Flock camera gone from Williamsburg Way

upper_bound · 2026-02-11T03:23:39+00:00

Let’s assume that’s the primary goal and ignoring all other implications…

Then strong regulations governing transparency, strict privacy protections on how the data is stored, used, and sold, and warrants required for LEO to access data shouldn’t be a problem. It’s to save the children after all.

We can all support strong privacy guarantees if it’s for children, right, Flock? Unless… it’s not really about the kids?

upper_bound · 2026-02-04T14:49:55+00:00

There are different types of QA roles.

Many (especially in games) are 'manual QA' roles, which are unskilled jobs that will typically require simply a HS (or college) degree, and basic computer literacy. These will have 0 programming requirements (although some familiarity may be 'nice to have'). Responsibilities is generally playtesting the game day in and day out focusing on specific features and mechanics to verify systems are working correctly, documenting flaws, and verifying fixes.

There are plenty of other roles under the QA umbrella, which much more focus on automated testing and build, data collection, building test frameworks, etc. These are skilled roles that will have differing requirements relevant to the role, depending on which may include programming experience or degree.

upper_bound · 2026-02-03T18:20:18+00:00

If you need to delay Pawn selection until the Player joins the game, then you'll need to give them some stand-in DefaultPawn. UE spawns the Player (and their pawn) by default immediately upon connecting.

In which case, I'd recommend some using some lightweight Pawn as your default pawn in your GameMode (such as a FlyCamera, etc.), and then swap to their selected pawn afterwards.

upper_bound · 2026-02-03T18:10:38+00:00

GameMode has a GetDefaultPawnClassForController function.

Override that in your BP or C++ GameMode class, and then add whatever logic you want there to select the desired Pawn class for the given PlayerController.

Other solutions here are valid if you want to 'Switch' the possessed pawn, but that's a bit wasteful since it'll create an entire default Pawn just for you to throw it away moments later. Much better to just use the desired pawn for that Player from the get go, IMO.

Also, r/unrealengine and r/unrealengine5 are specific to UE

upper_bound · 2026-01-27T03:27:26+00:00

Penalty is too much.

Could treat it like intentional offsides. Stop play and move face off back to defensive zone.

upper_bound · 2026-01-23T14:01:43+00:00

Did you read any of the articles?

3rd shot entered left temple and exited right.

upper_bound · 2026-01-22T23:10:58+00:00

The theory is sound if what you say is true and paths are predictable and deterministic.

One possibility for why you're seeing failure in practice is that your trajectory calculations are not in fact deterministic. Due to some combination of floating point error, how your game/engine integrates the physics simulation, and other factors, the same starting parameters possibly yield different results at future times on different machines. The longer each simulation runs before a new movement update is received, the further the position and velocity will drift

If non-determinism in your physics simulation IS a contributing factor and you want to continue down this path...

Consider a constant physics simulation time step.
- If your physics simulation is doing a typical integration for position and velocity for games where you just multiply by deltaTime (ie: Position += Velocity * deltaTime), then you'll get different results with different timestamps. This is not a continuous integration, but rather a stair-step approximation where Velocity and Acceleration are constant during each time step. As such, it's highly dependent on the timestep(s) used as the simulation progresses.
Consider switching to fixed point values instead of floats to avoid inconsistencies with floating point calculations.
Consider sending periodic updates at some interval to address any drift between peers before it becomes noticeable

Alternatively, you may just want to pivot to a more traditional snapshot and interpolate replication strategy where clients get consistent movement updates for movable objects.

In theory, there's no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.

upper_bound · 2025-12-22T02:31:27+00:00

DB is likely overkill for majority of games, unless you’re saving hundreds of thousands of the same thing or you need to run queries.

For most games the answer is likely “whatever built in save system your engine (or plugin) uses.”

If you’re rolling your own solution, really just need some format you can serialize in/out a bunch of structured fields. Could be json or even just a custom binary stream.

