I know my question isn't worded great! If anyone has a better edit after reading all of this, let me know!

I have a half-formed idea in my head and I want to brainstorm a bit.

Here's the idea: games as a whole have a ton of different aspects/lenses through which we can enjoy and appreciate them, and I want to know what they all are. Here are some examples to show what I mean:

I feel like there are dozens of these we could come up with if we get really specific. The diversity of gaming experiences and genres really lends itself to a broad swath of these aspects. After all, the appreciation someone gets from playing something like Katamari Damacy is very different from that which someone gets from, say, ARMA 2.

I think later it might be interesting to try to apply some sort of analysis or taxonomy to this, but right now I just want to brainstorm. What are all of the different reasons we can like games? Be as specific as you can, try to cover lots of different titles and genres so that all of gaming is represented, and feel free to critique or edit my examples as well (e.g. I think it might be worth breaking up "Narrative" into "Plot" and "Characters", for example).

Aggregated List So Far

I'll keep updating this as we go. For entries that didn't follow the table format (which I didn't intend to be prescriptive but it looks like it caught on!), I've tried to incorporate them as best as I can, but if you feel I've misrepresented something let me know! Again, I'm mostly just interested in brainstorming at the moment, and then I think we can have a secondary thread later for analysis/synthesis.

Some of my favorites are:

git add -p *

This will go through your unstaged changes in chunks and allow you to stage each chunk individually in an interactive shell.

git checkout -p *

Similar to the above, this will go through your unstaged changes and allow you to undo each chunk. I almost never use Ctrl+Z anymore and go straight for this. Want to remove all of those print-debugging statements? Use this command to pluck them out one-by-one.

git commit -a --amend --no-edit && git push --force-with-lease

I alias this one to whoops in my bash profile. It will add all unstaged changes, add them to your last commit and then (safely) force-push the local branch to the tracked remote branch. This is especially useful when working with CI and you need to make constant configuration changes to get it to work. Yes, you could squash those commits afterwards as an alternative. But this is easier.

git rebase -i HEAD~5

(Change 5 to the number of previous commits you want to see)

Interactive rebases are a core part of my git flow when working on feature branches. If a co-worker gives me feedback on a code review that requires a change to a previous commit I'll go back and edit that commit using this command. You can remove individual commits, squash commits, reorder commits, and so much more.

Hey folks, I haven't posted in a hell of a long time and thought why not get this going again.

So when I last posted I think my Paladin had just been basically killed off and I wrote up a druid. Well this one has been amazingly fun to role play, being that he has lived most of his life in solitude he has no social skills and tends to do things that can be a little off at times. Our merry band of misfits had cleared a small towns problem warerats who turned out to be a family of Gnomes who lived there, while trying to console the final member of the family Rolen (my druid) felt the best way to give emotional support would be to congratulate the young Gnome on becoming the head of the family. This actually broke the whole table for about a minute, the DM sat in silence for a moment, laughed, tried to role play the distraught girl but failed epically.

We have also got another campaign going with a few of the same guys as the bigger campaign, this one is mostly homebrew. The first character I made I really wasn't happy with so spoke to the DM and we worked out how to kill her off and introduce the new character I made, completely homebrew this one and it's again been far more fun. He is a Dwaf Shaman whose ancestors speak to him constantly, sometimes good and sometimes not so much.

So what has been happening in your RPGs? anything big, fun or just want to chat about? painted anything cool? got new dice? anything at all.

Prompted by a recent tildes post about vice, and also this from the bbc, and a conversation with a colleague who just went to a strip club, I keep thinking about this issue.

I have a stake in this, despite being cis male: I have mother, sisters, wife, and most importantly young daughter. And I am a feminist, on simple moral grounds.

My baseline position is that whether a woman chooses to engage in sex work is, and should be legally and socially supported as, entirely her own choice.

The only question I have any business answering, or participating in finding an answer, is whether my patronage of sex work is inherently exploitive, to either the woman whom I am patronizing* or to other women individually or to womanhood and general issues of gender.

And I just can’t come up with a good answer. I do look at porn, but increasingly, as with meat, the potential ethical problems of it are reducing the enjoyment. I have tried to ease my conscience by limiting myself to cartoons and stories, but those wouldn’t stop the harm that is caused by the mere existence of porn, if any exists.

As a purely practical matter, the existence of the industry leads to opportunities for exploitation of individuals, and the advancement of a culture of gender exploitation. But as the war on drugs has so ably demonstrated, any attempt at prohibition only increases the level of exploitation, while smart regulation decreases it. Regardless, though, there’s plenty of exploitation to go around the world, I heard there’s thing called #metoo.

I come from a sex-suppressing, fundamentalist “Christian” background. The quotes are there to indicate that I think much of the practices were anything but christ-like. The principles there swirl through the culture around me in varying degrees of intensity, and they inform and direct my choices (sometimes against my will and my better hopes and ideals). I have to be open to the notion that any objection I have to sex work, or my participation, is entirely a cultural construct. And while I don’t think it is true, I cannot dismiss the notion that morals themselves may have no possible objective existence, having relevance and utility (if at all) only in very time and space limited scopes.

It is what I believe the sociologists call a “wicked” problem. It involves really complicated normative stances, and there’s no data analysis that can provide any guidance. For myself, I expect my participation to continue to wane as I mature. I only hope that whatever I do only further enables and empowers the women in my life and everywhere.

• I almost stopped myself from using this word when I realized potential implications, but ultimately left it in because it (and the fact it was my natural inclination to select it) really highlights the issue for me and hopefully others

Bonus hypothetical: If porn is somehow wrong and harmful, even drawings and writings, are sex fantasies also wrong?

This question really came to mind to me about last week when I was hanging out with some friends. I always noticed it as a part of my personality but I never really thought about it as in depth as I have recently. That night I immediately got concerned to the point of it ruining my evening about the following things:

• We're running out of helium in the world
• Where is my birth certificate
• The old VHS tapes of my childhood and important moments in my family are slowly degrading but I can't digitise them until I go home to my parents and that's not for at least half a year, will they hold up that long?
• There's too much space junk
• I used so much plastic just cooking dinner this one evening for my friends, imagine how much gets bought and consumed worldwide
• Some languages are going to die out and there's nothing I can do about it
• Are the rhinos doing ok?
• What's my blood type and am I allergic to anything?

