What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7 · Week #8 · Week #9

In the rare chance you haven't heard of Flutter, here's the link: https://flutter.io

Flutter just officially left beta with v1.0 December 4, last year. The code is written in Dart, and deploys on Android, and iOS (and will run natively on the rumored Fuchsia OS).

So for those of you that have used Flutter or are currently using Flutter.

• What are you working on?
• Why'd you choose Flutter?
• What do you like about Flutter?
• And what do you dislike about Flutter?

I'll start:

I'm working on a niche art app. I myself do not do that type of art, but knowing people that do, I wanted to create a tool to fill in the lackluckster market for Chromebooks and Android.
I chose Flutter because:

• I wanted to try something new, and what newer than something that was (at the time) in beta?
• Custom Views in Android are a hassle.
• I will be able to release on both Android and iOS (semi-)natively without having to code it twice.

Here's what I like about Flutter:

• Layouts are really simple.
  (though you can easily let it get clustered if you don't think too much about it.)
• Design isn't an afterthought.
  Animations are built in (and simple), themes aren't hard-coded, and Material Components get more attention here. (Still waiting for Shapes on Android)
• It's fast by design.
  Flutter uses its own custom rendering engine (Skia). I've never experienced any stutter with the built-in components, and when I caused lag (with heavy I/O) Flutter/Dart had tools in place for me to narrow down exactly what was causing it.

What I don't like about Flutter:

• It has poor mouse/trackpad support.
  Right clicks, not a thing. I can workaround this with a double-click/long-click, but for a desktop OS, this isn't optimal. Scrolling, that's panning, this should be differentiated. There's a difference between using a scrollwheel and moving finger around on the screen. According to Flutter there is not. There's also currently no support for mouse hovers which I have needed very much.
  There is a pull-request for adding support for all of these, but the developer hasn't done anything since code review.
• Keyboard support, while there, is lackluster.
  Ctrl, Shift, Alt. These have to be gotten with the meta code. There's no built-in function for checking those. Text fields don't support the tab key to navigate. And text formatting (bold, italic, etc.) isn't possible with text fields without the use of a library (or making it yourself).

I was trying to think of a third dislike, but I can't. My complaints are on missing APIs for Chromebooks. That's it. I really like Flutter, I plan on using it more, and if they won't add support for mouse/keyboard, maybe I'll have to contribute.

I'd love to hear what your thoughts about it is.

Whether you will start it on January 1st or already doing it, what is it that is going to make you a better person?

For me, I decided to limit my two biggest timesinks, namely, Youtube and Reddit. I started several days ago and won't wisit them at all before I pass all the exams. Before, they were often an excuse for me to spend time basically doing nothing. Time to change that. (And yet, I'm doing the dame thing right now with ~, but oh well, it doesn't have content anyway)

I'm rather curious - for me, about a fiver. It's all I need to be able to smash an egg at someone - legally. It'd probably be pretty fun - probably not 'life changing', though.

~£40 is probably the least for something more 'life changing'. I could buy a Pi, storage, and a charger. Then I can set up a pi-hole, and never have to worry about ads. It'd also make browsing on my weak laptop that liittle bit better.

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!

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.

Just how? I fail to stick to the right side of the line between productively using internet, and losing time procrastinating and impulsively browsing and/or commenting in places like Reddit, HN, Tildes. The best I can do is to leave home to study outside, but becasue I don't work ATM, that's too costly. I sometimes even consider stopping using a computer. But I'm also a very technical, power user, so IDK if I can comfortably confine myself to use a phone (where I don't have this issue).

What is your way of dealing with this?

I know this is a relatively stereotypical new years post, but I'm interested in seeing what everyone here on Tildes wants to do to improve themselves for this coming year. Personally, I want to devote more time into language learning, which would include spending more time watching foreign TV, studying vocab, etc.

What upcoming game are you looking forward to so much that they're already on your Steam wishlist?

Mine are:

Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey
Away: The Survival Series
Children of Morta
Morning Star
Noita
Space Haven
What The Golf?

Over 10 years ago the world of mobile gaming was totally different from today's. Still many (if not most) phones could run installable and built in games. Which were your favorite ones?

Let's say the mobile game is retro if released before 2009.

