The history of the web is littered with with many a dead image/video hosting service. Echos of their existence plague older forums in the form of broken links and images. It seems like they all follow the same path, starting up as the new "simple" service that just hosts images, no fuss. But then as interest grows, so do costs, and the service owners have to scramble to monetize. Generally this is done by stuffing the place full of ads until everyone leaves. Alternatively the owners are stubborn and stick to their guns, until they inevitably have to shut down due to drowning in costs. When they do shut down, millions of assets are lost and the graveyard of broken images across the web grows some more.

https://gfycat.com/ is the latest notable victim of this.

With all the recent social media turmoil, there as been lots of exploration of alternative sites, and all of them have to overcome the problem of hosting media in one way or another.

Tildes obviously does this by avoiding it entirely which, while a very effective solution, is just handballing the problem elsewhere. Users will still want to post images and videos but they will just have to find alternative hosts. Over time those hosts will die and Tildes posts will be filled with dead links.

Mastodon has similar problems,the biggest cost of hosting a mastodon instance is the storage and bandwidth required to facilitate media posts. And there's a real danger of an instance incurring high costs if a particular post becomes popular and is hotlinked on a big centralised social media site.

It seems like a really tricky problem to solve, something peer-to-peer could sort of solve the costs created by traffic peaks but has problems when there is many small files viewed by few individuals each.

Are there any other solutions out there? Web3, IPFS? Or is it just not that much of a problem, do we accept that media on the web is ephemeral and will be lost after a while?

Every time I would be in the market for something particular, say, a keyboard, or a camping tent, I would ask google, “What is the best air fryer, Reddit.”

I would get the link to the subject, however niche it was, and see discussions from assumedly real folks talking about the subject I was curious about. It was informative, and I could research deeper into brands or products I didn’t know about before.

Is there another site that even comes close to that? Or are we currently in a dark period until something like that comes along? I don’t typically use advertised websites to tell me “lists of the top ten handheld gaming consoles.”

Just wondering if there’s an alternative to my previous method of research.

I have a PS VR2 and it's my first headset. I played call of the mountain, a bit of no man's sky, swordsman, tentacular, and beat saber. I was thinking I would buy Synapse tonight, but it has mediocre reviews. I want to start a new game, but am having trouble deciding which one. Here is my short list.

• Synapse - looks super fun, and I like that it's an exclusive, but mediocre reviews
• Song in the smoke - I enjoy survival games and in general prefer non shooter games, so this has an appeal to me.
• Red Matter 2 - this one has some pretty good reviews and I do enjoy sci-fi tv and movies, but don't go out of my way to play sci-fi games
• Moss - I know it's critically acclaimed, but I was really hoping for a first person experience
• the light brigade - I could see myself enjoying this.

Since I can't decide, I think I'll be happy with just about any of these. I'll play the most voted comment!

So me and my wife have temporarily moved in with my parents to save up for a down payment (boy houses are expensive right now). Their house is in a more rural part of Arizona and they have a tons of trails and fire roads that I'm looking at riding when it gets cooler. I have a Canyon Grizl AL 6 with 45mm tires and a rigid carbon fork. The tires are set up tubeless and have pretty good dry grip so I think I should be fine and I would be less than 5 miles from a car accessible road at all times. I have under biked a bit before but not on a desert trail. I was curious if any riders here have any experience and/or advice for taking a gravel bike on single track.

Something that exemplify the mantra "don't judge a book by its cover".

For me it's the puzzle game SquishCraft. The mechanics is innovative and the puzzles are hard as hell. But looking at any videos of it and you might think it's a throwaway flash game from the 2000s or something. Here's a playthrough by a Youtuber in case you want to see the game in action.

^{Meta: Let me know how you feel about having a compilation of the comments included in the topic like this, first time trying so looking for feedback.}

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?

So as an American whose love of poetry started in early childhood with A A Milne and Lewis Carroll, I have a theory that the teaching of poetry in typical schools (at least for my generation which may be 30 years out of date re what happens now) that poetry as taught is almost tailor made to destroy any interest in poetry. I like to compare it to introducing music by teaching music theory.

