Spoilers for all seasons of both The Orville and Star Trek: Discovery.

The Orville isn't bad, but it's not the worthy successor to pre-Abrams Star Trek that a lot of people on /r/startrek—and increasingly on /r/DaystromInstitute—make it out to be, and honestly I struggle to understand how people are even reaching that conclusion.

I should start, I suppose, with what I like about this show. First, I like the characters—with two exceptions, I'll get to that later. Dr. Finn, in particular, is a delight: Penny Johnson Jerald is a very talented actress and it's really great to see her in a role where the rest of the cast draws on her character's wisdom. She plays it well. The rest of the bridge crew is great, too: Gordon, LaMarr, and Bortas are all lots of fun, and Jessica Szohr is a great addition for season 2: Halston Sage didn't quite have the skill to pull her character off.

The show looks great. Union vessels are distinct from Federation vessels and they're not just ISO Human Standard Spaceships either, which is commendable. Kaylon spheres are neat play on Borg cubes, and my only real complaint in this regard is that Moclan and Krill vessels look oddly similar. The engine effects, the depiction of celestial objects, the overall Union aesthetic, it's all very pleasing to the eye.

The worldbuilding is great. This is the one place that I think I would even go as far to say The Orville has a clear edge over Star Trek. Trek has built up loads of cruft over the years and sometimes struggles to keep it all together. For example, The Orville has swept away the inconsistent depiction of enlisted personnel that Trek fouls up seemingly very chance it gets by just depicting officers, which makes sense for a highly automated vessel. I fundamentally "buy" the Planetary Union as a human-centric interstellar polity in the same way I buy the UFP. (My one complaint in this department is that there does not appear to be any bureaucratic distinction between the Union government and the Union fleet, i.e. it lacks the distinction between The Federation and Starfleet. That seems like an oddity I hope they correct in season 3.) McFarlane is a nerd, he's fastidious about detail, and you just know he's has to have pages upon pages of worldbuilding details which helps him keep it consistent. It shows.

But the show falls flat on its face in two key ways which, unfortunately, appear to be baked into the concept.

Shortfall one: I just can't seem to warm up to either Mercer or Grayson, which for obvious reasons is a huge problem, because the show is now on record as indicating that their romantic relationship is The Key To Saving The Galaxy™. The Orville is an episodic throwback, but if it has a "main arc," that main arc is Ed & Kelly's relationship, and it just feels awkward and out of place.

I don't really dislike Grayson, but I can't find anything to really like about her either. She's just kinda there, and her story never diverges from Mercer's. Which brings me to Mercer... which... just... ugh. Never in my life have I seen a more egregious case of a show creator playing out his fantasy on camera. I cannot tell you the number of times I've seen someone make a statement which boils down to "I don't like Discovery because Burnham is a Mary Sue, and that's why I prefer The Orville" as if Mercer is not the most blatant case of a Marty Stu to ever grace network television and get renewed for a second season. I mean, come on. He's the perfect captain, he always makes the right call, yet for some reason the show keeps trying to sell us on the notion that he's damaged goods and out-of-favor with the Admiralty. It's not believable, and it irks me endlessly that anyone would lob this criticism at Discovery when The Orville is an order of magnitude more guilty of this conceit.

And that brings me to the elephant in the room: the direct Star Trek comparison. I seem to recall Season 1 having a novel episode here and there, even if they were snoozefests. Season 1 also bothered to draw from other sources of inspiration, even if those sources were Trek-adjacent shows like Black Mirror and The Twilight Zone. But on the other hand, some episodes from season 1 were straight rips from old Trek. "If the Stars Should Appear"? Straight remake of "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky." "Mad Idolatry"? Straight remake of "Blink of an Eye."

And Season 2? Season 2 doubled down on the Trek remake approach. No other sources, no novel concepts: almost every episode is a remake of a previous episode of Star Trek. Sometimes The Orville at least bothered to remix a pair of episodes, and sometimes a lot of the details got changed, but with one exception, every episode was a Trek episode remake.

The degree to which a given The Orville episode is a remake of the Trek episode I've listed varies. "Home" is only similar if you look at the broad strokes: the officer on loan from the scientifically advanced Earth ally goes home where her family disparages her for spending all that time with humans. The home invasion plot from that episode was original, but it was also kinda weird and contrived. The flipside of this constant borrowing from Trek is that when The Orville does go off the beaten path, it's inevitably flat out boring. "Ja'loja" was an utterly forgettable episode because it largely focused on Ed & Kelly relationship drama.

