Like the title had said is there any books that you had picked up multiple of times but simply set down?

Mine would be Dune by Frank Herbert. I simply can not get through the first chapter, let alone the whole book. I think I had picked up the book like 5 times already from my library and failed to get through it. I get that is a classic sci-fi space opera, part of the reason I keep punishing myself with trying to read it. And because I keep hearing good things about it.
Edit: forgot a period

I've only experienced VR at an escape room and a few hours on PS4VR, both in 2019.

The escape room was an amazing experience with a dedicated facility but held back by some cumbersome hardware. On the other hand, PSVR was interesting but lacking in flexibility and a little pointless with new hardware on the horizon.

Nearly bought a setup in lockdown but ran into decision paralysis. PSVR issues above; Index/HTC are a lot more expensive and would need a PC upgrade while Oculus is that sweetspot with price and portability but demands you interact with the Zuckerverse ecosystem.

And in the years since, from the outside it seems like a lot of the hype is just gone. There was a brief time where the Metaverse monopolized the discussion, soured everyone's appitite and promptly died. I've seen VRChat community have a tough time with some anti-player decisions. PS5 VR was hit with a big delay and considerable price tag on top of the console price. And lately with the summer games showcases, I only really recall Assassins Creed and Powerwash Sim VR as notable big budget experiences.

So I'm curious what the space is like for people who are committed to the experience. How often do you play? How locked in are you to an ecosystem? What are you playing and looking forward to? How is the hardware holding up? But most importantly, would you recommend people buying in now?

Not a native speaker, so I hope I phrased it correctly. Let me explain. It happened to me at least twice.

Some years ago, I picked up the "Metro 2033" book by Dmitry Glukhovsky. I read part of it until I read about the Stalker, who was a badass wearing a black coat. It was so cliche, I was unable to continue. I wrote off the book as trash.

Then, some time later I played the video game under the same title, which is an adaptation of the novel and I liked it a lot. It had that eerie atmosphere and a unique Eastern European feel to it, unlike games like Fallout. I decided to give the book another go, but this time I knew the lore and I had images from the game in my mind and everything changed. I really liked that book, it was a good mix of horror, action and sociopolitical commentary disguised as a postapo novel. It may not be great, but it's a very pleasant read. By now, I've read all three books and played all three video games (btw if you plan to play Metro Exodus I'd advise you to read "Metro 2035" first, as the game is a direct continuation of that story and both were written by the author) and I consider myself a fan of the series.

Another, more recent example is "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". I am not a Potterhead, I never read any HP books, I even despised them for the most part. By the time J.K. Rowling's stories were published in my country I was already 20 or so. I was familiar with Jordan, Tolkien, Sapkowski, Williams and many more authors writing fantasy. I was into the tolkienesque depiction of wizards, so something like Hogwart with robed men and children riding brooms and waving wands is both weird and strongly off-putting to me. Also, I considered myself already too old for what I saw as children's books.

I'm 42 now and those words of C.S. Lewis resonate with me ever so more:

When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

So I decided to give Harry Potter a chance. I first tried watching the first movie. I didn't like it much and dropped it somewhere in the middle. Then a couple moths ago I loaded a free sample of the first book from Kobo Store and it was... alright. I dropped it as well. I thought it was well written, but was definitely a kids book for which I was too old.

I started playing Hogwart's Legacy a week ago or so. I'm now positively hooked on that game, it's beautiful, it has characters I like, it has a good combat system and it's been my doorway to Hogwarts. So when I couldn't play, I was thinking about it and picked up that book which I dropped earlier. But this time I had a better understanding of the lore, had images of certain places in my mind and it clicked! I am still an old fart and it is still a kids book, but I have found new appreciation for it. I think it's well written on the literary level, it has a lot of situational and verbal humor (I think it has a distinct British flavor to it, like a very toned down version of Pratchett) -- I actually often chuckle when reading it. I bought the whole set (books 1-7) and maybe I'll even read them. Here's hoping that they mature with the readers, that's what I've been told. I'm sure that if I were 12 when reading them for the first time, I'd love them.

As you can see, in my case it's usually that good video games drive me to give another chance to some books that I initially didn't like and because of the great experience with video game adaptations, I start liking the source material. Do you have similar experiences?

(btw this is my first post on Tildes)

I would like you to think of two things that you associate with your favourite colour. For example, if your favourite colour were black you might choose "the night sky" and "New Zealand rugby." Try not to put too much thought into it, and don't expand the spoiler sections below until you have your two things.

I've been seeing some cool software in the church space lately with lots of fancy bells and whistles that handle many different aspects of running a church (social, presentation, tithing, etc.). However, not all churches, especially small ones, can afford them or have members savvy enough to set it all up and maintain/operate them. I thought this could be a cool thread for free and or open source software that churches can use can use (Does not necessarily need to be design specifically for churches).

