@peterdrake@qoto.org
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

peterdrake

@peterdrake@qoto.org

CS professor, game designer, and fire dancer ordinaire.

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peterdrake, to random
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Mastodon will appreciate this display case in our physics building.

peterdrake, to random
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frantically pressing numbers on keypad I'm in!

Convenience store clerk: Sir, that's a microwave oven.

peterdrake, to cascadia
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It's (asymptotically) done!

You can now play an early access version of our second earthquake game, Cascadia 9.1, free on the web:

https://peterdrake.itch.io/cascadia-91-internal-test

Please give it a try and tell us what's still confusing or broken.

(We're not looking for design ideas at this stage, but we might be when we start designing the third game in a matter of weeks.)

peterdrake, to portland
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In the Portland, OR area? Disabled? Concerned about emergency preparedness? Want to make a few bucks?

--
Open to all persons with disabilities in the Portland metro area. ‘AIM-4-Access will be hosting several listening sessions for people with disabilities who live in the Portland Metro area from October 2023 to January 2024. We are offering a stipend of $125 in the form of a gift card if you participate in a listening session (approximately 1.5 - 2 hours) and all the required paperwork.’ Application: https://bit.ly/3s59NMl If you have any questions or need assistance completing the form, please email Erin at taylorridler@aim-4-access.com

peterdrake, to random
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"You're not dealing with a computer that can't do what you've asked of it. You're dealing with a computer that won't do it. That computer was programmed to check whether its owner was doing something that the manufacturer disliked, and, when necessary, defend the manufacturer's shareholders by disobeying its owner." - Giblin &@pluralistic, Chokepoint Capitalism

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I’ve never heard anyone make a passionate case for keeping “money in politics” never heard anybody defend Citizens United. From left to right voters agree: lobbyists & big money are bad.

Problem is: “from left to right” politicians don’t want to talk about it. They don’t agree. Same for the rule to stop congress members from holding stock. They benefit too much & are too certain of their incorruptibility even as the whole institution sinks.

How do we extract ourselves from this oubliette?

peterdrake,
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@futurebird We pass campaign finance laws at the local level and work upward. For example:

https://www.portland.gov/elections/campaign-finance

Bills to ban congressional trading are regularly introduced -- we "just" need to elect more people who will support them.

peterdrake, to random
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Grant me the serenity to do by hand the things I cannot automate,
the skill to automate the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

peterdrake, to random
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@futurebird Are you aware of this?

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/156496/march-ants

I haven't played it, but I've met the designer.

peterdrake, to random
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

Another insightful banger from @pluralistic:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

This one focuses on LLMs and the idea of the "reverse centaur", where a robot does the fun stuff while a human does the tedious, error-prone work.

I'll note from the periphery that, despite the current hype, AI is more than LLMs. There are other AI systems (e.g., Chess and Go players, VLSI design tools) that do have an internal model of the domain about which they are reasoning. Unfortunately, there's a slippery continuum:

  • solves the problem perfectly and deterministically
  • significantly outperforms any human
  • about as good as an expert human, but makes different, weird mistakes
  • meh, output looks vaguely plausible
peterdrake, to boardgames
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If you're doing , come mid-September you're going to want a copy of Siva Afi: The Fireknife Dance of Samoa.

https://www.thegamecrafter.com/games/siva-afi:-the-fireknife-dance-of-samoa

Since thegamecrafter.com is a print-on-demand shop, it's best to order now.

peterdrake, to random
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L. L. Bean stands for Large Language Bean. @lowqualityfacts

peterdrake, to Baduk
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If you're interested in learning the classical Asian game of Go, widely regarded as the pinnacle of elegant game design, the Portland (Oregon) Go Club is teaching beginners are local libraries:

https://portlandgoclub.com/2024-intro-to-go-workshops

peterdrake, to random
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Me, first thing in the morning: So, if you were going to open a fantasy bookstore, you could call it Brick & Mordor.

@htdrake, without missing a beat: But nobody would want to go there! You don't just walk into Mordor.

Barney and Robin from "How I Met Your Mother" high fiving.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

What is the thing(s) that attracts you to a person romantically or otherwise?

peterdrake,
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@RickiTarr I think there should be a podcast where, every episode, the panel discusses some attractive trait submitted by a listener and decides whether it's considered so because of (a) evolutionary psychology, (b) the patriarchy, or (c) nobody else thinks that's sexy, ya big perv.

peterdrake, to random
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It turns out ZZ Top's 1973 song La Grange is not, in fact, about orbital mechanics.

peterdrake, to random
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

A safe deposit box implies the existence of a dangerous deposit box.

Hcobb, to random
@Hcobb@spacey.space avatar

The first rule of Space Vikings is that ships are faster than information.
Otherwise you're battling not raiding.

peterdrake,
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@Hcobb I still love the X-boat network.

ai6yr, to cycling

achievement unlocked. This cyclist went to the market. This cyclist did not stay home. This cyclist bought arugula and butter. This cyclist put it on the new rack and pedaled (wee! wee! wee!) uphill all the way home.

peterdrake,
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@ai6yr If the roads are bumpy enough, you can just buy cream and by the time you get home you'll have butter.

peterdrake, to random
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Ah, spring -- that brief, wonderful time of year when you can go outside without an environment suit or a protective layer of anti-radiation unguent.

peterdrake, to random
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Recurring recent problem.

Me: does a bunch of research to determine which device to buy waves around wad of cash

World-destroying consumerist capitalism: That model's not available.

#YouHadOneJob

peterdrake, to python
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Unit tests just paid off bigtime. An underlying python library changed the return type of one of its functions. If we hadn't written unit tests, our output would have been garbage, and if we even noticed it, finding out where in the pipeline things went wrong would have been a nightmare.

peterdrake, to random
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Our new Google Pixel phones have all sorts of neat camera features like "take a one-second video and grab the best single frame".

I thought, "Editing on a tiny phone touch screen is a huge pain. I'll just upload these pictures to Google Photos, made by the same company, and use those features there, where they will surely be available."

Reader, they are not.

peterdrake, to ArtificialIntelligence
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From Prince, Understanding Deep Learning.

peterdrake,
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@mrcompletely It would be even better if one of the equations involved his symbol.

I read a programming language textbook by a Dr. Scott, who included an example involving Brad and Janet.

peterdrake, to drawing
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Starting in on the protracted face drawing exercise from How To Draw With Photorealism by outlining the features.

1/

peterdrake,
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Hair. Finished!

/6

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