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The Tildes' Make Something Month (Timasomo) 2020 Showcase Thread
Timasomo is Tildes' Make Something Month: a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of November, where participants from our community self-select creative goals to achieve.
Timasomo 2020 is now officially complete! Participants will be posting their creations and efforts in this thread as a showcase! Comments and feedback from the wider community are both welcome and encouraged! Let these creators know what an awesome job they've done!
Creators: In posting your showcase:
- Give your project a title, and use the
#markdown to make it stand out in the showcase thread! - Link to your project in whatever way works best for your project.
- Give a "creator statement" that contextualizes what your project is.
- Add anything else you consider relevant! The showcase is yours!
Community:
- Treat this thread like a walk through an art gallery or a museum where you get to see different works on display.
- Comments do NOT have to be in-depth -- it is okay to just affirm that you like/love/appreciate something! (In other threads these might be considered noise, but here they are directly validating the sustained creative efforts of another community member!).
- Make sure any feedback you give is constructive.
Lost: a collection of images
Thanks! I didn't hit my goal of ten images, but I'm pretty happy with what I did manage to create
I absolutely adore these.
The suggestion of "Lost" as a theme was really great, and you did an incredible job at capturing that. The monochrome pictures and textures give the pictures an old and aged quality, so the mask, which is so recognizable as a current symbol, is very arresting. These capture an solemn emptiness that I think is acutely resonant right now.
Thank you so much for your participation in Timasomo and for sharing your talent with us.
Thanks so much for your kind words. I appreciate the hard work you have put into running Timasomo. I had a ton of fun with it and look forward to it next year!
Chop Chop Motherfunkers
From a pile of metal and recycled plastic to (even if I do say so myself) a rather pretty, nice and shiny, scary sharp handmade kitchen knife.
I did start on a second one but things went badly and I haven't had time to try to fix that or work on something else.
But I do have a new knife in my kitchen and it's been working really well and I'm super pleased with it. Still sharp as hell. I'm not sure I'd have pushed myself to get it done without such a great project from @kfwyre who deserves all the thanks and cheers for setting this up.
Many more details and lots of photos at the various update threads: first, second, third, fourth (final link also has impressive firey video bit which I was quite pleased to be able to film without injury)
As always, happy to answer any questions anyone might have.
Yass!
Is the Kaleido recycled plastic made just for GFS or, like many things, is it a repurposed general use product from elsewhere? It's awesome and I love the aesthetic of it.
It's a great looking knife and I hope you'll update one of the "what did you do this week/weekend" with plans for the broken tang knife (decide on weld or braze yet?).
Hey, I've been away so didn't see this until now. Thanks, it means a lot you like it. I haven't done many knives and it's nice to hear I'm doing OK.
I haven't seen kaleido the brand for sale anywhere else but I have seen quite a few other recycled plastic products that do the same sort of thing.
I think I'll try to weld the broken knife, I have a big welding job to do when I get the time (my new belt grinder needs assembling) but I have no idea when that time will be available. When I get it finished I'll definitely drop some photos in one of the weekend threads.
I am envious. Do post in one of the weekend/week posts (and tag me) when you get that together!
I made myself wait until the showcase to comment, so I've been champing at the bit for a while now to let you know that your knife looks AMAZING -- a seriously incredible job. I love the contrast of the uniform sheen of the blade with the irregular, speckled handle. I also loved your comment that, when you make your own tools, you can make them fit you exactly, which is something I'd never thought about before. You didn't just make a knife, you made your knife. That's so badass! Also, I think it's a testament to your writing that I'm still heartbroken about the second one, and I didn't even put any effort into it! Your posts made me emotionally invested in the lifecycle of a random piece of metal I've never met!
In all seriousness, you do have a very evocative writing style that not only conveys information well but also includes your emotional experiences as the creator. You brought us along with you on the journey of your project, and we're so much richer for it. I loved your photos, your humor, and the glimpses you gave us into your expertise. Thank you. I'm honored by your participation in Timasomo.
Also, speaking of impressive firey video bits...
Aww, thanks dude. That's so nice of you to say. I'm so glad you put this thing together, I had a blast doing it and I enjoyed putting together the writeups as well, so I really appreciate your kind words on that front. None of this would have happened without you, so you deserve much honour as well. Same time next year then?
