heraplem's recent activity

  1. Comment on DEATH NOTE Killer Within | Announcement trailer in ~games

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    What a flashback! That was one of my first programming experiences. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, of course, and in retrospect it was a terrible language. But I have massive nostalgia...

    BYOND

    What a flashback! That was one of my first programming experiences. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, of course, and in retrospect it was a terrible language. But I have massive nostalgia for it. The vibe on the Web was so different back then.

    2 votes
  2. Comment on DEATH NOTE Killer Within | Announcement trailer in ~games

    heraplem
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Death Note is a story that gets a lot more fun when you take it less seriously. You just have to accept that Light and L are a thousand times smarter than anyone who has ever lived in the real...

    Death Note is a story that gets a lot more fun when you take it less seriously. You just have to accept that Light and L are a thousand times smarter than anyone who has ever lived in the real world.

    It does kind of run out of steam after L dies, though. And I seem to remember that that was due to executive meddling. Obviously the way to end it is to have L unmask Kira by executing a gambit that he knows will result in his death.

    2 votes
  3. Comment on Is there an alternative to Nexus Mods? in ~games

    heraplem
    Link
    If you like Morrowind, there's portmod, inspired by Portage. The standard repos don't have everything, but they do have a lot. Used in conjunction with OpenMW, which is an open-source recreation...

    If you like Morrowind, there's portmod, inspired by Portage. The standard repos don't have everything, but they do have a lot. Used in conjunction with OpenMW, which is an open-source recreation of the game engine from scratch.

    Morrowind fans are the best.

    7 votes
  4. Comment on The Costco of housing is…Costco? in ~design

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    Having lived in San Antonio: is a tiny house like that livable in San Antonio? I would be extremely concerned if it doesn't have A/C. The heat can get actually deadly down there.

    Having lived in San Antonio: is a tiny house like that livable in San Antonio? I would be extremely concerned if it doesn't have A/C. The heat can get actually deadly down there.

    1 vote
  5. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of October 28 in ~news

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    Slight clickbait, because the ruling (for now) only applies to Mississippi, which is not in contention. But scary for the future, especially as someone who lives in a location where voting by mail...

    Slight clickbait, because the ruling (for now) only applies to Mississippi, which is not in contention. But scary for the future, especially as someone who lives in a location where voting by mail is the rule rather than the exception.

    9 votes
  6. Comment on The Electoral College is bad in ~misc

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    Aren't those two things contradictory? Faithless electors are incompatible with proportional representation. And if we're going to have proportional representation, why not just cut out the middle...

    The solution doesn't need to be to abolish the electoral college but rather to reinstate proportional elector allocation, abolish winner-takes-all systems.

    Forming a deliberative body of experts to elect the best candidate in line with the will of the general populace

    Aren't those two things contradictory? Faithless electors are incompatible with proportional representation.

    And if we're going to have proportional representation, why not just cut out the middle people?

    8 votes
  7. Comment on Devin James Stone (Legal Eagle) presents his legal reasoning for public endorsing Kamala Harris in ~misc

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    I think there's something to be said for this line of reasoning: If you're someone who's deep enough in the MAGA cult to know the specific claims against Trump and still not believe them, you're...

    I think there's something to be said for this line of reasoning:

    If you're someone who's deep enough in the MAGA cult to know the specific claims against Trump and still not believe them, you're beyond reaching. This video is for low-information voters who acknowledge that Trump might be a bit shady but are voting on policy, be it the economy or trans panic or what have you. The point is to lay out in one place all of Trump's criminality and all the signs that he is a danger to the Republic, to throw into relief just how frightening the prospect of his reelection really is. Basically, it's to scare people straight into voting against him.

    Actually, it also does that for left-leaning voters who dislike Kamala, or apathetic people who might otherwise not vote at all.

    Also, studies have shown that evidence is not always a primary factor in belief.

    21 votes
  8. Comment on The Electoral College is bad in ~misc

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    I understand that historical racism is part of why the Electoral College exists in the first place, and I agree that its continued existence is a form of systemic racism, but the piece...

    I understand that historical racism is part of why the Electoral College exists in the first place, and I agree that its continued existence is a form of systemic racism, but the piece specifically says that personal racial animus is the reason why people still support it today.

    7 votes
  9. Comment on The Electoral College is bad in ~misc

    heraplem
    (edited )
    Link
    I don't know anyone who supports the Electoral College, but I find the racism angle a little suspect. Not that there's definitely no one for whom racism is a motivator, but that there's another...

    I don't know anyone who supports the Electoral College, but I find the racism angle a little suspect. Not that there's definitely no one for whom racism is a motivator, but that there's another explanation: cognitive dissonance. The Electoral College (currently) benefits Republicans, so, in order to avoid cognitive dissonance, Republican voters are motivated to believe that it is a good thing. So they start with that position and then find reasons to believe it.

    13 votes
  10. Comment on Using AI generated code will make you a bad programmer in ~tech

    heraplem
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I'm not so sure. Lots of people once thought that it would take AGI to generate humanlike art. I think we're going to increasingly find that there isn't a hard barrier between "mere" AI and AGI....

    An AI that can replace software engineers is AGI.

    I'm not so sure. Lots of people once thought that it would take AGI to generate humanlike art.

