This will be a noisy thread. Please use the ignore feature if you do not want to see it in your feed.

This is a continuation of the original thread from election day, which was here.

These threads are intended as more conversational spaces to process the day and results. Consider this an open forum for your own thoughts and feelings.

There is also a thread here in ~news that's more focused on articles and events.

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

• You get an idea for something you'd like to learn more about. (Maybe you have a question, maybe you want to explore a new hobby, or maybe you want to make a more informed decision.)
• You type something into a search engine.
• You click a result, only to realize that what you're reading is poorly written. It seems rushed, surface-level, and ill-informed. "This doesn't answer my question at all!" you think to yourself.
• You go back, and try another one, and another one, only to give up and put the idea back in your head.

I don't think these webpages are written to be useful in the first place. They seem to be written to attract attention to the website for other reasons (ad revenue, affiliate links, to draw attention to a product or service). Regardless of why it's happening, though, I want to find a better way to search.

The sort of content I'm looking for is written by someone who really cares about the topic. I want to learn from dorks and nerds and passionate people. Once I stumbled across this blog about extra virgin olive oil. The website isn't pretty, and it goes way more in depth than I'll ever need, but I trust the author, and there are some really interesting nuggets of insight on these pages. (e.g. "Another myth debunked: Heating EVOO makes it ‘toxic’")

Do you have any tips or tricks to more reliably find these sorts of sources (whether online or in-person)?

@ admin: Sorry if it's not allowed to post these kinds of things, feel free to remove it.

I'm normally not someone who would post this kind of stuff to places like this or other sites, as it's probably kind of annoying, but l'm honestly starting to get super worried.

A close friend recently broke her leg & thanks to the fucked up US healthcare system she's got a $1800 bill due on the 11th of October. I set up a fundraiser to try and help, which raised $500 so far, but that's just not enough.
I'm really worried for her (mental) wellbeing & l am desperately trying to scrape together what l can to help. l think if the bill isn't paid, it wouldn't take long for her to end up homeless, or worse.

l don't like asking this, but would anyone be able to either donate or share the tweet? Any amount helps.

l would genuinely appreciate it a lot if you could, and l understand if you can't.

https://twitter.com/asoftbird/status/1294762351242235904?s=21

Edit: it's in the tweet, but l should mention she's trans and disabled; becoming homeless already is pretty bad, but given the other circumstances l'm honestly not sure if she'll survive that.
I have donated her $600 already which is as much as l can miss, l don't know what to do about the bit that's still missing.

There is an important election in the United States this fall, and we've all heard a lot of concern expressed about efforts to suppress the vote. Under the shadow of all the other issues we're currently facing as a society, I know a lot of people who are asking "what concrete actions can I take to make a difference?" It seems like helping to get out the vote is one very important action.

So here's a question to the Tildes community: what suggestions do you have about how we (as individuals) can help get out the vote this fall? Big or small, donating money or doing physical work -- what can we do?

Just found in my closet a lighter fluid (butane) can which expired in 2017. I tried charging a lighter with it but I can’t get a flame (it was working before). I don’t suppose it’s going to explode but it doesn’t seem reasonable to just throw it in the trash. What should I do?

Some months ago, I found Weekly Weird News, a roundup of strange news from around the internet. I recently depleted their backstock, and find myself wanting. Now, I know there's no shortage of weird, odd, bizarre, and strange in our world. Just as I know there's no shortage of people willing to talk about it. But, I'm having difficulty finding "current" weirdness. Oh sure, there's podcasts to be found talking about the weirdness surrounding this murder in 1952, or that rural happening in 1991, but so far, I haven't found another that scratches that "that seriously happened recently?" itch.

Does anyone have any suggestions, or am I doomed to dripfeed?

What are some good YouTube channels still currently working in genres which aren't currently popular because of algorithm shenanigans, the natural cycle of trends, or whatever else? I'm thinking like sketch comedy, original animations, serious short films, etc.

Identify a topic/target audience and a piece of "required viewing" for that topic/audience.

"Required viewing" means that you consider the video content you've chosen to be so important or relevant that it is essentially mandatory for those interested. Also, explain why you feel so strongly about it. What makes the video "required" rather than just "preferred"? What makes is stand out over other videos like it?

