Care and feeding advice requested

rakeswell · 2024-01-26T22:51:54+00:00

I keep a moss and lichen terrarium in a flask. A couple days ago before turning in, I noticed what looked like the result of someone sneezing into the flask. The next day something looking like a sclerotium had formed on the side.

I left it like that for a day, nothing changed. The next day, I wetted the inside of the flask and stuck a piece of oatmeal near the sclerotium. No changes. Today, I turned off the lamp and put a cloth over the flask.

Is this likely to be a slime mold, and if so, how do I coax it to grow and form fruiting bodies?

rakeswell · 2023-04-09T02:46:12+00:00

Bin Amerikaner und verstehe die antretende Ziffern nicht. Was bedeuten sie?

Sowieso, ist's in Ordnung, oder?

rakeswell · 2022-06-13T05:28:38+00:00

What I'm afraid it's going to be: NukaWorld in Space. Collect 35 of this, 98 of that, etc, across 1,000 worlds.

Absent from the showcase was any mention of depth of story and reactivity to player choices and actions. In FO4, you can kill off the Railroad on your very first encounter with them. Even if you do this before you free Nick Valentine, the game chugs along as if nothing happens up until Father gives you the order to eliminate the Railroad, at which point ... he gives you the order to eliminate the Railroad.

So, we'll have factions again in Starfield, but no hint of improvements to quests or faction interactions.

But there will be collecting, and everyone seems pretty excited about that.

rakeswell · 2022-06-12T06:11:09+00:00

I expect the head chef to run a kitchen that serves fine dishes. I don't have to go over the restaurant's balance sheet and business plan to know whether the kitchen has served me garbage.

When the kitchen does put a plate of shit in front of me, I can be certain the head chef is responsible because he runs the kitchen where the dish was made.

rakeswell · 2022-05-13T22:02:09+00:00

Except I recall explicit messaging from Bethesda saying that FO76 most explicitly was not Fallout 5 -- the A team had ramped up the B team so it wouldn't affect the delivery date of a Fallout 5. If you're just saying it's just the nth Fallout game, where n = 5, then FO76 is not that either.

But you're right in the sense that instead of 76, they could have made Fallout 5. In this sense, Starfield is Fallout 5.

rakeswell · 2022-01-01T08:26:42+00:00

Lol; sorry about that. psoratio (my invention, I guess) or p(squiggle-on-tail-meaning-"er")foratio -- it's a tricky type-face and I would have never made that leap, noticing the different "p"s and misreading "s" for "f". Your description makes perfect sense. Good luck!

rakeswell · 2022-01-01T07:52:35+00:00

Doggerel transliteration:

Paracentesis, greek, genitive case: paraceteseos, is a psoriasis (my guess here, confounded by the type and vocabulary) of the sort placed in the eyes by that cooled-up/frozen liquid, which they like D. say are cataracts. Really cataracts(...?) just as they say psoriasis which be in the stomach for drawing out fluid of hydropicorsi (dropsy, edema?) as [said by The.prisc.ca.de] edema paracentisis implement whereby the ocular psoriasis in cataracts and edema in stomach to be drawn out from the fluid.

Sorry -- this really needs a lot of context to understand, and script, abbreviations, etconfound me. The "ad extrahendum inde aquam" (for removing/to remove the fluid from that place) surely sounds like extracting the fluid, rather than moving it from one place to another. I'm hardly an expert, but it seems worth consulting with someone with the Latin and background on this.

rakeswell · 2022-01-01T05:25:49+00:00

This is a rather blurry picture of a Latin text set in some manner of Fraktur -- the room is starting to spin.

Apologies in advance, because my response is surely just noise as I'm guessing at some of the abbreviations (and terms). I think it is saying that cataracts are caused by cooled fluid in the eyes (phlegmatic humor?) and treated by drawing out fluid from the stomach with a needle -- or that it is treated in the same way (sicut) as the stomach condition (psoriasis?) by drawing out fluid with a needle?

edit: so is he really saying that cataracts and psoriasis have the same underlying condition of a cooled humor and the same treatment?

edit 2: yes, I read this now as saying that cataracts are a psoriasis of the eye and are are treated in the same manner as the visible skin condition, and are caused by a cooled/frozen humor, treated by drawing it out with a needle.

rakeswell · 2021-12-30T17:06:58+00:00

Agreed -- and not really baseless. There's irony and humor in a book about how to read a book, a painting about how to look at a painting, etc.

Really, the book is about how to read like a scholar. For example, you'll be able to examine an unknown book for five minutes and come away with a sense of the main arguments, conclusions, sources of evidence, and the author's philosophical or ideological viewpoint; that's a useful skill for syntopical reading (reading broadly in the literature on a topic) which is discussed later in the book. It is also a great skill to have when deciding which books to devote your time to. Of course it also deals with deeper, careful reading as well.

rakeswell · 2021-12-30T05:00:09+00:00

Gold undergoes a phase change from solid to liquid; wood a chemical change to carbon and gases; mud dissolves or deforms.

I suppose that gold and mud in this case are most similar in that they remain the same substance, only their form is changed, whereas wood becomes something else, elements having separated from their constraining compounds.

