RobotOverlord525's recent activity
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Comment on How do you design your campaigns? in ~games.tabletop
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Comment on How do you design your campaigns? in ~games.tabletop
RobotOverlord525 (edited )Link ParentI'm running a pre-written D&D module (Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk) as my first D&D game and the sad part is that most of what they provide you is telling you what's going to...I'm running a pre-written D&D module (Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk) as my first D&D game and the sad part is that most of what they provide you is telling you what's going to happen. (Justin Alexander had a particularly scathing review of it, in fact.)
We had our 42nd session on Sunday and I still have to wonder what it would be like to run a completely sandbox game. I overprep like crazy, and I'm not sure if it would be better or worse. I don't really love to improv anything but dialogue because I like to ground everything in the campaign in verisimilitude. I don't have enough of an intuitive feel for late 15th century Western Europe to come up with a lot of that off the top of my head. (And I tend to approach the Forgotten Realms in 1492 DR as Western Europe circa 1500 plus magic. Which I greatly prefer to what a lot of people tend to do with these settings as far as I can tell which is to treat them as rural America circa 1950 but with magic and no cars.)
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentI've read Falling Free and Shards of Honor and found both of them rather disappointing. You can tell she's not as developed as a writer as she was when she wrote The Curse of Chalion and The...I've read Falling Free and Shards of Honor and found both of them rather disappointing. You can tell she's not as developed as a writer as she was when she wrote The Curse of Chalion and The Paladin of Souls, which my wife and I read and liked years ago. They're a lot more... pulpy. Maybe the series gets better later on, but I haven't gotten back to it to find out.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
RobotOverlord525 (edited )LinkFor fiction, The Tyrant's Law, book three of The Dagger and the Coin fantasy series by Daniel Abraham (one half of James SA Corey of the Expanse fame). It's a pretty good series so far, if a bit...For fiction, The Tyrant's Law, book three of The Dagger and the Coin fantasy series by Daniel Abraham (one half of James SA Corey of the Expanse fame). It's a pretty good series so far, if a bit of a slow burn.
For nonfiction, I'm also reading The Origin and Character of God by Theodore J. Lewis. It's about the evolution of El/Yahweh, the Abrahamic religions' God. This book isn't nearly as quick a read or as accessible as Francesca Stavrakopoulou's God: An Anatomy (which my wife and I read last year), but it's got a lot more depth and is clearly very comprehensive.
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Comment on Some people can't see mental images. The consequences are profound. in ~health.mental
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentInteresting. Your imagination definitely seems more robust than mine. I surveyed my household on the apple/table question, and both my wife and my daughter reported having color to the apple, the...Interesting. Your imagination definitely seems more robust than mine.
I surveyed my household on the apple/table question, and both my wife and my daughter reported having color to the apple, the table, and the background. So my daughter seems to have inherited my wife's imagination.
I asked my wife and daughter about dreams and they reported that there seems to be a lot more details filled in there then I've got, too. For example, my wife mentioned the idea of walking through a crowd in a dream. For me, I would be walking through the nebulous concept of "a crowd." Unless I'm interacting with any individual person, all of the people in the dream crowd would be undefined. The room itself might well be undefined as well. But for her, there would be a lot of random details about those people (e.g., gender, hair color, clothes).
Similarly, I asked both of them to imagine a sheep jumping over a fence. For me, that fence and the sheep are white and the fence is nebulously in some kind of grass. The density of the grass, the length of the sheep's coat, the color of its head, the sky, the time of day, what's on the horizon... None of that is defined for me but all of it was defined for both of them. If my mental attention isn't directed to it, it's like my brain doesn't "render" any of those details. It's like my visual and auditory imagination are "compressed."
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Comment on Some people can't see mental images. The consequences are profound. in ~health.mental
RobotOverlord525 (edited )Link ParentFor me, my internal monologue is "silent" but somehow masculine in some indistinct way? (I'm cis-male.) It's not my voice, precisely, but it has some abstract quality to it that is male. When I'm...For me, my internal monologue is "silent" but somehow masculine in some indistinct way? (I'm cis-male.) It's not my voice, precisely, but it has some abstract quality to it that is male. When I'm reading something written by a woman, the voice doesn't change exactly, but it has an abstract feminine quality to it instead.
Similarly, when I have a song stuck in my head (which is almost always—currently it's "Tainted Love"), my mental representation of the song isn't fully formed. The instrumentation is simplified in some way. I think the vocals are probably the closest. If I really concentrate, I think I can "fill the song out," so to speak, but it's hard to say what exactly is changing.
In imagining the apple on the table, I don't know that the table had a color, even though the apple was definitely red. Similarly, I couldn't say what the background was. It wasn't dark and it wasn't light, it was just... undefined.
The recurring theme is abstractness and indefiniteness. Dreams are the same way. They're more shallow than real life perception. I don't know if that's true for everyone.
