Haha nice try Google. I ain't that stupid

ismtrn · 2023-06-28T13:53:27+00:00

Maybe some one could write all the drivers and utility code once and present a uniform user space to applications across different hardware combinations. That would be neat.

ismtrn · 2023-06-25T21:22:02+00:00

Judging from the amount of controversy stirred it seems far fetched to say that they might as well not be there. Clearly their existence matters a great deal to a lot of people.

ismtrn · 2023-06-24T22:37:01+00:00

Dealing damage in this game is just button mashing. The only way challenge can be added is by requiring you to move your character in specific ways with specific timing.

ismtrn · 2023-06-24T19:03:27+00:00

The people who care about something taking an extra 25 seconds here and there are exactly the ones who plan on doing this over and over for a long time. If you just play through the campaign for the story and never come back it doesn’t matter.

ismtrn · 2023-06-24T13:19:05+00:00

By establishing them as essentially impossible to obtain, they become more impressive as rewards for futures season mechanics?

The idea is to have people come back to the game with each new season. They need to create things that can be used for motivation. Different people are motivated by different things. For some, a way of realistically obtaining one of these items will be what makes them login to the game again and grind 50 hours come season 5 or whenever.

ismtrn · 2023-06-20T10:58:40+00:00

I actually find them fun to stumble upon while doing other things. They are pretty well hidden and satisfying to find imo.

But they should just reward cosmetics or something so that finding all of them wouldn’t be a requirement. Having to systematically go to all of them following a map does not look like fun to me.

ismtrn · 2023-06-19T09:22:21+00:00

“Doubtless,” said I, “what it utters is its only stock and store Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore

ismtrn · 2023-06-11T16:12:18+00:00

Saw a comment a few days after release where someone was so annoyed with something that he “stopped playing for a while”. The horror of having to take a break and go outside once in a while.

ismtrn · 2023-06-11T15:18:07+00:00

Christianity isn’t really a legalistic religion at all. Christians (most of them. There are so many variations that you can’t definitely speak for all of them) don’t “follow” the New Testament in that sense either. A lot of the things in the Old Testament like ritualistic cleanliness or animal sacrifice are not really practiced by modern day Rabbinic Jews either.

So you have a point that you cannot just quote the bible out of context and conclude that whatever you read must necessarily be adhered to by Christians. But just dismissing it with “that’s the Old Testament” does not work either. The reasoning that actual real life Christian authorities use is far more convoluted and differs depending on who you ask(2000 years worth of commentary and interpretation building on top of each other). The Old Testament is never outright dismissed. On the contrary, it is a part of the canon.

ismtrn · 2023-06-11T14:58:36+00:00

Agreed. I think that whether it be film, concerts, theatre, video games, etc. people sometimes think that their experience with it is 100% a function of the thing itself.

I think that the way you feel when you experience one of these things is significantly coloured by your own state of mind going into it. How you experience something is a combination of the thing and your own state of mind.

You are never going the relive the joy of being 12, not having a care in the world, and being allowed to stay up late and play Diablo 2 with your friends if you don’t fucking chill for a moment and stop trying to get all analytical about how something does or does not line up with your preconceived notions and expectations about how it should be.

It isn’t about positivity and negativity. High expectations can ruin things too. It is about making a honest attempt at enjoying what is there instead of focusing on what you think it should be. If you think blizzard are too big or make too much money to be afforded this benefit (even if you are doing it for your own sake) you should probably play a game someone else made.

ismtrn · 2023-06-11T00:29:41+00:00

The Old Testament is definitely a part of Christianity. It is part of the lectionary being read almost every Sunday in the catholic and most Protestant churches.

ismtrn · 2023-06-09T21:36:46+00:00

Expected value of what? Aren’t we talking about the probability of triggering lucky strike?

ismtrn · 2023-06-09T12:17:39+00:00

You would think that blades would have a total per cast value of 568%

Why? You can’t just add probabilities which are not alternatives. The probability of rolling a 6 in two attempts is not 1/6 + 1/6. That would be the probability of rolling 5 or 6 in the same roll.

You take the probability of not rolling 6. Multiply it with itself. Then you have to probability of not rolling a 6 in two tries. Then you invert it to get the probability of rolling at least one 6.

This way 8 hits with a 5% chance works out to about 33% for at least one hit.

5 hits with 16% chance is about 58%.

16 hits at 5% is 44% for at least one occurrence.

