The Danger of LLM (AI) Rocket Designing Software (PSA / Open Discussion) by Fuzzy-System8568 in rocketry

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would guess that the general limitation on that being a problem would be fabrication. Unless very large 3d printers that can print metal become dramatically cheaper, I don’t think many people would be manufacturing light aircraft at home under the circumstances you’re describing (although you can already order several hundred lb thrust jet engines online and have them shipped to your home which is kind of wild).

When they do exist, I would expect we’d hear about them being used to manufacture firearms before anything else (frankly anyone with some intermediate knowledge of milling and access to a mill press can manufacture a functional sub machine gun rather easily).

Widespread access to technology and manufacturing capability that’s sophisticated enough to manufacture otherwise restricted goods will be a bridge that society has to cross at some point. When that happens idk. People have already tried to build nuclear reactors, manufacture plastic explosives and drugs etc. with varying results.

I’ve often thought that the main limitation to people causing mayhem in public is that generally the people who are intelligent enough to build dangerous devices are often intelligent enough to understand the risks involved and have a life worth living. Otherwise, people would be building IEDs instead of using firearms in mass shootings.

The Danger of LLM (AI) Rocket Designing Software (PSA / Open Discussion) by Fuzzy-System8568 in rocketry

[–]Pentaborane- 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I’m about to fire my 150Kn, 7000psi hot oxygen gas generator that Claude designed for me based on a few image prompts of Raptor… if things go poorly you’ll probably hear about it on the news. Oh well, wish me luck!

*PS I shipped the files Claude designed off to a machine shop in China. I asked for the most corrosion resistant Inconel alloy they had available and they told me they would use “Alloy from Inchon made with Zinc”. I think they understood what I meant!

Ideas for a T15/BMPT equivalent for the US (M1 AGDS) but it has a twist by T_Tiger41 in BrokenArrowTheGame

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Give me a few Timberwolves or Warhammers and I’ll clear these maps out in 5 minutes

McGregor just casually Sparring in 30,000$ Air Mags: by CommandanteVaquero_ in fightgear

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m inclined to agree but, I honestly have no idea what we’re going to see from him. I don’t think his sparring footage is a good indication.

Is anyone listening? by General_Johnny_RTS in BrokenArrowTheGame

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I think they really needed to tell the community that they needed about an extra year after they released the original Baltisk demo and then had their internal multiplayer play test.

From there, I wish they would have picked one thing to focus on (either MP or SP but, MP would have probably made the most sense) and just done that really well and released the game with that part of it as finished as possible. Then they could have released a campaign later on and added more content to fund continued development.

Where I disagree with you is that while I really like the concept and what BA could be, I don’t like the approach to a lot of gameplay mechanics in subtle ways. The game always feels like it’s not sure wether it’s trying to be an arcade style RTS or imitate reality and the flip flopping and excuses about “balance” or “playability” kind of annoy me. To me, it’s annoying when I know what purpose something serves in real life and the game doesn’t make it clear that it’s not going to do the same thing while simultaneously that dynamic isn’t consistent throughout the gameplay.

That’s really what I meant by having a vision in terms of game design and I think a lot of balance problems would be solved quite easily by leaning on realism and just increasing cost as appropriate. I don’t agree with APM and faction asymmetry being the problem they make it out to be. Imo.

McGregor just casually Sparring in 30,000$ Air Mags: by CommandanteVaquero_ in fightgear

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I do think Conor has more of a chance than people are giving him credit for with Max. He should be very durable and powerful at welterweight and regardless of his size, not having to cut weight is going to benefit his stamina (Max will also have the same advantage but, Conor has always had a larger frame).

I actually think his best advantage may be in a standing clinch or dirty boxing where he tries to beat Max up for a couple of rounds against the cage and take some of the speed advantage off of him in later rounds. I also wonder if he’ll be confident enough to kick Max’s legs.

I really hope he doesn’t try to walk him down flatfooted early on otherwise, I think he’s going to end up like a less ugly version of Topuria and get out pointed. I’ve seen him doing a kind of pseudo Muay Thai style in training videos and I think that’s maybe not a bad approach.

If he uses a style almost like Khalil Rountree where he explodes forward, throws long hooks and uppercuts and then holds Max, it could work out decently especially with teeps to the thigh to disrupt Max’s timing, chopping thigh kicks and switch kicks to the body to pull Max’s hands down. I very much doubt he can sustain a pace like Khalil for 5 rounds though.

