Pinned
I delete most of my posts after a month or so to keep my blog manageable and to organize my reblogs. You have my permission to reblog whatever deleted post I made. It wouldn't be on the internet if I wasn't okay with it getting shared.
Here are some of the major resources I've made and some of my sideblogs in case you're looking for something that I reblogged, plus my answers to the tech questions I get most frequently:
Hey if you own a business I need you to repeat after me:
webdev account perfec t size to put domain in to store! inside very ssafe and secure domain be safe put domain in webdev account. put domain in webdev account. no problems ever in webdev account because no mfa for quick access make domain changes fast with no review. awebdev godaddy yes a place for domain put domain in webdev account can trust webdev for giveing good love to domain. friend webdev
Addendum - if you are part of a volunteer org or other less-structured group that has a website, I need you to repeat after me:
hey Elvis is the glass half full or half empty to you?
Woah mama it depends on whether you're filling or emptying
Endless optimism is a foolish way to look at the world, unable to see the strife and suffering. Endless pessimism will never make anyone happy, especially not you. You need to take the good and the bad, the dark and the light, the full and the empty. Hummina hummina hummina
Downpour 3. Rollerball 10x8” A4. Buy it: https://ko-fi.com/s/c6eca12c31
When I was a kid I kept failing classes because I'd lose my homework. I'd finish it, but between the dining room table and the classroom it would just walk away. Sometimes it ended up in my backpack, sometimes it didn't; sometimes I finished the homework at school and it got home in my backpack but wasn't there the next day.
To attempt to address this, my parents got me a neon orange folder to put in my backpack; it was my homework folder, all homework was to go into that folder and that folder only, and it was to only come out of that folder when it was being worked on. I was to put homework in the homework folder as soon as it was assigned and if I'd worked on it, put it back in the folder as soon as it was finished. The logic here was that using the folder was supposed to be automatic, and you wanted a bright color so it wouldn't get lost in the depths of a backpack.
I think I lost about eight of those before my parents stopped buying orange folders.
So it was very frustrating to search "how to be organized at work as an adult with ADHD" only to get a list that said "set alarms and write things down and try to make friends with a more organized person" which was immediately followed by tips to help your ADHD child stay organized and the one right at the top was to put their homework in a bright folder so they couldn't lose it.
If you have been harmed by the ADHD Tips Industrial Complex you may be entitled to a packet of fun-dip and a cactus cooler as consolation for losing your homework folder again.
"You'd remember it if you thought it was important, you're just demonstrating that you don't care"
*EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER*
FWIW I've started collecting ADHD tips that I've come up with or that I've found helpful and I've been writing them up on my website.
However many are as yet unwritten because. Well. You will never guess.
(each of those includes a description of the techniques; some include an explanation of why the work for me and some include links to other resources, like the Soundscapes page is linked under "Background Noise"; the to-do-list one describes multiple types of to do lists that I use in multiple situations)
Hey so actually this post motivated me to write 3500 words on success traps, which is setting up systems where success can sneak up on you and trap you in spite of your executive function going on a vacation.
"Put your homework in an orange folder" is an example of something that a neurotypical parent thinks is a success trap that they're setting up for their kid.
The trap that the kid might set up for themself is "take photos of all my homework so that if I lose it I can send it to the teacher or work on it without the original paper version." (In my pre-cellphone education era my success trap might have been "turn in homework before the class ends if the teacher allows it" or "do homework with my friend from class who DOESN'T lose homework every day and ask them if they can bring it to school for me")
Some samples:
A success trap is something that will redirect you to what you want to do when you would otherwise fail. Success traps can be physical or mental, they can be tools you use or habits you form; they just have to be something that points you back in the direction of your goal when you get diverted. Features that are present in a success trap include:
------------
Apps, web extensions, physical tools, habits, clothing, and training can all be components of building a successful success trap.