And even if we look at "Ja'loja," there's a bit of "Amok Time" in there with the whole "returning to the desert homeworld" for the Moclan urination ceremony. Sometimes it's bits and pieces into a blender, but other times it's a basically a straight rip, like it is with "All the World Is Birthday Cake" and "Blood of Patriots." Perhaps the most blatant "homage" was introducing a surgically altered Klingon Krill to infiltrate the hero ship, right down to the name and rank of the infiltrator!

I know, everything's a remix, and I know, it's a fine line between "ripoff" and "homage," but the problem with this level of "borrowing" is that when you've seen every episode of Star Trek as many times as I have, each episode of The Orville just becomes an exercise in "I wonder which Star Trek episode this will be," and once you figure it out, it just saps all the urgency and tension out of the viewing experience. It gets boring.

I didn't get bored with Discovery. I mean, sure, Discovery has its problems. In many ways its problems are the inverse of The Orville's strengths: I struggle to care all that much about any of the characters, the show is rife with dark sets and quick shots which just isn't that visually appealing, and the worldbuilding is at times really difficult to reconcile with established Trek lore. (The Spore drive is classified? That's why we never see it again? Ummm... OK, then.) And the story, while chaotic and poorly paced & planned due to constant showrunner turmoil, is at the very least interesting and novel.

The perfect Star Trek would be a synthesis of these two shows, but apart, each show pretty much breaks even when you take the strengths and weaknesses on the merits. Which brings me to my title: I cannot for the life of me get into the mindset of the fans who see this as the True Trek of our time. It's just remakes of old Trek, and while the visuals have been updated for 2019, the stories have not.

The bottom line is that while it's great that we have two Trek-style shows on the air at the same time for the first time since the 90's, neither show is great, or even good. They're both just OK, and the huge disparity between how they've been received doesn't make much sense to me.

I normally never take reports of ufos seriously, but major news outlets are reporting on videos taken by Navy pilots and the news anchors seem to take it as a joke. Even if these ufos are just high tech government drones or weather balloons, you'd think people would at least be curious in finding out what these things are.

Around the office normally I hear chatter about the news and current events, but nothing about these ufos. Nobody brings them up. On discussion forums, talk about the ufos seems really sparse as well. Even subreddits dedicated to ufos seem to not care very much about these videos being on the mainstream news. Now with legitimate proof that there is something strange in the air, why does nobody seem to care?

What are the leading explanations to what these things are? One explanation I've heard for at least one of the videos is that it's a stationary weather balloon that only appears to be moving due to the camera on the plane moving. I can accept this explanation for that video, but what about the other videos? And what about the navy pilot testimonies? Is this all just a publicity stunt for History Channel's new show?

Vancouver @ NYRB
LA Galaxy @ Orlando
Atlanta @ RSL
Montreal @ LAFC
NYCFC @ Chicago
FC Dallas @ Vancouver
DC United @ New England
Portland @ Philadelphia
NYRB @ FC Cincinnati
Houston @ MNUFC
Columbus @ Colorado
Seattle @ Sporting KC
San Jose @ Toronto

DC United @ Toronto FC
Portland Timbers @ Houston Dynamo
Atlanta United @ Vancouver Whitecaps
Orlando SC @ Seattle Sounders
FC Dallas @ LAFC
New England Revs @ Montreal Impact
Toronto FC @ Real Salt Lake
Chicago Fire @ San Jose Earthquakes
Seattle Sounders @ Philadelphia Union
Columbus Crew @ MNUFC
Vancouver Whitecaps @ Sporting KC
DC Unived @ Houston Dynamo
FC Cincinnati @ Orlando SC
Atlanta United @ NYRB
LAFC @ FC Dallas
Colorado Rapids @ LA Galaxy

I wasn't too sure whether that movie warranted a Discussion Thread, given only Endgame got one here so far but… hey, I really liked the movie.

The pokemon CGI was amazing. Storyline was not half-bad (not great tho); somewhat predictable although with a nice twist I personally didn't see coming.

I'm not even a huge pokemon fan or anything, but this took me back to my childhood quite a bit. I really like how they mostly featured pokemon from the original 151, which made the movie very approachable to old-timers.

It also didn't feel awkward or childish or cringey or anything you might expect from, well, a pokemon movie. Loved hearing the theme music in the TV background early on. Loved pikachu's singing, that was pretty hilarious, felt like a nice place for the movie to poke some fun towards itself.

Coming out, I was reminded of how I felt after seeing the Warcraft movie: Seeing characters that have played such a special part in my life, being brought to a full-feature live-action. It's really a unique feeling. I guess that's why I'm looking forward to both Aladdin and The Lion King coming out this year; even though neither were as special as Warcraft/Pokemon, I still get chills thinking about the unbelievable CGI quality we get for what a few years ago we'd never have thought would go beyond plain animation.

