ABC's recent activity

  1. Comment on Residents of the Bay Area, CA, how do we address the homeless camps littering the streets of Oakland and surrounding towns? in ~talk

    ABC
    Link
    The biggest thing that needs to be done is a massive increase in available housing in order to drive costs in the area down. The bay area is pretty much as built out as it can get, and all that's...

    The biggest thing that needs to be done is a massive increase in available housing in order to drive costs in the area down. The bay area is pretty much as built out as it can get, and all that's left really is to build up. If the state had the power to / would mandate a significant rise in vertical building, housing prices would (hopefully) drop. Controls on foreign money buying property as well. A large influx of one and two bedroom units would hopefully help drive the cost of living down, drawing at least some of these people out of homelessness. In addition to / instead of that, the only thing that will help is social outreach on the community wide / local government scale with federal / state guidance. Its more than shelters and free food, its job and sometimes even basic skill training, its mental health help, its pathways to independence. But it needs to be paid for, and needs to come along with an actually attainable cost of living. I don't know if the problem is going away anytime soon unless someone can find a way to make it financially attractive to invest in for private money.

    9 votes
  2. Comment on How's everyone's day going? in ~talk

    ABC
    Link
    Got to work not too long ago, really like my job but I'm writing documentation for some stuff today so that's kind of balls but it needs to be done. Bought hardware for my dream HTPC setup this...

    Got to work not too long ago, really like my job but I'm writing documentation for some stuff today so that's kind of balls but it needs to be done. Bought hardware for my dream HTPC setup this week and that's my weekend planned.

    How is your day?

    2 votes
  3. Comment on Favorite Laptop? in ~tech

    ABC
    Link
    I haven't had a laptop in a few years, so a few days ago I bought an Acer Aspire 1. Crappy little Celeron processor, 4gb of ram, but 14in 1080p screen, thin and light. It's passively cooled, sonno...

    I haven't had a laptop in a few years, so a few days ago I bought an Acer Aspire 1. Crappy little Celeron processor, 4gb of ram, but 14in 1080p screen, thin and light. It's passively cooled, sonno noise. It can't do much more than YouTube, Netflix, programming, office tasks like that. It can really only handle one thing at a time, but it does it fairly well. Really it's 'good enough', and has honestly replaced my desktop for 80% of my home computing.

    Got it for $170. A new, full laptop with perfect Linux support for that price. It's so good I bought a second one to leave connected to my TV as a media center.

  4. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~music

  5. Comment on What are some TV shows you find yourself constant rewatching? in ~tv

    ABC
    Link Parent
    Band of Brothers and Avatar The Last Airbender are the only two shows I've seen back to front more than twice.

    Band of Brothers and Avatar The Last Airbender are the only two shows I've seen back to front more than twice.

    1 vote
  6. Comment on Programming Challenge: Make a Caesar cipher! in ~comp

    ABC
    (edited )
    Link
    def caesar(text, num): outstr = "" for i in range(len(text)): if ("A" <= text[i] and text[i] <= "Z"): outstr += chr( (((ord(text[i]) - ord("A")) + num) % 26) + ord("A") ) elif ("a" <= text[i] and...
    def caesar(text, num):
    	outstr = ""
    	for i in range(len(text)):
    		if ("A" <= text[i] and text[i] <= "Z"):
    			outstr += chr( (((ord(text[i]) - ord("A")) + num) % 26) + ord("A") )
    		elif ("a" <= text[i] and text[i] <= "z"):
    			outstr += chr( (((ord(text[i]) - ord("a")) + num) % 26) + ord("a") )
    		else:
    			outstr += text[i]
    	return outstr
    
    >>> caesar("test", 3)
    'whvw'
    >>> caesar("whvw", -3)
    'test'
    >>> caesar("te!st", 3)
    'wh!vw'
    >>> caesar("wh!vw", -3)
    'te!st'
    >>>
    
    2 votes
  7. Comment on Introductions | May 2018, part 2 in ~talk

    ABC
    Link
    Hi all, Also a reddit migrant. I've been getting more and more fed up with the quality of reddit lately. There is still some good content in spots, but its increasingly the exception and not the...

    Hi all,
    Also a reddit migrant. I've been getting more and more fed up with the quality of reddit lately. There is still some good content in spots, but its increasingly the exception and not the rule. I've been waiting for the MySpace -> Facebook / Digg ->reddit style transition to take care of things for awhile now. This seems like the best alternative to come along from the few I've seen so far, it seems like it has the best chance of success, and active participation in an early website is all that keeps it alive so I'm just here to do my part.

    5 votes
  8. Comment on Some spare Steam keys in ~games

    ABC
    Link Parent
    Received and redeemed, thank you very much friendly internet stranger :)

    Received and redeemed, thank you very much friendly internet stranger :)

    1 vote
  9. Comment on Some spare Steam keys in ~games

    ABC
    Link
    I'd love Owlboy if you're giving it away:)

    I'd love Owlboy if you're giving it away:)

    2 votes
  10. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tildes

    ABC
    Link Parent
    Mine seems to be set for 2019 regardless of whether or not the 'stay logged in' box is checked. When I load tildes with no cookie, a cookie gets generated with a 1 year expiration. When I log in,...

