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Contramuffin@lemmy.worldto
Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•People who prepared costumes for Halloween: how much money/effort did you put in it?
2·1 month agoI like making costumes! If anything, it’s a good way of making clothes that you would never make otherwise, and there isn’t anywhere near an expectation of quality. Making a costume yourself basically automatically ensures that people would be impressed, no matter how shitty the costume is.
Regarding perfectionism, it’s something that I’ve had to learn throughout my various forays into arts - there’s going to be mistakes. There’s always going to be mistakes. You can’t avoid it, no matter how skilled you are. The skilled artists know how to avoid drawing attention to their mistakes, and that generally means that they just let it happen without caring about it. But also, it’s just a costume, and as mentioned above, people will be impressed regardless of how shitty it is.
Regarding effort, it requires a lot of effort. Because you’re making unusual clothes, you need to spend a lot of time to design it and make sure it fits properly. I designed costumes this year for me and my partner, and in total that took maybe 2 months. It’s also more expensive than costumes you buy online. The raw material (cloth, thread) was maybe around 200 USD total, roughly 4-5x the cost of a regular costume you can buy online, or 2x the cost of a niche costume that you can buy online. It’s definitely not a good use of money and time, but it’s a good hobby project.
Regardless of if you buy a costume or if you make one, here’s the trick: don’t skimp out on the wig. Most people don’t wear a wig, and the people who do tend to use cheap wigs. Cheap wigs have a plastic-y texture and are difficult to style. I get wigs from Epic Cosplay, which have a lot of different colors to choose from and tend to look fairly realistic.
Also, wigs never come with hair already at the right length! Make sure to give the wig a haircut, it’ll look way better if you remember
Contramuffin@lemmy.worldto
Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•Do you use a system-default or a custom wallpaper for your personal computer? If custom, what kind of wallpaper & why?
4·1 month agoCustom, but I understand the appeal of sticking with the default.
I think the issue with wallpapers is that there’s a very fine balance that it needs to strike: not too simple that it’s monotonous, but not too fancy that it’s distracting and hides icons. Too many wallpapers swing too significantly in either extreme that I simply don’t like the vast majority of wallpapers that I find.
Interestingly, KDE seems to strike this balance relatively consistently - they must be aware and are actively attempting to strike that balance. I don’t know how else to explain it.
Contramuffin@lemmy.worldto
Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•What would you do to help a terminally online person?
51·2 months agoThis is a pretty nuanced problem, in my opinion. Here are my thoughts:
- You’re definitely judging them
- I don’t necessarily think it’s wrong to judge them, but it would have to be for different reasons than you state. I would judge them for being personally incompatible with the fundamental tenets of society (ie that you contribute to it and act as a good citizen)
- You can’t change the mind of someone who isn’t open to change. One of the things you’ll need to accept is that most people are only willing to learn from their own mistakes, and a good portion of those aren’t even willing to learn from their own mistakes consistently. You will need to wait until they regret their decisions before change can even be possible. And even then be aware that there’s a solid chance that they’ll still keep doing whatever they’ve been doing
- It’s good that you’re thinking about this, but on the other hand, it’s not your responsibility to ensure that your friends have good lives. Your responsibility is to yourself, and if you act as though you have responsibility over other people, you come off as nosy, pushy, bossy. Be careful that you don’t confuse advising someone with assuming responsibility over that person.
A lock-and-key mechanism. Modeled and 3D printed a proof-of-concept, too. Was proud of it until I found out someone invented it 100 years ago
All of them work pretty well. I personally use Thunder because it just works really well with my usage habits (swipe controls are very customizable)
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Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•What Anime have good Openings/Endings?
4·2 months agoBunny Girl Senpai’s ED is hands down the most beautiful anime song I’ve heard.
Don’t be fooled by the name, it’s a really deep anime with no sexualization of characters. Highly recommend watching.