I tried to keep the post body mostly spoilerfree but this is tagged spoiler so I guess go nuts in the comments.

Toronto @ Atlanta
LA Galaxy @ Columbus
New England @ Chicago Fire
Montreal @ NYRB
Portland Timbers @ Vancouver Whitecaps
Montreal @ FC Cincinnati
NYRB @ FC Dallas
Philadelphia @ Toronto
NYCFC @ LA Galaxy
LAFC @ Columbus
San Jose @ New England
MNUFC @ Chicago Fire
Real Salt Lake @ Colorado
Houston @ Seattle
Orlando @ Atlanta
Sporting Kansas City @ DC United

Behind a 4-0 rout at Anfield to put down Barcelona and a 95th minute miracle by Lucas Moura the stage is set for the Champions League finals. I think this thread could be useful just to open up discussion on ~sports. What are your guys' thoughts on the finals or semi-finals? Any predictions?

In my opinion this is one of the greatest semi rounds I could remember, absolutely insane performances by all the teams and nail biting football all the way through.

EDIT : On the 1st of July the Tottenham Hotspurs will play Liverpool at the Estadio Wanda Metropolitano

FC Cincinnati @ Philadelphia Union
Vancouver Whitecaps @ Colorado Rapids
LA Galaxy @ NY Red Bulls
FC Dallas @ Houston Dynamo
Toronto FC @ Orlando City FC
NYCFC @ Montreal Impact
New England Revolution @ Philadelphia Union
Columbus Crew @ DC United
Seattle Sounders @ MNUFC
Portland Timbers @ Real Salt Lake
FC Cincinnati @ San Jose Earthquakes
Chicago Fire @ LAFC
Atlanta United @ Sporting Kansas City

Public Transportation should be free. Or near free, like a library. The same way we tax or want to tax pollution, we should fully subside public and ecological transports.

I was thinking about this earlier and was disappointed to find very few examples of pollution tax being put to funding public transports. Even fewer of public transportation being free. It's a bit underwhelming that this isn't talked about more in environmental policies.

DC United @ Columbus
Montreal @ New England
LA Galaxy @ MNUFC
San Jose @ Seattle
Orlando @ NYCFC
Portland Timbers @ Toronto
San Jose @ FC Dallas
Philadelphia @ Vancouver
Colorado @ Atlanta
FC Cincinnati @ NYRB
Columbus @ Houston
New England @ Sporting Kansas City
Chicago @ Montreal
DC United @ MNUFC
LAFC @ Seattle
Real Salt Lake @ LA Galaxy

I wanted to keep the title---and the question, for that matter---generic, but my use case is that I want to make a backup of my posts on Tildes, and I'd fancy automating that with a script that curls up my user page and downloads fresh stuff from there periodically. So for my personal case, the question is that is this allowed / welcome practice?

The generic question is that is it welcome to scrape Tildes' public pages, in general?

LAFC @ Vancouver
RSL @ FC Cincinnati
MNUFC @ Toronto FC
Houston @ LA Galaxy
Colorado @ Chicago
Montreal @ Philadelphia
Vancouver @ Orlando
FC Dallas @ Atlanta
Portland @ Columbus
NYRB @ New England
SKC @ San Jose
NYCFC @ DC United
Seattle @ LAFC

I can't shake the dejavu feeling I'm getting using any kind of messaging these days. Today we have an awful lot of messaging apps, that are all roughly the same, with similar features - Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Riot, etc. This happened once already, at the dawn of 200X IM revolution that deprecated SMS for good we also had MSN, ICQ, GTalk, Jabber, etc. This also was a set of very similar personal messaging clients and protocols, similar in any way to each other. It all changed when the multi-protocol messaging apps came out - Pidgin, QiP, Miranda and others made it easy to gather all your contacts from various protocols in one place and to keep in touch with everyone. Shortly after Jabber transports were made so you could congregate all other accounts into one single XMPP account. Even N900 that came out in 2009 had the ability to gather various accounts into one single contact list.
I feel like right now with all the segmented IM apps it's a good time for something like this to happen again, and Telegram already has wat-bridge.
What are your thoughts on that topic? Do you think the history will repeat itself? Would a new federated formate like XMPP rise up?

Wanted to start a discussion for us GoT fans and give our thoughts on how the first episode played out and what we expect to come. Please delete if unnecessary/unwanted. This is a spoiler zone so you've been warned

Vancouver @ Chicago
Columbus @ Montreal
San Jose @ Houston
Toronto @ Seattle
NYCFC @ MNUFC
Atlanta @ New England
Portland @ FC Dallas
Orlando @ Real Salt Lake
DC United @ Colorado
Philadelphia @ LA Galaxy
FC Cincinnati @ LAFC
NYRB @ Sportland Kansas City

Some of you may have heard that the bright minds behind Risk of Rain have made their next effort with the help of an added dimension. Risk of Rain 2 released on Early Access lately, to many peoples' surprise and joy. I played a decent bit of the original, but never managed to get into it. Something about 2D scrollers like that puts me off hard, but I respected the hell out of the awesome art, fantastic music, and neat synergies/shenanigans throughout the game.

