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    1. Thoughts

      I don’t even know where to start. I realize it’s not meant to be a coherent piece of text, but rather a (fortunately short) stream of related thoughts. I could talk about when an ambulance took me...

      I don’t even know where to start. I realize it’s not meant to be a coherent piece of text, but rather a (fortunately short) stream of related thoughts.

      I could talk about when an ambulance took me to the hospital because I was so drunk I couldn’t even move.

      I could talk about how with other friends I bullied people for no justifiable reason.

      I could talk about how I can’t stop watching porn, and consequently how my sexual tastes diverged from the normal, making me guilty of engaging in and craving illegal content.

      I could talk about how I wasted literally years trying to finish a bachelor degree, to the point where I am now lying to my family and friends about exams.

      I could talk about the many other stupid things I did, some of which while being recorded by people who aren’t even friends any more and who could easily ruin my life by sending them out (not that they have a reason to do so, but nothing can change the fact that I am powerless).

      I could talk about how I wish suicide was an option, but since it’s not, the best alternative is sleeping while enjoying dreams. Too bad you can’t sleep forever.

      The list could probably go on.

      I can’t seem to spend a day without dwelling on at least one of these (and other) burdens; be it a memory, a negative feeling, an evil thought, an action, or a combination thereof.

      When I think about the past, I feel overwhelmed by nothing but regret. When I think about the present, I’m filled with guilt. When I think about the future, I feel fear (of life, of ageing, of death).

      No one can object to the intrinsic meaninglessness of life, unless you take into account religion (which I do not) or subjective purpose (which I could consider, but it’s impossible to consistently focus on that when you are reminded everyday of the underlying nonsense of life while fantasizing about suicide).

      I often ask myself If I’m being truly honest with myself or if I’m semi-unconsciously sabotaging my existence just because playing the role of the victim is admittedly easier than fighting for your life.

      I am ultimately confused by the reason why I am the way I am: is it because of my past (wrongdoing)? Is it because I suffer from a mental disease? Is it because I suffer from a physical disease? Is it because that’s simply how (evil) I am? I have so many questions and so little answers.

      22 votes
    2. What have you been listening to this week?

      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...

      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.

      8 votes
    3. Looking for melodic instrumental metal bands!

      Little disclaimer: I posted this on reddit too! I love melodic music and often prefer instrumental bands. So far I only know Demetori. (Don't judge it by the anime pictures if you're not into...

      Little disclaimer: I posted this on reddit too!

      I love melodic music and often prefer instrumental bands. So far I only know Demetori. (Don't judge it by the anime pictures if you're not into that.) They make covers of music from a game series, so it's bound to be melodic. And they're really good! Here's another great one from them. They make some lighter stuff, too.

      Another example: The Black Mages. Again, they make video game covers. But Nobuo Uematsu is a member of the band, so they're awesome too!

      One more example is Akira Yamaoka, but his style is more like rock.

      Are there any melodic but instrumental bands out there? Progressive style is always a bonus.

      11 votes
    4. Need help raising funds for a friend

      @ admin: Sorry if it's not allowed to post these kinds of things, feel free to remove it. I'm normally not someone who would post this kind of stuff to places like this or other sites, as it's...

      @ admin: Sorry if it's not allowed to post these kinds of things, feel free to remove it.

      I'm normally not someone who would post this kind of stuff to places like this or other sites, as it's probably kind of annoying, but l'm honestly starting to get super worried.

      A close friend recently broke her leg & thanks to the fucked up US healthcare system she's got a $1800 bill due on the 11th of October. I set up a fundraiser to try and help, which raised $500 so far, but that's just not enough.
      I'm really worried for her (mental) wellbeing & l am desperately trying to scrape together what l can to help. l think if the bill isn't paid, it wouldn't take long for her to end up homeless, or worse.

      l don't like asking this, but would anyone be able to either donate or share the tweet? Any amount helps.

      l would genuinely appreciate it a lot if you could, and l understand if you can't.

      https://twitter.com/asoftbird/status/1294762351242235904?s=21

      Edit: it's in the tweet, but l should mention she's trans and disabled; becoming homeless already is pretty bad, but given the other circumstances l'm honestly not sure if she'll survive that.
      I have donated her $600 already which is as much as l can miss, l don't know what to do about the bit that's still missing.

      10 votes
    5. Could we have a different color for exemplary new comments?

      Currently exemplary comments are highlighted with a blue outline, and new comments are highlighted with an orange outline. Is it possible to use a different color, or to interweave the colors when...

