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    1. It's been while since the last one, so players of D&D, Call of Cthulhu or any other TTRPG: What's been going on in your game?

      It's been a while since the last one of these, so whether you're providing an update or a brand new story: What's been going on in your game? What excitement has transpired in your life-on-paper?...

      It's been a while since the last one of these, so whether you're providing an update or a brand new story: What's been going on in your game? What excitement has transpired in your life-on-paper?

      -LTADnD

      15 votes
    2. A layperson's introduction to spintronics

      Introduction and motivation In an effort to get more content on Tildes, I want to try and give an introduction on several 'hot topics' in semiconductor physics at a level understandable to...

      Introduction and motivation

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

      Today's topic

      I will start this series with an introduction to spintronics and spin transistors.

      What is spintronics?

      Spintronics is named in analogy to electronics. In electronics, the flow of current (consisting of electrons) is studied. Each electron has an electric charge, and by pulling at this charge we can move electrons through wires, transistors, creating modern electronics. Spintronics also studies the flow of electrons, but it uses another property of the electrons, spin, to create new kinds of transistors.

      What are transistors?

      Transistors are small electronic devices that act as an on-off switch for current. We can flip this on-off switch by sending a signal to the transistor, so that the current will flow. Transistors are the basis for all computers and as such are used very widely in modern life.

      What is spin?

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

      What are spin transistors and how do they work?

      Spin transistors are a type of transistor whose on-off switch is created by magnets. We take two bar magnets, whose north poles are pointed in the same way, and put them next to each other, leaving a small gap between them. This gap is filled with a material through which the electrons can move. Now we connect wires to the big bar magnets and let current (electrons!) flow through both magnets, via the gap. When the electrons go through the first magnet, their internal magnets will align themselves to the big bar magnet. However, once they are in the gap the electrons' internal magnets will start rotating and no longer point in the same direction as the big bar magnets. So that when the electrons arrive at the second magnet, they will be repelled just like when you try to push the north poles of two magnets together. This means the current will not flow, and the device is off! So, how do we get it to turn on?

      By exposing the gap to an electric field, we can control the amount of rotation the electrons experience (this is called the Rashba effect). If we change the strength of this electric field so that the electrons will make exactly one full rotation while crossing the gap, then by the time they reach the second big bar magnet they will once again be pointing in the right direction. Now the electrons are able to move through the second big bar magnet, and out its other end. So by turning this electric field on, the spin transistor will let current flow, and if we turn the electric field off, no current will flow. We have created an on-off switch using magnets and spin!

      That's cool, but why go through the effort of doing this when we have perfectly fine electronics already?

      The process of switching between the on and off states of these spin transistors is a lot more energy efficient than with regular transistors. These types of transistors leak a lot less too. Normal transistors will leak, meaning that a small amount of current will go through even when the transistor is off. With spin transistors, this leak is a lot smaller. This once again improves the energy efficiency of these devices. So in short, spin transistors will make your computer more energy efficient. This type of transistor can also be made smaller than normal transistors, which leads to more powerful computers.

      Feedback and interest

      As I mentioned, I wrote this post as a challenge to myself to explain modern physics to laypeople. Please let me know where I succeeded and where I failed. Also let me know if you like this type of content and if I should continue posting other similar topics in the same format.

      37 votes
    3. koeël.

      been sitting on two of these most of the day, might be a little messy. i feel like it's a little stale since i left it waiting, and i'm significantly more sober than when i usually write. as...

      been sitting on two of these most of the day, might be a little messy.

      i feel like it's a little stale since i left it waiting, and i'm significantly more sober than when i usually write.

      as always, comments welcome. or ignore this entirely if you're not feeling it<3

      bless.

      bishop


      also this one gets somewhat graphic, gonna start leaving these trigger warnings up top - drugs, alcohol, suicide, covers it i think, let me know if i should add anything else


      been smoking and drinking
      just so i can cope
      gave her the ring
      she put me on the ropes
      new girl show up but
      i don't got no hope
      my heart is still sinking
      i'm trying to float like

      Gretel, baby, where did you go?
      no crumbs left I can throw
      Hansel in the forest alone
      put me out of house and my home
      hands full of green and some blow
      no drinks left but the coke
      she's laughing now - am I the joke?
      turned my heartthrob into a stroke -

      your bedside's left wide
      open to the moonlight
      head high, red eye
      stranded on the roadside
      you kissed, i cried,
      while i watched papaw die
      No sleep, four nights
      you told me it's alright
      helped me keep my head high
      helped me say my goodbyes
      then you hit me blindside
      didn't get a goodbye

      peace, bye, next flight,
      right into his arms like
      you've been biding time,
      waiting for the day to strike me

      down.

      down.

      down.

      Left me tied strapped to the bed
      Headphones looping what you said
      Promises we could stay friends.
      Cool ones pour down my head
      I know the river Styx runs red
      Little siren told me "Baby, dive in"
      Closed eyes, woke up dead.
      Didn't know God's a raven.

      Now you got your Raybans
      and your black Timbs
      Got your new Amex,
      one in the black print
      Hope it was worth it
      on your conscience
      that you lied through your teeth
      and he fucking lost it

      costless

      Must be nice right?
      If it's not on the bill
      it don't have a price
      Fuck being nice,
      Fuck doing what's right,
      What's another sad white
      boy taking his life?

      Masochistic statistic
      when his legs kick
      Fuck vacation,
      Miami,
      Fuck a new chick
      Cool one rain straight
      to the forehead
      Gorgeous.
      One less problem
      to deal with. Lord, yes.

      Gretel, baby, where did you go?
      no crumbs left I can throw
      Hansel in the forest alone
      put me out of house and my home
      hands full of green and some blow
      no drinks left but the coke
      she's laughing now - am I the joke?
      turned my heartthrob into a stroke -

      4 votes
    4. Daily Tildes discussion - how can we maintain quality without drifting too far into "gatekeeping"?

      The daily discussion from Friday about the site's activity level has been great, with a ton of solid insight, feedback and suggestions from many different people. Today I want to continue...

      The daily discussion from Friday about the site's activity level has been great, with a ton of solid insight, feedback and suggestions from many different people. Today I want to continue discussing one particular theme that came up in there multiple times: a number of people seem to feel like they're not "worthy" of posting on the site, with it seemingly exacerbated by seeing complaints about the quality of other people's posts.

      This is a bit of a tricky thing to balance: we want to try to keep the quality of content on Tildes up, but it can be unwelcoming and discouraging if people feel that they're likely to get berated for posting something that isn't "good enough". By its very nature, being more selective about content means that we have to discourage (or remove) some types of content, but how can we do it in a way that doesn't feel quite so antagonistic to the people submitting?

      A good way of thinking about this is to try to consider it from the submitter's perspective. If you were to post something that wasn't really suitable, how would you like to be informed of that? And (just as importantly), how would you not like to be informed of it?

      As always, all thoughts and suggestions are welcome. Tildes is still going to require a lot of growth, so it's important to figure out how we'll be able to integrate people into the site's culture over time without feeling overly hostile towards new users.

      60 votes
    5. Suggestion: when clicking on an external link, open it in new tab

      It would be nice to have that functionality (at least as an option), so that the thread doesn't close. I personally instinctively close the tab after I am done reading instead of going back, which...

      It would be nice to have that functionality (at least as an option), so that the thread doesn't close. I personally instinctively close the tab after I am done reading instead of going back, which can be really frustrating after the realization I have nothing to read now (yeah, I know, CTRL+SHIFT+T, reopen last closed tab etc etc, but it's much more convenient to hit CTRL+W and be back where you stopped reading the thread).

      30 votes
    6. Indoor climbers, what gear are you rockin?

