By the way, please don’t write regex to try to validate email addresses. Seriously.

Amen.

There are libraries for that; some of them are even good.

Spoiler alert: Few of them are good, and those few are so simple that you might as well not use a library.

The only way to correctly validate an email address is to send a message to it, and verify that it arrived.

Correcting some misconceptions...

Element for Android doesn’t support searching in encrypted channels

That's true of regular Element for Android, but it's being replaced with Element X (which is built with Rust). I would expect search to be added there if it isn't already.

and I think you can’t use E2EE in the browser at all(?)

I have done it in Firefox, so that's false. Perhaps you had trouble with a specific browser?

plus basically every other client has even more drawbacks when it comes to E2EE.

Nheko handles E2EE just fine, so that would seem to be false as well.

Since you're looking for recommendations, it would help if you said which clients you tried and what problems you had with them.

In case you haven't seen it, you can set a Features: E2EE filter on this list:
https://matrix.org/ecosystem/clients/

if this community has any hope of being anywhere near as comprehensive in coverage as the News Subreddits

I left Reddit on purpose.

I would rather have quality than volume.

I would rather my news feed be diverse than dominated by one or two self-appointed influencers of discourse. (Even if they have good intentions.)

I approve of this rule. Ten articles per person each day is more than enough at this stage, and the threshold for "too much" can always be adjusted as the community grows.

And then there's Epic's spyware, their ass of a CEO, their relationship to Tencent, and probably a few things I'm forgetting at the moment.

My bigger concern is the normalization of and exposure to those ideas and concepts

The same concern has been behind attempts to restrict/ban violent video games, and films before that, and books before that. Despite generations of trying, I don't think a causal link has ever been established.

I hope people don't start using it as a substitute for safe sex, regular testing, and honest communication. We already have an antibiotic-resistant bacteria problem. Making it even worse would be bad.

Glancing over the patent, I don't think Hall effect sensors are used here. Note especially the use of a fluid, and the presence of variable resistors (parts that can wear out in current-gen controllers) for each axis.

Instead, this looks like an analog stick force-feedback mechanism that could also be used for automatic re-centering:

Accordingly, in the first example, control of current to be applied to the MRF is performed in the way as described below, thus achieving both presentation of a feeling using the MRF and an initial position restoration operation.

This wouldn't keep the potentiometers from wearing out, but with the right software, I imagine it could automatically adjust the sticks to compensate for mild drift. (I don't know if this would work any better than plain old calibration; it's definitely more complicated.) Also, games could dynamically adjust stick resistance, like the DualSense can adjust trigger resistance, for interactivity/immersion.

I wonder how much this would affect battery life, how long the fluid mechanism would last with normal wear and tear, and how environmentally toxic it will be when it eventually becomes e-waste.

The PDF linked in the article seems to be a scanned image, so control+F doesn't work, but the text is searchable here: https://patents.justia.com/patent/20230280850

What a negative headline. My version:

Miyazaki continues to succeed at postponing retirement and sharing masterful storytelling with the world

From the top of the change list:

HIGHLIGHTS

• Features
  • Introducing Withers' Wardrobe of Wayward Friends! You can now dismiss co-op party members from your campaign.

I find grids helpful when I'm the game master, because they simplify the job of fairly resolving distance and AoE mechanics, and speed the game along. Also in big strategy games, because they allow me to plan ahead on a map with many (often stacked) units without unfair surprises.

I'm enjoying the gridless approach here, though. The computer handles the geometry crunching, there aren't too many actors for me to keep track of, and the freedom of movement lets me play with tactics that would be impossible on a grid.

Worth noting: I don't think D&D has ever required a grid, so it might be inaccurate to say this game has gotten rid of it.

I don't like Epic's exclusivity deals.

I don't like Epic's invasive "telemetry" libraries.

I don't like Epic's client helping itself to whatever data it wants on my computer.

I don't like Epic's ethics.

I don't like Epic's leadership.

I don't like Epic's investors.

Come to think of it, I don't like anything about Epic. I won't be giving them my money or granting them access to my computer.

Valve, GOG, and Itch are far more deserving of my support.

The problem is that online storefronts all lease you the games

They license them. (A lease would normally have an expiration, and it would be clearly stated, which does not appear to be the case here.)

Accepting money and then refusing to honor the terms of exchange, whether it's an object or a license, is generally called fraud.

I miss actually owning media.

Yeah, I think most of us do.