• Activity
  • Votes
  • Comments
  • New
  • All activity
    1. Hypothetics: let's say it takes 1/100 of the current fuel to take a spacecraft out of Earth's atmosphere. What happens?

      This is obviously a thought-experiment, but maybe an interesting one. Let's say we get a super-efficient, eco-friendly alternative fuel that can do whatever rocket fuel does now with 1/100 of the...

      This is obviously a thought-experiment, but maybe an interesting one. Let's say we get a super-efficient, eco-friendly alternative fuel that can do whatever rocket fuel does now with 1/100 of the cost, 1/100 of volume and 100% more efficiency. What does it change in the short term?

      10 votes
    2. Anyone watching the F1 race in Sochi, Russia today?

      If so, any thoughts before, during or after the race? If not, feel free to ask any questions about the sport or motor racing in general, if you'd like to beef up the ole knowledges. ( Discord...

      If so, any thoughts before, during or after the race?

      If not, feel free to ask any questions about the sport or motor racing in general, if you'd like to beef up the ole knowledges.

      ( Discord server invite for more action : https://discordapp.com/invite/dCnYaSw )

      7 votes
    3. Slush Idea Bin

      Here's something I want to try, a sort of here's an idea thread for things you want to write down or think that are a good idea, but have no intention of exploring. All top level posts should be...

      Here's something I want to try, a sort of here's an idea thread for things you want to write down or think that are a good idea, but have no intention of exploring. All top level posts should be similar to shower thoughts in spontaneity, but allow you to further explore them should you choose to. Effectively, it's an Adopt a Thought!

      22 votes
    4. If you don't find IMDB reviews useful you may like Cherry Picks instead

      Here's the IMDB page for The Souvenir (distributed by A24). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6920356/ IMDB users give the score as 6.6, and the user reviews are stuffed full of people who hate it. The...

      Here's the IMDB page for The Souvenir (distributed by A24). https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6920356/

      IMDB users give the score as 6.6, and the user reviews are stuffed full of people who hate it. The critic reviews are almost entirely positive though.

      Here's the Cherry Picks page for The Souvenir. https://www.thecherrypicks.com/films/souvenir

      They use reviews from "female-identifying and non-binary film critics", and as a result the film gets good reviews.

      I find the reviews surfaced by Cherry Picks to be more thoughtful, more considered, and more useful to me than those surfaced by IMDB or MetaCritic (even though they all pull critic reviews from many of the same sources).

      I've found some great films via Cherry Picks.

      15 votes
    5. Just watched 'Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia' (1974). Any fans of Sam Peckinpah in the house?

      Some of the works of Peckinpah had been on my watch list for months, sitting there in a subfolder of a subfolder. From the choice of Straw Dogs and Cross of Iron, I chose the aforetitled, liking...

      Some of the works of Peckinpah had been on my watch list for months, sitting there in a subfolder of a subfolder. From the choice of Straw Dogs and Cross of Iron, I chose the aforetitled, liking the idea of embarking on a bit of a journey through Mexico with a gritty protagonist as we experience splatterings of violence and negotiate the thoughts of a down and out vagabond making a ran for his riches.

      The film left me with mixed feelings. I enjoyed the path of Benny, experiencing how his character is unwavering in his desire to take that last lucky ticket out of debauchery street, but didn't care much for his journey's partner. While I appreciated the dynamic of the relationship, the understanding they both had that they weren't in love with each other, but all they both had, the chemistry and dialogue didn't really resonate with me at parts. I actually was rather glad when this relationship came to its abrupt end as the film entered its final 3rd.

      On top of that, there was major issues with the sound which made it difficult to fully immerse myself in the journey at times. I found myself feeling I was watching a caricature of a 70s movie now and again, as opposed to be engrossed in a gritty noir-esque adventure.

      But all in all, an enjoyable film which has left an impression. I always appreciate watching unpolished characters navigating circumstances plotted outside their usual courses, then watching how they deal with the inevitable implosion. From what I've read since, the film was one which perhaps accurately portrayed the director's life at the time of filming; dealing with various booze-infused demons. That rawness definitely shows, as does the inevitable imperfections in this movie's execution.

      7.5/10

      5 votes
    6. A PV Solar company wants to build a PV farm on our land. I am not sure what to do.

      My dad died a couple years ago and I inherited a farm in the central EU. Some of the land is farm land, some zoned residential. My plan was to rent this house out Airbnb style. The surroundings...

      My dad died a couple years ago and I inherited a farm in the central EU. Some of the land is farm land, some zoned residential. My plan was to rent this house out Airbnb style. The surroundings are very pastural. This is the appeal for “agro-tourism.” We are also very close to ski resorts.

      My farm plot is the smallest of all the neighbors, but it is dead center in the planned farm. They want a 30 year lease for our land. One neighbor has already agreed. They are offering about $2500/hectare/year.

      My neighbors are actually farmers, and to them this is a big chunk of money. Especially as they have 10+ hectares each, I only have 1.25. For me the money is less than one month’s salary and is not that appealing. Also, this is about 15% of what I expected to make off of the Airbnb which would pay for my retirement. Yes, this is a privileged position.

      1. I don’t know what questions to ask in negotiations. One thing I verified is that inflation is included, year after year. What else?
        Note: Yes I will have a lawyer look at this, but honestly this is the first thing of its kind in our area.

      2. If you were renting out a house in ski-resort/farm country, would you care if there were a bunch solar panels in the fields instead of farm land? Would you like it more, or less?
        Note: I can upload photos or video to give you an idea of the area.

      3. Will this raise or lower the value of my home for resale?

      4. Any other general thoughts?

      Thanks!

      Edit: I should add that I am super-anti CO2, so my default position is “hell yes!” But I am just trying to be pragmatic about this. Of note is that this is the first time in my life I am experiencing a bit of NIMBY-ism. Also, I am extremely thankful for this opportunity.

      15 votes
    7. Kind Words (Tildes Edition)

      For those that aren't familiar with it, Kind Words is a recently released "game" where players can write a message about a difficulty they're facing or something that's troubling them. Other real...

      For those that aren't familiar with it, Kind Words is a recently released "game" where players can write a message about a difficulty they're facing or something that's troubling them. Other real people in the game can then respond, letting that person know that they're not alone. Players can also write un-addressed messages of positivity in the game, which are spread to other users via paper airplanes.

      I figured we could have a thread on Tildes with our own version of the game via comments.

      Here's how I figure it will work. We'll have three post types:

      Request: share your situation in order to get kind words in response
      Response: offer kind words to other people who have posted here
      Airplane: write general thoughts of goodwill for all the readers of the thread

      Please begin your post by naming its type in bold font. For those posing Requests, please let people know if you would rather receive public responses or PMs.

      Example post:

      Request: Sometimes I find myself wondering if there's any point to anything. It feels like I'm working so hard at meaningless stuff, just to get by. Anyone else feel this way?

      That isn't my request, just an example of what someone might type.

      Remember that the point of the thread is to let people know that they are heard and that they are not alone!

      Let's all be kind!

      27 votes
    8. What's your cloud/syncing setup for files, pics, mail, bookmarks, etc?

      So I've spent the last few days trying to sync everything up between devices, with the following thoughts in mind: how fucked am I going to be if a device gets corrupted/stolen/lost? how can I...

      So I've spent the last few days trying to sync everything up between devices, with the following thoughts in mind:

      1. how fucked am I going to be if a device gets corrupted/stolen/lost?
      2. how can I easily access everything I need from a mobile device/device not belonging to me?
      3. how can I avoid using services from the big tech companies, and keep things open source, as much as possible?

      I'm by no means an expert in the field, and I'm hoping in this thread to get a discussion going as to the pros and cons of using different services/setups, to get a general idea as to what others are doing to keep their daily lives simpler and more secure, and to perhaps see what are the future steps for me to take when I feel like playing around again.

      Servers & Storage
      I span up a 25GB VPS with Vultr for 'active use data', and also took out some 'deep storage'(?) from Wasabi for things which I need to keep, but not really access that much.

      Mail
      Protonmail with custom domain. Using the ProtonMail app for mobile, and Linux ProtonMail bridge with Evolution mail for desktop.

      Pics/Vids
      Nextcloud autoupload feature on mobile automatically uploads my pics to an 'autoupload' folder on Nextcloud server. Here, I categorise pics into folders and share what needs sharing before deleting anything I don't need and wiping the pics on my phone.

      Passwords
      Nothing yet. Looking at getting KeyPass synced across devices.

      Bookmarks
      Again, nothing yet. Had Firefox Sync running to connect Fennec and Firefox, but am looking for a more open approach which involves Nextcloud somehow, and allows me to tag and order things more effectively as opposed to dragging things around in the sidebar.

      Calendar/Contacts
      Evolution calendar on desktop, simple calendar on mobile, hooked up to Nextcloud and all synced using davx5

      Programs and General Setup
      Here, I'd like to somehow take an image/backup of my Ubuntu configs of importance and experiment with getting my setup and customisaitons replicated on another machine quickly and without taking up too much space in storage (i.e. don't need to bakckup all my files as they're already on cloud).

      Also, I am very curious as to whether anybody is using Syncthing across their devices? And if so, how are they finding the experience?

      22 votes
    9. Democratic Debate #3 - Sept 12 2019

      I don't have as much to put up here as @alyaza but I thought it'd kick off the discussion as the debate begins. Watch live on your local ABC station. Edit: or on YouTube (thanks @deimos)...

      I don't have as much to put up here as @alyaza but I thought it'd kick off the discussion as the debate begins.

      Watch live on your local ABC station.
      Edit: or on YouTube (thanks @deimos) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UWVO0Trd1c

      Only 10 candidates and 1 night of debates this time.

      15 votes
    10. Harm reduction for nicotine addicts

      So given the outbreak of severe lung disease apparently related to vaping, mentioned in recent Tildes threads here, here, and here, I thought I'd provide some semi-informed opinion and experience....

      So given the outbreak of severe lung disease apparently related to vaping, mentioned in recent Tildes threads here, here, and here, I thought I'd provide some semi-informed opinion and experience.

      I've had to kick a nasty smoking habit more than a few times, and the last effort was only partially successful. I stayed hooked on nicotine gum, got jaw problems, and switched to vaping.

      Vaping was cool! You can play with the electronic gadgets, get involved in the vaping equivalent of hot-rodding and over-clocking communities, play with liquid formulas, build coils, and do all kinds of intricate hobby-type stuff... while slowly poisoning yourself. Vaping was cheap, both by comparison with cigarettes, and with the FDA-approved nicotine-cessation systems. I'd been spending $50/week on gum, but $20/month for the liquids.

      I was breathing outrageous dragon clouds, going through 50 ml of liquid a week, and getting nowhere near nicotine freedom. Despite careful avoidance of noticeably irritating flavors, I was getting back to the good old smoker's cough in the morning.

      I've since formulated a super-simple homegrown nicotine mint recipe (below) that's as minimally toxic as I can manage, and very slowly gotten down to the equivalent of a cigarette or two a day.

      So here's my advice:

      1. Avoid pre-made e-liquids and cartridges. There's no telling what's in them; in the U.S., at least, there are no labelling requirements other than nicotine concentration.

      2. Avoid flavorings altogether. "Generally Regarded As Safe", the FDA designation for flavorings, only applies to food ingredients. Many common flavor chemicals are known as toxic to inhale. Extracts are often complex mixtures, and there's little data on how all the constituents may interact in your lungs.

      I'm not going to provide advice on "safe" ones - just don't use flavorings.

      1. If you must vape, do so at the lowest possible temperature. Even unflavored liquids can create toxic byproducts when heated.

      You can get pure, unflavored USP-calibrated nicotine liquid base, in a wide range of concentrations, from the same vendors that sell other e-liquid ingredients. I personally preferred propylene glycol (PG) base, because it vaporizes at a lower temperature, and forms less toxic heat decomposition byproducts than glycerin.

      1. Don't vape. Nicotine inhalation has some pharmacological advantages - quick brain hit, few or no gastrointestinal effects, but lungs really want clean air. If you're seriously nicotine addicted, you can continue on oral or dermal products with less risk. If you're in a country that doesn't charge outrageously for drugs, there are regulated nicotine nasal sprays.

      If you're in a country that does charge outrageously even for over-the-counter medicines, my solution follows.

      So, the latest and greatest version, the ultimate plug-and-play version, of the cheap garage DIY nicotine mint:

      SAFETY WARNINGS:
      Nicotine is a deadly, neurotoxic poison, even on skin contact.
      -Do not use nicotine solution concentrations greater than 24 mg/ml at home. Even this concentration is potentially hazardous - wear gloves, work on a washable tray to contain any spills, purchase the smallest size containers you can. Higher concentrations are extremely dangerous without special precautions I won't discuss here.

      • Store all nicotine products, treated mints, and potentially contaminated tools and materials far out of the reach of children and pets, preferably under lock and key.

      • Wash any exposed skin under running water as soon as possible. Call a Poison Control Center immediately if you suspect that there's been an incident of ingestion or extensive skin contact with nicotine liquid.

      • Store mints and materials only in properly labeled, secure containers. [I've found a labelled medicine bottle eliminates social awkwardnesses about not sharing candy.]

      • Work on a washable surface, wipe up, wash down with soap and water, and safely dispose cleaning materials for any spills.

      • Following these instructions is at your own risk. Based on my knowledge and experience, this nicotine mint recipe is safer than smoking or vaping, but to an unknown degree. You should consult a doctor and/or use approved pharmaceuticals.

      Tools and materials:

      • Intact 1-qt. (1 L) Ziploc or other sealable polyethylene bag

      • 10 ml syringe, optionally with 12- or 14-gauge Luer-lock blunt needle

      • Nitrile gloves

      • 24 mg/ml (2.4%) nicotine USP solution in propylene glycol** (There are many potential vendors.)

      • 8-pack of Altoids "Arctic" flavor sugar-free mints* (cheapest available price on Amazon)

      This recipe makes approximately 389 mints at 1.2 mg/mint nicotine strength. Divide or modify it at risk of your own math.

      Instructions:

      1. Open tins of mints and empty them into the Ziploc bag.

      2. Wear gloves. Using the syringe, measure and add 20 ml of nicotine to the bag. (Nicotine solution comes in sealed bottles. To minimize risk of spills, you can use a blunt needle tip on the syringe to pierce the seal and withdraw nicotine liquid without fully opening the bottle.)

      3. Completely seal the Ziploc bag. Massage the mints and nicotine liquid together until uniformly distributed and completely coated.

      4. Let stand at least overnight, turning and mixing the mints every few hours, until all the liquid is completely absorbed.

      Use:

      Dosing is similar to nicotine lozenges - hold a treated mint under your tongue until dissolved, repeat no more than a total dosage of 24 per day.

      *There are other sugar-free mints that are usable, but I've found sorbitol mints work best for this purpose, and the 0.5 gm per mint size gives a nicely steady nicotine release for 15 - 20 minutes.

      **You can use a lower concentration, but the dosage in the final recipe will vary accordingly. Exceeding 20 ml per 8-pack of mints may leave them sticky, and if the liquid isn't fully absorbed, you can become ill from handling the mints. Don't do it.

      7 votes
    11. What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?

      What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well. Sorry, I...

      What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.

      Sorry, I usually post this on Monday and just realized I didn't do it this week. I'm bad at this and obviously need to add a proper scheduled-posting feature.

      19 votes
    12. New groups added, more work still happening on rearranging, moving topics, etc.

      Alrighty, after the discussion last week, I've finally added the new groups, and everyone will have been mostly auto-subscribed to all of them. I'm still working on some of the details like adding...

      Alrighty, after the discussion last week, I've finally added the new groups, and everyone will have been mostly auto-subscribed to all of them. I'm still working on some of the details like adding descriptions, and there will be some awkward pieces and interface aspects since we're still in the transition phase before I get those larger changes to subscriptions/etc. in (which I really hope will be soon), but it should mostly be fine.

      If you want to change your subscriptions quickly, use this page: https://tildes.net/groups (linked from a button at the bottom of the home page's sidebar)

      First, here are the new groups:

      New top-level groups (everyone auto-subscribed)

      New sub-groups (auto-subscribed only if you were subscribed to the parent group)

      Some of this will be a little experimental and I'm not totally sure how it's going to work out (splitting ~science into the branches of science especially), but we'll see what happens. The names and such aren't necessarily 100% final either.

      Since we now have some real sub-groups that people other than me can post in, I made a small behavior change to how sub-groups work until those larger changes are ready. Previously, subscribing to a group would automatically include all posts from its sub-groups in your home page as well. That is, if you subscribed to ~tildes, you would also see all posts from ~tildes.official, regardless of whether you subscribed to it or not.

      Now, your home page will only include posts from groups (and sub-groups) that you are specifically subscribed to. So if you want to see topics from ~games but not ~games.tabletop, you should subscribe to ~games and unsubscribe from ~games.tabletop. However, if you visit ~games directly, posts from ~games.tabletop will still be included in the list there, regardless of whether you're subscribed or not. I know this isn't ideal, but it's not permanent and should be fine for now.

      I'm going to get back to working on updating these groups and moving some of the older topics around now, but let me know if you have any questions or thoughts.

      And as usual, I've topped everyone's invites up to 10. You can get your invite links here: https://tildes.net/invite

      51 votes
    13. What personal goals are you working towards?

      Inspired by similar topics such as "what are you reading" and "what creative project are you working on", and being obsessed with structured self-development, I thought I'd start this. As the...

      Inspired by similar topics such as "what are you reading" and "what creative project are you working on", and being obsessed with structured self-development, I thought I'd start this.
      As the title says. Share what your goal is, why you want to achieve it and how you will go about it (the steps/behaviors). You can include a timeline/target date which hopefully will instill a sense of accountability and increase motivation.
      I'm also hoping to get some inspiration and/or tips for my own life goals.

      If this gains interest I might post this once a quarter for follow-ups and new goals.

      I'll share mine in a comment below.

      25 votes
    14. Dan Tepfer (Human - Computer Duet) - NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert

      Video Link I decided to post this as a text topic since IMO the video description is really important to understanding this performance: Aug. 29, 2019 | Colin Marshall -- Dan Tepfer has...

      Video Link

      I decided to post this as a text topic since IMO the video description is really important to understanding this performance:

      Aug. 29, 2019 | Colin Marshall -- Dan Tepfer has transformed the acoustic piano entirely with his new project, Natural Machines. Watch the keys and you'll see this Disklavier — a player piano — plucking notes on its own. But it's not a prerecorded script.

      Here's how it works: Tepfer plays a note, and a computer program he authored reads those notes and tells the piano what to play in response. Tepfer can load different algorithms into the program that determine the pattern of playback, like one that returns the same note, only an octave higher. Another will play the inverted note based on the center of the piano keys. These rules create interesting restrictions that Tepfer says make room for thoughtful improvisation. In his words, he's not writing these songs, so much as writing the way they work. To better communicate what's happening between him and the piano, Tepfer converted these audio-impulse data into visualizations on the screen behind him, displaying in real time the notes he plays followed by the piano's feedback. We dive even deeper into this project in a recent Jazz Night in America video piece.

      Perhaps the trickiest part here, unlike a human-to-human duo, is that the computer plays along with 100 percent accuracy based solely on Tepfer's moves. He compares it to dancing with a robot that never misses a beat. Tepfer has to play in kind to keep the train on the tracks, but if he falls out of step, so does the computer. On the other hand, Tepfer has unlocked a new frontier of music available to acoustic piano players: He's essentially given himself more limbs to play the piano at once, and at times we see more than 10 keys pressed at a time or a sequence of notes played at seemingly superhuman speeds. It's a central idea to what innovative technology enables for us — that which is impossible for us to achieve on our own.

      edit: Nice related video from Jazz Night in America with Dan explaining some of how it works:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L6tzG3FkcU

      7 votes
    15. Turkey information thread: AmA you're curious about Turkey

      @gergir mentioned the idea, and I thought, why not give it a try? I'm a young adult from Turkey, lived up until now in Istanbul. Whether specific to that city or not, and whether about life,...

      @gergir mentioned the idea, and I thought, why not give it a try?

      I'm a young adult from Turkey, lived up until now in Istanbul. Whether specific to that city or not, and whether about life, tourist attractions, politics, culture, etc., just AmA.

      If you have anything you don't want to publicly ask, I'l love to help if you PM me your question.

      32 votes
    16. Worst weather experience?

      Since it's the peak of tropical storm season again, this thread is open for all to share stories and thoughts about weather experiences. Not necessarily concerns about climate change, but the...

      Since it's the peak of tropical storm season again, this thread is open for all to share stories and thoughts about weather experiences. Not necessarily concerns about climate change, but the incidents you've had personally, and whatever you've learned about preparation, resilience, and recovery.

      I'm no longer a Florida resident, but my contacts are blowing up with concern over Hurricane Dorian.

      I've been watching the storm on this nifty site, which has great tools and visualisations to satisfy the most avid weather geeks.

      Dorian is likely to be another devastating, small-region, high-intensity buzzsaw, like last year's Hurricane Michael, which practically erased towns in the Florida panhandle, or the 1935 Labor Day hurricane. [I'm not really a good person - I'm having more than a little schadenfreude that Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort is near the center of the storm's predicted path. But I'm not the only person who thought of that.]

      According to the Insurance Information Institute, Florida has nearly $600 billion dollars of single family housing at risk from a Category 5 hurricane, leaving aside loss of life and injury.

      My stories, compressed for those who've read this before

      Some of my friends and colleagues have families still recovering from the impacts of 2017's Hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Maria.

      While I had to deal with these storms' impacts to infrastructure professionally, the hurricanes didn't have enormous personal impact. I was mainly supporting friends or covering for colleagues struggling to help family in Texas, Puerto Rico, and the Caribbean Islands. Our house was eight miles from the coast, so we only dealt with a downed tree and other cleanup, a few hours without power, and some blocked roads.

      Because I have dumb hobbies, the most extreme weather dangers I ever encountered were while kayaking and canoeing. Five years ago, I was on a guided ocean kayaking trip that ran into an unpredicted storm squall. Perfect blue skies and calm one minute; near darkness, huge waves, practically solid rain, and 40-knot winds the next. The party got scattered all over half a dozen of the 10,000 Islands. I struggled to get off the windward side of a long isle, so the wind banged my kayak into mangroves for an hour, then I was paddling furiously to avoid being swept into the Gulf of Mexico. But we all survived without major harm, the guide managed to reconnect us without calling for rescue, and we arrived at our destination with good stories. I can only imagine what it's like to be exposed to worse conditions in a hurricane.

      Up to that time, the most dangerous weather I'd run into was snow and ice storms. When I was a kid, the Blizzard of 1978 left my family stranded, without phones, power or heat, for five days. We had a fireplace, plenty of hardwood, and an ample store of dried and canned provisions, so it felt more like a rustic adventure than the dire situation it could have been. My brother and I thought 10-foot snowdrifts were the greatest fun ever - we spent more time outside than in, "helping" to dig out by making snow forts and tunnels with the neighbors' kids. Of course, it was followed with a spring of chores like putting up half a kilometer of snow fences, learning to drive a 40-hp farm tractor, and setting up a ham radio antenna and generator, as my city-raised parents had come to grasp what rural life really entailed.

      14 votes
    17. The Trolley Problem

      An interesting thought experiment that I vividly remember from undergrad philosophy courses is the trolley problem: You see a runaway trolley moving toward five tied-up (or otherwise...

      An interesting thought experiment that I vividly remember from undergrad philosophy courses is the trolley problem:

      You see a runaway trolley moving toward five tied-up (or otherwise incapacitated) people lying on the main track. You are standing next to a lever that controls a switch. If you pull the lever, the trolley will be redirected onto a side track, and the five people on the main track will be saved. However, there is a single person lying on the side track. You have two options:

      1. Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.
      2. Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.

      A variation of the problem that we were also presented with was:

      You see a runaway trolley moving toward five tied-up (or otherwise incapacitated) people lying on the main track. You are standing on a bridge that runs across the trolley tracks. There is a large man on the bridge next to you, who if pushed over the bridge and onto the track, would safely stop the trolley, saving the five people but killing the large man. Do you:

      1. Push the man over the bridge, saving the five people.
      2. Allow the trolley to kill the five people

      Which is the more ethical options? Or, more simply: What is the right thing to do?

      17 votes
    18. Potential new groups, and general discussion about the purpose and organization of the group hierarchy

      It's been almost a month since we had proposals for more groups to add. I apologize for taking so long with it—just as a quick explanation for why it's taken so long to get around to: I've been...

      It's been almost a month since we had proposals for more groups to add. I apologize for taking so long with it—just as a quick explanation for why it's taken so long to get around to:

      I've been working on some major background changes related to how groups and the overall abilities of choosing what to see (and not see) on Tildes work, which I was planning to implement at the same time the new groups were added. However, two weeks ago, someone used Tildes's donation page to test over a thousand stolen credit cards. This made a mess in multiple ways, and it's taken a lot of time to clean up and try to make sure it won't happen again (some of it was my fault for not implementing some protections fully/properly). Dealing with that took priority, and it meant that I wasn't able to finish the changes before being (mostly) away over the last week and a bit.

      Anyway, I'm finally getting back on track and am planning to add more groups very soon (and get those larger changes implemented not long after), so let's talk about that as well as some general discussion about the group hierarchy. First, here are the groups I'm currently intending to add and some thoughts and questions about them:

      New groups:

      • ~arts - This is one that I'm a little questionable about. I do think we need a space for these subjects, but there's some strange and confusing crossover with the existing ~creative. I'm not sure if ~arts should replace ~creative, and if we should just have a sub-group or something else for "things created by Tildes users". I'd appreciate input here.
      • ~design - I really like this idea, and think it can cover topics like graphic design as well as physical ones like fashion and architecture.
      • ~finance - This covers some of the other current gaps with existing groups. I'd like to try to fit topics oriented around business in here, as well as ones related more to personal-finance. I'm not certain about the name, but I think it might be the best compared to some of the other comparable options like ~money, ~business, ~commerce, etc.
      • ~games.tabletop - I think this will be a good way to start trying to split up the ~games content a little. For now, I want to just leave video game topics in ~games though, instead of splitting it into its own dedicated sub-group. I know this will probably be somewhat confusing and unintuitive in some ways, but I also think making it so that almost no content goes into ~games itself would be very weird.
      • ~games.game_design - I think this is a useful way to also split out some of the more "theory-based" topics from the other ones in ~games, which tend to be largely more along the lines of news and "ask" discussions. I also want to be able to do some tinkering with a group having multiple sub-groups, and this will make the first instance of that.
      • ~hobbies.automotive - This will be a bit of a test as well. So far, ~hobbies has been quite inactive so it's not truly necessary to split it, but a number of users have expressed interest in it, and I'd like to see if the dedicated sub-group helps motivate more activity about a specific subject.
      • ~science.social - Both the name and being a sub-group are a little questionable here. I'm open to changes, but again, please read below about the hierarchy in general first.
      • ~space - Fairly heavily requested as well, and I feel like it's distinct enough from the existing groups to be worth trying to give a dedicated section.

      Those are all the ones I'm planning to add for now. There are some other groups (and especially some sub-groups) that I think are very good ideas and would work well too, but I want to delay those a little bit to get the structural changes in, since I think that will make a big difference in helping people choose their content too. After these additions we'll have quite a lot of top-level groups (depending exactly what we add, we'll have around 25), and we might want to think about merging some of them before adding even more. On that topic:

      General group hierarchy thoughts:

      I haven't done a good job of defining the purpose of the group hierarchy, or explaining how I think about it. This has caused a fair amount of confusion and debates about the right place for groups/sub-groups, as well as (completely reasonable) questions like why we need groups at all, instead of just using tags.

      I think a lot of the confusion comes from the natural tendency to think about it as a subject-based hierarchy. That is, if subject B is a subset of subject A, it should be a sub-group. However, I think it's going to be more useful to try to treat it as a hierarchy of interest (or disinterest), where the hierarchy is based more around a perspective like "if a user is interested in subject A, they'll probably also be interested in the more-specific subject B".

      I think ~tech and ~comp make a good demonstration. From a subject-based perspective, computers are certainly a subset of technology, so it seems like it should really be ~tech.comp instead of two separate top-level groups. But if you look at it from an interest-based perspective, someone being interested in technology in general definitely doesn't imply that they're also interested in reading technical articles about programming. That's why they're split into separate top-level groups.

      Similarly, ~anime seems to obviously make sense to be a sub-group of ~tv, but I don't think there's nearly enough "interest crossover" to do that. You'd end up with a huge portion of ~tv viewers wanting to exclude ~tv.anime, since it's such a distinct subject.

      Overall, the purpose of the group hierarchy is to help people be able to find and avoid certain types of topics. Using a hierarchy for this will allow us to do things like "I want to see the gaming topics, but not from the League of Legends groups", which are practically impossible to do in a flat structure like reddit has.

      You can also think of the groups as something like "forced" or "implied" tags that are always on all of the topics inside those groups. With a tag-only system, every gaming topic would need to manually be tagged something like "video games" so that people uninterested in them can easily filter them out. The groups system makes this automatic and much more convenient and understandable.

      In the future, I think it will also be very important for the different groups (and some sub-groups) to be able to act as different "spaces" with their own rules, and possibly even different features or design.

      I hope that helps clarify the hierarchy a bit and explain why the organization has been done this way so far (and will likely to continue to be). Let me know if you have any questions or thoughts about the hierarchy and the planned new groups, I'm intending to add them later this week unless something else goes horribly wrong.

      And as usual, I've topped everyone's invites up to 10. You can get your invite links here: https://tildes.net/invite

      68 votes
    19. What are your mental health upkeep habits/lifestyle?

      I've seen a few posts about sharing issues, but I don't think anything about habits. I'm former "quantitative-self" hobbyist (if you want to call it that), keener and have a side interest in...

      I've seen a few posts about sharing issues, but I don't think anything about habits. I'm former "quantitative-self" hobbyist (if you want to call it that), keener and have a side interest in psychiatry. So in my personal life I'm very active and serious about my own short and long-term mental health. I'm wondering if anyone shares my habits or has others I have not considered. I wont link any literature because there is a lot out there to support most of these habits and I can't make this exhaustive (but I'm happy to help find specific resources).

      Morning quiet time. I wake up early and spend about an hour drinking tea, looking outside and reading. The major benefit here is it gives me a buffer before the start of the day. I used to get up and rush out of the door - I would be stressed from the start and wouldn't have an idea of how to go about my day effectively.

      Reading fiction. I used to read a lot more non-fiction (pop sci and "self-help") but I found with fiction (and also biographies) not only is it generally easier content to process, but the narratives can be therapeutic. There is something about getting exposed to other peoples thought processes (real or not) and overcoming of challenges that can be comforting or inspiring when facing your own.

      Aerobic exercise. And also anything exhaustive - as in you gave it all of your energy. The general health benefits are obviously well established at this point. But, a subjective (AFAIK) experience of mine is the feeling of self-actualization - a sense of victory and fulfillment you can get almost anytime anywhere, and fairly frequently.

      Regular social contact. Specifically AFK/face-to-face. This seems banal but it's really not. I make a serious active effort here - I think about who I haven't seen in a while, who I might feel like would complement or share my vibes right now or near future and make plans ASAP. This among the most important of my habits, or at least has the most therapeutic effect. Something about social interactions, even if they're just about talking shit, can be therapeutic and energizing. And this is coming from someone who is generally an introvert and would usually prefer to stay home.

      Restrict social media. I probably don't need to explain this one. But I'll also add that, after following the advice of someone on Tildes (sorry I can't find the post!) limiting my news source to only the Current Events of Wikipedia has done wonders for me! I've stayed informed and have avoided the anxiety-inducing clusterfucks of newstainment. I group this with social media because they're so close nowadays (gossip?).

      Meditation. Big one right here. I've been practicing for ~7 years now, and it's very noticeable when I skip a 20 min session a few days in a row - I become more agitated, short tempered and anxious (is depressed, but mainly just too focused on myself either way). Specifically "mindfulness" (loose term) or Vipassanā style (I use and highly recommend Waking Up). Style here is important because they all exercise different neural pathways. The product of this practice 1) being much more aware of what has emotionally triggered me and 2) being more able to let go/resolve of negative states of mind. E.g. instead of grinding my teeth with a negative thought train the past 3 hours I notice it's all petty within a moment or two and am able to move on and focus on my task at hand and later sleep soundly.

      Psychedelics. Namely the tried-and-true classics. This one is finally getting the attention it deserves in the public domain. As opposed to the others which I do on a near-daily basis (aim for daily), psychedelic experiences I limit to only a handful of times per year because 1) it's work, it requires planning and a day or two off; 2) the positive/resolving effects last for months/years/lifetime; and 3) it requires integration with you baseline reality life to really be effective.
      This one hands down has provided me the most benefit out of all and has inspired me to actively pursue everything above, especially meditation and social life. Specifically, it's the perspective you can get from a psychedelic experience that can be like years of therapy because it's all internally-motivated - you can get an objective perspective on you own life that no one else can offer and one you normally would not accept, especially if it's self-critical.
      For best results I do this with close friends, at home and/or in nature - taking long walks by the river or woods. Sometimes quiet time at some point as well, to allow self-reflection, taking a moment for an honest review and check in.

      Safety disclaimer Psychedelics, and also exhaustive workouts and meditation, can have serious adverse effects if done in excess or without proper planning. Always practice harm reduction: do your research (e.g. Erowid for substance info) test your drugs, carry Naloxone and *always* have a friend, at leas to check in with. Start small - you can always take more but not less.
      32 votes
    20. What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?

      Sorry, I was away last week and didn't post this, so it's been a couple of weeks now since the last one. So, what have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are...

      Sorry, I was away last week and didn't post this, so it's been a couple of weeks now since the last one.

      So, what have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.

      19 votes
    21. Unofficial Weekly Discussion #3 - Argument de-escalation and disengagement brainstorming session

      IMO one of the major issues with online debates, arguments and heated discussions is that they often tend to escalate rather steadily over time, and as each side gets more frustrated with the...

      IMO one of the major issues with online debates, arguments and heated discussions is that they often tend to escalate rather steadily over time, and as each side gets more frustrated with the other they also tend to slowly get more personal as well. I am admittedly guilty of falling into this trap occasionally myself too, which has got me thinking about ways that Tildes (the site and the users here) can potentially help deescalate unproductive arguments and allow people to disengage more effectively from them. To this end I thought it might be a good idea to have a brainstorming session regarding that.

      To start things off, here are most of the ideas I could find related to this issue that have previously been proposed and are already on Tildes Gitlab (click to read the full details):

      Add ability to hide topics (and view/unhide ones users have previously hidden) self explanatory
      Add community based thread locking We have labels now, which help moderation and can help hide comments that hurt the discussion. But maybe we need some sort of similar function for locking or temp-locking threads when they get out of hand due to drama or something. As long as we only really have Deimos doing the moderating, that can help avoid things blowing up when he is unavailable.
      Add "block user" feature This would more effectively allow people to avoid arguments but has some potential downsides worth considering as well, e.g. users getting trapped in a filter bubble. However, other than for moderators, that is probably not a major drawback compared to the benefits, IMO.

      How deep the block goes is also something that probably needs to be investigated and discussed. E.g. Does blocking a user just prevent PMs? Does it prevent their replies from notifying the user? Does it hide their comments/topics, and if so does it hide all the replies to those hidden comments as well? Etc.

      Add "unfollow" feature, allowing users to turn off notifications for replies to their comments/topics This would allow users to more effectively disengage from arguments. It should probably be something disabled by default and only enabled on a case-by-case basis, not a global user setting though, IMO.

      edit: Feature also requested again, but for a slightly different reason (avoiding getting spammed on busy topics)

      Add placebo comment labels Related to the other "disengage" feature suggestions, I think a "placebo" comment label could also potentially help the culture of the site. What I mean by that is perhaps adding some comment labels that have no effect, or only an effect for the person that applied it. e.g. A "Disagree" comment label, that has no effect whatsoever, or perhaps makes the comment collapse (like a "noise" labeled comments), but only to the user that applied the "disagree".

      Comments related to this.

      Add "argument/bickering" label for users to apply on unproductive arguments This label, once it reaches a certain threshold could even have effects applied to it, E.g. imposing a forced time delay on replies between all involved parties, adding a delay before the replies even show up (to give time for people to cool off), or even simply locking that particular thread entirely if enough labels are applied.
      Show whether a comment has already been replied to in users' /notifications/unread page I suspect that people often reply directly from their /notifications/unread page, which can lead to needless repetition in the comments. It also potentially further escalates arguments as well, since a user may feel obligated to reply since they do not realize that someone has already addressed the comment effectively. Embedding the other replies somehow, perhaps by using a `details` like expando, might be nice as well.

      Feel free to voice your support or criticism regarding the above suggestions, offer up ideas to potentially improve them, or even propose your own brand new ideas related to this issue in the comments here as well.

      p.s. Once again, the point here is to open up the conversation and get ideas flowing freely, so let's please try to keep things positive, and keep any criticism purely constructive and friendly so as not to discourage people from participating.


      Previous Unofficial Weekly Discussions:

      Week #1, #2


      Other relevant links:
      Donate to Tildes - Tildes Gitlab : Issues Board - Tildes Official Docs

      27 votes
    22. Linux Distro for an old PC

      I found my grandfathers old PC on the attic and want to revive it for him. He really loved that pc. Sadly that potato barely runs Windows xp so I thought about putting a Linux onto it. My Linux...

      I found my grandfathers old PC on the attic and want to revive it for him. He really loved that pc. Sadly that potato barely runs Windows xp so I thought about putting a Linux onto it. My Linux experience is limited to Mimt and Debian, both way to heavy for this old laptop. I need recommendations for a very light weight Linux Distro!

      Specs:
      256 mb DDR1 Ram
      Intel Celeron M 320 @ 1.4GhZ
      40gb Hard Drive

      It's a small, simple gift and nothing where I want to put money into. Also it won't be my granddads daily driver so please don't recommend me a new one (a lot of people did that on other websites so I am rather careful). Thanks in Advance!

      14 votes
    23. Some <details> about more <small> updates (you'll get that in a minute) and general Tildes feedback/questions/comments

      Similar to the last topic, I've got some more minor updates to let everyone know about. It's also been quite a while since we had a general feedback topic, so let's do that today as well—feel free...

      Similar to the last topic, I've got some more minor updates to let everyone know about.

      It's also been quite a while since we had a general feedback topic, so let's do that today as well—feel free to ask any questions or give feedback about Tildes overall.

      Here's what's been happening:

      1. @Algernon_Asimov's major reorganizing and rework of the Docs is now live on https://docs.tildes.net. A decent number of changes needed to be made to be able to support having the pages in categories/folders, dealing with some formatting changes, redirecting old urls, etc. Some of these changes have started being integrated back into the wiki on Tildes itself as well (and I'm still gradually working on it). For example, the pages in the ~tildes.official wiki are somewhat organized into the same folders, even though the UI doesn't handle it very well in a lot of places yet.

        If you want to help edit the Docs at all, all of the pages (except site policies) are available in the ~tildes.official wiki, and I'll review and transfer any edits to the Docs site. If you don't have access to edit the wiki, send me a message and ask and I can give you access to edit (and you can edit the other groups' wikis too).

      2. Some new HTML-exclusive formatting capabilities are available when writing posts:

        • <small>: lets you write a section of text in a smaller font. Good for "side notes" and such, and much better than using superscript, which some people were doing previously to get that effect.
        • <details> and <summary>: lets you make "expandable" blocks in your comments. This is useful if you want to do things like hide a large block of text or code and let people expand it if they want to read it. @hungariantoast used it immediately in his comment here, if you want to see an example. The current state of it isn't great for use for spoilers (but probably better than just writing them in plain sight), but I may make an adaptation of it specifically for use for spoilers.
      3. There's a new site theme available, "Zenburn". It's a fairly low-contrast, and used to be one of my favorite color schemes. I had to do some work on one of my old sites that was using it last weekend, and it reminded me how much I liked it, so I added it. Here's the official screenshot of the vim color scheme for it, if you want an idea of what colors it uses. You can change the theme on the settings page if you're logged in, or there's a dropdown at the bottom of every page if you're logged out.

      4. @deing has added a small warning to try to let people know when they're about to reply to an old comment or topic, since it seems fairly common for people to accidentally "necrobump" old threads without realizing. For now, the warning shows up when the topic/comment is over a week old. I set that threshold based on pulling out some stats and seeing that only 1% of comment replies and 2% of top-level comments were replying to anything that old, so it should be quite rare for anyone to see anyway.

      Other than that, I haven't forgotten about the new group proposals and should be adding some new ones this week. I wanted to finish some backend changes to the group system first to help with that, and it's... gotten more ugly than I was expecting. Sorry for the delay, hopefully soon though.

      Let me know if you have any thoughts about any of those changes, and as mentioned, feel free to use this topic for general feedback/questions as well, since I'm sure there are some things that people want to give feedback or ask about that might not feel like they're worth starting a thread in ~tildes for. As usual, I've also topped everyone back up to 10 invite codes, which you can get here.

      59 votes
    24. Weekly album and EP releases (August 3-9)

      Here's a list of a things that came out in this past week, up through Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and we avoided including things where information...

