Tavern on the Meta

1:00 PM

I might try it again... Maybe I've gotten a bit better at gaming now ;)

@StopHarmingMonica True, but I suspect bad programming is partly to blame too, by hard-coding unjustified assumptions and by not using the available APIs properly. The introduction of 4k is not fundamentally different from earlier upgrades in resolutions.

Hitodama

@Tinkeringbell oh, so the hard part was the combat? Let me see...

Stop Harming Monica

> even if they had the resources to write something that can handle it

Tinkeringbell

@Hitodama Yes and no. Definitely, but I also had some trouble with the energy bar, I think the one on Stardew Valley allows a bit more action in a day ;)

Hitodama

@Tinkeringbell go for the blue cat then :P

Doraemon: Story of Seasons - Launch Trailer | Switch, PC

►

Stop Harming Monica

1:03 PM

@Tinkeringbell and by the end you run out of time before you run out of energy

I have seen people do too much clearing on the first day, plant their starting seeds, then run out of energy before watering them and they all died

Tinkeringbell

@StopHarmingMonica hides in shame

Journeyman Geek

@StopHarmingMonica displays are cheap.

GPUs are not

Tinkeringbell

I've gotten pretty good at Stardew Valley though :)

Journeyman Geek

I think you can get a reasonable 4k capable display for under 500 USD

Hitodama

@Tinkeringbell Enjoy the pleasure of finally getting a way to cheat shamelessly by using Doraemon gadgets to farm :P

Tinkeringbell

1:04 PM

I even have a dinosaur :)

Stop Harming Monica

@Tinkeringbell I've "completed" it, except I'm terrible at Journey of the Prairie King

Tinkeringbell

@Hitodama Hahaha I'll take a look tonight, but I guess I'm playing more Stardew Valley tonight.

Stop Harming Monica

I did install the mod that fixes the artefact drop table though

Tinkeringbell

@StopHarmingMonica Hmm. Never heard of that one yet...

Stop Harming Monica

@Tinkeringbell the arcade game in the Saloon

Tinkeringbell

1:06 PM

I have a terrible time in this save getting my dwarf scrolls. I can't find 1 and 2.

@StopHarmingMonica Ohhh... Yeah, I don't usually play those, should I?

Stop Harming Monica

there's an achievement for completing it, and one for completing it without losing a life

Hitodama

@Tinkeringbell the painting art style on that one is somehow fitting.

Raedwald

@JourneymanGeek When I switched to 4k I had to buy a new graphics card. Mid range, so not ruinously expensive, but still, and extra expense.

Tinkeringbell

@StopHarmingMonica Oh... guess I should start trying then ;)

Stop Harming Monica

@Tinkeringbell unless you don't know, you'll most likely find them digging in the first section of the mines

Journeyman Geek

1:07 PM

@Raedwald I run a 980TI for gaming and I want a nicer one

I have a ... old AMD in the mail for my old PC

Tinkeringbell

@StopHarmingMonica I know. I already have the lucky charm and even then, digging on very lucky days for the entire day yields nothing :(

Stop Harming Monica

well, there's always the mod that fixes the artefact drop table...

Journeyman Geek

@Raedwald I could probably do non gaming stuff on my old 660.

I sold that, and since I'm fixing up my PC...

Tinkeringbell

@StopHarmingMonica Ehhh. I do well enough as is ;)

Stop Harming Monica

nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/2761

Hitodama

1:09 PM

@StopHarmingMonica the old TeS Nexus is still alive?

Raedwald

@JourneymanGeek In the past, if you wanted to do software development work you would need to request a more powerful than usual desktop PC from the IT department. Not for a long time now. The performance of a typical office PC is so high it's not really necessary.

user1306322

@JourneymanGeek 4k displays are not cheap tho

Journeyman Geek

@Raedwald lol

@user1306322 I think one of mine is in the 500 usd range. There's some interesting, less expensive options.

Tinkeringbell

@StopHarmingMonica Oh, that sounds familiar. I've sometimes been processing 5 geodes and getting a 'dwarf gadget' from all of them...

