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 think we all know how things are at large, but I wanted to check in with people individually.

How are you doing right now?

This topic is a safe space to share fears, anxieties, and frustrations. If you need to vent, or rage against something, or wallow, or let it all out, you can do so here. It’s okay to feel what you’re feeling. I’m certain you’re not alone in that.

This is also a safe space to share successes, hopes, and progress. Just as it’s okay to dwell on the bad stuff, it’s also okay to highlight any positives. It’s little bright spots like those that help us see more than just darkness, after all. I’m sure other people could use some good news.

Inspired by the beetroot question: Who has tried durian, and what are your thoughts on it?

Known to some as the king of fruits and to others as something incredibly smelly.

I've become a big durian fan, but try not to eat too much of it during the season here, since it is calorie dense and very "heaty" if you follow traditional Chinese medicine.

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.

A wizard has cursed you with billions of dollars! Why is that a curse? Because unless you spend it immediately* on something ridiculous** you'll become like the worst, asshole-iest billionaire you can think of. (Fill in your own blank).

Saving the world is out, philanthropy is out (unless it's utterly ridiculous), clever tricks to make the world better by finding a loophole and trying to outwit the wizard's curse are out.

If you try something that could be started with an "um actually" 🤓☝️you end up naming all your children and companies with the same letter before the end of the day, got it? Spirit of the rules!
I'm watching you. ತ⁠_⁠ʖ⁠ತ

*A project might take time but you're going all in on it, cash up front
** The point is that it's pointless. It might be accidentally useful but it's pointless.

ETA: I have been unjustly rate limited and will be replying when I can. Please take this opportunity to reconsider your charitable works and other attempts at public good and get back to airships and Animorphs movies. Ty

I started using the Goodreads annual reading challenge years ago. I generally treat it as an arbitrary target to see if I can read that many books in a year. I have found myself in recent years enjoying hitting that goal, and have found myself slotting in more shorter books in my reading between larger stories that I'm reading to help me reach that goal. This has in turn helped motivate me to dive in to some older sci-fi and fantasy works, which are usually shorter or standalone.

If I'm a couple of books off the goal I set at the end of the year I don't mind, but it is interesting looking back over the last few years seeing how this goal has shaped how I read since I've needed to adjust my reading habits to maintain a similar number of books now that I have kids.

I thought it would be fun to see how other Tilders approach this, if at all:

• Do you participate in any reading challenges, and if you do, which one(s)?
• Have you found the reading challenge changing how you read, or which books you read?

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 cryptography.post quantum, chatfishing and curses.wizard. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was getting befuddled.

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!

Hello! Hopefully this is the right place to ask this, but I was wondering if anyone here was using a SAD lamp, and if you have any recommendations.

Tangent:
I currently live in a fairly dark apartment, and have a cheapish SAD lamp that is pulling double duty to not only brighten the room, but also keep me from going crazy in the darker winter months. It seems in an age of smart-everything, I've struggled to find something to replace mine with.

I currently have a Verilux HappyLight, but it kind of sucks ass. The power cord always falls out, pressing the power button might be enough to loosen the power cord. The settings have to be set every time you turn it on. It's just total garbo in my opinion. I looked at smart bulbs, but they don't seem to hit the lumens I'm looking for.

I think part of the issue with my current setup is that I have to actually turn the light on, which you would think would be fairly easy, but with the issues above, and my sheer laziness it's basically an impossible task.

What I'm looking for is something that can be automated, I think one of my major issues I've had in the last year is that I haven't been able to wake up to the morning sun as I had previously. It takes hours before I actually feel awake. I've gone from a morning person to some sort of bizarre afternoon person.

Anyway, I'm looking for others experiences and recommendations.

I'm streaming Firefox to watch Riverdale, so I opened up Chrome to browse while I wait for them to join. Youtube has ads on it, and I realized I can't grab uBlock or anything (meaningfully) privacy focused. So, I wanna try out one of the cool new browsers, what do people use and recommend?

