What's something new you started doing this year?
Could be a hobby, could be a new habit.
This year I started using a water flosser! My dental hygiene isn't the greatest and I could count on one hand how many times I flossed in a year, but I read a post saying how someone uses their handheld one in the shower and, yeah, that absolutely clicked for me!
I feel like I have weird sensory issues with using it over the bathroom sink. But in the shower, everything is already wet anyways. I can't believe it's a habit I've been able to keep up for more than half a year now with ease. It's something that I look forward to doing every time I shower. I've even started flossing with regular floss more now because I no longer bleed or feel gross. (I prefloss with the water one first.) Really happy.
I wish I could maintain more habits like that.
I also bought a standing desk and I really love standing and working now, too.
I went back to the dentist, finally. I haven't had one since COVID - was coughing when scheduled for my last cleaning, and then my dentist retired and yeah.
Unfortunately it was after a toothache started and I'm now in excruciating pain pending a root canal... In less than 48 hours but it feels like six years away. But once I'm back connected I should manage to go to the appointments
Ouch. I had a long gap between dental visits while in grad school, then was suffering a bit afterwards. Ever since, I've been doing quarterly cleanings/checkups, even if I have to pay out of pocket (or from an HSA) for the later ones in the insurance year. I don't relish them, but I've been stable for a long time when I used to be much more cavity prone, so I can't really complain.
I struggle with hygiene from a mental health perspective both from ADHD (we literally have worse dental outcomes as a group) and depression/stress, so this is me trying to actually take care of me.
Congratulations on going again! Root canal treatments suck, but I'm glad you're having it nonetheless. :)
At this point if they want to tie some twine around my tooth and a donkey and yank it they're welcome to it
Oof. Good for you for going back though! I have major dentist anxiety so it had also been a few years hiatus for me, but I'm so glad I went back. I'm also kind of glad I have more frequent cleaning visits because it doesn't give my plaque that much time to build up and the cleaning sessions themselves are a lot shorter.
But I still hate it. (Also you comment about ADHD people having worse dental outcomes... Just adding it to the list of "I probably have ADHD".)
Good luck on your root canal!
It took my wife a similar situation to get back to the dentist... best of luck and hope your dentist is kind!
Finally having a job after two years of dragging myself through the mud. Something that seems to quite suit me(software engineering) too.
Congrats on the new job!
Congratulations! I'm sure it must feel amazing to have a sense of stability again!
Congrats on the new job! Hope you enjoy your new software engineering role!
My SO has been stuck in a similar position. Engineering degree, but got stuck in the mud after burning out at a really shitty company. It’s also been about 2 years and since then they’ve kind of just had a hard time getting a new job.
Do you have any tips or advice for working past all that?
In the end, I got lucky with a special kind of probation which Ive only heard of in the Netherlands. Where you keep your unemployment benefits for two months while having a trial at the company you're going to work then after.
My biggest tip would be to make sure to keep connected with people in similar circumstances, which for me happened at an interview training. It just helps to know you're not the only one.
Doing new things in general. It's been a terrible bunch of years, ongoing trauma that shocks anyone but the most unfortunate people. Top that off with a complete lack of care or help through healthcare or legal venues.
It stripped me of any sense of future. Of time passing, not just being in a limbo, waiting for the pain to stop. But it never did. And help never came, and I was so often ridiculed and have some pretty nasty reports on me from a psych. specialist that chose to never to the trauma assessments I was referred for. Said it would be ineffectual to offer any kind of help, for as long as the patient isn't willing to admit what is wrong. Me describing my days, my body, my attempts at maintaining a connection with society was apparently not enough. The specialist didn't like how I said I don't have a name for this, which is why I was referred for assessment.
After that, I shut down. Hard. For years. At times not even leaving my bed more than once a day to drink and go toilet.
Circumstances forced a move, changed municipality, and within a fortnight I had several different kinds of support and help set in motion.
This year has been one where I finally was able to say I am ready to live again. LIVE, not just survive. And I will try new things, wherever they show up. Even if I don't like doing new activities all the time.
