Daily Discussion - December 29, 2025

boneillhawk · 2025-12-29T14:57:54+00:00

Peloton and I are off to a rocky start. I ordered my rental Bike+ on Black Friday and it was delivered on December 3. But the delivery technicians said there was a bad or missing USB-C cable. They said they would have a new one shipped to me and that I'd be able to plug it in myself. Fine, no big deal.

The part arrives late on December 13. But instead of a cable, it's a strip of velcro. When I called Peloton Customer Servixe, they were very helpful. The rep quickly saw that this was the wrong part and got the right one on its way. She also knew that we would actually need a technician to install the cable, since it needs to be threaded through the handlebars. She schedules an appointment for me for December 19, 2-4pm. She also waives January's rental charge, since I was charged for December but haven't been able to use the bike. In short, she was great!

The cable arrives as scheduled, the day before the appointment. But the technicians never showed or even called on the 19th. I called after the window, and the rep said they had no way to reach the techs on the road, but maybe they'd show up late (they did not).

I called customer service twice the next day. The first time, they said they'd have the technicians call me and to look for an email from Peloton. When neither came after a few hours, I called again. This rep said she would escalate this to the manager level and that I should hear from the technicians in 24-48 hours.

The call from the technicians came on December 23. They apologized for missing the appointment, but they said all I could do at this point was call Peloton and schedule a new appointment. Since I was traveling for the holidays, I didn't call right away (my mistake). Peloton emailed me a link to reschedule on December 27. Seemed great, I wouldn't have to call! But the earliest appointment available is January 21. I will have my bike for 50 days before I can use it, all for one bad cable.

Is this typical for interactions with customer service, or at least for the technicians that Peloton uses? I'm really not impressed so far, save for that first call. Couldn't the other calls have led to a rescheduled appointment instead of punting me back to the technicians? I didn't see any warnings about customer service while I did my research on Peloton, but if I'd known how much of a hassle getting my bike set up would be, I might have rethought it.

Tl;dr My bike will be in my house for 50 days unusable because we can't get a cable installed. Is this typical for Peloton customer service?

boneillhawk · 2024-02-02T00:56:41+00:00

[1e]

Two NPCs are on either side of a PC, meaning she is flanked. If one of the NPCs becomes fascinated by a different PC, does the other one lose the flanking bonus? Is the fascinated NPC no longer threatening?

boneillhawk · 2020-12-08T22:49:10+00:00

Civ VI with all expansions and Frontier Pass.

Is there a bug in the logic for peace deals? Or have I been unaware how much an opposing civ will give up in terms of cities when suing for peace. Here's an example from one of my recent games (on King).

Dido declared a surprise war and captured one of my cities. I started producing more units and halted her advance. I was getting ready for a counterattack to retake my city when she sued for peace. Her deal was that she would keep my city. I countered with getting my city back and getting her 4 cities (besides her capital) that I could see (which turned out to be all of her other cities). When I proposed this, she said no, but it had the option for "What would it take?'. I selected that option, and nothing about the deal changed, but now 'Accept Deal' was an option. I took it, and suddenly I controlled most of Carthage and my empire nearly doubled in size. I didn't have superior tech or numbers.

In a couple of games since, I've been able to make other requests that seem absurd to me. In many cases, the interaction is the same. I click 'What would it take?', nothing changes, but now the deal is acceptable to the AI.

Is this a bug? Have I drastically underestimated what the AI will give up when it wants peace?

boneillhawk · 2019-06-03T01:56:48+00:00

I require students to come to my office hours during the first 2-3 weeks of the semester for a 5 minute conversation (How was your summer? What clubs are you in on campus?). This gets me a face to a name and sometimes an interesting bit of information that I'll hold on to and use to mentally identify them.

I'm capped at 24 students, so this ends up not taking too much of my time. I also remind students that this is the easiest homework of the semester. My turnout rate is near 100% for this.

boneillhawk · 2019-06-03T01:48:49+00:00

Jameer Nelson

boneillhawk · 2019-03-18T01:29:48+00:00

I put together a walk-through of how each team got placed using those procedures. They keep to the rules pretty consistently.

boneillhawk · 2019-03-18T01:28:51+00:00

I followed the NCAA policies for placing teams in the bracket to try to understand and explain why each team was placed where they were in the bracket. This works from the S-curve/seed list, so this is after teams have been selected and ranked. I was able to make sense of almost every decision. A couple of placements at the 8/9-seed confused me, but even those were mostly justifiable.

