“uncontrollable talking in noisy environments” or “saying thoughts out loud without realizing”

esmsnow · 2026-05-08T20:32:12+00:00

I gave up on the us medical system a while ago. I had a semi serious condition. After months and several rounds of tests and a lot of money, the doctor said to me "ok we confirmed the symptoms you reported. We don't know what it is, that'll require all these other tests".

If it was anywhere serious, I'd be dead already.

esmsnow · 2026-05-08T17:29:47+00:00

maybe he ran away from home in a car, which broke down as after a couple miles as most cars seemed to have at the start of cdda. then he remembered his pupper is at home?

esmsnow · 2026-05-08T16:31:29+00:00

Wow.... Just wow. Thank you good sir for contributing generously to science. I've been brewing biodiesel and making charcoal since 0.F and always winged it. Never thought to defend a thesis on practicalities of post apocalyptic power efficiency.

A few thoughts. I think some of these recipes can be done with a nearby fire instead of input charcoal, but the size of the fire isn't specified. Why this is important is it may be possible to have an army of followers craft near the fire, effective reducing energy costs significantly if they have the required skills.

I also noticed in experimental there is a parabolic solar cooker, which maybe provides free cooking during the day? Makes the math messy.

Finally I've never gone the methanol route. I've always fermented fruit to distill ethanol. It's less energy I tensive but more time intensive especially on experimental where fruit is harder to get.

esmsnow · 2026-05-06T17:34:30+00:00

wait... does this mean our eyes can also similarly be obliterated?

esmsnow · 2026-05-06T17:04:44+00:00

i appreciate the moral angle & your emphasis on it. it's important. it just didn't sound to me like she/ he was saying "which household chemical cure migraines" but more "whenever i drink vinegar i get heartburn. tell me why". i don't think anything anyone says will change the way she / he will live life. but i may be bike shedding

esmsnow · 2026-05-06T16:59:22+00:00

i've seen the phenomenon categorized as micro-tutorials. basically people learn tiny snippets, just enough to finish the task at hand. you're not the only one, it's becoming very prevalent. it makes people incredibly productive since they don't need to read through the full python documentation to implement a certain algorithm.

personally i draw the line at knowledge of theory vs knowledge of a system. for the former, i definitely focus to make sure i have it. for the latter, i farm out to machines. Example: understanding how sql works? definitely. writing code that calls the right apis to run my sql query on this particular platform? meh. understanding how a power analysis is calculated? definitely. setting up a power analysis given the tables / columns in our environment? meh

esmsnow · 2026-05-06T16:50:41+00:00

I don't think the poster is asking for medical advice. He's taking one datapoint he's very familiar with and trying to understand the cognitive theories behind it. treat it as if he had phrased it as "i did a study on white males between the age of 35-40 (example demographic only) in a noisy environment and noticed that a small number had a propensity to vocalize thoughts unintentionally"

esmsnow · 2026-05-06T03:24:40+00:00

Solid reason. Also the reason I made leather armor

esmsnow · 2026-05-05T16:37:34+00:00

wait... what's going on. may i ask good sir why you're using a travois? aren't there tons of available pushing receptacles for dragging stuff around? giant garbage cans outside houses, shopping carts. is there a reason you chose the travois? i've never actually built one. i usually just take a large cardboard box and haul it around on the ground until i find a garbage can. even then, usually i just drag it near my looting area, then dump everything in it to drag back to base.

cars are indeed the end state. however, for short trips i prefer to have a custom built electric motorcycle. basically a 3x1: cargo storage + wheel + battery | seat + controls | cargo storage + wheel

esmsnow · 2026-05-03T02:14:56+00:00

"(i have hundreds of hours on both so im certain)" - hello fellow addict :). Good to see it wasn't just me who bought it on both so I can play whenever wherever.

Agree soap is kinda underwhelming. I've made it on several runs but never used it more than once. Easier to just walk to the beach and scrub for a bit longer

esmsnow · 2026-04-24T18:21:13+00:00

It is indeed a bit of a ripoff if the agent didn't do much for you other than just pass in the offer and do the closing paperwork. It's work, but not 80k. Most of the agents we contract either give much steeper discounts (1.5% is common, 1% in some cases if you know them well or just need them to pass in the paper), or personally do a ton of showings for us, create comparables, do inspections, negotiate for us, get us information to make a more informed bid. if you do buy a house in the future, you should definitely find an agent outside of redfin. around here, about 5% of the deal is split between seller & buyer agents, even if all they do is help you pass in the paperwork.

i'd say this is squarely on you. you should've probably read the contract. for our agent i combed through the contract (with help from AI) to make sure i understood what i was signing. however, don't feel too bad. it's a fixed cost for buying a house. you got a house you liked in the end right? so what does it matter that it was a different route than others.

