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Cake day: April 3rd, 2024

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  • To put in context how much they are driving up demand: OpenAI just bought 40% of the global wafer production from two of the three major RAM manufacturers, Samsung and SK Hynix. SK Hynix Micron (best known for their Crucial brand) decided to drop out of the consumer market entirely.

    Of course the other AI companies are going to try to nail down supply as well. If they get similar deals, 10 € per GB of DDR5 will look cheap.

    This will increase the cost of computers, phones, and laptops, both directly and indirectly (e.g. GPUs will also become more expensive; VRAM doesn’t grow on trees). We’re already at a point where Samsung Semiconductors reportedly refused to sell RAM to Samsung Electronics. I fear we might enter into an age of 2000 € basic office PCs and 1000 € mid-tier phones if the AI bubble won’t pop first. Even when it does, the repercussions will be felt for some time.


  • Jesus_666@lemmy.worldtoComic Strips@lemmy.worldquesting
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    13 days ago

    I’m not complaining about a hero having some kind of advantage that allows them to go on an epic quest. I’m complaining about the devices of a) fantasy universes inexplicably having game mechanics like character levels and numeric stats and b) the protagonist being ridiculously overpowered, usually without expending any effort.

    The former feels like a lazy shorthand so the author doesn’t have to be able to actually depict power differences well; just pretend everything is Dragon Quest and throw around a few numbers. The latter is instant gratification wish fulfillment that may be nice every once in a while but feels wildly overused.

    Heroes can win without being overpowered. They can start out weak and grow with their challenges. They can even stay weak but persevere through it all. I think a heavily condensed Lord of the Rings clone would probably make for a more compelling story than yet another cookie cutter story à la “I Got Reincarnated In Another World And My Cheat Skill Made Me Level 9999 Instantly”.



  • Those two studios for the game because it was Hardsuit’s idea to make the game in the first place and TCR barely kept Paradox from canceling the have after they kicked Hardsuit out of the project.

    I think it basically went like this (simplified):

    Hardsuit: “Hey Paradox, we wanna make Bloodlines 2. We have everything worked out, we have the best possible writers involved, and it’s a real passion project; here’s our pitch.”

    Paradox: “Wow, that pitch convinced us completely! You get all the green lights in the world!”

    Hardsuit: “Now keep in mind we’ve never done a project on this scale before so we’ll need plenty of time—”

    Paradox: “We set you on an extremely aggressive schedule. Surely that’ll motivate you into delivering perfection!”

    Hardsuit: “That’s literally the exact opposite of what we need.”

    Paradox: “But it’s the exact non-opposite of what you get. Now chop chop, we already gave the release date to the press.”

    Hardsuit: “We’re not getting the game done in that timeframe.”

    Paradox: “No problem; we’ll delay a little bit. Surely nobody will mind.”

    Hardsuit: “It’ll take more than ‘a little bit’. We told you that—”

    Paradox: “Okay, sure, whatever, the game’s canceled now. Don’t call us back.”

    TCR: “Hey, can we try to salvage this? We really wanna see this made. But we’d like to throw away all of the writing, characters, and gameplay. Everything except the setting, really.”

    Paradox: “Okay, sounds reasonable. But make it snappy.”

    TCR: “We’d also like to change the name because what we can deliver won’t really be a proper sequel to—”

    Paradox: “Bloodlines 2 it is. Good discussion. Glad we talked about this.”

    TCR: “That’s literally the exact opposite of what we asked for.”

    Paradox: “Can’t hear you; too busy launching the sequel to one of the most beloved cult classics in the action RPG genre.”

    Customers: “Well, this is a pretty bad sequel. Decent game but they really shouldn’t have called it Bloodlines 2. We’re disappointed.”

    Paradox: “The only logical course of action is to swear to never release a non-strategy game ever again because nobody appreciates our art.”



  • Except if they then have to run it on their machine and the setup instructions start with setting up a venv. I find that a lot of Python software in the ML realm makes no effort to isolate the end user from the complexities of the platform. At best you get a setup script that may or may not create a working venv without manual intervention, usually the latter. It might be more of a Torch issue than a Python one but it still means spending a lot of time messing with the Python environment to get things running.

    This may color my perception but the parts of the Python ecosystem I get exposed to as an end user these days feel very hacky. (Not all of it is, though; I remember from my Gentoo days that Portage was rock solid.)








  • And don’t feel bad for getting an e-bike. Riding that is still a good workout if you get into the habit of going fast. E-bikes usually have a hard speed cutoff (25 km/h by law where I live); if you want to go faster it’s all you and the motor is just there to give you better acceleration and take the pain out of things like hills or opposing wind.

    If you don’t want to go fast, the bike still expects you to put in a certain amount of work. Low-intensity training is still training. Most crucially, getting that bit of assistance might get you to use the bike when you otherwise wouldn’t, turning no exercise into some exercise.

    People underestimate the benefits of light exercise. Even brisk walks or relatively leisurely motor-assisted bike rides can absolutely be beneficial if done regularly.


  • Cooking instructions don’t mesh well with some people. I’m one of them.

    Half of the time the instructions are vague (like “golden brown”, which has vastly different definitions based on what you’re cooking) and the measurements are often inexact (“to taste” is completely useless to someone who doesn’t know how the intermediate product is supposed to taste). Plus, you often have to do things during the heating process and if your multitasking isn’t good enough your meal is ruined.

    All of this is less of a deal if you have someone with cooking experience in the kitchen. If you don’t, well, good luck.

    I consider cooking to be highly stressful even with a recipe. Baking is much better since the measurements tend to be precise to the gram and the heating step happens in isolation.