• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
    1. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of July 31

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

      This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      14 votes
    2. NSFW/profanity adult filter?

      EDIT: Post-locked topic I didn't get the chance to reply or explain myself, ironically, as I posted this topic last night and then woke up this morning to 42 comments this topic being locked. In...

      EDIT: Post-locked topic

      I didn't get the chance to reply or explain myself, ironically, as I posted this topic last night and then woke up this morning to 42 comments this topic being locked.

      In short, I didn't want to block swearing from Tildes, I just wanted to find out if there was a NSFW filter, as I had my first one pop up in the feed yesterday. Reddit and other sites allow you to block NSFW content from the get-go. And yes, it is the minority by far on Tildes.

      As for the swearing, I don't know why I assumed that the NSFW would remove that, I must have been tired when posting this topic. (And yes, I know that this is the internet and it's filled with non-friendly content, so it is naive to expect otherwise, sadly.)

      I guess it would just be nice to have a place where you can have both great quality posts (such as on Tildes), as well as the comments be free of some unnecessary, low-quality words. I think Twitter and others allow you to block some words or topics.

      I apologise for @Deimos that he had to step in to bring the peace, I didn't mean for this to happen. And apologies to the community for bringing any unrest. This was never my intention.


      Hi everyone, only been on Tildes for a few weeks now.

      First off, I love the quality of the content and the community's camraderie.

      The only question is whether there is a way to filter NSFW, adult or profane comments. There is such great content on here, with amazing contributors, but sometimes you just get the people who like to use profane language like it's an adjective, and it has no place in the topic or discussion. I know we can't block people, but is there a way of filtering out such content, comments, or users?

      21 votes
    3. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of July 24

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

      This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      13 votes
    4. How to get full-text RSS feed from medium.com ?

      I know medium has an RSS feed that can be accessed by adding /feed/ before the username/publication name but it's truncated if the publication has a paywall. I've been looking for a way to get the...

      I know medium has an RSS feed that can be accessed by adding /feed/ before the username/publication name but it's truncated if the publication has a paywall. I've been looking for a way to get the full-text feed but could not find a solution, it looks like it adds a parameter to the link in the rss feed, similar to ?source=rss-d00bc5bb7954------2 but I can't figure out how to remove it. any ideas ?

      7 votes
    5. Methods and tips on mindfully pruning of information intake

      I'm working on pruning the sources of information that come into my Readwise/Read Later feeds down based on usefulness/actionable in my life and quality. My priorities are for data sources to...

      I'm working on pruning the sources of information that come into my Readwise/Read Later feeds down based on usefulness/actionable in my life and quality. My priorities are for data sources to expand my 'reality tunnel', to provide unique insights (not an echo chamber), and to remove a lot of the 'noise' of the day-to-day information overload. I'm considering what those sources might be. If you have a moment, I'd appreciate your thoughts, advice, and links to any writings or videos that speak to this similar goal and how others have done it. Thanks in advance!

      Nick Milo said:

      The noise is deafening, but I promise to focus on the high-value signal.

      I'm seeking to reduce the noise, and increase the signal of my Reader feeds.

      12 votes
    6. Should we keep problematic posts visible rather than deleting them?

      There was a post here the other day asking women about their preferences in a partner's emotional attachment style (not the exact wording, but about as close as I can remember). The responses were...

      There was a post here the other day asking women about their preferences in a partner's emotional attachment style (not the exact wording, but about as close as I can remember). The responses were overwhelmingly critical of the framing of the question and how it mischaracterized the qualities of a healthy relationship. Upon looking at life.women a day or two later, it seems to have been removed.

      While I agree that the post showed problematic thinking and was kind of a nuisance post rather than one which fostered healthy discussion, I'm not sure I agree with removing it entirely. The original poster did not seem to have any malicious intent, but instead displayed a flawed internal view of healthy relationships. Though the feedback was likely not what they were hoping for, I think it could be instructional not only for that original poster but also for any other site visitors who may have a similar way of thinking. If someone were to read the post and not recognize anything wrong with it, only to then read the criticism in the comments, it's possible they may discover that their own thinking is flawed in a similar way to OP and seek to change the way they view the topic. If we hide every problematic question, people with similar thinking won't ever see that 1) other people have similar problematic views and 2) those views are problematic for reasons X, Y, and Z.

      More simply, if people come here and ask questions that we find distasteful, instead of deleting them should we leave them up with the relevant feedback so that other people learn from that interaction and develop a better idea of where the poster went wrong? It feels like there are a lot of folks out there that might be simply ignorant about social and relationship norms and could learn by example. If these people never see a post where someone is getting called out for their misguided thinking, how do we expect them to learn what's acceptable and what isn't?

      I'm curious to hear your opinions. Should we tolerate entertaining some troublesome questions in order to better educate others, or is it not our job to teach them proper social skills/those posts don't belong here at all?

      (To be clear, I do not support leaving up anything overtly abusive or malicious/hateful, those should obviously be removed ASAP).

      44 votes
    7. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of July 17

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

      This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      16 votes
    8. Thoughts on Notes/Blog/Personal Website Directory Structure

      :wave: everyone, I've been thinking about where to put non-technical blog posts and what to call them since, so far, I have bookmark/, cheatsheet/, howto/, note/, snippet/ and tutorial/ folders...

      :wave: everyone, I've been thinking about where to put non-technical blog posts and what to call them since, so far, I have bookmark/, cheatsheet/, howto/, note/, snippet/ and tutorial/ folders already[1].

      I think those cover most of the things I like writing about and I intend to share, but I also enjoy poetry, analyzing movies, political commentary and writing an essay here and there.

      Following from that, I kept essay/, poem/ and commentary/ around for whenever I felt like sharing some of my non-technical writings, but I don't like those folders :smile:. They seem way too granular, more akin to tags than categories, both of which are contained in each file's metadata.

      Tags, however, don't feel like a "pillar"/category of a Zettelkasten/ramblings/thoughts crate. They're empty at the moment and in draft/, so it's the perfect chance to do some re-structuring and avoid the issues I faced when I ditched blog/category and chose the current structure.

      In case you're asking yourself why I didn't put everything in the same folder, as they reflect categories and each .md file has category metadata already, it's because the drafts in draft/ became unmanageable (+120). So, in an effort to give myself an easier way to navigate and edit, I decided /folders were going to reflect the categories that existed. I'm aware it can be that after note #50 or something I have the same problem, and thus it wouldn't have made a difference whether notes were together with tutorials or not. I've decided to deal with that problem when it arises :)

      I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts! Would you keep essay/, poem/ and commentary/ or merge them into something else? note/ are short and wouldn't feel right for longer ramblings. I am not a big fan of writings/ as everything is a "writing", prose/ also doesn't quite fit and so far the only one I've sort of liked is reflection/ since essays, poems, and comments on happenings are the result of reflecting.

      /rant over, I know, I'm overthinking it. Let those not guilty throw the first stone :)

      [1] I've removed quite a bit of the irrelevant stuff but kept what I believe is relevant, but feel free to ask away in case something necessary is missing.

      .
      ├── bookmark/
      │   └── sample.md
      ├── cheatsheet/
      │   ├── sample.md
      │   └── sample.md-data
      ├── commentary/
      ├── draft/
      │   ├── bookmark/
      │   │   └── sample.md
      │   ├── cheatsheet/
      │   │   └── sample.md
      │   └── ...
      ├── essay/
      ├── extra/
      │   ├── archive/
      │   ├── blob/
      │   └── robots.txt
      ├── howto/
      │   └── sample.md
      ├── note/
      │   └── sample.md
      ├── poem
      ├── private/
      │   └── sample.md
      ├── snippet/
      │   └── sample.md
      └── tutorial/
          ├── sample.md
          └── sample.md-data/
              ├── sample.png
              └── ...
      
