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Hello. Apologies for the lateness, some IRL happened and such and all that.

It is the 1st of Granite of the year 254. This year, you will be exposed to the brilliant tones of Dwarf Fortress as I have become too used to seeing it.

I have been left with a decently prosperous fortress, and the dwarves are happy.

If we are surviving, we can push onward. The deepest mark we have left in the stone is at Elevation 29, in our central stairwell. The depths of the world will make us much more prosperous, if we can exploit them.

...However, that will have to wait for a moment.

The siege is large, and our military is unlikely to win in a straight fight. A full alarm is declared, with the gates to the outside closed.

The dead reach the KOMPACTOR,

and it is hungry. Several dark hunters are pulverized.

Back to delving, then. An exploratory borehole is made in a section easily closed off.

...and somehow, we miss breaching anything at all. At -116, we hit semi-molten rock. Very well: magma forges are my favorite. Let's ignore the siege outside and get at this stuff.

After some careful delving, we find what we're looking for. Hot stuff.

Something else, too.

It sure is pretty, but this year's project is magma exploitation now.

First, a mood to help along, though. Exciting! Mineral gathers everything needed, and works away. The creation ends up being Ethbeshtaron Tureltunur, a chert scepter.

Not particularly interesting or valuable, but it is certainly a sign to move forward with leadership as we move into

Summer

Work on the forge-area starts in earnest, though dwarves are exceedingly cautious despite knowing full well that they're above the magma. Meanwhile, the undead climb the tower noticing the main gate is open, which is great for us as they go in one by one, dampening the mood but being easily dispatched. Due to the location on the borehole and weight of the stone, work is exceedingly slow as many dwarves must hold off the trickle of undead.

Autumn

Yep, work is slow. Bigger concerns on the surface, just boring ones.

To distract from the forgeworks, another mood! WillowWalker creates Tadenshal, a set of tetrahedrite mechanisms.

And at last the forge is up.

Winter

A smelter follows, with the Magma Crafting Area now fully completed. A decently-sized area for future storage is dug on the level above. To commemorate this occasion, pig iron and steel are ordered to be made off of this smelter. The one to make the first steel bar powered by the depths of Armok's creation is Erush Zefonsebïr, a Fish Cleaner necromancer named after nobody.

Lor Cattenkadol is possessed, going less smoothly. My assumption is that a type of thread we do not have is needed: yet, it is late winter, and finding cave spiders may prove too long an undertaking. Still, orders are sent in to make the stuff as soon as we have it. MatsurisAhoge is appointed as our manager, as the previous holder was needed for military work too often and orders kept not getting put into the list.

Overall, an uneventful year, with the dwarves only whittling at the invasion force while the underground project is worked on. But with access to magma, what might the next overseer be able to do? The dwarves are happy enough, the supplies are full enough, and there are many options available.

My successor @BFBugleberry will be sent the save shortly after I fricked up nameclicking the first time. Best of luck!

Player list in order of succession:

@60horsesinmyherd

@Cream_a_da_crop

@s_a_n_t_b

@Spysix

@searcher

@BFBugleberry

@Rankine_911

@Yasharn

@Losercel

@Ninjjer

@duck

I'll make this an effort post since I know you zoomies know nothing about the Internet or gaming before 2015.

Dyack in the middle

Silicon Knights

Silicon Knights was a Canadian developer who made a few decent games, like Legacy of Kain and the Gamecube remake of Metal Gear Solid. They're mainly remembered for the classic Gamecube horror game Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, which is quite good for its time and is notable for being the only rated-M game ever published directly by Nintendo. They were lead by a guy named Dennis Dyack, a whiny manchild who doomed his company to fail.

Zoomers: This was considered scary in 2002

To give you an idea of their management, here's an image of games in production, games that were cancelled or abandoned before release are marked in yellow. Note the staggering ratio of unreleased/released games:

Anyways, Dyack's passion project for decades had always been a game called Too Human, but every effort to make it had been abortive. After the successes of Eternal Darkness and MGS, Dyack decides the Wii doesn't have shiny enough graphics and makes the bold choice to unshackle his company from a lucrative position as a Nintendo third party so he can truly fulfill his vision on the superior XBawx Please Fix Me. Silicon Knights shacks up with Microsoft and Epic Games and produce an E3 demo (zoomers: people used to go to an annual convention for video game trailers) which is received overwhelmingly negatively.

