Honestly, every other site I join has been after a few years of being popular, so naturally, all the unique and cool names were taken. Fortunately when I got my invite code, I got my first choice: "Chill." Anyone else?

Good morning everyone! It's Monday morning and the weekend is over. How is everyone doing today? How was your weekend and is there anything you're looking forward to this week?

I did a post like this last Friday and people seemed to like it. After talking to @PBuddy I decided to do posts like this at the beginning and end of the week to see if we can get people familiar with each other. I love Tildes but it's too new and too spread out for a small communities to start like you'd see in some subreddits. Let me know what you think!

Seeing as we're still a small community, I see a lot of familiar faces in every thread.

So if you want to know what other people noticed about you, comment on this post. And reply to others with description of them. I'll try to be active here for several hours also.

Like many of you I sit in front of a computer quite a few hours a day, and of course I like to snack.

How do you guys go about keeping your hands and/or keyboards and mice (or other accessories) clean? Use a fork for everything? Keep a napkin/wipe handy? Take snack breaks?

I’ve read it all my life. Learned to read on it actually and I’ve collected it too. Probably have one of the bigger collections for an average joe. Apparently it’s been rebooted or something. It’s pretty political, like it’s always been, but I hope it doesn’t go under.

Hey guys I'm just joining Tildes after that last invite wave. I'm sure there's a lot of others just like me trying to get used to the site and I figured this might be a good start for people.

How is everyone's day going? Any big plans for the weekend?

I invite you to read the whole thing here, even if you've read it in the past: https://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette

A couple of prompts for discussion:

• Are the ideas in reddiquette good?

• If everone here followed it, or something similar, would that be a good thing?

• If only a portion of people here followed it, or something similar, would that still be a good thing?

• I was thinking about that Evolution of Trust game/article/demo linked here previously and this one came to me: Imagine a personality that would make internet interactions the best possible- what habits and tendencies would that personality have?

• What are some good values/ideals or goals for a site like Tildes (or its community) to shoot for, in the biggest picture possible?

I don't get it. I have plenty of friends, and i'm happy with my lot in life, but I wish I had romance or even just physical attraction in my life. I broke up with my ex last month and i've just felt alone after that, chasing for love.

Something that has always been tough for me is embracing incremental progress. I get bursts of productivity followed by time periods of inactivity. When I think about my shortcomings, they sometimes seem too large to overcome with this strategy, so I know I need incremental progress to get there. Reflecting on examples of incremental progress that I've made, they have all happened with a good amount of outside influence. For instance in sports and in school growing up, I was forced to go to practice or do homework by parents, etc.

Are there strategies for gaining motivation for big projects like getting in shape or completing a coding project--especially now that I don't have things like deadlines or authority figures forcing me to do these things? Or does it more come down to discipline?

Would love to hear everyone's thoughts!

I think automation is coming quick and fast and think that a landmark event will be when food can be farmed, packaged, shipped and sold without requiring any humans to be involved. I see the foundations in place already with Amazon Go and autonomous vehicles and it doesn't seem like too much longer before this kind of automation could be possible in my mind.

Anybody want to weigh in with thoughts/discussion? What effects might it bring? Will it lead to a sort of monopoly as the food could be sold so much cheaper? When might this scale of automation be plausible? Anything really, just looking to spark some discussion :)

I saw that the 2nd thread by @vibe was dying so I decided to post a new one.

Howdy, my name is Odin, or /u/alibyte. I go by alibyte on absolutely everything (except here). I moved here because I was sick of the blatant political bias on Reddit and the massive echo chamber it became. I'm looking forward to the future of this place :)

Shalom my dudes! I'm getting ready to graduate finally. I've been out of school for a few months. Getting work done and such. Then I'm going to iowa with my dad to visit family! So what about you guys?

As an Ontarian in the Oshawa riding, I’m undecided. I really don’t see that any of the big three (NDP, Liberal, PC) deserve my vote. I wonder what other Canadians in Ontario think of the upcoming election.

Edit - More

• Polling details like this CBC aggregate site suggest the PC Party is leading as of June 2nd.
• The Toronto Star has endorsed the NDP Party.
• The Ontario Liberals have given up on winning.

The podcast threads have been chock-full of high-profile, well-known podcasts. I definitely enjoy some of those but I also like listening to smaller, more "homemade" podcasts if they're interesting.

Do you make a podcast that you want to share with the group?

(While technically self-promotion I'm genuinely curious at the answer. I'll pull the topic if it is out of bounds.)

You may have heard that Roseanne Barr made a horrible comment/joke on her Twitter account - this lead to the cancelation of her show, Rosanne.

Then, Samantha Bee made a horrible comment/joke on her show about Ivanka Trump that has prompted an apology, and an advertiser exit (so far).

If Samantha Bee is canceled too, does the punishment fit? Did Rosanne deserve to see her show canceled? Is there (or should there be) a limit to what comedians can say on TV or online?

Note: Typed this out on mobile, so may need corrections later. Edit: Added links, corrections. Edit again, update Bee's details.

I've been enjoying reading peoples conversations on Tildes. There's been in-depth discussions and debates and open dialogue with a genuine attempt at understanding the other side's opinions. I really enjoy discussing spirituality with all angles of beliefs, so I thought it could be fun to try that here :)

I think it will be important to understand while discussing this that we all have different understandings and definitions of loaded words when referring to things that, by definition, are indefinable. I think it'll help to keep that in mind. One person may use the word "God" and have a picture in their head of a literal being in the clouds with a robe and beard. Another may use the word "God" and it means something else entirely. Like the creative power behind the ongoing evolution of the universe.

