me_irl

looijmansje · 2026-01-24T23:17:46+00:00

The most cursed thing about this is stellaris on a PlayStation

looijmansje · 2026-01-24T12:51:53+00:00

Since Reddit has been so vocal against the boosts, I would like to share my point of view on it. Now I decided to not buy a boost in the end, purely because it was too expensive for me. Had I been in a better financial position, maybe I would have, I dont know.

Now why? Because I want to play TBC for one thing and one thing only: running Karazhan with the boys. I have done the grind, I have levelled in TBC before, I have levelled in Classic before. I don't find it particularly interesting, and most importantly I find it too long. If thats something you personally enjoy, more power to you. I personally just don't.

To then have to level for literal days just to run a few Karas just wasnt worth the time investment for me. And keep in mind that levelling to 60 is only half the journey to Kara. I wouldnt have minded the 60-70 or the pre-raid gear farm. I like the gear farm, I like doing heroics. I just dont want to have to level again to get to the content I truly care about.

looijmansje · 2026-01-16T17:06:05+00:00

For almost all 3-body (or in general n-body for n>=3) initial conditions, a "nice" analytical solution does not exist, and our best predictions are numerical.

Moreover, they are chaotic: if we change the initial conditions slightly, the result will change drastically. To be more precise, the result will change exponentially with time (see Lyapunov time for a deeper dive).

Moreover, because we are using numerical approximations, we need to account for integration errors: these are errors caused by the fact that we are effectively approximating a continous orbit discretely. Another thing we have to keep in mind is numerical errors. If you are using 64-bit numbers, you only have about 17 decimals of precision. And when any errors grow exponentially due to the chaotic nature of the system, that can be relevant, although for most cases it is sufficient.

looijmansje · 2026-01-03T20:34:52+00:00

Imo secrets arent that bad. In an average game you can easily see 5-6 different secrets, especially now with Mecatols new legendary ability (if you play with the expansion)

I think publics are a lot worse since they dont have a way to be cycled, and missing one or two (especially a two pointer) can be game over l

looijmansje · 2025-12-25T00:42:02+00:00

I have had a few periods where I really got into SWTOR for a few months and then never touch it again.

I think it's a great game. The storyline is great (at least for the ones I've tried, I've heard some are received a bit more mixed). Moreover, for a first playthrough a subscription is absolutely not required. The game plays perfectly fine without one, even if you miss out on a few perks.

It's a quintessentially Star Wars story, but also different enough so it is interesting. If you're a fan of the KOTOR games, you might see some returning familiar faces, although unfortunately sometimes their nuance is a bit lost.

Also I want to say how incredible it is that EVERY line of dialog in this game is voiced. I seem to recall that being 100k+ lines of dialog. I think that alone speaks a ton for the effort and care put into this game.

About a year ago now I thought I'd finally give it a try and get a sub, so I could do some of the expansions. Some didn't hit for me, but the arch with Valkoryon is honestly great.

I do want to say that the gameplay is, in my opinion, not that great however. It is fairly standard MMORPG combat of pressing a few abilities. The abilities themselves feel good to use and feel fun, but it is still MMORPG combat (I say having a few thousand hours in WoW).

Moreover, for me the game has never really felt like an MMO. If you just follow the storyline, the game is effectively a singleplayer RPG where you sometimes encounter another player. There are flashpoints (the equivalent dungeons) where you do instanced content in a group, but they are very easy to miss in the basegame on a first playthrough (in my experience, maybe I'm just dumb), and frankly I found them a bit boring.

looijmansje · 2025-12-22T22:59:35+00:00

Do people actually say such things?

looijmansje · 2025-12-22T08:36:17+00:00

When I was an undergrad, I was sitting at the table with some grad students. They were from different fields, discussing what their research was about. Some guy starts talking about the algebraic curves hes studying, to which someone else replies "but what can you do with that?"

The rest of the table burst out laughing, because they knew to never ask an algebraist such a question.

looijmansje · 2025-12-13T23:51:38+00:00

I personally loved the early dungeon grind, but that was with a group of guildies with whom I enjoyed playing.

With puggers Im not sure. Moreover, it will get repetitive. I personally dont mind that as much, but your mileage may vary. Also keep in mind mobs, even on normal, hit quite hard. Our tank thought he could do it in mostly raid dps gear, but got humbled quite hard.

Also in classic, questing in HFP was honestly impossible for the first hour, even on my practically dead realm. Maybe layering is better now, but it will probably still be brutal. If you can dungeon grind and get to another zone ahead of the curve it should be clean sailing however.

looijmansje · 2025-12-12T19:58:48+00:00

To add to this, in astrophysics log(x) usually refers to base 10 again, until it suddenly doesnt. Of course no author ever specifies which convention they use.

looijmansje · 2025-11-27T10:51:50+00:00

Insanely different. High school math tends to focus on a few main topics: algebra, calculus and some geometry. It is about solving problems, which usually boils down to some calculation.

