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Introductions | June 2023, part 1
Edit: lots of great discussion here. If you want to post an introduction, please go to the next Introductions topic.
It's been a couple months since the previous introductions thread and we're getting some new users, so it seems time to start another one.
This is a place to post an introduction with a few fun facts about yourself. Anyone can post an introduction, new and old members included.
Also, on the topic of bios, you can read anybody's bio by clicking on their username (if they've posted one), and you can edit your own bio in settings.
Hiya. I'm a 9 year Reddit user that refuses to use their mobile app (RIF or nothing), so I came here for some extra content; my preference always skewed towards text and long form content, so Tildes is a good fit for me.
I know a little bit about a lot of things, and love learning more
I just joined and I'm exactly the same. I used RIF on mobile for nigh a decade and generally participate in smaller, discussion heavy subs. It seems I found my people and I'm looking forward to using this site together with a couple of others like Lemmy.
Also just in case you missed it, RIF's dev is working on a Tildes app, which I'm having high hopes for -- no pressure @talklittle :)
It's great that we're getting an app, I'd just like to let you know that Tildes mobile website is excellent and you should check it out!
Tildes is one of the better mobile sites I've used, I like it better than, say, HN on my phone.
I've been around here for a few years and the mobile site accounts for the majority of my usage. I can highly recommend trying it out to any of our new members.
Hello, also a longtime Reddit (is Fun) user here. I concur, I'm using the mobile site as we speak and it's really surprisingly well-made, which is a rarity in today's modern mobile website landscape which are engineered to be as shitty as possible to make you download the app (ahem Reddit ahem, but also... The vast majority of the Internet nowadays).
Nice to be invited to Tildes. And now to break the muscle memory of opening the Reddit app from my home screen.
I saved the tildes website as a home screen app icon. You can do with android/Firefox, I'm not 100% sure what else
There are dozens of us! RiF user as well for 10 years or so. I enjoy bad jokes, video games, and pretty much anything pop culture. I don't always have something intelligent to say so I tend to lurk a lot, but so far tildes has been super rad.
Can confirm, another decade long RiF user here. Have we found our new home?!
The mobile site is what sold Tildes for me. Uncluttered, clean, themeable...
Hey I'm an 11 year Reddit veteran (joined Reddit after leaving Digg) and I've also jumped ship to here due to the API changes. My first comment here. Nice to meet you :)
10 year reddit user who is also a fan of RIF. Nice to meet you! Agreed on preferred content types, it's nice to just be able to read things without ads or autoplay videos getting in the way. I tend to gravitate to games, books and science topics so it's nice to see those sections here as well. I'd like a weather section but I can migrate to Storm2k for that.
10 year redditor , have been watching a slow sea change and this latest just did me in.
I heard about tildes in one of the threads and really like the feel of it much more than reddit, so I guess I'm here now.
15 year club here, most of it spent on RIF - I find it hard to access reddit any other way, so now I'm here - sup!
I left Something Awful, Digg and Facebook before - looks like reddit is next. Nice to see more people refusing to settle for the horrible official (cr)app!
I was thinking of joining Something Awful now that reddit's going to shit. I kinda miss old forums, and I was real curious about that place when I was a kid and didn't have the five bucks or whatever it costs to join. Newgrounds was my old-school home.
I think I actually can access my old account again - Lowtax (site admin) perma-suspended me way back when because he felt slighted by my comment about some of the forum changes I disagreed with, but due to forum specifications perma-suspension was basically just a 11 or 15 years one - more time definitely passed, so technically I should be able to post again :)
I'm not really interested in doing so anymore, but might keep that in mind for next month, if I feel it hard to quit reddit cold turkey and need a distraction.
You should just go in and bitch about all the changes since the last time you were there.
I assume this is a joke but this probably isn't behavior that will help make/keep Tildes a more pleasant place than SA, Digg, Facebook, Reddit....
Ultimately we each contribute to our environments, and making a conscious effort to leave snarky humor behind is a kind of passive participation that I think many Tildes users hope to see.
It's not snarky, it's just a joke. I was being flippant, if you will.
15 years here too. AOL forums to Something awful and fark to reddit to rif, now to here perhaps.
The only constant is change,and it was only a matter of time for reddit to be part of that list. The investors grew their crop, now is time to thresh and harvest it. I pre-emptively feel bad for the retail investor bag holders who buy inflated reddit 2.0 ipo shares that give these clowns the pay day they're orchestrating to the detriment of the entire community.
Hello! First post! Got my invitation and I'm still learning how to navigate.
11 years on Reddit using RiF app. Disappointed in Reddit overall and ready to move on. They ain't that important.
Edit: I have no idea how to respond to a post yet. Can't find a reply button unless it's to a comment... Help?
Edit 2: found it!
10 year Reddit refugee here. No way I’m using the default app it’s horrid. Reddit has drastically changed over the years and the crap they are pulling now is wrong on so many levels. But yeah here I am! Glad to be here and look forward to the future!
I, too, am preparing for the Reddit exodus - but I'm also tired of it in general and looking for a more small time group of communities to hang out in and I was told this is the place.
I'm excited to join and start some discussions about a bunch of stuff!
Hey, same - RIF is RAD!
Long live RIF! 11 years on Reddit 8 on RIF. Looking for a new home. Mostly into vehicles and video games, but love a good visit to nature.
Same. I used Reddit is fun 4 years before Reddit even had an official app. What Reddit is doing is extortion and pretty upsetting. Reddit is the only social media I've used pretty consistently in my adulthood, it's a shame but I can live without it. Everything except the most niche of subs are pretty boring now anyway.
Hello, I'm in the same boat as you, RiF user since 9 years, preparing for the big Exodus.
I just surprisingly got an invite after reading and then inquiring about ~ on the RiF shutdown thread and so far I really like what I'm seeing, especially the tag system for comments sounds like a great system, looking forward to using it after the first week!
And, to quote Matt Parker, I too "know a none zero amount of things about a lot of things" and always enjoy stumbling over new knowledge.
11 year reddit veteran here and only use old reddit + RES/Boost/Apollo.
Saw Tildes referenced in one of the many API fees change posts and here I am too!
I'm in the same boat as you, 11 years. I've been using RIF since I first switched to Android, Narwhal before that.
BTW, just found you can change your theme on Tildes at the very bottom. On my phone using Atom One Dark theme, it looks very similar to RIF's dark mode.
Hey! I'm a Tildes veteran. I can't stack up to the people on here writing out 2,000 word essays weekly, but I like to think I'm generally contributive.
I currently work for Google. I used to work at various Bay Area startups and hope to go back to the startup life soon. I love cycling, baking pizza, and recently have been going ham on pull up training with longer term goals of muscle ups and bouldering. My favorite weather is rain. My new favorite bird is the Takahē.
Make sure you vote in October.... https://www.birdoftheyear.org.nz/faq
I'm American, can I vote?
Yes.
You just can't donate.
In 2008, the successful campaign to elect kākāpō was accused by the takahē of accepting undeclared donations "from wealthy migratory birds living in Monaco." It was cleared by the Serious Feathered Fraud Office. You have been warned.
Kākāpō are great. But they're so hard to see in person :(
I’m curious why you want to go back to startups? I don’t have any startup experience, and have only worked for large and established companies (I’m currently FAANG as well). What’s the draw? I feel that I need to be more stable before taking that type of risk on a job - what if it tanks and I need to spend savings to pay rent and eat? Is it simply that the potential reward is worth the risk?
The main reason is that when you're an early employee at a startup your rate of learning is so much higher than anywhere else. When I graduated college I went straight from paying to learn to getting paid to learn at a startup. The first startup I worked at was technologically not very exciting. But because it was my first full time dev job and I was sat next to their most senior engineer I learned a lot every day. Practical stuff about zero downtime releases. Git release management. What code is going to cause problems, what isn't. I think a junior engineer can get that kind of experience at a lot of different companies, including FAANG, but you'll definitely learn more per day in a smaller company.
The second startup I worked at was using an emerging technology called GPT3. I was loosely familiar with the idea as I'd seen stuff on Hacker News going back to the GPT2 days. We were a really small team. I joined as employee #4 or 5 to a team of 3 engineers. Being able to take a surprisingly successful hacked-together MVP and rebuild it in place was a lot of fun. And the site only continued to grow at an exponential pace. When you have 2,000 sign ups per day you can learn a lot about customer onboarding. I built a small framework for running experiments (existing products didn't look like the right fit for us) and we starting A/B testing the shit out of everything. That kind of tight feedback loop is something I've yet to see at FAANG and I expect is genuinely extremely rare there.
We would go from an idea for an experiment in the morning standup to a PR with the change, to release and then fresh data from the data warehouse pipeline within one workday. And I'd also get to work on a couple features during that day while reviewing code and interviewing engineering candidates.
There are really a million little reasons (hiring's actually a big one) that I could also mention. But it all boils down to learning. My big company job does not live up to the mystique the employer had 15 years ago when I decided I'd work there. To be fair they maintained whatever their magic was for a long time. But it's over now.
Edit:
To address your other questions:
You can ask them before joining what their runway is. Only join companies with an acceptable answer. I think if they have at least 2 years and are either profitable or raising more money you should feel pretty comfortable.
I honestly don't mind the risk of even a 6 month runway (as long as they're raising). If I really need to I could get a new job very quickly - or go back to an old one.
I think my attitude here comes from how little logic there is in how much I get paid by the job market. I'm only a few years into my career and have already experienced being able to set my own salary (joined -> 3 months later got a 17% raise -> 3 months later "I need another 17% raise" "Sure"). I've experienced a 75% raise from an already 2% income percentile job when switching into FAANG. Why would I stress about not having a job for a couple months?
Yeah I do understand that last part about the rate of pay - but I’m in an extremely high cost of living area, and while I’ve been able to more than double my (already six figure) salary by taking a job in this sort of area my quality of living has stayed more or less constant. I guess I have trouble seeing myself making more by going to a startup unless I join very early and they are successful in their endeavor.
I have the opposite takeaway. My income has more than doubled in the last few years and my standard of living has barely changed. So clearly more pay isn’t what I need. I’m willing to trade the extra money for more learning. And if I need more money I’ll move to a lower cost of living area. Why couldn’t I be just as happy somewhere else?
And there’s still the startup lottery angle. I’m going to try and pick a winner. I’ll do good work there which will improve their odds of success. If I’m right I can retire in my 30s.
Adding on a bit -- I used to work for Google, and now work for a scale-up. In my experience, large, established companies have a lot of structure in place to keep things running smoothly, but your areas of focus are generally limited to a piece of a piece of a product/service. At at small company, you're much more likely to jump around touching a lot of different pieces. I'm a Cloud backend developer, but have had to dive into app code, embedded code, and mess around with code bases "owned" by other teams.
Whether that's a pro or a con depends on if you enjoy having to learn new things quickly, vs. spending more time diving deep. I lean more towards the latter, so a proper tiny startup is probably not for me, but a small scale-up has a nice blend of both.
do you think tildes can rival reddit?
It cannot, and for many reasons. For starters, Tildes does not allow image posts or memes, and "topics that are primarily for entertainment or that don't have discussion value" are discouraged. So many of the things people look for on Reddit cannot exist here.
Actually.... this is very encouraging to hear! I might end up enjoying this user base a lot more than I had been enjoying Reddit these days, if these last couple days are any indication.
As of about 4 months ago, I've also been checking out the old websites I used to frequent back in the early 2000's and a lot of them still have small but very wise community members that keep me coming back. Fark, Metafilter, Slashdot, Hacker News. And now Tildes!
Long term I think I'll be happy to drastically reduce the amount of junk info I consume from reddit on the daily.
It is helpful to better understand the platform and what it is for. I'll come here for interesting conversations. I will look elsewhere for scrolling puppy pictures. I don't like ads and I don't like tons of videos that try to auto play when I'm not seeking them out. I prefer reading so this site looks like the kind of thing I'll enjoy.
Not who you're responding to, but no. I also don't think its meant to. Tildes is good for a lot of things but it will never reach the size and width of Reddit, but it sure surpasses it in depth.
Tildes is developed and maintained by a single person and I don't think there is an interest in scaling it beyond that. So in addition to whatever social limitations there are, there's also many, many technical ones in the way of rivaling one of the biggest websites on the planet.
In what capacity? Can you waste some time here every day and enjoy it? Yes.
Will we ever cover a lot of niches like how there’s a thriving subreddit for every popular game? No - never.
Hello, everyone! I'm sorry for carpet-bagging into the joint, but that other place has become too depressing. I'm tired of pointless bickering and hair triggers, and am beyond ready to find a place where everyone can be respectful and actually communicate for a change! I've been lurking Tildes a little for a couple of weeks, and so far it seems like it could be the sort of site I'd like to be a part of.
I'm a lowly computer hardware technician by trade, but my education was in English literature and rhetoric. Every once in a while I like to dust off my lit crit skills and discuss classics. I don't read much nowadays, but I do play a lot of PC games, which I don't see as an inferior medium at all.
Thank you to /u/thiscarhasfourtires on the other site for the invite! I'm going to try my damnedest to be positive participant, and hopefully avoid some of the pitfalls that I and so many of us have fallen into these last years.
Cool! Tildes is obviously not devoid of conflict, but I believe you came to the right place and your expectations are aligned with ours ;)
Well, a little friction is good, but not so much that it starts fires. ;)
Nah, you're alright ;)
that's quite the bridge. Lit was my favourite subject back in high school, and I've enjoyed going back and re-reading some classics, and reading lit-crit for them recently.
What's your favourite period for eng lit?
Early-to-mid 17th century. No contest. Shakespeare, Jonson, Marlow, Milton, Donne–they really knew how to craft writing with layers, you know?
I also really like the Moderns, too. Joyce and Eliot are a couple of favorites, probably for similar reasons to why I like the early modern writers of the 17th. They also wrote things with multiple layers of meaning that really reward contemplation.
But I also enjoy more direct writers like Twain, Hemingway and Vonnegut. Where Shakespeare could write a beautiful couplet that meant seven different things at once, those guys wrote lines that could only mean one thing, but wrote it so succinctly and perfectly that you can't imagine how that thought could possibly be formulated any other way.
My career bridge from English to tech was partly due to history and necessity. I was on course to go into journalism as a profession, but that industry kind of withered up and blew away right around the time I was training up.
I happened into being a hardware technician because I needed something concrete to focus on in a rough period of my life. I heard of a non-profit that did tech recycling and community outreach, and decided to do some volunteer work for them so I could feel like I was making a positive contribution to the world. I believe strongly that technology can be a benefit for humanity, but that the wastefulness of how we've commercialized it is horribly destructive. So I've been fixing computers and devices to keep them working and to fight against this disposable culture that has us chopping down mountains with jets of poison just to get the latest gizmo.
That might be a little grandiose, but it gets me out of bed on those mornings where I really don't feel like schlepping out to turn a screwdriver.
Not grandiose at all. I wish we could all raise our kids to select careers that generate human value instead of cold dollars. But I understand that can be a luxury these days.....
I only took two years of lit but I remember Dr Donne and TS Elliott very fondly, as well as the other names you mentioned. My kid recently got into the Elliott poetry about cats lol 😂 had no idea that even existed and she loves how silly hey are
I completely understand pivoting my degree to work in a different field. From a communication degree to working office job doing billing, a large bank processing debit card fraud cases, an A/R job, office job learning more A/R, A/P, billing etc to where I am now it's been interesting.
As I applied and interviewed for journalism positions, I ended up being placed in an office by a staffing company. I was making $2/hr more than any staff writer was offering. That and dating someone seriously, didn't seem worth moving hours away for less money.
By the time my kid can go to college, I am not sure what I'll advise. I am not sure college is even the answer. I was a first gen 4 year college grad in my family. Dad had a tech school degree and only attended to delay being drafted.
There seem to be a lot of articles recently about what fields are facing manpower shortages in the near future. I have seen aircraft mechanic, electrician, accountant, air traffic control named as fields facing upcoming mass retirements of a high percentage of current employees.
I also considered journalism at the time the number of jobs available was drying up. I went into law and am looking to get into something else. Your tastes are a little more high brow than mine when it comes to classic literature, but I love the more accessible classic writers like Twain, Steinbeck, Dumas, Jack London, Wila Cather. I also love a lot of poetry, ranging from Robert Service the poet of the Yukon gold rush, to TS Eliot's confusing but beautiful poems. I read widely, dabbling in fantasy, science fiction, contemporary lit fic, nonfiction and classics, but won't spend time on authors with a reputation for being difficult like Joyce or Faulkner or Gene Wolfe.
Joyce is an author that can be impenetrable if you insist on going it alone without an extensive toolset. That said, if you do have a good guide, his work will richly reward the effort.
Ulysses is his finest work in my opinion, but it really needs supplemental material or a knowledgeable reading group to get to the real genius of it. I was lucky to read it in college under a brilliant scholar of modern literature who was a professor emeritus at the time. (He was also a fascinating person in his own right. There were rumors that he had served as a spy for the OSS in WWII, and had parachuted behind enemy lines in the lead up to Operation Overlord. That's neither here nor there, though.)
If you're interested in giving it a try, I'd suggest first reading the Odyssey, as Joyce explicitly wove parallels to that work into his novel. I would also pick up "The Bloomsday Book," which is one of the best guides to unraveling some of the more obscure elements of Ulysses. It rephrases much of the plot with references to and glosses for the numerous allusions. There's another guide that goes into more depth about the structural elements of the novel, but unfortunately I'm blanking on its name at the moment.
Hello, fellow tech oriented person! Can you help me get my emails on my iPad?(Joking)
Do you feel like your literature analysis skills have been useful in your career? I could see parallels between picking apart the elements of a book and diagnosing a hardware problem.
Personally, I've always been computer talented but my path went produce manager > construction > machining > L 1/2 support at a hosting company > managing IT in machining(very happy with it). So I guess if you're drawn to the trade nothing can really stop you even if it seems like a stretch.
My liberal arts background has definitely influenced my career in tech, but it's really more a part of who I am as a mature person rather than a specific set of skills that I can apply in this or that situation, if that makes sense. "Soft skills" is the corporate-speak for it, I suppose, though even that only grazes the truth of it.
There are some specific things I picked up as an English nerd though. I'm effective at communicating with end users and coworkers by email, because I've had a lot of practice distilling complex concepts in writing. I have well-earned skill in adjusting the tenor of my writing to a specific audience, and in anticipating questions they may have before they even form in their minds. My emails tend to be a bit long-winded, but I rarely add unnecessary detail, and am almost never asked to explain my reasoning twice. So that's useful.
Troubleshooting hardware problems is a very logical endeavor. It's often about constructing a practical syllogism to rule out various possible points of failure. It can be rather scientific that way. Sometimes you can isolate components and test them one by one to find the fault, but oftentimes it will come down to experience with various problems and the symptoms they can cause, and making an educated guess. Neither of those things apply in literary or rhetorical criticism.
Hello!
I've been a Redditor for 11 years - I was even in the Century Club subreddit (it's not nearly as interesting as you probably think it is).
I work as a AAA game programmer. I previously worked on the Battlefield series, but EA laid me off earlier this year as part of them shutting down my former studio. Now I'm working on a new AAA title I can't really talk about.
Before I worked in the AAA space, I worked at Disneyland! I used to be a skipper on the World-Famous Jungle Cruise. I also worked as a host at the Tiki Room (fun fact: technically, this is considered part of the Jungle Cruise), a conductor on the Disneyland Railroad, and an "archaeologist" on the Indiana Jones ride they have there (although I hated working Indy).
As a hobby, I have a model train layout. It's in N-Scale (1:160). I'm also part of a local model railroad club that periodically meets up and puts together modular layouts. We meet at local convention centers and whatnot, where we string together a bunch of 4x2-foot layout sections that we each individually own/maintain and make one big mega-layout.
I'm super excited to be here!
What was worse about the Indiana Jones ride?
It's probably best if I compare it to the others:
The Jungle Cruise could be exhausting, but fun. It was really hard to screw up at Jungle, and once you understood what made people laugh you could get really good at it. There was a laid-back culture at Jungle, and since it was incredibly hard to mess up you could kind of do your thing without worry.
Tiki was nice because it was air conditioned and you could sit down. You generally sat inside for 20 minutes, then stood outside for 20 minutes, then went back inside. You just enforced the rules, but you didn't have to do anything other than start and end the show. There was no heavy machinery to keep an eye on and nothing super important to remember.
The Disneyland Railroad could be fast-paced. You were genuinely on a schedule. When it was busy, you would have to leave on a green light. But once you locked up the station and the train was on its way, it was very zen. You just peoplewatched for the most part, and you'd go around the park seeing what was happening.
By comparison, Indy was just not fun. There was a lot to remember at Indy. There were a lot of rules, and if you accidentally did something wrong you'd be fired. This was true at the other places too... but like I said, it was really hard to mess up at Jungle/Tiki, and only 1 way to mess up on the train - don't leave if the station gates are unlocked. It could be really easy to forget to lock the gates if you were busy, but it was only 1 thing to remember.
Indy... you had to know what button to push if XYZ happened. You had to know how to react if the ride went down - there were dozens of very important steps and I forgot half of them after training. I asked for a reminder, but a lot of Indy people are jerks and it seemed like a chore for them to remind you how to do your job properly. Then there were times where something happened and you were by yourself... and you sure had to hope to remember all the steps you needed to do in order. On top of that, Indy was much faster-paced as far as work went, with a height requirement that you had to strictly enforce... and deal with the people who are upset that Timmy is too short, while also doing the rest of your job.
I never had fun at Indy, but everywhere else could be really fun.
AAA game programmer -- very cool! I currently work as a game developer too, not at what I'd call an AAA studio but at a studio too. Still quite new to it (at least professionally) -- started about a year ago after making games as a hobbyist for years.
What kind of game programmer are you? I wonder how specialized people get on even larger teams, since at the company there aren't that many programmers most of us do more stuff, though I mostly do graphics programming.
Neat! I haven't been to Disneyland since I was 7 or 8 (I'm a little bit older than that now) and I still have vivid memories of Jungle Cruise. Well, of lots of Disneyland really. I'm looking forward to returning with my kids one day.
I've been here for quite a while, 4 years by now. I probably post the most about tech, although I try not to. It is still the topic that I have the most expertise in. I've been mildly active throughout. This is never my "main" discussion board (social media?), but I usually keep track of things.
I work for a tech company, but I mostly spend time either learning something different or working on some type of craft. I had a 3D printing phase a little ago but mostly doing sketching and watercolor at the moment.
I do play video games, way more when I was younger. There's basically two categories of games I play - either ones where I have friends that play, or long single player RPGs. I have a phobia of feeling like I wasted time, and there's nothing that makes me feel like time was wasted than grinding solo que ladders in games.