When it comes to news, it can be hard to separate the big drops in the bucket from the small. In thinking back through all the news of the year, what stories do you think are the most important? In other words, which are the stories that people will look back years from now and remember when thinking about 2018?

Let's fantasise Tilderinoes! You can just write what comes to your mind or answer any of the questions below to get your thoughts flowing.

• What bothers you in the current blogging platforms, like Blogger, Tumblr, or Wordpress?

• Is it “free” and with ads, commercial with no ads, or free and non-commercial and struggling? If it's commercial, how much does it cost?

• Does it have comments? How are they moderated? Who can comment? Are there PMs?

• Does it have tags? Categories? A tree structure?

• Does it provide file storage (images, audio, video)? How much?

• How extensible is your blog page? Can you control all of the CSS? Can you add scripting?

• Does it allow adult content? Political content? Hateful content? Who decides?

• Does the country of origin matter? Does it block content based on your country's laws (e.g. copyright, political stuff, etc.)?

• What are the privacy features? Does it require an email address? A card number (if commercial)?

Hi, I'm covering this week at Whom's request again.

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!

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 mostly like action and comedy anime, but I've been trying to branch my tastes out and get into some more genres. What do you like outside of comedy and action (especially SOL, but I'm really looking for any good suggestions)?

Edit: #9, not #8; sorry for messing the title up. Would be glad if someone can fix it for me, I can't edit it apparently. Thanks a lot, Deimos, for fixing it up!

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7 · Week #8

Yep. It's that time of year. We buy presents, go to parties, listen to carols... and watch old Christmas movies!

What's your favourite movie? Is it an old classic drama? A big glitzy spectacle? A soppy tear-jerker? A goofy comedy? Which Christmas movie is the one you watch over and over again, year after year?

Tried this a few months ago, wanted to see if anyone was interested in sharing.

Just curious if anyone has been working on any music projects they'd want to share? Maybe even local / independent artists you feel strongly about? Post them links!

My wife and I are flying home from our first vacation in a while. We got bumped to a later flight and the airline has compensated us each with $2,000 dollar travel vouchers. Where would you go given this opportunity?

They don't have to be anthems in the strict sense of the word. Any type or genre is fair game.

I'm interested in hearing about any songs that helped you connect with or express your identity. It can be something overtly intended to represent LGBT individuals or narratives, or it can simply be something with an abstract theme that resonates with your experiences.

So you're thinking about starting up a game, remembering all the fun times and great experiences you've had with it, and then you realize that if you want to play that game, you have to go through there again. A place so annoying, so difficult, or so boring that it saps your will to play it preemptively, or makes you drop it partway through. For me, I have this issue with the Dark Souls series. Tomb of the Giants for DS1 (Seriously, fuck the whole needing a lantern thing and fuck gravity), Lost Bastille for DS2 (I still struggle with the Ruin Sentinel 3v1), and Undead Settlement for DS3 (Seriosuly, fuck those bee shooting witches. And the swamp afterwards is a spit in the face after). Anyone else have their grievances with their games?

I've found a fair few glitches that I find really interesting, and I'd be pretty interested in seeing some more pixel vomit too. For the ones I'll be listing, they are in old games but are very interesting.

Everyone's seen the MissingNo. glitch, but a far less famous (although in my opinion, more interesting) glitch is the Super Glitch. If you've got an emulator, I'd recommend doing a save state and messing around with it - it's results vary a lot.

A glitch available in quite a few games is arbitrary code execution. It's pretty interesting in general, as people can do loads of things, from loading up homebrew to replacing maps. Most of the time it is rather difficult or time consuming to do, but it's still fascinating to see.

This one technically isn't a glitch at all, but teleporting in SRS-based Tetris games is pretty cool. An actual glitch in Tetris (NES version) is pentrises don't clear all lines, which can make pretty interesting stuff happen.

EDIT: I nearly forgot about The Big Skip in Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga. I recommend watching a speedrun from AGDQ, it only goes over it very briefly in the tasvideos page.

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 Anilist, MAL, or any other anime/manga database you use!

What made them great? Who would you recommend them to?

Don't feel like you have to limit yourself to 2018 releases either. I'm interested in whatever you played and enjoyed regardless of when it came out.

The big players today are Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge. Then there are a load of alternative browsers from Vivaldi and Brave to EWW and elinks and w3m, and then things like Dillo and Netsurf. Do you use any of these alternative browsers? If yes, why, and why did you pick that particular one? I'd be interested to read why not, too.

