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.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like silly, certifications and socializing. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was documenting this.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

Edit: This thread went off the rails a little in that the top comment is an indictment of religion (and me as a purportedly religious person) rather than an answer to the question. For the record I am not, and have never been, religious. I did go through a spiritual period, long ago now, but it wasn't associated with religion or God. Cheers, though, to the non-proselytizing religious Tilderianites who are trying to be good humans.

Clearly I should have done a better job of anticipating the potential misunderstandings but the ship has sailed.

I didn't want to steer the conversation by leading with my own thoughts about what the answer might be, but I've posted them now that the thread, like religion, is waning.

Don't let it stop you from posting your own take!

The question, rephrased is: As religion plays a progressively smaller role in society, how will we fill on the gaps that leaves? See below for example gaps.
[/edit]

I realize that the title is maybe evocative because it presumes that religion is going to wane but statistically it's reasonable. The percentage of the population that identifies with a particular religion correlates inversely with the education level and wealth of a country.

As countries develop, religiosity decreases. There are probably exceptions, but I don't think the numbers leave room for much debate about whether or not religion is declining globally. In fact, if you look at just the western world, excluding developing countries where both religiosity and fertility are high, the numbers are even more stark. Presumably as education level and quality of life in developing countries improves they will have a similar decline in religion to other developed countries.

Assuming climate catastrophe doesn't dramatically set development back for everyone of course. Totally a possibility but humor me and, for purposes of this thread, let's not speculate too much about that.

I realize also that none of this is really new information, just establishing context, in that spirit...

Historically religion has served some very important needs. Among them:

• Community. Religion has been a key part of community in much of the world. We know humans need it, for all sorts of reasons, and I believe that right now we can see some of the problems that arise when they don't get it.

• Meaning. Vitally important to mental wellbeing and well covered by most religions. I think some of modern society's ills are partially attributable to the meaning void left by declining religion. Meaning here referring both to meaning in the personal sense as well as meaning in the larger sense of being part of something bigger than yourself that feels deeply important.

• Mortality. A key selling point of most religions is that they answer the question of what do do with the problem of impermanence. I think it's clear that, under the surface, many people are deeply insecure about their mortality and that it subconsciously informs their behavior in often not so great ways. So solving that problem with eternal rewards or whatever has been very important to the health of societies.

• Decency. Religion usually lays out what constitutes being a good or bad person and establishes rewards and punishments to encourage people to be good. Note that I'm not saying an external set of guidelines is required for people to be decent, only that historically that role has often fallen to religion. As a result, a lot of our modern values have their roots in ancient belief systems.

• Organization. Religions have often been at the core of important initiatives to improve people's quality of life and step in during disaster. They provide an ostensibly well meaning third party around which to centralize efforts.

• Faith. There are definitely downsides to believing things without evidence but as a temporary coping mechanism when things fall apart, faith is hard to beat.

And more of course, I'll stop there for brevity.

I'll skip laying out the downsides of religion, for better or worse it's declining and will likely continue to decline. I think that's enough for purposes of the question: How do we replace it?

What are we going to fill the voids opened up by waning religiousity with? I have a lot of thoughts about the topic but no real universal answers. And I think it's a question we're going to need answers for, especially as we go into worsening global insecurity caused by climate change, wealth inequality, fascism and so on.

We're going to need foundational shared values. Is that possible without a centralized authority?

I realize it's a giant topic, I won't bias it with my own thoughts going in, feel free to take it in any direction you want.

Was listening to a pod where one person shared a funny, and having fun is taking care of your ~mental.health

This is my kind of humour, an 'article' about it: https://pleated-jeans.com/2023/08/29/disappointing-affirmations-dave-tarnowski/

And a link to the instagram account https://www.instagram.com/disappointingaffirmations/ for those who use instagram.

The episode in question: Divergent Conversations: Episode 106(mp3)

Maybe this isn't really a good topic, but maybe you'd like to share what makes you laugh, good podcasts or how you use humour for ~mental.health.

I also wrote something related in one the monthly check in topics, so maybe @chocobean would like to give an update! (Sorry for calling you out like this, just trying to have some fun)

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.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

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If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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This is the sixteenth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride. Our next book will be Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut at the end of August.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.