      10 votes
    9. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of July 10

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

      This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      19 votes
    10. BotDefense's creator told Ars Technica that the team is now quitting Reddit, causing concern about spam moderation on large subreddits

      https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/reddit-mods-fear-spam-overload-as-botdefense-leaves-antagonistic-reddit/ the Reddit community is still reckoning with the consequences of the platform's API...

      https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/07/reddit-mods-fear-spam-overload-as-botdefense-leaves-antagonistic-reddit/

      the Reddit community is still reckoning with the consequences of the platform's API price hike. The changes have led to the shuttering of numerous third-party Reddit apps and have pushed several important communities, like the Ask Me Anything (AMAs) organizers, to reduce or end their presence on the site.

      The latest group to announce its departure is BotDefense. BotDefense, which helps removes rogue submission and comment bots from Reddit and which is maintained by volunteer moderators, is said to help moderate 3,650 subreddits. BotDefense's creator told Ars Technica that the team is now quitting over Reddit's "antagonistic actions" toward moderators and developers, with concerning implications for spam moderation on some large subreddits like r/space.

      BotDefense started in 2019 as a volunteer project and has been run by volunteer mods, known as "dequeued" and "abrownn" on Reddit. Since then, it claims to have populated its ban list with 144,926 accounts, and it helps moderate subreddits with huge followings, like r/gaming (37.4 million members), /r/aww (34.2 million), r/music (32.4 million), r/Jokes (26.2 million), r/space (23.5 million), and /r/LifeProTips (22.2 million). Dequeued told Ars that other large subreddits BotDefense helps moderates include /r/food, /r/EarthPorn, /r/DIY, and /r/mildlyinteresting.

      On Wednesday, dequeued announced that BotDefense is ceasing operations. BotDefense has already stopped accepting bot account submissions and will disable future action on bots. BotDefense "will continue to review appeals and process unbans for a minimum of 90 days or until Reddit breaks the code running BotDefense," the announcement said. The announcement also advised "keeping BotDefense as a moderator through October 3rd so any future unbans can be processed."

      51 votes
    11. Bambu Lab P1P 3D printer

      I don't intend this to be a sales pitch or anything, I just wanted to share my impression of the Bambu Labs P1P 3D printer in case anyone on here was curious and maybe considering buying one...

      I don't intend this to be a sales pitch or anything, I just wanted to share my impression of the Bambu Labs P1P 3D printer in case anyone on here was curious and maybe considering buying one themselves.

      I have owned a few Prusa FDM printers over the years but recently tried the Bambu Labs P1P after seeing tons of rave reviews, especially in terms of how fast it prints. Anyone that has done any 3d prints knows that print time is among the least enjoyable aspects of the hobby: lots of waiting.

      Right out the gate, the P1P is a solid device with impressive construction given its relatively low price tag (I got it for $600 USD). And this thing easily rivals high performance machines in it's same "category", like the Prusa mk 3 and 4. And those are typically more expensive; the P1P comes 99.5% assembled at that price but a Prusa machine fully assembled is around 60% more expensive.

      Most of the "assembly" is just removing packaging, like zip ties, that kept the unit safe and secure during transit. Then you connect the power cable, screen, spool holder, and filament tube. And that's it. The whole thing took maybe 10 minutes.

      Getting the WiFi to connect is impossible for me at the moment, but I don't mind copying sliced gcode to the included microsd for printing. Sure, sending the gcode over WiFi would be super cool, but my Prusa doesn't do that so it's not like I've lost something. I'm hoping to eventually figure it out but that's not a deal breaker for me. I'm guessing I just need to temporarily move the printer next to the WiFi router but I haven't made time for it because I'm enjoying just printing off the card.

      With the included 0.4mm nozzle (a standard size), it prints typically 2 to 3 times faster. Something that takes 23 hours might take 11. Something that takes 3 hours might take 1. For larger and more complex prints, you can get stuff done so much faster. For smaller and simpler prints, you no longer need to plan batches either first thing in the morning or overnight, you can just start them whenever. Whatever you printed before, you can print 2 to 3 times as many in one go in the same amount of time.

      I don't have the AMS system but hope to get that at some point. If it has the same high quality build and performance as the P1P then I'm certain it will bring me simple multi-filament printing. And although I'm not nearly rich enough to afford more than 1 AMS, you can technically connect up to to 4 at once. Each unit holds up to 4 filament spools, so 4x4 means you could theoretically use 16 different filaments in a single print. The colors you could have! But each unit is like $350. Ouch.

      I only have 2 real gripes with it so far. First, it purges way too much filament at the start of a print. I get why it does that, it absolutely ensures that your filament is always properly primed to assist in printing that critical first layer correctly, but it feels very wasteful to have a seemingly-excessive amount of filament thrown away with each print.

      Second gripe is that the default spool holder is awful to access. You are likely to put the back of the machine facing a wall and that's where the spool holder will end up facing: the wall. You need to ensure the printer is a little more than two spool's width away from the wall - at the very least - so you can slide your spools on and off. Thankfully the bed doesn't move back and forth like with traditional fdm printers, thanks to the corexy technology, so you can more easily plan out where to put it and how much space it will need.

      I haven't messed around with them yet but I just got additional hotends for it that I will be testing soon. The pack I got contains 0.2mm for prints that require very fine detail, 0.6mm for prints where detail is slightly less important than speed, and 0.8mm for when you want to go fast and don't care how much detail you get. Because they use a proprietary construction of hotend, you must use theirs, but the upside is that it's fairly fast and simple to switch them out. Most hotends, you just replace the tip, the actual nozzle. But because filament can gunk up the threads, you need to run it hot to unscrew the nozzle, which is very dangerous. With the P1P, you just pull off the magnetic faceplate, undo a few screws, swap the hotend, put the screws back, and pop the faceplate back on. In just a few minutes, you're done. And no need to turn on the hotend either; just unload your filament prior, let it cool down, and swap away. A much safer and more pleasant experience.

      Overall, I'm in love with 3d printing all over again. It's the same feeling I got all those years ago when I did my very first 3d print. And sure, the Prusa is still great when you want high quality detailed prints. Going slow and steady wins that particular race still. But I get quality that is 90+% comparable to what the prusa gives me in exchange for literally 2x to 3x print speeds. That's an easy trade for me. And the slicer software estimates that some of my larger and less detailed prints could print in right 2/3 the time using the 0.6mm nozzle instead of the default 0.4mm. That translates to roughly 7 hours on my Prusa (0.4), 3.5 hours in my P1P (0.4), and 2 hours on my P1P (0.6). Given how much easier it is to swap out nozzles on the P1P, I can see myself actually doing that not frequently for certain prints that, like in my example, see substantial benefit.

      I'm very excited to see how this machine holds up in the long run!

      13 votes
    12. Tildes and comment formatting, markdown: a quick and dirty guide

      At the suggestion of a certain heathen who shall remain unnamed. I'm tossing up a quick and dirty comment (and post text) formatting guide. There is a formatting guide in the docs/wiki with a link...

      At the suggestion of a certain heathen who shall remain unnamed. I'm tossing up a quick and dirty comment (and post text) formatting guide. There is a formatting guide in the docs/wiki with a link just above the comment box, but it can be a bit much to digest.

      *italics*
      **bold**
      ~~strikethrough~~
      [Text goes here](URL goes here)
      <small>small text</small> 
      <sub>subscript</sub>
      <sup>superscript</sup>
      # headline
      `code which removes the formatting and makes it look like this block`
      * bulleted
      * lists
      1. and
      1. numbered
      1. lists
      

      Spoilers is a bit more complicated, the <details> start and end </details> is required, but the <summary> start and end </summary> is not unless you want text in the summary or you want the summary to be blank.

      <details>
      <summary>Summary text!</summary>
      
      Body text inside spoiler!
      </details>
      
      For example if you leave out the summary code then the box just says "Details" like this.
      Or you can have a summary...

      ...like this.

      Or by leaving the text between the summary code blank you can have the box be empty but still have spoiler text within

      You can use formatting like bold, italics, or even...
      ...spoilers within spoilers! ...but you have to leave an extra line above this or it *won't work* and your formatting will be revealed to **all!**

      Three underscores (or dashes, but dashes require an extra line) in a row on their own line creates a blank line to divide a topic...
      ---

      You also have a sub-headline text option by putting a single dash under text...
      -
      ...or headline text by putting an equal sign under text.
      =


      If you like userscripts (who doesn't?) you can install extensions like ViolentMonkey that allow you to install little bits of code like the Tildes Formatting Toolbar that can change/improve the sites you use and make formatting here a breeze.


