I have a 4 year old and I'm looking for some video suggestions (ideally a series) that showcases cultures around the world. I have lots of options handy for seeing all sorts of animals from any corner of the globe that are all very kid-friendly if not kid-oriented, but not a lot comes to mind when I want to introduce her to human life around the world. Particularly in urban places. Her exposure to these other cultures is usually just as porters helping some white guys walk around a jungle looking for animals. I can also find lots of travel series, which go to different places, but they are all oriented to adults-- either talking about how to travel to these places as a tourist, or have more adult jokes or are too focused on the presenter.

Are there any well made series about life in other places? I'd like her to see life in Tokyo, Cairo, Mexico City, favelas of Brazil, Amsterdam, Mumbai, etc.

I'm looking for some recommendations. I'm not a voracious reader, so just about anything you can recommend will be new to me.

I'm not sure how to describe the genre I'm after, which is really why I'm here. I just got done binging Petscop on YouTube; the surreal and Lynchian story telling coupled with the dark subject matter really sucked me in. I'm also somewhat enthralled by some of the higher quality Backrooms content.

I'm interested in short stories or novels.

Edit: sorry for not tagging. I completely forgot!

I'm attempting to change my phone habits and swap out some unhealthy ones (doomscrolling the news) with healthy ones (solving puzzles instead!).

I just set up the incredible RetroArch on my phone now that you can do that on iOS, and I even got a little controller for games that need it (I tried playing Tetris with touch controls, and it was like, 95% good, but missing a spin or move when things were getting tense was frustrating and took me out of it).

What I'm looking for are puzzle game recommendations up through the PlayStation/N64 era (including handhelds) that can run on my phone.

In particular I want to explore more "novel" puzzle game ideas -- ones that kind of take their own swing at things. For example, Intelligent Qube on the PlayStation is one of my favorite games of all time, in part because I've never played anything like it in the nearly 30 years since its release.

That said, I'm also open to just regular old "pure" puzzler games. The first game I set up (and have been thoroughly enjoying) on RetroArch is Picross 3D on the DS. I love games like this that are just lists of puzzles and I can play one or two of them rather than, you know, doomscrolling.

Any recommendations you can give are appreciated!

So I have a have maybe a few hundred books at home and I think it's time I put together a collection of what I have. I'd love a database of author / title / publication year / physical location that I could search through ideally.

Is there software that can help with this? I had a brief look at LibraryThing, but I think it costs money for the quantity of books I'm looking at. I briefly toyed with the concept of making my own app that could scan an ISBN to speed up the process (since most will have ISBNs). I wonder what the people of Tildes suggest? Has anyone here done something similar?

My elderly father has an android phone and so do I. Is there a reputable remote assistance app that we can both install so I can help him with basic phone stuff from far away?

It has to be as easy to use as possible: it won't work if he has to open an app or toggle settings or punch in a buncha code. He doesn't even know how to take a screenshot and send it over WhatsApp. Ideally the app would just be sleeping until I send him a request, it'll have a pop up to allow, and he just has to click yes. I won't need full control, just be able to see what he sees and tell him what thingy to click.

On the desktop front, I'm considering getting Mint for him to upgrade. All he wants to do is open browser and go to bookmark sites. Is there a Mint compatible remote assistance app that's super easy? Again I'm okay with minimal control trade off with ease of use from his side.

Thanks Tildes :)

Hey all,

I just recently got a Switch 2, and am looking for some games to play on it. I currently have Mario Kart World (and have been enjoying it), but nothing else.

I have not owned a Switch before, so if there are good switch games that work on the switch 2 I would appreciate those recommendations as well.

Looking primarily for single-player & local 2-player games. No real genres I dislike, except I don’t play a lot of horror games. I have played a bit of splatoon on a friends switch, and that wasn’t my cup of tea.

I do have a PC and have played a lot of games there (like Cyberpunk, Elden Ring, Tunic, Hollow Knight, etc), so mainly looking for games that are console-exclusive, or that might’ve slipped by my radar.

One thing I loved doing that sort of fell out of my life was keeping a small note book and transferring everything important to a journal. Its what kept me mostly organized throughout high school and uni but things got a bit hectic after I started working. I just jumped to scattered Google Keep notes that are difficult to follow up on. I've since tried Obsidian to scratch that itch but that became even a more chaotic mess than Keep.