EDIT
Here is a list of paid examples:

• Renewed Vision
  • ProPresenter
  • ProVideoPlayer
  • ProVideoServer
  • Scoreboard
  • ProContent
• Microsoft Office
  • PowerPoint
  • Excel
• Google
  • Slides
  • Sheets
  • Forms

Here is a short list of FOSS alternatives:

• Free Show
• Owncast
• Rock RMS
• Choyr
• OBS
• OpenLP
• WorshipTools

So,this has been on my mind for a long time and i have tried some available/widely known methods to learn japanese language.So far iam not satisfied with my results.Can someone suggest me some ways that worked for them preferably for free/cheap.The main problem is the letters or characters.i can comprehend and manage to speak a very basic levels of the language mainly from consuming media from japan,some duolingo and such.....
any and all advice is appreciated
Help me out guys

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

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

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

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

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

Pretty much, the title.

I have been coding professionally for over 2 decades, been using Git for almost as long ... and to this day, it still feels alien and uncomfortable to use. I keep feeling like I am relearning it all over again. I would really like to find some kind of different resource that helps me to make Git "stick" in my brain, and become more intuitive. Maybe that's just not possible, but I keep hoping.

Meanwhile, my roommate is just starting her journey into programming, and her class just started teaching Git ... and I'm eavesdropping a bit, and they're teaching it okay, but I'm sure there are better tutorials out there for a newcomer.

I am aware of -- and currently reading my way through -- both this recent tildes post and the various tutorials mentioned in it. But I am looking for other recommendations, as well ... and I bet I'm not the only one.

Thanx in advance.

Recently went to a Baskin Robbins, and I was surprised by how indecisive I was. I ended up going with a childhood favourite of mine (cotton candy), but it was far too sweet for me now. I'm curious, what are your favourite ice cream flavours? What interesting combinations have you tried? Any weird ice cream flavours you've tried before?

You could use any SQL database to create a few tables, insert some data, and do queries, while ignoring anything vendor-specific. But Postgres has a lot of other features and many extensions. What do you recommend checking out beyond the basics?

I've used a lot of databases, but it's been many years, so I assume things have changed quite a bit. I skimmed a few PostgreSQL release notes and learned that there's now a MERGE statement that looks pretty handy. (It's standard SQL.) And from Neon's list of supported extensions, the plv8 extension caught my eye. It would let me write stored procedures in JavaScript. Does anyone use that? Do you use stored procedures at all?

I wonder what Tildes uses?

(To keep discussion organized, please write about one feature per top-level comment.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

As the holiday comes up, I’m building a tongue-in-cheek party playlist that speaks to the full color of this beautiful country we Americans call home.

I’m kicking it off with these songs, but what would you add to this playlist?

• Uncle Sam Goddamn by Brother Ali
• This is America by Childish Gambino
• National Anthem by Lana Del Rey
• American Pie by Shea Diamond
• Holiday / Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day
• Know Your Enemy by Rage Against the Machine
• Gentrify by Propoganda

What songs would you add to this playlist? I’ll add songs to my playlist as we go!

I have to preface this question with a disclaimer that I am an eager learner of Linux and servers in general, but I'm still a beginner and often run into roadblocks.

Current setup:

• Raspberry Pi 3 with Adguard Home acting as primary DNS
• unRAID server with Adguard Home acting as secondary DNS
• About a dozen other containers running on same server
• DHCP is handled by my router

Goal:

• provide local DNS names for the containers running in unRAID so I don't have to enter IP:Port (e.g, calibre.local) which also has the side benefit saving the various username/password combos into Bitwarden with an actual domain attached to it instead of 14 occurrences of 192.168.x.x

Additional info:

I had PiHole running on the Pi before as the primary and only DNS previously. And I seem to recall you could put IP:Port as a custom DNS and have it resolve. AGH does have a feature for DNS Rewrites but it does not allow for port numbers, IPs only. I switched to AGH because it seems to be more effective at blocking ads, which is likely more a function of the provided DNS blocklists out of the box as opposed to what I was doing in Pihole. I would prefer to stick with AGH for adblocking/DNS if possible.

I looked into just modifying host files on the main computers I touch these apps from, but again, can't include port. What is a good solution for this? Preferably something approachable for a newb like me.

This is currently going on with me. Someone has spoofed my home phone number, and has been using it to call other people. Whenever the other person misses the spoofer's call they end up calling me. I have answered quite the handful of calls from this. It has been happening since Wednesday, and it has gotten often enough that I have been carrying around a wireless phone in my pocket. I did end up reporting it to the fcc, but that hasn't done anything yet.

Anyway this gets me wondering, have you ever had your phone number spoofed? If so, how did you deal with it?

Do you love a good trail? Are you a hiker, backpacker, trail runner, or neighborhood saunterer? If so, this conversation is for you! Share your favorite routes, dream trips, the gear you love, where you find inspiration, or essential advice. Got any cool trips planned, in the near or distant future? Whether you’re a newbie or trail-tested veteran, share what you know!

