Dynamically typed languages are garbage

[Zeuter]

^

[RageAgainstVoid]

But hey, at least they are garbage collected!

[RageAgainstVoid]

So wassup, dude. I hope you find a way to make good use of the summer. Run and sun!

It's not even necessary to make trade-offs anymore. The age of computational mobility truly is fantastic.

[Cassiel]

That's why I'm not fond of Python for large (i.e. real) codebases. Mypy makes it a lot nicer.

[Zeuter]

But hey, at least they are garbage collected!

A+

That's why I'm not fond of Python for large (i.e. real) codebases. Mypy makes it a lot nicer.

Agreed. It's a shame it's necessary if you want to use decent ML libraries.
It looks like we can upgrade to Python 3 sometime soon though, which thankfully has slightly more sane typing options.

Yesterday I chastised my coworker for writing a function with 2 different possible return types. I'm working on an interesting ML project right now, more to follow soon.

[RageAgainstVoid]

Awesome. Machine Learning is such a fascinating field, I'd love to hear more what you guys got yourself into.

I remember, 20 years ago when I was playing around alot with Half-Life 1, the maybe coolest part aside from mods was how active the bots community was. Somehow, HL1 was especially well suited to write your own bots for it. And so you saw all kinds of shit going down, and I loved testing them all out. So inspiring. You could even run several different bots at once, together or competing. There were even people experimenting with first simple neural networks for some decision making. So cool.

I still think AI is the next big thing for games too. First it was graphics, then physics, next gotta be AI, what it's all about.

And then that stuff is so cool for so many things other than gaming, it's some mind blowing shit for sure.

[RageAgainstVoid]

This just in: Roger Federer won Wimbledon for the eighth time, at almost 36 years old. Unreal, you gotta be fucking kidding me.

[Zeuter]

Looks like numpy ndarrays are as far as typing goes. You can't actually specify what's the datatype of the array in a function signature. That makes me sad.

[RageAgainstVoid]

[RageAgainstVoid]

Google & Co are becoming a problem. Time for them and their cronies to join the heap of corpses ala AOL, Yahoo, etc. Once again there gotta be some smart start-up to take advantage of their stupidity, right?

[Zeuter]

lol@culture war

Not a problem, just a symptom. Yes, I'm aware I'm linking to the Jewish Autism Nazi psychiatrist.

[RageAgainstVoid]

I don't even know what's more annoying, an ever more radicalized culture war, or large monopolistic entities trying to steer it their way.

The elites are always looking for a justification to implement large structures of censorship. Be they government, or companies so large and influential you may as well call them government, or some weird cronyism of it altogether.

Twenty years ago, it was all about protecting the children, then maybe it was about fighting terrorism, now their hook is protecting the women and fighting racism. Whatever it is, whatever sounds good enough. All you need is someone calling for your help, that's the power in your hands. And once you got that, you can do whatever.

And now Google is building the most powerful AI in the world to do their bidding.
While cleansing any dissenting viewpoints within their company.
Already test cleansing Wrong-Think everywhere.

You know, sometimes you sit there and wonder, maybe you should just let these stupid fucks have it their way. Let them have this fantastic future they so desperately wish for by any means. Maybe I really should just do them the favour and shut up, since it is guys like me who stand in the way of their great progress. Maybe I should just lay back and enjoy the last show. Sometimes it seems there is nothing worth saving anymore.

[Zeuter]

The guilty pay the price. Returning with souvenir of reprisal.

[RageAgainstVoid]

I'm starting to think similar about the immigration issue. Just let them have it their way. All the way.

I already consider converting to Islam, wouldn't want to offend the new majority culture.

I might become the greatest fan. Might miss the porn and beer and schnitzel,

but watching the liberation of women in front of my eyes definitely will be worth it.

[RageAgainstVoid]

Well, anyway.

You would have thought that the subversion of the universities is bad enough, but turns out it may be even worse in the big tech companies by now, via their human resource departments.

The other problem is, these tech companies got nothing better to do than social engineering on world scale. They seem clueless what else to do with their money.

