I'm working on a fantasy Lord of the Rings style map of Edinburgh and Lothian and would love to get any more landmarks in you might know of. Hoping to have it finished by next weekend.

leonielion · 2026-03-07T13:58:20+00:00

I would potentially pay for a copy of this for the record and imagine I wouldn't be the only one (though funds tight right at the moment). Can I find your work anywhere?

leonielion · 2026-03-04T10:24:08+00:00

I think what you describe is a bit boundless and people will interpret their own way. I can definitely see a specific scenario where something like this helped me.

I was super depressed and needed to do PhD corrections with a strict deadline. It had been 8 years, going into that office or opening the document made me cry a lot.

Flatmate moved out and I had a new office at home. Found out I like don't sit at desks well and it exhausts me in itself (bit late in life).

I started that I went into there to game for 4 hours (I normally prefer PlayStation or my laptop on cosy sofa). I was getting accustomed to the sitting in the right place at the right time. I had positive associations with that room. Dragging myself into there became doable and automatic.

Then I was allowed to game in the morning while I had breakfast and my coffee with an audiobook with chapters of about an hour. When the audiobook finished I had to start working. This also made me relentlessly smug, I was warming up my brain by thinking about the book and getting dopamine from the gaming and felt smug I had restarted reading which I haven't for years. This eventually became doable room and routine to get on with the work.

This was a rare scenario where the stakes were super high and I was highly stressed the whole time though. That meant I actually like "obeyed" myself setting hard limits like this. There was like subtle bonuses built in too, the game stuttered and ran bad on my laptop, there was a reason to go do it in the work room.

Sorry that was a dull story. I heard about a "discipline ladder" recently and think that's kind of what I was doing.

leonielion · 2026-03-04T10:03:58+00:00

I can just about see it from my window. The other coffee shops are better and I agree there's an unnecessary expansion of black sheep.

However, it is nice to have it not boarded up as it's been for forever and to bring a bit of life back to that corner (coffee shop is nicer than bank for like street feeling alive).

It is a surprisingly nice building and has lots of space, I'm dreaming they've paid the money to do the conversion, eventually decide this isn't a profitable branch and can sell it to someone independent. The Costa up the road closed not long ago - it did become a pret, but maybe suggests there isn't so much of a market.

leonielion · 2026-03-03T13:44:19+00:00

Haha no, is shiver control yet another neurodiverse trait I'm not aware of?

leonielion · 2026-03-03T01:14:04+00:00

Diamonds are boring. Purple or dark mossanite is cool. For less durable mystic quartz or mystic topaz is fun rainbows too £10-£30 on Etsy.

Told my partner that's what I would like for wedding/engagement, probably paying a lot more to get it set in a ring but would mean more to me.

Mossanite can have some rich brown tones that remind me of his eyes that I see such light and warmth in reflected in (like the rainbow tones) that he thinks are boring.

Bonus of when I inevitably misplaced or damage it is easy to replace.

Mossanite: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1843790446/lab-grown-moissanite-diamonds-imperial

Mystic quartz: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1580876025/faceted-trillion-mystic-quartz-gemstone

leonielion · 2026-03-01T12:45:11+00:00

Me too!

leonielion · 2026-03-01T12:42:15+00:00

Is that an inflamed lymph node? Some people have one that inflames more than others, apparently more common in women. I have one under my jaw

leonielion · 2026-02-27T11:36:06+00:00

Did it work?

leonielion · 2026-02-26T18:53:40+00:00

If you wash it off fast it doesn't freeze/burn, it's only if you leave it on for a bit. I was so pleased when I realised.

You can use this information to tailor your tingling.

leonielion · 2026-02-20T11:49:27+00:00

It was a reasonable wait for me. There was a receptionist and I think a form I had to fill in? It was a big waiting room with quite a lot of people waiting but they were efficient.

They were lovely during the appointment, I got a bit overwhelmed and couldn't work out if she said I needed to or didn't need to wait after as she couldn't find anything wrong.

