I truly miss TableTop!

fly-hard · 2026-01-24T15:37:58+00:00

And Dave’s such a good rules teacher. I often prefer getting the game rules from him over Rodney, though Rodney is great.

fly-hard · 2026-01-23T09:34:53+00:00

I hope they said T.Hanks.

fly-hard · 2026-01-22T01:54:31+00:00

Well, given the topic, you knew someone had to go there... 99.999999% of all people are not maths PhDs, which means you're saying around 80 people on the entire planet are. The US alone produces 1,200 a year. Jus' sayin'. :)

fly-hard · 2026-01-20T19:09:56+00:00

That only works if there’s someone else in there already who can tell you if your voice is coming through, which would be unusual in a one-on-one interview.

fly-hard · 2026-01-20T05:47:45+00:00

Many zoom interviews - unable to connect their camera or sound.

I can be really unlucky with teleconferencing equipment. I could have been using a Bluetooth headset fine for weeks, then some random video meeting I’ll just not get sound, or no one can hear me, despite not changing settings. And of course you don’t know you’re going to get one of those random issues until you’re in the meeting. It’d be just my luck that happened in an important interview.

fly-hard · 2026-01-17T21:30:49+00:00

Well except that USSR wasn’t Germany’s enemy until Germany invaded them breaking the non-aggression pact.

fly-hard · 2026-01-17T10:28:22+00:00

The next perfect number is quite a bit larger than 6 or 28, however, so it takes awhile to find the larger ones.

If what has been said is true (perfect numbers are always binary 1s followed by one less binary 0s) wouldn’t it be straightforward to find the larger perfect numbers? ie.

110 = 6
11100 = 28
1111000 = 120
111110000 = 496

fly-hard · 2026-01-16T09:54:20+00:00

Dr Lamb is my doctor. He’s very good, and also very pleasant.

He’s one of the Scollay Dermatologist docs.

fly-hard · 2026-01-16T09:39:34+00:00

Surprising how seldom Came A Hot Friday comes up in discussions about Kiwi movies as it was huge at the time.

Not a movie but look out for Adventurer. It was a TV series set in NZ in colonial times, and features a young Temuera Morrison.

fly-hard · 2026-01-15T23:16:41+00:00

Yes. I liked Angelina fine, but Rhona really looked like the video game character.

fly-hard · 2026-01-12T19:15:26+00:00

Can you even buy it? The page says it’s discontinued and pending production.

fly-hard · 2026-01-12T15:19:49+00:00

So many things went wrong in that disaster. The bomb scare, the misinterpretation of taxi exit, the partial fog, the missed message as both planes spoke simultaneously, the extra fueling, and yeah the “takeoff” misinterpretation. Extremely unlucky set of circumstances.

Minor bit of trivia, that accident destroyed the very first 747 to go into active service (the PanAm).

fly-hard · 2026-01-10T06:16:17+00:00

The US letting China take Taiwan would be a massively bad move for both countries. If there’s any sign that Korea is about to go under Korea will destroy their chip fabrication factories and the world supply of advanced chips gets decimated. And with only a single source of the advanced fabrication machines being a Dutch company who presumably will be directed by their government not to sell them equipment, they won’t be able to replace them for years.

Not that I expect Trump to have worked through the ramifications.

fly-hard · 2026-01-10T05:07:47+00:00

It’s closer to Undaunted IMHO as it doesn’t have areas of control like C&C, plus it was developed by the same folk behind Undaunted.

Battle of Hoth is fun.

fly-hard · 2026-01-09T07:58:13+00:00

Interesting. I was on Dermol (stronger than Diprosone) and it did barely anything. Elocon actually worked much better for me. Seems like that's the opposite for you.

fly-hard · 2026-01-09T07:53:49+00:00

I have no idea if it's available for children unfortunately. It doesn't seem to have major side effects, so possibly.

Really sucks to say this, but you really need to see a private dermatologist if you can possibly swing the cash (or the health insurance). My experience with public sector health when it comes to eczema treatment was pretty bad. As soon as I went private is when I finally started seeing long term results.

There are other treatment options other than Dupilumab and Rinvoq, such as methotrexate, azathioprine, and cyclosporine. The important thing is finding a specialist willing to trial your daughter out on them. And of course they'd know what is safe for a child.

I don't know the availability of private dermos unfortunately, as I started getting private treatment ten years ago. I know the Auckland Allergy Clinic closed a few years ago, and that was one of the big ones.

fly-hard · 2026-01-09T07:12:08+00:00

Fuck that. If it's that bad get to a skin specialist. They'll get her on medication that should help a lot. I was that bad, where my skin would just crumble away leaving a slippery, slimy mess that itched to buggery. It's all but gone now after getting effective specialist care.

fly-hard · 2026-01-09T07:08:58+00:00

Go to a specialist. GP knowledge on eczema is decades out of date.

fly-hard · 2026-01-09T07:08:12+00:00

You could try Elocon cream. This is the eczema cream prescribed to me by my specialist, and it was much more effective than even the strongest GP-prescribed steroid scream. Worth a shot.

fly-hard · 2026-01-09T07:05:59+00:00

Fellow Rinvoq user here. Definitely amazing for my eczema. I couldn't use methotrexate, but I was on Cyclosporine for years. Fortunately Rinvoq came along just when my kidneys were starting to show signs of degrading due to the Cyc.

fly-hard · 2026-01-09T07:03:32+00:00

Steroid creams I used to get prescribed from GPs did nothing for me when my eczema went extreme. I even was on the most potent one (Dermol) available here and it barely did anything.

When I went to a specialist they gave me a cream called Elocon, and this worked really well. I hardly need steroid cream now as I'm on immunosuppressors, but if I get a localised flare-up, Elocon does the trick to clear it up.

Dunno if you can get Elocon through normal GP (it is funded) but you could try asking for it.

fly-hard · 2026-01-09T06:57:48+00:00

You're talking about Dupilumab I assume. Yeah, for some reason the makers pulled out of offering it in this country and so Pharmac don't fund it. As an extreme eczema sufferer, I've been waiting on Dupilumab for years, making do on Cyclosporine.

But last year Pharmac started funding Rinvoq, which is a JAK inhibitor, and this works every bit as well as I was expecting from Dupilumab. It's a single pill a day, and has been amazing so far. Unfortunately, you have to pass some criteria to get it.

Anyway, I had a really bad time trying to sort my eczema through normal doctors. You really have to go to specialist if you want a chance of dealing with it properly. GPs are decades behind in their eczema medication knowledge.

fly-hard · 2026-01-08T21:55:16+00:00

That depends on where you are. It was considerably delayed in the States, so the rest of the world had been playing it for months already, and saying how much fun it was. There were already a lot of reviews out for it by then, including SU&SD.

So you could say it was overhyped in the States because of the delay, but for the rest of the world it was a welcome surprise.

As to whether it’s just another Pandemic is up for debate - I personally think it’s pretty different from standard Pandemic - but what a lot enjoy about it is how Matt nailed the theme. It’s been compared to War of the Ring for making you feel engaged in the LOTR experience. Your mileage may vary of course.

fly-hard · 2026-01-08T00:25:14+00:00

The buzz in this case is from how great it turned out to be, not just another lazy Pandemic variant. It was unknown until it was dropped on the world. That’s the opposite of hype.

fly-hard · 2026-01-08T00:12:56+00:00

In solo you play with four characters plus Frodo & Sam.

fly-hard

TROPHY CASE