As evidenced by recent topics, most people are unhappy with the direction the smartphone industry has taken in recent years. As more unnecessary features and sacrifices are made with each passing generation of handsets, what components are essential in your ideal smartphone? Create one in the comments.

Here is mine, in no particular order:

• Optimized Stock Android
• Gesture-based navigation (think iPhone X)
• Removable matte black plastic back
• 2:1 Aspect ratio, 5.6" diagonal AMOLED display
• Dual front-facing speakers in top and bottom bezel
• Dual front facing cameras (Wide Angle and Standard)
• Bezel-less sides
• Dual back cameras, with OIS (Wide Angle and Standard)
• USB-C
• 3700 mAh removable battery with Fast Charging+Qi
• Snapdragon 855
• Apple-esque Face Unlock
• ~$750 price tag

Hey guys,

The whole idea of this website reminds me a lot of the forums I used to spend hours on as a kid, when those websites were just a place for people to talk about stuff and that was it, and that made me wonder, what was YOUR experience of that same era ?

Can't wait to hear your stories :)

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate came out last Friday, and it seems everyone (including me) is enjoying the game. What are your opinions on it? What was missing? (Waluigi aside, unless you actually explain why.)
What are its high points and its low points? I'm hoping we can use this as a sort of guide for people looking to buy, but really, I just want to know your opinions. Type away, my minions! Mwahahahaha!

I've been pretty curious about this particular subject for a while. I have Tourette's Syndrome but I don't often meet people with Tourette's so there isn't a lot of room to get others' experiences. I didn't want to limit it to just small disabilities either because I see no reason to exclude bigger ones. I guess we can use this thread as a way to share experiences/commiserate

Now hear me out, alright? This is a very polarizing issue but I do want some experienced opinions on the matter. There are too many bandwagoners spouting regurgitated opinions and it's hard to pick out the genuine impressions

When 76 went on sale, I decided to grab it up. Yes, I know, I'm the cancer rewarding Bethesda for a low hanging cash grab effort and I should be ashamed. However, I really wanted an educated opinion on the matter and I had the money. So, despite the hivemind having made themselves up, and myself being not so keen on the decisions, I buckled down and dived in.

So, while everyone's complaints were focused more towards gameplay, engine, and server side issues (which are completely valid complaints), I found myself blown away, and deeply saddened, by the art direction. The game honestly does look beautiful! I got sick of dilapidated buildings and browns and greens in Fallout 3 and 4, and New Vegas was nice when it wasn't brown sand and olive brush. This game looks gorgeous. They managed to throw a ton of different tiny biomes into one map, that all look interesting and appealing to the eye (once you tweak the .ini to get rid of the god awful Depth of Field). Lots of beautiful forest settings and foreboding mountains.

But overall, my favorite thing about the game is the enemy design. And no, I don't mean the stupid scorched. My favorite thing about Fallout has always been the mutation/radiation angle. I love the possibility for terrifying and disgusting mutated creatures, and the art team absolutely nailed it with creatures like the Wendigo, Snallygaster, Grafton Monster, and Gulper. Just super unsettling and creepy monsters in the most literal sense. I feel the worst for the art team, who did a fantastic job but who were ultimately drowned out by the flak thrown at the gameplay and bugs.

This, of course, does not excuse the horrendous bugs encountered during regular play. Power Armor pieces not actually being repaired yet still using up mats, constant server disconnects, poor scaling system (Did a level 70 player walk into an area first? Well expect every enemy there to be around their level even if you enter!), awful graphics setting options (for the love of god, no more depth of field), no push to talk voice (seriously?), poor economy, exploits, and lack of true endgame, among many others I've missed.

So, does anybody else want to expand?

Whom couldn't make it today so here I am with the weekly post.

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!

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 was browsing a second hand bookshop the other day and I was rather excited as a Tolkien fan to find a first edition print of The Silmarillion from 1977. Unfortunately I did not have the money to purchase the book which was in rather decent condition but it got me thinking. What’s the oldest book you own personally, and how did it end up in your possession?

Comment on both the concept (if it works, if it is pro-consumer) and the ever-increasing sizes of games.
For example, Rainbow Six Siege has been receiving steady updates since its release. I find a lot of them fun, but where does it end? Grand Theft Auto V is another game that is quite bloated at this point. Thoughts?

