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drrockso20 posted:On the topic of Atari, one of the games for the 2600, a game called Entombed apparently uses a process for designing it's mazes procedurally in a manner that ensures that it's a solvable maze, the thing is no one has been able to figure out how it works for a very simple reason, the guy who programmed it was drunk while doing it, apparently solving programming problems while intoxicated in ways that are brilliant yet indecipherable afterwards is a surprisingly common thing That reminds me of when they used a genetic algorithm (basically applied Darwinism but to computer code) to program a field-programmable gate array (FPGA; it's basically a circuit board that can be reprogrammed on the fly) to discriminate between tone frequencies. What happened was that the algorithm came up with an incredibly tiny design, nothing a human would ever come up with - with several logic gates that weren't connected to anything but if you removed them the thing stopped working. Their hypothesis was that there was some subtle electric interaction going on there which caused the whole thing to work. Also they found the circuit didn't work as well if they applied the same program the algorithm had come up with to another FPGA hardware unit. https://static.aminer.org/pdf/PDF/000/308/779/an_evolved_circuit_intrinsic_in_silicon_entwined_with_physics.pdf
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Jun 13, 2020 12:35
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THE AI HAS THE “MORE MAGIC” SWITCH WE’RE hosed
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Jun 13, 2020 12:37
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Carbon dioxide posted:That reminds me of when they used a genetic algorithm (basically applied Darwinism but to computer code) to program a field-programmable gate array (FPGA; it's basically a circuit board that can be reprogrammed on the fly) to discriminate between tone frequencies. There's a write-up of that experiment here, which might be easier if people aren't so much into the hardcore technical details. https://www.damninteresting.com/on-the-origin-of-circuits/
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Jun 13, 2020 13:12
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Sweevo posted:There's a write-up of that experiment here, which might be easier if people aren't so much into the hardcore technical details. https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.03453 This is a good read on unexpected outcomes of genetic algorithms
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Jun 13, 2020 13:24
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Carbon dioxide posted:That reminds me of when they used a genetic algorithm (basically applied Darwinism but to computer code) to program a field-programmable gate array (FPGA; it's basically a circuit board that can be reprogrammed on the fly) to discriminate between tone frequencies. Demon hacker station
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Jun 13, 2020 13:34
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Genetic algorithms and the like do exactly what is required of the problem statement with the solution space. You need to be careful of what the problem statement and solution space are. Like you run an experiment thinking at the start "give me a logic gate design that interprets tone frequency" but what you're actually running is "turn this one specific FPGA into a frequency interpreter"
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Jun 13, 2020 13:42
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Yes, they also tend to be incredibly good at finding logic gaps in your problem statement.
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Jun 13, 2020 14:50
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Platystemon posted:THE AI HAS THE “MORE MAGIC” SWITCH I wanna do a MAGIC/MORE MAGIC switch on the front of a beater car, with a beefy actuator and do a version of this with the bonnet (hood).
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Jun 13, 2020 15:19
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I'm loosely aware there's still holdout Amiga diehards. Apparently Amiga tried to release a console in the 32 bit era and went bankrupt after six months. It's not just "holdouts", it's full-on "maniacs". I've posted this in at least a couple of threads and still find it amazing: Trabant posted:Here are some words that somehow still make sense in TYOOL 2019: I very much want one, but have way too many dumb things to spend time/money on already.
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Jun 14, 2020 05:07
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) and want a "new" Amiga, you can now preorder the Vampire V4 standalone card. Not an emulated system and, unlike the previous Vampire cards, not an accelerator that needs a base system -- this is an A1200 (originally a 68020 @ 12 MHZ with 2 MB RAM) actually implemented in FPGA with:
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I'm loosely aware there's still holdout Amiga diehards. Apparently Amiga tried to release a console in the 32 bit era and went bankrupt after six months. May I present one of those games for the Amiga CD32: Kang Fu. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEweuH5NCAI If you don't want to wait on the load screens, skip to 2 minutes in.
