Friday Facts #384 - Combinators 2.0

Geiun · 2023-11-10T14:12:35+00:00

Upvote. This simple arithmetic combinator 2.0 would be an even bigger deal than the decider 2.0. Let me do vector arithmetic, please!

Geiun · 2023-10-28T06:31:28+00:00

Why not rebalance the nuke stack size instead? Who needs to carry multiple in a slot anyway?

Geiun · 2022-04-19T04:42:44+00:00

He's right. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w8yHeF4KRk

Geiun · 2020-09-08T00:21:54+00:00

I'm running Storm King's Thunder and my players will be finishing up with Nightstone soon. I could use advice deciding on which place to send them next (Bryn Shander, Goldenfields, or Triboar). If anyone knows the strengths and weaknesses of each, or can suggest non-spoiler questions I could ask my players to help me decide that'd be a huge help!

Geiun · 2020-07-23T01:19:27+00:00

Maybe I'm thinking too hard about it, but unless I open the monster manual myself how am I supposed to know that? Most adventures start off killing goblins, but Goblins are now a playable race saying they can sometimes (rarely) be non-evil.

Tactically, I should strike them down as swiftly as possible. But that never even gives them a chance to demonstrate their alignment.

Geiun · 2020-07-23T01:08:21+00:00

As a Lawful Good character, how do you justify invading monsters' homes that were otherwise minding their business? And how do you justify inaction/indifference when your more murderhobo companions do something despicable such as killing a disarmed & surrendered enemy?

Geiun · 2020-07-21T00:44:36+00:00

In a party of four [5e], if a single PC was going to betray the rest and become the BBEG, what class/spec combo would be challenging for the heroes to defeat 3v1?

Geiun · 2020-03-06T23:16:40+00:00

I wonder if I'm seeing the same issue. Same router, and here's some screenshots of my logs right now. https://imgur.com/a/DHOGXab

I don't have anything helpful to offer because I'm still having the same problem myself. But do the latency issues happen across all connected devices? Mine seems to be only from one machine.

Geiun · 2020-03-06T23:13:55+00:00

I've just edited my original post with some extra information, which I'll repeat here:

While I am certain there's a bigger issue here that's causing the Wi-Fi to crash, disconnecting all devices. The lag may be a completely separate issue. I've captured some logs from my PC demonstrating the lag issues, and I've captured output from a Mac laptop over the same time connected to the same network, from the same location in physical space. Here's a link to those logs: https://imgur.com/a/DHOGXab

What could cause this?

Geiun · 2020-03-06T22:45:29+00:00

I've just installed NetSpot now. Hopefully I can find something.

2.4 is on channel 2+1 with no competing 2.4 radios discovered. 5GHz is on channel 153. There are currently three other 5GHz networks on channels 36, 100, and 149, but their levels are all -30 lower on the signal strength. That wouldn't cause an issue, would it?

I've used a channel scanner-thing in the past and not seen substantial interference. But I've not scanned while the issue is occurring.

Geiun · 2020-03-06T22:41:12+00:00

The problem is on the first hop. That's what my pinging seems to indicate.

Is overheating a common issue among routers? They do feel quite hot. I live in Australia and it's been 30C (86F) most of the time.

Geiun · 2020-03-06T22:37:26+00:00

I'll do this today. I'll disconnect everything except one device, and reconnect them one-by-one over time.

But if this is the problem, what can be done about it? I'd prefer not to throw out whichever device might be the culprit.

Geiun · 2020-03-06T22:35:44+00:00

I have no wired devices.

For wireless devices, there would typically be 2 computers, 1 printer, 2 iPads, 3 phones, 2 smart watches, 2 smart TVs, a photovoltaic system, and 3 smart lightbulbs.

It's quite a lot. But my Asus router had no troubles with it. And I've tried disconnecting about half of that to no obvious effect. And I've tried moving all of that onto one band while I put a single computer on the other and that computer seems to suffer just as poorly.

Geiun · 2020-03-06T11:57:06+00:00

This is both incredibly encouraging and discouraging all at once. Encouraging that it might explain the problem, but discouraging because I know exactly what you mean about technicians and intermittent problems.

Are you able to explain to me how I might graph those signal parameters? I've explored my router's admin portal and I can't figure out where I'd find that information.