So far I've found out I am averagely bad/good at beginner's mini-golf, I can somewhat do crafts like embroidery, I've made some small things in a woodworking shop/class, I've joined a weekly swim, I've gotten back into PC gaming, I've accepted at least 10 offers of meeting up for a cup of coffee and a chat. That's about 10 more than I've done for years. I've read books on linguistics, not limiting myself in the belief I won't remember much. I don't, but that wasn't the point either! Laughs
I've made some dinners I've never made before. Some will never be made again. I've finally tasted what MSG is in its pure form. Very, very lackluster. Prefer flavour enhancers like Maggi.
I've done lots of small things here and there. Used other mugs than my favourite, just because. Sat back with less opinions on some things. Leant forward and spoken up more in other contexts.
My plan is to continue pursuing small, manageable, previously untried activities or experiences. No travelling the world or other lofty pursuits. Just pragmatic exploration within my window of tolerance.
Which is a lot bigger than it was a year ago.
I'll never "become my old self again". My experiences changes people on a fundamental level. But I am becoming more at home in my life and body, and more accepting of what was done that can't be changed. Not saying it was okay, not saying I am "forgiving" those that knowingly (sometimes willingly) caused harm.
But I am no longer fighting the idea that these things happened and can't be undone. That has been a MAJOR change for me. I've always been more of an activist type. "If it hasn't changed for the better yet, you just haven't tried for long enough" type. I am a lot more mellow now.
In short, conciously seeking out newness in small ways has been the new thing this year. And I will continue to do so going forward.
I've started knitting! I've got the knit and purl pretty much down, but I can't figure out how to cast on properly and my class is on winter break. I looked up some videos and I can't figure out what they're doing at all. So not a lot of progress, but more than in my first 31 years!
I love knitting! I wish I could explain casting on, if you find a slow motion video that can be the most helpful but if you have a friend that can cast on a project (or a local knitting store where you can arrive with yarn, needles and a lost look on your face) it'll give you something to work on during your hiatus!
The knitting store is where I do my classes. :'( they're on break because the proprieter is back in her hometown for Christmas. I'm going to see if any of my friends can help in the meantime. I don't know who among them knits, but I guess now I have to find out!
I know our local library has a knitting group, so there might be something similar in your area, though I imagine most groups are on hiatus during the holidays.
I learned to crochet after I learned to knit and prefer crocheting. I could never get the hang of the tension going from knitting to purling. I have been away from it for years at this point though, onto other hobbies. I think my favorite thing was making baby blankets.
I started keeping track of my drinking.
I was tired of hangovers being in my life at all, and decided the proper amount of hangovers is 0 hangovers.
I started a spreadsheet containing two columns, number of drinks and then severity of the hangover. I now know I’ll have a level 1 hangover after 3 drinks, and a bad hangover after 5.
I haven’t had a bad hangover since February, so I think it worked.
This is the first year in my entire life that I was actually able to consistently and meaningfully exercise. I have now exercised at least once a week for 46 straight weeks although most of those weeks have been close to 5 days a week or more.
I'm lucky in that I can work out at work while getting paid. It only took me 5 years to wake up to that and actually use it. I also purchased the Peloton Row and absolutely love those workouts too.
I have intentionally avoided weighing myself as all I wanted to do is build consistency, which I have done. I don't really have aches and pains any more most day. I'm still overweight, but between working out consistently and drinking significantly less alcohol, 2024 has been my healthiest year of my life.
I started birdwatching this year and pretty quickly transitioned to photographing birds. I love it and try to do it as often as possible, despite it involving three things I really dislike - getting up super early, being outside dealing with the elements, and physical exertion. I only ever put myself through those things for my kids, so it has to be true love that's keeping me going :)
Edit: this might sound dumb but have you considered "gamifying" building good habits? I use an app called Finch, which is like a self care Tamagotchi (but it doesn't die or get upset if you don't check in daily. I know there are other apps out there all about building good habits in a more fun or gentle way. It seems stupid but it works for me somehow!
