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incredulouspasserby · 6 months

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A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”

“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Climb aboard, then!” But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown. “Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”

“I can’t help it,” said the scorpion. “It’s my nature.”

___

…But no sooner than they were halfway across the river, the frog felt a subtle motion on its back, and in a panic dived deep beneath the rushing waters, leaving the scorpion to drown.

“It was going to sting me anyway,” muttered the frog, emerging on the other side of the river. “It was inevitable. You all knew it. Everyone knows what those scorpions are like. It was self-defense.”

___

…But no sooner had they cast off from the bank, the frog felt the tip of a stinger pressed lightly against the back of its neck. “What do you think you’re doing?” said the frog.

“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”

They swam in silence to the other end of the river, where the scorpion climbed off, leaving the frog fuming.

“After the kindness I showed you!” said the frog. “And you threatened to kill me in return?”

“Kindness?” said the scorpion. “To only invite me on your back after you knew I was defenseless, unable to use my tail without killing myself? My dear frog, I only treated you as I was treated. Your kindness was as poisoned as a scorpion’s sting.”

___

…“Just a precaution,” said the scorpion. “I cannot sting you without drowning. And now, you cannot drown me without being stung. Fair’s fair, isn’t it?”

“You have a point,” the frog acknowledged. “But once we get to dry land, couldn’t you sting me then without repercussion?”

“All I want is to cross the river safely,” said the scorpion. “Once I’m on the other side I would gladly let you be.”

“But I would have to trust you on that,” said the frog. “While you’re pressing a stinger to my neck. By ferrying you to land I’d be be giving up the one deterrent I hold over you.”

“But by the same logic, I can’t possibly withdraw my stinger while we’re still over water,” the scorpion protested.

The frog paused in the middle of the river, treading water. “So, I suppose we’re at an impasse.”

The river rushed around them. The scorpion’s stinger twitched against the frog’s unbroken skin. “I suppose so,” the scorpion said.

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Absolutely not!” said the frog, and dived beneath the waters, and so none of them learned anything.

___

A scorpion, being unable to swim, asked a turtle (as in the original Persian version of the fable) to carry it across the river. The turtle readily agreed, and allowed the scorpion aboard its shell. Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell. The turtle, swimming placidly, failed to notice.

They reached the other side of the river, and parted ways as friends.

___

…Halfway across, the scorpion gave in to its nature and stung, but failed to penetrate the turtle’s thick shell.

The turtle, hearing the tap of the scorpion’s sting, was offended at the scorpion’s ungratefulness. Thankfully, having been granted the powers to both defend itself and to punish evil, the turtle sank beneath the waters and drowned the scorpion out of principle.

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” sneered the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back.”

The scorpion pleaded earnestly. “Do you think so little of me? Please, I must cross the river. What would I gain from stinging you? I would only end up drowning myself!”

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Even a scorpion knows to look out for its own skin. Climb aboard, then!”

But as they forged through the rushing waters, the scorpion grew worried. This frog thinks me a ruthless killer, it thought. Would it not be justified in throwing me off now and ridding the world of me? Why else would it agree to this? Every jostle made the scorpion more and more anxious, until the frog surged forward with a particularly large splash, and in panic the scorpion lashed out with its stinger.

“I knew it,” snarled the frog, as they both thrashed and drowned. “A scorpion cannot change its nature.”

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. The frog agreed, but no sooner than they were halfway across the scorpion stung the frog, and they both began to thrash and drown.

“I’ve only myself to blame,” sighed the frog, as they both sank beneath the waters. “You, you’re a scorpion, I couldn’t have expected anything better. But I knew better, and yet I went against my judgement! And now I’ve doomed us both!”

“You couldn’t help it,” said the scorpion mildly. “It’s your nature.”

___

…“Why on earth did you do that?” the frog said morosely. “Now we’re both going to die.”

“Alas, I was of two natures,” said the scorpion. “One said to gratefully ride your back across the river, and the other said to sting you where you stood. And so both fought, and neither won.” It smiled wistfully. “Ah, it would be nice to be just one thing, wouldn’t it? Unadulterated in nature. Without the capacity for conflict or regret.”

___

“By the way,” said the frog, as they swam, “I’ve been meaning to ask: What’s on the other side of the river?”

“It’s the journey,” said the scorpion. “Not the destination.”

___

…“What’s on the other side of anything?” said the scorpion. “A new beginning.”

