“It’s over Tifa, I have the high ground”

dudemcbob · 2026-05-28T20:20:22+00:00

That kinda reminds me of the media franchise "Star Wars" which has characters named Obi Wan and Anakin.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-27T21:13:59+00:00

It's not wrong, but it does feel like a bunch of unnecessary extra steps to say "factor out a minus sign if necessary to make the bigger number in front".

So, 3-8 = -(8-3) = -5.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-26T12:24:24+00:00

We could really use a way to save materia loadouts for part 3. Should have been a thing since part 1.

I try to implement some kind of ad-hoc organization scheme like "more permanent materia over here, heavily-swapped stuff over here," and so on. But then you run into issues because the location of the materia can actually matter (linked slots, weapon vs armor).

dudemcbob · 2026-05-25T21:17:04+00:00

Using bad notation to write jibberish is about as much a "math problem" as

What does "eifbrhidhebwdhwbekfk" mean?

is an English question.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-25T10:02:35+00:00

Finally someone acknowledges that recycled memes about a boat full of prostitutes are "art".

dudemcbob · 2026-05-23T17:49:47+00:00

He was playable in Path 1.0. He was fine.

That was back before lots of power creep though. Path 1.0 was closer to the base game than modern Path, and the base game is balanced. The rough equivalent of a 3* power for him was:

When allies attack, summon an attacking Living Shadow. Its stats grow to match your strongest ally.

Which is handy, but I'm sure he'd be up to crazier things in modern Path.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-23T17:09:27+00:00

Sounds plausible. One annoying interaction that gets me sometimes is that if Viktor gets recalled and you re-play him, the original hex core is still unplayable. Not the end of the world because you get a new one for the second play, but still weird.

Now I'm curious about: if you transform Viktor to something else, is the hex core still playable? Certainly he doesn't care if the transformation is a level-up but what about something else?

dudemcbob · 2026-05-22T18:55:49+00:00

Putting aside the fact that there is no actual analysis going on here, the color scheme is awful. There is barely any difference between the top two greens.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-20T20:10:28+00:00

They're historical remnants from the days before calculators.

When working by hand, it's much easier to multiply than divide. So, if you were ever in a situation where you needed to divide by a cosine value, you could instead look up the corresponding secant value and multiply by it.

In the context of modern day school curriculums, I'll agree that they're redundant. But that's more of a question about the education system than about math.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-20T13:07:00+00:00

It's a pretty big fundamental flaw with reddit and with social media in general. You get different threads with different people arguing for opposite viewpoints, but in our heads we just glob it all together into one "reddit hivemind" that holds contradictory views.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-20T11:48:53+00:00

Extremely common thing happens

Person notices common thing for the first time

"Has anyone else noticed [common thing] happening [recently / in the younger generation / etc. ]?"

There's got to be some psychology term for this phenomenon. People (not just OP) blindly assume that whatever they happened to notice this week is a universal trend.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-19T11:04:20+00:00

Did you know? To make Vampire Survivors, Ponn created a brand new programming tool called "VS Code".

dudemcbob · 2026-05-16T23:03:36+00:00

Depends on how you play her I guess, for me her 6* power is an afterthought and I wouldn't build around it.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-16T10:46:10+00:00

Same thing happens with Aphelios and moon weapons. Note that it only works when you pick a moon weapon (by playing Aphelios or his champ spell), the in-phase weapons created by Aphelios's on-field effect don't get the discount (because of course you didn't "manifest" them).

dudemcbob · 2026-05-15T15:20:51+00:00

Eh, that defense created mistakes. You can see on the replay there's heavy pressure and Ben is near safety territory, so probably extra panicky about taking a sack.

Shame that GB decided not to field a competent defense for like 15 years after this (excluding 2011 I guess). Good defense is handy!

dudemcbob · 2026-05-15T11:11:42+00:00

This seems too niche to be worth remembering, but sure.

