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4 votes
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What have you been listening to this week?
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...
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.
7 votes -
Marathon runner, 12, sets her sights on 2028 Olympics
5 votes -
What learning do you find easy or difficult? And why?
Recently I have been trying to learn a new language, because I need to more so than I want to, and it's been really tough. While this isn't a shocking revelation, I had a bit of a deep dive to try...
Recently I have been trying to learn a new language, because I need to more so than I want to, and it's been really tough. While this isn't a shocking revelation, I had a bit of a deep dive to try and think about how and why I don't like learning a language. I do enjoy learning about a great deal of other things in my spare time, why not this?
So I pose the following questions to you:
- What kind of thing do you enjoy learning about?
- Do you find a specific format or type of learning helps you when it's tough?
- Do you always use the same format of learning?
- What do you not enjoy learning? Why? Try and explain what it is that makes it difficult compared to above.
Be interested to hear how different people feel.
19 votes -
Tom Cardy - Fruit Salad (2021)
21 votes -
Anyone have any interesting facts or wild stories to share about strange characters in history? I can start - with Marquis de Sade.
My contribution: It's 2:17am on a school night, you're a teenager, and you're googling "most disturbing movie ever made" - because you can. Among mentions of films like A Serbian Film and...
My contribution:
It's 2:17am on a school night, you're a teenager, and you're googling "most disturbing movie ever made" - because you can. Among mentions of films like A Serbian Film and Audition, you also notice that a film with two names is commonly mentioned: Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom. Huh, even the name sounds creepy. After looking behind you to make sure no one's watching, a brief glance at a summary of the movie explains enough to make you want to forget about the whole thing forever. Regardless, you fall further down the Wikipedia hole... (or in my case, you really do forget about it for 10 years, only to unfortunately stumble across it again yesterday.)
Salò was made in 1975 and is based on a novel written by Marquis de Sade in 1785. It is known as one of the most disturbing films ever made, but as I learned recently, the film and novel somewhat pale in comparison to the real life of the author. Sade was a French guy who committed all manners of wild, outrageous, and terrible behavior throughout his life, and his Wikipedia page is a crazy ride. You know the word "sadism?" This man is literally the etymological origin of sadism. (Also, practically his whole existence requires a content warning. In this case, it seems that the art has never been separate from the artist.)
In 1763, Sade was charged with "outrage to public morals, blasphemy and profanation of the image of Christ," which at first makes him seem pretty cool. Alas, it all goes downhill from here, as he was known as a nuisance and danger to every community he lived in.
TW: Sadism, sexual abuse, physical abuse, child sexual abuse
He once locked a woman in a room and went on a ultra-cringe atheist tirade that would make even the most condescending neckbeard blush, screaming about how God doesn't exist while simultaneously masturbating, urinating on things, stomping on a crucifix, and ordering the woman to beat and whip him. He locked another woman in his home, whipped her, and poured hot wax in the wounds. He was arrested, then let out of jail because he wrote letters and whined to the King about it. He was such a creep that the local police started warning sex workers not to visit him. He fell in love with his wife's sister when she was 13, and eventually ran away with her. He committed absurd acts of pedophilia, including forcing groups of children to perform "erotic plays" while trapped in his home for weeks on end.
Later, when Napoleon Bonaparte issued a warrant for his arrest after being offended by his novels, Sade was imprisoned, then had to transfer prisons because he was being such a disgusting sex pest to other prisoners at the first one. His family had him declared insane and moved to an insane asylum. While in the asylum, he was permitted to direct and perform his plays, using the other patients as actors. Somehow, even when living amongst the most underprivileged members of society in prisons or insane asylums, it seems that Sade was never fully prevented from promoting his ideas and art to the world, even though the subjects he explored were universally horrifying to society - then, as well as now. I found this fascinating.
