I guess you are right.

Its what literally changed my life. I was really socialy awkward, spend most of my lide behind a computer, and when I managed to go out to parties in a subculture scene parties I loved, I couldnt talk to anyone, had a few beers awkwardly in a corner and went home.

Then I met someone who introduced me to MDMA. That happened almost 8 years ago, and now I am an organizer of 2/3 of the same scene regular parties in our city, Im helping and DJing on a festival that happens here, and am living my best life in that regard. All thanks to that one best friend who got me something that made me talk to, and get to actually know people in the scene in the extent that I always wanted, and get comfortable enough that I no longer need to be high to interact with anyone. Since now they are friends and regulars, and not random people I wanted to talk to, but was afraid of approaching.

But, it wasn't as easy as it sounds. I was always trying to be responsible and cautious, and In did get bordeline to addiction in the process, which I was fortunately able to recognize early and put a stop to it by getting help in a adictiology nonprofit. It was never bad, more like a precaution. And I caught it in the best possible moment. I'll never forget my first group session, where literally everyone else said "I'm 35+, I used to take stuff at parties for fun when I was 25, and then I ended for 10 years in meth...".

Everyone had similar story. And I went "Well, I'm 25, and I take stuff on parties for fun...". And that was a really strong lesson, where I realized I'm stopping a really huge problem at exactly the right time.

So, it might help. It is definitely fun, but it is so hard to not end up badly. You will need a lot of luck, especially if you are exploring it on your own. I still take things on parties, but with personal experience about the dangers it has. And getting that, is something that no one can give you, unless you see it for yourself. And for most of the people, that comes too late. I was lucky, you probably won't be. But in conclusion - drugs are amazing, and have changed my life. Its a shame that personal experience will probably vary.

Ever since I played watchdogs and shadowrun, I wanted to work in cybersecurity, especially as a Red Teamer, which is literally Shadowrun - you run complex ops that have to break in, and steal stuff from largre banks without anyone but the management knowing about the test, with almost nothing being off-limits, as long as it doesn't cause some kind of damage.

Five years later, I do work as a Red Team Lead. Hpwever, our company was just scrambling to start doing RT since thats the buzzword now, and while we did have amazing pentesters, unfortunately pentesting and Red Teaming requires vastly different skills. Ypu never need to avoid EDRs, write malware with obscure low-level winapi, or even know what kind of IoC ajd detections will a command you run create, when you are doing a pentest.

But since no one knew better, and I love learning and researching new stuff, while also having Red Teaming romabticized, my interrest in it eventually led to me getting a Lead position for the barely scrambling team.

Mind you, I was barely out of being a junipr, with only three years of part time pentesting experience. It was NOT a good idea.

I quickly found out that RT is waaay harder and requires the best of the best from cybersec and maleare development. We didnt have that. Also, turns out that I love to learn now stuff and take on a challenge, but being a Lead also means you are drowning in paperwork and discussions with client, while also everyone from the team doesn't know what to do and turns to me about what should we do. Which I didn't know, and barely managed to keep learning it on my own. Our conpany didnt want to give us much time for learning outside of delivery, I was only working parttime, and I was slowly realizing that we don't have almost any of the skills we need.

We were doing kind of a good job, most of our engagement turned out pretty well, but it was atrocious.

Turns out, I'm not good at managing and planning projects, or leading people. I'm better just as a line member.

I also have a dual-boot, with fresh install of Windows I debloated as much as possible, that I use for games that I can't get to run even after trying protondb.com. However, it has only happened one or two times since I switched more than half a year ago, and I usually just give up on and refund games that I can't get to work on Steam. I have a lot of other things to play, and usually I wasn't that much dead set on playing that particular one. I do make sure to post on the forums of the game when that happens, though.

I've also recently stumbled upon https://windowsxlite.com/24H2ProV2/, which should be a debloated and minimized Windows (4Gb installed size is mindblowing, considering that all my Windows VMs have like 40Gb freshly installed). The site looks shady, but it was recommended to me by my coleague who works in cybersecurity, so I hope he knows what he's doing. I haven't got the time to test it yet, but it does mention that it should work for games, so who knows.

