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    1. What is the most creative app or website you know of?

      HELLO TILDES USERS. IT IS I, FELLOW HUMAN, BISHOP. As you may have read in an earlier post of mine (ok probably not it was a one-off comment, not like I reinforced the thought anywhere.) I do...

      HELLO TILDES USERS. IT IS I, FELLOW HUMAN, BISHOP.

      As you may have read in an earlier post of mine (ok probably not it was a one-off comment, not like I reinforced the thought anywhere.)

      I do indeed hold the belief that code can be, itself, art, in the right context.

      Or, rather, that code can be used for artistic purposes.

      I dunno.

      That's why I'm posting.

      What would you say is the most artistic or, at least, creatively designed website or mobile app that you've seen?

      I've got some creativity a-stewin' away in my head, and I need a new excuse to kill some time on frontend.

      So, fellow humans, hit me with your best shot duh-nuh-nuh-nuh fire away.

      What ya got?

      (@mods fix my tags please. Not sure what to put, but you might have a good idea. Ya boy's had a few.)

      18 votes
    2. What are your favorite food related Youtube channels?

      Cooking is a hobby of mine, and as a result I really enjoy watching food related YouTube channels. Some of the ones I like are Alex French Guy Cooking - A fun channel of a creative french amateur...

      Cooking is a hobby of mine, and as a result I really enjoy watching food related YouTube channels. Some of the ones I like are

      • Alex French Guy Cooking - A fun channel of a creative french amateur cook. I like this channel because I have similar taste in food to him (check out his instant ramen series!), but his solutions to problems in the kitchen are seriously creative. To give an example, he builds a dough sheeter in his croissant series in order to get the perfect thickness of dough, and he makes a makeshift dehydrator in the ramen series. Stuff I would never do in the kitchen, but it's fun to watch.

      • Bon Appetit - I totally did not expect Bon Appetit to have such a well put together web presence (for some reason I considered them an old fashioned publication). In any case, check out the "It's Alive with Brad" series. It starts out as a series about all things related to fermentation (beer, hot sauce, kombucha, sourdough, etc), but expands a bit in scope.

      • Binging with Babish - Perhaps the most well known of recent food related YouTubers, Babish recreates meals from movies and TV. He also has a nice series on cooking tutorials. I don't watch him as much as I used to, but he's still a lot of fun.

      • Townsends - A bit different than the rest, and not exlusively food related. Townsends is a historical enthusiast focusing on the colonial era, and he has a lot of videos recreating recipes and techniques from the time period.

      EDIT:

      Forgot to include

      • Jun's Kitchen - Some seriously therapeutic cooking videos featuring sushi and cats.
      18 votes
    3. How would you bring together friends who still don't know each other?

      If you have friends who used to be in separate circles but are going to finally meet, how would you handle that property? Let's say, you all meet, you know each of them, but they know about each...

      If you have friends who used to be in separate circles but are going to finally meet, how would you handle that property?

      Let's say, you all meet, you know each of them, but they know about each other very vaguely. How to introduce everyone gently and keep conversations going in a non confusing way? What are the dos and don'ts there? Personal real experience of "joining" friends would be nice to read about too!

      13 votes
    4. "Spoiler" tags should also display on comments in tagged posts when viewed from a user page

      Right now if a post is tagged with 'spoiler', that tag appears in its own color which is good. However, if you are interacting with a user and click through to their profile, there is no...

      Right now if a post is tagged with 'spoiler', that tag appears in its own color which is good. However, if you are interacting with a user and click through to their profile, there is no indication that some of their comments may have been in these spoiler threads and thus contain spoilers (just happened to me, thankfully for show I don't watch). It might be nice to somehow indicate these potential spoilers on the user page so that they can be skipped over.

      15 votes
    5. Looking for insight in to Trump's Taxes

      So what I want to know is whether or not this is that unusual for someone in real estate. The discussion on r/politics is myopic and the discussion on /r/tax lacks detail. From the NYT article:...

      So what I want to know is whether or not this is that unusual for someone in real estate.

      The discussion on r/politics is myopic and the discussion on /r/tax lacks detail.

      From the NYT article:

      The numbers show that in 1985, Mr. Trump reported losses of $46.1 million from his core businesses — largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings. They continued to lose money every year, totaling $1.17 billion in losses for the decade.

      Trump's statement/tweet:

      “You always wanted to show losses for tax purposes....almost all real estate developers did – and often re-negotiate with banks, it was sport,

      Now my very limited understanding of real estate and taxes is this:

      • You can depreciate the building but not the land
      • Depreciation can be carried over multiple years
      • When you sell property you can roll those proceeds into the purchase of another property, thus delaying income tax

      Are those accurate? If so, do they explain Trump's taxes?

      I'm thinking not (I suspect Russian money laundering is the real source of income). However, I have yet to read a good discussion of the specifics. Has anyone read such a discussion or have insight to add?

