Such as counterintuitive fixes to a problem, or where a mistake unexpectedly results in an even better outcome than originally hoped for.
I grew up in Asia and had a chipped playstation 1 as a kid. It allowed it to read copies, was pretty standard stuff over there the copies could be found in legit stores and everything.
Anyway it started struggling to read the CDs. We figured out if we turned it upside down, it would be able to read them no problem. I suspect it was gravity making the lens come a bit closer to the CDs but don’t know for sure.
It was certainly funny having it upside down, worked a charm.
To get rid of an emotion I feel it as much as I can, instead of escaping from it.
Similarly to get better reasults I don’t focus on the result but on the process itself.
Lost my driver license. Searched for a while, then decided I’m going to get a replacement. I seldom drive, anyway. Never got around to it until 4 years later I got a letter that it was found. Saved 70€ doing nothing!
I found a bug by slacking off.
Without details, there was a product that we were supposed to test before it hit mass market. It had an annoying bug where it would forget certain configuration items, seemingly at random. Nobody could reproduce it.
Until me and my friends decided that this was the perfect opportunity to slack off, and took a >1h lunch break (“can’t be online on teams, I’m testing…”). As it turns out, the product goes into deep standby after >30 minutes. Official break time was 30 minutes. So if you take the break on the dot, it will never go to deep standby, and never forget its configuration.
So, we figured out the bug by taking a long-ass lunch break.
Testing should have some specified time windows eh? If the maker knows that the software does a thing at 30 minutes, that should be an intentional part of the test.
Generally you should have a way to directly test that mode or to temporarily “speed up time”. Perhaps you’d directly manipulate wherever it stores the “last activity time”
Hard to think of one on the spot, but I have an unintentional one/mistake.
When I was a kid, my mother had a digital camera that broke. It had a mechanical lens (or I suppose “lens housing” that would extend when powering on, then retract when powering off. I guess somehow the lens got stuck in between states, and so the camera would refuse to fully boot up. A bit after that happened, she got a new digital camera.
Me being the tinkerer I was, I asked if I could mess around with the old camera and was basically given it since it was useless (or so she thought). While messing with it, I accidentally dropped it - it somehow fell at just the perfect angle and “knocked” the lens back into place (without breaking anything). Camera worked perfectly fine after that!
Unfortunately while I was still allowed to keep it, that never really “kick started” a passion for photography in me. As far as I recall I got bored of it pretty quickly.
Sometimes you just need to do some good old fashioned percussive maintenance. :)
When I wanted to stop smoking, the idea of never smoking again would make me stressed and make me want to smoke.
The solution was I put “have a cigarette” on my to-do list, at the bottom.
So I never quit smoking, I’m definitely going to have a cigarette at some point, when I get round to it - just after I’ve re-tiled the bathroom, wrote a novel, made a computer game, taught the cat to play piano, finished a series of 100 paintings, wrote an album of songs etc…
… so it’s over ten years since I last had a cigarette, and there’s only a thousand or so things to do on my to-do list.
Would you accept a cigarette from Scp-4999?
Having read that, yes :)
ADHD W
This is pure genius.
I think it only works if your brain is wired in a particular way.
Tons of open browser tabs? Long, impossible-to-complete to-do list? Unread emails? Unplayed Steam Games?
Good chance of it working :)
I have all of those… Except my to-do lists are not actually long because I never get around to adding stuff to them.
Hahaha.
I used to have a home office room, and I bought and installed a whiteboard on the wall, for noting things down, planning, to-do list etc.
For five years, it had a single scrap of paper blue-tacked to it, which read “1) Buy a whiteboard pen”.
I eventually solved it by moving house.
Thanks for the reminder. I put up whiteboards for my kids a bunch of years back, and all the pens are dead.
Of course, both kids are in college and I have no use for those so maybe the boards should come down
shitpost instead of good posts = 😀
Who doesn’t enjoy a good 💩
Ton of things in ARMA 3’s scripting system due mostly to undocumented or improperly documented commands. Like having a trigger zone that damages the player while in it doesn’t work by having them inside the zone (I mean, it does but it will just insta kill instead of slowly dealing damage every tic), instead what works is making a zone for the safe area, and then inverting it for the damage so it only hurts them outside the trigger.
When I can’t sleep, I take my finger and draw infinity symbols in a pillow or the sheet and it always makes me tired. There’s some science behind it but give it a try
Sounds like a type of meditation.
i don’t use a.i. for searching (until i give up if i can’t find it). i feel my vocab increased thinking of similar words to get to the page i want.
If I cannot think of a word in my mother language, I see if I can think about it in English, and then put it into an online dictionary to get the mother language synonyms. Works pretty often.
How is this backwards solution?
“Drinking water backwards.” And no, I’m not talking about an enema.
Say you have the hiccups.
Get half a glass of water. Bend over at your waist like you’re about to pick something up off the floor. While bent over, rest the glass against your upper lip and drink the water.
Poof Hiccups gone instantly. I know it sounds insane but it works.
I once had a really long running bout of hiccups, like more than a day and it was really draining on me and I was very tired. I looked myself in the mirror and said “you don’t have hiccups any more” and they stopped immediately.
Tried it again several times since and it never worked again but for that brief moment I was invincible.
I’ve heard at least a dozen guaranteed methods for solving hiccups. At this point I’m convinced it’s all placebo, including the method that works for me reliably.
If you must know…
You hold your breath with a mouth full of water, plugging your ears, swallowing very slowly. Hold your breath as long as you can and take a few deep breaths after.
I agree that most all of them are borderline placebo, but I’m pretty positive that some combination of breath and water lies the cure.
My go-to for curing hiccups is just taking little sips of something and pausing in between
Using my phone helps me sleep.
I play a simple grid-based game (crosswords, sudoku) for about 15 minutes and before I realize it I’m out cold.
Every bit of “sleep hygiene” that gets condescended at me only makes my insomnia worse, save for the generalized concept of a routine.
More time in my room helps too, as opposed to less - unfamiliarity and performance anxiety creep up on me.
I cannot pick a lane at the grocery. My first pick will always be slowest. If I pick one out, then pick a 2nd, my 2nd pick will be last to move. Even an empty lane will suddenly have issues like drawer change, shift change or some other calamity.
I now pick a lane and then have my SO pick any other lane for us to use.
There is a solution to this problem. One line that just feeds all the lanes. Unfortunately, the geometry of grocery stores would make it difficult to implement. Also, most people like the illusion of choice.
I’ve actually seen this recently at some stores, usually just for the self-checkout section.
The one I go to does this. One line and they call out which lane is opening next for you to go to. The long line is arranged perpendicular to the registers and It really doesn’t seem to take up that much more space compared to stores that don’t do that.
Monty lane problem.
Almost anything with managing kids’ behavior.
If you want them not to do something, tell them a bunch of things to do instead. (It may be appropriate to discuss the undesired behavior later).
Want them to talk to you? Listen to them.
Want them to learn a lot and be successful in school? Praise their effort, and not their intelligence or knowledge.
This can also be good advice for dealing with adults.
The more I have disconnected from society the happier I have become. I just can’t do open hand gestures all of this… Anymore. I’m not doing the Nazi era.
Consider relocating somewhere safe where people are still humane on average, if you can. Kinda sad and unfair on you to isolate yourself…
Funny enough I did just that. The COVID shutdown was just about the best my life had ever been. My wife and I bought a house in the mountains in a town with 1000 people. Behind my house is thousands of acres of forest. We live like a retired couple and I’ve never been happier. I have learned how to live within my personal stimulation threshold.
A lot easier said than done for most of us.
