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?

Inspired by the really serious topic what's your line I wonder what "lines" you have for small talk, ice breakers or to just pass some time.

My favourite "line" is:

What do you think about raisins?

or (replying to things like "what do you do for a living?"):

Eh, that's not really interesting, but what do you think about raisins?

I like it because it's quite dumb, but lots of people of all ages have some experience with and opinion about raisins so it is easy to talk about.

And with some luck you get plunged into a heated debate about raisins as candy substitute, raisins in bread or even hot raisins in food!

Tildos, I have a problem.

So, my wife is a huge film buff. However, there is one movie that she had repeatedly rented from Hollywood Video sometime in the early 00's that she has been unable to recall or find, despite all advances in search engine technology.

This would be filed under the 'formative pre/early teen latchkey girl sexual awakening' moments. So she can't really remember much beyond the favorite sex scene, and even then details are scarce. Can crowdsourcing solve what 15+ years of searching has not?

Fragments discovered so far list:

• Not pornography. Probably legitimate film, not skinemax.
• Scifi/fantasy of some sort. Costumes described as "waterworldesq, but not waterworld."
• Scene probably takes place in a desert
• She is sleeping with some other dude's friend
• Missionary. He's loud, and at one point she bites his nipple.

I know. Not much to go one, especially since almost all remembered details highly overlap with porn results.

Other films that have already been well worn by this point:

• Tank Girl
• Waterworld
• The Fifth Element
• Barbarella

Edit: After 2 weeks, @myrrh solves our mystery

Not necessarily new, could be old but you simply haven't watched before.

Simply curious about everyone's habits. Like for me, I know about the dedicated databases but in practice, I just stumble upon whatever the algorithm decides to show and if the art looks eye-catching I'll give it a shot.

(inspired by a deleted post. I'll respect the user and just make this a generic topic.)

What was the hardest part about growing up into an independent adult for you? Was there some advice or mental Eureka! moment that gave you a big boost?

Affordability and employment are at a crisis level for our youth these days. Want to share some hardships you experienced, or big hurdle you had to navigate out of, as a way to encourage others that things will get better?

Linux has certainly come a long way, but it's also got room to grow.

• What are the things that are current issues with Linux for you? Annoyances, incompatibilities, lack of polish, etc.
• Also, if you're willing, share your level of experience with Linux (e.g. newbie, seasoned veteran, etc.). (I imagine those new to the OS will have very different pain points than people who have been using it for 20+ years).

Importantly, I ask this NOT to have people dunk on Linux or to start arguments about different aspects of it, but I do so to start a conversation about what could be better/smoother/easier. I love Linux and love that it just keeps getting better, day after day and year after year. The idea of highlighting where it could continue to grow in the future is exciting to me.

When do you decide you can no longer ethically work somewhere?
What would be your line?
Would your ability to do harm reduction or meaningfully change the situation make a difference in your decision?

Have you acted on these stances before?

I got a kiosk for two days at my school last week to present my ideas to college students to gauge interest. 16 people said they'd be interested. There's even a teacher that'd want to be involved, he teaches a game programming course. There's also a university club nearby that wants to team up. (Also mid to long term, I'm in Quebec City so I could contact the many local studios around the campus.)

I wonder what the people of Tildes expect when they hear about a video game creation club. Have you been in one before?

I wrote myself a brainstorm document, here are the general ideas:

• Every field of study is welcome. Game projects are great for multidisciplinary groups, and people can also do stuff outside their field of study.
• General roles (someone could have many): project lead, game designer, gameplay programmer, systems and tools programmer, art director, 2D/3D/animation artist, UI/UX, composer, sound designer, writer, QA, voice actor, etc.
• Around 2 hours together per week, meeting in either a classroom or a club location if we get one.
• Would be nice if people shared what they learned during the week at each session.
• Game jam orientation? A college semester lasts 15 weeks. We could pick a theme at the start to drive the game ideas we want to do. Scope control is really important.
• Building a portfolio should be a main goal.
• Do we allow people from outside the club to come hang out? There are probably solo people working on their own games.
• How to handle intellectual property? Should we eventually try to sell games for the club finances? I guess we should at least be allowed to use the games for club marketing.
• If we do console games, we'd need an NDA. Not sure a club can even get console dev access, though we could probably work with a third party for that.
• Some nice stuff: the school has a recording booth we could record voices in. We might also have access to the school's servers if we get the proper approvals.
• We could demo the games in the school's public spaces to get feedback.
• The club could have a website, itch.io page, Discord.
• How to train people who have never made a game before?

