etherealmachine

This is a great write up of the problem space. I've also tried an approach here that converted the tile dependencies into a Boolean constraint satisfaction problem and then used the Open Source clasp (https://potassco.org/clasp/) answer set solver to return valid tilings. The inspiration was from the paper "Answer Set Programming for Procedural Content Generation: A Design Space Approach" (https://adamsmith.as/papers/tciaig-asp4pcg.pdf) which is also a good read.

Using an answer set solver was nice because it was so easy, I just had to encode the tile constraints and then the solver did all the work, backtracking, etc, but it could be slow, and it could also fail to return (infinite loop). I gave up because it seemed like WFC and similar could return results fast enough for "online" generation, like generating chunks in Minecraft and also because it seemed hard to encode tile probabilities (from some initial example map) like WFC does.

Getting really tired of this criticism - the example is a start on encoding Dungeon World/Powered by the Apocalypse rules, not D&D.

Seems like (b). I can't really find any evidence with proof a laptop owned by Hunter Biden actually existed and was somehow found in a pawn shop, given to Rudy Giuliani, then to the FBI, found to be filled with "evidence", then totally suppressed. It's all such a ludicrous story with no real proof that people (like you) who talk about it tend to get dismissed. I'm generally for dismissal of the conversation like this (downvoting and hiding it) because generally it tends to turn towards more stories with little or no evidence and doesn't really bring anything new to the table.

That being said, I find it funny that people want an exciting story about a forgotten laptop when it's generally well accepted that Hunter Biden accepted a job he wasn't qualified for in a foreign country. For me that's pretty clearly nepotism at best and harming the interests of your own country at worst, and displays a clear lack of judgement. But Americans like a conspiracy theory...

It's not clear that it's illegal. The federal fraud statutes cover obtaining "money or property" through false statements. A prosecutor would have to convince a jury that the site is engaged in conspiracy to commit fraud and that a degree is property. If I were on that jury I'd convict, but it's a riskier bet than prosecutors usually like. I'd be interested in seeing a well crafted law here that makes it obviously a crime, although federal felony is a bit harsh but that's what let's you coordinate across state lines.

Note that that's an opinion piece and it doesn't appear the author has actually read the U.S. Constitution. Section 8 says: "The Congress shall have Power To... make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;"

The use of nuclear weapons is clearly covered by that clause and several others giving Congress the power to regulate the military, whereas the Executive has the authority to execute those duly regulated rules.

Just want to point out that US states aren't allowed to run a deficit, while countries are, so I mostly agree with this but this hamstrings states like Oregon who aren't allowed to provide relief for strict measures through debt. Also Oregonians would have to still contribute to the Federal government via taxes, essentially stealing more money from this plan.

Hey folks, I think this is like the third or fourth RPG map maker I've seen show up, but I've been working on this one for quite some time and it's finally ready.

I specifically wanted a map maker that was fast (even on my slow laptop) and supported text descriptions for different areas of the map. I'm especially proud of the Print layout that lets you print well-formatted map-driven adventures straight to PDF.

This is a start on some ideas I have around AI-based content generation for tabletop RPGs. The idea is to let the AI generate content you can drop into your own adventures. Or it might stay just a simple map-maker, I already have a laundry list of features to add like tokens and decoration types. Feedback, bugs, and suggestions are always welcome.

My girlfriend's father in Malaysia watched CCTV and a few other Chinese language broadcast news stations that had stories on what was happening in the US every day, so if the family in Xiamen has a TV then they might not "follow" US politics, but they definitely get informed about what's happening here.

For an interesting contrast, check out the history of cave temples in the karst formations of Southeast Asia. I'm most familiar with those in Malaysia, like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batu_Caves. There it's common for religious groups (Buddhist or Hindu) to purchase a cave and develop it into a temple, complete with concrete floors and living spaces for the monks. It's a completely different attitude towards transforming yet conserving the natural environment that really shocked me coming from American caves where everything is "look but don't touch."

When you make a statement like "99 times out of 100" it's up to you to prove that with statistics. My initial belief is that you made up that 99/100 number and evidence of people not getting their money back only reinforces that belief.

You know that's perfectly legal in California right? You can make a citizens arrest for a misdemeanor in progress or a felony you have knowledge of.

Georgia has 164 deaths per million residents, versus 82 in South Carolina next door and 87 in California. Are you sure you still want to call that a bad prediction?

