This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

This topic got me thinking on this. Nowadays I'm not a very emotional guy but in the past some movies completely wrecked me. My Girl, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Blue Gate Crossing (cried from the movie theater till the bus stop), The Hottest State (which quite literally accelerated the end of one of my relationships) and Stand by Me are examples of movies that made me cry like a little baby. But also some anime, like Rec and Kare Kano, and books like The Sorrows of Young Werther. What about you?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

In a few days, I’ll be crashing on my friend’s couch for a week.

If it matters, I can only buy from retail stores within Hong Kong and hand carry on the subway. Every time I see them, they’re too quick on the bill, so taking them to eat is out of the question.

Obvious choices are alcohol or fruit basket. I’m terrible at picking gifts for people, as I’m always worried they’ll be as picky as I am on my purchases.

What are your go-tos for gifts in this situation?

It can be for any reason:

• Perhaps the question leads toward some uncomfortable self-reflection (e.g. "Am I annoying?")
• Perhaps the question might make you appear foolish or uneducated to some (e.g. "What is an IRA and why might I need one?")
• Perhaps the question might be seen as offensive or in bad taste (I don't think we need an example here)
• Perhaps the question itself is just outright uncomfortable due to its subject matter (e.g. "What is it like to get a colonoscopy?")
• Perhaps there's another reason I haven't covered here

Whatever the reason, this thread is your chance to ask any questions you want to, regardless of how you'll be viewed. It's also a chance to have those questions answered, should anyone be willing to do so.

With this in mind, there are some pretty important ground rules:

As a question asker, do EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER to frame your question favorably and show sincerity. Walking in with a one sentence bombshell question that's guaranteed to stoke fires is likely to get you tagged for malice. Better to explain your thinking and why you have that question in the first place so that people can know you're coming from a genuine place. The more effort you put into your post, the more people are likely to respond with effort in kind.

As a question answerer, do EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER to apply the principle of charity. The whole point of this thread is to draw out uncomfortable questions, so do your best to answer them a way that acknowledges that discomfort rather than heightening it. Also remember that even if the person asking the question isn't doing so in the best way, there are probably people in the audience with the same or similar questions. Write your responses with them in mind too.

As readers, do EVERYTHING IN YOUR POWER to both vote on comments you feel are good contributions as well as flag any comments you feel are malicious or in bad faith.

I think we've got a lot of great people on the site, and I know there are probably a ton of uncomfortable questions lurking out there. I think this is a good chance for us to get some of them out into the open so that they can be addressed in thoughtful and illuminating ways.

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

My online habits are too limited by these three websites. What other aggregators, blogs or websites you suggest for me to open my horizons?

Some of my interests:

• Long-form film criticism (not movie news)
• History of American cinema
• Urban exploration (sewers, abandoned places, spooky stories)
• Python
• Learning techniques
• Transportation (subways and trains, mostly)
• True crime
• Science fiction literature (both new and old)
• Stand up comedy
• War history

I'm particularly uninterested by American or World News.

I currently am not listening to podcasts because my headphones break every week and I don’t have enough money to buy headphones that will last more than that.

I am not even remotely knowledgeable about economics and stocks so if any logic in this is flawed, please tell me why.

If it happens (which seems likely but not a given) I think the most likely offenders would probably be companies like Uber and WeWork because they kept going with their current practices (mainly unsustainable and sometimes still unprofitable) to the point where venture capitalists decide it's too risky an investment to make and the stocks eventually crash in these companies and the whole market soon follows.

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

We've all felt it: the idea that something about us or something we're into is subject to unnecessary, invasive, or hurtful scrutiny or skepticism from others. Sometimes it's something small ("You like licorice? Really?!"), and sometimes it's something big ("You don't want to have kids? Really?!"), and each of us likely has faced both within our lives. I'm interested to know what other people's experiences are with this.

• What do you feel unfairly judged for?
• What, in particular, makes it so unfair?
• How do you handle it when you encounter it?
• Do you find yourself changing your behavior or pressured into dishonesty in order to avoid encountering the judgment in the first place?
• Why do you feel this sentiment exists in others and is widespread/shared?

