Turning your phone into a virtual-joystick

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Update: I kept working on this and I have released it as a package for Windows, Linux and macOS. Check it out: https://github.com/zenineasa/joystick/releases/tag/v1.0.0 -- During the days when I was pursying my master's programme, my friends and I used to occasionally go to a classroom in the university, turn on a projector, connect devices like Nintento Switch or Gaming computers and loads of joysticks, and play different simple multiplayer games; MarioKart was my favourite. From time-to-time, when I get together with people, I ponder that it would be a good idea if I bought such devices. Indeed, I do have a laptop, which could easily run such games; SuperTuxKart is similar enough to MarioKart and it can run on Linux, Windows and Mac. However, I do not have joysticks with me at the moment. Therefore, I think it would be a good idea if I simply worked on a project that would enable using our phones as joysticks. From a high-level, the plan is to host APIs on a NodeJS server that wo
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First impression of Lugano - Mindblowing

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I started off from Zurich at around 7.30 in the morning. There was a direct train to Lugano from Zurich HB. I vaguely remember my internet searches on the cost to travel from Zurich to Lugano via train to be about 30 CHF, but in reality, taking the ticket from the station, it costed me double of that. I don't know if the tickets have surge prices or something. Anyway, the journey was nice as I was able to see some beautiful places along the way and I think I had a chance to go through Gotthard Base Tunnel, which is the longest tunnel in the world.

Getting down at Lugano station and looking out, I saw one of the most beatiful scene that I have ever seen. I am not sure if I could describe that properly in words, nor do I think the following photograph that I took justifies how it looked to me in person.


I had to walk down a lot of stairs from here with the heavy bags that I had, only to realize that I made a wrong turn at some point. I was informed that instead of going back up, it would be better to just climb down the entire stairs and take the sidewalks of the road so that I can easily roll the trolley bag instead of carrying it. The road was a bit longer, but I understand that it was the better option.

I reached my apartment by around 11.30 AM, made some porridge (I had brought some broken rice from my hometown) for myself and slept for a few hours.

I was thinking about going to the Lidl nearby, but it has been raining and I forgot to bring an umbrella. I waited till my roommate arrived to take his umbrella to go out. He arrived at around 8.40 PM and he told me that there is a Migros supermarket a little closer than the Lidl, and he told me that both would close by 9 PM. I brisk walked till Migros only to find out that it closes at 7 PM. I had to do with another bowl of porridge for dinner.

The fact that the supermarkets close at such an early hour is news to me. I hope I would have this information in my mind everytime I run out of groceries.

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