#generalists

[computerbrxin]

horses of course

[prismaticstreams]

How to balance all your interests when you have multiple passions?

I’ve been pondering how to balance all my different passions, interests, and side hustles, as I’m the kind of person who tends to love variety and easily gets excited about new projects. It’s often the completion part that I struggle with! This is a fairly common conundrum for certain personality types, and can also be related to conditions like ADHD. It can be really hard to know how to streamline and simplify things to make it more manageable and less chaotic.

Chronic illness can be a factor here too, as I often start a new project in a high energy period, but then may not have the physical energy to easily complete it. It can be hard to know how to handle this sometimes, as I can’t predict how I’ll feel from day to day or week to week. Sometimes I just have to let something go for a while, and accept that I will come back to it later. I also accept that there’s some projects I will abandon, and I don’t see it as a major problem as long as there’s no financial investment.

So how do you handle this tendency? 

I personally find it’s best to embrace it, and find ways to work around it rather than trying to pigeonhole myself into only one project, passion or interest at a time. However, if you’re trying to make money, earn an income or build a business - and you need to pay the bills with it to survive - then you will probably need to narrow down to one thing at a time for work. You can still allow yourself freedom to explore in your free time, though.

For example, I love borrowing a wide range of books from the library, and reading about a bunch of different topics at once. Switching from one book to another works for me and I find it stimulating. The great thing is that the books all get returned to the library, so they don't create long-term clutter. I also enjoy writing blog posts about a range of different topics, rather than sticking to one particular subject.

Same goes for my art - I have one style that I sell commercially, and then do whatever I want in the rest of my spare time as it captures my fancy. I find creating different IG/Tumblr accounts for particular art styles/niches works well. If it becomes popular and sells it's a cool bonus, but I don't worry too much about it making money. Digital art is great because it doesn't take up storage space, so I'm shifting from doing large pieces on canvas to doing more digital art.

Having said all that, I do have a bunch of blogs and Tumblr accounts floating around on the internet that I've forgotten about and largely abandoned. Same with old creative projects in storage. But it's okay, because I enjoyed exploring that idea/hobby/style for a brief period of time. Sometimes I go back and integrate creative stuff from the past into my current projects (for example, taking an old blog post and updating it for my current blog).

It can become a problem if you waste a lot of money on hobbies you forget about or business ideas that never get off the ground, so I’d recommend finding ways to avoid spending too much money to begin with. Ideally, it’s best to spend no money and find free activities, but obviously this is not always possible. My post about Decluttering My Fantasy Self may be relevant if this is you.

If you're multipassionate, I don't think there's one right or wrong way to manage your interests and hobbies. Some people like to focus intensely on one hobby at a time, then move on to something else. Others enjoy moving between different interests simultaneously to keep them stimulated. I've done both at different times in my life. Emilie Wapnick has a great book about this called How to Be Everything which is more focused on career, but you can apply the same principles to hobbies and side hustles as well.

[j-august]

It is wise to have decisions of great moment monitored by generalists. Experts and specialists lead you quickly into chaos. They are a source of useless nitpicking, the ferocious quibble over a comma.

Frank Herbert, Children of Dune

[realityfragments]

Expanding Our Prisons.

Offhandedly, regarding something related to recommendations, I wrote, ‘there are always echo chambers’ in the context of social media and recommendations. It’s an unfortunate truth about we humans and our perspectives, and I thought to expand on it here. We recursively play our roles in the Allegory of the Cave, where some of us ‘leave’ the cave and go explore outside of it. It was originally…

[courtenaybaker]

Courtenay Baker - Why Do HR Professionals Need Legal Knowledge?

There is no size fit for HR responsibilities. An HR employee's duties can vary greatly depending on their title. Some HR managers are just in charge of staffing, while others focus on employee development, some are only in charge of pay and benefits, and yet others—the generalists—take care of everything. According to Courtenay Baker, Knowing basic HR-related regulations offers these professionals the confidence to make these decisions or know when to seek outside assistance because these professionals are frequently faced with making snap decisions that might have serious legal repercussions. Legally knowledgeable HR specialists can proactively reduce a company's exposure to legal risk, giving them a competitive advantage in the workplace. They assist businesses in remaining compliant and avoiding frivolous claims while also defending the rights of cherished employees thanks to their practical knowledge of current legislation and its practical applications.