      Do use the formatting responsibly, but here are examples for bold, italics, strikethrough, links, small text, subscript, superscript,

      headline text,

      sub-headline text,

      code,

      • bulleted
      • lists,
      1. and
      2. numbered
      3. lists

      Most formatting can be combined as well such as superscripts, lines, and small text to make...

      ...sentences with a...1


      1...footnote

      97 votes
    13. Group updates for July 2023

      As I'm sure some of you have already noticed in your sidebars, I've just added a bunch of new groups based on the discussion we had last week. That ended up being a very large discussion with a...

      As I'm sure some of you have already noticed in your sidebars, I've just added a bunch of new groups based on the discussion we had last week. That ended up being a very large discussion with a ton of suggestions, and while we can't add everything, I am adding a fairly large set of groups this time. Some of these are definitely experimental, and I expect that we'll need to make some more adjustments based on how they actually do in practice.

      Before I get into the specific updates, there are a few general things I want to mention first:

      Many of the discussions about groups turn into debates about how things should be organized in the hierarchy. I want to try to clarify that the hierarchy is not intended to be some kind of perfectly logical system, or that there should never be any crossover, etc. The groups are more of a social organization method, like "for people interested in X".

      For example, a common suggestion is to add something like an "entertainment" top level group that could contain ~games, ~music, ~tv, etc. This makes sense from a logical perspective, but not if you're basing it on interest. Someone's interest in gaming content doesn't really have any influence on them being interested in talking about music. There are similar reasons for other cases like having ~comp outside of ~tech and ~anime outside of ~tv, even though they feel like they should fit inside. The current hierarchy certainly isn't perfect for this either (for example, ~hobbies is extremely broad), but it's the general idea.

      As part of this, I also want to mention that something being a sub-group instead of top-level shouldn't be seen as being "less important" or somehow inferior. As a convenient example, ~tildes.official is one of the most important groups on the site, but it was the first sub-group (and the only one for a year). It's not significant yet while we're still subscribing everyone to all groups by default, but when we move away from doing that, it could actually be an advantage to be a sub-group, since it would give a larger audience to its content through the parent one(s).

      And finally, I want to mention that expanding the groups (and having higher activity in general) makes it more pressing to improve the capabilities for controlling subscriptions, filtering out groups and tags, and so on. This is something I want to treat as a high priority as I get back into Tildes development. I know there are also some existing problems such as topics from sub-groups being shown inside the parent group even if you're unsubscribed from them, and I'm hoping to resolve that one this weekend.

      Anyway, on with the changes and some brief comments on each. Note that I still need to do some administrative tasks like adding descriptions to the groups and moving old topics into them, and will be doing that over the next day or so.


      • Added ~comics, ~engineering, ~transport, ~travel (everyone auto-subscribed)
        The subjects of these groups are currently kind of awkward to fit into the existing groups, and I think there's potential for good content and discussion in all of these.

      • Added ~life sub-groups (auto-subscribed if you were subscribed to ~life)

        Whether to create groups for men and women took up a lot of the air in the suggestions topic (and was the source of some strife—please don't restart that in here). I think it's worth trying them, but it's definitely an experiment. I also think it's important to have them be sub-groups, because having a common parent group enables posting similar topics without feeling like posting in one of them is a binary choice. Much like ~lgbt, moderation will be somewhat stricter for posts in these groups (and yes, we need a way for the site itself to indicate that).

        ~life.pets also needs some clarification: this will not be a group full of images. There will be a weekly scheduled post for posting photos and casual chat about pets (the first one will post tomorrow), but separate topics like that will be removed. The standard content in ~life.pets should be of a similar quality level to the rest of the site, such as articles, requests for discussion/advice, and so on.

      • Added ~sports sub-groups (auto-subscribed if you were subscribed to ~sports)

        This is also fairly experimental, and I don't know if we'll keep all of these sub-groups. I'd like to see if this can help encourage more posts about specific sports. I also don't like the name ~sports.american_football much at all, but I don't know what a better option is. Should we just call it ~sports.nfl? That's not quite right either.

      • Added ~health.mental (auto-subscribed if you were subscribed to ~health)
        A lot of the topics in ~health are about mental health, and I think having a clearer separation could be useful (including having a more clearly defined space for stricter moderation, as mentioned before).

      • Added ~humanities subgroups (auto-subscribed if you were subscribed to ~humanities)

        History topics are probably the most common subject posted in ~humanities currently, and I'm curious if these subgroups will help encourage posting both more history and more non-history.

      • Removed ~games.game_design (topics merged into ~games)
        This group has always been quite inactive, and I don't think the few topics in it still need their own separate space from ~games right now.

      That's it for this time. If there were other suggestions that you were hoping to see that weren't added this time, don't take that as an indication that we won't add them someday. But this is already a lot of new groups (likely too many), and I had to stop somewhere. Let's revisit in a month or so once these new groups and the new users have had some time to settle.

      And as usual when making a ~tildes.official post, I've also topped up every current user's invites to 5: https://tildes.net/invite

      295 votes
    14. Hair removal tips needed!

      Hey all, so I'm a trans woman and, like a lot of other people, my biggest point of dysphoria is my facial hair. I've been going through electrolysis for the past five months. I love it when it...

      Hey all, so I'm a trans woman and, like a lot of other people, my biggest point of dysphoria is my facial hair. I've been going through electrolysis for the past five months. I love it when it works, but the speed of the process is really getting me down. I do one hour every two weeks (I'd do more if I had the money), and after five months of solely working on my upper lip the progress just isn't where I was hoping to be.

      What are y'alls experiences with electro, and what was the regiment that worked for you? Did you do something other than electrolysis, how'd it work out? Other general hair removal tips to look as clean as possible?

      I'll share one of my own:

      • The Finishing Touch Flawless Razor (Walmart link) has been the best, and most affordable electric razor I've found that gets an extremely close shave without too much skin irritation (I have the most irritated skin in the world). Highly recommend!
      24 votes
    15. How to get rid of wasps?

      I have wasps building hives under the eves on my house. I'm looking for a way to kill them without Raid or other harsh chemicals. Right now there seems to be about 10 hornets starting on this...

      I have wasps building hives under the eves on my house. I'm looking for a way to kill them without Raid or other harsh chemicals. Right now there seems to be about 10 hornets starting on this hive. I see a number of other places they've made hives around the house that were removed before we moved in. My current options that I've found so far are spraying with dawn soap/water/garden sprayer or peppermint. It seems a little too high to get a garbage bag around them easily before pissing them off. Any other good ideas?

      15 votes
    16. How do I migrate almost twenty years of email off of Gmail?

      I have followed numerous discussions on here lately regarding extracting oneself from being Google-reliant, and they've all deeply resonated with me. For years now I've been slowly migrating...

      I have followed numerous discussions on here lately regarding extracting oneself from being Google-reliant, and they've all deeply resonated with me. For years now I've been slowly migrating numerous Google-bound things over to my own self-hosted alternatives. I've moved my storage, contacts, documents, and some (but sadly not all) of my calendars to home solutions, fairly easily too.

      But the biggest hurdle I've been facing this whole time, the one I've been putting off the longest, is the act of figuring out how to get almost twenty years of mail archive and history on my primary account away from Google and into a space where I can access it separately. I have been steadily changing the main email on my more active external accounts to a self-hosted one, and now only seeing a shrinking handful of lesser-used services still attached to the old gmail. But that history is too precious to me, and I still find multiple occasions where I need/want to reference some communications from long ago.

      I've tried searching the web for options, but so far all combinations of my queries are either really elementary "here's how to set up a new email" crap, or else aimed at moving from one Gmail account to another Gmail account. I've been thinking that the simplest approach might be just to set it up as a POP3 account in my mail client (eM Client, for the record), download it all, and then when I finally pull the plug just drag it into the local client archive, and then remove the account from the app. But I figure there have to be others who have done this, right?

