Randox
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Posts posted by Randox
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Can someone explain to me why some of the Olympic swimmers are coming out onto the pool with so many clothes on, including a few full on Winter Parkas? I assume it serves an actual function (instead of being just for show), but I'm not sure what it is. Every pool I've ever been to was at least 25C on deck and near 100% humidity, and the change rooms are usually similar. Wondering if someone can fill me in. There seems to be a lot variation in how much people wear as well (from 'ready for a Canadian Blizzard' to 'a sweater').
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Had a realization. For what will probably be the only time in my life, the Olympics are being held in my timezone...sort of. Brazil is nominally an hour ahead of Atlantic Standard, but they don't observe DST and we do, which means we move into their timezone during the summer (GMT -3), albeit with later sunrises and sunsets.
This works out perfectly, since it coincides with what will likely be the last time I will be in a position to watch much of the Olympics live for several decades to come. I'm glad it could all come together for me like that.
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I found Star Trek: Enterprise on Netflix, been watching that for the past few days. I'd forgotten how many of the episodes I managed to catch when the show first came out, but it's been so long they're almost new again anyway. I may re-evaluate my stances at season 3 or 4, since I do vaguely remember where this is all headed, but for now, I do really like it. I feel like the diplomacy and uncertainty in your own actions was done really well in Enterprise, better than I remember the other series' being.
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I'm supposed to be doing 40 hours a week...but if I added up all the hours I spend actually doing work, it's more like 10
That almost sounds worse than just working the 40 hours, but I guess it depends on what your entertainment options are when you aren't 'working'. Like, when I was lifeguarding, it was never a huge issue the places I worked, because we/I had a lot of leeway for occupying ourselves. When I was working beaches, it was 15 minutes on and 15 off in rotation for the entire day, and we had a day camp basically on the beach with us, so the kids would often help fill up our down time. When no one was in the water, we could do stuff like toss a football or play with the paddle board, or maybe just chat or read. Very glad me and my fellow lifeguard never ran out of things to talk about. I had a solo gig with a private pool after that, and it was similar downtime. I was on duty for the entire day, but I could usually count on at least 3 hours of the pool being empty on an average day. Read a lot of books, watched a few movies. Also used the pool plenty myself when the place was empty.
Retail was different. There was almost nothing worse than the store being empty for the last hour or two on a slow day, where we had pretty much exhausted our normal time burning chores. More to the point, things like sweeping and hunting for more stock actually tended to make time move slower, not faster.
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I'm not sure I found what you were looking for. In particular, I don't see anything in the old ArenaScape discussions board that pertains to the rank system. I moved the only two threads I could find that pertain to the game rules into Forum Games as locked stickies.
If you guys have links to any of the threads that you are looking for that no longer work, send them my way. If the threads still exist on the forums, those links will work for me.
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The games work fine on PC, I just fine them boring in that context. I guess when push comes to shove, I'm not that into those games anymore, so if I am at my PC, there is something else I would rather be doing. But, in the context of being bored and playing games on my phone, yeah, that works for me. I just don't have an emulator for it.
Also, I guess it feels wrong. They're mobile games, so they belong on a mobile platform. It's sort of like how I never read the news on my computer, always on my phone (or newspaper). That's where I am used to reading the news, so that's where I continue to read the news. I rather play Pokemon lying down on my bed, or at the doctors office, than sitting at my computer.
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Working for commission is pretty much a nightmare for me. Specifically, dealing with lots of different people every day is my idea of hell. I've worked sales before, and I was good enough, but it was physically and emotionally exhausting, and that was without the added stress of working commission, or approaching people unsolicited (people came to us for advice, so pretty easy as far as sales go). I was much happier when given the opportunity to construct temporary storage, or pre-assemble things for needy customers. Hell, I was happier taking inventory.
At the same time, I don't regret the experience at all. I do ultimately enjoy collecting new social experiences, and learning to do things outside my comfort zone, even if I wouldn't make a career out of these situations.
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I tried to play the old pokemon games on emulators, but I just can't do it, not for PC. What I need is to have those games on my phone instead. That would feel more appropriate, and I think appeal more to the frame of mind I am in when using my phone for entertainment, vs my PC.
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He's talking about the stickies, which include things like the rules for the Sports Subforum, which really doesn't need to be moved. Some of the other pinned threads are more relevant, but are essentially unused. Perhaps for the sake of historical interest I'll simply unpin them and move them over as well, so that people can still look them up, or revive them.
can you go into the land of wind and ghosts and bring back the arenascape guide pls?
