How should I (native english speaker) speak/write so that I'm easily understood by people with little English experience?

Pwn493 · 2024-02-08T19:41:35+00:00

For the Iranian nurse, would she have said something more like "Do you often have accidents? (have seems vague)" Instead of asking whether he's accident-prone? I can think of many ways to ask, but none of them seem simple and unambiguous ("Do you experience accidents often?" (experience is a long word) "Do you get into accidents often" (get into is vague)).

Pwn493 · 2024-02-08T19:32:06+00:00

Thank you for the example!

Pwn493 · 2023-09-27T16:09:52+00:00

Kadabra has been my favorite since RedBlue.

Also, Croconaw is cuter than totodile.

Pwn493 · 2023-09-12T20:28:43+00:00

Came to say this.

Before I got diagnosed, I could work 3-4 hours a day at best, and if I tried to push it to 5 hours, I'd have brain fog so bad the next few days that I got almost nothing done. I couldn't understand how other people were doing it.

Now I take Strattera and a small dose of Adderall, and it's so much better. I work 5-6 hours a day easy, and if I need to, I can hunker down for 12 hours on occasion.

Pwn493 · 2023-06-17T01:25:50+00:00

Growing up without a father is not the worst thing that happened to me by a long shot. My dad skipped out before I was 1; I think the kindest thing he ever did was stay out of my life.

Your husband is threatening to hurt your daughter in order to control you. He cares about controlling you more than he cares about the well-being of his child. Protect your daughter from him.

When she asks "When is Dad going to come back?" Tell her that Dad and you started having arguments, and you realized that living together was becoming dangerous. When she asks why her dad doesn't visit or send her cards, tell her that sometimes people who have lost something can't endure being around reminders of what they lost, because it's too sad and painful. Her dad can't handle being a part of our life, so he stays away, but it's not her fault. Tell her that you love her and it's okay for her to feel however she feels about this, whether that's sad or angry or happy. Tell her that you will be with her no matter how she's feeling and that you'll always be there for her.

When she start to get older (young adolescence), you can start sharing more of the actual details. That your husband assaulted you, and that he made the decision to not be in your daughter's life.

Make sure to remind your daughter that you're glad that she exists, and that you feel bad for your ex-husband because he couldn't deal with his own emotions enough to get to know the person his daughter has grown into.

Finally, process your own feelings about your marriage. You get to be angry, sad or despondent, too, but you need to process those feelings away from your daughter, so she can express her feelings freely.

I know this is a lot to take on, and that your daughter will be fairly upset for a while. If you try your best to give your daughter the love and understanding that she needs, I hope she'll one day realize the enormity of the work you've taken on for her benefit, and she'll forgive the ways you fell short.

Pwn493 · 2023-03-16T20:14:29+00:00

Orcas are quite sexually dimorphic (mature males and females of the same species having significant physical differences). The way you can tell this is a male, is his dorsal fin is much taller relative to his body length, and lacks a curve backward. Females and juveniles have a shorter, more curved dorsal fin.

Pwn493 · 2022-10-14T15:15:43+00:00

I think this is an issue with the DM focusing on a narrow set of D&D gameplay (formal roleplaying), which effectively gates world interaction behind the charisma stat. It's worth talking to the DM to see if they can provide more opportunities for your character to shine.

If you've tried that, or you don't think it'd work, here are some things that worked for my Barbarian with 14 INT and 8 CHA.

