Hacker News: stolenmerch

New comment by stolenmerch in "Dungeons and Dragons rolls the dice with new rules about identity"

stolenmerch — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 21:40:52 +0000

Apology accepted

New comment by stolenmerch in "Dungeons and Dragons rolls the dice with new rules about identity"

stolenmerch — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:58:58 +0000

I'm getting downvoted simply for giving examples, thus proving my point. But if you need a concrete example, I once had a DM include a drag show in-game.

New comment by stolenmerch in "Dungeons and Dragons rolls the dice with new rules about identity"

stolenmerch — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 17:40:56 +0000

I believe you, but that's not the case everywhere. I've had DMs who have put drag shows in our game as part of tavern entertainment, for example. Even though I have no problem with them in real life, I have no desire to see them in my fantasy game because it just reminds me of contemporary culture war shenanigans. When questioned on it or asked if we could not do that, I've received nothing but pushback. Stuff like that.

New comment by stolenmerch in "Dungeons and Dragons rolls the dice with new rules about identity"

stolenmerch — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 17:18:26 +0000

Mostly political agendas that spill over from the real world, often surrounding themes of social justice and left-wing activism but sometimes right wing fascist themes as well. I just find it infuriating to have the DM shoehorn their extremist political views into a game. Especially with the leftist DMs, I've found that I'm usually expected to reinforce their beliefs and not question them, even with provided X-Cards or the like.

New comment by stolenmerch in "Dungeons and Dragons rolls the dice with new rules about identity"

stolenmerch — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 16:21:30 +0000

A problem with the X-Card concept is that it can only be used within the pre-existing Overton Window of the group anyway, so you might as well ditch it in favor of normal social negotiation. For example, X-Card guidelines always tell players they can use it to block anything they're uncomfortable with. However, you'll quickly learn you can't use it to block political ideology from the DM, even if you legitimately find it triggering and distressing.

New comment by stolenmerch in "Elon Musk wanted an OpenAI for-profit"

stolenmerch — Fri, 13 Dec 2024 21:14:03 +0000

I remember serious discussions about how we'd probably need to repave all of our sidewalks in the US to accommodate the Segway

New comment by stolenmerch in "What do you visualize while programming?"

stolenmerch — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 21:43:00 +0000

I visualize some geographic location either in my home town where I grew up or in my current city. It's so vivid that I actually drive through some neighborhoods and can instantly recall what I was working on. I have a map with pins in each location I've visualized and what problem I was working on.

Does anyone know the status of sdnotes.com?

stolenmerch — Fri, 11 Oct 2024 16:34:20 +0000

I heard about this site on HN about 5 years ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21050636) and have been a regular user ever since. It's been down for a few days and I can't find any info on whether it's temporary or the original author has decided to end the project.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41810959

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by stolenmerch in "Steven Hawking's time traveller party"

stolenmerch — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 19:31:48 +0000

Exactly, there are numerous reasons other than it's not possible.

1.Time-travel will never become possible.

2.Time-travel becomes possible. Their time travel capabilities are inadequate to visit us.

3.Time-travel becomes possible. They do not wish to visit us.

4.Our archiving and preservation techniques are inadequate. Our message does not reach the future.

5.Time travel becomes possible. They are willing and able to travel to the past. Our archiving and preservation techniques are adequate. The message has not been accessed in its future database.

6. Time travel becomes possible. They are willing and able to travel to the past. Our archiving and preservation techniques are adequate. We are not able to perceive or become aware of their visitation.

New comment by stolenmerch in "Steven Hawking's time traveller party"

stolenmerch — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 19:08:26 +0000

Bebe Williams published this idea in issue #14 of Strange Magazine (1994) and has published the book "Instructions for Meeting Time Travellers"

https://www.artcomic.com/timetravel/intro.html

New comment by stolenmerch in "D&D is Anti-Medieval"

stolenmerch — Mon, 16 Sep 2024 12:19:25 +0000

It's just campaign rules for Chainmail, their medieval weapon combat rules invented for the already existing Elastolin and Starlux figures. It was a system for wargamers much more interested in the weapon speed of pole arms rather than accurate political and social structure. They needed a world of treasure and magic to fuel the adventures, so a setting of accumulated Appendix N source material was pieced together into an entirely new setting.

New comment by stolenmerch in "Real-Estate Shopping for the Apocalypse"

stolenmerch — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 02:13:06 +0000

Let's try to calculate an optimal prepping strategy using a back-of-the-envelope Bayesian approach with expected utility. We need to estimate the probability of a societal collapse along with its potential severity. Then, assign utility values to each combination of severity and prepping actions. I think we can actually make informed choices here instead of pretending we know how a highly chaotic, future system might function.

Prepping actions could be anything from a well-stocked pantry to fully equipped underground bunker.

EU(A) = P(C) * Σ[P(S | C) * U(S, A)]

EU(A) is the expected utility of prepping action A

P(C) is the probability of a collapse occurring

P(S | C) is the conditional probability of a specific severity S given a collapse

U(S, A) is the utility of action A given severity S

We can leave it to the reader to make their own decisions.

New comment by stolenmerch in "The rich history of ham radio culture"

stolenmerch — Sun, 28 Jul 2024 19:28:04 +0000

I got my Technicians license about a year ago but have struggled to find much to do with it. I check into my local nets every once and a while, but the repeaters are nearly silent otherwise. The CW privileges are ok but hard to use. Seems you need a General to do all the cool stuff. Any other technicians here who have found a great use for the license?

New comment by stolenmerch in "Costco starts to sell 'apocalypse bucket' with food that lasts 25 years"

stolenmerch — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 15:03:02 +0000

No, I have it stashed in the basement. I made it through a natural disaster in my area in the middle of a global pandemic and wasn't even tempted to crack it open once. Hope I never will.

New comment by stolenmerch in "Costco starts to sell 'apocalypse bucket' with food that lasts 25 years"

stolenmerch — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 11:50:55 +0000

They didn't just start, they've been selling these off-and-on for years. I have a 25 year food bucket I bought right around the financial crisis 15 years ago.

New comment by stolenmerch in "Everyone Is Judging AI by These Tests. Experts Say They're Close to Meaningless"

stolenmerch — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 13:39:07 +0000

5 years ago I was running GPT-2 and generating D&D content with it. I expected much better text prediction loop and here we are.

New comment by stolenmerch in "Ask HN: What's the oldest file on your computer?"

stolenmerch — Sun, 23 Jun 2024 19:28:05 +0000

A text file of a list of people from December 12, 1981. Originally had it on a floppy for the IBM PC 5150 and it's made the leap somehow to every new system for over 40 years.

New comment by stolenmerch in "Doom Running on a Toothbrush"

stolenmerch — Thu, 29 Feb 2024 13:20:36 +0000

They simply used the wrong link, its not really a lack of account or hostile UI

New comment by stolenmerch in "I don't want anything your AI generates"

stolenmerch — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:18:03 +0000

Because the effects of my actions in this case have yet to be demonstrated, let alone shown to cause harm. The author claims there is expoititive harm to labor, the environment, and maybe others. That is not at all obvious or provably true yet. As I said, I'm open to the discussion, but I can't defend myself in good faith when people claim some slam dunk moral certitude. Again, don't use generative AI if it makes you feel bad, but there is absolutely nothing clear cut yet about this radically brand new technology.

New comment by stolenmerch in "I don't want anything your AI generates"

stolenmerch — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 23:35:28 +0000

> I don't think this article even remote attempts this claim.

It's in the first sentence, "AI output is fundamentally derivative and exploitative (of content, labor and the environment)."