For example, maybe there's a concert video that you consider essential for rock music fans. Maybe there's a TV series that's an essential introduction to space exploration. Maybe there's a movie that's a must-see for new parents.

Any video media is fair game. Movies, television, online series, livestreams, documentaries, YouTube videos. Whatever. Also, if it's publicly streamable, include a link for us!

good morning, tildes--this is not a test. we are 482 days and dropping away from possibly the biggest election day in recent american history. no opinion pieces or longform this week; this week was pretty quiet, as was true of last week. a few polls also dropped, and they are included here.

the usual note: common sense should be able to generally dictate what does and does not get posted in this thread. if it's big news or feels like big news, probably make it its own post instead of lobbing it in here. like the other weekly threads, this one is going to try to focus on things that are still discussion worthy, but wouldn't necessarily make good/unique/non-repetitive discussion starters as their own posts.

Week 15

News

Polling

• from Emerson (B+ on 538): National poll

Biden: 30%
Sanders: 15%
Warren: 15%
Harris: 15%
Buttigieg: 5%
All others below 5%.

• from Morning Consult (B- on 538): National poll

Biden: 31%
Sanders: 19%
Harris: 14%
Warren: 13%
Buttigieg: 6%
All others below 5%

General Stuff

• from CBS News: 2020 Democratic presidential candidates reveal second quarter fundraising efforts. we begin this week with the fundraising news, as the second quarter ended at the end of last month. candidates are not obligated to report their numbers until july 15, but many candidates (particularly those with good numbers) like to report early. the current leaderboard, as of this morning:

Buttigieg: 24.8 million
Sanders: 24 million (18 million fundraised, 6 million transferred)
Biden: 21.5 million
Warren: 19.1 million
Harris: 12 million
Bennet: 3.5 million (2.8 million fundraised, 700k transferred)
Bullock: 2 million
Hickenlooper: 1 million
Swalwell (dropped out): 850k

• from the Atlantic: The Most Critical Argument Democrats Will Have in 2020. healthcare is again going to loom pretty heavily over this race, consistently being one of the top issues for americans. the healthcare debate is part of what led to the democratic wave in the 2018 elections and, if republicans don't get better messaging in short order, is probably going to be one of the many things which leads to trump losing re-election in 2020. of course, what the democratic plan for healthcare looks like to the eventual nominee isn't set in stone either; most of the frontrunners define their plan as some form of medicare for all and would get rid of private insurance, most of the perennial 1%ers want something less "socialisty". given that the party is to the left of where it used to be and that biden is the only person really standing on the status quo who has a chance at winning at this point, i'd bet on M4A winning out ultimately.
• from the Atlantic: The Long-Shot Candidacy Conundrum. one of the candidates in this piece has already dropped out (swalwell), but the weird slate of swalwell, seth moulton, and tim ryan as candidates in the presidential race is still interesting because they really have few if any compelling reasons to be running and most people have no idea why they're running at all. ryan perhaps has the best case: ohio, likely to lose a congressional district in 2020, will possibly redistrict him out and leave him having to run in a less friendly district; there are no such excuses for swalwell (now dropped out and committed to his house seat) or moulton (in a safe seat but almost certainly limited in his ability to climb the political rungs by his anti-pelosi posturing). nonetheless, running is almost certain to land them all more political capital or better positions than the ones they currently have, which makes the presidency pretty alluring even if they come nowhere near it.

Elizabeth Warren

• from the Guardian: 105 town halls and 35,000 selfies: how Warren has shaken up the 2020 race. warren's strategy which early on in the race seemed to be leading her down a road to inevitable failure has turned around quite significantly in the past few months, as this article by the guardian explores. in practice, this piece on warren's strategy is also a candidate profile, talking mostly about warren's policy focus and her eventual aims to save capitalism from itself.
• from POLITICO: Elizabeth Warren shuns conventional wisdom for a new kind of campaign. warren's campaign is also crafting a new path by eschewing the standard model of campaigns where you just hire a shit ton of consultants who advise you on everything. warren's campaign has no consultants, no in-house pollster, plans to do its ad-making in-house, and has an extensive payroll of staffers, all of which is funded by the idea that her fundraising will continue as it has this quarter (19.1 million). this model has no guarantees of working, since it is entirely underpinned by warren continuing to raise absurd amounts of money, but if it manages to stay afloat, it could be quite formidable and serve as a future model for campaigns.
• from CBS News: Elizabeth Warren proposes executive orders to address race and gender pay gap. warren has some policy that she intends to push through with executive orders on the race pay gap and the gender pay gap. per CBS: "...companies and contractors with historically poor records on diversity and equality [would be] den[ied] contracts with the federal government." also a part of this plan:

