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?

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?

For a while now I am personally completely dissatisfied with the direction the (mainstream)technology is taking.

Almost universally the theme is simplification on end user facing side. That by itself would not be so bad but products that go this route currently universally include loss of control of the user including things I would not have believed would be accepted just a decade or so ago. Forced telemetry(aka spying on user habits), forced updates(aka forcefully changing functionality without consent of the user), loss of information - simplification of error messages to absolute uselessness, loss of customization options or their removal to parts that are impossible to find unless you know about them already, nagware and bloatware and ads forcefully included in base os install. And that is simply the desktop/laptop environment.The mobile one is truly insane and anything other "smart" is simply closed sw and hw not regarding user agency at all.

Personally I consider the current iteration of "just works" approach flawed, problems will inevitably arise. Withholding basic information and tools simply means that the end user does not know what happened and is dependent on support for trivialities. I also consider various hmmm, oops and such error messages degrading and helping to cultivate a culture of technological helplessness.

To be honest I believe the option most people(generally) end up taking of disinterest in even the superficial basics of technology is an objectively bad one. Computing is one of the most complex and advanced technologies we have but the user facing side even in systems such as Linux or Windows 7 and older is simple to understand and use effectively with minimal effort. I do not believe most people are incapable of acquiring enough proficiency to for example install an os or take a reasonable guess at what a sane error message means or even understand the basics of using a terminal, they simply choose to not bother. But we live and will continue to live in a technological world and some universal technological literacy is needed to prevent loss of options and loss of agency of the end user. The changes introduced in mainstream sw are on a very clear trajectory that will not change by itself.

I have this vision of a future where the end user interacts solely with curated LLM systems without the least understanding of what is happening, why it is happening or who makes it happen. The blackbox nature of such systems then introducing subtle biases that were not caught in brute force patches over the systems or simply not caught, perpetuating who knows what. Unfortunately I do not think it is sufficiently unlikely by the current trends.

Up to a point I get not wanting to deal with problems with technology but instead roadblocks are introduced that are as annoying to get through with the difference that they will not stay fixed. Technology is directing massive portion of our lives, choosing to not make an effort to understand the absolute surface of it is I think not a sound decision and creates a culture where it is possible to introduce disempowering changes en masse.

So far this has been a rant honestly and perhaps I just needed to vent but I am actually interested in the thoughts of the community on this broad topic.

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!

Am I the only one?

They've made some serious improvements and I generally enjoy using Firefox but I occasionally run into issues that just shows complete disregard for end users. Assuming, of course, my issues are not isolated.

Every month or so, when Firefox updates, it completely resets itself. This doesn't happen with every update, but Mozilla pushes an update that breaks the functionality of my browser. My browser settings, my userChrome profile, my extensions and their settings, and my bookmarks are all gone. Everything.

I do have sync but that doesn't work properly either. It only syncs some of my settings (which actually makes it harder for me to figure out what's enabled/disabled) and while I do get my bookmarks (none of which have their favicons), the extensions that manage to sync (meaning the ones that were installed from the store) don't sync their settings unless they have cloud support.

I do not understand this. Why do I, as an end user who care about Mozilla's mission, have to deal with this? I'd overlooked many of Firefox's shortcomings in the past, but when the browser works, it works well. I have some issues, but browsers are complicated and running into issues are to be expected. I understand that, but I simply cannot understand how eager they are to break the end user's workflow. Isn't it supposed to be a cardinal sin for every software company, especially the ones trying to survive, to not do this?

I just spent roughly half an hour of my day to get my browser back to its previous state. Adding the times I had had to deal with this issue before, I've spent hours on dealing with Firefox that I shouldn't have. I don't think I have another half an hour to spare for it and I don't want to anymore, but is there even an alternative for Windows that suck less?

(Apologies for the rant, but I needed to vent and perhaps get a discussion going about the current state of browsers.)

