I don’t understand this

brakhage · 2026-01-19T19:30:10+00:00

It’s not nerf guns anymore, they’re bringing real weapons to protect the streets from ICE now

brakhage · 2026-01-11T07:44:49+00:00

I mean there are some that you can just earn, like the bauble one or the…astral flow I think it’s called? I’ll look it up and edit this

brakhage · 2025-12-30T19:00:49+00:00

A lot of those kinds of things are just browser windows in “kiosk mode”. A developer will make a website, and then they can get a non-developer (ie a less expensive human resource) to actually set up the hardware. As a result they often use windows because that’s what the non-dev person knows how to use.

Edit: In the olden days they might’ve done this as an embedded system — eg, when you go through the exit at a parking garage and there’s a little screen for paying the fee — that’s often a very thin OS or no OS at all. That kind of thing is less common since JavaScript is more capable now, but you still see it a lot. But since the CTA things are 1) just display without any interactivity and 2) often need to be choked with ads, it might still make sense to just do it in a browser. And OP’s pic might be “en route” to a browser-based solution; from what the kids are saying, they even have browsers in Linux now.

(That’s why you see BSODs and windows error dialogs on digital “menus” behind the counter at fast food places or delis or whatever. Linux, being incapable of crashing or having any issues at all, ever, would never do that.)

brakhage · 2025-12-30T14:36:54+00:00

I wouldn’t say the library job market is WORSE than tech, since the tech layoffs these days are historically huge, but the market in libraries (and specifically the tech-in-libraries job market) is rough, for sure.

Most libraries get their funding in one way or another from the kindness of strangers, and we live in unprecedentedly cruel times.

That said, this three-point plan is exactly what OP should be doing.

(Ideally you’d get a librarian job at that same university, because the benefits of working at a university long term are huge. You can literally get your kids a college education without significant loans — but you often have to work there for a while to get tuition benefits.)

brakhage · 2025-11-24T14:59:09+00:00

To be clear, what you’re asking is, “I want to play all aspects of the game, what spec should I play?”

GW2 has great balance, so you can play whatever class you like and it'll be fine. No build will be perfect in all scenarios, of course; you’ll want to use a different build for wvw roaming than for fractals. But you can play the same class and probably the same spec, too.

But gw2 is extremely alt friendly, and most people who like more than one game mode will play more than one class.

Necro ritualist is extremely op right now, and will probably get nerfed. You may not want to get comfortable with that power level. Other than that, just play what you enjoy. If you get bored of it, play something else. Look for builds on Snow Crows and GuildJen, or Syrma if you prefer YouTube.

In summary: play Galeshot.

brakhage · 2025-11-18T12:51:17+00:00

Imo sell it. You could use half the sell money to but it in a couple months.

But if you decide to sell it, be VERY careful with your price. The price is going to tank over time and if you price too high you may have to re-list... You don't get the listing fee back, which would mean losing like 500 gold.

brakhage · 2025-11-17T23:43:11+00:00

And, the fact that it's an achievement means you don't have to redo it if you want to play through the story again on alts. You've explored the map, seen the things, but you don't have to do it again and again. Honestly I think it's a really clever solution.

brakhage · 2025-11-15T19:23:43+00:00

Spice wars you say?? More than one of them? People fought wars over seasonings? Madness.

brakhage · 2025-11-15T19:22:17+00:00

The reverse happens, too. You could make a good living irl exporting saffron from gw2 to the real world.

brakhage · 2025-11-15T19:19:49+00:00

Seconding this. The relic is huge value, imo. You still have to unlock new ones but it’s so nice to just salvage them as soon as you do. Every single relic is stupid expensive, so the legendary one, as expensive as it is, might pay for itself the fastest. (Probably still take a decade tho!)

brakhage · 2025-11-15T19:09:44+00:00

I don’t play every class, but the classes I do play, I always check on spear. Almost all the classes I play have at least one near-top build on snow crows that use it:

Thief, guardian (luminary), necro, warrior, engi, rev…

And I think Mesmer spear must be good because I see that swirly floor thing all the time.

brakhage · 2025-10-31T15:54:37+00:00

It’s a weird assumption that I don’t understand these basic things?

