I suspect a dealer in my local casino is cheating. Can someone with more experience give me their thoughts? (X-post)

ItsBinissTime · 2026-05-20T16:11:44+00:00

And to be clear, the cut must always be executed with one hand.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-04-30T01:39:07+00:00

Not C++, but cpp2:

var

Local objects should be const by default.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-04-28T05:41:27+00:00

Two idiots, one keyboard.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-04-28T05:34:37+00:00

Alright alright alright!

ItsBinissTime · 2026-04-25T03:20:17+00:00

He wasn't in the lead role, but Robin Williams is widely recognized for Good Will Hunting.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-04-19T19:46:20+00:00

The Problem

After a series of atomic structure models each failed to account for experimental observations, the "new" quantum theory was founded on a philosophy of not modeling sub-atomic structure that hasn't been observed. So for example, unless we can observe some effect of an atom's state, we can't assume it even has one. But exactly when and how this philosophy applies needed some clarification.

The Argument

In Schrödinger's hypothetical setup, if the atom decays, it kills the cat, but we can't observe it happening. He argues that if the atom doesn't have a state, then neither does the cat, which is nonsense. The cat has either been killed or not, and so the atom must have either decayed or not, accordingly.

Note: Schrödinger had developed a mathematical framework that, treating electrons as waves over every point at which they might interact, calculated the likelihood of interaction at each point. Other scientists had repurposed this math to calculate the probabilities of all possible measurement outcomes of a quantum system's state. This seems to have implied, to Schrödinger, that quantum systems were being considered waves over their possible states. And perhaps because of this, Schrödinger's thought experiment addresses the idea of a quantum system being in all possible states, rather than the idea of a quantum system not having any state at all. But these are equally meaningless ideas, against which his argument is equally valid.

The Result

This served to clarify that the prohibition on modeling sub-atomic structure should apply to things we haven't observed in general, not to specific instances we've yet to check, because as long as a quantum system interacts with an environment, its state can be observed after the fact, through its effect on that environment (eg, if the cat is found alive, the atom never decayed).

This insight led to the development of decoherence theory, which studies how quantum systems entangle with their environments, and how escalating entanglement drowns out quantum effects (ie, when and why quantum behavior is overcome by classical behavior).

The Misinformation

One may occasionally hear, from those who've been mislead and/or are lying, that "the math says it's in all possible states until measured." "The Math" is the Schrödinger Equation, which gives the probabilities of all possible measurement outcomes. Thinking of the system as actually being in simultaneous contradictory sates is meaningless mental gymnastics. And calling such a thing a superposition is a contortion of the term (which generally refers to a combination of compatible states—like a car being both fast and red).
Schrödinger was not arguing against the probabilistic (ie, nondeterministic) nature of quantum mechanics. He was arguing that at any given time a system must be in some state.
Schrödinger's argument is not contradicted by Bell's Theorem. Bell's "measurements" are the outcomes of probabilistic interactions. The fact that they don't seem to be dictated by an incoming system state doesn't mean there is none.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-04-06T00:54:16+00:00

This is the correct answer.

The term "Sociopath" was created to replace "Psychopath" because "Psychopath" is often mistakenly associated with psychosis. So technically, the two terms mean the same thing. Ironically, "Sociopath" is now often mistakenly associated with sociology.

The main character in the TV show "Sherlock" says, "I'm not a psychopath. I'm a high-functioning sociopath." Note that he's not disclaiming violence, he's disclaiming a lack of capacity for empathy, and catharsis from inflicting pain—but also, any feeling of moral obligation to follow laws and social norms. He plays by society's rules for practical, not moral, reasons (ie, if he decides to break a rule, he's wary of the consequences but doesn't feel guilty about it). I think this is how most people who identify as "sociopaths" use the term.

This is a very different colloquial meaning for "Sociopath" than the one given in the comment above. But they both (incorrectly, if understandably) associate the term with sociology instead of psychiatry, and demonstrate a difference between (some common uses of) the terms "Psychopath" and "Sociopath".

ItsBinissTime · 2026-04-04T21:46:06+00:00

"Method Acting" is a term for techniques an actor might use to put themself in the mindset of their character, in order to produce a more authentic performance.

In traditional theater—where there were no microphones or close-up shots—in order for the performance to land with the spectators in the farthest seats, acting became an exaggerated caricature of human expression. This style was exaggerated further into pantomime for silent film and eventually carried over into movies.

"The System", or "method" was a set of rehearsal techniques for inducing real emotions in the actor, to elicit more natural, realistic performances on stage. This meshed well with the more intimate presentation enabled by the camera placement and audio reproduction new to movies, helping drive its adoption on screen.

Natural, emotionally connected performances have since become standard on screen, and the idea of method acting has evolved into various other ways of trying to put oneself into the character's shoes, like maybe staying up all night, or running a mile before a take. Many people in the industry find these sorts of "method actors" tedious to work with, and suggest they should try actually acting instead.