Risk of Rain 2, so far, has been an absolute blast and I'm super happy for the devs. They received way more support than they initially expected upon launch, and the buy 1 get 1 gift key strategy did wonders for them. I've been steadily playing this game with friends and after the initial Diablo 2 loot stealing shenanigans, we've all managed to memorize items, learn builds, and work out what survivalists we like. This game is a killer time-killer; I've spent what I thought was 10 minutes in one match only to glance at the timer and read that 70 minutes have passed. This game almost feels like it's a finished product, and the devs aren't even done yet. I'm super psyched for all the new stuff we'll get to see and experiment with.

I'm also curious as to what anyone else thinks. Has anyone played enough to share their opinions? Did anyone not enjoy their time with the game? Please share!

It is Wednesday, my dudes! So why not have some good old foreign-language practice? As an
experiment, let's try just that. Start a thread in a language you would like to practice or teach,
or reply to an existing one. E.g.

## German / Deutsch

Hier sprechen wir Deutsch! Wie geht es Ihnen?

If you want to fix someone's grammar and also reply to them in the same message, I would recommend
using a horizontal ruler with “* * *”. E.g.:

I think “sich” should be “ihm”.

* * *

Es tut mir Leid, dass es ihm so schlecht geht.

https://tild.es/55n has some discussion about this already, and now that this feature is actually implemented, I'd be interested what your opinions on allowing users to edit their own topic titles after posting are.

My main argument is that it would allow fixing typos and providing significant updates — think adding a [Solved] marker in the title for topics related to some problem or reflecting a title update of a linked article — without having to contact other users that have permissions to do that. The topic log allows that to happen transparently already.

One of my favorite YouTube channels, Linus Tech Tips, does this all the time, but I have seen many others doing this as well, and I personally find it rather obnoxious. I understand that it's more effective at getting them views, which they rely on to stay in business... but I see it as just another form of clickbait, and so when I submit LTT videos I tend to remove that capitalization.

However, are there any cases where capitalization for emphasis is appropriate in a headline/title? And if not, should titles be edited to remove them?

p.s. Acronyms and Initialisms are obviously different, so let's ignore those and put them in the "clearly acceptable" category.

LA Galaxy @ Vancouver Whitecaps
Montreal @ NYCFC
LAFC @ DC United
Chicago Fire @ Toronto FC
MNUFC @ New York Red Bulls
New England Revolution @ Columbus Crew
Colorado Rapids @ Orlando City SC
FC Dallas @ Philadelphia Union
Portland Timbers @ San Jose Earthquakes
Real Salt Lake @ Seattle Sounders
Sporting Kansas City @ FC Cincinnati

I presume a lot of you might have noticed the discourse surrounding Sekiro and the notion that games like Sekiro could benefit from having a complementary "easy mode". The discourse is hot, and the takes are flying left and right but I'm curious to what the people of Tildes think about it.

NYCFC @ Toronto FC
NYRB @ Chicago Fire
MNUFC @ New England
Montreal @ Sporting Kansas City
LAFC @ San Jose
Philadelphia Union @ FC Cincinnati
Atlanta United @ Columbus Crew
Houston Dynamo @ Colorado Rapids
FC Dallas @ Real Salt Lake
Seattle Sounders @ Vancouver Whitecaps
DC United @ Orlando City
Portland Timbers @ LA Galaxy

Do you believe that some cultures/societies are more 'civilized' than others? What is your definition of 'civilized' / what does it mean to be 'civilized'?
~
If you've studied history and/or anthropology then surely you've heard many uses of the term "savages" to describe groups of people that were considered to be less 'civilized' than whomever was writing that piece.
I was also just reading a book that described in detail some of the really horrible war crimes committed by both sides in the Sri Lankan civil war including but not limited to: raging mobs burning people alive, murder and rape of civilians, use of child soldiers, suicide bombers, etc. Please note that in no way am I considering the people of Sri Lanka as 'uncivilized', just using an example of what seems to be 'uncivilized' behavior.

An initial thought that I had was "huh, I'm glad I don't currently live somewhere where I could be burned alive based on my ethnicity/religion/beliefs by a rage fueled mob of people", but then the history of the western world came to mind - some of those exact same thing happened less than 100 years ago to many non-white groups of people in America, including some things even worse (read: human slavery). From here came a flood of other thoughts poking holes in whatever my initial definition of 'civilized' was. Plenty of things in present-day United States could be considered uncivilized. Yet one could make an argument that a more 'civilized' civilization might be one that allows many personal freedoms.

