fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
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User ID: 3415
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1mo ago
Training a model to operate robotics for conventionally "hard" problems
This is really hard and if current models could easily be trained to do it they already would have
fmac
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1mo ago
We really haven't seen a matching boom in productivity.
Or the current march of productivity increases throughout the 2000s is as a result of shit like cloud software tools, and in a counter factual world where tech stagnated, productivity would be much lower than our actual world?
fmac
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1mo ago
Most office work is fake email jobs.
This is a ridiculous statement. If you think so, you should post your short positions.
Or, you should start up competing white collar companies and undercut all the companies you think have massive amounts of fake email job deadweight. As you'd have a much leaner cost structure.
fmac
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1mo ago
It's not quite A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but along those lines.
What was wrong with this book? In this context
I read it as an early teen (now far too long ago) and I remember loving the concept (also a massive Twain fan) but then finding the ending so bad it retroactively ruined the book for me.
fmac
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1mo ago
I have like 40 steam mods (happy to share list if anyone cares) so vic3 was an easy $50. I've also never paid for a Paradox game and put an ungodly amount of hours into Eu4/Vic2/Stellaris (less for this one) so it felt fair lol. Still never paying for DLC tho.
CreamAPI account risk is negligible. Huh.
I do worry about this, it seems like it would be easy for Steam to book and aligned with their incentives to do it (they profit from DLC being sold) but they don't seem to care and I love farming free DLC so it's a risk I'll take.
Plus my stream library is pretty small, I'd have made a burner if I paid for more games.
fmac
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1mo ago
Also, for anyone considering Vic 3
The game has improved significantly with 1.9, but still has some glaring issues. I think by 1.11 it'll be an un-ironically good game.
I recommend buying vanilla on sale, as access to Steam workshop is MANDATORY (seriously, mods make this game so much better). It's incredibly easy to CreamAPI the DLC for free once you own the base game.
fmac
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1mo ago
Legit, you see people on the forums suffering through issues that they could solve in 10 seconds with a debug_mode mod and "~"
Victoria 3 might actually be the worst for this too. I find myself constantly needing to tag over to other countries to fix whatever insane and dumb shit they (since 1.9, 90% of the time its France) get themselves into.
Also the WORST border gore, oh god the border gore.
fmac
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1mo ago
This is a really well thought out comment, thank you for writing it.
I think I agree with most of it. I still think the "mechanism of action" for a cat-call vs skimpy shorts (or whatever) is far enough apart that they don't compare well, but I'll concede they're on the same spectrum of human behaviour/motivations.
I'm gonna read this again later when I'm not in motion, thanks again.
I stood @ToaKraka up the other week on Victoria 3 mods.
While I don't have as many as him, this is what I've been playing with:
- Regional HQs are a shitty game mechanic. They absolutely hijack your investment pool, and they're a pain in the ass to remove (made better in 1.9.8) and impossible to remove from Vassals or if they have investments in a third party country. They're also poor game design as they are a "click this button every time if it's available" option, which isn't good game design (good game design is all about making interesting choices).
Thus, I changed AI weights so they never pick them, and I never pick them.
- late game performance is awful, because of pop fragmentation. I increased the defines for both assimilation and pop consolidation by a factor of 10x. I think a lot of the background stuff is hard-coded because it really didn't seem to do much. I have a late game save right now that's basically unplayable now (I also fucked up and conquered too much of the world, so multithread performance dropped), so I'm going to try 1000x and see if that helps, I don't think it will.
I did notice that my assimilation did increase dramatically for a while when I had a +25% assimilation buff, so I will test that out eventually (more on this later).
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infamy calculation is fucking stupid as it's based off population and not GDP (african states are so expensive it's so stupid). It also scales incredibly poorly in late game. My attempts to rebalance thus far have gone poorly, I can get it to a good place in early game or a good place in late game, but there isn't a good unified set of defines for both I've found yet. I think I could probably add more infamy reduction to later game tech, but my willingness to spend my free time balancing a paradox game for free was low.
