The custom of tipping your server dates back to the mid-1800's. 150 years later, it seems that tipping is less customary, and has become entrenched in the service industry.

Some view tipping as a positive. People may feel compelled to give their server 'something extra' for extraordinary service, and tipping gives them that option. They might also say that a tip provides extra motivation for the server to do a better job. From the perspective of the server, they may even feel enticed to pursue employment where tips are readily available as it could supplement their income.

Opposers of tipping often feel that employers should offer a 'living wage' to their servers instead of relying on their clientele to 'make up the difference.' Sociological critics have also noticed that physically attractive servers might get larger tips, regardless of the quality of service they provide, thus negating the "motivation" argument. Again, from the perspective of a server, they might also not wish to pursue a job that forces them to rely on tips as their income may fluctuate from month-to-month, making it difficult to budget accordingly.

These are just some of the most common arguments for and against tipping. I'm curious as to what you all think!

Trying to get a sense on how the networking would go down?

If I had one public IP address and say 4 Docker containers on the host, how would the SSH connections work? Would I have to reserve ports for each container?

Anyone up for a weekly / semi-weekly reading group? Probably aimed at short texts, my experience is that groups that attempt long texts always fall apart as people get behind and can't participate anymore. Not just short fiction necessarily either, we could do poetry and philosophy and nonfiction too.

If you're interested, maybe comment with a text you think we should do.

I'm only a beginner down the rabbithole known as mech-keebs, but I thought I'd source some thoughts here. Apologies if this has been expanded on in other ~hobbies threads.

Those of you who have been in the mech game longer, what switches have you tried? What do you find are your personal preferences on switches and why do you think that is? Have you ventured away from the very popular Cherry MX switches?

What about keycaps? What are your favourite profiles or colourway designs? Preferred material? I am currently rocking a DSA set of keycaps from one of my favourite designers, MiTo: https://mitormk.com/legacy-dsa/ I got the blue/black Tron-inspired set. I gotta admit, I was a little skeptical of ABS caps, but they're really nicely textured in a way that's reminiscent of PBT, but without that powdery grippiness.

Tell me about some of your favourite layouts too! I hear some pretty aggressive proponents of tenkeyless layouts, but I just really like my numpad for lots of numeric input. If it were just a gaming keyboard, I probably would be pretty happy with TKL though.

Are you working on any new projects right now?

Looking forward to all the responses!

One of my biggest hobbies is collecting flashlights. I guess I don't really "collect" them as much buy ones I want and sell ones I stop using.

Is anyone here also a flashlight aficionado, or would like to be?

Over the past couple weeks I’ve gone and binged The Dick Van Dyke show on Netflix. Turns out, it’s fantastic! The writing is great and there’s all kinds of content that has been reused for modern sitcoms.

What are some other older shows that folks recommend to watch and enjoy?

Not exactly an original first post, but as a life long avid SF fan, I'm always on the lookout for recommendations.

According to Google Play, my reading (and re-reading) this year has been ...

Iain M Banks, Alastair Reynolds, John Scalzi, Dan Simmons, Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross, China Miéville, Vernor Vinge, Peter Watts, Neal Asher, Richard K Morgan, Corey Doctorow, C.J. Cherryh, Karl Schroeder, Ann Leckie, Hannu Rajaniemi, Yoon Ha Lee, Greg Bear and James S.A. Corey.

So I guess that sums up my current taste, which would seem to tilt towards space opera and "hard" SF.

The Paper Bag Princess was an awesome book for little girls that I read when I was a little girl. And now that a lot of family and friends are having kids of their own, I was wondering anyone have any recommendations for similar books but for both genders?

Inspired by an earlier thread in this post I'd love to hear what other Buffy fans think about the show. What season is best and why? What elements of the show did you love, or hate? What did the show mean to you? Angel or Spike?

I've read the books up until Cibola Burn, so my impression comes from comparing my experience watching the story to reading it as told in print.

Season 3 was incredibly rushed through and little of any character's motivations or thought are clarified as they still make more or less the same decisions. Two noteworthy characters (Pa, Bull) combined into one character (Drummer) whose actress only does one vocal and facial expression, which I happen to mirror every time she gets air time.

