ScottishFox

I'll say this after today's Costco run. The meat department is decimated. There was a modicum of chicken, but pork and beef were all but gone. The cuts of beef that were available (round, stew meat, etc.) were dramatically lower quality cuts than are typically available. The idea of people running out of food for an illness that's clocking in at a hot 2.7 deaths per 100,000 is no bueno.

We do, but they are not as densely packed as big cities in New York. DFW minus dead center down town Dallas is like a suburb that sprawls out for 50 miles in every direction. There's a lot of people, but there's a lot of room too. Just watching people walk the streets in downtown NY City makes me claustrophobic. People don't get that close to each other here.

The initial viral load you get based on the volume of viral cells you're exposed to can have a big impact (with my limited amateur understanding) on how sick you get. Imagine your body gets exposed to the impossibly low dose of a single viral cell. It doubles let's say 10x before your body can build defenses and defeat it. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024 cells. That's probably not even enough for you to know you were sick. Now imagine you get exposed to a million viral cells right off the bat and the viral cell count is in the billions before your body can effectively fight. Your immune system can get overwhelmed with a big enough load and not be able to spawn defensive cells as fast as the virus is replicating. Or you can get the cytokine storm where your body gets overloaded and then over-reacts strongly enough to kill you.

Meanwhile in North Dallas we are clocking in at a devastating, way-of-life altering 2.2 deaths per 100,000. It will probably get worse before it's over, but I can't fault people who think this thing has been grossly overblown. We suffer a mortality rate about 100x higher than that by way of over-eating here. If I take the top ten things that kill Texans the last entry is 6x higher than Coronavirus. Add drug overdoses, suicide, firearms accidents and homicide the bottom of the 13 item list is still almost 3x higher than Coronavirus. South Dakota didn't even shut down and they're clocking in at 3.5 deaths per 100,000. It's not hard to understand why people in rural areas believe this was economic ruin in return for nothing at all. We'll find out over the next month or so now that we're opened up.

Pillars of Eternity is the spiritual child of the old Baldur's Gate series. It was designed as a real-time-with-pause party game with a huge overlap with D&D classes. If I recall correctly several of the Obsidian developers had some direct hands on experience with the original D&D series (I'm not 100% on this, but I vaguely recollect this). You begin as a single character moving to Gilded Vale for the promise of free land and a fresh start. You will meet many characters along the way and have the ability to hire/build your own at tavern interfaces. It does NOT use a d20 system, but it plays like and feels like old school isometric D&D. I consider it one of my favorite games of all time and according to Steam I've logged enough hours to be embarrassed. The setting is Eora which feels like Forgotten Realms in some ways and is starkly different in others. * Eora has reincarnation. Like everyone reincarnates over and over until their souls burn out (if ever). * They have unique deities with very distinct spheres of influence compared to the usual mix. * Halflings are replaced by Orlans which are partially feral. * Godlikes are people who have the mark of a deity upon them. They are VERY distinct looking and have a pretty significant plot hook in the 2nd game. * Aumaua replace orcs and have two variants. They are large and powerful and either land or ocean themed. The primary plot centers around the Hollow Born plague. People are being born without souls. Something is breaking the cycle of reincarnation. And... now i'm going to go play it again. My favorite game of all time.

They were amazing for their time, but they are so far behind in terms of graphics and user interface they are hard to stomach these days. I've picked up Baldur's Gate Enhanced and Baldur's Gate II Enhanced and I haven't gotten more than an hour or two into either one. It's such a massive setback in visual/audio quality and it takes you back to D&D 2nd edition - which feels pretty awful compared to modern versions. If you're itching for classic D&D style party-based games I would recommend: Pillars of Eternity I & II (especially I), Divinity Original Sin I & II (especially II) and Pathfinder:Kingmaker.