Speedbumps tend to be very individual and contextual, so removing them takes experience. If your child struggles to get homework done because they feel like they need to look up every word they don't know on the assignment sheet, you might want to sit with them and go through the definitions before they start working. But sometimes the speedbump to making madelines is simply the fact that someone has to empty the sink of dishes before cooking can commence, so all you can do is either wash the dishes in the moment or work on building a robust dishwashing system for ensuring there are no plates in the sink.
This one is also highly contextual and highly specific. One example of a success trap that I'm considering making is a single-key keyboard that I can use for "typing" passwords. One of the ones I'm considering purchasing is a mouse with programmable buttons. Getting a mouse to do "Ctrl+C/CTRL+V/CTRL+SHIFT+V" while using excel for web would be a game-changer for me in terms of efficiency. Maybe I'll even get around to it someday. But another example of an efficiency win is just checking my email and messages any time I sit down at my desk. If I haven't stood up in four hours I'm off the hook, but if I stood up to get a refill on my coffee for three minutes, I must check my email when I get back to my desk. That's just how it's done. I don't make the rules. (Not true, I do make the rules but the Alli who makes the rules and the Alli who follows the rules are two different people who just happen to both live in my head.
Get creative when you're thinking about what tools to add to your toolbox. And maybe make one of those tools a literal toolbox. The plastic totes used for cleaning supplies can also be used for gardening tools, pet care, car parts, and barbecues. Make use of them because they might save you a ton of work and there's no reason not to.
----------------
The website is free; the reason I started using it for writing up stuff like this more than I use tumblr for writing up stuff like this is that tumblr is too hard to search and "wiki is easy to format and easy to write" is a success trap for me.
I actually do still take classes! I'm finishing up an Associate's degree in Visual Arts and then will be taking more classes in nutrition and computer science.
I am unlikely to use trackers (turning on location makes trackers unappealing; my spouse and I have both considered and discarded the idea - he has 'loses shit all the time' ADHD too) but I did recently lose the ink that I'd purchased for my 2D design class. I set it very neatly on the table with all my other supplies for the class that I was getting ready to move into my office. And then something (????) happened and I had to move the supplies from the table to the counter. I found everything else within a week, but not the ink.
It took six weeks and eventually I found it sitting in plain sight behind a cake plate with a clear glass dome, exactly where I put it and in a place that I looked at probably ten times when searching (standing in front of the table going "Okay I know I had all that stuff HERE" then turning in place and holding my hands out to the counter "and i moved it HERE, and then I took this, that, and the other thing to the office. But where did the ink go? Babe? Did you move anything on the counter? Have you seen my ink? It's in a black and white box about two inches tall and one and a half inches on either side? Where did I put that" and then just rotating back and forth between the table and the counter. Several times on different days) but slightly further back on the counter than I'd been visualizing.
I suspect that the orange folders ended up underneath history textbooks in my desk, or crammed in the seat pocket of my mom's minivan, or left on the playground from where I was working on homework during PE (I wasn't allowed to run because of asthma but I was allowed to walk around the blacktop an do homework). I was in daycare, and I'm sure one or two disappeared there or at a girl scout meeting, and I'm sure one ended up crammed between my mattress and my box spring, where I kept the books that I'd read over and over again in the middle of the night.
Being the person I am now and knowing the way that I lose things now, I suspect that what happened with a lot of the things that I lost is that I temporarily put the thing down someplace that made sense at the time, and then because it wasn't in an expected place and I adapt rapidly to visual noise, the thing I'd just put down promptly became invisible.
