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    1. I don’t want to be famous on the Internet anymore

      It may surprise you to hear that ever since the tender ages of 15 to 16 (2004 to 2005) I have tried to “become famous” on the Internet. Why? I don’t know. I just wanted to. I wanted people to hear...

      It may surprise you to hear that ever since the tender ages of 15 to 16 (2004 to 2005) I have tried to “become famous” on the Internet.

      Why? I don’t know. I just wanted to. I wanted people to hear my opinions on the Internet and praise me for sharing them.

      I tried pretty much everything: blogging, YouTube, social media, you name it. Content that I made ranged from commentary, to news, gaming, music, cooking, etc. All my projects “failed” (or rather, they didn’t grow as fast as I expected them to, so I gave up). I’m talking hundreds of attempts.

      Then in late 2023, I made a New Year’s resolution for 2024 to fully delete Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, 9gag, and Reddit. My resolution worked and it changed my life.

      A lot of people in my social circle have since begun telling me that I have this talent or that talent, and that I should monitize it by growing a following on social media. I have ignored all of them, despite spending a good 20 years trying to do exactly that. Here’s why:

      • The first and foremost reason is that I don’t want to wrestle with algorithms and follow trends. It seems that it’s almost impossible to grow a following on the Internet these days without doing that, unless you get very lucky growing a following organically, which only very few people do. Chasing algorithms and trends is not fun, and if I’m not having fun with what do with my spare time, then I don’t want to do it at all. I’ve also come to hate creating video content for some reason. I just find it tedious.
      • Over the years, I feel that I have become afraid of getting lucky and becoming successful. It seems to me that the people who live off creating content for the Internet, don’t ever get a break. Their followers demand a steady stream of content, and if you don’t keep vying for their attention, then they’ll go give it to someone else and you’re suddenly left without any income. I know that many creators work seven days a week.
      • This leads me to the problem of “attention”: I don’t want to compete for people’s attention anymore. I hate the whole concept of the “attention economy”. It’s so insane to me that the survival of so many hundreds of million of people depends of how much human attention their work gets. And I’m not talking just about social media now, but entertainment in general. There are only so many humans, and they have a limited amount of time during the day that they can offer attention to entertainment to (be it social media, TV, movies, music, games, you name it). I think that these business models are not sustainable. There are also too many “things” for us to pay attention to these days and I feel like it’s driving us all insane. I’ve been intentionally trying to pay attention to as few things as I possibly can for a while now and it has significantly reduces my anxiety and FOMO. It’s given me a lot of peace. So, I don’t want to contribute to this “evil” myself.
      • The Internet has become a dangerous place. Even people who publish otherwise completely innocuous content get sometimes harassed or doxxed. Streamers get SWATed. Women get the brunt of it (I think) because sexual harassment and deepfake porn has become so prevalent, and they can do nothing to protect themselves. Everything you publish anywhere can and will be used against you (including by potential employers). Being “unknown” and “staying in your lane” seems to be about the only way that you can stay safe these days.
      • I also just don’t want the endless scrutiny that comes with fame, the expectation that my personality can’t change, that opinions can’t be nuanced, and that I squarely fit into either the “blue box” or the “red box” (in whatever aspect, since every field of opinion these days seems to be thoroughly divided in half). Whatever opinion people share online, even the most trivial, can and will be misinterpreted by bad faith actors and trolls to just mentally crush you.
      • I have come to think that dying in anonymity, while leaving no legacy behind, is actually not a bad thing. I mean, it’s a “natural” thing. It’s what happens to the vast majority of humans anyway. Why should I be so afraid of that? Afraid of living my life in the peace of anonymity? There are plenty of ways to live a meaningful life that don’t involve becoming famous on the Internet, or famous at all.

      I regret arriving at this conclusion now only. I had so much trouble in my short and fruitless life because of stuff that I posted on the Internet (talking about Facebook and my social circle more specifically). I could have avoided all of that. I could also not have wasted so much time entertaining ideas of online grandeur, blowing away countless hours of my pitiful existence on projects that never amounted to anything, and instead, gotten an education, so that I wouldn’t be living in poverty now.

      Oh, well. It is what it is. Better learning now than never.

      I’m not sure why I ever wanted to be famous on the Internet to begin with, or what made me think that there’s any inherent worth in getting online praise just for sharing my mediocre opinions. Maybe I’m mentally ill. Maybe I’m traumatized. Maybe this is something that I should consult a therapist over. However, what I do know, is that I’m done with pursuing online fame.

