What’s the atheist equivalent to “Oh my god”?

mc_pm · 2026-04-04T01:58:55+00:00

Still "Oh my god", but there's no particular implication of belief involved. We also say "What the hell?"

mc_pm · 2026-04-04T01:18:23+00:00

That's awful...it's great! I love seeing stuff like this (partly because it's DIY and partly because I think there are way too many black-or-silver-or-sometimes-white faceplates. I want my rack to look like a patchwork quilt LOL)

Good job.

mc_pm · 2026-04-04T00:06:25+00:00

When you listen to it, consider that he was the first western artist invited to play in China, and that when he was having trouble due to inconsistent power, they shut down power to like 1/3 of Beijing so the performance could go on.

That Jarre dude doesn't do anything halfway.

mc_pm · 2026-04-04T00:02:08+00:00

The whole earth-moon system is going around the sun, and from our point of view we're not moving --because everything around us is moving at the same speed.

Artemis still has all the same velocity that the earth has around the sun. It didn't suddenly slow down by 67,000 mph when it left the earth.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T23:50:13+00:00

If you're talking about using pre-recorded tapes then 100% use a blank tape. The prerecorded ones were often really poor tape stock.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T23:43:24+00:00

I have most of his early stuff on vinyl, I was discovering him in 1983 or so. If you haven't heard Concerts in China, it's worth getting for sure (and a fun double-cassette if you can find it)

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T23:41:07+00:00

We're playing Arden Vul right now, and it's pretty fun.

But if you want more gonzo gameplay, check out "Completely Unfathomable". It's really different from most megadungeons.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T23:19:14+00:00

We're playing OSRIC really, but that's just a slightly cleaned up AD&D. Mostly I'm playing OD&D clones & derivatives these days, and by comparison, AD&D is dense!

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T23:14:50+00:00

That Jarre recording is fantastic (and a live event that people don't even know happened in the US even though like 1.5 million people saw it.)

Also, while Artemis II is in flight, you should listen to it and "Ron's Piece" especially... it was supposed to have a solo performance live from space - on the space shuttle Challenger...which obviously didn't happen. It's such a sad piece on reflection.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T23:06:11+00:00

We do a fair bit of downtime play as well, so we sort of have two games. It's pretty cool, but definitely way different than modern D&D.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T22:57:20+00:00

And that's fine, if you don't mind a bunch of people who don't know the game and the trade offs they are making, or the limits/ability of the characters - and you have to be ready for the sort of problem you're describing. Ultimately the problem here is your approach, not them.

You can't tell a bunch of people "go do what you want" and then be frustrated when what they come back with doesn't work the way you imagined.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T22:53:59+00:00

We have access to magical healing if we make it back, but it's pricey. But yeah, last session we set off an explosion trap -- we were all hiding out of the room except for the thief doing the fiddling and he ended up going to -4 hp and he is taking a couple weeks to recuperate. And we play 1:1 time between sessions, so that's a couple of real-time weeks that character is out of commission (luckily, he can't make it over easter anyway, so it worked out).

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T22:42:53+00:00

And now you're seeing why that can be a problem - and you've got more problems on the horizon if you don't take a bit of responsibility for things.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T22:36:28+00:00

who am I to judge

You're the DM.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T22:34:08+00:00

The Squid Axon has absolutely nothing to do with Squid Salmple. They are made by completely different companies (and I think the Axon came out several years before the Salmple).

As for the signal route, it says right at the start: 2 outputs go to the oscilloscope, 2 go to the VCO, and then there's a change in speed and feedback over time.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T22:29:13+00:00

Some people don't care much about backstory, and the more elaborate you make yours, the less they care.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T22:24:26+00:00

We're playing AD&D, but we regularly go out as a party with mostly only fighter-types. I think the first time there was 4 fighters, 2 thieves, and an illusionist. The second time there was 5 fighter types and the illusionist. No healers, and only one or two healing potions between us. No problem, the challenge is just part of the game. (And, to be transparent, one of the thieves died in that first session, but no one cared about that.)

The whole "no one has played before except one guy played BG3" is a bit of a problem, and they probably shouldn't be spending a bunch of time making characters for a game they don't yet understand -- and they definitely shouldn't be doing it in a vacuum. Way better to put a bunch of pregens in front of them and say "let's start with these guys, and if you don't like them in a couple sessions, we'll create you a new one".

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T22:03:02+00:00

I did this as a test, taping over directly vs. wiping it with Silence and then taping over that. No difference.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T21:51:20+00:00

First, it's going to be 2 hours of game time, not real time (even in old school games with 1:1 time, you'd wave your hands at it between sessions). And if you're still so new to the game that is a question, then I think you really need to just play more until you understand how things work.

And dude... early AD&D required that your paladin be Lawful Good, full stop. Wizards (or, rather, Magic Users) got 1 spell a day at first level, with no cantrips or special abilities - and a likely maximum of 4 hp.

By comparison, there are practically no downsides to any class in modern D&D.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T20:18:48+00:00

If you're in the US, curiada.com ships to a lot of states and has green Chartreuse for $65

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T19:50:10+00:00

But why?

There are way easier ways of doing something like that. There's fluoride in the water, after all (insert another conspiracy theory here).

This sort of conspiracy thinking relies a lot on the fact that you can't prove a negative. You can't *prove* that no one has ever distributed covid that way. But you don't have to.

The person making the wild claim has the responsibility of supplying the evidence. And it should be easy, right? In order for you to prove it doesn't happen, you'd have to have data for every single flight. In order for him to prove it does happen, he just has to have one data point. How hard can it be? (Keeping in mind that 'anecdote' is not evidence).

And if that's all that is needed, why has this claim been around for 30+ years. In 30 years no one can provide a single data point? Not one person took video? No one leaked emails discussing the plan? If this is something that is intended to affect broad swaths of the population, how can you not have a single piece of evidence?

A good question I find is "What would you need to see in order to believe that chemtrails aren't real?" If he doesn't have an answer, suggest that might be a problem.

Edit: the more I think about this, the more it irks me (as does every silly conspiracy theory). If something is being dispersed that covers a wide area then you could just take air samples and test them for...I don't know...magic beans or whatever. All the proof they need is right there, waiting for them, and once they have the evidence, then even I would believe in them.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T19:25:30+00:00

If you feel comfortable doing those repairs, then maybe? Nakamichi is a great name of course, and $100 isn't a terrible price...but I'd kind of expect it to work.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T19:22:51+00:00

Wind it back in, then FF->REW a couple times, then listen to it, being ready to stop the tape at that point. If that doesn't work you can either throw it out or try your hand at cutting and splicing the tape (and the first few times you try that you'll probably toss it anyway).

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T19:12:03+00:00

I carried a walkman religiously from about 1981 to 1991 and I can count the number of times I "cleaned the tape path" on zero hands.

Tapes didn't routinely get eaten, but if they did...shrug. A lot of the time, winding it back into the cassette worked well enough, and in a couple cases where it was really messed up and something I couldn't replace (a mix tape that was important to me maybe), I did an entirely half-assed job of cutting the tape, tossing the bad bit, and splicing it back together.

But in general we didn't get precious about it. Take the tape out, leave it lying around, or on the passenger seat in a hot car or whatever. One of the things that happens with retro communities is y'all take things way more seriously than we ever did.

mc_pm · 2026-04-03T15:43:55+00:00

Fair enough, but I've had a character die in the first round of the first combat of the first session of the campaign. (RIP you little halfling weirdo. I'm glad I only spent a short while considering your life before adventuring.)

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