Useless Conversation

[HaemishM]

Wife installs malware

Seriously, just take her computer away.

[HaemishM]

Maryland is worse than Mississippi? Dear lord.

I was going to ask the same thing, then I remembered Alabama.

[Engels]

Wife installs malware

Seriously, just take her computer away.

Or you know, buy her a mac. This is the market apple aims for. At work, we try to steer certain types of users towards macs. Certain professors get virus infections waaaay more than others, and eventually they settle down into a nice peaceful mac existence and leave us the hell alone.

[Sky]

Page 600. How useless!

[Morat20]

Or you know, buy her a mac. This is the market apple aims for. At work, we try to steer certain types of users towards macs. Certain professors get virus infections waaaay more than others, and eventually they settle down into a nice peaceful mac existence and leave us the hell alone.

I got her an iPad. Hopefully she'll ease into using it. She doesn't torrent, she doesn't use pirate sites, so that pretty much leaves dodgy porn and "error exists between keyboard and chair".

Hopefully the iPad will handle both of those, and she can just use her laptop for writing. She's got a nice wireless keyboard for the iPad, but she prefers the laptop for heavy writing. She does want to try Scrivener. Anyone tried that?

[Soln]

Scrivener is awesome.  I know several writers and creative types who use it.

[Khaldun]

I need to make another run at getting used to Scrivener's workflow. I like it conceptually a good deal.

We have a faculty user here--the IT folks won't tell me who--that has apparently fallen for the same phishing emails six times and infected the campus network repeatedly. Also apparently has a machine that is perpetually crawling with malware because he/she always clicks on flashing ads that say "You might have a virus" and so on. They've basically had to put this person (without telling him/her) behind a special firewall, since he/she simply doesn't understand what the IT people are saying.

[Numtini]

I switched to Scrivener back in March I think? I absolutely love it and can't imagine going back to a normal word processor for creative writing. The entire "index card" thing makes planning something so much easier. It also has a great full screen mode that lets you blank out everything on your desktop. Ie just a white sheet of "paper" no menu bars or anything and that really helps to grind out words rather than chasing internet shinies.

It's got a high learning curve though because it separates writing from formatting. You write in a series of individual subsections (scene, chapter, whatever) and then when you're done, you compile it all into a single document (word, epub, html, whatever). It takes some getting used to, but I can't imagine going back. I advise starting the thirty day trial (30 actual use days, so if you leave it a week and never open it that doesn't count) and playing with it long enough to get confused, then look up tutorials on youtube about how to do things, then go back and it'll make a lot more sense. There's also perpetually a 20% off coupon

I'm assuming this is creative writing. For casual writing of letters or whatever, it's not going to be useful at all. It'll just get in the way. Google docs or LibreOffice for that.

[ghost]

The wife took the kid for a haircut today and he came back looking like David Bowie from Ziggy Stardust era.   

[Sjofn]

This past weekend my secretly evil character MADE HER MOVE versus the rest of the party in this D&D game we're in. I tried to kill Ingmar, but the fall I made him take (he was dangling off a cliff, basically, and I cast sleep on him) wasn't quite far enough to kill him. 

[Yegolev]

Maryland is worse than Mississippi? Dear lord.

I was going to ask the same thing, then I remembered Alabama.

I've been in all three and I'd rank Maryland at the bottom.

[Signe]

This past weekend my secretly evil character MADE HER MOVE versus the rest of the party in this D&D game we're in. I tried to kill Ingmar, but the fall I made him take (he was dangling off a cliff, basically, and I cast sleep on him) wasn't quite far enough to kill him. 

 Don't fret.  I have faith in you.  Next time you'll destroy him properly.   

[Sky]

This past weekend my secretly evil character MADE HER MOVE versus the rest of the party in this D&D game we're in. I tried to kill Ingmar, but the fall I made him take (he was dangling off a cliff, basically, and I cast sleep on him) wasn't quite far enough to kill him. 

One of my favorite D&D games was at a tournament. I was with the kid who would later become the singer in my band, but at the time we were both huge D&D dorks. He was playing a thief and I was playing a thief/m-u; the party had us scouting ahead to detect traps (and probably get eaten first, etc). So we were liberally helping ourselves to the best bits of treasure, marking secret doors to check out later without the party, etc.

The DM got so pissed he sent - I shit you not - invisible ninjas to stalk us. INVISIBLE NINJAS. We reported him, he got disqualified and our characters were both promoted to the next round of the tournament.

[Yegolev]

I find myself wondering how hard it might be to become a decent DBA.  Also, I cannot find a image which can encapsulate the past few days at work.

[Trippy]

That's not any better than being a sysadmin.

[cmlancas]

I find myself wondering how hard it might be to become a decent DBA.  Also, I cannot find a image which can encapsulate the past few days at work.

Hurr durr relational hurr durrtabase.   

