Hey! So Ashley Blewer has created this wonderful syllabus to go along with the TV show "Halt and Catch Fire" (2014-2017), "a fictional narrative about people working in tech during the 1980s-1990s." The syllabus features readings on the history of technology, computers, programming etc. as well as recommended RFCs and emulators of old systems to take a look at to provide material for discussions about a set of episodes. I wanted to watch the show for a long time now, and since I really enjoy the A Pattern Language book club that was linked to here a few months ago, I thought it might be a nice idea to create a watch club to go through the series together–the way Ashley intended! I created a Discord for this purpose. Right now, no date has been set for the first session, as I want to give people some time to show up first. I'll announce the schedule soon. If all this sounds like something you might be interested in, please join me in this adventure! Here's the link: https://discord.gg/T3BDJN6AXz

sounds interesting, and I might have checked it out... if it were Anything But Discord. Not asking/expecting you to change now, and certainly understand how it's often the easiest choice to get set up... but I also feel it's worth reminding people that in going that route they're making privacy decisions for their users that may not be in their interests. That's true for closed commercial platforms of all stripes, but doubly so when it's a company with a specific history of abusing their users' trust.

@abeyer That's a very fair point and one I am aware of (still good of you to bring it up). I won't argue the point, as it is valid and sound. But as you also say, it is the easiest to get started with and it made the most sense for me and this project under the current circumstances–among other things because I'm already making heavy use of the platform. I would join anyone who set up a club with better tools, but am currently not in the position to change it for this club, sorry to say.