KoboldCoterie

KoboldCoterie, 7 days ago

Ice storm in 1998 in Maine. Tame compared to some of these, but a huge part of the state was just covered in multiple inches of ice. We didn’t have power for 3 weeks (due to ice buildup pulling down power lines, or trees falling on them) and while the roads were plowed, they had inches-thick ice on them in most areas so we could leave the house, but it was like, 5-10 mph speeds, tops.

Article from last year talking about it

KoboldCoterie, 10 days ago

You should propose this research; maybe you can get a grant!

KoboldCoterie, 22 hours ago

It was easier before every random website wanted to send you a text with an OTP just to log in and order a pizza or whatever.

That said, if it was $10 / mo for unlimited, or $0.02 per text, I’d take the per-text charge. I don’t use texts much and I’d probably save $8 / mo or more.

KoboldCoterie, 19 hours ago

Do you not? I really don’t know, I don’t use texts much and we’ve had unlimited texts for like, 15+ years. I always see ‘normal carrier fees apply’ on OTP notifications, so I just assumed they counted against limited plans.

KoboldCoterie, 1 day ago

I get the sense that you aren’t familiar with ‘Bad Dragon’, maybe Google can help you. ;)

KoboldCoterie, 1 day ago

I know, right? Fuckin’ wild! So, tell us which one you decide to get!

KoboldCoterie, 11 days ago

By the way for people that say that humans would obviously win we have already lost a war against emus before.

Also, a crusade against sparrows ended poorly for us, too, though it was an indirect loss.

There’s even a band called Red Sparowes that released an album called ‘Every Red Heart Shines Toward the Red Sun’ with song titles explaining this:

• “The Great Leap Forward Poured Down Upon Us One Day Like a Mighty Storm, Suddenly and Furiously Blinding Our Senses.”
• “We Stood Transfixed in Blank Devotion as Our Leader Spoke to Us, Looking Down on Our Mute Faces with a Great, Raging, and Unseeing Eye.”
• “Like the Howling Glory of the Darkest Winds, This Voice Was Thunderous and the Words Holy, Tangling Their Way Around Our Hearts and Clutching Our Innocent Awe.”
• “A Message of Avarice Rained Down and Carried Us Away into False Dreams of Endless Riches.”
• “‘Annihilate the Sparrow, That Stealer of Seed, and Our Harvests Will Abound; We Will Watch Our Wealth Flood In.’”
• “And by Our Own Hand Did Every Last Bird Lie Silent in Their Puddles, the Air Barren of Song as the Clouds Drifted Away. For Killing Their Greatest Enemy, the Locusts Noisily Thanked Us and Turned Their Jaws Toward Our Crops, Swallowing Our Greed Whole.”
• “Millions Starved and We Became Skinnier and Skinnier, While Our Leaders Became Fatter and Fatter.”
• “Finally, as That Blazing Sun Shone Down Upon Us, Did We Know That True Enemy Was the Voice of Blind Idolatry; and Only Then Did We Begin to Think for Ourselves.”

KoboldCoterie, 11 days ago

This sounds awesome. I enjoyed TW:WH quite a bit; their model works very well for non-historically-accurate settings, and I’d love to see them do more of these.

KoboldCoterie, 9 days ago

It’s based on how it’s pronounced, not written, so it’s “an R-T-S”, or “a real-time strategy game”.

KoboldCoterie, 9 hours ago

Assuming you’re making the change in your browser’s default search settings, and not editing the URL every time you do a search, it takes a minute or two once, and it’s done forever. No harder than adding an adblock rule and it also removes a lot of other bullshit, too (since it’s just defaulting you to a ‘web only’ search).

KoboldCoterie, 7 days ago

This seems to vary by state. For example, a quick google search revealed the following regulation for Texas:

• Every room or space greater than 250 ft2 (23.2 m2) and used for classroom or other educational purposes or normally subject to student occupancy shall have not less than one outside window for emergency rescue that complies with all of the following, unless otherwise permitted by 14.2.11.1.2 [Which would not apply in this case]

KoboldCoterie, 7 days ago

Seriously, this has to violate fire codes if nothing else. There’s only one point of egress, from the sound of it.

KoboldCoterie, 9 hours ago

While this is a nice thought in theory, it breaks down as soon as you start actually thinking of it in practical terms.

• Some rural road that gets a few cars a day at best does not really need sidewalks and certainly does not need bike lanes.
• A road with potholes is more dangerous to pedestrians and bikers due to the potential for cars to lose control, or for drivers to swerve to miss a pothole and potentially endanger other travelers.
• Adding bike lanes and sidewalks is just impractical in a lot of areas. Where is that space coming from, when private property extends to the road edge currently? Are we just declaring eminent domain and taking 3-6 feet of everyone’s property frontage for this initiative? I’m sure that will be a very unpopular initiative. What about areas where buildings are too close to the street to allow for this? There’s just too many areas where it’s not practical or possible to do.

I’m all for phasing out cars in areas where it’s reasonable to do so, but your proposal just isn’t compatible with reality.

KoboldCoterie, 9 hours ago

How is that different from the emulators that Nintendo has shut down?

Nintendo alleged Yuzu was “primarily designed to circumvent several layers of Nintendo Switch encryption so its users can play copyrighted Nintendo games", that’s all it took, and isn’t that exactly what this is doing? It just happens to be one single game, rather than a large number of them.

KoboldCoterie, 5 days ago

Just because it’s an edge case doesn’t mean 30% of your userbase won’t encounter it!

KoboldCoterie, 6 days ago

This headline, while factually accurate, is tonally misleading.

He only used ChatGPT to get a definition of what a deepfake is, because he was having trouble defining it himself. He took a screenshot of the response, everyone knew it was from ChatGPT. The definition was thoroughly reviewed by humans and mostly accepted.

The assumption I, and I assume most readers, made from the title is that he tried to use ChatGPT to do his job for him and the results were comical or disastrous in some way and that the article is going to be a name-and-shame piece, which it is not.

KoboldCoterie, 4 days ago

Seriously… I bet we’d see a lot more protests about this and other topics if anyone could join a protest for a lengthy period of time without having to worry about financial ruin as a consequence.

KoboldCoterie, 1 day ago

Has Interstellar vibes.