    Mine seems to be set for 2019 regardless of whether or not the 'stay logged in' box is checked. When I load tildes with no cookie, a cookie gets generated with a 1 year expiration. When I log in, the value of the cookie as well as the expiry date stay the same, regardless of the state of that box. Also, if you log out, open the log in page, clear the new cookie, then try and login, you get a error about login sessions, although it may very well be expected.

    2 votes
  11. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tildes

    ABC
    Link Parent
    Mine is the same, logged out in the past often, not sure if it will continue to happen or not, but my cookie also isn't set to expire until 2019-05-26

    Mine is the same, logged out in the past often, not sure if it will continue to happen or not, but my cookie also isn't set to expire until 2019-05-26

    3 votes
  12. Comment on Daily Tildes discussion - our first ban in ~tildes.official

    ABC
    Link
    I think warnings and temporary bans are an important part of the banning process, as opposed to jumping to a blindside banhammer, although there may be clear cases of bots/trolls that can safely...

    I think warnings and temporary bans are an important part of the banning process, as opposed to jumping to a blindside banhammer, although there may be clear cases of bots/trolls that can safely be swept away. However, that is something that's going to either need to be defined with site-wide guidelines in the future, or at least by mods/curators on the group level. It might not be something that's necessarily easy to do with the current state of the site.

    14 votes
  13. Comment on What trick/pattern/concept/whatever did you adopt that has improved your code quality? in ~comp

    ABC
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    This is incredibly true. In C I'll often write function names that are really 3-4 names separated by underscores, like ModuleName_SubModuleName_FunctionName. The hardest part is picking good...

    This is incredibly true. In C I'll often write function names that are really 3-4 names separated by underscores, like ModuleName_SubModuleName_FunctionName. The hardest part is picking good names, but if done right it can make code actually understandable. Same idea for variables.

    I'm also very explicit if I need to write a complex conditional statement, use lots of whitespace, use multiple lines with one condition per line, indent to group the different levels of the condition together for clarity etc.

    if
    (
        A == B
        &&
        (
            A == C
            ||
            (
                A == D
                &&
                E == True
            )
        )
    )
    {
        // Stuff
    }
    
    4 votes
  14. Comment on What trick/pattern/concept/whatever did you adopt that has improved your code quality? in ~comp

    ABC
    Link Parent
    That's proper design though. If you need to write something new that isn't trivial, it's best to plan it all out. If it's going to be 100+ lines of code, my process tends to be something like...

    That's proper design though. If you need to write something new that isn't trivial, it's best to plan it all out. If it's going to be 100+ lines of code, my process tends to be something like spend some time laying out the goals, break things down into groups, name the concepts/modules, and write a paragraph or two about each one at a high level, and maybe draw a nice block diagram to lay it all out with the interfaces in between. It takes some time but it ends up being the majority of the hard work done at that point. Write clean code, name things well, sprinkle with comments, ezpz.

    3 votes
  15. Comment on What are your favourite podcasts? in ~talk

    ABC
    Link
    Deep State Radio and Radiolab. DSR is a pretty interesting discussion on American foreign policy between some people who are far smarter and more charismatic than me, it's a good listen.

    Deep State Radio and Radiolab. DSR is a pretty interesting discussion on American foreign policy between some people who are far smarter and more charismatic than me, it's a good listen.

    4 votes
  16. Comment on Suggestion: Find a new name for "Vote" button in ~tildes

    ABC
    Link Parent
    If that's the goal of the vote, can the voting system also be combined with things like number and oengths of replies to create a total 'feedback' score?

    If that's the goal of the vote, can the voting system also be combined with things like number and oengths of replies to create a total 'feedback' score?

    1 vote
  17. Comment on Suggestion: Find a new name for "Vote" button in ~tildes

    ABC
    Link Parent
    Then maybe there's value in inventing a new word, assigning it your own meaning free of other context. The only limitation is 'things that aren't already words' instead of 'the perfect English...

    Then maybe there's value in inventing a new word, assigning it your own meaning free of other context. The only limitation is 'things that aren't already words' instead of 'the perfect English word'.

    Im also new and not too familiar with the site, but it may also make sense to move away from a plus one minus one system, and find a different metric for boosting posts? I know it's not exactly possible, but if time spent reading a post could be tracked or some kind of metric that requires user interaction beyond a self reported democratic vote it would be best.

    2 votes
  18. Comment on Next PlayStation is three years off, Sony says in ~games

    ABC
    Link Parent
    I also got a PS4 pro, but it was the first PS4 I bought. There's really not much advantage over the regular pa4 except for in a couple of supported games. 60 fps did wonders for The Last of Us....

    I also got a PS4 pro, but it was the first PS4 I bought. There's really not much advantage over the regular pa4 except for in a couple of supported games. 60 fps did wonders for The Last of Us. But yeah consoles are essentially just becoming PC hardware in a fancy box with some exclusives. If the devs are going to eek every last flop of performance out of a platform, then having a console with common hardware makes sense. But if most of the games are just PC ports that run better on PCs with similar or better hardware, then the only thing propping up consoles will be exclusives. Will the exclusive games be enough to keep the brand alive for multiple more generations?

    1 vote
  19. Comment on All we want to do is watch each other play video games in ~games

    ABC
    Link Parent
    The game is more of a setting or a tool that's used by the creator whose essentially starring in their own show. Compelling personalities can be entertaining playing solitaire.

    The game is more of a setting or a tool that's used by the creator whose essentially starring in their own show. Compelling personalities can be entertaining playing solitaire.

    2 votes