Show Ashford, an arguably much more sensible and intelligent man than Book Ashford, is unreasonably suddenly deemed necessary to reflect Book Ashford without any clear change in motivation.

So many things are done weirdly on the show that didn't need be done. Those are a few examples off the top of my head. What do you think?

No, not the PC classes in your game - the classes that describe the people you play the game with.

Mister Fantastic: Every single number on this player's character sheet has been optimized beyond comprehension to be at least 20% higher than you thought was possible, and it's all legal. Reading one of his sheets will teach you about traits, feats, and rules you never knew existed. Often mumbles cryptic, one-word answers while barely paying attention that end ongoing rules discussions leaving the other players with blank faces. His characters are nearly invincible except for one small key weakness (AC 26 at level 1, but with a CMD of 5). This player can typically one-shot the BBEG and reverse the party's fortunes in a single round. If he's charmed or dominated it will result in a TPK unless dealt with instantly.

The Veteran: A quiet fellow wearing a T-Shirt that says, "Don't tell me about your character: just play." He's never flashy, and seems to do very little, content to let everyone else play and have fun. Always prepared for any situation when no one else is. More likely to aid other players than act directly. He'll only involve himself when everyone else is making a mess out of things, and when he does wake up, his ability to deal with any given situation leaves Mister Fantastic green with envy. Has been known to kill BBEGs via roleplaying. Has the ability to summon natural 20s on demand but rarely uses it. The GM often consults with him on rules issues.

Negative Diplomacy: No matter the class or the character's abilities, whenever this player opens their mouth to talk to someone who isn't in the party, you know the group is going to be in combat to the death in less than three rounds. The GM is uniquely powerless to prevent this from happening. His superpower is always knowing the worst possible in-character thing to say.

Milla Vanilla: Every character this person plays is the exact same thing - even when playing different classes. For whatever reason, this player cannot mentally step into the shoes of their character, and ends up on endless repeat. Often not noticeable until one has played multiple games with this person and notices that their ninja assassin is remarkably similar in temperament to their paladin.

The Conspiracy Theorist: This player is convinced that every single thing that happens is part of some grand tapestry and he is on a mission to figure it out. Often obsesses over small details, makes bizarre (sometimes nonsensical) connections between events, places, and facts. Your worst fear is that he's giving the GM ideas. It's confirmed when some of his wilder predictions come to pass later in the game.

Aaron Justicebringer: The kind of perma-lawful good holy crusader who walks into a tavern and announces, "Greetings! I am Aaron Justicebringer. You may flee if you wish." He's on a mission to smite evil. Since he's always got detect evil running, he finds quite a lot of it and smites often, without concern for trivialities like local customs, ettiquette, roleplaying, and plot. This player always plays crusader types.

Kaboom: Kaboom likes loves lives to set things on fire. Often a wizard or sorcerer, and the kind of fellow who can reduce six enemies to ash in a single round (even if those were six fire elementals). Flaming spells, flaming daggers, flaming hair, and one can track him across Golarion just by following the smoke. Unfortunately, that's all he's good for. Kaboom is a blunt instrument, best kept wrapped in asbestos until the party finds a target he can be aimed at in a location that hasn't got too much potential for collateral damage. This player comes in non-fire flavors too.

Sleepy Pete: Sleepy Pete has a wife, six kids, and a stressful day job. By the time he makes it to the session, he's been clinically dead for two hours already. He'll be asleep within an hour of starting, even faster if food or alcohol is involved. Sleepy Pete is also prone to missing sessions with little forewarning. You're not even sure what his character or personality is because you've been given almost no opportunity to observe him in a conscious state.

Brandon The Builder: A player who in all other ways is relatively normal, Brandon must never be given downtime in any way, shape, or form. With a full set of item crafting feats and flawless mastery of the downtime rules, Brandon will not only rule the entire kingdom in less than six months, he'll find a way to provide every single party member with a Headband of Mental Superiority, Belt of Physical Perfection, two +5 Tomes or Manuals of their choice, and a well staffed keep while doing it.