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Jun 14, 2020 05:47
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Carbon dioxide posted:That reminds me of when they used a genetic algorithm (basically applied Darwinism but to computer code) to program a field-programmable gate array (FPGA; it's basically a circuit board that can be reprogrammed on the fly) to discriminate between tone frequencies. AI generated antenna in kind of the same problem space are insane. 
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Jun 14, 2020 07:18
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RC and Moon Pie posted:May I present one of those games for the Amiga CD32: Kang Fu. Let's not be forgetting The Town With No Name.
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Jun 14, 2020 08:53
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In 1942 the crew on the dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen was in trouble. The japanese army had invaded Indonesia where the minesweeper was based and the ships that were meant to protect it wasn't there. They then, figuring that no one would notice an extra island, painted the boat, covered it in branches and foliage and slowly made their way to Australia hoping that no one would notice that one of the islands were moving around: Abraham Crijnssen was the only ship of it's class in the region to survive. Alhazred has a new favorite as of 17:39 on Jun 18, 2020 |
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Jun 18, 2020 17:07
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Alhazred posted:In 1942 the crew on the dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen was in trouble. The japanese army had invaded Indonesia were the minesweeper was based and the ships that were meant to protect it wasn't there. They then, figuring that no one would notice an extra island, painted the boat, covered it in branches and foliage and slowly made their way to Australia hoping that no one would notice that one of the islands were moving around: The IJN knew better than to start loving with the Ents.
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Jun 18, 2020 17:36
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Alhazred posted:In 1942 the crew on the dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen was in trouble. The japanese army had invaded Indonesia where the minesweeper was based and the ships that were meant to protect it wasn't there. They then, figuring that no one would notice an extra island, painted the boat, covered it in branches and foliage and slowly made their way to Australia hoping that no one would notice that one of the islands were moving around: I was curious as to what happened to the ship after she got to Australia and found her full story on the Australian Navy website. She was drafted into the RAN at Fremantle and did escort duty for convoys along the Australian coast until she was returned to the Dutch navy and eventually made her way home to the Netherlands. She's now a museum ship in the Naval museum in Den Helder. https://www.navy.gov.au/hmas-abraham-crijnssen
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Jun 19, 2020 01:43
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They should keep it covered in foliage beside the river bank and see how well it fools people. If attendance is low, they did a good job
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Jun 19, 2020 04:05
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Ghost Leviathan posted:The way I heard it, E.T wasn't the only overhyped overmarketed clunker that got everyone to realise there weren't really any good Atari games, but a disastrous bug-filled port of Pac-Man came out around the same time. Can imagine that if they even managed to gently caress up Pac-Man, people may figure home consoles are a mug's game and stick to arcades. It wasn't even just that Atari bombed a couple flagship titles, these also happened to coincide with the market getting flooded by shovelware. Atari's business model was to sell its proprietary cartridges for $40 a pop at retail (in 1980 dollars, equivalent to $infinity today), but courts ruled that they couldn't actually prevent other developers (mostly jilted Atari employees who resented the way they'd been treated) from manufacturing their own compatible cartridges. So not only did Atari have a couple expensive duds on its hands, they suddenly had to compete against a glut of cheap 3rd party titles. Even if Atari's next big name game managed to redeem itself, the idea of a curated library of expensive, quality games was kaput; the sheer quantity of cheaply produced garbage pressed prices down, and as average game quality fell consumers became less willing to gamble on new games even at the new lower prices.
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Jun 19, 2020 06:01
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What was the timeline for video/game rentals? It recently occurred to me that movie rentals came into existence, thrived, and then faded away in what felt like maybe a twenty year span. It would have to be after VHS tapes were common enough that a decent (variety+redundancies for popular/new stuff) library for a business was affordable but not for homes yet also there had to be a way to watch them at home.
