Annoying Questions I'd Like Answered...

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Wed Jan 21, 2015 8:05 pm

I know arabic/islamic mythology has possession by jinn and shaitans, but is there any tradition where people voluntarily channel spirits? I want to rip off the spirit mediums in Phoenix Wright for a project, but I'd also like to keep the flavor of my setting quasi-authentic.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Jan 21, 2015 9:40 pm

Voudoun and most shamanic traditions involve shamans and other holy people voluntarily channeling spirits. Usually while drunk and/or high.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Jan 21, 2015 11:13 pm

Avoraciopoctules wrote:I know arabic/islamic mythology has possession by jinn and shaitans, but is there any tradition where people voluntarily channel spirits? I want to rip off the spirit mediums in Phoenix Wright for a project, but I'd also like to keep the flavor of my setting quasi-authentic.

I think you want North African Sufis.

-Username17

Avoraciopoctules · Post by **Avoraciopoctules** » Thu Jan 22, 2015 7:22 am

However, the zawiya is an Islamic religious school, monastery or a religious site, which groups Sufi followers around a particular sheikh. Sufism is based on the Qur’an and the practice of the Prophet. Sufi teaching stresses mysticism and love of God. Sufism purifies hearts and directs intentions towards God. All Sufi orders have certain specific rules and regulations to achieve this realization, and there are particular spiritual states and stations in Sufism that may be obtained by performing certain practices and rituals. At the initiation ceremony, the sheikh who has experienced union with God and annihilation of self, in addition to giving the disciple the special garment, also gives him a secret word or prayer to help him in his meditation.

Sufis also believe in spiritual guides who reveal themselves to the Sufi in visions or dreams and help him on his path. The initiate has to learn spiritual poverty (faqr), which means emptying the soul of self in order to make room for God. The illusion of the individual ego must be erased by humility and love of one’s neighbor. This is attained by a rigid self-discipline that removes all obstacles to the revelation of the Divine Presence.

Thanks, Frank, this looks like it will be really helpful! I was probably too focused on the Sunni/Shia divide before.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 4:40 pm

Why is it that you can take granite slabs and turn it into stairs and fountains and such outside, and they will exist just fine without worrying about getting wet or getting dirty. But if you make a kitchen counter out of it, you have to put stuff all over the granite to protect it, and you can't leave glasses on it because water rings, and basically ruin the entire point of having a rock for a counter?

Maxus · Post by **Maxus** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 5:41 pm

Well, one, a lot of what they sell calling granite isn't actually granite, but superficially similar-looking things.

Second, it really depends on the individual piece of granite. Granite's basically a rock -type-, defined by having visible quartz crystals and not having a fuckton of iron or something (Tons of iron makes it gabbro, which is defined as "Basalt and granite had a baby". Gets sold as "black granite" because folks just can't believe it's named gabbro). If it's been cut and polished, there's a good chance it's not very permeable to water (or sealant). If it is, though, it can be awfully hard to get stains out of rock without drastic measures that eat away at the surface.

Googling around, it seems there's a test: leave a spot of water and mineral oil on the granite for five or ten minutes, wipe it off. If it left a dark spot in the stone, then yeah, it's permeable to water/non-water-based liquids and could probably benefit from a decent sealant if you don't want it picking up little marks. If you do need sealant, buying a decent one should last a year before you need to touch it up.

MisterDee · Post by **MisterDee** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 6:40 pm

So, anyone here in the high-end restaurant business in Europe? I have a friend who's looking for a job and he'd like to do the "gain experience in a Michelin-starred/legendary restaurant" bit for a year or two (although he's really looking for a first job in Europe now. I figure he probably doesn't want to do burger joints or diners though.)

