Increasingly I'm looking at my backup solution and I'm not totally happy. My "threat model" I guess is if the house burns down and we only make it out with the shirts on our backs. Alternatively if I get hit by a bus I'd like a backup of passwords and maybe some instructions for my wife.

TL;DR What are decent medium term cold storage options for < 1gb that I can be really sure will be good for several years (maybe 10 or 20 years at the extreme end) and is fairly cheap. I was thinking optical media but I'm kind of lost as to what specifically to get and how to not get conned by buying fake media (m discs). I (somewhat randomly) have an m disc drive in my computer but I don't know if thats overkill or not? My important stuff may even fit on a CD actually...

I was really taken by the sound of Laufey’s Madwoman and am looking for the older music which inspired her.

The internet, however, has not been helpful. Between citing “The Great American Soundbook”¹ as her inspiration, or declaring its “clearly” bossa nova², i’m really lost. One person said “60s lounge,” which seemed promising³ but searching that brings a ton of AI-generated slop-and-slop-byproducts.

Is there a better term for what she’s referencing? Specific artists? Specific regions even?

1. which doesn’t sound the same to me at all
2. which no the fuck it is not, i, a brazilian, say
3. another person said “70s lounge”

I've been working on a playlist for a while of rock / pop songs with sax solos. The rules are:

• Must be from this millennium
• sax can't be a primary instrument
• pop or rock genres preferred

Here's what I've got so far: https://link.deezer.com/s/323YPvabsQgEuS8BOTCXj

Hi,

I’m hoping to tap into the collective knowledge base. I have officially ‘run out’ of notes on my task/notes app Tick Tick. I had no idea this was a thing.

I prefer to avoid paying subscription fees so I’m looking for a pay once alternative that fits my needs.

Tick tick is primarily a task / to do list app but I use it more extensively for the notes feature. I value having different spaces for notes and being able to quickly see my notes tags when looking at lists of notes. I also use the countdown feature to know which events are coming up first and how many days away they are.

I use the notes to organise bookings I have for upcoming events. I use the tags system to quickly see if deposits have been paid and what category of booking the event is. I also value being able to import a template first to keep notes structured in the same way.

Another thing that works for me is that tick tick is available on Mac, iOS and Android. All platforms that I use.

If they had a pay once option I’d pay it but I work hard not to rely on too many subscriptions, perhaps naively in this economy.

If anyone has any suggestions for similar apps then I’d love to know your recommendations.

Thank you so much

Hello! I’m finally going on an international trip! I live in the US and have always wanted to go to Europe. In June, I’ll be spending two weeks there in Norway, Amsterdam, and Germany!

My plane tickets are purchased and I’m starting to form my itinerary and am willing to take advice on travel tips or if people have any specific recommendations for things to do!

I’m a woman traveling solo. When I travel, I tend to plan one or two specific things a day and then just figure out the rest, I’m pretty flexible. I am high energy when I travel, though, so even if I only plan one thing a day in the months prior, I can easily spend 10 hours a day exploring. I also like to see a few typical tourist things, but I also want to experience what actual local culture is, I don’t want to only spend my time in the places that only tourists go to. I want to talk to locals and even though I know I’ll stick out like a sore thumb, I want to get some sampling of what life is like in the places I travel to.

I usually travel light, just a backpack, but may need another carry on bag for this trip. If I spend a couple nights in on hostel, do they usually have secure storage or anything? My worry about an extra bag is it being inconvenient since I don’t want to bring it around cities with me. I guess even if I’m in a hotel, I have the window between check out times and getting to my next destination… I guess that’s why I normally like just having a backpack, but let me know if that’s a bad idea and you think I should have a second bag.

The things I’d be looking for advice on are things like hostels vs hotels, should I book hostels/hotels ahead of time or fly by the seat of my pants, how easy is doing laundry, what little things have I forgotten (like making sure my phone plan works internationally, which it does), etc, as well as any recommendations for specific attractions, museums, or restaurants to visit!

The loose plan is that I land in Oslo, spend a few days there, take the train to Trondheim and spend a day or two there. I think then I’ll rent a car so that I can get to Stenkjer (small town, but it’s where my family emigrated from, so I want to see it) and then travel down the west coast, stopping at cool nature spots, and ending up in Bergen or Stavanger for a couple days. I’m planning about a week in Norway.