So, if anyone here reads poetry and is willing to talk about it, what poems would you use if you wanted to come up with a gateway drug. They should be easy to appreciate. And on the flip side, if you met someone who said they were really into poetry, are there sophisticated poems that you think are just cool and insightful and moving and impressive in some way? Please feel free to explain your choices or to talk about your experience with poetry in or outside of education.

As the holiday comes up, I’m building a tongue-in-cheek party playlist that speaks to the full color of this beautiful country we Americans call home.

I’m kicking it off with these songs, but what would you add to this playlist?

• Uncle Sam Goddamn by Brother Ali
• This is America by Childish Gambino
• National Anthem by Lana Del Rey
• American Pie by Shea Diamond
• Holiday / Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day
• Know Your Enemy by Rage Against the Machine
• Gentrify by Propoganda

What songs would you add to this playlist? I’ll add songs to my playlist as we go!

I'm going camping for the first time with just my partner (as opposed to a bigger group) and it's been a while since I've camped in general so I'm looking for some food ideas! Do you have any go to things you always make? Any special meals that are best enjoyed outdoors? Or simply dishes that are convenient and tasty for camping? I'll be car camping with a stove and cooler, but all suggestions are welcome!

I just noticed that when I sent an invite to family member over SMS it never arrived. After experimenting it looks like if text contains "tildes.net" it is filered. This also happens with another family member's phone. It is weird why would those companies want to filter it.

I also checked and the message didn't show up in spam & blocked. Does anyone else observe the same thing?

Back in the day https://ffffound.com/ was one of my biggest inspirations for imagery and creative ephemera.

I miss it sometimes and have a vast archive of downloaded inspiration. I discovered a lot of material under the radar of pop culture.

Kind of like picking up a circa 2009 vice magazine from a shop. I was seeing and feeling things that felt textural and well curated.

Is there something around that I haven’t seen?

Wow. So my (not so) little cousin has been missing for a few days. He is an EMT that works in the greater Denver area, and often at Red Rocks, where a massive hail storm greatly injured many people. Between me, my sister, his sister, my mom, and my best friend, we couldn't get in touch with him.

Thankfully, he is okay and was on a rafting trip so he turned his phone off. I've literally wiped this kid's ass (we're 9 years apart). Knowing he is safe and headed home is the greatest relief. But that adrenaline rush over the past 48 hours to suddenly stop is quite the crash. I feel like I can sleep for a full day now.

Hello,

I’m soon to become a father to my firstborn child and have the opportunity to take some paternity leave through work. While the length of time I can take is very generous (as far as I know), I’m truly unsure how much is usually the norm for fathers.

I work in a stable office job, while my wife is self employed and will be taking 3 months off. I am leaning towards taking the week after birth off and intermittently working from home afterwards as needed, as even with leave I would most likely not receive my full 100% pay, which we will definitely need. In addition to the financial impact, my daily work usually consists of stuff that my coworkers would be unable or struggle with staying on top of, and I do not want to put any extra burden on them, or have tasks not completed merely to back up until my return.

Any advice or comments would be much appreciated as I am struggling to figure this out!

It can be anything, big or small! I think it's valuable to be able to change your opinions and not cling to them out of loyalty, so let's celebrate our flexibility! I'll go first.

I never used to listen to audio versions of books that I haven't already read, because I felt safety in the fact that I already knew what was going to happen and didn't feel concern over missing a passage from distraction. But in the past few months I realised that I listen to podcasts constantly, and that audiobooks (of the right kind) can be thought of as longer form podcasts.
So I've been jumping more into audiobooks for when I'm on long drives or commuting to university, and honestly it's great. I've been really enjoying Stephen Fry's Greek mythology series, and was finally able to finish "reading" the Hitchhiker's Guide series. As I have a bit of a mental block on actual reading that is unrelated to my masters, it's extremely cool to still be able to enjoy non-academic books without the feeling of guilt.

Hey there! Any web developers/designers out there that have resources on creating websites that are fully accessible? I am getting back into web development after a decade away and want to learn the correct way. Thanks for any tips!