It has been a while since the last time we did something like a programming challenge, so here's one for ya.

The life story of the author before you get to the recipe

I've been working on a little "today" website, showing what day it is, if it's a significant date for holiday/independence/... reasons, and one of the things I wanted was a small calendar display that showed the full month and days in each week. Like how XFCE's Clock plugin does it.

So I got to figuring it out and after finishing it up I thought this could be a nice little programming challenge. It has one input (the date) that can be in any of the rows and columns, and it's up to you to figure out all the rest.

Here's how mine looks in about 250ish lines of TypeScript (TSX technically) and SCSS.

The Recipe

Make a mini calendar display that shows all the days of the current month and at least one day of each adjacent month. So for example for May 2023: the 31 days in May, the 30th of April and the 1st of June should at least be visible.

It can be in any language with any method of rendering; simple text, TUI/GUI toolkit, web-based, raytraced in some game engine, nixie tubes, whatever.

Bonus Points

• Highlight the current day name in the first row, if you're including day names.
• Highlight the current day number, wherever it is.
• Highlight the current week row, wherever it is.
• Differentiate the days of current month and the days of the other adjacent months, wherever they are.

Some Tips

Showcase

If at all possible and with at least a few entries I will try to run all the submissions myself and create a little showcase website for it.

Picture:

1. The Holdovers
2. Killers of the Flower Moon
3. Dune: Part 2
4. Oppenheimer
5. Past Lives
6. Barbie
7. The Zone of Interest
8. May/December
9. Saltburn
10. The Killer

Director:

1. Martin Scorsese - Killers of the Flower Moon
2. Christopher Nolan - Oppenheimer
3. Alexander Payne - The Holdovers
4. Denis Villeneuve - Dune: Part 2
5. Jonathan Glazer - The Zone of Interest

Original Screenplay:

1. The Holdovers
2. Past Lives
3. May/December
4. Saltburn
5. Drive Away Dolls

Adapted Screenplay:

1. Barbie
2. Killers of the Flower Moon
3. Dune: Part 2
4. Oppenheimer
5. The Zone of Interest

Lead Actor:

1. Paul Giamatti - The Holdovers
2. Cillian Murphy - Oppenheimer
3. Leonardo DiCaprio - Killers of the Flower Moon
4. Barry Keoghan - Saltburn
5. Colman Domingo - Rustin

Lead Actress:

1. Margot Robbie - Barbie
2. Greta Lee - Past Lives
3. Natalie Portman - May/December
4. Annette Bening - Nyad
5. Zendaya - Challengers

Supporting Actor:

1. Robert Downey Jr. - Oppenheimer
2. Robert DeNiro - Killers of the Flower Moon
3. Ryan Gosling - Barbie
4. Jesse Plemmons - Killers of the Flower Moon
5. John Magaro - Past Lives

Supporting Actress:

1. D’avine Joy Randolph - The Holdovers
2. Lilly Gladstone - Killers of the Flower Moon
3. Emily Blunt - Oppenheimer
4. Julianne Moore - May/December
5. Rosamund Pike - Saltburn

Anyone else following the world chess championship?

Background info (feel free to skip if you're already familiar with this):

After reigning champion and world #1 Magnus Carlsen declined to defend his title, the winner of the Candidates tournament 2022, Russia's Ian Nepomniachtchi (world #2), faces the second place finisher in the Candidates, China's Ding Liren (world #3). The championship match takes place over 14 games from April 9-April 30 in Astana, Kazakhstan. As of today, April 13, the score is even at 2-2 after 4 games.

Ian Nepomniachtchi (aka "Nepo") won the Candidates tournament in 2020-21, which was split in two due to covid. He proceeded to challenge Magnus Carlsen for the title in late 2021. Both players performed with computer-like precision for the first five games. Game six became the turning point, when Nepo made a serious blunder which allowed Carlsen to eventually convert the game to a win in what would turn out to be the longest game in world championship history, lasting more than 7 hours and 136 moves. After this grueling loss, Nepo's play seemingly collapsed, allowing Carlsen to take a comfortable win with games to spare.

However, Nepomniachtchi would bounce back to win his second Candidates tournament in a row in 2022. When it became clear that Carlsen would not defend his title, the runner-up of that tournament, Ding Liren, became the second player to compete for the title.

Ding has been a top 5 player for years, with 2018-2019 being his best period yet, when he reached world #2 with well over 2800 Elo, and was undefeated for 100 games of classical chess. This is his first appearance in a world championship final, and also a first for China as a nation.

Russia, of course, has a long history of world champions, dominating the chess world for most of the 20th century. Nepomniachtchi, who is a critic of the invasion of Ukraine, competes under a neutral FIDE flag in this match.