___

…”Another scorpion to mate with,” said the scorpion. “And more prey to kill, and more living bodies to poison, and a forthcoming lineage of cruelties that you will be culpable in.”

___

…”Nothing we will live to see, I fear,” said the scorpion. “Already the currents are growing stronger, and the river seems like it shall swallow us both. We surge forward, and the shoreline recedes. But does that mean our striving was in vain?”

___

“I love you,” said the scorpion.

The frog glanced upward. “Do you?”

“Absolutely. Can you imagine the fear of drowning? Of course not. You’re a frog. Might as well be scared of breathing air. And yet here I am, clinging to your back, as the waters rage around us. Isn’t that love? Isn’t that trust? Isn’t that necessity? I could not kill you without killing myself. Are we not inseparable in this?”

The frog swam on, the both of them silent.

___

“I’m so tired,” murmured the frog eventually. “How much further to the other side? I don’t know how long we’ve been swimming. I’ve been treading water. And it’s getting so very dark.”

“Shh,” the scorpion said. “Don’t be afraid.”

The frog’s legs kicked out weakly. “How long has it been? We’re lost. We’re lost! We’re doomed to be cast about the waters forever. There is no land. There’s nothing on the other side, don’t you see!”

“Shh, shh,” said the scorpion. “My venom is a hallucinogenic. Beneath its surface, the river is endlessly deep, its currents carrying many things.”

“You - You’ve killed us both,” said the frog, and began to laugh deliriously. “Is this - is this what it’s like to drown?”

“We’ve killed each other,” said the scorpion soothingly. “My venom in my glands now pulsing through your veins, the waters of your birthing pool suffusing my lungs. We are engulfing each other now, drowning in each other. I am breathless. Do you feel it? Do you feel my sting pierced through your heart?”

“What a foolish thing to do,” murmured the frog. “No logic. No logic to it at all.”

“We couldn’t help it,” whispered the scorpion. “It’s our natures. Why else does anything in the world happen? Because we were made for this from birth, darling, every moment inexplicable and inevitable. What a crazy thing it is to fall in love, and yet - It’s all our fault! We are both blameless. We’re together now, darling. It couldn’t have happened any other way.”

___

“It’s funny,” said the frog. “I can’t say that I trust you, really. Or that I even think very much of you and that nasty little stinger of yours to begin with. But I’m doing this for you regardless. It’s strange, isn’t it? It’s strange. Why would I do this? I want to help you, want to go out of my way to help you. I let you climb right onto my back! Now, whyever would I go and do a foolish thing like that?”

___

A scorpion, not knowing how to swim, asked a frog to carry it across the river. “Do I look like a fool?” said the frog. “You’d sting me if I let you on my back!”

“Be logical,” said the scorpion. “If I stung you I’d certainly drown myself.”

“That’s true,” the frog acknowledged. “Come aboard, then!” But no sooner had the scorpion mounted the frog’s back than it began to sting, repeatedly, while still safely on the river’s bank.

The frog groaned, thrashing weakly as the venom coursed through its veins, beginning to liquefy its flesh. “Ah,” it muttered. “For some reason I never considered this possibility.”

“Because you were never scared of me,” the scorpion whispered in its ear. “You were never scared of dying. In a past life you wore a shell and sat in judgement. And then you were reborn: soft-skinned, swift, unburdened, as new and vulnerable as a child, moving anew through a world of children. How could anyone ever be cruel, you thought, seeing the precariousness of it all?” The scorpion bowed its head and drank. “How could anyone kill you without killing themselves?”

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incredulouspasserby · 6 months

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Local house witch telling you to please learn basic housekeeping skills.

It’s not your fault if no one ever taught you but YouTube is a magical place and can teach you at your own pace.

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incredulouspasserby · 6 months

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okay so yesterday i started writing this piece for the piano and I liked how it sounded and tried making it into a dance song and so i showed you part of it and this is the finished version so yeah i hope you like it! you can download it for free here!!

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incredulouspasserby · 6 months

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i think we should publicly execute every CEO

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incredulouspasserby · 6 months

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Did you Know?

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incredulouspasserby · 7 months

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You've seen this message around, yeah? No doubt you've seen that one post telling you to add a few filters to your adblock, but maybe that's stopped working recently. Well I'm here to tell you, don't do that! You may be actively preventing yourself from getting around the anti-adblock!

