mirror of https://github.com/tildetown/newsletter
365 lines
18 KiB
Plaintext
365 lines
18 KiB
Plaintext
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|_/|_/|__/\_/|_/|__/o|_/\__/ \/ \/ | |_/ |_/|_/ | | |_/|__/ \/
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===========================================================================
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FEBRUARY 2018
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hello friends and welcome to a very special february edition of the
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tilde.town times! thank you so much to everyone who has contributed to
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the most packed edition of the times so far.
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this month comes with many exciting new things happening around the town
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and a fantastic influx of new members. this month also sees the inclusion
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of our first ever essay.
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the tilde.town times survives on the gracious contributions of our
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members and so if you have seen anything around the town you would
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like to see included, please do no hesitate to submit it and it will make
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it into the next issue.
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__ __ __ ___ __ __
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/ /____ _/ / / /__ ___ / _/ _______ ___ / /____ ___ / /____
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/ __/ _ `/ _ \/ / -_) / _ \/ _/ / __/ _ \/ _ \/ __/ -_) _ \/ __(_-<
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\__/\_,_/_.__/_/\__/ \___/_/ \__/\___/_//_/\__/\__/_//_/\__/___/
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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1. tilde news
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2. around the town
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3. spotlight
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4. new members
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5. editor's note
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6. moment of reflection
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___ __ _ __ __
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< / / /_(_) /__/ /__ ___ ___ _ _____
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/ / / __/ / / _ / -_) / _ \/ -_) |/|/ (_-<
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/_(_) \__/_/_/\_,_/\__/ /_//_/\__/|__,__/___/
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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hello and welcome to the tilde newsdesk. please help yourself to some
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of the most exciting recent happenings on tilde.town.
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A TOWNIE IN NEED
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our friend ~cel finds themself in a tough situation. we have started a
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fundraiser to try to provide them with financial support. if you can spare
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any money it would be very much appreciated. the fundraiser page is at
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https://www.gofundme.com/pitch-in-for-a-townie.
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DISCORD SERVER!
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did you know that tilde.town has a discord server? I did not, but now I
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do! you can access it at https://discord.gg/qy53Bf. grab your
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cybregoggles and open-palm slam a cassette into your playbox, it's
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gameing time!
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MINECRAFT SERVER!
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on the subject of gameing, we also have a minecraft server! wow! you can
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access it at 206.255.129.18 but you'll also need modpacks to play. for
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more info, check out the thread on bbj. to access bbj, type bbj at the
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terminal. thank you so much to ~desvox for setting this up!
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___ __ __ __ __
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|_ | ___ ________ __ _____ ___/ / / /_/ / ___ / /____ _ _____
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/ __/_/ _ `/ __/ _ \/ // / _ \/ _ / / __/ _ \/ -_) / __/ _ \ |/|/ / _ \
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/____(_)_,_/_/ \___/\_,_/_//_/\_,_/ \__/_//_/\__/ \__/\___/__,__/_//_/
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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exciting updates to feels engine this month come from endorphant who
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writes:
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~ FEELS ENGINE UPDATES ~
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vilmibm helped me out to get gopher support in the feels engine; you now
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have the option of cross-posting to gopher. if you don't already have
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gopher set up, enabling gopher support in the feels engine should
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automatically create the directory structure for your gopher hole. gopher
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is a pre-www internet protocol that mimics a directory structure instead of
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the hyperlink format of html; tilde town has a gopher server that you can
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check out with a gopher-compatible browser at gopher://tilde.town (for more
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deets, check out the gopher page on the ~town wiki:
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http://tilde.town/wiki/gopher.html )
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rainbow menus! you can now enable colorful menus, which can both improve
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legibility of long list displays, and also make your terminal more visually
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exciting! i'm interested in how readable the rainbow menus are with your
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terminal environment; if the colors are hard on your eyes, please let me
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know so i can consider adjustments for a future update! there's a github
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issue for that here: https://github.com/modgethanc/ttbp/issues/5
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pub/nopub toggling! this has been a long overdue feature, but if you are
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publishing your posts to web/gopher, there's now an option within the
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interface to let you toggle whether or not individual posts get published
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outside of the tilde.town shell environment. posts marked 'nopub' will not
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get written to html/gopher, but will still be readable by other townies
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from the feels engine. by default, posts are always published, but if
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you mark a post a 'nopub' afterwards, it will be immediately unpublished
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from html/gopher. likewise, if a nopub post gets reverted to a published
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post, it will get immediately written back to html/gopher.
