What have you been playing lately? Discussion about video games and board games are both welcome. Please don't just make a list of titles, give some thoughts about the game(s) as well.
I've been thinking a lot lately about burnout, ADHD, autism, work, and where I go from here.
My background is in entertainment design, print-focused graphic design, commercial printing, project management, production coordination, and over the years I've picked up a multitude of tech oriented skills with automation, software development and programming, mostly at hobby levels but still extremely useful.
I started out designing graphics for sets, props, and production, then gradually moved into the coordination and project management side by filling the gaps between creative teams, vendors, printers, clients, and production crews. Over time, that turned into a career built around helping complex visual and print projects move from idea to finished product. And I like it, I like being able to turn intangible ideas into reality.
But a lot of what has worn me down has not just been the workload itself. Print is stressful by nature, and I understand that. Deadlines move fast, clients change things, files come in wrong, and problems have to be solved quickly.
What has worn me down more is the pressure to work in a way that does not match how I work best, while also being hired for skills that depend on me seeing systems differently in the first place.
A major part of my career, especially as I moved into coordination and project management, has been my ability to understand systems, notice inefficient workflows, and find ways to improve them. I tend to see where information gets lost, where effort is duplicated, where confusion is being created, and where a better structure would help everyone.
A lot of this has actually stemmed from me adapting to my ADHD to create frictionless workflows for myself to help myself manage my life. But it translates well into systems and workflow because I understand where that friction is for a lot of people and how things get missed.
The frustrating pattern is that I often get hired partly because a company wants better organization, better workflows, better communication, or more efficient processes. Then when I start identifying those issues and trying to improve them, the follow-through fades.
Management may not fully support the changes. The existing culture may push back. Or one coworker who is deeply embedded in the company reacts badly and turns the situation into a conflict.
Eventually, I end up being pressured to operate inside the same inefficient workflow that was causing problems to begin with. Then I start looking ineffective in the exact environment I was hired to help improve.
That is where ADHD and autism make the struggle especially difficult. It is not that I cannot work hard or solve complex problems. I can. But when a workplace is unclear, reactive, socially political, inconsistent, or resistant to process improvement, I spend a huge amount of energy just trying to function inside it.
Then the anxiety builds. I start worrying that I'm going to be blamed, misunderstood, pushed out, or fired, even when I'm trying to help.
The hilariously frustrating thing is that I used to have Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria from relationships stemming from my ADHD, I would get anxious and paranoid when sensing a change in behavior patterns or tone or whatever, and I am very happy to say I have overcome that in my relationships and am much more secure. HOWEVER, in a hilariously frustrating turn of events, those exact rejection sensitive dypshoria senses have moved entirely to work. And I start panicking at a manager's tone change, or email.
I get in this mindset of expecting to be fired at any moment, where I can hear and see my manager pulling me in to give me "the talk" before being let go.
And frankly I think that burns me out more than anything.
Like right now in this current job, I was hired to improve the processes and inefficiencies, because the print shop I'm working at is using software literally from 2001 all run on ancient Windows 7 computers and has been unsupported for over 15 years, and their process is so painstakingly inefficient that I was hired precisely because they knew.
However here I am 6 months into the job, and I haven't even touched any process improvements and I am now expected to work entirely off of paper and a 25 year old unsupported software, both of which is so far away from my skillset and how I function that I'm struggling every day just to keep up.
Meanwhile, the HR woman who is also a project manager, has outright refused any process improvement and has forced me to work EXACTLY like she does. She's forced me to use her spreadsheet, she's forced me to handwrite everything(I have dysgraphia too, I struggle writing by hand but typing is second nature). She has thrown me under the bus. I created a synced spreadsheet using Microsoft 365 so we didn't have to send emails with spreadsheets every single night that clogs up our inboxes, and she just straight up said "I'm not using that." I can't even search through my emails for client or project keywords because it picks up her daily "Schedule" emails because her spreadsheet has an archive sheet with 20 years worth of jobs and clients. Every time I search my email I have to sift through 100s of her daily schedule emails, and I've been told I'm not allowed to delete them in case we ever need to go back.
Meanwhile I have been self hosting ERPNext and on my own time wrote a custom Printing App with custom forms for estimating, jobs, and project management, even tracking equipment maintenance, to mimic our current workflow as closely as possible while keeping everything digital and consolidated, yet nobody seems interested in that.
So now I'm coming into work every day, struggling to be functional, and questioning if it's me, the job, or what. And it's frustrating that this has happened at just about every single job I've had since 2020.
I have real experience and real value. I've worked across graphic design, commercial printing, production, prepress, project management, account management, estimating, vendor coordination, branding, marketing support, workflow systems, and automation.
I know how print projects go wrong. I know how to prepare files, coordinate specs, communicate with printers, work with clients, manage production details, and help avoid expensive mistakes.
That is part of why I've started seriously thinking about freelance work, print brokerage, design support, print consulting, and workflow automation.
On paper, it feels like it could make sense. It would let me build something around the parts of the work I know I'm good at: helping people plan print projects, prepare files correctly, source vendors, manage production details, improve workflows, automate repetitive tasks, and make the process less confusing.
I'd also get to manage my own time, my own processes without being judged or worried about being fired. I have so many ideas on finding clients, helping clients, and I've got skillsets that would set me apart from my competition.
I see a need for design teams and people to need help with print, because I've worked with so many clients in my jobs that struggle with what comes second nature to me. And because schools seem to always teach how Print is dying, the majority of graphic designers know very very little about how to design effectively for print, which a lot of my career has been geared towards helping.
