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    1. New label suggestion: a removable "One-sided" label that gradually reduces the comment's visibility

      I'm posting this as a new topic because it's long. This idea came out of thinking of a response to @TaylorSwiftsPickles ' suggestion to have a "Misinformation" label. I agree that misinformation...

      I'm posting this as a new topic because it's long. This idea came out of thinking of a response to @TaylorSwiftsPickles ' suggestion to have a "Misinformation" label. I agree that misinformation is a problem on Tildes and that the playing field is often unfairly set for the ones trying to rectify it, due to how the site works.

      On the other hand, like some already said in the comments, such a label could be easily abused because it would be a frictionless way to make someone else do a lot of work. Showing the validity of some piece of information requires digging up sources and those sources can usually be endlessly contested, no matter how good they are.

      sidenote Personally I've sometimes chosen to let things slide rather than give sources because the source would have been in my own language and I've made a decision long ago to not disclose my nationality - this is because it's a small group of people and my job is almost unique among that group.

      Another issue is that most people who spread misinformation, just like @TaylorSwiftsPickles said, are in fact not aware of doing so. They believe they're just teaching others the correct information. If it would be a lot of work on their part to ingest opposing material and then a lot of emotional work to allow their worldview to change (a process that for some people will cause physical pain), there isn't much hope to make real difference, save for some exceptionally adept people who've grown used to this process - but those people are usually not the ones spreding misinformation because they've already checked themselves before hitting "post topic".

      tangent Most of the people I know who are able to do this kind of shifting quickly are underprivileged one way or another. I had to learn to do it because if I hadn't learned to see the world from the oppressors' perspective and adapt my behaviour to it when necessary, my chances of surviving (let alone thriving) would have been considerably weaker.

      Most people who represent the majority and haven't fully grasped their own privilege haven't had to learn to think outside of their own perspective. It's not an easy thing to learn and it's not realistic to expect them to learn it simply because someone pointed out their misinformed idea online. Most will simply say "No, you're wrong because the majority opinion is on my side". That's easy and efficient and doesn't lead to negative payoff for them, so that's what tends to happen (in most cases, not all).

      When a misinformed view happens to be the majority view on Tildes, a label like this will more likely burden the people trying to rectify it than those holding the view. That's unless we expect the admin and moderators to evaulate every case individually and be diligent and objective enough to accurately gauge all or at least most of them. Being that we are all humans, it's a big ask.

      Which brings me to ask what kind of label would enable the misinformed person to proactively perform a sanity check on their own post/comment, without introducing hostility. I believe that failing to consider alternative perspectives is a major factor in adopting and spreading misinformation. I am assuming that most people here on Tildes would agree with the principle that an idea that takes into account diverse opinions and experiences is better considered than one speaking from a single perspective only.

      Therefore I propose a label that could be used to point out when someone's comment is clearly overlooking information that would be readily available if only they cared to consider other people and different points of view. It would then fall on the person who made a one-sided comment to further educate themselves if they so wish. They could perform an online search or ask for more information on Tildes (but no one would be obligated to give it). I think it would be ideal if the label could be later removed, in case sufficient edits were made to the labelled comment.

      Evaluating whether a text is one-sided is usually easier than deciding whether or not it is misinformation, so this label wouldn't be as easy to abuse. People can detect its misuse simply by looking at the text itself, without having to read a bunch of additional material. It's also easier for the person who made the comment to try to broaden their perspective. Not everyone will want to do so, of course, but at least those who are unintentionally appearing obtuse will have a chance to do better.

      Finally, in terms of design, I wouldn't want the label to be eye-catching like the "Exemplary" label. Rather, it could appear as normal text with a normal background, perhaps a tad smaller size and in brackets. If more than one such label was given to the same comment, it could affect the text colour of the whole comment, making it gradually more and more faint. In other words the label would reduce the visual weight of the comment while still keeping it readable.

      7 votes
    2. Tokyo, yeast, and expectations

      Japan is understandably a hot travel destination in general, but I've seen it come up here on Tildes several times, with many people sharing their stories. This is and isn't that. I traveled to...

      Japan is understandably a hot travel destination in general, but I've seen it come up here on Tildes several times, with many people sharing their stories. This is and isn't that.

      I traveled to Japan (and Korea) over a year ago, and I've been rotating this post in my head nearly the whole time. If you want to skip my word vomit: tl:dr it was kind of mid, there are parts I would return for, but many that are very off-putting (especially as of this moment with Japan's politics).