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if you aren't publishing your posts at all, this menu won't be available
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to you at all, because your posts will never be published. also, if you
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are currently publishing, set a bunch of nopubs, then switch off
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publishing altogether, your nopubs list will be preserved; this means
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that if you then turn publishing on later, your nopubs will remain
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unpublished.
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there's probably some hiccups with this most recent update (as usual,
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because i am lazy/bad at testing my code <_<), so please send me mail or
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pop into #ttbp on irc if you're having problems or have questions about
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these updates!
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wow, thanks ~endorphant!
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~ TILDECOIN / TILDEBOOK ~
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we also have a couple of new tools from login who writes:
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TILDECOIN I really wanted tilde.town to have an informal currency system
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that could be used to exchange value. I created a program called `tcoin`
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to make that happen.
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When you first type `tcoin` in your prompt, you'll be told you haven't
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initialised yet and that you'd need to run `tcoin init`. When you run
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`tcoin init`, you'll be asked to create a passphrase. Once you've done
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that, you'll be given 1000 tildecoins (every user is) and told that your
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account was created successfully.
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To log into `tcoin`, you type `tcoin on`, enter your passphrase, and wait
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for a success/failure message. `tcoin` uses `whoami` to identify the
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username and `scrypt` to authenticate with the passphrase. To discourage
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brute-forcing and to make passwords of shorter length safer, scrypt takes
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about a second or two to authenticate using your passphrase.
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Once you've logged in, running `tcoin` will show your messages (which
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includes details of transactions sent and received and any messages sent
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along with each transaction) and balance.
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To send some tildecoins, run `tcoin send <username> <amount> [<message>]`,
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where <message> is optional, but <username> and <amount> are mandatory.
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The amount must be a fixed point decimal number with two decimal places.
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If it is not, it will be converted to one. For example, 314.159 will
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become 314.15 and 42 will become 42.00.
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You can send tildecoins to yourself as well. You can use this feature to
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send yourself messages. You can use `tcoin` as a way of chatting with
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someone as well, by sending a small amount of tildecoins back and forth
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with a message included with each.
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The first hack of tildecoin was performed by ~elly. I give her complete
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credit with helping make `tcoin` safer. The most prominent hack till now
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has been from ~selfsame. His program, ~selfsame/flowers, will steal 900
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tildecoins from you if you run it. The whole reason passphrase-based
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authentication was implemented was so that you could run `tcoin off` to
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log off before running any programs whose nefariousness you weren't aware
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of.
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Thus, it is good security practice to not run any untrusted programs
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while you're logged into `tcoin`, and to run `tcoin off` and log off
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from `tcoin` before running any programs.
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If you want to review `tcoin`'s source code and compare the executable
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with the compiled source code, you can find the source code at
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/home/login/bin/src/tcoin/tcoin.cpp. You can compile it by running `g++
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/home/login/bin/src/tcoin/tcoin.cpp -std=g++11`. This will create a file
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called `a.out` in your current directory. Comapring this file with
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/usr/local/bin/tcoin (this directory actually symlinks to
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/home/login/bin/tcoin) will allow you to make sure that `tcoin` is safe to
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run.
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TILDEBOOK Tildebook is a directory for fello townies. Named after Facebook
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and modelled after its original purpose of being a "book of faces", i.e.,
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a directory of college students with their faces, tildebook takes the
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simple approach of giving you a 144px by 144px space to put anything you
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want.
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The way it works is you create a web page that looks good in a 144px by
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144px space in your public_html directory called tildebook_profile.html.
