What are you reading currently? Fiction or non-fiction, any genre, any language! Tell us what you're reading, and talk a bit about it.

Notes

• Sorry for posting late this time round. I had an intense week, and was basically too lazy to post yesterday.

• I will not include a list of past topics in the topic text anymore, given it is redundant with the listing in the wiki. Below you'll find a link to the relevant section in the relevant wiki page instead. If you think this is a bad change, PM me about it; if a lot of you don't like it I might end up reverting this.

• Have a nice weekend!

Previous topics

Previous topics are listed in the wiki.

I find it hard to find articles that I think more people should read.. I find most of them pretty much spam (cough medium cough). I created this thread so you can recommend some articles that you read and found interesting.

It doesn't matter about what it is, recommend away!

This is kind of a question for Tildes as well as a discussion topic on Social Media more generally. For context, "The Right to be Forgotten" is an idea being kicked around in international law and human rights circles. It's kind of a corollary to the "right to privacy" and focuses on putting some guardrails around the downsides of having all information about you being archived, searchable, and publicly available forever and ever. It's usually phrased as a sense that people shouldn't be tied down indefinitely by stigmatizing actions they've done in "the past" (which is usually interpreted as long enough ago that you're not the same person anymore).

This manifests in some examples large and small. Felony convictions or drug offenses are a pretty big one. Another public issue was James Gunn getting raked over the coals for homophobic quotes from a long time ago. Even on a smaller scale, I think plenty of young people have some generalized anxiety about embarrassing videos, photos, Facebook statuses, forum posts, etc. that they made when they were young following them around the rest of their lives. For example, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez had people try to shame her for dancing to a Phoenix song in an amateur music video. An even darker version of this happens with people who might be the victims of targeted harassment. Often doxxing happens by people digging through peoples' histories and piecing together clues to figure out who they are or at least narrow down where they're from, where they work, etc.

In the context of Tildes, this would basically be a question of how do we feel about peoples' comment history lingering forever? Do we care about/agree with this "right" in principle and if we do, what should be done about putting it into practice?

The root of the issue is the existence of archives of data about yourself that is 1.) searchable, 2.) publicly viewable, 3.) under someone else's control, 4.) forever. Even if the ability to delete comments exists, it's infeasible for any individual to pore over the reams of data they create about themselves to find the stuff that might be problematic. The solutions would revolve around addressing any one of those numbered items. Unfortunately, hitting any of those has upsides and downsizes. Some examples:

Some people like being able to look back on old contributions and having them get deleted after a period of time (hitting problem #4) would be a bummer unless there is a system to selectively archive stuff you want to save from atrophy, which would be a function/feature that would take a ton of thought and development. What's more, there is no point in just saving your own comment if everyone else's stuff is gone because comments without context are indecipherable. It could work in a more selective way, so rather than a blanket atrophying of posts, but then you have the context issue again. Someone you were having a discussion with might choose to delete their entire comment history and there goes any sense of logic or coherence to your posts.

We could address the searchable bit by automatically or selectively having posts pseudonymed after a period of time. But in a lot of cases a pseudonym won't work. People tend to refer to each other by username at times, and some people have a distinctive enough style that you could probably figure it out if they're well known and long-tenured.

That's just some general food for thought. I'll yield the floor

No genre restrictions, so a tell-all memoir is as valid a response as a high-fantasy tome. Maybe you want to dive in deep on an anthropological topic, or maybe you want to pen a full book of contemporary political commentary. Any and all options are on the table, with the only caveat being that you'd have to write enough to fill a book, so it would have to be an area of knowledge or passion for you--likely both.

Also, for those here that have already written books, feel free to talk about those if you like, or one you hope to write in the future.

For those that haven't, don't feel constrained by real-world concerns/inhibitions. Pretend you have the time and resources to adequately devote to the book to fully see your vision through.

Make sure you give us:

• A summary of what the book would be about
• An explanation of why you'd want to write that specific book
• And, most importantly, a good title!

First up: that “spoiler” tag isn’t there for fun. This essay is going to focus on a climactic moment in ‘Toy Story 4’. If you haven’t seen it and don’t want to know what happens, close this topic NOW.

I saw ‘Toy Story 4’ last night. I’ve been catching myself up on the previous movies over the past few weeks (I’d never seen any of them before), so they’re reasonably fresh in my mind. I surprised myself by enjoying the movies a bit more than I expected to. I had assumed they were very much children’s movies, but I found them engaging and enjoyable even as a middle-aged adult.

So I was all caught up, and went out last night to see the latest instalment in the franchise with a friend who’s a massive fan of all things Disney.

I liked it. It was yet another “toys having adventures in the big wide world” story line. That seems to be the main story line of all the Toy Story movies: the toys get lost or misplaced, or have to go rescue a toy who is lost or misplaced, so they end up having adventures outside of their home.

But there’s usually an emotional heart to each movie. And that emotional heart often comes from the character of Woody, whose goal has always been to make sure that the toys are doing what toys are supposed to do: bringing joy to children. As we often get told, mostly by Woody, being a child’s plaything is the most noble thing a toy can do. To that end, Woody seems willing to do almost anything. The toys have mounted ridiculous rescue missions, they’ve manipulated humans (it wasn’t Andy’s idea to give his toys to Bonnie), and they’ve made personal sacrifices. Even in this movie, Woody was willing to give up his voice box so that he could get brand-new toy Forky back to Bonnie who had made him, and to give Gabby the chance to belong to a kid.

Then…

Woody met Bo Peep in this movie, and found her living an independent life as a lost toy. We know they’ve had romantic feelings towards each other, but she was given away by Andy’s little sister some years back. Then she got given away again, to an antique store. Now she turns up living near a caravan park, and she’s noone’s toy except her own.

Normally, Woody would have moved heaven and earth to reunite Bo with her previous kid, or to find her a new one. But she doesn’t want one. She’s an independent toy now, and that suits her fine.

So they have their adventures. And, at the end of those adventures, Woody and his fellow toys are returning to Bonnie, while Bo is returning to her independent life. And Woody has a moment of indecision. Does he return to Bonnie, or does he go with Bo?

But, there’s not really that much tension because we know how this is going to end. Woody has told us so many times that being a child’s plaything is the most noble thing a toy can do. Of course he’s going back to Bonnie.

And then he chooses to go with Bo.

I sobbed.

Let me give some context for my reaction to this moment. I do respond emotionally to movies and television. I laugh loudly when something is funny, and I cry openly when something is sad. I jolt back in my seat in response to scary moments, and I’ve been known to cover my eyes during exceptionally gory scenes. I’m not ashamed to feel things in response to events on the screen, nor to express those feelings. That’s normal for me. However, I felt a very strong emotional reaction to this moment in the movie – much stronger than most. I wanted to burst out in loud unmanly sobs because of how upset I was. I wanted to shout at the screen. I felt a real and physical reaction in my gut: it was literally a gut-wrenching moment for me (and that almost never happens!). This was the strongest emotional reaction I’ve had to any moment in movies or television for years. It was strong enough to prompt me to write about it!

I know I was supposed to feel happy that Woody and Bo had found each other, and they loved each other, and this was the start of their romantic “happy ever after”. But that’s not why I cried. I cried because Woody turned his back on nobility and chose selfishness.

Woody had been the conscience and the heart of the whole franchise, reconciling toys to their place in life, and helping toys to achieve their goal in life. Even in this movie, he had turned Forky around from wanting to be trash to wanting to help Bonnie. Woody showed toys their noble goal in life, and did everything he could to help them achieve it.

And then he turned his back on everything he’d said and believed up till now.

Sure, Bonnie wasn’t playing with him as much as Andy did. Sure, he wasn’t top dog in Bonnie’s playroom (that place belonged to Dolly, who’d been there much longer than Woody and his fellows). But Woody was always selfless. Woody was always looking out for the children’s best interests. Woody was always putting the children’s needs ahead of his own. He had previously told his fellow toys that even being stored in the attic was a good thing because it meant their child (now a college man) still cared about them to some degree. So, even if Bonnie wasn’t playing with him all the time, he would still want to stay around to be there for her – or even to be there for the other toys she did play with.

Wouldn’t he?

Or was it all a lie? Was it all about his own selfish desire to be important and, then, when that importance was taken away, he decided to walk out?

Or was it as basic as choosing pleasure over service?

How could you do that, Woody? How could you turn your back on everything noble and good, and choose your own selfish desires instead?

Woody, you broke my heart.

What's a song lyric that has recently jumped out at you, caught your attention, resonated, or made you think?

This doesn't have to be a favorite/best of all time topic, though feel free to post those if they speak to you. I'm more interested in something you encountered recently that you really like, appreciate, or find interesting, for whatever reason.

Given a movie with ambiguous story, you have multiple options to base your interpretation upon: you have the movie itself, the screenplay if available, what the author said in interviews or books, etc... Now, if we take a video game, you also have additional tools: the source code, the installed file names, unused resources, etc. There are of course a few games that expect the player to check these files but that isn't what I want to focus on.

Would you say that all these files have the same authority as the game itself when it comes to interpretations?

I'd like to take an example with SPOILERS FOR LIFE IS STRANGE 1, as this is the game that sparked this topic for me:

The blue butterfly has a special place in this game, it is what starts the whole journey when Max takes a picture of it and Chloe gets shot. It also shown again in the 'Sacrifice Chloe' ending during that same scene. And later during Chloe's burial that butterfly is shown to land on the coffin in front of Max and fly away. There are some scenes that imply that spirit animals are a thing in the in-game universe. After finishing the game my interpretation was that the blue butterfly was Chloe's spirit animal. Now what a surprise to see in the game wiki that the texture file for that butterfly is named 'Spirit_animal_Chloe' !

Is there any room left for interpretation when the source makes it explicit text? Or can the source be reasonably be pushed aside?

oops, had a space in url last time.
So still not a valid link as topic link

But does make a weird un-clickable link in md.

While the link does not go anywhere, could a malicious link do anything bad sec-wise?

fyi, the link is to: data:text/html,<h1>Hello%2C%20World!<%2Fh1>

This was inspired by this post.

I was thinking, as a platform gets bigger we're going to end up with more situations where people are asking for advice about fairly serious stuff. In some cases, that advice needs to come from experts and taking guidance from any random Joe on the street can be risky/dangerous. (For the record, I don't think the post I'm referencing is an example of this, it just got me thinking about it).

