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?

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.

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

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.

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?

This is a recurring thread in ~games.tabletop where we can talk about board games in a fun way. Feel free to discuss boardgames in any way you want! Each week I add a guiding topic / question, just to help things along:

What's the last game you played?

This is a recurring thread in ~games.tabletop where we can talk about board games in a fun way. Feel free to discuss boardgames in any way you want, but I like to add a bit of a hook each week to spice things up. Here's my hook for this thread:

What's one of your favourite board game and why?

Edit: I made the question a bit less hard to answer - instead of your absolute favourite, pick a favourite, and talk about it.

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.

Notes

We're coming up on #30! Exciting!

Previous topics

Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

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.

Notes

I'm finally going to update the wiki today, hopefully. FYI.

Previous topics

Previous topics will be ARE listed in the UPDATED wiki!!! as soon as I update it.

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!

IMO one of the major issues with online debates, arguments and heated discussions is that they often tend to escalate rather steadily over time, and as each side gets more frustrated with the other they also tend to slowly get more personal as well. I am admittedly guilty of falling into this trap occasionally myself too, which has got me thinking about ways that Tildes (the site and the users here) can potentially help deescalate unproductive arguments and allow people to disengage more effectively from them. To this end I thought it might be a good idea to have a brainstorming session regarding that.

To start things off, here are most of the ideas I could find related to this issue that have previously been proposed and are already on Tildes Gitlab (click ▶ to read the full details):

Feel free to voice your support or criticism regarding the above suggestions, offer up ideas to potentially improve them, or even propose your own brand new ideas related to this issue in the comments here as well.

p.s. Once again, the point here is to open up the conversation and get ideas flowing freely, so let's please try to keep things positive, and keep any criticism purely constructive and friendly so as not to discourage people from participating.

Previous Unofficial Weekly Discussions:

Week #1, #2

Other relevant links:
Donate to Tildes - Tildes Gitlab : Issues Board - Tildes Official Docs

What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.

Sorry, I usually post this on Monday and just realized I didn't do it this week. I'm bad at this and obviously need to add a proper scheduled-posting feature.

I'd love to see a recurring thread here in ~games.tabletop where we can talk about board games in a fun way. Here's my hook for this thread:

List one boardgame that you like, and we will suggest a boardgame that you may also like based on your one selection. Ideally, there will be an explanation for "why" as well.

Edit: I also encourage other people to post suggestions!

I'd love to see a recurring thread here in ~games.tabletop where we can talk about board games in a fun way. Since this is the second in series, my dream has become a reality! Here's my hook for this thread:

If someone were wanting to start creating a collection of board games, what one game would you suggest that they put in their collection, and why? To standardize the question a bit, let's assume that the person is relatively into board gaming already, so it's not "introduce someone to the basics of board games".

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.

Notes

Hi everyone! I'm @acdw, I'm taking over this thread from @cadadr. This is my first one, and I'm excited for the discussion!

If anyone has any suggestions about how to run this thread, please feel free to PM me (I don't want to clog up this thread with suggestions). If there's enough messages, I'll start a thread to discuss them publicly.

Previous topics

Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

An experiment I've been thinking about lately: a (recurring?) Q&A thread! Ask any questions about programming, answer other users' questions, 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?

Meta questions:

• Should I turn this into a recurring thread?
• If yes, should it be a weekly or a monthly thing?
• Should DBA and SysAdmin questions be allowed or should someone else make a separate recurring thread for these?

Despite me still being a little distracted thanks to WoW Classic and somewhat absent from Tildes lately as a result, since it's been a few weeks since the last Unofficial Weekly Discussion topic, I wanted to make sure to get one posted this week. And since it's been a while, I wanted to try something a bit more lighthearted and fun than usual to get things flowing again. So here it is:

What is your most "thinking outside the box", "pie in the sky" and/or "out there" idea for Tildes?

It doesn't matter whether you think it's really a good idea or not, it will work or not, it would ultimately have a net positive or negative effect, or how impossible it might be to implement; Let's just get the creative juices flowing and start throwing out our "craziest" ideas for the site!

p.s. Once again, let's please try to keep things positive, and keep any criticism purely constructive and friendly so as not to discourage people from participating.

