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We’ll have to do dinner Thursday night instead.

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I would say you jinxed it, but it was honestly due for one so this isn’t really a surprise.

Truck drivers in Michigan have for years smashed into an undersized bridge called The Big Penny. Normal warning signs have not deterred drivers from wedging dozens of trucks into its hungry maw.

So they put eyes and teeth on the bridge, in part as a further deterrent.

It has not worked…

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I have thought something similar, but never separated it into senses like this. I always just thought of my brain as a switchboard with a bunch of plugs that all need to be plugged in somewhere.

Some Tasks, like videogames, require a bunch of plugs, so I can focus on doing just that, while other tasks only need one or two plugs so I need to find other things to ”plug into” for all the rest, or the feedback will make The Task impossible.

I’ve never taken the metaphor this far, but I suppose hyperfocus allows for more plugs (up to “all of them”) to go to The Task, while distractions force the plugs to be plugged into ports for stuff like “that annoying noise” and “that flickering light” which doesn’t leave enough for The Task.

My theory of adhd management is that in order to focus there are 4 things that need to be sufficiently occupied:

Eyes

Ears

Hands (or body)

Brain

And if you aren’t occupying them enough or there’s too many things demanding the use of one, it’ll start to wreck havoc on your ability to do things.

So for example, listening to a podcast. This occupies your ears and brain as you focus on both listening and processing what you hear, but it leaves your hands and eyes completely without anything to do. If you tried to sit down and just listen to a podcast by itself you’d probably get unbearably bored and stop doing it.

But if you pair that activity with something that uses your hands and eyes, like a craft, household chore, or commute, suddenly you’re fully plugged in and can in fact focus better on both tasks than you could if you tried doing them separately.

It’s also why you can’t listen to a podcast while doing homework; you’re trying to use your brain for two different tasks. To occupy your ears while doing homework (which is already using eyes, brain, and hands) you need something for your ears that doesn’t require your brain: music. Specifically music that doesn’t use too much brain power, which is why some people prefer instrumentals or songs in other languages.

Hyperfixation and sensory overload change this by moving the threshold for how much sensory input you need to be able to function. If I’m extremely focused on a craft project (eyes, hands, brain) I might not even need something for my ears; my interest in the project makes up for it. If i’ve had a very overwhelming day, trying to listen to an audiobook while I do some stretches could be too much to process. My brain needs a break.

Video games, which pretty much universally occupy all 4 areas, are basically instant, easy focus wrapped up in a neat little bow. No wonder adhd-havers tend to love them.

If you’re struggling with a task, try looking at which areas it occupies and which are left unattended. Then try to find something enjoyable to fill those gaps, and see if that helps.

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“Surely this person has misread the word ‘counties’ as ‘countries’”, I thought, naively.

To nitpick, that’s 16 outposts, but actually only 12 other countries.

This article from May 2024 says they had to close their Montreal, Toronto, and Singapore offices because they didn’t pay their taxes (lol), but the map (which I took from their website) still lists Toronto “as of May 2024”, so I’m not sure if that one still exists or not. It may have closed right after this map was made.

I agree on all counts, I just wanted to have a better source than “I read it in a Tumblr comment.”

Stickers seen around NYC in the days after cops opened fire in the NYC subway, shooting a fellow officer, two bystanders, and an alleged "fair evader" they were attempting to apprehend.

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For a second I thought this was Skitter

squire girl

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The Japanese language is truly incredible.

best moments in gaming journalism

journalist gets real yakuza members to play yakuza 3 and asks for their opinions on its authenticity

that’s it

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i am not a religious person…….. but if you’re out there, giant rat that makes all of the rules,

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One of the pieces of feedback I've received on draft 0.3 of Eat God is that some groups feel the Rebellious Arts' potential for Looney Tunes bullshit doesn't go far enough. It turns out that this is easy to fix.

(In the full version, the list of examples is going to be like three pages long and include at least two examples for each of the 18 Arts; this limited sampling should get the idea across, though!)

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Here they are in a little higher quality. (Full-size version at Imgur link)

These images were taken by photographer Howard Schatz for his 2002 book Athlete.

We need to bring back the athletics body type post

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I barely even participate in the “wider fandom” now. I follow a few people and laugh at the memes when they happen to cross my dashboard.

Within my friend group, though, I’d become insufferable for a bit. “See, this is that story I’ve been talking about for 10 years! The one none of you read despite my recommendations!“

this isn't asking if you would watch the show, just if you'd still engage with the wider fandom

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Just saw a post at 301 notes and thought “ah, the counter is stuck. Wonder how many it really has?”

Then I paused, thought about it for a second, and realized nope! Not how this website works. That’s how YouTube worked 10 years ago.

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See more

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“average person eats 3 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

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Damage prediction on pears during transportation.

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“By the usual measures, Biden should be cruising to reëlection. Violent crime has dropped to nearly a fifty-year low, unemployment is below four per cent, and in January the S. & P. 500 and the Dow hit record highs. More Americans than ever have health insurance, and the country is producing more energy than at any previous moment in its history. His opponent, who is facing ninety-one criminal counts, has suggested that if he is elected he will fire as many as fifty thousand civil servants and replace them with loyalists, deputize the National Guard as a mass-deportation force, and root out what he calls “the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.””

— Joe Biden’s Last Campaign