Glenn Greenwald resigned from from The Intercept_ an online publication he helped start after the Edward Snowden Leaks. In that letter Glenn Greenwald goes into detail for the reason for his resignation.

The final, precipitating cause is that The Intercept’s editors, in violation of my contractual right of editorial freedom, censored an article I wrote this week, refusing to publish it unless I remove all sections critical of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the candidate vehemently supported by all New-York-based Intercept editors involved in this effort at suppression.

Editor-in-Chief of The Intercept's response with a heavy critique of Glenn Greenwald work as a Journalist.

it is important to make clear that our goal in editing his work was to ensure that it would be accurate and fair. While he accuses us of political bias, it was he who was attempting to recycle the dubious claims of a political campaign — the Trump campaign — and launder them as journalism.

Glenn Greenwald post the unedited article w/ typos and and all that The Intercept refused to publish.

Glenn has also posted the email exchange between himself and other editors at The Intercept.

This is a bit of a silly challenge that came to mind when I saw a discussion about obfuscating mailto links on the unofficial Discord server. This challenge is intentionally meant to be ridiculous and encourages horrendous solutions that should never see the light of day in actual production code.

Some Background

On the internet, bots are an incredibly common. They may do anything from crawling through webpages to map out valid links on the web, to spamming forums with links to scam websites. Among some of the less ethical uses of bots is the collection of any email addresses that might be sitting around in a webpage's source code, either made visible to the user or hidden behind some alternative text. These bots collect these email addresses for any number of purposes, including phishing attempts to hijack accounts.

Commonly, these emails can be found sitting inside of so-called mailto links, which will open your default mail application and pre-populate the recipient's address, preparing you to send a new email in a single click. It's a safe bet that the vast majority of mailto link implementations aren't very sophisticated, simply providing a snippet that looks much like the following:

<a href="mailto:johnsmith@example.com">Contact Me</a>

Given the above, most bots will likely only ever scrape a webpage for a link containing href="mailto:. A simple form of obfuscation to combat a bot could be to leave the href attribute empty on initial page load, capture the on click event, dump the mailto email address into the href attribute, and finally remove the on click event handler from the link before re-sending the click event.

We're not here for simple, however.

Challenge

As suggested in the title, the challenge is to over-engineer this obfuscation. There is only one hard requirement:

Clicking the "Contact Me" link should, to the user's perception, function (mostly) identically to a simple mailto link. Specifically, clicking the link should ultimately result in the user's mail application opening (or being prompted to open) with no further input from the user and the "to" field being correctly pre-populated with the intended email address. This means that captchas and the like are not allowed. Delays in triggering the mail application due to processing layers of obfuscation, however, are expected and acceptable (although "until well after the heat death of the universe" is not an acceptable delay, so let's be reasonable).

Apart from the requirement above, solutions that require increasingly more sophisticated methods of de-obfuscation for a bot to discover your email address are preferred. The more complicated a bot's design would need to be to discover your email address, and the more painful it is for other programmers to see the abomination you've created, the better.

CSS is not required. A functioning webpage is not required. An entire web server is not required. A full, working web project including a framework with defined routes, security features, a VM provisioning script, and whatever the fuck else you would need is not required. You can build an actual web project around this if you wish, but code snippets and some comments explaining what does what will be more than sufficient.

Shadow of War keeps crashing on me now, which has provided the inspiration for me to finally sit down and get this off my chesticles. I think bad things happen in my brain when I read the news too much or don't get enough exercise.

I remember when tormenting NPCs in games used to make me feel very sad. I was almost driven to tears by the villagers in Black & White being flattened under a carelessly dropped boulder, in fact. Over the years, though, I've found that my capacity for cruelty toward NPCs has grown considerably. I'll give a long example:

So, got any confessions of your own? Is this a potential indicator of psychopathy? How many musically talented Pushkrimps have you recruited?

It could look like Wikipedia, where green shows what was added in the bottom section and red shows what was removed in the top section. Maybe orange and blue for coloblind people. Useful for typos or small title tweaks, not so much bigger changes

I can never tell how it is currently without reading through the titles at least twice if it's a typo.

The CSS selectors that determine whether or not to apply the display: none rule to comment text sections use the pseudo-class rule :not(:target). While this is great for keeping a comment in a non-collapsed state, it's a bit too effective as it prevents user-initiated collapsing of the comment. This can be problematic when you visit a direct link to a comment with an extensive reply tree beneath it and want to collapse it so that you can view the surrounding reply trees. As it stands, you can't do this without needing to either a) collapse the parent (prevents viewing sibling comments), b) collapse the children (requires collapsing potentially multiple child comments), or c) remove the fragment portion of the URL (requires reloading the page and possibly losing your place on the page).

Reproducing should be as simple as clicking Link in a comment's header, then trying to collapse the comment after being redirected.

Collect and code, until it is done.

And now it is.

Ladies (the few that we have, I mean holy ^FUCK ), gents and everyone inbetween, welcome to the results of the 2020 Tildes census, which is only 34% less horrifying than 2020 itself. And you better believe I'm going to keep this up for the whole post, because fuck the responses this year, while greater in numbers, were occasionally still [REDACTED].^{thanks, thought police}

In the year of the lord, 2020^{CAN YOU PLEASE END ALREADY}, we got 350 responses in, which is a whopping 100 more than last year. I don't know how many accounts we have in total, no one does, and I'm too lazy to calculate the percentages right now because I'm calculating as we go so from the point of me writing this to clicking Post Topic an hour or two will probably pass.^{Update: I went to bed, so like 10 hours passed} Absolute numbers is all you're going to get here, so fuck me, fuck you and fuck off.^{I need some alcohol}

Anyway, let's go through the census. I let JotForms compile this nice graphical report that is pretty much useless because it completely breaks once either sexuality, gender or the myriad of various operating systems the people on here have get involved. But it's still funny seeing it struggle. Have a link to the PDF. So back to good Excel, my old nemesis.

Aggregated Data

Thankfully, this time around you'll have access to generate all this shit yourself, HERE YOU GO. The thing is in JSON, so easily deserializable, etc etc. I'm sure you people are skilled enough at typing the words into the IDEs to magic the data into your memory.

Important info: Empty answers are usually marked NO ANSWER, in case of numerical values it's usually -1 for age, -2 for the Kinsey scale (-1 is taken) and -69 for the 3 political values from the Sapply test, as these range from -10 to 10. Yes I made the default value -69. It's everyone's favourite number after all. Also, for some absolute FUCKED reason one of the values has 3 more entries than the other ones, I'm sure it has a totally VALID reason that has nothing to do with people entering bullshit. NOTHING.^{FuckingKILLME}

Also I can't be bothered to edit the "wrong" data out, i.e. typos in languages etc, so those are all in, maybe someone with more compassion than me can do that.

Kowalski, Analysis

First of all, I'm going to less graphs this year because it's fucking hard to aggregate things like ethnicity when you get responses ranging from black to a literal link of someone's You23AndMe results. Yes. I mean props to you for that but like, uh, FUCK, what am I going to do now? YOU ARE ALL MAKING THIS WAY TO FUCKING HARD. ლ(ಠ_ಠ ლ)

This propagates to basically all responses and next year I'm probably going to captain a way straighter course with less options, because I can't fucking MAKE FANCY GRAPHS WHEN YOU GIVE ME TOO MANY INDIVIDUAL RESPONSES^{FUCKINGKILLME}

Personal Shit

Geography

Not much has changed, the US still dominates, Canada second, though the British are catching up. I'm sure you'll have your tea party eventually. Though with good ol' Boris in charge I don't know if annexing the yanks is such a good idea. Also, as there are no invidual option here for everyone to FUCK IT UP it's the most sane graph of them all. No fucked colours this year, I promise, it's all scale.

Fancy Graph #1: Geography

Age

Fancy Graph #2: Age by decile For those wanting to repeat this, watch out, as the age by decile and specific age questions were exclusionary. You'll have to combine the results to get the same numbers. I hope. Unless I fucked up. Equal possibility.

Also whoever entered 28.9, because of you I had to make the age field in my code a double instead of an integer. Fuck you.

Gender etc.