Previous Unofficial Weekly Discussions:

Week #1, #2, #3

Other relevant links:
Donate to Tildes - Tildes Gitlab : Issues Board - Tildes Official Docs

Hi everyone! It's been a long time since last programming challenge ^list, and here's a nice one I've encountered.

If you search for something like 7km to AU, you'll get your answer. But how is it done? I don't think they hardcoded all 23 units of distance and every conversion factor between them.

If you were programming a conversion system - how would you do it?

First of all, you have input in format that you can specify, for example something like this:

meter kilometer 1000
mile kilometer 1.609344
second minute 60
...

Then you should be able answer queries. For example 7 mile meter should convert 7 miles to meters, which is 11265.41.

Can you design an algorithm that will convert any unit into any other unit?

Edit: Some conversion rates I extracted from wikipedia:

ångström
0.1nm
astronomical unit
149597870700m
attometre
0.000000000000000001m
barleycorn
8.4m
bohr
0.00846
cable length (imperial)
185.3184m
cable length
185.2m
cable length (US)
219.456m
chain (Gunters)
20.11684m
cubit
0.5m
ell
1.143m
fathom
1.8288m
femtometre
0.00000000000001m
fermi
0.00000000000001m
finger
0.022225m
finger (cloth)
0.1143m
foot (Benoit)
0.304799735m
foot (Cape) (H)
0.314858m
foot (Clarke's) (H)
0.3047972654m
foot (Indian) (H)
0.304799514m
foot,metric
0.31622776602m
foot,metric (long)
0.3m
foot,metric (short)
0.30m
foot (International)
0.3048m
foot (Sear's) (H)
0.30479947m
foot (US Survey)
0.304800610
french
0.0003m
furlong
201.168m
hand
0.1016m
inch
0.0254m
league
4828m
light-day
25902068371200m
light-hour
107925284880m
light-minute
17987547480
light-second
299792458m
light-year
31557600light-second
line
0.002116m
link (Gunter's)
0.2011684m
link (Ramsden's; Engineer's)
0.3048m
metre
1m
m
1metre
km
1000m
mickey
0.000127
micrometre
0.000001
mil; thou
0.0000254
mil
10km
mile (geographical)
6082foot (International)
quarter
0.2286m
rod
5.0292m
rope
6.096m
shaku
0.303 0303m
span (H)
0.2286m
stick (H)
0.0508m
toise
1.949 0363m
twip
1.76310
yard
0.9144m

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any movies that you'd like to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here!

Spoilers are okay, just give fair warning so people who care about them can participate too.

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!

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk about it a bit.

Notes

Sorry this is posted so late! I would've posted it tomorrow, even, but I'm working all day so I won't have the chance. I'll make sure and bump this thread Sunday, so we can talk about our reading. I'll set an alarm for next time!

Previous topics

Previous topics will be listed in the wiki as soon as I update it.

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any movies that you'd like to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here!

Spoilers are okay, just give fair warning so people who care about them can participate too.

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.

Sorry, I was away last week and didn't post this, so it's been a couple of weeks now since the last one.

So, what have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.

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.

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!

Thanks to @dubteedub for doing this up until now, let's bring em back :)

Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any movies that you'd like to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here!

Spoilers are okay, just give fair warning so people who care about them can participate too.

it's creative thread time, gamers. here you can share/provide updates on some of the projects that you're working on. they can be of any kind--digital, physical, work related, passion project, whatever. pretty straightforward, i think.

november thread • february thread • march thread • april thread • may thread • june thread • july thread

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!

I started this last week, and plan to continue posting this topic weekly.

So, what have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.

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.

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!

Here's a list of a things that came out in this past week, up through Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and we avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to bring up anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

Notes:
If you spot any mistakes, let us know.
Parental Advisory version of all albums linked, so expect NSFW.

Ugly God - Bumps & Bruises | Deluxe edition linked.

Thanks to @Cleb, @cfabbro, and @Bauke!

Inspired by @Lawrencium265's suggestion from a few days ago on advanced topic tag filtering:

After the discussion the other day on expanding groups into sub groups I had an idea about topic tags, advanced tag filtering rules. The main argument against sub groups is that it would sequester people away from each other. By allowing more advanced tag rules you could subscribe to topics that you're interested in, but further filter those if they include topics you don't like or allow certain threads that would get filtered out unless they contain a tag you are interested in or are within a certain group. I think this would attract different people to threads that wouldn't normally be and allow more diverse discussion and insight. So instead of having gaming.tabletop you would use the tabletop tag under gaming and those who are not interested in it can filter it out and those who are solely interested in it can subscribe to it, and then if a topic gets tagged in an unrelated group that you otherwise wouldn't be interested inyou will know about. This also has the side benefit if preventing cross posting or duplicates.

I have decided that the topic of this week's unofficial discussion is going to be on the Tildes topic tag system. But rather than make it specifically on topic tag filtering and that idea in particular, I figured we could open the discussion up a bit more and have a community brainstorming session on the topic tag system in general. I.e. Anything related to tag browsing, tag filtering, tag organization/standardization, etc.

Feel free to comment on any of the open "topic tag" related issues on Tildes Gitlab that pique your interest and you would like to discuss more in depth, propose your own new ideas related to topic tags, or even just spitball.

The point here is to open up the conversation and get ideas flowing freely, so with that in mind, let's please try to keep things positive, and keep any criticism purely constructive and friendly so as not to discourage people from participating.

Previous Unofficial Weekly Discussions:

Week - #1

Other relevant links:
Donate to Tildes - Tildes Gitlab : Issues Board - Tildes Official Docs

Here's a list of a things that came out in this past week, up through Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and we avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

Notes:
If you spot any mistakes, let us know.
Parental Advisory version of all albums linked, so expect NSFW.

Channel Tres - Black Moses | EP isn't due until Aug 16, linked single instead
Flume & Reo Cragun - Quits | Song.link says "Single" but it's the EP
Tennis System - Lovesick | No song.link yet, album not due until Sept 6, linked bandcamp single instead
Volbeat - Rewind, Replay, Rebound | "Deluxe" album linked

Thanks to @Cleb, @Bauke, and @cfabbro!

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Notes

First of all, I'm again having to post the topic earlier b/c travel. Sorry.

Seconly, big news! It's already been almost a year that we do these threads! It's been a beautiful time for me, but I've decided that the time has come that I pass the torch on to another Tildista to post and manage these threads. I posted a topic on ~tildes declaring my decision; we held a vote and elected @acdw as the new maintainer of these threads. This is the last one of these topics that I'll post; from the next thread on @acdw will be taking over. FWIW, I'll stay around and comment on these threads when I can.

Hey @acdw, hope you'll have a great time doing this! Good luck!

Previous topics

Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

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.

good morning, tildes--this is not a test. we are 461 days and dropping away from possibly the biggest election day in recent american history. the coverage is even more spread out this week, with pieces from gillibrand to gabbard and delaney to de blasio; unfortunately, however, our opinion pieces continue to tread water and there is but one piece which even sniffs being longform. (nevertheless, expect a flurry of pieces after the debates today and tonight.)

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 15 • Week 16 • Week 17 • Week 18

News

General News

• from CNN: CNN to host climate crisis town hall with 2020 Democratic candidates. in some surprising, good news, CNN is hosting a climate crisis town hall on september 4th, regardless of the decisions the DNC makes on whether or not to host a debate on climate change. while a town hall isn't quite the same thing as a debate, it's still a significant improvement over what was. CNN is also, to presumably make things not a giant clusterfuck beyond words, applying the 2% in 4 polls threshold for the 3rd debate to invitations here; this means that only 8 or so candidates have qualified so far, but a few others likely will too.
• from VICE: 2020 Democrats Are Doubling Down on Impeachment Calls as Mueller Testifies. while the mueller testimony has come and gone largely without public movement, it was never going to be a factor in whether or not democrats in the presidential race called for impeachment or not. among those who doubled down on their calls for impeachment proceedings this week: warren, harris, sanders, klobuchar, and booker.
• from In These Times: The First Labor Plans of the 2020 Race Just Dropped. Here’s What to Make of Them. in these times has analysis of the first specifically labor focused plans in the 2020 race to drop, which are courtesy of pete buttigieg and bill de blasio; in general: they're fine. not particularly groundbreaking on either count, although de blasio has actually implemented a lot of what he has in his plan in NYC. the main problem with these plans is that "fine" isn't really good enough, because the status quo is shit for labor and has only gotten worse for the past 30 years--to realistically undo the damage done by the erosion of labor power, plans most likely need to be bold and sweeping at this point.
• from CBS News: As they woo Iowa's religious voters, 2020 Democrats talk faith. one of the consequences of such a large field this time around is that there are a number of democrats taking the religious ground that has usually been ceded to evangelical republicans and running with it as a par of their campaign. typically this is a muted part of the democratic party, on account of the party being the "secular" party of the US (implicitly or explicitly), but between openly religious candidates like buttigieg and delaney and lower-key-but-still-spiritual candidates like warren and booker there are signs the party might be willing to embrace a more religious aspect in the future.

