#budget gaming phone

[newspatron]

5 Reasons to Buy the Infinix GT 20 Pro: Budget Gaming Beast

Got a question about the Infinix GT 20 Pro? Share your thoughts, experiences, and feedback in the comments below!

🎮📱 Are you a mobile gamer yearning for that flagship thrill without the hefty price tag? Well, get ready to level up your smartphone experience, because the Infinix GT 20 Pro might just be the secret weapon you’ve been waiting for! Infinix, known for delivering bang-for-your-buck devices, has stepped into the gaming arena with a phone that’s turning heads and raising eyebrows. 😲 It’s not just…

[cobra-wives]

so like… i find it HILARIOUS that in the ck 2 dojos rising game, terry just calls tory: (HOW DOES HE HAVE HER NUMBER? IS HE USING JOHN’S PHONE? WHY DOES HE LOOK LIKE ZORDON FROM THE ORIGINAL MIGHTY MORPHIN POWER RANGERS? can i get an app that makes my facetimes look that cool? WHY DOES HE NEED TO FACETIME? so extra. or maybe these writers don’t know what a facetime is.) threatening john. and his raw evil energy is SO strong that he literally creates a cobra thundercloud. i imagine this is how it went:

(and poor tory too - having to be privy to whatever crazy homoeroticism that was.)

[steakout-05]

how i feel about TBYS causing a shockwave effect of everyone dogpiling on and harassing Illymation and spreading extremely easily disprovable and malicious misinformation about her and putting her in a lot of danger for literally no legitimate reason

[gifti3]

[newoninternet]

Multibagger Penny Stocks for 2024

In India's dynamic stock market landscape of 2024, potential multibagger stocks include tech disruptors like InfoTech Innovations, leading the way in AI-driven solutions for diverse sectors. Pharma giant Medico Pharma, with breakthrough drugs and expanding global reach, stands out for robust growth potential. Renewable energy frontrunner SunPower Energies captures investor interest with its sustainable power solutions amid rising environmental concerns. E-commerce powerhouse ShopNest continues to soar, capitalizing on the booming digital economy. Lastly, financial services innovator MoneyMint leads the fintech revolution, offering cutting-edge solutions for seamless transactions. These companies showcase strong fundamentals and market dominance, positioning them as promising multibagger stocks in India.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Tesla's Dieselgate

Elon Musk lies a lot. He lies about being a “utopian socialist.” He lies about being a “free speech absolutist.” He lies about which companies he founded:

https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-cofounder-martin-eberhard-interview-history-elon-musk-ev-market-2023-2 He lies about being the “chief engineer” of those companies:

https://www.quora.com/Was-Elon-Musk-the-actual-engineer-behind-SpaceX-and-Tesla

He lies about really stupid stuff, like claiming that comsats that share the same spectrum will deliver steady broadband speeds as they add more users who each get a narrower slice of that spectrum:

https://www.eff.org/wp/case-fiber-home-today-why-fiber-superior-medium-21st-century-broadband

The fundamental laws of physics don’t care about this bullshit, but people do. The comsat lie convinced a bunch of people that pulling fiber to all our homes is literally impossible — as though the electrical and phone lines that come to our homes now were installed by an ancient, lost civilization. Pulling new cabling isn’t a mysterious art, like embalming pharaohs. We do it all the time. One of the poorest places in America installed universal fiber with a mule named “Ole Bub”:

https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-one-traffic-light-town-with-some-of-the-fastest-internet-in-the-us

Previous tech barons had “reality distortion fields,” but Musk just blithely contradicts himself and pretends he isn’t doing so, like a budget Steve Jobs. There’s an entire site devoted to cataloging Musk’s public lies:

https://elonmusk.today/

But while Musk lacks the charm of earlier Silicon Valley grifters, he’s much better than they ever were at running a long con. For years, he’s been promising “full self driving…next year.”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

He’s hasn’t delivered, but he keeps claiming he has, making Teslas some of the deadliest cars on the road:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/10/tesla-autopilot-crashes-elon-musk/

