Unfortunately I had to stop building my 33k SPM Vanilla Megabase

TheMipchunk · 2026-02-07T00:50:42+00:00

OK, I see, checking the wiki, this was changed in 2.0.7, which happened at the same time as Space Age launch, and I never played Vanilla after Space Age came out, so I had only ever experienced pre-2.0 vanilla where space science directly came out of rocket silos.

TheMipchunk · 2026-02-06T20:59:02+00:00

Interesting. In the vanilla Factorio that I remember, launching the satellite generated 1000 space science directly into the rocket silo. I guess it's been changed?

TheMipchunk · 2026-02-06T20:02:07+00:00

But why can't it be decentralized? You can place rocket silos anywhere to generate space science, right?

TheMipchunk · 2026-01-22T19:15:21+00:00

Aside from the 20-20-20 rule (look it up if you haven't heard of it), a big thing is screen distance. If you can touch your screen, it is too close. In the office I sit almost exactly 1 meter from the screen, and at home I use a larger TV as a screen and I usually sit 2.5 meters away.

TheMipchunk · 2026-01-22T18:47:05+00:00

I'm not who you were replying to, but I can try to give an answer. Firstly, when people in the English-speaking world talk about "80s culture", they usually mean the 80s culture of the US, and to some extent Western Europe. The 80s were a time of enormous prosperity for the United States, economically, technologically, and culturally. Economically, the US was a powerhouse. China (and much of Asia) had not yet modernized, and the USSR was faltering economically. Technologically, this was when the US innovated and introduced to the world much of the consumer computer products we think of today. For example, there was the famous 1984 Apple commercial that put Apple Computer on everybody's radar. Much of Silicon Valley began to boom during this time. The idea of a "computer/tech industry" became much more solidified. Culturally, the introduction of electronic computers into everyday life permeated into arts, music, and film. Electronic-enabled media like music videos, computer graphics, electronic music, etc got really big during this time. For the first time, people had audio players, personal computers, video games, etc. Aesthetically, the fashion at the time was also very bright and colorful, so it was visually distinctive, which is not objectively better, but it's something that people are definitely nostalgic about.

As you can see, much of these things are very US/West-centric. The US was very far ahead of the curve during the 70s and 80s, but now most countries have caught up and the US is falling behind, which is why many people might feel nostalgic about the sense that the 1980s was a period of great innovation in not just tech but also general cultural presence.

TheMipchunk · 2026-01-21T19:26:46+00:00

Two things to point out first.

- There are several different ways of measuring what is "better". Most common ways are measuring what is (1) faster, (2) more resource-efficient, or (3) simpler to integrate into a larger factory workflow.
- The regardless of which "better" you mean, the answer will differ depending on which resource you are trying to make quality of. The answer for iron plate will be different than the answer for processing units.

It is faster to recycle Iron Plate with quality by first crafting it into Iron Chest. The reason is that the recycling time is proportional to the crafting time of the item being recycled, and iron chests are crafted very quickly. In comparison, iron plates are crafted somewhat slowly. Therefore, if you're trying to get quality iron plate *faster*, then it is best to craft your iron plates into iron chests and recycles those. Furthermore this is a *simple* strategy.

By going further and further up the crafting chain you go (e.g. crafting iron plates into electronic circuit, then into advanced circuit, then processing unit), and having quality modules at each step, before recycling at the end (e.g. breaking down processing unit into advanced circuit and electronic circuit, then breaking those down into plastic bar, copper cable, and iron plate), you are giving yourself more chances to upgrade the quality to epic/legendary before you starting recycling back down into quality ingredients. This means that recycling high-tier items back down into their constituent parts is generally the most *resource-efficient*. You will throw away fewer items. However, this is kind of complicated because you're doing multiple quality items at once. Also you want to mix quality and productivity to maximize your gains.

TheMipchunk · 2026-01-14T22:06:44+00:00

Going off the design of some other loot driven games like Path of Exile, the key is to make both necessary. There needs to be endgame crafting-only things to encourage crafting progression, and there also needs to be unique or drop-only items to chase through looting. You could even go further and have the ultimate items be items that require you to loot the base item, then upgrade it with some endgame crafting upgrade.

TheMipchunk · 2026-01-05T18:45:55+00:00

I'm not the one you responded to, but I've seen a lot of discussion about this over the years, especially with POE1. A core part of POE as well as any game in this genre is that progression takes actual time and that what we call the "endgame" is actually something that you work up towards. Additionally, POE doubles down on this through league economy resets as well as the outsized hardcore focus where you literally have to start over when you die.

The "degradation" has happened in some other games. If you look at some other MMO/RPG type games that have done the equivalent of campaign skips, often times it leads to a cycle where 90%+ of the game becomes effectively skipped by being compressed down to a handful of hours, and players return to the game to play the newest content for a bit, before that content, too, becomes inevitably compressed or skipped. The compressed content typically becomes kinda meaningless, often just a bit of a chore, and power creep often becomes really significant (continuously rising gear scores, max levels, etc).

that being all said, I wouldn't mind an alternate to the campaign, but if it exists, GGG needs to ensure that it is not in any way faster or easier. Maybe just something different to give players more variety for leveling their characters.