Joe Biden

• from CBS News: Biden at next debate will go on offense with criminal justice plan, adviser says. leading into the debates, biden has made it very clear that he's not going to be turned into the punching bag--in theory, anyways--and instead he intends to flaunt his record, establish his new plans, and bring the offensive to other candidates. this is and interesting strategy, and i'm not sure it's gonna work. on one hand, biden obviously can't just sit back and take it like he did at the first debate, but on the other hand for every thing he can hit other candidates on, he has two things he's either guilty of similarly, or two things he can be beaten over the head with that probably won't play wth the american public that well. his best bet may be to just weather the storm.
• from Buzzfeed News: Joe Biden’s Time As A Public Defender Was A Brief Line On His Résumé. Now It’s A Virtue Signal For His Campaign. biden is also touting an interesting part of his career, one which he probably wasn't at for more than a year: his record as a public defender. biden spent some period of his life between 1969 and 1970--when he got into politics--on the public defender beat, but until very recently it was basically irrelevant to any of his political campaigns because it was basically irrelevant to anything he did afterwards. it's an interesting piece of his life to revive, but i'm not sure it's exactly something he wants to keep harping on either given that it seems mildly opportunistic and there's not actually that much record of him doing anything as a public defender.
• from NBC News: Two longtime Biden African American supporters in S. Carolina defect to Tim Ryan. on an unrelated note, somehow he lost two of the people who played senior roles in his 2008 presidential bid to tim ryan, of all people. this probably doesn't mean anything in the long term, but it's a reminder that biden--frontrunner as he is--has by no means sewn up support from the vast majority of people you'd expect to be in his camp.

Beto O'Rourke

• from the Atlantic: Searching for Beto. here is the latest piece on beto's increasingly wilted campaign. he does still have time to turn this around as has been mentioned previously, and he's certainly not given up the campaign trail nor his hyperlocal campaign efforts, but it's obviously a bit of a steep climb. realistically, he'd probably need an exceptionally good debate performance in this week's debates to vault him back into relevance, and even then it's far from a given that it would be enough (see also: julian castro).
• from Texas Monthly: The 2020 Texas Polling is Much Better for Beto O’Rourke than Julián Castro. that said, he is doing way fucking better than he has any business doing in this race (and he does way better than castro, who polls equally to him) purely because he's a favorite son in texas. even at his 1-2%, he's on track to win delegates because of that fact--this was something i touched upon with last week's delegate polling, and how the popular vote doesn't inherently track with the delegate totals because of the way the DNC and states apportion their delegates. this means that, conceivably, he's still in the running for president even if he does quite badly and doesn't recover from his tailspin, and it also means he has an incentive to stay in even if things go to shit.
• from CBS News: Beto O'Rourke calls for a sweeping $500 billion fund to address education inequality. policy wise, o'rourke wants to create "a $500 billion 'Permanent Fund for Equity and Excellence' in an effort to close the funding gap between predominately white and non-white school districts." this would, according to the plan, "aim to close [the school funding] gap while also making sure states and districts allocate funds weighted based on the number of 'low income students, English learners, students with disabilities or other groups of students in need of additional resources.'" o'rourke would pay for that with a tax on wall street speculation.

Pete Buttigieg

• Can Pete Buttigieg Fix America's Vacancy Problem?. one of the aspects of pete buttigieg's douglass plan that has not been touched on that much are the provisions which seek to deal with the vacancy problem that exists in many places, particularly in former rust belt boomtowns like gary, indiana and detroit. the hemorrhaging of population from the urban north in particular has left huge areas underpopulated and hundreds of thousands of lots vacant. buttigieg, being the mayor of one such boomtown, naturally had to deal with a similar problem (his somewhat controversial 1,000 houses in 1,000 days initiative) and so it's not a surprise that he has provisions on this issue. noteworthy is the fact that he's the only candidate with such provisions. it's not a given, of course, that those provisions will do something--but it is a start for something that basically gets no attention in the first place.
• Pete Buttigieg reveals details on how he’d tackle climate change. buttigieg does not, however, have very many current provisions on how to deal with climate change. he has skeletons of a plan namely in carbon taxes and climatecorps, but nothing like most of the candidates in the race so far, a curious absence for someone who is--like warren--very much policy oriented. it goes without saying that we'll probably see a real plan eventually, but until we do it can only make people wonder what the hangup is.