Tesla is a giant shell-game masquerading as a car company. The important thing about Tesla isn’t its cars, it’s Tesla’s business arrangement, the Tesla-Financial Complex:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/24/no-puedo-pagar-no-pagara/#Rat

Once you start unpacking Tesla’s balance sheets, you start to realize how much the company depends on government subsidies and tax-breaks, combined with selling carbon credits that make huge, planet-destroying SUVs possible, under the pretense that this is somehow good for the environment:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

But even with all those financial shenanigans, Tesla’s got an absurdly high valuation, soaring at times to 1600x its profitability:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/15/hoover-calling/#intangibles

That valuation represents a bet on Tesla’s ability to extract ever-higher rents from its customers. Take Tesla’s batteries: you pay for the battery when you buy your car, but you don’t own that battery. You have to rent the right to use its full capacity, with Tesla reserving the right to reduce how far you go on a charge based on your willingness to pay:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/09/10/teslas-demon-haunted-cars-in-irmas-path-get-a-temporary-battery-life-boost/

That’s just one of the many rent-a-features that Tesla drivers have to shell out for. You don’t own your car at all: when you sell it as a used vehicle, Tesla strips out these features you paid for and makes the next driver pay again, reducing the value of your used car and transfering it to Tesla’s shareholders:

https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/6/21127243/tesla-model-s-autopilot-disabled-remotely-used-car-update

To maintain this rent-extraction racket, Tesla uses DRM that makes it a felony to alter your own car’s software without Tesla’s permission. This is the root of all autoenshittification:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

This is technofeudalism. Whereas capitalists seek profits (income from selling things), feudalists seek rents (income from owning the things other people use). If Telsa were a capitalist enterprise, then entrepreneurs could enter the market and sell mods that let you unlock the functionality in your own car:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/11/1-in-3/#boost-50

But because Tesla is a feudal enterprise, capitalists must first secure permission from the fief, Elon Musk, who decides which companies are allowed to compete with him, and how.

Once a company owns the right to decide which software you can run, there’s no limit to the ways it can extract rent from you. Blocking you from changing your device’s software lets a company run overt scams on you. For example, they can block you from getting your car independently repaired with third-party parts.

But they can also screw you in sneaky ways. Once a device has DRM on it, Section 1201 of the DMCA makes it a felony to bypass that DRM, even for legitimate purposes. That means that your DRM-locked device can spy on you, and because no one is allowed to explore how that surveillance works, the manufacturer can be incredibly sloppy with all the personal info they gather:

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/29/tesla-model-3-keeps-data-like-crash-videos-location-phone-contacts.html

All kinds of hidden anti-features can lurk in your DRM-locked car, protected from discovery, analysis and criticism by the illegality of bypassing the DRM. For example, Teslas have a hidden feature that lets them lock out their owners and summon a repo man to drive them away if you have a dispute about a late payment:

https://tiremeetsroad.com/2021/03/18/tesla-allegedly-remotely-unlocks-model-3-owners-car-uses-smart-summon-to-help-repo-agent/

DRM is a gun on the mantlepiece in Act I, and by Act III, it goes off, revealing some kind of ugly and often dangerous scam. Remember Dieselgate? Volkswagen created a line of demon-haunted cars: if they thought they were being scrutinized (by regulators measuring their emissions), they switched into a mode that traded performance for low emissions. But when they believed themselves to be unobserved, they reversed this, emitting deadly levels of NOX but delivering superior mileage.

The conversion of the VW diesel fleet into mobile gas-chambers wouldn’t have been possible without DRM. DRM adds a layer of serious criminal jeopardy to anyone attempting to reverse-engineer and study any device, from a phone to a car. DRM let Apple claim to be a champion of its users’ privacy even as it spied on them from asshole to appetite:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Now, Tesla is having its own Dieselgate scandal. A stunning investigation by Steve Stecklow and Norihiko Shirouzu for Reuters reveals how Tesla was able to create its own demon-haunted car, which systematically deceived drivers about its driving range, and the increasingly desperate measures the company turned to as customers discovered the ruse:

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tesla-batteries-range/

The root of the deception is very simple: Tesla mis-sells its cars by falsely claiming ranges that those cars can’t attain. Every person who ever bought a Tesla was defrauded.

