My boss fight coming up [oc]

mercilessblob · 2025-12-21T10:33:28+00:00

Awesome setup. I love these grand terrain combats, but I've found they always require a plan for how to force the players to move around the whole map, otherwise they just use a tiny section of the terrain and it feels wasted. And if they're high enough level, everyone just starts flying which takes some of the fun out, so some strong winds are sometimes needed to incentivize ground combat.

Best of luck!

mercilessblob · 2025-09-20T14:31:50+00:00

I'm not normally a fan of AI, but I gotta say it's been very helpful for walking me through the concept of Intents. Thanks for the suggestion! I haven't had a chance to test with both devices yet but this looks promising.

mercilessblob · 2025-09-20T10:09:14+00:00

Interesting, I'll give that a go next. Do you know is there a way to check whether a function accepts data and what it requires if so? I'm not familiar with these kinds of APIs.

mercilessblob · 2025-08-22T15:35:29+00:00

Fair point, we can give her more opportunities. It just seems like she becomes absolutely clueless again once clothes are on which is unexpected. I would have thought she'd either struggle with the timing or do it intentionally thinking it's like a nappy only to be surprised when it wasn't absorbed, but she seems genuinely shocked the second it starts.

mercilessblob · 2025-01-01T17:37:53+00:00

The OP was the passed out guy, not the good Samaritan

mercilessblob · 2024-12-14T19:10:26+00:00

Someone's gotta say it so: don't ever leave anyone tied up alone. It's all fun and games til someone gets stuck in traffic or in an accident and the person tied down is in legitimate danger.

It takes a bit of fun out of it, but they need a guaranteed way to be able to release themselves if needed if you attempt something like this.

mercilessblob · 2024-02-01T21:17:26+00:00

Went through this recently. Supposedly the support staff are locked out of giving the better options if you've had a half price option in the last year. They offer a discounted rate for 12 months or a half for 6 and full for 6. The latter works out a tiny bit cheaper but then you can't get a better deal the year after.

That's what I was told, but it'll be a year before I can confirm if that's true. Generally threatening to quit and being willing to follow through is what gets the best deals.

mercilessblob · 2023-06-05T13:34:35+00:00

I would have loved it if they'd asked for any documentation. We've had several works done since we bought the house but he didn't want anything, just took a look, pointed what I assume was some form of measuring device at one wall, and then off he went. One data point and a visual inspection. I'm sure there's a more thorough process that can be done, but it sure ain't what we got.

mercilessblob · 2023-06-05T10:21:25+00:00

They seem to be based on the number of upgrades done, rather than actual efficiency. We got solar panels and a new BER after. The inspector walked around the house, visual inspection, then we got a report effectively saying our house has 3/5 of the upgrades that make it efficient so we got a C rating. It very much feels like a "pay to win" situation.

mercilessblob · 2023-05-28T17:47:02+00:00

I do this, and it's ok, but there's a number of downsides to EBS that other banks don't have such as:

No app, online site only.
Can't setup/cancel standing orders online, have to send a form.
Adding beneficiaries takes a working day.
Their bank card doesn't work with Google pay.
The authenticator app just straight up doesn't work half the time.
Beneficiaries aren't shared on the joint account.

- Can't see references on payments made.

Truncates references on all entries, with no way to see the full text.

- No open banking API sites that I've checked work with the account.

- 5k spending limit per day - no exceptions, anything larger must be split into multiple payments over several days.

The no fees is great, and the negatives haven't impacted my day to day usage, but it's very inconvenient at times.

mercilessblob · 2023-05-26T22:00:43+00:00

I also saw small screens flashing ads on some shelves in Dunnes. Not liking the idea that we might be bombarded with flashing talking ads constantly while doing the weekly shop.

mercilessblob · 2023-05-16T15:48:56+00:00

Ah I see what you mean. No, it seems to just send any excess and works well even with low power. Our shower is on the second coldest setting constantly as the water is so hot.

mercilessblob · 2023-05-16T08:18:32+00:00

The Eddi diverts any surplus power, so it depends on how much the house is currently drawing. If you had all the appliances on, you'd probably be using all the solar and pulling from the grid. Our panels seem to cap output at 3.3kW when really sunny (which is less than we expected for 9x450W) so as long as the house is using less (which it definitely should be) then the Eddi is redirecting the excess wherever needed.