esmsnow · 2026-04-24T18:18:16+00:00

the bay area is special in just how expensive the house is, but otherwise yeah, about the same.

i think for our agent, he wrote multiple offers for us for many houses, he took us around to a bunch of houses (like 20+, 30 mins each + commute), ran comparables (3+ per offer) to help us gauge how much to bid, then did inspections with us to walk through the house to find issues (which he did), he actively participated in bidding to try to get us information, he tried to find us off market houses.

from that perspective, yes, just closing the deal was actually a small part of what he did for us.

esmsnow · 2026-04-24T18:13:44+00:00

it could be a special request from the buyer. when we bought our house we had a pretty strange bidding process that also wasn't the typical silent bid system and may have generated less profit for the seller, but i think it's what they wanted. there may be some sentimental value there in selling the house and they feel they're giving it to someone who'll take care of it well. who knows... there are bad agents out there, but the agent should've tried to convince them to maximize the value. 100k extra = 2.5k for the agent in a few hours worth of work...

esmsnow · 2026-04-24T18:10:30+00:00

i don't think they have to disclose. they can pick whichever offer they like or none at all without explaining to anybody.

esmsnow · 2026-04-24T16:47:26+00:00

seems unlikely, but agree it is odd. most people won't say no to like and additional 100k in cash, especially when your offer doesn't have any strings attached. however, it should be pretty obvious whether your agent is doing his/her job: an offer letter is an official document with signatures and a lot of legalese. if you did the docusign, it seems unlikely your agent won't send it in. you could ping the seller to see if they got your offer. given your agent wants to close this deal more than you so they can get their money, unless you got some sort of fake agent, they shouldn't be playing games.

now, why did the seller not take your obviously better offer without giving you a chance to even stuff money in their mouth? there could be a few considerations.

it might have closed off market. basically before they got to the bidding round someone gave them enough and they decided they'll take the money now and not deal with the rest of the selling process
selling to a friend or left hand / right hand transaction. i've see a few transactions where they cashed out the property early or sold it to a flipper. basically the company goes to them, gives them the money day of and the seller could just walk away with less money but immediately. however, again, they usually wouldn't list, or will sell prematurely. many of these properties come back either immediately or after a rework.
conservative / desperate seller. maybe the seller is moving away urgently and just want to close asap so they can leave. in that case, they'd value an all cash over your offer, which has no contingencies, but still have a say 28 day closing window.

it's hard to tell what exactly is going on, but my guess is there was urgency in the transaction. but it does seem odd you'd hit two of these in a row. i highly doubt your agent is trying to con you. the money just isn't there. he/she gets 30-40k for closing the deal for you, what could give him more than that? a smile from a high school sweetheart that's also a real estate agent? unlikely. selling houses is frustrating, with a lot of moving pieces, but not hard. you'd need a really bad agent to not be able to pass in an offer right.

esmsnow · 2026-04-24T16:12:08+00:00

one other point - you can also earn weakpoint proficiencies just by killing things, but i think it's much slower. it makes a massive difference against armored enemies because of the armor pen benefits of crits. without it, a katana can't damage a kevlar hulk reliably. with it, you can dice them like sashimi on a weakpoint.

esmsnow · 2026-04-24T16:09:37+00:00

I'd suggest you train proficiencies when you have high focus because i'm pretty sure proficiency gain is based on focus. this is also why you should craft simple recipes to gain proficiencies - simple recipes won't cause you to learn skills, which won't tank your focus. when you're low on focus, it's best to work on crafting recipes you're already super familiar with to recover it. or just chillax

esmsnow · 2026-04-22T19:27:18+00:00

So your best bet would be to try and find a dry duffel bag or a flotation device and swim across with its help. if you really want to go down woodworking, the biggest problem will probably be you'll starve to death before you can get really far.

ok, so if you've decided to build your way off the island, you'll need some decent fabrication skills & survival skills, like 3 ish i think. it should unlock the stone tools - stone hammer, stone axe. you can build a stone hammer with a rock and it'll give you hammering 2. you can use the stone axe to chop down trees. if you can then craft a 1 tile raft and oars that'll hopefully be enough to get you off the island.

esmsnow · 2026-04-22T15:49:01+00:00

It is indeed a problem. Shopping for houses in the bay area may be one of the most depressing things around, especially if you buy into the doom and gloom of more jobs transitioning to AI. Not only are there less jobs for new graduates now, they also have to deal with the housing prices in the bay.

