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9 votes
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One year after ‘The Big Hack’
9 votes -
Kids? Just say no
8 votes -
What has made you laugh recently?
I'm most interested in entertainment/media of any form - movies, tv shows, youtubers, stand-ups, theatre, music, whatever. Something that was really (truly) funny to you, not just "comedy genre"....
I'm most interested in entertainment/media of any form - movies, tv shows, youtubers, stand-ups, theatre, music, whatever.
Something that was really (truly) funny to you, not just "comedy genre".
If you find yourself laughing more actively at the world around you then feel free to mention that too, with context.
You can explain why it makes you laugh, too, if you like. Although more importantly please indicate how much you laughed at a particular thing.
22 votes -
Rick and Morty | Season 4 trailer
14 votes -
A field guide to sweet potato varieties (and the dirt on yams)
5 votes -
Should we have topics for shows or episodes?
So I've been putting in topics for each episode of The Good Place for a couple weeks, and it's been a little slow but reasonable amounts of activity. But for week to week shows in the future,...
So I've been putting in topics for each episode of The Good Place for a couple weeks, and it's been a little slow but reasonable amounts of activity. But for week to week shows in the future, would it be more appropriate to have one big thread made for the season premiere and bump that on a weekly basis and enforce marking posts when a particular episode happened, so we can better track discussion and continue threads of discussion across weeks, or would that just kinda be a mess?
8 votes -
Exclusive: Official who heard call says US President Donald Trump got 'rolled' by Turkey and 'has no spine'
9 votes -
What do you prefer diesel or petrol?
So what do you prefer a Diesel or a petrol ?, I personally love Diesel I think they are superior to petrol in many ways
9 votes -
Houston Rockets GM Daryl Morey tweets support for Hong Kong protestors; Chinese Basketball Association responds by cutting ties with the Rockets
Apologies for the title, it's not worded that well but I don't know how to word it better. In addition to the CBA cutting ties with the Rockets, Tencent will no longer report on the team or show...
Apologies for the title, it's not worded that well but I don't know how to word it better. In addition to the CBA cutting ties with the Rockets, Tencent will no longer report on the team or show their games. The Rockets have been China's favorite NBA team ever since Yao Ming was drafted by them in 2002. He is now president of the CBA, but that doesn't say anything about what input he had into these decisions. The Rockets are also one of the main contenders for the championship going into this year since Russell Westbrook was traded to them over the summer. They also have the storyline of Westbrook and former teammate and longtime friend James Harden being reunited after three seasons together on the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Here are a few articles/references about the subject:
Tweets by Tencent's former Rockets reporter
ESPN article about team owner Tillman Fertitta tweeting disagreement with Morey
Edit to add another article: Chinese consulate in Houston statement
Nike pulled all Rockets gear from their Chinese web store
Rockets star James Harden says 'sorry' to China over Morey's tweet
NBA reporter Shams Charania says the league is not punishing Morey
16 votes -
Harry Dunn crash: Chief constable demands suspect's return to UK
4 votes -
So can you post images or videos I don’t think I’ve ever seen any ?
I don’t have any images or videos to post just wondering if you can because don’t think I have seen any so far
10 votes -
Construction of Starship 39A launch and landing facility picking up the pace
8 votes -
Moving rocks by hand, Colorado volunteers strengthen eroding landscapes to help withstand climate change
7 votes -
Why Collabora really added Digital Restrictions Management to Weston
5 votes -
Fortnightly Programming Q&A Thread - 2019W40
General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads. Don't forget to format your code using the triple...
General Programming Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer the questions of other users, or post suggestions for future threads.
Don't forget to format your code using the triple backticks or tildes:
Here is my schema: ```sql CREATE TABLE article_to_warehouse ( article_id INTEGER , warehouse_id INTEGER ) ; ``` How do I add a `UNIQUE` constraint?
12 votes -
How the women-only Facebook group Minbar-Shat helped overthrow the Sudanese government
7 votes -
Adding native scheduled/recurring topics, let's figure out which ones we want to have
I've just pushed up a commit that adds the backend for configuring and posting topics automatically on a schedule. I'm still working on the UI to be able to set them up through the site, but I can...
I've just pushed up a commit that adds the backend for configuring and posting topics automatically on a schedule. I'm still working on the UI to be able to set them up through the site, but I can add them manually pretty easily now.
