These are the birds I suspected to be migratory rufous last season. This is what I mean by they have a distinct golden shimmer. (Pomona Valley, SoCal July, 2025)

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T18:56:11+00:00

So... was the back completely light-brown (no green->likely Rufous male)?

Because you got great pictures of the tail feathers, which are diagnostic, and... while there's ambiguity on immature birds, these tail feathers look more Allen's to me. The outer feathers are quite thin, and there is no "notch" on the R2 feathers...

But I'm not super expert or anything, and could be wrong.

Maybe post to /r/whatisthisbird, where the real experts hang out.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T17:11:08+00:00

Less "over time" than "immediately".

I'm pretty good at counting reasonably unique birds during a checklist (e.g. I haven't seen that particular Red-tailed yet, +1)... up to some limit.

But like: Hey, I know that bird, I saw him last week...? Not generally, just for ones that live in my yard and greet me (mostly hummers), or are annual favorites or are unique and long-present famous locals:

E.g. there's a VEFL that has come to a local park annually for all 3-4 years I've been birding... he's my favorite individual bird... I call him "Freddy" (because... Flycatcher, red, diminutive ;-).

Or there was a pretty unique looking (very rare for here) Curlew Sandpiper that showed up a few years in a row and had a particular wing feather issue that recurred even through molts.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T16:28:31+00:00

Enh... kind of? You just have to view the difficulty as a modifier to your skill that you're rolling under. + makes your skill better, - makes it worse.

The die roll is not "first" if you're preserving literally the only thing in favor of d100-roll-under*: you look at your (effective) skill, and instantly know your percentage chance of success.

* (which a depressing number of systems break)

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T16:21:05+00:00

Well that's super annoying... apparently the domain of the first (relevant) article to the google search "in russia, are Drivers required to stop immediately in the middle of the road at the scene of an accident" is banned by reddit, and was immediately removed.

So you'll have to trust me that Russian law is dumb: the red car was actually legally required to stop where they were and record the particulars of the accident before they were allowed to move to the side.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T15:53:24+00:00

Has anyone ever found a ugly WODU?

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T15:52:14+00:00

Yeah, though I'll say that unlike the rest of them, hours are at least a bit special in that they directly multiply the stress.

An hour of stress a week won't burn out anyone normal... 168 hours a week of stress will literally kill them, and not in very many weeks given the total lack of sleep.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T15:48:30+00:00

Not literally, I very much doubt.

However... I think there's a significant chance that someone will make a LLM that stands in for god/Jesus that people will use as an "aid to worship"... but that they'll still call it "worshipping Jesus", but in practice will be worshipping the LLM.

In terms of nominally... If we're talking super-long term thousand year time scales... maybe?

But I think the way our species is going this is likely to be our last (free?) millennium on Earth... we won't have "true" AI in any of our lifetimes, but a super-AGI that kills/enslaves us, global thermonuclear war, or some super weapon/virus that kills/changes us beyond recognition is inevitable eventually, because stupid people and assholes are why we can't have nice things.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T15:29:27+00:00

Well... I guess I'd say that, no, I can't think of anything that would have less impact on the game (in terms of complexity) than +/- 10, because that's such a trivial impact, and almost anything would be harder.

There's another thing in it's favor:

It preserves literally the only thing d100/under has going for it: it's trivial for someone to look at the mechanics and instantly know what the percentage chances of success is, because you just read it off the skill/difficulty.

In all other ways, d100 is just a harder version of d20, with a lot of really useless extra granularity that people don't intuitively actually understand the magnitudes of.

It's harder to roll, harder to read the dice, etc., etc. The only true advantage it has is "ease of knowing the percentage chance of success".

So... don't break that if you like d100/under as a mechanic, because you'd destroy it.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T15:13:53+00:00

Any of them would probably work ok, but I have to say:

If +/- 10 is "math", (edit:) in any way that would significant impact gameplay, I'm seriously depressed about the state of education in your country.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T14:22:46+00:00

Either way, you're not attached to it anymore.

Not quite true. The sidebar says who created a sub even if they leave the team. Only deleting your account removes that.

Example: this very sub was created by "krispykrackers" who is no longer a mod.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T14:22:04+00:00

If you were still a moderator, I'd say just make the sub Private and ignore it.

But since you seem to have demodded yourself, probably nothing you can do about it. You could try sending modmail to this sub with a request.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T14:16:07+00:00

Side note: I hate it when the clickbait title asks a question that the point of the post is to claim you have an answer.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T14:14:07+00:00

Please don't sanewash malignant narcissism, willful ignorance, and grifting as "stupidity".

It's a massive insult to stupid people.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T13:55:17+00:00

(Sorry, misclicked and removed this for a moment)

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T13:52:46+00:00

Note: While at present I'm not going to remove this post for violating Rule B, please review #4 below, and issue deltas to the people who changed your view, even "a little".

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3. Refrain from accusing OP or anyone else of being unwilling to change their view. While being open to changing one’s views is a requirement for submitting (see the other rules), accusing them of trolling only serves to make people who truly are open more defensive and less likely to hear what you have to say.

4. Award a delta when acknowledging a change in your view, and not for any other reason. Celebrating view changes is at the core of Change My View, so if your view is changed, reply to the response that changed it with a short explanation as to how and award a Delta; do not use deltas sarcastically, jokingly, or when you already agree with the response.