Serious EVE players are something else. The mention about IT security isn't a hyperbole, some EVE players take the espionage meta-game very seriously, and even though it's not only against the rules but also illegal, that's not gonna stop them. I mean, once they literally got someone to turn off electricity for a whole town just so they can win a fight (I tried to find a link to the article, because I'm 90% sure I did read about it somewhere, but I can't manage to find it anywhere, if anyone has a link. Maybe it was just a rummor, or an unexecuted plan?)

I used TS for the first time in like 15 years litterally two days ago, funny timing.

Yeah, I lost EVE. Again.

This is a great point, and I definitely agree, and I haven't thought about it in this way. I don't think that I've ever ran into a group where our expectations would be so much different that it would cause an issue, but it's a great thing to keep in mind. Now that I read it again, I think I should add that I don't think that it's wrong to play RPGs as a board game, and I don't really mind if someone does even in our group and I'm having fun either way, but I mostly felt like it's a little bit shame that it may not even occur to some people that you don't have to focus mostly on rules - since thats what most of the game book is about, and can do it differently, especially when you're starting out. Which is also a good thing to keep in mind, to discuss and make the options and expectations clear before starting.

I agree, and I think that what may have also helped was that I was still basically a child when I was introduced to the dice-only RPGs. Also, it's definitely way more difficult for the GM, which I was fortunate enough to have a really experienced and amazing one.

It's true that if the whole group including the GM is starting out, going with something like Fate is better choice, which I also prefer nowadays. Or more experimental ones like Dread or the candles one.

I'm really glad that my first introduction to RPGs, when I was on a summer camp and like 13yo, was with a GM who didn't use any rules (aside from a D10) and instead focused on RP, and resolved actions based on what exactly we described, intuition and a D10 roll without a set goal or number.

It has taught me an entirely different approach to pen&papers that has carried really well over to when I started playing more rules heavy systems, which is especially apparent when I play with groups who never really played without rules, where most of the combat or actions are reduced to playing a board game and a lot of talk revolves around stats and numbers, instead of on the RP, which is a shame. Which is understandable, since if your first experoence with RP is a rule heavy system, it's not exactly intuitive to just ignore the stats and rolls, because they seem important.

I'm used to paying almost no attention to stats aside from vaguely knowing what my character is better at, and threat them and the rolls in same way as I did when starting - don't care what are the odds, don't care about the roll, I just start with describing an action I want to do and figure out the stats as an afterthought. And it makes for such a better experience, and I higjly recommend for anyone starting a new group or having inexperienced players - just go with a single d10 for the first session, and guess the results based on a vague gut feeling based on the situation and the number rolled. Its suprisingly intuitive once you start from the GM side, and it teaches the new players way better habbits in how to approach the game and what is important, that will stay with them even after they add rules to the mix.

But a paid licence will affect users that are all right abd for whom you're doing it.

I understand that using something with a risk of loosong access because you've upset the developer is something that will turn away a lot of people, but then again, I'd say that "don't be a dick" is a pretty reasonable requirement. The only issue I see that it's a pretty vague definiton, but maybe just limiting it to profanities and insult towards the contributors is something more concrete, which would be easy to fulfill and also enforce.

I wonder, is it possible to create a license that would allow you to simply ban people who are being a dick about something from using it? Sure, it may turn away some people, since there's always a risk of abuse, but it's your work and as far as I know, you are the one who sets the terms.

If I'm not mistaken, most of the FOSS licenses (or maybe even laws?) guarantee you that you would be able to use the software even if the project later decides to change to proprietary license. But I assume you can simply specify in a licence "Everyone can use it, expect X.Y.Z".

Would that be legal? Sure, it would probably be pretty hard to enforce, but in some cases it could make for a pretty satisfactory (and petty, of course) C&D letters, for people that really deserve it. You insult the devs of a software your company depends on, demanding something while being a dick about it? Well, fuck you, no library for you and your company.