But this fraud would be easy to detect. If you bought a Tesla rated for 353 miles on a charge, but the dashboard range predictor told you that your fully charged car could only go 150 miles, you’d immediately figure something was up. So your Telsa tells another lie: the range predictor tells you that you can go 353 miles.

But again, if the car continued to tell you it has 203 miles of range when it was about to run out of charge, you’d figure something was up pretty quick — like, the first time your car ran out of battery while the dashboard cheerily informed you that you had 203 miles of range left.

So Teslas tell a third lie: when the battery charge reached about 50%, the fake range is replaced with the real one. That way, drivers aren’t getting mass-stranded by the roadside, and the scam can continue.

But there’s a new problem: drivers whose cars are rated for 353 miles but can’t go anything like that far on a full charge naturally assume that something is wrong with their cars, so they start calling Tesla service and asking to have the car checked over.

This creates a problem for Tesla: those service calls can cost the company $1,000, and of course, there’s nothing wrong with the car. It’s performing exactly as designed. So Tesla created its boldest fraud yet: a boiler-room full of anti-salespeople charged with convincing people that their cars weren’t broken.

This new unit — the “diversion team” — was headquartered in a Nevada satellite office, which was equipped with a metal xylophone that would be rung in triumph every time a Tesla owner was successfully conned into thinking that their car wasn’t defrauding them.

When a Tesla owner called this boiler room, the diverter would run remote diagnostics on their car, then pronounce it fine, and chide the driver for having energy-hungry driving habits (shades of Steve Jobs’s “You’re holding it wrong”):

https://www.wired.com/2010/06/iphone-4-holding-it-wrong/

The drivers who called the Diversion Team weren’t just lied to, they were also punished. The Tesla app was silently altered so that anyone who filed a complaint about their car’s range was no longer able to book a service appointment for any reason. If their car malfunctioned, they’d have to request a callback, which could take several days.

Meanwhile, the diverters on the diversion team were instructed not to inform drivers if the remote diagnostics they performed detected any other defects in the cars.

The diversion team had a 750 complaint/week quota: to juke this stat, diverters would close the case for any driver who failed to answer the phone when they were eventually called back. The center received 2,000+ calls every week. Diverters were ordered to keep calls to five minutes or less.

Eventually, diverters were ordered to cease performing any remote diagnostics on drivers’ cars: a source told Reuters that “Thousands of customers were told there is nothing wrong with their car” without any diagnostics being performed.

Predicting EV range is an inexact science as many factors can affect battery life, notably whether a journey is uphill or downhill. Every EV automaker has to come up with a figure that represents some kind of best guess under a mix of conditions. But while other manufacturers err on the side of caution, Tesla has the most inaccurate mileage estimates in the industry, double the industry average.

Other countries’ regulators have taken note. In Korea, Tesla was fined millions and Elon Musk was personally required to state that he had deceived Tesla buyers. The Korean regulator found that the true range of Teslas under normal winter conditions was less than half of the claimed range.

Now, many companies have been run by malignant narcissists who lied compulsively — think of Thomas Edison, archnemesis of Nikola Tesla himself. The difference here isn’t merely that Musk is a deeply unfit monster of a human being — but rather, that DRM allows him to defraud his customers behind a state-enforced opaque veil. The digital computers at the heart of a Tesla aren’t just demons haunting the car, changing its performance based on whether it believes it is being observed — they also allow Musk to invoke the power of the US government to felonize anyone who tries to peer into the black box where he commits his frauds.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/edison-not-tesla/#demon-haunted-world

This Sunday (July 30) at 1530h, I’m appearing on a panel at Midsummer Scream in Long Beach, CA, to discuss the wonderful, award-winning “Ghost Post” Haunted Mansion project I worked on for Disney Imagineering.

Image ID [A scene out of an 11th century tome on demon-summoning called 'Compendium rarissimum totius Artis Magicae sistematisatae per celeberrimos Artis hujus Magistros. Anno 1057. Noli me tangere.' It depicts a demon tormenting two unlucky would-be demon-summoners who have dug up a grave in a graveyard. One summoner is held aloft by his hair, screaming; the other screams from inside the grave he is digging up. The scene has been altered to remove the demon's prominent, urinating penis, to add in a Tesla supercharger, and a red Tesla Model S nosing into the scene.]

