't done a solo trip in a while, but also because I haven't been to Africa at all yet! Some of my team members are in Ghana and they sent me pictures of it, and it looked amazing. I definitely would love to go! I'm thinking of going during the week of Christmas only because it's probably my only time I'm available for the rest of the year. Any tips or places that I should be looking at?

(I also have some Scandinavian countries, Prague, or Scotland/Ireland on my docket, but I've been to Europe so much these last couple of years and I figure I'd need something new)

I have an older kobo (Kobo Libra H20) and have been using Calibre, and basically manually plugging it in and syncing books over to it.

I'm wondering if anyone knows of any good ways of doing wireless sync?

I've looked into KoReader but not sure exactly how involved that would be to set up. I am comfortable setting up something "SelfHosted" as long as I can easily spin it up and spin it down, I don't currently have any computer I leave on 100% of the time.

I've seen previous topics here, and Booklore looked interesting, but when I went to track it down it looks like the website is down (the GitHub is still there though), and apparently lots of controversy surrounding it in some reddit posts...it looks like there is maybe a fork of it (Grimmory), but I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with it or anything similar.

I'd prefer something without a lot of AI/LLM use, but not sure how realistic that is.

I only read eBooks, not manga/visual novels, and I don't listen to audiobooks so I don't necessarily need anything with support for any of those.

I would also be fine paying for something, but preferably only a one-time fee not a subscription.

I primarily read books on my Kobo, but it would be a "nice to have" if I could somehow sync to my iPhone (or Apple books) and iPad, but not required (and I don't need it to sync progress between devices, as I'd pretty much only be reading on one at a time).

Additional "nice to have" would be the ability to add books from any device.

Any suggestions? Just use Calibre content server? Or is there something "better"?

This is sort of a philosophical, logical, and psychological paradox. If you are content when being unhappy, then your preferences are satisfied. So, you wouldn't want to change anything and, in that sense, you are happy. But if you're happy, then your preference is unsatisfied and so you're unhappy. But, it seems plausible in real-life that someone, for some complicated reason, actually doesn't want to be happy. If we accept that such a thing exists, then what exactly are we talking about?

And what do you write about?

Currently, my personal website is under my real name. I'm asking this question because I'm about to rebuild it (as is tradition), which gave me some energy to write about a recent personal event, and I'm realizing that I'm not comfortable with writing this under my real name. So I'm here, wondering what to do with my personal thoughts that I want to share, but not too loudly.

If you own a personal website or blog, what do you do? Do you use a pseudonym for everything? Are you ok with publishing personal stuff under your real name? Do you have two blogs to separate things?

Important: This will be a noisy topic. If you do not wish to see it in your feed, please use the Ignore feature to hide it!

Tip: If the large number of comments are cluttering up the topic and you just want to see the main giveaway posts, click Collapse Replies at the top of the comments.

It’s time for annother edition of our biannual Game Giveaway topics! Share games with the community and get rid of those extra bundle keys you have lying around.

Before you participate, please make sure you read the rules below.

Rules

-Gifters

Post your available games, the platform and method of delivery, rules for your giveaways (e.g. first-come first-serve, random draw, etc.), and any additional info or requirements. Feel free to get creative!

-Giftees

Request giveaways. Please make sure you follow the gifter's posted guidelines.

-Guidelines

Anyone can choose to be a gifter, giftee, or both! Giveaway rules are set by individual gifters, but there are handful of guidelines everyone should follow:

1. No grey market keys! Only give away games from reputable sources. If you're not sure what this means, please ask.
2. Requests for games should be done in this topic, but if the gift is a key, those should be delivered by PMs only. Please don't post keys publicly in this topic, even obfuscated ones.

If you're new to these, check out previous giveaway threads to see how these usually go.

We've all heard about solar PV panels, but that's not the be-all and end-all of technologies which could make buildings more efficient and less harmful to their environments. May I ask what else have folks got up their sleeves?

Dimensions of environmental friendliness

All good technical discussions start with a host of term definitions and context statements, so I'll attempt to start this one off on strong footing! I figure that anything which checks one or more of these checkboxes (reasoning included) works, but please feel free to colour outside of the lines -- this is just a kicking off point. Note that anti-ticking a checkbox is fine; everything has trade-offs, and sometimes paired solutions can negate each others' downsides. Magnitude is always a factor, too, since this field is rarely black and white.

(no need to bring receipts, mind; I'm sure we can keep this light hearted so as to avoid digging into comparative EPD critiques :3)

• Low embodied carbon (the kgCO2e emitted per a cradle-to-grave analysis (EPD, often) of a product),
• Low operational resource consumption (anything which works as well as an inefficient equivalent, but uses less energy/consumables -- LED vs. incandescent bulbs, heat pumps vs. nat gas furnaces, insulation vs. no insulation, etc.),
  • Includes water conservation, too!
• Durability over design life (per the Canadian Wood Council (they're ... a little biased), the median service life of buildings is <90 years, so adjust amortization periods accordingly),
  • Includes things like wildlife-urban interface-safe materials, as well as clay bricks and whatnot.
• Sustainability (if we can't do it for more than a century, let alone a few decades, it's probably not worth the sunk costs),
• Low environmental toxicity (no point trying to save the environment if it's all a toxic swamp afterwards),
• Supportive of local ecology (built environments tend to be biodiversity deserts -- cobblestone boulevards, brick walk ups, and tin roofs are hostile everything but pigeons and rats. Think native planting, green retaining walls, planted pavers, etc.).

(full disclosure: I'm probably going to borrow several of these at some point, so this is a half-discussion, half-I'm-outsourcing-my-research post 😅 hopefully that's acceptable ...)