This is only the third time the reigning champion has not defended his title since the first world championship in 1886. Bobby Fischer famously disagreed with the match regulations proposed by FIDE, chess' international governing body, and refused to defend his title in 1975. He subsequently retired from competitive chess and didn't re-emerge until the 1990s. The other instance was Alekhine in 1948 -- he had died two years earlier. (There was also a time in the 1990s when the reigning champion, Garry Kasparov, broke with FIDE and organized his own world championship, but I won't get into that complicated story here.) This is the first time a world champion has continued to play competitive chess while refusing to defend their title.

Nepomniachtchi comes into the match ranked as the world #2 (2795 Elo) while Ding is #3 (2788). The abdicated king of chess, Magnus Carlsen, remains #1 (2853).

How to watch

If you want to watch live, the time zone is a bit unfavorable to European and American viewers, as the games start at 3PM Astana time (11 AM Central European summer time, 2 AM Pacific). You can follow the games without commentary here: lichess chess24 chess.com. There's several streams with grandmaster commentary available. FIDE has an official broadcast, but my favorite is chess.com's coverage, which features commentary by GMs Anish Giri, Daniel Naroditsky and David Howell.

For live computer analysis that's stronger than what you can (likely) get from running a local instance of Stockfish on your own computer, check out Sesse (which is just Stockfish running on a decently beefy server setup).

If you want shorter after-the-fact recaps, there are several Youtube channels catering to differing levels of chess skill, including:

• Powerplaychess (GM Daniel King)
• FIDE (GM Daniil Dubov)
• Gothamchess (IM Levy Rozman)
• Agadmator
• Chessnetwork

And probably at least a half-dozen more.

Who's your favorite to win it all? Does the fact that the clearly best player in the world refused to compete make the whole thing uninteresting to you? Will Nepo crumble again like he did against Carlsen, or will Ding's inexperience with world championship matches be his undoing?

I was playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with my kid the other day and it was a blast. Nintendo have really nailed this game, especially in the balance of accessible enough for beginners to have fun but hard enough for people to have a challenge too.

My other favourite game (although I haven't played it for a while) is Sega Rally Championship on Sega Saturn. This game has 4 tracks (one of which needs to be unlocked) and 3 cars (and again, one of these needs to be unlocked). The tiny number of cars and tracks means that you get to do the same corners over and over. This might sound tedious, but when you hit the corner just right you know it. You can get a sense of mastery over it. I've spent many hours playing games in the Gran Turismo series, and I really enjoy them, but fair play some of the tracks and cars are just shovelled into the game and you don't spend much time with them

In the first Gran Turismo the licensing tests were properly hard. They weren't messing around. Getting bronze requires people to read the manual and understand what the point of the test is. Getting all gold is an actual challenge for experienced players. I feel like the tests (at least, the bronze levels) got easier in later games. The UK soundtrack was small but pretty good.

My final mention is the Burnout series. I loved the crash junctions. I'm not sure the open world of Paradise was fun - it meant spending a lot of time driving across a map to get to the start line of various events. I feel the same way about many games - I'd rather just have a menu of levels and what I need to do to complete them (GoldenEye, SNES PilotWings, BlastCorps are all good examples) than have this stuff obscured by the open world. Burnout on the Nintendo DS was a genuinely awful game. I think Burnout Dominator was my favourite in the series.

So, what do driving games get right? What do they miss? What interesting game mechanics do you enjoy?

Timasomo is "Tildes' Make Something Month": a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of October. This is its fourth year!

If you would like to participate (or simply follow along), make sure you are subscribed to ~creative.timasomo.¹

The Roll Call thread will be posted there on October 1st. That is where people will formally commit to projects for Timasomo.

1: All previous subscribers of ~creative have been automatically subscribed to ~creative.timasomo. However, if you're interested in participating, it's worth double-checking, just to be sure!

FAQs

This Thread: Planning!

Post your ideas.

Give feedback to others.

Set up collaborations.

Ask questions.

Everything in this thread is non-commital! Bounce around ideas and figure out what you'd like to do in our communal brainstorming session.

Also, please do NOT start work on your project yet! Stage setting, planning, and other preparations are allowed (e.g. getting supplies/materials, setting up workspaces, etc.), but save the creation initiation for the 1st.

Get excited for another round of awesome projects!

Today is day three of my "war against writer's block"!
As I keep fighting with my proverbial pen, I hope that some day I'll be able to get out of my block and be able to write some real stuff like research paper or novel or story book.