      I think that the Internet as it is today, flipped some sort of switch in people’s brain (including mine), which convinced us that it is normal to chase fame because the means to get there are so readily available. I don’t know how the Internet could have been designed differently to prevent this, but “giving a voice to everyone” was, in hindsight, maybe a badly implemented idea.

      I’d be surprised to hear that any of you here have been trying to become famous on the Internet, but if you have, then I’d like to hear about your experience, and your opinions on this topic in general.

      58 votes
    2. How would I meet you outside of Tildes? In the flesh, so to speak.

      I have grown fond of this community. But I can’t help but feel sad that I lack this connection in my flesh life. So, how would I meet you out in the world ? When I wrack my brain I can only...

      I have grown fond of this community. But I can’t help but feel sad that I lack this connection in my flesh life.

      So, how would I meet you out in the world ? When I wrack my brain I can only imagine I’d meet some of you at school, or in some cases, work ?

      I don’t even know how to tell someone to meet me lol. I am pretty encouraging, so I guess if you just even make a tiny mention you want me to take interest, I will. I have met friends playing sports and in school and working. And online.

      36 votes
    3. How does one get started programming an Android app?

      It's been a long time since I've done any "serious" programming, but I have long held a desire to recreate an app that's been out of development for a decade, and I reckon I'd do fine if given the...

      It's been a long time since I've done any "serious" programming, but I have long held a desire to recreate an app that's been out of development for a decade, and I reckon I'd do fine if given the right direction.

      My "qualifications". I've done "school project" level stuff in *many* different languages (VB6, Python, Java, C++, C#, PHP, Lisp, Prolog, R, to name a few) so I know my language-agnostic basics, and I've made a career out of quickly learning new tools and platforms and maintaining other people's work. The problem is all that experience is either "give a plain text file the right file extension" or building the project via a proprietary IDE, so getting started from scratch I'm totally lost. What IDE? What language? How does the .apk happen?

      Googling for this gives me either "no code" platforms, which is zero of the fun and basically what I do at work, or documentation that has skipped the first ten steps because it assumes you know the prerequisites already. Help?

      20 votes
    4. What is a misconception you are passionate about and would like to clarify?

      That is such an infinite subject that a lot of people are passionate about. It could easily be a scheduled post. So this time I am the one doing it. Any misconception is welcome as long as it is...

      That is such an infinite subject that a lot of people are passionate about. It could easily be a scheduled post. So this time I am the one doing it. Any misconception is welcome as long as it is something you genuinely care about!

      62 votes
    5. I hate phone updates

      I don't think I've installed an update on my phone and felt like it was an improvement over the old version. Samsung just pushed their new firmware onto my phone and added a whole bunch of...

      I don't think I've installed an update on my phone and felt like it was an improvement over the old version.

      Samsung just pushed their new firmware onto my phone and added a whole bunch of annoying AI stuff that I don't want and additionally decided for me that I no longer want the bluetooth signal in the statusbar unless I open up the notification menu, with no way to reenable it. I turn off my headphones when I don't need them and it was really useful to see at a glance that if they were connected and I had forgotten to turn them off.

      45 votes
    6. Well, today was scary (blackout in Portugal and Spain)

      I'm writing this as a way to, I guess, journal my thoughts but also share my experience, here's hoping it makes an interesting read. Sorry in advance if this feels disjointed or disorganized, I'm...

      I'm writing this as a way to, I guess, journal my thoughts but also share my experience, here's hoping it makes an interesting read. Sorry in advance if this feels disjointed or disorganized, I'm writing as I go.

      So for those of you that don't know, today there was a massive blackout in Iberia and some regions of France, and it was a total blackout. Over 60 million people were affected.

      The causes are still unclear, but it appears that it was due to a rare meteorological event that took out a high voltage line. This line distabilized all of the grid and took out the power. As far as we know, there was no cyber attack or anything of the sort.

      Anyway, here's how things went down for me.

      Today I woke up at 8:00 in the morning, went to work as usual. In my office, we had a completely normal morning as usual. But then, around 11:30, power goes out. Our monitors stopped working, lights shut down, ventilation system turned off, the whole shebang.

      I thought, "just another blackout, should come back any moment". But then, my colleague sitting on my side, was on a call with someone in Porto - we were in another city - and that the power there was also out. (our wifi had UPS, so we had internet for a while).

      While very rare, it actually wasn't the first time that this happened. Last year we had an outage that took out several regions in Portugal. So I thought, "again? Weird."

