imperialismus's recent activity
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Comment on What's a culture shock that you experienced? in ~talk
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Comment on Type inference of all constructs and the next 15 months of the Elixir programming language in ~comp
imperialismus LinkThis reminds me a lot of Crystal's type system. Crystal started out as "Ruby but statically typed and compiled". It's since evolved into its own thing and isn't commited to Ruby compatibility, but...This reminds me a lot of Crystal's type system. Crystal started out as "Ruby but statically typed and compiled". It's since evolved into its own thing and isn't commited to Ruby compatibility, but they did have to solve many of the same problems as Elixir. It allows you to omit type annotations in most cases, with extensive use of union types and flow typing. Flow typing is awesome. It basically captures the intuition of "this thing can be X or Y, but within this particular branch we know statically that it must be X (because we have performed a runtime type test as a branch condition), so we can narrow the type of (X or Y) to X within this particular branch safely."
The inference for the pattern matching is something I haven't seen to that extent before, so that's cool. On the other hand, not having parametric polymorphism or recursive types yet is a major limitation. Crystal solves this by requiring you to be explicit about parametric types, i.e., it won't try to infer the concrete type of a generic type like Array(T); you must specify the type of T when instantiating an empty array. It's one of the few places in the language where you cannot ever omit an explicit type.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games
imperialismus Link ParentMoss farm would be nice!Moss farm would be nice!
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games
imperialismus LinkI'm slowly making progress on the custom forest. The goal is to have a slightly magical, possibly mildly spooky oak forest at the bottom of the hill, where my house is located, and a more airy...I'm slowly making progress on the custom forest. The goal is to have a slightly magical, possibly mildly spooky oak forest at the bottom of the hill, where my house is located, and a more airy pine forest at the top. I'm trying to make the landscape feel immersive, but detail work can get pretty tedious!
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games
imperialismus LinkI don't have any megabuilds planned, but I've been busy landscaping and trying to infuse my base with a bit of lore and a lot of small details, rather than building one giant thing. Here's a...I don't have any megabuilds planned, but I've been busy landscaping and trying to infuse my base with a bit of lore and a lot of small details, rather than building one giant thing. Here's a couple of screenshots of my progress so far:
- Slightly creepy
dungeonalchemist's lair - Beginnings of a custom forest of European red pine trees. (Slowly learning how to build trees.) My plan is to expand the forest and eventually build a firewatch tower on top of the hill, and possibly park a happy ghast in the tower if I get one.
- View of the path to my cozy little cottage (which is basically a hobbit hole, most of it is underground/built into the hill, to save on construction)
- Slightly creepy
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft Weekly in ~games
imperialismus LinkI made a small cactus farm in the industrial district yesterday, but I noticed shortly after I completed it, someone else built another one in a different corner of the district. Mine is currently...I made a small cactus farm in the industrial district yesterday, but I noticed shortly after I completed it, someone else built another one in a different corner of the district. Mine is currently very ugly, just a stone cube because stone was one material I had lots of to spare. My eventual plan is/was to replace the exterior with something resembling a giant cactus, but I'd need some green building blocks first. However, the nice thing about cactus farms is you can stack layers on top of each other without increasing the horizontal footprint. We probably don't need two separate ones when they can easily be combined into one to save space.
Thoughts?
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft - Season 3 Launch Day in ~games
imperialismus Link ParentNice. My home is at 89 67 -193.Nice. My home is at 89 67 -193.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft - Season 3 Launch Day in ~games
imperialismus Link ParentThat's productive. I spent about 4 hours on the server and managed to build a tiny cabin, a couple of manual farms, and wasted a lot of time failing to find diamonds. Just wanted to let you know I...That's productive. I spent about 4 hours on the server and managed to build a tiny cabin, a couple of manual farms, and wasted a lot of time failing to find diamonds.
Just wanted to let you know I used your modpack, and I really like it. I usually play with Sodium, but I don't know what extra sauce you put in there, because I was getting very substantial performance gains on my modest desktop. At one point I was sitting at 666fps without shaders, which is just overkill. Also, whatever mod makes it so you can walk up full blocks like they're stairs -- how did I never think of looking for that before? That one's going to be a permanent addition to my singleplayer worlds as well, I think.
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Comment on Tildes Minecraft - Season 3 Launch Day in ~games
imperialismus LinkHaven't played on this server before, but I'm considering joining in this time. Question: how does the verification for the whitelist work? I don't see anything on the website but I presume that's...Haven't played on this server before, but I'm considering joining in this time. Question: how does the verification for the whitelist work? I don't see anything on the website but I presume that's because the server hasn't launched yet?
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Comment on Hate Brussels sprouts? You may be living in the past. in ~food
imperialismus LinkThis post just reminded me of a core childhood memory: a cartoon called The Forgotten Toys, featuring a grumpy teddy bear who absolutely hates brussel sprouts. I've never had any strong feelings...This post just reminded me of a core childhood memory: a cartoon called The Forgotten Toys, featuring a grumpy teddy bear who absolutely hates brussel sprouts. I've never had any strong feelings on the matter, but to this day I remember the line "I hate sprouts!"
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Comment on What do you leave out for Father Christmas? in ~talk
imperialismus LinkThe traditional thing would be a bowl of rice porridge, although it's not a tradition my family observes. (Scandinavia)The traditional thing would be a bowl of rice porridge, although it's not a tradition my family observes. (Scandinavia)
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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
imperialismus Link ParentMy 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...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.
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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
Seeing people openly carrying guns in public was a huge shock to me. The first time I encountered it was on vacation in Croatia, where there were guards with I think SMGs standing outside a local bank, looking mighty menacing. In Norway, parliament authorized police to routinely carry guns last year. All my time growing up, not even the cops would carry guns. You'd never see an armed person in public. Ironically, Norway has a relatively high number of firearms per capita by European standards, because hunting is/was common, and sports shooting is also fairly popular. But those are kept strictly under lock and key when not in use. Sure, if you go for a hike in the woods during hunting season, you might see a hunter with a gun, but you'd never see one on the street. Nobody but criminals buys a gun for personal protection.
My most shocking experience was in 2009. I happened to be in Oslo when Obama was there to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. There were snipers on rooftops, men in military gear carrying automatic rifles in the streets, and the main street was closed to traffic. I felt like I'd stepped into a Hollywood movie. Experiencing that kind of culture shock within the heart of your own culture made it all the more shocking.