lotharbot

10 ms·

1.
by lotharbot 2mo ago
[Background: I am Dove's husband, and remember the incident described] What actually happened was the professor posed the question in class as an open research question, which he regularly did, with no particular expectation that any s
2.
by lotharbot 7mo ago
Specifically, Overload was made by Mike Kulas and Matt Toschlog, who were the original Descent developers. There were also major contributions from people like Dan Wentz (who worked on Descent 3) and from people who spent a lot of time play
3.
by lotharbot 1y ago
Your comment was in fact snarky, a swipe, insubstantive, and unkind. I am quite used to directness in interpersonal criticism (I am after all autistic), and I understand the difference between direct and being mean, cheap, mocking, etc. Yo
4.
by lotharbot 1y ago
In Comments Be kind. Don't be snarky. ... Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "Tha
5.
by lotharbot 1y ago
that said, the respective odds of humans vs geese are not even remotely close. People sometimes get mild injuries from geese, and on rare occasions significant injuries, most often from losing their footing and hitting the ground hard. Wher
6.
by lotharbot 1y ago
FWIW it's not accidental that I see my wife's HN comments. I joined shortly after her and I have a bookmark for her profile just because I love to see what she writes. But it is fun when occasionally I reply to something she'
7.
by lotharbot 1y ago
> "it made a break for it along the long side of the house and was visibly shocked when my runner of a fiance ran it down and cut it off" I still remember the look on her face when I got to the corner before her. She looked a
8.
by lotharbot 2y ago
There are several things in this comment I find odd. The comment about developers being autistic is particularly funny because I personally am autistic, and my wife (who you are responding to) is very much not. It was a major source of tens
9.
by lotharbot 2y ago
> "bias isn’t helpful ... Let that determine what to measure" Determining what counts as "bias" is itself a subjective activity. People who grow up in different cultures have different baselines for what factors mat
10.
by lotharbot 2y ago
> "the view that only the objective is real ... has been increasingly producing absurd results." As you rightly noted a couple of comments back, what this view does is it smuggles in subjective assumptions. That is, someone o
11.
by lotharbot 2y ago
Indeterminate. There's no information to be gleaned. And we don't turn our lives upside down on no information.
12.
by lotharbot 2y ago
I sometimes draw an analogy between low-probability catastrophizing and the Drake Equation. The Drake Equation attempts to calculate how many planets there should be in the universe where intelligent life exists, by multiplying together all
13.
by lotharbot 2y ago
Expanding on this: when you add the extra degrees of freedom in Descent-like games, relative to Quake-like games (or flight/space sims but in different ways), there are some emergent behaviors that change how the game fundamentally fee
14.
by lotharbot 2y ago
most people nowadays play on source ports (D1x-Redux is the current top of the heap) that support multiple controllers.
15.
by lotharbot 2y ago
It wasn't really considered either a bug or a feature by the original designers, it was just not something they put any thought into. After it was discovered, some designers had a negative opinion of it, others had a positive opinion,
16.
by lotharbot 2y ago
"Overload" was a game made in Descent style, by the original creators of Descent (Mike and Matt), with a great deal of input from the Descent community. My wife and I spent a week at the studio (while ~6 months pregnant with a ch
17.
by lotharbot 2y ago
Drakona, sitting next to me: "Dcrazy? I remember a dcrazy!" There's still an active online community around Descent and Overload (Mike/Matt's spiritual successor.) If you look up Overload on Discord you'll fin
18.
by lotharbot 2y ago
I thought about putting their actual names -- Michael, David, and Mark (even though Mark392 isn't really named Mark) -- but I thought it'd be funnier to just put their pilot names at first.
19.
by lotharbot 2y ago
My wife and I met on a Descent forum, our 3 sons are named for Descent friends (KoolBear, Jediluke, and Mark392), and we've attended weddings (and sadly one funeral, RIP JinX) for Descent friends. Even though I considered D3 the weakes
20.
by lotharbot 3y ago
13 year old also has "Mathematical Carnival" on his shelf.
21.
by lotharbot 3y ago
You're basically correct, though it's usually done with 4 mechanisms making an adjustable glider loop, which can have any period of 43 or more just by increasing the spacing: https://conwaylife.com/wiki/P43_Sn
22.
by lotharbot 3y ago
I (as noted in another comment: Dove's husband and the father of the child in question) homeschool him. My wife and I both have graduate math-related degrees. We let him pretty much run wild with independent math research, while also
23.
by lotharbot 3y ago
"Conway's Game Of Life" is a game of cells on a 2d grid that live/die/reproduce based on how many neighbors they have. As a result of the game rules, you can get simple behaviors like "everything dies" or
24.
by lotharbot 3y ago
We (I am Dove's husband) have 2 other children. The 7 year old builds electric circuits (takes after his grandpa who worked for NASA and HP before becoming a pastor), and the 2 year old mostly makes engine noises while driving his mons
25.
by lotharbot 3y ago
For example: I previously worked in the public schools, and in a museum education program that worked 90% with public school classes. My mom was a public school teacher before I was born. My sister, who I'm quite close to, still works
26.
by lotharbot 4y ago
> "you're either trying to say" None of the above, but this is more of the same issue. You're interacting with my words, but you're so quick to jump to a defense that you haven't really heard me. I'm
27.
by lotharbot 4y ago
> "I am genuinely open to it." I genuinely don't believe you. > "I am arguing for what I know to be.... obvious truth" ... "delusion" ... "hypocrites" ... "silliness" ..
28.
by lotharbot 4y ago
> "when I argue about this I argue in good faith" Look back over your comments from the last couple weeks. You've routinely made comments about people being afraid to talk to you, or said you hope they find the courage t
29.
by lotharbot 4y ago
You said in a recent comment: > Your style of debate is _not_ working, my guy. Your comment history in other threads seems to paint a picture of you not really arguing in good faith. Downvotes are a signal that others have that perceptio
30.
by lotharbot 7y ago
You should update your comment to include the original Clicker Heroes by Playsaurus. What you've presently linked to is the sequel, which is radically different in terms of both look and gameplay.

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