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

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

This topic is for the Three Cheers for Tildes mobile app.

I'll summarize the major updates at the start of each similar topic, so people can read the updates and then hit Ignore if they don't care about more frequent updates and user feedback.

Recently:

Version 1.4.0 (Apr 6, 2025):

• Added text size setting
• Fixed markdown formatting bar bugs

The text size setting for accessibility is long overdue. I've been feeling bad that some users couldn't even use the app because the text was too small.

This has been another large change where I had to go back and re-test screens throughout the entire app, and fix many layout bugs caused by the dynamic text size. It's been very tedious!

In fact, the iOS release is delayed because I found some last-minute bugs and have had to go back to figure out solutions. iOS is up on TestFlight!

Also I am aware that there are still bugs in some places when you set the text excessively large. It's not a priority for me to fix those, unless they make the app unusable.

Have been particularly busy so far this year and that will continue for a while, so I may be less responsive here, even though I likely will see your messages. Thanks for continuing to report issues; v1.4 fixes some bugs based on those reports.

Previous topic: February 2025

Where to get it

Android version on Google Play Store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.talklittle.android.tildes

Or sideloadable APK at https://www.talklittle.com/three-cheers/

iOS version on the App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/three-cheers-for-tildes/id6470950557

Join TestFlight for iOS beta testing: https://testflight.apple.com/join/mpVk1qIy

There were supposedly 1200 simultaneous protests in the USA on Saturday. The one I went to seemed like it was mostly attended by people who had never protested before. That's great: more people are engaging in the civic process and learning about how to make a difference. I'm writing this as a short guide for people who want to make a difference beyond that.

Understand types of advocates

You can roughly classify advocates into the following stages:

1. Unaware: people who simply have no idea what's going on and/or don't care. In general, these people are completely unreachable unless an issue affects their livelihood in an immediate and obvious way.
2. Stay-at-home: people who broadly have opinions but have no reason or structure to voice concerns. In general, these people show up only to events if solicited by family/friends.
3. Sporadic activists: people who are receptive to calls to action, but do not seek them out proactively. They may be on a few mailing lists, but probably ignore some CTAs. If a cause gets their attention, they'll be very engaged! (but just for a day or two)
4. Core demonstrators: people who reliably attend relevant direct action events and proactively spread the word to acquaintances, also going out of their way to look for additional opportunities (surveys, government engagement, etc).
5. Initiators: people who take the initiative with event organizing and calls to action. A subset of core demonstrators in leadership roles who steer advocacy campaigns.

Most Americans fall into category 1 or 2. Most people protesting on Saturday were probably between 2 and 3. People on Tildes skew higher. Each successive category is easily 1/10 the size of the previous one.

Event organizers implicitly target certain audiences for their events. In practice, events tend to be primarily composed either of people around 3-4 (smaller events) or 2-3 with some 4s (bigger events).

This is a simplification, but helps to appreciate the different personas in play.

Understand the purpose of different actions

You can broadly categorize direct action protests on a grid with two axes:

• Specificity (ask is more general/multi-faceted/long-term, vs more specific)
• Directionality (event is focused on protestors themselves or internal/allied speakers, vs. focused on external and probably non-allied stakeholders)

Specificity can measure the difference between "we're mad about the government" (yell about everything) and "we're mad about line 67 in HB 1234" (yell about something in particular). Specificity mostly corresponds with actionability. The more specific the thing you're protesting, easier it will be to identify constructive ways to follow up. Successful advocacy uses both of these models at the appropriate times during an extended campaign.

Directionality can measure the difference between "we're mad and we're gonna get riled up!" (cathartic release/venting; perhaps social) and "we're mad and [external stakeholder] is gonna know!" (targeted, though not necessarily aggressive). While both are public, the first is implicitly focused on base engagement and the second is more focused on pressuring an external stakeholder. Successful advocacy requires the appropriate balance of "community-building" (advocates feeling good about themselves) and action (advocates literally forcing a response).