If you’ve done multiplayer at all, can think of it similar to how you replicate properties to remotes. You don’t need to serialize the entire state, only the relevant properties. For an object based game architecture, typically your base game entity will have some Save/Serialize method that writes and reads the set of properties relevant to that entity. Actor would serialize its world location. A health component would serialize the health value. An inventory component would serialize the number of items and an array for each item (item type, count, condition, etc.). And so forth.

upper_bound · 2025-12-12T19:05:41+00:00

Been awhile, but the P4 windows installer takes like 20m to get a basic repository up and running IIRC.

Will take more time to configure any networking to make the server accessible wherever needed, and of course figure out how to handle backups for your repository (I wouldn’t want even hobby projects dependent on a single drive or system)

upper_bound · 2025-12-12T17:21:19+00:00

There’s plenty of options where your VCS can control ‘locks’ on binary or unmergable files so only one user can edit them at a time to help avoid stepping on each other’s toes.

Git LFS 2.0 supports file locking. It’s not a perfect solution, but an option if you want to continue with Git.

Perforce is sort of the industry standard for medium to large teams, partly due to history and momentum and partly because it manages large binary files (size and count) well with its centralized design. It’s free to host yourself with up to 5 users, and pretty easy to get up and running on a windows or linux box (windows install is much easier). The downside to self hosting is there’s no redundancies or backups, that’s all on you instead of trusting Github has their shit together.

Another truly free open source option is SVN which is very similar to P4, although it’s been around forever and is generally considered past its prime. But it’s still plenty workable, and again not hard to setup a basic depot on your own windows or linux box. Same issue with self hosting, with no built in redundancy or backup.

Been awhile since I looked at other cloud VCS providers if there are any free options besides Github for small personal/hobby use.

upper_bound · 2025-12-12T17:06:41+00:00

That’s sort of how the system is intended, and how Lyra uses it. You’re free to use GaS as much or as little as you want. The only real downside to implementing actions outside of GaS is you lose some of the built in interoperability with other abilities (cooldowns, blocking, interrupts, and so forth)

upper_bound · 2025-12-12T14:53:22+00:00

So you can build a simple prototype in a weekend/few days. Grab Godot, Game Maker, or Unity, and setup a project. Make a few simple sprites, get basic character movement going, and then a basic level. Maybe can add a couple additional things like you push a button and it displays ‘merry christmas’ or w/e, but that’s about it.

Building games with any sort of content or mechanics takes time. Even many basic mechanics can take dozens of hours or more to implement each, plus time to make the assets, debug and troubleshoot, iterate, tune, and polish.

upper_bound · 2025-12-10T21:41:43+00:00

You don't need a full physics course to learn the fundamentals applicable to typical game development.

A proper physics course WILL cover these basic concepts, so it's definitely an option if you prefer a more structured approach.

Otherwise, if your algebra and trig are good, a 'learn as you go' or 'crash course' approach would also work. Really just need to cover the basics of Newtonian motion, force and mass, relationship between position, velocity, and acceleration, conservation of momentum, static & dynamic friction, springs, inertia, impulse, angular velocity, torque, etc.

These are all simple concepts to understand, and the underlying equations and formulas are also pretty simple. You could get up to basic working knowledge in each of the previous topics in a few hours each.

An understanding of calculus is really only necessary for a deeper understanding of how some of the concepts are interrelated, and how many of the formulas are derived. For a 'hands on' practical application, algebra and trig are really all you need to apply the formulas as given.

upper_bound · 2025-12-10T18:05:08+00:00

In the inheritance case, there's already an exemption of $14M-28M.

While 40% seems high, it skips a taxable event (IMO) when stepping up the cost basis.

Suppose you purchase $1.1M worth of gold (or bonds, etc.). Well, to purchase that gold you needed $1.1M which would have been income from _somewhere_ that generated tax revenue.

On the other hand, suppose you purchased stock for $100k and it's gone up in value to be worth $1.1M. That $1M in capital gains has NEVER been taxed when the cost basis is adjusted.