In general I don't like routine because it makes time mush together. I try to travel when I can, because it at least forms distinct memories, even when it goes wrong. Time unfortunately did a lot of mushing during COVID but what can you do.
Ooooh I know exactly what you mean. I'm one of those insane people who LOVE sudden layovers and random events during trips. Some of my fondest travel memories are when a volcano eruption stranded me in a tiny Itanlian village for 3 extra days, and when I had to detour through Glasgow unexpectedly.
Any new destinations in mind for the near future?
I'm planning a trip to the Alps on the Swiss side sometime in the summer, and a trip to Japan at the end of the year.
Awwwww yssss may your trip be blessed with so many new and unique, off the beaten path memories.
I can't wait till I can go to Japan again.....
Saaaame. Novelty creates memories, otherwise shit just mushes together, like /u/stu2b50 said.
I don't travel often, but I would if I could afford it. I always show up to the airport early, so I can relax and have a few drinks at the airport bar while the world's going crazy around me. The last time I flew out of Philly, I noticed they've got meditation rooms. Pretty much the essence of calm in a storm.
Shit, I was secretly loving it when a friend almost flipped her car when we were on our way back from a weekend in New York. I mean, it was terrifying and fucked her car up, but we got to like, camp in a gas station parking lot. It sounds miserable, but it was a brand new experience (and it was a 24/7 gas station, so we had food, drinks and bathrooms).
A volcano eruption stranding you on holiday sounds so good, other than the added expense of 3 more days of vacation. But that's what credit cards and poor impulse control are for!
The volcano one was amazing.
We were flying from Rome to the UK, but virtually every flight in Europe was grounded so needless to say hotels are absolutely swamped. In the EU their passenger bill of rights dictate that the airlines have to pay for your meals and hotel during emergencies like this. So a bunch of us were bussed to the nearby tiny town of Castel Gandalfo, a super beautiful place that's tucked away, so gorgeous that the Pope has a summer palace there. We got to stay for free and eat for free for three days before they get us back home. Met some really nice snowbirds there, from Canada and UK and other places with winters. Nothing was touristy and we kinda mushed by on broken Italian, their hospitality, ye Olde guide books and with the snowbrids' help. Couldn't plan something like that.
With your friend's car being flipped: that's what insurance is for! If everyone is healthy and insurance will cover stuff, then it's a free adventure!!
Are there any other discussion boards you recommend?
The other ones I use is mostly reddit. I use to go on old vbulletin forums but they all died. Reddit is the de facto replacement, for better or for worse.
There's also hackernews, although your experience on hackernews is much better if you don't click on comments, as well as the lobster site. Lobsters is much more tech focused.
Honestly not much I'd recommend at this point, long form text seems like a seriously dying form of social media.
Hi ! Longtime Reddit user, wife, grandma, avid birder, sober, homeless advocate, horror movie & true crime fan. Love the format here and I am looking forward to seeing how it grows. This platform reminds me a little of the early days mid 1996-1998 when I participated in bulletin boards, no major toxicity or bombarding/intrusive marketing. I love the flow of information, just not weeding through a bunch of garbage or dangerous tin foil (not counting the fun tin foil). I think social media has its value for some things, but IMHO its poisoned the well of discourse, debate, and has negative effects on mental health across all age groups. Lately I've been using the daytime to access social media/information, but at night I focus on book reading, chores, movie watching or texting/chatting with a friend. Its done wonders for my sanity. I'm excited to see how Tildes evolves, so thanks and have a great day. :)
Having seen the rise of so many different pieces of technology, do you feel like most of the changes are good, bad, or a mix of both?
I think it’s a mix of both. Examples of good stuff that come to my mind quick are getting the word out during public emergencies (I live in a hurricane zone), raising money for certain causes, and giving artists/scientists the opportunity to expose their work to a global audience. The bad would be disinformation, scams that use fear to prey on vulnerable people their pocketbooks, and the whole filter obsession that has a negative effect on a young persons body image. These are just off the top of my head so I know it’s a subject with many layers.
Thank you! I appreciate the perspective.
Reposting in the new thread...
Hey all! Electrical engineer here working mostly with machine vision hardware these days, but did software in a former life. Always on the lookout for a new career path.
Too many hobbies at the moment, but the highlights are woodworking, mountain biking, photography, and sim racing. Also trying to teach myself German - slowly making progress!
Loving the site so far! Looking forward to meeting more of you!
Hello quantumfoam! Machine vision hardware such as....optics hardware? I was lucky enough to be able to peek at some work folks were doing, using machine vision to do 100k scans per square inch per second, for brain and spine surgery. Amazing stuff.
What is sim racing? : ) I'm thinking of those cute videos of marble olympics
We develop the the whole camera: pick an imager then design all the control electronics around it. Sometimes we can use off-the-shelf lenses, but often we design custom optics as well. It is pretty cool when it's all working haha.
Motorsport sim racing haha. Mostly iRacing, but I've dabbled with some other sims as well.
Oh that's super cool, all the controls and casing and wiring and "stuff" that software finally interacts with and become a "real" thing in the world -- hardware is sort of wizardry to me.
Hello! Anki flashcards app and www.mylanguageexchange.com have helped my husband make significant progress in his quest to learn Japanese. Good luck with German.
Hello fellow hobby enthusiast! I always say trying new hobbies is my favourite hobby.
What are you focusing on when taking photos? Do you prefer certain subjects over others? I personally love taking photos of animals, because they‘re a challenge and the pictures are so rewarding! But I need to invest in a good tele lens eventually. I‘m still very much an amateur.
Was das Sprachenlernen betrifft: Übung macht den Meister. And if you don’t know what that means yet, don’t worry you‘ll get there eventually and don’t give up.
I mainly do landscapes. I've done some weddings and street photography, but honestly I'm too shy to deal with people too much lol. I've been making an effort lately to print more of my photos and decorate my house with them. Seems a bit egotistical, but I got tired of them just sitting on my computer or getting dumped into some FB album.
To be honest, I had to Google Translate that haha. But thank you! I'm definitely getting motivated again to take up my German studies.
I relate! I‘m also rather shy. When an old surgeon left at my old job, I decided to make him a photo album. I had to speak to every coworker of his, nurses, radiologists, etc. to get their photos and have them write in his album. I didn’t want to see people for a while after that.
Don’t feel bad about hanging your own art! You can absolutely be proud of it and show it off. There’s a distinct line between showing it off because you think you‘re superior, or because you like being motivated and proud of your previous accomplishments. Nothing wrong with that, we all enjoy that to an extent.
What exactly does machine vision hardware mean? Sounds super interesting.
I develop digital cameras from the ground up. We pick an imager and design all the control electronics around it. Usually involves an FPGA or SoC and either a USB or Ethernet interface. Sometimes we use off-the-shelf lenses, but often we have to design our own lenses as well. It pretty interesting stuff!
Very cool, what other fields of study are your coworkers from? Are you all EE, or do you have Physicists, Mathematicians, and Computer Scientists around as well?
Mostly EEs or CompSci, but we've had a few Physicists over the years too. There are a few people who did master's work specifically in machine vision and robotics. I'm just a lowly undergrad, though haha.
Nice. I’m always curious about the teams that work on this sort of stuff; I have a background in mathematics and computer science and ended up doing electromagnetic physics out of college (no visual spectrum stuff though), and am currently a software engineer. I frequently wonder what the path to doing this particular intersection of hardware engineering and computer science looks like.
For me, I started as an intern with this group and that grew into a full-time position. I started out doing mostly software, but I've transitioned more to hardware as I find it more challenging. Hard to get away from software completely, though. I still do a lot of embedded programming (mostly C) and have started with Verilog and VHDL recently.
I wish I had a stronger math background. Obviously, I did a lot with the EE degree, but only had one semester of Linear Algebra and I should have taken more. We do a lot of work with coordinate transforms and I think having a more familiarity with matrix operations would be nice.
Now I'm really curious what you think of apertus' AXIOM.
I don't know too much about the realities of imaging hardware but I thought they made a pretty decent go at it.
It's an interesting platform and looks pretty well thought out. Their processing hardware looks pretty standard (that Zync-7000 series is freaking everywhere lol). It seems like a super niche thing, though. I wonder how many people really want to play around with different imagers and processing. Some imagers can be extremely difficult to work with, so for those that do, a platform like that could definitely make things more accessible, which is cool.
Unfortunately, the imager supply chain got decimated during the pandemic, at least in my corner of the market. Getting imagers as a hobbyist or in low production quantities has been brutal lately.
I'm really glad I asked you!
I was a little skeptical of the decision to add additional fpgas for what is effectively routing, but then decided such a niche product would really benefit from fitting whatever IO a user needs. They must have been excited about that too because it got a lot of attention.
Hope it works out for them because it's pretty unique.
Hello! I'm a PO and my hobby is hobbies. Right now I'm getting back into Asian beauty/skincare, but some other interests I cycle through are: houseplants, vinyl record collecting, CD collecting, reading books (the last two books I read were "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" by Ottessa Moshfegh and "My Annihilation" by Fuminori Nakamura), reading/collecting manga, cooking, sewing/knitting, and fashion. I don't regularly play video games but when I find one I like, it's the only thing I do for awhile. I am quite nostalgic for old forum-style discussions so I'm happy to be here!
Neat, what are your favorite manga, completed, and ongoing? I'll go out on a limb and assume we have wildly different tastes but the ones I have fond memories of are the shounen ones like Berserk, Gantz, and ones like Love Hina and I"s. Semi-recently poked through few chapters from assorted stuff like Battle Angel Alita, and Reincarnated as a Slime.
!!!!!!! I haven't heard anyone talk about this amazing work for so long. I still consider it the most beautifully illustrated manga I've ever had the blessing to read. More beautiful than CLAMP and any other shojo including sailormoon. I was Team Itsuki from the beginning, but the older I grew the more I appreciate that she's got her own life and she's really better off without Ichitaka.....
I would love to hear your thoughts on the series, your favourite arcs, favourite girl, and how it stacks up against modern manga and modern harem shounen.
Oh man, I"s... Yeah, one of my favorite stories ever. Came for the art and stayed for the feels. Masakazu Katsura—it's been so long I'd forgotten the author's name.
Team Iori all the way. Although maybe if I'd watched Video Girl Ai first, I'd have been fonder of Itsuki from the start.
Honestly remember little of the plot except the one scene where it's wintertime and Iori finally gets a two minute break from work, but is immediately called away by her strict manager, leaving Ichitaka standing out in the cold. Brutal.
Stories back then are what define anime and manga to me. They didn't feel overly produced and overly sanitized. Felt like writers wrote based on their real experiences. Characters were flawed, like Ichitaka being a massive perv and having his heart swayed too easily—and they felt human. They didn't immediately redeem themselves after every mishap. They screwed up again and again. Not every story had to end well. Lot of bittersweet endings.
Re: I"s manga
To clarify, I think Iori is the best suitable lady for Ichitaka from the beginning :) girl is so sweet and put up with so much stupidity from him lol
But Itsuki is my favorite character outside of the shipping business of the shounen :D I just super love her for her artistic dedication, her hijinks and outspoken attitude, and her sensitivity despite appearances. It's a whole....crisp attitude with strong as steel inner strength that I love 8D
I'm following Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, and Given right now. As for completed favorites that I've read all of, Fire Punch, Tokyo Ghoul, Warau Kyuuketsuki, and Our Dreams at Dusk I think? I have the omnibuses for The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service and the deluxe editions of Hellsing sitting on my shelf waiting to be read - really need to get around that haha. I haven't read Berserk or Gantz but they're on my to-read list (eventually! one day).
Cool list! I'm not familiar with any of those manga, haha. Watched a little of the My Hero Academia anime only. But the other ones on the list sound more interesting than MHA, all those horror themed ones in particular.
Do you have a favorite scene you can recall from one of the horror manga, to sell us on it? Minor spoilers are fine. Maybe put a spoiler in
<details>Spoiler text here</details>to hide it.Hey!
What kind of vinyl records do you like to collect? Certain bands, styles, etc? I found a pretty good used record player at Goodwill a couple years ago, and have slowly started getting into records again. Anything from Prince to The Beatles to Rob Zombie to Beastie Boys to Arcade Fire to The Cure and on and on....Where do you like to find records?
Just whatever I like :D The last record I got was a box set for Dir en grey's DUM SPIRO SPERO album. The outer box got pretty beat up in transit, but trying to figure out international exchanges/returns seemed like a big headache. I usually look on Discogs if something is out of print, but I've gotten records from local stores, Urban Outfitters, Target, HMV Japan etc. I think I have a decent number of records from Polyvinyl Records as well. What kind of speakers is your record player hooked up to? I have an AT-LP120X hooked up to Klipsch PC speakers since I haven't seen the need to upgrade yet.
Since the subject was already broached, I'll try too: I don't suppose you read OI?
Unfortunately no :(
11+ year Reddit user. Just joined because of the 3rd-party API news and the subsequent AskReddit post. I have a lifelong love of video games, books, and wordplay (puns in particular). I also collect playing cards, which is a surprisingly deep hobby, despite being very niche.
My tastes in video games are generally a little bit of everything, but I tend to lean more into indie and indie-adjacent titles. I grew up gaming well behind the tech curve, so I know way more about esoteric Atari games than most people. On that note, I grew up with a vintage Battlezone arcade machine in my basement (it's my dad's favorite).
For books, I lean into either fantasy, humor, or books on puzzles and games. My favorite series is Redwall, by Brian Jacques, and I am on a podcast for the series. I also love Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere books, as the worldbuilding pulls my imagination in deeper than anything else I've read in the past decade. I find that the escapism of a fantasy novel is a great antidote to the doom and gloom life can through our way. Anecdotally, I have a pretty good idea of what's popular, in general, in the literary world, as I work in a library shelving materials. However, I do get tired of seeing the same James Patterson or Danielle Steel novels day in and day out. And don't get me started on why the arts and crafts books are always a mess.
Finally, playing cards are a medium that is greatly overlooked by most people. They look at a deck of 52 cards and see what they have always seen: ace through king in clubs, hearts, spades, and diamonds. But there is so much more there, so many design possibilities to explore, within a simple deck. People have come up with many different uses for cards, each of which dictates different specifications for what an optimal deck looks like. Magicians want extra information hidden in each card's design. Cardists want colors and shapes that look great as they manipulate and flourish packets of cards. Game players are relatively plain in comparison, but there's something special about finding a deck that shows off your own unique tastes. No matter what you like or what you need, there is a deck of cards out there that will suit you. As I've heard it said, "a deck of cards is like carrying 52 pieces of art around in your pocket."
Anyway, I've carried on longer than I anticipated. Thank you if you've read this whole thing. I'm glad to be here, and it's my hope that I can positively contribute to this community.
What's your favorite deck that you own? Never knew this was a hobby but sounds like it could be very fun.
As with any collection, picking a singular favorite is hard. But if I was forced to pick just one deck purely on artistic merit, it would have to be the Alice in Wonderland deck by King's Wild Project. It's filled with so many tiny details that it almost seems too nice to be a functional deck, but it is! It also wound up on many Best Decks of 2021 lists, so it's safe to say that many other people agree with me.
Question! I'm a Tolkien, Lewis and Terry Pratchett fan, I've watched a few Brandon Sanderson lectures on writing but haven't actually read any of his books yet. Can you recommend a good one to start, possibly with lighter tones and violence/scariness suitable for tweens?
really! Why is that? Crafters are messy people maybe? Or that more frequently, it's us folks with ADHD who pick up new hobbies every other week and making a mess?
I heard yesterday that playing cards are the original game development engine : )
Oooh I like that a lot. I always thought it was a shame that most of the cards in a standard deck are "un-adorned".
Sure! There are a few places to jump into Sanderson, but I will start by saying that he has written a number of books that are explicitly for younger readers, though none of them are a part of his connected Cosmere universe. The YA novel I'd recommend is Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians. It's about a boy named Alcatraz who's good at breaking things. Trust me when I say that it is zany in all the best ways, with my favorite being that Alcatraz himself is the narrator, and a very unreliable one at that.
If you're looking to try the Cosmere, most people will recommend the first Mistborn trilogy, but its setting is a tad more depressing than you seem to be looking for, so skip it for now and come back to it later. This leaves two options for you: The Emperor's Soul or Tress of the Emerald Sea.
The Emperor's Soul is Brandon's Hugo Award winning novella. Many fans agree that this might be some of his best writing, as it is clear, concise, and it pulls you into the story completely. And as a "bottle episode" it stays in one place, allowing the characters more time to develop. The only problem is that it feels too short; you want it to keep going. It is, however, one of the most satisfying stories I have ever read.
Tress of the Emerald Sea is the first of the four secret projects Brandon Kickkstarted last year, and to use Sanderson's own description, it's basically the opposite of The Princess Bride; the prince is the one who needs rescuing, so the female commoner goes off to do the job herself. The book definitely has a lighter tone, and it takes itself far less seriously than the majority of the other Cosmere titles. The only thing that might be an issue, is that the story occurs fairly late in the Cosmere timeline, so there are some spoilers for previously written works. Although, if you don't know what the spoilers are, then you're not really in danger of being spoiled that much. Still, all things being equal, I want to offer you the best information possible so you can make an informed decision.
Yes, yes, and the books themselves tend to be on the thinner side, as paperbacks go, so they flop around more than you would expect. All I can say is that I have no desire to pick up crochet, quilting, or any other fabric-based craft any time soon.
*nods * I can't argue with that. ... Well actually I could, but I don't want to.
Check out Theory11 and see if they have anything that strikes your fancy. They have a wide range of licensed decks, such as Star Wars, The Beatles, and most recently, Stranger Things. If you're in the US, Theory11 cards can be found at Wal-Mart, Target, Barnes & Noble, and Walgreens, among other places. If you find one or two designs that you like, I think the quality will impress you, as Theory11 tends to customize every aspect of their decks. The only complaint that you typically see is that their tuck cases (the box the cards are in) tend to be so nice that the card backs look a little "meh" in comparison. Still better than your standard grocery store deck though.
What are some of your favorite STP books? :)
One of the off he beaten path ones for me: Miss Felicity Needles The World Of Poo.
In the north american Protestant culture, it's easy for children to be raised wrong, their humanity and individual will and worth, broken with fear and shame. I really appreciated the wholesome look into the world of pop, how everyone poops, how a child's curiosity and passion should be fostered, and what supportive adults quietly pulling strings behind the scenes (distinctive from talk is cheap fake friendliness) look like.
World of Poo is still Discworld :) Sam Vimes met miss Felicity and asked her to sign his copy for young Sam, to which young Sam asked her please don't scribble in his book 😂
I'm a recent reader and haven't read all of them yet. Incidentally just now reading Thief Of Time!!
I think there's probably dozens of us fans on tildes:)
Have you read Nation?
Huge Pterry fan myself. Discworld (with its untranslatable humor) was the first series that helped me learn english back in the day (I own every book, as a mishmash of formats and different publishers, but they're so sun bleached and rumpled I should probably replace them with a nice consistent set of hardcovers eventually.)
not yet -- a house mate (big fan) said it's set on round world and not featuring the usual cast of Discworld folks. I'll have to bump it up on my list, thanks for the recommendation
Have you ever checked out the Malazan Book of the Fallen series by Steven Erikson? The world-building in that series is jaw-dropping. It began as a setting for the author's tabletop RPG campaigns, but it's such a unique take on swords and dragons fantasy that it really blew my mind. They aren't easy-breezy reads by any stretch, but I might be more taken with the world-building than even Sanderson's finest work.
I've heard of it, but never read any of them. I'll definitely look into them at some point though. Thanks for the recommendation!
Hey all; yet another preemptive Reddit expat here,
/u/nemthenga, with 10 years under my belt. Without RIF to make the experience tolerable, I'm looking at the alternatives, of which Tildes seems the most fully-formed. I'm curious to see how more niche communities form and are supported here, but for the moment I'm just taking a look around!Hello fellow Reddit refugee!
Everyone seems pretty nice here, which has been refreshing. I hope it stays that way. I love the engagement that Reddit provided, but it just seems like everyone is getting so bitter and toxic it's just not conducive to productive conversation anymore. And that's exclusive of the API changes.
I'm excited to see where it goes.
15 year Reddit user. Looking for the next 15 years home.
I am a game developer currently working at a small startup with a big name.
I typoed my username here and if anyone can fix it please help me out. Otherwise whenever I can invite people the first person I’m going to invite is my clone who is exactly the same in every way except they can spell their own name.
I'll send you another invite in a Tildes message so you can get in with your preferred username.
You may wanna send an email to @deimos requesting your typoed account to be removed.
Thank you! Problem solved. Awesome.
@tinyogre
I like this attitude. Stability is good. Let's hope ~ is it for you and I.
Great to see other game developers on here. I'm excited to see if some kind of gamedev community will surface on this site. The ones over at Reddit have a quite depressing mood, and lots of low effort content.
The startup you mentioned caught my attention. I have a feeling you're hinting at a well-known one that's currently making an RTS game. But I might be reading too much into it.
Hi there, Reddit refugee who used it since 2014. Been looking for a replacement as the poor decisions have been increasing and as a moderator, it's hard to enjoy the site as a user now.
30s, day job is insurance. I'm really into antiques/thrifts, video games, documentaries, cats, Lord of the Rings, etc.
Looking forward to the growth here, however that looks like.
Hello fellow Reddit refugee!
Somehow, insurance and antiques seem to fit together in my head. Like I'd expect an insurance person to like antiques. Is that weird?
Nah, I can totally see it! A few of my coworkers are also really into antiques so I guess it fits!
I've been here for years, but it seems like I missed the original introduction thread by a few months. So... hi! I'm psi! I guess I'll give a random assortment of facts about myself.
Oh hi, fellow socially anxious, anime fan and manga fan! What are your favorite anime, manga or songs? I'm curious to learn the tastes of Tildes' users that I share hobbies with.
Howdy, fellow socially anxious fellow!
For anime, I really enjoyed:
If you know of any anime similar to those above, I'd be excited to hear them!
As for manga: I only recently began reading manga based on my decision that I really ought to be reading more material in German if I want to improve. So I would greatly appreciate some recommendations that are on the "easy" side, so long as they have an official German translation (I find that anisearch is pretty great for cataloging translations).
A few of the things I've read:
Like I said, I haven't really explored manga much, and I'm honestly not even sure how to go about discovering it. A few recommendations -- even a getting started guide -- could go a long way.
With respect to J-pop:
I was also recently introduced to the Youtube channel The First Take, which seems to showcase (exclusively?) Japanese groups performing a song in a single take. I haven't really explored the channel yet, but it seems like a promising way to discover Japanese music outside Spotify playlists and whatnot. To give a more popular example: BABYMETAL - Monochrome.
