Got myself a yoyo for the first time since a kid. Finally after a week i was able to bind consistently. Still a bit choppy but I’m just glad i understand the mechanics

www.recessintl.com

Throwing the Featherspin Osprey around a bit today.

A yoyo built to feel different.

Newb here, just showing some progress…time to work on a flow and momentum

There are so many threads about podcasts decreasing in quality after a certain amount of time, especially ones that used to be great. But I think it’s valuable to talk about podcasts with long backlogs that are just as good as ever, if not better.

The two I would say still shine for me are “Criminal” and “Savage Lovecast.” Every time a new episode is released, I know I’m in for a good listen. “Criminal” is so well-produced and wide-ranging in its stories, and “Savage Lovecast,” despite being one of the oldest podcasts out there, is still so fresh; I feel like every time I listen I learn something new.

What do you think?

As title says, if you could only suggest one podcast for others to listen to for the rest of your life, what would you choose? Feel free to explain why if you would like!

I’m cleaning up my podcast subscriptions, and shaking my head a few times at some things I was following, just because the quality decreased so notably from when I first subscribed. Anyone experience similar?

I need a podcast series or single episodes that are joyful, fascinating (in a good way), moving, fun to distract me from my depression thoughts until I get better. Any suggestions? Absolutely nothing weird or dark like murder! Thanks!

Recently on AskReddit people were talking about the highjackers living in the US for a year before September 11th. I honestly had no idea about this, and really want to deep dive into knowing more. I was a kid at the time, so I wasn’t able to understand what was happening. There is SO much information out there and I’m overwhelmed on where to start.

I have listened to the 5 part series on This Is Actually Happening and it was really well done!

I am not looking for conspiracy theories or comedy podcasts. I want real facts from people who actually care about the survivors.

Edit: Thank you so much for the interaction on this post. I have a long list to get through now! I started Long Shadow today and it has been great so far.

Edit: I’d also love philosophy, sociology, and religion!

Before I start, please be kind. I’m insecure as is about this topic, and I’m trying to make changes.

I was born and raised and still live in the US. I am one of the many who was failed by the American education system. My lack of retention was probably also influenced by undiagnosed mental health and neurodivergency, as well as a tumultuous home life and the fact I dealt with bullying at school. I consider myself pretty intelligent, but I could not tell you any of the basics about the topics listed in the title.

When did Columbus “discover” America? No clue. How many countries are in Africa? Nothing. What did the Cold War entail? I know a concept called the Iron Curtain existed and that’s about it. How is the American local, state, and federal government structured? Dude, I just vote straight for my particular party and leave the booth.

This is a part of myself that I really don’t like, and I want to take steps to remedy …

Can y’all suggest me a book that’ll traumatize me for the rest of my life? Like an absolutely nerve wrekking book. No limits, smth that’ll crush my soul.

Thank you 😇

Edit : thank you sm to everyone who suggested me the books! I’ll give every suggested book that I haven’t read yet, a try. Starting my next read with ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy. Thanks again for all the suggestions!

I want a book that makes absolutely zero sense. One scene the main character is chilling, the other they’re floating in a weird pink dimension while talking to a glowing orb of light, the next they’re face to face with a stone archway too big for reality, with a lush jungle behind it. Just absolute craziness, like a fever dream, and yet the book is beautifully well written. Is there anything like this out there?

I teach 9th grade at an all-girls school. Each year I make a list of YA novels they can choose from for an independent reading assignment. They typically love this assignment.

I’m looking for 3-4 YA novels, around 250-350ish pages, that follow a female teenage protagonist. I like picking books that they’d more likely encounter on their own, but still have strong literary merit and powerful themes.

I’m definitely going to include Piecing Me Together (Renee Watson.) Looking for similar vibes, but the books don’t all have to be realistic fiction. I like to include at least one dystopian or fantasy novel.