I honestly thought this was going to be the wildest answer, but y'all are such a minority that it's fairly sane. The real clusterfuck starts after this question. Also whoever wrote prefer not to say, DID YOU NOT READ THE PART ABOUT THE OPTIONAL ANSWERS, [REDACTED] PLEASE [REDACTED] AAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH-

Anyway as I said, fairly standard results.

Fancy Graph #3: Gender

Trans? Value
NO ANSWER 13
no 312
yes 23

Yeah I'm not gonna make a graph for a yes/no question, if that's bigoted you may scream at me in the comments.

Sexuality

I MADE THE SCREENSHOT BUT I FORGOT TO ADD IT FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

Kinsey

Also forgot about you. Average is 1,37, idk what else to do.

Ethnicity

This was a mistake. 124 wrote white. 23 wrote caucasian. One person wrote causcasion. One person wrote that it's illegal to ask this question in their country. Someone wrote I bleed red white and blue.

THIS WAS A MISTAKE.

Kill me. Safe to say, that Tildes is, as someone put it perfectly: white af. Yes this was also a reply. KILL ME.

Language

Fancy Graph #3,5: Language^{This was added later, and I'm really not updating the others.}

Religion

I'm just gonna let the graph speak for itself, I don't have it in me to keep the anger up.

Fancy Graph #4: Religion

Politics, Education, Work

This is where the fun begins. No, honestly not really.

Politics

If I average out our Sapply values, we get this compass result. Yeah we're all communists. So whoever said in their dislike the alt right people on this platform, I really don't know what you mean. If anything we need more to achieve PEAK CENTRISM. In all honesty, the people saying that this sub is a leftist echo chamber (there were a few), you may have a point.

When we get to the magical field of how everyone identifies themselves politically, well, let's just say^{ah, there's the rage again} I'M NOT GONNA REPEAT THIS NEXT YEAR, GREAT FUCKING IDEA. Whoever entered confused, I FUCKING AGREE. SINCE WHEN IS PINK A FUCKING POLITICAL AFFLIATION? We do have a pirate though.^Nice

You may wade through the rest OF [REDACTED] YOURSELF in the published data.

Education

Tildes is an educated lot, contrary to popular my belief after making this census. A good chunk of people have a Bachelors, Masters, PhD. Still only one MD though, so if you have a medical emergency take it up with... checks notes ^{Ah fuck I can't reveal anything.} ...Take up with them. ^{JK please call your local emergency line when you need help}

Fancy Graph #5: Education

Work

Actually fairly sensible results, except a few, like that one person that entered not STEM, thanks for not giving me any useful information. You have the ability TO NOT ENTER SOMETHING. THIS GOES FOR THE PERSON WHO ENTERED meh AS FUCKING WELL, [REDACTED].

Fancy Graph #6: Work

Technology

Fancy Graph #7: Computer Operating Systems

Fancy Graph #8: Mobile Operating Systems

Basically just like religions. You all have to many options, since we're all communists now according to average, and options are bad, you MAY ONLY USE WINDOWS VISTA FROM THIS POINT ON, OR THE GESTAPO WILL PAY YOU A VISIT ^{fuck, wrong mass murderers}

About Tildes

Have Acc? Value
NO ANSWER 7
yes 312
no 29

For consistency, and it didn't fit into the picture in a nice way.

Fancy Graph #9: Various Tildes Statistics

Most people migrated off reddit, followed by Hackernews. The rest is various random shit, include like 5 different ways of "I don't know", but the one person replying Gab surprised me. Didn't think people would hop on Tildes off Gab, since Gab is basically extreme rightwing Twitter and Tildes is like, the antithesis to that. Leftist userbase, longform discussion.

The long replies

Once again, can't graph the shit outta this, so here's the collection of them. One reply per line. Had to format some replies to fit this format, I know someone did bullet points, apologies.

What do you like about Tildes?

What do you dislike about Tildes?

What would you change about Tildes?

Final notes

To keep my sanity in check, although when I read this post, that probably didn't work out too well, I kept some notes.

1. Someone suggested to ban all Europeans off the platform. You now have the stats, so I'm going to let you guess from where they are. Fucking hilarious.

2. Someone very cordial managed to write an entire blog post into one of the final freeform boxes. I appreciate the feedback and I'm sure Deimos does as well, but why did you have to make so many empty lines? TBH it's more on Jotform for not removing linebreaks when giving you the CSV, it breaks the entire format.

3. We should have a prize for that person who fit a textbook into the box for ethnicity, also amazing, you mad fucking lad (or lass, but statistics are on my side, lol)

In closing, most answers were good and interesting, except for the part where I let you run wild with the politics question, holy fuck, but that's on me. To the people that reduced my IQ by a few points, well I took the piss outta you already, so I hope you have a great day. Everyone else, I hope you [REDACTED] on a few [REDACTED]. Wait, I think I mixed something up here.^{As you may have guessed, don't take this too seriously}

As always, see you all next year, same time?^{Unless I get banned, which seems like a good possibility when I proofread all this, so much angerI need to get laid, or drunkActually how high does this go?}

Cheers, I'm gonna go C͉̠̰͚͚͓ͪ̿̋̏̚O͓̯͕̙͕͎͈̫̦͐̊́Ṅ͕̮̣̺̖̣̖̈ͥͦ͊̽͒͠S̶̵̹̜͔͖͗͂̋̔̈̒͊̚Ú̷͔͍͇̪̥͍ͭͭ̔ͨ̄̇̅̕M̵͈̮͉̹͈͕̻̎̓E̛̯̝̭͉̼̍̎̐̋̑̎ ̷̵̮͔̬̙̠̣̬͉ͭ͒S̨͙̼̟̻̜̈̄͋̄̇ͨ͛́͟͞Ò̡̧͙̩̓̄͂̓͗́M̹̰̲̆̌E̴̡̲̟ͯ ̹͇̲̩͍ͨͨ͒̑͊̌͒͆̕͡F̵͊̊̾ͭ҉̘̲̝͎̥͔̠̺̙O̧̡̱̠̙ͤ͒ͪO̬̯̪͉͙̩̅͂̀̏ͫ̄̓͂D͎͓͍͔͙̰͕̒̒͒̓̃̍͂ͭ̀͢
Grzmot

Hey everyone. Today, i had my wisdom teeth removed (two of them anyway), and I currently sitting here with am ice pack pressed against my face trying to type with one hand. I wad wondering, if any Tilderinos with dental experience or who had there teeth removed, have any tips for surviving they next week? I've heard the see one and third day are the worst, is that true?

@ admin: Sorry if it's not allowed to post these kinds of things, feel free to remove it.

I'm normally not someone who would post this kind of stuff to places like this or other sites, as it's probably kind of annoying, but l'm honestly starting to get super worried.

A close friend recently broke her leg & thanks to the fucked up US healthcare system she's got a $1800 bill due on the 11th of October. I set up a fundraiser to try and help, which raised $500 so far, but that's just not enough.
I'm really worried for her (mental) wellbeing & l am desperately trying to scrape together what l can to help. l think if the bill isn't paid, it wouldn't take long for her to end up homeless, or worse.

l don't like asking this, but would anyone be able to either donate or share the tweet? Any amount helps.

l would genuinely appreciate it a lot if you could, and l understand if you can't.

https://twitter.com/asoftbird/status/1294762351242235904?s=21

Edit: it's in the tweet, but l should mention she's trans and disabled; becoming homeless already is pretty bad, but given the other circumstances l'm honestly not sure if she'll survive that.
I have donated her $600 already which is as much as l can miss, l don't know what to do about the bit that's still missing.

'sup.

As promised, here's a text discussing the minutae of Tetris the Grandmaster, its sequels, and the game mechanics of Tetris in general. If you want more, there's some market analysis, drama and politics in the comment.

Tetris the Grand Master is probably the most beautifully designed game I know. I hope you will share my passion for this when your are finished with this post.

Since Tetris is a "pure" videogame where pretty graphics and/or enticing plot is irrelevant to the game^†, this will focus a lot on the game mechanics.

Also: this is based on a draft script for a video I wanted to make for a while now. Presumably this thing would flow better with some illustrations at the same time. I tried to include some, but of course it's not the same as someone narrative over image.