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If your username is ~example, then your tildebook page should be
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accessible at https://tilde.town/~example/tildebook_page.html. The
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update_tildebook script runs every week and checks everyone's public_html
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directory for the existence of a non-empty tildebook_page.html file. If
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found, it hyperlinks to them on https://tilde.town/~login/tildebook/. If
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you want to run the script yourself (for example, after having create a
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tildebook_profile.html page), you can do so by running
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/home/login/cronjobs/update_tildebook.
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The URL https://tildebook.tk redirects to
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https://tilde.town/~login/tildebook/ for now, but the latter will always
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be available and should be used as the URL for the bookmark if you
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bookmark tildebook.
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Every time the command is run, the order of the townies shown is
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randomised so that every townie has an equal chance of appearing at the
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top of the page.
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wow, thanks ~login!
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TOWNS & TAVERNS!
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our very own ~archangelic has been running a game of dungeons and
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dragons called towns and taverns! the first session is available to view
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online just here:
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http://media.archangelic.space/towns_and_taverns_ep1.mp4
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if you have trouble playing this, ~archangelic writes that vlc is able
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to stream it. if you'd like to get involved in the game please just get
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in touch with ~archangelic.
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____ __ ___ __ __
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|_ / ___ ___ ___ / /_/ (_)__ _/ / / /_
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_/_ <_ (_-</ _ \/ _ \/ __/ / / _ `/ _ \/ __/
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/____(_) /___/ .__/\___/\__/_/_/\_, /_//_/\__/
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------------/_/----------------/___/---------------------------------------
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the tilde.town spotlight is a section where we look at one user's ~ page.
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this month we are checking out the wonderful work of tilde.town stalwart
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~mio - http://tilde.town/~mio/
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there's too much to love about this page. the origami is of course
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stunning but the entire design is a real delight. it is simple, effective
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and really striking. the page reflects the quality of ~mio's origami:
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something stunning out of simple components. thanks ~mio!
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____ __
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/ / / ___ ___ _ __ __ _ ___ __ _ / / ___ _______
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/_ _/ / _ \/ -_) |/|/ / / ' \/ -_) ' \/ _ \/ -_) __(_-<
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/_/(_) /_//_/\__/|__,__/ /_/_/_/\__/_/_/_/_.__/\__/_/ /___/
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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welcome everyone who has joined recently! here are the new members and
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their ~ pages. a ** indicates they have updated their index page!
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• http://tilde.town/~vitaminplz
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• http://tilde.town/~emb **
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• http://tilde.town/~fairlady
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• http://tilde.town/~camilian
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• http://tilde.town/~mcf
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• http://tilde.town/~wiarien
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• http://tilde.town/~halian_tesaukan
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• http://tilde.town/~psi
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• http://tilde.town/~miwilc
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• http://tilde.town/~cwmccabe **
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• http://tilde.town/~fielious
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• http://tilde.town/~erin **
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• http://tilde.town/~s21
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• http://tilde.town/~toffee **
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• http://tilde.town/~quinno
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• http://tilde.town/~anarchastronomer
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• http://tilde.town/~noisecapella
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• http://tilde.town/~quine **
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• http://tilde.town/~nursemchurt
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• http://tilde.town/~wuz **
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• http://tilde.town/~impish
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• http://tilde.town/~cylrs
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• http://tilde.town/~agiri
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• http://tilde.town/~classique
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• http://tilde.town/~bootsy **
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• http://tilde.town/~forrest
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• http://tilde.town/~techkid6
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• http://tilde.town/~dbucklin
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• http://tilde.town/~dawran6
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• http://tilde.town/~bunnygirl
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• http://tilde.town/~tundrajimmy
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• http://tilde.town/~vox **
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• http://tilde.town/~tihnik
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• http://tilde.town/~avrak
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• http://tilde.town/~cymatist
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• http://tilde.town/~exo
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• http://tilde.town/~hashdang **
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• http://tilde.town/~ne1 **
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• http://tilde.town/~canadaduane **
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• http://tilde.town/~ironlake
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• http://tilde.town/~silver **
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• http://tilde.town/~ebbtide
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• http://tilde.town/~international **
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• http://tilde.town/~lily **
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wow, so many new users this month! I hope you all have a lovely time x
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____ ___ __ _ __
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/ __/ ___ ___/ (_) /____ ___( )___ ___ ___ / /____
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/__ \_ / -_) _ / / __/ _ \/ __//(_-< / _ \/ _ \/ __/ -_)
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/____(_) \__/\_,_/_/\__/\___/_/ /___/ /_//_/\___/\__/\__/
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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this month our editor ~jumblesale writes in with an essay about our
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responsibilities to each other as members of this community:
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we're incredibly fortunate on tilde.town to have such a comprehensive code
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of conduct (http://tilde.town/wiki/conduct.html). I will avoid
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paraphrasing it here but I think it is worth all of us having a fresh read
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of it and reflecting on the vision for tilde.town which it describes. as
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our community expands and more people join it is especially important to
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be reminded on what behaviour is most important when interacting with
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other members.