Thanks, mat!
Funny you should ask that, as it actually might not be. It hasn't been decided yet if we'll stick to November or shift it to October -- I can see benefits and drawbacks to both.
Wow, that's fantastic! Is there a name of the technique you used for the handle?
Thanks! :)
As for the handle, it's a "full tang", which means the metal runs the full length of the handle. This is stronger than some other methods and in some ways a lot simpler to make - but it's not always what you want for a knife.
Apart from that I don't think there's a name for precisely what I did. The handle is just glued on, other possible techniques might use pins/rivets/etc to hold the handle material in place, and I just freehanded the shape.
I love it. The atmosphere comes through so beautifully.
Amazing job. The tracks are very atmospheric. All the tracks could work great in some post-apocalyptic exploration game. Also, I really like the cover art for the EP!
I think I heard about WIPP (or something similar) in a Tom Scott video, signifying danger without making people go in there looking for treasure is a difficult thing to do.
I saw that you completed this in the weekly thread and meant to remember to pick it up on Bandcamp Friday, but I forgot! Sorry about that! Are they continuing them into 2021? If so I'll wait to snag it until then; if not I'll pick it up now and mark up the difference.
First and foremost, the WIPP nuclear semotics project is genuinely fascinating. I have a -- I don't know what you would call it -- weird fascination but also deep-seated aversion to the idea of nuclear radiation? Like, I find the subject fascinating but also a little sinister and alien. I've read lots of different books (e.g. Voices from Chernobyl, Atomic Accidents, Ichi-F, etc.) all dealing with nuclear reactor accidents, and there's something awe-inspiring and off-putting about them in ways I can't quite put into words. It often feels like we're playing with things that are far bigger than ourselves -- like we tiny humans are toying with cosmic forces, and there's a very fine line between those forces doing what we want and those forces doing what they do, without a care in the world for how that affects us.
With that in mind, I genuinely got chills listening to your first track. I think it captures the exact atmospheric unease you intended it to, and I envisioned myself in the "desert of thorns" with your audio as the backdrop and found myself genuinely moved. I think the context adds incredible depth to your work, because had I listened to it without this "outside story" I think I would have been seeking a rhythm or melody that isn't there by design.
"Alpha Rain", meanwhile, has a really nice build to it. I like it as a song on its own, but I think it too is enhanced by your context.
"The Blue Forest" is the standout track for me. It's simultaneously accessible yet experimental; calming yet unsettling; inviting yet eerie. There are lots of interesting sonic flourishes and texture, and the way it cuts out to that accelerating pulsing at the end is deeply evocative. Of what, I don't know specifically, but it creates a sort of momentary, escalating worry or panic that doesn't get resolved, which is essentially a capstone thematic statement for your entire work.
I'm of course excited to listen to track 4 once I purchase it, but even without that I think you did an incredible job. I'm also going to credit you with pushing me way out of my musical comfort zone. I'm pretty much a happy-go-lucky pop guy when it comes to music. If you were to look in my library you'd see it's filled with stuff like Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga, and MIKA. I stan a good beat and singable melody, which makes your work about as far outside of my wheelhouse as possible. I think from knowing you on Tildes, from the efforts you went through to share your love of your synth setup and process, as well as the contextual information that informed your creation of the songs, I find myself loving this in a way that's very different from the type of music I regularly listen to.
Thank you so much for sharing your talent with us. Please share with us whatever else you make in the future too!
Wow. The revelation of learning about this WIPP had me uneasy in the first place, and your EP playing in another tab as I read up on it was a perfectly disquieting backdrop. Great job.
Toyota Big Block Build
A photo gallery (mostly in order) of how it started to how it is now
Links to previous updates: Thread 0, Thread 1, Thread 2, Thread 3, Thread 4, Thread 5
Feel free to skip "Thread 1", I put all the details in "Thread 0", and so it's just a link back with a tiny mission statement that I pretty much copied in the opening below.
