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23 votes
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Taskmaster Season 19, Episode 1 - 'Sometimes spit.' | Full episode
24 votes -
I teach a student with Reactive Attachment Disorder and I need help
Special Ed. Teacher here. This year I've been assigned a tough caseload. But my most challenging student is easily the student with Reactive Attachment Disorder and possibly autism. I'll call him...
Special Ed. Teacher here.
This year I've been assigned a tough caseload. But my most challenging student is easily the student with Reactive Attachment Disorder and possibly autism. I'll call him Jake.
Edit: He's in middle school, btw.
To protect his privacy and my own, I can't give many specifics. This student is chronically online and I wouldn't put it past him to Google situations he's caused in my class.
Some vague descriptions of the things he's done this year:
-Repeatedly jokes about pedophilia and teachers who have been arrested for it. It makes me uncomfortable that he does this, obviously. The only saving grace here is that he has thrown it around so many times, including calling multiple teachers pedophiles last year, that everyone knows he is just being rude and it's not a serious accusation. Thoroughly documented and I'm not really concerned about actually being accused. Fyi, I have informed his adoptive parents and they have informed his counselor. They are taking it seriously and have started investigating whether or not this is just shocking humor or a more serious part of the Jake's history before adoption.
-Waits for the perfect time to drop rude or shocking comments to inflict maximum damage. When he wants to say something awful to me or in general, he will hold off until he has an audience and the room is relatively quiet.
-Constantly mocks and shit talks certain students. We have dealt with it. He isn't just getting away with it. But even after consequences, separation from the students, and punishments at home, he doesn't stop. He's hung up on hating a couple of kids in particular but will generally be rude to whoever if he wants to. One of these kids is a scrappy kid from a rough school and I could totally see it ending in punches if we don't manage this.
-Absolutely refuses to share any serious thoughts. Even when asked what kind of support he needs, what kind of rewards would motivate him, or what's bothering him, he just gives ridiculous answers in a high-pitched voice or walks away. This kid wants no part in coming up with solutions and won't even engage in a conversation about his behavior or even the behavior of others.
-Speaking of his high pitched voice, this is the voice he always uses to say rude things. He has his normal speaking voice and then he uses this higher pitched voice when he says things that are rude or shocking. Like he has two different brains and one wants to be mean.
-Last year, he kept a list of times he felt students and teachers had broken the code of conduct.
-absolutely hates special Ed. Hates me for being a special ed. teacher. Reminds the other kids in my class that they're "special" constantly.
For the record, all of these things have been addressed many times. The school has been supportive, the parents have been supportive, and everyone knows that this behavior, if continued for much longer, will likely result in a change of programming for this student. He would be placed in a more restrictive setting.
This is kind of my last ditch effort to see if anyone has ideas, because this student is on the verge of leaving my classroom. If there is anything I can do to make it work with this kid, I would do it immediately. He's smart, witty, and unfortunately very funny in a South Park kind of a way. But he's raising hell every day and he's the first student I've had where it feels like I can't connect with him at all. And not for lack of trying.
42 votes -
Taskmaster NZ - Season 5, Episode 1 - 'A long denouement.' | Full episode
6 votes -
The state of American men is — not so good
37 votes -
What’s something that’s more complicated than most people realize?
Yes, I realize the answer is “everything.” I intend the question to be less about simply naming answers and more about surfacing their associated complexity. Walk us through something you know...
Yes, I realize the answer is “everything.”
I intend the question to be less about simply naming answers and more about surfacing their associated complexity.
Walk us through something you know well so that we can appreciate how not simple it actually is!
44 votes -
Superman (2025) - Discussion thread
20 votes -
Double pendulums are not chaotic
15 votes -
Hi, how are you? Mental health support and discussion thread (July 2025)
This is a monthly thread for those who need it. Vent, share your experiences, ask for advice, talk about how you are doing. Let's make this a compassionate space for all who may need one.
18 votes -
Piano key dimensions are a math puzzle
Piano keys are familiar and easy enough to draw if you're not trying to be exact, but if you want label the dimensions with their exact measurements (like in a CAD drawing), it turns into a math...
Piano keys are familiar and easy enough to draw if you're not trying to be exact, but if you want label the dimensions with their exact measurements (like in a CAD drawing), it turns into a math puzzle. The problem comes from the groups of two and three black keys.