TW: child sexual abuse
This man spent his whole life committing weird, gross, violent sex crimes at every turn, and no one ever really stopped him from doing that either. His life is one long cycle of rapes, arrests, assaults, kidnappings, and imprisonments, and he keeps on going until the very end. When he was 70, he entered a four year long sexual "relationship" with a 14 year old daughter of one of the asylum employees, and then died at the age of 74.
Sade wrote The 120 Days of Sodom on scraps of paper while in an insane asylum in 1785, and lost it in the Storming of Bastille during the French Revolution. It was somehow rescued (eternally unbeknownst to him,) and was finally published in 1904, to eventually be adapted into the film that sent me down this whole rabbit hole.
While reading about Sade's life, I was surprised not only by the major events in history he was present for, but the lasting impact he had on philosophy, art, and culture. As mentioned above, the word "sadism" has its roots in his name. The Surrealists adopted him as an inspiration in the 1920s, dubbing him the "Divine Marquis" and praising his ideas about "sexual freedom." (Side note: I love surrealism, but I swear, I never stop discovering new, unsettling facts about Dali and his ilk.) Along with Surrealism, he is said to have had great influence over Modernist art. Some consider his work to be a precursor of nihilism. Sade also influenced Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, and at least one serial killer.
Discussion
Learning about this guy left me astounded, and I just needed to share with someone. Could I have just posted the Wikipedia article? Yes, but that's not as fun as writing down this crazy story and some of my feelings about it. (Note: I did not link sources excessively in this post, as it generally follows the structure of the Wikipedia article and sources can be found there.)
I couldn't believe I didn't already know about Marquis de Sade before today (maybe because I've never taken a philosophy class?) It also got me thinking that I'd like to hear about any other outrageous, controversial, or just plain strange characters in history that you might know of. Even the other historical figures mentioned above have pretty wild lives themselves. (And on the other hand, I suppose there's so much here to chew on that we may just discuss Sade in general. If so, have at it. I'm particularly fascinated by how such a sick individual has heavily influenced significant parts of our culture, and how to feel about that.)
Fun facts are welcome, considering I certainly didn't bring any.
66 votes -
European Union approves landmark AI law, leapfrogging US to regulate critical but worrying new technology
26 votes -
Holger Rune produced a thrilling comeback to beat Taylor Fritz in the last sixteen of the Indian Wells Masters
4 votes -
What programming/technical projects have you been working on?
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...
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?
6 votes -
Requesting feedback on my implementation of Nord into Tildes
Hello fine people. I recently patched the Nord theme into Tildes. I am requesting some feedback on potential changes to make to it. This is my first time doing something like this so please be...
Hello fine people. I recently patched the Nord theme into Tildes. I am requesting some feedback on potential changes to make to it. This is my first time doing something like this so please be patient if I am a bit slow. Any feedback is appreciated. Thank you in advance!
Dark theme preview
Light theme preview
Nord
Gitlab merge requestEdit: Thank you everyone for the feedback! I'll try to get the merge request out tomorrow with the fixes.
20 votes -
On popular online platforms, predatory groups coerce children into self-harm
15 votes -
What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)
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...
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!
8 votes -
Tildes Video Thread
Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you. It...
Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you.
It could be one quirky video that you feel deserves some eyeballs on it, or perhaps you've got a curated list of videos that you'd love to talk us through...
Share some of the best video content you've watched this past week/fortnight with us!
8 votes -
What are you reading these days?
What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction or poetry, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.
15 votes -
European Commission will open office in Greenland, made strategically important by rare resources and melting ice
7 votes -
In defense of squatting - the community utility of squatting in a world of algorithmic landlord collusion
25 votes -
The war on recovery: how the US is sabotaging its best tools to prevent deaths in the opioid epidemic
17 votes -
HIDARI: The Stop-Motion Samurai Film
8 votes -
How the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird works
21 votes -
Unreleased preview of Microsoft’s OS/2 2.0 is a glimpse down a road not taken
15 votes -
Why the world cannot afford the rich
43 votes -
A list of Moai appearances in video games
42 votes -
European Super League cannot register its name as a trademark in the European Union because Denmark's top flight already holds the trademark rights
10 votes -
The Second Soul, Part I (on salt)
6 votes -
What irrational video game requirements do you have?