And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

I've been looking into installing air conditioning in the building that will eventually be my office and workshop. Local HVAC contractors gave me extremely large numbers as quotes. I've watched mini split installs and I'm pretty sure they're within DIY range for me. So I spent $10 and a couple of nights of reading, and took the EPA 608 type 2 certification exam today, so now (pending someone watching and approving a 20-minute video of me staring at a phone screen) I can legally install one myself for significantly cheaper.

I've also occasionally considered getting a ham radio license, solely because I like a bunch of adjacent electronics topics and it feels like the kind of thing I could be into. (So far, I haven't bothered because the vibes of the community around it don't feel right for me, but I haven't completely abandoned the idea.)

It occurs to me there are probably several more things like this that I'd never thought about. Small plane pilot's licenses are another, though those require formal training. But attempting to research this mostly returns lists of "you could be an Official Microsoft Certified Professional Excel User!". That's not what I mean.

What other useful licenses can one easily get without making it a whole career? "Useful" here means something like "having the piece of official paper grants privileges that simply learning the underlying knowledge doesn't".

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like dogs, artificial intelligence and ozzy osbourne. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was a nosey parker.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

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.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

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If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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A few months ago I went to the psychiatrist and we talked for like an hour. We got onto the topic of autism and I mentioned how I was always curious if I had it. She spent like five or so minutes asking me questions and said she would put me as autism coded in my chart.

I wasn't sure if that meant it was an official diagnosis or not but I didn't think to ask until after the appointment. It seemed really quick for it to be an official diagnosis.

I went back to her last week and brought up that she marked me as "autism coded." I asked "is that a diagnosis or does it just mean it's suspected?" She didn't really give a straightforward answer and just said that I have "really really high functioning autism."

But I don't know if that means I'm officially diagnosed. And if I take her at her words of calling me autistic and then applying that label to myself I feel like a fake because I never had a huge assessment like most people.

Thoughts? Advice? Am I overthinking this?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like scurvy, names.user and emoji. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was keeping the minutes.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

What is something that's been eating at you that you haven't found the right place to share yet?

Long rants, short grumblings, and everything in between is welcome. Topics can be serious or silly.

Please specify if you do not want responses and prefer to use this as a venue to scream into the void.

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.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like forums, stardew valley and whatever. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was boggled of the mind.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

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.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like us senate, viktor orban and knowledge management. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was mystified.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

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.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like lego.island, 2025 iran israel war and the onion. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was puzzled.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Bringing this up NOT because I'm worried about it, but only because it's very odd and might interest people here:

I've been PMing people for my post in the Game Giveaway topic. For each one, I've just been making the subject of the PM the emoji they selected and nothing else.

I have successfully sent PMs with the following subject lines:

• 🦥, 🦆, 🐈, 🐸, 🦄, 🐙, 🦫, 🐌, 👻, 🐣, 🐻‍❄️, 🐖, 🐳, 🦚, 🦭, 😎

But when I use

• 🫎

I get the following error message: subject: Length must be between 1 and 200. The PM fails to send.

I was able to send the PM by appending text to it, sending it with the subject line 🫎 Marvin (because that's his name), and the PM sent with the subject line Marvin without the emoji or space.

What's so different about the moose? Is it because he's wanted? 😂

If anyone wants to test this for themselves, feel free to try it out in a PM to me.

Important: This will be a noisy topic. If you do not wish to see it in your feed, please use the Ignore feature to hide it!

Tip: If the large number of comments are cluttering up the topic and you just want to see the main giveaway posts, click Collapse Replies at the top of the comments.

It’s time for annother edition of our biannual Game Giveaway topics! Share games with the community and get rid of those extra bundle keys you have lying around.

Before you participate, please make sure you read the rules below.

Rules

-Gifters

Post your available games, the platform and method of delivery, rules for your giveaways (e.g. first-come first-serve, random draw, etc.), and any additional info or requirements. Feel free to get creative!

-Giftees

Request giveaways. Please make sure you follow the gifter's posted guidelines.

-Guidelines

Anyone can choose to be a gifter, giftee, or both! Giveaway rules are set by individual gifters, but there are handful of guidelines everyone should follow:

1. No grey market keys! Only give away games from reputable sources. If you're not sure what this means, please ask.
2. Requests for games should be done in this topic, but if the gift is a key, those should be delivered by PMs only. Please don't post keys publicly in this topic, even obfuscated ones.