I then plan on flying to Amsterdam and spending 2-3 days there. I really don’t know that much about the city besides what touristy things friends and family have done. I will be visiting De Poezenboot, but am otherwise all ears.

I will then be renting a car and traveling to the Nürburgring so that I can race a car around it. Then I’ll have 3.5 days to road trip east across Germany, see some castles, and fly back home from Berlin.

I am extremely into cars and motorsports, so I imagine there’s no shortage of museums I can visit in Germany, but I also want to see a few castles as well, so I’m unsure if I’ll have one or two full days in Berlin, yet. I’ll be flying out of Berlin at 9:30am on my departure day.

My current phone is about 6 years old and has a lot of signal problems and I replaced the battery about 6 months ago and the new battery is even worse than the original one was and I think it's time to get a new phone.

Things I want in my phone:

• Android
• I would love to have a microSD card but that seems impossible
  • if there's not microSD then I need min 512GB of internal storage and I would prefer 1TB if that's not like +1k to the cost
• Headphone jack
• If there's AI, then I can disable it
• Excellent battery life
• On the smaller end

Things I don't really care about:

• Camera quality (I'm a shitty photographer, the camera wont help)

Things that might be nice:

• Having a stylus but not at the cost of the phone being enormous. Reason I want this is because it gets cold in the winter in Chicago

I hope this phone lasts another 6 years and will be pissed if it lasts under 4 years; at that lifespan and amount of use I get out of it I'm pretty price-agnostic. I live in the USA but expect to travel to Europe a few times next year so it should do decently well when traveling. Network is T-Mobile.

This is not SUPER urgent right now so if your advice is "wait til January because the XYZ phone releasing then is probably better than anything available right now" I would be willing to do that. But my current phone is really not doing great.

Happy to answer any other followup questions if anyone has any!

Thanks!

the two examples that I have are Final destination movies and junji ito's manga "Uzumaki".

it doesn't have to be a manga or movie of course, I just would like something similar but it can be any medium. books, movies, games etc

I figure the title is good enough, but, I just want to upload/make a spreadsheet in an .ods format so others can view it. Not edit it, not have to sign in to view, but still has sorting options or whatnot. And in the .ods format.

I'm seeing a few options online, but it seems more that they offer viewing but not sorting (which is a huge aspect of spreadsheets), or no importing, or doesn't support .ods.

So I can keep searching and I'm sure something is out there, but does anyone already use a site for these requests?

I've always made rice in a pot on the stove and that's served me very well but I also like to steam vegetables, dumplings (usually from frozen), and eat oats for breakfast. After a bit of research, I've determined that I'm in the market for a rice cooker, an appliance I have never owned and have 0 experience with. Like most kitchen gadgets, I find that the market is oversaturated with options and my attempts at research have led me to some wildly different conclusions. Do I stick with brands I know like Cuisinart or KitchenAid? Do I spring for the fancy Japanese brands? Or do I cheap out and then upgrade when the device burns out? How large of a volume do I need? Are the fancy steamer inserts worth it? What if I want to steam rice and veges in one go? And so on

For my personal use case, I make rice 3-4 times per week easily. I need to be able to make enough rice for 4-6 adults max in one sitting. I would like to make a decent amount of dumplings in one go, say enough to get 4-6 adults started while I steam a second round. I want to be capable of steaming veggies and making oats. I want it to have a removable insert for cleaning. I'd like it to be fairly easy to use. Are these common wishlist items for a rice cooker? I am really not sure

Beyond my use case, I'm interested in what people own and use. Do you use it often? Any regrets? What other foods can I make with this gadget?

Edit: I appreciate everyone who has weighed in so far. I did want to add that I prefer not to add an instant pot. Not to discount anyone's experience but I have had bad luck with them (I've had a pair that burned out in the warranty period, one on its first use) and already have a slow cooker and pressure cooker cooker I am very happy with. I know they're amazing and do all kinds of different things but I'm interested primarily in a rice cooker that can handle a few extra tasks

Do you know any other playlists list like Absolutely understand guitar or The Secret Life of Machines?

Basically any Bob Ross like content of a person calmly teaching a topic.
I find some of this content through archive.org, but their search is not the best.