For me it's bunny hopping. If I can't sail across a map at 100km/h in an FPS, it'll be very difficult for me to get into it. I get that I'm missing out on a lot of good games, but normal movement...
For me it's bunny hopping. If I can't sail across a map at 100km/h in an FPS, it'll be very difficult for me to get into it. I get that I'm missing out on a lot of good games, but normal movement just feels so empty and slow.
For those who don't know what bunny hopping is, it's a mechanic in primarily FPS games where you jump repeatedly instead of walking/running. This allows you to move much faster and pull off some complex manoeuvres.
Anyway I'm curious to see if others have admittedly ridiculous requirements like this.
49 votes -
MangaLove, a series sharing thread: March 2024
Choose one series that you love that you think deserves more love Tell us what it is, and why. Previous posts in the series Additional Details Why MangaLove? Finding new series is hard! The medium...
Choose one series
that you love
that you think deserves more loveTell us what it is, and why.
Additional Details
Why MangaLove?
Finding new series is hard! The medium continues to become more mainstream and accessible, but that hasn't changed the fact that there's a lot of stuff to consume and few ways to find something you may like.
MangaLove offers an opportunity to sift through series loved by others, including those who might have divergent tastes from you. Think of this as an opportunity to venture outside of your comfort zone, with a series that you know someone else adores, from a small pool of thoughtful hand-selected options.
Is this just for Manga? Can I share Anime, or Manhwa, or...
Feel free to share any Anime, Manga, Manhwa, or Manhua that you love!
What do I post?
Any series that you love and that you feel deserves more appreciation. There are no restrictions on genre, year, or anything else, and nothing is “too popular” or “too niche”. If you think it needs more love — for whatever reason — then it’s welcome in MangaLove.
Please make sure to include:
- The series name
- The author
- A short description of the premise
- What you love about the series. It could be the story, the art, but it could also be your associations with it -- maybe the series reminds you of someone you love, or the period in your life when you first consume it.
Also, commenting on others' recommendations is encouraged! If you love something that someone else shared, let them know!
Do I have to watch/read to what everyone else posts?
Nope. You don't have to consume anything you don't want to. This is about creating a menu of options that people can explore as they wish.
Can I post more than one series in a month?
Nope. Limit one! This helps us be more selective about what we choose, as well as preventing the threads from getting flooded with too many contributions to keep track of.
4 votes -
Offbeat Fridays – The thread where offbeat headlines become front page news
Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like three cheers, yuzu and butterflies. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone has a...
Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like three cheers, yuzu and butterflies. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone has a spreadsheet going.
But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched
offbeat
stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!7 votes -
Pebbles
I walk by the stony brook a path of pebbles at my feet. I bend to pick one up and it is lovely. Alas! They number far too many to read each one's story. But I will try.
15 votes -
Mexico aims to compete with Panama Canal by using cargo trains
44 votes -
2023-24 NHL season: who makes the playoffs and where?
Roughly 18 games from the end of the NHL season, who makes it and where? https://www.espn.com/nhl/standings/_/view/wild-card
7 votes -
US President Joe Biden's 2024 State of the Union address
49 votes -
Oregon decriminalized drugs. Voters now regret it.
32 votes -
Small scale pen plotting by Adam Fuhrer
10 votes -
Love
© 2014 u/ebonGavia Love Love's sweetly poisoned darts Are wasted on this heart Inerrant though they fly My shielding gives them lie These centuries-builded walls The keenest edge forestall Thus...
