So I am a member of a social/hobby group that has been doing hybrid meetings with some people attending via zoom. We have picked up a troll who finds a way to join the meeting, waits about fifteen minutes then starts yelling expletives and insults until he is expelled. He doesn't rejoin until the next meeting.

We are not particularly tech oriented people, and I don't personally organize the zoom link so don't have much knowledge about what is currently being done re security.

Does anyone have tips or advice? I know I haven't given you a lot to work with. Thanks.

My wife is thinking about purchasing a soda stream or similar variant for Amazon prime day. I would like to hear the pros and cons of owning one. Are there any costs of ownership that were not apparent? I don't want to buy another kitchen appliance only to stop using it because we couldn't keep up with the maintenance or other required issues. We do buy regularly la croix like drinks from Costco so if there is truly a cost savings that would be great. Thanks for everyone's time and opinion.

Edit: Wow thanks everyone for the responses and insight. I will have to sit down later and work through the posts. I know I will have more questions.

Hello, Tildes

Allow me to introduce myself.

I came over to Tildes fairly recently after Twitterriffic died and Apollo announced it would shut down.

As a relative youngster, I tend to mostly browse on mobile.

While I do appreciate Tildes' philosophy of having a simple website that works well on desktop and mobile, I've always preferred mobile apps. I'm a strong believer that a well-built native application will always provide a richer experience than a website.

But enough talking.. showing is way more fun - here's a lil' something I've been messing around with:

Introducing Surfboard for Tildes

The goal is simple: to be the best way to interact with Tildes on mobile.

Features

Surfboard is still extremely early, and is missing many features.

With that said, here is what it currently supports:

• Login to Tildes (supports 2FA)
• Browse topics
• Filters & sorting
• Browse comments
• Advanced rendering is still in early stages..
• Supports comment collapsing behavior from the web version
• Reply/vote/bookmark/ignore on topics, comments, & notifications (requires login)
• Search topics
• Global search
• Search within groups
• Option for in-line images
• Clean browsing interface
• In-line markdown preview when composing replies
• Share topics & comments
• Notifications
• View read & unread notifications
• Reply, vote, bookmark, mark as read...
• Customizable
• Toggle settings, set custom gesture actions, etc.
• Free, as in beer

The design draws some inspiration from Apollo for Reddit, an app that I loved & am very sad will be discontinued.

Try it yourself

I would love to get some feedback from other Tildes users on the app. If you are interested in trying it for yourself, you can get it here via TestFlight

Surfboard is built for iPhone, and requires iOS 16.0 or higher.

Inside the app is a 'roadmap' of sorts which is basically a list of things I know are missing, but if there's something you want that isn't listed there, I'm all ears.

Formatting is a little rough at the moment, although I made enormous improvements on the parsing & rendering there over the last day.

It should support just about anything you throw at it other than a <details>

(I'll get around to them, I swear..)

If you run into issues viewing a post/comment, you can easily open them in an in-app safari window from the menu.

As mentioned above, it's very early, but it's already becoming my favorite way to browse Tildes. I hope that others will enjoy it as well. Consider it my gift to the Tildes community.

Cheers !

Edit:

The best way to submit feature requests & bug reports is to add it to the issue tracker and/or leave a comment on this thread and I’ll get around to adding it myself.

Thanks !

I am co-admin of a small Discord group (currently 5 members; we like to keep it up around 7-9) that is dedicated to enthusiastic, interactive accountability, support, task management, habit tracking, yada ... all that good stuff. Atomic Habits is one of our popular guiding stars.

And, yeah, we've lost a couple of members recently, and we're looking to invite a few new people to the group.

This is an active group. We expect people to contribute (at least) daily, both regarding their own efforts, and in helping/supporting others in their efforts. One of the things we try to emphasize is providing active support and feedback to others, rather than just posting our own goals and efforts ... this is one of the areas where we feel that "traditional" accountability buddies/groups fail.

Drop me a DM if you're interested, and we can discuss details.

Edit: Thanks for the replies. I think we have enough "new blood" for now. If you're still interested, just keep an eye out for another invite post in a few months, when membership starts to flag.

In general, I found a lot of real gems this year! The indie scene is thriving like never before, and smaller teams are being enabled by the likes of Unreal Engine to create really beautiful games on a budget. So I had a lot of free time today and yesterday, and decided to go through my discovery queue and check out a few demos. That quickly ballooned into sitting down and playing right through over a dozen demos, two of which (The Lies of P and Wizard with a Gun) I didn't get far enough into to give any coherent thoughts on. How many demos did you check out? Are there any games you're looking forward to on that basis?

The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood: 5/5
From Deconstructeam, a Valencian studio with a strong emphasis on narrative, choice, and empowering the player to create their own art, this demo was one of the big winners for me. Gameplay revolves around conversations, VN style, but those conversations often happen in the context of you performing, essentially, tarot readings where the cards are all designed by you. I had a lovely, relaxing time making my own cards, and the challenge of interpreting them to the people around me in a way that felt… true, I guess, was memorable. There is an impressive level of responsiveness to your choices on display here, both on a micro level and, it seems, on a macro level, so I have to think that the game will be pretty replayable. My one gripe was that the dialogue felt a bit stiff and unnatural at times. The game isn’t voice-acted, and the lack of rhythm or cadence in a lot of conversations kept them from flowing well. But that said, even if individual lines of dialogue fell a bit short, placed in context, the conversations felt meaningful, engrossing, and interesting. I will be buying this on release.

Death Must Die: 4/5
I’m a sucker for the “Survivors” genre. My first experience with it preceded Vampire Survivors, the little $3 game that swept the world last year and popularized the new gameplay style; I started with the mobile game that inspired VS: Magic Survival. I had tens of hours in that game. And each subsequent entry into the genre; VS, HoloCure, 20 Minutes Til Dawn, etc., etc. have only worn me out more. These games are all the same: more enemies fill the screen; you get more autofire weapons to deal with them and dodge around to avoid contact damage. Fun for half an hour, but don’t really leave you wanting more. Death Must Die is different. Isometric rather than top-down, the combat here is all manual. You click to fire off an attack that needs to be well aimed; enemies don’t deal contact damage but instead have telegraphed attacks that you have to dodge. It feels very ARPG, actually; a bit Diablo. And the level-up system, which sees you selecting boons from different gods, is clearly inspired by Hades and offers considerably more interesting choices (so far, at least) than the usual Survivors game. Feels a lot more skill based, and a bit more build-craft-y, than usual. And I even caught a whiff of a story, though how well it’ll be executed remains to be seen. I look forward to the full release. Just wish there were more defensive options – maybe a parry?

El Paso, Elsewhere: 4/5
This is cute. A Max Payne-style third person shooter that’s well written in a surreal, noir sort of way; corny enough to be delightful; dark enough to maintain the tension. Visually, it’s a low res, low poly callback to the PS1 era. The gameplay is pretty tough; I didn’t finish the demo, but I imagine it would be a lot of fun to master. I’m keeping my eye on this one, even if it’s not my usual type of game. A special callout: there are biblically accurate angel enemies in this game, which makes me a very happy woman.

