I decided to rewrite this from scratch. You can try it out if you're game.

album

I wiped out my profile in Chrome the other day and forgot to back up stylus and some other settings for a few extensions. I found an old post where I listed part of a theme I'd started working on, but had since abandoned.

I couldn't find a copy of the ol' Tiltweaks stylus theme, either, so I decided to bring back that old, unfinished gem to get my theme back to roughly where I had it before... then I added a bunch of other crap in.

Anyway, here's the link to a busy screencap.

The two column layout isn't for everybody, but in the brief time I've spent with it, I'm starting to like it.

Just thought I'd share. I'm about 99.6% certain everybody will see it and say, 'gross' :)

"You haven't found your sport, yet."

That's it. That's the thing I wish someone… anyone, my friends, my parents, some stranger on the internet… had told me a long time ago.

I was not a very physically active kid. I wasn't fat, but did have above average BMI, didn't enjoy PE, didn't get picked in the football teams, the works. I grew up with this notion that I was just One Of Those People who Don't Like Sports. A complete lie.

My dad was into Rugby, so he put me to Rugby practice as an 8 year old. I was very good at it, mostly because of sheer force (I was really strong and bulky for my age), but I did not enjoy it. The other kids were gross and annoying, it wasn't fun. So a couple years later, I stopped, and my father told me: "Pick another sport."

It's a significant question, one you don't have the true answer to when you're a kid. I picked Fencing, though. I kinda liked it? As much as one can like a physical activity when you're "One Of Those People who Don't Like Sports", right? It was different, original. It wasn't particularly fun, but could I really expect to ever have fun doing physical exercise? After all, I hated going to the gym, and I didn't enjoy running, so surely, I'm just not that into sports.

So that was it. I thought I had found it, the one I happened to pick at the age of 12, after not much soul searching at all. I did it for a few years, picked it back up at 22 for a few more. I tolerated it. Loved my club and coach in one of the cities, something which fooled me into believing I was a fencer. I'm 30 now, and until the age of 27, I had zero doubts about that. I had the gear and years of experience. I would move somewhere new, look for a new fencing club, get demotivated because it's a 40 minute bike ride to get there, and just… not go.

In retrospect, it's obvious that I didn't particularly like fencing, any more than most people like ironing their clothes. Of all the things I'd tell Past Self, I would start with just how motivated I would be only a year later. I would tell them about the subscriptions to 4 different ice rinks across the country, the train subscription with the 1 hour commute to get there, how I'd go 4 days a week and feel sad when it's only 3, and how I'd always be taking my gear with me whenever I go to another country as trying out a new rink would be the most exciting part of an international trip.

I'd tell past self:

"You haven't found your sport, yet. It's just that you don't like the ones you tried. You're still thinking about motivation, but this is about necessity. When you find it, you will fall in love. It will become a core part of your life and identity. It will bring you joy and be your partner, like the piano to the pianist. You found a sport you can tolerate… one day, you'll find one that is truly You.

Keep looking."

I wanted to get a general discussion going on the opinions of game streaming services. This is a potentially huge market and the big companies out there are really trying to break into this market. I personally use google stadia and love it, there is a slight amount of latency in movements but it feels no different than a larger dead zone to me.

I love the idea of game streaming as it brings more games to more platforms like Linux, macOS and mobile devices. I know the big argument against them is that you don’t own the games, but from my perspective, you don’t own the games on steam either, you own the right to play someone else’s game just like with Google stadia or Luna or xcloud. If you want to own an actual copy then you have to buy the game from a vendor like gog or itch.io.

So let me know your opinions on this market, do you think it’s good, bad, or somewhere in between and why? If you play on any of these services what are your thoughts and experiences? Has it worked well for you and do you see yourself using services like this in the future? I genuinely am curious as it’s a completely different mindset than what we’re used too and it can really disrupt a market that hasn’t seen proper innovation in years.

I don't understand why people think an individual vote changes anything. I don't mean this as an insult, I just don't understand by what mechanism my vote matters. To be clear, I am not saying you shouldn't vote, simply that one persons vote is a neutral act.

I assume that if I vote in an election my vote will literally be counted; the votes for one candidate will go from 100,000 to 100,001. In tiny elections, it is possible, not likely, for a single vote to change a result. However, arguing for a system from its top 0.1% best case scenario is a bit disingenuous. In 99.9% of elections, it does not come down to one vote.