Like the new player and advanced player guides, or something else? If you just want the body of the main posts, unless you were hoping to see the entire threads, in which case I'm sure I can find someplace to plop them down where others can see them.
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Some of the American and perhaps Canadian Nationalism might be masked by the fact that generally speaking, people from both countries seem pretty willing and open about criticizing their country, probably more so than most other nations. I don't think any nation is so open about their flaws while patting themselves on the back for being awesome as the Americans, and I think that attitude has rubbed off on us here north of the border as well, though the Americans certainly more open about it than we are.
That extends to social interactions too I think, with many people being readily willing to talk about personal issues, such as social or medical problems, and I guess that just isn't a thing that people do in some other parts of the world.
Also, why have pets if you aren't going to play with them? Not that playing with Spiders would really be my thing, but that's kind of why I've never considered one as a pet.
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I assure you, the administration still lives. As it stands, all forum management currently runs though me, and any PM's directed at the administration should likewise be sent my way.
Moving on, it seems the community has spoken, and I happen to agree besides, so without further ado, I will start the setup and get the threads moving into their new home. This means the sub forums are going to vanish, followed by the contained threads being moved into OT.
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I finally picked up Fallout 4 during the steam summer sale. I wasn't sure going in that the game was going to be worth the full price, though I have found it to be quite enjoyable, if in a different way to New Vegas (obviously, since they are very different games). Waiting has also given the modding community time to get to a point where I can be really happy with the game, since I have decided to forgo a vanilla experience. Frankly, there are things I've just gotten so used to anyway that I don't think I could play without certain mods anymore. Chiefly, I like to remove the sneak indicator and enemy indicators on the compass (in past games, I've actually just normally had the compass hidden entirely, but a full version of iHUD doesn't exist yet).
This pairs very well with my biggest complaint, which is that Bethesda turned Ghouls into zombies, which is a decision I truly, deeply, despise. That said, if that's the feeling we're going to go for, might as well take it all the way and make the game way more tense by removing all assists to my situational awareness, making exploring cities just so much more tense. A fan of that change I might not be, but the much higher level of stress when exploring a strange new world for the first time is certainly something I can appreciate and get behind.
For anyone interested, I'll include my mod list and load order, along with any other tweaks I remember making:
[hide]
Mods
[*]True Storms
[*]Unofficial Fallout 4 Patch (UF4P)
[*]Configurable Power Armor Fusion Core Drain (using 50% as a concession to the fact that I can't use fast travel to move my power armor around in Survival mode)
[*]Combat Helmet Illumination
[*]Craftable Ammo
[*]Darker Nights (using level 4, which is I think the third darkest)
[*]Craftable Ramps and Rails
[*]Stackable Concrete Foundations
[*]Def_UI w/ Def Inventory Scrap tags option
[*]Enclave X02 Power Armor
[*]Give Me That Bottle
[*]Longer Headlamp Light Distance (using x3 w/ Shadows option)
[*]Sneak Rank 5 Subtle Effect (removes visual effect from perk)
[*]Survival Options w/ Give Me That Bottle Patch
Def_UI is configured to remove the sneak indicator, and all compass markers except cardinal directions, quest waypoints, and the custom waypoint. I can't see locations or enemies. Also did some rearranging of HUD elements to taste.
I also set the timescale to 12 (default 20). With darker nights, it's harder to play at night, so having a longer day helps me get more done before I need to return to camp, and also slows down things like enemy and loot respawns in real time, which are all things I like. Like I have with other games, I am aiming for a more immersive feel to the game, trying to remove elements that remind me I am playing a game.
[/hide]
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I haven't been eager enough to try CK2 now that they included the freaking politics that deeply. I was happy when I didn't have to micromanage my council and simply could pick the one with the best stats.
Got Rocket League from Humble Monthly. It is as good as they say. [bleep]ing epic. And lots of players online at all times aswell, so finding a match is a minute max.
The game runs well even on my shitty computer and I've already seen quite a few of highlight reel worthy moments. It really is amazing.
I don't run the Conclave DLC for exactly that reason. Someday I might be interested, but the playthrough I am using to guide me predates Conclave, so I would be on my own, and as a new player, it seems a bit overwhelming.