In cases like this, I think it's important that the actual good advice get some kind of clear designation that THIS is the guidance you need to take first. I notice this in communities like /r/Fitness a lot where people will post about what sound like pretty serious health concerns and you get a fair number of posts that suggest toughing it out or whatever and the more critical "You need to see a doctor" posts can kind of disappear amid the discussion. Similar things in /r/relationships where you can't always count on "This is abuse. Make arrangements to get your kids and yourself somewhere safe. . ." to be the top post.

Even in cases where the poster themselves is smart enough to take "YOU NEED TO SEE A DOCTOR" type advice to heart, not every schmuck searching the topic on Google will. To that end, it might be good to give certain posts with good, holistic advice or by a known expert some kind of visual indicator that it deserves to be taken more seriously than other posts in the thread. It wouldn't be censoring anything really, just providing a little nudge about what ought to be consulted first or taken to heart.

Now obviously it gets hard to decide how to give a post this attribute. It could possibly be awarded by the OP, though that has some obvious issues where the OP themselves might not be in a position to credibly vet the advice they're getting. We could also just do it through ranking by vote, which is the default paradigm. But like I said, it doesn't always work so well on Reddit. And the Exemplary tag is invisible to others, so that doesn't work either (and the post itself might not be worth giving up your "Exemplary" for the day besides). Moderators could do it, but there may not be enough and the skillset to be a Mod might not overlap with the skillset to know what advice a person needs in a particular situation.

I don't actually have the answers. Maybe it just comes down to creating an attribute for some users to be "wisened elders" or something and empower them to star certain posts to separate good advice from bad. It would basically be a trusted user system. It's got it's own problems, but I guess we can open the floor for other ideas. Maybe it's not a real concern. Maybe it's better addressed by tinkering with the sorting of posts.

A screenshot.

Following is a user script that embeds a thumbnail into the topic header. Was supposed to be trivial, but walking around the CSRP was not that easy. Luckily, someone had written a nice useful custom Base64 encoder, because I spent more than an hour trying to get btoa to do the thing.

// ==UserScript==
// @name     tildesYoutubeThumbs
// @version  1
// @grant    GM.xmlHttpRequest
// @namespace   tildes.net
// @include     https://tildes.net/~*/*
// ==/UserScript==

let youtubeIcon = document.querySelector('div.topic-icon-youtube_com')

if(youtubeIcon !== null) {
  let youtubeLink = youtubeIcon.nextSibling.nextSibling.href;
  let youtubeID = new URL(youtubeLink).searchParams.get('v');
  let thumbnailUrl = "https://img.youtube.com/vi/" + youtubeID + "/0.jpg";

  GM.xmlHttpRequest({
    method: "GET",
    url: thumbnailUrl,
    overrideMimeType: 'text/plain; charset=x-user-defined',
    onload: function(response) {
      if(response.status === 200) {
        let thumbElement = document.createElement('img');
        let thumbParentDiv = document.createElement('div');
        let header = document.querySelector('article.topic-full > header');
        let data = "data:image/jpeg;base64," + customBase64Encode(response.responseText);
        thumbElement.src = data;
        thumbElement.style = 'width: 60%; margin: auto';
        thumbElement.id = 'gk-youtube-thumbnail';
        thumbParentDiv.style = 'width: 100%; text-align:center;';
        header.appendChild(thumbParentDiv);
        thumbParentDiv.appendChild(thumbElement);
      }
    }
  });
}

// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8778863/downloading-an-image-using-xmlhttprequest-in-a-userscript/8781262#8781262
function customBase64Encode (inputStr) {
    var
        bbLen               = 3,
        enCharLen           = 4,
        inpLen              = inputStr.length,
        inx                 = 0,
        jnx,
        keyStr              = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"
                            + "0123456789+/=",
        output              = "",
        paddingBytes        = 0;
    var
        bytebuffer          = new Array (bbLen),
        encodedCharIndexes  = new Array (enCharLen);

    while (inx < inpLen) {
        for (jnx = 0;  jnx < bbLen;  ++jnx) {
            /*--- Throw away high-order byte, as documented at:
              https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Using_XMLHttpRequest#Handling_binary_data
            */
            if (inx < inpLen)
                bytebuffer[jnx] = inputStr.charCodeAt (inx++) & 0xff;
            else
                bytebuffer[jnx] = 0;
        }

        /*--- Get each encoded character, 6 bits at a time.
            index 0: first  6 bits
            index 1: second 6 bits
                        (2 least significant bits from inputStr byte 1
                         + 4 most significant bits from byte 2)
            index 2: third  6 bits
                        (4 least significant bits from inputStr byte 2
                         + 2 most significant bits from byte 3)
            index 3: forth  6 bits (6 least significant bits from inputStr byte 3)
        */
        encodedCharIndexes[0] = bytebuffer[0] >> 2;
        encodedCharIndexes[1] = ( (bytebuffer[0] & 0x3) << 4)   |  (bytebuffer[1] >> 4);
        encodedCharIndexes[2] = ( (bytebuffer[1] & 0x0f) << 2)  |  (bytebuffer[2] >> 6);
        encodedCharIndexes[3] = bytebuffer[2] & 0x3f;

        //--- Determine whether padding happened, and adjust accordingly.
        paddingBytes          = inx - (inpLen - 1);
        switch (paddingBytes) {
            case 1:
                // Set last character to padding char
                encodedCharIndexes[3] = 64;
                break;
            case 2:
                // Set last 2 characters to padding char
                encodedCharIndexes[3] = 64;
                encodedCharIndexes[2] = 64;
                break;
            default:
                break; // No padding - proceed
        }

        /*--- Now grab each appropriate character out of our keystring,
            based on our index array and append it to the output string.
        */
        for (jnx = 0;  jnx < enCharLen;  ++jnx)
            output += keyStr.charAt ( encodedCharIndexes[jnx] );
    }
    return output;
}

I am working on an app called Percent Done that is a combination of goal setting, time tracking and habit tracking.

I like setting time-based goals for myself every day, such as “write for an hour” or “work on Percent Done for four hours.”

I also like Seinfeld’s “don’t break the chain” method. For example, Apple Watch shows you how many days you have completed your exercise circle and tells you that you have been keeping at it for x days.

Percent Done is a marriage of these two concepts. It allows you to set goals and track the time you spend on them, as well as how many days in a row you have consistently completed them. For example, you can add a goal that says “write for an hour every day,” and Percent Done will notify you every day to write for an hour. You will be able to tap on this goal and Percent Done will start counting back from one hour. You will also be able to see how many days in a row you have written for an hour.

Here is a demo GIF.

You can also add one-time goals to Percent Done with or without time tracking, so it is a task management tool as well.

You can play with the design prototype here: Percent Done design prototype

I would really love to get your feedback on this. If you are interested in being a beta tester, feel free to reply to this topic or e-mail me at "hi at evrim dot io."

By the way, this is almost completely a self-promotion post. If it is against the rules, I'd be happy to remove this.

I apologize if this is the wrong topic for this post, and if this feature already exists, I apologize for that too. I looked around and couldn't find it (it's possible I could have missed it). But I thought a dark mode for Tildes would be most excellent. Right now, there's a lot of white space and combined with my 24" monitor, this site lights up my whole room like it's in the middle of the day. Anyways, thanks for reading. :)

Introduction

I want to give an introduction on several physics topics at a level understandable to laypeople (high school level physics background). Making physics accessible to laypeople is a much discussed topic at universities. It can be very hard to translate the professional terms into a language understandable by people outside the field. So I will take this opportunity to challenge myself to (hopefully) create an understandable introduction to interesting topics in modern physics. To this end, I will take liberties in explaining things, and not always go for full scientific accuracy, while hopefully still getting the core concepts across. If a more in-depth explanation is wanted, please ask in the comments and I will do my best to answer.

Previous topics

Bookmarkable meta post with links to all previous topics

Today's topic

Today's topic is spintronics storage devices for computers. I will try to explain how we can use an electron's spin to read and write data and why this is more efficient than current technologies.

What do we need to have a storage device?

In order to be able to save a bit (a 0 or a 1 in computer science speak), we need to be able to represent both the 0 and the 1 in some physical way. We could for example flip a light switch and say light on is 1, light off is 0. We will also need to be able to read the information we stored, in this case we can simply look at the lamp to see if we're storing a 0 or a 1. We would also like for this information to be stored even when power is cut, so that next time we power the hardware back on, we will still be able to read the data. Lastly, we want to be able to change between 0 and 1 freely; no one wants to go back to the CD days for storage.

Now for some basic concepts.

What is spin?

Spin arises from quantum mechanics. However, for the purpose of explaining spin storage devices we can think of an electron's spin as a bar magnet. Each electron can be thought of as a freely rotating bar magnet that will align itself with the fields from nearby magnets. Think of it as a compass (the electron) aligning itself to a fridge magnet when it's held near the compass.

Why are some metals magnetic?

Why can we make permanent magnets out of iron, but not copper? In all metals, we have spins that are free to rotate. This means that we can turn a metal into a magnet by holding it near another magnet, it will "copy" the other magnet's magnetisation - its spins will rotate in the direction of the field. But as soon as we remove the magnet, our metal will stop being magnetic. This is because the spins are freely rotating, the spins will align to the magnet's magnetisation when they feel it, but nothing is holding them in place as soon as it's removed. We call this property paramagnetism.

However, iron (and some other metals) will retain a nearby magnet's magnetisation even when the magnet is removed. This is because in these materials, called ferromagnets, it costs energy for the spins to rotate away from the material's magnetisation. They are pinned into place.

What happens if we expose half of our ferromagnet to a magnetisation pointing in one way (let's call it up), and the other half to a magnet whose magnetisation is pointing the other way (which we call down)? The ferromagnet would copy both magnetisation directions and create a boundary region - a so-called domain wall - in the centre. The spins in this domain wall will slowly rotate over the thickness of the wall so that at one end they're pointing up and at the other end they're pointing down.

How can we use spin to store data?

What if, instead of a light bulb, we used a bar magnet as our storage medium. We could magnetise our bar magnet in one direction to store a 1 and magnetise it in the other direction to store a 0. To read what we have stored, we simply check the bar magnet's magnetisation.

Let's work out this idea. We want to be able to efficiently change the magnetisation of a bar magnet and we want to be able to read the bar magnet's magnetisation. We will use a ferromagnet because it will retain our data indefinitely (its magnetisation will not change unless we force it to). We know it costs energy to flip the spins inside a ferromagnet, so we will want to use a very tiny ferromagnet - it will have less spins which means it will cost us less energy to change the magnetisation (i.e. flip the spins).

