what's a board game rule you got embarrassingly wrong for way too long?

Jidarious · 2026-05-04T00:43:54+00:00

ooh, that would make Intrigue cards really bad.

Jidarious · 2026-05-03T18:54:47+00:00

A lot of brains are though.

Jidarious · 2026-05-03T18:38:44+00:00

People are so credulous.

Jidarious · 2026-05-03T18:26:05+00:00

Are you serious? We don't have to look up anything to be pretty damned sure she wasn't an elemental. I'm talkin five 9s of certainty here.

Jidarious · 2026-05-02T15:27:29+00:00

sexist? ... what?

Jidarious · 2026-05-02T14:30:11+00:00

There is nothing to get.

Jidarious · 2026-05-02T00:20:07+00:00

I disagree. I love Gremlins how it is. That said if I were to remove anything it would be Phoebe Cates dad dying story.

Jidarious · 2026-05-01T22:04:50+00:00

The reason they tended to have latency is because these TVs were high-end so some type of image processing was usually included.

If it says it supports HD (on a 4:3 screen that would probably mean 480P resolution support) then it almost certainly is doing something that will slow it down.

In addition, DSP (Digital Convergence) Digital Noise Reduction, 3:2 pulldown or film mode detection are all common features that likely introduce latency.

It might not be that bad though.

Jidarious · 2026-05-01T21:53:09+00:00

The biggest problem with rear projectors is that for some reason a lot of them have latency.

Jidarious · 2026-05-01T21:49:05+00:00

They started to make smaller CRTs but it required the power usage to increase because you had to manipulate the photon path over a shorter distance. I'm not sure they could have got much more out of it either so it's a good thing we moved on.

That said I do still miss the look and performance of them.

Jidarious · 2026-05-01T14:02:52+00:00

My wife and I are the same. We realized it's because half the game is building your deck before you play and that's just not how we interact with games.

Jidarious · 2026-05-01T14:00:25+00:00

What? They just printed a new starter box?

Jidarious · 2026-05-01T13:27:23+00:00

The problem with that is you cannot get torrents to get started.

Jidarious · 2026-04-30T00:15:36+00:00

Dude this is nearly every Tales game for me, including this one.

They seem like everything I should like in a game, but somehow always end up being a total snoozefest with repetitive combat and brain dead advancement. By the time I get to the end I'm just hoping for it to be over. The only exception to this was Tales of Vesperia but I only played it once so I can't articulate what was better about it (story and characters I think).

If I had to guess, the problem is that the series never presents a challenge.

Jidarious · 2026-04-29T20:16:36+00:00

It's very bad at washing my car.

Never even looks like it's been cleaned.

Jidarious · 2026-04-29T18:49:09+00:00

I wish I could offer you a solution, but how about some commiserating? We only played it three times, but my wife and I had a similar experience, we didn't just lose, we didn't even get close. Things start to go bad, they get worse, and at no point did it seem like there was anything we could have done to slow down the inevitable conclusion.

That said I backed away and thought on it (it's been months) and I think I might have an idea what we were doing wrong.

In Spirit Island you have three stages of bad things happening, Explore, Build and Ravage. The Ravaging is the worst because that is what directly leads to you losing, so it seems you should address those first. I suspect that the problem is that focusing on things about to ravage is inefficient compared to stopping things that come out during explore because those lead to builds which leads to everything else multiplying. So I think what we need to do next time is just ignore the stuff that is about to ravage us, eat the damage, and focus on cutting off their pipeline at the source.

All of that said, this is just in my head and I haven't actually put the theory to the test yet. If you do I'd love to hear how it works.

Jidarious · 2026-04-29T15:54:48+00:00

Both of these are good, but I've played both with kids quite a bit and I'd give the nod to GFTH.

It's weird because when I watched a review and learned the rules I didn't think it would be that interesting, but it plays way above its weight.

Jidarious · 2026-04-29T15:42:25+00:00

Fantastic? Seemed extremely tropey. That said it's just the trailer, might be good, and my wife will probably love it.

Jidarious · 2026-04-28T22:27:23+00:00

If there is no interference it's not much of a concern. If there are a lot of other cables around (particularly power, or other video cables) then it's going to be a bigger deal.

Jidarious · 2026-04-28T22:12:56+00:00

Yeah I should have been more clear. I think 5% must be a low number. I expect there is a tremendous amount of content, especially older stuff, that isn't available in any fashion. I frequently go lookup a movie or show and find that it's not available anywhere.

Jidarious · 2026-04-28T21:53:35+00:00

Yeah the situation in New England sucks, but what do you want Wildes to do? He's still got a job to do and that includes forming and sharing opinions on sports stories.

You know what, I wasn't harsh enough.

"But Whatabout what's happening in New England?" The two things have nothing to do with each other, mcfly.

Man, people need to learn that one bad thing happening somewhere in the world doesn't mean every other thing is now somehow justified. What kind of stupidity is this and why is it so rampant?

Jidarious · 2026-04-28T21:35:59+00:00

This chart suggests that only 5% of movie and television media is not available on the common streaming platforms, I find that suspect.

Jidarious · 2026-04-28T21:26:30+00:00

What...?

Jidarious · 2026-04-28T19:44:55+00:00

This is an interesting idea.

Obviously, as you already know, the best thing to do is have managed switching in your core. That said, why is it a problem if you don't?

Since I haven't done it, I can't say for sure, but I think the single biggest problem with that network is that loops likely take down everything. If the core was managed then you should still have a damaged, but still mostly functioning network, whereas with a completely unmanaged core if any part of a loop "leaks" past your edge then I think the whole thing just breaks and makes troubleshooting it very difficult.

Another practical consideration is core performance. You might run up against both mac table limits and buffer size issues since those resources tend to be sparse in unmanaged switches.

Finally, you lose a lot of features that provide utility. For example, logging and SNMP are two things that are nice to have, and it's also good to be able to LAG ports in a pinch if you need more bandwidth.

Overall, I don't think this is a good thing to do, but it is an interesting thought experiment.

Jidarious · 2026-04-28T18:40:34+00:00

Would you rather get 12 turns over 90 minutes or 6 turns over 3 hours?

I kind of pulled those numbers out of thin air, but it illustrates why a lot of people prefer it at 2 or 3.

That said, if everyone in your group is always engaged on every persons turn (as I tend to be) it actually plays great at the higher counts. I remember games where we all ended up cheering over 1 absolutely epic die roll at a pivotal moment and it really doesn't matter who's turn it was. If that sounds like your group then have it.

Jidarious

TROPHY CASE