I finally made that switch myself, and it's been pretty seamless.

Try Chwazi! It's a wonderful little app that helps with decision making, such as who pays for dinner or who chooses the movie or who goes first in a game. It's solved many arguments for me.

I play so many games. Right now, the regulars I play are:

- Secret Hitler - My current favorite "hidden roles" game, and a smash hit with most of my group. It does cause a lot of stress and anxiety to a few, though.

- Pandemic - Very easy to get onto the table, very easy to explain, and very easy to lose right when one thinks it's going to work out well. A perennial favorite.

- The Great Dalmuti - Fast and quick, casual enough for near anyone, thinky enough to slow down conversation. A good closer.

- King of Tokyo - Another fun closer. The strategies are getting a little old, so I think I'm gonna pick up the Power Up! expansion, to change up the game.

- Smallworld - My buddy loves this game and has all of the expansion sets, so it hits the table every couple weeks. Plays well with almost every size group, and has enough strategy to stay interesting.

Additionally, my girlfriend and I play Hive and Haggis any time we're out and about. Hive especially is super quick and simple, and a real brain burner once we get into it.

Love to see Secret Hitler mentioned here. That's my current favorite "hidden roles" game; it's so beautiful in it's execution.

Epistemological status: personal and shaky

Based solely on my experiences in the school system, my experiences in unschooling/homeschooling, and the experiences of homeschooling parents and children who I've talked with, I'd say that creating a positive environment focused on giving students tools they need is significantly more important than cutting them down when they succeed to guide them, in all circumstances. Shaming, dismissing, insulting, and denigrating effort are all recipes for students to shut down, to stop experimenting, and to withdraw. For an example, the above article: Jacobs plainly says how such comments hurt her deeply and damaged her ability to perform. Her ability to cope by adopting a strongly different personality is not healthy, nor is it conducive to learning.

I became angry because I've been in those kinds of situations (and the others described, such as when a teacher complimented her by saying, "Wasn't probation good for you?"), and they're awful. I've never felt so terrible as when I've seen my honest efforts dismissed and disregarded by someone who thought they knew what was best for me. I would never wish that on anyone, and that you say you weren't affected by it when it happened to you probably means that the effort you put in wasn't meaningful to you the way this comedy routine was meaningful to Jacobs. Because it's not actually about acting, it's about effort and reward and support.

If the teacher wanted to say, "You can clearly do that. Never bring in a scene like that again." but kindly, like the listener deserved respect and support instead of dismissal and shame, they could have said, "That's wonderful! Well done! You seem to have found your niche! In the future, let's see if we can work a scene like this into your portfolio while we work on your other styles. Obviously you have talent, but can we bring that talent to other genres?" and then when she tries (and maybe/probably fails) a different genre, the teacher can bring in references to the progress she's made relative to her comedy, instead of demanding from a non-existent place.

The one time I brought in a funny scene to my acting class, I got, for the first time, an enthusiastic, positive reaction from my classmates. They'd never reacted this favorably to any scene I'd done before. Instead of encouraging me to pursue comedy or praising my newly revealed skill, the teacher said dismissively, "You can clearly do that. Never bring in a scene like that again."

Oh wow, I'm surprised by how angry this interaction made me.

This article is great. Thanks for posting!

What happens? Put some content in your title.

Lemme plug http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com/ cuz I feel it's a legit point about the original and the future of the web.

I love these. I try to watch a bit every year, and they're always a blast!

Yeah, man. "Representation"? Fuck that, why can't it be normal and white? Why's it always gotta be about race?

What he wrote is already in his book, from which this article is adapted. Like all of the other spots he's done, it's both to raise awareness of the problem, and of his description of the problem.

On the one hand, I want to comment to contribute, as I am a lurker, but on the other, I feel it'd betray the point to come out of my shell. heh

I spend infinity time on reddit, and squeeze all other websites into the margins. I like hubski a lot, but I haven't found arenas I'm comfortable enough in to heavily interact with, so we'll see.

I pretty much agree with you and everything you've written.

That being said, you should finish the book. It gets worse in some seriously hilarious ways, and I want to read your angry review of the finale. Can I paypal you for it, or something?

Let me voice the dissent. I prefer to keep the parent uncollapsed, because it helps me know which threads I've already interacted with. It's the way most every reddit app works, and it's really the way I wish reddit itself worked.

Seems interesting, but I still worry that tying money to boopskis will incentivize easily-consumed posts. Do you have a system in place to help deter that?

Hey, a follow-up.

Rereading this interaction, and I see my comments looking a lot more combative or aggressive than I had intended or anticipated. I'm sorry about that.

Further up in the thread, #thewoodenaisle deconstructed the situation in a way that makes a lot of sense to me, so know that my opinion on the matter has changed a bit. I wouldn't change my behavior in that scenario (as the bartender), but New York's reaction makes a lot more sense.

Thanks for talking to me about this.

