Stupid/Small Questions Megathread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Stupid/Small Questions Megathread

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Making bots and exploits from the released version of a game is hard work because you have to interact with the game to see what sorts of effects you get from doing various things. If you have the source code, you know exactly how various pieces of the game work, and that makes exploits much easier to develop. In addition, the source code might contain security-related things, and that can be useful for someone looking to hack into the game servers and other databases. The holy grail for hackers is a database that has credit card info, and there can be stuff in the source code that makes that easier to get.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2020 16:57

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 06:20

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

There are two general approaches to executing code. The first, which shows up in languages like JavaScript and Python, is to have another piece of software that reads a source file, translates it into something executable, and then executes it. The second, which you see in games and other complex or performance-sensitive software, is to do the translation once and generate a file that contains instructions for the hardware. In that second case, the only thing a hacker can see is the output file, and going from that to a human-readable description of what the program does is hard in the best case.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2020 17:38

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Methanar posted:

code:

int main()
{
����int x;
����for ( x = 0; x < 10; x++ ) {
��������printf( "%d\n", x );
����}
����getchar();
}

code:

int main()
{ 
��int x = 0;�
���
��while ( x < 10 ) { 
������printf( "%d\n", x );
������x++;������������ 
��}
��getchar();
}

This is probably the best simple example you're going to get, but it's vastly understating just how much information is lost during the compilation process. The process of turning either of these programs into machine code consists of more or less a line-by-line translation. The techniques that people use to organize large programs involve bits of code where that doesn't work at all, and there's effectively an intermediate step of generating code like this. In those cases, the reverse engineering process can only recover that intermediate code, and can never tell you anything about what the actual human-readable source code looks like.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2020 15:20

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Qubee posted:

How did humans deal with appendicitis in the past? Back when medicine wasn't a thing and we were hunter gatherers (or even the medieval period).

People died.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2020 21:58

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

tuyop posted:

I know it�s not exactly what you�re thinking but we have always had medicine. I think there are even like early hominids buried with evidence of having been cared for through injuries.

And while appendicitis is a particular kind of problem that our traditional medicine is pretty poorly equipped to fix, most people would be very surprised by the sophistication of traditional medicine, in my opinion. Like even the batshit crazy stuff isn�t unique to traditional medicine.

Traditional medicine is more sophisticated than most people think, but also a lot of conditions that we think of as no big deal were very fatal back then.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2020 23:18

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

That would make sense if those were all on different days, but it's all yesterday.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2020 17:53

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Badger of Basra posted:

What was the first video game to have an explicit alignment system like the ones in KOTOR and Mass Effect?

Alignment's been a thing in Dungeons & Dragons since at least the early 80s, and that made it into their PC games. Pool of Radiance was released in 1988 and is the earliest one I know of, but there may be others. I also don't know what sort of gameplay consequences alignment choice had.

Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, released in 1985, had something that kinda looks like an alignment system, but it's also pretty different from a modern version.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2020 18:19

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

El_Elegante posted:

What would be more �old school MMORPG� than UO without being a MUD?

Neverwinter Nights.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2020 18:47

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Yeah, local law matters a lot. The process of passing on someone's property if they die without a will is known as intestate succession, so look that up for whatever region you're interested in if this isn't just hypothetical.

Anna Nicole Smith would've been forgotten shortly after her death except that she died with a lot of money and no will, and her case will probably be taught in law schools for a long time.

# ¿ Aug 8, 2020 17:57

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Report it to the carrier. If there's someone ripping open packages and stealing things, they want to catch them, and knowing that your package was damaged might help them to narrow it down.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2020 16:52

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Hyperlynx posted:

Re fizzy drink chat: when one substance is "dissolved" in another, is it always actually undergoing a chemical reaction and becoming a new substance?

When I was a child, things like dissolving sugar in water was explained to me as the sugar breaking down into small pieces and fitting into gaps in the water. Is it that, in actual fact, instead of sugar molecules suspended between water molecules you actually have a new chemical compound formed by water and sugar chemically reacting?

Not always. Water and sugar form a solution, which is a mixture of two or more components that don't interact with each other. If you have a solution, you can in theory recover the original substances, but after a reaction you might not be able to.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2020 03:41

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

credburn posted:

Does anyone know a good resource, or person, or place where I can learn how to become an accountant?

