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

peterdrake

@peterdrake@qoto.org

CS professor, game designer, and fire dancer ordinaire.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

peterdrake, to programming
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

One of the things I like about is the ability to create anonymous lists, tuples, dictionaries, and sets right where they are needed.

[1, 2, 3] is a list literal.

Question: does [a, b, c], where a and so forth are variable names, count as a literal? If (as I suspect) not, what is the proper term?

peterdrake, to random
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

Why is it that whenever anyone proposes a new tax in Portland, they also propose a completely new mechanism for collecting it?

https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/04/26/may-2023-endorsements/

(Scroll down to the discussion of Measure 26-238.)

peterdrake, to random
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

Teardown is a pretty satisfying heist game that makes you feel clever. The key mechanism is that, after the first few missions, all of the things you need to steal are attached to an alarm system. You need to plan out your grab-and-run path carefully (taking as much time as you need) and then sprint for it (with the clock ticking).

peterdrake, to random
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

Final I tally for :

Ingenious
Innovation
*Innovation
Der Igelwettkampf

Previous fortnights:

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/308826/2023-alphabet-board-game-challenge?itemid=9512214#item9512214

maxmm77, to books
@maxmm77@toot.community avatar

Kids at a school by us made little libraries so we took some of our books over to fill them up. Art got a free ride (of course).

A little red box with books inside; a little library made by kids

peterdrake,
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

@maxmm77 In Corvallis, Oregon there is a little free library for dogs, where they can check out a stick.

mccarthymg, to random
@mccarthymg@fosstodon.org avatar

Hey #RStats fam, help me caption this plot. Wrong answers only.

(For context this comes from the contributor activity for all CRAN packages with an associated GitHub repo)

peterdrake,
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

@mccarthymg School shootings vs wokeness, 1620-2004, adjusted for inflation

peterdrake, to animals
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

A lazy Saturday morning for .

peterdrake, to random
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

The problem with umbrellas is that people are constantly leaving them places.

What we need is an umbrella holster that you can strap to your thigh for a Lara Croft / Han Solo look.

Surprisingly, a quick image search suggests that there are NOT hundreds of people selling such things on Etsy.

peterdrake,
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

@trinsec Yeah, but that would bounce around and be a problem when you sit down. I'm thinking particularly of a mass transit situation.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

When do we call it lynching again?

peterdrake,
@peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

@freemo @futurebird I assume we're talking about Jordan Neely.

cliffwade, (edited ) to fediverse
@cliffwade@allthingstech.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    peterdrake,
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    @cliffwade I've literally never heard if any of these except on Mastodon. When I follow a link to one (e.g., a PeerTube video) it's usually broken.

    peterdrake,
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    @2ck @cliffwade does anyone have examples of good peertube feeds?

    JimsPhotos, to animals
    @JimsPhotos@ohai.social avatar

    A 'Keeping Cats out of the garden' device.

    To many cats on my street, but they know not to come in Lola's Garden. Lola, is our protector of the birds. (Going to be important soon when the Bluetit fledglings emerge).

    peterdrake,
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    @JimsPhotos Our device would totally eat a bird if they weren't so fast.

    peterdrake, to random
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    We normally get the straight-into-the-bin garbage from Hillsdale College, but today's junk mail was bonkers.

    One item was a notification that I'd been nominated for "Who's Who" -- a scam I don't think I've seen since high school.

    The other was a 500-page book about the dangers of Catholicism.

    Daffy duck pulls handfuls of mail out of his box

    jpkmensah, to random

    One thing LOST did that people don't appreciate enough is cast a bunch of basically unknown actors in major roles. may yet surprise me but it spoils the tension when they threaten the death of a big name actor. If you're in the opening credits I simply don't believe you're in real danger

    peterdrake,
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    @jpkmensah Have you seen Executive Decision?

    peterdrake, to animals
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    and I made the cover of L&C Magazine.

    https://www.lclark.edu/live/news/51016-shaking-up-disaster-preparedness-with-video-games

    If you look at the actual cover and are VERY observant, you might notice something odd:

    https://www.lclark.edu/magazine/issue/index.php?season=Spring&year=2023

    Solution in the reply.

    peterdrake,
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    Did we do more than one photoshoot?

    No.

    Did we change pants mid-shoot?

    No, we did not.

    The color of the pants in the cover were edited to match the background.

    peterdrake, to random
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    Drowning in plastic.

    https://www.reuters.com/graphics/ENVIRONMENT-PLASTIC/0100B275155/index.html

    peterdrake, to random
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    The irony detectors at this newsletter are malfunctioning.

