Posts made by Auspice

One of my projects for work is supporting ebook software (specifically a platform of interactive ebooks that primarily offers medical texts and other textbooks).

This is an example of a type of email I see multiple times a day:
'I am trying to redeem a code and it does not work!, is a new book the I got a week ago.'

No code. No title of the book. Just that.

And about half of these people will, when I have to push back for info, cry about it 'taking so long' (we manage to reply to most people within 24 hours) or 'being so difficult.'

More fun: 9 times out of 10, they're just ignoring the place on the page the code is on that says 'Go to this specific link to redeem your book.'

@surreality said in RL Anger:

@thenomain When the phone updated to the new one, I felt exactly the same way. More clutter, less useful info. At least there's a dark screen version, but it is so not worth the trade-off.

Mac Skype is still the same. Thank god.

But yeah, the phone one is worse than the new Windows version. I had to log into Skype on my phone one day and just... so much rage.

@aria said in Random links:

@auspice said in Random links:

@aria said in Random links:

@faceless said in Random links:

I had to look up wtf an "incel" is. Won't front, I laughed a little.

....I was about to, but I'm not so sure I want to....

"involuntarily celebate"

Well, I don't think it's too fucking hard to figure out why given their comments....

Yeeeeeah, that's generally the case. The incel sub on reddit is just full of guys who prove over and over why.

@aria said in Random links:

@faceless said in Random links:

I had to look up wtf an "incel" is. Won't front, I laughed a little.

....I was about to, but I'm not so sure I want to....

"involuntarily celebate"

@sunny said in RL Anger:

People bringing up the "hot coffee" lawsuit as an example of people being sue happy.

sigh.

third degree burns and skin grafts =/= coffee that is a reasonable temperature

but but 90's memes

I went to the NaNoWriMo kick-off here in Austin last night. It was a huge event. I was an ML for the city I lived in in SC for 6 years and I think we got like, 30? people at most for events. This was at least 100 people at its peak.

Other than the two people who pulled the 'I have you cornered now let me tell you, person I just met, intimate details about my life,' I had a great time. Ended up mostly talking with two ladies at my table (one from New Zealand; oh the accent) at length.

One of them was saying how she loves writing the slice of life moments in the course of her novel. We discussed how the day-to-day life of Tony Soprano is what made him lovable as a character, for example.

Her favorite, apparently, is how people do their laundry. To her, it says a lot about a person and a lot can happen in the course of doing laundry (the laundry room on BSU proves this >.>).

It got me thinking how fun a collection of short stories about people doing laundry could be to write.

The hungover college student in the dorm laundry room...
The new mother...
Military members after a battle...
The business woman trying to get coffee out of her blouse...

It'd be silly and I doubt anyone would want to read it, but it'd be fun to write.

The guy who tried to rape me years ago tries to contact me every so often (when I still lived in OH, he actively stalked me). It's passive usually, like following my social media accounts from new accounts. Sometimes he'll email me.

But goddamnit it still makes me ill whenever I see his name pop up.

@packrat said in Original Sci-Fi?:

Yes, complaining about how the costumes were from wildly varying periods and should not be next to each other.

Did... did she not realize that was the point?

This is for those books you think might be under appreciated or not well-known.

I'll kick it off with this:
The Peacemakers (The Nemesis Engines, Book 1)

Fair warning: my friend wrote this. However, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It's somewhat marketed as 'steampunk,' but there's very little of that there. Honestly, to me, it's much stronger in the pulp category. If you like alt history and pulp ala Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, you'll probably enjoy it.

I hope he finishes book 2 soon, but he's a v. busy man.

EDIT: Link fixed. Apparently my clipboard still had the link to one of my short stories. cough Sorry!

The cover and release date for the book I'll be published in was posted.

Pre-orders on the 15th! And maybe I'm biased, but that is a damn fine cover.

@wizz said in Good TV:

***MOR mor Stranger Things 2 Thoughts***

click to show

I had step-sibs at that age and there were a couple of them that I really, really did not get along with in a similar vein. They didn't like my ma, I didn't like their dad. Blame and anger and all sorts of stuff gets misdirected pretty easily when you're a teen, that part honestly made a lot of sense to me.