Here's the skinny: Youtube's anti-adblock is not very sophisticated. It really is incredibly easy to bypass, but Youtube is continually changing how you get around it to try and stay ahead of the guys maintaining adblock. The good news, though, is that uBlock's volunteers are constantly updating the default uBlock filters to get around that!

If you want to get around YouTube's anti-adblock, you need to follow the instructions from the official uBlock origin team here.

DO NOT manually input any filters!!! Youtube regularly changes how to get around those, so you WILL be up shit creek when those filters become obsolete!!!

In addition, since Youtube regularly updates the anti-adblock to require a new set of filters, there are periods where the filter maintainers haven't quite caught up yet and uBlock fails again. Don't worry; this never lasts for very long. I've seen the "YouTube doesn't allow adblock" message maybe once in the past few months and it went away after ten minutes.

Please spread this post around instead of the other one!!! The other post explaining how to bypass anti-adblock is incorrect, and I must reiterate, may actively obstruct attempts to bypass Youtube's adblock!!!

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incredulouspasserby · 7 months

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The Rules for Mana Maze Solitaire

by Mark Rosewater (with help from Gene Rosewater)

NOTE: This is a reprint of an article from long ago, so there are outdated things in the article and stuff not referenced because it happened after this article was published.

Two people can play a traditional Magic duel, and three or more can play any number of multi-player variants, but what do you do if your only company is your Magic cards? People unable to find competitors have refused to let this stop them from playing. Creative inspiration has led to the evolution of solitaire Magic.

Most solitaire variants mimic a two-player duel, with one player playing both sides. Other versions pit the player against a pre-set, standing “phantom” opponent. These types are interesting, but the solitaire version offered here is a bit different. To mix the essence of traditional solitaire with a flavor of Magic, the “Mana Maze” solitaire variant requires a slightly different set of rules.

The object of the game is variable. As described below, you might have to destroy a particular card in play, or remove all the cards in the layout from play without running out of life points.

Mana Maze alters the following basic game concepts:

In Play: In normal Magic, a card is considered “in play” as soon as its casting is resolved. In Mana Maze, cards are stacked as in traditional solitaire, and are brought into play by being exposed. That is, if a card is in the game and is not covered by any other card, it is considered in play. Cards in play are “active” or “inactive”.

Active: Active cards are all permanents that can exist independently of other cards: creatures, artifacts, land, and general enchantments (that is, any enchantment can stand alone and need not be cast on something else). An active card is considered to enter play “pre-cast” - its abilities can be used freely without paying the casting cost. Treat active cards like any cast permanent in a normal Magic game. Any activation costs must still be paid. A newly exposed Prodigal Sorcerer, for example, may immediately poke for its one point of damage, but you must tap it to do so.

Passive: Passive cards include the following: sorceries, instants, and interrupts, as well as enchantments that must be cast on creatures, artifacts, land or enchantments. A passive card comes into play uncast; you still must cast it in order to use it. However, passive cards are still in play and may be targeted by spells. For instance, this allows a Northern Paladin to destroy a passive Terror. The casting of passive cards follows all normal Magic rules, requiring appropriate mana and an available target in play. You may be a target yourself if the spell can target players. Also, for game purposes, when an enchantment is placed on another card, both cards are still considered exposed and in play. Either card may be the target of a spell.

Out of Play: The graveyard starts the game empty. All cards that leave play, as explained below, are considered to have gone to the graveyard unless otherwise specified. You may re-cast any card returned to your “hand” if you have the appropriate mana (and a target for targeted spells), but it is out of play for game purposes until re-cast. If a card is brought back into play by recasting or by another card (such as Animate Dead or Regrowth), place it on top of any exposed card, putting the newly covered card out of play.

Owner/Controller/Caster: Cards that use any of these terms refer to you, the player.

Opponent: Effects that target an “opponent” have no effect in Mana Maze.

Life Points: In Mana Maze you start with only one life point. If at any time your life point total falls to zero or below you die instantly and lose the game.

Mana Burn: The final step before the game ends is clearing the mana pool. If you have any mana remaining in your mana pool, you suffer one point of mana burn for every leftover point of mana. If mana burn reduces you to zero life points, you lose the game.

Getting Rid of Cards In Play

In Mana Maze, cards can be removed in five different ways:

Tapping A Card: Whenever a card is tapped, it is destroyed and sent to the graveyard. Any effect from tapping occurs before the card is removed from play. For instance, tapping a Mountain would add one red mana to your mana pool and would remove the Mountain from play.

