#soliciting advice

[knottybliss]

I finished a shawl! Knitting! Aaaaand I am probably going to have to frog it.

For reasons I have not been able to puzzle out, the top edge (which is the end of the rows) has NO stretch.

Therefore, the whole thing sort of buckles/puckers around the top center, which is where I started. There has got to be some method to having a springier edge, I just don’t know what it is.

I do like how the patterning in the body came out, anyway, and it was good practice. I’m faster and smoother now with both knitting and purling than I was when I began. Since that was, ultimately, the goal? I’m feeling pretty good about it overall.

MISTAKES ARE FOR LEARNING! FUCKUPS ALLOW FOR GROWTH.

if anybody has thoughts about how I might have achieved a stretchier edge with my row ends, please advise.

The pattern is Lionberry by Narniel of Endor and is a free download on Ravelry.

[wikiphilia]

What to do if a beautiful woman moves in next door to you and you see her every day and it makes you shrink into a small greasy rodent every time. And she's your height too and it's causing you psychic damage. And she looks at you like you're less dirt

[thenewmi6]

I hate that webmd doesn’t have an option to rule a specific thing out and give me other options. Like I don’t have the MSUD thing I just wanna know why every now and then- probably once every two or three months- I wake up and my hands smell like maple syrup. Is it possible I have some Canadian strain of werewolf-ism where I just kinda go out and tap some sap in my sleep and go back to bed? Nothing else smells like syrup literally just my hands

[eclecticelectriceccentric]

If you wanna tell me why…? :3

I’ll probably liveblog whichever one it is

[ryannorth]

How do you get better at writing as a serious hobby when you're someone who only really ever maintained writing through shitty parody fanfiction and overly emotional vent poetry? I have lengthy detailed ideas for a sci-fi style universe and I want to get the idea out of my head but I have no actual assuredness in my own writing ability. I'm also borderline illiterate.

I tried writing a chapter of my idea today and when I re-read it to myself something about it felt kinda flat. It's hard for me to be descriptive about scenery and such because I have trouble visually imagining things in my head. Are there better ways of strengthening something like that?

The best thing about writing is that there is no way to do it and NOT get better at it. It's just like how there is no way you could shoot hoops three times a week for a year and, at the end of it, not be better at shooting hoops.

The thing is, as you get better at writing, you start to see the flaws you couldn't see before. If you took that chapter you wrote today and gave it to yourself a year ago, I bet you wouldn't see the flaws in it then that you see now. What's changed is you've become a better writer, and now are aware of all the things you wish you could do differently. So it's progress - it's frustrating, but it is progress! You went from not seeing the flaws in your work to seeing them - and the next step is learning how to correct them. You do that by reading and writing more, picking up more tips and tricks that you can employ!

All this to say, my advice is to read and write more, and especially read outside of the genres you're interested in. I can always tell when a comic writer has only read comics, because there's a sameness you encounter. But if you're the comic writer who reads all sorts of things, that gives you a wider breadth of experience, and a more unique one too.

My other advice is to not try to do your big idea right away. You have lengthy and detailed ideas for this universe, and you know exactly what you want it to be - and that's daunting. It'll take years to get all of that written in the way you want. So keep playing with it, keep thinking about it, but give yourself permission to do other things first. It's rare that someone's first book is their best book, and the expectorations you're building in your head may be very very hard to meet. But, to bring it back to what I said at the start - there's no way for you to write and NOT get better at it. Write other things, smaller things, bite-sized achievable things, and later on you'll probably find that this big daunting project is no longer quite so daunting - and much more within your grasp.

I hope this helps!

[andmaybegayer]

I need a Linux for my laptop, it's been between operating systems for like three months now, taking suggestions, probably not Debian or Arch or their derivatives. Previously had Tumbleweed and then briefly Aeon but Aeon is GNOME which sucks and if I'm considering reinstalling to Kalpa for Plasma I could also switch to anything.

[starplanes]

hi, I saw that you're a podcast producer. I've been wanting to get into the industry as they say, but I have no expertise and not much equipment (I dont even know what equipment I really need), I havn't even written any kind of script before, but I really want to try make a fiction podcast.

Do you have some general tips for a newbie.

Hi! I got general tips for you for SURE :D

I recommend starting with Audacity and a USB mic - the RODE Nt-USB sounds really good for its price point, but there are cheaper mics too. Using a blanket fort to decrease room echo will go miles farther than using a fancy mic. Audacity is a free audio editing software that's beginner friendly (it's where I started!).

Script-wise, I think the best place to start would be to write something with 1-3 characters (keep it small). If one of those characters is a narrator, you can get away with not including a lot of hard sound design, because a narrator can say what's happening. Additional misc advice: I recommend writing all your scripts before starting production (turns out it's pretty hard to write and produce at the same time). If you're not already listening to fiction podcasts, start doing that and see what works well in the audio medium! There's lots of article and advice online, plus a whole community here on tumblr, so don't feel like you're on your own!

I've written some random articles on medium about the podcast production process; here's one with more general advice. I hope this helps! I can't wait to see what you make!

[fabrickind]

so how in the absolute fuck did Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku save your life

LMAO a couple people have been wondering this so I'll tell the story.

tl;dr: if you are having severe medication side effects, get off that med.

In fall of 2017 I came down with a nasty migraine(? probably?) that disabled me to the point of being pretty much non-functional. I had to quit my job, I could barely leave bed, was in too much pain 24/7 to sleep properly and when I did sleep it was nothing but dreams about being in pain, the works.

I went through a LOT of different medications and diagnostics (MRI, spinal tap, you name it) to try to fix this problem. It never fully went away, but Botox ended up getting me functional again.