Escape from Mystwood Mansion: 3/5
I like escape rooms, and this demo is just a well-constructed escape room – actually, it skews very closely to the types of puzzles and mechanics I’ve come to expect from physical escape rooms. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing; I do wish the game used its medium to get a little more wild with it. But the puzzles were generally pretty well constructed and offered a few fun “aha!” moments when I solved them, and I didn’t need to look at a walkthrough or lean on hints to get through. That said, the hints that I did use were pretty lackluster, and in one case, actually wrong, so that system needs some revision. Some of the sound design got a bit grating, too. I don’t know. Were this a co-op experience I’d probably like it a bit more. The appeal of an escape room is the excitement of solving it with a friend, and there are certainly enough self-contained puzzle sequences here to support that. But no; Mystwood Mansion is a solo experience, and I’m not sure if it’ll be that fun to solve multiple predictable escape rooms alone, staring at a computer screen.

The Invincible: 3/5
I am of two minds about The Invincible. This game is an atompunk sci-fi walking sim adapted from a novel (my roommate tells me) by Stanislaw Lem, and so, suitably, what we have in this demo is a slice of high-concept sci-fi steeped in personal stakes. I have a hard time thinking of anything bad to say about this game. It looks good, runs well, has an interesting story that left me wanting more. And yet, one day after playing it, I just do not want to pick the game up again. I suppose part of it was the pace. Some of the best walking sims – What Remains of Edith Finch – tell incredible stories in the space of two hours. Meanwhile this demo was 40 minutes long and felt like only a small piece of some grand, sprawling story. Environments are huge and your walking speed is pretty slow, so there’s a lot of time between set pieces where your character is just having headaches or struggling to breathe, which really wore me down. I can’t imagine playing this game for 10 hours; 5 might be pushing it. It’s not super tempting when I could just read the book.

Loodlenaut: 2/5
Oh boy, Loodlenaut. Where to begin. Okay, so, I actually like this game. It’s pretty, and relaxing; an ocean exploration game where your job is to clean up trash, rescue wildlife, and climb the tech tree. I have played through the entire demo, done everything there is to do, which took about an hour. And I will absolutely not be playing the full game. If you’ve played Powerwash Simulator, you know how satisfying it can be to get rid of muck and watch a meter climb up to 100% clean, and Loodlenaut scratches a similar itch. The problem here is that the game feels so clunky and limited that the frustration often outweighs the satisfaction. For example, you have a cleaning gun that picks up trash, destroys goop, and breaks boxes. But you don’t aim the gun, the game does, and it’s not really based on where you're facing or what you're closest to so much as it is on the game’s capricious moods. Say you’re trying to pick up a glass bottle, but there’s a crate nearby that you can’t break yet because you don’t have the right upgrade. Well, Loodlenaut will snap the gun to the crate and repeatedly try to break it, until you wiggle around enough to get it to change its mind and pick up the bottle. Wielding the gun is a constant frustration, as is sluggishly moving through the ocean. Your swim speed is slow, and your boost recharges slowly, so going back and forth between central base and the area you’re cleaning – something you have to do pretty frequently – takes what feels like an eternity until you sink lots of resources into infrastructure. None of this is a bad idea – incentivising players to craft boost rings to improve traversal is a good idea; auto-targeting is more comfortable than aiming on a controller – it’s just these systems are poorly implemented, which leads to frustration.

Luna Abyss: 5/5
Luna Abyss is a fucking wild demo. I downloaded it because the game’s description used they/them pronouns for its protagonist. I had no idea what I was getting into. So, okay, the best comparison I have for this game is to Returnal. Like that game, Luna Abyss is a high-production value 3D shooter where hitting your shots is easy, and the difficulty comes from avoiding the attacks of bullet-hell style enemies. And like Returnal, it has a strange, unsettling atmosphere, tight movement, and punchy, satisfying guns. Of course, Luna Abyss isn’t a roguelike, and it appears much more straightforward with its story beats so far. I don’t know, I’m having a hard time capturing what makes this game so great. Let’s start with the world, which is bleak and dark and oppressive. You run through cavernous metal structures, all black and grey, lit in harsh red. Enormous metal pipes twist and curl and embrace each other like enormous, mechanical intestines, and you run across them to get to your next objective. This place was not designed for you, and you feel that so clearly as you traverse it. You jump off the pipes and enter into combat, where a generous aim assist ensures that all your shots will hit. But there are a couple of enemy types to prioritize. You fire your shieldbreaker at a flying enemy, killing it, and time slows to a crawl, increasing the impact of the shot and giving you a tiny moment of respite to see what bullets you’ll have to dodge and decide what enemy you should prioritize next. A miniboss spawns in, grinning facelessly, and releases a flower of projectiles. You sprint and jump and dodge and you keep firing until she’s dead. The room is clear, and the demo is over, and your screen is awash with the bright, striking red of the UI. “Thanks for playing,” it says. I felt like I should be thanking it, instead.
It’s impossible to say, at this juncture, whether the game will be good. The crumbs of story were certainly engrossing; the combat fun; the world, striking. At the very least, Luna Abyss looks like it will be one of the most interesting and unique games of the year, whenever it comes out. I can’t wait.

Sea of Stars: 3/5
This one is alright. The world is beautiful, the music peppy, the character designs good. I just honestly have not played enough turn-based isometric RPGs to compare it to anything. I did have two big disappointments: I thought the writing was a little… on-the-nose, I guess? Characters just stated their objectives and everything was pretty surface-level. Dialogue wasn’t attacking or defending, only conveying information. And while the combat was fun and had a challenging timing element, it ended with a boss who I spent like ten minutes fighting for a single attempt, used all my items, did everything I could, and still lost to in dramatic fashion with no indication I had done any real damage. My suspicion is that the boss is simply meant to be an organic end to the demo, a scripted loss, but I don’t know; if not, it probably indicates that this type of game isn’t for me, since I found it to be quite a slog.

Stray Gods: 2/5
I really wanted to like Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical. It is, essentially, a choice-based VN in the style of a broadway musical about ancient Greek gods struggling to live in modern society. A tantalizing premise, if a bit theatre-kid-y. But my degree is literally in theatre criticism, so I have a lot of tolerance for the genre’s usual excesses. I can’t think of another musical video game, but Stray Gods’ demo did not convince me that the idea could work. The performances aren’t the problem here; Laura Bailey is a charismatic lead with pipes good enough to carry the show, and the supporting cast of big names (Troy Baker, Felicia Day, Khary Paton) are no slouches either. But so much about this game is just not working for me. Let’s start with the sound design. This is one of those games where it feels like all the actors are recording in totally separate rooms. There’s a lot of dead air, not a lot of dynamism or one person bouncing off the other during conversation. It robs scenes of a lot of momentum and impact. And when I say “dead air,” I mean dead air. Bafflingly, the game seemingly has no room noise, no background audio, so when people aren’t talking, or music isn’t playing, everything is completely, uncannily silent. It’s genuinely weird.
The musical numbers alleviate this weirdness by filling the soundscape but do little else to pull me in. We get to see four songs in the demo; two from the opening act, two picked from later in the game. All of these songs are very similar – fugues or duets, where one character has one perspective and another character (or chorus) has another perspective, and their conflict is expressed and then resolved through song. Which is a fine structure for a song in a musical, don’t get me wrong, but it is not a fine structure for every song. Even our main character Grace’s “I Want” song, the song that establishes her, her desires, and internal landscape and should absolutely be a solo, is a duet with a woman she’s just met. It does not work. And when the game has you making dialog choices during songs, it robs them of a natural arc; there’s no organic progression from the characters’ starting points to their ending points. Some part of me hopes that this game will be good, but I’m not optimistic. Stray Gods is no Hadestown.

