Previous threads:

What DE and distro do you use and why?

What's your OS and how does it look?

What does your desktop look like? What tools do you swear by?

I've recently switched to Arch and today, it's finally done! You have no idea how hard it was to even turn it off. So I wanted to make another OS/screenshot thread, especially since it's been quite a long time since the last one, and Tildes population increased inbetween, so we might find something interesting again :-)

What's your OS, what do you love about it and how does it look?

Hi all! Would you like to share your Mastodon IDs with other ~ so that we can follow each other over there and maybe also help users who, like me, want to get into this new social network but don't know any users yet?

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Disclaimer: I'm on Windows 10

I keep hopping between text editors because I can't find one that suits my needs. I need something simplistic, non-bloated, beginner friendly, open source, and preferably with Dracula theme. I'll list off the ones that I've tried that I don't like too much:

• Atom
• Vim
• Emacs
• Notepad++
• VS Code

Honestly, I'd really like something that's like very similar to Sublime but FOSS. Is there one like that?

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?

Someone posted an article on a subreddit I frequent. It was an extremely long and rambling hit piece against antifacism, littered with long academic words, written for a completely fake Sociology college in London. While checking the source's reputability, I found out that it's part of what is known as the Neoreactionary movement.

Here's an article about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internets-dark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/

Here's a more "fun" write-up from RationalWiki: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Neoreactionary_movement

It's the most bizarre thing. They are basically a pseudointellectual alt-right who quite literally advocate for a monarchy. They are very secretive of their identities and write contrived "theses" under pen names (which, strangely enough, seem to be stolen from actual published academics both living and dead). They think they are a secret society attempting to overthrow existing governments, but in reality they are little more than a collection of fanfic authors.

Has anyone else come into contact with any of them? I am particularly interested if any of our Reddit moderators have anything to say.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

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.

I have watched the first season, and started the second season. I have been told a few times, it gets better once they get more into the AI aspect behind "the machine". So far the episodes are pretty formulaic, so I am wondering if there is a specific episode or season where these little plot bits about this machine everyone is trying to find come to fruition and the series pivots to more of a sci-fi sub-plot.

Also, how come nobody calls him out for talking to himself all the time?
I do like the dog, good addition to the second season.

EDIT: I am now on season 2 episode 10, and yeah its starting to get a lot better. It seems to be a slow transition but they are getting my attention with all this hacker history talk.

Accelerationism: most of us have heard of it, few of us have read into it, and a fair amount of us have shared memes around it (gotta go fast), but have any of us formed substantial opinions on it yet?

With a variety of authors of various views each weighing in on it, like Mark Fisher and the notorious Nick Land (alongside his genderswapped, trans, slightly less-racist partner-in-crime, Nyx Land); it really does seem to be (slowly but surely) gaining considerable mindspace. Have any of you ever read any works in the genre you adored? If so, feel free to share!

So:

• I keep all my passwords in my password manager (Bitwarden)
• All my 2FA codes are generated by AndOTP on my phone.
• My 2FA backup codes are also in Bitwarden, which I think is a bad idea, because that defeats the purpose of 2FA. So where should I put those?
• I have my Bitwarden 2FA backup code in my wallet and in a safe at my house. Is that a good idea for the other backup codes?
• Is there anything I'm forgetting here?

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)?

Sleep Paralysis might be one of the most horrifying experiences one could go through.

Personally i had it only once, now about a year ago i think; i really don't know what it was caused by, but i sure as hell am glad it has never occurred since. During my specific episode i was just unable to move - no hallucinations ensued - but it was still one of the worst things i've had the displeasure of feeling.

Now you might be wondering 'if this has happened to you long ago and never had it since, what prompted you to ask about it?'

Well, yesterday i ended up watching this video; now i'm morbidly fascinated by this horrifying yet somewhat captivating condition.

I think we need to be more open in changing our opinions now a days more then ever, or at the very least, open to listen to others. so what was a strong opinion you once had, but has changed since by listening to others?

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?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

I was browsing r/privacy today and I came across this guy going on about how Mozilla was just pretending to be privacy focused. Here's his comment. Now I don't really know what to think of this, and frankly, I'm getting really exhausted of hearing about how all the things I'm using aren't actually trustworthy. So can so someone put my mind to rest? Does this guy's claims have any truth to them? Thanks.

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.

Did a lot of comparisons tonight, and I have to say I feel the variation of “Why Don’t You Do Right” sung by Amy Irving in Who Framed Roger Rabbit holds far more impact than the original recordings done by Peggy Lee, or even many artists after.

What redo/variation of a classic still holds you speechless?

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

By “happiness” I don't mean “the place where happy people are happy all the time”, but rather “the absence of persisting suffering”.

For some context, I've been suffering from clinical depression for over nine years now. Maybe more. I've been hurt by other people many times in my life, especially in childhood and during school. I have almost never felt connected to another human being, and the older I get, the harder it gets to get any kind of intimacy. I feel like “I'm a creep and I'm a weirdo” regularly, as if my teen angst has never left me. On a good day I will merely be tired, and I think I don't need to describe a bad day.

Recently I've been discovering interesting approaches to therapy and using awareness to “pull yourself by the boot straps”, but whenever the time comes to actually use them in practice, a very real question: “Why should I do it? Happiness is impossible, I will always be what I am, so why go through additional pain of trying to change anything when the result isn't guaranteed?”.

So the question is: how do you answer this (loaded) question? How do you get back your faith in better future for yourself when you have so little experience actually being better? Can you actually do that?

it's been a month since the last thread, so i think it's time for a new one of these. here you can share some of the projects that you're working on (of any kind, be they digital, physical, or whatever) that wouldn't really work as its own post.

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

I've been thinking about the way some people use their opportunity to share in places like Tildes.

