What an absolute legend.

I picked up a pair of loopers during COVID. Fountain was the trick that sold me on 2A. It took me a year to land it and another two-plus to make it consistent. Somewhere in there Wookie Fountain showed up on my radar as the thing I really wanted.

Here’s me in the early days for context. Long road from there to here.

It’s fountain plus cross wrap, and each of those felt like its own boss fight when I was learning them. The cross wrap alone (the hop wookie) took me about 2 years to click and become consistent. Wookie Fountain is what happens when you mash them together. And it’s just genuinely beautiful to watch: one yoyo rising in this elliptical orbit while the other traces a smaller circle following it.

It did not want me back. Not for a long time.

The thing about this trick

You don’t really learn it directly. You build:

• Hops
• Fountain
• Cross arm fountain
• Arm wrap fundamentals, especially the hop wookie (a.k.a. hop cross wrap, a.k.a. cow wrap)

And then …

Your weekly 5a video from me.

… a quickie at the end of a long workday, offered in celebration of Japan National YoYo Day 🇯🇵🪀 … throwing mowl m+, over happy imaeda … both have been deeply inspiring lately …

I have no idea how this’ll be received but my partner is super into this Good Hang podcast that’s been seemingly everywhere recently and won that award last year. I don’t get it, to me it seems like every week the complimentary tone and constant flattery back and forth between Amy and her guests and it just makes me feel like I’m a fly on the wall in a LA cafe listening to LA people “network”. Like I know SNL comedians aren’t exactly the peak of stardom but it’s always people who’ve been friends and cowriters for years and yet I don’t know it feels odd to me.

I mean absolutely no shade towards either the podcast or the people who listen to it. I just don’t get it and was curious about the opinions of others.

On the surface, this sounds like any garden variety pregnancy scam. However, as I’m listening, the perpetrator Laura Owens quite literally sends shivers down my spine. The depths of this woman’s insanity knows no bounds. This podcast is really well done, goes in depth on her multiple victims including a former The Bachelor lead, highlights her patterns, and has high production value with real audio recordings from court proceedings and Laura Owen’s blog. What’s even better is the case is still ongoing, so you can really rabbit hole your way into this one. There’s a subreddit devoted to the story.

Highly recommend Love Trapped!!!

I’m tired of seeing and hearing about all the negativity in life from coworkers, family, news, social media, etc.

What’s are good podcasts that offer an escape from the real world?

Hey everyone!

I’m trying to find a new binge worthy podcast! my absolute favorite podcast is Maintenance Phase, not just for the topic but the chemistry between the hosts.

I enjoy podcasts where the hosts are both extremely knowledgeable and fun. I am not interested in podcasts that discuss relationships or hosts that don’t have any special knowledge about the topic they’re discussing.

I enjoy taking deep dives into most topics, especially things I would never think to research.

give me your best recs for multi-host podcasts where the hosts do their research! (no murder please!)

thank you podcast people!

Update: I was NOT expecting so many quality recommendations, thank you all!! Cannot wait for work tomorrow to crack into some of these!

I made a post like this last year for the best of 2025, but most of the responses focused on recent episodes because people couldn’t remember the whole year. One of the most upvoted comments on that thread was:

this should really be an annual thread/poll - it’s hard to find as much info on specific episodes By u/miketunes So, I’ve decided to make this a quarterly thread.

Please mention specific episodes only, not entire podcasts.

Just an appreciation post for this sub. I have listened to so many podcasts i had never heard of. Now hooked on both What Went Wrong and Just The Gist

My 18 year old brother got sentenced for murder last year and he recently started asking for philosophy books. I want to be careful with this because i know some philosophical ideologies could be a bad influence to him given where he’s at. Any ideas?

Edit: I ACTUALLY DIDNT SEE HOW MUCH REPLIES I GOT UNTIL NOW WOW. THANKS SO MUCH EVERYONE

This is a little bit of an exaggeration. However, it’s true that books don’t make me cry much. I’m an absolute bookworm and I don’t know why. Does anybody feel similar?

