I originally asked this three years ago and got some great responses. Now that we have a lot more users active here and we're living three years in the future, I'd love to ask it again and see what comes up!

I'm interested in hearing about games that exist off the main map of gaming: games that I can't buy from any of the common storefronts and games that aren't easily playable through an emulator.

Examples of things I'm interested in hearing about:

• Long-forgotten abandonware
• Homebrew games for consoles
• Romhacks
• Legally dubious fan-games
• Total conversion mods
• ARGs
• Web games (not ones on sites like Kongregate/GameJolt though)
• Independently distributed games (that you can't get through, say, itch.io)
• Games for systems that aren't currently emulatable
• Games that have been removed from distribution
• Games with servers or content that are no longer operational
• Anything else you think fits the question, really

Tell me about the game(s) you know of and what makes them noteworthy.

What the recent Reddit protest cemented in my mind is how ineffective protest tends to be the larger and more entrenched an established order is. There's no real incentive to change because ultimately everyone knows that the protestors have little recourse.

If you want to enact change, just trying to get people enraged and trying to get them to express that rage is not a great tactic. What you need as an alternative for people to go to instead, because that's the only real threat that matters to the establishment, the threat of being replaced.

So to that end, I'd like to start a conversation about what it is that people need, and how we can arrange structures to get those things without needing to rely on external actors who don't have your interests at heart.

For example, community mesh networks are a way of expanding internet into more of a public amenity so everyone can have access to it.

Virtual power plants can allow communities to produce their own power reliably and reduce their reliance on major power providers.

These are the kinds of things I am interested in. I feel that the most effective way to push back against profiteering corporations is to simply reduce our need for them in the first place.

What are some good community oriented solutions to societal needs that you feel deserve more attention and interest?

I think the most interesting and individual suggestions come not from someone's absolute favorite book, but from the contenders, the runners up. These are more likely to reflect a niche interest or unique perspective imho. Anyway, if you are willing, please name some of your best lifetime book experiences.

Reddit refugee here, I've been posting my book reviews on /r/Fantasy for years and figured some of you all would be interested in a best of list. My full list of all book reviews can be found here, but most of the links are broken right now because the Fantasy subreddit is still private. Still, perhaps the titles, authors and keywords are helpful.

What I enjoy

A brief list of things I care about in books, to help you jugde whether your taste overlaps:

• a good balance of romance and plot, where there is prominent romance but never feels like the story is just about that
• quality prose and dialogue
• believable relationship development, including romantic tension and explicit payoff for it
• high stakes drama, be it interpersonal, warfare, duels, court politics or heists
• LBGTQ+ main characters and queer romance

Note that these aren't the only qualities of the books listed below, just generally what I look for. I'll also gladly take recommendations for fantasy books that fit these criteria if you have any!

Books

Kushiel's Legacy by Jacqueline Carey

A divinely blessed masochistic courtesan and spy uncovers conspiracies against the crown of fantasy France. This series is probably my absolute favorite for how it combines intrigue, romance, kink and action, all with excellent prose and characterization. It has deliciously horny worldbuilding and ends up telling an epic fantasy story with an incredibly unique protagonist.

Silver Under Nightfall by Rin Chupeco

A recent addition to my absolute favorites. The author described the book as "vampire couple finds himbo in the trash and takes him in". If you're not sold on that, imagine a vibe like Netflix Castlevania and The Witcher - vampire hunter who's highly competent but looked down upon, vampire science, undead threat, dark gothic kind of setting, sprinkled with some "who's the real monster actually?" philosophy.

A Dowry of Blood by S.T. Gibson

A Dowry of Blood is about healing from abusive relationships through murder. It's also walks an excellent line between being sexy and horrible. It tells the story of Dracula's "brides", and the beautifully messed up relationship the four of them have.

Note: this one can't be described as having a "romantic subplot", since that implies some sort of happy ending. You know, because of the murder. (that's not a spoiler, it's revealed on page one)

A Charm of Magpies by KJ Charles

A disgraced nobleman returns to England years after escaping his father and finds himself and his family estate haunted. He hires a magician - who happens to bear his family a grudge. The Magpie series is fast paced, highly entertaining, well written, and plays with some delicious power dynamics between its initially hostile and soon reluctantly mutually attracted main characters.

Folk of the Air by Holly Black

The only YA series on this list, Folk of the Air holds a special place in my heart for its delicious fairy court politicking and for not pulling its punches. The titular Cruel Prince is a wonderfully hateable love interest, and even though I feel a few years too old to properly enjoy this series, the stabby and vicious dynamics between the two leads is just wonderful.

Nightrunner by Lynn Flewelling

A young man gets innocently imprisoned and receives unexpected help from his cellmate: a spy, rogue, thief and nobleman. The latter offers him a way out and an apprenticeship, which leads to well... spying and thievery, but also sinister necromantic plots against the throne. The highlight of this series is the ongoing relationship development between its leads. Book 1-2 are fantastic, book 4-5 are really weird, but the whole series remains a favorite despite some strange choices.

Rook & Rose by M.a. Carrick

A skilled con artist, a masked vigilante that challenges aristocrats to duels, and a dashing crime lord turned nobleman. The Rook & Rose series shines in its rich worldbuilding and prose, but especially in its handling of its main characters' multiple secrets, cons and identities. And especially shines when those schemes start crumbling down and some of the secrets become unveiled.

If the third book in the trilogy sticks the landing later this year, this series will firmly establish itself among my all time favorites.

The Stariel Quartet by AJ Lancaster

Years after leaving her family, a young woman returns home for her father's funeral and soon needs to deal with a magical estate that has a mind of its own, and discover that there may be more magic in the world around her than she's realized. The Stariel series is cozy and home-y in many ways, but doesn't shy away from tension either, and I find myself still in love with the main characters even long after finishing the series. I also really enjoyed the spinoff, A Rake of His Own recently!

Harrow Faire by Kathryn Ann Kingsley

Most of the books on here are fantasy with romance, while this one sits more firmly in the capital R Romance genre. But it is dark romance ("villain gets the girl"), and features an absolutely unhinged love interest, a lot of murder, and an evil circus. The series isn't without flaws (some of the side characters get a bit too much page for
how flat they are, and the pacing is a tiny bit uneven in parts), but I blasted through all five (short) books in a week because I had so much fun with it.

The Last Binding by Freya Marske

This series takes place in an early 20th century England where a secret magical society exists in parallel to the world 'as we know it'. There's even a bit of magical British bureaucracy that reminded me of aspects of the Harry Potter books, though the series have little in common otherwise.
Every book in this trilogy follows the same overarching plot, but features a different pairing of main characters and romantic leads. It's queer, fun and fast-paced, though sometimes a bit on the fluffy and romancey side for my taste.

That's just a brief selection of favorites, I highly recommend heading over to the reddit post (I should back that up at some point with Reddit's future being a bit shaky rn) to find more titles.

Thank you for reading! There's lots more to say on each of theses books of course, but I didn't want this to get way too long.
Let me know if you found this interesting, if you have similar books you'd recommend to me, or just share if you also enjoyed any of these books. This is my first post on Tildes and I'm happy to meet new fellow readers :)

Hey there LEGO enthusiasts - wondering what you all do with kits after you build them? I really enjoy building LEGO (especially large complicated sets) but I don't want LEGO models taking over my house and getting dusty. What do you do?

Do you Fish? Do you eat them or let 'em go? How'd you get into it and what were the confusing bits? Memory of a good time or lessons you wished someone taught you?

Do you want to try but haven't ever been? Did you fish as a kid and never again? What would make it easier for you to give it a go? Tried your city's "learn to fish" programs? What if you had someone else clean and cook it?

If your experience or interest limited to digital fish only, what's your thoughts on why every game and its predecessor has fishing mini-games? It's the dangnabbit armageddon but let's pause and fish for a bit first. Wild.

inspired by this super cool thread on treasure hunting kind of fishing,

I've got a problem with my nextcloud and as tildes is my favourite nice place to ask for tech-support, maybe somebody here can help me with that.