Everybody Else

• from Buzzfeed News: This Presidential Candidate Has The First Plan To Fix Disparities Faced By Native American Communities. julian castro has a plan for native americans, which makes him the first candidate this cycle--and, as far as i'm aware, in recent memory--to do that. among other things, this plan "proposes additional investments in health care, housing, education, economic development, and other areas for Native Americans. It also pushes for Native American communities to have greater input in Washington by setting up a White House Council on Indigenous Communities and establishing advisory committees within every federal agency by 2024." it would also seek to address the ever-present issue of missing and murdered native women, which is possibly the least-reported-on high-key issue that exists in native communities.
• from Jacobin: Will Elizabeth Warren Keep Her Promise to “End the Occupation”?. warren is in an interesting position as someone who has gone from one of the more staunch defenders of israel in congress to someone who is increasingly critical of them; this has, naturally, raised questions as we come into this cycle and she's pressed on things like ending the occupation of palestine by israel. jacobin's line here is that while warren is commendable, it's also easy to say something but not do it: if warren is committed to this promise, she'll have to demonstrate that.
• from NPR: Kamala Harris Releases 'Medicare For All' Plan With A Role For Private Insurers. kamala harris has a healthcare plan named 'medicare for all' and it's, naturally, not that much like the bill that she literally is a cosponsor of named the same thing. among the key differences here are that harris pays for this with tax increases for people over $100k income, harris preserves private insurance and, probably most importantly, harris is basically banking on a democrat being in office in 2030, because her transition period for going from what exists now to her plan is 10 years. (that, and the fact that her plan currently has an outline, but very few details.)
• from CNN: Kirsten Gillibrand releases $10 trillion, 10-year plan to combat climate change. kirsten gillibrand's climate change plan is basically the green new deal, which means it's the largest of the so-far-released climate change plans of running candidates. among other things, it phases out fossil fuels, ends fracking, includes a carbon tax of $52 per metric ton, intends to build an economy of green jobs, and will upgrade the power grid.
• from The Verge: Democratic presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard sues Google for suspending her ad account. tulsi gabbard's problems continue, as she's now suing google for suspending her ad account and consequentially gimping her campaign site. google maintains that this was innocuous, but gabbard is stumping on the idea that it was politically motivated by her criticisms of google and other tech companies (although this would beg the question of why they'd go after gabbard specifically, who is nearly irrelevant, and not the literally dozens of more prominent political candidates advocating for breaking up big tech who have plans to do so).
• from CNN: Delaney proposes ambitious mandatory national service plan. john delaney, a one-percenter, wants to make national service mandatory. delaney's plan is "[...]compulsory for all Americans upon high school graduation or upon turning 18. The proposal would apply only to those born after 2006, and would phase in over time, according to the campaign." what are the benefits of doing this, you ask? well, it's basically just a front for delaney to cover tuition: "The plan would provide two years of free tuition at a public college or university, and three years of tuition for those who extended their national service year to two years. Tuition could also be applied to vocational or technical training, the Delaney campaign told reporters."

anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there.

after a month sabbatical, we're back. this is pretty straightforward, i think: vent your experiences or things you need to get off your chest/share whatever you've found helps you mentally/etc.

resources that might also be of some benefit to people:

• there is, as always, the invaluable list of country hotlines maintained by /r/SuicideWatch
• https://findtreatment.samhsa.gov/ ("an online source of information for persons seeking treatment facilities in the United States or U.S. Territories for substance abuse/addiction and/or mental health problems")
• https://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/ (probably one of the best resources for finding a therapist)
• https://psychiatrists.psychologytoday.com/rms (ditto, with finding a psychiatrist)
• https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/index.shtml (covers some of the major mental disorders, their symptoms and treatments, and general topics like that)
• https://www.mentalhealth.gov/what-to-look-for (what symptoms to look for for major mental disorders)
• https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/help-yourself/ (US specific, but also covers ways you can help yourself and a bunch of ways to seek treatment or support)
• there's also some stuff over at /r/SWResources that might be worth checking out which is consistently updated.

and here is the june thread if you'd like to reference/update us on something you mentioned there.