Novels can reference some more-mature topics like sex & drugs/alcohol, but not too heavily by any means. Should be appropriate for 14-15 year olds. Romance/love interests are okay, but I kind of love that Piecing Me Together has no love interests whatsoever!

In the past, I’ve used Speak (Laurie Halse Anderson), The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), I’m Not Your Perfect Mexican …

I’ve heard Andy Weir’s ‘Project Hail Mary’ described as competency porn, and I quite like that term. I really enjoyed the book.

I’m wondering what other books out there are like this? Books that give an insight into someone’s process - someone who is very capable. Ideally the reader feels a bit like they’re becoming a bit smarter or at least learning about something as a result.

TIA!

Hey everyone! Sometime in the future, I’d like to do a US road trip in a Travels with Charley style, partaking in local culture, food, etc. It made me think how interesting it would be to read a great novel set in each US state. I went through my read books list from the last few years and selected ones that stuck with me and assigned them to the states they are set in, but have a lot of blanks.

Can everyone here offer me some suggestions for the blank states? I primarily enjoy character driven fiction and literature. I’m also open to suggestions for states I’ve already checked off. I’m happy to compile a complete list and share after I’ve completed it.

Thanks!

Alabama

Alaska

Arizona: The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Arkansas

California: East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Colorado

Connecticut

Delaware

Florida: Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Georgia: Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell Hawaii

Idaho

Illinois: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray …

So I just finished *My Year of Rest and Relaxation* and I’m still reeling. It’s not a book—it’s like a really good fever dream. I’ve been on this weird kick of reading protagonists who are emotionally… disengaged. Think of the woman in *Convenience Store Woman* who’s content being the most unremarkable person in a convenience store, or Esther in *The Bell Jar* quietly unraveling while everyone else seems to be moving forward. I’m looking for more stories like these—books where the main character isn’t necessarily sad, but also not *with it*. They’re just… there. Living in their own head, making strange choices to survive the noise. If you’ve read something that feels like a quiet scream buried in a diary, I need it.

Problem I have with a lot of games morality systems is that they often have the evil path feel disconnected from the story, where you choose to be evil for fun, when most compelling stories I’ve found with evil characters are ones where the character thought they were making the tough choices to save more people.

I haven’t played frostpunk but from what I know it’s a good example, where you know it’s bad to force the children to work to near death, but the alternative is just hoping that people don’t freeze to death because the work didn’t get done.

As a counter to this baldurs gate 3 does have a story based evil path, but the actual evil choices are really tough to justify compared to the good path that’s right there. Other than the character specific act 3 stuff, every other evil option is trying to ally yourself with people you know are going to turn on you the moment they realize who you are, meaning you aren’t even making self …

One genre exception: Diablo-like ARPGs. That’s not archery, that is a twin stick shooter. Beyond that, anything goes from BG3 style turn based combat to Assassin’s Creed open world stuff. I always wanted to be an archer stealthy assassin with a giant longbow in Odyssey but the stupid bullet sponge game design made it impossible (unless I Sniper 2 style follow the arrow in the air, which sucks because it moves the camera away from a cool stance with my character pulling back the string). I dont want other partymembers to bother with.

Twelve Minutes had, uh, issues, but it’s the best example I can think of. you could be like, “OK, my wife is going to arrive and give me cake from the fridge–but what if I immediately sprinted to the fridge, took the cake, and threw it in the trash before she got here?” she would say, “I got you something” and open the fridge, then be confused, then be angrily confused when she saw the cake in the trash. or you can go straight for the cake and start eating it, and when she walks in she’ll be like “uh… rude.”

the game is brilliant at anticipating everything the player can do within its narrow scope, even things that make zero sense, and it’s hilarious. what other games are like that?

