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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • The charged ones would likely have little trouble finding their counterparts. Especially the positrons, maybe electron shells would prevent anti-protons from getting to protons.

    I’m curious how stable anti-neutrons are in a matter world (and how free neutrons behave, for that matter). Does anything stop them from just joining the first atom they happen to get close enough to? And how long before they get close enough to an atom if they do, in say Earth’s atmosphere?


  • DM: “So you’ve all been traveling for several weeks, anything you want to add about what you’ve been doing on the way?”

    Player: “Uh, I spot check?”

    DM, sighs, “Okay, roll for it.”

    Player rolls an 18.

    DM: “Along the way you notice the hidden chest and find a latrine shovel. Anything else you’re doing?”

    Insert 5 minute argument that it should just be a normal shovel and therefore it shouldn’t be limited to just digging latrines.

    DM: “Now that that’s settled, you can add your normal shovel that isn’t a latrine shovel but can still be used to dig latrines to your inventory and answer the question if there’s anything else you did, or maybe dug and then filled with something other than the dirt you just dug from it before filling it with the dirt you dug from it?”

    Player: “Oh, I know! I listen! Uh I rolled a 6 :(”

    DM: “You don’t hear anything and you all die from burst bladders and ruptured colons!”

    Insert 5 minute argument about which one, since it was unlikely that each of their bladders and colons burst simultaneously.












  • It’s the same mindset that lead to using dispersants on the oil spilled by deep horizon. It’s not about science, it’s about dealing with a problem that has no easy good solution, so instead of a good solution, just something is done.

    Oil companies probably thought that people would be more resistant to buying oil if it needed special effort to dispose of properly. Maybe they didn’t even have a good way of dealing with it at that time and just hadn’t dumped enough of it yet to realize that it would eventually run down into the water table. Though going by how they handled realizing that burning oil at all was going to have a huge effect on climate, they likely wouldn’t have cared even if they did know.

    Just like deep horizon wasn’t an environmental problem for BP but a PR one, thus they selected solutions that looked like they were trying, that they shouldn’t be liquidated to fund a real cleanup effort, and that new deep water oil wells were still worth the risk. Think of all the retirees that they are holding hostage because they put money towards funds that bought BP stock and derivatives!


  • That’s a part of it. Another part is that it looks for patterns that it can apply in other places, which is how it ends up hallucinating functions that don’t exist and things like that.

    Like it can see that English has the verbs add, sort, and climb. And it will see a bunch of code that has functions like add(x, y) and sort( list ) and might conclude that there must also be a climb( thing ) function because that follows the pattern of functions being verb( objects ). It didn’t know what code is or even verbs for that matter. It could generate text explaining them because such explanations are definitely part of its training, but it understands it in the same way a dictionary understands words or an encyclopedia understands the concepts contained within.


  • I think the same about anyone who fears LGBT+ trying to convert their kids like they believe someone can be convinced to be gay rather than just convinced to accept their sexuality.

    Like I don’t see any problem with being gay but it’s not for me. I sometimes think dating would be easier if I was bi, but it’s about as appealing as knowing it would be easier to fill my stomach if I ate sawdust.

    So it’s very telling when someone talks about gays tempting them or that they worry about a gay agenda of turning everyone gay like it’s a realistic possibility.




  • Yeah golden parachutes are such a joke in this society that likes to pretend to be a meritocracy.

    Though on that note, I’d love to see a law that limits golden parachutes to the lowest paid position in the company. Hell, I’d be ok with that being scaled to full time. Not because disgraced executives deserve even that much but because it would give some incentive to increase pay rates across the company. I’ve also long thought that executive compensation should also be limited by some multiple of the lowest pay. And yeah, I’d include stock options and grants in that (for both employee and executive compensation).


  • IMO a fumbled and later recovered launch is different from the enshitification of video games like P2W, MTX in general, lootboxes, releasing what should be patches as paid DLC, invasive DRM and anti-cheat. I’d file all of those under bad design, while a bad launch is more of a bad execution. There can be overlap, like if they fully intended for early players to fill the role of beta testers.

    The way I approach it is I try to avoid the bad design stuff entirely but just avoid buying new games at release and definitely never pre-order. I’ll also support games in early release if I really like the concept and want to give them a better chance at being able to pull it off, but I go into those with the understanding that it’s not complete right now and there’s a chance it never will be. But I don’t see any reason to hold anything against the games that have messy launches but later recover.

    Though I’ve learned to not jump on the hype train and that makes it much easier to not take any of this stuff personally.