text_garden's recent activity
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on In Norway, children walk to school aged six, or even travel across the country. Why do these kids have so much independence, while other countries are so risk-averse? in ~life
text_garden Link ParentIs that really the case or hyperbole? I am not familiar with Polish law.Now you'd have your children taken away by social workers for leaving a 10 year olds home alone while you're at work, meanwhile this was a norm not so long time ago.
Is that really the case or hyperbole? I am not familiar with Polish law.
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Comment on Your favorite deeply unpopular music in ~music
text_garden LinkI've been listening a lot to goat (jp) lately after watching this excellent live video. Deeply hypnotic and intricate percussion music by skilled performers. They were playing in my home city last...I've been listening a lot to goat (jp) lately after watching this excellent live video. Deeply hypnotic and intricate percussion music by skilled performers.
They were playing in my home city last summer. I missed it and still regret it.
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Comment on What gaming genre could use a renaming? in ~games
text_garden Link ParentOne problem is that "used correctly" is a moving target. When I started playing roguelikes, that meant games that were like Rogue in some substantial way, e.g. NetHack or Angband, so in that sense...One problem is that "used correctly" is a moving target. When I started playing roguelikes, that meant games that were like Rogue in some substantial way, e.g. NetHack or Angband, so in that sense a very literal description. Those games are categorically different from Slay the Spire or Enter the Gungeon in my opinion, which although fun in their own rights are not at all like Rogue.
Even terms like "permadeath" that seem like they would have a clear and obvious definition take on a different meaning over time, as more and more of this newer kind of roguelike have between-runs meta games that literally can't be lost and are more important to your success than your performance in an individual run.
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Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
text_garden LinkI made a joypad controlled software drum machine with a very flexible timing system. Each lane of the sequencer has its own clock, a multiple of a base clock that ticks once per measure. Each lane...I made a joypad controlled software drum machine with a very flexible timing system. Each lane of the sequencer has its own clock, a multiple of a base clock that ticks once per measure. Each lane also has an arbitrary length sequence, so the sequencer allows both polyrhythmic and polymetric programming. For each step in a sequence, you can set a trigger velocity, and also the number of triggers that should appear in the step.
Here's a video of the current state
Next, I'll probably add individual time skew to each track, so you can make some tracks play a bit ahead or after others. Because all timing related matters are based off of a single phase accumulator, you can simply add an offset to this to get shift the timing.
The long term goal is a self-contained music system with the drum machine and a couple of instances of a synth. It's built with Zig and SDL2.
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Comment on How makers of nonconsensual AI porn make a living on Patreon in ~tech
text_garden Link ParentConsider nacho's comment in the context of the sentiment they responded to: I see similar sentiments often. It's as though people default to thinking we owe these businesses a moral/legal...They tricked nobody, they just did it.
Consider nacho's comment in the context of the sentiment they responded to:
I just don't know what more Patreon could realistically do to limit this content.
I see similar sentiments often. It's as though people default to thinking we owe these businesses a moral/legal framework according to which they can operate at the scales at which they currently operate without taking responsibility for the negative social effects. I think we are deliberately being fostered to accept that large corporations should be allowed to break down the social fabric. I think that the legislation around user-driven websites specifically have lagged so far behind due to a concerted effort that could be characterized as "tricking".
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Comment on What is your opinion on Dan Brown novels? in ~books
text_garden LinkI read Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code maybe 15 years ago. Easily digestible, suspenseful page turners, though they didn't leave much of a lasting impression. I recall thinking at some...I read Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code maybe 15 years ago. Easily digestible, suspenseful page turners, though they didn't leave much of a lasting impression.
I recall thinking at some point that it felt like I was reading an adventure thriller movie, for better or for worse. I still feel like it might be appropriate to recommend something like that to a teenager/young adult who hasn't been convinced by their exposure to the literary canon that they could get many more hours of entertainment out of reading reading instead of watching a movie.
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Comment on Is Emacs or VIM worth learning in today's day and age? in ~comp
text_garden LinkI don't regret getting started with Vim and using it for the past 15 years, but I am also wary of recommending it to anyone already content with the way they write code. Especially when motivated...I don't regret getting started with Vim and using it for the past 15 years, but I am also wary of recommending it to anyone already content with the way they write code. Especially when motivated by what the "long beards" think.
For me, the most important gain is in ergonomics. The mouse is extremely powerful as a kind of generalized interface for pointing at things precisely, and editors I'd used before leaned heavily on this. You can click and pull a selection precisely over the text you want to select or place the cursor exactly where you want it with relative ease and basically no cognitive load because it's so intuitively analogous to the exact motion of your hand. Vim was the first editor I'd used that felt like it offered a viable alternative to the precision and expressiveness of mouse motions using just the keyboard. That means less reliance on the mouse which is a great thing in terms of ergonomics, especially in the context of typing.
