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factorio and satisfactory Miscellany
2025-03-24 19:54:31

Today's background viewing: Satisfactory.

The commentary is regularly comparing it to Factorio.

The obvious difference is obvious: Satisfactory is a first-person view, Factorio is a top-down view.

The "production chains" are similar. And, similarly abstract.

Copper mine to Copper furnace to Copper sheet press.

Is this how copper is actually made? It doesn't matter.

The "magical multi-function assembly machines" are shared as well. It is, once again, an abstraction. If you assume you are just building the blueprint, the abstractions 🔥 ( how does the character carry 400 buildings and 20 locomotives) are manageable.

Satisfactory has a lot of the experience be "exploring the game-world". Climb trees, swim across rivers.

I find the graphics to be slightly nauseating. But they are "good".

What are the levels of quality of graphics?

1. ASCII art.

2. Vector graphics.

3. Basic 3-D.

4. Advanced 3-D.

5. Photo-realistic.

This game would be at level 4.

Satisfactory, because of the UI, is much more time-consuming. "Run a pipe with water between two points" goes from a 1-minute task to a 10-minute task. đź’ˇ ( task is the correct word. These games are, largely, about determining and executing on a long series of tasks.)

minot (part 1) Cities
2025-03-24 18:37:04

yesterday:

  • test ChatGPT's new "custom voices" feature. 🔥 ( can it do a xantham-y voice?)

The voices are ... good, but not good enough. I can't see myself building a product on top of this version. Maybe the next version. The API is simple enough that it would take about 2 days to come up with an MVP.

  • test Gemma3:4b and Gemma3:1b locally

The results are good, but not magical. They are tuned for chatting, but struggle more than Gemma2 on mechanical tasks đź’ˇ ( copy the misspelled word from this sentence) . They do fairly well on the accuracy / time tradeoffs đź’ˇ ( because the hardware is the same, "time" is an accurate way of measuring "cost")

  • get the greenland quals to be available on the public internet 🔥 ( I still haven't chosen a domain for it. Should earlyversion have file hosting? Probably not.)

What is universe?

It is my archive of Git repositories, or similar.

1372_ea_games % du -hs

286M CnC_Red_Alert

673M CnC_Renegade

51M CnC_Tiberian_Dawn

for today:

  • a "watchdog" for Atacama? the machine has become wedged twice in 3 months. both fixes were of the "just restart the server" persuasion. ⚔️ ( well, actually, the problem is that the lexer has an infinite loop on a single unpaired asterisk.)
  • more blogging, less technical work
democracy and "institutional independence" Miscellany
2025-03-22 17:28:35

Trying to get the machine to explain a distinction 🔥 ( I find this debate too annoying to write up myself)

Democracy and institutional independence represent distinct dimensions of societal organization that can exist separately or together. Democracy fundamentally concerns how political power is allocated—through free elections with broad suffrage, competing parties, and peaceful power transitions—while institutional independence relates to the autonomy that non-governmental entities maintain from state control, regardless of how that state is governed. A democratic system can feature strong governmental oversight of universities, companies, and civic organizations if voters support such arrangements, while conversely, an authoritarian regime might grant significant autonomy to certain institutions (particularly economic ones) while denying citizens meaningful political choice. The clearest distinction emerges when considering that democracy addresses who holds and transfers political power, while institutional independence concerns the boundaries of where that power reaches—two separate questions that societies answer in various combinations rather than a single unified concept.

The relationship between democracy and institutional independence is complex and not strictly correlated.

Democracy primarily concerns how political leaders are selected (through free and fair elections) and how government power is distributed and constrained. Institutional independence relates to how much autonomy non-governmental organizations have from state control.

These dimensions can combine in various ways:

Democratic systems with high institutional independence: Countries like the United States, Canada, and Germany maintain democratic elections while allowing significant autonomy for companies, universities, and civic organizations.

Democratic systems with more state involvement: Countries like France or the Nordic nations have robust democratic processes but may feature more state coordination in certain sectors (like education or healthcare) while still maintaining institutional autonomy in many areas.

Non-democratic systems with limited institutional independence: China, Russia, and Iran allow few or no meaningful democratic choices while also maintaining strong state control over institutions.

More rare: Non-democratic systems with some institutional independence: Singapore has limited political competition but grants significant autonomy to businesses and universities in many domains. The UAE similarly restricts political rights while allowing considerable economic freedom.

What does it mean?

Democracy doesn't guarantee institutional independence. Democratically elected governments can still choose to exercise strong control over universities, businesses, or the press.

Institutional independence doesn't guarantee democracy. Some authoritarian states grant limited autonomy to certain sectors (especially economic ones) while restricting political rights.

Many democracies balance institutional independence with public accountability through regulation rather than direct control.

The most comprehensive liberty tends to exist in systems that combine democratic political rights with substantial institutional independence, creating multiple centers of power and preventing excessive concentration of authority.

The degree of institutional independence reflects fundamental choices about how a society is organized and the proper relationship between state and civil society, which can vary even among functioning democracies.

What is "institutional independence"?