Jump to last week and my phone battery and USB port both gave up while traveling. Fortunately the person hosting me was happy to sell the old Samsung Note phone that had been gathering dust. Not a fan of the Samsung Ecosystem or the weird oversized form factor. But the integrated stylus is something I didn't think I needed. I just pop it out and the screen instantly goes into note mode. it's helped when I just need to jot something down or illustrate some idea. I could easily minute a casual meeting and shared the outcomes as an image set. Was a lot more personable than the ignored pdf document or a wall of text in a slack group and people were more likely to check it than ask for information that was right there.

Beyond that, I'm more likely to jot down ideas, reminders and notes, and actually come back to them. I've also found the mazec3 keyboard that let's me write to text reliably and I prefer it to longer typing on touchscreen (used it for this post). The problem is that I really want to combine these tools into an actual workflow. Just checking if anyone has a consistent toolset to easily take stylus notes and to effectively organize and catalog the results?

I've tried messing around with Obsidian Canvas with the ink and draw.io plugin but it doesn't seem geared for spontaneous scribbles and complex shapes. And it all just ends up as a formatting chore that I keep putting off. Also spent some time looking through the Play Store for something off the shelf but everything there is now "AI Powered" and it's another red flag on top of overpriced in-app purchases. It all feels like a data harvesting or advertising scams and google is incentivized to push revenue generators and ad mills over actual functionality.

What are some newer obscure titles that you would personally recommend?

Let's say something from a five years ago and that is really unlikely to be known by somone else unless you told them about it. But it really is not that important.

I am looking for some small studio or personnal project that manages to take whatever it is based around and create an entertaining experience.

Also I am posting this as hopefully a way to surface smaller titles that someone considers good.

See device recommendation thread from 2019.

It's been a few years: tech has further matured, and we've gotten more things enshittified. With that in mind, I am asking these questions :

Edit: new comments very welcome as well! I wasn't on this site yet in 2019

(0) Did you find the device worth the money, what was surprisingly helpful or unhelpful? What was the tipping point into getting one and did it fulfil its promise?

(1) If your existing one broke today, would you still buy a new fitness tracker today?

(2) If yes, which one?

(3) Else no, why not, or what lessons have you learned since owning one, or what technological considerations do you have today that you didn't before?

Bonus: for folks who never had one, did you ever wanted one and if so what stopped you?

I'm thinking stacking running laptops on top of each other ( two ).

Would a rubber pad between them protect the laptops from each other's heat?

How thick would the pad have to be?

Would other materials work too?

I'm guessing this is something I can have cut to size in a hardware store.

Throughout my workday, I'm making changes to several components of various applications. I'm also testing different configurations in a large number of areas.

How do you keep track of the details of your day-to-day tasks? Especially if you potentially need to roll back changes.

I feel like it is way too much overhead to notate every little step. I could, but it would make my work take 2-3x as long. I also don't think recording my screen would have much benefit, as it's not easy to pinpoint when a breaking change could have been made.

Personal context: while this is software development related, I'm generally stuck in the box of no-code platforms. That means I can't simply keep a git repository with frequent commits. Additionally, this platform does not support viewing prior versions of the different components, so there's really no way to compare.

And for the pieces I am able to keep in a git repository (HTML and JavaScript snippets), that still isn't perfect because the place they are actually executed from is outside of my git repo and occasionally modified by others. But I don't expect guidance on how to predict when others change things.

I am looking for a new mouse, and I am overwhelmed by the choices.

I would be grateful for recommendations.

First, will a USB 2 mouse work in a USB 3 port?

What I would like in a mouse:

1. wired
2. reasonably immune to dirt buildup causing false clicks

Thanks for any input.

Edit: Thanks for all of the replies. I read everyone. I decided to go with something cheap and basic since people told me my current mouse that does unwanted clicks is likely just worn out.

As a Brit who's now effected by the Great British Firewall I'd like recommendations for VPNs that meet the following criteria either directly or via additional software/Firefox extensions:

• Use VPN only for specific apps on iOS (apply to Reddit, Discord, BlueSky and Twitter/X, Wikipedia (if it ends up banned) but not others)
• Use VPN for specific websites on Windows/macOS (apply to Reddit, Discord, BlueSky, Twitter/X, Wikipedia (if it ends up banned) websites)
• VPN considered generally trustworthy and not an American firm

Personal recommendations that you have experience with only please.

My wife and I are in Tokyo for a couple of days, before moving on to Kyoto. We have a few restaurants booked already, and have a friend or two in the city who will show us around, but I wanted to solicit some recommendations from people here too. We are staying in Ginza area but happy to walk/use metro to explore other parts of the city.