So, I want to ask all of you what you think of the concept of being 'civilized'. Is it a colonialistic-type term used to promote a higher sense of placement in the world that should be abolished. Does it have any merit in its use? If so, what do you think makes a civilized group of people and does one exist?

What artists that you know of were written off as one hit wonders or drifted into obscurity, despite them having great music and being talented musicians? I'd like to Nominate Better Than Ezra for this title. They're really only best known for Good off of the album Deluxe, but that whole album gives off a road trippy vibe that I haven't been able to find elsewhere. Also Barenaked Ladies, despite their goofy reputation, are great musicians and have a great vocalist. Conventioneers and The Night I Fell Asleep At The Wheel are both really good songs.

Businesses, especially in tech industry, sometimes have some okay support for clients, but in general the crucial things are walled off.

A simple example: someone in a company decides to place an ad and does that, people see that ad on YouTube, find it obnoxious, but cannot confront the original decision maker directly - they are unknown, unreachable.

Another example: many people used Google Inbox app and then Google discontinued it. Users are unsatisfied. Someone in Google, a person, made the decision. But they are unknown. A user cannot come up and ask them, "Hey you, why did you do that?" and at least get a clear honest answer. There are sugary press releases and damage control in such cases.

I understand that if many of us started a business we would want to wall our decisions off the external environment (users) too. It's a dilemma. But still, what do you think about that? How would you deal with this problem in a different way?

I've been thinking a lot recently about space exploration and colonization, and the big question that's been running through my head has been this: would I be willing to leave everything on Earth behind and go to Mars, even if there was a strong possibility that I would never return home?

Wondering what everyone here on Tildes thinks about that question.

What's the opinion on posting non-oc fanart? Is it considered fluff (which seems to currently have a negative stigma attached to it based off of my reading of previous threads)? Would more effort need to be put on the behalf of the poster before it's accepted (theme / several works from the same artist / some sort of comment showing analysis, reflection, or appreciation)?

Spoilers for Solo follow - you have been warned.

So a year after it's release and months after it went up on netflix, I finally got around to watching Solo.

For context: for most of my childhood, I was a huge Star Wars buff. I played Star Wars: Galaxies growing up, I was in the massive crowd that saw The Force Awakens opening night, I spent the better part of 2 years as part of a prerelease community for Star Wars: The Old Republic. There was a time where I could name nearly every planet of consequence in the canon and knew most of the expanded universe's timeline.

But the new trilogy has been... well, nothing. I found it to be a mediocre, hole-filled mess most of the time, too busy being Disney's Star Wars^tm politically correct safe-kid to actually be good movies on their own. Rogue One was an enjoyable exception, but still not particularly amazing... but the point I'm driving at is, the last couple of years, I've pretty thoroughly come down from the Star Wars high.

When Solo came out, I assumed it would be more of the same - panned by critics, it was presumably going to be another politically correct, lackluster, rehashed or nonsense story, this time using Han Solo's name as a marketing tactic. No desire to see a childhood hero Anakin Skywalker'd, I skipped it, and didn't even care to watch it when it popped up on Netflix.

Tonight, out of pure boredom, I decided to give it a watch and was surprised to learn that I couldn't have been more wrong. Which is to say, I enjoyed the crap out of it!

It had romance! Snappy writing! Memorable, enjoyable, non-trope characters (mostly!) Although it had some of the same flaws as Rogue One (namely that it started to drag on), it also had something that Star Wars hasn't truly seen since the original trilogy: heart and soul.

More importantly, it did something that no movie in the franchise has done since the original trilogy, and actually engaged me with the story. And this is where the spoilers come in.

First, credit where it's due: although the story tended to go on and on, at no point did I feel like any of it was unnecessary - it just felt like it was too constrained by being a single movie.

I was invested in seeing an actual romance in the story (since apparently ONLY Han Solo can do that), which saw a satisfying, and rather complex resolution. The dirty, street-level setting and story was an awesome break from the epic, world-shaking conflicts that the movies have clung to until this point (or whatever the hell The Last Jedi was). It was powered by characters, and I appreciated that.

To top it off, the reveal of Maul at the end of the movie was totally intriguing, and (IMO) beats any other reveal in the series hands-down. I was a fan of his appearances in the cartoons, and seeing him on the villain's throne in a movie, I think, would've made for a much spicier and more intriguing story than whatever/wherever/whoever Snoke was. From getting his ass kicked by the Emperor for the plot, to getting beat down by ol' Ben (for the plot), the guy's a damn competent villain that still hasn't had a real shot.