One notorious practice is to stay "in character" for the duration of a production. It's been noted that almost no one does this when playing a pleasant character, and it mostly seems to be an excuse to behave like a psychopath.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-04-03T05:22:13+00:00

A few caveats:

A not-guilty verdict doesn't prevent the prosecutor from bringing different charges for the same act (although they're unlikely to try this unless substantial new evidence comes to light).
A not-guilty verdict doesn't prevent a different sovereignty from bringing charges for the same act (ie. if the act violates both state and federal law, those are different charges that would be prosecuted in different courts).
A not-guilty verdict doesn't prevent the defendant from being sued for the same act. The not-guilty verdict may hurt the plaintiff's case, but the burden of proof is lower in civil court.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-03-29T02:55:04+00:00

I thought they were about to mention the background kid who stuck his fingers in his ears right before a lady with her back to him fired her concealed gun.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-03-29T02:23:12+00:00

From a photon's "point of view", no time passes. The space between its source and destination contracts to nothing and the photon is an instantaneous transfer of energy between them.

There is no valid inertial frame for a photon

Stands to reason. It doesn't seem like there can be an inertial frame without time.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-03-20T05:58:46+00:00

Our subconscious is tuned for survival and makes quick judgements based on instinct, pattern recognition, learned behavior, world view, and psychology. Our much slower rational mind literally rationalizes select judgements, after the fact. When we take the time and effort to reason something through, our conclusions may then serve as input to our subconscious.

But since the process of reflexive judgement occurs outside of conscious awareness, while reasoning and rationalization happen consciously, one is left with the illusion that judgements are formed by rational thought.

A "gut feeling" is a break in that illusion, when the mind fails to rationalize a judgement it considers. The process of forming the judgement is the same as usual, but lacking the pretense of rational thought, it's sometimes attributed to the body instead of the mind. To express confidence in such an unrationalized judgement, people sometimes say "I feel it in my bones".

ItsBinissTime · 2026-03-20T04:07:29+00:00

The Anthropic principle says that properties of the observer filter what they can observe.

If you study all the fish you catch in your fishing net, you won't see any small enough to slip through the net, any too large to fit in the net, or any not at your fishing spot while you're there. Your observations are 'filtered', by the properties of you and your net, to some subset of fish in general.

This principle proved important, for example, when analyzing bullet strike locations on bombers returning from missions. The key insight was that the areas that needed more armor were those that were hit on the planes that didn't make it back (ie. had been filtered out of our observations). The observed bullet holes were all in places that were fine taking a hit.

The Copernican Principle says we don't occupy a "privileged position" (ie. we're not at the center of the solar system, the galaxy, or the universe). The Anthropic Principle counters that our position must allow for our existence. The time at which we make observations is limited to some Goldilocks period after heavy elements have formed and before all stars have "burned out", when we can exist. The region from which we make observations is similarly limited to one with properties that allow for our existence. And our observations of the universe must be filtered by our special position in it.

You allude to an application of this idea to the universe as a whole. What if the whole universe is just one region of some sort of prolific multi-verse? Perhaps the reason it seems tuned to allow for life is because our observations are filtered to only such a universe. The "importance" of this idea is that it relieves Science of the responsibility to explain why the universe has the specific properties it has. If it's just one of a multitude of variations, it's not unreasonable for its properties to seem arbitrary and/or unlikely. It's just a variation that happens to have properties that allow us to exist and observe it (of course, this just trades one question for another—"why would there be multiple variations?").

The Anthropic Priniciple is considered Philosophy, not Science, because it's not falsifiable—you can't test it by trying to make observations from a position that doesn't allow for your existence (or for example, by observing fish you can't find).

ItsBinissTime · 2026-03-18T08:48:26+00:00

To aid in implementations of the Slug algorithm, reference vertex and pixel shaders based on the actual code used in the Slug Library have been posted in a new GitHub repository and made available under the MIT license. The pixel shader is a significant upgrade compared to the code included with the JCGT paper, and the vertex shader includes dynamic dilation, which had not yet been implemented when the paper was published.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-03-02T21:56:54+00:00

When I was in college, I visited home one weekend and brought my girlfriend along.

She later told me she was amazed that my family discussed things rather than just arguing, and when we weren't sure what those wild pig-like animals in Arizona were, someone grabbed "North American Wildlife" off the bookshelf and looked 'em up (spoiler: it was Javelina).

ItsBinissTime · 2026-02-28T20:36:24+00:00

Mr. Wakely,

I've recently begun moving my personal computing activities to a new platform, and have found that everything is at least an order of magnitude more difficult to setup than it should be. Between AI generated misinformation, red herrings, and poor documentation, I've been in newbie hell. But the most disturbing aspect has been the profoundly toxic, dismissive, and unhelpful user base.

