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Dendrophobe's comments
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Dendrophobe  ·  3308 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Slack - has anyone used it?

Switched to it at work recently. I like it. Well designed, slick interface, lots of features. It's apparently really easy to add external services to it. I work with a small team that's known each other for years and works in the same room, so our use is a little... unconventional. It's easy to set up trigger words that cause slackbot to respond, which we use almost exclusively to sass each other. Good times.

Especially with winter on the way...

Completely unexpected. I was thinking it would be a minority government, either conservative or liberal. I had absolutely no expectation that it would turn out the way it did. I was keeping an eye on some of the predictions, and last night's outcome was at the far end of probability. I don't know that anyone saw it coming.

Dendrophobe  ·  3363 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Jools Holland interviews Stewart Copeland (The Police) 2

I saw a TV show a few years ago where Elvis Costello interviewed Copeland, and he instantly became my favourite member of The Police. He's a very funny guy, and one of my favourite drummers.

His father was an interesting person as well.

Dendrophobe  ·  3369 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Looking for good reads

I just finished Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie. It's a good science fiction novel, but it didn't really grab my attention until I got about halfway through and they explained what the main character's motivation was.

Yeah, I had no idea about the total amount of money raised, and had absolutely no faith in it having a notable effect.

I'm pretty happy to be wrong.

Dendrophobe  ·  3384 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: How Google could rig the 2016 election

Playing devils advocate, Google is the search engine. Yahoo, Bing, and DuckDuckGo together don't have the market share to pull this off. Baidu is the only other provider I can think of that could do something like this, but I don't think they have the same global reach that Google does. If you think someone can do something this important, it makes sense to me to name them.

That said, from your other post, it sure sounds like the author has an axe to grind.

Dendrophobe  ·  3391 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: MyEtherWallet: Open Source, JavaScript, Client-Side Ether Wallet (that I designed)

I really need to learn how all this stuff works. Etherium has piqued my interest over the last week, it seems like it could be big.

Dendrophobe  ·  3391 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Calvin and Markov - A Markov chain generator of Calvin and Hobbes strips

Yay!

Dendrophobe  ·  3391 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Calvin and Markov - A Markov chain generator of Calvin and Hobbes strips

Hm... I don't know more than the basics, really, but you can think of a Markov chain as being a directed graph (as in graph theory, not charts in Excel), with weighted edges like this. A and E are the two states, so if you're in state A, there's a 40% chance you'll move to state E, and a 60% chance you'll stay in state A.

If I'm not mistaken, it's related to Bayesian inference as well, since they both address the same basic question (If I know that X is true, what's the chance that Y will happen).

I hope that helps.

I was going to try Soylent when 2.0 was released. Now, I'm not so sure...

Dendrophobe  ·  3392 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Calvin and Markov - A Markov chain generator of Calvin and Hobbes strips

A Markov chain is a set of states. You can move from some of the states to other states, and there's a certain probability of the direction you will take.

For example, you might go for a walk regularly. After you're done walking, you either go home (75% chance) or go out for ice cream (25% chance). There are three states here - walking, home and ice cream. If I wanted to model your behavior, I could say "Okay, now they're walking. What do they do next?", roll some dice, and then decide if you went out for ice cream or went home after your walk.

With Markov chain text generators, the states are just individual words, and you transition from one word to another based on the probability that those two words appear together.

Dendrophobe  ·  3393 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Hubski Challenge. Post the weirdest cover song you can find.

Dendrophobe  ·  3394 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: ‘Sesame Street’ to Air First on HBO for Next 5 Seasons

Because when I think of kid's shows, I think HBO.

Maybe they can have tie-ins to other franchises. Ernie and Bert attend their friend Robb's wedding. The Count tries a new blood substitute. Big Bird gets a temp job at a startup. Cookie monster moves to Baltimore and gets involved in the cookie trade...

Dendrophobe  ·  3394 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Web-Comic Recommendations?

It's a very neat concept. I wouldn't mind learning to play it, but they're shockingly expensive, and obscure enough that I doubt there are many resources for learning. They're very cool, though.

EDIT: Here's another good one:

Nitpicky, and not relevant to the main story, but there's a fairly large factual error in the article. It says McAfee sold the company to Intel in 2010. It's true that Intel bought the company, but McAfee himself hasn't owned any part of it since 1994.

Have you heard of the Chapman Stick? It's an electric guitar-ish instrument designed specifically for tapping.

I recognized the name, though I don't really know him. Wikipedia says he's also a pianist, it really shows in this video. Also that he tunes his guitars in all fourths - EADGCF (like an extra wide bass I guess). It's funny - I've read about tuning in mostly fifths (see New Standard Tuning), but I don't think I've come across all fourths before. I wonder how it works for when you aren't tapping, I'd expect it to make it hard to play full chords.

Dendrophobe  ·  3399 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Alright, #letsdoit. Here's some shit I drew

I don't know where that comic's going, but I want to see more.

Dendrophobe  ·  3400 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: What's the Point in Starting

As far as I'm concerned you created some content that was worth consuming, even if other people have already said it. Maybe they have, but I haven't heard it in a long time, if at all. Some points are worth repeating.

As an aside, how do you find Art Academy? I picked up a 3DS recently and noticed it at a used game store. I thought it looked gimmicky, but I was intrigued by the concept.

Dendrophobe  ·  3402 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Sah-ry, eh? We're in the midst of the Canadian Vowel Shift

I don't know about this. I've been living here my whole life and I like, have never, ever, like noticed people sounding more like valley girls?

On a more serious note, I'm going to be very careful about how I say "bagel" from now on.

Dendrophobe  ·  3405 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Listening to 'Graceland' in the Rothko Chapel

I had this playing in the background when I saw this story. Kind of a funny coincidence.

I just bought a copy of Graceland a few weeks ago, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it.

I always appreciate it when companies realize that they're good at something completely unrelated to their core product and spin it off into something. Like what happened with Amazon & their web services.

Dendrophobe  ·  3408 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A relic from a gentler time

It was released as freeware over ten years ago as a promotion for the sequel, so you can download the full thing guilt free and play it well now!

Dendrophobe  ·  3409 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A relic from a gentler time

ME!

Although I was playing that game close to ten years after it was released... Never played more than the demo of the sequel. I've heard it wasn't very good. If it came out on Steam I'd probably pick it up.

Dendrophobe  ·  3416 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Why I love the nothingness inside a float tank – M M Owen – Aeon

I posted an article about this some months back, it may be of interest to you.

Dendrophobe  ·  3426 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 131st Weekly "Share Some Music You've Been Into Lately" Thread

Already made one!

I suspect I could have named it better.

Dendrophobe  ·  3426 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: 131st Weekly "Share Some Music You've Been Into Lately" Thread

Pop 101 - Marianas Trench It's a decent pop song that deconstructs what's popular these days.