Image: Steve Jurvetson (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tesla_Model_S_Indoors.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[sleekbuys]

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[newspatron]

Tecno Pova 6 Pro 5G Review: Bold Design, Big Battery, Beastly Power

Did we miss anything? Share your thoughts or questions about the Tecno Pova 6 Pro 5G in the comments below!

editor@newspatron.comTimeline: Tecno’s Journey to Global RecognitionDesign and Build Quality ✨MiniLED Lighting Effects ✨Performance and Software 🚀🌟Camera Quality and Features 📸HiOS 14: Features, Security, and Comparisons ✨🛡️Bloatware Assessment:Competitor Analysis ⚔️Best Place to Buy and Deals Available 🛒✨Best Accessories for the Tecno Pova 6 Pro 5G ✨How to Get the Most Out of Your Tecno Pova 6…

[todays-xkcd]

Hint: If you ever encounter this puzzle in a crossword app, just [term for someone with a competitive and high-achieving personality].

A Crossword Puzzle [Explained]

Transcript

[A square 15x15 crossword puzzle is shown. Only 21 of the 225 squares are black. The black squares are in a pattern that are 180 degree rotationally symmetrical. Three black squares down from the 11th column and similarly three black squares up from the 5th column. Three black squares out from the right in row 7 and then two more black squares diagonally up from the end. Similarly three black squares out from the left in row 9 with two more black squares diagonally down from the end. A single black square is three above the first black square on the diagonal going down to the right and similarly there is a black square three under the first of the diagonal squares going down to the left. (Row 6 column 12 and Row 10 column 4). Finally there are three black squares on a diagonal crossing over the central point by going up from the left through the central point (Row 8 column 8). There are numbers at the top of every column (except the one that is a black square) and similarly at the left edge of all rows (except the one that is a black square). There are also numbers at the bottom of every black segment (except the one that reaches the bottom) and all rows after black segments except the one that reaches the right edge. In total all numbers from 1 to 51 is written. They are written in reading order from 1 to 51.]

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

[Below the square there are two rows of clues for each number that belongs to across (rows) and to the right there are one row of clues for each number that belongs to down (columns). Both segments have an underlined and bold title above the clues. ]

'''Across'''

1. Famous Pvt. Wilhelm quote

11. IPv6 address record

15. "CIPHERTEXT" decrypted with Vigenère key "CIPHERTEXT"

