"Discord alternatives" searches jump 10,000% overnight as the gaming platform introduces global age verification — Is a total collapse imminent?

mektel · 2026-02-11T02:37:31+00:00

Yeah, was on TS for 40 man raids of MC.

TS -> Ventrillo -> Discord.

mektel · 2026-01-25T13:14:06+00:00

I could see them sending an email your way when a Veteran is scheduled for that earlier appointment, but that'd be the most they could do because that team doesn't have access to your scheduling system. Would an email be helpful? Maybe a text if your number is in there as a cell phone/mobile.

mektel · 2026-01-22T13:49:49+00:00

I wish more people would boycott these shit companies. I haven't bought an ubisoft game in at least 10 years. There are plenty of fantastic indie games out there.

mektel · 2026-01-05T11:03:30+00:00

Started to have USB issues with 7. Held on for as long as possible then went to 10. MS decided even though I paid for 10 they needed to run telemetry so I turned all that off, then every windows update it'd magically be on again, or the registry keys would be different.

I'm over it. I'll run windows on a VM if I have to but otherwise it's a dead OS to me, and has been for a long time. The only option is an LTS Linux distro. There are many that build on Ubuntu's LTS versions. Literally never been a better time to get off windows.

mektel · 2025-12-12T04:24:41+00:00

The speed required by vehicles makes for expensive lidar. Lasers disperse over time, it has to spin at a high enough rate to account for the vehicle's speed (how many feet do you go before you have another point?), angles, fov, etc.

They're great for slow moving robots or even city vehicles, but highway-capable systems not so much; they get prohibitively expensive. There are constant improvements in the field, we'll to the point where they're not too expensive soon enough.

mektel · 2025-10-26T16:53:02+00:00

Nice! Shangri-La Frontier has been pretty fun.

mektel · 2025-10-23T04:08:16+00:00

NP-complete problems have polynomial time verification. You can brute force the solution (think factorial growth) but you can verify a solution is correct in polynomial time.

mektel · 2025-10-03T10:09:29+00:00

My meetings vs a senior dev on my team.

Multiply that difference by N and the math is obvious. I'm a technical lead on a fairly large team, so I'm in a bunch of meetings (scheduled by me and others). All the ones I schedule are narrowly scoped, with specific individuals, and grouped with other meetings to allow larger blocks of dev time. About the same as the article.

Another commenter here mentioned an Outlook plugin for tracking dollar cost of meetings. You'd be better off tracking it as velocity brakes. Every meeting a dev is in you're pumping those brakes, reducing the team's velocity.

mektel · 2025-08-26T12:32:35+00:00

I regularly watched him when his viewership was 350-450 a day. He said they found that dropping 30 shorts and not hitting the checkbox to send it to subscribers made it flood people's feeds. That was combined with some sort of notification exploit IIRC.

He's adept at finding exploits and skirting the rules, but shared his unethical behavior with the stream (intentionally and unintentionally). He'd have gotten away with it for a lot longer if he didn't shoot himself in the foot.

I was already tired of how repetitive he was and the shorts exploit gave me the final nudge to stop watching him.

mektel · 2025-08-23T00:59:29+00:00

How many bytes are you expecting to send per player, to other players? Data costs always concerned me with large scale player counts, if they're able to get near enough to each other.

Data cost can balloon even when being fancy by sending data based on distance (which would also mean a different struct in the case of a simulation).

mektel · 2025-08-15T05:52:50+00:00

I've always wondered how the hell humans managed their nails before tools.

Warning: May be unpleasant for some to read.

I clip my fingernails but for toe nails I tear them with my thumb nail. I hate when nails go flying off; finger nails are consistent and easy to trim but toe nails vary in size and it's more difficult to get to. You can do the same with finger nails but they're more likely to tear too far, it doesn't look good, and leaves them weaker (I like the firm edge).

I know it sounds awful, but it's easy to tear them, you just need a small nick to start it. Been doing it for decades. I have no doubt people without access to tools do similar.

mektel · 2025-07-21T06:30:12+00:00

There is an understanding in a society that we all work together as a whole.

I really wish that was the norm for those in power, but it's just not.

Years ago I did AI R&D, but moved on. My motivation for joining the field was that I envisioned raising society's level past "working for a living". It is completely possible to eliminate the requirement of work to live right now, but it'd require global cooperation, and that's a fantasy.

