Call the function from the if block.

Now your tests can more easily call it.

I think at my last job we did argument parsing in the if block, and passed stuff into the main function.

I know it’s not for everyone, but for me I feel like buying music I like directly from the artist/label or via bandcamp has been a better experience. Now I have a library of DRM free music, and I know the musicians got a better cut.

Conservatives often have very poor media literacy. They’re often not smart or empathetic, because if they were then they wouldn’t be conservative.

I read a post about different communication styles, and this is “builder vs maintainer”. https://www.haileymagee.com/blog/three-communication-differences

A builder will try to add to the conversation by adding their own experiences. A maintainer will not add their own, but will focus on the other person’s.

A builder talking about something may feel like a maintainer isn’t that interested because they’re not adding anything.

A maintainer talking to a builder may feel annoyed because the builder keeps talking about themselves.

It was a good game. Not perfect, but very good.

Even the things I don’t like are pretty minor.

• upgrading weapons is kind of tedious. Once you know where the stones are or the bearings, it’s kind of a chore to get them.
• related: once you know where some high value items are, it’s really tempting to just beeline for them from the start. But that’s kind of tedious. I guess I could just pretend I don’t know where the +5 stats talisman is.
• a lot of side content isn’t especially rewarding. The first time you play it’s exciting because you don’t know what you’ll find. But later it’s like “nah, this catacomb has a useless ash and boss I’ll fight elsewhere”. Which is a shame because most of the level design is great.

One of the reasons UBI games are trash

I parsed that as “universal basic income games” and was really confused. Ubisoft makes more sense

I’ve always had trouble finding players, not DMs, but yeah could be.

I found the solo play of both Remnant games really unsatisfying. Slow pacing, uninteresting enemies. Is it much better with friends?

I feel like if you’re going to get a group that shows up on the regular you might as well just play regular DND?

no different than taking a bunch of books you bought second-hand and throwing them into a blender.

They didn’t buy the books. They took them without permission.

I just tried “Language Drops” and it was… interesting. It didn’t place me at the right level, so I got a very beginner lesson when I’m closer to intermediate (but definitely not fluent). I’m not sure I liked matching the pictures- the picture for “thank you” could mean different things depending on how you interpret the person’s face and body language- and then I hit the end of the free content for the day. It didn’t get to different tenses or even whole sentences- just basic vocabulary and no verbs. Maybe it ramps up quickly?

DND 5e (the rules the game is based on) is a weird system, mostly forgiving.

Your stats matter a lot. The bonus from stats only goes up on even numbers. A 10 is +0. An 11 is +0. A 12 is +1. Yes, this is crazy.

You can only improve your stats every 4 levels, where you can choose to get +2 stat points (or take another bonus from a list, but most of them aren’t worth the opportunity cost)

Different classes and backgrounds have different “proficiencies” in skills and equipment. Your wizard can’t function well in heavy armor. The game will tell you if you put on something you can’t use. Pay attention to it, otherwise you might end up wondering why you can’t hit anything or cast your spells.

The game expects you to long rest in camp a lot. Even though the story suggests otherwise and it says resources are limited, don’t worry too much about it. A lot of story beats happen in camp, and most of the game isn’t really time sensitive. Dnd’s balance is kind of stupid imo in that it expects you to do like 6 encounters before resting, and that typically means (after low level) only the last one is a challenge. Rest as often as you need to. Blow your spells. Don’t be like me and hold onto them until you finish the whole map.

You can respec for cheap pretty early on, too. Can’t change your species or background but you can change your stats and class.

They will accept any negative sum game, they will ruin their own livelihoods and their own lives, if only it helps sad little kings of sad little hills.

I’m reminded of that book about Authoritarian Personality Types. They did like a model UN / Civilization game kind of thing, where the players represented different countries and could make decisions about policy, war, and so on. There were two groups. Unknown to the players, the people running this experiment put all the people who scored high for authoritarian personality in one group, and everyone else in the other group.

The group with low authoritarian personality scores? Basically everything was fine. They solved the ozone layer crisis. They were solving world hunger. One guy tried to be a dick and the rest of the group brought him in line.

The high authoritarian guys? Nuclear apocalypse. They made them sit in the dark for five minutes to think about what they’d done, and let them have a do-over. They still did a shit job. Petty squabbling. Stealing. Out of control climate crisis.

I don’t think there’s an ethical way to do this in real life, but I do think if you just didn’t allow people with that kind of personality to have any real power, we’d all be much better off.

It’s also possible i mangled the story because I rewrote it here from memory, but I believe it was in this book: https://theauthoritarians.org/

It’s all emotions. Facts don’t matter.

“”"

16 Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?”

17 “Why do you ask me about what is good?” Jesus replied. “There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments.”

18 “Which ones?” he inquired.

Jesus replied, “‘You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, 19 honor your father and mother,’[a] and ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’[b]”

20 “All these I have kept,” the young man said. “What do I still lack?”

21 Jesus answered, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

22 When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.

“”"

Don’t see a lot of rich assholes talking about this part of the bible. (Matthew 19:16-22)

Ed Zitron wrote a blog post I’ve been thinking about, where he said that a lot of decisions are made by “business idiots” now. People that don’t really use or understand the product, and don’t really understand the users or their needs. It’s an interesting read, even though the guy is rather verbose: https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-era-of-the-business-idiot/

The other day I woke up to a bunch of text notifications from people, and my first thought was “Did it happen? Did someone shoot him??”

No, it was a bunch of unrelated personal life stuff. But for one dreamy moment…

I see what you did there and I’m not going to fully fall for it.

I read about this concern (for the us) in like 2004 when I took a basic poli sci course in undergrad, and wrote a paper about how climate change is a national security threat. People knew. Most people don’t care or have no power.

I feel like trump could completely destroy the economy and cause the US to split apart and fall into ruin, and people would still think the Republicans are “good for the economy”