      Pun intended. I'm just getting into bouldering / top roping and need to start my gear hunt. What do you recommend? What things do you stay away from? Right now I'm just climbing indoors with no...

      Pun intended.

      I'm just getting into bouldering / top roping and need to start my gear hunt. What do you recommend? What things do you stay away from? Right now I'm just climbing indoors with no real plans to go outdoors yet.

      5 votes
    7. dagga.

      last one for today, feel like i've been littering all over tildes and i dont want to be the only thing people see on the homepage. i normally only do these like once a week, but i kept finding...

      last one for today, feel like i've been littering all over tildes and i dont want to be the only thing people see on the homepage.

      i normally only do these like once a week, but i kept finding words that work today.

      sorry for the clutter,

      cheers.


      bliky at the forehead
      hit the floor dead.
      i give you advice
      so that i feel important
      tell me to stay im
      a little distorted
      cross-faded vision
      is going contorted

      take off my seatbelt
      and i start to floor it
      fuck all your comments
      i know its abhorrent
      i only go out in the
      night when it's dormant
      in hopes that I'll see
      a brick wall and ignore it

      gorgeous.

      tell me, do you cry or get lonely?
      Do you ever feel soulless?
      Do you ever stop and reminisce?
      Baby I want to feel free.
      Free.

      (beat.)

      dagga in die bak - smoke
      til the morning
      i just want you back
      still hear you moaning
      hard to look back,
      know that you happened
      hard to look back,
      see what we had then
      knife hits the floor, saying
      what the fuck man
      you're a grown man how
      do you function
      why do you do this
      you're above this
      Cus I don't know what's real
      Baby I want to feel free

      Free

      Free

      Free

      bliky at the forehead
      hit the floor dead.
      i give you advice
      so that i feel important
      tell me to stay im
      a little distorted
      cross-faded vision
      is going contorted

      take off my seatbelt
      and i start to floor it
      fuck all your comments
      i know its abhorrent
      i only go out in the
      night when it's dormant
      in hopes that I'll see
      a brick wall and ignore it
      it's gorgeous.

      6 votes
    8. stoep.

      nevermind. my stoep is warm. my stoep is warm. can't keep my calm it should probably raise alarms if my stoep is warm my stoep is warm that there's a problem and I dont know how to stop it fucked...

      nevermind.


      my stoep is warm.
      my stoep is warm.
      can't keep my calm
      it should probably raise alarms if
      my stoep is warm
      my stoep is warm
      that there's a problem
      and I dont know how to stop it

      fucked up his arm
      with bleeding scars
      that kid's an addict he
      has no idea how to quit
      Insha'allah
      One day he'll stop
      If he ever dulls the edges of
      the shards of broken promises

      'llahu-allah
      'llahu-allah
      That a broken-legged lamb
      can still hobble into Providence
      i hear the caw
      i hear the caw
      woke up in a sweat and
      saw a raven at my doorstep

      (beat.)

      messed up inside
      messed up inside
      only when he's fucked up
      does he really feel alive
      the pain you feel
      the pain you feel
      is the happiness you had before
      So pay it up boy, that's the price.

      my stoep is warm.
      my stoep is warm.
      can't keep my calm
      it should probably raise alarms if
      my stoep is warm
      my stoep is warm
      that there's a problem
      and I dont know how to stop it

      fucked up his arm
      with bleeding scars
      that kid's an addict he
      has no idea how to quit
      Insha'allah
      One day he'll stop
      If he ever dulls the edges of
      the shards of broken promises

      the stoa's hot
      the stoa's hot
      how you gonna run from
      a problem that's inside your head

      it's going dark,
      it's going dark
      beautiful curse if you
      find that you woke up again

      5 votes
    9. File sharing over a network

      Me and my friend arrive at an arbitrary place, we have access to a network from there. Now, we want to share a file and the network connection is all we have. The challenge: make the file go from...

      Me and my friend arrive at an arbitrary place, we have access to a network from there. Now, we want to share a file and the network connection is all we have. The challenge: make the file go from my device to my friends device in a pure p2p setting. If you know, for sure, that incoming connections are allowed this is very simple but here i want to explore which solutions exist that do not assume this.

      Assumptions:

      • Same network altough possibly different access points (one might be wired and the other wireless)
      • We have no prior knowledge about the network, incoming traffic might be blocked (outgoing isn't for sure)
      • No extra machines can aid in the transaction (no hole punching etc)
      • Should work reliably for any kind of device that you have free -- as in freedom -- control over. that is PCs, android phones/tablets and macs. most of Apple's other hardware can be excluded because they don't allow for anything anyway.
      • hard mode: We are both digitally illiterate

      Goal:

      • Send a file, p2p, from one party to another.

      Me (MSc cs) and my friend (PhD cs) tried to do this last week. And it appears to be among the hardest problems in CS. I would like to discuss this and hear which solutions you might have for this problem.

      Edits:

      1. this is not an assignment
      2. Added some specifics to the assumption set
      3. we're looking for practical solutions here.
      4. more specs
      10 votes
    10. What's your game that you'd really like to see made?

      For me, that'd be a multiplayer war sandbox. Take a big map, plop down resources, population centers and factories, spawn a lot of players who then have to organize to fight a war. To add...

      For me, that'd be a multiplayer war sandbox. Take a big map, plop down resources, population centers and factories, spawn a lot of players who then have to organize to fight a war.

      • To add espionage, you'd not hard-code a lot about the way teams organize(think removing the guild mechanics from WoW), so one could sign up with one side, then run to a different side (who do not know you already signed up with the first) and do ye olde double agent.
      • Research could be modelled as being done by NPC civilians, which produces documents detailing the results. These documents must be on-site whenever the research is being used (i.e. present at factories), so it could be stolen.
      • No need to go factorio on the production chains. Their purpose is mostly to enforce cooperation to reach better hardware for the guys in the field.

      So, what's your crazy dream game that's never going to be built?

      37 votes
    11. DIY ROV

      Months ago I decided I was going to build my own underwater remotely-operated vehicle. I got sidetracked by a kitchen remodel, but since it is now complete I will have some free time to start...

      Months ago I decided I was going to build my own underwater remotely-operated vehicle. I got sidetracked by a kitchen remodel, but since it is now complete I will have some free time to start working on my vehicle. There are some decent videos out there where others have done the same thing, some are wildly complicated and others are basically built from items out of a scrap bin. I am hoping to land somewhere in the middle.

      During the bit of research I have performed, I discovered companies selling very high-end parts, the likes of which you would find on a highly funded/sponsored deep sea expedition or a government project. I didn't find a whole lot of middle ground really, either you DIY or you dump a ton of money into it.

      My plan is to use PVC for my hull. I had thought about constructing it similar to the Russian Typhoon-class submarine, with two pressure hulls within an outer hull. That would allow the electrics to reside in dry compartments while I use the void space for ballast. I even found RC submarine ballast systems on eBay which would allow me to take on water and dump it remotely so I could trim it out on the fly.

      The general opinion, I have discovered so far, is to make it neutrally buoyant. As much as I would like to add that ballast tank system I may need to just keep it simple for my first attempt. Tethers also seem to be an issue, adding too much weight when they get to a certain length and if you do not take steps to make them buoyant. I thought pool noodles, but learned from someone else that they become water logged and are a bad choice. Then there is power, the trend I noticed is keeping it onboard in the form of a battery pack, but I would like to keep it ashore and just add a wire to the tether so I can not have power to worry about.

      So far I have an Arduino board, some old laptops, and some rivers to explore. If we had a makerspace or hackerspace nearby I would be all set. I did search, and the closest is an hour away, which is disappointing since I know I am not the only person into ridiculous projects/hobbies around here! Anyone on here into things like this?

      8 votes
    12. What is your favorite "drug", and why?