I have also been told I should just choose the candidate that is closest to my beliefs or even put in a blank ballet. In the US, a 3rd-party candidate will not win any non-local election; in other countries, I understand that it is different, but I can't speak from personal experience. And its not like I would ever choose any of the main party candidates; some are much worse than others, but none represent my beliefs. My understanding of this idea is that what is being valued is the performance of representation, not my actual representation in the system. 'The medium is the message', or who you vote for does not matter, what matters is that you vote.

I've heard people say something to the effect of 'if you don't vote, you have no right to complain about the political system'. This idea ignores the fact that not voting is an explicitly political act. I am engaging with the system by refusing to play what I perceive to be a rigged game.

But its not like the political system changes whether I vote or not; its not like anyone can know if I voted or not, unless I tell them or wear one of those 'I voted' stickers. I've heard people argue that if everyone thought this way, then the OTHER SIDE would win. But other people's decision to vote or not isn't my responsibility.

Is there something I am missing?

EDIT:

I changed my formatting to be more clear and edited the text, as a few responses seem to have missed some of my points.

This past year and a half I've been in a strange sort of depression over the dysfunction of human society, especially in how nations around the world have collectively dealt (or failed to deal) with the coronavirus.

I'm trying to get myself out of this funk. I'm normally a doer, not a sit-on-my-butt-er. I'm trying to think about the nature of human problems, see the problem space along different dimensions, and find high-leverage points for solutions. Trying to outline the problem "stack" so to speak.

This is a lot of paper napkin thinking from me. There are going to be a lot of naive thoughts here. But I'd like to have an open conversation, so we can stumble on some new interesting insights, rediscover what others already have, and not get too bogged down in "well, ackchyually..." nitty-gritty details.

The pandemic is a relatively 'easy' problem — at least if you compare it to the threat of an incoming extinction-level asteroid, a wandering black hole, or a dying sun, which would require technical solutions impossibly beyond our current capabilities. In those scenarios, we can only pray and party. But for the pandemic, we had the political tools: Taiwan showed us how a combined approach of strict border controls with hotel quarantining (no kindly asking people to maybe please quarantine — travelers will quarantine), wearing masks everywhere, extensive contact tracing, and cross-governmental data-sharing, can successful contain the virus. Now we have technological tools: a myriad of vaccines.

Yet...

• It's been nearly a year and a half. A concerted global effort could have ended the crisis within a month or two early on, right? Granted, this would entail giving up our human rights for a short while — but that seems way better than dragging it for so long. Instead we watched as we tried to carry on as normal as possible and the virus spread like wildfire.
• A third of U.S. adults are unvaccinated despite being eligible and there being plenty of vaccines to go around (in the US at least).
• Significant numbers of people believe wacky stuff: COVID isn't real, masks don't do anything, and so on.

From what I observe: nearly all human problems are policy problems. The human race has sufficient material and technological resources to solve most problems. Underlying those policy problems are coordination problems — coordinating people on the facts, solutions, and implementations.

1. Human problems
2. ... are policy problems
3. ... are coordination problems

So the human race has a bunch of solutions, institutions, and tools to help with the coordination problem:

• the UN and other intergovernmental bodies like the WHO to coordinate at the international level
• National institutions to coordinate
• Newspapers to spread information and generate consensus

But as we well know, these coordination solutions have problems. Now I'm thinking what are the coordination sub-problems.

• Incentive problems / The Game: Broadly in game theory speak, some players are incentivized to not cooperate, even if at the detriment of everyone. This seems to me to be the crux of the coordination problem.
• Culture problems: This is a whole nest of problems.
  • Cultural norms around equity. I think that this is a big one. It's been shown that different societies have different norms and ideas about what's fair and equal. The norms often develop around economic realities. Forager societies favor egalitarian distribution over meritocratic distribution as high cooperation is required between members: unequal distribution threatens relationships and cooperation. Perhaps our merit-based norms may need to shift from a pre-industrial era where people more or less produced what they consumed — to a new era of automation and robotics, where a relative few produce most everything.
  • Cultural norms around consumption and transmission of information. This stems from our education culture. Media consumption in our societies — western and non-western alike — is passive. Socratic seminars are rare in schools: pupils receive lessons passively from their teachers. Most people aren't educated or trained on how to have open discussions or on how to avoid rhetorical fallacies.
• Education problems: there is only so much information can do if people don't know how to process information.
  • Mentioned above cultural norms around how we consume and transmit information.
  • Statistical thinking. The abuse and misuse of stats in popular discourse.

