But I do try and save the (usually pretty small) menus just in case I can figure out how to get them running at some point. VLC can run the menu with the large videos stripped out. I still need to check, but I assume I could create a single iso file that would run as a "menu." I guess I'll see.

I find DVDs to be an interesting technology all the way down to the often absurd special features they have (my favorite? On the Tango & Cash DVD they have actor biographies in which they mispell Jack Palance's birthname).

Otherwise started on a saga of going straight through The Expanse series. Haven't done a big series straight through since a >1 year re-read of Wheel of Time so I'm excited for that.

My brother-in-law thinks he's crazy, and obviously it only really works if it is practical to run the wire and you can afford the number, but for my relatively small house it is insane how little I think about my internet. It is one of those quality of life things I never would have realized with having someone come and do it for me.

I guess the only thing is some of the ceilings get a little crowded with lights + fire alarm + CO alarm + HVAC in/out + AP, so for small rooms it can be a challenge to figure out where to put things. But in that case I mean ... you don't need one per room. My father-in-law is crazy like a fox ... but he's also a little crazy like a crazy person.

To me there are two ways to approach the problem I think you are thinking of (sample variance I think).

(1) The sample variance depends on the sample mean which is sum(x_i) / n. Given the first n-1 of n samples, you would then know the final value (x_n = n * sample_mean - sum(x_i)_(n-1)) so at the very least n-1 could be understood as a "degrees of freedom". There are only n-1 degrees of freedom. Other higher sample moments can be roughly understood with the same degrees of freedom argument. This could be wrong though, it was just something I remember from somewhere.

(2) The more mathematically inclined way is that biased_sample_variance = sum((x_i - sum(x_i) / n)^2) / n. The mean of the biased_sample_variance (across many iterations of a set of samples N), is not the population variance, but (n - 1) / n * population_variance (i.e. it is biased). So you multiply the biased_sample_variance by (n / (n - 1)) which gives the unbiased sample_variance equation: sum((x_i - sum(x_i) / n)^2) / (n - 1). The math is rather fun in my opinion, once you get into the swing of things.

I sure do hope I understood your question correctly.

I'll go ahead and second Planetfall though, which I saw someone else mention. For anyone else curious, I would put it on the "easier than Zork" side and is a rare text adventure I completed without any look-ups. I really really liked it. Save often. RTFM (in particular you'll want to look up the list of allowed verbs any time you get stuck). Those are the two helpful hints I would give to anyone thinking to themselves that they might want to try a classic text adventure.

Actually maybe more helpful would be to play something like Space Quest which has the same sensibility as text adventures (in that they often feel cruel to the user intentionally...) but is somewhat more accessible. Space Quest in particular shares a lot of DNA with planetfall all the way down to starring space janitors.

On most of them I've tried it doesn't seem to do much, but I do now use them to try and get crossword clues where I know bits that are often too abstract for crossword solvers.

e.g. "a word that is six letters, is related to royalty, and has a state abbreviation in it" (this isn't a real clue, just an example of a clue that an LLM is much better suited than something like Nutrimatic or a crossword solver)

I would be curious to hear if / how others us LLMs for abstract riddles/puzzles like that though.

I think the guy who created it died long ago and the legal office which was meant to verify the prize is also maybe defunct (?). I'm also skeptical the "stone" would be wherever it was meant to be at this point anyways (similar to a number of the boxes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_(treasure_hunt) are theorized to be now inaccessible or destroyed).

Anyways, people are still trying to solve it. Last I heard someone claimed that they and their friends had paired all the clues in some way and were close to solving it, but they were very cagey about it. That was over a year ago I think.

https://bluerenga.blog/2021/07/27/alkemstone-all-the-clues/