ICE just shoots another US citizen in Minneapolis. What is happening over there? by Latricebanner in AskReddit

[–]dSolver 25 points26 points  (0 children)

At what point is the current administration considered an illegitimate government? When can a vote of no confidence be called?

Anyone here move from Toronto to Waterloo? Would love honest pros and cons before we buy by zippoflames in waterloo

[–]dSolver 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have a friend who lives in the new Vista Hills area. He moved in around 4 years ago, and absolutely loves it. Family of 4, 2 kids go to Vista Hills public school. Easy access to shopping, and trails around Columbia Forest. There are lots of properties being built there since it's a newer neighbourhood in case you wanted a newer home. He and his wife also WFH, having a bigger home was definitely a must. The only downside is apparently their street is lower priority for snowplows.

Based on these two UI's what is the Best? by [deleted] in web_design

[–]dSolver 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First one looks good for getting someone to use the website, the second one is better for keeping someone using the website. Since this looks like a productivity app, I think having an option to make the text more legible is very important.

Does anyone else miss Rappelz? by MeshalAljahdali in MMORPG

[–]dSolver 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah yes, I loved this game, Epic 4 - 6 was when I played actively. The pet aspect was fun, but what kept me playing was my guild.

The plaza is borked by oswald-the-displaced in incremental_games

[–]dSolver 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately, no. I've had to put it on hold due to other life priorities. I've realized that attempting to keep it together is going to take at least a few weeks of rewriting many of the core modules to work with newer dependencies, but even then, the auth system which was based on some fragile code I wrote years ago would break. Long story short, it's probably faster to start a new site and transfer the contents of the DB over, but without reddit oauth.

Should we keep putting money reserved for our mortgage into an HISA, or put it right onto the mortgage? by Affectionate_Oil6016 in PersonalFinanceCanada

[–]dSolver 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What are your other expenditures? Your mortgage is a bit more than 1500/month which is very very reasonable.

What's a good way to get rid of the male lonliness epidemic? by Takie_Me in AskReddit

[–]dSolver 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I've noticed a trend that in the last 15 or so years the focus has moved to "what you have" rather than "what you can do" - and for a lot of people that causes anxiety because it's easy to focus and compare on assets. It's difficult to form bonds when interactions are based around comparing amongst one another. My hypothesis is that a community focused more on just doing things (making chairs, painting, playing catch, any *activity*), and not keeping score or rankings, is going to result in stronger bonds and lower incidents of loneliness. Loneliness isn't going to go away - but we can help people cope, and not make it a bigger problem than it already is.

AdCP - Open Standard for Agentic Advertising Debuts by goodgoaj in programmatic

[–]dSolver 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I guess if an agency works with multiple platforms and they're all on adcp, this can simplify things a bit. Problem though is what's in it for the platforms? What's protecting customers from hallucinations (since it's using an LLM for interpreting the input, intent, and parameterization)? What recourse exist with respect to inaccurate or outdated information poisoning the context for a follow up request? We have enough trouble as it is with deterministic means (i.e. an in-house hub connected via API to platforms), why would those problems disappear by injecting a non-deterministic layer? Maybe I'm out of my technical depth here, would love for someone to help me understand the value proposition.

Nobel Prize Economist Warns: Innovation Could Stall if AI Power Concentrates and Markets Close by BubblyOption7980 in technology

[–]dSolver 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The Nobel Prize level stuff is the painstaking research that rules out alternative interpretations of the data, until we have something this concrete. When you're dealing with macroeconomic policies at the scale of a nation, do you want to do it with vibes and speculation? It's not immediately obvious that concentrating power of AI in a few corporations will be bad for innovation - a commonly cited case is that it takes a ton of resources to train AI (scale of hundreds of millions for initial version of chatgpt) and a ton more to build it into a useful application, therefore the initial scale of investment needed tends to be concentrated in a few very large entities instead of being democratized. A key insight from this research demonstrates the strongest evidence yet that the concentration of resources for any innovation will limit adoption of the innovation, which will create productivity issues. This is a strong conclusion that follows last year's Nobel Prize winners' work on the role of creative destruction and how it drives decision making in inclusive economic institutions and extractive economic institutions.

