I know it’s an unpopular opinion given current circumstances, but I’ve always been a huge nerd about Russia. The history, the geography, the music, etc. And as an American, I’ve always found it fascinating how U.S.-Russian relations have fluctuated over time. We’ve gone from allies, to enemies, to frenemies. This doesn’t mean I support Z or Putin, of course. What are you a nerd about?
I am a computational chemist and biochemist. Ive been an insurance agent and worked in IT at the DOD, I am a masters Starcraft 2 player, Minecraft mod pack creator and Mod dev. Aside from English, there are 4 other languages that I understand well enough to be conversational. I have had some of my art featured in a museum. I am a mathemagician. I have tutored thousands of students in Math, chemistry, biology and physics. I built a spreadsheet that tracked 30+ parameters of 600+ foods that I used to help my mother with her kidney disease and me with diabetes. Her kidney disease has been stable for 5+ years and I dropped over 80 pounds in a year.
Take your pick.
My if I ever finished a single project
Are you going to switch over from StarCraft to Stormgate?
Honestly I mostly played Starcraft because I liked the lore surrounding it. I started playing in junior high back in 1997 and liked the universe it built. But after 30,000+ games getting to where I am, I am kind of burnt out by it. Stormgate would have to have its unique charms for me to want to jump ship to it and from what I have seen, its too close to starcraft for me to want to play it. As it is, I would rather play something like balder’s gate 3 or something else story heavy, pve or creativity focused rather than pvp.
You’re too powerful, Valve pls nerf
(Actually though that’s impressive, congrats and I salute you)
Speaking of nerfs, I found out that I was/am ADHD in my final semester of college.
How did it feel to get a diagnosis, if you don’t mind me asking?
Imagine that for your entire life you felt there was something different about you, that there was a gulf between you and most other people and that you felt alone. And then you finally know that not only was it not your imagination, you now know why you felt different. And you no longer feel as alone anymore. You know that there are others that are a lot like you. You look back and a lot of things about your life click into place whereas they didn’t before. It fundamentally changed how I saw myself and those around me because it gave me insight into how my mind works and how my mind is different than most peoples’ in more concrete and less anecdotal terms. And it allowed me to be more compassionate toward myself. For a long time I felt like I didn’t live up to the expectations of others because of a personality flaw. And I realized the full extent of how much abuse I had undergone because of those expectations. I did the best that I could and people often gave me the impression that was never good enough.
This past week, my sons teacher suggested getting him evaluated. As a result I’ve been doing a lot of reading about ADHD and related conditions. Just about everything I read makes me think “weird, this describes me”.
Obviously I’m going to do whatever I can to help him, but now I wonder if there is anything I should look into to help me. I wonder how much different my life would be if I figured this out earlier.
ADHD is very heritable. Something like 80 to 90%. In other words, it would not at all be surprising if it turned out you are also in the ADHD tribe. As for what you can do, you could ask your provider for an ADHD assessment. If you are ADHD, you cant rewind time but you can get the support you would need and it is never too late to do that. Just be aware that assessment as an adult is often expensive even with otherwise good insurance. If that is a major hurdle, depending on your area, there may be “pay as you are able” mental health establishments that may be able to help.
As for what to do before you are assessed, there are things that help ADHD people that dont require special accomodations or medication. eg. exercise helps regulate emotions and movement often helps alleviate feelings of restlessness and helps concentration/focus. 80% of adults with ADHD go to sleep much later than normal and/or have difficulty getting enough sleep. Research indicates this is a bidirectional issue. i.e poor sleep quality worsens ADHD and ADHD likely causes insomnia/delayed/poor sleep.
Wow, that hit hard. Thanks for taking the time to type that out.
Which mods are yours?
Theyre unreleased and theyre kind of garbage as theyre mcreator mods :/. I dont really have the patience to code them from scratch. One adds terrain blocks eg. coral, colored sand, lunar soil, martian soil and rock etc. The latter blocks are textured based on NASA photos of the actual dirt and rock of the moon and mars. I added the moon and mars as places you could fly to using the elytra. Venus and a few other places were added and are based on old scifi depictions. The elytra flight mechanic was based on an old DnD campaign I was part of where planets and moons could be visited via hot air balloons.
The other mod adds custom potion effects. eg. a potion that burns the player when theyre in the sun, one that deals damage if theyre in water, “cursed” potions that do things like close containers as if a cat was sitting on them, technical potions that do stuff behind the scenes eg. execute commands etc. I think its up to 40 or so by now.
Id like to eventually recode them from scratch but there are hundreds of more pressing issues with the pack.