let's get this party started #NBPy
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Now Alla Barbalat is talking about using Python to evaluate game balance in the context of a board game.
For me personally this is such a fun and refreshing look at a structured approach to the *basics* of game design. A million years ago when I worked in the game industry, so much of what designers were talking about (i.e., at GDC, but also elsewhere) were esoteric, lost-in-the-weeds explanations of very specific problems. This feels very much like the missing piece of that puzzle! #NBPy
@glyph Any pointers to where I can find out more about this? I want to improve the balance of my TDD game and its upcoming expansion.
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TIL about this all-time banger https://lookitup.baby #NBPy
@glyph oh man what a good thing to be in today's 10k for. An all-timer classic for sure
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Now I'm learning about the lesson that users have learned from yes/no "consent" modals is that they just always have to say "yes" or the computer will deny them critical access to functionality that they need in order to perform their desired task, complete assigned work from an employer or school, or even get life-critical medication. I'm not feeling like a feature whose perceived function is 'you have to say yes; now that you said yes it's your fault' should be referred to as 'consent' #NBPy
@glyph This issue of coerced consent isn't just a problem with IT.
It poisons society's wider understanding of the concept of consent, and has very dangerous implications for sexual consent.
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@f800gecko @glyph @jit JAX can also be quite nice for some problems, even ones that don't look quite like linear algebra.
I shall have a look at JAX.
Numba came to me the same way - someone mentioned in a thread like this one. It looked simpler than Cython, hand-coded C or Rust (trials still pending - I plan to compare all & select for best boost & fit), so I went to Numba first.
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@davebauerart inducing FOMO is the goal, more people should go to this event. it’s really special!
@glyph Slightly inconvenient commute from upstate New York but I can see the value!
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Extremely valuable reminder about "simply" and "just": this language (along with its pals; "basically" "obviously", "of course") isn't merely stylistic noise; it sends a specific message:
"This should be easy"
or, in other words:
"If this isn't easy, it's your fault"
This is implicitly an attack on the reader.
@glyph For all the others I can see it, but to me "basically" is more closely related to "effectively" or "essentially" and feels like it's better-suited to saying e.g. "what I'm describing after this word isn't *exactly* correct about the subject matter, but will generally be at least either (1) a safe way to think of it for context purposes and/or (2) a (possibly over-)simplified explanation/perspective intended to provide a workable *base* to understand the subject".
"Why not use effectively or essentially then"? Because those "distillation indicators" are stronger hints of *accuracy* to me, where "basically" instead hints (to me) that the writer is hedging or fudging a little bit but (hopefully) not materially so, which is useful information in that it flags that further research may be required if there's still confusion. Plus, "effectively" generally implicitly captures *outcomes* (or *effects*) rather than the nature of a thing.
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@f800gecko @glyph @jit The vmap() function is one of the key bits that lets you structure code in a way that's readable yet still extracts some parallelism. This is useful even running on CPU, but depending what hardware you're targeting GPU acceleration is an option too.
I've been away from this stuff for a few years, but doing a quick search to see what's new Taichi also looks extremely interesting more flexible at the cost of some performance.
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@f800gecko @glyph @jit The vmap() function is one of the key bits that lets you structure code in a way that's readable yet still extracts some parallelism. This is useful even running on CPU, but depending what hardware you're targeting GPU acceleration is an option too.
I've been away from this stuff for a few years, but doing a quick search to see what's new Taichi also looks extremely interesting more flexible at the cost of some performance.
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"Pipelined Architecture", a well known feature of square dancing #NBPy
Good morning! Up now: "An Economy of Empathy" by @pythonbynight . We are starting off … extremely dark … with some descriptions of the grisly reality of content-moderation work in the global south at a company called "Sama" (on behalf of Meta, née Facebook) and moving directly to eugenics, including from the founder of "AI", and creator of Lisp, John McCarthy. Oooooooof.
"Are these biases still present in the tech industry?"
Not exactly a surprise, but, again: oof. #NBPy
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Good morning! Up now: "An Economy of Empathy" by @pythonbynight . We are starting off … extremely dark … with some descriptions of the grisly reality of content-moderation work in the global south at a company called "Sama" (on behalf of Meta, née Facebook) and moving directly to eugenics, including from the founder of "AI", and creator of Lisp, John McCarthy. Oooooooof.
