As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Good morning ~ This is a thread to discuss new album releases that have arrived on our doorstep this week. Feel free to share albums and EPs that have caught your eye and interest!

Discussion Points

What are you looking forward to listen to?
Have you listened to any of these releases?
What are your thoughts?
What have you enjoyed from these artists in the past?

Why Friday?

Most (but not all) new LPs release on a Friday, as labels want to give the release a full week of sales before entering the charts.

~~ Feedback on the format welcome!

As an author who normally writes a lot of thrillers with dark subjects, I found at the outset of last year that I just couldn't add any more darkness to the world. Lisica is a story I've been incubating for over 20 years, about a fictional island 1600 km off the coast of Oregon in the middle of the Pacific. I've just finished the series and it needs a new set of eyes to take it to the next level.

It is pure escapism, a love story about eleven researchers who are sent to Lisica for eight weeks to categorize the island's life before a new global satellite agreement comes into force and the USAF has to reveal the island to the wider world. The novels are equal parts scientific discovery, (with special emphases on data science, field biology, geology, meteorology, marine science, archaeology, and linguistics) and equal parts torrid romance between all these beautiful people. In many ways it is a utopian story, about people in paradise doing valuable work who can also love without hurting others. There is no toxic masculinity or bullying on this island, no sophomoric communication problems, no jealousy nor regret. It is my belief that natural challenges such as storms and cliffs and the mystery of the unknown is enough. This isn't Lost. There is magical realism here but it is more realism than magic.

I'm hoping to find a few qualified beta readers who have a background in these sciences, to help me make sure I present them correctly. But it's a lot to ask, for sure. Each of the four volumes is 15 chapters of exactly 26 pages each. 1560 pages in all. 425,000 words. If anyone knows a retired biology teacher with plenty of time on their hands, that's basically who I need at this stage.

My next step is to turn each chapter into audio episodes. As well as an author, I'm an Audible narrator and professional character actor. It is why each chapter is exactly 26 pages long. They make for sixty 42 minute audio episodes. I will eventually release the series week by week for free on my literary podcast over the next year.

Hopefully, this scratches someone's itch. Thanks for reading!

The sidebar description of ~news says

All the world's current events, including politics as well as analysis or opinion pieces.

But most politics articles are moved to ~misc. I've even seen people say that ~news is not for politics. So what determines if news stories aren't good enough for ~news? I get that an article about the estimated 20,000 deaths from a flood in Libya is news. But what's the line for politics and other similar categories? And why not have ~news.politics? I'm sure that must have been discussed before, but I'm not sure if it has been discussed in the context of the sidebar.

Basically, we need to either change how articles get categorized or change that sidebar description.

Hello!

As I've been diagnosed with IBS, I've been looking at ways to reduce my symptoms and one of the options I've been told about is a low FODMAP diet.

I am still looking into this, and so far I've only read a bunch of confusing or incomplete/surface level information.

This made me curious about the experience that other people have had any recommendations or stories someone might have.

Also if you know of any good apps for tracking what you ate and how you've felt throughout the day, please let me know.

Thanks!

It is currently possible to block unwanted tags on Tildes. It would be great to also have a feature that allows users to raise tags they're more interested in. Posts with raised tags will get a score multiplier for the user that raised them, in the same way as Exemplary comments get a score multiplier.

An example of a website that implements this really well is https://lesswrong.com, where you can give score multipliers to different tags to raise or lower them on your homepage.

This would be a great positive mindset gathering place for folks who want to have more productive and less alienating discussions than what fuckcars etc provided.
The urbanism movement talks about solutions and work being done at the larger governmental scale, down to the local "tactical" or grassroots scale. These ideas are how to work to improve the housing affordability crisis, pedestrian safety, and generally help make more people friendly municipalities & communities that can become financially more sustainable. There is overlap with permaculture and environmentalism.

If you're unfamiliar with this movement, some great places to start are books by Jane Jacobs, Strong Towns by Charles L Marohn, Bowling Alone, by Robert D. Putnam, and countless YouTube channels like Not Just Bikes, Oh the Urbanity and many others.