Ask Lemmy

After being in a band for over 12 years, we finally recorded and released a song.

My first bunny passed away in January. He was the first pet I had as an adult who was strictly my responsibility and no one else’s. A rabbit’s lifespan is typically 8-12 years old. My gray boy lived until he was just a few weeks shy of 13 years old.

I’m proud I took such good care of him and proud he stuck around so long. I still miss my fella a lot, but I’ve used what he taught me to adopt and care for 2 rescue rabbits; one who was dropped at a shelter when she was 3 and another young guy who was found dumped in a parking lot. They are going to be just as spoiled as my grey boy was.

I started lifting weights at age 56. I'm not stopping until I'm dead.

I'm 6 years sober this month

I've built like 1/5 of the furniture in my house, which is pretty neat.

I went to a women's shelter to go over safety planning with a social worker to leave my ex last week. That was a hard step to take. Wish me luck.

About 20 years ago, I stopped studying quantum mechanics because it frustrated me so much; I wanted to understand the "quantum regime." After coming back to study more, I've made a lot of progress. I always hated that some said quantum mechanics was weird, or if you think you understand it, you don't. You just need to know there's a difference between seeking ontology of the subatomic, Vs the epistemic adequacy of quantum mechanics. While I'm nowhere near done studying physics overall, I'm still proud of my progress.

I've replaced everything Google can do with self-hosted services. No more YouTube, Docs, Nest, TV, Photos, etc.

Back when I was in a band, we played a show at the same venue I've seen some of my favorite bands play (on a Monday, we had basically no audience, but it was still cool). That show more than most is gonna stick with me, it was awesome.

I wrote an entire book. The manuscript still needs some editing but for the first time, I've never been closer to having a published book

I haven't had a single drink since I got pregnant.

Kid is 4 now. I am still sober. I planned on quitting and was cutting it down when TTC, only having some drinks on New Year's. But I had so many relapses in the previous years. I was scared that I wouldn't be able to stay sober throughout pregnancy, let alone motherhood.

It was the easiest thing to not have a drink during pregnancy, and it is still rather easy now. Even in dark, theoretically tempting times, it is so easy to say no. And I am incredibly proud. It is a miracle I made it out alive, let alone happily and free from fucking alcohol.

I rearranged the letters on the after hours sign to After 5 pm Please Dance and nobody ever figured out who did it.

I broke several cycles in my family. I didn't fall back into the cycle of being poor. Nor did I fall back into a cycle of abuse.

I struggle every day with mental grossness, still, but I won't let myself fall down into the same cycles.

I revived the ability to keep a specific small engine operable by figuring out what the actual transmission drive belt was for it, instead of the completely wrong belt everyone had been using.

Turns out I was a tooth short on the length, but it was close enough that someone else took it the rest of the way.

I built a water temp monitoring system together with my dad.

It monitors the water temperature at a local swimming hole and publishes it on a website so you can check it before heading down.

I did all of the coding, and had never done anything like that before, but breaking it down into five parts made it decently simple.

We use a raspberry pi zero, a DS18B20 temperature probe, and a webhotel with php and MySQL.

Breaking it down into five parts, the code had to accomplish the following.

1. Get the raw data from the sensor.
2. Format and clean the data to be useful.
3. Error check and possible retry if needed.
4. Send the data to the website.
5. Display the data on the website.

1. Was fairly easy, there are plenty of guides on the internet.
2. This was interesting, the data is sent back from the probe in a variable length, depending on how close to zero C it is, if it reads a negative temp it also shifts where the data is read, I remember it being super annoying to consistently format the data close to zero C so after several attempts I just made the script pretend that the temp was 0c when it got too close to bother with it.
3. Here I remember building an install script that would prepare a database for the system, then I wrote a test submission page for manual testing and proper submission page for the real thing, these were written in PHP. The data was sent from the Raspberry Pi with curl.
4. This took the longest, we went through several versions before settling on the current version.

