Specialized LLMs trained for specific tasks can be immensely beneficial! I’m glad to see some of that happening instead of “Company XYZ is now needlessly adding AI to it’s products because buzzwords!”

~Phasers and molasses,~

~Phasers and molasses!~

~If you want some, just ask us,~

~We’ve got phasers and molasses.~

I mostly agree with you, except I think Nicolas Cage gave it his all and was creepily interesting. It’s a shame they didn’t put his role in a better film.

I had the Secret of Monkey Island on a CDROM as a kid and the soundtrack of the original is burned deep into my brain.

Fun fact: you could put the game CD into a normal CD player, skip track 1 (The data track) and just vibe listening to the entire soundtrack while rollerblading.

Time for me to give it another listen, I hope it holds up!

Instead of trying to specifically carve out spaces for each one, try just figuring out the balance of the starting play area and immediate neighboring regions. Then have rough ideas of where some other continents in the world are, and as other spieces come up that are rare for the region you can say they are originally from continent X.

Until the players actually go visit these other places, you don’t need to have societies fully formed and figured out. Once players decide to visit, you should have at least one session of sea/air/whatever travel buffer to give you time to populate new lands (and can then adjust for any storyline/player interest.)

For example, in my campaign I told my players that the elven homeland was in the continent to the south. Three years later they are finally going to visit there, and it turns out I now know that the elders and majority of elves in the capital city live in a giant treetop metropolis while halflings and some other races are engaged in a 1920s style drug-fueled gang warfare on the ground level amidst a technological revolution (Drive-by violence is much more interesting with repeating crossbows and fireballs instead of tommy guns and bombs). The elves care very little about what the “dirty ground races” are up to because as a consequence of their longevity, they are very slow to change and adapt to a changing world.

Had I tried to figure out their society at the start of the campaign, it would have been nothing like that.

There’s no other system that quite captures the feeling of, “Shit, that was a lot of damage. Do I try to heal them before it rolls to 0 or just spam attack and hope to end combat before they go down?”

I agree, throwing enemies into stacks is much more amusing than everyone just standing around.

I can only imagine how terrifying it must be to face the pressure of an entire government for sharing information. Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Aaron Swartz, Reality Winner, and many more people have bravely shared information at great personal cost and have faced consequences because of it. I wish Mr. Li the best of luck, because long after he is forgotten by most of the Internet he will still be suffering blowback for the brave act of spreading truth. Not all heros wear capes, but some may look like cats.

I was supposed to organize the upgrade to pro at my workplace - then I got an offer I couldn’t refuse somewhere else. I feel bad because the guy who replaced me is struggling to get to grips with arcmap, and somehow will need to oversee the transition… I’m using pro at the new place, and while I don’t like a lot of the changes, map series are indeed fantastic. No more changing layouts a dozen times to export new versions of a project!

What is your favorite haiku that comes to mind?

Just be honest with yourself if you think you could do the job. If so, apply. If you get an interview, then Google how to do the job and watch some videos about that position, the software that is used, lingo, etc. 90% of the people interviewing you will have virtually no idea what the job is, they are just asking questions to see if seems like you think you know what you are doing. If you get the job, even if you DO know how to do it, still Google how to do it and keep learning and mastering it. The only people who perfectly know how to do a job are usually those who are ready to move to a new position or ready to retire.

It doesn’t matter any more than any other individual data point. The concern is that when all the data points are collated, it gives a LOT more information about someone than many people realize.

Here’s another website referencing that article for visibility: https://metacurity.substack.com/p/best-infosec-related-long-reads-for-d92

If you have a VR headset then you don’t have to wait! https://store.steampowered.com/app/763790/TrainerVR/

Unrelated, but if you do have a VR headset (Or get one) make sure to check out Walkabout Mini Golf!

100% this. The most important thing in my opinion is to to make a good-faith effort to get an accurate ruling (steps 1 & 2) but barring that just make a quick ruling that won’t slow the game down and move on with the fight. Keeping the game moving along is an important role of the DM, and no player enjoys sitting there while two other people debate the minutiae of a potential ruling. It’s happened to me a few times where I’ve started a session with the players saying “Last session X happened, but it turns out Y should have happened. X will still stand as happenex, but in the future it will be handled as Y.”

Of course!

Nice set, you had me at #1. Reminded me of Super Soul Bros - Motherlode: https://supersoulbros.bandcamp.com/

So much time spent playing Sid Meier’s Pirates! I think there was a remake that was faithful to the original with updated graphics, and it was great times. Capture ships, attack forts, trade goods.l… just a great game.

Yaaaaaaas! It looks like they stayed true to the original game, so this is a day 1 pickup for me.

Super Mario RPG was amazing on so many levels. Sadly, we will never again see the likes of Mallow and Geno due to the Nintendo/Square schism, but at least it holds up well on a replay. The soundtrack is also great for background noises almost anytime.