What camera/lens do you use? I have a simple Fuji XT100 with a 50-230mm kit lens for bird photography. I keep wanting to get a longer/better lens specifically for birds since that seems to be what I enjoy photographing the most, but I just can't justify to myself the couple hundred dollars it would take for something that goes up to 300mm or 400mm (or hell, 600mm!).
I'm not familiar with Fuji, I've been using the Canon R10 with an RF100-400 lens, so can only feed back on that combo. Here's a good review on the combo. I'm just about to upgrade to the EF100-400 so I can give an updated review on that one in a week if you're interested. I will probably get a 1.4× converter for a bit more reach.
I'm not gonna lie, really getting into bird photography (or wildlife in general) is going to be a lot more expensive than most other types of photography, especially as it usually requires lenses that can focus at long distances. Other useful features include image stabilisation, auto-focus and eye detection, and the more features the more expensive it gets. I was happy using the combo I have as a beginner. The R10 has good auto-focus and eye detection, the RF100-400 has also good auto focus and image stabilisation. It also has the advantage of being fairly light which can make a big difference if you're hiking long distances to find a particular bird. It's a really great starting point if you seriously want to get into the hobby, but it still set me back about €1200 used. I did however start getting a little frustrated with pictures in low light situations, especially since I take a lot of photos in forested areas or on cloudy days. This can be compensated with a good noise reduction software (I use DXO PureRaw 3) and some work in Adobe Lightroom, but even then the image quality can be meh.
You can always continue to practice with the 50-230 on the less shy birds while saving up for a better lens (and I really recommend going for a better lens first). It helps to work on certain skills like hand eye coordination, practicing approaching birds without scaring them off, setting up the camera for the best shots, composition, etc. As one of my favourite YouTubers on the topic has said, it's better to take photos that tell a story and not focus so much on taking "nice" photos. Eventually though you will definitely want something with more reach than a 50-230, ideally at least a 400. I highly recommend Simon d'Entremont's and Jan Wegener's videos if you're getting into bird photography. The titles can be a bit clickbaity, but the content is really good and very straightforward. You'll find a lot of valuable info to get you started on those channels.
Great advice! I'm definitely aware of the costs of bird photography, hence my hesitation at splurging on something more suitable than my small kit lens. That EF100-400 looks incredible! What sorts of birds do you see/photograph on these forest hikes?
I'm lucky to live in an area known for its aquatic birds, raptors, and water fowl. And those guys tend to be larger and a lot slower-moving than smaller birds like songbirds and others. I've had plenty of success with ibises, cormorants, swans, hawks, and especially ospreys. Of those, I especially love the ospreys, probably the most photogenic birds I've ever seen. They love hanging out right at the top of trees, in full view of everyone, in bright daylight, large enough to be seen easily, and they squawk to get your attention as if to say "hey, photograph me". And they look hilarious if you photograph them mid-squawk, lol. And shout out to ibises too who (at least in my area) don't seem to be remotely fazed by humans. You can get up as close as you need/want to them to get a good shot and they'll mostly just hang out there wondering what the hell you're doing. Plus they have these really bright blue eyes, which I never knew or noticed before I started this hobby.
But yeah for smaller birds in far-off trees, I'd love a nicer telephoto lens with some of the features you mentioned. Those damn mockingbirds and cardinals are always just a hair too quick and slightly far away.
I'll check out that youtube channel too, thanks! Wildlife photography is probably my favorite type of photography, so it's always interesting to hear from the pros.
Edit: No joke, like ten seconds after posting this comment I heard some squawking and looked outside my window to see an osprey in his usual tree. He's doing it as I type this.
I love/hate photographing small birds because they're a fun challenge, but they're so fast it can be incredibly frustrating! I love kingfishers too, they're really pretty and interesting to photograph. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera during Spring so there are a bunch of birds I haven't photographed yet, or took photos of under less than ideal circumstances. I'm lucky enough to get to travel for work and when possible I try to go out early and get some photos of the local birds when I have the chance. You can see the photos taken with the R10+RF100-400 on my Flickr page page, though it's a mix of species I included to document what I've seen and some nicer shots. You'll see some photos where I've had to crank up the exposure settings in Lightroom because it was too dark.
