I read some funny stuff on here and there are plenty of witty responses around, but a community for humorous content may lighten things up a bit and it can start discussions too… after all:

“Laughter without a tinge of philosophy is but a sneeze of humor. Genuine humor is replete with wisdom.” -Mark Twain

I was inspired to say this in a different conversation, but having said it, I want to say it more loudly/noticably.

A few, not many fellow newcomers to Tildes have made comments comparing it unfavorably to Lemmy/Kbin or Squabbles. We have options and there will likely be many more. To steal a good quote from a totalitarian dictator, Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom.

Tildes vs Lemmy/Kbin or Squabbles reminds me of the disagreement between the Ents and the Entwives. Some people prefer gardens. Some people prefer the wilderness. Some like both. I am grateful that Deimos created this nifty site for me to play in.

http://www.tolkien.cro.net/talesong/ents.html
https://tildes.net/~tildes.official/wiki/philosophy/index

Greeting everyone, first time actually posting on tildes so try and forgive me for any shortcomings as it's hard to tap out paragraphs on a mobile device.

So I wanted to ask you all, when you think nostalgia what specific idea or memory comes up for you?

When i give it some thought my specific memories of nostalgia are of the late 90s early 2000s. I picture a freshly constructed suburban neighborhood where there are no fences built yet, no trees planted or grown, and just grass everywhere - giving it a very liminal feeling. I reflect back on the hours spent outside until after dusk where the amber glow of the street lamps brought a feeling of warmth and coziness on a warm spring evening.

I also think about the technology, or lack thereof, at the time and how we used it. Beige computers transitioning to black ones as the 2000s crept up, using your big toe to turn them on, playing runescape or Sims Deluxe Edition mindlessly for an unhealthy amount of time etc. I think about the connectivity we had to each other, no smart phones, a wild west internet, and in my case a house phone with a kilometer long cord so that grandma can call europe with calling cards for hours on end while she tangles us all up with the cobweb of wires.

The list of memories can go on forever, but now I turn it over to you guys/gals.

I'll admit that I am a new user to Lemmy as a way to replace reddit in my free time, so a lot of my opinions will be relative to it. So far I've found it decent. I won't comment much on the UX or functionality, since I think it wouldn't be fair to criticize a fairly new platform in that way. I won't try to compare it to Tildes either, since I think they are very different in scope and purpose. I will say that the discussions in tildes are higher quality than both reddit and lemmy on average.

Overall the experience for me has been hit or miss. Joining a smaller server relevant to my interests was a good move. I joined SDF's instance and the people there are very friendly, and I enjoy the tech-forward posts. Throughout the fediverse as a whole, the discussions felt shorter and not as good as even reddit.

The posts and discussion on the larger instances to me felt a little immature. Generally I came across a lot of: (1) hyper-contrarians--it reminds me somewhat of linux/oss forums that skew younger. Lots of circlejerking the common themes/in-jokes/ideals of the free-software circles. (2) reddit-bad circlejerking (3) mediocre memes

I also came across a few very thoughtful discussions related to the fediverse regarding its place in the world, the sort of content that would do well, and the culture of its members. I'm very excited to watch the more niche communities grow. I'll admit that I miss reddit somewhat for music discovery and the smaller genre subs (although not enough to spend my time there again).

After a few months, I haven't felt compelled to visit reddit nor really Lemmy all that often, since I think both suffer from the same immaturity and hivemind thinking.

What do you all feel about Lemmy so far? Any good community recommendations? (Especially for music :) )

I'll be traveling to Havana, Cuba for 4 or 5 days this Fall and I am asking for any recommended activities or destinations to put on an itinerary.

My main interests are (1) anything to do with the history of the Cuban Revolution and (2) social and technological measures taken to cope with constraints of the trade embargo (and yes, this even includes maintenance of old automobiles); and I'm not particularly interested in Ernest Hemingway, smoking cigars or getting drunk on rum. I will have a 12 and 14 year old kid with me, so I'm also looking for some interesting, age-appropriate activities for them. I will make an effort to take a day trip to the Che Guevara mausoleum in Santa Clara, but the rest of the time will be in or very near Havana. What do you recommend?

Hi boardtiddlers,

It's that time of the week again already. Another opportunity to discuss what you've been playing this week.

Personally I've only managed a single game of Hegemony, this time as the middle classes, with my opponents playing working class and state, and with a robot for the capitalists. It was a bit of a crazy game: capitalist automaton managed to open companies across all three rows of the board. I, as middle, had a fair number too, so production was massive and there was little unemployment. We actually ran out of unskilled middle class workers and influence cubes. Working class managed a comfortable win with state and middle coming joint second some twelve or so points behind. I really think we need to work out how to nix the working class, because they've been strong in every game so far.

