Right? I try to stay away from it so a few unread pages can build up and I can devour them all at once, but I never manage to stay away for long…

Been following Jay for a few years now - he used to lurk the Worldbuilding community over on Reddit, so I ran into him a few times back before I migrated to Lemmy. Runaway is some really fantastic stuff, and the sheer effort of depth put into minor details of the world make it stand out. (Seriously, check for the small details of how the characters emote - it’s fascinating.)

At this point I only wish more of it would come out faster, but again given the sheer attention to detail and quality of art, I’m just delighted to have it at all!

Haha, holy shit. Somehow I had never connected that Piratesoftware was Maldavius. Yeah, that explains so, so very much of this entire SKG debacle.

Like, what kind of dictator are we talking here? Is this a Lord Vetinari benevolent dictator, or your typical generic slimeball autocrat?

Personally, I’d like to think that if they did become the latter, they’d be so far different from the person I love that I would break from them. Thoughtfulness, intelligence, and consideration aren’t usually things I see associated with dictators, you know? But people have an incredible capacity to isolate and put on different masks between their personal and professional lives…

In fairness, Microsoft certainly has tried to get the next closest thing with Bedrock. The hosting of server backends through their architecture via “realms” allows them to lock you out of a whole lot, and I still see people getting randomly banned because of their profanity filter.

But yes, if Realms shut down right now, there would always be Java (and even privately hosted Bedrock servers).

I really wish there was a good airsoft group nearby me, but it seems like the only ones who are close by don’t play on a schedule that works for me. It’s really frustrating.

I think it was the cost.

It was this. In fact, it was awkward all around. The dollar cost was high, you were stuck with the arena’s schedule and openings, you had to add in time for travel to the site and waiting to get in, going through the suit up… or you could just log onto Call of HaloField Tournament 3 and get a similar hit but with more animated explosions and stuff.

I remember towards the end a few companies sold consumer lasertag kits for home use. I think one of them even had a “rocket launcher” with a little radio thing in the “rocket” to register hits? But they were also super expensive, never cross-compatible so good luck making a big team, and if one broke you were SOL because they only came in big packs.

When it’s posts you agree with, it’s honest users. When it’s posts you disagree with, it’s astroturfing.

I joke, but unfortunately that seems to be the most common metric for a lot of people. If it’s a position “no one would really support” (in their view), then support for it must be astroturfed.

From what I understand, it’s less about chasing a market than wanting to be perceived as correcting the previously highly male-dominated writing scene.

Subjectively, a little informal discussion among writer & fan groups to me suggests that men who read fantasy tend to slowly but steadily acquire new materials, often from word-of-mouth among dedicated communities; women, by contrast, tend to latch on to a particular breakout series or author, with awareness often propagated by social media such as “Booktok”. This means that while both groups purchase in similar volumes, a book whose audience favors women can experience surges of popularity which make for prominent best-sellers over limited timeframes.

Admittedly, though, this is informal - so take that with a grain of salt.

The last few times this was brought up for discussion, one thing that many people mentioned - including quite a few who had interacted with publishers - was that publishers were strongly selecting for female authors. Some of this may have been in an effort to correct for lack of female presence in what was perceived as a male-dominated genre, some may have been trying to find the next wildly successful Rowling / Suzanne Collins / Sarah Maas / etc.

Several expressed that it was actually difficult to get a response as a male fantasy author, so this well-intentioned drive may have resulted now in some over correction bringing us to our current place.

I admit it’s not my favorite, but I do still love that it’s actually distinctive and has a specific “vibe”. You look at it and you know exactly when it’s from and what it’s about.

I can’t think of any ‘style’ in the last 20 years that has that.

I’m not actually surprised. Water and gas meters have to work perfectly, for years on end, without leaking or jamming, through rain, ice, and blistering heat. They feel like the kind of invisible infrastructure that we almost never think about, yet is actually some fairly robust engineering with a lot of R&D behind it.

Art deco for sure, possibly turn-of-the-century industrial as well.

Seriously look at this steam engine. It looks like it belongs in a massive cathedral or something.

So, if the meter has one of those old displays with all the little dials, it has some kind of a sensor that reads that and transmits it? Convoluted, but probably much reduces the price compared to retrofitting the actual meter itself.

Recently rebuilt my computer, so as soon as I get a spare case I’ll finally have a full spare PC tucked in the closet to serve as a backup in case of a primary system failure. That’s a step forward!

But a lot of the auxiliary devices, I don’t have (e.g., no spare modem or router). Fortunately, I learned how to tether my phone to use it as an emergency backup internet source for the PC (also useful for internet service outages).

Well, I mean I guess after a long day or working really hard it can get a little achey and-

But my lower back will randomly act up, sometimes it gets so bad that I about black out from the pain.

No. Holy shit, no. Not normal at all. Go see a doctor ASAP. If you’re ever in debilitating pain for no obvious reason, that is a colossal flashing “go see a doctor now” sign.

Ehhh, I don’t see how that proves intention. Neither Fuji TV nor ADV films meant for their slapdash dubbing effort to become a cornerstone of anime comedy; in fact, that both ADV and the voice actors hired by ADV were individually given free reign pretty clearly shows lack of intent.

Ghost Stories

This one is an unintentional classic. My D&D group still has “Run, she’s a ghost and a bitch!” as a catchphrase for nasty monster encounters.

I don’t know if it was that short term, but I’ve always been rather concerned with the sharp degree of hostility and even outright hatred that seems to be tacitly accepted or encouraged.

Bought a “gaming laptop” (needed it at the time. Not the best call in retrospect). Bought an extended warranty for 5 years, at it was fairly expensive.

Mere days after the manufacturer warranty ran out, one of the keyboard keys stopped working. I sent it in for repairs. They estimated 2 weeks, including shipping both ways.

Weeks later, they finally claimed they couldn’t find replacement parts (for a laptop less than 1 year old?) and refunded me the entire cost of the laptop. The warranty itself cost roughly ~20% of the laptop cost, so I figure I effectively “leased” a laptop for a year instead of buying it.

Hey, they also sent me back the HDD, which went on to serve for another few years in the desktop I built with the returned funds.