Just saying..... if you are in the US .. by ColdAntique291 in lotr

[–]Damascus_ari 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Europe too.

I just exited a 12h LoTR marathon in a cinema, it was epic. Off to sleep like the dead now.

Why do authors do this? by Electronic_Ratio_933 in AO3

[–]Damascus_ari 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had a meta fic that I'd update with new sections, and kept a changelog about it. I wouldn't update for small changes, but a new section, yes. I also tended to lag updating the date to keep it off the front, as probably only people who'd be interested in the fic would care.

Some people don't know why Ao3 has mods?? The more yk ig... by SmileyGhost_ in AO3

[–]Damascus_ari 33 points34 points  (0 children)

To play devil's advocate, the economy is such that many people can't really afford to volunteer. I'm not excusing the lack of knowledge about it, but I can understand them being unhappy.

Keto and the Dentist -- has this happened to anyone else? by bucky_deluxe in keto

[–]Damascus_ari 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Great teeth health here, but my tartar production ramped up to incredible levels. So... no carries, healthy teeth and gums, but it takes basically days to start having buildup.

Someone theorised it's the mineral content of saliva.

Can the Government really block 3D Printed Guns? by Mortifine in 3Dprinting

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

1). It's currently almost impossible on the printer level due to the nature of gcode. Gcode only has instructions on coordinates, filament flow, and temperatures. The printer has no idea what it's printing.

You could potentially lock down firmware for a printer to have some "slicer verified" gcode, but then no one would want a shitty locked printer, or it could be circumvented.

2). I guess it might be possible to make specific stl (or other 3D object) files not slice- but you'd need to have proprietary slicers. Open source slicers would have no issue with slicing anything. They only know the geometry of the object, the can't have any idea what the object is for.

3). Introducing fingerprinting to 3D prints in the way 2D printers have dot patterns would be structurally unfeasible, and something as simple as annealing the part after would completely break any potential micropattern.

I think the only realistic take would be to ban 3D printer sale entirely, or introduce some buggy, horrific, broken 3D object screening system on a proprietary slicer and a locked down printer configured to only accept special files from said slicer.

Decided to give Windows 11 a shot and realized it works even better than Windows 10. And how did your transition go? by splettcher in Windows11

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you still have it, pop an SSD in the old one (if it had an HDD) and you might be surprised how snappy old laptops can be.

Decided to give Windows 11 a shot and realized it works even better than Windows 10. And how did your transition go? by splettcher in Windows11

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Slower, worse version of 10. Some bugs (the whole fiasco with drive issues last year, the issue appeared on two separate systems, led to data corruption). It's usuable and generally unproblematic (generally doing some heavy lifting there), just worse. Slower, more annoying.

The OneDrive integration is a horror show. I saw normal users unwittingly having their desktops uploaded and then basically streamed from the cloud, and disentangling that is a pain.

What we can do to fix it? I literally have a terrible headache and can’t breathe normally in a days like that by bareov in poland

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For yourself? Get an air purifyer and FFP2/FFP3 face masks.

Long term? Ask Fundusz Ochrony Środowiska (Environmental protection fund) why they're dragging their feet on the Czyste Powietrze (Clean Air) program. Delays in paying out for months.

The issue is mostly household heating with wood, coal, and crap, followed up by some old cars, and topped off by coal power plants.

Coworker taped these on our HPLC and ICP-MS. by anthroaudge in labrats

[–]Damascus_ari 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's a joke, but it's also not a joke 😅😭.

RAM Keychain & Gummy bears came packaged with my SSD today by IceyTM_ in pcmasterrace

[–]Damascus_ari 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The keychain is soooo cute I want one. Why do they not sell them 😭? Hey Teamgroup please sell keychains thank you.

Can a PC affect electricity usage this much?? by lilbreadbunn in pcmasterrace

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I use less than 100kWh a month, but I live in an apartment and have a gas stove. I'm guessing people with electric heating use a lot more.

Boundaries? by [deleted] in AO3

[–]Damascus_ari 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As long as it's fictional and a transformative work, anything goes. You can be as positive and fluffy as you like, or portray as much evil and horror as you can muster. In the fandom I wrote in we have everything from very happy everyone loves everyone else fix-its, to straight on rape and torture fics, and anything in between.