I guess you're not old enough to remember the original Quake, released with a shareware license where the first episode was free. Someone will probably come along and shake their fist at me, but if Quake isn't old-school, I don't know what is.

This one is easy: no.

Here's something that I've learned: The VPNs that say they are the “Fastest VPN” on their website might be embarrassed by this. ExpressVPN, PureVPN and VyprVPN... I’m thinking of you.

I can see the usefulness of this project. Thank you for providing this tool. Can you please share some of the things that you've learned regarding these VPN service providers?

82 pages, $19.49 on Amazon

Is there any way to use these, let's say in a Facebook post (but not as an attached image)?

The World Economic Forum estimates tech advances will destroy 5 to 7 million jobs in the next four years alone. In the coming years, Universal Basic Income will sound less and less fanciful after hordes of workers become completely unemployable through no fault of their own. And we aren't just talking about low skilled jobs anymore but white collar, professional and even creative jobs are all on the chopping block.

1 and 4 are probably reserved for people who lied on their resume and the rare stellar candidate, so either 2 or 3 would be a very safe guess.

I'll bite.

Why is it bad for a government to aggregate public data?

In the past, this has been problematic. There are several examples of government agencies using their authority to suppress political dissent. The Stasi in Germany, the KGB, Hoover's FBI. True, they had private data as well, but the problem wasn't the source of the data - it was that they used it for political suppression. It's clear that the agencies involved with Geofeedia would prefer the protesters just "go away" - they have no incentive to be supportive of their goals. Given the power imbalance and incentive misalignment, gathering information on them has an inherent smell to it, just from past experience.

Other posts have pointed out that companies have tried and failed to produce generics. Seems like a really broken patent system if the patent isn't descriptive enough to allow competitors to actually produce the product. Isn't the point of filing the patent to allow things to progress once the inventor has had their monopoly?

The indictment does in fact present evidence. Not to a jury, but to us, the readers. It makes claims that things are true. Ridiculous, outlandish claims, like that filing a subpoena was done to try to get checking account information.

You're right, I didn't notice the first count was identity fraud and the second was attempt to commit identity fraud. In a false statement, I'm pretty sure lots of laws, including the first amendment, protect your right to make a statement that might not be true. What you know is definitely relevant.

Finally, your excess of concern for this seemingly trivial case really confuses me. Who are you? Why do you care? What do you know that we don't? On the face of it, that indictment looks ridiculous but you claim there's more to there story. Can you back that up with anything?

That indictment is some serious bullshit. Did you actually read it?

The first count is for identity fraud from requesting a subpoena. No evidence that they intended to present themselves fraudulently, just the fact they filed a request.

The second is "making a false statement" that "some of these checks appear to have not been deposited but cashed illegally". The burden of proof on this would be insane, there's no way to show the defendant knew this to be untrue.

Finally, just FYI, the notification statute applies to banks, not individuals. The bank has to notify you of a subpoena, and it just has to do it before the information is released. It doesn't make just requesting one flat out illegal.

Account recovery is always a nagging weak spot. At some point, a user will forgot their password or lose their TFA device, and now you need them to be able to prove their identity outside of the usual flow. And if you have enough users, this has to be automated, leaving even more room for exploitation.

I work a few buildings down from Knightscope. Walking to lunch my co-workers and I were talking about how they would make a perfect bit on Silicon Valley. They're just bumbling around the parking lot continually, looking both hilarious and vaguely creepy.

Not a very good article since it doesn't mention Lost Spirits (www.lostspirits.net), with working technology that can age Whiskey and other spirits in a week. Maybe it's technically true that you can't hide the age, but apparently you can just fake it.

Totally agree. I'm really sad to see Tesla jump the gun on this one and claim they have "autopilot". It seems similar to the debate around landing New Shepard / Falcon 9, except here the false claims and half-baked implementation could set self-driving cars back by another 5 years.

The value/policy model includes a few hundred thousand amateur games, and a few hundred million games of self-play. Once AlphaGo beat Fan Hui those would have been games of self-play versus the equivalent of a professional. So overfitting is probably not a problem. I think it's a basic incentive mismatch - MCTS algorithms tend to like close games, whereas humans will try crazy moves when losing to throw off their opponent.

I call b.s. I pulled numbers off a few sites that estimate cost of living in Atlanta at ~$26k/year. Just ran my own numbers, and my own costs last year were ~22k. For reference, I live in Santa Cruz with that sweet job as FaceGoogBox. There are a few places I'd consider moving to for a $80k pay cut, but Atlanta isn't one of them.