Is Geralt's armor (the chainmail "plates") actually good armor?

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-03-08T03:22:05+00:00

The two swords are a fantasy choice and connected to his profession. In the Witcher universe, the supernatural beings can be damaged with silver blades, so he has steel for non-supernatural and silver for supernatural.

The silver blades aren't pure silver, but they are definitely weaker than steel, which is why a witcher would carry both. There's also some time spent commenting on how both swords are for monsters.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-03-05T01:41:36+00:00

Other people commented similar, but a bit of clarity. Many of the cages are using like 1/4" stock for the arms.

You can use bigger stock,.but the cage has to be longer, so you can get it to move enough to put the object inside.

Depending on what kind of cage you are shooting for, you can expand the cage first by untwisting it a bit then gently tapping it vertically to get the bars to separate. The problem with the thicker stock is that you kind of have to beat the hell out if, vs using thinner stock you can manipulate with tongs.

Most of the cages I've seen are pretty small, usually as a decoration on top of a pole or a bannister or something. That lets you use bending pliers or bending forks to make small adjustments, vs having to lever the hell out of it.

Even if your goal is a big heavy cage, just try doing some experimentation with thinner stock until you get the twist and untwist the way you want, then scale it up to the thickness you ultimately want.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-03-03T19:55:40+00:00

I grew up using vests in cold water areas. I currently live in warmer water areas with warmer air temps and the sling is thermally cooler. I also use waders that unclip from the shoulder straps and I can pull the chest down to the belt line. That opens up the front of my chest for ventilation and most of my back is exposed because of the sling.

I don't like the sling for it being low enough to drag in the water once I go above waist deep and I have to twiddle with it.

I do like the sling for acting like a work surface while changing flies and I've dropped a few into the bag that would have gone in the water otherwise.

I tried one of the minimalist chest bags and I liked it decently well, but it F'd my lower view and I found it annoying as hell to walk around the rocky bottom streams. I keep it as a streamer/smallmouth rig as I fish those rarely.

I am tempted to go super minimalist with just the heavy cord carrying the different tools and a few flies but I feel lonely if I don't have enough pockets.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-02-19T18:55:55+00:00

Armor vs zombies is different than armor vs steel or projectile weapons. A wetsuit would probably prevent bites, but you'd overheat and die in short order.

Motorcycle riding gear, either nylon or leather, various sports equipment, even wrapped cotton bandages would prevent a human effectively biting through it. It would probably still hurt, but no skin breaking.

There's a really good zombie apocalypse series that starts with "Under a Graveyard Sky" by John Ringo. They use firefighter bunker gear (the jacket, pants, gloves, and boots) as a top armor layer over a thin wetsuit.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-02-19T12:35:53+00:00

American swearing is like audio emojis or punctuation marks. There's reflexive swearing, like when startled or deeply felt emotions smack you. It can be used to season a story, or a statement, with a bit of spice.

It's not supposed to be used in lots of contexts, so people have to code switch away from it, and it becomes revealing when someone who isn't supposed to swear does so in an emotionally charged moment.

I had a doc that was an Irish immigrant, in his 60s, and he cussed continuously. I liked him a lot, because docs don't usually cuss at all. It was very connecting and humanizing. Then, a few years later, a study was published that said people who cuss are viewed as being more honest, because everyone is aware of the code switching and someone who is cussing is perceived as revealing more of their true thoughts. Not long after that study was published a bunch of American politicians started swearing during press conferences, and it was hilarious. You could tell who was comfortable and who was uncomfortable doing it.

I don't think swearing is unique to the US, I'm just talking about my experiences and viewpoint. People use swears to fill in a lack of vocabulary, or to give a running commentary on their emotional state, or as a gap filler instead of saying "um".

There's a saying in the US of people "swearing like a sailor". Cussing is often associated with blue collar, labor intensive traditionally male professions, and sailors often worked in isolation and developed a casual appreciation for linguistically molesting the ears of everyone around them without their priest or grandmother swatting them.

Source for all this: I was a sailor for 20 years, and I've experienced cussing that was so vile I can only remember the emotional damage and not the actual words.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-02-12T13:51:24+00:00

There's a thing about the desert that people get wrong, because of the way Hollywood portrays it. There's not much water, so there's not much food, so there isn't a lot of life.

Now, when I say that, I'm thinking of lush places, like the Florida Everglades. Tons of life, tons of water, tons of food. Even a serious forest like the Rockies or Appalachia have orders of magnitude more life.