What I realized today is that Word Power is a very important skill. A writer is essentially a Wordsmith or someone who carves and arranges the words and phrases into sentences, just as a sculptor or carpenter would do with wood or other raw materials. To be a better writer, you must learn to fall in love with words which is probably easier said than done - especially for us non-native speakers!

Having a regular habit or routine helps with this. Each time you come across a difficult word, you open the dictionary software or app and learn its meaning. It hardly takes a few minutes but it's a very useful skill as each new word you know of acts like a raw material or building block for your writing. Better still, develop linguistics as a hobby as mastery of grammar is equally important and so is learning about how languages, cultures and people basically work and interact at the core.

Apart from that, noting down right ideas as they come is also very important. For example, the idea about the Wordsmith thing occurred to me yesterday when I was having a cup of tea. I noted it on time (before it could vanish into the depths of that dark matter called subconscious mind and become irretrievable again!), and made a note of that on my computer so that I can write it in today's proverbial pen.

Even after having these basic tools and ingredients, you may not be able to write anything at all if you lack that focused energy or passion to write about a particular topic - be it a research paper, novel, story book or something else. You need to have that energy to write which I feel I'm lacking right now. I might be able to feel that energy some day as I continue with my battles, at least I hope so! Thanks for reading this and staying with me in these challenging times.

I'm posting this outside of the language learning thread because I worry those not currently learning languages are skipping it altogether :) In this post, I want to share general advice and takeaways about language learning, so this is for everybody, not just current learners!

Today, I've hit I think a big milestone: I am now comfortable calling myself "conversational" in Russian. This comes on the heels of a 30 minutes, all-Russian, naturally-flowing conversation with my coach who was very impressed, and a couple days after having participated in a total of 4+ hours of conversations that included a native speaker who doesn't actually speak English (training wheels are off, now!).

The goal I set myself mid-may to reach in 1 year, has been reached in 3 months. My Duolingo streak is on 87 days (or 89? I don't know if it counts the two streak freezes that were used), but I picked up DL a week after I started.

During this time, I journaled my progress here on Tildes (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 - really, I hope Tildes isn't getting sick of my spam!), and rekindled my love for learning languages. I think it's time for a recap: What worked, what helped the most, etc.

Summary

I didn't follow one specific technique or guide. Everything from the beginning has been improvised, based on experience from previous languages, and gut feel.

I talked about my methods in-depth in the journaling posts, but here's the bird's eye view of it:

1. Learn the script first, and how it's pronounced (I had already done that years ago, kinda)
2. Rigorously followed a single, complete-beginner crash course to get me started. In my case, a 9-hour, 30 episodes youtube series called Russian Made Easy, at an average of 45 min/day.
3. Started using Drops to start accumulating vocabulary; this replaced Flashcards for me.
4. After a little while, started the Duolingo course (but I don't use Duolingo the way most people do - See the old journals for details) and kept up with the streak since.
5. Started listening to spoken material on YouTube, as much as possible, even before I could understand what was being said.
6. Force myself to interact with the language by switching away from English in a variety of devices and apps
7. Watch loads of short videos on various bits and pieces about grammar, etymology, word lists and misc advice
8. Started writing in Russian on IM apps (at first using Google Translate, then without) with natives. Ask for feedback on it all.
9. Regularly try to speak, to whomever would have a conversation with me.
10. Regularly introspect: appreciate my progress, share it, and think about what I need to work on

Deep dive

Motivation

I wrote about how important motivation is. People start learning a language and then abandon it after a few weeks like a gym membership purchased on January 2nd. Having a motivator that goes beyond "this sounds cool" is really important, because all this is a lot of effort and your brain won't see the point of making all that effort if you don't have a proper need to go through it all.

I found that motivation is not a constant, either. It is something which has to be maintained. Sharing this experience with you all has been immensely useful in that process. And having native speakers in your life who can really appreciate your progress and encourage you is excellent.

Variety

The most useful part of my "method" is definitely the variety of the language diet. It seems to me that following only a set of single-source courses will just leave you with huge gaping holes as soon as you leave its bubble. It'd be like learning to read by only reading the same 100 words, over and over, until you become very quick at reading specifically those words. And then you're done and you come across the word "exhaustion" and you're like, what the fuck do I do with this?

So yes, a variety of activities that will cover all types of input (reading, listening) and outputs (speaking, writing and thinking). And with the varied diet, one should also be careful not to burn themselves out by doing too much. I ensured that a lot of what I was "doing" was passive: Switching my phone's language, leaving audio in the background, asking others to speak to me in the language and translating if I need, etc. My active learning was only being done when I felt like it. This circles us back to the motivation aspect: If that's rock solid, then you will want to keep studying/reading/learning, and you'll do more.