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 Anilist, MAL, or any other anime/manga database you use!

Just wondering what peoples' thoughts are on the most recent total overhaul of the game. I haven't bought the megacorp DLC yet, but I did play a multiplayer game with a friend that did, and I was pretty impressed. Much as I detest tedious micro, the new planet management system is light years ahead of the old one, and represents a much more realistic pace for colony development- no more outpopulating and outdeveloping your homeworld in twenty years. The main issues I've seen so far are poor balancing between raw materials, market balance, and finished goods, and AI. Since nearly all finished goods require minerals exclusively as an input, you get constant mineral deficits and a market that places more value on minerals than the goods made from them.

As for the market, the demand/pricing mechanism is poorly implemented, so you can exploit it for infinite money. Say a good costs 1EC/ea, you put in a bulk purchase order for 10,000 units. You pay 1EC for each of them, but after the order the sell price is boosted to 2EC. You can then immediately dump everything you just bought, selling each for 2EC. They could (and probably will) fix this by considering the price of each unit individually based on whatever formula they use for calculating market demand.

Finally, the AI completely shits the bed with the new administrative cap mechanic, and ends up decades behind any competently managed player empire in both economy and technology. But then I suppose poor AI is nothing new for Stellaris.

Issues aside though, I feel like with this patch, Stellaris has finally taken its place as a worthy successor to the classic Master of Orion 2.

For me, I value gameplay and originality. For example, let's take Splatoon. It gets a lot of hate because it has "kiddy" graphics. But I like it. It's gameplay is great. It's a really fun shooter, and I don't care if it has cartoonish graphics. As far as originality, it has amazing new ideas, such as the ability to swim through ink laid down by your weapon. What do you all value in a game?

Hey! Despite the seemingly negative name, I want to make this thread so anyone can say pretty much whatever you want about the games you've been playing! Whether it's a review, a brief paragraph or two of thoughts, recommendations, or frustrations, let's try to commiserate or proliferate discussion about what we've been playing!

I was reading about it here:

https://www.cnet.com/news/brave-browser-matures-with-move-to-chromium-foundation/

First I heard of it and was curious if anyone has tried it. I love the idea of blocking ads and trackers by default.

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Past weeks: Week #1 · Week #2 · Week #3 · Week #4 · Week #5 · Week #6 · Week #7

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!

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.

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 Anilist, MAL, or any other anime/manga database you use!

This week let's share some of those favorite tracks that you don't usually advertise to other people - the guilty pleasures. The ones that tend to make music critics and other music lovers cringe, and garner raised eyebrows from your friends and family. We've all got them hiding in our playlists.

Thanks @ainar-g for the topic suggestion. Feel free to suggest topics for upcoming threads in the comments, and happy listening. :)

Last week's thread on uplifting earworms.

In mid-2012 I decided to become a vegetarian, both for health and ethical reasons. Before then I had mostly been on autopilot when it came to food - I just ate what what was the norm in my family. My choice forced me to get out of my comfort zone, to try out new foods I had never considered before. For this reason, the change has been incredibly positive to me; I'm much more conscious of what I eat now. And by setting a precedent it later helped me make more changes, like cutting down sugar. I'm currently testing to see if the bloating and stomach aches I suffer daily are because I am lactose intolerant; if it is indeed the case, that will require another drastic change, although this particular one will be by necessity rather than choice.

What is the biggest change you've ever made to your diet? Was it by choice, or did you feel obligated to do so, for example because of health issues? What did you get out of it? How much thought do you put in your daily diet, in general?

Between the recent discussions on the Useful Shell Scripts thread, and some of the tangents on the Desktop Usability thread, I thought it might be an interesting idea to have a desktop screenshot sharing / unixporn thread where we talk about our setups, preferred applications, and share some pointers. This doesn't specifically have to be a Unix circlejerk though. If you have a Windows/Android/ChromeOS/TempleOS setup with some novel innovations, you're more than welcome to share too.

As the title says. Bonus points for covers that really surprised you. My personal favorite is Sugar Ray's cover of The Steve Miller Band's Abracadabra. It's super faithful to the source material but Sugar Ray kinda heavied it up a bit

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 Anilist, MAL, or any other anime/manga database you use!