DeaconBlue's recent activity

  1. Comment on What radicalized you? in ~talk

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    A lot of prints of the bible put Jesus's words in red text. Actually reading what the book says can be jarring for some people.

    A lot of prints of the bible put Jesus's words in red text. Actually reading what the book says can be jarring for some people.

    15 votes

  2. Comment on Hisense TVs show ads during normal operation in ~tech

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    I am of the same opinion on the "searching for unsecured WiFi" bit but I disagree on the sim card thing. Companies can pick up bulk sim cards with low data limits for next to nothing. Any display...

    I am of the same opinion on the "searching for unsecured WiFi" bit but I disagree on the sim card thing.

    Companies can pick up bulk sim cards with low data limits for next to nothing. Any display you see in convenience stores or grocery stores that can change has a sim in it somewhere.

    4 votes

  3. Comment on What are people using instead of VS Code? in ~comp

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    Be aware that with VSCodium that any of the Microsoft extensions will not work. It took me a few minutes to realize that they were gatekeeping the C/C++ extensions.

    Be aware that with VSCodium that any of the Microsoft extensions will not work. It took me a few minutes to realize that they were gatekeeping the C/C++ extensions.

    19 votes

  4. Comment on D&D Beyond will label the 2024 rules as "5.5e" to match the community's naming in ~games.tabletop

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    PF2E I would guess at least for a quick run to see how it feels

    PF2E I would guess at least for a quick run to see how it feels

    5 votes

  5. Comment on D&D Beyond will label the 2024 rules as "5.5e" to match the community's naming in ~games.tabletop

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    It remains janky, and the reason for playing it remains that it is the "default" TTRPG experience. I am glad that my group is on board with trying a new system after the current campaign because I...

    It remains janky, and the reason for playing it remains that it is the "default" TTRPG experience. I am glad that my group is on board with trying a new system after the current campaign because I feel like I would probably rather just give up on TTRPGs rather than try to find a new group and new system from scratch.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on D&D Beyond will label the 2024 rules as "5.5e" to match the community's naming in ~games.tabletop

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    No, keep a set of rules for a given timeframe and when enough things have been found worthy of a change then make a new iteration entirely. However, leave the previous iteration available for...

    No, keep a set of rules for a given timeframe and when enough things have been found worthy of a change then make a new iteration entirely. However, leave the previous iteration available for those that want to play it.

    10 votes

  7. Comment on D&D Beyond will label the 2024 rules as "5.5e" to match the community's naming in ~games.tabletop

    DeaconBlue
    Link
    Their dream of a perpetual game with an ever-changing ruleset is a recipe for confusion for players. It is incredibly frustrating to me that I can own multiple books that I bought first hand when...

    Their dream of a perpetual game with an ever-changing ruleset is a recipe for confusion for players.

    It is incredibly frustrating to me that I can own multiple books that I bought first hand when they were released, and I cannot use any of the content on their tools because it is listed as legacy that requires a subscription of some sort to use.

    They are going to get more and more legacy stuff as rules change, pieces will not fit together, and they will have to explain "no no, this book was published in 2024 so it can't work with this book published in 2025. The 2022 book is still available to buy for now but in two months it will be rereleased with different rules and you can buy it again then if you want."

    As soon as my current campaign is over I am leaving them far behind.

    18 votes

  8. Comment on Color game — how well can you remember colors? | Dialed in ~games

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    Shooting myself in the foot with extensions, a tale as old as time.

    Shooting myself in the foot with extensions, a tale as old as time.

    2 votes

  9. Comment on Color game — how well can you remember colors? | Dialed in ~games

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    I also had it break on Firefox, mobile and desktop. I was able to move the left slider once and it would change but any other slider movements did not update the shown color.

    I also had it break on Firefox, mobile and desktop. I was able to move the left slider once and it would change but any other slider movements did not update the shown color.

    1 vote

  10. Comment on An AI agent published a hit piece on me in ~tech

  11. Comment on Living human brain cells play DOOM on a CL1 in ~tech

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    That sounds like a pretty solid fate compared to some of the unluckier actual humans on this planet.

    That sounds like a pretty solid fate compared to some of the unluckier actual humans on this planet.

    14 votes

  12. Comment on Google’s AI overviews can scam you. Here’s how to stay safe. in ~tech

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    I think that this character that you have built up is a vanishingly small part of the population. We build up trusted sources, and until recently google was fairly reasonably one of them. To this...

    I think that this character that you have built up is a vanishingly small part of the population.

    We build up trusted sources, and until recently google was fairly reasonably one of them. To this day I sometimes check google maps to confirm a phone number.

    If someone targets an attack against a small business, I could reasonably see them disputing ownership on maps, overriding the listed number, and using the SEO attack listed to agree with maps and my internal filter would struggle at least. Bonus points if they mock the real website from localcompany.com to local-company.com or something with the same content spare the phone number change.

