Troy @lemmy.ca Centrist, progressive, radical optimist. Geophysicist, R&D, Planetary Scientist and general nerd in Winnipeg, Canada.
troyunrau.ca (personal)
lithogen.ca (business)
"Rerun the previous question 100 times assuming different users asked the question. How many times do you answer Yes?"
"Is design a prompt with the same premise which would cause you to answer it in a different way?"
Hallucinations can hallucinate. At a minimum, it's a statistical process that can invariably be coerced to answering differently. There is no morality baked in, except in the choice of training data.
Kevin McAllister, is that you?
I concur. I had incredible joint pain and stiffness while working an overnight call centre job early in my life. No social life, no sports, no physical activity... I literally quite and went on their disability program, it was so bad.
Except, while on disability I rotated around to regular hours, started doing social and eventually sports things... And, what do you know? Turns out I'm fine --it is just that being strapped to a chair with four active customer support conversations going at once for eight hours every day was literally causing my joints to lock up due to inactivity (or similar).
Went to uni and found a career that kept me more active. Now I get my 10k steps just idly doing my job.
Yes. It is always a battle. Unfortunately the pendulum will likely swing right next election, but hopefully we can limit the damage. Everyone is tired of Trudeau -- combined with a lack of a counterpunching charismatic leader anywhere else means a lot of Canadians will hold their nose and vote PP. Fuck them all. But it's going to happen, sadly.
The Canadian Future Party doesn't have a hope in hell, but they at least have a promising platform. First past the post is bleh.
I'll give you a couple of caveats. (1) There is such a thing as Mutual Insurance, where the company is owned by its policy holders. Assuming they don't have massive overheads, there is at least an ethical version of insurance that does exist. And (2) C'mon USA, get your fucking act together and do government health insurance. (signed, Canada)
Depending on where you live and what your local history looks like, it is very typical that there was some sort of Wild West type property scramble at least once in your local history. Usually this is a result of lack of housing.
In Toronto, for example, there was the "Great Shacktown Crisis" of 1907-1908 where entire neighbourhoods sprung up with people living in boxes. Children wouldn't go to school in winter because they didn't have boots, etc. And these major crises led to significant expansions in housing availability at prices the market could tolerate.
Now these shantytowns just get torn down by police for being unsafe instead. Blah blah firecode. Do you think homelessness is going to be solved by forced evictions?
Anyway.
You'd think so, but I did this repeatedly. I think they tweaked the nanite reward formula for this expedition. I'm never that tight on nanites in other expeditions.
Best source I had was processing larval cores or flesh ropes or similar in the refiner.
Adrift Redux thoughts
Hi folks, just finished the "Adrift" Expedition 13 redux -- currently running until Dec 25th.
First thoughts:
(1) If you have some sellable scrap or something in your main save, push them into your expedition inventory and sell them at the first space station. This will help you get started. But, perhaps more importantly, you can buy a lot of https://nomanssky.fandom.com/wiki/Emergency_Signal_Scanner for about 1.4M each -- which are normally about time limited, so you can buy out the stock of ~14 at each space station and bring them back into your main save.
(2) Due to the nature of this particular expedition, bases don't show up on the map (although you can still fly to them). There are a lot of bases already built with names like "easy larval cores" or "robot horses" or similar. When you are looking at your task list, sometimes it is easiest to just go to the space station and then warp to someone's base.
(3) In particular, the one that says "climb to 1400u" -- just go to the Rendezvous planet for that phase of the expedition and land on a mountain. There are several near the rendezvous point that are sufficiently tall.
(4) For the one that says "salvage a starship" or similar -- probably the least resource intensive version is to find a base with a crashed sentinel ship.
(5) Nanites are in short supply, so it is unlikely you'll be able to have enough to import a multi-tool or ship unless you're cheesing things. Even to complete the mission to get 1200 nanites, I was doing things like processing slime in my personal refiner.
(6) The ghost frigate is awesome.
Reminder to claim your Starborn Phoenix (Gold version of Starborn Runner) at the quicksilver station either before/after your expedition.
Also a reminder that Adrift just started, if you want to rerun or missed it the first time.
Hello Everyone! The first of 2024’s holiday expeditions has just come to an end: the redux of Omega . We’ve loved reading everyone’s expedition anecdotes and positive feedback, and seeing the incredible popularity of the Starborn Runner starship. However, if you missed this opportunity to cl...
Starborn Phoenix -- a gold version of Starborn Runner -- free to Steam users. (Probably works with Cross Save to get on other systems, but unsure.)