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Take a look at the Tildes Statistics site. Couple things:

1, and most obvious: there has been a decline in users over the past few days for the first time that I'm aware of.
2: (I was going to make this point before the user decline occurred but it's probably moot now) Due to the scaling of the Y-axis, it appears that there is healthy user growth in the site. But if you look at the numbers, we're talking about user growth of roughly 60 people over the past month.

I know we want controlled growth, and I know we don't want to open it up to the masses. But we also want this site to succeed (i.e. provide interesting discourse and keep people coming back on a regular basis). I don't believe success can happen when growth is stagnant (or, declining!)

I don't think that the conversations are necessarily stagnant per se, in fact there's an impressive amount of thoughtful discussion relative to the size of the user base. But if a given topic is too niche (e.g. MLS football or MUDs, two of my interests), the odds of finding like-minded users to discuss with is obviously lower.

Is it time to consider some sort of growth campaign (one that is not reactionary a la the Reddit API changes) in order to infuse some new life into this awesome site?

Over the last year, I've found myself listening to quite a few audio dramas. I've never been one for traditional podcasts so it was pretty surprising to me that I loved them so much the moment they went from nonfiction to fiction. It's pretty similar to watching TV, except you can still use your eyes for other tasks! Audio books are nice too, but they don't quite scratch the same itch. So with all that, here's an unordered list of some of my favourite audio dramas (along with a small synopsis and some personal opinions), and I invite you to post your own in the comments!

All of these can be found on basically any podcast app (I use AntennaPod on Android), so if any piqued your interest, do give them a shot!

Came home today and found wet clothes in the dryer. Which was weird because earlier, I had found the same load in there wet and just thought I had forgotten to start the dryer. Low and behold, when I stood and watched it, about ten seconds after starting it, it started beeping and gave out an F01 error code.

While googling it, it seemed that the code meant the relay electronics board had failed and needed to be replaced. I thought, I can probably do that, but the board seemed to be more than $150, which is more than the callout fee on our home warranty ($125). But what we most needed was a working dryer!

While looking for the exact price and a source to order the board, I found this video describing a simple fix for a blown solder connection. I unplugged the washer, opened it up, and the board was blown in the exact same spot as in the video. I soldered a jumper in, put it back together, and lo and behold, the dryer runs!

I have an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering, even though it hasn't been my day job in a long time. So I could at least evaluate the plausibility of the fix, and I had the tools and know-how to do the soldering. So definitely not a fix for everyone.

Money is tight right now, so fixing the dryer for $0 (and in half an hour no less) was big for us. Sometimes you need a win, and today was a day I really needed one!

What fixes around the house are you most proud of, saved you some money, or kept a piece of equipment out of the landfill?

Here's a place to share machine learning research papers that seem interesting to you. I'm no expert, but sometimes I skim them, and maybe there are some folks on Tilde who know more than I do?

One paper per top-level post, and please link to arXiv (if relevant) and quote a bit of the abstract.

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?

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.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

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!

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Last weekend I took an avalanche safety course to get more comfortable with backcountry skiing. During the course the instructor told us to get The Tahoe Skiing Atlas and couched it as "the bible for backcountry in Tahoe". It made me think about the other "bibles" I had, like All the Rain Promises and More... for mushroom foraging or Tartine Bread for making sourdough. The folks on Tildes have such an amazing assortment of interests and I'd love to hear about your "bibles" and the activities, crafts, or hobbies they help with!

You may find it delightful to encounter sequences composed of prime numbers, or numbers who are divisors of each other. Maybe they're components of your first phone number, your first car license, your kid's birthday, the day a relative died, or the release of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. What numbers and combinations of numbers you see everywhere that you find curious, amusing, or meaningful?

From Baddy Wrong Legs on Tumblr:

It is the middle of a Sunday afternoon. You have nothing on, and aren't expecting visitors, deliveries or post.
Unexpectedly, there is a knock at the door.
Which of these would surprise you more to find on the doorstep?