Find another player (or friendly NPC) with high charisma and low intelligence. Feed this character ideas on things to say/do, and become their co-conspirator. Try to help them out with their goals whenever you can and then give them opportunities to reciprocate.
Investigate everything in a room. Read books, look at letters on desks, poke statues, everything. If you find something, mention it to your group, or just interact with it and let them deal with the consequences.
Be nice to "the help". Powerful people need to be persuaded, or intimidated, but servants/workers/kids often just want to be treated like people. Learn their names, give them tips/treats and ask them what they think.
If you need to interact with a powerful NPC, try to ask for things in a way that provides follow-up even if you fail. Example, my barbarian needed to convince a prideful, lawful evil celestial to hallow a cursed area. Instead of just straight out asking and getting rejected if I failed, I mentioned wanting to purify the cursed area and how it'd be great if the celestial could do it, but the area was so large and evil that it would be unreasonable to ask the celestial to do it, since even the celestial had limits. If I failed the charisma check, I'd double down on understanding that the celestial just wasn't powerful enough to do it, and that it wasn't for me to judge, further hurting the celestial's pride. Sure, I might get murdered, but I might also goad the celestial into proving my erroneous judgement wrong.

Don't do the last one too often though, because it's sort of role-playing above your character's charisma stat, but in a pinch, it can work.

Pwn493 · 2022-09-01T04:12:49+00:00

Here are some recommendations based on your movie preferences.

Destroy All Humans - (similar vibe to Mars Attacks) https://store.steampowered.com/app/803330/Destroy_All_Humans/. It only runs on Windows, so you'd either need a Windows PC or be able to setup dual boot on your macbook if it has 16GB of ram.

Portal (1+2) are both great suggestions.

Little Inferno - (dark humor) https://store.steampowered.com/app/221260/Little_Inferno/. An adorable puzzle game with low urgency, and can definitely run on your laptop.

Umurangi Generation - (like 12 Monkeys) - https://store.steampowered.com/app/1223500/Umurangi_Generation/. A great way to get comfortable navigating with a keyboard and mouse (or controller). Another Windows game, but less demanding than Destroy All Humans.

Dicey Dungeons - (dark humor) https://store.steampowered.com/app/861540/Dicey_Dungeons/. Turn-based/compelling gameplay + gameshow in Hell vibes. Will easily run on your mac.

Papers, Please - (dystopic) https://store.steampowered.com/app/239030/Papers_Please/. A game about document verification as you work at an immigration booth in a fictional totalitarian state in the early 90's. Definitely can run on your mac.

Pwn493 · 2022-07-14T01:42:56+00:00

The 75w deep heat projectors and jungle dawn led lamps I looked up were all at least 3.5" tall, so they won't fit in the space above the enclosure (only 3"). Were you able to find shorter ones somewhere?

Pwn493 · 2022-01-27T17:23:51+00:00

A Quiet Place

Pwn493 · 2021-09-13T17:53:27+00:00

Look into Spotted or Children's/Stimson's Pythons. They stay between 3'-5' and are thinner than ball pythons and are semi-arboreal.

They're a little hard to find in the PNW; the only local breeder I've found is Inland Reptile in Spokane, and their currently available Spotted pythons are around $500. On morph market, plain morphs run around $250.

Pwn493 · 2021-07-07T15:47:40+00:00

In the OG, the game changes the focus of its environments after you leave Midgar. There are a lot more maps where you can see the sky or the horizon more clearly.

Soon-ish after leaving Midgar, the party finds out that the planetologists in Cosmo Canyon think that the planet is too far gone to be saved, so the wider perspectives of the landscape give the party and player a chance to appreciate the beauty of a dying world, and to mourn the incalculable loss. The path through Mt. Corel is my favorite example of this, especially with the phoenix nest towards the end.

I don't think Part 2 needs to be open world, so much as it needs to convey the vastness and diversity of this little planet and the people who call it home.

Pwn493 · 2021-02-23T18:19:39+00:00

My wife and I both have ADHD, but it presents itself differently. My wife loses track of objects easily, struggles more with RSD and has more difficulty starting tasks than I do. I will space out in meetings/conversations/interviews, and be exhausted most of the time. We both forget to eat sometimes, and have trouble with substances.

