ArbitraryValue

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ArbitraryValue , to Ask Lemmy in Do billionaires work monday to friday like all 9-5s?

My theory is that psychosis due to self-imposed sleep deprivation causes some of the crazier things Elon Musk does.

ArbitraryValue , to memes in "Soundblaster" was such an 80s/90s name for a computer part.

Not the same thing, but I still have my old Voodoo 2 3D-accelerator card (not the same thing as a video card back then).

ArbitraryValue , to Technology in Microsoft really wants Local accounts gone after it erases its guide on how to create them

When I bought my Windows 11 laptop a month ago, I was able to set up a local account after turning on airplane mode. (I had entered my wifi password in an earlier step since I thought it was just for installing updates.)

ArbitraryValue , to Programmer Humor in Life is hard

I spent those years in dll hell.

ArbitraryValue , to Technology in Robot cars can be crashed with tinfoil and painted cardboard

People seem to hold computers to a higher standard than other people when performing the same task.

ArbitraryValue , to Ukraine in A Russian "Z-journalist" says all attacks were repelled by Russian air defense. The building behind him strongly disagrees.

That's just from the debris of all the drones they shot down, duh.

(Sarcasm, just in case.)

ArbitraryValue , to RPGMemes in Fudging rolls is the path to the dark side...

Chance is an illusion. You cannot escape your fate.

ArbitraryValue , to Ask Lemmy in What's something weird and mostly useless that you can do with your body?

Sometimes when I open my mouth really wide, I somehow spray a little stream of saliva, like from a squirt gun. It makes me feel like the dilophosaurus in Jurassic Park, but so far I haven't been able to do it on purpose.

ArbitraryValue , to Technology in So here's a story of, by far, the weirdest bug I've encountered in my CS career.

Their problem:

So apparently NetHack has a mechanic that slightly changes how the game plays every time it's full moon according to your system clock

The model wasn't trained on a full moon. They had a system to set up the environment for replicable results but it didn't include modifying the system time.

It reminds me of another bug with the system time, which a friend of mine encountered. He was working on hardware and he was getting a lot of units that worked fine at the factory, immediately failed at the client's location, and then worked again when they were returned to the factory. It turned out that when these machines were turned on, their embedded OS automatically queried some server to update the current time. The client's internet connection had such high latency that the server's response only came back after the machine was already in use. This generated a huge delta-t value that triggered the sanity checks and shut the machine down. The factory had a much lower-latency connection and so the race condition could never be replicated there.

As for the weirdest bug I ever encountered myself: a compiler generating bad machine code. I have often said that the worst part of programming is that the computer always does exactly what you tell it to, but that was the one and only time in twenty years that the computer actually didn't.

ArbitraryValue , (edited ) to RPGMemes in It's so perfect

I think Gaston would have been a good main character for a hypothetical Beauty and the Beast sequel (or a good D&D PC). He's the inverse of the standard hero - rather than starting out weak but pure of heart, he starts out strong, clever, brave, and charismatic, but also a rotten person. However, he just crossed several lines in a row (literally stabbing someone in the back is pretty bad even by his own standards), nearly died (Disney characters routinely survive falling off of cliffs), and can't go home to a town where everyone knows he's a villain. Can he turn his life around after hitting rock bottom (both literally and figuratively)?

I'd play him as a paladin, for that strength/charisma combination. Maybe he was saved through divine intervention? That could be enough to make him change his ways. A combat-oriented bard might work too; he does sing...

ArbitraryValue , to memes in That has to be fake

When I was in California, I saw perfectly peeled lemons lying under a friend's lemon tree. He told me the rats did it - they ate the peel but were very careful not to bite into the sour inside.

ArbitraryValue , to Ukraine in The Ukrainian Navy reports that overnight, the Russian Project 266M Natya Class Minesweeper Kovrovets was destroyed.

Maybe this is a dumb question, but why would Ukraine target a minesweeper?

ArbitraryValue , to Ask Lemmy in Name a Superhero you just can't stand

Are you claiming that Batman wears spandex because originally he was supposed to be naked but the CCA wouldn't allow that?

ArbitraryValue , to World News in Name and shame: Pro-Israel website ramps up attacks on pro-Palestinian student protesters

It's easy to act self-righteous when that has no consequences, but in practice most people on this planet live in countries (including democratic countries) that probably would actually kill the children in an analogous scenario.

ArbitraryValue , (edited ) to World News in Name and shame: Pro-Israel website ramps up attacks on pro-Palestinian student protesters

If you present me with a trolley problem in which the only way to destroy Hamas also kills a million children, I won't know what the right answer is. I suppose it would depend on what would happen to Israel if Hamas wasn't destroyed.

However, the moral calculus for nations is not the same as it is for individuals. The standard established the last time the Western world fought a war it took seriously does seem to be "as many as it takes" and I suspect that this would still be the standard if such a war happened again. (All those nuclear missiles we have ready aren't precise weapons...) In that context, demanding that Israel should show restraint that other countries haven't and wouldn't seems like hypocrisy.

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