There are weekly topics what the music the users listen and the books they read. Since the community is small, there are rather few people interacting with those, which has the capacity to create stronger interpersonal connections.

There's also the fact that I see a few names very often, in many different threads. Unlike some other places, though, I don't automatically map them to an idea of a person behind them. It's more Reddit than a small forum: people share their opinions and discuss subjects, but there's little personal interaction. It's a more a space of intellectual, rather than emotional, engagement.

And yet, there are threads here about oneself where the person asks questions or raises subjects that are of importance to them. Some time ago, someone asked what to do with their existential dread. I bet there were similar threads here that I didn't get to see. There was also the "Hey, whatcha working on?" thread a while ago. So it's not that asking personal questions is opposed here: you can, if you want, ask for community support.

So I'm wondering: what's Tildes' attitude towards more personal content? Things like life updates: "So hey, I'm doing okay, am still in a relationship (going great), looking for a job, working on the pet project I mentioned" etc. etc.. Is this something the users and the admins approve of? would enjoy?

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?

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

Hi! I've recently graduated as a BA of Italian philology. But I am interested in pursuing my further studies and academical career in linguistics, studying language contact and linguistic strata in particular. I was wondering if anybody took a similar path and am interested in advice from such folks and also any other humanists here. I'm studying some online material and will try to partecipate in some local university's linguistics BA as a visiting student (I guess it's called a freemover in English) if I can find an affordable option. Also I have found out recommended reading material from local universities I'm interested in and some papers about my field. Do you know of any useful resources for making the transition smoother? What has been you experience if you've taken a similar path to your studies? Thanks in advance!

So, a little background, my profession is technical writing. I want to write a novel but I'm struggling a little with getting the creative side of my brain going. Technical writing seems to further inhibit my creativity with all its rules.

I'm looking into local writers' workshops but they're all full at the moment. In the meantime, I was wondering if anyone here has any advice for exercises or things I could do to stimulate my creativity and free my mind from all the rules of technical writing. Thoughts?

I am well aware of the ongoing ebooks vs. physical books debate, and I have no interest in kindling that fire here.

Instead, I am seeking recommendations for books that are arguably better in physical form due to their makeup. House of Leaves is a perfect example, with its textual trickery essentially requiring physical pages. Coffee table books also fit the bill, for example. Some textbooks and reference books technically do as well, though I'm not interested in recommendations in those areas unless you have something in mind that's an absolute standout.

For me, it has to be ramen. It's so easy, yet so filling, and so tasty, and has practically infinite variations, so it can hardly get old! It can be done for one or more persons, and it replaces an entire meal: having noodles as replacement for bread, meat, vegetables, and broth to drink afterwards. Just an all-around great thing. My family certainly loved it.

I have felt lost recently, I have lost my purpose. If anyone feels the same, what do you do about it? Is there really anything to do about it other than forgetting the dread? I don't like being this pessimistic, but I don't really see a way out of it.

I have an amazon server that I use to host my email and my simple website. I'm considering setting a vpn up on it, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. Would my data be as secure as with 3rd party vpns? Would Amazon see my traffic? It seems like if I go this route, anything that I do could be traced back to me, because the see the ip of my server and than ask amazon who owns it.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

So I've almost (March 29) quit an IT role in a U.S. company that functions with the private healthcare market. It's been long evident to me that most industrialized nations have much more sensible systems, and my employer's business model would be nonexistent outside the U.S.

There's a current political trend towards "Medicare for All", basically a single-payer system for existing health services. The prevailing resistance comes from insurers, whose business models will cease to exist, and those whose compensation might be cut (physicians and hospitals) up to 50% under the current scheme for U.S. Medicare. That's leaving aside pharmaceutical companies.

I'm trying to decide where my political time should be spent - the "Medicare for All" slogan is great for bumper stickers, but are there other models that work better?

Please talk about your nation's policies - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Tildes is mostly a young crowd that might not have direct experience of major medical need, but any commentary on what has worked and what doesn't is welcome.

What are your thoughts on the Fediverse style model of social media/websites in general? If you are unfamiliar with it, https://peertube.social/videos/watch/9c9de5e8-0a1e-484a-b099-e80766180a6d and https://peertube.social/videos/watch/d9bd2ee9-b7a4-44e3-8d65-61badd15c6e6

EDIT: Punctuation

I'm trying to get onto the podcast bandwagon, and so wondered if anyone can recommend any?

Tech podcasts are certainly interesting to me but anything geeky (tech, gadgets, science etc. as opposed to cartoons, comics, pop-culture - have no interest in any of those topics) would be ace.

Thanks!

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 playing Stardew Valley recently and ended up playing the mini arcade games in the tavern for a couple hours. I was suprised at the depth they put into a video game that is inside another video game. Truly great.

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.

Hey everyone, thanks to you who posted in the original Workshop Wednesday; I think it went really well! Here we are for week 2 (sorry it took me til noon, I was busy this morning!)

Some questions:

• do we need a new topic every week? Or will one be enough?
• any other comments/suggestions?

Please begin your comment with [META] to discuss these. Otherwise, I'll copy and paste the guidelines from last week.

What's a workshop?

Basically, a workshop is when you have a bunch of people with poems or stories they've written, and everyone gets together, reads everyone's work, and comments on it, sharing what they got out of it and what the author could do to improve the work for publication. I used to do a lot of them in college, and I've missed the dynamic since graduating. I thought others might also be interested, so here goes nothing.

How this'll work (for now, anyway)

Each week, I'll post a "Workshop Wednesday" post. If you have a poem or (short) story you'd like workshopped, post that as a top comment. Then, read others' top comments and reply with what works/doesn't work/questions you have/ideas you have for the piece that could make it better. If you post some writing, try to comment on at least two other people's pieces as well -- we're here to help each other improve.