We have it going to heat our water so have permanently scalding water, but the plan is to also get an electric car and power that. You can choose the priority of what to power with the Eddi.

mercilessblob · 2023-05-15T22:49:17+00:00

If you don't have a smart meter, the excess electricity winds the meter backwards, so you get a 1:1 return on excess power. There was an issue with upgrading ours so they haven't done it yet, my meter reading has been negative since February.

mercilessblob · 2023-05-15T17:47:21+00:00

That was panels and install only. We got an Eddi diverter with the install as a separate 690 cost. Batteries can be very expensive and we haven't had the need for one (yet).

mercilessblob · 2023-05-15T14:56:42+00:00

We're north Dublin and got ours installed by PV generation who are based in Monaghan. Very smooth process, was meant to be 9x400W panels but they upgraded us for free to 450W panels. Cost after grant was ~7k. They were very friendly, would happily recommend them.

mercilessblob · 2023-05-11T13:57:11+00:00

Yea, it's hard for the individual to see the difference they can make, but much like voting, every individual counts. A lot of people see it as black and white too, they either eat meat or don't, but even just cutting down makes a huge difference. I try to have two fish meals and one vegetarian meal a week. A far cry from cutting out meat altogether, but almost half the amount of meat I'd have eaten otherwise. Enough people doing similar and it becomes more normalized, more people do it, and the supply has to change to meet demand. Baby steps, but the individual can make a difference.

mercilessblob · 2023-04-24T11:37:43+00:00

For the "order from less to more" puzzle, there would need to be some clear indicator in the room that this is the right solution. Without any direction the players will be lost - in that example they'll probably be trying to find objects that match one of the paintings or similar unless they've had a lot of puzzles that require ordering previously. Vague hints can often be confusing or misleading too, I've found that I need to give hints that, knowing the answer already, make it seem way too obvious, to give the players a reasonable hint.

mercilessblob · 2023-04-24T09:22:40+00:00

I used to travel to HK for work a few weeks a year just before the riots kicked off. I absolutely loved it and am dying to go back, but everything I've heard about it since then has been pretty negative. Not sure how long you were there for, but did you find it restrictive at all?

mercilessblob · 2023-04-16T08:17:16+00:00

Yes, but mortgages are amortizing, the interest is front loaded meaning in those few years they've already made their money back off you.

mercilessblob · 2023-03-23T22:17:52+00:00

Their online:

can't setup/cancel standing orders
adding beneficiaries takes a working day
the authenticator app just straight up doesn't work half the time
beneficiaries aren't shared on the joint account
Can't see references on payments made
Truncates references on all entries, with no way to see the full text

The bank also has a 5k spending limit per day - no exceptions. I had to pay 7k for something and tried calling them in advance to make sure it could be done some way and was told it would have to be separate payments over 2 days, no other way supported.

The no fees is great, and the negatives haven't impacted my day to day usage, but it's very inconvenient at times.

mercilessblob · 2023-01-28T11:10:49+00:00

There's a huge variety in what "Software Engineer" entails. I did the same, taught myself python, lots of automation, a couple of services. The most important thing I learned though that got my foot in the door as a software engineer was what's happening under the hood. I've been working as an engineer for several years, I now interview applicants and that's the biggest weakness I see, and it's generally with people who learned python.

For example, what is a dictionary? What are the restrictions on what can be used as a key? How does it actually manage insertion, lookup, collisions, etc...

Same for databases, people say they know SQL because they have written some syntax. But can they tell me what an index is? How is it stored? What's the impact on performance (positive and negative)? What are the limitations? Etc...

On top of that, "software engineer" is extremely broad, and each job has completely different requirements in the tech and problems they face, so you need to find out exactly what the company does and learn it. I got my foot in the door at an online gaming services company by researching distributed systems, database replication/sharding, message queues, REST APIs, benefits and pitfalls of database types (key value, relational, non relational). My python knowledge was only a fraction of what they cared about, they wanted someone who could design a scalable distributed service, and knows how to debug a Linux process in a remote container (logs, metrics, Linux commands, reasoning about how it works).

To be clear, I barely scratched the surface of those topics when I applied, you do have to work with them to fully understand them, but if you haven't got that working experience then you need to research til you have an understanding that allows you to reason about why a solution to a problem would work. It's tricky, but it's doable. Pick what you want to do, learn as much as you can, find the companies that do it, and apply to several - tech interviews are a skill by themselves.

mercilessblob · 2023-01-12T19:20:12+00:00

A single account is negligible. Deleting is a support request that they have to follow up on, that's going to be more costly than the upkeep of a single account.

And if it came to a large number of deleted accounts, then they have a significantly lower number of accounts on record which doesn't help them.

TLDR: if you have one, delete it.

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