IndianaJoe3

Some actual experiements.

On 6/1/2023 at 9:31 PM, Iuz the Evil said:

https://ustoday.news/ai-controlled-drone-goes-rogue-and-kills-human-operator-in-simulated-usaf-test/
 

This seems… concerning in some ways.

The speaker now claims he misspoke, and was discussing a hypothetical situation.

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/06/air-force-denies-running-simulation-where-ai-drone-killed-its-operator/

AI (Stable Diffusion) doesn't copy art in any meaningful sense. It doesn't store enough data. 160 million images can't be compressed into 2 GB of data.

Imagine you'd never seen an actual car. You'd seen pictures of cars, and generally know what they look like. If someone asked you to draw a picture of a car, it would be based on every image of a car you had seen, but it wouldn't be a copy of any of them. AI is the same way.

22 hours ago, Michael Hopcroft said:

I watched that race in Monaco. To my American mind, I marveled that the race hadn't been called when the downpour came, and cars started sliding all over the drack. It is fortunate there were no injury crashes. How could you race in these conditions, just trying to see enough that you can avoid smashing into the car ahead of you when your visor is being hit with so much water you can barely make out your own gear switch?

It has to be absolutely pouring before an F1 or endurance race gets red-flagged. The tires are designed to move a phenomenal amount of water off the track (something like 10s of liters per second per tire). Sunday's rain in Monaco barely counted. 

I almost had a dough explosion yesterday.

It started when I added too much water. But, I knew how much water I'd added, and what the hydration percentage of the dough should be. So, I added more flour (and salt, and olive oil) to the mix, and let it ferment in the dough bucket (6 qt Cambro) for a while and then stuck it in the fridge (like I normally do).

I checked on it a couple of hours later, and it was literally bulging from CO2 buildup. There was a loud pop when I released the pressure. I'm glad I'd thought to check up on it, or there would have been a loud bang at 3 AM and I would have had to clean dough out of the refrigerator.

4 hours ago, unclevlad said:

I wouldn't characterize it as "it won't happen to me" so much as making an unfounded assumption that the person to die, when you hit the TZ box, is picked randomly, so the risk to me, or anyone I know for that matter, is vanishingly small.  This is actually an example of a point about lying...the best lies come from telling part of the truth.  Yes, someone you don't know, will die.  Truth.  Lie by omission:  that it's the last person who used the button for profit.

I wonder what would happen if you wished that the box vanishes forever immediately after it leaves your posession?

19 hours ago, Scott Ruggels said:

Another YouTube channel, C&Rsenal, has been doing a deep dive into firearms from the US Clvil War, through the end of WW1. In general, there are broad trends. Up to the beginning of The Civil War firearms were muzzle loading, cap lock single shots. Right at the dawn of the war cartridge breech loaders started to appear, but were eschewed by the army, as the necessity of war meant they had to issue the service weapon everywhere. It was bad enough, that the base rifle was used up to the Spanish American war in 1898. They were converted from muzzle loaders, with the Allyn conversion to the Trapdoor Springfield. After the civil war Cartridge firearms superseded cap locks, and to increase rates of fire, tubular magazines, first seen in Henry Rifles, in 1858

and carried up through to the French Lebel rifle in 1888, and we still see them in shotguns today. The lever action and tube magazine were superseded by the bolt action box magazine and packet (stripper) loading.  The afore mentioned lebel was developed in 5 months, to take advantage of the new secret flat shooting smokeless powder. That secret lasted a year. This forced every other military to adopt new rifles. John  Moses Browning became active around then and led the slow transition from revolvers to semi-automatic pistols, the rifles.  Smokeless powder also made machine guns possible.  Hiram maxim’s prototypes were functioning by 1885, but only functional after 1889 when smokeless became common.  This brings us to The First World War. 

I've been noodling around with a revised firearm list for Hero for some time. I'd broken it down to the following eras:

• Archaic (pre-1820)
• Percussion caps (1820-1857)
• Metallic cartridges (1857-1884)
• Smokeless powder and WW1 (1884-1918)
• WW2 (1918-1945)
• Early Cold War (1945-1973)
• Late Cold War (1973-1990)
• Modern (1990-present)

Happy 90th birthday, Willie!

On 4/14/2023 at 10:30 PM, Lord Liaden said:

It sounds like you might find some inspiration in the world of Aaron Allston's novel Doc Sidhe, mixing pulp with myth and folklore. Maybe update it to a more modern world?