© 2014 u/ebonGavia
Love
Love's sweetly poisoned darts
Are wasted on this heart
Inerrant though they fly
My shielding gives them lie
These centuries-builded walls
The keenest edge forestall
Thus armored sit I here
At siren's call do sneer
By hours, years do toll
And cold becomes my soul
That blackguard, Love, I spurn
From treach'rous Hope I turn
At length my vigil wanes
Naught but ennui remains
With apathetic sigh
And dry, half-lidded eye
My senses, weak, are dulled
To fitful sleep are lulled
Thus primed for artifice
Undone by artlessness
A 'doring glance unlocks
My bitter heart. A shock —
A shining word, a koan —
The fatal shot is flown
Each quick'ning touch, now soft
Our scales, forgotten, doffed
Bewitched by winsome eyes
We don our honeyed ties
Yet venom's stings presage
Our bittersweet malaise
But how is it that we
Bemoan this malady?
In love — by Love, lovesick
Yet, healed, we poison pick
No Cupid bends a string
We prick ourselves, willing.
7 votes -
What have you been watching / reading this week? (Anime/Manga)
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...
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!
8 votes -
Denmark wants to conscript more people for military service – including women, for the first time
13 votes -
There’s a crisis in male fertility. But you wouldn’t know it from the way many men behave.
17 votes -
European Commission accused of ‘bankrolling dictators’ by MEPs after Tunisia deal
4 votes -
A state by state review of how easy or difficult it is to enforce open records laws in the US reveals many obstacles
7 votes -
Brighter Shores is a new MMORPG by the creator of Runescape
17 votes -
‘Way too much news’: US conservatives face a fragmented media map
25 votes -
Hera Björk – Scared of Heights (2024)
2 votes -
Masters of illusion: Ukraine’s decoy makers outwit Russia
8 votes -
Children to no longer be prescribed puberty blockers, NHS England confirms
42 votes -
Daggerheart. The new Critical Role game system.
28 votes -
India moves to implement controversial citizenship bill that excludes Muslims
28 votes -
Transport for London’s AI Tube station experiment
11 votes -
Not so fast, Mr. Fourier!
6 votes -
Some thoughts about Starfield's world
Warning: this post may contain spoilers
I wrote a blog post for basically my first time ever. It's a first draft, but whatever. I never share my thoughts because I lack confidence, but I want to work on that. I welcome criticism of the way I've presented my thoughts, but my main priority is just discussing Starfield here! I want to hear what y'all think, mainly about the world of Starfield.
I was starry eyed when I first launched Starfield, but it ultimately left me feeling spaced out. After spending around 25 hours with the game I've realized that I wanted something different from Starfield, and that the game just doesn't keep my mind engaged and imagination running. I feel some guilt saying that. It took a buttload of human working hours to bring Starfield to fruition after all, and I don't want to dismiss that work. It's a very pretty game, with a lot of mechanics, characters, and stories. On paper, it's an ideal game for me. It's a first person adventure through the stars meeting strangers and ogling at alien planets packed in with loot and rpg elements. That's my kind of treadmill to be running on. The type of game loop I enjoy. Ultimately though, it did not fill the space in my head that I wanted it to.
Starting with the core game play, it's what I had the least expectations for. I am no Bethesda mega fan, but I've dabbled in their games. Their combat, stealth, traversal and so on have always registered as just serviceable to me. That's not really even a criticism as I've never gotten the impression that Bethesda's intention was to draw fans on those elements. They want to provide a simple set of tools to interact with their worlds. The tools they've provided here in Starfield feel fine. They all work. Gun play feels fine, traversal feels fine, stealth feels fine. It's the way those tools interact with their environments, characters, and narration that typically attract me, but don't here. Even their newest game play addition in space ship combat echoes their standard approach. It feels simple but solid. No extravagance like a Star Fox 64 barrel roll, but there's enough going on to feel good. Like the rest of the tool set, it's serviceable enough to let the player interact with their world. The world is what has left me cold.
