0x29A's recent activity
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
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Comment on How to tolerate annoying things in ~health.mental
0x29A (edited )LinkBeen thinking about this a lot lately, listening to various discussions surrounding these kinds of topics, and radical acceptance and adjacent ideas really touch on those points. Ways of not...Been thinking about this a lot lately, listening to various discussions surrounding these kinds of topics, and radical acceptance and adjacent ideas really touch on those points. Ways of not taking things personally automatically. Not creating more internal suffering for yourself unnecessarily. Realizing in some ways that "you are not your thoughts". Treating both a nice comment from someone and a mean comment from someone else as sides of the same coin, and not letting that coin itself be the primary means of seeking happiness or an oversized impact on you negatively, etc. Finding a type of peace that comes from within and isn't contingent on the fleeting things happening externally. Seeing consciousness sort-of as a screen that the movie of life is playing itself out on. Seeing others as yourself / imagining every person as if it were you living a different life. Less about thinking of one of these as the perfect lens to view life through and more as tools to recognize something (the recognition being more important than the tool)
People can sometimes stretch these things into places they shouldn't go, or reach the wrong conclusions- or infer the wrong things from them. I get it- it's easy for our brain to latch onto the limitations or exceptions or whatever, but I think there's a lot of value in many of these ideas and applying them to daily life, even just in small ways- just at a baseline level. Nothing "woo" or weird or dogmatic or religious or anything, just different ways of approaching our moment to moment experience of consciousness and the world.
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
0x29A Link ParentYeah Krisiun always lands in my brain in a similar way to Ulcerate or Hate Eternal. It's highly technical death metal while at the same time far from being the subset of specific things that has...Yeah Krisiun always lands in my brain in a similar way to Ulcerate or Hate Eternal. It's highly technical death metal while at the same time far from being the subset of specific things that has become to be known as "tech death"
Also agree on Repugnant. It's the best thing Tobias has ever done. I want more of that. It's also very unique. It's got that tight-rope walking of "dark/gothic influence without being cheesy" that isn't commonplace in the genre. It's pulling some outside stuff in and melding with it in a way that's pretty rare.
You can almost tell that Ghost came out of the same mind in a way. There's a small essence underneath that ties the two together just having taken two extremely divergent paths
I'm of two minds with Ghost. I will at the same time be frustrated that it's what a lot of people consider "metal", etc but I have come to enjoy it for what it is, at least the early few records and an occasional song since, which is more just initially more metal-leaning now-theatrical-rock that self-awarely leans into the cheese. I feel like Ghost, as a Tobias vehicle, arrives where it does from a genuine metal background and so I have found the lens through which I can enjoy it. I think sometimes feeling a sonic link in my head between something like Blue Oyster Cult and Ghost helps contextualize it for me too somehow
That said i am not trying to convince anyone to give Ghost a first or second try or to avoid them. Just how it has come to settle in my head, as an opinionated music listener
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Comment on What is something you're holding together? in ~talk
0x29A LinkI actually don't think I have anything in my life like this at the moment and I'm comfortable in that reality of things for now. I don't want to ever be the center or the only piece holding...I actually don't think I have anything in my life like this at the moment and I'm comfortable in that reality of things for now. I don't want to ever be the center or the only piece holding something together just because that comes with a lot of bad pressures and incentives and perceived obligations that often would violate my boundaries.
But being a small integral piece is fine. In past jobs I have been someone like that and it feels good to feel wanted and needed.
I know I have been in the past, while not the center, certainly a part of something outside of work even that helps hold it together. A board game night I used to have with friends is one of those. Even though I was just a participant, didn't own the games, didn't live where we played, once I left it fizzled out, just due to my leaving permanently changing the dynamic, I think. I felt a little bad for a time but realized that stopping was me respecting my own personal boundaries in a few ways and so doing so was actually emotionally the right thing to do
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Comment on Dimmu Borgir – Ulvgjeld & Blodsodel (2026) in ~music
0x29A Link(Disclaimer: if you like it, more power to you, don't take my criticism as an attack on what you enjoy. I can be fairly opinionated on music/metal in general) I'm personally pretty disappointed in...(Disclaimer: if you like it, more power to you, don't take my criticism as an attack on what you enjoy. I can be fairly opinionated on music/metal in general) I'm personally pretty disappointed in this track, but I didn't expect anything better from modern Dimmu.
Compared to early Dimmu, I find it lacking substance and to be rather boring and slow. The guitars are barely present, the symphonics are overbearing more than they are complimentary, just feels like the further watering down of their work. The last full album I could stomach by them was Abrahadabra, which I think had some good tracks- I've got a soft spot for parts of it. But even Abra was a dilution compared to prior records which are worlds better. Even the one right before Abra (In Sorte Diaboli) is night-and-day better. Then, IMO, Eonian took another step down from that, and was so watered down that I never went back to it. Maybe one or two tracks I enjoyed. Just not pleasant to listen to... Now this just feels like an even more boring Eonian. It just feels like... nothing happens. Just kinda slow, plodding, symphonic emptiness. And while it's true that I have a general distaste for any metal or metal-adjacent stuff that is symphonic, usually symphoblack, when done right, is the exception to the rule
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
0x29A LinkUranium CDR https://cruelforceofficial.bandcamp.com/album/haneda https://hellripper.bandcamp.com/album/coronach-24-bit-hd-audio...Uranium
CDR
https://cruelforceofficial.bandcamp.com/album/haneda
https://hellripper.bandcamp.com/album/coronach-24-bit-hd-audio
https://everlastingspew.bandcamp.com/album/incongruous-forms-of-evergrowing-rot
https://caligarirecords.bandcamp.com/album/sword-sorcery-vengeance
https://acephalicvoid.bandcamp.com/album/we-chose-death -
Comment on What creative projects have you been working on? in ~creative
0x29A (edited )LinkAside from 3D printing / CAD learning which I talk about in the "technical" project topic... so I don't want to repeat myself... Music! I am forcing myself to try, though am struggling a bit...Aside from 3D printing / CAD learning which I talk about in the "technical" project topic... so I don't want to repeat myself...
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Music! I am forcing myself to try, though am struggling a bit lately with hating my voice (which comes in waves, and sometimes I get over it and then have the problem again later), but also with songwriting. Feel a bit stuck from time to time, even when writing/creating on the fly, and even when doing less accessible or less structured things (ambient / harsh/industrial black/death noise / etc) which are part of what I'm working on right now. As a break from that and to get used to my singing voice I've been working on covers of softer songs too. Sometimes the struggle is it just feels like everything I create is "too much like everything it's inspired by" or I convince myself it's something no one would want to hear, or whatever. I think I'm in my head WAY too much. I'm very aware of it at least. ----- But also, in the process I've been learning and getting better at piano, learning chords, and learning how to use both hands at once. It's been decades since I really focused on this (when I was a kid I did keyboarding) and it's been a joy to work on again as part of the overall picture of my music-making, and I think it'll become an integral part of my ambient work
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Yardwork / fixing stuff around the house! The creative portion is me doing some small aesthetic things. Being outside in general is not my thing, and certainly landscaping and such isn't either. But I just made a few easy inexpensive choices and spruced things up a bit and just that little bit made things look so much better that it eased my mind. So now I'll be focusing on some next steps in a similar vein.
EDIT: Gonna update this and say, actually, I kinda broke through my writers block on music (at least of the harsh noise / death industrial / etc variety), and not long after I posted this I've been able to focus and write more of it than I have in a long time. Have a full track, more ideas than ever before, and a second track on its way. None of this publicly available yet, but yeah.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
0x29A Link(never sure if this is better suited for "technical" or for the "creative" projects thread/topic) Continuing FreeCAD experimenting. Often something that feels like it's going to be overwhelmingly...(never sure if this is better suited for "technical" or for the "creative" projects thread/topic)
Continuing FreeCAD experimenting. Often something that feels like it's going to be overwhelmingly annoying to do actually ends up being simple, it's just a matter of knowing which workbench to use and which tool to use, and those things are not always very intuitive, so I spend more time looking for what I need than I do actually using the tool once I've found it. I can see how someone can get efficient with this once they've wrapped their head around where to go based on what they need to accomplish.