Among others.

Sorry if this is dumb, I just woke up and had this idea randomly. What would happen if the site had a built-in mechanic for correction spelling mistakes. It could be opt-in (or opt-out?) if you don't want anyone to bother you. This would allow other people that notice them to ping a comment author privately with perhaps a short message explanation.

Not everyone has English as their first language which is why I think it could be valuable. If the feature is not built into the site, correcting someone would be seen as a negative experience (I think) both in public or private messages.

It would be up to the comment author to edit their comment. (Or perhaps a way to accept the changes would be nice?)

Thoughts? Is this a thing anywhere else?

Edit: I put feature request in the title, but this is more of a discussion of the idea in general. I don't expect this to become a thing, but I feel like it's interesting to think about.

Over the last couple of years my sister has been getting into HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) and especially the longsword. She recently had a significant birthday so I thought I'd make her a small, but realistic and functional, longsword. It went pretty well, if I do say so myself. I did not, however, take as many photos as I would have liked, but I was doing this thing in very short bursts so I only had a few minutes here or there to get this done.

To start, I read a bit about longsword proportions, looked at some pictures and sketched a couple of possible designs, before finalising a 1:1 scale drawing to work from. I bought some O1 tool steel (carbon steel so it can be hardened and sharpened properly) and started to cut. Almost immediately I made a mistake, I cut the steel 25% too long. But that was OK, I just went with it.

I roughly shaped the metal and got it in the forge to heat-treat. Plunged into oil then slammed hard into my newly-built plate quench (aside: the plate quench is two hefty slabs of aluminium, designed to suck heat out of the steel fast, while holding it flat to prevent warping). The plates worked, the metal came out dead flat and not at all warped, which was good because there was very little space to grind out any distortions. I heart plate quenching.

Next, cutting up some brass to make the crossguard. Cutting a 1.5x3mm slot in that was incredibly frustrating. I broke all four of my remaining 1mm drill bits, eventually had to resort to very fine diamond burrs and going extremely slowly. Luckily there is a bit of overlap from the blade so the slightly messy slot is covered up a bit. Similarly for the pommel, which was cut from brass rod and shaped on my lathe before I totally botched cutting a hole for the tang. If anything I made more of mess of the pommel, during the final fit up I just filled it with glue and wedged it in the right place.

Inbetween making an awful - albeit recoverable/hideable - mess of the sword hardware I also finished up shaping and finishing the blade itself. This is where I don't have a lot of photos, but I ground a bevel onto the blade and wondered about cutting a fuller (groove down the centre of the blade) before realising that I absolutely did not have the tools to do that and would make a total mess of it. I also thought about sharpening it to scary sharp but given my sister has two reasonably small children I left it fairly blunt. It'll make a good letter opener but not much more. If she wants it sharp I can always put a serious edge on it another time.

Final pre-glue fit up, as you can see it matches the design drawing pretty well, apart from being to a slightly different scale.

I had considered making a wooden handle, as is traditional, but I was running short on time and I had plenty of leather so instead I did two layers of wrapping. This is the base layer (I do not remember why I have 1mm orange leather but I do) wrapped and clamped so the glue can dry. Another layer went on top of that and I ran a final polishing disc over everything, put a very light coat of metal lacquer over the metal to keep it shiny and that was it. Sword done.

I cut a piece of round bar steel, cut and forged it to shape as a support, treated the hot metal with beeswax (gives a lovely black finish which stops rust and looks nice). I set this in some flame-finished oak and gave that a coat of tung oil. Once the various finishes and glues had dried it was good to go.

The final product, dangling point, handle detail, view from above and in my hand for scale

I think this is one of the best things I've ever made. I hope my sister likes it. I have some metal left so I might try making another - there's a few things I'd do differently.

I recently started an excellent series on Wondrium that is a PBS documentary from 1988: Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth and I figured this series would be of interest to the Tildes crowd. In this series, Joseph Campbell sits down for a discussion with Bill Moyers discussing the way mythology has influenced our lives from the day-to-day to religion, and how these common motifs present themselves throughout our history and culture. In addition, there is a lot of examples and comparisons of these tropes within the Star Wars original trilogy that is discussed.