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Jun 19, 2020 06:50
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Milo and POTUS posted:They should keep it covered in foliage beside the river bank and see how well it fools people. If attendance is low, they did a good job Build a tropical plant conservatory with a lake large enough to float the ship in. 
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Jun 19, 2020 07:05
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Milo and POTUS posted:What was the timeline for video/game rentals? It recently occurred to me that movie rentals came into existence, thrived, and then faded away in what felt like maybe a twenty year span. It would have to be after VHS tapes were common enough that a decent (variety+redundancies for popular/new stuff) library for a business was affordable but not for homes yet also there had to be a way to watch them at home. As far as I'm aware they started being a thing during the NES generation
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Jun 19, 2020 07:14
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Straight White Shark posted:It wasn't even just that Atari bombed a couple flagship titles, these also happened to coincide with the market getting flooded by shovelware. Atari's business model was to sell its proprietary cartridges for $40 a pop at retail (in 1980 dollars, equivalent to $infinity today), but courts ruled that they couldn't actually prevent other developers (mostly jilted Atari employees who resented the way they'd been treated) from manufacturing their own compatible cartridges. I wasn't sure on the timeline, but that makes sense, see also why Nintendo had the Seal of Quality thing. They couldn't actually legally prevent people from releasing unauthorised carts on the system, I think (I had two such carts, the multi-game packs where you plug in a second cartridge to use for memory expansion, which is pretty crazy in retrospect) but they gave buyers and probably more importantly stores the impression that they were actually exercising some quality control.
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Jun 19, 2020 07:18
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Milo and POTUS posted:What was the timeline for video/game rentals? It recently occurred to me that movie rentals came into existence, thrived, and then faded away in what felt like maybe a twenty year span. It would have to be after VHS tapes were common enough that a decent (variety+redundancies for popular/new stuff) library for a business was affordable but not for homes yet also there had to be a way to watch them at home. I'm not sure but for quite a few years game reviews would end with a buy vs rent recommendation.
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Jun 19, 2020 07:19
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People in this forum thread, which is so old it is itself halfway to the Atari Age, says rentals were available.
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Jun 19, 2020 07:20
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Wouldn't be surprised that game rentals were a thing pretty early on, both from game stores and video rental stores, since they basically worked the same as VHS tapes and players at the time.
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Jun 19, 2020 07:36
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Ghost Leviathan posted:I wasn't sure on the timeline, but that makes sense, see also why Nintendo had the Seal of Quality thing. They couldn't actually legally prevent people from releasing unauthorised carts on the system, I think (I had two such carts, the multi-game packs where you plug in a second cartridge to use for memory expansion, which is pretty crazy in retrospect) but they gave buyers and probably more importantly stores the impression that they were actually exercising some quality control. See Wally Bear and The No Gang for one of the most notorious examples of a non official NES game; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYk1Obt9UGQ About 7 minutes in for that one
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Jun 19, 2020 07:48
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does jontron quote FBI crime statistics about the black population in that video too
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Jun 19, 2020 07:50
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Alaois posted:does jontron quote FBI crime statistics about the black population in that video too Eh was the first video I found that went in depth about it, also yeah he's a shithead but his old stuff is still funny
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Jun 19, 2020 08:04
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Went looking for a list of Presidential Slaveholders and it turns out the last one was...Grant?!?! https://www.history.com/news/how-many-u-s-presidents-owned-slaves In summation: Ulysses S. Grant is a land of contrasts.
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Jun 19, 2020 09:55
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Almost the only information we have on Grant’s slave Williams Jones is his manumission document. How long Grant had owned him, how Grant had treated him, and what became of him in the years afterwards are all mysteries. Grant lived for some years on an active slave plantation owned by his father in law. It’s possible that William Jones was an unsolicited gift, but one has to ask why Grant lived there in the first place.