      I'm a millennial, and by most accounts, a weeb. I was first was exposed to anime/manga via Slayers, Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo and other early Anime that played occasionally on network television, around the late 1990s, which evolved as it did for most of us with Toonami, Adult Swim, and renting movies like Akira and Ghost in the Shell at Blockbuster. I've been regularly consuming Otaku culture essentially my entire life, and my wife was exactly the same as me, we both read Manga and watch Anime as a regular pass time. I was also completely aware that Otaku culture is generally looked down upon by genpop, probably moreso a decade or more ago till now, but I wasn't under the impression that Manga/Anime was how Japan actually was.This isn't to say we had some idealized view of Japan or Tokyo (where we spent our vacation), we've done a lot of domestic and international travel up to that point, so I believe we had realistic expectations going in of how our vacation would go. To be clear, it's not that those expectations weren't necessarily met, but there's some things that I started to realize I may have overlooked, tidbits of Japanese culture that you will get glimpses of in their media, and specifically, the types of media I related to, the series I found most interesting to me with characters that aligned with my own values, or something like that.

      You will hear many testimonials of how great visiting Tokyo can be, and I want to caveat with the single complication that made things unreasonably difficult and why I would exercise caution if you are in the same position, but being perfectly frank, it was only one component: We traveled with myself, my wife, and our 2 year old daughter. To clarify, I do not have a difficult child, in fact by almost all metrics she's extremely well behaved and easy to travel with, if she wasn't I would never have considered a 14+hr flight, so take everything I say that I have a near saint of a toddler, she wasn't the problem at all.

      Tokyo is not toddler friendly, Tokyo is toddler hostile, weird things you would overlook or not even think about as adult travelers will consistently cause problems. Tokyo is great for walkability if you are able bodied, it is a far cry from being ADA compliant as we're used to stateside, expect to carry a stroller as I did up stairs many, many times. Over our trip there, you notice things: not a single native Japanese takes a toddler outside, like at all, let's ignore birth rates for a moment, because kids were present, but not a single kid under 3 was anywhere to be seen. Not in restaurants, not at parks, not in malls. The possible sole exception is Odaiba, which is designed to be a family friendly area. This begins to cause friction almost everywhere else though. Kids menus are few and far between, rarely will you find high chairs, and frustratingly: many restaurants will not give you a to go box, that's just not a thing there, so expect to simply waste food or money if you order a main for a toddler (because there is no kids meal) etc. There is also nearly nothing catered to toddlers....basically anywhere, again this is pretty in line with our expectations, but when we went out of our way to find solutions, and they still didn't seem possible (or were inexplicably closed....they will actually CLOSE parks if there is a light drizzle) it begins to wear on you. Similarly shopping! One of the biggest draws of being in Tokyo, will be rather limited, both in things that would fit a 1-4yo and in physical dimensions of stores, which may or may not accommodate you pushing a stroller. The busy tourist areas are also quite challenging to navigate, and especially in places like Shibuya, a lot of the joint restaurant areas will have exceptionally small tables or standing room only, as will most Ramen or Tempura restaurants. "Family restaurant" is a category in Japan because taking a family elsewhere is difficult.

      I can handle almost all of this, but it's coupled with, and again, I am a parent, I understand that children can be taxing, but there's a low level of animosity ever present almost anywhere you go, of course there's background radiation of, you're a tourist and not a local, but couple that with now you're being a difficult tourist, and you can start to tell people do not want you there. This isn't to say we didn't have good experiences, many native Japanese were very accommodating to us, helped us out, were happy to see a cute kid etc. I don't want to paint it as the experience was entirely negative, it wasn't, but it was SO MUCH WORSE than literally anywhere else I have traveled re: having a toddler or child with you, and it's not really conveyed because well, most people traveling to Tokyo do not have kids in tow (and I have heard that for example Osaka and other cities are better about this, so I don't want to paint a broad brush.) There were also plenty of tourists traveling with kids, and even when we didn't share a language, we exchanged knowing glances of how tired of the whole situation we were.

      Also the food is seriously overrated, give me hate if you want, but the US has better food, especially LA/NYC. You can get better sushi, cheaper, in LA than Tokyo. It's the truth. The hamburg steak at Tsubame Kitchen in Shinogawa was an exception, that was delicious.

      There's a manga I love: Moyashimon, it's about a college student who can see microbes (including the eponymous Yeast), that's entirely unimportant to what I want to talk about. The characters are extremely relatable, I believe I was also in university when I first read it, and many parts resonated with me, and I found the morals of the characters fairly normal. Almost all of these characters are outcasts or pariahs by Japanese standards. Conformity is still very much the norm in Japan, and especially the majority of Tokyo outside the kind of touristy (or counterculture) areas like Shibuya, Akihabara, Kabukicho etc. As we were heavily jetlagged, the majority of our days would start around 5am, the sea of salarymen is absolutely nuts. Thousands of workers in suits, every day, bright and early, and returning at rush hour. Moyashimon deals a lot with the difficulties the characters will face when they leave college and are forced to conform, they will have to be clean shaven, they must stop dying their hair, they must conform to the gender presentation they were assigned at birth. The story, and many other media in the same vein from similar authors, is critical of the culture of conformity. The current Japan, in current year, is still xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic. In relating to these media, whether it's moyashimon, or the works of Nagata Kabi, or even something like HoriMiya (which tragically kills almost all the social commentary of the original work in both the redraw manga as well as the anime), I was relating to being critical of Japan's culture, of being critical of those things.