    I think we're going to increasingly find that there isn't a hard barrier between "mere" AI and AGI. Actually, I find it pretty likely that we never end up with "true" AGI, but instead with various local optima that act "enough" like AGI for whatever problem domain. Just because we can imagine AGI doesn't mean that it's inevitable, or that it will look anything like how we've imagined it. (It almost certainly will not.)

    Also, this idea is rather flattering to software engineers, and unrealistic besides. It won't happen all at once. Instead, various bits of functionality will gradually get automated, slowly reducing the overall need for labor, and especially less-skilled labor. To a certain extent, that is already happening, or at least many expect it to happen in the very near future.

    3 votes
  11. Comment on Using AI generated code will make you a bad programmer in ~tech

    heraplem
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Does anyone really think this? Society has never been kind to laborers who have been made obsolete in the past. Why would anything be different this time?

    amazing! If this does happen, we enter a new post work era and Yada Yada Yada star trek utopia.

    Does anyone really think this?

    Society has never been kind to laborers who have been made obsolete in the past. Why would anything be different this time?

    12 votes
  12. Comment on Why loan sharks get five-star reviews—and why it matters in ~finance

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    As Jesus said, "Blessed is he who pulls himself up by his own bootstraps."

    As Jesus said, "Blessed is he who pulls himself up by his own bootstraps."

    11 votes
  13. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of October 14 in ~news

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    Clearly, any state could choose to unconditionally give all of its electors to whomever wins the national popular vote. The question will be over the "interstate compact" part. The problem is...

    Clearly, any state could choose to unconditionally give all of its electors to whomever wins the national popular vote. The question will be over the "interstate compact" part. The problem is Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 of the Constitution: "No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any Duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay."

    5 votes
  14. Comment on Weekly US politics news and updates thread - week of October 14 in ~news

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    While I love the idea of the NaPoVoCo, I fully expect it to be struck down if it ever attempts to go into effect. I am not a lawyer and do not have sufficient legal knowledge to say whether it...

    While I love the idea of the NaPoVoCo, I fully expect it to be struck down if it ever attempts to go into effect.

    I am not a lawyer and do not have sufficient legal knowledge to say whether it "deserves" to be struck down, but there's simply no way the Supreme Court will let it stand.

    1 vote
  15. Comment on Trans activists release 6,000 crickets on transphobic LGB Alliance conference in ~lgbt

    heraplem
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Suppose this were a neo-Nazi or KKK meeting. And to make the analogy closer to reality, suppose it was in a universe where neo-Nazis/the KKK had significant public support in the US, to the point...

    I don't think this is the heroic feat the article makes it out to be. Disrupting a conference with the intention of it being canceled, using thousands of live insects to prevent talks from being hosted... because the conference does not align with the activists' views?

    Suppose this were a neo-Nazi or KKK meeting. And to make the analogy closer to reality, suppose it was in a universe where neo-Nazis/the KKK had significant public support in the US, to the point where they dominated many state governments and had substantial representation in Congress. How would you feel about this stunt in that climate?

    21 votes
  16. Comment on What we don't talk about in "Spec Ops The Line" in ~games

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    This critique never makes sense to me. No one complains when a game with a linear story and no choices calls you a hero. Why complain when the opposite happens?

    the mechanics of the game undercuts the message/emotion as everything is so linear that there's no choice in it

    This critique never makes sense to me. No one complains when a game with a linear story and no choices calls you a hero. Why complain when the opposite happens?

    11 votes
  17. Comment on Forever ✱ Notes — A simple and scalable digital note-taking method for Apple Notes in ~tech

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    Thank you for the extremely detailed breakdown. I would start implementing these customizations to make my org-roam DB compatible right now, but I see that Logseq is going to be deprecating the...

    Thank you for the extremely detailed breakdown.

    I would start implementing these customizations to make my org-roam DB compatible right now, but I see that Logseq is going to be deprecating the Org mode syntax, so I think that this is not a good direction for me to take going forward.

    1 vote
  18. Comment on Japan was the future but it's stuck in the past in ~life

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    In the medium term, the US is more likely to come out on top as long as it remains an attractive destination for immigrants. In the long term, of course, birth rates should fall globally, so even...

    In the medium term, the US is more likely to come out on top as long as it remains an attractive destination for immigrants.

    In the long term, of course, birth rates should fall globally, so even that may not be sustainable.

    4 votes
  19. Comment on Forever ✱ Notes — A simple and scalable digital note-taking method for Apple Notes in ~tech

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    I'm wondering how you make logseq work. Last I tried it, it couldn't handle org-roam ID links, which is a dealbreaker.

    I'm wondering how you make logseq work. Last I tried it, it couldn't handle org-roam ID links, which is a dealbreaker.

    3 votes
  20. Comment on I now think a heretical form of Christianity might be true in ~humanities

    heraplem
    Link Parent
    But this seems totally unfounded. We have no reason to think that anything about the laws of physics even could vary; they could simply be a brute fact. And even if they could vary, we have no...

    So generally what is done is throw the law structures in the background and ask what the likelihood of the constants resulting in life-permitting universes is.

    But this seems totally unfounded. We have no reason to think that anything about the laws of physics even could vary; they could simply be a brute fact. And even if they could vary, we have no particular reason to believe that any particular subset of the constants could vary, or even indeed that any constants could vary: maybe the laws themselves could vary, say, within some space of differential equations. Why choose one model over another?

    5 votes