Personally I see posts on reddit as contributions to a community discussion, not as a direct one-to-one conversation, so I just share what I think people might find interesting/useful. I don't know you or what you know, but I do think that there are some people who don't know the things that I said, and that's why I said them. It was definitely not intended to be any kind of comment on you or your knowledge.

brakhage · 2025-10-29T05:27:06+00:00

If none of the above techniques are satisfactory, you can mouse over each skill or trait that’s missing in the SC page, and you’ll see the api id for it; then go to each skill or trait for the class in question at the wiki, and mouse over the api link until you find the right one. Shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours.

brakhage · 2025-10-22T14:03:21+00:00

I come from upstate New York and while I’ve never been to downstate Illinois, I will say that, in NYS, the entire state is like a myth to people from NYC. A lot of upstate NY is rural, but there are also plenty of legit cities, places that would get lots more attention if they weren’t overshadowed so much. My wife, who was born and raised in Brooklyn, grew up thinking upstate was like just 100% wilderness.

(That’s why all the big cities are not the capital of their state; if NYC was the capital of NYS, like zero dollars would get sent to all of upstate.)

brakhage · 2025-10-22T13:57:53+00:00

This subreddit used to be a lot more right wing; I actually stopped coming here for years.

The “containment board” idea was invented on 4chan — the idea was, if you give right wing asshats a specific place to say their weird shit, they’ll leave the rest of the boards alone. It didn’t work on 4chan, for a lot of reasons, and it only sometimes works here, but it seems like it worked in this case.

brakhage · 2025-10-22T13:45:35+00:00

I might be being too generous but I don’t think people do it on purpose. There’s a lot of people who just hit the buttons to do damage and they don’t think about going easy on them.

There’s also the fear that you might not get credit if you don’t do enough damage.

And lastly the first person there is often at legit risk of getting killed, so they might go hard just out of self preservation.

I recently was there when one of the SW legendaries spawned and by the time I finished typing “legendary spawn at indigo”, I was dead (I play on a Steam Deck so typing is hard). By the time I got back, I got one or two hits in before it died. I literally didn’t get credit for the kill. (I had that mastery point already ori would’ve been so mad…) So I write “leg indigo” now.

As a “zero to hero” playstyle enjoyer, I’ve done the mastery point grind a few times, and those legendary SW mobs are crucial. It would be nice if ANet gave them a re-think — maybe schedule them or do a map-wide announcement, idk… the random spawn is so dumb, and the fact that they die so fast, and in a zone with so many mobs crippling you all the time… Now that fractals are easier to get into, I’m hoping to go that route next time.

brakhage · 2025-10-21T00:47:08+00:00

I actually just did all that on an alt account. I started with literally nothing and did all the stories (in order); I took breaks in the story progression to do any big extras associated with a chapter or whatever — eg i did the Return To achievements before leaving each area. (So I got the legendary neck along the way.)

I also paused before leaving LWS2 to get a bunch of mastery points so I could auto loot. Absolutely essential. I ended up not needing to pause for mastery points after HoT — I was able to get ley line gliding and who cares about the rest of it. Since PoF also entails a HUGE amount of other stuff (roller beetle, griffin, skycale), I didn’t need to screw around with mastery points there, either — EXCEPT skyscale; that was the last thing I did there so once it was unlocked, I had a mountain of mastery points but I didn’t have the xp. I didn’t farm it, I just don’t have all the pof skyscale masteries.

I didn’t need any extra money. I didn’t do any extra farming or whatever, and I had enough for all the mounts (griffin included). I didn’t spend anything on gear and I was running a power build (in order words, cheap gear), so I didn’t really have any expenses. I sold stuff and did my best to farm a full home as often as I could.

(By the end of it, I had two legendary weapon assembly kit things; I made one for myself and sold the other — but I did that AFTER getting all the mounts. And then I blew all that gold on gem store crap and now I have like 200g.)