      [I'm tagging this as "adult", for purposes of open discussion, with apologies to anyone who may consider the topic inflammatory or sensationalistic.] Based on discussion of loneliness elsewhere,...

      [I'm tagging this as "adult", for purposes of open discussion, with apologies to anyone who may consider the topic inflammatory or sensationalistic.]

      Based on discussion of loneliness elsewhere, I'm curious as to what adaptive measures people undertake to promote life satisfaction in the face of environmental/cultural/social stressors.

      The word "drug" is used very loosely here, and basically refers to any strategy for purposefully altering neurochemistry - in addition to licit or illicit substance intake, it could be endorphin-boosting exercise, going out with friends, naps, particular reading genres, a good meal, games, direct brain stimulation, meditation, sexual activity, long walks in the country, or whatever.

      I'm also taking for granted the proposition that intentionally seeking beneficial neurochemical states is a human activity that everyone participates in, whether they're aware of it or not, and desirable as long as it harms no one.

      This is not an attempt to incite, advocate for, or excuse breaking any applicable laws, but a request for information on what people actually do and prefer. If you're concerned about potential legal implications of confessing to an illicit favorite, please discuss in terms of "a friend/someone I know, likes substance/activity x because y".

      "Favorite" excludes strategies you've found harmful or destructive, but discussion and/or warning is worthwhile if you feel like it.

      I'll start off by saying I have an acquaintance who finds psilocybin micro-dosing very effective at inducing positive emotional balance, mental focus and good sleep regulation.

      23 votes
    13. Gym Story Saturday

      One of my favorite things over at Reddit is /r/fitness's Gym Story Saturdays and Rant Wednesdays (and also /r/WeightRoom's daily threads). I don't know if we have enough gym goers people on Tildes...

      One of my favorite things over at Reddit is /r/fitness's Gym Story Saturdays and Rant Wednesdays (and also /r/WeightRoom's daily threads). I don't know if we have enough gym goers people on Tildes yet for a weekly thread on your adventures in fitness, but I figured I'd put one up and see what happens.

      This week I did week 2 of Pervertor for 5/3/1 and it has Boring But Big sets as supplemental work. The squat day was hell. This is probably because instead of doing typical BBB, five sets of ten at 50% of your train max, Pervertor does this at 65% of your TM. For me, this meant 5x10 squats at 235 lbs after doing the 5/3/1 sets. I just had to sit down after it was done, couldn't immediately move on to my assistance work. My lower back was especially feeling it, but quads were on fire too. Luckily, was ready to go in a few minutes, but I've never had to just sit there and take a break before workouts like that in my near three years of program lifting.

      But no one ever starting lifting weights because they wanted it to be easy.

      Anyway, I'm sure y'all probably have better stories than "it was hard to things." Let's hear them.

      6 votes
    14. What, if anything, makes a morally good war?

      I've been consuming the darkness that is wartime histories from the past three or four centuries and I feel like I've encountered a lot of people who had what they believed to be justifiable...

      I've been consuming the darkness that is wartime histories from the past three or four centuries and I feel like I've encountered a lot of people who had what they believed to be justifiable reasons to launch wars against other powers. There are people who thought they had divine right to a particular position of power and so would launch a war to assert that god-given right. There are people who believed in a citizen's right to have some (any) say in how their tax money gets used in government and so would fight wars over that. People would fight wars to, as John Cleese once said, "Keep China British." Many wars are started to save the honor of a country/nation. Some are started in what is claimed to be self-defense and later turns out to have been a political play instigated to end what has been a political thorn in their sides.

      In all this time, I've struggled to really justify many of these wars, but some of that comes with the knowledge of what other wars have cost in terms of human carnage and suffering. For some societies in some periods, the military is one of the few vehicles to social mobility (and I think tend to think social mobility is grease that keeps a society functioning). Often these conflicts come down to one man's penis and the inability to swallow their pride to find a workable solution unless at the end of a bayonet. These conflicts also come with the winning powers taking the opportunity to rid themselves of political threats and exacting new harms on the defeated powers (which comes back around again the next time people see each other in a conflict).

      So help keep me from embracing a totally pacifistic approach to war. When is a war justifiable? When it is not only morally acceptable but a moral imperative to go to war? Please point to examples throughout history where these situations have happened, if you can (though if you're prepared to admit that there has been no justifiable war that you're aware of, I suppose that's fine if bitter).

      20 votes
    15. Daily Tildes discussion - please help find omissions from the issue tracker

      I'm continuing to inch closer to finally open-sourcing the site, and one of the aspects of having it open-source is that other people will be able to start contributing fixes/improvements/etc. To...

      I'm continuing to inch closer to finally open-sourcing the site, and one of the aspects of having it open-source is that other people will be able to start contributing fixes/improvements/etc. To keep this process organized, I want to treat the issue tracker as the "definitive source" of what needs to be done, who's working on it, etc. A lot of the existing plans and known issues are already in there, but there are certainly some things missing.

      I'm not expecting anyone to register a GitLab account to help with this, but I'd appreciate it if some of you would take a quick look through the issue tracker (which you don't need an account to do), do some quick searches for features/fixes that you know should be planned, and make sure that they seem to be present: https://gitlab.com/tildes/tildes/issues

      If you notice anything missing (or aren't sure if it's there), please just leave a comment here about it, and I can make updates.

      Thanks, any help is appreciated (and if you have any other general questions about how the open-sourcing/contributions/etc. are going to work, please feel free to ask as well).

      29 votes
    16. What is your mentality when it comes to character creation and roleplay in games?

      This question stemmed from a friendly argument my S.O. and I had involving The Sims. She thought it was the weirdest thing ever to try and create myself within the game. I understand the idea of...

      This question stemmed from a friendly argument my S.O. and I had involving The Sims. She thought it was the weirdest thing ever to try and create myself within the game. I understand the idea of truly creating a new character, but my first impulse is always to create myself and then behave how I normally would in whatever game I'm playing. I don't know if this is laziness on my part, or some sort of subconscious effort to maximize immersion.

      Disclaimer: I do often create characters that don't just emulate myself, but it's almost always after I've finished my first play-through. I'm not averse to role-play AT ALL.

      I noticed it spans further than character creation too. Like, if there's a pool of characters to pick from, I almost always pick one that looks the most like me, or one that I relate the most with. My S.O. will pick whichever one she's feeling at that time (usually the cutest). I've also noticed that I'm more apt to consistently pick that same character, while she is more likely to switch it up every so often.

      One last observation I made that I think ties closely to this topic: When I'm playing a game, my mentality is always "I'm going to do this, then I'm going to do this. Did you see what I just did?!" etc. I see it from a first-person perspective, even if I happened to create a character that does not emulate myself. When she plays, it's always "Look what he's doing, oh man my guy did this" and verbalizes the game from a third-person perspective.

      What's your take on this? What's your mentality when you game? Do you think there is a fundamental mental split among players? Is it because I game drastically more than her or started gaming sooner in my life? I'd love to hear some other perspectives on this.

      19 votes
    17. Cultural appropriation justified through DNA tests?

      Good morning! I was listening to the CBC radio on my way to work and there was a very interesting discussion about how people choose to interpret the results of DNA tests. I did a quick search and...

      Good morning!

      I was listening to the CBC radio on my way to work and there was a very interesting discussion about how people choose to interpret the results of DNA tests. I did a quick search and unfortunately couldn't find the radio broadcast on CBCs site.