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

realised. dean is the perfect viewer avatar for a horror show. he gets to be both the action hero and the quippy, self-aware wiseguy who knows he's in a horror show. he provides a safe point; a comfortable power fantasy for you to experience a story through. he's ash in the evil dead. he's a gunslinging tough guy, and you get to see those moments where heroism sits on his shoulders like an ill-fitting leather jacket. and even when he gets his turn at being captured and victimised by the narrative, it's filtered through this mythic lens first. he's the tormented hero; tortured by villains, tortured by the constraints of his role. yeah he gets bruised, beaten bloody to a pulp, torn to shreds and killed, but his perception of reality never gets thrown into serious doubt (unless it's played out as a gag). the narrative valorises his sense of right and wrong, because that's what heroic stories do. their heroes provide moral center, regardless of how we might judge them. the lines dividing hero, anti-hero, and villian are paper thin, and dean isn't truly ever allowed to be ambiguous. and the hero always wins in the end, even when he dies.

meanwhile sam is the abject object of the horror show, a character who gets trussed up, chased, tied up, ripped apart, cut into, possessed, exploited, manipulated and psychologically hounded. he's carrie covered in pig's blood. he's the marginal person people are cheering on either to die - or to live past it all. he gets his turn at playing both movie monster and victim, always occupying the liminal space between both. abject horror lives within him. he's violated with demon blood, he consumes demon blood. he hates halloween because he vomited his guts up in front of a room of normal children. he will never get to be normal, he's designated the freak on multiple levels, but most significantly, by the way his narrative frames him. he's living inside a world that is at its core, fundamentally frightening and horrifying - full control over himself and his surroundings is always slipping away, just beyond his reach. his grip on reality and the world around him gets thrown into question by the story consistently. what's right? what's wrong? what's real? what isnt? the narrative punishes him - because that's what happens to you when you're living in a horror. he can never run away from his nightmare reality, it catches up to him like a curse nipping at his heels. the only way out for him is through the punishing fire. in order to survive, he's required to be pushed to the absolute brink of instability; emotionally, physically and mentally. he emerges out the other end, barely holding it together but somehow alive - like the bloody final girl, changed irrevocably by what she's experienced.

[uncharismatic-fauna]

No Tears for the Southern Black Widow

Latrodectus mactans, more commonly known as the southern black widow, is the most common species in the black widow family. While it can be found throughout North America, they are found most often in the southern United States. Within this wide range, L. mactans enjoys a variety of habitats. They prefer areas that are close to the ground, dark, and sheltered; in the wild this may mean dense brush or under logs, while in inhabited areas they may be found in basements, log piles, or under trash lids.

In addition to being the most common black widow, L. mactans is also the largest member of the family Theridiidae. The females are larger than the males, averaging at about 8-10 mm (0.31- 0.39 in) in length and weighing about 1 g (0.04 oz); however the male's legs are generally longer than the females. Both males and females are black, with small thoraxes and extremely large, round abdomens. The female can be distinguished by the iconic red hour-glass shape on the underside of her abdomen, while the male has 4 pairs of red and white stripes on each side of his abdomen.

The southern black widow is mainly solitary, spending most of its time in or near its web. Only the females live long enough to build a web for catching prey, and are the sole source of black widow bites. While bites do require medical attention, no human fatalities have been reported since 1983.

During the day, females hang in the center of the web to expose the bright red warning on their abdomen; when startled they drop to the ground and play dead. Though the webs they construct are haphazard-- the stereotype of cobwebs-- they are extremely strong and are capable of catching woodlice, millipedes, centipedes, other spiders, and occasionally small mice. Once an animal becomes trapped in L. mactan's web, the spider envenoms its prey and wraps it in a thick cocoon. After the animal dies the spider injects it with digestive enzymes and consumes the resulting fluid. Despite their strong venom, the southern black widow can be victim to several predaotrs; namely wasps, the brown widow spider, praying mantises, and large centipedes.

