Tuesday, October 31, 2023
“And in other news, water is wet, and the Pope is Catholic … ”
About Kevin's email …
I was hesitant to talk about the problem I had in replying, because it's well known that the Big Players (Google and Microsoft in particular) don't really care about smaller email servers, making it difficult to self-host email.
Yet … the bounce message I recieved contained the following:
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; host
hotmail-com.olc.protection.outlook.com[104.47.66.33] said: 550 5.7.1
Unfortunately, messages from [71.19.142.20] weren't sent. Please contact
your Internet service provider since part of their network is on our block
list (S3140). You can also refer your provider to
http://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx#errors.
[MW2NAM12FT105.eop-nam12.prod.protection.outlook.com
2023-10-29T06:59:01.371Z 08DBD7D7D4735644] (in reply to MAIL FROM command)
That link? Absolutely useless. To address the issue, I would have to sign in to my “Microsoft Account” or pay for services like this company that “ensures” email delivery (which I'm reading as “pay to play”). And of course I'm a company, because who would be so silly as to run their own email server? Sheesh!
Why Microsoft couldn't just send a link to their Office 365 Anti-Spam IP Delist Portal in the first place (which took entirely too long to find and didn't appear on the link they did send), I don't know—I guess that could make it too easy to “game” or something.
Mainly, I'm writing this for my future self to save some time when this happens again.
Update about an hour later …
The bounce came from outlook.com,
but Kevin's email address is from hotmail.com,
and it's hotmail.com that has a block on my IP,
not outlook.com.
I found that out because I followed the instructions on the “Office 365 Anti-Spam Delist Portal” and it said “Oh! You aren't blocked! Try this link!” with “this link” asking me to log into my “Microsoft Account.”
Seriously, Microsoft? XXXX you.
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The difference in penalties in AD&D1 and D&D5
Sunday was our gaming group “Hallowe'en One Shot” (which is now at least a “duo shot” as we didn't finish) and for some reason, I got to thinking about the penalty differences between AD&D and D&D5.
Everyone in our group started out playing AD&D (or the original Dungeons and Dragons) and in that system, if you are trying to hit something you can't see, you subtract 4 from your (20-sided) die roll (d20) when trying to hit it. But in D&D5, you roll two 20-sided dice (2d20) and take the lower value (called “disadvantage”). I was curious as to the actual difference between the two. I did a bit of programming and I got the following graph:
![[A graph of AC (x-axis) and chance of hitting (y-axis) with various penalties, bonuses, and just plain hits]](/2023/10/31/hits.png "Most economists would prefer if the graph went up, but they tend to play Papers and Paychecks.")
Along the X-axis is AC. In AD&D goes from 10 (basically, nothing) to -10 (nigh impossible to hit) while in D&D5, it goes from 10 (basicaly nothing) to 30 (nigh impossible to hit), so the range is the same. So the X-axis is AC, going from 2 to 20. In both systems, rolling a 1 is an automatic miss, so I'm not bothering with even listing an AC of 1. The Y-axis is the probability of hitting said AC, from 1 (always a hit) to 0 (always amiss).
The red line (the one cutting diagonally across the middle) is just the result of rolling a d20 and is prety much what one would expect, a straight line. The light-green line (the lower diagonal line) is the AD&D penalty of subtracting four from a d20 (d20-4). Again, it's a straight line but giving a lower chance of hitting.
What I find fascinating is the blue line (the lower curved line). This is the D&D5 “disadvantage” roll. What's interesting about this is that at lower and higher ACs, it's better than a -4 penalty, but between ACs of 7 to 15, it's worse!
When I saw that, I just had to do the plot with a bonus. The purple line (the upper diagonal line) represents a d20+4, and the curved dark green line (the upper curved line) is the D&D5 “advantage” roll—where you roll 2d20 and take the higher. It's the opposite of “disadvantage”—you do worse at lower and higher ACs, but better between ACs of 7 and 15.
Wierd!
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What happened to Hallowe'en?
It is now well past the time for any kids to be out trick-or-treating and we still haven't had one kid show up to Chez Boca to threaten us with tricks. Not one! Are all the kids now trick-or-treating at parking lots or malls? Is trick-or-treating passé now? Too many razor blades found in candy corn? Too much candy corn in general? What?
Sigh.
Well, all these M&Ms aren't going to eat themselves …
