Leap large lengths of miles

Alex: artist, engineer and computer scientist

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Meteor Run: Mystic Knight, Ninja, Ranger, Samurai

Pretty lucky roll, getting four powerhouses who can probably each individually win a run. I didn’t really make the most of it and played it pretty casually in the background — finished in 15:18 at Level 35. It was pretty amazing to just smash through the game with no regard for strategy or healing. 

There’s not actually much synergy between these jobs, though. !Spellblade doesn’t pass on much of a Magic bonus, !RapidFire outclasses Dual-Wield, and Ranger doesn’t offer much as a base class (bows are nice if there’s competition for weapons, I suppose). I guess a kinder way of saying it is that they all work really well by themselves.

Got 5 Reflect Rings from just 18 Reflect Knights, if it wasn’t enough of a blessed run.

Beat Omega at Level 42, and Shinryu at Level 50 in 18:44 total. Definitely didn’t need the levels, but I think it would’ve taken the same amount of real life time to get a lucky attack pattern.

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Thoroughly enjoyed this video about GPS jamming. As a commenter, mazri3530, suggested: "physics crime mystery is a genre i didn't know I needed".

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Impulse bought these P7 Wireless headphones last week. Probably now the most expensive thing I’ve done because I was bored.

They’re perfect in the sense that I don’t have any gripes about them: they’re pretty comfortable and the wireless part works as well as I’d expect. Mostly been listening to one track on repeat, so can’t comment much on their sound (bass-y, though). I figure wireless is one more small convenience that makes it harder to go back to older tech - no more getting tangled up in scarves and it does feel nice to wander around more.

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Will probably retire these after the weather gets warmer again. At 9 years, they’re probably the longest serving piece of tech I’ve ever owned. The headband has lost some of its clamping force, the leather glue is a bit manky if it gets wet, and Micro USB is pretty dated, but I still really love them. Must be the brushed aluminium.

AirPods Pro 3 are similarly perfect. The first-generation fit me a little better (closer to the ear), but have always sounded noticeably bad to me. These sound fine, but the noise cancellation improvements are really, really impressive. I’m curious how Live Translation works -- I haven’t even felt comfortable with an English conversation without taking them out yet.

I have the Audio Technica ATH-M50xSTS at my desk. I chose them for half aesthetic, half practical reasons (which in itself, is my aesthetic, I suppose), but the sidetone/monitoring (hearing your own voice through the headphones) makes them such a joy to use. I never mention that I actually find them pretty uncomfortable even though I’ve ended up recommending them to a bunch of people.

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Made it to a Blood on the Clocktower event after watching tons of it on No Rolls Barred this past year. We played a couple of rounds of the basic setup, Trouble Brewing, but ended them with the special win conditions — a Mayor win and a Saint loss. With “correct” play, the evil team should’ve outvoted our Mayor win, but I think we had it figured out.

I was totally outplayed by someone both times — a fake Fortune Teller ping getting me nominated and killed, and a fake Investigator claim of a Drunk (implying no Saint) — two bits of information I happened to trust without question. Not sure if I could’ve done anything to salvage the second game — there wasn’t much ongoing information after an Imp/Poisoner/Spy’s second night. Just an hour as a stressed chef.

Will see if being “too forthcoming” is a problem in future games, but I think I played these about right. Was also swayed a lot by a louder voice despite the quieter ones doing a lot of good work, but that made sense since they were Virgin-confirmed/Virgin both times. Dunno.

Anyway, it’s good to know that playing Clues by Sam is making no difference to my prefrontal cortex.

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Come back in ten years

It really is amazing how videogamedunkey has managed to put out a video which brings me joy every week for well over a decade. He’s so consistent in being unexpected, yet every video has a few great jokes or killer lines, balanced with some tempered and genuine insight. He does such good job of distilling the essence of a game into a tightly edited few minutes.

Or at least, it feels that way…

One thing I realised is that I don’t think he’s actually influenced me to play† any of the games he’s covered. I guess it’s because the videos mostly fulfil that need to play a lot of games to feel part of the zeitgeist. I can’t quite tell whether that’s a loss, a convenience, or just a sign that the way I engage with the hobby has shifted without me really noticing.

† There’s probably a few on Game Pass that I wouldn’t have given a thought to, like Cocoon and Yakuza. I did watch Better Call Saul based on his 3 second video, though.

