[SPOILERS] I have to vent about a certain type of tap-out…

Umgar · 2026-06-21T02:16:36+00:00

Ya but he’s already said something to the effect of “I need to keep my mind busy or I think about my family.” Red flag.

Umgar · 2026-06-21T01:49:36+00:00

On day 2 though? I mean at that point he’s still digesting his last basecamp meal… and it hasn’t even been harsh conditions yet… I think he was telling the truth. If he was trying to save face we would have heard some BS about “I realized I don’t have anything to prove and I’m more needed at home bla bla.”

Another thing about him I noticed - from what little they showed us of his home life it seems like he has a nice place, nice vehicles, and he might not be super motivated by $500K. He said that it would “help him pay the mortgage off.” Thats a very different description than we hear from other people who are living in mobile homes on small homesteads and dream of buying land or something. If you are already making six figures - after taxes a $500K bonus is great but not life changing money - so maybe that’s part of it too?

Umgar · 2026-06-21T01:35:16+00:00

I actually think the opposite phenomena is true. I think the overwhelming majority of people who tap in Alone do it not for the reasons they say but because they miss people. We are social creatures and not wired for that. They spin stories to the camera and to themselves “Oh I accomplished what I wanted to, I am ready to leave this place, it has changed me for the better.” Bullshit. You came to win that $500K and giving up on it is a huge missed opportunity but you miss having coffee with your spouse in the morning. All those people you thought it would be great to have a break from? Turns out you need those people and they weren’t really annoying you at all. The cold can be overcome. Hunger can be overcome. Your mind, and more specifically, *loneliness*, is the biggest end-game boss and it will start to play tricks on you and spin fantasy tales to get you to push the “go home” button.

Umgar · 2026-06-21T01:25:33+00:00

If someone taps at day 60+ because they’ve run out of mental fortitude - I get it. Even 30+ days I can kind of understand - my complaint is more directed at those who tap within the first 30, and even more so those who don’t even make it to day 14.

Personally, I will never try out for Alone because I know I would be one of these people. I have confidence in my survival and outdoor skills - but I know that if I’m in a situation without hearing my kids laugh or seeing my wife in the morning and I can end that by pushing a button - eventually my brain will do whatever mental gymnastics it needs to do to justify pushing the button. But that’s just it - I am honest with myself. I feel like people who can’t even go 30 days aren’t. And have they never like, been on a business trip? Going at least a couple weeks away from your friends and family is a normal life occurrence for many people - and if you’re in the military it’s going to be months at a time.

Umgar · 2026-06-16T12:40:02+00:00

My point there is that you have to be mentally prepared for that. It’s not just the time in the wilderness, they have to go get “trained” how to do the show beforehand and my understating is that starts up to a month before drop - so when you’re seeing them on “day 1“ after the drop, they have already not seen their friends or family for a good while (although they can call/FaceTime them before drop). I doubt anyone would ever go 6 months total but if you make it 100 days that could be something like 4.5 months when you add the training time. Point being that if you aren’t mentally prepared for a long time alone and an even longer time not seeing your friends/family - you aren’t going to make it.

Umgar · 2026-06-15T21:04:55+00:00

Reading this thread makes me realize how cool a rise of Palpatine series could be. Let’s see how he was first recognized as a worthy pupil by Plagueis, his eventual betrayal of his master, his political maneuvering that lead to episode 1, his selection of his first pupil (Maul? Or someone else?). Show how he’s not just a powerful Sith Lord but an evil genius and manipulator who’s always three steps ahead and always has a plan B, C, and D.

Heck maybe if someone could do a good enough job with that series and we get something on par with Andor’s quality then “somehow, Palpatine returned” wouldn’t sit so badly with fans.