Vampire Hunters: 3/5
In the Death Must Die blurb, I praised that game for refining the “Survivors” genre by making tweaks that allow for more skill and expression. But fuck that. Vampire Hunters is a braver game than Death Must Die will ever be, because it dares to ask, “What if Vampire Survivors was a boomer shooter where all your guns were on screen at the same time?” The result is absolutely wild; by the end of a run, more screen space is devoted to your guns than the entire rest of the game. It feels pretty weird to play, too; all of your guns have different ammo counts and may or may not be automatic, but all fire with the same button, so it can be tough to manage all of their separate ammo pools. And XP drops have a tiny pickup radius, so you really have to move to get them all. The neatest trick the game pulls is that it increases enemy spawn rate when you sprint, so moving at a high speed carries a lot of risk. But apart from that, this game is maybe too audacious to be enjoyable.

Viewfinder: 4/5
I am not a frequent puzzle game player, but I, like most every PC gamer, have a soft spot for the kind of reality-warping sci-fi-y puzzle genre originated by Portal and carried forward by the likes of Superliminal and, now, Viewfinder. First: this game is a technical marvel. You are able to, in essence, carry around entire environments, often with a wildly different art style from the rest of the game, and place them seamlessly and instantaneously in the world. I played this at 1440p, >100 FPS with nary a stutter on my midrange system. The ability to place photos and enter them is genuinely incredible on all levels other than technical, too; it feels magical, like stepping into a painting that you yourself made. My only question, one that the demo did not answer, is whether Viewfinder will be able to construct interesting puzzles out of this mechanic. This was something that I think Superliminal often failed to do, too; when the central mechanic of your puzzles is so unique and novel and powerful, how can you limit it in such a way that players actually have to think and put in effort to solve problems? For me, at least, every puzzle in Viewfinder was solved pretty much instantly, with no “aha!” moments, and that does worry me a bit.

I came from the generation that played obsessively through middle and high school, and there’s a part of me that really misses when I’d be able to absorb myself into a video game for weeks at a time.

Now that I’m a working adult, it’s a bit more difficult to convince myself that spending all day playing a video game is worth it as opposed to doing chores, practicing some more “productive” hobbies (art, exercise, cooking) or socializing. Part of it also seems to do with the fact that when I do get fully immersed into another video game and spend hours and hours playing at a time (thank you elden ring), my standard for dopamine seems to increase, and I’m not as interested in reading or playing music when I could get that instant dopamine hit from playing a video game, if that makes sense. The games I tend to play now lean towards relaxing/cozy games, generally offline games I can play at my own leisure, where I used to be very into the Overwatch/CSGO/Call of Duty scene.

I’d really love to hear how other people have experienced this, if at all, or what your experiences have been. Have you noticed a shift in the types of games you play? Do you specifically try not to play games to keep a healthier balance with your other obligations and hobbies too?

So it is 80 degrees fahrenheit here today which usually would not be an issue for me but today I was too hot and sweaty. I am perimenopausal (49 years old) and I knew that could mess with heat tolerance. What I had not realized until today is that heat intolerance is also a side effect of many blood pressure medicines, antidepressants and allergy meds. And I am on all of those now.

I have just ordered some gadget that is a fan that goes around my neck and can be recharged via USB which seemed worth trying. And of course I will drink plenty of water, and try to stay in air conditioning whenever I can. Any other advice on how to deal with increased sensitivity to heat / higher heat intolerance? It is still early enough in the summer that the worst summer heat here is yet to come, so having some more tips might help me. Thanks!

I have the "collapse old comments when I return to a topic" setting turned on, but I can't quite figure out how it works. For example, when open a new topic for the first time and scroll through the comments, the next time I open the topic, they're all still open.

Does anyone have more details about how this feature works or how I should be using it?

Thank you!

With all that's been coming out in recent years about the negative health impacts of burning gas indoors even with good ventilation, I've been looking into replacing the cheap gas range that came with my house which had been less than amazing to use anyway with a nice induction range.

I have no experience with induction ranges however and have no idea what idea what to look for. I grew up with traditional coiled-eye electric ranges where even "bad" models are still functional, but slow to heat up.

What models have those here had good experiences with, and what are the gotchas? I've done some looking around already and it seems like it's not as simple for going for a high-end option… even top of the line Bosch units seem to have a surprising number of "it ate my dog and insulted my grandmother" types of 1-star negative reviews, and it's hard to tell if that's just noise or something that should be paid attention to.

EDIT: Specifically, I'm looking for standard 30" oven combo slide-in unit. Storage drawer is preferred over second oven.

Thanks!

Wow. So my (not so) little cousin has been missing for a few days. He is an EMT that works in the greater Denver area, and often at Red Rocks, where a massive hail storm greatly injured many people. Between me, my sister, his sister, my mom, and my best friend, we couldn't get in touch with him.

Thankfully, he is okay and was on a rafting trip so he turned his phone off. I've literally wiped this kid's ass (we're 9 years apart). Knowing he is safe and headed home is the greatest relief. But that adrenaline rush over the past 48 hours to suddenly stop is quite the crash. I feel like I can sleep for a full day now.

Bit of an odd question but one I'm becoming a little self conscious of.

I posted a thread earlier today on ~LGBT asking people to share their experiences of coming out. Because it's a somewhat sensitive topic and sharing your experiences can be a little vulnerable I've been taking part and interacting with everyone who's shared their experience.

Im being sure to try and actually contribute, bring my perspective and continue the conversation, and importantly thank people for being open about something that can be difficult.

My problem is that I worry that this is a habit I'm bringing over from Reddit that's perhaps not suitable for Tildes, but I'm not sure?

I generally see it as a good thing when an OP takes active part in a discussion they started, but maybe it's more of a hindrance here?

I'm not sure how I feel, and I'd like to get the opinions of other regular users on what would be appropriate?

Edit: I should specify and make it clear in my case I'm talking about actively replying to most or all top level comments. Not necessarily replies but still a fair number. I worry about crossing a line into just contributing to noise.

I've recently noticed that some particular users, who post/comment quite often, frequently contribute with high quality content across an impressive spectrum of themes. These posts/comments usually go into great detail, an approach suitable of a "semi-expert", that honestly baffles me.

This lead me to think that Tildes users might be using AI language models to aid in the writing of their posts/comments. This possibility is quite disheartening since I found Tildes to be an extraordinarily engaging community, with a distinct human element that I haven't seen in other bigger forums. The possibility of a significant portion of Tildes content being generated by AI makes this sentiment a mere illusion.

So here are my questions:

1. Is there any reasonable way of determining which posts were written with the aid of AI?
2. Is the Tildes community okay with the content being generated partly, or entirely, by AI?

Please forgive me if I'm being a cynic, I've spent too much time in forums with significantly lower quality content than Tildes.