I'm on Windows and a proper techie, so give me anything that's a bit strange and off the wall as well! The only one I tried out recently was Comet, but it needs more time to bake, total waste of time IME. I remember using IceWeasel for some reason lol

Obviously I don't want anyone to dox themselves here, but if you're comfortable sharing, what are some interesting oddities or landmarks in your state, county, country, etc.?

Think like "World's Largest Teapot" or "Carhenge". Or even smaller oddities or things that are unique to your area.

Hello fellow readers! I am finally close to finishing the book I am reading (maybe 2 weeks away or so - I am kind of a slow reader). That book is 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. However, I am already getting excited about the next book and I have a few on my "to read" list. I have read nothing by any of these authors, so I am going in blind, based only on some browsing and very basic non-spoiler reviews. Please, no spoilers. I thought it might be fun to post this here and see if your thoughts can help me prioritize my "to read" list and pick the next book I'll read. I think I am leaning towards "The Tunnel" or "The Seventh Function of Language", but anything on the list will be very fresh to me.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

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.

I recently got my first vinyl (Breach by Twenty One Pilots) for my birthday. I've had it on streaming nonstop but want to play it properly and start a small collection.

I've seen a lot of recommendations for the Audio-Technica AT-LP60 as a beginner option (affordable and apparently decent quality) but also read that spending a little more can get something more "serious", though I need speakers too.

The thing is that it needs to be new gear only or easy to buy: My partner plans to gift the setup for Christmas and marketplace/used gear is hard to source locally where we live, so that's probably out. We have a budget of around €150 for the turntable and other €150 for the speakers, or €300 total. Open to a modest stretch if it avoids an early upgrade. Manual or semi-auto is fine but preferable plug-and-play.

Prefer compact powered speakers with good near field clarity, not necessarily loud since they'll sit behind my PC monitor on my desk.

Questions:

• If I'm considering the AT-LP60, what's the smartest "slightly more €" upgrade path for a first set-up?

• For small desks, which powered speakers pair well with entry-level turntables (good clarity but not boomy)?

• Anything to avoid or other advice you may have for a beginner?

Appreciate any guidance. I’m looking forward to spinning Breach and building out a few more records.

Ps: Already ordered anti-static inner sleeves, outer sleeves, and a carbon-fiber record brush to keep things clean!

I'm extremely bearish on the US dollar and stock market and am wondering what other people think about how to prepare financially for the medium term future. I don't there's any other way you can cut it: there's a debt crisis and, worse yet, I don't think the US will be able to convince bond buyers that they're serious enough about the issue to avoid a debt spiral. The fact that gold has cracked 4000 (almost 4200 now, with BofA setting a 5000 target) seems to suggest that central banks are similarly pessimistic about a financial collapse. What do y'all think about where things are likely headed?

For a while now I have used VSCodium- which is just Microsoft's VSCode, but with as much of the telemetry stripped out (or rather, not built-in in the first place) as possible- but I've found myself with a desire to move away from Electron-based apps for a number of reasons.

Primarily, I'm ideologically opposed to the trend in which everything is an Electron-based web app packaged as a "desktop application", but on a slightly more functional note, Electron seems to behave poorly in Wayland contexts, especially on Arm64 devices.

In terms of feature set, I'm not too interested in complexity. Something open-source, relatively clean / light-weight, capable of providing a project overview and a number of tabbed or vsplit / hsplit buffers. Something with comprehensive syntax highlighting and some form of language server interface. Something theme-able, and good to look at, with relatively intuitive or well-established keyboard shortcuts. I don't much care for integrated terminals, extensive debugging tooling, or any form of built-in AI assistant.

I have been trying out Micro, with a set of plugins which allow for a project overview, a language server, and a number of other QOL improvements, but it has a list of breaking issues that will likely not be solved for years given the speed at which pull-requests are addressed, if at all. Even so- it hits most of the marks that I find most important to me.

But I'm also interested in what other people use; what other programmers find matter to them. So what text editors, or IDEs do you swear by (and please don't suggest VIM- it's overwhelming ;])?

I remember there being a few other OSRS players here.

Grid Master started yesterday. I didnt really understand what it was going to be but its actually very engaging. All the OP perks make progress really fast.