The guy presumably has the required level of skills - I personnally know fuck all about cooking at that particular level. So this isn't a recommendation, I just told him I'd ask around for leads)

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Fri Feb 06, 2015 12:04 am

As Maxus points out, granite is a rock with visible crystals and very little iron or magnesium made with lots of feldspar, quartz, mica and hornblende in it. Feldspar is what causes the granite to stain, because feldspar slowly turns into kaolinite when exposed to water and kaolinite is a slightly different colour from feldspar. Outdoors this isn't an issue, since the entire rock will weather (and therefore change colour) at roughly the same rate and even if some spots did look different colours, people wouldn't really care. Indoors, it's bad because the rock isn't being exposed to water uniformly and people will care if there's a big dark splotch in the granite where you put your drinks down and around the sink.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Fri Feb 06, 2015 1:56 am

The cool thing with granite counters is that you can put very hot things on it with no trouble - like a pot you just pulled off the stove.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Feb 06, 2015 2:09 am

Ha! Good responses. I am more enlightened than I was before. Thanks, guys.

Fwib · Post by **Fwib** » Fri Feb 06, 2015 1:51 pm

Grek wrote:As Maxus points out, granite is a rock with visible crystals and very little iron or magnesium made with lots of feldspar, quartz, mica and hornblende in it. Feldspar is what causes the granite to stain, because feldspar slowly turns into kaolinite when exposed to water and kaolinite is a slightly different colour from feldspar. Outdoors this isn't an issue, since the entire rock will weather (and therefore change colour) at roughly the same rate and even if some spots did look different colours, people wouldn't really care. Indoors, it's bad because the rock isn't being exposed to water uniformly and people will care if there's a big dark splotch in the granite where you put your drinks down and around the sink.

Is it possible to artificially pre-weather granite counter-tops so that's not a problem?

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Fri Feb 06, 2015 4:12 pm

Fwib wrote:Is it possible to artificially pre-weather granite counter-tops so that's not a problem?

It is not. Kaolinite, in addition to being a different colour from feldspar, is much softer and more brittle. If you artificially weather granite until all the feldspar turns to kaolinite, the granite will turn into a particular kind gravel known as "grus" as a result.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:13 am

Is there any way of getting Microsoft Paint (Microsoft Paint specifically, not some shitty Mac alternative that either adds complications, lacks basic functions, or both. Seriously, I'm going to give a hearty fuck you to anyone who says get this sucky Apple alternative that probably costs money instead) on a Mac for free (or cheap) that doesn't require being a computer programmer? (As an aside, it's really jarring that you have to pay for apps that are included for free on a much cheaper Windows computer.) Googling for this has only given me Windows emulators that are impossible for a layman to use, ported over versions of Paint that don't work properly, a bunch of Mac snob responses of "oh, don't use Paint, you mainstream Philistine," and even more crappy Paint clones that aren't as good as the original and often cost money.

A tutorial for an emulator that doesn't suck would be acceptable, assuming I can understand it. And given that I don't understand computer programming at all it's possible that I'm too stupid to use any sort of emulator.

(And before anyone asks why I got a Mac in the first place, it was because I effectively had no choice. It was a gift from my sister after my old computer broke, and I don't want to hurt her feelings by saying her expensive computer sucks for everything I want to use a computer for. Otherwise I'd have returned it and bought a PC, and games to play on it)

erik · Post by **erik** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:24 am

Not Microsoft Paint, but I'll offer the best freebie mac image editor I've used so far.

Seashore has been one of the least buggy and shitty free mac image editors I've used.

Gimp, and plenty of others are fucking bugfests that crash in response to the most basic commands. I've felt your pain.

radthemad4 · Post by **radthemad4** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:37 am

Try running paint with WineBottler.

It appears to be possible, but, not owning a Mac, I can't say how hard it is to get it working.

Starmaker · Post by **Starmaker** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 10:35 am

radthemad4 wrote:Try running paint with WineBottler.

It appears to be possible, but, not owning a Mac, I can't say how hard it is to get it working.