You seem to be panicking that you're going to get in trouble because someone assumed you denying people based on legal requirement was because of race.

Well, I've been fired from many jobs, for many legitimate and illegitimate reasons. I try to excise the elements of my "on the job" personality that have gotten into trouble in the past, and attempt to learn from others mistakes too, you know? I seriously don't want to be fired, and I don't want to give a guest a bad time, and I want to serve people as much alcohol as they can handle because that directly makes me money. So when I read about this interaction, all I can think is, "How would I have done this differently?" and the answer is, "I wouldn't have." and that doesn't make me feel good.

You won't get in trouble so long as you're not letting the white people get away with it. You're the gatekeeper of your own consistency.

That's absolutely true, and I've bolded it because of how much I agree. Do you think the bartender in the story was inconsistent?

Don't try claim that people of color always get to blackmail white people. Just don't be that guy. Seriously.

You point to where I did it, and I'll fix it.

From the text, New York is the one who brought race into the interaction, not the bartender nor Jessie. I got the impression that the author sides with or at least wants to give the leeway to New York in this interaction, but I don't see why.

The author says that for New York, this might have been the most recent in a long string of race-based insults and slights, and "[t]hat neither Jessie nor I nor the bartender himself was in a position to say whether this had indeed been one of them, or why it felt like it to New York, or whether she was wrong."

So how is the bartender supposed to act in this scenario? He says, "No, sorry, she refused. I cannot. It's the law." and New York says, "Oh, a brown woman can't buy a drink?", and then he responds how? Castigating the bartender for doing his job makes him a scapegoat. If he'd said, "I don't serve black women cuz they get drunk too fast." or "I don't want your money." or something, I'd understand. But as it's written, this interaction tripped one of New York's nerves and she took it out on him and Jessie when they'd done nothing wrong.

Maybe that's the point: They'd done nothing wrong, but their very white-ness means it's still on them. There's no actionable course, then. Can't serve her because it's illegal. Can't not serve her because she's now in the mindset that it's because of her race.

New York had tried to buy Jessie a shot, and Jessie had declined because she’d already had enough to drink. New York tried to buy it anyway, but the bartender, a white dude, wouldn’t let her. New York got on some “Oh, a brown woman can’t buy a drink? My money’s no good here?” type shit, and Jessie took it at face value and tried to explain to her that the bartender was not legally allowed to sell a drink if the person the drink was intended for expressed unwillingness to imbibe it.

I walked back into the room just in time to hear Jessie say, with deep conviction and obvious frustration, “It’s not about race!”

They both looked at me like I was that dude Paris and they were the goddesses laying claim to the golden apple that started the Trojan War. I had no idea what had happened while I was taking a piss, but I said, “It’s never a good look to be the white girl claiming it’s not about race.”

So, I'm a bartender, and I take "not serving alcohol to people who are inebriated" and "not serving alcohol to people who don't want to drink anymore" very fucking seriously. I've had friends die from drunk driving (as the drunks and as the victims), and I've had friends be fired from jobs because they served too much and were responsible-ish for someone else's bad decisions.

How am I to take this interaction?

What a command of English Heller has. That book is positively brimming with uncommon words that delight. I remember when my younger brother read it, he kept a running list of words he didn't recognize that grew over 50 entries.

It's definitely Personal Finances for Dummies written casually and actionably. But that's why I like it. His end of the week recaps are great for those who've struggled with saving or investing or even paying more than a casual attention to their money.

I've been using YNAB for a while, but it's been helpful having Ramit say, "Do this with your credit cards. Do this with your monthly budget. Do this with your savings."

Sounds like SuperBetter might be helpful. It's focused on really small tasks, such as, "Shake one person's hand." or "Count to 50 by 4s."

I don't know how to feel about this post.

I've only read about half of this, but I'm reminded of Jane McGonigal's TED talk about SuperBetter: Small things one can do frequently to improve one's mental, physical, and social state.

Oh delicious.

> Poop butter.

Does that count? Are they separate?

Yeah, it's really great! I like both the layout and the mechanics so far. Very clever, very simple.

One note: when one follows tags, are they the only things shown on the front page? Or are they just given precedence when ranking posts?

The whole album could be described as a short blackened thrash album. All 11 songs only add up to 31 minutes.

This album is one of my favorites. It's so intense and perfectly produced. I love the sound of all the instruments. I wish more metal albums were this clean.

Think of Tumblr! You follow people not subreddits (though you can follow tags), tags are essentially freeform and unmoderated, and clicking the circledot reshares the item with those who follow you.

Thankfully, comments are threaded and centralized, and the focus is on the conversation and not easily resharable content.

I semiregularly play Project M (and slightly less regularly Melee). I love the direction the PMBR have taken the game, and I can't wait to see where else they go.

Anyone who plays should be playing on Anther's Ladder. It's a fantastic method for netplay through Dolphin.