Journeyman Geek

One of mine is a dell (kinda pricy)

user1306322

1:11 PM

@JourneymanGeek ips or tn?

Tinkeringbell

So that's a real bug? Not something that's meant to be like that but never appreciated?

user1306322

or va or something else

Journeyman Geek

the dell is IPS. The second one is a crossover

user1306322

I think mine was 700 usd, IPS, but it's 49" so that increases the price

Journeyman Geek

Its 500 dollars when I got it (its an older model ~3-4years?) but but...

Stop Harming Monica

1:12 PM

@Tinkeringbell the "Long summary" has the details

Journeyman Geek

DP + 3x HDMI + VGA at HD

best lab monitor ever

Tinkeringbell

@StopHarmingMonica Yeah, I speedread through that (still at work ;) )

Journeyman Geek

@user1306322 APPARENTLY I can get a 55" IPS TV for ~600 SGD from a local company

Tinkeringbell

I'm also wondering how something like that is installed on a nintendo... but that's something to look into when not at work ;)

user1306322

TVs are bad though coz they have dat latency issue

gotta get monitors specifically

Raedwald

1:13 PM

[Eases back in chair] When I was doing Computation Fluid Dynamics R&D work in the late 80s, I put in a special request for extra disk space to store the results. The Professor was great at getting funding, so we had the best equipment in the Mechanical Engineering department, but I still needed more. An enormous 75MB. Not TB, not GB, MB.

(And get off my lawn)

Stop Harming Monica

Roughly, the code ends up multiplying the drops' probabilities (making the rare ones stupidly rare) instead of using them as written.

But as a function of the way it's structured, rather than more obviously being written like that

doppelgreener

Back in something like '99, we had a computer with a pretty awesome 100mb hard drive. Some family friends were big on photography and we found out they'd bought a two gigabyte hard drive. Two whole gigabytes! "How are they ever going to use two gigabytes!?" my dad said.

Stop Harming Monica

When I was working around digital archival, that could be one image

user1306322

@Raedwald our >80 year old prof told us tales about how his students had to stay up late to hand-weave those ferromagnetic rings into a ram mesh to get enough memory for the computations to work during summer break, and even brought one mesh and demonstrated how to weave magnet rings into it

what's 75 million rings honestly

just 200 students at work every day for 2 months of summer :D

Tinkeringbell

@StopHarmingMonica Yeah.. Hmm. I might install it... or see how far I can get with the current drop table ;)

user1306322

1:18 PM

were punchcard printers a thing back in the days?

Journeyman Geek

@user1306322 I literally want to order some core memory off ebay, get it framed and mount it on my wall.

Bart

Star boards used to be more fun when they were filled with waffles, brown and genuine handbags.

3

user1306322

I think the controllers were a limiting factor though coz you'd still need to wire that mesh into them somehow and those weren't free either

Stop Harming Monica

@user1306322 it wouldn't really work if they weren't

Tinkeringbell

@Bart I know. I dislike the starboard too ;)

user1306322

1:19 PM

@Bart a hAnDbAaAague?!?

Raedwald

Punched cards were a bit before my time. I did see some old steel cabinets that were specially designed to hold punched cards (and still did).

Bart

@user1306322 :D genuine ones even

Journeyman Geek

not genuine imitation ones?

Bart

Hey now, don't let Pekka hear you. I'm sure it said "definitely not fake" on the label.

Stop Harming Monica

Punched card input/output

A computer punched card reader or just computer card reader is a computer input device used to read computer programs in either source or executable form and data from punched cards. A computer card punch is a computer output device that punches holes in cards. Sometimes computer punch card readers were combined with computer card punches and, later, other devices to form multifunction machines. It is a input device and also an output device. Most early computers, such as the ENIAC, and the IBM NORC, provided for punched card input/output. Card readers and punches, either connected to computers...

user1306322

1:21 PM

I just thought maybe it could be possible to print part of the computation results into paper as punchcard sheets or rolls and use that as a cheap and slower cache if the funding for hard drives was low