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Comment on Any chance we can get a shorthand for the <details> tag? in ~tildes
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentTotally agreed. I like the Discord method (markdown?) of marking spoilers, too. It's easy on desktop and on mobile.Totally agreed. I like the Discord method (markdown?) of marking spoilers, too. It's easy on desktop and on mobile.
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Comment on New York school phone ban has made lunch loud again in ~tech
RobotOverlord525 LinkMy daughter's high school band cell phones and it seems like a joke to me. I don't think anyone's enforcing it. They made the policy more strict this year but enforcement seems as virtually...My daughter's high school band cell phones and it seems like a joke to me. I don't think anyone's enforcing it. They made the policy more strict this year but enforcement seems as virtually nonexistent as it was last year. I don't exactly blame the teachers for not wanting to be the cell phone police, but it doesn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence in district leadership that they seem oblivious to this.
As for whether or not it's worth doing…? It seems like a reasonable expectation to me. Though I don't know that we have a ton of science yet to back that up. (Something Ezra Klein and Jonathan Heidt discussed earlier this year.)
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Comment on What are your favorite simple pleasures? in ~talk
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentI'm jealous that that's how you feel about it. I think I'm more in the boat that u/first-must-burn is in. I remember looking at Jupiter through a telescope once and really grasping that it's an...Going outside at night and staring at the stars. I weirdly like how minuscule and insignificant it makes me feel...It takes some of the pressure off.
I'm jealous that that's how you feel about it. I think I'm more in the boat that u/first-must-burn is in. I remember looking at Jupiter through a telescope once and really grasping that it's an actual, physical object unbelievably far away from me, not just some recurring feature in "space things" (books, TV shows, etc.) that I've been consuming since childhood. I got a real pang of existential dread from that. I'm just this tiny, fragile thing the universe could annihilate without any real consequence.
Something tells me I might be higher in neuroticism than you!
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Comment on New ‘Star Trek’ movie in works at Paramount from Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) in ~movies
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentYeah. But Star Trek's movies are rarely it's best representation. I'm definitely not alone in saying that TNG and DS9 are the franchise at its best. I love (most of) the TOS movies, but they're...Yeah. But Star Trek's movies are rarely it's best representation. I'm definitely not alone in saying that TNG and DS9 are the franchise at its best. I love (most of) the TOS movies, but they're mostly popcorn fare. The JJ movies were dumb but they weren't totally antithetical to the action-oriented original movies. TMP tried being somewhat intellectual and the franchise was scared off ever since.
All that to say that I expect they are going to continue with that trend. I would be willing to bet there's going to be a lot of phaser fire and not a lot of philosophical pontificating.
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Comment on New ‘Star Trek’ movie in works at Paramount from Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) in ~movies
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentI loved the first season of SNW. I was much more lukewarm on the second. How is the third?I loved the first season of SNW. I was much more lukewarm on the second. How is the third?
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Comment on New ‘Star Trek’ movie in works at Paramount from Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) in ~movies
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentLayering D&D and the Forgotten Realms onto the title might have been a little too much. It's not referenced in the titles of any of the classic Forgotten Realms CRPG games either, so I don't...Layering D&D and the Forgotten Realms onto the title might have been a little too much. It's not referenced in the titles of any of the classic Forgotten Realms CRPG games either, so I don't necessarily think that was holding it back.
Otherwise, I totally agree.
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Comment on How has AI positively impacted your life? in ~tech
RobotOverlord525 (edited )LinkI use it at work and at home. At work, I have to deliver summaries of meetings with clients. We meet in Zoom and the Zoom AI summaries are fantastic for giving me a template to work off of to...I use it at work and at home.
At work, I have to deliver summaries of meetings with clients. We meet in Zoom and the Zoom AI summaries are fantastic for giving me a template to work off of to write my meeting summaries. Since I have a disability, I can't take notes in meetings (I dictate to "type"), so the AI meeting summaries are a godsend for that as well.
It's also fantastic for constructing Excel macros to manipulate and consolidate data. Especially to bring things out of Jay's on files and into a spreadsheet. I know how to do some VB coding, but nothing like that. (Plus, it's hard to dictate code, so it's not likely a skill I'm going to end up developing as far as these types of things go.)
At home, I use it for D&D prep. I vibe-coded an Excel NPC generator that takes Forgotten Realms species rarity into consideration (e.g., humans are much more common than tieflings). All the ones that I was able to find online before wouldn't do that, which annoyed me.
It's also good for finding scientific research papers and having them summarized/explained. Nothing important — just things I'm curious about.
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Comment on Hate-reading? in ~books
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentIf it makes you feel any better, you've already made it past the almost universally agreed upon low point of the series (book 10). Personally, I liked Sanderson's books. I thought they breathed...If it makes you feel any better, you've already made it past the almost universally agreed upon low point of the series (book 10). Personally, I liked Sanderson's books. I thought they breathed some much-needed life into the series. Plus he made some of the characters I wasn't a huge fan of less obnoxious, which was nice.
