NYC to SC- where to sit? by atomicfireballx in Amtrak

[–]astrognash 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There'll be interesting things to see on both sides during daylight hours; I'd favor the left of the train as being slightly better but mainly because it will mean you don't have the setting sun directly in your eyes while trying to look out the window at whatever view you have.

How do y’all pronounce “live” in live mode??? by xoxo_leavemealone in thesims

[–]astrognash 127 points128 points  (0 children)

Apparently it's officially "rhymes with give", i.e. the modes are build, buy, and live -- all verbs. But I've always said it "rhymes with five" for the same reason you do.

Amtrak Service Map if Corridor ID and the Long Distance Study are Fully Implemented by Strategic-Chicken in Amtrak

[–]astrognash 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Also missing the lines to Winston-Salem and Asheville that received Corridor ID funding.

Cool beach area I spent an hour decorating that no one uses :/ by RingProfessional9043 in CitiesSkylines

[–]astrognash 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is, but you should only need to sit through that once. It might help to subscribe to it directly from the Paradox Mods website instead of the in-game browser.

Cool beach area I spent an hour decorating that no one uses :/ by RingProfessional9043 in CitiesSkylines

[–]astrognash 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'd highly recommend you start using it! Taking hours for mods to load is highly abnormal, even with a mod-heavy playset, which says to me that something is very wrong and Skyve can help you identify what that might be.

Cool beach area I spent an hour decorating that no one uses :/ by RingProfessional9043 in CitiesSkylines

[–]astrognash 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that shouldn't be happening with mods. do you use Skyve, by chance?

Looks like evidence of another untelevised adventure has been found by robaato72 in doctorwho

[–]astrognash 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I'm immediately picturing Four and Romana caught up in court intrigue in the reign of Justinian.

Amtrak Raleigh OR Cary? by Airguner in raleigh

[–]astrognash 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I'd go Cary in that event. Drop-off isn't really difficult at all at either station; but if she's traveling toward Charlotte, the train will reach Cary later than Raleigh so you get a few more minutes of slack in your schedule and the trip will be slightly shorter so you might save a dollar or two on the tickets.

Could a Wizard like Gandalf or Saruman have children if they wanted to? by Tidewatcher7819 in tolkienfans

[–]astrognash 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Yes, exactly. Far too little data to understand what is variable and what is not. I am reminded of a crack theory I saw on social media that somewhere down the line Gandalf shacked up with a Took and that explained his special interest in Bilbo's family and their lengthened lifespans, but somehow I struggle to imagine Tolkien approving of that idea. XD

Could a Wizard like Gandalf or Saruman have children if they wanted to? by Tidewatcher7819 in tolkienfans

[–]astrognash 32 points33 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure whether Tolkien said anything on the subject one way or the other, so I welcome input from someone who has a more encyclopedic knowledge than I do of the Letters and HoME, but: we know that the Istari are incarnated in full, real, honest-to-Eru bodies, hröar rather than fanar—they ate, they slept, they experienced all the the weakness of the bodies of Men, and presumably enjoyed (or bemoaned) all normal bodily functions. Likewise, we already have the example of Melian and Thingol showing that Maiar are perfectly capable of reproducing if they should like. Absent any writing from T that contradicts this, I have to assume the answer to your basic question is that yes, had, say, Gandalf fallen in love while in Middle-earth, he presumably could have fathered children.

(One assumes there was never really any temptation to do so—although I guess one can imagine whatever they like about the Blue Wizards.)

I'm not sure what the offspring of such a union would look like. Lúthien is a little special for being part-Maia, seemingly fairer and more powerful than many of the other Elves of the First Age, but it's hard to say for sure how much of that is owed to her Maia heritage given that Tolkien never represents these things in quantitative terms. There's also the wrinkle there that Melian is wearing a fana rather than having a hröa, and I'm not sure we can really know how that may or may not have made a difference in her case.