Does anyone else suffer from this idiosyncracy? If so, what are some things that concern you or what are some other things that I can be concerned about?

EDIT: This turned dark, I thought I was just sharing some lighthearted fun and now I have schizophrenia, OCD and should talk to a therapist... jeez louise

Per @mrbig:

What is a logline?: a brief summary (25 to 40 words) of a story for film, television or book that states the central conflict and an emotional "hook", with the purpose of stimulating interest (Wikipedia).

A logline is evaluated not exactly for what a story is (since it does not contain a complete story), but for what it can be. Suggestions usually seek to maximize the dramatic potential of the idea.

Create a Logline, and you can chose to reply to others with your interpretation of how their stories would go.

I'll preface this by saying this post is birthed out of a small argument I'm having on Reddit, but the topic seems like a worthwhile one. (And I'm not getting much other than downvotes for a counterargument over there!)

The initial question is whether or not the death of someone who is very old (95 years or more) should be considered tragic. Some things to consider:

1. The overall health and condition of the person.

• Are they in constant state of suffering?

2. The wishes of the person.

• Do they actively wish to be dead? This might not even be out of suffering. Some people, as they get to be quite old, are just bored of their lives or want this stage to be over. Anecdotally, my great-grandmother was this way from the ages of 90 and onward. (She quite famously would greet cashiers with "I want to die.")

3. Are they still active?

• Do they still find meaning in what they are doing? For example, David Attenborough is 93 years old and is still a big presence on the world stage. Despite his great age, if he were to die, his work would still be ‘cut short.’

4. The circumstances by which they die.

• Was it sudden, or did it take a long time? Was it painful? Was it violent?

This list is not exhaustive. I welcome suggestions for what should be added to it.

There is also how we define tragedy. In general terms, it typically just alludes to an event that causes great suffering and distress. I think this is the definition that we are more concerned with. Alternatively, there is the theatrical definition of tragedy, which is more tied to the leading character suffering some major downfall at the end of the narrative. While we could construe the death of someone in real life this way, it seems to be a bit of a stretch as most of us do not live out our lives in three-act structures with a clear climax and finale. (I’m going to rule out this definition now, if not just for the sake of argument.)

Balancing all of these thoughts, I think the crux of where disagreement lies is in how we feel about death for the deceased versus our own selfish desires. Bringing this back to my anecdote, about twenty years ago, my great-grandmother passed at the age of 94. She spent at least the last 5 years of her life pleading to God to finally take her. Her health was fine. She lived in her house, alone, fully capable of maintaining it (and herself). In fact, in the year prior to her death, she was so physically active that she painted all 200 feet of her white picket fence! By all means, she was not physically suffering. She just simply wanted to go.

Then she did. I think the group consensus was something akin to, “Well, I guess she finally got what she wanted. I’m going to miss her.” It was a feeling of simultaneously being happy for her and grief for ourselves.

To which, does this make for a tragedy?

Some might call it splitting hairs, but what I am arguing is that the death itself was not tragic. What is tragic is our loss of the ability to interact with that person and the feelings of grief that follow. I cannot help but feel these are ultimately separate things that we have such a difficult time reconciling. Part of life is death, and as long as we revere life, we must also revere the last part of it. If we did this better, we might have an easier time accepting things like medical-assistance-in-dying. It is for this reason that I say, death, by default, does not necessitate tragedy.

However while death is not necessarily tragic, I do think there are a multitude of conditions that would make death sufficiently tragic. Looking back at my list above, the death of a young healthy person would be considered tragic. Suppose someone was violently beheaded; this could be considered tragic. Even suppose that the 93-year-old David Attenborough passed away, I would think his death to be tragic as he wanted to offer more to the world.

Anyway, I think I’ve rambled enough. What are your thoughts?

• Trailer topic
• Wikipedia

I watched it last week. Fantastic movie. I don't watch many war movies (in fact this is one of my first ones), but I really, really liked it. I didn't even notice the two hours go by.

The one-shot effect is really well done, and I enjoyed trying to spot the transitions.

It's not an exceptional movie or anything like that, but it's one of the rare times I just went into the theater and came out exceedingly satisfied.

Spouse and I were on a weekend drive-and-walkaround today, and discussing ways to save money on house renovations. We've kept running into things like, "yeah, two arthritic 50-somethings are really going to DIY sheetrocking a ceiling...nope."

I'm guessing nearly all Tilders have gone through times when they didn't have much, if any, disposable income, or had to squeeze budgets to save for big expenses.

So what do you enjoy doing for entertainment that costs little or nothing beyond what you'd ordinarily spend for basic living expenses?

I know we used to do things like gathering people for potluck, cheap jug wine, and chatter, but we're still building a circle of friends and acquaintances, and don't have space for entertaining yet! Walks in the woods, reading, volunteering, and watching movies, are pretty much givens, but happy to hear your thoughts.

Today I went to my favorite bakery/cafeteria/restaurant/grocery store (yeah it's one place, but not large enough to be considered a supermarket - IDK the correct terminology in English but you get the gist). It's a nice place if a little pricey. About a month ago, they installed a gate. Next to the gate, there's a huge metal thing with a single red button. When you press the button, it tosses an electronic ticket (that stores every purchase you make in the system) and the gate lets you go through. These are not synchronous, sometimes the gate is unlocked a lot sooner than the ticket is tossed. So today, after I got into the store, an employee had to run towards me to give me my electronic ticket. Okay.

I noticed that, despite the machine having only one very big button, lots of people still need to be instructed by the employee in order to enter, and he's constantly manually handing out the tickets. There is also a gate to leave that slows things down.

In this last month, I went a lot less to this place. That's because, whenever passing by, I used to enter just to check things up, see if there was something new or appetizing. You know, impulse buys. The need to check myself in and out (even when I don't purchase anything) made me quit that habit. I think other people are the same. Besides, what's the good of automation if it requires a human being to make it work correctly? AFAIK, the analog system worked. And we're not in a dangerous part of town where one needs to worry about people putting products in their pockets.

That's why I say: sometimes, there is such a thing as too much technology.

In the recent topic about NBC's new streaming service the claim was made that:

This is straight-up worse for the consumer than it was before.