And the solution to everything, is, of course, as usual, Marxism. First order of business, eliminate competitive market by monopoly, then eliminate freedom of speech in your customers.

So much for their motto "Don't be evil". Funny how this changes meaning now. It seems addressed more so at their audience than themselves. They are moral coding you.

Welcome to the Goolag.

[RageAgainstVoid]

I think I just found my favorite game "review" channel ever. videogamedunkey

[RageAgainstVoid]

Blizzard released a powerful API for SC2 to develop AI. Anyone can make bots now. So that's cool. Supposedly it's the same interface DeepMind is using.
There already was something like that for SC1, someone hacked up a bot module, and teams of university students were competing in bot tournaments.
Speaking of which, they just released the remastered edition of SC1. HD graphics looking nice. Can't imagine enduring that UI design anymore though.

I thought about how cool it were if they also made remastered versions of their other games. But not sure how much of an option that really is. SC1 makes more sense because of Korea e-sports legacy I guess.
Though I hear War3 is still quite popular in China, so who knows. I think that WC3 held up surprisingly well for such an old 3d game. But what I really mean to say is, it holds up better than most other 3d games of that era.
Yet it still doesn't look exactly good anymore to me either. For example, I find all this texture stretching very jarring. I'd say all the 2d games aged better. I'd say the pixel art of War2 aged best. It's crisp and stable and pleasing.

Sonic Mania just got released as well. old school back to the roots gameplay and graphics. They say it's the best in the series. After all these years of 3d trash versions.



Doesn't seem to need an HD upgrade at all.

[RageAgainstVoid]

The visual quality of War3 varies so much from map to map. I would still often describe it as quite beautiful, other times I can barely stand looking at it.
At any case, remastering it to the level of Heroes of the Storm would be amazing. Makes you wonder what they ever do with the Warcraft franchise at this point anyway though.

Now I start wondering how the remasters handle the custom maps. I just guess it's not that much of a problem in SC1 since I think all customs rely on the built-in graphic content.
But with all the custom maps for War3 that would be a compatibility nightmare I guess.

Hey I just stumbled upon Grubby! the guy still plays some War3! still earns him some money! But he sure also diversified his games.



I'd say, looking good here. At least it shows the possibility of still looking fine with absolute low-poly low-tech style.

[RageAgainstVoid]

Gosh, they really did a good job on the new Sonic.

[Cassiel]

Hey I just stumbled upon Grubby! the guy still plays some War3! still earns him some money! But he sure also diversified his games.

Just watched one of his HotS games. First time I've seen it since the early iterations when the map looked like a chess board. What the hell happened to the graphics? So tooney.

[RageAgainstVoid]

Beats me, man. I don't pay attention either. I'm kinda okay with tooney chessboards though. *g*

Hey, I found this channel discussing old PC hardware, like the VoodooFX cards. Really cool.



For all my bad mouthing of old 3d games, I really dig a bunch of them for looks and atmosphere.

[RageAgainstVoid]

I really admire Dwarf Fortress.

Of course one could point at all its flaws. Is the UI too awkward? the graphics too basic. Maybe the "game" way too complicated.

But most importantly to me, it is an incredibly interesting and ambitious experiment in a way that only few other projects manage to be.

Often you see others get all those superficial things right, yet ultimately produce something meaningless, since there is no exciting core.

And can't help but love how its simulation of the world happens to parallel real life, in an uncompromising and almost philosophical experience.

You sit there, trying to build something nice with those buncha stupid dwarfs of flawed character. You make some ground in a way... but ultimately...

you're not sure if you should get mad at watching your investment go to hell, or laugh at the entertaining spectacle of how everything falls apart in the dumbest ways possible.

In the end, was it the hostile environment that killed you? was it the monsters? or was it your friendly neighbor, who you thought you knew, who thought to know you?

You don't even fully know yourself, until things get tough enough. You might wonder, what point is there trying to get know people if you haven't even got to know yourself.

