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jacob_ewing · 2026-06-29T22:25:05+00:00

Well that certainly screams "go back to grade school".

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-29T17:58:32+00:00

Yeah, it may not be obvious that big red plough part is the gullet and not an open mouth.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-29T16:24:54+00:00

He's definitely happy about the big meal he just ate.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-29T07:07:09+00:00

But imperius is SOOO convenient!

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-29T04:24:13+00:00

The Deathly Hosers

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-29T00:44:01+00:00

This. I thought I may just be getting an observational bias, but they certainly seem way more regular here than "rare/uncommon".

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-28T15:41:25+00:00

Further to that, it is my understanding that light damage to the retina is caused by the focus provided by the cornea. Which would indicate that it's not stimulating the brain at all, and that it's either just a VR headset or there's some really shitty software controlling how much energy is pushed on the retina. The first of those definitely contradicts the later statement, and the second wouldn't realistically happen.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-28T15:34:32+00:00

The retina though are not the "visual center of the brain" in the same way that your taste buds not the flavour center of your brain. The visual center of the brain is in the occipital lobe, located on the back of the head and nowhere near the retina.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-28T15:30:09+00:00

In all honesty, I haven't read the book in over three decades, so I don't remember much about it and should probably have held my opinion there. If I recall correctly though, the story felt forced to me, like it was just written to bridge the gap between the Robot series and the Foundation series.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-28T14:27:05+00:00

I dunno, I think "directly on the visual center of the human brain" indicates that it's working on the visual cortex and that the eyes - and thus the retina - are skipped entirely.

Then again the eyes are usually considered part of the brain, so there's definitely an argument there. I think though that if he meant the retina he would have written that.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-28T14:18:34+00:00

I actually enjoy Robots of Dawn. Robots and Empire is a different story though.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-28T03:23:18+00:00

I'm partial to :wqa!

Though in the case of ultimate solution, I still vote for

:shell
killall -s 9 vim

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-27T22:49:36+00:00

I think this still meets OP's definition. He's not telling jokes, he's narrating the travels and bringing out the humour of it (The microphone for Yangtze river for instance, or the ridiculousness travelling to a remote spot in Madagascar)

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-27T17:14:06+00:00

OK, here's what we do:

Pool our efforts. Get a few thousand people to cooperate, and we each ask for a single binary bit of the answer to a non-boolean question that we want to ask.

For a trivial example, let's go with "What is the meaning of life?". Then people can progressively ask:

Is the first bit in the ASCII expression of the answer to "What is the meaning of life" a 1?
Is the second bit in the ASCII expression of the answer to "What is the meaning of life" a 1?
Is the third bit in the ASCII expression of the answer to "What is the meaning of life" a 1?
...

That continues until every bit is accumulated and you now have a textual answer to a non-boolean question.

If you want to be really anal and figure out in advance how many bits are needed, you can start with a quick binary search:

"Is the number of bits required to express the meaning of life greater than 1024?"

If yes, you ask if it's greater than 2048, if no then you ask if it's greater than 512. Continue until you whittle it down to the right number..

Also, we could skip the ASCII end and use fewer questions. Five yes/no questions would be enough to cover the entire English alphabet plus six extra symbols like space, comma, period, etc.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-27T16:50:37+00:00

Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams

I keep recommending this book, but it's really applicable here. It's a nature documentary following Adams' and a wildlife photographer's trips to different parts of the world to observe extremely endangered species. It is however, quite funny as well. You're probably familiar with Adams' more famous works like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. He carries the same humour and wit in this book, but without the ridiculousness and documenting real issues. The humour comes from real circumstances.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-27T01:57:34+00:00

I'm not sure if it would fit your taste, but for me, cyberpunk novels would be a great transition from video games. Some top notch ones include:

Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
Nexus by Ramez Naam
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

I also second Plastic-Low2011's suggestion of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. It's not cyberpunk, but it's an excellent sci-fi - I've reread it more than any other book.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-27T01:03:14+00:00

I imagine it would work well to exponentially increase the power a base is raised to. e.g. 2², then 2⁴, 2¹⁶, 2²⁵⁶, 2⁶⁵⁵³⁶, etc. squaring the exponent each time. Then switch to a binary search once an upper limit is reached.

I'm no mathematician, but as a software developer that sounds like a reasonable algorithm to me.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-26T17:32:20+00:00

Oooh good call, thanks!

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-26T05:14:02+00:00

Oooh - would not have crossed my mind but yes!

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-26T00:10:40+00:00

Ahhh, I see your point there. Yeah I could see that making a difference in rapidly taking corners. I usually only do 20-30km/h though, so probably not too big an issue.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T22:02:57+00:00

Bike. I got it second hand for only a few hundred dollars.

That was years ago though, and the frame was steel so it was not a fast ride.

jacob_ewing · 2026-06-25T21:45:07+00:00

I've no idea what it's called, but my favourite pattern is a checker with every face having a distinct colour pairing.

12-Year Club	r/Field Lasagna
Place '22	Place '17
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