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

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

Rules:

• No grey market sales
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If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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I recently moved to a place and unearthed an old Pixel 3. I updated it to the last official update (October 2021) but not sure what to do with it. It’s not worth any money (or at least I don’t think so) and I have a dedicated Android gaming device (Retroid Pocket 5).

What could I do with this device?

I was trying to think of a way to use it. Was thinking of setting it up facing my backyard to film squirrels/possums/birds, but it would likely fill the storage up in less than one day of continuous recording. I’m probably getting way ahead of myself but would there be a way to use it like an IP cam or Ring doorbell that records everything not on the device?

Any other unrelated ideas are welcome too. I just don’t want to throw it away since it’s functioning quite well.

I recently joined a tech company purportedly with a mission I believed in. Before joining I had some hesitance about how their product achieved that mission, but I liked most the people I interviewed with and the offer was good. Turns out despite being profitable it’s a dumpster fire of a company led by a terrible person who is actively hostile towards my coworkers and our customers. So, I’ve been looking for a new role to get out ASAP.

Some challenging factors: the market is tough right now and I don’t get as many interviews as I feel I should, SWE interviews remain extremely stupid, and occasionally my brain just shuts off during interviews despite practicing it a million times. So getting an offer isn’t a breeze.

The question I’m wrestling with is should I join another company whose product I’m very skeptical of? It has market traction and many of you may have heard of it, but it’s not very compelling and it’s in the blighted world of social media (which I largely don’t use). My fear is that a bad product may necessarily mean a bad company. The confusion for me is that every single person I’ve interviewed has been incredibly down to earth and genuinely fun to talk to. They all claim to respect work-life balance (it’s remote too) and it doesn’t seem like lip service; they pay very well too. The opportunity to learn skills I can’t learn in many jobs seems compelling.

The role itself is the title I want, but the focus I’m not wild about. It’s a bit more user growth focused than I’d typically want. The problem is my current job is wrecking my mental health and I’m desperate to get out.

I’m interviewing with two other companies with better missions I’d much prefer to work for but both are dragging their feet and lower pay; one pays pretty terrible. I’m rapidly approaching a point where I will likely have a single offer in hand with no guarantee that others will manifest.

Any thoughts or guidance on how to navigate this? I want to approach this as “a job is just a job” and clock in and clock out, but I’ve seen at my current role that is not possible as I carry the stress and despair into my free time. I desperately don’t want to join another toxic company, but I don’t want to use that as an excuse to stunt my career growth either.

Hey all, I'm just curious what bands or songs you keep in rotation for your kids. I usually split this question into two lists: one that is for songs specifically geared towards kids or otherwise your kid loves to hear, and another for songs that are somehow enhanced in the context of your children (and example for me is Perfect Day from Lou Reed).

If you want to give any additional context to your answers, great-- but not required. That might be approx age or the decade you had kids, or some story about it. And yes, many kids just listen to whatever stuff the parents would normally listen to, including mine, that is normal, but not really the question here.

I'll start with one and come back later with more:

Kid: Okee Dokee Brothers
Me: Perfect Day - Lou Reed

this past summer, I started biking quite a bit and part of my route involves lots of hills and so forth. It was painful af the first few months, not gonna lie.

although, now, my legs muscles have grown quite a bit (didn't expect that) and I am quite happy with my muscular endurance, although there is still room for improvement obviously.

However, oddly as it sounds, my breathing is still off. As I bike up the hill, I feel heartbeat go up quite a bit and my breathing becomes quite laborious and I wind up taking quick breaths with my mouth aka panting. If I try to do it through my nose, I quickly feel like I am suffocating like I can't get enough air.

In the beginning, this made sense. I was out of shape and all that.

But summer is over, my legs have adapted but I feel like my breathing hasn't. when I am going up a hill, I still feel the need to pant and breathe through my mouth and take short breaths.

Is this normal? that I would have to pant even after 3-4 months of this kind of exercise everyday. I figured my lungs or whatever would get used to the biking route I am taking by this time.

I don't often watch news programs that talk about polls. but when I do, I always hate that they say "40% of Canadian|Americans say ___" or "60% of Canadians|Americans prefer ____"

Polling is such a mis-used technique of getting public opinion. The media/news want to pretend that its this very precise way of getting to know the electorate and it's just not. It's one tool that can help you if you already have other means of getting in touch with the people.

And I know the news/talk shows knows this, but I think their wording intentionally does not reflect it cause they rather bring on pundits to discuss the poll results and use that to take up airtime. Really wish they would change their wording to "40% of Canadians|American who responded to the poll say ____" every time they bring up a poll result, and then each time they do that, I feel like they're also ethically responsible to provide people with an easy to remember link to a website that elaborates on the methodology used for the polling that is broken down in a way that is easy for lay-people to understand for people who care/have time for that.

