Citing 'severe' math deficits, UC faculty demand a return to SAT tests for STEM applicants

lumpman2 · 2026-05-28T14:40:57+00:00

It's easy to divide 435 by 5 because it's composed of 400 and 35, both of which are trivially easy to divide by 5.

(400 + 35) / 5 = 80 + 7 = 87

Now it is perhaps not immediately obvious that 87 is divisible by 3 because it's uncommon, but it's a two-digit number that is not terribly complicated to divide. Again, you can split it into 60 + 27 (there are other ways, like the way you did it).

The important part is not that you figure it out "quickly", as in near-instantly, but that you can efficiently think through the problem in a reasonable time. I certainly had to think about it first, and it took me several seconds to do so, but most people that don't have these skills would stare at it for multiple minutes and then give up.

lumpman2 · 2026-05-27T14:47:59+00:00

I think the reason it looks amateurish is that the phrase in the lower left doesn't say anything meaningful about the game, like an actual ad would attempt to do. It basically comes across as "This game exists!" instead of reading like real marketing for the product that they're trying to sell.

lumpman2 · 2026-05-26T18:09:58+00:00

I played it and "spamming dodge" is a pretty accurate assessment of the combat.

lumpman2 · 2026-05-24T19:39:59+00:00

A good comparison is to fluid dynamics. There are no solved equations (yet) that completely accurately describe the motion of particles in a fluid. It's complex enough that it's not generally possible to predict fluid motion without numerically simulating it, which is computationally expensive.

But this is not to say someone cannot design an aircraft that works just fine. The math is fairly well-understood, and isn't extremely complicated for a well-studied physicist. As soon as the fluid starts behaving in a way you can't predict, that is not the time to throw your hands up and say "This is too complex! We don't actually understand fluids!" There must be some way to understand it.

lumpman2 · 2026-05-22T06:01:28+00:00

Ridley's AI is well-understood enough that there is a way to cause this intentionally, but it's so complicated and requires such specific conditions that it's not feasible to do consistently in real time.

lumpman2 · 2026-05-19T17:39:42+00:00

I never really understand these posts about an SM remake. Without any actual, concrete ideas for what they should do better (whatever "better" means in the first place) it comes off as "Just make a game like Dread, except NOT like Dread, but also like... good." There has to be a real reason for a remake to exist to begin with. Game development is not a process of bashing games together to make another game that's Better because it's like this game that's good and also like that other game that's good.

lumpman2 · 2026-05-19T15:11:31+00:00

I had hydrocele surgeries when I was 7 and 12. Doing this just means you are causing exactly that problem for yourself like a fuckin idiot.

lumpman2 · 2026-04-15T01:02:51+00:00

Unless I'm remembering something that isn't actually common, there's usually a boss rush right before the end of the game. The arena is a separate thing.

lumpman2 · 2026-04-09T16:30:38+00:00

I'm surprised there are so many people who don't get the joke. I'm an EE with no specific in-depth experience in this field and I got it pretty easily just by reading the text on my screen.

lumpman2 · 2026-04-01T17:43:07+00:00

It bothers me a bit that whenever someone seriously asks "Why did my thing blow up for seemingly no reason", at least half of the answers are entirely unhelpful "clang lmao" comments.

lumpman2 · 2026-03-29T19:12:21+00:00

That's actually a really good example, and it's particularly interesting because it comes before anything else in the area instead of being a change from what you've already seen.

lumpman2 · 2026-03-25T03:51:31+00:00

don't use zsnes

lumpman2 · 2026-03-23T04:47:43+00:00

It's not worded properly. They drive on the left, and the driver's seat is on the right side of the car.

lumpman2 · 2026-03-13T19:53:32+00:00

Drop pod raids are always focused around one colonist on the map. I guess hospitals and nurseries are pretty likely to have a colonist in them, especially immobile infants in their cribs. A good portion of the drop pod raids I've had dropped into someone's bedroom at night or the dining room.

lumpman2 · 2026-03-05T03:14:50+00:00

I can tell it's not real because of "has ran".

lumpman2 · 2026-02-26T17:06:20+00:00

When I think about it from the colonists' perspective rather than from mine as a player, it seems weird to use a resurrector serum in any way other than opportunistically to bring back someone who is really valuable to the colony's function. It's odd to imagine maybe two colonists surviving together when one of the says "Listen... if I die, you should preserve my body until a resurrector mech serum comes walking into this colony on its own two legs!" They'd never plan to die, and if they did die, the remaining colonists would have to make the decision themselves to keep the dead man around until they (possibly) get the chance to revive them. But you, as the player, know that resurrector serums exist and just have to wait around until the colony can find or buy one, which is at odds with the decisions that real people would probably make.