Well uhhh... this is a month later haha. I haven't really used Tildes since, but I'd like to from now on. Sorry for the late reply.
So about the shows you mentioned: Steins;Gate is my number 1 anime, absolutely love it! I've seen the first 4(?) episodes of Konosuba and I wasn't that into it, I don't know. Never watched the other two. The Tatami Time Machine Blues is a sequel, right? I haven't seen the first season, but hearing it compared to Steins;Gate makes me interested. And then Saiki K I've been hearing a lot of good things about, so it's probably a matter of time until I get to it.
Out of the manga you mentioned, I've read some but not all of Yotsuba&.
As for recommendations, I only have Steins;Gate to go off of, since it's the only one that we've both completed. But even so, I have a few. Re:Zero, Erased, Link Click and Summertime Rendering come to mind.
Re:Zero is about a guy that is sent to another world that can Groundhog Day himself to fix the many bad stuff that happens. There is a condition to triggering the ability, but I won't spoil that. So far has 2 seasons, not complete yet.
Erased. The protagonist goes back in time in his kid self's body and attempts to save someone that was murdered, and the killer never discovered. Completed in 1 season.
Link Click. Technically Chinese, but it's on MyAnimeList so I count it. It has a Japanese dub, though you did say you watch them in German? If so, not sure if this one (or if any of these) have a German dub though. Anyways, it's about going back in time by entering photos. The cool thing is that when he does this, he enters the body of the person that took the picture. Also there's a Season 2 starting to air in a few days, so now could be a good time to watch it. Not complete yet, obviously, since there's a 2nd season coming. I don't know if it will conclude the story or if there'll be a third season.
Summertime Rendering. I don't want to spoil, so I'll just go over the very basic premise that's told in the first few minutes of Episode 1. Guy moved to Tokyo (or at least I think Tokyo) but returns home after a childhood friend died. Completed in 1 season.
Yoasobi's Idol is amazing. I havent heard of the other 2, but I'll give them a listen soon.
Now here's my favorites:
Anime:
Steins;Gate - I don't have to explain why this is so good, we've both seen it xD.
Non Non Biyori - In a constant fight for my number 1 spot against Steins;Gate. Very different show. It's a Slice of Life about 4 girls living in the countryside. I feel like you might enjoy this one if you like Yotsuba&, especially since one of the girls is close in age to Yotsuba. Completed in 3 seasons, an OVA and a movie.
Bocchi The Rock - Newer anime (Fall 2022) but is great for me cause it's got a socially anxious protagonist and great music. Has 1 season, but the manga goes further, so there'll probably be more.
Vinland Saga - Vikings anime. Absolutely incredible show and characters. It's got 2 seasons so far. Season 2 ended last month, so here's hoping more is coming, cause the story's not complete.
Attack on Titan - Do I have to introduce this one?
Manga:
I too haven't read that much manga, but out of the few I did, my favorites are Spirit Circle (Girl transfers into the class of the protagonist and wants to kill him for something that happened between them in previous lives) and ReLIFE (Protagonist gets a pill that makes him 10 years younger and is sent back to high school for an experiment. Also has an anime that's complete, but I read the manga first).
I want to read more manga and recently I've started making a "To Read" list. What I did is I went to one of those Youtube videos of people showing off their manga collection (I searched for "Manga Tour" or something like that) and I found a bunch I'm interested in that way.
My favorite singer is Minami. She's done three anime openings, one of which is really popular (probably more than her herself). I recommend anything by her, but especially Kawaki wo Ameku, Hollowness and Lilac.
Hello fellow physics-er. I'm about 3 years into my PhD. I'm curious, did you manage to find an academic job post grad school, or are you transitioning into industry or some other field? Sounds like we have some interested in common!
Yup, I moved to Germany for a postdoc! Near the end of my PhD, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to continue in academia, but my advisor told me that if I wasn't sure, I should apply for postdocs since it would be difficult to reenter academia after leaving. So I applied to a bunch of postdocs (mostly abroad) and took an offer.
Honestly by the end of my PhD I was pretty burned-out, and I don't know whether I ever fully recovered. I doubt I'll continue with academia after this position ends. (I'll probably aim for some sort of data analysis job since that's mostly what I do now anyway.)
I think it's easy for an academic career to be carried by inertia, up to a point at least. If you have the grades, why not apply to grad school? If you have the research experience, why not apply for a postdoc? Of course, at some point you'll hit a brick wall -- you can't exactly cruise into a permanent position, as you surely know.
Congrats on the position regardless, even if you intend to pivot into other roles! Can you remind me what are of physics your research is in? We may have discussed this at one point many moons ago but I’ve forgotten.
Thanks! I haven't really talked about my research on here, so I'll give a bit of an introduction.
I study lattice quantum chromodynamics (lattice QCD). Quantum chromodynamics, as you surely know, is the quantum field theory for the strong interaction (i.e., the force that binds quarks, protons, and generally hadrons together). Famously protons are made out of three (valence) light quarks, having a combined mass of roughly 10 MeV when added individually. However, protons themselves have a mass roughly a 100 times larger despite this due to the complicated dynamics of (virtual) gluons and quarks inside the proton.
Specifically, unlike the quantum field theories for the weak/electromagnetic interactions, the strong interaction becomes non-perturbative at low energy (low energy, in this context, means anything cooler than a neutron star). Usually in a quantum field theory course one learns to work with Feynman diagrams, which are basically expansions of an infinite dimensional path integral (one volume integral per field per point in spacetime) in terms of a coupling constant much smaller than one (e.g., the fine structure constant in the case of quantum electrodynamics).
However, in QCD the coupling constant is actually order 1 at low energy, so this expansion no longer works. Rather than expand the path integral, we instead estimate it directly by putting the quantum field theory on a lattice. Instead of estimating the integral at each point in spacetime, we restrict spacetime to a small volume a few femtometers across and permit the fields to only lie on lattice sites interspersed by ~0.1 fm each. The lowest energy modes are now proportional to the inverse of the length of the lattice, while the highest energy modes are proportional to the inverse of the lattice spacing (in technical parlance, the lattice is a regulator for the quantum field theory).
In practice this means the infinite dimensional integral is now a "mere" ten-/hundred- thousand dimensional integral, which can be estimated using Monte Carlo. (Obviously there are a bunch of subtleties with discretizing QCD that I'm omitting.)
My particular research niche is spectroscopy, that is, estimating the hadron masses from the lattice. Since lattice QCD is ab initio, it's a purely theoretical estimate to those hadronic observables (other than some experimental inputs that are used to set the scales). However, even when the goal isn't to estimate a mass, spectroscopy tends to be an important intermediate step in pretty much all lattice QCD calculations.
I am not a physics person, but yesterday I attended the funeral for my loved one, physicist Phillip F Meads. The obituary says that with his colleague Gode Wustefeld (german punctuation missing), he invented the superconducting scaling FFAG (fixed field alternating gradient) synchrotron with combined function DFD magnets in 1984.
I have been looking around for a good place on reddit to post a tribute, but haven't found one.
I'm sorry to hear that he passed. Particle accelerators are among mankind's most impressive technical achievements; that they work at all continues to feel like magic. The fact that he was able to make a lasting contribution to his field is incredible.
Of course you would be more than welcome to post a tribute here, and it wouldn't be without precedent; one of our long time users shared a beautiful tribute to his dear friend and loved one, someone I knew only secondhand through passing references in his comments, but I found it moving regardless.
I encourage you to write your tribute, but don't feel pressured to share it here. In fact, I encourage you to sit on it for a few days before you decide what you'd like to do with it. Maybe you'll decide it's better shared privately with family, or maybe you'll decide you'd like to share it with us after all. Either way, I find it therapeutic to slow down, organize your thoughts, and write.
Very sorry to hear about your loss. He seems to have been great physicist, and as evidenced by your desire to post a tribute, a great person.
Amazing! I've always had a healthy respect for lattice folk, despite me always having to wait in the slurm queue because their jobs are taking ages ;) For a time I was interested in getting into Lattice QCD purely from a computational interest(before grad school), but I ended up joining a computational cosmology group and I think it was the right choice for me.
Sorry for hogging the computer. 😅
I think lay folk would be surprised to what fraction of resources on the TOP500 are dedicated to lattice QCD research, considering most people have no idea what lattice QCD is. (I've heard it estimated as something like 25+% of computer time?) I recall one of the national labs specifically asking for non-lattice QCD research they could advertise to help promote their machines, heh.
Anyway, I'm glad you found your niche! Personally I find the computational challenges more interesting than the physics challenges, so I'll keep computational cosmology in mind if I ever decide to go for a second physics PhD.
Here in Sweden NärCon is quite cool! I've been a few times, can recommend ::)
Thanks for the recommendation! It looks like NärCon is similar to some of the smaller cons I enjoyed in the States. I just wish it weren't a 20+ hour commute away! But I've also never been to Sweden, so maybe NärCon would be a good stop as part of a vacation near Linköping?
Honestly, I don't think there's a whole lot to do in Linköping as a tourist, although Linköping is only a couple of hours from Stockholm, and there's plenty to do there of course, so I think you could definitely fit it in as a part of a larger vacation in Sweden!
NärCon is held in the weekend just before Stockholm Pride as well (not sure if that's at all of interest to you, but figure it can't hurt to mention!)
Are you afraid that you'll speak German like an anime character?
Ich habe keine Ahnung, worauf Sie sich beziehen, Senpai~
When I visited Munich, the Germans were all incredibly social, just not with non-german speakers such as myself. Is that what you mean?
Do you hide your anxiety with an incredible sense of humor?
I think that's part of it, but that's not exactly what I mean. I have a German friend who lived in the US for a few years before moving back to Germany. Before he moved back, his sister warned him that if Americans are like peaches -- easy to be friends with, but hard to pierce their core -- Germans are like walnuts -- difficult to be friends with, but once you're in, you're in for good.
Of course one should be careful about making such broad characterizations, but I think it's largely true. Americans tend to be more friendly in the sense that they're generally more willing to engage in small talk with strangers, causal acquaintances are more likely to invite you to outings, etc. (Personally I find small talk especially painful, so now that I'm usually the one to initiate it feels kind of empowering, heh.)
Guilty as charged!
Hello fellow physics person! I did my bachelors in physics but ended up in industry instead. I saw your other reply that you're doing a postdoc in Germany. Any idea where you'd like to end up after? I've been learning German too, very slowly, with the help of a private teacher and some DW 😅
Truthfully, I have no idea! I'm not too concerned about it right now since my wife and I still have a couple years to decide, but we'll definitely be keeping a close eye on the 2024 election. Most of our friend and family are in the south (but not the deep south, at least), and ideally we'd like to be near them; but we don't want to live somewhere where things are regressing socially and democracy is backsliding. If DeSantis wins in 2024, I'm worried that would exclude the entirety of the US.
My wife, in particular, has type 1 diabetes. In Germany, access to health care is essentially a human right. Obviously that's not the case in the US. There's a certain peace of mind knowing that even if we lose our jobs, my wife isn't in mortal danger.
But then again, all of our friends and family live in the States, and we can't realistically see then more than once or twice a year while living over here. That sucks.
Plus I really miss Tex-Mex.
Neat! What's your reason for learning German?
We have the same fears about the 2024 election. If things end up backsliding that much, it may be worth it to protect yourselves and not come back to the US. The healthcare aspect is huge. It's one of the primary reasons we'd like to move to Germany (really, EU in general, but Germany has more options for jobs for me and my husband would like to go back to school). The employee and tenant protections are much more stringent there too. Obviously it's not perfect, nowhere is, but I figure the trade offs would be beneficial for us. That's ultimately my reason for learning German too.
Visiting once or twice a year might be okay still, and you can still keep in touch other ways. We just started cooking the foods we missed from the areas we grew up in for the most part (my parents make bagels and have made pizza forever, we make garbage plates periodically when we get the craving...from Long Island and Rochester, NY). Maybe an option for your Tex-Mex cravings?
Yup, there's really no comparison between Germany and the States when it comes to the social safety net or worker's rights. I mean, I'm given nearly a month's worth of vacation time per year in addition to public holidays and another month's pool for sick days (technically I can take unlimited sick days with some caveats).
Before I moved over here, I would've agreed with you, but I think it's easier to believe this in the abstract than actually live it. When I lived in the States, my mother-in-law lived right down the road, so we'd visit ever week or two; if we stay in Germany, we might only see our parents a couple dozen more times before they pass away. That's a pretty bleak calculation.
Also, despite the fact that Germany offers universal pre-K, it'd still be tough to raise children here. I don't think even the best social programs can replicate the effectiveness of good grandparents.
You've hit my sore spot: I can't find fresh jalapeños over here, let alone habaneros! I can make some great salsa, if I have the ingredients. Instead I can only find a single nondescript "chili pepper" pack at the grocery store, some (but not all) of which are spicy but otherwise lacking flavor.
Okay, I realize this post is coming across as a bit negative, but that wasn't my intention. I actually really do enjoy living here -- it's great being a five minute walk from multiple grocery stores, or that I'm able to get fresh bread every morning, or that I can get an ice cream cone for less than €2. Plus I'm in the middle of Europe: Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, etc are only a few hours away by train. I can visit spontaneously on a long weekend; I don't need to plan a trip out a year in advance.
I think it's definitely worth living over here if you have the opportunity, even if it's only for a little while. I mean, the paperwork's a nightmare, but ideally you/your spouse's future employer would have a liaison to help you out. If you have/get a job offer and need someone to help you with the process, feel free to reach out to me.
This is a great point, I hadn't thought of it like that. That's a depressing thought. Personally, my family lives an 8-hour drive away already, so we already only see each other twice a year as it is. Totally different when you're used to them living down the road.
I did see it as a super negative post about it, lol. It's trade offs. There are trade offs no matter where people end up living, and we need to determine if they're worth it for us. Thank you for the offer to reach out if I end up getting a job offer!
Hello all. Like many of the new users here, I am a Reddit refugee. Reddit is a much more toxic and depressing place than it was when I joined 13 years ago, and I'm really hopeful that Tildes will be able to play a somewhat similar role to Reddit without as many of the negatives.
I used to work as a pharmaceutical chemist but a couple a years ago I developed some severe health problems that have rendered me unable to work. These days I am mostly interested in music, books, and plants, while I also spend a lot of effort trying to regain some amount of my former health.
I'm a little surprised that there is an 'introductions thread' to begin with, but the more I think about it, the more it seems like a really good idea. It's a reminder that all of us here are people with lives, not just words on a screen. It's also interesting to see the diverse backgrounds that have been attracted to this site for one reason or another.
(psst, new users can post in this thread as opposed to the April one, so that intros don’t get lost!)
Hello all! I signed up for tildes back on 2018 but haven’t been super active. I check in every once in a while. Like many others, I’ve heard about the changes with Reddit and I’ve honestly enjoyed my time there less and less over the past several years. But I just can’t seem to stop doom scrolling there.
About me, I love reading, playing games (video and board), watching TV, listening to vinyls, going to concerts. I try to draw every once in a while but I don’t practice enough. I’m into sci-fi, horror, true crime, the paranormal.
Welcome! There are quite a few record heads here on Tildes so I'm sure we'll have lots to discuss!
Same. Perhaps this is a boon for many of us.
Hi all. I've been with Tildes since 2019; which is wild—I didn't think I'd been here this long! Anyway, Welcome to our newcomers!
I do a lot of gaming—probably too much— so you tend to see me in the weekly "What Games Have You Been Playing" threads. Here's the link to the latest from Monday if you're interested. But I'm just as often lurking in all sorts of things that get shared on Tildes, though I tend to be more interested in news & politics, along with technology matters.
I'm mainly still a redditor (12+ yrs). Obviously the recent news is concerning, to say the least. But I'm glad sites like Tildes and Beehaw—One of the Lemmy federated instances, which I recently joined—are around to help get my (our?) "fix."
Hope you all enjoy your time here; looking forward to seeing you all around Tildes!
Hi everyone - I’m also new here though I remember reading about tildes like 4-5 years ago, thinking it seemed like a cool idea, but somehow never getting around to requesting an invite.
I’m into reading (mostly sci fi and fantasy), skiing, hiking, biking (mountain or back roads), cooking, baking, and playing music when I can. Things are busy these days with a little kid, but she’s just getting to the age where I can start to really share some of these hobbies with her. I’m also a biologist and spend most of my time working in R with some Java and Python mixed in.
ahhhhh yes, one of the best rewards for parenting (or being a positive influence in the life of a child): being able to enjoy old hobbies again. It only gets better every year, in my limited experience. I hear there's a sharp drop off in later teen years but so far so good....
You may be interested in this recent thread: https://tildes.net/~books/15kl/tildes_pop_up_book_club_roadside_picnic_by_arkady_and_boris_strugatsky.
And welcome ;)
Oh that’s super cool. Thanks!
I am new here but I've been active in online forums since 1995. Been around long enough to use IRC, Newsgroups, Slashdot, Digg, and Reddit.
Hello everyone. I've been around Tildes for a while, mostly talking about video games and discussing economics and business when they come up. Glad to see such a robust groundswell of enthusiasm for Tildes.
Hi All, 12-year reddit user looking for something new! I work in the AEC industry, nothing too exciting. I've been on a kick collecting vinyl and playing games. Just finished Guardians of the Galaxy and getting back into Omori and Elden Ring.
“Architectural Engineering and Construction.”
Might not be exciting sounding, but I find that working with civil engineers, architects and geologists can be better than working for "tech-bros" and marketing types, or newer and wildly exciting fields like research or medicine. Good, solid, old disciplines attract a certain type.
What's your role in the industry? How'd you get into it and do you intend to stay?
I used to be a structural engineer, but after a while I couldn't see myself doing that kind of work anymore. I've transitioned into a role that's more management focused and I get to work with a wider variety of disciplines which is really appealing for me.
I knew an architect growing up and it always seemed like a cool profession, but I felt I was more analytically focused so I went the engineering route.
Even though it didn't end up being for me, I wouldn't dissuade someone from going that route. I would recommend people really do their research on the industries they want to get into and don't be afraid of switching if they find they don't like it.
Hey everyone.
I'm also one of the people put off by reddit killing third party apps. And after 8 years there I am looking for a new site to come to.
I must admit I am not the most active user on any social media so I will be mostly reading content and only post occasionally.
I work in data engineering, love nature and photography and spend far to much time on the internet.
I look forward to my time here.
I joined reddit relatively late, but like many others I'm exploring other options thanks to the upcoming changes. It should be pretty interesting to watch this community grow, especially if things really start to pick up over the next few months.
I'm a quality engineer for Raytheon in the central US. I enjoy audiobooks on history and science fiction, and occasionally play video games on a very casual basis (easy mode). I also enjoy woodworking/carpentry and am starting into gardening.
Hello everynyan, thanks for having me. I'm an older adult who likes all things cute.
I'm a Canadian homesteader working remotely in a software adjacent profession.
I'm also an Orthodox Christian convert, chrismated 2019. I know it's considered very rude to talk about politics and religion, but a brief intro feels incomplete without mentioning. Please forgive me.
So, to round out the religion and politics social faux pas, I'm a Hong Konger second generation immigrant like the author to No One Is Coming: It's Up To Us. Being part of the diaspora has kept me and a few of my buddies very busy in the last few years. My dream is to be able to visit Hong Kong again, safely, within my life time. Perhaps my kid's lifetime, Lord willing.
Hobbies: Gardener (often failing) and gamer (same).
(part of the June 2023 migrant wave)
You can talk both politics and religion on Tildes, it is not considered rude, but heated debates can happen sometimes.
And Welcome to Tildes! :D
Ohh, well I've been here for over a year, mostly just lurked, but I expect I'll be visiting with increasing frequency.
/u/anon_smithsonian, here (no longer anon on Tildes), redditor for over 11 years, and for the last 7 years I've been helping @talklittle as a moderator on /r/redditisfun by answering questions and assisting with troubleshooting.
My current hobby is flairing all of the incoming posts to the subreddit with whichever of the five stages of grief is most applicable.
I have a really diverse range of hobbies and interests, including Lego (which was rekindled during COVID), art (colored pencil), bonsai, most things tech, home DIY, science, and pretty much everything in between (but not sports, for some reason; I've never been able to muster enough whatever it is I need to care about sports).
I have a son who turns 5 years old in September who is a huge fan of Spider-Man—especially Miles Morales—and I'm really excited to take him to his first movie at the theater and see the new Spider-Verse movie in a couple of weeks!
Okay, just had a look and a good laugh. Kinda sad how much of the sub is grief. I take it traffic increased tenfold or something since... the event?
Oh, way more than that. Normally, we'd get one or two--maybe three--posts a day. The first couple of days after the announcement, we were getting 1-3 posts an hour. Reddit even sent us an (automated) modmail about the increased activity.
It's been slowing down a lot, though, but I'm sure there will be waves of posts as things get closer to The End.
Hey it's the guy that keeps me from having nervous breakdowns and burnout. So glad you're here!
How have I never heard of this till now? Any creations you care to share? (Don't feel pressured)
Well, bonsai is more of an interest than a hobby; my tree graveyard is more crowded than my tree bench. Right now, I only have a couple of satsuki azalea that are in need of a good trimming. The azalea had a rough first winter but they had a really big spring flush of flowers, this year, so I'll be looking at doing some styling next spring. I also have a couple of pre-bonsai trees still maturing; I have a Dawn Redwood that will probably be ready for some work next spring, and a Japanese Maple that probably isn't going to make it to next spring. The maple has had a rough life; it got an unexpected trunk chop by a rabbit the first winter when it was still a long stick in a pot, had a lot of wood dieback after the second winter for reasons I'm unsure about but was rebounding pretty strong, but this spring it only budded a couple leafs an inch or two from the base of the trunk. They're supposed to be hardy enough for winter in my region, but maybe this one just isn't. :\
I had picked up a second Dawn Redwood that I was going to use for bonsai but I ended up just loving the tree so much I planted it in the yard. It's been putting on 3 feet of height each year. I love the history of the tree: the species was originally discovered in the fossil record and presumed to be extinct until some botanists found an entire grove of them near a remote Chinese village in the 1940s. What's really interesting is that it appears to be unchanged and identical to the fossilized samples from the Cretaceous period, so it's really like a living fossil. At first look, its foliage appears to be similar to a pine tree, but its "needles" are actually just long, narrow, and flat leaves; and it's deciduous, so it drops its leaves in the fall and grows new ones in the spring.
As for the colored pencils, it's something that tends to go in streaks. I haven't really done anything for about two years... but I've been feeling an itch to pull out the art supplies, lately, so maybe I'll do some more of it this winter.