      Points mentioned (from my memory):

      • People don't look at the results of a DNA test and go "this is who I am", instead they use it to cherry-pick who they want to be
      • Statically, "white" people tend to identify with a more "exotic" finding in their test
      • Example used included a person that chose to identify with who they thought they would pass as; results showed Native and Celtic blood, and person went with Native because he didn't believe they physically passed for Celtic

      The cultural appropriation part:

      • When non-minorities, who have generally not been raised or have much interaction with the minority they are now choosing to identify with, they can skew, more specifically flatten stats. For example, for a person who's always identified as caucasian to start checking off boxes for a minority, they are potentially 1) disregarding the consequences there are to race (discrimination), and 2) pumping up the stats for minority representation.

      As a visible minority myself, I just find it in poor taste. I would love to think people who find a little bit of Asian blood will go and try to discovery more of what it is to be Asian, but I would definitely roll my eyes, if you just come up to me and say "I'm 1/64th like you".

      So thoughts? Has anyone done a DNA test and how did it go?

      19 votes
    18. Weekly Visual Activity REVIVED July 10th to July 16th.

      I'M ALIVE!!!!! Sorry about that; my get up and go got up and went without me. I wandered out of funkland today just in time to be a week and a day late. <_< For this week, you may use any media...

      I'M ALIVE!!!!!
      Sorry about that; my get up and go got up and went without me. I wandered out of funkland today just in time to be a week and a day late.
      <_<

      For this week, you may use any media you like - photos, sketches, paints, collage, et. al. to portray BLUE. In any sense of the word. Posting and up voting will cease when the 16th is over and done with.

      If you end up with the most votes appreciating your piece(s), you will have the honour to decide the theme to the next week's thread! If that's not enough I'm sure I can find a gif of people grovelling in your magnificent wake. \o/

      14 votes
    19. Specialty fatigue

      I've been noticing a social effect lately and I'm curious about others' takes on this. I'm calling it "specialty fatigue" because I've noticed mostly in specialty communities. I differentiate...

      I've been noticing a social effect lately and I'm curious about others' takes on this. I'm calling it "specialty fatigue" because I've noticed mostly in specialty communities. I differentiate between this, elitism, FAQ annoyance because there seems to be a more complex cause at work.

      To put it in general terms, specialty fatigue is caused by the overexposure to others' work in a given area of expertise. Whereas elitism is more of an ego driven personality traits, and FAQ frustration arises from repeatedly answering the same basic questions, this fatigue seems to be caused by seeing too many things that don't live up to standards (often arbitrary personal standards, but sometimes can be industry standards). In others words, people notice their industry getting flooded with novices getting away with crap they'd never tolerate. It can be disheartening and disillusioning. Most often, it results in the community of specialists becoming overly critical of things that didn't originally bother them. People who were once helpful and encouraging become raging internet monsters.

      I see this happen a lot because I'm a bit of a jack of all trades, master of none, and largely autodidactic. I don't have very many strong opinions on how things should be done because I've learned to constantly question the efficacy of norms, and try to establish a system that just works best to achieve the results I care about. Despite that, I'm still interested in finding out how others go about doing things, or even just listen to the sort of stuff they care about. What factors do specialists find worthwhile in determining quality? How feasible is it for me to achieve those results?

      Quite often, specialty communities are so corrupted by overexposure that many members of the community start acting as gatekeepers. "If you can't afford decent equipment, don't even bother." And they'll criticize anything that could remotely be interpreted as a newb question or point of view, frequently to the point of acute toxicity where just about any discussion becomes unfeasible.

      I'm a propenent of openly sharing knowledge. But the offshoot of increased introductory material is that there will be a corresponding increase in novice level production. I can see why people might be bothered by that (personally, I'm not), but it blows me away that anyone would be surprised by that. That's exactly how it seems sometimes, though. Almost as if people just wanted to show off how much they know without anyone else using that knowledge for anything productive.

      This seems like the social deflection point between "old school" methods of passing down specialty knowledge (apprenticing, higher education, family businesses) to "new school" methods (look it up online and just try it out). With the removal of a mentor figure from the equation, there is less of a filter for what's quality and what's crap. Add social media into the equation and there seems like there's a constant influx of garbage into every industry out there. But for specialty communities, it definitely has an "end of the world as we know it" kinda feel because it seems like the entire specialty is getting flooded with subpar work that is a threat to their livelyhoods.


      Has anyone else noticed this sort of thing? Do you have a specialty? If so, what trends have you noticed within that field regarding apparent willingness to share information? Have you ever dropped a hobby because people seemed to take it too seriously? How do you personally feel about the balance between open sharing of information vs keeping secrets (for example, a technique a process from which you derive a substantial portion of income)?

      Edit: Fixed a typo. Can and can't are a bit different. Oops.

      18 votes
    20. Daily Tildes discussion - figuring out some early details of the group hierarchy

      This week, I'm trying to focus on the last few pieces needed to finally get the site's code open-sourced (really, I am!). One of those pieces is that we'll need a group on Tildes for discussing...

      This week, I'm trying to focus on the last few pieces needed to finally get the site's code open-sourced (really, I am!). One of those pieces is that we'll need a group on Tildes for discussing development, answering related questions, and so on. The obvious location for this is something like ~tildes.dev, but adding it opens up a few questions related to the group hierarchy in general, so that's what I want to talk about today.

      Currently, we only have one subgroup on the site, this one (~tildes.official). The way it works right now, if you visit or subscribe to ~tildes, you will also see the content from ~tildes.official. You also have the option of going to ~tildes.official directly, so that you see only the content from that group without the posts from its parent group. However, there's no way to see only the content from ~tildes without ~tildes.official. This will become more significant when ~tildes.dev is added, because that group will probably only be interesting to a small group of the site's users—people that are involved in (or interested in) the actual code/development behind the site.

      So now we have a more interesting case, a subgroup that most people looking at the parent probably won't want to see. How should this work in practice? Some more specific questions that might help thinking through it:

      • When someone visits ~tildes, do they see ~tildes.dev posts in there?
      • When someone subscribes to ~tildes, are they automatically subscribed (implicitly or not) to both ~tildes.official and ~tildes.dev?
      • If someone only wants to see the content from ~tildes and ~tildes.official, what sort of process should they need to go through to make that happen?
      • How might these ideas work once the hierarchy gets much larger (for example, imagine a ~games with hundreds of subgroups inside many branches)?

      Any input about the topic is appreciated—try not to worry too much about whether a plan is "perfect", we can always adjust it as the hierarchy actually starts becoming more extensive.

      34 votes
    21. Yesterday I walked 2 km to the store and today I can feel it in my glutes ()

      ...I clearly haven't been doing a lot lately... It's a good feeling though, knowing that you accomplished something, no matter how small that thing is. I've had a hard time the past several years...

      ...I clearly haven't been doing a lot lately...

      It's a good feeling though, knowing that you accomplished something, no matter how small that thing is. I've had a hard time the past several years but yesterday not only did I go to the store, I also managed to change the sheets and wash all my clothes, and even cleaned the kitchen and scrubbed the sink from all the hard water deposits.

      It's a good feeling and so I don't know why I don't do those things more often... I guess it's just easier to watch TV shows, movies, and play Fortnite all day long.

      I have been on break from school for over a month now, and have another entire month left before it starts back up again. I'm 25 so you'd think I'd've gotten used to it by now - but nope. It's still ridiculously hard to stay motivated and to keep going with a proper, healthy routine day-to-day.

      14 votes
    22. Daily Tildes discussion - more filtering options?

      I added topic tag filters a few weeks ago, which should make it so that people can more easily filter out certain types of topics that they're not interested in. How much further should we...

      I added topic tag filters a few weeks ago, which should make it so that people can more easily filter out certain types of topics that they're not interested in.

      How much further should we consider going with filters? Should we allow filtering out posts from certain domains by default? Posts with certain words or phrases in their titles? Other possibilities?

      Is there a point where it's possible to filter out too much, too easily and that starts having negative effects on the site? What do you think?

