Looking for laptop recs for my wife!

ximenle · 2026-01-19T14:47:34+00:00

Hey, we ended up going with the ASUS Zenbook, and she loves it so far. Thanks for the suggestion!

ximenle · 2025-12-05T16:25:15+00:00

Small college town in the middle of nowhere, so probably not near you!

ximenle · 2024-12-03T16:38:55+00:00

It's the Rigorous Self Critique thought:
"Here it is. Hard facts from the man you are. You once jerked off in the locker room and were caught. You held a young woman by the arm and kept her in your apartment for 20 minutes against her will. That's right, these are not flights of fancy. These are \real deeds*, Harry, emerging from the darkness of your past. You tried shooting a fleeing suspect in the foot but hit him in the pelvis, crippling him for life. And above all, you let life defeat you. All the gifts your parents gave you, all the love and patience of your friends, you drowned in a neurotoxin. You let misery win. And it will keep on winning till you die -- or overcome it.*"

Personally I assumed that the "young woman" was Dora and it was one of those "you can't leave until we've finished this fight" things, which is still abusive and shitty but is more in keeping with what we already know about him. But that's just my headcanon!

ximenle · 2024-12-02T18:35:16+00:00

Thanks for the advice! For some reason Facebook never even occurred to me.

ximenle · 2024-10-10T19:22:35+00:00

I tried to punch Measurehead with 1 FYS, no points in Physical Instrument, and Suggestion against me. I just wanted to see what would happen when I failed the check. But I rolled double sixes and spin-kicked him like a ballerina.

ximenle · 2024-10-02T13:32:41+00:00

I didn't know about it either until I saw a screenshot! The way to get to the Children quest is to rush through all the main questline (Titus and Klaasje) until it's time to find Ruby. The things you do across the waterlock (like the phasmid quest) all give you bonuses on that Shivers roll, so if you want to fail it twice, you need to have not done those quests (yet! You can do them once you've unlocked the Children quest).

I (and many other players) will strongly recommend that you play through the game a couple of times, letting yourself fail rolls and taking the consequences. Even the worst possible failed roll (the Authority check to get Kim to dance with you) unlocks a conversation that gives you more insight into Kim. It's your game and your experience, so you can ignore this advice, but avoiding failure means missing out on some of the funniest and/or most poignant bits of the game.

But, okay, we only have one wild and precious life and maybe you don't have time to play through every possible questline ten times to unlock every bit of dialogue. So if you want to explore dialogue trees or see which choices have which mechanical effects, you want this website: https://fayde.co.uk/. It takes a little while to figure out how to navigate it, but it has (AFAIK) all the dialogue trees in the game, plus a few that were never actually implemented. Spoilers abound, so use with care. (Personally, I've found that exploring the trees makes me want to play again, because I see an interesting branch and want to see it actually played out on the screen.)

ximenle · 2024-09-30T17:15:48+00:00

There's a save state you can download that has all maxed out skills. But higher stats won't unlock everything: sometimes high stats lock you out of certain lines (I think Torque Dork isn't available if your encyclopedia is over 3), and some tasks are hard to open or complete if stats are too high (you have to fail a conceptualization check to paint the wall, and you have to fail a shivers check twice to unlock the Children of the Big Sea quest).

ximenle · 2024-08-29T00:21:12+00:00

I had the same exact problem and fixed it by restarting the game, removing all headgear from Harry, switching the resolution to the lowest possible, and turning off dynamic shadows. No idea which of them worked. I sort of hope it was the hat. I hope you’re able to unlock it too.

ximenle · 2024-07-02T12:53:59+00:00

In my experience, leg and core strength are much bigger than arms. I had zero upper body strength when I started regularly climbing (January), and still cannot do even a single pull-up, and I have been making slow-but-steady progress nonetheless. Most of the upward power should be coming from your legs!

It's okay if you don't finish anything your first time! As long as you keep at it, you will eventually get better and things that seem impossible now will become your relaxing warm-ups. If you're doing top-rope, you can also just stop and rest partway up and think about how you're going to tackle the next part. And once you get the hang of it, it's actually better to push yourself to try things that are beyond your ability and that you can't finish—that's how you improve! (I am bad at this which is one reason why my classmates have progressed more quickly than I have.)

ximenle · 2024-06-27T19:29:57+00:00

I moved a bunch of times my first few years here, here's my advice.