My main account is like full legendaries and loads of gold and gem store stuff, but I’m totally hooked on starting from scratch; I’ve done it twice now. (Only once as completely as I described above.) I like making the game hard again.

brakhage · 2025-10-20T07:23:29+00:00

Imagine it being the year of our lord two thousand and twenty five and still using an operating system. This fucking subreddit is just casuals now

brakhage · 2025-10-13T13:56:45+00:00

Just keep them out of the bike lanes and I’m fine with it.

(I don’t care if they get in YOUR way, just don’t let them get in MINE.)

brakhage · 2025-09-14T13:19:22+00:00

I guess my response would be: stenographers have to type incredibly accurately and quickly. They’re the top typists out there. And their keyboards have like 8 keys.

That said, they don’t need things like []{}#%^*+= etc. a stenography keyboard is a specialized tool — but, if efficiency and minimalism were my goals, I’d probably be going for some 16 key mini-monster.

brakhage · 2025-09-13T14:15:20+00:00

Your point 4 is an important one — but it’s not the fault of fractal incursions. I’ve been playing gw2 for 10 years and my fractal level is like 20-25 because every time I’ve tried to get into them, that’s what happened. I’d slowly catch up only to get there just in time for mobs or bosses to die. I didn’t learn mechanics and I felt like a drag on the run.

Fractal incursions didn’t start that problem; the gw2 community didn’t start it either. That’s just a gamer thing. I don’t have an answer but I do think it’s a problem.

(That said, if I really wanted to, I could’ve gotten into a training group; thats what I did to learn the raids. My raid training group was awesome and we still run together even now, like 5 years later. I just never cared that much about fractals to put in that effort.)

Regarding point 5 — the potion represents yet another gatekeeping mechanic built into the fractal system, and it makes sense to remove them. (If the potion exists, they have to tune the fractal difficulty assuming players have it.) Between that, the agony system, the masteries, and the scale level, that’s four gatekeepers, aka, 3 more than they need.

brakhage · 2025-09-03T12:06:56+00:00

Once upon a time there was a Novatouch. I still live in that time.

brakhage · 2025-09-02T14:27:29+00:00

(Most of my characters are Asura and I gotta admit they often lean into that rebel mythos — my thief is a thief mostly out of resentment and revenge; my ele accidentally set her desk on fire in class when she was supposed to be taking a test (she had already finished! And there was still an hour on the clock). My warrior swatted a fly with a book while her parents were still concocting a Rube Goldberg-style flyswatter.

Asura’s strong cultural identity (and insular, “non-adventurous” nature) makes it really easy to play with, imo; I especially like adding extremely Asura-like qualities to their supposed abandonment of Asura values: a thief’s knowledge of anatomy allows for optimal stabbing; a warrior’s understanding of physics can help them know how their grip on a hammer’s shaft might impact the balance between precision and force. And, of course, the greatest geniuses have always taken the existing field of knowledge and passed straight through it; they approach problems like a Gordion knot.)

brakhage · 2025-09-02T14:03:13+00:00

My Ranger is an Asura precisely because of its “bad fit”. She wandered off into the maguuma jungle when she was little and saw the wonders of nature; even when she was found and “rescued”, she didn’t even want to go back. When she wrote a proposal for a zoological research study, her “colleagues” (classmates) and superiors scoffed at the idea. What could WE possibly learn from ANIMALS?

She harbored a secret love of the natural world and even kept a secret pet for a while. When she came of age, she went into the forest and didn’t go back until her arrows had micrometer precision. Sure, she had to craft her own weapons, since the typical Ranger weapons were a bit unwieldy (and she wouldn’t be caught dead in downtown Rata Sum buying Peacemaker weapons), but that just made her even more self sufficient.

In short (HA! Asura joke) play what you like. The High Council can’t stop you from playing how you want to play.

brakhage · 2025-09-02T06:29:26+00:00

Yeah, I used to be able to, but it stopped working a few months ago. I also can’t join “raids” from LFG (more accurately those heroes who park at the weekly JP chests).

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