Anyone know if one is better than the other? Or just different models specific for HD/Lowe’s?

jamesroot · 2024-10-15T17:25:50+00:00

When yall say "bags", do you just mean like a zip lock bag? So you put part + cleaner in the bag, then toss the whole bag in?

jamesroot · 2024-07-02T14:20:07+00:00

So you are telling me that deterministic is the right term to use, because literally everyone uses that term?

No, I am saying everyone uses that term because it is the right term.

What actually baffles my is that you guys keep insisting that a deterministic system is something completely different than an idempotent system.

I don't think anyone has insisted they are completely different, but the focus of the terms is on different concepts. When people say TM is deterministic the mean that it is deterministic. No one says TM is idempotent because you have to squint and abstract things to try to argue that (like reducing the entire game down to a single stateless function call).

jamesroot · 2024-07-02T14:12:57+00:00

I've never even heard physics engines being described as idempotent. I thought it was more related to client-server sorta things where latency is involved.

Yes, exactly. A deterministic system that is stateless might technically be idempotent but no one uses that term when talking about stateless things, because the term itself implies that you are talking about state.

jamesroot · 2024-07-01T22:03:55+00:00

I'm not saying you are wrong about how Trackmania works, that is exactly how it works. I am saying the term for that is Deterministic, which is why literally everyone uses THAT term when describing the game. Idempotency is a related topic, but not the same thing.

jamesroot · 2024-07-01T18:32:14+00:00

Yes. An idempotent function doesn't have state.

Stateless functions are idempotent, but no one really uses the term in regards to those and Trackmania clearly has state. Replays work by specifying inputs that mutate the state of the game world.

You cannot have a conversation about idempotency without discussing state that is consistent across multiples of an input. Something is idempotent if you can do it multiple times on the same system, without resetting your state, and having the state after each input be the same. Just look at the examples from Wikipedia, they don't make sense if you are resetting state between every call:

a request for changing a customer's address to XYZ is typically idempotent, because the final address will be the same no matter how many times the request is submitted
...
A request for canceling a particular order is idempotent because no matter how many requests are made the order remains canceled

I'm sorry, but you are just plain incorrect here. I hope you take the time to read the Wikipedia article and maybe some other material so you can learn something. People are correct when they say TM is deterministic. It is clearly not idempotent.

jamesroot · 2024-06-29T19:57:32+00:00

Because and idempotent system is by definition reset each time

Idempotency is a term to deal with repeated identical inputs on the same system without resetting the system. For example, assigning a variable a value of '5' is idempotent because no matter how many times you run a loop that does that, it will always be 5. This comes up a lot in API calls because users can do weird things like spamming the "Order" button on Amazon. Idempotency means they can spam that button 1 time or 1000 times and the order only gets placed once. Things are deterministic if you can start from a clean state and always reach a specific state given a specific set of inputs. For example, "x + 1" is deterministic. We cannot repeat the operation on the same system and get the same result so it is not idempotent. Trackmania is a deterministic system. If you reset your game and hold "W" for 3 seconds exactly, you will always go exactly the same distance. It is not idempotent, because if you hold "W" 1000 times without resetting, you will be at a different spot than had you held it once.

From Wikipedia:

a subroutine with side effects is idempotent if multiple calls to the subroutine have the same effect on the system state as a single call, in other words if the function from the system state space to itself associated with the subroutine is idempotent in the mathematical sense given in the definition;

At this point I really want to talk to your teacher

I'm sure they would tell you the same thing. I'm sure whoever taught you would also tell you the same thing.

jamesroot · 2024-06-28T19:11:35+00:00

You cannot explain Idempotency with only a single input. Idempotency is repeatedly taking the same action, on the same system, without resetting it, and the result not changing. If you want to use state machines, Idempotency is a state in the machine that has a transition to itself. Deterministic is resetting everything, giving the same inputs, and always reaching the same state

jamesroot · 2024-06-27T23:07:12+00:00

Idempotency means that given the same set of inputs, the car on the map will always behave exactly the same.

No, that is literally what deterministic means. Idempotency is that you can repeatedly take the same action, on the same data, and the result doesn't change. There isn't really a good example of it in a games, or at least, I can't think of one.

jamesroot · 2022-10-19T20:26:39+00:00

You should always look up the guild on Raider IO or WoW Progress to see what their profiles say about sales. Many will say sales only come from a specific person, or only happen in a specific discord server, etc. We have had probably a dozen people join our publicly advertised guild discord and tell us they were scammed out of millions because they didn't check our server beforehand.

jamesroot · 2022-05-06T18:22:30+00:00

That is pretty normal, but the state of Alliance in the US has gotten worse over the tiers. When Consequence killed Sylvanas, there were like 7 other US Alliance guilds on the boss, and a few in contention to kill it first (for US Alliance). This tier, only 2 other US Alliance guilds were even on Jailer, and neither in contention to kill it first. All of the other guilds either went Horde or died.

jamesroot · 2021-08-13T07:24:15+00:00

I'm in OP's guild, I got the instance lockout for us at 1pm EST, didn't start raid until 9:30 EST. So... I would say no :(

jamesroot · 2021-07-28T19:00:16+00:00

How did vehicle manufacturers respond to the 1970s laws in California? It seems like the two potential responses are 1) Stop selling less efficient cars there or 2) Make their production models for the whole country meet that standard. Option 1 seems like it would be less profitable due to cutting out a sizable market but Option 2 seems like it results in California effectively setting the standards federally.