I can start and run Nextcloud AIO without any problems. I can update the subcontainers without any problems. But the update of the Mastercontainer always fails and I don't kno why, only that it has to be something with docker.sock and permissions, but I could not resolve the issues, and google does not seem to be helpful (or I'm looking for the wrong stuff).

my update logs:

time="2023-06-14T12:47:59Z" level=debug msg="Sleeping for a second to ensure the docker api client has been properly initialized."
time="2023-06-14T12:48:00Z" level=debug msg="Making sure everything is sane before starting"
time="2023-06-14T12:48:00Z" level=info msg="Watchtower 1.5.3"
time="2023-06-14T12:48:00Z" level=info msg="Using no notifications"
time="2023-06-14T12:48:00Z" level=info msg="Only checking containers which name matches \"nextcloud-aio-mastercontainer\""
time="2023-06-14T12:48:00Z" level=info msg="Running a one time update."
time="2023-06-14T12:48:00Z" level=debug msg="Checking containers for updated images"
time="2023-06-14T12:48:00Z" level=debug msg="Retrieving running containers"
time="2023-06-14T12:48:00Z" level=debug msg="FIXME: Got an status-code for which error does not match any expected type!!!" error="Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?" module=api status_code=-1
time="2023-06-14T12:48:00Z" level=error msg="Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///var/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?"
panic: runtime error: invalid memory address or nil pointer dereference
[signal SIGSEGV: segmentation violation code=0x1 addr=0x30 pc=0x9f4a22]

goroutine 1 [running]:
github.com/containrrr/watchtower/pkg/metrics.NewMetric({0x0, 0x0})
	/home/runner/work/watchtower/watchtower/pkg/metrics/metrics.go:31 +0x22
github.com/containrrr/watchtower/cmd.runUpdatesWithNotifications(0xc0002fd830)
	/home/runner/work/watchtower/watchtower/cmd/root.go:375 +0x15e
github.com/containrrr/watchtower/cmd.Run(0xc00033c300?, {0xc000281300?, 0x4?, 0x4?})
	/home/runner/work/watchtower/watchtower/cmd/root.go:168 +0x570
github.com/spf13/cobra.(*Command).execute(0xc00033c300, {0xc0000300b0, 0x4, 0x4})
	/home/runner/go/pkg/mod/github.com/spf13/cobra@v1.6.1/command.go:920 +0x847
github.com/spf13/cobra.(*Command).ExecuteC(0xc00033c300)
	/home/runner/go/pkg/mod/github.com/spf13/cobra@v1.6.1/command.go:1044 +0x3bc
github.com/spf13/cobra.(*Command).Execute(...)
	/home/runner/go/pkg/mod/github.com/spf13/cobra@v1.6.1/command.go:968
github.com/containrrr/watchtower/cmd.Execute()
	/home/runner/work/watchtower/watchtower/cmd/root.go:71 +0x52
main.main()
	/home/runner/work/watchtower/watchtower/main.go:13 +0x17

my startup command

sudo docker run \
--sig-proxy=false \
--name nextcloud-aio-mastercontainer \
--restart unless-stopped \
--publish 8080:8080 \
-e APACHE_PORT=11000 \
-e APACHE_IP_BINDING=127.0.0.1 \
--volume nextcloud_aio_mastercontainer:/mnt/docker-aio-config \
--volume /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock:ro \
nextcloud/all-in-one:latest

output after start:

Trying to fix docker.sock permissions internally...
Creating docker group internally with id 998
WARNING: No swap limit support
Initial startup of Nextcloud All-in-One complete!
You should be able to open the Nextcloud AIO Interface now on port 8080 of this server!
E.g. https://internal.ip.of.this.server:8080

If your server has port 80 and 8443 open and you point a domain to your server, you can get a valid certificate automatically by opening the Nextcloud AIO Interface via:
https://your-domain-that-points-to-this-server.tld:8443
++ head -1 /mnt/docker-aio-config/data/daily_backup_time
+ BACKUP_TIME=04:00
+ export BACKUP_TIME
+ export DAILY_BACKUP=1
+ DAILY_BACKUP=1
++ sed -n 2p /mnt/docker-aio-config/data/daily_backup_time
+ '[' '' '!=' automaticUpdatesAreNotEnabled ']'
+ export AUTOMATIC_UPDATES=1
+ AUTOMATIC_UPDATES=1
+ set +x
{"level":"info","ts":1686746753.2700157,"msg":"using provided configuration","config_file":"/Caddyfile","config_adapter":""}
{"level":"info","ts":1686746753.2748601,"msg":"failed to sufficiently increase receive buffer size (was: 208 kiB, wanted: 2048 kiB, got: 416 kiB). See https://github.com/quic-go/quic-go/wiki/UDP-Receive-Buffer-Size for details."}
[14-Jun-2023 12:45:53] NOTICE: fpm is running, pid 106
[14-Jun-2023 12:45:53] NOTICE: ready to handle connections

I tried to change permissions on /var/run/docker.sock
I tried to change permissions on /lib/systemd/system/docker.sock

same but with restart of docker.sock
same but with restart of docker.sock and docker.service

nothing helped

does somebody know where I go wrong or can me point in the right direction to resolve this problem? It's not a game stopper as I can update the container manually, but it is annoying.

edit: it runs on a ubuntu server 20.04.6 LTS

I don't know if I'll do this every week but I figured now is as good a time as any to start. With their new show AEW Collision premiering this Saturday on TNT at 8pm Eastern featuring the return of CM Punk, their upcoming Wembly Stadium All In PPV (which is their equivalent to Wrestlemania), and the Forbidden Door collaboration show with New Japan Pro Wrestling, there has never been a better time to jump into AEW. That being said, welcome to the very first AEW Dynamite tildes discussion thread for June 14, 2023! We're returning to the Capital One Arena in Washington D.C., home of the very first episode of Dynamite that I was fortunate enough to attend.

MATCH CARD

World Title Eliminator: MJF vs Adam Cole

After a break from the spotlight, AEW World Champion MJF is stepping back into the ring to face Adam Cole in a high-stakes World title eliminator. Can Cole seize the moment to secure his title shot, or will MJF demonstrate the truth in his claims of a lack of competition?

Trios Match: Blackpool Combat Club vs The Hung Bucks

Riding the wave of their victory over The Elite at Double or Nothing 2023 PPV, the Blackpool Combat Club—made up of Jon Moxley, Claudio Castagnoli, & Wheeler Yuta—are set to square off once again against Hangman Adam Page and The Young Bucks. Can they replicate their previous success, or will The Hung Bucks turn the tables?

Women’s Title Match: Toni Storm (c) vs Skye Blue

In the first defense of her second reign, Toni Storm is up against Skye Blue, the current #1 contender after winning the 4 way last week. Will Skye Blue bring another upset and put an early end to Storm's first "non-interim" reign or will The Outcasts interfere as usual?

TNT Title Match: Wardlow (c) vs Jake Hager

Even as his feud with Christian Cage and Luchasaurus continues, Wardlow has issued an open challenge for his TNT Championship this week on Dynamite. Jake Hager has stepped up to the plate. Can he prove to be more than a practice match for Wardlow or will Wardlow get his win back from their MMA rules match a few years back?

8-man Tag Team Match: Mogul Embassy vs Sting, Darby Allin, Keith Lee, and Orange Cassidy

The Mogul Embassy, led by Swerve Strickland, is set to confront their rivals in a massive 8-man tag team match. Can they overcome the combined forces of Sting, Allin, Lee, and 'Freshly Squeezed' Orange Cassidy?

Additional Information

• Venue: Capital One Arena, Washington D.C.
• Airing Live On: TBS at 8pm Eastern Time

A short story

Last night, I posted an article about fraud related to COVID funding in the United States.

I debated about where to put it. Was it ~news since it was an investigative report that was just released? ~finance because it was about money? ~health because it was about COVID?

In reading through other comments here, especially related to our current group structure I’ve noticed other people expressing similar sentiments about submitting things.

The same goes for tagging your topic. What are the right tags? What if I use the wrong one? There’s a non-negligible amount of anxiety regarding submitting things to the site.