      28 votes
    23. Let's talk player classes

      No, not the PC classes in your game - the classes that describe the people you play the game with. Mister Fantastic: Every single number on this player's character sheet has been optimized beyond...

      No, not the PC classes in your game - the classes that describe the people you play the game with.

      Mister Fantastic: Every single number on this player's character sheet has been optimized beyond comprehension to be at least 20% higher than you thought was possible, and it's all legal. Reading one of his sheets will teach you about traits, feats, and rules you never knew existed. Often mumbles cryptic, one-word answers while barely paying attention that end ongoing rules discussions leaving the other players with blank faces. His characters are nearly invincible except for one small key weakness (AC 26 at level 1, but with a CMD of 5). This player can typically one-shot the BBEG and reverse the party's fortunes in a single round. If he's charmed or dominated it will result in a TPK unless dealt with instantly.

      The Veteran: A quiet fellow wearing a T-Shirt that says, "Don't tell me about your character: just play." He's never flashy, and seems to do very little, content to let everyone else play and have fun. Always prepared for any situation when no one else is. More likely to aid other players than act directly. He'll only involve himself when everyone else is making a mess out of things, and when he does wake up, his ability to deal with any given situation leaves Mister Fantastic green with envy. Has been known to kill BBEGs via roleplaying. Has the ability to summon natural 20s on demand but rarely uses it. The GM often consults with him on rules issues.

      Negative Diplomacy: No matter the class or the character's abilities, whenever this player opens their mouth to talk to someone who isn't in the party, you know the group is going to be in combat to the death in less than three rounds. The GM is uniquely powerless to prevent this from happening. His superpower is always knowing the worst possible in-character thing to say.

      Milla Vanilla: Every character this person plays is the exact same thing - even when playing different classes. For whatever reason, this player cannot mentally step into the shoes of their character, and ends up on endless repeat. Often not noticeable until one has played multiple games with this person and notices that their ninja assassin is remarkably similar in temperament to their paladin.

      The Conspiracy Theorist: This player is convinced that every single thing that happens is part of some grand tapestry and he is on a mission to figure it out. Often obsesses over small details, makes bizarre (sometimes nonsensical) connections between events, places, and facts. Your worst fear is that he's giving the GM ideas. It's confirmed when some of his wilder predictions come to pass later in the game.

      Aaron Justicebringer: The kind of perma-lawful good holy crusader who walks into a tavern and announces, "Greetings! I am Aaron Justicebringer. You may flee if you wish." He's on a mission to smite evil. Since he's always got detect evil running, he finds quite a lot of it and smites often, without concern for trivialities like local customs, ettiquette, roleplaying, and plot. This player always plays crusader types.

      Kaboom: Kaboom likes loves lives to set things on fire. Often a wizard or sorcerer, and the kind of fellow who can reduce six enemies to ash in a single round (even if those were six fire elementals). Flaming spells, flaming daggers, flaming hair, and one can track him across Golarion just by following the smoke. Unfortunately, that's all he's good for. Kaboom is a blunt instrument, best kept wrapped in asbestos until the party finds a target he can be aimed at in a location that hasn't got too much potential for collateral damage. This player comes in non-fire flavors too.

      Sleepy Pete: Sleepy Pete has a wife, six kids, and a stressful day job. By the time he makes it to the session, he's been clinically dead for two hours already. He'll be asleep within an hour of starting, even faster if food or alcohol is involved. Sleepy Pete is also prone to missing sessions with little forewarning. You're not even sure what his character or personality is because you've been given almost no opportunity to observe him in a conscious state.

      Brandon The Builder: A player who in all other ways is relatively normal, Brandon must never be given downtime in any way, shape, or form. With a full set of item crafting feats and flawless mastery of the downtime rules, Brandon will not only rule the entire kingdom in less than six months, he'll find a way to provide every single party member with a Headband of Mental Superiority, Belt of Physical Perfection, two +5 Tomes or Manuals of their choice, and a well staffed keep while doing it.

      Broken Billy: This player has no comprehension of the mathematical progression of the games he plays. Instead, he jumps at the first thing he finds that sounds cool. This leaves him with a hodgepodge of abilities that quickly become useless as the game progresses, leaving poor Billy more and more frustrated as the game goes on. Broken Billy steadfastly ignores all advice and all warnings given to him by the GM and more experienced players. Prone to having five first level classes on his fifth level character.

      The Novice Namer: Never good at coming up with names, this player has given birth to many legendary heroes: Bob the Barbarian, Robert the Ranger, and who could forget Sheldon the Sorcerer.

      The Knife Hoarder: For whatever reason, this player insists on having at least 2 knives on his belt and 4 hidden on his person. He'll never actually use these knives, but as they'd say "just in case."

      The 1-Leaf-Clover: This person's dice are trying to kill him. Oh he might roll a natural 20 to get a cheap room at the inn or tell if an item is masterwork (its not), but the second he's in combat, the most you can expect is a 12 or 13.

      The iGenie: Only looks away from his laptop when his name is said three times.

      The Bookworm: If not taking an action, is found face first in a book looking for a rare never before seen rule that will get him out of the in-game situation. There has got to be rule specifically for negotiating with a different race to reduce the price of a toll. There just has to be!

      Secretly Evil: This player almost always plays a Wizard/Sorcerer and takes a Necromantic path. They'll write a sizable and traumatic back-story. Then in game they'll never do or say anything evil in front of the group(in or out of character). In fact, they'll do very little in general. Instead they wait until everyone is gone and tell the DM what evil things they actually did while "no one was looking".

      You should try FATAL: Makes all their characters and every encounter somehow revolve around sex.

      Spellsaver: Spellcaster that never casts their spells because they think the next fight is going to be harder.

      The Lore Keeper: This player may not be the most talkative person at the table, but that's possibly because they're too busy writing down every even happening in the game. Conversations, shared loot, timelines, and character sketches -- this player is devoted to the story, and keeps track of all of it.

      What are we missing?

      (Some inspiration from this old reddit thread.)

      17 votes
    24. Is "Every Episode of "The Flash" Ever" too fluffy?

      Aside from the existing conversations already going on about handling fluff and generally unwanted content, I would like to start (yes, I know, another) discussion on what we want to see on...

      Aside from the existing conversations already going on about handling fluff and generally unwanted content, I would like to start (yes, I know, another) discussion on what we want to see on Tildes. Whenever one of these postings come up, there's generally a lot of "what we don't want to see" and not "what we want to see". So keeping that in mind, let's start...

      Specifically I want to discuss Every Episode of "The Flash" Ever. The first, and currently top, comment suggests this is not content that belongs here.

      I disagree. We're not anti-fun, and the comments in that thread kinda felt that way.

      OP (@RamsesThePigeon) created a critic of a comic book based show in a comic book style depicting tropes and other character flaws in a easy-to-consume and humorous fashion. They correctly had it in ~tv.

      This is exactly the sort of content Tildes needs.

      It is not low-effort, and will still not be even if not directly created by OP (though bonus points there for sure). It had full potential to generate good discussion on the show itself, other similar shows, writing tropes and characters, and so on.

      Thoughts?

      22 votes
    25. Daily Tildes discussion - how do we make groups feel more like "separate spaces"?

      This is a topic that some of us have started to go into a bit in yesterday's daily discussion, but I think it's worth splitting out and continuing more. I think one cause of people being so...

      This is a topic that some of us have started to go into a bit in yesterday's daily discussion, but I think it's worth splitting out and continuing more. I think one cause of people being so sensitive about content that they think doesn't belong on Tildes is because the site currently feels like one overall shared space, instead of many individual groups that might have their own different types of acceptable content.

      A lot of this is just because the site is so small right now, and will probably gradually change as it grows. Quite a bit probably also comes from the fact that new users are subscribed to all groups automatically, so to them, everything just feels like "part of the site", not really separate groups that they individually opted into.

