imperialismus's recent activity
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Comment on I traveled above the Arctic Circle to find out whether the town of Sommarøy really can live free from the clock in ~life
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Comment on Indie Game Awards rescinds Clair Obscur's GOTY wins over use of generative AI [for now-removed background assets] in ~games
imperialismus Link ParentHere are the results of the StackOverflow developer survey for 2025. You can dig into the numbers yourself, but suffice to say that the majority of respondents say they do use AI in their...So I feel you may be taking Silicon Valley hype at face value a little too much.
Here are the results of the StackOverflow developer survey for 2025. You can dig into the numbers yourself, but suffice to say that the majority of respondents say they do use AI in their development process, including in writing code. Only a minority claim that they use AI to write "the majority" of code, but according to the strict interpretation, any use is grounds for disqualification. It only takes one dev, one line of code. Is that unreasonable? I think so, but that was my entire point.
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Comment on Indie Game Awards rescinds Clair Obscur's GOTY wins over use of generative AI [for now-removed background assets] in ~games
imperialismus Link ParentIt does matter, because the overall point of my whole comment is that the rule is unreasonable and unenforceable, and therefore should not exist, or should be interpreted in a less strict manner....That point doesn't matter
It does matter, because the overall point of my whole comment is that the rule is unreasonable and unenforceable, and therefore should not exist, or should be interpreted in a less strict manner. If I'm telling you the rules are unfair and unreasonable, it's not a counterargument to say that it's in the rules.
In the gaming space, we tend to use "generative AI" to refer to assets seen in game, not code. if "code generation" is a form of AI then no game since the 90's counts as "not using AI".
Large Language Models are AI that generate text. Whether the artificial neural network is trained on text to generate text or trained on images to generate images is not a relevant distinction. The same uproar would have happened if they shipped dialogue written by ChatGPT. I'm clearly not talking about code generation tools that existed in the 1990s. I'm talking about things like CoPilot or Claude Sonnet.
This is especially because most games these days are made on top of engines, and developers cannot control what code Epic/Unity/etc. chooses to make under the hood.
If the entire industry is built on top of the forbidden technique, time to pack it up or loosen the restrictions. Would it have mattered if the illegal assets were outsourced to a third party? Probably not. They were still part of the development process. Just like the engine is. You can always choose to develop your own game engine. It's just prohibitively expensive and time consuming to attempt to reinvent the wheel for an indie developer. It's not a reasonable ask, but it is the logical conclusion of strictly interpreting this rule. If you can't vouch for the non-AI-ness of every part of every tool ever used at any point in development, including dependencies, then you could be "lying" and therefore ineligible for the award.
We could have a reasonable conversation about the ethics of generative AI in video game development, but I don't think it can be had with an absolutist stance that has no concern for nuance, which cannot be enforced except through trust, and which requires making arbitrary distinctions about what counts and what doesn't count to justify.
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Comment on Indie Game Awards rescinds Clair Obscur's GOTY wins over use of generative AI [for now-removed background assets] in ~games
imperialismus LinkThis is a stupid publicity stunt. I'm sure at least some of the other winners and nominees also used AI in some part of the development process, even if none of it made it into the released...This is a stupid publicity stunt. I'm sure at least some of the other winners and nominees also used AI in some part of the development process, even if none of it made it into the released product. Not to mention how ubiquitous gen AI is becoming in programming, and most indie games rely on preexisting game engines like Unity and Unreal that almost certainly have some lines of code that were written with gen AI assistance. Is it only artists and not developers that matter? Or how about the fact that tools that human artists use like Photoshop or Blender plugins have AI powered features, which said artists may even use without being aware of it? Or how the asset markets associated with popular game engines are flooded with AI generated content which may or may not be properly labeled, and which is commonly used for early development builds until more final assets are created?
It's unenforceable symbol politics. This company actually admitted their mistake, stated clearly that it wasn't intended to be present in the released product, and corrected it almost immediately. They're being punished for honesty. The intent behind the opposition to use of gen AI is to protect human creative workers. How is fairly innocent intended-for-internal-alpha-only use in any way a detriment to artists? It doesn't remove jobs for human artists. If anything, it creates them.
What a joke.
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Comment on As a reindeer herder, I am watching Norwegian renewable energy projects threaten our land, livelihoods and an Indigenous way of life the state once tried to erase in ~enviro
imperialismus Link ParentIn the end, aesthetics is a subjective field. There's no Platonic ideal of beauty that we can discover using science or mathematics. That said, you have to consider the context. Next to a typical...In the end, aesthetics is a subjective field. There's no Platonic ideal of beauty that we can discover using science or mathematics. That said, you have to consider the context. Next to a typical factory building, sure, I can agree that a modern wind turbine is quite sleek-looking and elegant. However, people don't build them next to old mid-1900s concrete behemoth factory buildings. Or at least, they don't in Norway.
