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    1. Experiences with psychedelics?

      I have no idea if anyone else is into this, casually or just past experiences, can remove if inappropriate. Haven’t seen anyone else talk about it here in Tildes, so, anyone else have any...

      I have no idea if anyone else is into this, casually or just past experiences, can remove if inappropriate.

      Haven’t seen anyone else talk about it here in Tildes, so, anyone else have any experience with any sort of psychedelic adventures?

      I try to trip once every couple years because I feel like its easy for me to forget about myself and what I want and how that fits into what the world wants from me. I use the ‘me’ time to just sort myself out, get my priorities straight, and keep going.

      Anyone else?

      40 votes
    2. Home-lab set-up ... Docker vs native servers? Pros and cons of each?

      And as long as I'm asking ... nginx or Apache (or Caddy or whatever else you think is best). I'm hosting a few web sites and services, but currently, everything is "out there" on VPSes. I want to...

      And as long as I'm asking ... nginx or Apache (or Caddy or whatever else you think is best).

      I'm hosting a few web sites and services, but currently, everything is "out there" on VPSes. I want to bring it all in-house, go back to the old days of actually hosting websites out of my living room.

      Towards that end, I am gradually upgrading and overhauling all the sites and services, fixing long-standing issues and inefficiencies in the config files, merging servers, etc.

      I have never learned Docker. I've started to several times, worked with it a bit on a job once, used it a bit here and there; so I'm not clueless, but it would be a learning curve.

      Also, I'm running one main service (Nextcloud) that officially, only supports Apache -- there absolutely are nginx setup guidelines and tutorials and such, but that's all unofficial, experimental setups.

      And I'm running another major service (Synapse), on nginx.

      And I want to merge the servers, and choose one web server to host both of them, and I don't know which way to go there.

      Thanks for any feedback.

      25 votes
    3. 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!

      11 votes
    4. Potentially autistic and frustrated

      A few months ago I went to the psychiatrist and we talked for like an hour. We got onto the topic of autism and I mentioned how I was always curious if I had it. She spent like five or so minutes...

      A few months ago I went to the psychiatrist and we talked for like an hour. We got onto the topic of autism and I mentioned how I was always curious if I had it. She spent like five or so minutes asking me questions and said she would put me as autism coded in my chart.

      I wasn't sure if that meant it was an official diagnosis or not but I didn't think to ask until after the appointment. It seemed really quick for it to be an official diagnosis.

      I went back to her last week and brought up that she marked me as "autism coded." I asked "is that a diagnosis or does it just mean it's suspected?" She didn't really give a straightforward answer and just said that I have "really really high functioning autism."

      But I don't know if that means I'm officially diagnosed. And if I take her at her words of calling me autistic and then applying that label to myself I feel like a fake because I never had a huge assessment like most people.

      Thoughts? Advice? Am I overthinking this?

      21 votes
    5. Fitness Weekly Discussion

      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...

      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?

      14 votes
    6. Fridge at 41°F - safe or not?

      Heya! So I've got a new fridge, a GE GTS22KGNRWW 21.9ft³. Skipping over the fridge water line bursting and causing thousands of dollars of damage followed by the fridge crapping out, we're just...

      Heya! So I've got a new fridge, a GE GTS22KGNRWW 21.9ft³. Skipping over the fridge water line bursting and causing thousands of dollars of damage followed by the fridge crapping out, we're just trying to make sure the fridge is OK before the warranty expires and because we have a baby in the house.

      The ambient air was still above 41°F a few hours after we got it, so I cranked it to full blast and put a glass of water in to have a better testing point. The ambient air has been fluctuating between like 39-44° F and the water glass measured between like 39.0°-41.0° F after about 24 hours with occasional use. I know I'm worrying because the last fridge just crapped out and spoiled a ton of food, and I know opening the door always causes it to drop (which I'm obviously doing to test it), but it seems kind of high to me for a brand new fridge if 41 is really the upper limit. Is this an acceptable range, or should we ask for someone to come out and look at it?

      16 votes
    7. Did a fictional character from a show/movie influence your life?

      I've been recently thinking about the impact of fictional characters from tv shows/movies can have on our lives. Have you ever felt influenced by a particular character or show? For me, the show...