Edit 1: Just wanted to cite this paper to somehow justify my uneasiness when it comes to writing texts with AI in command. As I've commented below, LLMs might get in the way of learning the person's true idea/opinion.

Edit 2: As I've said in the comments below, I had no intention of accusing any particular user with this post. Clearly, I've failed to convey my intent so I'll try to clarify my original idea a bit more:

Because I'm new to Tildes and haven't got any other forum experience besides Reddit, I was amazed with how much and how fast some users post extremely high quality content, since this was certainly not the norm in Reddit. As with many other online platforms, spammers armed with AI can be a difficult problem to deal with, so I've made this post with the intent of starting a discussion about this matter and to understand the Tildes community stance. My relatively negative view of the use of AI is due in part to my experience with such spammers in the past. Forgive me if I've assumed the worst...

From the little time I've spent in Tildes, I'm quite sure the community grew to know each other and I'm hopeful that my post will not cause undue witch hunts. And I've also learned that because people got to know each user's stylistic voice, it's fairly easy to spot a possible AI spammer.

Thank you for the insightful discussion so far !

Edit — thanks to all who replied and educated me on this. I thought I'd do this rather than pollute the thread with single thank you posts while I learn the ropes here.

Hi,

I'm brand new here so this could well be answered and I'm just being stupid. Very probable tbh!

I'm on a macbook and iphone and one thing I noticed was it's a bit of a trek scrolling down to comment. Not that I've done that much.

Now I love, really love, the lightweight and speedy nature of this site (and incidentally looking forward to brushing up on my Markdown) and am hoping that with the influx feature bloat doesn't happen but would a small anchor text link somewhere up top be in order to quickly get to the comment field?

Let me know how idiotic I am and why or.. if I'm lucky.. how much of a genius I am!

Thanks,

Rodney

Since there are topics about cult classics and movies that everyone loves, I figured I'd make another thread about movies that you love that everyone else hates!

I've got to start with Jupiter Ascending. A lot of you know that I'm an unabashed fan of the Wachowskis, and this is almost universally recognized as their worst movie. It's pretty easy to see why; it's a confused mess. But even so, you can see the vision behind it. The story goes that they wanted this to be a three-film series much like they did with the Matrix sequels, but at one point the studio decided that they just wanted to make one film, so we got a very long hyper-compressed version where things weren't allowed to make much sense. The visuals are fantastic as you would expect from a Wachowski film, but the real diamond in the rough here is Eddie Redmayne's performance.

Branded is an almost objectively terrible movie. It's a fairly well put-together movie, but the idea behind it was bad. To make matters worse, the company that promoted it released trailers that basically just lied about what it was about, basically just scamming the audience into thinking it was a much more interesting movie. The IMDB page still has a fairly misleading description to this day. Thankfully I went into it blind, and I actually enjoyed it. The message was good, even if the storytelling wasn't, and it had a surprisingly excellent soundtrack.

Hello,
I'm looking for resources on how to develop AI, aimed at people who already have experience with programming.

They don't have to be free, I would just like to aggregate different type of resources to pick from.

Thanks!

I tried to register here the other day with my preferred username, which was taken, so I replaced an S with a 5 as I've done in the past. Now I realize that might have been a bit deceptive - someone reading my comment might think it's coming from the other user or vice-versa, and I don't want to be that guy. What's the vibe here about that? Should I invite myself under a new name once I'm approved for invitations, or keep this username? I'd just DM the other user if that was an option on tildes.

edit: Thanks, all! I'll keep it until/unless the other user feels strongly about it.

Hello ~tech,

I have a Mi Power Bank 2C (PLM06ZM) and wish to upgrade it to able to charge or be charged with a 65W USB C port, with minimal damage, harm and according to USB C PD standards.

My chargers use 9V, 12V, 15V and 20V, the last one which my ThinkPad X280 uses.

Online searches for a 65W power bank enclosure without the batteries yield no suitable results, so I might need to use a PD Decoy board.

Are there any advice, links to guides and resources I could use to accomplish my objective?

Thank you.

Updated: June 29th 2023

Hello folks,

Like many of the other people that have been around lately, I'm new to Tildes, I've been browsing it without an account since last Monday or so while waiting for an email response (thanks @Deimos), and in that time I've been working on a little tool to add some QOL features I thought would make my experiences with the site feel better.

I didn't plan on sharing it initially, because I didn't think I'd be able to get the javascript into a usable state, and I'm not fond of sharing my code in general, as I always get a big wave of impostor syndrome whenever I do, "What if they look at my messy code and see how silly I do some things", that sort of thing. But with Tildes I want to try to correct some of my internet behaviours, for years I've generally stayed as a lurker, never commenting or sharing content of my own, so, hello there, hopefully, I stick to my guns and you see more of me.

Onto the script itself, currently, I've built five main features into it all of them being rather minor on their own, I did do bug testing on everything and couldn't find anything else, but if you notice anything please feel free to report it to me or post an issue on the repo. It's easy to miss bugs when you've only got one set of eyes.

Tildezy Github

The GitHub contains installation instructions if you've never used a userscript before, and contains some images showing off each feature described below.

Hopefully, someone gets some use out of this with me, I look forward to chatting with you all.

EDIT
Refactored the code and added a new comment traveller feature based on some of the comments below.

EDIT 2
Up to 1.3.0, we've got markdown buttons now, see comment explaining the change or check out the github readme

Almost everyone has one, a TV show that they love so much that they rewatch it every once in a while. For me, it has to be Band of Brothers. In my humble opinion this is the very best miniseries mankind has ever produced. I love every scene of every episode and by now I know the entire show by memory. I still rewatch it once a year. People call me insane and don't understand why and to be honest neither do I. Whenever I come across a post about this show or hear a piece of the music I just have to watch it again.

I was 13 when the show first aired on TV and I watched it every week with my father. We're both WW2 buffs and consume every piece of media that has anything to do with it. Band of Brothers was right up our alley. Not only have I watched the show more times than I can keep track of, I also read all the books written by the men of Easy Company just to learn more and find out about what the show got wrong. The show has some errors but I still love it.

Enough about me, what is your favorite show to rewatch? How often do you rewatch it? What triggers your need to rewatch it? :)

Edit: thanks for all the cool replies guys. It's my first day on Tildes and I'm really liking it here so far. I just want to reply to everyone but the site is telling me to slow down!

Just recently started getting into rss feeds. Have set up a feed reader and some feeds for my favorite sports team and some news sites and blogs that interest me. But whenever I look up some recommendations for new feeds to follow, I'd say 90%+ of the recommendations are news sites like the BBC or NYT as well as tech news sites.

Does anyone have any feed recommendations that aren't just news websites? Maybe an interesting blog or something entirely different? Thanks.

I'll drop an interesting one that I found right here on tildes a few days ago, about life in Antarctica: https://brr.fyi/

Would anyone who watches more TV than I do (not hard) like to help me pick some shows for my parents to watch? On their own they just watch whatever's on cable/satellite channels and don't enjoy it very much. They're conservative-leaning boomers, but I like to give them subtly progressive stuff. In the past they have praised The Good Place (but, crucially, lost interest before the end of season 2). They really loved the first two seasons of Ted Lasso (will watch the third one soon) and of Only Murders In the Building (I believe they'll watch season 3 of that as well, when it's out).