Any recommendations for good shopping or good food? I’m interested in vintage/second hand clothes, kitchen equipment, etc but honestly open to any suggestions of things to check out!

EDIT:

Well, I’m back stateside now, and I want to avoid bumping this thread too much by going through and thanking people, but I found all of these comments really useful! We ended up having a great time and ate some great food, most of the time by popping in places that looked good when walking by. Did some nice shopping as well (I managed to pick up my dream watch from a small store in Omote-sando!) Thanks everyone for the great recommendations, it was useful to get my bearings, and now I just can’t wait to go back.

My (older, now) computer has started having issues with the WiFi cutting out.

I looked at the connection strength and saw it was sometimes dropping to 0, so I picked up a WiFi extender, and now it’s signal strength is usually around 70% (Windows only shows a percentage). However, even while monitoring the strength via a PowerShell script to watch the connection strength, it still drops out while the connection strength is > 70%. When it “drops out” I’ll run a speed test and see that it is basically uploading/downloading with kbps speeds instead of Mbps.

My other devices in the same room don’t seem to have any issues, so I’m wondering if my antenna or WiFi card (built in to the motherboard) are just failing.

I know PCIe WiFi cards are better, but unfortunately, as it’s an older computer (can’t even support Windows 11), the motherboard only has one PCIe slot that is in-use by the GPU.

So, any suggestions for a USB WiFi card that actually works? (Or additional ways of troubleshooting a failing wifi connection…)

Any clever ways to connect to the Internet safely to update drivers, security, etc? I'd only want to connect to Intel, AMD, Microsoft, etc, and then would physically disconnect the lan card. I know, dangerous, but I'm trying a piecemeal approach with a flash drive and getting mixed results. I tried to update to Service Pack 2, and it bricked the computer on restart, back to flashing Vista.

My last dashcam was a total dud and wasn't even operational for 6 hours. I'm hoping to get some community recommendations on reliable units with good image quality. If you would also share the approx. length of time you've had/used it that would be a huge help as well. Thanks in advance!

It could be a novelization of a movie, game, television show, etc. Or any of the other combinations (e.g. a movie based on a game, television show, novel, etc.).

It doesn't solely have to be an adaptation either. Tie-ins are often universe extensions, such as when books are written in a pre-existing movie/show/game universe.

Often, media tie-ins are seen as soulless marketing cash-ins (which is sometimes accurate), but others are legitimately great in their own right.

What are the ones that you like and would recommend? What makes them noteworthy?

Meta note: Feel free to interpret this criteria as broadly as possible. This isn't about splitting hairs about what "counts" as a tie-in, but more about exploring things that have done a good job at jumping between media types. If you've got a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles watch that you love, that counts! Same for that Death Stranding fanfic you can't get enough of.

I love reading but lately I've found myself having to sit in front of my 2k monitor to read PDFs because they're technical documents and render poorly on my Kindle, even with using various tools to optimize.

I've been considering getting a tablet primarily for this purpose. My main requirement is that I really don't want Android or iOS devices, leaving me with either purpose built Linux tablets or Windows tablets that I can replace with Linux. I really don't need much -

• Fast enough that there's no significant lag between page turns/scrolls
• 8"+ screen size
• Video watching isn't necessary but a nice bonus
• Wifi isn't absolutely necessary as long as there is an easy way of getting files on the device (USB transfer, SD card, external adapter, etc)
• SD card storage would be nice but I can also make due with just internal flash
• Keyboard is also optional - I wouldn't mind being able to run an IDE and connect to my gitlab instance for some simple coding on the fly or SSH into my homelab
• Cameras are largely unnecessary
• Decent battery life or the ability to upgrade down the road
• Looking for something around 500$ CAD (362-ish USD, 312€, 269£)

I've been eyeing the PineTab2 as it meets most of the requirements but reviews seem to be mixed on its usability. So I thought I would ask here if anybody has had similar requirements and found something that works for them. Or if the PineTab2 software has significantly improved - this reddit post seems to indicate that it is in a decent state now.

If nothing like this exists, I suppose I could settle for an Android device provided it can easily take a custom ROM and be de-googled. I would just prefer Linux as I know it quite well and I much prefer the freedom of it. I've also used a touch screen monitor with Plasma on my Arch laptop and been pleasantly surprised at the experience - the hardware is just a bit too clunky to reliably read with.

Do you have any go-to mobile games for those moments where you just need to kill 10-20 minutes of time, without pausing a session to resume later? I'm on iOS but I'd imagine many are available on both iOS and Android.