The cost is that I had to build an intuition around the Vim commands, but since I write code several hours a day and intend to do that until I retire, it would easily pay off even if I spent weeks figuring it out to a comfortable level of understanding. Once it's there is there: I now speak a language of motions and commands that apply to motions confidently and without much thought.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
text_garden Link ParentI've only personally played the retail version and the Matrox Mystique bundled version. Of those two I'd say that the retail version looks better. If I had a 3dfx setup I would definitely give...I've only personally played the retail version and the Matrox Mystique bundled version. Of those two I'd say that the retail version looks better. If I had a 3dfx setup I would definitely give that version a whirl, if nothing else just to see it running!
Here's a comparison of the different graphics card bundled versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWzWdwj9NvU
The PowerVR and 3dfx versions look pretty good in my view, but here's a review with a lot of footage from the retail version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1O4WTwjWZ4
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
text_garden Link ParentQuake is not a good analogue in this case IMO. Quake with hardware rendering is a fully texture mapped game with dynamic lighting effects. Quake with software rendering is essentially the same...Quake is not a good analogue in this case IMO. Quake with hardware rendering is a fully texture mapped game with dynamic lighting effects. Quake with software rendering is essentially the same thing: a fully texture mapped game with dynamic lighting effects. The renderers implement the same basic features so the results are visually kind of similar.
Software rendered MechWarrior 2 on the other hand does away with most of the texture mapping features available in the hardware accelerated versions. Visually, it's an entirely different game, and on newer hardware it runs well even at higher resolutions like 1024x768 (which most of the hardware accelerated versions didn't even support).
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
text_garden LinkMechWarrior 2. My dad got the game with a Matrox graphics card in the mid 90s and I remembered it fondly, so I decided to set it up in DOSBox. Didn't look at all like I remembered it, but in a...MechWarrior 2. My dad got the game with a Matrox graphics card in the mid 90s and I remembered it fondly, so I decided to set it up in DOSBox.
Didn't look at all like I remembered it, but in a good way. The version we had before was apparently designed specifically for that graphics card. Other versions were released for other cards, each using the different features of each card (the APIs were all incompatible back then). The "plain" version I downloaded only supports VGA and VESA, and texture mapping is used very sparingly because it isn't accelerated.
The result is quite striking, though: low poly but more than serviceable mechs running around in stylistic, mostly flat shaded landscapes over gradient skies, that judging by screenshots doesn't betray how old the game is as obviously as the 3D accelerated versions.
Anyway, the game is still a blast and manages to suspend disbelief in itself as a simulator, not just a sci-fi game. Before most missions you get a chance to set your mech up, including arming it, installing heatsinks, jump jets, engine and armor. During the missions, parts of your mech could be blown off, which results in any weapons or heat sinks mounted to it flying off as well, so there are situations in the game where even if you can't avoid getting hit, you have to manage where you get hit. Similarly, you have to consider where you hit enemies, and what effects hitting them in different places will have.
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Comment on Swedish company Scout Park has launched a mobile app where you can tip off wrongly parked cars to traffic wardens to earn money in ~transport
text_garden Link ParentIf the bounty is for traffic infractions and traffic infractions are bad, that people go along with whatever the bounty is for is a good thing. More people should go along with the idea that...The compensation gives people a reason to go along with whatever the bounty is for
If the bounty is for traffic infractions and traffic infractions are bad, that people go along with whatever the bounty is for is a good thing. More people should go along with the idea that traffic infractions are a bad thing.
a) real reform of the sources of problems
I see, so to consider it as a potential source of some kind of perverse incentive. In the same sense that someone being compensated for performing surgery may be disincentivized to propose medical solutions that don't involve surgery, except largely inconsequential by comparison.
These things are culturally addictive, just look at another case of bribing the citizenry to vote against their own long term interests: the USA's use of prisons and the staffing needed to run them to "stimulate" locally stagnant economies.
Evidently there are prison systems in the world that aren't massive private, industrial ventures where workers still get paid to work. So maybe it wasn't the boon of employment opportunities that created the weird prison industrial complex of the US. Moral compromise happens on all levels, but I don't think people in an affluent, christian society decide on their own that a stolen jacket should earn someone life without parole just because they want a job. The consent for the conditions in prisons and the legal system that destroys people has been deliberately manufactured by an industry that is too big to be anything but amoral in its strategy. It's not the result of activism from a grass roots movement of potential prison employees.
The compensation is how totalitarianism justifies itself.
The phenomenon in the more general sense of economic incentives and disincentives is also a huge part in how any modern liberal democracy implements policy.