I recently ran across Modular Forms, which is a new and rather obscure JavaScript library for doing form validation that claims good support for TypeScript (type safety) and low download size. It has variants for a few frameworks like React and Preact.

I’m wondering what else people use? I ended up writing my own Preact hooks to help out, with the actual validation done using Zod.

I just started watching Taskmaster after finding most TV right now pretty boring. I do like the silly challenges (and dry British humor in general lol). I never really watched game shows growing up, I'm aware of the bigger ones of course, (Jeopardy, Millionaire, etcetc.) but I wonder what I've missed in the meantime. I feel like sometimes game shows bleed into Reality shows a bit, which kinda turned me off from the genre until now. I do love trivia and seeing people solve problems in interesting ways though!

To throw in some of my favorites,
Game Changer on Dropout - My favorite at the moment, just because the cast is great and the tasks are great. Sam Reich is a great host too of course, and I just love the things they come up with.

The Mole on Netflix - Even though I don't loveeee reality shows for some reason this one got me. The players were super dumb but it was kinda interesting. I watched it a while ago though so my opinion might be different now.

Lateral (Podcast) - Tom Scott's trivia/gameshow podcast. It's really chill and I really enjoy the trivia I learn while walking my dog. The guests are (mostly) fun and interesting people too! The questions themselves are super "thinky" and playing along is fun.

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.

I went to university for computer science up until the pandemic started. It was great. I remember working on so many projects that were basic but a lot of fun and others that were a lot more complex but still fun and rewarding. For example, one of the staples of beginner projects is Conway's Game of Life. I remember building that in HTML, CSS, and Java Script. One of my other favorite projects was a website for alum to visit to see alumni news and events, and also to lookup other alum.

What were your favorite projects when learning to code?

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?

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?

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.

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

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!

Voting closed

Sorry for the title gore, but since it is the Oscars next month, lets find a Oscar relevant selection of 4 movies, with narrowing it down to Best Picture nominees that didn't win. So if you have a favorite movie where another movie took the award that year, now is a good time to bring that up.

Rules

• Must have been nominated in the Best Picture category for the Oscars
• Must not be the winner of Best Picture
• Not from this years award, since we don't know who will win yet
• Not one we have already done
• Only one nomination per user
• Please only nominate if you intent to participate
• Upvote the post(s) with a nomination you would like to be picked for discussion next month

Wikipedia has a list of all the nominees through the years. Or this list on Letterboxd.

In case of ties in the number of votes, random.org will decide. Voting closes Sunday.

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?

A "house rule" is one that isn't explicitly in the game but that you choose to apply nonetheless. The question can apply to either videogames or tabletop games.

What's the rule/ruleset?
How does it affect your enjoyment of the game?

When I first joined Tildes I posted about weird food combos, with mine being a cheese and tuna omelette (try it! It's protein rich and it works!). Lately I've really been getting into tinned salmon so I thought I'd throw some of that into an omelette along with some chives, wilted spinach and a bit of soft cheese. I figured it'd have an eggs royale vibe to it.

It was... fine? I guess? Not inedible, but not great. Normally I love the soft, chalky bones in tinned salmon because I'm a horrid little goblin but here they were just an unpleasant distraction. 4/10, won't try again. Whether it's something pretty tame and low stakes like mine or a total, unsalvageable disaster, I'd love to hear what didn't work out for you!

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!

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?

Hello, I'd love for the ~sports and specifically ~sports.football topics to be more common, so I figured I would post something that's been on my mind a lot lately: Do you care about other results being spoiled while watching football matches?

I don't have as much time as I used to to watch football all day, so I tend to watch games either on weekends if I can, or via recordings of matches. I'll usually put on a game each night, sometimes actively watching it and other times just as some background noise on my second monitor while I game or browse the web, but still pay attention to the goals and big moments in the game.