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Jun 19, 2020 11:02
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Platystemon posted:Almost the only information we have on Grant’s slave Williams Jones is his manumission document. Didn't Grant basically have money issues his entire adult life except when he was in the army and during his term as President, so likely was a matter of convenience rather than him approving of it
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Jun 19, 2020 11:23
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“why Grant lived there” is a rhetorical question. I mean that you have to ask yourself about the ethics of the living situation. A charitable spin would be that he was desperate. A less charitable spin would be that it was convenient. It could be said that perhaps Grant was only a slaveholder by technicality, but we don’t know that—he could have put Jones to hard labor—and regardless, it seems kind of hollow when he lived for years on a plantation where slaves were in bondage, though owned by another.
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Jun 19, 2020 11:38
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Platystemon posted:“why Grant lived there” is a rhetorical question. I mean that you have to ask yourself about the ethics of the living situation. A charitable spin would be that he was desperate. A less charitable spin would be that it was convenient. https://acwm.org/blog/myths-misunderstandings-grant-slaveholder/ According to this, he worked along side the slaves and was lovely at disciplining them (or in other words didn't beat and whip them). I don't know how biased that source is, but it sounds like it was mainly due to his wife's family and their influence. On the other hand he totally owned at least one dude, even if it was for a year, so he's at least somewhat lovely.
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Jun 19, 2020 12:29
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Robert E Lee inherited hundreds of slaves from his father-in-law and deliberately stonewalled the orders in his will that they be released upon his death. He was also cruel enough that the slaves nearly revolted. He even took leave from the army to go abuse his slaves personally because he couldn't find a "good" overseer. But somehow Lost Causers are always really horrified at Grant, and only Grant.
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Jun 19, 2020 12:41
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Alhazred posted:In 1942 the crew on the dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen was in trouble. The japanese army had invaded Indonesia where the minesweeper was based and the ships that were meant to protect it wasn't there. They then, figuring that no one would notice an extra island, painted the boat, covered it in branches and foliage and slowly made their way to Australia hoping that no one would notice that one of the islands were moving around: They even went as far as catching some wildlife before they left and releasing them when Japanese planes were in the area to complete the impression of being a uninhabited island instead of a minesweeper filled with civilians.
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Jun 21, 2020 12:01
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Platystemon posted:People in this forum thread, which is so old it is itself halfway to the Atari Age, says rentals were available. The first video rental place in my hometown was in a locally-owned furniture store. The owners fixed up a few display shelves for videos and had NES games as rentals. This would have been late 1980s. I think it's how I first played Super Dodge Ball. My hometown wasn't cutting edge so it had to have been going on for years elsewhere at that point.
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Jun 21, 2020 15:45
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If you were a really lovely musician in the middle ages you could be forced to wear the flute of shame: The device would be fastened to your neck and your fingers would be clamped down to the keys. You were then paraded through town so that people could throw various vegetables at you.
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Jun 23, 2020 16:53
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Alhazred posted:If you were a really lovely musician in the middle ages you could be forced to wear the flute of shame: Somebody prophesied the world would treat me poorly For I am not the sharpest pitchfork in the storehouse
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Jun 24, 2020 03:01
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canyoneer posted:Somebody prophesied the world would treat me poorly He was looking kind of dumb With his fingers and his thumbs on the Shameflute we fastened to his neck Well the fruit starts coming and it don't stop coming You screw one priest and the guards come running Didn't make sense just to live for God When we all get buried in the same wet sod I stopped by the seminary Father Klaus has always been nice to me I should've never let the Duke know Flute ain't the only thing that I blow Hey now You're a wastrel Get the flute on For shame! Hey now You're a peasant Screwing priests is Not okay! It is the Lord's intent That you're going to go to hell if you don't re-peeent
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Jun 24, 2020 06:55
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https://twitter.com/IAmSuyiDavies/status/1276928013163098112
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Jun 29, 2020 09:39
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if you want to just tweet, at least post the whole thing
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Jun 30, 2020 10:44
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