I think I got started with it like 8 years ago, with an "adult coloring book" (which was just some fancy designs of phrases with curse words in them) and found it kind of... meditative or almost zen. But that led me down a rabbit hole (as I am wont to do with most things). Here are some of my favorites from this last batch:
This is the first one I did that I was actually happy with the result (and wasn't just filling in someone else's line art). For some reason, taking pictures of the stuff really exaggerates the noise of the lines and texture of the paper, but here is the original source photo next to a scan I took of the finished piece.
This one is another one I was really proud of (well, only like the top half of it) because I feel like the face is really accurate to the original and the shading for the contours on the face were really subtle. I couldn't find a proper scan of the finished piece, though. I think I started losing patience on the neck/body/hands and then struggled getting the layering and shading to blend smoothly.
This one I actually did in an afternoon for my neighbor's kid (who are also big Star Wars fans) because I wanted to test out a technique of making impressions in the paper as a way of creating texture for the hood fabric. It worked pretty well. I don't love the lip color, but everything else came out pretty well considering how quickly I put it together.
It's a weird mix of satisfaction and frustration. For each of these there are about 3-4 others that I either never finished because it wasn't turning out the way I wanted or that I did finish but just not satisfied enough with it to share with anyone. But colored pencil doesn't really erase, and there's a limit to the amount of layering that paper will take (since the colored pencil pigments are in either a wax or oil base). And it's a unique challenge to convey depth and dimension through the use color/hue and not just value (i.e., light/dark) which is really satisfying when you're able to achieve it.
(And of course after I post at 3am, it clicks "wait, where have I heard bonsai recently..." - My bad. Well, at least it gave you an excuse to post :P)
It sounds like a lot of work for a lot of payoff! I'm impressed just imagining the beautiful landscaping, and I bet your neighborhood appreciates the beautification. Must be an amazing sight with the Christmas decorations in the winter, if you do that.
Sorry to hear about the Japanese Maple. I haven't been following eco trends—hopefully there's not some new fungus or maybe the wrong insects nesting on the tree, or brought over from nearby trees.
And wow I'm blown away by your art. I didn't know you had that skill. I know enough artists personally to know how much time it must have taken to reach that level. Seriously, awesome. I'm envious you have a talent that lets you give out personalized gifts like that, where the gift will be held onto for a long time.
I'm fairly certain it isn't any disease or insect. I think it either just wasn't protected enough over winter or it got too dry during winter. I got all of my trees as saplings, so they weren't big investments. Getting into bonsai usually means a lot of casualties as a beginner, and I knew that so I didn't start with anything expensive.
As for the art, I feel I should clarify that I didn't free-hand any of it; I use a light board with the original photo underneath to get the initial shapes and proportions on there. The nature of colored pencil means the more pigment you put on the paper, the less translucent it is, so it only works for the early stage of the piece, but I'm definitely not talented enough drawing to do it freehand.
Hey y’all, just found out about Tildes from all the reddit hubbub and this looks like a pretty rad place to be. I’m a 9 year reddit user, and was relatively active on MetaFilter back in the day. Any other MeFites around?
I work in tech, but spend most of my free time pursuing creativity in various formats. Lately I’ve been dabbling in creating large scale fabric flowers, and also have been attempting to make a tabletop water feature/aquascape sort of thing.
I’m trying to cut back on doom scrolling, so the higher quality content here feels like a better fit for me.
Hello everyone! Recent Reddit news has me looking into alternatives for some meaningful discussion. Heard about Tildes from a close friend and can't wait to dig in more and get familiar with the platform. Can't wait to interact with you all.
Any of those niche interests overlap with IT? Some of my favorite subreddits are (or were?) homelab, homeautomation, selfhosted, and even some of the very specific ones like podman or OPNsenseFirewall.
I think we're slowly gaining some more with those interests, based on who I know has been invited from reddit so far. You should post about it in ~tech or maybe ~hobbies and see if there are others!
Another lifeboater here: on Reddit since 2008, final straw was the APIpocalypse coming our way.
Toronto based, music producer / DJ + designer, day job in advertising, geek, into rave culture, low poly aesthetic and pulp nonsense .
If there’s a good community for Drum & Bass, Sandwiches or SBC gaming here let’s go!
Hi!
Largely a lurker on Reddit for a long time, excited to see what is going on in this community. I love having places to find sub communities for my interests that seem to change seasonally, lol. Currently diving into the world of houseplants and cassette culture. I love reading about tech and science as well. I'm a mental health therapist by trade, I also follow a few sub communities geared toward mental health and substance use. Like I said, just excited to explore something new to me 😊
Hey hey :)
I'm also a long time Reddit user and took the opportunity to take a look into other directions. I am more and more fed up of it's community, it's never ending reposts, bots and non-discussions that often end in derailment or flaming. The latest news about the changing API was just the last straw for me. I hope I can have more friendly conversations here and that tildes grows.
Personally, I'm a senior software engineer. At least that's what my contract says.
Started relatively young at the age of 8, and still love it after ~20 years. I used to write individual software for clients and used basically any common language besides Java. My favorites are C# (Started with .NET 2.0 back then) and TypeScript. Now I work for a company that develops it's software in house.
Definitely more of a backend than frontend developer, but I usually take frontend work up if it's required. Love the simplicity of Svelte. I just struggle with anything design related. :)
I also like topics such as reverse engineering or micro controllers (esp, arduino, stm32). I enjoy learning new things.
Besides those technical topics, I like to work with Blender, like photography and play guitar. Music taste varies between DnB, Math Rock, Punk, Jazz, Ska and (xyz) Metal/Death (Core). So, anything really.
I will most likely participate in the arts/music/tech direction here. :)
Hi. I’m new here, found this place from Reddit like most these past few days.
Hi, I'm another reddit migrant. I've been using reddit since the late 00's and this is the first time I might actually jump to something different and stick the landing. Reddit has been going downhill for a long time, and I think this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Immediately, I find the design and philosophy of tildes a breath of fresh air, and one that aligns with my own values. This is what I want the internet to be - not profit oriented, but just a good space for discussion and sharing of information, with a clean and simple design. I know this site's goal isn't to be another reddit and that's fine. I think true "social media" has never really worked for me, I've always just enjoyed forums, most of all. This is a good modern version of that.
I work in technology as an SRE for a $BigCorp in the Seattle area. I like philosophy, birding, hiking, video games (Switch+PC), reading (fantasy, scifi, horror, nonfiction), gardening, and puzzles. edit: also of course technology, lately I've been a big fan of the framework laptop and running linux :)
Looking forward to being a part of this place!
Hello. I've been lurking Tildes for months and thought it's finally the time to make an account here given that Reddit decided to become more hostile to its users. It's refreshing to see such well made website with nice community.
I'm from Poland and I work in IT as a programmer. I'm a rather boring person. I usually spend my spare time reading books of various genres, watching TV series or doing some bodyweight exercises
I'm sure that is not true. And welcome to Tildes ;D
Hello everyone. Long time veteran of Reddit (couldn't really tell you exactly when I joined) that is one of the many people coming over here becasue of the API/third party shenanings about to happen
Currently I am a Junior Systems Admin (though the official title is "IT Systems Configuration and Progamming Analyst" for a large scale state university. I am an all around nerd who spends a lot of time on video games (retro/emulation, indies, and games from JP developers). I am particularly obsessed with the Drakengard/Nier universe, and will unironically rant about it for HOURS (seriously don't get me started).
Apart from that, I'm also a fan of books and movies (particularly horror), and music (really any genre, as long as there's a groove I can vibe with). I love computers/hardware, and general "nerd" culture.
Hope to become a regular!
Hello! This is copied from the April introduction thread:
I joined last night after finding out about RIF going away which is pretty much the only way I enjoy reddit.
I am a middle-aged mom of one, married and have two large dogs living within 1.5 hours to the border of Canada.
Somehow I fell into accounting, and currently a senior analyst as a vendor to a large company. I have been doing this for 7 years and enjoy it more than I ever expected. My side project is creating a macro to auto fill my journal entries. I am team xlookup all the way. Started learning SQL.
Lifelong reader of fantasy, sci-fi, horror and fiction. I read Game of Thrones when I picked it up on the discount table in Barnes and Noble.
Hobbies outside of my dogs include sewing, knitting, crocheting, photography, painting in oil and acrylics and occasionally gouache, finding and cooking new wfpb recipes but am mostly vegetarian. I watched too many vampire and zombie shows.
Hi! I'm rungus (formerly stormy)
I've been here since 2018 but I'm trying to become more active. I've become really jaded over other online platforms recently so I'm glad to be here.
Currently I do tech support for a large corporation that contracts with local governments. It's pretty fun and I work from home! But I do want to eventually move into more of a development role. Someday!
Other than that I make silly little things sometimes, you can find most of them at my site! If I make more silly things I'll probably post them there. I also play video games sometimes, and analyze tv shows and movies too hard for fun.
I think I might be the only "gen z" kid on this site (born '99) so that's fun too, but I think I'm smart enough for most of the discussions here.
I'm 2000! With us new influx of users there might be more younguns joining. :D
I hung out in older internet areas growing up (like forums and IRC) and still do, so I've never felt out of place in those spaces.
To be honest yesterday I felt a little anxious about posting on here, mainly because one, I have mental health and family issues that have killed a lot of what I use to love, so I’m in the process of still trying to figure out if I still enjoy what I use to enjoy or if I should just move on.
The second reason would be that I like to keep myself a little closed off. It’s about social anxiety, yes, though ironically I’m not anxious around strangers but rather people I know well. I’m not anxious about the idea of sharing myself to the world or to people here because I don’t know any of you, but rather I’m anxious about the idea that, by sharing things that mean something to me rather than expand on what something means for someone else, you guys will get to know me and people who know me I will now feel anxious around.
But fuck it, whatever, I’ll give it a go. Impulsive, thoughtless decisions are in our DNA for a reason
Hey, I’m not really a 11-12+ year old reddit user, like to the point I have no memory of digg really existing. Though I was hugely into vbullitin boards and chat rooms even after most of them died off - until all of mine had died off that is - and came to reddit around 2017 or 2018 (hard to tell when I spent a lot of time lurking without an account in the beginning) when reddit started appearing on everyone’s googled questions instead of… err, Yahoo Answers.
Um, I currently I find myself gravitating back into philosophy and psychology and whatnot. I’m dipping my toes back into mindfulness - something I once had an obsession with - and just genuinely figuring out my thoughts, emotions, and beliefs in general, as numbed out as they are now. I use to be really into disability rights as well, so every now and again you’ll see me advocating for them. Also enjoy sociology, though I’m starting to feel really burnt out in it (can’t really stand the cracks and flaws of it now), but I’m willing to indulge in it if you ask me to. I guess, anything humanities is something I’m fine with talking about no matter what time it is or where I am in my mental health journey. Trying to get into social work for that very reason.
I’m also really into more exotic animals, so anything outside of your usual dogs, cats, fish, etc., though I find I have some trouble following the fun facts people throw at me. So most of the time when I’m learning about this or anything sciencey really, I tend to just go full interview and ask questions instead of expand the topic. I use to also be into climate change but that died when my mental health did soooo
I’m not really a tech person, nor do I watch anime/read manga, though I use to. I do like reading webcomics, so you can kind of see why I’m confused with myself on why I haven’t touched a manga in years. Maybe I’ll ask for recommendations. I enjoy shows made in the late 80’s to early 2000’s, and though I haven’t watched a lot of them, I still enjoy seeking them out way more than shows nowadays. (Not to say new shows are bad, just I enjoy the consistently simple camera work and room to breathe in older shows.) I also love reading but hate the idea of reading, due to my experience with a suspected reading disorder and a school that sort of placed too much value on reading the right kids of books and reading them the “correct” way. Might have to ask for recommendations for those too, since I always feel awkward picking up a book that isn’t tied to my grade.
I’m really enjoying my one day and several hours of Tildes so far. I never knew I missed non-spammy and not-thoughtless responses up until now (and I appreciate the informal ones as well. As long as it doesn’t feel spammy or thoughtless I enjoy seeing them). I always felt like outside of smaller subreddits, most of the time reddit didn’t take its long-form text abilities seriously, and while I like a good mindless toilet scroll here and there, I can’t stand it being almost everywhere I go as of late. A lot of smaller subreddits I joined aren’t small anymore, or just repeat the same discussion every 3 days, or I came at the wrong time and realized I am part of the mass subscribing of a subreddit a little too late, and it feels weird to feel a bit repulsed by subreddits I usually love. This is a nice change of pace, so thank you to Deimos and this community for that :)
Hello!! Sorry for the late reply, I'm finding that some days I don't have the energy to interact with people, and especially with Tildes it's encouraging me to make this a background in my life. It's actually kind of nice? Social media always demands I constantly be replying and reading and scrolling and... yeah. But here it's fine just talking or responding later when you feel better, so hopefully you're fine with a 3 day late reply ^ ^"""
Hah, yeah, it's what drew me to reddit because I literally freak out at the idea of followers. Got a tumblr - which is considered pretty anonymous as well - and then just left the moment I got a legitimate non-bot follower. I guess I don't like the rules and expectations when someone does get to know me. I feel like I have to be an idea of what others think "being Monthly_Vent" means instead of letting me be Monthly_Vent, so it's this extremely weird thing of pretending to be myself, causing me to not be myself.
Oooohhh I haven't exactly followed individual philosophers themselves, though back then I remember really liking debates against philosophers and how two people with different ideas and mindsets of the world will interact with each other. I really liked the ideas themselves - mainly how they challenged my own realities. Though then again, when I was younger, my knowledge consisted of Ted-Ed videos and trying to find alternatives in the way people told little me to think (like how "be yourself" is contradictory to "be nice". Tame kid stuff like that). Might be interesting to start moving past that and into the more heavy stuff.
For the last paragraph, finding someone who can relate has been a breath of fresh air. It really is confusing when the thing that has been so you it's been part of your identity suddenly escapes you without transferring that same feeling onto something else. It feels... awfully empty. I don't know, I often feel like a shell of myself when it happens, especially since it was really the only thing I was good at (had learning problems growing up) and there was a sort of pride I had with them because of that. And then I feel it fading or going away and I'm left with nothing to be proud of anymore.
I still come back to the things that very clearly I need a break in, because I don't know, I'm tired and learning new things through the learning problems and brain fog is tiring. It kind of feels like either I stick with what I know and hope today is a better day and I can enjoy it, I expand and delve into something that I'll probably just associate with tiredness and fatigue, or I do nothing and then feel nothing. I think it would be nice to stop reading or discussing and start experiencing, though whenever I do I also feel tired so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I think the best I can do is just be patient with myself and take care of myself the best I can. Hopefully my sense of enjoyment will come back and I wouldn't even notice it.
First comment :-) hey everyone
"frst!"
:) good old days
13+ year other site.
I have posted opinions I have changed.
Yikes.
Hello everyone,
Like many others I'm a rat running from the sinking ship.
I'm a web developer by trade focusing primarily on the front end of things. Ive worked in locations ranging from a university to small start ups.
I'm huge into collecting hobbies: watches, cologne, and coffee being just a few. I also really enjoy reading and biome rides. Gaming is also a pass time for me, mostly fps games on my PC but I also love my switch.
Hi all! Been lurking on tildes for several years, mostly posting in ~creative and sharing stuff I make. I enjoy knitting, crocheting, baking, sewing, drawing, reading, video games, and plant identification (with a focus on flowers).
I am also a writer by trade and hobby, and love doing a lil freelance editing on the side. I think it's really fun to help people get their message across and work with them on their goal of a piece.
Its very neat to see so many more people!
Hello, Tildesinos!
Thank you to u/fireballs619 for the invitation. I am yet another long-term Reddit user in search of a new Internet home following the current API scandal; I'm too much of a grumpy old man to use Reddit without rif! That said, I'm very happy to have arrived at Tildes, as I found myself nodding along enthusiastically while reading the Tildes philosophy pages. I have become increasingly concerned about the McDonaldization of the internet over the last decade-and-a-half, and the cynical, casino-mafioso dopamine manipulation employed in all facets of social media. In much the same way that William Burroughs described control as being "controlled by it's need to control", I worry for a digital information industry addicted to information, advertisers controlled by their need to advertise. Tildes is a warm reminder to me of what the internet used to be like and is a segment of digital life that, I hope, will always persist.
Anyway, a little about me: I am a humanoid, born and raised in the Pacific Northwest (US). I have several beloved cats, as well as a flock of chickens and ducks. I love reading, writing, punk rock, ragtime, concerts, psychology, philosophy and theology, jambalaya, bourbon, cocktails, grand strategy games, old-school pro-wrasslin', surrealism, classic movies and 70s sitcoms, classical Chinese (particularly Three Kingdoms) history, 20th century history, geopolitics, etc. My favorite poet is Charles Baudelaire, my favorite author is Fyodor Dostoevsky. My favorite book that I've read recently is "Love's Executioner" by Irvin Yalom. Some of my favorite musicians are: The Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Television, The Stooges, Brother Ali, KRS-One, Pavement, Etta James, Louis Armstrong, and Nina Hagen.
Thank you for welcoming me aboard, and I hope to see you all around as I explore and find my communities here. I am thrilled to find a place like Tildes that genuinely seems to align with my values, and I hope that I can contribute positively to the discussions and discourse 'round these parts!
Hello, neighbor from the PNW. I also became a bit concerned with the state of the internet. Back in the late 90's/early 00's, it seemed that there was some cost that some individual personally paid to put stuff on the internet. But now it seems like everything needs to be monetized; Every corner needs to capture your attention to advertise to you. Then the SEO happens and every website is the same.
Looks like we have some interest overlaps! What types of ducks do you raise, out of curiosity? I have never had the space to have many animals beyond a dog, but if I ever do in the future I would love to raise some India runner ducks — I hear they are beneficial when gardening because they eat some pests such as slugs.
Your listed interests of philosophy, theology, and surrealismg caught my eye. Care to say more about any of them?
Oh, Indian runners are beautiful! Thanks for reading and replying. I have 4 Muscovies and they are excellent for pest control. A lot of people dislike Muscovies because they can be aggressive, but I've rarely had a problem with mine! My Muscovy drake is one of the best-tempered birds I have.
In terms of philosophical interest, I am most at home in the existentialist or absurdist camps; Sartre, Camus, and Nietzsche were the three that kicked off my love for grappling with meaning in a post-Enlightenment society, so I always find myself coming back to them. I am most intrigued by the struggle to explore the role of consciousness and define human-as-individual against the cascading systems that control and shape our perceptions. For this reason, I am also a big fan of the Object Relations schools of Melanie Kline and Otto Kernberg, as well as the modern psychoanalytic tradition more generally. I believe that the best way that we can solve the west's anxiety and depression epidemic, among a myriad other crises, is by understanding how sociopolitical systems influence us on the individual level, and then finding ways to short-circuit these systems as best we can. In my view, we have to place ourself correctly within the structures that govern us before we can earnestly begin having conversations about authenticity and agency.
As for theology, though personally agnostic-leaning, I'm fascinated by the logic systems built up by religions across the world. I'm sympathetic to the project of creating good ethical frameworks for communities, and I find that studying religions can teach us a lot about how people think and act in nearly every facet of life. For instance, so-called "Catholic guilt" seems to persist in many people even once they've renounced their faith, and plenty of western atheists retain moral codes that look suspiciously Judeo-Christian under scrutiny! So I think it is important to engage with these ideas in an earnest way, to shed light on influences that can sometimes be difficult for people to articulate. It is also useful to have some understanding of diverse belief systems in order to engage people in genuine existential discussion, since religion and philosophy are often trying to answer the same questions.
I have always been a fan of the Surrealists and the Dadaists! What draws me towards surrealist modes of expression is that it endeavors foremost to communicate subjective consciousness in a visceral way; when done well, it can act then as one of the short-circuits I mentioned earlier, a reminder of humanity's fantastic perceptual qualities, and a weapon that can shake the onlooker loose from their comfortable routine! To my mind, an art-form can never be truly subversive without challenging one's immediate engagement with reality. This is the task set before us as we come to terms with a lived experience which is constantly curated by media and economics, where we often cannot even enjoy our leisure time without bombardment by advertising messages and the ratcheting stress of unsustainable instant gratification.
Question to all the new people: how did you hear about tildes?
I found it through a random comment posted on Reddit. Took a look around decided I liked what I saw and asked for an invite on the sub Reddit
On one comment of the AppoloApp subreddit, following the news about the reddit’s API changes
Hi all, I'm not actually new, but I haven't said anything in 3.5 (‽) years, mostly because I don't feel like I have anything interesting to say.
Anyway, right now I work in software development and my non-work activities are mostly in the form of Tetris and coding efficient solutions to small, self-contained programming problems. It turns out there isn't really an upper limit to the depth of interesting strategies for either of these (and might be why they suck up so much of my time).
In the past few months I also restarted reading books (particularly sci-fi) and keeping isopods, which have both been fun to pick up again, though I don't have nearly as many thoughts/stories about these topics.
It's cool to see all the new folks here! I'll try to give this place another spin and see what comes of it.
What kind of isopods are you keeping? I was just reading up on isopods the other day as I was looking to improve my plant soil quality and increase its microbial activity, only to find out there is a whole community of isopod keepers out there!
Right now it's just whatever species is common in my area (Armadillidium vulgare, presumably) since I haven't gotten deep enough down the rabbit hole to use something other than The Ground as my isopod source.
However, I know that there must be some incredibly dedicated hobbyists out there because I've seen some very flashy patterns.
White with colored spots? Yep.
Yellow with a black band? Sure.
Spiky shells? Absolutely.
The spiky ones can even still ball up, though I have no idea how that would actually work in the wild.
It's definitely the sort of hobby that will happily scale to your dedication level (all of the above are for sale and not for cheap!) but it's also simple enough that someone like me could have something humming along without too much expertise.
Incredible that there are so many varieties, never seen spiky ones. Out of curiosity, I just looked up how much some of them cost... I suppose this hobby can get pretty expensive quickly haha. But it is nice that this is also a hobby you can literally pick up (off the ground) in your backyard.
The rubber ducky ones are cute tough :)
Oh huh, I've been trying to get into isopod keeping myself! Just a small failed A. vulgare colony so far, but they've always held a special place in my heart.
You should definitely give it a try! I've seen elaborate care sheets (I got this one from searching the r/isopods subreddit earlier today) but I think for a species like A. Vulgare you probably don't need to follow every step of this. I've had some success in the last few months just with some coconut coir substrate along with maintaining moisture and food.
10+ year Reddit user. Used slide and RIF for the longest time and even met my fiancee on Reddit. Looking in to alternative and ready to cut the Reddit cord.
I'm keeping my account (as @skybrian suggested to one day extend invites) but I just used Power Delete Suite to nuke my 15 year old account. No telling if that will be possible in the future with API changes.