The part I'm unsure about is whether this is a real next step or just another big ADHD idea that feels urgent because I'm burned out.
I know I'm capable. That isn't really the question. The question is whether going out on my own would actually give me the room to use those skills in a healthier way, or whether I'd end up running into the same patterns without the safety net of a regular job.
That is the part that makes me hesitate. Freelancing feels like it could be a way to finally build work around how I function best, but it also feels uncertain and risky. If the same issues around anxiety, conflict, communication, or feeling unsupported still show up, I would be dealing with them on my own.
So I'm trying to be realistic without talking myself out of something that might actually help. I can't keep going the way I have been. I feel burned out and stuck, and this idea feels just practical enough and just uncertain enough that I keep coming back to it.
If anyone has experience with freelancing, print brokerage, consulting, ADHD/autism in the workplace, burnout, or building a career around a skillset that does not fit neatly into traditional jobs, I'd appreciate your perspective.
I'm especially interested in hearing from people who have made some version of this work. Not in a "just quit your job and follow your dreams" way, but in a realistic way. What helped? What did you have to figure out? What made it sustainable?
I could use advice, but honestly, I could also use some encouragement and success stories from people who have been in a similar place and found a way forward.
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films 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.
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I picked up the book a couple of days ago and couldn't put it down. So now I am eagerly waiting for the chance to discuss. How is it going for you?
I think the simplest thing Arc Raiders nailed about gameplay is the pacing. The enemies move at such a pace that you never get instantly vapourised; you always have a second or two to try something crazy even when you're utterly doomed. The times that 'something crazy' works you have a unique memorable moment. Let me tell you about one of mine.
A Rocketeer is a common headache in Arc Raiders. It's a quadcopter drone the size of a tank that shoots rockets. It usually takes a big and expensive weapon to take one down, but players started to take notice of an item called a 'Hornet Driver', basically a stun grenade. What happens when you stun an aerial drone? That's right, it drops right out of the sky, to its doom if the fall is far enough.
With this in mind, I emerged from some tunnels to find another player pinned down by a Rocketeer. I throw a Hornet Driver, it hits just the right spot and the Rocketeer drops to the ground but is unharmed... and then in trying to angrily get back in the air it flips itself over on its back, completely immobilised. The two of us strangers hesitate for a split second before we sprint over and beat the thing to death with hammers.
There are flaws in this game but in terms of creating organic events it's been a great time.
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.
I was musing about this recently with the recent models becoming more capable. The core of gen AI is the model, which is trained on a massive dataset. To date, gen AI has improved because the models have become larger, more efficient, the data they are trained on has become better and the software/harnesses around them has improved to help query them.
As I see it, surely the bottleneck will soon become the data they are trained on? If we imagine a scenario where a models could consume an infinite amount of training data, and there is no limit to the training time or quality. The sum of human skill/knowledge is the limiting factor. Gen AI should (in theory) never be able to out preform or push the boundary of the sum of humanity at time of training.
Or, counterpoint, is there enough randomness and speed to iterate that gen AI can actually step change and improve if training times/cost were less prohibitive? Most companies/models today will save good output and feed it back into the next iteration, but right now that's taking months. What if that took minutes?
What do you think?
Is gen AI going to take us to general intelligence?
Will gen AI get to a place where it's "intelligence" and reasoning is actually better than the sum of Humanity?
The current plans for questions that will be asked in the coming weeks are as follows:
| Question | Survey opens | Survey closes |
|---|---|---|
| Vote for the next 4 surveys | ||
| What is your gender identity? | ||
| What's your favorite video game? | ||
| How optimistic are you about the future? | ||
| How often do you visit/read Tildes? | 2026-06-21 18:00 UTC | 2026-06-28 10:00 UTC |
This will be the last survey until August! Gonna take a little break from the surveys and develop the backend tools a bit more, as well as go on a vacation during the end of July, to the Tildes homeland actually! But in August I'll be back and we'll vote for the next set of surveys and get right back to it. :D
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Thank you all for participating!
I've been seeing this claim repeated across social media, blogs, and various online communities these days. However, I haven't yet found a discussion that digs into the evidence behind it or provides reliable sources.
Where can I learn more about this topic?
I'm increasingly skeptical of mainstream media coverage and a lot of what I encounter online, so I'm looking for sources that are as rigorous and unbiased as possible. I'd especially appreciate:
If you know of high-quality resources, I'd love to read about them.
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.
Here's to the wild ride that is fatherhood!
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Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films 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.
Custom games/game modes/rulesets give gamers the ability to enjoy some games nearly infinitely. Gary's Mod, Rust, Minecraft, Robolox, Fortnite, and many others keep people coming back as people create new ways to play.
When I was younger I played a ton of Warcraft 3 custom games. I remember there being a solid ~2 years when that was almost entirely what I would play whenever I was able to use the computer and then another 3-4 years after where I would play at least a couple of times a week.
I remember loving custom games like:
I remember chatting with a lot of interesting people, though I didn't have any friendships I made move past Warcraft 3 in to other games.
I know there are many other games with custom games or customer game modes that the community developed, with DotA 2 coming full circle from being the sequel to a custom game to having custom games of its own.
To get the conversation going:
We used this question as an icebreaker in my church group, and it was interesting seeing what people thought they used compared to what they actually used.
Did you guess correctly?
Anything surprise you about which apps you used the most/how much time you spent on them?
I guessed Chrome, YouTube, and my ereader app, and got them right. But I also tend to see those same three apps each week through the weekly health report and figured it would be those.