Journeyman Geek

0_0

Stop Harming Monica

@user1306322 yeah, that'd work, but if you're doing that automatically and reliably you're building your own machine, so you're probably a research engineer

Journeyman Geek

just build your own delay line memory using stuff you have lying around ;p

Emanuele-reinsMonica-Ciriachi

I'm curious - my 2-starred comment no longer appears on the starred list. I admit my ignorance on the underlying mechanics of chat; is this due to time-decay of the comments?

user1306322

(considers the "research engineer" title)

Tinkeringbell

1:24 PM

Yes and no. Sometimes a conversation is over and having reminders on the starboard only will have it flare up again... so after it is probably over those stars are removed.

Stop Harming Monica

But there wasn't really any workflow for "disk cache" back then. There's no memory paging system.

Sure you can output intermediate results, process them and feed them back in

user1306322

@Emanuele-reinsMonica-Ciriachi could be manual star removal by mods or room owners to avoid derailing discussion

Raedwald

monster6502.com

Emanuele-reinsMonica-Ciriachi

Understood, thanks.

Journeyman Geek

is it a bad thing I know what that was even without clicking on it?

Hitodama

1:26 PM

so.... at a recent Hobby & Electronics Expo I have found this....

Tinkeringbell

Oh, that's a very pretty 'Image not found'. The best I've seen today! :D

user1306322

@Hitodama does it spy on you and sell your private data?

Hitodama

nope, no wi-fi built in.

but I was thinking.... do any one knows if there is any @Tinkeringbell saying "Hello" audio file available on the internet?

user1306322

does it repeat your account password back to you in a funny voice?

Hitodama

I could try and replace the prerecorded audio message in the parrot toy.

Tinkeringbell

1:28 PM

@Hitodama Why would I put that on the internet? Just take the generic parrot toy hello ;)

user1306322

you could probably increase the fidelity of the one they used even, usually these things are capable of much higher audio output that the factory workers upload into them

Hitodama

@Tinkeringbell because then I could sell it on EBay as "RARE! Authentic Talking Tinkeringbell Toy" and get rich

Tinkeringbell

@Hitodama Ah... well, time to find a better business plan ;)

My youngest brother used to have one that would record your voice, then repeat twice ;)

Hitodama

@Tinkeringbell Already tried selling Shog plush heads, but apparently kids find those a little too eerie. You were my plan B.

Journeyman Geek

should just make stuffed barking @JourneymanGeeks

Tinkeringbell

1:33 PM

@Hitodama He's got a new picture now... perhaps you can tie that up with some kind of Addams Family merchandise :P

Raedwald

@Hitodama You should try selling Shog-eye motivational posters. "The Boss is watching"

djsmiley2k - CoW

s

Tinkeringbell

@JourneymanGeek I'd buy one!

(Only if I can turn the barking off, though)

Bart

@Tinkeringbell I consider it my task as an uncle to give my niece and nephews the loudest most annoying toys I can think of.

JAD

@Tinkeringbell You can, but it'll eat your homework

Hitodama

1:34 PM

@Bart their parents will love you :P

Bart

@Hitodama glances have been exchanged ...

Journeyman Geek

@Tinkeringbell ash hardly barks now

Tinkeringbell

@Hitodama The parents already have the kids. I can't imagine a loud annoying toy that's worse than any kid!

djsmiley2k - CoW

lol

Journeyman Geek

he's found our vinyl over parquet flooring makes an amazingly annoying sound if he taps on them with his claws

djsmiley2k - CoW

1:35 PM

kids can be.... bribed

Hitodama

@Tinkeringbell anything that was made by Alfred Carlton Gilbert back in the '50?

JAD

@Tinkeringbell I can. A loud and annoying kid with a loud and annoying toy

especially that when the kid finally shuts up, the toy happily continues

and don't forgetthe moment the batteries start to run out, so the noise starts to go off pitch

djsmiley2k - CoW

worse than a drum? A WHISTLE D:

When in my teens, I remember, there was this kid over the road..... and he had a whistle

he'd blow it.... constantly.