    In a story about Hinton leaving Google:

    "There are only so many tech ethicists, privacy, security, and social impact watchdogs. The best harm reduction approach is to have those resources focused on the most impactful bad outcomes. Google and Microsoft (less so, Twitter) have teams dedicated to safeguarding launches and watching how the landings are going. They’ve got some coverage! It's not perfect! But bad actors have far less safety coverage right now. Am I suggesting Microsoft, Google, and other big corporations are all good? No. But there are far worse actors out there with the opposite of ‘privacy by design’ and ‘do not hoard/do no harm’ principles."

    Literally the next paragraph of the newsletter:

    "FTC Takes a Veiled Warning Shot at Microsoft

    The FTC Business blog is turning into one of the juiciest tech reads these days. Michael Atleson took a warning shot at Microsoft, which laid off its ethics and society team in the first quarter of 2023, roughly the same time as it released Sydney, its ChatGPT-fueled bot that has already been retired after trying to convince New York Times reporter Kevin Roose he wasn’t in love with his wife."

    peterdrake,
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    The editor's reply when I pointed this out:

    I knew someone would pick up on the complexity.

    The argument in the first paragraph is that there are actors out there deliberately trying to do bad things (e.g. Russian actors trying to spread misinformation to weaken democracy in the US). That is likely to be worse than what will happen when large, well-established tech companies who do have teams dedicated to reviewing launches, try to do non-bad things. It is debatable exactly what tech companies are trying to do, but I don't think anyone is arguing that they are deliberately trying to spread misinformation.

    Google's layoff of Timnit and Margaret Mitchell (and later, Alex Hanna's resignation), did not shutter that team. There are other people still working in those roles, dedicated to thinking about the impact of AI. There are also teams of privacy reviewers, which is a little different, in all those companies.

    This type of gotcha - 'see! Big tech companies are terrible' - is more or less what I was trying to ask about. The big tech companies get a fair amount of coverage for their every move. They have led to harms. But there are other actors out there that are also creating harms - potentially much worse harms. There's far less coverage of those. There are several beat reporters assigned to cover Alphabet, Microsoft, and other big tech companies. There's nobody assigned to cover the data brokers, the unknown bad actors, etc. (Nicole Perlroth does a great job on cybersecurity, but she has to cover an entire field, not just one company.)

    I am glad you raised the point.

    grickle, to animals
    @grickle@mstdn.social avatar

    Happy Friday everyone!

    peterdrake,
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    @grickle Alt text: A cartoon of a stoned-looking cat flying above a neighborhood. Caption: The catnip had been particularly exceptional that morning.

    peterdrake, to gamedev
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    At the encouragement of chapter 1 of Bond, Introduction to Game Design, Prototyping, and Development (3e), I tried the very short game Passage:

    http://passage.toolness.org/

    Discussion (behind a spoiler CW) in the reply.

    peterdrake,
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    Bond says, "The important thing here is that [the designer] is giving players choice and demonstrating to them them that their choices matter."

    I had exactly the opposite experience. The convention in side-scrollers is that the goal is to get to the end by moving right, so I did that. There are no obstacles along the northern edge of the world, so I basically just held down the right arrow for several minutes until the game ended.

    I briefly tried going south, but it didn't seem to matter. The score counter seemed to be just a measure of how far to the right I'd moved.

    I never noticed the treasure chests Bond mentions.

    The supposed brilliant subtlety of this game was lost on me.

    But then, I'm the only person who didn't like Andor, so...

    pluralistic, to random
    @pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

    Thank god someone is finally normalizing shampoo.

    peterdrake,
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    @pluralistic It causes your hair to grow at right angles to your scalp.

    rhfinearts, to photography
    @rhfinearts@mstdn.social avatar

    This is one of my personal favorites. In Galveston, Tx looking out at the Gulf I turned around to see this tall ship sailing across the sand. Surreal, a mist rising off the wet sand and a Phantom Tall Ship sailing by on the other side of a sand dune. Something about light and mist gave the ship a ghostly appearance.

    The ART: https://tinyurl.com/5y2yxp83

    peterdrake,
    @peterdrake@qoto.org avatar

    @rhfinearts Weird -- that's the second "tall ship in an unexpected place" photo I've seen this morning.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • provamag3
  • kavyap
  • DreamBathrooms
  • cisconetworking
  • magazineikmin
  • InstantRegret
  • Durango
  • thenastyranch
  • Youngstown
  • rosin
  • slotface
  • mdbf
  • khanakhh
  • tacticalgear
  • JUstTest
  • everett
  • modclub
  • Leos
  • cubers
  • ngwrru68w68
  • ethstaker
  • osvaldo12
  • GTA5RPClips
  • anitta
  • megavids
  • normalnudes
  • tester
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •