Sissyl's page

I don't honestly know why I am writing this. I have left this place, and I have been content about leaving. Still... I just read the stuff JP went public with, and I guess I feel compelled to comment.

It is easy to imagine, as a focused consumer of products from a specific company, that you have a notion about the people working there. You feel that the stuff they produce is great, and they should be good people accordingly. But as things work, companies are companies, and bad things are everywhere. As such, the things JP wrote do not surprise me. There are enough s!*!ty stories about every other RPG company out there to match. Profit margins are hair-thin, people are underpaid... it's what you should expect.

Of course, it might be the case that JP is doing this to enact some form of personal revenge. I have no idea. It seems, though, from the responses that has been made, that she is on point.

However: What stays with me in all this is simply that a union would be a good thing. Coming from Sweden, where unions are everywhere, and have leverage to bring to bear if necessary, it surprises me that the US is so negative to them. A Paizo union would be a great thing for the workplace, and I wish those organizing one success, and all the best. Whether or not the dirt brought up is all true or not, a union will improve the situation of those who work there, which will in turn bring us better RPG books.

Plus, it would make Doodlebug Anklebiter happy.

I mentioned I'm in Uni right?

I'm exhausted from a calculus final today. I don't think I did too bad.

I'm starting to forget what my purpose in life is beyond solving integrals.

There is no beyond. There is only solving integrals.

Knock knock. Can I come in?

I lost my USB stick the other day. *shudders* Happened before, and each time it's awful. WHAT WAS ON IT??? WHO HAS IT NOW? And WHAT CAN THEY DO WITH THAT? Eventually the fear goes away, and you put new questionable stuff on your next USB stick thinking "this time I will delete it", but you don't remember doing so when that too disappears.

False alarm this time. It was on my bedroom floor. And the questionable stuff is poorly written stuff I use as writing practice, some with... different ratings.

Wow... speaking of areas I'm happy NOT to be working in:

I'm on an internal "customer care" call. Keep in mind that our customers are typically $100M+ corporations.

And yet...
"Make sure the customer is aware that this takes 21 days. It's very clear when you start the process, in big bold print and they have to select a checkbox next to it. But just yesterday:
'I need this done tomorrow.'
'I'm sorry. There's a 21-day wait to get that done.'
'WHAT?!?!!? You NEVER said that! I NEVER agreed to that! I'm suing!'

In short, when it comes to retail, multimillion dollar corporations are no better than the usual hoi polloi who ooze into your place of business...

Why would they? They most act like psychopathic eight year olds who communicate through lobbyists, contracts and suing...?

Pretty much everything we ingest or inhale that is not for energy, taste, air or liquid is a drug. This includes all recreational drugs. If she thinks everything that grows out of the ground is good to go, let me just state I would be extremely hesitant to eat ANYTHING she cooked. I would also wonder where she found the Bailey's tree.

Shrooms are among the least toxic drugs, true, but they still come with side effects, like the depression many feel after the high.

It literally turns me upside down when I hear someone say that language is only descriptive. The problem is that it's both descriptive and prescriptive. Some languages go further, such as Swedish and French, both of which have councils that make up the "correct" form of their respective languages. And yes, the descriptive view is true, to a point.

But languages evolve slowly. Some words are abandoned because we don't need them anymore. Many new words happen, and are lost quickly. And some words do get new meanings. Most of the language remains the same. And there is comfort in this, because the language we use sets our boundaries. It is difficult to understand concepts you have no words for. The words we choose for a concept influences the concept. It is a wet dream for rulers to leave their subjects with a limited vocabulary. They simply find the idea double-plus-good. I will also quote Fading Suns: "Leagueheim, den of iniquity and freedom!"

And when you actually lose something, such as with "literally" no longer meaning "something that is actually as described" but "something emphasized", we all grow poorer. The language loses a little bit of precision, our communication grows that little bit more difficult. It never was a simple question.

So, buddhism?

It's literally impossible to overdose on weed.

No. Just no. And if you get a bad trip, you could be in for a permanent psychotic disorder. Be careful.

When counting jobs and livelihoods, you need to understand that every job that exists now also prevents other jobs from existing.

Two different questions here. First, could the strain survive? Sure. If they breed with other tigers, no problem. They won't be white, though. Some might be, many will carry the genes. The other question is will they survive if they only breed within the group? Not bloody likely. Immune systems depend on genetic variability, and they don't have any since they come from only two individuals. This was the genetic bottleneck that caused the native American vulnerability to measles, it is the reason cheetahs have a hard time with infections, and so on.