      Here's a list of a things that came out in this past week, up through Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and we avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to bring up anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)


      Artist Title Genre(s) Song Link
      AUGUST 08 Happy Endings With an Asterisk EP Alternative R&B Song.link
      Acres Lonely World Post-Rock, Post-Hardcore Song.link
      Bas Spilled Milk 1 Pop Rap, East Coast Hip Hop Song.link
      Bazzi Soul Searching Trap, Pop Rap Song.link
      Blueface Dirt Bag Hyphy, West Coast Hip Hop, Gangsta Rap Song.link
      Bon Iver i,i Art Pop, Folktronica, Glitch Pop Song.link
      Broken Hands Split in Two Psychedelic Rock, Pop Rock Song.link
      Che Apalache Rearrange My Heart Americana Song.link
      Dame D.O.L.L.A BIG DOLLA West Coast Hip-Hop Song.link
      Destruction Born to Perish Thrash Metal Song.link
      Dirty Heads Super Moon Pop Reggae Song.link
      East Forest & Ram Dass Ram Dass Electroacoustic Song.link
      Electric Youth Memory Emotion Synthpop, Dream Pop, Synthwave Song.link
      Feeder Tallulah Alternative Rock Song.link
      Fionn Regan Cala Singer/Songwriter, Contemporary Folk Song.link
      Gaffa Tape Sandy Family Mammal Garage Rock, Pop Punk Song.link
      Horseburner The Thief Sludge Metal, Stoner Metal Song.link
      Infinity Crush Virtual Heaven Indie Pop, Singer/Songwriter Song.link
      Junius Meyvant Rearview Paradise EP Chamber Pop Song.link
      Lil Wop Psych Trap, Gangsta Rap Song.link
      Marc Cohn And The Blind Boys Of Alabama Work To Do Gospel Song.link
      Marika Hackman Any Human Friend Indie Rock Song.link
      PJ Morton PAUL Neo-Soul Song.link
      Pete Yorn Caretakers Singer/Songwriter Song.link
      Purple Pilgrims Perfumed Earth Dream Pop Song.link
      Ra Ra Riot Superbloom Indie Pop Song.link
      Rick Ross Port Of Miami 2 Southern Hip Hop, Trap Song.link
      SVDDEN DEATH VOYD Vol. 1.5 Riddim Song.link
      Sam Fender Hypersonic Missiles Indie Rock, Indie Pop Song.link
      Seeker Lover Keeper Wild Seeds Indie Pop Song.link
      Slipknot We Are Not Your Kind Alternative Metal Song.link
      Snow Patrol Reworked EP 1 Pop Rock Song.link
      Spread Eagle Subway To The Stars Hard Rock Song.link
      The Contortionist Our Bones EP Progressive Metal, Progressive Rock Song.link
      The Regrettes How Do You Love? Indie Rock, Pop Rock Song.link
      Tori Kelly Inspired By True Events Singer/Songwriter, Contemporary R&B Song.link
      Trippie Redd ! Trap, Pop Rap Song.link
      Ugly God Bumps & Bruises Trap, Southern Hip Hop Song.link
      WHY? AOKOHIO Indie Pop, Abstract Hip Hop Song.link
      half•alive Now, Not Yet Indie Pop Song.link

      Notes:
      If you spot any mistakes, let us know.
      Parental Advisory version of all albums linked, so expect NSFW.

      Ugly God - Bumps & Bruises | Deluxe edition linked.

      Thanks to @Cleb, @cfabbro, and @Bauke!

      7 votes
    25. What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?

      I started this last week, and plan to continue posting this topic weekly. So, what have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just...

      I started this last week, and plan to continue posting this topic weekly.

      So, what have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.

      26 votes
    26. Should clicking an article on Tildes be a prerequisite for posting a comment in the associated thread?

      This thought was brought to you/sponsored by my perception that there's an increasing number of comments on Tildes that attempt to "answer" questions posed in the titles of posts, but don't...

      This thought was brought to you/sponsored by my perception that there's an increasing number of comments on Tildes that attempt to "answer" questions posed in the titles of posts, but don't necessarily demonstrate that the user has read the article before commenting. I won't link specific comments, but I've noticed a fair bit of it as of late. I get that those titles bait people into voicing their opinion, but often it's at the detriment of overall discussion. Should a prerequisite of clicking the actual link in question be a requirement before the user is allowed to post a top level comment? Or perhaps a cooldown period of entering a thread versus commenting may help?

      The goal here would be to disincentivise the posting of "driveby" or similarly reductive comments that often don't demonstrate nuance or knowledge that is conveyed in the associated article. Sure, we can't ever know if the user has actually read the article, but it's not designed to be a foolproof strategy, just a discouraging one.

      There's a few ways this could be implemented, probably via the utilization of a small bit of javascript that toggle's a user's reading state for a particular post. Thoughts?

      Just to clarify since I've edited this post: I mean top-level comments only. Replies are more likely to be in response to the parent comment, rather than the title and wouldn't be affected by this proposal.

      25 votes
    27. Some thoughts on freedom on the Web, explained through a simple analogy

      I'm writing this in an attempt to explain more clearly some ideas about the dangers of having an oligopoly in control of the Web, and the current difficulties of discussing that without being...

      I'm writing this in an attempt to explain more clearly some ideas about the dangers of having an oligopoly in control of the Web, and the current difficulties of discussing that without being taken as some kind of "free speech absolutist". It's an analogy and, as in any analogy, it's only valid to a certain extent. The important thing is for it to be valid enough to explain a point.


      There was a city in which four companies had ended up owning every bar, except for a handful of them in the outskirts. Upon one moment, they started to regulate which kind of conversations could be held in their bars and which couldn't, something they had a legal right to do and felt was their responsibility. So they prohibited any racist, homophobic or sexually explicit conversation, as well as conversations which they thought could carry any risk for society as a whole. Almost no one could really object to that, after all who would defend that kind of behavior? Some far right gangs said it was against their right to free speech, but they were correctly answered that they didn't have any right to determine the conversation policy of bars that weren't theirs.

      Others tried to point that, while that policy wasn't inherently wrong and those companies were in their right to implement it, in the past this was dealt with on a bar-per-bar basis, and although the immense majority of bars didn't allow that kind of behaviors, they had different degrees of flexibility about different topics so bars were more varied and diverse, and you were free to choose a bar which conformed to your interests.

      But they were quickly accused of defending some supposed right of that people to be given a place to discuss and organize, and sometimes even accused of defending those ideas. "If you don't like how the Four Companies manage their bars, go elsewhere".

      The problem is that the far right gangs and other kind of undesirable people, when forced to leave the Four Companies' bars, went straight to the bars in the outskirts, overflowing them. Some of those bars were already owned by far right people, others though the answer to the Four Companies was to keep a more tolerant policy, and were overtook by neo-nazis. The few independent bars that didn't accept to become far right havens were forced to implement policies not that far from those of the Four Companies, or else face a far right invasion. Their clients spent a lot of time discussing wether something was off-limits or not instead of just enjoying a good time like they did before, and those bars were also very small and far away. They were interesting places, to be sure, but they were cut apart from most of the night life of the city, which took place on the hundreds of Four Companies' bars.

      But now, there was a growing problem. The Four Companies had started to prohibit other subjects, for several reasons that aren't really important. Some were distasteful subjects, other were against their political interests or the city council's. But, as the far right gangs kept stabbing people and trying to reclaim their "right" to be accepted into the Four Companies' bars, most people thought that the risk they posed weighed more than anything else.

      But they were missing the point. In another nearby city, there were never a handful of companies owning most bars. Still most bars didn't allow far right gangs, and discussion was diverse and fun, and sometimes helpful to combat the excesses of the city council and local police. Still, there were some neo-nazi bars, and most bars had one or two unlikable people. Neo-nazi bars sometimes caused trouble and had to be closed by the police, most were not only under police surveillance but under the neighbors' surveillance too. And, as neo-nazis were a very small minority, if you didn't support the same team as the owner of your closest bar, you could go to another bar which supported your team without it being forcefully full of neo-nazis or otherwise disgusting people.

      Both cities had neo-nazis and sometimes problems in their bars, although Four Companies' bars were quite more peaceful on average, as they were heavily policed in a uniform and homogeneous way. But they were lifeless too, and lots of interesting discussions and possibilities of neighbors facing local injustice together were lost forever. Everyone ended up thinking the same, watching the same, liking the same sports and supporting the same teams. Bars weren't a fun and exciting place anymore.


      This is just an analogy, so it's limited. But I think it explains well my general view and worries on the subject, which have nothing to do with leaving free way to racists and neo-nazis. It has to do with putting an end to the oligopoly before it's too late.

      6 votes
    28. Reflections on recognizing and resisting abusive practices in psychedelic organizations

      I have been noticing a disturbing trend in psychedelic groups lately, in which powerful mind-altering substance are being used for emotional and sexual manipulation -- especially among young and...

      I have been noticing a disturbing trend in psychedelic groups lately, in which powerful mind-altering substance are being used for emotional and sexual manipulation -- especially among young and vulnerable demographics. In order to combat the collective trauma resulting from these practices, I am attempting to spread harm reduction information far and wide as it pertains to the subject.

      This is one of my more recent articles. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, in case anyone would like to build off of it. If anyone has constructive criticism or experience, any feedback would be immensely appreciated. Thank you :)

      Psychedelics facilitate increased intimacy

      There is a tenuous association between psychedelics and cliquey, tribal, or cult-like group behavior. This should be taken seriously, especially in large group whose members bond through regular psychedelic sessions. Psychedelics have a number of potential effects that can make individuals more suggestible, and may occasion rapidly-escalating intimacy:

      • facilitate deep feelings of connection to others
      • induce dissociation, depersonalization and ego loss
      • increase suggestibility, making it easier to impress new beliefs or ideas upon the user
      • re-expose the user to potentially traumatic memories
      • evoke emotional re-association and object transference, including trust and sexual interest that may not otherwise be present
      • invoke religious or metaphysical experiences, that instill a sense of meaning and personal significance
      • create a sense of paranoia or suspicion, in part as a result of being involved in a potentially illicit activities
      • evoke symptoms of mental illness in vulnerable users, making one reliant on external social and economic support

      Not all of these effects guarantee problems, but rather indicate how psychedelics can open users up to remarkably strong bonding. The ability of hallucinogens to connect individuals into family-like organizations is notable, as psychedelic have been foundational to many rituals, communities, and cults through history. In part due to these effects, many psychedelic groups exhibit some degree of organizational eccentricity, marked intimacy, or social drama.

