What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something!

Feel free to give recs or dicuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

A little pretext. I wrote this poem in november 2017, and I slightly improved it today. I enjoy creating stories and poems are a way that I did not try much before. I don't know much about it, except the few things I learned in school and i can't remember most of it. Also english is my second language and there might be some words that don't fit in.
The changes in lines and rythm are intended to match the story.
If this does not meet the high-quality content and discussion and therefore doesn't fit in with ~, let me know and I will remove it.

To stop my rambling: Feel free to leave criticism. I plan to make poetry my hobby so any tips, comments, feedback and thoughts are appreciated.

Somewhere,
deep in the wild
Layed there,
Cold a little child.

It wasn't very long ago,
The rotten did not show,
All consuming deafening silence,
Pierced only by crows crying violent.

What happened here?
She ran from fear.
To escape the grasp,
Of the ones she hold dear.

One soul has passed before her,
Taking with his life,
The only thing she ever strived
Her mother, father and her brother
Two of these caused the disaster.

It began with a fight,
In a cold winter night,
Snow falling lightly,
And the ice growing wildly.

Suddenly the moment
when all seemed to fly
Death was potent
Coming in the blink of an eye.

Crushed by the car's roof,
Not needing any more proof.
The little boy left,
She cried over his death

Sad things passed
and bad will follow.
To escape the sorrow
Two chose their paths

Alcohol in mornings and nights,
Followed by overbearing fights,
Inbetween this shit
Was one little kid

Treated like air,
It was just not fair
Her family's break,
Was the last thing she could take

She ran into the woods,
Only on foot.
Soon she lost her trail
And soon after she wailed.

In her last thoughts
she met her god.
Looked him deep in the eye
And pierced him with a knive

Somewhere,
deep in the wild
Layed there,
Cold a little child.

Edit: Formatting mistakes

In opposition to the post about incrementalism, I wanted to talk about a truly revolutionary and designed based approached to a policy called experimentalism. When I was a believer in public policy, this was the final stage for which I believed a benevolent state would move towards. Incrementalism doesn't work unless you have a dictatorship or some unchanging party like in the soviet union or China. This is because incremental changes need people to agree with the degree of which to increments and need to have the shared goal to continue adding them. Also, incremental change might bring little effect on their own or even make things worse rather than just enacting what you think is the final policy. It is politically impossible in a democracy. Instead what I argue for is radical experimentalism. This is a position people of radically different ideas can take an appeal to a general audience to test their political ideas on large groups of willing participants to see what effects policy has on them after certain periods of time. Isolating variables to really see what society works best. Regardless of general political will, the evidence wins out as we test ideas in different parts of the state as they compete to see who provides the best results for people. The only thing that is required is a dedication to results based on political decision and commitment to evidence. Lastly, an acknowledgement that we must dive into the unknown to truly find some answers. A scientific approach to policy that is consistent with democratic values and structures. I find that this spirit of democratic education on a societal level is much like John Dewey would have described as really necessary for democracy to continue to function. Without a dedication to experimentalism and skepticism there is no way I see democracy working very well over time if faced with structural problems and public ignorance.

tonight i went to a party
was never no coke and bacarti
just a bunch of people in a circle
playing uno and one dude in the corner eating smarties

his name was ignacio
(beat)
and he was hanging round
having a good night,
just bumping some music
and catching a vibe

and thats alright, and we were at your place.
(beat)
and i took a look at your face
looked like you were in a good place.

blue eyes got me feeling fine
same way they did a few years
ago - about nine, when we were
sitting in the park by the pine
and i said fine and i kissed you.

and six months passed, we been apart since then.
now im back at home
drinking corona with the lime in
twisted in the lions den
and I took you to bed.

passive thought in my head when i tucked you in
made you dirnk some water
before you woke in the morning
just so you wouldnt be moaning
and i miss you

and i think that i like you
got my heads so high in the clouds
i can see the planes
and a couple kites too
its just like you

to fade out and fade in
and leave me wondering
what would've been
but now you're flirting with me

and i like it because im hurting
and i need that attention
a little maternal care
and that desire for retention

i feel like you really want me here.

i like it

Here's an article in Australian Fairfax Media: "Fears new wonder drug could lead to STI epidemic"

It refers to this article in The Lancet: "Community-level changes in condom use and uptake of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis by gay and bisexual men in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia: results of repeated behavioural surveillance in 2013–17"

Here's the key take-away from the Fairfax article:

An international 2016 study of men who have sex with men found the chances of contracting chlamydia, gonorrhoea and syphilis were increased 11, 24, and 44-fold respectively in PrEP users. Fears have now been raised that these staggering numbers might be replicated in Australia.

Not exactly an original first post, but as a life long avid SF fan, I'm always on the lookout for recommendations.

According to Google Play, my reading (and re-reading) this year has been ...

Iain M Banks, Alastair Reynolds, John Scalzi, Dan Simmons, Neal Stephenson, Charles Stross, China Miéville, Vernor Vinge, Peter Watts, Neal Asher, Richard K Morgan, Corey Doctorow, C.J. Cherryh, Karl Schroeder, Ann Leckie, Hannu Rajaniemi, Yoon Ha Lee, Greg Bear and James S.A. Corey.

So I guess that sums up my current taste, which would seem to tilt towards space opera and "hard" SF.