I’m also personally of the opinion that both of Nichijou’s OP (OP1, OP2) are good, as long as you’re into frantic, chaotic mid-song genre switching. Well, at least it’s pretty on par with the rest of the show
Python is extremely high level and slow. Great for scripting and prototyping but you really shouldn’t build any infrastructure off of it.
It also has dynamic variable typing, which depending on your use case (see above), can either be nice or a headache
Contramuffin@lemmy.worldto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•Thoughts on becoming self-employed and making a living off my passions?
5·2 months agoYour job is a job - you’re not really supposed to like it. The inherent problem about making a living is that at some point sooner or later, no matter what job you choose, you are going to have to do things that you don’t want to do. In a hobby, you can just choose not to do any of the tedious things. In a job, that’s what you’re paid to do, that’s what you have to do. Hence the advice: don’t make your hobby into a job.
Now, I’m not saying that you should always be miserable in a job. There’s degrees to this. You can be soul-rending miserable, or just meh, or maybe even something resembling happy. If you genuinely are passionate about your job, that’s kind of a lucky catch and shouldn’t be treated as an expectation for a job.
The way I think about it is that the money that you receive from a job is a compensation for the tedium of that job. You will need to consider this question: the money that you get paid in your current job, do you believe that to be a fair trade for the effort that you put in to that job? If the answer is yes, then I would recommend keeping your hobbies as hobbies, and using your job to pay for those passions.
Contramuffin@lemmy.worldto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•do you use non violent communication at the workplace?
7·3 months agoI’m confused. Would this not be standard practice in any form of communication?
Contramuffin@lemmy.worldto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•is it a red flag to make sexual and romantic jokes to others but not your partner or no?
4·3 months agoNot necessarily an immediate red flag, but would be one of those things where it may potentially fit in to support other red flags, should they exist.
This would be one of those things where, in a respectful relationship, should be addressed with her directly
Contramuffin@lemmy.worldto
Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•What is a typical spelling mistake you make?
1·3 months agoInteresting, so I could make the argument that I was right all along
Contramuffin@lemmy.worldto
Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•What is a typical spelling mistake you make?
2·3 months agoTravelling vs traveling
I don’t really have any good suggestions, but I just want to say that I feel second-hand frustration just by reading this
Contramuffin@lemmy.worldto
Asklemmy@lemmy.ml•Lemmy users, how do you deal with the current dating sphere? Assuming you haven't found Thee One?
23·3 months agoMillenial/GenZ borderline here. Perhaps not wise, but I have the modern dating experience and I can give advice about that.
Apps are completely useless. There are way too many guys and way too few girls who regularly use these apps, and that leads to awkward interpersonal dynamics, as though you’re interviewing for a job. You should never feel like you’re interviewing for a relationship. Even if you “pass,” it’s never a good sign that the start to a relationship is built upon checklists, transactions, and being the “best candidate.” I honestly expect that this is where a lot of incels get their strange dating worldviews from.
The hard truth is that there is no easy answer. There’s nothing you can do that will guarantee that you find someone nice. All I can say is that there are things you can do that will destroy your chances of finding someone. The best that you can do is to not do any of those things and hope for the best. Here’s a couple tips that might be helpful:
- Don’t spend your time online. As mentioned above, dating apps are worthless. Beyond that, though, it’s pointless to find anyone when everyone is anonymous. It’s ok to use the internet, but you also need to spend equal, if not more, time outside. Touching grass is a real, underrated advice. If you don’t have a reason to be outside, find a reason. Whether it’s a job, or a hobby, or a club, or some other commitment, you need to have a public presence. It was easier to be outside back when the internet wasn’t a thing, now you have to be intentional about it.
- Find in-person communities to be a part of. Goes hand-in-hand with the tip above. You need a public presence. Have in-person friends that you see regularly, have people whom you know well enough that they recognize you and know who you are. I was part of a for-fun orchestra group, but you can also find gardening groups, or sewing groups, or any other number of formal or informal groups that might host regular in-person meetings
- Know your neighbors. Your neighborhood is a community that you’re already a part of. It’s quite easy and low commitment.
