Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

A loss
A problem
A struggle
An emotion
Something difficult
Something perplexing
Something that takes a lot of effort
Something that doesn't fit neatly into an easy description

What are you working through, and how is it going?

I'm up for both a new phone and a new laptop, I have an Iphone 8 and a Macbook pro (2020) that was a freebie from an old job.

I wanted a new Iphone, but if I did that, only a Macbook can put music on it and that's half what I use my phone for. I don't really need a new laptop, but all of my other devices are Linux and can't put music on an Iphone. So seems like it's either all or nothing here. Either I switch to Android, or I go buy two expensive Apple products soon.

Iphones have always been great to me, the only reason I need a new phone right now is because Apple refuses to support mine any more. The Macbook though, I had that for only a year before the logic board gave out and bricked it. Is that just something that happens with Macbooks? Are all Apple products actually trash and I've just gotten lucky with both Iphone 4s and Iphone 8 being built for war?

Am I dumb for avoiding Android like the plague? Every Android phone I've ever met is loaded with tons of bloatware and insecure as hell, seems like the Windows of the phone world.

This one's a two parter-

I'm traveling to Portland for the week so I have a bit of a plane ride ahead of me. Recommend me some deep dive hour + YouTube videos I can download for the flight! I tend to drift towards science, technology, psychology, and some hank green esque talking heads about whatever.

Also if you have anything in particular you think I should check out in Portland let me know! Particularly interested in the niche spots. Still a bit tentative stuff but mostly plan to do the Tillamook factory, a tea room, PSU Farmers market, and ten falls hike.

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Hey everyone,

I’m currently running Schwalbe G-One Bite 40mm and I’m thinking about moving up to 50mm for a bit more confidence off-road. Where I ride it’s not groomed gravel or proper official well-kept MTB trails, just typical unmaintained forest trails: holes, roots, loose rocks everywhere, some of them golf-ball sized. On descents, it feels pretty sketchy with the 40s.

The problem is, I don’t have long stretches of continuous/unbroken nature. It’s more like short nature pockets in between civilization so, I still need to transverse a few roads (tarmac and cobbles). So I’m trying to find something that’s still reasonably fast rolling on road. I was hoping to find something up to 20 watts of rolling resistance. I think I saw somewhere that my tires are around 25 watts, so some improvement in this area would also be nice.

I started investigating tires on bicyclerollingresistance.com website and started looking at measured knob height (center and edge), trying to pick something with more bite than what I have now. But the more I read, the more I see people saying knob height alone doesn’t mean much and tread pattern matters more. At this point I’m not even sure what I should be looking for.

These are the ones I’ve selected for the moment:

• Schwalbe G-One R Pro 50
• Schwalbe G-One RX Pro 50
• Schwalbe G-One Overland Super Ground SpeedGrip 50

Alternatives slightly above 20 watts:

• Continental Race King Performance ShieldWall 50
• Pirelli Gravel M (tested in 45mm, but there’s a 50mm version too; hopefully they perform similarly)

Maybe other brands or models I should be considering that aren’t on BRR?

But honestly… I don’t really know what I’m doing. I started by filtering by wattage and knob height, but it seems the tread design or compounds are even more important.

So, in conclusion, what I’m after is:

• More confidence on rough, loose forest descents (I'm not doing jumps. Let's say, more like XC)
• 50mm volume
• Still decent on road sections
• Not feeling like I’m dragging an anchor on pavement

If anyone has experience with these in real, messy forest conditions (not nice smooth gravel), I’d appreciate some advice and recommendations. What should I actually be looking at when choosing?

Thanks in advance!

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

Racing Lagoon

Versions: The only official release was the release of PlayStation 1 disc version in Japan.

Platforms: PlayStation

Genre(s): Racing/Driving, Role-playing

Links: Mobygames, Wikipedia

Stores:

• Regrettably, there is no modern digital distribution for this game, so as much as I hate to say it, we're all on our own acquiring it. It should be noted that a fan translation exists, for which the patch is available here (it's a patreon link, but it's not paywalled), but as usual for translations released in patch format, you will still need to acquire your own copy of the game to patch.

