I hate using AWSD as direction keys. I don’t understand why some games refuse to map the arrow keys to the same commands, but some don’t and it becomes up to me to manually set that right before playing anything.
It irritates me so much to me that if a game doesn’t let me change the key mappings, I’m probably going for a refund rather than play at all.
I prefer more casual games, but I do like Slay the Spire. I don’t think I’ve tried to get past A4. I got bored with it a while back and downloaded expansions. I LOVE Downfall and kinda like PackMaster, too. If I am feeling lazy, I will do a custom run and pick my starting cards, and choose ‘slow’ and ‘big game hunter’ options as well. It makes me overpowered, but – again – is enjoyably casual for a change.
This confuses me a bit because I have a fading half-memory of some story from ages ago – maybe a Nature episode? – about how striping the cork from trees was highly stressful and the trees were going to be endangered if we didn’t stop using so much cork. There was some hope that if consumers would accept screw-top wine bottles, perhaps the cork forests could recover, but as long as there was a strong market price for cork (which was more expensive than screw tops, but marked a wine as better quality), people would keep stripping trees.
I have no idea where I heard all that, but it was so long ago that I’ve surely confused the details. Regardless, I wonder what happened between then and now.
Agreed!
I didn’'t realize eels were in short supply. When I get sushi, unagi nigiri is one of my favorites, but first comes anything with masago/tobiko style fish eggs (both are tiny eggs). I’d happily trade lab-grown eel for wild. I’d be even happier to eat lab-grown eggs, but I suspect there’s more of a trick to that.
FYI, the bot only summarized the first of three pages.
Infocom.
Zork, Hitchhiker’s Guide, Leather Goddesses of Phobos.
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
>oh, and here’s a pic (from https://www.meatsandsausages.com/fermenting-pickling/sauerkraut/fermentation)
I’ve done this. We used a big cookie jar on the counter and fermented for about a month (cold kitchen). It came out well, but we were kinda scared of it and the jar was always in our way so we never bothered again. We have local places that sell ‘raw’ sauerkraut and that is a better work/life balance for us.
Side note: there are 3 stages to fermentation with different bacteria taking the main stage in each. Check out this article and its links for even more details: https://www.makesauerkraut.com/how-long-to-ferment-sauerkraut/
The amazing thing is that almost ALL the staff signed a letter and threatened to quit, too! From: https://www.wired.com/story/openai-staff-walk-protest-sam-altman/
“The process through which you terminated Sam Altman and removed Greg Brockman from the board has jeopardized all of this work and undermined our mission and company,” the letter reads. “Your conduct has made it clear you did not have the competence to oversee OpenAI.”
Remarkably, the letter’s signees include Ilya Sutskever, the company’s chief scientist and a member of its board, who has been blamed for coordinating the boardroom coup against Altman in the first place. By 5:10 pm ET on Monday, some 738 out of OpenAI’s around 770 employees, or about 95 percent of the company, had signed the letter.
Supposedly, Microsoft has said they’ll hire the whole team… but I wonder if it’ll really play out that way or if they’d just become short-term hires and then kicked out once OpenAI collapses. Note that Microsoft has invested a lot of money in OpenAI.
Vox also has a lengthy article with lots of details and consideration of what it all means, such as:
… There is an argument that, because OpenAI’s board is supposed to run a nonprofit dedicated to AI safety, not a fast-growing for-profit business, it may have been justified in firing Altman. (Again, the board has yet to explain its reasoning in any detail.) You won’t hear many people defending the board out loud since it’s much safer to support Altman. But writer Eric Newcomer, in a post he published November 19, took a stab at it. He notes, for instance, that Altman has had fallouts with partners before — one of whom was Elon Musk — and reports that Altman was asked to leave his perch running Y Combinator.
“Altman had been given a lot of power, the cloak of a nonprofit, and a glowing public profile that exceeds his more mixed private reputation,” Newcomer wrote. “He lost the trust of his board. We should take that seriously.”
Wanna be the bigwig on your block? Have I got a product for YOU! Solar Panels! Make your house shine with newfangled tech that’ll be the envy of all your neighbors! Go solar, baby! Stick it to the electric company and make THEM pay for a change. Solar! You’ll be beaming.
ok, I suck at faking ai chat
“Godfather of AI” Geoff Hinton, in recent public talks, explains that one of the greatest risks is not that chatbots will become super-intelligent, but that they will generate text that is super-persuasive without being intelligent, in the manner of Donald Trump or Boris Johnson. In a world where evidence and logic are not respected in public debate, Hinton imagines that systems operating without evidence or logic could become our overlords by becoming superhumanly persuasive, imitating and supplanting the worst kinds of political leader.
Why is “superhumanly persuasive” always being done for stupid stuff and not, I don’t know, getting people to drive fuel efficient cars instead of giant pickups and suvs?
They will tell you “controlled” visits are for safety, but I remember in the post 9-11 Gulf War reporting how the Pentagon went all in for “embedded journalism”. Yeah, sure, it keeps the press ‘safe’, but it changes what gets covered. The media initially loved it, but later realized there were valid criticisms of the process.
More to the point: yeah, covering news should not be a death sentence. Even if you are covering a war, as civilian non-combatants you shouldn’t be targeted by any military… a la the ‘Collateral Murder’ wikileaks video of journalists shot by US helicopters.
Oh, I’ve also made this with 4-5 dried bay leaves and a dozen juniper berries. I liked the bay leaves in there, but the juniper berries weren’t noticeable except as an unwelcome texture.
You can pat yourself on the back? The article is about how the new rules make it hard for such groups to justify the cost of installing solar when the benefits look thin and potentially changeable.
You still get SOME money for adding power to the grid, but you’re basically getting paid a ‘wholesale’-like price and paying out the retail mark-up. I’m not sure how California’s grid works, but where I am, we have “line fees” for maintaining the infrastructure to cover that sort of thing.
They can’t afford any of it. Two points.
Point A) Renters. They’re renting. The new change will…
… make solar panels less economically enticing for apartment dwellers, farmers, schools and strip malls, solar companies say.
– there were harsher proposals, but this is a mid-way kinda where renters will get something but not as much as others.
renters will be paid much less than they are today for electricity generated by their rooftop panels above and beyond what they and their neighbors use — electricity that is sent to the larger power grid, helping the rest of us keep the lights on.
Point B) They’ve made it pointless for schools and farms:
other utility customers affected by the decision — including schools and farms — will still have to pay full retail rates for all the electricity they consume. Even if they install solar panels that cover some of their consumption, they’ll have to pay their utility for power during times of day when their panels are generating.
Under the new rules, “schools will not be permitted to generate their own power any longer. Instead, they’ll be forced to buy their own solar back from utilities at full price,” said Sasha Horwitz, a legislative advocate at the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Good catch!
For those who don’t know, when a legal doc says “shall” it means one MUST comply or get in trouble. If it says “should”, it means you don’t really have to care.
Oh, Canada. 🙃
Finding a tasty pumpkin is usually the hardest part. The few I’ve tried from this list (with pictures!) were better than the average pie pumpkin I’ve had, but note that the list includes lots that are better for roasting than for pies. Here’s the ones I notice they like most for pies: Blue Hubbard, Butternut Squash (I’ve heard canned pumpkin are actually butternut because the flavor is better), Jarrahdale, Kabocha, Long Island Cheese, and Neck (these are the ones I usually get – we call them Crooknecks in my family).
I agree! And I’m thankful that lots of games build that in.