But I, the barbarian, really wanted to hit someone with my axe this turn :(

This is a great example of the effectiveness of using a timer.

In addition to streamlining the session, I’ve found that it is also a massive help for roleplaying. Our party was once put on the spot in a similar way, and we ended up making choices that we deeply regretted. However, it was the kind of situation where there were no straightforwardly good choices, and we’d have probably agonised over the consequences either way. Our DM spurring us into action meant that we experienced the analysis paralysis (and subsequent regret) in-character as well as out of character

Yeah, this is especially useful for classes that prepare their spells from a longer list, like wizards or clerics. I like to use revision card size notes for each spell, so then when we long rest, I can just rifle through them and physically take the ones I’m choosing to prepare. It is more faff to make the notes than for sorcerers or warlocks, who only have to prepare a few notes each time they level up, but it massively streamlines sessions

This is why I love barbarians.

I deeply loved playing my delightful himbo. I only had two questions to answer: reckless attack (usually yes, because taking damage usually just makes me a more effective HP tank), and “do I want to hit them, or try to hit them really hard?” (Great weapon master feat — also usually a yes, mostly depending on healer availability).

I relate to your thing about a power fantasy of helping people. My guy had big “dad energy”, because he was older, and was deeply committed to putting himself between the squishy kids of the group (even if those “kids” included an elf who was twice his age). His mindset felt very paladin-y

Basically just to see if they can. We can think of the problem from multiple angles. The general problem is: “if we have a larger square with side length of a, what’s the maximum number of smaller squares (with side length of b) that we can fit into that larger square?”. If we have a larger square with side length of 4, then we can fit 16 squares in. If the larger square had a side length of 5, then we can fit 25 squares in. So this means that if we want a neat packing solution, and we can control how large the outer square is (in relation to the inner squares), then we want each side of the larger square to be a whole number multiple of the smaller square’s side length.

But what if that isn’t our goal? The fact that packing 25 squares into a 5x5 square is an optimal packing solution with no spare space means that it will be impossible to fit 25 smaller squares into a square that’s less than 5x5 large. But what about if we do have awkward constraints, and the number of smaller squares we have to pack isn’t a square number? The fact that this weird packing solution in the OP has 17 squares isn’t because 17 is prime, but rather that 17 is 1 more than 16 (it’s just that 17 happens to be prime).

This is a long way of saying that because packing 16 squares into a square is easy, the natural next question is “how large does the larger square need to be to be able to pack 17 squares into it?”. If this were a problem in real life where I had to pack 17 squares into a physical box, most people would just get a box that’s at least 5x5 large, and put extra packing material into all the spare space. But asking this question in terms of “what’s the smallest possible box we could use to pack 17 squares in?” is basically just an interesting puzzle, precisely because it’s a bit nonsensical to try to pack 17 squares into the larger square. We know for certain we need a box that’s larger than 4x4, and we also know that we can do it in a 5x5 box (with a heckton of spare space), so that gives us an upper and lower bound for the problem — but what’s the smallest we could use, hypothetically?

As a fellow autistic person, I relate to your confusion. But I’d actually wager that there were a non-zero number of autistic people who were involved in this research. It sort of feels like “extreme sports” for autistic people — doing something that’s objectively baffling, precisely because it feels so unnatural and wrong

The optimisation objective is to fit n smaller squares (in this case, n=17) into the larger square, whilst minimising the size of the outer square. So that means that in this problem, the dimensions of the outer square isn’t a thing that we’re choosing the dimensions of, but rather discovering its dimensions (given the objective of "minimise the dimensions of the outer square whilst fitting 17 smaller squares inside it)

Oh my God, I fucking love this. I mean, I absolutely hate that this is the optimal way to pack 17 squares into a larger square such that the size of the larger square is minimised. However, I love that someone went to the effort of making a waffle iron plate for this. High effort shitposts like this give me life

I’m more of a spooky scientist than a sparkly scientist, but this resonates with me anyway. There have definitely been times where I felt like expressing femininity was at odds with my identity as a scientist. I know that those elements can and do exist with me at the same time, but I used to feel like this would cause me to appear less legitimate as a scientist.

It turns out that the assholes who make science feel hostile to women don’t particularly give a fuck about how you dress (except perhaps to be creepy weirdos because obviously if a woman dresses nice, she must be doing it for them. Fortunately, I’ve not directly experienced this kind of creepiness, but I know it exists).

On the flip side though, refusing to be subsumed by impossible expectations has made it easier to connect with people who respect good scientists, regardless of their gender — whilst also working to be aware of how gendered oppression affects women’s experience in science. As depressing as it is to be constantly aware of the many obstacles that persist for women in STEM, I feel heartened to see how many people are fighting the good fight. Having good allies significantly reduces the mental and emotional burden of being marginalised. And these folks are way better scientists anyway (who’d have thunk? Being open to a plurality of perspectives is pretty important for science).

The past is grim, and the present often is too. However, me and my sparkly colleagues have shown that we will be a part of the future of science.