Dyack is NOT HAPPY and goes on the IGN forums to whine about how the critics will regret their words and deeds:

Unedited clip from Too Human

NeoGAF

Once upon a time there was a gayming website called Gaming Age, with their forum called the Gaming Age Forum (or GAF). Eventually Gaming Age imploded, but the top two jannies (Evillore and Bishoptl) were able to move their community to a new forum, appropriately called NeoGAF. You wouldn't know it these days with GAF being a shambling corpse and its spinoff ResetERA being what it is, but pre-G*merGate GAF was chill and a place where industry figures would show up and sperg out while everyone laughed at them.

Dennis Dyack makes a bet

Once such figure was our hero, Dyack. With his new slop getting trashed by GAFfers, he makes a thread to bet on how it'll turn out:

Right now the man just appears confident in his project. But his next post is a bit more... unhinged, and seems to be setting the bar rather low by making alreay-forgotten games Lair and Haze the standard to beat:

He then goes for an interview on 1up (Zoomers: Now-defunct gaming journo site) and whined about how people saying mean things online is ruining America and how if the NeoGAF mods don't start respecting Denis Dyack and Too Human he's going to call the Internet Police and shut them down!

Dyack then does another interview where he declares that not only is NeoGAF the worst forum in the world, but forums in general are evil and this is why the US military no longer uses writing:

Too Human comes out and scores lower than Haze. In classic GAF fashion the top janny punishes Dyack for losing the bet by writing lots of words and then perma-banning him. Dyack copes by saying g*mers are too stupid to understand his genius.

By this point the capital-G G*mers are pissed at Dyack in a way that prefigures G*merGate in a way. Seething articles are written speculating that angering the G*mers has resulted in him not just being banned from NeoGAF, but divorced from his wife, kicked out of the house, abandoned by his employees, his car towed, banned from every website ever, banned from the city of Niagara and tossed over the waterfall.

He messed with g*mers. G*mers.

The Saga Ends

Denis Dyack has brought Silicon Knights from one of the more respected devs in the industry to basically a joke. Following the failure of Too Human Dyack blamed the Unreal Engine and Epic Games and made the genius decision to sue them. This didn't go their way and by 2012 they owed Epic millions of dollars, had less than five employees, and were legally obligated to destroy all of their unsold games and source code.

In the meantime they had six more projects (including two sequels for Too Human) which were cancelled before they finally released another game, the absolutely awful X-Men Destiny, which turns out to be their last. In desperation, Dyack crawls back to Nintendo and pitches a sequel to their last hit, Eternal Darkness. NeoGAF insider reveals that Nintendo is agreeable until SK loses the lawsuit against Epic, and they decide they'd rather not fork over $10 million in legal fees so SK can survive, which Dyack denied. Former SK staff reveal that this was the case and part of the reason the X-Men game sucked was because Dyack was taking money given by Activision for that game and instead putting it toward Eternal Darkness II.

Years later Dyack attempts to kickstart his own Eternal Darkness successor and makes $300,000 out of the $700,000 target. He has yet to make another game. The end!

Dyack, left

tl;dr

You might have heard of xoxohth, aka AutoAdmit, a couple of years ago when it cropped up in the news after a writer for Tucker Carlson was forced to resign after someone doxxed his posts on the site, which included bangers such as replying to a 2 year old thread titled “Would u let a JET BLACK congo n****er do lasik eye surgery on u for 50% off?” with the thought provoking answer, "I wouldn't get LASIK from an Asian for free, so no." As CNN graciously explains in their article: "The subject line was not censored on the forum."