Several terms are commonly used to describe the concept of institutional independence in different contexts:

Institutional Autonomy: Perhaps the most direct alternative, emphasizing an institution's ability to govern itself and make decisions without external control.

Civil Society: Refers to the network of independent organizations and associations that exist outside government control.

Private Sector Independence: Specifically for businesses operating with minimal government intervention.

Academic Freedom: Used particularly for educational institutions' right to determine research and teaching agendas.

Separation of Powers: While typically referring to branches of government, this concept extends to the separation between government and non-governmental institutions.

Limited Government: The philosophy that government power should be constrained, allowing other institutions to operate independently.

Subsidiarity: The principle that matters should be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized competent authority.

Market Economy: Economic system where businesses operate independently with minimal state direction.

Rule of Law: Legal framework that protects institutions from arbitrary government intervention.

Pluralism: The existence of multiple independent centers of power and decision-making in society.

Liberalism: In the classical sense, emphasizing limited government and protection of civil liberties, allowing institutions to operate freely.

These terms often overlap conceptually with institutional independence but may emphasize different aspects or apply to specific domains of society.

some very long true crime Miscellany
2025-03-22 15:15:09

https://ossaiceejay.substack.com/p/he-was-sentenced-to-a-luxury-resort

It ... is a very long article. But that's what the machine is here for:

In 2013, 16-year-old Ethan Couch killed four people and severely injured two others while driving drunk in Texas. Despite the severity of his actions, Couch avoided prison time when his attorneys successfully argued that he suffered from "affluenza" - a made-up condition suggesting his wealthy upbringing prevented him from understanding consequences. Instead of jail, he received 10 years probation and was sent to an expensive rehabilitation facility.

Two years later, after a video surfaced showing Couch apparently violating his probation by drinking, he and his mother Tonya fled to Mexico. They were eventually caught, and Couch served nearly two years in jail for the probation violation before being released in 2018. He violated probation again in 2020 when he was found with THC, but received only additional community service rather than jail time.

Couch completed his probation in April 2024, having largely avoided serious consequences for his actions. Meanwhile, the victims' families continue to suffer, including Sergio Molina who was left paralyzed from the crash and requires constant care. The case became a national symbol of how wealth and privilege can influence the justice system, with critics pointing out that a less affluent defendant would likely have faced decades in prison for the same crimes.

tioga (part 3) Cities
2025-03-19 18:31:47

đź’ˇ the RSS feed has issues. It is doing a quick "remove the HTML" pass. What is needed, instead, is a separate "xml_generator.py" file.

also: the earlyversion mail server is finally working. now I just have to configure the mailboxes. and maybe have a mailbox that earlyversion reads via IMAP. 🤖 ( A mail server requires SMTP-in, SMTP-out, and IMAP to handle email communication efficiently. SMTP-in is responsible for receiving emails from external senders, listening on port 25 and storing incoming messages in the recipient’s mailbox. SMTP-out, on the other hand, is used to send emails from local users to external recipients, typically operating on port 587 (or 465 for SSL).
IMAP allows users to access and manage their stored emails from multiple devices while keeping everything synchronized. Unlike POP3, IMAP ensures that messages remain on the server, providing features like folder management and search functionality. It operates on port 143 (or 993 for secure connections) ) ⚙️ ( one problem with an email API is that it is difficult to verify the sender of an email is who it says it is. not impossible, but hard.)

as far as CSS classes: Claude (after some poking) suggests using "msg", "ui", and "layout" prefixes to cut through the naming complexity. and, possibly, "atacama" for the colortext blocks. đź’ˇ ( it is a good idea ... if i ever do the renaming)

bracket busters Sports
2025-03-19 18:02:13

I'm not doing a March Madness bracket this year.

✨ one can only predict the future so much. best not to waste the gift on popular frivolities.

but: some notes from last year.

When filling out a bracket, it is important to realize one's goals. Is it:

  • to win the group
  • to get the best individual score
  • to make picks that allow one to gloat to one's friends

To win a bracket, the key is to correctly pick the national champion. If it is a team that nobody else in the group has picked, you will probably win even if the rest of your bracket is average.

for other picks, the rule of "take the better seed (that is, the 1 seed, or then the 2 seed, etc.)" is a good starting point.

  • it's no fun to take all the favorites
  • very roughly: games with up to 3 seed difference (aka 7-10) are coin-flips; games with up to 8 seed differential (aka 5-12 or 1-8) are 80% favorites for the higher seed
  • there will probably be one or two top-4 seeds that lose in the first round. trying to pick these is largely futile.
  • the computers are generally pretty good at knowing which team is better. for the men, https://kenpom.com/ is a good baseline rating.

other notes:

  • actually having watched the teams play can help to know how good they are
  • if there is a "good story" that isn't too unlikely, pick into it

for the women's pool:

  • seed differences mean more here. only a 1-seed difference is a pick-em, and a 4-seed difference is enough for 75-25 odds.
  • picking all of the 1 and 2 seeds to reach the round of 8 is far more likely to be successful for the women's bracket
math gym Education
2025-03-18 17:03:30