Ultimately, I do think those features could be neat, and would certainly lead to a more authentic feeling experience, but yeah, I need all the help I can get right now, and that means as many competent councilors as I can get my hands on.
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Going to try getting into Crusader Kings 2. For a long time, I figured as far as strategy goes this was probably a bit much for me, but I've decided to give it a shot, following the same basic path as a you tuber I follow so that I can use his play through as guidance to get me started and comfortable with the game. I am Randox, Pretty King of Wessex, and my goal is to found (and then expand), the empire of Britannia.
This is the playthrough I am following, at least at first (I don't think he finished it, and probably never will, but I've not gotten that far):
EDIT: The game is a bit insane, but very good. My Chancellor was plotting to kill me to steal all my titles (before I had a dynastic heir), so I replaced him with another guy with good stats who was plotting to kill him, and now I have dynastic heirs, so there is less incentive. Also, I no longer have a devious ambitious dude as chancellor, because that's almost as crazy as making that sort of person your spymaster. My firstborn is a son, followed by two daughters, who can now inherit if my son dies. My son is also Slow, so hoping (or ensuring) he dies is certainly on the table, though there are penalties to having a female ruler as well. A slow ruler will naturally be less capable, but females suffer opinion penalties, which could deprive me of the bishop taxes that are a constant fight to maintain as it is (it would be impossible to keep them all paying taxes if my court Bishop wasn't a friend, ensuring taxes from him, and solid work convincing the other Bishops to like me as well).
Anyway yeah, it's crazy, and a bit frustrating (I died 2 years in my first try), but once the world gets old enough, the game of politics will really heat up (right now it's more like the game of forging claims on things, and it's very slow progress).
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I have literally never heard a game of thrones spoiler, despite all the stupid hype about spoilers. And like, yeah, I don't watch the show, so maybe they're flying over my head, but it seems like if these spoilers were so prevalent that I would have at least seen one over the course the six millennia that show has been running.
Try watching something like the movie Time Lapse. It's one of those movies that, if I had known how it ended, I don't think I would have bothered watching it at all, and I might never watch the movie again, because not knowing exactly what is going on is a huge part of how the story is told.
For a lot of stories, I don't think it matters, and for some it probably even makes it better. Like, I normally self spoil parts of TV shows because sometimes I recognize that answers are going to be a long time coming, and watching events come together can be more entertaining that watching the journey of discovery. I think the Vader example is a good one too, because it puts the fight between Luke, Vader, and the Emperor in an entirely new context, it changes the entire story, and you don't get the same impact if you get that information in spoiler form, and you don't get to enjoy the first story, the one that exists before the reveal. You only ever get the second story, the one with all the context filled in.
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I'm gutted I lost the respect of two of my friends for putting up with him for two years lol
Don't worry, they'll forgive you. At one point or another we've all been in a relationship that everyone but us knew was a train wreck. ;)
I forgot being single can be really refreshing when you were in a toxic relationship for so long
Right? Life is much better without a poisonous millstone around your neck. If only dating as an adult wasn't so damn ridiculous. <_ great now i need a drink. :lol:>
Not intending a defense or attack on anyone (just to be clear), I think sometimes people just feel the need to disengage from a situation. That is, we all have problems, and sometimes we just find ourselves in a place where we can't take on other peoples problems in addition to our own, or we find ourselves in a position where people close to us have problems we just can't deal with.
I find that the reposes tend to manifest as either anger, or apathy, and I think how the reaction manifests tends to point at someone perceives the heart of the problem to be (apathetic people feel they aren't able to take on the burden, angry people feel like you are creating the burden).
I'll use a different example though, where I have more experience. Someone I am very close to has cancer, and has had cancer for many years now (not the whole time, and different kinds). The people they worked with, many of whom this person counted as friends, have by and large not been there for them at all. A lot of them I would say have gone the apathetic route. They'll still be polite and cheery if talked to, but they never reach out. Others have gone the anger route with anger, usually criticizing them for their choice of treatment options (they've done a lot of alternative stuff).
At the same time, at least as far as people at work go, it's been those that barely know this person who have been by far the most supportive.
And I feel like I've figured out what their friends have basically turned their back, and strangers have opened their arms. There has been a lot of cancer at the office, and it's claimed a fair few lives in recent years, so I think because this person wont follow the standard treatment protocol, their coworkers are frustrated. At the same time, the really helpful and also supportive people they've recently dealt with I think can afford to be that way, because they aren't really assuming a major burden, because they aren't friends, or acquaintances. At the end of the day, they aren't deeply invested in the final outcome.