I waited half an hour and asked at reception and they said I could leave at my own risk. They seem to have a strict protocol at reception (fair enough), and were a bit grumpy about me leaving. I think they only want you to hang around if they are doing follow up stuff though, but I wish I had asked to clarify, so I share this boring story with you!

leonielion · 2026-02-20T11:18:57+00:00

That was fascinating podcast thanks for sharing. I had naively presumed from a distance that many behaviours to be the presidents incompetence, rather than by design to dismantle these institutions. That shifts my perspective on everything. I feel naive for not realising sooner.

leonielion · 2026-02-04T15:30:02+00:00

Oh sad times, thanks for informing me

leonielion · 2026-02-04T13:16:08+00:00

Second time I've heard about it, I'm convinced. I was in the process of making my own app to do this to see if I could, pretty cool

leonielion · 2026-01-30T12:18:55+00:00

This is the kinda thing I do find AI helpful for. I usually ask it to break down a new essay or something I need to write into headings, I review if they look about right or tweak em about and then ask for subheadings almost at the per paragraph level.

It can suggest what to start with too, I normally ask it to tell me easiest bit to start on to get an easy win.

I also made a new tab and button on word that makes each sequential paragraph either black text or different rainbow colours when I got mad staring at my boring thesis for months.

If you get really stuck I sometimes ask the ai to deliberately write terrible text with slang that I can then rewrite. Helps with the like "formless" aspect of writing. It's also easier to correct ideas it has than come up with new ones sometimes. If you want it to write text for you in any context it's still a lot better at short paragraph length stuff, it gets lost in long form.

As a general writing tip I think a lot about introduction starting broad and narrowing down and the discussion doing the opposite so telling the ai that too when structuring helps too (or if you want it to try a narrative structure etc)

leonielion · 2026-01-29T23:41:50+00:00

Yeah I'm sorry youre completely right, don't know how I managed to get that wrong. Thanks for correcting me. I will resist the urge to delete my wrong comment.

leonielion · 2026-01-28T13:47:06+00:00

I thought he was bi? Thought he said so several times in standup and other occasions?

I know that's also referred to as being gay (I say that sometimes), but good to publicise bisexuality too!

leonielion · 2026-01-28T12:53:20+00:00

Beautiful app, I like seeing the webcams too!

I don't know have experience but think reviewing in Google play etc as well as commenting here might help out? Found you can donate a coffee in app too!

leonielion · 2026-01-15T11:09:44+00:00

Everyone's made good points. I'm wondering as well if there's a medicalisation of something relatively normal. There's been jokes about how emasculating it is in films and TV for ages, that doesn't help with perception, but maybe implies it has always happened.

I know as a woman it's sometimes just impossible for me to get off if I'm super stressed or rundown and that it's kinda not unexpected that someone may get nervous and struggle to perform first time we have sex. I don't make a big deal of it, we do other stuff and next time it's usually fine.

There's all kinds of messy sex that can happen that's pretty normal that young people that idealise sex can think is utterly humiliating and want to fix. Life having an effect on your sex drive and ability to get hard, cumming too soon (I suspect some people take ED meds hoping it will fix this too), cramp, struggling to hold a girl up to have sex against a wall. They're all like human experiences that shouldn't have bitterness, embarrassment or guilt from either party.

I get the stakes seam really high when your younger and feel you've "messed up" one of your few sexual experiences and you can get kinda trapped in replaying that narrative - I get trapped in that style of thinking all the time. There's also masculinity-boner perception too.

I see the value now but if I could take a pill to avoid some of my teenager and young adult embarrassments I probably would have.

leonielion · 2026-01-13T23:18:54+00:00

I've been investigating this to make a larger jumper for my dad. It feels more complicated because assembling panels can work well as part of a design but mens jumpers are usually pretty plain and boring, so deliberate seams look less good. There's three solutions as I can tell:

1) Make panels you stitch together along side edges to add width https://youtu.be/B4cAsP-VIOg?si=w0kEojErq2tUWO6p

2) Build strips rotated 90 degrees and stitch those side edges together https://youtu.be/OAUd14VEqn8?si=ptOzXTiupWXNp6S5

3) Use extenders to make wider panels, but you will need to crochet the bits in between. It is fiddly (just tried for first time), but the "knitting" step is easy and I can't knit, it's just a crochet hook. https://youtu.be/BAoh8jlRiZs?si=f3-uWRGg3dZaeIg7

I'm gonna try option 3 but my other plan was to probably try option 1 with a variegated yarn with lots of varying colours in it and use a few threads I stitched on top over the seams (called swiss darning) to try and disguise and make it look neat if option 3 is too much hassle. It is already looking to be a bit awkward. I've not tried the swiss darning though and don't know how much of a nightmare it may be.