Don't get me wrong, it had its flaws: as mentioned, it was REALLY long, and I don't mean to imply that every character was perfect, or that the plot wasn't totally ridiculous in places. But the story was good enough, and the movie enjoyable enough, that I could overlook it, and that's more than I could say about the movies that caused me to not see it in the first place...

Which, to my final point, is the greatest disappointment: with the cancellation of all the non-trilogy entries in the series, it's safe to assume that Disney's learned all the wrong lessons from Solo.

Rather than attributing it's A- performance to the point that people just haven't much enjoyed their epics, remembered what happened the last time someone tried to do an origin story in the series, or were feeling Star Wars fatigue, and didn't go to see it as a result, they'll blame the format, the story, the stakes, the setting, the characters - all the things that made the movie worth watching at all.

So, with Episode 9 coming out sometime this year and us presumably going to see a mediocre conclusion to what has at this point been a completely mediocre and forgettable trilogy (with lightsabers!), all I can say is, Solo sadly will stand out in my mind as the only movie in this era that carries on the legacy of the originals. I'm disappointed, more by circumstance than anything. I think, had Solo come out 5 years ago, it would've been hailed as the proper return to the franchise that it deserved to be, far more than any of the other franchise entries have succeeded in doing since.

What'd you think of Solo, Tildes? Am I stark raving mad?

I wasn’t able to find a discussion on this, though I’m sure there has been, and for that, I apologize.

Is there any kind of timeframe on the release of a mobile app for tildes?

I would guess that on Reddit most of their traffic comes from people accessing the site on their phones at this point, but I could be wrong. In any case, it certainly is a large portion of the users that access the site in this way.

With that in mind, it would be nice to be able to access tildes from a mobile app to do away with the clunkiness that comes with using the site through a mobile browser. I don’t mean to sound like it’s terrible. The site functions well enough through a mobile browser, but it would certainly have me using tildes a lot more if the convenience of a mobile app was available.

I’m sure the developers are very busy, and I don’t want to sound demanding, I’m just curious.

And once again, I apologize if this has been discussed recently.

Seattle Sounders @ Chicago Fire
FC Dallas @ Columbus Crew
Vancouver Whitecaps @ Houston Dynamo
San Jose Earthquakes @ New York Red Bulls
Montreal Impact @ Orlando City SC
Real Salt Lake @ DC United
Minnesota United FC @ LA Galaxy
Los Angeles FC @ New York City FC
Portland Timbers @ FC Cincinnati
Philadelphia Union @ Atlanta United FC
New England Revolution @ Toronto FC
Sporting Kansas City @ Colorado Rapids

Occasionally when I'm getting really into some music or watching videos from my favorite content creators, I'll be stricken with what I can only describe as a flash of inspiration, where I'll really want to do something, but I don't have any of the skills to produce anything, so I'm just left inspired but aimless. Does anyone else get this as well? If so, have you done anything more to channel that?

So we have many communities and everyone gets free *nix shell access, you can ssh into the remote server (mostly ubuntu) and do whatever you want! I mostly go there to talk with other users.

It is all old school, we use the command line and there is no gui that you can work with. You have to use the cli for everything you do (easy to learn).

You can -

• learn programming
• make webpages
• make new friends
• play games
• learn more about *nix

and much more.

See https://tildeverse.org to get started. (https://tilde.team/wiki/?page=other-tildes for more tilde servers)

I'll suggest you to join ctrl-c.club or tilde.town and then try other servers. You can make account everywhere ofc. I am ~cyaniventer on tildeverse, see ctrl-c.club/~cyaniventer

Edit: Not related to tildes.net

What’s up tildorans, This is more of a thought experiment then anything else, is the impact of consuming calories more or less impactful then producing the electricity needed to power the bike? And I also understand this is extremely affected by circumstance. Let’s say you eat beef 3 times a day and live in a part of the world where power is mostly generated via nuclear or hydroelectric. At that point, would the impact via electricity be less then the one via calories? What if you flip the spectrum and you’re a vegan living somewhere that produces all its energy via coal and oil, how does that affect the equation? Thanks

I was just thinking about this. It has no basis in evidence or anything, it just popped into my head. Could using terms like POC that are catch-alls for all non-white races cause a rift between white people and POC? I feel like it has the potential to create a kind of "us VS. them" mentality if it hasn't already. Because it's saying you have all the races in the world, and then you have white people. I don't really have an alternative or a solution. It was just an observation I made. Of course, me being white myself, maybe there's just something I'm not understanding. I think it could spark an interesting discussion because people are bound to have many different opinions on this subject.