Preferably without ads or in app purchases. (I'll consider a one-time payment if it seems to be a great fit.)

I discovered Rogue Words from someone here and I absolutely love it and am so happy to see it gaining popularity. But it fits into a different category of mobile game for me since I fall asleep too quickly! And I love Balatro and others that I consider full games (that have a PC version as well). But they're also too long for this use case!

I feel bored with new movies. I don’t know if it is me or if I feel burnet out on what Hollywood is putting out, either way i don’t feel there is anything new or refreshing.

I’ve watched some old movies, such as '12 Angry Men' (1957) which i found incredibly interesting. The entire movie is shot in one room basically and is about a youth charged for a murder and the twelve men in question have to decide if he should be put to a death sentence or not.

The point about mentioning this movie is that it is something very different than what is put out from Hollywood now. The same goes for 'Oceans Eleven' (1960) with the Rat Pack, which is a very different movie than the reboot from 2001.

I find older movies has more interesting plots and stories, not that it needs to be from the sixties. It can be from any decade, but I’d like to hear what you think should be on a movie bucketlist!

Thank you for your time, and I’m excited to watch your recommendations!

Main constraint: The space it needs to fit in is 7¾ in (19.7 cm) high. Width and length aren't a concern.

Primary use: Gaming. Doesn't need to be top of the line or cutting edge. Most of what I play isn't very demanding, though I would like the option to play newer stuff if I find something that interests me.

Budget: Ideally less than $1500, but I do realize that I might have to pay out a bit more because I want something both pre-built and compact. $2000 is the hard limit.

Important: I am NOT interested in building my own PC. (Yes, I have done it before, including one that was in a compact case that was HELL to get right.)

Me being uninformed: This might be a silly question, but can I lay desktop towers down on their side? Any traditional tower isn't going to fit, but some of them are thin enough that, if put in landscape instead of portrait, they would. I've read conflicting things about this online, particularly regarding liquid cooling and airflow.

If anyone has any recommendations, I'd appreciate it!

I went down the path of thinking about switching to Passkeys but it seems like more hassle than it is worth, so I hoped this community could tell me if I am crazy.

I use Bitwarden to generate and save passwords for anything important and always use an authentication app when the option is present. I never use the same password. Sadly, most Canadian banks are awful and only allow SMS 2FA if anything at all. That said, of the two banks I primarily use, one does allow an authentication app and the other uses its own app to send authentication codes.

I always read that Passkeys are better for people who are lazy/bad with their passwords. For someone like me, is the security practically the same or is there still some benefit to switching everything I can to Passkeys?

I’m finally making the plunge to getting a bread maker, now that the price of bread has gone up to a stupid amount and I finally realized four months of buying bread every other day will pay for the machine itself. (Flour is cheap, yeast is cheap.) There are only really three machines available where I live, so I’m pretty set on the machine itself.

Since I’ve never had a bread maker, do y’all have any advice, favorite recipes, suggestions?

So since the USB-C spec came out, there are so many different cables advertising different optional capabilities.

Even if you are careful to select a cable which does what you need, there is a good chance it won't have all capabilities as advertised, you only find out when it arrives.

The situation on Amazon is particularly bad, with co-mingled stock and questionable brands like XZZTTG and EIUTOO dominating the listings.

For me, now, I'm specifically struggling to find a short replacement cable for my Samsung T7 SSD, which came with a USB 3.2 Gen 2 cable which was ~15cm and flexible. It was very nice, but they're not sold seperately!

So, where do you look these days to find a listing of decent and reliable accessories like USB cables?

UPDATE:

Great recommendations on brands to look for.
Thanks all!

I have a project I'm working on that could be performed by a Raspberry Pi 5 with 8GB of RAM. But almost everything on the Pi's board besides the SoC and RAM will be unused. And for this project size is important. I don't need WiFi/Bluetooth/ethernet/USB3/PCIe/Cameras/etc.

Here are my requirements:

• Performance at or above the SoC on the Pi5
• At least 8GB of RAM
• Either one USB port (for a mic/headphone jack combo USB sound card) or integrated analog audio input and output
• A couple of GPIO pins for buttons/LEDs
• Cost around the Pi5 - $80
• Runs Linux

Looking at the Pi5 I feel a properly stripped down version that meets my needs could be as small or smaller than a Pi Zero. I looked around and other SBCs are either much slower, much bigger, and/or much more expensive.

My current best option is to buy a Pi5 and trim its PCB as best as I can. But given there are so many competing options I assume one of them will have what I'm looking for.

