This is the ninth Tildes Book Club Discussion for 2026 and the twenty-ninth overall. We are discussing Dr. No by Ian Fleming.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.

And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

Hi Tilderiños,

This post is long enough for a TLDR: I made this thing, it's a platform for conscious consumerism. I'm launching the beta on Tildes. It's far from complete, expect imperfect scores in many cases. It's invite only, see my top level reply below or DM me for an invite.

To start, I'm a long time member who posts enough that at least some of you would recognize my username. I made a new account for this project because I don't want to think about being a representative on my main account.

Early on during development I decided Tildes would be the perfect place to launch a private beta because Tildoes are some of the best people on the internet in my experience. And also fairly diverse by internet standards. Aside from a handful of friends and family you'll be the first to see it.

I should give you a little backstory. A couple of years ago I lost my income. Fortunately we were in a place where we could mostly afford to live without it for a while, so I had some time to figure out what I wanted to do next. For context I have over 30 years of experience in software development. Similar for marketing, brand strategy, business development, mostly but not exclusively in the context of the internet. I'm not quite as old as that sounds, I was still a minor when I starting building things on the internet, back when almost no one really knew what the internet was or what to do with it. In short, I'm comfortably fluent in all the languages of the internet.

I've built all sorts of different types of applications and businesses, mostly commercial. This time I wanted to build something that would have a positive impact and I wanted that to be the point, rather than a side effect. I spent most of a year researching the feasibility of a number of ideas before I landed on this one.

I've been on the internet long enough to see a lot of well meaning ideas fall flat. At this point I have no idea if this is another one of those. I know the concept is solid, but that doesn't mean it will inspire people. Or more specifically in this case, be a platform people can use to inspire each other. This is complicated by my intention to be as uncynical as possible about the project. I know all sorts of tricks for capturing attention and creating hype, I know how to monetize an app and sell products. But all of that feels out of place to me if the goal in uncynical. No doubt Tilders could have a long conversation here about the balance between good intentions and practical reality. I'd have lot to contribute.

The Ethoscore Project is an attempt to make the entirely unsexy concept of conscious consumerism easy and accessible. I genuinely believe it's a viable way to make the world a little better. It includes things like company scores and community lists (including boycott lists) and accepts community contributions and corrections for every company data point including scoring. I won't make a wall of text about all the functionality and features here, you can find out more on the site.

The project is currently self funded, which will hopefully be able to last long enough to see if the idea has potential. For now, funding is a problem for later.

The roadmap is long and wide. There are so many things I want to add, at least some of which aren't terrible ideas, but at this point development has been going on for over a year and I think it's time to see what strangers think. The project's 50k lines of code took time but the larger part of development has been company research, there are currently over 15,000 brands and companies covered, which is really just a start.

You might imagine that researching the international conglomerates that own most of the brands we see would be depressing in a capitalist dystopia sort of way and you wouldn't be wrong. But there's also more good news that I expected. There are big, successful companies doing the right thing when they don't have to. More than you'd expect. And there's evidence that their practices are inspiring other companies to do the same. I don't know if it's outpacing the general capitalist race to the bottom but it's not nothing! I see reasons for optimism.

I'm hoping some of you will be kind enough to take a look. I welcome all questions, contributions and feedback. The company database and scoring are far from complete, my goal for the beta was to have enough coverage that scanning products at a big box grocery store would result in more hits than misses. I think scoring is necessary but, to me, community lists are more interesting and have more potential to be useful. At this point there are going to be a lot of bugs, imperfections and companies with scores that seem off. I want to hear about all the issues you encounter. I'm more excited about your impressions and ideas though. How does it feel to use it? Does it make sense? Is it low friction? As a user is there something important missing that you'd expect to be there? What works well? Would you do anything differently?

There aren't smartphone apps yet, I want the codebase closer to complete before I start on the joys of maintaining two more codebases and dealing with the app stores. You can install it as a PWA (web app) on your phone if you like, which mostly just makes it quicker to access. I definitely recommend using your phone if you want to play with the barcode scanner.

Throughout the beta the app will be invite only and available only to Tildes users and people I personally invite. See top level comment below for an invite.

I just got the newer version of Firefox (v157.0) and I'm amazed at how snappy it is. It feels like Firefox does when you have 0 extensions, except that I have uBO and a few others.

It used to feel so sluggish, pages took 500ms or even 1 second to display anything after typing the address, but no more; they render almost instantly.

A very nice surprise indeed!

If you left Firefox because it was too slow, now's the time to ditch Chrom{e,ium} and reign Google's chokehold on standards and utter contempt for privacy in!