In that case definitely check out Simon's channel first. That's his speciality, and he's not a "gear snob" so the tips he gives on a lot of his videos can apply to different types of cameras and lenses.
Aaaah I'm very jealous you have ospreys right next to you!! I love them but haven't had the chance to photograph them yet. I'm planning to go to a spot they're known for in a couple of weeks and try out the new EF. Wish me luck!
I hope you're able to make the jump someday. It's a super fun and rewarding hobby, especially when you finally get a decent shot of that one fast little bastard you've been chasing for ages and never sits still!
Those are wonderful shots! You weren't kidding about the travel, those looked like species from all over the place! I faved a few of them, hope you don't mind. The action shots seem especially impressive, like the ones of birds eating or mid-flight. (Are those the ones that were too dark? Because of the faster shutter speeds maybe? Just curious since this subject fascinates me.)
I have a bunch of exotic animal photographs on my flickr page too but they're all from zoos, haha. Much easier than going on safari or traveling the world. Been a while since I've posted though, but you're inspiring me to get back out there!
Here's the osprey in question. He routinely rests in the norfolk pine tree just outside my office, sometimes with his catch and sometimes just squawking for attention. We're pretty close to the water here which is why there are so many ospreys around (I know of like 4 or 5 trees in walking distance where they love to hang out, this one just happens to be literally outside my window). And here's a shot mid-squawk.
Thank you and no I don't mind at all! If you look at the photo of the middle spotted woodpecker you'll see the edges are a bit "crunchy" and it's quite noisy when zoomed in. I definitely have a bunch of action shots that didn't even make the cut because there wasn't enough light at faster shutter speeds. This picture gives you an idea of the difference between the RF and the EF. I still think the RF is great to start with and I'm keeping mine for now. I just felt it was time to upgrade and thankfully could afford it at the moment.
You have some beautiful shots and the colours are amazing. I've also faved a few photos and gave you a follow ;) I guarantee you'll have a blast, you should definitely go for it!!
Those are some great shots!! That is one beautiful bird, you're very lucky to have such handsome neighbours :)
Thanks! And wow yeah that is a gonna make a crazy difference in the amount of light in your really zoomed in pictures. The lowest aperture on the EF is the same as the highest on the RF! You’ll probably be able to get some even better action shots now since you’ll be able to crank down the shutter speed. I think that’s my weakness with the 50-230 lens I have, not being able to go really fast on the shutter speeds without having to raise the iso more than I’d like.
I'm taking the EF out for a spin this weekend, I can't wait!
How do you find Finch compared to other apps? I tried Habitica, but I felt like it had too many components and it became too much work to try to maintain checking and using the app as a habit, too. (On the plus side, now I do most of my good habits so I don't have to bother going into the app, lol!)
I've not tried other apps to be honest, something about a lot of them felt too "committal", if that makes sense? For me it's important to have an app that gently encourages me to do better, but doesn't make me feel guilty for not getting it right or not following through each day. I have the kind of anxiety tied to perfectionism that makes me avoid doing things, and then I feel horrible about myself, and then freeze until panic tips the scales towards action.
I feel Finch is gentle enough that it doesn't make you feel bad for not doing everything right, and you can set and meet goals at your own pace. It's more focused on self-care than "habitifying" your life, so it also provides advice on things like meditation, mindfulness, naming your emotions, etc (though in a fairly shallow way). I also appreciate that you can use the app without signing up or using your email address unless you want to. Like a lot of things, your mileage may vary.
I really like Finch and pay for a premium sub. I can check in just once a day and ignore the reminders if I want or check in multiple times a day, it's pretty flexible and let's you turn things like streaks off or on depending on your preferences
Plus you get to dress your little bird up
(I also couldn't keep up with habitica)
I started exercising purposefully. I took a break for a while when I also started reading (since I only have an hour or so of free time to do whole-body-occupying things each day and it has been nicer to chill and read using my hands). However, my flexible Kindle stand arrived this week, along with a remote control page turner... and now I can read AND exercise at the same time. No more excuses! My partner and I have also occasionally listened to parts of shared audiobooks together while I exercise, though I appreciate the actual act of reading more because it gives my eyes something to do.