Working on making some kind of cover that clips on my EDC flashlight to cover the magnet so it doesn't stick to my keys on the same keychain. Have made a prototype but it falls off so I need to rethink how it attaches.
Also printed by biggest print so far (~8h), which is not designed by me, but is a replacement front bezel / top chassis piece for a Lenovo Tiny. Printed the fully-vented variant (available under the STL/CAD file area- you can see others' prints of the fully-vented version in the comments on that page).
I did it with PLA which is a bit rigid so I've run into minor fitment issues, but having a fully-vented chassis has made a WILD difference on operating temperatures. Disabling turbo helped with temps too, but I measured before/after with the original vs. vented chassis, BOTH with turbo disabled, and the chassis change alone still made an incredible difference. I think Lenovo's original design just starves for air and traps hot pockets of air too so temps just constantly build up and the air has no easy way to get out, so the components keep soaking in heat.
Now that the system can breathe the temps spike less overall, build more slowly, quickly cool once usage decreases, etc.
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Comment on Thinking of getting Proton and using it as my day-to-day email, but I have concerns in ~tech
0x29A (edited )Link ParentI think others (myself included) went off on privacy-related talk because it's hard to avoid on a topic like this. In describing your questions/concerns about "what does Proton actually offer me",...I think others (myself included) went off on privacy-related talk because it's hard to avoid on a topic like this. In describing your questions/concerns about "what does Proton actually offer me", you touched on a lot of key ideas when it comes to privacy/security which have more general implications and Proton is a drop in the bucket overall of considering products/services of varying usefulness.
I guess if you want a simple focused answer to the question overall: yes, for a normal everyday person, Proton Mail (and many other services for that matter including VPNs, etc) have an abundance of marketing about privacy that ultimately may not have a material effect on your privacy on their own. Proton is certainly not alone in this. Security/privacy is a market and will be saturated with companies vying for everyone's dollar and they will make promises that may even technically be true while giving people a false sense of privacy/security. It doesn't mean everything they market in terms of features is inherently pointless, because those features may matter WHEN combined with other considerations, but yes marketing can blow them out of proportion by making services sound like some magic privacy cure-all
I still think a lot of it comes down to privacy/security-literacy. I think even when marketing has restraint- people want a magic pill. People make assumptions and have unreasonable expectations all the time. So, people will sometimes think they're getting more benefit than they are. I think using something like Proton mail might incrementally help one's privacy, simply just for the fact that they at least have slightly less info to give up than another service would. Does this tangibly mean much when metadata can be tied to you, and if you're mailing addresses outside of Proton, those messages are easily captured elsewhere? No. It does mean if two people want to converse strictly from one Proton address to another there's some extra privacy there potentially.
But yeah, if you're not considering every other factor involved and mitigating those (payment providers, IP logging, other vectors for your data to be obtained and linked to your identity, etc), it might not do much for you on its own. Especially since Proton does give up the information they do have when they're legally required to do so. This includes "backup/recovery" email addresses, payment stuff, etc. I think one has to look at a private email service like "one step of many" in an entire security/privacy process and yeah a lot of people don't realize that.