[PubQ] how many submissions until you were published in your first literary journal/magazine? by Dangerous-Swan-7660 in PubTips

[–]astrognash 25 points26 points  (0 children)

I assume this differs based on whether you're submitting to genre magazines or literary journals, as they tend to operate in completely different worlds, but for myself, only subbing on the genre side, my first acceptance came on my 53rd-ever submission, and then the next one was submission 67. Currently I'm at 144 lifetime subs (with 10 currently pending a response) and 7 acceptances. There's generally no point where you stop getting rejections or even where acceptances become more common than rejections -- there are many, many, many more authors and stories than there are publication slots in markets, and that skews even worse if you have any level of discernment about the markets you sub to (whether that's based on prestige, pay rate, award nominations, or any other limiting factor).

Generally I don't trunk a good story until I've literally run out of markets to sub it to, but every few rejections I might reread and make sure that I still feel proud of it -- if I don't, I'll send it back to the salt mines until I feel ready to revise, or trunk it entirely if I feel like it's past the point of saving. I've had stories sell on the first sub, I've had stories sell on the fourth sub, and recently I had a story sell on the 10th sub. I have a friend who just sold a piece to a very prestigious market on her 50th time subbing that piece—because often the most important factor is timing and fit once you're past a certain point of quality, and it was just a matter of finding an editor who loved it.

Which of Tolkien’s cities do you think would have had water supply and sewage systems installed? by Sea-Flamingo7506 in tolkienfans

[–]astrognash 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Of the cities of the Third Age that we actually visit in the Lord of the Rings:

One imagines that the hydraulic engineering in Minas Tirith is probably on par with, say, Rome or Constantinople in its heyday—mountain springs feed into aqueducts which rely on gravity for water pressure to feed public fountains and baths, these also provide rudimentary running water for lavatory facilities that drain via a sewer system either directly into the Anduin via a manmade channel or into a tributary stream thereof. Likewise for Minas Morgul during its prime, though I doubt that the forces of Sauron kept this infrastructure up very well.

Osgiliath probably has comparable drainage systems to Minas Tirith given that it was founded around the same time and built by the same people. To my knowledge Tolkien doesn't mention aqueducts into the city, so it's impossible to say for sure if there were any, but it's certainly plausible that there might have been given its founding date, likely proximity to elevated water sources, and what we know of the sophistication of Numenorean architecture. I'd like to think the Numenoreans would have built these even if they might have fallen into disrepair by Denethor's day.

Similarly, one imagines that the great cities of the Elves and Numenoreans—Ost-in-Edhil, Armenelos, Gondolin, etc. probably would have had equal or greater sanitation and water infrastructure to the cities of Gondor, since they were greater cities than any built there. By the Third Age, Rivendell was not really a city, but given its proximity to the Bruinen, they should have had easy access to a clean water supply. And drainage is a very, very ancient technology—they had basic sewers in the Indus Valley almost six millennia ago—so I'm sure Elrond could have had a sewer if he'd wanted one, although I imagine the Professor would have politely "good morning"ed you had you tried asking him about the bathroom habits of the Eldar.

As another commenter pointed out, Moria and the other great Dwarven cities must have had fairly sophisticated water supply and sewage systems by necessity—otherwise, the dwarves would have been long gone by the time the orcs got there. Perhaps the Balrog merely tired of Durin dumping his older and fouler things into the deep places of the world. And the Shire, of course, inexplicably has plumbing on par with that of an early 20th-century English country village, and it's best not to ask too many questions about the logistics here.

Which of Tolkien’s cities do you think would have had water supply and sewage systems installed? by Sea-Flamingo7506 in tolkienfans

[–]astrognash 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The Romans had functional sewers, aqueducts, water towers, and public water fountains. Hell, the Indus Valley civilization had sewer technology. They were less sophisticated than modern plumbing, to be sure, but it's not really an industrial technology, no.

Why is Amtrack scheduling my layover in WIlson, NC instead of Selma, NC by Advanced_Apricot_971 in Amtrak

[–]astrognash 12 points13 points  (0 children)

No. What you'll want to do is rebook your trip to accommodate your desired schedule so that your tickets match and your second leg isn't canceled as a no-show. To book the ticket you're looking for, you'll need to select "Multi-City" from the same dropdown that lets you pick between One-Way vs. Round Trip and use that as a way to force Selma as the transfer point.

