I like wearable fidget toys. I have an enamel pin of centrifuge tubes, which actually spins^[1]

I also have a couple of cool interactive pins from AtelierEumori (currently on break). I have this social battery pin and this TTRPG dice pin

There’s a couple of rings that I have long been coveting, such as this one, this one, or this one^[2]. I don’t own any of these, because they’re super expensive, but they’ve inspired me to learn how to make stuff like this — I’ve been learning how to use a jeweller’s lathe.

I like wearable stuff because otherwise I will forget them or lose then. I do have some begleri, which are as much as a skill toy as a fidget toy. This aspect of skill is why I like them — I like the feeling of practicing stuff. For this reason, a standard deck of cards is also something I like to fiddle with. Unfortunately, I tend to forget to take them with me, so I’m not actually very good at this stuff.

[1]: From dorbitalgames, but out of stock

Most of my understanding of the horrors of white phosphorus comes from the game Spec Ops: The Line, a game that initially presents itself as a generic FPS in which you’re a valiant hero, but later forces you to confront the effects of the war crimes you commit in the game.

That’s what’s going through my head right now when reading this. White phosphorus is an abhorrent munition to use, even if there were no civilians in the blast area.

Marmite is really good for this. Some of the other go-to “umami bomb” condiments aren’t vegetarian, but Marmite works well for vegetarians

I’ve found that I actually seem to use more em-dashes since they became understood to be associated with AI — it’s a defiance thing. I mostly type on my phone, and to type an em dash, I just need to long press on the dash.

Thank you! I appreciate you for ensuring the artist gets credit. Plus I now get to see more of their stuff, so that’s neat too

I didn’t know that about Framework HiDPI displays

I agree, but like others have said, it bodes well that they’re open about this in the article

But I, the barbarian, really wanted to hit someone with my axe this turn :(

This is a great example of the effectiveness of using a timer.

In addition to streamlining the session, I’ve found that it is also a massive help for roleplaying. Our party was once put on the spot in a similar way, and we ended up making choices that we deeply regretted. However, it was the kind of situation where there were no straightforwardly good choices, and we’d have probably agonised over the consequences either way. Our DM spurring us into action meant that we experienced the analysis paralysis (and subsequent regret) in-character as well as out of character

Yeah, this is especially useful for classes that prepare their spells from a longer list, like wizards or clerics. I like to use revision card size notes for each spell, so then when we long rest, I can just rifle through them and physically take the ones I’m choosing to prepare. It is more faff to make the notes than for sorcerers or warlocks, who only have to prepare a few notes each time they level up, but it massively streamlines sessions

This is why I love barbarians.

I deeply loved playing my delightful himbo. I only had two questions to answer: reckless attack (usually yes, because taking damage usually just makes me a more effective HP tank), and “do I want to hit them, or try to hit them really hard?” (Great weapon master feat — also usually a yes, mostly depending on healer availability).

I relate to your thing about a power fantasy of helping people. My guy had big “dad energy”, because he was older, and was deeply committed to putting himself between the squishy kids of the group (even if those “kids” included an elf who was twice his age). His mindset felt very paladin-y

Oh man, you weren’t kidding. This is so cringe:

[Not Epstein]:

Energy is a concept like matter is

It’s first an experience then a human interpretation of hat experience

By reifying flashes of evanescent perceptual snap shots the notion of objective reality is created and gives us the capacity to quantify and measure - so matter / energy are useful

constructs but constructs nevertheless

[…]

Epstein’s reply:

“Invisible… only means you cant see it. . a chair in a blackened room. It is the unknowable that is real.”

That’s so painful to read. It’s not the fact that they’re crudely waxing philosophical about fairly basic metaphysics — I’ve done plenty enough of that myself to be familiar with having thoughts that feel deeply profound and original, but are like metaphysics 101.

However, I had the curiosity to actually go and try to actively learn more about philosophy, which led me to be thoroughly humbled by realising how basic my ideas had been (and how out of my depth I was when trying to understand actually profound ideas). I stuck it out, and now I’m slightly less of a fool than I was then, and significantly more aware of my foolishness. Whereas Epstein and co. don’t have the self awareness to take their philosophising beyond this absurdly arrogant intellectual circle jerk.

These are the rich and powerful who are running the world, folks. Epstein’s mate even said “Dinner with minister for economy tonight.”. Ouch.

Thanks for sharing that talk, it’s pretty good.

I always find his talks interesting, because it often feels like it’s the same core talk each time, but changed through iterative refining of his ideas and rhetoric due to how often he gets the chance to talk about these issues.

Even though I’ve seen many of his talks before, I am surprised at how skillfully he is able to weave in new angles and themes. I mean, he has been doing this stuff for literal decades, but still, it’s impressive.

For his sake, I really hope he did do it. I mean, being imprisoned as he is would suck regardless, but it would suck extra hard if he didn’t do it

I’ve never been in a scenario where there was an emergency situation where I was on hand when someone needed to urgently take action to avoid a dire outcome, but I can only hope that I would have the courage that this guy had. Mad respect

I hope you have an excellent week; you deserve it

It’s usually safe to assume that If there are people who seem to find a thing difficult despite you finding it easy, it’s probably difficult for them. For some reason or other, they have needs or struggles that you don’t have. You don’t need to understand why they struggle, just accept that they do.

You’ve just reminded me of a funny time when playing the game Eco with friends. It’s sort of like Minecraft but themed around ecological sustainable technological development, and the specialised labour necessary to make that happen. There were about 8 of us in total, and we would drop in and drop out over the course of a month

The way the electric power system worked in Eco is that in addition to dedicated objects you could place to expand the electrical grid, objects that use electricity could also act as repeaters, albeit with a much smaller radius. They didn’t even need to be physically connected up to power for this to work. They weren’t intended to be used as repeaters; the radius thing was just an artifact of how the electricity mechanic was implemented, to ensure that it wasn’t too complex to build an electric grid.

When we were short of materials and expanding our settlements, I ended up implementing a kludge solution of just placing a few unconnected water pumps between our power station and the place we needed to connect to the grid. It was only intended to be a temporary solution — but there’s nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.

nipped off the server for a little while, and when I came back, everything had gone to hell due to massive outages across the entire grid. After a while of fruitless troubleshooting, I happened to walk past one of the places where there had previously been a water pump, but there was no longer. I discovered that someone had removed it as part of routine tidying up the world.

Surprised and exasperated, I asked my friend why they removed it, and they (justifiably) responded indignantly with “Well I’m sorry! I didn’t know that it was a load bearing water pump!”. “Load bearing water pump” ended up becoming a recurring joke in my friend group, persisting long after we finished playing Eco. The situation really captures the absurd inevitability of this kind of change

Oh man, this has really cracked me up. You made me laugh so hard I was at risk of waking up my housemates

I wouldn’t call it a dystopia. It’s certainly less utopian than most other Trek we’ve had, but despite all the grimness, it isn’t shaped by the misery and suffering in the way that dystopias in fiction tend to — hope and idealism seem to be driving things more