My phone used to autofill the 2-factor SMS verification codes used when logging into a site. I can't remember when or why, but suddenly it doesn't appear, and I have to... (gasp) type in the SMS code manually.

SOLVED:

Autofill SMS codes only work with Safari.

I've always had a fairly structured routine life (clock in/out of work) and am able to stick to deadlines/routine in this format. There are only a few times in my life when I have more unstructured time and have to self-employ deadlines and things tend to fall apart during those instances (staying up late wasting time -> wake up late -> vicious cycle). I find when I'm held accountable to others (eg showing up for an appointment or a start time for work), things go fine, but when I'm only accountable to myself things tend to fall apart fairly quickly.

I'm sure many of you have jobs / hobbies where you work remotely and have to come up with your own schedules and am wondering what tips and tricks you've accumulated from your experiences that you would be willing to share that have been helpful for you to accomplish your goals?

I have a few months of free time coming up, and am hoping to make the most of it to improve my personal / professional life and make progress on my own personal projects/hobbies.

Some tips / tricks that I will be employing that have been somewhat helpful in the past:

• Creating a schedule for myself at least a day ahead
• Using time-blocking websites to block or temporize access to certain websites (I like coldturkey for PC)
• Minimizing distractions (putting phone on do not disturb / airplane mode), working in a quiet environment

Interested in what tactics you have all successfully employed in your own lives!

When Snap and\or flatpak install or update packages they do not always do so cleanly

Snap for example can keep up to 3 previous versions on updating and if you are struggling for space then this can be a Bad Thing^tm

These couple of pages show a good reliable way to tidy up and get back some disk space
Snap

Flatpak

Please note, I am not the author. The articles are on a website called debugpoint.com and does not carry a credit

Hey tabletilders,

It's been another week. Let's share what we all played this week!

For me it was a single play of Pax Renaissance with a promo expansion that changes the starting state of the board. I completely dominated the trade routes and accumulated a huge stash of cash, but was unable to get the comet out to activate the win condition that would leverage it. My opponents then mowed down my commissions, so I had to pivot quite heavily. But I wasn't too worried as I had so much cash, so could nab any card I wanted, including the next comet.

Unfortunately two of us took our eyes of the ball and our third player managed a sneaky protestant victory. Annoyingly there was an apostasy I could have bought that would have nixed this, but I totally didn't see it coming. Great game.

After that we wound down with a quick game of Scout. Fun little game that makes me want to explore the trick-taking space a bit more, but it seems all the highly praised ones I read about are out of stock. I might see if any of these can be played with a poker deck.

So what have you all been playing?

Previously I used to have this in my .vimrc:

if !exists('g:lasttab')
  let g:lasttab = 1
endif
nmap <C-Tab> :exe "tabn ".g:lasttab<CR>
au TabLeave * let g:lasttab = tabpagenr()

Courtesy of: https://stackoverflow.com/a/2120168

But while going through the help docs today, I stumbled across this mapping and am glad to find that this now exists by default. When it got added, however, I don't know.

Search for food banks in your area. There are three in my town and one gets really good product from some of the nicer stores in town. They give us two grocery bags to fill, then usually have two more bags filled with pasta or soup mixes. And that doesn't account for the fresh produce they provide. I've filled my, my sister's, and my mom's pantries from a single visit to the food bank. I never felt like I was taking too much, but I always end up with more than one man can eat on his own. So, my sister gets to feed her kids and my mom can feed the ladies that help her at home. Their hours may conflict with your work schedule, but a single trip can benefit you immensely. Maybe get a friend to go if it doesn't work out timing wise for you.

I just got home after a long, extraordinarily stressful, and sensory overload inducing appointment at a government office that I had to do to get some paperwork dealt with. Partway through it, I realized that some sort of stim/fidget toy would probably help stave off some of the worst of it, if I had something small I could keep in my purse. (Ideally something that wouldn't be too awkward to use in public... though I'm not concerned about looking a little awkward, that ship sailed long ago, haha.) Wondering if anyone here has some good recommendations on stim toys suitable for adults that I could bring with me next time, and/or any suggestions for unobtrusive ways to stim that I could do just on my own without needing anything special. I only found out I was autistic relatively recently (in my 30s), so most of this is still very new to me - any guidance is very appreciated!

For me, I had never tasted the salt and vinegar potato chips until I moved to America.
The first I had it, I almost spit it out, but after a few months I bought it myself and felt it wasn’t ‘that bad’.
From that point, I went to picking it up every time I now get a sandwich.

The Verge, Washington Post, CNET, Engadget reviews

RIP to my Pixel Fold: Dead after four days

Haven't had time to go through all the reviews but as it's a major new device from Google I thought there might be some interest here.