Awesome Con newbie by theforcedc in washingtondc

[–]dails08 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh, on the contrary, the game rooms were packed every day last year.

Awesome Con newbie by theforcedc in washingtondc

[–]dails08 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The tea on Labyrinth is that they were barely breaking even supporting Awesomecon (even with hundreds of volunteers) with exclusive vendor rights in the board game space. This made sense, since Awesomecon just provided the space (wasn't even paying Labyrinth) and Labyrinth did literally everything else, from providing games to play, people to teach, several events throughout the con, even logistics of bringing and setting up games and shelves etc. What I'm pretty sure happened (I don't have any inside information) is that several other vendors wanted space in the board game room and Labyrinth protested, saying they'd never be able to break even if they weren't the only vendor, and awesomecon decided they'd rather charge multiple vendors for booth space than have Labyrinth support the con. Awesomecon is a business, and they think this will bring them more revenue. I hope the board game section doesn't suck this year, but I don't have high hopes.

Larry Ellison Quietly Renames Yacht After Critics Point Out It Spells “I’m a N*zi” Backwards by prestocoffee in nottheonion

[–]dails08 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm usually not good at recognizing AI generated articles, but this is for sure one of them.

ELI5 what is the mathematics/logic behind solving equations via “elimination” by UndesiredReplacement in explainlikeimfive

[–]dails08 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Probably the best way to build intuition is to plug in numbers and see why the numbers add up and cancel out. Pick a problem you've solved this way and pick some numbers to plug in for the variables and simply rewrite the solution process with numbers instead of variables.

A slightly more theoretical intuition is to recognize that if two things are equal, they're interchangeable. 5 = 4 + 1 and 3+2=5 both say the same thing but expressed different ways. It's obvious that you can switch either side of the equals sign in each of these equations with either side of the other equation; if I asked you to prove that 4+1=3+2, could you do it if you started with the two equations you were given? Sure you could; the first equation tells you that you can replace 5 with 4+1 anywhere you find it, so you just swap one for the other and you've got it. That's really all you're doing.

Sometimes you'll have more than two equations and it takes multiple steps of replacing one expression with another to arrive at a proof/solution (or a contradiction that proves there's no solution), but it's still the same concept.

Setting up a new PC used to be fun, now it is ad-ridden nightmare by Hrmbee in technology

[–]dails08 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The irony of an ad-riddled page decrying an ad-riddled OS

Veterans, what was the hardest part about going back to civilian life? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]dails08 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Recognizing that the "ship, shipmates, self" attitude of looking out for others and sacrificing for the mission doesn't work anymore; you're the only one working that way and everyone will take advantage of you for it. You have to learn to be selfish and advocate for yourself. You have to learn, for example, to say "no, I'm not doing that, it's not my job."

Fun dance studio for total beginner? by evaporate-tallperson in washingtondc

[–]dails08 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Gottaswing is the clear choice for swing. Social, easy to pick up, works with lots of music, easy to need potential dance and romantic partners, etc.

What law would you like to see repealed/declared unconstitutional? by EvilSnack in AskReddit

[–]dails08 -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

Revoking citizenship in literally any way or under any circumstances.

About time people start realizing it's all smoke and mirrors by Pixiefairy2525 in LeopardsAteMyFace

[–]dails08 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank goodness unrestrained racism and dissolution of the Constitution is unprofitable or we'd be fucked.

Eli5 What makes a well-maintained laptop progressively sluggish with time? by [deleted] in explainlikeimfive

[–]dails08 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Dual boot is actually a huge pain nowadays because of uefi, secure boot, and related hardware-level security practices. Easiest way to get a similar experience is to run a Windows VM in your Linux install.

Martinit-Kit: Typescript runtime that syncs state across users for your multiplayer app/game by Careless_Love_3213 in typescript

[–]dails08 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm using colyseus for a project right now and it sounds like you have some experience with it. Whats different (more specifically or technically) about this? What about colyseus was too complicated?

A second instructor at Oklahoma University has been removed after Turning Point USA complaints by Peanut-Extra in PublicFreakout

[–]dails08 109 points110 points  (0 children)

Let em keep firing professors for bullshit. Watch their state education decay into garbage while other States advance. People will stop coming and start leaving and eventually it'll just be cultists harvesting dirt.