      74 votes
    17. Tildes ReExtended has been updated and is also back on the Chrome Web Store again

      Howdy everyone! In talklittle's fundraiser I pledged I would fix all outstanding issues of Tildes ReExtended before 2023 is over should we reach 200 donors. Well the 200 donors mark was hit pretty...

      Howdy everyone! In talklittle's fundraiser I pledged I would fix all outstanding issues of Tildes ReExtended before 2023 is over should we reach 200 donors. Well the 200 donors mark was hit pretty quickly, so after over a year of inactivity I've gotten back to it and brought Tildes ReExtended up to speed again.

      Most of the work so far has been on getting the codebase up to par with my current preferences, but there is also a new feature and some bug fixes. Namely: the long-awaited Hide Topics feature with 4 different ways of selecting topics to automatically hide. The content scripts will run as soon as the HTML is available, meaning there should be less stuff popping in or out, the Hide Votes was also fixed so it now hides the correct votes again (yay edge cases Edit: I just noticed another edge case doesn't work :^) fuck). And also the extension is about 3.5 times smaller in size now (245KB -> 70KB). :D

      If you don't know what Tildes ReExtended is, it's basically the Tildes equivalent of the Reddit Enhancement Suite extension. Commonly requested features that can be implemented client-side (like the Hide Votes feature) and quality of life utilities like the Jump To New Comment and Back To Top buttons.

      Hope you like it!

      Giving the Chrome Web Store a second chance

      A number of years ago now as I was publishing a new version of Tildes ReExtended to the Chrome Web Store, their automated review process denied the new version without providing any reason that made sense, and weirdly threatening to take down the extension if the problems weren't addressed. After a wasted effort trying to talk to Google support, I decided to say fuck it and just remove it from CWS. Leaving the only way to install the extension for Chromium users being needlessly complicated and a pain in the ass.

      So with 2.0.0 I've decided to give CWS a second chance, initially I had more to say about it but I'm just gonna leave it out.


      If you're new to Tildes and like what you see, please consider donating! Tildes is a non-profit community site driven by its users' interests and any amount of support ensures it can keep going. Thank you! 💖

      95 votes
    18. TweetDeck replacements?

      The only sane way to use Twitter was to follow a bunch of cool artists, set up TweetDeck, filter it to "tweets with images only", and just look at pretty pictures. And now that's been completely...

      The only sane way to use Twitter was to follow a bunch of cool artists, set up TweetDeck, filter it to "tweets with images only", and just look at pretty pictures.

      And now that's been completely removed. Does anyone know of any alternatives? I don't need any of the other features of TweetDeck, I just need that images-only filter...

      13 votes
    19. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of July 3

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

      This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      19 votes
    20. What's your favorite scene in Tolkien's Legendarium? (Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, Silmarillion, etc...)

      Edit: I love the films too, but I'm really looking for examples in the text, even if the adaptation does the scene justice, I'm interested in how Tolkien himself wrote it. I'm on a bit of a JRR...

      Edit: I love the films too, but I'm really looking for examples in the text, even if the adaptation does the scene justice, I'm interested in how Tolkien himself wrote it.

      I'm on a bit of a JRR Tolkien kick recently and revisiting some of my favorite bits from the books. One thing I really appreciate about Tolkien's writing is the outright poetry of some of the paragraphs and lines. I think the only "wordsmith" who appeals this much to me is Cormac McCarthy (and to some extent GRR Martin) -- but for very different reasons. Anyways, I'll share my favorite section from the Legendarium.

      Théoden's charge at Minas Tirith - The Return of the King

      To set the stage, the Rohirrim have navigated to Minas Tirith and are greeted by a dying besieged city steeped in darkess and fire. Upon seeing this, we get this line about Théoden:

      But the king sat upon Snowmane, motionless, gazing upon the agony of Minas Tirith, as if stricken suddenly by anguish, or by dread. He seemed to shrink down, cowed by age.

      Merry utterly loses hope at seeing the city and the reaction of the king. Then as all hope seems lost, we get one of the best sections in the whole trilogy:

      At that sound the bent shape of the king sprang suddenly erect. Tall and proud he seemed again; and rising in his stirrups he cried in a loud voice, more clear than any there had ever heard a mortal man achieve before:

      Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden!
      Fell deeds awake: fire and slaughter!
      spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered,
      a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
      Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

      With that he seized a great horn from Guthláf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.

      Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!

      Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Éomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Théoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed. For morning came, morning and a wind from the sea; and darkness was removed, and the hosts of Mordor wailed, and terror took them, and they fled, and died, and the hoofs of wrath rode over them. And then all the host of Rohan burst into song, and they sang as they slew, for the joy of battle was on them, and the sound of their singing that was fair and terrible came even to the City.

      This might be my favorite bit in all of LOTR because we see good king Théoden shed all his fears and doubts and actualize into the man he was meant to be. And to be compared to the Valar Oromë to boot! Wow. I am also a total sucker for any moment in the trilogy when a deed or character gets compared to events or characters of the First Age. Anytime that happens, you know it's a big deal since the First Age was so much "larger than life" than the events of the Third Age. Tolkien does a similar thing when Sam faces off Shelob noting that not even Túrin or Beren with any craft of the elves could have injured her -- yet Sam stood his ground, nonetheless.

      I am not a Tolkien scholar, but I know Tolkien was incredibly steeped in medieval and ancient literature (I mean, he was a Professor of English literature) so I know his heart was really in old mythologies in Germanic or Norse traditions (for example Túrin Turambar's story is directly inspired by the Finnish tale of Kullervo, or how almost word-for-word bits of The Wanderer poem end up in Rohan's culture and song). Because of his Christian faith though, I suspect he had qualms with the often-brutal mortality of those tales and the cultures which produced them. This section with Théoden charging bravely against hopelessness and despair I think represents the "merger" of all the positive qualities he found in heroes like Beowulf with his more temperate worldview. It's an idealization of the heroic good-pagan Germanic king.

      47 votes
    21. How will Mullvad removing port forwarding affect Unraid?

      How does Mullvad removing port forwarding affect an Unraid setup using deluge-vpn container? I don’t access my server from outside my network and just use a basic binhex deluge-vpn docker setup....

      How does Mullvad removing port forwarding affect an Unraid setup using deluge-vpn container?

      I don’t access my server from outside my network and just use a basic binhex deluge-vpn docker setup. Any issues I’ll have here?

      Currently out of town and won’t be back until after this change happens tomorrow. Curious what to expect when I'm back home.

      4 votes
    22. Should we be going back and editing games for content that doesn't fit with a modern viewpoint?

      Thinking about the recent incident where the devs for Skullgirls (current devs, not original devs) went and changed a bunch of artwork and other content for the fighting game, which released in...

      Thinking about the recent incident where the devs for Skullgirls (current devs, not original devs) went and changed a bunch of artwork and other content for the fighting game, which released in 2012 after being Kickstarted. Aside from removing the sexualized imagery of an underage character, probably a good call, what about the other things they've decided are in 'poor taste' in 2023?

      Should we be going back and editing games, or even movies, tv shows, and books to reflect more modern sensibilities? Is a game like Skullgirls even worth preserving its original content?

      My opinion is no, unless it's something that is now illegal, I don't really enjoy the precedent that's been set lately where we go back and correct past mistakes in media. However, I also see the argument about removing media that may encourage racist or sexist thinking or put down minorities, but is it useful to see the media as it was and see how far we've come? Is that useful enough? Should only the original creators make that decision?

      Just thought this was interesting. Tag as desired.

      48 votes
    23. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 26

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

      This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      33 votes
    24. For those who deal with hypoglycemia, do you have any advice for dealing with fatigue after a bad low?

      My hypoglycemia issues are not related to diabetes fwiw. That said, I tend to get hypoglycemia a few times a day. If I catch it quick enough and treat, it's usually not a big deal, but if I get...