      People started talking to each other, calling friends and family to ask them if they also had the outage. And sure enough, all of them did. Soon enough we started to find out that even Lisbon and Algarve were missing power, so it was a national outage.

      Cellular data still worked, I started refreshing all the news websites that I knew of and checking r/portugal on reddit. These moments were... Not unnerving per se, but worrisome. Never in my life I experienced something like this.

      Some news started coming in, but none of them mentioned anything that we already didn't know. Just that there was a outage and that there wasn't a lot of information about it.

      Comments on reddit started saying that this outage was also international, that regions in Spain were affected. Soon after, also France. Then some also said that it happened in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Italy.

      Soon after, it dropped, and I paraphrase the title of the news: "Outage in Europe. Military personnel summoned".

      My dudes, the brainstorm and red flags that went in my head at this moment...... I kept my cool and tried to stay calm, but internally I was going at 300 km/h. The only logical conclusion at this time was "Russia is f*cking invading us".

      Didn't help that, at this time, there still wasn't any confirmations if it was a cyber attack or not, so all the possibilities were on the table as far as I was concerned.

      I kept refreshing, waiting for the page to update with more information, while hanging out with my colleagues. After a short while, around 12:30 - I think - there were confirmations that it wasn't a cyber attack, but instead a technical incident. The comments and reports were all over the place, some said it was a fire in France, then an airplane that crashed, then it was something in Spain, etc etc. So I decided to tune everything out and only use that page as SSOT.

      Glad I did that because, we all decided to go for lunch, and people were all talking about what happened. And some, started saying that russian submarines were spotted along the coast, that they saw it on Facebook. Misinformation on social today must have been on an all time high.

      Our company decided to let us go home, so I got into my car and went home. While traveling, I turned on the radio to "Antena 1", a national radio station that kept giving us information about what was happening.

      So for starters, yes, the military was summoned but it was to help with all the problems that we were facing. People got stuck in metro stations and elevators. Traffic lights weren't working so there were accidents. People panicked and started buying anything and everything on the supermarkets and stores. Some gas stations closed.

      Some supermarkets and stores were closed due to them not being able to process the purchases. The only one that remained open were the ones with generators.

      Pharmacies were also facing issues since they couldn't connect to their centralized databases (from what I understood), but there were also worries if their generators would last long enough to keep the medications in low temperatures.

      As I was driving, it was also confirmed that general power would return between 6 to 10 hours, but at most it could take 72. General power should be stabilized in a week.

      Once I got home, I found my old radio, that has at least 20 years, put some batteries in it and synced to Antena 1, and listened to it throughout the whole day. We're talking about an analogue radio, the kind that you have to rotate the wheel to set the frequency.

      One thing that I started to appreciate, is how my iphone 12 pro max, a technological marvel, became basically unusable. While this simple piece of plastic that my parents bought for maybe 5 euros just worked. The cellular towers started to fail throughout the country, as they themselves started to run out of power (I assume they had generators). Meanwhile, this radio, it just worked.

      I spent the whole day listening to it, and took the chance to watch Chainsaw man, that I had downloaded on my phone.

      It was.... I don't really know how to describe it, but the fact that I could keep up with what was happening was good. The idea of just waiting without knowing what was happening is stressful. This tiny radio was my only source of information, at this point I had no internet, no TV, no calls, no text messages, no nothing, just the radio.

      I know that right now it feels like I'm praising the hell out of that radio, but that's because it really did feel like the only connection I had to the outside the world, not counting my neighbours of course.

      As for food and water, thankfully I was fine. But there were people that didn't have much at hand and - understandably - were scared that they wouldn't have enough for the next days.

      Thankfully though, the guys over at the power plants did an excelent job and power started returning in several regions, one at a time, now at night. I got power a while back.

      So... Other than the existencial dread that I got in the morning, it was fine for me personally. Although I can't imagine those that got stuck in metros and elevators and trains.

      I got humbled today. We take the internet, TV, power, calls and messages for granted, but today I didn't have access to any of them, and for a while not having them for a few days was a real possibility.

      In terms of food and water, I was fine, but I think I'm really going to get one of those survival kits after all, just in case. Hopefully I'll never need it but better prepared than sorry.

      73 votes
    7. Announcing the Tildes Backlog Burner event for May 2025: Shrink your unplayed games list this coming month!

      It's almost time... ...for another Tildes Backlog Burner -- the event where you try out games you've always wanted to play (but haven't yet -- for whatever reason). The Backlog Burner for May 2025...