They're typically built on mountains and highland plateaus. Areas that are currently relatively untouched nature. Areas which people specifically seek out to experience nature that is relatively unspoiled by human activity. There's no way I can think of to make them blend into such a landscape while still having them be effective. We're talking 100+ meter tall structures in wilderness areas. They stick out of the landscape like a sore thumb. If you plop them down in Yosemite, or the depths of the Amazon, would you still consider them beautiful? I can't speak for you, or anyone else. But the common sentiment (at least in Norway) doesn't come from nowhere.
I'm generally positive to wind power. I've visited places like Denmark, which is extremely flat and very densely built, with very few true wilderness areas. I don't necessarily think the wind turbines there spoil the landscape, because the landscape wasn't wilderness to begin with. But in a very mountainous country like Norway, where you generally stick them on top of a mountain that used to be (visually) unspoiled by human activity? It's a different matter.
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Comment on As a reindeer herder, I am watching Norwegian renewable energy projects threaten our land, livelihoods and an Indigenous way of life the state once tried to erase in ~enviro
imperialismus LinkThere's around 3000 people directly involved in reindeer herding in Norway today. There are around 25,000 members of the Sámi census ("Sametingets valgmanntall", or the Sámi parliamentary...- Exemplary
There's around 3000 people directly involved in reindeer herding in Norway today. There are around 25,000 members of the Sámi census ("Sametingets valgmanntall", or the Sámi parliamentary electorate), which excludes children under the age of 18 and individuals who possess a Sámi identity but by choice or through an inability to document their heritage aren't members of the census. Today, reindeer herders are a minority within their own culture.
Of course, in the past the percentage was much higher, but even hundreds of years ago, there were settled communities of Sámi people (the "sea-sami") along the coast who made a living from fishing and farming. Because they weren't nomadic and had lifestyles that more closely resembled those of rural Norwegians, they were easier to forcibly assimilate and many of them lost their language and cultural identity as a result. Settler colonialism was a big thing, but mostly along the coast.
It's interesting to observe that among the Sámi people themselves, the interests of reindeer herders have traditionally been dominant, even long after they ceased to represent the majority of Sámi people, but that is changing. In the Sámi parliament, a mostly consultative assembly elected by members of the Sámi census, power has long been held by a party called the Norwegian Sámi Association (NSR). This party is fiercely protective of reindeer herders' rights. However, in this year's elections, a newer party called People of the North Calotte (a term referring to the Arctic parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland) came close to unseating them from power. This newer party has a policy of cooperation between Sámi and non-Sámi inhabitants of the region, and has frequently criticized the NSR's tendency to veto anything and everything to protect reindeer herding.
Recently there's been a trend of people from a sea-sami background reclaiming their cultural identity, and a lot of them are concerned that the reindeer herders have become synonymous with Sámi rights and interests more broadly. Of course there's also a counter-reaction, with discussions about who should count as genuinely being Sámi. One issue is that membership in the Sámi census is dependent on linguistic family background, but as mentioned, many of these coastal communities were forcibly assimilated and lost their language generations ago, while the semi-nomadic herders of the interior were more resistant to the forced assimilation policy, probably in large part because they were more culturally and physically isolated from ethnic Norwegian society.
I'm an ethnic Norwegian living in the southern part of the traditional Sámi areas. (Which is to say Sámi people have always lived here but have always been a minority, even historically. Much further north, they were once the vast majority.) I've seen how the interests of a small minority of reindeer herders have become an excuse for non-Sámi people to exercise NIMBYism. They want cheap, clean power, they just don't want to have to see it. Wind farms are ugly. So people who are not indigenous and couldn't give two shits about indigenous rights in general, will push those rights when they happen to align with their own opinions, but will turn around and completely ignore those same rights if their own interests run counter to them.
There have been cases locally where agricultural fields were trampled by reindeer herds, even though the herders have a legal responsibility to prevent that from happening, because, to quote the article, "our role as herders is to follow [the reindeer], not to control them." And this is happening in an area that was definitely not stolen from indigenous people, but has been inhabited by settled farmers for thousands of years.
I'm not unsympathetic to the horrible history of discrimination suffered by Sámi people. I'm not opposed to indigenous rights in general. But I do think that the rights of a tiny minority, who lay claim to disproportionately large land areas, can't trump every other concern, economic or environmental. And that's an opinion that's increasingly shared by many indingenous people themselves.
