methodin (u/methodin)

methodin commented on Quake's lightning gun bug explained [video] youtube.com/watch?v=4gNYT... · Posted by u/henning

willvarfar · 2 years ago

Duke Nukem 3D was built on the 'build' engine, which was built by a super cool 18yo called Ken Silverman http://advsys.net/ken/ .

Back in the 90s John Carmack was asked "If you could just hire anybody from the 3D world, who would you hire?", and he named Ken http://advsys.net/ken/carmken.htm

methodin · 2 years ago

Thanks for the link! This really took me back to the games I grew up on that influenced me (haven't heard the names ROTT or Redneck Rampage since the 90's)

methodin commented on AI-enhanced development makes me more ambitious with my projects simonwillison.net/2023/Ma... · Posted by u/duck

throwthrowuknow · 2 years ago

Training data is key, a lot of people will be employed in creating, curating, and labeling it. They will utilize AI to help them but it will be a partner. If AI reaches the point of creating and using its own training data then you can hang up your hat and call it a day because no human input or work will be needed at that point.

methodin · 2 years ago

Yeah kind of an interesting journey. We went from people writing content for people, to bots writing content for people, to people curating content for bots (ultimately for people). The only permutation left is bots curating/writing content for bots and people are consuming only bot-generated content. In a way we are partially there since some content that was in these models was written by bots.

methodin commented on Define Wokeness Or how you shall know a word by the company it keeps davidrozado.substack.com/... · Posted by u/DeusExMachina

h2odragon · 2 years ago

> Politically neutral AI systems that provide balanced sources and a diverse set of legitimate viewpoints

Deus ex machina, then?

If humans can't decide truth for each other, why would machines be better at it?

methodin · 2 years ago

The irony is that a lot of people on this earth have opinions already formed by bots and AI without knowing it

methodin commented on Starbucks CEO will work a shift at the company’s cafes once a month cnbc.com/2023/03/23/new-s... · Posted by u/zvonimirs

dataviz1000 · 2 years ago

My first career was a chef. When I asked a friend of the family who owned a restaurant when I was teenager what steps I should take to become a chef, the advice he gave was "Get a job as a dishwasher in a restaurant because the most important thing you need to know is to respect your dishwasher because anytime everything goes wrong and you are in a jam, it is your dishwasher who will save you." Unknown to me the restaurant that hired me when I was 17 as a dishwasher was also one of the most prestigious restaurants in California in the early 90s which lead to years cooking in Michelin Star restaurants. Good advice.

methodin · 2 years ago

Can you elaborate a bit on how the dishwasher role gets the restaurant out of jams?

methodin commented on Home Prices Fell in February for First Time in 11 Years wsj.com/articles/home-pri... · Posted by u/lxm

chasebank · 2 years ago

I'm not sure what to make of it but my little sister lives in Boise, ID, and has 3 AirBNB units. She goes to 'RE investor meetups' regularly and told me that the gist of the message is to take full HELOCs out and roll over into more property. She says she has the least # of units and everyone there has a minimum of 10s of units and a handful of people have hundreds, all purchased the same way. I have to imagine this doesn't end well but who knows.

methodin · 2 years ago

AirBNB has really compounded the problem - another reason houses are being treated as purely an investment by people who don't live in them. Even worse they are off the rental market.

methodin commented on Mapping hidden corridors and chambers in the Great Pyramid of Giza arstechnica.com/science/2... · Posted by u/mfiguiere

jfengel · 3 years ago

I think "bright" is relative. There are plenty of limestone structures in the world, including some modern-built pyramids (of much less grand scale). Limestone is soft and porous and will never glisten the way marble does.

It would have been very impressive, to be sure. But I don't think it's going to match the experience you have in mind.

Since any such modern facing would completely hide all of the authentic material, you might as well just build a completely modern structure elsewhere. With modern building techniques it wouldn't take all that long.

methodin · 3 years ago

That would actually be a pretty amazing thing to recreate the pyramids relatively close by as modern structures and replicate it so people could experience everything in it.

methodin commented on I made an AI write a story about AI then I made another AI illustrate it tristrumtuttle.medium.com... · Posted by u/ttuttle

tomatowurst · 3 years ago

well what is perception? It is mostly visual, sensory, temporal, olifactory, auditory and sensory. Visual audio have received far more attention than the other areas. We still don't have digital smell generator, we don't have micro tactile bodysuits with genital stimulation, nor do we have digital taste.

In the future, once we have complete mastery of all facets of human sensory inputs, we can record and manipulate experiences.

methodin · 3 years ago

I imagine the ultimate goal is to stimulate the responses in the brain not to physically use the senses. It would most likely feel as real as a dream which feels real during it.

methodin commented on Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money johnwhiles.com/posts/shav... · Posted by u/jwhiles

eckesicle · 3 years ago

My dad never taught me how to shave, and for the longest time I just used these disposable Gillette style blades, and got terrible results. Missed spots, cuts and skin infections.

At some point I decided to do some research and settled on double edge disposable blades.

I've never been happier, and feel much better about my skin too. These are the products I use:

* A wooden synthetic shaving brush (I felt bad about the beavers)

* Taylor of Old Bond St shaving cream. It lasts forever.

* A ceramic lathering bowl

* Floris after shave. Also lasts forever

* Jagen David B40 (make sure to get a butterfly version, they're much more convenient)

* Derby blades (I bought a bulk of 500 blades for like £30 quid, and I'm only halfway through using them after many years).

Now I probably spend less than £40 per year replacing shaving cream and after shave, having had to spend that amount monthly on disposable blades, and that terrible canned cream, and I hardly ever get any cuts anymore. And my shave is much closer.

Besides these products look great in the bathroom.

methodin · 3 years ago

Was also never taught to shave and have similar setup. I really wish I would have discovered styptic pencils sooner - would have saved me the embarrassment of going to work with pieces of tissue paper all over my face lol.

methodin commented on Shaving is an example of how consumer products extract more money johnwhiles.com/posts/shav... · Posted by u/jwhiles

CoastalCoder · 3 years ago

Aside from differences in cost, do you find anything about a straight razor compellingly better than e.g. a Gillette Mach 3?

I go through Mach 3 cartridges pretty slowly, so price isn't a big concern. And I don't notice anything deficient about the quality of my shaves. But one thing I really like about safety razors is that there's zero risk of serious injury.

methodin · 3 years ago

There's a ritual to straight razor and traditional single-blade safety razor (what I use now) that is compelling in modern times when everything tells you to shave off minutes from every single thing in your life so you can free up your time. Seemingly this means just more time for internet browsing and things that have no impact on your life but I digress. The daily or semi-weekly ritual that takes time, attention and care is relaxing. I stopped using a straight razor since I couldn't get the edge as sharp as I'd like to but I may pick it up again once kids are older. I moved onto purchasing a $20 classic single-blade safety razor about 4 years back and now buy the razors in bulk. Can be very cheap depending on where you buy them. For the ones I buy it's probably $10 a year if that since I only shave every 3 days or so and a carton of 100 blades lasts a year. Does require 2 passes though but doing it right with shaving cream and brush is something I've come to enjoy.

methodin commented on Saving on egress switching from AWS to Hetzner blog.fleetdm.com/saving-o... · Posted by u/zwass

mabbo · 4 years ago

It's the same story every day, the same pattern. And it's the same because it works.

Startup: use <aws|azure|gcp> because it's quick to get started. It's easy to scale it up 100X in 5 minutes for when you make it big. And it provides a long list of easy to use services that are overpriced per use, but which free you to focus on your business rather than complex DevOps.

Then once you scale to the point that you're comparing your salaries and your ops cost, you find smaller services to handle the expensive part of your business. Ones that do exactly what you need, not much else, and charge accordingly. Maybe they're self-operated, or maybe they're other companies with a narrow focus.

Then you write a blog post about how everyone is crazy to use <cloud> since it's so expensive, and you don't know why you ever thought they were a good idea.

methodin · 4 years ago

Indeed. I don't even see this as a bad thing - it means you pick the best option given your shifting criteria which is what we should be doing. Blindly doing one or the other makes no sense. I don't particularly enjoy the blog posts that are hyperbolic (not necessarily this one) - both AWS and other things can both be simultaneously a good choice for any given company.