One of the medications they put me on, Topamax, was very bad for me. I did the proper ramping up of dose, got to the correct dose, and everything was so much worse. I was having hallucinations, visual disturbances, overall a bad time.

Around this time I was also having issues with word recall. I would mean to say one thing but a totally different word would come out, or I couldn't think of a word at all. Usually this was when I was super tired, so I just chalked it up to my brain being mush due to pain and fatigue (my brain is often soup when I have a migraine, let alone one that severe for going on several months at that point) and mostly ignored it, since i had more pressing problems.

Around this time the neurologist I saw also saw my symptoms and side effects and the fact that the med wasn't helping up to that point and said "well all of that will get better with time" and wrote me a prescription for quadruple (!!) my dose (without ramping up either).

THANKFULLY, just before this happened, I was in the car, fully awake, having a relatively good day, and what comes on my iPod shuffle but our old friend Zettai Unmei Mokushiroku. I was singing along, well, trying to, but I would open my mouth and only gibberish would come out, and not even the correct gibberish. I thought "that's concerning" and tried again. More gibberish.

I had remembered that my now partner (this was just before we started dating) was briefly on Topamax for migraine prevention and had word recall issues, but that hers persisted for a long time after she stopped.

So I called up my GP and said "uhhh here's my side effects (including the aphasia issues, the neurologist knew about those) and the dose he wants me on, should I do this?" and she basically said "wtf no stop the med right away."

If I hadn't had the issues with very much the wrong sounds coming out of my mouth when singing, I probably would have believed the neurologist and suddenly started a quadruple dose of the med, which would have caused even worse side effects, and side effects that were permanent, or at least MUCH longer lasting than the maybe month or so of continued visual issues and mild word recall issues I ended up with. (Also my overall health improved and I had less of the extreme eepies I had on the med once I stopped.) Luckily I was only on it for maybe two weeks at that point?

So "ZUM saved my life" is probably an exaggeration, but "ZUM prevented continued and long-lasting neurological problems" is absolutely not. It seems like sometimes the cognitive impairments go away for people after stopping Topamax, but for people who have been on high doses and/or for a long time, it sometimes doesn't, even after years.

So thanks, Utena, for my life, literally this time.

[norashelley]

they've been having halloween theme all week at my physical therapy and my appointments were monday & today, today they did a witch theme so I tried to come up with a sort of witchy outfit that would still work for PT and I thought I did pretty good and they all loved it. Tomorrow they are all going to wear onesies and I joked that too bad I don't have an appointment tomorrow cause I have a skeleton onesie! And my physical therapist said, you don't have to have an appointment you can just come by in your onesie and say hi! and then said they were all going out for lunch in their onesies and I could join them, but the way she said it I couldn't tell if we were all just joking around or if they were serious! My mom says they were probably just joking around (they do that a lot there) so they probably don't expect me to actually show up and I don't really want to drive all that way anyway plus it's going to be pretty hot tomorrow and a onesie would be uncomfortable. But it makes me think about how terrible I am at reading people and how I can never really tell when people are being serious or not! A part of me thinks it would be fun to do but another part of me worries people would be like, yeah we were not actually serious, and then it be weird and awkward! I don't think I'd feel up to doing it anyway so I don't even know why I'm worried about it but I wondered what other people might do if faced with that situation! Also for reference I've been going for over a year, so I've gotten pretty friendly with everyone but still only ever see them at appointments.

[yekokataa]

have any of you successfully treated burnout, through therapy or something else? i was looking at the wikipedia page for burnout and we're really in the dark ages still when it comes to this stuff, like it's barely even recognized as a real thing, and no one's agreed on an effective treatment. the things different countries have tried are like, have the patient talk about it, give them a bunch of vitamin B, make them really hot or cold, treat it like it's depression. i'm sure there are plenty of life coaches out there who would love to take my money in exchange for a promise to fix my burnout but is life coaching even a real thing. i'm so lost when it comes to navigating how to find a professional to help with it how the fuck does anyone find a therapist for something like this

[gingerfan24]

Random electrical arcs coming out of the wall at the Electrodynamic Cenobium how I despise you right now.

[eclecticelectriceccentric]

I need to get obsessed with something

[ulysses-but-somehow-more-transer]

ive been thinking about my life and i believe i need to do a full 180 cause i feel it is my Sacred Duty to go study mathematics

[leadendeath]

been having some really bad (suspected) low blood pressure moments recently, a lot of preventative “lay on the floor and put ur feet up on a chair” to not feel faint and silly in the head yknow

and when i do that i feel like i am a water wiggler and the lil critters inside are my blood, and the laying down is like the action of squeeze all the critters up one end. i need more oxegenated blood critters to go up to my head you see.

[andmaybegayer]

Realized I did not bring my trackball from home so I need a new one: I will abide the results of this poll

What these are:

Orbit Fusion

The same one I used to have, the conservative option. Occasional wireless issues and a kind of crunchy scroll ring, but otherwise few issues. Fun sculpted design, Most convoluted button layout. Shiny crimson orb.

M575

I have never used a thumb trackball for more than a few minutes before, I have opinions that welcome being tested. Arguably the weirdest one despite looking the most like a conventional mouse. Very modern, Logitech's general purpose wireless technology. Also comes in a very pretty white option, best price because Logitech made way too many so I can get a good deal. Stormy blue orb.

Wireless Optical

Kensington's original wireless offering, weird touch sensitive version of Kensington's scroll ring thing. Fewest buttons, most expensive. Most ordinary trackball design, side buttons are a classic design choice that resembles my first trackball. Dignified scarlet orb.