I haven't really seen any videos or articles that explain how it works, what each component does, or like... what kind of fuel it uses, or what an SRB is or you know like the actual numbers and the math and such. I don't know much about rockets but I would like to learn. the official nasa website and youtube channel seem to be... dumbed down and also doesn't actually explain much about Artemis II except for showing images and videos taken from it/of it

My wife and I just had a baby and are now soaking it all in on maternity and paternity leave. Currently, my wife still has a few weeks of recovery before she is mobile so we have a lot of "tv time" on our hands and are struggling to find things to watch. I was hoping Tilderinos might be able to make some suggestions to fill our sleepless days and nights! It doesn't have to be current and we have a range of borrowed streaming logins so the world is your oyster!

I've added some recent favorites from each of us to give you an idea of our preferences, but don't feel like you need to follow those if you are really excited to share something!

Me:
Shogun
Hilda
Good Omens
The Great Pottery Throwdown
What We do in the Shadows
Bad Sisters
Yellowjackets
Sex Education
Alone

Her:
Gilmore Girls
Outlander
Sullivan's Crossing
A Discovery of Witches
My Life with the Walter Boys
Emily In Paris
Valeria
XOXO Kitty

Both:
Great British Bakeoff
Severance
Clarkson's Farm
Designing the Hebrides
The Office
White Lotus
The Last of Us
Winx Saga (weirdly :) )
The Good Place
Younger
Brooklyn 99
Bridgerton

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!

Beyond the Motorola Razr flip phones, I can't seem to find many small phone options. Are they out there anywhere?

***correction! I meant to say the iPhone 12 mini! There is an important distinction there and sorry to all who answered before this correction.

Hi all,
We are headed to Stow, MA for a week from the midwest, and have two kids in tow. 5 and 1 year olds. We will have a rental car available to us, and are looking for things to do while we aren't visiting with family. Right now on the radar is the Maynard Discovery Museum, the Worcester EcoTarium, and the Franklin Children's Museum.

Mostly interested in burning some energy, but I'm highly motivated to avoid children's museums that are basically cavernous-but-otherwise-empty dumping grounds for school field trips. I find that in my area it is the smaller museums that are generally more interesting.

Thanks in advance!

I’m in the process of helping someone come up with lore and I was wondering if there was a website to help with suffixes related to lore and mythology. Things like adding ist, kin, age, folk, etc to try and make new words for beings or creatures.

I have a specific focus in mind here. Not sure if it even exists, but let's ask.

So, we all know there's a news cycle, and everyone follows it. That's my "alternative" focus here ... I want that news outlet that explicitly, assertively, goes out of its way, to not follow it. Whatever everyone else is reporting on, those Top 10 stories on every other front page, these guys skip right over those.

I'm looking for that news agency that does those "hey, remember that thing in the news 6 months ago? Whatever happened with that?" stories. The agency that says, "So, have you heard enough about the war in Iran yet? Well, guess what's going on in Honduras today".

Things that don't count ...

• Not looking for extremist, or conspiracy theorist sites.
• Not looking for sites that focus on a particular region or subject matter (mostly Ukraine, mostly financial news, mostly Green/Climate news, etc).
• Not looking for highly opinionated or partisan sites -- everyone leans one way or another, I know, but looking for sites that aim to be objective.
• Not looking for deep dives into the same news cycle ("Who is Mojtaba Khamenei, Really?").

So ... any tips?

I'm looking for a kit that will give me some practice holding wires in place and soldering connections, hopefully also while giving me a completed object or set of objects that's fun at the end. I'm not completely new to soldering; I've done a couple simple kits and some repair of model trains with loose wires, but I definitely could be a lot better at it and I'd like some guided practice. Emphasis on the "guided," I'm not looking for additional things to repair, I really want a straightforward kit, a range of difficulties in connections would also be great. Any recommendations?

Decided I wanted to try vibe-coding some stuff. It's been a very long time since I coded anything, and it was all very amateurish, but as the tooling has become better I wanted to give a shot at some silly ideas. Got tired of writing about random teaching and AI related stuff, decided I wanted to build some more stuff to get more acquainted with agentic tooling.

I have gathered some sparse links here and there, but I was hoping the community here may know of some more "definitive" guides. My plan is to use Claude Code, but if people want to share guides for other coding agents (Codex, etc.) please feel free.