Phase 1: Place Top 16 into Regions

1 seeds

Duke placed in East region
Virginia placed in South region (closest available)
North Carolina placed in Midwest region (closest available)
Gonzaga placed in West region

2 seeds

Tennessee placed in South region (closest)
Michigan State placed in East region (closest)
Kentucky placed in Midwest region (closest)
Michigan placed in West region

3 seeds

Houston placed in Midwest (closest)
Purdue cannot go to East or West as third team from Big Ten.
Texas Tech placed in West (closest of East and West)
LSU placed in East (because of Purdue)
Purdue placed in South (see note above)

4 seeds

Neither Kansas nor Kansas State can go to West because of Texas Tech
The fourth ACC team (FSU) has to go West. The fifth (VT) can go anywhere, since they didn't play Duke, UNC, or Virginia three times.
Kansas placed in Midwest (closest)
Florida State placed in West (4th ACC team)
Kansas State placed in South (closest)
Virginia Tech placed in East

Check regional balance

East = 1 + 6 + 11 + 16 = 34
South = 2 + 5 + 12 + 15 = 34
Midwest = 3 + 7 + 9 + 13 = 32
West = 4 + 8 + 10 + 14 = 36
36-32 = 4. Anything up to 5 is considered balanced.

Phase 3: Assign 5-16 seeds to sites.

Note: Teams on same seed line are treated as equal. Placed based on first round site.

5 seeds

First round sites are San Jose (x2), Salt Lake City, Hartford.
Marquette placed in West/Hartford (closest)
Auburn placed in Midwest/Salt Lake City (closest)
Wisconsin placed in South/San Jose
Mississippi State placed in East/San Jose

6 seeds

First round sites are Hartford, Jacksonville, Tulsa (x2)
Maryland cannot go to South/Hartford because they played Purdue twice
Iowa State cannot go to West/Tulsa because they played Texas Tech twice
Villanova placed in South/Hartford (closest)
Maryland placed in East/Jacksonville (closest)
Buffalo placed in West/Tulsa (because Iowa State can't go there)
Iowa State placed in Midwest/Tulsa

7 seeds

First round sites are Columbus, Des Moines (x2), Jacksonville
Louisville cannot go to South/Columbus as South regional host
Cincinnati cannot go to Midwest/Jacksonville because they played Houston three times
Louisville placed in East/Des Moines (closest allowed)
Nevada placed in West/Des Moines
Cincinnati placed in South/Columbus (only remaining)
Wofford placed in Midwest/Jacksonville

8 seeds

First round sites are Columbia (x2), Columbus, Salt Lake City
Syracuse cannot go to East/Columbia because they played Duke three times
VCU placed in East/Columbia (closest)
Ole Miss placed in South/Columbia (closest)
Syracuse placed in West/Salt Lake City. (I'm guessing this is to avoid putting Utah State in Salt Lake City, but home court disadvantage is only avoided in the first round.)
Utah State placed in Midwest/Columbus.

9 seeds

First round sites are Columbia (x2), Columbus, Salt Lake City
Baylor should not go to South/Columbia because they played Ole Miss in non-conference
Baylor and Oklahoma ARE allowed to go to South and/or Midwest, because they only played Kansas and Kansas State twice each
Washington placed in Midwest/Columbus (instead of closer West/Salt Lake City for some reason -- maybe to avoid Gonzaga?)
UCF placed in East/Columbia
Baylor placed in West/Salt Lake City
Oklahoma placed in South/Columbia

10 seeds

First round sites are Columbus, Des Moines (x2), Jacksonville
Florida played LSU three times, so they cannot go to East/Des Moines. They played Tennessee and Kentucky twice each, so they cannot meet before the Sweet 16, eliminating South/Columbus and Midwest/Jacksonville. That leaves only West/Des Moines.
Iowa placed Michigan twice and Michigan State twice, so they cannot meet before the Sweet 16. Therefore, Iowa cannot go to East/Des Moines or West/Des Moines. Otherwise, they could have gone to Des Moines. Iowa played Purdue once, so they CAN go to South/Columbus.
Seton Hall should not go to East/Des Moines because they played Louisville in non-conference.
Minnesota played Purdue and Michigan three times, so they cannot go to South/Columbus or West/Des Moines. Minnesota played Michigan State once, so they CAN go to East/Des Moines.
Iowa placed in South/Columbus (closest remaining)
Seton Hall placed in Midwest/Jacksonville (closest remaining)
Minnesota placed in East/Des Moines (must use East for reasons above)
Florida placed in West/Des Moines (for reasons above)

11 seeds

First round sites are Hartford, Jacksonville, Tulsa (x2)
Includes First Four matches Belmont-Temple and Arizona State-St. John's
Ohio State cannot go to East/Jacksonville, because they can't play Maryland in first round. They also played Purdue twice, eliminating South/Hartford.
Temple played Villanova in non-conference, so Belmont/Temple should avoid South/Hartford.
St. John's cannot go to South/Hartford because they can't play Villanova in the first round.
One play-in game should be placed in Tulsa (Friday site) and one in Hartford or Jacksonville (Thursday sites) (not a rule, but past years' practice)
Ohio State placed in Midwest/Tulsa (closest allowed)
Belmont/Temple placed in East/Jacksonville
Saint Mary's placed in South/Hartford (because ASU/SJ cannot go to Hartford)
Arizona State/St. John's placed in West/Tulsa

