Zonetrooper @ Zonetrooper @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

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My computer turns itself on when I walk through a certain spot nearby it.

"Ah, you must have your mouse or some other peripheral set to activate it and the vibrations from walking-" Nope, I know how to disable wakeup from peripherals. "Well, then the vibrations from walking must be disturbing a loose component inside-" Nope, problem existed through a near-complete teardown and OS reinstall. Also, putting the PC on vibration isolating foam did not help.

At this point, I'm down to two conclusions:

• The wire for the wall outlet runs under the floor, and vibrations are causing adequate power fluctuations to wake the machine up. Not sure how to test for this, though it does concern me about the state of the wiring.
• The PC is haunted.

I'm wondering if the remaining fuel in the lower segments of the ship gave those sections more momentum, causing the whole hull to pivot around those heavier sections (especially with the loss of thruster capability being discussed).

With the Space Shuttle, this tendency was largely offset by the delta wings also causing greatly increased drag at the rear of the hull, but with fins folded the Starship doesn't really have this. That plus the seeming loss of control due to thruster malfunction...

So, this is a bit of a "depending on the group & situation" thing.

Fudging HP is definitely a thing DMs (myself included) do. However, with an experienced group who can get a sense for how much HP is typical for mobs at a given level, and if the amount of damage done is quite clearly far enough that he ought to be dead, it can be hard to add HP without "showing the finger on the scales" - at which point the illusion breaks and it becomes "un-fun".

Look at the number of faiths in the world today. Look at the number of sub-groups under each of those faiths - Sunni, Shia, Sufi and Salafi Muslims. The three branches of Buddhism. The almost innumerable smaller faiths that exist in the shadows of the handful of massive ones. Consider how the implementation and legal rights of those faiths exist between various governments, sometimes even in the same region.

Now advance all that a couple hundred years in the future.

Add several dozen star systems and thousands of space stations, many of which could modestly-sized region on their own. Now think about how many faiths and interpretations there likely are out there.

That is the answer. It's nigh-impossible to count the views on it. Legally speaking, the UNHA's view is more that both mysticism and non-mysticism are permitted, so long as it doesn't prove harmful to onesself or another person. (The definition of "harmful" is, of course, subject to near constant legal interpretation.)

This is exactly why single chunky bosses drive me nuts. I once watched a rogue annihilate a major chapter boss with a single opportunity attack and some very lucky rolls.

I like this answer because, like... a lot of the others are "clever" misinterpretations of how powers classically work, trying to force real-life physics into superhero logic and stuff.

But no. Not this one. Your mind-reading powers can function exactly like how comic books say it should, and you can still be scarred by what you found rummaging through that one guy's head.

Yep. Someone else mentioned something called the "Typhon Pact", which I didn't know about but sounds reasonably close to what I was thinking.

I'd be kind of looking at a Cardassian-led counter-federation. Maybe the Gorn, maybe some others.

What would be interesting is if it weren't an overtly evil "rah, rah, we gonna beat up the UFP and reclaim our glory!" so much as a "with the Klingons firmly Federation allies, the Dominion crushed, and the Romulans devastated, the Federation is unquestionably on top... and that kind of scares us. We're going to band together because otherwise, the Federation could do whatever it wanted with us."

Yep. It's quite frustrating, because I want to support the concept of the community and what it supports tech-wise, but frequently I find myself clicking off the site because I've seen something political so eye-rollingly crazy I don't feel like sticking around.

Going to echo the prior comment. But here's my thoughts:

1. Was there a "session zero" in which the group's expectations for the campaign and interactions were laid out? If not, it may be a good idea to pause and have this. Sometimes groups who are familiar with each other skip this because they "know each other", but it can still be good on a campaign-by-campaign basis.
2. When you discuss it with them, try to start by determining why the DM is acting this way: Since it sounds like the DM likes firmly heroic characters, is this just what they find 'cool' or do they actually object to playing / having grey-er characters in their party or campaign? (Same kind of applies to the cleric's player - are they just "playing the character", or is this what the player feels is right?)
3. Ask if there's been any miscommunications involved. The thing that sticks out as odd to me here, is that the DM clearly seemed to be urging you towards combat with stereotypically evil enemies in these scenarios... but views you initiating combat as "evil"? It's possible something is getting lost in translation.
4. Since you and the rogue are both clearly enjoying less cut-and-dry characters, express that this isn't just you-versus-them. Or you-versus-cleric-player. Broadly, try to avoid turning this into an argument between people.
5. This will fluctuate a bit depending on how roleplay-heavy your group is, but consider asking if this could be dealt with in-character. Is the cleric open to having a crisis of faith over working with such "tainted" people? Are you okay with your character sometimes being held back by other party members when they'd like to be proactive, so long as their view isn't changed?

It's called the double ear mutation! It's a known recessive gene that appears in some cats.

The Culture is objectively the safer answer. Living in Star Trek feels like it carries a fairly significant daily risk of being assimilated / used in a Romulan plot / sucked into some weird negative space wedgie / having a console explode in your face for no good reason.

Meanwhile, if you're in the Culture, you've pretty well got it made.

Not surprised, though I do wonder - would any present-day combat footage showing casualties pass the TOS? It's not specifically "murder", "charred bodies", or anything else specifically stated, but the depiction of lives being lost (and the resultant corpses) is something of an inevitability.

"Mixed" art feels like you're going to be perpetually having to police how much any given submission has been modified before it becomes acceptable.

Just cut it off, period.

Gaming "journalism" can't afford outright say "company deliberately tries to hide enshittification of their game" aloud. Might lose that access to selective early copies for review!

Like the other comment says, concrete is rocks of various sizes (called "aggregate") mixed with a cement and other additives to change its particular properties.

The cement is the really important point, because once water is added to the cement, it undergoes a chemical reaction which hardens it. Saying cement "dries" isn't quite correct - yes, it stops being wet, but some of the water actually ends up incorporated into the molecules of the final cement. This is also why cement is really hard to recycle - you have to undo that chemical reaction, as opposed to asphalt which stays the same material.

Fun fact: When concrete is mixed at a big plant, it begins curing immediately. Concrete being carried in those big mixer trucks needs to be delivered before it cures in the truck!

I'm not honestly sure. Asphalt (or, more properly, asphalt and gravel as a mixture, which is what is mostly used as a road surface) and concrete both are pretty 'hard' materials.

Specifically talking about asphalt vs. concrete:

• Asphalt is relatively cheap vs. concrete. This is partly because asphalt is a whole lot easier to recycle than concrete, which is almost un-recyclable, but also because asphalt is a relatively "simple" material - it's mostly petroleum byproducts and gravel.
• Concrete doesn't grip very well, compared to the relatively textured surface of asphalt. Especially when wet! This is why you often see concrete formed with "ridges" or "bumps" cast into it. However...
• This also makes concrete noisier and bumpier to drive over, making drivers less happy. It's why it's often used for short, low-speed uses like driveways, parking lots, or side streets.

Just about the only thing concrete has going for it is it's endurance, which it definitely wins handily.

Every few years another engineered road solution is conceived - I've seen variations that would use glass which could be 're-fused', concepts for recycling plastic waste, and many more. Most of these run into the issue that they're either less 'grippy', or that they simply cost more even accounting for the longer lifespan.

In a steam locomotive, but a scale model one that was ridden on instead of in. It was actually pretty cool; they still hand-stoked the firebox and everything, just... really small.

This is the cool stuff I come here to read. Very interesting!