Regularity

So yes, quantity and regularity are also important, and keeping the language in your brain every single day is, I believe, critical to help it develop. The languages I do not think about on a regular basis don't develop. Despite speaking Greek my whole life, only interacting with that language once every couple weeks at most has kept it from evolving beyond a pretty basic level, and now I'm convinced my Russian is better than my Greek. Oof, this puts shame on my supposed bilingual heritage.

Finding comfort

I think it's easy to get frustrated at a language you're not yet good at, because you're so used to how you normally do things, that communicating is SO FRUSTRATING when you don't have your whole toolkit.

Speaking in the target language, with people who know your primary language(s), can also highlight that frustration because the barrier feels "artificial". For me, I have not particularly enjoyed speaking to non-natives, and that hasn't motivated me much. However, speaking to natives has been much easier because it's really nice to think "Hey, you've been making all these efforts to speak in a language I understand, let me do the effort this time".

And well, finding a way to be comfortable speaking is critical. Olly Richards mentions that, if you start speaking too early and in an unsafe space, you can scare yourself into a "bad experience" and regress because of that. I can definitely see that, and I personally was careful to challenge myself without trying to push too hard.

Over time, you can get very good at getting a sense of how difficult a certain activity or material is for you. You have three grades: Things you are comfortable with (level+0), things that are challenging and teach you (level+1), and things that are straight up too difficult for you (level+2).Input-based method proponents often advise staying at +1, without really defining what that means, but it's true you kinda know it when you see it. For example, watching Let's Plays in Russian is still my_level+2 for me, but I see them slowly edging towards +1, and that type of material is super effective because, any time you see the progress happening, your motivation is massively improved.

Mistakes

Developing on comfort: You have to be comfortable making mistakes. This is what really scares everybody, and it was definitely the case for me as well.. I was (and still am) ashamed of my bad grammar especially, and if I don't know how to say something properly, I hesitate to say it at all. But you gotta push through that. There's a balance to strike as always, and you still need to be ok with

How I use Google Translate

I've been doing something which has helped a lot, and in hindsight it's obvious to me why, so I want to share this and popularize this technique.

I started writing to native speakers on IM very, very early (people often use and recommend Tandem for this). Because I didn't have a good enough control over the language yet, what I would do was: Write in Google Translate what I want to say. But without writing long, complex sentences; instead, I would write things I felt I wanted to be able to say. So instead of "Hey, I'm super hungry right now, do you wanna meet me and grab a bite on the way?", I would write "Hey, I am a bit hungry. Can we go eat together?".

I would take the translation, understand it, and usually I would write it again on the keyboard rather than copy-paste (this helps with memorization). Sometimes I would use voice input, because cyrillic keyboard hard.

Then, over time, as I got better at output, I would think about what I want to say directly in Russian and write that into Google Translate to check it (and sometimes do a little back-and-forth dance to see if it suggests alternate forms).

So, yeah, this has been extremely helpful because it's given me a way of using the language as a tool from pretty early on. It's great because Google Translate really is going to adapt to your level, so if you want to be at "level+1", you just have to figure out what that looks like for you in your native language.

Conclusion

Wow, what a journey. Of course it's not over, but I've actually hit my goal... with nine months to spare! That's enough time to make, like, a whole baby.
I want to keep improving, not stagnate, so I'm now going to keep using the language and I think wait that full year before I really start learning a new one. (Ukrainian was next on my list, but I'm shocked at how much I now understand of it, it's much closer to Russian than I thought; so I'm still undecided).

I have loved sharing this experience with you, Tildes, and I really, really hope I motivated some of y'all in your own language learning journeys. If these threads have helped you in any way, please do share it with me here or by DM, I want to know!

2020. That's when I met her.

To some of my close friends it sounds silly to them when I tell them we loved each other. It's hard for some people to grasp the intensity that a long distance relationship can have. But I don't have anything to prove to anyone - I truly did love her.

Being with an ace, I thought, would make things more complicated as I am not asexual myself. But if anything it made things simpler. It made the long distance easier to deal with. It made it easier to be patient. Easier to deal with her not being in my life all the time, because when push came to shove, she was in my life when I needed her to be. In fact, she was the main reason I labeled myself as polyamorous this year. I realised that I didn't want to pretend we were just friends anymore. I cared for her too much for that.

In so little time, she changed me into a better person. She taught me subtleties about love, sex, relationships but also about life in general. She helped me through mental struggles. She was my first call when we got my SO’s sister out of Kyiv this year. In fact, the day of the war, we talked for over six hours in a row.

