I've been trying to tame tracking from services like Facebook. I installed many ad blockers and tracker blockers on all of my browser, I don't install FB app on my phone, but I still install Instagram app and WhatsApp.

Something creepy (but totally expected) just happened to me. I haven't really been in contact with a friend of mine for quite some time, and we finally chatted again using WhatsApp. Not long after that I opened Instagram, and her photo was the first one I saw haha. It's funny because I don't think I've seen any photos from her in quite some time before this on my IG feed.

Might just be a coincidence, but with all discussion about how creepy they're trying to make their platform as sticky as possible, I wouldn't be surprised if IG's feed algorithm do take into account your correspondence on WhatsApp as well (I live in a country where everyone uses WhatsApp).

Maybe I'm doing something wrong. I see an notification for a new unread reply. I open the unread replies page. I click on 'link' to go to the thread to see the context, and reply if I feel so inclined.

But that notification doesn't go away. The reply that I clicked on and read is still showing as unread. I have to click on "mark as unread" to make the notification go away. However, if I do that before I click through to the thread, the reply disappears and I can't click through to the thread. So I have to go to the thread, read & reply, then go back to my unread replies page to mark the reply as "read".

If I've clicked through to the thread where someone replied to me, then you can safely assume I've read that reply.

And why is it Ravenclaw?

I figure we might as well get a thread going about the Harry Potter series of books, show that it is popular and that ~HarryPotter needs to be a thing.

Which Hogwarts house are you? Find some like-minded friends and start the seeds of a community here.

It seems like blocking is the basic bit of functionality that is standing out the most for not existing on ~ at the moment, at least for those of us who have ran into a reason to want it. Is this something we can expect soon, if at all? I know just reporting things to @deimos works for now for things that are rule-breaking, but there are plenty of situations where you don't want to continue interacting with a person for reasons that may not even take place on this site (I'm sorry if the person this is in reference to sees this and recognizes me...I don't really have a way of avoiding that...hence this post), and there isn't really a way to take care of that.

Sorry, I know feature requests and suggestions are being piled in really fast, but at least for me and some users I know, this is pretty essential.

I really want to learn how to draw a map (a proper one, from a real location, not a fantasy one).
Where should I look? Couldn't find a lot of proper tutorial on the internet.
The location I want to map is underground (no cellular network or GPS down there) and quite big (300km-ish).
There's already some maps of the place but they omit some of the tunnels (to protect them).

Mild shitpost, but I'd be interested to see what my 'user ID' is if such a thing exists. I remember seeing that around 50 people were subscribed to the defaults when I joined, but it'd be kinda neat to have an exact number. I'm hoping this is an utterly trivial question for the admins to answer, but if not, please don't feel obliged to waste any time on this :)

Companies can technically and legally track just about everything you do at work digitally, from your entire browser history to even particular usage patterns on company web apps. Should there be an expectation that companies disclose what they do/do not track to employees? Or should employees have to just live with the fact that companies can and will spy on them as a cost of doing business?

As the title says I got into my first relationship this past week (Im 22; male) and boy do I feel happy. Now I gotta be the best me I can be, any relationship tips for a dude? (I'll take advice from all genders).

Thank you!

1 week later edit: Thank you to everyone who offered advice based on their experience. I got a taste of different stories however the tl;dr seems to be:

• be honest, even if the truth is ugly
• constant open communication
• stay true to yourself
• dont rush things; let things happen naturally
• if things don't turn out well; then thats just life

One thing that hacker news does that I really like is seemingly randomly bumping up certain comments to the top, temporarily. They are likely doing this based on the number of interactions the comment has received. Crucially, it doesn't always happen and you often can't even tell it's happening, since it looks like just another top comment.

This solves a number of problems:

• it brings possibly counter-circlejerk opinions to the top (and makes people actually read them seriously, since they are at the top where they expect a high-rated comment to be)
• it causes less "freezing" of the comment hierarchy over time
• it gives users the chance of making comments that get read and voted on, even if they are late to a thread.
• it raises the long tail of high-quality comments. Usually, there are a few high-rated comments, and a large "swamp" of both good and bad comments with little views after that. This feature would likely increase the number of good comments that get out of the "swamp", while also increasing the number of low-quality comments that get flagged as such.

Not because this is a problem yet, but because it will be.

We're all familiar with the flavour that some usernames have, when someone with the name I_RAPE_CATS invites people and they are entirely unaware of this being on the userpage forever and ever it's going to become something people will want.

My invitees so far have both remarked "Looks like I have you on my userpage forever" which is fine, but for some it won't be.

Currently, I am e.g. subscribed to ~tildes.official and ~tildes. That gives me a number of questions:

• if you subscribe to a tilde, do automatically you see content from sub-tildes?
• if you subscribe to a tilde and a sub-tilde, does it have any effect? Intuitively, I'd expect the subtildes content to be shown more, even if it's not as highly voted.
• What about a reverse-subscription/blacklist?

Just some thoughts, I'm curious what the status quo is and what you people think might make sense.

I don't get it. I have plenty of friends, and i'm happy with my lot in life, but I wish I had romance or even just physical attraction in my life. I broke up with my ex last month and i've just felt alone after that, chasing for love.

⠀⠀⠀⣴⣴⡤
⠀⣠⠀⢿⠇⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢰⢷⡗
⠀⢶⢽⠿⣗⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣼⡧⠂⠀⠀⣼⣷⡆
⠀⠀⣾⢶⠐⣱⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣤⣜⣻⣧⣲⣦⠤⣧⣿⠶
⠀⢀⣿⣿⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠛⠿⣿⣿⣷⣤⣄⡹⣿⣷
⠀⢸⣿⢸⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠙⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿
⠀⠿⠃⠈⠿⠆⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠹⠿⠿⠿

⠀⢀⢀⡀⠀⢀⣤⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡀⡀
⠀⣿⡟⡇⠀⠭⡋⠅⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢰⣟⢿
⠀⣹⡌⠀⠀⣨⣾⣷⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⢈⠔⠌
⠰⣷⣿⡀⢐⢿⣿⣿⢻⠀⠀⠀⢠⣿⡿⡤⣴⠄⢀⣀⡀
⠘⣿⣿⠂⠈⢸⣿⣿⣸⠀⠀⠀⢘⣿⣿⣀⡠⣠⣺⣿⣷
⠀⣿⣿⡆⠀⢸⣿⣿⣾⡇⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣗⣻⡻⠿⠁
⠀⣿⣿⡇⠀⢸⣿⣿⡇⠀⠀⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠉⠁

• http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1378337-loss
• http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/loss

Other people's profile has join date and invited by on the right : https://i.imgur.com/OBQG9BH.png

You cannot see this on your own profile : https://i.imgur.com/6F8Fj1V.png

Not that important, but probably worth sticking at the bottom of the to-do list.

What book are you reading currently? What's your favourite book of all time? Suggest books for us to read this month and maybe a short blurb as to why we should read it.

I'm currently reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo, a book that is widely regarded as one of the best recently-released motivational tools for cleaning up and sorting your life and living areas. Ms Kondo puts forward a method of sorting possessions to keep vs ones to discard, one that appears to work for a decent number of people based on discussions I've seen.

Anyone have any good stuff to put on for just a chill weekend morning?

My usual go-tos are
-Salad Days and 2, Mac Demarco
-Wakin On a Pretty Daze, Kurt Vile
-Random Spotify jazz playlists
-What's Going On, Marvin Gaye
-A couple of Wilco albums

What do you guys like to play to start off a morning right?