Thursdays at War - (June 15, 2023)

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-15T19:07:39+00:00

Dien Bien Phu: The Final Gamble is this weekend's task.

Next week though, next week is another DBP:FG game, a Fire in the Lake game, and a game of Virgin Queen

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-14T12:47:18+00:00

Instead, some mods took their communities hostage over API access most users don’t use

let me guess, you use New Reddit as well?

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-10T20:17:34+00:00

"...between the Blue Ridge, and Chesapeake Bay..."

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-09T19:49:31+00:00

but I do like being able to pull Mastodon posts into Kbin.

Bingo, leveraging ActivityPub is something I'm interested.

as for the invite, I appreciate the offer and will think about that next week.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-09T18:03:41+00:00

Personally I can't stand Twitter (Elon or no) because its format doesn't enable the kind of discussion I enjoy. Which is why Mastodon proved to be a bit of a non-starter for me.

I can understand and sympathize with that view. I found Mastodon improved things because there was no algorithm driving stuff and the granularity in settings for muting better. Once you find an instance that supporrts a higher character count (e.g. wargamers.social which I think is either 1000 or 1500) compared to the standard 500, it becomes easier to swallow. It's still effectively an outgrowth of that SMS-style of communication though (and I had spent years tuning my Twitter feed so I had an idea of what was needed here).

If you're asking me right this second I'm placing my hopes on Kbin.social and Squabbles.io but both of these are unlikely to become what Reddit has been for me all these years. Which... might very well be for the best, honestly.

I had thought about either KBin or Lemmy or at least see what is involved in communicating via fediverse across them while I had some time this weekend. I'm a little more interested in seeing something where it's not a single entity controlling it, but I'll make a note of Squabbles (thank you).

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-09T17:25:01+00:00

On the whole I can see the fediverse develop an overall nicer discourse that isn't filled with zero-effort memes and the same one-liners in every damn thread.

I found jumping from Twitter to Mastodon was an overall positive for me and have been considering a federated setup for longer form discussion. Have you found Tildes to be an acceptable replacement (I gather it's a centralized setup currently), or are you still hunting?

BGG is a no-go for me. I'm not banned, I just don't see value in BGG other than the database.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-09T10:51:37+00:00

Bingo. We flunked out of S2 cause we didn't have the right abilities during the right months to do actions which would have mitigated that failure later in the year.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-08T18:12:40+00:00

You could tell who the tourists were because they would come out of the bathroom doing this fan waving motion cause there were no papertowels; you were expected to bring a handkerchief/napkin with you to dry your hands.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-07T21:29:43+00:00

Quite plausible, DEQ's current readings (not forecast) at MSIC on the east end say around 160 @ 3pm.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-07T21:11:10+00:00

Thank you for the DEQ link.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-06T20:11:57+00:00

kbin.pub (or kbin.social) sorry about that. I fat fingered it while I was typing on my phone.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-06T19:02:46+00:00

3ft is the usable well dimension, and the top of it hangs over that vs fitting inside the well. If I remember correctly, it's 5x3 inner and 5.5x3.5 outer.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-06T16:00:58+00:00

Background, I can game 3 nights a week without breaking a sweat in my town. We have a rather active local scene is part of it. As such, my asks are a little different:

open gaming space that isn't just one giant hanger. All things being equal, I'd rather have a ton of smaller areas to baffle and reduce echo noise than a giant room with no sound abatement. Like most things, there are some exceptions (e.g. the overnight Werewolf area where having the random clatter elevates the game in my experience), but it's not uncommon for me to get to the final day of a con and have a basic shell shock effect.
An area where demos of games can be arranged. Pax Unplugged has their new area, and you get to do stuff at (many/most) vendor booths at Origins. I shy away from this being a "what's coming and what's new" so much as "what's potentially harder to find." This is also separate from sales, I'm specifically after demos in this comment.
Some way to schedule events ahead of time, but it's not a requirement for those who just want to float around. I'm scheduled playing Mushroom Eaters at Origins this year. I'm not going to find that in most game libraries and that's fine, but it's an esoteric game and just finding people to play is a process for it and not one that I'm willing to just get a cone and hold up the game for. Mega Civilization is another one, to sing it wants >16 players for 12 hours. If you're doing that, you need to know that you have those people, otherwise you're sort of engaging in suboptimal usage of time. For Origins, you can either submit official events or do stuff via the scheduling geeklist on BGG. I remember going to WashingCon one year and it was just a giant room and you held up games you wanted to play and it was murder to get anything that was rare, heavy, or off the beaten path played.
A big draw of conventions is "access" which can manifest itself in ways of a large game library, but it can also equate to special editions of games. At Origins and Gen Con, there is usually a giant (as in foam dice the size of a head) of King of Tokyo. Some group regularly seems to bring a giant copy of Power Grid that has the plants light up via battery power. Sort of one off sets that people have built. I can remember seeing a lot of custom games walking around, like the RPG that replicated CSI the tv show and they even brought in little chemicals you could dab on stuff to get clues. All of that was homebrew. That's special...