      What I'd like to discuss is if there are any ways we could help make that separation more clear—should we stop auto-subscriptions to everything soon? Could we try to display posts from different groups in a more distinguished way? Any other ideas for ways to make things feel a bit more "separated", even while the site is small and there will probably be common users across most groups?

      37 votes
    26. Daily Tildes discussion - how can we help people "acclimate" in a friendlier way?

      One of the things I've noticed so far (and there were a couple obvious instances over the weekend) is that we've had a few issues with new users posting content that doesn't really fit some of the...

      One of the things I've noticed so far (and there were a couple obvious instances over the weekend) is that we've had a few issues with new users posting content that doesn't really fit some of the ideas behind Tildes (primarily, trying to focus on higher-quality discussions/content). This in itself isn't a bad thing or surprising, it's always going to happen. However, I think we need to try to think about some better ways to deal with it—it's great to have other community members telling people that it's not really the type of content they should be posting, but sometimes it's been done in a pretty hostile way, which isn't very good and makes the community seem unfriendly even though it's still very small.

      So I'm mostly just looking for general thoughts about how we could try to improve the situation. Are there mechanics that we could implement? Should we try to get "what types of things should I post?" in front of new users more prominently? Could/should we have a "standard" way of dealing with new users posting things without realizing it might not be particularly welcome here?

      Any other ideas or suggestions?

      50 votes
    27. Freelancer talk: Online marketplaces

      Wanted to see if we could get some conversations going with any freelancers who may be around. I figured a good place to start is with one of the more commonly discussed topics, which is the...

      Wanted to see if we could get some conversations going with any freelancers who may be around. I figured a good place to start is with one of the more commonly discussed topics, which is the online marketplaces catering to freelancers.

      These days, Upwork seems to have gobbled up a huge chunk of that market, while garnering plenty of criticism and complaints along the way for how they handle it. The graphic design space seems to have a little more competition in marketplaces, with 99designs being a frontrunner it seems. Truthfully, there just aren't that many platforms to pick from regardless of your specialty. Which can be a positive, as it provides a centralized place to look for and post available work, can increase exposure to the freelance market as a whole, and ensures you don't have to maintain profiles across numerous platforms which can be far too time consuming sometimes. But of course there are many downsides that come along with that.

      The standard advice that comes with such discussions is to ignore the online marketplaces entirely because of those downsides. Competing against an international labor pool, as well as an under-experienced labor pool much of the time, in a format that heavily encourages price competition above other factors can be disastrous for your bottom line (and your sanity). These platforms also generally remove a lot of the negotiating power that a freelancer needs to leverage, as it is much more difficult to establish the captive audience that can be built with more personal interactions.

      And frankly, that standard advice has continued to be my own, both for my career as well as to others who may seek such advice. But it does make me wonder if there is a better way to do it. Of course as a developer I'm always looking to find a way to solve problems, so I can concede I may be looking for solutions in a place that is misguided to try to fix.

      What has been your experiences with freelance online marketplaces? What advice do you give when asked about it? What would you like to change?

      10 votes
    28. Help with a playlist : )

      I love all kinds of music, but am unable to play everything I like at work. If anyone here has the desire to introduce me (and anyone in this thread) to some beloved stuff that may not be...

      I love all kinds of music, but am unable to play everything I like at work.

      If anyone here has the desire to introduce me (and anyone in this thread) to some beloved stuff that may not be familiar, I would appreciate it.

      As my name suggests, this is in a restaurant, so it would just have to exclude anything too introspective/atonal/delicate, and anything too speedy/loud/without melody (curses and lewdness are fine with my boss, though, interestingly enough!)

      I would certainly listen to that sort of stuff, personally, though so please be free to include it with caveat.

      No offense to artists who are household names and near it, but I am sorely tired of all the songs I've heard before, and my coworkers are never going to leave out the early 90s Madonna, so I am just trying to mix it up!

      12 votes
    29. What are your I-don't-want-to-cook-but-I-have-to-eat- recipes?

      As the title says, I am looking for your go-to recipes for when you are not in the mood to cook. They should be fast and simple to make and be preferably not too expensive. Let me start this:...

      As the title says, I am looking for your go-to recipes for when you are not in the mood to cook. They should be fast and simple to make and be preferably not too expensive.

      Let me start this: Tortelloni with tarragon-cream-sauce (3-6€/2servings, depending on the tortelloni)
      *500g Tortelloni, 250ml (sweet) cream, 2 tomatos, tarragon/salt/pepper;

      1. Water with salt in one pot, cream with tarragon and 4 short splashes of water in another;
      2. Cut the tomatos into pieces and add the to the cream when it boils slightly
      3. When the tomatos are added, stir the cream (it should get slightly red from the tomato juice
      4. add salt and pepper
      5. at this point the water should be boiling, add the Tortelloni
        5.1 I usually buy the Tortelloni from the fridge, they only need to be boiled for 2 min, adjust the timing when you heat up the cream according to needed time to boil the pasta
      6. When everything is finished put everything together and enjoy
      25 votes
    30. My experience, becoming a contributor, and other thoughts/questions.

      I have been using Tildes for about a week now. I have come over from Reddit where I am primarily a lurker. I lurk because I often feel my thoughts and opinions on topics and discussions have been...

      I have been using Tildes for about a week now. I have come over from Reddit where I am primarily a lurker. I lurk because I often feel my thoughts and opinions on topics and discussions have been touched on because discussions are already hundreds of comments deep by the time I arrive. The biggest positive with Tildes is the fact that the community is currently small and I read the post/sarticles that interest me instead of jumping straight into the comments to be given a synopsis. I now read more than just the headline.

      I still have not found my 'voice' in regards to posting comments related to articles/stories that I have read. I think it is because I haven't found a discussion that I am really interested in. I have posted a couple of news articles that provide information about the part of the world I am in but, while they interested me, I didn't feel the need to discuss their contents further so I didn't add any comment to start a conversation to the post.

      Regarding providing some more content to the site. My hobbies include, like everyone else, traveling, reading, and photography. I am no where near being an influential voice in any of these! I am not interested in having a travel blog or a website but I would like to provide information, incase someone else here is interested or has experiences too. For example, I recently took a short weekend trip from Bangkok, Thailand to Ayutthaya, Thailand. I rode the train, visited the sites, visited a bar, ate some food, and stayed the night. I want to provide a write up on my experiences and thoughts of this trip. Is a post in ~hobbies with the tags of: thailand, ayutthaya, bangkok, train the way to go?
      What do y'all think?

      Sharing photographs - Taking pictures is another hobby I share with everyone else. I enjoy sharing pictures I am proud of. I tend to post to r/nocontextpics, because I like their rules of no back story in the title. I also post to location specific sites. I do this to show off my pictures and to feel good from earning points. I do not post pictures to facebook very often because I like having the feel of anonymity. I don't want to be perceived as a pretentious twat. How does everyone feel about picture posts in ~hobbies with the tag(s) like: location, device used, etc..

      My problem would be not 'spamming' photos. With the age of the site, and my brief interaction with it, no one wants to see 2+ picture posts from one user in the ~hobbies group.
      Any thoughts on etiquette or rules for picture posts? Allow: Yes/No?

      22 votes
    31. What do you hope to see, content-wise, from Tildes?

      Last night I posted a topic called "real sad boi hours", a ritualistic kind of post I've carried over from Reddit. I chose to post it in ~talk since the description for the group says it is for...