In general, specificity and directionality are correlated: as protests become narrower in scope, they tend to become more directed at specific individuals (usually elected officials or other public figures), with a few exceptions. In theory, all 4 quadrants of this plane can be very successful direct action events!

• Unspecific and directionally inward: rallies with broad thematic goals publicized to a lot of people, possibly involving marches and chants and inviting famous speakers. In my opinion, the 50501-type protests today fall into this category. I would call these unspecific because while they were broadly "anti-Trump," they were also "anti-Elon," and variously "progressive/pro-rights," which is ultimately a fairly loose collection of themes without an obvious follow-up. I would call these directionally inward because they were fairly non-disruptive marches/rallies and therefore mostly cathartic vent sessions of like-minded people. People want to feel like they are doing something, and this is a useful way for them to get connected with each other and learn about next steps.

• Specific and directionally inward: similar to the previous category, but with a more clearly articulated scope. I think this comes up most often with legislative issues that are currently novel/fringe but perceived to require significant public support. For example, getting up on a soapbox in a public space and preaching about the need to add or abolish a particular Constitutional amendment. I'd call this specific because, well, it's about exactly 1 amendment --- you could read out the text of your proposed change if you wanted. I'd call this directionally inward because, while the point of this is ultimately to get some legislator to sign a bill into law, your direct action is really distant from that goal; the immediate purpose is more to proclaim your personal opinions and to create an audience saying "Yeah, I agree! What a great idea!" Later iterations of this can involve recruits, and can shift toward being more directionally outward.

• Specific and directionally outward: actions with narrow, articulated goals; with clear external stakeholders (target being like 1 person or 1 defined group) and ideally time-bound and repeatable on a timeline if needed. For example, a tiny biking nonprofit in my city had a campaign last year in the wake of a biker fatality. The campaign protested a quasi-legal/illegal arrangement that some wealthy/politically powerful churches had made with local government to permit temporary bike lane obstructions during worship. The direct action involved bikers physically stopping worshipers from parking cars in bike lanes, therefore forcing the attention of the congregation and pressuring church administrators to voluntarily relinquish the permits in the bike lanes (the bikers offered an alternative parking proposal), while also garnering media attention. The ultimate goal of the campaign was to force the city to upgrade signage, enforcement, & physical barriers along bike lanes along that corridor, but the goal of the direct action itself was far more granular. I would call this specific because it had an extremely defined ask (to the point of delving into absurd minutiae), focused on churches along a specific corridor (1 at a time), and offered a clear & easy solution for all parties. I would call it directionally outward because it was not about activists letting off steam [about something], it was about making an external institution look selfish for effectively endangering people riding bikes.

• Unspecific and directionally outward: in practice, this sort of event is not actionable but also not necessarily an effective forum for community-building. For example, a digital protest/rally asking a Senator to "support science." I'd consider this unspecific because "science" is actually many things, and "supporting" science could come in many forms, not all of which might be what you care about. I'd consider it directionally outward because it nominally focuses on an individual external stakeholder. The problem with this kind of event is that presenting an external stakeholder with an unspecific set of demands is not compelling and will result in you being ignored. Additionally, digital protesting has zero of the community-building benefit of real-life interaction (no energy, no vibes) and all of the technical difficulties. A lot of campaigns failed during COVID when organizers attempted to move online and couldn't keep up the momentum. I could see this type of event working for specific internet-savvy demographics or specific edge cases of politicians, but rarely.

This is a spectrum, so the hundreds of different varieties of "direct action" you can think of all fall on a range. There are also some outliers!

For example, protestors may travel to the state capital to lobby legislators about a specific bill as a group. I would call this specific because it's about exactly 1 bill, and the action involves physically talking to the people who have the legal authority to enact that bill. I would call it directionally outward because it's clearly focused on achieving a legislative objective by engaging external stakeholders. However, I would also call it directionally inward because this sort of "travel somewhere with a smallish group of people" event is extremely good for community-building in a volunteer network. And indeed, a good directionally outward project should have an aspect of inwardness insofar as any direct action should be moderately to very fun. So these categories aren't completely exclusive.

