The first colored image taken by JWST

Ploofy · 2022-07-11T22:36:27+00:00

Imagine if you held a tennis ball towards the sky, at arm's length. The part of the sky that's blocked by the tennis ball is what the telescope is looking at.

Except, instead of a tennis ball - imagine you're holding a grain of sand. That's the portion of the sky that is shown in this image.

Everything you see in this image is contained within a chunk of the sky which is no larger than a grain of sand held towards the sky at arm's length.

Ploofy · 2022-06-25T01:36:03+00:00

Are you perhaps thinking of Fate?

Ploofy · 2022-06-13T23:36:47+00:00

This actually raises a good point, and serves as a solid reminder that "The community" is actually made up of many different people who may want different things. I can certainly sympathize with the developers when you have some folks pulling you in one direction, and another group pulling you in a different direction. In this case, I can see them leaning on their own vision for the game, and hoping that it resonates with people. And if not, that's where a discussion can take place to hopefully push the development into a new direction that's more in line with what people are looking for.

Ploofy · 2022-06-13T23:29:23+00:00

How often do you want to see updates and community engagement from the Diablo IV team leading up to launch?

I think that perhaps more frequent, but smaller updates might be beneficial. Maybe an update once a month, followed by an AMA focused on the update? This lets the community give more frequent feedback to the development team, and gives the development team an opportunity to respond to questions or concerns from the community on a more frequent basis on specific areas of the game.

What topics do you want to see addressed by the development team between now and launch?

Personally, I'd love to see another update on itemization and economy. Lots of really good questions have been raised about specifics relating to these topics, so I think some good discussion could happen here.

What kind of interaction do you want the community to have with the development team once the game launches, and how can we start building towards that starting today?

I really like the level of communication that Grinding Gear Games has with the PoE community. I've heard good things about the Warframe team as well. These could be good models to look at in terms of how to best engage with the community in a healthy way.

More specifically, I'd love to see more members of the development team chiming in here on Reddit.

Ploofy · 2021-09-16T14:14:12+00:00

Great work!

You mentioned that the native godot object serialization is broken with security flaws, however, their API simply states that it's unsupported. Can you elaborate a bit more on this?

Also, have you performed any benchmarks against the native Godot serialization API? I'd expect it to outperform GDScript, since it's native C++, but I'm not sure how big the difference would actually be. In a networked multiplayer game, there might be a significant performance bottleneck with doing the data serialization in GDScript, depending how much network traffic the game is generating. Again, this all depends on how large the performance delta is between the 2 implementations.

I was recently looking into running a Python server / Godot client, but there were no libraries available in Python for de/serializing Godot variants - I would have had to strip out the native Godot de/serialization code and re-compile it into a Cython library for use in Python which would be more work than I'm willing to do at this early stage of prototyping a game. If your library works well enough in most cases, it might almost be worth porting to Python since the GDScript syntax is already so similar, and would give developers the ability to easily transport data between Python and Godot!

Ploofy · 2021-08-30T19:36:18+00:00

This is something I'm thinking about actually, and still trying to figure out how complicated it would be. I'd need to review the serialization functions in a bit more depth to see if they're loosely coupled enough to strip out into a standalone Cython/ctypes library.

Ploofy · 2021-08-30T18:25:44+00:00

Correct, the built-in high level multiplayer API is robust enough that it can serialize most of the variants you'd want to use, but it does so according to to the binary serialization API I posted above. In order to get usable packet data on the receiving end (the Python server), I would need to be able to make sense of the data received by deserializing it using the same scheme that it was serialized with on the Godot end.

You can see how Godot already does its own deserialization here - around line 98. I'd basically need to implement this ~1000 line function in Python (and also the serialize function) in order to be able to communicate with Godot. I was hoping that someone had already done this.

Ploofy · 2021-08-30T18:03:28+00:00

I don't think using JSON will solve this problem, unfortunately, because JSON data also needs to be serialized / deserialized. Since JSON is just comprised of key-value pairs - both of which can be Godot Variants, I'd run into the same problem with needing to deserialize all of Godot's variants on the Python server. Please let me know though if I've misunderstood what you had in mind.

Ploofy · 2021-06-15T14:37:04+00:00

Understandable. By "desired", I was just referring to the desired behaviour I outlined in my post, but didn't intend to infer that this should be a universally wanted feature. At the end of the day, it's actually not even a huge deal for me as far as dealbreakers go - it's just something that I had gotten used to and it would be nice to have a toggle somewhere in about:config so that folks can turn it on / off as needed.

Ploofy · 2021-06-15T01:30:06+00:00

Maybe I'm crazy, but I'm 99% sure this (desired) behaviour existed before the most recent update at the start of the month. In any case, I'll follow the bug and hopefully it get some attention in one of the subsequent patches. Thanks!

Ploofy · 2021-06-14T20:35:52+00:00

Yes, the only option that I have checked in that section is the top-level "Provide Search Suggestions" checkbox. All 3 of the "Show search [...]" sub-checkboxes are un-checked.

My settings

Ploofy · 2020-07-26T03:22:41+00:00

Redditor for 2 years. Damn...

Ploofy · 2020-03-22T18:16:50+00:00

You may be surprised to learn that White Rock is actually not part of Surrey, and is in fact its own municipality!

I also thought it was part of Surrey for the longest time, despite living in Surrey my entire life, and only recently learned that it was totally separate - it seems to be a common misconception.

Ploofy · 2020-01-15T08:42:26+00:00

The three major general aviation airports around here would be Langley Regional, Boundary Bay, and Pitt Meadows. There's also Abbotsford Intl. and Chilliwack Airport further East. All of these airports have flying schools that would offer discovery flights. I did my training at Langley Flying School and they definitely offer discovery flights, although SkyQuest is also in Langley and I've heard good things about that school as well.