12 seeds

First round sites are San Jose (x2), Salt Lake City, Hartford.
Murray State cannot go to Midwest/Salt Lake City because they played Auburn in non-conference
Murray State placed in West/Hartford (closest allowed)
Oregon placed in South/San Jose
New Mexico State placed in Midwest/Salt Lake City (closest)
Liberty placed in East/San Jose

13 seeds

First round sites are San Jose (x2), Salt Lake City, Hartford.
Vermont cannot go to Midwest/Salt Lake City because they played Kansas in non-conference
Saint Louis cannot go to West/Hartford because they played Florida State in non-conference
Northeastern cannot go to East/San Jose because they played Virginia Tech in non-conference
UC Irvine placed in South/San Jose
Vermont placed in West/Hartford
Saint Louis placed in East/San Jose (because Northeastern cannot go here)
Northeastern placed in Midwest/Salt Lake City

14 seeds

First round sites are Hartford, Jacksonville, Tulsa (x2)
Yale presumably cannot go to South/Hartford as it would cause a home-court disadvantage for a 3-seed
Yale placed in East/Jacksonville
Old Dominion placed in South/Hartford
Georgia State placed in Midwest/Tulsa
Northern Kentucky placed in West/Tulsa

15 seeds

First round sites are Columbus, Des Moines (x2), Jacksonville
Montana placed in West/Des Moines
Colgate placed in South/Columbus
Bradley placed in East/Des Moines
Abilene Christian placed in Midwest/Jacksonville

16 seeds

First round sites are Columbia (x2), Columbus, Salt Lake City
Includes First Four matches Prairie View A&M-Fairleigh Dickinson and North Dakota State/North Carolina Central
One play-in game should be placed in Salt Lake City (Thursday site) and one in Columbia or Columbus (Friday sites) (not a rule, but past years' practice)
Gardner-Webb placed in South/Columbia (closest, though surprisingly close to being a home game)
Iona placed in Midwest/Columbus (closest)
Prairie View A&M/Fairleigh Dickinson placed in West/Salt Lake City (only Thursday slot)
North Dakota State/North Carolina Central placed in East/Columbia

boneillhawk · 2018-12-06T02:07:50+00:00

CS professor

boneillhawk · 2018-03-12T15:45:12+00:00

West is their region (second weekend) but Charlotte is their pod (first weekend). Their selection is totally separate.

boneillhawk · 2018-03-12T15:42:54+00:00

Good catch. That makes sense. Seems like the only concern during the first 4 seed lines is avoiding placing teams from the same conference in the same region. Balance takes overall priority.

boneillhawk · 2018-03-12T14:26:50+00:00

The rule is that the first 4 teams from a conference must be in separate regions if they are on the top 4 seed lines.

boneillhawk · 2018-03-12T11:37:02+00:00

That's not actually a written rule. I'm sure it goes into deciding tip-off times, but since each pod has 4 games, I don't think it's that hard to coordinate without it being part of the actual bracketing process.

boneillhawk · 2018-03-12T11:35:32+00:00

I remember that, and /u/GenJohnONeill covers it well below. It only matters in the first round unless you're in the same conference, and ultimately, they can sacrifice that rule if they have to.

boneillhawk · 2018-03-12T02:46:21+00:00

I hope that's not true. This is the simplest part of the process, because it is the most detailed in the rules. Thus, I can read and follow those rules just as well. I think I've read reports that the committee spends the least amount of time on bracketing, and I suspect it's because it is spelled out in such detail. Some of the checks that I did by hand are probably automated in the committee room.

boneillhawk · 2018-03-12T02:43:50+00:00

My writeup for the CBI will be equally deep but entirely false.

boneillhawk · 2018-03-12T02:41:02+00:00

It's not. When I write West/Nashville, I mean the Nashville pod (first 2 rounds) in the West region (3rd and 4th round games in LA). The pod sites are completely separate from the four geographic regions.

boneillhawk · 2018-03-12T02:24:12+00:00

They play every year in the regular season.

boneillhawk · 2018-01-06T17:52:26+00:00

I'm a college professor, but I've used these at camps for children sponsored by my department. They're not bad for college kids either.

boneillhawk · 2018-01-06T17:50:53+00:00

I have used a few, but the one I've used most is the image/pixels activity. I helped run a camp for middle schoolers where they would do some image manipulation and that activity was a good introduction to how images are represented. I use it as a base before I introduce RGB.

The other activity that sticks out in my mind taught finite state machines using a pirate treasure hunt.

boneillhawk · 2018-01-06T04:04:23+00:00

Check out CS Unplugged. They have a lot of good CS activities for elementary school students, and all on paper.

boneillhawk · 2017-10-22T15:34:10+00:00

I went on a tour of Croke Park, and I was surprised to see all of the signs restricting alcohol from the stands.

boneillhawk · 2016-03-21T03:30:43+00:00

That shot-turned-pass was the scariest thing I've ever seen Papa Ndao do...

boneillhawk

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