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Well, I haven't left my home in 17 days but today.... gotta go out. Going to Tractor Supply in Covington because the 60/40 pressure switch on my well crapped out. But... I am prepared!

Let's face it friends... things kind of suck right now. The world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. But it's not all terrible. Every day people are doing good things. There are positive and uplifting stories in every news service. The great Hunter S. Thompson wrote " Good news is rare these days, and every glittering ounce of it should be cherished and hoarded and worshipped like a priceless diamond" So let's spread some GOOD news stories for a change! Woman Gets 'Wrong Number' Photo Of Dog And Couldn't Be Happier

Heh, that hand sanitizer reminds me, I've bought 500ml of anal lube and scavanged two used bottles of handsanitizer. My coworker that is nicking "free" hand sanitizer from work is going to get an unpleasant surprise.

Here's hoping she recovers.

https://www.gp.se/nyheter/göteborg/restaurangen-rycker-ut-för-att-hjälpa-sjukvården-1.25673616 https://www.gp.se/nyheter/göteborg/sahlgrenskas-personal-tackade-haider-1.26008062 Articles are in Swedish unfortunately, but the gist; The owner of the restaurant Yalla Habibi in Gothenburg delivers free meals for ER and ambulance workers eat for free at his restaurant to help a bit during the crisis. Regular customers go there and pay double to help pay for ER peoples meals.

Don't know if many of you have heard of the "Little Free Library" movement. It's a thing in the US, Canada & GB and maybe elsewhere. It's a small house shaped box people build and place in communities where people can take and leave books. Well, with everything going on people are putting groceries, TP, and other such in them: You know, most folks are pretty decent I think. If you give them a chance to be. More:

A doctor, an engineer, and a politician were having lunch at a country club. The conversation turned to who had the smartest dog. The discussion led to a wager between the three. The doctor whistled to his dog and said "Hippocrates, do your stuff". Hippocrates ran out to the front lawn of the club, dug around for a while, and returned with a mouth full of bones. He then arranged the bones into a replica of a human skeleton. "Good dog Hippocrates!" Said the doctor and he rewarded his dog with a cookie. The engineer nodded, impressed, and then whistled for his dog. "Sliderule," he called "do your thing." Sliderule ran over to the bones, chewed them into shape and arranged them into a scaled replica of the Golden Gate Bridge. "Good dog Sliderule" the engineer said and he rewarded his dog with a cookie. The politician finally called out to his dog "Hey BS, do your thing!" BS ran into the room, bit the waiter, sodomized the other two dogs, stole and ate their cookies, auctioned off the Golden Gate Bridge to the other club members and used the money to buy himself a round of golf.

It really just depends on what the pop culture trends end up being. I mean, we cover a ton of content in school, but people really only retain about 5-10% of that. You need more to really inject it into the public consciousness. For example, Norse Mythology is big right now thanks to the Marvel movies blowing up. Greek mythology just needs that same push to get it out there, and clearly Percy Jackson wasn't a big enough hit.

Yeah, I'm pretty safe aswell, the company is jointly owned by two governments and we ship alot of medical equipment, not to mention that online shops ship through us. We don't deal in foodstuffs though. On the downside alot of drivers are staying home sick, so my education just keeps getting pushed forward. Oh yeah, someone sadistic as all hell is playing The Sims global edition with our lives. 😄

Remarkable how something like "Why do I not get dragon bits if I convince the dragon?" turns into a hot take about human behaviour during the corona crisis.

Conjurer: biggest problem with the Familiar is that it can't be used if you want to conjure other summons. It gets replaced. What's a Conjurer who can either have a familiar or another summon? A dilettant? Solution would be to make the familiar independent from the summoning limit (see Many Lives Pass By phrase of Chanter). Or to give the Conjurer the ability to have two wizard summons at the same time (familiar + phantom or even two phantoms). I'd prefer the first one. Antipathetic Field: too good then. Would need dmg tuned down.

I'm not even really talking about that. To rewind to a more relevant example - in BG1/2 there's basically no reason to be evil. You get a crapton of downside (bounty hunters especially), unable to get some quests, good and neutral characters leave your party, you get worse rewards, and vendor items are way more expensive. If you are good, you get a lot of upside - and you even get some of the upside of being evil at times--you can still recruit evil characters and they are easier to juggle into your party than good characters in an evil party, not to mention neutral characters are much more willing to stick around with a rep 20 than a rep 1 character. it was so stark that you really wanted to play good regardless of anything else; you could still pick an evil alignment in the early game (if your subclass or mainchar abilities required it) and just play like a good character. what i like are "interesting choices." i don't see myself in my characters - i talked about character concepts. if it's so patently one-sided to do one sort of alignment than another, then it's not an interesting choice--and it undermines a game's brag about letting you role play or make interesting narrative decisions. i think at best, good and evil are just different axes of possibly multiple types of outcomes, and you can make "interesting" decisions about them, and it's not obvious to min-max a way through that. in this respect I think Tyranny does better than PoE or Deadfire, since factional reputation and ally reputation unlocks different abilities, and they are generally balanced enough that there's no "correct" answer, just different styles, so you have interesting decisions to make that intertwine role-playing and min-maxing. but from a philosophical perspective and the way most "normal" people want to play, I think JESawyer's stance of "goodness is its own reward" is an interesting one, more interesting than the typical "good is almost always the strictly best outcome" that game designers seem so eager to reinforce.