      It's almost time...

      ...for another Tildes Backlog Burner -- the event where you try out games you've always wanted to play (but haven't yet -- for whatever reason).

      The Backlog Burner for May 2025 will officially begin in two days on May 1st.

      If you're new to the Backlog Burner, check out our previous events to get an idea of what's going on:


      Backlog Bingo is back and better than ever!

      New Category List

      In addition to Flux and Flow from the past, we've added a new list: Free!

      This one is dead simple: the letters of the alphabet, and nothing more. You have (nearly) complete freedom in how you fill your squares. For example, Half-Life could fill:

      • H for its title
      • G for Gordon Freeman
      • F for First-Person Shooter
      • X for "Xen is really kind of a letdown, isn't it?"

      The choice is entirely yours! Be as strict or as loose as you want to be with it.

      We also added nearly three dozen words to the popular Flow set from last time. Maybe you'll roll some of the new additions, like Sly, Maneuver, or Whimsy?

      New Site Features

      u/Wes, coding wizard that he is, has added some incredible new features to the site:

      • Seeded Cards: You can now roll the same exact card as someone else by providing the same seed. It's available on the Settings page (just make sure all other settings are the same as well).

      • Import/Export: Need to move your card from your desktop to your phone? And then to your laptop? And then back to your desktop? Use the new Import/Export feature to save your card and its progress and move it between devices as much as you want. (Note: this also doubles as a backup tool for anyone worried about losing their card!)

      • Behind the Scenes Polish: You won't be able to tell just by looking at the site but there's a lot of backend stuff that Wes spruced up. Better error handling, a custom schema and validator for the category files, proper SVG icons, better mobile responsiveness, etc.

      Truly, the site has never been better!

      If you participated last time, clear your old card and start fresh with a new one. If you're new to the event, simply go to the Backlog Bingo site to generate your card.


      Notification List

      If you are interested in participating in the Backlog Burner, please comment in this topic. Anyone commenting/replying here will automatically be added to a notification list for the Backlog Burner, unless you specify otherwise.


      Start Planning (or Playing)

      Technically the event starts in two days, so you have time to roll your cards (if you're playing Bingo) and plan out what you'd like to play for the month. That said, if you're eager to jump right in, and start early, I certainly won't stop you!

      Let's get ready to burn through these backlogs!


      Backlog Burner FAQ

      What exactly is the Backlog Burner?

      Your "backlog" is all those games you've been meaning to play or get around to, but never have yet. This event is an attempt to get us to collectively dig into that treasure trove of experiences, scratch some long-standing itches, and knock a few titles off our to-play lists.

      It runs every May and November. New discussion topics will go up once a week during those months.

      You do not need to sign up in advance -- the topics are open to all. If you would like to be included in the notification list, comment in this topic to be added.

      How do I participate?
      • Choose some games from your backlog and play them.
      • Then tell us about your experiences in the discussion thread for the week.

      That's it!

      Optionally: you can play Backlog Bingo which is a fun way of cutting down the choices you have to make and playing games you might not have normally selected on your own.

      Do I need to finish the games that I play?

      Nope! Not at all.

      There aren't really any requirements for the event so much as this is an incentive to get us to play games we've been avoiding starting up, for whatever reason. Play as much or as little as you like of a given game.

      Try out dozens for ten minutes each or dive into one for 40 hours. There's no wrong way to participate!

      Can I make multiple posts in the same topic?

      Yes! Each discussion thread stays live for a full week, so feel free to make multiple comments in the topic as you play different games. This isn't considered noise -- it's considered valuable participation in the event!


      Backlog Bingo FAQ

      Important: All data for your Backlog Bingo card is stored on your device, not the server. Clearing your browser data will delete your card. You can use the export feature to make backups or move your card between devices.

      I'm a returning player. How do I reset my previous card?

      If you've already created a card and wish to start over, click the Settings button in the header to access your card settings. Then click the Reset button, and confirm the prompt. This will irrevocably delete your present card, allowing you to start fresh.

      Where is my data stored?

      All data is stored by your browser in local storage. There are no accounts, and nothing is sent to the server, so it's privacy-friendly by design. This does mean that you are responsible for not deleting any browser data on wescook.ca, either manually or through automatic cleanups performed on browser close.

      Backlog Bingo is open-source, and licensed permissively under MIT.

      What is the difference between the "Standard" and "Golf" modes?