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Been thinking a lot about Cart Narcs (and the fall of politeness in society). I love how perfect “lazybones” and the non-destructive magnet are: as frustrating escalations you can’t poke holes in — it’s so calculated. It’s also a fun example of enneagram type 1 where righteousness is used to mask selfish reasons like fame and ego.

Anyway, I’ve been asking people to re-rack their plates. I do mean to make the gym a better place, so it’s probably only about 30% ego and enjoying meltdowns (got accused of sexism today). One day, I’ll be able to handle littering and feet on seats.

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It's taken over six months for me to actually miss Barclay Bluestring. I guess I've used the time to revise who he was compared to how I was able to play him.

I love that he swore an oath to protect the world, after spending a youth mocking knights. I love that his final action was to take a gamble with a cursed glove, dooming his soul. I love the only thing he's remembered for is ridding a city of its rat problem.

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As much as I enjoy introducing myself as Barclay Bluestring, the music always felt tacked on. I like Bards in the sense of a polymath / dabbler / wanderer. Some martial proficiencies and a wonky spell list of tricks -- nothing that encroaches on the domain of a specialist. That flies against being a virtuoso. And I hate the idea of pulling a lute out in combat.

My reflavoured College of Spirits (2014) was alright - the spot of randomness was fun, but eventually most Bonus Actions were used for a fairly ludicrous Healing Word with some boons and items. The (proposed) new version of the subclass is nicely streamlined and would've been nice to play.

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Misty Step annoys me because 1) it nullifies a lot of positioning-based tension (terrain, grapples, surrounds, speed), 2) cooler, evocative spells are comparatively crap (e.g. Thunder Step, Ashardalon’s Stride), and 3) it feels too ubiquitous†. I try to avoid picking it, but that got a character killed.

Maybe I’d drop the range on it. Maybe let it provoke Opportunity Attacks. Maybe it costs all of your movement. Maybe the range varies or it has a chance to fail.

But it’s more of a fundamental tactical combat problem (movement has no cost → things that limit movement need to be more debilitating → cheap teleports are especially strong), so I guess everyone just bamf-s everywhere.

† About as bad as me taking Shield whenever I can (just about any character, unless they prioritise Healing Word). It’s an arms race with these combat spells.

We started looking at Nimble 5e and Nimble 2. Seems nice on paper, but it’s just easier to stick to the big fish. I’m sceptical about the 5e back-compatibility and losing players along the way.

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What Is Man, That Thou Are Mindful Of Him?

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Enjoyed this parody of AI critiques.

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Memory Integrity Enforcement: A complete vision for memory safety in Apple devices - Apple Security Research

Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) is the culmination of an unprecedented design and engineering effort spanning half a decade that combines

Enjoyed reading this post about preventing memory exploits with a bit of hardware that requires you to also have the right tag to access any "granule" (16 bytes). I don’t think I’ve read a research paper in years, and yet it used to be one of my favourite things at university†. I definitely appreciated doing so alongside Grok — a pretty great way of reinforcing understanding in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m capitalising someone’s time.

Learning points:

Why we don’t zero out memory after freeing? (Fairly costly, and only prevents a certain class of exploits. MIE can just randomise the tag.)

What is a Spectre attack? (A set of vulnerabilities that exploit speculative execution, which might still cause memory to be cached when it shouldn’t.)

A general refresher on memory protection.

† Granted, those were ones chosen for accessibility — I don’t think I ever self-directed my way into one that clicked.

Does “we tricked rocks into doing math” have a specific image associated with it? It kind of sums up why I love computer science — sometimes it feels so pure in how artificial and arbitrary all of the choices are.

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Discussion Summary: £10 Christmas Bonus

I just learned that the Christmas Bonus is a thing. An antiquated vote winner from 1972 that somehow has never been adjusted for inflation. I guess it’s similar to the fuel payments around COVID-19 if they kept on happening every year..?

I can’t believe it survived all of the Winter Fuel Payment discussion.

My immediate instinct was to scrap it but apparently the more popular/obvious idea is to increase it. I hope that’s more of my leaning towards minimalism than anti-boomer sociopathy, but even folding it into pensions† would have the benefit of automatically adjusting it for inflation.

The Triple Lock is so untouchable. What brilliant and dooming branding.

