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    1. What did you do this week (and weekend)?

      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...

      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!

      4 votes
    2. Possible site bug: Cannot send PM with moose emoji as the subject

      Bringing this up NOT because I'm worried about it, but only because it's very odd and might interest people here: I've been PMing people for my post in the Game Giveaway topic. For each one, I've...

      Bringing this up NOT because I'm worried about it, but only because it's very odd and might interest people here:

      I've been PMing people for my post in the Game Giveaway topic. For each one, I've just been making the subject of the PM the emoji they selected and nothing else.

      I have successfully sent PMs with the following subject lines:

      • 🦥, 🦆, 🐈, 🐸, 🦄, 🐙, 🦫, 🐌, 👻, 🐣, 🐻‍❄️, 🐖, 🐳, 🦚, 🦭, 😎

      But when I use

      • 🫎

      I get the following error message: subject: Length must be between 1 and 200. The PM fails to send.

      I was able to send the PM by appending text to it, sending it with the subject line 🫎 Marvin (because that's his name), and the PM sent with the subject line Marvin without the emoji or space.

      What's so different about the moose? Is it because he's wanted? 😂

      If anyone wants to test this for themselves, feel free to try it out in a PM to me.

      64 votes
    3. Follow up on the username thread: What Tildes users do you recognize when browsing and, without being rude or inflammatory, what is your impression of them?

      It only now just occurred to me after reading the username thread that people actually recognize each other on Tildes by username. I certainly recognize a few of the "big" usernames but otherwise...

      It only now just occurred to me after reading the username thread that people actually recognize each other on Tildes by username. I certainly recognize a few of the "big" usernames but otherwise I kind of have username blindness. I was absolutely shocked to see someone tag me and more shocked to see that someone remembered even a single thing I had ever posted.

      I'll start:

      @cfabbro is pretty on top of things around here. Super knowledgeable about various topics and a stickler for the rules in a really positive way that demonstrates their love for the community and their desire to keep it special. One of the most important Tilderinos (or Tildos, which is my personal favorite that someone suggested a while back). Thanks for all that you do, and if you're the one who has to go though and fix my god-awful tags then a double thanks and a sincere apology.

      @boxer_dogs_dance, like cfabbro has a very wide range of interests and is quick to share interesting tidbits of information that a lot of people may not know. I think I have disagreed cordially with boxerdogs a few times maybe? But I have a good impression of them overall.

      @deimos is a bit like God, which I think works on multiple levels. The highest power, behind-the-scenes, hard to prove his existence. I have a conspiracy theory that he uses alt accounts to participate anonymously, which I think would be a really smart thing to do. Joking aside, I think Tildes' resiliency and ability to maintain its small town vibe while being quite large is due mostly to his political/philosophical genius. The guiding principles for this site and moderation style have made this a pretty awesome place to be. Case in point: The few times I saw people complain about Tildes' moderation on other websites, I was able to immediately see why that person wasn't a good fit here. They were people who didn't even understand that they were being antisocial or were playing coy when they knew exactly what they were doing. Keeping Tildes more or less free of that stuff is one of the greatest internet achievements I've ever seen.

      61 votes
    4. TV Tuesdays Free Talk

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

      Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

      9 votes
    5. User-friendly and privacy-friendly LLM experience?

      I've been thinking perhaps I'll need to get one of the desktop LLM UI. I've been out of touch with the state of the art of end user LLM as I've been exclusively using it via API, but tech-y people...

      I've been thinking perhaps I'll need to get one of the desktop LLM UI. I've been out of touch with the state of the art of end user LLM as I've been exclusively using it via API, but tech-y people (who are not developers) mostly talk about the end-user products that I lack the knowledge of.

      Ethical problems aside, the problem with non-API usage is, even if you pay, I can't find one that have better privacy policy than API. And the problem with API version is that it is not as good as the completed apps unless you want to reinvent the wheel. The apps also may include ads in the future, while API technically cannot as it would affect some downstream usecases.

      Provider Data Retention (API) Data Retention (Consumer) UI-only features
      ChatGPT Plus 30 days, no training Training opt-out, 30 days for temp. chat, unknown retention otherwise Voice, Canvas, Image generation in chat, screensharing, Mobile app
      Google AI Pro 0 72 hours if you disable history, or up to 3 years and trained upon otherwise Android assistant, Canvas, AI in Google Drive/Docs, RAG (NotebookLM), Podcast generation, Browser use (Mariner), Coding (Gemini CLI), Screensharing
      Gemini in Google Workspace See above 0-18 months, but no human review/training See above
      Claude Pro 30 days Up to 2 years (no training without opt-in) Coding, Artifact, Desktop app, RAG, MCP

      As a dual use technology, the table doesn't include the extra retention period if they detect an abuse. Additionally, if you click on thumbs up/down it may also be recorded for the provider's employee to review.

      I don't think OpenWebUI, self hosted models, etc. would suffice if they are not built to the same quality as the first party products. I know I'm probably asking for something that doesn't exists here, but at least I hope it will bring to people's attention that even if you're paying for the product you might not get the same privacy protection as API users.