If you go to the article I posted, and then click Topic Log on the sidebar, you can see what got changed. I realized I forgot to add the tag usa. You can then see that another user changed the capitalization on my title, moved my post from ~news to ~health, and added additional tags.

The betrayal(?)

Someone moved my post? Someone changed my title? Without telling me?! 😡

Yes, they did, and I’m here to tell you that I couldn’t be happier about that. It’s not a betrayal; it’s a collaboration. 🥰

Submissions on Tildes aren’t like other places. You won’t get your hand slapped here for not following the right protocol, especially because there’s not a fully clear protocol in the first place. Topic placement, tagging, and titling are all things that often require judgment calls. It’s not uncommon for the titles we see on Tildes to actually differ from published titles to make them less clickbaity or clearer, for example.

Furthermore, Tildes isn’t a place where people are competing to post content. There’s no karma to be harvested or influencers to influence. On other sites, big news items will often get dozens or hundreds of duplicate posts because, on other sites, who posted the content matters a whole lot. People will post and repost things because it’s important that they, individually, get “credit” for that.

Tildes works a bit differently, with submissions being owned more by the community at large rather than individual posters. It doesn’t mean we don’t have our own content (and it definitely doesn’t mean someone can or will edit the actual body of a post, like what I’m writing here), but more that the content’s place and appearance in the community is something we work together on. If you want to discuss something and you see someone already posted it here, that’s not a bummer — it’s a great thing! It saves you some work, plus you know at least one other person is on the same page as you and wants to discuss the same thing.

Which group should this go to? Which tags should I use?

Don’t worry too much about those things! We’ll collaborate on them. There are several users here who are librarians of Tildes, dutifully organizing submissions behind the scenes.

When I first started posting, I was nervous about getting my tags and title exactly right. I’d occasionally post a title with a typo and cringe, hard, wondering if I needed to delete the post entirely.

Now, when I post, I’m happy that if I don’t know what to do exactly or I make a mistake, someone else will come along and help me out with it. No more anxiety!

I hope all our new users can feel that way too. Having your submissions reorganized is not combative; it’s collaborative. Don’t stress about posting anything perfectly. Someone will help you out if need be.

Hello there
(oh god, I am opening my first thread here - so exciting)

I'd love to ask the people here about local LLMs.
To be honest, I got interested in this topic, but am leaving reddit, where a sub r/locallama exists.
I don't want to interact with that site anymore, so I am taking this here.

My questions, to start us off:

• Models are available on huggingface (among other places), but where do I get the underlying software? I read "oogabooga" somewhere, but honestly, I am lost.
• If I only want to USE a local model, what are the requirements, and how do I judge if I can use something from the values of "4bit / 8 bit" and "30B, 7B"??
• If I get crazy and want to TRAIN a LorA ... what then?
• Good resources / wiki pages, tutorials, etc?

I recently earned the platinum for Riders Republic, its a fun game, takes around 40-45 hours to get the plat and outside of tricks battle mode its not too difficult, but I enjoy playing tricks battles.
I haven't moved on from the game after getting the plat though cause im levelling up to get elite level gear to win 64 player mass races, I got first place for the first time yesterday and consistently get podium finish

So, I’m moving to a new phone and revisiting a lot of accounts, apps, and settings.

When it comes to things like location history or ad personalization or whatever, is it even worthwhile to turn it off? Am I really supposed to believe that because I have some toggle off that Google suddenly doesn’t track where I drive on Maps? Like if they are going to be tracking me, which I assume they are, I might as well be able to see it to rather than have it exist in the aether somewhere where the info is attributed to me but not viewable in the UI.

Even with ads, I know shadow profiles are a thing, and that they definitely have data beyond what they show in the UI, so might as well opt in there too right? Plus, the non-targeted ads I get are basically porn-tier ads or stuff for gay men.

What should I do here? Move into the woods? Feels like I can’t win.

Interested to hear from anybody who plays Snap.

What's your thoughts on the current meta?

What do you find the Ghost Spider and Silk so far? Any other cards you're saving tokens ford?

Have you tried Conquest?

I'm mostly pretty casual. I'm free to play, and the highest rank I've reached is 70. I've been playing a my own attempt at a Sera Surfer deck lately (can't bring myself to net deck), and it's been pretty going well for me.

I've got mixed feelings about Conquest so far. Since you're matched up with the same player for several matches, it can be a bit more of a time commitment. And if you get an emote spammer, it can feel a it gruelling. But it helps me think about my matchups in more depth, which is actually kind of cool.

Hoping this is the right group?

Inspired by coffee/cocktail threads, here’s one for my favorite consumable, cigars!

Here’re some potential questions to maybe inspire some discussion.

• What have you smoked recently that has surprised or impressed you?

• What’s a favorite cigar memory?

• What’re your stogie rituals?

• What’re some recent acquisitions and why did you purchase them?

• What’s your #1 cigar rec of all time? What’s your top rec from something new to you in the last year?

• How did you get into cigars and how long have you been smoking?

And anything else!

I’ve discussed cigars extensively in various online spaces and I’m very optimistic about the idea of tildes’ text-only and highly discoursive environment to provide some cool cigar content and a bit more than just photos of half smoked sticks (which I love too but get a lot of!).

I’ll hit on a few of my icebreaker questions at once. My most recent smoke was a Plasecnia Alma del Fuego Eduardo I which was absolutely fantastic. A lot of pepperiness throughout, with a lot of earthiness and meatiness. Quite full bodied, phenomenal smoke production and a very easy draw.

This stick was new to me but I am no stranger to Plasencia. I’ve been closely following their growth the last few years and the Alma Fuerte Salomon was my top stick of 2022.

I’ve been here three days. I’ve only just begun to scratch the surface of what makes this place tick, and have only had a glimpse of the culture encouraged here - and I love what I’ve seen thus far.

Thanks to @deimos I now have five invites to share. Sure, they’ll be tracked if I’m being irresponsible by sharing them with nutcase randos, or if I put them up for sale on eBay (obviously I won’t!).

But I love this place so much already that I’m going to be super selective in my distribution.

I love that responsibility! As a newbie I get to be adulting, and it’s SO welcoming!

I was inspired to share this after seeing this comment on another thread: https://tildes.net/~talk/162y/not_entirely_sure_how_to_fill_the_void_reddit_has_left#comment-87j6

Again, new to tildes here, so not quite sure if this sort of thing fits. It's not really a question, more, sharing something I do that I thought could be interesting for others. Maybe it belongs in a different group.

So the last few years I've started doing this little exercise: I will pick a time frame (usually few days, but a 24 hour period is great). I will turn off the phone (not just silence, but turn it off), turn off my modem, turn off the radio and music, pretty much any electronic device, and just... sit there.

I get bored quickly. But when the boredom comes, I sit with it. I analyze it. I try to understand boredom itself, and the unpleasant sensation its causing. I try to be aware of any urge that comes to distract myself from it, and I deny that urge, and see what happens internally when I deny that urge.

The boredom is uncomfortable, I won't lie. I really want to do other things. But I realize I'm capable of enduring it, and I so I sit there, because I want to see what will happen. And then something kind of wonderful happens: once the initial discomfort passes, and I accept I'm going to keep doing this, in the absence of things to distraction myself with, my thoughts begin to gravitate towards things that are genuinely important to me. What are the problems that I want to solve? What are the ideas that I want to work on? How do I want to make the world a better place? (Not what the news tells me is important, or friends, or the internet, it's all fucking noise - what problems are important to me?) This sounds like it should be so obvious, of course you know what's important to you, right? But something about this exercise illuminates it (for me at least). Almost like, I've got this tiny little flashlight, that I can point to whatever is important to me (we all do). When I'm in society, connected, I find that everyone has their flashlight on. Then big companies, news outlets, whatever, they have these giant ones, spotlights, all pointing in different directions. When all of this is on at once, it's so bright I don't even notice my own. I'm constantly distracted. I start to wonder "huh, that spot is bright, I wonder if I'm pointing my flashlight there." It's so easy to get confused. It's only once I turn it all off, and the world is dark, that I can clearly see what I'm pointing at. It's just so easy then.

This is not meditation, actually it's pretty much the opposite. I am not trying to clear my mind at all. I'm trying to see where my thoughts go when it's free of noise. Where they go is very revealing to me.

