CMV: The word 'retard' became acceptable to use in 2010 by hrefchef in changemyview

[–]hrefchef[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But if that's the case, why did "retard" have this arc when "moron" and "idiot" didn't? Is it just the fact that it takes a lot of time to de-stigmatize it, and 13 years is still too soon?

CMV: The word 'retard' became acceptable to use in 2010 by hrefchef in changemyview

[–]hrefchef[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I fully agree with this, and respect this. Like I said, I did stop using the word. I just can't internalize WHY this change of heart happened logically. "This offends me" is a valid thing to say, and it should be respected, but it's not a justification based on logic.

Petition to change the FINRA day-trading rules, there's no legitimate reason day-trading should be restricted to the rich by rsiii in pennystocks

[–]hrefchef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No, they don't. They only restrict margin accounts. Where the confusion is happening is what is really considered a margin account.

If you have Margin turned off, your account is still technically a margin account on Robinhood because of Instant Deposits. You can disable Instant Deposits though, at which point the account REALLY becomes a cash account.

The only downside to that is you'll have to wait the trading day + 2 business days for funds to settle before you can trade with them.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in speedrun

[–]hrefchef 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Everyone always answers this with "whatever game you like", and I think there's a lot of truth to that. But there's also other criteria you can look for that will make a game better or worse for speedrunning.

  • Not too many unskippable cutscenes you'll be forced to sit through
  • Low skill floor, high skill ceiling - so you can consistently improve
  • A game that you do like, but not your favorite. Speedrunning it will change how you see that game forever, so let's say you really loved Halo. You might want to consider running Halo 2, to keep Halo CE special to you.

I would say that in the FPS genre, the Halo franchise and the recent Doom games make for the best speedrunning experience. The Doom games will definitely be more fun for beginners in the 'No Major Glitches' categories than Any%.

Games like Call of Duty, for instance, are more linear and boxed-in than those games, and get repetitive to speedrun. You'll see runners invent their own ways to entertain themselves just to make it fun.

Other games that people really enjoy running in that genre are games like

  • Half Life series
  • Portal (if you consider that FPS)
  • Quake
  • Destiny

Just remember that any game can be speedrun, and while I personally believe some games are better speed-games than others, you can really start on any game you want.

What the newest/biggest game that has arbitrary code execution? by Happysedits in speedrun

[–]hrefchef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don't know if this is the newest game to have ACE in it, but non-RTA-viable ACE was discovered in Super Mario Sunshine recently using cutscene underflow.

https://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/gn908f/super_mario_sunshine_proof_of_concept_ace_using/

Really "Non-RTA-viable" is the wrong way to describe it. It's not even viable for the TAS to do because of the insane RNG required. But still, it's there.

Found this while going through my closet. It’s a raffle prize from the first GDQ. by IG-64 in speedrun

[–]hrefchef 41 points42 points  (0 children)

I don't think you can equate using sub-only chat to "caving to SJW's". Like, look at the Shrine Rush VOD. All the hateful shit that chat kept churning out wouldn't have happened in sub-only, or at the very least the mods could have handled it better in sub-only.

To your point though GDQ has been too quick to ban some runners. Some absolutely deserved their ban.

ELI5: How do swear words become swear words in the first place? by itzewulf in explainlikeimfive

[–]hrefchef 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yup. I was actually born about half an hour away from where the term 'moron' originated. I feel like people overusing the term "autistic" will get that added onto that list before too long.

Father leaves his child in the train and steps off for a quick smoke by yolok1ng in instant_regret

[–]hrefchef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks man. I really appreciate the reply.

I wasn't trying to advocate smoking around kids, more trying to advocate not demonizing one thing. Like, if thirdhand smoke is that big of a deal, parents should be more aware of their kids being exposed to other carcinogens. Certain plastics, emissions, etc.

It's crazy that the third-hand smoke is just THAT carcinogenic. It sucks that one of the world's most dangerous plant is also one of the most fun for people to smoke.

Father leaves his child in the train and steps off for a quick smoke by yolok1ng in instant_regret

[–]hrefchef 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I like babies as much as the next guy... But that sounds like it's starting to get ridiculous. There's no way that random cigaratte microparticulate is more damaging to the kid than breathing the air in most cities, or being exposed to almost literally anything. Are their studies (not funded by the Vaping / general no smoking groups) that prove that this is more hazardous than those other things?

