Details
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AboutProfessional Programmer
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SkillsC++, Python I program other languages on occasion. Well versed in process control and realtime systems. Experience with electronics/electrical design. I am interested in game programming and design. Making things move is fun.
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LocationEarth (most of the time)
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Github
Joined devRant on 7/29/2019
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So I am driving home and stop at a light. Some dude in a truck behind me starts flipping me off at the light. The road is 45mph and 2 lanes. I am in the right lane. So when the light changes I speed up to 35mph so he can pass me. He decides to tailgate me and honk at me. So I stay steady and he eventually goes around me. I keep my distance. But it looks like he is going to the same place as me. Before I get to the road I want to park for my destination he takes the same road and parks his truck and trailer where I normally park facing the wrong direction. Okay, wtf, but okay. So I go further down the road to turn around and park somewhere else. He guns his truck to cut me off from that parking spot. I have to hit my brakes to prevent hitting him. I raise my hands in the are like "why?" I then finish turning around and head back to my parking spot and park. So this guy tried to cause a car accident. At this point I took my stuff inside and put it away. Came back out and called the police to report the incident. They said they cannot identify a crime, but I can fill out a police report. While I am on the phone with the police this guy leaves that street giving me this bizarre deranged smile. I refuse to engage. I spent the next hour filling out the police report. In the process I find out he lives on that street a few houses down. I am nowhere near his house, but he seems to not like me parking on that street. This guy must have seen my car on that street before and decides to randomly road rage. I gave his name and address to the police. My intent to build a case file if he doesn't knock this shit off.
So now I gotta buy a fucking dash cam and put it in my car because of some nutjob plumber. I have nothing against plumbers, but this guy fits the definition of knuckle dragger. His name isn't even Mario or Luigi, bummer.
Another thing that might be related is that during the winter somebody dumped a ton of snow onto my car when it was parked there. It looked like it was on purpose. If this is the same guy this guy drove his snow plow 4 houses down. Definitely has mental problems.8 -
Well this is interesting:
https://slate.com/technology/2024/...
Will be interesting to see what happens here. I knew there was a jack up on prices for accessories. Never imagined it would be a lawsuit. I wonder if there is any collusion by Apple and Google to keep other phone makers out of markets? It seems like most phones are either iPhone or Android based. Maybe that part is organic.1 -
Been thinking about if I want voice acting in my games. Potentially it would be really expensive. So I wondered if there was AI libraries for training your own voices. There are a few and some even are trying to do it realtime. Or at least fast enough for web site use.
I find this library:
https://github.com/coqui-ai/TTS
Looks interesting, but I need training data. I found that you can license a limited number of words from voice actors. The licensing doesn't seem to care if how you use the data as long as it stays inside your production (video, game, etc). There are even some free ones out there. I think it might be kinda fun to learn how to do this.
Yes, there are a bunch of AI websites, but the voices almost always seem conversational. Not voices in a game setting. Most of those are stupid subscription bullshit. I also looked at text to speech and most of those are subscription. I really really hate the SaaS business model. I avoid companies that use it as much as I can.10 -
Why do I see so many developers in the game community asking if a <insert tool> is usable for making a game? (I see it a bit here too for language and framework suggestions.)
Then I started thinking that these people either don't know what they want to do or they don't research the tools to find out what the capabilities are. Yes a certain percentage don't have a clue and are asking out of complete nativity.
However, as a developer I have always looked into features I think I need and base decisions on that. Often times spending a couple of days to play with the tool. Learn by doing.
Then I got a bit philosophical. Are the people asking these questions because their value system is based upon collectivism rather than merit? They will be in for a rude awakening when they cannot finish a project on time or at all when a feature is not there.
I get it on some level though. Sometimes we gotta know if something is complete shit.3 -
So Stroustrup tells the White House: Fuck you, C++ isn't C (paraphrased):
https://infoworld.com/article/...
Go get em Bjarne!13 -
The name of this game is: Identify the Context.
Found this gem of a quote:
"There is enough space between shaft and belt to sneak."