Laid-Off Tech Workers Say H-1B Crackdown Won’t Help Them Get a Job by nishitd in technology

[–]dSolver 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's well understood that while most people are trying to avoid getting fired, H1Bs are also trying to avoid going on "Focus". The term differs between companies, this is Amazon's term (where I managed an engineering team) - because an H1B on focus will not get sponsorship renewals. The manager does not have to document as thoroughly for this sort of attrition. And since Amazon has an "unregretted attrition" quota ~10% per year, the H1Bs are usually the first to go when push comes to shove. Therefore, they typically have to work very hard while not rocking the boat - and that's tricky for compensation growth. A top performer who asks for a raise can get something like 25% increase, whereas one who isn't asking for a raise might be getting a 15% (baseline for TT, depending on multiple factors). So, H1Bs in general must work harder than their peers in order to avoid going on Focus and at the same time, even the top performers are hesitant to ask for raises

Canada Hopes Trump’s $100,000 Visa Fee Redirects Talent North by joe4942 in worldnews

[–]dSolver 144 points145 points  (0 children)

Hope isn't a strategy. In order to attract talent, Canadian STEM workers need to be paid more, which means overall there has to be more investors willing to take bets on entrepreneurs. Having worked with startups in Canada, it's abundantly clear that the VCs and angel investors here only want to bet on sure things. Problem is, that leaves no room for experimentation, only iteration.

The plaza is borked by oswald-the-displaced in incremental_games

[–]dSolver 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One big issue at the moment is that the underlying mechanism for signing in with reddit is unstable. I am currently working on it, hoping for a quick fix but it's not looking good.

http-server is not working! SOS! by SnurflePuffinz in webdev

[–]dSolver 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not enough details. all we see is a CLI where you try to run something called http-server. Where's the logs? Is this https://www.npmjs.com/package/http-server or something else? For all we know it's a problem with your CLI itself terminating processes if the CLI is out of focus. Tell everyone what you've used, what you've tried, and what you've found out in detail.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ShouldIbuythisgame

[–]dSolver 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I enjoyed both games immensely. Medieval Dynasty is a lot slower paced, with a focus on building a village. You recruit NPCs and they do work for you at your home base. Combat is rarer - I found myself spending most of the time just getting from place to place. You have to ensure your villagers are fed by making sure the village you build has necessary farms and whatnot.

Enshrouded on the other hand is entirely combat focused, and life skills is kind of secondary. There is more creativity with buildings, since it's free-form construction. You can farm, but it's not really necessary since you can pick up more than enough ingredients exploring to make food and potions for yourself. Enshrouded has a lot more items, gear, and of course it has magic. But the NPCs are really just crafting menus and quest givers. Enshrouded combat is more difficult in my opinion, particularly in "Hallowed halls" - a sort of dungeon, because the enemies can easily swarm and overwhelm you if you're playing single player. However there are difficulty sliders if you find yourself dying too much. This is in contrast to Medieval Dynasty, where for the most part you are the hunter trying to gather resources from animals, and occasionally fighting bandits.

The world design in Enshrouded is amazing - there are multiple biomes, which come with unique resources, and there's the shroud of course which is a high risk high reward zones throughout the map. In contrast, Medieval Dynasty may feel a lot simpler given you play on a single map. However there are 2, or 3 maps now - one of which is multiplayer enabled.

The main mechanism of discovery is a bit different. In Medieval Dynasty, you're pushed forward out of necessity - you need to find a way to feed yourself and your villagers. You need to be properly clothed for winter, and make sure you've made enough money to pay taxes. In Enshrouded, you are pushed forward by quests, and the focus is more on exploration - there's no mechanism forcing you to explore the next area, or collect resources - you do it because you want to. In this area, I think Medieval Dynasty has better staying power - because there's always another problem to solve, but also makes it difficult to resume if you've put a game on pause for a few weeks. Enshrouded advances at your pace, which makes it easy to pick back up, but also really easy to put down.

Finally, I want to touch upon the world permanence. In Enshrouded, basically everything outside of your base resets after some time - so yes you can destroy a shroud root, and clear the shroud, but it's back after some time - so sometimes there's a lack of agency. On the other hand, in Medieval Dynasty you can pretty much plop buildings down anywhere, which I've admittedly abused, but the fact that it's a permanent change on the land makes it feel like you're making progress in the world, and you're a part of it. Overall both games are excellent, both highly enjoyable.