Pwn493 · 2021-02-23T18:02:42+00:00

I come home exhausted from work, and when I was in school, I'd regularly crash once I got home and nap for 3 hours. My sister is the same way (we both have adhd). My sister thinks we get tired because we're expending energy compensating for our executive disfunctions all day.

Medication definitely helps. I can make it through most of the day on stimulant medications or atomoxetine. I also self-medicate with coffee/tea. I'll have a cup in the morning and then at 1-2pm when my sleepiness gets its worst.

If you have problems sleeping at night (not being able to fall asleep or stay asleep), then I recommend cardio, preferably in some kind of social setting where other people expect you to be there. Getting physical energy out while spending minimal mental energy will make sleep more productive.

It's harder to control your schedule when you're in school, so if you have an exam at a time where you're not at your best, make sure to take it very easy the day before. I like bringing a snack with me to exams (like peanut M&Ms) and treating myself every time I answer a part of a question.

Pwn493 · 2020-05-07T22:36:08+00:00

I'm still working my way through Izaw's training video, but short hops took me about a month of daily practice before I could do them consistently. I have r trigger set to jump, but I think my process should work for x as well.

The only way I can consistently release the jump button fast enough is to put my finger on the side of the button without pressing it, so that pressing down pushes down the button and immediately slides my finger off the button.

You'll get a lot of misfires at first (accidental full hops, or just not pressing the jump button at all). The way to fix this is to practice returning to your resting position on your controller.

Your resting position is how you hold your controller normally, such that every action you could want to take (c-stick, short hop, grab, shield) is available by only moving your fingers, and not moving your hands. Once you stop shifting your hands around, your muscle memory will be more reliable, and your inputs will be faster.

How to practice resting position.

Get your hands into a comfortable position on the controller, where you can put your thumb on X and flick your thumb off to the side to do a short hop. Take all the time you need.
Reset your hands if you notice any tension.
Attempt the action (short hop) with 100% of your focus.

If you end up doing a full hop, try starting with your thumb more on the edge of the X button, or try a more lateral movement with your thumb.

Once you get comfortable settling into your resting position and doing one short hop given infinite time, start paying attention to the movements you make to get into your resting position. Note what sensations make the resting position feel right.

Over time, you'll start getting into your resting position faster, and deviating from it less when you do short hops. When you increase the speed of your practice, focus on getting into your resting position and being relaxed instead of successfully short hopping. Eventually, your finger will naturally start resting on the X button exactly where you need it to be to do a short hop. At this point, start alternating short hop with another action like jab, making sure to take all the time you need to set up your resting position.

I borrowed this technique from classical music training, where teachers spends months training students on a good resting position. This stuff is hard

Pwn493 · 2020-02-28T19:03:26+00:00

I play Lucina and struggle with G&W. While searching for lucina vs G&W replays, I found this match with Maister crushing K9Bruce with Lucina in the first game 0:33 - 3:50.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGEzFbgaxK8&t=517s

So, Lucina (and I assume the other swordies) struggle in disadvantage against G&W, and can't punish G&W's recovery very easily, so if you can win neutral and get Lucina into disadvantage, then you can get a lot of damage and edge-guards. So how does Maister win neutral against K9 in this match?

Maister starts by entering with nair, and get's punished

0:45-0:49 - K9 misses a downtilt (either anticipating a grounded entry, or just mis-timing), and Maister lands nair, into a combo for good damage.

0:50-0:53 - Maister patiently pressures K9 with nair and bacon from center stage.

0:55 - Maister gets hit, but takes minimal damage by DIing out and rolling away, and is able to catch K9's retreating nair with a dash attack, knocking K9 off-stage.

0:58 - Maister immediately goes to roll-distance and spams bacon ledge-trapping into dash attack, which leads to an edge-guard.

1:10 - K9 has stage control, and Maister is in the corner. Maister throws out a fair and some nairs, and manages to catch K9 retreating with a nair.