This article explains it like this:
If you've ever looked closely at a piano keyboard you may have
noticed that the widths of the white keys are not all the same
at the back ends (where they pass between the black keys). Of
course, if you think about it for a minute, it's clear they
couldn't possibly all be the same width, assuming the black keys
are all identical (with non-zero width) and the white keys all
have equal widths at the front ends, because the only simultaneous
solution of 3W=3w+2b and 4W=4w+3b is with b=0.To unpack that a bit: in that equation, 'W' is the width of each white key at the front (which should all be the same), 'w' is the width of a white key at the back, and 'b' is the width of a black key.) The first equation is for the group of two black keys (separating C, D, and E) and the second equation is for the three black keys separating F through B.
Since it's mathematically impossible, a constraint needs to be relaxed. The article describes ways to make the white keys have slightly different widths at the back.
If we set c=e=(W-5B/8) and a=b=d=f=g=(W-3B/4) we have a maximum
discrepancy of only B/8, and quite a few actual pianos use this
pattern as well. However, the absolute optimum arrangement is to
set c=d=e=(W-2B/3) and f=g=a=b=(W-3B/4), which gives a maximum
discrepancy of just B/12. This pattern is used on many keyboards,
e.g. the Roland PC-100.When actually building a musical instrument (instead of just drawing the keyboard), there is a further constraint, described in this article:
The black keys on a piano keyboard, instead of always being centered on the dividing line between the two white keys they lie between, are spaced so that the twelve keys which make up an octave are spaced equally as they enter the internal mechanism of the instrument.
But this means that the "key caps" for the white keys should be slightly off-center compared to whatever rod or lever they're attached to. The author speculates about how to divide this up using various units.
(They seem quite annoying to 3D print.)
7 votes -
Google Wallet adds age verification and more government ID support
21 votes -
Sweden came from behind to beat Germany at Euro 2025 and finish above them in Group C
4 votes -
What have you been listening to this week?
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...
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.
5 votes -
Most AI struggles to read clocks and calendars
9 votes -
What have you been eating, drinking, and cooking?
What food and drinks have you been enjoying (or not enjoying) recently? Have you cooked or created anything interesting? Tell us about it!
6 votes -
What’s a plot twist that happened in your own life?
Something that blindsided you, or was a completely unexpected 180, or completely went sideways, etc. Let us know what it was and how it went.
26 votes -
Save Point: A game deal roundup for the week of July 13
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...
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.5 votes -
Letter to Grand Chiefs
Long ago, Cree leader Captain Swan visited the Athabasca area. In 1715, he described a scene to Hudson’s Bay Company fur trader James Knight: “... there is a Certain Gum or pitch that runs down...
Long ago, Cree leader Captain Swan visited the Athabasca area. In 1715, he described a scene to Hudson’s Bay Company fur trader James Knight: “... there is a Certain Gum or pitch that runs down the river in such abundance that [Indians] cannot land but at certain places.” This was the first written reference to bitumen in Canada. Bitumen forms when organic matter is buried and subjected to heat and pressure over geological timescales. That organic matter was primarily algae and plants, which had sequestered carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere by photosynthesis, thereby locking CO₂ in place, significantly reducing atmospheric CO₂ levels, and helping sustain all aerobic life.
In 1859, John Tyndall explained how atmospheric gases absorb heat from the sun as infrared radiation. His paper details an early understanding of the greenhouse effect. Scientists have long since linked CO₂ emissions—burning refined bitumen and coal—to changing Earth’s climate. A 1912 Popular Mechanics article states, “The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2 billion tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and raise its temperature.” A century on, we’re burning 500% more fossil fuels.
Wishful thoughts will not prevent Earth’s global average temperature from increasing as we combust fossil fuels back into atmospheric CO₂. And while our generation reaps the rewards of inexpensive energy, our grandchildren will face the consequences of repaying this debt. A debt undermining the ancient Haudenosaunee philosophy that today’s decisions should result in a sustainable world seven generations from now.
Building a better world for our children requires energy—yet doing so by burning fossil fuels to the point of climate destabilization twists irony into generational betrayal far removed from sustainability.
In a 2013 experiment, University of Berkeley researchers found that breathing in a CO₂ concentration of 1,000 parts per million (ppm) indoors causes a measurable decline in intellectual capacity; at 2,500 ppm, initiative and strategic thinking declined to a dysfunctional level, which has since been corroborated by other researchers, including a 2023 meta-analysis on the short-term exposure to indoor CO₂ levels versus cognitive task performance. These cognitive effects become particularly concerning when viewed against atmospheric trends. On June 2, 2025, atmospheric CO₂ surpassed 429 ppm, a significant increase from the 318 ppm measured at Mauna Loa on June 15, 1959.
https://i.ibb.co/yFcXJqCy/graph.png
The graph illustrates a troubling acceleration in CO₂ emissions. At the current growth rate of 3.8 ppm per year, atmospheric CO₂ could reach 1,000 ppm in six generations (150 years). A 2021 study published in Nature emphasized the urgent need for action, stating that global oil and gas production must decline by 3% annually until 2050. Moreover, to limit warming to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels (1850–1900), an additional 25% of oil reserves must remain untouched.