So tell us about your sessions this week.

My most recent favorite is "Goodbye, Eri". The story is about a high school boy being asked by his mother to film her final moments before death, which led to him meeting the girl in the title and... things happen (saying more would be spoiler lol).

What's most striking about this manga is the consistent paneling, making it looks like you're browsing through film strip. It also gives the story a sense of urgency as if the panels are the ticking of a clock. The plot has many twists and turns and 4th wall breaking, reading it feels as if you're watching an indie movie.

I don't come across oneshots very often and only knew about this one from r/manga. So I'm looking for more!

From what I have seen discussions here seem mostly about published books but I had figured I will try posting here and see if anyone is interested. They have both positives and negatives compared to published/or even just completed fiction but mostly I am interested in them for the higher variance which also means that it is harder to find something good.

Just listing some I liked over the years, both more and less known:

• The Gods are bastards by DD Webb (on hiatus, extremely long) - set in a world in a magical industrial revolution where adventuring as career is all but over it follows a class of students in the University. Contains several other viewpoint characters and ever expanding cast.

• Fall of Doc Future trilogy(and extras) by WD Rieder (on hiatus, very long) - a story about superhumans where the abilities and their effects are treated seriously. Contains some social commentary and several polyamorous relationships in later parts.

• Time to Orbit: Unknown by Derin Edala (ongoing, long) - a psychological mystery/horror set on a colony ship. A colonist wakes five years early to find that the crew is missing and things are wrong. The mysteries so far constantly escalate but in way that mostly makes sense. The culture of this future is detailed and interesting.

• Mother of Learning by nobody103 (complete, extremely long) - a time loop progression fantasy following Zorian - a student mage from a minor merchant family.

• This Used to be About Dungeons by Alexander Wales (complete except epilogues, very/extremely long) - a slice of slice comfy story(at the beginning it slightly escalates later) containing extremely light litrpg elements. Focuses on the group dynamics of a party going to dungeons(sometimes).

What are some good ones that you would recommend?

Child labor is making a comeback with a vengeance. A striking number of lawmakers are undertaking concerted efforts to weaken or repeal statutes that have long prevented (or at least seriously inhibited) the possibility of exploiting children.

Take a breath and consider this: the number of kids at work in the U.S. increased by 37% between 2015 and 2022. During the last two years, 14 states have either introduced or enacted legislation rolling back regulations that governed the number of hours children can be employed, lowered the restrictions on dangerous work, and legalized subminimum wages for youths.

Iowa now allows those as young as 14 to work in industrial laundries. At age 16, they can take jobs in roofing, construction, excavation, and demolition and can operate power-driven machinery. Fourteen-year-olds can now even work night shifts and once they hit 15 can join assembly lines. All of this was, of course, prohibited not so long ago.

Legislators offer fatuous justifications for such incursions into long-settled practice. Working, they tell us, will get kids off their computers or video games or away from the TV. Or it will strip the government of the power to dictate what children can and can’t do, leaving parents in control — a claim already transformed into fantasy by efforts to strip away protective legislation and permit 14-year-old kids to work without formal parental permission.

In 2014, the Cato Institute, a right-wing think tank, published “A Case Against Child Labor Prohibitions,” arguing that such laws stifled opportunity for poor — and especially Black — children. The Foundation for Government Accountability, a think tank funded by a range of wealthy conservative donors including the DeVos family, has spearheaded efforts to weaken child-labor laws, and Americans for Prosperity, the billionaire Koch brothers’ foundation, has joined in.

https://tomdispatch.com/caution-children-at-work/#:~:text=The%20Covid%2D19%20pandemic%20of,distinct%20sign%20of%20social%20pathology.

Here is a Robert Frost poem related to the subject of the article. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53087/out-out

I'm GenX and I worked as a teen, but my earliest jobs were babysitting, not industrial labor.

Important: This will be a noisy thread. If you do not wish to see it in your feed, please use the Ignore feature to hide it!

Tip: If the large number of comments are cluttering up the topic and you just want to see the main giveaway posts, click Collapse Replies at the top of the comments.

Introduction

Hi all! For everyone new to Tildes (welcome!), we usually run a community game giveaway thread during the major Steam sales. Feel free to make giveaways of your own (using whatever rules you want), or participate in others' giveaways. If you'd like to see some previous examples, check out our most recent Holiday 2022 one or use the tildes game giveaway tag to look through previous posts.

Before you participate, please make sure you read the rules below.