....ETA: YAY I DID IT, I STACKED THE SPOILERS

***=Moar***

***=Stranger Things 2 Thoughts***

For the board's lawyers:

Since I mentioned it here earlier... I can share a story from my sci-fi setting with those interested. Just message me.

@aria said in RL things I love:

@auspice said in RL things I love:

@faceless said in RL things I love:

@aria said in RL things I love:

PSYCHIC.

Have him hmu if/when he's single. Also, only if that selective ability isn't gender dependent. Also, I get top bunk.

Look, you have a partner you're happy with.
LEAVE SOME FOR THE REST OF US, GAWD.

y u so greedy?

I dunno. I mean, Mrs. @Faceless sounds pretty awesome and while I'm mostly straight, I could make an exception for someone who reorganizes and carefully plans my entire goddamn mess of a life and then rewards me for it with stickers and fancy coloring pens. I see potential for a swap here.

Editor's Note: He read this conversation over my shoulder and started cracking up that I offered him up in a grade-school lunch trade.

I'll take them both. As someone who is almost center on the Kinsey, well...

I could use cookies and organization in my life. I mean, baked goods that I don't have to bake? Plus, I'd win Mrs. @Faceless over by being willing to engage the planner hobby.

@faceless said in RL things I love:

@aria said in RL things I love:

PSYCHIC.

Have him hmu if/when he's single. Also, only if that selective ability isn't gender dependent. Also, I get top bunk.

Look, you have a partner you're happy with.
LEAVE SOME FOR THE REST OF US, GAWD.

y u so greedy?

@faraday said in Original Sci-Fi?:

@auspice said in Original Sci-Fi?:

But yeah, the technobabble thing is an issue and I think it's on both Staff and players of any game to foster an environment where handwavium is the norm.

To a point, but handwavium can be an obstacle too. Like, yeah, you shouldn't need to know detailed cardiology to RP a doctor, but knowing what's possible with the tech is important. And often that means knowing a bit about how things work so you can fill in the blanks between the things that are explicitly spelled out. Having one group of folks "handwaving" modern level tech while another group "handwaves" skin weaves and nanobots gets to be pretty darn immersion-breaking. At some point you have to stop handwaving and ground your tech in something players can sink their teeth into.

Oh, for sure. But we don't come down on people not knowing the specific names of drugs, exact dosage amounts, or the latest-and-greatest in medical discoveries on modern-day games ("oh em gee they introduced X last month you should know that!").

So there is a grounding, yes, but the handwavium comes in not needing the fiddly details.

@bobgoblin said in Original Sci-Fi?:

Steak and BJ night.

Wasn't that Saturday?

I've always been fond of the games that allow players to sort of 'create' their own tech. Set the level of advancement, then allow people to be free. Bonus points if it's grounded in RL.

Examples I've used on games before:

• Having a drone-like device that had 360-degree cameras. I based this on an item that exists today: a ball that has 360-degree cameras. It can't fly, but you throw it up in the air and it snaps photos at its apex. If we have that now, logic dictates that in the future there could be one that does video (that part's easy) and manages to fly. We've seen similar things in movies, so why not?
• A 'mesh' that could be put under the skin to display whatever... For changeable/animated tattoos, essentially. Already in RL, they're working on small screens in the skin to be used for medical purposes. So again, down the line in the future, why not be able to get a 'sleeve' implanted that you can program to display whatever?

And wikis easily allow people to share the things they've come up with.

But yeah, the technobabble thing is an issue and I think it's on both Staff and players of any game to foster an environment where handwavium is the norm.

It's hard to have 'things I love' right now because being off my meds has been hitting me really, really hard the past few days.

But I managed another perfect 100 in my last class. It was a Sci-fi/Fantasy workshop, in fact. I still need to put the sci-fi story up on my portfolio site (I know at least one person was interested in reading it). The fantasy one is being held back; it's a three-part that will work as a prologues to a trilogy I've been working on for some time.