Also: weird language ? Missing words ? Misplaced punctuation ? This probably comes from me, writing in English as a second language. Picture this article with a vaguely French accent if it helps (although I'm not actually French).

^†I am aware of Tetris Effect. I am happy if people find TE a transformative transcendental synesthetic experience, but for this matter I much prefer Rez and particularly its Area X.

So: make yourself comfortable, get a hot beverage of your choice, perhaps enable the reader mode in your browser and prepare for a 4k-ish words long read.

Tetris, the arcade game

Tetris. The little game from the Soviet Union, the killer app of the Gameboy, and until Minecraft happened the most sold computer game of all time.

Despite its tremendous success, the general perception is that this title has not evolved since its initial release in 1984. We would effectively be playing the same game plus-or-minus some gimmicks and/or yearly graphical updates.

This is of course false. The evolution of Tetris game mechanics is a story for another time, but the skinny version is that there's two main branch to the Tetris tree: Nintendo, and Sega. What I want to talk about now is a representative of the Sega branch.

Did you know ? Sega means "Service Game". The company we know today as a publisher with a blue mascot originally sold arcade games. And even today, Sega has a strong presence in the arcade world.

Tetris the Grandmaster is an arcade game, made by Arika, a company made by ex-Capcom employee whose more notable works at the time include Street Fighter Ex.
Arcade game design is a delicate juggling act between two parties:

• the game operator: wants money, and for single player game that could mean a short and/or difficult game.
• the player: wants fun. If the game is too difficult and/or unfair and/or incomprehensible, he or she will move to the next game

With this definition, vanilla Tetris is a pretty good arcade game:

As you play the game, the game ramps up in speed and consequently its difficulty. But it never feels unfair: you may complain having bad luck and getting a crappy piece distribution (more on that later), you are still responsible for that terrible stack you just made.

However, there's a finite limit to the speed of the game. Past a certain point, you end up in a kill-screen where it is impossible to play. The piece just falls and lock immediately, with you being powerless, unable to do anything.

How lock delay extend the base game

Video: Godlike high gravity NES Tetris game from JdMfX_, Godlike high TGM game from 777

What is remarkable with Tetris the Grandmaster is not only it has found a way to extend the base game past this seemingly hardcoded limit, but it also focus nearly all of its design toward this idea of speed. Speed is the focus of the game, and if you don't believe this, there's a giant chronometer at the bottom of the screen acting as a constant reminder.

So, how do you survive to the kill screen?

You could try to make the piece move faster (which they did) but this is not enough. At some point, the piece will still spawn on the ground and immediately lock.

Enter the Lock Delay.

Illustration: lock delay

Lock delay is the mechanic in which if a piece falls into the ground or the stack, it will not immediately lock but can react to play inputs and "slide" for a few frames before locking into the stack.

This has deep, deep consequences.

Obviously, you can make the game faster than anything we've seen before. All the while still have a viable game^†. At maximum speed, or "20G" as it is known in the jargon, the piece directly spawns on the stack without floating at any point in the air.

^†for the pedant: historically, Sega Tetris was the one of the first game to feature lock delay; and the mechanics was already there in some other falling blocks game such as Puyo Puyo.

At high speed, and especially at 20G speed, the piece movement becomes severely limited. Having the game viable at 20G completely re-contextualize the game, its moment-to-moment tactics and its general strategy. Not only you have to think about a given piece placement, but more than ever you have to take the next piece into account. Some sub-optimal piece placement or "bridges" have to be made in order to make the whole game continue.

Illustrations: possible piece placement at 2G, at 20G, at 20G with a bridge

And thus: while the core gameplay stays the same, the game becomes more demanding both physically and mentally. You have to react faster and input your command quickly and confidently; and at the same time you have to constantly think about your stack, the area where work is needed and how you can accommodate unwanted pieces. You can even manually control the pace of the game by cancelling the lock delay (done very naturally by pressing down.)

Lock delay is probably the most important game element added to Tetris, but it's not the only thing in which TGM also innovates. Several other additional mechanics exists, and they have this common idea of a "speed enabler". Let's review them:

"Speed enablers" game mechanics

DAS

I mentioned earlier that the way you move the pieces was faster. This seems like a straightforward thing to do at first sight but there's some subtleties hidden in it.

So: when you hold left or right, the piece moves automatically (in the jargon it's called DAS - Delayed Auto-Shift). It's a nice and natural movement akin to letting a key down in your keyboard, but there's actually two parameters to take into account.
First, how fast the auto movement is triggered, and second, then how fast the repeat itself is. In TGM, both happens at a brisk space (16 frames before auto-movement, and a movement of 1 case per frame). This is essential for 20G play. And, in the context of 20G, the DAS enable a family of movement techniques called autosynchro^†that bring additional depth to the game.

^†manual synchro also exists, but requires significantly more skill, as it requires a 1-frame combination. Yup, just like in fighting games and their 1-frame links!

Wallkicks

There is another mechanic that involve automatic movement, called wallkick. A wallkick happen when you try to rotate a piece near a blocked cell, such as the stack or a wall. Normally, if the rotation mask overlap a blocked cell, the rotation will fail. However with wallkicks, the piece can automatically move so that the rotation can still happen. In modern standard Tetris, the rule of how the piece move is quite complicated (to my eyes) but enable advanced placement such as the infamous T-Spin Triple. In TGM however, it's dead simple: try to move one case toe the right or one case to the left in that order, and if the piece fits, it gets moved.

Illustration: wallkick

So yes: at first sight those wallkicks are concessions given to player that make the game easier. However, some advanced movement techniques takes advantage of wallkicks. The goal of course is to move a piece faster, leading to tiny but compounding time saves.^†

^† in the jargon, optimal piece movement is called finesse

IRS

Continuing on the theme of rotation, let's now talk about the Initial Rotation System or IRS. So in most game, when a piece is locked, the next one immediately enters the playfield.
This is not the case with TGM: there's a tiny interval in which nothing happens (except perhaps a line clear animation). ^†.

^† of course there's a jargon term for this: it's called ARE^{††
††} it's not an acronym, it literally means "that thing" in Japanese (あれ)

This interval have a dual purpose (Mark Brown would be happy): first, it serves as a buffer to charge the DAS. But it is not limited to rotation: you can also charge a rotation.

And that is what IRS exactly is: press a rotation button during this time and then the piece will spawn already rotated .

IRS usefulness is not only limited to make the game smoother to play: it solves a problem inherent to Sega Tetris. All game in that lineage have most piece spawning with a pointy end toward the ground^†. This can be problematic in high gravity, and especially in 20G. If you IRS such pieces, you can then confidently slide them to the side without worry of them being stuck somewhere.

Illustration: trapped without IRS, saved with IRS

^†why not having them spawn flat-side down ? I think this is partly for historical reason (establish a clear lineage with Sega Tetris), but also because this this extra-difficulty is coherent with an arcade game design.

And yes, of course, IRS is also a time saving measure, helping to shave some milliseconds here and there.

TGM history-based randomizer

Let's talk luck. Earlier on, I half-jokingly said that "luck" as a hallmark of a good game of Tetris. Well it is a bit more profound than that.
Any competitive Smash player can tell you this: consistency is king in a competitive game. That's why random event affecting the core gameplay are frown upon, and that's why tripping in Smash Brawl was so negatively received.
You can probably see where I'm getting at: there's one giant thing in Tetris that's by definition random: the way the piece sequence is generated. And yes, TGM has a optimized random generator, and in fact most Tetris game have one.

An analysis of the history of the different random generator is a story for another time, but here's the gist of it:

In a purely random sequence of pieces, a sufficiently long series of S and Z tetraminos is bound to appear. Such sequences is mathematically proven to lead in a game over. Of course, this doesn't happen in practice. Especially in TGM, there's a finite number of piece given and thus the change of that happening is infinitesimally small.
However this does gives us insight about the piece distribution: flood (too much of a piece) and drought (not enough of a piece) is not fun. In other word, waiting for that g!%d!3mn long bar piece sucks.

