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    1. What cultural misunderstandings have you experienced?

      I work for a school in China and they are going to have an art festival soon. Today they were setting up some of those pictures where you can stick your face in it and take a photo. They did this...

      I work for a school in China and they are going to have an art festival soon. Today they were setting up some of those pictures where you can stick your face in it and take a photo. They did this to The Last Supper and it’s a very big picture set up right in front of the main gate for all the children to play with. They cut out Jesus’ face and most of his disciples’. All of the expats that work for my school were outraged and told the administration to take it down right away. At first the administration said they would just glue Jesus’ face back on. But this just made people angrier, so they promised to take it down in the morning when they could get some workers to do it.

      So what cultural misunderstandings have you experienced? How did you deal with it?

      28 votes
    2. ~all?

      Could we have a meta-group which is a union of all the available (sub)groups? The purpose of it being having a way to view what the front page looks like without having to log out. IDK what is the...

      Could we have a meta-group which is a union of all the available (sub)groups? The purpose of it being having a way to view what the front page looks like without having to log out. IDK what is the general trend but I personally don't follow all groups (e.g. I am not interested in anime, and I try to minimise my intake of politics, so I am not subbed to ~anime and ~news), but sometimes I am curious about what the part I don't usually see is like.

      I should admit that viewing the frontpage in a private window is almost there (with the caveat of having to copy links around if I want to comment, which is not much trouble frankly), so this would rather be polishing than some very useful new feature.

      17 votes
    3. Is there an app for this? Help me fix my terrible security

      I thought I've been looking for a good password manager, but I'm not sure that's what I really need. Here's my use case: I currently have a Google Sheet in my Google Drive that contains all my...

      I thought I've been looking for a good password manager, but I'm not sure that's what I really need.

      Here's my use case:

      • I currently have a Google Sheet in my Google Drive that contains all my ID/passwords for everything
      • In addition I have personal info in there like SSNs and Credit Cards #s
      • I want to be able to have instant access to all of the info from my ancient iPhone and my laptop

      Things I've tried:

      • I messed around with Last Pass a bit and found it couldn't actually fill in the passwords in the apps I was using so I'd have to manually type them, which is a deal breaker for me.
      • I've been using FireFox's LockBox and it's a bit better on that front but doesn't actually remember what the password goes to the app so I have to look it up each time, but it does populate them in the appropriate fields.
      • Password-protecting a Google Sheet is apparently impossible but was a solution I was after for some time (Excel and Libre can do this..so +1 for software)

      Other info:

      • I am currently using an iPhone 5 but I plan to "upgrade" to a Samsung Galaxy S7 sometime in the near future. Perhaps that's why the functionality of these password managers seem so inconvenient for me? Would they work better on a modern phone?

      What I'm after is perhaps two solutions:

      • A password manager that crosses the bridge from desktop FireFox to the apps on my phone, and fills in the password for me automatically. That would allow me to feel like I could move to more random passwords for things.

      • Some encrypted, password-protected site/app that could store plain text notes for sensitive things like SSNs and Credit Card #s that would stay in sync between a laptop and a smartphone.

      Go ahead and mock me for my terrible security and ancient phone. I deserve it! But when you're done, I'd appreciate some guidance.

      EDIT: Sounds like first priority should be to update my phone. Then there appear to be plenty of options to try. Thanks everyone so much!

      18 votes
    4. Tetris 99 rules

      I finally got around to sinking some decent time into it over the last couple of days. I'm addicted. It's fun to go up against so many competitors and watch as people get knocked out of the...

      I finally got around to sinking some decent time into it over the last couple of days. I'm addicted. It's fun to go up against so many competitors and watch as people get knocked out of the competition over time. Not to mention, it's frickin' Tetris so of course it's great! I'm really looking forward to the special event that Nintendo's running this weekend. You can earn an old-school Gameboy theme!

      4 votes
    5. Anyone out there looking for a health community?

      Hello hello! Not sure if this is going to gain much traction but I thought I might as well give it a try. Is there anyone out in Tildes who is looking to start making a lifestyle change that would...

      Hello hello!

      Not sure if this is going to gain much traction but I thought I might as well give it a try. Is there anyone out in Tildes who is looking to start making a lifestyle change that would benefit from having a sense of community? Trying to make diet changes (cutting back on sugar, no more fast food)? Starting a new diet? Starting going to the gym? Cutting alcohol out of your life? Trying to start sleeping more (because not getting sleep is real bad )?