Magnetoresistance

A-ha, now we're getting into the fancy-titled paragraphs. What do you, dear reader, think would happen when we send a current (e.g. a bunch of electrons) through a magnet? What would happen to the current's electrons (also called itinerant electrons, to distinguish them from the non-moving electrons of the metal)? At the boundary of the magnet, where the current enters, only the electrons who (through random chance) have a spin that's aligned to the magnet's magnetisation will pass through. We call this effect magnetoresistance, as in effect part of our current will feel a resistance - they cannot pass through to the magnet. So to rephrase, the current inside the magnet will be "magnetised" - all of the spins of the itinerant electrons are pointing the same way.

Current induced domain wall motion

So now we know what happens to a current that's inside a magnet. What happens when this current meets a domain wall - the region where the magnetisation changes direction? The itinerant electrons' spins will start rotating along with the magnetisation, but the static electrons of the ferromagnet will also start rotating in the opposite way due to the magnetisation they feel from the current (more experienced readers will recognise this as conservation of angular momentum). So the spins inside the current will slowly rotate until they are pointing the opposite direction and can continue passage from the up-magnetised part of the ferromagnet into the down-magnetised part. But the spins that belong to the ferromagnet itself will be rotating in the opposite manner, slowly rotating from down to up as the current passes through. This means the boundary region between up and down magnetisation, the domain wall, will move along with the current.

So in short, by sending a current through a magnet that's magnetised in opposite directions at each end, we can force our preferred magnetisation to expand in the current's direction. By reversing the direction of the current we can then magnetise the other way again.

So we can say magnetising up (pushing current through (let's say) from left to right) can be our 1 and magnetising down (pushing current through from right to left) can be our 0. This would allow us to store data permanently as even when we remove the current our magnet will remember its magnetisation. If we make a really tiny ferromagnet we will only need a really tiny current to flip it's magnetisation too. So we can scale this process down to get to really good efficiencies. In the lab these types of devices are down to nanometre scale and require extremely little current to be operated.

Reading the data

OK, so now we know how to write data. But how do we read it? The key effect here will be magnetoresistance, as explained earlier in the post.

Let's look at this picture. The red dotted line shows our write currents, the big bar is our ferromagnet. The arrows pointing up and down at the sides are our magnetisation direction, the double-pointed arrow in the centre shows the region where we flip the magnetisation by sending through a current.

Now we jam a third, permanently magnetised, bit of metal (let's call it the read terminal) on top of the centre of our bar. We send a current from this read connector to one of the ends of the ferromagnet. If the ferromagnet's magnetisation is aligned to that of the read terminal we will experience a low (magneto)resistance, but if the ferromagnet is magnetised in the opposite direction we will experience a high resistance. By measuring the difference in resistance we can determine if we have a 0 or a 1 stored. We just need to be careful not to send too big of a current, else that would influence our ferromagnet's magnetisation. But small currents means better efficiency, so this is not a problem at all.

Conclusion

This concludes the post, we have seen how to use spins and magnets to both write and read data and we understand why this is efficient.

Feedback

As usual, please let me know where I missed the mark. Also let me know if things are not clear to you, I will try to explain further in the comments!

Neon Genesis Evangelion is out on Netflix. I'm thinking to use this topic as the megathread to discuss the (re-)watch, to avoid flooding the Tildes Activity feed with one topic per episode.

To borrow a past Tildo's approach, I ask that any top-level comments contain ONLY the episode number, such as "Episode 13" and no other text.

Press the Collapse replies button, find the top-level comment for the episode you care about, and reply under that top-level comment. If there's not yet a top-level comment with that episode number, create it.

Hey everyone! I was browsing around and came across this old topic again, late 2000's skeuomorphisism vs modern flat design. I've always strongly preferred the former for a variety of reasons and thought flat design was a regression, but I was curious, what do you guys think?

welcome to week twelve, one day late edition. this delay is brought to you by the weirdly confined issue to the file i wrote this in, which necessitated three days(!) of writing because of the sheer number of links this week. the opinion section is only one article long this week again, but we have some [LONGFORM] pieces and some recent polling to make up for that.

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 1 • Week 2 • Week 3 • Week 4 • Week 5 • Week 6 • Week 7 • Week 8 • Week 9 • Week 10 • Week 11

News

Polling

• Iowa Caucuses, from CNN & The Des Moines Register:

Twenty-four percent of Iowa’s likely Democratic caucusgoers say former vice president Biden is their first choice for president. Sanders, a Vermont senator, is the first choice for 16% of poll respondents, while Warren, a Massachusetts senator, and Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indiana, are at 15% and 14% respectively. No other candidate cracks double digits. California Sen. Kamala Harris comes closest at 7% [...] Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke are at 2%.

• National head-to-head, from Quinnipiac:

In a first look at head-to-head 2020 presidential matchups nationwide, several Democratic challengers lead President Donald Trump, with former Vice President Joseph Biden ahead 53 - 40 percent, according to a Quinnipiac University National Poll released today. [...]
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders over President Trump 51 - 42 percent;
California Sen. Kamala Harris ahead of Trump 49 - 41 percent;
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren tops Trump 49 - 42 percent;
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg edges Trump 47 - 42 percent;
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker by a nose over Trump 47 - 42 percent.

• National Democratic Primary, from Quinnipiac:

Biden leads the presidential primary race with 30 percent among Democrats and voters leaning Democratic. [...] Sanders is next with 19 percent; Warren has 15 percent; Buttigieg has 8 percent; Harris is at 7 percent; Former U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke is at 3 percent; No other Democrat tops 1 percent, with 14 candidates polling at less than 1 percent.

General Stuff

• from Vox: Poll: a growing number of Democratic voters are prioritizing gender-related issues we begin with some polling, which suggests that the recent slate of abortion bans and heavy restrictions on abortion is having an impact on what voters prioritize. a doubling of democratic voters who prioritize women's issues has been observed across the board in the span of just a month. this might not be maintained if the slate of abortion bans gradually dies off, but at least in the immediate term you definitely seem to be seeing this in how often these issues are mentioned in the media.
• from Vox: 2020 is quickly becoming the abortion rights election. Here’s proof. also from Vox, in a similar vein some activists are considering 2020 the year of the abortion rights, and the 2020 election a defining election on them. in iowa, for example, it was ranked the top issue of caucusgoers, placing ahead of climate change narrowly. this piece is primarily a conversation focusing on the issues surrounding abortion and how activists think it will play out in this election cycle.
• from Pacific Standard: Can Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, and U.S. Cities End Exclusionary Zoning?. exclusionary zoning policies are something that's gotten attention from a few candidates, most obviously cory booker and elizabeth warren who both have plans which seek to end it. zoning policies are but one part of a greater issue in affordable housing, but the fact that candidates are even bothering to take the time to acknowledge its existence probably demonstrates something about what an issue housing is for a lot of people.
• from CBS News: Some progressives worry Puerto Rico is being left behind on 2020 campaign trail. despite the focus on the complete bottling of aid being sent to puerto rico by the trump administration, a number of progressive groups are concerned that puerto rico is being largely left out of the conversation when it comes to 2020. puerto rico has been largely ignored by candidates so far (only 3 of the candidates in the race have visited the island so far) and is still recovering from hurricane maria; nonetheless, progressives seem ready to make it a defining issue of the campaign trail.
• from Slate: The Democratic Candidates Ought to Debate Climate Change Policy. one of this week's plotlines with respect to the debates was the DNC's unwillingness to agree to a debate specifically on the issue of climate change. this has been a generally poorly received move, and the party has received considerable backlash for it as this piece is representative of. the DNC might walk this back or it might not, but regardless this seems like it will be an issue that causes future friction, especially given the DNC's expressed desire to uninvite anybody who qualifies for the debates should they engage in a non-DNC affiliated one.
• from Buzzfeed News: California’s Early 2020 Primary Is Pushing Presidential Candidates To Talk To Latino Voters. the california primary coming so early on in the cycle and being such a decisive part of it in 2020 is leading to democratic candidates placing significant priority on appealing to latino voters this year, who are likely to be a major constituency in the primary. this is a welcome change for a lot of latinos and the state of california in general, which has generally come late in the cycle previously and not played an especially significant role in most of them.
• from the Atlantic: [LONGFORM] How the Democrats Got Radicalized on Student Debt. the recent policy developments of the democrats on student debt are the focus of this article by the Atlantic. this has been a rapid change for the party; in the span of just three election cycles the party has gone from "one year of college free for “qualified students”" (the John Edwards proposal, 2008) to things like "making public college tuition-free for students from families who made less than $125,000 a year" (Clinton, 2016) and probably beyond in this cycle.

Joe Biden

• from Grist: Joe Biden says he’ll take the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledge. Here’s why that matters. joe biden, in rolling out his climate plan next week, also became the latest candidate to take the "no fossil fuel money" pledge, which most candidates have also taken (and which counterintuitively allows candidates to take donations of less than 200 dollars from the fossil fuel industry). biden's acceptance of this--even though it is far from binding--is particularly significant because it suggests that the progressive wing of the party has basically forced people's hands on this.
• from In These Times: [LONGFORM] Hold the Applause. Biden’s Climate Plan Is Mostly Fluff. meanwhile, In These Times has an extensive critique of biden's climate plan; primarily it notes that biden's plan when you strip it down is not that special and is essentially shared by the rest of the field which has rolled out plans so far at its best moments. at others, it is actively misleading, relies on technological optimism as a crutch, or implies biden supports things like the green new deal which he for the most part does not.
• from the Atlantic: Joe Biden Has the Most to Lose at the Debates. the Atlantic has a piece on joe biden, his near total lack of experience with debates in the past decade, and his debate prep in light of that fact. biden's last serious debate was of course 7 years ago when he faced off against then-VP candidate paul ryan; however, as far as debating other democrats goes, he hasn't done that in a decade. the majority of his prep is centered around trying to stave off the inevitable questions about his record and his positions while presenting himself as a viable alternative to both other democrats and to trump (not that most people necessarily need convincing on the last point)
• from the Guardian: Biden abruptly drops support for 'discriminatory' abortion rule. in policy news, biden decided to do a weird and wholly unnecessary flip-flop on the hyde amendment after originally affirming his continued support for it ,and then having to immediately walk his support of it back when it turned out that literally nobody else but him supported it in the democratic primary. great look, joe.
• from Pacific Standard: Green Jobs and New Technology: A Look at Biden and Warren's Latest Climate Plans. this small article from Pacific Standard compares warren and biden's climate plans together on a number of issues, since they are actually fairly similar in a number of respects despite their ideas being relatively different as a whole.

