Posts made by faraday

@silverfox said in General MSB announcements:

I don't like it either. CHANGE IS HARD.

I don't mind change, generally, but that line is absurdly distracting for some reason.

@ganymede said in Forum wonk:

That would cost less than a full data 'port.

In the short-term, yes. In the long-term, no.

You're looking at an extra $200-ish per year, conservatively. And as the database continues to grow, the memory needs will grow (because Redis is an in-memory database). So really you're just kicking the can down the curb and not really solving the problem.

I'm fine starting fresh. I do reference old topics sometimes but it's something I can certainly live without.

I'm also fine chipping in for a gofundme to help pay for the one-time migration cost to a sane database. It may not be actually nodebb that's the problem, but the way this particular one is set up.

@arkandel I don't think you're going to find better than linode's pricing for a high-memory droplet.

Redis is probably the reason that you need so much RAM. Using it as a cache layer to speed things up makes sense, but using it as a primary data source for a forum of this size seems non-ideal.

@sixregrets said in Forum wonk:

FWIW, I have a deep loathing for Discourse due to the way it does away with the notion of individual pages for forum threads

What do you mean? I can go to an individual page for a long-running forum thread in Discoure on the Ares forum.

Example: https://forum.aresmush.com/t/minor-nuisances

I like Discourse.

I looked into the node -> discourse migration the last time I talked to Gany about forum foo, and there were some issues with it. I can't remember the details - something about the way the data model maps or something? I was left with the impression that it would be a ton of work and possibly flakey to migrate.

This was, admittedly, quite awhile ago. Maybe there's a better version now.

@greenflashlight said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

As you can tell, I am struggling with this one. Most likely, I'm trying to make myself feel safe by pretending I can contribute a helpful solution to an intractable problem.

Yeah I get it. Whenever a tragedy strikes it's our nature to try and problem solve.

For me, anyway, the existing industry safety procedures seem pretty darn robust when actually followed. It's really really hard to imagine how you're going to improve safety by making actors with minimal firearms training do anything more than hold the gun and pull the trigger under the careful supervision of an expert.

Sadly, even the best safety procedures can falter in the face of epic negligence and/or incompetence on the part of the people responsible for implementing them. That's when people get hurt.

Interesting, from variety:

Both Merrick and Corrie [prop experts] say that actors are not required to sign off on firearms being empty. Instead they must focus on their performance, rather than be distracted by gun safety rules that aren’t their expertise.

“I really need to reiterate that the actors have a focus on their dialogue and their emotion and where they got to stand on their lighting and how to react to the other actor,” Merrick said. “Their head is full. And in order for an actor to be fully vested in a performance, they need to have confidence in their surroundings. They need to be able to stand firmly and know that the wall is not going to fall down on their head, they need to know that the gun that they’re being handed is ready to go and it’s safe and it’s not going to hurt anybody.”

Also interesting is Legal Eagle's take on the whole mess.

@greenflashlight said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

I'm not saying everyone should go through a Keanu-level Quantico training regime, but, like, mandatory safety training or something with a written test at the end, you know?

But they do get safety training on how to handle firearms on set. It's just that the industry has decided that it's safer to train them to rely on the experts than to try to manage the guns themselves. The issue here isn't really an absence of established industry safety policies and training, but an apparent failure to adhere to them.

To go back to my skydiver analogy - all skydivers receive some safety training, but packing parachutes requires a specialized level of training that not everyone has. Those who don't rely on the experts. There are safety procedures involved in doing so, presumably involving double and triple-checking everything. Now if some parachute-packer fails to follow those well-established safety procedures and someone dies, that's obviously tragic. There should be an investigation to see what exactly went wrong and what can be done to keep it from happening again. But a knee-jerk reaction of "well just expect everybody to pack their own parachutes" is probably the wrong way to go, safety-wise. That's how I feel about expecting actors to be able to check for themselves what kind of ammo a gun is loaded with.

Of course, nothing stops the actor from raising a red flag if they see other people on set failing to adhere to said safety procedures. Claudia Black has a nice Twitter Thread talking about that.

@greenflashlight said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

@aria I forget if someone else already said this, but the argument against actors being responsible for gun safety is they're not trained professionals. Every movie set has, or at least is supposed to have, two trained, licensed professionals who check every firearm to be used in a scene prior to the cameras rolling, to check that it's loaded with blanks and to announce loudly to the whole set that the gun is either live or not. Adding that responsibility to the actor, who almost certainly is not accredited, just creates another way for the system to break by adding an amateur to a system designed for professionals. I tend to support this position, from my own anecdotal experience with systems that have lots of redundancy.

Exactly. It would be like a novice skydiver taking apart their parachute to try and make sure it's been packed properly. You don't want that; you want them to rely on the expert whose literal job it is to make sure the equipment is safe.

An actor isn't going to understand the subtle differences between dummy rounds (which can't shoot and just look like real bullets), blanks (which have dangerous gunpowder but no bullet) and real live bullets.

I have no experience with the film business myself, but many pro armorers have spoken out in interviews about their own on-set safety procedures since the incident. The gulf between what they describe and the stories coming out of the Rust set can only be summarized as: "OMG WTF was going on in that set??"

@betternow said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

But remember also that this statistic is strictly DEATHS. It doesn't even begin to go into injuries, which I am sure are much more plentiful, even outside of stunt cast.

Of course, I'm by no means trying to downplay the tragedy here, just trying to put it in perspective that filmmaking is an inherently risky endeavor. Most films will have some form of stunts, pyrotechnics, gunplay, or vehicles. Accidents are inevitable no matter the level of preparation. The best they can do is try to minimize them, and from a statistical perspective the incidence is pretty low.

Now, Midnight Rider (the train incident) was proved to be not an accident but negligence. The studio was held accountable in the form of a civil settlement, and the assistant director (the one most directly responsible) pled guilty to criminal charges. Based on initial repots (granted not all the facts are in) it seems that something similar will probably happen on Rust. If it is indeed negligence, I hope that the right people are held accountable and that the penalties are stiff enough to encourage better safety on more sets.

@ominous said in Movie / TV / Streaming Peeves or Whatever:

@Too-Old-For-This has pointed out that apparently it's freaking common, so nevermind.

43 deaths across 10 years and thousands of movie and TV productions is really not all that common, thankfully. Especially when you consider that the industry routinely employs explosives, firearms, low-flying helicopters, fight scenes, vehicle chases, and countless other dangerous stunts.

Don't get me wrong, 43 is still 43 too many. As Brandon Lee's sister said, “No one should ever be killed by a gun on a film set. Period.” More broadly, nobody should ever be killed making pretendy fun time entertainment.

But until everything is CGI, there's always going to be an element of risk inherent to Hollywood productions. That's why it's critical for people to follow the safety procedures, which early reports suggest was not the case on Rust. I suspect a negligence lawsuit is inevitable, maybe even endangerment charges over the dangerous set.

That’s quite nice!

@l-b-heuschkel Yeah it may not be super common but it can happen. I’m absolutely in favor of trying less invasive remedies first. If you can get through it with honey and Tylenol instead of antibiotics, great. But if the pain is that bad and persistent, that sounds concerning.

@prism said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

I have a pain in my ear again, the same ear, and when I called the doctor they told me that they can't keep treating it with antibiotics or I will build an immunity, and as long as it's not making me scream in pain, I should endure and be kind to my ear for a while.

Had a family member who had an untreated ear infection that got so bad their eardrum burst, which can lead to permanent hearing damage. Also have had my kids need multiple rounds of antibiotics to get rid of stubborn ear infections.

So, I am not a doctor, but this seems like unsound medical advice. May be worth seeking a second opinion--possibly from an Ear, Nose and Throat ENT specialist.

Hope you feel better soon.