Game Setup

The main purpose of this topic is to get people up and running with the game. As such, it's recommended that you:

• Share which version of the game you're playing
• Share what hardware you're playing it on
• Share if there are any tools/mods that you recommend
• Share anything you think is important for people to know before they start the game
• Ask questions if you need help

Another purpose of this topic is to revisit the game and its time period:

• Do you have any memories or associations with this game itself?
• What about its system or era?
• What aspects of retro gaming were common at the time?
• What other games from the same time period are you familiar with?
• What are you expecting from this game in particular?

Finally, this topic is the beginning discussion for people starting to play it:

• Post updates sharing your thoughts as you play.
• Ask for help if you get stuck.
• Offer help to others.

It is recommended that you reply to your own posts if you are making consecutive updates so that they are in the same thread.

Important

• Any links to the game should be legal distributions of the game only. Please do NOT link to any unauthorized copies.

• Put any spoilers in a dropdown block. Copy/paste the block below if needed.

<details>
<summary>Spoilers</summary>
 
Spoiler text goes here.
</details>

FAQ

I typically don't play these kind of games, the few times I've played Souls games, I found issues I had with every game I've played more or less, I've tried Demon Souls around the time where Dark Souls was a thing on PS3, it didn't take too long to get used to the general idea and flow of the game, slowish/sluggish controls on purpose, overall being very difficult, parrying being something that could make or break battles, healing items are consumables that you need to farm, dying makes you lose souls, EXP is the currency, etc.

It's been so long since I've played it, but I recall it being an interesting enough experience to stick around for a little bit, Bolterian Palace being somewhat memorable from the first 2 zones or so including the first area, but I absolutely did not finish it.
I've played the first part of the game by myself, but ended up watching my friends play it more than I did play it, so I ended up knowing that Shrine of Storms has that weapon that makes farming souls super easy, I ended up going there.
Then I encountered the rolling skeletons, I don't think I was aware at the time that Turpentine is how you fight them ,so I had miserable experience there, I think at the end I got tired of it that I ended up just quitting the game to reload to not lose my souls and halve my HP, which in hindsight, I didn't know that. you take half damage as a soul(iirc) at the time and compounded with the PS3's insanely long loading times, which eventually made me to simply quit and never return to it, not having shortcuts also doesn't help, killing the same mobs over and over just to try fighting a boss once isn't fun.

I've not played Dark Souls 1 or 2 myself, so I have nothing to say aside from that I've seen my friends play PvP a lot in DS2, and that Bed of Chaos apparently is a rushed boss by the devs to complete the game, and it shows.

Despite what the title may imply, I did play Bloodborne a little bit, I did get to the first boss(Father Cosguine?) and getting a parry on him was one of those memorable moments for me playing the game, but phase 2 happened, and I'm going to blame the camera or locking-on for my death because 3D games from that era had dogshit cameras.
I have also seen some of my friends play the game, and the weapons BB has looked so fun, of note is the Chikage, which I wanted to use when I played BB, but apparently it's not a good weapon to get on your first run of the game.

Might be worth noting that I gave Little Witch Nobeta a try to see how non Fromsoft Souls-likes are like, I also didn't really go back to it after defeating the first boss.

Then a year or two ago I decided to give Elden Ring a go, being pushed to it by an irl friend.
I rarely get a game and go "Wow I regret buying this", but ER was exactly that.
As usual, I did see a friend stream it in discord or play it while I'm at their house, so it's not that I didn't know what I was into, but I assumed it would be similar to my previous experience with souls games.
 
I picked up a Sorcerer, so my spells are barely better than hitting things with bare fists, my melee weapon is adequate at best, and my base stats were sort of gimped, I leveled up Intelligence to make my spells do more damage and for mobs, they are ok. I leveled up Dexterity as my main source of damage and that was... ok enough, at first.
 