Reading itself is also new for me. I was a habitual reader up until 10 years ago, when college and creative writing burned me out. I discovered audiobooks through Libby this summer. I now spend most of my workday listening to audiobooks, and as a result, I've read almost 90 books since July. BookTok (which I get through Facebook Reels, which Facebook now has me habitually clicking, ugh) has been an... influence. Good or bad remains to be seen. I'm not spending money on books because I abhor clutter and I have enough unread books that I would feel bad buying more. But I'm now hugely into supporting my local library system instead, which I think is a big plus! I recently discovered their online events and am honestly so excited.
I also invested in a water flosser. Huge improvement for me.
Congratulations on building the reading habit. Reading has been one of the great pleasures of my life.
Tildes book club will be starting again in January if you are interested. You can find the monthly schedule in ~books.
Yep, I'm on the ping list and looking forward to it!
How strange, I also went to the dentist for the first time since before Covid. My dental hygiene is pretty good, I brush twice a day, rinse with alcohol free mouthwash, and floss a couple times a week but even with all that you can't really avoid build up of crap over time.
Covid really did a number on my dental routine as I normally went for a check up along with a scale and polish once a year but I just kept forgetting. I eventually went back after 5 years of no dental checkups in February this year to find out that my incisors were thinning at the edges, and I had very mild tooth decay in hard to reach places so I needed multiple bouts of dental work over 6 months and fillings to sort my mouth out which cost me £300 in total.
My dentist also suggested an electric toothbrush, interdental brushes and a water flosser to help keep my teeth as clean as possible so I've been using those for around 6 months now and my mouth feels so much cleaner than just using a normal brush and floss.
Otherwise I've started collecting Magic cards, my poor wallet. I played Commander with a couple friends a few times earlier in the year and enjoyed myself so decided to buy cards and build my own Commander deck over time.
Jesus. That's less than my deep cleaning and x-ray and I have the second most expensive dental insurance plan that my workplace offers. When I go in to replace a old crown and touch up a root canal next month it'll cost me about $3k. I don't even know if they can pull my teeth for 300 bucks.
If you or anyone else is ever looking to replace your electric toothbrush, I just picked up an Oral-B io and it was by far the best toothbrush I've ever used. It tells you if you're brushing too hard or too soft, and it leaves your teeth feeling freshly polished.
Yeah, the NHS may currently be on its knees and it can take months to see a dentist or doctor but even when you have to pay for certain treatments it's heavily subsidised and relatively cheap.
Ooh, I've been using an electric toothbrush for years. My dentist also recommended interdental brushes and I did buy one but... I probably used it once? Do you use it every day?
It really does feel nice to feel clean both inside and out after a shower. I put a dash of mouthwash in mine so it gives me a nice refreshing feeling after too.
Not every day but most days, it really helps scrub those gaps in my teeth, maybe gets some of the stuff the water flosser doesn't.
About a week ago I started roller blading (with the help of an early Christmas gift from my family). I'm 34 and I fell once three days ago and it still hurts. A man in the park told me that I should have fallen forwards instead of backwards. I know he was trying to help, but I don't think at my skill level that I get to control which way I fall. It's been fun though, and good exercise.
This line got me: "I don't think at my skill level that I get to control which way I fall". Ha! The older I've got, the more I'm willing to wear deeply unfashionable protection/high-vis clothes, I've found. I used to skate and found wristguards invaluable, I think I would have ruined my wrists without them, actually, since the best skating surfaces tend to be those hard ones that aren't kind to falling with outstretched arms.
My kids are trying to get me into skating and I keep telling them I love my knees too much to risk it!
A friend of mine broke her spine rollerblading a few years ago. She's still got chronic pain from it.
Wow, that's scary. I don't know what to do about that, but thanks for letting me know.
Don't let that stop you from enjoying rollerblading. It's riskier than standing still for sure, but I've known people who broke limbs just tripping while walking normally.
Yeah, I'm just going to take it slow and keep trying. I really need the exercise and it's fun. But it is scary.