Understanding the pipeline

So, really, a lot of campaigns start with unspecific and directionally inward protests: huge rallies with people waving around signs and not doing a whole lot. These are important because they expose people to protesting in ideally digestible and non-scary formats, they can get a ton of media attention (because they're usually about very well-known topics), and they can make people feel included and part of a supportive community --- which is essential.

But any unfocused rally needs to fairly quickly splinter off into specific campaigns. This means a lot of behind-the-scenes planning work needs to be done. One of the most important ways you can help turn energy into real-world change is to pick an issue that's meaningful to you, get involved with an organization whose mission statement covers that issue, and volunteer to do paperwork, planning, or logistics for them! (Sometimes, no such group will exist, so you may wish to create a new one. This is challenging, but very doable, and maybe I will talk about it in a later post.)

For example, according to Wikipedia the 50501 movement calls for: the impeachment of Donald Trump, an investigation into Elon Musk, investigations into all other Trump appointees, reinstatement of DEI at the federal level, protection of LGBTQ rights, protection of (racial?) minority rights, protection of the Constitution, reinstatement of military aid to Ukraine, and the lifting of tariffs on other countries. That's like 20 billion different ideas. Some of them are kind of related to each other. Most of them aren't. Ideological fragmentation in a movement this large is absolutely inevitable and could forestall a lot of change from an organizational insider perspective. More importantly, it's just too complicated to keep track of. No one is an expert in more than 1 or 2 of those subjects. Even just 1 of those issues is extremely broad. For instance, protecting the US Constitution: there are entire nonprofits dedicated just to protecting the 1st amendment! You have to get granular.

(There's no problem with teaming up with allied organizations to co-host a rally about a few topics, and no problem with attending these. But they're only impactful if they're followed by more specific actions.)

Some of the most impactful campaigns are ones which start with general, big-turnout events... and then have a clear pathway toward multiple small actions with defined success criteria. If you go to one unspecific protest for one organization, that's only as useful as the follow-up. Did you join their email list? Have you looked at their website? Did you talk to anyone who volunteers there? You have to do some legwork. Great organizations will have simple and easy onboarding processes, but not every group is so fortunate! As long as you can stay in touch, that's the important part.

Your role as an advocate

You also have to think about how, as an advocate, you want to fit into the puzzle. Is your definition of (personal) success to be a participant in broad-movement rallies, or do you want to take a more involved role? Do you want to lead chants, set up sound equipment, or file for road closure permits from local police departments? Or do you want to lobby a specific politician to adopt a specific piece of legislation? Or run a website or develop a strategic plan on behalf of some organization to do these things?

If you plan to volunteer with an existing organization, some things to keep in mind are:

• You have significantly more influence over local politics than state or federal politics. If you ask me, the #1 place you should be volunteering is in your local community, solving problems on the neighborhood level.
• If you do enough direct action, you will potentially end up in a situation where you risk arrest. If you don't want to do that, don't. But if you do, be aware of what it entails. A night in jail is not fun!
• Volunteering with a specific group is a temporary thing, as long as you want. But for some, it's a lifestyle, not just something to do when fashionable. Advocacy never truly ends. There will always be more battles to fight.
• Most direct action campaigns fail. Most lobbying campaigns fail. Most plans fail and need major revisions. Most things fail, and most people fail a lot. Sometimes, you will work very hard on a project/event, and do a great job, and a stakeholder will derail it anyway.
• All organizations are composed of people doing their best. When people are working on projects they're passionate about, emotions can run high. Take a deep breath! You're all on the same team.
• There's an enormous cultural difference between grassroots, all-volunteer nonprofit organizations and large-scale NGOs. Small nonprofits can feel exciting to work with because they're so flexible and open to new ideas. The larger the organization, the more bureaucratic volunteering is likely to be, which may be demoralizing. However, they'll probably have more funding, and they'll probably be managed in a less chaotic way.
• In general, you will only have strategic volunteering opportunities in grassroots organizations. But if you prefer to be assigned things to do or say, pretty much any org will have something for you to help out with.
• Joining the Board of Directors of a nonprofit is a great way to make an amazing long-term impact. However, being on a board comes with a fiduciary duty and various other legal considerations.
• Volunteer burnout is real. It's easy to become tired and jaded. Many people who volunteer for nonprofits in administrative roles avoid direct action for this reason (and vice versa).
• You can't individually solve every problem with an organization, you can't manage every other volunteer, and you can't work on every project. It's just not possible, and even if it were, it would be bad practice.
• Many large corporations offer matching donations for employee charitable contributions. If you want to make a difference, but can't see yourself volunteering on a regular basis, making a qualified donation and having your company match it would be impactful for that group.

