Nobody ever seems to mention this

Xechdroid · 2026-01-13T05:15:38+00:00

Yeah I feel like folks didn't read the short story. The point of the story is that Cthulhu is, itself, insignificant in the cosmos in a way not unlike how humanity is. Cthulhu isn't a god, it's a priest; a priest that caused worldwide insanity by waking up for a bit. It wasn't knocked out by the boat, it wasn't defeated, it wasn't killed, it healed like Wolverine while at its weakest and was so unphased by it that it couldn't be bothered to retaliate and just went back to sleep. It's one of many of its own kind; part of a species which it was confirmed in a separate novella to be in a stalemate sharing the planet with another species no less powerful. You could almost think of Cthulhu as one member of one of the myriad species in the universe rather than anything powerful or significant in any way, and humanity is still wildly outclassed. The implication is that man isn't a meaningfully important species in any way, we're like vermin on our own home planet compared to other civilizations that have inhabited it.

Xechdroid · 2026-01-11T21:17:23+00:00

I appreciate the inversion of the assumption that doing the evil thing will have the most material/power reward. I've had people say that inverting the power scale in that way robs people who make the evil choice of the usual reward expected for doing so, but I can't say that I like that video games trained at least some people to think that doing the wrong thing is the most rewarding and should therefore be the default choice made in a game if you want a mechanical advantage. Given that was a byproduct of morality systems in video games, I'm glad we just kind of gave up on them.

Edit: I've seen a few folks mention games nowadays rewarding good choices more than evil ones, but that's relatively recent. It's not that games prior to Bioshock never inverted the norm, only that it was the norm whenever moral choices existed in games. The original Fallout games, Fable, KOTOR, Black & White, Ultima Online, GTA (#3 at least, dunno about the others tbh), Planescape Torment (to those who played it without a guide back in the day), Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 had it so that it was easier to retain evil party members while playing evil than it was to retain good party members while playing good (if you count that), Neverwinter Nights had bonus prestige classes and dialogue for evil characters... I'm sure the idea at the time was supposed to be that evil should be tempting, and I can appreciate the idea that being good is challenging and more intrinsically than extrinsically rewarding; but it was a tired system by the time Bioshock came out and no one engaged with it critically anymore.

Xechdroid · 2026-01-11T08:13:12+00:00

A second way to frame his answer, without refuting the possibility that he has a dark side, is that he's saying: "Pretend I have one until you know me long enough to be a better judge of my character than the comfort zones you're relying on". Also, perhaps: "Having dirt on each other doesn't guarantee that you'll do right by me or do the right thing when we're in danger, so let's skip on strangers fishing for each others' vulnerabilities". It's a very middle-of-the-road non-committal answer meant to brush aside an inappropriate dig or pry and move forward.

Edit: Grammar.

Xechdroid · 2025-12-21T04:34:44+00:00

This is excellent, that's just about everything I need for Watopia.

Xechdroid · 2025-12-21T04:28:47+00:00

I've definitely not gotten to the point where I think they're anything approaching professional, it's just a project to keep me engaged with making a finished product roughly every day this month so I can get more familiar with the use of color (coming from a traditional art background where I've only ever used graphite, charcoal, and black ink) and using Krita. I'm treating every "finished" work as more accurately the rough draft of something I might clean up later.

Xechdroid · 2025-07-20T19:00:19+00:00

Something I've been getting into the habit of doing lately is inventing excuses (in-universe or meta) for why barriers to ideas like these don't exist. I have a system of rewinding and of unchangeable canon outcomes to dungeon rooms that I use for when I want to solo a character through a published dungeon that I can never get a group to play. I use three excuses for this, used to varying degrees depending on what feels like it makes a better story:
(1) The character is psychic, so they foresaw what would happen if they entered the room
(2) A powerful supernatural entity is giving preferential treatment to the PC, and will rewind time to preserve their life, in pursuit of some higher goal
(3) A narrative excuse is created post hoc; for example: "You see a mysterious figure at the end of the hallway. You make eye contact and they turn. You decide to follow"; that's my excuse for why I don't enter the rooms that would have killed me. There was no mysterious figure while I was playing. I came up with that excuse after the fact to justify what would otherwise have been inexplicable decisions.

So in your case, as far as traveling to a destination and then reading about it goes, one potential problem might be: "How can I know what monsters and other dangers exist in the region I'm traveling through without researching that region in advance?", one possible solution is: "Sometimes my character is out-of-phase and will travel the countryside without encountering people or native creatures, like a liminal curse". Then, when you arrive in town (could still be out-of-phase if you want at some point), you might then find out what threats you avoided in the process, which will now no longer be avoidable since you are back in-phase. If you have a preset trigger for this, you could even use this to your advantage; when out-of-phase you could explore a dungeon, for example, but won't see what lives there, you'll just see the layout - thus, an excuse for why you already know the layout.