Orlando City @ Chicago Fire
Columbus Crew @ New England Revolution
LA Galaxy @ FC Dallas
Montreal Impact @ Houston Dynamo
Vancouver Whitecaps @ Real Salt Lake
Minnesota United FC @ San Jose Earthquakes
Philadelphia Union @ Sporting Kansas City
Colorado Rapids @ Seattle Sounders
DC United @ New York City FC
FC Cincinnati @ Atlanta United
Portland Timbers @ LAFC

I've been meaning to make this post for a while, and it's actually going to wind up being a series of several posts. It's kind of a long meditation on what it means to socialize online and the ways in which the services we use to do that help or hinder us in doing so. Along the way I'm going to be going into some thoughts on how online discourse works, how it should work, and what can be done to drive a more communal, less toxic, and more inclusive of non-traditional (read: non-technical) voices. I'm going to be throwing out a lot of inchoate opinions here, so I'm hoping to pressure test my views and solicit other viewpoints and experiences from the community.

I mentioned in an introduction thread that I'm a policy analyst and my work is focused on how to structure policies and procedures to build a constructive organizational culture. I've been a moderator in some large PHP forums and IRC channels in the old days, and I've developed some really strong and meaningful friendships through the web. So I've always had a soft spot for socializing on the interwebs.

Okay, so that's the introduction out of the way. The main point I want to focus on is the title: Remember the Person. This was the something Ellen Pao, former CEO of Reddit, suggested in a farewell message as she stepped down from the role in the wake of a community outcry regarding her changes to Reddit's moderation practices. The gist of it was that online communication makes it too easy to see the people you're interacting with in abstract terms rather than as human beings with feelings. It's a bit of a clichéd thought if we're being honest, but I think we still tend not to pay enough attention to how true it is and how deeply it alters the way we interact and behave and how it privileges certain kinds of interaction over others. So let's dig in on how we chat today, how it's different from how we chatted before in discussion forums, and what we're actually looking for when we gather online.

Since this is the first in a series, I want to focus on getting some clarity on terms and jargon that we'll be using going forward. I'd like to start by establishing some typologies for social media platforms. A lot of these will probably overlap with each other, and I'll probably be missing a few, but it's just to get a general sense of categories.

To start with we have the "Content Aggregator" sites. Reddit is the most notable, HackerNews is big but niche, and Tildes is one too. This would also include other sites like old Digg, Fark.com, and possibly even include things like IMGUR or 9Gag. The common thread among all of these is user submitted content, curation and editorial decisions made largely by popular vote, and continued engagement being driven by comment threads associated with the submitted content (e.g. links, images, videos, posts). In any case, the key thing you interact with on these sites is atomized pieces of "content."

Next up are the "Running Feed" services. Twitter and Mastodon are the classic examples as is Facebook's newsfeed. Instagram is an example with a different spin on it. These services are functionally just glorified status updates. Indeed, Twitter was originally pitched as "What if we had a site that was ONLY the status updates from AOL Instant Messager/GChat?" The key thing with how you interact with these services is the "social graph." You need to friend, follow, or subscribe to accounts to actually get anything. And in order to contribute anything, you need people following or subscribing to you. Otherwise you're just talking to yourself (although if we're being honest, that's what most people are doing anyway they just don't know it). This means the key thing you interact with on these sites is an account. You follow accounts get to put content on your feed. Follower counts, consequently, become a sort of "currency" on the site.

Then you've got the "Blogs" of old and their descendants. This one is a bit tricky since it's largely just websites so they can be really heterogenous. As far as platforms go, though, Tumblr is one of the few left and I think LiveJournal is still kicking. Lots of online newspapers and magazines also kind of count. And in the past there were a lot more services, like Xanga and MySpace. The key thing you interact with here is the site. The page itself is the content and they develop a distinct editorial voice. Follower counts are still kind of a thing, but the content itself has more persistence so immediacy is less of an issue than in feed based paradigms where anything older than a day might as well not exist. This one gets even trickier because the blogs tend to have comment sections and those comment sections can have a bunch little social media paradigms of their own. It's like a matroishka doll of social platforms.

The penultimate category is the "Bulletin Board" forum. PHP BB was usually the platform of choice. There are still a few of these kicking around, but once upon a time these were the predominant forms of online discourse. Ars Technica and Something Awful still have somewhat active ones, but I'm not sure where else. These also have user posted content, but there is no content curation or editorial action. As a result, these sites tend to need more empowered and active moderators to thrive. And the critical thing you're interacting with in these platforms is the thread. Threads are discussion topics, but it's a different vibe from the way you interact on a content aggregator. On a site like Reddit or Tildes all discussion under a topic is 1 to 1. Posts come under content. On a bulletin board it works like an actual bulletin board. You're responding under a discussion about a topic rather than making individual statements about an individual post or comment. Another way to put it is on an aggregator site each participant is functionally writing individual notes to each other participant. On a bulletin board each participant is writing an open letter to add to the overall discussion as a whole.