Ran some benchmarks on an X230 (i5 3rd gen):
FF 156
speedometer: 3.27
jetstream 3: 65.3
motionmark: 456.52 60fps +-7.50%

FF 157
speedometer: 7.16
jetstream 3: 68.49
motionmark 593.57 60fps +- 8.93%

The speedup is quite noticeable

Step 1: Post anything with a rage bait title
Step 2: Some poster comes in with an obviously bad take
Step 3: That obviously bad take gets upvoted/liked/whatever
Step 4: Now people have to engage with it because it's been pushed to the top
Step 5: Drama/engagement/so much traffic tho

Social media sites just automated steps 1-3 and all us dummies fall right into it.
I wish there was a meta category? Is there? #meta-tildes
Edit: oh there is a ~Tildes. apologies.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

We each shape our living spaces in our own ways, and I feel like sharing your own approach can often help inspire others.

This could be anything, small or large; from the kinds of furniture you prefer and how you arrange it, to the standard home improvement work, to how you decorate your spaces, and even how you choose to use them.

Desk setups/home offices/battlestations all count, and pictures are welcome!

First of all, I am not asking for advice about what to invest in.

TLDR: I just want to ask for advice about how to know what to invest into?

Background information and/or irrelevant rambling below:

I have minimal experience with stocks, having only invested €2500 into a pension account thanks to it being a gift from my father some years ago. Early this year I got taxed about €200 for unrealized gains of my stocks, mainly one of them (RHM.DE) and it takes up a little more than half of the value of the stocks I have. At that point in time when I got taxed it was up almost 100% compared to when I bought it almost two years ago. It has now fallen quite far again and as a result is up less than 10% and my gains are €180 so basically the massive gains (if I had sold at the right time) got cancelled from the taxes. Although to be fair I don't actually know if that's how the tax system works, but I do know I was unlucky to not just sell it off at that peak. But speaking of luck, I am still up like 60% overall thanks to another lucky stock which is up 150% (ENR.DE) compared to when I bought it.

Again, I have no sense for economics or financials or investing lol, genuinely just lucky??

The investing I did was based entirely on Merz changing the direction of German defense policy when he got elected where he said his government will heavily invest in defense. Rheinmetall being a German weapons manufacturer, it only made sense (and it paid off for a while) and the Siemens investment I made was just an afterthought in order to not have all my eggs in one basket. I also have other stocks that are up like 60% 75%, 90%, and then get this: a stock I didn't even buy (it was like a split-off of something else, and given to me automatically?) is up over 800% so I still have an overall value of €4000 from a starting point of about €2500 and €1500 gained in less than two years is, of course, and I cannot emphasize this enough, just purely luck lol

I might as well have gone to a casino.

Long story short and reason for posting I'm now wondering what to do with that RHM.DE stock. Because it doesn't seem good anymore and maybe the ~€2100 value is better spent somewhere else? But how do I know?

My Nebula subscription renewed recently, but I've realised I barely use it! I don't follow many creators and some of them post very infrequently. I want to know what the people of Tildes think (since I believe we have some Nebula subscribers here): which Nebula creators do you feel are worth watching? What do they make? Is their work exclusive to the platform?

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

If you have more than one passion, try and pick the one you are... Most passionate about!
If you can't, then go for it, explain why you have more than one.

• What is your passion? If it's something obscure tell us about it!
• How did you end up with that passion? What was the inspiration?
• How long has it been your passion?
• How do you practice or express it?
• Sell it to someone reading, why is your passion so great to you?

Spouse and I are trying to get bids from local solar installers and we'd appreciate some crowdsourced knowledge from Tilderinos. Questions first, then some context...

• In the current market, is "no, your equipment can't talk to the Internet" actually an unreasonable demand?
• Is there a term or phrase we should be using to look for, or guide installers towards, solar setups that fully function without Internet access?
• Are there any equipment types -- microinverters, for example -- that definitely will not work due to architecture?
• Are there battery controllers, or central inverters, that are known to play nicely (read: can be expanded later) with batteries from other manufacturers?

For each installer, we start the conversation with "it's essential that the system work entirely offline, without Internet." We're flexible on nearly everything else: system size (probably ~15kW), number of panels, battery, etc. Our first concern is making sure that a 25-year investment is not dependent on some company's cloud servers; secondly, that we're not inverting our dependency graph by making our electric power reliant on the whims of our ISP. There's also the privacy angle. But we're not looking for a totally off-the-grid setup, just trying not to lock ourselves into a bad purchase.

So far, one third of the installers (3/9) have immediately told us we're unreasonable and to just go away. Two others said "sure!" and ghosted us afterwards. One was a little more forthcoming, saying that the equipment requires periodic connections to the manufacturer for monitoring and they couldn't provide a warranty without it. The last two provided bids, but it's difficult to tell if they're telling the truth given the conflicting info we've seen.

This is not a request for new rules, as Deimos has made it clear that is not going to happen. This is not a callout post for any individual, including our esteemed admin, or any one user.

This is an honest, earnest plea. I like to joke on Tildes, so this is quite hard to write.

I've been on Tildes for a few years now, under various usernames. This site has consistently lost great users because people come into ~life.women and ~lgbt to say versions of 'I haven't seen that', 'that's not my experience', or 'I don't think this is a big issue.'

