dejected_warp_core

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to funny in The US has so much space

I saw a unicorn today.

To the the only phone user in existence that understands that landscape mode is a thing: I salute you.

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to lemmyshitpost in Progress!

Sorry, best I can do is knitting and crochet. But think of all the sweaters and socks you’ll have.

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to games in Why there are 861 roguelike deckbuilders on Steam all of a sudden

It’s even easier than that. Both of these genres have design features that require minimal balancing, making for an even faster dev cycle.

Roguelikes side-step the need for traditional game balance by providing meta progression and building inevitable-death-by-impossible-odds into the core game. For Roguelikes that actually have an ending, all the developer needs to do is provide enough meta progression perks to overcome the game’s peak difficulty, for even the worst of players. Everyone else gets bragging rights for beating the game faster than that. Either way, the lack of balance and “fairness” in the core design are features, not flaws.

Deck builders follow in Magic The Gathering’s footsteps: you never need to fully balance it. Ever. The random draw mechanisms, combined with a deep inventory of resource and item/creature/action cards, make it unlikely that a player gets an overpowered hand all the time. Pepper a few ridiculously overpowered cards in there, and it just feels more fun. Plus, if you keep the gravy train going with regular add-ons, the lack of balance is even further masked by all the possible choices. And yes, some player will min/max a deck at great personal expense and wipe the floor with their opponents because it was never fair in the first place, and doing so is a feature.

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to lemmyshitpost in Oh the wonders of technology

You jest, but the industry was pretty close to having something like that. VHS-C format tapes are the key, as they were used in lightweight camcorders back in the 90’s. The viewfinder used an active screen, so this could be used for playback anywhere.

If we ditched the optics and stretch the definition of “pocket”, this is basically that: www.ebay.com/itm/386925509292?chn=ps&mkevt=1&mkci…

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to greentext in Anon launches a space program

I don’t think this would work as a tourist draw in the conventional sense. The problem is that money doesn’t change hands enough times to generate enough secondary revenue and taxes, since everyone is “locked in” for the duration and the ticket sales happen online (or somewhere else). Typical hotels draw people to business and tourism all over the city, and this proposal is the opposite of that. Just like a typical cruise, this puts the cruise-liner in position to run their own tax free economy/experience for guests during their entire stay; just build everything into the ticket price.

Then you add the fact that an aging and immobile cruise ship is permanently occupying a deep-sea launch/slip in your harbor. That mooring point is no longer generating anywhere near as much income as before, since people are coming/going at a much more lax pace and you can’t use it for freight. And moving the ship around to accommodate other boats is likely going to require tugs which is time consuming and probably a huge PITA for the harbor.

Now, if you could anchor it somewhere remote where none of that matters, then you’d have something.

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to linuxmemes in Code interviews for a PHP developer roles

Sometimes, aptitude and an ability to learn and grow is more valuable than having specific technology knowledge. It suggests a more generalist take on one’s career, which means they are always going to be useful. There’s also something to be said for “soft skills” and a person’s overall attitude. All this can make the balance for a lack of technical experience, provided they have demonstrated talent an ability to close such gaps.

Other times, the whole hiring process is just completely broken. Your friend may have had to contend with co-workers that were utterly incapable at their jobs.

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to linuxmemes in Code interviews for a PHP developer roles

You had a day or two […] none of the last 5 candidates could even send in a solution that would run.

As harsh as this sounds, this test was doing its job. Assuming you’re not hiring junior candidates, that is.

One day is enough to research XSLT enough to get the gist, and two is enough for a polished solution. And since we’re just stripping tags, we’re really just selecting for all the inner text, which is weird but not hard to do with the right selector expression. The task also selects for people that understand XML processing as programmatically manipulating a DOM, which is crucial to wrapping your head around more advanced tasks.

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to lemmyshitpost in Most useless superhero accessory

I dunno. I think this is good for Flash. To paraphrase SolidJJ:

Flash: So, to you, I’m moving faster than the speed of sound, circling the globe. But to me, that’s walking. Just. Walking. For like a year.

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago (edited 2 months ago) to technology in 5.25-inch floppy disks expected to help run San Francisco trains until 2030

More like: it’s eventually going to break your weekend or even your whole week, but you don’t get to pick which one.

Edit: To put that in perspective, there are 260 working days in a year. Let’s say that you have just one of these hardware failures in a five-year career with the MTA. That’s roughly 1/1000 odds. If the lottery had chances like that, you’d play it every time.

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to technology in 5.25-inch floppy disks expected to help run San Francisco trains until 2030

My theory: the system they purchased was based on an older and proven design for railway automation and control. Add to that however said company/contractor was set up to support their customers (e.g. OS only ships on floppy). That said, I agree that ten years without so much as a drive upgrade is a bit long in the tooth for something that can kill people or become a logistic and/or political disaster if it malfunctions.

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to technology in 5.25-inch floppy disks expected to help run San Francisco trains until 2030

This is interesting. The longevity of this legacy tech may be secure if they use the right channels.

SoCal happens to have a very active retro-computing scene right now, much of which is in the bay area. If they can breathe life into an Apollo Guidance Computer, bog-standard floppy drives will be a piece of cake.

On the other hand, the same scene has modern emulation for just about every (popular) legacy media format imaginable. Upgrading the drives to use SD cards and USB thumbdrives is something they could buy off the shelf today: Apple II, C64, Tandy, misc. So there’s no reason to suffer through hardware failures when more reliable tech is available.

There are even commercial options out there. Example: www.shopfloorautomations.com/…/floppy-connect/

More: en.wikipedia.org/…/Floppy_disk_hardware_emulator

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to news in Trump bemoans lack of immigrants from majority-white countries to the US

So would many Americans. Check this out.

perceptions.eu/migration-in-and-from-america-curr…

American emigration to Europe totalled [sic] 3,6 million people in 2005, and 5 million in 2019, whereas Americans emigrating to other countries counted 29,3 million people in 2005 and 40 million people in 2019.

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to lemmyshitpost in Door mat subscription is $29.99 per month

I think you’d be in gas-station-keyring territory to do the job reliably. How about a hubcap?

dejected_warp_core , 2 months ago to lemmyshitpost in Happy eclipse day everyone.

Getting real Night Vale vibes with this one.

dejected_warp_core OP , 2 months ago to insanepeoplefacebook in I just learned that the Time Cube is no more.

💯 Now that is how you Time Cube.