Heinlein's, "Magic, Inc" might be another source of ideas.

On 3/29/2023 at 12:08 AM, Cancer said:

I've got some pretty bizarre ideas for the RNG element for systems, each of which has its own individual flavor.  Example 1: roll 2d6, and take the difference of the two (subtracting the low value from the high value always).  That gives you a triangular distribution with zero being the lowest AND most probable outcome, and the highest value happening two times in 36.  Not sure how I'd use that, but it's in the mental toolbox.  For that matter, things like the I Ching are in the toolbox as well.

Was it you that came up with the idea of 2d6+2d6*3? Flat distribution in the middle, but tapered on the ends.

14 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

Is the book graced with Hero Machine pictures? 

It has a lot of Hero Games B&W stock art from previous products. I  didn't see anything new.

ETA: I have the draft version from the Hero Games Patreon. The finished product might have different (better) art.

On 3/31/2023 at 11:06 AM, Beast said:

Thanks
Are the modules each a point based in groups like a 100,50,25pt groups?(or something like this?)
as to mix  and match

No, they're organized by power or character concept.

Public Domain Superheroes is a good place to start. If you feel ambitious, there are superhero models and poses available for Stable Diffusion that you can create your own heroes with.

9 hours ago, death tribble said:

Sergio Perez wins the Saudi Grand Prix with Verstappen second

Fernando Alonso was third, dropping to fourth after a 10-second penalty, back up to third after the penalty was overturned.

On 3/16/2023 at 12:53 AM, Black Rose said:

The effect I'm trying to simulate is a spell (or item) that lets the subject leave tracks like those of some other being (woman's high heels, child's sneaker, soldier's boot, bare foot, etc.) or even an animal. My brain keeps going in different directions on this -- is it a penalty to Tracking, or some kind of Images, or even a Transform (the answer to everything)? Ideally, there's a weak version that can be ignored by hounds or basic tracking spells, and a strong one that can even give them trouble. I'd swear I saw a writeup for a magic item, but I can't find it. Anyone have an idea for this?

I prefer Change Environment because it's a straightforward mechanical build. You want to be harder to track, and penalties to a Tracking roll will accomplish that. Change Environment is the Power that lets you apply penalties to a skill roll.

My wife is ordering some tea online.

Her: Apparently there's no tax on tea.

Me: Thanks, Sam Adams!

On 3/8/2023 at 8:31 PM, Duke Bushido said:

Lee Gold.... 

 

Wow that takes me back... 

 

Alarums and Excursions, anyone? 

 

I.... 

 

I, uh...  Wish there was a tactful way to ask this, but is she still with us? 

Yes. I'm friends with her and Barry on FB (they have a shared account). 

My first thought was, "No, that's not how point expenditures are balanced." Character points are fungible, so any points the character can't spend on one thing can be spent on something else of roughly equal utility. If we're talking about a VPP (under 6e), the character buys the Control Cost up to their limit and receives no compensation for not being able to buy it higher.

My second thought was, "Well, what about Adjustment Powers?" In theory, a character could be operating with a reduced EGO and not have access to their full powers. How often is this going to happen? If that character frequently has their EGO Drained or Suppressed, "Limited to EGOx3 Active Points" might be worth -1/4. Otherwise, it's -0 (but an opportunity for great role-playing when it happens).

9 hours ago, Tom said:

Would anyone here care to define for me what exactly an 'assault weapon' is, or better yet a 'weapon of war'?  Other than buzz words which are supposed to let you know you're supposed to be outraged - sort of like 'woke' and 'socialism' if you're listening to someone speaking on the opposite side of the political spectrum...

A, "weapon of war" is any firearm originally produced for the military, but adapted for civilian use (usually by removing the capability for automatic fire). I agree that it's not a very useful term.

An, "assault weapon" is a rifle with all of these characteristics:

• Fires a centerfire cartridge greater than 34mm in length
• Has a detachable magazine
• Is less than 41" long in fireable configuration
• Capable of semi-automatic fire

There's probably room for some tweaking there, but that should cover most cases. I welcome debate on the issue.

16 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

 

 

True, but ultimately, if I have a held action and act in Phase 4, and decide to use my held action in Phase 3 so I can recover on Phase 4, what is the effective difference? 

 

In your example, not much, because 3 and 4 are both common Phases. OTOH, you can't hold until a less common segment (1, 7, etc) when you'd be less likely to be interrupted.