I responded to that comment, but wanted to expand on it a lot more. So here goes.

If you've never read about it, you might not know what TV was like before the internet, so I want to give a brief history of television in the US as I understand and remember it. I was born in the early 1970s, so that's where I'm coming from.

~1940-~1960 - Televisions are large heavy devices full of vacuum tubes. In order to watch something on your TV you also need a large metal antenna on the roof of your house. There are 3 television stations - ABC, NBC, and CBS and they all broadcast in standard definition. You can clearly pick up 1 or 2 of them, but the 3rd is always kind of staticky because their broadcast tower is just over that hill in the distance, so the signal is weak. In order to watch a show you have to be in front of your television when the show is on. All shows are in black and white. Except the characters. They're all white. And straight. And middle class. And Christian. The shows are "free" because sponsors buy advertising time at the beginning or ending of the show.

~1960-1970 - Televisions are still huge boxes that weigh a ton and are full of vacuum tubes. You still need a large antenna on your roof to get the shows, and it doesn't work very well when it's raining. There are now 2 or 3 local stations that have a variety of programming throughout the day and often show re-runs of older shows you used to watch. You still need to be in front of your television when the show is on in order to see it. Some shows are now in color! Except the characters. They're all white. And straight. And middle class. And mostly Christian, though there is an occasional Jew, usually for laughs. Oh, and the big networks use satellites to broadcast their programs to local affiliates across the country. (This will be relevant in the 1980s.) The shows continue to be paid for with your attention; ads now interrupt the show for a few short minutes between the first and second or second and third acts.

~1970-1980 - You can now buy a small television that uses transistors instead of huge vacuum tubes that always burn out. It has "rabbit ear" antennas that don't require installation on your roof. There are now 5-7 local stations including a public broadcasting station that mainly shows a strange woman doing something called "yoga". For a very high monthly price you can get cable which gives you pristine picture quality of all the channels in your area plus 1 channel that shows movies. You need to have an installer come to your house to set it up, and they can't tell you when they'll be there, but they'll come eventually. All shows are in color (except for reruns of shows from the 1950s). Even the characters are starting to show some color! (But not too much.) There are a handful of LGBT characters, usually played for laughs or shown as someone others consider sick. Advertisements now occur roughly every 5 minutes.

~1980-1990 - Televisions are now all electronic (but still has the huge cathode ray tube displaying the picture). Most don't even need a separate antenna. It doesn't matter anyway because cable is cheap enough that most middle-class households can afford it. (You still have to wait for an installer to come.) There are something like 30 channels! It's insane! You can get multiple cable channels that show recent (only 1-2 years old) hit movies. And you can video tape any show you want to see so you don't have to be in front of the TV when it's on. (Assuming you can figure out how to set the clock on your VCR, and the power doesn't blink off for even a second during the show, and the show isn't pre-empted by any news or sports, and the tape doesn't get shredded or self-destruct.) You can fast-forward through ads, and your TV may have a mute button to turn the sound off during ads if you're watching live. If you're really a TV nut you can buy a satellite antenna. It's a 6-foot diameter round metal dish you stick in your back yard. You can directly receive the feeds from the big networks. This allows you to occasionally see Tom Brokaw eating a sandwich during what would normally be a commercial break. If you can't afford a satellite dish, you get to see ads every 5 minutes, plus product placements during the shows. Characters seem to have gotten whiter, straighter, and Christianer than they were in the 1970s. Ads remain largely as intrusive as in the 1970s, there are just more of them now.

~1990-2000 - TVs remain largely unchanged from the 80s. Everyone has a VCR. Everyone now has cable. (Waiting to get it installed now takes longer than ever, and the cable companies are notorious for terrible customer service.) Cable has 100 channels. Most of it is complete dreck and uninteresting to you. Since these channels have to fill airtime 24/7, much of it ends up being "infomercials." However, because there are so many channels most of the non-white, non-Christian characters move to niche channels. (There still aren't very many LGBT characters.) Satellite dishes shrink to about 1 foot across and several companies launch satellites just to provide consumers with content. Several cable channels spring up to show re-runs with small pieces missing, filled in with ads. The ads are much louder than they used to be.

~2000-2010 - VCRs start getting replaced with digital video recorders that can set their own clocks and schedule shows by name rather than date and time. They can save a number of shows without changing tapes. Some have automatic ad-skipping technology. DVDs replace VHS tapes. Televisions start moving to high definition LCD panels. Installing cable takes longer than ever, but cable carries hundreds of channels including channels devoted only to a single sport like golf or tennis. You can get bundles that include different features like lots of movie channels, adult content, artistic content, sports packages, etc. There are a variety of channels with shows devoted to different groups of people including women, minorities, and LGBT populations. It becomes possible to download an episode of a television show or a movie to your computer or iPod over the internet in only 20 minutes. You can watch on the way to work or on an airplane!

~2010-now - Standard definition TVs are obsoleted. All TVs are now High Definition and some are even 4k Ultra High Definition with High Dynamic Range color. The satellite companies are hemorrhaging customers. People are "cutting the cord" and getting rid of cable TV, though most still get their internet through the local cable provider. There's often only a single choice of provider.

Here's what streaming TV over the internet involves:
You can now be almost anywhere and instantly watch almost any episode of any television show you want with pristine quality. You don't need to install any additional hardware and the device you watch it on fits in your pocket. You can literally go to a cell phone store, buy a phone, and start watching television on your new phone minutes later. And you can put that on your huge high resolution TV, too.

There are hundreds of streaming services, but you don't even need to subscribe to a service to find content. People are uploading it constantly. You can watch old episodes of thousands of shows as well as new original content for around what you used to pay for cable TV. You can watch educational stuff, or just short fun videos. You can find videos on every topic from every type of person about every type of person for better or worse.

And if you want to pay for video there are no ads. Nothing to mute, nothing to fast-forward through, nothing to annoy you. (There are still product placements, though they're usually subtle and make sense within the content.) If you watch part of a show on your phone on the train, when you get home, you can pick up where you left off on your television instantly. The weather doesn't affect the picture quality. Shows are never preempted because some politician is making a speech or a sporting event or awards show went longer than expected. There's always something on, even if it's a holiday or summer or there some big event you don't care about going on.