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clicking "build power plant" a million times makes me want to kill myself. I modded power plants to have 4x output and 4x input. This makes them somewhat overpowered, I don't care, I now click 4x less.
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I increased the amount devastation recovers per state. The war goal system is AWFUL which causes AIs to get locked into wars no one can end for a while, which means if one is occupied that whole time it gets inadvertently genocided (population loss has 0 effect on war exhaustion, lmao, and it wouldn't matter if it did, LMAO). Making devastation recover faster mildly helps with this. I think they just fixed this somewhat in 1.9.8, but frankly the AI needs all the buffs it can get in this game.
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I changed the law enactment time from 180 days to 50 days. I think this may make the game easier? Although now movements/revolutions are still mad after the law they hate is passed, so I think it's okay. The law passing mechanism is fucking atrocious, and could easily waste YEARS of times bouncing around with "+10%"..."-10%"... etc. This makes it snappy. The challenge of passing a law is maneuvering your political structure into place so it's passable at all. Once you can pass it, it's just a matter of how many de-buffs you take along the way. I'd prefer to pay the cost and move on, not watch a random number generator slowly tick.
Side note, but the paradox communities' acceptance of "save scumming" as an acceptable part of the game, but console commands as "cheating" absolutely sends me. It's literally the same thing, except one is a horrible use of your time. I once (only once) spent 30-45 minutes micro-ing and reloading to pass a very low % law. It was probably the worst use of 30-45 minutes of my free time. I don't understand why people do this in a single player game.
Something I would like to do, is get better at event modding. I want to set up some AI only global events that would trigger in ~early mid game to kick the AI all off traditionalism/serfdom as those laws are crippling and AI sucks at government management.
I also am considering setting up a global event for like +50% assimilation as that seemed to be much more effective than my define tweaks.
I also would like to make a mod that gives the AI +10 goods production of every good in their capital. I think it'll help them bootstrap supply/demand cycles for new goods. I'm not sure how they're doing at electricity production, etc
Finally, I don't know if I can, but I really want to 1) make the AI better at upgrading units as it current SUCKS at doing this and 2) make the AI stop making 30 individual armies, as that provides 0 tactical benefits to the AI, and makes the game noticeably laggier.
EDIT: ONE MORE
migration in this game is in an AWFUL state right now. If you get a Chinese or Indian country in your market, they flood your country at absurd rates (although I do plan to do an India run where I take Canada/Australia and fill em up, for historical accuracy purposes lol).
And mass migrations are basically "human only" because you GDP/capita and SoL maxxxxx and then absorb like 80% of the mass migrations regardless of you're Brazil or Vietnam, which is so fucking stupid.
I need to figure out how to give the new world a massive buff to mass migration attraction.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1mo ago
While I agree with a lot of what you say, I do wonder if maybe my active/passive definition didn't work.
Catcalling is a specific act, targeted/focused at a specific person. One that is in the overwhelming super-majority of cases is not desired. I would also posit that many a cat-caller does it not just because they think someone is hot, but because they enjoy the fact they get to flex "power" over someone by making them uncomfortable with no recourse against them (dovetails nicely with everyone's discussion about lower class men, they don't get to flex power often).
Having ones ass out is an unfocused act, it is not targeted at anyone. While it may make some uncomfortable, it does so at a much lower rate (and makes people happy at a much higher rate). There is no intent to cause distress.
Finally, while I agree that society is teaching and reinforcing women to be far more paranoid than is warranted, the Venn diagram between "is willing to break social norms by cat calling" and "is willing to go for a cheeky bottom pinch or other form of personal assault" has overlap, there is a small but credible possibility of violence from that person. The Venn diagram of "has ass out in Lululemon" and "will grab your dick through your shorts" is 0, unfortunately.