This month I planned build/rebuild a "big block" 4 cylinder Toyota engine that will inevitably be swapped into my 1983 Toyota Tercel SR5 4WD Wagon to replace/retire it's 300k mile tired factory engine and give it more than double it's original horsepower and torque at the same time. The short version is that a cohesive engine family structure and parts bin engineering allow the creation of a greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts powerplant that is compatible with the unique model aspects of the target vehicle. The long version is in "Thread 0" above.
Ultimately that plan failed.
A combination of time spent dialing in and subsequently upgrading the blasting cabinet that was necessary to complete the project, underestimating how much time would be required to clean the previous owner's egregious neglect out of the head, getting new tools as needed, missing a day (or two depending on how you want to count it) of work on the project, missing parts, lost parts, and a touch of time wasted by spending too much attention on some portions of the block culminated in not getting the engine completed in the time allotted.
It would have been nice to at least have the head on the block for a picture even if it wasn't fully buttoned down, but it just wasn't meant to be in November. At this point, with the last (known) needed part on the way, I'm relatively confident that with one more weekend I could have the engine completed. Which, in retrospect, is an even greater disappointment as "one more weekend" would be the aforementioned 1-2 days I missed working on it. Alas, that won't be this weekend as current plans involve building a swingset for my near-as-makes-no-difference niece and tearing apart another car for another project.
I can't say I didn't enjoy it, as I pretty much always enjoy working on my projects and there's the sense of satisfaction with cleaning something thoroughly, but I can't say I wouldn't have enjoyed it more if the head was clean, just needed a quick rebuild, and then allowed me to move on to other aspects quickly and exceed the goal of simply having the engine back together.
Timasomo is over, but I always try to take pictures of my projects as I progress so you may see updates about this during the "What did you do this weekend?" threads. The new engine is in the same condition as it was at the end of November, but I'm closer to getting it in the car now as one of my friends and I were up until 1am this morning working to get the old engine out. All it needs is to be lifted out now which we're saving until next weekend.
Nice. I was hoping you would say that, since I have been enjoying your posts and would hate to see them come to an end before getting to see the finished engine finally mounted in the Tercel.
p.s. I know it's probably a long way off still, but planning on any other mods afterwards? I imagine she could probably make a pretty sweet looking track-day sleeper with a few more upgrades. :P
You're going to be waiting awhile (I'll update anyway, just saying don't get your hopes up for an xmas miracle)... There's still a lot to do before it goes in the Tercel as I'm refreshing the transmission seals and bearings along with a serious cleaning and clean up of the engine bay. Working to get the old engine out, somewhat expectedly, revealed how badly it had been leaking oil prior to my acquisition of it, so everything below the head is completely caked in an old oil/grease/dirt combo. There was a significant amount of digging hardened glop off of bolt heads to be able to get sockets on them to remove the bolt. So the power washer I built will be used to blast as much of that off, then the wiring and unnecessary accessory clean up/removal occurs. Once the trans is out as well the undercarriage will be gone over for rust cleanup, repair, and coating. I didn't see much rust when I was under the car yesterday, but I also didn't look all that hard. Which brings me to the next question:
Yes, whether they happen before or after the engine and transmission goes in is another question. Some things have to be done with the engine in place, others can be done with it out. Since this engine has a higher displacement than the original (1.8L @ 81x85.5mm vs 1.5L @ 77.5x77mm (bore x stroke)) it's taller than the original engine as there has to be somewhere for the increased stroke (up and down movement of the pistons) to go. Just putting the new engine in will mean the hood no longer closes, so the engine will have to go in, I'll measure how far it sticks up, then shim the engine crossmember down to clear the hood and depending on how far I have to do that I may need to shim the trans mounts, carrier bearing, and even the rear axle if the driveshaft angles are too high. How much it'll need to be shimmed is an unknown at this point because while a 7AGE swap has been discussed in the Tercel Wagon community I can't find anyone that has actually done it. A 7AFE (the original engine for the shortblock) isn't done because the distributor would be on the "back" of the engine when placed in the Tercel and would require cutting a huge hole in the firewall, the 4AGE (original engine for the head) is done on occasion and requires shimming to fit (red line is hood, pink arrow is oil fill, green arrow is intake manifold although I have a few options on the intake manifold front). The issue with shimming is it reduces ground clearance so you're putting the most expensive parts of the car closer to the ground and that can be an issue with the planned escapades which include general off-roading and rallycross; so it'll see track days, the track will just be dirt, mud, and gravel.