The script on the Raspberry Pi is written in bash, as we are powering the RPi with a battery through a timer, I configured a systemd service to run on start, run the script, and wait 30 sec then shutdown.

This is to give me time to stop the script if I need to perform maintenance, normally it runs the script, shuts down, and the timer cuts power shortly thereafter.

I didn't want to consistently cut the power as that might corrupt the file system over time, so we made sure that the Pi shuts down gracefully.

To save power we only run it every 30 min, the power source is a motorcycle battery which lasts about six months.

The internet connection is provided by a kind neighbor who has allowed this probe to connect through their WiFi.

Learned that I'm valuable for who I am, not what I can do materially.

Breaking generational trauma by actually doing therapy and allowing myself to be vulnerable. Shit sucks lol

Safed my partner from homelessness even when we didnt know if we would work living together or how long it will tske them to find a job. Been 3 years and they dont have a job but i love them so much!

I also got out of the right wing extremist pipeline and turned my life around

I sat down and through trial and error, and reading. I got a firm grasp on DNS and was able to set a well thought out DNS setup for my homelab.

I guess I’m proud of the fact that I’ve been taking Microsoft certification exams since 2007 and literally passed each one on the first try. Literally none of my friends / colleagues have done this.

Not sure what that says about the exams, but shrug

Also proud that I took $2,500 in June, invested it in options, got it to $6,400 in September and withdrew the original $2,500. Now I’m working with House money. I did take a $364 loss this week, but I’m still at $5,500. My attitude and perspective have changed. I don’t react emotionally anymore or make revenge trades that end up blowing up in my face even more like I used to.

I'm proud of my apps I've been working on to help me get through life easier with adhd. I put my vision therapy exercises on there as well and just got a nice message the other day about how helpful those were to somebody.

https://aworkoutaday.com/ https://afeastaday.com/

1. Was strong enough to overcome the harsh realities of dealing with heartbreak and depression. It took a lot of nights crying myself to sleep, days fighting with my suicidal thoughts, and my "inner demons" bashing negative comments to myself to finally have a calmer mind.

2. Got my driver's license after after having a panic attack. I passed on the 3rd try, but I had a panic attack on my 1st in public at the DMV and had a total meltdown in front of strangers on the 2nd try because I failed. I was learning how to drive while being heartbroken after being dumped by my ex. So, I was extremely disappointed in myself that I failed the behind the wheel test because I really did give it my all, my best effort to learn while being depressed as shit, but received a failing grade in the end.

3. Learned from my failures. And is now a much wiser person than I was 3 years ago. I grew up because of my break-up and failures. Aka, growing pains. I learned a lot about myself, learned how to heal, how to deal with pain, suffering, and mental health + gained different perspective about life/relationships, gained new friends and is (slightly) happier than I was 2-3 years ago.

sucked off a whole boat of cocks one time

-Always been honest and mostly a positive member for my community. Always opposed evil in the world, real evil that's scary.

-Saved my ex-wifes life and helped her to get off drugs. Didn't judge her and leave her to die. Worked out well, and is maybe one of my most proud achievements. Literally everyone was telling me to leave her but I didn't want my kids to not have a mother.

-Broke generations of truma and child abuse and religious brainwashing and hate, I try to raise my kids to be exceptional and good people.

-Gathered the courage to finally come out as trans a few years ago. Ending a life of depression and self hate. To live a life of happiness and feeling normal and valid.

-Learned real truth and became wise. Spending much of my life researching as a hobby. I attained a real education, something almost non-existent in this world.

-Contributed a bit to cultural, spiritual, and scientific progress in my own way.

-Helped many people, gave a good bit of my income to those less fortunate.

-Had many great friends and family. Learned many skills.

Today, along with a non-profit I helped found, I organized a local clothing swap.

I got my company to start using an environmentally sustainable solvent called d-limonene rather than continuing to use petroleum based solvents which were much more toxic.