kej's recent activity
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Comment on The Dealer's Tarot - Modern games to play with a tarot deck in ~games.tabletop
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Comment on What is your go-to project for learning a new language? in ~comp
kej Link ParentThis phrasing makes it seem like Swedish accounting differs significantly from other accounting. Is that the case, or am I reading too much into your word choice?I did a parser for Swedish accounting data
This phrasing makes it seem like Swedish accounting differs significantly from other accounting. Is that the case, or am I reading too much into your word choice?
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Comment on US senator to introduce bill aimed at ending sports blackouts, making games easier to watch for fans in ~sports
kej LinkI'm generally in favor of anything that shifts power from big corporations to individual consumers, but at this moment in history this bill feels an awful lot like panem et circenses.I'm generally in favor of anything that shifts power from big corporations to individual consumers, but at this moment in history this bill feels an awful lot like panem et circenses.
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Comment on What is your go-to project for learning a new language? in ~comp
kej LinkThere is a 1978 book called Etudes for Programmers (overview here, but you can find a full PDF pretty easily) that has a bunch of problems that most software developers think they can solve, but...There is a 1978 book called Etudes for Programmers (overview here, but you can find a full PDF pretty easily) that has a bunch of problems that most software developers think they can solve, but that most software developers have never actually sat down and solved. Things like simulating Conway's Game of Life, or a basic accounting system, or the AI for a simple board game.
I've only done a few of them, but they feel more satisfying than some of the Advent of Code/Project Euler puzzles, although I enjoy those quite a bit as well.
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Comment on What are you reading these days? in ~books
kej Link ParentJust chiming in to make sure you know about Standard Ebooks. They take the transcriptions from Project Gutenberg (and others) and clean up the typography but keep the same free price tag. Worth...Just chiming in to make sure you know about Standard Ebooks. They take the transcriptions from Project Gutenberg (and others) and clean up the typography but keep the same free price tag. Worth checking them first before getting the Gutenberg versions, in my experience.
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Comment on Nvim 0.12 released in ~comp
kej Link ParentWhether they'll ever reach it is an open question, but there are plans for a Neovim 1.0 release.Whether they'll ever reach it is an open question, but there are plans for a Neovim 1.0 release.
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Comment on TV series suggestions in ~tv
kej LinkMy wife and I have both enjoyed Only Murders in the Building and A Man on the Inside lately.My wife and I have both enjoyed Only Murders in the Building and A Man on the Inside lately.
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Comment on Does anyone have experience exchanging actual letters with a pen pal? in ~talk
kej LinkAs a teenager in an AOL chat room I met someone who claimed to be a girl from California and actually turned out to be a girl from California. We would chat online almost daily, and then when I...As a teenager in an AOL chat room I met someone who claimed to be a girl from California and actually turned out to be a girl from California. We would chat online almost daily, and then when I was leaving to work at summer camp I gave her the camp address in case she wanted to write, and ended up exchanging a bunch of letters back and forth. We became pretty good friends, as far as online things go, over the next few years. She lamented her unrequited love for a male friend of hers, I told her about my unrequited love for a female friend of mine. We were pretty high on each other's list of people to tell about any major life events, both good and bad.
Eventually we kind of drifted apart, and the mass exodus from AOL didn't help with that. We talked once a few years later, and she told me that the night before her wedding she had sent me a long email, but it had gone to my old and unchecked AOL address and I never saw it, nor did she tell me what it had said. I looked her up on Facebook recently and sent a friend request, but after the initial "what have you been up to?" chat there hasn't really been a reason to keep the conversation going. I guess sometimes the past is supposed to stay in the past.
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Comment on Zachtronics returns from retirement to release an add-on for Opus Magnum in ~games
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Comment on Zachtronics returns from retirement to release an add-on for Opus Magnum in ~games
kej Link ParentSort of tangential, but there's a great talk by Guy Steele (co-creator of the Scheme programming language who went on to do a lot of work on Java) called Growing a Language, and his point is that...Sort of tangential, but there's a great talk by Guy Steele (co-creator of the Scheme programming language who went on to do a lot of work on Java) called Growing a Language, and his point is that a good programming language starts small but makes it easy to add things as complexity grows. (It starts slowly, but watch the whole thing and you'll understand why. It's a really good presentation.)
I think that ability to add things is what is missing from a lot of the Zachtronics games and the zach-like genre as a whole. Instead of solving a small problem and then being able to use that solution in the more complex ones, you end up having to repeat the small solution and add the larger solution at the same time, which makes it a lot harder to keep all the complexity in your head.