It is a very eye-opening and thought-provoking series that I would really love to have a discussion about if others here find it interesting as well.

Transcripts of the individual episodes can be found on this site:

https://billmoyers.com/content/ep-1-joseph-campbell-and-the-power-of-myth-the-hero%E2%80%99s-adventure-audio/

I personally prefer listening/watching as there are a lot of visual examples that are used during the discussion that helps make the topic more clear.

Today I went with my dog, Ketchup, to the cemetery nearby. I'm not a gothic or anything like that, but in my neighborhood, there is not much nature or open spaces. The cemetery is the one exception -- a vast and peaceful green land, perfect for long walks, scattered thoughts, and occasional meditative states. Something essential for my mental health.

I turned off the podcasts and made an effort to pacify my mind. Show some respect for the place. Listened to the birds, saught refuge when it started to rain. Ketchup is anxious, always pulling the leash, but walking among the graves seems to make him quieter. Eventually, I started to meditate on the grounds I was walking on. Walking over people. This is not a fancy cemetery with large cement tombs. In other places I visited, ostentatious displays of after-death economic status are common (and undoubtedly very interesting).

Here, everyone shares the same, simple headstone layout. A small piece of black marble with limited space for a description, almost always containing just name, date of birth, and death.

A few headstones contain photos in tiles, with custom phrases and affirmations ("Tragedy and comedy are one -- the face of life!", it says). An attempt, maybe, to negate the end, defy the inevitable decay. There's a certain life-affirming beauty in that stubbornness. Eventually, of course, decay always wins, and those that are forever gone (in their current bodily representation, at least...) must cede space for what relentlessly remains to be.

One day, I will also become food for the plants, and someone will walk over me as well. That thought brings me peace.

I’m writing the best man speech for my brother’s upcoming wedding. I haven’t been to many weddings so to be honest I’m not super familiar with the format of this speeches, or things I should be sure to mention (I.e. things like “be sure to thank xyz person”). I’m asking some family members but thought I should cast a wider net and ask here too. Any advice for writing this type of thing? Any memorable ones, good or bad, to emulate or avoid?

I'm primarily a PC gamer with a library slowly approaching 1,000 games on Steam. While I have sometimes bought games through the other storefronts like Blizzard, GOG, Uplay, and EA Origins, I never really invested significant time in them to the point where I don't keep track of what is in those libraries. Suffice to say, I thought that I was so entrenched in Steam that I couldn't possibly play in another storefront for any meaningful amount of time.

This has changed for the past year. I hopped on one of those deals that gave me access to Game Pass since Microsoft added all the Bethesda games and partnered with EA Play. And I gotta say, I'm invested now. Invested so much that I bought a Series X despite having zero interest when the new generation of systems was announced. Game Pass on Xbox is an even better deal than Game Pass on PC. The library is larger and for the games that are Play Anywhere, I can continue my save file on my PC when my living room TV is unavailable.

I really think that Microsoft has a winning strategy with Game Pass this generation and it really surprised me how my attitude to the Xbox ecosystem changed this year. While I think both Sony and Nintendo have great exclusives, the value proposition for me of convenience and a rotating slate of quality games will likely keep me invested and subscribed, moreso than Xbox Gold or PS+ have in the past.

So, for this thread, I'm specifically not asking for detailed explanations about the spiritual or philosophical aspect that goes behind your motivations to meditate. A brief explanation is almost certainly required, though.

Mostly, I wish to know practical things, details that often go unsaid, like:

• What kind of meditation do you practice?
  • How can I Google it?
• Where and when do you meditate, and why?
• Do you do it alone?
• How do you prepare for meditation?
• What you do afterwards?
• How frequently do you meditate, and for how long?
• If you sit at all, in what position do you sit?
  • Where do you sit? The ground, a mat, a cushion, a chair, your bed?
• Do you keep your eyes closed or open?
• Do you concentrate on your breathing?
• Do you breath through your mouth or nose?
• Do you count your breaths or visualize them in any way?
• Is there any particular breathing technique involved?
• Do you use any aid such as noise generators, soundscapes, timers, meditation apps, etc?
• Do you push thoughts away?
• Do you concentrate on any object, physical or otherwise?
  • statues, amulets, images, mental images, mantras, etc.
• What do you do if...
  • your legs go numb?
  • there's a fly on your nose?
  • there's mucus on your mouth or throat?
  • you must cough or sneeze?
  • you're itchy all over?