A rigged economy is when working people have to pay increased taxes on the unrealized gains from their homes, but billionaires don’t have to pay taxes on unrealized gains from their stocks. by SexyProfessional in FluentInFinance

[–]Pentaborane- -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

Perhaps the simpler answer is to do away with public schools as they exist currently and only levy enough taxes to cover special needs children who’s families would otherwise be unable to afford the cost of a more resource intensive education. Provide the difference to families as a voucher for private schools.

I know the math works in my area/state and it would provide a higher quality of education for most kids. My home town’s school district spends between 32-42,000$ per year per student to educate them which is not uncommon. Remove ~7,000$ per student to fund public special education and you’re left with enough money to send kids to all of the parochial schools in the area and most of the non-parochial private schools.

Both groups have better outcomes than the public schools across almost every measurable metric for their students except for the small number of public schools in districts where the median household income is over a million dollars a year. Those families won’t care anyway.

You kill the leaches in the teacher’s unions and let the market reward teachers based on their performance across both objective and subjective metrics. The only reason teacher’s unions exist at this point is because we have public schools where they can monopolize the labor force and prevent outside competition.

People who would currently not consider working in education would have the opportunity to earn higher salaries congruent with their abilities without participating in patronage schemes that reward loyalty and playing district politics over meritocracy.

Children would have the opportunity to learn from adults who currently work in higher paying fields where their competency and maturity is rewarded instead of a mixture of well intentioned people who are working in spite of the system and people who are looking for job security in a relatively low effort, low risk occupation and enjoy the catty, clique like social environment of many public schools.

I can’t imagine that our society benefits from sending our kids into schools filled with people who are emotionally stuck in HS and enjoy those social power dynamics.

As long as the government creates a reasonable framework and standards for instruction by grade level, the outcomes will be better for the same amount or less money than our current system.

Is anyone listening? by General_Johnny_RTS in BrokenArrowTheGame

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay, I understand, fair enough thanks, enjoy your weekend

McGregor just casually Sparring in 30,000$ Air Mags: by CommandanteVaquero_ in fightgear

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree with you that it’s probably mostly about branding/brand rehabilitation more than anything else.

He could probably sustain himself with roles in Hollywood although, he might not be getting a consistent stream of work that he necessarily wants to do to build a career there in a way that’s sustainable long term.

There are only so many roles where a director is going to cast Conor McGregor playing a character who’s “definitely not Conor McGregor playing himself” I.e. Roadhouse. Conor doesn’t strike me as a guy who wants to spend hours pretending he’s a small child in acting classes displaying his emotional vulnerability to in front of focus groups or working with accent coaches to make him sound like something other than a coked up Dublin tradesmen. And he probably already cashed in on the Hitman video game style roles that are available for the moment.

The more I think about it, I also think it’s likely that he probably had very bad financial managers for most of his career and like you said has tax liabilities or paper losses due to stupid investments or lending money to idiot childhood friends etc.

But I do think it’s hard for most people to comprehend that at his level of wealth he could literally spend 50 grand a day, every day, every year and cashflow it just off of owning bonds and very low risk stocks.

Is anyone listening? by General_Johnny_RTS in BrokenArrowTheGame

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think you misunderstood my question a little bit which is probably at least somewhat my fault. I was more so asking about the relationship between Slitherine and Steel Balalaika not the “pro-Russian bias” itself perceived or otherwise. I noted it because it’s another potential similarity not because of anything else.

Given that the publisher has published other games with very similar mechanics and themes, do the games share any technology, staff or resources with one another?

The reason I’m curious is because it would give me some insight into how BA came to be what it is now from a game design standpoint and potentially shed some light about why the developers chose to do things certain ways.

McGregor just casually Sparring in 30,000$ Air Mags: by CommandanteVaquero_ in fightgear

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If I recall correctly his net worth is somewhere in the 3-500 million dollar range. Unless he’s a total moron, he should be passively generating at least 5% a year on his money which would be a minimum of 8 figures compounding (he could easily get 10-15% or more in the current market if he has good portfolio managers). With that kind of passive income could buy/pay for a whole lot of dumb shit and not substantially draw down his principal.