Hitodama

@djsmiley2k-CoW could be worse. Bagpipe.

djsmiley2k - CoW

lol

I quite like bagpipes, tho not sure how they sound when played 'badly'

Tinkeringbell

1:39 PM

@JAD That's what happens with tired kids too though :P

Bart

Imagine squeezing a cat @djsmiley2k-CoW

djsmiley2k - CoW

Give me a mo

nope, they just fart at you

/me confirms 4 out of 4 cats fart when squeezed

Shadow The Princess Wizard

@djsmiley2k-CoW you don't squeeze properly

Hitodama

thinking about it, there is something worse.

Shadow The Princess Wizard

Anyway, when we moved to new place few years ago, there used to be screaming noises every few hours, mainly in the morning. It sounded like a small girl screaming her lungs out. Took me over a month to realize it's a parrot.

Hitodama

1:42 PM

Give the kid a drum kit.

Shadow The Princess Wizard

And the neighbors owning that parrot turned to be really nice people. :)

@Hitodama violin can be worse than drums.

It's not about the volume only, it's about the sound that's being produced.

Journeyman Geek

like the old joke about bagpipes?

Shadow The Princess Wizard

Maybe?

Journeyman Geek

and the only song people knowing how to play being scotland the brave?

Hitodama

@ShadowThePrincessWizard I mentioned Doraemon before. Shizuka plays the violin.

Or to be more precise, she tortures the violin.

Tinkeringbell

1:47 PM

@Hitodama Actually, drums aren't that bad. My brother had a drum kit, could play pretty well :)

@Hitodama drumming costs stamina, a recorder/flute is just breathing

Hitodama

ok.... Since at this point we are playing with forbidden weapons...

Stop Harming Monica

2:04 PM

is that like a Stylophone?

Hitodama

@StopHarmingMonica it is a portable analog synthesizer

usually used by DJ and the such, just imagine it in the hand of a kid....

all the annoyance of some of the worst soundboards....

but with an infinite variance of annoying sounds

the kid will never get tired.

Korg Monotron x 2 = Instant Bad Techno

►

Tinkeringbell

2:41 PM

Blegh... All this talking about games, now I want to go home and play ...

Journeyman Geek

lol

Hitodama

2:56 PM

?

(sorry, didn't find a red one but I guess you will get the joke anyway)

Tinkeringbell

@Hitodama Yeah, that's another very pretty image not found... work has started blocking imgur.

Hitodama

oh, right

Tinkeringbell

Huh, what does a vacuum have to do with this?

Hitodama

Switch, vacuum cleaner, recent games releases...

djsmiley2k - CoW

i'm still lost lol

Hitodama

2:59 PM

Luigi's Mansion 3.

Tinkeringbell

Hmmm. Never played that one.

I should look up some of the pokemon game reviews, there should be some by now...

Hitodama

@Tinkeringbell don't know what is more annoying. The SD corruption bug (just play with no SD inserted until they will probably fix the thing with a firmware update since apparently it is tied to the ExFAT driver, not the game) or the Shinny bug

the second one can't do any harm I suppose...

Tinkeringbell

@Hitodama I read about the SD card bug, I don't have an SD card in my Switch yet so that's okay...

What's the shinny bug?

Hitodama

@Tinkeringbell there are some "fixed" encounters spread around the map.

think something similar to an overworld pokemon but not completely the same

Tinkeringbell

Oh, and one isn't working?

Hitodama

3:05 PM

short version: this fixed encounters (seems there are more than 200) have a fixed level usually higher than the zone you are in

probably to spice up the game the first time you travel thru the zone.

as far as I see

they are also uncatchable.

there is a specific error message if you try to use a ball against them

but....if you are lucky they can also spawn shinny - just to taunt you since you can't capture them.

how nice, right?

Tinkeringbell

Oh... yeah that's annoying.

I also always thought those were called shinies, not shinnies ;)

Hitodama

@Tinkeringbell can't really rememember.