      Last night I posted a topic called "real sad boi hours", a ritualistic kind of post I've carried over from Reddit. I chose to post it in ~talk since the description for the group says it is for "Open-ended discussions with fellow Tildes users, casual or serious", and I felt there is nothing more open-ended or casual than real sad boi hours. At first, the topic was meant just as it usually does on Reddit. Got a few responses in which people talked about their day and how they were feeling. But right now, the most voted comment is complaining about how we need to restrict invitations to prevent low effort users like me from joining. One thing the user said was that is is obvious there are users joining who have not read the manifesto. I'm just going to spew my own opinion on a few points here:

      1. I don't think gatekeeping is a solution, especially since iirc this site is not going to be permanently invite-only. Not to mention that's just a childish solution anyway.

      2. I don't know what is expected from ~talk. As I said before, I legitimately believe my nightly "real sad boi hours" posts fit exactly what the description of the group says. However, that is up to interpretation I suppose.

      3. If my post was against some rule (which apparently roughly 17 users believe it is), there should be some kind of rule set or moderation set in place (though I understand why there isn't, the site being private still and all). My impression so far has been that if you don't like content, you just ignore it. But now I'm seeing that apparently, people don't like to ignore it. They want me gone.

      4. Is every user expected to read the manifesto? You may be able to get away with this while it's private (and even then, there is still users like me who only read a few pages) but if/when this site goes public, expecting every user or even just most the users to read the manifesto is a pipe dream. As far as I can tell, the reddiquette (which I have also not read) is shorter than the manifesto and nobody reads that either unless they need to. The only reason I know the reddiquette is because I've picked up on bits of it as time went on.

      Maybe I'm just a butt-hurt bitch that people complained about me and I can't take criticism. I'm sure people who disliked my post will think that is it. I also may have a skewed perception of what this site is. I view it as an improvement upon Reddit and honestly I think some of this innovation may work great, which is why I'm here in the first place. I want to hear your take on what I said, and anything else you'd like to add.

      26 votes
    32. Suggestion: Add "Hot" posts front page order

      Could we get new post ordering: something like reddit Hot system? Now, the ordering by activity is great, but the big issue with it is, that when you go to less-active ~, you only see two or three...

      Could we get new post ordering: something like reddit Hot system?

      Now, the ordering by activity is great, but the big issue with it is, that when you go to less-active ~, you only see two or three topics. Even on front page, there are just 15 or 20 topics. I know, it's because I limit threads to only several days, but there is problem when I set limit up to week, or two: there are very old threads on the front page right at the top.

      So could we get something like reddit has? Display posts according to upvotes/time (comments?), but do not limit them to few days and show them at least +- chronologically - so no two weeks old posts at the top of front page.

      Maybe this could be achieved just by tweaking the current activity order by boosting young threads more and vice versa.

      5 votes
    33. Chart thread

      I was looking over some of my charts of albums recently and I thought this might be a cool idea. If you don't know what a chart is, basically you can go here and put together a chart of up to 100...

      I was looking over some of my charts of albums recently and I thought this might be a cool idea.

      If you don't know what a chart is, basically you can go here and put together a chart of up to 100 of your favorite albums to show people a quick look at your taste or whatever. I've seen people use this as favorite albums, albums that mean a lot to them but aren't necessarily their favorite, people putting custom pictures and making a list of their favorite artists, people making a chart of albums with a "theme" (food on the cover, albums about break-ups, albums of certain genres, etc.), the possibility is whatever you feel like putting together a bunch of albums/artists/anything else you can think of together to show to other people interested in them. I thought it might be a cool idea to see what other ~music users enjoy listening to.

      You can also use this to show your rateyourmusic account if you have one, your last.fm, your sputnikmusic, anything pertaining to music that would be cool to look at.

      5 votes
    34. Residents of the Bay Area, CA, how do we address the homeless camps littering the streets of Oakland and surrounding towns?

      Before we get started, PLEASE, no political agenda harping, shit posting, trolling, etc. This is something that is on a sharp increase right now in the Bay Area and I'm genuinely wanting to hear...

      Before we get started, PLEASE, no political agenda harping, shit posting, trolling, etc. This is something that is on a sharp increase right now in the Bay Area and I'm genuinely wanting to hear other people's thoughts and opinions on this.

      The homeless camps have officially reached an out of control level. There is no denying this. Trash and used hypodermic needles litter the streets. Drug use and sales is seen on street corners near the camps. I personally have seen residents of the camps painting graffiti in broad day light. There are unsafe cooking set ups causing explosions and fires putting residents at risk and leaving charred remains for weeks at a time. Cite: https://evilleeye.com/news-commentary/public-safety/explosion-home-depot-homeless-encampment-rattles-emeryville-west-oakland-neighbors/

      What is going on here? How come cities are not cleaning this stuff up? I realize that if the city did conduct some massive eviction/clean up, the residents would just move somewhere else. But what about the trash? Can't that be cleaned up? In many places, I've seen it up to the ankles of people walking around in the camps.

      I truly don't know what the non-camp residents are suppose to do? Do we just turn a blind eye and let the trash pile up? Or do we demand action to keep our streets clean and safe?

      16 votes
    35. OPECs agreement to increase oil production by reducing over-compliance with 2017 deal is a drop in the barrel

      An agreement on Friday June 22nd caused oil prices to increase by the largest one-day jump since OPEC agreed to reduce output at the start of 2017. At the beginning of 2017 OPEC and 10 other...

      An agreement on Friday June 22nd caused oil prices to increase by the largest one-day jump since OPEC agreed to reduce output at the start of 2017. At the beginning of 2017 OPEC and 10 other oil-producing countries agreed to reduce their combined output by 1.8 million barrels a day, roughly 2% of global output. The 2017 deal was a reaction to the massive over-supply that brought prices down significantly since late 2014 when Saudi Arabia led the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to allow market prices to dictate their output. While the 2017 deal called for a reduction of only 1.8 million barrels a day, many countries reduced output even further resulting in 150% compliance of the planned quotas, or nearly 3 million fewer barrels of oil a day. Some members of OPEC had faced unexpected production outages whereas others simply chose to withhold their stockpile but the result was the same: oil prices were rising and global stockpiles were being used up to avoid a dangerous price spike.

      The new agreement, taking effect in early July, aims to reign in the over-compliance of the 2017 deal and add more barrels of oil to the global market by returning to 100% compliance. To go from 150% compliance to 100% compliance, roughly 1 million barrels a day of crude oil would be added to the global market. However, some producers may be unable to increase their output for various reasons resulting in an expected increase of only 600,000 barrels a day. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak claims the $80 a barrel threshold hit in May of 2018 reflects the global inventory of surplus crude oil being reduced to a point where the oil market can rebalance itself. Saudi Arabia's Oil minister Khalid al-Falih promises his country will increase oil sales gradually starting in July. Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh had reservations about any deal because economic sanctions from the US put them in a position whereby the increased output of others may take over Iran’s market share. Oil producing countries have to weigh the risk that big consumers may invest in renewables as well as produce their own oil, when available, if prices rise too quickly.

      Leading up to this decision, the price of oil steadily fell from the $80 tipping point in late May with the expectation that OPEC and affiliated oil-producing countries would flood the
      market similar to the 2014 decision. While supply will increase due to this new deal it is a far cry from the amount many investors had feared - and consumers had hoped for - therefore the price of crude saw a 3% increase due to the news instead of decreasing further. The month-long anticipation of increased supply lowered the price of crude oil but the end-result of the deal caused a market correction as speculation was replaced by the true figure. While the agreed-upon figure is an additional 1 million barrels a day, the expectation is that only 600,000 barrels will be added a day however some countries wish to produce an even greater amount of oil to take advantage of the high prices while they last. Such an over-correction could still happen in the coming weeks leading to a drop in oil prices but investors believe their fears of another 2014 crash is averted.

