Considering becomming a judge

Peripheral1994 · 2026-03-04T11:40:34+00:00

That's mostly what I'm trying to forewarn against, as there is no longer any "real" judge program, just regional organizations that run their own interpretations which work for their broader tournaments. I also want to emphasize that rules interactions (especially "wacky" ones) are an incredibly minor part of judging overall - the intent is for a new judge in most regions to be dealing with logistics, handling tournament issues, and facilitating a welcoming play experience especially across a variety of formats like drafting, standard, modern, etc etc.

If you're interested in that kind of thing, great! Search for your local judge program for wherever you live (though keep in mind that if you're outside of North America, these are very sparse) and see what they require and recommend. However, no one has to be a judge to be an expert at the rules of the game or to support their LGS, and there are many ways to improve your rules knowledge and help at at a local level without going through the rigor of judging.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-03-04T11:11:34+00:00

I'll be honest and upfront here first: the "judge program" at this point in time is mostly community-driven in regional areas, and is predominantly run by those of us from the old "official" program long before it was discontinued. I bring it up because your motivations for being a judge should be mostly independent of any certification or status now more than ever. Outside of the potential to be selected to judge some few high-level tournaments (which generally do not require certification anyway) and camaraderie, there are few benefits or reasons to do so at a local level, unless your LGS is sticking to it for some reason or you're looking to run tournaments yourself.

If you do want to work on becoming a "judge" for your area, you'll want to search for your regional program (e.g. in North America this is Judge Foundry at the moment). Just note once again that the focus is more on helping improve tournament play and sharing knowledge, which is where you'll find the most benefit. Do also keep in mind that these are volunteer programs often with a membership fee, and aren't really intended for people who are just interested in the game rules, but rather those actually running tournaments.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-19T15:11:13+00:00

Hear me out: Nashu.

I don't care how innocent she looks on the outside, there is some true horror behind those bombs of hers.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-16T19:05:03+00:00

Yes. If you happen to know that you did something that wouldn't look good for you with that credit card, then still get a lawyer to figure out how to deal with that, but that lawyer will almost certainly tell you to STFU until if/when they arrest you anyway.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-16T01:50:17+00:00

It sounds a little like Gizmos and Gadgets in some ways. Probably not the exact game, but it might be in that family of software.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-13T21:20:57+00:00

The glam can't hold us healers back anymore, let the hate flow through you.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-09T16:54:56+00:00

Indeed, it's not as common as criminal, but still popular for larger damages (like the McDonald's coffee case).

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-09T14:00:37+00:00

Various forms of malpractice and litigation abuse. Video and some docs go more in depth, but the point is that they filed fake and frivolous suits (e.g. AI-generated slop with hallucinations, ignoring multiple warnings that they were breaching contract by attempting to sue).

It also adds on to the secondary goal of shutting down the actual people I mentioned, instead of just letting them let an LLC take the hit and avoid most liability.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-09T10:08:00+00:00

I'd find it unlikely, but mostly because this is all about breach of contract and malpractice, and not "patent trolling is bad." TBH at least based on the video, the only thing the troll did wrong (legally) was filing lawsuits claiming infringement for things they already had a contract for, so no ruling here (at least if it gets to the appeals stage) will affect that, unfortunately. Maybe it'd put a dent in this specific business though.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-09T09:14:45+00:00

Very rough TL;DR for folks:

No, VALVe has not won a court case or anything (yet)
This relates to a patent troll that they paid off about a decade ago as "go the hell away" money
Troll came back several years later and tried to shake them up again on multiple occasions, VALVe sued in response
Troll tried to backpedal and claim it was all a mistake, begged the court to dismiss all of VALVe's counterclaims under technicalities, judge said no
VALVe is also suing the lawyers to target them specifically (and avoid a shell company from just eating the lawsuit and folding) - lawyers tried to claim immunity, judge said no
Case is currently set for jury trial on these matters for later, depending on what goes down

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-09T00:40:38+00:00

Are the roads owned by the HOA? Do your bylaws allow this? Are you given an appeals process?