So first, thanks very much to the people that have been manually posting these recurring topics for months. They've been a source of lots of great conversation, and I really appreciate people making sure to keep posting them regularly. Thanks also to @hungariantoast and @deing specifically for doing the work of writing a script to do automatic posting, and the kinda-API-wrapper that it uses. That made sure that multiple of those topics were posted consistently for quite a while before I got around to implementing this.
I'd like to start setting up all of the recurring topics "properly" in the new system, so let's talk about which ones we already have, and potentially some others that we'd want to add. We should probably also try to space them out a little, so there's not a dump of them at the same times. Here are some of the ones that come to mind immediately for me, but I'm sure I'm missing some, and if there are others that you think would be good to have, let me know. I know there are other ones that have dropped off and it would probably be good to resurrect them:
There are also some others that vary every week, so I probably won't be able to set those up yet (like @aphoenix's recent ~games.tabletop weekly discussions), but once there's a UI we should be able to start configuring them ahead of time.
Any thoughts on those existing recurring topics, suggestions for new ones to add, or old ones to bring back?
62 votes -
US to step aside for Turkish assault on Kurds in Syria
17 votes -
The court allowed the FCC to kill net neutrality because washing machines can’t make phone calls
8 votes -
Why are plastic army men still from WW2?
15 votes -
Shame on those who defend the "loving smack": it's just plain violence against children
19 votes -
Government-backed initiative is designed to open up the country's unique musical culture by offering a 25% rebate to international artists using Icelandic recording studios
5 votes -
An inside look at Microsoft’s newest flight simulator
10 votes -
Is programming science?
There's no doubt computer science is indeed a science, but what about programming itself? Does it fulfill the basic requirements that make something a science? I'm not an academic, just trying to...
There's no doubt computer science is indeed a science, but what about programming itself? Does it fulfill the basic requirements that make something a science? I'm not an academic, just trying to start a conversation.
In many ways, programming is like Math: a means to an end. And Math is a science. Like math, programming has several fields with vastly different ideas of what constitutes programming. Because it is applied logic, programming is also provable and disprovable. There are many disputing hypothesis and, even though absolute truth is a distant dream, it is certain that some sentences are truer than others. Again, like Math, Programming has many practical applications, such as finances and engineering.
Some people consider Math a propaedeutics: not a science in itself, but a discipline that provides fundamentals to actual sciences such as chemistry and physics. The same reasoning could be applied to programming, as nothing more than a tool for computer science. I personally think there's something unique about programming and it's problem-solving methods that can be considered a field of its own.
What you guys and girls think?
6 votes -
GoDaddy Customer Newsletter - A Poem
A few years ago I got a rather self-congratulatory email from GoDaddy, the domain host, about all the amazing things that their customers do, apparently. Here is a representative excerpt: "One of...
A few years ago I got a rather self-congratulatory email from GoDaddy, the domain host, about all the amazing things that their customers do, apparently. Here is a representative excerpt: "One of the clearest lessons we've learned is that the one word to describe you best is 'courageous.' You go after what you really love, you chart your own course, and you create something (often from nothing) that usually makes the world a better place."
I found this rather silly coming from a corporation that hosts fucking domain names. So I was inspired to write the following poem:
1.
Dear Firstname Lastname
earlier this year we embarked on an effort to learn more about you
what makes you so incredibly unique
and the values you all have in common
we learned an equal amount about ourselves
you go after what you really love
you chart your own course
you create something
(often from nothing)
whether it’s
a neighborhood pizza shop
an organization to help those in need
or a company poised to launch a new industry
you believe where others don’t
you have the guts to strike out on your own
that’s courage
and it’s worth every ounce of support we can give
you’ll always be able to pick up the phone and talk to someone 24/7
sincerely
semi-legible signature
digitally scanned
followed by a name typeset in Arial
and a twitter handle
2.
i don’t create
neighborhood pizza shops
organizations to help those in need
or companies poised to launch a new industry
my values are not your values
i have a blog
it has a domain name
which i pay you to maintain
that is the extent
of our relationship
i will go cry in a corner now ok
sincerely
a customer
17 votes -
Star Trek: Picard | NYCC trailer
13 votes -
So I went along
Time for a story. Some of you might remember that I was planning on going abroad. I intended to visit New York City with one of my best friends, setting foot in the United States for the first...
Time for a story.