      I've been recently thinking about the impact of fictional characters from tv shows/movies can have on our lives. Have you ever felt influenced by a particular character or show?

      For me, the show Mr. Robot coincided with my decision to pivot to cybersecurity. There were a lot of other factors that made me switch, but it was undeniable that the show (and the main character, Elliot) played a sizable role. It's been a decade since it first aired, and I’m still grateful for that change I made.

      Curious to know if anyone else have a similar experience?

      23 votes
    8. Who'all remembers the A-bomb Kid? Guess what he's doing today...

      I didn't know where to categorize this. It's not current, kinda politics, kinda tech, kinda a lot of things, but mostly I guess, I was just freaked out and wanted to share/discuss. I read about...

      I didn't know where to categorize this. It's not current, kinda politics, kinda tech, kinda a lot of things, but mostly I guess, I was just freaked out and wanted to share/discuss.

      I read about this guy 40-50 years ago in The Readers Digest, have never heard anything about him since then, until the other day, a forum chat reminded me and I went rabbit-holing...

      John Aristotle Phillips did an independent research project for his Physics degree at Princeton, on how to build a simple nuclear explosive device, including explicit instructions on how and why and etc. His larger goal was to help stop nuclear material proliferation by showing that there were no "secrets" left, no tech hurdles for anyone with a brain, except that of actually acquiring weapons-grade material.

      His advisor was no less than Freeman Dyson, who gave him an 'A' and then immediately pulled the paper out of circulation. A couple months later, the Pakistani govt called Phillips, asking to buy a copy of his paper.

      So, that's the background. It was his claim to fame back in the '70s.

      From there, he went into politics, and etc etc, long story short, he's a top data broker. For decades now, he has been the CEO of one of the biggest US data trawling corporations, holding detailed personal info on at least 175M Americans (as of 2007 - doubtless, it's more today), which they use to help get politicians elected.

      "Aristotle has served every occupant of the White House since Ronald Reagan, and consults for several top political action committees."

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips#Aristotle,_Inc.

      Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone who's devoted his life to gathering info about other people, there doesn't seem to be all that much out there about him or his company.

      So, my gut tells me he has become "a bad guy", just my automatic reaction to anyone who deals in this field ... But, IDK, bigger picture is just, I don't know how to process this info. Maybe there's nothing to process, it is what it is.

      IDK. Just looking for other people's perspectives, I guess.

      23 votes
    9. What is your opinion whenever you see news/opinion that tech companies are relying more on chatbots rather than junior developers/interns?

      I see that in the headline from time to time. Not really sure how prevalent it is and it's pretty disappointing news. but I also can't help but think: the news articles are probably overblowing it...

      I see that in the headline from time to time. Not really sure how prevalent it is and it's pretty disappointing news.

      but I also can't help but think:

      1. the news articles are probably overblowing it and it's not probably not as prevalent as it's being portrayed
      2. that any tech company doing that is shooting themselves in the foot. in total, I was an intern at various companies for a little under 3 years. I don't doubt that the work I did for the majority of the my co-ops were all things that could have been done by a chatBot. writing unit tests and small scripts and etc. but they were invaluable to me (1) understanding what is expected of me in a professional environment and (2) gave me a basic idea of how to code in a professional environment (2) gave me alot of perspective on what technologies and tools I should spend spare time learning cause my university very much focused on dinosaur-era languages, for the classes that did teach any coding related skills. same for the friends I went to uni with. So all I think is maybe in the short term, they are saving money on not hiring interns/co-ops/junior devs to do work that can be done by a bot but I feel like in the long terms that will reduce the number of intermediate/senior devs on the market which means they'll be in higher demand and cost more money.
      26 votes
    10. Sleep discipline

      I have trouble setting a time to sleep and following through on it, and it's made my life needlessly worse. I find it especially difficult when I've had a really productive or busy day. I've tried...

      I have trouble setting a time to sleep and following through on it, and it's made my life needlessly worse. I find it especially difficult when I've had a really productive or busy day. I've tried setting a schedule on my phone that turns off certain apps past a certain time, but I keep manually turning it off. Any tips?

      28 votes
    11. Is there still an arcade gaming scene?

      I don't have a pulse on this like I used to, but are there still big new arcade games being developed and made? If I went to an arcade, could I play new stuff from the past few years, or is it...