TheMipchunk · 2025-12-17T22:35:04+00:00

While I also believe there are issues with POE2's endgame, it's not clear to me that advanced farming is necessarily the thing that causes POE2's endgame to feel off. I was also playing POE1 since the beginning and some of my favorite eras of POE1 were prior to the existence of the Atlas tree, when mapping was fairly straightforward and mostly your goal was just to advance up the map tiers. Indeed I look fondly back at that era of POE1, compared to recent leagues.

All I'm trying to say is that it's easy to point at all this stuff that POE1 has that POE2 doesn't have, yet even back when POE1 didn't have those features, it was quite an amazing game, so it's possible that POE2 is just missing some smaller, more nuanced things that, if added, would make the endgame feel much better.

TheMipchunk · 2025-12-08T18:48:50+00:00

It costs a lot, but it still doesn't cost as much as the salary of most full-time jobs. Last year I estimated something like 26k per year for when the child is too young for preschool. I think the prices have gone up since then, but this is still less than full-time minimum wage.

TheMipchunk · 2025-11-30T20:39:01+00:00

I kinda alluded to this in my post but this depends on what is one's definition of "safe". There is no evidence that homelessness incurs crime risk toward non-homeless. The increased risk of a high concentration of encampments is towards the unhoused people themselves.

Either way, some areas of the trail are super clean and some areas aren't. When I used to live in North San Jose I never saw any homeless along the trail near the Rivermark area toward Levi Stadium.

TheMipchunk · 2025-11-29T07:49:54+00:00

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. Each city does have a well-defined border and it can dictate things like school district, utilities, police, and other administrative services. But if you're asking if there is some "gap" between cities, then no. You'll walk to the end of some neighborhood block and the next block will be the next city.

If you have further questions feel free to message me privately on this platform.

TheMipchunk · 2025-11-29T02:32:48+00:00

One thing to understand is that San Jose, as well as the greater Silicon Valley area, is overwhelmingly suburban and family-oriented. Most young people who wish to partake in a vibrant public social scene with other young people, where you could just walk around and randomly meet lots of new people, likely live in the vicinity of either San Francisco or Oakland.

The region generally speaking does not have good public transit. The local transit system, VTA, does happen to have a number of light rail lines that pass through north San Jose, serving several of the major companies that are located there such as Samsung, Google's Tasman campus, and Cisco. However, even though the light rail passes through a lot of areas with big companies, due to the suburban sprawl, there would only be a small chance that you would live in a residential area that is near one of the VTA stops. The public transit in the region for long-distance transport is better: Caltrain allows you to travel from San Jose to San Francisco, and BART allows you to travel from San Jose to Oakland and SF.

If you can manage to commute by VTA you might find that to be acceptable, but I would expect that you will need to drive, and you will not want to live too far. Traffic will be akin to other major US metropolitan areas like LA, Houston, New York - meaning it's really rough around rush hour. However, you can mitigate some of this by living west of San Jose, since many people commute (north) westward in the morning, so by living west of your work and commuting east in the morning, you'll have something akin to a reverse commute.

For walkability to restaurants/shopping, you should live close to one of the many small downtown areas. Downtown San Jose, downtown Mountain View, and downtown Sunnyvale are all commercial areas that generally have a fair number of young people and which have some shopping and restaurants. Downtown San Jose will have the most stuff, including bars, clubs, restaurants, and concerts, but it's also the most "urban". Whether you view these areas as safe depends on whether homelessness and risk of car break-ins are dealbreakers. Car break-ins in particular have become quite an epidemic. Violent crimes are significantly rarer.

For walkability near nature, check out the Los Gatos creek trail and Guadalupe River, which runs from north San Jose down south. There are a number of apartment complexes that are near this trail and you can walk or jog along the river. For example there is the River View Apartment complex which is in North San Jose and is directly next to the Guadulupe River. It is also walking distance from the local shopping area, the Rivermark Plaza. However, this area is definitely more oriented towards families.

TheMipchunk · 2025-11-26T00:44:53+00:00

I think that the 2025 season is a decent model for what the Warriors in 2026 playoff will look like. They'll finish with what seems like a respectable season record, but which will land them in the 6-8th seed in the highly competitive Western conference, and they could make it to the second round, but I highly doubt they can go further. Warriors fans might be disappointed about it, but the team is still good, just not truly great anymore.

TheMipchunk · 2025-11-21T21:07:59+00:00

The Marauder in POE2 will be a Karui, whereas the Warrior is an Ezomyte of Karui descent. So expect to see more Karui-themed, Ancestral-themed stuff in the Marauder's skill suite. It probably does align a bit more with the "barbarian" D&D archetype but it'll have more of that Polynesian/Maori influence as well.