I'll also need the engine in the bay to model and fabricate headers that'll snake around the steering shaft, clutch cable, front axle, starter, and oil filter. The latter can be relocated if needed, but it'll still be a tight fit regardless. The original engine is a reverse-flow design, so the intake and exhaust are on the same side of the engine, good for fuel atomization in carbureted engines (and cheap to cast), bad for performance. Right hand drive (RHD) versions of the Tercel sold in Europe and Japan didn't have to contend with anything other than the steering shaft, so was less of a clearance problem and even then it was easy because the factory manifold uses a log-style that merges all cylinders into a single pipe quickly and sends it straight down. The headers I'll make will be tubular (totally!) and space will decide if I can make the preferred 4-2-1 or 4-1 setup (pros & cons to both) or if I'll have to settle for some short 4-1 headers. The engine and headers will need to be made and in the car before I can start work on the rest of the exhaust system as it'll be all new as well (since the original is both on the wrong side of the car and wouldn't be the right size).
Engine of course needs to be in the car and wired up for the Arduino engine controller and I also have an idea for a period correct way to add some oil pressure and temperature monitoring without needing to resort to gauges that won't blend in well with the interior, but I'm playing that one close to the chest until I'm sure it's feasible and closer to being ready.
Engine out mods include upgraded brakes from a combination of Toyota MR2 and VW Golf or late 90's Tercel parts depending on how they fit, there's debate on which fit best/correctly and people have a habit of saying their going one way or the other and then disappearing, so I'll likely just try both and see which I think works (and document it for others). There's also the replacement of every single rubber suspension bushing for polyurethane versions I had sent over from Australia along with the suspension lift comprised of parts from Nissan, Ford, and two different models of Toyota to give it an extra 2.5-2.75" of clearance; the new 15" (13" stock) wheels and larger tires add another 1.75" to the equation.
That just makes it all the more exciting! :) Also, is that interior pic from your actual Tercel? If so, goddamn that is in great shape! And you weren't kidding about that hood clearance issue. Are you sure there is even gonna be any room between the pavement and bottom of your new engine if you shim it down that much? :P
Thanks again for the detailed write-up, pics, and diagram.
You're damn right it does! A lot of what I do to my projects is based around it uncommon at the very least, if not outright unique. There are similar plans for all three of the project cars and I keep a list of ideas for others.
It is not and either I can't find a good picture of my interior or I'm just not looking hard enough... My interior is probably 95% as good as that one just because I haven't taken it to a detail shop. The only real differences are the detail job with all the plastic trim brightened up and the shift boot in that photo looks great, while mine has torn and is being replaced with a black rubber accordion style boot to add a little contrast to the otherwise solid brown center console. These interiors hold up surprisingly well with zero reports that I've seen of the dash or plastics cracking/breaking, the seats hold up nicely which is very good because the fabric is impossible to find/replace. So once it's all back together I'll treat it to a high end detail to get it sparking and all the plastic trim brightened up, right now it's just a little more dull and dusty.
It'll be interesting to find out for sure! If I think I'll have to shim too much I'll just drop it until the oil fill clears and start on the number of intake manifold options I have rolling around. It'll end up being fine in the end as of the five ideas I have off the top of my head, in order of greater and greater levels of effort, the fifth still isn't that hard and I can guarantee will work.
Happy to do so, thanks for the interest!
Even though you didn't end up where you wanted to by the end of Timasomo, I encourage you to think of your posts and contributions as creative efforts themselves. After all, you didn't just work on your car -- you also diligently documented every single step of the process, complete with pictures and explanations that were very friendly to someone like me, who opens my car hood so rarely I often forget about the latch underneath it and wonder why it won't lift when I tug on it. Your posts have given me a much greater appreciation for the machinery of cars themselves, as well as the expertise held by those who work on them. You not only know what to do, but how and why to do it in the first place.
You describe your unfinished project as a failure, but I see your contribution to Timasomo as nothing short of the wildest success! I find your dedication to your work inspiring, and your writeups make me want to find something that I can be similarly instructive and illuminating in. Please keep us updated with any further progress, but know that I feel genuinely honored by your participation here. You captured the spirit of what I was trying to activate with Timasomo in a very powerful way. Thank you for sharing that with us!