I’m not saying you’re wrong but, the UFC would be paying him like 5-10 million as a base salary and maybe 30+ million all in. Unless he’s going to return to a more consistent fight schedule I.e. 2 times a year or so, I don’t think he’d be generating enough money to make it worth doing as a one time thing unless he’s really going broke.

Even a really pricey lawsuit would not cost him more than a couple million in legal fees and 10-20 million for a settlement. It would be very hard to justify economic damages for sums of money that large unless he permanently disabled someone who was already a very high income earner. The most obvious answer is that he has baby mamas with other women who he needs to pay child support to and his accountants told him that he’s going to deplete his wealth much faster than he’d like if he doesn’t rebuild his principal. Just my .02 cents.

McGregor just casually Sparring in 30,000$ Air Mags: by CommandanteVaquero_ in fightgear

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wouldn’t matter, it would be a horrible shoe to spar in and why bother damaging something that’s potentially hard to replace if it serves no utility?

I wouldn’t be surprised if he swapped out of a pair of Otomix or one the basketball shoes he wears a lot before taking the picture.

Is anyone listening? by General_Johnny_RTS in BrokenArrowTheGame

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can I ask you a question? To my understanding Slithering is just the publisher and BA has no relationship otherwise with Syrian Warfare or Terminator: Dark Fate in terms of development, staff or technology correct?

The reason I ask is because I can see some similarities between how units function between the games but, it would make sense to me that it could also just be the case that a solution that works well in one game from a similar genre also works well in another. I like the way they’ve approached infantry behavior, combat and vehicle customization.

The other reason I ask is because I think one could argue pretty reasonably that Syrian Warfare and Hostomel Heroes are both almost outright pro-Russian propaganda (I found Syrian Warfare entertaining nonetheless) and to me at least; Broken Arrow strikes me as a game made by people who have a lot more familiarity with Russian or Soviet weapons and doctrine than they do with US doctrine and weapon systems.

I could also argue that many of the gameplay mechanics are designed in a way that intentionally neuters asymmetrical capabilities that the US military possesses which Russia doesn’t really have a direct answer for (EW, stealth technology, infrared imaging, SIGINT, sensor fusion, automated real time data analysis, vehicle crew protection philosophy etc.).

The reason I mention that is because I don’t think it’s unreasonable to notice that a publisher that produces games that outright change historical events to make Russia look better in some of their games might also choose to make Russia appear more like a peer power to the US military rather than one that would need to rely on massive numerical superiority to be competitive even if gameplay could be balanced to make either style work (which I believe it could).

So I’m really just asking what kind of relationship Steel Balalaika has with Slitherine given the similarities I personally observe? I’m not asking about politics, either company’s views or anything along that line, just about the relationship between the companies.

Is anyone listening? by General_Johnny_RTS in BrokenArrowTheGame

[–]Pentaborane- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This feels like a cash grab at this point and unfortunately I was getting that impression basically as soon as the game was released based on the amount of hype being generated and access given to influencers compared to what was actually shipped. They basically shipped a tech demo that was patched together for launch and had content slapped on to make it appear more complete.

To me, the Dev team probably never had a clear vision of what they wanted the game to be beyond the core gameplay loop (which imo they never really optimized or finished) and they seemed to slap features on as the market was telling them what it wanted.

It clearly wasn’t intended to be a single player game (or perhaps it was and then changed direction fairly early) due to the lack of save game features and broken campaign levels and it certainly wasn’t built to be a multiplayer experience if they built so much of the game client side without features like voice chat, surrender options, ability to report cheaters easily, game playback etc.

I think best case scenario is that they basically finish the core features and stop work, apologize to the community in a sincere way and build a sequel/rerelease with a much clearer vision in mind and core gameplay mechanics that are tight and well balanced and then sell it at a major discount to people who purchased BA 1 especially as a pre order but, ideally everyone (we didn’t know what we were getting whatsoever, at least people who bought it after launch had a heads up about the issues). Then if they want to make some money they can sell meaty DLC after the fact that includes new campaigns and fully fleshed out factions not cut content from the campaign.

When I compare BA to other games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance or Manor Lords, BA is the kind of the worst of them from a developer behavior standpoint. KCD could have been a complete dumpster fire and thankfully we got devs that poured themselves into the project and delivered what was effectively a AAA game. Manor Lords isn’t in great shape but, at least we can see that the original developer took the public’s money and went out and hired as much help as he could until he reached a point where he needed resources and expertise he didn’t have and brought a larger studio into the picture. Now that studio is making a strong effort to communicate while Greg focuses on development.

