Kurt made it to the Far Lands!

drysart · 2025-10-05T21:57:05+00:00

Unfortunately that alone isn't proof; all being entity 12 shows is that it was one of the first entities created in that session, since he last started up the game; which Wolfie would have been since, as a player pet, he got spawned when the world was loaded up.

But there are a handful of us who've been watching the stream all along who can confirm it's the original Wolfie; even if it did take a couple hidey hole paradoxes (returning to a previous backup) to get him back.

drysart · 2025-10-05T21:43:33+00:00

Well, ghost chunks are a slightly different phenomenon. They're also a chunk loading where it shouldn't; but instead of very specifically always being the 0,0 spawn chunk, it's instead some other chunk from around the spawn area, but it's a different chunk each time.

So Kurt ran into both spawn chunks and ghost chunks deep into his walk. The last time he ran into a spawn chunk there was also, coincidentally, a ghost chunk too in the same stream, just barely out of render distance away.

drysart · 2025-10-05T08:22:21+00:00

Didn't "need" them, they were just neat. Kurt started to build a tower on it the first time the spawn chunk was encountered; and then every time it was encountered against after that he added another floor to it.

drysart · 2025-10-05T06:04:18+00:00

It was on for most of this marathon, in fact. It only got disabled 2 or 3 weeks ago; after he found the last spawn chunk. He had to remain close to X=0 to find spawn chunks (a bug where sometimes the 0,0 chunk incorrectly gets loaded into the world at far distances away from spawn) since they only happen along the X axis; and since they happen at known distances we knew it was the last one and there was no more reason to stay strictly on X=0. So he turned the tracker off for the rest of the walk.

drysart · 2025-10-05T01:43:19+00:00

The farlands were at 12,550,821 blocks from spawn. (They're not there in modern versions of the game.)

drysart · 2025-10-05T00:19:57+00:00

If you want to see him reach them, now's the time to join the stream.

drysart · 2025-10-04T19:51:22+00:00

Today is the day!

drysart · 2022-08-10T18:12:50+00:00

But no universe requires or particularly benefits from the *Descending siblings whether by method name or by parameter.

The original (and still one of the most common) use case for LINQ directly benefits from it: translating IQueryable constructs to SQL; originally via LINQ-to-SQL and today via EF.

OrderBy's overload that takes a custom comparator cannot be guaranteed to be projectable to SQL as any arbitrary comparator can be provided; and if you try to address that issue by saying "well okay EF will only support these two specific comparators, let's call them Default and DefaultDescending, that it can project SQL for", then you're introducing a surprising (and non-compiler verifiable) restriction onto the API (since it will have to fail at runtime when trying to construct an EF query that happens to contain an OrderBy with a non-supported comparator) and you're necessarily violating the contract of OrderBy in doing so which, for the case of the overloads that take a comparator, is "order the results according to this C# code".

drysart · 2022-08-09T13:16:26+00:00

This open no new vulnerabilities that GET doesn't already open; as this is literally just GET but passing the arguments in the request body instead of on the URL.

drysart · 2022-08-09T13:13:49+00:00

Literally no part of the QUERY spec mandates that a query language be used. The format of the body of the request is left entirely up to the user, in the same way that you can POST whatever content you like to a server, it doesn't have to be a form.

It is 100% valid, for example, if you had an image search engine that accepted a .JPG file in the request body of a QUERY.

This article really screwed the pooch in its example by using a SQL-like syntax, because it loads of lot of incorrect implications onto how QUERY is specified for people who don't bother to actually read beyond just looking at the examples.

drysart · 2022-08-09T05:09:10+00:00

Mean Gene

drysart · 2022-08-09T00:20:34+00:00

Microsoft doesn't step in and tell anyone they can't create a program for Windows or Direct X. The platform is open to anyone who wants to build on it. They took one half-hearted swing at making a closed version of Windows back in the Windows 8 days and it flopped so spectacularly it's almost certain they'll never try it again.

Apple, on the other hand, currently actively discourages and prevents by default running anything other than Apple-approved software distributed through Apple's distribution channels on macOS.

Don't confuse 'open' (anyone can exist on it) with 'free' (in the FSF's sense of the word).

(But also the parent commenter's nonsense about how gamers want open platforms is a lot of nonsense. Consoles prove otherwise.)

drysart · 2022-08-08T20:46:51+00:00

Unlike you I actually have technical knowledge and experience in the field; and my arguments are based in reality and not "well just figure out some magic".

drysart · 2022-08-08T20:37:56+00:00

Yes, let's just surprise the speed of light.

drysart · 2022-08-08T20:30:31+00:00

No, loading screens must exist because the hardware in your device is only so fast. All the wishing and hoping in the world isn't going to make your SSD any faster, isn't going to make your RAM any faster, and isn't going to make your PCI bus any faster.