Elizabeth Warren

• from the Guardian: Elizabeth Warren gains momentum in the 2020 race plan by plan. warren has continued her quiet, but consistent rise in the polls; she's currently pushing some of her best numbers thus far in the campaign in multiple polls. this is good for her campaign of course, but it's also a bit of a potential quagmire for progressives because with sanders and warren both splitting the difference of mostly the same voting demographics, it's unlikely that biden will relinquish his lead over the primary any time soon.
• from the Guardian: Watch Elizabeth Warren blast Biden for his stance on abortion funding. biden drew a massive amount of criticism from democratic candidates over supporting the hyde amendment, probably the strongest of which came from elizabeth warren. in warren's words here: "We do not pass laws that take away that freedom from the women who are most vulnerable"
• from Jacobin: Elizabeth Warren Has a Plan for Everything — Except Health Care. jacobin has an article focusing on the conspicuous absence of an actual healthcare plan from all of warren's ideas so far in the campaign. warren has been pretty vague about what her healthcare policy actually is despite firmly falling into the progressive camp, and she's not really committing to anything in particular yet, to which jacobin encourages her supporters to press her. in their words:

The entire country is desperate for health care security, and Warren is in a position to argue intelligently and emotionally in support of a bold, progressive solution, just as she has for so many other important issues. Her voice can help the single-payer movement in a significant way. Together with Sanders, she could make Medicare for All an unambiguous and uncompromising demand of the progressive left in the 2020 campaign. The longer she stays silent, the weaker the Medicare for All movement becomes in the face of relentless attacks from right and center.

Kamala Harris

• from CNN: Kamala Harris rolls out proposal that would require states to prove abortion laws were constitutional. kamala harris has basically proposed a section 5 provision for abortion rights, which would create a standard where states or polities with a history of unconstitutionally restricting abortion rights would have to prove the constitutionality of their restrictions before they go into effect. this mirrors section 5 of the voting rights act, and would be implemented by harris if she becomes president.
• from NBC News: Kamala Harris ramps up in early primary states. harris has largely lagged behind other candidates, but seems to be finally kicking her campaign in the early states into full gear this week. harris has been relatively low-key with her scheduling so far, only attending around 50 events, but she seems to be intending to gradually pick up the pace, which is probably a good idea because she still has a name recognition problem.

Beto O'Rourke

• from Buzzfeed News: Beto O’Rourke Wants Term Limits For Congress And The Supreme Court. beto o'rourke wants to do a bunch of stuff, but in particular he seems to want to implement term limits for congress; he has a plan which would "limit members of Congress to serving 12 years and create 18-year Supreme Court terms."
• from the Texas Tribune: Beto O'Rourke's proposed election reforms seek to simplify voting registration, get big money out of politics. that plan is also part of a broader scheme to reform politics. the crux of his ideas revolve around elections, where he wants "a national transition to same-day voter registration and automatic voter registration when any citizen visits a government office, with pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds" along with "let[ting] people vote without ID as long as they sign a "sworn written statement of identity."" o'rourke wants to "mak[e] Election Day a federal holiday, expanding early voting to two full weeks before Election Day and relocating polling stations to more convenient places." o'rourke also wants to reform campaign finance, among other thing spporting "encouraging low-dollar donations by making contributions up to $500 tax-deductible and matching those donations with public funds" and "requir[ing] campaigns to disclose donations over $1,000 within 48 hours" among other things.
• from CBS News: Beto O'Rourke says Biden "absolutely wrong" on abortion stance. o'rourke was extensively interviewed by CBS News the other day, during which he also threw some criticism at biden for his bad stance on the hyde amendment:

"I hope Joe Biden rethinks his position on this issue," O'Rourke said. "Perhaps he doesn't have all the facts. Perhaps he doesn't understand who the Hyde Amendment hurts the most...lower income communities, communities of color. I would ask that he rethink his position on this."

Pete Buttigieg

• from Buzzfeed News: Pete Buttigieg’s Struggle To Win Over Latinos Could Limit His Rise In California. pete buttigieg is going to need to do a lot of things if he wants to win the nomination, and one of them is win over latinos who currently are not going to him in nearly the numbers he needs. in california in particular, the biggest state in the primary his bump in the polls is really being limited by his current lack of appeal to the latino community (to which he is trying to rectify things, but not necessarily doing the best job). he's made overtures toward the latino community, but he's still going to need to do a lot more than what he currrently has on the card if he wants to compete with them.
• from NBC News: Buttigieg's big accomplishment that he never mentions on the campaign trail. buttigieg incidentally has one proposal which might actually endear him to the latino community's undocumented members but which he has yet to really play up on the campaign trail. in south bend he organized a "Community Resident Card" program through a private organization and basically turned it into an acceptable form of ID accepted by most of the businesses and services in the city, which allowed undocumented immigrants in south bend to participate in life without having to worry about immigration services.

Jay Inslee

• from Reuters: Presidential hopeful Inslee unveils plan to reclaim U.S. leadership on climate issue. jay inslee not only has plans on climate change, he also has plans on how to make the US a leader on climate change internationally. according to reuters, inslee's plan on taking the reins internationally "ranges from rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, an international accord to fight climate change that Trump opposes, to more ambitious ideas like overhauling U.S. trade and immigration policies to prioritize climate change, and blocking U.S. financing for foreign fossil fuel projects."
• from Buzzfeed News: Gov. Jay Inslee Says He Is Running For President To Do “Everything Humanly Possible” To Defeat Climate Change. buzzfeed interviewed jay inslee primarily on climate change here and he goes into a bit more detail about his campaign, but probably the most interesting thing about this interview is inslee's non climate policies, which he also goes into a bit here. (he does not want to change the law federally on sex work, leaving it up to the states, for example.)

Everybody else

• from TIME: [LONGFORM] Bernie Sanders Wants to Change America. But He May Have to Change Himself First. this longform piece from TIME focuses on the bernie sanders campaign and bernie himself, mostly in how his own successes in 2016 have so far been his worst enemy in 2020 because other candidates have come to emulate him. in many respects 2020 will probably be a campaign which sees bernie reinvent himself in ways that he didn't previously have to consider in 2016, when he was an upstart radical challenging hillary clinton and trying to push for radical positions that are now basically mainstream in the party because of him.
• from Vox: Cory Booker’s plan to fix the housing crisis and make renting affordable. cory booker has policy on fixing the housing crisis, and in summary it's: tax credits for renters, federal incentives for affordable housing, “baby bonds” as ways to make housing more affordable, protections for renters against evictions, and aid for the homeless.
• from Buzzfeed News: This Democratic Presidential Candidate Has A Sweeping Plan To Eliminate Lead Poisoning. the apparently nameless julian castro hasa plan to deal with lead poisoning in america, which is something that no other candidate has put forward before now. his plan is pretty straightforward:

He would ask Congress to allocate $5 billion per year for 10 years to replace lead pipes and address lead contamination in paint and soil “in areas of highest need,” as well as an additional $100 million per year toward preventing lead poisoning in children.
For people whose blood has high levels of lead, Castro’s plan includes provisions for treating lead poisoning under universal health care, mandatory lead testing for children under 2 years old, and “support services including counseling, tutoring, education on nutritional needs.”

• from RollCall: Think Kirsten Gillibrand has no chance? She’s heard that before — and won anyway. kirsten gillibrand might be well behind most of the frontrunners, but she's no stranger to longshot races. as this RollCall article notes, gillibrand's first big victory came in a district that was something of a longshot, and despite the expectation that gilibrand would lose. obviously a congressional race is not a presidential race, but we're also early and technically speaking, nobody is out of it yet.
• from the Guardian: 'For the NRA, the gig is up': Eric Swalwell on why gun control is a winning issue. from one perennial 1%er to another, we now turn to eric swalwell, who the guardian snagged an interview with on the issue of gun control, the topic which motivated his run. in his view gun control is a winning issue primarily because of the massive toll mass shootings have already wreaked on the country and the fact that most people support restrictions on guns.

Opinion

• from the Guardian: Want to defeat Trump? Attack Biden. this opinion piece by bhaskar sunkara echoes a similar refrain from a number of people, which is that biden is out of step with the party and needs to be halted because his policies essentially make him an empty suit.

Rationale: labels are a valuable way to receive and give feedback, so it would be useful to have more labels-related tools.

This topic deals with labels received by an ordinary user or given by an ordinary user from that user's point of view (as opposed to non-logged-in lurkers, other ordinary users, and users with elevated privileges).

While labels presently only apply to comments, these suggestions would apply to topic labels when they are implemented, and to other labellable content types should any appear.

The “Gilded” page—Issue 423

Suggestion 1. Users can filter their user pages for content labelled Exemplary.

Unlike all other suggestions, this also applies to users viewing other users' pages, and possibly even to lurkers viewing user pages.

I also suggest that users have an option to automatically expand the Exemplary messages when they see their own Exemplary content.

Other labels given TO the user

The common point is that it would help if users observe the feedback given to them by others via labels. In addition, this would prevent label misuse and abuse.

Suggestion 2. Users have an option to observe labels given to their own content along with the label counts.

Suggestion 2a. If comment vote counts remain generally hidden, users should still be able to see the vote counts for their own comments.

Suggestion 3. Users can filter their user pages for content labelled Malice (but, of course, they should not be able to see Malice messages).

Suggestion 4. Users can filter their user pages for content with any label (maybe with further options like All labels vs “Non-major” ones).

Edit: Suggestions 2, 3, and 4 might go with time lags. Namely, labels given to own content are only visible for content older than X minutes (X can be even 1440 or more) and to users with accounts older than Y days.

Labels given BY the user

Suggestion 5. Users have an option to automatically expand the label pane for the content they have already labelled.

Suggestion 6. Users can easily overview the content they labelled Exemplary. (This is basically the “Gilded” page in the other direction.) In addition, users can see the messages they provided when giving Exemplary labels.

Suggestion 7. Users can easily overview the content they labelled Malice. In addition, users can see the messages they provided when giving Malice labels.

P.S. These suggestions deal with the current labels, but they can be extended to future labels, e.g., group-specific ones.

It can be your favorite for any reason: interesting subject, extremely in depth and well written, funny details, “branching potential” (it links to a lot of interesting topics you can branch off to), etc.