There is one down side: sometimes something you want to watch is on a service you have and then later it goes away, or it's not on a service you have. Usually you can subscribe to a service for 1 or 2 months, watch what you want and unsubscribe.

I like reading about the development process of technology products (software and otherwise), even when I don't understand the tech bits.

Maybe due to their open nature, it is not hard to find detailed articles, mailing list answers, and interviews that go deep about FOSS. But I also have an interest in massively successful/unsuccessful products with large, rich and sometimes convoluted creation process. So things link Linux, Windows (all versions), Mac OS, the iPhone, iOS, Android, etc.

My interest is not necessarily in biographies or accounts that deify so-called technology geniuses, but rather in narratives that don't shy from the nitty-gritty details of the technical/creative processes while also addressing the human/personal side of things.

It also doesn't need to be educational at all, I just realized these stories are enjoyable reads.

Any suggestions? ;)

I'll start (for reference, I am a 14 year old Brazilian in a presumably poor house , also in retrospect this reminds me of what they tell you to do at the beginning of most English courses, which makes me feel like a cringy kid):

• Wake up (6:15, praised be alarm clocks)

• Put on the school uniform (takes 5-10 minutes)

• Have breakfast (takes 10 minutes)

• Brush my teeth (takes less than 5 minutes)

• Walk to school (6:45)

• Reach school (less than 100 meters from my home thankfully) and enter a classroom (7:00 plus a few minutes for teachers to set stuff up)

• stay in school until 12:17 (every time the subject changes, we pack our stuff and go to the classroom the teacher of the subject is in. There is also a break between 9:30 and 10:20.)

• Leave school and go home

• Get home by 12:45

• Have lunch, usually rice and beans with either meat or chicken meat in some flattened form I can't describe, usually at 1-1:30 PM.

Do... whatever on the phone (as of recently be here or in discord, along with reddit and YouTube for longer unless it runs out of battery) Edit: see here for details.

• Have dinner (usually at 8:30-9:00, same food as lunch)

• Pack the books for the subjects they teach tomorrow

• Go to sleep at 10.

During vacation/weekends I can wake up from 5-10 AM depending on how well I slept the previous night. The rest is the same, except for Saturdays my parents go and buy some esfihas to break the monotony of lunch and dinner.

She is a mixed breed (more pinscher) and is perhaps 16 or 17 years old.

She simply doesn't eat anymore. She went to the vet when this started and they found nothing. Gave her some appetite injection, she would eat for two days and stop. Went again and same thing.

I changed vets and he did blood work and everything was fine. He examined her throat with his hands because he didn't want to anesthetize a senior dog for a scan. He discovered a throat and ear infection. Treated and she started eating again, but only for a few weeks. She never gained her weight back.

Now she is only losing weight and not eating, it's been five days since she last eat something.

She sleeps almost all the time and is so thin and her back is so curved that when she drops her head to drink water her rear legs go up and she falls. We had to put the food and water up so she doesn't have any accidents.

She is so frail it's breaking my heart. I'm so afraid.

Update in the comments below, but I'm going to put it here too

Updating here: it happened today.

She got a little better and we didn't had the courage to do it when I made this thread. She was eating better.

But now she started having difficulties lying down and standing up. She would fall, couldn't lie down by herself. I had to help her.

This night her bed was a little wet and I figured she might have pissed while lying down.

Talked to the vet and she is gone forever.

But I didn't had the courage to watch and be with her during the procedure. I am dying inside because of this. I loved her so much, she was with us for almost 18 years...

I will never see her again.

Thanks for everything Meg and sorry for letting you down.

Hi! I'm Micycle_the_Bichael! I'm a pretty passionate local environmental activist. Short summary: I think climate change is bad, but even if climate change wasn't happening the way we interact with nature is still gross and leaves a lot to be desired (ex: over fishing, whaling, landfills). While there definitely needs to be governmental action on corporations on climate change, there are still changes that can be made in your daily life to help make the world a better place! Enter the year of the planet. This is a community group for making one small change a month to help the environment. Some may be things you're already doing, some may be new. For example: the January goal is to start using a reusable coffee cup when ordering coffee at a cafe since most paper coffee cups are lined with polyethylene and thus not recyclable. The biggest difference for me between this and many other (very great and valid) projects like it is that it heavily emphasizes building a sense of community.

The group who organized this is The Good Empire, who describe themselves as:

"Year of the Planet is an initiative of Good Empire. We’re makers of startups and projects for good.
Inspired by and aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, we bring ideas to life that are good for the world. We help change the things that need to change.
And most importantly, we’re a tribe. A global community of good people, united in purpose, to help create a better and more sustainable future for all.
Good Empire is not a registered charity, but we partner with registered charities in everything we do.
We will take no management fees from Year of the Planet, nor will any of the funds raised come through us. All donations will go directly to our charity partners."

Some of those partners being Wildlife Emergecy Fund and the seabin project which is a project close to my heart along with the ocean cleanup project

This post has been what feels like a really long rant on a couple of groups and causes that I'm very passionate about. I'll probably DM one of the other Tildes members who does scheduled posts and see about making a bi-weekly environmentalism thread to discuss what people are doing to make a positive change not only in the local environment, but in their community (a lot of good environmental initiatives also make your neighborhood/local community nicer and happier places :) ), struggles people are having, questions, products they have found, etc. and we'll see if it sticks or if it is just me shouting into the void.

What drives you to create or do something new? Even seemingly straightforward motivations can have a pretty complex interaction of history and emotion behind the scenes.
What are the rates at which your motivation waxes and wanes? Does it come and go in a matter of days, weeks, or months? Or does it stay fairly consistent?
What steps would you take with the factors in an effort to increase your motivation?

This question popped up between my friends and I when we were discussing the possibilities of lab grown meat. When discussing lab grown meat, one of the arguments for it is that it is far more ethical to consume as it didn't originate from a living, conscious being. But if you replace the meat being grown in a lab to human meat rather than fish or beef, is it still less ethical? Or is it something that will be seen as incredibly taboo to the point where it should be outlawed?

I would be curious to read your thoughts and points of view on this!

For me, it's going to be a hard no that it shouldn't it be done. But to be honest, I feel like my feelings regarding it come from an emotional perspective rather than a logical one.