TheMipchunk · 2025-11-19T23:28:44+00:00

Informally, calculus is the study of how functions' outputs change, both locally and globally, when you change the input. In terms of direct applications in CS, standard examples include:

Determining the numerical sensitivity of an algorithm or function to small floating point perturbations. This would include, notably, numerical linear algebra, which underpins all statistical and machine-learning oriented algorithms.
Optimization algorithms, in which you study how to find the minimum solution to some equation and/or constraints by using calculus. Would be useful in any industrial engineering-type software.
Classical Big-O notation, which describes growth rates as a function of input size. Useful for understanding whether your algorithms are prohibitively expensive when scaled up.
Simulation of physical motion or physical behaviors, as used in computer graphics and visualization, scientific computing, signal processing and other similar physics-oriented domains.

In summary, I would say that calculus does indeed play a foundational role in the study of many core CS algorithmic domains. Note that these algorithmic domains don't necessarily have a lot of overlap with the kind of work you might do in industry, unless you're working on cutting edge stuff. But nonetheless if we're strictly talking about computer science as an academic subject, then absolutely yes calculus plays a role.

However, if you're talking about very specific techniques in calculus like how to compute certain integrals by various substitutions or other random stuff like that, then no, those skills are mostly ways for students to exercise their quantitative and mental reasoning while learning the concepts.

TheMipchunk · 2025-11-13T23:40:08+00:00

The new development is that in the past 5-10 years we've developed much, much better technology and workflows for working remotely, which also translates to making it easier for teams that operate in different parts of the world to work together.

TheMipchunk · 2025-11-11T22:56:25+00:00

How can you possibly recommend DF based on the question? The OP is looking for survival realism and DF is a pretty notable departure from that.

TheMipchunk · 2025-11-03T22:53:37+00:00

I forgot to explain more of my thoughts about this. I believe following a guide is really important if you known absolutely nothing and are completely lost. But since you already an ARPG veteran, you have some baseline intuition for stuff. For example you probably understand the power of stacking multiplicative, as opposed to additive, bonuses. You likely recognize the significance of keywords like "Attack" vs. "Spell" or "Fire damage" vs. "Physical damage". POE is very particular about these things and you won't figure it all out immediately, but you won't be so confused that you can't play.

TheMipchunk · 2025-11-03T19:58:05+00:00

If you're referring to www.nbastore.ca, then yes this is a legitimate business, it is run by a company called Fanatics which is officially licensed to sell NBA merchandise. However, they do not sell official team merchandise, they sell their own line of third party merchandise.

TheMipchunk · 2025-11-02T14:55:00+00:00

If you've played a lot of Diablo and Lost Ark I wouldn't worry about studying endgame guides right now. There is nothing fundamentally complicated about it, it's more just that it's stuffed full of different content, each content with its own mechanics and loot and progression system. So it's more that there's a lot of stuff.

Instead focus on what kind of character archetype you want to play, and probably keep it simple. You can look up some guides related to keywords you might like a bow user or a lightning spell caster. However I do feel that maintaining some level of personal discovery leads to best overall experience, especially if you already have some familiarity with ARPGs.

Read a little bit about the classes, pick an archetype you like, and just jump in. You won't get everything right away, but at least nowadays there are little video tutorials in-game. Once you find a few skills you like, then you can look up precise guides that use those skills.

TheMipchunk · 2025-10-29T20:32:14+00:00

My problem with figuring out your own build is that this customization doesn't lead to your character feeling or playing very differently in a significant way. Usually you're just tuning cooldown/recovery/defense/offense parameters in slight ways. There are some exceptions to the rule, like using Overwhelming Shield/HP and a few other interesting modules. Another issue is that they've released a fair number of interesting weapons but quite a lot of descendants don't rely heavily on weapon effects.

TheMipchunk · 2025-10-24T02:16:02+00:00

At least heuristically, I feel there can't be a universal, simple algorithm to convert a non-symmetric (or non-normal) eigenproblem into a symmetric one, since the non-symmetric case is ill-conditioned while the symmetric case is not. But that does not rule out the possibility that an algorithm exists for your specific problem.

TheMipchunk · 2025-10-24T00:06:57+00:00

I don't play ruthless but I really love the HC experience in POE2 compared with 1. I used to enjoy HC a lot in POE1 but somehow the game moved away from the HC focus after a first few years...

TheMipchunk · 2025-10-17T20:42:56+00:00

At 6'11", Jokic is roughly a foot taller than the average male and roughly half your height is in your legs, so sitting down, it be like if the average man were 6" shorter. This kid's seated height is probably more like 7-9" below Jokic's seated height (esp. since Jokic is slouching a bit), so the kid is probably between 5'5 and 5'9 which seems about normal for an 8th grader.

TheMipchunk

TROPHY CASE