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    3. Have you attended any virtual conferences? Tell me about the things that worked well.

      ~life Ask (survey)
      This could be anything, from presentation tips, to efficiently-managed breakout rooms, to finding ways to engage participants. How did it make a difference? I’m writing an article about how...

      This could be anything, from presentation tips, to efficiently-managed breakout rooms, to finding ways to engage participants. How did it make a difference?

      I’m writing an article about how companies can run better online events, so thinking “ideas worth stealing.” Give me details!

      It’d be easy to focus on the things that don’t work — they are legion — but I’m aiming to capture the good stuff that we all wish everyone would adopt. So leave out the disappointments, and just tell me about the things you enjoyed.

      If you’ve run a virtual event I’m interested in your opinions too, but keep in mind that this is meant to be tips-and-tricks worth sharing.

      11 votes

    10. Fitness Weekly Discussion

      ~health Ask (survey)
      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...

      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?

      4 votes

    11. Day 11: Seating System

      ~comp Text 91 words
      Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2020/day/11 Join the Tildes private leaderboard! You can do that on this page, by entering join code 730956-de85ce0c. Please post your...

      Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2020/day/11

      Join the Tildes private leaderboard! You can do that on this page, by entering join code 730956-de85ce0c.

      Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

      <details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>
      13 votes

    15. What is/are your favorite quote/s?

      ~talk Ask (survey)
      (This is a self-repost, hence the "duplicate question" tag.) A guy named Adolf Hitler won an election in 1932. He won an election, and 50 million people died as a result of that election in World...

      (This is a self-repost, hence the "duplicate question" tag.)

      A guy named Adolf Hitler won an election in 1932. He won an election, and 50 million people died as a result of that election in World War II, including six million Jews. So what I learned as a little kid is that politics is, in fact, very important.

      -Bernie Sanders

      Good satire raises questions about reality.
      (IDK the source, but I first heard it here)

      The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.
      -Antonio Gramsci, 1930

      When I was a kid my parents warned me about the mind-numbing effect TV would have on me if I watched too much of it. They were referring to fluff entertainment, which I've consumed plenty of over the years. Meanwhile, my parents used the TV to watch important and meaningful shows like the news. Eventually Fox News. In the end, they were right— but not in the way they expected.

      -@balooga, here

      If God has made us in his image, we have returned him the favor.

      -Voltaire

      All tyrannies rule through fraud and force. When fraud is exposed, they must rule exclusively by force.

      -George Orwell

      If you do not use the person you are, you will lose the person you are and instead become the mask that you wear.
      -Greg Guevara/Jreg

      What do you need from your parents?

      encouragement
      -u/DeSteph-DeCurry

      This (very long) quote from "They thought they were free"

      Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not?-Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty. Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, 'everyone' is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, 'It's not so bad' or 'You're seeing things' or 'You're an alarmist.'

      And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have....

      But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked-if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in '43 had come immediately after the 'German Firm' stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in '33. But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

      And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying 'Jewish swine,' collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in-your nation, your people-is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way."

      and this shorter quote from a 1950 report, along with some extras from an article that features it

      Back in 1950, when both major parties were broad and moderate with overlapping appeals, many of America’s leading political scientists wrote a report in which they bemoaned this state of affairs.

      In a report, “Toward a More Responsible Two-Party System,” they saw two national parties that were but loose confederations of state and local parties, incapable of bringing forward coherent programs to the voters and carrying them out when they got into power.

      If the American political parties failed to heed their advice, the authors issued a dire warning:

      If the two parties do not develop alternative programs that can be executed, the voter’s frustration and the mounting ambiguities of national policy might also set in motion more extreme tendencies to the political left and the political right. This, again, would represent a condition to which neither our political institutions nor our civic habits are adapted. Once a deep political cleavage develops between opposing groups, each group naturally works to keep it deep. Such groups may gravitate beyond the confines of the American system of government and its democratic institutions.

      Assuming a survival of the two-party system in form though not in spirit, even if only one of the diametrically opposite parties comes to flirt with unconstitutional means and ends, the consequences would be serious. For then the constitution-minded electorate would be virtually reduced to a one-party system with no practical alternative to holding to the “safe” party at all cost.