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Comment on Thinking of getting Proton and using it as my day-to-day email, but I have concerns in ~tech
0x29A (edited )Link ParentI think privacy for the sake of privacy, even if one can't understand its applicability in that form, is a principle that is worth protecting on its own, because then it's available for any...I think privacy for the sake of privacy, even if one can't understand its applicability in that form, is a principle that is worth protecting on its own, because then it's available for any particular situation where it's needed, and the situations in which it is beneficial or useful are a wide variety, and sometimes complex or not obvious. Sort-of an idea of "it's better to err on the side of privacy". Some people I think freely offer up too much information online because they don't understand the implications of doing so. I don't know your roommate, but maybe at some point they (or someone they knew) were burnt in some way by others having some details of their life and that has made them more guarded now
But that's all tangential to whether an everyday user less concerned about it should move to or sign up for services that claim to provide it. I more think that everyday users should be aware of how what they're currently doing or what they're currently using could be impacting their privacy more than they would be comfortable with, and the limitations of what they can protect and how. I think people should be privacy-literate, but the levels of usefulness of "private" <product/service> will differ depending on the person (and on what said product/service truly provides)
For me, I moved to Fastmail, not because it's private or even a privacy service at all, but because I wanted out of the hands of Google and I'd rather be with a company where I'm not the product (and importantly, use my own domain, so that I can change email providers at any time while keeping the same address, instead of being permanently tied to a particular company). No ads, I pay a small amount, no AI, etc. I don't want Google vacuuming my email into their AI systems, I don't want them to serve ads based on the content of my email, and I wanted away from their ecosystem entirely, especially for things like email.
That said, I probably think and care about it a lot more than an everyday user, just because I'm tech-savvy and have a lot of thoughts about how companies use our data and so on. Would anyone in my family care nearly as much? Nope.
And you are right that using Proton mail on its own is not really going to impact your privacy much, at least in terms of not having an account or IP or whatever tied to other things. It's true that the web is a clusterfk of a privacy mess and having a more private email won't solve it.
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Comment on Dentist prank advice in ~life
0x29A LinkI would caution that whatever you choose, make sure it's truly something very benign that they can laugh at too. I think a large portion of prank culture is cruelty or bullying disguised as humor...I would caution that whatever you choose, make sure it's truly something very benign that they can laugh at too. I think a large portion of prank culture is cruelty or bullying disguised as humor and assumed harmless. A lot of pranks are "laughing at" instead of "with". Make sure the prank invites them and accepts them into the joy rather than separating them from it.
There are a lot of situations where an unexamined prank seems funny or like a good idea but puts the other person in a very awkward social situation or position and in a way that makes them feel bad, even if they hide it. Taking extra care when you're doing this to someone you're trusting to provide medical (or similar professional) care seems wise.
Given at least a couple of comments on that video I came away with an impression it might have not gone well. To reiterate one of the comments, if you pull a prank and you're the only one laughing or enjoying the moment, there's a good chance it's not a pleasant experience for the receiver.
Sorry, don't mean to preach but I've seen it a lot of times and have been on the receiving end some of those times and so I felt compelled to speak
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
0x29A (edited )Linknew Darkthrone track released surprise reunion (without the abusive member) of Neurosis with an album drop death/doom Gutvoid - Liminal Shrines rave/techno act Kap Bambino Also continuing to...- new Darkthrone track released
- surprise reunion (without the abusive member) of Neurosis with an album drop
- death/doom Gutvoid - Liminal Shrines
- rave/techno act Kap Bambino
Also continuing to listen to a lot of what I was listening to last time I posted, so I won't repost. Just some comfort food / warm blanket artists that I always go back to when I need something comforting and emotional
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
0x29A Link ParentOkay, thanks for the rec! Will check that out. I have almost exclusively dealt with the Part Design workbench and not really messed with just the Part one, but I will play with it and see how it feelsOkay, thanks for the rec! Will check that out.
I have almost exclusively dealt with the Part Design workbench and not really messed with just the Part one, but I will play with it and see how it feels
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Comment on Your daily coffee may be protecting your brain, 43-year study finds in ~health.mental
0x29A (edited )Link ParentYeah, and it's one of these difficult things where you really have to consider the dose of tea or coffee being used, the quality of the tea / loose leaf vs bag, the type of tea or coffee, how...Yeah, and it's one of these difficult things where you really have to consider the dose of tea or coffee being used, the quality of the tea / loose leaf vs bag, the type of tea or coffee, how they're brewed/extracted, etc because things can vary widely. (I can brew up a pot of some raw pu'erh tea that will knock my socks completely off)
The video is not out yet, but Lance Hedrick did some caffeine testing doing a coffee brew on an OXO Rapid Brewer vs a Pourover, and the results he has hinted at in a live video so far put the pourover as quite a bit higher in caffeine strength, despite using the same amount of coffee for each brew. So just the extraction method alone can make a big difference (don't quote me on this as no official results have been published yet though)
It can be a little messy to nail down the most "typical" use but I'd say that's generally true just based on a (made at home in a coffee pot, not cafe) very generic "8oz of brewed regular (Arabica) coffee using typical coffee dose/strength" and "8oz of brewed (black) tea using a standard tea bag like Lipton". For that you're looking at something, very generalizing here, of like ~100-120mg for the coffee and ~50-70mg for the tea.
