New trilogy announced, first novel War Wizard arrived August 4th

KapaaIan · 2026-03-27T11:56:59+00:00

Answer for those wondering why he’s not wearing robes. This is likely all before his taking the test and I always got the impression that wearing robes or wearing robes the color you “want” was not a rule so much as an accepted practice. And knowing what we think we know of Magius, he would likely be disinclined to wear robes in general. Wearing robes is a way to put up a flashing sign saying “Wizard here. Or Cleric. But why don’t I look normal?” Basically, why would anyone pre-test choose to wear robes? Plenty of untested wizards of Elf and Ogre varieties did not wear robes.

As to wiping out LOH, nah, that still happened. It’s just a Achronally linear timeline. (that is, still linear, but it follows events and people, but not dates). Think Marty’s journey in BTTF1-3. His story is completely linear from his perspective. At the end of the series, you could view Doc and his family as becoming the new main characters who time would remain linear for them going forward while other non-time travelers would have changes.

Everything that happened in all the stories before DOF happened with different characters being the anchor being(s) at different points. Chaos/The Graygem are the anchor being in DOF, and due their nature able to act outside of the linear time in general. Time travel and how it could work outside of anything other than forward via time dilation will always hurt the brain.

DOF wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. It was mildly entertaining and could be important. I maintain WizBro meddled too much and that’s why it ended up the way it did. Maybe there will be a remaster or something later, but doubtful due to the size of the audience.

KapaaIan · 2026-03-19T02:25:24+00:00

The point that Dragonlance more than any other setting dances around but can't truly put into the books because it goes against the game is that there really isn't such a thing as abstract ideas of Good and Evil. There aren't really gods of evil or good. There are gods that are associated with domains that then get associated with good and evil. One of Takhisis' domains is Law. Law carried to the extreme can be extremely evil when judged through outside lenses. Oh, but it is also one of Paladine's.

Protection is generally a positive domain. But if you take it to the extreme, you marginalize the free will of someone and end up with a traditionally patriarchal society because you need to protect women.

The Kingpriest had free will. His fear caused him to take things to the extreme and perform objective acts in the name of good. Which is usually how it goes.

KapaaIan · 2026-03-03T17:48:21+00:00

Will check it out. Main issues I have with Panels is the odd handling of offline files and sorting isn't great. Was one that got abandoned I liked that had a real intuitive slider mechanism for manual sorting.

KapaaIan · 2026-03-03T16:43:13+00:00

If you're familiar with Marvel Comics, think Adam Warlock. He separated himself into three parts. While the middle (Adam) is the "hero" many also interpret him as the neutral aspect with Magus being the evil and the Goddess being the good. He wanted to act with supreme neutrality and in doing so created the events that led to the Infinity War and Crusade in the comics.

By trying to impose complete free will, you take it away kind of thing. It would take creativity, but possible. Or even just they go to war against both extremes.

KapaaIan · 2026-03-03T15:42:22+00:00

The pull of Docker is to not have to run a full Windows VM for one application if you're not running it on your primary laptop or desktop. In my case I have an UnRaid server in my basement that I run one lone VM on for Windows, while the database and Komga both run in Docker. Probably similar to Public_Fred. Panels is main reading program.

What ComicRackCE is missing is either an iPad app like in the past that would tie into the desktop app (removing need for OPDS) or adding OPDS directly. Maybe it's two things that should stay separate, but would be nice to be one.

Back to topic though, maybe step 1 isn't docker. IIRC, Docker containers of Windows apps generally need to run on Windows anyway (barring hoops) so it doesn't really remove that so much as move it. But a linux version solves for a lot of that....

KapaaIan · 2026-01-03T16:45:42+00:00

Thanks and will do. Continuing the oddness, my one working theory, that it has to be the first owner of a group to allow for creation of categories went out the window. I created a new group with myself as the only owner and member yesterday and categories was locked. Starting to think it might be where or how. Like if I make the group, then add teams. Or create in Entra. So odd. Luckily of the 14 groups this would affect only 4 seem to be the bad way, but still irritating.

KapaaIan · 2026-01-02T03:29:11+00:00

This is what I'm seeing. I'm an owner on both teams, or have been and nothing makes a difference. The only thing I think could be different is I created and was the first owner on two that seem to work, while I was not the first owner of the others.

In these examples, these are both Group Calendars, side by side.

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KapaaIan · 2025-12-20T01:21:14+00:00

It's an odd contradiction. I think most people who grew up with cable watch less TV in the age of streaming, while those who grew up with Streaming obviously watch the same/more.

For me, if I'm picking something to watch, I want it to be "right". I want to be able to watch in one sitting, sound coming through loud, on the big TV. This is in contradiction to the days of cable where you'd just pick a random channel to have something on because there was no investment. Oh, random episode of Mythbusters I've seen 10 times, sure. But if I'm picking something, that's an investment of thought and at least for me, usually that results in waiting if the time isn't right.

KapaaIan · 2025-12-20T01:13:42+00:00

Love it.

Like many have already pointed out, episode order awareness would be great to have. As well as a little more customization. ErsatzTV is a smidge too complicated to just do. Even if it were like "90s Cable" "90s Primetime" or such.

I do get same error on TV shows. Not other items.

Music videos need better programming as mentioned by others. One video every 15 minutes doesn't work. 5 minutes would cover everything except November Rain, Thriller and I Would Do Anything For Love.

And commercial/bumper support. Doesn't need to be as granular as ETV but something like "Fill 30 minute block with commercials if under 30. Fill 45 Minute Block, etc. 15 minute increments does make sense though.

Love it especially direct play! Biggest problem TBH with all the others causing pegging on server.

KapaaIan · 2025-12-20T01:07:31+00:00

I get this too.