      My hypoglycemia issues are not related to diabetes fwiw. That said, I tend to get hypoglycemia a few times a day. If I catch it quick enough and treat, it's usually not a big deal, but if I get too low (maybe once I get into the 50s mg/dl), then after treating (usually about 15 minutes later), I get so. freaking. tired. Like, barely able to stand up exhausted. Currently dealing with this as we speak, and it's very frustrating. My endocrinologist told me it's normal to get tired like this while recovering. I'm curious if anyone else deals with this? If so, do you have any advice for dealing with the fatigue?

      Tildes might be too small of a platform for this. If no one deals with hypoglycemia here, please feel free to remove it. I thought with the prevalence of diabetes, it would be likely there are folks who encounter this.

      13 votes
    25. High quality USB-C in-ear monitors or good aux-to-USB-C adapters?

      I recently upgraded my phone and to my dismay everyone followed apples moronic choice to remove aux ports. I want to keep using my KZ in ears, and while they have bluetooth adapters I rarely like...

      I recently upgraded my phone and to my dismay everyone followed apples moronic choice to remove aux ports.

      I want to keep using my KZ in ears, and while they have bluetooth adapters I rarely like how bluetooth sounds and also don't want to worry about having to charge them either.

      Both adapters I've bought either buzz like crazy or my phone is convinced is constantly disconnecting and pausing my music. Anyone know of anything in the budget range thats as good as KZ or good adapters?

      14 votes
    26. Anyone daily driving a jailbroken iPhone?

      I know the scene is in a rut right now with iOS 16 having pretty much no hope (and with iOS 17 right around the corner), but I wanted to see if anyone else is using a jailbroken iPhone (or any...

      I know the scene is in a rut right now with iOS 16 having pretty much no hope (and with iOS 17 right around the corner), but I wanted to see if anyone else is using a jailbroken iPhone (or any other device) on a day to day.
      If you are, drop your device, version and tweak list, I wanna add some new tweaks to my collection! My favs at the moment are Jellyfish (LS clock replacer), Saw (removes space at the bottom of the screen) and Ampere (iOS 16 style battery)

      18 votes
    27. Reddit technical issues seem to be leading to comments still being visible on the site that users assumed were deleted

      Edit: This might be a caching issue - Tildes mods have edited this post's title accordingly. Anyway, this issue is concerning, as many people deleted their comments and accounts. Now the accounts...

      Edit:

      This might be a caching issue - Tildes mods have edited this post's title accordingly.

      Anyway, this issue is concerning, as many people deleted their comments and accounts. Now the accounts are gone but the comments are back. Intentional or not, Reddit should fix this asap and communicate. This isn't acceptable.

      Edit 2, 16 days after the original post:

      For the 4th or 5th time, comments are popping back. Most of them in their original form, very few (2 out of 25) still edited as "[deleted]"

      Original post:

      (I know, more reddit stuff, sorry)

      On June 16, four days after the beginning of the current Reddit protests, some users were reporting that their deleted comments were getting restored:

      There were doubts if this was intentional or a bug caused by the blackout, or some rollbacks. Hanlon's razor, etc.

      I then personally mass-edited my comments to "[removed]" two days ago, and lo & behold, they're getting edited back. And from what I've seen, there's definitely a pattern:

      • All restored comments are at least 8-12 months old, so several pages deep in the comments history
      • 90% of them are about programming, a few of them on my country's subreddit.
        • (More than half of my comments are on gaming subreddits, they're still edited as "[removed]")
      • The vast majority of them have responses
        • (Though most of my comments also have responses)
      • They're edited back in "small waves". 15-20 this morning, 4 this evening (so far).

      I'm now editing them back twice, hoping that Reddit only keeps the previous version of a comment.

      I find Reddit's behavior to be absolutely shameful. I've been on internet forums for nearly 25 years, and I've never seen a site unilaterally and silently decide to un-delete or (un-)edit comments. Never.

      It feels like a golden rule of internet has been broken, and I'm surprised to not see more talks about it.

      94 votes
    28. Two weeks with a Pixel 7 Pro - My experience

      To set the stage, I've always been a fan of non-nonsense reliable phones. My cellular usage started with a Nokia brick, moved on to a few Motorolo flip phones, then entered the Blackberry world as...

      To set the stage, I've always been a fan of non-nonsense reliable phones. My cellular usage started with a Nokia brick, moved on to a few Motorolo flip phones, then entered the Blackberry world as soon as data service become available in my area. With the demise of RIM, I went o a Moto X, made a misstep in to the Samsung world, then to a Pixel, a Pixel 3XL, and now a Pixel 7 Pro.

      I only made the jump to the 7 Pro due to the 3XL starting to show it's age. The charging part wouldn't always connect, the battery would barely make it through the day, and the case was starting to fall apart. Of within three days of removing the case I dropped the phone, cracking the glass back....

      The 7 Pro is awful to hold, without a case. I was waiting a week for the Spigen Liquid Air case to show up, and during the time I hated using the phone. The camera bulge felt awkward and sharp, the surfaces were slippery and the phone would slide around. The rounded edges of the screen would produce phantom taps, just all around a bad experience. Now that I've added the case though, it feels a whole lot better.

      The user experience has been fairly good, thought not without some annoying bugs. I did the migration from my old Pixel to my new one, and while it did a reasonably job, preserving the launcher layout etc, the app installation process was strange. Google Play tried to install all the apps, but was stalled. I had to tap on each app to manually install them, they were just sitting there "Pending...", whether I was on battery or charger, WiFi or mobile. Once everything installed, and I added my accounts, it was fine, and now apps auto-update.

      Notifications are acting a bit funny with Reddit is Fun, although that won't be an issue for much longer :-(. If I get notified of Mod Mail and a Message in RiF, tapping the notification message does nothing. This worked fine on the 3XL. I've also had one spontaneous reboot, and one night where the phone was plugged in, but decided not to charge. Lots of people complained about heat issues, which was a problem for me on the 3XL, but only in extreme cases. After sitting out in full sun with the 7 Pro, I'd say it is about the same, possibly a bit better regarding it's overheating. Many people also reported that the phone would feel warm/hot in their hands for the first few days as it "learned" your behavior. Never experienced that. Battery life and (lack of) heat levels have remained the same.

      32 votes
    29. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of June 19

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate...

      This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

      This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

      28 votes
    30. Linux Question: I think my sys m.2 is failing and want to copy my / data for backup via cli

      So, I'm using Arch i3wm. I have multiple copies of my /home/username (I am the sole user), and I have a "Spare" drive with media, games, and other goodies, some of which are also stored on...

      So, I'm using Arch i3wm. I have multiple copies of my /home/username (I am the sole user), and I have a "Spare" drive with media, games, and other goodies, some of which are also stored on partitions on the m.2 in question, but they have backups.

      And the reason I ask this question is because while I've had my m.2 fail at the end of '21 (I didn't even know that was a thing, but it barely lasted a year, and things are acting shoddy now... though the original failed without a warning), I just bought a second m.2 for my games. I guess I could swap most of the whole thing over, but I know the boot partition is easier just rebuilt from scratch... which I had to do last week.

      Ultimately, what's making me suspicious is when I upgraded to the new drive and unplugged all my non-m.2 satas, I also added some memory and a new power supply. But then after the upgrade (Monday of last week, so the 5th), the system wouldn't boot up. I used a usb to troubleshoot and my /boot partition was apparently no gouda. I redid that, and everything was fine... until this week. Then my new Games partition (basically the new drive) failed fsck and it got stuck in a boot loop on Tuesday. I could boot emergency to root, but not skip the fsck and keep the Games disk auto mounted (I know I changed something to randomize fsck on bootup, but that's something I'm still kinda looking into how I managed...), so I just removed it from my fstab and it booted fine. For two times. I just manually mounted the drive, all was great, then my SO sent me a screenshot today while I was at work stating that my / partition (on the older m.2) apparently rebooted because it bypassed my screen lock, and was stating EXT4-fs error, reading directory lblock:0 and whatnot.