† There are more beneficiaries than just pensioners, but c’mon, it’s £10.

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Content warning: brief mention of suicide ideation There were skips and there were strats. Luckless didn’t have a head for strats, so he foc

Short story about speedrunning Roy (or, an accelerated VR life simulator). Read it a while ago, but was thinking about "exploits" and it took me a little bit to find again.

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Geyser Run: White Mage, Berserker!, Geomancer, Time Mage

Finished in 18:33 (which includes 2 hours for Quick-Sap on Omega), at Level 35, which might be the lowest/fastest I've managed besides Esuna for Corona.

Karnak and Purobolos gave me the most trouble -- it's just a low damage party for most of the game (even if Equip Axes was cheaper, they still miss too much). Maybe I should be more willing to break rods in regular fights?

White Mage and Time Mage take care of all of the bosses, but I'm surprised how many instantly died to Death Sickle. !White on Berserker for extra Rune Axe damage and out-of-combat healing was also a fun discovery.

Geomancer continues to feel underrated, making it easy to grind in certain spots (47 Reflect Knights, and probably more Elixirs than I needed from the Void Ruins), but it never feels like a good pull.

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Played a bunch of Starcraft II last week using the Archipelago.gg mod, which lets you run through the campaign(s) with the unit/upgrade unlocks and mission order randomised. It’s a fun remix that starts off incredibly challenging and requiring a lot of improvisation, but eventually lets you become more powerful than the game intends by stacking upgrades and bringing in elements from the co-op missions.

I think Archipelago is at its best with just the Terran missions — Raynor’s Raiders get to feel even scrappier, accomplishing what they can with niche units and a limited selection of mercenaries. Protoss and Zerg tend towards generalist units which make missions play too similarly after some unlocks (also, Kerrigan / Spear of Adun are overbearing).

I keep meaning to play through Wings of Liberty again to enjoy the story in full. Hard to believe it’s been 15 years, because it really is so expertly crafted. The other two campaigns (and gameplay of the races, frankly) have always seemed a little more underdeveloped, and don’t have much to say — perhaps due to being alien in nature.

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Discussion Summary: Liverpool FC

I don’t like Liverpool — not just because they’re top — but a bunch of irrational, historical reasons:

Traditionally defensive counterattacking football. I don’t think it bothers me as much now, but I hated it as a kid because I thought “big teams” shouldn’t play that way.

Don’t like Fowler, Owen, Gerrard, Redknapp. Probably a circular argument here, but vague memories of bad England games?

Quick free kicks and scoring when players are down. This one against Fulham in 2018 still bothers me. It's probably more confirmation bias at this point because all teams are pretty horrible.

Mo Salah goes down in the box a lot.

They have the most boring kit.

Carlsberg is a bit rubbish. (Though it'd be nice to see CPG sponsors again.)

I prefer Everton in the Merseyside (Dyche, Rooney, Yakubu, Pickford).

Benítez and Houllier weren’t as memorable.

Szoboszlai is probably the only player I like in the current team, but he always looks really scruffy with his socks down.

Anyway, I said I’d try and do a reset… but one team has to be my least favourite and Liverpool is full of players that have played for Liverpool.

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They actually give him Iron 1911s! I thought someone was joking, but this scene didn't disappoint.

(I'm sure it's a thing from the comics, but in the context of what I know about the show it's kind of laughable.)

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My thing for the year has been watching football again (or more accurately, every Match of the Day episode). The impulse was mainly from Adam Clery’s charismatic tactical analysis videos, but it’s also just been a great season to watch.

Mostly from a tactical perspective, though. Cristiano Ronaldo turned 40 the other day and it makes me a bit sad that there’s less individual brilliance because teams are so much better now. I’m not really following a team, but probably find Brighton’s style the most interesting. It feels weird to be a “fan” of any institution these days.

Very few of the things I remember from the season are about the football:

Onana’s free kick

Gordon’s “cross from the nineties”

Rice/Lewis-Skelly/Trossard red cards

Arsenal’s away kit vs. Tottenham

Cucurella’s shoes

I got a handheld football manager toy for my 10th birthday. I remember that players’ stats would degrade and most of the job was just finding players to replace them — perhaps because I was pushing my team too aggressively. Anyway, there’s probably too many games: too many players are getting injured and too many games boil down to “X team lacked intensity”.