I didn't get to Margit until a couple of hours in, I was wandering around and activating Lost Graces, just to avoid combat.
When I got to Margit, I died a lot but I did have some fun, it didn't feel unfair as much as it felt like my weapon limiting me and my spells barely tickling the boss.
Similar to how my previous Souls attempts went, I stopped playing, until one day I did accept my friends assisting me with the game instead of trying to do everything solo, and we felled Margit but with minimal intervention from my friends, we then got to Godrick and I don't remember much aside from the stairs and the stupid hitboxes.
After Godrick though, my lack of damage was even more apparent in the overworld areas after him, I can't really pick most battles in the world by myself because almost everything there is a group of enemies that notice you when you start attacking one of their group.
They handed me these souls giving item to level up my stats but despite leveling up a fair bit, my damage still felt pitiful and I didn't want to over level. When we called it a day that day, I never really returned to Elden Ring and I don't plan to, I "got" Souls games even less after that. Nightreign however seems to be a much more interesting game in general.
I think you'd need to be a big fan of Dark Souls in the first place to even find fun with ER.
 
This leads us to the past week or two where the same friend that got me to buy ER convinced me to play Dark Souls 3 with seamless co-op in memory of a recently deceased friend who has played the PC Souls games except DS3.
 
And I'm having fun, for change? I'm getting, guided, sure, and I'm not having the full experience by hitting the noob traps, and the bosses seem to get mowed down by playing with more experienced players.
Maybe it's a change in mindset, or maybe I'd only enjoy Souls games co-op.
My issue with DS3 however, is that everything looks the same to me, as in I'd get lost very easily because of how similar everything looks, which is in contrast of what I remember Demon Souls being like.
Not having a map of sorts makes me it difficult to navigate areas in games like these.
 
 

Given my struggles with the other Souls games, the fact that I really like what I've seen from BB's gameplay, the weapons, the fact that you can parry at range, what I've read of the story and lore that makes it very compelling. Are there any tips or ways that I can change my perspective so that when/if I undust my PS4 and my friend's copy of BB, I can have fun? I get that I don't need to like Souls games, but this feels like it'd be my best shot.
 
I don't intend to play it co-op because of both wanting the "full experience" and my PS4 can be modded on its current firmware.

I occasionally watch some travel videos and lately I've been getting a lot of videos of middle east countries on YouTube, I'm just curious why. I know there have been some new developments like the shebara resort and Ain Dubai. but is that the only reason?

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

Happy February readers. This month we are reading The Truth by Terry Pratchett. This one focuses on the newspaper business of Ankh Morpork and Pratchett himself had worked as a journalist.

Have you found the book? Have you started? Do you plan to join us this month?

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

My G502s are starting to exhibit the dreaded double-click problem. Now they're old -- I think one is around 10yrs old, the other 6-7yrs old -- so I've gotten solid use out of both. And G502s are cheap enough these days (like US$35 on Amazon) that it'd be inexpensive to replace them with new G502s.

But I'm still annoyed that this is happening. Plus, this isn't my first time having problems with Logitech gaming peripherals. I've had issues with my G305 wireless mouse (dongle stopped working), and I will never buy Logitech gaming keyboards again since replacement keycaps can't be purchased; gotta buy a whole new keyboard. So yeah, trying to avoid Logitech if possible.

Anyway, I like the G502 because it has multiple buttons, particularly the main thumb button (G6), which I use for PTT on Discord/Teamspeak. I then use the other two thumb buttons (G4/G5) as forward/back in browsers or game bindings (along with G7/G8).

Any good alternatives? Let's say ≤US$80. Preference is wired, but non-BT wireless is fine, too. If wireless, ideally it'd AA/AAA batteries so I can quickly swap rechargeable batteries. Lastly, I'm right-handed.

TIA!