Against this backdrop, political leaders advocate for increased fossil fuel extraction. Danielle Smith wants to unlock Alberta’s “$14 trillion in oil wealth” to “benefit millions of Canadians for generations.”
Short-term economic benefits derived from resource exploitation have repeatedly led to gradual, often unheeded, environmental degradation. This pattern repeatedly culminated in ecological and economic crashes, devastating the very communities who initially profited. Notable cases include Mesopotamian salinization, the Classic Maya collapse, the Ancestral Puebloan collapse, Norse Greenland settlements, Easter Island’s deforestation, the Dust Bowl, the Aral Sea’s desiccation, and the Grand Banks cod collapse. While some nations have sustainably managed resource wealth, the immediate economic pressures and political incentives that drive extraction often overshadow long-term planning.
The question is not: “How many Canadian generations will benefit?”
The question is: “How many generations will suffer, globally?”
Will we learn from history? Will we set an example for the next seven generations?
Or will we build more oil and gas pipelines, condemning our descendants to an unsustainable future?
Hereby released into the public domain. Feel free to adapt, correct, and send to representatives.
9 votes -
Web numbers
19 votes -
The cure for scurvy, forgotten
14 votes -
Tildes Minecraft Survival - Final day scheduled for July 17th
The server will shut down on July 17th in the evening (US Pacific time) We will then start up on the 25th for a special 3 day hardcore survival server. After that the server will be offline for a...
The server will shut down on July 17th in the evening (US Pacific time)
We will then start up on the 25th for a special 3 day hardcore survival server. After that the server will be offline for a few months for everyone's Minecraft-o-meter to recharge.
Server host:
tildes.nore.gg
(Running Java 1.21.4)
Bluemap: https://tildes.nore.gg
Playtime Tracker: https://tildes.nore.gg/playtimes.html
Tildes website extension (shows online status & location): Firefox (Desktop and Android) - Chrome
Verification site: https://verify.tildes.nore.gg
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TildesMCPlugins and Data Packs
Data Packs:- Terralith - Overworld terrain upgrade
- Nullscape - End terrain upgrade
- Armor Statues [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Bat Membranes [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Cauldron Concrete [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Husks Drop Sand [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Mini Blocks [Vanilla Tweaks]
- More Mob Heads [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Player Head Drops [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Silence Mobs [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Wandering Trades [Vanilla Tweaks]
Plugins:
- Bluemap - Adds a live 3D web map
- Clickable Links - Makes http URLs in chat clickable (only for registered players)
- CoreProtect - Records all block/container/mob changes (Anyone can look up changes with
/co inspect
) - DistantHorizons - Provides distant LOD map data to players running the client mod
- EasyArmorStands - GUI for editing armor stands
- Hexnicks - Enables Tildes usernames to be displayed
- LuckPerms - Locks down unregistered users
- Nerfstick - Allows survival use of the
minecraft:debug_stick
item (requires admin to spawn in) - Rapid Leaf Decay - Increases the speed of leaf decay by 10x
- WorldEdit - Used for occasional admin stuff
- WorldGuard - Prevents unregistered users from changing anything in the world
The server operates on a soft whitelist. Anyone can log in and walk around, but you need a Tildes account to gain build access.
13 votes -
Grok searches for Elon Musk's opinion on controversial questions
32 votes -
US National Institutes of Health suspends dozens of pathogen studies over ‘gain-of-function’ concerns
29 votes -
Revisiting my digital security model
11 votes -
Tildes Minecraft Survival
New Thread The server will shut down on July 17th in the evening (US Pacific time) Server host: tildes.nore.gg (Running Java 1.21.4) Bluemap: https://tildes.nore.gg Playtime Tracker:...