I like to periodically audit my home computer infrastructure for upgrades/replacements. Mostly this is so I don't have to make an impulse purchase when something inevitably fails, but it's also nice to keep up to date on the state of the art.

I'm currently trying to reassess my home home networking, and I am a bit overwhelmed by everything. So I'm hoping that the residents of Tildes can help me out a bit with recommendations.

I would classify myself as a fairly budget consumer. I'm on a less than 1Gbit Xfinity plan, and have mostly cobbled together my current system from collected parts over the years. My DNS/DHCP is handled by my primary router, an aging T-Mobile Asus device I picked up years ago and loaded with Merlin. A few years ago I picked up an Eero system on discount, and I have been using that in bridge mode to provide mesh Wifi around the house.

The system I have in place is working great. It occurs to me though, that most of the parts are getting old enough that I can't replace them directly. I'm definitely not going to be able to find my specific router easily, and the first gen Eeros are also getting harder to find. I also think I might not be doing myself any favors with the chain of multiple devices being cobbled together. Perhaps it's time to look for a mesh system with the flexibility that my Asus/merlin router offers.

So let's hear it. What sort of networking equipment is everyone using these days? What do you like about it? Any killer features that I have been missing while living under a rock?

IMPORTANT: These do NOT have to be foods that specifically target vegans, like Amy's or many meat substitutes (though they certainly can be).

For example, most Triscuits are vegan, but they aren't generally thought of as a "vegan food" per-se.

ALSO IMPORTANT: They don't have to be health-conscious foods (though again, they certainly can be).

It's now cliche at this point, but the "Oreos are vegan" type of insight is also what I'm interested in. Sometimes you just want some junk food on hand, you know?

There's some moral issues about big publishers' business practices. Somehow, almost all racing games for example are EA. Like it's actually crazy lol - so despite wanting to play them, we do not wish to do that. Similarly, a lot of other co-op games are Ubisoft.

So looking for recommendations! Almost any genre and type are appreciated - only exception is games with pixel graphics (just really unpleasant to look at for me).

I learned to play piano when I was pretty young and my parents wanted me to learn an instrument. Real acoustic piano, music theory, private tutor, recitals, the works. I stopped playing after high school and my lessons ended though, mainly since it felt like it was just another chore and I wasn't enjoying it or playing pieces of my own volition. It's been over a decade since then and most of my free time has been in video games instead. The piano's still there but it's been just another piece of furniture for the most part. I've never seriously considered dusting it off and trying it again, and I'm pretty sure I've forgotten everything I've learned at this point.

Recently though, I got the chance to play Taiko no Tatsujin in an arcade for the first time while in Japan and I enjoyed it a lot despite being a total amateur, and I wanted to go back and play more to get better. That's when a thought crossed my mind - if I could gamify piano playing too, wouldn't that be a good way to trick myself into learning and enjoying piano again?

So I did some digging into what gamified piano software was around now, and Piano Marvel seemed to be the one most suited for being both beginner friendly and also for sight reading. The software itself offers a fair bit of beginner content for free, with the more advanced stuff behind a subscription. You can also connect it to a digital piano to track key presses and score your performance, which is the important gamification part that sets it apart from me just pulling up some YouTube tutorials and trying to follow them.

So I did some digging into digital pianos to see what would work for me learning and budget wise. From what I could glean off of various subreddit and other forum posts, if the end goal is to learn piano and not keyboard, an 88-key with weighted keys is the only thing that comes close, which bumps the cost up to a minimum of about 400 USD for the cheapest decent one, a Yamaha P45. If I didn't have a piano that cost would be fine, but I do and it most definitely sounds better, I just can't connect it to software or plug headphones into it so I don't bother my family if I'm playing at night, and I kind of want both of those. I'm also slightly concerned that my parents might be a bit upset if I do get a keyboard since, again, there's a perfectly good acoustic piano right there that they definitely paid more than 400 bucks for, though I imagine they'd be happy to just see me take an interest in learning piano again.

The most important part of this is that I actually commit to it and play regularly, since it'll all be for nought if I lose interest or turn it into a chore again and stop playing after a few weeks or months. I don't know if a gamified piano software will actually do that for me or if I just don't actually like playing piano after all, but I would like some thoughts. Is there other good software for relearning piano in a fun way? Any keyboard recommendations, preferably not too expensive? Am I being a coward and should I just use my acoustic piano instead?

