I started timeboxing this year and it’s been very helpful. Even if I’m having a bad day and I can only do one pomodoro sprint, it still stacks up, and it’s how I learned the structure itself helps me.

I track my productivity, and I get more done this way than I did flailing about for a week because things didn’t feel quite right.

I don’t personally use generative AI once I’m in progress, but it’s been an absolute godsend for me to overcome the “blank page” problem. I have it help me with an outline or to brainstorm a concept that needs fleshing out and write off of that.

The especially nice thing is I don’t really reference the outline a lot in the end. Something about the process is enough to rattle my brain into an ordered enough state to flow. Like I just needed to get concepts out of my brain and onto a page so I’m not thinking about it while trying to write.

It’s been a game changer.

Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader. Other than a couple of hours in Dawn of War, this is my only experience with the setting and I’m really digging it. I also already like Argenta more than any of the party members in Kingmaker or WotR. I’m nearing the end of Chapter 1, I think.

I have an interesting feeling about this one, like it could possibly be an all-timer for me, although my experience with gaming is telling me it’s more likely it’ll end up being more of a near miss. I had a good feeling about Kingmaker early too, but that game always felt very raw, obviously a product of a young studio. WotR was massively disappointing, unfortunately. Hoping Rogue Trader ends up more like the former. Just wish I had more time/energy to play it.

I’m not musically inclined at all but seeing as how you’re the second one to mention music I’m definitely going to try it. I’ve tried so many other things to help with my listening that a totally different mode might be just the thing.

So, podcasts have been my primary vector for attacking this and it’s been brutal. It’s possible I’ve been overthinking it and maybe I should just struggle through as you say, use speed controls, pause frequently. I was doing the following:

1. Take a small segment (4-5 minutes)
2. Actively listen three times
3. Read a transcript
4. Listen a fourth time and shadow the segment out loud

Supposedly language learning research backs up this method, but maybe it was just overkill and now that I’ve done a few more months of adding vocab and grammar practice, I should just try bulk input again to build up input automaticity and simply pause/rewind where necessary.

The dopamine hit is a real thing!

I’ve barely touched songs as my comprehension is even worse, but this is an interesting approach. I’ll definitely try it. I don’t think I’ve ever tried an audiobook in Japanese of a story I know. Both seem like a good idea.

Yeah, and I also have been supplementing my reading with recorded audio whenever possible, too. My listening skill keeps lagging behind, though.

I wish dedicated listening didn’t frustrate me so much.

That’s more or less where I sit on it. I think there’s a way to create a personal shopping assistant that would save people time, but the problem is I don’t make enough money to have a comfortable enough margin for the error rate it would certainly have, to speak nothing of whether it would find the prices I’d be satisfied with. I don’t know how many people are in affordable enough living situations where using this to save time would even be responsible.

And that’s assuming the agent is working in the best interests of the user, which we all know won’t be how this works. In general, I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable with agentic AI spending my money without it being codified into law that AI agents must have a provable fiduciary duty to end users. As far as I know, no one’s even talking about that.

He’s kind of a JRPG traditionalist, so I’m not surprised he wasn’t big on the game.

Bit of a confidence drop this week as I struggled with the newest chapter in my textbook. Unusually difficult for recent pace. I’m still making progress though, which is the important thing.

Growing concern over my listening comprehension problem. My new cards in Anki are solidly i+1, but I’m not getting there on audio with them (and even occasionally on repeats). Audio for the passages in the textbook without reading along? Forget it. As I’ve continued to incorporate more listening materials in general, I don’t know that it’s simply a “listen more” problem, which was the mindset. I think I’m going to find an ADHD community or two and ask some questions about active listening struggles in adult education, particularly for language learning. See if I can find an adaptation or two. I’m still new to the diagnosis and have a lot to learn.

I was already planning on pausing after this chapter of the text is done and doing a dedicated grammar review on forms I’ve logged as giving me trouble the past couple months. Since I’m a little more than halfway through, it’s a good time for a “midterm”-type review. Maybe it would be good to pair that with some listening drills with a new method.

Just finished the story demo. Really impressed with it, both gameplay and story.

It took me forever too. Doesn’t help that I insist on playing these games turn-based.

Yeah, I’m planning on leap-frogging this time for this very reason. I tend to get GPU-bottlenecked more often than not, so hopefully whatever GPU I pick up next year will extend my system long enough for a little more sanity to return.

Someone just needs to clone him so he can actually finish the new game.

If you know how to replace a CMOS battery, you know how to disable a fan. And even if you don’t, it’s not gonna bite your finger off 😂

It’s 100% cultural, a combination of generational trauma (“I did it so you have to”) and pressure from upper management leading to performative effort. We now know from productivity research that overtime periods in game dev get diminishing–and even negative–returns pretty quickly.

First year recorded.

Mind explaining what features and why?

Considering we’ve already got the one former Larian employee speaking out against this, it’ll be interesting to see how many more show up off the record (or maybe on the record anonymously). I’m sure there was an internal battle over it.

There aren’t many (possibly none) with more goodwill banked among enthusiast gamers than Vincke, so I feel like we’re about to see just how far a popular figure can step into this particular puddle without coming out soaked.

Book 5’s adaptation didn’t feel super rushed. I think most of the fans were more annoyed by some changes to The Big Thing.

Book 6, yeah. I’m glad we got what we got, but would have definitely preferred a full season. Hopefully they’ll get the rest on screen some day.

It’s as good as advertised. The adaptation of book 2 (S2E6-S3E6) is still my favorite season of television ever. The character of Camina Drummer is also one of those wild TV adaptation stories where the new writing and the actor were so good that they had to keep bringing her back.

I’m okay with where the series ended–even successful shows these days aren’t likely to get full adaptations–but the shortened final season still makes me sad. It’s even shorter than it looks on paper, too, as part of the runtime includes one of the novella plots, which only serves to set up a future storyline. Maybe they’ll pay that off eventually with a new production, but it’s awkward as hell in hindsight.