      In Standard Mode, each square on the bingo card corresponds with one single game. Duplicate games cannot be entered into different squares. A winning card would have a row of five different games that each filled in one square.

      In Golf Mode, duplicates are not only allowed -- they are encouraged! The purpose of Golf mode is to try to find a single game that will fill multiple categories at the same time. For example: Stardew Valley might fulfill You got it on sale, A solo-dev project, and Has romanceable characters all at the same time. A winning card would have all twenty five squares filled, but possibly only six or seven different games.

      What is the star space in the middle?

      That is the "wildcard" or "free space."

      In Standard Mode, there are no requirements to fill it. You can choose any game you want! Anything goes!

      In Golf Mode, it does not need to be filled. Because Golf is all about stacking up categories on a single game, any game used in Golf would fill it automatically, meaning it has no real function. As such, the square will be pre-filled for you if you play in Golf mode.

      The new Free list defaults to having this space turned off. Because you already have full freedom in how you fill the squares, having a free space is redundant (though if you miss it or just like the aesthetics, you can certainly turn it back on!).

      Can I create custom bingo categories for this, or other events?

      Absolutely! The Backlog Bingo app reads in simple JSON files which define the available categories. We've created a couple prebuilt lists for this event, but you're free to tweak our categories, or create completely new ones. You could even use them for books, anime, movies, recipes -- anything!

      If you are interested in learning more, you can find documentation on the wiki, and use an example JSON category file. You can also ask for help in the topic!

      26 votes
    8. Are gas stations beginning to shut down yet, as part of the broader shift to electric vehicles?

      I feel like this was forecasted for a few years, and I'm not sure if places are following through with it yet. I looked it up, and found some articles, which I haven't vetted at all:...

      I feel like this was forecasted for a few years, and I'm not sure if places are following through with it yet.

      I looked it up, and found some articles, which I haven't vetted at all:

      I don't know if the political situation in the US has slowed down the gas station closures, but I'm really not interested in turning this topic into politics talk, so please save that for another topic. I'm also definitely curious what's happening outside the US, I want to hear the facts and numbers, out of curiosity for how quickly this is happening, or not happening.

      12 votes
    9. Matches and leagues to watch in the next few gameweeks of European football

      Lots of exciting leagues to follow in the world of European football. I know there's not a lot of traffic in the ~sports section of tildes, but I'm sure there are some football/soccer fans on the...

      Lots of exciting leagues to follow in the world of European football. I know there's not a lot of traffic in the ~sports section of tildes, but I'm sure there are some football/soccer fans on the site. So does anyone have any interesting leagues/games to watch in the next couple of weeks as these competitions near their conclusion?

      I'll list a few interesting things below that I'm keeping track of or looking forward to, but please feel free to suggest more! At the very least this can serve as a preview for anyone interested in watching some matches in the next couple of weeks but that doesn't know which ones to watch/prioritize.

      • Premier League (England) - Well Liverpool just thrashed Spurs to seal the title yesterday, and the bottom three are all set in place, so the main thing to watch for here are the European spots. Newcastle, Man City, Chelsea, Forest, and Villa are all within 57-62 points with 4 games left (Forest have 5). The qualifications for European places is kind of a mess nowadays, with so many different competitions and group stages and the winners getting automatic spots, so I'm not exactly sure just how many of them will make it into the Champion's League vs the Europa League or Conference League. But best to be top of that group just to be safe. Major difference in prize money between those three competitions, so should make for some interesting final matches. Notable ones include Newcastle v Chelsea and Forest v Chelsea, plus there'll be a few games between these teams and others that don't technically have much else to play for, like Liverpool (already won the title), Arsenal (most likely finishing second, plus might be focusing on CL), and Southampton/Leicester (already relegated).

      • Bundesliga (Germany) - Similar story to the PL, Bayern have all but won the title (technically there's still a chance for Leverkusen, but slim), and the real fight is for the few European places. Freiburg, Leipzig, Dortmund, Mainz, and Bremen are all at around 46-51 points with 3 games remaining, and even Frankfurt at 55 are not completely out of the fight. It's been interesting seeing Dortmund rise over the last few weeks given how low they were mid-season. Impressive turnaround from them. Too many interesting games to list, like Bremen v Leipzig, or Freiburg v Frankfurt, but I'll make sure to tune into a few of them for sure!

