recs

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andmaybegayer:

People who act like TTRPG players all used to be self-serious hardcore roleplayers who were super into the statistics of fights and playing everything straight clearly never read 2525 things Mr. Welch can no longer do during an RPG, which includes such gems as:

65. There is no Summon Bimbo spell.
349. Power Word: Beer Me is not a real spell.
579. “Pimp my Death Star” is not a real show, and I’d better believe Grand Moff Tarkin knows this.
687. I cannot backstab anybody with a Buick Skylark.
941. In the middle of a black ops I cannot make an educational video.
1141. In the middle of a Black Ops I will not look at the target’s HR files to see if they have better benefits.
1362. The cleric is not tax exempt.
1658. The words “Rock Opera” will not appear in any of my wishes.
1901. Even if my Jedi has a Scottish accent, can’t have a plaid lightsaber.
2218. We don’t have to consult a neurologist every time somebody fails a paralysis save.
2413. The barbarian can still berserk even if he hasn’t had his morning coffee.
2520.  At no point in the ritual do I get to ask Siri to read the rest of the exorcism for me.

Oh wow, he wrote more in 2019! I thought he stopped at 2,500! Thanks for the tip!

…oh wow, he’s *still* writing more, with a new (currently small) update so recent that it postdates OP [link].

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#reply via reblog #recs #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog

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tototavros:

is there an easy, consistent way to get someone to wake up when they’re just in a deep sleep? i was woken up multiple times by my girlfriend today, but kept falling asleep – it’s a good thing she didn’t bring me the coffee she’d made, i’ve previously kept it in an unsafe place while not thinking about it much because sleepy, and then it spilled

i think that getting me to stand up would probably do it? not sure tho, wondering if people have experiences with it

Would it help to use one of those alarm apps that waits until you’re in a lighter part of your sleep cycle before waking you? I’ve used this one [link] and liked it.

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#recs #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #reply via reblog

ravenreyamidala asked: i saw a tweet about not connecting smart tvs to wifi and i’m trying to google to figure out what this is bad but why is it bad? the best answer i’ve gotten so far is that there are like, identity fraud issues?

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ms-demeanor:

ms-demeanor:

I don’t know much about smart tvs but generally Ethernet is preferred for connected devices just because it’s *faster* but also with everything you should make sure you’re not using the default username/password and also i’m not sure what kind of encryption standard smart tvs use these days so there’s a possibility of snooping traffic?

I can think of about eight reasons I wouldn’t want a smart tv on wifi and most of them honestly just have to do with functionality – streaming is going to be MUCH slower and flakier over a wifi connection than a wired connection – and if you’re bringing a smart tv into your house in the first place i kind of feel like you’re already accepting all of the security risks that entails (tv manufacturers aren’t known for their frequent security patches or user accessibility or ease of configuration).

Because there’s some commentary in the notes let me clarify:

if you’re bringing a smart tv into your house in the first place i kind of feel like you’re already accepting all of the security risks that entails

aside from a lack of user accessibility and a high likelihood of vulnerabilities due to manufacturers not patching and using default passwords IT IS A GIVEN that your smart TV is going to collect data on you and if you purchase a smart TV and put it into your home that’s something that you’re accepting. You’re accepting that the manufacturer can collect data from you, you’re accepting that whatever service you connect to it is going to track your viewing habits, you’re accepting that this is a device that is watching you more than you are watching it.

So my position personally is “smart TVs and smart fridges and smart appliances generally are not a good thing and if you are going to have them it’s better if they’re not connected to the internet and they should be able to function without being connected to the internet.”

ASIDE from all of that if you’re going to have a smart device that streams video it’s going to be much faster over ethernet than over wifi. And, hell, maybe the initial tweet was warning about the smart TV spying on what other devices were connected to the wifi.

But also in the comments it says “it’s better to get a standard tv and hook it up to a chromecast because better the devil you know (google, etc.)” and I would like to emphatically state for the record that nearly any other option is better than bringing Google into more parts of your life.

Our “smart TV” is composed of the following:

* A dumb TV

* An eleven-year-old third-hand ThinkPad running Linux Lite

* A couple of adapters to pipe the A/V output of the laptop into the TV

* A wireless mouse

* A wireless keyboard

Non-megacorp, patchable, modular, and also when somebody’s laptop is waiting on repairs they can commandeer the TV’s prosthetic brain to use in the meantime! Three out of four family members have now used this device as a daily-driver laptop at one time or another!

(Note: our setup is on Wi-Fi, but our TV is a couple decades old and has a correspondingly low pixel count, so it’s not like we’re looking to stream very high-quality video.)