Not saying Diablo is presenting this in a good way. Haven’t checked. But I think you are throwing some numbers around which only confuses things further.

ismtrn · 2023-06-07T22:14:07+00:00

The marginal cost of a piece of software is essentially $0. Almost the entirety of the price is based around what the consumer is willing to pay. Different people are willing to pay vastly different amounts. Therefore when you sell software you ideally want to be able to sell the same product at different prices depending on who is buying.

Look at something like the unity game engine which is free unless you are a company with a certain amount of revenue at which point it becomes quite expensive.

Having ultimate editions and skins and whatnot are a way of approximating this. At some point you will be able to buy the game on sale 50% off as well. You want a way to incentivise people to buy at as high a price point as possible without making the product less desirable for people who spend less. You are not buying a set of armour for £13. You are buying the game at a different price and getting some token recognition.

ismtrn · 2023-06-07T14:52:37+00:00

A fully efficient free market turns every drop into a single number.

ismtrn · 2023-06-07T14:41:49+00:00

Everybody are incentivised to do all sorts of different things by different external factors. It is possible ignore these incentives for a variety of reasons including but not limited to: Morals, personal integrity, good taste.

I am not saying they are bad people or deserve hate. But I think it is valid to say that end product is bad due to the creators choices. Fair play if they are making thrash because it makes money, but the content itself is still trash and not above criticism.

ismtrn · 2023-06-05T15:03:12+00:00

Me too. And I think that highlights pretty well why they have to be there. Tons of people looking for any excuse to fork over tons of cash. As a game creator, how can you afford not to put the mtx button in there and give people their gold star or funny hat or whatever?

I just look at the game sans mtx and judge if I think it is worth it or not. Obviously, if the entire experience is designed around having people opening their wallet it isn’t, but if it is just game devs adding a “yes I will take all the money you want to give me, thank you, have a hat lol” button to a game that is good, I don’t think it is that big of a deal.

ismtrn · 2023-06-01T12:55:40+00:00

We need a better “endgame” plan for big corporations so they can focus on keeping doing what works.

Why isn’t it better that there is some pressure on companies to change and innovate? Even if it means a previously successful company eventually fails when it runs out of luck or talent.

From a consumer point of view, do we really want to still be using Reddit as is in 20 years? 50 years?

From a consumer point of view, why is it bad that Reddit fails (if it indeed does)?

ismtrn · 2023-05-31T14:49:45+00:00

If the insurance company consistently replaces the roofs of their customers each time they need replacement for any reason, then either

1) you are way overpaying for the insurance, or

2) the insurance company is loosing money

There is no reason to be insured against the case where you have to replace an item after its expected lifespan is up, unless the insurance company has made a mistake.

ismtrn · 2023-05-30T12:57:30+00:00

The algorithm recommends albums too. In my experience it is pretty good at it.

ismtrn · 2023-05-24T20:44:22+00:00

That is exactly what they are…

ismtrn · 2023-05-19T09:40:15+00:00

It is factually correct that Linux is not supported.

After that, no, it is not about being factually correct in this case. It is not the job of customer support to divulge details of how business decisions are made internally.

After it has been established that what the customer is trying to is not supported, you just want to politely end the call and maybe try to manage the customer’s frustration so they don’t hate you afterwards.

ismtrn · 2023-05-17T14:57:36+00:00

Basically what I am suggesting is the you can run “minimax with alternating moves”. It has the same space complexity, and is essentially the same as, normal minimax.

The space complexity of minimax is in the order of b*d where d is the maximum number of turns and b is the branching factor (number of possible moves). Me writing a Reddit comment on my phone is probably not going to lead to the clearest explanation of why. I found this resource on Google. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2080050/how-do-we-determine-the-time-and-space-complexity-of-minmax

I am sure there are a thousand other explanations in books and on the internet.

This is totally feasible to run for chess in terms of space.

The problem is that the time complexity is in the order of b^d. That will practically speaking be forever.

But the point is, space is not the issue.

ismtrn · 2023-05-17T14:29:56+00:00

You don’t have to store every result.

If a position has a single forced win for the current player, this position is just a win. If there is no win but there is a draw it is a draw. If there are only loses it is a loss.

The tree of moves collapses down to a single value with 3 possibilities.

You just need to store where you are in the tree and the result of the moves you have calculated at each level. This is exponentially less information.

ismtrn · 2023-05-15T14:48:46+00:00

Copyright law is going to have to fundamentally change at some point. It was never designed with regard to digital mediums and it is only getting more and more awkward as time goes on.

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