Very interested in iOS app development if that helps, but I feel that best practices can likely look very similar across platforms and tools.

Hey all,

My favourite video essayist, Lindsay Ellis, only posts on Nebula now, so that was the final incentive to get me to sign up.

Now that I'm in I'm finding the breadth of content a bit overwhelming.

Taste wise, I really like Lindsay Ellis/Jenny Nicholson type videos that are funny media analysis. I've never seen Jet Lag (it seems big on Tildes).

I'm pretty averse to all the war and conflict stuff on the splash page. Similarly, I don't really like food channels because it just makes me frustrated and hungry.

Apart from that, I guess the main thing is I don't know what I don't know! Do you have favourite creators you'd recommend?

TLDR; I'm looking for a free way to improve bookmark management without increasing cognitive load.

I find that with the constant stream of information online, paired with my ADHD, I tend to know nothing in detail. So I bookmark so that I can return to the same articles regularly instead so that I can 1) stay informed with more depth rather than breadth and 2) contribute to online discourse when I see a gap.

I'm using bookmark folders (by topic) for articles I want to refer back to regularly, and the built in "reading list" for things I do want to come back to but don't plan to keep a record of.

But my bookmarks are overflowing because of all the other stuff I have folders for (admin logins, shopping, local services, social sites, online office stuff, literature and languages, fun stuff, etc).

I also bookmark folders for these:

• Politics (local/national)
• Environment
• Human rights issue #1
• Human rights issue (n) ...

These basically have 1) compelling facts in support of the issue or 2) important memorable counter statements to common misinformation.

But I get easily lost among clutter, and I contend with brain fog. I've seen stuff about "second brain" online, but to be honest they're way too complicated for me (raindrop.io synced with this and that...). Is the folder system I'm using as good as it gets for people like me who need to avoid complexity?

I'm currently on macOS & iOS but plan to return to linux when I next upgrade in a few years.

Update: thanks so much for the recommendations. I've started using Wallabag to get essential articles organised and categorised with tags. This helps me remember their contents better and retrieve them more quickly.

I'm also experimenting with Obsidian in parallel to see if it makes it easier or more challenging to do the same thing. It's the ideas within the articles I want to remember rather than just the headline, and some articles have a lot of different but useful information (for example, today I learned that if you earn more than roughly $33,000 per year, you are in the top 1% on the planet - one third of people on the planet live on $10 per day.). That was in an article about sustainable production and consumption, so the headline itself wouldn't necessarily help me remember that this is the article where that factoid lives.

I have start.me bookmarked too and plan to keep my top 30 articles there.

At some point I'll probably reduce the options from 3 down to 2 or 1. But whichever choice I go with, it's already much, much better than what I was doing before. Thanks again!

Do you have any obscure books that you really enjoyed that you haven't had a place to recommend or feel like more people should read/know about?
Feel free to share them here, hopefully with a brief description of the book and why you enjoyed it.

I'm not putting a limit on number of reviews or that these have to be "hidden gems", but ideally lesser known works that have stuck with you, or you felt were great and feel like others might enjoy them as well.

Kind of a simple question but I can't find a good answer for myself. How do you keep track of all those little (and big) things that you want to remember? I've tried Notion, Google Keep, Evernote and I'm sure other things that I can't remember but nothing seems to stick. I end up reverting back to the "just keep a shitload of browser tabs open on all my devices" approach. Have you found a solution you like to keep track of (and find later!) your notes, links, lists & other digital tidbits?

I was never a wordle fanatic, but I am hooked on this Alphable game now https://geoffpevlin.com/games/alphable/. I also play https://cluesbysam.com/.

Do people know of other web-based (hopefully free) logic puzzles like these? I like the daily format, but wouldn't limit myself to that if there are others that are also interesting.

I've done all of the https://www.rustylake.com/ games too, which I quite enjoyed, but these types of puzzles require a little bit more time investment that I don't really have right now. (I also hated that some of the "logic" in those games did not seem to make sense to me, and I'd have to google the answer to continue with the game.)

I also like https://timeguessr.com/ but don't return to that one as frequently because I can't play it on my phone.

I really like in-person escape games but they are expensive and vary drastically in quality, so was very happy to find these types of games scratch that same itch.

