Arguing on hubski may have saved my life! Woo hoo!

I've had intermittent arrhythmia for the past few months. Doc didn't take it very seriously (it's a clinic, they schedule you in 20 min timeslots). He told me to work on stress management. You know what stresses me out? My heart feeling like it's going to explode. Anyway he never heard the skipped beats on any of his tests.

So I got a new doctor. I was in the waiting room, got a response on a pretty heated thread and was midway through typing a reply when the nurse called me in. Bam! I was worked up enough she could hear the arrhythmia just listening. By the time the doc came in I had calmed down but it was enough for the new doc to take it seriously. She did an ekg and we are trying some medication to see if that helps. So.. yay for arguing on the internet?

In the meantime I'm not allowed to do anything I like. Have to eat healthy, can't drink, and only one precious cup of coffee a day. How am I supposed to code without caffiene?? Is that even possible?

Pink!!! I've been wanting to try this for a while. I tried to hold it to the side so you could see the highlights, but I'll post better pictures later.

Well my friend made history this week. Still freaking out about that.

My boyfriend got promoted. He really deserves it, I'm so happy his boss came through.

Another friend of mine's wedding picture is getting passed around the internet on a lot of blogs. It's a great shot, happy to see her get the PR.

I mentor a high schooler who is graduating today from her summer code bootcamp. Excited to see her present her final project, it's pretty kickass.

I'm just running around in circles panicking about Burning Man planning and some family stuff. I'm surrounded by incredible people, sometimes I have to remind myself the bar they set is high.

I'm getting promoted!!!! Not totally official yet but looks really good. It means a lot, 6 years ago my old boss told me I wasn't right for this job and started trying to fire me. Now I've almost passed him in senority. Take that! http://i.imgur.com/MwtTkSQ.gif

It's huge. My first night there we walked out to the central area, first thing I saw was a 50 ft tall sculpture of a woman that breathed. It kinda set the tone for me, everything there is larger then life. There's so many incredible projects that anywhere else you would pay $40 and wait in line for a few hours to see.

The community there is fascinating. It's a gift economy, no money, no bartering. Everywhere you go people seem like they are actively looking to help you out. Theme camps organize and offer things from free bars to hair salons, the community really provides for each other. It reminded me a lot of hubski actually, people trying to do something different through a community setting a higher standard. Like hubski, there were definitely a few jerks. But they were largely overwhelmed by all the sincere people trying to lead by example.

The other thing worth mentioning is the whole event is designed to push your boundaries. You are never comfortable, with the fine dust coating your lungs, the sweltering days or the freezing nights. People seem to use that as a theme, from nudity to drug experimentation, everyone seems to be stepping outside normal comfort zones. I like it, it's refreshing to question those boundaries. Some are definitely keepers but others I really don't need, I'm definitely more comfortable in my own skin after going.

Sorry for the long response. It's hard to describe, and frustration has been building up after a week of telling my coworkers "oh it was nice". Can't exactly share with them the stories about the naked carcass wash or the guy who peed in the tardis. Basically it was great, I'd recommend it.

I think this is better without explanation

I guess I don't see the correlation between censorship and the death of reddit. If they cleaned up some of the more horrifying subs I feel like the site will just get more popular, not less.

My grandfather passed away last week. Hopped on a last minute flight and have spent time with my family since. Flying home today. He and my grandma were married 60 years and never spent more then a few days apart, it's just heartbreaking.

fem·i·nism noun the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men.

Do you not believe in those things?

You only get one life. Don't spend it in a job that makes you miserable. I'm sure your wife wants you to be happy too! You guys are on the same team, I bet there's a way to get through this where you both are ok with it.

I'm getting old :) Mind translating for people out of the loop? I took some guesses

Aquarius cusp, XNFP, 4 w 5 wings - new superheroes?

Avpd - alien vs predator disorder

Scopophobia - fear of people who use foreign words, like biscuit instead of scone and pop instead of soda

Burning man was amazing. I still have a warm fuzzy afterglow. So happy to be home and clean that damn corrosive dust off my skin, chemical burns are no joke! I'd post a trip report but I didn't take a ton of pictures, I put the technology down and just enjoyed the ride for the most part.