Bethesda introduces us to Starfield's world in a baffling place, a place almost opposite to space, a mine. Sure, they planet isn't Earth, but it might as well be Earth. It's dark, dirty, rocky and far from a feast for the eyes. It's no surprise that mines are in the game as Bethesda has always included similar spaces in their games. Such environments are perfect for stuffing loot and combat encounters into, but imagine if Skyrim had began in a cave instead of out in its beautiful landscape. Starfield could've opened in space on a ship or on a number of visually alien worlds, and I think it's a misstep to begin the player in the most unappealing of its environments. Unfortunately, I think it's telling of a large part of the way you will be seeing Starfield's world. From a lot of interior spaces. It's often easy to forget that I'm playing a sci-fi game set in an open world space setting.
Starfield's world looks like what I imagine it would look like if human space colonization were to actually happen. In that regard, I think they were incredibly successful. It's the realization of this image that I think held Starfield back. Just like a lot of our own real universe, it is often empty and dull. Many landscapes of the planets and moons of Starfield, while sometimes pretty, are more often unremarkable. Procedural generation is an incredible tool that can easily lead to unimaginative results. I'm never able to escape the thought that what I'm looking at was probably computer generated. After visiting around 15 planets, I began to feel as though I'd seen it all before, just in different colors. Often fauna and foliage looked strange but lacked a certain spark of hand crafted creativity. I was never struck by their beauty nor their horror but only their only seemingly random assortment of attributes. On planets with human inhabitants their lacked personality in their work and living spaces with exceptions being the hand crafted major settlements. Buildings and structures felt modular and mass produced by the same manufacturer. All of this is probably an accurate depiction of a real future where we branched out into space, but it doesn't make for a fun video game to see and soak in. Major cities like New Atlantis and Akira City lent much more life to Starfield's world with obvious heart put into their creation. You can see their influences from the sci-fi genre in their construction. Instead of aiming for a large and marketable open world, it's a smaller handcrafted galaxy I wish we would have gotten. Somewhere with its own politics and drama taking place on landscapes with intent and personality. A larger existing universe could be hinted at with follow ups in sequels. Bethesda is bursting at the seems with creative talent, but there was simply too much space to make aesthetically daring from every angle. Instead that talent was stretched an inch thin and a mile wild.
The inhabitants of Starfield are offensively inoffensive and so dry they'll leave you parched. They're boring, full stop. They lack nuance and detail in their personalities. They begin and end at their core archetypes. The meaning of their existence is only to facilitate the player and be impressed by you. In my 25 hours of play, I didn't find my self endeared to any character except for a sweet old grandma exploring space, but I only liked her because I like that trope. Characters are very formal and professional which I believe was Bethesda's intent. After all, the context of most every interaction has you acting in an official capacity for one of the factions. You're a representative for the professional work these factions are doing, like being a volunteer cop for the United Colonies or Freestar Collective's Rangers or an explorer-researcher for the stuffy Constellation. It makes sense that conversations would be formal, professional, and often to the point. Ultimately that just doesn't make for compelling conversation. I engage with fiction, especially genre fiction, for its strong sense of personality. The characters I found in Starfield feel like they're just going through the motions of their 9 to 5 job. Their framing as a talking head when having conversations with them only highlights their stiffness.
I believe Starfield is a well-done realization of Bethesda's intent. It's a very corporate and made by committee vision, but it's well executed. It seems they wanted to create a world that resembles a legitimate future where humans leave Earth and colonize the stars. The result is barren unremarkable planets, sterile labs, boring mining and manufacturing facilities, mass produce modular homes, and plenty of empty space. I think they're right, this is what a settled galaxy looks like, but it just doesn't make for a satisfying video game.
edit: fixed spelling from "feel" to "fill"
26 votes -
What's something about your lived experience you wished people understood, but rarely do?
It can really be anything, just something that's stuck with you.
66 votes