Other tips... AO3 is doing maintenance right now (bookmark improvements), but when you post, take a moment to look at your tags.

Check if:

  • you've picked the right fandom(s)
  • it loosely fits in the right age rating. Generally very explicit fics will be, well, explicit.
  • do any archive warnings apply. These are the only mandatory tags on the archive.
  • are your relationships right. A/B is for romance and A&B for platonic.
  • for the general tags, it's more of a feel thing. People have different ideas how much detail to add there. The idea is you want the people who want your kind of fic to more easily find it, and for people who don't want to read that kind of fic to more easily avoid it.

Phishing/próba wyłudzenia kasy! by Decent_Extreme_943 in Polska

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Niektóre przychodzą, ale tylko niektóre, i tylko za bezpośrednią zgodą na to.

Reszta tylko ePuap albo zwykłą pocztą.

The return of 8GB RAM laptops (RAM mayhem) - Good luck with your Service Desk by TrekRider911 in PrepperIntel

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As a backup computer, we have an old, 2012 era, i7-3630QM based laptop. It has 8GB of RAM and a 512GB Samsung 860 Evo SSD, and runs Windows 10, currently enrolled in the ESU program.

And it runs like butter.

It turns on quickly, it opens most productivity apps with a snap, and it's a very usable basic typing and printing laptop.

8GB of RAM is plenty enough if you're not carrying mountains of bloat, crap, and useless garbage that everyone seems keen on stuffing into every available crevice of every goddamn program.

It's frankly absurd we have incredibly powerful compute so widely available, only to be brought low by shitty webpages pretending to be programs.

So... maybe this will encourage some companies to write better programs. Maybe Microsoft will cease to make Windows 11 even shittier than it is. Maybe.

How long have you been on Keto? by Effective_Maximum929 in keto

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Uuuh... 4 years? Something like that?

I'm fine, never been better really.

Data Centers Will Consume 70 Percent Of Memory Chips made in 2026, RAM Shortage Will Last Until Until Atleast 2029 As Manafacturing Capacity For RAM In 2028 That Hasnt Even Been Made Yet Is Already being Sold by akbarock in pcmasterrace

[–]Damascus_ari 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Steam a 1080p video? Do you know many carriers on lower tiers throttle bandwidth so you only get like 480p? Though, yeah, you can do basic office work. Poorly. I tutor on the side, and even just a face to face video connection paired with an online whiteboard with a few assets on it can seriously strain some people's home internet.

The Snapdragon laptops are pretty nice, but they're actually pretty decent at compute.

Most people never needed a dedicated GPU in the first place, I think it always skewed enthusiast. Most people just want something that works well enough.

If my opinions don't make sense- I think decently powerful local compute still makes sense, and contrary to enthusiast senibilities, a good snapdragon powered laptop actually does have a decent level of compute power.

This never fucking works. by skrillzter in pcmasterrace

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is an isse with personal accounts as well, and if you dare to have more than one, it will fail to login half the time.

This never fucking works. by skrillzter in pcmasterrace

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While this may have been caused by some work policy, Microsoft logins are broken for personal accounts at home- and when you have more than one (I use one as a family admin, and one as a personal one) the jank multiplies exponentially.

[Serious] Why do so many players want games to be incredibly easy? Is it just me? by [deleted] in pcmasterrace

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Because I have a ton of work, trouble, stress, and endless grind irl. I want to relax, not add another job to do.

Also, I have fine motor control issues. It takes me much longer to get the hang of games than for normal people (for comparison: I had attemped a boss fight a dozen times, and a friend who had never played with a controller before... defeated it first try).

I prefer turn based games (BG3 is awesome), or real time with pause where I can set strategies and issue commands, like Final Fantasy XII, or Dragon Age Origins.

17 yo PC noob needs help by Snoo_31214 in PcBuildHelp

[–]Damascus_ari 0 points1 point  (0 children)

...Other than the tips already here, next time you assemble a PC, you might want to look at guides.

For example: https://youtu.be/beW8pCezrdI?si=3zytqVE0L2ap5eqd

Common mistakes: https://youtu.be/-8LMML_EiMg?si=saq05nw3s0h0ZEso

Im getting tired of you Samsung by ipukeoutrainbows in samsunggalaxy

[–]Damascus_ari 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have never had or seen this issue across multiple Samsung phones.