      Identifying safe group dynamics

      If you need help identifying whether or not an organization exercises exploitative practices, consult the following guidelines on cult behavior and gaslighting. Troublesome psychedelic groups are usually large in size and have organized leadership structure, exhibiting the following qualities (as adapted from the Cult Education Institute’s webpage):

      • possessing an egotistical leader of social or creative influence, who may have a record of abusing power or individuals
      • a rigidly directed ideology, and excluding or punishing members who do not conform to it
      • provoking members who are under the influence of psychedelics, or attempting to selfishly influence the psychedelic integration process of another member
      • maintaining a culture of misinformation or fear or threats, in which members are easily excluded or blacklisted
      • illicit dealings and in-group abuse that is concealed by a culture of secrecy, including: promoting or selling increasingly risky drugs, sexual or romantic grooming, or the use of psychedelics as “tools of seduction”

      Perhaps the best takeaway from the association between psychedelics and cult activity is this: psychedelics have the ability to destabilize and rearrange one’s sense of self, which makes them more susceptible to peer pressure and the influence of others. For users who already are mentally liable or require a secure mindset and setting, it is essential to make sure that they feel in control of their drug use, and have the personal autonomy to ensure their trips are safe and serve personal growth.

      The Cult Education Institute’s signs of a safe group/leader are also adapted below:

      • can be asked questions without judgement
      • discloses ample information such as structural organization/finances
      • may have disgruntled former followers, but will not vilify, excommunicate, or forbid others from associating with them
      • will not have a record of overwhelmingly negative articles and statements about them
      • encourages family communication, community interaction, and existing friendships
      • encourages critical thinking, individual autonomy, self-esteem, and personal growth
      • leaders admit failings and mistakes, accepts criticism, and follow through on implementing constructive changes
      • operates democratically and encourages accountability and oversight
      • leader is not be the only source of knowledge excluding everyone else; group values dialogues and the free exchange of ideas
      • members and leaders recognize clear emotional, physical, and emotional boundaries when dealing with others

      Gaslighting & manipulation tactics

      Many of the tactics that both individuals and groups use to manipulate people are examples of gaslighting, or attempts at convincing members that they are somehow mentally compromised in order to control them. This is often done by withholding information from them, invalidating the victim’s experiences, verbal abuse (including jokes), social isolation, trivializing the victim’s worth, and otherwise undermining their thought process. When combined with the suggestion-enhancing properties of psychedelic drugs, these kinds of behavior can be traumatizing to individual victims, while remaining relatively undetected or overlooked by onlookers.

      In order to help identify gaslighting by a group, consider if you relate to its effects, as described by Robin Stern in her book The Gaslight Effect:

      • constantly second-guessing yourself, feeling confused, or as if something is wrong
      • asking yourself “Am I too sensitive?” throughout the day
      • frequently apologizing to people who hold power over you, feeling as if you can’t do anything right, or running over things you may have done wrong
      • frequently wondering if you are “good enough”
      • frequently withholding information from your friends or family so you don’t have to explain the group or make excuses for it
      • you lie to group members, to avoid being put down or gaslighted
      • paranoia about bringing up innocent conversation topics
      • speaking to group leaders through another member, so you don’t have be worry about the leaders becoming upset with you
      • making excuses for group members’ behavior to your friends and family
      • friends or family try to protect you from the group
      • becoming furious with people you used to get along with

      If you suspect you have been involved in a psychedelic cult or gaslighted, you may be experiencing regular instability, dissociation, or feelings of uncertainty. Although it can be difficult at first, finding a new group that demonstrates a high degree of member safety and accountability may help rebuild one’s sense of safety and trust. If you shared psychedelic experiences with group members while being taken advantage of, it may be beneficial to seek out a professional psychedelic integration therapist to help emotionally contextualize these memories. Victims may also benefit from adjunct trauma therapies, such as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Radically-Open DBT, somatic bodywork and movement therapies, therapeutic massage, and other complementary therapy practices.

      Sources

      Douglas, James. (2017). Inside the bizarre 1960s cult, The Family: LSD, yoga and UFOs. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/feb/13/the-family-great-white-brotherhood-australia-melbourne-cult-anne-hamilton-byrne

      Evans, P. (1996). The verbally abusive relationship: how to recognize it and how to respond. Expanded 2nd ed. Holbrook, Mass.: Adams Media Corporation.

      Mayorga, O. and Smith, P. (2019, May 19). Forgiving psychedelic abusers should never be at the expense of their victims. Psymposia. Retrieved from https://www.psymposia.com/magazine/forgiving-psychedelic-abusers/.

      Neiswender, Mary. (1971). Manson Girl’s Acid Trips Detailed. CieldoDrive.com. Retrieved from http://www.cielodrive.com/archive/manson-girls-acid-trips-detailed/.

      Ross, Rick. (2014). Warning signs. Cult Education Institute. Retrieved from https://www.culteducation.com/warningsigns.html.

      Stern, R. (2007). The gaslight effect: how to spot and survive the hidden manipulations other people use to control your life. New York: Morgan Road Books.

      Windolf, Jim. (2007). Sex, drugs, and soybeans. Vanity Fair. Retrieved from https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/05/thefarm200705.

      8 votes
    29. I finished playing through The Witness

      MAJOR SPOILER WARNING What I Did The game took me around twenty hours to beat, and I stretched that out over the course of about two months. Sometimes I would dive in deep and play non-stop for an...

      MAJOR SPOILER WARNING


      What I Did

      The game took me around twenty hours to beat, and I stretched that out over the course of about two months. Sometimes I would dive in deep and play non-stop for an hour or two, but most of the time it was me playing it almost piecemeal, for ten or fifteen minutes at a time. Enough to get through one or two panels that I had been stuck on and then stop again.

      I would have liked to do longer gaming sessions with it, but I found that I sort of had finite mental resources to apply to the game. I would hit a panel, be thoroughly perplexed, stare at it for 10 minutes while trying different solutions in my head, on paper, and in the game. Nothing would work, so I'd stop the game. The next day I would boot it up and, more often than not, have the solution in a minute or two--sometimes even the first try! I think my brain was working on these in the background.

      Something that helped me massively was not letting myself get intimidated by the game. As I would work myself farther and farther down a strand of puzzles, I would instinctively start to feel the pressure that they were getting harder and harder each time. Rather than feed into that feeling, I simply reassured myself that each puzzle was its own thing, and each one had a solution right there, staring me in the face. I just had to find it.

      What I Loved

      I think the game is gorgeous. Stunning. Beautiful. An absolute joy to look at. It made me realize that we don't often get vibrant color in games that aren't pixel art. I also think the world is beautifully designed. The island is a memorable place with lots to explore.

      I also loved the game's ability to teach you its rules wordlessly. The line puzzles aren't just puzzles--they're a language. The whole game felt like some geometric force was trying to communicate with me, but first it had to teach me its alphabet, grammar, and syntax.

      Furthermore, I can't tell you how many times I would fight for a solution to a difficult puzzle, feeling it was nearly impossible all the way, only to find the seemingly one right answer. The only way it could possibly work. The next panel? The same damn layout but with an added rule that ruined my prior solution! I loved that the game made me rethink my own thoughts and forced me to see, quite literally, that there is often more than one way to solve a problem.

      What I Felt

      I was probably 12 to 14 hours into the game when I accidentally stumbled onto the knowledge that there were lines that could be activated outside the panels. I can't remember where I was but holy hell can I remember the feeling. I've got goosebumps right now as I type this from revisiting it in my memory. It was the sublime feeling you get from a great plot twist. There was a sense of revelation, the feeling of frission, and a newfound respect and appreciation for the design that went into the game.

      What's sad is that it shouldn't have taken me that long. I saw the circles and lines throughout the environment as I made my way around the island and just assumed that it was a sort of visual motif, or maybe a stylistic flair, much like the game's sort of cartoony, polygonal look. Finding out that I could, in fact, trace them just like every other line I'd been making for the past ten hours was absolutely flooring to me. Experiencing that moment is one of the high points in all of my gaming history. It was the moment the game went from "this is definitely a clever game!" to "FUCK...this game is SO. DAMN. SMART." After that moment I think I spent two hours frantically running around the island hunting environmental lines. Now that I knew what to look for, they were EVERYWHERE. Hiding in plain sight! I was stunned. In absolute awe.

      At probably about the 15 hour mark, I found the movie room and had the input for one movie. It was a scene in which a man lights a candle and attempts to walk across a courtyard, and each time the candle goes out, he returns to the beginning. I took this to be a metaphor for the game--specifically that it is about the journey rather than the destination. As such, this was the point that I realized I wasn't going to get some revelatory story at the end of the game, and that making it to the end of the game, while definitely a goal, was not what gave the game meaning.

      The sub-takeaway from the film was the idea that the effort is worth it. The man in the film could have just crossed the courtyard and lit the candle at the end. The fact that he didn't showed self-restraint and a committment to the rule. I took this to be a comment on how the game is played. I could have looked up solutions to the puzzles online and just inputted them easily as a way of breezing through the game. While it would get me to where I was going (the end), what was the point? My playthrough was the lit candle route--harder because I was forcing myself to put in the work rather than taking the easy way out.

      Oh, and did I mention that the film also had an environmental line at the end you could activate if you went behind the screen while it was running? Genius. This game is SO. DAMN. SMART.

      What I Didn't Love

      Because I didn't pay attention to detail and made assumptions when I shouldn't have, I didn't realize that I could enter the mountain without all the beacons activated. My gamer mind simply saw OBVIOUS GATED DESTINATION and OBVIOUS DESTINATION GATE KEYS and went "yup, gotta get all of these to unlock the end!" As such, I overplayed my game a bit by doing all of that first. I was all set for entering the mountain to be the ending, especially because the village beacon felt like a "final exam" to the game, incorporating all of the other puzzle types. I kept coming back to it after learning a new symbol/rule and would chip away here and there until I finally got through all of it.

      As such, when I got into the mountain and there were even more puzzles I was miffed. My steam had run out. Add to that I'm pretty susceptible to motion sickness in games, so the flashing, scrolling, and color-cycling puzzles were deeply unpleasant for me. I literally had to look away from the screen for the scrolling ones. I solved them on paper and inputted them with the panels in my peripheral vision.

      The double-sided room below those was equal parts brilliant and frustrating, though I was impressed as hell with the room with the four sub-puzzles that fed into the larger one on the floor. Unfortunately, I ended the game on quite a low note, as the pillar puzzles at the very end turned my stomach on account of the rotating camera. I was able to power through those only because I knew I was so close to the end.

      What I'm Left With

      While I didn't love the ending, I, as previously mentioned, don't think it's about that. The game gave me 20 hours of puzzle-solving bliss in a beautiful, rich environment. It gave me legitimate chills when I figured out its secret. It made me think, it made me work, and it made me feel legitimately fulfilled. Good puzzle games make you feel baffled and then they turn around and make you feel brilliant. This one made me feel all sorts of brilliant.

      The game has so many legitimately clever moments. I loved the pagoda area where you have to look through branches at the right angle to see the solution. The last puzzle has two pieces of the answer, but a section is missing. After traipsing around, trying every possible visual angle, I look down and find a branch broken off at my feet. The missing piece. Brilliant.

