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2017-11-29, 04:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2008
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
Chemical engineering is basically made of flow rates - heat flow, mass flow, reaction speeds, rate of phase change, the list goes on. Sometimes this is used just for derivation (idealized systems in particular tend to show this), sometimes you're knee deep in differential equations.
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2017-11-29, 05:36 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2009
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- Washington D.C.
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
Cuthalion's art is the prettiest art of all the art. Like my avatar.
Number of times Roland St. Jude has sworn revenge upon me: 2
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2017-11-29, 05:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2017
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
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2017-11-29, 06:02 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2008
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2017-11-30, 10:21 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2015
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- Earth
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
For what it's worth I found math difficult. I barely made it through basic high school calculus. I seemed to have issues recognizing the underlying patterns. I knew they were there, but could never really see them. I could learn individual things but had trouble stringing them together. I found social studies much easier and more interesting.
I can see this same divide in how I play RPGs. I don't much care about the rules or making a mechanically optimal character. I'm more interested in the role playing and world building.
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2017-11-30, 10:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2017
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- Plane of Knowledge
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
So, I'm new to the forum here, and I've never actually played D&D despite my fascination with it and the fact that I really want to play it.
So here's a couple things I don't understand:
Why are monks in 3.5th Edition considered bad? I've seen the class features and I know they rely on way too many stats to be easily viable, but other than that I've no idea.
Why don't more people use Raise Dead or Resurrection as a plot point? I mean, some people do it from what I've heard, but it could be used so much more often. For those who don't know what I mean, let me give an example:
Player 1's Character: (Enters room to see Important NPC #1 dead). "Oh no, The wizard is dead! How will we get the (Insert MacGuffin here)'s location now!?"
Player 2: "Hey, Player 3, does your character know Raise Dead yet?"
Player 3: "Nope, and even if he did we don't have any diamonds. Ok, how do we handle this?"
Player 4: "Why not see if we can find someone who does know Raise Dead or Resurrection?"
Player 1: "What, like a high-level NPC Cleric?"
Player 4: "Exactly."
GM: (Is thinking) 'And like that, I know I have a good group for this game.'To those who wish a nerd to enter the fray, they need only bring up an interesting story or possible plot lines. I'll even help those who want a bit of feedback on something if they ask for it.
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2017-11-30, 11:07 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
Well, Monks require a heavy investment in a wide variety of stats only to come out slightly less effective in a fight than a Fighter with decent equipment. OK, the Monk doesn't need the equipment, but equipment isn't actually that hard to come by in D&D unless you have a particularly penny-pinching DM.
As for the other, there are a number of reasons, I would imagine. Firstly, those spells are *expensive*--Raise Dead requires 5,000gp worth of diamonds, and Resurrection 10,000gp. The subject has to be willing to be raised by you, which might not be the case. Also, if you're literally just after information there are cheaper alternatives--for example, Contact Other Plane is a 5th-level spell, just like Raise Dead, but it doesn't require expensive components to cast.
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2017-11-30, 06:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2008
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
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2017-12-01, 11:16 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Nov 2017
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- Plane of Knowledge
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
I knew about the Monk's heavy stat spread, but I never heard of particularly stingy DMs...though I suppose they would probably exist, given that there's always at least one example of something.
I've never heard of the nickname, but I never did understand the combination of high movement with full attack necessity.
I sincerely appreciate the feedback from you two, and I hope that what questions I might ask in the future don't seem like a waste of time.
Let me think...what else am I curious about...
Ah, I know!
Why do groups tend to be WAY overspecialized? Yeah, it'd make sense if you have a larger group, with more people to fill more roles, but my buddy (who also likes D&D) has told me of a time where he was DMing for a group of three playing 5th Edition: A min-maxed Paladin who couldn't roll a good wisdom save and spammed Divine Smite, a Rouge who had no idea what they were doing at first until the Paladin explained a few things, and a Ranger who always traded their ability score bonus for feats. They barely survived the campaign, albeit still succeeding in their objectives for the most part, but they could have done so much better if they'd had a healer who wasn't busy being in the midst of the fighting.To those who wish a nerd to enter the fray, they need only bring up an interesting story or possible plot lines. I'll even help those who want a bit of feedback on something if they ask for it.