Broken Billy: This player has no comprehension of the mathematical progression of the games he plays. Instead, he jumps at the first thing he finds that sounds cool. This leaves him with a hodgepodge of abilities that quickly become useless as the game progresses, leaving poor Billy more and more frustrated as the game goes on. Broken Billy steadfastly ignores all advice and all warnings given to him by the GM and more experienced players. Prone to having five first level classes on his fifth level character.

The Novice Namer: Never good at coming up with names, this player has given birth to many legendary heroes: Bob the Barbarian, Robert the Ranger, and who could forget Sheldon the Sorcerer.

The Knife Hoarder: For whatever reason, this player insists on having at least 2 knives on his belt and 4 hidden on his person. He'll never actually use these knives, but as they'd say "just in case."

The 1-Leaf-Clover: This person's dice are trying to kill him. Oh he might roll a natural 20 to get a cheap room at the inn or tell if an item is masterwork (its not), but the second he's in combat, the most you can expect is a 12 or 13.

The iGenie: Only looks away from his laptop when his name is said three times.

The Bookworm: If not taking an action, is found face first in a book looking for a rare never before seen rule that will get him out of the in-game situation. There has got to be rule specifically for negotiating with a different race to reduce the price of a toll. There just has to be!

Secretly Evil: This player almost always plays a Wizard/Sorcerer and takes a Necromantic path. They'll write a sizable and traumatic back-story. Then in game they'll never do or say anything evil in front of the group(in or out of character). In fact, they'll do very little in general. Instead they wait until everyone is gone and tell the DM what evil things they actually did while "no one was looking".

You should try FATAL: Makes all their characters and every encounter somehow revolve around sex.

Spellsaver: Spellcaster that never casts their spells because they think the next fight is going to be harder.

The Lore Keeper: This player may not be the most talkative person at the table, but that's possibly because they're too busy writing down every even happening in the game. Conversations, shared loot, timelines, and character sketches -- this player is devoted to the story, and keeps track of all of it.

What are we missing?

(Some inspiration from this old reddit thread.)

Happy Friday everyone! I thought that a solid discussion could be spawned out of us talking about weekly health goals and how we've achieved them, so I invite y'all to tell us all about them. Have you recently hit a new personal record in weight-lifting? Run your first mile in ten years? Or have you just been maintaining a good, consistent routine?

There isn't really a great mechanic for learning skills and languages in dungeons and dragons. This makes it a bit lacking if there is a certain amount of off-time between adventures and missions. It would be cool to think some sort of mundane dnd. Like mini-games in video game RPGs that make your character a little bit more personal. A quirks mechanic, that adds a certain way your character acts in the every day or what your character normally does. The risk is that it could turn into too much of a dice roller and the players might engage less with the story. What do you think?

Hello to all!

Since I first read a Saramago novel (All the Names), I've grown to love Portuguese literature. Later I read Gonçalo Tavares and Pessoa, and I have some names to discover from their classics (illustrious ones like Gil Vicente or Eça de Queiroz), but because I don't know Portuguese yet, I have to make do with translations, which impedes me from following the current, less famous authors. So, I wonder if you could tell me about some of these ones. Which are your favourites, which ones would you suggest? Does not matter if translated or not, I can read in a couple other languages and will learn Portuguese soon too. Thanks in advance!

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!

Feel free to give recs or dicuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

This is a hard topic for me personally, so please be gentle. I am at my core an institutionalist and an incrementalist, so I tend to want to both value and improve institutions through incremental (bit-by-bit) change.

A common concern and criticism of people who are impatient with incremental changes is that there would be tons of unintended consequences. While that concern resonates with me, it clearly doesn't seem to resonate with much of anyone else right now.

So in this I feel alone, frankly, and a lot of the reason for that loneliness is because incrementalism seems to have been firmly rebuked by both left and right wing political groups around the world. Help me understand what's happening. Where is incrementalism failing for you? Do you see any role for bit-by-bit change?

The scope of this thread could expand to the high heavens, so please understand how widely varied the examples might be that we each might bring to this discussion.

