I play a lot of board games. And I own a lot of board games. Not all of my games get played very much, so I like to track each play and over time see which games are forgotten gems or which games I’d be best to just trade away.

In the board game community, you might come across people talking about the “Friendless” metric of their collection. It’s a totally made up measurement, invented by a person with the user name Friendless. In that way, it’s like the Elo rating in chess and other games. I find it’s useful to know when I’m “done” with something that doesn’t really have an end, like playing board games. You can always play one more game.

Friendless hypothesized that if you play a game 10 times, you’ve gained 90% of its remaining utility. So after 10 plays, you consumed 90% of the game play that game provides. After another 10 plays, you’re at 99%. By the time you reach 30 plays, you’ve consumed 99.9% of the game.

You can do the same with games. Maybe the number of plays changes a bit. Maybe it’s not the number of plays, but the number of hours. I would say that games of Civ are like games of any other board game: 10 = 90% utility gained. Matches in COD, probably not the same.

This is a really interesting article. Thank you!

I’ll totally agree that the author did not do a great job of stating their thesis plainly. However, I think that the article isn’t incoherent. The author is writing about why they are surprised and disappointed that France and the Olympics gave Tom Cruise a global spotlight. They claim he’s too much in bed with Scientology to make supporting him possible without supporting them. And they claim that France and french media should know better than to support Scientology.

I think it’s a reasonable objection and I’m glad someone is objecting. Although, again, I agree that the article could have benefited from having that thesis clearly written from the start.

That is incredibly cute! Thanks

I love it!

Gonna piggy back on your comment to agree with OP. I get such joy from reading Becky Chambers!

Right?! So excited for season Two and so excited that we’ll get to see a proper (planned) ending to the series instead of a slow fading away before cancellation.

That is an amazing acronym and I wish to see it everywhere!

Well done! I really like the colours and the pattern. Does the bottom hem have a sawtooth kind of edge? Is it made of diamonds or did you fill in the gaps with triangles?

Thank you for this! Lots of people online have pushed forward the idea that Google search results are not as useful as before. This was the first article that I’ve read that did a good job of quantifying what that actually means and providing context as to why it is happening.

Thanks for this! I had no idea about the history of the game.

That is super cute! Is it green because sloths sometimes play host to algae?

Damn. I had forgotten what actual journalism looks like. There was actual work done here to investigate and acquire facts. I’ve been reading “articles” that are just paraphrased PR statements for so long. This was a breath of fresh air.

That sounds incredibly difficult. From some of your other comments, it seems like you’re being really transparent with partners about your own challenges. That’s impressive.

You are worthy of being loved, regardless of whether or not someone is actually showing you that love. Things can and will change all throughout your life. There’s good reason to have hope. Take care.

Thank you so much. Those are words I didn’t know before now, and I’m learning so much from the articles I’m reading.

I am trying to imagine how the rows of this blanket would be formed. It looks like each row contains two different coloured fibers, and you’re forming knots with one and just working the other fiber in? Forming the knot around the other fiber? And it looks like different rows are using different pairs of colour. So at the end of the current row you’re dropping the two fibers and then picking up the fibers from the previous row and using those to start the next row?

It’s a beautiful piece. I can imagine why you’d never want to do it again.

Wandersong is a game about happiness that made me really happy while I was playing it. Not all the way through; there are parts that are sad too. But I’m thinking of replaying it because it made me feel really happy when I played it the first time.

I’ve been enjoying my Fairphone 4 a lot since getting it last year. This camera update really improved the experience of taking photos.

Thank you! I might check that out.

Seems like a solid article.

I would have loved to see more said about the effort required to move from having traditional relationships to ENM relationships. Something about the article being a Dos and Don’ts makes me feel it’s targeted at newcomers, and having a healthy respect for how big that leap is could be really helpful.

I found a ton of the information in Poly Secure by Jessica Fern to be just what I needed when I read it.