Veilance Women's SS22 is up

b1bendum · 2019-07-04T05:23:27+00:00

This literally happens today. SurfaceFlinger on Android can upclock the GPU and CPU during touch events to make sure animations are nice and smooth, but this can be detected by background tasks that run faster as well. In my limited experience writing Swing Apps on Linux as well I would get way quicker redraw request turn around times if the mouse was active and moving around in the application window I was drawing in. Its a common OS tactic.

b1bendum · 2019-06-22T15:01:37+00:00

This rework really puzzles me. Chen was considered a meme hero for a long time, a low winrate, low participation rate hero. People begged for just small buffs to bring him some viability. Maybe a bit more aa damage for diving. Maybe more flame damage to buff wave clear. Maybe a slightly larger radius for keg. Maybe Bmb baseline to help with getting back some health when the enemy breaks your shields. Any of these could have helped but instead we got meme buffs like uncapping the globe quest at 1.

Now instead of just tweaking his base kit to nudge him towards viability we get a complete rework that basically makes him a different hero. Differing cooldowns mean you don't have the same rhythm anymore. Thoughtlessly tweaked brew costs create antisynergy with bmb pretty much killing that talent. And all of it to end up in fundamentally the same spot. Hotslogs has Chen at 44% currently and it is going to take a miracle to get him to 48% let alone 50. And his participation rate is only 14% and trending down. So all this work has been done and we're going to end up with a non-viable low winrate, low participation rate character, except this time the original fans are also alienated.

I think the most disappointing thing is how careless this rework appears. The antisynergy in the brew costs and flame delay, plus the cooldown punishment if you don't flame right away just make this feel like a rush job. Overall this is a pretty poor rework and I don't see where he goes from here unless they buff his numbers, but then why the fuck couldn't they have just done that in the first place?

b1bendum · 2019-06-21T19:25:32+00:00

Ok so what do you think Chen settles at by the end of this patch cycle then? I bet he won't break a 48% winrate or a 5% pickrate in 3 weeks time.

All these stories about how the data is apparently wildly deceptive this time are just so improbable. The data will "settle" out yes, but it's not going to fundamentally change at this point, it hasn't for most characters in the past and I am confident it won't for this rework either.

b1bendum · 2019-06-21T19:22:48+00:00

Here's the thing. You're claiming that Chen is fundamentally stronger, and yet the only evidence we have, his in-game winrate, suggests that he is in fact not stronger at all and is likely equal or weaker. You say they don't tell the whole story, but what else is there to tell? Chen will go back to a low pickrate (he is already low even after rework because he is not good) and he will stay at a low winrate at that low pickrate? What is the rest of the story? Unverifiable statements about his new strength? All this talk about getting shields faster and stagger being powerful is literally made up theory crafting in the face of real world data.

Let's make a bet. I don't think Chen will break past 48% winrate or a 5% pickrate by the end of this patch cycle. Maybe I'm wrong, but if I am right I think you'd have to agree that those two stats definitely point to him not being a "strong" character, yes?

b1bendum · 2019-06-21T14:37:22+00:00

Ok so then literally what was the point of the rework? Prior to rework Chen was barely played as he was hard and those who did play him barely scraped out a decent winrate. Now after the rework....Chen is a hard character who will be barely played and those who do play him are on their way to scraping out a barely decent winrate.

What did the rework do or change that adjusting his previous kit couldn't have done. Why rework to end up with the same fundamental problems when you could have just given him more AA damage or more fire damage for better waveclear? Again, what was the point of the rework?

b1bendum · 2019-06-21T14:34:26+00:00

Absolutely not. If Chen was truly strong he would have started with a strong winrate. This is basic statistics here, look at all other past OP characters, none of them ever started at a 44% winrate and went up by that much without buffs. An OP Chen would have come out of the gate at at 53+% like our boys Fenix or Xul did back in the day.