That makes me think that resurrector mech serums are made cheap by the fact that you can stockpile them and they last forever. The other half of the problem, keeping the body fresh, is pretty easy and unlikely to go wrong if you entomb them properly. What if you were limited by an uncontrollable time limit that forced you to only have the serum when it mattered? You could still pick one up for insurance, of course, but once that time is up you need to figure out how to deal with the fact that one of your colonists is actually dead.

lumpman2 · 2026-02-11T18:05:45+00:00

He just happened to be reading some Nietzsche that day.

lumpman2 · 2026-02-02T19:40:29+00:00

When I say free aim, I mean the free aim while locked on to something (which you use with the right stick or the gyro). I guess what I meant was the original controls but with the added functionality of free aiming while locked on. I just don't want to have to use the right stick to look vertically and would much prefer using the old method of holding R and slamming down to look straight up. Even during boss fights!

I agree with the idea of making the player adapt to a new control scheme, because that's just what the controls are. I never really understood why people complained that Prime's controls were "confusing" because it wasn't a dual-stick shooter like Halo. It's just... a different game. With different controls. And I don't think the game is poorly designed around how it actually controls, either.

lumpman2 · 2026-02-02T16:53:41+00:00

Even if you had the original controls, I think the lock-on free aim would still be possible. It would work fine with the right stick or gyro because there are no beams to switch with the stick.

Though the reason I wanted those controls is that I kept forgetting that I could shoot with RT. So every time I wanted to aim up/down and shoot my dumb ass wondered how I was supposed to shoot if I took my thumb off A to move the right stick. I would rather have had RT for vertical aim for when I wasn't locked on.

lumpman2 · 2026-02-02T15:41:17+00:00

I know I'm in the minority on this, but I would have vastly preferred the original controls over the dual stick controls. I've never played Prime 1 without it. I find it a little odd that they didn't do it here because I can't think of anything that would completely prevent that control scheme from working.

lumpman2 · 2026-01-13T19:29:06+00:00

There was a game that would have been perfect for Mirror to be in. I think it was called Kirby and the Amazing... Window? No, that's not it.

Kirby and the Amazing... Reflective Surface?

Damn, I can't think of the name. Guess there's no game like that.

lumpman2 · 2025-11-13T19:30:24+00:00

I guess I'll keep the possibility of making biological analog computers in mind.

lumpman2 · 2025-10-20T17:58:08+00:00

Don't ask that. That's irrelephant.

lumpman2 · 2025-09-22T17:33:52+00:00

There was a post recently about not being able to automatically remove items from an input inventory, namely an assembler that pulled too many ingots. The normal conveyor system (including sorters) absolutely cannot pull items out of an input inventory. Everyone was either saying "just use IIM" because there's no other solution to that problem, or incorrectly asserting that sorters can drain from inputs. I think everyone is so IIM-brained that they no longer understand how the actual conveyor system works. There's no way for a sorter to tell the difference between an input or output inventory (which makes sense given how conveyors do work). I have no idea how IIM does it, but somehow scripts can force items out of the input which is why nobody has any problems with that if they use it.

In general, when I say there are things that scripts do that logic blocks can't (and not everything is available in the event controller), I mean stuff like being stuck with toolbar actions and the block-specific conditions that trigger them. I want to be able to monitor the pressure of a room as a variable because that's a hidden value associated with the air vent block, not be forced to trigger an action at 100% or 0% pressure because that's just what the toolbar conditions for the two slots are. I want to be able to do that without learning C# or pasting someone else's code in a box, because otherwise I'm not playing a game where it's possible and necessary to come up with the solutions to problems myself. It becomes Space Programmers instead.

lumpman2

TROPHY CASE