The recent topic about vote counts being removed has sprung up some discussion about the nature of validation. Given that the comments over there seem to address the idea in the context of Tildes specifically, I figured I'd create an offshoot thread for a more philosophical discussion of the question at large.

• When is validation a good or bad thing?
• Is seeking validation fundamentally a bad thing?
• Is receiving validation for something great you've done fundamentally a good thing?
• What is your own relationship like with validation?
• Should platforms structurally encourage/discourage/balance methods for validation?

This took a long time to compile but the goal is to make it easy for people to see what changes happened since the last recurring topic (similarly to @Bauke's "Tildes issue log"), I plan to do this monthly since I think things will probably calm down a bit.

I won't mention minor changes such as design changes or typos to keep this still readable, I hope you understand. I also took the liberty to combine certain commits to make it more compact.

I'd like to allow for conversation and cooperation in the wikis this way since people can discuss changes they plan to do here with others before they reach and someone wishes to have their explanations which might appear rude so please discuss your changes here before doing them so you can see what other people think of your changes (and probably help too!).

(Please message me directly if you see mistakes as to avoid potential noise)

Global

May 24th

• Tildes wiki comes out
• @deing imports most (if not all) of the unofficial wiki's resources

~tech

May 25th

• @lionirdeadman added IceCat, Wire and Rocket.Chat in ~tech/FOSS-Recommendations

~books

May 25th

• @synergy-unsterile added week#20 to ~books/reading
• @cadadr creates ~books/reading_list to add listings of what people read

~music

May 26th

• @Kelsier created ~music/discover_new_music to list websites where you can discover new music
• @Whom added links, review and journalism section, databases to ~music/discover_new_music
• @cfabbro added Youtube sources to ~music/discover_new_music

~anime

May 26th

• @Whom created ~anime/useful_links to link to streaming services, manga services, tracking sites, news, reviews and others
• @lionirdeadman added Viewster and TubiTV to anime/useful_links

~news

May 27th

• @deing added Election Night 10 to ~news/index

~lgbt

May 26th

• @alyaza created ~lgbt/lgbt_resources to list resources for lgbt help services

May 27th

• @alyaza added US resources to ~lgbt/lgbt_resources

May 30th

• @mftrhu added italian resources to ~lgbt/lgbt_resources

~movies

May 31st

• @dubteedub created ~movies/recurring_topics

~tv

May 31st

• @dubteedub created ~tv/recurring_topics

~talk

May 25th

• @LukeZaz creates ~talk/index

May 31st

• @LukeZaz updated ~talk/index recurring topics

~comp

May 25th

• @ali added courses to ~comp/index

June 1st

• @sniper24 added Dice Roller to ~comp/index's programming challenges

~tildes

May 24th

• @lionirdeadman added information about wikis in ~tildes.official/mechanics
• @alyaza creates ~tildes/Hierarchical_tag_short_rules
• @alyaza addeds info about recurring. in ~tildes/hierarchical_tags

May 25th

• @Deimos puts all official docs to ~tildes.official
• @synergy-unsterile added note clarify Deimos on Mobile app to ~tildes/FDAQ

May 26th

• @synergy-unsterile creates ~tildes/sitemap in attempt to map all of them
• @Algernon_Asimov added Editing topics information to ~tildes/how_to_guide
• @Algernon_Asimov added tagging information relating to ~humanities and ~science to ~tildes/hierarchical_tags

May 31st

• @Algernon_Asimov revised Examplary label rules to ~tildes/how_to_guide

June 2nd

• @Deimos renames some ~tildes.official pages
• @Algernon did a bunch of changes across ~tildes.official in an effort to reorganize it.

June 3rd

• @Eylrid specified that users with Deimos' permission can edit tags in ~tildes.official/instructions

I recently floated this idea in a comment elsewhere, but I wanted to gauge interest in having an unofficial Tildes IRC channel. The purpose of this channel would just be general, casual discussion with other users of Tildes about anything, and particularly those topics which may not warrant an entire thread on the site here. I know that these days IRC isn't the most popular chat option, with things like Discord filling the void. However IRC is appealing in that users can choose between multiple clients, and in that such a Tildes channel would not need many of the features offered by Discord. How would people feel about such a space?

also going to toss this one up before i go to sleep this morning. this is pretty straightforward, i think: vent your experiences or things you need to get off your chest/share whatever you've found helps you mentally/etc.

resources that might also be of some benefit to people:

• there is, as always, the invaluable list of country hotlines maintained by /r/SuicideWatch
• https://findtreatment.samhsa.gov/ ("an online source of information for persons seeking treatment facilities in the United States or U.S. Territories for substance abuse/addiction and/or mental health problems")
• https://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/ (probably one of the best resources for finding a therapist)
• https://psychiatrists.psychologytoday.com/rms (ditto, with finding a psychiatrist)
• https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/index.shtml (covers some of the major mental disorders, their symptoms and treatments, and general topics like that)
• https://www.mentalhealth.gov/what-to-look-for (what symptoms to look for for major mental disorders)
• https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/help-yourself/ (US specific, but also covers ways you can help yourself and a bunch of ways to seek treatment or support)
• there's also some stuff over at /r/SWResources that might be worth checking out which is consistently updated.

and here is the may thread if you'd like to reference/update us on something you mentioned there.

Usecases :

• Recurring posting which can't be done (for numerous reasons) like @hungariantoast recently mentioned
• Trickle-down posting because certain people feel bad when they post a bunch of topics since they feel like it floods the ~groups

There's room for abuse but I think Tildes' "Trust people but punish abusers" applies here.

We would most likely use a service like archive.org for it but I'm not sure if we should so before making an issue, I thought I'd ask for opinions.

It'd be useful to make sure old topics don't become obsolete but it could also be undesirable behaviour for privacy reasons.

Maybe it's a delicate topic people always dance around. Maybe it's a sensitive topic people just avoid. Maybe it's something that's been brewing but you never really seem to have an outlet for it. Maybe it's something niche enough that you don't ever really see anything else about it around.

Whatever it is, what is it you want to talk about but never seem to be able to?

Those of you who keep hundreds of tabs open: I'm curious how and why you use them. I'd hoard tabs in the past, but in a sad incident a browser (Firefox) restart caused the loss of all my 10s of open tabs that was accumulated over weeks long research about a topic, I decided to never trust tabs again. Now I'm making use of my bookmars toolbar, Org mode and Instapaper for most of the stuff having many tabs open was the method before. So, for me, tabs were for keeping stuff handy during research, read-it-later lists, and temporary bookmarks. What are the use cases for you?

a couple of people have commented on this thread being helpful for them since tildes is a pretty welcoming community and this thread seems like something that would be nice to make regular anyways, so let's do that. this is pretty straightforward, i think: vent your experiences or things you need to get off your chest/share whatever you've found helps you mentally/etc.

resources that might also be of some benefit to you, since i have a list i informally maintain (s/o to cfabbro also for supplementing this list):

• there is, as always, the invaluable list of country hotlines maintained by /r/SuicideWatch
• https://findtreatment.samhsa.gov/ ("an online source of information for persons seeking treatment facilities in the United States or U.S. Territories for substance abuse/addiction and/or mental health problems")
• https://therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/ (probably one of the best resources for finding a therapist)
• https://psychiatrists.psychologytoday.com/rms (ditto, with finding a psychiatrist)
• https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/index.shtml (covers some of the major mental disorders, their symptoms and treatments, and general topics like that)
• https://www.mentalhealth.gov/what-to-look-for (what symptoms to look for for major mental disorders)
• https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/help-yourself/ (US specific, but also covers ways you can help yourself and a bunch of ways to seek treatment or support)
• there's also some stuff over at /r/SWResources that might be worth checking out which is consistently updated.

among the things i have been working on for the past day and change is documentation of the novel uses of hierarchical tags on tildes, how they vary by group (or in the cases here, across most or all of the site), and how we might best begin to standardize, introduce, or deprecate them going forward so we're on the same page and end up with tags that aren't a giant, unfriendly, user-unintuitive mess.

obviously, though, this is something that should probably include community input since the community generally determines the tags used in the first place; therefore, this is your chance to check my work, suggest additions, removals, etc. to this draft and in the end, hopefully help craft a standard of hierarchical tagging that's simpler, more intuitive, and more consistent for everybody on the website to use so we can reduce future meta discussions on this and make tags better overall.

this will be done in chunks for convenience purposes (your sake and mine). therefore, if you would be so kind as to try and limit your suggestions to the pertinent tags, that would be most helpful.

Mostly group non-specific tags

There are also a number of tags which are more general and occur or can occur in several or all groups on the website. Some of the more common conventions of hierarchical tags that are generally not group-specific are:

economics. and similar tags

The economics tag can occur in several groups, most often ~science, ~news, and ~misc. While it can take hierarchical tags, standalone economics is usually fine. Nonetheless, with specific branches of economics like microeconomics and macroeconomics, hierarchical tags should probably be used (thus economics.micro, economics.macro, economics.applied, and so on). Examples of this in action (and further specification under this scheme) are:

• economics.trade (economics and trade)
• economics.micro.urban (urban microeconomics)
• economics.policy.employment (economic policy with respect to employment)

However, when placed in ~science, the standard is always socialsciences.economics over economics. to align with the standards of tagging in that group, thus socialsciences.economics.trade instead of economics.trade. Given that economics. in this case is itself a hierarchical tag, it may be pertinent to break off the last hierarchical tag into its own tag where it would lead to three consecutive hierarchical tags, like so:

• socialsciences.economics.micro and urban areas
• socialsciences.economics.policy and employment

law.

The law tag takes a very large number of modifiers and can be used in just about every group due to the fact that law generally transcends the current set of groups Tildes has. Historically, topics related to law have been tagged in the [modifier] law format (i.e. medical law, copyright law, us law, and so on); however, this has generally been phased out by the community in favor of using hierarchical tags for the modifiers. Therefore, with respect to pre-existing tags, constructions like medical law should be deprecated in favor of law.medical. In addition, the following tags which do exist should be converted accordingly:

• medical law (convert to law.medical)
• international law (convert to law.international)
• labor law (convert to law.labor)
• employment law (convert to law.employment)
• antidiscrimination laws (convert to law.antidiscrimination)
• copyright law (convert to law.copyright)
• maritime law (convert to law.maritime)
• environmental law (convert to law.environmental)
• gun laws (convert to law.guns)

All single modifier tags should follow a pattern like this. In other words, if you were going to tag something as "abortion law", you should do law.abortion instead of abortion law. Currently well established tags following this format are: law.citizenship, law.international, law.labor, law.marriage, and law.juvenile.

