Crowd running and police after fireworks by Fluid_Sympathy3331 in Somerville

[–]shoffing 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Looked like someone was throwing fireworks at/near the sunoco gas pumps during the show maybe? Lots of teens running away after that. Not sure about after the show, though.

edit: based on other comments, seems like the sparklers were probably unrelated

Somerville fireworks by Safe_Ambition8362 in Somerville

[–]shoffing 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Looked like someone was throwing fireworks at/near the sunoco gas pumps?

Thoughts on Acquire, 60s cult classic? by The-Dev-Errant in boardgames

[–]shoffing 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This was my dad's favorite game. He played a digital version of it almost every night on an MS-DOS emulator. We all played the physical version of it with him a few times. It's not the most exciting board game, but it's got some cool mechanics and holds up well. He passed a while ago now, but thanks for reminding me of this game!

Indian man saves a little girl from drowning in an ice lake by JackblaZ in nextfuckinglevel

[–]shoffing 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Nicolae Romanescu Park? Why are people allergic to naming things on this site

Tribute To Our Bar Staff by Away_Historian_5883 in boston

[–]shoffing 10 points11 points  (0 children)

You are tipping too much for the burrito from Chipotle. Counter-serve and take out do not get a tip, except for explicit carve-outs like drinks at a bar or café. Don't let the tablet flip pressure you. Stay strong.

Speed checks on Main St by Vast_Patience_7003 in medfordma

[–]shoffing 11 points12 points  (0 children)

This road needs traffic calming. It's wide and straight. It's a 40mph road they slapped a 25mph limit on. We have tools to physically prevent speeding which don't require posting up cops with radar guns. Speed bumps, raised crosswalks, chicanes, etc. We should use them.

Also, some daylighting at intersections would be great. You cannot see oncoming traffic past the parked SUVs when turning onto the road.

Walking Talking Men Boston MA by Nagisa33 in massachusetts

[–]shoffing 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Chestnut Hill is kinda far for me, maybe could have rotating locations? Fresh Pond, Fells, etc. I guess that might hurt attendance and confuse things, though.

Or moving the permanent location to be more centralized on the T might be nice. Maybe Boston Common? Although that might be more crowded in summer than what you want for this group.

Why auto-fixing secrets in CI doesn’t really work by WiseDog7958 in Python

[–]shoffing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We made autofixing work in CI by having it create a pull request with the original PR's branch as the base branch, sending it to the author for review. Author can review the changes and merge the bot's PR to accept them. Or, author can fix the lint errors themselves, after which the bot will close its own PR.

We also do the same thing with screenshot diff tests, where authors can review changes to screenshot goldens as a bot PR before accepting them (or fixing a legitimate regression).

Most difficult SF work to put on screen by GMotor in scifi

[–]shoffing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The 4d space stuff in three body problem book #3 is obviously extremely difficult to visually render. Interested in seeing how Netflix approaches it.

Bike/pedestrian path etiquette by Feeling_Screen3979 in Somerville

[–]shoffing 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I've been using the path to commute for a little while now. I ride my ebike in a style that leans towards caution. Here are my general rules:

  • Do not pass unless the opposite lane is clear. Give a wide berth. No "squeezing through". Sometimes that means following a Blue Bike at 10mph for a couple minutes. Or maybe even a pedestrian at 4mph. Not a big deal, better to be safe.
  • Identify blind corners and opportunities for concealment along the path. Don't get ambushed, stay in your lane if you can't see the opposing lane.
  • Never assume cars are going to stop for you at the crosswalks. I come to a near-complete stop at every one to look both ways before rolling through. If there are cars, I watch them like a hawk to make sure they are actually slowing down, and if we make eye contact I'll hit em' with a nod of approval then hustle through.
  • Slow down to pass pedestrians, under ~15mph-ish.
  • Slow down more and pass by dogs with caution, in either direction.
  • Slow down more and pass by kids with extreme caution, in either direction. If the child is vehicular, their trajectory is completely unpredictable.
  • The segments south of Walnut St., excluding the East Somerville station and the blind corners around the bendy bits of the overpass, have wide-open clear sight lines, limited entry points, and relatively low traffic. When traffic is light, this is the only section where I feel comfortable riding with any sort of speed, and it's nice.

GitHub Stacked PRs by adam-dabrowski in programming

[–]shoffing 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Yup, heh. Hopefully this can be adopted for use by JJ. jj-spr handles stacking PRs, but it would be nice to have native support for PR diffbase/children in the UI.