Basically, where do you go online or on your phone when you just need a distraction and don't have the energy or mental bandwidth to read something in-depth? Games and apps are okay, too.

I appreciate the community and the quality of discussions that are had here on Tildes, but sometimes, I just want to veg. I basically want to scroll through a large supply of pictures, memes, short-form videos, but without the toxicity and manipulation that comes with the main social media platforms. I don't think I need to create a whole list, I think we all know what the main social media sites are to avoid.

And I also want to distinguish this topic from other "where do you get your news from" or "what are some interesting feeds you're subscribed to" topics. I'm looking for easily digestible and mostly positive/happy/funny things to consume. Where do you regularly turn to when you just want a distraction?

Steam Next Fest is currently underway, lasting until March 2nd. Coincidentally, I had just been thinking a little while ago that I kinda miss game demos. About a month ago I came across a little twin-stick shooter called Minishoot' Adventures and ended up paying it more attention than any other random game I see that looks kinda cool, because they had a demo available. I installed it, played it for a couple hours, and instantly bought the full game once I was done. It's quite a good game, but they got my money primarily because the demo was able to hook me into making an impulse purchase, totally defeating my usual standard of decision-making about buying games.

For Next Fest, Steam is recommending me a deluge of indie 2D platformers and metroidvanias, and I'm not sure if that's because those are the games in development that tend to have demos or if Steam thinks that's all I'm interested in (spoiler - I'm not). So, have you discovered any truly noteworthy upcoming games in this year's Next Fest? Also, what was the last demo to win you over?

I have been in a group chat with 2 of my closet friends for more than 10 years now, and we have been using Facebook messenger for that entire time. However, there has always been interest in migrating to a different platform, but so far we have not been able to land on a good alternative. We have gotten very used to some of the messenger features and have disliked alternatives for lacking these features. I was wondering if anyone could suggest some solutions here, up to and including a DIY (maybe IRC?) approach.

The features we really liked from messenger:

• Nicknames, and ability to tag by nickname
• Emoji hotkey (where you have quick access to a selected emoji, we use this for a lot of in-jokes)
• Chat theme and customization
• easy cross-platform or browser based (we are a mix of mac/pc, and iphone/android users)

Features we really do not need and in fact get in the way:

• Different channels or rooms
• voice/video
• screen sharing

Features that aren't necessary but could be nice:

• bots

Does anyone have suggestions for alternatives to messenger that hit these points? We have tried Discord, but found it was way too feature heavy for how we use it, and lacked some really basic features we liked from messenger. Whatsapp was a decent replacement, but lack of themes and emoji hotkey made it less enjoyable for us than messenger, plus it is also a Meta platform which eliminated one of the main reasons we wanted to switch.

I have half a mind to set up an IRC channel for us, but it's been many years at this point since I've used IRC, so I don't know what that ecosystem is like these days, and how easy it would be to get my non-tech-savvy friends on board.

(perhaps this is better suited to ~tech, but I am posting here with an eye towards DIY solutions, although to reiterate I would also be happy with an out-of-the-box alternative)

Does anyone here use a tablet for note taking?

I've always used pen and paper for note taking when working or in/around the house. At one point when phones got bigger I did try moving to notes apps but they never clicked. Something about the glossy screen and the levels of fuss to take a note just didn't work.

I recently found out that there's e-ink tablets which try to emulate real note taking, like the Supernote which runs a custom firmware to make note taking as easy as possible. Or the Boox which is Android based, so it has way more apps, but it's got amazing reviews.

There's quite a lot, I'm curious if anyone here has actually used anything like this and what their thoughts are?
Looking at reviews, I'm drawn to the Supernote. But I'd love to hear some real use cases!

Hey everyone,

I’m currently running Schwalbe G-One Bite 40mm and I’m thinking about moving up to 50mm for a bit more confidence off-road. Where I ride it’s not groomed gravel or proper official well-kept MTB trails, just typical unmaintained forest trails: holes, roots, loose rocks everywhere, some of them golf-ball sized. On descents, it feels pretty sketchy with the 40s.

The problem is, I don’t have long stretches of continuous/unbroken nature. It’s more like short nature pockets in between civilization so, I still need to transverse a few roads (tarmac and cobbles). So I’m trying to find something that’s still reasonably fast rolling on road. I was hoping to find something up to 20 watts of rolling resistance. I think I saw somewhere that my tires are around 25 watts, so some improvement in this area would also be nice.