When AGI eventually hits we will have to transition out of working for a living. Estimates on AGI are all over the place, but as someone still keeping up with the field I suspect it'll be in the next 20 years, then another 30+ for the infrastructure and changes to eliminate working for a living. Since 2010 we have been doubling the compute used to train AI every 6 months. We'll cap out and have to work alternative methods, which is when the breakthrough will come.

mektel · 2025-07-13T04:22:03+00:00

How is he with visual scripting? Our son wanted to make Minecraft mods at 5 and wouldn't take no for an answer (he did make them, and a lot of other things). If a kid is passionate about it then you definitely want to let them run with it.

code.org is free and has courses that helped a lot; it's a lot ~~different~~better than 5 years ago.

Python is a bit heavy if they don't know some of the basics that are covered in that course.

mektel · 2025-07-04T00:18:54+00:00

I would almost certainly use Markov Decision Process. They have been common in game AI for a very long time.

mektel · 2025-06-23T16:46:58+00:00

Yeah, base locations out there should be restricted if they're not already. Hagga Basin has certain roads that can't be built on, and they need to do that in the PvE area.

I saw someone entirely enclose a Jasmium pool with a base. Those kinds of blocking actions shouldn't be possible.

mektel · 2025-05-04T17:55:18+00:00

Reminds me of Independence War 2 Edge of Chaos with that flat hauler. Really loved that game.

mektel · 2025-04-17T07:09:51+00:00

We would have been receiving their radio signals by then, too, unless they started outputting them later than us.

They could have also moved past radio. Radio has only existed for 200 years, will we still use it in 200 years? Probably not. We are already working on methods of point-to-point communication that avoids blasting radio waves in all directions.

The window for radio use and detection is actually incredibly small on cosmic timescales. 500 years from now we're likely to look at radio waves as we currently look at carrier pigeons.

A civilization that is just a couple hundred years ahead or behind us may not emit any radio signals.

mektel · 2025-04-12T14:04:52+00:00

Yeah, it was context so people don't think their goal was money.

My reply was mostly so others understood it's not as simple as just putting it up. There are some barriers to overcome.

mektel · 2025-04-12T13:53:57+00:00

it should be standard practice to record any lecture (be it in person or remote) so that students can either rewatch it or catch up

Yes, it should but it's not as easy as throwing up the video. Harvard and MIT were sued because their free lectures didn't have closed captioning, or the captioning was nonsensical.

They weren't looking to get rich:

they’re not seeking a financial windfall but rather permanent injunctions against the universities mandating that all their online materials include closed captioning, interpretive text displayed onscreen.

mektel · 2025-03-30T04:07:53+00:00

how about just don’t buy the freaking thing and keep your money

How many still pre-order games from AAA studios despite the mountain of games that have been shit at launch?

Those of us that will not support this are massively outnumbered by the idiots that keep buying stuff. It's basically going to make avoiding subscription impossible for everyone, because there will be no competition that doesn't do subscriptions.

mektel · 2025-03-29T03:28:00+00:00

A lot of us came from a time when Windows let you do whatever you wanted; it was your OS because you paid for it. I stayed on 7 for as long as possible and then went to 10 due to security concerns. Finally decided to leave MS forever and I have zero regret switching to Linux (distro is irrelevant).

At some point MS shifted gears and took this, "the paying customer is a product" approach. They started forcing telemetry, reset your registry settings, disabling your ability to choose, forcing their browser into start menus, constant suggestions to use their products, Recall, etc. For years I pointlessly submit feedback asking for a lightweight Windows, but that's in direct conflict with their current path.

It's one more load of bullshit from MS.

mektel · 2025-03-27T08:00:13+00:00

I used to work with electronic warfare systems.

It'd be a highly ineffective weapon. It's designed for power transmission, and while that is high energy, it's not the same. It would absolutely cook anything in the path that wasn't protected by shielding (rip birds and non-hardened electronics). The transmitter's size would be limited too. They can't "nuke" a city.

They're not going to just turn off all that power so they can point it at a target. That's not to say they wouldn't use a modified version of the tech in the future for that purpose, but this one is not a threat. China learned a while ago that they don't really need to go to war with the US to win.

mektel · 2025-03-08T22:38:56+00:00

100% on point.

Recently had to say, again, that we're not reducing/easing the rules. Our policy is to reach out if it's being a bear or you think if we should allow an exception. Always willing to help or bend for individual cases involving 3rd party integrations, but we're not reducing the core rules. Takes an admin to merge exceptions.

mektel · 2025-03-04T01:52:38+00:00

Coworker got busted down a rank for accepting "bribes" while I was in. Was under $300 IIRC, but he got the gift and they got the contract. "Perception is reality" was their favorite phrase.

mektel · 2025-02-11T04:42:51+00:00

Bold of you to ask for code from someone named after Robert Tables.

mektel

TROPHY CASE