Oh, and guess what? There are 63 different form of Alcremie

and... I will spare you the other 61

Tinkeringbell

Hahaha thanks ;)

It sounds almost like that's the new unown then ;)

Hitodama

yep, but those are EVOLVED forms.

yep, Milcery has 63 distinct different evolved forms, all with a different color (but same stats at least)

Tinkeringbell

Meh. It's sounding less fun by the minute :(

Hitodama

3:19 PM

@Tinkeringbell you could just get one.

they are different colors of the same pokemon.

not something they haven't already done.

Tinkeringbell

Hmm.

Hitodama

The "problem" is that while Spinda patterns are random, they are not-deterministic

you can't really have every Spinda variation.

With this, technically, with enough patience...

you could fill a box with all the different Alcremie colors

so if you have OCD... bad luck.

OH, Wait wait wait wait..... the shiny bug is apparently more annoying.

I was checking Serebii, seems I got part of the problem wrong.

The fixed pokemon aren't simply set as uncatchable.

They are because now the max level of the Pokemon you can capture is also tied to your badges

so, since they are fixed encounters you will meet most of them BEFORE getting the required number of badges to attempt capture.

Tinkeringbell

Oh, I heard that thing about badges, yes. Didn't realize that was also about shinies. Well, I guess I'll at least wait until some bugfixes before getting it?

Hitodama

@Tinkeringbell nope, I think you may have misunderstood.

There are some fixed battles that happen the first time you enter a route.

for example, if I recall correctly, you will get automatically attacked by a lv 22 pokemon first time you enter route 5

Tinkeringbell

Yes, and I've indeed heard that those battles happen before you can catch them, due to badges.

Hitodama

3:33 PM

exactly.

The annoying part is that due to a bug, those pokemon can technically be shiny.

so, to rub more salt on you, not only you will be unable to catch that lv 22 pokemon.

If you get really unlucky, it will be shiny to but still uncatchable.

"Normal" shiny are still the same, it is just that they forgot to make the uncatchable encounter not able to be shiny

Tinkeringbell

Yeah, I understand now. That's extra annoying. I didn't realize that would go for shinies too

Hitodama

but... I didn't have much time to check

I think that maybe you can try to avoid those fixed encounters and come back later

which would mean the bug could be exploited for easy "reset until shiny"

Feeds

4:07 PM

The Interactive News Platform for Everyone

Ryan Donovan on November 18, 2019

Journalists have an uneasy relationship with technology. On one hand, journalism at the highest levels still focuses on print distribution, a technology hundreds of years old. On the other hand, even the Gray Lady has a snazzy mobile app and stories custom made for virtual reality. Traditional news outlets are increasingly discovering the power of interactive journalism. To do that right, you need a team of people working on a story—a journalist, a data scientist, a programmer, and a UX designer. It’s rare that you get all four skills in a single person. …

Hitodama

@Feeds and... that is relevant how ^_^'?

Journeyman Geek

sigh Maybe at some point I'll be fed up enough to write about the blog still sucking :/

44

Q: StackOverflow.Blog isn't that great

I've been here a while, and done a few rodeos and, the quality of blog posts feels like its hit rock bottom at times. I admit there's some great ones but considering Stack Overflow as a company is in a wee bit of a transition, it might be a good time to go "maybe you guys should revisit it". I d...

damn, that was 2 years ago

John Dvorak

4:27 PM

BTW, any idea why the 3cv upgrade still isn't in effect?

user58

Might have something to do with the network falling apart at the seams... might've pushed their plans back a bit.

John Dvorak

It's as easy as flicking a switch...

Journeyman Geek

3cv?

John Dvorak

reduce the closevote requirements from 5 to 3 so that stuff that needs closing gets closed

Journeyman Geek

Ah

Kevin B

4:31 PM

that's unwelcoming

user58

...

Rubiksmoose

@JohnDvorak huh, I forgot about that. Is there a MSE/blog link talking about it I can reference?