Ooh I hadn't even thought about the life of my account post-Reddit.
Nuking seems like a good idea.
But if you cancel your Reddit account, how will you give out invites? :-)
Like most other people popping up, I'm looking for a lifeboat from the impending doom of reddit. Really liking this site so far. Feels kind of like old reddit in all the right ways. Shout out to the person who have me an invite.
Hello!
I heard about tildes a few months back, but did not really bother trying to get an invite, now that reddit is practically denying third-party api access, I decided to make a switch after way too much time spent on reddit.
A bit about me:
Almost in my thirties, way too many hobbies, tech focused and a varying degree of interests in many topics.
The hobbies I mostly engage in are gaming, drones and reading.
Games I play vary very much. I play almost everything, if it interests me.
With drones I do a lot of flying, checking out nature or abandoned buildings, but I also did a bit of advertisement shots for a friends wine yard.
The books I've read were mostly fantasy, crime and thriller in the past, today I read mostly fantasy and to gain new knowledge (culture, skills, history, documentaries, etc).
Lastly, sorry for any mistakes, English is not my native language. Hoping for a good time on here!
Hey, "drones reading" sounds like an interesting hobbie :P
And welcome :)
Yeah, I made a mistake and posted too early. I think it was CTRL+Enter.
Thanks for the welcome.
Hello all,
I joined after seeing this mentioned with the latest Reddit API news and the effect on 3rd party reader apps. I'm an old millennial that joined Reddit back in 2008, and this kind of reminds me of Reddit in the earlier years, which looking back is pretty different than it is today.
About me, I've done a few things in life but somehow landed as a software developer for the last 5 or 6 years, mostly front end for web apps. I have a broad range of interests and like learning new things, but I primarily like to make music, usually with fretted, stringed instruments. I also like casual outdoorsy things like hiking, bike rides, and camping.
ukeleles and guitar families, or something more eastern like a pipa or a western viol?
Guitar family instruments, it's kind of a toss up between guitar and ukulele as what I'd call my primary instrument. I've also learned some Mexican son jarocho music and picked up the jarana jarocha and requinto jarocho in the last few years.
No real experience with more eastern instruments, though I've plunked around on an oud before (which is not fretted if I remember right)
Well, I've apparently been around since nearly the beginning. I'm not a particularly active commenter, but I tend to lurk pretty heavily.
I'm a software engineer with a passion for running, football (both American and European), and travel.
Also, in typical software engineer fashion, I hate having to introduce myself.
Welcome to everyone who has been joining recently!
Hello, I found tildes mentioned in a reddit discussion related to the upcoming API changes. I've participated in many social link aggregators over the years including fark, slashdot, memepool, metafilter, digg, and of course reddit. I'm a fan of sci-fi, video games, buddhism, fitness and calisthenics, camping and hiking, and all things weird. Looking forward to participating and seeing how this community grows with the upcoming reddit changes.
Hello! Another relatively longtime (10 years or so) reddit user here. Thought this place seemed worth checking out! ::)
Still figuring out how to navigate the site and all that. I'm a language & literature student & video game fanatic that currently has all too little time to play. If anyone here is familiar with interactive fiction, I was one main editors and playtesters for Fallen Hero: Retribution!
On reddit I've primarily posted about video games, interactive fiction and visual novels, we'll see if that remains true here or not.
Currently I'm enjoying the very cozy yearly tradition of having SGDQ on 24/7 in the background!
Other things of note, hm... I'm Swedish, and quite queer! That's about it, I think ::)
Hi!
I am a 7-year Reddit user. I mainly use it for learning and entertainment. Currently, am unsettled by their new policy for 3rd-party apps and, even if I don't use them, I don't think it will be good for the community.
I am a regular IT guy. I grew up with computers (started with the 486 DX2) and kept working as Tech Support until the pandemic. Now I am doing a Tech Grad in Software Development to start getting a broader view of the subjects I already know (Networking, Linux, Windows, Servers, etc.).
Hey all!
Very excited to be here.
I have been a big fan of this project once I learned of it, and am very grateful to have received an invite recently!
I came from reddit, and before that was a Digg refugee, but even before that I was on Slashdot (and I think Cracked and Stumbleupon were my main internet "holes".)
I really did enjoy my time on reddit, but as all things in life things change. It became something I didn't really feel I fit in with anymore.
It is a shame what's happening with the API stuff, but in the end I think it's for the best. Especially as it gives the opportunity to other sites to shine.
The great Digg migration was amazing, but whenever I felt frustration with reddit over the past 10+ years I always wondered where we would go after? Then I learned of Tildes, and I was so excited as it seemed perfect.
Very happy to be here!
Hi all! 11 year reddit vet who has been looking for a better site to visit for a few years now. Like a lot of you, Tildes reminds me of when reddit was matter over memes so I'm really excited to be here.
Hi, another reddit refugee here. I don't have a huge problem with that site, but the new API policy is a sign of its impending slide into irrelevance.
I'm a former Austinite, now Minnesotan, new dad, and (mostly) ruby developer.
I'm bradley. I actually used my real name for once on a website.
I'm a musician, outdoor lover, indoor lover, software engineer. I work for local government in Washington, but I am looking for work in Europe - preferably at a game studio. I just beat Tears of the Kingdom after no-lifing it since release.
I'm a little obsessed about self-sufficient living and I'm always on the prowl for new tech that makes it possible. I think the last thing i was looking at was the 'living vehicle' RV - this sort of luxury solar powered airstream-like home you can tow behind a truck. It has slide-out solar on the roof for a decent amount of coverage, and can even make its own water via a built in condenser. It's out of my price range, but I wonder if you could get enough overflow from the solar to get some miles on a solar truck to tow it. Obviously it wouldn't be a lot, but even leaving a place with more miles than you came in with is a pretty exciting prospect to me.
Welcome! What kind of music do you play?
I started learning jazz guitar a while back because i enjoy chord melodies - but i don't really enjoy like 90% of jazz music. I'm probably going to try my hand at writing some jazz fusion.
Hi ! Ok so everyone here is a reddit refugee.
Surprise : I am too, after 9 years there.
I’m just a mid twenties french guy working in IT, living with my girlfriend and my dog.
Looking forward to talk with you all.
Hi!
After 4 years on Reddit, I am looking for a new home to lurk at and post to.
I found this site from the AskReddit post and after wanting to check it out it crashed for the whole day.
I'm a Linux user, programmer (as a hobby) and privacy advocate from Germany.
Happy to be here! :3
Which post was that?
It was this post and comment in particular.
Let's see, I migrated here from Reddit. I used reddit for 10 years, tried twitter for a while. I had a nice feed going of games, weather, art, and puppies when things started going downhill. Looks like this site is awesome for discussions on things and am still looking for something that can replace what I was following on twitter. Discord for individual things for now.
General interests: Science, health, weather, video games (especially peaceful farming ones and monster taming/creature collection types, RPGs with a good story), software development, fantasy and sci fi books or graphic novels, prehistoric critters, birds, dogs and other cute fluffy critters.
Edit: Forgot to mention I tend to listen to video game music more than anything else.
I'm also a Reddit refugee, (~12 years on there...) and I've been lurking here for the past few days. Loving all of the in-depth discussion!
For work, right now I'm a UI developer working on the front end of a web app. In the past I've done web design and mobile/VR game development. My previous jobs focused on my art and design skills, so my current role as a developer is a nice change of pace.
My hobbies include video games (Bloodborne is my favorite!), board games, tabletop RPGs, cooking, writing, listening to music, drawing, reading, 3D printing, and miniature painting. More recently I've been introducing myself to mycology, which has been really fun. Recently moved an oyster grow kit into some new substrate - hopefully they'll grow! Might try other gourmets in the future.
Hey everyone!
I’m an 11 year reddit grandma who is absolutely fed up with the direction the site is headed in. Really noticing a trend with the number of veteran users in this thread - it’s really nice to see so many people who are migrating here.
I managed to snag my first name as a username here too, so that’s pretty cool. Looking forward to interacting with everyone here!
Hey all. Reddit refugee here. Many thanks to u/young_x (Reddit name) for the invite. I might actually already have a Tildes account somewhere, I've been here before, but it - along with my memory - is long gone, lol.
I do like the long form text, and the differences between Tildes and Reddit do not bother me at all. While I would very much like some of the more niche content Reddit has, in my view it's well worth giving up in exchange for not having to deal with a single bot here, ever, or those paid solely to provoke/propagandize. I may not have anything worthy to say, but I generally put a lot of thought into saying it, and that seems also to be the case with many of the comments I have just read in this thread. So if that is true for all of Tildes, that's a HUGE plus.
I also am enamored that Tildes sees me as a human participant, and not just a warm side of beef to which advertising can be forcibly applied on its way through the content machine. Being beef isn't all bad, and I'll keep my Reddit accounts, but my participation there was fading anyway. The May 1 API lockdown that killed being able to see removed content was when I knew it was almost over, and when old Reddit is completely gone I don't see a way to participate past that.
So thank you! I will probably just lurk for a while, but hope to participate as well. Blessings to all you fine (human) people.
Yet another long-time Reddit user who is just over it (the API pricing was the final straw).
Have also been a lurker of Tildes.net for a couple of years, and much prefer the conversations going on over here - now I finally have an account!
Also active on the tildeverse, and Mastodon.
I've seen (maybe skimmed :P) a couple of your effort-posts so far. Great stuff! Tildes is lucky to have you!
When I see stuff like that I really hope those posters keep a backup or compendium of their best posts. It's easy for the best posts to get lost in the shuffle over time.
Hi all! It's great to be here. Really liked what I've seen of Tildes so far, especially the focus on text and longer content and comments. When I comment it generally ends up being on the longer side, possibly bordering on rambling...
About me: I work in design/ publishing and generally love books and art as you might imagine. Hobbies include lots of crafts (knitting, sewing (sort of... still trying to get to grips with it, me and my sewing machine are on the outs at the moment), painting, drawing etc.), cooking, eating, hiking and playing far too much scrabble on my phone. Very happy to talk about languages/ linguistics, history, literature, literary theory, politics and probably a lot else besides.
I like your nested brackets lol
Yes I like the text focus as well :D kind of welcome change
Welcome!
Hey everyone! I'll add myself to the list of reddit refugees. I've been looking to switch to something less toxic and smaller for some time now and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
As for me, I live in Europe and currently work as a senior software developer, trying to get more into architecture as much as my position allows.
In my free time, I game (mainly PC, some Switch) with a focus on MMOs and RPGs, but also fighting games. I listen to and make a lot of music (mainly metal, but I love all kinds of genres).
I love reading about and trying new things all the time.
I look forward to start using this platform more! :)
The video gaming thread is probably one of the most active recently :D welcome!
Another Digg-->Reddit-->Tildes refugee here. I was a prolific poster in the beginning (with tons of karma), but then Reddit changed. It became more hostile and pedantic. I ditched my former account, created a completely different one where i mostly just lurked, and kept a low profile... But what was once a passionate participation was gone. I miss the old days. Here's to Tildes, may it grow and prosper. Btw, im a 310A/S/T licensed automotive tech with more than 40 years on the bench. If y'all have automotive questions, i'm more than willing to try and answer them!
Back in my day the internet came on floppy disks mailed to your house.
Greetings all, I'm a 17 year Reddit user who came to Reddit from Digg, Digg from Fark, Fark from Slashdot, and Slashdot from BBS systems I used to frequent in high school. I've been doing this a long time.
These days I manage software development teams but in a previous life I had a successful side hustle as an early pioneer in social news and citizen journalism. I scooped the AP on multiple major national stories, personally pissed off Bill O'Reilly, covered the nomination of Barack Obama for MSNBC, and may -- may -- have coined the phrase "Caribou Barbie" to refer to Sarah Palin.
On Reddit I've made a reputation for myself as a contributor on r/AskHistorians covering issues related to the Cold War and US/Soviet relations and I frequently post on topics ranging across history and the political sciences.
What I value Reddit for most seems to be what its leadership sees as least worthy of protecting: namely the community and discussion around the issues of the day. If that can't survive there, I hope it will here.
Oh boy, be prepared for some questions than! I love that sub.
Hello, all. I am an 8.5-year Reddit user who is just fed up with Reddit's management for numerous reasons, with the final blow being the API changes.
Other people have already expressed their grievances, so I won't pile on. However, I am excited to see something new, and out of all the "alternatives," Tildes seemed to be the best option.
I will make an effort to leave behind my bad Reddit habits and cynicism.
Fun fact: My username is simply composed of the first four words that came to mind when I signed up for Reddit. I have carried the username over to here because I am unoriginal.
Hi All!
I'm a longtime (13+ years) Reddit user who is alarmed by their new policy to block 3rd party apps. I'm hoping to find a new home here if they follow through.
I've been a professional software engineer (C++/C#/Python/JavaScript/TypeScript/etc) for 30+ years, so I definitely lean into the technical subs. I'm also a fan of classic and alternative rock (Beatles/Springsteen/Cure/Smiths are among my top favorites), SciFi and Fantasy novels, bicycling, collecting (coins, stamps, native american artifacts) and metal detecting. (Yeah, I guess I'm a nerd.) I've also been married for 25+ years and have two kids in college.
Hey hello, also a Reddit expat but I've been browsing here for several years at this point - just now finally decided to get an invite!
Primarily interested in video games & software dev (frontend focused), but I'm also interested in architecture, infrastructure (bikes + trains) and history.
Hey everyone!
Another 15 year Reddit refugee (and Digg, Slashdot, and IRC, though not Usenet), here. I lurk more often than I contribute these days, mostly due to lack of time. Hopefully, I will be a benefit to this community when I do.
I'm a civil engineer who focuses on airports. Basically, I know how to tell a contractor to move, compact, and mix ground materials of various types and amounts so that planes can operate safely.
That said, my interests go well beyond dirt. I can find enjoyment in most things that take skill or effort; both the final product and the process itself. Technology, art, philosophy, history, sport, etc.
I have become far more skeptical (or disillusioned) of modern economics and the role software is playing in our lives. I'm not remotely a Luddite or a hater of capitalism, but as I've gotten older and experienced more, I find that combining those two is leading to some seriously disappointing results.
On that sour note, I think I'm done for today!
Hello everyone! I was never very active on Reddit, but this seems like a positive place to be and I think I might post a little more often here. I'm mostly into programming and game development (though none of my projects are in any state to share right now!).
Howdy! Been using Reddit since 2011 and have been looking for a place that captures that old Reddit feel. This place seems chill, so here I am!
Hey all!
I apparently made this account in 2018 and then completely forgot about it 😅 I've been disillusioned with a lot of reddit content for a while if we're honest but I sort of forgot tildes' existence until I saw someone bring it up wrt the recent reddit api drama. Excited to rejoin the community here, as I really love the philosophy behind the place and it seems like the culture is a lot more stable and the site has more festures from when I joined the first time.
I'm a data scientist with a linguistics background and an avid conlanger, and I particularly look forward to sharing my creative pursuits with others here and getting advice on things I'm less knowledgeable about.
Welcome back! Which conlangs are you interested in?
I mostly focus on building my own these days, but I spent my high school years translating things into Esperanto for fun (yes I was very popular in school).
Currently working on a couple projects with my spouse (whom I met through the r/conlangs discord server back in the day lol). One is a language that uses biconsonantal roots (like afroasiatic but not at all like afroasiatic) and one is a sign language for our personal use. I have a few other WIP conlangs but they've been on a break longer than these have.
I've also been working on a neography project creating a unified logographic orthography for Germanic languages (based off this long-dead thread on the cbb.) Hoping I can put something together to show off my progress on it soon.
If widespread machine translation doesn't ruin its chances, it seems like emojis could be the basis for an international shared written language someday? Though, many symbols might not have their original meanings. :-)
I don't think the odds of a full-on international shared language are that good, even just a written one, but iconic stuff like emoji are already pretty widely used when you need to communicate concepts to people who might not read the local language, so I can definitely see emoji becoming part of that.
As someone who natively speaks two languages and know few more to varying degrees, oh the horrors I hope not!! Languages are a human invention that carry a ton of hidden traditions and history behind each......
I grew up in Hong Kong, where we speak Cantonese. We have our own culture that will be lost if the language is lost: whole constellations of puns wiped out, entire legacies of swear words and dirty jokes gone, historical link to how certain thoudand year old poetry should be read, the fingerprints of loan words from different migrant groups that became part of us all going poof.....please no.
On a less serious note: I always love seeing this one in the wild, because the middle character means something to me (ಠ益ಠ) -- means something like, of benefit, nutritious, profitable. So even when it's an angry face it's a kind of righteous anger lol
Wow having a sign language just for you two to silently communicate is the coolest thing, I always wanted to do that but I don't have anyone like that :D.
The sign language is still early stages, so it's only a few simple signs that we actually use nowadays. But it's definitely useful when we're in situations where we don't want to be overheard, even in this early state.
If you haven't seen the article already, here's a topic linking to a really interesting article about ChatGPT and a conlang: https://tild.es/151r
I'm really interested in how the prompt engineering went for that project! Also super impressed with how young that kid is making such a conlang, my "conlangs" were all just mimicking English grammar when I was younger.
Hi. I've apparently been lurking here for close to five years, now--which is a bit of a shock, but there's my registration date: July 20, 2018. It doesn't feel like it's been that long. I was initially very excited for the prospect of a Reddit alternative, as while I like the people I interact with on Reddit, I don't like the Reddit company (or the app or the new web layouts). It quickly became clear that this wasn't intended as a Reddit replacement, but I lurk here to get varied content that I wouldn't see anywhere else. I'm excited to see where this influx of new users takes this site.
My day job is doing work for "a leading search engine company," but I do a lot of work outside on my property. I've generally followed the advice to "build soil, and the plants will follow," and that is finally starting to pay off. I'm working to start my own small tree/shrub/Michigan natives/Permaculture staple plant nursery and to that end have about 600 black walnuts, 250 shagbark hickories, and 50 pawpaws that have either sprouted recently or are about to. It's just a hobby for now, but we'll see where it takes me. It keeps me outdoors, which is where I want to be.
Another reddit refugee. 10 years there, 400,000 karma (because that really matters /s) but I think if Tildes is as good as it appears to be, I'll be able to sign off Reddit for good. I just scroll past so much more now. And for some reason, r/trueReddit rarely shows up in my feed anymore. So much for quality.
The quality of conversation is what drew me in the first place. I hope Tildes is better, much better.
Im mostly retired already, and Im a dinosaur - Ive been using computers since we programmed using punch cards and a remote terminal in Grade 11. That was 1978. Went on from there to be a computer teacher and a lifelong user. My first experience communicating online was using BBS's on our text only green CRTs back in the day. Oh boy have things changed.
Side note: Quite surprised to read in the initial agreement that Tildes is Canadian and even based in Alberta. Don't see that very often.
Welcome to Tildes, fellow old fart. I’m not quite punchcard old, but I still remember having to constantly tinker with the autoexec.bat, config.sys, and himem.sys files every time I wanted to play a new game or run a new piece of software (with no internet to help me figure it out).
My first “online” experience was BBS’ back in the day too. The older cousin of a primary school buddy ran a multi-phone-line one out of his basement called The Lionheart Cartel. Which is where I first learned how to network computers, so we could run LAN events down in that basement, and at my and other school buddies houses. I still remember sharing files over DB25 (printer) cables since it was faster than over the network.
And after that it was Usenet, edit: then AOL, then Slashdot, then reddit, now here. Here’s hoping you find a new home here too. :)
Hi. I'm more of a Reddit lurker than an engager and I generally try to avoid unpleasant things. I was told about this place and thought I'd give it a try.
I'm not a very exciting person. I like cats, tattoos, aggrotech music, and unicorns. :)
I hope everyone has a great day!
What's your favorite unicorn breed?
Shadow nights unicorns! According to the lore of the magical unicorn society, they fit me best.
Came here from HN on invite from Adys, liking what I see so far!
QA/Dev by trade, working in hardware in the car industry and as a teacher on a polytechnic school in Sweden teaching testing tools and automation for web.
Hi everyone, yet another wayward reddit user exploring the other possibilities. I came across a mention of Tildes, and in addition to the cool name, after browsing a bit asked to be invited. I'm currently in IT, a hobbyist streamer and PC builder, and generally try to be a helpful person.
Hi, everyone. At the risk of sounding like everybody else here, I also came looking at Tildes after the Reddit API changes were announced. Seems like a cool place - I'm excited. I'm a history student (2nd time around in college), with an emphasis in early medieval European history. I also am an avid gamer and movie-goer. Hope to find some interesting content and conversation here!
Well, hello there fellow European history buff. I semi-regularly post medieval/middle-ages stuff to ~humanities, and if you see the history.military tag being used in that group, chances are high that it's one of my posts. :P
Welcome to Tildes, and I look forward to seeing what you post, if you decide to (no pressure though). :)
Hi!
I'm a 12 year Reddit user who's gotten sick of the site over the past 5 or 6 years. Memes, tired in-jokes, and while I know the site always had it's absolutely vile communities of users they've become more prevalent over the past 5 years or so and it was doing my mental health no good.
The API thing seems to have been the straw that broke the camels back and I checked out Tildes and loved the discussions, the longer form content and the fact that people were still having fun. Brought back memories of quiet forums in the early-mid 00's where communities of maybe a couple hundred users would all get to know each other and have great chat.
I'm from Scotland, I play D&D, I try to paint miniatures when I can (although my one-year old daughter doesn't give me much time to do that these days), I love video games and books (currently reading the First Law trilogy at the moment) and I love rock and metal music.
Greetings all!
I'm a big space and astronomy nerd and love hiking out here in the Pacific Northwest as much as I'm able to. I'm currently on a bit of a language learning kick recently and have been studying German and Spanish for a few months now using a variety of different tools. Seems I'm one of the few not in tech here, currently working on the building code compliance and consulting side of the construction industry.
I received an invite here a while back but haven't been active - Looking to change that!
Hey everyone! I was a Digg refugee to Reddit, and here I am investigating a possible new place to move to. With their move to price API access out of the reaches of most of the mobile apps, it's time for me to look for an alternative. Currently I spend most of my non-Reddit time on Discord and Mastodon, but neither are a great replacement for Reddit.
I'm a system administrator working in higher ed, and have been a big computer nerd for years. I collect vintage computers (particularly UNIX workstations), and I'm a huge music and movie geek.
Looking forward to interacting with the community!
Just joined today. I come from Reddit. Whenever they out price Apollo I will stop reading it, limiting it to just old Reddit, unless it’s posting. I am interested in computers. Mostly Linux stuff and c programming. I’m a current computer science major. When I find the right place I’ll share some of my ongoing projects.
Check out the reoccurring What are you working on? topic on ~comp. This iteration got posted jusssst before the recent influx so hasn’t gotten a ton of attention.