Some of you might remember that I was planning on going abroad. I intended to visit New York City with one of my best friends, setting foot in the United States for the first time in my life. I have had reservations about the actions and the state of politics of the US for a while, but I'm by no means an activist; I largely settle for small discussions regarding this topic, online or among friends. This means that I had not considered the current administration as a deterrent to my week-long trip.
For the sake of what I'm about to talk in the rest of this post, some additional personal details are needed for context. I am a EU citizen and a second-generation immigrant, child of a parent born in North Africa. I was fortunate enough not to have to go through having to acquire a "real" visa as my country is part of the ESTA program. This program is a fast track of sorts that allows a non-citizen to get clearance to get into the US by providing information through an online form. As I went through that automated process, I arrived at one step that worried me: they asked about being a citizen of another country. Now, I have both an EU ID and passport but I have double-nationality from my parent and so I also have ID and (an expired) passport from that country.
That country is not unstable or known to host terrorists or extremist organizations but I was wondering if I would be lumped in with immigrants from more troubled countries and so I hesitated to put that information at all. But then I figured that it would be a bad idea to lie and then have to explain why I lied if they figured out. And I didn't visit that country for a decade. So in the end I did input that info. This decision stayed with me and caused me anxiety until the end of the 72 hour waiting period. I thought about being denied while having already spent roughly a thousand bucks on the airplane ticket and the hotel. Fortunately in the end everything went through. That put my fears at ease.
Let us fast forward to the day of the trip. My friend and I had the good idea to stay up really late the night before even though our flight was outrageously early. I think I slept for 3 hours if that. And during the 8 hour flight I absolutely could not sleep despite my best efforts. This is just me setting the stage for some heavy sleep deprivation.
Arriving at JFK, we eventually stumble upon the horribly long queue for customs. When we got to an officer, my friend went first, giving his passport and scanning his fingerprints. I went just after him, doing the same. However, the officer seems to have an issue. They close their booth and ask me to follow them. My friend's watching and is like "wtf is going on", the only thing I manage to say is "welp later I guess", maybe not realizing what is going on.
My passport withheld, I'm led to a waiting room... and told to wait there, no reason given. The officer tells me that "it" should be quick. As I scan the room, I mostly see Arab or Asian people with an additional one or two white-passing people. I sit and get my phone out to message my friend where I am and what I was told, when an agent immediately tells me that no phone is allowed. I can only imagine how panicked my friend was getting at that point.
An hour passes.
With still no reason given for what I'm going to call an arrest, I then had had time enough time to see people go through, leave and for others to take their place all the while I listened to the officers talk to each other and interact with the visitors.
The ratio of people stayed mostly the same, meaning the majority was comprised of Arab and Asian people, roughly half didn't speak English at all. There were two types of processing. The first one was people waiting 20 minutes and getting called to a counter in the same room, getting their passport back and being allowed to leave. The second one was people waiting at least half an hour and getting summoned to go with an officer to an ominous corridor, staying at least half an hour and then being allowed to leave.
The officers at the counter chatted within themselves in a friendly manner, typing on their computer at the same time, a nice front immediately shattered by how they talked down to everyone. One elderly person went to get something in their luggage placed at the opposite end of the room when two officers yell at them to sit back down. An asian person was using their phone unaware of the restriction when an officer warns them: "Don't use your phone. Don't use your phone! Hey! Don't use your phone! Oh for the love of- DON'T. USE. YOUR. PHOOONE." Apparently talking slowly to a visitor in a foreign language means they can obviously understand what the office is saying and that they're just acting like they don't understand. And more variations of cliché American cop tropes.
A half hour passes - still no reason given.
My friend tries to approach the room to get information and I hear an officer asking firmly for him to go away. (Un)fortunately an officer finally summons me. They lead me into a room and I'm invited to sit down. The officer apologizes for the wait, and then begins an hour long interview. They are very friendly and ask what places I intend to visit, they ask me about my childhood, my parents, my relation to my other country, my education, my hobbies, my jobs. Then I'm asked to unlock my phone. They go through every app and ask me to explain what they all do. They capture my Facebook name, contact names, what is open in my browser, and more stuff that I can't see.
I cannot describe how distressing it is to see an officer of the law go through your phone. I could not predict if they would stumble problematic material or if they would interpret things the wrong way. This is why I hate people that say "oh I don't care about privacy, I've got nothing to hide". You think I have anything at all to hide?! I am a law-abiding citizen of my country, I have never harbored any intention of committing a crime in my entire life, I can't harm a fly for heaven's sake!
