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    1. Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of June 8

      Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week! Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle...

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

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

      Rules:

      • No grey market sales
      • No affiliate links

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


      All previous Save Point topics

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

      12 votes
    2. Help with ants in the shower!

      So after moving, my new bathroom has some issues. Most pressing of all: my shower has ants. It started with a couple, but it feels like it's gotten progressively worse. I researched this issue and...

      So after moving, my new bathroom has some issues. Most pressing of all: my shower has ants. It started with a couple, but it feels like it's gotten progressively worse.

      I researched this issue and have been spraying my shower with a vinegar/water mixture to kill and hopefully repel them, followed by my mom wiping them up to throw away because the scent of ant corpses will attract more ants. But so far, it hasn't really done anything but kept me from using that shower for a week because of the smell of vinegar.

      I sprayed the shower today, when it had possibly the most ants to date, and mom wiped them all up... And then a few hours later I checked and more ants showed up. Actually I just checked again and there are now like, at LEAST fifteen ants in there. At LEAST. So, the vinegar solution obviously isn't repelling them.

      We're at the end of our patience. Tomorrow we'll be sitting down to do some heavy-duty research together. The potential next step, based on the site where I got the vinegar solution, is to pour baking soda and vinegar into the drain to try to dislodge all the gunk, because I've washed ants down there and that can attract more ants. So, that might be why they won't freaking stay away.

      Relevant vent: why does every single site about killing ants include tons of photos of ants!? I'd closed the site I used and I tried to find it again to link here, but had to stop because the first two sites I checked were full of ant pictures. And I freaking hate bugs and can't stand even looking at photos of them. Or at least, not in this context. I don't want to see MORE ants congregating in strangers' showers, knowing they're in mine already make my skin crawl without having an image of what they might look like at this very moment!!

      So, yeah. Researching this has been very difficult for me, but I need those damn things out of my shower so we don't need to share my mom's. So, I'm open to any advice and solutions you all have!

      Some other relevant information:

      • Here's a photo of my bathroom and the shower. Warning: you might be able to see ants if you zoom in on the close-up of the shower, because they were mostly congregated in that area. Otherwise I would have gotten a better photo of the interior. I saw a lot of advice to touch up caulking, but with the type of shower this is, I'm not sure how relevant caulking really is? The shower is very smooth, almost like the rim of a bathtub.
      • There's a skylight above the shower, which was replaced before we moved in. At the very least, it doesn't leak with water when it rains. So help me, if that's somehow the source of the ants........
      • Related to above: there's no window I can open, and the room is quite small and narrow. So, humidity builds up FAST and I don't really have an effective way to vent it out or anything.
      • I've seen a couple in my sink. Key word: a couple. I think the most I've seen there at one time is two, while the shower can have upwards of... I don't even want to try to guess, honestly.
      • I've seen one or two ants crawling up the wall outside the shower, very low down around the moulding. So their nest may be outside the shower?
      • At this point the number has me half-convinced there's a nest somewhere in the bathroom. Or maybe there's an entrance on the top of the white shower walls/rim where it meets the drywall?? Except I've only ever seen one ant relatively high up one of those walls, they seem to stick near the floor... Either way, the number feels extreme to me given there shouldn't be any real points of entrance besides the door and skylight.
      • Given that articles love attaching revolting photos at multiple points, I'll just ask here if there's any chance they're climbing out of my shower head or the drain. One little fact that prematurely ended my first attempt to research solutions: apparently ants sometime come out of bath faucets. So, yeah.
      • At this point, killing ants is secondary to getting them OUT. We've dealt with ant infestations before, we know how to kill them. But that doesn't help when more of them will show up!! I don't want to deal with this problem forever, or even just seasonally!!l

      Please help, and thanks for taking time to read this!

      16 votes
    3. Help cleaning stains off laminate

      Hi all, hoping you might be able to help me. This seemed like the closest Tildes category to post in. Maybe a year ago, I noticed I had tracked something into my apartment on my shoes and it left...

      Hi all, hoping you might be able to help me. This seemed like the closest Tildes category to post in. Maybe a year ago, I noticed I had tracked something into my apartment on my shoes and it left gunk on the floor. I cleaned as best I could and most of it came off but one major spot stained. Everything I tried wouldn't take it off. Over the last year it darkened and is the darkest spot in the photo.

      I was never able to clean it off or figure out exactly what I got stuck on my shoe to cause it. Until a couple days ago when it happened again. And eventually I put two and two together. There's some type of tree that drops some kind of nut or seed near the parking area and when I walk to my trunk after parking I accidentally stepped in one which smushed into my shoe and tracked into the apartment. I don't know what kind of tree or seed it is, but that's what stained it.

      Now that it's happened again it's even worse and I cannot for the life of me clean this off. I have tried 409, rubbing alcohol, Goo Gone, bleach, hydrogen peroxide and nothing cleans this crap off more than it is in the photo. Even scrubbed it with a sponge scrub pad and nothing. It's a smooth surface so it's not like a chunk I can scrape off, it's just like stained the laminate floor.

      Any suggestions on what else I can use to clean this gunk once and for all without damaging my apartments floor?