      I don't have a pulse on this like I used to, but are there still big new arcade games being developed and made?

      If I went to an arcade, could I play new stuff from the past few years, or is it going to be primarily old cabinets that have been maintained?

      How many arcades are still out there anyway? Have they been able to survive against the widespread proliferation of consoles, phone gaming, home VR, etc.?

      I'm curious as to whether arcade gaming is still alive or if it's a dead or dying art.

      17 votes
    12. 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!

      5 votes
    13. What are you reading these days?

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      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.

      18 votes
    14. What are your AI-generated guilty pleasures?

      Most people here dislike AI, more specifically LLM generated content, for reasons such as environmental impact, stealing people's work, etc. Despite that, is there anything that you enjoy? I've...

      Most people here dislike AI, more specifically LLM generated content, for reasons such as environmental impact, stealing people's work, etc. Despite that, is there anything that you enjoy?

      I've been listening to this artist's music for a while. It's mostly video game music "re-imagined by AI" into City Pop and other styles. Artist says they use AI to generate samples, then do the rest of the work like any producer would. I have no idea if it's true or not, but I gotta admit that most of it is really good.

      Today I also watched some "AI ASMR" videos out of curiosity. It's stupid, I know. But watching a knife cut glass can be so damn satisfying. I'm sorry, planet.

      45 votes
    15. What did you do this week (and weekend)?

      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...

      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!

      3 votes
    16. 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?

      17 votes
    17. What silly complaints would your pets try to report?

      Inspired by a conversation with my mom about how our poor dog didn't get fed until 5:08 instead of 5:00, poor thing seemed convinced we forgot she needed food. Mom joked that Zoey would call the...

      Inspired by a conversation with my mom about how our poor dog didn't get fed until 5:08 instead of 5:00, poor thing seemed convinced we forgot she needed food. Mom joked that Zoey would call the ASPCA to report animal abuse for starving her. And I realized it's really good animals can't call because the lines would be flooded with reports of their humans closing bedroom doors or daring to stop playing after 45 minutes outside on a snowy day.

      So, what silly complaints would your pets make?

      46 votes
    18. TV Tuesdays Free Talk

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      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.

      7 votes
    19. Username has changed from @drannex to @macleod

      Hey tilderinos, Self-described resident roboticist here, Not really sure if this is needed, but as people tend to quote/@ me on threads semi-regularly, you might notice @drannex has disappeared,...

      Hey tilderinos,

      Self-described resident roboticist here, Not really sure if this is needed, but as people tend to quote/@ me on threads semi-regularly, you might notice @drannex has disappeared, but you can find me at @macleod now. Thanks @Deimos for the change!

      Drannex is a really old username that I've never really enjoyed since I stopped being twelve a rather long time ago, much longer than joining here. So it's dead now.

      I'm most known online as tumblr user @macleod anyway, and my website is macleod.ee to match. Homeowner has a meow in it? Glitter coffee? the dress meme? yeah, that was me (or partially). I'm sorry. Plus, it's my irl name anyway and I rather like it (muh-kloud).

      Anyways, consider this a reintroduction or notice that my username has changed.

      cheers, and remember, there can be only one ⚔️.

      63 votes
    20. My recent experience with helping someone out of context

      Recently I was approached by someone who begged me to financially help them for a personal problem I could sympathize with. I was just approached on the street. There were several reasons why I...

      Recently I was approached by someone who begged me to financially help them for a personal problem I could sympathize with. I was just approached on the street. There were several reasons why I did eventually give them part of what they asked for. Partly since they seemed sincere and partly because they have shown me some papers and an id card. Also since they turned down a smaller sum and offered to repay it which I refused. Some people can well damn seem as what they want to seem, papers can be printed and reused and id can be fake or they can just count on relatively small sums and lack of evidence to dissuade legal action and honestly I don't even know if it would count as crime justice system would pursue.

      For context what I gave them was about third to half of a cheap month's rent so not truly substantial but also not trivial.

      If they did something constructive with it then that is well. If they did something not so good then now I unknowingly funded that and if they just tallied it as good day's work then what I did is simply stupid. I would like to live in a society where this was just not a thing as in anyone not actually malicious would not be in a position to need to do anything like that but where we live it is statistically likely that I am just an idiot.

