Zorind's recent activity

  1. Comment on The (improbable) history of the Savannah Bananas in ~sports.baseball

    Zorind
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    I think they sell tickets on a lottery system at the start of the season now, or at least that’s what they did this year. I did not get the chance to buy a ticket for the games near me...

    I think they sell tickets on a lottery system at the start of the season now, or at least that’s what they did this year.

    I did not get the chance to buy a ticket for the games near me unfortunately :(

    2 votes

  2. Comment on Stops along a drive from Texas to Pennsylvania in ~travel

    Zorind
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    Seconding Atlas Obscura, I’ve used it to find interesting stops the couple times I’ve done cross-country drives.

    Seconding Atlas Obscura, I’ve used it to find interesting stops the couple times I’ve done cross-country drives.

  3. Comment on Stops along a drive from Texas to Pennsylvania in ~travel

    Zorind
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    Serpent Mound is definitely pretty neat for a quick stop! If you’re going through Cincinnati, it could be neat to stop by “Loveland Castle / Chateau LaRoche” just outside of Cincinnati. It’s on a...

    Serpent Mound is definitely pretty neat for a quick stop!

    If you’re going through Cincinnati, it could be neat to stop by “Loveland Castle / Chateau LaRoche” just outside of Cincinnati. It’s on a back road and I think $5 per person. It’s a neat (short) stop, not a lot to do there but just kinda nifty as a place to visit as an “oddity.”

  4. Comment on Setting up a pen-turning workshop for my son — need advice! in ~hobbies

    Zorind
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    Not super knowledgeable as I don’t personally do woodwork, but I believe carbide chisels are generally regarded as good. I don’t know if Peter Brown on YouTube has any specific pen-turning videos,...

    Not super knowledgeable as I don’t personally do woodwork, but I believe carbide chisels are generally regarded as good.

    I don’t know if Peter Brown on YouTube has any specific pen-turning videos, but he does have quite a few videos where he uses a lathe so he might be worth looking into. Though his videos are more ”project” videos than “tutorial” videos if that makes sense.

    4 votes

  5. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Zorind
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    I’ve been continuing playing Cyberpunk 2077, for the first time - with the Phantom Liberty expansion. I built my V out to be pretty stealth based (maxed out the Cool tree first, with I think a 3...

    I’ve been continuing playing Cyberpunk 2077, for the first time - with the Phantom Liberty expansion.

    I built my V out to be pretty stealth based (maxed out the Cool tree first, with I think a 3 in body and around 7-8 in the other ones currently) & basically 90% of the missions I start stealth until I fuck up and get spotted (usually by a camera that I ignored/didn’t see in time), and then it turns into all-guns blazing, but usually without too many enemies left. So my current loadout has been an iconic semi-auto pistol with a muzzle brake, an iconic power pistol with a silencer (headshots for stealth kills), and the overwatch sniper (silenced).

    And that’s worked out pretty well for most jobs so far - sniper while rolling up, then silenced pistol for headshotting groups, and then when I’m spotted using the semi-auto pistol to clean up. And it’s even worked out OK against a few bosses on jobs like the VDB/Animals job.

    But then, on the first phantom liberty mission, where of course, before starting, I dumped my whole inventory so that I would have backup space to not get encumbered from loot…it did, not quite work out as well.

    Spoilers for the first few Phantom Liberty missions

    Basically, from my V’s perspective- the stealth setup was great, successfully made it to the downed plane without being spotted.

    But then everything went to shit on the plane, I can’t headshot the enemies fast enough with my silenced pistol, the sniper rifle is too slow and doesn’t have a big enough magazine, and the semi auto pistol doesn’t have enough range or mag size either.

    So there I am, getting yelled at by the fucking president to cover her while she’s reloading (and doing about 80% of the work), so I have to fucking run OUT of the plane and pick up basically an LMG off the ground and then go ham.

    But really, getting yelled at by the president for not doing enough was hilarious, as I’m sitting there like, “yeah planning on this to be fully stealth was probably a mistake.”

    3 votes

  6. Comment on I was the poster girl for OCD. Then I began to question everything I’d been told about mental illness. in ~health.mental

    Zorind
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    In college a couple years back, I took a really interesting course titled The Philosophy of Mental Illness. One of the sections of the course was looking at the DSM 5, and how both it and earlier...

    In college a couple years back, I took a really interesting course titled The Philosophy of Mental Illness.

    One of the sections of the course was looking at the DSM 5, and how both it and earlier iterations affect mental health treatment.

    My main takeaway from the course was that, while the DSM is useful as a way of describing the symptoms one could be experiencing, there still is a lot we don't know about the actual causes of mental illnesses - and whether they should really even be classified as illnesses - but that the DSM allows for treatment under the USA's crappy medical system, and without the generalized classification of mental illnesses as mental illnesses, getting help or treatment would likely be even harder or more expensive.

    I'd love to find some more current research on these subjects, since some of the articles I really liked from class were originally published in the early 2000's.

    13 votes

  7. Comment on Iran launches dozens of drones toward Israel in ~news

    Zorind
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    Trying to explain this fairly neutrally. I believe the OP is saying that basically, there’s a segment of the American left that supports Palestine and hasn’t liked how President Biden has handled...

    Trying to explain this fairly neutrally.

    I believe the OP is saying that basically, there’s a segment of the American left that supports Palestine and hasn’t liked how President Biden has handled the conflict, and are committing to not voting for Biden as a result (and this will especially be the case if Biden does more in support of Israel).

    Because of the two party system, by committing to not voting for Biden as a result of his seemingly pro-Israel stances, they’re indirectly supporting Trump, who is arguably even more pro-Israel.

    So the part of the American left that is pro-Palestine deciding to not vote for Biden because of his pro-Israel stance will result in someone who is even more pro-Israel becoming president (which would benefit Netanyahu) - and is pretty textbook “irony”.

    16 votes

  8. Comment on New Music Fridays: Lizzy McAlpine, Lo Moon, and more in ~music

    Zorind
    Link Parent
    Ooh, I really liked Lizzie McAlpine’s 2022 album (five seconds flat), specifically “all my ghosts” and “orange show speedway.” Excited to check out the new album!

    Ooh, I really liked Lizzie McAlpine’s 2022 album (five seconds flat), specifically “all my ghosts” and “orange show speedway.”

    Excited to check out the new album!

    1 vote

  9. Comment on What cooking techniques need more evidence? in ~food

    Zorind
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    You can use modern soaps (more “detergents” than soap) and it will not hurt the seasoning of the pan. Lye-based soaps, or old fashioned soaps, or modern boutique bar soaps may be lye-based and may...

    You can use modern soaps (more “detergents” than soap) and it will not hurt the seasoning of the pan.

    Lye-based soaps, or old fashioned soaps, or modern boutique bar soaps may be lye-based and may damage the seasoning of a cast iron. But your standard run-of-the-mill dish soap is absolutely fine to use on a cast iron pan.

    For ideal cleaning, wash it with as hot as water as you can stand, while the pan is still warm (but not hot) from cooking, and then dry it immediately. To finish drying it, you can toss it back on the stove with a splash of oil until it smokes to help maintain the seasoning.

    In practice, this is what I do:

    1. Cook something delicious
    2. Turn off the burner, move food to plates, enjoy food.
    3. Toss dishwasher safe dinner dishes in the dishwasher.
    4. By this point, the cast iron has cooled enough so I turn my hot water to max, wait for it to warm, and then scrub down the cast iron pan (using my Costco plant-based dish soap and a blue scotchbrite scrubber).
    5. Dry the pan, put back on a burner on medium heat, add a splash of oil (less than a Tbsp.)
    6. Wash any remaining dishes, looking at my cast iron periodically.
    7. As soon as there is a single wisp of smoke, turn off the heat & use a paper towel or two to wipe the (hot) oil around the inside of the pan, being careful not to burn myself.
    8. Make sure there’s no big gloops of oil left in the pan, should basically be “dry”.
    9. Move the cast iron to a hot pad (off the stove) and let it sit until cooled to put away.

    Looks like a lot, but it basically happens as I’m putting away dinner and dealing with the rest of the dishes anyway.

    I don’t bother with the reheat & oil if it still looks black & shiny on the bottom after I rinse it out (typically if I did something like cook veggies in a splash of oil).

    5 votes

  10. Comment on What did you do to "prepare" for your marriage? in ~life

    Zorind
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    I just got married about 3 weeks ago, so I can’t really give any advice for long-term… We’d been living together for about a year, together for 4 but 2 of those were long-distance due to COVID....

    I just got married about 3 weeks ago, so I can’t really give any advice for long-term…

    We’d been living together for about a year, together for 4 but 2 of those were long-distance due to COVID. But we got engaged while still long-distance (she was visiting me for a week) before moving in together, and then moved in together right out of Long distance. Which was maybe a bold jump, but we had basically lived together during undergrad in college (we spent a lot of time at each others’ places).

    About a week after we moved in together, we had the conversations about money - we knew generally we were going to split rent evenly, but needed to figure out the rest of it. After getting married, we are planning on combining finances a bit more, just because we have fairly different incomes right now, so it makes the most sense.

    After getting married…nothing has really changed (since the moving in together part). The wedding itself was great, but afterwards my partner has described it as “it’s like a birthday party - a big life event happened, but nothing really feels different.”

    I will say, the wedding was probably more expensive than we wanted it to be, but we could afford it which was the important thing, and I don’t regret what we spent on it at all.

    5 votes

  11. Comment on Need help planning a pseudo-upgrade for my computer tower in ~comp

    Zorind
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    If your current mobo supports it, I would throw the new RAM in just because you might as well. The bottleneck for the helldivers FPS is likely your GPU, and maybe the CPU. Since you have a new...

    If your current mobo supports it, I would throw the new RAM in just because you might as well.

    The bottleneck for the helldivers FPS is likely your GPU, and maybe the CPU.