Or is it your fellow people that are this challenge you need to find yourself out? Is it even the experience of your destruction at their hand?

The same people that may be the biggest risk of your life, as much as they would appear the most promising reward.

[RageAgainstVoid]

Well, there are many ways of personal growth. The challenge of free climbing a huge mountain on your own will teach you plenty about yourself, more truthful than what others would tell you. I sometimes even wonder what's worse, the ones trying to help you, or the ones trying to hurt. In general it is incredibly difficult to help another person. It may be the most difficult thing in the world to do without making it worse. Especially the sort of help that simply removes any challenge from your life to grow on. Or the sort of help that just has you keep living in the wrong without facing your real problems. Or that supports you by supporting your problems. How do you help a drug addict? Standing there in his rags, hungered down to the bones, homeless. Simply by giving him a thousand dollars? What do you think will he buy from that money? Food? New clothes? He will be dead next time you come to see him. But who would refuse that offer? It seems nice. And what seems nice lowers your guard. If you were to offer killing him on the spot, that seems obviously like something to refuse. But offering this help seems like a great idea. Only the context of his problems reveals the deadly result, maybe when it's too late. Maybe you just looked at that dude, and saw someone starving poor, not a drug addict. And even the addict himself may not be honest about his real problem, if you were to ask. Unfortunately, a drug addict is a person that can no longer handle the freedom of life. Given the choice he will consistently make the bad one to his ruin. Maybe even to your ruin, by no bad intention. But let's say you did give that person a thousand dollars, and you are rich enough to not be bothered by that. You can now log into the social networks and talk about what you did. Maybe even with a little selfie that shows you and the poor dude smile. It will earn you many likes, and people will say how nice you are. No one will ever know what the long term consequence of your help really was in that case. You genuinely feel good, the guy smiled, and people are happy. But what actually matters? So it has at least a chance of working out well in long term, even though it may not give you a smile and likes in short term. And there are countless more examples to demonstrate how difficult help really is.

How do you teach someone art? Truly teach it? By doing the art for them? By spelling every detail out of what they are supposed to do? Protect them from all frustration? When it comes to their own area of competence, experienced artists know how difficult true help is. How important the principle "Less is more" is. That you give some good hints and teach general principles. If the student does not want to work for learning it, he will never learn it. He may get some free art out of you, so he doesn't have to pay or learn it.

What do you think happens with a person that is being told all life long "Whenever you got a problem, I'll fix it for you"? That this person becomes stronger and more independent?
The best "help" I got was not in the offer, but in observing the world as it runs, and the people as they work. Use your eyes to watch how things work. There is no better teacher, and no better help.

Helping others is so difficult, it often may be the most effective way to destroy them. There seems to be a confusion about that the problem is whether we should help.
Some would want to help, others are so mean they don't. But the actual discussion is "How" to really help. It's the most significant issue. The matter of life and death.

Personally, nothing helped me more to grow my skills, than the merciless reality I live in. I guess, a little more help wouldn't have hurt. But somehow I survived. And the strength this gave me cannot be had any other way.
For a simple reason: of course, you seem fine if you got nice people. But you can't always have nice people around. And even worse, the real problems of life are such, that no nice people can help you with.

It is in our worst moments that we have to be at our best. And these worst moments will come inevitably. And when they come, you better be prepared to deal with them. No one can deal with the real problems of your life for you. And the way to prepare yourself for them is to learn taking proper care of yourself, starting with all the little things. This is your training. If you never learned that in the basics of life, because you never had to, you will not be able to face the fundamental tragedy of life that will come to crush you. And you will not be ready to take care of others, you will not be wise enough to help others.

I don't want anyone to take care of my issues and speak for me. It's usually dead wrong. And I learn more from dealing with my enemies. It helps more that they want to hinder me. What other choice do I have than to outgrow them.

[RageAgainstVoid]

Man, I'm not a Beat'emUp expert like some of our other members were, I can only say that DC's Injustice series looks to hit all the right spots with me.

[RageAgainstVoid]

TwoMinutePapers is pretty damn cool.