I'm real thirsty now 😄

That's no true slav. Squat gave it away. Her squat is weak western spy squat.

would be nice if it were a denver thing. so denver is buckwheats? bad enough, but our experience suggests it is a bit more widespread. in another post we mentioned how our older family members were not taking this situation serious. referenced two aunts specific. the 82-year old lives in midwest. the 79-year old lives in socal. ... y'know, for driver training classes in US high schools, students is shown blood on the pavement and similar such films to try and drive home the scope o' dangers from driving when st00pid. such lessons is having admitted limited and short-term impact on teens, but short-term may be enough in this situation. am knowing this sounds like a cruel solution, but am thinking it might be worth showing film o' people suffering from severe respiratory distress to, well, everybody. if you have ever watched somebody die as they struggle to breathe, chances are it had an impact 'pon you. am knowing film ain't same as in-person viewing a friend or loved one die from pulmonary embolism or similar, but am thinking far too many do not yet comprehend what it is they are facing, not the reality of it. the following is gonna be a bit graphic, so please do not read if you are sensitive to such descriptions regardless, am doubtful shady's experience is anything other than the norm as we see it here and am knowing our family, spread 'cross the country, is replicating the indifference o' the older generations to warnings 'bout the need for social distancing. people clear don't get it, not yet.

I like the idea behind it, but knowing that Swedes read something on the order of 90% crime novels I'd not want to take part of the exchange myself.

^ This is absolutely amazing, even outside the context of the coronavirus. I want something like this in Poland.

Or a really exciting surprise, depending on what they're into.

best initiative ever

As "how we met" stories go, this one is tough to beat: https://www.boredpanda.com/american-meets-girl-quarantine-drone-jeremy-cohen/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=BPFacebook&fbclid=IwAR02IMe45-azB8kkLMirkHd1egLY6_deHllR_T8IsEn4vxsebbgjc6wF97U

Worst beholder cosplay ever. 😄

Sometimes, modding leads to surprisin discoveries (all the things below have been tested before moding the abilities of course) : Shadowed Hunters - First pet attack after using Shadowed Hunters don't break invisibility. Only the second does. Shadowing Beyond and Enduring Shadows : - First attack After Shadowing Beyond doesn't brake Deflection buff, only second does (since attack rolls are counted, blunderbuss or similar attack could lead to immediate Deflection break, but I have not tested it). Only Inivisibility brakes on the first attack. - First attack After Enduring Shadows brakes Deflection buff, which makes it pointless. Note that Shadowing Beyond was tested with Skaen Priest version. It might be different with Rogue Version (but if different, it would be just another glitch. I admit I am not sure of what is supposed to be the intended behavior. The description is totally vague about when the Deflection Bonus is supposed to apply (Of course, I'm going to mod that). - Swift Inspiration from Enduring Shadows only breaks at the end of the timer. Magran's Might : - Tick every second, contrary to what the description state. - There is no AoE (it is so small that only main target is affected)

Similarly, I try to never use laptops, but happened to see a deal on a relatively low-end-but-surprisingly-solid Ryzen one for $200 a few months back and decided what the heck - never wanted a gaming laptop anyways for heat and ergonomic reasons. Very glad I did, because teleconferencing has suddenly become a must for everything. It came with a budget SSD, and I replaced the RAM with 16GB (came with 4GB) and it has actually since become a shockingly well-performing laptop.

Sooo... what you're saying is Xena and Hercules has made me what I am today? 😁

One is an internet streaming service, the other is an ungulate! jk don't hit me In all seriousness: I do not endorse ignorance, but as I grow older, I begin to realize just how little I know. And the world is, well, almost impossibly vast and complex to boot. Are some gaps in knowledge more infuriating than others? Sure. I do not excuse those. But I'd be a hippocrates hypocrite to condemn people who may very well be (and usually are) way more knowledgeable in other areas that I know squat about. Tl;dr: when it comes to these things, this is my philosophy:

Good question. I checked the values with cheat engine and it does indeed go into negatives! You also get excess points after you hit 4, which is convenient too.