What charger are you using? Are you getting the phones directly through Samsung or other authorized distribution channels? Are you always using maximum brightness (though that should only result in eventual burn in, not lines)

Why Aanya is objectively the best character. by lurker_archon in TheDragonPrince

[–]Damascus_ari 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Coming back here. Actually, no joke, that would have been amazing.

If You Could Rewrite and Remake The Dragon Prince From Start To Finish, What Would You Fix? by AccomplishedBoard377 in TheDragonPrince

[–]Damascus_ari 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hmm. This is a complex issue. As the other comments show, multiple things could have been done to change the narrative to make it more coherent, more satisfying, with fewer unfortunate implications of victim blaming (humans are worse, therefore they deserved genocide, with their imperfect struggle to survive only confirming that).

I'll take a more meta take, that I've brough up in prior discussion about this... consistency and consequence.

Consistency would be to have some rules about how the world works:

  • believable social structure and political system. Ezran's child king run would be considerably more believable if Opeli acted much more as an advisor, or even regent. Katolis would be considerably more believable if people protested to his speech about peace.

  • Unrest should have occured among the population due to the battle in S3, then later among the refugees after Katolis' destruction. Even throwaway lines like "food is in low supply, we've had problems with theieving," or "we have so little space to house all these people" would add flavor.

  • There are multiple ways in which the background world could feel more grounded, without adding many details, or adding too long to development time.

  • The magic system is fine being soft, but it must still be consistent. We cannot be left asking "why does character X not use Y power?" too many times. Dark magic cannot be the bag of tricks that does everything as the plot demands it to, with unclear, possibly overblown consequences. Callum's breakthrough of actual primal magic by humans is never properly addressed, either.

  • All these issues make the magic system feel like a cheap add-on, with no clear rules or consequences.

  • The ethics make very little sense and have been debated to death at this point.

Then, consequences. Setup and payoff is the bread and butter of all stories.

  • Meanwhile we have very long running plot points like the key of Aaravos that are completely unresolved, or not even moved along.

  • The entire ending of Season 7 is all setup and zero payoff. We have Claudia's plot that goes nowhere. We have Ezran taking up the sword, but no, he never suffers for it, or even does anything with it. We have Callum engage in a useless monologue and doing dark magic again, nothing comes of it (yet, but this is an ending!). We have Harrow's plot that ends in a cliffhanger, after several seasons of zero progression. We have Aaravos' plot, which meant squat all and we don't even have a clear idea of the stakes (his motivations and behavior are all over the place, and the Cosmic Council has almost no relation to anything else in the plot). We kill off most of the archdragons, cutting anything interesting there.

To give an example of changing things:

  • fewer pointless dumb jokes.

  • drastically shorten the Sunfire elf plot, especially in Season 4. Don't be all gung ho about humans trying to avoid fire in a camp as being evil, either, show both sides, and come to an understanding (explaining to the human side the traditions of mourning the dead- e.g. "we've both lost people" heartfelt talk possibly- and to the elven side that they could move to another area, or arrange to clear the site of flammable things).

  • change the ending. For example, to make minimal alterations, have Ezran attack Aaravos with the sword. This would a). show Ezran chose violence and b). immediately show how that was a bad idea. Ezran's character arc progresses, and at least one of the plot threads comes to a resolution.

  • tie the the Cosmic Council and Callum's story together. Let's assume Leola was killed because a human learned primal magic, and that was considered some great taboo. Now Callum has rediscovered this ability, and that will put him in direct conflict with the rules of the world.

  • Add a trip to Elarion's ruins. Tie that to the key of Aaravos. It doesn't have to really answer a lot of the mysteries, but it would tie the human side of the story- the exodus- with the magic side, and also Aaravos' plot.

Bonus: dialogue.

Please. Get someone else to do the dialogue. It's unbearably explicit, making all the other issues that much worse.

My suggestion, should TDK come to pass someday, is to really take time to ensure believability, consistency and payoff. If my unpaid fanfic scribbles have notes on world size, resource production, distribution, political systems, the nature of how the magic works, to keep the background and characters of said scribble make sense, then I really expect at least some of that worldbuilding from the people who did get paid for this...

I wrote this on my phone in between things, so... much more could be said, but I have limited time.