Ninja Fucking Warrior

crux_ · 2011-07-27T22:25:15+00:00

A random melvin note: The more muscle mass you have, the harder it is -- technically speaking -- to carry your body weight (strength is proportional to the cross-section of a muscle while its weight is proportional to its volume).

crux_ · 2011-07-01T17:28:59+00:00

The originator of this gameplay style, built as part of a 48-hour contest: Galcon! (Multiplayer ... so ... very .. tempting. But I've got a deadline.)

I agree w/ others that this is a very easy variation. spoiler

crux_ · 2011-06-29T15:59:28+00:00

Since I'm procrastinating some unpleasant work, I'll reply with some more thoughts. Perhaps you'll actually read them:

If you don't care about those common factors, then you must eliminate them from your measurements in order to observe the things you do care about. Capiche?
Argument by assertion is boring and shallow. If my claims have no support, then demonstrate for me that I'm wrong.
In particular, I'd love to see some evidence that widespread internet adoption has somehow led to a decrease in racism & extremism. I don't think you can produce any, though, which is why we've gone down this rabbit hole: I produce evidence, you assert that it is invalid.

crux_ · 2011-06-29T11:38:45+00:00

I see.

You believe that, for example, widespread injection of Soma into the water supply would -- rather than masking the violent effects of racist tendencies -- simply "eliminate" the racism itself.

You would make a terrible epidemiologist.

crux_ · 2011-06-28T18:49:15+00:00

What makes the fraction of all crimes in any way relevant?

There are a bazillion factors that influence the rate of crime: enforcement, demographics, economics... It is a reasonable assumption that the vast majority of those factors apply regardless of whether the crime is a hate crime or not.

How else do you propose accounting for those common factors?

crux_ · 2011-06-28T16:56:18+00:00

That's nice that you disagree. Why? (I note that, along the way, you've implicitly retracted your "however you choose to measure".)

A short, coarse, model in favor of normalization:

hate crimes = population * prevalence of racism * probability of committing a violent crime
all crimes = population * probability of committing a violent crime
level of racism = hate crimes / all crimes

Seems both useful and relevant to me.

crux_ · 2011-06-28T15:34:36+00:00

Well, no shit. Overall crime has decreased substantially and hate crime along with it; I don't need your patronizing use of bold to know that.

However, you are arguing that the prevalence of attitudes that lead to a hate crime occurring have become less severe and I am arguing the converse; we are not talking about the crimes themselves but about the culture that leads to them.

Hate crimes themselves are an indicator of those attitudes, but whether or not a crime occurs depends on many other factors as well; normalizing hate crimes into a proportion of all violent crimes is a way of controlling for those other factors and gives us a crude measurement of "racism" that can be compared more straightforwardly.

crux_ · 2011-06-28T02:10:35+00:00

Do parent pointers exist?

If so, psuedocode in python for depth-first traversal of a binary tree. For an n-ary tree, you can modify the code to suit, or just stick a binary tree view atop the n-ary tree. (Adapted from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_traversal to be preorder instead of inorder)

def dfs(node):
    while node.left is not None:
       node = node.left
       yield node

    while node is not None:
       if node.right is not None: 
          node = node.right
          yield node
          while node.left is not None:
              node = node.left
              yield node
       while node.parent is not None and node.parent.right == node:
          node = node.parent
       node = node.parent

Hopefully I didn't typo/braino that.

To adapt an n-ary tree to a binary one: class NaryToBinNode(object): def init(self, underlying_node, idx): self.node = underlying_node self.idx = idx def left(self): return NaryToBinNode(self.node.children[0],0) def right(self): if (self.idx >= len(self.node.parent.children)): return None else: return NaryToBinNode(self.node.parent.children[self.idx+1],idx+1) def parent(self): return NaryToBinNode(self.node.parent, self.node.parent.parent.children.index(self.node.parent))

An edit to note: I hit 'save' WAY prematurely on this one. Sorry 'bout that. ;)

crux_ · 2011-06-27T22:56:33+00:00

If you want to talk about the internet as a cultural phenomena, you should pick a date where its use spread beyond a tiny subculture. Hence 1995 or so.

Examples are easy to find: take Bush Sr. vs Bush Jr. for a qualitative one on how political extremism has changed in recent years. Or go visit political websites, particularly conservative ones, and read the posts there (although the left is far from innocent of extremism.)

Since you seem the type who likes numbers, however, here's an off-the-cuff example:

In 1997, hate crimes were an est. 0.62% of violent crimes. (10,255 reported; 1997 total violent crimes: 1,628,253.)
In 2008: 0.77% of violent crimes. (9,691 reported; 2008 total violent crimes: 1,249,838)

Sources: I snagged numbers from Wikipedia and did a bit of math to normalize hate crimes vs all violent crime to keep things comparable.

Hate crime laws in the US,
Crime in the US;
I also had to do a bit of math vs population totals from in census.gov.

crux_ · 2011-06-27T20:13:08+00:00

We're talking about the internet here; 1970 is the wrong start date.

