Weeds Are Us | Michael Pollan

A century after Thoreau wrote, “In wildness is the preservation of the world,” Wendell Berry, the Kentucky poet and farmer, added a corollary that probably would have made no sense to Thoreau: “In human culture is the preservation of wildness.”

Thoreau, and his many descendants among contemporary naturalists and radical environmentalists, assume that human culture is the problem, not the solution. So they urge us to shed our anthropocentrism and learn to live among other species as equals. This sounds like a nice, ecological idea, until you realize that the earth would be even worse off than it is if we started behaving any more like animals than we already do. The survival strategy of most species is to extend their dominion as far and as brutally as they can, until they run up against some equally brutal natural limit that checks their progress. Isn’t this precisely the course we’ve been on?

What sets us apart from other species is culture, and what is culture but forbearance? Conscience, ethical choice, discrimination: surely it is these very human, and decidedly unecological, principles that offer the planet its last best hope. It is true that, historically, we’ve concentrated on exercising these faculties in the human rather than the natural estate, but that doesn’t mean they cannot be exercised there.

via michaelpollan.com

A great, meandering article that initially starts out as a reflection on weeds and gardens, and weeds *in* gardens, and turns into a much broader contemplation of ecology and human culture.

Battle For Lion's Arch Necro/Rit Spiritual Heal n Prot Bot

I frequently pug BLA for fun, and today looking through my Google analytics stuff (which I only do very, very irregularly), I find a very large number of searches for builds for BLA. >.>

No Zmobie Left Behind works well in BLA. I would recommend taking Blood Ritual over Go for the Eyes! though, since non-necro healers are very, very energy-hungry in this fight.

However, since there were ever so many searches, I'll share a healer build I run very often as well. No, it's not a monk healer build. I *have* a monk healer build I use for BLA, but to tell the total truth, the necro build is so much less stressful because of the infinite energy from Soul Reaping - especially in this fight. That being said, I would strongly advise against using this build anywhere else. The only reason it works well is that things are dying so fast, in such a small area, in BLA. It has absolutely no e-management (other than Soul Reaping), and very energy-heavy spells.

So, here it is:

BLA Necro/Rit Spiritual Heal n Prot Bot

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Skills
Soothing Memories
Mend Body & Soul
Spirit Light Weapon {Elite}
Protective Was Kaolai
Shelter
Rejuvenation
Life
Union

Stats
Soul Reaping [8] + [4]
Restoration [12]
Communing [10]

Gear

  • Superior Soul Reaping rune
  • Mix of Survivor and Radiant Insignia
  • Major or Superior vigor rune
  • 2 Attunement and 1 Vitae rune to finish off
  • Sword/Spear and Shield (hsr/hct and hp are good. Do not go for energy, or you may have e problems when you recast Protective Was Kaolai)

Campaigns Needed
Factions, Nightfall (only if using Xinrae's Weapon or Weapon of Remedy in place of Spirit Light Weapon).

How to Use

  • Put all your spirits up, preferably a little behind the two pillars in front of the gates of Lion's Arch (near the first stairs)
  • Carry Protective Was Kaolai at all times
  • Drop Protective Was Kaolai to counter group damage (dropping it twice should give you a 180hp party heal)
  • Use Soothing Memories as your main heal (energy efficient when clutching Protective Was Kaolai - what, a necro/rit talking about energy efficiency? Shhhhh.)
  • Mend Body & Soul to remove conditions
  • Spirit Light Weapon to top up / counter degen, Mursaat, general stupidity, etc. You should almost always have at least one spirit in range, so Spirit Light Weapon should be healing for 24hp/s
  • Renew spirits as fast as they die / your binding rituals recharge

