Thanks

After about a year-long absence I've hopped back on to Tildes again. There wasn't anything about the platform that made me "leave", it was purely external things in my life. With online communities, you really don't expect people to recognize you from day to day, but people here do and it's one of the things I love about Tildes.

What has absolutely shocked me is that after being gone for a full year people recognize my username. They have been incredibly kind and welcoming. They are happy to see me again. They remember the photography posts that I made and said they look forward to seeing them again. They remember the hard times my family was experiencing and have wished me well.

I'm not trying to be dramatic, but I'm being serious when I say that this reception has made me tear up. I've never experienced this before in any community, anonymous or otherwise. In all of the noise of the internet I never really expected my voice to be heard, much less be remembered by anyone. I never anticipated strangers to care beyond the time it takes to comment on a post.

I am completely overwhelmed by this reception. This is the kind of place that I thought had gone extinct on the internet. All of you have made me feel like I matter, and I don't think there's any way I can ever express my gratitude for this.

Since I'm posting anyway, I'll give a quick update for everyone.

Family

My family is doing amazing right now. Both of my sons have flourished and made so much progress. I've been around other foster/adoptive parents and the transformation that has happened for them in such a short amount of time is nothing short of a true miracle. Neither of them has needed inpatient psych care for almost two years now, and my oldest is now able to go to a special school that can meet his needs. My youngest who has struggled his whole life with social interaction now has several friends and even a best friend. My wife and I's relationship, which was on the verge of total destruction is now back on track and stronger than ever. I really appreciate the awesome support this community gave me during the worst year of my life.

Photography

I also fell out of photography during that time, but with the new stability I have rebuilt my darkroom in our new home and I'm picking it up again. It has gone from a fun hobby to a driving passion, and I'm now partnered with a mentor who has decades of experience. With his guidance, I hope to start producing gallery-quality material. I don't know that I'll ever submit to a gallery, it's really just a personal goal to start making things I can be proud of.

Again I can't thank everyone enough for all that you've done for me. I'm excited to be here and get plugged back into this awesome place!

So I've returned here after being gone for about a year. I didn't "leave" on purpose, just got distracted with some life stuff.

I'm happy to be back and to see the community is still as awesome as it was before. I'm also happy to see that on the technical side the site is still super minimalist and easy to use.

But what do you feel has changed here in the last year? Are there more users? Have the topics shifted? Are the opinions of users trending in a certain direction?

I'm really happy to be back and thanks for keeping me updated! :)

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

I'm talking about silly harmless stuff like "I believed in Santa Claus till I was 13", and not deep existential stuff like "It took me till adulthood to realize that my parents were doing their best despite their their failings".

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?

This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

Hi tildos. I am curious on your thoughts on the stability of the US in the short-medium term. What I'm worried about is the combo of a majority of Republicans having beliefs divorced from reality due to a sophisticated propaganda network, increasing "othering"/hatred of non-repubs, fascism becoming more popular among young people and the brazen mask-off takeover of the govt.

From my understanding these sorts of things (civil war, country breaking up) tend to happen very slowly, then all at once. I am very worried we are approaching the "all at once" stage. Is this reasonable? Is a civil war likely? Balkanization of the US? Something else?

What could be done to prepare? I have European-immigrant parents, so would getting citizenship in their country be prudent? Learning other languages? (I know english, mediocre grasp of birth-language, poor/middling spanish). Buying a rifle?

I am starting to regret choosing to attend a university in Texas haha with these prospects.

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!

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.

I'm an on-again off-again smoker, currently (the past 4-5 months) on-again. Been meaning to requit, but it's been much harder for me this time.

Here's the crux. Two of my roommates just tested positive (for Covid). Not guaranteed, but it's a good bet that, within another 2-3 days, all 5 of us will be symptomatic.

Am I better off quitting right now, or will that just put added stress on my lungs during the coming illness, and I should wait until after I recover (always assuming I survive it, of course)?

ETA: Y'all are shooting holes in my, apparently, flimsy justifications to keep smoking. Just switched to vaping now.

Thanks everyone.

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

Covid finally caught up with me and I'm going to be living like a hermit for the next 2 weeks. It's been a stressful month here so I'm looking to melt my brain (or at least the bits covid hasn't already melted). I'd love to check out your easy watching, good time having, feel good suggestions!

This thread is posted weekly on Thursday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.

If you'd like to help support Ukraine, please visit the official site at https://help.gov.ua/ - an official portal for those who want to provide humanitarian or financial assistance to people of Ukraine, businesses or the government at the times of resistance against the Russian aggression.