That's the gist of how I see the situation anyway.
That said, even though I feel like you need care to get angry, I wouldn't continue to count those who get angry as friends. Anger is as much a way of creating emotional distance as apathy is, and if someone feels like you created the emotional burden they were being asked to carry, there is probably going to be resentment there. At the end of the day, I don't think there is anything you can do about that except try to build more friendships with the kind of people who can just be supportive, because those are the kinds of people you need around you when things aren't right.
Also, it seems we have decided to skip summer and fall, and go right back to winter, because it was freaking snowing yesterday, after several days of almost shorts and t-shirt weather.
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Found a new game. Browser based, called Town of Salem. It's basically a massively expanded on version of the game mafia that you might have played in school or at a camp, except now there are 30 roles, dived up between town, mafia, and neutral (neutrals can be allied with town, mafia, or no one). Watch a few rounds on youtube if you aren't sure, but if you ever played mafia as a kid, this game is just so good.
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I happened upon a solution to Far Cry 3 crashing every time I tried to load it (corrupt settings file), so I've gotten back into that a bit. For fun, I took a look on good to see what kind of weapon load outs people go for, and apparently I'm an outlier. The core of my problem is that I very much want to play stealthy, but I will inevitably fail most of the time and end up in a huge firefight, so I need a weapons loadout that can handle basically everything. I'm also weird, and that complicates things further.
First Island/Second Island:
-FS16 (AR)(silenced, red dot)/Bushmaster (Signature AR)
-U100 (LMG)(extended mag)/U100
-M-700 (Sniper)(Silenced, Advanced Scope)/Z93(silenced, extended mag, advanced scope)
-GL-94 (Grenade Launcher)/GL-94
I think if I play through again, I'll suck up paying for more ammo and replace the FS16 with a silenced MP5 SMG. The FS16 does great as a silent weapon, but it's pretty lackluster as an Assault Rifle because of the recoil if you fire rapidly while aiming. It's part of the reason I decided on the U 100 as my LMG of choice. The U 100 has all the performance of a top notch AR, with almost no recoil, good accuracy, and the fastest LMG reload speed, coupled with an LMG's ability to engage and defeat large groups of enemies without needing to reload. I also like it's lower rate of fire. It hits so hard and accurately that I don't find it a liability, and it makes the ammunition go further (it only fires at about 4-5 rounds/second).
The Grenade launcher is something I don't like to do without. On the first island, it's a great heavy slayer. On the second island, things can hit the fan in a much more spectacular fashion, and the grenade launcher is there to reduce problems to a more manageable scale via liberal application of explosions.
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I think you can throw all that stuff on the list of things I forgot, except billberries. Strawberries, pears, and tangerines are an oversight, the rest is stuff I've never cooked with that I can remember.
My all time favourite youtuber One F Jef has started making videos again (he's been doing only streams for a long time), and all's right with the world once again.
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I've noticed that the local grocery store for my parents has become significantly more diverse over the last 5-10 years. After I got sick way back when, and my diet became more limited (think celiac), one of the things our family branched out into was a lot more squash. This led to doing most of the grocery shopping in town on the way home rather than at the local store on weekends because the local store, because things like spaghetti and butternut squash just weren't available. To their credit, they actually did start stocking them on request, and the amount they bring in has really gone up in the last couple years (it was for a long time a competition among the few squash eating locals to see who could arrive first).
There is certainly a rush of certain things, like corn on the cob and pumpkins in august and october. Grapefruit is also a lot more plentiful during the summer months, though I've noticed it hangs around all year, which is nice because it's probably my favorite fruit. Blackberries and Raspberries are the same way (I prefer them wild though, as both grow readily in Nova Scotia. Much more flavor).
Things like peas on the pod are definately buyable here, though that might just be at CostCo. Knowing that I will forget things, and might accidently throw in a non fruit/vegetable:
Apples (~5 kinds), Oranges, Peaches, Cranberries (normally frozen or canned), blueberries (summer), raspberries (summer), blackberries (summer), cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, tomatoes, bananas, pineapples, lettuce, spinach, cabbage (red and green), bell peppers (green, red, orange, and yellow), onions, green onions, potatoes (many varieties), squash (spaghetti, butternut, acorn, and zucchini), apricot, limes, lemons, peaches, string beans (normally frozen or canned), grapefruit (pink and red), grapes (green and red), cherries (normally frozen I think), celery, and carrots.