Edit: Let's throw in lab grown human organs as well. Say these are the organs that aren't suitable for transplant, but are perfectly edible.

Her eyes are fixed on the cooker.

— Look.

Points at the egg.

— What?

— Can’t you see?

— Has it gone bad?

She takes a deep breath.

— I noticed the way you broke the shell, but I needed to confirm. Can you see how the yolk is soft yet whole, with a small cut in the lower portion slowly leaking a yellow thread at a regular pace?

— Yes...

— Don’t you get it?

— No.

— When the yolk leaks like that, it can only mean two things.

She hesitates.

— You’re either going to murder me...

— What you’re talking about?

— Or you’ll get a Ph.D. in Physics in 2035.

— You’re kidding, right?

— Nope.

— You saw all that? On a fucking egg?

— I knew you wouldn’t understand...

— You were right.

A second goes by. He cleans his throat, kinda embarrassed.

— Honey?

— Yeah, babe.

— I’m terrible at physics.

He holds a knife with a confused expression on his face.

Hello everyone, it's 00:16 my time and I'm finally fucking done making all the data pretty for you after about 4 hours of coding to parse all those juicy CSV files cause guess what, the excel files that JotForms gave me WHERE FUCKING GḀ͒ͬ̓ͦͅRͤ͊̔́B̴̼̫̟͍̅̆A̩̽ͮ̂̏͡G̸̭̜̑͑̃Ȇ͈͙͈̠̖̋́̌ͭ͂ͧ^{help me}

Anyway :) Let's give y'all a brief rundown of the current Tilde demographics, and some highlights, CAUSE NOW I HAVE ALL YOUR DATA AND THUS INFINITE POWER TO MAKE JOKES^{did I mention I've been doing for half the day and I'm really hungry? AND TIRED?} Honestly you owe me this moment of insanity considering I'M RUNNING ON GREEN LEAF JUICE AND HOW MUCH DATA I WADED THROUGH AHHHH-.

Also, most of these will be pictures because honestly I can't be asked to not pretty paste these figures into markdown tables or I'll legitimate go insane. Anyway, this post has plenty of sass, don't take this shit too seriously please, gracias.

The 2019 Census

Anyway.

This year we got 249 responses in total, which really annoys me cause 250 is way prettier to look at at. However, one was completely empty and the other two are... Fishy. More on that later.

Personal details

Age

When it comes to age, Tildes is heavily skewed towards people in their 20s to 30s, 45% of the responses came from people between 20 and 30. Overall, late 20s to and early 30s dominate the demographics. (before anyone screams at me about the proper use of graphs, don't worry I also took Statistics at uni, but the histogram in Excel refused to work and honestly go make your own census) There is also some statistical noise, which I'm not sure how it happened. Most likely someone typed too quickly.

Our youngest user is 11! And either very intelligent, cause they also speak 9 languages, or a fraud. If you're not a fraud, I apologize and wish you luck on your future path in life, which will surely be extremely successful, if you really speak that many languages at such an age.^{Hint, this was one of the fishy responses}

Our oldest user is 70! I really don't know what to say, cause that's a pretty high number for an internet user. How was uhh... The cold war?^{Holy fuck I should stop I need to eat}

Geographical... Stuff

Overall, the Tildes demographic hasn't changed much. US and Canada still lead by quite a lot, but we have acquired quite the little diverse userbase.

All I can do is salute my fellow other Austrian user. Can you say Oachkatzalschwoaf though? THAT'S THE SIGN OF A REAL AUSTRIAN.^{NONE OF THIS STARTING WORLD WARS SHIT}

Language

Predictably, a large number of people does not speak a second language besides English, however, due to geographical diversity, a large number of languages is represented, most of them from Europe, which is Tildes' second largest userbase.

Gender & Sexuality

Tildes is heavily male-dominated, probably due to its IT-focused population and the fact that most of us came from Reddit.

Of the 248 responses, 17 people hit marked that they were trans, pretty much all of them MTF (which is apparently the majority of trans people, Wikipedia tells me.) 3 preferred not to say and everyone else is cis.

Now, let's get to the sexy stuff. And by that I mean the point where the numbers rub together in fantastic ways.

The majority of Tildes is really fucking straight, though we have some fun sexualities represented, my personal favourite Still figuring that out. You do you mate, you'll get there eventually. Also, whoever wrote down O-Sexual also wrote X-Treme Wiccan as their religion, and at this point in I'm too afraid to google what any of that is. Clearly, we need more straight people, after all, we're in the 20s.^{Before anyone yells at me, THIS WAS A FUCKING JOKE} For now I've defined that person as Fish numero dos.

Religion

So, here's a doozy. To that one person (probably part of the 9% of <20 year olds), WHO DECIDED TO WRITE THE WONDERFUL ANSWER atheism and angosticism are not religions, can you PLEASE read the question properly next time. FUCK.^{Honestly that is such a 14 y/o thing to write, by the Ǵ͙͔͔̻͖̜́ͅO̶̱̘͡D͓̞͉̲͓̥S̢̲͙̙̟̯̙͓̱͟}

Anyway, religion is probably the thing with the most diverse answers, honestly. There are words in there I have never read in my life before. Like what is Apatheist.1? Is there some sort of ranking? Does it work with natural numbers only? Is there a Apatheist.3,51? It can't be a typo, people take religions way too seriously for that.

Politics

I averaged out the scores of everyone who answered the political questions and got the following answers (remember, these are based on the 8values quiz):

Economy - 7,02
Diplomacy - 6,9
State - 3,8
Society - 7,48

Only economy is really surprising here, though I'd also have expected diplomacy to be a little lower as well. Maybe the leftist skew ia bit of an illusion?

Work, education and really everything else these sections were a terrible idea

When it comes to education, Tildes is pretty university focused. Almost half people replying have a bachelor's, a good bunch are working or have aquired their master's. Also one (maybe soon-to-be) MD and a few PhDs. The Craftsmen and tradeship people barely balance us out, we need some more COMMON FOLK IN HERE.

IT people, rejoice! WE STILL REIGN SUPREME^{Everyone else will remember that} All jokes aside, shoutout to the stay-at-home dad, proud of ya'. And to the disabled person, I hope life goes as well as it can for you. That goes for the longterm-unemployed person as well. Someday, you'll manage mate, someday.