Some more information about their tastes: Probably no recurring kid stuff whatsoever (a side character or two in their late teens are probably fine). Good humor is fine but nothing that gets too goofy (might be why The Good Place was dropped). Nothing that's too heavily horror or mystery; no police procedurals (Only Murders was skirting that line). Anything that feels like generic, quintessential hollywood will probably be rejected outright (european shows will get more of a pass). And definitely, absolutely, not a hint of high fantasy, sci-fi or space travel of any kind. Some light romance is good; travel is good; places around the world instead of LA-is-everything.

I'm looking for modern shows with good writing and actors, don't necessarily have to be famous. Modern shows - especially shows made for streaming - are more likely to have portuguese subtitles available, which are a must.

Thanks!

EDIT: A clarification re: children - My parents love children. They have toddler grandkids and spend an unreasonable amount of time with them. They're just the kind of TV watchers who aren't at all interested in kid POV/kid centric episodes, because they don't identify with their worries and dramas anymore, so these quickly make them lose interest. I know there are people right here on tildes who feel the same way.

It's still OK for children to exist in the story, though. Don't overthink it too much :)

We have a language learner in our household and I am tired of listening to J-pop at random on road trips. Do any of you music lovers have japanese language songs or even better artists or bands you really like?

Thank you very much

I was just thinking about it. Tildes' current icon looks like a /r/wallstreetbets graph, haha. I think we could use a nice mascot that's based on a cute animal of some sort. :)

Would love to hear our community's thoughts on this, thank you! :)

Hey everyone,
I’ve been messing with complex nested if/then statements in Excel for many, many years, and recently dabbled in VBA. I’ve decided it’s time to learn Swift for Apple. Mainly for kicks, but also the fun of creating an app if I find a need.

For those of you that know these things, what’s your biggest suggestion for learning? Most useful tips? Things to watch out for? Etc.

Thanks!

Keeping it rolling with our weekly post series bringing ~music ten of the best new Drum & Bass + Jungle tunes from across the globe.

You can find the songs shared on this Spotify playlist. Follow it for new stuff, now updated every Sunday. Have no clue what Drum & Bass is? Start here!

_ - BEGIN TRANSMISSION - _

NEW MUSIC

.:...:..:::..::::..

Bensley & Justin Hawkes - Don’t be Scared [UKF]

[Spotify] | [Apple Music] | [More]

High energy and melodic, this summer time scorcher from Bensley & Justin Hawkes has been burning up sets since the start of the season. Propellant and uplifting, the buzzy bassline and bouncing vocal play perfectly off each other for a feel good fusion of these two producer styles.

Tantrum Desire - Rhythm [Technique]

[Spotify] | [Apple Music] | [More]

The boss is back! Tantrum Desire’s well known for his jump-up anthems, but ‘Rhythm” sees this veteran producer step it up with an anthemic prime-time roller on Technique. Featuring a classic vocal slice of big room cheese taken from Corona’s eponymous “Rhythm of the Night” plus some pounding drum work and squelching synths, this one will drive a dance floor mad.

Rockwell - Comfy [Obsolete Medium]

[Spotify] | [Apple Music] | [More]

Like bugs in the brain, this highly infectious cut from Rockwell will burrow into your playlists and never want to leave. The title track of his latest EP is a technical exercise in precise sonic engineering and percussion.

Giant22 - We Go [Obsolete Medium]

[Spotify] | [Apple Music] | [More]

Bright, bouncy and ready to rock for any summer party, Giant22’s “We Go” plays tight drum work and a little ‘chopped and screwed’ flavour vocal against echoey, off-kilter synths that create a swinging, swaggering cut that’s good to go in any fan or DJ’s playlist.

Matec - Adrift [All172Things]

[Spotify] | [Apple Music] | [More]

Hard. As. Hell. This cut from the mysterious Matec brings to mind Black Sun Empire and Prolix at their most pulse-pounding. Unrelenting synths and razor sharp drum programming drive this one through its 4 minute run time with unrelenting energy and a dystopian atmosphere throughout.

A.Way - Closer [Neksus]

[Spotify] | [More]

With a finger on the sound of ‘now’, A.Way’s “Closer” makes its mark in the same arena next-gen producers like Imanu, Caracal Project and [Borders] play. Epic vocals, soaring synths and stuttering, digitally frenetic vocals ride clattering, swaggering drums that bounce between full on roller and half time swing.

Disrupta ft. Eden - Do You Believe [DNB All Stars]

[Spotify] | [Apple Music] | [More]

Like a beach front sunrise, Edens anthemic vocals soar over this certified summer anthem from the unstoppable DNB All Stars camp. With an unapologetic cheese factor you can’t deny, this one brings back memories of the best High Contrast and Hospital Records epics. After “Shine like the sun”, Disrupta has proven they’re on quite a roll in the past year. .

SUUNE ft. Young Gho$t - Signal VIP [In The Lab Recordings]

[Spotify] | [Apple Music] | [More]

Down low, deep and dirty, the vocals of Young Ghost keep white-hot producer SUUNE’s latest firmly in the depths of the darkest warehouse raves. Bouncing with energy and confidence, be sure to keep this one ready for the right moment.

Hieroglyphics & Feux - Belief [Critical]

[Spotify] | [Apple Music] | [More]

From his newest full-length album on Critical “I’ll Wait, I guess”, Hieroglyphics brings the drama with a smooth, sombre cut that’s already wining over atmospheric and intelligent DNB fans far and wide. Pair those bubbling bass-lines with with a soulful vocal like this, and you’ve got a recipe for success.

KOAN Sound - Ascension [Shoshin]

[Spotify] | [Apple Music] | [More]

Something from far orbit, former Dubstep stalwarts KOAN Sound are back with a cinematic, soaring epic that’s forward thinking beyond any dancefloor. Fusing world music flavours, soundtrack style orchestration and touches of classic jungle breaks, this one’s bound to stay a favourite for years to come. Simply beautiful.

NEW MIXES TO CHECK OUT

.:...:..:::..::::..

Subtle Radio - 10/06/23 - Delta 9 Recordings w/ Flipz

[SoundCloud]

Italy’s Delta9 get things moving with a guest spot on Subtle Radio, and online community broadcaster. Deep cuts and some tougher stuff get rinsed out while host Flipz keeps things lively on the mic. A great intro to the labels sound and a fun listen for your weekend afternoons.

VISION RADIO - S03E24 - Hosted by Dave Columbo Jenkins & Martijn

[YouTube] | [SoundCloud]

Noisia, although “retired” from the DNB scene, continue the essential VISION radio series, which has always proven to be a great place to find the latest from their own label and other fresh new music from the scene’s best… this week they premiere ‘Hide Sun’ by Machinedrum & Holly plus new music by SMG, Censored The Audio, Klippee, Thys, Molokai and more.

HCKRS - Repack Radio June 2023

[YouTube] | [SoundCloud] | [MixCloud]

Warning: Shameless self promotion! Had to plug my own latest mix: a snapshot of some current, classic and unreleased stuff that embodies the “my sound” of DNB. An hour long blend of big room stuff like Dimension, ShockOne and The Prototypes with some deeper cuts from Amoss, Polyrom and other fresh tunes…and some new stuff from yours truly. I think it slaps pretty hard, so I’m adding it. Enjoy!