Thank you for the encouragement and I do consider the posts and keeping up with them a success. The posting comes a little naturally though as I'm a big fan of forums and have been on one automotive forum or another for decades now for whatever enthusiast vehicle I was working on making my own at the time. It was only getting the engine buttoned up in time that didn't work out, but I'm also far too accustomed to that aspect as I tend to have odd tastes and plans so my projects tend to span years as I wait for and gather the right parts, tools, or skills to complete them.
I do want to extend my thanks for bringing this challenge here, I had not heard of this style of community goal project prior and found it very enjoyable both personally and to watch others do the same.
Aphoenix.ca - a simple blog and photo album site. Most content is quite old; I'm planning to move more of the writing that I've done in the last few years into here over Christmas.
I also plan to go through and add tags to the content, remove some of the more jejeune things that I wrote and no longer agree with and get some of the other content pieces active. This was mostly a good opportunity to use Zola to build a site, which I'm also doing with my company's website, with a plan to launch in the next week or two. I also experimented with some CSS things; I was trying to minimize the amount of CSS needed to get a functional website.
The one place where I went "overboard" is in font selection; there are inarguably more web fonts than are necessary - ie there is not zero web fonts.
Your site looks great! Nice and clean. And I love your "80s shag carpet" color scheme! :)
I was originally confused because Zola also happens to be the name of a company that makes wedding webpages, so I was a little baffled as to why you'd be choosing them to run your personal site.
I love that you're finding a spot for some of your more substantive Tildes comments to have a life of their own. I've long wanted to do that myself; not because there's anything wrong with having my words live on Tildes (I love it here!) but because the turnover of content gives them a very short lifecycle.
Thanks! It's still a work in progress, but Timasomo helped spur on that work that I haven't done in 8 years because of other things. So thanks for getting that set up.
The Community Series
I wrote some pieces and designed some tools which captured my thoughts around community: guidelines for making good ones and features that community tools might want to include.
I started with a few pieces on my personal site which explored personal experiences related to community:
I took these, plus conversations with people who have varied community experiences, and turned them into a broader piece: Humane Communities: how we can live and grow together. It gives some recommendations for building communities.
Finally, based on this piece, I designed a tool for hosting communities which includes features promoting healthy interaction: Pueblo, the humane community platform.
I'd appreciate any feedback, criticism, or calling out of anything I failed to address. Overall, I had a nice time with this.
By the way, my website host is having some issues at the moment, so if you see "Service Unavailable" give it another go.
I love that you took Timasomo in this direction! I also love how thoughtfully you approach the idea of community. It's easy to think that community comes about simply because of who is present in any given space, but the internet has made clear that platforms have a huge influence in how their users behave and engage. I love that you don't just focus on outcomes but instead try to suss out the sources for those outcomes and how we can better influence communities for good. Pueblo is something I would love to join were it implemented!
Also, if you haven't yet shared it here, I would love to hear your thoughts on Tildes. What are we doing right? What can we improve on? Your analytical ability on this topic is unparalleled, and I have no doubt that you would have some valuable insights should you choose to share them (no pressure though! I don't want to make this a homework assignment for you!).
Thank you so much for participating in Timasomo and for being a positive part of a positive community. :)
Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you've gone through and replied to everyone's submission.
I really like Tildes. In fact, I only joined because I was thinking about this problem and stumbled across the Philosophy page. I like that it's small, and will probably stay small. I like that folks contribute substantial comments to discussions. We seem to be generally supportive of each other.
The only issue I've noticed is what people have called out in the census thread: we aren't a very diverse bunch. I know there are efforts to address that, and those efforts take time and care. But I think it's valuable to have varied experiences and opinions in the public forum, as long as we can discuss them civilly. I don't want Tildes to turn into an echo chamber.
Thanks again for hosting TiMaSoMo this year. We all appreciate your diligence!
