themeatbridge

Perplexica? What sort of sauce goes with that?

For a minute I legit thought Italy had dropped a new pasta shape.

I was twaching a class on how to use my company’s software, and I used this comic as an example for the class, and someone said “Hey, that’s the password we use!”

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make 'em battery staple.

I remember learning that 3.5" disks were still called “floppy” disks, despite being rigid plastic. My teacher took apart a disk and showed us how the inside was a film, but all that did was encourage us to take apart the disks and make desk toys out of the springs.

Man, I remember when Zip Disks were a big deal and a GB was a lot of storage.

Touchscreens and “smart” features don’t add enough cost to justify the premium you pay for them.

I love that this exists, and thank you for introducing me to the site as well.

It’s important to recognize that the privacy violation doesn’t end with that one investigation. Plenty of people will say “I don’t mind if you violate my privacy if you’re catching terrorists and pedophiles.”

Once your information is associated with an account or an IP address, anybody monitoring online activity will have that info. The police don’t give back anonymity. Looking for an abortion? Legal marijuana? Your local polling place? A satanic book club? Maybe you have strong feelings about police brutality, or want to organize a union, or think billionaires shouldn’t be able to hoard resources. And that’s just the stuff your local PD might want to know about you. Maybe they share with other agencies, or political action committees, or kommunity organizations to which they may be members.

The police have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted. Protect yourself, and protect the future.

You should have the same guard come back at the end to arrest the party, like the end of the Holy Grail.

This is one of the issues I have with going from 3.5 to 5e. In trying to simplify the rules, they have left out details that make it ambiguous.

Here’s the text of the rule from 5:

Three illusory duplicates of yourself appear in your space. Until the spell ends, the duplicates move with you and mimic your actions, shifting position so it’s impossible to track which image is real. You can use your action to dismiss the illusory duplicates.

Then there is detail on how it affects attacks

Each time a creature targets you with an attack during the spell’s duration, roll a d20 to determine whether the attack instead targets one of your duplicates.

If you have three duplicates, you must roll a 6 or higher to change the attack’s target to a duplicate. With two duplicates, you must roll an 8 or higher. With one duplicate, you must roll an 11 or higher.

Then there is detail on how the duplicates defend:

A duplicate’s AC equals 10 + your Dexterity modifier. If an attack hits a duplicate, the duplicate is destroyed. A duplicate can be destroyed only by an attack that hits it. It ignores all other damage and effects. The spell ends when all three duplicates are destroyed.

Then the rule ends by describing how to bypass the spell.

A creature is unaffected by this spell if it can’t see, if it relies on senses other than sight, such as blindsight, or if it can perceive illusions as false, as with truesight.

It does not say that a creature is unaffected by this spell if it is using a spell that does not use an attack roll.

Magic Missile starts with this:

You create three glowing darts of magical force. Each dart hits a creature of your choice that you can see within range.

I would argue that Magic Missile relies on sight, and Mirror Image prevents you from visibly discerning which duplicate is the target. So you can’t “see” which target is the creature and which is the duplicate.

I know I’m in the minority on this topic, and I’ll always defer to whatever the DM decides. Most people feel that, since it doesn’t explicitly include non-attack targeting, that those actions ignore Mirror Image. But I prefer to play to a common sense interpretation of the spirit of the rules. Like if a teammate tries to toss a healing potion to the Wizard, but it shatters on the ground because they threw it to one of the duplicates. Or casting any divination or enchantment that relies on sight should be affected by Mirror Image, even if there is no attack roll.

That’s the logic I was extending to include applying a mirror to the target. But that’s probably too far afield from RAW.

You’re not wrong about the RAW, but it’s a point of contention for the RAI on how Mirror Image affects non-attacks that target the caster.

My feeling is that using a mirror on an enemy is like an attack for the purposes of interpreting the RAI on Mirror Image. Mirror Image only specifies what happens if the caster is attacked (the false images have a chance of being targeted instead) but there are Divination spells and some offensive spells like Magic Missile that require no attack roll. Some people interpret that to mean that those spells ignore Mirror Image, but that argument doesn’t track for me.

Anything that requires targeting an individual by sight should be affected, even if it isn’t technically an “attack” per the rules. It should be up to the DM to decide. The description of Mirror Image makes it clear that it confuses anyone who can see it, making it difficult to determine which image is the real one. It describes specifically how to calculate attacks, but it also doesn’t specifically say that non-attacks are unaffected.

If you use that interpretation, it would suggest that pointing a mirror is like targeting the character who has cast Mirror Image. You would have to roll a d20 and compare that to 6, 8, or 10 depending on the number of mirror images. Perception can’t see through Mirror Image.

You might see no reflection (which would confirm they don’t cast a reflection), or you might see the false image’s reflection (which would be ambiguous).

This all assumes you’re using a steel mirror or similar item to see the reflection. If there is a mirror in the room, you would be able to see more of the room, and presumably you’d be able to tell if the caster had a reflection by comparing the number of reflections you see to the number of duplicates in the room with you.

I suppose it depends on whether applying the mirror to a vampire with mirror image counts as an “attack.” It is an action that functions similarly to a divination spell. If the Vampire casts Mirror Image, and then you try to “target” the vampire with the mirror, there’s a chance you target one of the mirror images, and it would be visible in the mirror.

Vampires also don’t cast a shadow, and Mirror Images are identical images, so none of them would cast a shadow. So while the mirror trick might not work against a vampire who has cast Mirror Image, you would be able to use any light source, including ambient light, to check if any of the images are casting a shadow.

Yeah, it had recently come out, and he’s the only Robin Hood I can think of that spoke with an American accent. Many years later in 2010, Russel Crowe would portray Robin Hood with… an accent.

Nah, he said “unlike some other Robin Hoods…” emphasis added.

Do you have an address? Or are you moving around? A PO box is good for people who don’t stay in one place very long, but want to receive mail. Whether you can use that at the bank, the dmv, the IRS, or voting depends entirely upon which state you live in.

All the HVAC control systems are anti-opensource. They pretend like their proprietary controls are trade secrets worth billions in research and development, but ultimately they are all just glorified mercury switches. Honeywell, Johnson, Mitsubishi, Schneider, Trane, Siemens, none of them want to allow third party control without getting their beaks wet with licensing fees. Even their commercial departments have started phasing out support for protocols like BACNet and Modbus.

Temperature sensors are cheap as shit. Low voltage relays are cheap as shit. Even digitally controlled zone dampers shouldn’t cost more than $100 installed. If you can access your ventilation in your attic or basement, you could zone every room in your house for less than it costs to replace a single AC compressor, and run it all on a raspberry pi.

But you need to know what you’re doing, and they will throw every hurdle in your way. No contractors would risk drawing the ire of their suppliers by doing it for you.

I wouldn’t expect any overlap between c/privacy and Facebook group postings.

So basically Despicable Me? Maybe with a hint of Megamind?

Wait I though we were at Greg’s house tonight. Damn it, I told you all I’m not on the group text, guys.

You’re permitted to speak your mind, as long as your rhetoric does not become conduct, but I find your ideas despicable and you are a pox on the University.