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.

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!

What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Notes

• Sorry for posting late this time round. I had an intense week, and was basically too lazy to post yesterday.

• I will not include a list of past topics in the topic text anymore, given it is redundant with the listing in the wiki. Below you'll find a link to the relevant section in the relevant wiki page instead. If you think this is a bad change, PM me about it; if a lot of you don't like it I might end up reverting this.

• Have a nice weekend!

Previous topics

Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

Since @Deimos has stated he will likely not be restarting the tradition of the Official Daily Tildes Discussions, which is something I and a number of other users greatly enjoyed and miss, I have decided to attempt to take on the responsibility of continuing them unofficially (with his blessing). And since these are not official (so won't be in ~tildes.official, which everyone is subscribed to and probably shouldn't unsubscribe from), I will only be doing them weekly instead of daily, and we now have topic tag filtering (so unofficial weekly discussion can be filtered out), hopefully the people who found the official daily discussions annoying can more easily ignore/hide these unofficial ones.

With the explanation out of the way, on to the topic for this week:

Suggestions/ideas/concerns for future unofficial weekly discussions

I thought it would be appropriate to have the first one of these be a bit of an open-ended, meta-meta discussion on the future of these topics. And to kick things off:

• What would everyone here like to see discussed in these topics in the future? Are there any particular site features (planned, suggested or theoretical), policies (tagging, moderation, etc), or other meta issues/subjects you would like to be the topic in future discussions?

• What would you like us to try to achieve with these discussions? Should we have any specific goals in mind, or should they just be fun brainstorming/theory-crafting/naval-gazing sessions?

• Does anyone have any suggestions for me with regards to how I should handle these discussions? Is there anyone out there who would like to help me with these in some capacity going forwards?

• Does anyone have any concerns regarding these unofficial discussions, and if so, can you think of any ways we can try to address them?

The floor is open, and I am all ears. :)

Tildes Official Docs : Donate to Tildes | Tildes Gitlab : Issues Board

good morning, tildes--this is not a test. we are 468 days and dropping away from possibly the biggest election day in recent american history. the coverage is more spread out this week, with candidates that normally don't catch the media's attention getting some; there are, alas, no opinion pieces this week. we do have a very important poll, however, which i elaborate on in detail.

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 15 • Week 16 • Week 17

News

Polling

from CBS News: Early contests by the numbers: Democratic delegate race tightens — CBS News Battleground Tracker. CBS News is out with an update to its important poll that is based on delegate allocation rather than voter preferences. as some of you may or may not know, primary contests are not purely FPTP affairs when it comes to delegate allocation, but instead based on rules of proportional allocation at district and statewide levels. complicating matters, the DNC has a rule which states a candidate must win 15% or more of the vote in a state to be eligible for any delegates. this means that national/state polling does not inherently jive with the projected results of the primaries, and this poll actually is an example of that:

the order is Biden (581 delegates of 1494 possible in the 18 "early contests"), Warren (430 of 1494), Sanders (249 of 1494), Harris (173 of 1494), O'Rourke (48 of 1494), and Klobuchar (13 of 1494). no other candidates would currently receive delegates. obviously, this does not jive with the polling completely: biden, warren, and sanders all punch above their polling; harris, buttigieg, o'rourke, and klobuchar do not. buttigieg, who generally polls better than klobuchar and o'rourke by a mile, also doesn't benefit from his homestate and doesn't appeal enough elsewhere to win delegates with his polling. harris, meanwhile, is really only tethered by california in her delegate count despite polling similarly to sanders. basically, it's a bit of a shitshow.

as far as shifts: biden has eaten a loss of 150 delegates since june; warren is up 75; sanders is down 68; harris is up 97; o'rourke is down 25; klobuchar is down 8; buttigieg is down 2.