I leave for Europe on Friday, which was a terrible idea but the only time we could plan it. I'm sure I'll love it when I'm there but feeling pretty burnt out right now. (get it! burnt! ... ok I'm done)

Sci-fi has always been political and "delivering a message". Back in the day it was warning people about the dangers of unchecked population growth, or rapid AI development. Recently it's been a lot of dystopian bioterror or dangerous scientific advancement. All of these issues are political. You can't imagine a future society without dealing with where you think our society is heading today, it's at the heart of the genre, it's always been "preachy" as you put it.

So when people say they don't want scifi to be political, they mean they don't want it to be political in a way that challenges them. Social issues like terrorism or government control? Totally fine. Social issues like gender politics? Not ok! It's an arbitrary bar, and it's incredibly transparent to everyone but the Sad Puppies that what they are really doing is trying to silence authors that challenge them.

If you don't like Scifi that scares you, don't read it. If you don't like the Hugos, start your own award. Don't whine because other people like things you don't like. It's bible belt book banning all over, just in a internet vigilante form.

Heh I got way too excited about getting a tag in this list :)

I would like to thank my mom, reddit for being unusable, and the hour long build times that I spend on here!

Here's the accident:

http://i.imgur.com/fBvWdVS.gifv

Google is very obviously not to blame. I will say though, my mom taught me to always check the rearview mirror when I stop and if it looks like the guy behind me is coming in hot, to inch forward a bit. Google did everything right here, but I wonder if they will use this to adapt their algorithms somewhat.

Nope! You attack feminism because you want to. Even if feminists do attack men (the vast majority don't) your stance of aggressive attacks on them is totally your choice. You don't have a single post trying to do something positive for men, only posts negative against women. Just think about that for a bit. Why not spend some time doing something good? What kind of person does it make you when so much of what you put out into the world is horrible and negative?

This guy could really use the help of the MRA crowd. Maybe do something good for once? https://twitter.com/mattlauzon

You dodged my question again! So sneaky. So you no one who has had to quit their job over gender discrimination. Crazy. If radical feminists are as pervasive an issue as you think, that seems odd.

I believe most feminists are like us, interested in a healthy society for everyone. I'm a pretty die hard feminist. I also sub MRA and recently campaigned for help for male rape victims. Instead of attacking women why not spend your time helping men? There's a way to progress gender equality that doesn't require being so angry and negative.

Mine isn't a specific object, its a library. I've got bookshelves in a corner right now. The holy grail for me would be a library with big windows, one of those spiral staircases, and books all along the walls. There'd be big cozy chairs to read in, and a small table for drinks and snacks. Bottom shelf would be lined with all the books I loved when I was young for my kids to discover. I collect fantasy maps right now because I love seeing how people visualize these worlds. So I'd have big map displays in between book sections with those maps. I go to lots of author events so I'd have little book stands with my signed books or books that are otherwise meaningful to me. And I'd decorate with little tchotchkes I've picked up from traveling.

Basically this:

http://archive.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-10/ff_walker

I think I might be looking for a job. I've been at the same place since college. It's like dating when you've been in a relationship for 7 years. I have no idea what I'm doing.

My friends love walking tacos. Pretty easy party food since you get to skip plates. Here's a picture of a similar setup to what I do:

I'm a vegetarian so I do one pot veggie meat or beans and one pot meat meat. Then pico, guac, lettuce, ect. Our group has a mix of allergies and diets so a DIY meal is good because people can work around their restrictions.

I also don't really trust anything that lists voat as number 1.

My breaking point is when I lose touch with my friends. I work in an industry that has two major crunches a year. I know that's part of what we sign up for and I manage to work around it. But leading up to a big release a few years ago I just disappeared. I missed every social gathering, and was slowly losing contact with my group. They were all really understanding, but that's when I drew the line. I'm pretty good at managing money vs time tradeoffs - if I'm working round the clock, I throw money at healthy food so I'm not eating garbage. I jog at work so I don't turn into a lump of jello. But friends I can't throw money at, and no job is worth missing out on the people I love.

I think the problem is the hubski bar analogy falls apart when people are pushing an agenda. He isnt here to participate, he never comments unless its to argue about his hate topics. The problem is, in a bar, everyone would notice that he's in a dark corner of the room, smelling a bit off, with no one talking to him. No one goes up to that guy. On hubski, it just looks like no one is commenting on his posts. Normal users don't see whats wrong with him until he has a toxic day, and even then they might miss it. So how do we show people his stink waves? It seems like there should be some way to let the community know "yes this person is talking, but our silence is not agreement".