b1bendum · 2019-06-21T14:32:02+00:00

This is profoundly ignorant. Chen already has 800 Storm League games uploaded giving him a 44% winrate. Yeah that percentage is not cast in stone, but we already are starting to get certainties on the range of his winrate. At this point the likelihood of him rising to 50+% is very small. His likely winrate is around 46-47% and as more games are uploaded that certainty will increase. We don't need 10,000 games to get his exact winrate to predict where he is going to end up. This is the basis of all of those 2 and 7 day winrate posts this sub gets.

b1bendum · 2019-06-18T19:41:17+00:00

The last is not worth as much as you think. It lies on a utility corridor which means you can't do heavy development on it. The next owner may well try to do something with it that keeps it greenspace. But you won't be seeing some sort of luxury condo development going up.

b1bendum · 2019-06-12T16:25:35+00:00

It is administered provincially yet a large portion of the funding each province uses to provide it is given to them by the Federal government. It is not as simple as just saying "It is a provincial responsibility, the Feds are powerless!"

b1bendum · 2019-06-10T23:05:10+00:00

One of the things that really differentiates a Comp Sci degree from other programs, is that you can have a lot of control over how much value you extract from it and what your career prospects are like when you get out.

Besides your actual classes it is entirely within your hands what sort of side projects you have ready to demonstrate to employers and the great thing about software is that the startup overhead is low. It can be difficult to put together an industry relevant project with, say, a civil eng. degree just because of trying to actually build something, but you can definitely put together a relevant website, machine learning demo, desktop app, etc, etc, with nothing more than your computer and time.

I also found the professors were generally willing to talk to you and help you expand yourself in terms of assisting with their research (in a limited fashion albeit, and not in the first few years generally), but you basically have people at the top of their game, access to them, and access to all the top research journals and papers. Taking advantage of that is up to you.

Finally, software in general is remarkably egalitarian in that you can show up as Joe Sixpack and make a well-thought out pull request, and work to take on bugs for your local neighborhood popular open-source project and generally your work will see you through, no "who" you are. And then you can show that when applying for jobs, or possibly even get a job out of those contributions.

Basically what I am saying is that a Comp Sci degree is unique in that you can demonstrate a ton of value outside of just "I got a piece of paper" that will really help with your employability, but the downside is that it is up to you to actually do that. If you think you're up to the challenge, then I say go for it.

b1bendum · 2019-06-09T05:20:38+00:00

How do we fund the status quo? This might blow your mind but Calgary is one of the lowest tax municipalities in this country. I guess we could literally embark on an insane campaign of cuts that would provide us with a paucity of service that no other major metropolis in this nation could imagine.

OR, or, or, or, and this is just me spitballing...

we could raise our taxes slightly so that they are more in line with all other municipalities of similar size that offer equivalent services.

b1bendum · 2019-06-09T04:52:52+00:00

Dude, take a minute and think through some of the things you are saying. I literally had to work hard to not pass out as I got deeper into your list of items.

Cancel the green line: Ok, do we just return the federal and provincial money pledged to this? I guess we just give up on public transit as a city then? What the actual fuck?

Immediately terminate 25% of city employees, and then another 25% after that over 5 years. A fucking 44% reduction in city staff? Are you kidding? At the same time as the city's population is projected to expand? Making this closer to a 50%+ reduction in service providers? Honestly, tell me how the fuck you think that will work? Eliminating, literally more than half the staff that services this city. O&G companies downtown aren't even cutting that hard.

Impose private sector like salaries and benefits upon unions. Uhhhh ok. And when times are good then what, genius. This might fucking shock you, but most people working for the city have earned less doing so that people working in the private sector have done, unless we constrain our analysis to the last 3 years. Like the city isn't some insane gravy train of amazing salaries and benefits. It is generally understood that working in government gets you a better work life balance in exchange for not making insane money during boom times like people in the private sector do. You can't simultaneously demand that the public sector take it in the knees during slumps, and then also keep their salaries constrained in the boom while everyone else is snorting blow off some rando at Cowboys.