Did I overthink this or forget about important details?

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

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

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

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

All previous Save Point topics

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

The Reboot!

I used to run a series of "Screenless Day" monthly posts that were aimed at nudging people to put a short pause on the toxic aspects of tech in their life. They never got much traction, but it was also hard to tell if people were participating because they wouldn't necessarily be here commenting on it and would instead be, you know, off doing other things.

There has been some renewed interest in the idea recently, so I decided to reboot the series and see how it goes now (especially because the wider tech landscape is arguably worse than it was back when I first started them).

The spirit of Screenless Day remains the same as it always has been:

a simple event aimed at encouraging people to take a temporary step away from toxic or consuming aspects of technology and spend their time and energies elsewhere

Anyone can choose to take a Screenless Day at any time, but the idea is to nudge people towards doing it over the first weekend of the month. Each new discussion topic will go live on the first Friday of the month, and it will remain open for the duration of the month.

It is strongly encouraged that you talk about your Screenless Day here, as part of the fun of the event is that, even though you might be doing something independently, your actions fit into a larger community picture of other people here sharing the same values.

Also, to promote both reflection and discussion on the goals of Screenless Day, each month I will be including a new discussion question to provide people the opportunity to reflect on their relationship with technology and keep the topic more “alive” and visible.

This Month

In addition to the once again regularly scheduled Screenless Day, there are a couple of housekeeping things for our first month back:

1. Building a notification list.

I will be building a notification list to be pinged each time a monthly Screenless Day topic goes up. Anyone commenting in this topic will be included by default. If you do NOT want to be included in the list, please let me know in your comment.

2. Changing the name?

"Screenless Day" can be a bit misleading (see the FAQ below), so I'm open to other name ideas. Everything I can come up with tends to sound negative however (e.g. "Pause Toxic Tech" day or something), and I want the name to be a simple but positive one.

Monthly Discussion

Use this topic to:

1. Talk about your plans for an upcoming Screenless Day.
2. Tell everyone what you chose to do for your Screenless Day, and how it went.
3. Reflect on your relationship with technology.

This month's discussion question:

• Of all the tech you use in your life, what platform/app/device/etc do you feel has the most overall negative impact on you? Why do you think that is?

FAQ

Bureaucratic nonsense; a glaring inefficiency; “that’s just how we do things here”; etc.

Whatever it is, it’s absurd, but you’re also powerless to do anything about it and just have to live with it.

Tell us all about it.

Note: “workplace” can refer to career, school, home — wherever you do work in the face of absurdity

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.

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.

Moving right along myself.

Links with more information for anyone undecided: LibraryThing:StoryGraph

Content Warnings based on user submissions from StoryGraph.

Plot summary of the previous work in the series (From Russia, with Love) from Wikipedia.

Asked in ~comp thread, figured it should be its own post.

Thinking about whether I want to do some upgrades to my 10 year old PC or buy new. I could bump RAM to 16 without breaking the bank since its DDR4, and maybe splurge on a new processor, but I'm not sure if I'd just want to go with a new machine at that point, thoughts?

AMD Ryzen 3 1300
8.00GB Dual-Channel DDR4
MSI B350M PRO-VD PLUS
4GB ATI Radeon RX 480

Edit: To follow up some questions about what I'm using this computer for, not a whole lot at the moment. I was thinking of making it into a media server or a Steam OS console now that it's available to download, but it's more of a whim and a project itch to keep my mind off of personal and global events.

Edit 2: I did pick up a AMD Ryzen 5 5500 for $75 and 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 3200 from Corsair for $115 from Newegg. I'll roll the die and see if it works out. Thanks for the help!

Italian Grand Prix
Autodromo Nazionale Monza
September 4-6, 2026

Next race:
Spanish Grand Prix
Madring
September 11-13, 2026

Before your time = you weren't old enough to otherwise follow the zeitgeist at the time the show was made. If you grew up watching reruns of The Honeymooners with your grandparents or something, that still counts.

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?

This is the eighth Tildes Book Club Discussion for 2026 and the twenty-eighth overall. We are discussing Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki. At the end of September we will discuss Dr. No by Ian Fleming.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.

And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.