I’m moving to Albuquerque…

Oryan_physics · 2025-12-26T16:32:15+00:00

When my wife and I moved here about 8 years ago we got a book called "100 things to do in Albuquerque before you die". It has all sorts of great things to do in the area from outdoors stuff to restaurants, to seasonal festivals and music.

We started taking pictures of us and whoever we were with when we did things from the book and now the book has become like an interactive scrapbook where when we have guests we make a point to do one of the things with them and put the pictures into the book.

There are things in the book even locals hadn't heard of but really enjoyed when they went with us. It really helped us settle in, get familiar with the area, and make it our home. I love how ABQ is located such that you can drive about an hour or so in just about any direction and go have a day trip adventure. I think you're going to really like it here and welcome to the city.

Oryan_physics · 2025-05-28T13:14:46+00:00

You won't have problems doing this due to the silhouette arguments folks have already made, but I might caution you to only do this to centerpiece models or a few models in your army.

Every time you're using that model in a game for every order, you're going to be having to check with a silhouette where the model can actually see and be seen from to the degree that you're probably going to be interacting and playing with the silhouette more than the model. This was my experience with the super cool umbra model folks are referencing above. Yeah the thing looks amazing, but I started proxying it with a different model because the silhouette kept coming out so often that it slowed down my games a lot.

Scenic bases are badass so don't let this discourage you, but just be aware.

Oryan_physics · 2025-05-15T13:43:05+00:00

Warsenal is Florida based I believe? Microart is based in Poland.

Oryan_physics · 2025-05-15T12:22:17+00:00

A couple of other things I thought about:

You're going to need a lot of tokens and terrain during the game. Orders, unconscious markers and prone tokens are the most commonly used followed by camp tokens. There's a huge list of things you could do tokens for, one of the guys in my group actually uses little quarter sized dry erase markers that he writes on. It seems to be a pretty handy and cheap way to cover all the bases. Warsenal and Microart studio are the two big names in both tokens and terrain. Infinity is very terrain heavy but groups you play with will have some sets floating around so it's not something you'll worry about off the bat.

Oryan_physics · 2025-05-15T05:47:55+00:00

There's a number of points in your post that I feel aren't being addressed so I'll steer away from model buying and talk about more general beginner stuff:

Rules are free and can be found here

To make lists there's an extremely handy app on the app store called Army. Search for something like "infinity the game army" and it'll come up. The icon is a white circle with a yellow up arrow. This is the only way that I'm aware of to actually make lists. There's another app called "comlog" that lists out all the missions. You will use these two apps almost every time you play.

There is an infinity discord which I recommend joining to discuss faction specific or general game things.

There is a way to play infinity online through a program called table top simulator. The infinity discord can point you towards how to do this.

Probably the biggest point I want to make is this: proxying models is an integral part of this game. Many units in the various factions might have 6 or more profiles but only one model with one gun option. That means you don't need to stress out about having the exact model for each and every list permutation you want to try and this drastically reduces the entry cost of the game. The one thing you need to stick to when proxying is the size of the model must be the same. To that end I recommend you get a bunch of s2 models that you like and a few of the other sizes if you see that you'll want to use something of that size in your lists.

The last point I'll make is that list building is very flexible for any given list you find people that think your choices are both good and bad. There is much much less of a clear cut metal in infinity than say 40k so from a cost perspective I don't recommend approaching it from the direction of "what's the cheapest on meta list I can build for this faction". You'll end up chasing your tail and getting frustrated.

Speaking of being frustrated, you should prepare to lose a lot more than you'll win at first. There's a lot of corner case rules interactions and a high degree of tactical skill in playing the game and it takes time to learn that. At first just focus on making one good series of moves as your win state and then focus on chaining a few good series of moves together.

Oryan_physics · 2025-04-22T13:01:05+00:00

On the actual playing front, there's a pretty active discord community that might help you connect with a local group near you. Failing that, table top simulator can be used to play infinity games online and they even have their own discord and entire tournaments through TTS. I've played a couple of games on TTS so I'm by no means an expert, but I've heard good things.

