Bay 12 Games Forum

... it's a terribly small thing, but I finally got around to actually seeing if you can buy the flavoring -- just the flavoring -- used in Nissin's teriyaki beef chow mein... bowl things. Because it's one of the most delicious seasonings I have ever tasted. And I have long longed to put it in basically everything. Often did put it in other stuff, because yeah. But the little packets that come with the bowls are highly suboptimal for different sized dishes and whatnot, and they're actually kinda' expensive (Only 78 cent to the bowl, but about 21 cent per ounce. Compare to ramen, which is something like 6 cent/oz, iirc, maybe less.).

But. As near as I can tell, you can't. And I can't seem to muster the effort to stick false information into their contact form to find out if there is a way to get some. So... little sad. Stuff's really good.

... as SG noted while I was going about digging through the Occupy thread for some links*, I wasn't talking about the NSA alone, Misk. If you extend your search beyond that, stuff starts popping up.

*Such as this'un, another SG post listing out a number of past events that involved (if perhaps not ubiquitously) government surveillance of varying degrees. Or the second link in this post, sure.

... earliest PC game I remember well is probably Odell Lake, along with stuff like the old Carmen Sandiego games, but there were ones before that that I've forgotten, as well. Let the one-upping begin

I want whatever solution she proposes to fix her problem:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

... seriously, that one's pretty easy. Just take a knife to the banana until it's in small enough pieces to fit through the bottle hole.

Oh, to be fair, there's still some pretty bloody malicious things being done with that data, far beyond personalized advertisements -- you better damn sure believe scammers and con artists leaning on social engineering are using it to find targets*, and that's without getting into stuff like what some corps get up to outside the border or the types of pressure some of them roll out in certain situations. There is still plenty of abuse and room for abuse, some of it pretty damn nasty, that data collection either allows or aids and abets.

Corp abuse is less likely to end up with you in jail, though. Destitute, homeless? Sure. In the hospital or dead? Occasionally (and it's considerably more likely with gov. abuse, as we've seen with counter-protest activities). But usually not dragged out of your house and home and thrown into one of the world's worst prison systems (if we're sticking with the US, of course), with all that entails.

Still can get pretty bloody bad, but it's comparatively less of an issue (and arguably one you'd have more trouble legislating against.), which is potential reason to focus on government use before dealing with commercial if they can't be fixed in one go.

*Big data is pretty much the exact reason my grandparents constantly get calls from bastards trying to rip 'em off.

... eesh. It's been a while since I put that up, hasn't it...?

One of these days I'll actually get around to getting docks for my old laptop harddrives and recover the stuff I did back then

E: And yeah, it makes making sentient robots considerably easier, ha.

You definitely need to upgrade your alchemist gems. Your bomb damage scales with gem tier. You're still using tier 1 bombs. In dreadfell. If you upgrade to tier 3 or tier 4 alchie gems (you've got several tier four gems, so you're good there), you will see a massive increase in bomb damage. It will be like night and day, heh. I'd probably guess your bombs are doing about half the damage they should be doing at this point... maybe less. You'll see once you convert some of the rubies or whatev' into alchie gems and start nuking everything to dust.

Kit's fine. Defensive posture is kinda' useless*** IMO -- maxing out staff mastery for bigger channels usually helps me out more (offense is your defense, etc.). Few more points into golem resilience would be helpful, especially on that fragile golem end. It's a pretty sizable defensive boost*. Some better shield runes on the thing, if you can manage, would probably help there, too. Maybe an acid wave rune, if you can get a hold of one. Fairly sure the golem's AI can handle that without blowing you up, these days.

Other than that, build wise, what you've got is workable enough. I don't personally go into fire alchemy very often**, and I probably would have put the reflection rune on the golem, but your bombs should be (would be, if you were using decent alchie gems for your level ) blowing everything to smithereens. If it's not too late to swap points from defensive posture into staff mastery, your channel staff hits would likely be hitting in the 2-300+ damage range very easily at this point, as well.

And yeah, stair dancing isn't something squishy wizard really wants to be doing. Might want to gem portal into a more open space and let the bombs do more talking than your face, heh.

*E: I generally don't put any points into the golem's con until after stat reqs for all their talents are met (or at least until reflective skin can be maxed out). General path is strength to 36 (or 38... whatever it is for the last physical talent), then magic to however deep in the magic tree I intend to go (at least reflective skin), then back into strength until the stat req for voratun plate is met. Stick the golem in plate armor, max out resilience, and get a couple good shield runes (and possibly the reflective shield rune, as well), and it'll tank well enough between passive toughness and active healing (refit, supercharge) well into the end-game.
**E:This is more personal preference and lingering dislike than anything. It's a pretty decent tree nowadays.

***E2: More explicitly, the problem with defensive posture is three-fold.
One: You shouldn't be getting hit, especially in melee. Bomb around corners, let the golem tank, etc. Sometimes it happens anyway, but it shouldn't be, and if it does, defense and armor probably isn't going to save you, heh. The ranged defense and armor does help against archers, but your main ranged threat isn't archers, ha.
Two: Defense is frankly kinda' useless if you don't have enough of it, and an alchie really doesn't have the means to get that critical amount. Defensive posture helps, yes, but see 1. 40-ish actually isn't too bad, but iirc you need somewhere around 50-60 at this point in the game to really get a lot out of it 
Three: Armor, while still useful enough in small amounts/low hardiness, isn't really worth major investment in if you don't have means to up your armor hardiness a significant amount. And alchies don't really have the means to do that unless they luck on to some pretty rare kit (or go heavy/massive, which... they could, technically. They don't really need much mana, so the fatigue issues aren't as bad for them. Most of the armor they really want to be wearing is cloth, though.).

So it boils down to defensive posture just being kinda' hella' suboptimal on an alchie, at least when it comes to fairly normal builds. It's sexy enough on melee-centered staffers, especially the ones that would actually be going heavy armor (sunpas or reavers, perhaps), but an alchie doesn't really get much from the investment.