This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

I want to try something new.

The post quality on Tildes is way above average. I myself only post articles/videos on Tildes if they meet my internal quality threshold, of which Tildes is the highest of any social media I post to.

I want to try to surface some of the quality. So, to that end, I'm trying a game. If it's successful, it'll happen recurringly.

The rules

Respond here with a post containing 1, 2, or 3 Tildes links. You are encouraged to give a short description of them and why you think they're of exceptional quality

1. The links must ALL be Tildes links.
2. The links can be of any type: Article, video, self-post, or even a truly outstanding Tildes comment. They can be very old or posted minutes ago.
3. At least one of your links must originate from someone who isn't you.

How to win

Every game must have a winner. For this iteration, whichever post is top-rated by "most votes" as of 2 weeks after this submission will win (excluding myself and any meta posts). And because every game needs a prize, I'll give them a selection of my many unused steam keys.

You are yourself encouraged to vote for replies that contain submissions you especially find of the highest quality!

I’d like your help – and your stories!

I’m working on an article with a tentative title of “Tales of the Crypt: Horror stories (about your past) where database performance caused a real problem.” It’s meant to be schadenfreude nostalgia, about your late nights coping with a performance issue (with, hopefully, a happy ending of “…and this is what we did to fix it”).

So, what happened? Tell me about it.

I do want to quote you, but we can be oblique about the attribution – especially because sometimes these stories are from a previous employer and do not represent any current affiliation. But I do want the verisimilitude that demonstrates that these tales-of-woe come from real people. As a result, I’m fine with writing, “Kim’s first job was as a mainframe programmer at a hotel chain, where database transactions required tape changes. ‘Yada yada story,’ says Kim, who now is CIO of a Midwest insurance firm.” Real person, but you don’t need to worry about getting anyone to approve your words. (Though if you’re happy with full name, company, and role, I’m even happier; send in a private message if you prefer.)

I used an ancient example above, but I’m hoping for more recent database performance stories. Ideally some of the “here’s how we fixed it” become practical suggestions for developers who are enduring such a situation today.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

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

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

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

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

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