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I am not a spokesperson for tilde.town but if I could offer an extension
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to our ethos it might be: be considerate, be polite, but most of all, be
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kind.
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being considerate is acknowledging that we are using a shared resource and
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that we have been given huge responsibility within it. this includes
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things like not using up loads of disk and cpu but also not abusing things
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that call-out to other services like the toot or tweet commands, and being
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sparing with our use of wall which can be confusing to new joiners and
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distracting to anyone with an active session. remember the visibility of
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these commands: everyone is going to see you using them and in the case of
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wall are going to have to manually dismiss them. wall serves a wonderful
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creative purpose as showcased on ~vilmibm's page
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(http://tilde.town/~vilmibm/town.html). it is worth just considering the
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value of your message before sending it.
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it is also good to keep in mind that we have new users joining all the
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time and their first impressions are likely to determine whether or not
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they will become another vital part of our community. if someone joined
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right this moment, would your behaviour show our community in its best
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light? tilde.town has so much to offer that it is a tragedy if anyone
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feels they are not welcome.
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being polite is respecting the way you make others feel. if you are saying
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something which makes another member feel uncomfortable, it is far more
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valuable for you to respect their feelings than it is to keep talking.
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most large social networks have coalesced around an idea that free speech
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is the most important attribute. we have the opportunity to contribute to
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a space where the feelings of our fellow members is more important than
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our ability to talk about what we want. a polite thing to do is move
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conversations to less visible spaces - channels in irc are free to create
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and can be a good way to split off talk about things like current politics
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which can be a distressing topic for members of our community.
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being kind means acknowledging that the unusual nature of tilde.town will
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attract people disproportionately disenfranchised by other online
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communities. it means being able to understand that there are forces which
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systemetically oppress other members of this community, even if those same
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systems have been beneficial to you. if you are a beneficiary then this is
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not to criticise you, just to ask that you have extra patience for people
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who do not share your circumstances. tilde.town is always likely to
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attract people who are in some way marginalised. our responsibility as
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members to provide a place where they feel welcomed and valued - the same
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behaviour we would extend to any member of our community.
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it is also important that we provide a space where members are able to
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discuss ideas, explore and expand their knowledge. tilde.town is also
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unique in being an active multi-user system open to public registrations.
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we have a responsibility to support one another's learning in a respectful
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way. there is nowhere else on the internet where many projects which exist
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on tilde.town could be created. it is vital for us to preserve that.
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tilde.town is a truly unique place which has meant so much to me during my
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time here. it has changed my life and enriched it with many wonderful
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friends. when we see problems it is also our responsibility to work to fix
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them rather than to ignore them or disgard our community. I have always
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thought it is important to combat cliqueism in everything we create for
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for the town - a fracturing of our close-knit community would not be a
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benefit to anyone. to avoid this we must be able to treat each other with
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respect and gently remind one another of our responsibilities to our
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community when that fails.
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thank you for reading.
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____ _____ __ _
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/ __/ _______ / _/ /__ ____/ /_(_)__ ___
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/ _ \_ / __/ -_) _/ / -_) __/ __/ / _ \/ _ \
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\___(_) /_/ \__/_//_/\__/\__/\__/_/\___/_//_/
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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a very sweet moment of reflection this month comes to us from ~wuz:
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"try to detach your sense of worth with how situations end up.
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the stigma around failure stems from our cultural feeling that ability
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isn't the same as worth, which just isn't true"
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