GTA, battlefield, cyberpunk, cod, even kcd, all have vehicles and they all make it feel like you’re not actually piloting/driving them, you are the vehicle. hold W to move forward with a car the same way you’d on foot, but faster.

need a game that makes it less like that. flight sims are the first that come to mind but there’s not much gameplay beyond just flying. a perfect example would be the sub in iron lung

In my opinion, its probably HAAK, the game is about the guy thats trying to find his brother in runes, and on his way he finds new weapons, upgrades them, fight enemies and unlocks new maps. It has NPCs that give u quests or you just talk to them. Game has secret endings and it forces you to think hard because of the amount of quests.

Saw this from someone on IG and modified it to get the attention of the user who stole it found my iPhone.

Gets their attention then takes their picture gets their location and send it to people you choose.

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/6eb7e095a691431294cf37b3576eab77

It all began with a simple idea. I had created a small “In-car Announcement” shortcut and automation, something I put together to make my drives a little smarter and more fun. Excited by how well it worked, I decided to share it with the community. I posted it online, never imagining the journey it was about to take.

At first, the response trickled in slowly. A few Redditors tried it out and left positive comments. But soon, the post began to gain momentum. People not only started using the shortcut but also began creating their own versions, taking inspiration from my original idea. Some of these new automations were far more advanced and creative than mine, and I couldn’t help but feel proud to have sparked such innovation. It was like watching a small seed grow into an entire garden of possibilities.

Then, something truly surprising happened. One day, I noticed my distant neighbour—someone who has never been on Reddit—using the exact same shortcut in his brand-new car. I could …

I built a thing this weekend and wanted to share. I got inspired by Tim Urban’s “Your Life in Weeks”: (highly recommend!)

I turned it into a minimalist life-calendar wallpaper that updates weekly.

Setup right now (video https://imgur.com/WaeeYmw ):

• Easiest: go to weeklydots.com → it allows to generate a unique token + gives you a shortcut link
• If you don’t want to use the website: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/eb26845644bc47158a4a5305a7ff98cb + use example token: reddit

Important: Your current wallpaper needs to be simple photo for the shortcut to work. It’s painful limitation of Shortcuts, not much I can do with that

The shortcut itself is simple, but the setup still takes a few manual steps - you can see them on the video.

Any feedback is welcome, thanks!

Prerequisite: - Set alarm with label “work” and set to repeat every weekday (or whenever you work) - For the first step, you need to select the calendar that’s your country’s holiday, you can get that from apple calendar if you don’t have that already.

The logic is pretty simple, it gets the next public holiday and check if it is today. If yes, find alarm labeled work and turn off, otherwise turn on.

I set it to run in automation daily at 0:01.

Just wanted to share in case anyone needs this :)

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/d4f4e0a7bf0e46d8a19ca5479bcf0b75

I made a shortcut that will randomly play a Minecraft villager noise when clicked.

I encoded .mp3 files for each sound in Base64, then added the text to a Dictionary. Then a random number will pull the value from the dictionary. The text value is then decoded using Base64 and played as a .mp3.

The best part is I can share this fully working app with anyone as the files are saved in the Shortcut. Feel free to add the shortcut using the link. https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/39c2bd54a7b848aa86f9f95941b2b225

PS - add it to your Home Screen.

TL;DR: I built a CarPlay Shortcut that plays in-flight style car announcements - but with a proper pilot-like voice(ElevenLabs) and dynamic, context-aware text (Gemini). It checks if you’re on a call and, if so, shows a single-line status instead of speaking. This can be done on free tiers (you’ll just need your own API keys). And yes, ChatGPT helped me write this post, because English is not my main language and it is much easier to read this way.

Showcase video uploaded on YouTube: https://youtu.be/WEiz62oC-K8 (Screenshots at the bottom):

Inspiration (credit)

This started from an awesome Reddit post by u/Fantastic-Yard-5665:

https://www.reddit.com/r/shortcuts/comments/1pl0wur/car_announcementslike_the_ones_inflight/

Their Shortcut was a great idea, but it depended on the Claude app and the voice didn’t really feel like “captain over the PA”. So I rebuilt the concept with a different pipeline that’s been more reliable for me and makes the audio feel much more like a real aircraft …