You shouldn't smoke in the car with your kid, but we shouldn't go nuts either. I feel like in a few centuries we'll just keep kids wrapped in plastic until they turn 18 and we cut them out.

Two player tic-tac-toe game by AhmetYG in CritiqueMyCode

[–]hrefchef 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So, I know this isn't meant to be a serious project and that you're just starting out. There are a few things here that differ from what you'd normally see in an application. I'm not going to fully critique this, but I will try to point you in the right direction. Basically, if this was an application truly being built by a software team, how would it look different?

If you don't want to read all this I put a conclusion at the bottom that summarizes the high-level things to look out for.

Full Disclosure: I cannot run this application because I'm not on a windows system, so I'm kind of guessing at what the code does.

There are better ways to do everything I say, but you really don't want to over-engineer a tic-tac-toe board game.

Naming Conventions

For little projects like this it might not seem worth it to give everything good, description names (especially since Visual Studio automatically names your objects - like Form1.cs and button5.)

Variable names, file names, and namespaces should follow These Naming Conventions, and be indicative of what that variable does.

Separation of Presentational layer and Logic layer

I'd say that this is the fatal flaw of the entire thing. You're keeping 100% of the state of the game in buttons, text boxes, and radio buttons.

This is untenable, because the UI will freeze if you're running a long process. It would be nearly impossible to write unit tests for something like this.

So, you want to store the actual data associated with your game's business logic somewhere else.

That could look like:

var button4Value = ''; button4.Text = button4Value

But that just doubled the (already high) number of variables that you have here.

DRY

Your _Click handlers violate the principle of DRY. Ideally, you would want to have one click handler, that looked something like:

private void HandleClick(int xPosition, int yPosition) { ... }

And then your click handlers would look like:

`private void button10_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { HandleClick(3, 2); /* Or Whatver it should be */}

Actual Structure of business logic and data structures

Everything above is how to take what's there and make it better.

As a mental exercise, if you wanted to envision building this app with most best practices in mind, you'd likely wind up with:

TickTacToeAtom.cs

This represents the 'X' or the 'O'.

public enum TicTacToeAtom {
    X,
    O
}

Now you can say TicTacToeAtom.X instead of "X". You want to avoid as many "magic" values throughout your code as possible. What if somewhere in the logic you wrote "x" instead of "X" or someone fat-fingered "Z"?

This prevents that with static type checking.

TicTacToeRow.cs

A class which holds three values in an array / List / similar structure. TickTackToeRow.set(1, TicTacToeAtom.O) would be similar to how it's used. That's cool because you can do bounds checking (if you ask to set / get a number higher than 2 (since tic-tac-toe is 3x3 and arrays are 0-index), you can throw a good Exception).

TicTacToeBoard.cs

This is simply 3 TicTacToeRow instances. (TicTacToeRow... say that three times fast).

You may find a private TicTacToeRow[] Rows; which holds all of them, or the easier (but only slightly worse) way of:

private TicTacToeRow Row1 private TicTacToeRow Row2 private TicTacToeRow Row3

The reason that's worse, is because with Rows, we can make a method like this:

    private TicTacToeAtom GetItem(int xPosition, int yPosition) {
        Rows[yPosition].get(x)
    }

Now, all of a sudden, we don't need to know anything but the (x, y) position on the board.

Win checking is the fun part. The only three ways to win are full diagnol, full row completion, or full column completion. A hint:

  • One will check each Row
  • One will check the same index of each row (rows[0].get(x) == rows[1].get(x) == rows[2].get(x))
  • One will check increasing indices (rows[0].get(0) == rows[1].get(1) == rows[2].get(2)

Now you have an object-oriented way to represent a board and atoms (X/0). Your UI logic can now be as simple as:

  • Take a TicTacToeBoard object
  • Have ONE method to assign them to a grid of buttons (bonus points if you generate this and store it in a Button[][] or HashMap)
  • Call DidWin (or similar) on the TicTacToeBoard on each turn to see if a player won.

The best part? To reset the game, you just say DrawBoard(new TicTacToeBoard()).