Just wanted to start talking about anime in general see what people like, share some of our favourite titles and such. I propose we link to MAL or AniList since Tildes doesn't necessarily have a bot that would do that automatically. I'll start!

• Shaman King was probably one of the first anime I watched alongside Pokemon back before I knew what anime was. It's a very nostalgic show for me and the english opening still gives me shivers.
• Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is something I've gotten to appreciate much more since I watched it later down the line when rediscovering anime for myself and starting to really get into it. It's one of the highest rated shows on MAL and it definitely deserves every bit of praise it gets.
• Spirited Away and The Wind Rises. If we are talking movies, these two would probably be my picks. The former brings forward very nostalgic memories and the latter I happened to see in the theaters and I loved every second of it. I feel like most of Miyazaki's works are going to end up on a lot of people's favourites lists.

I'd love to discuss each one deeper if people are into it but I want everyone to feel free and share as much as they'd like, including personal stories and anecdotes.

edit: Amazed to see so many people sharing their favourite shows in detail, and also glad that there are so many people on tildes who share one of my favourite pastimes. :)

I love all kinds of music, but am unable to play everything I like at work.

If anyone here has the desire to introduce me (and anyone in this thread) to some beloved stuff that may not be familiar, I would appreciate it.

As my name suggests, this is in a restaurant, so it would just have to exclude anything too introspective/atonal/delicate, and anything too speedy/loud/without melody (curses and lewdness are fine with my boss, though, interestingly enough!)

I would certainly listen to that sort of stuff, personally, though so please be free to include it with caveat.

No offense to artists who are household names and near it, but I am sorely tired of all the songs I've heard before, and my coworkers are never going to leave out the early 90s Madonna, so I am just trying to mix it up!

I'm primarily a non-programmer these days, but have a fairly extensive background in statistical analysis - seeking recommendations for best/cheapest/easiest-to-learn data visualization tools. I have access to PowerBI and Tableau through work, but any other recommendations are welcome. You can take the SQL-family relational database query skills for granted, but not necessarily noSQL, Hadoop or the other popular big data sources.

The back story is that I’m currently deciding whether to get a PS4 or a Nintendo Switch.

But instead of just a “what’s your fave” thread I want to take this opportunity to turn it into a proper discussion which console you think is filling the casual gamer needs better, why and how. Including the games

Now, my personal feeling – and I never owned a game console before myself, but have gamed on the PC before – it seems to me like Nintendo is trying to cater to the casual gamer who wants to wind down and perhaps play some fun games with friends during a party. While Sony and Microsoft seem to me to aim more at gamers who want a more immersive experience and play either alone or if with others in a more competitive/rival way.

Most spaces flying the flag of science are often unfortunately exclusive in their focus on STEM sciences. In order to combat such a monopoly and until such time as Tildes opens up groups for the social sciences and humanities, I'd like to open this place up to discussion around some of the disciplines which have always personally interested me more than, say, astronomy or biology. Is anyone else here interested in sociology, archaeology, anthropology, linguistics..? Has anyone pursued work in those fields? Any interesting perspectives to offer or news of recent breakthroughs in any of those areas? All discussion is welcome.

As for myself, I'm particularly interested in sociocultural anthropology and archaeology--in the latter case, specifically as relates to the Neolithic and Bronze Age Near East. I'll soon be pursuing a degree in anthropology with an archaeological orientation at the University of Buenos Aires and hope to be working in the field soon after the end of my studies. I'm also incidentally interested in sociology, philosophy, and literature studies, but don't have any plans at the moment to pursue academic study thereof. Any questions? Feel free to ask.

Just got in a huge argument with my aunts and uncles who are engineers (I am as well) who don't believe climate change is real. Or as my chemical engineering aunt and my emissions engineering aunt put it "I don't believe carbon dioxide is a pollutant"

What are your guys family gathering stories?

I have been writing a paper on the history of a type of online social space called public access Unix systems, and I'm posting a Tildes-tailored summary here in case anyone is interested. If you enjoy this and want to read more (like 10+ pages more) look at the bottom of this post for a link to the main paper-- it has citations, quotes, and everything, just like a real pseudo-academic paper!