She was always, always positive no matter the challenge. A true constant. Saw the flip side nobody else could see. No matter how ill she would get, she'd always brush it off and get back on her feet. In the two years I knew her, she had never made me cry, and her messages would always put a smile on my face.
Difficulty tends to make people stronger. She's had an incredibly difficult life, and was the toughest person I knew.

None of those challenges defined her. She was not defined by her gender, illness, sexuality. She was defined by her constant, absolute positivity. And her unending love for Korea.

She believed, as I do, that we're all one entity - the universe experiencing itself. That her role here had been to spread love and positivity. I hope everyone here will be lucky enough to meet someone like her, at some point in their life.

She was 30. The world is worse without her in it.

About:

This is an updating resource of news articles on Finland and Sweden's path to potential membership of NATO.

The articles are sorted by publication date, with the most recent at the top. Feel free to recommend articles in the comments.

The thread title contains the date of the latest update to the main thread, for ease of use.

Articles:

NATO nations sign accession protocols for Sweden, Finland

The thirty NATO allies signed off on the accession protocols for Sweden and Finland on Tuesday, sending the membership bids of the two nations to the alliance capitals for legislative approvals — and possible political trouble in Turkey.

AP – Raf Casert – 5th July 2022

NATO summit: Sweden, Finland boost unity against Putin

NATO's ambitions are growing. Sweden and Finland are set to join and the alliance is strengthening its eastern flank with more troops. This is the right approach against Vladimir Putin, says Bernd Riegert.

DW – Bernd Riegert – 29th June 2022

Turkey says summit is not deadline for talks on Finland and Sweden's NATO bids

Discussions between Turkey, Finland and Sweden about the Nordic countries' NATO membership will continue and an alliance summit in Madrid next week is not a deadline, Turkey said after talks in Brussels on Monday.

Finland and Sweden applied for NATO membership in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the bids have faced opposition from Turkey, which has been angered by what it says is Helsinki and Stockholm's support for Kurdish militants and arms embargoes on Ankara.

Reuters – 20th June 2022

Former Kurdish rebel has key role in Sweden’s NATO bid

When Turkey’s president rails against “terrorists” in the Swedish Parliament, Amineh Kakabaveh is convinced he is talking about her.

The former Kurdish rebel fighter turned Swedish lawmaker has emerged as a central figure in the drama surrounding Sweden and Finland’s historic bid to join NATO. Turkey opposes NATO membership for the two Nordic countries, accusing them of harboring Kurdish militants.

AP – Karl Ritter – 14th June 2022

Turkey threatens year’s delay to Swedish and Finnish entry to NATO

Turkey has said it is willing to delay Swedish and Finnish membership of NATO for more than a year unless it receives satisfactory assurances that the two Nordic countries are willing to address support for Kurdish groups it regards as terrorist organisations.

The Guardian – Patrick Wintour – 14th June 2022

Sweden to seek constructive progress with Turkey over NATO bid

Sweden will look to make constructive progress in talks with Turkey on Ankara's objections over the Nordic country's application to join the NATO defensive alliance, Foreign Minister Ann Linde said on Friday.

Reuters – 10th June 2022

Finland and Sweden prepare for large NATO naval drill, amid Turkish concerns

Finland and Sweden are preparing for an enlarged NATO naval exercise in the Baltic Sea on Sunday, amid Turkish concerns over their membership.

NATO's fortnight-long 'Baltops 22' is being hosted this year by Sweden, with the Finnish Navy and Air force also taking part.

Euronews – Philip Andrew Churm – 4th June 2022

Sweden's NATO bid: 'We are not naive,' defense minister tells DW

Russia's invasion of Ukraine "fundamentally" changed the way Swedes thought about joining the NATO military alliance, Swedish Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist told DW.

DW – Rebecca Staudenmaier – 1st June 2022

Finnish foreign minister optimistic that 'sooner or later' Finland and Sweden will be NATO members

Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto expressed optimism that "sooner or later, Finland and Sweden will be members of NATO" and said discussions with the Turkish government would continue as Ankara threatens to block the two nations from joining the defensive alliance.

CNN – Jennifer Hansler – 27th May 2022

Finland, Sweden to send teams to Turkey to discuss NATO bids, Haavisto says

Finland and Sweden will send delegations to Ankara on Wednesday to try to resolve Turkish opposition to their applications for membership of the NATO military alliance, Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said on Tuesday.

Reuters – 24th May 2022

Ukraine war: US fully backs Sweden and Finland Nato bids, Biden says

Sweden and Finland have the "full, total and complete backing" of the US in their decision to apply for Nato membership, President Joe Biden says.

Both countries submitted their applications to be part of the Western defence alliance this week, marking a major shift in European geopolitics.

