This week mine was homemade soda. Fermented sodas, citric acid + bicarbonate sodas, different juices and flavors like lime + lemon + cherry and pomegranate or mango peach or cola (homemade knock off)
An entire fucking fantasy world that started about 4 months ago and now has evolved into a trilogy. I’ve been writing several stories of key moments working on my writing style. I’ve never written anything before.
This is why I DM. I love world crafting and having a party of PCs keeps me focused on growing the world.
Ah, a fellow ADHDM
do not read the comments in this thread if you want any hope of achieving anything today
Too late. What’s yours?
Job search. Wish me luck!
Damn I wish I could get this one.
I wish I could force internship applications as my hyperfocus right now. If I could pick what becomes hyperfocus (to a more specific degree) that would be a superpower.
Edit: good luck in your job search!
For the past two weeks it’s been Legos. I always wanted to build big kits as a kid, but they’re way way too expensive, even for me today now that I’m making decent money. Well lo and behold, there are tons of knockoff Lego manufacturers, many of whom will just sell you 100% ripped off sets for dirt cheap. I just put the final piece on the new Rivendell set today, and I’m going to start the millennium falcon UCS here soon. Unfortunately, it’ll have to wait until my thumbs heal up from all the damage - placing tons of bricks really chews up the tips of your thumbs and index fingers
The damage to your digits might be due to the knockoffs. They are cheap and look like Lego, but Lego is still way ahead of them. Worth the extra money is debatable, but try grabbing even a cheaper Lego set to compare. The knockoffs haven’t figured out the tolerances and possibly also haven’t figured out the materials themselves, so pieces might take more force to place and still not sit as well.
You’d be surprised! I have a few smaller Lego sets (and I have tons of spare from childhood), and the quality of some knockoffs is basically identical to the real deal. Trust me when I say the knockoffs have figured it out in 2023. The real differentiator comes in packaging and quality control. It’s not uncommon for a set to have a few missing or incorrect bricks, which you need to order or replace from your own collection. In the end ABS is ABS and this molding tech is literally 50+ years old; there’s nothing holy about Legos process.
If you do a quick search you’ll also find tons of people complaining about sore thumbs and fingers, particularly after putting together large sets. There’s plenty to flame the knockoffs about, but this ain’t it
Not at expert myself - but according to my sources including the German youtuber “Held der Steine” Lego is not the top quality brand. Sure the very cheap ones are likely worse, but e.g. the polish brand “cobi” has as far as I heard better quality (I mostly heard about the difference in colouring though).
Oh there’s an online auction like eBay just for Lego bricks. Edit to say you’ve probably figured that out by now lol my bad
Well this week starts Inkttober sooo
I’m currently trying to learn music theory. Finding it hard to concentrate at work because the pieces have finally just started falling into place in my monke brain and I’m sucking up as much content as I can find.
I’d like to compose stuff at some point for video games that I will eventually develop, but if nothing else I’m dying to be able to know why I like my favorite music other than “that part sounds good.” There are too many “composer reacts” channels on YT and not enough people who truly break down the concepts. My favorites that I have found are 8-bit Music Theory and David Bennett.
Keep it up! A lot of people in music school struggle with Theory as well so doing it on your own and succeeding is quite the achievement.
Thank you for the encouragement! I had attempted this years ago and bounced off, but at this point I have a muse that gives me a huge surge of momentum (plus I’ve grown into a much more patient person when it comes to my own artistic expression). It’s such an incredible feeling
that part sounds good
Then you have to ask why does it sound good?
Because it makes you feel a certain way.Which way does it make you feel?
Happy/Sad/Powerful/Powerless etcWhy does it make you feel that way?
And so on and so forth. Try finding a few examples and compare what they all do similarly to achieve that same effect between them.
It’s so rewarding to track things down on your own, and then you can complete the knowledge by watching videos on the topic.
Does that make sense? I never know if I articulated my thoughts in a way other people can actually understand
Also, check out DaveWaves’ Explained in 2 minutes series
Why does it make you feel that way?
This is the one thing for which I want a concrete answer, and I feel like without the tools I’m currently gaining from these videos I can’t really come to a satisfactory conclusion. Sometimes I’m able to find similarities between songs, like the same chord progression, or key signature, etc. but never the complete answer. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll have to transcribe my favorite things and grind out the answers myself (I can also just search for the sheet music for some things, but I think I’d be doing my future self a disservice).