Note: this will be a noisy thread! If you would not like to see it in your feed, please use the ignore feature!

IMPORTANT UPDATE

This offer is no longer available. Thanks to those who participated!

Anyone here in the mood for a new Steam game this weekend?

Presumably you are, because you clicked this thread to read it! Welcome!

What is this?

It's a Steam game giveaway! I figured some of you might want a new game to play this weekend, and what's better than getting an awesome new game for free?!

What's the catch?

There isn't one! No gimmicks, and no strings attached!

How do I get my game?

Comment below with your choice, and I'll PM you the key. To keep the thread from being pure noise, I would also like you to, with your request, tell me about a favorite “hidden gem” game you’ve played. I love hearing about diamonds in the rough, so let me know about an underappreciated game you’ve loved (the more obscure/unknown the better).

Also, if you end up playing the game you get this weekend (you don’t have to — it’s a gift, not an obligation!), return to the thread to tell everyone about it!

Are there any restrictions?

Only one game per commenter please, but note that multiple people CAN request the same game! I will give out as many of each copy as is requested!

Why are you doing this?

My pageant answer is about doing something nice for an awesome community during some difficult times, but the real truth is that I've been drinking a bit, there’s a seriously good bundle on right now, and as I looked at the titles in it, it made me feel deep down in my bones the unshakeable sense that more people need to play Yoku's Island Express.

What's on offer?

Your choices are below. I haven't played all of these, but, based on the reviews, there's not a bad game in the bunch! There's also a wide amount of variety, so hopefully you can find something that speaks to your individual interests!

What do you recommend?

First of all, thank you for asking! That’s so thoughtful.

• Yoku's Island Express

MORE PEOPLE NEED TO PLAY THIS (thus sayeth the truth in my bones). The game is a delight. It's charming, novel, and very well-made. "Pinball metroidvania" isn't exactly a common genre or even one that makes sense on paper, but it's pulled off splendidly. It’s also thoroughly enjoyable even if you're a complete pinball novice like me. If in doubt about which game to pick, choose this one! If, after you play it, it turns out I’ve steered you wrong, you’re allowed to return to this thread and yell at me.

• Yooka-Laylee

I honestly think this is one of the most unfairly criticized games out there. I genuinely don't understand why so many people had very negative reactions to it. I don't normally finish games, but I full-on 100%ed this one! It has a couple of rough spots and edges, but on the whole I thought it was wonderful and deserved far better than the lukewarm-to-hostile response it got.

Can just ANYONE ask for a game?

Yes. PLEASE DO. Don’t wait around thinking someone else deserves it more or you don’t want to be a bother or you don’t want to put me out or you might not play it this weekend or you might look like a freeloader. I literally WANT to give this stuff away. Nothing would make me happier than to see this thread deluged with requests! If you're someone who might get enjoyment out of any of these games, then DO NOT HESITATE TO ASK FOR ONE!

IMPORTANT EDIT: I am handing out games even if I'm not responding in the thread to each individual request! I didn't want to keep bumping the thread myself with confirmations.

Hello my lovelies,

I struggle with a moderate amount of anxiety and obsession with self-image, which tend to amalgamate as some kind of depression or other over time. At least I think they do. I've never really been sure if what I experience is actually depression, or if I'm just a Mopey Idiot, or if I have a more acute cognitive issue that I'm not aware of.

I keep very precise semi-quantitative logs of my mood and behavior every day, and they suggest to me that some of my stress is related to being a little overloaded. I'm working on cutting back on some of that responsibility. But it's also extremely obvious to me that, for quite some time—I think since about early October 2019—I've lacked the physical energy that typically allows me to be consistently happy. There was no one, singular "proximate cause" two years ago, certainly it was none of my actual obligations (at that time I had very little work to speak of). However, I nevertheless very distinctly remember that my energy was suddenly just sapped, and has not come back to the level it was at before. The best theory I have is that it might've been a mini-existential crisis triggered immediately by some books I'd been reading, with a background of relatively more social isolation than usual. There have been specific circumstances since then in which I can be high-energy (and I mean be, not just act like I am), but they are fleeting and rare. The overall background energy of my life has been different.

In short, I do not really have a solid anchor per se, even as I have many little mini-anchors. I have been floating around for a while as a result.

At least that has been my working theory for a little while. The persistence of my condition has led me to question whether that theory is useful, or whether there is something fundamentally wrong with my brain. I am Young and Naive so I simply do not know how to tell. The pandemic has made it much more challenging to figure out the root cause of my problems, because I cannot tell if they are just because I can't do the fun activities I like doing in the social environments I like doing them in, or something presumably biochemical.

Things that each help a little:

• Getting more sleep
• Getting more exercise
• Being good about meditating, or when my therapist is useful (rarely)
• Being successful (I have a job for the summer and a likely career after I graduate. Knock on wood)
• Being hot as fuck (I'm not that attractive, but I feel pretty after I exercise, or when I dress nice, or when people compliment my body)

Things that each help a lot:

• Having extremely attentive and caring friends
• Not being around people who constantly drain me
• Consuming certain substances

Specifically, the most non-low-energy I've felt in a long time was when I ate some funky little mushrooms with my friend this year. Specifically, after I snapped back to reality (mom's spaghetti). I was just more alert and more able to function properly. My brain operated at its normal capacity; words flowed freely from my mouth in a gorgeous array of sentences; positive banter was at an all-time high; I was positive and optimistic; and so on. You know how you can sort of visualize the ideas popping around and the gears turning when you're sober but just really on top of your social life? Well that's what it was. Unfortunately my ability to be a normal person only lasted like 1 or 2 days from there, and then it was back to the same old.

This has made me ask the question: might it be prudent to look into some sort of legal medical prescription that would have a similar effect? That is, anti-depressants or like whatever. I'm also open to alternative treatments but I am mainly asking about prescription meds. I just don't know anything about the whole world of medication. I almost never take meds for anything ever, even physical injuries, and I'm afraid that if I start doing medication I'll never be able to stop. The concept of always being medicated is a little scary to me. Like even if it helps, I'm still worried. But I kind of feel like nothing I've done so far has been able to permanently work, so I kind of need to do something.

I appreciate any thoughts that you can give!!!

xoxoxo
beezselzak

The OTB Open happened this past weekend in Stockton, California. I watch a lot of disc golf, and this was a particularly enjoyable tournament, so I thought I'd give an overview of the (free) footage available. MPO is the Men's and FPO is the women's.

DGN Final Day Coverage

Disc Golf Network streamed OTB Open Presented by Innova | Final Round which is about 6.5 hours of footage. I haven't watched it, but I know it was commentated by Ian Anderson who runs Central Coast Disc Golf (who is a great commentator) and Nate Doss, who is a great player, but I've never heard commentate. I don't have a particular recommendation on whether this is watchable or not - I haven't watched it, and don't really intend to, but included it for interest. It includes both MPO and FPO coverage.

MPO

Mic'd up Practice Round on JomezPro

JomezPro runs a practice round with 3 pro disc golfers - Jeremy "Big Jerm" Koling, Paul Ulibarri, and Nate Sexton. These three are the "main" commentators for JomezPro; they tend to be a bit goofy and are very endearing. They do a lot of good natured smack talk, and they try to break down the holes so you'll understand what you'll see professionals doing. Sometimes in commentary during the tournament, they'll also make some joking references to things that happened in the practice round, like a Fox peeing on one of Sexton's discs.

Front 9 | Back 9

Feature / Lead on JomezPro

Commentators: Jeremy Koling, Nate Sexton, Paul Ulibarri: "Big Sexy Barri Commentary"

Round 1 Feature Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Paul McBeth, Calvin Heimburg, Ezra Aderhold, James Proctor. McBeth and Heimburg are both in the "1050 club" which is their player rating - they are 2 of only 4 players rated this high.

Round 2 Lead Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Paul McBeth, Eagle McMahon, Ricky Wysocki, Nate Sexton. The other two players in the "1050 club" are McMahon and Wysocki; you will frequently see these 4 names on the lead card coverage.

Round 3 Lead Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - McMahon, Ricky Wysocki, Anthony Barela, Aaron Gossage. The final round features someone relatively unknown - Gossage - who has never been on a lead card at a high level event. Each of these guys are "bombers", ie. they can throw insanely far. There are a few times when the commentators are speechless, or just laugh at the insane throws. If you only watch one MPO round, watch this one.

Feature / Chase on Gatekeeper Media

Commentators: Brian Earhart, Nate Perkins

Round 1 Feature Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Gregg Barsby, Eagle McMahon, Alex Russell, Austin Hoop. If you want to watch McMahon through the whole tournament you can start here.

Round 2 Chase Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - James Conrad, Aaron Gossage, Anthony Barela, Adam Hammes. I haven't watched this, but I'm going to guess that at some point Hammes makes a jump putt and his hat comes off. This has happened at least once every time I've ever watched him play.

FPO

Feature / Lead card on GK Pro

Commentators: Madison Walker & Erika Stinchcomb - "Two hot geese"

Round 1 Feature Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Paige Pierce, Lisa Fajkus, Madison Walker, Ella Hansen. Paige Pierce is one of the best disc golfers of all time, and there's also Walker commentating her own round, which I always find interesting. Hansen is new to disc golf, being a former Ultimate superstar, and Fajkus has had a bunch of wins this season; this is a great card to watch.

Round 2 Lead Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Jessica Weese, Paige Pierce, Lisa Fajkus, Catrina Allen. Allen and Weese are two names you'll also see a lot if you watch FPO coverage - they are frequently on the lead or chase cards. If you only watch one FPO round, watch this one. Eagles are rare in disc golf, and there is more than one in this round.

Round 3 Lead Card: Front 9 | Back 9 - Jessica Weese, Paige Pierce, Lisa Fajkus, Catrina Allen. There are lots of great women in this field, but it's a bit of a testament to how great this card did in Round 2 that each of these four remained in the lead.

A few years ago I decided to ditch Gmail and started using Disroot as my e-mail provider. It was recommended by privacytools.io.

I realized that at least one e-mail I sent went to spam and now every time I send an e-mail I get paranoid if it will reach its destination. Is there a way to know if the e-mails I send are opened?

I've thought about switching to a more mainstream e-mail provider like ProtonMail but I already have so many accounts linked to Disroot that make switching dreadful. As a matter of fact I still have over 100 accounts that are using my Gmail address because it's so time intensive and not a priority to do the switch. Hopefully in the password-less future this kind of problem will cease to exist.

How do you tend to your digital selves? Do you create archives for your blogs/journals/social-media-interactions? How meticulously do you organize your pictures? How protectful are you of your backups? Have you thought about where it'd all end up after you've died?

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my own attention lately, and I'm curious to hear others' thoughts. I don't want to prime the thread, but I'll probably type up some of my own considerations in a comment later.

Any and all comments/experiences are welcome, especially those from people with ADHD or other similar conditions that impact executive functioning.

• Are you happy with your ability to manage your attention and focus?
• Do you feel like you're in control of your attention? Is it something you have to manage?
• Do you feel as if anything has changed over time?
• How would you describe your attention/focus to someone who experiences theirs in a different way from you?

Those are simply guiding questions to get the ball rolling, but I don't want to limit the conversation to just them. Really I'm interested in hearing anything anyone is wanting to share about their relationship with attention and focus.

I'm in Hungary, and my local doctor's office just called to tell me I have a Tuesday appt to get the first shot of the Sputnik V vaccine.

Problem is, I'm moving to The Netherlands in 2 weeks. I would have to stay here for another month to get the 2nd shot. Too much already put in motion for the end-of-April move.

I could have just gotten the first shot here, and then see what/when I get up in The Hague. But A) that feels like cheating, and 2) IDK how wise it is to mix vaccines.

Now if I die of Covid before getting vaccinated up there, I'm gonna feel like an idiot.

Thoughts?

ETA:

For the record, I did cancel the appointment, and I assume that, by now, my slot has been filled and I would get pushed to the bottom of the list, if I were to call my doctor back at this point.

Hungary, for whatever reason, is perhaps the #1 best country in the EU to date, for progress on getting its citizens vaccinated (32% half, 14% fully vaccinated, compared to the EU average of 16% and 6%). Being willing to use the Russian and Chinese vaccines w/o EU approval is, I'm sure, a contributing factor.

The Netherlands, on the other hand, is desperately struggling to be "not dead last" in the EU vaccination rankings.

Additionally, I'm 53 years old, right on the cusp of "not quite old enough to be high risk".

So it really was tempting to go ahead and get at least halfway-vaccinated before I go. But the Russian vaccine (as well as the Chinese one) seems to be especially dependent upon getting both shots. So, hopefully I don't die of Covid before The Netherlands gets around to me, but for now, I'll keep wearing masks and washing my hands.