Healthy pizza? Sure. Remove the cheese. Remove processed meats. Lower the fat in the dough. Make smaller pizzas. Easy peasy.

The Shazam/Captain Marvel story is actually pretty entertaining. It's a heady mix of preemptive character design and copyright over decades. I dunno a source, but I am sure there is one out there.

You really ought to ponder the ramifications of this event.

Oh, absolutely. You can get less energy that way. However, the core problem is this: Humans are wondrously, massively, amazingly superior at drawing energy from most sorts of organic matter. The energy we get from eating is huge. We don't really eat that much in a day if you go by weight. So cooling all the food might let you eat an extra cookie every few days.

Yeah. Stupid me. Gram, not liter. So it's kilocalorie per degree C. As you say: A liter costs you 17 kcal to get up to body temperature from 20C. Compared to the 1000-1500 kcal you eat per day, it's pretty insignificant. Add in that drinking more than six liters or so during a day is pretty dangerous, and the lake water (and turtle urine) is not the optimal weight loss program.

Incidentally, this is why eating hot stuff compared to cold stuff means a negligible difference for energy content.

You probably did this, but...

YOLO, A Star Wars story

Ok. Gonna have to start with one you guys missed.

Water you drink needs to get up to your body temp, which costs you energy. Specifically, 1 calorie per liter and degree Celsius (This is the definition of calorie). So, drink a liter of 20 C water. To get that up to the core 37 C will cost you 17 calories, i.e. actually lost energy. Water contains no energy to compensate, so 17 calories are taken from you. So far so good.

Now, if you notice, energy from food is measured in KILOcalories, or kcal. Eat a 200 kcal energy bar, and you get 200.000 calories. See why the lost energy is meaningless?

Another intensely dangerous thing about dictatorships is that they can lie far more effectively than democratic societies can about things, like pollution, overfishing, and other things that are vital for the population to know. This is why, for example, Cuba has such lovely environmental data.

Indeed, we do determine what happens. Glad to see you've stopped writing off anthropogenic global warming. :)

Sadly, what it seems we've determined is a catastrophic change to the global climate.

If you had read what I wrote back in the day, you would know my position. It hasn't changed. The green movement f@+$ed up its data checking and communications. Politics ruined things for them. We absolutely need expanded nuclear to deal with the problem, and the greens fight that. And above all, to even have a shadow of a chance, we need to keep society democratic. Again, the greens fight that, what with their "pause from democracy", their silencing of opposing viewpoints, and so on.

Cheers.

First things first. Mother Earth is a ball of rock. The Earth is not sentient. It is not going to retaliate against us. Lovelock was wrong, thunderously so.

WE determine what happens next. And no matter what we do, some tough bastards will find a way to survive it. Yes, this includes nuclear war. Let's not give ourselves too much credit here.

What remains a constant is the desire to see the world as ending, tainted, corrupted, dying, etc. We always have, quite simply. Extrapolate on any data you like, and you will reach some kind of oblivion, whether it's all of humanity employed to handle telephone switchboards, to huge numbers of super predators. Add in a bit of political ambition and you get hysteria, like the oceans rising 70 meters in 50 years, or any of a thousand lurid points.

Will it end? Certainly. But we can delay that. We can work toward or against survival, and a decent world to live in. Something isn't worthless because it ends. I think Asimov said it best: A lot of good things can happen in a billion years.

*flings Pokeball at fleeing table!*

Dammit, you got the tablor!

Sweden is nice. But Inga from Sweden is just how we look when we're abroad. Christine Daae from The Phantom of the Opera has a gobbledigook last name, and the Swedish form of Christine is Kristina.

Anyway. the reason actors often don't get along is that they are selected for personality disorders. Some seem better than this, while others embody it wholesale. And if you take a bunch of narcissists and histrionics, don't expect them to play nice with each other.

Oh, I was aware. :)

It always annoys me when I don't realize a word spells something backward. And the reason I sought to find this one was likely that I felt Dormin was too cute for the character. Note that sleep, dolmen and hunter fit more or less perfectly.

A character in Shadow of the Colossus is called Dormin. I felt there ought to be a secret there. One day, I figured it out!!! ... only to forget it. I tried to find a relationship to the Dorm root, sleep, but no. Was it a bad R/L translation, possibly connected to dolmen?
Figuring it out again: It's Nimrod backward.

