The growing season here in southeastern Australia is just kicking off, so I'd love to hear (and see!) your successes and failures, what you will repeat and what you want to change, what your future plans are, etc.

This topic is part of a series. It is meant to be a place for users to discuss creative projects they have been working on.

Projects can be personal, professional, physical, digital, or even just ideas.

If you have any creative projects that you have been working on or want to eventually work on, this is a place for discussing those.

We all have things we hate about our jobs — for many of us it’s the actual job itself — but I’m interested in hearing about the things that you actually like.

They can be big, satisfying things (like the fulfillment of completing a big project) or they can be tiny little insignificant joys (like writing your to-do list with a really smooth pen).

Let us know what you genuinely like about your work.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

A few of you mentioned in comments to my previous question that changing your mind could or did affect relationships. To those who did go through such a significant perspective shift, please share your story!

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

Between "enshittification" and my general admiration for hobbyist websites, I have felt more and more pressed to learn how to make the websites I want to see and offer it at low cost. At the same time, people usually have to maintain their day jobs and development expenses. I am curious how easy or difficult it is for people to do. (Also, I guess please share your small website if you'd like)

Always a fan of Sloan here, but I was recently reminded of Pure and have been grooving to “Spiritual Pollution” and “Anna”. So make me a virtual mix tape: What were your fav Canadian bands, albums, or songs of the ‘90s?

With the Youtube adblock debacle going on, and my account on Firefox+Ublock getting the dreaded popup, I was trying out the Piped alternative frontends for Youtube. If you're unaware, this is basically lets you browse Youtube without using the actual Youtube site or your Google account, and there's no ads. Whenever this adblock issue comes up, everyone starts pushing other frontends like Piped as the solution. There's also a dedicated bot that automatically replies with the Piped link when anyone posts a Youtube link on Lemmy. People seem to think very highly of this site! The simping for it can be very strong.

I tried using the main instance, https://piped.video, but it was laggy! Completely, unusably slow. I've also had it crash whenever I try to watch certain videos. I heard there were other instances that would have less users and less pressure on the servers, so I tried out the other public instances. One of them worked great for a couple days, now it just stopped loading videos all of a sudden. All the other instances I've tried either don't load videos, or the domain is down.

Are they cracking down on Piped now, or are all these instances just not good and you need to self-host to get anything out of Piped? Are there any other alternative frontends that you've liked?

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I lift regularly and I think I have good numbers. For information:

• age: 37
• Height: 178cm
• Weight: 72kg now
• Bench: 7 reps wkth 71kg
• Squat: 8 reps with 79kg (i recently recovered from a knee injury)
• Pull up: 1 rep with 35kg attached to a weight belt
• Kneeling ab-wheel rollot: I can do a straight set of 30 reps, followed by another of 25 and then more 20. Am working om doing it standing, but it's hard.

My SO decided to go on a diet and I joined her to help. My goal is to have a six pack abs for the first time in my life.

I don't even plan to maintain it all around. I just want to reach this milestone for a day or two and call it a day. After that I'll maintain weight for a month or two then start bulking. I am counting calories and macros.

I know it is a bullshit goal, but why not.

Anyway, I dropped from 77kg to 72kg and reached a point where she pointed out that my cheeks are sucked in. And I agree, my face is skinny right now.

I feel like I'm close, but I don't really know. Here are some pics I took this morning when flexing for reference: (1) (2)

My unflexed belly is not much bigger than this tho. I don't have fat hanging anymore.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

I grew up semi-bilingual (English as my native language, Spanish spoken at least once a day at home), and went on to study Spanish as my language of choice in middle and high school. Despite this, I would still like to further my Spanish language skills/knowledge with some self-paced coursework, as the Spanish I grew up hearing in the house was much more colloquial and then the Spanish I studied in school was the "from Spain" Spanish, rather than the Central American Spanish my family spoke. I grew up being better able to understand more than what I could speak or write myself.

When I moved onto to college, I wanted to try studying a different language, so I chose French (bad idea; I could never really get the hang of it between the spelling challenges and the pronunciation being so different from the written word). I took one semester and passed just enough to get credit for the class but moved onto to German -- which was a little bit easier than French but more difficult than Spanish. Beginner classes in it were easy for me to learn, but I started to struggle when I got to upper-intermediate. Plus, I'm not always great at spelling in English, and French and German are not "speller-friendly" languages haha.

Now as I approach my midlife, I am thoroughly enjoying my ASL for Beginners course through my local community college. I find it incredibly intuitive whenever I learn new signs ("oh, that makes sense, cool" when I see a new sign). My mother-in-law has known and taught ASL (as well as SEE) for over 20 years so she is very helpful with me practicing and being able to correct any small mistakes I make. I don't know anyone who is Deaf, but have had a few friends growing up who used hearing aids (I don't think they knew ASL).

So what about you? Are you currently learning a new language? If so, what is it, how do you like it so far, and what led you to want to learn it? If not, are there any languages on your wishlist that you'd like to learn someday?

