Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like enshittification, jack dorsey and helldivers.2. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was observant.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

In online forums I use far too many punctuation marks. I especially use dashes - to separate clauses that don't need a dash (and sometimes I'll add brackets like this because, well, I dunno). And sometimes I'll start a sentence with "and" when it doesn't need to be there. My comma use is wild and uncontrolled, but I feel it's a bit more controlled than these other marks.

Importantly: I do not care how other people use punctuation.

But I would like to try to fix, or perhaps just improve, my punctuation use. Like the way I just start a new paragraph at random.

I feel like my posts are the same as those flyers that use 7 different fonts, with bolds and underlines and italics (and combinations of them), and with some words in red and some in green and some in black and there's no rhyme or reason to it.

I do like a casual tone but I feel that I go far too far in the informal direction. English is my first, and my only, language. (I love Europe, but I am a bad European. "Please look after our star" we said, and most of us said it in English because most of us who said it don't know other European languages)

Do you have any advice? I'd be interested to hear about books, or videos, or courses, or podcasts, or anything at all that can help. I'd even pay for this. But not Eats Shoots and Leaves please

Before starting this topic, I thought I'd start a discussion that wasn't held before. @cfabbro and other commenters who have better memories than I pointed out that this isn't the case. They've also laid out it's been tried and was unsuccessful. I stand corrected.

I do not want to contribute any noise to the website, so I'd appreciate it if @Deimos can lock or remove the topic all together, if he deems it appropriate. I'd also appreciate it if no further comments are made so as to not put any further burden on moderation. I apologize for wasting everyone's time.

As discussed and suggested here.

What are you learning? How is it going? Share your progress, tips and tricks. Ask other learners questions.

Writing in non-English languages is welcome in this thread if you want to practice, but please at least include a Google Translate or Deepl translation in a foldable paragraph, using <details>[your translation]</details>

Find yourself watching tons of great videos on [insert chosen video sharing platform], but also find yourself reluctant to flood the Tildes front page with them? Then this thread is for you.

It could be one quirky video that you feel deserves some eyeballs on it, or perhaps you've got a curated list of videos that you'd love to talk us through...

Share some of the best video content you've watched this past week/fortnight with us!

gusts of wind pick up in pace
and oaken leaves they make to shake.
chirps and flaps as birds make haste
and hooves all trample in escape.

above, the clouds, they morph and move
bearing an ocean in their womb.
forest florals stare in rue;
effulgence dims as darkness blooms.

the rumbling clouds envelope all.
a drip, a drop. and the rain falls.
and though the canopy may stall,
a dribble starts and rends the wall.

a torrent soars towards the floor.
the land, to sea, returns once more.
in time, the green but will restore.
in time, the clouds but will reform.

i wrote this at a creative writing workshop with the following three randomly generated words as the prompt: frequency, dribble, oak.

My backyard has become a muddy mess and it's creating some downstream effects, such as me spending WAY too much time vacuuming and mopping (3 dogs), and not being able to do anything meaningful in the backyard. Here are some details:

• I'm right on the edge of USDA zones 9a and 9b -- the map shows that my house is specifically in 9a, but one block south of me is 9b
• The grass in the backyard was mostly St. Augustine when I bought the house. For a number of reasons (some really harsh winters and summers, three dogs trampling the grass, etc.), the St. Augustine is entirely gone
• Last fall, as a stop-gap, I put down some weed killer to control the weeds and seeded the entire backyard with winter rye. It grew amazingly well and I had a lush, verdant backyard for one season.
• This spring, my plan was to grow bermuda grass. My thinking was that it would be able to withstand the summers but could also handle the dog traffic a bit better. So, I did some pre-emergent, scalped the winter rye, raked up most of the detritus, got the ground really wet and muddy, and laid down some bermuda seed + fertilizer
• Now, almost a month later, I haven't seen a single bit of growth. The pre-emergent has done a pretty good job of keeping the weeds out and some winter rye is still growing here and there, but other than that, it's just... mud.

So, what are my options, especially this late in the season? Should I just throw in the towel and sod it with St. Augustine again? Did I do something wrong with the bermuda? Do I need to make it through a muddy summer and reconsider my options going into the fall?

What are some great history books that stuck with you after you finished them? Or that led you down deeper rabbit holes of learning? I’m not even looking solely for nonfiction (historical fiction is great too).

I’ve been on a huge history kick lately…just all periods. I want to learn everything and have been craving more and more awesome, gripping and engaging history books. Some stuff I’ve enjoyed recently:

Accidental Presidents by Jared Cohen- presents an amazing background of various presidents who died in office and were succeeded by their vice president, who each became unlikely leaders and changed the course of US history in a myriad of ways. Super interesting and tons of tidbits that I never knew!

Bloodlands by Timothy Snyder - I admit I don’t know a ton about WW2 and the Holocaust beyond most of what you learn or hear about in popular culture. This book was mind boggling and devastating. The amount of killing and torture that Hitler and Stalin effectuated on their own people is astounding and horrendous.

The Women by Kristin Hannah - I know this isn’t “history”, but historical fiction, but I still loved the emotion in this book. I have never dove much into Vietnam war era stories so this was super interesting. I would love to learn more about this time in world history.

SPQR by Mary Beard - I’d love to expand my knowledge of the Roman Empire…candidly I haven’t finished this book (it’s been a bit dry for me), but the topic is so intriguing I really want to keep at it and learn more. Any Roman History book suggestions?

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.