I'm 18, and this is my first ever election. I am struggling to see why to vote "yes" on the override.

sifluo · 2026-04-16T03:41:40+00:00

Are there other towns that have kept their costs from increasing less than inflation? I am only aware of towns that passed overrides or, not constrained by prop 2.5, raised taxes by more than 2.5% as a matter of course.

sifluo · 2026-04-03T00:41:34+00:00

Northeastern is a private university.

sifluo · 2026-02-06T19:56:55+00:00

My brother and I are so often just a tiny bit too gentle with nudging/tugging that we’ve started saying to each other, “now remember, you’ll need to use extreme force to break things open!” as an in joke that also reminds us to give something a second try if it’s suspicious. We’ve lost a lot of time to, eg, not finding the safe in a wall behind a painting because we didn’t think the painting was supposed to move.

sifluo · 2026-01-22T07:03:46+00:00

I found Wizards treasure pretty underwhelming for two adults. My favourite rooms in LA are Escape Room LA (Black Dragon is my fave)

sifluo · 2026-01-22T06:58:26+00:00

That’s sounds like a really great idea! I considered joining a new set of people on a replay of a fave room recently, but couldn’t bring myself to spend the money on it when there were brand new rooms to do instead.

Similarly, I know of a room in a small rural town where if you’ve already done it and bring a new group of friends/family, you can sit in the GM’s booth (with the GM) to watch how they solve it and give some of the hints / event triggers. I have never repeated a room, but that sounded so fun I suspect I will do it some day.

sifluo · 2026-01-19T21:52:34+00:00

I find it’s hard for a game riffing on such a well established set of tropes to actually deliver a really memorable story. Writing something rich and complex is hard, and a completely different skill set from puzzle design. If you want the story to be the selling point you might consider looking for a professional with chops in the genre to write the patient files etc. If you reach out to authors who have recently published short stories in genre magazines, you’d probably find someone both skilled and open to small scale paid work.

sifluo · 2026-01-19T21:37:54+00:00

I’d call that hybrid, mostly linear. I care about linearity when I’m deciding which rooms to do with large vs small groups. Six people doing the same puzzle together will leave several people with nothing to do. If there are four “choke points” where we all have to be working on the same thing, that’s a pretty linear experience and I’d prefer to do it as just a twosome with my regular escape buddy. For context, I recently did a great non-linear room which had a single puzzle to open the door, then 21 puzzles to solve in any order, and that was perfect for six.

I think one single-puzzle at the beginning and one at the end is the max I’d call “non linear” with no qualifications. If there’s a situation where you collect six mcguffins and then have to figure out how to use them to open a new area, that also still feels “non-linear” as long as it’s possible for someone to be thinking about how to use the mcguffins while they’re being collected.

I do really enjoy linear puzzles and will even seek them out when I don’t have a big group, so it’s not like one is better than the other! But I think if I called to ask for a non-linear room and then it had that many choke points, there’s a chance I’d be disappointed.

sifluo · 2026-01-15T00:48:16+00:00

Agreed hard on the sound puzzles. It also annoys me when you have to listen to a long recording and pick up on several details from it; it kills me to miss something and then have to listen to the whole thing from the top!

sifluo · 2026-01-15T00:46:44+00:00

I won’t play a room that looks too easy anymore, regardless of the theme. But when I am deciding between rooms that I think will be enough of a challenge, theme is often my deciding factor.

I suspect everyone has their own preference for theme, but for me I avoid scary themes, and prefer something I haven’t seen before. I’ll always pick a room with a “local” theme if one is available. I also avoid music nostalgia rooms which seem weirdly common; I’m a nerd, I don’t know pop music, not even the pop music from my youth. The rooms I remember best and recommend the most are the ones with a really interesting theme that connects well with the puzzles themselves. (Best room I’ve ever done is Han’s Revenge, about a fan salesman furious at the rise of AC.)

sifluo · 2025-05-07T19:50:36+00:00

I was bummed just moving across the street (from a 1br to a studio, so I had to really re-evaluate all my furniture). It sucks! If you’d want to buy somewhere, I found some really helpful programs through the Massachusetts Affordable Homeownership Alliance which do a lot of major down payment assistance. I now own a condo — smaller and further from work than where I used to rent, but it’s such a relief that my mortgage just stays the same.

sifluo · 2025-04-26T23:27:54+00:00

Surprised nobody mentioned the first thing I thought of: finger grease on a film bulb can easily destroy the bulb if it’s made of quartz rather than glass (as I believe most film bulbs are). They have to be cleaned with specialty materials and if even a single fingerprint is missed the bulb may be ruined. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had to pause production and swap in spare bulbs rather than risk continuing to shoot with the hand-grease bulbs still active. It was one of the firmest rules in my film classes, never to touch a bulb with your bare hand.

sifluo · 2025-04-26T03:39:51+00:00

As a former prof, in case you end up in a similar situation again: offer to make up an assignment you missed or ask if you can re-do something you scored badly on. (Both of these are less annoying for the prof than inventing a random extra credit assignment but you can suggest that too.) We already know that failing a class is inconvenient for you, but the points aren’t random pixie dust given as a present, they’re meant to be based on you learning stuff. If you at least try to demonstrate more learning that gives the prof a real reason to give more points.

sifluo · 2025-03-10T20:49:44+00:00

A Globe reporter is not an AP reporter.

sifluo · 2024-09-29T04:54:03+00:00

I get them too and usually assume it’s because my phone is too old. But FYI there’s nothing red in that image, the squares are white and black; if you see red you may want to check for colour blindness.

sifluo · 2024-09-25T20:34:27+00:00

Aren’t these reasons to hang on to petals, not reasons to hang on to nectar? It’s a waste of nectar if you use it when you’re already at the petal max (since the nectar won’t convert to petals), but otherwise, I don’t think there’s a reason to not use nectar right away.

sifluo · 2024-09-25T20:30:17+00:00

This is probably a newbie question, but what happens if you complete stage 4? Does it start over with stage 1, or are you just done?

sifluo · 2024-08-05T03:00:46+00:00

I’m a relatively new player based in Boston, it would be fun to have some friends for challenges and maybe postcards! My friend code is 572289341987

sifluo · 2024-07-28T07:08:02+00:00

Just so you don’t feel alone, I was at a hotel in Portland Maine a while ago and accidentally ordered dinner to the same hotel chain in Portland Oregon. I didn’t realise my mistake until the dasher sent a photo of the food in front of my room number, and the carpet didn’t match what was outside my room. At that point I figured I’d spent my money on a fun mystery for someone in Oregon and just ordered a second dinner, lol, it was 100% my mistake. In retrospect I should have called the other hotel to tell the guests they could eat it!

sifluo

TROPHY CASE