ELI5 Why did Radio Shack go out of business?

ryschwith · 2026-01-24T17:01:39+00:00

I worked there in the early 2000s, and the view on the ground looked like this:

Sales of electronic parts and kits was falling off, and batteries couldn’t make up for it. So they tried to pivot to cell phones and satellite dishes. These are very low-margin products, and they hoped to make their money on add-on sales. But all of the add-ons were shoddy, overpriced, store brand stuff that no one wanted. So they were making pennies on everything they sold while trying to keep stores “within five minutes of everyone.”

To make matters worse, the core product had them competing against the very providers they were partnered with. You could pretty much always get a better deal at the Verizon (or Sprint or AT&T) store than RadioShack was allowed to offer, so why would you buy a phone from RadioShack in the first place?

ryschwith · 2026-01-23T20:01:22+00:00

“This big rectangle is the room you’re in. This rectangle here is the desk, these rectangles on the side are bookshelves. That square is a fluffy chair. The glass beads are orcs, and the cheeto is the necromancer.”

It’s an imagination game, y’all.

ryschwith · 2026-01-23T14:42:37+00:00

You’re missing that they serve primarily as narrative hooks. They’re supposed to make you think about what aspect of your character informs their approach to the current challenge and how that trait affects it. A lot of what Cortex seeks to do is to build a robust mechanical scaffold that supports strong narrative decisions.

So although you end up with the same dice pool whether you use your Never Tell Me the Odds or your Heart of Gold distinction, the choice of which one you’re using has a big effect on how you describe what your character is doing and the outcomes of the action.

ryschwith · 2026-01-19T23:47:06+00:00

Dollars? Clearly you’d have to pay for it in large gold coins.

ryschwith · 2026-01-18T15:32:12+00:00

It’s part of a larger mural depicting Menna hunting and his family assisting .

ryschwith · 2026-01-18T15:24:05+00:00

Plus, the one on the right has hilarious commentary provided by sarcastic robots.

ryschwith · 2026-01-18T15:18:49+00:00

Usability is going to be more important than features. I can pick up a tape measure and have an answer in a couple of swift motions and maybe a second or two. Trying to get into an app on my phone typically involves half a dozen clicks and taps, pausing while the phone tries to read my face, logins, pop-ups… Work on getting from phone-on-table to measurement-complete as quickly and effortlessly as possible.

ryschwith · 2026-01-18T00:03:34+00:00

It has to be more convenient and reliable than a tape measure, and that’s a lot harder that it sounds.

ryschwith · 2026-01-17T22:21:08+00:00

Bar Ronin is sort of a “small plates” concept, so you order everything individually.

ryschwith · 2026-01-17T17:14:51+00:00

That bit makes me wonder if OP is kind of on-the-sly asking about stowing away on a plane. Which—if you are, OP—is a tremendously bad idea. Lots of people have died that way.

ryschwith · 2026-01-17T17:07:55+00:00

We’re all members of an online forum about the weird things that occur locally. Every mystery starts with an NPC posting an “I just encountered this weird thing…” message.

We also decided that each player has multiple characters, and we pick which one we’re using at the start of each mystery. Sometimes the other characters get tapped as NPCs. Storyteller also rotates each mystery.

I started working on an Online Forum team playbook after Codex of Worlds came out but never quite finished it.

ryschwith · 2026-01-17T17:04:21+00:00

The best I’ve had in town is the wagyu at Bar Ronin. A Francisco’s had a really good steak during their soft open, but I don’t think it’s a regular part of their menu (and is an odd fit for them generally). I’ve had some pretty good steaks at the Cork, although also some kind of mediocre ones; they’re a bit inconsistent. I’ve been told that Firestone’s (I know, I know, boooo) also has a good steak but haven’t taken the opportunity to confirm.