Today, I had a dream. In this dream I have confronted the idea that systems are much like entities, they are living creatures of a sort. Just as groups have some selection process that makes them more likely to survive over time so do systems. Rulesets are not made for human beings but for themselves. Sets of rules beget their own continuation. Their constant reproduction. But this is no reason for an individual or a group to submit to a particular ruleset but a reason for them not to submit to her because she has no interest in the specific survival of a group or individual but in the survival of herself. The survival of herself can easily misalign with that of the group and the individual. Rulesets much like the State or other such things are self-interested. And to complete self-interested systems with altruistic systems would be a grave mistake . And since all systems are infact selfish we we cannot conflate the interest of the system with the interests of the people within the system, that would be the fallacy of composition. If a system existed that perfectly aligned its ideals with that of the people that lives under them there would be no need for such a system to be coercive because all would act according to the system regardless. Competing interests of human beings and of different proofs makes such a system impossible. we are then left only to consider the ruleset in decision-making processes but under no obligation to operate in its interest. We are only able to operate on our own.

This is a photo I took in rural Myanmar October of 2012. We were on a group trek from the city of Kalaw to Inle Lake. We stopped at a school in one of the rural towns to meet the kids and donate supplies. We arrived during their school day but their teacher allowed us 30 minutes to an hour (can't remember) to play with and talk to the kids. It was an absolute blast, the kids were full of energy and opened up to the group quickly.

The school was a single room school house where all ages study together. The teacher for this school was young and from another city/town/village. We were told that the community provided her food and shelter in trade for her teaching the kids. If money was required for something, maybe transportation back home, they would come together to help. I do not know the ethnicity of the community or kids, other than Burmese.

Please critique the above write up, both grammatically and content wise, and help me with suggestions of titles. I severely lack in title creativity/ability.

We've been having a smattering of art, poetry, and photo participation posts, such as this, and this, and this, and this.

We seem to have enough ~tilders to have a schedule of sorts, but not enough to have each activity every week. How about we rotate weekly activities for a while and see how it goes? I'm thinking we have enough interest for a series of visual/craft based threads and a series of writing based threads. For example:

July 3-9th Photography (subject exploration or technique)
July 10-16th What are you making now?/Speedart
July 17-23rd Photography (topic or equipment)
July 24-30th What are you making now?/Media challenge

July 3-9th Freestyle Writing (up to a thousand words)
July 10-16th Themed Drabbles
July 17-23rd Poetry format challenge
July 24-30th It was a dark and stormy night

Please note that these are suggestions and not an arbitrary bid to codify content or become TEH LEADER. I just think it would be fun to have an activity to look forward to every week. We could even just sign up for hosting a week's topic, and whoever is in charge of the week picks the activity.

What does everyone think?

This is a hard topic for me personally, so please be gentle. I am at my core an institutionalist and an incrementalist, so I tend to want to both value and improve institutions through incremental (bit-by-bit) change.

A common concern and criticism of people who are impatient with incremental changes is that there would be tons of unintended consequences. While that concern resonates with me, it clearly doesn't seem to resonate with much of anyone else right now.

So in this I feel alone, frankly, and a lot of the reason for that loneliness is because incrementalism seems to have been firmly rebuked by both left and right wing political groups around the world. Help me understand what's happening. Where is incrementalism failing for you? Do you see any role for bit-by-bit change?

The scope of this thread could expand to the high heavens, so please understand how widely varied the examples might be that we each might bring to this discussion.

Wanted to see if we could get some conversations going with any freelancers who may be around. I figured a good place to start is with one of the more commonly discussed topics, which is the online marketplaces catering to freelancers.

These days, Upwork seems to have gobbled up a huge chunk of that market, while garnering plenty of criticism and complaints along the way for how they handle it. The graphic design space seems to have a little more competition in marketplaces, with 99designs being a frontrunner it seems. Truthfully, there just aren't that many platforms to pick from regardless of your specialty. Which can be a positive, as it provides a centralized place to look for and post available work, can increase exposure to the freelance market as a whole, and ensures you don't have to maintain profiles across numerous platforms which can be far too time consuming sometimes. But of course there are many downsides that come along with that.

The standard advice that comes with such discussions is to ignore the online marketplaces entirely because of those downsides. Competing against an international labor pool, as well as an under-experienced labor pool much of the time, in a format that heavily encourages price competition above other factors can be disastrous for your bottom line (and your sanity). These platforms also generally remove a lot of the negotiating power that a freelancer needs to leverage, as it is much more difficult to establish the captive audience that can be built with more personal interactions.

And frankly, that standard advice has continued to be my own, both for my career as well as to others who may seek such advice. But it does make me wonder if there is a better way to do it. Of course as a developer I'm always looking to find a way to solve problems, so I can concede I may be looking for solutions in a place that is misguided to try to fix.

What has been your experiences with freelance online marketplaces? What advice do you give when asked about it? What would you like to change?

I own a hobonichi, which is really just a hipster day-planner. The key feature for me is the river paper, which allows water colouring.

I try to water colour everyday. Started that way at the beginning of the year, and after a few months, now pretty much use it as a day-planner. Of course, I would love to get back to it, and will make an effort to at least catch up over the weekends.

Would love to hear how you journal and any habits that work for you.

I love all kinds of music, but am unable to play everything I like at work.

If anyone here has the desire to introduce me (and anyone in this thread) to some beloved stuff that may not be familiar, I would appreciate it.

As my name suggests, this is in a restaurant, so it would just have to exclude anything too introspective/atonal/delicate, and anything too speedy/loud/without melody (curses and lewdness are fine with my boss, though, interestingly enough!)

I would certainly listen to that sort of stuff, personally, though so please be free to include it with caveat.

No offense to artists who are household names and near it, but I am sorely tired of all the songs I've heard before, and my coworkers are never going to leave out the early 90s Madonna, so I am just trying to mix it up!