Five Minute Stand Up Comedy Routine in VR
This was the culmination of six weeks of stand up comedy classes in VR, performed to an audience of ~70. I had a good time doing this, and it was certainly nice having a social group to break up the monotony of life during COVID. I learned a lot about joke writing and the act of stand up. I can now watch stand up comedy and break down sets to understand why they work or don't work. And now when I encounter a situation in life, I can see it as a premise for a joke. After doing all the work to develop these five minutes of material, I have an appreciation for stand up that I never thought I would have. It also gave me a new avenue of expressing myself.
Some caveats though to this whole experience. I think I burned myself out pretty bad doing the work for this class. It is hard writing material and deciphering what is good and what isn't. I had days where I would be downright grumpy trying to rack my brain for a good set-up/punch that would fit into my set's topic. I had better jokes over different topics that got great responses that ended up being cut from this set because it wasn't relevant to the topic. And this set suffered because of it. I worked too hard to write jokes for a topic that I was tired of performing on.
Additionally, the mental toll that occurs when performing for others got to me in ways I still don't fully understand. Bombing sucks. And then having to put on the face again after bombing is even more difficult. I liken it to the emotional drainage that you get when working retail and having to put on a happy face each time you interact with a customer. More often than not, I have days where I just don't feel funny or feel like laughing at jokes. But when you perform stand up, you have to act, and the better actor you are, the more the audience will buy that you are a bubbly person that doesn't want to be anywhere else in the world besides in front of them, making them laugh. Steve Martin writes about this in his autobiography, Born Standing Up, where people expect you to be the character that you play on stage. But anyways, I'm still unpacking my feelings of stand up, performing, my reactions, and what it all means.
I'm not averse to performing again. One of my classmates reached out to me yesterday on MC'ing an event in VR which I may do this weekend. I think if I continue, it will be at a snail's pace. Maybe have a therapist on stand-by for my stand-up.
I admire the crap out of you for doing standup. I literally speak to groups of people all day long for a living (teacher), but you couldn't pay me enough to try comedy! I think it takes incredible courage to get up in front of an audience and try to make them laugh.
One thing I've learned from reading all your posts is how standup is a sort of incredible tension between being explicitly scripted -- laboriously so -- and appearing extemporaneous. You have to get up there and sound natural, like you're making sort of off-the-cuff observations and not reading word-for-word from a script, all while knowing that you have pored over every word, multiple times, adjusting things here and there and tweaking every little bit.
I was also surprised at how much the expressiveness of the VR avatar added to the experience. Despite being only a torso and floating hands, your avatar added some of "you" to the performance. I have no doubt that you practiced the physicality of your performance as well as the words, and that came through with the VR setup, although not as much as it likely would in-person.
All told, I enjoyed your set for what it was, but I also enjoyed the behind-the-scenes look into standup that you gave us. If your Timasomo project were a DVD release, then I loved not just the main feature but the director commentary as well!
Fragile Little World: Finding the "Greenest" Tree this Holiday
Added an article onto the personal website/blog that I made last year, since I haven't really kept up with posting on there like I had hoped. I had been wondering about the relative environmental impacts of artificial and natural Christmas trees and thought others might be too, so I went and found out and wrote about it.
Also, while I was working on this, I listened to this playlist, which is has songs about environmental problems. It's short and... a bit dismal, but if you want to hear it, there it is.
Gyrfalcon, I cannot state how happy I was to see your submission to this thread! I fondly remember your project from last year, and with your entry this year you have achieved notable status: you are officially the only two-time Timasomo participant in the entire world. We here are in the presence of your greatness!
With regards to your article, it is again excellent. You bring incredible expertise to the table, and I learned a great deal from having read through it. What impacted me more than the knowledge you display, however, is your continued sustainability focus which forced me to consider yet another thing I'd never thought: the environmental impact of Christmas trees (both real and artificial).
My husband and I got a small (like, 2 feet tall) artificial one when we moved into our new house and pretty much plan to use it indefinitely. This post is a nice encouragement to stick with it instead of feeling the urge to replace it once it gets old. I read something a while back that said "the most sustainable item is the one you already own" and I feel like that's a good summary of what you try to advocate for with artificial trees.
Congrats again on a great Timasomo, and wear your new title with pride! No one else, in all of human history, has completed back-to-back Timasomo projects except for you! You're a legend! :)
I'm so glad you liked it! And I'm surprised that there weren't any other return submitters. The real question now is can I go for the threepeat??