And to the person who said their job is a waste of time in exchange of money... Mate, you need someone to talk? I'm here. We're all here.

Surprise section about technical shit and Tildes

OS usage is as expected, due to Tildes' heavy skew into IT and the fact that Apple doesn't nearly dominate as much in other countries as in the US, it's to be expected.

Due to said IT dominance Linux has almost caught up with the leader, Windows. Though my personal favourite is Anything cool that comes into existence, like can we make a Linux fork that is called literally that? You'd be the perfect match.

When it comes to Tildes specifically, y'all need to chill out. Most people who answered the census visit Tildes multiple times a day, like the content here doesn't even move that quickly? WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING? IS THERE SOME SECRET CULT I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT?_{If it's a LSD cult I'm totes in lads.}

As expected, most people who answered the survey have an account, and most likely due to the heavy IT skew most people are visiting from their PC. But I have also seen some people requesting a mobile app in the free form questions, so maybe that would go up if a native app were to be created.

The freeform questions

Well, in all honesty, not much has changed. Most people like the dedicated community, site design, in-depth discussions (though that was sometimes a point on both sides), etc. and dislike the heavy domination of IT topics and US/Europe news & politics. Also, multiple people simply said @Deimos when asked what they like most about Tildes. Get a room, y'all. Though it's well deserved, I think we can all agree on that.

Complete list of positive feedback: https://pastebin.com/KYCYLWP1

Complete list of negative feedback: https://pastebin.com/Eng6jjay

Complete list of ideas for change: https://pastebin.com/eery3mCt

Why am I posting these? Cause in all honesty, freeform feedback like this is hard to analyze and summarize, so I'd rather just post it all so everyone can form their opinion. Also, I'm tired.

Special mentions

Someone was nice enough to add the mention in parantheses that I should add them to the bisexual list instead if no one else marked pansexual. Well lucky you, exactly one other person marked it! You two can go find yourselves a room with lots of sexy pans in it now and have some fun.^{This is how it works, right?} Or just, slide into each other's DMs or something and talk about your love for pans. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I also appreciate the one person who entered their religion in the languages section on accident. That's fact now, you speak Raised Catholic, now spiritual/atheist now, no shh, no talking back, that's your language now.

To that one person that said that Tildes is too serious, this one's for you.

And cheers to Deimos, without whom I couldn't be so silly on this overly serious but fantastic platform.

Anyway, Grzmot out, I need sleep. I'll come back in 8 hours or so to regret the shit I just wrote down at 2 AM. Please don't ban me.

Hive mind: What advice would you give to someone who has to give a presentation to a non-technical person, and it's important that the listener actually understand the details?

How do you go about it? Specific tips appreciated. Pretend it's for a friend you care about.

(This is for an article. Ideally we could refer to you by reference for context and credibility, eg "an IT security pro at a midwest insurance company" or "aerospace engineer" so please give some kind of identification to use).

I'm thinking about getting a new printer. My needs are basically to print out textual documents 2-3 times per month from macOS. I don't need to print photos. I will not buy an inkjet because of the outrageous price of the ink. I would like to have fax support (my spouse sees a lot of doctors and they still use fax machines a lot, and we're not comfortable sending personal medical info via a fax service on the web), and it would be nice if we could also scan documents. So I'm thinking a multi-function device.

We currently have a Brother 7840W MFC with print, fax, copy, and scan. It's over 10 years old (maybe 15?) and I dislike it. It's been slowly losing functionality over the past 5+ years. The WiFi went out, but I was able to connect it via wired ethernet to a computer and share it from there. The drivers insist that there's a paper jam, but there isn't and it prints just fine (but sounds like some of the internal mechanical components are going to die any day now.) The UI of the printer is awful. I recall having to use the phone pad to enter my WiFi password, and it was like texting on a Motorola StarTAC. (Like if you want the letter "C" press the number "2" three times, etc.) The drivers and related software don't work like normal macOS software. (Disclosure: I also once wrote a scanner driver for Brother and it was horrible, but they shipped it, so I'm not real comfortable putting their software on my computer. But that was 25 years ago, so maybe they're better now?)

I've heard horrible things about the drivers and software of most other major printer makers - HP, Epson, Lexmark, etc. I'm guessing what I'm looking for doesn't exist, but I just want a multi-function device in as small a package as is reasonable, and with a UI on the device and software that doesn't suck and that won't die on me in < 5 years. Does such a thing exist?

Asked in the spirit of the new decade.

I am 14, so mostly growing up and realizing that the world is probably going to enter a recession when I reach adulthood which will suck for reaching financial independence.

Going through puberty, even if it's just the beginning of it and seeing one of my cats die from kidney failure and hearing that my grandma died from cancer, which is very sad :(

Some days ago I came back home to visit my parents during these holidays.

Yesterday evening, while we were watching a movie, nature called and I had to go to the bathroom. Because I'm a lazy bozo and it is closer to the living room, I did what no man should ever do - I used my parents' bathroom.

Stumbling in the dark in this unfamiliar place I had no right being in, I clumsily bumped on the towel rack (an old 80s coat hanger looking thing) and to my horror, managed to snap one of its plastic arms off.

Because it's a relic of its time, and perhaps because the bathroom is a sacred personal space which should never be altered if not for strictly necessary reasons, mom and pops were upset.

I felt like shit, an outcast whose madness lead an entire family to despair and misfortune while trying to save himself literally a handful of pitiful steps.

But a shining beacon of hope came from a fading memory, one which sounded utterly absurd, yet in times of desperation still came out as somehow plausible.

"Just use baking soda and Loctite forehead"; this had been uttered from a German friend of mine while he had been admiring the broken mess that is my duct taped ps4 controller some time ago. Was it a joke? Was it a serious suggestion? German humor is often lost in translation...

Still, I had to give it a go. I had to try something. And this morning an attempt was made.

I'm still feeling ecstatic. Never have I hever felt this good about a DIY tryout. I can confirm that baking soda is an incredible catalyst for super glue; the result while somewhat sloppy-looking is rock solid.

Pops couldn't believe his eyes when he saw his good ol' towel rack hanger thing stoically standing where it always did, in its rightful place, with no defects at all.