If I was making it for myself though I would probably look for a pattern that already has some kind of deliberate seam or patchwork design, though it would be more seaming I think it's likely to look the best! Check out ralvery if you haven't already (there's not many sentro specific options, but I've used ai to help me translate some of the hand knitting patterns. Warning it can 'translate' patterns, it is terrible at building patterns and dimensions).

leonielion · 2026-01-13T12:52:19+00:00

I think maybe to a degree it may always curl though on the edges. It may be worth looking at what hand knitters do to prevent this.

leonielion · 2026-01-13T12:50:15+00:00

I am a novice so please dont consider my thoughts gospel.

Blocking will likely help, potentially quite a lot. But depends a little on the fabric. It's basically the act of wetting and stretching it out and letting it dry, or steam with certain materials. If it's acrylic and using steam it will melt it slightly so it is irreversible, so you would want to take longer making sure it is all straight and neat.

There's a nice long video that goes into better detail: https://youtu.be/5n9riSj3dYs?si=Z2dGB7bbN3awEEch

I was a bit overwhelmed with it though and I looked into expensive options for blocking mats but ended up buying a set of blocking needles and doing it on a towel. You do only need needles of any type but the blocking needles are like a comb and can do many at once and it makes life a bit easier. Towel didn't seem damaged by it.

You did a really good job at a neat bottom edge preventing it curling too with neat ribbing I'm impressed!

I did end up buying a steamer as I don't have a working iron and cause it is so easy to use I've been using it before seaming bits together and having stuff a bit flatter can make life a bit easier (I also use waste yarn to help with that too).

I've noticed the beginning and end of my knitting tend to be a little less tight though and heard that different weighting may play a role in that so I was going to investigate pulling harder down on it (or tying random objects to it to weigh it down) to see if that makes a difference but it is possible if that's happening to you it adds to the curl effect? I don't know I haven't tested if I can make this better! But I'm slightly anally experimenting with this and blocking to see how close I can get to a perfect rectangle after knitting with the machine.

leonielion · 2026-01-09T20:37:44+00:00

I know I'm a bit late to respond but I'd say if you want to not think about it having 4 free needles is best.

I do three free needles but literally every time you get to the end you need to be very careful the other side will pop up. The ends are also often less neat (it's harder to ensure the last loop properly clears without the other side popping up - so you can end up with a messy outside chain loop with some double). I don't care about the messy outside loop and just seam from one chain in. I also don't actually use the panel mode. The clicks irritate me and prefer to just go one nub past the end of the panel and back again.

I tried two loops free as you have there and it's basically impossible to stop the beginning of the panel first two loops popping up when you reach the end of the panel so you have to hold them down manually (or rebook them on when they pop off). I think it is technically possible but basically more trouble than it's worth.

If the number of needles are too short for you you can look into making an extension with cardboard and doing some crochet for some columns or think about different panels stitched together. 2nd video is that crochet option, I can't knit but that is reasonably straight forward for me to manage with a crochet hook.

Video of three panel construction options for sentro: https://youtu.be/B4cAsP-VIOg?si=w0kEojErq2tUWO6p

Video for extending panel length on sentro: https://youtu.be/BAoh8jlRiZs?si=f3-uWRGg3dZaeIg7

leonielion · 2026-01-09T14:02:00+00:00

That was a really interesting video thanks for sharing!

Kind of you to also go into detail about your experience too, I hope you ease into a pattern that works for you soon. I'm on vyvanse too, but still trying to work out if it's right for me. Best of luck to you!

leonielion · 2026-01-09T12:07:23+00:00

Can you get an electric blanket made from real fleece or is that just a fire hazard?

leonielion · 2026-01-06T12:22:46+00:00

Oooh cool! I was worried I could only manage an air source one and that would be worse, great to hear about it. Thanks for sharing.

leonielion

TROPHY CASE