Match451 (u/Match451)

Match451 commented on The 3D Software Rendering Technology of 1998's Thief: The Dark Project (2019) nothings.org/gamedev/thie... · Posted by u/suioir

smitelli · 2 months ago

Never played Thief, but I logged a lot of hours in Unreal, 1998. I was (and still am) amazed at how full-featured the software renderer was. I always wished I could peek at the code behind it.

If memory serves, the only thing my 3dfx Voodoo3 could do that software-only mode could not was surface reflections. Maybe something with colored lighting too, it's been a long time. Point is, it was a decent enough substitute for dedicated graphics hardware.

Match451 · 2 months ago

The (incomplete) Thief2 and System Shock2 source code was leaked years ago from a Dreamcast development kit. I imagine a Google search would find you a download. I think I saved a copy too, someplace.

Match451 commented on Ask HN: What Would You Do If You Had 10 Years Left to Live? · Posted by u/vinnyglennon

markus_zhang · 6 months ago

Probably no need to work anymore so will quit next Monday.

And then do some financial planning for the family.

And then…kinda sad that I actually don’t have a strong passion to pursue. I’m soulless. I have some hobbies and claimed that I wanted to do a lot of things but never had passion for long term.

Match451 · 6 months ago

A lack of time and energy has a way of killing interest and desire. I expect if you managed to attain or retain more of both of those you’d find some level of passion. And passion doesn’t have to be earth shattering. There’s a lot of joy to be found in the small stuff.

Match451 commented on Creative Technology: The Sound Blaster abortretry.fail/p/the-sto... · Posted by u/BirAdam

luckys · 6 months ago

I still remember the immersive positional audio from using a Soundblaster while playing Thief The Dark Project in the 90's. Nothing short of amazing! Kudos to the Looking Glass Studios for taking advantage of the technology to its full potential

Match451 · 6 months ago

Setting up the audio propagation in the Thief level editor is super tedious but it’s hard to argue with the results. You draw “Room brushes” (basically boxes) to encompass space and sound will propagate across where they intersect with each other. An Environmental audio setting is applied to a room brush and will be applied to all the audio heard by the player when inside the room brush.

Match451 commented on Test Yourself: Which Faces Were Made by A.I.? nytimes.com/interactive/2... · Posted by u/kaycebasques

huytersd · 2 years ago

4/10

So worse than random chance

Match451 · 2 years ago

I got 1/10… The article shows the percent of people who guessed incorrectly was between 80-90% I wouldn’t be surprised if the images were handpicked out of a set after being found to be particularly difficult to guess. Or maybe I just suck at this.

Match451 commented on Putting the "J" in the RPG, Part 1: Dorakue filfre.net/2023/11/puttin... · Posted by u/doppp

spinningD20 · 2 years ago

Your mentioning of "rape" here sent me on a google journey... I don't remember anything like that happening or even being hinted at in FF6, what are you referring to?

Match451 · 2 years ago

I don’t recall anything like that in FF6 either. They even removed part of a scene in a rerelease where Celes is chained up and gets punched by a guard.

There are still plenty of other horrifying things in FF6 though.

Match451 commented on Why American Teens Are So Sad theatlantic.com/newslette... · Posted by u/robg

noodlesUK · 4 years ago

I was homeschooled as a teenager due to health problems.

One thing that I saw drive a lot of unpleasantness amongst my non-homeschooled peers when I was a teenager was lack of sleep. Teenagers need sleep. If you need to go to school around 7:00, and you have after-school activities that go til 20:00 or later most days, as well as homework, you can’t possibly get enough sleep. The answer is always “just go to bed earlier” which most teens are notoriously bad at. I don’t think it’s necessarily gotten worse in recent years (I wasn’t really around to know), but if you want to make people less sad, it does help to stop torturing them.

Match451 · 4 years ago

I’m a counselor that works with young folks and teenagers. A lot of them are up late (1-2am)and some all night on their phone or playing video games. This naturally leads to fatigue, poor concentration, unstable or volatile moods, bad grades and avoidance. And it’s pretty normalized among kids. When parents restrict screen time we often see big improvements in behavior and mental health, even if they aren’t up all night. Screens and social media almost never turn off among many of this generation. I’ve seen four and five year olds with their own phones and I find it pretty worrying.

Match451 commented on Ask HN: What do you do for a living? · Posted by u/Phileosopher

reify · 4 years ago

A psychotherapist for 25 years. Now retired and bored. currently helping a few of my old students with their masters dissertations. I have indeed given up chasing anything period! Aching back, dodgy knee. If I was younger and could follow another dream I would definitely choose to work as a developer. I still dream but my mental agility does not provide much confidence. I have always been a linux user. In my youth hacking all the local wifi for free internet when passwords were 6 digits or your postcode. Currently an arch user with blackarch tools to keep me occupied.

Match451 · 4 years ago

Licensed mental health counselor in WA here. Been working in community mental health for the past 6 years. Pretty tired of it at this point. Thinking about going private practice, but I’ve no experience running a business. Any career advice for someone in their late 30s with a BA in psychology and an MA in counseling psychology?

Also, what drives your interest in being a developer?

Match451 commented on SAT will soon be all-digital and shortened from 3 hours to 2 cnn.com/2022/01/25/us/sat... · Posted by u/awb

Match451 · 4 years ago

I wonder about the long term effects of making things easier. I’m not sure we’re doing students a favor by lowering the bar. College is a lot of work, and a test that is also a lot of work seems like it would predict success better than an easier one.

Match451 commented on Ask HN: What's the biggest personal problem you're facing right now? · Posted by u/simonebrunozzi

simonebrunozzi · 4 years ago

I'm the OP, and I'll go first: I'm quite lucky on many fronts, but there's a close family member who is very extreme in their views on SARS-CoV-2 and related stuff. Let's call her Alice.

Alice is very intelligent, she's a bit old but not too much. She spends a lot of time on the Internet, and follows pretty much every nut novaxxer you can find. She believes crazy things like "vaccines are made with fetuses from forced abortions", or "Covid is just a common cold", or other conspiracies.

I'm not asking for solutions here. Just sharing this. When I did recently, a friend was almost relieved to know that he wasn't the only one suffering from something like this.

Thankfully, most of the rest of my life is going quite ok. Hope it lasts.

Match451 · 4 years ago

It’s oddly distressing to be around others with beliefs radically different than our own. Especially when our knowledge and philosophy are grossly contradicted. It’s often hard to resolve those feelings, and so we tend to try to change other’s beliefs to relieve our own distress. This is pretty exhausting, for both parties and, oddly enough both are trying to do the same thing - change others. I find the concept of “radical acceptance” helpful. It means to fully accept the situation or environment and letting go of fighting it. That doesn’t mean you like the situation but you let go of fighting what you can’t change. And focus your mental effort on what change (if any) is productive.

Match451 commented on Ask HN: What's the biggest personal problem you're facing right now? · Posted by u/simonebrunozzi

Match451 · 4 years ago

Burnout from my job, and poor sleep leading to decreased enjoyment in most things. I commonly have very little energy.

Things that I’ve found help, are less screen time and light exercise. But I find motivating myself to do so difficult. It always seems to help when I do so.