      In retrospect the halfway I went about it also strikes me. If I believed them and they were genuine I could have given them what they wanted as it would not be all that much more financially impactful. If I didn't and they weren't I should have just walked away as all the other people did and in not doing so I enabled someone at something.

      What is truly stupid of me regardless of anything else is at the end when I just didn't know I effectively flipped a coin, as in looked whether the time on my phone was odd or even to decide, though I did flip it a few times.

      17 votes
    21. 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.

      9 votes
    22. Shouldn't somebody *stop* "Meta Superintelligence Labs"?

      Noted smoked meats enthusiast Mark Zuckerberg has recently been running around collecting ML experts for a project involving an organization called Meta Superintelligence Labs, which is set to...

      Noted smoked meats enthusiast Mark Zuckerberg has recently been running around collecting ML experts for a project involving an organization called Meta Superintelligence Labs, which is set to feature compute clusters with names like "Prometheus" and "Hyperion", and which will attempt to "deliver" superintelligence.

      Isn't this sort of behavior on the list of things people are absolutely not to be allowed to do? Or has something changed and we now feel it's safe for Mark Zuckerberg to be allowed control of a piece of equipment that can outsmart all his enemies and also Mark Zuckerberg? Are we all safely convinced he will fail?

      If it cannot be permitted, who is responsible for not permitting it?

      26 votes
    23. What’s something that’s more complicated than most people realize?

      Yes, I realize the answer is “everything.” I intend the question to be less about simply naming answers and more about surfacing their associated complexity. Walk us through something you know...

      Yes, I realize the answer is “everything.”

      I intend the question to be less about simply naming answers and more about surfacing their associated complexity.

      Walk us through something you know well so that we can appreciate how not simple it actually is!

      79 votes
    24. When/Why/How did Cloudflare become such a critical/integral part of the Internet?

      Presumably, my understanding of Cloudflare is too simple, too rudimentary, or even entirely lacking in some aspects. As far as I understand it, the main feature is just faster and more reliable...

      Presumably, my understanding of Cloudflare is too simple, too rudimentary, or even entirely lacking in some aspects.

      As far as I understand it, the main feature is just faster and more reliable access to sites, right?

      If I host a website on a server in New York, and someone tries to look at it in Tokyo ... that's a long distance and a lot of potential hops to retrieve the file(s) directly from the NY machine. Cloudflare provides closer-location mirrors of websites so there is less lag time, plus having multiple copies makes my website more readily/reliably available.

      That's good, I get that, especially for big, professional business-critical-type sites/services.

      But it's not actually essential, is it? Anyone, anywhere on Earth could still visit my NY website w/o the existence of Cloudflare.

      Is there more to Cloudflare than this? I realize they are getting into a variety of 2ndary "value-added"-type features, like their own "are you a robot" tests and probably a bunch of other stuff I don't know about ... but fundamentally, are they actually necessary for the Internet?

      Why is Cloudflare such a big deal?

      38 votes
    25. Midweek Movie Free Talk

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      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.

      6 votes
    26. How did you ruin a game for yourself?

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      Maybe you spoiled the story.

      Maybe you min-maxed the fun out of it.

      Maybe you played it SO much that eventually its tiny little flaws were all you could see.

      Maybe you spent so much time excitedly modding it that, when it came time to finally play it, the fire was out.

      Whatever the reason: what was the game, and how did you ruin it for yourself?

      39 votes
    27. SpaceNews goes hard-core paywall

      As of July 1st, all articles are behind a paywall. This includes all historical articles (going back decades, apparently), including any and all InternetArchive copies -- so RIP every Wikipedia...

      As of July 1st, all articles are behind a paywall. This includes all historical articles (going back decades, apparently), including any and all InternetArchive copies -- so RIP every Wikipedia link that has ever referenced them as a source. A free-registration option gets you access to 3 articles per month. A proper subscription is $230/year.

      A freelance journalist who has been published with them in the past had this to say about it, which I thought was enlightening and, well, thoughtful.

      On SpaceNews going paywalled, and the broader disregard for archiving in journalism.

      I reviewed his stuff a bit, and I like his writing, so I added his RSS link to my feed (while simultaneously deleting my SpaceNews link), and on a whim--because he has his email right there on his "About" page, I emailed him to tell him that I liked his article and I just replaced SpaceNews with him.