I'm stuck in a worthless job that pays a liveable wage. I hate hate hate my job, but I have no skills or education, and no other job is going to start me out at what I'm making now. I'm thirty-loving-six all of a sudden, and I want to have a job I'm not embarrassed to talk about or angry to work in.

Previously I worked in the billing department for T-Mobile and I was really good at it. I mean, when I say really good, I mean I took to it like birds to whatever they take to. I really enjoyed doing it. I got fired later for something not related to work but did involve my supervisor and ugh, it was a big thing and I had to take the fall so he didn't lose his job over it. That was a long time ago. In the interim, I did get an Associate's degree in business, but that's all but entirely worthless. But I did take Accounting 101 and was good at it. I like it, too.

I loving suck at every goddamn other thing, but I think if I could just get educated and trained, I'd be a fantastic accountant. I went and got Bookkeeping For Dummies, which is hardly a textbook but is a great primer for this kind of thing. The problem is, after I read this book, I don't know what to do, and I don't know any accountants or bookkeepers who can actually point me in the direction I should be going.

My attempts to do this on my own have just left me with countless Google searches and Reddit dead-ends. So many people are like GO TO COLLEGE GET YOUR DEGREE and just as many people are like DON'T GO TO COLLEGE YOU DON'T NEED IT TO BE AN ACCOUNTANT and then some say to just abandon this path because it'll never go anywhere and the other half are like, there is always need for accountants and you can make so much money!

Every good tip I find leads me to a good tip that just negates the first one.

Have you looked at the accountant thread in BFC?

# ¿ Aug 14, 2020 14:01

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

UltraRed posted:

Related question.... why didn't they just drop the requirement of A levels at all? In the US schools get to control the weight of GPA, standardized tests, extra curricular activities, perceived character, legacy status, past employment, race, etc... Why not just remove the A levels weight?

That's very likely what they'll end up doing (at least I hope), but they didn't do that at first because people are way too optimistic about the use of machine learning in real life scenarios. Expect to see a lot more incidents like this in the next few years.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2020 14:52

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

There are a fair few of us in the ML community who are interested in making that not happen, but it's a thorny problem. I'm optimistic about long term progress, but I think the short term is mostly going to be raising awareness.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2020 15:58

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Can someone explain the British university admissions system? I'm trying to follow the news around the A-levels this year and I'm hampered by not understanding exactly what they are. I gather that primary education is roughly similar in England and the US, but it looks like there are big differences at the secondary level.

# ¿ Aug 16, 2020 02:52

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

You can convert between a series of total case counts and a series of new cases pretty easily, so it doesn't matter which one you report.

It'd be nice to have reports on recovered cases as well, but that's harder to measure. What do you do about people who never went to the hospital, or who recovered well enough to leave the ICU but are still pretty sick?

# ¿ Aug 17, 2020 17:24

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Lincoln posted:

I've always been curious about how they factor in the people who have been infected, but showed mild or no symptoms and so were never tested.

The official counts don't include them. Estimating the total disease burden is a hard problem and is going to keep a lot of people busy for the next few years.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2020 18:20

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

You can request reviews on their contact page. Might be worth asking, as I doubt that you're the only one interested.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2020 22:08

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Get tested for sleep apnea.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2020 20:07

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

A polygraph measures a few indicators of stress. The theory is that a person will be more stressed when they're lying than when they're telling the truth. Nothing is that simple, of course.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2020 23:25

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

A lot of people die and a lot more wish they had.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2020 14:11

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

El_Elegante posted:

Hotlinking hasn�t been probated in ages

We used to care more about hotlinking back when linking an image from SA could drive up traffic to its host by quite a bit. Between cloud hosting and SA not generating that much traffic any more, it just doesn't matter.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2020 02:31

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

There are cases where someone's looked into remaking a game and been told that no one knows who owns the rights but everyone who might own it will take action to protect whatever rights they might have. It's a horrible mess.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2020 22:46

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Fruits of the sea posted:

Is Jeffrey of YOSPOS still buying SA? Seems like there's been radio silence for just over a month now.

No news is good news.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2020 17:22

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

dog nougat posted:

My original request here:

Finished it finally.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2020 20:45

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Drimble Wedge posted:

What determines how an Amazon order will be shipped? Every time they say it's coming through Canada Post I want to cancel.