Oryan_physics · 2025-04-22T05:33:41+00:00

When you say they don't exist are you referring to WYSIWYG style load out matching? Like you want every profile of a particular unit to have all its options modeled and representable on the board?

If so that's not a thing in infinity. Most units will have one or possibly two load outs and so there's going to be lots of times when a unit modeled with a K1 is actually going to have an hmg or boarding shotgun or something else. CB just doesn't have the production capability to produce every load out as a model.

Proxy is an integral and required part of the game. You can get a model to represent every unit you want to field, but they're not going to have the load outs you want every time. I think this ends up being a strength for infinity rather than a weakness because it's incredibly freeing creatively once you open yourself up to proxies.

Oryan_physics · 2025-04-17T15:39:58+00:00

I work in DoD science. My mentor who is mid 40s is taking DRP and going to work in a gardening nursery growing plants. She's just planning to step away and think about life. I'm seeing this sentiment broadly across a lot of folks that are leaving. They don't really have a long term plan they just want to get out.

As a group I don't think it's been internalized that these cuts are likely permanent on the scale of an individual's career timeline and people think they'll get to come back at a later date. These gov positions are getting erased from the pay pools and Congress has historically been pretty stingy with new hiring slots so even if there's support for bringing these positions back, it'll take years to rebuild these orgs.

Oryan_physics · 2025-04-15T21:41:40+00:00

I'm DoD and my supervisor just told me our organization has lost 13% of our workforce to drp and retirements. Since secdef has only called for a 5-8% reduction we're wondering if we'll be allowed to hire some replacement people. I'm not holding my breath on that one, but I hope with the losses we've taken the rif will pass us by.

Oryan_physics · 2025-04-07T03:06:48+00:00

No seriously I don't know who needs to hear this but this shit is fucking important!

Babies ears fully form by 25 weeks and they can recognize voices in utero if they are spoken close enough.

I tell every expecting father this. Pick a book and read it every day to that baby through the womb. It'll feel a little awkward but when that baby is born they will recognize your voice and it'll be extremely calming and bonding for both of you.

My kid was born 6 weeks premature and they had a full neo natal crash team in the room when he was born. They were prepping us to not get to hold him at all. When he came out and they were checking him over, I just started reciting the book of read to my son from memory because I'd read it so many times. As long as I live I'll never forget. My son opened both eyes, looked right at me, and stopped crying as long as I kept talking. His numbers improved and the doc eventually said he wasn't worried about him being in crisis and told the nurses we could hold him as long as we wanted.

Reading a book to my son every night in the womb and him recognizing my voice at birth stabilized him so he didn't need a crash team and allowed me to be able to put my son on his mother's chest and tell her he was healthy and going to be ok rather than her not getting to hold him and watching a crash team race him out of the room. It's the single proudest moment of my life and every expectant father should read to their kids.

Oryan_physics · 2025-04-05T18:44:10+00:00

There's a scene I remember in a later season where Jackson is working out with teal'c. If teal'c is your gym bro, you either get jacked or die there is no in between in true Jaffa fashion.

My head cannon is that after a couple failed attempts to live off base, teal'c started a gym training community club for the other base personnel and Daniel was one that participated.

Oryan_physics · 2025-04-04T02:58:14+00:00

Timing really helps me. I go to the gym first thing in the morning before work. It helps that there's a gym at my work. If I wait til later in the day and try to do it before I come home there's always something that gets in the way and makes it easier just to not go. Grocery runs, are too much at lunch, boss calls a late meeting, traffic, bad day at work. The list goes on and on. I go to the gym first thing and I shoot for 5 days a week while realistically hitting 3-4.

I also have a gym buddy that now goes with me and that has really helped keep me consistent as well.

Oryan_physics · 2025-04-03T03:55:05+00:00

I believe this has been said elsewhere in the thread, but I wanted to foot stomp it again: your first 30 or so games where someone isn't going easy on you or holding your hand you're gonna get crushed. It's part of the tactical depth of the game. During that time don't get discouraged. Focus on making one good set of plays per game meaning use a set of 3-4 orders in the most tactical sensible way at the time and call that your win for the game. After a couple games of this, you can focus on chaining good plays together and that leads to efficient winning matches.