_ - END TRANSMISSION - _

♥ DNB? Join In! Heard something you like? Share it below? Been to show? Let us know! We want ~music.dnb to be a place for fans and newcomers to share our love of the scene in a positive space.

If you’ve read this far, thanks! Stay tuned, I’ll be back next week with another 10 #DNB / #Jungle tunes you can’t miss. Feel free to throw me a DM with love / hate / questions.

Hello everyone! A few days ago I mentioned I was working on a new WebExtension for Tildes.

Since the tidal wave of users has flooded the Spectrian plains of Tildes, I came up with this idea for having interactive guided tours of the interface to explain how Tildes works and why certain things are the way they are. Well, a basic version with two (count 'em, two!) tours is here! An introduction tour as an example of what to expect and some extra info. And a homepage tour going over everything you can find there.

Firefox users, you can install Tildes Shepherd today! Chromium-based browser users, you will have to wait a while or switch to Firefox, sorry. ;)

As you will see in the introduction tour after installing the extension, if you have any questions or feedback, you can message @Community or comment in this topic. It's very likely I made some mistakes in what's already there so even if it's just a typo, let me know!

As far as other tours goes, I have some planned and am open to anyone creating their own. Even if you have no programming knowledge whatsoever, if you can come up with a tour by taking screenshots and drawing over it in your favorite image editor I'd be more than happy to turn that into code for you. The most time-consuming part of creating tours so far has been finding out all the information and then condensing it into something readable, the coding aspect has been pretty easy.

If you're new to Tildes and like what you see, please consider donating! A fundraiser was started by @talklittle and a number of goals have already been reached, with 2 more goals remaining at 500 donors. So if you want that to happen, donate! Thank you! <3

This is an appreciation post for Luke Vibert, Aphex Twin's best friend, classmate, and roommate, aka Wagon Christ, Amen Andrews, Kerrier District... etc.

To put it simply, I'd account a good little chunk of Aphex Twin's style to Luke. I had a chat with Luke at one of his shows, and he claimed that Aphex Twin would have never released his stuff at all if he weren't strongly encouraged. Thanks Luke!

This track is the best evidence I have for my claim. It's from 1990, and is an amalgamation of Breakbeat, Dub, Acid, and Ambient.. kind of unheard of for the time, and the quintessential Aphex sound. Those ambient pads sound familiar? The bells? The breaks? I found it on Luke's discogs page. This was definitely shown to Aphex Twin. I've got a prize for whoever can find an earlier and similarly styled track.

This alone is fairly significant I'd say.. I don't mean to discredit Aphex Twin. Even giants are on the shoulders' of giants.

Luke's individual accomplishments are insane though. It's a shame he doesn't get much credit.

Reading this dude's comments referencing break samples that have rarely been sampled, and detailing old underground raves when people used to trade physical records of independent Jungle tracks.. He lives and bleeds electronic music. He's 50, and grew up through the Electro/Hip Hop late 80s scene, and rode through the Jungle, Hardcore, House scenes and more. I really don't think there's anyone else who was so centered to what electronic music became.

His pseudonyms are all case studies on electronic music..

This is a phenomenal case study on UK Garage, titled UK Garave. A liiittle dry for me, but his code switching is nuts. He gets it lol.

This is a study in Jungle, under the pseudonym Amen Andrews. Time warping, snare rolls.. the hallmarks, and spot on.

This is Disco House... Listen to the versatility in sampling, production techniques, and drum patterns--very distinct.

This is Acid Electro.. a blend that's not easy to pull off. Futuristic and clean.

I could go on--his breadth is ridiculous.

Would love to chat about icons. Someone else do a little write-up on electronic music history and @ me!

There was quite a bit of interest in last week's thread and I'm happy to say that I'm finally done with this project!

It has taken about a month and a half, it's full coverage 100 stitches in diameter - 18 cm using 14 count aida - and thankfully fit perfectly into my grandmother's hoop! The pattern is by Sarah Baumann (NeedleMinderLair on Etsy)

Anyway, here's The Kawaii Wave off Kanagawa!

I was typing a comment in a gaming thread and I wanted to say something that may have been a spoiler. As I was looking through the formatting doc, I noticed it had a ton of different things you could do, but I couldn’t find a way to hide something behind a spoiler—I was wondering if there was a way to add a “spoiler” text feature.

Essentially this , but block out the word or phrase (I just wanted a reason to use one of the formatting options, honestly).

Thanks!

Some of the things I'm concerned about are browsing across unconnected instances - will I need twenty accounts to follow all of the groups? What is the likelihoood of an instance dissapearing? How do you gauge the culture of an instance? Is the https://redditmigration.com/ actually being populated by real admins of those subreddits? Are there any gotchas from joining an instance that I should be aware of? Thanks!

So, I'm using Arch i3wm. I have multiple copies of my /home/username (I am the sole user), and I have a "Spare" drive with media, games, and other goodies, some of which are also stored on partitions on the m.2 in question, but they have backups.

And the reason I ask this question is because while I've had my m.2 fail at the end of '21 (I didn't even know that was a thing, but it barely lasted a year, and things are acting shoddy now... though the original failed without a warning), I just bought a second m.2 for my games. I guess I could swap most of the whole thing over, but I know the boot partition is easier just rebuilt from scratch... which I had to do last week.

Ultimately, what's making me suspicious is when I upgraded to the new drive and unplugged all my non-m.2 satas, I also added some memory and a new power supply. But then after the upgrade (Monday of last week, so the 5th), the system wouldn't boot up. I used a usb to troubleshoot and my /boot partition was apparently no gouda. I redid that, and everything was fine... until this week. Then my new Games partition (basically the new drive) failed fsck and it got stuck in a boot loop on Tuesday. I could boot emergency to root, but not skip the fsck and keep the Games disk auto mounted (I know I changed something to randomize fsck on bootup, but that's something I'm still kinda looking into how I managed...), so I just removed it from my fstab and it booted fine. For two times. I just manually mounted the drive, all was great, then my SO sent me a screenshot today while I was at work stating that my / partition (on the older m.2) apparently rebooted because it bypassed my screen lock, and was stating EXT4-fs error, reading directory lblock:0 and whatnot.

So, that's my history on what's going on, and if anyone can offer any advice [mostly] on the backup stuff, though as I said, /home and the important tangible stuff is saved, but if you also have any input on something more than I suspect the drive is failing (since the /boot partition and now the / partition are crapping out), please feel free to share.

(Also, thanks for letting me in. This is what I'd typically post on reddit and probably have to repost 10 times depending on the sub to get the right keywords and tags and yes, I already searched the internet but my search will not match yours... sigh)

Inspired by an old topic from 2021 on here: https://tild.es/uti
How do you think?
Have you ever thought about how you think?

Do you have a voice in your head? Is it your own voice? Do you think in visuals? How strong are the visuals?

Let's have a conversation about it. We all think differently!

As an exercise, if I asked you to sit down and solve a cross word in silence, how would you think it through?

Edit: thanks for all the very interesting and very insightful replies! I've been reading them today and I really appreciate everyone's input.

