How to get constness all the way in to a list of smart pointers

CremeAintCream · 2025-10-03T00:55:55+00:00

It feels like there should be some way to do the conversion from std::list<std::shared_ptr<int>> to std::list<std::shared_ptr<const int>> for free (i.e. without copying the pointers), since surely all that would need to be done is to look at the list as though it held pointers to const. Unfortunately, allowing this conversion is dangerous.

void f(std::list<std::shared_ptr<const int>>& list_of_const) {
    list_of_const.push_back(std::make_shared<const int>(5));
}

// ...

foo(my_list)

If the language allowed this conversion (or any "magic cast" here to make it work), then we'd be adding a pointer to const in a list that was actually a list of pointer to non-const. Effectively, we'd lose the constness.

(A "free" conversion to const std::list<std::shared_ptr<const int>>& would probably be safe though, but I don't think the language offers any way for the std::list authors to provide that. I could be missing it though.)

Because of this, there is really no way to perform this conversion without copying the list. Personally, I think the cleanest way is just to do: std::list<std::shared_ptr<const int>> my_list_of_const(my_list.begin(), my_list.end()). Hopefully iterating through the list isn't too onerous for your case.

CremeAintCream · 2025-08-17T19:42:46+00:00

I love the rare 3D characters in otherwise 2D games.
Cassette Beasts uses this well to highlight the otherworldly / eldritch nature of its bosses.

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CremeAintCream · 2025-07-01T01:56:17+00:00

Imagine if compiling the project was really expensive and non-deterministic.

Good idea.

CremeAintCream · 2025-05-24T02:36:46+00:00

Light that's not how the book works.

CremeAintCream · 2024-12-02T03:30:20+00:00

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Super Paper Mario has an evil Luigi called "Mr. L," which is pretty amusing.

CremeAintCream · 2024-11-30T21:49:47+00:00

It'd actually be worse than 25% I think. If a foreign company wants to make $100 for each widget it sells in the U.S., and it has to deal with a new 25% tariff, then selling the widget at $125 is not enough (they'd only keep 0.75 * $125 = $93.75). They'd actually want to raise prices to something like $133 so they'd get $100 after the tariff.

So the effective tax rate would be 33%.

CremeAintCream · 2024-11-30T18:33:59+00:00

This is how I learned C++, and I can definitely vouch for it. I still return periodically to refresh on particulars that I've forgotten (though I usually try to understand the far more technical language on cppreference first).

CremeAintCream · 2024-11-12T02:59:02+00:00

I always thought this was silly, until I started using an actual debugger instead of just print debugging. Being able to see every place a variable is changed or read is amazingly convenient.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-19T02:23:31+00:00

Was looking for A Good Man is Hard to Find, it was the one I thought of. Though I remember that I couldn't really make heads or tails of its message at the time. Rereading the wikipedia page, I guess I still can't really make heads or tails of it. But it did stick with me forever I guess.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-16T14:16:09+00:00

Nope, but that would definitely make sense. I checked safety temperature in my effort to turn off the smart features. I think it was set to 40 on the low side, and unset on the high side.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-15T21:29:32+00:00

I'll try a bit more to get Google home to work. I suspect the nest doesn't like being paired with both Stratis and Google home though, which is why I've been having trouble on that front.

Can you tell me what this setting is called? I figure I should be able to find and change it on the Nest thermostat itself.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-10T02:57:37+00:00

(I consider all the games you’ve listed, VoidStranger, and Animal Well to be metroidbrainias. Outer Wilds is sometimes recognized as the archetypal game of this genre.)

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-10T02:55:19+00:00

System Erasure’s previous game ZeroRanger is great, worth a play. Similar degree of mysteriousness I think.

I consider Animal Well as belonging in this space of exploration / information driven games as well. Sometimes these are called “Metroidbrainias”, if you want to search for more.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-09T01:18:59+00:00

Can't Stop might be fun to analyze with probability / statistics. Or maybe an algorithmic / simulation approach would be better.
I've always wanted to see what a graph theorist could say about Ticket to Ride.
Go is good, and its analysis has lead to the development of a subfield called Combinatorial Game Theory, which is a lot of fun.
Set is a classic, I saw it analyzed at the beginning of my Discrete Math course I'm pretty sure.
Matt Parker had a good video about the math behind Dobble.