General News

• from Pacific Standard: There Are Many Democratic Candidates. Party Insiders View a Bunch as the Same.. among the more interesting trends that exist within the democratic primary so far is the fact that the activist base of the democratic party and the broader public are somewhat at odds with each other currently. while biden, warren, sanders, harris, and buttigieg round out the five major candidates with more than token public support, party insiders back a much broader set of candidates which expands to booker, klobuchar, castro, and gillibrand. sanders, naturally, is mostly absent from insider support--this is partly because most insiders don't support him to begin with, but also because the ones that do are generally not considering other candidates.
• from NBC News: Democrats duel over health care in new campaign dust-up. healthcare is shaping up to be a big part of the democratic stategy to win back the white house, and naturally that's the first big faultline in the primary since it's one of the things which most divides candidates into ideological quadrants. biden, who is mostly pushing for improved obamacare, disputes the idea of medicare for all as too expensive and "starting over", which sanders has of course derided as misinformation and basically jacking conservative talking points. while they won't be sharing the debate stage in july, don't be surprised to see similar issues litigated by more moderate candidates against sanders and warren, and don't be surprised if biden has similar disputes with his more progressive leaning debate stage.
• from Buzfeed: The Best Day Of Joe Biden's Presidential Campaign Was The First One (and other things you can learn from new data on how many donors contributed to Democratic presidential campaigns each day this year). with fundraising now in, analysis of that fundraising begins, and to say the least it looks pretty bad for most candidates outside of the front six or so as far as keeping donors interested. most candidates barely register donors above the $200 threshold set here by Buzzfeed, even as they raise what might be respectable amounts of money; meanwhile, even frontrunning candidates are having difficulties creating an upward trajectory in their donor bases.

Joe Biden

• from NPR: Why Progressives Think Joe Biden Is Not 'Electable'. the progressive argument against joe biden is relatively straightforward: he has a bad track record and is effectively on the right-wing of the party right now in a time where voters seem to be clamoring for some answer to the increasingly radical rhetoric of the republican party. in a time where change seems to be necessary or we're fucked, biden wants to keep the status quo almost exactly as it is, but "better" in some unknown sense. more moderate elements of the party argue that this approach is necessary to win the house, senate, and presidency, but for somewhat obvious reasons progressives don't buy that argument very much either.
• from Jacobin: Bidencare Is a Scam. biden's healthcare plan, by extension, isn't particularly fondly regarded either by people left-of-center. billed mostly as an extension of obamacare, jacobin notes that biden's plan doesn't do a whole lot to address places where obamacare has been unhelpful or to fix things which obamacare hasn't addressed. it more or less has the same failings as obamacare, just for less people--while also most likely setting back the fight for equitable healthcare.

Kamala Harris

• from CBS News: Kamala Harris introduces plan to lower prescription drug prices. kamala harris has some policy out this week which seeks to regulate how the government would handle drug prices. per CBS here, "The senator's plan would task the Department of Health and Human Services with setting "fair" prescription drug prices ... determined in part by looking at the prices for the drug in other industrialized countries such as the United Kingdom and Canada." should companies try to sell higher than that price set by HHS, "the government [would] tax their profits from the drug at 100%, with the money reallocated to consumers in the form of rebates." in the event congress doesn't advance this within the first 100 days of her presidency, she would use executive orders to investigate price gouging (along with the attorney general) and HHS would, after a 30-day warning period, be allowed to import drugs from countries where they are cheaper. further failure to comply with reducing drug prices would also lead harris to award patents for drugs produced in part with federal funding to companies which produce the drug cheaper.
• from CBS News: Kamala Harris to propose decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level. harris is also looking to legalize marijuana, and in doing so not just promote minority business but expunge the records of people convicted on marijuana charges. her plan would also make it illegal to deny federal benefits on the basis of marijuana possession or use, and prevent immigrants from being deported or denied citizenship purely because of marijuana infractions.

Beto O'Rourke

• from Texas Monthly: Should Beto O’Rourke Drop Out?. the question posed most to the beto campaign is this. o'rourke severely undershot his fundraising in Q2 and has been consistently dropping in the polls basically since he entered the race because what worked for him in texas is not what works nationally. but at the same time, there's a question of where he has to go if he drops out: the senate seat cornyn currently occupies is already subject to a pretty big primary on the democratic side, and o'rourke might be spoiled goods if he becomes a presidential failson. it's a fun dynamic, one which will probably ruin him and send him packing back down to a more reasonable role in the future, provided it doesn't kill his political aspirations completely.
• from NBC News: O'Rourke's campaign is cratering. But he's got a plan to bring back 'Betomania.' nonetheless, the beto campaign remains optimistic. o'rourke after all was a dark horse candidate for the majority of his senate race and certainly not a stranger to adversity. o'rourke also has the benefit of it still being like, 7 months before any votes are cast at all, which is plenty of time to turn things around. still, not the best situation to be in.
• from CBS News: Despite a tumble in polls and fundraising O'Rourke campaign betting it all on Beto. the campaign, in the mean time, is also setting up new infrastructure with what it has, having continued its shift from a person-first strategy to one which involves much more media limelight. (i also assume they're getting better debate prep.)