But what, you may ask, is xoxohth? Well, to get the answer to that, we need to go way, way back, to a week in March of 2004, when, while listening to Green Day on his Motorola Razr and buying tickets to Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, a 19 year old member of the Princeton Review test prep forum named Jared "rachmiel" Cohen, got together with an MIT student, alias Boondocks, and a UPenn Law student named Anthony Ciolli to start https://xoxohth.com, a simple PHP-based forum for law students. Xoxo experienced rapid growth, and quickly became one of the more popular forums for law students on the internet, fueled in part by its pseudo-anonymous posting and lax moderating standards.

Like many online-communities, AutoAdmit over time developed its own vocabulary (some of which can still be found sometimes on current law school forums, such as https://Top-Law-Schools.com). The slang had the added benefit of making xoxo borderline unreadable to someone out of the loop. Fear not, dear reader, for I shall loop you in:

• 180 - A perfect score on the LSAT and used by users much in the same as "based" is today.

• CR - "Credited/Correct Response" - Self explanatory.

• Ding - Being rejected.

• TTT - "Third Tier Potty" - The bottom ranking group law schools on USNWR, which is the definitive ranking of law schools. Means something that is bad.

• WGWAG" - "White Guys with Asian Girls"

• NOWAG - "No One with Asian Guys"

• reptiles - Conservatives

• shitlibs - Liberals

• pumos - after creating an account, you could change your monikor at will, and many users who didn't want a post associated with their other posts would change to it a random collections of punctuation marks (i.e. .,./,./.,/.,/.,/,/.,). Such users were pumos (punctuation marks).

• shitlaw - Any area of law outside of BigLaw (and possibly government).

• Poasting - Participating on the site.

A more complete (but non-exhaustive) list can be found on the EncylopediaDramatica entry on xoxo.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "but these are law students, right? Productive members of society (), who shall soon be respected professionals. These forums must surely be be full of interesting, intellectual discussion, advice on how to get into law school, how to do well, maybe how to find jobs, right?" And in a way it was all those things. But, my dear reader, you mustn't forget that in those days the internet had not yet acquired the feminine touch for which it is so known today. Xoxo was, like anything, a product of its time, as evidenced by a random sampling of some posts between 2004-2006:

• Got a F in class (in which the author gets informed by multiple users that he deserved it, as its "an F", not "a F")

• Rank the Asian Herarchy (consensus seems to be Japan > Korea > China)

• Lehigh University has some hot bitches (which has no comments, as users are too in awe at this sage wisdom to say anything).

But, you see, unlike a peer website such as 4chan, where the fingers behind the screen belong to an unemployed IT admin living in his parents basement, users behind posts such as the below masterpiece are written by a 22 year old, who, more likely than not, will be wearing a suit and making $200,000 within 2 or 3 years:

And so, a strange dynamic was formed, where this anonymous shitposting that could rival even the most debased /pol/ posting was read by a large enough portion of the already tightly knit law community that it lead, for example, to a Harvard Law grad not being able to find a law firm job after becoming a meme on the site because somebody posted about her without her knoweldge. Another strange part of this dynamic is that today, there is a good number of law firm partners, making millions or tens of millions of dollars a year, who started their career 2 decades ago with posts such as Autodinging chicks who've dated/fricked a black...racist? And, also, one must not forget that all of these posts were sandwiched between posts actually related to law school, such as advice on which school to choose and name the best cities to begin a career in.

As xoxo became more popular, it did not go unnoticed by the larger legal community. As one can imagine, such a community is prone to posting and the forum slowly made its way into the Real World™. Articles such as Pestilence, War, Famine, Death…and Unemployment?: An Analysis of the Internet Message Boards' Impact on Law Firm Recruitment, Why are Message Boards So Mean, and Oh My God, You Guys, Lawyers Are Actually Totally Mean! started cropping up all over the place. This marked the beginning of the end for good old xoxo.

