https://theappeal.org/dc-police-mental-health-crisis-response-aclu-lawsuit/

The American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, D.C., filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday alleging that the district’s practice of sending police officers—instead of mental health specialists—to mental health emergencies violates the Americans with Disabilities Act.

“Someone who calls 911 for a physical health emergency gets trained medical providers who can treat and stabilize them,” said Susan Mizner, director of the ACLU’s Disability Rights Program, in a press release. “But someone who calls 911 for a mental health emergency gets a police officer with handcuffs and a gun.”

According to the lawsuit, these differing responses constitute a breach of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which prohibits government entities from denying people with disabilities equal access to government services and programs. The ACLU is suing on behalf of Bread for the City, a local nonprofit that provides healthcare and social services to lower-income and unhoused communities.

I'm not especially creative, but I love having props at the table for games. Some games seem like a better fit for props than others - for example, Call of Cthulhu's focus on investigation makes having prop newspaper clippings, diaries and journals, maps and other ephemera feel natural and rewarding. It's made that much easier when the publisher provides them with a scenario, which is what Chaosium does for Cthulhu - the starter set handouts are freely available at their site.

Recently, I've added a mix of etsy and more premium products to various games:

• a fun set of inn menus, maps and store price list handouts for Lost Mine of Phandelver (link)
• I'm waiting for the Silver edition of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist to release from Beadle and Grimm (link)
• For the introductory Cthulhu adventure 'The Haunting', I found some really nice non-combat maps on DTRPG (link) and added the handouts from the HPLHS Classic Game Prop Set (link)

I'm curious to know how other people use props at the table, if you make your own, or have found something on etsy or elsewhere that you'd recommend.

I'm a soon-to-be new dad of a baby girl. I have loved and played soccer since 6 years old, and would love nothing more than to see my daughter take to the game. However, I would never force anything on her just because I happen to like it - if she ends up having no interest in soccer, so be it.

So my question to those of you who play/played, do you remember what got you hooked? I'll obviously be kicking the ball around with her at the park, and my city is fortunate enough to have a pro women's team, so I'll be taking her to games. Is there anything else I can do to put together my best "pitch deck" together for the sport?

Thanks in advance, and go KC Current! :)

I was talking with a friend not too long ago about this, and I'm curious what others have to say. For me there were a few, specific games that ended up playing a big role in my personal history, but one in particular that I can say had an immense impact on who I am today.

The game was STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl. In 2007, I graduated high school and got a new laptop. Prior to that, I had a WinXP desktop from...at least 5 years ago, which was never really built for playing games. I really didn't know anything about computers in general, besides some basic maintenance - I genuinely just didn't comprehend "hardware requirements". With the new laptop, I guessed (somewhat correctly) that I could play new things, so I went out and bought a bunch of games I'd always intended to play. Among those, was STALKER.

I didn't know about that game at all, at the time. I saw it in a Walmart, looked at the back of the box, and it was so neat and strange that I figured I had to try it, not knowing at all whether my computer could even do it. Turns out, it couldn't, or rather, it could, but performance was really poor. ~10-15fps when trying to play in any of the dx9 rendering options. The game worked great in an unlit, dx8 mode, but it looked terrible, so I was determined to see that game the way it was intended.

Thing was, I had no background knowledge. What do I do? I trial-and-error'd my way through some of the graphics options, but couldn't really connect the dots on which settings did what/how to go about targeting better performance. I started exploring the computer itself, learning the basics of how games work on a PC (the real basics, I mean - as in, what does a gpu do, why does RAM matter, etc). Through that I landed on a first step.

That was to do a RAM upgrade. I had never done that before, but looked up what all I'd need/how to do it, and from there started really getting in deep to figure out what I could do to get the game to work. I trawled forums and asked folks - what does [this setting] do? Can I change it in the game's files? Which setting has the biggest effect? What effects could I live without?

That experience, over the course of that last grade-school summer, set up knowledge and skills I would use pretty much all throughout my life from then on. I learned so much, about what different rendering options did, the effects of different things on system performance, how to optimize windows itself a bit for playing games - I explored every avenue. I don't remember the hardware exactly, but the machine I had was not a gaming machine - a Dell Inspiron, it had a 40gb hdd (2007, mind you, low end even for then), and some sort of AMD integrated chip.