New Thread
The server will shut down on July 17th in the evening (US Pacific time)
Server host:
tildes.nore.gg
(Running Java 1.21.4)
Bluemap: https://tildes.nore.gg
Playtime Tracker: https://tildes.nore.gg/playtimes.html
Tildes website extension (shows online status & location): Firefox (Desktop and Android) - Chrome
Verification site: https://verify.tildes.nore.gg
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TildesMCPlugins and Data Packs
Data Packs:- Terralith - Overworld terrain upgrade
- Nullscape - End terrain upgrade
- Armor Statues [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Bat Membranes [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Cauldron Concrete [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Husks Drop Sand [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Mini Blocks [Vanilla Tweaks]
- More Mob Heads [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Player Head Drops [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Silence Mobs [Vanilla Tweaks]
- Wandering Trades [Vanilla Tweaks]
Plugins:
- Bluemap - Adds a live 3D web map
- Clickable Links - Makes http URLs in chat clickable (only for registered players)
- CoreProtect - Records all block/container/mob changes (Anyone can look up changes with
/co inspect
) - DistantHorizons - Provides distant LOD map data to players running the client mod
- EasyArmorStands - GUI for editing armor stands
- Hexnicks - Enables Tildes usernames to be displayed
- LuckPerms - Locks down unregistered users
- Nerfstick - Allows survival use of the
minecraft:debug_stick
item (requires admin to spawn in) - Rapid Leaf Decay - Increases the speed of leaf decay by 10x
- WorldEdit - Used for occasional admin stuff
- WorldGuard - Prevents unregistered users from changing anything in the world
The server operates on a soft whitelist. Anyone can log in and walk around, but you need a Tildes account to gain build access.
New Thread
13 votes -
The rise of Whatever
89 votes -
Paying for AI: Have you found it to be worth it?
I'm starting to use AI increasingly, and am getting some value out of it. I'm curious if paying for paid tiers of the big players (in particular, ChatGPT and Claude) provides significantly better...
I'm starting to use AI increasingly, and am getting some value out of it. I'm curious if paying for paid tiers of the big players (in particular, ChatGPT and Claude) provides significantly better responses.
I'm aware that the paid tiers offer more features and benefits than just higher response quality. For me, those are just nice-to-haves, and not my primary concern.
My main uses of AI are software development and foreign language learning. So far, I've used the free versions of ChatGPT and Claude, as well as "proxies," including Github Copilot and Duck.ai. For both my use cases, I've found the responses usually good and helpful. I just maintain a healthy skepticism about the correctness of the answers, and challenge, test, and double check where needed (especially testing suggested code when developing software).
Have you found response quality to be noticeably and significantly better with paid tiers? I was just randomly thinking, and it occurred to me that the cost of an AI subscription is in the same ballpark as a subscription to a language learning service like Duolingo. So, if I can get value from AI that approaches what I'd get from a dedicated language learning service (even if it doesn't quite match or exceed it), then also getting the value of general AI in the same subscription should make things quite valuable and worth it. Not to mention possibly getting better software development assistance in the same package.
22 votes -
Weekly thread for casual chat and photos of pets
This is the place for casual discussion about our pets. Photos are welcome, show us your pet(s) and tell us about them!
5 votes -
Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news
Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like forums, stardew valley and whatever. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was...
Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like forums, stardew valley and whatever. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was boggled of the mind.
But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched
offbeat
stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!14 votes -
How did you ruin a game for yourself?
Warning: this post may contain spoilers
Maybe you spoiled the story.
Maybe you min-maxed the fun out of it.
Maybe you played it SO much that eventually its tiny little flaws were all you could see.
Maybe you spent so much time excitedly modding it that, when it came time to finally play it, the fire was out.
Whatever the reason: what was the game, and how did you ruin it for yourself?
37 votes -
Girlie pens, again? Why ordinary things go pink. (2012)
14 votes -
JetStream - An online school for weather
20 votes -
Stardew Valley just became the highest rated Steam game of all time
66 votes -
jank is C++
10 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
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...
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?
12 votes -
What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)
What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was...
What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.
If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!
15 votes -
Disappearing polymorph
37 votes -
Gran Turismo 3 in ultra widescreen
12 votes -
A passage of water in the North Sea known as the Skagerrak is a hotspot for young Greenland sharks, according to a new study. But what are the elusive animals doing there?
6 votes -
'Murderbot' is the best new comedy of 2025. You read that right.
44 votes -
Summer Games Done Quick 2025, a week-long charity fundraiser featuring speedruns, is live (runs July 6 - July 12)
30 votes -
After quitting antidepressants, some people suffer surprising, lingering symptoms
31 votes -
Midweek Movie Free Talk
Warning: this post may contain spoilers
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
7 votes -
Huge fines after drone surveillance catches Californians with illegal fireworks
29 votes -
Air India 787 crashes after takeoff in Ahmedabad, India
61 votes -
'I can't drink the water' - Life next to a US data centre
25 votes -
Sigrid – Jellyfish (2025)
7 votes -
Victories and challenges: An A[u]DHD community and support fortnightly thread #4
9 votes -
What are you reading these days?
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
20 votes -
Clipse - Let God Sort Em Out (2025)
12 votes