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Comment on Jet Lag Season 16: Hide + Seek United Kingdom | Trailer in ~hobbies
imperialismus LinkI was a bit disappointed in the last couple of seasons, but no spoilers, after seeing episode 1 on Nebula, I really like this one. Hide and Seek is probably their strongest format, both from a...I was a bit disappointed in the last couple of seasons, but no spoilers, after seeing episode 1 on Nebula, I really like this one. Hide and Seek is probably their strongest format, both from a game design and a "travel show" perspective.
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Comment on Day 9: Movie Theater in ~comp.advent_of_code
imperialismus Link ParentThanks for the hint about Shapely. I wasn't able to solve yesterday, got encouraged by today's part 1 being trivial, then failed to solve part 2 after lots of effort. I was about ready to admit...Thanks for the hint about Shapely. I wasn't able to solve yesterday, got encouraged by today's part 1 being trivial, then failed to solve part 2 after lots of effort. I was about ready to admit that maybe I've reached the difficulty spike where I can't solve these things in a reasonable time, but after finding that library I was at least able to get a working solution. I'm writing this just as next day's puzzle goes live, so I'll at least give that one a look without being completely deflated!
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Comment on Day 7: Laboratories in ~comp.advent_of_code
imperialismus LinkI didn't come up with a clever single-pass solution, but I can confirm it's feasible to solve with recursion with memoization. Still runs in about 70ms on my machine, which is good enough for me....I didn't come up with a clever single-pass solution, but I can confirm it's feasible to solve with recursion with memoization. Still runs in about 70ms on my machine, which is good enough for me.
Solution part 2 (Crystal)
class Solver @line_len : Int32 @num_rows : Int32 @s : Array(String) def initialize(s : String) @s = s.split("\n") @line_len = @s[0].size @num_rows = @s.size @cache = {} of {Int32, Int32} => Int64 end def solve start = @s[0].index("S").as(Int32) search(1, start) end def search_with_cache(row : Int32, col : Int32) : Int64 if res = @cache[{row,col}]? res else @cache[{row,col}] = search(row, col) end end def search(row : Int32, col : Int32) : Int64 unless col >= 0 && col < @line_len puts "out of bounds" return 1i64 end count : Int64 = 0 while row < @num_rows char = @s[row][col] if char == '^' count += search_with_cache(row+1, col+1) count += search_with_cache(row+1, col-1) return count else row += 1 end end count+1 end end input = File.read("./input.txt")[0..-2] solver = Solver.new(input) puts solver.solve -
Comment on Day 6: Trash Compactor in ~comp.advent_of_code
imperialismus (edited )LinkYesterday was rough. After trying a long time, I gave up on solving the range merging and resorted to copying some code off Google (not specifically AoC code, so not technically cheating, but it...Yesterday was rough. After trying a long time, I gave up on solving the range merging and resorted to copying some code off Google (not specifically AoC code, so not technically cheating, but it felt like a moral loss). Today on the other hand was a big morale boost. I actually bought a physical notepad with grid paper to sketch things out, but in the end I didn't need it for this problem, although it might come in handy later!
Part 2 solution (Python)
from functools import reduce import operator def gen_problems(s): lines = s.split("\n") grid = [list(line) for line in lines] operands = [] buf = [] for col in range(len(grid[0])): digits = "".join([grid[row][col] for row in range(len(grid)-1)]) if digits.isspace(): operands.append(buf) buf = [] else: buf.append(int(digits)) operands.append(buf) operations = lines[-1].split() return operands, operations def compute_problems(operands, operations): total = 0 for index, op in enumerate(operations): nums = operands[index] if op == "+": total += sum(nums) elif op == "*": total += reduce(operator.mul, nums) return total input = open("./input.txt").read()[0:-2] print(compute_problems(*gen_problems(input))) -
Comment on Day 6: Trash Compactor in ~comp.advent_of_code
imperialismus Link ParentYeah, it's supposed to be fun after all. I do wonder though, would it be cleaner to separate the parsing for part 1 and part 2? At least that's the approach I took.I'm not especially happy with my parsing logic, but it appears to do the job, and at this point I think I'm better off not messing with it any further.
Yeah, it's supposed to be fun after all. I do wonder though, would it be cleaner to separate the parsing for part 1 and part 2? At least that's the approach I took.