If you're new to these, check out previous giveaway threads to see how these usually go.

Inspired by the recurring topic every Steam sale over at /r/GameDealsMeta:

• What are some lesser-known Steam games that you recommend?

• Are there any genres you’d like hidden gem recommendations for?

If you're interested in previous Hidden Gem topics, you can find them here.

For popular recommendations and general purpose sale discussion, please use the main Steam Sale topic.

Optional: Feel free to categorize your recommendations by number of reviews (as a proxy for popularity)

This is the fifteenth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing A House with Good Bones by T Kingfisher. Our next book will be the Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride at the end of July.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

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.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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Follow-up to my one gallon post here.

And technically, it's 5 gallons and 3 pints after this morning's platelet donation. I'd hit the five gallon milestone with my last one but didn't realize it. Never too late to celebrate though!

One of my co-workers is also a regular donor, and we've bonded over it. One time we were at lunch, eating in the teachers' lounge with a bunch of our colleagues. We were having a group conversation about blood donation, the pain of sticks, the fears of something going wrong, etc. It was kind of a downer conversation about the whole thing. After the group moved on to a different topic, she quietly leaned toward me and whispered "this is going to sound weird, but I actually like doing it."

She couldn't have found a better person to confide in! I feel exactly the same way.

It sounds weird that I like having someone stick needles in my arm and withdrawing my life force. It sounds even weirder when I say that I like donating platelets, in which I can't move my arms for two hours, and also the tape they use rips out my arm hair (this genuinely is worse than the needle sticks, by the way).

I think that's framing it the wrong way though.

I like doing it because it's something I can easily do, it doesn't cost me anything, and I know I'm helping people out. I read a comment online once about donating that stuck with me. It said something to the effect of:

The person who will be getting your donation is undergoing much worse, and they also don't have a choice in the matter.

I think about this in those times where I am a little anxious or nervous that things might hurt.

Yes, the sticks are painful sometimes. Yes, my arm hair getting ripped out is uncomfortable. Yes, sometimes I need to scratch my nose and I simply can't and I want to crawl out of my skin for a few minutes until the feeling subsides.

But that's nothing compared to the person with cancer who's getting my platelets. Or the car-crash victim who gets my blood.

I also think about it in terms of the bystander effect. It's easy to just assume that blood or platelets will be there for people who need it, but that only happens if people deliberately choose to donate.

I want to be one of those people who does it deliberately.

And so far I have: to the tune of FIVE GALLONS!

The last thing I'll say is that part of why I like doing it is because I really like my donation center. The staff there are excellent. I prefer doing it at a place like that than one of the closer, more convenient pop-up options because I feel like if something were to go wrong (god forbid), then a designated site is likely to have the supplies, preparation, and expertise in dealing with the issue.

For example: I have had a few times where the phlebotomist has whiffed one of the sticks for my arm. Each time, they've immediately called over the manager (who you can tell is esteemed by ALL of the staff for being VERY good at getting sticks right -- one time I heard a phlebotomist audibly "ooh" in amazement as she fixed their stick in my arm). She's been able to fix the issue each time.

Thankfully, those issues have been infrequent. Most of the time they do everything great and I barely feel a thing.

They also follow cleanliness and administrative protocols to a well-crossed, perfectly symmetrical T. It's comical, but I'll get asked my name and date of birth probably four different times during a platelet donation, because at each new step of the process they make sure that they've got the right paperwork, vials, and patient. It's always funny to me that they ask me this before they take the needles out of my arms, after I've been stuck in the chair unable to move for two hours. Do they think I somehow snuck out and someone else took my place when they weren't looking?

Of course, they're doing it not for me but to make sure everything gets properly labeled, but I genuinely appreciate the thoroughness. I feel very safe with them because they consistently operate with such a high level of care. If you've been turned off of donating due to bad experiences in the past, I recommend finding a good permanent donation center near you if you're willing to revisit it.

Anyway, that's all I have to say. I wanted to share my personal milestone. Again, as a gay guy who wasn't allowed to donate blood for DECADES, it feels really, REALLY good to be able to finally give back in this way.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like linux, rockets.reusable and louvre. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was keenly observing.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

Disclaimer: I don't quite know how to address the topic, so I want to state I'm trying to approach this with sensitivity; I hope this might lead to a helpful and insightful conversation on a potentially difficult issue. Apologies if I don't quite get it right!