Rules

Gifters

Post your available games, the platform and method of delivery, rules for your giveaways (e.g. first-come first-serve, random draw, etc.), and any additional info or requirements. Feel free to get creative!

Giftees

Request giveaways. Please make sure you follow the gifter's posted guidelines.

Guidelines

Anyone can choose to be a gifter, giftee, or both! Giveaway rules are set by individual gifters, but there are handful of guidelines everyone should follow:

1. No grey market keys! Only give away games from reputable sources. If you're not sure what this means, please ask.
2. Requests for games should be done in this topic, but if the gift is a key, those should be delivered by PMs only. Please don't post keys publicly in this topic, even obfuscated ones.

Hey all, so I'm a trans woman and, like a lot of other people, my biggest point of dysphoria is my facial hair. I've been going through electrolysis for the past five months. I love it when it works, but the speed of the process is really getting me down. I do one hour every two weeks (I'd do more if I had the money), and after five months of solely working on my upper lip the progress just isn't where I was hoping to be.

What are y'alls experiences with electro, and what was the regiment that worked for you? Did you do something other than electrolysis, how'd it work out? Other general hair removal tips to look as clean as possible?

I'll share one of my own:

• The Finishing Touch Flawless Razor (Walmart link) has been the best, and most affordable electric razor I've found that gets an extremely close shave without too much skin irritation (I have the most irritated skin in the world). Highly recommend!

I have been making a game with Rpg maker MZ in my free time. It is a slow process, but it is coming along. With no background or experience with coding, I had attempted to jump into Unity a while ago, but quickly became overwhelmed and gave up. Rpg Maker has felt like a great onboarding for learning game design. The simplicity of making events, adding in sprites, sound effects, dialog and anything else you want is amazing. I've gone from googling how to do the simplest of things, and now have a full town with npcs, a dungeon with puzzles and a few quests, and usually able to figure out any problems on my own. It feels like my own little world. I even have a small discord that I post updates to and get suggestions/comments from friends and family.

I think when I am done with this demo, I may give Unity another shot. I feel like I have a much better understanding of how to think when designing a game. I know Unity is a much bigger step, but I feel like I can at least see the staircase now.

So I guess my question for you is, what other programs have been instrumental to your game design journey? Have you used Rpg Maker and what are your thoughts on it?

As mentioned before my partner is a new paraplegic. He was a chef before becoming disabled a decade ago and the primary cook at home until the more recent injury. He's struggling to make sure he eats in part because making a baloney sandwich is currently an ordeal. We expect that to get easier as he gets OT and more used to being in a chair, but I'm wanting to start with prepared meals and work up to easy meal kits that help him get back into cooking. Difficulty level is things that taste good and have a variety of foods, as well as, for the future, kits that require less manual dexterity.
Recipes also welcome as well as any must have kitchen items. We have an air fryer, microwave, electric kettle and toaster he can use easily. Oven and stove that are a bit more tricky right now.

ETA: in the United States and with a large variety of grocery stores around me.

I came across this phenomenon naturally once again when I saw an article asking why people thought a cornucopia was once a part of the Fruit of the Loom logo, going on to describe the Mandela Effect. I was flabbergasted as my mother frequently bought me this underwear brand throughout the 90s and I distinctly remember the logo being that way. Specifically as rendered in this image. The company says this was never the case and yet thousands remember it to be true and more disturbing still, there are articles going back decades that describe the logo having a cornucopia. (Conspiracy theorists call this 'residue', or the lingering of the 'truth' after some psychic or interdimensional catastrophe)

Now with other cases of this phenomenon, I'm skeptical. So what if so many kids misremembered how a childhood book series was spelled (Berenstein/Berenstain) or misattributed when a famous person died.

This Fruit of the Loom one rocked my world. Is this mass hysteria? Government conspiracy? Time traveler interference? Parallel universes colliding?

I'm not really sold on any of it and normally I'm a skeptic who believes in rationality and generally agrees with Occam's Razor. This underwear logo though...it scared me.

I'm kind of withdrawn and I don't talk a lot but I want to curate a community of chill people to play with. I just started my server and I've got 3 people whitelisted, of which 2 have shown up and those two are family members. And one person who tried to join but wasn't whitelisted, but idk how they got the ip since they're not in the discord.

I have around 300 subscribers where I posted the link, but only 3 people joined the discord (one being another subscriber, bc one of my family members hasn't accepted the discord invite yet but is whitelisted anyway bc duh). I'm just kind of feeling like the kid who invited his whole class to his birthday party but only 2 people showed up. I'm not sure what I've done wrong or if I missed an important step.