This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

I've been looking at job postings at tech companies. Many of them have pretty bad Glassdoor reviews
(and I tried pretty hard to play Devil's Advocate while reading!). I think there's no perfect company out there. Still, I notice a lot of mentions of overvaluation, layoffs / diminishing culture, stressed employees / long hours, insurmountable tech debt, junior / inexperienced leadership, "toxic" culture, Hire-to-Fire 15% PIP cultures, etc. I feel differently about a lot of companies I used to aspire to join.

In the midst of all that, I also then see small startups. 10, 20 people. It sounded like way too much work at first, but I know some people who seem pretty fulfilled by such a setup and not (visibly) half as stressed as I was at a ~70 person mismanaged startup (although engineering headcount was pretty small). Some part of me wonders if a small company, even of strangers, would actually be less stress because we wouldn't yet have made the mistakes on culture mismatch, growing headcount, adding features to get growth that may never come, etc.

edit: adding clarification

Oh yes, to be totally clear-- a lot of the Glassdoors / Blinds were actually for large tech companies, including but not limited to "startups" originating from 10 years ago. Some were also smedium sized (~6 years old, ~50 people, typically Series A or earlier) so had been doing the startup thing long enough where you can see the team is starting to fray.

In my post, it's basically a slightly unhealthy comparison between older companies that have had lots of time to screw up, and companies that have not yet publicly or irrevocably screwed up (the small, new startups). Of course, I'm then kind of assuming I won't be the reason something fails when I totally could be lol.

Does anyone else find themselves in the loop of always starting a new project? Of looking up tips and tricks to clean their room but then never get around to the actual cleaning? You want to buy just this one extra thing and THAT will change everything (spoiler: it doesn't). If I could just make a schedule for myself, then I could...

That's the "getting started" loop. Where you're always looking for the newest, so-called solution without enacting any of them.

Disclaimer: I have diagnosed ADHD and take Vyvanse Monday-Friday. But ADHD meds aren't a magical panacea. I'm a less anxious person. I'm able to get my work done. I've got the basics covered. But my personal life is really...neglected? I'm certainly not thriving. I don't have a good role model for what "adulting" looks like. Yknow the people who have thriving social lives, who can do their laundry without procrastinating, who get their butts into the gym without overthinking it.

I have so many hopes and dreams from being able to finally cleaning up my room and keeping it organized to wanting to stream and make videos for Youtube. I want to go back to school. But I am so afraid of change and not doing a good job, of not doing it perfectly, that I just don't start anything.

How do you avoid the loop?

Fundraising has always been a part of campaigning but ever since I made a small donation several years ago, Ive been getting constant appeals to donate more (in Canada). I always wonder though, what exactly that money gets spent on? Are they just buying ads on tv and online? Or where does it all get directed?

I recently moved to a new place with a new ISP, and my Mullvad VPN isn't playing nicely with Firefox like it used to. Can any of you networking gurus please help me troubleshoot?

When the VPN is enabled, most requests from the browser fail immediately. If I pull up the dev tools Network tab, I can see that these requests fail with an NS_ERROR_FAILURE message before any data is transferred.

I have Firefox configured to use "strict" Enhanced Tracking Protection. When I reduce it to "standard" my requests go through.

I'm also trying to use DNS over HTTPS with a custom provider (Mullvad, via https://dns.mullvad.net/dns-query). I'm configuring this in Firefox, using the "Increased Protection" DoH setting. When I do that, Firefox reports the DoH status as "Status: Not active (NS_ERROR_FAILURE)". This happens even when Enhanced Tracking Protection is set to "standard" — in other words, that reduced setting fixed the NS_ERROR_FAILURE for HTTP requests, but not for DoH.

So how do I fix this so Strict Enhanced Tracking Protection, DNS over HTTPS, and Mullvad all work together? I never had this problem with my old ISP, so I suspect something's being blocked at the WAN level that I need to circumvent.

• OS: macOS Sonoma 14.5
• VPN protocol: WireGuard
• ISP: AT&T Fiber

I'm just using the official Mullvad client app with mostly default settings. The fiber gateway modem/router came with some default packet filtering firewall rules but I disabled everything in the admin panel. Weirdly, rebooting my machine fixed this temporarily, but the next time I disconnected/reconnected the VPN it broke again. Other browsers (with default settings and no DoH) are working fine when the VPN is connected.

Edit: Solved! Solution here.

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?

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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Hey all,

Recently I've had a really dark period from (ab)using drugs to hide from the pain and feel good about myself. Friends noticed me becoming distant and needlessly shouting into the (social media) void.
One friend wrote me a long message about all these things and his conclusion was that he thought I might be a narcissist. I broke down entirely, the following days were a roller coaster ride of trying to deal with it with high and lows, talking to friends if they also noticed these things but ultimately I couldn't shake the feeling that I had to give in to my friend's accusation to mend our now wounded relationship. People pleasing is in my nature and putting others in front of my own needs is what I deal with and I cope with low self-esteem.

My therapists all said that the accusations is not something they can see myself in but regardless of this I ended up having a suicide attempt. I saw myself as a bad person and that feeling became over-encumbering.

I'm better now, and I feel closer to friends and family after some much needed talks and quitting drugs altogether.

That said, what are your takes on the overlapping diagnoses. It made myself very paranoid and made me spiral at a low point.

Tilderinos! I've been using a carbon steel wok for about two years. Whenever I have any recipe that involves throwing a sauce in - which is pretty much every stir fry I use it for - I suddenly have an awful time of trying to clean it afterwards. Last night after doing this it was still pretty crusty, and I'm still getting crud off as I wipe it.