I’ll post it there. I am about a feature away from getting to alpha, so when I get there, I’ll post it on its own thread.
Hey all. Yet another reddit "refugee" here who refuses to use reddit on mobile without their third-party app (RIF). I've been on reddit since 2011, though my most recent account was made in 2015 as I forgot the credentials to the previous one.
Considering they are killing their own platform, I'm jumping ship. This is going to be "my new home" as of July 1st.
Admins, thank you for the invite, and good luck with the influx of thousands of users!
Hello! Long-time Reddit user who's looking for a more forum-based community after hearing what's going on with their 3rd party stuff. I like it here at Tildes already!
I work as a software engineer most of the time, but when I'm not working I play a lot of Magic: The Gathering!
Hello everyone! I like text posts with solid discussion, various creative hobbies, TTRPGs, and general nerdy stuff. I'm in from Reddit because the niche hobby communities are my favorite part of the site, and Tildes reminds me of those. The app news made me lurk over here for a bit, and seems like y'all have a solid community!
New user, old Redditor. I'm about to celebrate my 11th and (if the API changes stick) last Cakeday on Reddit, with 100k karma. I am excited about the possibility of influencing the growth of a new alternative - and of helping post quality content! Thanks to reddit user totallynotcfabbro for the invite!
A humble request to the Reddit is Fun (okay, RIF is Fun) team: Please make an app for Tildes.net if the changes happen, and encourage Apollo and other third-party apps to do the same, to make the transition easier!
Welcome, fellow Reddit refugee! I have good news for you: the RIF developer is already working on a Tildes app! That said, I'm finding the mobile browser experience to be excellent here.
That's fantastic news! I'm going to join the fundraiser if there is a small change in naming - "TiF" is an unfortunate acronym
Happy Sunday everyone,
My name is CriticalBass! I am a big social media person and you could originally find me as "Thabass" on reddit. Since reddit seems to be going down the tubes due to the rampant greed, I figured it's time to move on to a new place where I can have a decent conversation using good tools and a pleasing aesthetic. A friend of mine gave me an invite to this site and after reading the philosophy of this site, I know this is where I want to be.
Most people call me Bass, and while people usually call me that, CriticalBass is a brand new name for me as I am revamping all of my social media and creating a new YouTube channel where discuss video games, particularly RPGs (Final Fantasy, Persona) and adventure games (The Legend of Zelda). I am also an avid sports fanatic and all the major sports and professional wrestling.
When I'm not gaming, I like to write, listen to copious amounts of electronic music (trance, synthwave) and just be a goofball with friends.
I am really hoping Tildes takes off since I really believe in the philosophy that's being presented here. I think reddit is screwing over their entire userbase, the thing that made what reddit is today, and I think it's time for a change in content creation and content awareness. We can do this without sacrificing our values for money and power.
It's good to meet many of you and I hope to be part of something larger by joining this site and interacting with you all.
Welcome! Do you play bass or did you get that nickname some other way?
Haha, no, my last name contains "Bass" in it, and most people in high school called me by my last name, so Bass just kind of stuck! :)
Hey all. Like many others, 11-year account on Reddit who used RiF on mobile and refuse to adopt their app.
I'm a geophysicist by day and usually, just turn into some kind of couch potato by evening. Currently enjoying the new D4 game.
I listen to a lot of music and enjoy walking around with my dogs. I don't live a very exciting life. lol
Fellow earth scientist! Hi! I'm more on the geochemistry side of things. :-)
eyy! Us geo-scientists gotta stick together! Props to you for liking geochem. I chose geophysics so I can turf all the chemistry related questions to you lot, ha.
Hi everybody! My name's precise. I'm not new, I've been around since 2018, but I've been lurking for the last couple years. I like to hike, backpack and camp. You might also see my wandering around as a lost noob on Battlefield One if your timing is right. I used to work in IT, burned out and then served with AmeriCorps. I was homeless for a while, now I'm not which is nice. I've got a background in activism rooted in a disdain for systems of least resistance, I'd rather block a pipeline than ask a crony of the oil company to stop it. In addition to environmentalist work, I've also worked in the civil rights space. This leads to where I am today at a non-profit researching political extremism, political violence and terrorism. I came to Tildes for the higher quality conversations, and I hope that continues as it seems Tildes is getting a breath of fresh users.
Hello! I am one of the Reddit migrants. I've been on Reddit for 14 years and have seen it go through a number of changes, but this is the one that will finally render it unusable for me. I have been looking at various alternatives, but Tildes is the only one that immediately grabbed my attention and made me want to join even if Reddit rolls back this whole fiasco.
About me: I grew up in the Southeastern US (mostly Atlanta), and I immigrated to Australia 11 years ago, where I live on my partner's family farm. Most of my work history is related to ecology and agricultural research, with a particular focus on native Australian pollinators. However, I currently work as a graphic designer producing educational material on computer science topics.
I love working worth my hands and have a large and ever-growing range of hobbies: Sewing, drawing, gardening, woodworking, needle felting, 3d printing, etc., etc. The thing I will miss most about Reddit are all the small hobby-related subreddits, so I'm hoping to see some of that here. Even if I don't participate in a hobby, I love seeing other people's creative efforts: their processes, their experiments, their successes and failures, etc.
I am also interested in discussion on biological topics and related philosophy: how the mind works, how we came to be who we are, and so on.
Welcome! I'm wondering what you use your 3d printer for? Is it practical things or more often for artistic prints?
It's actually my partner's printer, which he received as a gift from his family, but since I am much more conversant with 3D modelling than he is (due to my art hobby), I have more or less monopolized it.
I mostly used it for minor practical things, like replacing broken parts (such as cracks sections of the seal around our shower door and replacing a cracked lid on one of my needle felting tools) or housing small items that need to be protected (such as the wire connections to my veggie garden's solenoid valve and the connector to an outdoor ethernet cable). I have also made myself a custom thimble and a few things like that. I think it would be fun to make more artistic prints, but I have found myself not wanting to spend much extra time in front of the computer ever since I got an office job.
I haven't used the 3D printer much lately because there hasn't been much need, but I am planning a bit of an overhaul of my irrigation system, so I will have plenty to do when that happens.
Do you do any 3D printing?
Yep, I used it for a big project to build an accordion-like MIDI controller. (Here's a YouTube video.) I have ideas about building another one, but haven't touched the printer in a while. My wife occasionally prints a part that's more practical, like a guard for the hummingbird feeder or a bracket for the patio umbrella.
Also, sometimes I print a frog model I found online as a gift. People like frogs.
Wow, that's an awesome project! Have you shared any details about it on Tildes? If not, you should!
Yeah, I posted about it now and then when I was working on it and when I made the video. I haven't written it up, but there are some links to source code and design files in the YouTube description.
I use SketchUp for CAD drawings. It can be a puzzle to figure it out, but one that's sort of fun and I definitely recommend it. It's free to use, provided you're okay with your designs being public.
hello, 14 year redditor here. formally known as StrangeYoungMan. hope to have a good time here after reddits imminent downfall.
I make talking car cartoon and I hope to spread the joy of it on tildes as well.
Helloo!! Brand new Tildes baby here, but 13 year reddit veteran <3 I am hopeful that this community will be able to spread its wings and become the vibrant rich place I can call my home on the internet.
I can see that there are already good spaces that are free of some of the nastier sides of the internet, and I can't wait to see new places here blossom for all walks of life.
I am a regular consumer of communities that are centred around women, gaming, socialisation, memes, news and my local area. I know that part of a new site like this is reliant on people using and contributing, so I will do my best to be a part of the growth I want to see <3
Hope to see you all around!!
11 yr Reddit user, looking for an alternative since the announced api changes. Tildes reminds me of why I joined Reddit. I used to like niche forums before, mostly gaming console oriented. While my interests have shifted a bit, I’d like to think that moving to Tildes maybe increases my ‘meaningful screentime’ again as opposed to doomscrolling moving pictures et al.
I like being in nature, (techno) music and events, from software games, tinkering with (tech) stuff in general (I use arch btw) - but not very good at it -, philosophy, psychoanalysis, neuroscience, budget hifi and I should play my guitar more. I do like to read, but it has been scientific literature more than for leisure lately, that’s sometimes how it is I guess.
Hey all. 12+ year Reddit user, doing what everyone else is doing and trying to just prep for what looks like a sure thing...
I'm Mid 30's, and sell software. I've been doing that for well over a decade now in a couple of different industries. I'm strange in that I enjoy that sales life grind at times although I hate the "Corporate Bro" culture that has developed.
I'm into many, many things and none of them are even really connected necessarily. Love sports, huge Braves, Falcons and Hawks fan. Also like all things NFL, MLB, NBA, and other unique sports. love F1 and I've been a Hamilton fan since his early days at McLaren. I also enjoy unique tech hobbies such as Mechanical keyboards (I've owned over 90 since late 2017) and I stream about once a week building them or modifying them. That hobby has slowed down since the pandemic, so I've shifted some of my focus into owning and modifying Retro Gaming consoles such as the Miyoo Mini +, RG35XX, and the Retroid Pocket 3+. Really fun playing old school games that I played when I was a child and reliving those memories.
I'm also into cars and other just random hobbies as a whole. I keep myself pretty busy most days with family but when I have time I love just learning more about the world as a whole and absorbing information. My YouTube content right now is focused on unique videos from channels like B1M and similar around engineering and what goes into mega projects around the world. I also recently got hooked on DownieLive because his videos have a great message around travel and experiences.
There's probably a ton more but this is just a good overview of me I think.
Hello all! Another long-time redditor and aging millennial looking for a new spot to call home. So far I am loving the cozy vibe and sense of quality over quantity that I'm finding here. It reminds me of the internet of old in the best way.
I work in special education at a state education agency & am passionate about disability rights, universal design, etc. Additional interests include video games (mostly PC but some Switch), board games, queer stuff, horror, roadtripping/camping, and dogs. I imagine myself to be a person who grows veggies but so far my ADHD brain lacks the follow through to do it. Lately I've picked up a fascination with space weather so it's been lovely to have something new and different to learn about.
Really looking forward to exploring this space and getting to know folks here. If anything, the reddit situation has prompted some serious reflection about how/where I spend my time online. I think I'll be a lot happier in a space that isn't engineered primarily for low-effort posting and reacting to stuff.
Oh man, fellow attempted gardener with ADHD. If i end up on trial for hell, the court room'll be stalked with all the veggies and flowers I've killed over the years.
I'm an aging millenial with....no prior interest in queer and specials ed who nevertheless found myself having to navigate the waters.
Welcome!
Thank you! So nice to find people here with similar experiences. Yeah there is something about the combination of slow progress plus having to do regular repetitive maintenance that is just not compatible with my brain so far. I've killed as many plants through forgetfulness and neglect as I have through zealously overdoing it (why is it so easy to accidentally water a plant to death?). People who are good at gardening make it look so easy!
I'd also like to add in that plants usually don't tell you that they're in distress until you've already harmed them. With pets, they will at least back away, try to defend themselves, or scream when you overwater them, but houseplants tend to only respond the day after you've overwatered them (sometimes more, but idk that much about plants so I can't tell you which plant). Especially with neurodivergency, which makes it a lot harder to notice the quiet signs of death, I find it so much easier to kill a plant because I have no clue it was dying before it's too late.
That being said though, I find succulents tend to be more gentle for me on my bad days. I heard someone say succulents thrive off of neglect and, judging from the one I haven't watered in a little less than a year, I'd say it's true. (Been leaving it outside ever since we got an ant infestation. It's been getting the occasional california rain pour and deadly heat waves and I'm still not sure how the flip that thing isn't dead yet.)
Hello! I'm here because of Reddit API changes and a friendly user in a local meetup forum who posted some invite codes. I'm hoping to find the same magic here as I've found in Reddit communities such as
dadditandformulaDank.I work in data and am hoping to transition into proper software engineering this year, somehow.
In my free time I have a child, but I used to be into fountain pens and keyboards and a few other things.
This phrasing made me laugh. Isn't that the way.
I'm a software engineer and so are tons of other folks here, we've had a few different advice threads recently about learning to program. People are pretty friendly and open to answering questions!
As a fellow professional computer toucher I also appreciate a good keyboard, but I wouldn't say I'm a die hard enthusiast, more of a casual fan. Still, if it's what I'm gonna do all day may as well get a nice one! I have Cherry Brown switches for practicality right now but my heart wants more clacky clacky. I haven't really checked it out in a while so I'm not sure what else is out there! What do you like in a keyboard?
Finally, welcome to Tildes!
Thanks, it's lovely to be here!
Yea, the little one is sick again this week. I was definitely not expecting kids to expand to fill all available free time and then some, even with lots of extended family help. Hope you and yours (you didn't specify configuration, I am assuming) are enjoying summer in good health, and everyone is sleeping well.
Building is super therapeutic for me so I have too many boards ;A;
For clack, assuming no change to board, both switches and plates factor into sound:
I loved this video where an aerospace engineer goes into way too much detail on what factors affect keyboard sound, hope you enjoy it too: Keybored on clack or thock
Wow, thanks for the links and resources! Much appreciated, I'll go through them today if I can. I've actually never built my own board fully before even though I've been interested... I really like my keyboard volume knob, and I don't think I can go tenkeyless because I like a lot of retro games that navigate via numpad. (They also tend to have a ton of actions associated with individual keys so it's hard to remap in a satisfying way.) Most builds I see don't involve those things and focus more on being compact, but I've got a big desk and wouldn't mind an absolute maximalist tank of a keyboard.
I think I've seen some separate numpads (or macro pads at least) that have a knob, so I might go exploring again!
(Actually, listening to those plate videos made me think about... back when ASMR first started becoming big online, I learned I experienced the head-tingling sensation BUT not with any of those whispery, mouth-sounds videos, just with environmental ones. My favourite video was a quiet game of chess with just the pieces hitting the board. Maybe I need to find more keyboard demonstration videos...)
Maybe there’s a mech keyboard thread somewhere that I’ve missed, but since I see the topic being raised I have a quick question. I have a mechanical keyboard that has been collecting dust — literally — for a while that I would like to start using again. I need to clean it first, but I was wondering what you think is the best way to do so. I’ve seen some conflicting things online. Is it really best to just take them off and put them in a tub of water? That just feels… wrong?
I've always just taken off my keys and scrubbed them with a toothbrush in the sink to clean them. Seems to work fine for me and hasn't damaged anything so far.
Hiya! Just take the keyboard apart and give it a wipe with a wet wipe will do I think. I would only dare wash my caps, but not my switches or any other parts.
This is pretty funny and may help you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-52JsgdvsA
I'm a 30 year old woman who's just kind of sick of larger social media sites in general. I can't stand twitter, facebook (except for a few smaller groups I'm in), or reddit anymore (though it works well enough for a new aggregator). The whole reddit API business was the nail in the coffin and what got me to set up an RSS feed and seek out smaller social sites like Tildes (forgot I actually have like a 5 year old account until today).
I'm into motorsport (looking forward to Le Mans this weekend!), cars (<3 my miata), video games, tabletop RPGs, metal music, cats, and birds! I'm currently playing Metroid: Dread and Diablo IV (as well as still playing Destiny 2 weekly) and I'm hoping this turns out to be a more casual and lovely space than larger sites I've used before (and it seems that way so far).
RSS! Is this your first time using it? I'm a 10+ year evangelist with around 1000 feeds, dunno what I'd do without it. It's hard to remember having to hunt the internet for content instead of it being served on a silver platter. Glad to have you onboard helping us keep it alive.
How're you finding Dread? I love chase style horror games (just starting Amnesia Bunker, Alien Isolation is a fav), and I'm curious how they marry that with the classic Metroid formula.
Yeah, I've known about RSS basically forever, but I've never actually set up a feed for myself until now. I mostly used reddit as an aggregator anyways, so it isn't a huge change in how I'm consuming content, but it does keep me away from comment sections and lets me curate my content a little more. So I have feeds from various sites, but I also have feeds for a couple of subreddits that don't really have communities elsewhere. It's taking a little getting used to and I'm slapping my own hand whenever I accidentally click on reddit now (I'm trying to quit in order to try to have healthier online habits). I do like it so far, though!
I'm a big fan of metroidvanias, so Dread is hitting the right notes for me. I generally don't like chase style horror games, but thankfully the EMMI's aren't full horror, they're more of a puzzle (you have to avoid them in a 2d space, so it's a lot of managing your movement to route them). The game is very smooth, though, I'm definitely going to play it a lot.
Ahh I see, using reddit via RSS. Get the content without giving them traffic, right? That's a great idea.
It's not my most played genre, but I've actually been on a metroidvania kick lately - Hollow Knight, Gato Roboto (adorable game), and Astalon: Tears of the Earth. That last one is probably my fav of the bunch, although it's hard to ignore what a juggernaut Hollow Knight is. I'll have to eventually swing back to Metroid again though.
If you haven't seen it already, Humble Bundle has a metroidvania bundle right now with some bangers in it. I just finished Haiku, the Robot last night.
Ha, I actually added a few thanks to that deal, and just starting Rain World. Which is obscure and annoys me so far, but I do like the chases...
If I hadn't just beaten Gato and Hollow Knight I would jump right into Haiku, it's like their baby. I love any game that incorporates that downward slash enemy bounce.
Add me to the list of immigrating redditors. 12 years on that site. It was a good run.
Earlier today, Christian's notice that he's shutting down Apollo got me thinking about moving so I dug up an email a friend sent me in May 2018 with this subject line:
I remember looking into ~ at the time; created an account, participated a bit and enjoyed the community, but eventually got distracted by life and drifted away. I lost access to the ~ account I created back then, but that's okay - if memory serves, I created it using my IRL name and don't really want to continue that. I'm using my reddit u/ here for some sense of continuity, though I may regret that, we'll see.
All the nonsense going on with the reddit API made me think it's time to come back and make this my permanent hangout.
My friend who sent me here died in 2021 after getting hit by a car. I wish I could give her a call today and talk trash with her about how shitty reddit has become, but she's gone. I think she'd be glad I found my way back to ~ after all this time.
I like discussing freedom of information, sailing, meditation, cooking (especially bbq), theology, news, politics, culture, and tech.
Hey everyone!
Yet another Reddit refugee here. I'm a sound editor and ADR recordist for movies and TV living in LA. It's been a pretty wild time recently, from September through the end of March I was working mostly 6 day weeks on two projects, then after that I pivoted straight into a 4/20 movie that released on, you guessed it, 4/20. And now I'm basically struggling for work due to the writers strike, but honestly it couldn't have happened at a better time. I've been pretty burned out and this time off has been a godsend for me and my coworkers. Although we are starting to worry a bit since we've heard the strike might go to the fall, which means we wouldn't see much new work until early next year.
But hey, it's given me more time for my hobbies! I'm into mountain biking and snowboarding depending on the time of the year, and I'm also big into sim racing. Just had a 24 hour race with my teammates this past weekend, but unfortunately we got involved in a wreck with 6 hours to go that put us 2 laps down on last place, so we ended up forfeiting. I've been really into Diablo 4 this past week, it's a blast.
I'm also looking forward to participating in ~anime. I spent a lot of time on r/anime in episode discussion threads, and I found so many shows I would have otherwise never heard of through announcement posts and random comments here and there.
So yeah, happy to be here and excited to see what this place has to offer.
Hello all! I just joined. I also came from Reddit where I mostly lurked, not really a big poster. I'm excited to join a positive and fun environment!
Hey everyone. I'm a long term reddit user that has been somewhat disappointed to hear of the recent news over there. I'm looking forward to contributing to the tech side of things. It's an absolute breath of fresh air to use this simple and fast UI!
Hi! I grew up in Los Angeles, went to school in NYC, and currently live and work in Seattle. I work in software engineering. My interests include linguistics, technology, current events, and overall learning.
Hello everyone, a long time reddit user short time tildes lurker now account holder. I think the internet and society at large is dying but I am making this my home for some amount of time. I hope I can be a net positive in this community even if I don't think I belong here among the genuinely smart crowd that posts here.
my username hahnudu is composed of the words hah nu and du which mean mind now and devour respectively. I choose it because it represents my constant desire to consume vast amounts of information and build it into a mental database which lets me appear smart. It can also be read as hahnu(dream) and du(devour) which relates to my constant consumption of surrealist media with deep symbolic meaning. If you have an interesting piece of surrealist media, I am especially fond of glitch art and liminal spaces but I can appreciate surrealism in basically any form.
Hello, everyone! Like most here, I'm in from Reddit, and really enjoying the old internet feel. I mostly like talking/reading about games, PC building, horror movies, and random niche interests. I'm looking forward to both lurking and hopefully contributing here!
I can really relate to enjoying the old internet feel. I‘ve been using Reddit for a long time now, but I honestly only really enjoyed it in the very beginning. I’ve been looking for an alternative that feels like old messaging boards for ages now and I finally feel like home.
I also relate to everything else you said. From horror movies to random niche interests. Wanna elaborate and share one of those? And what’s your favourite horror film?
I feel similarly about Reddit, although I still enjoy some of the smaller subs. I guess it was only a matter of time before we lost 3rd party apps and old.reddit, but it's sad to see that process actually underway. I've used RIF for nearly a decade, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what @talklittle is working on for a Tildes app.
It's always nice to meet a fellow horror fan! My favourite has always been The Shining, but lately I've been making my way through the Cronenberg films I've missed (like Scanners) and my love for his work is only growing. I'll watch just about anything I can get my hands on though, and I'd love to check out any recommendations you have. As for a niche interest, I suppose it's not so niche anymore, but I collect tarot cards and enjoy stumbling upon interesting decks and discussing the art. I don't see them as magical, but I find them really calming as a mindful exercise.
Yeah I also enjoyed some small subs until the end, but now I don’t even find them enjoying anymore because even there the attitude just changed. I can’t even quite put my finger on it. It‘s bickering and passive aggressiveness, sometimes even tumblr-esque drama, if that makes sense. I‘m also excited for the new app, but you know what? I‘m enjoying this. Didn’t even see your notification until now. And I absolutely love just reading Tildes like some kind of news article in the morning while drinking coffee. It‘s peaceful.
Oh Cronenberg! I need to rewatch Videodrome, might make it a movie night with Scanners and The Shrouds. I’m sure I can’t reccomend you much you haven’t seen. But look into the Japanese Film The Audition or Thai film Shutter, French movie Climax, Austrian film Goodnight Mommy (original please) and some classics like Evil Dead of course. Albeit whacky, I also liked Pearl and X this year.
I feel like I can’t do much with Tarot cards, but you‘re damn right, they are very pretty!
Long-time Redditor who's left that place. I listen to music.
