Back in the day I was a hardcore Google Reader (RIP) user, and following that I continued to use https://feedly.com/ for many years, but eventually I found myself falling behind on all my feeds and stopped checking it.

Recently, I signed for Inoreader and I've started reading more blogs again. It also has the nice feature of letting you subscribe to email newsletters too, which is quite nice since I find them annoying to deal with in my email inbox but convenient in the feed reader.

I'm wondering what blogs and newsletters folks on Tildes subscribe to.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Blogs:

• bellingcat: Independent investigative journalism often based on online "open source intelligence." e.g. The Boogaloo Movement is Not What You Think
• BLDGBLOG: Geoff Manaugh's blog about everything related to the space we inhabit, both built and natural. e.g. Underground Cathedrals of Radiation and Zones of Irreversible Strain
• Flowing Data: Nathan Yau's blog about data visualization. e.g. Racial Divide
• Idle Words: The blog of Maciej Cegłowski, creator of the Pinboard bookmarking service. Covers tech and lots of unrelated topics. e.g. Superintelligence: The Idea that Eats Smart People

Newsletters:

• BIG by Matt Stoller: A newsletter about economics and in particular the economics of monopolies and disruptive startups. e.g. The Slow Death of Hollywood
• Data is Plural: A weekly newsletter of fun/weird datasets.
• Normcore Tech: Vicki Boykis' newsletter about tech and tech-related things. e.g. The Reign of Big Recsys
• Uses This: Brief interviews with all sorts of creators about what tools they use to do what they do.

This is just a slice. I can share my entire list if people are interested. But I'm curious about what feeds others enjoy, on anything from film and furniture to "movie-set" urbanism. What are you reading?

This question isn't about people so much as it is about anything else. It's hard to explain outright, so I'll use an example:

A few months ago I read Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven. I just finished with Ling Ma's Severance. The two books are completely unrelated but feel very, very close to one another. There are a lot of topical similarities: both portray a global pandemic, a lead female character, and narrative shifts between pre- and post-societal collapse, etc. However, more than that, both feel very tonally similar. I couldn't read Severance without constantly thinking of and comparing it to Station Eleven, and I think I liked both books better together than I did either of them on their own. Even though they're clearly different and written by different people, they very much feel like they come from the same family -- like they're unrelated siblings.

I'm curious as to what other examples people can come up with, in whatever category you consider: media, historical events, languages, etc. Anything goes as long as they have a familial resemblance.

I have a few weeks left before I finish my MBA and I turn 26. I decided to spend the free time I have since my cancelled finance internship learning how to program. I enjoy it a lot and could easily see myself working as a Software Engineer. Prior to my MBA and the finance internships I did, I was a video editor and colorist with a film production bachelors.

I started with App Academy's Introduction to Ruby I and II courses but I quickly realized that even if a boot camp would work out for me, that specific one would not work out due to geographic location. There is a Hack Reactor branch close to my parents house in Los Angeles, however I feel like if I choose to enroll in a boot camp I should learn as much as I can on my own first; doing it now seems like I would be subjecting myself to financial peril, especially in light of COVID-19.

I am now taking the edX MIT 6.00.1 Introduction to Computer Science and Programming Using Python course. One of my friends gave me access to a udemy MTA Networking Fundamentals course and I was considering working through that alongside the MIT one. The MIT course only takes around 15 hours per week, so I need more classes/projects to help fill what is ideally a 50 hour work week in order for me to really grasp these concepts. I know at some point I have to begin to build projects, but I do not believe my fundamentals are quite there. If I'm wrong, I would love some pointers as to how to begin.

If anyone is able, I would really appreciate some guidance in three main areas. First, is my timetable realistic? I have enough overhead and family help to last me to December before I start looking for work OR enroll in a boot camp, the latter of which would require some additional help. I feel that if I diligently study from now until then my family would be willing to help me out a little bit.

Second, would a boot camp actually be worth it? I realize that a solid portfolio is the #1 thing that will get my foot in the door somewhere but I'm not sure if I would have one that is as fleshed out as I might need by December. Some alumni from my school went through Hack Reactor, but the amount of CS students currently working as SWE far outnumbers the two folks I have found so far that pivoted from Economics and Film Production into SWE. I see the boot camp as serving two purposes: demonstrating that I have what it takes to commit to something and see it through (similar to my two degrees, just for programming) and helping add a few items to my body of work. The financial obligation is a bit concerning, but if I truly was able to find a job at the end of it the ISA would feel worth it.

Finally, how can my lesson plan be improved? I intend to finish this MITx course over the next six weeks (I'm working through week 2 right now). Is the MTA Networking Fundamentals course a good compliment? Are there other courses that might be better? I own the book Programming Principles and Practice using C++ by Bjarne Stroustrup and have read that it is a solid introduction to both C++ and programming fundamentals, similar to the MITx course. I intend on starting and finishing a Version Control with Git coursera class this coming week. What more could I add, are these the right things to focus on, and is this even a realistic endeavor for me?

My interests are web development, app development, and data analytics. I feel each of these would be its own path, but if someone could help me narrow this list down to one that best suits my past experience, has complimentary skills, and seems like it would be a good fit it would be much appreciated.

Any advice helps!

This thread is posted daily - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.

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 have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

Cynicism is the bastard cousin of skepticism. While optimists look for the silver lining, cynics can't fail to see
the fly in the ointment and true skeptics are somewhere in the middle. Cynicism is an overwhelming trend in internet forums. The most upvoted reactions are usually the more pessimistic (regardless of factuality), and seemingly virtuous attitudes are immediately met with assumptions of bad faith.

Cynicism is tiresome and can very well lead to false conclusions.

This may be unlikely, but paradigms can be improved, governments can adopt better policies, corporations can act for the good of society, billionaires can be virtuous philanthropists, assholes can learn to be nice, and bigots can learn to respect diversity. We should be absolutely skeptical of sudden changes of attitude, but indiscriminate cynicism creates an environment that does not reward positive changes, and I don't think that's in the best interest of a community.

EDIT: I feel I need to clarify that cynicism is not equal to skepticism. Skeptics refrain from conviction in face of insufficient evidence, while cynics assume bad faith even without sufficient evidence. I am not advocating for naïveté, but for healthy skepticism.

I understand we have ~life but I think something more ~personal would be more beneficial, life could pertain to a lot of different things but personal would be far more effective.

We could also have ~personal.blogs for us to submit our personal blog posts that don't really have a place anywhere else.

Would open and connect the community a lot more, allow for advice, general questions, and more.

This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!