      Main story from NYT:
      https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/05/07/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

      CNBC's article about Trump's response:
      https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/08/trump-defends-tax-tactics-after-nyt-story-says-he-racked-up-more-than-1-billion-in-losses-it-was-sport.html

      EDIT: As an aside, I got into a wee bit of trouble because my wife's (very) small business lost money three years running. The accountant that I worked with informed me that if a business losses $ three years in a row, the IRS considers it a "hobby" and you can't subtract those losses from your personal taxes. Is that in play with Trump at all? If not, why not?

      EDIT2: I'm going to answer my own question I think. I heard a good segment on NPR yesterday that addressed my question. You can read the transcript here: https://www.npr.org/2019/05/08/721552462/president-trump-defends-himself-against-report-he-did-not-pay-taxes-for-8-years

      The bottom line is it's not so unusual but it doesn't exclude the possibility of him running his businesses poorly either. So I think it's not really what the headlines have made it out to be.

      14 votes
    6. How do you structure larger projects?

      I'll be writing a relatively large piece of scientific code for the first time, and before I begin I would at least like to outline how the project will be structured so that I don't run into...

      I'll be writing a relatively large piece of scientific code for the first time, and before I begin I would at least like to outline how the project will be structured so that I don't run into headaches later on. The problem is, I don't have much experience structuring large projects. Up until now most of the code I have written as been in the form of python scripts that I string together to form an ad-hoc pipeline for analysis, or else C++ programs that are relatively self contained. My current project is much larger in scope. It will consist of four main 'modules' (I'm not sure if this is the correct term, apologies if not) each of which consist of a handful of .cpp and .h files. The schematic I have in mind for how it should look is something like:

      src
       ├──Module1 (Initializer)
       │         ├ file1.cpp
       │         ├ file1.h
       │         │...
       │         └ Makefile
       ├───Module2 (solver)
       │          ├ file1.cpp
       │          ├ file1.h
       │          │...
       │          └ Makefile
       ├───Module3 (Distribute)
       │          ├ file1.cpp
       │          └Makefile 
       └ Makefile
      

      Basically, I build each self-contained 'module', and use the object files produced there to build my main program. Is there anything I should keep in mind here, or is this basically how such a project should be structured?

      I imagine the particularly structure will be dependent on my project, but I am more interested in general principles to keep in mind.

      14 votes
    7. A personal story about fake news

      I had an interesting conversation with my housemate last night, which opened my eyes to just how easily fake news gets into ordinary people's minds. We were discussing an episode of 'The Orville'...

      I had an interesting conversation with my housemate last night, which opened my eyes to just how easily fake news gets into ordinary people's minds.

      We were discussing an episode of 'The Orville' we had just watched, and conversation shifted topics (as it does), and we ended up talking about free speech and political correctness - and he told me, quite matter-of-factly, that at least one local school had removed all books which referred to "boys" or "girls" from its library, and that other schools wanted to ban children from referring to themselves as "boys" or "girls". This was part of a politically correct drive to remove all references to gender, so that noone is "male" or "female".

      My housemate is not a raving lunatic. He's not a rabid fascist or alt-right person. He's just an ordinary Aussie guy, going about his ordinary life, with no malice to anyone.

      But his extended family watches certain TV channels and reads certain newspapers, and he had picked up this little nugget of knowledge from a TV show one of them was watching.

      We discussed the matter, and I told him that what he had just said is fake news. I explained that I didn't think he was wrong, but that his sources were wrong. He wouldn't believe me - to the point where he demanded that we go to a computer and double-check it.

      It didn't take me long to find both the newspaper articles and television segments spreading this fake news, and the other sources debunking it (because I knew what I was looking for). It turns out that some ivory-tower academics had done a study which showed that making little girls play with "hyper-feminised toys like Barbies" was reinforcing certain sexist stereotypes, and maybe that should be changed. That was it. But certain newspapers (owned by a certain media tycoon) had twisted this into a scare story involving evil teachers who were coming to steal your children's identities by stopping them from being boys and girls and removing everything that said "boys" and "girls" from libraries - and other news outlets had picked up this story and run with it, adding their own touches as it bounced from one outlet to another.

      As soon as I showed him the debunking sources, he accepted them. He got a bit defensive, and deflected blame on to his family and the news - but he believed the truth when I showed it to him. He's not stupid or malicious, just misinformed. I agreed with him that it wasn't his fault. As he said, most normal people aren't like me, reading deep into the news and double-checking what they say. Most people just read the paper or watch the TV and accept what they're told.

      Fake news is so easy to spread. Most people don't question their news sources. If a newspaper or newsreader tells them something, they believe it because it's coming from a supposedly reliable source.

      32 votes
    8. Viewing posts in a certain order

      Didn't there used to be a setting so we could view posts in whatever order - by default - that we wanted? Or is there a way to do it and I'm just too stupid to see it? I personally dislike this...

      Didn't there used to be a setting so we could view posts in whatever order - by default - that we wanted?
      Or is there a way to do it and I'm just too stupid to see it?
      I personally dislike this "relevance" concept and for the most part, voting.
      I just want to see posts chronologically, either oldest first or newest. And I know I can do it, but for every thread? Please tell me there is an option I am missing.

      3 votes
    9. UEFA Champions League Post Semis/Pre Finals discussion thread

      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...

      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

      7 votes