Everyone Else

• from CBS News: On the road with Cory Booker in New Hampshire. this is a small profile of cory booker that CBS did a few days ago. booker, who has struggled to get out of the logjam of lower candidates now that buttigieg has risen, has yet to have a true breakout moment in his campaign. additionally, although he has constituencies he appeals to, many of those constituencies are also occupied by one or more candidates currently doing better than he is. nonetheless, booker has an extensive ground game in new hampshire and a pretty experienced campaign team coordinating his movements on the campaign trail. if he fails in his endeavors, it certainly won't be for lack of a network or experienced advisers.
• from the Atlantic: Elizabeth Warren Has Momentum. Can She Build a Movement?. one of the more underrated aspects of the rise of warren's campaign is that, in many ways, it mirrors the coalition that bernie sanders built in 2016 and has serious potential to turn into a political movement of its own--although probably at the expense of the political machinery which has enabled sanders to be a frontrunner. warren's campaign is also noteworthy in that it's managed this feat so far without any particularly splash-worthy moments. warren hasn't especially dominated the soundbyte market, nor is she the frontrunner most media scrambles to cover; yet, she is polling just behind biden, just ahead of sanders and harris, and seems only capable of climbing further from there. there's still time for some gaffe to derail her or for her rise to be blunted, but at least in the present, it seems pretty likely that her campaign is on track to be the next popular political movement.
• from CBS News: Buttigieg says white Americans "can't be defensive" when talking about race. pete buttigieg meanwhile continues to navigate the question of race, something that could be a great boon to his campaign if he is able to effectively harness it--but which currently is burdening him pretty badly both politically and polling-wise. of note in buttigieg's remarks:

"When somebody is saying that we are benefitting from living in a system that creates privileges associated with systemic racism, we can't kind of retreat into this idea that, 'We're being personally attacked, so we're not going to want to talk about that.' Or that, 'Hey these were distant historic problems, we can't be held accountable for dealing with that,'" he said. "No."
...
"I am worried that in different ways we may not be able to imagine, in the 21st century, if these inequalities keep getting worse, then that could once again threaten to unravel the American project."

• from New Hampshire Public Radio: Klobuchar in N.H.: To Beat Trump, Dems Need Positive Message and Some Humor. amy klobuchar, who hasn't made much news recently, continues to pitch herself as a moderate who can win in red, rural america and takes the line of thinking that any democratic candidate wanting to unseat trump will have to come at it from a message of positivity--and probably also have some wit. in her words: "I think sort of making fun of [Donald Trump], the absurdity of him. And I know that every day we think to ourselves this isn’t a laughing matter. We know that right? But you also know one of the cardinal rules of politics is you take your work seriously but you can’t always take yourself seriously."
• from Colorado Public Radio: After Crickets Following The First Debate, Hickenlooper Campaign Goes All In On Iowa. despite some frankly awful fundraising and being nowhere near the frontrunners, the john hickenlooper campaign is pushing the pedal to the floor and investing heavily in iowa. hickenlooper intends to spend much more time in the state than he has previously--he had previously been darting across the country--with the hopes of garnering some sort of traction. however, it's going to be quite an uphill climb for him, given that he polls worse than 1%, and it seems reasonable to assume that if he fails to gain traction in the next few months he'll cut his losses early (perhaps in favor of the colorado senate race? who knows).
• from CBS News: Delaney disputes reports he's dropping out of 2020 presidential race. y'all remember john delaney? he still exists, and he's fighting rumors he's dropping out, which is always a sign of a healthy campaign. delaney has mostly self funded and is the longest candidate in the race, having announced all the way back in 2017, but has pretty much entirely failed to take off with the electorate. he does not show signs of taking off, either.

anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there.