Recently the Champion's League Round of 16 started, so I've been watching those games in the evenings when I can. And what happens is that while I'm watching one game, the commentators/announcers will just randomly say "Oh btw, so-and-so just scored in the other game, making it 1-0". And it sucks because I was looking forward to watching that game next. But by watching one game I end up knowing the results for both games because the announcers update you all throughout the coverage of the game you're watching.

I get that the games happened at the same time in real life, so the announcer was letting people know of the results live as they happened, but why? Does it bother anyone else or do most people just not care or don't watch games after the fact?

I remember watching games as a kid on Brazilian television, and they had a much better solution to spoilers: an animation would appear on the screen whenever a goal was scored in another match, then after a few seconds the information would pop up about who scored and what that game's current score is. It gave you the perfect opportunity to change the channel or just look away and cover your ears for a few seconds if you were planning on watching the other games later. It's not a perfect system, since when there's only two games happening at the same time (like in this CL round of 16), you know exactly when a goal was scored in the other match, just not which team scored it. But it's miles better than just straight up announcing 'oh look the other team has tied, the other game is now 1-1'.

I can understand how in certain circumstances, other results might be super important to someone watching a game, like the last day of a league when all the matches are played at once, or the final games of a group stage where your team depends on other results to advance. But those should be the exceptions, not the norm. Maybe update people during half time or something, which already happens anyways. But let me watch the games spoiler-free at my own pace please.

Let's hear about religious and spiritual (maybe philosophical?) beliefs not considered "mainstream" in the modern West.

The percentage of people who identify as "spiritual", "other", or "none" is rising at the expense of larger "organized" religions.

Disclaimer: it's hard if not impossible to draw hard lines around what is considered a "religion" verses a philosophy, culture, or mere ritual or traditional practice. If you aren't sure if what you believe fits the prompt, err on the side of sharing.

Things that probably fit the prompt:

• Minority religions
• Native beliefs/cultures
• Highly syncretic beliefs
• Non-western religions or beliefs
• "Pagan" beliefs
• Esoteric or occult beliefs or practices

Things that might not fit the prompt

• Mainstream Christian beliefs or traditions
• Naturalism or a lack of belief in any particular religious or spiritual tradition

I don't exclude these two categories because they aren't important, but because they are incredibly important, and most of what we think about religious or spiritual beliefs exist in frameworks created by the above two groups. I want to use this opportunity to learn about others, and I feel that I already know a good bit more about atheism and mainstream Christian theism than most other perspectives.

This is a sensitive subject that is tied deeply to people's sense of meaning; please treat your fellow commentor's beliefs, cultures, and values with respect. Thank you in advance for your input and perspective.

It's not something I've thought about much until I had a conversation with someone who sets up their RSS reader, and uses it, completely differently to me.

I self-host FreshRSS, and typically just use the Web UI provided by that - sometimes I use Android RSS apps to consume from that, but I've never found one I like that much. But I just categorize my RSS feeds by broad theme, e.g. computing & tech, local news, programming, tech news, gaming, business and so on...

For the most part, I just browse through my main feed a few times per day and see if anything catches my eye. The only exception to this is that I have a few feeds in the 'Important' feed. One example is the forum related to a university project, where I need to know about entries pretty quickly.

The person I was discussing with never subscribes to anything noisy. No BBC, no Ars Technica, and really nothing that posts more than once per day. They split their feeds into "Important", "Casual", "Videos", "Podcasts" (I never thought to add Podcasts, as I use a separate map) and "Comics". They have it set up with the intention of reading everything that comes through.

I respect the curation effort that it must take to have an RSS feed where everything is interesting enough that you'd want to read it all. But for me, RSS is a method of discovering content. I don't need it too clean or overly curated. For the most part, I'm just going to skim it for interesting titles and subjects. The most curation I do is removing feeds after a while, if I notice I'm never interested in their content.

I'm very keen to hear how you use RSS.

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?