Disclaimer: I am very lazy. I just want an easy way to find music I want to listen to. A paid service is fine.

I tend to listen to Spotify but I find it is repetitive and uninteresting, maybe I just can't find the good playlists? I also listen to my local FM radio station but they don't say the artist or song title so if there's something I like I often can't find it again.

I miss the days of going to the shop and buying a CD after spending two hours listening to the sample tracks.

Surely there is a better way? If anyone can point me in the right direction I would be very grateful!

Long story short, I’ve gotten very tired of buying junky pans that start getting rusty, etc. really quickly.

At the moment, I’m trying to find some good metal pans for baking things like brownies and focaccia, so probably 8x8 and/or 9x13.

Anyone have any good brand recommendations?

Hello Tildes!

I've been trying out a lot of open-source apps these past few months but I've always hosted them on a VPS. It's been great and educational so far. However, I started considering to host my very own server on-prem so that my data is absolutely physically with me and nowhere else.

With that short intro, I'd like to say I'm in the market for a home server. I can install OS's, docker containers, etc. And that's how I managed to install Jellyfin, Immich, Paperless, Portainer, etc on my VPS right now.

What out-of-the-box miniPC can be good for someone dipping their toes in the home server scene? I feel like I might need the storage to be extendable somehow? And it must be able to stream music and video through Jellyfin.

The choices in YouTube videos are overwhelming that I keep jumping from saying "ooh I'll get that" to "oh wait maybe I'll get that other one".

I also am not very handy in terms of hardware so I would prefer something out-of-the-box (if possible). Maybe a max budget of 500? But around 400 euros would be preferred. (Edit: In EU also, if possible)

Thanks for reading! Hope to hear from you guys!

I've been slowly transitioning my diet away from meat and dairy products. Cutting meat out has not really been an issue for me, and most dairy has been easy (I find the idea of milk gross anyway, never liked sour cream much, and butter substitutes are plentiful), but so far the idea of cutting out cheese seems like it will be my biggest hurdle. It's a central ingredient in many things I enjoy (mac and cheese, pizza, grilled cheese, sprinkling it on pasta, queso with chips and salsa, cottage cheese with jam, pretty much any Mexican dish). One of my sons is allergic to dairy so I've had plenty opportunities to try some of the small selection of vegan cheeses (mostly wheat based, I believe) we can get around here and they just don't do it for me at all--I find the texture and taste of every one I've tried actively repulsive (Daiya and Violife are the two that spring to mind).

Has anyone had better luck with vegan cheese--maybe brands or styles that I'm unaware of that come closer to replacing the real thing? Any tips on how to make cheeseless pizza that doesn't taste like sadness and despair? Or will there be a cheese-shaped hole in my soul I'm going to have to live with when I finally give it up?

AFAIK there are three software options for such thing: Peertube, Owncast and Restreamer. If there's something else, please write, I will appreciate.

Regarding hosting, I'm an almost total noob. What I know is that I don't want big latency and I don't want to pay too much. I don't know what to look for and the best thing would be to have some options to try, e.g. some trial period (a day, a week?) for free/cheap.

I've already tried Owncast and Restreamer on webh.pl VPS . Looking e.g. at requirements it seems that no huge machine is needed. However, latency was enormous, about 30 seconds, on both softwares.

What affects the latency the most and what would you recommend to try? Is VPS enough, should I aim for something else?

[edit]
I stream from Europe, if it changes anything.

Last time I asked for local bookstore recs I had an AMAZING time visiting local bookstores in Minneapolis!! I'm going to St. Louis this weekend and I would love recs again!

Some extra info:

• Not shopping for any kids currently so children's sections don't matter to me and I would not go to an all-children's bookshop (though I deeply appreciate their existence)
• Primary interest is sci-fi & fantasy, so given the choice between a bookstore with a good overall selection, and a bookstore with a not-great overall selection but incredible spec fic section, I would go to the latter
• My free time will mostly be on Monday, so both store opening & Memorial Day traffic patterns are relevant to me. If the traffic is expected to be untenable I might stay in my hotel instead, but that's helpful to know too

But, all that said, I would love to hear about any bookstores at all in St. Louis that you enjoy going to!

It just so happens that I was asked to write a paper about goals I hadn't achieved and I just thought about how I haven't touched my video game engine project in any meaningful way for around two months or so. On reflection, the main thing that is preventing me from working on it is that when I try to get back into it, I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm unorganized and can't figure out what exactly to do next because it's so open-ended. I'm absolutely terrible about writing down plans for what I should do.