So how does TGM counteracts this ? It implements a history system that prevent recently given piece to be distributed again^†. This is a flood prevention measure and make the game much more consistent while still having an element of unpredictability. And being unpredictable is not necessarily a bad thing, particularly in an arcade context where you still want the player to finish the game eventually. Fun trivia: modern standard Tetris nowadays implement an extremely predictable randomizer, which is mathematically proven to be infinitely playable at low gravity^††.

^†historically TGM is not the first game to implement a history system, there was already a rudimentary one in NES Tetris
^†† this is less of a problem in recent years due to the focus on multiplayer, enabling stuff like openers, but this is a story for another time

Consistency in randomness is not directly tied to the notion of speed, but being confident in that you will not screwed by the piece distribution definitely helps in the elaboration of reliable strategies.

The graphics helps too

Illustration: An actual screenshot of TGM

So far I've describe how the game is mechanically inclined toward speed, but aesthetically there's also some elements that are helps during high speed games.

First, look at what the stack and notice how the active piece contrasts with the rest of the stack. There's a clarity of graphics that comes not only by the fact that the locked pieces have a darker hue, but also because of the of this white border that surrounds the stack. The goal is to have an instantly readable playfield.

Continuing on this trend, each piece type is color coded so you can instantly read what you're getting by using your peripheral vision, leaving the focus clear on the stack. You can then more easily confirm the placement of your current piece, which is further helped by a very noticeable flash.

The next-piece window is also aligned so that the piece previewed is placed directly above where it will spawn. This unconsciously helps the tactical decision of where to put your piece. Speaking of unconscious effect, the whole series have this auditory gimmick in which each pieces have its own jingle. From what I know, nobody use this consciously, even the one that can tackle the invisible challenge (more on the invisible challenge later).

Scoring, grading, and speedrunning

So we've seen the mechanics and the aesthetics of speed within TGM.

But what would would be an arcade game without a good I piece measuring contest ?

TGM has three metrics exposed to the player: Score-grades, level and time.

Time is a straightforward metric, and is the main point of comparison for players having reached the Gm grade. Finishing the game under 13 minutes is ok, under 12 min is pretty good, under 10min is exceptionally good, and approaching 9min is godlike.

Score, as in most videogame is a measure of how "good" you are at the game, but takes here a subtly different meaning. The exact detail of the scoring system is not super interesting to see^†, but its implication is. Let me explain:

^† here : Score = (roundUp((Level + Lines)/4) + Soft) × Lines × Combo × Bravo ; Combo = Previous Combo value + (2×Lines) -2

The optimal strategy with this scoring system is to clear as much line as the same time as possible. In order words, Tetris, triples and even doubles^†makes a lot of points, whereas Singles proportionally don't score as much points.

^†Tetris: four line cleared at the same time; triple: three lines cleared at the same time; double: two lines cleared at the same ; single: one line cleared

This has an interesting side effect, as it incentivize to have a clean stack. A clean stack is a stack without holes. If there's holes in your stack, and particularly in they are all over the place, you tend clean them by performing singles. Sidenote: in TGM1, grade is directly correlated with score, except for the titular last grade, which is gatekeeped by some time requirements.

So in TGM, the score still describe how "well" you play, but you may have noticed that there's no notion of time at all^†. I would argue that scoring here doesn't reflect how "well" you play but rather how "clean" you play. Keep that in mind for later.

^†To be perfectly pedant there's the level factor in the equation that would incentivise you to play fast to reach high-yielding level as fast as possible. But please don't ruin my narrative.

I mentioned just before that the last grade had some time requirements. Now, this is a perfectly reasonable requirement for a game that is focused on speed but, and I guess you are used to me saying that, there's some subtleties to it.

Let's say the only requirement to get the last grade would be to reach X amount of point in Y amount of time, and reaching the last level. A viable strategy would be then to play as clean as possible so that you reach the point threshold, and then you just have to survive. This would mean that in that last part can play as sloppy as you want, you will still reach the Gm grade. That's, of course, not ideal as it doesn't push the player to play at its maximum (you can cheese the last part).

What TGM did is neat and two-fold: First, it takes the "level" metric, which was until then a measure of how fast the game is, and turned it into a progression gauge. So you know that at level 100 you are at the beginning of the game, 500 is midgame and 900 is the last push. The gravity is still tied to the level, so at level 0 it's quite slow and at 300 it's significantly faster. But the thing doesn't have to be linear or monotonic, in fact there's a speedbump at level 200 (people told me it's for dramatic effect), and maximum speed is reached at level 500 (to let the new 20G gameplay shine.)

Now here's the catch: you can progress faster in the game by clearing lines. Indeed, the way you gain level is that you increase the counter by one each time you land a piece, but more interestingly you get a bonus level for each line cleared.

This ties everything together: if you want to play fast you have to play well, and if you play well the game will get faster.

This positive feedback loop is in fact a system with dynamic difficulty curve: as good players will be presented with a more appropriate challenge faster, as more novice player will get challenged at their pace.

So there you have it: even the scoring system is meant to go fast. Isn't that beautiful ?

The sequels

There were two sequels to TGM.

The first one, known as TAP within the community because of the subtitle of the final version of the game ("The Absolute Plus"), builds on the building block of the first. There's now a dedicated 20G mode with a brutal speedcurve to it (it is, after all, named "Death" mode). For the main game (now called "Master" mode), there's a much appreciated addition of an instant drop. This significantly speeds up the pre-20G game. The point system is now decoupled from the grade, and a secondary but hidden point system is used to calculate the player grade. The detail of which is complex, but the take-away effect is that consistency of play is now taken into account.

Video: a a TAP Gm game recorded during a livestream

The second sequel is known in the community as Ti (again with the subtitle: Terror instinct). It had implements some gameplay elements mandated by the Tetris Company: three pieces preview, a "hold" function, and floorkicks (i.e. piece can always rotate on the ground even if it collides with it). As a happy accident, this enabled TGM to go the even higher, borderline absurd, speed. I want you to look at the sheer insanity of the Death Mode's replacement: Shirase. And then look toward the end of the run where pieces turns into brackets (a nod to the real original Electronica60 version), nullifying the convenience of both color-coded pieces as well at the white-border. It's glorious.

Video: Cleared Shirase game by KevinDDR, the best Western TGM player.

Now, on the Master mode side, there's two major changes: there's a revamp of the progression/level system, where now the speedcurve itself becomes dynamic, and a further focus on consistency. You not only have to be consistent within a game, but also across games. Indeed, there's now an account system that is tied to an examination system. It inspects your performance and randomly challenges you with an special exam game in order to reach the grade it thinks you deserve.
The last grade is of course locked behind an exam, and is only reachable through that mean.

Additional challenges

Sprinkled around the main game are some additional challenges that are a bit adjacent to the main game.

Illustration: A secret grade pattern build by ohshisaure

There's a ">" pattern you can built within the game. Doing so will award you a "secret grade" depending on how complete your chevron is. This is a nod to TGM predecessor (Sega Tetris), where bored players in the arcades invented this challenge and became popular. This is totally optional to the game, but really challenge your creativity, a bit like the golden and silver block in The New Tetris.

Video: KevinDDR and crew performance at AGDQ2015

And then there's the infamous "invisible" challenge first appearing in TAP. It is in fact a mandatory requirement to get the Gm grade. If, and only if, you played well enough in the main game, you are then presented with the invisible challenge during the credit roll, in which you have to survive during 60 grueling seconds.
I don't know the whys of this challenge, but I assume this is an extrapolation coming from the following observation: when playing the game, most players are in fact not directly looking at the stack (to convince you, look at this eye-tracked demonstration).
Looking at the stack only serves as some sort a placement confirmation, and so there's somewhere a mental model of the playfield. The invisible challenge thus forces the player to exclusively rely on this pre-existing mental model.
Fun trivia: the credit order is randomized so that you can rely on the name to estimate how much time is left.

Conclusion

So that's it for this gameplay analysis.

Hopefully you'll understand now why some people play one or several of those games 15, 20 or 22 years after their releases. All games are still played and there's no "superior version" as each version has slightly different priorities on the theme of "speedy Tetris": Ti has raw speed, TGM is careful and methodical, and TAP is a happy medium between the two.

