ZIERIA is the galaxy's only commercially viable source of zieron, a toxic gas with multiple industrial and military applications.  Because Zieria is collectively owned, all of its citizens share equally in the profits from the zieron wells, which are decades old at a minimum.  Enthusiasm for drilling new wells has diminished, but the old ones are still productive enough to sustain the planet's small population.  Currently the most severe punishment for crime on Zieria is well maintenance duty, which involves confinement to a hut full of machinery.  Once there, a prisoner has a fairly strong incentive to do a good job preventing zieron leaks.  If for some reason the prisoner's efforts are insufficient, though, there's nothing more that can be done except to send in another conscript who was unfortunate enough to be convicted of a crime.  Justice works swiftly on Zieria, but its effectiveness leaves considerable room for improvement.  There is a lot of poisonous zieron floating around.

I was just writing an email to someone and closing it up with, "as always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions." some part of my brain said "that sounds like it was written by AI." 
and, of course, instantly, I had a wild urge to change it to:

"As always, I look forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions, and that's no AI! 😃👍🌟"

Haaaaaaaaaa. 
I might put it in my email signature. 

Everything went according to plan for this, the last character class on my list of ascensions.  In fact, it directly followed my Rogue ascension from back in April.  Why did it take so long?  Perhaps the title gave that away.  This tourist came, and saw. and killed absolutely everything.  After acquiring the quest artifact ("Don't Leave Home Without It") and a bag of tricks, he realized that he could camp out at the altar on dungeon level 6 and sacrifice monsters to his heart's content.  Okay, maybe strictly longer than anyone would be content to sacrifice monsters.  To be clear, I do not recommend this play style unless you wish to get over your nethack addiction for a while.

Create monster stopped working on DL6 at about turn 293,400.  He descended into Gehennom to create tougher monsters.  Demons and such stopped appearing on DL27 at about turn 313,900.  Back upstairs to check some more non-Gehennom levels.  On Oracle level DL8, baby dragons, naga hatchlings, baby worms, baby crocodiles, and angels (putti?) were exhausted around turn 335,200.  In the castle on DL25 there were archons, ki-rin, and titans, which are themselves able to cast "summon nasties".  This can someties be annoying, particularly when they summon each other along with their nasty friends.  But create monster stopped working for them too around turn 342,000.  That was the last of the randomly-generated monsters!

I made a decent effort to clean up all the remaining monsters so the dungeon is as safe as possible.  It actually is quite eerie to walk around without seeing a wandering monster every once in a while.  I did leave the shopkeepers and temple priests alive since they're always peaceful no matter what the player's alignment.  I also left behind some of the less-valuable artifact weapons and gems on DL1, along with 64,655 zorkmids, because I didn't want my encumbrance level to be more than Burdened.  That probably wasn't a real danger, but oh well.

30136 creatures vanquished.
59 species genocided.
222 species extinct.

Aloha Ferret the Demigod...

You went to your reward with 46439376 points,
Magicbane (worth 3500 zorkmids and 8750 points)
Sting (worth 800 zorkmids and 2000 points)
Mjollnir (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
Vorpal Blade (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
The Bell of Opening (worth 5000 zorkmids and 12500 points)
Fire Brand (worth 3000 zorkmids and 7500 points)
The Book of the Dead (worth 10000 zorkmids and 25000 points)
The Candelabrum of Invocation (worth 5000 zorkmids and 12500 points)
The Platinum Yendorian Express Card (worth 7000 zorkmids and 17500 points)
     205 aquamarine stones (worth 307500 zorkmids),
     164 fluorite stones (worth 65600 zorkmids),
     149 amber stones (worth 149000 zorkmids),
     145 garnet stones (worth 101500 zorkmids),
     126 chrysoberyl stones (worth 88200 zorkmids),
     117 turquoise stones (worth 234000 zorkmids),
     112 opals (worth 89600 zorkmids),
     110 amethyst stones (worth 66000 zorkmids),
     101 citrine stones (worth 151500 zorkmids),
      98 jet stones (worth 83300 zorkmids),
      96 jade stones (worth 28800 zorkmids),
      94 topaz stones (worth 84600 zorkmids),
      93 rubies (worth 325500 zorkmids),
      75 black opals (worth 187500 zorkmids),
      71 emeralds (worth 177500 zorkmids),
      61 diamonds (worth 244000 zorkmids),
      56 jasper stones (worth 28000 zorkmids),
      55 dilithium crystals (worth 247500 zorkmids),
      47 jacinth stones (worth 152750 zorkmids),
      29 sapphires (worth 87000 zorkmids),
      29 agate stones (worth 5800 zorkmids),
      27 obsidian stones (worth 5400 zorkmids),
       5 amulets of life saving (worth 750 zorkmids),
       1 amulet of change (worth 150 zorkmids),
and 3170 pieces of gold, after 364070 moves.
You were level 30 with a maximum of 7140 hit points when you ascended.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/altorg/dumplog/Ferret/1680964958.nh367.txt

From the game "Canvas", available on boardgamearena.com

By Matthew Arnold 

I fixed a lil' bug that caused comments to contain HTML markup tags if edited again later. Thanks to both users who reported this, and apologies for not figuring out how to reproduce it the first time.

