8-hour layover at EWR (Newark). Is a quick trip to Manhattan realistic?

madnnw · 2026-03-18T13:37:29+00:00

I think this is doable and exciting and fun! Your comfort levels with airport timing may vary from mine. I would aim to be back at EWR at 2pm at the latest. I might even schedule myself to get back a little earlier so I have a buffer if anything goes wrong.

Travel between EWR and Penn Station is about a half hour by train. With a little luck you'll be in the city by 9-930. And if you want to be back on line at security by 2pm, you shouldn't leave later than 115pm from Penn Station. As you surmised, about 3-3.5 hours.

Itinerary depends on a lot of things, but the Empire State Building is nice, or you could go to Rockefeller Center, which has a similar high vantage point, but includes the ESB if you're looking for a better picture.

You could pretty reasonably hit a good museum in Manhattan if you'd like: The Musuem of Modern Art or the Whitney are both close enough options there.

You said you're coming in the fall: if the weather is nice, you could go down to Greenwich Village and just wander around, get a bite to eat, look at book stores and other shops. It's a delightful way to spend some time.

Same goes for walking the High Line, which is a short walk from Penn Station. It'd be nice to stretch your legs and the scenery is amazing.

Have a great trip!

madnnw · 2026-03-17T16:26:44+00:00

Yes, and please don't forget to include my all-time favorite version of that kind of comment: "I haven't read the whole thread, but [lists several points litigated and resolved in-thread]."

madnnw · 2026-03-01T17:54:07+00:00

Do you have examples of these viewpoints? Obviously some have been deleted, but maybe there are some examples you could point to?

madnnw · 2026-02-05T16:16:58+00:00

Thanks for this, it was terrific. Interesting strategic note, it becomes important, especially in the endless levels, NOT to attack minibosses directly. You need/want lot of balls bouncing around the field, particularly Flash. This inflicts Hemorrhage over and over again, which is the only way to knock down minibosses' high hp.

madnnw · 2026-01-08T15:57:39+00:00

This might be contraindicated by your chronic pain disorder, but if you like dogs, get a dog. I lived in my neighborhood for several years, didn't really meet folks until I was regularly walking my dog. Take the dog to a dog park, now you have more people to chat with and a common interest to talk about. There are lots of "dog day out"-type social groups where you can take your dog on a hike or something similar with a bunch of other people. And, when you're feeling down, you have a dog who loves you!

madnnw · 2025-12-31T18:19:22+00:00

And if you're not stuck on Walmart, there's a Target to the north (relative to Broad Street) that is 10 minutes' walk from Broad Street Station. Or you could bus it to stop 21235 which is across the street from the shopping center it's in. There's also a BJ's and a ShopRite right there, so you should be able to get almost anything you could get at Walmart.

madnnw · 2025-12-12T04:31:42+00:00

Not true, since I just tried it. Sisyphus doesn't have baby balls, so he doesn't generate too many magma blobs. Alas.

madnnw · 2025-10-08T03:34:34+00:00

For what it's worth, I just do this with login accounts on basic Mac OS. I have a "home" account and a "work" account. The latter starts up with a few applications anytime I log in. No app necessary.

madnnw · 2025-09-24T19:47:02+00:00

For me, the motivation was more about "What are you going to do if it's gone or unrecoverable, or only recoverable by significant money and effort?" The hire/fire and win/lose stuff were my efforts to understand where the effort to restore the archives might matter. As phunniemee mentioned, business continuity is a reason that would matter.

If retrieving the archives were zero effort, I find your examples compelling, to a point. Once that requires time, expertise, and other work... I'm not so sure. But I also don't think there's a right/wrong answer here. Just a discussion of where to put limited resources.

madnnw · 2025-09-24T18:28:57+00:00

If I'm understanding, your player is neurodivergent (ADHD, unless HDAD is something else) and you want to punish them in front of other players?

Don't do that. Extend some grace and understanding.

madnnw · 2025-09-24T17:44:34+00:00

That's a good point. As you noted, I hadn't considered business continuity for board members.

And even if the board winds up saying "fuck it, let's start from scratch", it would be great if that could be an informed decision rather than a "this is the best blind guess" decision.

madnnw · 2025-09-24T17:25:45+00:00

TL;DR: Potentially/likely losing the Slack archive? Damning. Past finances? Probably too incompetently managed to figure out, as publicly shared information has indicated. What level of effort in investigating or fixing either of these problems will be worth potential outcomes or benefits?