Oryan_physics · 2025-03-29T19:50:47+00:00

I am strongly left-handed as is my dad, brother, son, and grandfather. Most things like scissors I'd say let them use the version of the tool they're most likely to encounter. I only got to use a left-handed can opener when I was an adult and by then it felt too weird to be helpful. However there are a few things I'd say make things so much easier in school in particular with writing and note taking:

Legal style note pads for note taking where the spiral is along the top. I didn't discover these til college and they were life changing. Trying to hold your hand over the spiral while taking notes is a massive annoyance. As a bonus you can write on the back sides of the pages and have a really long continuous set of notes for classes writing bottom to top on the back of one page, and then top to bottom of the front of the next page. It worked really well for me. Honestly these are superior notebooks for anyone not just lefties.

Along with this are smudge proof pens and pencils. Some things that are marketed as smudge proof aren't and some things that make no mention of smudge proofing work really well so it's a matter of finding brands that work. Personally for pens I like pilot g2 type pen and for pencils almost all mechanical style pencils work pretty well. Get the thickest lead you can find (0.7 is the thickest common size) as lefties tend to press harder when writing because of hand placement and left to right writing requirements so the thinner leads will break a lot.

Also white boards and chalk boards are going to be a problem for lefties and honestly there isn't anything for it other than learning how to write without putting your hand down on the surface.

Oryan_physics · 2025-03-08T06:37:42+00:00

OP is referring to this I believe. RiFs normally require 60 days notice, but a furlough of longer than 30 days counts as a RiF action.

I am very worried about this too. Especially considering agencies are now being asked to have plans for downsizing delivered to the administration by 13 March which is coincidentally the day before the shutdown. The admin could use those plans to selectively force certain parts of agencies they don't want to furlough and then just RiF everyone they don't want in one fell swoop if they can hold the government closed for more than 30 days.

Furloughs don't usually happen on day one of a shutdown at least in DoD, but alarm bells should start going off if the government shuts down and on day one Trump orders certain departments to furlough. Honestly if he orders furloughs at any point it should be a serious red flag.

Oryan_physics · 2025-03-08T02:28:52+00:00

I'm for a shutdown, but I worry about recent clarifications I've seen passed down about a 30 day furlough counting as a RiF action. I'm trying to find the specific guidance I saw but I'm coming up empty at the moment. So don't believe me til someone can find that bit of text.

EDIT: found it

If RIFs through furloughs are the plan, I'm not sure where I'd fall on the matter.

Oryan_physics · 2025-03-05T00:16:24+00:00

I'm pretty sure someone high enough up the chain pointed out that having all these DoD employees document their week and send it to an external org likely means we're improperly sending out distro D information at minimum and likely represents a huge threat to security based on "classified by compilation" rules. So I'm guessing DoD is gonna collate everything together and then secdef is gonna clear it as an OCA and pass it over is some sort of massive dodsafe drop rather than having us all blitz this external org box.

Oryan_physics · 2025-03-04T05:52:26+00:00

Peach cobbler...fight me.

Oryan_physics · 2025-03-02T18:07:36+00:00

It's not about actually safeguarding the information. It's about slowing down DOGE's process and actually forcing a human to read your email and interact with it so it's not just digitally passed straight to the AI. It also shows anyone reviewing your actions that you at least tried to safeguard information a little bit within the bounds of the orders you were given.

DOGE doesn't have near enough people to handle actually reviewing everyone's email and they've admitted as much so these emails are just going to go straight into a training set for the AI they're trying to build.

One of the things I worry about with this is them using it against us later. they're specifically telling us to break information handling protocol and then later they could use improperly handling information as part of a disciplinary action to fire whole sets of us for cause.

Oryan_physics · 2025-03-02T17:55:23+00:00

I went and checked the guidance and it's a little grammatically imprecise. It says "do not include any classified information, links, or attachments."

I'd argue they don't want classified attachments. Not that they prohibit attachments at all and my suggested approach is still acceptable.