Things boiled over in 2007. As taken from wiki (because I'm lazy):

On 12 June 2007, two Yale Law School students filed a lawsuit against Anthony Ciolli and a number of AutoAdmit's anonymous posters, claiming their "character, intelligence, appearance, and sexual lives have been thoroughly trashed by the defendants". Filed in the District Court of Connecticut, the case, Doe v. Ciolli, 307CV00909 CFD, cited violation of privacy, defamation, infliction of undue emotional distress, and copyright infringement against Ciolli and several anonymous posters. The two plaintiffs were represented pro bono by the litigation boutique Keker & Van Nest LLP, David N. Rosen, a Yale Law School professor, and Mark Lemley, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in computer and internet law. It was said at the time that while AutoAdmit's reported lack of IP logging might prevent the plaintiffs from learning the defendants' true identities, the case could prove significant within computer and internet law if it came to trial. The plaintiffs subsequently dropped Ciolli's name from the list of defendants, and successfully obtained Doe subpoenas of Internet service providers (ISPs) in hopes of identifying the anonymous defendants. As of August 2008 the attorneys had discovered the names of some, but not all, of the offending posters.

The lawsuit exposed the site to a level of fame it had not previously had, and it became an archetype of the "bad internet," going so far as being mentioned in the same sentence as /b/ by the Newspaper of Record. With the fame came real life consequences for those caught associating with the site and Anthony Ciolli, one of the co-founders gets his job offer rescined and quits the forum.

Still, the forum remained popular. So popular, in fact, that a WSJ article about the law suit started with "For all you AutoAdmit junkies..." And, because this was the in prehistoric times, when we weren't all as civilized as we are now, the forum even had its share of high-profile defenders, who exalted the (now widely understood to be evil) notion of free speech. The Dean of Penn Law, for example, posted a letter on the site stating that, "while debates should be encouraged, 'we all have a moral and professional obligation to engage in that debate in a responsible manner.'" Imagine that.

But still, death comes for us all, and, with time, the infamy and controversy caused students to move away from xoxo to greener pastures. And yet, the site still exists, now full of a few remaining original users, now in their 40s, who mostly posts such things as "Which escort with HUGE TITS should I frick in VEGAS" (not a shitpost btw, reviews of hookers have become a staple on nu-xoxo.) And, after the Tucker fiasco, rachmiel, who still manages the site, randomized all monikers, making reading the site even harder than it already was. On top of this, signing up for the site still requires putting in a law firm or law school username, which no one in their right mind would do. And so, it persists as a zombie version of itself, with a few sad lawyers (or, mostly, ex-lawyers), boomer posting about Trump and giving tips on how to cheat on your wife.

There is much more to say on the topic, and perhaps if this gains traction I will make a Part 2 talking about some of the better posts on the site and some of its more interesting characters. But, for the moment, I had a sudden flash of clarity and realized I have just spent over an hour writing a summary of a 20 year old shitposting forum for https://rDrama.net, and will now go reflect deeply on the choices that have brought me here.

Rdrama is so white that we got scooped on this issue by fricking NBC News.

Joanna Georges, 22, of New Jersey, was excited to get her hair done. She had contacted Alexis Antoine on social media to get box braids, and paid the $100 deposit to secure her 6 a.m. spot on Antoine's schedule for Sept. 2. But the night before, Georges said, Antoine pushed her appointment, first to 8 a.m, then 9 a.m., then to 10 a.m.

“I had a feeling after waking up and seeing my appointment was pushed back that it just wasn't going to work out,” Georges told NBC News. Still, she said she made the 20-minute walk to Antoine's home for the appointment, only to get no response from the stylist.

“I'm just waiting outside her house for an hour,” she recalled. “I finally made my way home and she texted me, like, ‘I'm so sorry. I fell asleep.'”

The botched appointment set off a monthslong ordeal, with Georges urging Antoine on social media to return her security deposit. Georges said Antoine repeatedly gave excuses for not sending back the money and continued to put it off. Unsuccessful, Georges ultimately decided to sue Antoine in small claims court in Hudson County's Superior Court of New Jersey.

I figured there's got to be more so I searched "stylist" on /r/blackladies. And holy shit this is a hilarious cottage industry of random trashy bitches scamming people with their shitty dubiously licensed "small business" and I had no idea it was this bad.

