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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • Yeah when you’re playing an instrument in a symphony you have a very, very narrow ability to hear and understand everything that’s going on. Your own instrument is (usually) in your face, you might be in a section with a bunch of the same or similar instruments that is drowning stuff out, everyone is facing away from you and the acoustic echo is weird, etc.

    Conductor stands right in the middle of it all and can actually hear everything. A conductor can guide entire sections, or even easily pick out a specific player and get them to be louder, quieter, slow down, etc.

    Each player in the symphony is paying attention to that person and they all take cues from them. It’s pretty wild.







  • Thanks for entertaining my struggle. I get it now.

    When I referred to itten as “normal” I was making reference to its prevalence (which seems to be something that peeves you, given its inaccuracy), but I think it’s so prevalent because it’s so damn simple. I had to read and re-read your posts and look at your graphics in order to understand what the various layers were signifying, but the flat itten wheel is easy as pie to comprehend to the point that it’s taught to children in preschool. I’ve never really needed any more depth of understanding in my day to day life since then.

    Like many models, the simplest are often very inaccurate on a technical level. As a layman the difference between indigo and violet and purple and blue green or whatever are unremarkable in most cases, so the slight yet important difference of which is across from yellow on the wheel doesn’t seem significant, until you showed an example of how they mix.

    I can see why it bugs you if you have experience in a field that uses color theory as part of its toolkit. For me I’ve always just needed to know the bare minimum of RGB vs CMYK or whatever.

    What would you prefer to see, that there’s just better education about colors once people are old enough to get some more nuance?


  • I’m sorry I’ve really tried to understand what your position is but I can’t wrap my head around it. I find this really interesting but I don’t understand it, are you willing to help?

    Itten is “normal” RYB color wheel, yes?

    Can you ELI5 how Munsell is different? The graphic you linked pretty much looks like it showed the same RYB archetype, with some layers and different levels of brightness… Isn’t that just RYB with extra steps?

    Here’s some things that might help us meet in the middle:

    -I understand radio/light/EM spectrum/frequencies/amplitudes

    -i struggle with concepts of hue, contrast, brightness, luminosity, flux

    -i am not an artist at all. I have pretty strong aphantasia - I’m not sure if that’s relevant but it seems like it might be in this case so I’ll mention it here



  • Big, efficient companies work 24 hour jobs by having 3-4 overlapping shifts with usually at least two general foremen, often more, and a team of PMs. Skilled planners and foremen can manage the jobs, and overlapping shifts helps with continuity instead of a whistle blowing and everyone on site tags out like a wrestling match.

    These are the companies that get the biggest and most expensive contracts. They have all the equipment, they can hire the number of people they need, and they have the experience. They do massive jobs that destabilize entire areas while the work is being done and the customer/city/municipality/government is willing to pay to get it done ASAP because letting the disruption last 2-3x longer is worse than the price tag.

    Some places with harsh winters and short construction seasons also habitually work 24 hours.

    It really depends on what you’re doing and where you are. In general, small to medium sized GCs and companies for single builds will not work 24 hours. Once you start getting to big projects within an urban area or major road construction, that kind of thing, it can change.

    I will say that it’s MUCH better to do construction in natural daylight, full stop. No amount of flood lighting gives you the amount of visual acuity as the sun does for something like construction. We generally always planned to leave easier work for night shifts, not because they sucked, but because it’s just harder in most ways. More dangerous, colder, your best paid people don’t generally want to work those shifts, businesses are closed so you’ve got to deal with on call POCs which slows stuff down if there’s problems… Yeah.



  • Hard disagree. Had GF with adopted parents that were in their 60s when she was a teen and they were amazing parents. Sure they didn’t go play tennis with her or whatever but they were way more put together, financially stable, and handled conflict well. Because they were more experienced. They didn’t relate to her as much on pop culture.

    The big downside in the age gap is that you’ll die earlier in their life.

    Also you have to consider that around 40 pregnancies get more dangerous for the mother, so I agree that it’s a pretty good cap for that reason, but not the age difference itself.


  • Take a bunch of pictures of everything. You’ll probably want to look at them somewhere down the road and it’s interesting to have empty photos everywhere.

    TOOLS (none of this is yard stuff, I won’t really go into that)

    -Tape measure

    -finishing (smooth face) hammer

    -a drill kit. This can be pricey but I wouldn’t recommend getting a really cheap one unless you must, but it’s ok if you do to start and don’t abuse it. Crap and decker is fine. You’ll want a basic drill bit set that has Phillips, flat head, and a bit extension. You can get little bricks of cheap drill bits off Amazon, they work fine but they won’t last if you strip them a bunch, which is fine because they’re cheap.