To address the underrepresentation of women of color in leadership in the federal workforce, Warren says she would issue an order to recruit from historically black colleges and other minority-serving institutions; establish paid fellowships for federal jobs for minority and low-income applicants, including formerly incarcerated people; and require federal agencies to incorporate diversity into their strategic plans and mentorship efforts.

• from Jacobin: Elizabeth Warren’s Next Step on Medicare for All. warren embraced medicare for all at the debates, which was not especially surprising; however, it remains to be seen how much warren makes talking about it a focus of her campaign. warren has been pretty silent on healthcare issues despite having polices on significantly more esoteric issues and her website still lacks a healthcare page as of now. jacobin makes the case here that warren would be smart, if she cares about medicare for all genuinely, to defend it at every opportunity and sell it to the american public, lest it be rendered unpassable in the future.

Kamala Harris

• from CBS News: Harris proposes 100 billion plan to increase minority homeownership. kamala harris has some new policy aimed at promoting minority house ownership. CBS reports that the plan "...calls for 100 billion Housing and Urban Development (HUD) grant to provide homeowners or homebuyers who rent or live in historically red-lining communities, where minority home and business owners were largely blocked from accessing capital for investment, up to a $25,000 down payment in assistance and closing costs." there are some other fairly esoteric qualifications involved here, but i won't quote those because they're mildly confusing and don't necessarily contribute to an understanding of the policy.
• from VICE: Iowa Is Getting Serious About Kamala Harris. unsurprisingly, harris's meteoric rise following the first set of debates continues. harris and biden both swung through iowa over the fourth of july and harris was immediately greeted to significantly more reception than she presumably would have gotten prior to the the debates. biden remains the slight frontrunner, of course, but despite harris prioritizing the more diverse early states of south carolina and nevada in her electoral strategy, she increasingly looks competitive in iowa.

Everybody Else

• from Jacobin: Bernie Is the Best Candidate on Palestine. jacobin makes the case for sanders being the best candidate on palestinian issues. this is relatively straightforward; sanders is probably the only candidate in the race currently who has consistently pushed for palestinian issues and really his only contemporary with a comparable record is warren, who used to be staunchly pro-israel before gradually moderating on the issue. sanders still has many rough spots around the edges when it comes to palestinians, namely the fact that he's anti-BDS (but against banning of the movement), but there are no perfect candidates.
• from Jacobin: We Don’t Need Pete Buttigieg’s National Service Program. jacobin is also unsparing in its criticism of buttigieg's national service program which is, admittedly, pretty silly in its justification. in the article's words:

But more to the point, the basic diagnosis behind Buttigieg’s proposal (and others like it) is simply incorrect. True enough, few would probably challenge the suggestion that America is a deeply fragmented and polarized society. Revealingly, though, Buttigieg thinks the causes are spiritual and cultural rather than material and political: people have different identities, backgrounds, income levels, religious beliefs, and party affiliations, with these differences being hardened by epistemological bubbles online; ergo, a divided country that might become more unified if people were brought together in common cause.

It’s a tidy narrative, and one that conveniently sidesteps America’s maldistribution of wealth, its general dearth of quality public programs and services, and the numerous ways these injustices and others contribute to a coarsening of its social fabric.