For me, I wanted to learn ASL as a way to connect more deeply with my MIL in our relationship, as well as have some level of ability to sign with those who are Deaf/deaf. I also wanted to learn it because I wanted an alternative way to communicate with my spouse if we are at a noisy event/party/etc. without having to shout to be heard.

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

I became a fan of Premier League Soccer after an epic battle with YOShInOn, my smart RSS reader. (I tried to convince it I liked American football and not the other kind of football but in the process of trying to understand why it couldn't learn the difference I changed my mind.)

There's a free Premier League game on NBC OTA TV around 12:30 PM EST and once I got hooked a Peacock subscription seemed like a good idea so I can catch games (somewhat) early on Saturday and Sunday. The university I work at has men's and women's soccer games that I go to (it was fun to go to one where youth players showed up and I felt like we were part of a huge soccer universe) and sooner or later I am going to check out the games of the college on the other hill.

I know there's Major League Soccer here in the US and I understand it's gotten better than it used to be, and I understand you can get an add-on subscription to Apple TV which has all the games. Is there anyone out there who follows MLS?

I try to post a few articles a week about the Premier League and European Soccer and I think it would be great if somebody did the same for MLS, as something interesting has to happen every gameday.

Inspired by this comment and a need to burn off some steam during dead time in my day, I figured i'd spin off and ask what everyone else likes writing with.

I have atrocious handwriting, but have found i'm more likely to take notes if I actually enjoy what i'm writing with, and then by extension I started looking at smaller pens so I wouldn't mind carrying them on me at all times. After diving down the rabbit hole a bit over the years I've got-

Fountain Pens:

Lamy Vista-
The first one I dived into. Everyone recommended the safari, and the vista looked cooler, so I went with that. It eventually got broken, but I thought it was a great starting point. I haven't gotten any more though simply because I don't love that they use a different cartridge than the vast majority of pens, and didn't want to bother with converters.

TWSBI Eco-
My first piston fountain pen and still one of the best. I love the look, I love how it writes, I love that it's cheap so if I do screwup (like say put it through the wash 4 times over the years.....) it's not a bank breaking expense.

Kaweco liliput in fireblue -
This was my treat for not losing/breaking the Eco for a few years, and because i've got a sling I carry with me and wanted something nice to write with that fit with a notebook (there's a wallet I use for that). Much more expensive than a normal liliput but it's gorgeous and I love it.
NOTE: I linked to the nibsmith because I do think it's the only spot you should buy this pen from. They let you choose some extra options for the nib at the bottom, and for no extra charge, they'll do a "tune & smooth" pass which I've noticed helps with this pens one flaw of sometimes struggling to get it started. Not the end of the world if you're buying it for the normal $55 price and need something small, but extra unacceptable at the price point of the fancier versions.

Other Pens:

Bullet Space Pen -
I've got one in black and one in brass. They fit in the same compartment as the liliput for when I don't want to be using a fancier pen, and of course write very well, in basically any condition, and are extremely cheap for the hobby at $36.

Contrail pocket pen-
Silly expensive, but this one clips onto my wallet, which also has a notebook in it, and thus has become the pen I use the most. Writes well (and since it's a ball point you can easily change the cartridge to whatever you want), looks nice, and is quick to get open so I can take spur of the moment notes. I can use the Liliput/Bullet as well with my setup, but the liliput's screw cap is a little slow/unwieldy for those scenarios, and the bullet clip kept falling off in my pocket.

Stuff I've had my eye on:

Honestly i've found a lot of fountain/fancy pens are quite over the top/large, when I really prefer a more sleek/small look. Still one of these days i'll probably get a Vanishing point fountain pen, because I do think that's really cool, but I haven't seen too much else that's really caught my eye.

That's it for my modest collection. I'm curious to see what others have.

This is a recurring post to discuss programming or other technical projects that we've been working on. Tell us about one of your recent projects, either at work or personal projects. What's interesting about it? Are you having trouble with anything?

Meat and other related animal products are well-known for being efficient at providing the body with all nine essential amino acids. But as someone who is relatively new to eating a completely plant-based diet, I am struggling to find a variety of foods to incorporate into my meals to get an adequate amount of complete protein. I'd love to hear anything and everything from more experienced vegans about getting protein!

Recent article How can I get my engineers to accept being on call? sparkled some discussion, so I was become very curious.

If you can choose between working without any on-call duties or working where every second/third day you will be 24h on-call, what compansetion will make you accept second options?

Im in my early middle ages, and personally, I think

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I'm by no means a dinosaur expert, but I'd consider myself an enthusiast.

My favorite is the Carnotaurus. It's not quite as big as the classic T-Rex and has even tinier arms, but dude had bull horns on its noggin! And it'll still chase you down and gobble you up.

Everybody's got a favorite. And if you don't, find your poor lost inner child and ask them;

What's your favorite Dinosaur?

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.

Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.

What have you been watching and reading this week? You don't need to give us a whole essay if you don't want to, but please write something! Feel free to talk about something you saw that was cool, something that was bad, ask for recommendations, or anything else you can think of.

If you want to, feel free to find the thing you're talking about and link to its pages on Anilist, MAL, or any other database you use!