      • Serie A (Italy) - my favorite of the bunch currently. Inter lost and Napoli won yesterday, meaning the title race is in Napoli's hands after them slipping and Inter pouncing a few weeks back. 4 games to play and they're at 74 and 71, so should definitely make for some interesting final games. Below them the European spots are heavily contested as well, with Juventus, Bologna, Roma, Fiorentina, and Lazio all with 59-62 points. Though Atalanta at 65 and Milan at 54 are still in the battle. And there are plenty of direct matchups here, like Bologna v Juventus, Roma v Fiorentina, Lazio v Juventus, Milan v Bologna, Atalanta v Roma, Fiorentina v Bologna, Roma v Milan, and a nice Inter v Lazio towards the end. Plenty of great matches to watch with teams that have a lot to win/lose.

      • Primeira Liga (Portugal) - Sporting and Benfica fighting for the title. Both with 75 points and 3 games left to play, one of which will be against each other on the penultimate round which should be a hell of a match. Could and probably will be the title decider, unless they tie in which case it'll come down to the last day, which will be equally exciting. Porto and Braga also fighting for the 3rd place spot, which would be Europa League vs 4th place's Conference League.

      • Ligue 1 (France) - PSG have already won (and comfortably, though hilariously they just lost for the first time in the season, meaning they won't go unbeaten as many thought they might) but the next 6 teams are all neck-and neck. Marseille, Lille, Monaco, Lyon, Nice, and Strasbourg are all at 54-58 points with 3 games left. Should be plenty of movement there in the coming few weeks. A couple of direct matches too: Lille v Marseille and Monaco vs Lyon, plus Strasbourg are still to play PSG.

      • Champion's League (Europe) - Arsenal v PSG and Barcelona v Inter. Some great teams there, and the quarterfinals were (mostly) incredible match after incredible match. So hopefully the 5 games that are left don't disappoint. 3 of those teams are still up for a treble. Any predictions? My money's on Barcelona purely because of Flick and Raphinha.

      • Europa League (Europe) - Spurs v Bodø/Glimt (you bet your ass I copied and pasted that), and Athletic Club v Man United. Spurs and Man United are having absolutely terrible seasons, so they're sure to be desperate to win this and salvage something. Meanwhile Bodø/Glimt (how many teams do you know of with a slash in the middle?) are in the semis despite being a small Norwegian team. Would love to see a Bodø/Glimt v Athletic Club final!

      4 votes
    10. Re: spiraling

      tl;dr: Happy (?) ending I wanted to post a short follow-up to my post last week, as things have progressed very quickly. The most important thing I would like to say is "thanks" to everyone who...

      tl;dr: Happy (?) ending

      I wanted to post a short follow-up to my post last week, as things have progressed very quickly.

      The most important thing I would like to say is "thanks" to everyone who chimed in with your very helpful advice, well wishes, and support. I took everything you said to heart (which is probably a risky thing to do from random internet folks, but this community is simply different).

      Everything just clicked for me as I was going for a run last Friday and talking out loud to myself in a sort of stream of consciousness manner. I probably looked like a crazy person. Honestly, I don't know where the words came from, but it was all crystal clear.

      I went home and asked my wife to talk "just one more time... and this time it will be different, I promise." I told her that I have come to terms with her decision and I respect it. I also asked her if my understanding of what went wrong made sense, and she said I hit the nail on the head. So I have a starting point for what I need to start working on personally.

      We talked for a long time and started going through logistics. We are both on the same page about raising our son in a healthy manner. We will be doing equal shifts (week on, week off) and will find places to live relatively close to each other. We plan to remain friends and meet up regularly for our son.

      On top of all of these things that happened VERY quickly on Friday, I found out that my mother fell and broke her hip on Saturday. She's got a bunch of other issues so a hip break is NOT good for her. We all packed up and hit the road to drive ~4 hours to the hospital. Mom is recovering now. It was a very surreal experience, this new form of bonding my wife went through over the weekend. We're now just friends, living together for the time being; yet still doing everything we can to help each other out.

      I'm still very tired and not sleeping, and I'm CERTAIN I'm not even one step into the grieving process, but I feel better right now. I am working on moving on and moving forward. I feel as if I have stepping stones that will make me a better person AND I can work on the issues that caused all of this in the first place so I can learn how to pass that wisdom on to my son to make sure he doesn't run up against the same challenges as I did.

      Again, I am sharing all of this because you all gave me some very frank, direct, and compassionate advice and support. Reading through the comments as they came in helped to keep me grounded and on track. I have archived all of the messages in my Obsidian notebook and I will read them in the future to remind myself to stay focused on self improvement. Thank you, once again.