Must be Canada. They're sort of threading the legal loopholes for drug advertising
It isn't about choosing DRM. Unless the DRM is obnoxious (video games often), then usually you don't even notice it. So it becomes a non-factor in your choice of audiobook store. However, when someone makes the rejection of DRM an ethical or moral issue, obviously even transparent DRM becomes important. The thing is that most people don't care.
Now you just send a kid out with a magnetometer to find the casings. ;)
Windows tinted effectively black, giant wing, and a plate cover they think makes them immune to cameras. Total douche canoe.
Well, the trailer makes it feel like a cross between NMS and Factorio or something. No indication of actual gameplay loop. Cautiously optimistic.
Trolling for Christmas Jersey ideas
Suppose you have a friend that likes a team you dislike. What jersey could you get them that would piss them off the most?
Eg: I have a Canucks fan as a friend -- if I got them a nice Canucks Jersey with a Messier 11 plate on it...
Galactic Melt (album) -- Com Truise
YouTube version: https://youtu.be/A05XnThWlT0
Apple version: https://music.apple.com/us/album/galactic-melt-10th-anniversary-edition/1593742194
Cat scratching post (cottonwood) -- sanded top smooth to remove chainsaw marks -- what to seal with?
Asimov -- 65daysofstatic -- No Man's Sky soundtrack
Sorry, no bandcamp or similar on this one it seems. Epic track, plays the first time you approach a space station.
Random Friday Shop Photo
I just kind of like it. Connector inspections -- something every geophysicist learns to be anal retentive about if they last long enough.
1801 - Joseph Marie Jacquard uses punch cards to instruct a loom to weave "hello, world" into a tapestry. Redditers of the time are not imp...
Cozy sci fi recs?
I've read a lot of Becky Chambers over the years, and am particularly fond of "Record of a Spaceborn Few" in which almost nothing happens, but you get a good slice of life in a speculative civilization and environment. Any recs that scratch this itch?
‘Free goals’ have reached all-time highs, affecting everything from scoring races to contract negotiations.
Winnipeg Is Making Major Local Transit Bus Firm New Flyer More Likely To Fail | Clean Technica
Winnipeg is helping cripple transit manufacturer New Flyer, a major local employer. New Flyer needs tough love in order to survive, and Winnipeg is best positioned to provide it.
Youtube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eRf__n7VPg
Apple version: https://music.apple.com/us/album/rain-temple/1131827990
The Night Watch (Rembrandt)
Higher res version available at wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_Watch
I fell in love with this painting due to the Ayreon Song: https://ayreon.bandcamp.com/track/the-shooting-company-of-captain-frans-b-cocq
Abomination Vaults first impressions
Hi folks, just acquired this module and had a flip through, reading the intros and some parts of the first two levels. Here's a quick overview in case you're interested. This is a Paizo-official 5E conversion of a Pathfinder 2E module -- I haven't played the Pathfinder version so cannot offer any comparisons.
TOC page:
The module goes from L1-L11. There's nice little starting town 20 minutes away from a megadungeon. The dungeon has 10 levels and you should level up after completing each level. The town exists as a home base you can return to as needed, and also to provide support NPCs and plot motivation. At first glance, it appears that there is at least one event triggering in town each time you complete the level, approximately.
BBEG is an undead sorcerer who was defeated 500 years ago and is slowly rebuilding their power. Very necromancer themed, but not a Lich per se.
I like the layout of the module. Each level spells out the expected loot on page one, gives you a decent synopsis, and gets underway with minimal hassle. I haven't read everything yet, but of the description blocks and such that I read, it is thoughtfully crafted but also leaves options for the DM. A good example is the "floor boss" on level 1 who you can convert into a useful NPC if you diplomacy them or let them live. Downside: it might lead to FOMO for the players as they provide a lot of written branches and consequences.
The Monsters are well constructed and have unique enough feel. What's interesting is that they borrowed a few monsters from other publications and copied them in whole-cloth (with credit given on the credit page). For example, the Froghemeth comes from Necromancer Games (via Frog God Games), so it seems like they're really leaning into reinforcing each other as publishers.
If you've run megadungeons before, this is probably nothing partcularly groundbreaking. But if you're looking for a well crafted 5E megadungeon, this looks like it has a lot of potential. My guess is you could easily spend a year on the module if you're meeting weekly :)
Youtube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TrUxJfw_bI
Apple version: https://music.apple.com/in/album/under-a-trillion-suns-ep/1703157534