There was an ancient Adventurer's Club article on calculating Combat Effectiveness, but that was about it. I've used a modified form of that for a couple years now. Other GMs have active point caps, skill level caps and things of that nature. Even if you have rough indicators the villain specifics can make a huge difference. Does Dr. Deludo's confusion ray (Entangle vs. INT) have an advantage against the players universally low INT team? Does Blacklight's always-on Flash Shield cause excessive trouble for your melee-heavy flash-defense lacking hero squad? Basically if the villain is kryptonite to your kryptonians you have to adjust on the fly. It is one of the hardest aspects of game balance. On a very rough level total CP gives you some estimate, but it varies significantly from villain to villain.

I'll bet the Chinese-on-Chinese murder rate among American college professors is INCREDIBLY low. Looks like a straight up assassination.

Literally posted this two posts prior to yours.

And in the "Do as I say, not as I do" category of scumbags we have: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/05/exclusive-government-scientist-neil-ferguson-resigns-breaking/ Mr. Inflated Death estimates himself gets caught violating social distancing rules so he can sleep with a married woman (who has kids). I hadn't realized how bad this guy was with estimates until I read a couple of articles on his previous flops. 1A: Predicts up to 200,000,000 deaths from bird flu in 2005 1B: 282 people die from 2003 through 2009 (nearly a million to one miss). 2A: Predicts up to 65,000 deaths in the UK from swine flu in 2009. 2B: 457 people die from swine flu in the UK. (inflated by 14,200%). 3A: Predicts 50 to 50,000 people in the UK will die from mad cow disease and up to 150,000 if it infects sheep. 3B: 177 people die from mad cow disease in the UK. 4A: Predicts 500,000 people in the UK will die from Corona virus without preventative measures and 250,000 WITH preventative measures. 4B: So far... 29,501. By far his best estimate to date with only being inflated by about 900%.

Well, if you're primed for some made-for-TV level conspiracy action I present: https://www.post-gazette.com/news/crime-courts/2020/05/04/ross-township-murder-suicide-bing-liu-police-elm-court/stories/202005040082 Chinese assistant professor working on COVID and supposedly close to a big breakthrough gets murdered-suicided by another Chinese person. Doesn't look fishy at all.

Just went to a restaurant since this mess started (Texas is 25% open now) and we literally had the ENTIRE place to ourselves. Everything is disposable now (menu's, silverware sleeves, etc.) except the silverware and plates. It is straight up creepy to see how dead and inactive everything is. I felt bad for the place so I left a $20 tip.

I like Tom Brown's suggestion above with a slight variation. Buy a pool of BOD / STUN for the 2nd form ABOVE what the normal body has. That way when it runs out and the druid reverts to their natural form they're at their normal starting values. Even in D&D damage beyond the threshold required to end the form does carry over. Just from the perspective who DMs a LOT of D&D 5e - The Moon Druid really power spikes at 2nd and 10th levels. At lower levels, especially, they can seem incredibly tough. They are decently balanced from 5-9 and 13+ as their forms have AC that is garbage compared to fighters/paladins. Their seemingly endless piles of HP will get chewed up pretty quickly by standard attackers.

Hard Times -> Strong People -> Good Times -> Weak People : Lather, rinse, repeat.

My mind was blown by how bad the print quality was on the 4e reprint. I'll take a well-preserved decades old copy over that.

Population of America: 328 million - 67,913 deaths Population of Italy: 60 million - 29,079 deaths Population of Spain: 47 million - 25,264 deaths Population of France: 67 million - 24,900 deaths Population of UK: 66.6 million (satan!) - 28,808 deaths Population of Germany: 83 million - 6,866 deaths Population of the 5 European countries is still less than that of America (328 vs 323). Total Deaths in Europe is much higher (so far) at 114,917 vs. 67,913. Deaths per million population: America: 207.05 Italy: 484.65 Spain: 537.53 France: 371.64 Germany: 82.72 (What are they doing?)

If nothing else I think life-saving medication should be on a short-list of things we bring back in house.

I'd do it out of convenience if the internet was good enough and the deliveries were reliable. Getting 5 million dollars would be like getting paid to breathe. I was going to do that anyway.