    The core issue is that we are losing any kind of trusted sources for this information. It takes time for our bullshit filters to catch up to these things.

    6 votes

  13. Comment on Device that can extract 1,000 liters of clean water a day from desert air revealed by 2025 Nobel Prize winner in ~enviro

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    There are discussions now and then but they all end up at the same core problem. We as a worldwide collective have allowed fossil fuels to wildly affect the climate and weather patterns, and...

    There are discussions now and then but they all end up at the same core problem.

    We as a worldwide collective have allowed fossil fuels to wildly affect the climate and weather patterns, and continue to do so,without requiring any kind of studies on the downstream impacts.

    Now suddenly the "drill, baby, drill" collective poses these questions in bad faith because of course there will be measurable impacts. The goal should be to minimize the effects, but we have no baseline. Any attempts to make a baseline are met with an infinite rabbit hole.

    13 votes

  14. Comment on Google’s AI overviews can scam you. Here’s how to stay safe. in ~tech

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    I don't like or agree with this take. For years people have been told to at least try getting information from google before reaching for help from others. How long has the Let Me Google That For...

    I don't like or agree with this take.

    For years people have been told to at least try getting information from google before reaching for help from others. How long has the Let Me Google That For You site been running?

    Now when the tech illiterate grandparents google "what is the number for [their electrical company]" and don't know the difference between the AI summary, the fake sponsored results, and their actual first result three screens down on their phone, we are supposed to say "that'll teach you!"?

    8 votes

  15. Comment on Americans are leaving the US in record numbers in ~society

    DeaconBlue
    (edited )
    Link
    I am attempting to be one of them. Not "I would vaguely like to leave" but "I have invested money and time into immigration lawyers and professional help." Unfortunately, finding a job offer...

    I am attempting to be one of them. Not "I would vaguely like to leave" but "I have invested money and time into immigration lawyers and professional help."

    Unfortunately, finding a job offer halfway across the planet is a nontrivial task.

    I think that it will be permanent for my family, at least for my wife and I. Any kind of national pride that we had, or thoughts that the US was any kind of force for good, or even "least of the evils" is long gone. We will try somewhere smaller where maybe we can move the needle a bit toward positive values.

    14 votes

  16. Comment on [SOLVED] Why is mobile Safari (iOS) slow with Tildes? in ~tildes

    DeaconBlue
    Link
    Do you have any extensions? I have found that Dark Reader on Firefox can get weird with Tildes on phones. That being said, we have theme choices so I have long since excluded this site.

    Do you have any extensions? I have found that Dark Reader on Firefox can get weird with Tildes on phones.

    That being said, we have theme choices so I have long since excluded this site.

    6 votes

  17. Comment on South Korea seeks multilingual talent to hunt down K-content piracy in ~tech

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    And following this process, I don't understand why you would spend money to try to curb piracy rather than license it out and make more money.

    And following this process, I don't understand why you would spend money to try to curb piracy rather than license it out and make more money.

    9 votes

  18. Comment on How much "boilerplate tax" different languages have: a 400M LOC analysis in ~comp

    DeaconBlue
    (edited )
    Link
    I feel like C#/C++/C are unfairly penalized by this metric Most style guides put the opening and closing curly braces on new lines. That is a pretty hefty amount of the number of lines, but hard...

    I feel like C#/C++/C are unfairly penalized by this metric

    My first query was to find out what is the uniqueness percentage across all languages. Uniqueness being take all the lines in a file, throw away anything thats a duplicate with the sum that remains being the unique count.

    Most style guides put the opening and closing curly braces on new lines. That is a pretty hefty amount of the number of lines, but hard to call "boilerplate" at least as I use the term.

    8 votes

  19. Comment on Any software engineers considering a career switch due to AI? in ~comp

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    It was wild. Let's say that they needed to get a bunch of information from a table and then did a ton of joins to get additional information. A lot of the joins were not used in the final select...

    It was wild. Let's say that they needed to get a bunch of information from a table and then did a ton of joins to get additional information. A lot of the joins were not used in the final select and were there as vestigial joins from iterations of the query or something.The table had like a dozen values in a column that they cared about.

    They made a dozen separate queries where they did all of the joins and filtered to one of the specific values they wanted, wrote all of the results to a temp table, then repeated 11 times and finally returned the whole temp table.

    7 votes

  20. Comment on Any software engineers considering a career switch due to AI? in ~comp

    DeaconBlue
    Link Parent
    I found some vibe coded SQL this week that I took from a 14 minute query to a second or so. I am expecting the consulting opportunities to be fantastic.

    And just imagine the consulting opportunities that’ll pop up as companies with vibecoded products need real engineers to come clean up their mess.

    I found some vibe coded SQL this week that I took from a 14 minute query to a second or so. I am expecting the consulting opportunities to be fantastic.

    23 votes