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Comment on Hate-reading? in ~books
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentI powered through the last books of the series when I really shouldn't have. All the way through the original end of the series. I was young and dumb enough to enjoy Faith of the Fallen and I...I powered through the last books of the series when I really shouldn't have. All the way through the original end of the series. I was young and dumb enough to enjoy Faith of the Fallen and I didn't realize it was just a ripoff of some Ayn Rand novel. (I'm not even sure I knew who she was at the time.) But even I wasn't dumb enough to think Naked Empire was anything but trash. Why I kept going after that is a bit of a mystery. When it required lots of skimming to finish a book, that should have been a sign that I shouldn't keep spending my money on such ranty garbage.
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Comment on Meta is earning a fortune on a deluge of fraudulent ads, documents show in ~tech
RobotOverlord525 LinkAs long as they keep making more money than it costs them in fines, it's still profitable to allow scams and bullshit on their products. I think it's telling that only concerned about it in...The documents make clear that Meta aims to reduce its illicit revenue stream in the future. But the company is concerned that abrupt reductions of scam advertising revenue could affect its business projections, according to a 2025 document that discusses the impact of “violating revenue” – income from ads that violate Meta’s standards, such as scams, illegal gambling, sexual services or dubious health products.
The documents note that Meta plans to try to cut the share of Facebook and Instagram revenue derived from scam ads. In the meantime, Meta has internally acknowledged that regulatory fines for scam ads are certain, and anticipates penalties of up to $1 billion, according to one internal document.
But those fines would be much smaller than Meta’s revenue from scam ads, a separate document from November 2024 states. Every six months, Meta earns $3.5 billion from just the portion of scam ads that “present higher legal risk,” the document says, such as those falsely claiming to represent a consumer brand or public figure or demonstrating other signs of deceit. That figure almost certainly exceeds “the cost of any regulatory settlement involving scam ads.”
As long as they keep making more money than it costs them in fines, it's still profitable to allow scams and bullshit on their products. I think it's telling that only concerned about it in markets where they fear regulation.
On a slightly related note, I thought this bit was rather hilarious:
Internal documents show that Meta directed staffers then to focus mainly on fraudsters masquerading as celebrities and usurping major brands. Such “impersonation scams” risked upsetting advertisers and public figures, one 2022 document notes, and thus threatened to reduce user engagement and revenue.
But ongoing layoffs at Meta were hindering enforcement. A planning document for the first half of 2023 notes that everyone who worked on the team handling advertiser concerns about brand-rights issues had been laid off. The company was also devoting resources so heavily to virtual reality and AI that safety staffers were ordered to restrict their use of Meta’s computing resources. They were instructed merely to “keep the lights on.”
Remember when Zuckerberg wanted to bet the farm that VR was the future? What a joke.
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Comment on Millennials: How do you feel about nostalgia pandering? in ~talk
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentI saw a complaints about the use of '90s metal outros in Alien Earth that were countered by the almost disturbing fact that those songs are closer to when Alien was first released then they are to...I saw a complaints about the use of '90s metal outros in Alien Earth that were countered by the almost disturbing fact that those songs are closer to when Alien was first released then they are to the present. (Alien came out in 1979; ÆNIMA came out 17 years later, in 1996, which is currently 29 years ago.)
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Comment on Millennials: How do you feel about nostalgia pandering? in ~talk
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentTo be fair, if you are going to make a show a period piece, you probably don't want it to be completely incidental that it happens to take place in another decade. Making the '80s as irrelevant to...To be fair, if you are going to make a show a period piece, you probably don't want it to be completely incidental that it happens to take place in another decade. Making the '80s as irrelevant to Stranger Things as it was to the first season of Seinfeld (or the first seven seasons of Cheers) would not necessarily be the best way to structure the show.
That said, it's definitely possible to go overboard with irrelevant side details that detract from the storytelling in order to overindulge in nostalgia. I was never personally bothered by it in Stranger Things, but that doesn't mean that it hit the right balance for everyone.
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Comment on Millennials: How do you feel about nostalgia pandering? in ~talk
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentAgreed. Look no further than to the Epic Of Gilgamesh, one of the first books we've discovered in the historical record. We have different versions of it separated by centuries, written in totally...I think humans have an innate desire to recycle, reinterpret, and retell stories,
Agreed. Look no further than to the Epic Of Gilgamesh, one of the first books we've discovered in the historical record. We have different versions of it separated by centuries, written in totally different languages.
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Comment on Do you have a favorite setting shared amongst multiple authors? in ~books
RobotOverlord525 Link ParentI wasn't a huge Riker fan (Geordi was my favorite character), but young-me accepted the narrative at Troi and Riker were "meant to be," so Worf was getting in the way of that. (Plus, I never much...I wasn't a huge Riker fan (Geordi was my favorite character), but young-me accepted the narrative at Troi and Riker were "meant to be," so Worf was getting in the way of that. (Plus, I never much cared for Worf as a kid. I was never keen on brutish characters.)
As someone who is only familiar with 5e D&D, what makes Wildsea better for going full improv? (I've never heard of Wildsea.)