Hi all,

I'm looking for some suggestions and hoping you might be able to help me out.

Quick backstory: My 7-year-old has ben getting really into Uno the past few weeks, so there's always a deck lying around. Always looking to test new ideas out, I've been experimenting with how a game of patience/solitaire might work if played with a deck of Uno cards, and I've actually come up with a few simple rules that work, while retaining the nature of the Uno cards (so far had some interesting test runs with Klondike and Pyramids).

While playing around with these "Unotaire" variants, I've been getting that feeling of something creeping up on me; a game idea, just over the horizon, but not quite close enough to make out yet. It's like being able to taste a new card game, without having it in your mouth yet (if that makes any sense).

As this unknown game is still mostly unclear to me, let me try to describe how it "tastes":

• It's something you can play on your own, not unlike Solitaire.

• It has its own deck; it's not played with a regular deck of cards (and it might have more or less than 52 cards).

• It probably has no other components than cards. You pick up the pack, remove the cards, place them just like so, and you're off.

• It might be able to somehow tell a story. I've been thinking a lot about Reigns (the mobile/video game) here — simple decisions lead to big consequences further down the line.

• Like Reigns, the game is somewhat linear; you might start with the cards laid out, in something akin to some Solitaire pattern, and you try to make it through to the end and "win". You might pull it off, you might not. Much like Solitaire.

• I can't stop thinking about Tarot. 56 "standard" cards in 4 suits (minor arcana), and then the 22 suitless major arcana cards. Tarot also has various patterns/spreads (3-card, 9-card, celtic cross, wheel, etc.) in which you lay out the cards, and some set rules as to how to "read" them (and then, of course, massive amounts of subjective interpretation from the "reader"). Not suggesting a fortune telling component, just that the "flavor" of Tarot cards makes sense to me in this context.

• If it's possible to piece this thing together in a way where it can also be played by 2 (or more) people, that would be grand.

• The game doesn't need to be quick, but it wouldn't hurt if it was fast paced; Hmm, I'm stuck! Deal out 3 cards from the draw pile, flip them over real quick, look at the top one, Oh this means I can do this... and so forth.

The main thing here is the variability of the deck; shuffle the cards, and you will have a fairly unique adventure. Same framework as your last game, but the path will be completely changed. Maybe the story will be capable of varying wildly from game to game as well. Or maybe the story needs to go away.

And the Solitaire aspect of the thing, meaning having to lay the cards out in some specific way, which creates the "path" you need to navigate in order to win (not a literal path).

My problem is that I don't really know any games that come close to this genre. The only thing that comes to mind is The Lost Expedition, but that has a lot more components and mechanics than what I want.

The might also be some deck-based dungeon crawlers out there that are worth a look, but I haven't found them yet.

I'm hoping some of you might suggest games to look at for inspiration, mechanisms that might deal with driving a story without any components beyond a deck of cards, and just general thoughts.

Thank you for any and all feedback and/or suggestions! I'm looking forward to (hopefully) hearing from you 😃🤘

See, only took a second! (an ADHD rant about how posting this song cost me 2.5 hours of my life) 🙄

Song starts at 3:45, btw 🤘

Really liking this new cut from The Hives, and the video is absolutely brilliant 😅

It was directed by Aube Perrier, and I highly recommend having a look at some of his other stuff.

One example is the rather wonderful video for Harry Styles' "Music For A Sushi Restaurant", and most of his other stuff is equally good 😊👍

My kids (4 and 6) were in charge of music during our morning routine today, and happened upon Radiohead's 'Paranoid Android'. Very picky listeners both, the song got a surprising full playthrough (no small feat at a length of 6:23, or ~24 attention spans!), resulting in one very proud parent.

It got me in a bit of a nostalgic mood, the memories of 'OK Computer' releasing in 1997 flooding back; for those of you who weren't around at the time, or maybe weren't at an age where you were hit by the full force of this groundbreaking album, it was a really, really special period.

I couldn't help thinking that this particular experience was something my daughters would never be able to have, and it's something I could never explain to them; I don't remember the particulars of my life at the time, apart from basic stuff like where I must have lived, what school I must have been at, and there's no putting into words the deeply personal feeling of being, well, me at that moment.

It's more like a taste you can almost, but not quite, recall, a scent, an ambiance amalgamated from every single impression you got from being alive at a certain time. I don't know how to convey that to others, and I'm not sure it's possible.

Anyway, it prompted me to go check if there was a documentary or similar about the release of 'OK Computer', and I found this gem. For those of you who were at just the right time in your life in 1997 for this album to have made an impact, I hope this takes you back in the best of ways.

For me personally, 'OK Computer' was like having my brains smashed out by a slice of lemon wrapped around a large gold brick; an aural Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster, if you will (1997 also happens to be the year that the leather-bound, guilt-edged omnibus edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy" was released, which I promptly purchased and subsequently swore to never lend to anyone, having lost all previous copies of the books to forgetful and/or careless friends; but that's another story).

Watching this documentary certainly managed to scratch my nostalgic itch. Good times. I'm curious to know what the rest of you think of the video, should you manage to finish it 🙂

Hi all,

I'm a big fan of having ebooks read to me while I'm doing stuff that prevents me from reading them myself (driving, working, doing dishes, etc.).

I've been using Evie on my Android phone for a few years now, and while it does what I need, the interface is a bit cumbersome, and I wouldn't mind a better alternative.

Evie offers paid Amazon TTS, which I neither like nor use, but also has free support for Google's TTS service (~~not sure if this is his API or just using built-in services on the phone~~ — looks like the voices are Android TTS voices), which I've gotten very fond of. I've logged 200+ books like this in recent years, and I'm very content with the quality of the voices (I use en-us-x-tpc-network).

Ideally, a FOSS ebook reader would support Android TTS, as well as controlling playback/reading speed. Does anyone know of such an app? 🙂

Incidentally, I was always "annoyed" that the only way to get money to Evie was through the Amazon TTS subscription, which I don't need or want. I'm a recent update, they added a new feature: paid background sounds to accompany your story, such as "rain", "train ride", etc. I bought them all, just to show my support, and actually ended up using one of the background rain sounds for the last book I went through, and quite enjoyed it. I think this is a very nice way for an app to allow users to spend a bit more to show their support; paid, non-critical features.

Also, just now discovered that they actually have a "donate" button 😅 Sent a few more $ their way.

I'm a huge fan of changing playback speed when playing videos, and finally got fed up with the cumbersome interface in the official YouTube app on Android (as well as the ads...).

I thought I read that there was a shortcut or gesture that would do it, but can't get anything to work 😥