I know that I'm not the only person who is trying to work on big solo projects, so I thought I'd ask: what are you doing to keep your project organized? Are you using any tools to help you? What do you find is most helpful to help you anticipate steps you'll need to address when things aren't very clear?

I'm wondering if anyone has recommendations for daily sunscreens, specifically for my arms/legs. I have some Blue Lizard mineral sunscreen that I use but it's a little too greasy for me to really enjoy it for an every day sunscreen (apparently they've rebranded and have a new formula since the last time I bought it, so maybe it's better now? 🤷‍♂️).

I also have this NIVEA Super Water Gel that I absolutely love for my face/neck because it basically feels like lotion/isn't really greasy, but not sure I really want to spend as much to put that on my arms and legs every day.

Anyone have suggestions?

Hi, all.

I'd like to ask for a lazy recommendation. I last bought a KVM maybe 6-9 months ago and I returned it because of audio interference as well as low refresh rates on one operating system.

Ideally, I'd like the KVM to support:

• 1-2 4k monitors over either HDMI or USB-C at a minimum of 120Hz
• 1-2 USB-C peripheral ports
• 1-2 USB-A peripheral ports (presumably we're still at 3.1?)
• audio via 3.5mm
• RJ-45 @ 100 or 1000 Mbps
• a physical button to swap between inputs

For the most part we're talking about swapping between a MacBook Pro and a Windows Desktop. I would love if I could also include my Mac Studio in.the cycle of devices but I absolutely understand If I can only have two.

I hope you're all alright with me flippantly asking for a recommendation! I'm not a KVM expert. I spend my time elsewhere. I was really annoyed at the low performance of the previous KVM I bought. I hope there are folks on Tildes that can rave and rant about their KVM preferences. Thanks folks!

I was a fan of GameRevolution’s reviews for a long time. They always seemed to have a criteria to reviews that not only sold me on what to pursue, but what to truly avoid even if I loved the franchise. (MGS: Ground Zeros, I’m looking at you.) They have seemingly reduced to one reviewer…

I love the weekly Tildes thread of “what games are you playing” and it has truly opened my eyes to some games I would never have heard of, or even tried (Balatro).

Anywho the point of this is to ask where everyone else looks for reputable/intelligent reviews currently? I enjoy listening to Luke Stephens talk about the industry, but it’s not as concise as an A-F or star or 1-10 rating system. IGN doesn’t have my attention… I just don’t know where to turn, as there are so many options.

A little over a week ago I picked up a 3x3 Rubik's cube after seeing a coworker mess with one. I love fidgety things either as a stimming activity or as a puzzle. Do any of you have other fidgety puzzles to recommend?

I was thinking about this during my run today. I have a playlist where I put songs that I consider to be the "most iconic" and I want help filling it out a bit. I'd also like help determining if some of these aren't iconic enough, but the main ones I'm asking about are literal theme songs, so that may give them some extra points.

Now, this is of course at least semi-subjective, but I have tried to not put songs that are just really great or that everybody knows or that nobody will be singing next summer.

There are certainly multiple ways to define "iconic." I'm really trying to stick to the songs where you don't have to explain how or why it's iconic. It just is, and "everybody" knows it. The way I see it, this could actually exclude some of the biggest songs of all time because yeah, they're popular, but they aren't an icon.

So, before I use any more awful, self-justifying logic, let's get into my list so far!

In the Air Tonight
Born in the USA
Roundball Rock
CBS March Madness Theme
Monday Night Football Theme
Bridge Over Troubled Waters
Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley
Hey Jude
American Pie

Some songs from Grease because I'm sure at least one qualifies, but I grew up hating it because my sister loved it so I don't know which one(s) to include (or exclude, rather)

I can obviously think of a lot of other obviously extremely iconic songs but I've only added songs when I happened to listen to them. So what are Tildes' thoughts?

Most of my professional work involves the plumbing side of things (e.g. APIs, integration etc.) So I've come to front end quite late, and dabbled in HTML/CSS/JS frameworks, and tried to create a thing or two using Python GUI frameworks too.

After spending a bit of time learning about game development in Godot, I decided it might be fun to try and build a simple desktop app in the engine, and it surprised me how easy it was, it took me a day or two to build a basic git front end.

Of course, if you ever need to build something outside of GDscript, it'll require building an extension, probably in C++, but it makes me wonder if those sorts of tools exist outside of games engines? It feels like game devs get a wonderful tool that they use as a garnish on top of the real work (the game).