"Are these biases still present in the tech industry?"
Not exactly a surprise, but, again: oof. #NBPy
Always glad to see Nick Bostrom, Longtermism, William MacAskill, Effective Altruism, etc etc get read for filth. These guys *still* get way too much credit for the bailey of their ideas and are not often scrutinized for the motte of overt eugenics, racism, misogyny that they are building upon.
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Always glad to see Nick Bostrom, Longtermism, William MacAskill, Effective Altruism, etc etc get read for filth. These guys *still* get way too much credit for the bailey of their ideas and are not often scrutinized for the motte of overt eugenics, racism, misogyny that they are building upon.
An even wider-ranging indictment of the basic tools of statistics, data science, machine learning, and the concept of "intelligence" than I'm familiar with. Even the concept of a linear regression evokes an implicit normative judgement, that human difference is all quantifiable and sameness is desirable — when those things are demonstrably untrue. But more to the point these fields were *initally developed* by eugenicists.
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I love talks that, as a 25 year Python veteran, have the ability make me say to myself “wait, does that even work” with less than 10 lines of code
@glyph @tiotasram
Oo, that’s tricky and fun -
An even wider-ranging indictment of the basic tools of statistics, data science, machine learning, and the concept of "intelligence" than I'm familiar with. Even the concept of a linear regression evokes an implicit normative judgement, that human difference is all quantifiable and sameness is desirable — when those things are demonstrably untrue. But more to the point these fields were *initally developed* by eugenicists.
"*Why* are users turning to chatbots as a way of dealing with loneliness? What are the gaps in existing technology?"
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@glyph @tiotasram
Oo, that’s tricky and fun@glyph @tiotasram
Huh, why the `super().__init__()`? It appears to work without out that in a quick smoke test -
"*Why* are users turning to chatbots as a way of dealing with loneliness? What are the gaps in existing technology?"
"Oppose *systems*
Support *people*" -
"*Why* are users turning to chatbots as a way of dealing with loneliness? What are the gaps in existing technology?"
@glyph
Isn't the obvious question what the gaps in society are that make people turn to chatbots as a way of dealing with loneliness? Technology won't address loneliness, it might fill the time that people otherwise would feel a craving for connection with living beings. -
"Oppose *systems*
Support *people*"Whew. After a short (and much needed) "emotional whiplash break" inserted into the schedule by @chrisjrn, we have @benno with "State of Exception(s)", a talk about error handling. And then as befits a lighter-hearted and more technical talk, we open with a brief reference to the historical figure of Carl Schmitt and commentary from "reactionary twit" Brian Lunduke.
Oops.
Ahem. And now, some examples of idiomatic error handling in C…
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Whew. After a short (and much needed) "emotional whiplash break" inserted into the schedule by @chrisjrn, we have @benno with "State of Exception(s)", a talk about error handling. And then as befits a lighter-hearted and more technical talk, we open with a brief reference to the historical figure of Carl Schmitt and commentary from "reactionary twit" Brian Lunduke.
Oops.
Ahem. And now, some examples of idiomatic error handling in C…
(slide full of C code)
"Who knows the undefined behavior"
(pause for less than 30 seconds)
sometimes rhetoric is still very effective even if you know exactly how the trick works
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(slide full of C code)
"Who knows the undefined behavior"
(pause for less than 30 seconds)
sometimes rhetoric is still very effective even if you know exactly how the trick works
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@glyph It shouldn't be. When I was younger, the law interpreted things as "once you own or have the right to use something, any attempt by anyone to deny you use of it is illegal and you can do whatever you need to do to use your stuff". You were supposed to minimize damage to other people's stuff, but if they tried to put a lock on something you'd already bought and paid for you could just cut the lock off.
Unfortunately, these devices now take advantage of DRM or argue that they are proprietary which triggers the DMCA. This has caused a lot of headaches for everyone.
I wrote a research paper on this here:
Written: April 25, 2024
The Paradox of Ownership in the Digital Age: How DMCA and DRM Limit Access and Undermine Preservation Efforts The digital age has ushered in a revolution in how we access and intera...
autumn (pen.waltuh.cyou)