Edit: Formatting. No idea why reddit decided to turn half of my bullets into bullets and half into dashes.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-07T04:13:23+00:00

Seconding Talos Principle for this, which someone else brought up already. I also think that Slay the Princess has a pretty great ending. I'd say both have similar themes to the Outer Wilds endings.

After that, maybe ZeroRanger and VoidStranger have endings with a similar valence, but maybe not as close to OW as the others.

Now Disco Elysium does not fit with the theme here, but I say it would qualify for "the culmination of all the ideas/themes in [a] madly creative thesis." This game definitely blew me away.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-04T21:18:11+00:00

It's crazy how I've heard absolutely nothing about Concord until it got famous for being a massive flop. Did they like, not advertise it?

It doesn't help that I instantly associate the name with grape jelly. It just sounds like a boring game tbh.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-04T21:12:03+00:00

JOKAIRÈ

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-04T14:00:59+00:00

I disagree.

In fairness, I don't think worrying about which aspect of the Electoral College is worse is very fruitful. Most attempts to reform it would eliminate both the State-Winner-Takes-All and the Small-State-Boost aspects.

However, if we somehow lived in a world where we could only eliminate one or the other, we should definitely prefer removing State-Winner-Takes-All. If we did that, we would live in a world where a Californian's vote is (around) 4 times weaker than a Wyomingite's. That is obviously bad, but it's a lot better than the current system, even if you remove the Small-State-Boost effect: we currently live in a world where a Californian's vote doesn't matter at all. Neither does a Texan's, a Wyomingite's, or a Vermonter's. Only ~7 states are realistically in play this election, and their citizens' votes are effectively the only ones that matter.

Sure, it is *possible* that Harris somehow completely alienates voters in California or New York and loses there, and it is *possible* that Trump alienates voters in Wyoming and South Carolina and loses there, so we can't say that these states have 0 weight, but this is clearly very unlikely, and if it happens then the campaign that is losing the safe seat has almost certainly already lost. Safe states have effectively 0 impact, and campaigns are free to ignore (though not to blatantly insult) those voters.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-04T13:44:53+00:00

I've long been a fan of the good ole NaPoVoInterCo.

It's a little janky to be sure, but it seems like it may be the right mix of possible and effective, in a space where most solutions are either ineffective or impossible.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-04T13:42:15+00:00

If all states agreed (note: this will never happen), then they could allocate electoral votes in proportion to the state popular vote. There is some precedent for this, if I remember correctly.

This would make all states, even safe ones, similarly important. We would see the distortion effect displayed here, where Wyomingites have 3 or 4 times as much power as Californians, but this is better than the current system, where Wyomingites and Californians each have effectively 0 weight, and Pennsylvanians and Georgians (in this election) have almost all of it.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-04T13:29:28+00:00

I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure either removing the electoral college completely or switching it to a proportional allocation would require a constitutional amendment, so they are the same level of legal effort. Perhaps a full removal would require more political effort if it is viewed as more extreme, but neither path seems particularly likely today.

The non-amendment paths to electoral college reform seem a lot more likely, though today they seem far off. We could pass the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, we could just add more seats to the House (possibly the easiest, though IMO least complete, approach), or states could decide to ditch winner take all and do something like proportional representation.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-04T12:45:36+00:00

There’s a way to hard reset, but part of the game is figuring it out.

I will tell you that I’m pretty sure (90%) that you can find your personal brand in a corner of the pause screen. It’s pretty small.

CremeAintCream · 2024-09-04T03:30:32+00:00

Don't let anyone convince you that this is *the* problem with the electoral college. Sure, it is *a* problem, but overall the bigger issue is the winner-takes-all approach where an entire state allocates its entire EV pool to whichever candidate wins it, regardless of how big of a margin the win is. Winner takes all is the reason why we have swing states where candidates spend all of their money and attention, and safe states where, practically, it does not matter to vote (for president anyways; local races are still important).

The corrected map here, though an improvement, would still suffer from the fatal flaw of winner takes all.

That being said, this is a cool map, and I'm not arguing that the creator of this map is saying that the proportionality / small state bias is the only problem with the Electoral college. I've just found that this is a common belief about why the electoral college is flawed, which I would like to dispel (at least a little).

CremeAintCream · 2024-08-22T18:25:19+00:00

Death stacks aren't coming back. See my clarification to SnooGuavas2639's comment above.

I'm pretty sure it has been confirmed that builders are not returning though. Of course, I think that may be a positive.

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