A single shot of espresso will be about the same as the tea, maybe averaging slightly on the higher end. But then again, let me reiterate how difficult it is to nail down specific figures- because if you look at Starbucks' Pike Place Roast, their 8oz cup of black coffee is 155 mg - 195 mg (stated directly on their site), when purchased in prepared form from their cafe, which is quite a bit more than one would expect for a coffee that size.
But this all got off on a bit of a tangent- but yeah, in general, for very typical mass produced consumer tea consumption of a black Lipton tea bag, that's 55mg for the tea, compared to 2x that for a coffee of the same size brewed at a typical strength
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
0x29A Link ParentThanks! Yeah it's definitely been an adjustment to learn the Sketch -> Part style of design. Especially where there are restrictions on doing multiple shapes together with each other unless you do...Thanks! Yeah it's definitely been an adjustment to learn the Sketch -> Part style of design. Especially where there are restrictions on doing multiple shapes together with each other unless you do it a certain way, etc. There was a video series about "moving from Fusion to FreeCAD" which, even though I've never used Fusion, helped me grasp a lot of the concepts and power in FreeCAD. I do think I can learn it well- I just find it annoying, even once I eventually learn it, that I can't drag 3D shapes and "draw" in 3D space directly. That's so much more intuitive to my brain, but if I want that, I need to use my Windows PC, or a Windows VM, and use software with a licensing model I'm not going to be a big fan of (whether that's Fusion, Solidworks for Makers, Siemens Solid Edge, etc. - and I'm not even sure which of things like these fit the bill- or Plasticity which will cost money and not provide enough)
On the other hand, FreeCAD is so powerful (especially given the spreadsheets / parametric stuff) for an open-source / free project that it almost feels better just to "deal with it" and learn it instead. Maybe the process of learning a more difficult tool will enhance my skills more than something where it's easy. I still wish it was easy though- drawing in 3D directly is so much more enjoyable haha!
I've fiddled with OpenSCAD too, and while I'm not a programmer currently, I've taken a bit of classes for it a long time ago, and done a little on my own, so I'm familiar- I've thought about trying to go deep into building models that way, but that feels like an even bigger hurdle, so maybe I should settle on something and learn it.
The beauty of the "put these things together like legos" workflow of something like TinkerCAD is I can get in and out with a quick simple design of a clip/bracket/etc for my needs in the shortest time possible
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Comment on A hobby of collecting hobbies in ~hobbies
0x29A LinkI feel this deeply, haha and I'm sure some neurodivergence (undiagnosed) has a lot to do with it. Lots of barely-started or unfinished projects or avenues of pursuit. Though part of doing so has...I feel this deeply, haha and I'm sure some neurodivergence (undiagnosed) has a lot to do with it. Lots of barely-started or unfinished projects or avenues of pursuit. Though part of doing so has been the "plan" all along- to try all sorts of new things, including things I've never attempted before, and see what remains after I've experimented a while. I just decided to try as hard as possible not to assign any kind of judgement of "failure" to any of the experimentation- since a lot of it was just testing waters to see what I like- and to see what unearth some latent talent i didn't know I had or something.
