Bay 12 Games Forum

AFAIK the surest way is to make areas where magma is close to the surface.

If you're in an area where you suspect magma is close to the surface, but haven't seen any yet, breach the caverns in multiple places (use smoothed stone and fortification carving, if you'd prefer to avoid leaving open paths) so you can see more area, and look for a magma tube.  You can find them reaching to or beyond the first cavern, sometimes.

Do as he says.  We may be able to use this information to save our master and ourselves, which it doesn't seem like they want, but first we need to acquire the information.

I dunno, creation can often be another form of escapism. The issue is that they lack balance, something "Drill down on

• even harder!" isn't going to change.

True.  That's like responding to a problem of burying one's head in the sand by saying "Dig deeper! You'll reach Bullshitopia eventually!"

One thing that I find useful to do, when I'm feeling responsible but not motivated, is to think about myself, 20 years in the future.  A man in his 50s, I don't know what his life is like, but it's probably not very good if I don't get and keep my shit together right now.  He's asking me, "How did I end up here?  Why is my life what it is now?"  What kind of answer am I going to give that man?  "Well, I really wanted to finish my Dwarf Fortress megaproject, so I blew off work, and it became a habit, and I got fired.  Then I couldn't keep a regular job because I'd developed poor attendance habits.  Sorry you got fucked, buddy, but the obsidian skyscraper was pretty cool for a couple of weeks."  That would be absurd, and shameful.

What are you going to say when Future You asks Present You what you did to make his life the way it is?  I wonder what your friend's answer would be.

Not worth his time?  How valuable is the time of someone who sits around watching cartoons all day?

No excitement or interest?  Newsflash: many, likely most, people aren't excited or interested at their jobs.  They do what they do because it's what's required of them, and provides the resources to do what they want to do later... even if it's just sitting around watching cartoons on days off.  Food costs money.  Electricity costs money.  A roof to keep rain out of your computer or television costs money.  Being a useless lump isn't free.

It certainly is easier to focus on inconsequential things, but it's not better.  All that ignoring your responsibilities and problems now accomplishes is making sure they're still around, unsolved and daunting, later on, when you no longer have the time or the resources to solve them effectively.  What's good about that?

There are people in this world that would rather suffer than do anything difficult; your friend sounds like one of those people.  I'm convinced most of these people think this way because they don't know just how grave suffering can become.  I had a long aside here about a human wreck I know, but I've decided not to enter it because that would be going off on a long tangent.

I will say that Fucked Up For Life is a copout.  A hard life that doesn't kill you isn't what ruins you, it's giving up that ruins you.  I'm an example of down but not out.  My earliest memory is of learning that the boogieman is real, he has a gun, he's planning to use it on my sister and me if Mom doesn't pay him some drug money she owes him, and that's why we're going camping a few counties over in winter on no notice and with no gear.  Dad was the type to beat me for making a mess knocking something over as a clumsy toddler, and then beat me again for crying.  In high school I only ever slept in English class, because home wasn't safe and I didn't have anywhere else to go.  I've been in and out of juvenile detention centers and jail, struggled with various addictions, been drowned in a lake as a "joke" (5+ minutes underwater, real funny), I have scars on every part of my body including my genitals, and this last winter I did the homeless thing and camped in a cheap tent in weather well below the freezing point, worst it got was about -20F; this was a mild winter for this location.  I only learned how to put a resume together last year.

I'm posting this on my own laptop from my own apartment, which is paid for by the full time job I need to attend in a few hours, a job I acquired and kept while freezing my balls off in that cheap tent.

My advice for your friend is to grow up and get serious.  Turn off the MLP completely -- there may be no external chemicals involved, but he seems to be displaying a psychological addiction, he needs to break that -- and find something useful to do, preferably something with real consequences for failure.  Possibly a relocation is in order; if he's thinking about a job as optional, he needs to be away from his Momma and succeeding or failing based on his own effort and resourcefulness.

If he's able to, coming out here to Minot, North Dakota might be ideal for him.  There is a major economic boom thanks to the oil shales nearby, there is more work here than there are workers here to do it.  Everyone needs help so hiring standards are very loose; my boss put me to work on my word that my criminal background check would come back clean, before it was even run (with the understanding that if it did turn up something horrible, we might have to renegotiate).  The winter is so harsh that it will probably kill him if he can't buy, rent, or construct a suitable shelter for himself (hint: if you understand how thermal underwear works, you can get a lot of heat containment from cheap thrift store blankets, selected and layered carefully).

There is plentiful opportunity here, and severe consequences for not taking advantage and making the most of it.  Everyone I know around here says if you can't find work in Minot, you don't want to work.  Course many of them also say that -40 degrees keeps the riff-raff out.  So, you know, only come if you're prepared to get serious about life.

Diane is in her present state because we couldn't bear the thought of her dying, and there are still people with decent weapons around.  Strip down a fallen soldier of about her size, and provide her with armor.  Then see about digging that bullet out of our arm before we heal around it and it becomes harder to do.

I have never been able to survive more than a few rooms in nethack.

It's F'in brutal.  My poor kitty... it dies so many horrible ways.

The thing to remember in NetHack is, you're not the protagonist, you're just another creature.  You don't get plot armor, you live or die based on how clever and resourceful you are.  There is no shame in making frequent use of dust Elbereth, and tactical running like a little girl.


On topic, that is a sweet artifact.  I like how the dwarfs named it like it's a piece of crap, too.