Best posts made by Ganymede

@tinuviel said in Who are you?:

What is one legal concept or idea that you wish more lay-people knew?

There is not always a legal remedy for every wrong.

@reimesu said in Of Dreams and Nightmares:

Are you talking about something like what the Corinthian did or how Fiddlers' Green behaved? (I'd elaborate, but if you've read The Sandman, you know, and if you haven't, it's a spoiler.) Or something more like Matthew?

I'm not sure how to answer this question, except by stating where my mind was at the time I wrote my comment.

I was actually at a local karaoke bar, doing my weekend side-gig as a doorperson. It was a busy night, with lots of folks deep into the waters and wailing out good renditions of popular 80s and country songs. Some people wonder why I'd pick up the gig, given how demanding my full-time job + family + school life is. Simply, it is because you learn an awful lot in the bar business just by talking and listening to people's stories.

So it came to me, as it usually does in the din, that the reason I'm so compelled by Gaiman's numerous series is because the man understands stories so very well. And so I thought it would be neat to take the concept of a Morpheus-lost and put into the hands of the players a PC created from a dream or nightmare. So, you'd have Fiddler's Green personified, yes, and the Corinthian, but perhaps you'd have different bits and pieces whose merits and flaws involved around the stories they were crafted from. I would caution against following Gaiman's world precisely, but I do not think that the idea of "other realm escapees" is unique to his work. In fact, there's a part of me that wants to work with that theme for players, and throwing it into a fantasy realm.

This could be an Aberrant game or an adapted Changeling: the Lost game. I really like City of Mist, and its underlying premise fits into the game and setting I'm thinking of. Regardless, while I can work on story elements I would need assistance in coding it up. Given how I see the game working, I sense that I might need to homebrew a system that would give the game the feel I envision, which would be narrative-strong, as opposed to mechanics-crunchy.

@Shebakoby said:

There's maybe only one thing that the US system, as flawed as it is, has over the Canadian system. Money available for R&D. * * *

Canada still doesn't have this technology.

It's entirely possible that the technology you've suggested isn't commercially viable. While the process may be superior to balloon angioplasty, there may still be a cost-benefit issue. It's more than probable that the reason no province has approved of the procedure is because the benefit is substantially outweighed by the cost. An efficient system does not always use the best available technology.

Some fear that any 'taint' of "private money" (rather than from tax dollars), including charitable donations (which is CRAZY to oppose), in the health system will ruin it forever, but we could have had a CT scanner way sooner than we did if they weren't so ideologically rigid and stubborn.

In the United States, some fear that the "taint" of "government" in the health system will ruin it forever. What those people probably don't understand is that an unaccountable oligopoly is probably as bad, if not worse, than what "government" could ever do. This is demonstrably the case based on available information.

Again, as far as access and efficiency is concerned, Canada wins.

@lotherio said in Of Dreams and Nightmares:

I like the approach of location first but agree its important but could easily become esoteric.

As esoteric as it may seem, I still believe it is the fundament on which everything else is based.

If the location is "city," then it is going to look different than "countryside village," or "moon base," or "planet." It is going to affect the sort of stories that can feasibly be run and the feel of the game itself; City of Mist, for example, is very specifically set in some city, as that's the sort of game the system is useful for (heavy-narrative noir). Regardless, I believe that too few games pay enough attention to this part of its design, to its detriment.

I'm leaning towards a steampunk-ish post-apocalyptic feel for the game. Location-wise, I'm vacillating between a destroyed Las Vegas or Narshe from Final Fantasy VI (it is the mountainside village the game starts in).

It also helped to offer ideas and generate collaboratively, if you want someone to write things for you to say no to alot, I can throw out lots of things.

I'm good with a PM chat. Anyone else who is interested, lemme know and I'll toss you into the room.

Watership Down is so fucking good that I miss the MUSH based on the same book.

@bored said in Comic Games And Scope:

My preference is not to play on a style of game. My preference is to play a character I want to play, and get recognizable comic-y RP. Any game that serves that goal is acceptable, but many games will fail at it.

In my elder, snobbish age, my experiences with comic games have been mostly poor because I am apparently unable to ken the way to RP consistently with players with whom I can RP comfortably.

This may be because I just don't understand what the drive of most players on these games are; most of the time, they apparently want to scream look at me and how awesome i am, and I just don't have the time for that.

@Luna said:

When I was married and on Tricare, my doctor took it out of charity to the military and their families. It didn't pay shit. Why should someone who devotes so much of their life caring for others be relegated to chump change?

They shouldn't, and, in most Western nations, the government pays quite well. In Canada, doctors willing to head to remote places can get up to double what others receive for the same services (and end up having to pay that for basic resources, still). In other nations, the government may forgive loans made to their doctors for a return of service.

The reason why Medicare/Medicaid/Tricare pays so poorly is because of a lack of political will to reform the entire system. If you boost the public payments, the lower and middle classes bear the burden. The lower arguably receive the care, so the payments balance, but the middle classes will get fucked. The government knows this, so they don't do anything about it. In the short-term, this is a political ploy. In the long-term, it is sheer idiocy.

If you raise Medicare/Medicaid/Tricare and increase its availability by, oh, making it available to everyone on an income-basis (those who make less money pay less; those who make more pay more), you will make it competitive and acceptable to consumers and providers. That would force the private insurers to become more competitive, or leave the market. But, Heaven forbid you make any red-blooded American support the idea of a "crown corporation" in the economy, despite the fact that the federal government is one of the largest corporate suppliers, employers, and consumers in the fucking economy.