To join the alliance, the two nations need the support of all 30 Nato member states.

But the move by the Nordic nations has been opposed by Turkey.

BBC News – 20th May 2022

Why some young Swedes remain uneasy about joining NATO

While the majority of Swedes are in favor of joining NATO, there are others who even took to the streets in protest. They warn the decision is rushed and that Sweden should better stick with its tradition of neutrality.

DW – Priyanka Shankar – 18th May 2022

Why has Erdoğan doubled down on threat to veto Nordic NATO bids?

After initial hesitation about the seriousness of Turkey’s objections, its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has doubled down on his threat to veto Finland’s and Sweden’s applications for membership of NATO, saying there is no point in either country sending delegations to Ankara to persuade him otherwise.

The Guardian – Patrick Wintour – 18th May 2022

Finland and Sweden may join NATO – but even they can’t guarantee that will make them safer

For a long time, the Nordic countries saw themselves as sleekly humanitarian, peace-keeping powers. To an unusual degree, the national identities of Sweden and Finland are bound up with their foreign policy: Swedes identify with a centuries-old tradition of neutrality, whereas Finns point to their talent for realpolitik, making the best of their volatile geography, which includes an 830-mile border with Russia. As both countries now formally submit their applications to join the North Atlantic alliance, each of them will forgo this deviation from the European norm. Finland in particular now seems poised to adopt a more standard-issue foreign policy. But at what price?

The Guardian – Thomas Meaney – 18th May 2022

Finland and Sweden’s historic NATO bids, explained

Finland and Sweden are seeking membership to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a historic shift for two traditionally non-aligned countries and a major expansion of the Western alliance as war continues in Europe.

Vox – Jen Kirby – 17th May 2022

Finland's Parliament likely to vote on NATO application on Tuesday

President Sauli Niinisto and the government decided officially on Sunday that Finland would apply for membership but the decision is pending Parliament's approval, which is expected with an overwhelming majority.

Debate in the legislature began on Monday and the first session finished more than 14 hours later, after midnight, after members gave 212 addresses on the topic, the vast majority in favour of joining.

Reuters – 17th May 2022

Finland formally confirms intention to join NATO

“Finland is applying for NATO membership,” said the country’s president, Sauli Niinistö, at a press conference. “A protected Finland is being born as part of a stable, strong and responsible Nordic region. We gain security and we also share it. It’s good to keep in mind that security isn’t a zero-sum game.”

The Guardian – Jon Henley – 15th May 2022

Turkey won't block Finland and Sweden joining NATO, Denmark says

Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod believes the NATO alliance will prove united on the potential accession of Finland and Sweden, despite signals from Turkey suggesting Ankara is not ready to support the historic expansion.

Newsweek – David Brennan – 14th May 2022

Opinion: In keeping with its 1939 tradition, Finland is saying 'nyet' to Vladimir Putin

Finland's membership in NATO would signal the end of over 70 years of Moscow's most enduring policy. This is a humiliation for Vladimir Putin, writes DW's Konstantin Eggert.

DW – Konstantin Eggert – 13th May 2022

NATO: New challenges for the alliance as Finland and Sweden inch closer to membership?

Finland has announced its decision to join NATO as quickly as possible, Sweden is expected to follow suit shortly. What does this mean for the alliance?

DW – Priyanka Shankar – 12th May 2022

Sweden plans to send NATO application next week, Expressen daily says

Sweden's government plans to submit an application to join NATO next week, following neighbour Finland in re-writing its post-World War Two security policy in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, daily Expressen said on Thursday.

Reuters – 12th May 2022

Finland must apply for NATO membership "without delay", Finnish leaders say

Finland must apply to join the NATO military alliance "without delay", Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and Prime Minister Sanna Marin said on Thursday, a major policy shift triggered by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Reuters – Anne Kauranen & Essi Lehto – 12th May 2022

Ukraine conflict: What is NATO and will Finland and Sweden join?

Boris Johnson has said the UK would support Sweden and Finland if they came under attack. Both countries are considering whether to join NATO, with a decision expected shortly.

BBC News – 11th May 2022

Is NATO's Nordic expansion a threat or boost to Europe?

Finland and Sweden, two neutral Nordic countries, are so alarmed by Russia's invasion of Ukraine that they are both now seriously considering joining NATO, as early as this summer.

BBC News – Frank Gardner – 9th May 2022

Scandinavian allies support Finnish, Swedish NATO bids

The Scandinavian members of NATO have given their full backing to the prospect of Finland and Sweden joining the intergovernmental military alliance.

"This is your decision and your decision alone. But be assured: If you decide to join, you have the full support from Denmark," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on the sidelines of a summit between the five Scandinavian countries and India on Wednesday.