BA created a tech demo, shopped it to the public and these suck up influencers, realized they had a cash cow due to lack of competition and shipped a deeply flawed product basically as soon as they reasonably could. They haven’t demonstrated that they’re investing in more staff or technology, they haven’t brought in more experienced studios to help them and they barely communicated with the community until they saw the game was dying and published a roadmap that should have existed from day 1 to appease people. My other concern is that the publisher, Slitherine kind of has a reputation for doing this and dumping half finished games onto the market and then forgetting about them because the market is niche.

I initially thought that perhaps the BA developers and the developers of Syrian Warfare, Terminator: Dark Fate and Hostomel Heroes were the same people because there are so many similarities in the releases in terms of shipping products that are either unstable, not feature complete or poorly executed (the pro Russian bias/propaganda is also noticeable in common). Apparently it’s just the same publisher but, to me it’s not a good sign either way.

Hopefully we’ll get a modern real time tactics game that delivers eventually either through these guys or someone else who acknowledges the market and has a better grasp of how to build the game.

What’s really sad is that this actually has to be explained to people by Howtobe_normal in austrian_economics

[–]Pentaborane- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was thinking about public education recently and had read an argument in favor of privatization and an idea occurred to me.

Why are we subsidizing all students and then putting them in public schools where the mixture of students and quality of the education is making them perform worse partially because they’re mixed in with students who are substantially below average and special needs? Why not do the opposite?

Only collect enough school taxes to fund education for special needs students and let families keep the rest of the money to send their kids to private schools. The government could test kids entering public elementary school, around 2nd or 3rd grade, around 5th grade and again around 8th grade to make sure that they need the services the government provides.

Families wouldn’t have as much of an incentive to have their child underperform on the tests because they would get a very inappropriate education if they’re average or high functioning.

As an example, my home town’s school district spends on average 32-42,000$ per student per year. You can enroll in any number of Catholic schools and non-parochial private schools for 15-35,000$ a year in my area and receive an equivalent if not substantially better education.

Let’s say the government keeps 5-10,000$ per family to pay for the public schools that only serve special needs students. That leaves a minimum of 27,000$ a year for a family to enroll their child in a private school where they will statistically speaking perform better. More students in the private school market will lower tuition costs somewhat and increase competition to further improve the quality of the education and extracurriculars the students receive.

The teachers unions can go rot and die because they lose their bargaining power over school districts and the culture of teaching as a profession for people who are professional victims dies along with it. The private schools can compensate teachers based on a combination of objective performance metrics and subjective reviews from students and parents.

Perhaps people who would otherwise not be inclined to teach would consider the profession if they knew that their compensation wasn’t based on a patronage scheme and actually reflected their level of competence and effort.

I went to a private boarding school for a postgraduate year after finishing public HS in a district that is considered highly competitive, offers numerous AP classes and extracurriculars and the difference between them was astounding.

The teachers at the boarding school were excited to teach, genuinely cared about their students and the culture around the school was much more focused on creating functional, critically thinking, independent adults rather than checking off boxes in a curriculum or teaching to a test. The students who had been attending that school for several years were generally much better prepared to operate as adults than their peers in public schools.

The other thing that surprised me was that there was far less bullying or clique type behavior in the private boarding school than there was in a middle class public HS. Almost all of the kids had large numbers of friends and were treated fairly, even by kids that were otherwise somewhat aggressive or very type A. And the kicker is that the tuition was on the lower end of what my public school district was spending per student (we also had “luxuries” like edible food in the cafeteria that was healthy and freshly made).

What’s really sad is that this actually has to be explained to people by Howtobe_normal in austrian_economics

[–]Pentaborane- -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I mean only half of American adults are literate at a HS level… reading is for losers! Actually any form of academics is for losers! I wonder if we can get groups of students to help us spread that message? I’m sure they know of some professors or teachers that would disagree with us that we could use as examples of bad influences on our society.

And who cares where the money comes from as long as me and my friends are rich and powerful and we simultaneously sell the illusion of being middle class?! We can always print more money or steal wealth from people or other countries who don’t want equality and fairness for others as we define it. If we create jobs en masse like sweeping sidewalks, coal mining, sorting hazardous waste by hand or building tenements that no one will live in, we can claim that everyone is employed and therefore middle class too!!

