I just got the official notice from my boss that I've been let go due to performance reasons. This wasn't a surprise to either of us at this point, as I'd been struggling to improve without sufficient improvement for a while up to this point. Can't really even blame my boss, as she really did try to gently help me get back on track over the last year. I think the likely culprit has been burnout all along -- I've been feeling like a fly stuck to fly paper for months at this point. Before getting fired I got some burnout leave started with my GP (it's not super hard to get medical leave for burnout here in Germany) but I initiated the process too late for it to make a difference for this job.

Luckily between my severance pay and eventually unemployment benefits, I'm not in any financial risk due to this change (advantages of moving to a country with a real social safety net). I can even get some free job training courses paid for by the state while I'm on unemployment. But between now and when that sort of thing starts, I'm wondering whether I should do something specific to help myself rest and recover from burnout. I'm planning on going back to therapy and talking to a professional about this, of course, but I'm curious whether anyone else here on Tildes has advice for how to recover from burnout other than just "take time off", since I've got that bit covered.

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This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

The sky unravels, thick with ash, A chocking breath, a world's last grasp. The trees, once proud, now twist and writhe, Their shadows stretch, and darkness thrives.
The wind hums low, an ancient curse, A whispered doom, rehearsed, rehearsed. It claws the earth, it bends the bone, And leaves the living cold, alone.
Yet deep beneath the fractured stone, Where roots have bled and seeds have grown, a pulse remains, defying fate, a quiet spark, through dark, awaits.
Its wings beat soft against the gloom, A fragile light within the tomb. Through darkness reigns, it does not see
The dawn will come. It always frees.

Welcome back from the second summer (fall?) break! And a sprint weekend at COTA in Austin, Texas, at that. And the start of a triple-header!

About to go to bed, so only posting the results for both the sprint race and the grand prix.

Except...Poor Hamilton. What a weekend to forget.

Next race:

Mexico City Grand Prix
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez -- Mexico City, Mexico
Sunday, October 27

In some games like Terraria or Horizon Forbidden West, you can have a "fake" set of armor on top of your "real" set of armor. The "fake" set defines how your character looks, while the "real" set determines your stats. This isn't a common thing in a lot of games, but in basically any game with different outfits with stats, I hear this being a requested feature. Whenever someone mentions this feature in a comment, people will chime in that it's cool and they wish [insert game here] would add it. The Horizon devs being one example of a studio who heard about this from the community of their first game, Zero Dawn, and added it to the sequel.

I really don't like this, even having it available as an option for single player games. Let me explain...

I think it really ruins the whole point of stat changing equipment in games. A big part of video games with customizable equipment and builds is designing a build and a character appearance that you like. Do you want to be slow with powerful attacks? Do you want to be fast with weak attacks? Do you want balance?

I'd argue that making a set that looks good while balancing the stats is another one of these things that adds to meaningful character creation decisions. Do you take the insane armor, or the really decent armor with worse stats that looks cool? Find a cool hat the character you're roleplaying as totally would wear? Oh, it has worse stats than the helmet you were using... But it weighs less! Maybe you can use a heavier chest plate to compensate for the stats you lost?

This also makes armor that both looks cool and has great stats into very valuable items that players want to get.

Of course for PvP games, having the type of armor that a player has on instantly give away their power level is important. On a Minecraft server, if you see two hostile players, one has leather armor, and the other has full netherite, you know the netherite guy is going to have better gear.

You might think this only matters for PvP games, but not allowing this mechanic in mostly single player games also adds a lot to the game, since you'll likely either see friends play the game or watch videos of other people playing the game. Each armor being intrinsically linked to certain stats creates a link between what you know that armor does and what kind of player would use that armor. In Elden Ring (which also has PvP, but bear with me), if you see someone wearing Bull Goat (the heaviest armor with the best stats), or wearing nothing but a jar on their head (to get worse defense but faster dodge rolls and some buffs to consumable throwing items), that tells you a lot about their play style just looking at their character's appearance. If both of these people could wear whatever armor they wanted and make the functional armor invisible, I would have no idea what build they had.

Using armor that looks good but has bad stats can be a fun flex to show you're good at the game, and choosing to have terrible fashion in exchange for stats is hilarious, as per this ProZD skit. That concept is a fun part of gaming culture I wouldn't want to see destroyed.

My mother and her husband's hobby is trawling Facebook marketplace for things they never realized they wanted (and often repairing them) and they managed to obtain a Harvest Right Freeze Dryer at a laughably low price. They've had some fun with it, and I'll be over soon and am considering giving it a try.

We're getting into winter, so my first thought was to freeze dry some toppings to pour into my ramen as needed -- I often add whatever is in my fridge, but it would be nice to have something mindless to throw in. Once you're running the dryer, it makes sense to fill it completely for efficiency's sake, so I'd be making a good quantity. There are 5 trays, so it would make sense to do 5 different mixes, though I could do more than that by making a tray separator with foil.

A little bit on freeze drying: To do it efficiently, you pre-freeze whatever you want to dry. Small or thin pieces are best, because they will sublimate out moisture faster, meaning the cycle completes faster. That's important, because the whole assembly uses a ton of electricity. Things that are very fatty or oily (ie, bacon or peanut butter) will not freeze dry well, and then will not be shelf stable after drying either. The other benefit of small pieces is that they rehydrate faster in liquid.

My first thoughts were a mix with frozen peas, carrots, broccoli and edamame (maybe chicken? But that's more work because it would need to be cooked first). Perhaps another with chopped napa cabbage, grated ginger and garlic...? I considered just doing individual ingredients, but I think it would just be easier for me to have a premade packet I can open and go. I typically buy chicken ramen, but I'll occasionally get something different.

There aren't any big Asian grocers anywhere near where the freeze dryer is, so any obscure ingredients I would want to dry, I would have to bring with me.

Let me know your ideas!

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