      Like, an hour later, I received a response from him, reminding me that he focuses primarily on the Moon, and that he loves RSS and is happy to hear people still use it.

      And it was so refreshing to connect--almost directly--with an actual human being writing news.

      Just thought I'd share.

      Oh, I also want to comment on that price ... $230/year is--IMHO--wildly overpriced. But almost immediately, it also occurred to me that they probably lost more readership going from $0/year to $1/year, than going from $1 to $230 so, you know, business-wise, I suppose it's not exactly a horrible decision.

      But I'd like to hear other people's opinions on that price, too.

      19 votes
    28. Tildes Book Club discussion - March 2025 - Hyperion by Dan Simmons

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      This is the twelfth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Our next book will be Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky at the end of April.

      I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself. Also, this month will be slightly different. I have been exceptionally busy and didn't finish the book this time. I am hoping that you all who did read it will come up with interesting questions in addition to your comments/ reviews.

      For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
      And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

      22 votes
    29. Paying for AI: Have you found it to be worth it?

      I'm starting to use AI increasingly, and am getting some value out of it. I'm curious if paying for paid tiers of the big players (in particular, ChatGPT and Claude) provides significantly better...

      I'm starting to use AI increasingly, and am getting some value out of it. I'm curious if paying for paid tiers of the big players (in particular, ChatGPT and Claude) provides significantly better responses.

      I'm aware that the paid tiers offer more features and benefits than just higher response quality. For me, those are just nice-to-haves, and not my primary concern.

      My main uses of AI are software development and foreign language learning. So far, I've used the free versions of ChatGPT and Claude, as well as "proxies," including Github Copilot and Duck.ai. For both my use cases, I've found the responses usually good and helpful. I just maintain a healthy skepticism about the correctness of the answers, and challenge, test, and double check where needed (especially testing suggested code when developing software).

      Have you found response quality to be noticeably and significantly better with paid tiers? I was just randomly thinking, and it occurred to me that the cost of an AI subscription is in the same ballpark as a subscription to a language learning service like Duolingo. So, if I can get value from AI that approaches what I'd get from a dedicated language learning service (even if it doesn't quite match or exceed it), then also getting the value of general AI in the same subscription should make things quite valuable and worth it. Not to mention possibly getting better software development assistance in the same package.

      32 votes
    30. What do you think about Medium nowadays?

      They aren't a startup anymore, but it seems the current CEO, Tony Stubblebine, got it right, according to his latest (long) blogpost. Although Medium is in a healthy path now, they burnt goodwill...

      They aren't a startup anymore, but it seems the current CEO, Tony Stubblebine, got it right, according to his latest (long) blogpost.

      Although Medium is in a healthy path now, they burnt goodwill so many times in the past that my trust on the business is absent. I wonder how other people perceive them…

      24 votes
    31. Working on a ~2008 dream gaming computer running Vista (in an old server)

      Any clever ways to connect to the Internet safely to update drivers, security, etc? I'd only want to connect to Intel, AMD, Microsoft, etc, and then would physically disconnect the lan card. I...

      Any clever ways to connect to the Internet safely to update drivers, security, etc? I'd only want to connect to Intel, AMD, Microsoft, etc, and then would physically disconnect the lan card. I know, dangerous, but I'm trying a piecemeal approach with a flash drive and getting mixed results. I tried to update to Service Pack 2, and it bricked the computer on restart, back to flashing Vista.

      15 votes
    32. Is a career change towards cybersecurity viable for someone with an accountancy background?

      Sorry if this isn't the best place to ask. IT and cybersecurity-focused communities over on Reddit aren't exactly the most welcoming places for such questions, and reading the r/ITCareerQuestions...

      Sorry if this isn't the best place to ask. IT and cybersecurity-focused communities over on Reddit aren't exactly the most welcoming places for such questions, and reading the r/ITCareerQuestions wiki has made me seriously question if I'm being sold false promises of working in a sector that actually has a low demand for workers. Then again, that wiki page seems more geared towards the US job market.