Blog
RYM
Discord
Last.fm
Hello all! I'm yet another long time reddit user who found tildes discussed as an alternative. I read the info docs included with my invite link and really appreciated what Deimos is trying to do with it.
A little about me... I love music, both playing and listening to it. I've played viola for over 20 years. As for listening, all kinds of rock, punk, some metal, some pop. I do pole dance and train flexibility in my free evenings. My husband and I also recently started archery lessons (Olympic recurve). I also love to cook (and bake, but I've had to limit the baking while we get back in shape) and look forward to sharing recipes in the future.
Some other interests... books! I've been on a huge Brandon Sanderson kick for the past few years. I love all things Cosmere but still need to read Tress. When I have time, I like RPGs. I loved the Witcher series and started a NG+ playthrough of W3 since the new update. I loved Horizon Zero Dawn and can't wait for Forbidden West to come to PC. I recently started God of War too.
Also a big hockey fan (NY Islanders) and am looking forward to this Stanley Cup final.
Hello, fellow music enjoyer.
Welcome! What kind of music do you play?
Thank you! Primarily classical and its subgenres. Lately I've been working on Hofmeister's viola concerto and a transcription of Bach's Partitas and Sonatas (Ricordi's).
Hello everyone! The general theme seems to be a lot of long time redditors, I'm one too, been on the site for almost 7 years now. I'll probably be slowly moving away from Reddit and onto other websites, so naturally I turned to here. I heard about the site back in late 2019 but never asked for an invite until now.
About me, most of my interests lie in video games and anime right now, I'm on summer break from University so I'm taking it as a chance to laze around and consume some media. I'm studying English, but that won't be reflected much in my posts because I'm kind of lazy. Currently spending a lot of time playing Street Fighter 6, also playing through Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep right now. I'm usually playing an RPG at any time, or at least have one in the backlog for me to play.
I'm also working on listening to more music. In the past I barely ever intentionally listened to music so I'm really trying to explore what my tastes are. I enjoy drum and bass music the most right now alongside breakcore and other offshoots. I like just sitting down and focusing on a song to see what I specifically like about it.
Hi everyone. I've been on Reddit for 16 years, and I'm trying to extend my presence on alternative platforms just in case shit really hits the fan. I'm also on Lemmy and Mastodon since 4 years.
I'm the early adopter of new tech at work and in life, and I'm not afraid to test new technology and see what they can bring to the table. I enjoy listening to post-rock and will spend most of my time browsing the Internet to stay up-to-date.
Hello everyone,
Another long time Redditor looking around to keep my options open. I work in industrial automation (PLCs, HMIs, "programming issues") with an electrical engineering degree. In my spare time, standard nerd stuff, so video games, tabletop RPGs, etc.
reddit long time now here
I play games, make music, and neglect household chores.
I do voice-over for a living. I've been freelancing since I was a kid, learning to do things out of curiosity and then realizing I could make a bit of money. From web design and coding, video editing, writing, I've just always loved making shit and eventually found ways to market the shit I wanted to make at the time. I've been doing voice-over for a bit over 10 years now though, so I'm probably settled in. Maybe.
I just watched the first season of Survivor for the first time. I get why it was a big thing, that shit ruled.
Another music maker! What kind of stuff?
I shared some here. In short, absurdist funk/rap fusion lately, but I'm planning on mixing some other genres in.
How about you?
Drum & Bass for my current project, but I was a pretty prolific Dubstep produced and Hip Hop beat maker and DJ before that.
Hell yeah! I went through your profile and found Daytona -- this shit rules. Super technically proficient and well-mixed. It almost feels like heresy to listen without headphones.
Thanks! I have a few Dubstep “hit” songs out there people probably heard a loooong time ago, so it feels good to change lanes and get some good feedback!
Oh you're in for a treat as the seasons continue and contestants who have seen the show before and are playing strategically start trickling in. How the game changes due to how the players change is so fascinating.
I'm stoked to see it change, but I really enjoyed the naivete of a group of players who were mostly unfamiliar with reality game shows and the social mechanics. People fretting over the morality of alliances and blindly feeling their way through was entertaining as hell.
Would you recommend going through every season, or are there some you would skip?
I'm not the person you asked, but I've also seen quite a lot of Survivor, although not every season. I would say it depends on if you want to commit to watching so much of it. If you see yourself eventually watching them all, I'd say go in order. Mainly because of the returning player seasons that will spoil past events.
If not, I can let you know my subjective (and incomplete) opinion on which ones I didn't like. I say incomplete because I basically jumped around all over the show's history, so there are gaps in what I've seen. Personally I wish I had done them in order, but by the time I came to that conclusion, it was too late.
Thanks for that! I'll just go in order, then. Even if I followed someone's best seasons list, I'd probably end up going back to fill in the gaps eventually anyway.
So I watched them all out of order, hopping back and forth between the current season at the time and then earlier notable seasons. Because of this I ended up seeing certain recurring players before they were first introduced. If I could do it again, I'd probably just watch them in order with the understanding that there are a few that aren't as good here and there.
I'd probably still watch the current seasons as they happen during this, though I'd check the players first and maybe prioritize watching their previous seasons if any of them were returning.
One thing I really appreciate about the evolution of Survivor is that it's constantly trying to find new ways to keep that uncertainty alive and counter players' attempts to optimize for what they've already seen, while still being recognizable as the same game. The first few seasons where people really don't know what they've signed up for are charming in a special way, though!
As a fellow household chore neglecter/procrasinator, I hightly recommend getting yourself a robot vacuum if you don't have one. There are plenty of really good ones for reasonably cheap nowadays. I went with a Eufy RoboVac G30 after watching the review of it on Vacuum Wars. And it's the best purchase I have made in a very very long time.
Also, welcome to Tildes! :)
I'm the type of person who will absolutely do whatever I can to automate any tasks I possibly can (obligatory xkcd) and I adore my Roombas. I bought my first one refurbished off of Woot! when I was in college and upgraded to a new model every few years. Right now I have the S9+ for our first floor (which has more carpeting) and the i7+ for the upstairs (which is all hardwood).
Automatic scheduling and mapping are all nice, but the single biggest game-changer in the robot vacuum field is the automatic emptying. It means I can have them run every single day and only need to do general maintenance a couple times a month.
But I'm kind of disappointed with iRobot the last few years. I was excited by the new design of the s9, innovating beyond the standard disc-shaped design, but they abandoned that direction in favor of front-mounted cameras for obstacle avoidance and now it kind of feels like they're stagnating. Both of my robots are holding up well after 2+ years of daily use, so hopefully they'll be able to figure out their direction better by the time I need to replace them.
I was looking at ones with a base station with automatic emptying, but the prices of all them were way above what I was willing to spend… Especially since I’ve never owned a robot vacuum before, so I didn’t know if I would actually use it consistently, or if it would eventually be forgotten, and collect dust like so many of my other purchases over the years.
Now that I know how awesome having the robot is though, and that I will actually make use of it every day, I will probably upgrade to an automatically emptying one eventually.
I've thought about it, but I don't think they're a good fit for the layout/size of my place. I could see it getting in the way more often than not.
I think that's the same one my parents have, though! They love that thing.
Thanks!
Ah, that sucks. Unfortunately we're not quite up to Jetsons levels of robot advancement yet. So if you don't have a floorplan the current floor hugging robots can navigate you're a bit out of luck still. :(
And yeah, it really is a great little device. The sheer amount of dog hair it picks up every single day is staggering... and also makes me a little ashamed of how infrequently I usually vacuumed before I got it. :P
Practical question. How would a robot vacuum react to a mountain of dog poop?
The latest iRobot Roomba j7 has a front-mounted camera with computer vision powered obstacle avoidance so this exact thing shouldn't happen but, if it does, they will replace the robot if it does run over a dog poop.
Hah. Oh, god. The horror. If your dog is still a puppy, and/or accident prone, I wouldn’t recommend a robot vacuum.
I don't have a puppy, but I do have 3 adult dogs in a house with no external area. So poop will happen regardless of what I do :P
Just got an invite! Thanks for that.
Was on reddit ever since the digg exodus. The writing seemed to be on the wall for the past few months that reddit was going to go down a path that would result in me browsing less and less.
Have to say that the tildes design is incredibly clean, I enjoy it a lot. I have no idea what people see in lemmy - the layout is even worse than the new reddit design.
I'm curious if tildes is ever going to allow for image and video posting? I don't think they are necessarily bad things to have, but I definitely understand not having it for server costs right now.
From the recent "New users: Ask your questions" topic (which I suggest all newcomers have a gander at):
I know this may be a bit disappointing to hear for many of the recent reddit refugees, but on Tildes "In-depth content (primarily text-based) is the most important". And so the consensus has pretty much always been that "fluff" AKA low-effort content should generally be discouraged here. So for that reason alone, even ignoring the cost, I highly doubt there will ever be image/video hosting here.
Hello! Very happy to be here, got an invite from an helpful user. <3
I'm a Python user and teacher looking for a nicer home and a community.
Subs on the subjects I read have been getting nastier and nastier, with less content and less open.
I think I prefer a smaller more close knit community.
I'll do my best to help, thank you for having me.
As with alot of newcomers this month, I've come here because of the upcoming Reddit API debacle (9 years on Reddit, but mostly lurking).
Love anything tech or gadget, game alot (too much probably) both PC and tabletop. Currently teaching my boy the ways of Destiny 2, he's already better than me, but then I'm old and slow...
So far this place looks promising, keep up the good work!
Hello everybody! A reddit user who has become disenchanted and wants to try somewhere new.
Hi! I'm looking at options to reddit. I have been a heavy user of the book suggestion and discussion subreddits, and casually active around other topics that sparked my interest.
Hi! I'm not a Reddit refugee per se as I've had an account here for a little while and I doubt I'll wean myself off that website any time soon, though I'm only sporadically active here. I'm a volcanology PhD student: more specifically, I'm an igneous petrologist. I'm a keen museum junkie (my PhD is partially based at the Natural History Museum, which is a great privilege) and writing from London, England, I’m fortunate that there are excellent museums as far as my eyes can see! Other interests include spending too much of my stipend on newspapers and the generic outdoorsy sporty dating app fodder which nobody cares about.
I like Tildes - even if I'm not as active here as I would like - because the conversation quality seems to be quite high and people are respectful. I suppose there isn't enough demand for it, but an academia/university board would excite me quite a bit.
Welcome! What are some places you've visited that have interesting geology?
In terms of geological variety, my home turf is pretty good. Scotland and Northern Ireland in particular are so geologically diverse that they're geologist manna! Otherwise, I was fortunate enough to visit Wyoming and Montana for a dinosaur dig, and seeing the continental divide in person was astonishing. I'm looking forward to visiting Guatemala in February, as part of my PhD, which will be only the second time I've been in the Americas.
The most exciting place I've been to in a geological sense is Cyprus due to the Troodos Ophiolite. It's a huge chunk of mantle which has been uplifted onto the crust. Kilometres of depth emplaced onto the Earth's surface. Isn't that crazy to think about?
My wife and I went hiking at Mount Diablo (California) recently, which apparently has rocks that come from ophiolite. Not that I would have known this if it weren't for the sign. And that's how it generally goes for me with outdoors stuff. I'm always impressed by people who can see things I can't.
That's really exciting. Wow, so much geological heritage!
Long time redditor. Hoping that this becomes a similar, maybe better community because of the self-selection - I really loved creative communities like r/worldbuilding, and I'm hoping someday we can get a topic (group? tilde?) for that hobby. Some day @deimos!
Hi all. 8+ reddit user, part of the migration. Very new here, dipping my toes in, curious and excited about this site.
I'm a 46 year old chick, married, no kids by choice. I work for a railroad, which means lots of traveling. I mostly live out of a large backpack.
Music is my first, and true, love. I listen to many different styles, everything except country, really. I love seeing live music, but don't get a lot of opportunities with my job. I grew up playing instruments, and would love to get back into playing piano.
I love to read (and would love any and all suggestions), horror/quirky comedy movies, open world video games, true crime, cooking & baking, traveling when it's not work-related, animals, finding good new series to watch/binge watching old favorite shows, and just learning about random items/facts.
I'd love to learn more about home improvement, like how to put up drywall, learn to remodel, etc. I'd really like to learn a different language or 2, or where to even start with good resources.
Hope to have interesting conversations with lots of you.
Welcome!
Somehow I imagine learning the harmonica would fit with the railroad theme? But I got one and never learned it. I do play melodica, which is bigger but still a pretty good travel instrument (fits in a carry-on) and getting closer to piano. Recommended.
Hello everyone! I’m a graphic designer living in Chicago. Aside from design, some of the things I enjoy include making/producing music, video games, reading (I seem to be in a perpetual state of falling off of reading and picking it back up again) and running. I have many more interests than that, but I don’t want to make this post too long lol.
2023 has been an interesting year for me in regards to social media. I’ve become more and more aware of how destructive it can be to my mental health at times, so I’ve been trying to find slower, more thoughtful means of online communication. Between Mastodon and now Tildes, I feel like I’ve potentially regained some level of sanity when it comes to online platforms.
Looking forward to participating in some real discussion here. Nice to meet you all!
Wooh Chicago, my hometown! Even though it’s a huge city, after moving away I still get excited when I run into another Chicagoan either one real life or online.
Always glad to another Chicagoan too! I have to say you're missing some peak Chicago summer weather right now!
I'm not originally from here myself. I actually grew up downstate, but fell in love with the city after visiting so many times. Eventually moved here after college and haven't looked back. For all of the annoyances (worsening public transportation, harsh winters, etc.) I love the city to death.
Hello There!
I'm a physics graduate student from India. I'm interested in all things science, technology and programming. Like a bunch of you, I've grown tired of the cesspit Reddit and nearly all other social media have become and sought a space where people could discuss and debate as respectful human beings. I've generally never been active on any of these social media sites, but I'd like that to change with Tildes. I love that every post and even every comment has - and also needs - a lot of thought put into it. I hope to learn more and get to meet some fantastic people here!
As for me, I love playing the guitar and making music, playing and watching soccer (football for you puritans), basketball and cricket, gaming and reading books. I'd really like to try some new hobbies though, so I hope I can gain some inspiration from Tildes. I look forward to getting to know you all!
Welcome! What field of physics are you in?
Thanks! I just got done with my Master's in Physics where I worked on computational solar physics. I'm looking to pursue my PhD in astrophysics.
Ooo awesome! I'm doing a PhD in cosmology myself. Welcome!
Ohh that's amazing! I got rejected by all the places I applied to last November so I'm kinda down in the dumps. But I hope this time I can do better
If it is any consolation, that happened to me too when applying to grad schools. I applied to 13 schools and got rejected from all of them. I had the opportunity to continue doing research for that year and I replied and got into a program I am very happy with. So it is definitely possible!
Hey folks. Another Reddit refugee, mostly use it through Apollo.
Been on Reddit for 11 years, most of my interests being gaming, TTRPGs, board games, technology, security and programming.
Cheers
Hello, I'm a veteran of a few social media platforms. None have, imho, achieved the full potential that such things offer the world. So now I am here, in the hope that I can contribute to others positive experiences.
Hello Everyone
I'm a 9 year reddit refugees, decided to leave the site after they nuked RIF the mobile app I use. This site is perfect for me as I only really engaged in discussion and text posts on Reddit and had no interest in the meme or video subs. I hadn't heard of this site before or I would've joined much earlier.
I look forward to being part of the community!
Hi everyone,
I’m a long time Reddit lurker, dating back to circa 2011, finally leaving due the current situation. Never thought I’d leave, but thinking back it really came a long way and was way overdue. I was long yearning for that time way back when I first started visiting Reddit and tildes seems like a dream come true.
I’m normally not of the kind to contribute in an online community, but I moved to the country over a year ago and also try to do that IRL, so what better place to start than online and anonymous?
I’ve been working in IT for about 13 years now and even though I’ve had a couple of rough and super stressful jobs, in March I’ve finally started a Government job and couldn’t be happier right now.
Hobby-wise I’ve been a musician for about 20 years now. Been in several bands with some gigs over the years, but those projects never took farther than smaller friend/party gigs. Mostly due to other people.
I love watching horror movies and reading horror stories, though I’m a slow ready with a huge backlog. I’m also super into sci-fi and practically all music, except maybe for classical. I like it, though I’d neve go out and listen to say Bach.
So yeah, that’s me. Happy to be here. Heading now to GitHub to support this wonderful project.
Welcome! What instruments and what kind of music do you play?
Mostly Guitar and Bass, though i also try my Hand at Piano from time to time. I do record music at home, so i will try my hand at whatever i find.
I play rock that‘s somewhere between Queens of the Stone Age and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. So, weird Psychedelic Rock.
And you? I read on your bio that you play and review accordions? How long have you played that instrument? Were you ever in a band or had the desire play your music live?
I'm been playing accordion for about five years. Before that, I piano lessons as a kid and dabbled a bit later. Never been a band yet - maybe someday. For now I make YouTube videos and share them with friends.
So far I've only tried playing live a few times for friends and I'm not good at it. It's pretty scary playing in front of a bigger group, and I think I'd need amplification.
Oh I totally get that. I myself couldn’t have imagined playing in front of anyone after five years. I think I did my first gig, also in front of family and friends after having played for ten years…
I’m still always having anxiety before going on stage, but the more often I played in front of people, the more it was just that I wanted to start playing. It’s just so much fun playing music live and living with the mistakes you make while performing. But at the same time, it’s a huge hassle, so much time is wasted on peparing for a show (rehearsing and sound checks), and then only having your friends and maybe two to three new people show up. Thats why I enjoy making music on my own so much these days.
Anyway are you interested in playing piano again? I’ve always liked the idea, but for me it’s so different than playing instruments with strings on them and I would have to learn so much hand coordination.
I've thought about playing piano more since I'm listening to piano music a lot lately. (I've recently gotten obsessed with listening to Hiromi.) But one thing I like about accordion is that it's not a popular instrument, so I could do a cover of a song and be the only one who played it on accordion on YouTube. With more popular instruments like piano or guitar, I wonder if there would be a point since there are so many great players already.
I've tried learning guitar and ukulele before but found them hard to get into. Starting out with chords rather melody doesn't seem as fun, particularly when learning to fret each new chord and transitioning between them takes so much practice.
Another less common instrument that I particularly like is melodica. This is usually a beginner's instrument (apparently it's common in Japan for schools to use it instead of a recorder), but they're cheap and fun. For a keyboardist, it's fun playing a wind instrument, and I typically play one-handed which is easier compared to coordinating two hands.
So I recommend beginning with that. Accordion is fairly easy to get started on too, except for the part about actually getting your hands on a decent accordion. Accordion shops are pretty rare and buying used is a crapshoot for people who don't know what to look for.
I see how you might get obsessed with her. I quickly listened to Blackbird and will definitely be checking her out! Thanks for the recommendation :)
Yeah about the point of playing a certain instrument. I’m getting that too from time to time, but I try not to dwell on those thoughts too long. I think you could actually extrapolate that way of thinking on practically anything creative, but what would be the point of being creative then in the first place? I guess it depends wholly on whether you want to get recognition for your creative workings.
I also had problems with fretting complex chords starting out, but now I’m having the same with playing the piano. Eventually it will work out, when you stay on it and continue to train for it. But if you didn’t hit off with string instruments, that’s completely okay :) Different strokes for different folks
I don’t hear the melodica that often, indeed. I believe I only ever saw it on a YouTube jam about 15 years ago. It’s a very nice and simple instrument.
Yeah, the thing about having to know what to look for when buying used things is universally true! I often ran into buying junk before, so I’m generally more reserved when buying used at all.
New here, I'm an elderly Iowa resident, IT pro, Linux user, musician (french horn in several local bands and orchestras), and avid jazz/classical/ambient music listener. Not sure it's right to call myself a refugee from reddit, though it's where I was last active; I'm not angry at what is happening there, because maybe it's burning out right about the same time I was starting to burn out on it anyway.
I haven't posted much yet on tildes, am mostly soaking up the gestalt of the place for now, enjoying the simpliciy, civility, and the emphasis on quality content over shiny objects.
Hello all, I'm from Brazil, have been around 8 years on Reddit, joining this amazing and cozy community now, and I hope I can help it grow.
Hello all!
Like many others, my interest in Tildes was reignited by Reddit current events. I’m here more to discover a new community than to abandon Reddit. When I first encountered Tildes, I believe it required registration to even read the posts. I don’t think I ever got around to requesting an invitation (or if I did, I can’t find it in my archived emails). What I like about this place is that it evokes the feel of the 90s Internet.
Speaking of the 90s Internet, one of my hobbies is retrocomputing. I particularly love the machines of the late 80s through the late 90s, which is when I started to really get into computers. I picked up QBASIC and Pascal on my homebuilt 386 in those days. I enthusiastically participated in Mac vs PC flame wars on the local BBS.
Other stuff I enjoy doing: camping, backpacking, climbing, skiing, photography, home and auto DIY.
See you around!
Yep. For the first 6 months or so Tildes required an account to view the site. Wow, you knew about this place early! Glad to have you aboard now though. Welcome. :)
Do you own any vintage computing systems?? I love reading and watching all things retro computing but I haven’t taken the step of getting into the hobby myself.
Yeah! I’ve had a number of machines come and go over the years. Right now I have a Sun SPARCstation 10, a SGI Indigo2, and a Mac SE/30. I particularly love old Unix systems. I’m hoping to eventually get A/UX running on the Mac.
Hello, 12 year reddit user. Someone recommended this site the other day and as soon as I looked it up and saw it I knew it had a special future after reddit kills itself. I liked to frequent gaming subs and paranormal subs. I'd also dip into the occasional dank may may subs. It's sad to see how reddit has turned out to be, but when something falls something better always rises up. This is a nice site and I'll be frequenting this place a lot.
long-time redditor, formerly bretw. reddits dead to me once the changes effect.
i really hope they fix the issue (at least for me) that you have to scroll to the very bottom to post a comment on each post here.
The comment textbox was intentionally designed to be at the bottom to incentivize people to engage with the content before making a top-level comment. I can see how that might be annoying in a hugely active post like this, but that's usually not an issue. We don't have a lot of posts like this. That said, you can click on "collapse replies" to make that easier for you ;)
And welcome to Tildes!
The moment I saw that reddit was killing off third party apps I knew I had to find something else -- and then I found tildes!
I have loads of interests that I flit between -- technology, history, politics, queer theory, music (I listen to lots of music haha), various areas of science or mathematics, the topic of the most recent video essay I watched (sex and the revolution <3), the list goes on.
I think I'll enjoy it here.
Hey everyone,
Anganoir here - silent Redditor for the past 5 years, more active recently - though only using a 3rd party app which is meant to go dark in a month or so. I really like Tildes look and feel, currently starting to dive into the content and quite excited about it. Curious to see if there is any french presence/community as well - but overall, interesting first steps.