The following tags with location tags in them (and similar tags like them) should be converted slightly differently from the above tags. Instead of being rolled directly, the locator tag (or what would be the locator tag) should be broken out from the tag, and the tag that is left should have its modifier turned into a hierarchical tag if possible. Thus:

• usa federal laws is converted to law.federal and usa. (To elaborate in this case, the usa is separated, leaving federal laws which can be converted into law.federal)
• us law is similarly converted to law and usa
• european law is converted to law and european union

However, this should generally not be done with tags which refer to specific laws. For example religious neutrality law, blue laws and safe haven law are tags which should not be converted to use hierarchical tags because it makes little sense to do so.

There are also two specific tags which should generally not be rolled, which are martial law and law enforcement. Martial law is mostly used to refer to a specific state of affairs rather than an actual subset of law, so it makes little sense for this to be grouped into the law tag, while law enforcement is not really law in the sense being tagged here and is also covered by other tags like policing; using law.enforcement for this purpose would also be ambiguous, since it more likely would refer to enforcement of legal doctrine.

The use of the sharia law tag is ambiguous. Since sharia is de jure a form of law, it would make sense to roll it like the other examples so that the tag is law.sharia; however the two uses of it on Tildes are sharia law and there is currently no real consensus on whether or not to roll it in this manner.

nsfw., trigger., tw., cw. and similar tags

nsfw., trigger., tw, and cw. are all universal tags that have been used in one form or another to separate out content which might be objectionable and which are still useful for these purposes. Although all four have been used, the community has largely settled on a standard of using trigger. over tw. and cw. with potentially triggering content primarily for reasons of clarity (the trigger. tag also been put forward by Deimos previously as a way of handing potentially triggering and objectionable content). nsfw. is also sometimes used, but this is less frequent and usually carries a different implication than trigger. does.

As mentioned above, if you are using intending to use a tag of this sort, the preferred option in almost all cases is trigger. over tw. or cw.. For all intents and purposes, tw. and cw. should be considered mothballed and previous uses of them should probably be converted into trigger. at some point (particularly the duplicates tw.death, tw.suicide, and tw.selfharm).

The main established tags under the trigger. banner are:

• trigger.death
• trigger.selfharm
• trigger.suicide
• trigger.sexual violence
• trigger.rape
• trigger.assault
• trigger.child abuse
• trigger.transphobia
• trigger.homophobia (not used yet, but presumably applicable due to trigger.transphobia's existence)

These are self explanatory for the most part, and cover most bases; however, if you feel that a particular topic is likely to be triggering for some people, it would be courteous to tag it accordingly in line the above tags. (Do also note that all of these tags can be and often are applied as standalone tags instead of being grouped under trigger. due to the fact that trigger. has waxed and waned in popularity over Tildes's existence.)

If you are intending to post graphic content, or content which has the potential of exposing people to graphic content (broadly construed) and want to tag it accordingly, nsfw. is generally preferable over trigger.. nsfw. is quite rare, but one example of it in action is the nsfw.racism tag on Ignore The Poway Synagogue Shooter’s Manifesto: Pay Attention To 8chan’s /pol/ Board due to the exceptionally racist content screencapped as a part of the submitted article. nsfw.sex is also seen on Do Police Know How To Handle Abuse Within Kinky Relationships? due to the explicitly sexual nature of the article's subject, but this is more of a courteous measure than a necessary one--a qualified nsfw tag is generally not necessary, and if one is a moderator will most likely add it after the fact.

hurricanes., cyclones., and typhoons.

Tropical cyclone news generally fits into several places, most often ~news, ~enviro, or ~science. Generally, the standard for tagging tropical cyclones, whether they are hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, or other similar storms is to use the applicable term for the storm in question, and then use a hierarchical tag for the storm's name. Actual examples of this are:

• typhoons.yutu for the Pacific typhoon basin's Typhoon Yutu
• hurricanes.michael for the Atlantic basin's Hurricane Michael
• cyclones.idai for the South-West Indian basin's Cyclone Idai

This is relatively straightforward, and covers the nomenclature of all existing basins. However, some basins have not been represented on Tildes thus far, so here are the two cases where standards overlap for reference:

• the Pacific hurricane basin and the South Atlantic basin would both be represented by the same standard as the Atlantic basin (thus, hurricanes.patricia for the Pacific Hurricane Patricia and hurricanes.catarina for the South Atlantic Hurricane Catarina)
• the Australian, North Indian, and South Pacific basins would be represented by the South-West Indian basin's standard (thus, cyclones.tracy for Australian Cyclone Tracy, cyclones.fani for North Indian Cyclone Fani, and cyclones.gita for South Pacific Cyclone Gita).

For convenience purposes, storms which are named but have not hit hurricane status should probably still be referred to with the corresponding cyclonic storm tag for their basin, even though they have not formally reached hurricane, cyclone, or typhoon status.

If there is no name to refer to (i.e. a name has not been designated for the storm), a hierarchical tag should probably not be applied at all, since that would get messy and likely necessitate updates. With storms that have only nicknames or lack a name under the nomenclature since they predate cyclone naming (for example, the 1938 New England Hurricane) there's really no best way to do things, however, using a truncation of the nickname may be the most preferable option (for example: hurricanes.1938 new england).

Tildes has celerated its first birthday on April 26, 2019.
The purpose of this topic is to let users be congratulated on their personal Tildes anniversaries.

I recommend sorting the comments in this topic by newest first.

I had an interesting conversation with my housemate last night, which opened my eyes to just how easily fake news gets into ordinary people's minds.

We were discussing an episode of 'The Orville' we had just watched, and conversation shifted topics (as it does), and we ended up talking about free speech and political correctness - and he told me, quite matter-of-factly, that at least one local school had removed all books which referred to "boys" or "girls" from its library, and that other schools wanted to ban children from referring to themselves as "boys" or "girls". This was part of a politically correct drive to remove all references to gender, so that noone is "male" or "female".

My housemate is not a raving lunatic. He's not a rabid fascist or alt-right person. He's just an ordinary Aussie guy, going about his ordinary life, with no malice to anyone.

But his extended family watches certain TV channels and reads certain newspapers, and he had picked up this little nugget of knowledge from a TV show one of them was watching.

We discussed the matter, and I told him that what he had just said is fake news. I explained that I didn't think he was wrong, but that his sources were wrong. He wouldn't believe me - to the point where he demanded that we go to a computer and double-check it.

It didn't take me long to find both the newspaper articles and television segments spreading this fake news, and the other sources debunking it (because I knew what I was looking for). It turns out that some ivory-tower academics had done a study which showed that making little girls play with "hyper-feminised toys like Barbies" was reinforcing certain sexist stereotypes, and maybe that should be changed. That was it. But certain newspapers (owned by a certain media tycoon) had twisted this into a scare story involving evil teachers who were coming to steal your children's identities by stopping them from being boys and girls and removing everything that said "boys" and "girls" from libraries - and other news outlets had picked up this story and run with it, adding their own touches as it bounced from one outlet to another.

As soon as I showed him the debunking sources, he accepted them. He got a bit defensive, and deflected blame on to his family and the news - but he believed the truth when I showed it to him. He's not stupid or malicious, just misinformed. I agreed with him that it wasn't his fault. As he said, most normal people aren't like me, reading deep into the news and double-checking what they say. Most people just read the paper or watch the TV and accept what they're told.

Fake news is so easy to spread. Most people don't question their news sources. If a newspaper or newsreader tells them something, they believe it because it's coming from a supposedly reliable source.

week seven comes a bit early this week again because this week offers up what might be the most articles that i've covered in one of these so far. no [LONGFORM] articles this week, but we do have a lot of policy stuff, mostly from the secondary and lesser candidates!

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 1 thread • Week 2 thread • Week 3 thread • Week 4 thread • Week 5 thread • Week 6 thread

News

General Stuff

• from NBC News: Democrats face defining 2020 question: Does defeating Trump outweigh all else?. this is possibly the biggest question democrats have to answer this election cycle, and it's not a question that is readily or easily answered since a lot of it ties into other problems like representation and electability. expect this to continue to be a major theme since it's already been one from the beginning.

• from Pacific Standard: The 2020 Democratic Candidates Are Split on Letting Incarcerated People Vote. one low-key issue that seems to be becoming a defining issue is the matter of incarcerated people voting. i imagine this is an issue that is not going to receive much coverage, nor be center fold in most candidate's platforms, but nonetheless, some people have already taken stances on it (sanders is a yes, buttigieg is a no).

• from Vox: Women of color want 2020 Democrats to work for their vote. this was also a point of note last week in the Guardian (see Black female voters to Democrats: 'You won't win the White House without us' with the 'She the People' forum, and i anticipate this is not an issue that's going to go away.

Joe Biden

• from NBC News: Biden is the Democratic front-runner, but a vulnerable one. we begin with NBC News and their big takeaway from biden's entry to the democratic primary:

Bottom line: 96 hours in, Biden looks more like John Kerry of 2004 (the slight front-runner in a volatile Democratic field) than Al Gore of 2000 or Hillary Clinton of 2016.

• from Jacobin: Joe Biden Is Not a Blue-Collar Candidate. jacobin offers up this take, arguing that biden is not a blue-collar candidate because his voting record suggests he sells out the working class often, and while he is generally acceptable at representing the white working class, he fails to really represent minority working class voters and therefore cannot be a properly blue-collar candidate.

• from the Atlantic: Biden Is Betting on Unions. They Might Bet on Someone Else. biden is of course angling for the union vote and union endorsements, which he's already winning to some extent with an endorsement from the (admittedly in the biden tank) International Association of Fire Fighters (membership: 300,000). he's going to have a hard time garnering labor endorsements, though, because he is far from the only candidate with union ties. as the article notes, among the other candidates vying for the backing of the unions are sanders, warren and harris, and each of them have arguably just as much claim to the working-class as biden does (see also last week's Democratic presidential candidates seek union support at workers' forum).

Bernie Sanders

• from CBS News: Bernie and Biden: Fighting for Trump voters. one of the side effects of how this primary is being waged is that obama-trump voters are being targeted significantly by just about everybody involved. this targeting by the two ends of the primary (and the related issues involved with that) is the subject of this article by CBS News.

• from Reuters: Bernie Sanders promises help for family farms, rural residents on trip to Iowa. policy-wise, sanders has focused on rural communities in recent weeks, promising among other things to "strengthen anti-trust laws to block new corporate agriculture mergers and break up existing monopolies" and "changes to farm subsidy programs to shift the benefits away from bigger farms to smaller and mid-sized operations".