Kevin B

well, it was done on SO

so that'd make sense

354

Q: Threshold experiment results: closing, editing and reopening all become more effective

This post details the outcome of an experiment that reduced the thresholds for closing and reopening questions to 3 votes on Stack Overflow. Warning: this post is looong. There is no "tl;dr". There is no summary. I've been thinking about this crap almost every day for 7 years, and I'll be damned ...

discussion edits vote-to-close vote-to-reopen

Raedwald

4:45 PM

Perhaps it is waiting until the results of the change in reputation for question upvotes are clearer and/or have been debugged.

Kevin B

I think it's more likely they're still workin on We implement a second, "consensus" threshold: n close votes have to agree before a question gets closed.

djsmiley2k - CoW

4:59 PM

you know what

thge moment I see a close flag

i am imediately drawn to thinking 'this must be bad question'

I think it should be hidden (number of flags) before you vote to close

Kevin B

I thought close flags were hidden

just not close votes

I think it's important that the close votes appear so that those who can cast them are reminded they exist before they start leaving comments instead of voting.

Feeds

5:49 PM

Some works didn't make the cut; in "Ecks vs. Sever" vs. the passage of time, the latter seems to have won pretty decisively.

user287113

7:20 PM

Can you guys help me to close the following questions as TOO BROAD? You're my last hope to help me clean up inappropriate questions.

user287113

4

Q: Why aren't too broad questions closed?

The following post What topologies are largely unexplored in machine learning? asks more than $6$ questions, which are quite unrelated to each other. Shouldn't this type of posts be closed as too broad? According to One post with multiple questions or multiple posts?, the suggestion is to ask o...

discussion asking-questions questions

user287113

You just need to flag them as TOO BROAD. AI SE does not seem to want to collaborate with me.

curious

7:46 PM

→ 18 messages moved to Chimney

ArtOfCode

8:12 PM

@nbro If the community doesn't want those questions closed, then they shouldn't be closed.

Communities decide what's right for their site, not random Meta folks.

BelovedFool

So, I don't really want a debate about that under my answer, so maybe it could be removed? meta.stackexchange.com/questions/338453/… (also, I'm wondering if it's a trolling attempt but, either way, I don't see any good coming by letting this comment stay here)

Rubiksmoose

8:28 PM

@BelovedFool Gonsies.

BelovedFool

Thanks!

Rubiksmoose

FWIW, and you don't have to say if you did it or not, but that would have been perfect to put in a flag on that comment as a custom message.

user287113

@ArtOfCode This community does not care about cleaning up questions. Many users do not even know the original purpose of the site

Rubiksmoose

@nbro :( That doesn't sound especially healthy.

However, it's not great to ask people to blindly flag things. Only to vote on something they understand. And knowing the community would likely be a part of that.

Kevin B

8:51 PM

it is commonplace for questions that are too specific/simple to possibly help anyone in the future to receive immediate upvotes/answers and stick around forever

user287113

@Rubiksmoose You can read the questions. You will immediately understand that they are too broad. In most cases, the user is asking multiple questions

user58

D'Arvit, Ben stepped down? Hadn't noticed that.

user1306322

10:25 PM

@nbro from my experience using many different SE sites I think it's okay for a site to have broader questions than the average, and also seeing how it's sponsored somehow by IBM, I'm assuming the company would like more attention brought by popular, even if on the broad side, posts

also as someone who has not used that site at all I don't think it's right to barge in and flag away without knowing the culture of that specific site, and I'm sure most others will agree

2

Mgetz

is it just me or is this Not an answer?

Félix Gagnon-Grenier

it might be a wrong answer, but it does seem to (in the mind of answerer) address the problem of irregular compilation reporting between environments.

If you know it to be wrong, by all means, downvote it

@Mgetz ... and actually, the more I read it, the more it seems to explain more why the accepted answer could work. What makes you wonder about it?

user1306322

11:49 PM

I found this quite funny:

In what way is Interpersonal Skills an echo chamber? — Peter Mortensen 55 mins ago

are the user avatars supposed to be checked for not being all exactly the same in these demo questions?

Rob

^^ Same as this issue: github.com/atom/node-keytar/issues/142

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