      15 votes
    6. Satisfiers vs maximizers

      Id never heard the terms satisfier or maximizer til I was having a discussion with my then girlfriend about the difference in the way we select things. The difference became apparent when she...

      Id never heard the terms satisfier or maximizer til I was having a discussion with my then girlfriend about the difference in the way we select things. The difference became apparent when she wanted to buy a new lawnmower. We walked into a big box store, she looked at a row of 10 mowers and said "I want that one" pointing at the second one. Being a maximizer I thought she meant that was her first choice out of the 10 options here but obviously we had two more stores and many more options to check out.

      Nope.

      She meant she had looked them over in 2 minutes and THAT mower was her final choice.

      I honestly was quite surprised. "You don't wanna shop around? Compare features? Compare prices?" No, that's not what satisfiers do. Satisfiers just find the first thing that satisfies their needs and go with it.

      Which is why my wife can select anything and everything very quickly and I end up making a spreadsheet to do a thorough cost benefit analysis on anything important. I even had one when I was dating for every woman I went out for coffee. And fortunately, she didn't - she just started reverse alphabetically and since my username was near the end of the alphabet I won the luck of the draw.

      And here we are happily celebrating our 15th anniversary next week. Who says you gotta be the same to be compatible lol?

      Are you a satisfier or a maximizer?

      43 votes
    7. Fitness Weekly Discussion

      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
    8. Humble Choice - June 2025

      June 2025's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games. Steam Page Opencritic Steam Recent/All Operating Systems Steam Deck ProtonDB Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 76 89 / 91...

      June 2025's Humble Choice is now available with the following eight Steam games.

      Steam Page Opencritic Steam Recent/All Operating Systems Steam Deck ProtonDB
      Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 76 89 / 91 Win ✅ Verified 🟨 Gold
      Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered 75 93 / 91 Win ✅ Verified 🎖️ Platinum
      Nobody Wants to Die 77 81 / 85 Win ❌ Unsupported 🎖️ Platinum
      Dungeons of Hinterberg 81 93 / 94 Win ✅ Verified 🎖️ Platinum
      Tchia 78 83 / 89 Win ✅ Verified 🎖️ Platinum
      Sker Ritual 72 80 / 84 Win 🟨 Playable 🎖️ Platinum
      Biped 76 85 / 86 Win 🟨 Playable 🎖️ Platinum
      Havendock -- 46 / 85 Win 🟨 Playable 🕙 Awaiting Reports

      Does anyone have experience with any of the games and, if so, would you recommend them? Is there anything in here that you're particularly excited to play?

      11 votes
    9. Passkey vs smart use of passwords

      I went down the path of thinking about switching to Passkeys but it seems like more hassle than it is worth, so I hoped this community could tell me if I am crazy. I use Bitwarden to generate and...

      I went down the path of thinking about switching to Passkeys but it seems like more hassle than it is worth, so I hoped this community could tell me if I am crazy.

      I use Bitwarden to generate and save passwords for anything important and always use an authentication app when the option is present. I never use the same password. Sadly, most Canadian banks are awful and only allow SMS 2FA if anything at all. That said, of the two banks I primarily use, one does allow an authentication app and the other uses its own app to send authentication codes.

      I always read that Passkeys are better for people who are lazy/bad with their passwords. For someone like me, is the security practically the same or is there still some benefit to switching everything I can to Passkeys?

      31 votes
    10. Midweek Movie Free Talk

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

      Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

      5 votes
    11. Experience on Mastodon

      When Musk bought Twitter and "unleashed free speech" on the platform, it made me curious about other social media platforms, specifically one where data and privacy are much more respected. That...

      When Musk bought Twitter and "unleashed free speech" on the platform, it made me curious about other social media platforms, specifically one where data and privacy are much more respected.

      That inevitably lead me to mastodon. I opened an account and all that, but I must be doing it wrong, or maybe mastodon just isn't what I want it to be.

      I don't really know who or what to follow on there that would create an experience that draws me in.

      In fairness, it could just be that I am not following interesting accounts but I follow 7 accounts

      • grapheneOS which is just updates about their O.S.
      • Daniel Micay who hasn't posted in a loooong time
      • James Gunn rarely posts
      • nixCraft is just memes

      and the rest are just news outlets like Ars Technica, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Propublica, which ain't bad but like, they post links to long-form articles, which isn't really what you are really looking for if you are just doing a light skim of your feed for a quick 5 minutes.

      Are interesting folks not on mastodon? or I am just not following the right accounts? Im interested in tech stuff and social issues and some politics (but not much cause that can get doom scrolly fast)

      25 votes
    12. Tildes Book Club discussion - May 2025 - A People's Future of the United States

      Warning: this post may contain spoilers

      This is the fourteenth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing A People's Future of the United States. Our next book will be A House with Good Bones by Kingfisher at the end of June

      This was our first collection of short stories. Please feel free to discuss any story you read regardless of whether you finished the collection.

      I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

      For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
      And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

      8 votes