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2017-12-01, 12:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
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- Uusimaa
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
The possiblity of me having aspergers has become clearer over the past year and I'm waiting to start the process with my therapist... but what I don't understand is the need that some people have in regards telling me that I definitely can't have it. Most of the people I've talked to about this have been supportive and some have agreed pretty quick that they can see/have seen at least some indications towards it over the years. I'm just bothered by the minority who has a very narrow image of the spectrum or says things like "you're just naturally quirky, blunt and artistic! Besides, you're totally capable of socialising." (when in fact I have practiced and forced myself to be social and adapt to different situations with a lot of pain and distress.. that I also like to hide)
I dunno. I just don't get it. I don't have the energy to ask them why they're so adamant about the absolute impossibility.Originally Posted by LaZodiac
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2017-12-01, 12:38 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
If I had to guess, it's for the same reason people might tell someone with diabetes that "they can't have it, they're too thin". I'd imagine it is a combination of not wanting to "jinx" you (i.e. that they might make it true by vocalising it; it's irrational but very common) and to some degree not wanting to face the challenge of learning how to relate to someone with a condition they only barely understand (remember the "have you tried NOT being a mutant" scene from X-Men 2? Same thing).
The latter is also irrational, obviously, but more centered in a form of laziness than some "magic jinx" thing. We unconsciously divide people into "those we can talk easily to because they are like me" and "those that need special handling". Now, the ideal thing is for us to slowly move people from the second group to the first, but as what we might call "diminishing returns" start to crop up, it takes more and more energy.
As an example, I think we all went through the phase of "I can talk to members of a sex, but not the other. When I talk to the other sex, I need to constantly check my words to make sure I don't offend". It is usually somewhere in our teen years, I'd imagine. Now, a bit of effort on our parts, and we learn to do that, and after that, we can talk to both sexes equally and that's not a problem. Then (for those of us that are heterosexual) we learn that some people are not heterosexual, and we need to learn to talk to them as well. But as we learn of other minority groups that face issues that we don't, and that we need to be careful about, it becomes harder to do so - more rules to learn, more language to develop, more taboos to avoid, etc, and it becomes harder and harder for fewer and fewer people to be added to the first category. At some point, people just sort of unconsciously decide that enough is enough, and thus might not want to put in the effort of how to relate to, in your case, Asperger's.
Which is of course, not the ideal. But it is the reality of it.
Grey WolfLast edited by Grey_Wolf_c; 2017-12-01 at 01:42 PM.
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2017-12-01, 01:31 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
It could also be that when they hear "Asperger's Syndrome" they think of the low functioning type that is what has caught media's pop science. I am not saying high functioning asperger's is easy to live with in society, but the challenges faced are different and can probably be passed off as "just personality" rather than "signs of Asperger's".
My reasoning for this line of thought is that I have a hereditary hearing impairment that follows on the X chromosome. My mom's cousin has very similar hearing loss to me, with the exception of hearing damage from heavy machinery. However he went through school without knowing he was hearing impaired, and only found out when he went to join the military. Fast forward to me, and my hearing impairment was caught quite early. My grandma noted a lot of similar behaviour between little my and my mom's cousin at that age, noting that what was thought to have just been personality might have been coping mechanisms for being hearing impaired.
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2017-12-01, 05:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2008
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
I don't think anywhere near all of us did, and that those of us who did likely map really well to those of us who grew up in areas where some degree of sex segregation was common (whether this is hard rules or just social expectations and the pressures that come with them). I can say from personal experience that I never went through this phase, and that I also grew up with friends of multiple sexes from a very young age. Meanwhile I saw the social pressures, which as a kid tended to be seeing the whole "cooties" phenomenon in all of its glorious stupidity.
The same thing applies to a lot of other cases. If a group hasn't been specifically marked as weird then there's generally no issue interacting with people in that group regardless of your own membership. This is particularly true in the context of finding out something about a friend you already have - clearly you can interact with them, what with having done so enough to become friends.
On the other hand, if you've already had an aversion developed by social forces (which generally involves some level of soft group segregation) this can be more difficult. This allows for the largely subconscious reasoning of "friend can't be in group X, group X is deficient in ways friend isn't".
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2017-12-02, 01:49 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
Maybe you should look at that as a compliment? You've done such a good job forcing yourself to be social that some folks can't tell you're forcing it. Whether that's a good thing for your own peace of mind is another matter, but that's presumably one of the things you'll be discussing with your therapist.
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2017-12-02, 03:27 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
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- Uusimaa
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
Originally Posted by LaZodiac
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2017-12-02, 11:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2009
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- Sweden
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
I don't know how others feel about it, but I have a hard time taking a compliment if it comes directly following an invalidation of my character. I imagine the people saying these things make the (subconscious) assumption that if one doesn't have the diagnosis, things will be better, despite the fact that a diagnosis just is an index card for finding treatments, coping mechanisms and people with similar experiences, which was handed to you because you already were like what the diagnosis describes.