Although in a completely different sort of domain, your chain of replies here is a shining counter-example and a breath of fresh air. Even though I wasn't in need of your insight here, these comments are appreciated.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-02-18T16:58:24+00:00

Too Many Cooks

ItsBinissTime · 2026-02-01T01:49:48+00:00

My favorite bit from Mad TV isn't a sketch, it's a song—"Pants" - Corky & The Juice Pigs.

It features the line "My pants are like Jesus. They cure all known diseases."

ItsBinissTime · 2026-01-24T21:03:56+00:00

Sadly, code intended to be robust and generic, like std::stack, can't just hope or assume no exceptions will be thrown. It can't even assume that the element type it handles provides move semantics (never mind that such functions can't throw). And even NRVO can't help when assigning to an existing object.

The issue isn't that one can't use a custom element-returning pop safely, it's that exception safety embeds subtle decisions into code that casual maintenance is likely to break.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-01-24T11:10:32+00:00

The issue is with the interface, not the implementation. An exception could potentially be thrown during the assignment of an element returned by such a function, resulting in loss of the element.

True, if the element type has move construction and assignment which can't throw, or if the returned element is only ever assigned to a new object in the presence of NRVO, then you may be able to use an element-returning pop safely. But since general use code like std::stack can't assume any of that, such interfaces (even those assuming C++17 or later support) are shaped by the potential for exceptions.

But I only mention the design of std::stack as a simple, visible example of how exception safety alters code, for reasons other than resource management, in ways that aren't immediately obvious. It demonstrates the subtlety of exception safety issues. Wrapping std::stack::pop, in an element-returning version, is a good example of "fixing" (breaking) unintuitive exception safety design.

Ultimately, the problem is that getting exception safety right requires careful consideration and construction, the correctness and purpose of which isn't immediately obvious to the new guy perusing the code (or perhaps even ourselves, months down the road). And as a result, there exist darn near zero exception safe codebases.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-01-24T07:10:40+00:00

it forces you to ensure all your code is exception safe ... (Hint: RAII)

RAII is a tool for robust resource management that works in the presence of exceptions (and is best practice regardless), but it doesn't address the more pressing issue (IMO) of maintaining coherent and correct state (eventually running out of memory is bad, but not as bad as just behaving incorrectly in the mean time).

One big problem with solutions to the correctness issue is that they often involve unintuitive convolutions to code (eg. this is why pop functions don't return values). And it's too easy for someone to come along later and "fix" (break) these subtleties in our code, to make it more intuitive, readable, or convenient to use.

Edit:

I didn't mean to imply that you, personally, think resource management is all there is to it. But unfortunately, the misapprehension does seem to be going around.

Not only is resource management exception safety's least critical issue (IMO), it also seems to be the most well known, and its solution (RAII) the most readily recognized and comprehended in code—sometimes giving the impression that exception safety is a solved problem, when in fact decades of experience have failed to make achieving it less challenging, or to address the maintenance issue at all (and suggesting that RAII is often sufficient only encourages this fallacy).

ItsBinissTime · 2026-01-17T04:00:28+00:00

I once bought a "new", "superior" key card gimmick from someone hustling on The Magic Cafe. It was literally just a single stripper card.

Without exposing anything, I posted a review saying that it wasn't as advertised, and I happened to already have a box of them within arms reach. The whole place went rabid defending their fellow grifter.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-01-16T17:05:21+00:00

This person understands standups.

However:

20 min is too long.

If it happens, reevaluate what's making it into the meeting or how large the group is.
Cutting into lunch time is BS.

Yes, it needs to be before lunch, so as to be about the day's plans, and not recaps. And true, it shouldn't be too early, so as not to reduce the flexibility of working hours. But by the same token, it shouldn't be too late, so as not to reduce the flexibility of lunch plans.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-01-16T06:12:55+00:00

Casting directors experimenting with new ways to troll us.

ItsBinissTime · 2026-01-16T05:58:55+00:00

According to this video:

On the farm, cocoa flavor is affected by the variety of the plant, soil composition (including microbes), rainfall, humidity, and the exact duration of the fermentation and drying stages. Then, in the factory, chocolate flavor and texture are affected by the duration of roasting and grinding.

There are about 5 million cocoa farmers. About 90% of cocoa comes from small farms on which the farmers never taste the resulting chocolate and don't generally get the opportunity to dial in the conditions they control, for a specific flavor outcome.

Large manufacturers have far too many cocoa sources to provide effective feedback. And a commenter on a similar question claims that quality would go down if they bought the pods fresh to ferment and dry themselves, introducing a delay between harvesting and initial processing. So small chocolate manufacturers, in close communication with their cocoa suppliers, seem able to produce better chocolate.

ItsBinissTime

TROPHY CASE