• from CBS News: Tulsi Gabbard says Kamala Harris hatched "political ploy" to "smear" Joe Biden on race. y'all remember tulsi? she's still around, and she's making headlines for the wrong reasons yet again. for some reason, she's decided to die on the hill of kamala harris smearing biden on race issues, saying harris was "leveling this accusation that Joe Biden is a racist — when he's clearly not — as a way to try to smear him." this is interesting: harris not only never said that biden was a racist, but in fact immediately prefaced her comments with "I do not believe you are a racist"; i suppose tulsi is trying to argue that harris was lying or something similar here. either way, it's a bizarre line of attack that doesn't really make a lot of sense, not least because gabbard has literally nothing to do with the whole situation.
• from CNN: 2020 Democrats Klobuchar and Inslee unveil education plans ahead of summit. jay inslee and amy klobuchar meanwhile unveiled some education plans. here are the highlights:

klobuchar:

• would end the Trump administration's push for a school choice tax credit
• proposes a federal-state partnership program under which states would tackle education funding equity and recommend how school services can better meet the needs of working parents

inslee:

• will end the diversion of federal funds to private charter schools
• would provide universal preschool, double funding for magnet schools and fully fund the federal Title I program for schools that serve low-income areas
• promises to help states fund pay increases for educators, providing student loan forgiveness for educators and protecting teacher pensions
• supports giving federal funds to districts that switch to zero-emission buses and investing in climate change education and STEM programs at K-12 schools and historically black colleges and universities

both:

• promise to fully fund the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and to provide protections for the LGBTQ community
• want to ban the use of federal funds to arm teachers or for firearms training

• from NBC News: Swalwell ends presidential campaign less than two weeks after first debate. eric swalwell, one percenter extraordinaire and man whose name is impossible to spell correctly on the first try, is hanging up his presidential campaign after lackluster polling and fundraising. swalwell's most recognizable moment for people will probably be his tagline "pass the torch"; unfortunately, it does seem that he's passed the torch himself to candidates who can actually gain traction with the american public. swalwell remains a house representative, and will be seeking reelection in 2020.
• from Vox: “I call her a modern-day prophet”: Marianne Williamson’s followers want you to give her a chance. marianne williamson remains the media's token "wacky candidate", for which she receives occasional media attention including this article focused on the people who support her. broadly, her main demographic is wine moms, but williamson also has a number of younger supporters to her campaign and message. williamson supporters are, unsurprisingly, not "williamson or bust" types: just as other candidates's supporters, they're more than happy to get behind other people and the eventual nominee, whether that's marianne or not. williamson's supporters will probably remain behind her for the duration of her campaign, though.

anyways, feel free to as always contribute other interesting articles you stumble across, or comment on some of the ones up there. see also: Why America is Ignoring Kirsten Gillibrand, Warren Rising: Massachusetts Progressive Announces $19 Million Fundraising Haul, Any Democrat Who Wants to Be President Should Reject War with Iran, Not Hide Behind Process Criticisms

Disclaimer: I will not make any money off of this sale. I am just asking for my old boss with whom I built this company. Even though I don't work there and have no stake, I just want to solicit the best advice on her behalf. I can give more details via a PM as she doesn't want to spread the word yet.

The business is a vacation rental company located in a premier resort town in the USA. It has existed since before airbnb was even a thing. The business is very profitable and technologically self-reliant. She has spent a decent amount on technology so that there aren't multiple outsiders taking a slice of each rental. I can provide the rough numbers via PM. The SEO is already #1 in the market. The company owns its office building, and multiple vacation rentals which could be packaged in with the sale.

It is the largest vacation rental company in the local vicinity, so selling to a direct competitor doesn't seem likely. It would seem to be the ideal sale/purchase for someone who is wealthy and is looking to retire early, live in a tropical setting, make money, and still have something to do. However, maybe contacting the larger, more corporate vacation rental businesses on the mainland would be the best option?

Google searches for this are an SEO disaster which is why I am asking here. Are business brokers necessary for something like this? It is so niche that I really just don't know what to look for. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Edit: to add, it is completely turn-key. Everything could be left as it is, with all current employees. Aside from executive decisions the only thing that the owner did, since we scaled to dominate the local market, was write the ad copy because she is really good at that. She only physically spent a couple months of the year there in the last few years. The only reason she is considering selling is due to aging-out.

I have had a varied work history for the last decade but it has all been W-2. I now find myself doing consulting engagements and I am wondering if I should setup an LLC for this work. My main concern is actually limiting liability, and of course I am interested in possible tax advantages.

Has anyone else done this? If so, what’s the best way to set this up? Stripe has a program, I imagine legalzoom does as well..