- I have life-long hobbies I'll always stick with (songwriting/instruments/making music, personal tech stuff, poetry, etc)
- For a year+ I kept up a weekly blog with my favorite music releases. I dropped this after sticking with it a while just because I lost a bit of interest. I kinda wish I had kept it up. Have been considering trying to start it back up but I'm not sure yet
- I've tried drawing / illustration and it's definitely tough and something I haven't stuck with. But I keep it around as a possibility when I get the itch
- Have occasionally messed with trying to get back into programming, since it's something I kinda burnt myself on with a bad college experience and never went back to, plus the difficulty with math and some other items. That said, I'm still interested in possibly pursuing this just on a small personal level with Lua or some other language, but it's a bit tough to get it going
- Speaking of languages, I've attempted to start learning another language than my primary, and never got too far. A number of weeks of pre-AI DuoLingo, etc. but this is definitely a tough endeavor, especially when the languages I'd like to learn are pretty tough anyway (Chinese, etc). I'm still interested in this but just cannot commit to it. I still like dabbling with it though because my brain enjoys it.
- I got into basic 3D printing/designing and this one is staying FOREVER. I love it and so glad I took the chance
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
0x29A (edited )Link(Did not design these, printed others' prints): 3D printed a stand for my Anker magsafe charger. 3D printed spacers for 120mm fans. 3D printed a 100mm to 75mm set of adapting VESA brackets and...(Did not design these, printed others' prints):
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3D printed a stand for my Anker magsafe charger.
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3D printed spacers for 120mm fans.
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3D printed a 100mm to 75mm set of adapting VESA brackets and used them to attach a tiny PC to the back of a monitor with some hex M4 screws I got in bulk
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Continued trying to learn and mess with FreeCAD for designing 3D stuff. Getting better but the workflow is still super offputting to my brain. I've been trying Plasticity and liking it but not sure it's going to be worth it or not, since they're not focused on parametric side of things, so dimensional things are an afterthought. The landscape re: CAD software is pretty bleak. Plasticity does have a Linux version though and that was big selling point for me. I'm really undecided. It's editing/history is destructive so you can't really redimension things later either. Maybe I should tough it out and stick to FreeCAD and just try to continue getting comfortable with it.
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Looked into a bunch of aspects regarding maybe trying to sell 3D prints, and just having a small personal business in general, and the anxiety of everything involved (and Etsy now requiring all sold designs be 100% designed by the seller and no longer allowing printing others' designs even with approval / when licensing allows) made me back off and probably stick to this for personal use. Maybe I'll reconsider at some point but putting that idea on pause a bit for now.
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Now that I might be just sticking to personal use for the time being, I might try other community / free "non-commercial" CAD software, but not sure
Edit: realizing this is probably better meant for the "creative stuff you did lately" post than the programming/technical one though sometimes i have some difficulty distinguishing where something should go. I am probably having anxiety about this for no reason
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Comment on Angine de Poitrine - Sarniezz (2026) in ~music
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Comment on Your daily coffee may be protecting your brain, 43-year study finds in ~health.mental
0x29A LinkI drink lots of quality coffee and tea, so, nice! I always take these things with a big grain of salt but always feels nice when you think some of your simple habits might be having a positive effectI drink lots of quality coffee and tea, so, nice! I always take these things with a big grain of salt but always feels nice when you think some of your simple habits might be having a positive effect
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
0x29A LinkOn heavy repeat lately: Now, Now - Saved KC Rae (Now, Now vocalist) - Think I'm Gonna Die Been very emotionally connected to music lately. Lots of stuff making me tear up, feeling things super...On heavy repeat lately:
Now, Now - Saved
KC Rae (Now, Now vocalist) - Think I'm Gonna DieBeen very emotionally connected to music lately. Lots of stuff making me tear up, feeling things super deeply in my body. Also been listening to a lot of my favorites (Manchester Orchestra, David Bazan, Aurora, etc)
Watching a bunch of FreeCAD tutorials. I'm determined to become proficient in this software even if I never make a dime from 3D design/printing/etc. After watching a bunch of other CAD software with crappier licensing models I realized that I really do want to stick with the open-source tools and remain completely untethered to any license concerns or costs, and the workflow honestly isn't as bad as I thought, and it's actually similar to a lot of other CAD.
(Also, more on the creative side of things: bought a lot of filament to stock up, got a filament dryer, and am drying out my PETG right now and planning to print some stuff).
In the meantime, have also found that people have designed tons of accessories and add-ons for my 3D printer that are useful so planning on trying some of those.