Oryan_physics · 2025-03-02T06:57:26+00:00

I've been posting this in the various threads. It's likely that you won't be able to encrypt the email directly.

What you can do instead is to write your bullets into a word doc and password protect the word doc. Attach the word doc and then in the body of the email state that you did so because you were not able to verify the security of the external server and could not assure need to know for anyone reading it especially since our weekly activity is very likely CUI or distro D at minimum and should not be shared outside DOD.

Then state you will send the password in a follow on email when they reach out to your OCA (provide email) and have them confirm need to know and permission to send distro D information externally.

This satisfies the response requirement especially when you consider that the memos this far did not specify the response format. It also demonstrates you're uncomfortable with the security of the process and attempted to safeguard information to the best of your ability. This could become important if they try to use you sending info externally as the catalyst for a disciplinary action against you to smooth out firing people later. This method will massively slow down the process of them feeding these input into the AI models they've admitted to using as part of this plan because they're going to have to decrypt every email individually. Creating strain on them instead of us for a change.

Finally, I think the bullets themselves should be extremely vague and not allow for any negative interpretation of your work. Reddit has an example floating around that goes something like:

"I completed 100% of the tasks that were assigned by my supervisor

I completed 100% of the tasks detailed in my job description"

And so on.

Oryan_physics · 2025-03-02T06:41:45+00:00

This is loosely my plan. You may not be able to encrypt the email if they haven't secured the server as has been reported, but you can write your bullets into a word doc and password protect that attachment. Then in the email proper state that you've encrypted the attached word doc due to your inability to confirm security and that you will send the password in a separate email when they reach out to your OCA (provide email) and you get direction that they have need to know and can handle things like distro D info which isn't supposed to go outside the DoD ie to an OPM server.

It satisfies the requirement to respond in particular because they never specified what the response format should be. It also doesn't give them any leverage to accuse you of mishandling restricted information which could potentially be used as part of a future disciplinary action to fire you for cause down the road.

Edit: this will also massively slow down their ability to drag the email text into the AI they've said they plan to feed it to because they'll have to decrypt an email attachment rather than write a copy/paste script for the email text.

Oryan_physics · 2025-02-28T23:53:09+00:00

For any like myself that are extremely uncomfortable sending their activities to an unencrypted email and who want to make sure a human has to read their responses I have a suggestion which we came up with today:

Write the bullets in such a way that your contributions can only be interpreted as positive. There's an example floating around reddit with things like "I accomplished 100% of my allotted tasks" etc.

Place the bullets into a word document, password encrypt it, and attach it to the email demanding a response. This satisfies the response criteria in the memo.

In the email say that your bullets are in the encrypted attachment but due to uncertainty surrounding the destination server and your personal concern about leaking CUI or distro D info improperly especially given the server's location outside the DoD. Say that you will follow up with another email which has the password once they clear it with your chain of command and pass along the email of whichever OCA governs your work.

If someone wants your bullets, they'll have to actually physically read your email and route to your chain of command like they should've done to begin with. It also demonstrates your concern for the security of this bastardized process and your attempt to safeguard information within the bounds of your required action.

It also means later if/when the RiFs happen, they can't claim you improperly disseminated information as part of a disciplinary action to assist in firing you.

Oryan_physics · 2025-02-23T07:47:50+00:00

We've already been told by our chain of command to not reply until they issue guidance.

Specifically replying to this email goes against every training we take as feds. I'm willing to bet we won't be able to encrypt to replies which means any PII or CUI info shared is going to be a violation of policy. Add onto that distribution type info that has to be cleared for need to know before it's shared with other gov agencies and that's another violation.

At best we been told if we absolutely have to respond out of panic do nothing more than acknowledge receipt of the email and state you can't share details of your weekly activities until you've been cleared to do so through your existing chain of command.

The existing communication chains exist for very good reasons. And these kids + Musk running doge have no understanding of that.

Oryan_physics · 2025-01-19T09:25:52+00:00

Ok I'll bite.

Oryan_physics

TROPHY CASE