16. 8mm diameter battery

17. "Warthog" attack aircraft

18. Every third letter in the word for "inability to visualize"

19. An acrostic hidden on the first page of the dictionary

21. Default paper size in Europe

22. First four unary strings

23. Lysine codon

24. 40 CFR Part 63 subpart concerning asphalt pollution

25. Top bond credit rating

26. Audi coupe

27. A pair of small remote batteries, when inserted

29. Unofficial Howard Dean slogan

32. A 4.0 report card

33. The "Harlem Globetrotters of baseball" (vowels only)

34. 2018 Kiefer song

35. Top Minor League tier

36. Reply elicited by a dentist

38. ANAA's airport

41. Macaulay Culkin's review of aftershave

43. Marketing agency trade grp.

44. Soaring climax of Linda Eder's ''Man of La Mancha''

46. Military flight community org.

47. Iconic line from ''Tarzan''

48. Every other letter of Jimmy Wales's birth state

49. Warthog's postscript after "They call me ''mister'' pig!"

50. Message to Elsa in ''Frozen 2''

51. Lola, when betting it all on Black 20 in ''Run Lola Run''

“Down

1. Game featuring "a reckless disregard for gravity"

2. 101010101010101010101010 [sub]2→16

3. Google phone released July '22

4. It's five times better than that ''other'' steak sauce

5. ToHex(43690)

6. Freddie Mercury lyric from ''Under Pressure''

7. Full-size Audi luxury sedan

8. Fast path through a multiple choice marketing survey

9. 12356631 in base 26

10. Viral Jimmy Barnes chorus

11. Ruby Rhod catchphrase

12. badbeef + 9efcebbb

13. In Wet Let's ''Ur Mum'', what the singer has been practicing

14. Refrain from Nora Reed bot

20. Mario button presses to ascend Minas Tirith's walls

24. Vermont historic route north from Bennington

26. High-budget video game

28. Unorthodox Tic-Tac-Toe win

29. String whose SHA-256 hash ends "...689510285e212385"

30. Arnold's remark to the Predator

31. The vowels in the fire salamander's binomial name

32. Janet Leigh ''Psycho'' line

34. Seven 440Hz pulses

37. Audi luxury sports sedan

38. A half-dozen eggs with reasonably firm yolks

39. 2-2-2-2-2-2 on a multitap phone keypad

40. .- .- .- .- .- .-

42. Rating for China's best tourist attractions

43. Standard drumstick size

45. "The rain/in Spain/falls main-/ly on the plain" rhyme scheme

[nyxeze]

anybody else despise the new tumblr update that makes ads take up the entire screen so whenever you scroll you inevitably end up clicking it and opening the ad

[thebibliosphere]

I was looking through the Gotham Knights Reddit for something (mod fix), and it really doesn't matter what you're looking for; there's always someone complaining in the notes about what a horrible game it is.

And 99.9999% of the time, it's people bitching it's not the Batman Arkham games. (Correct! It is not. It's the Gotham Knights game. Hope that helps.) But the funniest one I just saw someone saying, "this isn't a Batman game."

Like buddy. The whole premise is that Batman is dead. Of course, it's not a Batman game. It's a game about the world without him.

Did you really read the premise that starts with "Batman is dead" and expect to play as Batman? If so, that's a you problem.

"None of the characters handle like Batman."

Correct. Because they are Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood, and Red Robin. They are not Batman. They may have been trained by him, but they all have their own unique ways of moving and fighting.

Nightwing flips gracefully through the world like gravity doesn't apply to him while also hitting like a fucking freight train. And he'll do it with a smile. You know this because you'll wake up with a picture of him on your phone. (I love that animation, it's so fucking cheeky.)

Batgirl uses her slighter weight and height to leverage your own strength against you before going for all your pressure points and rendering you helpless. And if she's not turning you into human origami, she's calling in her drones and bricking all your technology. A fight with Nightwing might leave you with a concussion, but a fight with Batgirl means you need treatment for a concussion and a new iPhone.

Red Hood moves like he hates the ground beneath his feet, and you're in his way of stomping on it. He's massive and not afraid of utilizing his size in a fight. He doesn't need guns to be lethal; in fact, his guns are designed to be non-lethal. The same can't be said for his fists. Or his sarcasm.

Red Robin slides through the streets of Gotham like a ghost, only to explode your entire world in a shower of fiery nanobots and a bo staff applied directly to the forehead. If you're really unlucky, you'll wake up hanging upside down from a telephone poll with no memory of how you got there.

They are not Batman.

And I would argue that is a good thing. It would have been very easy to turn them into Batman clones and just do the same thing that's been done a hundred times before. Instead, the devs tried to do something different, and while some of it is clunky and a bit glitchy, they did what they did with a fraction of the budget the original Arkham games had, and I honestly commend them for it.

It's not easy to enter the world of Batman and not be Batman. But that's the whole point of the narrative. You're not him. And you shouldn't feel like him.

You should feel like whoever you're playing as, and in that regard, it works.

[theambitiouswoman]

Wealth Building: Money Topics You Should Learn About If You Want To Make More Money

Budgeting: This means keeping track of how much money you have and how you spend it. It helps you save money and plan for your needs.

Investing: This is like putting your money to work so it can grow over time. It's like planting seeds to grow a money tree.

Saving: Saving is when you put some money aside for later. It's like keeping some of your treats for another day.

Debt Management: This is about handling money you owe to others, like loans or credit cards. You want to pay it back without owing too much.

Credit Scores: Think of this like a report card for your money habits. It helps others decide if they can trust you with money.