Thank you baking soda and super glue, you saved Christmas.

To all of you whose plastics need some fixing, remember this combo and give it a go - it will save you as well.

Any other similar hacks that you might want to share are very much appreciated.

TL;DR
Baking soda and regular superglue are incredible for fixing plastics.

Edit: forgot to put tags in post. Apologies.

Here's a little setup I'm going to try out with my reading habits this year. I figured I'd share the idea, in case anyone else is interested in running it (or something similar) for themselves.

Rules

• I must complete one book for each letter of the English alphabet (26 total).
• A book fulfills a letter by having the title or any part of the author's name start with that letter.
• I do not have to go in alphabetical order.
• I CAN rearrange entries at will.

Example

I realize that's hard to visualize, so here's how the first few letters might look once completed (these books are placeholders):

A: Jeff VanderMeer - Annihilation
B: Tina Fey - Bossypants
C: Arthur C. Clarke - Rendezvous with Rama
D: Dava Sobel - Longitude

Explanations/Clarifications

Let's say the first book I read is Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. I could have that count for K (Kurt), V (Vonnegut), or S (Slaughterhouse).

I'm choosing to ignore articles in titles. The Martian would thus count for M (Martian) rather than T (The).

If an author has a single name (e.g. Voltaire), I can only use that one letter (V). If an author commonly uses more than first and last names (e.g. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Hunter S. Thompson), I can use any parts (C N or A, and H S or T, respectively).

If the book title is/begins with a number or symbol, I can count it under the letter that corresponds to the name/pronunciation of the number or symbol (e.g. 1984 would be N (Nineteen) while 1Q84 would be O (One)).

As the process goes on and more letters get filled, my choices will get narrower. I am allowed to swap around books in order to accommodate new choices, but only within the parameters of the rules above. So if I initially had Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five down for S but then I decide to read Stanley Schmidt's The Sins of the Fathers, I can move Slaughterhouse-Five to V for Vonnegut since Sins can only work for S.

Purpose

I came up with this for a couple of reasons:

• It's a semi-fun way to jazz up my regular reading habits.
• It gives me a goal to work towards.
• It will help me narrow down choices from my immense backlog and interest list, especially when I have only a few spots left to fill.
• It's free-form enough that I don't feel boxed-in, but it's restrictive enough that it'll likely force me to read some stuff I wouldn't usually choose.
• 26 books for 26 letters is coincidentally perfect for an average of one book every two weeks, which feels like the right pace for me.

Process Note

I'm only going to count books I read with my eyes rather than books I listen to. This isn't because I have anything against audiobooks (I love them!) but because I've actually gotten TOO dependent on them and am not sitting down to read books like I used to. I'm hoping this can restart my reading habit. I put this here rather than in the rules because I don't want to restrict anyone else should they choose to do this exercise.

I plan to post updates on my "alphabet progress" in the scheduled "What are you reading these days?" threads.

Anyway, feel free to share your thoughts on this process. This is entirely theory-based at the moment, as I've never actually attempted it, so if there's anything I've failed to account for or any potential hiccups you see, let me know.

Also, if you're wanting to steal the idea, whether wholesale or in part, go for it! It is ripe for modding or tweaking. I'm considering doing a second, separate alphabet for myself that's limited only to graphic novels, for example. I also think it would be neat for people to do it in other alphabets, in languages other than English.

Furthermore, it's a generic enough setup that you could do it for more than just reading too. You could use the ruleset as written with music (using artist and album names) or movies (using titles and directors). Games are a bit tougher since you really only have the title to work with (since there's often not an identifiable "author"), but with some tweaks I think it could still happen.

I have just watched ‘Mary Poppins Returns’, after yesterday watching the original ‘Mary Poppins’ for the first time. I have not, to my knowledge, ever watched ‘Mary Poppins’ in full before now. I’ve caught snippets of it on weekend television, but I’ve never seen it from start to finish. Well, with our new Disney+ streaming subscription, I’ve finally seen ‘Mary Poppins’ for the first time yesterday, and followed it up by watching ‘Mary Poppins Returns’ today.

‘Mary Poppins Returns’ is a sequel in name only. It’s basically a remake of the original. It’s as if the director had a checklist of everything ‘Mary Poppins’ contained, and just checked them off in this sequel:

• Mary Poppins herself. Check.

• A dirty working-class friend with a heart of gold. Check.

• Children who didn’t know how to have fun. Check.

• A father who needed to rediscover his children and his own childish joy. Check.

• A woman who’s working for a progressive cause. Check.

• Bank seen as a negative institution. Check.

• Quirky relative of Mary Poppins who gives the children a different point of view. Check.

• Animated sequence. Check.

Actually, I’m surprised that there is an animated sequence in the sequel, given how much P.L. Travers reportedly hated the animation in the original. (Strangely, I’ve seen ‘Saving Mr Banks’ a couple of times, and even watched a documentary about Ms Travers somewhere along the way.) But I suppose she’s dead now, so her input is limited to just turning in her grave.

It even gets more detailed than that. Individual musical numbers have been mapped from one movie to another:

• Vaudeville-style song & dance number within the animated sequence, with the main characters performing alongside cartoon animals. Check.

• Big dance number featuring the aforementioned working-class friend and his colleagues. Check. The names even have a metaphorical resonance: “Step in Time” becomes “Trip a Little Light Fantastic”.

• Uplifting song at the end of the movie. Check. But instead of being about a child’s toy that flies in the sky (kite), let’s make it about a different child’s toy that flies in the sky (balloon).

It’s a shame that Julie Andrews can’t sing any more. It would have been lov-er-ly (ha!) to see her in the cameo role that Angela Lansbury had. Not that I have anything against Ms Lansbury: far from it! But Dick Van Dyke got a small role, and it would have been nice to see Ms Andrews pop up as well. A little on-screen moment between her and Emily Blunt would have been sweet.

There was one thing that the director left off his checklist, though: singable songs. While everyone knows “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and can sing it at the drop of a hat, noone is going to be singing “A Cover is not the Book”, as fun as it was. “A Spoonful of Sugar” is fun and memorable, while “Can You Imagine That” is fun and forgettable.