Anyway recommend me a book that will actually get me sobbing.

(Books like a little life were really sad but only made me feel depressed and didn’t make me cry.)

Edit: “Gut wrenching*”

I’m currently reading the very beginning of 2666 and I’m so distracted wondering what kind of books the fictional author Benno von Archimboldi could’ve written to gain such passionate followers. Like, these people all learned German and published journal articles about this guy.

From what I gather, his books were approachable enough to catch the attention of the young scholars but dense enough for them to examine at a graduate/postgraduate level. I hope this isn’t too vague, thank you!

I’m looking for a book that stays with you long after you finish the last page. I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of “fast food” books lately, entertaining in the moment, but I forget the plot two days later. I want something that genuinely shifts your perspective or makes you see the world a little differently.

What is the one book that actually changed the way you think? I’m open to anything from fiction to philosophy, as long as it’s a total “brain reset.”

What the title says. I recently re read ‘White Fang’ and realised that I adore when a books is from the perspective of an animal but the thoughts and behaviour is distinctly that of a wild animal. They are interacting with humans and viewing them almost like aliens.

I do not mean something like ‘warrior cats’ or ‘wings of fire’ or Saphira from ‘Eragon’

I don’t know if there are more books like this but I would greatly appreciate some suggestions :))

Can you recommend me some books written for adults that have mature and great sex scenes? I’ve read a couple of classics recently, and although they’re great as a whole, sex is rarely part of the plot. It is more so implied. Do you know of any contemporary authors that write in a classics-type style and also includes great sex? I’m thinking like sexy Steinbeck or something.

i am running out of new exciting games , recommend me some of your favorites ?

i would just like a good game where descision matter, but esppecally also unconcios ones.

i just would love a game where its not just all dialoge and you decide what you choose, its your behavior in game that will speak for one, i love those games, but i myself rarely find any.

I want to like play a game that dosent “Help” with loneliness, but does the opposite.

A game that makes you feel very lonely and you only have yourself to rely on, the vast open world is there but no friends, no one. Only yourself– Like I WANT to cry and struggle in the game.

Again, odd request I know, but I really want to play such a game.

Edit: My laptop isnt the best; so i’m thankful for all the reccomendations you guys gave me, being able to run on this thing. Im trying the Long Dark.

I’ve been playing Grim Dawn lately (just hit Level 56) and I love it because it’s my perfect “after-work chill game.” But it got me thinking…

I see people in various communities with 2,000, 5,000, or even 10,000 hours in a single game. As someone who usually hops between titles, I’m genuinely fascinated by that level of dedication.

What is your “Forever Game”?

Why that specific one? Is it the mechanics, the community, or just a feeling of “coming home”?

The “Chill” Factor: Do you play it to be challenged, or is it your way to switch off your brain after a long day?

I’m looking for some inspiration to finally “settle down” in one game world. Tell me what makes your favorite game worth a lifetime of hours…

Most survival games, although they include mechanisms for gradually increasing difficulty, eventually stop being challenging once the player has a well-equipped base, plenty of resources, and so on.

Take The Long Dark as an example. On the high difficulty setting like interloper, it’s an extremely challenging game; in the first few weeks, the difficulty increases as the weather gets colder and colder, you deplete easily accessible resources, and you have to search for resources elsewhere, and so on and one stupid mistake could cost you the whole run.

But at a certain point, the difficulty stops increasing. If a player can survive 100 days, they could usually survive 1,000 days as well, and the only reason most players don’t do it is that it would be boring.

Do you know of any survival game where every new day is a bigger challenge than the last, and basically no one can survive indefinitely?

I’m looking for games you can come back to here and there without excessive commitment, that are still fun to play. Like let’s say I’m going out to a friend’s house but I have to wait for them to get back to work to head out. I have a few minutes to play a game. If you guys were me in that instance, what would you think about reaching for?