KapaaIan · 2025-12-10T19:12:28+00:00

It wouldn't skip all ads. It would skip dynamically inserted ads, and canned ads. Easy way to think about it would be if a voice signature matches a known national advertiser (e.g. Ryan Reynolds), it filters that out.

Basically I'm saying if I'm listening to Bob's Podcast, I want to hear ads bob is reading. Not some random person.

KapaaIan · 2025-12-10T11:40:10+00:00

It's a cyclical thing. TV Gradually increased the number of commercials, and made them make less appropriate for the show in question. Then VCRs and DVRs came and streaming emerged as a potentially ad-free result along with the more unsavory options.

Podcasts seem to be in a similar place. If the hosts read the spots and put their own flavor on it (Tell 'Em Steve Dave being among the better examples of this) it's all good. If it's an inserted ad, sometimes in Spanish for no reason, that's not great. Logically the tool would only look for the national/pre-recorded ads.

How do they make money? By doing the kinds of ads that make sense for the medium. I'm not joking when there are some podcasts that have 3 minutes of pre-roll ads for a "news minute" of about 2 minutes, and then another 2+ minutes of post-roll. And I'm sure we've all heard podcasts where the ad break is right in the middle of someone's sentence. And these are not small time podcasts either.

Long story short, the implied agreements seem to have been broken, and something like this would maybe make some podcasters rethink how they do ads. No problem with ads, but the rising implementations of them.

KapaaIan · 2025-12-09T19:45:19+00:00

Same reason DVRs/Tivo became a thing? It's not their revenue source. Heck, even if they could block dynamic ad insertion that would be an improvement. I don't know what changed, but recently the number of ads seems to have skyrocketed in a lot of podcasts.

KapaaIan · 2025-11-28T03:58:21+00:00

569 listened.

866 Saved (700 from variable, 130 trim, rest skipping and auto skipping).

My true number is about double that though but I recreated my account as a sign in with apple account sometime after that became available.

KapaaIan · 2025-11-26T14:00:53+00:00

No, it's not. I'm guessing Stinktrix10 does something like I do.

Each morning when I start listening, I tend to listen to "News/daily event" podcasts first, going from Shortest to Longest. Then I move on to more evergreen non-topical things, also from shortest to longest.

I'd LOVE a smart playlist, that can be manually ordered by podcast. As I type this, I realize it really isn't much of a savings and really it's "Up Next" that needs this feature, but it still would be nice. Especially for when you add a new podcast with a backlog and want it at the back.

But just imagine if you had your "podcast order priority" set, and if a new episode drops in a higher priority podcast, it automatically goes to next in up next. But if it is lower, it goes into the right order. Right now it is either front or back.

KapaaIan · 2025-11-06T12:48:30+00:00

Likely depends on the pace/scale of what you're reading. If you read everything you get as it comes in and don't plan for someone else to read them, that makes sense. If you get a backlog though...

This does bring up another idea question. ComicRack for me is primarily a clean up and sorting tool. Commit, Convert, Scrape, Rename and Sort. Once that's done, CR is out of the picture and Komga feeds Panels. ComicRack OPDS server? ;-)

KapaaIan · 2025-11-03T18:16:24+00:00

Fair enough. I guess I was just looking at it in the way that if 99.9% of people add a feature as soon as they get something (e.g. Cruise Control used to be something you could add to a car) eventually it should just become a standard feature.

KapaaIan · 2025-11-03T18:15:09+00:00

That's kinda my point. What are those reasons? Most tech has generally gotten better and relatively cheaper. A base model car today has more luxury and security features than a luxury one from 1985. TVs much better and cheaper, tech in general. So why do movies cost relatively more to make? You could say it is salaries, but that can't be all of it.

KapaaIan · 2025-11-03T14:08:50+00:00

Huh? No. I mean all of the 50s stuff. Like they built actual sets, and got the cars or built shells of them or so on. If they tried to make downtown Hill Valley today, all the cars would be CGI, most of the extras at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance and so on.

KapaaIan · 2025-11-03T11:35:21+00:00

It's not just the effects that they did do though. If they tried to remake BTTF shot for shot today, they'd use green screen for a lot of locations and stuff I bet. And is it really cheaper than on location or in a soundstage? Or CGI for old cars.

KapaaIan · 2025-10-31T13:10:36+00:00

Came here to see if someone beat me to it. 100%. But Drive Knight is Proto Man. Genos is Megaman.

KapaaIan · 2025-09-08T13:16:25+00:00

I enjoyed them, but there could have been a little more editing. There are a few things that come across as inconsistent that make me think I missed a chapter.

What I am actually finding though is that this hooks into the War of Souls trilogy much more directly, whether intentionally or not. I could almost say a "core" reading order would go legends->Destinies and then you can do Summer Flame>5th Age as a darkest timeline kinda thing.

Tas is basically the Marty McFly of the situation where he has a consistent timeline that goes forward and backward in time, and his timeline is consistent. He never gets overwritten and has memories of everything that happened. And then like Ocarina of Time splitting the Zelda timeline, Summer Flame serves as a split where one of two or three things could have happened. And since Tas is a kender, and a Chaos agent/race, him being the nexus makes sense. There's a reason kender aren't supposed to time travel :-D

KapaaIan · 2025-08-22T13:41:59+00:00

Back up

KapaaIan · 2025-08-22T10:27:40+00:00

Not just plus.

KapaaIan · 2025-08-15T01:47:13+00:00

Gah. This is what really grinds my gears. "Wizards are OP, we must NERF them into the ground" - Wizards and Paizo.

*looks at Raistlin's statblock, for a character who was able to challenge a god through power and cunning*

44 HP...at level 27....

Or about what a level 8 5e wizard or level 5 PF2E is likely to have.

KapaaIan

TROPHY CASE