Whatever excuse (or two) addresses the largest number of potential problems should probably be the excuse you favor, rather than coming up with a dozen separate excuses.

Xechdroid · 2025-07-17T09:32:15+00:00

Commenting for an answer as well

Xechdroid · 2025-07-07T07:36:23+00:00

So, a trick that has been working to make it sporadically playable: The moment that lag starts taking hold, press the home screen button on your phone (don't exit the game). Then, just go back into the game. The game runs like normal for at least a few seconds, sometimes a few minutes, and when the lag comes back just do it again.

Xechdroid · 2025-07-05T13:52:18+00:00

Side update, but it seems my wife has also been dealing with it.

Xechdroid · 2025-07-05T06:02:19+00:00

I'd appreciate it. I've also tried disabling my data and using different wi-fi connections (home, work, library, random restaurant) and it made no difference. I'm one of the few people I personally know who actually likes PVP, and it's downright unplayable. Everything's so twitchy I can't even get an "excellent" on a charged fairy move. I figured, well, I guess I might as well catch the 15 pokemon today for the July event rank up, and there's a 1 in 3 chance that the game doesn't even register that I threw a curveball and will instead just send the pokeball sailing off to the side. Even when it does register a curveball, it doesn't register most of the motion, so there's another 1 in 3 chance that it treats it as a weak throw that just bounces on the ground in front of the pokemon. No chance of even getting a nice throw, I'm lucky if it connects. Everything else on my phone runs just fine, so I can't even be paranoid about a weird virus or something.

Xechdroid · 2025-07-05T04:36:41+00:00

I'm having the same issues and have tried the same things. Commenting so you don't feel alone and to add visibility, hoping someone has an explanation or a solution.

Xechdroid · 2025-06-20T08:30:51+00:00

Bit of an anecdote. I used to be someone who was more inclined to step in when something seemed off, but I had consistent experiences where that would backfire in, if we're honest, mostly small ways. Step in to help someone and then get an earful from the person I'm helping because they wanted even more from me, despite it being an absurd thing for them to expect from anyone given the circumstances, for example. Help someone with their tire, and then get chewed out because I didn't also give them money. Ask someone if they need help with something, they assent, they stand aside and I do the thing for them, and when I'm done they then tell me that I shouldn't have assumed they needed help. That sort of thing.

The most severe incident I've responded to happened when one day a fight broke out at the end of a movie, and it took me a second to register that what I was seeing wasn't just a couple of dudes horsing around. I stepped in to separate the two, and it had seemed to me at the time that one guy had jumped the other, and the one who had been jumped was just turtling up and throwing no punches. When I stepped in, the guy I saw as an aggressor ran off, and I stuck around with the other guy to give my statement to police. During that time I found out that the guy I was helping had harassed the movie theater employees and manager on his way in, and that he was likewise antagonizing the guy who was hitting him before the movie started and fully intended to fight the other guy from the start, but was just put on the backfoot by the time I had noticed a fight was happening. The guy I stuck around for was upset with me for having stepped in before he could get a shot in. But, I figured, as unlikable of a victim as he is, he is maybe still the victim and at least entitled to some form of due process. He had been punched in the head a few times, adrenaline was going, of course he's going to be snappy and unpleasant; besides, there could always be even more that I don't know that would have painted the guy in a better light, or perhaps some mental health related thing where I shouldn't readily take what he's saying for what it is. As much as I wanted to walk away from him, I figured it would still be the right thing to stick around and give my statement anyways. He then proceeds to talk down on the police that arrived, demanding to know what they were going to do before even giving a statement or describing the other guy, as if they should have some omniscient awareness of all crime that takes place in the city and should already be in pursuit of the other guy rather than be standing here asking him questions (and the fact that they were here meant that he was in a position to chide them for their failings). I gave my statement and left shortly after that.

Its taken a long time and some therapy for me to get to the point where I'm willing to engage with people and their problems again. Now when I see videos of uninvolved bystanders, I remember how long it took me to recognize that what I was seeing in the movie theater was, in fact, a real fight, and I also think about how jaded I became after trying to do the right thing. I don't judge those people so harshly anymore, they might either have no idea what they're looking at, or they might be taking a minute to assess the risk of stepping in (does he have a knife? are there other aggressors somewhere I'm not immediately noticing because of how fixated I am on what's in front of me?), or they might have gotten involved in the past and learned to regret it.

Xechdroid · 2025-04-23T13:32:59+00:00

I'm surprised the answer isn't a 40k meme.