I can't trust the WHO who ignored information from Taiwan about how contagious it was and then was, days later, still telling us there's no evidence of person-to-person transmission. Have you guys seen the interview with the reporter who asks about Taiwan? First the WHO guy pretends he can't hear her. Then he hangs up. Then she gets him back on the call and asks about Taiwan again and he responds with something along the lines of, "We've already covered that. Let's move on.". Actual brief non-interview below. It is chilling.

I wonder why our rate is so high (possibly because so many of us are fat, hypertensive, diabetic, etc.) and why the rates vary so massively place to place. I'd love to hear some science behind those differences because at first glance something looks off. Even within the state of New York the rates vary considerably. New York State death rate: 123.59 per 100k New York City: 219 per 100k ( This is the only one beating out the traditional winners of heart disease, cancer, etc. This is catastrophically bad.). Texas: 2.89 per 100k California: 5.34 per 100k South Dakota: 2.37 per 100k Those are differences of more than 40 to 1 vs. New York State and almost 100 to 1 vs. New York City.

Well, the Texas Grand Opening could be off to an interesting start. We haven't even opened yet and 4/30/2020 plunked in a big spike in cases. I've been tracking the trend line in ye olde Excel and... that's the direction that says we shouldn't open. It'll be interesting to see what they do. Death count is at 812, but we've had flu seasons that have gone as high as 3500 so I'm not sure how compelling this will be for the Governor. I suspect this will get ignored and the re-opening will continue until the mid-May re-evaluation. On a related note - the meat shortage appears to be a real thing. Costco is generally flush with food - especially the butcher shop and the pork and chicken were all but gone. Like big areas of blank white refrigerator.

My perspective could be a bit skewed as I spent an hour watching the Kern County doctors go over their numbers and basically conclude that everyone should go back to work. Throw away the masks and build up your immune system style. They looked at multiple community tests like the ones in New York, California and elsewhere that show that 10-20% of the public has already had COVID-19. They crunch a bunch of numbers and come out along the lines that Coronavirus is going to be about as lethal as a bad influenza season and that while the initial shutdown was VERY MUCH JUSTIFIED due to the lack of solid data early on that the data at this point suggests that shutdowns are not having a significant effect compared to places that are not shutting down (Sweden, South Dakota, etc.). They mention very large tragic spikes upward in child abuse, domestic abuse, suicide, etc., being caused by people being forced home. They mention some immunologically silly things that have been decided like: I can't go in a salon and have my hair cut by one person, but I can stand in line at CostCo with 200+ people for 45 minutes after shopping with the hoard. So going into the article with that as my warm up video it made a lot of sense to me. I just re-read it based on your feedback and... it's good stuff, imo. Remember the point of the shut down was to avoid flooding hospitals. Made sense - critical factor in survival rate. Chart below from California HHS.

Looks like the opinion of the medical community is shifting on COVID. https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/494034-the-data-are-in-stop-the-panic-and-end-the-total-isolation?amp That article makes great points. Some of them were eye-poppers. Even the Wall Street Journal had an article on how the lock downs are having a small effect in terms of lives saved https://www.wsj.com/articles/do-lockdowns-save-many-lives-is-most-places-the-data-say-no-11587930911 (annoying paywall).

A trend line is just math. And given that numbers frequently spike upward or downward due to delays in reporting it's probably the best way to do this. Imagine this scenario: 14-Day Trend: 8000, 7000, 5000, 3000, 2500, 2000, 1500, 1000, 750, 500, 250, 125, 70, 73 - Oops, can't reopen the economy! The trend is obviously a massive decline in cases. The trend in Texas for the last two weeks is *barely* down. It's probably going to get spiked by the re-opening. We'll see. Not sure if you've seen the video from the Kern County ER doctors in LA, but it's interesting. I had to go find it on Vimeo because after 5 million plus views on YouTube they decided to ban it. Although some of their points were a bit out there the guys did make a couple of good ones like: * Many doctors and nurses are getting laid off due to lack of work which is exactly what you don't want to do before people come back out of their homes and start getting sick.

Are you suggesting that every single day has to be lower than the day before for 14 consecutive days rather than a trend line that is going down? That would be a bat-shit crazy way of doing things. I mean, I wouldn't put it past the administration to *write* it that way, but that would be an irrational standard.