      So, that's my history on what's going on, and if anyone can offer any advice [mostly] on the backup stuff, though as I said, /home and the important tangible stuff is saved, but if you also have any input on something more than I suspect the drive is failing (since the /boot partition and now the / partition are crapping out), please feel free to share.

      (Also, thanks for letting me in. This is what I'd typically post on reddit and probably have to repost 10 times depending on the sub to get the right keywords and tags and yes, I already searched the internet but my search will not match yours... sigh)

      6 votes
    31. How to make your Xbox Elite Series 2 controller work properly with Steam

      Context: Last year I struggled for a long, long time to make my new Xbox Elite Series 2 gamepad work properly with Steam. After more than a day of frustration and following various trails of other...

      Context: Last year I struggled for a long, long time to make my new Xbox Elite Series 2 gamepad work properly with Steam. After more than a day of frustration and following various trails of other discussions on the topic, I finally figured out the exact series of actions needed to solve the issue. I posted these steps on Reddit, and they ended up getting me dozens of comments and messages, even as recently as yesterday people still let me know that I saved them from the same frustration. With reddit in its current state of uncertainty, I'd hate for this guide to be lost, so I'm hoping new readers and controller fanatics will find it useful here.

      The Problem: You have a Xbox Elite Series 2 Controller, which you are trying to use in Steam on Windows. When using the default (no profile lights) profile mode, the paddles are detected and can be mapped in Steam Controller config. However, they still register no input in-game when pressed. Here is how to fix your problem:

      The Solution:

      Step 1: You must first revert the firmware of the controller to version 4.8.1908.0. On a PC with your controller plugged in, open the Xbox Accessories app (from the Windows Store), then hit Windows + R to open the Run dialog. Run this command:

      xboxaccessories:\firmwareupdate?legacyDowngrade=true

      This should give you option to revert. Do it.

      Step 2: In Steam Big Picture, go to Gear Icon -> Controller Settings and Enable Xbox Extended Feature Support if it isn't already checked. After enabling it you will have to Reboot. If it's already enabled, there is no need to reboot.

      Step 3: Back to the desktop, make sure the Xbox Accessories app is CLOSED. If it is open, you must close it, then disconnect the controller entirely, then power it off, and then finally reconnect it to the computer.

      Step 4: Press the central profile button on the controller a few times until it cycles through the profiles. You need to cycle it until the profile light turns off, indicating the controller is in its default layout.

      Step 5: Open Steam's controller configuration for your game of choice, and you should now be able to re-map the paddles therein.

      Every time I have done the above process, the paddles on the default profile (with no lights on) are now mappable in Steam and usable in-game. I have completed this successfully now with five total controllers, and all worked with Steam flawlessly afterward.

      Notes & Clarifications:

      • You do not have to uninstall the Xbox Accessories app. However, if ever you use it to modify the controller at all, you must repeat step 3. If you try to use the steam-remapped paddles in the game with the app open, they won't work. You have to turn off the app, disconnect and power cycle the controller, and then reconnect, and very specifically do not re-open the accessories app. I'm assuming this is because the Accessories app inserts some kind of override layer that only goes away after removing the controller and closing the app.
      • This process will almost certainly make the Bluetooth connection wonky, if it even works at all. Instead, you'll want to use either a direct cable connection and/or the official wireless adapter. In fact, all of the above steps worked for me with the wireless adapter connection just as well as with the wired connection. As a bonus, you can seamlessly transition between wired and wireless mode this way by simply plugging or unplugging the cable.
      • At least as of May 2023, I've received now multiple reports saying that newer purchases of the Elite 2 controller are being shipped with the controller now pre-flashed with a default firmware that is newer than the one that was available in the above post. As a result, this means that rolling back the firmware might not work, as it can't be rolled back to version 4.8.1908.0 anymore. However, I have since purchased two more new controllers of my own since then, and neither had this issue, and in fact both worked with Steam immediately out of the box (after telling Xbox app "no!" to firmware upgrades, that is).

      I hope I have posted this correctly (it's my first post here!), and that others continue to find it useful.

      18 votes
    32. Shepherd's Pie recipes over time

      At the moment some people will say that Shepherd's Pie and Cottage Pie are the same thing (mince meat, sometimes vegetables, covered with potato mash and oven baked), and other people will say...

      At the moment some people will say that Shepherd's Pie and Cottage Pie are the same thing (mince meat, sometimes vegetables, covered with potato mash and oven baked), and other people will say that Shepherd's Pie must be minced lamb or minced mutton and Cottage Pie must be minced beef. I don't care, call it what you want. But I was interested about what people said in the past, so here are some old recipes I found in the Internet Archive.

      One of the problems I'm having is that some books use "shepherd's pie" and some use "shepherd pie" and the OCR of older books is not great so searching for the correct terms doesn't always return the books, because the OCR is saying something like "Shepherd He" instead. I'll be poking around a it more on Sunday and adding a bit more as I find them.

      Lots of these recipes are submitted to news papers and magazines by readers.

      1850 - 1899

      Rural New Yorker 1850 Edit: sorry, it's 1916

      https://archive.org/details/ruralnewyorker75/page/986/mode/2up?q=%22shepherd+pie%22

      "Shepherd Pie. — The left-over meat should be sliced instead of chopped for this recipe. Butter a baking dish and cover the bottom with hot mashed potatoes. Pour on the gravy and sliced meat, cover with more mashed potatoes. Pile the potatoes on lightly and leave the top uneven. Dot with butter and place in hot oven for 10 minutes."

      Nor'west Farmer 1882 EDIT, sorry, this is 1915 (I was looking at the IA date, not the date printed on the page)

      https://archive.org/details/norwestfarmer3419unse/page/28/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

      mentions that scraps of left over meat can be made into shepherd pie

      La cuisine anglaise et la pâtisserie : traité de l'alimentation en Angleterre au point de vue pratique, théorique, anecdotique et descriptif 1894

      https://archive.org/details/lacuisineanglai00suzagoog/page/n108/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

      I don't speak French but I'm pretty sure they're asking for beef cuts here.

      Cookery by Amy G Richards. 1895

      https://archive.org/details/cihm_12438/page/n127/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

      The recipe says "1 lb cold meat - 1/2 gill gravy - 6 large potatoes boiled and mashed - pepper and salt - 1 tablespoon milk - 1 oz butter. Cut the meat into small pieces, sprinkle it with pepper and salt, put it into a pudding dish, pour the gravy over. Add milk, butter, pepper and salt to potatoes, cover the meat with them, smooth with a knife and mark over with a fork, or the potatoes may be put through a forcing tube. Bake three quarters of an hour. Serve hot."

      1900 - 1920

      The complete Indian housekeeper & cook : giving the duties of mistress and servants, the general management of the house, and practical recipes for cooking in all its branches (Caution, lots of colonialism) 1909

      https://archive.org/details/b21528640/page/278/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

      The book mentions Shepherd's Pie: "This is a form of potato pie made with mince, or it may be made with raw collops, or raw meat minced fine and seasoned with pepper and salt." (A collop is a slice of meat.)

      The recipe for potato pie appears a page or so earlier: The recipe says "Potato Pie is seldom seen in India. Mash a sufficiency of potatoes thoroughly with milk, pepper, and salt. Make a good thin gravy, and use this to cover thin slices of mutton sufficient to half fill a pie-dish. Pile your mashed potatoes over, trim neatly, and score with a fork. Push into the oven, and serve very hot." (interesting to me that the scoring the potato with a fork appears so early)

      Magnet cream separator cook book 1910

      https://archive.org/details/cihm_78529/page/n17/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

      The recipe says "Shepherd Pie - put cooked meat through chopper, season with salt, pepper, and onion juice, moisten with gravy, mash potatoes, add a beaten egg, melted butter (size of an egg), place this on meat, dot with pieces of butter and bake until thoroughly hot and nicely brown on top. A good dish for leftovers".

      Onion juice, or thinly sliced onion, become more common in the early 2th century.