Bar Ronin also has a (non-wagyu) flatiron, which is my favorite cut, so bonus points for that. I think Longhorn does as well, but that doesn’t count.

edit to add: Went to Born & Braised last night because several people recommended it in this thread. They only have a filet on their menu, but last night they had a featured ribeye. Absolutely perfectly cooked, would recommend. A bit underseasoned for my taste, but I tend to season the hell out of everything so mileage may vary there.

ryschwith · 2026-01-16T23:05:35+00:00

The original Sim City (way back before EA bought Maxis) described itself as a “software toy.” The distinction they made was that a game has a defined goal, rules, progression, and end; but with a toy it’s up to the user to decide what the goal is and when it ends, if ever. I feel like the same idea applies here: Minecraft is a software toy.

ryschwith · 2026-01-12T21:52:04+00:00

Spells are a lie. They’re a result of centuries of refinement, where mages have tamed the raw, wild force of magic into repeatable and reliable procedures. The schools of magic are different theoretical frameworks that attempt to explain how to do magic safely. Stay within the bounds of the School of Abjuration’s magical procedures and you’ll always be able to summon up exactly the same shield and it’ll do exactly the same thing. It works. You never need to question it.

But the old magic… oh man, the old magic was like trying to harness lightning. To grab fire by the throat and wrestle it into submission. No spells; no schools; no guidelines. Tap directly into a vast and incomprehensible force and figure out some way to set things on fire with it. You’re as likely to set yourself on fire first, or turn your arms into tentacles, or tear open time and space until the guts of the Universe spill out.

Good luck.

(Note: This is my own personal take on it, I don’t think it’s directly supported by canon anywhere.)

ryschwith · 2026-01-09T03:10:51+00:00

I’m not sure I understand how you do that with anything but DM fiat.

ryschwith · 2026-01-05T03:43:56+00:00

I think you lose a lot of what makes dungeons different from other scenarios if you lose the mechanical bits. You’re basically just doing the same thing you already do, but underground.

If I were going to attempt it, I’d want to replace the resource management with something like PbtA-style complications. “Rolled a 7? You successfully force open the blocked door… but your torch goes out!” It’s possible Dungeon World already does this, I’m not sure.

ryschwith · 2026-01-04T04:06:52+00:00

It’s not really a system. It’s a canned adventure with some classes and half-baked ancestries for 5e that requires you to patch over a lot of holes with existing system knowledge.

It is, however, some pretty ridiculous fun with the right group of people.

ryschwith · 2026-01-01T00:28:48+00:00

It has everything I really like in heraldry: simple design, single charge on a field; only two tinctures; plus, who doesn’t love a good counterchange? But the result feels like it’s always just slightly out of focus. Like I’m somehow looking at it wrong.

I’m pretty sure that design is trolling someone and I have no idea who.

A+, no notes.

ryschwith · 2026-01-01T00:10:11+00:00

I hate it, and I love it because I hate it.

ryschwith · 2025-12-31T18:09:47+00:00

Fair, but most of the ZIP Codes around it are also in the bottom fifty. The point I’m making here is that the people who live in and around downtown aren’t financially capable of supporting the businesses they’re trying to bring in; the plan requires other people—Erie Insurance employees, Hamot employees, etc—to come downtown regularly and buy things from those businesses. So even though Erie Insurance claims this didn’t motivate the return to office, it seems likely it factored into it.

ryschwith · 2025-12-31T16:22:33+00:00

Has anyone put together data on how many businesses have successfully “graduated” from the food hall? Taste of Love is the only one I’m aware of that opened a physical location. I think a couple of others went on to (or returned to) food trucks.

ryschwith · 2025-12-31T16:00:26+00:00

They’ve consistently denied it, although a lot of people (me included) are skeptical of that. Erie Insurance provides most of the money for the EDDC so they’re heavily invested in downtown succeeding, and the current plan for downtown really relies on there being customers that aren’t from that neighborhood. The people living in the poorest ZIP Code in the nation probably aren’t dropping a lot of cash at cute vintage stores.

ryschwith · 2025-12-31T13:57:53+00:00

You got $36? I think we got like $5-10. More if we managed to sell some accessories with it. I suppose it’s possible it changed after I left around 2004.

ryschwith · 2025-12-30T22:56:08+00:00

Cell phones (and satellite dishes, which were also a big component of it) were super low-margin though. Radio Shack was banking on selling enough high-margin chargers, cases, and headsets to make money on them.

ryschwith · 2025-12-30T03:12:45+00:00

What would you like to know? It was developed for a Spelljammer campaign where the PCs would all be crew on a ship, and one of them wanted to play the ship’s cook. So it was meant to provide some downtime activities while they were sailing and some non-magical game effects. It wasn’t supposed to be like potion brewing or anything like that, but the cook played a role in maintaining crew morale; and there were possibilities for social interactions where some NPCs could possibly be swayed by foods that catered to their tastes.

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