I wrote this because a summary didn't exist and writing it was a way for me to learn about the history. It was not written with the intent of commercial publication, but I'd still love to share it around and get more feedback, especially if that would help me further develop the description of this history and these ideas. If you have any thoughts about this, please let me know.

What are Public Access Unix Systems?

When the general public thinks of the Unix operating system (if it does at all), it probably isn't thinking about a social club. But at its core, Unix has a social architecture, and there is a surprisingly large subculture of people who have been using Unix and Unix-like operating systems this way for a long time.

Public access Unix systems are multi-user systems that provide shell accounts to the general public for free or low cost. The shell account typically provides users with an email account, text-based web browsers, file storage space, a directory for hosting website files, software compilers and interpreters, and a number of tools for socializing with others on the system. The social tools include the well-known IRC (Internet Relay Chat), various flavors of bulletin-board systems, often a number of homegrown communication tools, and a set of classic Unix commands for finding information about or communicating with other system users.

But more than just mere shell providers, public access Unix systems have always had a focus on the social community of users that develops within them. Some current systems have been online for several decades and many users have developed long-standing friendships and even business partnerships through them. i.e. they're a lot of fun and useful too.

Of interest to Tildes members is that public access Unix systems have for the most part been non-commercial. Some take donations or charge membership fees for certain tiers of access (some in the U.S. are registered 501(c)(3) or 501(c)(7) non profits). They almost invariably do not take advertising revenue, do not sell user profile data, and the user bases within them maintain a fairly strong culture of concern about the state of the modern commercial Internet.

This concept of a non-commercial, socially aware, creative space is what really got me interested in the history of these systems. Further, the fact that you have this socially aware, technically competent group of people using and maintaining a medium of electronic communication seems particularly important in the midst of the current corporate takeover of Internet media.

History

Public access Unix systems have been around since the early 1980's, back when most of the general public did not have home computers, before there was a commercial Internet, and long before the World Wide Web. Users of the early systems dialed in directly to a Unix server using a modem, and simultaneous user connections were limited by the number of modems a system had. If a system had just one modem, you might have to dial in repeatedly until the previous user logged off and the line opened up.

These early systems were mostly used for bulletin-board functionality, in which users interacted with each other by leaving and reading text messages on the system. During this same time in the early 80's, other dial-in systems existed that were more definitively labeled "BBSes". Their history has been thoroughly documented in film (The BBS Documentary by Jason Scott) and in a great Wikipedia article. These other systems (pure BBSes) did not run the Unix OS and many advanced computer hobbyists turned up their noses at what they saw as toyish alternatives to the Unix OS.

Access to early dial-in public access Unix systems was mostly constrained by prohibitively expensive long-distance phone charges, so the user bases drew from local calling areas. The consequence was that people might meet each other online, but there was a chance they could end up meeting in person too because they might literally be living just down the street from each other.

The first two public access Unix systems were M-Net (in Ann Arbor, MI) and Chinet (in Chicago, IL), both started in 1982. By the late 1980's, there were more than 70 such systems online. And at their peak in the early 1990's, a list of public access Unix systems shared on Usenet contained well over 100 entries.

Throughout the 1980's, modem speeds and computer power increased rapidly, and so did the functionality and number of users on these systems. But the 1990's were a time of major change for public access Unix systems. In 1991, the Linux operating system was first released, ushering in a new era of hobbyist system admins and programmers. And new commercial services like AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe brought hordes of new people online.

The massive influx of new people online had two big impacts on public access Unix systems. For one, as access became easier, online time became less precious and people were less careful and thoughtful about their behavior online. Many still describe their disappointment with this period and their memory of the time when thoughtful and interesting interactions on public access Unix systems degraded to LOLCAT memes. In Usenet (newsgroups) history, the analogous impact is what is referred to as "The Eternal September".

The second impact of this period was from the massive increase of computer hobbyists online. Within this group were a small but high-impact number of "script kiddies" and blackhat hackers that abused the openness of public access Unix systems for their own purposes (e.g. sending spam, hacking other systems, sharing illegal files). Because of this type of behavior, many public access Unix systems had to lock down previously open services, including outbound network connections and even email in some cases.