Only the finest and most disciplined and upstanding soldiers are in my squad: I mean, she's not wrong. 🤔

Sure, if it's a binary choice between either design, I'll go for the skill threshold too. But I'd instead prefer a system that lets the player deal with the consequences of actions that carry a degree of uncertainty. So instead of psychically turning the entire village permanently hostile ‑locking you out of content‑ on a failed pickpocket roll, a system that expands on the way DOS2 does it where the guards are called and then they try to arrest you, would be preferable. A failed pickpocket roll becomes content rather than a not-so-subtle encouragement to quick load. At the end of the day it's a question of resources, and personally I'd much rather have said resources allocated to developing interesting systems and mechanics than all the bells and whistles that are more easily marketable but don't add much play to a game.

I personally don't like rolls in video games because there usually is no scenario for unsuccessful roll or scenario is unplayable. Like in some games failing to pickpocket makes everyone in town hostile. What should a player do? Load a save game, that's what. Second, if there is always a slight chance of success there is an opportunity for min maxing where you don't put point's in those abilities, because if you need to roll them you can save/load your way to success. Far better mechanic for video game is 0/1 approach. Either you have the skill (or appropriate level of it) or you don't. So if you want to open every chest then you need to hone your skill, if you want charm your way out then you have to develop your persuasion etc.

Well, to me PoE was not tedious, I got asskicked in few fight for the same reason, as by Kangaxx, because I did not know the composition of the whole group waiting on me. Some of them were really hard, but I was able to survive the fight and even if I used most of the spells and consumables on it, I did not reload to try for better outcome, I just enjoyed it as it was offered. And if comparing it with BGs in my eyes, I enjoyed my first game of PoE more than BG, but on par with BG2. Maybe the story in PoE is for me better.

reload closest save after failure are the basic instinct of player the problem is what cause the failure is it obvious to the player what player can do to make a difference if the enemy are too strong then come back again after a few level up if this boss have high acid damage then use protection spell accordingly in the case of rolling 1 on a skill check there is nothing to do other then roll again as design for video game it doesn't work

Save scumming is a symptom, not a cause. The causes themselves can be diverse -- perceived unfairness (XCOM syndrome), design that rewards it, learned habits on the player's part, etc. So yeah, anything that seeks to address the cause(s) and leads to less time spent looking at progress bars and more time playing the game is a step in the right direction. edit: beaten to the punch. And more eloquently to boot.

Everyone who takes a measure of pride in their work and strives to improve their skill at their craft - and by extension, the end result - wants to deliver a good product. Just because you don't see the point of it because it's "beyond x, y and z" doesn't make it a wasted effort, sorry. Not every proposed solution to a given problem is going to be golden (or every problem be an issue that actually needs to be tackled), but that doesn't mean working to improve upon it is a bad thing. As you have pointed out, some games only let you save when you quit, others put consequences to your actions behind several hours of gameplay, others heal you up between encounters, or they learn to clearly label conversation options so you don't accidentally continue a dialogue instead of going through all the questions. The problem isn't that people save-scum, the problem is that they have a reason to do it and again, figuring out how to sidestep that is part of your job as a game maker, or at least, game makers seem to agree, since it's something that comes up again and again.

If I made a game I'd combat it in the sense of not including design that makes people feel forced to use it or overly rely on it. I remember more than one game where I had to save-scum conversations to figure out the labyrinthine logic of how dialogue nodes were connected, and again, I'm fine if in a PnP game I fail a roll because things don't end there, but in a CRPG if I invest in persuasion then I expect it to actually do it's job, especially because failing a roll in an inherently more rigid situation/medium is a much more explicit failure state. Also I'd argue watching the loading screen instead of playing the game isn't what you payed money for, that's what is really beyond pointless. Meanwhile, figuring out how to make your game work well is literally what your job is as a developer, the exact opposite of time wasting.

Why do you need to combat save-scumming at all? Let people play how they want to. Wasting time on that is beyond pointless.

I have to agree. Going for the "TTRPG experience" is cute and all but a video game won't turn your failed roll into a story beat. On the tabletop If you fail a charm roll against a hostage taker, the situation won't automatically escalate, you can try a few different approaches until the GM says you've hit a breaking point (or rolled a 1). In a CRPG, you failed the roll, the hostage dies. Have fun reloading.

Sit, stay forever: Americans willing to pay top dollar to keep old dogs alive There is little I would not do for my pups. Up to a point. No treatment puts years back on the calendar. When Tommy was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma he was 13 years old. Even if he survived the treatment and disease (both long shots) nothing will change the fact that as a large dog his body was breaking down. If I were in my 70's and diagnosed with cancer I doubt every much I'd even consent to treatment beyond pain management. If it's not that it's the next thing that comes up. But when Sunny was diagnosed with Cushings she was only 9 (give or take, Not really sure how old she is). There is a cost vs reward calculation that has to be made. And it's not a financial cost, although that might be a consideration. It's a cost the pet has to pay. If the treatment returns them to full health it's a no-brainer to me. But if it only extends a poor quality of life (and that is a judgement call you have to make) it's kinder to let them go. It's a hell of a thing isn't it? You love them more than your own life. They trust you with theirs. And you will someday have to decide when that ends.

They aren't in competition, so just enjoy them both. 👍