Two very different things.

I'll start with a little bit about my own beliefs, and where I'm coming from.

I was raised conservative christian, being taught to believe in a literal 6-day creation, with God resting on the 7th. And we took the commandment to also rest on the 7th day very seriously. Seventh-Day Adventist. We were right in our interpretation of the bible, and everyone else was wrong and in danger of going to hell, including all other religions.

I had an experience about 7 or 8 years ago that shifted my perspective completely. Essentially, I fell into a state of samadhi, had a kundalini awakening, became one with god. Whatever the words used to describe it, or the belief structures that have been built around it, I was there. My body and mind fell away into stillness, and it was just conscious awareness of Peace and Love. No thoughts about it, or physical sensations in my body, just awareness of.

Since then, I've been opened up to an understanding about the universe that's bigger than beliefs. I see my experience and the "Truth" reflected in all sorts of religious texts and beliefs, as well as in non-religious things. I've said to many people while talking about these topics that I believe there are atheists who have a closer "relationship" with god. Looking into the makeup of the universe with curiosity. It's great. I don't believe anyone needs a belief in god or religious theology to be headed in the "right" direction. And at the end of the day I think that's where we're all at. Headed on a path. We've all got our own personal journey and having compassion and love for others where they are at is what Jesus was talking about and trying to teach to people who had no understanding of that level of understanding.

My wife and I are reading a book right now called Unbelievable: Why Neither Ancient Creeds Nor the Reformation Can Produce a Living Faith Today - by John Spong

My wife was raised conservative christian and is just starting the exciting journey of questioning all of it. We're reading it together. So far the author's understanding of spirituality, god, etc. seem to line up closely with mine.

In the book he speaks about the inability to use limited human language to discuss this sort of thing, and why christianity has gotten it so confused over the years, as it's hard to put into words, and then have others read it and understand it. Experience vs Belief. Very different things.

Anyhow, I think I've rambled enough. I'd love to see the kind of discussion we can get going about such a typically decisive topic :)

Tell me what you know...

Kafka once wrote in a letter that he thought we ought to read only the books that wound or stab us. The quote is longer (because it's German), but I think we all get the drift.

This thread was inspired by a question that @scituselectrum asked me in the last book-reading thread: what books have you read that have allowed you to see the world in a new light? Put in Kafka-esque terms, what books have impacted you like a disaster and acted as an axe for the frozen sea within you?

I thought it was such a good question that I wanted to know other answers. Maybe add some reading to my already intimidating list.

I'm curious how many other furries (if any) have came here so far, and have a couple questions:

1. Which furry communities did you participate in the most on Reddit?
2. Which of those communities, if any, do you think would work well on Tildes?

Personally, I'm very partial to furry_irl, since there's a lot of friendly discussion in the comments, but I'm not sure the post content would fit very well here, unless fluff content was allowed.

To anyone confused, this and this are very brief introductions to what a furry is.

I'm not a native speaker, but from browsing reddit, understand 95% of what I read / hear. I also watch TV Shows exclusively in english. However, when i write a comment or something in english, it always feels like it doesn't really "flow".

How can i, or other non-native speakers improve our writing skills?

Personally, I feel like I'm in between. I started off as a Manufacturing Engineer, and something just didn't feel right. I sort of fell backwards into Health and Safety, and I love the field, but it's yet another job where you've got to be the bad guy. My mission is to have people believe that I really care about their safety, not some arbitrary numbers.

How about you? What's your favorite part of your job? Least favorite?

What regrets do you have in your life, minor or major?

Personally, I regret signing up to a new cool website without name changes and NOT just taking the name Scar or Whom, instead making my name long and awkward.

The book Code Complete changed me as a programmer and as a person. It is the best book I have ever read and if you're a programmer I highly recommend you read it.

The book was so good that after having read the pirated version of it I just had to give the author its money's worth. The problem was that almost nobody sells a PDF version of the book - Amazon sells it as a Kindle book, but I prefer PDFs (can use my chioce of software to read it). After searching for a short week I finally found a seller that sells a PDF version. I have never been so happy to find a legal PDF version of a book. Having been a pirate in my teens I'm proud of having gone to such lengths to the right thing. That's all. Just wanted to share this with you.

TL;DR: Instead of pirating a book because I didn't find a legal PDF version spent time searching for a seller and bought it legally.

Okay I haven't slept in almost 24 hours so I'm not exactly thinking straight but I was wondering:

What is that one thing in your life that makes everything better? It can be philosophical or it can be something others might consider "small", but I am geniunely curious on what makes you happy.

Now that a community is starting to build here, I'm curious if anyone else is interested in languages.

Personally, I realized that I enjoy learning languages when I took a Spanish class in high school. The only languages I've studied seriously are Spanish and Russian, and unfortunately these days my Spanish is pretty rusty, but I still enjoy the process of learning about different languages, how they relate to each other, and learning how to communicate at least a little.

Anyone here share my interest? What language(s) are you learning/have you studied, and what do you like or dislike about it? What has struck you as the most interesting or weirdest thing about it?

My wife just found a candle that was gifted to her by a coworker that contained this phrase and it caused somewhat of a debate about its destiny, which made me wonder... are we discussing religion and/or the lack thereof here? /r/atheism became a circlejerky hive of scum and villainy, can we do better? Or is a topic so inherently divisive inherently beyond reproach? Can emotion and anecdotal experiences ever compete on even footing with logic and reason?