Unfortunately, in writing this post I encountered a second bug I can't fix before work this morning. It affects the second rich text block in the same post. Sigh. Will dig into that. These are ripple effects of recent modernization of the codebase, which I can't regret really. There is no other bug. I ignored my own "Alternative Text" placeholder and confused the alternative text field with a new rich text block because I am not awake yet. As an amateur UX designer I can see how that confusion happens, so I might need to more clearly flag these.

Two pictures from the American Museum of Natural History: one from the new Invisible Worlds exhibit, one compelling traditional exhibit. If you check out Invisible Worlds, be sure to pay attention to how the little kids interact with the pressure-sensitive floor. You can pay attention to the Serious Content For Grownups on the second loop.

Continuing a short series on things I've learned on my Summer 2023 trip to Iceland, Norway, Amsterdam & Paris

Things I’ve learned this summer 2023 trip: # 4 - TRAVEL APPS

CITYMAPPER is the best app I’ve ever had for getting around in an unknown city. I’m surprised they don’t charge for it. It makes it stupid easy to figure out the best way to get from here to there within a city. It’s also easy to say: hey, I want to go by bus, not the fastest way like the metro so I can see more things on the trip. Or you can get the options that minimize the walk (because rain, or temperature, or sore feet or whatever). I used it a bit in Reykjavik & Oslo, and a bunch in Amsterdam & Paris. It’s going to be a permanent part of my travel toolkit.   

I bought & loaded my 24hour Amsterdam transit pass on my phone through their app (which I've already erased). Worked like a champ & I didn't have to go anywhere special to get it. In Paris I didn't use an app, I used the Navigo Easy+ transit card - still have 5 rides loaded on it. I also loaded the DC Metro app onto my phone and used it to get to Dulles, and expect to use  it going forward. The DC metro goes all the way to the Dulles terminal now. Yay. But I also got a smartTrip transit card for my kid, because I wasn't up to figuring out how/if you could pay for two people with the app - I had a plane to catch! 

There is this PASSPORT app that I recorded my passport info into. I didn't really use it, but it was great piece of mind. 

I know a lot of people use currency conversion apps. I do not. The euro being about parity with the dollar, and the Norwiegan krone being about a dime made the math trival to do in ones head.

Other APPS that I used A BUNCH were not strictly travel apps. WhatsApp was my go-to for messaging as you just need wifi for it to work. I've started using Wallet linked to my credit card to pay for things. I think I only got my credit card out twice, and paid cash three or four time. I only encountered one place the entire trip that didn't take credit card - even that park bathroom that charged 2euros took credit card. Which reminds me, I should pay my credit card bill. 

Marriott has its BONVOY app, which claims you can use your phone as a door key. FINALLY. I've been requesting something like this since 2004. I'm a freaking platinum traveler, in your hotels all the time. STOP GIVING me room keys. STOP making me stand in line to get them. Give me something that works across properties, or let me use something I have already like my phone or drivers licence. .. Anyway, it didn't work. The two properties I stayed at this trip didn't have phone-keys implemented yet. So I had to get keycards from the desk after standing in line. But at least they are working on it! Also, I could check into my room the night before via the app and let them know I'd be early. So even though it wasn't checkin time, I got access to my rooms early afternoon.

Finally, there is this app called TOO GOOD TO GO that I was surprised to see in both Oslo and Paris (I didn't check elsewhere). If you are an urban dweller and flexible, I *highly recommend* you check it out. The premise is that grocery stores/resturants will offload unbought food at pennies on the dollar. But you have to be available to get it at weird times and you never know exactly what you will get. I wish it was available in my area.

Are you plagued by the feeling that everyone used to be nicer?

There’s some work by a guy named Richard Eibach on how people think the world has gotten more dangerous. And he finds that people believe this. And the people who believe this, especially, are parents. And when you ask those parents “When did the world become more dangerous?,” you get a date that is curiously close to the date of the birth of their first child.

The obvious implication being that nothing about the world changed. It was your worldview that changed. And now you have to, you know, protect this fragile life—and so you are much more attuned to the dangers of the world. That’s why you think there’s more of them.

Hm.  September 2001.  Curious, indeed.  But a pyschological illusion, right?

100 feet down in a former copper mine. Which is also a former prison. The past is a terrible place, never go there. Old Newgate Prison is worth a visit, though. The curation of the place... nowadays... has tipped heavily in the direction of rethinking incarceration. Also: nice vein of malachite in there.

Speaking of the past, thanks to U. and L. for bringing some nasty bugs to my attention. These bugs affected the process of accepting an invitation. Most were blatant, which is not so bad, because it was easy for L. to spot them and for me to fix them.

But the last one makes me kick myself: for *coughs* some time now, when accepting an invite, the dialog box giving you a chance to give a "friends" key to the person who invited you just didn't work properly. This is fixed, and will hopefully make it just that little bit easier for newcomers to communicate with the person who invited them in the first place.

Thankfully there was no issue in the opposite direction.

Starting a short series on things I've learned on my Summer 2023 trip to Iceland, Norway, Amsterdam & Paris

Things I’ve learned this summer 2023 trip: # 2 - HEALTH INFO

Coffee made without a paper filter may contribute to high cholesterol. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9240930/ Though google indicates research is ongoing and more results are filtering (hah) in.

Here, a dangerous café in a Paris café

And a dangerous coffee in a Scandinavian airport cafe, side of hot chocolate

And a non-dangerous coffee hidden is a chipper arty mug. (Artist: Marianne Aulie)