We lost another user today over this issue. People aren't aware of it, because by the time people are so disgusted they leave, it's usually just a PM notification to their closer contacts who tend to be in a similar headspace, not a dramatic announcement on the front page.

Tildes is for discussion. It is not for 'let me tell you why you are wrong', no matter what wording you use. This type of action is explicitly against the core ethos of the site.

If you are struggling to imagine ways in which you can hold back from bringing negativity to a space you are not welcome, here are two examples from my experience of using the site. The following are two things many users care passionately about:

• 1. AI. I do not believe the conversation about it is interesting. Sometimes, the way it's talked about makes me actively angry. But many users of this site find conversation about AI enriching and enjoyable. Instead of me following my instant reaction and commenting to say 'I think this is boring, and this never impacts my life', I filter the posts, or do not read them.
• 2. I don't know what it's like to be a programmer. The plight of programmers is foreign to me. From the outside, looking in, I could make a bunch of assumptions about the hardships experienced by programmers, or system adminstrators, or software engineers are often saying they are experiencing on this site. Instead of saying 'have you tried finding another job?' or 'Well, I've never seen that', to call into question your experiences, I do not comment, because I know nothing about it.

The experiences of women, who are a minority on this site, are things that the vast majority of users do not have first-hand insight into. The same goes with gay users, asexual users, intersex users, gender non-conforming users, and users who are queer in a way I may never have come across before.

The pile-ons in these two groups are persistent, ongoing, and I have observed them for enough time to know it's generally not intentional, and it is relatively user-churn agnostic. This site attracts more cisgendered heterosexual men than it does women or queer people. That's how it is.

I am not asking for a verification system where you have to prove your bona fides before commenting. I am not asking for these groups to be quarantined off, because that further marginalizes minority groups on the site.

I am asking for users who are not women, or identify as queer, to think very carefully before posting comments that (regardless of the intention) are perceived time and again as invalidating the real experiences of people you do not know, and cannot experience yourself.

I am very sad that a lot of the people I have made close connections to on Tildes have left due to the prevalence of this issue. We know now that the site is feature-complete. You either try and set the culture, or you end up with one.

I would like us to set a culture that is more respective of the spaces intended for women and queer people to discuss issues pertaining to their lives. I am very upset that this continuously is a challenge, especially for members who post, comment, and lurk in those groups.

If you constantly feel the need to 'challenge' or 'dispute' articles and posts made in those groups, please examine why. This cycle of members of these groups having to explain sexism and oppression to people who have not experienced it in the same way women and queer people do is exhausting, and puts the emotional labor on the minority groups on this site.

The majority of the site is very welcoming to heterosexual men. Regardless of your intention, please do not 'just ask questions' or feel the need to say 'You know, I've never seen that!' or 'This reminds me of when my Project Manager called me out at a scrum unfairly.'

We are losing valuable intellectual, cultural, and gender diversity over the persistence of the issues outlined above. If you don't care about this, that sucks, but it makes Tildes a much better place for me and many others who are sadly no longer here.

TL;DR: If you're inserting yourself into Tildes groups about women's lives and the discussion of LGBT issues without being a member of either group in your actual life, please think twice before posting quick reactions to content that may have made you defensive, or content that you (for whatever reason) feel the need to disprove.

Assuming good faith, your unsolicited opinion about a topic you have not experienced personally is consistently not welcomed by the contributors, commenters, and lurkers who use those groups to discuss issues impacting them directly.

If you find the content annoying or feel the need to debate its veracity constantly, simply unsubscribe. It is not hard. It is the base level of respect this community relies on to survive.

I am sorry if this is coming across as aggressive, mean-spirited, or me taking on airs above the station of a normal user. That's not my intention, but I hope these words perhaps help other men on Tildes to think about the issues raised here in a different way.

I am a user, asking others like me to be kind and thoughtful. If you need help in how to unsubscribe from groups, or how to set up topic tag filters, please ask in this thread and many users will be able to assist you. It is a system I didn't initially find intuitive and am still learning about.

Thanks.

There are certainly a few people here, who will be buying Steam Frame VR headset.

I enlisted myself a few days ago for the first wave lottery reservations. After a bit of thought, I also enlisted my daughter, to double my chances from almost 0% to double of that but still near zero in my eyes.

A few minutes ago I got e-mail. I'm on waiting list after first wave goes out... Well, maybe this year?

My daughter checked her e-mail as well. And what do you know? Doubling of the chances paid off and the chance was actually higher than near 0% - her account got picked by Valve! It seems we are getting the headset in upcoming days/weeks.

Now the question is: Should we get the head and handstraps also? I think we should. But I don't knowbif I should get also new foam/seal. I'm not spending 170€ on color camera, at least not for now.

Sorry for this kind of post, we are just so happy and I wanted to share the happiness. I hope some of you got on the list for first wave as well.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.