rland

12 ms·

61.
by rland 5y ago
Yes, I think (maybe) the reason they use perlin noise is because it’s fast. I’m saying have an actual loading screen when you go to a new area and spend some CPU cycles doing advanced plate tectonics or whatever.
62.
by rland 5y ago
It's been a while since I've played Minecraft, so I can't speak to the newer terrain. But I always thought they could significantly improve the world gen. Perlin noise is cool, but why not try to fully simulate plate tectonic
63.
by rland 5y ago
It's interesting to look at things from a controls perspective. An economy (any kind of economy!) is just a feedback control system. Generally, when you're choosing a feedback controller, you have two options: PID, where you have
64.
by rland 5y ago
There is a self-aware viewpoint among the libertarian right that if the government makes it a pain to pay taxes, then people will hate doing taxes, which will in turn direct them to push for a smaller government. It's called "star
65.
by rland 5y ago
If something isn't obviously recyclable (like, pure aluminum, pure glass, or regular paper) I throw it into the trash. I'd rather it end up in a landfill here, where there is at least a pretense of environmental regulation, than h
66.
by rland 5y ago
We basically did that for several decades, and we now have more people in prison than the rest of the world combined , as well as a much larger population of second class citizens (try to get a job with a criminal record!). Many of them di
67.
by rland 5y ago
Right, I think the gp comment is referring to fabs being impacted by water shortages, not fabs causing water shortages. Although if push comes to shove I guess all of this can be solved trivially by not growing ridiculous water intensive cr
68.
by rland 5y ago
The superhero approach might (arguably) be valid in some cases -- I'm thinking of Lincoln, Washington, and FDR. But an institution must be larger than a single person. Because if you want something to last longer than about 40 years
69.
by rland 5y ago
The cost of living stuff is a different issue. If you’re operating a factory, you want housing, healthcare, etc to be cheap, so that you don’t have to pay your workers as much. If you’re a tiny group of people coming up with new ways to fin
70.
by rland 5y ago
Another one: An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a pint. The second one orders half a pint. When the third orders a quarter of a pint, the bartender rolls his eyes, places two beers on the bar, and say
71.
by rland 5y ago
My point is that the state of not even knowing how to cook and expecting to eat cheaply at a restaurant every night -- at every point in history besides the last 20 years or so that notion would be absurd. I do feel that I can judge people
72.
by rland 5y ago
To me, if 50% of restaurants close tomorrow, fine. There are people who dine out 3, 4, 5 times a week, who don't really know how to cook anything beyond microwaved meals... that's completely insane! And I think that's kind of
73.
by rland 5y ago
A paycheck is not a credit card payment. The value is on the books as soon as the work is completed. If you don't intend to pay debt when you acquire it, that is fraud. But your equivalence ignores the counterparty: a worker is not loa
74.
by rland 5y ago
Grinding the beans before brewing instead of buying pre-ground gets you 80% of the way there. If you're lazy and/or don't want to become a coffee snob, just get a grinder, grind whole beans, and call it a day.
75.
by rland 5y ago
It's an interesting bit that the advice, "don't shrink yourself into a shape that fits your circumstances," is shrunk into the Taylorist literal form of a "To Do List." I think you may be failing at the task!
76.
by rland 5y ago
This argument dissolves under even the lightest scrutiny. Let's assume for a second that there is a dollar amount to "underwriting global free trade" (spurious to begin with). What actually is that dollar amount? Is it 3x mor
77.
by rland 5y ago
This makes me feel the same way that those "on purpose casual" marketing emails make me feel. "Tired of your awful insurance. Like ugh, us too! Insurance can be like, so heckin lame sometimes. Let me let you know about [INSUR
78.
by rland 5y ago
Who passes zoning restrictions time and time again?
79.
by rland 5y ago
Just another symptom of the broader issue: at scale, real estate is either an investment or it actually houses people. It cannot be both. Unfortunately, the engine driving this thing (the whole country) is real estate as an investment.
80.
by rland 5y ago
There's this one for World War 2 also: https://twitter.com/RealTimeWWII
81.
by rland 5y ago
What made it click for me was that the speed of light isn't just the speed of light, but actually the speed of information/causality. So if you're traveling at the speed of causality, everything you "hit" or go past
82.
by rland 5y ago
They're written by humans. I know someone who did this, she was paid by the word and would write "best 5 [product]" lists several times a month. Obviously, you only have time to basically summarize points made on the listing
83.
by rland 5y ago
Well if you want to consider that an assumption, energy from coal has lots of value, if proof of work got profitable enough. Which... it already has. Coal plants have been spooled up just to mine btc. The idea that we should continue or exp
84.
by rland 5y ago
What would be an acceptable percentage of global energy consumption by cryptocurrency to you?
85.
by rland 5y ago
The difficulty with MPC is in the name -- Model predictive control. You need a model.
86.
by rland 5y ago
Insulin is primarily used to treat Type 1 diabetes, which is related to diet and lifestyle in a far more opaque and unknown way than Type 2 diabetes. You cannot improve your lifestyle to prevent Type 1. However, it is epidemic across the en
87.
by rland 5y ago
Walmart insulin is not lispro/glargine, it is R/N, which is a different formulation. Treatment of type 1 with R/N is associated with significantly higher mortality, A1C, and complication risk, and, of course, much lower quali
88.
by rland 5y ago
I believe that jokes/humor is way older than human language. Totally non-scientific, but my dog seems to be "happy" when something that she thinks is one way is actually the other. Like when I am totally silent, not looking
89.
by rland 5y ago
I think depot would count as reuse, right?. Honestly, I'm stoked whenever we manage to make it past "recycle." I'd be happier if they announced that recycling was fake and everything you throw in the blue bin is trash.
90.
by rland 5y ago
If the world was just warming, it wouldn't be nearly so much of an issue, I don't think. We could just put a big mylar sheet and block part of the sun. We could do that, I think, in about 20 years, if we really wanted to just get

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