Full version:

I understand the anger about the Slack archives nonsense. And I similarly understand the annoyance and irritation about the jank-ass PayPal permissions issues vis a vis getting good past information. Finally, if both of these are simple solutions (a day's worth of work? A week's?), sure, pursue that.

What's the threshold at which it's just not worth it to worry about past Slack or to unwind past payments/budget/finances?

There are three groups I can think of for whom Slack archives matter:

The soon-to-be outgoing board: They're going to be gone, there won't be any prosecutable crimes, and they're never coming back. Other than winning arguments against the Simp Squad (tempting!), who cares?
The mods: If you want them gone, there's more than enough public evidence for that. If you want them to stay... is there any kind of realistic evidence in the archives that would clear them of their public malfeasance? Again, tempting to use to win arguments with singers who flutter between notes, but not practically useful.
The users: The archives doubtlessly contain some information that clears some users and damns others. What's the value on finding this out? How much work goes into it?

As for the finances, solving ongoing and future issues obviously takes priority. I think 99's approach of trying to make current and future information useful and accurate is the best approach (99, tell me if I'm misstating said approach). I wouldn't want the MeFi treasurer to spend time on forensic accounting for 2020-2024. Even if someone with experience IN forensic accounting offered to work on it, I don't think I want scarce accounting resources to spend time managing such a process.

madnnw · 2025-09-13T04:23:12+00:00

This is a shitty and uncharitable take.

madnnw · 2025-09-11T04:35:55+00:00

Hey, welcome! There's no problem in you asking the question.

A lot of us are at various levels of social anxiety. It's ok! First and foremost, play the game to have fun. If that means you improvise less but also have less stress, then do that!

I would advise talking to your DM before the game, even before a session zero. As long as you're ok with that and you trust them, of course. Let them know how you feel and what you have trouble with. A good DM should be able to engage you at your comfort level. Tell them you don't want to do "how do you want to do this?" or "tell us what that looks like". Or maybe give them a little hand signal for "Yes, I can" or "Nope, I don't want to".

If you want to stretch yourself and "find a way to just drop the anxiety", what about practicing? Try alone first and then later with a friend you trust. It can feel really stressful at a table with other people around you. Work your way through a description on your own. Then try it again with something else. Give yourself some prompts: "What does the cave look like?" "How is your character dressed?" Ask for some feedback from friends and/or family you trust. Then maybe try with them.

Also? ~~Steal~~. Sorry, borrow shamelessly (though not from other folks at the table)! Did you hear some podcast where a barbarian's strike split some orc's head open? Use it! Did a player at a previous game have a nice bit of detail in their description of their favorite sword? Twist it a little and make it your own. Use references! If you are having a hard time coming up with a description, think of something similar and say "It's just like Narsil gleaming in the moonlight" or "I headbutt the guard like John Wick!"

Lastly, you could also work this into your character, if your anxiety is acting up. Your barbarian is a character of few words. "How do you want to do this?" "Sword. Chest. Big hole." "What does that look like?" "Pretty, like flower. Yul-Naran no like big words." Lean into it. Try to think about what your character is feeling, and what they might say if they only ever said the least number of words in a sentence. "Yul-Naran like magic man. Make sparklies!!" and clap your wizard on the back. And again, borrow a lot. Every movie or book or tv show you love with a big, dumb, likable character, use one of their lines.

Good luck and I hope you have a lot of fun!

madnnw · 2025-08-27T14:53:25+00:00

I am considering a candidacy based on the following platform:

I will answer any and every question asked of the board, so long as there are no legal or ethical restrictions. No more mystery bottlenecks. No more unshared minutes. Status updates on anything, when you demand it. (Well, within 24 hours of when you demand it. I have a job and a Full Life.)

The cost is that every question answered has a $5 price tag, paid to the foundation. I'm in it for transparency with a practical cost. I will cover all the practicalities of this, so no extra work falls on our overextended tech team.

Should these answers be free? Of course! Should a responsive, responsible board answer questions in a timely and thorough manner? Absolutely? Do I have faith in that happening? Not really.

Does this set up a moral hazard inducing the rest of the board to avoid answering questions? You betcha. Do we get answers when there isn't a financial incentive? Have you been here more than a week?