I don't think there's any kind of protective brace for it. I don't know if that's a common thing to happen, but you aren't going to catch me in a pair of rollerblades again.
Yeah! I wear protection for my wrists, my knees, my elbows, and I even wear a helmet. I don't mind looking silly. It's just that landing on your butt hurts, and I don't know that I can prevent it.
I have no idea if this is any help, but there is a butt pad.
FYI if you search for "butt pad" on amazon, you mostly get silicon inserts for ... uh ... enhancing the derriere. I doubt those have any safety rating, but at least they would help one look good between falls.
Hahaha, I'll look it up. Thanks!
Welp I wrote paragraphs in response to OPs question listing all the things i stopped doing and what i took up to fill the void and realized I'm probably extremely depressed and need to do something about it.
Thanks op
Oops...or should I say you're welcome?
My habits / hobbies have definitely changed a lot and not for the better in some cases so I can kind of get it. Wishing you well!
My main hobby was just general dicking around with old computers, storing parts, collecting weird stuff, repairing them for myself and for others etc.
I sold off or trashed all that worthless garbage and moved on to reading books non-stop. But that flame is also burning out and I'm running out of interests to hyper focus on.
I (re)started contra dancing! I danced a bit in high school and college, but it's been a while and I hadn't danced a single time since maybe 2012 or so. But it came back to me super quickly and I'm having so much fun! I've been going regularly to a place relatively near me and I think I'll be doing this for a long time to come!
(if anyone in the Chicago area is interested, dm me I'll share you the info where I'm going!)
Being unemployed, so many things:
I feel this. Quit my full time job a year and a half ago and have been doing small time contract work for the past 8 months or so. I need to get back to something full time, but most of the opportunities I see, are just ... meh.
I started writing things down to try and be more organized at work and I've also started taking my mental health more seriously.
For the former, I've always been pretty disorganized. In the past, using a daily planner never seemed to work out well for me and I'd always stop after just a few days of trying. While being disorganized seemed to be just fine in school and university, it hasn't worked well for work. As I now need to juggle around more tasks for work to improve my numbers for productivity and velocity, I started writing things down to help me remain organized. Writing things down has helped me keep track of who I need to respond to on Slack, what tasks I need to finish for the day, and also keep context of the tasks I work on as I switch between them. As we close out another half, I look forward to looking back at my journal of the last 4-5 months and actually remembering what I did while I write about my impact.
For the latter, I've known for a while now that I may have anxiety, depression, and/or ADHD. I've always kinda just brushed it off and never really took it seriously but after some pushes from friends I decided to finally take advantage of the resources provided to me by my work and see a therapist and psychiatrist. My psychiatrist did confirm that I have some mild anxiety and depression which feels liberating in a way. My therapist so far has just been helping me go through my emotions and also figure out how to channel my stress into more healthy habits. So far we've only just discussed some breathing techniques but I'm hoping we'll learn more as time goes on.
I started biking to work, on average 2 times a week for the past few months.
It's an electric bike, but with a torque sensor so I'm still getting some exercise. It seems like I'm in zone 2 heartrate most of the time, so that's perfect for increasing aerobic capacity without getting too sweaty. Electric bikes are a wonderful invention. I would never do this on a regular bike because of the distance and steep hills between home and work (I tried once on the weekend but turned around halfway). Getting some cardio and being outside seems to have had positive effects on my mood.
The downside is that I don't listen to anything while I'm riding for safety reasons, so it's taking me longer to get through my audiobooks.
Nice! My partner bikes to work as well, and even though I work from home, I'm a little jealous he gets the extra exercise. (But at least I get to sleep in.)
I recently picked up some bone conductor earphones so I could run without worrying about cars and stuff. I wonder if that could work for you?
Thanks for the suggestion. I considered bone conduction headphones, but I decided that it was more of an issue of not distracting myself rather than whether I could hear things around me.
The main two for me are reading and working on projects outside of work. Both of those were things I wished I would do going back years.
