Mine would definitely have to be my sister in law, who I live with. I daily wake up to headaches from her yelling, once a week she threatens to leave with my brothers children for irrational reasons, and she claims to be a "prisoner in the house" when she can literally leave at any time and nobody will care.

Example: Today I asked my brothers if they wanted me to fire up my hookah. She came out yelling about smoking weed around her kids and then left out front to vent to someone loudly on the phone for half an hour. There was no weed, the hookah was in a different room, and they smoke cigarettes around their kid all the time.

This is a broad question, but I don't really want to narrow it down because I feel like we see unethical issues across so many industries. I want to be able to buy clothes knowing that I'm not supporting child/slave labor just as I want to be able to buy a videogame knowing that the people who created it had time to go home to their families each night. And if the clothes were made with child labor and the game did have a horrible development crunch? Well, those aren't places I want to put my money, even if I'm interested in the product.

Price and convenience used to be the kings of my spending habits, and I was solely interested in products on my own terms. I have no doubt that I have bought many items that have supported the suffering of others. Now, I am much more concerned with a product as it exists in context, and I'm willing to pay more for companies that do things "right." The problem is that this context isn't always available. Most companies are not exactly upfront with their shady practices, after all. How do I know if, say, the bluetooth speaker, quinoa, or dinnerware that I'm looking at was responsibly produced?

What are some ways can I make more informed decisions about what I choose to buy so that I can lessen harm (be it personal, environmental, or otherwise)?

How can I find out which companies support practices that are in line with my values? If anyone has any insight into particular industries, that would be especially valuable.

Anyone play? I only started a few months ago but I've been really enjoying it so far, it's a very comfy slow-burn and I love slowly pulling back the curtains on the mysteries of the Neath. It's something I can play in the morning over my tea or for a few minutes while waiting for the bus. I know some people find it a bit grindy but I haven't really been bothered too much by it, after all it only takes a minute to use up your twenty actions gathering souls or improving your watchful or whatever.

This seems to happen quite a lot here. Someone will post an article, and then add a comment with an extract from the article, or a summary of the article. Or someone else will come along and summarise the article.

This is pointless clutter.

On a site where we're hoping for high-quality discussion, we should expect people to actually read the articles they're discussing. If the article's so long that it needs a summary, then reading that summary isn't going to give people a good enough insight into the detail of the article before they start discussing it.

It also has the effect of misleading readers. They see an article post, read the article, and then notice that someone has already commented on the article. When they open the thread to join in the discussion, they discover that the existing comment is nothing more than a summary of the article they just read. They opened the thread for nothing.

EDIT: I give up. Lesson learned! I am the odd one out here. It is not normal to read articles beforing opening the comments sections. Summaries are desired, even preferred, here on Tildes.

I shall adjust my behaviour accordingly:

• I will start including summaries & extracts in my article posts.

• I will not waste my time opening posts that have only 1 comment.

I'm not going to reply here any more.

sup everyone! catchin a vibe today, had a few joji tracks on repeat so i thought i'd build something out of his style/flow.

voici.

inspo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulMHhPHYCi0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmFkCNvfojg
https://tashacho.artstation.com/projects/EQ4on

doors creaking at the riverside
subtle fog besets an autumn night
white dresses in the lower tide
northern star hangs high

catches my eye
closing in on all sides
belt of Orion,
branch unified
eighth night, knocking coincides
groaning on the other side
doors among the trees
shaking hands you start to climb

-.

you've see the stars before
and they always keep their shape
one shoots down,
angel fell from grace
all of their alignments,
a familiar face
didn't want to come back to this place.

you liked things as they were
and you prefer a cityscape
slugging through your life
with your eyes ever agape
toeing through the words
and your hands began to shake
she said "you look like i abused you heaven's sake"

looked to the sky so many times
that i've mapped the stars out
screamed so many times now
only whispers come out
water from the river Styx
a seed began to sprout
it's the tree atop from which i'm looking out.

