Hey, Ask Lemmy, we all know that people love to talk about themselves, and I’d love to hear about some of your pleasant experiences. So, please, no matter how big; no matter how small, tell me something that you are proud to have made :)
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- thesohoriots@lemmy.worldEnglish3 hours
Something I’m still proud of was a diorama I made in 5th grade for Halloween. It was called the “Peanut House of Horror” and featured dried peanuts with little googly eyes being disassembled in every conceivable way on cardboard torture devices — think a stretcher rack pulling one in half, a “pit and the pendulum” device slicing into one, etc. with peanut shells all over the floor. My parents supported the creativity and humor. Other parents, not so much. But to paraphrase John Waters, you need to possess good taste to appreciate poor taste.
- tooq@piefed.caEnglish4 hours
It’s no longer online in order to minimize data exposure, but during some major wildfires a decade ago, a small city was evacuated with my city being the nearest safe place to be (~4 hours away), so I built a site within a couple of hours to let people with spare rooms offer space to evacuees. For nearly a week I became the place to find vetted information about resources for everything an evacuee needed to know. It took the province and Red Cross 4-5 days to get their systems up and running so I was an important stop gap. I’ve since devised a system for evacuee information that I can deploy in less than an hour (it’s always running, but I confirm data for each deployment to make sure links and phone numbers are still valid).
6 hoursA free mobile game “Wandering Alchemist” I’ve released on both Android and iOS. Free as in offline, no ads, no in-app purchases (Besides a fully optional “support the developer”). It’s a GPS walking game where you gather ingredients, brew potions, sell them to merchants and decorate your neighborhood.
On some days it’s awesome, on other days I ask myself why I do this to myself. But overall it’s fun :)
I’m currently working on a big update that reworks all the visuals, a lot of them are still from early on and look really shoddy. For example before and after:
- 4 hours
Speed the read write speeds of every server and workstation at work by introducing on the fly compression. I hypothised it would work because we had a surprising amount of idle cpu and even where we didn’t a lot of the clock cycles were waiting for IO. Had to design some benchmarks, run on test systems, do a blue field deployment on a few prod servers, etc, but it was really rewarding to go from idea to implementation. It’s was actually noticble to users for start up time too! It lead to a more aggressive compression on some backups that ended up delaying the need for hardware purchases too.
- 5 hours
My name is on a plaque (along with dozens of others) attached to the Nancy Grace Roman telescope that just launched. I don’t think I’ll ever top that. I also had a hand in building the primary mirrors for JWST, seeing images come back from it has been incredibly rewarding! Working in aerospace definitely has its awesome moments, despite being “just a job” most of the time.
- 8 hours
Last year I built this cupboard and hutch, along with a matching buffet.
- 6 hours
This was the biggest woodworking project I’ve tackled yet.
- 5 hours
I once sanded and (poorly) refinished a nightstand. In my defense, it was my first time and I don’t think it was stain grade wood. It was always meant to be painted. That’s as far as my skills go. Although, where I moved, inherited quite a few very nice wood working tools so, I might be learning once some of the house maintenance is under control!
- 4 hours
Finishing is an entire discipline unto itself. The finish on the cabinet above: I took the surfaces to 180 grit with a random orbit sander, then sanded along the grain at 220 by hand, vacuuming and tack clothing between each grit. Popped the grain with water, sanded at 220 again, and a final tack clothing. No stain, and a polyurethane finish, first coat was 2 parts urethane to 1 part thinner, the remaining 3 coats are 50/50. Wiped on with a cotton rag, cut from an old T-shirt, rubbed out with a piece of paper grocery bag between each coat followed by a light tack clothing to remove the whisper of dust. Do that between each, but not after the last coat. The result is a durable shell coat that still has the texture of wood, you get the depth from wetting the surface but not a visibly thick layer of plastic.
Granted, I did start with $9/board foot black walnut that I hand selected from the lumber yard, not some random night stand. But, I’ll assert there’s no such thing as “stain grade” or “paint grade” wood. People take wormy maple and make stuff like this out of it:
I will grant you that some species of wood have open and uneven grain that will absorb stain at different rates across the surface, creating a hideous blotchy appearance, and wouldn’t you know it most of those species are cheaper, easily available species that have bland and boring grain like pine and birch. Most “stains” look terrible on wood like that. My choice is to go with little to no stain, let the wood speak for itself, maybe subtly tint it with the top coat, or use shellac, either as a top coat or as an intermediate layer. If the wood you’re working with is very prone to blotching, start with a coat or two of blonde shellac to fill up the pores, then switch to your darker garnet or whatever. Shellac is compatible with basically all finishes and is sometimes used as a compatibility layer between water and oil based finishes so you can top coat over it if you want something more durable than beetle poo.