A while back I saw a cool link on Tildes, I think it was before the save feature was implemented, which is why I've lost it. It was an article with an accompanying JavaScript toy to demonstrate the point: if a system starts clustered, equality alone won't bring the system to equilibrium because the system has momentum. You have to swing hard in the other direction to get to actual equilibrium. (i.e. it was a defense of affirmative action.)

Basically, you set some conditions meant to represent demographics. The people were represented by little squares in the simulation. The conditions were things like "start X% concentrated" and "squares must have 2/3/4 different colored neighbor squares."

I think it was on Medium, but I'm not sure, and I can't for the life of me find it again even after scouring Tildes, Reddit, and Google. Anyone know what I'm talking about and where I can find it again?

The current US Senate majority continues to support the president. However, the current president may have been compromised by the Russian government.

The connections that several senators have to Russia (Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, to name two) raise the very real possibility that the current Republican majority in the Senate owes its existence to Russian help.

The FBI, a renewed Republican target, has suggested as much in briefings given to that same U.S. Congress.

What are the chances of the House investigating sitting menbers of Senate, and what twists and turns might occur should it happen?

Personally, I strongly dislike it. Every aspect of every film is way overblown there.

If there's a funny scene in a movie, they LITERALLY die laughing and wake their whole neighbourhood up.

If there's a scene that is in the slightest bit sad, they're going to cry their eyes out for months.

If there's a movie that's decently good, then it's an absolute masterpiece and the best movie of the decade.

And so on... Everything is always really exaggerated.

On top of that, there's always the circlejerk hivemind aspect. Threads are closed after 6 months, so the whole discussion about the film is divided between many threads, but because every thread is small and new, you often get the same fluff comments.

For more popular flims, it is the absolute worst. With half the thread being just funny quotes from the movie with no additional commentary or anything valuable, yet having thousands upon thousands of upvotes. It's kind of sad.

I used to go to IMDb boards, –which, admittedly, had their own issues– but they were still pretty useful for discussion. And shutting people up wasn't as easy as it is on Reddit, so the opinions there were much more varied. However, since they shut them down, Reddit is the closest thing I've found. Moviechat.org is supposed to be a replacement to the IMDb boards, but it's pretty inactive.

So, even though I kind of despise r/movies, I'm sort of forced to use them. But reading it makes me somewhat bitter.

What about you?

For those unfamiliar an open collaboration is just a broader term than open source describing non software related projects like Wikipedia.

I have been thinking a lot about how much potential exists in open collaboration and somewhat confused we don't see more of it. I know that at least in open source software a significant portion of projects die or lose support. Why is this?

Will they censor it? I sort of imagine when the "shit hole" countries thing and the "Grab them by the pussy" thing happened it will be similar. I'm just watching the news and they have not once said the "n-word" YET

That's a mouthful but I'm really curious what drives the situation when you go on the Facebook support forum, on popular threads there's tons of people posting absolutely nonsense comments that have nothing to do with the topic, and a lot of them are accounts from Asia... has anyone else noticed this? Are they just spamming to get account visibility?

For those unfamiliar Kailo.com is a site somewhat similar to tildes in that it want to encourage rational discussion. Although it is also significantly different than tildes because it seeks more to organize the discussion into claims that are evaluated independently.

I tend to think the site has some potential and there might be ideas related to it that could benefit tildes. I'm interested in what aspects the community here likes about the site and what aspects might be worthwhile to incorporate.

As a side note, do sites wanting to encourage rational thinking need more facilities to encourage the use of sources. One thing I've noticed about Kailo is that it's not every concerned with sourcing their claims with evidence.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is stepping down, and there are rumors he intends to run for office and possibly the presidency. A frequent Trump critic, he would presumably be running as a Democrat if he entered the 2020 race. He seems to be staking out a position in the center of the party, criticizing the idea of a government jobs program or single-payer healthcare.

Would you vote for him in a primary or general election? Does America need another businessman (albeit a successful one) president? How economically progressive should the Democrat's candidate be? Discuss.

In three months I will probably start studying law. It's the second time starting university for me, since I left the university where I studied IT about 5 months ago because of depression and I guess I didn't really like programming that much.

My question is: Say I finished the uni and got a law degree. What are the jobs I could do and what do I really have to do there? I have a slight idea from the movies, but I don't really know any people in person to ask this from.