Variants

  • Xinrae's Weapon instead of Spirit Light Weapon [Requires Nightfall] If you don't like how people keep running out of range of spirits to chase things out the gates of Lion's Arch, thereby making Spirit Light Weapon heal for a measly 12hp/s, use Xinrae's Weapon instead. At least it even comes with a mini prot! XD
  • Weapon of Remedy instead of Spirit Light Weapon [Requires Nightfall] So many conditions! AaaAa! And as mentioned, people keep running out of spirit range? (Where they don't usually live too long anyway...) Weapon of Remedy is the remedy for your woes! Off go those conditions. Wootz! Consider replacing Mend Body & Soul with Spirit Transfer, but be aware that the latter is a 10e spell
  • Recuperation instead of Rejuvenation +3 Health regen for all your allies! And in BLA, you have a LOT of allies. And minions, should you have a MM, count as allies too. Of course, it doesn't top off party members quite as well as Recuperation, so it's purely a matter of personal preference. It's also appreciably more expensive to cast.

Counters

  • General Caster Hate
  • People running out of spirit range - no moar protz on them makez squisheh! With emphasis on HEH. -_-

Additional notes
Don't you have e management problems? You don't have any e management.
Nope.EVERYTHING dying to the left and right. If your enemies aren't dying, your allies certainly are! What's there to manage? And besides. Necros? Emanagement? AHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ahem.

This build is so expensive! :(
There are worse builds. However, you can skimp and use a Major Vigor instead of Superior Vigor, if your sword/spear and shield have Fortitude mods.

Can heroes use this?
I haven't tried this on a hero, but they should use it pretty well. There's nothing in that bar that heroes use badly, iirc.

And that's that!

P.S.: To the guy who was looking for, "How the fuck do I get to Nahpui Quarter," sorry to disappoint you with screenshots. XD

Ha! Obviously, the Golden Glowing Goodness of the Nuggetty Batter Dazzles Their Eyes and Brainz!

...because what is it with these people?

This evening, as I was standing in the subway, minding my own business, nose in a book while waiting for someone, a salesguy for some random stuff (there were a bunch of them, and I don't know what they were selling), trots up to me and asks, 'Are you local?'

O.o

Look I wasn't even talking! He'd never heard me speak! I was just reading! XD

And then there was that taxi driver a week or so ago, who, at the end of a 20 minute ride, solemnly told me, 'You're Japanese. I can tell. You sound Japanese.'

OoOoOOOk.

And for the record, I'm not Japanese, and I'm supposedly local, though from all these specimens you probably couldn't tell.

...no idea what the nugget is ranting about? See my previous rant.

Nugget Cooking Iz MMO Crafting!

I came to the rather disturbing realisation this morning that my style of 'cooking' is almost exactly like MMO crafting.

  1. Get raw chicken (or cow, or piggy, or ... whatever)
  2. Add assorted herbs that I like (lotus seeds, fake cordyceps, polygonatum rhizona, lily flowers, whatever)
  3. Mix the entire mass together in a large-ish bowl, with spices from a premixed spicepack
  4. Pour water in rice cooker (about half the cooker's capacity)
  5. Put bowl in rice cooker
  6. Turn on and close rice cooker
  7. Press down button
  8. Wait till done
  9. NOM!

In other words, collect ingredients in backpack, press button and wait. O.o

The funniest thing is, with the right spicepack choices, this actually produces delicious (if not particularly aesthetic) food!

>.> <.< Advanced crafting requiring skeelz? >.> <.< Pah!

P.S.: One can even craft ginormous muffins this way.

Ze Weekly Nuggetsketch

My first attempt with a new program - Livebrush.

Livebrush is interesting for a couple of reasons, not least among them that it seems to present a more intuitive and fluid way to work with vector brushwork than Illustrator.

Takes a bit of getting used to, though, because what dictates the width/strength of the lines isn't pressure, but speed. The faster I move my brush, the fatter the lines I get.

That being said, I am a total nub at this, so it's entirely possible that there's a way to adjust so that the lines respond to pressure, and not speed.

The program itself seems pretty nice in terms of responsiveness, and the kinds of lines that are generated. Especially nice is that for just US$10, I'll have the option to export the entire thing as vector shapes.

I'll probably play with this some more on my upcoming holiday.

I also find it interesting how adapting to / learning this new tool has resulted in something quite far (I think) from my usual linework... Omm!