Also, it probably goes without saying, but on a post centered primarily on people's feelings and experiences, potentially very difficult ones, it's probably best to do more listening, empathizing, and asking than explaining or rationalizing.

My dad died a couple years ago and I inherited a farm in the central EU. Some of the land is farm land, some zoned residential. My plan was to rent this house out Airbnb style. The surroundings are very pastural. This is the appeal for “agro-tourism.” We are also very close to ski resorts.

My farm plot is the smallest of all the neighbors, but it is dead center in the planned farm. They want a 30 year lease for our land. One neighbor has already agreed. They are offering about $2500/hectare/year.

My neighbors are actually farmers, and to them this is a big chunk of money. Especially as they have 10+ hectares each, I only have 1.25. For me the money is less than one month’s salary and is not that appealing. Also, this is about 15% of what I expected to make off of the Airbnb which would pay for my retirement. Yes, this is a privileged position.

1. I don’t know what questions to ask in negotiations. One thing I verified is that inflation is included, year after year. What else?
   Note: Yes I will have a lawyer look at this, but honestly this is the first thing of its kind in our area.

2. If you were renting out a house in ski-resort/farm country, would you care if there were a bunch solar panels in the fields instead of farm land? Would you like it more, or less?
   Note: I can upload photos or video to give you an idea of the area.

3. Will this raise or lower the value of my home for resale?

4. Any other general thoughts?

Thanks!

Edit: I should add that I am super-anti CO2, so my default position is “hell yes!” But I am just trying to be pragmatic about this. Of note is that this is the first time in my life I am experiencing a bit of NIMBY-ism. Also, I am extremely thankful for this opportunity.

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their week.

If you have any plans, goals, accomplishments, or even failures, whether they be personal or work related, I'd love to hear about them. This is a place for casual discussion about your week, past, present, and future.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this week?

This topic is part of a weekly series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss their weekend.

If you have any plans, things you want to get done, things you have done, things you haven't done, or even if you just want to talk about how you're doing this weekend, this is a place for casual discussion about those things.

A list of all previous topics in this series can be found here.

So, what (or how) are you doing this weekend?

I watched this talk with David Brooks and I was blown away. It was an eloquent talk with strong words on how we need to find our sense of community again at a variety of levels (local to national).

So I'm curious, what communities are you involved in? If you don't have a sense of belonging, where would you like to belong?

I suppose online communities would count, but I think the point is to have away-from-keyboard interactions because of the additional layers of intimacy.

By putting the word SILLY in the title, I mean SERIOUS ISSUES such as those are strictly prohibited:

• politics
• religion
• abortion
• capital punishment
• gender politics
• anything else that usually causes trouble or heated discussion
• anything that could lock this thread

Allowed subjects:

• movies
• television
• technology
• love
• food
• animals
• any seemeling stupid thing that will definetely NOT cause any kind of heated discssion

I'm most interested in entertainment/media of any form - movies, tv shows, youtubers, stand-ups, theatre, music, whatever.

Something that was really (truly) funny to you, not just "comedy genre".

If you find yourself laughing more actively at the world around you then feel free to mention that too, with context.

You can explain why it makes you laugh, too, if you like. Although more importantly please indicate how much you laughed at a particular thing.

Did something cool recently, and no one’s bothered to ask?

Got some stuff on your chest, and no one’s checking in?

Super passionate about a niche topic that not too many people think of?

Toss your question-hopeful here, and let someone pop it!

1. You're with your wife at a party. At your eyes, she looks absolutely stunning. But, with the years, she gained a lot of weight. She asks you: "Honey, does this dress makes me look fat?". And it does. It definitely does. Is lying virtuous in this situation?

2. You're in a relationship. He's handsome, tender, caring and perfect. You feel a bundle of good feelings towards him, but you don't even know what "love" really is. You don't know the true nature of your sentiments, but you know they're strong and you don't wanna hurt his feelings. He asks if you love him. Saying no would be false. Saying yes would be false too. Is lying virtuous in this situation?

3. A three-year-old is dying of cancer. He's only got a few days. He asks you if he's gonna live. You say "yes". Is lying virtuous in this situation?

4. Your fellow soldier lost his legs and torso. He's bleeding through his mouth and high on morphine. He asks you if everything's gonna be okay. You say yes. Is lying virtuous in this situation?

5. You've been married for 5 years and, after some problems, you decide to take a real break (not like Ross and Rachael). During this break, you have sex with several woman/men. You decide to resume the relationship, but you know your partner would not be able to deal with your sexual adventures. When he/she ask about it, you say you didn't see anyone in the time you were apart. Is lying virtuous in this situation?

6. You know the project is dead. You also know that saying so will have absolutely no effect on its direction. Do you say the project is shit, or do you say it's got a shot just to save face? In that case, is there any virtue in telling the truth?

7. You believe A is true, but you also know that declaring A right now will lead to unfavorable result C. Do you declare A right now, or do you wait to declare it when it will lead to favorable result D? This guy knows what I'm talking about...

If I had a really rough day or accomplished more than expected, I make sure to reward myself as such. I've found that I treat myself to a local pizzeria or take a bath in steaming hot water and zone out from the world for an hour.

Recently, Mobile Chrome on Android gave the ability to set your own Homepage. I hate the default new tab page on Chrome and used Currently for my new tab please until that went under, and now I use Simple. Is there anything like either of those for mobile, or some other portal that you would prefer so I'm not mindlessly encouraged to go to commonly visited websites?

In English-speaking countries, the name "John Smith" is often used as a placeholder name because it's boring and common: John is one of the most common first names among English-speaking men, and Smith is the most common surname/family name among English-descended people. Together, they make a very boring and bland name.

What's the equivalent in your country? What's the most boring, common name? What do people use as a placeholder when they need to use a name that isn't a real person but looks like it could be a real person?

@gergir mentioned the idea, and I thought, why not give it a try?

I'm a young adult from Turkey, lived up until now in Istanbul. Whether specific to that city or not, and whether about life, tourist attractions, politics, culture, etc., just AmA.

If you have anything you don't want to publicly ask, I'l love to help if you PM me your question.

gotta have a body here, but i don’t want to run into that former askreddit problem, so here are some of my favorite bodies instead:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bog_of_Allen

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3xYXYzm9H3RzyQgBrYwIcx?nd=1

http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html

https://www.wikipedia.org

99% Invisible is a podcast about "the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world". Episodes from other podcasts that have a similar theme are always welcome.

Edit: moved my favourites to a comment.

The thread about The Wizard of Oz helped me realize there were other musical fans here, and rather than go offtopic in that thread I figured I'd make a whole new one for discussion.

Topic is: musicals. Anything and everything. Tell me about your favorites, the shows you've been to, the songs that make you cry, the numbers you've performed at karaoke, what a talent Sarah Brightman is, how much you had to pay for Hamilton tickets -- whatever! It's all fair game!

Lately, I've been reviewing companies I interact with a lot, and thinking about whether I feel comfortable supporting them as a business. This is mostly based on whether they are a good, ethical company who cares about the consumer. I'm interested what companies you think fit this criteria. I'm not going to lie, I originally intended this question to be about Valve, but decided to make it more open ended. So to start the conversation, do you think Valve fits this?

Reading HackerNews and saw that some mentorship software launched: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20656223 and someone mentioned another software as a service that does mentorship: https://mentorloop.com/

Now I'm wondering where the mentorship for leftists and leftist organizing is.

And I'm wondering if anyone else feels like most of the good ideas that leftists have slowly trickle into businesses but in ways that can be controlled by executives/managers. Their "features" include these slogans:

Tools to Turn Human Resources into Superheroes

Don't let employees slip through the cracks
Stay on top of hundreds to thousands of mentoring interactions in a way that still feels personal. Check in on employee relationships, give them the right nudges they need.

What's your take? Is there a need for more mentorship and peer to peer training/collaboration amongst anarchists and communists? Is that realistic? Or is this something that we just need to be on the defense against and form our own networks outside these systems of control?