      I don't really know where else to go with this, sorry for the word vomit. I had thought that I knew what to expect when traveling to Japan, I did my research, I knew how to not be rude, not to be intrusive, how to generally be my version of a "good tourist", and it wasn't that my expectations were wrong, I simply found out I liked Tokyo less than I thought I would.

      Some serious positives though: meeting my friends who live in Tokyo was great, and we absolutely had a blast, I'd have not had half as much fun if I didn't have people who lived there that knew the places to go and what to see. The climbing gyms and bouldering scene is WORLD CLASS. B pump Ogikubo is famous for a reason, and the national training center in Odaiba was also a highlight.

      Maybe this will give some added balance, I'm not sure. This is just the experience I had, there were highlights and lowlights, but overall, I just did not jive with Tokyo in particular, and I would like other people to at least consider that they might not, too.

      14 votes
    3. Any other tenure-track faculty on Tildes?

      I've got a "holy grail" TT faculty position at an R1 university, but I'm seriously considering leaving academia. It's a fit issue, and I've had a major mental health development that has...

      I've got a "holy grail" TT faculty position at an R1 university, but I'm seriously considering leaving academia. It's a fit issue, and I've had a major mental health development that has definitely changed the equation for me. I would welcome non-academic or non-TT or non-faculty input as well. It would be an immense life change for me and my family, so I'd like to look at it from all sides, and I think Tildes would be a great place to do that.

      Please let me know if you're interested in a discussion or just give freeform advice. I'll update this post with specific questions if this gets any traction.

      My thanks!

      14 votes
    4. Help with Amazon Glacier (original) data retrieval

      Hi folks. I'm in way over my head with an AWS problem. Mainly because I don't understand how to use AWS at all, but in 2013 I used a tool called FastGlacier to backup my data (including baby...

      Hi folks. I'm in way over my head with an AWS problem. Mainly because I don't understand how to use AWS at all, but in 2013 I used a tool called FastGlacier to backup my data (including baby picture and videos) to Amazon Glacier. I also had them on a local drive and a HDD I gave to a friend. Alas, my drive failed a few years ago, and he lost the other in a move.

      Anyway, I'm not a coder, and AWS baffles me. I'd like to retrieve these data but don't know where to start. Would anybody well versed in AWS be willing to walk me through the process? The AWS guidance is over my head.

      Many thanks in advance.

      2 votes
    5. Help with troubleshooting PC hardware

      Hello Tilderonians, I have inherited a non-functional ~10 year old gaming PC that was previously used as a VR rig for kids. The people who owned said PC had no info on how or why or how long it...

      Hello Tilderonians,

      I have inherited a non-functional ~10 year old gaming PC that was previously used as a VR rig for kids. The people who owned said PC had no info on how or why or how long it had not been working for.

      I got it home, plugged it in, and tried to power it on. Nothing happened.

      I opened it up. With the PSU switched on, there is a red led lit up on the motherboard, an ASUS Pro Gaming Z170i. According to the user manual, this just means the mobo has power and is in standby. There is also a white led lit up on the gpu (a GTX1080) which seems to also indicate simply that it has power.

      I first assumed that the power button built into the case was the issue. I found where it plugged into the mobo and, on advice from the internet, used a screwdriver to jump the pins for the power switch. Nothing happened.

      I then also read online that the PSU fan should spin up when turning it on with nothing plugged in. So I unplugged everything and tried it and nothing happened. I read the LEDs on the hardware could still function even if the PSU was dead, so I decided that was the issue. I ordered a new PSU, same 750 watts. Old one out, new one in, turned it on and again...nothing happened. The fan didn't spin up on the new PSU either. The same LEDs as before came on the mobo and gpu but nothing else.

      At one point I also swapped the single RAM stick with another I had that I knew worked, but that didn't change anything.

      At this point I don't know what to do. Is there a way to test the motherboard? What else could stop the PC from doing anything at all? I've never built a PC before but I've installed/swapped several parts.

      I don't want to spend a ton of money to revive this 10 year old hardware but I was willing to drop ~$60 on a PSU. Please let me know if you have any ideas.

      Thanks for reading.

      12 votes
    6. What is your Mandela effect moment?

      I just rewatched the movie Constantine. It's one of my favorite movies. I can always watch it again. But I'm sure the ending was different. I didn't find any record of an alternate ending online....

      I just rewatched the movie Constantine. It's one of my favorite movies. I can always watch it again. But I'm sure the ending was different. I didn't find any record of an alternate ending online.

      details/spoilers

      At the very end of the movie, he starts chewing a piece of (presumably) nicotine gum, but I'm certain that the ending I've seen before is that he lights a cigarette.

      He spent the whole movie being contrary and a constant asshole to everybody except Rachel Weiss' character (can't blame him). The gum seems totally out of character.

      26 votes