Everybody Else

• from Buzzfeed News: Almost Two Months In, Beto 2020 Is Still In Flux. Staffers Know They’re Behind. despite looking like a relatively early frontrunner in the race, beto has been worse-than-stagnant in the past few weeks, dropping back behind warren, harris, and buttigieg. things aren't looking up either: as the article notes, the campaign is still in the process of trying to fill positions and not lose people (see also, week 5's somewhat related A Top Adviser To Beto O’Rourke Has Left His Presidential Campaign).

• from CBS News: Elizabeth Warren bets big on policy to break through crowded Democratic field. warren's focus on policy so far has been well documented, and this CBS news article mostly focuses on that in comparison to other candidates, who barely have sketches. it also tackles the electability issue, though, which it notes could be a problem that weighs down warren's prospects (cf. last week's Can a woman beat Trump? Some Democrats wonder if it's worth the risk):

New Hampshire is a state where Massachusetts candidates like Warren typically do quite well, but a Suffolk University survey of Granite State Democrats released earlier this week had her in fourth place behind Biden, Sanders, and Buttigieg. When asked why, nearly 1-in-5 non-Warren voters said the main reason they don't support her is because they doubt she can beat Mr. Trump.

• from the Atlantic: Mayor Buttigieg Is Working Remotely Today. this article mostly focuses on the interesting issue buttigieg has--which is, of course, that he is still the mayor of south bend while he's out campaigning. since buttigieg has state he has no intentions of stepping down from the mayoral position he holds (and his term expires in november), this is probably going to be an interested background note of his campaign for the next little while.

• from POLITICO: Gillibrand proposes public campaign financing plan. kirsten gillibrand has policy too, folks! admittedly, i have no idea why her policy takes this form, but she nonetheless proposes that:

...eligible voters could opt into her “Democracy Dollars” program and register for vouchers, provided by the Federal Elections Commission, to donate up to $100 in a primary election and $100 in a general election each cycle. Each participant would get $200 for each type of federal contest: House, Senate and presidential elections.
But there would be limits on both donors and candidates in order to use the public voucher program. Voters could contribute only to candidates in their state — including House candidates outside their district but within their state. In order to accept the public money, candidates would have to restrict themselves to accepting only donations of $200 or less.

• from Roll Call: Klobuchar plan to combat addiction draws on experience with her dad. klobuchar also has policy! this mostly focuses on addiction and mental health, and a summary was helpfully provided by a press release i don't have on hand:

“Amy will support incentives for state governments to enact ignition interlock laws for those convicted of drunk driving to help reduce repeat offenders. Since problems with alcoholism often start early, Amy will support educational initiatives that focus on the risks of alcohol as well as early identification and treatment of alcoholism,” a summary said.

supplemental reporting by CBS News also notes the following: "The Minnesota Democrat wants to pay for treatment for those addicted to opioids by charging a two-cents-per-milligram fee to companies that make the drug."

• from Vox: Cory Booker now has the most ambitious gun control proposal of any 2020 candidate. cory booker meanwhile is focusing on gun policy. as vox writes:

His plan includes the typical Democratic proposals: universal background checks, an assault weapons ban, better enforcement of existing gun laws, and more funding for gun violence research. But Booker’s plan goes further by requiring that gun owners not just pass a background check but obtain a license to be able to purchase and own a firearm. It’s a far more robust gun control proposal than any other presidential candidate has proposed.

in many respects this is similar (but more comprehensive in some respects and les comprehensive in others) to the current gun policy of massachusetts. booker's plan also includes a national database for tracking firearms, and also limits on purchases to prevent things like resale. vox's part of the writing here also has info on the underlying research and statistics with respect to whether or not these policies work (for the most part, they seem to).

• from CBS News: Jay Inslee unveils plan for 100 percent clean energy by 2030. jay inslee is a lower-rung candidate, but that hasn't stopped him from pushing the limits on climate policy. among other things, his ideas include: "100 percent clean energy, mak[ing] all new vehicles zero-emission, and [eliminating] the carbon footprint for all new buildings." you can find his policy specifically here.

• from Grist: A tale of two Washingtons: How Jay Inslee aims to take his climate plan nationwide. Grist goes into more detail on inslee's policy, mostly focusing on how they're being implemented in washington, inslee's home state, and how they compare to the other climate policies in the race already like beto's.

• from CBS News: 2020 hopeful John Hickenlooper unveils plan to "re-energize trade with the world". john hickenlooper has hitched his wagon to trade, of all things. the main planks of his policy on fair trade, which is possibly one of the least energizing seminal issues a campaign can run on, are:

• Ensure trading partners adopt and enforce fair labor and safety standards
• Ensure the protection of IP rights of American companies
• Require trading partners to enforce environmental and climate standards
• Ensure U.S. firms enjoy equitable and comparable investment rights abroad
• Ensure U.S. workers have assistance to adjust to job displacement from trade

if you're interested in that sort of thing, CBS also helpfully embedded the five-page outline going into more detail on those planks in the article.

Opinion/Ideology-driven

• from Pacific Standard: There's No Good Way to Determine Electability Other Than Holding Elections. this is an interesting piece which is hard to summarize, but probably the best summary of it is what it concludes on the matter of electability:

...the discussion around the topic is fraught, particularly for the Democratic Party, which has defined itself in recent decades as the party that embraces and seeks inclusion and diversity. If you're going to assert that a white man is better qualified for a job (the party's nominee) by virtue of being a white man, you really need to be sure on your facts. And the facts just aren't there.

• from Jacobin: Stick With Bernie. this jacobin piece argues that progressive/leftist types need to rally behind bernie given biden's strength, or else they risk a biden v trump general election which would likely (in their view) go the same way as clinton v trump did in 2016. it's pretty much impossible to tell this far out, but honestly, it's pretty easy to see their point here given biden's circumstances.

• from Truthout: The Era of “Centrist” Establishment Democrats Is Over. this op-ed from Truthout strongly rebukes the "centrist" tendency of the democratic party, arguing that there is basically no place for that tendency anymore and that it simply does not and cannot produce a winning coalition at this point. bold and new ideas which buck the traditional orthodoxy in this view are the only way to mobilize and produce a winning coalition, because otherwise either too many people stay home, or not enough people vote democratic.

• from the Guardian: Bernie Sanders needs black women's support. So what's his plan to win us over?. bernie's biggest failing so far between his two presidential runs has almost certainly been his failure to appeal to minority voters, particularly black women. this is of course an issue because he likely needs black women to win the primary and the general. as allison writes here: "Black voters and women of color do not want another president who does not see or value us. Sanders needs to let us know that he understands deeply how frightening, difficult and dangerous this political moment is for us, and for the entire country."

• from the Guardian: Joe Biden wants us to forget his past. We won't. perhaps the biggest failing of biden on the other hand is his absolutely god awful track record, for which he is raked here and will likely continue to be raked. the main crux of the op-ed:

As times have changed, Biden has expressed retrospective misgivings about some of those earlier actions and stances. For example, he very recently attempted to offer an apology of sorts, more like an unpology, to Anita Hill, which she quite understandably rejected. And he remains a pure, dyed-in-the-wool neoliberal, as much as ever a tool of Wall Street and corporations. We deserve better than a candidate who wants us to look past his record and focus only on the image he wants to project and, when that tack fails, can offer progressives only a “my bad”.

• from the Guardian: We can't save the planet with half measures. We need to go all the way. this is one part an op-ed written about climate change, one part an op-ed responding to beto o'rourke's climate plan. on one hand, it does note that o'rourke's plan is good--but it also notes that "good" is not nearly enough to avert the problem, and it's also a downgrade from what o'rourke originally endorsed, which was net-zero emissions by 2030.

• from the Guardian: Is Elizabeth Warren's college plan really progressive? Yes. this op-ed is pretty straightforward and argues against the somewhat-weird position that warren's college plan isn't progressive because it also helps middle-and-upper-class people that's been advanced by a few people.

anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there.

week six comes slightly early, because i have way too many links and i actually started writing this yesterday because it's just over a page and fuck writing all this in one day, lol. the [LONGFORM] tag continues and finally returns, offering up two pieces to us today.

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 1 thread • Week 2 thread • Week 3 thread • Week 4 thread • Week 5 thread

News

General Stuff

• from FiveThirtyEight: What The Potential 2020 Candidates Are Doing And Saying, Vol. 16. a pretty quiet week for most of the candidates. most of the highlights came after the end-date for this volume and will be reflected in next week's.

• from NBC News: Can a woman beat Trump? Some Democrats wonder if it's worth the risk. even though it's pretty inane, this topic is probably going to be a recurring theme, because voter preferences are some of the absolute weirdest, most unfathomably illogical shit possible. electability is a large part of why this is probably going to be a theme: clinton might have poisoned the well for all of this year's "first" candidates by fucking up in 2016, and that might make voters hesitant to pull the lever for another one. but again, who the fuck knows. voter preferences have an uncanny tendency to make zero sense.

• from the Guardian: Black female voters to Democrats: 'You won't win the White House without us'. another recurring topic is going to be the black female vote, which is consistently the most democratic bloc possible. in really any place where there's a significant minority vote, democrats have to turn these voters out significantly, and obviously presidential primaries and elections aren't exceptions to that rule. most of the candidates don't seem to be doing the best job of winning them over yet.

• from Reuters: Democratic presidential candidates seek union support at workers' forum. union voters could be significant in the democratic path to the presidency, and so you're seeing a lot of democrats try and angle themselves as union candidates also. which one will win out here? i have no fucking clue.

• from NPR: The Democratic Field Is Set: 8 Questions About What Comes Next. NPR offers up a series of questions about the trajectory of the primary, which will probably aid us in the coming months:

1. How far does name identification go?
2. It's there for Biden now, but can he prove himself?
3. Can Bernie Sanders expand beyond his loyal base?
4. Does Pete Buttigieg continue his momentum?
5. Does Elizabeth Warren find her lane?
6. Does Beto O'Rourke get edged out or does he find his way in?
7. Can Kamala Harris supercharge her candidacy – and fend off Biden in South Carolina?
8. Can others have a breakout moment?

Joe Biden

• from the Atlantic: Unlike His Rivals, Biden Sees Trump as an Aberration. we begin this week with how biden is framing his candidacy. one of the cruxes of biden's campaign is that trump doesn't reflect a change of values in the american public or even in the republican party, necessarily. in his view, the status quo hasn't really changed, and if we return to electing people like biden then trumpism will effectively cease. whether you buy that, i leave up to you.