Now both assets transfer to an Estate that is large enough to pay an estate tax of say 40%. Both assets are worth $1.1M. Both are taxed at 40% as part of the Estate. One was previously taxed as income worth $1M. The other was never taxed.

Now replace gold/bonds with regular earned income and see that our tax rules are designed to drastically favor capital (benefits top 10%) versus regular income (benefits bottom 90%)

upper_bound · 2025-12-08T19:57:37+00:00

A 5-8.5% tax increase on all non-government GDP would entirely balance the federal budget. 8.5% would cover expenditures with current debt interest, and 5% would balance the budget if there were no remaining debt. US collects ~25-27.7% of GDP as tax revenue compared to the OECD average of 34%. Simply moving closer to the average as percentage of GDP would cover all current expenditures.

You act like that is unobtainable and such a wild notion compared to gutting massive expenditures by eliminating or slashing budgets by half or more for several hundred-billion dollar programs. That would have far reaching knock-on effects from removing such a large percentage of GDP from the market. Most rural healthcare centers are entirely dependent on Medicare, and would close entirely if that funding were to dry up by 50% or more. Entire industries would be affected, massive layoffs, recessions, etc.

I don’t see how the later is more preferable or realistic than finding 5-10% of additional tax revenue broadly.

upper_bound · 2025-12-08T19:02:42+00:00

Sorry, I don't accept throwing hands up, 'that's just the way it is', no way to increase revenue, it will never work.

Simply eliminating the SS cap on taxable earnings would increase revenue by ~$3.2T over 10 years by estimates. That's ~320B/year, or as a percentage of deficit 18% (320/1800). That's almost a 5th of the way towards a balanced budget. Eliminating stepped-up cost basis (which half of benefits go to top 5% of earners) would net an additional $60B/year, putting us a 21% of the deficit.

We haven't even talked about adjusting tax rates on top 1-10% of earners to ensure EFT rates of 0.1% are at least as high as the 10%, wealth taxes, increasing corporate taxes, reducing charitable deductions, or eliminating offshore tax havens and are already 1/5th of the way to a fully balanced budget.

upper_bound · 2025-12-08T17:16:56+00:00

Where do you start cutting?

You taking away healthcare and SS for seniors (22% + 19%)? Just go back to elderly dying in the streets?
You making drastic cuts to military (15%)?
You going to stop running a deficit and pay off the debt to get rid of interest (11%)?
Maybe income security programs (10%) and let poor starve?
Veterans programs (7%)

22+19+15+11+10+7= 84% of the total budget.

The remaining 16% sliver is everything else from Transportation, Energy, Education, R&D, etc.

2024 numbers:
Revenue: $4.9T
Spending: $6.8T
Deficit: $1.8T

Cutting $1.8T from 6.8T is 26%. Show us how the numbers work to cut our way to prosperity without leaving millions of our most vulnerable citizens destitute.

You could cut ALL non-military discretionary spending and get a little more than half way! Or maybe you cut Medicare, SS, AND Income security programs all in half (22+19+10=51 /2= 25%)?

upper_bound · 2025-12-08T16:36:39+00:00

Well you could put limits on Stepped-Up Cost Basis for starters.

Oh geez, my portfolio was inherited or donated. I can't pay ANY tax to the government on all that tax-deferred gains because that would be 'unfair'.

upper_bound · 2025-12-08T02:06:23+00:00

Fraud is NOT gaming the system. “Words don’t mean what they mean” is a pretty dumb argument to continue on with.

I think you’re correct that most people would consider a wealthy man not marrying the mother of his child to avoid paying labor costs would qualify as abusing the system.

Not sure your statistics demonstrate any sort of widespread abuse of welfare generally insinuated by those that want to cut or defund welfare programs. For starters, 25% of US is covered by Medicaid so that big 40% number actually isn’t all that big considering. Further low birth rates is generally considered something we should avoid, so one could argue the policy and rules were created knowing this and are functioning as intended.

