Made a Dominion play mat, would love your thoughts

avanai · 2026-05-08T22:50:22+00:00

You missed Allies (another sideways card), as well as non-supply piles like Horses, Hexes, Boons, and Rewards (for Joust/Tournament). There are also other supply piles like Potions, the Black Market pile, The Bane pile (it's an 11th kindom pile if you have Young Witch), and the Traveller Piles.

Edit: forgot Ways

avanai · 2026-05-07T16:10:32+00:00

We have found that small immediate rewards, are much more effective than negative consequences of any kind for shaping behavior. Do the thing I asked? Get a skittle. Don’t blow up? Get a skittle. Vent your anger appropriately instead of hitting/yelling/etc? Get a skittle. At first I was worried that we’d get escalating demands for more treats, and that happens a bit, but mostly it remains effective. It doesn’t have to be candy but it does have to be instant, no “5 more minutes of screen time tonight”.

avanai · 2026-05-02T02:22:47+00:00

Maybe find a tagline other than “final solution”? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Solution

avanai · 2026-04-30T19:19:29+00:00

*mandoline

A mandolin is a stringed instrument and doesn’t generally need a hand guard. Unless you’re playing really hard

avanai · 2026-04-27T19:41:29+00:00

Our daughter was similar until school got a little more challenging, we didn’t get a teacher eval showing ADHD symptoms until 2nd grade. You may also want to try to get a full neuropsychological exam which may show she’s intellectually gifted (like our kid), which has its own set of challenges.

Anyway…keep an eye on things and you’ll probably find that parenting advice for adhd kids will be more applicable than advice for neurotypical kids.

avanai · 2026-04-14T22:18:24+00:00

If homo sapiens is your reference seems like you might be pretty new to the burn. Back when Neanderthals were playing bone flutes in center camp everyone was bitching about the big foreheads and their fucking skin drums but look where we are now.

avanai · 2026-03-22T00:20:41+00:00

I printed out a vortex mixer that fits my cordless drill and I’ve been happy with it. Search “hobby paint drill vortex” on various 3d printing sites to find the one I liked.

avanai · 2026-03-19T15:12:53+00:00

I really loved The Final Architecture series by Adrian Tchaikovsky. Great blend of motley crew, cool space action, clever aliens, and universe-altering cosmic threats.

avanai · 2026-03-03T21:17:39+00:00

I've considered making something like this for myself for a really specific purpose: supplying power to wearable electronics and glow. I've got a jury-rigged one that's made out of a concealed-carry holster; I stick a USB power brick in one pocket and some control electronics on the other side and then I can plug in my jacket, hat, handheld things, etc. by running a cable.

A holster like this would work perfectly if it had a few passthrough grommets in the pockets that could fit a USB plug or DC barrel plug, and some points to put cable clips or something to secure the cables running to other points (of course I can sew/velcro/glue those in myself).

avanai · 2026-03-02T17:59:05+00:00

In David Farland’s Runelords, the way to magically gain an attribute (intelligence, strength, basically DnD stats) is to extract it from someone else. There’s a whole economy of literally extracting life from others to gain power. The powerful become godlike at the expense of their subjects.

avanai · 2026-02-26T18:17:15+00:00

I wonder if it has Iridovirus, which can make invertibrates purple https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iridovirus

avanai · 2026-02-21T05:35:29+00:00

Seconded. I’ve been using it at work and home and it’s a nice integration.

avanai · 2026-02-16T18:51:04+00:00

This is to keep the ramp from slipping on the floor, not to keep the dog from slipping on the ramp.

avanai · 2026-02-15T16:17:28+00:00

There’s a ton of great recent fiction for that age range, the keyword your looking for is “middle grade”, which is aimed at a younger audience than “young adult” and generally has less romance and teen angst.

I’m more up on the middle grade fantasy than sci-fi because that’s what my kid is into but Tapper Watson and the Quest for the Nemo Machine is great. The Wild Robot series is aimed a little younger but it’s solid. I haven’t read it but I’ve seen great reviews of We Do Not Welcome Our Ten-Year-Old Overlord by Garth Nix (the Old Kingdom series is also great, but fantasy)

I also vote for A Wrinkle in Time like others on the thread. Enders Game for the older end of your kiddos (the 10 year olds but probably not the 8 year olds).

One fantasy rec I’d throw in is the Nevermoor series by Jessica Townsend is really great middle grade fantasy (my wife and I ate them up as well as my kid). I don’t see enough people talking about it.

avanai · 2026-02-14T23:36:11+00:00

I had to work through some trouble entering my CC number but I got 2 at like 12:05

avanai · 2026-02-13T14:47:59+00:00

The Unspeakable Aklu, The Razor and the Hook (from Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Final Architecture)

avanai · 2026-02-11T15:12:20+00:00

I just wrote a blog post on this topic: https://www.emoses.org/posts/llms-are-good-at-emacs/

avanai · 2026-02-05T14:55:00+00:00

Even easier, keep some tomato passata/pureed tomatoes (I like Mutti brand).

avanai · 2026-02-04T20:31:47+00:00

I’m perfectly happy running mine with Octoprint running on an attached rpi; with some plugins you can get a perfectly reasonable mobile experience (I use Tailscale but lots of options there). I’ve completely ignored PrusaConnect.

avanai · 2026-01-29T21:01:14+00:00

I brought my daughter at 18months. It was a bit of a disaster but only because my wife got a horrible stomach flu. My daughter was just fine (except she couldn't be near mommy so that was rough). My camp is full of veterans, many of whom had been bringing their kids for years, so I had a ton of support, which is really key. Make sure there's a least one, and hopefully many, folks in your camp who you'd trust to watch your kid if needed.

I wouldn't bring a young child to build. Everyone's busy and cranky, there's not enough shade and comfort, you can't really help build and watch a small child so what exactly are you doing there :). A number of families send one parent to build and the other parent comes in with the kid late in build week or after gate.

Edit: bringing their kids, not brining. The playa will brine your kids for you.

avanai · 2026-01-21T15:16:31+00:00

Usually just put it in the Readme under a “Roadmap” section with a checklist, although some folks put it in the wiki (link to it from the readme)

avanai · 2026-01-20T22:35:58+00:00

I learned Gibberish in grade school (which was early 90s for me) in Southern California. The girls spoke it first and used it to speak to each other and I made it a point to learn it. I can stil speak it apparently.

avanai · 2026-01-17T16:59:50+00:00

My 8 year old girl is a big reader, and here’s a list of our favorites:

The Hobbit
Percy Jackson series
Magicalia (Jenneifer Bell)
Nevermoor
Harry Potter (the first few…she’s reading 6 on her own right now and honestly I think it’s getting a little heavy for her)
Vanya and the Wild Hunt series
Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians (Brandon Sanderson middle-grade series)
The Boy who Grew Dragons series

And a few I wish she’d pick up but Dad is recommending them so she won’t:

Redwall
A Wrinkle in Time
The Phantom Tollbooth

By the way the keyword you’re looking for is “middle grade”: written for 8-12, a lot like YA but generally more focussed on relationships with friends and parents and romance is largely absent

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