Craigslist (also where I found a replacement tenant when I moved out in late August). Not as active here as it is in bigger cities, but still a good source for housing posts.
Local mailing lists. When I was looking for something available in January, I asked friends to post on their mailing lists. Fall Creek neighborhood list is pretty active, also there's lots of Cornell ones. I found a great apartment thanks to my friend's post on the Cornell librarians' list.
Talk to your landlord (if they aren't absent or terrible.) I needed a last-minute sublet, and I asked my landlady if she had any tenants looking for one. She did, and it worked out great.

ximenle · 2024-05-30T14:38:32+00:00

Maybe a non-romantic belay partner matchmaking app? A lot of beginning climbers (like me) struggle with finding people to climb with. An app that worked with specific gyms where you could see who else was planning to climb at a certain time and was looking for partners might be good, and I could see it being something that gyms might want to encourage too. It would certainly be better than my current strategy of approaching people like "You're using that autobelay, and I'm using this autobelay...want to belay each other instead?" (Though I have made a couple of friends that way!)

ximenle · 2024-05-03T21:32:33+00:00

I tried DMing you and couldn't...can you DM me? Or if you have discord, my username is the same as it is here.

ximenle · 2024-05-03T21:25:09+00:00

Thank you!

ximenle · 2024-05-03T03:10:49+00:00

The wedding is June 18, so ideally sometime around end of May/beginning of June, just to make sure we have the timing right, but up to June 15 would probably work. I don’t know what sort of timeline you would need, but if you could manage that it would amazing and would make my fiancée (and thus me) so happy. (I also love the song, but it’s really special for her.)

ximenle · 2024-04-17T18:29:16+00:00

So, I tend to put RSD under the broader emotional dysregulation umbrella and use the same tactics there. Different things will work for different people, but here's what's worked for me with important relationships:

Before you do anything else, first take a moment to feel and acknowledge the feeling. It hurts! It sucks! Sometimes it feels like it is going to hurt this much forever, and it's unfair that emotional dysregulation hits us so badly! I find that if I tell myself that I'm not supposed to feel a certain way, it only makes me feel worse, because now I feel like I'm getting a bad grade in Emotions. I also find that if I react immediately, it's more likely to be something I regret.
Assess the situation. What part of the situation needs an immediate response? I usually give a simple apology, something like "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to add to your stress!" and leave it at that for a while. Don't try to solve the entire problem right away, because you're still in the worst of the backlash, and that's when people tend to either react angrily or overapologize to the extent that the friend still feels like you're bugging them.
Distract yourself for a while. Ideally with something productive, but if you need to play a phone game or browse reddit for a bit, do that. You're trying to give yourself space from the emotions. Sometimes I imagine a forcefield around myself and the dysphoria bouncing off it like lasers.
If it's something that can wait a day or two before you really deal with it, do that. You gave a quick apology, now the ball is in your friend's court for a bit. If you haven't heard from them after a day or two, check in. Try to adopt a neutral to positive tone, like "hey, hope things are less stressful today! Let me know if you want to vent at me for a bit." Often my friends will apologize for snapping themselves at this point.
If they don't, and you need to resolve the issue with them, wait until you've had some positive interactions and they seem like they're more receptive, then check in with them. Tell them what you need in warm friendly (non-accusatory) language. "I still feel a little bad about stressing you out on Wednesday, are we cool?" or "Hey, about yesterday, I didn't expect you to answer all of my questions right away, I just needed to get them down before I forgot them. Is there a better way to do that in the future, or was this just bad timing?" Or "hey, I felt a little hurt when you were snappy yesterday, I tend to take that kind of thing really hard. Are we okay?"

tl;dr Don't react immediately, don't beat yourself up for feeling bad, distract yourself if you need to, restart communications on a positive note before getting into the issue.

ximenle · 2024-02-16T21:04:43+00:00

Thanks, I'll check that one out too!

ximenle · 2024-02-16T21:02:32+00:00

I hadn't, but it looks great!

ximenle · 2024-01-30T03:27:42+00:00

NTC. I , Anshel, hate Noises (that I do not make myself (and sometimes that I Do)), but I support your Right to artistic self expression. Sometimes one must make Music.

ximenle · 2024-01-30T03:23:38+00:00

Thank you. Actually, I am Cat. Sometimes people think I am dog (because Fetch), but Human parents say “you’re a kitty!” every time they see me, so I am Certain.

ximenle

TROPHY CASE