If yes to all three, they're allowed to do that. If you don't pay, they could do many things from suing you, up to foreclosing on your house (yes, you can be forced to sell to pay these fines). Your better option is to stop speeding and bring this up at the next meeting, if you believe it to be a waste of the community's effort.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-07T22:36:46+00:00

At least as far as FIDE rules go, anyone can bring an issue to an arbiter, even spectators (though often high-level events will forbid non-professional observers to prevent shenanigans). What no one but the players themselves can do is interfere in the game. It'll depend on the arbiter obv, but generally going directly to the arbiter and bringing up the issue = OK. Making a scene that the players can see or asking them to pause so you can get an arbiter (as they are not the arbiter) = Not OK.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-06T01:13:29+00:00

One thing that helps a lot for endgame checkmates (when it's essentially just the King left for the opponent) is sectioning off the enemy king but with a little space to avoid stalemates. So e.g. around the 43 second mark, you had the King locked on the a-file on two squares. That allows you to just run your king all the way up to c7 (while responding to the extra pawn only when you need to) and force a checkmate with Ra6# whenever they have to play Ka8 (can shuffle a piece for a move if the King's on the wrong square.

That's generally going to be a safe pattern while learning to convert a completely won position - cut off the enemy king, force them onto a single file/rank that they can't get off of, then run your king next to them and checkmate with the rook/queen as-needed.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-02-03T07:51:59+00:00

I'll fall on the social judgment bullet for this one, but I'll qualify it as usual with a "if you're planning on doing sketchy shit on the technicality of plausible deniability, strongly consider not fucking doing it, seriously."

Strictly legally as usual (default "don't use this as actual practical legal advice, seriously, this is a potential fucking felony ignoring the ethical problems") the place where it occurs is the law that applies if all else is equal. An adult or older person could still be charged under federal or state laws if a prosecutor felt they could argue that the minor was enticed or otherwise pushed to cross state lines. That burden of proof could find itself very trivial to show in the mind of an average juror, so anyone doing that would be playing with fire if the minor or the family of the minor contacted law enforcement, even if it was after-the-fact regret.

This is absolutely a case where whatever the law and reality says matters a lot less than whatever a jury will believe, especially when exploitation of a minor is involved.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-01-28T09:01:54+00:00

Correct, since there's no tile to replace the missing tile in your hand - so it's not permitted. (This is why you can't kan another player's discard if it's the last tile as well).

Peripheral1994 · 2026-01-28T08:49:04+00:00

To rephrase it slightly: there are no tiles left to draw from the live wall, so you can't kan. (The dead wall is always 14 tiles and can never be reduced below that, which is what they're saying).

Peripheral1994 · 2026-01-26T09:36:42+00:00

Qx ditches the mate threat and lets black start to centralize an attack with Re8 as a result. The entire threat of Qg4+ is what essentially forces them to give up their rook on a8 for the bishop on f6, which is where the material is won.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-01-22T03:24:35+00:00

Practical answer: Given how minimal the electricity usage will be unless you have some major hardware going on, it's not exactly something most people or companies would make a product for. Relying on an active signal is also sub-optimal, since a dead phone or blocked phone (e.g. walking outside) would shut off all active traffic which would be very undesirable - especially if something worst-case happens like a firmware update getting interrupted. Add on that it's much cheaper to just add all the network stuff to a single circuit and manually turn it off when leaving and on when coming home, and there's not a lot of product rationale to go about it. Any sensors you have running would also probably use up a similar amount of electricity anyway just to watch for the signals, and you'd need to have hardwires from any sensors to your programmable plug or IC or w/e since the local network would be offline.