On way would be to show how many people have muted someone for a particular topic. I don't want to be hurtful though, or create a negative experience for controversial tags.

Another way would be letting people untag his posts, kicking him out of the room so to speak. Either a hubwheel of "offensive" or "controversial" gives users a warning when viewing content, or deletes the tag entirely. Yes we can filter "spam" or "trolling", but I think it would be better if this was baked into the site itself. If a new users checks out hubski and sees a skull and crossbones next to a post, it sets expectations pretty effectively. It also lets normal users know "hey, this guy is a controversial figure, silence is not agreement".

I feel a little weird proposing suggestions, I know I'm a hubski rookie. But I don't want to be negative and just whine about things I don't like without offering suggestions. So I'm very open to criticism or disagreement on this one.

I think part of the problem is the filtering model means I lose out too. Most people who aren't following Grendel won't repost his stuff. And he has tons of followers. So if I filter all of the Team Sexist Racist Crazytown, yes I'm in a safe bubble from the hate speech. I'm also going to miss out on quite a lot of content, which hubski doesn't have a ton of right now. Look at the active users in the community tab. Look at grendels followers. Yeesh.

It's the same thing that happened on reddit. I had to avoid the hate subs, obviously. But eventually I had to unsub from the defaults, as the hate subs actively campaign there. Then as they grew to a more majority opinion, the few subs that were supposed to be safe were invaded, and I left the site. That's exactly what the hate subs wanted, and I'm pretty sure what Grendel wants as well.

If grendel continues to recruit, which I believe is his main goal here, yes he is punished by being ignored, but I'm punished by missing out on lots of content, more and more as his popularity grows.

I have a few ideas of things that would help. I think the community should be able to remove tags from a post. If he wasn't allowed to spam feminism with the exact opposite it would help keep him isolated. It would help prevent users from thinking his manipulative behavior represents whichever tag he is currently abusing. I also think the proposed user tagging would help. If I can tag his followers as "possibly crazy" it would help avoid getting drawn in by trolling.

I think if the site as a whole comes up with some smart ways to minimize his damage then he's done hubski users a lot of good. To me, he's a bug, an edge case, and it's just a matter of finding the right policy to deal with his exploitation. But if the answer is "ignore it" I'm concerned what that means for my future here.

I don't want to take away Grendel's voice, but I also don't want it to go unchecked. If you post on the feminist tag with anti feminist bs, I don't want someone new to hubski to think that's what represents the site (I did at first). It's much better if you click comments on that stuff and see a rational voice with several others drowning out the hatespeech. So i comment and disagree. And now he's muted me and he can continue to mess up global unchecked.

I'm pretty sure the only reason he posts all the other things is so he won't get muted when he's trolling. His comments reflect that - they are mostly on troll posts, with much less of them being on science.

It definitely has not "always been garbage." Your expiriences are not how it was when I was in school. As there is more and more money in tech "brogrammers" are slowly taking over, pushing the nerds out and making it hard to distinguish the sincere from the greedy. The data backs up what I'm saying, women in tech were over the 30% in the 70s.

I hope you hang in there, we need more people like you. It's funny, people think the lack of women in tech only effects women. But the truth is this "alpha male only" attitude hurts men too. There's tons of valuable engineers who get overlooked because they aren't hyper agressive A types. I think things are improving, but slowly.

Keep trying to find other friends in your major. My study buddies ended up being friends for life, and having support in your field is invaluable. Maybe check out local hackerspaces, or volunteer with a tech nonprofit. Plenty of nice engineers are out there, just a little harder to find right now.

Haha! One of the things I miss about reddit is the ability to tag users. I'd label you Beowulf :)

Reddit has never been a bastion of free speech, not even in the beginning. Try posting about Tesla in /r/technology. Or post a link to a concert in r/seattle. Or link that John Oliver skit in r/nfl. Moderators enforce their own standards and censor others all the time, the only reason people are angry is this is coming from an admin. Doesn't make much difference to me, either way it's never been a haven for uncensored conversation.

A more comprehensive paper can be found here http://wa-dnr.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/ger_ic116_csz_scenario_update.pdf if anyone wants more information

I'm a reddit user who had trouble finding somewhere else to go. Voat doesn't seem very female friendly and I don't like image based sites (Tumblr, pinterest). This place reminds me of reddit before digg, seems really great!