    Since you have a new CPU, it might make sense to just upgrade the Mobo, GPU, CPU and RAM.

    I don’t have time to check right now, but I’d look at https://pcpartpicker.com/ and fill in your components to check for wattage draw, because your PSU might be OK even with a new GPU and the new CPU, but it probably depends on the GPU you end up with.

    Unfortunately, a new GPU and Mobo is probably going to run around $500 depending on if you can find sales or not. You probably don’t need a top of the line GPU, but something around an NVIDIA RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6600 XT which are about double the performance of your current GPU.

    8 votes

  12. Comment on Eclipse plans in ~talk

    Zorind
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    Yeah, that was absolutely wild

    Yeah, that was absolutely wild

    2 votes

  13. Comment on Eclipse plans in ~talk

    Zorind
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    Drove about an hour to a brewery in the path of totality and have been hanging out there! Very convenient to be living pretty close to it for sure

    Drove about an hour to a brewery in the path of totality and have been hanging out there!

    Very convenient to be living pretty close to it for sure

    4 votes

  14. Comment on Scattered thoughts on the absurdity of existing in ~talk

    Zorind
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    I’ve only read his Man’s Search for Meaning which definitely reads more as a philosophical treatise than what I would consider psychiatry. But it’s similar to the others in it deals with trying to...

    I’ve only read his Man’s Search for Meaning which definitely reads more as a philosophical treatise than what I would consider psychiatry.

    But it’s similar to the others in it deals with trying to find meaning / purpose in life, when life is full of suffering.

    The first half is mostly autobiographical about his time in a concentration camp, and then the second half is his treatise on the philosophical theory he came up with a little bit before the concentration camp but further developed throughout that experience.

    1 vote

  15. Comment on Scattered thoughts on the absurdity of existing in ~talk

    Zorind
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    I swear, there are dozens of us! I was pretty apathetically depressed and low-key suicidal throughout parts of high school and college, and while therapy did maybe help a little, I really did dive...

    Again, I promise I'm OK! Reading Camus actually basically solved the super dark major depressive episode I was in from elementary school until my early-mid 20s.

    I swear, there are dozens of us! I was pretty apathetically depressed and low-key suicidal throughout parts of high school and college, and while therapy did maybe help a little, I really did dive into some philosophy at the time and found Camus and the Stoics (as well as others like Viktor Frankl) to be quite helpful. I ended up even minoring in philosophy in college.

    and I would never just recommend reading philosophy instead of going to therapy for people in a place of depression, because it certainly doesn’t work for everyone, and I count myself lucky that it mostly has worked for me.

    Only semi related, but I really enjoy Terry Pratchett’s Discworld (Going Postal & Making Money are the two I’ve read) and Kurt Vonnegut’s Cat’s Cradle and would highly recommend them. I think the way they satirize the world may vibe with you as they did with me.

    7 votes

  16. Comment on Megathread: April Fools’ Day 2024 on the internet in ~talk

  17. Comment on What books helped you deal with the anxiety of life's uncertainties? in ~books

    Zorind
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    I don’t know if this fully counts, but in college I had a rough patch and really valued Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” which was formulated, at least partially, during his time in Nazi...

    I don’t know if this fully counts, but in college I had a rough patch and really valued Victor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” which was formulated, at least partially, during his time in Nazi concentration camps.

    2 votes

  18. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Zorind
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    I was assuming Phantom Liberty was post-main story, but after looking a bit more that doesn’t seem to be the case. I will likely go ahead and pick it up - I don’t think I’m past the expected...

    I was assuming Phantom Liberty was post-main story, but after looking a bit more that doesn’t seem to be the case. I will likely go ahead and pick it up - I don’t think I’m past the expected starting point for it then.

    2 votes

  19. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Zorind
    Link Parent
    Edgerunners was phenomenal IMO (assuming the Netflix show, not sure if there’s something else sharing the name). I’ve always been a fan of the cyberpunk genre since getting into Shadowrun (both...

    Edgerunners was phenomenal IMO (assuming the Netflix show, not sure if there’s something else sharing the name).

    I’ve always been a fan of the cyberpunk genre since getting into Shadowrun (both the RPG and the games Shadowrun: Returns & Shadowrun: Hong Kong).

    Luckily I don’t get super immersed and so the T-Posing didn’t throw me off, was more of a “ah, so there are still bugs like this around.”

    I really so like cyberpunk-esque stories, so I’m glad to know that the side quests are decent. Looking forward to playing more this week.

    1 vote

  20. Comment on Deadly morel mushroom outbreak highlights big gaps in fungi knowledge in ~food

    Zorind
    Link Parent
    The Wikipedia article was edited yesterday (March 17th) to include that line about the toxicity of morels, citing the incident at the restaurant in the article. It looks like previously there was...

    The Wikipedia article was edited yesterday (March 17th) to include that line about the toxicity of morels, citing the incident at the restaurant in the article.

    It looks like previously there was a line about potential toxicity, but it being included in the intro paragraph is new. Wiki Edit History

    22 votes