As a game designer, what general lessons can we learn from TGM ? I'm just a random dude on the internet, but let me suggest one:

"Brevity". I keep thinking back to a textual Let's Play I've read about the second addons of Neverwinter Nights 2 (Mask of the Betrayer) . During a story recap just before the game climax, Lt. Danger offers an analysis of the expansion and writes (highlight from me):

Instead let's focus in on what makes Mask good - and I think the answer ultimately boils down to 'brevity.'
[...]
Obsidian knew what they wanted to do with Mask and wrote it accordingly. Too often in games I find some puzzle, some encounter, that could have come from anywhere; the most egregious example is Bioware's reliance on the Towers of Hanoi puzzle (which thankfully has come to an end). There's too much that has barely anything to do with the premise or purpose of the story (if they bothered to have one at all). In Mask, though, I struggle to find wasted space. I've mentioned it before, but it bears repeating: there are no irrelevant sidequests. Every quest and every NPC ties back to the core themes in some way.

If, looking back at your game, you can say "it's a game about X, hence Y", you may be on to something.

That's why remakes and sequels that "go back to their roots" are generally perceived as positive. It's an change to remove cruft and focus on the core of the game. Take Zelda Breath of the Wild for instance. Zelda 1 was a game about adventure, exploration and mystery. Hence: very few handholding, an open world, and no limits to exploration.

Of course, super-concise game shouldn't be the ultimate guiding principle of any given game. Case in point: I recently finished Yakuza 0. This is an excellent, excellent game, yet in terms of gameplay and pacing, it is all over the place: one moment you are in a crime drama, and five minutes later you're managing a cabaret club, and 10 minutes later you're in a karaoke booth singing baka mitai Judgement with a biker costume at the end.

But brevity sure can sure made your game more elegant and enjoyable.

TL;DR: I did not know each individual group had wikis and I find them pretty great (the LGBT and tech ones in particular). Do they get updated regularly, are they searchable via the site-wide search, and who can contribute to them exactly?

I was looking through the "note-taking" and "productivity" tags for recommendations on a new note-taking app when I came across the extension resources wiki article in "Tech". It hasn't been updated recently but it made me realize one of the reasons why I find places like reddit useful is that the "Pinned FAQs", "Beginner Guides to <Hobby>", and "Megaposts" on reddit are an excellent source of (for lack of a better term) "peer-reviewed" recommendations and are often the catalyst for fun discussions.

I have, through my time here on tildes, discovered so many excellent recommendations even by just using the search bar and browsing threads - to the point that if say, a reddit and tildes post give me conflicting recommendations, I would trust the tildes post 9 out of 10 times. The climate of posts here are less inflammatory and the discussion on pros/cons are more calm, friendly, and thought through. I admit they have impacted my views on a bunch of things (not least of which is trying firefox as my main browser).

Are resource dumps like that something that the community here find viable in general? Are there plans for updating their implementation to be more easily accessible or is it too far removed from the discussion-based fluidity of the site? I understand that there are other places online to find information, but rarely do I find it at this level of transparency of bias and (on average) free of any bloat.

I guess I'll end this little thought stream with a thank you for all the people who post here and a curiosity for the future discussions to come. I've lurked a lot and learned a lot.

For several years now (4-5-ish, but hard to pin down when it started), I have been stuck in a cycle of enervation/depression. I don't really like to use the word 'depression' to describe this, because in my youth (I'm in my early 50s now), I suffered from serious bouts of extreme depression, and by comparison, this is a walk in the park ... so I've gotten into the habit of colloquially referring to is as "ennui".

The duration varies (a lot), but the cycle is most often roughly 7-14 days long, where 60-70% of the time, my energy, motivation, my ability to focus on and accomplish tasks ... all goes into the toilet, and I spend most of my day reading news, surfing the 'Net, playing video games, watching re-runs, walking about town with my dog, or even just sleeping. The other 30-40% of my time, I feel good -- clear-headed, focused, motivated and energized -- and I spend most of this time catching up on all the stuff I neglected during the ennui phase, and making Grand Plans for the future.

It is hard to tell, objectively, whether I am getting better, worse, or just treading water ... in part, because the cycle varies enough that it's hard to see any clear trends over anything less than 6-8 month time frame ... but more so because my ability to objectively assess my status is so colored by the cycle itself ... when I am in one of my ennui phases, it feels like I am getting worse or, at best, maintaining. When I am in the manic-ish phase, I feel like I will never feel unmotivated again, and I must often remind myself that it is temporary, and in another day or 3, I will be back in a funk. As objectively as I can be, however, I think I am actually treading water or, possibly, getting gradually worse at a very glacial pace.

I know the "up" phase of my cycle sounds a lot like the manic- part of a manic-depressive bipolar thing. Maybe it is; as I said, it is hard to be objective. That said, though, I am really, really confident that, prior to the beginning of this, ~5-ish years ago ... that "manic" phase was my normal state of mind. I used to be a very focused, productive individual.

So ... I've tried many different things to address this. Assorted doctor visits have mostly concluded that either they don't know what the problem is, and/or, I'm exaggerating/imagining it (no doctor has explicitly said this -- it is my interpretation of "we can't find anything wrong with you"). I've tried increased exercise, more time outdoors, more sleep, less sleep, meditation, a wide variety of changes in diet, vitamins/minerals/supplements, etc. I've lost over 40 lbs. I'm currently trying (for a 2nd time) large daily doses of turmeric, and contemplating trying (also for a 2nd time) a round of tDCS self-treatment.

For context, I am right now on an upswing, coming out of my latest "ennui" phase and feeling optimistic and productive.

I should also add that I have another issue ... one that I believe is unrelated, but sounds similar when I describe it. This dates back to about 15-16 years ago, and is another thing I have seen many doctors for, and tried various things to remedy. In a nutshell, about 15 years ago, I got dumber. Prior to that, my ability to learn and remember, my executive functions, my ability to deduce, my ability to focus and prioritize and plan ... were all much better.

Over the course of 12-18 months, I lost a lot of my mental functions. For anyone who has read it, it felt a lot like the tail-end of the book "Flowers For Algernon". The simplest quantifiable example I can give of this is the notion of ... how many things are on your mental shopping list (stuff you need to get at the grocery store) before you realize you better write it down? For me, prior to this loss, my magic "I'm gonna forget stuff if I don't write it down" number was around 12-13 items, that I could fairly confidently remember. Afterwards, that number dropped to around 3.

At that time, my doctor found a (benign) lump in my throat (a goiter), and ultimately, they removed half of my thyroid. After they removed it, over the course of 6-12 months, my mental faculties improved again, but I feel to this day, that they never returned to anything close to what they were before. My mental "shopping list" number today is around 5.

Multiple tests since then have repeatedly confirmed that my half-of-a-thyroid is fully getting the job done, and I do not need any kind of supplemental hormone treatment -- with the possible exception of testosterone (ps: I'm a guy), which I tried for a little while -- and dammit, it helped, too -- but then I freaked out and quit once I started reading about side-effects.

I am writing this explicitly looking for suggestions and advice. Keep in mind, though, that (I'm guessing here), 80-90% of my responses will be "already tried it, didn't help".

In advance, danke y gracias.

First post on Tildes (though I've commented some before). I'm a mod on one of the "beta" sites, and have been for almost four years now.

I don't follow any of the other sites really, and certainly not Meta, so the whole Monica scandal kinda happened without me noticing. After the fallout (or amidst, I guess), Shog9 and several other community managers that I liked were fired, with seemingly no notice or cause.

Then after that, there seemed to be a push to create a "mod council" to create standards for behavior and for removal and reinstatement of moderators.

But the whole thing has seemed so needless, everything could have been cleared up with a few heartfelt announcements (and/or apologies), and the executive team at SE has just been so damn opaque about everything.

Then, to top things off for me personally, the community leaders were explicit in stating that the votes for members of the mod council would not be treated as binding, so what's the point? They can just be a rubber stamp at that point if they're not freely elected. The new moderator rules are "abide by the council-approved rules and whatever the community managers say." The new moderator rules also say "moderators will be removed and reinstated per the council-approved procedure for doing so, except when SE doesn't want to use that policy."

The mod council vote was non-binding, and then SE is making it a point to clearly state that the rules approved by the council don't matter.