Intro

A while ago, we held a LGBT Q&A panel that allowed people to ask questions to LGBT people that they might have been afraid to ask otherwise. I think this was incredibly valuable, and I would like to try a slightly less structured and topical version of the thread.

This thread is for questions about any topic that you're worried might come across as insensitive or invasive or uncomfortable or whatever -- questions that might get responded to negatively if you were to ask them elsewhere. Ask a question that you tend to keep to yourself, for whatever reason.

My hope is that people can ask some questions in good faith and get answers in good faith. In order to do that though, I do think it's important that we have some norms in place:

Ground Rules

Anyone can ask questions or provide answers or both. This topic is not a panel but a Tildes-wide discussion.

Askers

Ask a genuine question that you want a genuine answer to. Feel free to ask informational questions, experiential questions, and opinion questions. They will be afforded the principle of charity, but also understand that this is not a thread for hot takes or passive aggressive shots or anything like that.

Follow-up questions are allowed and encouraged.

To keep threads organized, post a new top-level comment for each separate question, unless your questions are all related to the same topic and work better as one comment.

Answerers

Give genuine answers to the questions given. The goal of the thread is education and understanding. Even (and especially) if a question is difficult, frustrating, or off-putting, I think one of the best things you can articulate is why it is that way for you as a way of helping others understand your experience and perspective.

All

Please abide by this principle: if your words have the potential to cut, then please have the courtesy of using some anaesthetic. If you know you're entering into potentially inflammatory territory, please go out of your way to soften sharpness and defang your words. The last thing I want this thread to be is a set of escalations or inflection points.

If you're worried your question might look provocative, openly state your intention and give some background for why you want to ask, to show that you're acting in good faith and willing to listen to answers. If you're worried your answer might slam on someone, openly state your intention and give some background for why this is a topic that elicits such strong feelings from you.

If a question or answer does cross lines or occurs in bad faith, please label it as malice.

If you do not want to see this topic in your thread for any reason, please use the ignore post feature.

I am hoping that we can have some very thoughtful, compelling, and insightful conversation here, and, based on what I know of the Tildes community and our last attempt at a thread like this, I have full faith that we can achieve that.

Long time lurker, first time poster. I have a 7 year old lenovo y-40 running Ubuntu which has served me well, but I am starting to get concerned that it may be time to put it out to pasture. Nothing has broken, but I know it's getting a little old.

The way I see it, my options are to stick with this computer and upgrade the ram (currently 8gb, space for up to 16) and perhaps replace the hard drive (although replacing things makes me a little nervous, I have only replaced the battery thus far), or buy a new computer.

I kinda hate buying things but will throw down for a decent piece of gear if I need it. I have a budget of ~1000 (but if it can be cheaper that's better), want to run linux and use my computer mostly for programming and internet-stuff. I am also unsure if I need to stick with a laptop-I almost never take my computer anywhere and have it hooked up to a monitor anyway. I mostly have been looking at getting a T14 or something from System76 but they all seem a little pricey. Thoughts?

I've been looking lately for something new to read/watch/listen to/play and I've been chasing a particular feeling that some of my favorite works have given me in the past.

It's something that's hard to describe succinctly, so it's not exactly easy to just google search for something, and usually just telling people I like x thing gets me y recommendation which is maybe a similar style or genre but doesn't really elicit the particular feeling that I'm after.

I figure other folks might have a similar problem, so I thought it might be fun to have a thread for requests for works that make you feel a certain way, regardless of genre or medium.

I'll start mine in the comments and other folks feel free to ask for requests as top-level comments as well!

Hi all,

We are approaching the end of the billing cycle for the server and I wanted to gather feedback with all the users who have logged on and contributed to the server over the past few months. I believe we have nearly exhausted the options for gameplay and built an incredible Tildes Town, and as a result gameplay on the server has dropped for the past month. I reset the boss progress a few weeks ago but I think based on the server stats I have checked intermittently over the last few weeks, there is very little activity. Before the billing cycle hits again, I wanted to gather thoughts and feedback on the next steps for it.

1. I can keep the server up and running if there is still interest in playing on it.
2. The server can go offline and I can provide the world save files for those who want to archive it and continue playing solo offline.

Let me know what you think!