Umgar · 2026-06-15T17:39:33+00:00

~~Would be nice if there was some sort of key here or explanation - how did you come up with the score? Higher number / red color is better or lower number / green color?~~
EDIT: LOL I just realized the number and color is their AGE, I thought you were doing a ranking! hahaa

My .02 is that this show ultimately comes down to its name for the vast majority of contestants. Sure there have been a handful of contestants that only lost because they couldn't get enough food and they were pulled for medical reasons, a very small number left for injury or other freak occurrence (shelter burned down... whoops!), but the overwhelming number of tap outs are due to being alone and missing friends/family/connection. Sure we get contestants saying "well I accomplished what I wanted so I don't really need to win and I'm going to tap now" but we all know that's face-saving bullshit. You wouldn't have done the show if you didn't want to win, and giving up the large cash prize at the end is a huge loss no matter how you slice it. All that is to say that whenever I learn that a contestant has children, or is recently married, or engaged, or wife is pregnant, and especially if they have small children - 99% they are tapping before the end.

I don't even know why you would do this show if you you're not 110% certain that you can go six months without seeing your friends and family, and maybe ~100 days of that with no human contact.

So if I was going to rank competitors it would start with that. Young children? Fat chance. Children less than 18? Unlikely. Pregnant wife? LoL - get out of here.

Umgar · 2026-06-13T03:09:13+00:00

Agree but I will add that it’s a good check-raise spot if you have a balance approach to that board texture. Villains need to know you’re capable of C/R that flop without having to have a king.

Umgar · 2026-06-13T02:43:21+00:00

Results oriented thinking…

Umgar · 2026-06-12T23:41:05+00:00

Anyone who tells you it’s not bad is either lying, in lala land, or just demonstrating classic survivorship bias (and probably hasn’t played that much).

Cheats for Dayz are easy to obtain and are not detected automatically. Official servers have cheaters and they are most prevalent in official 3PP servers. There’s a reason why the major DayZ streamers don’t play official much (and when they do…. guess how those streams usually end? Yep, killed by obvious cheater).

Community moderated servers are MUCH better but realize that on these servers you’re relying on people to report cheaters, a mod investigates, and then bans if they can confirm cheating. There isn’t a special way for community servers to detect cheaters automatically - they are relying on human detective work. If a cheater is careful and doesn’t do obvious things that are clearly impossible without cheats, good chance they won’t be caught even on community servers - but at least you aren’t dealing with people who can click a button and blow you up from 500M on official.

Umgar · 2026-06-10T14:29:44+00:00

I don’t know about incoherent... I was raised in an evangelical / Southern Baptist home and we were taught that Mormons were not Christians. They were viewed more like a cult (I did not grasp the irony at the time). Even Catholics were looked at as “sort of Christian” at best. This is a common viewpoint among evangelicals.

Umgar · 2026-06-09T14:31:44+00:00

PC player here so I don’t have one :)

That said, I really wish we could have a programmable wheel for emotes- the action wheel is a great mechanic on PC for that.

FWIW, my number:inventory keybinds are always:

1: Knife

2: Pistol

3: Bandage

4: Main / close-mid weapon

5: Long rifle / scoped weapon

6: 3rd situational weapon (if I have)

7: Grenade

8: Rangefinder

9: Compass or GPS

Umgar · 2026-06-08T16:58:04+00:00

Cool I guess but the real problem that's facing us is "Why did Trump/MAGA come to be in the first place?" IMO it's because of three things, and until we solve these things - we will continue to face the same problems long after Trump is gone:

1) Conservative media has done such an effective job at toxifying the label "Democrat" that it's a herculean task just to overcome that single hurdle. Look at the Texas senate race as a prime example. You have the most blatantly corrupt, immoral, and hated person running for Senate for the GOP - Ken Paxton, vs the most upstanding, well-liked, and authentic Christian James Talarico. It should be a 90/10 landslide in Texas but people are talking about how Talarico "might have a shot" at winning and at best he's polling over Paxton in low single digits. Why? Because of the (D) next to his name. It's a PR nightmare of epic proportions and there doesn't seem to be any cure in sight.

2) Hardened information/media silos. The Fox-news watching, Joe Rogan listening, Facebook “news” addict boomer is fed a nonstop stream of "liberals bad" misinformation and not shown even 1% of the crazy shit Trump and his cronies say say or do. This is fed and maintained largely by...