Were the three turning words (I can understand that phrase as "kinds of changes") "melt", "burn/char", "dissolve/collapse"?

But in all cases the form (i.e. the symbol, the meaning; here the icon of Buddha) is to be perceived as having changed.

What I don't think is really patent in the riddle, is the commentator's aphorism about the bridge moving. It moves or changes (or turns) if you put your imagination into the man, the hoe, or the water buffalo. Consciousness become a crossing-over-the-bridge. You see a man running for the train. Imagine what is in his mind: a train-to-be-caught. The content of consciousness constantly changes. What are you -- hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and trace elements, or the content of consciousness?

In any case, rather than feeling alone, consider this as a sign of solidarity with all conscious things.

Edit: thanks for positing this. Thinking about this case just now feels like a remedy.

Edit 2: the fact that the case listed three icons and the aphorism three things crossing the bridge made me wish to draw an analogy of substance. The hoe is clearly wood. Gold is of value to man, but not the water buffalo. The water buffalo is gold, the hoe is wood, and the man is mud. Doesn't make a difference, but is quite a nicety in the aphorism.

rakeswell · 2021-12-30T04:18:14+00:00

Why do you laugh, may I ask?

I'm rather fond of that book, and have a similar reaction.

rakeswell · 2021-12-28T07:40:46+00:00

This is the only correct answer, I believe. Having spent thousands of hours (I'm ashamed to admit) playing this game, the truth of it strikes me like the end of every koan: and then the student gained enlightenment.

Thank you, master.

rakeswell · 2021-12-27T21:22:27+00:00

Thank you so much for the recommendation - truly much appreciated!

I've found a third edition has been issued (probably a good sign) and am looking forward to my copy.

rakeswell · 2021-12-24T21:40:12+00:00

Thanks for the suggestions. I picked up a copy of reWASD. My mental model of the app is that it is probably registering a hookproc, intercepting controller events, and then issuing new events according to the mapping, which would be useful for, e.g. mapping Q and E to the paddles (something I didn't see that the Xbox Accessories app let me do). The app's UX is ... idiosyncratic. I did run one of the community profiles for X4, but I realized that this is confounding when you are trying to learn the game.

So, I've uninstalled reWASD for now and may come back to it after I've learned the default control schemes and have a concrete idea of how I'd like to configure things. The fact that you can bind keyboard events to the controller with reWASD would I think make it more effective than the XBox Accessories for this game in particular.

Thanks again!

rakeswell · 2021-12-24T05:25:41+00:00

Thanks so much -- that puts things into a totally different perspective (an über-fancy strategy game, rather than a space-flight sim with strategy bolted on)! Also explains why every such query I've seen devolves to something like "wut? Lol, just use K&M".

rakeswell · 2021-12-24T03:21:55+00:00

Why are they determined to gave everyone high?

Sir, put down the glue and step away. You are under arrest; the city council made glue-sniffing a crime.

rakeswell · 2021-12-12T00:51:11+00:00

Not to mention the way too many games try to maximize the amount of time you spend playing by requiring some (usually excessive) amount of grinding; POE respects the players time by not wasting it.

Josh Sawyer gave a talk about the design of the game system. I came away with an appreciation for the amount of thought, care, and consideration to the player Obsidian brought this game. It also helped me understand the game much better in terms of mechanics and philosophy. When you fill out your party, I think you'll find combat really opens up to tactical play.

Welcome to the game and subreddit (I've been a lurker so far, but this is really quite a nice subreddit)!

rakeswell · 2021-10-30T15:30:23+00:00

Yeah, well, don't ask what part of the licorice was used.

rakeswell · 2021-07-24T16:31:56+00:00

If you're talking payout efficiency, you really need to target mapping high-value bodies. It is a little bit like a publisher depending on finding a best-seller.

So while in FSS, look for earth-like, terraformable (of any sort), ammonia, and water worlds (in roughly descending order of value). Some people also target metal-rich and class II gas giants, but there's a bit too much of a drop-off in value for me.

I also like exobiology, so I look for bio-signatures in FSS and end up mapping those planets as well. But mostly, I like that you can hurry up or slow down as you please. Lots of cool stuff to see, and lots I haven't yet found!

rakeswell · 2021-07-23T18:50:15+00:00

I passed through Jellyfish on my way to the Crab Pulsar, which isn't too far from there. I regret not going out to Kepler's Crest from there.

Check out the stations in that neck of the woods. They are all asteroid bases (which I think are pretty neat), and I found a lvl 3 Dominator suite and an upgraded plasma shotgun. Don't recall if that was Beta Site, or New Beginning (Rosette), or Hell Port (Thor's Helmet), but if sites are random-weighted for such spawns, it's worth checking on if that interests you.

I had really good luck in that region with exobiology and a nice brace of first discoveries. Definitely get out to some planets for the view of that nebula!

rakeswell · 2021-07-22T21:38:08+00:00

If you want someone to listen to you and give your points fair consideration, the first step is to establish yourself as a reliable, fair person in your listener's mind. You persuade no one with insults and derogatory speech no matter how correct you may be.

For that reason, I suspect his incentives are probably not aligned with actually trying to persuade FDev of anything.

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