      Currently exemplary comments are highlighted with a blue outline, and new comments are highlighted with an orange outline. Is it possible to use a different color, or to interweave the colors when a comment is both new and exemplary?

      The reason for this is that it's impossible to check back into a thread that has a dozen new comments and know if the exemplary ones have already been read or not, or it's impossible to see that a new comment is exemplary (not sure which color takes priority).

      19 votes
    6. If you're a parent, what is it like?

      If I see myself in someone's child here then I'm deleting this thread, no questions asked /s You should probably say/indicate your and your children's age and sex (can be plural, obviously.) You...

      If I see myself in someone's child here then I'm deleting this thread, no questions asked /s

      You should probably say/indicate your and your children's age and sex (can be plural, obviously.)

      You can follow the Q&A format below but you don't have to.

      A few questions that come to (my very uninitiated) mind are:

      How much time do you spend on them?

      If you aren't their biological parent:

      (i.e you're @aphoenix not hetero and a parent didn't want to go through fkin birthing people an adoptive parent, for example)

      • Where did you (uhh) find them?
      • If it was an orphanage, what was it like there? (Can you even find children elsewhere if they don't have parents?)
      • How many children were there to choose from?
      • What led you to choose the child you picked in specific instead of someone else? (Dear God, is this an ethical question to ask?)

      How do you parent them?

      • Do you follow what they're doing on the Internet or how much they use it? How much?

      • Do you encourage them to have a good diet? How much?

      • Do you encourage them to do more chores? How much?

      • When you do this, how cooperative are they? If they aren't, what do you do to convince them?

      How do you and your partner split the time spent taking care of them?

      What was the most unexpected thing about parenting to you?

      More personal questions below. (You can avoid these, I probably would too tbh)

      If you had a particular preference/expectation for what you wanted/expected your child to be and got something else, what did you do?

      How did birth(-ing?) go? What was it like?

      What was being/seeing your partner be pregnant like?

      Is there anything you regret doing when parenting them?

      Why did you have them?

      30 votes
    7. What TLDs do you view the most positively?

      I'm thinking of registering a new domain to host a personal blog and a few other pages that is somewhat separate from my current personal portfolio page, as the blog will likely not be directly...

      I'm thinking of registering a new domain to host a personal blog and a few other pages that is somewhat separate from my current personal portfolio page, as the blog will likely not be directly relevant to my work. But since this is a more personal project, I want to branch out in terms of TLDs - I've previously used exclusively .com endings as they lead to the least confusion and are the most accepted.

      I'm a little overwhelmed by the number of options these days, so I wanted to take a little straw poll to see which ones people think are the best. The name itself will be my initials "gpxl", and the endings I am considering are

      • .info
      • .xyz
      • .fyi
      • .computer
      • .me

      But I'm curious to see what others think. I would go with .xyz but I feel like then my domain name becomes an unintelligble string of letters - gpxl.xyz, so I'm wondering what others think and what arguments exist for choosing one over another.

      P.S. If anyone has recommendations for registars I'm open to those too. Currently using google domains but open to switching.

      18 votes
    8. Starting a zine

      Is it possible to start an indie literary (web?)zine in this part of history? Do you have any tips on marketing, gaining submissions, the publishing itself, editing and other things involved in...

      Is it possible to start an indie literary (web?)zine in this part of history? Do you have any tips on marketing, gaining submissions, the publishing itself, editing and other things involved in the making of a zine?

      Your own experiences, speculations and links to articles are welcome!

      10 votes
    9. What are you reading these days?

      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.

      7 votes
    10. Ubisoft Forward - September 2020

      Ubisoft's event today just finished up. Here's the full video if you want to watch (there's a pre-show of an hour that I skipped past), but here are all the individual videos/trailers from the...

      Ubisoft's event today just finished up. Here's the full video if you want to watch (there's a pre-show of an hour that I skipped past), but here are all the individual videos/trailers from the event:

      Yeah, the titles are a mess, but I'm just using the video titles from YouTube.

      5 votes
    11. Help me think about the next step in my life

      Hello, I am a late 20s person from Europe who works part-time at a low-skilled job and is nearing completion of a masters in Financial Mathematics (FM). I also have an undergraduate degree in...

      Hello, I am a late 20s person from Europe who works part-time at a low-skilled job and is nearing completion of a masters in Financial Mathematics (FM). I also have an undergraduate degree in Economics and a post-graduate degree in Finance.