      37 votes
    11. Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of April 28

      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...

      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.

      10 votes
    12. Your sense of nostalgia

      I'm curious what your sense of nostalgia is like? For me I think it's reasonable low. Like I look back at certain things, events and people of my past and I will think fondly of them. But I don't...

      I'm curious what your sense of nostalgia is like?

      For me I think it's reasonable low. Like I look back at certain things, events and people of my past and I will think fondly of them. But I don't think about it often, and I almost never think "I miss that thing", more so that I enjoyed it at the time and I'm glad that it happened.

      What about you? How do you view nostalgia? Does it bother you that things aren't the same as before? What things do you miss?

      19 votes
    13. How do you keep up with the research in your field?

      Do you have a weekly or daily routine? A preferred application? For context, I’m an ecologist that focuses on statistics and modeling and I work in a few different ecosystems. I’ve always...

      Do you have a weekly or daily routine? A preferred application?

      For context, I’m an ecologist that focuses on statistics and modeling and I work in a few different ecosystems. I’ve always struggled to feel like I have a good understanding of the literature and I think there are a few main reasons.

      • Quantity: It’s overwhelming. There is so. Much. Research. And there’s more literally every day that is or might be relevant.
      • Sources: Relatedly, there are so many journals to try to keep up with. And certainly more that I should be keeping up with that I’m not even aware of.
      • Method: I haven’t found an interface that really works for me. I end up ignoring emails with journal table of contents. Scrolling through RSS feeds on Zotero or Mendeley is awful. Going to the journal websites is even worse.
      • Scheduling: I block out time in my calendar, but there’s always something else I’d rather work on. It’s hard to force myself to focus on it.
      • Workflow: The exploration-exploitation trade off. If I skim through all the titles of a bunch of different journals, I end up just spending the whole time downloading papers which then sit in my Zotero library without getting read. If I stop to look in more detail, I don’t get through much of the article list.
      • Retention: It’s hard to read something over and really retain it. I’ve taken notes (digitally and on paper) but that adds to the time it takes to skim titles and abstracts, which reduces the number I can cover.

      One of the downsides of everything being digital is that I also find it harder to skim an article and get the gist of it. Flipping through a magazine lets you skim the titles and figures to easily get the main idea. Online, I need to read the title, click in a new tab if it seems interesting, scroll around to skim the abstract, and scroll and/or click to the figures. Flipping back and forth to the abstract or different sections is also harder.

      What I’d really like is something kind of like a forum or link aggregator where I could skim titles and click an expander to view the abstract and figures.

      16 votes
    14. For the atheists of Tildes, do you feel the need to show gratitude for comforts of your life and how do you do it?

      So I was raised in a religious household with prayer and such but due to things like a dysfunctional family where some members used religion in a very unhealthy way, combined with distrust I have...

      So I was raised in a religious household with prayer and such but due to things like a dysfunctional family where some members used religion in a very unhealthy way, combined with distrust I have developed over the years of any sort of authority (and some of the teachings that i disagreed with), I just couldn't fully reconcile being part of the religion I was raised in and left.

      However, despite the complicated relationship I have with God (I am left unsure as to whether He exists and if He is truly loving), it has proven a useful outlet for my gratitude for life.

      I see unhoused people around me, people struggling with drug addiction, I am friends with a nurse who works in a psych ward and they sometimes text me the saddest stories. combine that with the fact that I was laid off for 6 month during the tech layoff season (I was over the moon when I finally landed a job), I have a lot of gratitude for the fact that I have a job in something I am passionate about, can afford my lifestyle and and a roof over my head. basically the necessities.

      And I find I have a need to direct this gratitude somewhere and the idea of God proves useful in these cases.

      For people who don't believe in God, do you feel a need to express gratitude at anything and if so, how do you do it?

      52 votes
    15. [SOLVED] Looking for book title by Japanese author

      About a year or two ago, someone recommended a phenomenal dystopian novel about people who don’t have kids and are sent to live in a luxury facility where they serve a particular function for...

      About a year or two ago, someone recommended a phenomenal dystopian novel about people who don’t have kids and are sent to live in a luxury facility where they serve a particular function for their remaining lives. It was by a Japanese author, I believe a woman. Does anyone know the name of the book and/or the author?

      Bonus question: Any other Japanese sci-fi/dystopian/magical realism book recommendations?

      6 votes
    16. What are the "white spaces" or "breathing rooms" in your life?