      (That being said, this quote does show some age, as we now know that this "constitution-minded electorate" doesn't really exist. And "moderate" is extremely relative)

      19 votes

    28. What books are you giving as gifts this year, and why?

      ~books Ask (survey)
      'tis the season for "best of the year" / holiday shopping guides for things like books. I thought it would be interesting to sort of crowdsource Tildes' own list. What books did you buy to give as...

      'tis the season for "best of the year" / holiday shopping guides for things like books.

      I thought it would be interesting to sort of crowdsource Tildes' own list.

      • What books did you buy to give as gifts? (I'm specifically thinking of this holiday season, but anytime recently is fair game)

      • Who did you get the book for?

      • Why did you think they would enjoy the book?

      15 votes

    29. What should I sing (or say) to myself?

      ~talk Text 245 words
      I work long hours and can find myself alone for good stretches. I don't like to spend too much time with my inner monologue, and I haven't reached a level of mindfulness to shut it off, so I've...

      I work long hours and can find myself alone for good stretches. I don't like to spend too much time with my inner monologue, and I haven't reached a level of mindfulness to shut it off, so I've been singing to myself. Rocky Top by the Osborne Brothers and Loch Lomond by the Corries have been my favorites. With songs I think folk music works well for its repeating melodies. Also, my brother has sung these songs for hours on end throughout my growing up, so they're in my heart already. I also keep stumbling through Hedy West's Little Sadie and The Stanley Brothers' Over in the Glory Land. Otherwise, I memorized a poem in Russian (Я вас любил by Pushkin) for a class last year, and had previously memorized one in German (Künstlers Abendlied by Goethe). I've still got the former, but will have to refresh my memory on the latter.

      I'm wondering what things y'all have memorized or what you think would be cool or fun for me to memorize and rehearse (or meditate over if it's a thinker) during work.

      I like the sounds of other languages and have some familiarity with Russian, German, and Chinese. I have a good ear tone-wise, so I'd take a hearty string of notes if there's one that gets to you. I have taken a liking to stoicism over the past year, and also would read any religious text that has a bit of rhythm.

      7 votes

    30. What have you been listening to this week?

      ~music Ask (survey)
      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.

      10 votes

    33. Day 15: Rambunctious Recitation

      ~comp Text 91 words
      Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2020/day/15 Join the Tildes private leaderboard! You can do that on this page, by entering join code 730956-de85ce0c. Please post your...

      Today's problem description: https://adventofcode.com/2020/day/15

      Join the Tildes private leaderboard! You can do that on this page, by entering join code 730956-de85ce0c.

      Please post your solutions in your own top-level comment. Here's a template you can copy-paste into your comment to format it nicely, with the code collapsed by default inside an expandable section with syntax highlighting (you can replace python with any of the "short names" listed in this page of supported languages):

      <details>
<summary>Part 1</summary>

```python
Your code here.
```

</details>
      11 votes

    34. I just got accepted to do a Master's degree!

      ~talk Text 290 words
      I'm dead excited, and I just wanted to share somewhere! Since graduating from my Bachelor's I've been working in IT support, and it's slowly killing me. Progression is slow, the work is boring,...

      I'm dead excited, and I just wanted to share somewhere!
      Since graduating from my Bachelor's I've been working in IT support, and it's slowly killing me. Progression is slow, the work is boring, and at the end of the day all I have to show for my efforts is (hopefully) a slightly lower number of open tickets than at the start. It all feels incredibly pointless, and like I'm not making a difference in peoples' lives.

      I decided earlier this year to start looking into possible Master's degree programs, to help me enter a different field, and I'm happy to say that from next September I'll be returning to my alma mater to study Linguistics and English Language Teaching. From there, I'm hoping to go into teaching English as a foreign language, first abroad, and then to immigrants and refugees back here in the UK.

      I'm super excited, and also a little nervous. I coasted through my Bachelor's and the past few years of my working life, so it'll be a shock to the system to have a proper workload again. I've got to get through the next 8 months or so first, but that will be easier knowing that I have something different and exciting waiting for me at the end of this particular career path. I'm desperately saving up as much money as I can to cover my living expenses for the year (I don't intend to work during my degree), which is another thing to feel nervous about.

      But right now, I'm mostly just ecstatic, and wanted to share! In the interest of discussion, I'd love to hear about your experiences studying a Master's degree, and whether or not it helped you in your life after graduation.

      25 votes