Miles O'Brien

My favorite group I have ever DMd for was at a convention, it was 2am, and nobody had ever met before except the two couples in the mix of 9. I just ran part of a campaign I was working on for a different group.

I barely had to interact with them for RP stuff unless it was to drive the plot, or play a character they convinced to join them.

It was great seeing a large muscular guy dressed like a Dwarven blacksmith role play a halfling, and the smallest person there was playing as a half-orc barbarian from the plains of icewind dale.

And of course since it was a convention, and some of them had LARP gear with them, a friendly competitive sword fight broke out during a rest and instead of rolling, they just went ahead and used foam swords and stepped away from the tables. And borrowed dialogue from the princess bride.

Most groups definitely prefer combat, and to be honest so do I unless I’m running the game. Maybe I just haven’t played with the right group or character, or more likely I just suck at it. Either way…

I think everyone has “that one group” they wish they could play with forever and never have scheduling conflicts…

I’ve had more conversations than I can count with people I would never be able to talk to in person, all using our own native languages.

The original posts are in English, people comment in their native language, and I use a translator, then respond in my own language. Is the translator perfect? No! Neither is theirs.

With the way most translators I’ve used work, it’s easier for the non-native speaker to try translating, since the translator might try and use different words that entirely change the meaning, but likely list possible alternatives. A native e speaker will understand the alternatives while a non-native speaker probably won’t.

That’s my thought process anyway.

Never had anyone who wasn’t pearl-clutching or virtue-signaling complain about it. And I’ve had tons of conversations with people I’d never have talked to otherwise.

Nothing says “we are a free and open community that welcomes others” like moderators banning discussion of poor moderation.

Yes, I do understand what the rule is there for. No that doesn’t make it any less hilariously shitty.

Armada and Armada 2.

I really like RTS games.

Lmao how pathetic must your life be to wish such things over minor annoyances on a website.

Go touch grass

the sea calms my soul

As long as you don’t look under the surface.

Oceans be scary. (but still great, that’s why I joined the navy once)

Mountain House if solar/wind are feasible and I have sufficient clearing to grow my own food.

Otherwise, regular house.

I like mountains, hiking, biking, and I want to become self-sufficient where possible. And my wife wants cows and chickens, I don’t think they would do well on a beach, especially when sea levels start noticeably rising.

The last time I used skype, it was to monitor my 3d print because I needed to finish a project and my last attempt went all spaghetti.

So as I was at work I’d log into my computer from my phone, call myself with skype, and check to make sure everything was still okay.

Then I discovered octoprint.

At least you all can get your family to use it.

I can’t even get my spouse to use it unless she thinks what we are talking about might be illegal where we are (it usually isn’t)

I’ve tried convincing family to use it, but all that happens is I just never hear from them until I see them in person or they call me.

They don’t even feel the need to back up their Amazon Kindle collection before they get cutoff from it… Thousands of dollars wasted if they ever lose access to the account.

Weird, I just had a bunch of mls tell me just the other day that a comment I made was strawmanning a hypothetical tankie telling me I’m wrong.

And here we see yet another ml strawmanning.

Super Weird.

All I see is a bunch of people saying this is dystopia nightmare shit, and so far the only person I’ve seen do anything other than call it what it is is the ml comparing this to China.

Surveillance states are bad anywhere, you won’t get many people arguing that city wide government facial recognition is a good thing.

They stated they didn’t break piracy laws because they downloaded a shitload of books for their LLM and didn’t seed any.

Torrents are downloaded by “leeches” and put out for download by “seeders”

A proper ratio of what you downloaded to what you allow others to download should be 1:1 if you’re not a dick. (1gb downloaded means you need to upload 1gb to other users for 1:1) but if you don’t seed at ALL or if you only seed bare minimum to keep downloading things, you’re called a Leech, and derogatorily. Because you didn’t seed.

So they’re stating “we didn’t break the law, we’re just leeches!”

Shhhhhhhhhhh

If I don’t know my master plan, then THEY certainly don’t either!

Also I do intentionally leave some things a bit more vague, with ideas of what I want to do, but I’m hoping the players will start theorizing amongst themselves so I can incorporate their stuff into the game.

It gives them a nice sense of accomplishment to have “predicted” something, and I think they feel more engaged in the campaign.

Or maybe I’m just a bad DM…

rotated map of under-ice Antarctica

Okay, who’s gonna tell them…

That would be great, but unfortunately for me I have too many programs that depend on windows, don’t have Linux options, and if I’m being honest with myself I really just don’t want to learn an entirely new ecosystem. I will if forced, but the moment this laptop shits itself or they discontinue support for the OS, I’m getting a crash course.

I’d love to turn an old tablet or somethinf into a Linux device in the meantime so I can at least start something. Too bad my parent’s old kindles won’t work, there’s enough of them laying around their house…

Oh fuck yeah gimme that customization and personalization options

I used to use a program on one of my computers called rainmeter I think, and it allowed me to customize my desktop to look like the Animus menus from Assassin’s creed 2. Then decided to go with hexagons everywhere, with the replacement start menu dead center screen and other buttons areayed out from there.

Haven’t used it in many years, but I’d love that level of customization* on a pc nowadays. It seems like no matter where I go, every UI looks the same. Good for familiarity, not so much for “oh this is neat, they made it their own” factor.

*without learning entire programming languages, I hyperfixate on things but programming has never been something I’ve been able to get into

I just bought a laptop last year (portability and space constraints, I’d love to build a pc when I have the space for it) and it was supposed to come with windows 10.

I got a windows 11 model shipped to me. I didn’t ask for this. And I have to say… I fucking hate it. Why does the start menu need to change locations…

My next computer will absolutely be Linux, and it’s Microsoft’s own stupid fault. Windows 10 WAS supposed to be my last windows OS…

Lmao this guy thinks hard work is what makes people rich instead of massive amounts of exploitation in an inherently exploitative economic system…

The problem is not the price.

The problem is Ai “art” is inherently stealing the work of other people, and not in a way that a painter can say they were influenced by some other painter.

An extremely outspoken instance filled with people who simp for fascist dictatorships but ultimately consider themselves communist and some socialists.

Most would call them “tankies” due to their willful denial of the 198(9) Tiananmen square massacre as “western propaganda” despite non-western sources agreeing it happened outside of China.

Imagine if super outspoken trump supporters had an instance and spent a lot of time trying to lecture other people about how they’re wrong when nobody spoke to them in the first place, then when presented with facts and logic they would respond with gifs, emojis, and a lot of claims that you’re a CIA front/shill.

Why does Sony always feel like you could replace anything they say with “You should consider yourself lucky we allow you to play our games.”