I agree though that it’s one of the most fulfilling things to come to the conclusion on my own. I just need the right tools first! I’m no Beethoven after all 😁
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll definitely check it out!
The difference between a major and minor chord can do so much, add in tritones and you’ve already got quite the toolset to create very specific emotions.
You’ve got the weight of a sound to work with, a good example would be the soundtrack of Interstellar. Contrasting a meaningless and powerless humanity in form of simple melodies on a piano with the absolute might and unfathomable size of space, brought to life with a massive organ.
Soooo much good music. On another note, check out The Good, the Bad and the Ugly played by the Danish National Orchestra, their channel is called DR Koncerthuset. If that one part doesn’t make you feel things, I don’t know what will
Dude that’s sick! Out of curiosity do you also play any instruments? I’m neurotypical but learning bass aswell as trumpet really made a bunch of theory stuff click for me
(Feel free to ignore this if it doesn’t work ADHD wise) Also a quick note on composition- if you hear something in a song and go “oh that’s a good idea” totally steal it, or a bit of it and repurpose it for your own songs. The best songs I’ve ever written were a bunch of cool bits from different songs and my own ideas. For example on a piece I’m just finishing I stole the chord progression from a j rock song I like (changed it a bit to make it better) and I stole a bunch of chord structures from a guitar solo, and stole a bit of the drum pattern for a bunch of different songs all mashed together. Robbery is cool
Hey fellow trumpet player! I played it for 7 years through middle and high school, and I even did jazz band in HS. I was third- then first chair in our top band, yet I still didn’t learn anything deeper than musical notation and major scales… Things like the circle of fifths, modes, even chord progressions? I now know they’re all pretty basic concepts, but back then they were a form of mysticism reserved for the gods of music. Thankfully all the basic stuff has stuck with me as if I never stopped playing, which has provided a priceless foundation. Oh, and very strong relative pitch!
I definitely plan to take ideas from here and there and evolve them, if only as homage to my composer heroes. Just as in game design, nothing is completely original anymore, and everyone “borrows” ideas all the time. Regarding drum patterns, definitely gonna tap into the works of Peart and Portnoy!
Thanks for the inspiration, by the way. It really helps keep the fire going!
I want to recommend Perfecto De Castro’s guitar tutorial too. While he is teaching music theory for guitars, it helped me to understand some basics applicable to music in general as well.
Thanks for the rec! Not sure why someone downvoted you, but I was able to find his playlist with music theory concepts after some digging. I’ll use this to supplement the rest of the material I’ve found.
Dragon Ball Z. I finally watched everything I missed as a kid, all the way to the end. Just started watching Super and the new animation is great, but I can see why people miss the old style.
Watching the silly Arale episode and the baseball episode, I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard watching DBZ!! Highly recommended, if you haven’t seen them!
Dont forget the abridged series
I want to go back and start DBZ from the beginning, but my anime backlog is almost as bad as my video game backlog 😢. I’m currently trying to work through One Piece but I refuse to watch the dub, which means I need to give undivided attention 100% of the time, which is nigh impossible.
For DBZ however I think I’d be fine with the dub, since that’s what I grew up with on Toonami!
If you wanna kill two birds with one stone (or maybe more likely just make both lists longer), DBZ Kakarot goes through the entire DBZ storyline. It’s not as detailed as the anime or as funny as the abridged version, but it did satisfy me and I’ve only seen the anime up to around the start of the Android saga before watching super.
Photography has got me pretty good. Specifically old interesting concrete, graffiti, decaying structures, that kind of thing. Been at it for a good while too, this is one I can hopefully string out to just become a long-term hobby!
I’m rooting for you, just don’t fall too deep into the rabbithole that is vintage lenses^^
But if you do, here are my personal favourites:- Minolta MD Rokkor 50mm 1.4 (Or the 1.2, if you find one at a good price)
- Pentacon Auto 50mm 1.8 Multi Coating
- Helios 44-2 58mm 2.0
I imagine old lenses in general would work wonderfully with the motives you mentioned, with all their little quirks and design flaws that give the image extra character
Ha, that rabbit hole yawned right in front of me almost immediately! I’ve ended up with a few, but I’ve sort of stuck on a couple - the Helios 44-6, and a Helios 28mm that turns out to be a Tomioka in disguise (and about 1/5th the price!), and a Nikkor 50mm 1.2, and Nikkor 300mm. The 300mm especially is phenomenal, easily the nicest manual focus I’ve ever encountered, it’s a joy to use and takes absolutely awesome pics. There are a couple still itching at the edges of the irrational-craving container, but I think I’ve managed to rein the gear acquisition in, in general, and am trying to focus on composition, and learning FOSS editing tools like Darkroom.