I can actually *feel* that happening these days. I'll be getting ready to set something down in a place that "makes sense/is a good place/I'll remember" and when I feel that happening I have to freeze and look at what I'm holding and figure out if there's a place that I *usually* put this thing or things like this and it either has to go there immediately or has to go into one of my designated dumping areas because if I put that thing down in a place that isn't already connected with the thing in my brain, it will turn invisible as soon as I look at something else. (I lose my earbuds twice a week like this, and it's part of why I'm such a strong advocate of having pockets on every single possible item of clothing)
Hey if you own a business I need you to repeat after me:
webdev account perfec t size to put domain in to store! inside very ssafe and secure domain be safe put domain in webdev account. put domain in webdev account. no problems ever in webdev account because no mfa for quick access make domain changes fast with no review. awebdev godaddy yes a place for domain put domain in webdev account can trust webdev for giveing good love to domain. friend webdev
Hey! Do you like music? Have you listened to the music I made with my band(s)? If you liked that music it's probably because Dani, my bandmate from P.I.T. and Traumfieber, writes really good music!
lemme embed the player widget here:
oh, thank you, it didn't want to do that when i was trying to. Listen to Dani, folks!
I can never leave Tumblr because after years of sporadic therapy utterly failed to even approach the core of my problem some random tumblr user was like “I processed my trauma by writing a 10,000 word work of filthy fanfic erotica” and I was like “fuck it I’ve tried everything else” and now I’m 17 chapters and 20,000 words deep into an unpublishable work of obscenity and after careful literary analysis with one of the Beloved Mutuals I have come to some Terrible Revelations about my childhood and may now continue the process of Healing. Where else am I supposed to get this kind of experience. Who does this. Why are we like this. I’m never leaving. I love y’all.
For context on the last post, this is my grandpa (grandma on the right in the second photo):
That man loved to hate shitty magic tricks. After he grumped at my little magic set he gave me a trick coin, a silk scarf, and a collapsible dove to play with.
I distinctly remember him holding the little rubiks cube with the "solved" center and the "unsolved" sheath from my kit and saying "the fucking thing doesn't even twist. fucking magnets at least."
Why does that guillotine have a smaller hole.
It’s so you can still see the “blade” at the bottom, to trick you into thinking it went through clean.
I got one of the kits that comes with all these little cheapie magic tricks at a scholastic book fair once and my grandpa was so mad at them when I tried them on him. He let me do each one and told me I did a good job then put them on the corner of the dining room table and muttered over them for like three hours and filled several pages of notebook paper with criticisms. The unsleights-your-hand guy is making me cackle because I just keep looking at him and going "grandpa energy."
So a couple days ago, as part of the work shit show, you posted something to the effect of "I'm going to need to create a How To Find Hardware document for work, so I'll also put it on Tumblr." While I, a Tumblr user, love getting valuable information for free, I will caution you (and others in a similar situation) that most US employment contracts consider anything you create while on the clock to be a "work for hire" and is therefore owned by the company. This can be documents, software code, or more tangible objects. Some companies are total assholes about this, and take it even further than "when on the clock" and will try to assert that anything you invent during the years you are an employee can be patented or trademarked or copyrighted by the company. Exercise caution when giving work documents to the internet; sometimes managers that seem totally rational while you work for them get vengeful when you put in your notice for greener pastures.
Like you, I work in tech, and I have witnessed greed over intellectual property. There are still ways to share your knowledge.
Apologies if you already know this, and I just read your post incorrectly!
Thanks for checking in and good looking out!
The funny thing is it's kind of going to be the opposite of me writing for the company and then sharing with the internet; I'm going to be editing and repurposing a big chunk of writing I've been working on for the internet to adapt it to the company and I'm going to take that as the excuse to also work more on the thing that I've been wanting to put up online for a while.
This is also how the Password Manager guide that I've offered to the company would work; heavily editing something that I've already written and offering it to the business while taking time to finish the very different guide for an internet audience.
To be clear, these will be demonstrably different (and legally distinct). For instance, this is one of the covers that I've made for the password manager book:
This would also be an extremely dangerous game to play with me because it's a great way to end up with twenty exceptionally horny and graphic ABO ebooks starring not-quite-your-mascot published to archive.org under something-that-is-legally-distinct-from-but-in-searches-is-often-conflated-with your company name. That's not defamation, that's not copyright infringement, that's parody and is fair use, baybeeeeeeee.