It's this last bit that is coming as too much of an insult for me. I've told my fellow moderators that I'm not planning on signing the agreement. I don't understand why there has to be such an adversarial relationship here when I'm volunteering my time.

I don't want to leave, but everything is just rubbing me the wrong way. Please someone help me understand how I'm wrong. I just can't understand the way things have been publicly announced.

Around 2 years ago, when I first made a reddit account, I spent a lot of time on AskReddit asking about 'why are women so hard to date' like a personification of the dunning-kruger effect (while I don't think I've really learned anything about dating and socialization since then, I have stopped thinking women don't share the same basic emotions and reactions as men and in general don't think they're so removed from guys). Given that and how little engagement my threads were getting (it's AskReddit, but I didn't know what I was expecting) I was basically ready to be made an incel. Thankfully someone snapped me out of it by calling 12-year old me a neckbeard, which terrified me away from touching dating for a few months at least.

PS: If the answer is "if you don't feel like this you're in trouble, people don't/shouldn't just stop developing like that", I won't be surprised.

This was originally made just for personal use, but I decided to clean it up and share it.

• Should support all built-in themes (Themes other than Dracula were afterthoughts and might not be as polished. Especially light themes)
• All changes are toggle-able

Changes

• Configurable font size
• Remove sidebar background
  • Make the sidebar primary button clear (border only)
• Add a border to the "main" element
• Add extra spacing to various elements
  • Remove the alternating background from thread colors
• Remove comment borders
  • Add depth indicators (dotted left border for children only)
  • Add comment backgrounds (to separate comments without borders)
• Hide votes (disabled by default)

Installation

• Install a custom style plugin of your choosing that supports UserCSS and the Stylus preprocessor.
  • I used Stylus while making this (Firefox, Google Chromium)
• Click this link:
  • https://codeberg.org/admicos/snip/raw/branch/main/usercss/tildes.net/tilweaks.user.styl

Configuration under Stylus

1. Open the extension popup in when in tildes.net
2. Click the cog next to Tilweaks
3. Edit to your liking

I'm interested in hearing about games that exist off the main map of gaming: games that I can't buy from any of the common storefronts and games that aren't easily playable through an emulator.

Examples of things I'm interested in hearing about:

• Long-forgotten abandonware
• Homebrew games for consoles
• Romhacks
• Legally dubious fan-games
• Total conversion mods
• ARGs
• Web games (not ones on sites like Kongregate/GameJolt though)
• Independently distributed games (that you can't get through, say, itch.io)
• Games for systems that aren't currently emulatable
• Games that have been removed from distribution
• Games with servers or content that are no longer operational
• Anything else you think fits the question, really

Tell me about the game(s) you know of and what makes them noteworthy.

This is a scenario question similar to the "You are stranded on a deserted island, what do you bring?" question. The following guidelines I offer stem from my planning and experiences, I begin my 4 months shortly.

• There is no electricity, no running water, no plumbing, no cell phone service nor internet service.
• US Postal Service is available.
• It is about 45 minutes away from the nearest town and is located on United States Forest Service owned land.
• You will be sharing the cabin with several other like-minded people that you've never met before in a roommate dynamic.
• The accommodations are free through the program.
• This program runs a 9 days on, 5 days off work schedule. For the 9 days on, you will be camping along trails you are maintaining and not be at the cabin.
• Basic food storage (coolers), a solar shower, washboards and tables will be provided.

What do you bring? For functionality? To maintain comfort and/or sanity? Entertainment purposes? Keep in mind the point of this experience is to remove yourself from the grid, expose yourself to the rawness of nature and the elements. While it's tempting to say you'd bring a $10k solar/battery array, download all the things, and just host 5 day binge watching sessions with the bears, that's not the purpose. ;)

I hate that enemies have so low armor class. In earlier editions, you had to be tactical, use flanking manoeuvres and charge attacks, prepare the right support spells, maybe even pick the Weapon Specialization feat for your favourite weapon. In 5e, no need; just stand wherever, roll an attack, you'll probably hit. In addition to removing much of the tactics from the game, this makes it basically impossible for enemy spellcasters to use duration spells. Good luck succeeding on 4 concentration checks per turn.

I hate that enemies' proficiency bonus is based on their challenge rating. No high-attack low-damage monsters here. Don't worry; the tank in your party will never need healing, any level-appropriate monster needs to roll ridiculously high on the dice to hit them! Everyone else just stay in the back and lob your bloody cantrips, and the battle will be over in 3 turns.

I hate that attack cantrips do as much damage as a weapon attack (or more). Why even have weapons at all, when your cantrips do more damage than a longsword, with better range than a crossbow.

I hate that cantrips scale with character level. No need to learn anything new for the rest of the game, your trusty Eldritch Blast will be your most powerful attack throughout. Especially when you get access to Greater Invisibility and don't need to rely on your bloody familiar for advantage on attack rolls.

I hate that familiars can do help actions in combat. Advantage every turn! And since they're no longer a class feature but a spell, they're also available to fighters and rogues, no multi-classing necessary. And unlike in earlier editions there are no real consequences of losing your familiar. All you lose is 10 gp worth of incense to get them back, a pittance at higher levels.

I hate that a long rest fully restores hit points. No need to ever stay in one place for longer than 8 hours, no need to conserve spell slots to do end-of-the-day healing, heck; no need for a healer at all really! And it gets worse when they reach 3rd level and get access to Leomund's Tiny Hut, and don't even need to find a safe spot to camp.

I hate that wild shape is basically useless in combat, due to challenge rating restrictions and the lousy selection of beasts in the Monster Manual.

I hate that the only logical combat use of Polymorph is turning into a dinosaur. Prepare for the inevitable discussion around the table: Can my character turn into a tyrannosaurus rex, even if they've never seen one? No? But, uuuuuh, they saw a picture of one in a book at the library!

I hate that you can use Counterspell to counterspell someone else's attempt at counterspelling your own spell.

I hate that any character can use any skill. No need for a rogue, just hand those Thieves' Tools to the character with the highest Dexterity, they'll get that door open.

The worst thing is that this game went through lots and lots of play-testing before it was released. The developers must have known about all of these issues and chosen not to change them, meaning that none of these are bugs; they're all features! This is how the developers intended the game to be!

Did I forget any of your peeves about the game? Add them in the comments. Alternatively, comment with what you love about 5e, let's add some positivity to this rant.

This is a post in ~test about Tildes! (See also: the ~tildes group.) The author is @zlsa.

Oh, I almost forgot to link to the Wikipedia article on Reaction Control Systems.

H1: This is a very long header.

H2: This one is just as long.

H3: Short.

H4: How do you even tell these apart!?

H5: come on, this is nuts

H6: Six levels deep. You need professional help.

Blockquotes

let x = 42;

function transmogrify(value) {
    return value * 4
}

Now, if you run transmogrify(x), you get 167 168. Removing the strikethrough is left as an exercise for the reader (that's you.)

There's some pretty advanced stuff going on here. The cars are almost self-driving; but full autonomy is at least 3 months away, if not 6.

• Markdown unordered list support: check.
  1. Ordered list support: check.
  2. Yep, this works.
• And back to the unordered list, as expected.

And now for some minor features:

• I forgot a word.
• E = mc² and H₂O

And now for something completely different.

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Drinking vinegar live-edge four loko, chambray edison bulb blue bottle stumptown etsy snackwave la croix activated charcoal fingerstache shaman hot chicken locavore. Fixie twee godard offal. Ramps echo park beard kogi mustache deep v everyday carry DIY heirloom. Forage poke vaporware whatever, man bun chicharrones fashion axe disrupt. DIY kickstarter 3 wolf moon you probably haven't heard of them drinking vinegar authentic narwhal, 90's pug taxidermy pitchfork next level.

Artisan palo santo blue bottle hashtag squid asymmetrical XOXO ennui craft beer readymade cred mlkshk 8-bit. Forage celiac woke, kickstarter hell of normcore chartreuse try-hard cray. Food truck edison bulb PBR&B cloud bread vegan leggings pug dreamcatcher cardigan intelligentsia. 3 wolf moon hashtag palo santo migas cardigan ethical bespoke chartreuse tote bag godard truffaut man bun. Celiac brunch echo park mustache thundercats cornhole raclette chicharrones meditation hammock kogi vegan sustainable. Raw denim vape affogato slow-carb meh iceland food truck kale chips health goth gastropub migas chillwave.