For the next decade or so, public access Unix systems continued to evolve with the times, but usership leveled off or even decreased. The few systems that remained seemed to gain a particular sense of self-awareness in response to the growing cacophony and questionable ethics of the commercial World Wide Web. This awareness and sense of identity continues to this day, and I'll describe it more below because I think it is really important, and I expect Tildes members agree.

2014 and Beyond

In 2014, Paul Ford casually initiated a new phase in the history of public access Unix systems. He registered a URL for tilde.club (http://tilde.club) and pointed it at a relatively unmodified Linux server. (Note: if there is any relation between tilde.club and Tildes.net, I don't know about it.) After announcing via Twitter that anyone could sign up for a free shell account, Ford rapidly saw hundreds of new users sign up. Somehow this idea had caught the interest of a new generation. The system became really active and the model of offering a relatively unmodified *NIX server for public use (a public access Unix system under a different name) became a "thing".

Tilde.club inspired many others to open similar systems, including tilde.town, tilde.team* and others which are still active and growing today. The ecosystem of these systems is sometimes called the tilde.verse. These systems maintain the same weariness of the commercial WWW that other public access Unix systems do, but they also have a much more active focus on building a "radically inclusive" and highly interactive community revolving around learning and teaching Unix and programming. These communities are much, much smaller than even small commercial social networks, but that is probably part of their charm. (* full disclosure, I wield sudo on tilde.team.)

These tilde.boxes aren't the only public access Unix systems online today though. Many others have started up in the past several years, and others have carried on from older roots. One of the most well known systems alive today is the Super Dimension Fortress (SDF.org) that has been going strong for over three decades. Grex.org and Nyx.net have been online for nearly as long too. And Devio.us is another great system, with a community focused around the Unix OS, particularly OpenBSD. Not all these systems label themselves as "public access Unix systems", but they all share the same fundamental spirit.

One system that I find particularly interesting is Hashbang (aka #!, https://hashbang.sh). Hashbang is a Debian server run and used by a number of IT professionals who are dedicated to the concept of an online hackerspace and training ground for sysadmins. The system itself is undergoing continual development, managed in a git repository, and users can interact to learn everything from basic shell scripting to devops automation tooling.

Why is Hashbang so cool? Because it is community oriented system in which users can learn proficiency in the infrastructural skills that can keep electronic communications in the hands of the people. When you use Facebook, you don't learn how to run a Facebook. But when you use Hashbang (and by "use", I mean pour blood, sweat and tears into learning through doing), you can learn the skills to run your own system.

Societal role

If you've read other things I've written, or if you've interacted with me online, then you know that I feel corporate control of media is a huge, huge concern (like Herman and Chomsky type concern). It's one of the reasons I think Tildes.net is so special. Public access Unix systems are valuable here too because they are focused on person-to-person connections that are not mediated by a corporate-owned infrastructure, and they are typically non-profit organizations that do not track and sell user data.

You're no doubt aware of the recent repeal of Net Neutrality laws in the U.S., and you're probably aware of what The Economist magazine calls "BAADD" tech companies (big, anti-competitive, addictive and destructive to democracy). One of the most important concerns underlying all of this is that corporations are increasingly in control of our news media and other means of communication. They have little incentive to provide us with important and unbiased information. Instead, they have incentive to dazzle us with vapid clickbait so that we can be corralled past advertisements.

Public access Unix systems are not the solution to this problem, but they can be part of a broader solution. These systems are populated by independently minded users who are skeptical of the corporate mainstream media, and importantly, they teach about and control the medium of communication and social interaction itself.

Unix as a social medium

So what is it that makes public access Unix systems different? This seems like a particularly interesting question relative to Tildes (so interesting that I even wrote another Tildes post about it). My argument is partly that Unix itself is a social and communication medium and that the structure of this medium filters out low-effort participation. In addition to this, public access Unix systems tend to have user bases with a common sense of purpose (Unix and programming), so users can expect to find others with shared interests.