Love you, DBAs!   

[Hammond]

The few DBA's I know make decent cash and they are generally left alone at work.  I should also mention they remind me to much of the office space stapler guy which probably explains why they are left alone....

[Ingmar]

What I know about DBAing, is that everyone I know is outsourcing it to an MSP, or is at least looking at doing so. I'd guess that means demand is somewhat low.

[Sjofn]

This past weekend my secretly evil character MADE HER MOVE versus the rest of the party in this D&D game we're in. I tried to kill Ingmar, but the fall I made him take (he was dangling off a cliff, basically, and I cast sleep on him) wasn't quite far enough to kill him. 

 Don't fret.  I have faith in you.  Next time you'll destroy him properly.   

I have to re-lure him into a sense of security first, the look on his face when it became clear I was casting sleep on him on purpose was the best part. 

And Sky, I am a terrible rogue in that sense, I (almost) never take treasure for myself. Of course, in all the games I've played a rogue in, they would NEVER LET ME SCOUT AHEAD for some reason. 

[Evildrider]

Just use Charm Person to get him to feel all safe and warm around you again.

[cmlancas]

Just use Charm Person to get him to feel all safe and warm around you again.

Is show boobies a skill on your sheet?   

[Rishathra]

One of my favorite D&D games was at a tournament.

My mind immediately went to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2XGp5ix8HE

[Sky]

the look on his face when it became clear I was casting sleep on him on purpose was the best part. 

That was the hilarious part of the tournament game, when the other players realized what was going on. It had been a lot of note-passing (the other players just assuming it was due to us being ahead scouting out of range). Then things went wonky with invisible ninjas, we started bitching and the DM had a meltdown about how we were ruining the game and told the other players why. They were so pissed that we skimmed the best loot and didn't report any of the secret doors we found.

And maybe we would forget to report a monster or two. These things happen, who knew everyone was so noisy?

[Sjofn]

Just use Charm Person to get him to feel all safe and warm around you again.

Is show boobies a skill on your sheet?   

We've been married nine years, he may have built up an immunity by now.

[WayAbvPar]

You'd think so, but they are still quite powerful. Probably because every man is basically 12 years old in his mind.

[Ingmar]

I'm at least 14.

[Ard]

Which is what every 10 years old likes to think.

[Yegolev]

That's not any better than being a sysadmin.

I hear they are paid more, yet I only know one good one.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I hated trying to play a rogue character with my previous D&D group because there was one guy who refused to stay in character and kept using meta-knowledge to interact with me.  He was always doing *wink wink nudge nudge* "yeah, you're a "person of opportunity, right?" and it annoying the hell out of me.  I really, really hated it. 

[Sjofn]

My rogues never really tried to hide their roguery, which may be part of the reason I never got to scout ahead. :P


My new character (who is a real character, I swear!  ) has the potential to be horribly boring in combat, but here's hoping she isn't, as I like the actual character concept well enough. I'm pretty sure no one in the group is going to trust me initially, though!

[Sky]

I hated trying to play a rogue character with my previous D&D group because there was one guy who refused to stay in character and kept using meta-knowledge to interact with me.  He was always doing *wink wink nudge nudge* "yeah, you're a "person of opportunity, right?" and it annoying the hell out of me.  I really, really hated it. 

That's what backstabs were created for! The rogue was the player justice of the PCs.

A thief/m-u was just nasty, though. When I would play with my buddy, that was what I always went for. We had his pure thief for the tough pure thief parts, my elven senses + a nice wee bit of magic for the nasty stuff (which might be why I loved Glen Cook's BC mages, they were so like my thief-mu, especially One-Eye). And total grief for players and DMs, though the usual suspects all played pretty gritty characters so it wasn't so noticeable as when we'd sit in with other gamers. I felt so bad as we crushed out sound guy's spirit as he tried to be Neutral Good in an adventure with the band.

[Lantyssa]

I have a tendency to play demon-tainted characters.  But I'm also the one with enough OCD to keep a list of the treasure.  And have a tendency on some characters to take anything not bolted down.  Tapestries, furniture, hundreds of weapons, basically everything.  (One DM made the mistake of giving us a cloth that could shrink items.  Suddenly we had lots of statues.)

Aaaanyways, we ended up with a saying:  Don't let the demon keep track of the loot.

To be fair, we had a lot of unused junk, and that Ring of Regeneration came in really handy.  Along with all the other stuff I 'upgraded'.

[Sky]

With all this D&D talk, I'm going to bleed some KS stuff over here and mention the Reaper Kickstarter. Because it's getting bananas out of control with rewards.

[Ard]

Holy good freaking god.    Now I'm contemplating exactly how much I want my $100 vs that many minis I'll never get around to painting.  Thanks Sky.  You bastard.

[ghost]

Yeah, that Bones deal is pretty damned awesome.  I may order a second one of those, too.