I try not to think about all of this shit on a daily basis, because it pushes me further towards the Comedian's mentality about things. But then, if you hear about a lawyer-turned-supervillain in the news, that'd be me.

@Ghost said in WoD Competence Dice?:

Having said that, the game as a while suggests that there shouldn't be a dice roll required for anything 'rote', such as opening doors, making coffee, figuring out how to use a vending machine, and even safely driving a car from one point to the next.

This.

A GM shouldn't require a roll of someone unless a task is complex, the knowledge is not commonly available, or the character is under stress.

Midi-chlorians.

@faraday

On retrospect and consideration, I concur.

I apologize, Ghost. I was in the wrong.

@roz said in I know it's an old topic but to this day....:

Vaccination rates are dropping due to bullshit false narratives about their dangers, and thus measles outbreaks are increasing.

I think it's a little more systematic than that.

People are working more than ever. Harder than ever. The bullshit false narratives provide a cover for people who cannot afford the vaccinations (due to not being insured, which is a fine-able offense, or just not having the money to cover co-pay even) and/or do not have the ability to take the time out to get them (or make similar excuses to justify not having the opportunity). Rather than admit to possibly being poor and/or lazy, they hook onto the false narrative.

Americans apparently believe themselves to be millionaires who are just down on their luck.

@Ghost said in Ethical Question:

IS IT ETHICAL to join a bunch of MUs and embed yourself in roleplay with people who don't like you as a means to repair your relationship with them by being cool with them...and then later reveal it was you all along?

Generally, I don't find myself in such ethical quandaries because I have neither the time nor the inclination to try and convince people who don't like me that I am likeable.

@killer-klown said in I know it's an old topic but to this day....:

I think there's also a bit of an ivory tower mentality there too. People haven't really had to deal with large scale outbreaks or widespread tragedies in any real sense; and as time passes and it fades from consciousness they start imagining that it can't be as bad as people say it was, or that it just won't happen - and forget the fact that the reason it's not happening is because of the measures previous generations took to prevent it from happening.

You mean like how we should dismantle social safety nets and humanist policies because of all of this winning we're enjoying now?

@skew

Elsa.

@tinuviel

The DSM-IV also admits that there is no precise definition of a mental disorder, and encourages the user to keep an open mind about it.

@seamus said in Hey you motherfuckers.:

Hello, My name is Seamus. I will admit that I was once known as Matrix @ Due Rewards/Guilded Promises. Please don't hate me.

Hello. My name is Ganymede. I remember you as Matrix@DR/GP because I was CyberSix@DR/GP for almost three years.

Fuck I remember when Pev's name had 'Gaetan' before it, back on IGU.

I guess that means I'm the only Admin here.

Until Arkandel comes back, that is.

@surreality said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

Partly this is the whole 'customer inexperience' problem. "I paid $100 for this the last time when I got a similar thing from someone else, WTF you want $600?" If I heard one more time about how somebody's cousin would make it for less as an attempt to get me to drop a price -- and let's be real, they would never actually be asking the cousin to do it, it's almost always a request for the thing in hand right now at less than cost... it's one of those 'if I had a nickel every time' issues, I could retire now.

The entirety of what you're getting at seems to be "customer inexperience," which is a nice way of saying "customer idiocy" and/or "the usual American attitude of trying to get something for less than its value through force or fraud."

(By the way, I didn't make that up; an American economist pointed this out over 100 years ago, and it was as apt then as it is today.)

There is, or was, literally nothing wrong with looking to see if anyone would do work for less than time value, as far as I'm concerned. If I charged value for every niggling thing people asked me about the law, I'd be a lot richer and happier. As far as I'm concerned, if someone's willing to give up their skill and intellect for less than value, that's their choice.

And, in my opinion, artists, like lawyers, have the right to turn down business without being bullied or intimidated or shamed for sticking up for themselves, but choosing to do so doesn't give license to launching yourself at those who are willing to do things au gratis or for less than value. This is how business has worked since time in memoriam.

But if you're going to do something, do it right, do it well, and do it professionally, regardless of compensation. You choose fruit; you live with fruit.

But customers are fucking morons. I know this; you know this; we all know this.

@FiranSurvivor said:

Thanks for the advice. Any chance you got any good videos for those various workouts or infographics?

Actually, if you google-search or Youtube the names of the exercises, they should come up for you. Some of the moves are complex, like the sit-throughs, so you may need to work up to those.

I also like to do a bodyweight regimen, and then shadow-box for 20 minutes to "cool-down," which is actually a burning session whilst my heart rate is up. For the shadow-boxing, I do 40 sets of 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, for a total of 20 minutes. I start with a 10 jab exercises, then 10 hook exercises, then 10 uppercut exercises, and then finish with 10 jab-jab-hook-uppercut combos. Each of the blocks consists of alternating left-foot then right-foot stances, 5 each side.

As @Arkandel said, the best routine is what you can stick to. This is the most effective routine I've used to maintain my weight, and if I stopped drinking so much, I'd probably be a lot lighter.

@thenomain said in Looking for an Artist, actually willing to pay...:

The point to Ganymede was that doctors are not exempt from their customers or ignorant business-major overlords pushing them around.

Maybe we're talking about different patients too, but my experience is that patients don't question their doctors at all as to whether or not they will be paying a reasonable price for services.

This is probably because many patients are in no condition or position to bargain with doctors.

My point was that patients hardly ever question their doctors when it comes to the reasonableness of price, whereas they are more than happy to give their lawyers and artisans the nth degree about it, as if they have a greater understanding as to how the costs of legal or artistic work are calculated.