      Previously I’ve worked full-time as an IT consultant, in R&D at an asset management company and in operational risk at an investment bank. I stopped working full-time in early 2018 due to mental health issues such as depression, anxiety disorder and possible Asperger’s. But even before then it was obvious my health was deteriorating and I actually got fired from my second job partially due to these problems. Since then I’ve been slowly working (or at least trying to) on my health, which has improved substantially but not as much as I would like. So in early 2018, with way too much time in my hands, I decided to get the part-time job to partially offset my expenses and also decided to go back to school to study FM.

      I went back to school for multiple reasons. I was tired of doing work that was not very technical or quantitative. While working on my health I realized that I don’t do well with work that is subjective, unstructured or involves little interaction (for example doing a lot of reading, specially when I have no clear goal). I did a little programming at previous jobs and more during the masters. So, I can say with some confidence that I enjoyed it. But going back to the FM masters: it is very technical, I was fascinated and curious about it plus it has an excellent track record with regards to employment prospects. I also considered “going back” and doing an undergraduate degree in computer science but decided that it was just too long (minimum 3 years).

      So with this “introduction” out of the way let’s get to the heart of this post. I don’t know what to do after I finish my masters. Of course I could just apply for jobs related with what I am studying. However, I think I really want to try working in the technical side of IT. I will admit I don’t know much about the different aspects and careers in IT but I find it interesting. Every time I was doing non-technical work I just wanted to understand and do the work of my technical colleagues. I think it both better suits my personality and aligns well with my long term goals of increased freedom and flexibility (IT generally pays well and you can do a lot of work remotely). I have this idea of maybe becoming a freelancer but I can understand that is not realistic in the short-term. So, working in IT inside a company is probably my best bet at this time. Regardless, another objective of mine is to be able to work less than 40h per week. I think it would be great for me, specially health-wise.

      I have to say I got more excited about my ideas when I saw this post here on Tildes: https://tildes.net/~comp/quj/would_any_tilderino_be_interested_in_tutoring_me_in_programming. I am willing to put in the work and it would be awesome to have some tutoring. Another point I took from that post is that IT is a very big field and I honestly don’t know specifically what I want to do inside that space. However, I do know I don’t like dealing with UI or graphical/design aspects.

      I guess I will finish by asking direct questions to help people structure their answers around (but if you want to talk about something else I wrote, be free to do so):

      • First of all, what technical areas within IT do you think would suit me? If it’s not much of a hassle, please provide a brief description of what people actually do in those areas.
      • Is it realistic to start working as a technical IT freelancer and learn as I go? Or are the odds very slim?
      • Alternatively, if I decide to take the "safer" and more probable route of nailing a technical IT job, what should I do to put myself in a better position to attain that goal?

      Thank you =)

      10 votes
    12. Turning my tabletop game into a real video game

      So, I am a filmmaker by trade. I understand scripting, pacing, etc. I also have been doing a lot of tabletop design, running a campaign for years with continuity, recurring characters that I...

      So, I am a filmmaker by trade. I understand scripting, pacing, etc. I also have been doing a lot of tabletop design, running a campaign for years with continuity, recurring characters that I design from the ground-up (excluding the rule system, so just all the dungeons, NPCs, plot devices, etc).

      With covid, film production has really slowed down and I have some time on my hands, so I thought about trying my hand at video game making, something I have honestly toyed with for decades, but never did too much of. I did have a brief window in the 00s when I had RPG Maker and I made some demos that my friends enjoyed, but that's about it.

      So, given that my programing knowledge is super limited (I took a few Java classes over a decade ago and used to do HTML in the 90s), my graphics making abilities are near non-existent (I'm good at motion graphics, but not pixel design or 3D graphics), but I have what I think is a good plot, characters and game design, what should be my first steps in trying to make this a reality? What engine should I use? I have no problem buying, for a couple bucks here and there, other people's art and what not. Ideally, probably make a 16-bit esque RPG, like FFIV, Earthbound, etc. but perhaps with more of a BioWare, "choices matter" type dialog/questing system.

      I don't expect to set the world on fire, but I do want to make what would be considered a decent looking first effort from a one man novice that, if nothing else, would be a fun experience for me to make and something fun to give my players as a gift (as we are reaching the end of the story of our campaign). And maybe, why not, something I could release for the broader public if the core is good and it's worth me hiring a few more people to help me polish it. Maybe it won't. As a filmmaker, I know how bad first films are, and a lot of times they are just learning experiences that you keep on a hard drive locked away somewhere. So, trying to be realistic while excited.

      Appreciate advice.

      14 votes