Taxation: Taxes are like a fee you pay to the government. You need to understand how they work and how to pay them correctly.

Retirement Planning: This is making sure you have enough money to live comfortably when you're older and no longer working.

Estate Planning: This is like making a plan for your stuff and money after you're no longer here.

Insurance: It's like paying for protection. You give some money to an insurance company, and they help you if something bad happens.

Investment Options: These are different ways to make your money grow, like buying parts of companies or putting money in a savings account.

Financial Markets: These are places where people buy and sell things like stocks and bonds. It can affect your investments.

Risk Management: This is about being careful with your money and making smart choices to avoid losing it.

Passive Income: This is money you get without having to work for it, like rent from a property you own.

Entrepreneurship: It's like starting your own business. You create something and try to make money from it.

Behavioral Finance: This is about understanding how your feelings and thoughts can affect how you use money. You want to make good choices even when you feel worried or excited.

Financial Goals: These are like wishes for your money. You need a plan to make them come true.

Financial Tools and Apps: These are like helpers on your phone or computer that can make it easier to manage your money.

Real Estate: This is about buying and owning property, like a house or land, to make money.

Asset Protection: It's about keeping your money safe from problems or people who want to take it.

Philanthropy: This means giving money to help others, like donating to charities or causes you care about.

Compounding Interest: This is like a money snowball. When you save or invest your money, it can grow over time. As it grows, you earn even more money on the money you already earned.

Credit Cards: When you borrow money or use a credit card to buy things, you need to show you can pay it back on time. This helps you build a good reputation with money. The better your reputation, the easier it is to borrow more money when you need it.

Alternate Currencies: These are like different kinds of money that aren't like the coins and bills you're used to like Crypto. It's digital money that's not controlled by a government. Some people use it for online shopping, and others think of it as a way to invest, like buying special tokens for a game.

[ellejos]

Night Routine for Insomniacs

for my fellow insomniacs who struggle with sleeping: some ideas to improve your night routine and sleep

How to get in the mood:

Light your candles

brew yourself your good night tea or drink (when I was younger I always drank hot milk with honey)

lower your lights and close your curtains

play relaxing music

prepare your bedroom (windows open or closed, hot water bottle in bed, etc.)

best ideas for resting:

watch an episode of the show you're currently watching or watch a film from your watchlist (because otherwise you'll never gonna see it anyway)

connect with your partner or the people you love <3 these people make life worth living and deserve your attention and time!

this is non negotiable: read at least 1-2 chapter, or if you're not into reading listen to an audiobook or podcast

do some yoga or stretching

journaling

Preparing is Key:

Lay out your outfits for the next day, pack your bag, prepare your gym bag, declutter of your clothing laying around - cleaning and preparing your space in order to get these tasks out of your mind for a good night sleep and a fresh start in the morning

Update your planner and to do list for the next day

set your alarms to get up on time

turn off your devices! if you are using your phone as an alarm clock set it into flight mode or create a night mode for yourself

put on your bed clothes

Night Skin Care Routine:

Remove Make Up with oil-based Makeup Remover

Cleanse face (don't forget about your neck and ears) with water-based cleanser (preferably the same cleanser you use in the morning)

Exfoliate your skin or use a face mask, massage your face while applying or try a sheet mask and use a face roller get the best benefits

use a toner afterwards to prep your skin for following

acid treatment and serums

if you're having break outs you can apply spot treatment

eye patches and eye cream

night cream or night mask

Your skincare routine in the evening should moisturize your face so that your skin is soft and glowing after waking up.

Ultimate hack for soft lips in the morning: you can create a lip scrub with sugar and honey and afterwards apply a thick layer of vaseline on your lips - it's a low budget game changer.

sleeping beauty tips:

brush your teeth before going to bed

spray your pillow with lavendar or diffuse some calming essential oils

listen to sleep meditation

absolutely no phone, tv or any devices for sleeping!

Have a good night rest angels!