Viral pug kitsch, celiac aesthetic kickstarter small batch chicharrones. Direct trade health goth viral chia actually meh cronut chicharrones. Thundercats man bun scenester VHS. Mumblecore mixtape kickstarter chartreuse pinterest cold-pressed. Leggings retro vice tumeric distillery jean shorts flexitarian, chicharrones narwhal.

Copper mug gluten-free pickled, you probably haven't heard of them banh mi roof party pop-up coloring book brooklyn vexillologist 3 wolf moon keytar. Enamel pin chambray tbh taiyaki cardigan tumblr cold-pressed. Yuccie activated charcoal ugh, wolf chicharrones literally trust fund aesthetic tattooed vice cornhole polaroid. Selvage XOXO sriracha tacos +1 hashtag everyday carry.

Dummy text? More like dummy thicc text, amirite?

In a pursuit of a more privacy-oriented mobile computing I've installed LineageOS ROM on my phone and decided to try living without Google Play Services, which usually provide aGPS (cell tower geopositioning), push notifications and lots of other frameworks like Google Maps that apps use as libraries.

My phone has 4 primary uses:

• Communicator - mostly Telegram, WhatsApp and Slack. Email of-course.
• Navigator - GPS and Maps are an irreplaceable tool if you're living in a modern metropolis
• Internet browser - obviously
• Music Player - music on the go

So let's see how you're supposed to tackle each of the uses, while using as much FOSS as possible.

0. System functionality - both push notifications and aGPS can be solved by microG - fake Google Play Services library. Not sure how it implements push, but aGPS is checked against Mozilla's geolocation database.
1. Communications - Telegram is available on F-Droid (OSS app store), but everything else is not. The solution here is to use Aurora (Play Store front-end to rip APKs) and install them manually. Push notifications might be broken even with microG (WhatsApp is missing notifications for me, sometimes). AOSP email is fine, K9-mail is ugly but works somewhat better.
2. Maps and navigation: OpenStreetMap is the obvious choice here and OsmAnd delivers the frontend. It has enough metadata for businesses to get you around, but compared to Google Maps it's can be sometimes lacking and/or out-of-date. Navigation itself is decent, but it's missing timetables for public transportation compared to GMaps, which can be a problem, especially if trains are cancelled or delayed. Overall it's very usable, almost feature complete, but I've found myself falling back to Google Maps in my browser when it comes to using public transport.
3. Internet browser - Firefox, with uBlock Origin installed (yes, it works on Android) it's really good.
4. Music Player - there are tons of music players available on F-Droid, you can pick whichever suits your needs. Here I actually stepped away from the FOSS and bought myself a PowerAMP license on developer's website. One of the rare moments where paid Android software is available outside of Play Store.

Now that the primary use cases are solved, let's try some other useful apps:

• E-banking? Broken without Google Play, app refuses to even start properly.
• Bike sharing? Taxi app? Public transport app? Broken without Google Maps libraries for the obvious reason. You might or might not be able to use the browser version, depending on the app.
• Reddit Relay/any app that requires the license? Okay you've ripped the APK with Aurora, but you can't buy the license to remove the ads.
• Ebook reader? Nothing good on F-Droid, have to rip something off Aurora.

Basically you have to be prepared to use your mobile browser a lot. And for some of the sites, do it in a "desktop mode" with tiny text, since the mobile version will just nag you to download the app, that might be broken.

The takeaway is simple - you give up A LOT of convenience just to cut off Google analytics (which you still might get with apps like Slack). It's certainly usable, don't get me wrong, but I still feel kind of stupid fumbling with OsmAnd when I'm out with my friends and trying to look something up. I'll probably end up going back to the stock ROM, or just installing the Google Apps. For me it was an experiment and I think I've got a general feel on how much information and use I'm actually getting out of GApps.

So Tildes, have you tried degoogling your phone? How did it go? Are you still using it?

There are a million sites with postings on this theme right now, but this seems like an interesting opportunity to survey the Tildes community's collective wisdom.

I'll share one of my own pantry baking recipes to kick off - the only fresh ingredient required is eggs.

Patience Limited's Honey Cake

(based on original "Majestic and Moist Honey Cake" from smittenkitchen.com)

This is a simple, one- or two-bowl quick bread-type recipe which has a dense, cake-like crumb. (I highly recommend using a kitchen scale for faster and more uniform results, but it's a forgiving recipe if you measure instead.)

It can be eaten alone like a sweet bread if baked in loaf pans, or used as layers for other desserts if baked in loaf or sheet pans. The recipe is so versatile that it can also be easily scaled up or down, and portioned as mini-loaves or cupcakes with appropriate adjustments to cooking time.

This honey cake recipe is fantastic by itself with a cup of coffee in the morning, and will keep for days if lightly wrapped.

[Not gluten-free, but contains no nuts if optional almond topping is omitted, and is vegetarian and kosher.]

3 1/2 cups (440 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking powder
1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
4 teaspoons (about 8 grams) ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon cardamom powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger powder
1 cup (235 ml) vegetable oil
1 cup (340 grams) honey
1 cup (300 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (95 grams) brown sugar
4 large eggs at room temperature
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 cup warm (235 ml) coffee or strong tea
1/4 cup (60 ml) rye, whiskey, or rum
1/2 cup (45 to 55 grams) slivered or sliced almonds (optional)

Fits in three loaf pans, two 9-inch square or round cake pans, one 9 or 10 inch tube or bundt cake pan, or one 9 by 13 inch sheet cake.

[I make my batch in two full-size 9" x 5" x 3" loaf pans (8 cups each), and it makes two perfect loaves.]

Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Generously grease pan(s) with non-stick cooking spray. For tube or angel food pans, line the bottom with lightly greased parchment paper, cut to fit.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, cardamom, and ginger. Make a well in the center, and add oil, honey, white sugar, brown sugars, eggs, vanilla, coffee or tea, orange juice and rye or whiskey, if using. (If you measure your oil before the honey, it will be easier to get all of the honey out.)

Using a strong wire whisk or in an electric mixer on slow speed, stir together well to make a thick, well-blended batter, making sure that no ingredients are stuck to the bottom.

Spoon batter into prepared pan(s). Sprinkle top of cake(s) evenly with almonds, if using. Place cake pan(s) on two baking sheets, stacked together (this will ensure the cakes bake properly with the bottom baking faster than the cake interior and top).

Bake until cake tests done, that is, it springs back when you gently touch the cake center. For angel and tube cake pans, this will take 60 to 75 minutes, loaf cakes, about 45 to 55 minutes. For sheet style cakes, baking time is 40 to 45 minutes.

Let cake stand fifteen minutes before removing from pan.

Every so often I'll fill out a survey of some sort that asks how tech-savvy I am, and one of the options will be something like early adopter or tech enthusiast: "I'm the first of my friends to have the latest gadgets and they come to me for recommendations/advice." I've finally accepted that I can't delude myself into thinking that still applies to me.

I don't like Android or iOS so my phone is ancient (I've had longstanding issues with both permissions and UI). I still use an mp3 player daily (lots of my favorite music isn't on streaming sites). I'm running Windows 7 and 8 on my two computers (until I take the plunge and switch over to Linux; Windows 10 can eat a fat one). I find that most consumer tech for at least the past decade does stuff I like but I either can't find new products that don't remove some functionality that's perfect for my use-case scenarios or privacy concerns make me shy away.

What is this?

First off, this is NOT an April Fool (I promise!). I know that many of us will be stuck at home for this month, I know that many of us could likely use something to pull our attention away from the news, and I know that many of us have accumulated quite the to-read list of books. As such, I'm thinking it could be fun for us to tackle those lists together and collectively clean up our clutter! Let's all burn through our backlogs!

The goal isn't necessarily to completely clear them, just to put a dent in them.

How does it work?