They have algorithms that are designed to let them ship everything at the lowest total cost. Optimizing that probably saves them on the order of $500 million per year, so they're not going to be particularly concerned with how any specific package ships.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2020 14:00

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

In addition to all the other factors mentioned, between 1995 and 2010 obesity rates skyrocketed, with a corresponding increase in childhood obesity rates. It's hard to rollerskate when you're really fat, and that hurt sales.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 02:22

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Goons Are Great posted:

Jumping from the sidewalk question, can an American explain jaywalking to me? I live in Europe and it's legal to cross the road pretty much anywhere, as long as you are not endangering or disturbing (meaning someone has to stop or brake for you in any way) existing traffic. Of course, there are roads where you cannot cross the road or even be as a pedestrian, like highways, the German Autobahn or some special speed roads, but it's rather rare. Additionally, you of course have traffic lights or cross walks, where cars have to stop for you anyways. Sidewalks exist absolutely everywhere where pedestrians are allowed to walk, too, so if there is none it's a good indicator you are in a very wrong place.

So how comes jaywalking is a thing? Is it common for regular roads, or also just a speed based thing that makes sense? You can cross a road in the city... Right? Are there a lot of tickets or penalties for doing it, as in, is it a common thing to be caught for when done, or do people just talk about it? Are there just tons of crosswalks in areas where you cannot cross the road?

The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking"

# ¿ Oct 6, 2020 13:01

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Manager Hoyden posted:

Man I forgot how infuriating college classes can be.

In a CS class that fucker was downright gleeful laying out our assignment and telling us how hard it was going to be. We have to do something that he has never talked about in class, is not covered in the text at all, and he isn't telling us where to find the information. The assignment is basically "teach yourself this subject and implement it perfectly".

You prick you are literally paid to teach this poo poo. If I wanted to teach myself this stuff there are a lot cheaper resources out there.

I'm not gonna rule out the possibility that this assignment or teacher is bad, but yes, part of the point of college is to teach you how to figure stuff out on your own. That's one of the big reasons why a degree counts for so much in the labor market.

# ¿ Oct 8, 2020 20:41

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Historical Review: Master and Commander; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

# ¿ Oct 9, 2020 02:12

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

It's a bit more complicated than that because no one goes to the grocery store and buys just one thing. If the store can get you in the door by taking a loss on some product, but they can make it up with everything else you buy, that's a profit. The approaches to solving this problem range from someone doing whatever they feel like to pretty sophisticated analytics and optimization teams.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2020 15:48

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

We could fix the shortage in the medium term by opening more medical schools in the US, but the powers that be don't want that because the restricted supply keeps salaries high.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2020 21:28

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Trapick posted:

Budget car rental, looks like you can do a day for $50ish? Or U-Haul pickup truck, think that's 20+mileage.

If you don't have your own insurance, car rentals end up being about twice the listed price.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2020 21:27

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

I see a difference between https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuaire and https://fr.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actuaire. Do those look the same to you?

ultrafilter fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Oct 21, 2020

# ¿ Oct 21, 2020 22:06

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Mistaken Identity posted:

Don't get me started. Even before I became a dad.

And lately I am winded almost all the time. Like, we have lived in the same apartment for years now. I go the stairs to our floor up and down several times a day. Why do I still feel tired after walking them up? How am I not used to them by now, I thought training was a thing. I am not even overweight or anything and I try to keep reasonably fit.

Any chance you've been exposed to Covid? You might have a very mild case.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2020 19:36

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Manager Hoyden posted:

In a bunch of old-timey cartoons, crazy people think they're Napoleon. Where did that come from? Was that a pop culture reference from the time that went over my head?

Where did we get the idea crazy people think they�re Napoleon?

# ¿ Oct 31, 2020 17:47

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

The point isn't to win; instead, it's to try out different strategies and see how they work on an actual board. It's no substitute for going up against an actual opponent, but it's a useful intermediate step between coming up with the strategy and trying it live.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2020 19:40

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Track & field.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2020 16:00

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

JesustheDarkLord posted:

How could you ever teach a dog to shake hands

How to Teach Your Dog to Shake Hands

# ¿ Nov 5, 2020 16:03

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# ¿ May 3, 2024 06:20

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Grouchio posted:

What would be the best online source or course for learning stock investing? There are a plethora of these online and I'm not sure what to choose (free or paid, etc).

# ¿ Nov 13, 2020 19:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Stupid/Small Questions Megathread

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