I started investigating tires on bicyclerollingresistance.com website and started looking at measured knob height (center and edge), trying to pick something with more bite than what I have now. But the more I read, the more I see people saying knob height alone doesn’t mean much and tread pattern matters more. At this point I’m not even sure what I should be looking for.

These are the ones I’ve selected for the moment:

• Schwalbe G-One R Pro 50
• Schwalbe G-One RX Pro 50
• Schwalbe G-One Overland Super Ground SpeedGrip 50

Alternatives slightly above 20 watts:

• Continental Race King Performance ShieldWall 50
• Pirelli Gravel M (tested in 45mm, but there’s a 50mm version too; hopefully they perform similarly)

Maybe other brands or models I should be considering that aren’t on BRR?

But honestly… I don’t really know what I’m doing. I started by filtering by wattage and knob height, but it seems the tread design or compounds are even more important.

So, in conclusion, what I’m after is:

• More confidence on rough, loose forest descents (I'm not doing jumps. Let's say, more like XC)
• 50mm volume
• Still decent on road sections
• Not feeling like I’m dragging an anchor on pavement

If anyone has experience with these in real, messy forest conditions (not nice smooth gravel), I’d appreciate some advice and recommendations. What should I actually be looking at when choosing?

Thanks in advance!

So I've been out of the loop on camping and, more generally, outdoorsy stuff beyond day hikes for a good couple of years now. In my absence, it seems like a large chunk of the manufacturers I used to rely on for flashlights and headlamps (Black Diamond, Petzl, Fenix, etc.) have switched over to lithium batteries, many to USB chargeable internal batteries.

That feels weird to me, coming from the era of "carry a couple of spare double and triple A's with you", since you only needed a few of one or the other to keep all your lights going, even on a longer trip. Given that everyone's doing it now, though, I'm assuming it works out fine.

Anyone have recs on what brands are good these days, what models, and how to buy to maximize the "keep all your lights going with the least backup energy sources" factor?

This one's a two parter-

I'm traveling to Portland for the week so I have a bit of a plane ride ahead of me. Recommend me some deep dive hour + YouTube videos I can download for the flight! I tend to drift towards science, technology, psychology, and some hank green esque talking heads about whatever.

Also if you have anything in particular you think I should check out in Portland let me know! Particularly interested in the niche spots. Still a bit tentative stuff but mostly plan to do the Tillamook factory, a tea room, PSU Farmers market, and ten falls hike.

My G502s are starting to exhibit the dreaded double-click problem. Now they're old -- I think one is around 10yrs old, the other 6-7yrs old -- so I've gotten solid use out of both. And G502s are cheap enough these days (like US$35 on Amazon) that it'd be inexpensive to replace them with new G502s.

But I'm still annoyed that this is happening. Plus, this isn't my first time having problems with Logitech gaming peripherals. I've had issues with my G305 wireless mouse (dongle stopped working), and I will never buy Logitech gaming keyboards again since replacement keycaps can't be purchased; gotta buy a whole new keyboard. So yeah, trying to avoid Logitech if possible.

Anyway, I like the G502 because it has multiple buttons, particularly the main thumb button (G6), which I use for PTT on Discord/Teamspeak. I then use the other two thumb buttons (G4/G5) as forward/back in browsers or game bindings (along with G7/G8).

Any good alternatives? Let's say ≤US$80. Preference is wired, but non-BT wireless is fine, too. If wireless, ideally it'd AA/AAA batteries so I can quickly swap rechargeable batteries. Lastly, I'm right-handed.

TIA!

I have a light/fan combo in a bathroom that are controlled with a single switch. I want to control them separately, but running a new wire would require ripping out drywall, which I don't want to do. It is in a guest room, so it can't be controlled with an app, even though I know there are ways to give guest access to certain home automation systems.

The power runs up from the floor, through the switch, and then up to the fan, so I have power at both locations. The wiring for the fan is in the attic, so putting something up there is easy.

What I imagine exists is a remote double relay that can be controlled by 2 physical switches(preferably single gang, but I am prepared to open up the wall a bit to install a double gang box). I would prefer that the relay be powered by 120v, rather than a 12v device that needs a plug somewhere, but its not a total deal breaker.