-.

doors creaking at the riverside
subtle fog besets an autumn night
white dresses in the lower tide
northern star hangs high

catches my eye
closing in on all sides
belt of Orion,
branch unified
eighth night, knocking coincides
groaning on the other side
doors among the trees
shaking hands you start to climb

bishop.

At the moment, there are two types of topics that can be posted on Tildes:

• Link topics, which consist of a title and a URL.

• Text topics, which consist of a title and text.

These two types of topic are supported by having three input fields for new topics: Title; Link; Text.

I propose that we combine these two topic types into just one topic type. The submission page for all topics will include only two fields: a title field and a general all-purpose text box. The submitter will type a title for their post, and then put anything else into the general all-purpose box.

If the submitter is posting off-site content, they can put the link to that content in the all-purpose box. If they want to provide a summary of the off-site content, they can write the summary in the all-purpose box, with the link.

If the submitter is posting their own original content (no link), they can type their text into the all-purpose box.

The single all-purpose box includes everything that is currently split between the Link and Text boxes. When the topic is posted, everything entered in that all-purpose box is displayed in the main body of the post.

At the moment, summaries of off-site content are usually being posted as comments under the main topic, as a result of a change made a few months ago. These comments merely clutter up the thread. If these summaries were in the post itself, that clutter would be reduced.

One topic type, one streamlined submission page, one place for all topic content.

This will be my third attempt over the last 5 years but it'll also be the first time I have real time to dedicate to actually doing this. I'm really, really excited.

I have a Chromebook now so I'll likely be writing primarily on Google Docs. What are your writing plans? By hand? Scrivener?

I never have, and I find it both fascinating and exciting that people can control exactly what happens in their dreams. Has this ever happened to you, and if so, does it happen regularly? Are they generally good or bad experiences for you?

hey all!

i see these kinds of posts in ~music where people talk all about what they're listening to that week, what they checked out for the first time, what they really enjoyed or hated. i thought it'd be cool to do a food version!

did you try a new recipe this week? how was it?

eat at a cool new restaurant?

try a new dish that you absolutely loved / hated?

grab a plate and dive on in!

Some of you may have heard that Google+ will be shutting down in August, 2019. Though much criticised (including by me), the site offered some compelling dynamics, and I've reflected a lot on those.

I'm involved in the effort to find new homes for Plussers and Communities, which has become something of an excuse to explore and redefine what "online" and "social" media are ("PlexodusWiki").

Part of this involves some frankly embarrassing attempts to try to define what social media is, and what its properties are (both topics reflected heavily in the recent-changes section of the wiki above).

Tildes is ... among the potential target sites (there are a few Plussers, some of whom I really appreciated knowing and hearing from there), here, though the site dynamics make discovering and following them hard. This site is evolving its own culture and dynamics, parts of which I'm becoming aware of.

I've been online for well over 30 years, and discovered my first online communities via Unix talk, email, FTP, and Usenet, as well as (no kidding) a computerised university library catalogue system. Unsurprisingly: if you provide a way, especially for bright and precocious minds to interact with one another, they will. I've watched several evolutions of Internet and Web, now increasing App-based platforms. There are differences, but also similarities and patterns emerging. Lessons from previous eras of television, radio, telephony, telegraphy, print, writing, oral traditions, and more, can be applied.

I've got far more questions than answers and thought I'd put a few out here:

• What does online or social media mean to you? Is it all user-generated content platforms? Web only? Apps? Email or chat? Wikis? GitHub, GitLab, and StackExchange?

• Is social networking as exemplified by Facebook or Twitter net good or bad? Why? If bad, how might you fix it? Or is it time to simply retreat?

• What properties or characteristics would you use to specify, define, or distinguish social or online media?

• What emergent properties -- site dynamics, if you will -- are positive or negative? What are those based on?

• What are the positive and negative aspects of scale?

• What risks would you consider in self-hosting either your own or a group's online presence?

• What is/was the best online community experience you've had? What characterised it? How did it form? How did it fail (if it did)?

• What elements would comprise your ideal online experience?

• What would you nuke from orbit, after takeoff, just to be sure?

• Are you or your group seeking new options or platforms? What process / considerations do you have?

