I bought both the Witcher 1 & 2 for around a buck cad each, not quite the same deal but still fantastic value for the cost.

Nice, I’ve been doing through power tools, glad they’re adding it in without that

Personally, likening Poilievre to Harper is just as damning, recognises our home grown shit, we’ve been pretty good at exporting that globally unfortunately (Harper + IDU, McInnes + Proud Boys, Peterson, shit I went to Queen’s so I’ll even toss Musk in there)

Oh I didn’t dig sekiro but loved nine sols if that helps any, timings matter but they’re pretty generous and gives you lots of tools.

You’ve already hit most of the ones I’d recommend, dragon age is up there for me, 1st one being more crpg, I came to like veilguard’s combat and enjoyed it, the series probably fits your bill.

Edit: cyberpunk with a katana maybe? Not fantasy at all, but the game is really solid, especially since phantom liberty. I’ve started a run trying to roleplay as Geralt using the witcher gear cdpr gives you, it’s worth playing regardless if you’ve not already.

I know you said no souls-like, but what about metroidvania type ones?

Nine sols was extremely fun, does have a story mode that has configurable difficulty. The developers describe it as taopunk, mix of Taoism and cyberpunk, they’re a Taiwanese studio, incorporates a lot of mythological elements and ends up in a sort of scifantasy setting. It’s got a lot of hand drawn assets, art style is fantastic. I’d call it more of a sekiro-like as it’s centred around deflections.

Give grim dawn a go too if you’re game for isometric RPGs like diablo, definitely scratched that itch for a diablo2 like game for me. Build system is super intricate and I’ve definitely barely scratched the surface.

Journal got pretty good once they had topics and searchability, I recall playing on og Xbox as a kid, don’t think it was nearly that useful.

I love the game but yeah, I’d kill for some placeable map markers personally, I like the journal but don’t love flipping back to make sure I’m going in the right direction constantly because I got distracted by something on the way.

You could probably play a vanguard somewhat that way, they get a lot of stuff that procs after shotgun or power usage that boosts melee, I’ve always gone the shotgun route but by 3 the vanguard had an ability to use their shields to aoe slam, which boosts melee I think, so you could maybe do a loop of charge -> melee -> slam ->charge? Charge giving you full shields and kinda critical to surviving, but that’s just general vanguard on insanity.

Me1 you could probably do with a soldier or vanguard, they’re both tanky as all, soldier with immunity, vanguard with barrier. Some fights would be irritating, final one coming to mind, but idk could work. Me2, less certain, you’re made of tissue paper and I don’t think I really ever used melee in it (also my least favourite of the trilogy gameplay wise)

I switched to using a microplane (or similar super fine grater) for garlic a few years back, it’s far easier to clean and I like it for ginger, nutmeg, hard cheeses etc.

I’ve not had issues with my 4070ti in the past few years, I recall it drawing less than 300W peak, (tdp on the super is 275W I think) nearly half the draw the 5090 has, won’t get anywhere near that warm.

I’m a mechanical eng turned software, computing and the like are super visible but there’s been a huge amount of advancement in physical things in our lifetime, Steel in particular. By no means an expert, some of this I’ve been out of the industry for a while so just operating on memory, totally welcome any corrections!

I’m not a metallurgist, but worked with them, there’s lots of grades out there but some of the stuff being used in automotive is seriously interesting (I think they’re boron grades but I can’t recall), needs specific treatment like hot stamping but they can easily hit into the 1-2 GPa range for yield strength once it’s processed. It’s allowed material to be rolled thinner for the same part strength so you end up with lighter vehicles.

Coatings too have changed a lot, non-chromium passivation is a thing, galvanised materials are no longer just zinc + a bit of aluminum, there’s aluminum + silicon coatings that are supposed to offer decent corrosion resistance at high temperatures, those fancy automotive steels get coated in it for things like mufflers. Construction there were zinc+magnesium coatings starting to show up, supposed to be resistant to coating damage.

Processing has changed a lot in a century too, steel is substantially metallurgically cleaner these days, probably actually cleaner too with more electric arc furnaces and hydrogen direct reduced iron.

It’s oldish these days but pipeline inspection was increasingly using Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducer (EMAT) tools when I worked in that field. It let you do ultrasound inspection of steel pipes without needing a liquid medium, so things like cracks and material defects that are hard (or nearly impossible) to find using Magnetic Flux Leakage tools are a lot more accessible to gas pipeline operators as they don’t need to do things like plan around liquid batching.

I’ve been using powertools for this, has a lot more functionality than I use for GPU/CPU limits, but the charge rate limiting is nice to have as well.

Glad charge limiting is hitting the os though, assuming most people don’t go for 3rd party plugins

For shits and giggles decided to take a look at the site

there’s ASCII art in the source

Anxiety over missing my meds keeps me (mostly) on track, I do however forget to request refills until the last bloody moment though, love how the process for ADHD treatment is so anti ADHD…

How does that work wrt to abroad voting? Do you vote for the candidate in the last riding you resided in?

I’ve always felt a bit off about the current NDP leadership, overtly negative blamey messaging, conflating federal and provincial responsibilities. The party as of 2021 was keeping all of the campaign reimbursements instead of that going to the candidates. They seem to have no local presence, Tories and Liberals have door knocked and sent out information multiple times in the last year, I don’t even know who my federal NDP candidate is locally. Provincially, our NDP person is super active and actually responds to me when I contact them so it’s not just an NDP thing.

I really disliked that they supported bill s-210 that’s the age verification bill, historically the NDP seemed to be pro privacy, disappointed at that apparent departure.

Huh, it’s interesting that all but Ontario are predominantly Hydro on that list Ontario’s Nuclear 1st, then Hydro.

Source if anyone’s interested, can go into specific provinces.

My highschool blasted Christmas in Ignace - Arrogant Worms every single day during fundraising drives, they’d stop when they hit their goals. Was very effective.

Add another one to the “do not buy”, bookoutlet/book depot, they closed their physical location in Niagara but still exist online. Their CEO is tied to some dodgy right wing “Christian” think tank called the Ezra Institute

Writ’s not been dropped, only poll that matters is the one on election day, this shit happens every single cycle, polls tend to change a lot once there’s actual campaigning. Don’t preemptively give up and accept a Tory government as an inevitability.

The Tories are out door knocking and seemingly on the edge of campaigning now (seen Tory lawn signs for remembrance day) why aren’t the NDP or grits? We seemingly let the right control messaging all the bloody time and just constantly play catchup.