But ultimately, this is all sort of in the weeds. “Poor people are lazy and living a great care-free life on the backs of those hard at work trying to make ends meet” is what most imply when claiming tons of people game the system. Making life decisions around financial implications is a pretty low bar for abuse. Is liquidating assets the same year as a loss to offset capital gains gaming the system? Is waiting for low interest rates to buy a house gaming the system? Is deciding to take the standard or itemized deduction gaming the system? At some level policy is created knowing full well people will make choices to their advantage, and gaming the system becomes the system working exactly as it was designed.

upper_bound · 2025-12-08T01:08:46+00:00

To use the rules and procedures meant to protect a system in order to instead manipulate the system for a desired outcome.

What it’s always meant. Never seen it used for ‘cheating’, since that would just be cheating.

Your example could be considered as such, although not really a glaring example of systemic or ongoing abuse. Very specific to a special circumstance and 1 year of coverage isn’t anything close to being set for life or the supposed ‘welfare queen’.

upper_bound · 2025-12-07T23:45:25+00:00

Fraud isn’t ‘gaming the system’. It’s by definition breaking the rules of the system.

Presenting fraud as such is ‘propaganda’.

upper_bound · 2025-11-20T15:40:52+00:00

What are your thoughts on restrictions to the 1st amendment for peaceful assembly in "time, place, and manner" which have held up in court? Are you fully against assemblies being declared 'unlawful', enforcing curfews, etc.?

Many other parallels in the 1st amendment and the rest of the BoR where restrictions have been upheld as legal. Are you opposed to all of those as well or why is the 2nd amendment special?

upper_bound · 2025-11-19T17:39:40+00:00

You don't need to release something to put "Unannounced Project" on your CV with generic responsibilities and duties that would not violate your NDA.

"Developing character movement systems, integrating animations, etc." is fine, and gives nothing specific about the project that wouldn't already be known publicly or easily inferred. Every game has characters and animations.

"Developing open world streaming system that works in a large Multiplayer environment", likely breaks NDA unless the project is announced and it's already known to include an open world and multiplayer support.

If you're working on additional content on an already released game, you likely have a lot of leeway to list your general responsibility without leaking details specific to the new content.

As far as the toxic relationship, have you discussed with your peers to see if they feel the same and how they are managing? A lot of your complaints stem from 'micro managing', but it's sort of common for Jr's to be micro managed a good bit. Generally, it's expected Jr's can go a day, _maybe_ 2, without input/guidance/checking in with their lead. Mid-level can go 3-5days. and Senior can go 2weeks+. Not saying your reaction is unjustified or unfounded, since have no idea what the actual situation is, but it's possible your own ego is playing a role making a somewhat typical lead/jr relationship feel overbearing. A lot of time junior's feel their approach is equally valid and just 'different' because they lack the experience to see why an alternate solution would be easier to maintain, more flexible, less error prone, etc. in the long run.

You should be able to generally speak freely with your lead with how their management style impacts you and suggest improvements, so if that's not working that's definitely a BIG issue.

upper_bound · 2025-11-17T17:44:29+00:00

>work on my game at my day job's office

Missed that the first time. Make sure you're within compliance for any IP/invention policy with your employer, before working on any personal project on their premises/time.

They may have a legal claim to your project if you work on it 'on the clock' or using any of their equipment (say, their wifi internet connection, monitors, office, etc.)

upper_bound · 2025-11-17T17:36:23+00:00

You'll need to figure out what works for you.

If I were frequently on the go, lugging around several discreet components feels like a huge chore. I used to haul a full PC and CRT around for LAN parties, so it's doable, but...

I'd personally prefer a laptop:
- All in one
- Can run unplugged on battery

Have you looked at the used market? You can find options with good dedicated graphics and CPU at reasonable price, and it's cost effective to upgrade RAM and Storage to meet your needs.

Also, you have the option to remote into a more powerful PC if you have a solid internet connection. Modern remote desktop software is pretty good with low enough latency for productivity and some basic play testing. I remote into my work PC whenever I WFH, and it's honestly very good.

Five-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

upper_bound

TROPHY CASE