I'm sure there are things I am forgetting, especially things that I never buy. I've also included stuff that I can only confirm showing up in it's frozen state, because I suspect those things do show up fresh seasonally as well.
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Lamb really isn't popular in any part of North America I've ever been to. I've spotted it a few times at restaurants (fancy ones), and you see it in grocery stores, but for most people it seems to be reserved for special occasions, if ever. Taste seems to be an issue for a lot of people, myself included when it comes to Lamb, though for me taste is perhaps less of an issue than the limitations of what animals I understood to be food when growing up. Wholly embracing that which animals I consider to be food is completely arbitrary, I'm still uncomfortable with the prospect of eating non-food animals. I also make it a point to try and avoid eating animals that I knew when they were alive. Mercifully, I don't know very many people who keep animals they plan on eating later, but it's come up before.
The joys of being a carnivorous animal lover :-D
@Noxx, that seems reasonable enough to me. I know couples here where one person is french and the other english, and they'll each speak to each other (and any children) in their first language. Works out well for the Children, who end up being perfectly bilingual.
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Finally fixed my Skyrim installation. The key was thinking to look for a tool to extract the expected load order from my save files. Between that and a list of all the graphical mods I was using when I borked my setup, and I seem to have everything restored, plus a couple new additions. SkyRe has ultimately failed the address the issue of enemies that take forever to kill, so I installed a custom difficulty mod that allows me to combine high player damage and high computer damage into one fantastic glass cannon package. On the whole, it's made the game a bit easier, but frankly, I'm at a point in the game where generic enemies aren't much of a threat anyway unless they swarm me, and this change has made boss fights rather exciting, since I now encounter monsters that can take me out in a single unlucky hit.
I am also experiencing the Dragonborn DLC basically for the first time (I did a little bit of it before I started this playthrough), and it's quite fun. Glad I finally got to it at long last.
Also, I found an enemy Dragon that I just couldn't beat, even after throwing some of my perks at enchantment so that I could make some awesome Dragon slaying gear (your normal damage buffs and magic resistance). Try as I might, the way I have my game set up, it's a matter of time before an Ancient Dragon like the one I was fighting just swats me like a fly (that moment is about 2 seconds after it decides to land on the object I am using as life saving cover). So I was browsing through my abilities, taking stock of what options I had to make myself even more powerful, and I realized that I had an ally I had totally forgotten about, and kind of proving that beating Dawnguard first was the right call for me:
The Green Dragon on the Left is Durnehviir, and he fights on my side. While the Ancient Dragon is without doubt the superior combatant, Durnehviir was able to draw all the enemy fire (literally) long enough to get the Ancient Dragon under half health, grounding him, making it much easier for me to survive his attacks and quickly pump arrows into him. Combine that with most of Dragon Aspect and my Dragonskin racial power, which both help defend against magic, and I was able to win the fight in a couple tries.
Durnehviir is awesome!
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O Canada.
Only got $220 USD for $300 Canadian dollars, down by $9 USD since I last exchanged the same amount in December :(
Either way, I always spend considerably less than I expect when I go to the US so I'm not too bothered.
I am feeling fantastic. I got my varsity jacket today that officially has the marching band written on it with my surname on my right arm.
I have been looking forward to this jacket forever - Yeah, I'm a sellout really. In September I was scoffing at everyone for wearing University gear but here I am, in the most University-centric society but I've met the best people, and I'm enjoying being in the band a lot - they gave me an upgraded saxophone so now it's like 70/30 good notes to squealing (saxophones are really annoying to control at times and squeal from time to time) . I've also got the marching and playing the instrument at the same time sorted out and I've been able to watch myself back on Youtube and see where I could improve so that's all good too.
Midterms done as well - I'm going to have a good ending to my year abroad definitely.
Out of curiosity, have you ever tried overblowing to reach higher notes? I doubt it would ever come up in marching band, but it might have if you've done other styles. Just the talk about squealing made me think of it :P
Today...
in Off-Topic
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Yeah, except this is before they get in the pool. There is a bin next to each swimmers seat for them to put all their clothes in, and I've watched swimmers who are wearing sweatpants, a sweater, and a long winter jacket when they come out onto the deck.
They aren't sweating though, so far as I can tell at least, so that's part of what makes me wonder if there is something I am missing.