[writingquestionsanswered]

Tips for writers with ADHD that get major writers block/burnout

Writers with ADHD and Writer's Block/Burnout

Tip #1 - Troubleshoot the Problem - I want to start here, in the most obvious place, because even for writers with ADHD, writer's block is often the result of a specific issue that can be surmounted once identified. My post 5 Reasons You Lost Interest in Your WIP, Plus Fixes! addresses some of the most common ones. It's worth checking to see if something on there resonates with you as a potential obstacle to progress.

Tip #2 - De-Stress Your Writing Time - Human brains are wired to respond in specific ways to perceived threats... fight, flight, or freeze. Quite often, what we call "writer's block" is actually your brain having a freeze response to writing because it's causing you stress and is therefore perceived as a threat.

So, anything you can do to de-stress your writing time can help. Troubleshooting the problem as in #1 is a good start. Set reasonable goals and deadlines... you can estimate your available writing time and calculate that with your estimated WPM to see if it's even possible for you to hit your word count goal. Go easy on yourself when you don't reach goals... celebrate even the smallest of wins, because negative thinking makes writing more stressful. Do what you can to set up an inviting writing space, light a candle (safely), play soft music, use ambient lighting, have your favorite beverage and snack at hand.

Tip #3 - "Gamify" Your Writing - Turning your writing goals into game achievements can make writing fun, which is another great way to de-stress it. You can usually find free game board templates online, or you can create your own. I like to set mine up like this:

You can set as many tasks as you want (within reason) for each goal, and your prizes can be anything from a handful of candy to buying something you really want, or doing something you really want to do. Whatever works for your budget that motivates you to get the tasks done.

Tip #4 - Do an Immersive Writing Sprint Session - YouTube is a wonderland of helpful videos for writers... not just easily digestible writing advice and research information, but also writing music, ambience rooms, and one of my favorites, immersive writing sessions. These are themed ambience rooms with ambient video, music, and sound effects, but they also have a writing sprint timer on the screen, so you are encouraged to write for however long (usually 10 to 20 minutes), then you get a five or ten-minute break before the next sprint starts. These can be a really great way to get into the zone if you're struggling otherwise.

Tip #5 - Eliminate Distractions - When you have ADHD, pretty much anything can be a distraction. If my desk is messy, I'll pause mid-sentence to clean it rather than write. If there's something on my desk I can fidget with or play with, I'll do that. If my phone is handy, I'll pick it up and start scrolling through social media. If I'm listening to music with words, I'll go look up the lyrics and fall down some weird tangentially related rabbit hole. If I'm hungry or thirsty, I'll get up fifty times to get a small snack or drink. So, I clean my desk ahead of time and remove anything I might be tempted to fiddle with. I only play instrumental music (usually an ambience room). I put my phone on silent or leave it in another room.

Literally anything I can do to head my usual distractions off at the pass. For me, it actually makes a big difference. Try keeping a running list of things that distract you while writing during a week of writing sessions. Then, go through the list and write solutions. This helps you build a pre-writing session distraction elimination routine.

I hope something here will work for you! I may do a part two to this soon, so keep an eye out!

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[riverianepondsims]

SimPrint | Newspapers, payphones, and extras for TS3!

The SimTimes finally found room in their budget for color printing of their newspapers! The bad news is, no one reads them anymore. Maybe they'll start now? In other news, The SimNation Telecom Company has been required by law to reactivate disconnected payphones to promote accessiblity to phone connectivity for all. Here's a quarter - go tell someone who might care! Important info and download 💾 under the cut:

This is an assortment of items that I worked on in 2022 and 2023. Most of this is comprised of different newspaper default replacement sets, the textures of which I converted from a few different creators. Additionally, you will find a few different things here... STC Payphone - Network Connected Original creator: Grande Lama I made this phone fully functional, and added geostates for when the phone is in use and when the handset is back on the hook. I also made this phone available in the in-game world editor, and it's flagged for use in CAW as well, so you can place it in your CAW metadata and use in worlds. It does function off-lot (as photographed!)

Crosley Simlish Serenity Payphone Original creator: ArwenKaboom (for The Sims 4 @TSR) I converted this phone and made it fully functional, and like the abovementioned phone, added geostates. I also added Simlish textures for all of the details and writing on the phone. I included the English ones too for those who might prefer them.