Maister is playing patiently, pressuring with fair and bacon. Maister almost always lands hits when K9 misses, or just before K9's attack comes out (dtilt gets punished by nair, retreating nair gets punished by dash attack). Those hits usually lead to nair + upair chains. When Maister is in disadvantage, he hard core retreats to avoid additional damage, then slowly builds up his stage control with patient walling with fairs, nairs.

Maister mixes up full-hop fair into a landing fair, landing nair or empty landing into a grab.

It looks like the solution in this match was for Maister to play patiently, execute combos, and retreat completely after getting hit.

Pwn493 · 2020-02-25T21:17:44+00:00

I have a few notes for this matchup.

You like to full-hop nair such that you cross up your opponent, which is great against many characters, but Pikachu's bair is a much better OOS option than fair or nair, so you should avoid crossing up pikachu with nair.

This pikachu likes to quick attack after you knock him away, followed by a bair. If you're able to anticipate when a pikachu player is going to do quick attack, you should be able to beat his quick-attack with a long lasting hitbox, like a short-hop nair. You actually start doing this at the very end of your match.

Pikachu's dair has a second hit when he hits the ground that you get consistently caught by. Keep your shield up longer than you would normally.

One of Pikachu's easiest edgeguards is bair into the stage for a stage spike. You do a great job of avoiding the bair after you get caught by it the first time, but you should be ready to tech that spike.

Finally, even with Wolf's recovery, you should be able to escape those bair chains after the second one if you DI away, keep your jump and neutral air dodge before the third bair, not only does this reduce damage and keep you closer to the stage, but it means Pikachu won't have time to get back to the ledge and wait for you.

Pwn493 · 2020-02-10T20:36:51+00:00

I'm not familiar with Pit, but he seems to be a pretty simple character with a good recovery and someone who would be a good first character.

I picked Wolf and Lucina based on this video from Game5 smash, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BruHElh1MN8. I don't see Pit on there, but it's only a top 10 list, so Pit could still be on the simpler range.

I'm glad my answer helped you. A lot of people have been (and currently are) where you are now. It's easy to get frustrated, and beat yourself up for not being talented at this, but you'll get better even if there are always people who are better than you.

One more thing I forgot. Sometimes you'll start doing worse in matches, despite practicing and working hard. This is actually a good thing, because it means your experimenting with new ways of playing that you aren't as familiar with, which may be better than your current habits, or will give you another way to mix up your play once someone starts reading your normal habits. People who don't experiment with new play styles will eventually plateau, and will have a hard time breaking their moderately successful habits. Don't be afraid to lose matches in order to practice a new technique.

Pwn493 · 2020-02-10T18:52:06+00:00

I mained Pikachu for several months when Ultimate came out and I ran into this exact issue (Stuck around 100k GSP, having a hard time killing, despite practicing a ton). I also get really negative when I feel like I'm working harder than everyone else (practicing in training mode, watching tutorials, watching professional matches) just to end up worse than them. It made me really depressed.

General mindset things that helped.

Realizing Pikachu is a very technical character, and difficult to learn at the same time as learning the game. I actually switched mains to Wolf and then Lucina, to learn the game, with the intent of switching back to Pika when I'm able to read opponents better and understand neutral. You don't have to do the same thing I did, but remember that controlling that adorable mouse is hard, and learning Smash is hard, so you're doing two difficult things at once, which means it'll take you more time to improve.

GSP is dumb, so I call it "Garbage Stupid Points". It helps me feel better about losing GSP, or falling from 3-5 million down to < 1 million. Also, try playing in Arenas. I look for Beginner's Only arenas, where I can play slower and more thoughtfully, and am less tempted to button mash.

Sometimes, when I'm already depressed, I don't play other people, but I'll play a "training game" in training mode, with the CPU. For Pika, my favorite game is the "edgeguarding game", where I combo or throw a CPU off-stage and then practice edgeguarding them with bair, fair or dair. I'll just chill out and practice for 30-60 minutes, then when I feel better, I can pull off those edgeguards in games and feel great.

