Bay 12 Games Forum

20 gallons of anything in your veins will kill you regardless.

My last encounter with a snake was many years ago, when I was maybe in my early teens. Found a garter snake in the front yard and caught it in a butterfly net, called animal control (this was before the days when we had Internet at home), was told we could release it somewhere safe. Brought it to the nearby park and let it go. Haven't seen a snake that wasn't behind glass since then.

Oh yeah, I remember trying the Ties That Bind. The VA's accent didn't really fit the setting at all, but the mod overall was so well done that the accent was only a minor issue.

Like Dostoevsky says, the "tech levels" are more design philosophies than anything else. High tech ships might be newer than low tech, but they're also running under very different design considerations. Broadly speaking:

Low tech ships favor ballistic weapons and heavy armor, while having inefficient shields or even dropping the shields outright in some cases. Their supply usage tends to be low, but so does their fuel efficiency.
High tech ships favor powerful shields and energy weapons, while also tending to be agile. They pay for this with thinner armor and a greater need to watch their flux levels, not to mention generally being more expensive to run. You've got some high-tech frigates that cost more supplies per month (not to mention CR recovery) than some low-tech destroyers.
Midline ships are, well, midline. They tend to be somewhat balanced and economical to run, and mount a wider variety of weapons.

Quote from: Sirus on May 24, 2023, 11:36:43 am

Oh I doubt they'll disappear completely any time soon, if only because renewable energy is somewhat location-dependent and fossil fuels are a convenient power source for those other areas. But if we can reduce fossil fuel usage (and therefore our dependency on certain nations we don't particularly like), then that's a worthy goal. Just having some cleaner air would make it worth considering.

Uh, no.

Either the Dems will say "Thou MUST!" and it'll happen regardless of the human suffering involved, or it won't happen at all.

Yes, because history is full of instances of the "Dems" going THOU MUST and immediately enforcing their will with absolutely no pushback. That's why we all drive electric vehicles, and why we run a zero carbon emissions power grid, why healthcare in this country has been revolutionized, and why mass shootings are finally decreasing after sane gun laws was enacted, and...oh wait, none of that has happened. Silly me. It's almost like the legislation is so hysterically partisan that we can't get anything accomplished without incredible amounts of human suffering.

Going back to actual issues with cars instead of imagined ones, again I do not have any ADAS devices in my personal vehicle. My work truck is however loaded with them, and speaking as someone who (again) trained without them I can't stand most of their features. Lane departure warnings are good in theory...but the vast majority of the time they go off from false positives. Did a lane next to me merge into mine? It goes off. Does an off-ramp split off from my lane, even if I'm still going straight? It goes off. Is there road work requiring lanes to shift? Oh boy does it go off. I've had it go off while I was changing lanes with the appropriate turn signal active, which is supposed to be when it doesn't go off.
Collision warning has the same issues. I have forward and passenger side sensors that are supposed to alert me if there's something I'm in danger of hitting. I think I can count on one hand the number of times that either of them, combined, have alerted me to the potential of actual danger in the past couple years. The number of false positives, I lose track of on a daily basis. If there is anything, at all, within like 50 feet of my passenger side when I turn on the right turn signal, the damn thing could go off. Repeatedly. It sees my own trailer and freaks out with insistent beeps no matter how wide I take a particular turn. I can be following a right hand curve in the road, staying perfectly within my lane, and if there's a vehicle in the lane next to me it freaks out.
The forward detection is the worst because if it thinks there's something I'm about to hit, even if the road is perfectly and visibly clear, it will not only scream at me but also trigger the brakes unless I override the thing.

Basically I don't really trust ADAS systems in their current incarnation. Not for any Orwellian surveillance sort of reasons, they just don't work worth a damn.

Quote from: Sirus on May 23, 2023, 09:30:15 pm

I wouldn't try to form it into a pizza crust or anything of the sort but I bet I can do something creative.

Why not pizza? it can be really enjoyable, but here is a quick 5min minimal prep recipe for any occasion (like unannounced guests). Get a dough roll sheet, spread cream[1] on it, cut onions and grated cheese. Put in oven for ~half an hour. Enjoy.

[1] google translate says its cream, but I don't mean the 50% fat stuff you put on icream rather the ~8-15 ones that comes in yogurt like cones.

Oh, I like pizza just fine. I just don't think the dough is pliable enough to form a satisfying pizza crust even after thawing. It was frozen, and already in a sort of log or loaf shape.

Also it took like 6 hours to thaw, so it's not really something I can throw together in 5 minutes for uninvited guests. I have to get things going in advance or else there's no point in worrying about it.

So I went ahead and prepared some of the frozen dough. Two rolls, which turned out to be a mistake. I put them in a greased pan and let them defrost for about six hours, during which time they rose and expanded.

I originally assumed that these were the sort of frozen logs of bread that would eventually bake into something suitable for a sub sandwich; long but not especially tall, designed to be cut lengthwise and filled with meats and veggies and whatnot. Nah, these suckers are more like sliced sandwich bread loaves, but without the slicing. Got a good crust on them, but a they're a bit dense in the middle. Next time I'll only thaw out one loaf, and I might cut it in half or shape it into knots or something before baking. It seemed reasonably pliable; I wouldn't try to form it into a pizza crust or anything of the sort but I bet I can do something creative.

One side benefit of my job is that sometimes there is product that the customers, for whatever reason, do not want. When this happens, and if the original shipper doesn't want it back, the product still needs to be disposed of in some fashion. Oftentimes the product is damaged and unsuitable for anything except a dumpster, but other times it is still intact and could be used. When this occurs, it is usually dropped off at the office and employees can take it away for their own use.

So anyway, that's how I came into possession of like 20 loaves of frozen bread dough. I have no real clue what I'll do with it, and I'm looking for ideas. It definitely needs to be baked before consumption, at the very least, but I've never messed around with frozen dough much.