I could keep going and will regret not adding other questions, but this is a good start. Feel free to suggest other dimensions, though some focus on what I've prompted with would be appreciated.

i'm slightly bored and ~creative hasn't had a lot of posts recently so i guess i'll toss some of my lot in here. here's some of the mediocre stuff i pen up more or less without editing in my off time. i have plenty more of these, but most of them require so much context that it'd be a pain in the dick to post them, so they're not likely to see daylight here any time soon. anyways

(note: now hopefully with less formatting fuck ups, lol.)

quick, general scribbles

scribble, scribble [unfinished]

No, you don’t matter—
you don’t matter, matter, matter…
like a symphony of voices in
the night, their uproarious cacophony
of noise inescapable,
rumbles—shaking. No sleep
to be found, no—you don’t matter…
Sleep is impossible, escape is…
impossible. Draw your mental curtains
in every window and bolt every lock shut—
shut in… shut in with the noise, no you
don’t matter, matter, matter—
Why do you shut yourself in? Why
do you shut yourself inside if you matter?
The voices tremble with fury—but peaceful
they are compared to the noise, echoing, booming—
If you did matter you wouldn’t hide!
You wouldn’t refuse to face the music, oh
if you mattered you’d admit that you’re crazy.
If you mattered the voices wouldn’t be. The
thoughts wouldn’t be. They wouldn’t be, no—
you don’t matter, matter, matter…
some symphony of voices the voices can be—
rattle like a rattle, regurgitating the same sound—
endlessly, on loop. Never enough to deafen the
thoughts, the thoughts never enough to silence
the voices. If you mattered you’d be free
of the voices, you see. Just another crazy
person you are. All alone, you and me...

Bor · der · line

Always, when meeting, be skeptical.
Be cynical, so when the deal falls through
you can pretend you never wanted
what was offered to you in the first place.
Pretend it doesn’t hurt every time
to tear everything down from day one when
you know it’s irrational action—
when you know if you could just be “normal”…
Go through the process a hundred times
over, stay up every night thinking
why it has to always be this way
and why you’re like this, why you’re so crazy—
never change, always an amorphous
blob of a person, never able to
fit into anything, to be what
you truly want to be, deep down. Normal.
Such is the life of an internet
vagabond—a sacrifice to the great
altar of the untreated mental
illness—crucified by their loneliness.

some stuff for my grand worldbuilding

Time (1921) // by Donas Beyten-Aytek

A dragon always cares for time,
for often he knows that it does rhyme.
And always grows up with the fable,
of the dragon that was able.
For ‘once in time’ a dragon ruled,
and ‘once in time’ that dragon fooled.
So ‘once in time’ that dragon lied,
and ‘once in time’ that dragon died.
And now a dragon lives with fears
of the changes time endears,
and hopes that time will one day cease
and leave his life alone in peace.
But no more is it ‘a’ dragon alone,
instead it is all which to fear is prone.
In face of time, no dragon is steady.
In face of eternity, no dragon is ready.

Dragons will not hail to a tyrant (1981) // by Tadin Aledi Geren

Dragons will not hail to a tyrant—
that much must be made clear
and shouted for the world to hear.
For a dragon enslaved and martyred—
on the altar of Bira, their blood spilled—
can never by any man be killed.
Yet dragons long have been enslaved—
by despot, by tyrant, by foreign power—
and it seems always the dragon should cower.
But soon, one day soon, the dragon
will rise from their ashes, from their grave
and find a dragon world to save.

Revolution (2009) // by Nesye Kalane-Aiselain

Revolution means nothing
if you don’t act.
If you don’t let the hillsides ring
with upstart revolutionary zeal
you are no true revolutionary—
you are no better than a tyrant king!
You can’t be a revolutionary
if you never let the proletarians sing.

I hear a lot about how Twitter is a bad concept, because the character limit means things can be oversimplified, taken out of context, and posted without a source. I've never used it myself, but recently I've been wondering if it can be useful to me. For example, some bloggers I follow might post some insights on Twitter that they don't anywhere else, and help me discover other interesting blogs.

Have you found a good use for Twitter besides as a social network or news aggregator?