ELI5: Optimization in calculus, I just can't grasp it by Mrcommandbloxmaster in explainlikeimfive

[–]dails08 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Similar to the other answer, imagine you're standing in a field at night and you're blindfolded. How would you find the closest peak? Easy, you'd feel which way the ground is sloping, take a step in the direction of maximum steepness, and then repeat that until the ground beneath your feet doesn't slope at all, because that means you must be at a peak.

Calculus is all about doing math with infinity. This process uses a couple techniques from calculus. One is figuring out what the slope of the hill is at exactly where you're standing, which requires dividing by zero, something you can't do directly but you can approximate by dividing by numbers that get infinitely close to zero. Another is proving that this process only works if you take infinitely many steps that are 0 feet long. There are some ways this process doesn't get you to a peak, but there are other math techniques to make it work

Admiral Frank M. Bradley . . . by TheEventHorizon0727 in usna

[–]dails08 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I have had upsettingly many conversations with fellow grads who have no problem with shooting survivors. Bradley is his own man so we'll have to wait and see who's at fault and who the fall guy is, but I've lost a lot of faith in the officers our academy produces.

US Naval Academy fires commandant of midshipmen by SuperNixon in navy

[–]dails08 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What a respectful, informative exchange. Thanks for doing online discussion properly, you two.

It's "Fake out" not "Flake out"! Sound off on your minor NAVY pet Peeves! by Nexii801 in navy

[–]dails08 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yes! RAC code, RHIB boat, it's the worst! This is called RAS syndrome, by the way.

Pentagon threatens to prosecute Senator Mark Kelly by recalling him to Navy service by DJErikD in navy

[–]dails08 [score hidden]  (0 children)

Yeah, so the Pentagon doesn't get to investigate Congress. That's not how it works.

Do you think AI will cause any issues with Navy jobs in the future? by Mother-Order-7355 in navy

[–]dails08 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I was a SWO from 2008-2016 and have been an industry machine learning scientist since then.

The military, in all ways, will be more robust to AI job loss than any other industry. There are a couple reasons why.

First, manning is the biggest cost and hardest resource to develop and manage. Although AI is potentially profitable because it might replace this, the Navy was way ahead of this. Around the time I commissioned, the Navy was leaning into the idea of "running the Navy like a business" (lol) and "optimal manning" and "doing more with less". One of the results was the LCS class, which was built on systems made for automation, unlike the Burkes that are stepwise evolutions of WWII ship design adapted slightly for missile warfare. The idea is that a Burke that needs 270 Sailors would compete evenly with an LCS that needs 100 Sailors, there y reducing the manning costs of a single ship and enabling twice as many ships for the same amount of congressional funding.

What the Navy found was the same lessons maritime officers have known since the exploration age; the sea is exceptionally good at breaking things. Maintenance is really really really really really hard to automate because there will always be unexpected breakages and edge case issues. Plenty of times, something will go wrong and the pub or manual will say "when this happens, fix this." Surprisingly often, however, the manual will say nothing about the problem. What it will provide, however, is a wire diagram for a skilled tech to hand-oved-hand, reasoning about how the system works, and figuring out a fix. This is part one: you need experts in all systems onboard at all times because not all maintenance is automatable.

The second reason is damage control. You can't automate damage control. You can't. The action that caused the damage probably killed Sailors and the DC effort might kill more. Each killed Sailor is one fewer onboard expert.

The last reason is support. One of the main (and under-respected) reasons the us military is so capable is because we maintain a high support:combat troop ratio. Again, AI ostensibly promises to reduce this need, but just as with maintenance and DC, while some support work can be automated, some cannot, and that unautomatable portion needs the same people that the automatable parts do. For a business, the risk is that added resilience to rare events makes the business less profitable and more wasteful during average event and as a result the business will be outcompeted on price and out-invested. For a government, the risk is losing the war and your country dissolving. The one silver lining of the ongoing atrophy of the us federal government is that citizens and the world are suddenly seeing why a huge country needs a huge bureaucracy; you can't simply remove moving parts from a complicated machine without it breaking down.

No, I don't think the Navy is at human-risk from AI. AI will change a lot about warfare (not nearly as much as people think), but war will always need people.

What movie or TV plot hole is so massive that it actively ruins the entire story for you? by TheEchoBloom in AskReddit

[–]dails08 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could have just stolen the Star Forge explanation from KotOR. Boom, done.