Let me know what tips and tricks you have picked up.

From my playthrough so far, I would recommend starting out by training theiving to 25, unlocking dodgy deals by stealing from the Hosidius fruit stand, pickpocketing to 50, and then stealing valuables in Varlamore to unlock Golden God. Once you have that, you can go to the stonecutters outpost, by noted building materials, and alch them for infinite money.

Another good strategy is to use the gatherer and craftsman perks to link skills you dont like to woodcutting and firemaking, and then chop wood with the echo axe to train 6 skills at once afk.

I dream with a new mainstream handheld console that is neither an extension of a regular console experience, a smartphone, or a wine-powered Linux machine

When I was a kid in Brazil, we had a manga and anime club in my town. It was somewhat official. At our gatherings, there were lots of manga and VHS tapes that we exchanged and duplicated when possible. There were always two or three kids, each with a Nintendo DS. Sometimes more. For us, they were the rich kids. Back in 2005, it was unimaginable for most kids to own a DS, or even a Game Boy for that matter. They connected their devices and played some kind of Pokémon. I pretended I did not care and did not pay them overt attention. My envy knew no bounds.

At least a decate later, when the PSP was already going out of fashion (and was therefore much cheaper), I managed to get a PSP Go. It came fullly cracked with hundreds of games. I loved that cheap little thing. I eventually graduated to a PS Vita, which I believe was the finest piece of hardware I ever had in my hands. But the proprietary memory card was pricey, and so were the games. I didn't have lots to play. It's a bittersweet memory.

Seeing how the Vita became an emulation powerhouse makes me regret selling it.

I never owned a Nintendo DS, but a friend of mine lent me his for several years. I loved that too, but the stylus felt like a gimmick, and I would have gladly swapped it for regular controls. I was not a fan of the dual screens either. But at least it was interesting, you know? They were trying to do something different, and I respected them for that.

Now I have two retro handhelds, the Miyoo Mini Plus and the RG35XX H (Anbernic). Cheap Chinese products, but decent enough. Setting them up correctly was not hard, but it was laborious.

Maybe I am crazy, but I still think handheld consoles could work in the mainstream. It won't happen, of course. But it would be awesome to be excited by hardware once again. Something unique that is not a phone or a way to play Windows games on the go. With games that are developed explicitly for handhelds, with UIs that are adequate for small screens and crazy features that wouldn't make sense in the living room. A sturdy piece of tech that is always there for you, suggesting nothing but escapism.

One can only dream.

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.

Introduction

Fun Fact: I named my Cat Crono because of this game.

Welcome to Chrono Trigger.
We're playing it for this months CGA.
In my opinion, if you haven't played this game before, you're in for a treat. This game is often considered the gold-standard for JRPGs. Developed by Hironobu Sakaguchi from Final Fantasy, Yuji Horii from Dragon Quest, and Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball.

This year is actually the 30 year anniversary since it's release.
Square Enix has launched some new CDs with the Soundtrack, and a Concert in Tokyo if anyone is interested.
The music is actually what got me into this game. If you want to know, it's this - might be a minor spoiler, but I remember when I first found that music in the game, I was hooked and just stopped to listen. That was the first time since Saria's Song in Ocarina of Time.

So what is this game: I like to think these games are best experienced going in blind, so I will be as vague as possible. (Any additions are welcome). Chrono Trigger is a RPG from 1995. It's got an amazing story, some really interesting mechanics, beautiful characters and an amaing soundtrack. I'll put even the smallest things into spoiler tags, since maybe some people like to go in completely blind.

Chrono Trigger

Versions: Original (1995), PlayStation (1999), Nintendo DS (2008), iOS/Android (2011), Steam (2018)

Platforms: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), PlayStation, Nintendo DS, iOS, Android, Windows (Steam)

Genre(s): Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG), Turn-based RPG

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores:

• Steam -- on sale until Oct 6
• Google Play
• App Store

How Long To Beat:
On a first playthrough, expect about 20-25 hours.
Without giving away too much: there is definitely some replayability.

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

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?

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.

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

Important

• 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>

FAQ

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!

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.