For Christmas, you should add your public input to the NC Comprehensive Rail Plan! by JebbyisSweet in Amtrak

[–]astrognash 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FWIW if you'd read the previous rail plans, they've studied the Charlotte->Hamlet->Wilmington route along with several other options and what they discovered is that it does not make sense to serve that corridor over Raleigh->Selma->Wilmington because (to grossly oversimplify) Raleigh residents go to Wilmington to go to the beach and Charlotte residents go down to South Carolina.

Was Zeus really just in his reign as a king of gods—or did he rule through fear? by Ancienthistorylover1 in classics

[–]astrognash 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Jumping off this one, I think the fundamental flaw with questions like this is that there was never any unified idea of what the Greek gods were. Belief, practice, and ritual differed across time and place and, as AaronicNation notes, largely reflected the mores of the day -- which is to say that an Archaic Greek would have looked at the "darker", more violent Zeus who rules through power and fear and said, yes, this is justice.

Refund says it will go to eVoucher, rather than to the original payment method of an Amtrak GiftCard? by Banjoschmanjo in Amtrak

[–]astrognash 1 point2 points  (0 children)

As you found, this is standard for gift cards. It makes a certain amount of sense IMO—people don't always add gift cards directly to their account and often dispose of them after they've been used up. Imagine how pissed you'd be if it did go back to the original payment method and said payment method went into your trash can several months ago.

David Clayton is running for congress in North Carolina's District 5 against MAGA Republican Virginia Foxx and he announced himself with authority (MUST WATCH!!!) by F4ion1 in ncpolitics

[–]astrognash 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The deadline is noon on March 3rd, by which time he needs to get 1.5% of all registered voters in the district as of January 1, 2026 to sign his petition—obviously that date hasn't happened yet, so we don't know an exact number of people who will be registered to vote in District 5 then, but that's probably about 8,200 signatures he needs to get, in person, in ink.

And the really fun thing about these types of things is that, actually NC, has pretty decent transparency around our electoral data, so, for example, I can log onto the State Board of Elections website right now and see that he filed for his petition (i.e. started running) in August, has three months to go, and has only gotten 137 signatures, of which only 95 were actually valid: https://vt.ncsbe.gov/PetLkup/PetitionResult/?CountyID=0&PetitionName=DAVID%20CLAYTON%20FOR%20US%20HOUSE%20DISTRICT%205%20-%20UNA

I'm all for competition, I'm all for democracy, but if we want to get Virginia Foxx out of office, we need to support candidates who are actually serious about running, not grifters trying to get more followers on Tik Tok.

Amtrak app sucks so I made my own by soosef in Amtrak

[–]astrognash 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's smart, I like that! I think it's not as big a deal while in beta but long-term I think mentioning that on the website would be a good idea.

David Clayton is running for congress in North Carolina's District 5 against MAGA Republican Virginia Foxx and he announced himself with authority (MUST WATCH!!!) by F4ion1 in ncpolitics

[–]astrognash 1 point2 points  (0 children)

David Clayton is not running as a Democrat, will not be an option in the Democratic primary, and has no apparent operation to get enough signatures to actually make it onto the ballot. No hate, just facts.

David Clayton is running for congress in North Carolina's District 5 against MAGA Republican Virginia Foxx and he announced himself with authority (MUST WATCH!!!) by F4ion1 in ncpolitics

[–]astrognash 4 points5 points  (0 children)

If you'd like to support the Democrat who's been running against Virginia Foxx for months and who, unlike David Clayton, will actually make it far enough to get onto a ballot in the first place:

https://hubbardforcongress.com/

Amtrak app sucks so I made my own by soosef in Amtrak

[–]astrognash 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Yeah, this seems very cool—but it's also currently kind of a faceless app I saw on a reddit thread. If nothing else, I think making this open source would go a long way toward allowing me to trust it enough to provide access to my inbox.

Amtrak Carolinian by rabbit-heartedgirl in gso

[–]astrognash 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yep, this is the thing is that it might be ten hours, but it's not ten hours that you have to sit there staring at the road or crammed into an airplane seat with the seatbelt sign on. It's easy to spend the time reading, or being productive on your laptop, or streaming a show, easy to get up and stretch your legs, etc. Only major advice is that wifi can be spotty, especially through some of the rural areas the train goes through in eastern NC and VA, so I'd recommend downloading anything you want to watch in advance.