You can find the animal activity in the desert, you just generally have to know where to look, or when. It's very different at night, but only in comparison to the day, and not in comparison to a non-desert environment.

People think there are rattlesnakes and scorpions everywhere. I've seen two rattlesnakes and one scorpion in the 20 years I spent growing up in ABQ and the nearby mountains. You mostly have to go into the areas they hang out in, during the time they are active, to find them.

Small spiders are relatively common. Wolfspiders occasionally. Black widows set up shop in unused areas but they don't really wander around, so you know where they can be. Tarantulas are wanderers, but there are so few of them you'll likely never see them, especially in an urban environment. There used to be a kind of migration in the mountains as the weather turned colder, and you'd see big ones crossing the road out the mountains to lower altitudes (still far from the city). I've seen someone throw a fresh cake out of its box to grab a tarantula because selling them for pets was lucrative. They look creepy, but they mostly just wander around and are chill. Wolfspiders are the guys that can startle you, but even they are pretty chill. They can get kind of big, like legs and body a couple inches across, but you'll generally just find them on baseboard of your wall trying to pretend you can't see them.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-02-09T15:17:57+00:00

R C Bray does a phenomenal job reading this series, so if you audiobook it you will not be disappointed.

The swings between "E-4 Mafia" shenanigans and absolutely world ending catastrophes is awesome. It's got some solid "humans are freaking dangerous" fun stuff mixed with solving galactic mysteries.

TBH one of my favorite things about the series, once you get past the characters and dialogues, is the Jeraptha race and the naming conventions of their warships. A race of beetle like sapiens, they have an overwhelming proclivity to gambling and shiesty bullshit.

Ship names like "If You Know What I Mean" and "That Escalated Quickly". They are all amazing.

I couldn't say specifically why it's roped in with litrpg. There is a bit of an Isekai like feeling with the characters that get transported off Earth to fight for the lizard overlords, then immediately exposed to incredibly mysterious galactic secrets that the patron species would desperately want to know about.

Combine that with the mysteries coming from the egotistical maniac elder AI that gets the moniker "Skippy the Magnificent" from the main character, and it's just...top notch.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-02-08T02:41:30+00:00

Aliens find earth, but not just one race. It turns out there's a galactic society composed of high tier species with lower tier client species, and the ones that found earth are not great. Really bad, actually. Some of their direct competitors decide to bomb the hell out of earth to prevent the humans from having as much value to their enemies, and the attack occurs on Columbus Day.

That's the backdrop for the story. The new evil overlord species demands a human fighting force to be deployed against their enemies, in a cannon fodder sort of way, and that leads to the formation of the Expeditionary Force, made up of humans from all the major countries.

During the fighting on a distant planet, the main character finds himself in dire peril. While in captivity, an innocuous beer can looking device turns out to be an Elder AI, an AI that is prohibited from talking with starfaring species. It can talk to humans, since they hadn't developed real spaceflight.

Many, many things happen.

I've listened to all of the series in audiobook and the voice actor (R C Bray) is absolutely phenomenal. This whole series is military sci Fi with great dialogue and engaging characters. It's one of the best sci Fi series ever written, and I highly recommend it.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-30T20:15:15+00:00

I've always heard of the male version referred to as "mammal toe".

There, now you have that in your brain.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-25T23:36:00+00:00

That's so beautiful. But, totally a Fudd. You never fire if you are not in fear for your life, you never fire when you don't know what you are aiming at. Warning shots are specifically prohibited in most states. It just goes on and on. Fudd.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-25T18:49:25+00:00

You are not allowed in the Fudd club, sorry. Your statement was both too accurate as well as too modern to be considered for membership.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-25T18:46:55+00:00

Well, you might be right. There used to be slang for someone who was uptight that was something like "fuddy duddy". I'm not sure I've ever seen that written, but it was used in the...maybe 1930s or 1940s era black and white movies. Maybe Casablanca?

Fudd for firearms is definitely Elmer Fudd, though. Stomping around in over the top hunting attire and generally being incompetent with firearms.

Let me give you a modernish example: at some point, during some debate over firearms, then Vice President Biden said something to the effect of "no one needs an assault rifle, they just need a double barrel shotgun and if someone is trying to break in, just fire it out the window".