And finally, you've got the "Chat Clients." This is the oldest form besides email newsletters. This began with Usenet and then into IRC. The paradigm lives on today in the form of instant messaging/group texts, WhatsApp, Discord, Slack, etc. In this system you're primarily interacting with the room(s) as a whole. There isn't really an organizing framework for the conversation, it's really just a free-flowing conversation between the participants. You might be able to enforce on-topic restrictions, but that's about as structured as it gets.

That about covers the typologies I can think of. Next up I want to delve into the ways in which the UI and design patterns with each of these platforms affects the way users engage with them, what sorts of social dynamics they encourage, and what sorts of interactions they discourage. In the mean time, I'm eager to hear what people think about the way I've divided these up, whether you think I've missed anything, or have any additional thoughts on the ones I put up.

A list of matches for the week:

Toronto FC @ Philadelphia Union
New York City FC @ Orlando City FC
New York Red Bulls @ Columbus Crew
New England Revolution @ FC Dallas
Real Salt Lake @ Houston Dynamo
Portland Timbers @ Colorado Rapids
Minnesota United FC @ Vancouver Whitecaps
Chicago Fire @ LA Galaxy
FC Cincinnati @ Seattle Sounders
Montreal Impact @ San Jose Earthquakes
Atlanta United FC @ DC United
Sporting Kansas City @ Los Angeles FC

The active development of Tildes and the feedback/discussions about features and mechanisms had me thinking. Is the conscious design and moderation of forums for public discourse a manner of social engineering?

I know the connotation of social engineering is usually negative, as in manipulating people for politics. But it's a double edged sword.

Most recently I was reading this feedback on removing usernames from link topics and while reading the comments I was thinking of how meta this all is. It's meta-meta-cognition in that we (well, by far the actual developers) are designing the space within which we execute our discourse and thinking. To paraphrase the above example: user identification can bias one's own impulse reaction to content, either to a beneficial or detrimental end, so how do we want this?

The moderation-influenced scenario is a bit more tricky because it can become too top-heavy, as in one prominent example many of us came from recently... But I think with a balance of direction from the overlords (jk, there is also public input as mentioned) and the chaos of natural public discourse, you could obtain an efficient environment for the exchange of ideas.

I'm not sure what my stimulating question would be for you all, so just tell me what you think.

Consider three examples:

1. I am a farmer. I have a piece of land that can grow just enough potatoes to feed me. I work this land, I gather potatoes, ad nauseam.

2. I am a farmer, but this time I have ten times the amount of land. I hire four workers and also work myself. Together we grow enough potatoes to feed all of us, and we also have a surplus. I sell this surplus potato for ¤5000. I am a greedy man, so I take ¤3000 for myself and give ¤500 to each of my workers.

3. The situation is the same as in 2, but this time I am a just man. I share the money equally, so everyone including myself gets ¤1000.

It seems to me that in the first case the land can be considered personal property, since there is no exploitation and no surplus is generated. In the second example the land is clearly a piece of private property, because I use it to exploit other people, taking most of the profit for myself.

But what about the third example? On one hand, the profit is distributed equally, so there is technically no exploitation, right? On the other hand, I am alienated from the workers, because I still have the power to fire one of them (or all of them if I know I can replace them) or to distribute goods unfairly (even if I don't do that). What is the Marxist point of view here?

I was reading this thread and the important concept of finding the original source came up. I think two things that a lot of content aggregators run into as they grow is people will often post links from low-quality sources, and when a big newsworthy event happens a lot of similar links from multiple sources appear at once. Obviously not a big problem here now, but it may happen as Tildes grows.

Both of these issues often require significant moderator input, either through deletion of duplicates or banning of unsavory sources. One way we could instead approach this issue could be to allow for "alternate sources" to a story. For example, if a user is unsatisfied with a link to a news article, they could submit an alternate source to the thread that would show up in the discussion. If enough other users prefer that source, it could replace the link in the OP. The original source would still be visible, but all alternate links themselves could be ranked within the thread.

It seems the primary focus of Tildes is to be a discussion board, and so in my mind that means the link that engages the discussion doesn't matter much -- if we are voting on individual links anyway, this could be a way to automatically compile multiple similar threads into a single discussion.

As the title says! I recently got a fretless bass and it's super hard to intonate correctly since I'm used to the frets doing it for me. It's such a weird sound but it isn't bad. I'm learning a few songs on it already and it's funny to me that even if I switch to my fretted bass, that I still try to maintain proper intonation