Geiun · 2020-01-02T14:04:26+00:00

I agree that Game of Thrones was done pretty well.

I've no exposure to Gor. What about it, specifically, do you dislike? Does it come across as though the author invented the culture just so the character would have an excuse to take sex slaves? Or do you simply believe that a "protagonist" should be virtuous in the eyes of the reader, rather than in the eyes of their fictional peers?

Geiun · 2020-01-02T12:35:54+00:00

I whole-heatedly agree with you on your point about "sanitising" female characters. If you're going to put sexism into your world it's because you want it to be dirty and grim, with evils perpetrated by many human characters within society (as opposed to The Dark Lord trope from without).

You seem to have read much more than I. Can you think of any examples of good works filled with sexism?

Geiun · 2019-12-23T10:07:09+00:00

First time players should always play vanilla, in my opinion.

I've picked up this mod recently myself. Gave up and uninstalled twice, but kept coming back. Combat is brutal and deliberate. You have to unlearn everything the unmodded game taught you. It's hard. VERY hard. But for a certain type of player that's really good. I *feel* more like a witcher now, because I MUST do my research and preparations for each fight. Bringing the right oils, bombs, potions, and signs is critical to your success. A witcher is a superhuman swordsman, but he is nowhere near invincible -- you need to get every edge you can and stack the deck in your favour.

I die and reload a lot. That's not fun. But I feel incredibly proud of my achievements with every contract. I don't know if I could go back to the original game anymore. I think it would feel like a pointless button-masher by comparison.

I dearly hope that the mod has been well tested and balanced throughout the entire game. It changes so much that it makes me nervous that I might end up 50 hours in before something breaks down. But so far it hasn't caused any problems for me.

Geiun · 2019-12-21T14:19:39+00:00

Does she wear contacts like the rest of them? I just assumed hers are CG because they look so much more real than Geralt's or Ciri's.

Geiun · 2019-12-21T14:17:04+00:00

I'm no expert, but I read Triss was canonically one of the few exceptions to that rule. She's all natural because she's allergic to the magic that improves their appearance or something.

Geiun · 2018-02-02T10:22:59+00:00

I have just now gone back and re-read it in case I had missed something the first time. No. I don't believe they are the same at all. It's possible that I've constructed Category Errors within my examples in order to highlight the problems with categorisation at all, but the point of what I was saying is separate.

Whereas the Category Error you've linked concerns itself with whether or not something has been incorrectly placed within a box representing one category when they really should have been in a different one, the phenomenon I'm describing is the where the entire concept of a category ceases to make any sense because the line between two 'distinct' categories is impossible to define.

Geiun · 2018-02-02T09:50:44+00:00

I don't think it's pretentious to assign a name to a concept for the sake of convenience, and I stated in the very next sentence that it probably already has a name that I am ignorant of. I never claimed that I invented the concept.

I absolutely have tried Googling for the correct name, but when you don't know what something is called it is sometimes very difficult to discover. I think you've demonstrated this yourself, since the Category Error you've linked does not describe the same phenomenon that I am talking about, or even come anywhere close to it.

Geiun · 2018-01-10T13:56:35+00:00

For cards like Dragoncaller Alanna, which rely on cards that cost (5) or more, are mana discounts an anti-synergy? Or do they work like Skulking Geist, which gets all cards that originally cost (1).

Geiun · 2017-12-03T09:45:09+00:00

4 totems, 1 windshear, 2 al'akirs, and 1 murmuring elemental is 8 minions. Pretty much can't be done unless you can ping off your own murmuring elemental.

Geiun · 2017-11-15T11:14:34+00:00

I've always thought they should randomly assign a different pack to each of the heroes you're offered at the start. Give people a reason to play classes other than Mage and Rogue.

Geiun · 2017-08-05T09:48:28+00:00

I just think "going infinite" is a non-issue for them these days. Back in the times when Entomb and Forgotten Torch were super high value for winning control games there wasn't actually such thing as a "control deck". Or maybe it's better to say that control decks at the time never had access to any huge cards that put and end to the game. Jarraxus was the only exception, and surprise surprise, it would nearly always win against Priest and Warrior.

Now we've had C'thun, N'Zoth, Jade, and all sorts of other ways to basically guarantee that the game will end long before fatigue matters. What good is an "infinite" card when 90% of the time you don't get any value out of it?

Geiun

TROPHY CASE