      Two weeks ago, I responded to an Instagram ad advertising cybersecurity courses, because the job market is horrible here in the UK right now, and after some setbacks with my ACCA studies, I am seriously considering just giving up on trying to get into chartered accountancy because that path is closing many more doors for me. A course advisor rang me asking about the reasons I showed interest in the ad, then we had a long discussion about any questions I had, what the sector is apparently like, etc.

      Some of the claims seem too good to be true, i.e. that it's an industry where you can afford to be picky, jobs outnumber people by almost 3 to 1, most jobs are remote, the provider boasts a 90%+ employment rate, I don't need programming experience, the most complex thing I'd be doing is running command prompt/powershell commands and scripts.

      The firm itself seems legitimate. They offer CompTIA, Microsoft, Cisco, AWS and EC-Council certifications, have good review scores on Trustpilot, are a registered training provider and limited company in the UK, and are supposedly an assured service provider with the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC.) The courses they mentioned to me in their syllabus supposedly come to £4k and would take about six months.

      1. Am I right to be wary about what this training provider are offering?
      2. Do you require extensive programming knowledge or a computer science background to work in cybersecurity in any capacity? A friend with an IT background has told me that Python is useful in his field.
      3. Is the reality of IT and cybersecurity jobs in the UK (or in the West) far different from what has been painted to me?
      24 votes
    33. I teach a student with Reactive Attachment Disorder and I need help

      Special Ed. Teacher here. This year I've been assigned a tough caseload. But my most challenging student is easily the student with Reactive Attachment Disorder and possibly autism. I'll call him...

      Special Ed. Teacher here.

      This year I've been assigned a tough caseload. But my most challenging student is easily the student with Reactive Attachment Disorder and possibly autism. I'll call him Jake.

      Edit: He's in middle school, btw.

      To protect his privacy and my own, I can't give many specifics. This student is chronically online and I wouldn't put it past him to Google situations he's caused in my class.

      Some vague descriptions of the things he's done this year:

      -Repeatedly jokes about pedophilia and teachers who have been arrested for it. It makes me uncomfortable that he does this, obviously. The only saving grace here is that he has thrown it around so many times, including calling multiple teachers pedophiles last year, that everyone knows he is just being rude and it's not a serious accusation. Thoroughly documented and I'm not really concerned about actually being accused. Fyi, I have informed his adoptive parents and they have informed his counselor. They are taking it seriously and have started investigating whether or not this is just shocking humor or a more serious part of the Jake's history before adoption.

      -Waits for the perfect time to drop rude or shocking comments to inflict maximum damage. When he wants to say something awful to me or in general, he will hold off until he has an audience and the room is relatively quiet.

      -Constantly mocks and shit talks certain students. We have dealt with it. He isn't just getting away with it. But even after consequences, separation from the students, and punishments at home, he doesn't stop. He's hung up on hating a couple of kids in particular but will generally be rude to whoever if he wants to. One of these kids is a scrappy kid from a rough school and I could totally see it ending in punches if we don't manage this.

      -Absolutely refuses to share any serious thoughts. Even when asked what kind of support he needs, what kind of rewards would motivate him, or what's bothering him, he just gives ridiculous answers in a high-pitched voice or walks away. This kid wants no part in coming up with solutions and won't even engage in a conversation about his behavior or even the behavior of others.

      -Speaking of his high pitched voice, this is the voice he always uses to say rude things. He has his normal speaking voice and then he uses this higher pitched voice when he says things that are rude or shocking. Like he has two different brains and one wants to be mean.

      -Last year, he kept a list of times he felt students and teachers had broken the code of conduct.

      -absolutely hates special Ed. Hates me for being a special ed. teacher. Reminds the other kids in my class that they're "special" constantly.

      For the record, all of these things have been addressed many times. The school has been supportive, the parents have been supportive, and everyone knows that this behavior, if continued for much longer, will likely result in a change of programming for this student. He would be placed in a more restrictive setting.

      This is kind of my last ditch effort to see if anyone has ideas, because this student is on the verge of leaving my classroom. If there is anything I can do to make it work with this kid, I would do it immediately. He's smart, witty, and unfortunately very funny in a South Park kind of a way. But he's raising hell every day and he's the first student I've had where it feels like I can't connect with him at all. And not for lack of trying.

      42 votes
    34. Midweek Movie Free Talk

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      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.