In contrast to modern social media sites like Facebook or Twitter, you have to put in some effort to use Unix. You have to learn to connect, typically over ssh; you have to learn to navigate a command line shell; and you have to learn the commands and options to run various utilities. And to really use Unix, you have to learn a bit of programming. It's not incredibly hard in the end, but it takes significantly more effort than registering for a Facebook or Twitter account and permitting them to scan your email address book. Once you get over the learning curve, it is powerful and fun.

This effortful medium does two things. For one, it weeds out people who aren't willing to put in effort. And for two, it provides learned users with a diverse palette of tools and utilities for building and sharing creative output.

Public access Unix systems are all about active creation of content to be enjoyed and shared with others, and not about passive media consumption. They are about the community that develops around this purpose and not around the profit that can be squeezed out of users' attention.

Future of public access Unix systems

Public access Unix systems have been around for nearly four decades now. They have seen ups and downs in popularity, and they have been humming along in the background as computing has gone from the ARPANET to the spectacle of the commercial World Wide Web. Early public access Unix systems were largely about the novelty of socializing with other hobbyists through a computer, and that interest has evolved into the learning, doing and teaching model of an online hackerspace today.

These systems are not huge, they are not coasting on advertising revenue, and they get by purely on the contributions, volunteer effort, and enthusiastic participation of their users. But as a contrast to commercial social network sites, they are an example of what online socializing can be when individuals put effort, thought, and compassion into their interactions with others. And just as importantly, they pass on the very skills that can independently maintain this social and communication medium for future generations of users.

--

As promised in the intro, if you're interested in reading a much more in-depth version of this article, here's the longer copy:
https://cmccabe.sdf.org/files/pubax_unix_v01.pdf

As the title says, I am looking for your go-to recipes for when you are not in the mood to cook. They should be fast and simple to make and be preferably not too expensive.

Let me start this: Tortelloni with tarragon-cream-sauce (3-6€/2servings, depending on the tortelloni)
*500g Tortelloni, 250ml (sweet) cream, 2 tomatos, tarragon/salt/pepper;

1. Water with salt in one pot, cream with tarragon and 4 short splashes of water in another;
2. Cut the tomatos into pieces and add the to the cream when it boils slightly
3. When the tomatos are added, stir the cream (it should get slightly red from the tomato juice
4. add salt and pepper
5. at this point the water should be boiling, add the Tortelloni
   5.1 I usually buy the Tortelloni from the fridge, they only need to be boiled for 2 min, adjust the timing when you heat up the cream according to needed time to boil the pasta
6. When everything is finished put everything together and enjoy

Hello Tilderinos!

Do any of you crochet or would like to learn to?

I've been crocheting for about two years. It's a fun pastime that gets you addicted to yarn (you can never have enough). I learned primarily through a book and lots of YouTube videos. It took a while to learn the lingo, but now that I have a hang for it I've started to delve into pattern making for stuffed toys. That alone is an entirely different beast!

I've recently played really good game of Secret Hitler, so I wanted to let you know about it. If you don't know Secret Hitler, it's great game and I'll briefly describe it below. You can play it online, for free, without ads at secrethitler.io (opensource). You can as well buy it, or even just download pdf, print it and play with paper cards!

Secret Hitler summary

Game for 5-10 players, tabletop. Players are divided to Fascists and Liberals. One of fascists is Hitler. Fascists knows who is who, but Liberals don't know anything. There is chancellor and president, players vote them and they elect laws (president receives 3 laws, 1 discards, 2 passes to chancellor, which discards 1 law and the other one passed). Fascists win, as 6 F laws passed or Hitler was elected as chancellor with 3 or more F laws. Liberals win, if 5 L laws passed or Hitler was killed. If you want to know more, watch some gameplay at YouTube, it's really interesting game about lying to people and manipulating them. And if you will be interested in the game, we might play it together online :-)

I was a Fascist. Right on the first turn as president, I got 3 Fascists laws and I selected Hitler as chancellor - I had to because of order and it would be suspicious not to do so. So I passed him the laws and he of course had to pass Fascist law. But then, he peaked (because 3rd F law passed) at top three cards and lied about it (said FFL, was FLL). Because of this, everyone, after few turns which revealed he lied, started suspecting him. When the liberals had 4 laws passed, I tried as hard as I could to defend Hitler - he just missclicked (no, he would told us!), you know it. After about 10 minute discussion, my propose was rejected, someone else elected as Chancellor and Liberals won the game.