- Find new hobbies and expand your horizons. You should have a wealth of experiences, not just an autistic-level depth of a single experience. If someone asks you what you do for fun, you better not have only a single thing to say. Not only does this make you a more interesting person, it increases the chance that you’ll encounter someone that you connect with. ie, you’ll be part of more communities and therefore encounter more people, but also for any one person, there’s a greater chance that you share at least one interest.
- Never stagnate. Builds off the previous tip. Always look for more things to do, more communities to join, more people to meet. There is too much to do in life for you to stagnate. Not only does this make you a more culturally rich person, it also gives you an excuse to be outside.
- Take some time to evaluate and reflect on what sorts of incel mindsets you have inadvertently adopted. A lot of internet and modern trends have fundamental roots in incel thought, and it’s very easy to get subtly influenced by those ideas. Having any sort of incel ideology is a major red flag, so you’ll need to self reflect on how you have been influenced by these ideas. Many people that I know who are single use incel or incel-like terminology or have expressed incel-like ideas. They’re not bad people, and they’re definitely not incels, but they have been subconsciously influenced by incel ideology from the internet. Meet enough of these people and you can start to see why it might be hard for certain people to find partners compared to others.
- Don’t approach someone who doesn’t actively indicate that they want to be approached. It’s rude and possibly creepy to do so. It’ll immediately destroy any chance of a connection with that person. It’s a false stereotype that people in the past got relationships through cold-approaches. At any given point in time, very few people want to be approached. There are only 2 solutions to this. First, meet more people so that you run into more people who want to be approached. Second, be more targeted with where you spend your time. If you are at a community meeting, the people there are significantly more likely to want to be approached than people that you find randomly on the street. Even so, read the room and determine if they want to be approached or not.
You don’t need to do all of these tips, but the more you do, the more appealing you become and the higher the chances are that you find someone. With a long enough time, you’ll get lucky and find someone that you connect with. I won’t lie, it’s hard. In a sense, it’s like losing weight or getting fit - you have to be intentional about doing things that you know are healthy. Except in this case, you’re building social health, not physical health.
The karma-to-post system was horrid on reddit and made it nearly impossible to get into reddit as a new user. I really hope it doesn’t come to the fediverse…
Contramuffin@lemmy.worldto
Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•What do you think of imitation and lab-grown meats?
4·3 months agoImpossible meat is close enough to meat that I genuinely wouldn’t be able to tell the difference without a side-by-side comparison, and it would be virtually impossible for me to tell if it were mixed in with other flavors (eg in a burrito). I’ve heard it’s got high sodium though, so you’ll still have to beware that it’s not much healthier (if at all) than normal meat. I don’t get Impossible often, though I get regular meat even less. I’d say I like Impossible more than normal meat, I just wish it’s a bit cheaper.
Beyond meat simply doesn’t taste quite right, like soy trying to imitate meat. It hits an awkward uncanny valley, so I don’t like it.
IMO lab grown meat feels a bit like a waste of time. With how incredibly uncanny Impossible is to actual meat, I don’t really see the need to grow meat in the lab. And it’ll probably be more expensive than Impossible meat too, if my lab experience is any indication
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Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world•What are the most upbeat songs with kind of depressing lyrics?
5·3 months agoSurprised that people haven’t mentioned Yoru ni Kakeru (Racing into the Night) by Yoasobi. It’s a Japanese song about depression and commiting suicide.
Specifically, it follows a guy who falls in love with a depressed and suicidal girl. Over time, the guy himself becomes depressed and tired of life and they both decide to commit suicide together.
I did notice something similar. Presumably, selective breeding at work. I read that brussel sprouts used to taste different not too long ago - the flavor and texture changed due to selective breeding. It wouldn’t surprise me if something similar is happening with fruits.
That being said, whatever is going on, it’s definitely not happening with strawberries. Still sour as fuck.


This, apparently:
And this is the second oldest: