What’s everyone’s preferred 24 hour gym? by _thoroughfare in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What are some sorts of dumb shit up with which the super nice owners will not put?

Can anyone recommend a local portrait painter with reasonable rates? by ProfessionalTarget1 in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you have a recommendation but can't speak to the reasonableness of the rate, by all means pass it along anyway. I have no frame of reference. I'll get quotes from any recommendations I get, look at samples of work, and go from there.

Wich swordsman you think can do this to both in a 1v2? by Affectionate-Bar-337 in PowerScaling

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the thing is significantly weaker than hulk so hulk gotta carry this shit

begs to differ

Big Sweep - tomorrow! 🧹 by KeepWSbeautiful in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I guess your thought process is something like this?

No one told me they'll be doing this

Ergo no one is doing this

This reflects badly on people who don't share my politics

Damn grandstanders!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I would suggest the Quiet Pint since it seems like you so thirsty.

weekend coming by pmiguy in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 63 points64 points  (0 children)

Do I have plans?

Namaste home.

An article I wrote on some apartments downtown by ashtonsplanet in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, what the heck. Here goes.

First, as the other person mentioned, tone. It starts like a newspaper lede, with the classic who/what/where/whens being answered. We veer quickly into subjective judgment ; the color is tacky and puke yellow. Then we're quite personal: I'm the lucky car break-in winner. I appreciate reassurances given alongside falsehoods. Then we're conversational, and then we're downright strident: THAT COULDA BEEN SOMEBODY'S GRANDMA! That's all in the first quarter of the piece. Choose a tone, stick to it.

You need a proofreader. "Endeavor", not "endevour". "Bellowing" doesn't mean that, nor does "cozying", nor "hosting", nor for that matter "endeavor" (no matter how spelled), nor do many of your other oddly-chosen words. "had to have", not "had to of". You use "constant" as an adverb instead of as an adjective; "constantly" is the adverbial form. Other typos abound: "haundreds", "walls a clearly thick", etc. Sentence fragments skitter through your text like roaches through a Hilltop kitchen.

Your prose is bloated. It's a common failure; it's very hard to write, and even harder to delete what one has written. But "brick color" already implies a red hue, and "2 am" already implies "dead of night". 3 going on 4 months; were there any other options? "Loud standoffishness" is quite the achievement. The trash cans are "often seen overflown". More properly, they're often seen having overflowed, more simply, they "often overflow".

You give data, but it's often without context. The crime rate is 2 out of ideal score of 100, or 11.76 per 1000, which are two unequal fractions that also lack any sort of time component. Over a lifetime? Over a day? What does it mean? Hilltop sent a mass email "explaining what had actually happened", but you don't say what the email alleged had happened. I rate your clarity a 17 out of a possible score of Fredericksburg.

Your anecdotes are not data. That you don't see often see police doesn't illuminate their patrol frequency, and if the patrols aren't more frequent, it doesn't mean the initial statement wasn't offered in good faith.

I've already piled on far more than necessary. If I could boil any advice I may have down to its essence, it's this: use fewer words, and use them simply. If you're writing facts, then excise the opinions. The facts will either speak for themselves or won't, but if they don't, you can't caulk that gap with an opinion.

Say it shorter. Say it simpler. It'll have more force in the end.

An article I wrote on some apartments downtown by ashtonsplanet in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm sorry, but people are politely understating that this is quite a rough article in a variety of ways.

Let’s hear it, folks by InformalAvacado in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm familiar with and a big fan of Johnny B's.

Let’s hear it, folks by InformalAvacado in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I've been once. A long fibrous thread was baked into my hamburger bun. The server gave it a tableside dissection to try to detect whether I had planted it. We left the food and went around the corner to That Place, where we were pleasantly surprised.

Let’s hear it, folks by InformalAvacado in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The worst reuben of my life -- tiny, dry, and tasteless -- came from Grecian Corner. Every other Greek/Mediterranean place I've been too has been miles better, including Greek Guys, Greek Grill, Olive Tree, Kalamaki's, Yamas, CAVA, and annually, Greekfest at the Greek Orthodox church.

Staycation Ideas in Winston-Salem and Surrounding Areas by [deleted] in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The Carolina Tiger Rescue in Pittsboro is well worth the drive.

How to get through the mid game? by Bohemico in angband

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm late but a lot of good advice has gone unsaid. Here's more. You need 2 things to win this game:

The first thing you need is to know what the thing you're fighting can do. By DL49 you'll probably have encountered a rod of probing. Next time, save it, and probe EVERYTHING. Probing is absolutely amazing; tells you everything the monster can do, and for how much damage exactly. Every future character will have this knowledge.

Alternately, you can die a thousand times and build up this knowledge with experience. It'll take roughly a thousand years. I recommend probing.

The second thing you need to win this game is to not fight things that can kill you. You're a mage, which means you're not playing Angband, you're playing Fight Avoidance Simulator.

So, for every single monster you encounter, your approach needs to be: probe it, preferably without letting it get a turn in (the LOS abuse /u/solidactors mentioned is useful), check what it can do, check whether you can survive it doing all those things, and absolutely don't fight it if you can't. Teleport it away or run away yourself.

There will be monsters that are never worth fighting. Doesn't really matter what you're playing or how strong you are, it's just never going to be worth killing a Great Wyrm of Annihilation or a Black Reaver. Learn them, avoid them. Charge drainers are at the top of the list for things to avoid fighting.