After much time, much trial and error, and even some game modding, I finally got STALKER to run at what I then could consider a playable framerate - a solid 24 lol. At the time, learning about framerate, I came to learn that's what movies run at, so I figured if I could hit that mark it would be good enough. I had saves set up to place me in the most intense areas I could find, and worked to try to get it to 24 in those areas. The end result was something akin to a portable version - lower resolution, some effects disabled, but generally the same look, same game. And in learning how to mod it a bit, I also got to tweak the game a bit to suit my preferences.

From there I started tinkering with every game I could, and with that computer. Even got to the point of making modified drivers for the integrated GPU - how exactly I couldn't tell you today, but I did squeeze out another 1 or 2 fps doing that (who knows what I must have borked deep down lol). The skills I picked up trying to get this game to run on my computer, opened up the whole world of computers to me, and so this game has a very special place in my memory.

Do you have a game like this, for you? One which ended up playing a big role for you? Or on a different track, is there a game which to your mind could serve this sort of purpose for a lot of people? I'm curious what you've seen and what you think.

I have a huge problem with playing games until I finish them and I don't know how to change that. It's a rare ocurrence for me to finish the game because I usually get distracted with other games, so I make break and after the break I don't remember plot or how to play properly which discourages me to pick it up back again especially if I was already like 20 hours in the game. I want to enjoy games like I did 20 years ago where getting a new game was special but now the amount of cool games and their availability makes me feel that I am missing out therefore I usually switch from game to game just to try it.

Sorry if all of the above looks like a some kind of babble but I am not a native speaker :D

I see some nice watches that I like, but 80-90% of them are the silver/stainless steel color. I'm not sure why that color is so prevalent (probably the same reason 40% of new cars are white), maybe a lot of people love it but its not for me.

Let's say I found a watch I really liked, but wanted the case/bezel/lugs (and of course the strap) to be black stainless steel. Is this something a jeweler or watch repair shop would be able to do?

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.

I just changed rooms, and my new neighbor makes noise. It's not much of a problem for other people, but I wake up at the slightest sound or the slightest change in lighting. Because of this, I am not able to sleep properly. I have tried earbuds and earplugs, but they hurt my ears. Can you suggest how I can become a heavy sleeper? Or how to sleep in this environment?

Hi everyone!

I have a Y2K playlist for this (Britney Spears, LFO, Destiny's Child, etc.) and another playlist with more recent music (Doja Cat, Dua Lipa, Rina Sawayama, Ariana Grande, etc.).

Sample songs from these playlists:
Rina Sawayama - XS
Doja Cat - Like That
Dua Lipa - Levitating
Britney Spears - Gimme More
LFO - Summer Girls
Destiny's Child - Independent Women

Hoping to get recommendations for songs/musicians with similar vibes. Or perhaps links to existing Tildes threads for this; I've already tried searching 90s pop / Y2K pop / Doja Cat.

I use these playlists to help me get into a more energetic mood, usually for getting ready or for working out. I listen to almost all kinds of music so I'm also open to recommendations from other genres; the above's just been my mood lately.

Thank you!

I have followed numerous discussions on here lately regarding extracting oneself from being Google-reliant, and they've all deeply resonated with me. For years now I've been slowly migrating numerous Google-bound things over to my own self-hosted alternatives. I've moved my storage, contacts, documents, and some (but sadly not all) of my calendars to home solutions, fairly easily too.

But the biggest hurdle I've been facing this whole time, the one I've been putting off the longest, is the act of figuring out how to get almost twenty years of mail archive and history on my primary account away from Google and into a space where I can access it separately. I have been steadily changing the main email on my more active external accounts to a self-hosted one, and now only seeing a shrinking handful of lesser-used services still attached to the old gmail. But that history is too precious to me, and I still find multiple occasions where I need/want to reference some communications from long ago.

I've tried searching the web for options, but so far all combinations of my queries are either really elementary "here's how to set up a new email" crap, or else aimed at moving from one Gmail account to another Gmail account. I've been thinking that the simplest approach might be just to set it up as a POP3 account in my mail client (eM Client, for the record), download it all, and then when I finally pull the plug just drag it into the local client archive, and then remove the account from the app. But I figure there have to be others who have done this, right?