It occurred to me a few days ago that my YouTube subscriptions are heavily weighted in favour of men. I follow a lot of video essayists and educational YouTubers, and when the algorithm surfaces new ones to check out, 99 times out of 100 it's a man talking. Same with musicians, gamers, and tech heads...
I feel like I'm missing out on some valuable perspectives, insights, and just all around good content. So please hit me up with some recommendations!

I just feel like I've been thrown into an up to 80 year long game where I have to manage various hardships and difficulties in the hopes of getting the highest score possible when the real outcome is the same no matter what I do. Sure, there are some fun times too, but nothing really matters in the end.

I've made a lot of life changing decisions recently and am going to give school a try again. I'm actually going to take a legitimate shot this time. One thing that always held me back in the past were group projects and peer reviewing of the work. Could anyone give me some anecdotes on how I should tackle this anxiety? I started seeing a therapist *:but I was wondering if there would be something supplemental I could do also.

Thanks

*: I just want to say thanks again for all the feedback

I'm interested in the stories of anyone willing to speak about their experiences, whether it was cyberbullying, stalking, doxing, hate mobs, or anything else.

Given the sensitive nature of the question, only share what you're comfortable with, if at all. The following questions are not a list to be answered but more just jumping off points for consideration.

• What was the harassment like for you?
• What platform(s) did it take place on?
• Was there a specific inciting incident?
• Was it related to any larger cultural factors?
• What was your response like?
• What impact did it have on you and/or others?
• How long did it last?
• What takeaways do you have from the experience?

For those of you who may be unaware of 'flow', here is how it is described in Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow:

Fortunately, cognitive work is not always aversive, and people sometimes expend considerable effort for long periods of time without having to exert willpower. The psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has done more than anyone else to study this state of effortless attending, and the name he proposed for it, flow, has become part of the language. People who experience flow describe it as "a state of effortless concentration so deep that they lose their sense of time, of themselves, of their problems," and their descriptions of the job of that state are so compelling that Csikszentmihalyi has called it an "optimal experience." Many activities can induce a sense of flow, from painting to racing motorcycles - and for some fortunate authors I know, even writing a book is often an optimal experience. Flow neatly separates the two forms of effort: concentration on the task and the deliverate control of attention. Riding a motorcycle at 150 miles an hour and playing a competitive game of chess are certainly very effortful. In a state of flow, however, maintaining focused attention on these absorbing activities requires no exertion of self-control, thereby freeing resources to be directed to the task at hand.

For me, I would say getting into a just difficult enough programming problem or working on a data analysis can put me in this state where hours can slip away in the blink of an eye. The same thing for a game of Civilization V can do the same thing for me.

I thought it would be fun to take Tildes's temperature on humanity's future prospects. If you respond, can you include your approximate age, your opinion, and maybe a brief explanation of why you think/feel the way you do.

I'm in my early 30s. I'm cautiously optimistic. I think it's an interesting time to be alive, as its the first time humanity is facing a problem of this scale. I think it'll pull through in one way or another. It may get bad for a bit, but nobody will let it stay bad for very long. I also think humanity has more control over the current situation than it realizes, it seems like the last two generations and maybe the current gen were content to let tunnel-visioned, big business interests do the metaphorical driving. Hopefully that'll stop soon, and we'll put people without a profit motive in the driver's seat.

Thanks for participating!

Shortly after my son was born I started calling him "Buddy." I love it and he answers to it like a name now. My daughter is two and she calls him Buddy, which I think is the most adorable thing ever.

I'd like to do this with my daughter, but I'm not really a fan of things like "honey" or "sweetheart," though I do wind up calling her sweetheart pretty frequently.

Buddy is like friend, which is what I'm going for, but that's taken already. What else could I use?

Let's do a little show and tell for our new toys :)

(I was thinking about this as a non-recurring equivalent to the listening threads and such but I probably worded it a bit too...fluffily for ~tech so I moved it to ~talk)

I'll get the discussion started -- I'm somewhat into contemporary art, recently Can't Help Myself by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu.

Mark Rothko is another favorite of mine, hopefully some day I can make it down to the Rothko Chapel.