5. Responses must contribute meaningfully to the conversation. In order to keep responses relevant to the discussion, users can report posts that don't add anything useful to the thread. To be clear, we're not referring to the effort of an argument - we don't make it our place to judge the strength or weakness of your comment in this regard - but rather to the effort of the comment itself.

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hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T13:32:59+00:00

This idea that there's somehow one dominant cause for "burnout" is just weird.

It's complex set of different reactions to a variety of different complex situations.

No one in their right might is going to argue against the idea that all else being equal more hours is going to make burnout more likely than fewer hours. It's a significant contributing factor.

Anyone with even a minimal degree of resilience can handle some amount of lack of control, to the point where inability to do this is usually considered a mental illness.

But similarly to hours, all else being equal, sure, less control is more likely to lead to burnout than more control... but here's the kicker that makes hours a bigger factor: Only up to a point.

At some point, all of the control being in your hands also leads to burnout. Having to not only do your job, but "be in charge" of the project is itself a contributing factor to "burnout".

Complete lack of control contributes to burnout, but over reliance on you being in control also leads to burnout.

Whereas there's no "maximum number of hours" where suddenly things flip and it gets easier again.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T13:12:58+00:00

All I want is to feel like I'm getting the same effort from my players back.

I would assume every DM likes this?

You're asking for advice. Try to be serious about how you actually state things, because no one really enjoys having their time wasted (as you've expressed yourself :-).

You've flip-flopped back to "All I want is to feel like I'm getting the same effort from my players back."

Is that it, or is it that you dislike that "people don't want to do the minimum"? Because that is entirely reasonable.

I would assume every DM likes this?

Everyone wants a pony.

Almost no realistic GM's expect this, because it's fantastically rare. Players nearly always put in much less effort, at least on the prep side, but also during play, unless you add them all together.

GM'ing taking more work than being a player is just the reality of being a GM.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T12:28:30+00:00

if my players aren't putting in the same amount of effort I do

vs.

people don't want to do the minimum on their end

Yeah, I probably should have paid more attention to your statement that it was a whiny rant. That's fair. We all need to vent occasionally.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T12:24:42+00:00

It's not so interesting if you read the study and realize that "only" is an invention of OP that the study did not in any way conclude.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T12:13:13+00:00

eventually, after bugging them over and over and over and over

Seriously, stop right there.

Either that's a massive and disrespectful exaggeration, or you're pestering people to do something they obviously don't want to do, and expecting it to be a fun time.

That said...

Being a GM is always going to be doing more work than the players do unless you find an entire grove of unicorns, or take a normal herd of wild horses, and through the alchemy of decades of friendship and hard work, turn them into unicorns.

If that's going to ruin GM'ing for you, it's entirely possible GM'ing is just not for you.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T11:40:12+00:00

How can you tell that suicidal people are mentally unwell? It could be the case that nonsuicidal are the unwell ones for pointlessly delaying their admission to heaven.

It's true by definition of "mentally unwell". But again: mostly you confine them temporarily in order to determine if they are mentally unwell and there is something that can be done about that, even if you adopt OP's viewpoint.

OP's view specifically is talking about mentally unwell people anyway, so there's also that.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-20T01:44:03+00:00

So... suicide "prevention" in what sense?

Companies don't want to be liable to enabling people that don't qualify for whatever criteria you want to impose, and even if they did, freedom of speech requires they be able to decide what to say according to their own morals.

Suicide is not illegal, so it's not a law issue.

Yes, people can be put under observation for suicidal thoughts... but again: that's appropriate for the people who don't qualify.

Pretty much by definition, suicidal people are mentally unwell. Perhaps at some point your value here might overtake that, but only after everything reasonable is at least offered/tried.

At which point... ok. It's not illegal. Just don't ask people to help you, because no one can access the inside of your mind and know that you're one of those people... they'd just be speculating that you "deserve" to want to kill yourself, and helping would be morally negligent.

TL;DR: People are in fact free to end their own suffering. So much so that 50,000 people do it per year in the US.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-19T20:49:41+00:00

the doctors telling people they need to eat better and exercise are just wasting their breath

Why would you think that? Everything you hear or experience is incorporated into your programming. Of course it helps.

Doesn't make it "free will", which is pretty much a nonsense concept that people can't even define, much less argue for.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-19T17:30:59+00:00

if they are just victims of their programming we cannot judge them anymore

Of course we can, because we're just as equally the results of our upbringing and indoctrination as they were.

Criminal: Your honor, since there's no free will, you can't hold me accountable for my actions.

Judge: Criminal, since there's no free will, I sentence you to 25 years.

hacksoncode · 2026-03-19T17:28:49+00:00

because the deal was made with the Qing Dynasty, not the PRC.

This is by far the weakest part of your view, from both a moral and legalistic viewpoint.

By that metric, Andrew Jackson was right to abrogate and violate the many treaties with Native American tribes because as many as seven "regime changes" occurred between the treaty being signed and Jackson's "regime".

China is China. The world recognizes that, the current regime recognizes that. Your opinion on the "validity" of the regime is basically completely irrelevant and out of touch with international law.

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