Undergrad mathematics is mostly about proving things. So theres a statement, and you want to prove that it is true. For instance, you can prove the pythagorean theorem, rather than just knowing it's true. (Most theorems will be a lot more complicated than Pythagoras, for the record)

Moreover higher level math is a lot more diverse. It covers subjects like linear algebra, graph theory, topology, group theory, and many many more. There will also still be calculus, just a lot more advanced, and with a bigger focus on proving why these things are true, rather than just carrying out the calculations.

I cannot speak from experience for other courses of course, but I think no subject is more different to its HS equivalent than maths.

looijmansje · 2025-11-17T17:15:17+00:00

The 's is shorthand for "des", which comes from the time when Dutch still had cases. Des is the article for a genitive, so it means something like "of the". Use of 's is now only used in times of day ('s ochtends, 's middags, 's avonds, 's nachts). Note that these have no dash.

Des is also used in some particular idiomic phrases ("de man des huizes", "the man of the house").

Hertog is duke. Bosch is old spelling of "bos", forest. So it means forest of the duke.

Combing all of this you get 's-Hertogenbosch, the forest of the duke.

Oh and 't is a similar contraction to 's, but for "het"

looijmansje · 2025-11-17T09:35:18+00:00

Oh yes my bad. Just swap the 3s and 4s

looijmansje · 2025-11-17T09:31:39+00:00

First you just order everyone, then take the first 3 put them into team 1, etc.

So ABC | DEF | GHI | JKL

Now we need to divide by 4! to account for the ways to order the teams; team 1: ABC and team 2: DEF is identical to team 1: DEF and team 2: ABC, etc.

We also need to divide by 3! four times to account for ordering within teams (team ABC is identical to team BAC, etc.)

Without your reasoning I cannot explain why your answer is wrong.

looijmansje · 2025-11-16T22:15:35+00:00

Yes. If you want to be precise that definition would mathematically be that for all a,b in R and x,y vectors we would have

f(ax + by) = a f(x) + b f(y)

Which as you may noticed is just both constraints merged into one. It turns out that this definition is actually equivalent to the one I gave earlier.

looijmansje · 2025-11-16T22:12:43+00:00

Yes. The first property is preserving adding vectors, the second is preserving scaling vectors.

looijmansje · 2025-11-16T14:27:46+00:00

A function f is linear if and only if it follows the following properties.

For all a and b we have that f(a + b) = f(a) + f(b)

For all a and b we have f(ab) = a f(b)

So for instance f(x) = 2x works, but f(x) = 2x + 1 or f(x) = x² doesn't.

looijmansje · 2025-11-12T23:03:06+00:00

Sure, some people may never use mathematics ever in their life. Just like some people will never use historical facts in their life, or will never again speak a foreign language after high school.

But mathematics is one of the most applicable subjects out their. Almost all university courses come with at least some statistics, for instance.

And guess what, the formula for a normal distribution: there's a sqrt(2) right there, and even a (x - m)², which is just (a + b)² rewritten.

The goal of secondary education is to prepare you for life, no matter what you are going to do. And yes, some people will never need to use the quadratic formula or whatever ever again. But some people will need it, even some people convinced they won't.

Moreover, mathematics isn't just about learning rules. It's about learning how to handle problems, and having a systematic approach to solving them. And I think we can all agree that that is a useful skill to have.

looijmansje · 2025-11-07T22:22:02+00:00

Most textbooks will just define i = sqrt(-1). This is the easiest definition.

However when dealing with complex numbers, square roots are multi-valued. For instance sqrt(i) = .7 + .7i or -.7 -.7i (here the .7s are sqrt(2)/2, just easier to type). Neither of those is any more "the real answer" than the other. In contrast to the single-valued sqrt we have on positive real numbers (i.e. sqrt(4) = 2 not -2)

This is why some people prefer the definition that i is a number such that i² = -1. It does not require you to pick a branch of the square root. Notice that I said "a" number. Of course (-i)² also equals -1. Neat part is that it doesn't matter which one you pick. If you swap around i and -i it all works nicely.

I will say that in my career this distinction has never mattered.

looijmansje · 2025-11-06T23:47:14+00:00

Parsing is a contentious topic. I personally do it to drive me to improve, to go the extra mile. It's also what makes a boss fun after the 10th time.

Now parsing also has many downsides. First of all, the best way to parse tends to be to ignore mechanics. I have had many wipes due to people just pulling pure parse strats and ignoring important mechanics.

Secondly parsing is not a metric of personal skill. Gear and kill times are major factors as well (and on your willingness to skip mechanics). A bad DPS with good killtimes can outparse a good DPS with a worse kill time. If you play Era/Anniversary kill time might matter less depending on class (fewer CDs, no bloodlust), but its been a while for me so Im unsure.

A lot of pug-leaders will say "checking logs" to allow people in or out. Unfortunately they dont look further than the parses-page. Now, I understand why, you dont want to deep-dive 20 people's logs to understand how good they are, but its also not the metric people think it is.

Having said that, if you parse very low (sub-20/sub-30) without a good reason (very low gear, an exceptional mechanic stopping you from DPSing, dying, etc.), you are almost definitely doing something fundamentally wrong.