      I'm trying to gauge if there is interest in a weekly (or maybe more frequent?) discussion thread for people to talk about what changes they are making to live a healthier life, have people to talk about and discuss their struggles with, and just form a community to help us all succeed.

      For example, I'm sadly am quitting my current gym membership. I have been boxing with the same coaches for 3 years now, but with my new job the gym is now 30 minutes out of my way rather than along my commute home, and at $120 a month I can't make it there often enough to justify the cost. My company has a gym in-building that is really solid, and I met with a trainer to get a workout plan made tailor-made to my goals. However, I am SO LAZY without a community of people keeping on me. I really relied on my gym friends and coaches to call me out when I wasn't going to the gym and when I was half-assing classes. Mostly what I'm looking for is people to talk to about working out, the struggles of forcing yourself to go when you don't want to, struggles of being an ex-athlete and losing all the structure your use to your workouts having, and how people are fueling their bodies to succeed. But I recognize that my health issues aren't universal, so I don't want this post to be just what I want/need. I want to hear if there is interest, and try to build something for the community, not just me.

      15 votes
    6. Epic Games Store - Mega Sale - Up to 75% off and $10 off every game $14.99+

      Making this as a text post because the Epic Store interface isn't very good, and I want to be able to highlight particular sales. Here's a better interface for browsing on gg.deals First: this is...

      Making this as a text post because the Epic Store interface isn't very good, and I want to be able to highlight particular sales.

      Here's a better interface for browsing on gg.deals

      First: this is a bizarre sale and clearly another case of Epic effectively subsidizing something that wouldn't be possible normally. As a really blatant example of what's crazy about it, I posted the announcement trailer for John Wick Hex last week. It got announced 8 days ago, there isn't even a vague release date, and they don't even know which consoles it's coming to yet. Even with that, it's on sale here now for $8 instead of $20 - 60% off, a week after announcement!

      So because of that, here's some of the sales that seem most ridiculous due to being unusually large discounts, especially on games that aren't even out yet or just came out. Let me know if you spot more, all prices USD:

      Game Sale Price Normal Price Discount
      John Wick Hex $7.99 $19.99 60%
      Satisfactory $19.95 $29.95 33%
      Shakedown Hawaii $9.99 $19.99 50%
      Slime Rancher $4.99 $19.99 75%
      Subnautica Below Zero $9.99 $19.99 50%
      18 votes
    7. alyaza is unbanned

      A couple of days ago, I loudly banned alyaza. After investigating it more, I no longer believe that DearDeer was their alt account, so everything I accused them of doing in that post was not true,...

      A couple of days ago, I loudly banned alyaza. After investigating it more, I no longer believe that DearDeer was their alt account, so everything I accused them of doing in that post was not true, and they've been unbanned.

      There are a lot of justifications and excuses I could give for why I got it wrong, but in the end it doesn't really matter. I made a somewhat-rushed decision, but I was confident about it at the time. Yesterday I spent more time looking into it, including following the invite chain and managing to get in contact with the person that sent the invite that DearDeer used to register. Between talking with that person (who was remarkably helpful) and some other info, I found more evidence that DearDeer wasn't alyaza than I had used to originally decide that it was, and realized that I was wrong.

      This is a good example of why I don't like publicizing bans. Without me making that post about it, I'm sure this still would have been noticed by some people, but it could have been a relatively quiet temporary ban that lasted for about a day while it got sorted out. Instead, it ends up as a multi-day unnecessary spectacle. I'm not bothered by the effect on me because of that—I screwed up and deserve the embarrassment and criticism that comes from it, and I fully accept that. But it was unfair and cruel to alyaza to be falsely accused of things publicly, and that can't be reversed.

      Decisions like this (and moderation in general) are often judgment calls that have to be made quickly and with incomplete information. Sometimes, like in this case, you make the wrong call, and more time, information, or an appeal leads you to reverse it. There can be value in having that happen in public, but there can also be harm, and I think this case absolutely leaned more towards the harmful end.

      Anyway, I'll leave the comments open this time so that you can berate me appropriately. Please avoid commenting on alyaza personally though—I've already done enough damage and we don't need to continue that.

      90 votes