The southern black widow mates primarily in the spring and summer. Mature males build small webs and deposit semen along the threads. He then coats his mouthpieces-- palps-- with sperm and sets out to find a female mate. To court her, he vibrates the threads of her web until she is receptive. On rare occasions, a displeased female may eat the male. Afterwards, if he survives, the male leaves the females web and dies soon afterwards. From just one encounter, the female can store enough sperm to last her a lifetime of reproductive cycles.

After fertilization, the female builds a small web where she lays her egg sac, which can contain up to 400 eggs. She guards these eggs until they hatch about 20 days later, and immedietly disperse to establish their own territories. Until they become fully mature, at about 90 days old, juveniles have no venom and are extremely vulnerable to predators- including adult black widows. Typically only about 30 individuals from a single clutch survive to adulthood. Once mature, males can live for only one year, while females can live up to three years in the wild.

Conservation status: The IUCN has not evaluated the southern black widow, but due to its large range and population size it is considered stable. It is able to adapt to most habitats, and thus the species' only threat comes from extermination via pest control.

If you send me proof that you’ve made a donation to UNRWA or another organization benefiting Palestinians, I’ll make art of any animal of your choosing.

Photos

Mark Kostich

James L. Castner

Meghan F. Murphy

[askagamedev]

Hello, I'm an aspiring game developer generalist but I honestly have no clue where to start, and my lack of attention span does not make it any better, do you have any advice on how to start learning to become a generalist?

It really depends on what you want to do. If you want to be a hobbyist, then I suggest reading my guide on the [minimum competence needed] to be able to contribute to a game development team. Then, start doing each of these things - write code, create art assets, build a level, make something playable. As you learn to do these tasks and level up, you'll become a generalist that's able to make a lot of contributions to a dev team.

If you want to be a professional generalist, the requirements are much more stringent. Generalists in the game industry really only exist at the upper mid-senior level, there really aren't any junior generalists because the juniors really lack the experience shipping and finishing games. A junior might enter without a specific specialty, but they have a lot of learning to do. It's much easier to learn one major thing at a time than it is to learn many things all at once, especially when the goal is delivering shippable quality results.

The minimum bar for competence for professional generalists is much higher. A professional generalist isn't someone who knows a little of everything and can get something started, it's someone who can finish a wide variety of tasks. A professional generalist can operate and produce work of shippable quality in multiple areas. I've personally worked on cameras, economy, combat, monetization, characters, AI, progression, animation, cinematics, localization, and lots of other game systems in my career.

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[generic-sonic-fan]

It seems that Eggman has finally had enough of the troublesome E 123 Omega and now seeks to destroy him, permanently. The bot for the job? Metal Sonic. Who do you think would win , with no outside influence?

Or would they be too evenly matched and their fate is mutually assured destruction.

Mutually assured destruction, if a little delayed.

Omega has Shadow and Rouge to avenge him, after all. Metal Sonic does not possess such a privilege.

[emblazons]

I'm gonna keep it 300: Once I realized that byler v mlvn (at least in canon) was never a competition of "ships" or even heteronormativity versus queer rep but a conversation about thematic points being made by the duffers, I ceased feeling any real doubt about the outcome of this segment of the intertwined character narratives.

Why? Because The Duffers (while notoriously mum about their plotlines and twists) are vocal as hell about what they value & what "lessons" they're trying to drive home.

With The Duffers (unlike a lot of TV writers today) its "find the thematic line and you find the endgame plot." That's literally it. And tbh, even if I was someone who couldn't stand byler for whatever reason, from a narrative theme perspective, its pretty clear that

"15 year old boy who both longs for and fears the consequences of nonconformity finds the bravery to get out of a relationship that fuels those insecurities while leaning into his relationship with his fellow-nonconforming best friend"

tracks more with The Duffers value system than

"boy and his superhero love interest spend their 5th consecutive season barely seeing eye to eye on interests and problem-solving while relying on other people who know them better than they know each other to fix their relationship before dramatically separating and coming back in a melodramatic flourish."

Like. I don't even need to do more mental work than that to understand whats happening with this part of the story, because after 7 entire years of watching the rest of the show, its clear they'e written Mike and El into the same corner that's broken up every other dysfunctional relationship in Stranger Things, from Stncy to Joyce and Bob: a lack of common interest and a lack of common goals.