      The Cook County cook book 1912

      https://archive.org/details/cookcountycookbo00asso/page/372/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

      "SHEPHERD PIE.— Spread over a small platter, thoroughly buttered, warm mashed potatoes, mixed with enough milk to make it a little soft, and set in the oven to brown. When stiffened enough, and as brown as pie crust, pour over it minced cold mutton, warmed in a little thickened gravy. Is a nice breakfast dish. —-Mrs. J. R. Bogen, 2722 S. Dearborn St., Chicago, 111."

      I find it interesting that people's names and addresses are published. This recipe specifies mutton (probably cold leftover mutton). I find it interesting that she suggests it's a nice breakfast dish, and deconstructs the formula by putting the browned mash under the meat.

      And here's a picture of South Dearborn Street in 1905. https://www.bridgemanimages.com/en/barnes-crosby-fl-1900/south-dearborn-street-chicago-illinois-usa-c-1905-b-w-photo/black-and-white-photograph/asset/6354687

      The same book has a recipe for Cottage Pie on the same page. Here's a cut 'n' paste. "COTTAGE PIE. — Chop cold roast 'beef or veal fine. To each 2 cups of meat add 1 teaspoon onion juice, 1 teaspoon fine-cut parsley or 1 tablespoon chopped celery, 1 tablespoon chopped green peppers, if liked, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/2 cup gravy stock or boiling water. Mix all together, pack in a buttered dish, cover with a layer of hot, very soft mashed potatoes, about 1 inch thick. Brush the top with milk or wthite of t^^. Bake in a hot oven until the potato is well browned. — Mrs. M. Evans, 2019 S. Clark St., Chicago, 111."

      To me this reinforces the point that shepherd's pie and cottage pie were both ways to use up meat leftovers, and while some people were making a distinction between lamb and other meats lots of people weren't.

      Recipes: Proved and Approved 1913

      https://archive.org/details/recipesprovedapp00unse/page/30/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

      "Mince fine, cold meat of any kind and two small onions, season with pepper and salt. Place in an ordinary pudding dish, pour over all some gravy. Boil six large potatoes, mash, and add one beaten egg, a little salt and a tablespoon of butter, beat well, then spread over top of meat and place in hot oven to brown."

      This adds an egg to the mash, and uses more onion than we've seen so far.

      Low cost recipes by Harbison, Edith Gwendolyn, comp 1914

      https://archive.org/details/cu31924003573932/page/n49/mode/2up?q=shep

      "Chop some cold cooked mutton quite fine. Measure and for each pint add salt and pepper to taste, 1/2 teaspoonful of onion juice, a dash of curry powder and 1/2 pint of brown sauce. Mix and spread in a greased dish. Cover with a thick layer of hot mashed potato, dabbling the top with a little beaten egg yolk. Brown in a quick oven."

      The meat is quite specific: cold, cooked, mutton. I'm not quite sure what 1/2 teaspoon of onion juice is going to achieve here, it doesn't sound like enough to do anything.

      * Cook book 365, no. 2* by Pechin, Mary Shelley 1915

      https://archive.org/details/cookbook365no200pech/page/62/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

      "Cover the bottom of a well greased baking dish, with mashed potatoes, if the potatoes seem too stiff, add a little milk, then fill in the dish with beef cut into small pieces, add a little onion juice and the gravy left from roast, or some hot water seasoned with salt and pepper, and a little melted butter, cover the dish with a layer of mashed potato sprinkled over with bits of butter, place in hot oven and just reheat the meat and potatoes. Serve hot with some pickles."

      More onion juice, and also this covers the bottom and top of the dish with mash.

      The Kitchen Encyclopaedia 1916

      https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.148252/page/n345/mode/2up?q=shepherd

      "This is made in the same way as Mutton and Potato Pie (p. 333), but with less onions — about 1 tablespoon chopped onion. The surface is either roughened with a fork or smoothed down with the blade of a knife, brushed over with yolk of egg and the whole baked in a moderate oven till browned"

      Here's the recipe for Mutton and Potato Pie

      "Line a pie-dish with alternate layers of sliced parboiled potatoes, sliced blanched onions, and small thin slices of cooked mutton. Season with salt and pepper, moisten with stock, cover with a greased paper and bake for 1 hour in a moderate oven. Remove the paper 15 minutes before serving, to brown the potatoes."

      Make a little meat, go a long way: Use savoury stews and meat pies (with Italian translation (US Department of Agriculture) 1917

      https://archive.org/details/CAT31328029005/page/n3/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

      "This is the name of a meat pie with a mashed potato crust browned in the oven".

      Here's the recipe for Meat Pie.

      "MEAT PIES Another good way to use a little meat. Have you ever used rice, cornmeal mush, or hominy for a crust? This is less work than a pastry crust and saves wheat.

      4 cups cooked corn meal, rice or hominy
      1/8 teaspoon pepper
      1 onion
      1 teaspoon of fat
      2 cups tomato
      1 pound raw meat or left-over meat cut up small
      1/2 teaspoon of salt

      Melt the fat, add the sliced onion, and, if raw meat is used, add it and stir until the red color disappears. Add the tomato and seasoning. If cooked meat is used, add it with the tomato and seasoning, after the onion is browned, and heat through. Grease a baking dish, put in a layer of cereal, add the meat and gravy, and cover with the cereal dotted with fat. Bake half an hour."

      And then just because, here's a recipe that I'm not going to comment on just to show how far some recipes deviate from the lamb / mutton mince plus mash formula:

      Northfield Press 1930

      Mackeral Shepherd Pie

      https://archive.org/details/1930-05-30_Northfield-Press/page/n5/mode/2up?q=shepherd+pie

      "Shepherd Pie with its fluffy topping of mashed potatoes is well-known everywhere, and when fish takes the place of meat in the pie its popularity grows apace. To make Mackerel Shepherd Pie drain an 8 ounce can of diced carrots and add to half a cup of canned peas. Stir gently into two cups of thick white sauce. Flake the fish from a one-pound can of mackerel and fork very carefully into the sauce so that it remains in fairly large pieces. Pour into a buttered baking dish and pile fluffy, well-seasoned mashed potatoes on top. Brush with melted butter and bake in moderate oven until very hot and the potatoes are a golden brown."

      37 votes
    33. Reddit CEO pledges to not force subreddits to reopen. Admin team then immediately threatens moderators who closed their subreddits with removal.

      In this article from The Verge posted today "While the company does “respect the community’s right to protest” and pledges that it won’t force communities to reopen, Reddit also suggests there’s...

      In this article from The Verge posted today "While the company does “respect the community’s right to protest” and pledges that it won’t force communities to reopen, Reddit also suggests there’s no need for that"

      Ironically mere minutes before this article went live, Reddit admins posted this to /r/modsupport.

      "Leaving a community you deeply care for and have nurtured for years is a hard choice, but it is a choice some may need to make if they are no longer interested in moderating that community. If a moderator team unanimously decides to stop moderating, we will invite new, active moderators to keep these spaces open and accessible to users. If there is no consensus, but at least one mod who wants to keep the community going, we will respect their decisions and remove those who no longer want to moderate from the mod team."

      This statement not only completely contradicts what was "pledged" by Spez, but is also a very clear threat to subreddit moderators telling them to fall in line or get replaced by someone who will.

      More articles that came out today about this subject:

      Kotaku: Reddit's CEO Is Just Making Everything Worse

      NBC: Reddit CEO slams protest leaders, saying he'll change rules that favor ‘landed gentry’

      MacRumors: Reddit Threatens to Remove Moderators From Subreddits Continuing Apollo-Related Blackouts

      ARS Technica: As the Reddit war rages on, community trust is the casualty

      NPR: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman: 'It's time we grow up and behave like an adult company'

      The full Verge interview Reddit CEO Steve Huffman isn’t backing down: our full interview

      397 votes
    34. Observations on needed features and issues now that the site has gotten busier

      Now that the site has gotten a little busier, I’ve noticed a few shifts in how I've engaged with the site and jotted down notes on things that I've noticed might be nice to have. We already have a...

      Now that the site has gotten a little busier, I’ve noticed a few shifts in how I've engaged with the site and jotted down notes on things that I've noticed might be nice to have. We already have a "what don't you like" thread I know, but this is more like "what didn't I notice when the place was a lot quieter" sort of thing.
      



