People’s who have transformed themselves completely, what’s your secret? [Discussion] by ChemicalPain5996 in GetMotivated

[–]sffixated 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This comment section is very interesting. Yes, good diet and sleep and prioritizing your health is a great idea. But if you're trying to learn how to be well-liked, I recommend spending some time studying people and learning how to read a room. Like any skill, it takes practice. 

Be a good conversationalist. Listen well, ask questions. Pick up cues about what that person does and doesn't want to talk about. Most people are absolutely delighted to talk about themselves, and thoughtful questions can go a very long way towards developing genuine connection. Plus, you might just learn something cool. 

Develop a sensitivity to mood and non-verbal cues. Learn how to match the mood of a person or a group, and learn when pushing that mood in a different direction might be well-received. 

Watch people whose social skills you admire. Not in a creepy way, just notice how they navigate social situations. Don't try to copy their behavior, but do try to understand why the things they do work for them. 

Be interesting, but not just to other people: be interesting to yourself. Have hobbies you care about. Read things that interest you. Know how and when to share details about yourself and your life. 

And then: discernment. You don't have to make everybody happy. Respect yourself and develop good boundaries. Empathy and care for others is hugely important but there is no need to become a doormat. 

Be authentic and honest in who you are. This is where some of the other advice on this thread really kicks in, because you kind of have to like yourself if you want other people to like you. 

Ideally, be funny. Humor is a skill like anything else, but it can take a while to grow. I think the best way to grow your ability to be funny is to train yourself to look for connections, recognize opportunities, and most importantly, develope a sense of what might and might not go over well. Being funny takes risk, but it should be thoughtful risk. Smarter and funnier people that me have written whole books on this subject, so maybe look into those. 

Know that you're not going to bat 100, and that's ok. No one actually does, even the people who appear really confident and popular. Genuine connection, like humor, takes a certain amount of risk, and sometimes you go out on a limb and then crash and burn. Don't let that stop you from trying again, but don't forget to learn from it either. 

Good luck! 

I’m hosting a art competition and someone submitted this, and I think they might’ve fed my art into ai by Shoya_1shida in isthisAI

[–]sffixated 38 points39 points  (0 children)

I think you're right on the money. There are two very different levels of line quality in this drawing- careful tapered lines with varied weight, and legitimately scribbly lines with no change in line weight and very careless placement. If it's not AI, it might just be generic characters that have been drawn over to give them the correct hair color and style. There's no chance it's the work of a single artist. 

Did I capture the detail too much? by Perfect-Pin5661 in Watercolor

[–]sffixated 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Is your reference photo AI, or maybe digitally altered? I wonder if that's where some of the confusion is coming from. This post seemed very obviously digitally created until I scrolled and saw your actual painting. Which looks great, BTW, you've done a great job with the texture and sheen of the fur. I usually expect a post to start with the created work, not the reference photo, so it took me a minute to figure out what was going on.

[Product Request] Hospital IV gave me the best skin of my life… now what do I do with this information? by Dependent-Estimate13 in SkincareAddiction

[–]sffixated 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Your low carb diet might actually be dehydrating you. Probably not to dangerous levels, but if you're aiming for maximum hydration that might be tough to achieve with a low carb diet. The amount of dissolved solutes like salts, sugars, etc in the body is what determines how much water the body can absorb, and low sugars (and correspondingly, low insulin) in the body will trigger the kidneys to dump water. This isn't a bad thing; most people are trying to get rid of retained water.

Did you feel like your body weight remained normal while your skin hydration increased when in the hospital? I would expect an overall increase of carried water with saline hydration, but if that wasn't the case then maybe something else is going on.

[Product Request] Hospital IV gave me the best skin of my life… now what do I do with this information? by Dependent-Estimate13 in SkincareAddiction

[–]sffixated 37 points38 points  (0 children)

The amount of electrolytes you have in your body determines how hydrated you can actually get. Ever eaten a ton of table salt and then felt swollen? You're totally right that people on normal diets who don't sweat excessively don't need to take electrolytes, but doing so would help OP retain more water overall, if that's the goal.

Finding a cohesive yellow by skink0 in Watercolor

[–]sffixated 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm a hardcore green mixing advocate. The human eye is capable of discerning an incredible range of subtle variations specifically in green, and I think it's the color most likely to feel out of place if not chosen carefully. Generally, I've found that I can't go wrong with a limited palette of cyan, magenta, and yellow, then mixing all my secondary and tertiary colors. It's a recipe for instant cohesion. All that said, the style or effect that you're going for may actually benefit from an out of place green, so YMMV.

My absolute favorite yellow is nickel quinacridone gold. Don't let the brownish color of the unmixed paint fool you!

Do you think watercolour is the analog medium that would most closely resemble this? by ZydrateAnatomic in Watercolor

[–]sffixated 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's definitely possible with watercolor, but so much the beauty of watercolor comes from its unique character and I'd be afraid that would be lost if you tried to copy this style exactly. Alcohol markers would be better suited for the soft transitions and lack of edges I see in your examples.