When you look at that, and combine it w/ any knowledge of the—

"What's wrong with playing DnD as an adult" "we are nerds and children at heart" "we hated HS & did other people's assignments to stay relevant" "one of us married a fellow horror fan who shares our interests (Ross) and the other has decided not to officially partner (Matt)"

—Duffer Brothers? lmao.

The only snag I ever hit trying to understand that was the S3 tone shift...and even they admit that was their narrative "play" season, which (however you feel about that as a writing decision) says every single thing about what's gonna happen when things get "more serious" (while moving back to S1 energy) in S5. 🤷🏽‍♀️

[anyajkramer]

I'm spreading the centipede gospel. Hmu. please god ask me about centipedes. fuck fuck fuck oh my god. fuck they are so cool. some of them are k-selected!!!! they love their babies.! im like. im fucking crying theyre so awesome. their legs get longer along their bodies. theyre so much better than millipedes. what who said that. fuck oh my god.

[shirecorn]

You think the Vonder unicorn females are like, somehow non existent? Like the males can somehow reproduce on their own

I think there's so much we don't yet understand.

Unfortunately the leading field researcher was killed and eaten, and the notes of her dissertation found miles downstream and ruined beyond legibility.

It was a great loss to the scientific community, but such is the way of biology. She was a great scientist, and I had worked with her in the past to write a brief overview on unicorn-affected areas. I was hoping to write an entire chapter using her most recent research, but now I cannot. Perhaps I will dedicate the book to her, and to the wild that claims all of us in the end.

I too prefer to do my studies alone, with just myself and the wilderness around me. But even I know you shouldn't venture into a unicorn thicket without backup. Forest guarded by unicorns are home to the most exquisite - and dangerous - flora and fauna

[magellanicclouds]

Of course it would be without explanation and rooted in a Denning book. He is allergic to even trying to write a successful generalist. Everyone has to be a singular trope, trait, or stereotype. That said, 'strategist and tactician' is a field anathema to him I guess. Because why would somebody geared for leadership be good at either of those things, right? = o = Heartbroken.

[localwarlockunion]

one of these decades i'd like to develop some kind of coherent personal creative practice instead of juggling ten thousand unrelated little side-projects all the time

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Fritter Away with the Mormon Fritillary

The Mormon fritillary (Speyeria mormonia) is a common species of butterfly found throughout western North America. There are multiple subspecies distributed throughout its range, which extends from northern Canada to the southern United States, following the Rocky Mountain range. They are found in a variety of habitats, including alpine grasslands, meadows, and sparse pine forests.

Larval S. mormonia are almost entirely dependent on violets for food, while adults will also feed on milkweeds, thistles, and daisies, as well as mud puddles and animal waste. Birds, rodents, lizards, frogs, spiders, and mantids are all common predators of both caterpillar and adult Mormon fritillaries.

Mating for the Mormon fritillary occurs in mid to late summer. Males regularly search open areas for available females, and following an encounter females lay their fertilized eggs in leaf litter near patches of violets. After about 10 days the eggs hatch, but rather than feeding the caterpillars enter a period of hibernation that lasts throughout the winter. Come spring, they emerge and feed on their host plant for just over a month. Pupation takes 10-12 days, after which they emerge as fully mature adults. In the wild, individuals can live up to 4 years.

S. mormonia are rather small, but brightly colored butterflies. The wingspan for females ranges from 25-27mm (0.98-1.06 in), while males are slightly smaller at 23-26mm (0.9-1.02 in). The top wings of both sexes are orange with black spotting, while the undersides are lighter yellow with white spots, and the body is covered in brown or tan fur.

Conservation status: The Mormon fritillary has not been evaluated by the IUCN, but populations are generally considered to be stable across the US. Its most common threat is the disappearance of its host flower species.

Want to request some art or uncharismatic facts? Just send me proof of donation of any amount to any of the fundraisers on this list, or a Palestinian organization of your choice!

Photos

John Lane

Mark Leppin

David Inouye

[localsharkcryptid]

I wanna be a little silly on main before I go to sleep so uh

Send me an ask with a dsmp character and I'll give an honest bingo card of my thoughts on them :}

The Solid design square in this case would mean that I have some fun design ideas for em

(Also if anyone knows the original op of the bingo card please let me know, I wanna give credit if I can but I got the image from a friend ^^)