Personally I tend to agree that that kind of incentive can lead to misallocation of resources and rigid, counterproductive policy. In a more general sense I would agree that money as the governing force behind the allocation of resources is largely a mistake. Merely having a job is potential for moral compromise—time I spent working basically connecting one piece of software to another could have been spent on far better things from a utilitarian perspective, but I've made the choice to do this less useful thing out of the self-interest the economic system demands should guide my labor.
So yeah, I can get with the "money bad" argument if that's what you are ultimately saying, but if we accept the existing economic framework as a baseline, compensation for reporting traffic infractions doesn't strike me as particularly dangerous to the social fabric nor as a particularly likely source of perverse incentives.
Whether it's moral or not that I get compensated for my work seems to me to depend most of all on whether the work I get paid for is morally justifiable in itself. A surgeon that does very important and useful work has optimized the use of their time in a way that has a high moral "pay-off" regardless of the compensation they receive for the work. Sure, the compensation they receive for the work might create an incentive not to explore alternative medical solutions, but there's a baby in the bathwater that we shouldn't throw out only because of coulds.
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Comment on Swedish company Scout Park has launched a mobile app where you can tip off wrongly parked cars to traffic wardens to earn money in ~transport
text_garden Link ParentSo instilling that same sense of alienation and mistrust is not an issue, so long as people aren't getting paid for it. Or is it that someone gets paid for it that creates the alienation in...Because I'm tired of repeating myself: the issue is the bounty, not the laws around parking.
So instilling that same sense of alienation and mistrust is not an issue, so long as people aren't getting paid for it. Or is it that someone gets paid for it that creates the alienation in itself? I don't think I understand your point correctly, because these feel like unfavorable interpretations on my part, but I'm honestly not sure what else you are getting at.
Are they being employed, invisibly from all outward appearance, to inform on legal infractions against their neighbors? Because that is very much like secret policing.
The action remains the same regardless of whether I am getting paid for it or not, so I don't see how the effects of the action on society as a whole should be different. I report a crime; society, insofar that its laws are good, is better for it and the perpetrator will rightly feel somewhat alienated from society for being reminded that their behavior is not socially acceptable, regardless of my compensation. Then, to me, it seems like you're making more of a semantic argument than something that makes a material difference to the practical reality. You could call it "secret police force" per some relaxed definition of "police" but it's really not at all like a secret police force in a totalitarian state.
And to get back to the point made above, is it the compensation that is the issue in a totalitarian state as well? Is it right for me to report your thought crime so long as I don't get paid for it?
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Comment on Swedish company Scout Park has launched a mobile app where you can tip off wrongly parked cars to traffic wardens to earn money in ~transport
text_garden Link ParentIt seems this app is based on photographic evidence which is then verified by parking attendants. I'm not sure what opportunities for making something up you envision. I think you'll find that...For one, it undermines the more basic levels of social trust that justify the use of violence implied by policing when everyone you meet has a good* reason to make something up about you or another person
It seems this app is based on photographic evidence which is then verified by parking attendants. I'm not sure what opportunities for making something up you envision.
- did so because of another person's choices effectively forcing them, and therefore punishment is unlikely to disincentivize future behavior
I think you'll find that there is a subjective threshold of "have to" that varies greatly depending on the risk balance. I don't have to own a car or a bicycle in the first place, so certainly I only have to park at all in some abstract sense.
- is genuinely only parked for a minute or so, and therefore isn't likely causing issues large enough to justify the hassle for anyone, let alone, again, the implied use of force
In my view there is a good reason traffic regulations don't make exceptions for things like "just a minute" or "just this once". Rules like this have to be considered through the lense of the categorical imperative. What would the effects of universally allowing blocking a bike path for "just a minute" be? If anyone was entitled to "just a minute" of your time, your life would absolutely suck. In my own experience, an awful day is more often than not built out of mild inconveniences.
That's, to some small degree, the situation where I live. Enough people put on their hazards anywhere and do whatever for just a minute, only because the risk that someone that can enforce the law will see and attend to your infraction, that it becomes a ubiquitous inconvenience.
The result is less predictable traffic situation because it snowballs into congestion and people having to break the law in the sense hinted at above. That's much worse than someone feeling "alienated" for not being able to trust everyone they've inconvenienced by breaking the law not to report them.
It's not like this is some slippery slope from "parking snitching" to a police state, but it's pretty well-documented that secret police forces alienate people from their communities and are a powerful tool for any totalitarian hopefuls, and there's no reason to believe this wouldn't normalize those same dynamics.
Here you use the term "secret police force" as though being able to report infractions makes you part of a secret police force. Am I similarly part of a secret police force if I overhear a violent domestic fight in my neighbor's apartment and report it? There clearly isn't a categorical reason such a thing should be more harmful to the social fabric than breaking the law, so I assume you consider it a matter of degree. In that case I feel like comparing the effects of reporting traffic infractions to the effects of secret police forces in totalitarian states is more than a little disingenuous.