To be fair... you are pretty much damned before Cthulhu's host whatever you do. So, enjoy your calamari, right?

Serve an excessively good meal. Or carbonated drink.

I was never planning on getting into a playtest. After playing Starfinder, I had a sad taste in my mouth. It's too clean, too aware, too flat for my tastes. I have no doubt PF2 will be more of the same. Not knocking the taste of those who like that, but it isn't for me.

No. I returned for you guys.

I will. And if the forums are wonky, FaWTL is suspect #1.

Thank you guys. :)

All right. Secret Santa gave me the gauntlet with all the stones. What to do, what to do?

First order of business, learn about it. Hide myself away and delve into its secrets until I feel I can use it safely. If I need to change to be able to do it, fine.

Second, I need a place to work from. An asteroid fortress should be fine with a black shield around, with solar energy to provide power, and to hold in the air, and project a sky on. Cue ridiculous palace there. Water. Stuff.

Third, make sure I am fortified to prevent harm to come to me, and learning to use images to talk to people while I hang out in my palace.

If all this seems to work, get my close ones to the palace as well.

Think it all through. There are many factors here. First, it may be that I get trouble I knew nothing about. It is a cliche. Assuming no, or I can solve it, I need to decide.

What I do is use my infinite lifespan to travel the history of humanity and learn the truth of a variety of things. I am there to observe only. Then, I start drawing up experimental Earths by copying the Earth at various points in time and set up different ideologies on them. There would be a planet with a dominant ideology for each one I could think of. I need to know where they lead, how they evolve, and so on. Hopefully I learn a thing or two.

More later.

Half a year has passed. I have pretty much healed. I work tons, and I don't have much time. I gave up on Pathfinder, but still playing other stuff, currently 5th ed D&D and Scion. I find myself thinking of this place and you people. I think I am ready to come back, but it will be tentative at first. So, to quote someone far wiser than I: What did I miss?

This year has been a bloody misery. My mother died in august, and things have since been rather hectic, with work demanding more of my time. When the redesign of this site hit, it took just that bit of more energy that I didn't have to come here. So, I found out now that I just haven't.

It is better to say goodbye than to just vanish. I have left already, but it may of course be that I come back at some point. I would like to thank all the lovely people here for making this board my online home for about a decade of my life.

Party on. Be excellent to each other.

I use my Midas touch on AM GOLD.

Nuuuuuuuu!

I hate it when that happens.

Pulg's ready to believe you! Call 555-GHOST!

Not coconuts. It's a horse.

Goth Guru was promoted to assistant pigkeeper.

Did IHIYC have something to do with the Spanish Armada? The answer will surprise you!

GURPS? Which edition of it?

Sissyl wrote:

I dunno. I trust Paizo to say "2nd ed is awesome, check it out!" instead of "Only morons would still play 1st ed!". That's going to work wonders for avoiding drawn battle lines.

very, very well said.

Thank you.

Ummmmm... may be time for me to leave now...

I dunno. I trust Paizo to say "2nd ed is awesome, check it out!" instead of "Only morons would still play 1st ed!". That's going to work wonders for avoiding drawn battle lines.

We have a divine Pulg now? Izzat a good thing?

To quote a great thinker: "He'll be back."

* Mourns his 2 day winning spree coming to an end*

Also I don't get payed enough to mop.. or be a mop...

I dunno. You get nothing for being a mop. Which is what mops typically get paid.

*releases Vidmaster7 from the broom handle the Count tied him to*

There, now. A VidPulg would have been an awesome mop, but dino guts? Nah.

No. Just no. It's not Cosmo's fault! You can't blame him! Someone should start the Reformed cult of Cosmo, which sees everyone as responsible people, well able to answer for what they have done!

Ummm...

I am no expert...

...but if you don't know about Illustrator, maybe all your hard work on writing this thing would be best served by paying someone to finish your book? I understand that writing is free, but with the decision to publish comes costs. Certainly, I dabbled in editing and layouting, but even the meager results I got took some pretty intense learning curves.

Look at it this way: You love your book, and you want others to love it too, right? You want good reviews, word of mouth leading to more sales, and so on. Sure, you CAN do the job yourself, but it WILL NOT be as good as if you paid someone to do it. That will mean fewer sales.

Sure, it's possible you won't sell much either way. Getting things out there is still difficult. Still, consider the time you put into it, the money you have available and the results you want before deciding.

And Illustrator is abyss-deep.

Please don't take this as an insult.