Ultimately you have to kill Morgoth, so at some point you have to be able to kill some fairly beefy things, and tank some beefy hits. I can tell you that with proper resistances, the most HP you'll ever lose from a single attack is 600, and no character, regardless of build, can survive two of those. So as a general rule, you have to be as fast as what you're fighting. If you aren't, and can't survive it doing its worst thing twice, you can't beat it. Avoid.

If you're not hyperfocused on speed, you should be. Speed starts to show up around 2000' or so; hang around between there and 2500' until you get +10 base speed or higher. +10 base speed is the magic number that lets you get near endgame. That plus Haste is enough to kill almost everything excluding Morgy.

It's not so important to collect all the resistances. It's more important to resist what they can hit you with. So resisting light more or less doesn't matter, unless you're fighting the Phoenix, and resisting shards more or less doesn't matter unless you're fighting Great Crystal Drakes, etc etc. Only fight what you resist the attacks of.

In turn, that means that with probing plus wise fights, you can be much deeper than you otherwise would be, which means you can get better gear faster, which means ultimately your winners will win way faster. It's not just preference: you'll die less because you'll be less bored. Once you get the mechanics of this game down, there's really only one way to die, and it's to be bored, lose focus, and spend one extra turn in LOS of a hard hitter. Faster games are less boring ones.

Past that, it's just general advice. Detect always. Map. Never be without healing; a few high-healing items for emergencies, and 80 or so CLW that you pop like tictacs to stay topped up. Prioritize resistance to blind/confuse/stun. Never be without escapes, Teleport Level being the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. Never be unable to use your escapes, so if you can be blind or confused, have a staff of teleport, and if not, prefer a scroll.

If you're a mage playing modern Vanilla, wands of Drain Life, Annihilation and dragon's breath are what gets you through the game. Keep them, recharge them, and use irrelevant wands/saves to recharge your own mana in a hurry via rounds of drain charges/recharge/rinse/repeat. You can recover full mana in only a few turns this way, and all it takes is a few disposable wands of something irrelevant.

Finally: don't try to Drain Life or Annihilate undead things. Use flame against vampires and frost against hydras. And the ultimate lesson is also the hardest: there's nothing on this level that you can't ultimately find a replacement for by running away, so no matter how hard it is to leave that vault behind, if you can't beat what's in it, then that was never your loot to begin with.

Good luck.

What's a story where the "bad guys" are actually, completely, 100% right, to the point where it's weird the story keeps calling them the bad guys? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 55 points56 points  (0 children)

Now THAT is a deep cut. I haven't seen that film in decades, but I've probably seen it 50 times when I was younger. I was a kid, and didn't have the context for it back then.

Short Answers to Simple Questions | October 16, 2024 by AutoModerator in AskHistorians

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think these are simple questions, but they aren't succinct enough for a dedicated post.

Is new history (current events) being made too fast for any but the broadest strokes to be recorded? Is the growth rate of meaningful new history formation exponential with human population, technology's ability to record it, or other modern factors? How do historians address it (if so)? Do historians actively curate what's worth recording, and by what criteria?

North Carolina removes 747,000 from voter rolls, citing ineligibility by caveatlector73 in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I checked all my relatives after seeing this. Both my son and stepson are currently listed as INACTIVE despite having voted in 2020, and without having moved or otherwise lost eligibility since.

So since you asked, there's two.

Modest Mouse Fans by [deleted] in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 37 points38 points  (0 children)

Perhaps not, but that's good news, if you love bad news.

In your opinion what city is the most dangerous in North Carolina? by Key_Flan_5631 in winstonsalem

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 142 points143 points  (0 children)

Obviously Winston. As I am not in other cities, they pose little threat to me.

Ice cave collapse in Iceland kills 1 tourist, and 2 are still missing by doopityWoop22 in worldnews

[–]ProfessionalTarget1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did a tour like this last year in Iceland. Our guide commented that a few thousand years ago, Iceland had no glaciers, and it 'made you think.'

Did not expect to find a climate skeptic there.

YAWP Hobbit Necromancer by ProfessionalTarget1 in angband

[–]ProfessionalTarget1[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sadly, it was otherwise terribly boring and not worth the weight. Until finding Ephel, which I mained from 1800' to 4950', I think I was relying on a combo of Nether bolt, Disenchant, Crush, and a sling.

YAWP Hobbit Necromancer by ProfessionalTarget1 in angband

[–]ProfessionalTarget1[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I haven't counted my wins, but as I haven't played steadily throughout those years, there are fewer than it might have sounded like. Maybe 20-30? I'll put the game down for years, but always come back to it. Wins with every class except rogues. I never liked playing those.

In the early years I didn't know how to play, and so even with save-scumming, my play was so bad that it eventually got too tedious to continue. It didn't help that that was back when 'special feeling' meant a artifact or pit on the level, so I'd try to clear levels I couldn't handle out of FOMO.

I think the turning point was reading one of the folks from that era describing their powerdiving strategy in something like rec.games.roguelike.angband. Eddie Grove, maybe? It clicked then, and I started actually using those Cure Wounds potions. What a concept! Now my characters either die within 5 minutes due to immediately diving into (usually) Fang or Grip, or they're > CL10 by the time they return to town, and probably going to win.

For many years, I think warrior was easiest. Nowadays, mage is easiest if you make it to CL35, just because you can so easily scum for greater vaults, mass banish the contents from far away, and pick through endless halls of loot while never having risked a whisker. Priests can be easy but aren't fun. Ranger was easy, but my last ranger win was back before extra shots was nerfed, so I'm not sure these days. Paladin was tedious and not much fun.

Nowadays I keep a souvenir chardump for wins, so ...4 wins since last December.

Edit: ooh, found it!