Looking forward to connecting with y'all on many topics :)
Hi all,
Another long-term reddit user that has been lamenting the excessive and relentless monetization, low-effort / low-quality discussion, and toxicity of most social media. Reading the Tildes announcement blog post was a breath of fresh air. Looking forward to something different, and to see this community grow and thrive.
Hi All!
11 year reddit user here looking for a new place to chill. As with everyone, not happy with the direction reddit has been going and if they end up killing Apollo and other 3rd Party Apps, then that is game over for me.
I enjoy having civil discussions with others about various topics and this definitely looks like the place to do it! Some of my interests are videos games (recently got back into SWTOR), cooking (grilling, smoking, bbq, baking, etc.), discovering new types of beer, golf, hiking, camping, fishing, and huge into skiing. For work, I am a high school teacher who actually enjoys their job (if you ever browsed r/teachers, then you'll know what I mean). Really looking forward to discussing these topics with you all and having good, positive interactions with everyone.
Welcome! I'm curious, what do you teach?
I am certified in Social Studies and teach primarily US History with one class of World History.
Are there particular areas of history you're interested in, outside of your job? How did you get into it?
I started to become interested in history back when I was in high school. Learning about WWII really sparked my interest in learning more about history. From there, I started to become more and more interested in learning about American history, specifically focusing on military history. From there, I started to branch out to other subjects within the Social Studies subject area. That’s when I discovered anthropology and archaeology. Just something about exploring and examining ancient civilizations and the artifacts they left behind was fascinating to me. I never really knew what I wanted to do after high school other than wanting to do something that I loved. At the time, my love was with history and archaeology/anthropology. I first looking into going to school for archaeology but ultimately decided it wasn’t for me (it’s not like Indians Jones unfortunately). This led me to teaching. I wasn’t sure about it at first but getting into the classroom in college made me begin to enjoy it.
All aspects of history interest me now. There are certain topics that I do find a bit boring, mainly because I teach about them year after year, but for the most part, I do enjoy everything I teach. I still love ancient civilizations and just find the way they lived, survived, and in a lot of cases, just disappeared off the planet, to be really interesting. One day I’d love to travel to a dig site and work at uncovering ancient artifacts but until then, I am very happy with where I am at.
Cool, thanks for sharing!
Hey all! Like many of us showing up right around now, I’m a recent Reddit refugee. It’s nice to meet everybody!
I just finished reading through the Tildes docs and recent threads here, and regardless of how everything with respect to Reddit ends up working out, I appreciate that Tildes delivers an interesting and engaging conversational experience where most of my discoveries so far have that exciting feel like they used to back in the Internet’s “old days”.
In terms of hobbies, most recently I’ve gotten into film photography/Lomography. I’m a big fan of the Castlevania series (video games only, because I’m Old Like That Now and a snob, I guess), death positive philosophies, tarot/astrology, and dance. I work in marketing, which I love, but keep pretty separate from most social media so it's unlikely I'll talk much about that here. (But who knows)
Been using digg, then reddit and now I'm here. Hello everyone. I can't use reddit without the Relay for Reddit app.
fellow Relay user \o/
A hoy hoy, 14 year reddit vet here. I am a jack of all trades and a master of none (except plumbing, of which I'm a journeyman red seal plumber). I know enough to be dangerous (or come across as knowledgeable) in a lot of things, but I'm not an expert or master in anything since I often enjoy learning things right up until the point where "mastery" starts. Off the top of my head (and looking around my room) some of my interests include: water cooled computers and computers in general, pc gaming (been playing Destiny for a long time, Diablo and C&C were my first loves, currently loving Diablo 4), headphones, speakers and other audiophile type gear, records/vinyl (currently trying to piece together my King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard discography and eagerly awaiting the new stuff from them), pinball (I've owned dozens of machines over the years, currently in the last stages of restoring a Seawitch), movies (have a huge collection of physical media but recently have only really been picking up Arrow and Criterion releases...everything else is automated through my NAS running Sonarr/Radarr/Plex), straight razors and traditional wet shaving in general, dogs, photography, videography, dungeons and dragons (we play 5e but I've also enjoyed pathfinder), synthesizers and electronic music production in general (with a focus on Eurorack/modular synthesis).....and uhhhh, yeah, some other stuff.
Happy to be here and looking forward to some new engaging conversations!
Hi everyone! I'm also here from Reddit, where I've been for some years now.
My main interests are anime, manga and Japanese music. I imagine most of my activity here will be relating to those three subjects, but you never know. My favorite anime is Steins;Gate or Non Non Biyori, essentially it depends on the mood I'm in when asked the question haha. Especially since they're vastly different shows. As for manga, I've only recently started reading more of it, so my options for a favorite are quite limited. Regardless, for right now I'd have to go with ReLife or Spirit Circle. And now we arrive to Japanese music. The singer I like the most is Minami, but I listen to a lot of other people, but I'm not gonna go into all of them in this comment. Unless someone is curious, in which case I can name some more later.
I occasionally play games too, but I don't spend as much time on that as I do on what I talked about above. Not sure which game I consider my favorite, but I'm a Nintendo guy, so probabily something you can play on their consoles.
Anyways, I haven't been too active on Reddit in recent years, so I'm looking forward to maybe being active again, but here instead of there.
Hello all. I've been a reddit user since around 2011. Back then it was way more discussion heavy than it is now, though I only realized this a few days ago when I found this website. I've realized how much I miss reading and participating in discussions (though I'm still a fan of reddit as well).
I'm mid 20s, like nature (my biggest dream is to just own my own piece of land someday, let it grow wild with wildflowers and bushes, and put a tiny little house in the middle... which in this economy is not going to happen) and tabletop RPGs. I used to work in a few different trades but have recently started going to college for a degree in social work.
I'm happy to be here!
I'm a Reddit user of 9 years, I'm a geek and find new things to obsess over regularly (luckily I moved on from mech keyboards before I started buying customs) and many of the small communities have really helped me out with my latest obsession over the years subs I especially have fond memories of: buildaPC, ErgoMechKeyboards, Linux4noobs, Linux_gaming and most importantly: PrintSF
Also I suffered a stroke last year and have found a lot of helpful links and supportive people on /r/strokerecoverybunch - I hope that community can somehow find a place on Tildes too!
I used to be a very active Santa through RedditGifts, but that community got strangely hostile a couple of years ago, which made me lose interest. I might be interested in joining something like that again if it appeared on Tildes.
IRL I like most things sci-fi (not a fan of Star Wars and super hero movies, though), I love music -mostly of the metal variety (my favorite band is Faith No More)
Welcome! What kind of metal specifically? I'm goth and doom metal, personally. And some of the non Nazi black metal. What's your jam?
Thank you! I'm all over the place. As I mentioned, my favorite band is Faith No More but I really like a lot of stoner, sludge and Post Metal/ Post hardcore as well, other bands I enjoy are: Crowbar, Russian Circles, Cult of Luna, Helmet, Prong, Monster Magnet and Corrosion of Conformity as well as Pig Destroyer and Goatwhore... Many of my favorites are from the 90s, though: Paradise Lost and Type 0 Negative are both amazing too. I count Alice in chains as a metal band as well, and I love them.
Edit: to say thank you for the welcome!
OMFG I love Type O so much. I missed out on their heyday in the 90s and I'm absolutely devastated that I'll never see them live. 90s was peak industrial imo! And all industrial adjacent stuff. Gahhhh darn my being born too late to enjoy the era. DARN IT.
The 90s were great for metal in general. I never got to see Type 0 either even though I'm old enough.I guess they weren't in Europe that often... Not exactly adjacent to Type 0, but they did share a drummer at one point: I've seen Life of Agony a couple of times in recent years. They're great too!
I grew up in the USA deep deep south so I didn't exactly get a huge swath of darker concerts available in my area. I now live in London so have way more opportunity. And Europe, Germany in particular, is the home of most of the best industrial groups!
Ahoy, tildenizens. I'm a 20-something year old dude who writes a bunch of weird fiction mumbo-jumbo with the plans of making it into a novel soon-ish. Of course, here only because of reddit's impending API destruction. Used RiF for as long as I can remember, so hopefully here, I'd be able to start over way better than how I started over there eight years ago.
Edits: Explained more of the writing shenanigans.
I registered my account just after this place came into existence, hence the three letter name.
Now that reddit is finally fully shit I'm here.
I tend to be quite shy when it comes to forums and comments, but am really happy to be here and hope to join in more as this seems like a very pleasant community!
Like a lot of people on this thread, I have been a long term Reddit user. I was very sad to read about the Apollo app shutting down, and found my way here! A kind Redditor sent me an invite code.
I enjoy video games and lately have predominantly been playing Stardew Valley, although can never stay away from Minecraft and Elden Ring for too long!
I'm a 15 year (or something like that - I delete my accounts regularly) reddit vet. I mostly used old.reddit.com and RIF. I mostly stuck to smaller, niche and discussion oriented sub, so I'm really loving tildes! I've only been on here for a day but I'm really liking the smaller, community feel. It's like moving from a gigantic bustling city to a small, friendly town in the country haha.
Welcome! And you should've seen this place like a week ago - there were like 50 regular users, it was more like an apartment building. We're definitely approaching small town now though.
Glad to have another 15 year vet onboard :D The Digg migration annoyed me back in the day, but I guess we stayed long enough to find ourselves the refugees.
Hello! 42 with two kids. I teach A-level Literature and manage a small English department in Singapore. Massive Weird fiction, horror, SF/F, history nerd. Recently I've started getting into fishtanks (not literally) and teaching myself guitar. On the weekends I hone my Dad jokes.
Welcome!
What's it like teaching in Singapore? Are you from somewhere else?
I'm Singaporean myself- we used to have an expat teacher programme but that mostly wound down over the past ten years or so.
We have a pretty robust system which is genuinely trying to move away from the stereotypical utilitarian rote learning of traditional high performing Asian education systems.
I enjoy teaching at this level (pre university). I have nothing but respect for my peers teaching at secondary and primary level- they have a much harder job, and one which I don't think I'd be able to do. By the time the kids get to me they've had the opportunity to choose the subjects they want to offer so for the most part they want to be there. I also like teaching this age group because in Lit you can really get to grips with the big questions that are at the heart of the human experience and 17-18 is when they really start chewing on these things, so it's nice to be able to mold minds.
Pre-university isn't something we have in the US. Is it a separate school?
I have a good friend from Singapore. She left for the US long before I met her, but has interesting stories to tell of growing up there. I hope to visit someday.
Yeah, basically we have six years of primary school, four years of secondary school and then multiple paths. Around ten percent go into vocational education. People who are interested in specific industries can go take a three year diploma at a polytechnic in stuff like various engineering fields, comms, business etc that can set them up either for university or for direct entry into the workforce. About 70% of each cohort goes into this. The remaining 20% mostly go into a two year pre university course where they choose from the various arts, humanities or sciences. This is purely meant to set you up with a broad based academic preparation for university.
Copy and paste from the April thread, because posting it in June seems more appropriate:
Add another to the list of Reddit Refugees. So a HUGE thank you to the user who gave me an invitation link (my username here is nearly the same as it was on reddit, just without the two underscores).
So a bit about myself. While I'm not TERRIBLY old, I'm a Millennial- more specifically, I turn 35 this year. Before Reddit (which I officially joined about 6 years ago), I was a major user of forums, relating to one very specific hobby of mine: anime... so yes, I'll probably be over there frequently. Unfortunately, those forums lost their traffic to Reddit (or so it's believed- the users may just have gone offline otherwise).
But back to me. I'm originally from US, specifically NY, but I made a decision to move to the other side of the world a few years back, and am living in Asia right now (no points for guessing which country). My job has nothing to do with my degree, and my hobbies are still even further removed. I play the piano, and am trying to learn the guitar. I like to do karaoke to many songs, even if my voice is terrible. I enjoy video games, and play Magic: The Gathering- though only on Arena these days. However, most of my free time is taken up (outside of my job) by these two things: working on learning the language of my current country- I can hold a decent conversation in it- and then my BIGGEST hobby: the art of illusion and sleight-of-hand... better known as magic. Yes, I both play Magic (The Gathering) and do magic.
This site is taking me back to the Old days, so I apologize if this is becoming a Wall of Text. I've taken a look around the site while waiting for the invite, and I think I really like this place. I don't know what communities I'll eventually really start chatting with, but I actually am looking forward to good conversations around here.
Been on Reddit for about 9 years, though lurked before registering. Was on the SA Forums before that since the 2000s…if anyone remembers that place lol I’m a freelance musician, hobbies include music (extends beyond just work, like interest in synthesizers, composing etc.), gaming, art.
As these things go in cycles, I am very happy to have found Tilde as another Reddit exoduser. Reminds me of old school online boards in a good way. Hope to see some familiar faces since this looks like a size manageable enough to remember them, for now at least.
New reddit refugee here. I'm 57 and I make my living by freelance writing. I'm one of those flaming leftists who embraces humanity in all its diversity. I like sewing, listening to audiobooks, home DIY projects, design, and animal rescue.
Been sitting on this invite for a little bit and finally made use of it. Just another wayward internet traveler from the waaaay way back. Yeah I was on Reddit for many years but before that and before that and before that all the way back to dialup BBS days. I've seen the seasons of sites and tech come and go I suppose. I count nothing as permanent though I do hope this will provide a stable mooring for me to tie up to for a time.
I am an anarchist politically, a long-time community organizer and activist, a technologist, I run Fate Core tabletop campaigns largely set in cyberpunk dystopias, I'm a gay man, an environmentalist and a host of other descriptors that I suppose will come out as I interact over my time here. Thanks for reading if you do. <3
Was here for a while back, I'll need to get up to date on the rules, if they are as strict about posting non-informal comments. Why I left in the first place. But here I am. back. because reddit is going down the shitter fast
You are free to make informal comments, but if they're not contributing to the conversation they may be labeled as "Joke" or "Noise", which will affect the position in which they are displayed (you won't see the labels though).
Getting these labels is not a "punishment" and does not reflect on the user, it's just a way to put substantial contributions in evidence.
Other than that, just follow the code of conduct and you'll be fine!
And welcome to Tildes :)
a few years ago I got a DM from Deimos saying the exact opposite and is the reason I left
I said a few things, what exactly was it opposite to?
the last message before i left
wait it wasn't...
Looks like a reasonable observation to me. I got negative feedback before as well. I simply tried to do better and it's all fine now.
I've been around not as long as you, having joined in 2019. So I'm not sure how different it was in the very early days vs when I joined, but I can say that I have seen things loosen up a bit around here, which I think is good. The quality of discussion around here is still superb imo, but there is more acceptance of lighthearted content than it feels like there used to be. I think part of it was the site trying to figure out what exactly we mean by quality discussion, and at times going overboard on the serious side of things. These are just my personal opinions of course, so maybe my read on things is wrong.
But anyway, things aren't as stuffy as they once were, so you might enjoy sticking around again.
hmm, i joined in 2020, but left not long after because the site seemed too smart for me, but now i’m checking it out again and i’m honestly relieved to hear that it has loosened up. i mean, imagine if a social community space in real life was required to always be serious all the time? it simply does not work, in my honest opinion
Hi, I discovered this site from Reddit, and although the new changes won't affect me as I don't use any mobile form of it, I was and am open to new things. I am looking forward to exploring the content and seeing where this site can go to.
Howdy folks! Just another long time Reddit user looking for a new place to call my social media home so I can stay hip with the youths. I’m on the West Coast of the states. I like movies and story driven games, boats/swimming, and food known to clogs arteries. I’m more of a sunset person than sunrise. I also appreciate fun facts. For example, did you know some turtles breathe out their butts? Anyways nice to meet y’all!
12 year reddit vet. Not interested in dealing with the no-3rd party app shit, so I left. I run a comic review Twitter @shortcomictweet. I am a high school English teacher. I live in San Diego. And I have an MFA in Fiction. Currently working on a masters in Education. Happy to be here.
Hi all, I'm new here, part of the migration of users from Reddit. I've only been on Reddit for a little over 6 years, but in that time, contrary to most opinions I've come across, I had really come to like my time there. I've learned so much and expanded my horizon beyond anything that I could have imagined. I am grateful to have been part of many of those subs, sharing and enjoying hobbies with like minded people. But alas, all good things must come to an end. Here's hoping Tildes can recreate that magic for all of us refugees. It's nice to meet you all, and am hoping you guys can take me under your wing.
Hey all, Fook here! Been a Reddit member since 2016, Wasn’t liking the way it was heading so I went on a mission to seek out alternative sites, funnily enough on Reddit and I had found this site. I read the blog post on here and liked everything I was reading, so I sought out an invite code and here I am. I look forward to having some conversations with the users here, from what I’ve seen it’s my kind of place. Thank you for reading and having me here!!!
Hey, I’m Inveigh.
I’m an IT guy with a few hobbies in model building and gaming, and I maintain some guides on how to play armored core games as well. Love giant robots, though I’m not always as big of a fan of the source material for said giant robots.
Also a keyboard hobbyist here and there, but that’s largely behind me thanks to how expensive it gets. Gunpla pushes a lot of the same brain buttons.
Reddit lurker for what feels like forever here. No surprise there, but heard about Tildes in a thread about Reddit alternatives and thought it sounded interesting.
I'm from Sweden. I'm mainly interested in programming, videogames, boardgames, fantasy/sci-fi books and anime of all kinds, so pretty much a cookie cutter nerd.
Hoping to participate a bit more rather than just mindlessly lurk for once and I think a more text-focused forum like this might work better for me in that regard.
Hello every one,
Happy to be joining what seems to be much more of a community than Reddit. I've used reddit for most of its life-span, but I've always missed the days of forums and IRC. I had become discontent with Reddit the past few years, and had been slowly disengaging from it up until this blowup with API access. I've very much missed the high effort and community feeling that smaller forums and web communities in general had long ago, and Tildes is immediately reminding me of those days. I would have definitely joined Tildes if I had heard of it previously, and if there's one part of the current drama I'm thankful for, its that it brought Tildes to my attention. Tildes makes me think of a hybrid between forums of yore, and reddit in its early stages and I'm very eager to be part of it.
I'm currently trying to fully grasp how the subscriptions work vs tags, if I should be following tags or be more focused on subscriptions and muting tags I don't care about. If any of you have any advice on rewiring my brain for this they'd be appreciated!
Welcome!
Tags are mostly for searches. There's no way to subscribe to a tag other than bookmarking them after clicking on them. It would be a good feature to add, though.
Until recently, Tildes has been so small that many of us remain subscribed to everything. We scan the front page headlines for interesting things to read, sort of like Hacker News if that's familiar to you. You can unsubscribe from groups that have topics that you're sure you don't want to see, and you can ignore topics to make them go away.
This might not scale (it's getting impossible to keep up) but that's what we have for now.
Interesting, thanks for the rundown! I could see the issue with scale, although that actually reminds of busy forums back in the day in a not so bad way.
Out of curiosity, are new subscriptions created very often? Is there any process behind it or does the dev just create them when he sees a large amount of repeat topics?
By "subscriptions" I think you mean groups? Yes, only the admin can create them and that's when it seems like they're needed.
Indeed I do mean groups! Thanks for the clarification.
Have many been created in the past year or two? Or could I expect the current set to the status quo for the foreseeable future?
There was a new group for pandemic discussion and there's a special one for the holidays. Hard to say what will happen with the increased traffic, but I think you can assume they're fixed for now.
A common alternative is to create new topics for specialized discussions, such as megathreads. Some are weekly or biweekly topics that get created automatically, and other times, there are people who start them manually.
Posting links in megathreads isn't ideal because they not searchable, but we do it anyway.
Thats fun there's temporary holiday ones. The megathreads idea makes sense.
Well, thank you for all the answers! I appreciate you helping me understand everything.
A 9 year Redditor, and Apollo user since the original beta build. Very upset with the way that Reddit handled the whole API thing, like many of these new Tildes users. Reddit was a place online where I felt so involved because I could connect with smaller communities and individuals about common hobbies or interests or music or news or philosophical issues…now that Apollo has been screwed and a lot of my favorite subreddits are losing tons of users, I can already tell I’m going to feel a huge void in my online culture.
I loved r/guitar and r/guitarlessons, r/books, r/gaming, r/music, r/Metal, r/running, r/bordercollies, and r/whiskey, for some examples of my interests. I’m also an attorney so I followed a bunch of legal related subreddits and made tons of friends in my professional community that I never would have interacted with without Reddit.
Tildes is the first alternative that seems promising…I love the UI of the mobile site too! I am hopeful that I can find an even nicer sense of community here.
Anyone have suggestions of some tildes to join/keep up with? Is there a way to “follow” certain communities to always see a curated feed of my interests?
Excited to be here! Swing by to chat music, books, or whiskey anytime. I’ll update my bio soon!
Welcome!
Since this is a smaller community, many of us just read the whole site by skimming headlines on the front page. (Sort of like Hacker News if you're familiar with that.) You can ignore topics to make them go away, and unsubscribe from groups individually when you decide you're not interested in the topics in them.
Oh great! That is good to know. I'm still playing around with the site, and getting to know things. Looking forward to exploring more!
I guess I'll add my introduction! Another reddit refugee here. Didn't use any of the apps, just the desktop and mobile site, and mostly spent my time there looking at drama on various subs (BORU fan here). Partially for a drama fix, and partially because I'm a writer and there's no better resource than real people's experiences. Even the fake stuff can help figure out how people really think.
Aside from writing, I also like game design. I'm a pretty casual gamer overall, big Pokémon fan (though I will rant about Sword and Shield if given the chance) and play a lot of "cozy" games like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing (fan since the original GameCube version!). Also enjoy manga and anime, especially darker stuff.
So far have to say, I like how chill Tildes seems. I see people mention there's more activity than usual with the big influx of users, but that's better than everyone drowning each other out all the time. I think I'll like it here.
I came here last week when it became apparent Apollo was not going to make it. I’m loving Tildes so far. The more chill vibe and polite discussion is more my style. Look forward to getting to interact with everyone more. Thanks for welcoming us.
Hey everyone. 9 year Reddit user here interested in finding a community that is close to what Reddit used to be. Pulling the plug on Apollo was the last straw for me. I love reddits breadth of knowledge and vast array of communities and topics and will always go back to reference from time to time. I’m hoping I can help, in a small way, grow that value here. I’m a mechanical and manufacturing engineer but I love dabbling in home improvement, home labs, networking, etc. looking forward to seeing you all around!
Welcome!
Do you do hobbyist electronics at all or is it just at work for you?
What have you been listening to, lately? I've been jamming to Wolves in the Throne Room and The Ocean's new album, Holocene.
Welcome! What instruments do you usually play?