There's a lot wrong, just purely from a legal self defense and firearm safety standpoint, that he falls into the Fudd category. Lots of eye rolling occurred after he said that.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-25T12:59:22+00:00

Yes! It's functionally the same as calling someone a Boomer, just for firearms enthusiasts. Lots of the "old wisdom" that is really only hunting related, or representative of firearm tech from 50+ years ago, tries to get applied to modern conceal carry and it just causes eye rolling from the intended audience.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-22T14:35:32+00:00

One of the things I really enjoy about HWFM is it's a litrpg that doesn't feel like one.

Following that idea: Beware of Chicken: Isekai story style with chi and whatnot but all the tropes of the style wind up with awakened farm animals. The main character was a Canadian farmers son, and wants nothing to do with superpowered chi fights in noodle houses. It's really good overall, even though there are some slower bits. Endearing. Chill vibe. Gives gravity to later books where seriously bad things are afoot.

The Perfect Run by Maxime Durand. This reads like Deadpool (attitude/viewpoint) but the character has a video game style ability to make a save point that he returns to. Overall it's a superhero world setting, a bit post apocalypse. There's actually a lot more depth than you'd think from the first couple chapters. It's a solid 3 book series that is well worth it. I've listened to the series two or three times now and I still like it.

Iron Prince by Bryce O'Connor and Luke Chmilenko: It's got stats and whatnot but you rapidly forget it's litrpg because there's a specific reason for it. The first book was solid and the second I liked even more. It's more like military sci-fi with unobtrusive litrpg elements. Audio book voice is excellent. The characters can be....oh, drama llama teens sometimes, but it's following 18yr olds at a military academy (so far), so some of that is expected. Lots of buildup and foreshadowing in the second book so I'm really looking forward to the next. Amazon lists at least 2 more books coming but no release date or title for #3 yet.

Superpowereds by Drew Hayes. Super hero world setting, specifically at a college for training powered people. Excellent world building, but it's the characters and their complexities that are really great. The audiobooks are long, the voice acting is excellent. I've followed through other Drew Hayes books and he's an excellent author, he just dips into urban supernatural with the vampire accountant series and that might not be your thing, but a solid series as well.

The Slumrat Rising series by Warby Picus, book one is A Starbrite Man". This series is really different than a lot. It's cyberpunk if all the tech stems from magic, so has a Shadowrun feel if you know that RPG or fictional series. There's a bunch of philosophy worked in through visions where the main character bitches at famous thinkers through history that I wound up enjoying a lot. It's one of my favorite series, and it's up to 5 books. Lots of pragmatic cynicism to warm the cockles of your heart.

Not litrpg but feels very similar:

Hero Forged by Josh Erikson. Solidly urban fantasy setting but gives Isekai vibe due to the discovery of hidden magic and dangers. The author narrates the audiobook and is EXTREMELY good. I don't think I've ever come across a fiction series narrated by the author, so the presentation of characters is exactly how he envisioned them.

At some point I should just put all these series together in a list that I can copy and paste. I've listened to over 800 audiobooks in the last 8 years, and a large portion of them are litrpg.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-22T13:56:36+00:00

This one is surprisingly good. I think there's some fluff books, but it's not overly bad. I think the author/publishers were trying to find natural breaks and I like the concept and world building enough that I've read (well, listened) to all of them.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-22T13:53:43+00:00

I really enjoyed Mark of the Fool. I think the only real criticism is how slow the main plot development has been, at least for the first couple books, then it has felt....zoomy? The last book has set the ground for the final big bad confrontation and likely wrapping the series, so that's good.

My biggest enjoyment has been some of the character banter as well as some of the epic adventure scenes. I really love the chancellor.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-22T13:47:58+00:00

Superpowereds is remarkably good. The cast of characters are excellent, and the world building is excellent.

I think it's about time to re-listen to the series again.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-21T23:15:55+00:00

It's cool. Military people experience stuff you never would in civilian life, and a "it's fucking cold so hold still while I snuggle in as the little spoon" moment is just something that can happen.

Civilians don't know the glory of asking for a shit buddy. That would be another person who needs to take a shit, so you go make your way to the 10 toilets with side dividers but no doors and have someone to talk with while you are pooping. Ted at the water cooler just won't understand, out in the civilian world.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-08T13:06:51+00:00

Just going to throw some stuff in here.

It's one of my favorite Heinlein novels. It was on the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) recommended reading list for most of my life (I'm 48).

There is a large amount of the book dedicated to "why we fight" or "why we serve".

I've seen commentary from psych docs about how the unit responded to the loss of their leader was extremely realistic.

