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.

I figured I would help kick off this new subgroup by starting a discussion on how people with ADHD try to manage it.

I had a late diagnosis a couple years ago as an adult, and I have been working with a counselor to develop some behavioral techniques (in addition to medication). Not all of them stick, which in my experiences is the primary challenge of this disorder, but I've had good results when I do use them.

Primarily, I have a calendar where I put reminders and plan things out. If I have parts of a project I need to get done, I lay those out and assign them to certain days of the week. Working in academia, I live my life a semester at a time and this helps me reevaluate certain goals and it feels reasonable to me to plan out a few months at a time.

One thing I struggle with when it comes to planning is coming up with accurate estimates of how much time it might take to spend something. This was always a big obstacle in my way when it came to planning things out before - I wanted to know the exact time on how long it took to do something so that my schedule would be perfect. My counselor suggested that I come up with an initial estimate of how long something should take based off my intuition, and then double it (e.g. if I think a task should take 30 minutes, plot it out for 60 minutes of my day). This has been great for me because usually it's a win-win. Often, my initial assessment is underestimating how long something takes, so by accounting for slippage in time I can better chunk out my day. On the other hand, if I do get it done sooner I can pat myself on the back and I now have extra time in the day to get other things done.

I wanna find better ways of trying to stay on track with habits. I've tried some different apps and none are working too well. Recently I picked up Sunsama which has helped in terms of reviewing the day and looking at subtasks, but as I've gotten busy with experiments I've kind of lost track of that. What are some things that you do to accommodate the way your brains works?

Install from here: Wide Tildes on UserStyles.world

Features

• Multiple columns on list pages
• Wider site on all pages

Source

@-moz-document domain("tildes.net") {
header#site-header {
    width: 97vw;
}

.topic-listing li {
    break-inside: avoid-column;    
}

.topic-listing {
    column-width: 25em;
}

.topic-text-excerpt {
    display: none;
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I'll start: as a film major, I could talk in length about several aspects of filmmaking, especially writing and directing.

EDIT: I'm overwhelmed with such a high number of interesting responses. You guys and girls know a lot of interesting stuff that goes way beyond my intellectual abilities. This is not an attempt to be modest or to draw empty compliments, it's quite simply the truth. That is the reason I did not answer to any comment yet. I wanted to make a proportional effort (I also got a new dog and he's awesome, but that's unrelated hahaha). I will try to do so tonight, and probably create a related thread to you guys can speak a little more about your awesome obsessions. Cheers!

See this image.

Which groups are unsubscribed? All of the ~sports.X groups are unsubscribed, but american_football, basketball, football, and motorsports have been visited.

The link-visited colour set by a.link-group:visited is taking precedence over the default colour otherwise set by .group-list-item-not-subscribed a.link-group, hiding the colour change associated with -not-subscribed. This is particularly troublesome when unsubscribing from a group, since one must go to the group's page – visiting the link – in order to unsubscribe.

Hello people,
This is my first post, so if you have any tips, please tell them

For a number of years I've thought about the idea that the experiment of the "free" internet has failed.
Around fifteen years ago the only goal of social media was to grow and how to make money was an afterthought. Now that investment money is drying up and websites like Reddit and Twitter are trying their best to find a way to become profitable, I'm thinking again of the idea that the "free" internet doesn't exist.
Small niche websites are able to exist on donations, but they aren't reliable and people aren't willing to pay a random single access fee or subscription for a website they don't know. Streaming has found an audience, but that has become close to the tv model.

So I thought:
What if your ISP has to pay a website a fee everytime a user accesses the website?
Of course you have to think about how that payment works and how this system can be abused.
I expect the system to work like music streaming, where an artist gets a certain amount of money per stream.
I am curious how the internet developes with this system. If smaller websites can exist without having to rely on adverstisements or if it might even get profitable. How these websites get paid and how IPS's will handle this (I expect monthly fees to become 10 euros/dollars etc. more expensive).

What do you think of this idea or do you have your own (dumb) idea?