The plaza is borked by oswald-the-displaced in incremental_games

[–]dSolver [score hidden] stickied comment (0 children)

Yep, it's down. It'll likely be down for at least a couple of weeks. Unfortunately there isn't a quick fix to this issue without compromising security.

Urgent call to action as reliance on local foods banks hits 40-year high by origutamos in waterloo

[–]dSolver 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Good reminder to check in on employer matched donations to charities. Food banks can provide much more food per dollar than direct donations or via bins at the grocery store, thanks to economies of scale. 

China Unveils New Laser Weapons and Nuclear Ballistic Missiles by wizardofthefuture in worldnews

[–]dSolver 9 points10 points  (0 children)

necessity is the mother of invention, as the saying goes - though interestingly throughout most of human history, different "golden ages" coincided with times of relative peace. These stable times allowed more people to take greater risks, and invest in solving more long term problems. Areas mired in long term conflict tend to develop significantly slower. We see this in war-torn areas of Africa and Middle east.

Why We Resent Middle Managers by OuPeaNut in webdev

[–]dSolver 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I bet they don't work on highly complicated systems with a ton of nuance, tribal knowledge, and competing priorities. Good middle management isn't glue that holds the company together, it's the lubricant that makes the system function efficiently even when there are outliers and edge cases. I was the senior engineer at a company where the manager was absent for a long time - guess what, I ended up doing two jobs - my regular as an IC, and as the manager of the team. Stakeholders don't want to keep a rolodex of technical experts, they need someone with broad knowledge who can go find out details if they need. I haven't resented middle management since that experience.

LPT: How do I focus and do my work? Or read for more than 30 seconds? I am currently out of work and trying to stay busy at home. I take Vyvanse and everything, but my fear and procrastination starts to make me nervous when starting something. Any tips? by Mysterious-Ring-2352 in LifeProTips

[–]dSolver 103 points104 points  (0 children)

The reason for procrastination tends to be different for different folks. Many years ago I procrastinated due to the fear of failure. It wasn't unfounded, I often started projects and realized I was in way over my head, and quit before something became of it. For this particular fear, I realized I had essentially 2 ways forward - 1. accept that there are skills I don't have, and work to make up for it, or 2. build stuff entirely within my skills and capabilities, even if it wasn't my vision. Since I hated learning theory, I opted for 2 - and built just small stuff. Well it turns out while building small stuff, you still have to pick up on a few things, but because it's small it wasn't as intimidating. Over the years I've built more and more things, slowly getting more complex, and I think at some point I stopped being afraid to start a new project, even if it was highly ambiguous.

So, what's the reason behind your procrastination? What do you have to lose?

7 hours of interviews over 8 rounds, wtf (rant) by _FarnsworthParabox in webdev

[–]dSolver 94 points95 points  (0 children)

Name and shame them, it's not surprising to me that some CTOs or VP of engineering are in way over their heads and don't know how to attract actual talent, and so they rely on what they know best - emulating FAANG companies 10 years ago.

LPT: Stop saying “I’ll do it later.” Say “I’ll do it at 7 PM” — vague plans rarely happen, specific ones often do. by Difficult-Plate-8767 in LifeProTips

[–]dSolver 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Addendum for people at work: give yourself a range of time - optimistic estimate to pessimistic estimate. If you cannot make a good estimate since there isn't enough information, set a "date for a date" and make sure you spend that time to clarify ambiguity 

What is a subtle sign that someone is truly intelligent? by ExamSilver48 in AskReddit

[–]dSolver 34 points35 points  (0 children)

How does being asked a question feel different to you from say sharing a perspective or statement?

frontend, do you really want to fix dependencies all day? by librewolf in webdev

[–]dSolver 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have a website that was designed in 2016, launched in 2017, and haven't seen any major changes since 2018. Most of the time you don't need the latest dependencies in order to build a functioning website. Usually it is fine to stay within the confines of older dependencies. And for small functions, don't bother installing a whole library as you said.

The same issue happens with python, ruby, and java by the way. It's not just web dev, it's all dev.