- plaztek@piefed.caEnglish6 hours
I build, customize, and paint Gunpla. I finished this one a couple days ago.
- plaztek@piefed.caEnglish5 hours
While technically, anything you do to them outside of building them per the instructions would be customizing them, I was referring to modifications I made to the model itself. For this one in particular, I raised the neck and collar up by 2mm and cut the back of the head back by 1mm to allow for better head movement. Here’s the full list of everything I did:
- made the modifications stated above
- custom paint job
- resin detail up kit (various greebles on feet, legs, front skirts, shoulders, and shield)
- metal detail up kit (verniers, elbow & knee joints, gun barrel, and power pipes around the waist)
- holographic decals
- matte topcoat
Here’s how the model looked prior to any customization:
- NycterVyvver@lemmy.worldEnglish9 hours
Years ago I was asked to make a website to educate the public and promote a campaign to bring back a formerly-declared-extinct species.
There were scientists, zoologists, researchers and volunteers in the field who did the REAL work. I had the easy part.
But when the website was launched, I received ‘thank you’ emails from all over the world. Reading all of those letters was one of the most rewarding feelings.
And the best part . . . Though it’s still a threatened species (I’m told recovery potential is strong), today there are more than 500 of these animals living in the wild.
- 6 hours
What animal? Critter pics please!
Thanks for helping them out. It’s definitely something to be proud of.
- toynbee@piefed.socialEnglish6 hours
My kid, but I admit I didn’t do most of the work.
Still, they’re pretty great.
- 9 hours
Back in the 90s, we bought an 87 year old house that had been neglected for decades, but the neglect was what we liked. That meant that nobody had “upgraded” or modernized it.
We spent the next 7 years renovating it, fixing every wall, repairing plumbing, installing a cast-iron woodburning stove, etc.
When we were done, we had turned the ugliest house on the street into a museum piece, and sold it for far more than any house on the street had ever sold for.
- 7 hours
French fries and mac N cheese. Cause both times it’s a recipe I came up with on my own.
With Mac N cheese, the problem was lack of availability of good cheeses where I live. So I made a change to the recipie. Put 2 parts milk, one part cheese slice, and some flavouring oil. I create the flavour oil by heating garlic and onion on very slow heat for like half an hour. The oil gets the confiet garlic flavour, even though garlic crisps up because gas stove is still too hot for the task, and then add the milk and cheese. And damn it turned out great. Just put a little sugar so it emulates cream a little more.
Then fries, I’m trying to make crispy fries that don’t require pulling in and out of freezer, or even double frying. My last batch was sloppy, but I was 85℅ successful. I must experiment a little more to see if it’s even possible to make them 100℅ as perfectly crispy as you get in restaurants, but I’ll try, and if successful, will share the recipe.
I’m a cs graduate, I wish someday there are real projects that I’ve worked on that I would be proud of, but for now it’s just these small achievements😅.
Edit: NOT one part flavouring oil. I use a lot less. I don’t measure it out, but when I’m using 2 part’s cheese, I usually go for a table spoon or two.
- 9 hours
Something out of myself. Raised poor, lived in a renovated chicken coop for a while. Almost homeless a few times. My wife and I now have two nice paid off cars, a nice home, good jobs, our kids are all doing well and we spoil the shit out of our granddaughter.
We just had this delivered to her! Something I always wanted as a kid and wanted to be able to afford for our kids but couldn’t.
- 6 hours
Hell yeah! Overcoming circumstances you didn’t choose is the hardest fucking thing.
- 9 hours
I make music. It’s not amazing music but it’s mine and doing it brings me great joy. I have a recording studio in my house, and use much of my down time for writing and recording music. I’ve slowly been teaching myself audio engineering and production, try to drop a song or two each year, and am working on a full-length album.
Unfortunately I can’t really share that here without doxxing myself. I do still maintain a Reddit account solely for the purposes of promotion and networking with other amateur recording artists, only because the music making communities on Lemmy are not very active.
- 9 hours
I sculpted this tiki mask using blender and then milled it out of aluminium using a 3 axis mill.
You can make your own, if you have a 3D printer or a milling machine: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4636877
- 10 hours
I make video games on occasion. My portfolio is mostly jams and unfinished prototypes, and while I am working on something special, at this rate it will be a million years before it’s ready for release.
I catch my wife playing this one sometimes and it makes my heart happy
Sometimes I paint minis. These were a couple of characters I played where I made a custom figure
Kurt is technically a kitbash. I took a figure that was originally a bard holding a harp, cut out the harp and gave him some books. He was a gifted kid turned wizard-college-dropout, really pulling from life experience there.
For Robin I made a couple of additions with clay. I’m really bad at that, but it makes me happy