I'm still uncomfortable with boredom, I don't think that's changed at all. But I've become comfortable with sitting with it, and the fruits of this exercise have made it worth it to me. Moreover, the more I've done this, the more uncomfortable I've become with all the noise. I used to think I loved being connected, but now that I realize I don't have to be, it's actually the opposite... I really don't like having my phone on, I don't like having my modem on, and I dislike news, politics, and lots of that kind of stuff. It makes me feel almost claustrophobic. I find a lot of calm in being away from all of that. I'm still very grateful for these things, I just feel uncomfortable being connected to them 24/7, and I like to be away.

I rarely get ideas for fun writing prompts, but I love reading them and the stories they spark. Since Tildes doesn't have a community for just prompts, I'd like to see if a thread would be a replacement!

Rules:

Every new prompt is to be a top level comment and replies are to be child comments underneath the correct prompt. Mistakes happen, but my little heart can only stand so much messiness!

Intro & Tier Definitions

I've been mulling over a ski town tier list in my head for a few weeks and I was just thinking of putting it on paper when all the reddit stuff happened. So instead of posting it to /r/skiing I'm posting it here. This is completely subjective and is only based on the relatively small number of ski towns I've lived in or visited. My ulterior motive here is to get your thoughts on additions to this list along with which tier they should fall into... specifically S Tier places I haven't visited. I'm not doing any research - this is strictly based on my opinions from places I've personally been to.

A quick note: I'm only thinking about the towns themselves here. Not the quality of skiing, snowfall, or anything else. For the purposes of this ranking system, a 200' hill in the Midwest with a great little town at the base would fall into S Tier while 10,000 acre mega-resort with a $10B purpose-built resort village would fall into B Tier.

Here's my completely subjective ranking system:

S Tier: S tier is the "perfect mountain town". These towns typically existed prior to the ski area, and still have a strong community of locals living right in town keeping things vibrant (admittedly, in most places short term rentals have made that community smaller). The towns are also right at the base of the mountain; if they didn't run the plows you could ski from the top of the highest peak right down onto main street, pop your skis off, and start après.

A Tier: These towns are S Tier towns but for one problem - they're just a little too far from the actual ski area to ski right into town. You're going to have to hop in your car or take a bus, or take a long bike ride to get to town. While these towns are still amazing, beautiful places, they're not quintessential perfect towns for that one reason alone. I think for the purposes of this discussion the town has to be within a few minutes of the ski area. Most of these towns will have a B Tier style village at the base as well, but the village isn't the focus here.

B Tier: These towns aren't really "towns". They're purpose-built shopping malls or villages made for the ski area with condos and hotels. Unlike A Tier towns, they don't have a nearby "real" town to tie onto. They may be big and vibrant villages, but they don't have (many) locals living in the core village area, and they never have.

C Tier: Basically a parking lot. Maybe a bar, cafeteria, and a ski rental shop. Usually have a larger town nearby to support some locals, but it's going to be too far away to feel like it's part of the ski area scene. Finally, I'm not really filling out C-Tier that much unless it has an interesting anchor town within 30 minutes or so. I'm also leaving off the dozens of Midwest and East Coast ski areas that I've been to because I frankly haven't skied east of the Rockies in so long that I don't think I could properly categorize them based on memory.

S Tier

• Telluride
• Breckenridge
• Park City
• Aspen (Ajax)
• Heavenly: If memory serves, you can't actually ski to town. But you take a gondola down to town instead of a car/bus so I'm counting it as S Tier. Also South Lake is an interesting take on a ski town. I was on the fence but I'm leaving it in S Tier.
• Kleine Scheidegg-​Männlichen-Grindelwald-​Wengen: you have to take a train to Interlaken but I think the "villages" here count as actual towns, so this is S Tier.

A Tier

• Steamboat Springs: Almost S Tier. I think if you really tried you could ski from the top of Pony Express into town.
• Silverton
• Whitefish: should maybe be B Tier. I can't remember how close Whitefish (the town) was to the actual ski area.
• Crested Butte: I initially had this in S Tier based on memory, but after looking at the map I realized it was a little further from the base to town than I remembered.

B Tier

• Jackson Hole: this was a tough one. Jackson, WY is one of the coolest towns I've ever been to. Teton Village is also a great little base area. But Jackson is just too far from the tram to really bump this up to A tier.
• Vail: I've lived here since 2015 and I haven't met a single person who lives in Vail Village or Lionshead year-round. The north side of the highway doesn't count as a town, it's really just an amalgamation of box stores, strip malls, and parking lots...
• Keystone
• Beaver Creek
• Aspen (Snowmass & Highlands): not really close enough to Aspen proper to go into A Tier. But close...
• Winter Park
• Big Sky
• Copper
• Squaw
• Kirkwood

C Tier

• Arapahoe Basin: close to Dillon / Frisco / Breck.
• Aspen (Buttermilk): I've only been here during X Games but I think without all that infrastructure they bring in it would just be a parking lot and a cafeteria. I might be wrong. Close to Aspen.
• Monarch: close to Salida.
• Ski Cooper: close to Leadville.
• Bachelor: close to Bend.

Edit: I'll append this list with your suggestions if you'd like to add to it.

Edit 2: The lists within the tiers are in no particular order. I just happened to type them in that order when I thought of them.

What do you like to do after getting home from work?

I'm a software developer and usually feel mentally exhausted by the time I get home, so I like to unwind. I kick back on the couch, play my latest YouTube subscriptions on the TV, and browse through the day's worth of social media.

It's pretty mindless, but that's exactly what I need before tackling dinner and everything else.

I understand how distributing bond etfs could work, you get part of the coupons when the etf distributes profits, which compensates somewhat for the price changes of the etf. Interest rates would affect the price of the etf but that would be partly compensated by the distribution.

But how does this work on accumulating etfs? If the profits are always reinvested in the fund, shouldn't the price of the fund always go up? Assuming all/most bonds dont default, interest rates would affect the price but that would be compensated by the reinvested profits?

I am missing something here, dont see the point of a bond etf if the price can change so much.

I have lost my r/finch community, and am feeling curious to see if there are any folks here who also find apps can be helpful for their mental health.

I struggle with anxiety and am processing a lot of grief, and may or may not have ADHD (I am in the process of getting tested, but it takes a while). My experiences with therapy are a bit mixed, so I am currently going down the route of trying to DIY my wellness a little. Starting simple with things like, sleep more, try to focus on drinking enough, go out in nature, switching off podcasts and phones and reading more. It's actually helped me, bit by bit.

One of my 'tools' is an app called finch, a virtual pet that encourages you to set goals, check in how you are feeling, journal, do mindful breathing and such. I tried many things and this app is the one that stuck and actually works.

Just wanted to ask, do any others here use wellness apps? And have they worked for you? Which do you recommend?

Just to be clear, I mean apps that work as a stand alone solution, rather than apps like 'better help' which ultimately just connect you to a therapist. Although Better Help has its uses too!

This might be a strange topic, and I'm not sure if others can relate, or if I am 100% strange here. Feel free to remove(?) this if it's not relevant.. This is just something I'd love to learn the experiences of others about and get some ideas, as I imagine everyone is so different.

So, I have a very annoying problem: I don't experience emotions very strongly (e.g. while some folks get moved by films or art, or maybe get worked up with joy or frustration in life, I seem to be far more emotionally neutral, even in very extreme situations.) This can be very useful (emotions can be misleading and lead to poor decisions), but also problematic and limiting (emotions can feel nice, help with creativity, it's a good way to express love to people, etc).

Occasionally, I do feel little bits of emotion, but they tend to go away very quickly. I really wish I felt more, but I don't know how.

I'm curious about the emotional experiences of others. Do you get naturally emotional? Could you cry from watching a movie? For those like myself who have underwhelming emotions - what does make you feel emotional? Do you have any tips or tricks for feeling more emotional, or, hanging on to emotions when you do get them? Has anyone ever been able to "overcome" this issue of not feeling emotions?

Thanks for any insight.

EDIT: If this is not the correct group for such a topic, please do let me know, and I will remove it.

