I relatively recently reinstalled my OS (distro-hopping to Fedora KDE) and as I was installing my various everyday programs, I began to wonder whether there were any solid competitors to VSCode in the space other than IntelliJ products (which I strongly dislike compared to VSCode already). I've used VSCode for a while, but I've definitely noticed my experience with the app getting a little bloated and overwhelmed. But I'm not keeping my finger on the pulse of new IDEs, so I don't know if there's anything new (or at least a solid alternative of some sort) out there that people are switching to.

I'm on Linux, so nothing Mac-exclusive. I know VSCode's extension library is probably hard to match given its popularity, but I'd hope for an alternative that at least has potential to have extensions to cover lesser-known languages and file formats for me. I liked the look and feel of VS Code when I switched to it years ago, so I'm all for apps with similar vibes, but I'd like something that feels faster and more focused.

Please don't recommend vim. I've already heard of vim, and if I wanted to switch to it I would have already.

I have a specific focus in mind here. Not sure if it even exists, but let's ask.

So, we all know there's a news cycle, and everyone follows it. That's my "alternative" focus here ... I want that news outlet that explicitly, assertively, goes out of its way, to not follow it. Whatever everyone else is reporting on, those Top 10 stories on every other front page, these guys skip right over those.

I'm looking for that news agency that does those "hey, remember that thing in the news 6 months ago? Whatever happened with that?" stories. The agency that says, "So, have you heard enough about the war in Iran yet? Well, guess what's going on in Honduras today".

Things that don't count ...

• Not looking for extremist, or conspiracy theorist sites.
• Not looking for sites that focus on a particular region or subject matter (mostly Ukraine, mostly financial news, mostly Green/Climate news, etc).
• Not looking for highly opinionated or partisan sites -- everyone leans one way or another, I know, but looking for sites that aim to be objective.
• Not looking for deep dives into the same news cycle ("Who is Mojtaba Khamenei, Really?").

So ... any tips?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Australian Grand Prix
Albert Park Circuit
March 6-8, 2026

Next race:
Chinese Grand Prix
Shanghai International Circuit
March 13-15, 2026

IT'S RAWE CEEK! Welcome back to Formula 1, everyone! Hopefully everyone enjoyed the various holidays and having a normal sleep schedule on the weekends over the last few months. That said, I don't need F1 to mess with my weekend sleeping plans 😴

I meant to post earlier in the week about predictions for 2026, but I forgot/got busy/slept, so guess I'll just ask some here.

1. Who will win this first race?
2. Will our sole rookie this year, Arvin Lindblad (Racing Bulls), podium this year?
3. Will Niko Hulkenberg get another podium?
4. Will we hear Fernando Alonso scream about a "GP2 Engine" again?
5. Which team wins the Constructors Championship?
6. Does Lando Norris successfully defend his championship?
7. If not, who wins the Drivers Championship?

Feel free to add any other predictions!

It’s spring time, and I am belatedly thinking about growing some plants. I tend to quite enjoy growing edible plants, but I might try a few flowers this year. Would be anyone else be interested in a regular gardening chat group where we can share our experiences and challenges in growing plants? Indoor, outdoor, all welcome!
I envisage something similar to the weekly minecraft threads, but less square potatoes or pixelated flowers, and something more tangible (not to knock the minecraft threads, I love them, and they are my inspiration for this!)

As the title of the post asked, is there anything that you are no longer a fan of/support?

Feel free to share any experiences you have that made you change your mind on something. These could something smaller such as deciding to no longer support or engage with a brand due to store clerk being a bit rude to you in one interaction, to you disliking the actions or direction taken by a corporation/creator/franchise.

I did want to note that while this thread can obviously veer in to the negative based on the question, it doesn't have to be. You could no longer being a fan of something could be due to your tastes changing over the years, or a life experience making you decide you want to change your habits.

I liked playing Ace Combat since I've been a kid, Ace Combat 2 was one of my favorite PS1 games alongside Crash Team Racing at the time, and I did play AC3 as well but don't remember much of it.

I completely skipped PS2 generations since I was on handhelds instead, so my first interaction with Ace Combat since 3 was ACAH(Yuck) on PS3, but I ended up buying Ace Combat 7 since that was actually a good game, but being bad at committing to one game hasn't allowed me to finish it, with AC8 being announced to come out soon, I decided I should try and focus on clearing AC7.

I never gave it a mind at the mind but since now I'm aware of what Lockheed Martin is, I noticed it when I started up the game the past few days at one of the splash screens at the start of the game, and given that Lockheed Martin's involvement with the current ongoing wars, it's safe to assume that Bandai Namco have had an agreement that most likely has had financial and monetary incentives to license their planes.

licensing weapons and arms aren't particularly a new thing afaik in games, I'm not much of an FPS person myself since I stick with Doom and Bioshock if I want a more "traditional" FPS experience (But prefer things like Ultrakill or Metal Hellsinger) and never been into CoD or other military shooters.

So depending on their license agreement, they either have paid the royalties upfront(Unaware of how licensing typically goes but I assume it's most likely to be this one?) just to have their arms in the game, or they get a portion of their sales. If it is the former then sales of the game do not directly(as in unless sequels or relicensing occur) contribute to their bottom lines, if it is the latter then every sale contributes to wars.

Posting this in places like reddit or other gamer spaces I'd imagine would elicit a "Don't bring politics to my games" kind of response.

I'm curious what Tildes users would think of this, I think that would make pirating these games or buying them secondhand(impossible on Steam though Steam family could count) be more ethical than buying them in a way, though I imagine some may advocating for separating the art from... whom the artist pays?

Sorry this is pretty rant-y, I tried I promise lol:

I've posted on here re: topics similar to & leading towards this one, but not in this group specifically, so apologies if this is not the right place but idk where else to put it lol: I need to talk to someone who started life less-well off, whatever that means where you come from, and worked themselves into a better situation, and then actually finally broke through whatever the fuck this is that I can't get past right now.

I am solidly working/lower middle class (low low, like I'm not gonna lose my house but I also could never move, no savings but only overdraft -occasionally-, etc.): education background, higher ed, public service, etc—I got too many degrees & got on some good meds & found out mid-30s I have a lot of marketable transferable high-level skills, setting me on a course to replace all the side gigs with one Good Job. Almost got a couple of -really- good offers (like, verbal, then waiting, then layoffs, then a very disappointing email, rinse and repeat) as it unfortunately just happened to be the worst year to look for a job since 2008 lol.

One of the things I'm good at is talking/listening to people, and one of the things I was lacking in was a good network (the other BA/education grads I knew also don't have very good jobs), so I started talking to anyone & everyone, mostly aspirational/mentor types, they have all done very well for themselves & I think it's self-selectinf but they're all pretty sales-y, which is fine. And as another skill I can usually "spot" people, pattern recognition or maybe autism idk, so I'm only talking to people who have had success but also that I don't anticipate will be telling me to pull myself up by my bootstraps, etc.

So here's the thing: every single one of them has said basically (and I think genuinely trying to be helpful): "Why do you need a better job?", "What do you really want here?", "I had what you're after and it didn't make me happy, it was what you already have that did that for me finally," and so if you are having thoughts like that, thank you for reading, please leave lol, because I just cannot—like of course it's easy for you to say "Oh, a corporate job is just travel & restaurants, that's no way to live" when you've already done it! I want in, dude. And honestly it feels like something a woman in the 80s or 90s would have been up against—like "Oh you're better off where you are," ok sure let's fucking swap then. Jesus.

Ok sorry /rant. So what I need is for someone who grew up pretty low income to tell me that there's even a hope, a shred of a possibility that I can do better for myself & my family, because all I can find is people telling me I should be happy with what I have, and the truth is I am not, I'm spinning my wheels and going insane, I am running at maybe 10% capacity and it's driving me nuts—i can literally hear it now "boy I wish I had that much free time”: yeah? What would you do with it? Expensive shit, I bet. See? I feel like I could have both things, but no one wants to let me in—is it just in-group mentality & self-preservstion? Am I somehow threatening their status quo by being a real life person who could maybe do what they did? Because the closest I've gotten so far is hearing how someone along the way cut them a break & that's how they got their start, except none of them seem to be able to see the irony in saying that to me before telling me to just enjoy it as it comes, take it easy, my god I am going to have an aneurysm. And we're talking a significant sample of probably 15-20 people—is it just boomers? Am I doomed?

The most recent take was: "Well you seem like a person who's comfortable and middle-class, so it'll happen, you're fine." And I'm not, like, giving them the hard sell or asking for a job, I'm just mostly listening. I don't get it, and I don't know what I'm supposed to do when I'm trying to find out how someone got to where they are & they end with "You don't need what I have." Is social mobility even a thing anymore in the US?

Edit: gosh I just want to say how much I love this weird lil site, I am feeling about a million times better than I did this time yesterday, to the point that when the person I spoke with (the one who sent me spiraling & considering just going to bed & not getting out of it lol) messaged me to ask if I'd like to talk some more, I didn't say anything but "I'd love to!" because I didn't have to. Because they don't have to get it, they just have to help me find a job—seems like quite a few of you get it & that's all I think I really need sometimes.

(unless you're hiring then pls lmk lol)

This is the second Tildes Book Club Discussion for 2026 and the twentysecond overall. We are discussing The Truth by Terry Pratchett. At the end of March we will discuss The Metamorphosis by Kafka.

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.

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?