• from Vox: The health care industry is betting on Joe Biden in its war against Medicare-for-all. another thing about biden is that he has very decisively positioned himself against medicare-for-all, which mostly reflects his status as an establishment candidate. this, as it happens, is super great if you're a lobbyist for the healthcare industry, which is unsurprisingly and firmly in biden's camp in this election.

• from Buzzfeed News: Joe Biden Backs A Public Option — Not Medicare For All — As He Argues For Electability. as far as biden is concerned though, this is mostly a matter of electability. among his other points of policy: "[a] on noncompete clauses ... a $15 minimum wage and ... a more simplified process for issuing professional licenses."

• from the Guardian: 'Battle for America's soul': Biden comes out swinging at first 2020 event. beyond that, biden also has this for policy: "reversing Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations" and "enacting the so-called “Buffett Rule” – which would apply a minimum tax rate of 30% on individuals making more than $1m". he's supposed to unveil more of this in the near future.

• from Slate: 10 Questions Joe Biden Needs to Answer About His Views on Race. Slate offers up 10 questions that they feel joe biden is obligated to give us better answers on, thanks in no small part to his incredibly long history of being a dumb politician who might now be on the wrong side of the political traintracks.

Bernie Sanders

• from Buzzfeed News: Bernie Sanders Is Getting A Shadow Organizing Campaign In The Midwest. bernie sanders has had a quiet week in the media, relatively speaking. one of the only notes from this week about him came in the form of people realizing that yes, our revolution does actually exist and yes, it does actually do things. the sanders campaign is probably going to need things like this to win this year.

Beto O'Rourke

• from the Guardian: Beto O'Rourke is coming to California. Can the trip redeem his campaign?. beto has been busy in california the past few days trying to drum up support, which is easier said than done because he's on the wrong side of a wave now. he's been quietly slipping in the polls for the past little while, to a point where he's now usually sixth or so in the order. will stumping in california help with this at all? probably not, but he's gotta do it at some point.

• from NBC News: Beto O'Rourke releases $5 trillion plan to combat climate crisis. on the policy front, he's finally getting around to expanding on what he's running on. his climate change plan is fairly extensive:

The plan begins with proposed executive actions, including rejoining the Paris climate agreement on day one of an O’Rourke administration and moving quickly to raise efficiency standards for buildings, cars and appliances. Longer term executive actions include setting a net-zero emissions carbon budget for federal lands by 2030 and adding more national parks and monuments to protect land and seascapes.
The meat of the O’Rourke plan is a promise to send Congress, as his first piece of legislation, a bill that would mobilize $5 trillion over the next 10 years to upgrade infrastructure and spur innovation — including more than a trillion dollars in tax incentives to reduce emissions, and $250 billion dedicated directly to research and development.

• from Buzzfeed News: Beto O’Rourke Is The Latest Democrat To Make Climate Change Central To His Campaign. Buzzfeed News helpfully fills in some of the other details, such as this:

His plan, starting day one in the White House, would include spending a record $5 trillion on climate action over ten years and mandating the US reduce its emissions to net zero by 2050. (This means the nation, by midcentury, would no longer be emitting more climate pollution into the atmosphere than it was pulling out of it through trees and other ways.)

Elizabeth Warren

• from POLITICO: Warren puts Bernie on defense. POLITICO pitches the interesting take that warren is putting sanders on defense by pushing a shit ton of policy. this seems... dubious? at best, given that warren is polling at literally half of what sanders does, sanders has greatly outraised her, and in general the two just have not interacted especially significantly at any point in the campaign so far. but a take is a take.

• from Truthout: [LONGFORM] Elizabeth Warren’s Student Debt Plan: An Outsized Economic Boon for People of Color. truthout provides an analysis of elizabeth warren's student debt plan, suggesting that it would be the best for people of color. this is interesting, because...

• from Slate: Elizabeth Warren’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Mostly Helps the Middle Class, Think Tank Finds. one of the big takeways most other sources have had is that it would be a boon for the middle class instead. figure that one out.

Pete Buttigieg

• from the Atlantic: Authenticity Just Means Faking It Well. this article is more about authenticity than it is about buttigieg, but its catalyst is buttigieg so i'm placing it in this section. what constitutes "authenticity"? who the fuck knows, honestly, but buttigieg is apparently it in a way that resonates with voters.

Opinion/Ideology-driven

• from Truthout: [LONGFORM] None of the 2020 Frontrunners Go Far Enough on Climate. Truthout opines that realistically, absolutely none of the current frontrunner candidates have a compelling platform on climate change that will work. this might change now that o'rourke has actually unveiled a comprehensive plan, but in general outside of inslee (who is running as The Climate Change Candidate), so far climate change hasn't really played much of a role in the primary.

• from the Guardian: Joe Biden is the Hillary Clinton of 2020 – and it won't end well this time either. this take opines that biden is basically this cycle's hillary clinton and that biden basically does not get it. perhaps the best distilling of this argument is in this paragraph:

Biden’s answer to Trump isn’t systemic change that will make America a more equitable place. He’s not offering progressive policies like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. His is the vaguest and most centrist of battle cries: let’s go back to, you know, “all those good things”. Let’s go back to a time where racism was a little more polite and white people could pretend America was a post-racial society. Let’s fight for the soul of America by pretending that Trump is the problem, not just a symptom of the problem. Let’s pretend that Charlottesville was a direct result of Trump – an aberration – and not a product of a racism that has always existed in America. Let’s rewind the clock a few years to when everything was just fine and dandy.

• from the Guardian: Bernie Sanders v the Democratic establishment: what the battle is really about. this piece takes an interesting alternative frame on the major split that seems to divide sanders from the rest of the democratic party. in essence, it is this:

The Shakir-Tanden debate about money in politics at Cap is also the larger debate Sanders is sparking in the Democratic party. Joe Biden opened his presidential bid by allowing a Comcast executive to host a fundraiser for him at his home in Pennsylvania. Sanders, on the other hand, has written off such fundraisers and is insisting on relying on small donor funders, not corporate executives or lobbyists.

anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there.

EDIT: minor grammatical stuff

It would be nice to have an optional feature that filters out posts that a) you have read and b) don't have any new unread comments. When a post gets new comments it should reappear. That way we could see more unread content on the page, but still keep long running topics going. Have it not affect search, so people can still find posts for reference.

The recent implementation of automatic tag suggestion has inspired another idea for me.

What if Tildes could suggest related tags to the one(s) you've already chosen? You select a tag for your topic, and then Tildes suggests other tags to add to your topic, sourced from tags which have been commonly used in association with that tag you've selected.

For example:

• You tag a topic with "facebook", and Tildes suggests "social media" and "privacy" to add.

• You tag a topic with "world war ii", and Tildes suggests "history", "nazis", and "military" to add.

• You tag a topic with "avengers", and Tildes suggests "marvel" and "superheroes" to add.

The data could be obtained by monitoring the frequency of associations between various tags: if tag B is frequently used in association with tag A, then tag B would be suggested as an additional option whenever tag A is used.

Do you ever feel as though you want to learn everything?

I enjoy learning. I wouldn't say I crave it but I love finding out about new things or learning how to do something I don't know how to do. Almost anytime I see somebody talking about or doing something that interests me I think, "I could learn to do that" or "I should read up about that." This ranges from anything to my own personal pursuits (of which I have too many due to this feeling and thus never sink enough time into any... different topic) to my friend's career paths or interests, to all of you on Tildes, you cool bastards. My partner is studying medicine. Shit, I haven't learned anything bio/health-science related since college Freshman year Chemistry class but I was just googling "free [biology|physics|intro to medicine] textbooks online" because what she's learning sounds awesome and like some really beneficial stuff to know about. Every time I read the "What are you doing this weekend" or similar threads on here I just think... damn, I'd love to contribute to open source maps (shoutout u/hungariantoast) or play that game or learn to fix up my car or ... you get the idea.

Does anyone else feel this way? How do you cope? Want to vent and relate? I know of priority lists, I have made plenty and they have both helped and not helped me solve this. I guess I'm just destined to try learning everything forever.

HIVE MIND Hey folks! Have any of you:

1. Sent your kids to one of those “coding camps”
2. Gone to one of said camps as a kid
3. Worked at or for one of said camps

Mostly he's looking for experiences from the past five years or so.

One of my authors is writing an article on the topic, so please get in touch! jfruh@jfruh.com!

This recent topic has me thinking.

On one hand, you have the whole "Death of the Author" idea that divorces the writer from their work. This makes a lot of sense, and allows for creative works of fiction to exist entirely as fictions.

On the other hand, you have the #OwnVoices movement which specifically prioritizes the identity of the author as a method of affirming their work. This makes a lot of sense too, befitting the longstanding principle of "nothing about us without us." Who better to write a fictionalized experience than someone who has gone through a real-life parallel?

Then you have authors whose personal beliefs and experiences may or may not texture their work for readers. Orson Scott Card is commonly brought up in discussions like these on account of his views and public comments on homosexuality. William S. Burroughs famously shot his own wife. I can certainly see how those would be hard things to look past.

With all this in mind, does the author matter to you when you read (particularly works of fiction)? Does knowing about them enhance/detract from your reading experience?

I have found this to be a semi controversial topic. Its almost becoming a required point for getting a new job to have open source work that you can show. Some people just enjoy working on programming side projects and others don't want to do any more after they leave the office.

Whats your opinion on this? Do you work on any side projects? Do you think its reasonable for interviewers to look for open source work when hiring?

I can't shake the dejavu feeling I'm getting using any kind of messaging these days. Today we have an awful lot of messaging apps, that are all roughly the same, with similar features - Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp, Riot, etc. This happened once already, at the dawn of 200X IM revolution that deprecated SMS for good we also had MSN, ICQ, GTalk, Jabber, etc. This also was a set of very similar personal messaging clients and protocols, similar in any way to each other. It all changed when the multi-protocol messaging apps came out - Pidgin, QiP, Miranda and others made it easy to gather all your contacts from various protocols in one place and to keep in touch with everyone. Shortly after Jabber transports were made so you could congregate all other accounts into one single XMPP account. Even N900 that came out in 2009 had the ability to gather various accounts into one single contact list.
I feel like right now with all the segmented IM apps it's a good time for something like this to happen again, and Telegram already has wat-bridge.
What are your thoughts on that topic? Do you think the history will repeat itself? Would a new federated formate like XMPP rise up?