@cobalt said in Goodbye.:

I am sure that is all I'll be remembered for-- the times I needed your help.

I remember you for being nice in the times we chatted about Ares. Also for making a game that looked neat, even if it wasn't for me. Best wishes.

@ganymede said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

My kids go to a Catholic School, and they have a mid-morning snack. If the fucking Catholic Church can do it, with how archaic it is, then I'd like to think that a public school system can get it done too. Then again, where I live, masks are only recommended.

Yes, it's ridiculous. And believe it or not, it is currently the LEAST ridiculous thing they have done regarding the accommodations he deserves as a result of his ADHD and other issues.

Logically I get that there are limited budgets, staffing issues, etc. It just drives me so nuts that the default public school position is "prove to me that you absolutely NEED services" rather than "what can we do to help you succeed." And we're pretty fortunate to be in a good school district. I shudder to think what it must be like elsewhere.

@ganymede said in Health and Wealth and GrownUp Stuff:

If you want, you can PM me about this. Because this smells like something an employment lawyer would feed on.

Yeah, seriously. That sounds shady as heck.

@ganymede said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

Why on God's green Earth would anyone deny a mid-morning snack? I'm a fucking adult who runs a law firm, and I happily let my staff eat wherever and whenever they want.

The dropped the mid-morning snacks because they didn't want the kids taking their masks off while eating, and apparently it's too much trouble to coordinate taking them to the cafeteria or auditorium or whatever where they can space out more.

And however lame that is, whatever, but MY KID NEEDS A SNACK TO FUNCTION. I asked that they send him to the nurse's office or whatever to get a snack, but they refused. Because having him sit there starving and unable to concentrate is somehow preferable to him missing 15 minutes of English.

RAGE.

@macha Right? And on the other end of the extreme, my son's school has lunch at 12:50 and refuses to give him a mid-morning snack. (Currently fighting them for accommodations.) He also gets hangry easily so this is a real problem.

@derp said in Dare I ask...:

And I put that right up front on the tin. No surprises.

Yeah, as long as you're up front about it, people can make their own decisions as to whether a game is right for them.

For me? XP is NOT a player reward, it's an IC thing. That's why on FS3 games everybody receives the same static XP award each week.

Chargen represents your character's life up to the point you start playing them. XP represents your character's growth since then. The player doesn't enter into it in the slightest.

So if you want to improve your athletics or learn Spanish? I assume your character is just spending their free time hitting the gym or doing Rosetta Stone. If you want to learn demolitions or earn a M.D. though? I want to know how exactly you plan on doing that, because that's not just something somebody casually picks up.

But like Derp said - I realize that's not the only way to look at it. That's just the way I look at it, and that's how my games are structured. If that's not what you're looking for, no hard feelings.

@boneghazi said in The ADD/ADHD Thread (cont'd from Peeves):

If anyone has any advice on this kind of situation I'm all ears. Has anyone else gone through this? My son is in 1st grade.

My son is the same. Ask for an evaluation and be prepared to fight for accommodations. There are wiggle chairs, exercise balls, movement breaks - just letting him stand and shuffle during "circle time" can help.

@arkandel said in Dare I ask...:

The second is the very purpose of having justification requirements in the first place isn't consistent in general. If it's to promote IC plausibility then no character on the grid should ever raise their Medicine over 3 unless they start high; that stuff takes years!

Exactly. On my BSG game I wouldn't just let someone randomly raise Medicine to doctor levels or pick up Demolitions or become a Viper Pilot on a whim because there's no path there for IC progression. I don't care how much XP they have; it doesn't make any sense.(*)

The rules were clear and consistent. If you just don't like it that's cool - everyone has their preferences. We all have different levels at which our suspension of disbelief becomes tweaked. But I don't see how you can say that such policies are universally unfair or inconsistent.

(*) ETA: Unless of course you do a plotline where your character applies for a transfer, GETS the Viper training or whatever, and then it might.