Now, identify the context!11 -
So I am considering side games to add my main games. Mini games I guess they are called. I thought it might be fun to have random chessboards in game you can actually play. I wanted to actually have a decent chess engine behind the game. Off the bat I found a GPL one. I think it is designed to be communicated externally. So what does that mean for using it in my game? If I communicate to an external process is this violating GPL? I have no intention of making my game open source. Well it seems this use case is very nuanced:
https://opensource.stackexchange.com/...
The consensus on a lot of these discussions is the scope of the use of the program. Are you bundling for convenience or bundling for intrinsic utility? This is fascinating because using a compiler on a Windows platform could be a possibly violation. That is a proprietary program calling a GPL one. This is actually handled in the GPL as far as I know. So, if I use a GPL engine as a mini game is that the same as a full blown chess game? What if I support 10 different engines in a full blown chess game?
Now to play devil's advocate even further. Are proprietary phone apps that communicate to GPL software that serve data intrinsically linked? The app will not function without the server or computer os the server runs on. A lot of the web tech is largely GPL or has large amount of GPL programs. Should the web code be under GPL? Should the phone app be under GPL? This sounds ridiculous to some degree. But is that the same as bundling a GPL app and communicating to it from the program via network or command line? The phone app depends upon this software.
Now to protect myself I will find a decent chess engine that is either LGPL or something more permissive. I just don't want the hassle. I might make the chess engine use a parameter in case someone else might want a better engine they want to add though. At that point it is the user adding it. Maybe the fact that it would not be the only game in town is a factor as well.
I am also considering bundling python as a whole to get access to better AI tools (python is pretty small compared to game assets). It seems everything is python when it comes to AI. The licensing there is much better though. I would love to play with NLP for commanding npcs.
I am not discussing linking at all, btw.4 -
What games made you racist? Or had racist content when you thought about it? (Whether intentional or not.)
Skyrim (somewhat Morrowind too, not Oblivion). I hate piss elves (high elves). They are condescending cunts. Didn't much care for Dark Elves in Morrowind. They were always swearing at me. Orcs are kinda stupid, but their abilities made me respect them. I have great respect for the Nords. Some of them wanted to murder all elves. I am okay with this. The Foresworn are gross.
Minecraft. Didn't make me racist, but had some interesting inclusions. First off all the villagers looks Jewish and are the arbiters of trade. Weird that. Then there is the Endermen. They are black, they steal blocks, they were introduced with watermelons (maybe not true, what I heard), and want to fight you if you look at them. I wonder if they will get changed later because of this...
You know a game is doing something right on their stories to get you wrapped up in the politics to choose sides. I think this may be part of the success of Skyrim. I hope to make my own players polarized on topics in my games, but in a good way.24 -
Got to talking with someone in our company about AI generated code. I said we still have to audit the code, understand how it works, and ensure there isn't any nefarious libraries or code in what is produced. Like what we "should" be doing when we find libraries on the web. I explained how people will purposely create libraries that are spoofs of other libraries, but have malicious code embedded in them. It doesn't take much to imagine someone using a sketchy AI to push this kinda code.
How do you reasonably fight this if we start increasingly relying on generated code by AI? So I suggested we need an AI to review AI generated code. Then we need an AI to review the AI that reviews the AI generated code. Then...3 -
I suggested we make a feature that has a checkbox that is greyed out and always selected. It would have words describing what the checkbox does. This would inform the user about how the feature works, but won't allow them to change that behavior.
So I am ready and willing to create user hostile software features. I am ready to work for Microsoft.1 -
My wife is a bigger nerd that me. She just told me Rooster Teeth is shutting down. Who knows shit like that? I haven't looked at anything Rooster Teeth since Red vs Blue.
Earlier conversation with her about something else:
Me: I can't believe how stupid people are. I cannot believe people are stupid enough to...
Her: Hold up. You really need to expand your imagination about how stupid people can actually be.
Me: I am not smart enough to understand how stupid people can be.