Leave your own stories in comments and be sure to tell, if you would like to play this with other people here, it's wonderful game. And if you would like to, I have other stories - for example when we (IRL) played Secret Hitler to 3 AM, and at the last but one turn, everyone went extremely suspicious and we played one turn almost hour and half (I don't lie about this, I started to measure it after 20 minutes of discussion).

Decided to drop down here and quickly ask what is Tildes' policy on piracy. Namely, should we be openly discussing, linking, directing users towards pirated content? Is it something that's strictly forbidden?

Apologies if I'm missing something, but if there isn't a statement on this already then what do you guys think the policy should be?

The new expansion for World of Warcraft is supposed to drop in about a month. Thought I'd see if any of you Tilderoos play WoW and what you think of it. I have been playing on and off since I was a kid and I've been having tons of fun with the introduction of the Mythic+ system in Legion. I'd love to hear about people's WoW stories and experiences with the game!

If you don't have motivation but you can master discipline. How will it work out in real life? Will you still be successful,happy, bla bla bla...
Is is similar to, "hard work can beat talent"? Or is it something else.

P.S Related example of these scenarios are appreciated.

I was looking over some of my charts of albums recently and I thought this might be a cool idea.

If you don't know what a chart is, basically you can go here and put together a chart of up to 100 of your favorite albums to show people a quick look at your taste or whatever. I've seen people use this as favorite albums, albums that mean a lot to them but aren't necessarily their favorite, people putting custom pictures and making a list of their favorite artists, people making a chart of albums with a "theme" (food on the cover, albums about break-ups, albums of certain genres, etc.), the possibility is whatever you feel like putting together a bunch of albums/artists/anything else you can think of together to show to other people interested in them. I thought it might be a cool idea to see what other ~music users enjoy listening to.

You can also use this to show your rateyourmusic account if you have one, your last.fm, your sputnikmusic, anything pertaining to music that would be cool to look at.

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!

Feel free to give recs or dicuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

I always had a little problem with Laura Charles in this 1985 cult classic.

At the beginning of the movie, Laura's manager is begging her to play a tape. He tells her a man named Eddie Arcadian will hurt him if he doesn't get it played. He is literally terrified and begging. You can see he is terrified.

Laura actually says to him, "My life isn't filled with all that...... Drama." That's how she says it, she pauses before the word drama. Think about how dismissive that is. He is scared for his life and tells her as much, and she just says something that dismissive. Then she berates him like it is his fault he is in the situation. And the kicker is, she says her life isn't filled with all "of that drama" for two reasons. She liked the idea of it. The idea of thinking she was this person with no drama. And because she didn't care because it didn't affect her.

So the movie goes on. Now Laura is in danger of Eddie. It was all because Eddie wanted the tape played. There wasn't any "drama" in her life that caused it. But does she stop and realize that? Nope. Does she for one second think, "Gee maybe it wasn't my manager's fault he was in this situation. I wonder if he is okay?" Nope. She suddenly cares because it affects her.

And then everything in the end works out for her of course. And we never know if Eddie killed the manager or what happened to him. Laura never even looked for him to even just apologize, let alone make sure he wasn't dead.

What are your thoughts?

This place seems a bit sparse so lets have some comics talk.

Now Im no hard core Batman fan so Im looking at this from a casual lens but it seems to me that Bruce Wayne has the potential to do SO MUCH for Gotham with his billions but doesnt because he wants to run around at night reliving his revenge fantasy over and over.

Yeah he donates to charities and dedicates an orphans home every now and then but with his economic wingspan you'd think he could dump money into the city to improve it in all aspects.

Thoughts?

TLDR: Bruce Wayne is gotham's biggest villain. Change my mind.