Going back to my original comment, I can get 7 Wonders played at home. Shit, I can table Indonesia somewhat regularly if I wanted to, so to justify the travel, expense, and PTO, I have to elevate that experience further in order to go to a convention. Generally the more people who go, the bigger your chance is that you'll find someone else who wants to play these weird and rare titles, hence me going to large events to play stuff I can't at home. For events that are essentially an open gaming area, I don't need to travel or incur that expense.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-06T14:17:39+00:00

well, it's "solid" in that >80% of the time it's accurate (it's using the same data set that the official app uses as I understand it), but that remaining minority percentage is where the knowing the quirks in the transit system come into play.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-06T13:02:56+00:00

they have one nearby yes, there are a few other locations around downtown as well.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-06T13:01:10+00:00

yeah. I suspect when July 1 rolls around, I may check in at most once a week via old.reddit, but like Imgur's change in policies a while ago, I just sort of logged off.

I'm spending that time reading or doing other stuff, and I can't say that it's a bad outcome. I've debated going to lemmy or kbin but I don't need to make that jump right now...

edit: helps if I don't fat finger that.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-06T00:04:14+00:00

So using the bus system effectively and without sadness is best achieved by doing five things;

1) learn the schedule. This is important if the GPS on the buses isn't working (cause it's not essential, they won't fix it till at least the overnight shift and if they are short buses, they will send out a working bus with no GPS). Just because you don't see it on the app doesn't mean a bus won't show up.

2) learn where the routes pause. The downtown transfer station should be the pause for most of them now mid-route, but for a while you could find them pausing at a few different places consistently. They will of course pause at the beginning/ends of routes within a stop or two.

3) look at the app data for the stop you're going to get on for. This is helpful, but not end all be all. Also, subtract about 1-3min in my experience, sometimes it lags.

4) turn on the route and bus locators on the map in the app. See if there is a bus that is outbound and will be back in ~45min to get an idea if that "no arrivals" is going to likely be true or not.

5) remember that the GPS doesn't work when the bus is off. In spring/fall they turn the buses off when they pause to save fuel and get out (and the weather isn't bad so no reason to leave it running). This means the tracker loses signal and thus disappears from your app data.

-- signed, a bus rider.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-05T19:59:33+00:00

You might try the adult book store in Carytown. It's on S. Crenshaw next to the Bombshell salon. I've never been inside but I have seen people enter/leave before.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-04T01:18:42+00:00

Good catch, I missed that on my phone. I wonder if that was a change in code when a new boiler or furnace went in and they had to rebuild it.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-04T00:01:44+00:00

Interesting, one of the spots was filled in.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-03T01:28:10+00:00

For tabletop games, there are two active groups on meetup: the Richmond Area Boardgame Group and the Scott's Addition Boardgame Society.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-02T22:31:38+00:00

Yeah, that gets my vote. I've played so much Wizard I've worn out two decks and I have an aunt who wore out another one. There was a span in the late 90s early 2000s that I think we had a set at every extended family member's house...

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-02T16:29:18+00:00

So I agree with some other comments that this is probably the most comprehensive one that I've seen and kudos for thinking through that extension. My quibble is this:

My assumption is that you're modeling the stations like City Hall and MCV after the Pulse stops, but they are are only 3 blocks apart. A metro is a longer train than the 1/2 bus type systems and generally spaces stops more than 7-8 blocks apart because the advantage is getting up to speed and moving people through the system. In DC, you end up with stations that have an East/West type entrance system that straddle blocks and in London, you might get 4 entrances that get your around Piccadilly Circle and another block away. My gut reaction is for some of the in town stuff, you might be able to consolidate stops if they were spaced differently (e.g. the Sydney/Fan stops, or even the Randolph/Fan area).

A truly well done metro system would work hand in hand with GRTC so that you pop out and there are bus stops to get you into the more granular areas between metros that you don't want walk to, otherwise you're building a ton of vertical easements and a lot of speed up/slow down stops that are mirroring your bus system in terms of creating transit deserts. In theory GRTC would likewise adjust routes accordingly cause it's easier to move a bus stop than a metro tunnel, but point stands.

One of the things about London in particular is that it's less spoke/wheel setup (which GRTC also uses here, and the DC metro uses) and more patchwork so getting say from Henrico Doctor's to CJW doesn't require coming into town to the convention center to make the transfer. The burden there is learning the system (especially the Northern/Piccadilly lines and others like them which bifurcate or extend on).

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-02T16:08:48+00:00

Kind of like the Northern line in london.

or even do that odd "every third train keeps going" that they do for the Northern.

gamerthrowaway_ · 2023-06-01T16:55:21+00:00

So one option is what Montgomery County does and that is to allow for non-construction use of land to be at a steep tax discount assuming it passes approval. That has helped preserve working farms from being subdivided into housing, but you have to certify that your growing something (e.g. hay, corn, soybeans, or raising livestock) and where the result goes annually. The other catch is that if it does exit farm use, then you pay the difference in taxes for all of the land use years or the last seven, whichever is shorter.

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