Posts made by faraday

@three-eyed-crow said in Wheel of Time MU*:

FS3 isn't actually a very good generic dice roller, even if it is sometimes shoe-horned into that role as well.

Ares has a generic dice roller plugin too.

@krmbm said in Wheel of Time MU*:

Ares would be awesome for Wheel of Time. FS3 is probably going to be an uncomfortable fit.

Yep. From the docs:

FS3 is designed and optimized for games that are:

• Near-Modern - Regular humans in a tech level not too unlike our own (no magic, super powers, augmentation, energy shields or death rays).
• Cooperative - Players who are on the same team (PvE).
• Focused - A narrow focus on what action mechanics can be detailed and/or automated through code.

None of that sounds particularly well-suited to a WoT game.

There are several other skill systems Ares supports, or you can use that code as a model to craft your own.

@silverfox said in RL Anger:

Deliberate exclusion IS bullying by every accepted school definition.

Only to a point. As an example defnition: "Social Exclusion is now recognized as a sub group of bullying. This means that idea of excluding someone repeatedly, aggressively and on purpose with the intent to cause emotional harm to them, is right up there with verbal, physical and cyber bullying." (source)

That seems miles away from "if you let one kid join an activity you must let any kid join".

Certainly "you can't play with us because you're (insert protected class here - gender, religion, skin color, etc.)" is problematic. But that's very different from "you can't play with us because last time you kept stealing the ball". Context matters.

@derp said in General MSB announcements:

Do the admins want to set up a non-MSB line of communication for issues in the future and/or updates if and when it finally dies? Like a discord or something?

Having a discord for a message forum seems oddly redundant. Seems like that would just drive a lot of community discussions off the forum.

There are also the Ares forum and Evennia Discussions in the community. I can't speak for the Evennia folks but MSB crew is welcome to post downtime announcements, etc. on the Ares forum.

@silverfox said in The Work Thread:

The message from the district is, "It's less serious than just a cold now."

Are they living on another planet? One where there AREN'T 2000 people dying every day from it (in the US alone)?

(Yes, for those who are healthy and young and fully vaccinated it is thankfully usually on par with a cold, but THAT IS NOT EVERYONE. And also colds don't give you Long Covid.)

Rage.

@ganymede said in The Work Thread:

It is far more equitable to make employees salaried without accrued leave. We live in at an age where going to the workplace is getting obsolete. You can use technology to simulate a workplace meeting room, for example. And production is a matter of results, rather than process, in a virtual economy.

Or we could just, y'know, acknowledge that human beings get sick and NEITHER penalize them (expecting them to either take a financial hit or somehow magically achieve their same performance expectations while ill) NOR incentivize them to come in and infect everyone else. Just tell them to STAY HOME, rest, and get well. Yes it's annoying for the employer who has to find someone to fill in or redistribute the work, but I think that should just be considered part of doing business.

There are workplaces that do this. Heck, there are entire countries that do this. It's not a revolutionary concept.

@alamias said in The Work Thread:

Not only does she get dinged by not getting paid for the day she takes off, she has to pay out of pocket for her sub.

That is just wrong on so many levels.

@silverfox said in The Work Thread:

I still wouldn't go back remote.

That's the thing, though. "Shut everything back down and go remote" and "pretend the pandemic is over while 2k people are dying each day" are not the only two options that exist. Yet our polarized society acts as though they are. It drives me freaking insane.

Not saying you were doing that specifically, it's just a general rant.

@silverfox said in The Work Thread:

Haven't we as a society moved towards encouraging people to use their days? Where does this policy sit in relationship to that movement?

Given that hospital staff are being told to come to work even when covid-positive, and people in other fields are being given ultimatums like "you get 5 days of quarantine, better be back in the office on day 6 or you're fired", I think we're so far past that movement you can't even see it from here.

I really don't get it. Hospitals everywhere are swamped. My kid had HALF their teachers out sick last week. More than 2000 --- TWO THOUSAND -- people are dying each day from covid. And yet half the dang country wants to pretend like the pandemic is over. It utterly baffles me.

@sunny said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

ETA: my boss, who is also her best friend, has put me up in a hotel for the night and we’ll be making a plan tomorrow morning. I’m sure we’ll be fine. I am…not, right now. The only people who seem to believe me are the people that actually know my mother.

Sorry to hear that I don't know you or your mother but that sounds entirely and unfortunately believable. Hope tomorrow is better.

@silverfox That's amusing. I worked on the same team as my brother for many years. We also looked nothing alike, and our last names didn't match due to marriage. One day a coworker was in my cubicle and just stared in confusion at an old family picture I had on my desk and was like.... "Wait... is that <brother>?" They were thrown for such a loop

@pyrephox Browsers sometimes have a cache for security certificates. If yours got messed up somehow (not sure how that could happen but eh, computers) you might need to clear that cache to remove the bad data. You can try it in a private/incognito window, or try clearing the SSL Cache (specific steps vary by browser).