Can be anything from tycoons to incrementals to simulation games

I’ve been building Apple Shortcuts for a while now and the visual editor has always driven me crazy. I tried every existing alternative I could find. Jelly Cuts was probably the most well known project trying to solve this. Write your shortcut in code, get a file you can import and run. The idea was right. But they all have the same problem: Apple changes the shortcut actions every year. New actions, new parameters, new types. If your tool isn’t tracking those changes it breaks. And most of them stopped tracking.

I kept waiting for someone to fix it. Nobody did. So I just built it myself.

It’s called perspective-cuts. Open source CLI. You write what you want the shortcut to do and it gives you a shortcut file back. Code in, shortcut out. No dragging anything around in the editor.

It’s experimental. I’m not pretending it’s finished. But the core idea works and I’d rather ship it and get real feedback from people who actually use Shortcuts …

After hundreds of hours over ~1.5 years developing ~35 shortcuts over ~550 versions, I’ve encountered all sorts of functionality gaps in Shortcuts and the various expansion apps (as awesome as they are - especially Sindre Sorhus’).

So, I decided to bite the bullet, buy a Mac Mini, learn Xcode and Swift, and develop my own solutions.

It’s been 3 weeks (and a holiday), and I’m super excited to share what I’ve made with the community, so I’ve set up a beta test public (anonymous) link: https://testflight.apple.com/join/pPRTbFRs

As of writing, I’ve created the below 11 actions, I’ve got ideas for 6 more, and I’m keen to hear if anyone has any requests / suggestions. God knows I would have jumped on that offer before!

Also, I’ve tried my best to make almost all functionality available back to iOS 18.

|Name|Description| |:-|:-| |Convert HTML Tables To JSON|Takes a URL and outputs any and all found

I created a shortcut that uses Apple On Device Intelligence to scan a photographed receipt and automatically generate the name and an itemized list of all items in a note! It’s surprisingly capable and runs offline!

Try it here:

https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/a4a737acb5534b8abb1ae2672b1831b0

Link to Shortcut: https://routinehub.co/shortcut/24915/

Quick Menu (QM) is a shortcut control/utility menu that can be launched from the action button, back tap or widget; a bit like Control Center for example.

QM allows you to quickly access many utilities, run other shortcuts (with the help of Plug n Play) and manage your iPhone with a simple menu. 

What sets QM apart

Quick Menu has many really nice features that set it apart from other menus of its kind, such as: 

•Dynamic Toolbars: They make things such as pop-ups completely obsolete, because Toolbars do their job for them, and take up little space next to the header.

•Advanced Networking: Quick Menu’s Network tab features some very useful features, such as Field Test (for when your bars lie) or Network Reset (quickly restarts all networking, can also be used to escape bad calls 👀)

•Wide range of tools: From doing something as simple as turning on your torch or toggling silent mode, to checking Field Test or running …

This might be wildly known, but TIL that an iOS long press on an action in the Search Actions menu will allow it to be added between the actions on the screen instead of going to the end of the shortcut like a short press does.

Edit: made the post late at night, originally forgot to specify it works from the Search Actions menu.

I thought I was clever but ended up immediately regretting what I did. It could be a bug, but could have ended badly, so posting here to hopefully save someone from this pain. I’m on iOS 26.4.

I’m running a monitoring app that alerts when it’s closed, as closing it severs the monitoring features. It still works when minimized. So i thought, why not automatically reopen it immediately upon closing?

So, I created a one-step shortcut to open the said app and set up automation that, when the app is closed, execute that shortcut to reopen it.

However, when I tested it, it ran continuously ran even when the app was minimized and not closed. It persistently brought the app to the foreground even when switching apps. There was no way to access the Home Screen or the Shortcut app to disable that stupid automation.

Luckily, I have a Mac, so my shortcuts were synchronized with the desktop Shortcuts app, and I was able to delete the shortcut to disable the automation.

If I didn’t have access …