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My path to running a marathon | May 2021

Recommendations

iOS Games

The Battle of Polytopia

Polytopia is a simplified, and faster to play version of Civilization. It requires careful planning and strategy to win against the hardest ranked computer opponents which makes it engaging. I recommend upgrading deep into a small number of branches in the skill tree rather than spreading evenly across them. In different terms, a Depth First Search strategy is better than a Breadth First Search strategy. Knights and Bomber boats are particularly important to obtain. If you're able to unlock either of these before an opponent does you'll have a period to inflict massive damage or simply drain their resources - a powerful position to be in.
Thronefall
Thronefall is a unique take on the tower defense genre. The main changes are:
1. you control a player which can attack enemies
2. there is a large set of perks and weapons to choose from
3. there are many options of how to spend your gold, including defensive structures, your army, your player, and your economy
Because of the choices in how to spend your gold (yourself, your army, your towers, or your economy), there are different strategies for how to play, the main ones being to build out your self, your army, or your tower defense system. Investing in the tower defense system is the clear meta for the game in my opinion. Towers have higher damage output and survivability per cost compared to the other options, as well as a great scalability. For example, on a later game map you may have 3 archer barracks, you can have 10 towers. The AI controlling archers is pretty dumb sometimes too, which leads them to often die early.

For perks:
- S tier
- A tier
I recommend choosing these 4 and picking the fifth on a per map basis. Good options for the wild card slot include 'Ranged Damage', 'Heavy Damage', 'Ancient Shrines', 'Glass Cannon', and 'Warrior Training' are all good options.

For weapons, in the later stages of the game you'll want a weapon that causes splash damage or targets multiple enemies per attack. The Lightning Staff is the best weapon with these properties in my opinion. Potion Vials gets an honorable mention as well. Melee weapons are more effective early on however. In this category, I've found the Falchion and Traps to be a good option, given its strong single-target damage output as well as the splash damage caused from the traps.

Movies

Sci-fi
- Dark City - Probably my favorite sci-fi movie. This movie keeps you on your toes by making you continuously question the nature of the characters reality.
- Coherence - An absolutely fantastic mind bending scifi drama. Tied with Dark City for my favorite sci-fi movie. The layers run deep. Similar to Dark City, its a joy to question the nature of the reality in the movie.
- Oblivion - A fun and easy sci-fi movie thats totally overlooked. It's an easy, enjoyable watch while still being very engaging.
- The Thing - The penultimate sci-fi horror movie.
- Event Horizon - A banging sci-fi horror movie.
Comedy
- This is the End - A fun comedy featuringa full cast of the 2010's comedy legends.
- Tropic Thunder - A 2000's classic that definitely wouldn't be made today.
- Shaolin Soccer - This is a great movie. It doesn't set out to be anythin that it's not. It's fun. It sometimes doesn't make sense. It's 1.5 hours. An easy, fun, and comedic watch.
Other
- Prisoners - An intense but absolutely fantastic thriller.

Anime

(todo)

Quotes

“this was a good idea, Jeremy for president!”

-David Millard

“Prospection is the generation and evaluation of mental representations of possible futures. The term therefore captures ... the prediction of future emotion (affective forecasting), the imagination of future scenarios (episodic foresight), and planning. Prospection is central to various aspects of human cognition and motivation.”

-Wikipedia

“Don't be nervous if a problem seems really easy, I'll tell you now that there are some easy questions on this exam. The hard part is figuring out which ones they are! So good luck”

- Dr. Henry Pfister

“The Stone Age did not end because of a shortage of stones”

- Nathan S. Lewis

“I don't understand why humans would be at the top of the consciousness foodchain”

-Justin Wei

“The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well."

-Olympics Creed