@derp said in The Work Thread:

The teachers in question probably aren't acting with malice, sure. But that doesn't mean that harm isn't being done, either.

Right. @Too-Old-For-This's kid is suffering as a direct result of the decisions made by that school administration. So is my kid, though different situation / different decisions.

I have immense respect and sympathy for teachers having to operate under these conditions. They were overworked and underappreciated even before all this. It must be a nightmare now. I know that the vast majority of teachers are kind, caring, and well-meaning individuals just doing their best under extreme situations.

But sometimes even the best-intentioned efforts fall short, especially for kids who learn differently, and that can cause real actual harm. I don't think it's "unkind" to call that out as a problem.

@pyrephox said in The Work Thread:

Expecting school personnel to deliver instruction, or kids to receive instruction, at a comparable level when people are literally dying around them is...kind of nuts.

YES. It's like administrations everywhere are in a desperate catch up mode, without stopping to think about what they're trying to catch up to, or the fact that the emergency isn't even over yet. More than half of my kid's teachers were sick or in quarantine yesterday.

Applying pre-pandemic models of where kids "should" be at right now and expecting teachers to somehow perform magic to get them there is INSANITY. Teachers and kids deserve better.

@pyrephox said in The Work Thread:

I think it ended up burning out a lot of teachers and students, and convincing districts and many parents that virtual learning was a non-viable option, and now everyone is exhausted and stressed and at the end of their mental ropes. Everyone, from the kids all the way up.

Yes, whoever decided that having the same teacher try to support both online and in-person kids at the same time, solo, clearly had no idea. I can't fault them too much for it, because everything was thrown together in an emergency, but it does boggle my mind how anyone thought that was a good idea.

At the same time though, I think it's a simple fact that virtual learning is NOT a viable option for every kid. No more than remote work is a viable option for every adult.

All the decent cyber schools acknowledge that virtual learners require support at home. It's a partnership between the school and the family. It's not just plunking a kid down in front of zoom or worksheets all day and hoping for miracles.

My kid's virtual again this year for reasons, and they're still using their leftover curriculum from last year. The school librarian is supervising the virtual learners. The only "instruction" to speak of is the occasional overview video or a link to YouTube. I basically just have to homeschool him following their assignments/curriculum.

@too-old-for-this Bummer. Our state has different rules I guess. You just switch by choice.

@too-old-for-this said in The Work Thread:

there is no free online high school he can attend.

It sucks that they won't just let him switch. Bureaucratic nonsense

Is there no cyber charter school in your state? At least half have them, though the quality can be crappy depending.

@solstice said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Instead, it's been constant road noise keeping me up while trying to sleep to the extent that I feel like I have to drug myself to get a good night's sleep because the soundproofing in the unit is so abysmally bad.

Sympathies

White noise helps some folks - there are some apps.

I personally find noise-cancelling headphones very useful for bad sound days, and some are comfortable enough to sleep in. Kinda depends on your preferences though.

Good luck!

@misadventure said in New Project: Cyberpunk:Chrome Is The New Black:

A way ways back a game did this by season and I didn't hear any complaints.

It's certainly been done, but FWIW I've complained (and heard others complain) about games with fluid timelines.

For those of us who maintain an internal continuity for our characters, it's maddening. It's like playing Sudoku for each scene trying to figure out where it can fit into everyone's individual timelines for the week. Or if you don't, you can end up with continuity glitches where people are referencing events that technically shouldn't have happened yet, or ending up in contradictory places at the same time.

I've found it far easier to have a consistent default of "This scene takes place on 1/6 unless otherwise specified" and deal with the occasional scheduling snafus and backscenes as they happen.

@derp said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

Tell that to smallpox.
Just saying. We absolutely can eliminate viruses. We've done it before.

from the CDC:

In 1959, the World Health Organization (WHO) started a plan to rid the world of smallpox. Unfortunately, this global eradication campaign suffered from a lack of funds, personnel, and commitment from countries, and a shortage of vaccine donations. Despite their best efforts, smallpox was still widespread in 1966, causing regular outbreaks across South America, Africa, and Asia. ... In late 1975, three-year-old Rahima Banu from Bangladesh was the last person in the world to have naturally acquired variola major.

Smallpox had already been around for centuries and was well-studied. Even then it took a concerted, world-wide effort of eradication spanning almost two decades to finally eradicate it. Also, due to its lethality and detectability, its disease profile is pretty much nothing like covid. Smallpox is also, to date, the only disease completely eradicated worldwide.

So what you're saying is accurate, but it's also not really applicable to covid-19 or most other viruses.

If you try to grade the covid vaccines against a historical unicorn of smallpox, it's only going to lead to disappointment. If you grade them against what they're actually designed to do -- reduce infections, reduce spread, reduce hospitalizations -- they perform amazingly well.