I’ve never been in a scenario where there was an emergency situation where I was on hand when someone needed to urgently take action to avoid a dire outcome, but I can only hope that I would have the courage that this guy had. Mad respect

It’s usually safe to assume that If there are people who seem to find a thing difficult despite you finding it easy, it’s probably difficult for them. For some reason or other, they have needs or struggles that you don’t have. You don’t need to understand why they struggle, just accept that they do.

Maybe they were working from a reference photo that had the balls be visible, and they felt it’d be weirder to not include them

You’ve just reminded me of a funny time when playing the game Eco with friends. It’s sort of like Minecraft but themed around ecological sustainable technological development, and the specialised labour necessary to make that happen. There were about 8 of us in total, and we would drop in and drop out over the course of a month

The way the electric power system worked in Eco is that in addition to dedicated objects you could place to expand the electrical grid, objects that use electricity could also act as repeaters, albeit with a much smaller radius. They didn’t even need to be physically connected up to power for this to work. They weren’t intended to be used as repeaters; the radius thing was just an artifact of how the electricity mechanic was implemented, to ensure that it wasn’t too complex to build an electric grid.

When we were short of materials and expanding our settlements, I ended up implementing a kludge solution of just placing a few unconnected water pumps between our power station and the place we needed to connect to the grid. It was only intended to be a temporary solution — but there’s nothing more permanent than a temporary solution.

nipped off the server for a little while, and when I came back, everything had gone to hell due to massive outages across the entire grid. After a while of fruitless troubleshooting, I happened to walk past one of the places where there had previously been a water pump, but there was no longer. I discovered that someone had removed it as part of routine tidying up the world.

Surprised and exasperated, I asked my friend why they removed it, and they (justifiably) responded indignantly with “Well I’m sorry! I didn’t know that it was a load bearing water pump!”. “Load bearing water pump” ended up becoming a recurring joke in my friend group, persisting long after we finished playing Eco. The situation really captures the absurd inevitability of this kind of change

Oh man, this has really cracked me up. You made me laugh so hard I was at risk of waking up my housemates

Trans women are women, and thus when I fight for women’s rights, I am also fighting for the rights of trans women. I don’t know what it means to be a woman — I only know what it means for me. Being an effective feminist necessitates being open to the wide range of experiences that women that aren’t me have.

Trans men aren’t women, but their lived experience of being socialised as women means that they have valuable insights into womanhood and patriarchal oppression. They are also often still subject to patriarchal oppression, even if they are consistently read as male — e.g. requiring access to reproductive healthcare.

When I was younger, the version of feminism I learned about was a distinctly white feminism — a movement that black women and other women of colour had historically been excluded from. Anti-racist activism is distinct from feminism, but these movements don’t exist in isolation from each other. Intersectional solidarity makes our movement stronger.

Thanks for sharing this info, because you’ve given me some interesting ideas to ponder. My personal craft domain is garment making, and in recent years, I’ve been having a lot of fun exploring stuff that exists in the space between “clothing” and “costume”. I don’t have much experience in 3D printing, so the stuff about 3D printing flexible materials like TPU is new to me. I should explore this more, because I bet I could make some awesome stuff with this method (such as in corsetry)

This is a big part of why I love being in community with furries, despite not being one myself.

I’ve done a lot of bespoke clothing making — mostly for myself, but occasionally I’ve done things on commission. People are often astounded at how much high quality craftsmanship costs when the skilled labour is properly compensated.

I once wore a €20,000 dress (it was rented for me by a girlfriend so I could attend a swanky event with her). Before we went out, I was poring over all the construction details, desperate to learn all I could from this absurd scenario I had found myself in. I remember feeling weirdly dismayed to learn that there wasn’t a single thing in that dress that would be beyond my own skill level. Instead, it was just countless little hand finished details that must’ve taken an inordinate amount of time and care to do. For example, all the seam allowances catch stitched down (whenever they weren’t fully enclosed in a french seam or similar). Truly high quality items take time, and can’t be easily automated. Sure, there are components that can be optimised with computers or machines, but it requires a skilled human to actually integrate all this into the completed piece.

I have a friend who uses to draw furry porn, and she said she found the experience to be super artistically liberating, because for the first time in her artistic career, she had people haggling her prices up, because she was way underpricing her works. On average, furries seem to have a greater level of respect for the time and skill that goes into making custom things, which I love. My friend is now making art in a domain that’s closer to her own personal artistic interests, but she says that she will always cherish the time she spent in the furry community, because it gave her the confidence she needed to advocate for the value of her art and her skills when she was chasing her dreams.

This is so cool. Shit like this is why I love being in community with furries, despite not being one myself. I’m always awed by the creativity

(Plus furries always throw the best parties)

That problem is very much one that’s beyond the domain of scientists. That’s like saying “All I want literature to do is decipher the genetic basis of cancer”. Trust me, if science were able to cure billionaires, it would.

What stitch is that? It looks cool.

“preantepenultimate […], and I’m not just saying that to use the word.”

Whatever your reasons, I’m glad you used that word, because it’s a damn good word and I’m putting it on my list of good words (a silly project that I’ve had for a few years now)