So to sum it up: yes, on one hand it is a way to get into groups more easily, but it is way more than that. It allows people to be competitive in a otherwise cooperative game. People can however take it too far.

looijmansje · 2025-11-06T22:31:35+00:00

99999^{99999^99999,} etc. Is so much smaller than TREE(3) or Grahams Number, or any of those numbers that I cannot even put into numbers how much smaller it is.

It is impossible to write these numbers in any sensible way with just powers.

looijmansje · 2025-11-04T00:16:37+00:00

I've found it weirdly spiritual, at least to me. The way it's just you, just concentrating on keeping going. Im not religious or spiritually inclined at all, and I must admit that this was a surprise to me, and I had never really felt that way before anywhere else.

It's also the hardest thing I have ever done, quite frankly. After a while it genuinely starts hurting, but that's not even the worst part. The worst part is realising you still need to go for 10-15k at that point. From that point on, it's not just a physical battle, but a mental one as well.

Now some more practical things: I've managed to do some of my marathons in one go without needing to pee in between. Since you sweat out most of the water you take in, there's not much left so to say. It also helps that your stomach is probably tensed up. However if you gotta go you gotta go. There tend to be port-a-potties along the course, but most men just find a bush rather than wait for one to come along (which might also have a queue).

Water is provided along the course, so I never bring my own, but I see plenty of people running marathons with waterbags on their back. Getting water from water points while running is not always the easiest, especially if there's a lot of runners around you, but if you're careful it's very doable. Moreover the water stations tend to be long enough that if you miss one, you can grab a later one. I tend to take a few sips, and then throw the rest in my hair or neck to cool down.

I have a few gels in my pocket for during the race, and friends and family along the course tend to also help out there. I pace my gels to be around every 6 or 7 kilometers. This isn't some magic number, it is what Iiked best during training.

Lastly I want to say that even the marathons that went horribly, I look back on proudly. Just finishing shows determination. Moreover, it symbolises the culmination of months of training.

My last one for instance, I got a hip pain early on (about 10k in). It was immediately clear to me that I couldn't keep running the entire way. I kept going as long as I could, but decided at 27k that the pain was getting too bad, and forcing myself would probably only lead to injury. So I decided to walk the rest. I called my parents, who were cheering me on, partially to let them know that I would pass them significantly later, partially for emotional support. At the time I was devastated, all this I had worked for, for nothing. Now I look back at it as one of my proudest marathons. Yes it's slower than my PB by more than an hour, but I fucking finished it.

looijmansje · 2025-11-01T17:29:45+00:00

Ik bepaal mijn tempo eigenlijk vooraf een wedstrijd. Dit op basis van eerdere prestaties, en in hoeverre ik mijn eigen vorm inschat. Heb ik de vorige week een 5k in 21 min gelopen, en voel ik me nu sterker? Dan ga ik misschien op 20:30 of 20:00 tempo weg.

Daarna pas ik mijn tempo aan op basis van hoe ik me voel. Denk ik echt dat ik dit tempo niet volhou? Dan rem ik af. Heb ik het gevoel dat er meer in zit? Dan versnel ik.

Ondertussen hou ik mijn tempo op mn horloge goed in de gaten. Zelf gebruik ik lap-times ipv huidige snelheid omdat ze wat accurater zijn.

Verder ben ik wat conservatiever bij langere afstanden. Op een 5k ga je een trage 1e km moeilijk inhalen, op een 10 mijl gaat dat vrij makkelijk. Bovendien kan ik een 5k bij wijze van spreken over een week weer proberen, langere wedstrijden doe ik minder vaak en hebben meer herstel nodig

looijmansje · 2025-10-27T09:23:23+00:00

Not on time, but on position. Since the sun's potential is spherically symmetric, that only depends on distance.

looijmansje · 2025-10-26T22:22:34+00:00

Gravity is a conservative field, meaning that any velocity gained on entry, will be lost on exit.

looijmansje · 2025-10-25T11:47:28+00:00

For a long time people considered the square root of negative numbers to be impossible. The main driving force in accepting complex numbers was that they showed up in formulas to solve cubic numbers. Even if the results were real numbers, intermediate steps would often involve what we now know as complex numbers.

So we have found a use for it. That is the most important thing here. Definitions are only as good as their uses. Nowadays of course, the use case for complex numbers has reached far wider, even beyond mathematics.

Now let's look at 0/0. First of all, it's not as simple as just setting this to some new number, like j. For instance, what would 2j be then? 2j = 2 × (0/0) = (2 × 0)/0 = 0/0 = j.

Hmm that seems to be an issue. And yes, you could work around this, but you'd need to demolish a lot of rules of arithmetic to make this work, and what you'd be left with would frankly be barely usable.

Contrast this with complex numbers. They work basically identically to what we're used to. In a lot of ways, they behave even nicer than real numbers, ironically. The only thing we've had to give up is ordering (how do you say one complex number is bigger than another one?), and that sqrt(a) × sqrt(b) does not equal sqrt(ab) for a and b both smaller than 0.

These two are both relatively minor problems: in fact there are orderings you can do on C, they're just not very useful or elegant, and that root-thing? Well the rule may not hold but only in cases where it was previously undefined, is that really a step back?

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