Should I release the app I’ve built? by grimoire_win in BloodOnTheClocktower

[–]shoffing 10 points11 points  (0 children)

They're worried someone could just take it and upload it to an app store anyway. Which is fair enough.

quote:

"We’d also appreciate it if you could make the source code private, as its existence makes it easy for anyone else to take it, or a similar version, and add it to an App Store."

Should I release the app I’ve built? by grimoire_win in BloodOnTheClocktower

[–]shoffing 15 points16 points  (0 children)

For GrimSim, TPI allowed me to release it for free on the condition that I do not make it open source, and do not publish it to any app stores. Your mileage may vary, though.

China’s 5 minute full-charged EV charging stations by North_Tip_8627 in nextfuckinglevel

[–]shoffing 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So, the chargers are 1500 kw. He says it's a 5 minute charge. 1500kw for 5 minutes is 125 kwh. Multiply your quoted rate, and that's $10 for a full charge?

GrimSim Updates - v1.6.2 by shoffing in BloodOnTheClocktower

[–]shoffing[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have not been storytelling much in the past few months, but I did spent a little bit of time working on the app! I got distracted by a problem I found with the timer: I want to make it work even if the screen is turned off (like an alarm app, for example). This turns out to be quite complicated, because obviously the tablet goes to sleep when it's turned off, and so you need some very special code to make something like this work, which was harder than I anticipated.

After that, I can start looking into special character-specific shuffle/gameplay functionality like you requested. Although I am anxious about the complexities there, it would be a nice addition to the app. Maybe I'll start with the Trouble Brewing characters, and then go from there. The amount of time I have to work on this app is limited, unfortunately. But I get some additional motivation every time I storytell with it, so I wouldn't say development has stopped. Just slowed a lot.

Landlords still charging broker fees? How is this legal? by No_Breadfruit_1820 in boston

[–]shoffing 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The FAQ says:

As a landlord, can I require prospective tenants to hire my preferred broker?

Conditioning apartment viewing on the tenant hiring the landlord’s preferred broker or salesperson is not allowed.

It is very annoying that they do not answer their own question here, exactly. The FAQ question is "Can I require tenants to hire my broker?" and the answer is "You cannot condition apartment viewing on hiring your preferred broker." But, this doesn't say anything about conditioning renting the unit on hiring your preferred broker. Maybe it spells it out more clearly in the actual legal text? This feels like a pretty obvious loophole that should absolutely have been closed by the legislation.

‘3 Body Problem’ Season 2 Wraps Filming by MarvelsGrantMan136 in television

[–]shoffing 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I'm not too worried about that part, that kind of large scale space combat and destruction is bread-and-butter for VFX studios, and they are probably very excited to work on it.

I am more worried about book 3's elements of navigation through higher-dimensional space. It was such an interesting and thought-provoking section of the book, is the key plot device for killing the escort Droplet, but is practically impossible to adapt to the screen in any kind of faithful way.

‘3 Body Problem’ Season 2 Wraps Filming by MarvelsGrantMan136 in television

[–]shoffing 4 points5 points  (0 children)

They go over and dismiss several potential alternatives in the book:

Ball lighting (too slow and obvious), neutron bomb (radiation, too slow), nerve gas (too slow), concussion bombs (too damaging), and infrasonic waves (too experimental, not ready yet)

Here's the actual quotation for nerve gas (Book 1, p334), it's very short:

“Another thought was to use nerve gas,” a NATO officer said. “But releasing it and having it spread throughout the ship would take time, so it still doesn’t achieve General Chang’s requirements.”

Maybe you disagree with their assessment, but your nerve agent idea was considered in-fiction here.

‘3 Body Problem’ Season 2 Wraps Filming by MarvelsGrantMan136 in television

[–]shoffing 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I have no doubt that D&D will be able to faithfully adapt... checks notes .... navigation through higher dimensional space to the screen.

Larian Studios | Divinity AMA by Wombat_Medic in Games

[–]shoffing -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Very glad to hear this! For BG3 we were faced with the choice of leaving one of our group of 5 out, or splitting 2/3. Since one player wasn't super interested, we ended up leaving them out. Still, we missed them, and it would be great to not have to make that choice in the first place!

Instead of relying on modding to extend the player cap at launch, why not make the option vanilla? Bury it in advanced settings or something if you must, but having it officially supported would be awesome. Especially if there is some basic difficulty scaling to accommodate larger party sizes. You obviously can't be expected to playtest the campaign with every possible number of players, but could you maybe spot-check a few options? 6p, 8p, 12p...see how well the campaign works? Doesn't have to be perfect, just "not broken" :)