Posting from glass houses as I'm a relatively new user and a reddit refugee, but I must say that I enjoy the idea of the invite-only forum-style network a lot. When Selig announced the first effects of reddit's API changes, people scrambled to find a new place to post. It's only natural, and I won't lie that I'm missing some fluff and meme communities like 196 and hmmm. Most, as far as I can tell, found Lemmy, some found kbin, some found Tildes. Not many were granted access to Tildes, and I think that's a good thing.

Like Deimos says in the documents, Tildes is not a reddit replacement and it shouldn't be one. It's something different - I see it as a lovely little nostalgia portal into the Web1 days with BBCode forums, modernised to fit a web that continues to enshittify itself. It's a refreshing oasis, and I think the fact that we're very strict about invites is a big testament to that.

In my view, invites serve two purposes. First, if they're a limited resource, users think closely about who to invite - keeping the general quality of participation high. The fact that Tildes has only one real content rule, that being to not be an asshole, and more importantly the fact that this rule works is a testament to that.

The other purpose is maybe not directly apparent. When I first encountered Tildes and I didn't see an easy "request invite" or "waitlist" button, it deterred me to join. Thank god I didn't, because this is a great little community, but for some people that's enough to turn them off. But, I don't see this as a bad thing either - if you want to join Tildes, you have to put effort in. You have to send an application to Deimos, or you need to find and befriend an existing member through other channels.

This is a barrier, a source of friction, sure - but it's also a great "defense mechanism" against the hordes of potentially bad users - be that assholes, be that lurkers, be that those users that leave after leaving a single comment and finding that Tildes isn't for them.

Which brings me to my point - Deimos has stated that this is an invite-only alpha. Eventually, the invite system will be removed, and considering the influx of new users along with the need to make the site more accessible fast, it might happen sooner than we think. I think we should keep Tildes invite-only for longer than we "need" to. Not because I don't want new users, far from it - but I think the small village vibes is what makes Tildes special. I'd like to preserve that island of nostalgia.

Calling all Deadheads on Tildes!

I've listened to the Grateful Dead sporadically throughout the years but never really took a deep dive. The incredible goldmine that is https://archive.org/details/GratefulDead is just waiting, mysterious and silently beckoning... but I have no map of the landscape so the question is, where to begin?

What are your favorite recordings?

Edit: Thank you all for your suggestions. I'm so eager to listen them all through!

Hey I would love some new recommendations. I love all kinds of music without words, weather that be classical, ambient, postrock, whatever. (I also love music that has lyrics too :) But sometimes I just enjoy listening to instrumental tracks).

Are there any favorites you'd be willing to share? Right now I am listening to Brian Eno. Thanks in advance.

I have a very close friend that has been in the deepest troughs of depression for the past couple of years. They live about an hour away, so though my wife and I try to physically show up to support them whenever we can, that's much less often than we'd like. Their support network is thin, and day-to-day basically consists of only their partner, with whom they live, and who is visibly fraying at the seams.

This person (I'll just call them John for the sake of readability) is currently on medication for their depression and OCD (I'm nearly certain it's Lexapro, can't remember for sure) and has on and off therapy, though they often find themselves at odds with their therapists' perspectives. Some of this is because it feels like the profession has been flooded with folks who lack experience with patients with severe chronic mental illness, and some of this is (I suspect) John's illness distorting their thinking, leading to frustration and anger in the moment that doesn't make sense in retrospect.

John had a particularly bad day yesterday, and after I spent some time with them, we started talking about how they felt like they needed considerably more support than they were able to get in their current situation. Unfortunately, the only option he was aware of was "group homes", which seems like a pretty broad term and I don't know much about what they look like (or how successful they are at helping people like John).

I'm trying to get a sense of the spectrum of options available for people like John who are suffering from severe chronic mental illness. On the one end, there's what we're doing now; regular psychiatry and counseling, and on the other end, I guess, is involuntary in-patient behavioral health/medicine clinics. Being involuntarily committed to such programs has been a source of trauma for them in the past, so I'd like to avoid anything even close to that end of the spectrum, if possible. I know that there are, for example, 90-day rehabilitation centers for folks with substance use disorders (I have a family member that found a lot of success at one of these), but do similar programs exist for folks non-substance-related mental illness? Does anyone have personal experience with any of these programs?

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes a moment to read and share their thoughts; I know this is a really challenging topic.

I’m looking for new things to read, having more time on my hands as I work on some things in my personal life.

No rules, I just want to challenge the way that I think. Anything goes.

Edit: wow, I didn't expect such an incredible response, thank you everyone! I will try my best to grab as many of these that sound up my street as possible, and I will reply properly with my thoughts. Bare with me! <3

Reddit refugee here, I've been posting my book reviews on /r/Fantasy for years and figured some of you all would be interested in a best of list. My full list of all book reviews can be found here, but most of the links are broken right now because the Fantasy subreddit is still private. Still, perhaps the titles, authors and keywords are helpful.

What I enjoy

A brief list of things I care about in books, to help you jugde whether your taste overlaps:

• a good balance of romance and plot, where there is prominent romance but never feels like the story is just about that
• quality prose and dialogue
• believable relationship development, including romantic tension and explicit payoff for it
• high stakes drama, be it interpersonal, warfare, duels, court politics or heists
• LBGTQ+ main characters and queer romance

Note that these aren't the only qualities of the books listed below, just generally what I look for. I'll also gladly take recommendations for fantasy books that fit these criteria if you have any!

Books

Kushiel's Legacy by Jacqueline Carey

A divinely blessed masochistic courtesan and spy uncovers conspiracies against the crown of fantasy France. This series is probably my absolute favorite for how it combines intrigue, romance, kink and action, all with excellent prose and characterization. It has deliciously horny worldbuilding and ends up telling an epic fantasy story with an incredibly unique protagonist.

Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco

A recent addition to my absolute favorites. The author described the book as "vampire couple finds himbo in the trash and takes him in". If you're not sold on that, imagine a vibe like Netflix Castlevania and The Witcher - vampire hunter who's highly competent but looked down upon, vampire science, undead threat, dark gothic kind of setting, sprinkled with some "who's the real monster actually?" philosophy.

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

A Dowry of Blood is about healing from abusive relationships through murder. It's also walks an excellent line between being sexy and horrible. It tells the story of Dracula's "brides", and the beautifully messed up relationship the four of them have.

Note: this one can't be described as having a "romantic subplot", since that implies some sort of happy ending. You know, because of the murder. (that's not a spoiler, it's revealed on page one)

A Charm of Magpies by KJ Charles

A disgraced nobleman returns to England years after escaping his father and finds himself and his family estate haunted. He hires a magician - who happens to bear his family a grudge. The Magpie series is fast paced, highly entertaining, well written, and plays with some delicious power dynamics between its initially hostile and soon reluctantly mutually attracted main characters.

Folk of the Air by Holly Black

The only YA series on this list, Folk of the Air holds a special place in my heart for its delicious fairy court politicking and for not pulling its punches. The titular Cruel Prince is a wonderfully hateable love interest, and even though I feel a few years too old to properly enjoy this series, the stabby and vicious dynamics between the two leads is just wonderful.