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Comment on What's a game that you feel is almost great? in ~games
text_garden LinkIn my teens I bought Witchaven 2 on a whim, at a bargain price from a mail order company. This is a game by the infamous Capstone Software, who released tons of games ranging from terrible to...In my teens I bought Witchaven 2 on a whim, at a bargain price from a mail order company. This is a game by the infamous Capstone Software, who released tons of games ranging from terrible to mediocre.
The game looked great with a distinct visual style (seemingly using clay models for some of the enemies), melee focused combat, meaty and satisfying combat sounds and animations in a bleak fantasy setting. So far, so good: everything seemed right about it.
But then it seemed like every aspect of the game outside its presentation is bad in some way, ranging from slightly off to plainly awful. Not just technical bugs (of which there were a lot) but poor design overall. They had a great idea, great presentation and the potential to follow it through to a great game, but it felt so half-baked in the end, in a way that I feel wouldn't have taken that much more effort to fix.
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Comment on What AI tools are you actually using? in ~tech
text_garden Link ParentRepeat indefinitely for more and more semantic loss!It gets even better when the receiver uses AI to translate the verbose email back to bullet points.
Repeat indefinitely for more and more semantic loss!
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Comment on What AI tools are you actually using? in ~tech
text_garden LinkI occasionally use the free version of ChatGPT to ask music theory questions, or for "reverse term lookup" where I describe a concept and ask if there's some established term for it. It kind of...I occasionally use the free version of ChatGPT to ask music theory questions, or for "reverse term lookup" where I describe a concept and ask if there's some established term for it.
It kind of sucks at it, because it doesn't seem to have any concept of confidence and so will answer every question as though it knows exactly what it's talking about even when it doesn't, but it can be useful as a starting point for further investigation.
Kind of like having 24/7 access to a well read librarian that lies pathologically on a bad day.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~talk
text_garden Link ParentC) We're somewhere along a causal chain that doesn't have a definite beginning in the sense we understand causality. I could come up with more, but we're both just guessing, which is my point....Either the universe was spontaneous and without cause, which is absurd, or it had a cause, which then must necessarily have had a cause.
If you have an option c that gets around that, I'm all ears.
C) We're somewhere along a causal chain that doesn't have a definite beginning in the sense we understand causality.
I could come up with more, but we're both just guessing, which is my point.
If not...then I don't think you actually have any basis for making that assertion, because the way you wrote it implies that you know it to be true.
What assertion? If you mean to imply that I have asserted that there is a cause to the universe, please read again and respond to what I wrote instead of what you think I believe.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~talk
text_garden LinkIt's believed that up until a certain stage of development, it doesn't occur to babies that objects exist outside their own experience of them. In particular, if you don't see it, it might just...From a logical perspective, there is no reason we're here.
It's believed that up until a certain stage of development, it doesn't occur to babies that objects exist outside their own experience of them. In particular, if you don't see it, it might just not exist, so games like peek-a-boo are not only a rather mundane kind of entertainment, but a baffling demonstration of the wonders of the world.
Here, you similarly can't perceive a logical reason and surmise that there is none, confusing ignorance with knowledge. The result is the absurdity you experience: you know that there is no logical reason for us to be here, so being here at all is as baffling and magical as peek-a-boo is to the baby. It seems pointless to you because you have already decided, in ignorance, that there is no point.
For what it's worth, I don't attach any value judgement to that. I think it's innately human. We're in kind of an awkward position where we are prone to think of and deeply care for such things, yet limited by our experience to only ever arrogantly assume or concede to being clueless.
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Comment on What are some of your favorite PlayStation 1 games? Any odd or unique ones worth playing? in ~games
text_garden LinkJumping Flash was nice and weird. Probably the first first person platform game I can think of, and they nailed it. I generally associate 3D platforming with some frustration, but in this game,...Jumping Flash was nice and weird. Probably the first first person platform game I can think of, and they nailed it. I generally associate 3D platforming with some frustration, but in this game, the camera automatically faces downwards when you are falling down, so you always have a good idea of where you'll land.
Overwhelmingly, Hexcells Infinite. It generates a kind of puzzle that's somewhat like Minesweeper on a hex grid, but makes sure that you can arrive at the solution to each puzzle without guessing. Good DOS attack on the mind (as I heard someone describe Sudoku once).
I also played through all the official Half-Life series. Neither of them have aged particularly well IMO, but I also binged on them so that probably colors my perception a bit.
Other than that, I finished Overload, played a lot of Desecrators and Mechwarrior 5. I can't recommend both Desecrators and Overload highly enough (and I think I already mentioned them in an earlier thread like this). It's hard to contend with FPS games where you are basically stuck walking along a plane now. Once you've felt spherestrafing, circlestrafing just doesn't cut it :D