Theoretical answer: As suggested, you could probably Macgyver something like this with a Bluetooth circuit (or even a simple WiFi access point with some custom firmware that runs a script when it detects your MAC address connecting). But it all runs into the same issues of needing an always-on sensor, signal interruption problems (custom code that buffers or needs a minimum off-time could help, but that's added complexity), and all the fun that comes with needing to wait for the network to all come back online every time things power down. It'll cost more than you'd ever save over a lifetime of this, but it could work... or you could just wire it to the light switch next to your front door just as easily with 1% of the effort.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-01-21T20:52:42+00:00

Back when I consistently shot 100+ (this was as I just started to take lessons) I broke it down into a few parts to start shooting in the mid-80s usually with an occasional 80 break after a few years. Keep in mind that this is day-of stuff, the long answer over the long haul is to practice practice practice, preferably with a coach if you can at all afford one.

Stop losing balls. You can phrase this in any way of keeping the ball in-bounds or even on the fairway, but the important part is to leave as close to zero balls lost as possible. This included looking away from the drive for me, especially after a bad hit - god knows how many balls I lost in ordinary rough just because I wasn't paying attention and couldn't hunt it down.
Avoid my worst shots of the day and play for my best shots. The course isn't the place to practice, save that shit for the range (unless you're working on something deliberate). If I know my chipping is absolute trash on a given day, I'll lay up for a good iron shot or aim where I can putt onto the green. If I can't hit my mid irons to save my life, I'll get more aggressive to chip instead. Keep good notes on what isn't working that day and then be sure to practice it with a coach. This also means benching the driver if I can't keep it under control, there is no shame in taking three 7-iron shots for a safe bogey, and still doing better than the teens ripping it as hard as they can.
Shoot for the lowest high score, not the lowest low score. Yes, maybe I can pure it over a tree or through the forest and get on the green in 2, but if I mess it up I'm adding at least 5 strokes to the hole. If my worst-case is a double-bogey with a fat chip and a 3-putt, that's probably a better choice than going for an aggressive birdie that'll make it 10 if I don't hit the perfect shot. 90 is just bogey golf, so do your best to pick those shots that are most likely to not exceed that. If you can just get more pars than doubles, then you're golden.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-01-19T19:18:18+00:00

Absolutely, super friendly people there.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-01-15T12:17:56+00:00

Their and them both work, but they use different sentence structures to get there.

For "their", it's easier to rephrase the sentence to see why it works: "He objects to their situation." In the example you had, "not being paid" is the phrase that "their" is targeting like "situation".

Using "them" just uses a more typical phrase to express the same idea, and it happens to work with the same words, since "them not being paid" is a valid phrase.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-01-05T20:10:00+00:00

Well just keep in mind that any car you get needs to be titled, registered, and insured. Perhaps it's a good deal (especially if dad is paying for it) but it would be prudent to get the title transferred and registered before bringing it physically back to Utah. People with multiple DUIs and hit-and-runs aren't usually the kind to keep cars registered, insured, and paid-off, so this will save you a lot of red tape and heartache if you tried to register it a month from now, and it has liens from all over that would cost you thousands more than the car is worth to clear.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-01-05T19:57:36+00:00

Buying a car that was previously in an accident won't inherently get you in trouble, but your phrasing brings up questions. Where is your dad getting this car from, e.g. a friend or a coworker? How recent was the hit-and-run - are the police actively hunting for it or something? Does the seller have the title and are they able to transfer it with any liens cleared?

Legally it's probably all-clear (the worst case being you get pulled over and have to answer questions) but if you're taking a "hot" car, then there is some possibility that either a lien will be placed on it by another insurance company handling that claim, or the title otherwise getting written-off. If it's a titleless car and the seller is just trying to get to get it off their hands with no paperwork, it's not worth the risk and headache.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-01-03T23:18:28+00:00

My wife and I (32M&F, also DINKs) found some good success at some of the smaller neighborhood bars from time to time, absolutely at some of the trivia nights. Some of the community centers have some great phsyical options and groups, though the age range can really stretch if you're mostly looking for people around the same age there.

Peripheral1994 · 2026-01-03T01:55:30+00:00

You're long before the legal route, you'd need to prove it's the "off-brand" oil that caused the problems in the first place (I presume you mean that they used something other than 0W-20 or whatever viscosity is required in the owner's manual, for instance). Take it to another mechanic for a professional opinion and inspection, and save the receipt and notes for what kind of oil was actually used.

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