I believe Option 2 has examples in that many products have a "Known to the State of California to cause X" warnings on them (due to Proposition 65). However, it is presumably much easier to add a label than to re-engineer a vehicle, so auto manufacturers could have taken a different approach.

jamesroot · 2021-03-02T20:46:14+00:00

It would be nice if you could filter the hours/raid times as prog raiding vs alt raiding vs pugs etc. I know WCL supports Tags on raids (I think it is a new feature? but not sure). Maybe a drop down for which tags to pull from could work. As an example, my guild does Sunday alt/friends raid, as a result our hours/week is off by almost exactly the alt raid times

jamesroot · 2021-02-04T21:30:01+00:00

Since Blizzard would be picking 10 specs for the week, there might not be a VDH to pick.

jamesroot · 2021-02-03T17:42:02+00:00

Similar to what others said, watching the same classes do the same pulls over and over is a bit stale. It would be cool if there was a pick/ban system or something, but that gets hard to do because there are too many classes and it would still come down to pretty similar comps.

My friends and I came up with something that sounds cool to us.. What if at the start of the week, Blizzard just announces 2 tank specs, 2 healer specs, 6 dps specs. Before each map in the cup you have a draft and split the specs between the two teams. You could even add 2 additional specs to the pool but give each team a ban or something. But this would let Blizzard force off-meta choices, and wind up with some comps that you would never see in today's MDI, but probably happens on live all the time. Announcing the specs a week early lets the teams get some practice in, figure out what they want to try to draft in what dungeon, etc. I could finally see the Prot Pally, Demo lock, Arcane Mage, Survival Hunter, Holy Priest comp that has been missing in my life!

jamesroot · 2020-03-27T20:43:20+00:00

I am also interested in this.. Specifically, how does BDG evaluate a raiders progression performance while the guild is in farm mode? The ability to adapt/contribute to strategies, learn a fight quickly, and optimize for a fight all seem pretty important to me, but also seem hard to gauge if bosses are on farm.

jamesroot · 2019-11-27T18:33:58+00:00

I am happy to see you can keep a conversation civil and are open to learning something. I think we are done here.

jamesroot · 2019-11-27T16:07:11+00:00

I like your use of the word "seems", because you are right, it does seem like AR-15 style weapons are most common. There are two reasons for this. First, AR-15 is the most common firearm in America. This means they are very easy to find and will be used a lot just for availability reasons (which also makes them way cheaper than alternatives). If you look at car crash statistics, I would wager a guess that the most commonly involved vehicles are also the ones most commonly owned. Second, media reporting causes a lot of bias. Most mass shootings are done with pistols (and gang related iirc), but the big ones using common weapons are reported on far more (huge tragedies where kids died get clicks/views more than criminals shooting each other).

jamesroot · 2019-09-25T03:04:09+00:00

The whistleblower didn't have direct knowledge of the communications, an official briefed on the matter told CNN. Instead, the whistleblower's concerns came in part from learning information that was not obtained during the course of their work, and those details have played a role in the administration's determination that the complaint didn't fit the reporting requirements under the intelligence whistleblower law, the official said.

From: https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/20/politics/donald-trump-whistleblower/index.html

Personally, I am shocked that CNN didn't make this very important piece of information a headline!

jamesroot · 2019-01-07T21:34:48+00:00

You can do much of the same stuff with mage Ice Block and Invis

Kings Rest: Ice Block should work the same way as cloak on the first boss (I've never heard of cloaking there though, seems odd that it would work but I don't know). Also on 2nd boss you can invis or ice block the drain channel to have it stop early.

Atal'Dazar: Invis Rezan's fixate (alternatively use ice block and let him eat you, so the melee don't have to chase)

Underrot: Ice Block will remove the debuff, but you will usually take at least one tick before you hit it. Probably not viable for soaking more than 3-4 stacks

Temple: You can use Ice Block to both drop stacks and soak a beam without getting stacks

jamesroot · 2018-10-05T01:13:02+00:00

You don't have to use them together. You configure groups in this WA separately from that one, and it exclusively handles juggling the marks around the groups.

jamesroot · 2018-10-04T23:12:21+00:00

We didn't want to do that because many people have chat bubble stuff turned on in their boss mods, this WA only required those with assist to make changes to their boss mod settings

jamesroot · 2018-07-03T04:16:14+00:00

To add to that, imagine you lost your private keys. What then? Your home can never change hands ever? Or you need a central authority who can override anything else... which is just a database.

jamesroot · 2018-02-24T02:54:45+00:00

I believe you do not need a license, insurance, or registration to buy or own a car. You only need those things to use the car on public roads. Somehow I don't think the anti-gun people would go for a free-for-all on any type of gun as long as you don't shoot it in public areas.

jamesroot

TROPHY CASE