For creating link topics, see Posting on Tildes in the official documentation.

When you don’t see the discussion you want, you can create a new topic. Starting a new Tildes topic is pretty easy. However, It can be done in better or worse ways, so here are some tips:

1. Choosing a group

Don't worry about this too much. Unlike subreddits, Tildes groups mostly don't have their own rules or subcultures. They're folders for organizing topics. If you put a topic in the wrong place, someone will move it. Either ~talk or ~misc are good if you don't know where to put it.

But you do need to click on a group to go to the group's page. Then look in the sidebar on the right side. (If you're on mobile, you will need to open the sidebar.) There's a blurb explaining what the group is about, and a button under it to start a topic.

2. Choosing a good title

For discussion topics, a question often makes a good title.

Tildes has users from all over the world. Asking people to share their own experiences lets anyone participate and you can learn interesting things about people in other places.

• Bad: "What do you think of this terrible weather?"

• Better: "What's the weather like where you are?"

Discussing a specific weather event would also be fine, but you need to say where it is.

A downside to asking a very generic question is that it might get more attention than you're hoping for. (For example, you might get advice that's not relevant where you live.) If you want to narrow things down geographically, be specific about which country or region you're interested in. We probably don't yet have enough users for hyper-local topics to get many responses, but feel free to try.

3. Writing an introduction

For a discussion topic, you skip the link box and write something in the box below it. You can write whatever you like here.

3a. Setting ground rules (optional)

Sometimes you have something specific you're looking for and it helps to make a sort of game out of it by making up some rules. A good example is @kfwyre's AlbumLove topics. If you just ask for music recommendations, people are going to answer in any old way, maybe by making long lists. So instead the game is to review one album.

Tildes users are usually pretty cooperative as long as you make it clear what you're looking for and the game isn't too weird. (And if they get the rules a little wrong, it's usually not a big deal.)

4. Tags (optional)

This is optional because if i you skip it, someone will do it for you, but if you want to help out, there is more about tags in the official docs. You could also look at similar topics in another window to see what tags we use.

5. Seeding the topic (optional)

After posting the topic, you might want to add some top-level comments to get it going. For example, if it's a megathread then you might put a link to a different article in each reply. Or, if you have a lot of questions to ask, you could put each question in a separate comment. This would keep the answers to each question separate.

6. Encouraging discussion (optional)

You will see a notification at the top of any Tildes web pages you visit whenever someone posts a top-level reply in your new topic. Replying and upvoting (if warranted) will help keep conversation going. Conversation encourages more conversation. You can do a lot even without any formal “mod” powers. (Some users also have ability to label replies, which affects sort order.)

Okay, that's it for me. What are some tips you have about starting new topics? One tip per comment, please! <= See what I did there?

I'm having some trouble getting the local developer environment set up on Apple hardware, specifically it seems because Virtualbox, which is used as the provider, is not properly functioning on Apple hardware.

Is there anyone here who has managed to get it up and running?

I'm getting on a 5 hour flight later today. I've got my Android phone (S22 Ultra) and cheap Android tablet (Lenovo P11 G2) with me. What are some of your favourite games you'd recommend to pass the time?

Because I'll be on a plane they'll have to playable without an internet connection. I also don't have any controllers with me, so would prefer games with decent touch controls. I'm open to any genre, but I particularly like RPGs. Thank you in advance!

Many years ago I used to record a variety of music on an old Macbook and a dodgy copy of Logic Pro with various Native Instruments VSTs.

I had so much fun playing the drums badly on my midi pads, tightening them up in Logic, and then doing random stuff with the beat editor (changing velocity curves for specific notes like hi-hats, adding in random hits) to make it sound less rigid. Then maybe I'd record my acoustic guitar with my crappy mic, throw some reverb on it, add some vocals. Man, it was a blast!

It's been over a decade since I did that, and now I'd like to get back into that world again and produce some of my own backing music for my YouTube and TikTok videos, but I honestly don't know where to start.

I guess the big difference now is that I'm on Windows, and there is no Logic Pro here. The Ableton and Maschine layouts don't really make sense to me (I think these are more loop driven?). Reaper seems quite spartan compared to how I remember Logic (I know this is probably not actually the case, but the discoverability is not great imo).

If anyone has any suggestions about where I should start - I'm mostly looking for something that has the same layout as Logic did 10+ years ago (or at least, something that would feel similar and intuitive)- a big timeline where I can drag stuff around and try different arrangements, a piano editor I can break out at the bottom, a drum editor I can break out, set the note length and just drag my left-clicked mouse across to have a million hi-hat hits and then play around with deleting different hits until I get the right vibe, the draw the velocity across all of them easily.

The gear I have right now:

• Maschine MK3
• Some M-Audio super mini midi keyboard
• An old-school Metric Halo ULN-2 (this thing STILL costs a thousand bucks?!)
• A few Shure mics and a Wave 3 USB mic

Thanks in advance!

So I'm 20, in the US (California to be exact), and I'm planning to (secretly) move out of my parents' house sooner or later. I have a plan and all that, but I'm a bit anxious since I know nothing about finance. I was never taught about it at school beyond some surface-level vocabulary words (no personal finance. Only like how econ is related to governments and all) and I grew up with a dad who thought he was being selfless by making sure I never had to think about money ever. Mix that in with some good ol' learning problems and I'm clueless about money

Here are some things I learned to give an example of what I mean when I imply I'm absolutely clueless:

• Apparently taxes will sometimes differ from each store I buy from. I have not learned how or why each store has a different percentage (I thought it was by state), just that it sometimes does
• Also, groceries don't have taxes, but they tend to cost more than the pre-packaged stuff
• Speaking of taxes, apparently if you make enough for them you can completely ruin your parents' taxes if you forget to communicate with them. Luckily, I didn't have to learn this the hard way, but I suddenly realized why people who were keeping their jobs a secret from their parents were concerned about making too much
• Credit cards are like a loan that you are forced to pay monthly. I legitimately thought the money was directly transferred from your bank account to the card, but no, it's from this storage in the bank that they have where they take your and everyone else's money and lend it to others
  • This was also why I was so confused as to why the banks collapsed right before the Great Depression
• A lot of things only take credit cards. For example, paying a house via cash is literally impossible, which is why you need to rely on a bank (to my disappointment). In fact, living bankless will only cause more problems than it does save money
• I figured out what a lease was. No one taught me that and I never sought to learn it until I was asking for apartment rooms

I'm lucky in that I'm not paying any sort of bills or insurance, and that I'm still reliant on my parents for that. However, I really want to get away from them, even though I would be tied to my parents' insurance plans and all. (I don't think they will ever kick me out of them, no matter what I do.) I don't want to be thrust into something that's difficult to reverse, so for those of you who are older and know what you're doing, is there any finance advice you recommend? What should I expect money-wise when I move out? What has been a regretful decision you've made and what has worked for you?

Resources are also nice, though I'm wary of books that are only found online and thus, I need to pay to see what's inside.

It's pretty clear that those times are over, but I'm sure many of us remember the heydays of VC funded tech extravagance. These are the ones that come to my mind, hoping to hear others experience.

• At one point, uberpool was cheaper than the cost of public transport in the city.
• No sales tax on Amazon!
• So many promotions and code to get you to join in on their platform. This was also before they try to get you to subscribe to their monthly plans.

I'm a knitter, cross stitcher, and general nerd. I can't actually create at the moment due to probable carpal tunnel, but I would love to see my fellow fiber artists of any and all genders speak up.

As for me, it's more about the process than the product! I love Grandmother's Favorite dishcloths as a mindless knitting stim, or cross stitching on a project until my hands hurt.

ETA: I'm not trying to ignore everyone. I'm really excited with the responses I'm getting. I'm just fighting some serious pain this morning. I'll try to reply to folks as soon as I can think!

ETA2: This got bigger than I had hoped! I don't think I can catch up and reply to everyone, but I do appreciate reading everyone's experiences! Thanks for humoring me today.

I am mostly a TTRPG player, but lately I have been becoming a bit curious on wargaming.