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Comment on Let's talk about tropes! in ~books
kej Link ParentI'm just going to invite myself into this branch of the conversation to say that I would like to hear more about the distinction.I was mostly using "trope" and "cliche" as synonyms, but there is a distinction. It wasn't my goal to hash that out, but we could if that interests you
I'm just going to invite myself into this branch of the conversation to say that I would like to hear more about the distinction.
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Comment on Let's talk about tropes! in ~books
kej LinkMy pet peeve is clumsy exposition, and the worst is when a character explains something to another character who should already know the thing. Give me a fake encyclopedia entry at the start of...My pet peeve is clumsy exposition, and the worst is when a character explains something to another character who should already know the thing. Give me a fake encyclopedia entry at the start of the chapter or a legitimately ignorant character who actually does need the explanation.
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Comment on A hobby of collecting hobbies in ~hobbies
kej Link ParentI love when inanimate objects tell a story like that. You've also reminded me of a thought I've often had when reading history or historical fiction, where they will reference some old coins and I...I love when inanimate objects tell a story like that.
You've also reminded me of a thought I've often had when reading history or historical fiction, where they will reference some old coins and I struggle to contextualize it. If a sailor threw a silver 8 reales coin on the tavern counter, is that enough to buy himself a drink, enough to buy a round for all his friends, or enough to buy the whole tavern? So, my question is if you know of any good resources for comparing the value of historical coins to the present (in the sense of what they would have been worth when in use, not their present collector value)?
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Comment on A hobby of collecting hobbies in ~hobbies
kej Link ParentThis is completely off-topic and please don't take it personally because everyone does it, but a silly linguistic thing I enjoy is when people have a typo or swap homophones but the sentence still...Ive had to reign it in a bit
This is completely off-topic and please don't take it personally because everyone does it, but a silly linguistic thing I enjoy is when people have a typo or swap homophones but the sentence still kind of makes sense with the other word. If you are getting something under control you would be reining it in, like pulling on a horse's reins, but coins have historically been marked with a reigning person so it still kind of makes sense here.
Back on topic, what are some of the coolest parts of your collection?
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Comment on What radicalized you? in ~talk
kej Link ParentIt's on my list but I haven't gotten to it yet. Is there a spoiler-free way you can tell me what the red letter connection is in Blue Prince?It's on my list but I haven't gotten to it yet. Is there a spoiler-free way you can tell me what the red letter connection is in Blue Prince?
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Comment on What radicalized you? in ~talk
kej Link ParentI've heard of pastors having their congregants get angry if they preach about the beatitudes. It reminds me of how some people interpreted NPR's reading/tweeting the Declaration of Independence on...I've heard of pastors having their congregants get angry if they preach about the beatitudes. It reminds me of how some people interpreted NPR's reading/tweeting the Declaration of Independence on July 4th as an attack on Donald Trump.
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Comment on What radicalized you? in ~talk
kej Link ParentThey have a whole section about it under the new name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevations_RTC#ControversyThey have a whole section about it under the new name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elevations_RTC#Controversy
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Comment on What radicalized you? in ~talk
kej LinkSome of the letters were in red, so they seemed important.Some of the letters were in red, so they seemed important.
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Comment on What are people using instead of VS Code? in ~comp
kej LinkThere is a very recent fork of Zed that removes the AI features and the telemetry, if those are things you'd rather do without: https://gram.liten.app/docs/mission/There is a very recent fork of Zed that removes the AI features and the telemetry, if those are things you'd rather do without: https://gram.liten.app/docs/mission/
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Comment on Dox with Grok in ~tech
kej LinkFor an old account of mine, it noticed a similarity in account names with someone else's account on some other website, and then went completely off the rails chasing leads from that other site....For an old account of mine, it noticed a similarity in account names with someone else's account on some other website, and then went completely off the rails chasing leads from that other site. It was trying to reconstruct that other person's family tree based on drama in their Mormon church, going so far as to search obituaries to find related names. It would have been impressive in its thoroughness if it hadn't gone down the completely wrong track in the first place. My stupid old posts remain anonymous, at least for now.
Funny coincidence, I received my copy of The Dealer's Tarot in the mail just yesterday. I went down a rabbit hole of alternative card games a while back and landed on the wikipedia page for tarot card games. I haven't had a chance to play any of the games yet, but they seem well designed. I also think Level 99 did a good job with the accompanying decks they are offering, since most divination-style decks aren't very convenient to play with (they usually don't put the suit and number in the corner, making it hard to fan your hand and see everything at a glance). I still might pick up this deck because I like the Rider Waite artwork even if I'm not a reading cards person.
You should check out Everway, a weird RPG system from the 1990s where decisions were made based on the cards. They used custom decks where the imagery was supposed to inspire the storytelling, but something similar using a tarot deck would be a neat idea.