I have been looking to get my ends trimmed by one of the natural stylists. I dont wear my hair straight so I dont want to get it flat ironed for a trim plus it messes with the shape of the hair. All the places are $200. I have 2 inches of hair in the longest spots. I'm happy there are people offering the service and the knowledge is there but why dont any of these places have a middle ground.

I figured out why black women are poor

black hair stylist / braiders need to realize that their services are a LUXURY not a necessity because why am i being charged an extra $25 for being 5 minutes late?

these same stylist will be 10-20 minutes late to their appointments because they can't manage time and then charge the customer for being late. these stylists need to recognize that this is not a necessity. Even the necessary appointments give us a grace period, for FREE. the lack of customer service offered from a SERVICE is baffling to me. Plus, why is the cost for knotless braids like $200+ up now?

If it's not a necessity than surely you can stop paying for it, right? (pretend this is a demand curve)

There's a lot of reasons why I turned to YouTube University School of Cosmetology.

Incidentally this is the same school the stylist went to.

On the app some stylist don't release the location of their shop until 24-48 hrs before the appt so the day before I realized I still didn't know where the shop was.

I'm not on enough levels of racism to understand why this could be !chuds any ideas?

I booked a fulani braid for juneteenth two years ago on style seat. I live in phoenix az. It was 120 degrees outside she was an hour late because she was moving from her apartment. When she finally got there and Im boiling alive in my car, she says she needs lunch. WHY BOOK ME IF YOURE BUSY???

dude I'm busy lmao

Booked the appointment and sent her a message asking if I could book a blow out as well. She said yes but it would have to be a silk press. Fine, whatever. Booked the silk press ($125) in addition to the take down ($175). Then she messaged me asking if I wanted an Olaplex treatment and trim (extra $70+). I said no thank you, I just had a trim before I had my braids put in.

She continued to try and sell me on it as being healthy for my hair, and I just said thanks again, but I'm only interested in the take down and silk press.

Then she said, "As a healthy hair stylist, that doesn't work for me. I'm cancelling both of your appointments". I asked her if she would just do the braid take down and she said no.

https://old.reddit.com/r/blackladies/comments/16f7pj4/these_hair_stylists_are_nuts/?sort=controversial

$300 deposit

Apparently these people do house calls:

We had an appointment yesterday for 9am and she texted me that she had arrived at 9:03 and there was no parking. I responded “no worries, take your time and hopefully something open up soon”

About 15 minutes later, I receive this text along with her leaving and me scrambling to find another braider:

“I've realized over the past year of service you in your home. There has been a lack of care for me as your stylist having proper parking. It would have been helpful as my client to make sure parking is available when I arrive to start in a timely manner. Unfortunately, I can't continue to service you anymore. I wish you the best in your future. God Bless. “

https://old.reddit.com/r/blackladies/comments/19bik98/hair_stylists_again/?sort=controversial

My appointment was for 8:30 [...] By 8:50am -9am, a woman shows up, opens the salon, shes not my stylist.

I introduce my self, sit on the couch and she tells me to sit in the salon chair so she can start my hair. I dont even know who she is and if she is able to even do my hair. So I comply because im desperate. Turns out to be my stylists cousin.

Then my stylist rolls in at 9:30 am, and AFTER eating, starts doing my hair around 9:50~ along with their cousin.

We really need a black

I've never had a hair appointment start on time. Like you, I usually book the earliest appointment available. That way if I'm meant to be in the chair at 9:00 a.m. I know I'll at least get started by 10:30. It's an unfortunate part of the experience.

It truly is. I didnt eat breakfast, have coffee or even have water because I was running late. I know for next time.

This is how it would feel if you didn't eat breakfast.

Would you be offended if your stylist was on the phone the whole time they were doing your hair? I think maybe a 5 or 10 minute conversation but the whole time strikes me as unprofessional and not relaxing.

i prefer it, less time i have to speak to them

They may be black women but they're still redditors

There's no non-racist way to ask this but why don't they just do whatever they did back in slavery days