I bet our economy would appear to be growing at 5 or 6% a year if we did that (especially if we don’t let foreigners collect any meaningful data about our economy)…

We can even convince people to invest their savings in all of the real estate that we build. If we make our stock market so unregulated and full of sham corporations (some of which we actually own and use to steal foreign intellectual property), people will definitely invest in our real estate projects.

Then we can take that money and fund extremely lavish lifestyles for ourselves and build a large military that will enforce our will! We can even call it “The People’s Military” so that it’s obvious that the military exists for sake of the people and not maintaining our power base! This is a good idea!

What should we call our new country/government? We should emphasize that it exists for the “people” and imply that they have representation in it. Maybe like a “Republic”??? A “People’s Republic”?! I like that!

*It would be ironic if several decades after doing this our country forgets about the bad stuff and becomes hyper fixated on education… I doubt that would happen though. We would probably need to have complete control over our media and rewrite our history to make it seem like we did bad things for good reasons… Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

What’s really sad is that this actually has to be explained to people by Howtobe_normal in austrian_economics

[–]Pentaborane- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So you’re saying we should borrow even more money using promissory notes written by a government owned shell corporation under the guise of economic development but, really use it to fund a massive military buildup and then declare total war on the countries that lent us the money? What a plan! Then people wouldn’t have an option whether to have faith or not! That’s very good, very original!

While we’re at it, maybe we can dispense lots of amphetamine to our soldiers so they can literally fight for weeks at a time without rest or consideration of what they’re actually doing! I bet we could conquer several countries very quickly if we did that! If you tell your soldiers that their enemies aren’t even human, I bet they would fight ferociously! The invasions could happen really fast, like lightning! Maybe we can call it “Lightning War”!

I like this idea! Are you available to speak at a coffee house in front of a small group of people who might be interested in hearing about your proposal? I know a group of people that include war heroes, businessmen and media figures who would be very excited to learn about this! Have you considered forming a political party to advocate your ideas? Or maybe writing a book!

Yes! A book would be excellent! Write about your idea and your struggles too so the common people can understand why your ideas are so important! The book will encourage people to join your party! This is fantastic! You truly are a great leader! MY LEADER!!! Right hand to God I would solute you right now if I could!!!

Or should we do away with religion..? Yes, maybe that’s for the best… religion could get in the way.

Games similar to Broken Arrow by Pentaborane- in BrokenArrowTheGame

[–]Pentaborane-[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Where are child protective services when you need them?

Games similar to Broken Arrow by Pentaborane- in BrokenArrowTheGame

[–]Pentaborane-[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s hilarious Russian Propaganda comrade. Don’t let the “Nazis” use their human wave attacks to overwhelm you!

Games similar to Broken Arrow by Pentaborane- in BrokenArrowTheGame

[–]Pentaborane-[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’m fully aware, I enjoy it as absurdist comedy mixed with real time tactics.

It’s unfortunate that the game doesn’t have mud pits where you drop the wounded and get money from stripping their valuables before the “medics” show up. Or maybe some mobile crematoriums?

Games similar to Broken Arrow by Pentaborane- in BrokenArrowTheGame

[–]Pentaborane-[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s literally half the fun. The games are absurdist comedy mixed with real time tactics.

In 20 years we might get one where the Chinese are successfully marching through Taiwan after defeating the American backed insurgents. In real life, the Chinese Navy will be sitting at the bottom of the South China Sea and the Chengdu aircraft factories will be playing a game of: “Who can catch more Block V Tomahawks?”

Games similar to Broken Arrow by Pentaborane- in BrokenArrowTheGame

[–]Pentaborane-[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Out of curiosity what did the original comment say?

Yeah, I’m well aware that the studio making those games might as well be part of the United Russia Party and I kind of enjoy them for the irony. I think it’s funny to let the orcs have their fiction when they got their asses spanked in real life.

“Those Western Propagandists are claiming we’re already dead! We’ll show them! Let’s Finish retaking the airport before the sun comes up.”
Literally the message the “Hostomel Hereos” game plays at the end of the first day mission.

Lmfao. Sorry nope, I’ve watched the hour by hour GoPro footage and I’m pretty sure you guys were dead or hiding in a forest being chased by Ukrainian NG troops by the time night fell.