Although personally, in my ideal world, poll results would not be publicly available and would be known just by the campaigns of the politicians they involve but :shrug:

Cause maybe this is just my skewed perspective but I am the only one I know in my social circle that answers calls from unknown numbers that half the time turn out to be pollsters and I actually take the time to answer their questions. I don't know of anyone else in my social circle that does this and I am in my thirties. So I get the feeling these pollsters just are not capturing a major part of the population and they don't want to admit that.

The big one seems to be the inability to buy a mainstream device with a Linux distribution preinstalled. The few options I know of are niche devices or sometimes single models usually marketed as dev devices. It is also near impossible to even find something without any os installed. Even manufacturer like Framework doesn't offer Linux preinstalled laptops or even just fully assembled ones but without os.

Lacking third party software and hardware support. This is a very real problem and something that can make Linux unviable for specific use cases but also something that will never resolve without higher adoption in personal computing, my guess is at tenth of marketshare we would start seeing it being treated as a serious option. It is amazing that something like wine exists and how well it works but it still can't do everything and it is worse than native support. Similarly not many people are willing to even consider VMs or dual booting for specific workflows that need Windows.

Fragmentation of distros and ways to do things but with standard recommended beginner distros this seems to me more of a perception then a clear problem for most use cases for majority users who would theoretically migrate.

A fallacy where people value a thing perceived to be free less also seems to play a role along with public perception of Linux and its users. Slogans such as Linux is only free if you don't value your time which is ironically IMO more true of Windows these days with the cost usually part of the price of the device and not really perceived or considered by the average buyer.

This seems similar to the usual jokes about vegans and other ill formed perceptions. My guess is that it is the result of people plain ignoring things that have potentional to be uncomfortable along with those with niche opinions being more likely to have considered them and to have strong reasons to hold them along with wanting to at least tell people what they are.

I am just plain ignoring Mac here to be more concise and because I have zero experience with them.

Peruse this relevant meme. It depicts the magical transformation that occurs at the moment one taps the Android build number for the seventh and final time, as the arcane ritual transforms one from a chill dude in a business suit into that powerful, shadowy figure known only as "a developer".

It's a joke, obviously, but only half a joke. The "You are now a developer!" message that the developers at Google programmed your phone to display, when it grants you this set of powers that Google permitted them to program it to grant you, is doing something in the model of the world that its authors live in.

"Developer mode" isn't just for Android. The browser you are reading this in has a little panel you can open to inspect or adjust the content of the page. It's useful for things like composing humorous screenshots, deleting annoying ads, and downloading images and videos, but it's called the "Developer Tools", a set of tools defined not by what they do but by who they are intended or imagined to be doing it for. Discord has not only a "developer mode" that lets you get the permanent identifiers for messages, but also additional developer-exclusive functions that are activated by enabling the Electron developer tools and injecting code to set the isDeveloper flag. Windows has a Developer Mode. ChatGPT ~got one for some reason~ has a popular jailbreak based around convincing it that it has one. This notion that a special class of people called "developers" exist, and that they must or should be afforded extra power in our society's digital spaces, is woven into the structure of the digital environment.

Why is it like this? Big Tech doesn't give any power for free. Is it something their labor force of developers demands to be able to grant to their counterparts outside the company? Is it a Ballmer-Doctorow gambit of courting programmers as potential business customers by temporarily empowering them, before they start putting up the prices on the code signing certificates? Is it to distract and mollify hackers, to keep them from seizing similar powers in a more destabilizing way?

Is there any truth to the notion that "developers", independent of whether or not they are currently testing or programming something, are a class with different needs and rights from normal humans?

Any interest in forming an investment club?

We would meet regularly (TBD), learn techniques from each other, pass on knowledge and experience, and present our individual analysis.

The chair would keep people on track in between meetings, encouraging the hard work of spending your own time researching duds in the hopes that one of us finds a potential gem for us all to enjoy.

Theoretically, we would want to research company stocks that are easy for all to buy, so I would be interested in a group based upon major US indices. However, this thread could potentially be used by others to form their own group buying from other markets.

Edit: alright, I'm sending direct messages to those who expressed interest in wanting to contribute. Those who expressed interest in learning will potentially be able to learn with however the group decides to communicate to Tildes.

If you are interested in participating, you can leave a comment here or send me a message for now. Thanks!

Hi all,

I've got (probably) a few thousand family photographs that I plan on scanning/digitizing. These photographs are organized into dozens or hundreds of envelopes with month/year and sometimes event description written on them. I'm on the fence between using a service to do it or DIYing it with a scanning machine.

The way I see it is -

Service pros:

1. I don't have to do it myself

Service cons:

1. I may have no control over how the digitized photos are tagged or organized (date tagged, filename)
2. Risk of photographs being lost/damaged
3. $$$$

DIY pros:

1. I can tag and organize the photos exactly how I want
2. Much less expensive

DIY cons:

1. I have little spare time and this project could be extremely time consuming.

I would love to hear if anyone here has experience doing this and what techniques or pitfalls you may have discovered along the way.

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

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

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

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

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

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