      Without this boost to supply, OPEC feared prices could spike to surpass $100 a barrel which would drastically reduce global demand and severely cut into the profit of oil-producing
      countries who rely on the revenue from companies exporting oil. Many worried the supply increase would cause American oil prices to drop below $30 a barrel again, which caused
      massive unemployment in the industry and a huge loss of revenue. From 2014 to 2016, as much as $4 billion in American employee wages was lost in the oil industry.

      Countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia have the ability to produce oil at a far lower opportunity cost than most other countries, giving them a comparative advantage in the global oil
      market. During the 2014-2016 period of oil surplus that brought US prices below $30 a barrel, American producers had to develop the technology to continue production despite the nearly 200,000 oil workers who lost their jobs in the shale industry. US producers made good on that pressure and were able to maintain production gains through more efficient extraction and refining methods. The relatively loose regulations on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, provided a much needed advantage to US producers who were able to leverage that technology and avoid Saudi Arabia's attempt in 2014 to shut small firms out of the market.

      Avoiding a spike in oil prices in excess of $100 a barrel is beneficial to producers and consumers as demand would quickly plummet despite the short-term gains by companies such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp as well as countries such as Russia hoping to capitalize on the high prices. Spikes in oil prices turn consumers away from their unhealthy dependence on oil in favor of renewables and alternatives to plastics; invites pressure from big consumers such as the United States who aren’t afraid of imposing reactionary economic sanctions; and benefits countries such as Russia whose major exports are oil. Massive increases in supply have the effect of hurting the governments who rely heavily on high oil prices to make their profit as well as hurting the small oil producers that struggle to produce efficiently when oil prices drop. With oil prices rising by over 40% since early 2017 due to geopolitical risks to supply causing unexpected shortages and the increasing demand matching increased economic growth, the global oil supply needed a moderate boost.

      The United States exported a record high of 3 million barrels a day during the week of the Friday June 22nd deal - producing 10.9 million barrels a day. Progressing from exporting no oil to exporting more oil than all but three OPEC countries pump out of the earth is not solely the result of US efficiency - some analysts say a portion of the record-breaking exports was sourced from US stockpiles. Maintaining this level of oil exporting is not only unsustainable, it is hitting US consumers in the wallet at a time where oil prices are on the risk of surging to a new high for 2018 - perhaps even surpassing the triple digits per barrel. This may be viewed as the United States attempting to force smaller members of OPEC and most non-OPEC producers out of the world market for oil as this export record comes at a time when most countries have finally expended the last dregs of their stockpiles. Countries that can afford to increase output considerably include the United States, Russia, and Saudi Arabia - and the former two appear very eager to commit to flooding the market without a care for the resulting over-corrections of the market which would send the pendulum of oil prices swinging back and forth causing international uncertainty especially for countries heavily dependent on the oil industry.


      Sources

      https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/27/us-oil-exports-boom-to-record-level-surpassing-most-opec-nations.html

      https://www.wsj.com/articles/opec-meeting-starts-amid-detente-between-saudi-iran-1529661983?mod=hp_lead_pos3

      https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2016/12/03/opec-reaches-a-deal-to-cutproduction

      https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2016/12/05/heres-what-oil-did-the-last-timeopec-cut-production/#6007220b38b3

      https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2016/12/03/opec-reaches-a-deal-to-cutproduction

      https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/business/worldbusiness/18opec.html

      https://www.iea.org/oilmarketreport/omrpublic/

      https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CO1:COM

      http://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/historical-prices/oilprice/usd/1.1.2013_30.12.2017?type=wti

      4 votes
    36. Daily Tildes discussion - allowing users to post anonymously?

      It's a long weekend in Canada and I'm going to be quite busy, so this is going to be the last daily discussion until Monday. Because of that, I figured I'd pick one of the more interesting topics....

      It's a long weekend in Canada and I'm going to be quite busy, so this is going to be the last daily discussion until Monday. Because of that, I figured I'd pick one of the more interesting topics. This isn't necessarily something that will be implemented particularly soon, but it should be good to discuss anyway:

      Should we support the ability for users to make some posts anonymously?

      General notes/thoughts:

      • If the site itself doesn't support it, people will just create throwaway accounts and effectively post anonymously anyway. This is worse in some ways (causes a lot of abandoned accounts and wasted usernames) and especially doesn't work well while the site is invite-only, since people have to use one of their invites to create a throwaway.
      • The user making the posts would still be tracked internally, so anonymous posting wouldn't be free of potential consequences. This association would probably be removed after 30 days, like most other private/sensitive data.
      • There would be some sort of anonymous identifier that would change on a per-thread basis, so that multiple posts from the same anonymous user can be recognized.
      • Once we start working towards a trust/reputation system, having the anonymous posts be linked to the user's real account would probably have a number of benefits.

      Let me know what you think about the idea in general, and what concerns you think we'll need to be careful about if we decide to implement it.

      One other, unrelated thing as well: it's been a while since we gave out invite codes, so I've topped everyone up to 5 invite codes. You can get to them here (linked in your userpage sidebar): https://tildes.net/invite

      97 votes
    37. Compassion without respect: from distress to the refrigerator

      Partially inspired by the Abduction as Romance topic. Both the Damsel in distress and Women in refrigerators tropes exists heavily in both written and screen media, especially in the comic book...

      Partially inspired by the Abduction as Romance topic.

      Both the Damsel in distress and Women in refrigerators tropes exists heavily in both written and screen media, especially in the comic book world, where women are reduced to easy plot devices to tell a man's story.

      Women are "important" in that they matter to a man, usually the hero. They are mothers, daughters, girlfriends, but nothing more. They are defined purely by their relationships to the hero. If they are depowered, maimed or murdered, the tragedy is in the hero's loss, not hers.

      People, men and women, do get hurt and die in fiction and in reality, and I'm definitely not saying this cannot be done on the page. A guy grieving his girlfriend's death doesn't automatically make her a "refrigerator girl".

      For example, Gwen Stacy, who may or may not have been accidentally killed by Spiderman in his attempt to save her. Her death, and Peter's reaction afterwards has always been very organic and real to me. Her death didn't feel frivolous, and readers felt the loss as much as Peter.

      As for an example of a damsel/refrigerator girl, (there are too many to choose from), let's go with Mr. Freeze's wife, Nora, who is literally in a fridge. I'm pretty sure there's no even passing Batman reader who doesn't know Nora. But do we honestly know anything about her?

      Thoughts? Any common damsel/refrigerator girl that you think actually shouldn't be classified as such?

      5 votes
    38. What are some of your favourite anime?

      Just wanted to start talking about anime in general see what people like, share some of our favourite titles and such. I propose we link to MAL or AniList since Tildes doesn't necessarily have a...

      Just wanted to start talking about anime in general see what people like, share some of our favourite titles and such. I propose we link to MAL or AniList since Tildes doesn't necessarily have a bot that would do that automatically. I'll start!


      • Shaman King was probably one of the first anime I watched alongside Pokemon back before I knew what anime was. It's a very nostalgic show for me and the english opening still gives me shivers.
      • Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood is something I've gotten to appreciate much more since I watched it later down the line when rediscovering anime for myself and starting to really get into it. It's one of the highest rated shows on MAL and it definitely deserves every bit of praise it gets.
      • Spirited Away and The Wind Rises. If we are talking movies, these two would probably be my picks. The former brings forward very nostalgic memories and the latter I happened to see in the theaters and I loved every second of it. I feel like most of Miyazaki's works are going to end up on a lot of people's favourites lists.

      I'd love to discuss each one deeper if people are into it but I want everyone to feel free and share as much as they'd like, including personal stories and anecdotes.

      edit: Amazed to see so many people sharing their favourite shows in detail, and also glad that there are so many people on tildes who share one of my favourite pastimes. :)

      23 votes