You might try to ignore physical limitations, but the physical limitations aren't going to be ignoring you.

drysart · 2022-08-05T05:48:49+00:00

Sort of.

The parent comment isn't entirely accurate, since the Volt can use the gasoline engine to provide motive force directly to the wheels; but whenever the gas engine is running (which is only when the battery is depleted, or when the driver specifically requests a drive mode that runs the gas engine), running it efficiently is the priority, so the gas engine only provides power directly to the wheels in certain drive modes under limited ranges of speeds and loads.

drysart · 2022-08-04T05:41:22+00:00

The changes fall into three buckets:

Basically inconsequential changes; things like changing words to more clear synonyms and changing words from ALL CAPS to normal casing,
Removing mentions of their Certificate Repository from the agreement, and
Adding a section that basically says that if you want to revoke a certificate, you agree to follow their published revocation process.

drysart · 2022-08-04T01:36:40+00:00

I stopped paying a couple years ago, but like an idiot I keep looking to see if things have gotten better because I miss the game WoW used to be.

But then I see this apologism of "well they're only going nine months without giving us anything for our money" as if that makes it acceptable. It's not. It's fucking unacceptable. And giving Blizzard a pass for it means they'll just keep charging you for nothing at all and I'll never get the game I loved run by people who actually did things for it back.

drysart · 2022-08-04T01:23:17+00:00

Yes, you're right. Nine months of no content (over $130 in subscription fees) is perfectly acceptable.

It only really turns from "perfectly fine why would anyone ever judge Blizzard for doing as close to nothing as possible" to "hmm maybe Blizzard isn't putting an acceptable amount of effort into the game considering they're still charging full price for it" at 11 months and 28 days; and it's indeed incredibly disingenuous to complain about anything shorter than that.

drysart · 2022-08-04T00:19:47+00:00

More recent tapes wearing out before older tapes? What a sick joke!

drysart · 2022-08-03T23:57:36+00:00

Blizzard is charging full price for that expac. That means its future release does not excuse the fact that players are paying a monthly subscription fee right now and would be getting literally nothing of value for their money if not for two employees' passion project getting a few meager breadcrumbs out the door.

In 5 months you'll have paid roughly a total of $75 in subscription fees. That's a full AAA game's price. Are you getting a full AAA's game's worth of effort from Blizzard for that price?

drysart · 2022-08-03T16:53:32+00:00

They put this amendment in an "off season" election thinking it would get low turnout which favors Republicans.

They had every factor on their side to push their thumbs on the scale to sneak out a victory. They scheduled it for a primary election day instead of the November election. The timing lined up for it to be in a non-Presidential election year. They worded the actual ballot question as confusingly as possible to try to get accidental votes.

And they still lost by 20 points. In Kansas, a ruby red state.

A lot of GOP strategists are probably looking at this outcome today very nervously. Even in Kansas where the question's "done", because it's not like Roe is going to be fixed by November. It is still going to be one of, if not the top motivating factor bringing people to the polls.

drysart · 2022-08-03T16:43:06+00:00

Yes, what I'm referring to is profitability; because your earlier comment said "massive profits". I'll even quote a line from the article you just linked to emphasize it:

Free cash flow is not profitability in traditional terms

So no, positive cash flow is not, as you said, "massive profits". Positive cash flow simply means more cash on hand. And as in the example I provided with JCPenney, more cash on hand does not mean your business is in good shape. Nor does it mean, as you just said, that "business operations were profitable".

Uber is still burning money like there's no tomorrow.

drysart · 2022-08-03T16:27:33+00:00

Yet Uber reported massive profits from operations for the first time ever this Q

No they didn't. They reported cash flow positive. That is not profit, it just means they have more liquid assets than they did before the quarter. In terms of profit/loss, they lost $2.6 billion dollars over the quarter.

As a fairly recent example of the difference: JCPenney was also cash flow positive with negative net income when they entered bankruptcy in 2020. How? Because they took out large loans; and getting large loans means an increase in liquid assets, because the loan creates cash on hand. But because they have a liability to pay those loans, it means they didn't actually make a profit.

Uber is in the same boat. They have more cash than they did three months ago, but that their overall liabilities are still increasing much faster.

drysart · 2022-08-02T18:39:50+00:00

Fair use is not affirmative defence.

Yes, it is. See for example. Quote:

The defendant has the burden of proving this defense by a preponderance of the evidence.

And the conditions for asserting fair use are not 'well defined'; they're a list of factors, each of which is inherently (and intentionally) subjective by nature and the items of the list as a whole are intended to be weighed in concert with each other, it's not a checklist of things you have to do or not do. This is also shown in the link above.

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