      It was filled with little things like these. Little thoughtful twists or nudges. Each puzzle strand was an iterative sequence, and each time you thought you knew where it was headed, they'd push it further. Then further. More and more. Often in ways you wouldn't expect. It's not just that the idea of the game is good but that its execution is so rich and thoughtful that it makes me reverent.

      As for post-game stuff (because I know there's a ton I haven't gotten to), I'm taking a break from the game right now, but I might return to it a little later. I kept screenshots of puzzles I didn't solve or environmental elements that I was pretty sure were really activatable but that I couldn't quite figure out (the brown railroad tracks in the white limestoney area, for example).

      I have the inputs for a couple more movies that I haven't watched, so I'll probably go back for those. I know there's a challenge area as well, and I'm presumably equipped for it given that I did all of the beacons, but I don't know if I'm up for that. Not just yet, at least.

      What You Can Help Me With

      For those of you that have gone through the post-game content, do you recommend it? Are there certain things I should focus on? I'm not terribly concerned about spoilers, but if there's something "big" like the environmental line revelation, maybe just give me a hint or point me in the right direction.

      I also have a couple of lingering questions. Feel free to answer them unless you feel that it's better if I try to figure it out by myself.

      • What do the individual, standalone panels lying around the island do (the gray ones with the triangles)? I've figured out the rule, I just don't know their purpose.

      • Does finding all the environmental lines serve any larger purpose?

      • Is there story or lore in the game? Does the island or its frozen inhabitants get explained? I activated a few audiologs, but those were mostly philosophical ponderings rather than narrative.

      • How on earth do I get that environmental line with the railroad tracks? Of all the ones that I haven't been able to figure out how to get, that one's bothering me the most.

      Finally, to anyone who's played the game (which is hopefully anyone who read this), I'd love to hear your experience and thoughts. What was The Witness like for you?


      EDIT: Writing the post inspired me to go back into the game instead of sleeping. I watched two other videos I had found inputs for. One was a woman talking about freeing yourself from want, and the other was a man talking about science and knowledge. Interesting stuff.

      Then I started exploring and I found an environmental line made by the negative space in the sky when properly bounded by a cloud and wall from the exact right angle. This game is SO. DAMN. SMART.


      EDIT 2: Disregard where I said I was going to take a break from the game. I'm diving back in. I want to explore and find these environmental lines. It's so satisfying when you find one.

      There was one on a bridge leading from the village towards the foresty area with the orange trees. I could see it from the ground and knew it definitely was one, but I could never quite position myself right to actually trace it. I tried climbing in the castle area since it seemed like I needed to be elevated, but that didn't work. I tried it from the rooftops in the village, and that didn't work. Then I looked: the tower in the middle of the village! I'd forgotten to try from there because once I got to the top of that I headed straight for the mountain. Sure enough, that was the spot.

      Also, can we talk about how the sound is so satisfying when you get one? So good.


      EDIT 3: The game might be trying to teach me a lesson in freeing myself from want. Now that I'm fired up to dive back into it, it's hard crashing after I start it up. It loads fine and I can walk a few steps, then it locks up my whole system.

      I'm running it on Linux through Proton and tried all the different Proton versions assuming that was the culprit (it has crashed before) but the outcome is the same. I might be technologically barred from going further, which I guess is in the spirit of the game's ending and philosophy, right?


      EDIT 4: My OS had some graphics library updates for me today, and after installing them I'm back in business--no more crashing! (Sub edit: I spoke too soon. It crashed after about half an hour, but that's way better than what I was getting before). I spent a while traipsing around the island, looking for environmental lines. It's amazing how, in hindsight, so many areas or destinations that I thought were just kind of dead space are actually strategic locations for environmental lines.

      A good example is the very beginning of the game. You can get onto the roof of the overhang you first walk out from. At the beginning of the game I got up there, saw some pillows, and just thought it was set dressing in an ultimately useless space. Nope! Not only is there an environmental line you can get from there, but there's an audiolog as well if you're paying attention to detail (which, of course, I wasn't in my first go-around).

      22 votes
    30. Weekly album and EP releases (27 July - 2 August)

      Here's a list of a things that came out in this past week, up through Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and we avoided including things where information...

      Here's a list of a things that came out in this past week, up through Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and we avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)


      Artist Title Genre(s) Song Link
      Ami Dang Parted Plains Hindustani Classical Music, Progressive Electronic Song.link
      Black Milk DiVE Conscious Hip Hop, Jazz Rap Song.link
      Carnifex World War X Deathcore Song.link
      Channel Tres Black Moses West Coast Hip Hop, Hip House Song.link
      Clairo Immunity Indie Pop, Alternative R&B Song.link
      Cory Wong Motivational Music for the Syncopated Soul Funk, Synth Funk, Jazz Fusion Song.link
      Cross Record Cross Record Slowcore, Art Pop Song.link
      Dave Bass No Boundaries Jazz Song.link
      Davina and The Vagabonds Sugar Drops Jazz Song.link
      Flume & Reo Cragun Quits Future Bass, Wonky Song.link
      Have Mercy The Love Life Alternative Rock, Indie Rock Song.link
      Jade Imagine Basic Love Indie Rock Song.link
      Joey Trap Professor Trap Trap Song.link
      Lil Durk Love Songs for the Streets 2 Trap, Pop Rap Song.link
      Little Boots Jump Nu-Disco, Deep House Song.link
      Lou the Human Painkiller Paradise Emo Rap, Cloud Rap Song.link
      Mabel High Expectations Contemporary R&B, Dance-Pop Song.link
      Mister Lies Mister Lies Ambient Pop Song.link
      Miynt Stay On Your Mind EP Indie Pop Song.link
      Moon Diagrams Trappy Bats Ambient Techno, Outsider House Song.link
      Moonshine Bandits The Whiskey Never Dries Country Rap, Bro-Country Song.link
      Mosa Wild Talking In Circles Indie Pop, Dream Pop Song.link
      Northlane Alien Alternative Metal, Industrial Metal, Metalcore Song.link
      Oliver Tree Do You Feel Me? Pop Rock, Electropop Song.link
      Penny And Sparrow Finch Indie Folk, Singer/Songwriter Song.link
      Possible Humans Everybody Split Indie Rock, Jangle Pop Song.link
      RF Shannon Rain On Dust Indie Pop, Americana Song.link
      Rich Forever Music Rich Forever 4 Trap, Pop Rap Song.link
      Russian Circles Blood Year Post-Metal, Post-Rock Song.link
      SiXforNinE Parallel Universe Progressive Metal, Alternative Metal Song.link
      Skillet Victorious Pop Rock, Hard Rock Song.link
      Slaughter Beach, Dog Safe And Also No Fear Indie Rock, Singer/Songwriter Song.link
      Sunz of Man The Rebirth East Coast Hip Hop Song.link
      Tennis System Lovesick Shoegaze Bandcamp
      Tenth Avenue North No Shame Christian Rock Song.link
      Tess Henley Better Singer-Songwriter, Neo-Soul Song.link
      The New Roses Nothing But Wild Hard Rock Song.link
      The Rocket Summer Sweet Shivers Emo-Pop, Progressive Pop Song.link
      The Teskey Brothers Run Home Slow Soul Song.link
      ThouxanBanFauni Seein Colors Cloud Rap, Trap, Southern Hip Hop Song.link
      Tobi Lou Live on Ice Pop Rap Song.link
      Ty Segall First Taste Garage Rock, Psychedelic Rock Song.link
      Tyler Childers Country Squire Traditional Country, Americana Song.link
      Unlike Pluto Pluto Tapes: Volume 3 Electropop Song.link
      Volbeat Rewind, Replay, Rebound Hard Rock, Pop Rock Song.link
      Young Guv Guv I Power Pop Song.link

      Notes:
      If you spot any mistakes, let us know.
      Parental Advisory version of all albums linked, so expect NSFW.

      Channel Tres - Black Moses | EP isn't due until Aug 16, linked single instead
      Flume & Reo Cragun - Quits | Song.link says "Single" but it's the EP
      Tennis System - Lovesick | No song.link yet, album not due until Sept 6, linked bandcamp single instead
      Volbeat - Rewind, Replay, Rebound | "Deluxe" album linked

      Thanks to @Cleb, @Bauke, and @cfabbro!

      13 votes
    31. BronyCon has held its last convention

      Some of you may remember this post from last year. Well, it has happened: the last BronyCon. 10,215 people attended (with rumors that there were enough uncollected badges to hit the 11,000...

      Some of you may remember this post from last year. Well, it has happened: the last BronyCon. 10,215 people attended (with rumors that there were enough uncollected badges to hit the 11,000 hard-cap), beating their previous record of 10,011 in 2015. They chose to make this the last year because attendance has been trending downward, and the show it is built around (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic) is in its final season.

      I was there, and it truly was the experience of a lifetime. They intended to go out with a bang, and they absolutely delivered. Did anyone else here attend (or want to attend)? What were your thoughts on the event this year? Any other current (or former) Bronies on the site?

      Some news articles about the event:

      Also, people made a memorial on the 200 level of the Baltimore Convention Center. This was from August 2 at 2:37 PM, and this was from August 4 at 2:05 PM.

      19 votes
    32. What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them?

      A few of the other groups have been doing recurring topics like this, and I think we should really do it more regularly in ~games too. So, what have you been playing lately? (Please don't just...

      A few of the other groups have been doing recurring topics like this, and I think we should really do it more regularly in ~games too.

      So, what have you been playing lately? (Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game as well.)

      31 votes
    33. And I Deal With It

      A free form poem. You sing the devotion song and your people drink from your font of well-meant falsehoods. They sway in the breeze, roses ripe for cutting, so you reap. And I deal with it. Brain...

      A free form poem.

      You sing the devotion song and
      your people drink from your font
      of well-meant falsehoods.
      They sway in the breeze,
      roses ripe for cutting,
      so you reap. And I deal with it.

      Brain revolting, hands shaking, heart beating
      Sweating, aching, freezing, creeping thoughts
      that I'm not enough.
      I'm a failure. I don't deserve it. What if this goes wrong?
      "Sometimes it can take awhile to find the right combination of medications."
      And I deal with it.

      The blood in the streets is cleaned, pristine,
      likewise the crimes of an otherwise good man.
      Heads shake and hands pray,
      repeating robotic platitudes, but I do
      nothing.
      And I deal with it.

      The sun shines high and the wind blows cool.
      Our future dances and plays in the light.
      We watch and her skin is soft, her hair yet softer, and I hold her
      against me.
      This too shall pass, my gut twists in knots.
      And I deal with it.