Your "backlog" is all those books you've been meaning to get around to read, but never have yet! For the purposes of this event, an item can be removed from your backlog in one of three ways:

• Finished: you completed the book

• Moved On: you tried it out, but it didn't hold your interest or wasn't for you

• Removed: you are choosing to remove this from your backlog without reading it, likely because it no longer interests you, but really for any reason at all

Use this thread to talk about your backlogs, plan for the month, and once you start reading, inform us of any backlog downsizing and their associated categories. Give us a list of the books you removed. Tell us why you moved on from what you were just reading. Gush about how a particular item held your interest long enough to see it through. The goal of this isn't to read every book you own; it's to explore what you already have in the way that's best, and most meaningful, for you. If you're not enjoying a book, dump it and move on!

If you're not sure what you might write, take a look at a previous backlog post for games to get an idea. Also if you want to keep track of statistics or anything else like that, go for it!

What's the timeline?

I will post an update thread weekly, each Wednesday, for the four weeks of April. At the end of the month, I think it would be neat to tally how many collective books we all removed from our backlogs, as well as what the best finds were from our collective digging into our libraries. I expect we'll turn up some good hidden gems, as well as interesting insights.

Each week, I'll also include some "focus" areas which can help narrow down choices for what to read. Those are just recommendations for fun, however. Read whatever you like, whenever you like, however you like! If it's in your backlog, then it's automatically a good choice!

Do I need to sign up?

You don't have to do anything to officially join or participate in the event other than post in these threads! Participate in whatever way works for you. Also, because this is ongoing, it is okay to make more than one top-level post if you're updating the thread with new information.

Focuses for Week 1:

• Books that have been on your to-read list for more than a year
• Books that have single-word titles
• Books that are less than 200 pages

Let's burn through these backlogs!

Meta Note: I am also running this same event for ~games as well. I am not active in the other media-focused communities on Tildes, but I encourage someone(s) to pick this up and run it concurrently for ~movies, ~tv, ~anime, and/or ~music (and any other places you think it might fit). I like the idea of it being sitewide, with people participating in their media format(s) of choice. Any runners for those groups have my full permission to steal this wholesale, tweak it for their target group, and post it there.

What is this?

First off, this is NOT an April Fool (I promise!). I know that many of us will be stuck at home for this month, I know that many of us could likely use something to pull our attention away from the news, and I know that many of us have accumulated quite the to-play list of games. As such, I'm thinking it could be fun for us to tackle those lists together and collectively clean up our clutter! Let's all burn through our backlogs!

The goal isn't necessarily to completely clear them, just to put a dent in them.

How does it work?

Your "backlog" is all those games you've been meaning to play or get around to, but never have yet! For the purposes of this event, an item can be removed from your backlog in one of three ways:

• Finished: you completed the game, or, for open-ended games, reached some level of "done" that you consider satisfactory

• Moved On: you tried it out, but it didn't hold your interest, got repetitive, wasn't for you, or had some other issue (like compatibility problems or glitches)

• Removed: you are choosing to remove this from your backlog without playing it, likely because it no longer interests you, but really for any reason at all.

Use this thread to talk about your backlogs, plan for the month, and once you start playing, inform us of any backlog downsizing and their associated categories. Give us a list of the games you removed. Tell us why you moved on from what you were just playing. Gush about how a particular item held your interest long enough to see it through. The goal of this isn't to beat every game you own; it's to explore what you already have in the way that's best, and most meaningful, for you. If you're not enjoying a game, dump it and move on!

If you're not sure what you might write, take a look at a previous backlog post to get an idea. Also if you want to keep track of statistics or anything else like that, go for it!

What's the timeline?

I will post an update thread weekly, each Wednesday, for the four weeks of April. At the end of the month, I think it would be neat to tally how many collective games we all removed from our backlogs, as well as what the best finds were from our collective digging into our libraries. I expect we'll turn up some good hidden gems, as well as interesting insights.

Each week, I'll also include some "focus" areas which can help narrow down choices for what to play. Those are just recommendations for fun, however. Play whatever you like, whenever you like, however you like! If it's in your backlog, then it's automatically a good choice!

Do I need to sign up?

You don't have to do anything to officially join or participate in the event other than post in these threads! Participate in whatever way works for you. Also, because this is ongoing, it is okay to make more than one top-level post if you're updating the thread with new information.

Focuses for Week 1:

• Games you've been meaning to play for more than a year
• Games you can mod
• "Evening-size" games

Let's burn through these backlogs!

Meta Note: I am also running this same event for ~books as well. I am not active in the other media-focused communities on Tildes, but I encourage someone(s) to pick this up and run it concurrently for ~movies, ~tv, ~anime, and/or ~music (and any other places you think it might fit). I like the idea of it being sitewide, with people participating in their media formats of choice. Any runners for those groups have my full permission to steal this wholesale, tweak it for their target group, and post it there.

I was recently in the market for a cheap used phone. I was looking for an Android device, preferably less than 3 years old, preferably with an unlockable bootloader and rootable, for $200 or less. I was looking at used Pixel 2's when I came across this weird Chinese manufacturer I'd never heard of.

The Umidigi F2 is a bizarre device. I was blown away by the specs, and the seller was only asking $200CAD for it, so I took a chance. I've got to say, so far I'm pretty impressed.

Quick Specs:

• 6.5" IPS LCD, 2340x1080px, bezelless, w/ hole-punch camera, no notch
• 6GB Dual-channel LPDDR4 RAM, 128GB Storage
• Mediatek P70 - ARM Cortex A73/A53 Octo-core 2.0/2.1GHz CPU
• 5 cameras, 32MP front-facing, 48MP rear, 13MP wide-angle, 5MP depth, 5MP macro
• Dual SIM, MicroSD
• 5150mAh battery
• ~40 frequency bands
• 3.5mm headphone jack
• Stock Android 10

At this price I was initially skeptical. There must be something wrong with it, some glaring flaw I wasn't seeing, and/or those specs must be fake. I'm happy to say though, they're real, and the device seems much more solid than I expected.

I've had the thing a little over a week so far, and have only charged it once. On the first charge it lasted 4 days before I charged it, and still had 30% battery remaining after I'd spent a couple hours surfing the web and two hours watching youtube (total screen-on time was ~4.5hrs). After charging it I haven't been using it as much, but it's currently been running 3 days and it has 70% battery remaining. I've used it to listen to the radio for 3 hours this morning. Oh yeah, did I mention? Bizarrely, it has a FM radio tuner for some reason.

So far everything has been smooth, the device performs really well, which is not something I expected from a Mediatek CPU. Rooting it went smoothly, and I've been able to tweak a bunch of settings via the EdXposed framework, as much as you can in Android 10 anyway. I did remove some background bloat, but otherwise the default ROM is very close to vanilla AOSP.

The build quality of the thing is honestly not bad. I've used mid-range Samsung devices that have felt cheaper and more plastic-y than this. I have read some reports of bad touchscreens, but so far I haven't had any problems. There's also a DIY solution to solve that. Unfortunately, if it dies, this is pretty much my only option, since the warranty and support is pretty much nonexistent. At a quarter the price of a brand-name phone with similar specs though, I'm willing to roll those dice.

So, other than warranty, what are the downsides? Well, so far the biggest gripe I have is there is no notification LED on it. So if I go to the washroom and come back I can't just tell at a glance if I've missed a call or text, I actually need to unlock it. Luckily the fingerprint reader and face unlock are both pretty reliable. There is no wireless charging, which I'm more or less okay with. The main reason I'd want that is if the USB port died, but again, this is the sort of phone that if anything is wrong with it you're pretty much meant to throw it out. The speaker is a bit tinny, and unfortunately it's mono. The cameras are bad. The 48MP camera does take 8000x6000 pictures, but they're grainy to the point where even if you resize them down they still look worse than something taken with a good 6MP camera. This seems to be a software problem though. The camera module is apparently made by Samsung, and people have said it's gotten better with every OTA update. As for that, there's been an update this month, but a lot of people are expecting it might be the last update they put out. Umidigi apparently has a bad track record of only providing updates for a few months.

In conclusion, this is objectively a decent phone, and for it's price, it's exceptional. You sacrifice warranty, updates, any kind of support really, but you get some very decent hardware for $200.

Official site: https://www.umidigi.com/page-umidigi_f2_specification.html
Purchasable on amazon for fast shipping, purchase on aliexpress to save $50.