Anyone have any ideas?

A new entry to go with my previous two posts in the same vein NYC and Denver, but this time in...

TOKYO!

The "Going on a trip and have zero idea what to do as a non-tourist..." isn't entirely true like it was in my post about NYC as anyone that has seen me talk about sumo can imagine, but everyone was extremely helpful and threw out suggestions I wouldn't have even thought about looking for in previous posts. So here I am again to bug you wonderful people for Tildes Travel Guide III: Tokyo Trilogy Part Minus One

The overarching details:

• 7 days in Tokyo from Friday, January 9th to Friday, January 16th.
• Except for Jan 9, I am completely solo for the entire trip.
• There are two specific events I will be attending, one is Friday the 9th, the other is TBD but can be nearly any day during the trip.
• I don't know where I'm staying yet. Where is kinda dependent on what I decide to do/be regularly near, am open for accommodation recommendations. I would prefer to stay in one place the entire trip, not real interested in packing up all of my things to move to another part of Tokyo (or another city) unless I can be convinced to do so.
• I'm not the sightseeing tourist-y type so there's little interest in the things that are on every "Tokyo Top 10" list.

And so I beseech you fellow Tilderinos, as someone that doesn't care about being a tourist and doesn't have a social media presence to feed I'm-here-and-you're-not selfies to, what should someone with nearly a week entirely alone with nothing but free time in Tokyo actually do?

I'm really tired of finding groups of people to play D&D (in person), is there any solo/two people campaign that me and I friend can play with?

Please something simple, I have a little more experience playing it but have never DM'd before, but we're both very creative, so I can think we both can still have fun

so I need computer speakers that

• are less than 6 inch high
• either the left or right speaker has controls that allow me to
  • increase or decrease the volume
  • have 3.5 mm headphone port [optional]
  • button to power on/off [optional]
• wired, either via 3.5 mm headphone jack or USB-C cable

I've tried looking for it but I am having a damn hard time trying to find something that fits all these.

Every year my friend group and I have a long weekend meetup where we rent a house and communally nerd out with each other. Lots of tabletop gaming; plenty of Magic matches; handheld consoles everywhere; etc.

I always bring my Steam Link so people can cast their Decks to the TV, and I'm looking for recommendations for games that would be good for hotseat play where people can pass around a Deck and each play a little bit of. (So, specifically single player games rather than multiplayer games.)

In past years Peggle and Peglin have been big hits with the group. They're immediately pick-uppable even by people who don't play a lot of videogames (of which there are a few in our group). They're also eminently entertaining to watch because it's easy to tell what's going on.

I'm looking for other games that would fit the bill: casual, simple, fun, easy to hand off to others, relatively quick intervals between players. If you have any recommendations, let me know!

What projects would you think would interest my daughters the most? The oldest is 11 years, super creative and builds the most intricate stuff out of plain paper, tape and cardboard. I have learned programming from about her age, but feel like software would not catch her attention the same way hardware would. They already experiment with programming and microbits in school (what a truly lucky generation!!!).

I am looking for stuff that is not too complicated/expensive that it will just collect dust on a shelf because it took a lot of time to build. Specifically I would like to try something that could be dismantled and reused for other projects. Maybe a barcode scanner or something that has a connection with real life applications.

I’ve been meaning to switch streaming platforms from Spotify for some time now, for many reasons. To me, it seems like good alternatives are challenging to find, so I figured I’d solicit some discussion here on Tildes to see how people like other platforms.

My Only Requirement:

• Mobile App for iOS with Offline Capability

I Strongly Prefer:

• Good Search Functionality
• Niche Artist Availability

Alternatives I’m Considering:

• Apple Music
• Bandcamp
• Tidal
• Deezer
• Qobuz

If anyone has used any of these applications, I’d love a review of the pros and cons. I’m leaning towards Bandcamp right now, but am concerned that I will fail to discover new artists because of the need to pay for albums.

Me and my girlfriend will be in Paris for 2 nights soon. Since this is such a short trip, we'll mostly be visiting the most popular "essential" tourist attractions - so we will generally be around the center of the city. However, most advice I found online seems to agree that you probably shouldn't just enter a random restaurant in the center of Paris, because it is very likely to be a tourist trap with very high prices and relatively low quality.