This is not to derogate the performances. There were no weak links in this chain. Emily Blunt was spot-on as Mary Poppins. Lin-Manuel Miranda was technically great as Jack the lamplighter (and he certainly did a better Cockney accent than Dick Van Dyke – which admittedly isn’t hard). Miranda lacked a little heart, but is a great singer and dancer. The rest of the cast were also good. Not a sour note among them. They were just let down by a weak script and poor songs.

The new Mary Poppins movie is a watered-down copy of the original – and the original wasn’t the best movie in the world to start with! I love me a good musical. I have a whole shelf full of musicals on disc, along with assorted soundtracks. I can quite happily spend an afternoon with ‘The Wizard of Oz’ or ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ or the family-friendly ‘My Fair Lady’. But ‘Mary Poppins’ was too bland for me. And its sequel/remake was even blander.

For any of you who have been in a book club before. Any lessons learned? Nice to haves? Things to avoid? This is going to be limited to a fairly small group (4-6 people), so I feel like I don't need to get too formal with anything. But at the same time, I know that a good structure goes a long way to a successful regular reading club.

We have pretty a varied reading pace between us. One of us can read a book a day. I'm more at the book (300~ pages) every week or two pace myself. I'm sure that others may read faster or slower than that still. So I figure a book a month is decent for keeping to a casual-but-intentional reading pace for most of us.

Part of this is intended to be a way to keep in touch with friends I don't get to talk to as often anymore, and part of it is just reading new books I wouldn't even think to read.

Intergrid is an online outliner and note-taking app. It's inspired by – and in many ways replicates – Indigrid, except it's on the Web. It's free to use, and it's readily available right from the main page.

Why Intergrid?

The main goal of Intergrid is to help you focus on the notes.

There are no settings. You can't pick the font. Theming is not an option. There's only content, and what you want to do with it.

Plus, it looks cool.

Is it feature-complete?

Hell no. It's been in development for three months – which is to say, not very long. It still has ways to go.

Which is why I'm keeping the initial release rather quiet: Tildes and a handful of friends are the only people to know about it so far.

Are there bugs?

Afraid so. There are some I know about, and there are probably some I couldn't even reach.

Why release it, then?

Because it works already. You can add, edit, and save your notes in-browser. As long as you have cookies enabled, it will serve you. (Intergrid doesn't use cookies, and has no tracking to speak of, but the permission for localStorage – the technology used to store and gather data about your notes – is adjacent, as far as browsers are concerned.)

It would be of particular use to people on systems other than Windows. While the current version is focused on desktops, future versions may gain mobile support – all the more likely because, outside from a handful of hardcoded interactions and design considerations, there's nothing preventing mobile users from enjoying the app.

There's also the pragmatic reason: something Jeff Atwood called "Always Be Shipping", all the way back in 2007. You can't get feedback on an app that has no public version. Your programming expertise and design sense will only get you so far. Getting it out there – and going forward with the feedback – is a generous part of the process.

Where are you planning to take it?

The first step would be the fix the bugs. There will be a list of known ones in the comments.

Once those are fixed (or can be postponed without repercussions to being able to use the app), there are features I'm going to implement within the next couple of months. Most of them, at least initially, are going to be put in to keep up with Indigrid's feature set.

• Views: open, move, and close columns, each hosting a different view on the notes, allowing you to gain perspective or edit multiple ideas simulatenously

• Bookmarks: store views as separate named bookmarks, allowing you to traverse different mental spaces within the notes

• Action History and Undo/Redo: record changes to the notes and time-travel between its different states, because sometimes, you want to be able to "go there" and not be weighted down by rock-solid commitment

• Offline Use: work with your notes even when the Internet is down

(Even though the code for columns is already in the development branch, I was unable to come up with a respectable way of handling it before New Year, which is when I promised to release the app.)

In the long term, I'd like to make sure you could access your notes from any browser on any device. This plan also includes the ability to create and share read-only or editable partial copies of your notes – for example, as presentation or a basis for an online discussion. After finishing with shaping up the current, local-only version, this is where want to take the development. I reckon it would take me somewhere between 6 and 12 months to finish the codebase for this.

Anything else I should know?

Do keep in mind that this is an early release. There may be bugs – perhaps even the kind that will rid you of your notes. If you're uncomfortable about using software this early in development, please don't: your sanity is dearer to me than getting users.

It will, however, get stable over time. If there's ever a breaking change on the horizon – the kind of change that will change an aspect of Intergrid radically – users will be notified about it at least two weeks ahead, so that at least they could backup their notes. I want to ensure the safety of mind for the users of Intergrid, so that they know their notes are in safe hands.

That said, make regular backups anyway. The nodes are encoded/decoded as indented plain text, which means they can be transferred to and from a simple textfile with copy/paste. Any single whitespace character – space, tab etc. – is considered one level of indentation, so it doesn't matter how you indent your plain-text notes: they will be aligned as you'd expect. Intergrid and Indigrid both export tab-indented text.

Can I help?

From the coding and design perspective, I would appreciate open-source involvement. However, at this stage, even though there's a repository awaiting changes, I'm uncomfortable making it public just yet, because licensing is hard and I don't want to get into any sort of legal trouble without at least understanding what I'm dealing with.

Once this and other aspects of open-sourcing the code are dealt with, I'm going to post another update.

If you'd like to support the development financially, you could donate via PayPal.me. The first $5 or so will go to supporting the infrastructure: the monthly hosting payment and 1/12th of the yearly domain name price. (Even though the domain name has been paid for for the next two years, I'd like to be able to host the app reliably. The domain name is directly tied to the data saved – you can't access another website's saved data unless they're on the same main domain – which is why it's important to keep it.)

Check out Intergrid

(You could replace FPTP with STV to keep the districts that elect representatives in the house intact.)

I'll start.

The Democratic party breaks up into the neoliberal and progressive parties.

The neoliberal party is where centrist candidates like Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg go.

The progressive party is where progressive candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren go.

The Republican party might lose a large part of their electorate to the libertarians, since many Republicans are more concerned about letting business prevail and don't really want cultural conservatism.

Andrew yang maybe also leaves the Democrats and founds his own party, the party for online reform.

The greens also become significantly more popular but they may have too much in common with the progressives.

The Senate could be changed to include as many seats as the house for proper representation.