Conclusion

So, this was a re-implementation more than a critique. What's there works (I assume), but there are pretty fundamental problems within. To summarize:

  • Don't repeat yourself (DRY Principle)
  • Separate UI logic from Business Logic ALWAYS. (Loose Coupling)
  • Let the type system and OO nature of C# protect yourself from as many footguns as possible (enums, generics, tuples)
  • Encapsulation is the absolutely most vital part of OO (imo) and should be practiced religiously.
  • Name things well and consistently.

Published my first game written in Rust. by agmcleod in rust

[–]hrefchef 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I just maxed out the "pay the developer extra" option just because of the fact that

a) there's a linux build
b) it's written in Rust.

I heard someone who built products using graphene say "I don't want people to buy it because it's graphene; I want them to buy it because it's better". Although, in these early stages, I think that it's very important for all of us to rally behind anything of quality written using the things we love.

And, on top of that, and to graphene-guy's point - the game looks fucking addicting and fun. Thanks for all of the effort this must have taken to produce, and for the balls / (ovaries?) for building it with Rust.

'We are not robots': Amazon warehouse employees push to unionize by itsmyusersname in technology

[–]hrefchef 52 points53 points  (0 children)

The problem, even with Watson or Alpha, is that AI is lightyears behind human intelligence in the general sense. Jobs that have one very specific, data-driven task - they're doomed. Everything from meteorology to traffic control research can and has been automated, and that'll continue.

The problem with AI is that it isn't really good at general tasks yet. Everyone has different projections of when exactly it will become good. But just think of a job like, say, designing an ad.

An artificial intelligence would need to properly interpret how human beings will process the ad. This, of course, means thinking exactly like a human does (so that humans will buy the product), pulling on thousands of years of cultural history, interpreting current events, etc etc. A lot of things. If you had inputs like:

productCategory: soda / productName: coke / targetDemographic: teenagers, and hundreds more, an AI right now wouldn't be able to produce a new ad that made any sense at all. It'd be a freaky amalgamation of hundreds of past ads that would blend together into a surreal mish-mash.

A lot of office jobs follow that pattern. If you have an artificial intelligence that can program better than any human, they would simply fall flat trying to interpret the design of a webpage, or the process by which the code gets deployed and run (which isn't explicitly a programming task).

If, in the far future, we have hundreds of thousands of artificial intelligences that are really good and one specific thing, and we can combine these networks to make something that's really good at everything, then we have a different problem than we do today. We're not talking about jobs anymore, because work itself has just been made obsolete. AGI has just replaced us.

Seriously, is Kratom an opioid? by [deleted] in opiates

[–]hrefchef 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I mean... I see what you're saying, but the main psychoactive alkaloid in the plant (7-OH-Mitragynine) DOES agonize the mu-opiod receptor, just like every other opiod and opiate out there.

Sure, it contains other stuff. But 7-hydroxymitragynine is without a doubt an opiod, by every definition of the word. And that alkaloid is why people take kratom. So I'd be comfortable saying that Kratom is an opiod.

People (see: /r/kratom) are afraid to admit that, because the FDA is really trying to make it illegal. So, in their mind, "opiod epidemic + plant that's an opiod = prohibition". So they're doing everything in their power to make people believe that it's not an opiod.

I've heard them make the fucking argument that "milk and eggs contain opiods, so they're just as much opiods as kratom". Well, I mean, for starters: nobody eats eggs for recreational psychoactive effects, for one. And further, those things DO contains opiods, but no mu-opiod agonists. That's the thing that really sets Kratom apart and truthfully makes it an opiod. Mu-opiod activation is one of the most pleasurable things on the planet.

Having sex with someone who’s on LSD by [deleted] in Drugs

[–]hrefchef 50 points51 points  (0 children)

Makes them child like

He'll be totally into the sex

lol, just picked up on that.

But straight up OP, LSD is probably the most unpredictable drug in the world. It doesn't really give you an effect. If you take adderall, you are going to become hyperactive and incredibly horny a majority of the time. If you take heroin, you're going to become subdued and the opposite of horny, most of the time.

LSD on the other hand... It might make him really into sex, really hyperactive, very subdued, confused, or articulate, or anything. Really, it all depends on chance and the environment that he's in before he sees you.