      It's easy to be wired all the time. Checking messages, performing tasks, planning for the future, making the most of every second with obvious output. But do you have any intentional inefficiency...

      It's easy to be wired all the time. Checking messages, performing tasks, planning for the future, making the most of every second with obvious output. But do you have any intentional inefficiency in your life? Breaks? Breaths between tasks? If so, what are they?

      39 votes
    17. Tildes Minecraft Survival

      Server host: tildes.nore.gg (Running Java 1.21.4) Bluemap: https://tildes.nore.gg Playtime Tracker: https://tildes.nore.gg/playtimes.html Tildes website extension (shows online status & location):...

      Server host: tildes.nore.gg (Running Java 1.21.4)
      Bluemap: https://tildes.nore.gg
      Playtime Tracker: https://tildes.nore.gg/playtimes.html
      Tildes website extension (shows online status & location): Firefox (Desktop and Android) - Chrome
      Verification site: https://verify.tildes.nore.gg
      Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TildesMC

      Plugins and Data Packs Data Packs:
      • Terralith - Overworld terrain upgrade
      • Nullscape - End terrain upgrade
      • Armor Statues [Vanilla Tweaks]
      • Bat Membranes [Vanilla Tweaks]
      • Cauldron Concrete [Vanilla Tweaks]
      • Husks Drop Sand [Vanilla Tweaks]
      • Mini Blocks [Vanilla Tweaks]
      • More Mob Heads [Vanilla Tweaks]
      • Player Head Drops [Vanilla Tweaks]
      • Silence Mobs [Vanilla Tweaks]
      • Wandering Trades [Vanilla Tweaks]

      Plugins:

      • Bluemap - Adds a live 3D web map
      • Clickable Links - Makes http URLs in chat clickable (only for registered players)
      • CoreProtect - Records all block/container/mob changes (Anyone can look up changes with /co inspect)
      • EasyArmorStands - GUI for editing armor stands
      • Hexnicks - Enables Tildes usernames to be displayed
      • LuckPerms - Locks down unregistered users
      • Nerfstick - Allows survival use of the minecraft:debug_stick item (requires admin to spawn in)
      • Rapid Leaf Decay - Increases the speed of leaf decay by 10x
      • WorldEdit - Used for occasional admin stuff
      • WorldGuard - Prevents unregistered users from changing anything in the world

      The server operates on a soft whitelist. Anyone can log in and walk around, but you need a Tildes account to gain build access.


      Go to the new thread

      20 votes
    18. My thoughts on Dropout streaming service

      A month ago news about Dropout was shared here which is how I learned of the service. Having subscribed to it due to it, and since I liked it sufficiently in the three day trial, I'd like to share...

      A month ago news about Dropout was shared here which is how I learned of the service. Having subscribed to it due to it, and since I liked it sufficiently in the three day trial, I'd like to share my thoughts on it.

      Overall I mostly appreciate the content, especially due to the unique nature of it. The overall amount of diversity of various comedy formats and skill of the cast at improvisation(or at least the appearance of it) is pretty impressive.

      Game changer is pretty amazing at how it manages to intelligently change the game presented (and sometimes format) nearly every episode. Play it by ear spinoff features an improvised musical with very good performances that are delight to watch. Dimension 20 is a tabletop gaming session show with good use of props and music and coherent and engaging storylines. These are mostly ones I watched for one but I'm sure I like some of the others it has to offer too.

      But there are also some things that I consider at best suboptimal.

      While not catastrophic in either intensity or frequency the crude ass/fart jokes are on average present almost every episode and definitely lower the overall quality in my opinion.

      So far as I know specific to Dimension 20 is the woefully lacking content and trigger warnings descriptions. The seasons can vary massively in tone and the indication of it is basically zero until you actually watch it for a while. There are trigger warnings under episodes but only them. Using Burrow's end as example it starts as an intensive and dramatic in events but at the same time very cozy in the family interactions story, then devolves right in the next episode into intensely graphic(for the format) gratuitous gore and body horror with no sufficient indications of that in the first two hours plus long episode.

      It mostly lacks the anti user features of modern streaming services but it would have been nice if they left them out entirely. Having to go outside of the site to get basic information on the content, bad series organization(overall seasons sometimes being listed in several different series, making the series tab a mess), unchangeable(as far as I know) play next video anti feature, multitude of trackers on site or the traditional inability to buffer too much of the stream in the browser.

      Overall I mostly like it, I just wish they'd have made it possible to like it more.

      27 votes