I like thinking about alternative history. There are people like Harry Turtledove who write extensive alternative histories based on whether the South's main general's war plans got to the Northern armies' general in time for the Battle of Antietam. For me there's something appealing about thinking back through complex events in world history and finding critical moments and critical decisions that might have gone another way. I'm also quite taken with the idea that some historical events end up in hindsight looking like perfect storms, where a number of complex variables make the world we now know, but where any one of those variables would have produced a massively different result.

But I'm less interested in thinking about waving a magic wand to change the weather of some day or to change facts on the ground or morale or something like that. What I'm most interested in are situations where someone's individual decision might have dramatically altered the world. Can you identify one decision that happened in the past that you would have that person making it change? How might that set us up in a different reality?

A small note on housekeeping before I let you go. I know this might be a type of topic that walks the fence between something designed for ~talk and something best suited in ~humanities. I think of this as kind of an experiment to see how best to handle topics that straddle two different tildes.

There's tons of one hit wonder artists out there. Those who made one or two hits but then faded into obscurity.

Have any of you ever pursued these artists' other music, and if so, who stood out to you the most?

Something that I believe others would find to be a negative trait or personality is a person with a sense of dark and morbid humour. I tend to use dark humour a lot more than I should and sometimes have to be pretty careful around who I say it. Having friends who can take in jest with the things I say without any repercussions is great, otherwise they wouldn't last that long as friends!

What do you consider a negative trait, quality, factor, and that you find attractive?

My north Seattle-area service provider is Frontier, to whom I currently pay USD $42/month for "50/50" Mbps service (which in practice is closer to a download/upload ratio of 42/12 Mbps, even through LAN cable).

I do not recommend Frontier, as I got the above "discounted" price after calling to cancel my prior "30/30" deal (again, overly optimistic speeds) when that $40/mo. bill spiked to $52 for no reason. Plus, I had to lodge an FCC complaint against Frontier when they overcharged me by $200 a couple years ago, which was resolved in my favor after nearly two months.

My mobile internet provider is Google's Project Fi. I pay them $20/mo. for their phone plan + around $5/mo. for the data I typically use. Highly recommended.

TRS80 gaming is a group for casuals. Back in the day I could play TF2, CSGO and PlanetSide 2 for 4-6 hrs a night (yes I've done the all-nighters, and done an all-nighter with Civilization too). But as I've grown older, I've been more busy with work.

So I, with some friends, wanted to create a gaming group that's basically for casuals.

The games we play are:

• Destiny 2 (we have a clan)
• Guild Wars 2 (we have a guild)
• WarFrame (no guild yet)

Mobile games we're playing:

• Idle Heroes (we have a guild)
• Brawl Stars (no guild right now)
• Clash Royale (no guild right now)

Some of us stream on Twitch (twitch.tv/condenasty80) and I can auto-host channels.

It'd be cool to get other casual players on Tildes on the Discord chat to coordinate some games for Destiny 2, Guild Wars and Warframe (and to group up on mobile games too!)

Reply if you're interested!

edit: forgot to mention, we have a blog, twitter and facebook page so if you want to write a game review or just make comment about recent game news, I'm open to scheduling/publishing posts

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/

I have an interest in this type of subjects, and it seems this site doesn't have an appropriate space for these matters. Can we have a dedicated group and if not where should I post about this kind of stuff?

Original title: "Voting on comments on mobile makes them impossible to reply to"

I was just reading through and voting on a few comments in a thread that was locked between me loading the page and starting to vote, and every time I clicked "Vote" the reply button on that comment would disappear. I reloaded the page and saw a) all the reply buttons had gone and b) there was a "this thread is locked" banner at the top, but until then I had no idea what was happening.

It would be really neat if Tildes could cope a little better with things like this happening. Obviously it's not necessarily realistic for every client to keep a connection open with the server so that posts can be locked in real time, but it would be nice if behaviour in situations like this could at least be consistent – either all the reply buttons disappear and the banner appears at the top, or nothing changes at all. It's really disconcerting to have individual buttons disappearing as you're interacting with them!

I also notice that changes to page state don't get persisted across history navigation; if I click on a post, vote on it, then press back in my browser, the post doesn't appear to be voted for until I refresh the page. Is it possible to fix that too?

Hi,

I have but two accounts on Reddit; one for posting stuff I make, having fun discussions, and maybe small debates about stuff that doesn't matter (games, movies, etc.); and another for political discussion/debates, because sadly, my progressive views (and admittedly abrasive tendencies when the party I'm talking to is themselves abrasive) tend to get me enough negative attention that I've been doxxed twice (admittedly over the course of 12 years, so not much).

Are alts allowed? If so, doesn't that just provide me with another 5 invites (that I will totally not abuse on account I've only used but one of the ones I've got/don't know enough friends to care about leaving Reddit)?

If not, totally understandable-- I'll just avoid posting stuff I make in the event I find myself getting into a political debate.

Thanks for the time/info either way,
Doug

Is there a plan in place to take tags with certain words and convert them to a standard? Say there is a Tiny Desk Concert posted in music and someone tags it Tiny Desk, someone else tags it TinyDesk, and someone else tagged it Tiny Desk Concert. Is there a plan to take tags with specific words and change it to one things so all of the related content gets grouped together. So in this example, if a tag has tiny desk in it, it is converted to whatever the standard is. So from tiny desk to Tiny Desk Concert. That way everything ends up with the same tag?

I'm not sure what to make of this. I'd really like to hear others' experiences as well.

Without getting into too much detail in the OP, I find myself constantly needing to reflect upon my actions due to things that transpire in my group's weekly D&D sessions. I need to constantly examine and readjust my behavior so that our group can survive.

I don't mean "survive" as in our characters, nor reflect upon my character's actions. I mean my own. The way I express myself to others. The lack of attention I have given to my teammates when they narrate their dazzling combat maneuvers. The visible disinterest in an RP dialogue that doesn't involve my character which makes my friends uncomfortable and unable to enjoy themselves. The offhand comments I make about a character, or the DM, that has a huge impact on the player (it's easy to get hurt when you put your heart into building a world or a hero and someone slights that). The time I knocked my friend's character unconscious to beat the bad guys, which resulted in him sitting there for multiple turns just watching us play. All of these things have had a real, out-of-character impact on us as a group, and have caused major conflicts.

Our group is still going strong. We are working hard on being good friends to one another. But we're all really putting our heart into this game and it's so easy to hurt one another. It's been teaching me so much about being a patient, respectful, and "honorable" human being. I'm shocked, honestly. I hope I haven't hurt my friends too much on the road to this path.

How about you, Tilders? Has D&D just been a game to you, or have you also found an avenue for personal growth?

Choose three words to describe the kind of community you want here, and explain why you chose those words.

Diverse

More points of view makes for a more in depth, nuanced conversation that brings viewpoints I may not have considered before. I have plenty of experience as a native woman in Canada, but that isn't the only viewpoint. Much as it pains me to admit, I don't know everything and sometimes I miss layers of conversations that others can point out to me. Those viewpoints are the ones I need to read if I want to continue growing as a person.

Welcoming

I want a community that isn't full of gatekeepers, who don't arbitrarily decide who should or should not belong before they've even had a chance to contribute. I want to see people given a chance to show who they can be on a new platform, and how they can make this a better place. The last thing we need is to chase away people who might otherwise make valid contributions to the community by being dicks.

Interesting

More threads, more topics for discussion, more traffic in general. I want to see dozens of threads I can contribute to or at least read on a daily basis, whatever that topic may be. A new book series, a hobby, a viewpoint on politics. But we're not going to get there without a diverse, welcoming group to keep new people engaged.