Miles O'Brien

My favorite group I have ever DMd for was at a convention, it was 2am, and nobody had ever met before except the two couples in the mix of 9. I just ran part of a campaign I was working on for a different group.

I barely had to interact with them for RP stuff unless it was to drive the plot, or play a character they convinced to join them.

It was great seeing a large muscular guy dressed like a Dwarven blacksmith role play a halfling, and the smallest person there was playing as a half-orc barbarian from the plains of icewind dale.

And of course since it was a convention, and some of them had LARP gear with them, a friendly competitive sword fight broke out during a rest and instead of rolling, they just went ahead and used foam swords and stepped away from the tables. And borrowed dialogue from the princess bride.

Most groups definitely prefer combat, and to be honest so do I unless I’m running the game. Maybe I just haven’t played with the right group or character, or more likely I just suck at it. Either way…

I think everyone has “that one group” they wish they could play with forever and never have scheduling conflicts…

Armada and Armada 2.

I really like RTS games.

It’s like trying to hold water in your hands.

The tighter you squeeze, the quicker it’s gone.

They had to go to reddit to get the screenshot. That is traffic. Not to mention all the people who see this post and the hop in over to leave a comment or read others.

Don’t give them traffic, don’t go there for the screenshot.

If you honestly think this isn’t giving them traffic, you’re ignorant or naive.

Every time I see a screenshot from there: “why are we giving them traffic for the screenshot?”

I just want neat metal ship models without having to pay $100+ for out of production stuff…

Perhaps even one in a bottle.

I’ll die on this hill.

Janeway made the practical call, the one that maximized survival for the entire crew.

As one entity on a starship with limited manpower and no resupply guaranteed, they need all the people they can get.

Yes, neelix and kess weren’t going to be on board originally. That is irrelevant at the time of his Tuvixation. He’s there, and they can’t afford to lose him, regardless of how atrocious his leeola root stew is.

Not to mention that tuvok played a very important role for Janeway, one that I don’t believe tuvix could handle. He was the one who reminded her of the “proper” thing to do that follows protocol. He’s the cool head. The logical one who remains calm when everyone else loses their shit. Chakotay isn’t on that level. Tuvix was too emotional.

Janeway made the right call.

The last time I used skype, it was to monitor my 3d print because I needed to finish a project and my last attempt went all spaghetti.

So as I was at work I’d log into my computer from my phone, call myself with skype, and check to make sure everything was still okay.

Then I discovered octoprint.

1 the things that have extra holodecks that I’ve seen are just space stations, which can have larger power stations. The ship in insurrection was purpose built to trick people into thinking it was their small village that they don’t leave often. It can have all the power it needs dedicated to the holodeck and be slow with a Son’a escort for protection.

2 with you on that one.

3 also with you on this one. It just makes sense. Two people on opposite sides of the system could have dinner together in a holodeck. Easiest sell in the world after the holodeck itself.

4 the only issue I have with medical areas being holodecks is how often we see power issues in star trek. If they lose power, no med bay, no holo-docs. But if you’re already doing it, I see no reason there can’t be all the holographic doctors you need, and if the entire interior of the ship is filled with holo-emmitters then the EMH isn’t an issue.

For the record, I’m with you. I think by the end of the 2380s they should definitely be having entire swathes of ships dedicated to holographic rooms.

In Voyager, The USS Prometheus had holo-emmitters all over, so the EMH was able to walk around and take the ship back from romulans.

Incidentally I was listening to some Certifiably Ingame ship breakdowns and they touched on a ship that has holographic interiors for a lot of spaces, but since I was falling asleep at the time I am unsure which ship it is. I’m trying to peruse the Playlist to see if anything looks familiar.

At least you all can get your family to use it.

I can’t even get my spouse to use it unless she thinks what we are talking about might be illegal where we are (it usually isn’t)

I’ve tried convincing family to use it, but all that happens is I just never hear from them until I see them in person or they call me.

They don’t even feel the need to back up their Amazon Kindle collection before they get cutoff from it… Thousands of dollars wasted if they ever lose access to the account.

Weird, I just had a bunch of mls tell me just the other day that a comment I made was strawmanning a hypothetical tankie telling me I’m wrong.

And here we see yet another ml strawmanning.

Super Weird.

All I see is a bunch of people saying this is dystopia nightmare shit, and so far the only person I’ve seen do anything other than call it what it is is the ml comparing this to China.

Surveillance states are bad anywhere, you won’t get many people arguing that city wide government facial recognition is a good thing.

They stated they didn’t break piracy laws because they downloaded a shitload of books for their LLM and didn’t seed any.

Torrents are downloaded by “leeches” and put out for download by “seeders”

A proper ratio of what you downloaded to what you allow others to download should be 1:1 if you’re not a dick. (1gb downloaded means you need to upload 1gb to other users for 1:1) but if you don’t seed at ALL or if you only seed bare minimum to keep downloading things, you’re called a Leech, and derogatorily. Because you didn’t seed.

So they’re stating “we didn’t break the law, we’re just leeches!”

Shhhhhhhhhhh

If I don’t know my master plan, then THEY certainly don’t either!

Also I do intentionally leave some things a bit more vague, with ideas of what I want to do, but I’m hoping the players will start theorizing amongst themselves so I can incorporate their stuff into the game.

It gives them a nice sense of accomplishment to have “predicted” something, and I think they feel more engaged in the campaign.

Or maybe I’m just a bad DM…

rotated map of under-ice Antarctica

Okay, who’s gonna tell them…

That would be great, but unfortunately for me I have too many programs that depend on windows, don’t have Linux options, and if I’m being honest with myself I really just don’t want to learn an entirely new ecosystem. I will if forced, but the moment this laptop shits itself or they discontinue support for the OS, I’m getting a crash course.

I’d love to turn an old tablet or somethinf into a Linux device in the meantime so I can at least start something. Too bad my parent’s old kindles won’t work, there’s enough of them laying around their house…

Oh fuck yeah gimme that customization and personalization options

I used to use a program on one of my computers called rainmeter I think, and it allowed me to customize my desktop to look like the Animus menus from Assassin’s creed 2. Then decided to go with hexagons everywhere, with the replacement start menu dead center screen and other buttons areayed out from there.

Haven’t used it in many years, but I’d love that level of customization* on a pc nowadays. It seems like no matter where I go, every UI looks the same. Good for familiarity, not so much for “oh this is neat, they made it their own” factor.

*without learning entire programming languages, I hyperfixate on things but programming has never been something I’ve been able to get into

I just bought a laptop last year (portability and space constraints, I’d love to build a pc when I have the space for it) and it was supposed to come with windows 10.

I got a windows 11 model shipped to me. I didn’t ask for this. And I have to say… I fucking hate it. Why does the start menu need to change locations…

My next computer will absolutely be Linux, and it’s Microsoft’s own stupid fault. Windows 10 WAS supposed to be my last windows OS…

Lmao this guy thinks hard work is what makes people rich instead of massive amounts of exploitation in an inherently exploitative economic system…

Depends on what I’m playing.

I can comfortably play some games down to 12fps ±3ish, if it isn’t something that’s fast paced.

I have yet to play anything where I’m skilled enough for higher than 30fps to matter response-wise, and while I can notice the difference between 60fps and 240fps on my monitor, I gotta say it doesn’t do much for me.

Maybe I just don’t know what to look for, what I’m missing, or how to set up my laptop right, but who knows. My eyes could be stuck on 720p for all I know.

The problem is not the price.

The problem is Ai “art” is inherently stealing the work of other people, and not in a way that a painter can say they were influenced by some other painter.