As a not quite "old man" I was wondering how many former BBS sysops are here?

In the early-mid 90s, I used to run a single line PCBoard powered hobby BBS and dabble in making PPEs (PCBoards programming language for plug ins/mods). I also help friends set up SpitFire, Searchlight, Synchronet, WWIV and Aftershock (total PITAs from what I remember)--basically anything free, crackable or unlimited trial.

Since I was the only sysop that ran PCBoard I was invited to become an officer in our local User Group to run their whopping 3 line BBS and give classes (that was quite the technological achievement back then). That is something I truly do miss. I was, by far, the youngest member of the User Group (your average member probably had grandkids my age) but it was a meritocracy.

People seemed eager to learn and share information as they found it. Before computers, 3d cards and the internet was ubiquitous, you were automatically accepted into a knowing crowd if you put in the effort/time to join a BBS, forum or (early) MMO. Exclusion brought inclusion, if that makes sense. If you torched your reputation by acting like a jackass it was difficult to move on like a locust to another area.

So many stories. So many high jinks that would be deemed illegal today, lol.

Everything that is old, is new again.

I'm getting a lot of BBS vibes in the aftermath of Rexxit. The slower pace of Tildes reminds me so much of the BBS forums (while I know Tildes isn't new, it is growing in popularity in the aftermath.) Even the Fediverse harkens back to the days of early BBS synch nets.

Now if only I could find a modern remake of Tradwars 2002.

I really enjoy music that blurs traditional genre lines and draws on multiple different influences to make something unique and distinctive. I'm sure I'm not alone in that, so I'd love to hear of any groups that have caught your attention for the same reason!

I'll start out with one of my own recs, as an example - I absolutely love the band Hollenthon. They're probably most closely described as black/death metal, except that they include full orchestras + choirs as part of their instrumentation, and draw on a bunch of diverse inspiration across classical music, modern movie music, and even traditional ethnic/folk melodies. The result is an incredibly interesting and distinctive sound that I haven't heard paralleled in any other band I know of. Example song - Y Draig Goch

For example, this article shows demand for aviation mechanics. What are your observations and experiences re demand in hiring?

https://apnews.com/article/jobs-workers-shortages-hiring-manufacturing-airplane-mechanics-84176a760eaacd1b629e9cef2f6ee42c

This week marks my 8th year of working in IT, and I have been feeling more and more that I am ready to move onto something different. Both my undergraduate and masters degrees were in the arts (Japanese, and Linguistics respectively), and I just sort of fell into IT as a job because I was always good with computers and it seemed like it had a pretty great pay-to-effort ratio. Now that I am approaching the decade mark, I feel like it's not what I want to do any more. Even my current job (which I once described as my dream role) has lost its sheen, and the prospect of spending the rest of my working life having to study and learn new technologies, and keep up with the latest developments just fills me with dread. I don't want to be in my fifties and reading endless documentation to try and understand why MacJibbleGPT is now the preferred way to skilter a virtualised quallock. In short, I would like to relegate my computing to the level of "hobby."

The problem is, I really don't know what I would like to do instead. The last time I had an idea of a career that I wanted to follow was as a teenager when I wanted to be a doctor, but I didn't get the grades. Since then I've just sort of fallen from thing to thing, and been a bit directionless, just assuming that IT would be enough to carry me through my working life, and focus on my hobbies for fulfilment. Well my hobbies are now very fulfilling, but they just make the slog of the work day even harder.

So how do I go about figuring out what it is that I want to do? I have done a few quizzes online (via reputable organisations), I've contemplated the jobs of my friends and family, and I still just feel like nothing is inspiring me. There are a few problems that I need to try and work around with finding something new as well:

• At least for the next 6 years or so, I am geographically fairly restricted to being within a reasonable driving distance to my daughter's home
• Shit is expensive, so I need to minimise the hit to my salary
• I do not have the money to get a degree or similar vocational qualification
• I would like stable hours, and not to work weekends or evenings (this is more job-specific than it is career-specific)
• Hybrid working is preferable to full-time in the office or full-time WFH (ditto)

So I ask my fellow Tilderen, have you ever pivoted into a completely different career after several years of investing your time into another? How did it go? How did you go about figuring out what you wanted to do instead? What advice would you have for me, a nearly-31-year-old who still has most of her working life ahead of her?