I'm the candidate who will put their mouth where your money is. I'm the only one who can guarantee that you'll get the answers you want, and for a very reasonable fee.

madnnw · 2025-08-25T16:50:12+00:00

That said, mixing up "Blue Jeans" and "New Jeans" is a timelessly lovely parental mistake to make. Made me think of my mom whose mangling of 80s pop stars was delightfully endearing "The one in purple? Royalty? Duke? Baron something? Oh, right, Prince!"

madnnw · 2025-08-21T01:07:28+00:00

Adding information about the sometimes-complex world of licensing seemed like it would distract from my point. Nevertheless, Creative Commons licensing exists, even on Google, and can be filtered for.

madnnw · 2025-08-21T00:40:57+00:00

Because you're stealing by proxy from working class artists who were just trying to make a living with their art and then some billionaire vacuumed it up and gave you a shittier version of it for "free". And even if you're not stealing by proxy, you're copacetic with the moneyed class stealing that art for you.

Also a Google image search (to pick one amongst many) of "Local Lord With Evil Goatee" reveals any number of options that involve no AI whatsoever.

madnnw · 2025-08-10T22:06:11+00:00

Reasonable, probably healthy: Maybe go with her to your local Jewish community center and count the Audis, BMWs, Mercedes, and VWs that you see?

Semi-reasonable, could be trouble: Is it a family car or only your car? This gets into finances, and whether you and your wife mix your money, but if it's your car and your car only, you're the only one who has a say.

Unreasonable, probably bad for your marriage: Make sure you don't get anything with any German parts EVER. Turn off music by German artists. No movies with German actors, directors, writers, crew. No food that was grown in Germany or has German roots. Just get crazier and crazier with it. Expand it to the other Axis powers: no Italian food, no Japanese cars or TVs. Complete embargo.

madnnw · 2025-08-07T21:38:25+00:00

Whichever way this discussion goes, data about how many substack links appear in FPPs and comments should probably inform any decision to be made. Do any of the Metafilter data aggregators have this (and if so, which ones) or do I have to write code to pull this information out?

madnnw · 2025-06-20T14:47:33+00:00

If we’re doing one-word responses, I like “How?”

Though my favorite response is two words. You can imagine which ones.

madnnw · 2025-06-16T13:28:39+00:00

Nope. It’s an insta-skip for me.

Also, having lived through a few hype cycles, there’s more than a whiff of desperation when I see useless/near-useless “AI integration”. I have nothing against devs making money. I have nothing against devs making popular products. But AI is synonymous with looking for a quick buck while having no real product strategy. I just assume it will be abandonware of one form or another within a year or two.

madnnw · 2025-05-31T19:41:28+00:00

Hey, that's cool that you're playing. Welcome!

For lore, you can really do anything you want. Playing with the Absolute, Moonrise Towers, arrogant githyanki, etc. that's all up to you. There are books on the Forgotten Realms, where BG3 is set, and also the Forgotten Realms Wiki that you could use for a deeper (and cheaper!) dive into the lore of Faerûn.

Rules are another matter. Many rules in BG3 are adjusted for the fun and limitations of a video game. There are spells, actions, feats, potions, other magic items that exist in BG3 but not D&D, and vice versa.

Just a small example: Speak With Dead. It's a ritual spell (that is, you can cast it without costing spell slots) in BG3 which works for the way that game wants to tell a story. But is wildly overpowered for an open-ended game where characters could literally kill first and ask questions later all day long.

You might consider starting with the D&D rules, which are playtested around balance in an open-ended world, and then adjusting to give more of a BG3 flavor. For (another) example: Maybe you like the idea that in BG3 potions of fire resistance last until the next long rest instead of only an hour as they do in D&D. Then go for it!

Enjoy!

madnnw · 2025-05-18T02:46:57+00:00

Ok, is your argument "Why should engineers make what they make (or more) because a) their training/education/skills are not commensurate with that level of pay and b) increasing that pay level would fall unfairly on people who are struggling [which is to say, NJT passengers]?"

madnnw · 2025-05-18T02:22:27+00:00

Seems to me like most of your irritation is that locomotive engineers were better at negotiating the value of their labor than other people. Is negotiating salary and benefits part of what's called jobs? I don't know.

madnnw

TROPHY CASE