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#recs #reply via reblog #fun with loopholes #adventures in human capitalism

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

andmaybegayer:

I’ve taken to grinding my salt extremely fine with a mortar and pestle before I put it on popcorn or chips and this is very good because it means you don’t end up with loose salt at the bottom of the bowl, but, it also turns your salt into an aerosolised chemical weapon if you move it at all.

I like to grind up a bunch at once and keep it in a shaker bottle.

As for how to pour the popcorn salt into a shaker bottle without aerosolised-chemical-weaponing oneself: masks are a solution to many of life’s problems.

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#reply via reblog #food #recs #illness mention

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moral-autism:

PSA: Many stores have a wide range of frozen vegetables, often sold pre-cut. The greens are more compact than their refrigerated counterparts. Produce frozen right after harvest can taste fresher than produce picked before full ripeness and shipped unfrozen. In cooked applications, frozen vegetables are often hard to distinguish from unfrozen. And they don’t go bad quickly.

Co-signed.

(We’ve been using peas, corn, and green beans for ages, and we recently discovered frozen broccoli. Frozen bell pepper slices–another recent one, though I think they only just started making them recently–seem to be a bit wetter than ideal, but close enough to be worth the shelf-life and convenience benefits.)

—

I was thinking of making a post about the following, but it seems closely related enough that I’ll add it to this comment instead:

I just tried canned sardine fillets and they’re amazing. They taste almost exactly like (slightly overcooked) Atlantic salmon, while being somewhat cheaper, requiring no preparation, and keeping safe stored at room temperature for approximately one eternity [link]. Highly recommended.

(Note that canned salmon itself, not being Atlantic, is IMO much less tasty.)

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#food #recs #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #reply via reblog

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brazenautomaton:

hey for those of you who liked the smut-theory blog you may want to go check out and spread this link right here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25394464

I wonder what it contains

I wonder if someone will help me come up with a better summary

Tags:

#hell yeah!! #storytime #story ideas I will never write #recs #sexuality and lack thereof #today (well‚ yesterday) in reasons I never unfollow a blog for inactivity alone #(note: these are not mere crossposts‚ but revised and expanded versions)

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

transgenderer:

i guess now that phones are a thing you dont need a watch but pre-phone everyone who didnt wear a watch was a fucking chump, and itrs STILL a good idea now cuz what if youre in a no-phone situation, or just dontr want to bring your phone, etc

 

sigmaleph:

i used to wear a watch all the time and i miss it

(i stopped cause the strap broke and kept needing to be replaced and I decided it wasn’t actually worth the effort to figure how to find someone who would sell me a non-shitty watch strap when I already was carrying a phone with me at all times. The watch itself is fine and I could totally go back to using it)

i remember the era before everyone had a phone though. People kept asking me the time.

I get compliments on my watch sometimes at work. The customers think it’s a by-electronics-standards antique, guessing that it’s from the 80′s. Actually I bought it at Walmart in like 2013 for $20, and they’re still readily available for not that much more [link].

I really like this design: it’s elegant, shiny, doesn’t depend on Velcro (which wears out a lot faster than clasps) like most of my childhood watches did. It runs slow by about one second every 2.5 days: roughly once a month I sync it with time.gov.

Even now that I have a phone I plan to replace this watch if/when it wears out, preferably with an identical one. I like being able to just glance at it rather than have to take my phone out, dumbwatches are permitted in many contexts (work, exam rooms) where general-purpose computers are not, and the battery lasts much, *much* longer than a phone or smartwatch battery. I’m not sure I’ve *ever* had to recharge this watch, and if I did it was only once.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #recs #in which Brin has a job #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #and I’m not sure if this fits the spirit of the tag but it certainly fits the letter: #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers

{{next post in sequence}}

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maryellencarter:

HEY THERE Y’ALL. So I go through phases where I read nothing but Tumblr and then phases where I devour new books like a ravening wolf. I’m getting to a point where I want to Read Things, but of course the library is not open (and my local library is shite anyway, that’s a separate rant). So I’m basically stuck with Project Gutenberg, and I don’t know where the fuck to start. I don’t even know what genre I want to try.

So! Does anybody have any recommendations? What are your favorite out-of-copyright books? Are there Great Classics that are surprisingly readable? Assume I haven’t read anything aimed at adults, but I’m game to try anything. I’m generally fonder of adventure than of romance, but the thing about books old enough to be on Project Gutenberg is that they really don’t fall into the same categories as the mid-century kidlit I grew up reading.

If you’re willing to tolerate DRM designed to mimic library lending restrictions (the file self-destructs after two weeks), I hear the Internet Archive has a bunch of copyrighted ebooks as well [link].

As for Gutenberg specifically, I got a set of ACD Sherlock Holmes books there, and I quite enjoyed them. I read an Agatha Christie book there once too…The Mysterious Affair at Styles, I think.

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#reply via reblog #the more you know #recs