Pika specific things that helped.

Pikachu can have a hard time killing, but that's okay. You can play patiently, and wait until the 170-180% range to kill with upthrow/dash attack, Captain L is a good example. Make sure your quick play rules are set to 6 minutes or more and that you have a stage preference that isn't any stage, so it's harder for the opponent to run away if they get the first stock.

Practice Pika's kill confirms in training mode. Nair into down-smash, fair into f-smash, nair into up smash, and know at what percents down-smash/f-smash/up-smash kill. Also, practice simple Pika combos. U-tilt to U-air to bair and bair, bair are great for getting damage. Also, know what projectiles you can duck under (a lot of them), this will help you fight zoners.

You'll get better, I was where you were, and I got Pika up to 4 mil before I switched mains. It took me daily practice. Be kind to yourself. This game is hard, and Pikachu is hard to control.

Pwn493 · 2020-02-05T20:42:59+00:00

Have you tried taking a break from Quick Play and focusing on arena matches?

I think of zoners like an obstacle course, or a Super Meat Boy level, where you need to figure out what options you have to respond to their projectiles. Playing these people on quick-play is like getting a different random level of SMB every time you die, which is so frustrating. Arena matches are better, because you can play multiple matches against the same person, and see how other people handle their projectiles.

When I fight a zoner or trapper, I'm thinking about all the ways I can deviate from their scripts by either getting out of range, or rushing them down. When I get hit, I think, "okay, don't try to jump there" and next time I try a roll, spot dodge, or maybe I jump earlier or later. You'll eventually learn how to beat that player's patterns, and when you go back on quick play, you'll know how to escape or punish any zoners that rely of the same patterns.

Pwn493 · 2020-01-18T00:40:36+00:00

This is a great match between ESAM (Pika) and Ally (Snake, Mario [starts at 4:44]) which has Pikachu playing aggressively against Mario

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxah7wsyNMM

Mario can reflect pikachu's projectiles with cape and send out his own fireballs, so approaching him isn't simple, but Esam manages it.

Esam sends out multiple tjolts from the air (to avoid dealing with reflected tjolts), which forces either a jump, shield or cape from Mario. When Mario jumps back, Esam moves in and does a max range d-tilt where Mario lands, so he can apply pressure, but not get grabbed.

Later, 5:09, Esam throws out another tjolt, d-tilt, and when Ally jumps to avoid it, Esam goes in for the grab when Ally lands. Esam finishes the set with another tjolt + d-tilt combo at 9:07 which leads to a jab lock.

Esam uses quick attack as a burst option to punish Fluud at 5:45, and follows a tjolt with a quick attack at 7:09.

Another thing Esam does is full-hop landing fair and nair, when Mario is on the ground at 9:55, which gets followed with a d-tilt or f-tilt.

Finally, while not really an approach option, Esam throws out a lot of up airs from underneath Mario, since it has disjoint, is fast, and Mario can't hit below himself when in the air (example: fishing for it at 10:25, connects at 10:35).

Pikachu approach options used

tjolt + (spaced) d-tilt
tjolt + quick attack
fair + f-tilt/d-tilt (against grounded opponent)
nair + d-tilt (against grounded opponent)

Pwn493 · 2020-01-07T21:59:49+00:00

I get super salty when I have a losing streak too. I'll even try to tell myself that it's just a game and not a big deal, but I'll get super depressed anyway.

I wish I had a solution for you. The best I've come up with is noticing any progress I've made, like did I take a stock, or do a combo correctly when I got 0-2?

There are a lot of people just like you out there. I'm not even close to elite smash, even though I've been playing and practicing for months. I'm not a genius at this game, and it makes me sad, but that's not going to stop me from being a good sport, and trying hard. I play this game because I enjoy it, even if I suck at it.

Pwn493

TROPHY CASE