Casting A Spell: If a spell is cast (with a proper target and a paid cost), it is removed from play and put into the graveyard unless otherwise specified. The effect of the spell occurs before the card leaves play. Casting a Healing Salve, for instance, would give you 3 life and remove the Healing Salve from play.

Destroying A Card: The destruction of a card removes it from play and puts it in the graveyard unless otherwise specified. For instance, casting Disenchant on an Iron Star would remove both the Disenchant and the Iron Star from play.

Killing A Creature: If a creature is destroyed by any means normally available in Magic, it is removed from play and sent to the graveyard unless otherwise specified. For instance, casting a Lightning Bolt on a Hill Giant wuold remove both the Hill Giant (having taken 3 damage) and the Lightning Bolt from play.

Sacrificing A Card: Whenever a card is sacrificed, it goes to the graveyard unless the card says otherwise. Any effect from the sacrifice occurs before the card is removed from play. For example, sacrificing Gaea’s Touch would add two green mana to your mana pool and would remove the Gaea’s Touch from play.

Getting Started

Now it’s time to start a game. First, build a Mana Maze solitaire deck, then decide what kind of Mana Maze game to play, as follows:

Layout: As in traditional solitaire, the cards are laid out in a pattern. With sixty cards, there are several layouts to choose from.

Six piles (ten cards each), no hand

Seven piles (seven cards each), eleven-card hand

Eight piles (six cards each), twelve-card hand

Eight piles (half seven cards, half eight), no hand

Nine piles (five cards each), fifteen-card hand

Ten piles (six cards each), no hand

Pyramid style (with base of eight exposed cards), twenty-four card hand

When a layout includes a “hand”, that simply means that you have extra cards left over to thumb through, one or three cards at a time, to break logjams. This Mana Maze “hand” is not to be confused with the Magic “hand” that a card goes to if Unsummoned.

Open Or Closed: In an open game, all cards are laid out face-up at the start. The open game is less prone to luck and therefore requires more thought. In a closed game, only the top card of each pile is visible. This takes a lot of pressure off, because you don’t have to take all the extra data into account.

Goal: Many goals are possible. The following are just a few potential goals.

Destroying A Particular Card: This is the simplest goal. Put one or more cards in your deck and then find and remove them. The more targets you have, the harder the game will be. If you use multiple targets, it’s fun to pick cards that fit a particular theme.

Destroy All The Cards: Simply put, win by destroying everything. This is the hardest variation, as it requires the careful matching of all your resources so as not to strand yourself with a card that you have no way to get rid of. You should play this variation open-handed, because you will need all the information you can get.

Get To A Particular Life Total: This variation requires that you pepper the deck with lots of cards that give and take life. The goal is to get to the life-givers and reach a certain life total.

Any goal is fine, as long as it requires you to work through the cards to accomplish it. You can define any objective, such as getting seven blue cards in your hand, but remember to build your deck to make such a goal possible.

One Final Word

If you’re winning too easily, throw a few curves into your game: Add some big creatures to your deck, play a closed hand, or make the goal destroying all the cards. If you’re getting frustrated, check your deck. It is possible to create an unwinnable game.

The fun of Mana Maze depends on you. A Mana Maze game will only be as challenging as the deck you construct, the layout you choose, and the goal you define.

Building a Mana Maze Solitaire Deck

Just as in the basic Magic game, the key to success in Mana Maze is deck construction. You want to create a deck that is challenging, yet not so much that winning becomes impossible. Because the rules work differently, several cards have altered functions (a Paralyze destroys creatures) whereas others become pointless (a Royal Assassin’s power is redundant). Always keep possible card interactions in mind.

When creating a deck, here are some factors to think about:

Colors: As you begin playing Mana Maze, try using all five colors. A five-color deck is the easiest type of deck to build and the most varied in play.

Mana: The mana mix is roughly the same as in a normal game (30% to 40%). The balance for each color should be determined by how many passive cards and cards with colored activation costs you have in each color. If you find yourself always short or flush with mana, change the mix accordingly.

Creatures: Creatures are an important part of Mana Maze and will typically make up at least a quarter of your deck. Remember to add a significant number of creatures with special abilities, as they tend to make the game more fun.

Artifacts: These add some spice to the game but are not needed in quantity.

General Enchantments: These don’t tap and aren’t cast, so they are the hardest cards to get rid of. Use enchantments that have an impact, and keep them down to a handful.