      Thanks! Here's the photo: https://imgur.com/a/pQ5hw36

      12 votes
    4. What is a quote that you really like that is from a problematic person?

      I finally watched Buffy and Angel like a year or 2 ago and except for the first season and last 2 seasons of Buffy and some parts of Angel, I absolutely loved it. this quote from Angel really got...

      I finally watched Buffy and Angel like a year or 2 ago and except for the first season and last 2 seasons of Buffy and some parts of Angel, I absolutely loved it.

      this quote from Angel really got me
      https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1337314-nothing-in-the-world-is-the-way-it-ought-to

      We live as though the world was what it should be, to show it what it can be.

      No way to really tell who came up with that quote but I consider it problematic just due to the association with Joss Whedon.

      But it got me curious if there are other examples of this out there? anyone like quotes that fit this kinda mold? Quotes have a certain heft to them but are from people later revealed to not be the stand-up guy we'd assumed/hoped they are?

      36 votes
    5. Starlink is surprisingly good, actually

      Haven't seen anyone mention that project in a few years, but now I'm in the unique position to talk about it. I live somewhere where I can't get any proper internet service - mobile broadband is...

      Haven't seen anyone mention that project in a few years, but now I'm in the unique position to talk about it. I live somewhere where I can't get any proper internet service - mobile broadband is slow, DSL or fibre lines are not brought out to where I live, and the only other option is cable internet access, which I've 1. had bad experiences with in the past and 2. where I live is operated by a company with laughably bad reviews at exorbitant prices for what they offer. We are talking about 60 USD (eq) a month for 100 megabit service.

      So I shopped around to see what other options there are, and Starlink made me an offer. Free equipment, which is usually 400 bucks, delivered to my house, and then an unlimited data plan at whatever speeds I can get where I live for 50 a month, with a one month free trial. I said yes, paid with Apple Pay (seriously, did not have to fill out a single form or sign anything) and the dish arrived the next day.

      Now, I know, Starlink is run by Musk, who is somewhere around the top 10 of my nightmare blunt rotation and also pretty likely to be an actual neo-Nazi, but I say whatever. It's not like the alternatives are much better, and at least SpaceX has some actual value for humanity, if you ask me. I might put a "I bought this before Elon went crazy" on my router, though.

      I got the dish delivered and set it up on my roof. The app - which is excellent - tells you to orient it north if you're on the northern hemisphere, and to roughly point it up. I built my own mounting solution - a wooden board with mounting holes that snaps in place on my roof - and set everything up, not expecting much.

      I was absolutely blown away. The app, once more, is stellar and incredibly easy to use, and a joy to play around with. I got a satellite connection in minutes, and did a speed test. I got 200 down and 50 up in the Starlink app, but independent speed tests as well as my own experience routinely hit 400 down and around 80 up. Genuinely impressive. Ping around 30, by the way. Consistent as well.

      The next few days were a similar experience, although I did notice a drop in speeds if there was heavy rain. The speeds dropped however to around 150 over 30, which is still more than usable, and latency was not impacted at all as far as I can tell.

      Honestly, it's a super compelling package. Setup was so simple my grandma could have done it, the hardware is beautifully made and very robust, and the designers really did think of a lot here. The cables are just weatherproofed Ethernet and you can bring your own (although they don't recommend it), the router is Wifi 6 and looks damn snazzy, the dish can even heat itself up to melt snow in winter.

      If you're looking for reliable internet service, I really can't recommend Starlink enough. If where you're planning on running it is within the service area and you're fine with the 50 dollar a month price point (no speed or data caps, by the way) I'd say go for it.

      Now, there are people who will say that it's a good option for remote places, but not that great for densely populated areas in buildings that could get for example cable service, and you shouldn't rely on it. But, well, I haven't been completely honest here:

      The real sting in the tale is that I live in one a large European city with plenty of access to other internet methods (just unlucky in terms of my specific building, which is getting fibre next year), and mounted the dish on top of my townhouse in one of the most dense districts in town. It works flawlessly, and it's been the fastest internet service I've ever had, period.

      Course, it can't compete with a fibre line, sure, but many people don't have those - and then, service or hardware might still add large costs on top of that. And with Starlink, I can just take it with me whenever I move, and don't need to ever worry about ISPs again.

      I don't have many sufficiently nerdy friends to talk about this with, so if you're curious or have any questions, I'll do my best to answer them. If you have Starlink too and feel like I missed something, feel free to contribute to the conversation.

      35 votes
    6. What have you been listening to this week?

      What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as...

      What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

      Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

      You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

      http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

      Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

      10 votes
    7. What did you do this week (and weekend)?

      As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do...

      As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

      5 votes
    8. Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news

      Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like right to repair, friendship and warfare.drone. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if...

      Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like right to repair, friendship and warfare.drone. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was in doubt.

      But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

      14 votes
    9. What are your favorite vegan pre-packaged foods?

      IMPORTANT: These do NOT have to be foods that specifically target vegans, like Amy's or many meat substitutes (though they certainly can be). For example, most Triscuits are vegan, but they aren't...

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

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


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

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

      31 votes