Oh you definitely should. Now you have a title to defend!
wdw
wdw is a short alt-rock(?) EP - if it can be called that, being only ~6 minutes long.
So this is the first music thingy I am showing to people on the internet, which is pretty cool! (I guess I made music for my Ludum Dare games, but that doesn't have singing so it's different! i guess.) I am actually pretty happy with how it turned out, considering I actually spent only about 3-4 days making this, because I was busy with stuff, and when I wasn't busy I got distracted by other stuff (like when I made this interactive fiction game with a long name).
The first track is a pointless intro type deal, to set the mood or something. The second track - "yyyyyyyyy" - is my favorite, making it was so fun, just going ham on the randomness and experimentation was amazing. Most of the lyrics are just adlibbed, the guitar is just me going in and playing something. I think I will definitely make more music like this track in the future. The third track - "SemicolonBeginParentheses" - is a closing track for this thingy. Also, the cover for the EP is a random photo I took, edited to be a bit nicer, I am actually a fan of how it looks.
I have no idea how to master music or anything like that, so it's bound to be very very rough. Let's say it's intentionally made that way. It's also no secret that I wouldn't win any singing talent shows, but I hope the singing is ok enough, and if it isn't, it's made to be bad on purpose too! My guitar playing is no doubt totally awesome though, definitely.
Overall, making this was a great time. Thank you @kfwyre for running timasomo. If there is another Timasomo next year, I'd like to join again, maybe focusing on my project for more than just 3 days this time.
Thank you so much! It means a lot to me, especially from another music artist. Making the IF game was great fun too :).
I'm grinning from ear to ear listening to this, Tygrak!
I used to listen to a lot of SongFight stuff which, given the week turnaround time, had a similar feel to your EP: no professional mastering; lower-fi recording; simpler structure; experimental flourishes. I find this kind of down-to-earth-ness endearing.
The first track has a nice feel to it. I already sometimes use noise generators to create rainsound for sleeping, so I could definitely see myself falling asleep to a full-length album of ambient music like this -- just rain and piano. Although I like how the song turns the corner at the end into something else.
I love the choppy, processed, garbled vocals on the second track. They give it a unique feel -- very SongFight. It makes the song feel a bit frantic in a good way and they give the effect of somebody noodling on a guitar, only the guitar is your voice. Very cool.
The third track is much more traditional. I'm not sure what you used for the percussion, but the timbre of it is interesting -- reminds me of an old ticking clock in a vacant room. Gives the track a sort of spacious quality to it that it wouldn't have if it were just your voice and the guitar.
All told I really enjoyed listening to your EP, and I'm impressed as all hell that you finished it in 3-4 days.
Thank you so much! I am so happy you enjoyed listening to the EP. I've never heard of SongFight, but it looks pretty cool - I really like making un-proffesional low-fi diy music like this so I will definitely check it out. The percussion on the third track is actually just me hitting the table with some reverby effects added :).
Pocket Gemini
I'm working on a Gemini protocol browser for android. I only found out about Gopher protocol recently, and used the android browser Pocket Gopher to explore it - looking through server after server of personal blogs, uni projects, and hobbyist forums was deeply refreshing reminder of how human the web could be once you get away from the doom-scrolling feeds. I do most of my browsing on mobile, and wanted to make an app for poking around the gemini-sphere.
I started the month with zero android development experience, and only a fleeting memory of basic java syntax from years ago. I spent the majority of my Timasomo time reading through documentation and PG's code, turns out android development is more than just knowing java syntax :P Unfortunately it's nowhere near done - at the end of the month it was, technically, able to make requests and render the result. However, that was all it could do - make a single request and render plain text on the screen, as seen here. Timasomo ended early for me, as I went offline for the last week or so and only recently got back to working on it, but I've got links working and started adding a bit of formatting, as seen here. I'm very much looking forward continue working on this, though Timasomo was a good time-limited kick in the pants to get me started!
This is awesome! I only recently learned what the Gemini protocol is (and, to be honest, still don't feel like I have a great grasp of it, but I'm not techy so it's a bit above my head anyway). I love that you dove in despite not having any Android development experience! You made a ton of progress over the month, especially starting from zero like that!