Nightrunner by Lynn Flewelling

A young man gets innocently imprisoned and receives unexpected help from his cellmate: a spy, rogue, thief and nobleman. The latter offers him a way out and an apprenticeship, which leads to well... spying and thievery, but also sinister necromantic plots against the throne. The highlight of this series is the ongoing relationship development between its leads. Book 1-2 are fantastic, book 4-5 are really weird, but the whole series remains a favorite despite some strange choices.

Rook & Rose by M.a. Carrick

A skilled con artist, a masked vigilante that challenges aristocrats to duels, and a dashing crime lord turned nobleman. The Rook & Rose series shines in its rich worldbuilding and prose, but especially in its handling of its main characters' multiple secrets, cons and identities. And especially shines when those schemes start crumbling down and some of the secrets become unveiled.

If the third book in the trilogy sticks the landing later this year, this series will firmly establish itself among my all time favorites.

The Stariel Quartet by AJ Lancaster

Years after leaving her family, a young woman returns home for her father's funeral and soon needs to deal with a magical estate that has a mind of its own, and discover that there may be more magic in the world around her than she's realized. The Stariel series is cozy and home-y in many ways, but doesn't shy away from tension either, and I find myself still in love with the main characters even long after finishing the series. I also really enjoyed the spinoff, A Rake of His Own recently!

Harrow Faire by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

Most of the books on here are fantasy with romance, while this one sits more firmly in the capital R Romance genre. But it is dark romance ("villain gets the girl"), and features an absolutely unhinged love interest, a lot of murder, and an evil circus. The series isn't without flaws (some of the side characters get a bit too much page for
how flat they are, and the pacing is a tiny bit uneven in parts), but I blasted through all five (short) books in a week because I had so much fun with it.

The Last Binding by Freya Marske

This series takes place in an early 20th century England where a secret magical society exists in parallel to the world 'as we know it'. There's even a bit of magical British bureaucracy that reminded me of aspects of the Harry Potter books, though the series have little in common otherwise.
Every book in this trilogy follows the same overarching plot, but features a different pairing of main characters and romantic leads. It's queer, fun and fast-paced, though sometimes a bit on the fluffy and romancey side for my taste.

That's just a brief selection of favorites, I highly recommend heading over to the reddit post (I should back that up at some point with Reddit's future being a bit shaky rn) to find more titles.

Thank you for reading! There's lots more to say on each of theses books of course, but I didn't want this to get way too long.
Let me know if you found this interesting, if you have similar books you'd recommend to me, or just share if you also enjoyed any of these books. This is my first post on Tildes and I'm happy to meet new fellow readers :)

I’ve been here three days. I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what makes this place tick, and have only had a glimpse of the culture encouraged here - and I love what I’ve seen thus far.

Thanks to @deimos I now have five invites to share. Sure, they’ll be tracked if I’m being irresponsible by sharing them with nutcase randos, or if I put them up for sale on eBay (obviously I won’t!).

But I love this place so much already that I’m going to be super selective in my distribution.

I love that responsibility! As a newbie I get to be adulting, and it’s SO welcoming!

This might be a strange topic, and I'm not sure if others can relate, or if I am 100% strange here. Feel free to remove(?) this if it's not relevant.. This is just something I'd love to learn the experiences of others about and get some ideas, as I imagine everyone is so different.

So, I have a very annoying problem: I don't experience emotions very strongly (e.g. while some folks get moved by films or art, or maybe get worked up with joy or frustration in life, I seem to be far more emotionally neutral, even in very extreme situations.) This can be very useful (emotions can be misleading and lead to poor decisions), but also problematic and limiting (emotions can feel nice, help with creativity, it's a good way to express love to people, etc).

Occasionally, I do feel little bits of emotion, but they tend to go away very quickly. I really wish I felt more, but I don't know how.

I'm curious about the emotional experiences of others. Do you get naturally emotional? Could you cry from watching a movie? For those like myself who have underwhelming emotions - what does make you feel emotional? Do you have any tips or tricks for feeling more emotional, or, hanging on to emotions when you do get them? Has anyone ever been able to "overcome" this issue of not feeling emotions?

Thanks for any insight.

EDIT: If this is not the correct group for such a topic, please do let me know, and I will remove it.

I'm getting on a 5 hour flight later today. I've got my Android phone (S22 Ultra) and cheap Android tablet (Lenovo P11 G2) with me. What are some of your favourite games you'd recommend to pass the time?

Because I'll be on a plane they'll have to playable without an internet connection. I also don't have any controllers with me, so would prefer games with decent touch controls. I'm open to any genre, but I particularly like RPGs. Thank you in advance!

I read "Legends and Lattes" recently and liked the premise of the entire book. Does anyone know any other books that have a laid back and chill adventure story with little to no violence, gore, and stuff like that?

Thanks in advance.

I have some disabilities that mean that I am limited to deliberative games where you proceed at your own pace. I am looking for games you enjoy or have enjoyed. Could be strategy or building or story based or other, but nothing relying on physical reflexes or reaction times. Thank in advance.

Many years ago I used to record a variety of music on an old Macbook and a dodgy copy of Logic Pro with various Native Instruments VSTs.

I had so much fun playing the drums badly on my midi pads, tightening them up in Logic, and then doing random stuff with the beat editor (changing velocity curves for specific notes like hi-hats, adding in random hits) to make it sound less rigid. Then maybe I'd record my acoustic guitar with my crappy mic, throw some reverb on it, add some vocals. Man, it was a blast!

It's been over a decade since I did that, and now I'd like to get back into that world again and produce some of my own backing music for my YouTube and TikTok videos, but I honestly don't know where to start.

I guess the big difference now is that I'm on Windows, and there is no Logic Pro here. The Ableton and Maschine layouts don't really make sense to me (I think these are more loop driven?). Reaper seems quite spartan compared to how I remember Logic (I know this is probably not actually the case, but the discoverability is not great imo).

If anyone has any suggestions about where I should start - I'm mostly looking for something that has the same layout as Logic did 10+ years ago (or at least, something that would feel similar and intuitive)- a big timeline where I can drag stuff around and try different arrangements, a piano editor I can break out at the bottom, a drum editor I can break out, set the note length and just drag my left-clicked mouse across to have a million hi-hat hits and then play around with deleting different hits until I get the right vibe, the draw the velocity across all of them easily.

The gear I have right now:

• Maschine MK3
• Some M-Audio super mini midi keyboard
• An old-school Metric Halo ULN-2 (this thing STILL costs a thousand bucks?!)
• A few Shure mics and a Wave 3 USB mic

Thanks in advance!

I'm a knitter, cross stitcher, and general nerd. I can't actually create at the moment due to probable carpal tunnel, but I would love to see my fellow fiber artists of any and all genders speak up.

As for me, it's more about the process than the product! I love Grandmother's Favorite dishcloths as a mindless knitting stim, or cross stitching on a project until my hands hurt.

ETA: I'm not trying to ignore everyone. I'm really excited with the responses I'm getting. I'm just fighting some serious pain this morning. I'll try to reply to folks as soon as I can think!

ETA2: This got bigger than I had hoped! I don't think I can catch up and reply to everyone, but I do appreciate reading everyone's experiences! Thanks for humoring me today.