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2017-12-02, 12:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
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- Uusimaa
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
Originally Posted by LaZodiac
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2017-12-02, 01:44 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
I didn't mean that the person making the comment is intending it as a compliment, merely you should take it as one because you seem so "normal" that they can't believe you have Asperger's?
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2017-12-02, 05:38 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
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- Uusimaa
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
Originally Posted by LaZodiac
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2017-12-02, 10:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2013
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2017-12-02, 10:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2016
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
the main things i can't understand that might be interesting to discuss are related to religion, so that's a no go on these forums.
i guess some counting principle problems in math and statistics are hard for me. also i find many statistical concepts hard to understand, though i can often do the math related to it. i found college level calculus easy compared to statistics, i guess because calculus is a lot of physical reasoning which i'm good at, while statistics is more abstract. i don't really believe in randomness (though maybe God does, in reference to the Einstein quote, sometimes roll dice) so i don't care that much about statistics since i don't believe in one of the main underlying assumptions.Last edited by Goodkill; 2017-12-02 at 10:34 PM.
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2017-12-03, 12:30 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
What do you mean about not believing in randomness? Is this from the perspective of if one knows all the initial conditions of the Universe one can flawlessly predict everything like Laplace's Demon? (Link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laplace%27s_demon). On phone, so it's a pain to hyperlink.
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2017-12-03, 02:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Feb 2007
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- Manchester, UK
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
Chaos theory means that even in a non-random universe it's impossible to make long-term predictions. For example, if you wanted to accurately predict the Earth's weather over time you'd need to not only know the exact temperature, local pressure, and velocity for every single molecule of air in the atmosphere, but you'd also have to predict the exact paths of all objects moving around within that atmosphere. If the proverbial butterfly flaps its wings at the wrong time your weather prediction will be totally wrong within months.
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2017-12-03, 01:51 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Sep 2013
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
That is a fair point about practical prediction. I used Laplace's Demon because that concept is a being that can predict all interactions between molecules everywhere all the time. In a non random universe, the Demon is always right.
Even if the universe is a predetermined series of action down to the smallest quantum vibrations, that still doesn't mean that probability theory is useless to us. We cannot say "When you throw that die, current conditions mean that you will roll a 2." Therdfore, probability is still useful there.
We do not know if the universe is random or not, but statistics works regardless of that fact.
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2017-12-03, 02:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Apr 2013
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- Uusimaa
Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
Originally Posted by LaZodiac
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2017-12-03, 10:39 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2013
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- Over the Rainbow
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
Well, probably several reasons, which most would fit the average but none to everyone:
-People don't like living in a complex world, with complex people. Simplification/reductionism is easier.
-People don't share your perspective, and most of the time, they see from opposing windows.
-Most people don't know the full scope of Asperger's (even after learning a thorough explanation)
-Some people think one way to make "ill" people feel better is by telling them they aren't ill (most people would characterize or treat people with Aspergers -or any other condition- as if they were dealing with someone who is sick).
-Some people probably are afreaid of making a negative reinforcement by agreeing with you and try to do exactly the opposite (not sure how it works in somebody's head, but people tend to do that).
There's probably more to it, but essentially you will have to learn to cope with Aspergers (if you have it diagnosed) AND with people like that. They probably mean no harm to you and are trying to be sympathetic.
A purely anthropologic research helps clarify most of those doubts, at least it did for me. It also helped me to avoid from ever becoming an antipathic atheist, or to be demeaning to people who have any form of faith. Once you get how people think, it's easy to understand why. Also, most religions are fun to learn. Or maybe that's the mythology freak in me speaking(sic)
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2017-12-03, 10:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2013
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2017-12-05, 12:47 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Mar 2009
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- Sweden
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Re: Stuff I just don't understand, post here yours.
Sadly, human psychology doesn't work that way. If it was possible to shrug off any negative comment simply because there was an acknowledgement of some achievement in there, we would probably have seen superhuman accomplishments compared to society today (or stagnated in the stone age). There is a reason all advice on how to provide constructive criticism includes starting off with saying something positive, after all.
Clouddreamer Teddy by me, high above the world, far beyond its matters...
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2017-12-05, 10:55 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2017
Forum slang
I don't have much forum experience. Can anyone tell me what "dip" refers to in this text:
So that leaves d10 hit dice, and half casting (though Rangers and Paladins share very few spells), which can't be covered by a one level dip of rogue or monk into fighter or paladin.
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2017-12-05, 10:59 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2007
Re: Forum slang
Interested in MitD? Join us in MitD's thread.There is a world of imagination
Deep in the corners of your mind
Where reality is an intruder
And myth and legend thrive
Ceterum autem censeo Hilgya malefica est