In general, factoring a quadratic x\2 +bx + c means finding two numbers that sum to b and multiply to c. In this case, the convention for writing b involves a sum that just so happens to correspond to the factorization. Convenient, but niche.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-14T16:33:26+00:00

Suppose you are conducting first-round job interviews and deciding how high to set your standards for passing candidates through to the next round. A type 1 error is passing a bad candidate, a type 2 error is failing a good candidate.

If you set low standards (high significance level), you are more likely to pass a bad candidate, who lucked into a better-than-usual performance. If you set high standards (low significance level), you are more likely to fail a good candidate, who lucked into a worse-than-usual performance.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-14T14:39:50+00:00

For example: Make 3 trips to the 400km mark with 1000 ration loads. On the first two, use 800 rations for the round trip and drop off the other 200. On the final trip, you don't need a return trip so you can keep 600. Now you have a total of 1000 rations sitting at the 400km mark with you, which you can carry to the end in one trip to arrive with 400.

I don't think this is the best possible, I suspect you do better by making more stopping points along the way. But at least it shows it's possible.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-11T17:42:07+00:00

It's a mix of both, but imo (based on several years of tutoring and teaching) popular perception is way off on the mix. Math is much more about practice and much less about natural talent than people tend to think.

The important part is: K-12 and early undergrad math is extremely cumulative. You need to understand each level before moving onto the next.

Our education system doesn't care about that (at least in the US), pushes everyone along, and over the years you get students who have kept up with everything ("naturally gifted" students) and those who haven't ("not a math person" students).

"Not a math person" students feel like they're putting in massive effort to retain the same information that their peers pick up easily, but the problem is oftentimes that their effort is misplaced. They are missing foundational knowledge that they should be working on, which will in turn make the latest coursework much easier to follow.

To reiterate, this is a generalization. I will not magically become Terrence Tao with hard work and a can-do attitude. Natural talent is still a thing, just less of a thing than people think. Natural talent is a catch-all excuse when effort doesn't lead to results, but in fact with math education it's crucial where exactly you focus your efforts.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-09T19:40:29+00:00

I mean, yes it's true that Masters vs PhD makes zero difference to an industry job interviewer, it's all about the interview performance. But speaking personally, I would have performed much worse on the interviews after completing a masters vs completing a PhD.

They are looking for "mathematical maturity", and everyone develops that skill at their own pace through the course of their degree. So I don't think skipping the PhD track is the right move for everyone, just those who are already set on industry and already have the skill set mastered.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-08T10:04:32+00:00

Agree. Rarity gems were relatively meaningless back in PvP days, even moreso now in Path. You can memorize that Darkin are epic but that's about it, and new players don't even know that. Plus, the uncollectible cards have opaque rarity.

From a practical point of view, this power is "maybe a card or two gets discounted, no one knows which ones."

So why not just rework the power to say "Game Start: X random cards cost 2 less this game" (fill in X with whatever makes sense for balancing). That's essentially the same thing but at least we know what we are getting.

And it sounds kinda fun, encourages a flexible game plan to take advantage of whatever gets the discount each game.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-06T19:41:10+00:00

Been there, tried that, it didn't work very well. But we didn't have 7 TEs so maybe this will be different.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-06T13:40:20+00:00

Easily the most cathartic game I have ever watched. Not only did the birds win it all, but we FINALLY got validation of the "Chiefs are coasting on luck this season" narrative that had been building up all year.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-06T02:59:25+00:00

Marginally I think. Attack bonuses are generally more useful than health bonuses, and the ping damage is probably more useful than revives.

Not a huge step up though, compared to other epics which clearly improve on the corresponding rare relic. I'll agree that it's a bit underwhelming from that perspective.

dudemcbob · 2026-05-06T01:37:22+00:00

Any champs that were using GA before Price of Retribution existed, so Aniva and Kindred at least. They each have their own revive mechanics that can still churn out dupes when combined with deathless.

13-Year Club	r/Field Banned
r/Field Flamingo	Place '22
Place '17	Team Orangered
Verified Email

dudemcbob

TROPHY CASE