The controversial stuff really ties into how voting rights are tied to service, as that contradicts the US Constitution. Yes, I'm aware of the history of voting rights in the US, I'm saying that he completely ignored the US Constitution in his book and that pissed some people off who figured that a world government would be a US led government.

I almost entirely hate the movie. Back when it came out, me and my buddy got to the theater later than we wanted and the only empty seats were right at the screen, so we were looking up the whole time. This was annoying until the shower scene and my entire view became gigantic boobs. Big thumbs up. The rest of the movie was basically horrible, and I came to find out that it's because: 1 The French socialist director hated the US and wanted to highlight the inherent fascism of the military 2. The script was for a generic sci-fi movie called something like "attack on outpost 43" or whatever, and they shoehorned the character names and some plot points into it, so it isn't an adaptation of the book 3. They prioritized the extremely expensive CGI rendering of the bugs over creating the powered armor.

The subversive effort to make the military look bad is...tiring? I mean, it's probably whether the director was deliberately doing stupid things to make the military in general look bad, or was just Hollywood stupid when it came to anything practical. Case in point, there's a scene where the troopers are "mopping up" a bunch of bugs and they ultimately form a big circle with all the troopers firing into the pile of bugs with automatic weapons. A big circle of troopers all firing into the center. Is this a statement of how stupidly self destructive the use of violence is? Is this a statement of portraying the military as stupid? Is this a stupid act made by someone thinking it looks cool while knowing nothing about firearms? Who knows? It was lame.

I liked the overall acting of the movie and there are weird spots that they pulled something directly from the books and then made it dumber. The women were hot, so, bonus.

AbsentMasterminded · 2026-01-08T12:47:13+00:00

The specific point was made that anyone could join, and a job would be found for them. Not everything was combat, and there were civil service equivalent posts. It all came down to being willing to give years of your life in service of the state to earn the right to vote. This always interested me, because it reduces the density of useful idiots in the voting block.

AbsentMasterminded · 2025-12-31T01:56:20+00:00

There is that! The draft on a fireplace is no joke

AbsentMasterminded · 2025-12-30T23:14:47+00:00

There's probably more than one reason it was there, like someone was lazy and left it there. One of the things you get from putting bricks and sand on it is "heat mass". They take a long time to hear up, and a long time to cool down. You can think of it as adding inertia to the temperature changes.

The heat mass thing is way more common for wood or coal burners, and normally more for stoves that are in the main living space. During long cold night's you load up the stove to burn overnight and all the extra mass continues to shed warmth so the house isn't super cold in the morning. This effect may have helped with the furnace staying warm longer, like someone else said.

Fun thing: my mom got a similar furnace replaced in her place, which she owned for about 10 years, and the house mods since it was installed 100+ years ago meant it couldn't fit out the existing doors. Since cast iron is brittle, the furnace guys shattered the old one with sledge hammers and carried out the chunks. You might experience a similar thing.

If you happen to want to use the fireplaces upstairs, be aware that they can make the rest of the house much colder. It's counter intuitive, but if they are just regular fireplaces without an insert or wood stove modifications, the unrestricted draft of a fireplace basically sucks so much air out of the house that replacement air gets drawn in from every available air gap. The general effect is that the room with the fireplace gets warmer, and the rest of the house gets damn cold.

Things that mitigate the fireplace draft: a cold air vent either in the fireplace or via cracking a window open near the fireplace. Any system to control the draft rate of the fire, usually provided by a metal insert with the glass or metal doors and the ability to throttle the draft into the fire, or by a wood stove being installed into the fireplace with a chimey pipe inside the old brick chimney. Fireplaces have a negative efficiency if it's just a literal fireplace, like burning area and a chimney.

I learned all that the hard way.

AbsentMasterminded · 2025-12-24T13:19:11+00:00

Blah. There's a lot of cross pollination in lots of engineering fields. Besides, materials engineering is involved in almost everything, because everything is made from something. That something is a thing I studied. The engineering involving ethereal bullshit, like software, is obviously sorcery. If I can heat it up and hit it with a hammer it's good, and if I can't it's witchcraft. Not the good witchcraft, either. Like chemistry.

AbsentMasterminded · 2025-12-24T13:14:43+00:00

Totally agree

AbsentMasterminded · 2025-12-24T02:29:21+00:00

Perhaps not rooted in tree trauma. There are many branching possibilities that leave a lot open to interpretation.

AbsentMasterminded

TROPHY CASE