I'd be keen to know what people who regularly build front end tools tend to prefer to use.

ETA: I just realized the title is a poor summary of what I'm actually asking about, sorry!

Right now in the US Joann is going out of business and Ditto pattern projectors are ultra-cheap. That being said I don’t have much hobby money these days so I can’t just impulse buy. I have done some research and they have some very mixed reviews since it’s a very closed ecosystem. So I was hoping to get some opinions and see if it’s worth it at ~$75. Right now I want it primarily from FOMO because of tariffs on Chinese goods.

Honestly half of me wants to buy it just because it comes with a cutting wheel and board.

I've seen some discussion on self-hosted stuff, but a lot of it depends on docker or droplets or some such.

As a user of dedicated servers and the shared hosting environment on them, although Virtualmin gives me much more freedom than cPanel did, I still can't run a lot of the fun stuff I want to play with.

So I'm curious to know what you run in that sort of environment that's awesome.

Although I will start with one: NextCloud has been around for a while - taking over from whatever-Cloud they forked from that I've now forgotten the name of. heh. It was not a bad project, but it really wasn't featured enough for my needs.

But recently, I've discovered that they have been expanding their features rapidly. What I love and use:

• NextCloud Talk is almost on par with Teams. Featureful chat. Shared files. Links to various things on NextCloud.
• With the local app installed, syncing a folder to the server, I can edit files locally or in the browser and it's a really nice synced environtment. The web view works well, almost like File Explorer - dragging and dropping files around, etc.
• Ability to share files publicly. And even the ability to have a chat with users visiting the file page if you want. Ability to "hotlink" shared pics - like to embed in a forum
• The "Cards" app is... I forget the original name for teh layout, but you get cards in lists. Cards have details, due dates if you want, things like lists you can check off items, embed pics, etc. Also, each card has a chat related to that card and you can @ people
• Passwords app - share passwords with certain people, click to opy to the clipboard. Storing credit cards means I can copy-paste easily to use on my phone instead of typing.
• Calendar that can sync to other sources
• Tables - lke Microsoft Lists - custom set up of columns, handy for any number of things from making a ticket system / issue tracker, to lists of resources for a particular site. Can ahve edit access, or make it into an "app" where it gets stuck up on the nav bar and view-only for your clients, for example

Basically, while there are still some rough spots, it is really pretty slick and works well. And the awesome part is that being self-hosted, I control it. There's a large number of apps you can add to it, of varying quality.

So I'm curious to know what other projects you love and find useful! :)

I'm looking to better organize all the computer and electronics parts I have laying around and am looking for recommendations for software from people who are already doing this. I saw InvenTree but wasn't sure if there are other alternatives I should look at. Most of what I found so far is focused on companies and is therefore a bit more than I need. My only major requirement is that I can self-host it, or at least easily export all my data out of it. Ideally, the same software would work well for organizing home workshop parts as well (e.g. bolts, sockets, glues), though that's not a hard requirement.

Also, I'm not sure if this makes more sense here or in ~hobbies, but I figured the computer/electronics focus means it makes more sense here.

I’m wondering what software I should use to stream games from my desktop to my laptop. I’ve migrated from mostly using my desktop to mostly using my laptop in the last year. But my desktop has a substantially better GPU and I would love a convenient solution for streaming both Minecraft and Steam games to my Macbook. I’m personally not a fan of Steam’s client on MacOS as it is severely buggy for me. So any alternatives would be nice. I’d probably be happy with a low latency low compression full screen desktop mirroring app. But anything more targeted at games could be nice.

Edit: I'm using the free version of Parsec and it seems pretty good.

I have been planning to make the switch to Linux as a daily driver for a while and have researched many different distros. I have seen a lot of discussion online about Bazzite and other similar distros based on Fedora Atomic. It sounds like it would be more stable, and less likely for you to accidentally break something, but installing software other than Flatpaks requires running it in some kind of container such as Distrobox. Some people say it's annoying, others say it's good since you mess up the container rather than your system.

I have used SteamOS on Steam Deck, and notice that things have "just worked" more than what I have personally seen with "normal" distros on laptops or desktops. For example, I've never really had any issues installing things and running software on SteamOS, but someone I know using Mint has seen seemingly minor things cause massive glitches on their system, or they've run into strange difficulty just installing certain programs like Steam. Would one of these types of distros, especially Bazzite which specifically is trying to be like SteamOS, be closer to that Steam Deck experience?

Has anyone here tried one of these distros and had any thoughts? Anything you loved, or was anything a deal breaker?