I recently read two reviews of Math Academy. ⚙️ ( https://mikelikejordan.bearblog.dev/how-math-academy-pulled-me-out-of-the-valley-of-despair/ and https://frankhecker.com/2025/02/18/math-academy-part-11/ ) My takeaways:

  • The product is too expensive. $600/year is too much. This probably should be a $79 (or even $179) one-off purchase. đź’ˇ ( of course, revenue experts recommend a subscription model, so you capture the most value from your loyal customers.) However, to a certain extent, the cost is a feature; people are more motivated to use a product they are paying more for. đź’ˇ ( there is also an element of customer selection to it; they are more likely to get results when their clientele is "people willing to pay a lot")
  • The best phrasing was "a gym for math". 🔥 ( the negative version of this is the Duolingo-esque gamification that seems to be part of the product)
  • The attitude in both reviews was largely penitent. I used to hate math, but now I'm in a better place.
  • The results are largely theoretical; they think they know math now, but what real-life evidence do they have of this? đź’­ ( I generally say that I am completely useless for teaching secondary-school math; I don't understand how people could possibly struggle with it.)

Their website ⚙️ ( https://www.mathacademy.com/pedagogy ) has a lot of claims. Some of it is unremarkable 🔥 ( my rule-of-thumb: anyone who brags about "spaced repetition" is probably wrong) 💡 ( the claims that they encourage students to "practice" are almost vacuously distinguishing from any other product) , other parts I disagree with: New concepts should be taught alongside or following dissimilar material so as to avoid this problem.

Git, the orthodox way Tech
2025-03-18 15:54:22

It would be too much to say that how core Git developers use Git is the correct way. But it is far safer to say that it is the orthodox way.

https://blog.gitbutler.com/how-git-core-devs-configure-git/

The results were very interesting, a rather concise list of 9 config settings and 3 aliases that the experiment participants more or less agreed should arguably be new defaults. Let's just take a look at the proposed config setting changes.

merge.conflictstyle = zdiff3

rebase.autosquash = true

rebase.autostash = true

commit.verbose = true

diff.colorMoved = true

diff.algorithm = histogram

grep.patternType = perl

feature.experimental = true

branch.sort = committerdate

Now, none of these have become the new defaults in the 3 or 4 years since this experiment, but it’s interesting that a lot of the Git developers themselves have a hard time using Git without several of these turned on.

Even more interesting is that most of you probably don’t know what any of these do.

the St. Johns College Reading List, freshman year Education
2025-03-18 15:26:08

I cannot endorse the St. John's College approach (all college students, for all 4 years, in the same curriculum, largely based around reading of >100 year old works). But it is interesting enough (and for some students, effective enough) that I also have no interest in arguing against it.

I am also not sure if the work selection is better or worse than similar lists, such as the 1952 Great Books of the Western World series.

But, as a reference, here is the first-year curriculum.

https://www.sjc.edu/application/files/4115/4810/0934/St_Johns_College_Great_Books_Reading_List.pdf

Homer: Iliad, Odyssey

Aeschylus: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides, Prometheus Bound

Sophocles: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Philoctetes, Ajax

Thucydides: Peloponnesian War

Euripides: Hippolytus, Bacchae

Herodotus: Histories

Aristophanes: Clouds

Plato: Meno, Gorgias, Republic, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Sym­posium, Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Timaeus, Phaedrus

Aristotle: Poetics, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, On Generation and Corruption, Politics, Parts of Animals, Generation of Animals

Euclid: Elements

Lucretius: On the Nature of Things

Plutarch: “Lycurgus,” “Solon”

Ptolemy: Almagest

Pascal: Treatise on the Equilibrium of Liquids

Nicomachus: Arithmetic

Lavoisier: Elements of Chemistry

Harvey: Motion of the Heart and Blood

Essays by: Archimedes, Fahrenheit, Avogadro, Dalton, Cannizzaro, Virchow, Mariotte, Driesch, Gay-Lussac, Spemann, Stears, J.J. Thomson, Mendeleyev, Berthollet, J.L. Proust

rock dust Gardening
2025-03-17 22:06:50

The garden requires some areas to be covered in rock.

Inhaling rock dust, particularly fine particles containing crystalline silica, poses serious health risks, including silicosis, lung cancer, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Silica dust, generated from cutting, grinding, or drilling stone materials, can scar lung tissue, leading to permanent respiratory impairment. Long-term exposure significantly increases the risk of lung cancer, while acute exposure can cause immediate irritation and breathing difficulties. Additionally, individuals exposed to high concentrations of rock dust may develop respiratory infections, allergic reactions, or even kidney disease. Without proper dust suppression systems, ventilation, and personal protective equipment (PPE) such as respirators, workers remain at high risk of irreversible lung damage.

I find it difficult to remember to wear an N95 mask while doing tasks like pour a dusty bag of rock outside. Although the evidence shows it is abundantly necessary to one's health, it is easy to forget.

And, I am not the only one who struggles. Professional countertop installers also generally refuse to wear proper masking equipment while working.

What is the solution? 🔥 ( a giant sign: In This House We ... wear facemasks while working with bagged rock) 💡 ( the "sign" idea might be a reasonable approach)

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