      Dark nights, dark thoughts
      in front of a washroom mirror.
      Lightning thunders, they come and go.
      Drinking my hopes to keep them gone,
      I tell myself, "This isn't you," but it hurts and it's true and I can't stop the dreaming of passing this down
      And I deal with it.

      7 votes
    34. bűnös & fáj

      i intended to actually post these like three days ago but that didn't happen because it has to be super fucking late for me to even want to post these and unfortunately they've now aged...

      i intended to actually post these like three days ago but that didn't happen because it has to be super fucking late for me to even want to post these and unfortunately they've now aged sufficiently that i categorize them firmly in the "intensely mediocre" column with everything i ever do. unfortunate, tbh. anyways here's stuff:

      bűnös

      UP AGAINST THE WALL, MOTHERFUCKER—
      or i'll shatter your bones
      and crush your heart—
      to dance with me is to dance
      a fine line that wrenches two worlds apart

      for on one side there is a hall of saints—
      on the other
      the brimstone of hell—
      and to stay on the side of the hall of saints
      is something you'd best do well.

      and brave souls that dare toe the line—
      that cross it
      are mighty thin—
      and their ranks are made of anarchists
      who commit most grievous sin.

      UP AGAINST THE WALL, MOTHERFUCKER—
      state your allegiance
      to the vaunted line—
      or soon you too shall join the ranks
      of those who deserve malign.


      fáj

      when i was seventeen
      the panic attacks began.
      the nightmares.
      the violence. the violence. the violence.

      violence is a funny little thing—
      insidious, slithering in through one grate
      and out the other.
      it always begins with little things,
      little fantasies in one ear and out the other.
      dreams here and there, manufacturing terror and hurt.
      invasive thoughts, marching to an intensifying drumbeat.
      one offs.

      it's not normal to
      want to hurt so bad.
      it's not normal to
      want to cut yourself everywhere,
      is it?
      to feel those feelings,
      to bear them like a cross shackled on your back?
      to wish some days you could cut to the bone
      even though you're afraid of blood?
      to mutilate yourself until you can't feel anymore
      even though you know those feelings are irrational?
      to wish you could die violently, publicly
      even though you're afraid of death?

      violence isn't a very funny little thing—
      terrifying, inescapable and ever recurring
      one night after the other.
      it was the little things once,
      the little fantasies that used to be but now
      consume the dreams, the
      waking thoughts, becoming a great crescendo.
      every day.

      when i was nineteen
      the panic attacks were normal.
      the nightmares.
      the violence.

      12 votes
    35. Proposals for new groups - July 2019

      It's been over a year now since we first talked about adding some more groups to the site (and ended up adding several). I think the current set has mostly worked well since then, but some people...

      It's been over a year now since we first talked about adding some more groups to the site (and ended up adding several). I think the current set has mostly worked well since then, but some people have mentioned being hesitant to post as many topics as they want to on some subjects due to not wanting to flood out the more-general groups, as well as feeling like some subjects also don't fit into the existing ones.

      So let's do another round of suggestions. New groups can be either top-level ones (if that seems to make the most sense) or a sub-group of an existing one (for example, this group, ~tildes.official is a sub-group of ~tildes). The functionality of sub-groups is a little weak right now, but I'll be working on that over the next few days to get it into better shape in case we end up adding some new ones.

      The general process from last time seemed to work fine, so I'm just going to copy that:

      Proposing a group

      If you want to propose an idea for a new group (either a new top-level group or a sub-group of an existing one), make a top-level comment with the following information:

      1. The proposed name for the group, and a short description of its purpose/subject.
      2. 3 examples of topics that would be appropriate to be posted in that group. These can be existing posts already on Tildes, or hypothetical new ones. Just example titles/links is sufficient, it should just give an idea of what sort of posts you're expecting the group to get.
      3. A "failure plan" - if the trial group doesn't work out, what should we do with the posts from it? For example, should they be moved into an existing group or groups, with a particular tag?

      Supporting a proposal

      To express your support for a proposal that someone else made, post a reply to it, saying something like "I would post in this group" (assuming you actually believe you will). I don't want to interpret votes on a proposal as support, and for a group to be successful it really needs people to post to it, so I think it's most important to get at least some indication that there are users that will post in the group if it's created.

      I'll let this topic run for at least 3 days before making any decisions, so don't feel like you need to rush. General questions or thoughts about groups are welcome too, it doesn't need to be entirely proposals. I've also topped given everyone 10 invites again as well. Thanks!

      74 votes
    36. Unofficial Weekly Discussion #1 - Suggestions/ideas/concerns for future unofficial weekly discussions

      Since @Deimos has stated he will likely not be restarting the tradition of the Official Daily Tildes Discussions, which is something I and a number of other users greatly enjoyed and miss, I have...

      Since @Deimos has stated he will likely not be restarting the tradition of the Official Daily Tildes Discussions, which is something I and a number of other users greatly enjoyed and miss, I have decided to attempt to take on the responsibility of continuing them unofficially (with his blessing). And since these are not official (so won't be in ~tildes.official, which everyone is subscribed to and probably shouldn't unsubscribe from), I will only be doing them weekly instead of daily, and we now have topic tag filtering (so unofficial weekly discussion can be filtered out), hopefully the people who found the official daily discussions annoying can more easily ignore/hide these unofficial ones.

      With the explanation out of the way, on to the topic for this week:


      Suggestions/ideas/concerns for future unofficial weekly discussions

      I thought it would be appropriate to have the first one of these be a bit of an open-ended, meta-meta discussion on the future of these topics. And to kick things off:

      • What would everyone here like to see discussed in these topics in the future? Are there any particular site features (planned, suggested or theoretical), policies (tagging, moderation, etc), or other meta issues/subjects you would like to be the topic in future discussions?

      • What would you like us to try to achieve with these discussions? Should we have any specific goals in mind, or should they just be fun brainstorming/theory-crafting/naval-gazing sessions?

      • Does anyone have any suggestions for me with regards to how I should handle these discussions? Is there anyone out there who would like to help me with these in some capacity going forwards?

      • Does anyone have any concerns regarding these unofficial discussions, and if so, can you think of any ways we can try to address them?

      The floor is open, and I am all ears. :)


      Tildes Official Docs : Donate to Tildes | Tildes Gitlab : Issues Board

      22 votes
    37. This week's album and EP releases (20-26 July)

      We're sorting out our process for these to be more efficient, so hopefully we won't be missing weeks anymore. Sorry again about that. Here's a list of a things that came out in this past week, up...

      We're sorting out our process for these to be more efficient, so hopefully we won't be missing weeks anymore. Sorry again about that.

      Here's a list of a things that came out in this past week, up through Friday. Of course, there's no way to be completely comprehensive with this and we avoided including things where information was too lacking, so feel free to mention anything that isn't on here that you think is worth mentioning. Beyond that, if you have any thoughts of any of these albums, it would be great to hear them :)

      Artist Title Genre(s) Song Link
      ATLiens Ghost Planet EP Trap [EDM] Song.link
      Andy Grammer Naive Dance-Pop Song.link
      Angie McMahon Salt Indie Rock, Singer-Songwriter Song.link
      B Boys Dudu Post-Punk Song.link
      BJ the Chicago Kid 1123 Contemporary R&B Song.link
      Big Data 3.0 Indietronica, Synthpop Song.link
      Bryony Jarman-Pinto Cage & Aviary Neo-Soul, Jazz Song.link
      Burna Boy African Giant Afrobeats, Dancehall Song.link
      CUCO Para Mi Hypnagogic Pop, Alternative R&B Song.link
      Chance the Rapper The Big Day Pop Rap Song.link
      Cheat Codes Level 2 Electropop Song.link - Remixed EP
      Chief Keef The Leek (Vol. 8) Drill Song.link
      Comethazine Bawskee 3.5 Trap Song.link
      Cuco Para Mí Alternative R&B, Hypnagogic Pop Song.link
      DJ Snake Carte Blanche Trap [EDM], Electropop Song.link
      Datach'i Bones IDM, Ambient Techno Song.link
      Delbert McClinton Tall, Dark & Handsome Blue-Eyed Soul, Rhythm & Blues Song.link
      Dude York Falling Power Pop, Indie Rock Song.link
      E-40 Practice Makes Paper West Coast Hip Hop Song.link
      Fallow Land Slow Down, Rockstar Indie Pop Song.link
      Florist Emily Alone Indie Folk, Singer/Songwriter Song.link
      High Fighter Champain Stoner Rock Song.link
      Justin Moore Late Nights And Longnecks Contemporary Country Song.link
      Kaiser Chiefs Duck Synthpop Song.link
      Lil Reese GetBackGang 2 Drill Song.link
      Lloyd Cole Guesswork Singer/Songwriter Song.link
      Maneka Devin Garage Rock Song.link
      Mini Mansions Guy Walks into a Bar... Psychedelic Pop Song.link
      NF The Search Conscious Hip Hop Song.link
      Night Riots New State Of Mind Indie Rock Song.link
      Of Monsters and Men FEVER DREAM Indie Pop, Pop Rock Song.link
      Philthy Rich Big 59 #2 West Coast Hip Hop, Gangsta Rap Song.link
      Phora Bury Me With Dead Roses Pop Rap Song.link
      Rezz Beyond the Senses EP Post-Industrial, Electronic Dance Music Song.link
      Rich Brian The Sailor Pop Rap Song.link
      Sanction Broken in Refraction Metalcore Song.link
      Skizzy Mars Free Skizzy Mars Pop Rap Song.link
      Strange Ranger Remembering The Rockets Indie Rock Song.link
      Sugar Ray Little Yachty Pop Rock Song.link
      Sybyr Tales From the King of Enigma Trap, Experimental Hip Hop Song.link
      Thy Art Is Murder Human Target Deathcore Song.link
      Tre Mission Orphan Black Grime Song.link
      TroyBoi V!BEZ, Vol. 3 EP Trap [EDM] Song.link
      Violent Femmes Hotel Last Resort Alternative Rock Song.link
      Wolves At The Gate Eclipse Post-Hardcore Song.link
      YBN Cordae The Lost Boy Conscious Hip Hop, Southern Hip Hop Song.link
      Young Dolph & Key Glock Dum and Dummer Trap, Southern Hip Hop Song.link
      Yung Bans Misunderstood Trap, Southern Hip Hop Song.link

      Notes:
      If you spot any mistakes, let us know.
      Parental Advisory version of all albums linked, so expect NSFW.

      Thank you to @Cleb, @cfabbro, and @Bauke!

      10 votes