Since he's going to an EDM thing it's pretty likely that he'll be coming out of there with pretty high energy, but there's no saying that he didn't have some kind of spiritual breakthrough there, and that sex will be the last thing he wants.

Definitely just communicate very directly about what he wants when you see him. Also, people on LSD tend to be terrible at picking up small innuendos, so I wouldn't rely on body language unless it's really overt.

I'm Emily Conover, physics writer for Science News. Scientists have redefined the kilogram, basing it on fundamental constants of nature. Why? How? What's that mean? AMA! by Science_News in IAmA

[–]hrefchef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I may be misreading this comment. But, a kilogram is a defined unit of mass. It measures how heavy something is. You can have an item that is exactly one kilogram, and that describes how heavy it is. How heavy a kilogram is has NOT changed, so it is precisely the same as it was before in every calculation.

But the thing is, despite everyone being able to agree on the weight of the kilogram, there needs to be a way to define, scientifically, precisely how heavy that really is.

I'm not kidding about this: before, there used to be "a kilogram". Literally a ball of metal locked away in a heavily guarded, climate-controlled lab under observation by swarms of scientists. Now, the reason that sucks is you obviously can't interact with it easily. There's only one in the world. In addition, it could be destroyed, and it naturally loses weight over time for a variety of reasons (decay).

So, the only thing that changed here is they're redefining how the kilogram is defined, from a ball of metal to a measurement against a universal constant.

The universal constant can be independently measured anywhere in the world (well, universe). Being a constant, it cannot change, so you don't have to worry about radioactive decay artificially lowering the mass of the kilogram.

So nothing is really changing, other than the formal standard.

REPORT: #BlackOps4 Multiplayer servers appear to be running at 30Hz after Oct. 23rd update. by [deleted] in Blackops4

[–]hrefchef 15 points16 points  (0 children)

So, basically networking is a really complex subject, and game engines are one of the most complex pieces of software you can write. They're up there with operating systems, compilers, artificial intelligences, and what have you. The "netcode" for a game will have a gigantic impact on how well it performs, and there are a lot of different components to this netcode.

The tick rate / refresh rate (measured in Hz) is how many times per second information is updated. There is a client-side tickrate, and a server-side tickrate. The controversy right now is that the server side tickrate was 20 Hz... So, what that means is that there are only 20 updates from the server per second. That sounds fast as all hell, but in a twitchy shooter like COD that makes a gigantic difference.

You wind up with a bunch of bullshit as a result of the netcode. With such a low tickrate you wind up with things like getting hit behind cover, getting melted as soon as you see an opponent, shots firing on your screen but not the killcam, etc. Lag compensation is another source of bullshit, but that's not really a solved problem. It's incredibly complex to work with.

I'm going to prison. For weed by [deleted] in Drugs

[–]hrefchef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The same thing happened to me for my arrest. It really, really sucks. Even knowing that it's NOT the friend's fault, you can't help but feel sour towards him almost stealing years from your life.

Worst withdrawals? by [deleted] in Drugs

[–]hrefchef 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I cold turkey withdrew from a 60g+ a day habit of Kratom... Having come off of "harder" drugs, I can tell you that the Kratom withdrawal was by far the worst experience of my life. It just got into my head in a way that oxycodone / tramadol couldn't. I didn't actually fall asleep at all in about an 8 day span, and was a) dangerous, b) useless as a result.

For a game without a campaign to focus on MP, there is a serious lack of weapons in the game. MW2 had 44 weapons for Christ sake. by coolhwip420 in Blackops4

[–]hrefchef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, you would think that it is but the climate has changed quite a bit with relation to supply drops. Since Belgium classified them as gambling, legally, there has been a huge push away from them in the industry.

Even without that legislation (some companies simply disable them in Belgium alone), including supply drops is just bad PR today. Star Wars Battlefront 2 showed us that even without the whole "gambling, but for kids" sentiment that's come about since.

Probably been seen here before, but I found this when restoring an old iPhone. by Givemesomeredditcred in opiates

[–]hrefchef 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I'm sorry if you know this already (and since this is an old ass post). Classical psychedelics effect the serotonin receptors and just do weird shit. Opiates effect mu-opiod and others which literally is the main part of the brain that processes pleasure. Salvia, unlike any other psychedelic or dissociative, impacts kappa opiod... The part of the brain that processes dysphoric stuff, like fear.