It's getting late so I need to call it, but I hope that was helpful to someone.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

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

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like advetising.digital, cory booker and april fools day. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was miffed.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

Anything goes: foods, software, products, bands, websites, appliances, movies, programming languages, travel destinations, etc.

The point of this topic is twofold:

1. To surface some interesting alternatives that could use more exposure.
2. To highlight some of the issues with the currently popular option(s).

Let us know your best “more people should know about this!” swaps, and sell us on why they’re better than the well-known option.

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

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

User and book club ping recipient Maevens said that it would help them if the book and questions were posted to Storygraph, so I created a basic book club template, but I haven't done anything with it yet.

What do you all think? Options include simply posting the book title each month, posting the book title and the discussion questions each month or posting and including a link to the Tildes book club discussion. I'm going to do something minimal regardless, to honor Maevens' request but I want to know what you all think and whether there are things you specifically don't want me to do.

Bottom line, the two book clubs could run in parallel with crossover and links, or they could be essentially separate. Please advise.

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

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This is the twelfth of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Our next book will be Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky at the end of April.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself. Also, this month will be slightly different. I have been exceptionally busy and didn't finish the book this time. I am hoping that you all who did read it will come up with interesting questions in addition to your comments/ reviews.

For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

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

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like yemen, brave and septic tanks. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was documenting.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

The previous introductions thread was waaaaay back in June of 2023, figured it might be time for a new one, eh?

This is a place for new and existing users to post an introduction with a few fun facts about themselves. You will find the post box at the bottom the page. Maybe say "Hi!" to someone else you see while scrolling down?

If you like, you can also write something about yourself in your profile. See "Edit your user bio" on the settings page. Anyone who clicks on your username will see it in your profile. (It appears on the right side of the page.)

You can find out more about how to use Tildes in this topic: "New users: Ask your questions about Tildes here!.

**How long have you been on Tildes? How did you find out about us?**

**How did you choose your username?** 

**What are your interests?** 

**A/S/L (age/(gender|pronouns|identifier)/location)**

**What do you do? This could be in your spare time, for work, your passions.**

**Do you want other users to PM/DM you from this thread?**

**Give us a fun fact (or a link!)! If there is anything to know about tilderinos, it's that we value knowledge sharing!**

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

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

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

I’m new to Tildes and really hope to get into interesting conversations. I’m not really interested in looking at the content behind links and commenting on them though. Is there a way to completely filter them all out so that only text posts remain visible to me?

I was going to get screenshots to backup what I am talking about but apparently they aren't kicking around in the system forever so most of the evidence is gone but I often see mycketforvirrad editing the title of a post I make to exactly what it already was while they are editing tags as they see fit.

What's up with that?

I was going to post a question regarding the topic logs but looking through my old posts, I see that much less than I remember have any topic logs on them.

I can't tell if I am imagining that alot more of them used to have topic logs or Deimos coded it to be a temporary record of the changes that the mods here make?

and if so, why temporary?

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

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like sourcehut, steam.spring sale and communications workers of america. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was keeping track.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

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

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

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

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

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like zooey zephyr, digital markets act and breakfast. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was astute.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

We recently did a Kagi trial giveaway, and I have since received another email from Kagi with 3 additional trial codes. I'm assuming other Kagi subscribers also received the same thing (I got my email on February 25 with the subject line "A treat from us"), so I figure we're due for another giveaway topic.

As before, if you would like an invite, please request it in a comment.