      9 votes
    35. Piano key dimensions are a math puzzle

      Piano keys are familiar and easy enough to draw if you're not trying to be exact, but if you want label the dimensions with their exact measurements (like in a CAD drawing), it turns into a math...

      Piano keys are familiar and easy enough to draw if you're not trying to be exact, but if you want label the dimensions with their exact measurements (like in a CAD drawing), it turns into a math puzzle. The problem comes from the groups of two and three black keys.

      This article explains it like this:

      If you've ever looked closely at a piano keyboard you may have
      noticed that the widths of the white keys are not all the same
      at the back ends (where they pass between the black keys). Of
      course, if you think about it for a minute, it's clear they
      couldn't possibly all be the same width, assuming the black keys
      are all identical (with non-zero width) and the white keys all
      have equal widths at the front ends, because the only simultaneous
      solution of 3W=3w+2b and 4W=4w+3b is with b=0.

      To unpack that a bit: in that equation, 'W' is the width of each white key at the front (which should all be the same), 'w' is the width of a white key at the back, and 'b' is the width of a black key.) The first equation is for the group of two black keys (separating C, D, and E) and the second equation is for the three black keys separating F through B.

      Since it's mathematically impossible, a constraint needs to be relaxed. The article describes ways to make the white keys have slightly different widths at the back.

      If we set c=e=(W-5B/8) and a=b=d=f=g=(W-3B/4) we have a maximum
      discrepancy of only B/8, and quite a few actual pianos use this
      pattern as well. However, the absolute optimum arrangement is to
      set c=d=e=(W-2B/3) and f=g=a=b=(W-3B/4), which gives a maximum
      discrepancy of just B/12. This pattern is used on many keyboards,
      e.g. the Roland PC-100.

      When actually building a musical instrument (instead of just drawing the keyboard), there is a further constraint, described in this article:

      The black keys on a piano keyboard, instead of always being centered on the dividing line between the two white keys they lie between, are spaced so that the twelve keys which make up an octave are spaced equally as they enter the internal mechanism of the instrument.

      But this means that the "key caps" for the white keys should be slightly off-center compared to whatever rod or lever they're attached to. The author speculates about how to divide this up using various units.

      (They seem quite annoying to 3D print.)

      19 votes
    36. 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
    37. D&D - Involving the Gods; Boons and Banes

      I'm in the planning stages of a custom setting for a new campaign I'm aiming to start next year with my current table. We're doing PF2's Kingmaker and AD&D's Temple of Elemental Evil in the...

      I'm in the planning stages of a custom setting for a new campaign I'm aiming to start next year with my current table. We're doing PF2's Kingmaker and AD&D's Temple of Elemental Evil in the meantime.

      The game is to be Viking themed, in that the starting locale and civilization will be structured in similar ways to the coastal Scandinavian settlements and there will be an on/off season. During the on season, they will board boats and sail many hundreds of miles across water to distant lands to find dungeons and ruins to loot, with a clock they have to keep an eye on; the expedition can only afford to be out for so long, and they need to ultimately make a profit. During the off season, they will be home and can spend time locally engaging in low-tier politics, explore the untamed parts of the continent, or both.

      I'm intending for gods to play a more concrete and available part in this game and have been chewing on how best to represent that mechanically. I discovered that one of D&D 5e's supplements for a Magic: The Gathering setting, Mythic Odysseys of Theros, does something similar and has mechanics for tracking Piety with a given deity, which comes with boons at specific breakpoints. I liked the idea, though I'd be making my own boons for my pantheon rather than use these as-is, especially since I wouldn't be running this game in 5e, but rather in AD&D 1e.

      I have a group chat with a few of my players that I can trust for this kind of thing to bounce ideas off of for various things, so I put this forth to them and got their thoughts. They universally thought the example boons from 5e were too personal and individual for the kind of stuff Norse gods would get up to, and there wasn't really a way to track a given deity's disdain of you in a similar manner. They also didn't like that you could track the Piety with a discrete score and could reliably measure when your next boon would be.

      What we settled on doing is utilizing my custom tarot effects we're already doing in my regular AD&D campaign, but having it apply in certain regions or during certain stretches of adventure. This would allow for randomly coming across an avatar of a god and earning a minor boon or bane for assisting or denying them.

      11 votes
    38. 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?

      13 votes