I'm unconvinced cat calling should be an indictable offense, but comparing it to skimpy clothing is ridiculous.
fmac
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1mo ago
Watching Trump's approval rating fall even more will affect my mental state by making me smile and laugh as Americans realize they fell for it again
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
1mo ago
I do think there is highly significant asymmetry of discomfort between a woman being catcalled and a pious man seeing some legging-clad ass
This seems super culturally mediated, though--I'm not sure I'm in a good position to just tell a pious Muslim or devout Amish that his feelings about bikinis simply don't count the way that a modern woman's feelings about wolf whistles does.
I think it's more an active vs passive thing.
A cat-caller actively intrudes into the life of the random passerby. They do this intentionally by inserting (hah) themselves into the life of another.
The bikini clad ass may upset the Amish or Muslim man, but it doesn't force them to look. It's a passive object in their life they can choose to interact (hah) with or not.
I guess the counter is you have to first notice the bikini to then ignore it, but I again just have a very hard time not finding a someone deliberately taking action (making noise that is in 99% of cases unwanted and coded as threatening) to be anywhere near equivalent as someone getting annoyed as to what someone else is wearing.
fmac
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1mo ago
I just read that whole comment thread, very interesting.
It's been a few years (sad) since I grew anything and I forgot how awful the SEO was in the plant space, holy shit lmao.
The basil article was an infinite rabbit hole of AI basil articles linking to AI basil articles.
I don't think most humans are much better at detecting SEO slop, but that's not a very high bar.
Personally, I find AI search quite useful (both personally and at work) but I mostly use it as a results aggregator. I check the links it finds me, especially at work, my biggest fear is to confidently present something that turns out to be an AI hallucination.
So it's pretty great for that, it's basically like having an intern who Googles things for me, and I pick the results to look at in more detail personally.
fmac
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1mo ago
The red pill people don't seem happy or sexually fulfilled no matter how much sex they're having, they seem constantly angry and they seem like they hate the women they are fucking.
That's the beauty of the red pill. It treats women like they're crazy, and by acting like a red-piller you ensure that you only interact with the crazier women (as the saner ones self-select out of your way).
There are actually some foundational truths in RP mythos, although the vast majority of them apply to men and women (everyone likes people who are attractive and confident, if you have a lot going for you in life people will find that cool, etc).
As a teenager I actually started trying to write a short book of all the Red-pill truths I saw, while stripping out all the stupid misogyny. Then I got a girlfriend and stopped caring, and by the time we had broken up fully lost interest.
fmac
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1mo ago
You can edge without gooning, but you cannot goon without edging
So say skibidi
fmac
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1mo ago
watching 10 videos at once for hours on a multiscreen setup laying down in a reclining chair while vaping weed.
I've always looked down on "gooning" as degeneracy of a high order but damn you made it sound kind of fun
I think I just miss smoking in the reclining chair I had before I moved out on my own
fmac
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1mo ago
If the AI was searching then it's about as valuable as searching it yourself, which is how everyone learns everything now.
If they had AI guess with no search grounding, then yeah, that's useless
fmac
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1mo ago
I agree with everything you said and that's why I'm very much in favor of MAID
fmac
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1mo ago
Government enforced grass touching was tongue in cheek
Although trying to imagine how that would be enforced is really funny
fmac
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1mo ago
Yeah they're kind of fucked either way given they committed to the unforced error of having the most nonsensical product naming scheme.
I do enjoy gpt5 has unlimited thinking model access if you use the one weird trick of saying "think hard before responding" and it doesn't even eat into your gpt5-thinking rate limit as a plus user.
I literally haven't selected "gpt5-thinking" in the model selector as a result, it's quite funny.
fmac
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1mo ago
I mean one big difference is the Swiss person is consenting to dealing with your body and is paid explicitly to do so.
You might argue the paramedic consents by virtue of their job, which is true, but their time is also finite and could be better spent on a QALY-basis helping alive people.
Also the person who finds you might be a family member, friend, or random innocent, none of whom contented to this or are paid to deal with it, which is just pure negative utility.
fmac
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1mo ago
I actually suspect he's probably not wrong, but I'm unimpressed with the lack of rigour
And absolute dipshittery like this is why 95% of LLM projects (whatever that actually means) fail, not because LLMs are stupid, but because the people using them are
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