    -headlamp

    -adjustable wrench. If you want to get a set of wrenches in standard/metric, go for it, they’re cheap. An adjustable kind of sucks but it works most of the time but sometimes the bulk won’t let you really turn it.

    -Allen wrench set, metric and standard

    -a basic screwdriver set for when your drill is too bulky or you don’t want to put too much torque on stuff

    -a tool bag. You can use anything but I like an electricians bag with a bunch of small pockets. REALLY handy.

    -an extendable sliding ladder is great for in the house and stores easy. A step ladder will get you pretty much anywhere in the house though, and I wouldn’t use an extendable one for outside. Recommend if you want something for outside you get an A frame ladder. Remember you can always rent stuff like that from home Depot or whatever so if you’re only going to use it once a year you don’t need to buy a 20’ ladder.

    -not necessary, but a torpedo level, hack saw (to cut weird metal and plastic stuff every now and then), a stud finder (you don’t need to buy anything fancy, I use a little strong magnet with a strip of cloth that I drag across the wall, it sticks to nails on studs that are at the joints of Sheetrock), an an inexpensive multimeter, a set of wood drill bits and a socket set.

    Anything else buy as you need.

    OTHER STUFF (I’m leaving out basic stuff that you’ll pick up naturally)

    -FIRE EXTINGUISHERS. Recommend at least two, if not three. Kitchen, garage, upstairs at a minimum. And DON’T get some crappy 5 or 10 lb ones they will get you a couple seconds of spray. A fire blanket is good for the kitchen too if you like to deep deep fry or you’re a crazy whirlwind cook.

    -you mention cameras in your OP, I really hate recommending anything cloud based but it’s what’s available for most without effort. I think most important is a doorbell camera, helps mitigate porch pirates and helps with deliveries.

    -if you get a lot of snow I’d recommend a snow blower. Also, depending on your roof you’ll want to make sure you have some way to get snow off your roof when it piles up. A foot of snow across your roof is heavy and if it piles up more you risk roof damage.

    Water intrusion and mold are now your greatest common enemies. Guard against them with extreme prejudice or risk major headaches and costs.

    Thrift stores are good places for picture frames so you can start decorating. Make sure to hang stuff on studs if they’re even just a bit heavy, drywall doesn’t hold weight for shit. There’s a ton of different types of drywall anchors, many require drilling but some don’t. There’s S shaped wire hook thingies that you can push through drywall and hang lighter stuff like bigger pictures off a stud without leaving a big hole.

    People like floor rugs in the wintertime, I don’t really care though and rugs can be surprisingly expensive and hard to clean. You can rent carpet cleaners, I recommend doing that instead of buying a crappy one for home, using them sucks and they do a shit job unless you get a REALLY good one which is stupid expensive, just rent them.

    Don’t wear shoes in the house! Fuck. Have a shoes off house, it keeps things clean and doesn’t wear down carpet nearly as much. Wear slippers if you want but just don’t, and ask guests to remove their shoes. Some people think it’s weird but I don’t care don’t wear shoes in my house, take them off or fuck off. That being said it’s really inconvenient for workers to wear them so I have a couple sets of heavy duty washable shoe covers to offer people that come to service my stuff.

    Do NOT neglect maintenance. Set up a schedule in your phone calendar for AC/heating, water tank, septic if you have it, whatever. AC twice a year if you have it, furnace annually, water tank annually if you have normal hardness water or maybe 2x a year if you have really hard water, chimney inspection and cleaning if you have one (chimney fires bad). Also you’ll want to clean your dryer duct every year or two (lint fires bad) and you can do it yourself if you have a drill and order one of the cleaning kits with the rods. A leaf blower can help also (from inside out, I hope that’s obvious lol).

    I personally have shifted to battery operated lawn tools like lawn mower and leaf blower. They’re not as powerful but if you have a small yard they’re a good trade off vs always trying to fuck with small engines.

    Good luck!



  • I have spent a lot of time trying to define what is a sport, to me.

    In general I’ve come to define a “sport” as something physical that has an opponent that actively works against you.

    Something physical that DOESN’T have an opponent acting against you, I prefer to think of as a competition.

    E-sports is not what I’d consider sports, but the term works fine. E-competition doesn’t have the same ring to it.

    So, team sports like baseball, soccer, boxing, etc I consider sports.

    Bowling, track+field, golf, I do NOT consider sports, I consider them a competition.

    Chess is not a sport, it’s a competitive game. Fight me it’s not a freaking sport, it’s chess.