Yeah, I think she may be the smart one. She makes up for my weaknesses.4 -
So my boss is telling me they plan on moving away from Qt. The value proposition is just not there anymore. Maybe I will learn to be a C++ programmer again, and not a Qt programmer. This will be interesting the next few months.
Unlearn what you have learned.6 -
So my kid tells me that her teacher said my kid could teach the class. I told my kid that was great, good job!
Later my kid is talking to me:
Kid: Nerd!
Me: If I remember correctly. Your teacher said you could teach her class. My teachers never told me that. I think that makes you the nerd.
Kid: <big frown>3 -
Dumb as a rock...
Pet rocks...
Why people so dumb to be dumb as a rock and have pet rocks?
Yet people have computers which basically have a math rock that runs the system. People think computers are smart so they defer to things like online data and ai systems. As if the computer somehow "knows" better. The R2D2 effect. Fancy magic 8 balls.
Society is dumber than a rock. Seems to be getting dumber too. The irony is that people who had pet rocks also went outside and touched grass.4 -
So I have been looking for game assets. I found some I liked from one site cgtrader. I check up on the site and find out the artists are fleeing the site in droves. Company doesn't charge the credit card what the invoice says. They are not paying artists correctly. The whole site seems to be imploding. They mention that they left Turbosquid for the same reason. So I end up looking at Artstation. Artstation is being overrun with cheap garbage AI models. I tried to update settings on that site and it tells me turn off adblock. WTF! I came to buy 3d models, not get ads pushed on me.
So I have come to the conclusion. There are artists out there with good content. But all the art brokers are fucked up. If anyone wanted to start a fair legit art site the time is now. Adopt a strict no AI policy and treat the artists well. They need a home.3 -
So I am trying to search for videos about using math and geometry to model physical objects. I am currently searching youtube. Almost every video they recommend is a short and not about the subject I want information about. This is the most unpleasant experience I have ever had on youtube. It is truly going to shit. This pushing shorts over real content is absurd. I don't want to be on the platform at all now. I don't want to see shorts at all if I could tell them that.5
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So I have been wondering about "ish" on the end of ethnicitys. Does it mean sorta?
Irish : ire-ish sorta angry
Danish : dane-ish?
Finnish : fin-ish good swimmers?
Spanish : span-ish good with measuring things? Good with wrenches?
Jewish : non practicing Jew?
English : what the hell is an engl?12 -
I think the instructions for the holy hand grenade could also apply to the amount of indentation:
https://youtu.be/xOrgLj9lOwk?t=851 -
A few years ago I was at the taco bus (Taco Tepito) to get some food. There was a couple there (man and woman). The woman was speaking fluent Spanish to order their food. It kind of seemed like she was showing off her skill to the man. Seemed like a date situation.
While we are waiting a cat ran out from under the bus. To this I said: "One got away." The man started laughing at this comment. The woman looked visibly angry. I am not sure if she was more mad at me for making the comment, or mad at her date for laughing about the comment. Sorry dude. Hopefully she could look past that.
Actual picture of the bus, plus a cat I added:2 -
Pet Peeve... If you are a creator, you are largely doing technical content, and the channel is not about your personality. Then I don't want to see your stupid face. I want to see technical info like text, graphics and block diagrams. I don't exactly know why this bothers me, but it does.6
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Don't products have disclaimers that say where they shouldn't be used? Are people just not reading these?2
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When entering a one-holer restroom, someone didn't lock the door, and you have already seen more than you wanted to see. What are your options to react?
1. Say "excuse me" and quickly leave.
2. Chew them out loudly as you walk out.
3. Make really loud horse noises and leave.
4. Use the sink.
I have had this happen to me twice at my current work place. Now, when opening the door I have this procedure:
1. Open door a crack to see if the room light is on.
2. If light is on wait a few seconds for audible notification of occupation.
3. If unoccupied continue to enter.
If you are in the one-holer using the restroom and someone tries the door you also have options:
1. Stay silent Dark Brotherhood style.
2. Laugh maniacally really loudly.
3. If door opens scream like a girl.3