AI. For some reason I’m looking at taking a degree on it next year like I’ll still be interested then.
As someone who studied data science up until a year ago: Consider that carefully. The whole space is moving so ridiculously fast that half the stuff you learn will be outdated in 2 years.
If you want to get a job in the field right after getting that degree, it makes sense. But if you already know how to program, learning AI stuff for 2-3 months can also get you that job. It’s quite a new field, so the requirements aren’t formalized yet. That path would probably make more sense for ADHD.
I got angry at my cell phone bill and started researching switching. But then it was time to go home from work, so I might be over it. if anyone has suggestions for wireless service, or something else that’ll help me waste some time, throw them at me!
I went down that path about 2 years ago. Working from home and generally being a homebody, I’m basically on wifi all the time. I made the switch to Ting (from Sprint) and pay $15/mo, maybe $20 if I go over my 1GB data on 5G (I have alerts set up). It’s not ideal if you drive a lot and stream music on Spotify or whatever (or if internet/power goes out), but if you literally have no life, don’t go anywhere, and basically have nonstop wifi, Ting is pretty cool. It uses T-Mobile towers, so your mileage may vary. There’s a few places it gets a little fucky, but it’s been pretty reliable overall. I thought about looking into Mint recently, but decided not to even dive down that rabbit hole.
I was just looking at Mint, I’m kinda leaning that way, but I still have quite a bit to pay off on one of my phones, so the big question would be keeping that one on Verizon for a while and switching the others or just hold off.
I was able to shave a bit off my current bill by changing plans, but these new VZW plans really suck.
I’m quite happy with US Mobile. Runs on Verizon towers (I think there’s an option to do T-mobile instead?). We have 3 lines sharing 12 gb for $41.
Fountain pens and the band Talking Heads.
Yay fountain pens! Watch out for their close friend, watches, though.
I think I’m safer from that one being a woman. I love my Apple Watch - it helps me find my phone 😂
Haha I am too and still got sucked in
Whats your favorite one currently? I think mine is a new one, from Motor City Pens
I just got into them so I’m using Lamy Safari and China pens from AliExpress right now. Want to see if this lasts or passes before I sink some serious money into a good pen haha
Lamy safari is great! If you wanna try out bottle ink, look at the twsbi eco too. Same price range, real great writer
You can also buy a converter for your Safari that will let you use bottled ink. I have like 7 Safaris. Love them.
This Must Be The Place (Naïve Melody) may well be my favourite love song of all time.
Same 😍
Emulating Switch games on my phone. I’ve got a Switch, and I’m emulating the games that I own, but because it didn’t immediately work on the phone, it’s started that little obsession.
The most relatable thing is this thread.
And once you get them working flawlessly, you’ll never play them again, right?
How did you know?! 🙈🤣
Because I just spent hours configuring and troubleshooting NixOS to make a perfect little Steam box for my TV.
Works great, feels like a game console. Couldn’t ask for better.
Zero desire to actually play anything on it.
I always set things like this up fully expecting to actually use them. Somehow it just doesn’t happen.
Building the LEGO set is more fun than playing with it when it’s done.
And you know what? That’s perfectly fine^^
That’s a good analogy, I like Legos as well. Perhaps I am more of a builder and tinkerer than a player. Unless it’s Cities Skylines, I play the shit out of that!
I had no idea that was even remotely plausible. Super cool.
It’s plausible, but slow so far. I can get some of the games running, but slowly. Others crash, and I have no idea why
Geology. I found a professor on youtube (Nick Zentner) who puts up lecture series and seminars. There are so many mysteries and amazing things to learn.
I just moved and won’t have home internet until tuesday, so I downloaded his entire geology 101 to watch while unpacking.
that rocks
My current hyperfocus is managing ADHD
I bought a gaming computer. I made spreadsheets comparing the parts and prices and everything.
Congrats, don’t forget to actually play games with it now!
spins up a 25 year old point and click Java rpg
By games, you surely mean benchmarks?