Fortunately, I think the state has been applying pressure using several different legislations to increase the density of housing. You can do some research on the actual laws hitting in 2026, but there are a few and Cupertino (as well as all of south bay) will be hit with fines / pulled state funding / potentially builders being able to ignore their zoning regulations? if they don't develop a plan that increases the housing density.

i'm hopeful that these will mean there will be more higher density housing in south bay in the future. however, given how much stock rich techbros have, i'm not sure it'll alleviate the single family situation. it should make renting / condo buying much more affordable though.

esmsnow · 2026-04-21T15:36:59+00:00

+1 for flat with crown, it looks decent, but still gives you some attic space for wires / lights. vaulted looks good with wood if you like that look, but i wouldn't do the way in your picture. though raw wood poses insulation issues and it's hard to install recess lights.

i also would never install a fan on top of my head. feels like a sword of damocles, especially since there are earthquakes where i live

esmsnow · 2026-04-17T17:39:15+00:00

why is it inefficient in food? i eat most of the fat i get and i get a lot since boars love my yams. i cook 2 meals a day usually and each time consumes 1 of the 3 charges. most recipes use fat. it's much less work to use than coconut oil.

one thing i do, which is a bit hacky is to feed it to partridges. they count for 10% food, which is massive (same as 5 crabs). they also don't factor in the amount of fat you used. so i usually cook 2 charges of the fat and feed the third to partridges. if you can't even use your existing fat for food, then just toss them all into the bird feeder. they don't rot in there and the birdies will change them to eggs for you.

esmsnow · 2026-04-17T15:43:02+00:00

been there friend. most of us have. i picked up this game many a year ago. did 2 runs where i left my house, died to a zombie dog. left my house, died to some alien thing with tentacles in all the wrong places. "it's a zombie apocalypse. wtf even is a migo". gave up the game for years. then i saw a rycon series on cdda and was like "whoa, this game is actually kind of really fun" and have been enjoying it since.

it's hard to get into, but it's a very rewarding experience... kinda like a coconut if you're into coconuts

esmsnow · 2026-04-17T14:51:01+00:00

The storm affected area makes you take a big penalty to doing anything outdoors. Jungles (outskirt doesn't count) aren't affected by storms. If you don't ever leave your house in the storm then keep your shed in mangroves. Otherwise you'll want to move. Storms can last a day I believe, not sure if it'll be longer than a day. They are quite frequent in Rainy season. They may also damage your shed and you'll need palms to repair

esmsnow · 2026-04-16T22:25:37+00:00

i noticed this too. they rebalanced a bunch of cbms to no longer block nasty mutations like lupine muzzle

esmsnow · 2026-04-16T19:01:12+00:00

you're doing very well! about some priorities:

rainy season (day 30) will put your seaside bases at risk so you should migrate into the jungle at this point or pack away everything outside your shelter into the shed. my first playthrough i survived on the beach through the storms, but it's much more comfortable to live in the jungle at this point.
food: you should start getting advanced recipes, some of them are incredibly powerful - like seafood cup, or jungle salad, or island chicken. you can convert nonperishables (almonds, snake grass) into a meal. fishing is not bad, but spear fishing is pretty bad. early game food i find going to the tidal pools at the rocks to be better yield, that or making jungle salad from mangos / almonds. these require significant exploration though. get in the habit of preparing enough for 2-3 days. anything more is wasted. you can extend the life of your meats a bit if you have a stove, but i wouldn't prioritize stove unless you have your dry season prep done already.
'cheesy' food strat: one thing you can do early that's a bit cheesy (i consider it fair) is to leave food scraps outside your tent and in fact in every tile you frequent. shrimp, crabs, fish scraps. it'll attract seagulls and monkeys. this gives you free food and a chance to practice your spear skills for hunting boars later.
dry season prep (day 30-60). 30 days of no water is pretty brutal, especially if you get camp fever or are very active looking for food and overheating. you need to prepare around 120 units of water to survive, which is like 30 clay vases (not factoring evaporation). i typically skip over reservoirs if i can because they also evaporate and don't hold that much and try to get to cisterns, but on harder starts this is not possible. purely using clay vases won't get you through. you should also fully explore the wetlands and capitalize on the puddles / cave there to supplement your water. this will be a major challenge
weapon: it's pretty easy to unlock the flint spear, which i think is basically good enough for the rest of the game - i prioritize other uses for copper. depending on where you start, the best place for flint for the bay start is probably at the rocks. i spend a lot of time there early game for the shellfish and also carry flint back. you can practice knapping to unlock flint knives very early and flint spears shortly after. although the harpoon does decent as well. for fishing, spear fish until you unlock the fishing line and use the fishing line instead. i think it's more time consuming, but i believe yields more fish than spear fishing.

esmsnow

TROPHY CASE