  • Studying, in its base form, follows these steps:

    -take in the information

    -record the information

    -review the information you’ve recorded in chunks. Best practice is to review your newly recorded information at the end of the session, and at the start of the next session review old information. If you can review ALL your recorded information on a subject at the start of a new session that’s best - at first it’s slow but as you review a couple times you’re skimming or skipping most of it and only focus on the parts that you have trouble retaining.

    With that being said, the ways we prefer to TAKE IN and RECORD information vary between people, but the overall concept does not.

    In terms of flash cards, they’re great for memorization. That has not changed - it’s a base way to record and review information.

    A modern version of this applies the base method but digitizes it. Anki is a very good and popular modern flash card app/program

    -you can make flash cards with text, but also audio, images, and video

    -you can save decks and sync them across all devices and share/upload decks

    -it’s “smart.” If you spend more time struggling to answer a card, or get it wrong, it’ll show it to you more frequently. The reverse is true if you get it right every time quickly, you see it much less frequently

    -it can nag you to study. You can set it up to notify you every hour, day, whatever and thrust 10-1000 cards in your face, whatever you set it to.

    -tons of ways to configure it so it meets your specific needs.

    So, that’s how things have modernized, for flash cards at least. But plenty of people still buy 3x5 index cards and keep a physical deck if that’s what they prefer. Again, the method isn’t as important as the process of receive/record/review.

    Personally I like to use an e-ink handwriting tablet for in person note taking (all the benefits of paper/handwriting without the fuss of paper, plus lots of other features like cut/paste, linking/bookmarking items, etc) and I prefer typing into a word document when I’m studying from a book. The word document is very clean and I can use structured outlining formatting as well as a quick Ctrl+f to find terms I’ve written about. But whether it’s e-ink tablet or word doc, the base method is the same as when I was younger and it was all paper.

    I think phones have their uses but they are awful for note taking. The fastest texter is much slower than writing by hand or typing, and you are so, so much more limited in underlining, highlighting, little symbols, positioning text in weird ways to symbolize things, etc. I don’t advocate that people use them unless they’re in a bind and have nothing else, but a lot of kids grow up these days and that’s their go to method because of familiarity, and we shouldn’t encourage that because it’s flat worse. However, phones can do great things such as record/transcribe, photos, videos etc - so they’re a great addition to the toolbox, but they’re not a NOTE TAKING replacement unless they’re a stylus/handwriting type, and even those are a poor cousin to a dedicated device for the purpose, but they can be a more affordable/versatile/portable version. My note writer was about $500 and that’s a lot of cheese but it was worth every penny to me because of how I use it.


  • Oh! Ok so I’m totally out of the loop on contrast paints, I paint(ed) with many of the same techniques you do, but less advanced. I would prime usually with a black undercoat and then do my base colors, then I’d do detail work and finish with washes, dry brushing, and mixed color highlights. I didn’t realize there was another way to go lol. I never got good enough to try and really work from a light source perspective but I was aware of the technique, but mixing paints was a chore because of how slow I was so my shit would be constantly drying up so I didn’t do a huge amount of different shades, just a few, which limited my ability to gradually lighten stuff up. Also I sucked at getting my mixes right/consistent.

    Your minis look great, better than mine ever did and I’m sure you’re MUCH faster than I was. I really took a long time because I didn’t like them looking sloppy and I worked mostly using the games workshop kit I started with, along with one or two other brushes I bought without any real education, and some more paints. At the time I learned techniques from the GW books and some old forums. I was always surprised by the lack of effort people put into painting their minis but I guess people were rushing because they wanted an army and didn’t want to get crap for fielding unpainted sets (or bad luck).

    I think some of my favorite work was actually the terrain pieces I made. I think I have a really good eye for weird bits and bobs and garbage that looks great as detail for terrain more than I ever was at painting technique.

    In general even though my painting was slow I didn’t think it was a chore, my struggle was finding folks that I enjoyed playing with. I lived in a small town with a single games shop, they did an open mini game day 2x a month but the people that showed up were just not fun to play with, the worst kinds of stereotypical neckbeardy folks and I don’t mind me a good nerd but gross obnoxious assholes suck whether they’re nerds or not. I know it’s much easier to find folks these days than it was in the 90s but it’s a discarded hobby for the time being, life is too busy and I do miss it but it’s on the shelf for another phase of life, for now.

    Thanks for taking the time to explain. I doubt I’d get into contrast painting either, your description of the downsides sounds like the benefits wouldn’t outweigh the pace.

    I think I have some (really) old 40k minis I saved somewhere, if I run into them in my garage I’ll snap some pictures and reply in another post.

    Happy painting!