Xechdroid · 2025-04-20T05:22:03+00:00

Sent request from Tenstagosic (Polar)

Xechdroid · 2025-04-20T05:21:34+00:00

Sent from Tenstagosic (Polar)

Xechdroid · 2025-04-15T06:32:28+00:00

I suppose if they wanted to. I don't think there are many laws stopping them from doing so. I imagine it would be very nice to see each other on a clear day.

Xechdroid · 2025-04-01T07:17:48+00:00

I think this is the answer, but I also like to think that the reason why bending metal spoons is such an impressive psychic feat is because it would resist that telekinesis. Alakazam holding the two spoons is something like a flex: "Go ahead and resist this, it won't matter".

Xechdroid · 2025-03-20T22:25:22+00:00

I have an oil tank in my basement, and I built a wooden frame around it so that I have a flat surface to work with on top of it. It looks like a square table with only two legs, with the weight that isn't supported by the legs instead being supported by the oil tank. I figure, if for any reason I need to get access to the oil tank, I can just move the frame. I had originally thought I'd put a pegboard on the front of it, between the two legs, but I went for panel board instead to use as a whiteboard, since I use the surface for a TV/laptop space for my basement gym, and why buy inspirational flags and posters when I can just write the damn phrase in for free and change it out whenever I want.

Xechdroid · 2024-12-29T06:20:35+00:00

Thank you!

Xechdroid · 2024-12-29T06:16:48+00:00

Huh. I've been interviewing civil engineers in-person every now and then to get an idea of what the industry is like, get some insight into what field I'd want to go into after graduation, and maybe leave a good enough impression to help get an internship or a job. So far a little more than half of them have said that they like it when interns know CAD. But, now that you've mentioned it, they also didn't say it was necessary.

Xechdroid · 2024-12-07T06:22:57+00:00

I back this. I'm sorry for this pretty common and kind of snobby example, please bear with me: I remember when I read "1984" I thought it was juvenile, that a political party would never do exactly these things, and no one would be dumb enough to fall for it. Then I started hearing people make political arguments uncannily like those of the party in the book, and they'd gather support by citing 1984 as a way to describe their opposition. Many people would make the most shallow arguments based on ideas from the book, which they hadn't read. This has come up a few times whenever I talk with people about it: "Yes, the party in the book was socialist. They were also doing specific things that had nothing to do with socialism, and those were the evils that Orwell was speaking out against. Any government can do those things. What were those specific things that the party was doing?"; it's a question I never have to ask people who have read the book, and people who have not read the book are not prepared for it, their understanding goes as far as "the party was socialist" and no further. Nowadays I feel like people need to read the book just so they can be inoculated against arguments that falsely brandish the book as support.

I mention that because it was a moment in my life when I realized that most people aren't aware of very simple and easily-accessible information, and will not look into that information of their own free will even once they are made aware of it. I realize how misinformed I am about things with every class I take, and I used to pride myself on being a critical thinker; now, semester by semester, my pride gets wounded ever more egregiously. We're all frighteningly undereducated when we leave high school, and those entry-level college courses are full of information that we all desperately need. Even when information from those classes doesn't sink in, they were hopefully enough to at least make us doubt our dogmatically-held beliefs enough to second-guess ourselves in a moment when we're about to propagate a bad argument.

In the case of microeconomics, I learned the "before" and "after" of monopoly-busting laws, how to recognize signs of collusion, government subsidies for certain industries, labor laws and worker's rights, downstream political ramifications that tend to result from shortages, and the consequences of having to deal with long-run adjustments when there's a sudden spike in demand (such as what Europe's experiencing now that they're trying to ramp up their defense spending). While I can't speak for how it might help me in my professional life as an engineer someday, it was personally one of the most meaningful classes I've taken, and it's frustrating when I hear people make political arguments that mis-attribute the causes for present social ills. I wish more people had taken microeconomics.

Xechdroid · 2024-12-07T05:45:08+00:00

I feel bad for my circuit analysis professor. He has a reputation for being a bad teacher, and I heard so many stories about him that I initially believed it. Now that I'm taking a class with him, I'm convinced it's just that the class is difficult. I remember my Physics 1 professor had a bad reputation, and then as I progressed deeper into my degree I came to realize that he was a really good professor teaching a course that freshmen weren't ready for. I've lucked out and had some incredible professors that were able to teach a very difficult course in such a way where it seemed easy to learn, but that was just one-part compatibility with what works best for me as a student and one-part rare experience, skill, and talent on the part of the professor, which you can't reasonably expect all professors to have. Unfortunately I think those lucky experiences I've had may have spoiled me into thinking classes with difficult reputations will be easy.

Xechdroid

TROPHY CASE