I loved Gentoo, it was the first distro I actually stuck with for more than a couple months, I used for 7 years or so.

I went to arch because something broke (probably my fault) and I needed to write a paper that was due soon, and compilation of the required software took too long, so I switched so it wouldn’t happen again. Arch was sold to me as “Gentoo with binaries”.

That being said I think you’re being unfair. I read the Arch’s wiki before installing unknown packages, mostly skimming, just like I did with Gentoo but Gentoo’s docs were somewhat superior. The docs were one of the things I missed.

Most of the time I didn’t read about the use-flags, except for big packages like Gnome. I only changed the use-flags if I knew for sure I wouldn’t use that functionality, so all the maybes and what-ifs still got compiled. TBH fiddling too much with use-flag feels like a newbie thing. On Arch there are actually more steps: I install the big multi-packages then uninstall the ones I don’t want, because those are less than the ones I want, and I don’t risk missing something.

On neither Gentoo or Arch I read the docs of the dependencies unless there’s a specific reason.

Same goes for the Kernel. Don’t disable things you don’t know about, enable all things you maybe will use and all the what-ifs. Once I knew what these were, setting this was quick and simple because they are actually just a couple options.

All that only has to do once, because once you know, even if you reinstall the OS you don’t have to investigate again unless something goes wrong because of changes.

The community of Gentoo is great! Arch’s community is okay.

With both Arch and Gentoo you have to learn about the system and make choices. With Gentoo you have to make more choices but making them and learning is easier than Arch. If OP used Gentoo this would have gone smoother.

I lurk 99% of the time and post 1% of the time

There’s also variants that are meant to make the game more beginner-friendly. I have won ADOM, but I still haven’t been able to get to the castle in NetHack (despite NetHack being my first roguelike) but I’ve gotten a lot better in the last few months, and my current character is a very promising rogue with a 16 strength and a large dog pet at the Mine’s End, so we’ll see what happens if I don’t hit a snag at Sokoban :)

That point about the Gauntlets of Power and the darts is interesting… I know there is a strength bonus but I didn’t count with them

EDIT: and indeed, my character died before it could make proper use of the crossbow bolts, where with darts you can make use of them right away since they are plentiful. It died due to me experimenting with my character, wondering ‘what happens if I try this?’ tho

Indeed

I’ve found that NetHack is a game where you have a brush with death once or twice every one or two levels.You just need to know how to get out of it, and you’ll be fine. Screw up that one time… and you’re gone

My current character is in early stages. I just ate two poisonous corpses that took my strength from 13 to 6… but at least I got poison resistance out of the second one. I kill a golden naga hatchling which is complicated because I have to throw more daggers than I have to kill it. Then a red naga hatchling appears, I try to kill it but it just won’t die. I decide to run, but the only place is downstairs. I kill a dwarf which nets me sweet new armor, which I risked equipping without curse testing, because I might not survive the hatchling that’s next to the stairs upstairs. Then for some wicked reason a Marilith appears at depth 8… so I run back upstairs (I do have a blessed scroll of tport ready tho) turns out the naga hatchling was in it’s last HP points, so it died in two turns. I’m safe for now, but I’m going up to Sokoban to get some of that strength back

There was a study that found that Aspartame increased cancer risk, which was used as the base for all the current claims. The study was found to be flawed and it has not been reproduced since then, but due to confirmation bias and the desire to manipulate others the idea keeps communicating. That’s one weakness of science, you can make up research and the average person will use it to confirm their biases, even if it’s one study versus a hundred

That being said, there may be other risks with artificial sweeteners, I’m just talking about that specific study

Science is complicated and most people don’t know how to apply it. For example, an university graduate does not know how to read published research and how to apply it to the real world, because beyond training that needs a lot of practice and feedback. People think that hearing the news or reading the paper will let them know the truth; it won’t because they haven’t developed the capacity to do so, yet they ask for a source they can’t really understand. That’s why you are supposed to go to a professional instead of doing what you think you should do on your own

The only people I’ve found that are worth giving sources to are PhDs or experts in their fields. Everyone else just fucks up interpreting them

The problem is that I have so many

• I fall in a pit of spikes, when I get up there are 2 chickatrices, I could kill them but I’m not going to risk it. I try to escape and suddenly a panther is in the way. I try to use the E-word but don’t have any means to do it fast and permanent so I use my finger. I fail until I’m a couple turns from dying. I pray… oops I forgot I still have the penalty from that werejackal I ate (thinking it was a regular jackal corpse). I try to kill the panther, and I manage to do substantial damage but I’m not sure how far I am from killing it… so let’s use an escape item. I thought it would be safer to keep my escape items inside my sack so I take another turn to take out my scroll of tport… The panther hits! You die…

• I was at a point that I could one-shot basically anything in melee. A monster spams a wand of create monster. I take it easy and mow through the enemies. A monster is generated with a wand… misses me three times… then it hits me… it was a wand of death

• I’m in a shop. There’s a gas spore, but it’s not attacking me and I won’t attack it. I look through the items and a yellow light blinds me. I walk into the gas spore and kill it. The explosion hurts the shopkeeper goes crazy with his wands and kills me before I can act

Just a few off the top of my head