If you're not supposed to use soap to prevent ruining the patina, how do you clean it properly? I see all sorts of advice ranging from water to not using water...

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?

As the title says. If you're in the UK at the moment then you will invariably have a slug fest issue. The weather has been perfect for them to go crazy breeding.

I'm posting this under home improvement, I need to remove these pests to improve my home. They're starting to climb the house to get to the moist areas of damp located in the far roof section, and I'm in a decent sized semi-detached.

We started with salt around the house regularly, that has helped. My veggie patch is under attack. I've tried the copper wire and tape - there are trails across it as they don't care. Yesterday, 8 beer traps arrived. I set them up, however I didn't have any beer and opted for cider and white wine. In case you are trying this, slugs don't seem to be affected by a splash of Pinot Grigio, so don't bother. However, the cider traps had double digits in both. Tonight, the same 8 traps are out with cider and after a walk around the garden, I can see they like it a lot. However, there are still hundreds of the bastard things out there.

What are your proven methods to fend the mollusks off? Trap or pellet? Do you hunt them down and melt them in a bucket? Help!

Hey there everyone,

I've been on here since near the start, and spend too much time finding content to post on here, but I just love this place. One thing I've noticed over the years is a severe lack of personal articles, blogs, or the similar and I think it's to do with the 'officialness' of a lot of the topics.

Would it be beneficial to just have a ~blogs section, to post links and thoughts on our personal writings? Even if that includes things like ~tech or ~cooking or whatever? Just to have a central place for our articles.

I don't mind posting my own in ~tech, but I can imagine the hesitation for everyone else as those areas feel more in-tune with "news" than personal thoughts. We have ~creative, but that feels more for artistic endeavors and projects.

Any ideas how we might be able to encourage more topics or links to personal (small-web) blogs (either your own, or someone else's) in the culture here? We seem to be becoming more and more a news aggregator, which is great because of the relevance and discussions (best on the web) but we have no real culture for small-web indie blogging.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like reddit, crowdstrike and bethesda. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was caught unawares.

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!

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films 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.

There is mounting evidence the long-term effects of continuously getting re-infected with COVID-19 is something you would very much want to to avoid.

For this reason I wish to purchase a well-fitting facemask with replaceable filters. I managed to find two but none of them have economically feasible delivery options to Europe (shipping, import duties):

• https://www.flomaskeu.com/
• https://openstandardindustries.com/

Is there a mass-produced alternative to these boutique COVID-specific face masks offering replaceable filters? I don't mind looking like a non-conforming weirdo or someone from a building site.

If anybody would like to weigh in with their considerations I would appreciate it a lot. Personally I find it very weird that the mounting evidence from the mainstream scientific community for the prevalence and seriousoness "long COVID" is not reflected in official COVID-19 guidelines, even in the relatively well-functioning European (by todays standards) country I inhabit. I understand the economy is considered sacred and that it takes precedence over human life but still ... ?!?

Your thoughts on masks and in the situation in general is much appreciated.

Risk of developing long COVID-19 is accumulative, meaning the virus persists in your body like HIV/AIDS:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8883497/

All internal organs are impacted by COVID-19:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2400189

Immune system is permanently damaged:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-023-01601-2
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg7942
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-021-01113-x

Write-up from American doctors association with less science-heavy language:
https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/public-health/what-doctors-wish-patients-knew-about-covid-19-reinfection

Something I have been thinking about lately is how sexual content online seems to be proliferated and normalized much more than it used to be. I'll give a couple of examples.

While I do not use the big social media sites (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok) very often, I've seen questionable content while others are scrolling, as well as conversations both online and offline with others who do use them. Nearly all of these sites contain profiles of people who are primarily there to market an OnlyFans account or similar. And these profiles are pushed to various demographics, seemingly moreso to males.

Reddit has a very questionable history with this type of content. But outside of that, any subreddit that allows submission of photos of people will often include these models trying to promote themselves, and they frequently make it to the top of the subreddit. (Some reddit users make fun of this in subreddits such as r/UNBGBBIIVCHIDCTIICBG, which stands for "Upvoted Not Because Girl, But Because It Is Very Cool; However, I Do Concede That I Initially Clicked Because Girl").

Twitch is a livestreaming platform that primarily hosts streamers who are playing video games. Streaming other events or "just chatting" has grown in popularity, which I have no complaints about. But there has been a lot of controversy about sexual content on the platform. To address this to some degree, Twitch added a "Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches" category for people who are streaming in that specific context. But OnlyFans models do not stick to that category, and can easily be found in "Just Chatting." And I can personally say that regardless of how many times I select "Not Interested" on these streams, I continue to get suggestions for them.

Even generic chat applications (such as WhatsApp and Discord) are plagued with bot accounts that are either representative of an actual model or part of a scam, but in both cases, try to lure users in with sexual content.

I do want to say I have no issue with adult content when it is in the appropriate venue. Sites dedicated to pornography are completely fine for consenting adults. What I take issue with is how this content has expanded far beyond dedicated sites.

Society has reached a point where we hand off internet-connected devices to children at a very young age. Chromebooks are used in schools very early in education, and smartphones are given to kids early in life. It already seems to be common knowledge that social media use results in self-image issues in youth. These issues will likely be accelerated by social media not only showing a false image of how people live their lives but also the lengths they go to appear sexually appealing.

I'm not proposing some overreaching "save the children" censorship legislation is needed. But it's hard to imagine how this trend can be turned around. It produces a ton of clicks, which is all these user-posted content sites (and advertisers) care about. Is there anything that can be done, or is this just the new internet?