Consistency is key! Even 5 minutes per day is good. Over time as you start seeing incremental improvements you get addicted to playing and naturally spend more time practicing.
Yeah, I probably average 20 minutes one day per week. I seem to be building decent spacial awareness or muscle memory on some of the more common frets (3-9) and seem to be getting an ear for standard tuning. Songs with different fret positions (12-15 especially) seem to give me some trouble. I think I just need more consistent practice. It's still fun though. Memorizing complete songs will be a challenge.
A lot of modern business/popular psychology books are rehashed ideas of older books and concepts. For example, almost every book on mental toughness is based on Stoic philosophy and being present/mindful. Almost every book on effective learning is based on deliberate practice. And so on... When you understand these fundamental concepts, you only need to read the best 1-2 books on the topic to grasp the idea so that you don't need to read the other 20 popular books that all repeat the same idea using different words. Unfortunately you have to read a lot to figure out the underlying concept of these books in order to figure out if a book you haven't read before is based on the same thing.
Dumb opinion. Running a few miles per week (like most people) isn't going to "cannibalize" muscle. Any muscle loss at that point is due to malnutrition, not running. You'd really need to be running marathon distances or greater to "cannibalize" muscle.
I listed as opinion, but it is actually a fact. It's a phenomenon across sports. Including wrestlers who do long drawn out sessions, losing strength and mass as a result of their training.
SoundCloud - I listen to the artists that my favorite artists listen to, as well as the tracks they repost.
Spotify - Start with an artist I like, listen to all the similar suggested artists, recursively do this until I'm back to the original artist.
YouTube - same as above except with channels. Lately I've been into stoner doom metal, so 666MrDoom is the starting point. From there I listen to all the related channels.
It's a lot of manual labor but I enjoy the process and often stumble upon gems that make my skin tingle.
What is your opinion on reading on the Kindle? Is it as effective as reading a physical book? I own tons of physical books but am completely out of shelf space for new books.
Yeah I guess really I mean something that doesn't have the ability to check email, bleep at you for an incoming text and all that other crap. I personally get screen fatigue so I use paper. But to me the important part is that it's "just a book", not a book that will try to make you change what you're doing every 10 minutes!
I'll argue that using an Android-based tablet with the latest "digital well-being" features are superior to any e-reader. A few things on this worth noting:
- Making notes / taking highlights. The touchscreen navigation is far easier and fluid in making selections. Furthermore, you get an automatic sync to google drive feature
- Indexing: The speed for searching the entire text contents for keywords is much faster and again, a more seamless, non-janky experience
- Lookups: Built in dictionaries are much faster and easier to navigate / dismiss
- Readability: OLED with inverted text and red-light dimming makes for an excellent reading experience, lights on/off
- Distractions: You can limit these with bedtime and focus modes
there are a few eink tablets that run android as well. onyx boox is one brand of the top of my head that uses android 10 so it's still fairly up to date. i never considered an oled even though!
I mainly just want something I can install syncthing on so i can add books and articles from my laptop and have them show up on the device.
I love my Kindle. I'm out of space for physical books and just love the reading experience on the Kindle. I think it works because it's a distraction-free device. It does one thing and it does it well.
I have the Kindle app on my iPad, and it is the best thing ever. I don't install social media apps on it or anything like that. I don't find it bad at all.
Have you gained a noticeable amount of water weight since you started taking creatine? I used it to take it many years but go so bloated it felt unpleasant. Maybe I was taking too much or a bad product.
Not too much, but I've also changed my diet, and been affected by some of the "normal" pandemic body weight changes. I'm winding up to do a water weight shed soon so I'll know better then.
I went through a similar experience recently. Got laid off, was unemployed for 2 months, recently just started a new job. I went through the same leetcode humiliation as well. My only advice as far as the job search goes is to "git gud". Really, what else can you do? Keep grinding and doing as many problems as you can. Interviewing is a numbers game, and eventually your stars will align where you'll either get problems you've seen before or can solve reasonably well on the spot. But the important thing is to keep doing those problems.
Aside from that, you need to take care of your mental health. Being unemployed and getting wrecked in every interview was seriously depressing. Develop a strong support network of friends and family that you can vent to. I didn't have friends to refer me to companies but I had friends who would listen to me whine and complain about how life was shitty. And that helped me a lot. Exercise every day, eat clean, get a good night's sleep. That's all I've got for you. Now get back to leetcoding.
I should probably try to constructively vent more or find people to listen to my leetcode woes. I don't really leverage my friends circle to complain about the hunt. Leetcode's definitely the constant.
Hoping I can look back at this thread a few years from now and realize I made it through a bad spot. Thanks for the response.