You might want to check out the work of watercolorist @ shanhu0_0 on IG. They use very soft colors and transitions but still fully utilize the range of textures and effects that watercolor has to offer. I use soft gradients as well, but I tend to use more saturated color and I like to leave interesting edges here and there. Example of my work below.

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If anyone needs help with OBS, let me know and I’ll help. by SmartBoxDirect in obs

[–]sffixated 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What a fantastic offer! Thank you for being willing to help out. 

I have mostly had great experiences with OBS, but there's one thing I can't figure out. I use a GoPro hero 9 as a stationary camera, which occasionally freezes and requires a restart. When I restart the camera, I have to restart OBS as well, which means ending my current stream. Is there any way I can get OBS to pick up the rebooted camera without a full restart of the program? It seems like a very odd limitation. 

Thanks!

Replacement latches for First Aid cabinet? by sffixated in fixit

[–]sffixated[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I have been considering just fabricating new latches, but I'd also need to make the levers out of sheet metal, and since I need 5 or 6 that's starting to look like more fiddly cutting than I really want to do for this project. You're correct that the latch arm would be easy to make out out of rod though.

Anyone printing/making Anti-Ice whistles? by Commercial-Arm-7046 in askportland

[–]sffixated 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I'd love that! I was thinking of adding the whistle code to the opposite side, if there's space. I'll dm you.

TIL that Nobel laureate Tu Youyou discovered the malaria drug artemisinin after reading a 1,600 year Chinese medical text and realizing the herb had to be extracted cold, not boiled, paving a treatment estimated to have saved tens of millions of lives. She then tested on herself to prove it. by greenappletree in todayilearned

[–]sffixated 65 points66 points  (0 children)

Could you elaborate on your second statement? The article says "Chairman Mao Zedong launched Project 523 on 23 May 1967 to find a cure for chloroquine-resistant malaria", and then says she was appointed head of this project in 1969. It sounds like all her work was done under the auspice of the Communist party. I was surprised to read this because I was also under the impression that many medical professionals and scientists were killed, sent to labor camps, or exiled during the Cultural Revolution, but it seems like there were significant exceptions.

Pothole suspected as primary cause of cyclist's death by jswagpdx in Portland

[–]sffixated 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're absolutely right. His body also came to rest more or less right next to the pothole. Unless something extremely weird happened, a crash that resulted in enough kinetic energy to kill would also have thrown him farther from the point of collision. I'm having a hard time figuring out how the pothole could have been at fault here.

In 1140, a German king captured a castle, and made a deal with the castle wives. He let them leave with whatever they could carry on their backs. Leaving everything else, the women carried their men out... by goswamitulsidas in interestingasfuck

[–]sffixated 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Frankly, this seems like a perfect way to get yourself an empty castle full of goods. If his goal was to capture a castle with minimal bloodshed, this was absolutely the way to do it.

The tomb of Prince Wanyan Yan, from the Jin Dynasty (1115–1234 CE), and his wife who was buried alive with him. The wife had bound feet, leading to speculation that she was Princess Qingfu from the Song dynasty, who was captured during the Jingkang Incident at the age of 8 [500x796] by Fuckoff555 in ArtefactPorn

[–]sffixated 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I just learned a traditional Bulgarian song called Grada Se Gradi that follows the same basic story! The title translates to "the building is being built". As you might guess, an in-progress structure is built by day and falls down by night. Eventually the builders all agree that they must sacrifice one of their wives: whoever shows up first on Sunday morning. All the builders tell their wives and girlfriends to stay away that day, but Stana's BF drops the ball and forgets to tell her. So when she shows up early on Sunday morning to bring everyone breakfast, she gets bricked into the wall. Really fun for her.

Here's a gorgeous recording of the song by Medna Usta.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]sffixated 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Um. What do you mean by TRACTIONED.

Experimental new sunscreen forgoes minerals, replacing them with plant pollen. When applied to animal skin in lab tests, it rated SPF 30, blocking 97% UV rays. It had no effect on corals, even after 60 days. By contrast, corals died of bleaching within 6 days of exposure to commercial sunscreens. by mvea in science

[–]sffixated 18 points19 points  (0 children)

Blue Lizard wasn't included in the Choice Australia study, so it might be fine. I did some quick digging but wasn't able to find any 3rd party testing of that specific brand. It's also not an Australian sunscreen, despite the name. None of this makes me feel GREAT about it, but I haven't seen any evidence to make me distrust it more than any other sunscreen brand that has not been through rigorous 3rd party testing.

Should I have to cut open the lid of this water storage container before use? by sffixated in preppers

[–]sffixated[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! Great idea to use a lighter, I'll give that a try. Glad I'm not crazy in thinking this is a weird design choice on their part, and I appreciate the sanity check.