If you have invites to give, please PM them to requesters, then reply to their comment so that other givers will know they've been sent one and don't double up.

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

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

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

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

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like diplomacy, baby boomers and great depression. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was astute.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

(Inspired by some discussion over at the The New Lifetime Reading Plan topic)

Which authors or texts do you feel deserve a place in the literary canon, but don't currently have one?

There is, of course, not one singular, well-defined "canon" -- so interpret "the canon" as "the classics" or "required reading" or "most important works of literature" or however else you care to define it.

In particular, consider areas that the canon tends to overlook: female authors, eastern perspectives, plays (besides Shakespeare's works), etc.

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

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

I recently was at a brunch with a friend and their friend. Their friend works at a startup who buys, very cheaply, pictures of mammograms from hospitals, something something AI anonymization, and resells the data to ‘researchers’. I asked several things, for example, what responsibility does her company have for breaches or failures to protect identity? Her response: we have reporting requirements.

In my mind, that something like this exists at all is a complete social failure and consequence of hypercapitalism. The goal of using hospital data for research is obviously a good one. But in my mind, that data should not exist in a non-anonymous way outside the control of the hospital, and, in its anonymous form, should be available to all researchers for free. It seems obvious to me the best way to innovate real solutions is to get as many smart people as possible researching the data, and not just those who can afford it. Less obvious, but still problematic: if we limit the availability of the data to those who can afford it, we are limiting the availability of the data to those whose primary incentive of research is profit, as opposed to public interests like health.

I’m very tired of pretending for the sake of equanimity that this work is somehow OK. But neither is it productive to be argumentative at brunch. I guess one approach is simply to say, gee that’s swell and move on to a different topic, or just not ask people about their work at all. But I’m a prophet, I feel compelled to tell the truth, and sometimes to an unhealthy degree make people feel uncomfortable.

I don’t know what the solution is, it’s one of the reasons I went to divinity school: to gain access to a potentially practical platform for advocating meaningful change. But the problem is so well integrated and so insidious. Am I doomed to always be in isolated despair?

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

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If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

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

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like algorithmic complacency, volodymyr zelenskyy and null. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was eagle-eyed.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

This is the eleventh of an ongoing series of book discussions here on Tildes. We are discussing Born a Crime by Trever Noah. Our next book will be Hyperion by Dan Simmons at the end of March.

I don't have a particular format in mind for this discussion, but I will post some prompts and questions as comments to get things started. You're not obligated to respond to them or vote on them though. So feel free to make your own top-level comment for whatever you wish to discuss, questions you have of others, or even just to post a review of the book you have written yourself.

For latecomers, don't worry if you didn't read the book in time for this Discussion topic. You can always join in once you finish it. Tildes Activity sort, and "Collapse old comments" feature should keep the topic going for as long as people are still replying.
And for anyone uninterested in this topic please use the Ignore Topic feature on this so it doesn't keep popping up in your Activity sort, since it's likely to keep doing that while I set this discussion up, and once people start joining in.

Thirteen is a difficult age for most. It's a time of transition from childhood into early adulthood.
I'm keen for book recommendations you think a 13-year-old should read. Specific topics I'm keen to be covered, either directly or through metaphor, are:

• Confidence
• Development
• Fitness / Nutrition / Physical Health
• Mental Health
• Finance
• Ethics

But really, anything you think one could tackle at that age and benefit from having read the content.

I've specified boy, because it is a boy who I wish to pass these recommendations on to, and I think that perhaps the advice would be different for a girl.

Hey there! I've been modding Minecraft for a couple years now and recently have fallen down the rabbit hole of watching people play horror mods. I was curious if anyone knows any good YouTube series where people roleplay in a game with horror mods. Actual in-character playthroughs of games is a fascinating topic for me (think Neebs Gaming playing Subnautica), so I was curious if anyone knew any that involve Minecraft horror. Thanks in advance!

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

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

Add awesome game deals to this topic as they come up over the course of the week!

Alternately, ask about a given game deal if you want the community’s opinions: e.g. “What games from this bundle are most worth my attention?”