Passive Cards: Active cards (permanents) tend to be the obstacles in the puzzle, and passive cards provide most of the house-cleaning needed. This means that your passive cards should be close in number to your active cards. Also, try to include a lot of other passive cards that destroy a lot of other types of cards, because these provide the nuts and bolts of Mana Maze.

Healing/Damaging Cards: These cards can be left out entirely, but if you do use them, try to balance the deck with an equal number of healing and damaging cards.

Other Tips: Make sure every card can be destroyed by at least two other cards in the deck. Also, throw in three or four spells that provide mana in some way, such as Llanowar Elves or Sacrifice.

When creating your first deck, here is a good checklist to follow:

Four of each type of basic land (twenty cards)

Three creatures from each color. One creature should have a toughness of 3 or greater, and the other two should have a toughness of 1 or 2. Make sure at least one of these creatures has a special ability, such as the “poke” of the Prodigal Sorcerer (fifteen cards).

Four spells of each color. Make sure at least two of each color can be used to destroy another type of card (twenty cards).

Five artifacts. Make at least two of them creatures, and throw in at least one artifact that provides mana (five cards).

#for reference

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incredulouspasserby · 7 months

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This is a terrible idea and I’m running this as a one shot.

Ah fuck the Fighter has escaped from D&D.

"You take 3d10 sanity damage on seeing the shoggoth..." Not a stat I have. Don't even care. I make an attack of opportunity every time it tries to show me mind-rending horrors.

"Ok, that will be a kick some ass roll..." Every roll I make is a kick some ass roll. I'm gonna take a Hard Move by moving my mace into someone really hard.

"Now you are Noble, you must protect Creaton..." Cool, my estate is "Making A Full Attack" and I'm about to perform a miracle of it on your goddamn face.

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incredulouspasserby · 7 months

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hi bearetonin!

Can we be blessed by bears with fall leaves in the spirit of the (best) season?

sure thing friend. may you be blessed by these autumnal floofs

and of course Knut would also like to offur his only slightly cursed blessings

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incredulouspasserby · 8 months

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incredulouspasserby · 8 months

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>First, we’ve discovered that about a quarter of all the internet connection in or out of the house were ad related. In a few hours, that’s about 10,000 out of 40,000 processed.

>We also discovered that every link on Twitter was blocked. This was solved by whitelisting the https://t.co domain.

>Once out browsing the Web, everything is loading pretty much instantly. It turns out most of that Page Loading malarkey we’ve been accustomed to is related to sites running auctions to sell Ad space to show you before the page loads. All gone now.

>We then found that the Samsung TV (which I really like) is very fond of yapping all about itself to Samsung HQ. All stopped now. No sign of any breakages in its function, so I’m happy enough with that.

>The primary source of distress came from the habitual Lemmings player in the house, who found they could no longer watch ads to build up their in-app gold. A workaround is being considered for this.

>The next ambition is to advance the Ad blocking so that it seamlessly removed YouTube Ads. This is the subject of ongoing research, and tinkering continues. All in all, a very successful experiment.

>Certainly this exceeds my equivalent childhood project of disassembling and assembling our rotary dial telephone. A project whose only utility was finding out how to make the phone ring when nobody was calling.

>Update: All4 on the telly appears not to have any ads any more. Goodbye Arnold Clarke!

>Lemmings problem now solved.

>Can confirm, after small tests, that RTÉ Player ads are now gone and the player on the phone is now just delivering swift, ad free streams at first click.

>Some queries along the lines of “Are you not stealing the internet?” Firstly, this is my network, so I may set it up as I please (or, you know, my son can do it and I can give him a stupid thumbs up in response). But there is a wider question, based on the ads=internet model.

>I’m afraid I passed the You Wouldn’t Download A Car point back when I first installed ad-blocking plug-ins on a browser. But consider my chatty TV. Individual consumer choice is not the method of addressing pervasive commercial surveillance.

>Should I feel morally obliged not to mute the TV when the ads come on? No, this is a standing tension- a clash of interests. But I think my interest in my family not being under intrusive or covert surveillance at home is superior to the ad company’s wish to profile them.

>Aside: 24 hours of Pi Hole stats suggests that Samsung TVs are very chatty. 14,170 chats a day.

>YouTube blocking seems difficult, as the ads usually come from the same domain as the videos. Haven’t tried it, but all of the content can also be delivered from a no-cookies version of the YouTube domain, which doesn’t have the ads. I have asked my son to poke at that idea.

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