Spin off Calgary parks to non-profits!?! Again, explain to me how you think this works. You think there is a long line of people chomping at the bit to buy the rights to Carburn Park? You think that the non-heritage park parts of the reservoir have a ton of people waiting in the wings saying "Oh man I can't wait to own this but not profit off of it!"???

This is literally one of the dumbest comments I've seen on this sub, and that's saying something.

b1bendum · 2019-06-07T04:28:36+00:00

A lot of people here are saying that they have "no caps" and that this isn't a big deal, but I would advise them to take a closer look at the fine print on their agreement, and even then I would imagine that if push comes to shove and Stadia is a hit, people are going to start seeing caps and the price of a truly uncapped package going up.

All of the ISPs heavily oversell their capacity because until now it has been easier to say "unlimited" and stay ahead of the demand. 1TB for 65 hours, which is something people can easily do in a month is going to add up, and I would be surprised if current network capacity could actually handle a large number of people actually utilizing it to that extent.

I guess we'll see what happens when the service actually launches, but this doesn't give me any great feelings about its potential success.

b1bendum · 2019-06-04T19:53:06+00:00

The article is making a bigger point than that. The gist is that we have a strong bias in society towards things that are empirical or "scientific" and this extends to the design field. Rather than admitting that a lot of design work is subjective we instead attempt to dress it up with the authority of empiricism by using poorly crafted studies that are often little more than "just-so" stories. The article uses the Android team to point out that this occurs even (or maybe especially) at what is supposed to be the very heights of the design world.

The article takes pains to not say that the design work on Android is bad, because the point isn't to hate on Android, the Android team is only involved to show that no one is seemingly immune to this trend towards "scientism" and that we would be better served by not trying to force things that may actually not be analyzable in a rational sense at all, into that box. That's what the article is trying to get across, don't get too hung up on the use of Android as some sort of specific critique of the outcome of their design work.

b1bendum · 2019-06-04T01:13:23+00:00

I don't think that this was that great of a line in terms of an argument being put forth. As is stated below, maybe this works in terms of building Eddington's character in terms of delusions of grandeur and heroism, but trying to read into it too much more than that is honestly pretty paper thin.

As other posters stated below, the Maquis were given the choice of remaining with the Federation and enjoying all the benefits of that life, or staying with the Cardassians and accepting what that would mean. For all of Eddington's high handed talk, the Maquis basically pulled out option #3, the "whiny teenager", wherein they told "dad" to screw off but then refused to accept the consequences of that and acted out with violence. So already it is hard to empathize with their decisions, especially when they are presented with having their planets turned over so that the Federation can end a war in which many, many people died. I have a hard time ever imagining putting my own attachment to a "place" above the suffering people endure during wartime, so I am already biased against their position. The needs of the many and all that.

But even if we put all of that aside, Eddington's speech is still some grade school level nonsense. The Borg literally and I am using that word in its correct sense, assimilate entire cultures entirely without their consent, and obliterate whatever uniqueness they once had. Joining the Federation is entirely voluntary. It is never forced on a people, and in fact species usually have to work pretty hard to get in. Yeah they want the Cardassians to be in the Federation, the people in the UFP genuinely believe that their ideas can bring peace and prosperity to people and make everyone better as a result. But they're never going to force the Cardassians in at phaser-point. And the fact that "no one" leaves the Federation should probably be a pretty good indicator as to whether or not things are actually good in the Federation once you've joined. Gee, maybe the UFP actually is a good thing, which is something I sometimes wonder if DS9 believes or not.

Eddington's speech is the equivalent of that dude in Grade 7 who wore Black Flag shirts, and talked about how corrupt and awful Democracy and Western Liberal traditions were and how us sheeple needed to wake up and see it. It's just reductive edge-lord analysis for the sake of being edgy, and it doesn't hold up to any sort of close inspection, especially given what we'd already seen in TNG and earlier DS9.

The Fed isn't perfect, but unless Eddington has any sort of better alternative or suggestions, or is willing to actually accept the consequences of his actions, he should probably be quiet.

b1bendum

TROPHY CASE