I usually play TTRPGs because it allows a lot more freedom when compared to video games. However, I can't really see that much in wargaming that you can't get in video games. Is the appeal primarily a social one?

I am not bashing wargaming or saying that it's a bad hobby. I am just curious as to what the main draw is.
Thank you for any answers :)

@Deimos can tell us how many bans we've had so far on Tildes. Last count I knew was in the 50s months back, and some of those were the same person - out of 13,000 users. I'm sure it's rising right now, I'm also pretty sure it's still under a hundred, and I don't actually care if it's 1500. (Edit: It was four new bans, omg so nazi.)

If you take the time to learn something about social forums, you'll discover that 1% of the users cause 90% of the problems. Tildes will ban that 1% aggressively. Act like an asshole, attack someone, and you will find the door. You do not however have to tiptoe around like there are landmines here - nobody is going to ban you unless you start attacking other users or trolling all the time. You are in fact allowed to swear here, just not at people. Take a lesson from Louis Black - rants are best when aimed at inanimate objects. :)

Have you ever been to a nice big social party? Did you act like an asshole there? Did the bouncer throw you off the balcony? Probably not. That's because you didn't punch people in the face, piss all over the kitchen floor, or set the living room rug on fire while you were there (I hope). Try pretending that this is a real world party and adjust your behaviors accordingly. It is really not that difficult. Extend people here the same courtesy at a minimum that you would for a real world social gathering - maybe even go as far as you would for a black tie affair. The rest of us would appreciate it, I promise.

I'm sure by now most of you know about /r/redditalternatives. It's an old subreddit that has been collecting links to anything and everything even remotely like a social site for years that came out of the 2015 blackouts. Most of their favorites are long dead, and most of the ones they love now will be dead in a few years. They've been telling us we would be dead in two months for the last five years - which tells you how much their average user knows about social software. They are not exactly well read on the topic.

They are a useful link archive, and also a place for people to whine about the bans they've earned from other websites, or to shill for their own websites. Plenty of astrotrurfing for lemmy and squabbles going on there. Some of you folks are over there right now trying to sell them on Tildes, or worrying about the complaining about the bans.

I'd advise you not to waste your time commenting in that place. They do not want us there shilling, and you will never convince a redditor of anything due to the mindfuckery that place has inflicted on its users for decades. Let them be. Everyone who gets banned here (or on most other sites) posts a thread about it over there, and always has - this is tradition now. Laugh at it, like I always do. It's Shawshank all over again - everyone in there is innocent, lawyer fucked them.

Tildes was linked in the /r/videos post, which was #1 on reddit and why Deimos has an inbox taller than mount everest today. The 'secret' is out now. You do not need to go into forum warrior mode and try to defend Tildes. That's what your instincts are telling you to do, because 'tribes' are a thing, but it's not the right course of action. I guarantee you will have a better day if you just go for a ten minute walk, right now, rather than posting on reddit.

Frankly, bettervanilla's big collection here is the only useful thing to show up in that place in years, so good on them for giving that place a purpose again.

If you do want to help out, then use your invites. It's better if you pick, rather than just emails and invite threads. You do realize if Deimos tops everyone up to 5 codes, that's almost 100k new invites available and almost 20k people who can send them out, five at a time. This place is already past the point where it can die from the evaporative cooling effect, which did in fact have us on ice for a while there, but that's over now.

Look for conversations not where people are looking for alternatives, but where people are talking about real forums, pining for the old days of the internet, deep discussions, and complaining about cat posts and low effort content. Those are the people who will thank you for telling them about Tildes. Let's not be the same spamming, astroturfing jerks that every other website has become.

Edit: I take it back, this is also a remarkable post about the fediverse's moderation problems and I wish that place had more discussions of that nature. Also, Deimos says he banned 4 people in the last week, out of thousands of new users. Clearly, we're being unreasonable. :P

The Framework laptop is a completely modular, upgradeable laptop that comes pretty close to higher end laptops in terms of performance and "feel". For those of you who have/want a Framework laptop, what does your build look like?

I've got:

• 11th Gen Framework with Intel i5 (not the most powerful, but I wanted to get something quickly and relatively inexpensively)
• Dual booting Ubuntu and Fedora right now since they appear to have the best Linux compatibility and Framework community support
• Expansion ports: USB-C on the left and right so I can plug the charger in from a multitude of angles and directions! And I've got a grab bag of MicroSD, standard USB, etc. that can be switched out.
• I'll upgrade the system at some point -- unsure of whether I should stick with Intel or move to the new AMD board. I guess I'm not really sure of the benefits of doing so...

What OS are you using? What's your laptop build, and what plans do you have in the future? Have you had any major issues thus far?

Was recently feeling nostalgic over some RPGs I used to play back in the PS1 era and was wondering if anyone had some "hidden gems" they've been wanting to get off their chest? A couple of mine are:

Suikoden II

Azure Dreams

Personally I've received Earth and managed to get in a game at two players and another at five. I like the big stack of cards and the fact it plays so fast, but I think I prefer Ark Nova, which adds the tile laying puzzle too.

Earth does look funky by the end though, with all the shoots sprouting up from the table.

Also managed to get in a couple of rounds of Fugitive, the card based hidden movement game from Tim Fowers. I think this is an excellent little game to fill half an hour at the end of the evening. I keep eyeing up the events cards it comes with but have not yet been brave enough to actually play with them.

What have you all been playing?

I joined Tildes a couple of days ago, and I'm absolutely loving the interface and community.

In the last few days of using Tildes, I noticed a particular problem that was mildly annoying; if you have the "Collapse old comments when I return to a topic" setting on, and you click on a link that is supposed to lead to a comment in a topic you have already visited, it won't jump to that comment.

Searching around, I found a post about it from a day ago, in which long-time users have mentioned that it's been a known problem for a while now. In those comments, someone mentioned permalinks as a solution, but it appears that's still in the works.

For now, I've made a quick userscript that will address this issue (and adds some slight related functionality). It hasn't been thoroughly tested yet, so if any issues occur, please let me know. This userscript is designed to be used with Tampermonkey (a privacy-friendly alternate that should work is ViolentMonkey), which is available in all popular desktop browsers. Installation instructions for Tampermonkey are available on their site (it's installed like any other extension).

To install the script, you can head to this GitHub Gist which contains the code (click "Raw" to open the TamperMonkey install prompt), or you can copy and paste the code from the following dropdown block into a "New script" on the TamperMonkey dashboard. The dropdown is not guaranteed to contain the latest version.

// ==UserScript==
// @name         Tildes Comment Link Fix
// @namespace    https://gist.github.com/blankdvth/6da89fff580e8cf6e50f88847ddb5729
// @version      1.2.0
// @description  Fixes comment links (anchors) not working as a result of Tildes' comment collapsing feature.
// @author       blank_dvth
// @match        https://tildes.net/*
// @icon         https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?sz=64&domain=tildes.net
// @grant        none
// ==/UserScript==

/* 
    USER SETTINGS
    This script is not big enough to warrant a visual settings menu, so adjust settings here.
    true = enable, false = disable
*/
const alwaysRun_S = false; // If enabled, will always run the script, even if the comment was not collapsed (site works fine in this case). This is useful if you want to make use of the other settings.
const smoothScroll_S = false; // If enabled, will smoothly (animated) scroll to the comment. If disabled, will jump to the comment.
const uncollapseIndividual_S = true; // If enabled will uncollapse parent comments into one line instead of fully uncollapsing them.
const uncollapseChildren_S = true; // If enabled, will uncollapse all children of the comment. If disabled, will leave them collapsed.
const collapseIrrelevant_S = true; // The script uncollapses all parents to ensure the comment is visible. This will collapse irrelevant (not direct parent) comments again.
// END OF USER SETTINGS

/**
 * Uncollapses the comment if it is collapsed.
 * @param {HTMLElement} element Article element of the actual comment
 * @param {boolean} individual If true, will "uncollapse" into one line instead of fully uncollapsing
 * @returns {boolean} True if the comment was collapsed, false if it was not
 */
function uncollapse(element, individual = false) {
    if (element.nodeName !== "ARTICLE") return false;
    var removed = false;
    if (
        !individual &&
        element.classList.contains("is-comment-collapsed-individual")
    ) {
        element.classList.remove("is-comment-collapsed-individual");
        removed = true;
    }
    if (element.classList.contains("is-comment-collapsed")) {
        if (individual)
            element.classList.add("is-comment-collapsed-individual");
        element.classList.remove("is-comment-collapsed");
        removed = true;
    }
    return removed;
}