      Edit bumps for megathreads

      I recently created a megathread for the Apple VisionPro reviews. But I realized that if I continuously edit in new reviews as they come in, the thread won’t bump. I’d need to actually post each time a new review comes in AND edit it into the self-post. It might be nice if I could choose to bump a self-post if I’m making a substantive edit to the content. Though I can see the opportunities for abuse here so I wonder if there’s a more elegant solution for it besides just occasionally posting when there are updates.

      Following/Subscribing to Topics

      Yes topics get bumped as conversation happens in them, but with the level of activity we have right now I’m having trouble keeping up with conversations I’m actually invested in following. Bookmarks are good, but there’s two issues. One is that they’re hidden in a folder off to the side. So it’s easy to forget to check them. Two is that they’re currently serving dual purposes, they can either be for saving specific topics because I think they’re good enough that I might want to reference them again or they can be because I want to keep up with the conversation in them.
      I’d be interested in separating the functions a little bit. I’d like to be able to bookmark topics as a “save” function but also “subscribe” to topics to get alerted up top when there are new posts the same way I am alerted to stuff in my inbox. Alternatively, just having an “unread” count next to the bookmarked topics link and sorting the list of bookmarks by acitivity might do it.



      A Drafts section

      This post right now I mostly composed in a note-taking app because it’s a collection of random thoughts I had while using the site the past couple of weeks but didn’t want to post until I had time to marinate on them. Being able to save drafts directly in Tildes would have been a nice feature. It would also be good for replies since it gives you a chance to be like “Hmmm, do I really want to engage with this conversation right now?”



      “Shortlisted” groups

      The list of groups is a bit long, especially when you’re scrolling it on mobile. People might not (and probably don’t) actually care about all of them. It might be nice if we could “star” a group to have it show up higher on the list or have all non-starred groups in a collapsed list.

      Choosing groups from the new post view instead of posting from the groups view

      Since groups are currently being treated more like “super-tags” than separated communities, I wonder if it wouldn’t be better to designate the group in a dropdown menu above the tag bar when we’re posting instead of needing to go into a group to create a new post. In some cases, I might think a self-post belongs in one group but by the time I’m done writing I realize this ~humanities post is really more of a ~life post. This will, of course, depend on the outcome of the “treating groups more as separate entities” discussion.



      Subscribed topic tags

      Filtered topic tags is a nice feature because it’s one interaction mode that serves dual uses. You can both remove a selected class of content from your main feed but then you can also navigate into it to see ONLY that content. This basically lets you use it alternatively as a “favorites” option instead of an anti-favorites option. (I guess this is less of a feature suggestion and more of an observation for a non-obvious use of the function.) We could, maybe, separate out the list of filtered topics by why you’re filtering. Either “I don’t want to see this stuff” or “I want to be able to specially focus on this stuff.”

      Built-in invite request form

      Currently to get an invite you have to ask on Reddit or something. Maybe we should have a page where people can request invites within Tildes so we aren’t reliant on having to pick-up flotsam from other social media platforms. The downside, of course, is that you can’t vet people. So this invite path would probably be the lowest priority and only handed out during quiet periods where noxious posters can be handled quickly.



      “Only New” filter for comments


      I mentioned this issue with the Arc browser that makes it so the “collapse all old replies” function breaks if I open it in a background tab. Maybe it might be nice to also have this as a button I can trigger next to the Collapse replies and Expand all buttons. Or, if it doesn’t over-complicate the UI, maybe even a way to “collapse all before [datetime]” with the last session time pre-filled in. Or perhaps more like a clock that you can wind backwards in 30 minute or 1 hour increments.



      Rethinking time-limit on Exemplary labels


      I think it’s crucial that these remain a rare commodity, but with the current volume of good posts the 8 hour limit is feeling mighty constraining. Although previously the time limit didn’t feel like a constraint at all because there legitimately wasn’t much to label. Not sure if this should actually change or not, maybe the time limit can stretch or compress based on how active the site has been over the past X hours.



      Add a “Funny” modifier to the “Joke” label

      The effect on sorting should be the exact same and it should be invisible to everyone, but I just think it would be fun and would also encourage people to label jokes as such (trick folks into narcing basically). Maybe when there is a reputation system in place it can be used to adjust how big of a negative weight your joke posts get. Funnier people get dinged less.

      Rethinking the necroposting warning

      With more people here there are more active conversations and topics seem to remain active a lot longer. In topics like the one for questions from new users it’s so active it feels kind of silly to see the “this topic is over X old” warning. We do want to encourage maintaining conversations as long as they’re going so maybe we should suppress this warning on active topics (like ones that have had more than 5 posts in the past 3 days).

      Improved search

      
I know search is hard, but it is difficult to find old stuff. I’ve been trying to dig up examples of old posts or previous conversations on things when answering questions and I’m often trying to wrack my brain for specific phrases from conversations a year or more ago. It just doesn’t work for this. Discord search works pretty well and gives you modifiers for who posted, where, around when. I get the potential for abuse here, but maybe enable this kind of deep search for my own post history and nobody else’s?



      Mark direct messages as unread

      Exactly what is says on the tin. Sometimes people ask you something and you need to come back to it later.



      Tag cloud

      Knowing what to tag things as is intimidating for newbies and old heads alike. There need to be mechanisms to make this more approachable. I think perhaps if, underneath the tag bar we just displayed a “word cloud” of the common tags sized according to frequency it might help get people started. The word cloud would have to be per group and maybe refreshed per day based on a rolling-sample of the last 100 posts.

      Put a vote button on the bottom of the post for self-posts.

      Seriously, do you realize how much scrolling I have to do to go back up and upvote kfwyre when he posts something like this? It's especially a hassle on mobile.

      87 votes
    35. Invite-only is a brilliant idea and I'd like to have it for longer than planned

      Posting from glass houses as I'm a relatively new user and a reddit refugee, but I must say that I enjoy the idea of the invite-only forum-style network a lot. When Selig announced the first...

      Posting from glass houses as I'm a relatively new user and a reddit refugee, but I must say that I enjoy the idea of the invite-only forum-style network a lot. When Selig announced the first effects of reddit's API changes, people scrambled to find a new place to post. It's only natural, and I won't lie that I'm missing some fluff and meme communities like 196 and hmmm. Most, as far as I can tell, found Lemmy, some found kbin, some found Tildes. Not many were granted access to Tildes, and I think that's a good thing.

      Like Deimos says in the documents, Tildes is not a reddit replacement and it shouldn't be one. It's something different - I see it as a lovely little nostalgia portal into the Web1 days with BBCode forums, modernised to fit a web that continues to enshittify itself. It's a refreshing oasis, and I think the fact that we're very strict about invites is a big testament to that.

      In my view, invites serve two purposes. First, if they're a limited resource, users think closely about who to invite - keeping the general quality of participation high. The fact that Tildes has only one real content rule, that being to not be an asshole, and more importantly the fact that this rule works is a testament to that.

      The other purpose is maybe not directly apparent. When I first encountered Tildes and I didn't see an easy "request invite" or "waitlist" button, it deterred me to join. Thank god I didn't, because this is a great little community, but for some people that's enough to turn them off. But, I don't see this as a bad thing either - if you want to join Tildes, you have to put effort in. You have to send an application to Deimos, or you need to find and befriend an existing member through other channels.

      This is a barrier, a source of friction, sure - but it's also a great "defense mechanism" against the hordes of potentially bad users - be that assholes, be that lurkers, be that those users that leave after leaving a single comment and finding that Tildes isn't for them.

      Which brings me to my point - Deimos has stated that this is an invite-only alpha. Eventually, the invite system will be removed, and considering the influx of new users along with the need to make the site more accessible fast, it might happen sooner than we think. I think we should keep Tildes invite-only for longer than we "need" to. Not because I don't want new users, far from it - but I think the small village vibes is what makes Tildes special. I'd like to preserve that island of nostalgia.

      134 votes