DW – 5th May 2022

Sweden’s ruling Social Democrats divided on decision to join NATO

The first signs of a backlash to a possible Swedish application to join NATO have emerged within the ruling Social Democrats, at the start of a critical month in which Sweden and neighbouring Finland are expected to move rapidly towards a decision.

The Guardian – Patrick Wintour – 4th May 2022

The NATO accession Sweden never saw coming

On May 17, President Sauli Niinisto of Finland is scheduled to arrive in Sweden. He’ll meet with King Carl XVI Gustaf and the Swedish government before leaving the next day. And sometime during his visit, Sweden and Finland are expected to announce they’re both applying for membership of NATO. Finland has—remarkably—taken the lead, and Sweden is likely to follow, simply because if Finland joins there’s really no reason to not to do the same. Sweden is, in fact, NATO’s luckiest-ever joiner, a country swept into the alliance without having to lobby for membership and without its government even expressing a desire to join.

Foreign Policy – Elisabeth Braw – 29th April 2022

Putin is pushing Finland and Sweden into NATO’s arms

Mr. Rasmussen is a former secretary general of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and a former prime minister of Denmark.

When announcing Russia’s imminent invasion of Ukraine back in February, President Vladimir Putin mentioned NATO 40 times. It was clear he wanted to present NATO as the devil — but it wasn’t always like that.

New York Times – Anders Fogh Rasmussen – 25th April 2022

Going Nordic: What NATO membership would mean for Finland and Sweden

As they watch Russia unleash total war against a European neighbor, Sweden and Finland seem to agree: It’s finally time to join NATO.

With public opinion turning strongly in favor, both countries are inching closer toward formally joining the Alliance. Just this week, their prime ministers publicly telegraphed their strong support for such a move, though Finland appears more certain than Sweden and likely to move first.

But what would that look like? For answers we reached out to Leo Michel, a nonresident senior fellow at the Scowcroft Center’s Transatlantic Security Initiative and the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, who previously served as director of NATO policy at the Pentagon. Check out his responses to our questions below.

Atlantic Council – 15th April 2022

Will Finland and Sweden join NATO?

The war in Ukraine may bring NATO new members. Finland and Sweden are closer than ever to ditching their neutrality and applying to join. Bernd Riegert reports from Brussels.

DW – Bernd Riegert – 14th April 2022

Sweden’s decision to join NATO isn’t just about security

Will Sweden join Nato? The country looks set to join Finland in applying for membership, but the debate in Stockholm is far from straightforward.

New Statesman – Megan Gibson – 14th April 2022

Finland is closer than ever to joining NATO

Since 1945, Finland has sought cordial relations with its vast Russian neighbor. But Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine has emboldened champions of Finnish NATO membership — and made things harder for left-wing critics of the military alliance.

Jacobin – Tatu Ahponen – 13th April 2022

Finland and Sweden belong in NATO

Though fundamentally geared toward defense, NATO looms as a mortal threat to Russia in President Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical imagination. Mr. Putin has grown increasingly agitated with NATO’s eastward expansion since the Cold War’s end three decades ago, which has brought most of Europe under the alliance’s mutual security guarantee. Mr. Putin cited the need to prevent NATO from reaching Russia’s borders via the inclusion of Ukraine as one of his reasons to invade that neighbor on Feb. 24.

Washington Post – Editorial – 13th April 2022

In Sweden and Finland, even the skeptics are coming round to NATO bids

In Sweden, support for joining NATO among the population as a whole has risen from around 35 percent to 46 percent over the past month. In Finland, it has spiked to over 60 percent.

Politico – Charlie Duxbury – 8th April 2022

Putin’s strategic error

When Vladimir Putin began laying the groundwork for his invasion of Ukraine, he pointed to what he regards as the existential threat posed by the West encroaching farther into the post-Soviet space. Nearly two weeks into Putin’s devastating and costly invasion, that fear has turned into a self-fulfilling prophecy: The once-remote possibility of Ukraine joining the European Union and NATO now seems more plausible, and even in historically neutral countries such as Finland and Sweden (both of which are already EU members), public support for joining NATO has surged to record levels.

The Atlantic – Yasmeen Serhan – 9th March 2022

Swedish PM rejects opposition calls to consider joining NATO

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson on Tuesday rejected opposition calls to consider joining NATO following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying an application now would destabilize security in Europe.

Reuters – 8th March 2022

Finland, Sweden brush off Moscow’s warning on joining NATO

Finland and Sweden have brushed off warnings from neighboring Russia that their possible joining of NATO would trigger “serious military-political consequences” from Moscow for the two countries.