/**
 * Uncollapses all direct parents of the comment.
 * @param {HTMLElement} element Article element of the actual comment
 * @param {boolean} collapseIrrelevant If true, will collapse irrelevant comments again
 * @param {boolean} individual If true, will "uncollapse" into one line instead of fully uncollapsing
 * @returns {boolean} True if any parent was collapsed, false if none were
 */
function uncollapseParents(element, collapseIrrelevant, individual) {
    const relevant = []; // List of relevant elements (direct parents)
    var wasCollapsed = false; // Whether any parent was collapsed
    while (
        element.parentElement &&
        element.parentElement.nodeName !== "SECTION"
    ) {
        element = element.parentElement;
        relevant.push(element); // Add parent to relevant list
        if (uncollapse(element, individual)) wasCollapsed = true;
        // Collapse all irrelevant sibling comments (if feature enabled)
        if (collapseIrrelevant && element.nodeName === "ARTICLE") {
            element
                .querySelectorAll(
                    `article#${element.id} > ol.comment-tree > li.comment-tree-item > article:not(.is-comment-collapsed)`
                )
                .forEach((child) => {
                    if (!relevant.includes(child))
                        child.classList.add("is-comment-collapsed");
                });
        }
    }
    return wasCollapsed;
}

/**
 * Uncollapses all direct children of the comment.
 * @param {HTMLElement} element Article element of the actual comment
 */
function uncollapseChildren(element) {
    element
        .querySelectorAll("article.is-comment-collapsed article.is-comment-collapsed-individual")
        .forEach(uncollapse);
}

(function () {
    if (!location.hash.startsWith("#comment-")) return; // Not a comment hash
    const comment = document.getElementById(location.hash.substring(1)); // Get comment element
    if (!comment) return; // Comment does not exist
    // Uncollapse the comment itself, and it's parents, then perform other actions if needed/enabled
    if (
        uncollapse(comment) |
            uncollapseParents(
                comment,
                collapseIrrelevant_S,
                uncollapseIndividual_S
            ) ||
        alwaysRun_S
    ) {
        // Uncollapse all children (if feature enabled)
        if (uncollapseChildren_S) uncollapseChildren(comment);
        // Scroll to the comment
        if (smoothScroll_S) comment.scrollIntoView({ behavior: "smooth" });
        else comment.scrollIntoView();
    }
})();

I love it here on Tildes, so I figured It's time to give back to this community in the best way I know how...through my obsessive love of niche electronic music!

SO HERE WE GO!

Kicking off a weekly post series to bring you 10 of the best (note: in my humble opinion and in no particular order) new Drum & Bass + Jungle music from across the scene! Tildes is a great place for discussion and discovery, so I thought hey, why not get the community going myself ;)

Don’t want to read all this stuff? TL;DR - You can find the songs shared here on this Spotify playlist. Follow for new stuff every Monday. Have no clue what Drum & Bass is? Start here!

Hugh Hardie + In:Most & KOJO - RWTS [Soulvent]

Listen: SPOTIFY | APPLE

Hugh Hardie returns with another sublime slice of jazzy, throwback Drum & Bass that’s equally great for sunny days or hazy nights, with a lovely vocal performance from Kojo that soars over Hardie’s as usually excellent drum work.

Nia Archives + Off Wiv Ya Headz [Island]

Listen: SPOTIFY | APPLE

Jungle revivalist Nia Archives cracks another one out of the park with her clattering, rattling and oh so addictive ‘Off Wiv Ya Headz’, channeling the ghosts of Remarc and Congo Natty to reformat them for the new millennium.

Basstripper - Left Me Bleeding [Self Released]

Listen: SPOTIFY | APPLE

DNB Allstars alum Basstripper is on an unstoppable tear lately, with ‘Left Me Bleeding’ keeping it classic with neon bright hardcore flavour and a bouncy bassline that’s definitely got the energy.

Jonth - Even The Stars [Discover]

Listen: SPOTIFY | APPLE

Firmly flying amongst the stars, this trance-flavoured peak hour tune is overflowing with energy and emotion.

Jam Theives - Disco 45 [Technique]

Listen: SPOTIFY

Jam Theives are back with another deep and dirty little dub on Bassline Smith’s Technique Recordings. Hypnotic and pneumatic in equal measure, this is another itchy little number who’s clipped, metallic soundscape almost forces you to move your body.

Phibes - Bang Bang [Phat Planet]

Listen: SPOTIFY | APPLE

Phibes are on a roll lately with another uptempo tune on their own Phat Planet imprint. Much like their previous release ‘Bassdrop’, this one’s packing a rapid-fire, wobbly bassline that gets under your skin, paired with a big ol’ breakbeat that propels this one into prime time.

The Sauce - Hypnotic [TSR]

Listen: SPOTIFY | APPLE

DNB Trio ‘The Sauce’ return with another self-released DJ tool that’s definitely due for some attention with it’s addictive kick-step rhythm and buzzing bassline.

Levela x Eksman - Zone Out VIP [LVL]

Listen: SPOTIFY

Levela bringing the throwback energy on this one, with some classic Renegade Hardware style sirens and a rough and rugged vocal from the legendary Eksman. Definitely not one for the summer picnic.

Toronto Is Broken ft. Natty Lou - Altered States [FiXT]

Listen: SPOTIFY | APPLE

A nasty little number with an unabashed punk / industrial influence proudly on its sleeve. Great vocal from Natty Lou and some crunchy drums play off TiBs sonic warfare for another big tune from LA’s FiXT camp.

DNMO ft. Wolfy Lights- Bombalaya [UKF]

Listen: SPOTIFY | APPLE

Rounding out our wrap-up (or wrapping up our round out?) with the short, sweet and oh-so sublime ‘Bombalaya’ from DNMO on the mighty mighty UKF imprint. Pairing jazzy influences with heavy bass, not disimilar to Camo & Krooked’s SMASH ‘Sientelo’, this is another Latin-flavoured Ear Worm that wont live your top tracks all summer long.

SO what are YOU listening to this week? What do you think of the songs above? Share what DNB you're into below and let's keep the vibe alive...

Disclaimer: This is just an observation of changing dynamics on Tildes! I don't mean to suggest any sort of way that Tildes should or shouldn't be.

I've noticed over the past few days that the Tildes front page has become filled with Ask posts. My best guess as to why is that these posts are the easiest to create and respond to? They're an easy way to spark discussion, generating lots of bumps back to the front page.

Now, I love seeing folks connect over all these niche topics and experiences. It feels like folks here are finding their people after losing the tight knit communities they had on Reddit, and that's lovely! In fact, it almost feels like these niche ask posts are acting as an impromptu replacement for the niche groups that Tildes currently lacks.

But, one consequence of this is that link posts get quickly pushed off the front page. I had noticed that link posts often struggled to generate discussion, even before the influx of new users. Longread articles and video essays take time to digest, and time to formulate opinions on. But now, I think this effect is compounded by the popularity of Ask threads, with fewer eyes dedicated to these links after they've left the front page.

Some closing questions:

• Have other users noticed this? How do you feel about this shift?
• Is there any merit to having a group dedicated to ask posts? Sort of like /r/AskReddit, but for Tildes? (That way, the posts can be easily filtered if a user wants to only see link posts.) EDIT: Filtering is possible already by filtering out the 'self post' tag, as suggested by @streblo.
• Should the visibility of link posts and ask posts on the front page be artificially balanced in some way?

I have an Aerogarden Harvest. It's a pretty neat little device I picked up a few years ago on sale, and I use it as a starter for my outdoor garden. My outdoor garden inevitably fails due to forgetfulness, rabbits, or bugs. This year, after my lettuce was ravaged for the third time, I decided I'd like to scale up my indoor growing solution. My wife is on board, albeit hesitantly as she knows I'm a utilitarian and give little concern to form once function is established. We have a relatively small space, and no out-of-sight-storage-rooms to utilize for the project.