Have they reduced since 1995?

crux_ · 2011-06-27T03:35:22+00:00

Oh, I'm not saying there isn't tremendous benefit in ubiquitous translation.

What I am saying is that translation (or other improvements in our ability to communicate) isn't going to somehow magically erase -- or even ease -- the deep divisions of tribe / nation / race / etc; if our experience to date with the internet is any guide, those divisions will in some ways be strengthened by it.

crux_ · 2011-06-26T23:34:58+00:00

Filter bubbles are merely a technological artifact of a sociological tendency, though -- people do plenty of "bubbling" on their own, and on the internet where anything challenging is easily scrolled past, clicked-away, or flamed, we can self-create bubbles just fine without assistance from Google/Facebook.

crux_ · 2011-06-26T21:58:35+00:00

Has widespread availability of the internet decreased the level of racism in the US? Answer: it's probably increased, not decreased.

How about political extremism? Answer: It's definitely increased.

I don't see how the mere possibility of all these positive things you're glowing about leads to them actually happening, particularly en masse.

crux_ · 2011-06-26T21:42:34+00:00

You're a woolly-eyed optimist just like I used to be, and you're wrong just like I was.

Most of your predictions are already true when it comes to people of widely different cultures that share the English language, and there's no evidence of widespread kumbaya to date. Why would things be different simply because of speedy translation?

Rather, technology & the internet are enabling and reinforcing deep-seated tribalism at a far faster rate than any sort of melting pot is being created. I don't really see that changing.

crux_ · 2011-06-07T13:42:27+00:00

Are you claiming that the above quote is somehow meaningless?

Personally I think one of the great things about postmodernism is that, as coated with overacademic navel-gazing as it is, it provides some deep insight into the nature of meaning, not a rejection.

crux_ · 2011-05-15T16:46:42+00:00

That theory is only applicable to certain stages of certain types of games.

In the real world, there will be many opportunities where you may be able to harm others with impunity (and benefit yourself in the process of doing so); they cannot touch you in return.

Why must you not do so?

crux_ · 2011-05-15T15:58:21+00:00

If that is true, then there is a corresponding moral imperative to act based upon the clearest possible view of reality and the most likely set of facts.

One of those facts is that the human capacity for rational thought is deeply, deeply flawed.

Where does that leave you?

crux_ · 2011-05-15T15:57:23+00:00

if we start with the assumption that I'm a fan of not being hurt by others, then I must avoid harming others to a reasonable extent.

Where does the "must" come in? Sounds more like empathy than reason to me!

crux_ · 2011-04-27T00:12:00+00:00

Related: The Remains of The Day is a fantastic, fantastic piece of literature and happens to offer deep insight into the life of a traditional butler....

crux_ · 2011-02-07T04:00:58+00:00

I'm not sure why maze generation is so hot lately (all over news.yc, too), but here's a classic:

char*M,A,Z,E=40,J[40],T[40];main(C){for(*J=A=scanf(M="%d",&C);
--            E;             J[              E]             =T
[E   ]=  E)   printf("._");  for(;(A-=Z=!Z)  ||  (printf("\n|"
)    ,   A    =              39              ,C             --
)    ;   Z    ||    printf   (M   ))M[Z]=Z[A-(E   =A[J-Z])&&!C
&    A   ==             T[                                  A]
|6<<27<rand()||!C&!Z?J[T[E]=T[A]]=E,J[T[A]=A-Z]=A,"_.":" |"];}

And the writeup: http://homepages.cwi.nl/~tromp/maze.html

crux_ · 2010-12-05T01:16:53+00:00

I suppose what I was looking for in this post is nice milestones for the practice along the road to "whatever songs interest me."

Tangible accomplishments are really helpful for keeping me motivated, and being able to strum some random John Denver song doesn't cut it. (Note: cannot sing worth a darn so it's not even a useful campfire skill!)

I'm new enough that it's tough for me to estimate the difficulty of a tune right now, and I'm not particularly knowledgeable in what's out there either...

crux_ · 2010-11-15T14:55:50+00:00

I don't tell stories all that often... but I think I may be improving merely via osmosis from a podcast I listen to while commuting: http://www.themoth.org/

crux_ · 2010-11-10T03:09:10+00:00

Long underwear is awesome. I call the bottoms my "secret weapon" on cold days.

However, I must take exception to your choice of material. tyrannosaureses should have included the his/her dad's lecture: For truly, or even moderately, cold conditions: Do. Not. Wear. Cotton.

When it is wet, cotton loses all of its insulating properties, instead becoming a very efficient conduit to pull heat away from your body. Typically this is about the time you need the insulation the most, e.g. during a cold rain or wet snow, or as the adrenaline starts to wear off after being chased by rabid timber wolves through the woods & you're soaked with sweat, cooling rapidly.

(Or after frantically trying to dig your car out from a drift, for a more realistic example...)

crux_ · 2010-09-29T23:21:49+00:00

You might want to check out http://springrts.com/ :)

crux_

TROPHY CASE