^ Do this, it's easy. There's no alternative to mspaint with the transparent paste option.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 11:50 am

Roll20 is hiring a DM

I'm applying, but I have no clue what to quote for rates. I don't even know what would be close enough to give a basis. Ideas?

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 2:30 pm

Starmaker wrote:There's no alternative to mspaint with the transparent paste option.

Agreed. When I moved from XP to Win7, I was super pissed to find out the new version didn't have paste-transparent. So, before I gave my XP box away, I went into the system32 folder and ganked the exe to put on my new machine.

I tend to use Paint Dot Net for most image manipulation and GIMP for the few things PDN doesn't support, but nothing beats XP's MSPaint for quick, simple manipulations. Fewer button clicks and an easier GUI to get the simple jobs done faster.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 9:41 pm

In the vein of winebottler, I also use wineskin, which markets itself for games. Not sure which is better, but if one fails you can check out the other.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 3:19 am

Those roll20 guys are asking a lot, seems to me. Companies charge ~$2500 for a single corporate web video, where you're recording, editing down, and producing two a week with live customers (who will suck), plus a huge bunch of other time sinks and PR work where they look to be seeking to pay you per hour for not many hours, with all your own software and connection fees.

Hell, they're looking to leverage an existing high profile online rpg presence and tag their name on it. Good for them, but you need to work out your costs, cover taxes, and make enough profit to justify all the hours and gear they're not going to pay you for. What's the video editing suite you're using cost? Recent versions of Photoshop and Illustrator? Hardware to process things in a timely fashion? Bandwidth? Serious applicants will charge enough to cover all that and more.

Which is why corporate web videos go for ~$2500, and up. Hell, why rates? It reads like a salaried position: self-motivated, available, low hours, and shit like that, ask for a vote on the board.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 10:04 am

Thinking about it, they're essentially asking someone to be a Web Caster, Graphic Illustrator and Weekly Fiction writer all at once, with a side of Technical Writing. Oh, and Social Media Director. It almost sounds like they consider this an hourly position, with their thing about 15 hours a week, but that's nowhere near a realistic time quote for being a GM. If I were putting 15 hours a week into running a game, that'd be basically the low end of acceptable for prep time. If that's inclusive of game time... well the game better be short each week. If that's just game time, there's a lot of work one is doing of the clock.

But, looking up average salaries for Web Caster, Graphic Illustrator, and Weekly Fiction Columnist, I was able to put a ballpark salary at like $40k a year. I might cut that down to $35k because I would genuinely like this job, and I think I can lay forth why it would need to be considered a salaried position and why $35k is a fair rate.

But at the moment, I'm still working on putting together a resume for this.

Grek · Post by **Grek** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 7:22 pm

I think they mean 15 hours of play time/video content each week. Not including any session prep or anything, just you running and filming a five hour D&D session, a five hour Shadowrun session and a five hour Call of Cthulhu session for random Roll20 staffers every week.

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 7:45 pm

OK, I'm apparently too stupid to work Winebottler.

It can install and run Paint 98 effortlessly, but Paint 98 is too primitive (it doesn't recognize .png files, for instance. This is problematic when most image files I have saver are .png files, and I'm not going to convert every single file for the sake of quick image editing). It can't install Paint XP for reasons unknown. I followed every possible instruction, and got a Paint XP app set up. The app opens for a brief second (showing a bar that says "Preparing Paint XP") and then closes. I've tried deleting and reinstalling it, and that does nothing either.

I'm starting to suspect that the universe is conspiring against me having Paint on this computer. So this is apparently driving me insane as well.

Fuck Apple. Seriously, just fuck Apple.

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 8:05 pm

Are you using Yosemite? I can pick up a Mac real quick and give it a shot.

EDIT: Also, where are you downloading Paint?

Darth Rabbitt · Post by **Darth Rabbitt** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 8:40 pm

No, I'm using Maverick (specifically OS X 10.9.5)

And I downloaded Paint XP here: http://www.mspaintxp.com/