In short: I'm looking for advice on small scale, low startup cost hydro/aqua/aeroponic DIY projects for leafy greens/herbs that can be made to be "cute" or at least finished-looking, rather than a heap of PVC and 5 gallon buckets.

My best guess currently is one of the single-tower vertical PVC pipe systems with a nice hardwood box built around the 5 gallon bucket sump (lipstick on a pig) or a stacked/tiered NFT system with a nice wooden frame and channels made from some "nicer-looking" gutter.

Has anyone here actually accomplished an indoor grow that they were allowed to keep in their kitchen?

Edit: There's been a lot of great input here. I'm still researching, and if anyone else is going down this road, this channel has been very informative: https://www.youtube.com/@KeepOnGrowin

In my infinite wisdom I posted this to r/myog yesterday, just before the blackout started. I'm going to repost it here as a way to gauge how well it fits in on Tildes – this type of post is pretty central to the r/myog community and I am hoping some of us can migrate here.
 

Goldilocks Pack

 
    In April of 2021, lo these many years ago, Reddit user savvlo posted in the r/myog Swap Thread that he was placing a wholesale order for Ecopak Ultra EPL200 and was wondering if anyone wanted a few yards. I had heard of this material and was eager to get my hands on some; none of the major UL pack manufacturers had started offering it yet and the only way to have an Ultra backpack was to build it yourself. I had the skills (4 or 5 packs already under my belt) and I aimed to be one of the first.
 
    Well, so much for that. I fell out of love with MYOG for a year or so, and by then the project seemed so insurmountable that I didn't even know where to start. I did plenty of designing and redesigning (because that's the fun part) but the truth was that I just didn't really need another backpack, so there was no motivation to start a project that would consume dozens of hours. And then finally, this spring, my trusty old Hyperlite started showing its 4000+ miles and gave me the kick I needed to actually make this damn thing.
 
    You can guess from the title that this pack fills a hole in my lineup – for years my two pack options were my 40L Windrider and my 27L summer pack, and most often I found myself wishing I had an in-between option in the 33L range. The MLD Burn fits right in that pocket and after seeing one in action on a high route trip with a friend I knew that was going to be my model. The overall dimensions of my pack match the Burn exactly; the main modifications I've made are to the pockets, straps, and components. The comments in the Imgur album go over the specifics.
 

*this is just my best guess, I don't have a good way to measure volume
 

Thoughts

    I'm from the Midwest and I hate tooting my own horn so you'll know I speak truth when I say that this is, undoubtedly, my finest work. Other than a few trivial mistakes everything pretty much fell together perfectly. This is not normally the case with my projects and naturally it makes me quite nervous.

    The one thing I can't get over is this fabric! I can't believe this stuff only weighs in at 3.5 osy. It feels so much tougher than the Hybrid DCF I'm used to working with; it's so hard to cut through even with my sharp sewing scissors. Only time will tell if this pack really is as tough as it feels, but my hopes are sky high. Thanks for reading and looking at my pictures!

I found it difficult to formulate a topic for this post, but I hope that you'll all "get" what I'm talking about.

You're reading something, maybe in a book, maybe an article online, maybe a comment on Tildes, or Reddit, or a Tweet, anything really.

Do you do anything with it? Do you save it somehow? Do you write it out in a dedicated notebook? Do you share it? If you do, how do you share it?

I'd love to hear about your approaches to this topic, the tools you use, what you like and don't like about your current workflows, the types of content you like to save, how you share it both with people that are close to you in real life, people who are close to you online, and maybe even strangers?

Also, how do you use it once it all ends up wherever it ends up? Do you even use it? Or do you just like the feeling of curating your own personal archive of things you read that meant something to you at some point?

I'll get the ball rolling:

I've gone through a long journey with this myself, starting with bookmarking older services like Instapaper and Pinboard, trying out newer services like Readwise before eventually creating my own (totally worth all the time it took to create now that I have my own "perfect workflow" to save everything from Kindle highlights to Tildes comments!)

I learn a lot from high quality comments online, so it's really important for me to be able to save them, however, I don't trust the built-in functions on sites like Twitter, Reddit etc. (for reasons hopefully now obvious 😅), and because I like to be able to search through them all in one place easily.

The main reason that I refer back to them is usually because I want to share something in conversation (either in person or online), and it's nice to be able to link to the source text quickly. I also like to be able to give people a glimpse into what I'm reading on topics that are important to me, and recently I'm thinking that the best way to do this is to go back to the 90s/00s and embed RSS feeds of my saved highlights on my website, split by topic.

I'm generally okay with the idea that I'm never going to "use" everything I save for anything particularly big or grand; it just feels nice to have a trail of text content that has been influencing my thinking over a long time period to look back on from time to time.

I've been using Obsidian for notes for a year now and iA Writer for writing prose for a decade (wow!) and love both of them for their simplicity, cloud sync, and most importantly, their innate ability to get out of the way and let me work.

But I'm always interested in other people's workflows! What do you use to write or take notes?

I know a lot of people have been asking for an app, if just for a home screen/app drawer icon, so I cobbled together a small WebView wrapper that installs on your phone as an app.

It's for Android only (sorry iOS users) and probably will receive very little support, since I'm not an Android developer! In fact, this is just a fork of the vastly more capable woheller69's gptAssist, ported over to support Tildes and with some limiting functionality removed. Absolutely check out some of their stuff! My app and the original gptAssist are both licensed under the GPLv3. If anyone would like to contribute, please do! In fact, if you're an Android dev, feel free to fork and make it much better.

I absolutely appreciate the design philosophy of the Tildes devs and think that a WebView wrapper is a good compromise between having an app and using the thoughtfully-built website. If you're anything like me, you just like being able to tap on an icon to get to where you're going. I put this together with that in mind.

I've lost weight, and regained, and lost, and regained more. Every method, I tried it, succeeding for months until not succeeding anymore and quitting (and regaining). Finally, starting in 2014 at the age of 51, I lost weight and I've kept it off.

In total, I've lost 125 pounds since July 9th of 2014, down from 298 pounds (135 kg) pounds to 171 pounds (78 kg). I'm male, 5'11 (179cm). I had a semi-desk semi-field job during most of this time, working as a jack-of-all-trades "IT guy" for a hospitality company with spas and restaurants and hotels in my region.

Today in The Daily Stoic book, I read from Epictetus, “In this way you must understand how laughable it is to say, ‘Tell me what to do!’ What advice could I possibly give? No, a far better request is, ‘Train my mind to adapt to any circumstance’….In this way, if circumstances take you off script…you won’t be desperate for a new prompting.”

In weight loss, I think it's a given that the most important step is to start. But after that gets going, to stay started and to adapt as you learn more and figure things out. Don't quit, even after caving in to a big eating day or weekend. Shake off the mistake and keep going. Don't quit in a plateau. Don't quit thinking you don't need to diet anymore or that your diet is too weird or untenable or that your body just won't ever lose weight. Instead adapt and continue.

Ultimately, Epictetus is right that this becomes not a diet with weird rules and tight restrictions, but a way to gain the training about how and how much to eat as ourselves. Not following a script but gaining the skills and second nature habits of living a healthy lifestyle. Ultimately, we have to keep off the weight we lose and still be eating the foods we grew up with, the foods our family and friends share, what was and will likely still be our long-term forever diet -- but tuned and tweaked so that we keep off the weight. If we start on keto or IF or cabbage soup, at some point transition to your regular and normal foods and figure those out. Those foods and food situations are in our future, so that's the puzzle we truly need to solve.

Even if we calorie count (and I do), the calories are just our data -- they're helpful to see the way but calorie counting itself is not the way -- the things we do, perhaps measured by calories, is what causes weight loss/gain to happen. A focus must be on shaping the internal long-term habits -- Train my mind to adapt to any circumstance -- so that the natural thing to do when life gets rough and distracting is going to keep us from gaining weight. We don't just eat healthy and light out of intention but also out of thoughtless, automatic "in the zone" or "flow" habit.