It's October, spooky month! So I figured I'd ask if anyone has any creepy, spooky, scary or unexplained experiences they'd like to share. I may have been waiting all September to post this These stories are always fun to read on AskReddit, so I figure it's only right to ask here on the spookiest month of all.

I am a pretty big fan of the PCMR Battle station posts where everyone shares their computers and desk setups. I have never seen one here so I figured I would start one!

Here is my desk, three 32" monitors (two facing the desk, one facing my living room on the back ). I primarily use my lower monitor and have background stuff on the upper (spotify, torrent client, youtube, podcasts, winamp, twitch, discord, etc etc). I have a bunch of old Xbox360 controllers and enjoy playing PC games on the couch on my rear monitor (as well as streaming obviously). The rear monitor also has a firestick and my only source of sound (other than my headset) is an Amazon Echo (which also controls my living room lights). The PC is a prebuilt from iBUYPOWER, it was my first time buying a prebuilt (I was hesitant to do so) and the only reason I did was because I was wanting to build a new rig right as crypto mining was driving up the cost of everything and I was able to get a great deal on this one. So far it has performed great. I still have two RAM slots open so I think that is the next thing I am gonna do.

I built my last computer in 2008 so I was way overdue for a new one and my S.O. has informed me I went a little overboard =)

9200 i7-8700K 6-Core 3.7 GHz | Liquid Cooled | Z370 Motherboard| GeForce GTX 1070 | 16GB DDR4| 1TB HDD | 240GB SSD |

Lets see what you guys have!

EDIT: sorry for the low picture quality, my cell phone is garbage.

EDIT2: forgot to include a screenshot

It's the same background on all three, but the taskbar is basic on the two secondary (and icons are only on the main). And if anyone was confused about the random monitor hanging off of the back of my desk this kinda shows it better.

What do you guys do to really listen to music in a mindful manner?

I don't do streaming, but I have a really big collection of albums in digital format, but the way I listen to music is to just shuffle everything and listen while doing other things.

I was contemplating entering the vinyl hobby, but living in Brazil this gets extremely expensive just to start. This would allow me to bring back the "ritualistic" aspect of listening to music and have good equipment to focus on what's being played.

I guess I could just force myself to not pirate music and buy an album a month on bandcamp. That would at least assure that I have good quality flac files instead of trusting random people on soulseek, but in the end it would probably end up in the shuffle pile.

Do you guys do something to try to be mindful of the music you are listening?

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

Tildetablers,

What board games, card games and whatnot have you been playing this week? Don't be shy, share those sessions!

For me it was a single game of Western Legends with expansions. I've played this game, sans expansions, a couple of times and have never really been blown way, but the expansion certainly helped and I enjoyed it a whole lot more.

The game sets you as a character in the wild west. It's a bit of a sandbox game: there are a bunch of things you can do and you have freedom moving around and doing them. You can hustle cattle, play poker, buy upgrades, prospect for gold, fight, steal, &c. You basically earn points by doing each of these things and working your way up various tracks to earn legendary points which are victory points.

The expansions added a whole frontier area to explore and added story cards, which are basically thematic events that give you goals to claim. I feel like extra board and story cards really improved the experience and immersion and it was much more enjoyable this time around. We also played two characters each, which may also have helped, as this made it possible to explore different strategies at the same time.

I'm still not massively impressed with the game, but I don't think I'll disappointed if it's suggested now. If I were forced to rate it I'd probably give it a 1.8/π.

So, everyone, what have you played this week? What did you think? What are you hoping to play next?

Kvass is a traditional Slavic beverage that is made by fermenting rye/wheat bread/flour/malt. The result is low alcohol (usually <0.5%), carbonated, and balances sweet, bready flavor with a refreshing tartness reminiscent of kombucha. It's a great substitute for beer, in my opinion, for people who can't tolerate significant amounts of alcohol.

This is not a common beverage outside of Eastern Europe. I've had freshly made kvass a couple times at Russian restaurants in the US, but it seems like the only other way to buy it is to find an store (brick-and-mortar or online) that imports canned or bottled kvass from the Slavic homeland - it doesn't seem like there are any US-based kvass brewers. On a lark, I bought some Russian kvass online - a brand called 'Букет Чувашии' (Buket Chuvashii - 'Bouquet of Chuvashia') - and it was actually pretty good compared to what I've had in the past. I'm interested in trying other brands as well, but looking through reviews, it seems like a lot of brands are more akin to weakly-flavored bread soda than a real fermented drink. I wanted to see if other people who drink kvass have any recommendations for what brands to try.

Another option is to home-brew kvass. Theoretically, this should be similar to brewing kombucha, or any other lightly fermented food or drink. It looks like there are even a few places where you can buy kvass 'starter kits'. A lot of instructions for homebrewing kvass suggest using brewer's yeast though, and it seems like it would be harder to limit the alcohol content this way. As far as I can tell, traditional kvass cultures are a mix of yeast and lactic-acid producing bacteria (again, similar to kombucha) - would using a kombucha starter culture work to brew kvass? If anyone here has experience brewing kvass, I'd love to hear about your experiences!