Ever since leaving schooling I just struggled to read books. I would obsess over page counts (Only 27 pages until I get to page 100... only 26 pages until I get to page 100) and get this obnoxious anxiety rather than really getting into the book. As a result I couldn't really remember if I had properly read a book in close to a decade. I would do audiobooks frequently but the actual act of reading just had this wall for me. I think I finally hit a point where I was able to push past that and so I ended up reading Murder on Sex Island in the first week of January. I then also read a silly book aimed at kids I had sitting around that month so I decided to call it a new year's resolution to read at least 2 books each month. I accomplished that a week ago when I finished my second December read, Game of Thrones! I'm at 43 books/13.5k pages so far this year (will be at least 45/14k by year end but I'm hoping I can get closer to 48/15k to make it rounder)
And this year I started a programming side project. I'd struggled to have the energy to put into such a thing in the past but at this point I do so little actual coding in my typical day I've found I have a lot more coding energy to put into side projects (life energy remains a challenge as always). I found there was a tool we use at work that was dead and had no ideal replacements, so started developing what I'd want that to be. That also gave me an opportunity to learn new languages/tools I hadn't had much opportunity to use at work, plus helped remind me what I liked about coding when I was a teenager.
That's awesome! I also used to get obsessed with my reading scores (highest year was 96 books) but to be honest I barely read this year so maybe sometimes being too interested in metrics might not be that bad.
Removing tags from my clothing. I have always found tags incredibly annoying, but have never removed any. I was diagnosed with ADHD last year, and I read that it often comes with sensory issues. Instead of trying to repress those feelings, I decided this year that they ate important to listen to. So now every piece of clothing, as soon as I know I will keep it, gets all tags stripped. My life has improved immensely from this simple change. I still keep some tags, for example in jackets, or merino wool sweaters with special care instructions. But if I don’t think there is a real, very probable reason I will look at the tag again, it’s gone.
Getting my life back in order in general. In a twisted way, the pandemic gave me time to recover as the world ground to a halt pretty much at the exact same time I mentally broke down, but now's the time to get things back on track, starting with applying for social welfare while looking for a job. I also got my hands on a raspberry pi and associated hardware to set it up as a home server, primarily for data storage which should give my family some much needed peace of mind, and to avoid getting rusty regarding my IT/CS skills which ties back into job searching.
As for something more concrete (though nothing's been done yet, I'm waiting on my raspberry pi to be set up to get started on that, as it takes precedence and will also be helpful for hosting the project itself) I've also had the idea of reviving this project. Itself an improvement over a similar idea, it was an online flag detector of sorts which let you draw in a small window while letting you know which of the user-submitted flags it was most similar to. The list wasn't curated at all and quickly got flooded with joke entries, swastika spam, and general low quality entries harming the detector's accuracy (I suspect this is why the author eventually wiped the database and made it nonfunctional).
I'm planning on picking up where this project left off by implementing a way to actually moderate submissions upfront (so not every country suddenly becomes Nazi Germany because someone thought it would be hilarious to spam swastikas under every country listed while I wasn't paying attention), as well as expanding its scope. The way to submit new entries was to make a specific drawing then choosing from a hard-coded list of countries which was itself checked against another hard-coded list. This was good enough to prevent incorrect requests from a browser, but this means that a given country can only be ever recognized properly through a single flag, which is an issue for countries which used different flags throughout history (or for that matter still have multiple flags today). This also prevents making entries for historical countries which don't exist anymore, notable non-country entities which have a flag, and fictional countries, which I think would be nice features to add. Having fully custom entries would also avoid one unfortunate bug with the hard-coded checklist of the original project which made Bosnia and Herzegovina an "invalid" country to submit, which predictably made people angry 💀
Another feature I'd like to add would be to display multiple matches according to a threshold rather than just the highest, which would allow recognizing separate countries with very similar/identical flags, or at least identical enough that there wouldn't be any differences on the low res limited color drawing space. (think Monaco/Indonesia, Chad/Romania, Luxembourg/Netherlands...)
I started learning ceramics, roller skating, and have my first ski lesson on Christmas! I've truly been about trying out all the little things I've wanted to try. It's been very fun and rewarding even though I'm very bad at all of these things! Ultimately it's just plain fun!