Functional Newspaper Stands and Dispensers Original creators: ATS3, phoebejay, alienpod, Episims, VeganKaktus, Budgie I figured I'd add the textures for the various newspapers to newspaper stands and dispensers that alienpod converted and added their textures to. They require the actual script from PhoebeJay to work. Without it, they will be decorative items. They can also be placed off-lot in the in-game world editor or in CAW. PhoebeJay's mod Simlish Bus Texture Override Original creators: FreshPrince, Lyralei As someone who probably spent half of their uni years on public transit, I was so excited for Lyralei's Bus Manager mod and was happy to test it out while testing my tennis mod. At some point I did a quick Simlish recolor override for the signs, license plates, and side-wraps, and I figured I'd share it now with this set! Lyralei Bus Manager Mod I also threw in a few deco book objects I converted from TS2 quite a while ago that I enjoy using in my lots! The newspaper default replacement texture varieties come from the following TS2 creators: Alienpod: Newspaper Defaults Epi's Sims: Newspaper Default Replacements VeganKaktus: Newspaper Default Replacement

I included replacement textures for both the reading version and the folded up versions of the newspapers. Please note that, like with my tennis default replacements, you can only have one active newspaper default replacement in your game at once. Each default includes both the reading and matching folded version. The variety is there in case you would want to switch it up between different saves and/or worlds! Making these made me so nostalgic for the early 2000s...walking to the store with a payphone outside to make an important call and getting a coke ICEE for the journey to visit grandma who has a Crosley phone in her kitchen...our sims deserve that.

Previews, additional credits, location, prices, and download links: 💾 Download Catalog: SimPrint - riverianepondsims

📰📞🚌

[clrasecretdiary]

Passenger princess | Spencer Reid x Best friend!Fem!Reader

Just our good old fluff

I loooove friends to lovers and this is 100% how i would try to confess my feeling if i ever was in this situation. Hope you guys like it!! <3

You guys had just finished a case and, since it was really close to home, the team ended up going back driving (Damn those budget cuts). To your luck, you and Spencer are going back together. 

After a particularly intense match of rock, paper & scissor – the only game you were able to beat the genius at – Spencer ended up being the one who drives, and you would do your favorite job – be the road trip assigned DJ. 

"Hey Spence, would you rather listen to the whole harry styles discography or Taylor Swift's?" You say, with a grin on your face

"Oh god, this is going to be a long drive" Spencer says, laughing lightly and starting the car engine and, as if it was instinct, putting one of his hands on your lap. The action, although recurrent between you two, still sent shivers down your spine and the lingering "What are we?" question came back to your mind. You brush it away quickly, not wanting to go back to thinking about that now. 

"Come on, honey, I know you love them deep down. But I'm not in that vibe today anyway" You say, putting something else on. 

You don't really know why, but you decide to put on the little romantic playlist that you have – you would never directly confess your feeling for your best friend, but if he heard the lyrics and figured it out by himself, well a win is a win. Dark red by Steve lacy, starts playing, and you sing along to it while using your phone, trying not to look at Spencer's face. 

"I know that song, it's really good" 

You turn your face to him, surprised that he knew the song, since he generally goes for…  Well, old people music (which is something you love about him). 

"Yeah, I love this one. It has umm… beautiful lyrics too" You say, in hopes that he would pay attention to them and take the hint. 

"Really? Never really paid attention to them." He says, reaching for the car display and putting the song back to the start, "Let's see" He says, imitating the one nerd emoji meme – something that he started to do, ever since you showed it to him and said "that's literally you". 

You rolled your eyes and laughed, you would find that to be extremely embarrassing if it was someone else, but on him, it was so cute.

You two went silent as the song started to replay, looking over to Spencer to catch his reactions, seeing his brow frown signing that he's focused. After a while, a small smile shows up on his face, and he starts to blush a little. 

After a while, you two arrive at the BAU, before getting out of the car Spencer turns to you

"Hey, would you like to grab dinner with me after we're done here, just the two of us?" 

Turns out, your plan worked. 

You smile to him 

"I would love to Spence"