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Comment on Inside the Reddit Thread That Blasts Big Meat for Hiring People to Take Down Veganism in ~tech
imperialismus LinkIt's an "article" based entirely on summarizing one anonymous reddit poster. That's a big nothing burger. Even if I'm inclined to believe the premise, I could as easily imagine this post is...It's an "article" based entirely on summarizing one anonymous reddit poster. That's a big nothing burger. Even if I'm inclined to believe the premise, I could as easily imagine this post is actually a person paid to discedit the meat industry.
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Comment on IKEA finally arrives in New Zealand. Even the country's leader came out to celebrate. in ~finance
imperialismus Link ParentJust build another actual garage for your car! /s But seriously, my uncle actually did this. His garage had become a permanently cluttered storage room attached to his house, and he was able to...Some looked pretty nice, but the problem with that is that the house no longer has a garage.
Just build another actual garage for your car! /s
But seriously, my uncle actually did this. His garage had become a permanently cluttered storage room attached to his house, and he was able to acquire an empty plot of land next to his property and built a detached garage. That's where he puts his car. Of course that isn't really feasible due to space and money constraints for most people, but I just wanted to chip in with a mildly funny anecdote.
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Comment on Advent of Compiler Optimisations, by Matt Godbolt in ~comp
imperialismus LinkMatt Godbolt, creator of the popular compiler explorer, is writing an advent calendar style series on various optimizations modern compilers do when they generate machine code. There's also an...Matt Godbolt, creator of the popular compiler explorer, is writing an advent calendar style series on various optimizations modern compilers do when they generate machine code. There's also an accompanying video series on youtube, but it covers the same material. Here's a link to the latest video as of today.
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Advent of Compiler Optimisations, by Matt Godbolt
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Comment on Day 4: Printing Department in ~comp.advent_of_code
imperialismus LinkI sat there staring at part 1 for a while until I realized I'd made an incredibly obvious mistake, and after fixing that part 1 worked and part 2 was trivial. Thoughts The mistake was that I was...I sat there staring at part 1 for a while until I realized I'd made an incredibly obvious mistake, and after fixing that part 1 worked and part 2 was trivial.
Thoughts
The mistake was that I was counting all grid cells that had less than 4 paper roll neighbors, when I actually needed to count only the grid cells that contained a paper roll and had less than 4 neighbors. Here's my solution for part 2, in Python today:
def get_pos(s, x, y, dim): if not x in range(dim) or not y in range(dim): return False return s[x][y] == "@" def count_adjacent(s, x, y, dim): count = 0 MATRIX = [[-1, -1], [-1, 0], [-1, 1], [0, -1], [0, 1], [1, -1], [1, 0], [1, 1]] for (x2,y2) in MATRIX: if get_pos(s, x+x2, y+y2, dim): count += 1 return count def count(s): dim = len(s) count = 0 for x in range(0,dim): for y in range(0,dim): if s[x][y] == "@" and count_adjacent(s, x, y, dim)<4: count += 1 s[x][y] = "." return count, s def count_recursive(s): s = [list(x) for x in s.split("\n")] total = 0 while True: num, s = count(s) if num == 0: break total += num return total print(count_recursive(open("./input.txt").read()))I saw some comments on reddit saying that based on previous years, the difficulty should start ramping up soon, especially with only twelve days this year. For those of you who have done previous years, does it get progressively harder, and what do you think of this year's difficulty so far?
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Comment on Day 3: Lobby in ~comp.advent_of_code
imperialismus LinkI was able to solve days 1 and 2, but I wasn't satisfied at all with the quality of my solutions. Today's puzzle I think kind of forces you to come up with a relatively efficient solution, and I'm...I was able to solve days 1 and 2, but I wasn't satisfied at all with the quality of my solutions. Today's puzzle I think kind of forces you to come up with a relatively efficient solution, and I'm happy enough with it to post it. I'm just a hobby programmer and I haven't done a ton of leetcode or previous years of Advent of Code, so for a lot of these problems, I lack prebuilt intuitions on how to solve them (particularly the more generalized part 2 problems).
Solution (Crystal)
def max_jolt(bank : String, num_digits : Int32 = 12) : Int64 digits = [] of Int32 raise "error" if bank.size < num_digits i = 0 num_digits.times do max = 0 bank[0..bank.size - num_digits].each_char_with_index do |char, index| if char.to_i > max i = index max = char.to_i end end digits << max num_digits -= 1 bank = bank[i+1..-1] unless i>=bank.size end digits.map { |c| c.to_i }.join("").to_i64 end sum : Int64 = 0 File.read("input.txt").split("\n").each do |bank| sum += max_jolt(bank) end puts sum -
Comment on Study suggests that the Universe's expansion 'is now slowing, not speeding up' in ~space
imperialismus Link ParentI looked into it, and it seems like this (the "firewall" thing) was first published in 2019. It's not a new discovery. I couldn't find any recent news published by NASA about this, but plenty from...- Exemplary
The reporting on both seemed a little scant even after having searched for alternative articles.