And finally after all of this I am allowed to go. I get to my friend and hug them and try to get out of this place as fast as possible.
Maybe you're wondering if I tried to oppose any of this? Hell no. Not using my phone, waiting without reason, giving an ungodly amount of personal information and give access to my phone to a stranger, I did not fight through any of this. Why? I was afraid. I was an alien going through customs in the Patriot Act era. It was very clear to me that if I tried to block any of this process I would not go out of that airport to the US. I have my principles in privacy, but I did not want to waste a literal thousand bucks and more of my time.
So I went along.
50 votes -
Stairs to nowhere are everywhere these days. Where are they taking us?
7 votes -
What is your dream job ?
What is your dream job maybe the one you have now or one you would like to get in the future?
26 votes -
GURPS Supers Campaign, could use feedback.
So I've been tossing around a GURPS Atomic Horror/Supers/Space kind of game, the sort of thing where the players make 100-pointers in GURPS Lite to start out then add 350 points in advantages and...
So I've been tossing around a GURPS Atomic Horror/Supers/Space kind of game, the sort of thing where the players make 100-pointers in GURPS Lite to start out then add 350 points in advantages and such after a session or two.
Set in 1950, flying saucers, shooting for a classic appearance, using some updated versions of the species from GURPS Aliens.
I'm tempted to use yet another classic (Nazis on the Moon) as a sort of tutorial once the PCs get their super-abilities, but.. is that too cliched?
8 votes -
Why New York City stopped building subways
10 votes -
Where Electronic Health Records Went Wrong
6 votes -
The greening of Paris makes its mayor more than a few enemies
9 votes -
How important was "Moneyball" to the success of the 2002 Oakland A's?
6 votes -
The meaning of Donald Trump’s crazily damning self-defence
16 votes -
Scientist who discredited meat guidelines didn’t report past food industry ties
8 votes -
Any ex-climate deniers/skeptics here?
We've all seen it all over the news in recent years (decades, for those of who've been around long enough) ... people who are originally pretty sure they're right about something, tend to...
We've all seen it all over the news in recent years (decades, for those of who've been around long enough) ... people who are originally pretty sure they're right about something, tend to "double-down" on their convictions in the face of convincing evidence to the contrary ... and then double-down again.
Admitting you're wrong about something important, when you were pretty sure you were right, is just effin' hard.
Anybody here used to think climate change was a crock? What changed your mind?
15 votes -
Second whistleblower comes forward after speaking with IG, has first-hand knowledge: Attorney
16 votes -
What are some startup scripts you have on your daily driver?
In the everlasting quest to customize my laptop and make my life easier, I'm looking for any ideas for startup scripts to run on user login. Personally, I don't know how to write bash scripts yet...
In the everlasting quest to customize my laptop and make my life easier, I'm looking for any ideas for startup scripts to run on user login.
Personally, I don't know how to write bash scripts yet and unfortunately I won't have time to pick it up on the side in the near future seeing as how I'm swamped between my studies and work—nevertheless, it's always nice to see how others might have under the hood for future tinkering :)
I'm currently running i3-gaps on Arch Linux. I have a few programs that I like to run inside i3's config file (Polybar, firefox, file manager, Thunderbird) every time I start i3.
The problem that I seem to have is that I lack imagination. I don't know the potential of what else I could be doing with startup scripts, so I'm turning to Tildes to see what you guys might have.6 votes -
Transgender man who gave birth must be registered as "mother" on the birth certificate
11 votes -
Religion for the nonreligious
11 votes -
Santiano - Ihr Sollt Nicht Trauern (Y'all Shouldn't Mourn) (2017)
5 votes -
False witness: Why is the US still using hypnosis to convict criminals?
10 votes -
US Supreme Court term to begin with blockbuster question: Is it legal to fire someone for being gay or transgender?
13 votes -
Fox’s Almost Family aims to build a quirky family dramedy around medical rape: It’s so close to being good that its badness feels somehow worse
7 votes -
Ron Johnson says he was blocked by President Trump from telling Ukraine foreign aid was coming
11 votes -
Trump’s calls with foreign leaders have long worried aides, leaving some ‘genuinely horrified’
11 votes -
How Bash completion works
6 votes -
Is there a more rational way to scan the heavens for alien life?
4 votes