So, if any of you have suggestions on good places to eat for a reasonable price, I would really appreciate that!

Also, the end of our trip happens to fall on valentine's day, and we were thinking about having a nice early dinner (late lunch? around 15:00) before we leave, preferably in a pretty place. I'm fine with spending a bit more (~50€ per person) on that one. So if you know any places that fit, please suggest those as well.

Thanks!

Previously Tildes have had a few discussions on good quality Youtube channels one, two, but I couldn’t find a recent discussion.
I would be interested in peoples recommendations!
Personally I would like to get recommendations for intermediate/harder science or engineering videos. Most are too basic, or very dry lecture based. I know a few good ones like:

• 3blue1brown
• Smarter every day
• Looking Glass Universe

But I would like to know other people’s favourites (including non science ones)!

Recently I bought a mp3 player and I want to know the best place to buy mp3s (or similar). Biggest priority is things that are in Swedish and stories for kids . Maybe the things I want there counts as audio books, some of it, but not all I think? All input is good :).

Hello,

I want to pick your brains for recommendations for good, cheap e-book bundles. I buy a lot of my e-books the old fashioned way, one at a time, but Humble Bundle book bundles has scored me a ton of great reading for cheap, including the entire Wheel of Time series, the entirety of Discworld, lots of Comic and Manga bundles, and such, usually for $18 a bundle which is a crazy discount. I'm very happy with them and will continue to refresh their bundles regularly, but my desire to hoard books is great and I'd love to know if there's any similar sites out there regularly offering those kinds of sales.

My only strict requirement is said books have to be either DRM-Free or (the very trivially-cracked) Adobe DRM. I'm also looking specifically to purchase books, I know libraries etc are really cool (and also easy to crack) but I get a lot of enjoyment from owning the books I own (and don't feel good about cracking library copies, I don't judge anyone else for doing so but I'm privileged to have the ability to easily afford my books and figure I should do my part, even if my part is heavily discounted ha).

As an aside, for anyone who doesn't already know, humble bundle normally has at least half a dozen book bundles at any given time, and there's some crazy value on occasion (see above), would highly recommend if you're into ebooks!

I've been using Google Keep (check boxes mode) for my work and personal to-do lists for a while now, and it's almost perfect for my use case. I love the simplicity and lack of options gumming up my process, and specifically I like the UI of having nested subtasks that all move with their head task when you reorder the top level tasks. That is to say, when you drag a headline task, all of its subtasks "roll up" inside it and "unfurl" when you drop the task into its new location. The fact that it syncs across devices is also really great, but not necessarily a deal breaker.

What is becoming a deal breaker is that you can only have 2 levels: top level or nested. I want more nesting levels, but with the simple touch-and-drag UI to which I've become accustomed.

Have any of you heard of/used an app such as I've described? I have issues using bigger, more fleshed-out apps because all the features distract my goblin brain, and the friction of having to use various touch menus or the keyboard on my phone to adjust indent levels keeps me from getting crap done.

Thanks in advance!

Edit: for now, I have settled on Workflowy. It seems to offer the most similar functionality with an acceptable number of interactions to do the things I want to do. Thank you to everyone who offered their experience!

Hi Everyone,

I am looking for recommendations of your favorite “comfort” movies. Movies, I don’t have to take too seriously and can be watched over and over and can fall asleep to.

As an example a few of mine would be:

MoneyBall
Jesse Stone movies
Dave
Avengers Infinity War and Endgame
Star Trek Generations
Major League
Clear and Present Danger
Ghostbusters Afterlife
Batman Begins
Batman Returns
Grinch animated movie
Indiana jones dial of destiny
Rocky balboa
Moonfall
Goldeneye
X-men 1 & 2, Days of Futures Past
Rainmaker
Runaway Jury

I cannot recall the last time I devoured a series so quickly. I loved Cradle. The characters were so colourful and endearing, the plot was permanently escalating at a pace the resonated perfectly with me, and honestly, I found the writing style to be spot on.

And now I've left feeling rather empty... (perhaps rather on point!).

Others who have enjoyed this series, what else did you love?

To give a sample of books I've enjoyed recently: Children of Time, Stormlight Archive, Kingkiller Chonicles, Dungeon Crawler Carl, Red Rising.