I looked into it, and it seems like this (the "firewall" thing) was first published in 2019. It's not a new discovery. I couldn't find any recent news published by NASA about this, but plenty from 2019. What appears to have happened is that someone, somewhere rediscovered this piece of news from 2019, posted about it as if it were a new discovery, and then that went somewhat viral and got amplified by numerous websites repeating the same information. You probably couldn't find anything that isn't just a rehash of the same information because they're all copying each other, copying old news from six years ago.
Here's the original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-019-0929-2
NASA's own website has nothing I could find from this year relating to this particular discovery. The crossings of the Voyagers into interstellar space occurred in 2012 and 2018, respectively. In fact, the Voyager 2 plasma measurement instrument was recently turned off to conserve the dwindling power supply, and Voyager 1's similar instrument was turned off years ago. So it appears neither probe is actively collecting the sort of information that these studies were based on anymore.
As for the reasons why these particles get so hot so far out: my layman's understanding is that it's theorized to be one or both of a) compression due to the meeting of the solar wind and the interstellar medium, and b) magnetic reconnection. When separate magnetic field lines meet up, they can convert magnetic energy into kinetic energy, heating up particles - it happens in the Earth's magnetosphere as well, and can even lead to a temporary reversal of the local solar wind, sending the particles back towards the Sun!
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Comment on Europa Universalis V review – even hardened grand strategy veterans may be startled by the intricacy of this historical simulation in ~games
imperialismus Link ParentPretty sure this is what Paradox has been saying about several of their games for years, including Victoria 3, and that exact phrase has certainly been circulating in the EU4 community for years...EUV specifies, at the beginning of the tutorial: you play as the “spirit of the nation.” Again, nation is an awkward word, but there’s none better. I admit, when I saw that, I laughed out loud because it was such a direct response – intended or not – to one of my critiques (particularly of Imperator, which shares its director, Johan Andersson with EUV).
Pretty sure this is what Paradox has been saying about several of their games for years, including Victoria 3, and that exact phrase has certainly been circulating in the EU4 community for years (whether it was the developers or the community that first came up with it, I don't know). I like Bret's analysis because he analyzes historical games as history, that's kind of his whole thing, but on rare occasions I think he would do better if he analyzed games as a gamer.
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Comment on Microsoft's ambitious new Xbox: Your entire Xbox console library, the full power of Windows PC gaming, and no multiplayer paywall in ~games
imperialismus Link"A premium experience" sounds a lot like "we're going to be pricing out half the console market and we don't care.""A premium experience" sounds a lot like "we're going to be pricing out half the console market and we don't care."
My sister spent some time in Zambia as part of her degree as a social worker. She told a story about how, apparently, Zambians all agree that if it's raining, you don't show up to a scheduled event until it stops raining. Whenever that is. It sounds stressful to me. Never knowing exactly when you're supposed to be where, or for how long.
Sommarøy is a tiny village in Tromsø municipality. I've lived in Tromsø, although I lived in the city (population approximately 60,000). And I currently live slightly south of the Arctic circle, although the variations in daylight are still extreme (today: less than 3 hours of "daylight", mostly twilight; in the summer, more or less 24 hours of daylight). So I have some experience with the physical conditions that seemingly lead to a "timeless" society.
Paradoxically, I feel like clock-timing helps me live like an event-timer. The reason being that I've struggled with insomnia since my early teens. I'm frequently running low on sleep, and I'm an introvert who needs to recharge a certain amount of mental energy to function well in social settings. I really like to schedule things for a specific time, because I can make sure I'm actually well rested when it happens. And if I'm not well rested, I can at least mentally prepare for the event, so I don't become an unlikeably grump. If I were able to live entirely according to my schedule, sleep when I'm sleepy and be awake and active when I feel well rested, that would be great! But my personal schedule rarely lines up with anyone else's. And so it's actually easier to schedule things for specific times, because then at least, I know when I need to be "on".
I think this really is just a marketing scheme. In the end, clocks are mostly about coordinating activities between groups of people. In a small village, it's easier to coordinate without needing a fixed time. At the exact same latitude, which experiences the exact same daylight hours, but in a bigger city with more people, it becomes a lot harder. How did people manage without clocks back in the old days? Their social reality was simply smaller. The average person needed to coordinate schedules with far fewer people. The average person's life was limited to a small community, maybe a few hundred people at most. Rarely did they need to accomodate outsiders.