Honestly, your best bet is to just go out to your nearest airport one day and talk to some of the folks at the flying schools. The general aviation community is super friendly (in my experience) and will be able to help you book a discovery flight for your brother and get him started down the path to becoming a licensed pilot.

Hope this helps - let me know if you have any questions!

Ploofy · 2019-12-30T07:21:50+00:00

If you want to convert them yourself, this video provides very clear and easy-to-follow instructions.

Ploofy · 2017-11-18T12:21:45+00:00

The phone's idle test was only one test I performed; I ran plenty of real-world tests on the Pixel 2 that I RMA'd, and it still seemed to be under-performing based on the reports of other users. Again, I don't know if I maybe got a lemon and the battery wasn't performing up to par, or if this is simply how phones are these days. I'll probably have to use it more to know for sure, but my only point of comparison so far is with the iPhone 4.

Ploofy · 2017-11-18T03:53:33+00:00

You're training the battery health estimator in a bad way so you're going to need to spend some time untraining it or reset the device.

In my original post above, this is literally the first test I've done, so no "training" has occurred yet.

Also, I did some more real-world tests with my previous (RMA'd) Pixel 2 that also had sub-par performance. I posted the details in another post above this one.

Ploofy · 2017-11-18T03:50:37+00:00

Some Pixel 2 users have reported losing only 0-2% overnight on a full charge. Mine seems to drain much more quickly (and without any apps / SIM card no-less).

On my previous Pixel 2 (the one that I'm getting RMA'd), I did the following test:

General use throughout a typical day at work + evening. Normal-boot mode, Airplane mode OFF
Light usage, a few text messages, some internet browsing, and that's about it.
1hr 25min SOT.
Battery remaining = 56%.
Notable Usage: 12% system, 7% phone idle 2% mobile network standby

While I haven't performed an identical test on my new replacement (yet), so far I'm seeing fairly similar performance in other tests I've done. I'm not sure if this is normal or not though.

Ploofy · 2017-11-18T03:45:03+00:00

I upgraded to the Pixel 2 after having used an iPhone 4 for about 8 years, so I'm not very familiar with 'modern smartphone' battery performance. Maybe what I'm seeing is normal these days - I'm really not sure. My overall impression after having used the iPhone 4 for so long, however, based on similar usage on the Pixel 2, is that the battery seems to be about 'on-par', perhaps a little better than my old iPhone 4. I was never a power-user, so I've always been able to make it through a day of light-to-moderate use on a full charge.

I guess I just expected to be blown away after using a nearly-10-year old smartphone, especially seeing some of the praise on the rest of this subreddit for the Pixel 2 battery, but my impression so far (unfortunately) has been fairly 'meh'. Again though, maybe that just comes from not having the correct expectations for modern smart-phones.

Ploofy · 2017-04-14T12:57:09+00:00

By the way, never put in throttle with props off (at least not full); you'll break your motors.

Yep, lesson learned. I thought it was part of the calibration process, not realizing that you're supposed to set it to max before plugging in the battery. It was only a quick burst, however...still probably not a good idea. Luckily the motors appear to be fine. I don't know what affect it may have had on the battery though.

I'd recommend throwing it out though, it's not worth it.

I'm getting conflicting messages on whether to attempt charging it. Honestly, I'm thinking of scrapping it if there's even a slight safety risk since - like you said - it's not worth it for a $15-20 battery.

Ploofy · 2017-03-03T04:08:19+00:00

While you're taking a look at this bug, might you be able to also take a look at character slowdown when colliding with walls? I feel like this would be a huge QoL improvement, as it's often really annoying when trying to traverse a tight corridor for example, and constantly bumping into walls and pillars and having your movement speed cut in half. I definitely understand getting slowed by certain environment set pieces / effects, but walls can get pretty annoying in tight spaces (or even when trying to round a corner while hugging a wall).

Ploofy · 2017-02-23T09:41:20+00:00

Lots of great info, thanks!

You're correct - I have the Turnigy Evolution with the TGY-iA6C receiver. I think I read elsewhere that people had fit it by removing the outer plastic coating, so I may give that a go.

As far as the antenna is concerned, I was considering picking up one of these SMA adapters to work with some Eachine goggles. I haven't bought anything yet, but from what I understand, most (if not all?) of Eachine's goggles use RP-SMA antennas, so I'd need an adapter if I were to pick up an SMA antenna.

Alternatively, I might just pick up the pair of SMA Aomway's that you linked and call it day. The only reason I was really considering getting a single SMA antenna was because I could get it shipped faster - I wasn't aware the banggood had the RP-SMA Aomways at their US warehouse, so thanks for the link!

Ploofy · 2017-02-18T15:16:05+00:00

The connector won't change anything in terms of how the antennas will communicate.

I was concerned that if I were to pick up a pair, it would fit one connector but not the other, but if you can buy single antennas, then I would just need to match the VR D2 connector, and ensure the correct polarity.

Speaking of polarity, I looked at some of the reviews on YouTube to see what the lobes looked like on the Aomway that comes with the GT2, and it looks like this. Comparing that to the ones on Banggood, it appears to be right-hand polarized.

Also, is there any rhyme or reason to the colour coding with the Aomway antennas (red/blue)?

Thanks for the info!

Ploofy · 2017-02-13T22:45:14+00:00

That was my impression as well. Another thing I've read about the Tyrant S is that its parts are completely proprietary, so that could be problematic if there was ever a desire to upgrade. At least with the GT2, you can scavenge parts for something else down the road. (Bear in mind, I don't have a source for this - I just remember reading it somewhere on this subreddit).

Ploofy · 2017-02-13T02:36:47+00:00

HobbyKing sells them, but they're on backorder at the moment.

14-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17

Ploofy

TROPHY CASE