I noticed the absence of a name I'd become familiar with on Tildes and wanted to start a discussion on how the community should handle situations where a person of community renowned abruptly departs.

The user in question is @daychilde, who is one of the users I'd seen around quite a bit. I've been on Tildes for quite a while now, and would like to think I've had a positive - if not vast - contribution. Overall, I probably read more than I respond; I bring this up because I am aware that I probably represent the voice of a significant portion of the userbase here: I'm figuring stuff out as I go and probably am not in the loop on the majority of stuff going on on Tildes. All in all, I don't recognise a lot of names on Tildes, but @daychilde is/was a character who stuck out and seemed to have a significant impact on the community.

From what I deduce, @daychilde has been banned some time in the past week, and I thought it worth discussing given there are at least a couple of things left in the lurch as a result that people might seek information on. The ones that have crossed my vision are the following:

https://tildes.net/~tech/1od9/personal_offer_do_you_have_a_website_based_project_youve_been_wanting_to_do_but_worried_about_cost
and
https://tildes.net/~life/1n7e/daychildes_walking_thread

At the risk of broaching a difficult topic - I'm not looking to cause drama or speculate - we should probably discuss the fallout of a situation like this. Hopefully at the very least this topic might be something others can find if they also become aware of the departure of a notable person and are looking for confirmation or where might be appropriate to discuss any fallout that might occur.

For @daychilde in particular, this website seemed to be a resource that helped him manage his life. I wonder if we should consider whether there is some duty of care to users to depend on Tildes in some capacity?

There are also people who might be looking to discuss the hosting that he had offered/agreed, and might now be left in the lurch.

Unfortunately I don't have solutions, but I didn't see any discussion or information on this kind of a topic, nor any precedent for this kind of a situation!

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

I'm one of those mythical Linux users who has been using it for years but has little to no idea what's going on behind the scenes or under the hood.

In my time using it, I've sort of passively gleaned that certain things are controversial, but I don't necessarily know why. It's also hard for me to know if these are just general intra-community drama/bikeshedding, or if these are actually big, meaningful issues.

If you're someone who's in the know, here's your chance to lay out a Linux controversy in a way that's understandable by someone like me, who can't tell you why people always make "GNU/Linux" jokes for some reason whenever people mention "Linux."

Here are some things that have pinged for me as controversial in my time using Linux:

• Unity
• Canonical
• Deepin
• systemd
• Arch
• GNOME
• Manjaro
• Kali
• Rust in the kernel
• elementaryOS
• Linus Torvalds
• Snaps
• Wayland
• Something about a university being banned from contributing to Linux
• NVIDIA drivers
• Package managers vs. Snaps/Flatpaks

There are certainly more -- these are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

Replies don't have to be limited to the above topics. I'm interested in getting the lay of the land about any Linux controversy.

IMPORTANT

This topic is intended for learning, not bickering.

• Please try to explain a controversy as fairly as you can.
• Please try to not re-ignite a flame war about a specific controversy.

It's fine to discuss these in good faith, but I do not want this topic to become yet another Linux battleground online. There are plenty of those already!

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.

MLMs = "multi-level marketing" companies, which is essentially a euphemism for "pyramid scheme." These are flat out illegal in many countries, but are, notably, quite legal in the US.

They used to be huge in the 2010s, but I don't hear much about them anymore (granted, I haven't been on social media since 2016). I know several IRL people who got into them, and I even regrettably bought products from some of them before I really understood what they were or how they worked.

I recently read Hey, Hun by Emily Lynn Paulson who was toward the top of the pyramid at Rodan + Fields.

In the book she mentions that algorithmic changes from social media companies ended up downgrading a lot of MLM postings, which cut off oxygen to the cycles of recruitment that these companies rely on. For example, Rodan + Fields moved to an affiliate model in 2024.

I'm curious about what the MLM landscape looks like right now.

• Are MLMs still common?
• For those of you on social media, do you still get recruitment and sales messages?
• Have they changed their tactics or models?

People don't have to limit responses to just those questions -- consider this a general MLM discussion topic where anything related to them is fair game.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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