Bevy just released their version 0.11, so I figured it would be a nice opportunity to ask the Tildes gamedevs if they were using it :)

Bevy is a rust game engine - more like a set of libraries actually - that's been gaining popularity the last few years. It has become the de facto toolset if you want to make a game in rust. It is very opinionated towards Entity-Component-System (ECS), and uses the pattern to facilitate parallelism and multi-threading.

Personally, I'm using the bevy-ecs lib (not the whole engine) to write a roguelike and hone my skills in rust. I enjoy it but it's not really beginner-friendly. The official docs are lacking, and you'll have to dig in the auto-generated api docs to make the most out of it. However, I appreciate that each release not only brings new features, but also refines existing ones. The engine is getting better - not only bigger - release after release.

The other day I created a post here to evoke discussion around what kind of topics, and community norms we might consider. I offered up initial thoughts to spark conversation and there were a lot of people offerings deep insights. I spent the past few days learning from everyone and reading through comments. I tried to capture the high level take aways in a summary and added it as an edit to my original post. Here is a link to the full thread.

It was suggested I post that summary as a new topic for better visibility and so that's the intention of this new post. This is only the foundation of what we could consider as we evolve the discussions, and it helps surface the initial thoughts and perspectives we have collectively shared.

It's encouraging to see such in-depth and thoughtful conversations on ~life.men. I wanted to take a moment to recap the significant themes I read up to this point. This is high level, so please correct me if I got it wrong, and I may have missed something valuable that needs called out.

Our discussions around Stoicism have been quite enlightening, and we've recognized its potential to encourage self-control and inner resilience. Nevertheless, we've also acknowledged its potential misuse, which might inadvertently promote unhealthy aspects of masculinity. This is a subject that requires more nuanced exploration.

We've unanimously expressed the need for a supportive environment for men of all identities. This includes cis, gay, trans, and men of all other identifications. Despite potential challenges such as toxicity and inactivity, many believe this forum can serve as a respectful and positive space to engage in discussions about contemporary masculinity.

Conversations have emphasized challenging traditional gender norms and fostering inclusivity. There's been a strong consensus against defining masculinity by outdated stereotypes. We've expressed a shared commitment to creating an environment welcoming everyone, regardless of gender identity. We also acknowledge the role of diverse geographical and cultural backgrounds in shaping our understanding of gender, which we deeply value.

The topic of men's role in promoting gender equality has been prominent. We agree on the importance of men as allies in this movement. Tackling the rigid roles defined by patriarchal norms is crucial, as is having open and transparent conversations on these issues. Progress in gender equality benefits everyone - it's not a zero-sum game.

We've also delved into gender norms, roles, and the usage of gendered language. It's been helpful to see such scrutiny of societal expectations and a strong emphasis on promoting universally beneficial values and inclusivity. There's a shared understanding of the complexity of gendered language and how it can both define personal identity and represent broader affiliations.

We've explored varied experiences in male-specific spaces. From the importance of representing all demographics to discussing the challenges of modern fatherhood, we've covered extensive territory. There's a shared commitment to guard against potential toxicity and ensure balance in all our discussions.

We have expressed the importance of focused discussions on men's experiences. Challenging assumptions about masculinity and addressing men's issues from multiple perspectives can impact our society.

I'm new to Tildes and not sure where to go from here. Given all the valuable insights and themes we've gathered, how can we adopt draft guidelines for our community? I suspect we can see how this develops organically, but I appreciate approaching things intentionally. Thanks for all the comments and discussions. It has me thinking much more broadly and about things I hadn't considered.

EDIT
I received early feedback that "guidelines" may be the wrong ask here. The thought was to be intentional and surface a "purpose" for having a men group. Being new to Tildes, I'll defer to community as to what's the right way to move forward. Regardless, I appreciate the conversations and discourse that Tildes brings.

Unless I'm missing something, it seems if I subscribe to parent group but not its subgroups, the topics from subgroups still show anyway. Back when they were just tags at least I can use filter but that doesn't work anymore. Is it just me or isn't that the opposite effect we'd expect from subgroups?

Edit: Everyone explained that it's a bug. I'll just need to be patient then.