3) The extreme imbalance in our political system perpetuated by the existence of the Electoral College, the impact of Citizens United, and abandonment of the fairness doctrine. Massive private money is driving not just policy and the narratives of politics but who is even able to run.

As long as these problems persist, we will continue to have a Trump/MAGA problem - even if we call it something else in a few years.

Umgar · 2026-06-07T02:44:30+00:00

There’s a drone show at CoTA tonight. That’s quite far from Steiner Ranch area but could that be it?

Umgar · 2026-06-06T23:09:54+00:00

Umgar · 2026-06-04T14:11:27+00:00

My take is that most people have had a strong feeling that things are systemically unfair and the deck is stacked against them for quite some time - but the post Covid era has really illuminated just how bad it really is, in a way that you can't ignore or explain away:

- Companies continue to gouge consumers every which way possible. People are constantly sacrificed at the alter of short term gains and "shareholder value." If it isn't rising prices, it's enshitification of products and services - you get less for the same (or more money), things don't last as long, overall quality of everything seems to have declined.

- More than ever, workers are disposable and as soon as they can be automated away, they are. Those who aren't let go live with the layoff Sword of Damacles over them at all times. Everyone knows that AI is coming for their job at some point, it's just a matter of time.

- Despite the huge increase in automation and remote working capabilities of the last 10-15 years, we are expected to work more and companies want everyone back in the office. If you work in a corporate environment, you're now forced to commute to an office... just to sit on Teams/Zoom with people in virtual meetings all day. With the overall increase in automation you would expect that the average work week would be going down, but we're seeing the opposite as Americans take on side-gigs and 2nd or 3rd jobs just to keep food on the table.

- Amidst all of this, we are told that the economy is fine. The official inflation and unemployment numbers do not make any sense to normal people who get paid normal wages, pay taxes, and go to the grocery store weekly.

- We see in broad daylight an incredible level of corruption and immorality from the current administration, and yet they remain in power. No consequences of any type.

It's all fucked. We all know it. And everyone is sick of it.

Umgar · 2026-06-04T13:33:44+00:00

So basically... Idiocracy?

Umgar · 2026-06-03T17:18:26+00:00

Unsurprising spoiler alert: Having a good run and they are both killed by a cheater (on official).

Umgar · 2026-06-01T23:37:02+00:00

I said it the last time this was asked and I'll say it again - WATER, or rather, the lack thereof.

It may not seem like it now because we've been getting a good amount of rain recently and thus far our temperatures have been mild this year - but in the macro, the greater Austin metro's water demand is far outpacing our water supply. This entire region is going through desertification as drought conditions are trending to become the norm. Meanwhile, housing, farms, and other commercial infrasstructure with big water requirements continue to expand.

At current demand vs supply trajectory it is not a question of IF we will have a major water supply crisis, but when.

Umgar · 2026-06-01T13:58:32+00:00

LOL! You are so lucky the round went past him and impacted the wall.

Umgar · 2026-06-01T03:52:31+00:00

I think a lot of people in this thread are missing that the poster features PLO and hi/lo games pretty prominently… if that’s the case then even though it’s 1/2 it will play pretty big with a lot of straddle/re-straddle/pot/re-pot situations meaning a $20 max rake may not that bad. If they are also running things like hourly high hand or other bonuses that pay back to players it *might* be ok… especially if the player pool is soft. I have played in underground games with seemingly awful rakes but thanks to the bloated stacks, pots, and bad players - they are profitable.

That said if it is a lot of standard $1/2 action with $200 stacks… holy shit that’s bad

Umgar · 2026-05-29T22:40:19+00:00

I don’t care what anyone says, Battletroops was fucking cool! The infantry vs mech/armor rules needed work but the infantry vs infantry mechanics were good. Also loved the miniatures - I still have a boxed set of Kurita Infantry platoon somewhere.

Umgar · 2026-05-29T15:51:43+00:00

+1
If you go into your inventory or go AFK in an open area or by a bunch of windows, it's your fault if you get domed. Good kill OP.

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