AP – Jari Tanner – 26th February 2022

Finland and Sweden wait for the Baltic states

The Baltic States used to be a problem for Russia. Now they are a headache for their Nordic neighbors, Finland and Sweden. Likely membership of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in NATO is forcing Finland and Sweden to reconsider their commitment to military nonalignment. Traditionalists in Helsinki and Stockholm do not like it a bit.

The Baltic enthusiasm for NATO and the Finnish-Swedish distaste for the organization stem from the same source: a refusal to believe that NATO has changed in any meaningful way. The Baltic states see it as directed against Russia and want to join it for that reason. The Finns and Swedes share the perception and reach the opposite conclusion: They want to hear nothing about membership.

New York Times – Risto E J Penttila – 25th January 2022

Russian threats against Ukraine could push Finland and Sweden toward NATO

Russian military threats against Ukraine and Vladimir Putin’s unpredictability are forcing Sweden and Finland to reconsider their policy of non-alignment toward NATO. If admitted, each would enhance security in NATO’s northeastern flank and put Russia on notice. NATO’s open door policy allows nation-states to initiate membership plans if they meet guidelines delineated in Article X of the North Atlantic Charter. Finland and Sweden are ideal NATO candidates.

The Hill – Chris J Dolan – 19th January 2022

Finland not negotiating about NATO membership, foreign minister says

Finland has no plans at present to join NATO, its foreign minister Pekka Haavisto said on Friday, amid heightened security tensions between Finland’s giant neighbour Russia and Ukraine.

“Finland does not discuss with NATO joining it, nor does Finland have such a project upcoming … Finland’s security policy remains unchanged,” Haavisto told reporters at a teleconference following a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in France.

Euronews – 15th January 2022

The hem and haw of Sweden’s relationship with NATO

To date, Sweden has looked at whether or not it joins NATO as a matter of identity and image rather than an existential security issue. After the end of World War II, Sweden chose to continue its policy of neutrality, which had served it well in both world wars and continued to do so during the Cold War. At the same time, it is a known fact that Sweden collaborated with Germany in World War II and has cooperated with NATO since the establishment of the Alliance. The essence and meaning of this cooperation have changed and it has now become a decisive factor in ensuring Sweden’s national security. There is increasing talk about joining the Alliance. The topic that has long been a taboo has entered the programmes of political parties.

ICDS – Riina Kaljurand – 22nd April 2019

I'm making a video game, which is sort of a mixture of a puzzle game and interactive fiction. I'm a little uncertain about some name and pronoun choices that I currently offer to the player and I thought that you guys might be able to help me.

The game is in English. At the beginning of the game, the player chooses the main character's name and pronoun. This is presented through two screens that offer the choices through textual narrative. It goes something like this, with [brackets] marking the options that the player can currently choose between.

This is the story of...
[...Alice Aster.]
[...Alan Aster.]
[...Al Aster.]

It is...
[...her story.]
[...his story.]
[...their story.]

Detached from the wider narrative context, this method may seem clunky, but I believe it works within the game itself. Mechanically, that is. I'm less sure about the options that I'm offering.

The player can choose any of the three options in the first screen and again any in the second, regardless of what they chose in the first. This affects the player character's name and pronouns used throughout the game.

Now, there clearly are also many other pronouns that people identify with in English, just like there are many other names. However, for technical and design reasons, it would be challenging for me to have the player freely type in their preferred name or pronouns, and neither can I really present a long list of options. At the same time, by condensing all non-binary choices into the most common (?) "their" and by assuming that "her" also equates to "she" and so on, I wonder if I end up coming across as someone who thinks they are on top of things, but clearly has only a very superficial understanding of the topic. Which, to be honest, might not be that far from the truth.

Similarly, of the three names offered, "Al" is intended as a more gender-neutral or non-binary option than the other two. Does that make sense? Would there be a better way to handle this? Are there names that better signal non-binary or gender-neutral identity?

Or am I simply approaching this wrong?

The game itself does not deal with gender identity. As you can see, I'm not the right person to write about the topic. The choice of gender in fact has relatively little effect on the story itself. The player also has no choice over other matters of identity, including their character's cultural background or family structure. The character is not intended to be the player, but someone whose story the player follows. But it still feels important for me and for the story to offer a choice about the name and the pronoun. And I wouldn't be comfortable with it being just a "traditional" choice between male and female, as it would quite explicitly imply and reinforce assumptions about the world that I think we should move away from as a society.

Not that my game is of course going to change the world in any meaningful way. But having worked on it for about six years now, it has been one long personal learning experience for me. And this feels like another opportunity to understand something better.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts and advice.