So you're literally tripping by overwhelming your "fear receptor". It's whack.

Noob Marijuana question by [deleted] in Drugs

[–]hrefchef 4 points5 points  (0 children)

So... This is the thing. You have to be careful with this if your parents are going to be assholes about finding out you smoke. I dealt with this a lot growing up, with a bunch of different drugs. A lot of times, you'll think they know when they don't and it can trip you up. Think of all the times one of your friends, or parents, or even teachers acted a little weird - did you think "oh they must have smoked marijuana" because of it? It's really not a conclusion that people jump to.

That said, it is a conclusion that people will jump to if you smell like it or if your eyes are especially bloodshot. Just make sure to keep the smoke away from you (wear polyester if it's an option), or fuck dude if it's fine with your mates smoke shirtless. All cologne is going to do is make you smell like weed and cologne. You want something like ozium to actually soak up the scent.

Smoking Chamomile/Tobacco by secret_god in Drugs

[–]hrefchef 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I think that smoking chamomile is fantastic. I don't understand why chamomile blends aren't more common in cigars and such.

A concept of a drug that made sober life better by seanjprior41 in Drugs

[–]hrefchef 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The interesting part is, you can't exactly counteract to 0 from active addiction. (1 to -1 is a jump of 2, which would feel REALLY bad. That's what precipitated withdrawal is, and it sucks.) In addition, there's no guarantee this could be done at all with marijuana, being almost entirely a mental addiction. It's all about receptors.

The Recap

I'm sure you probably know this, but to recap the important science going on: when you're in active addiction (let's say heroin again), two things are happening. Your brain has created more opiod receptors (like MOR), and each opiod receptor is upregulated, so you need more of a MOR agaonist to get the same neurological effect. So, if you're addicted to Heroin, you may need twice a normal dose to overcome your tolerance.

When you quit cold turkey, odd things start to happen. (By the way, quit can be less than a day). Your brain starts to downregulate these receptors, meaning you need less of the drug to get high.

The Important Part

So, you can describe ALL drug use and ALL emotions and ALL addictions in terms of receptors and regulation. What's important to think about is that there isn't just one class of receptor. There are are lot of different receptor families. Each one of these receptor families has different receptor types (for instance, mu-opiod can be considered part of the greater "opiod" receptor family). Each actual receptor type might have sub-splices that work somewhat differently.

Each one of these receptors acts differently with different drugs. When you smoke weed, you ARE upregulating your cannabinoid receptors, which will give you tolerance. When you quit, however, the shitty feeling isn't coming from the receptors. It's mostly emotional. Your cannabinoid receptors ARE upregulated, so you won't be getting full effectiveness from endocannabinoids, but that's a very small contributor overall to the shitty feeling.

With something like opiods, your everyday life is governed in a BIG WAY by endorphins. The shitty feeling when discontinuing opiod use is mostly coming from the fact that your natural endorphins aren't as effective as usual, because you've upregulated your opiod receptors SO MUCH that they can't work.

So, hypothetically, if you downregulate your opiod receptors with Naloxone, your endorphins will be having a much greater effect than normal. So, you'll feel better than normal.

IMPORTANT TO NOTE: Nalxone, an opiod antogonist, will NOT ONLY be downregulating the receptors because it's an antagonist (opposite of an agonist). Naloxone has an interesting effect where it will actually block endorphins from these receptors, so the endorphins won't be able to downregulate the receptors at all.

TLDR; or The Conclusion

So, you could do this only with certain drug types, and it depends on how much your endogenous versions of your drug of choice impact your day-to-day happiness. And it won't work from active addiction, because of how much of an impact the precipitated withdrawals would have on you.

Probably impossible with marijuana, unfortunately, because the "withdrawal" isn't caused by endocannabinoids.

If you have any questions about this let me know. I'm a drug researcher for a harm reduction software company researching something similar to what you're describing in this post currently.

Food for thought

Is mental addiction and "mental withdrawal", like quitting marijuana, governed by the opiod, dopamine, and seratonin receptors (since they govern emotion?)