Rules:

• No grey market sales
• No affiliate links

If posting a sale, it is strongly encouraged that you share why you think the available game/games are worthwhile.

All previous Save Point topics

If you don’t want to see threads in this series, add save point to your personal tag filters.

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

Tildes is a very serious site, where we discuss very serious matters like steve huffman, tiananmen square massacre and bluejeweled. Tags culled from the highest voted topics from the last seven days, if anyone was at a loss.

But one of my favourite tags happens to be offbeat! Taking its original inspiration from Sir Nils Olav III, this thread is looking for any far-fetched offbeat stories lurking in the newspapers. It may not deserve its own post, but it deserves a wider audience!

Since it is the Oscar season and there are awards for acting, I thought it will be interesting to hear about peoples favorite actresses. As an alternative to the usual "my favorite movies". I will make another topic about actors in a couple of days.

So who are favorite actresses, what makes them special for you and what are their best movies?

I didn't know where to post this, sometimes I invite people on instagram to suggest ideas or things for me to draw and post; I found it's a nice way to interact on the internet in a different way and challenge myself and practice at the same time. If anyone's interested maybe we can do it here, this is not for commissions and it's totally free, I'm just trying to do something fun and collaborative with strangers.

Even if this doesn't take off feel free to contact me and see what we can do, I'd love to make something for somebody else, I can share some of my drawings so you know what to expect.

Maybe we could organize and turn it into a monthly topic with a different prompt for anyone who wants to draw and participate and share. Would love to read your opinions on this.

Apologies if this is the wrong space for it.

Or, let’s be honest, firstly as a novelty. I don't know anyone else personally who has bought, or would buy, a copy. I figured it would be interesting to see what it was like.

My wife and I stopped on Valentine’s day to buy a copy, and I think we were both surprised by the print. I knew Playboy magazines produced some notable interviews in the past, but a dozen important conversations over several decades isn’t exactly going to outweigh the sea of photographs they’re known for. The new edition was a surprising $20 in-person. It felt like a bit of a gamble, but I think it was worth it.

By the numbers, it’s ~125 pages long and features 3 pictorial photoshoots. Beyond a few pages of photos, the rest is basically all writing. There are a few ads, but nothing like the volume of ads in other magazines I’ve read recently. I figured the magazine would be full of risqué photos, but it’s more of a tasteful inclusion alongside other, more substantial discussion. It is essentially all writing, and it’s good writing.

From the outset, the Editor’s Letter (Mike Guy) sets the tone of the new printing:

Five years have passed since an issue of Playboy rolled off a printing press, and they have been strange years indeed. We’ve passed through the wreckage of a pandemic, sat on a violent political see-saw, and watched as discourse shrinks to tiny digital moments that explode into divisive range at precisely the time we need reason. Just as Playboy was frustrated with the conservative norms of the ‘50s, we want to challenge them now, too. This can mean just showing up, listening; it can mean choosing connecting and pleasure over sensation and isolation. It means rejecting poisonous, meme-driven narratives, as writer Magdalene Taylor urges in “The Rise of the Beta Male” …, her disturbing report from the front lines of our emerging dystopia about young men who have given up on sex. … The internet - OnlyFans, TikTok, and the rest - has stolen sexuality and fed it into the meat grinder of the attention economy. We’re doing our part to steal it back. As the poet Wallace Stevens wrote, “The greatest poverty is not to live in the physical world.”

I didn’t anticipate an article detailing a first-person investigation into the rise of anti-semitism, or an article about a far-out apocalyptic billionaire party, nor did I expect a humorous memoir about the rise of Nashville as the bachelorette party destination. But, these were funny, interesting pieces that spurred much discussion in my house. My wife and I have taken turns reading these long-form articles aloud each night. The article on an ultra-exclusive sex party in LA fell inline with the sort of topics I expected, but the writing and description of a beautiful spectacle made us pause and say, “that actually sounds like a fun time.”

It turns out you really can read Playboy for the articles, and more importantly resonate on the value of re-engaging human connection, disarming hate, building up our communities, and challenging our preconceived notions.