The proceeding is an edited version of what I emailed to the Nevada Department of Public Safety and Transportation... Specifically the Nevada Advisory Committee on Traffic Safety, as they are the group that is drafting new legislation to have red light cameras with license plate recognition systems installed at intersections. It was the article from 8 News Now that caught my attention. There's no indication of which intersections are going to be affected, or how many will be installed, or how much this is going to cost the state/county/city, but I'm sure that information will be public soon enough.
I also know there have been attempts in the past to get speed cameras installed, and those have all been unsuccessful. It's something that California and other—less freedom loving—states have implemented in an attempt to dissuade motorists from committing minor traffic infractions under the guise of safety. Let's be real though, this is just the authoritarian state overreaching again.
There were a couple of embarrassing typos, but I wrote it fairly quickly on my break at work, and wanted to make sure that I actually sent it rather than simply throwing it into one of my my many drafts folders to sit and go stale. So here we are, and these are some random thoughts regarding traffic cameras. The major typos were corrected, but the structure was preserved for posterity.
Not too long ago, my friends and I sat down and were toying with the idea of making a shared universe with the potential end goal of creating a game. I've been drawn to the idea of doing an interactive fiction RPG hybrid for a while... Something that is kind of crunchy, but a system that lets you do a multitude of things as a player. Text is the easiest way for that to happen, the most powerful graphics processor is going to be your mind and imagination. MUDs and MOOs are sort of the cornerstone of what that can look like in practice, but that requires the player to understand a specific set of syntax to play the game. While not too difficult to learn, it is a barrier to entry.
I began by playing around with Godot and the Ink scripting language. My thought was that it would be easier to start from scratch with Godot and effectively build a framework/UI for Ink and then maybe a separate combat system that shares some state with the Ink-based story scripting... BUT, I've also been playing around with how to run and train LLMs locally. I even bought an M2 Macbook just so that I could run a local AI setup. So far I've been successful in getting Llama 3.2 configured to act as a DM/GM within the 3.5e rules. Last night we tested it out.
The nice thing about LLMs is that you get the text parsing without the need for a uniform syntax that players need to use. They can just talk to it the way they would interact with a DM. And, I imagine this is probably what WotC is working on for D&D proper, but are layering GUI components on top of it to make it even more user friendly.
The AI does have trouble with ending the story/quest. And it seems like no matter how you try to resolve the story, it wants you to keep going. So these are some of things that I need to work on before trying to keep state.
Well, I didn't even get an honorable mention, but I'm grateful for the feedback they gave me!
However, I believe my friends and I re-worked the story to be far more compelling, and we did so before I got any official feedback. So, I'll break it down and talk about what I've learned through this experience. Also, below will be the revised story. I'm curious and eager to hear from all of you whether you think we were able to come up with a story that would have addressed the judges' criticisms before even knowing what those criticisms were?
The below article was taken from a Polish UFO podcast called ufo historie. The episode's title roughly translates to “John Keel's concept of space jokers, tricksters, and deceivers.” This episode was shared with me by a fellow member of the Night Shift Discord server that I'm on.
It presents a theory that isn't as proffered as some of the other what ifs that float around; extraterrestrials, extratempestrials, interdimensional intelligence, a breakaway advanced hominid race (“ultra-earlings”), or crytopterrestrials, to name the theories that I'm familiar with. Instead, the Cosmic Joker Hypothesis is more akin to the fae of European folklore. I found this intriguing and refreshing, it also offers a more solid explanation for the US government's insistence on the term non-human intelligence (or, “NHI” in common parlance).
You can listen to the original podcast in its native Polish here:
I needed something to publish to my blog this month, why not talk about The Game Awards?!? This was a big year for Geoff Keighley and his celebration of video games. Each year we watch it, and each year we joke about it, but honestly, it does keep getting better. There is measurable progress for the production, and in its 10th year now, I think they've mostly hit their stride.
Also, for the last few years my friends and I have played “The Game of The Game Awards” where we do a fantasy-style pick of all the games we think will win, and also came up with some wild predictions that may or may not have scored us any bonus points. I encourage you to check it out even if you've already watched the TGAs.
Rarely do I get to watch an entire weekend of F1; all the practice sessions, qualifying, and the race... But also all the pre and post coverage that F1TV does, the pomp and circumstance, with all the interviews and all the commentary.
This weekend was one of those weekends where I was able to indulge in all the different coverage they had to offer though, and why shouldn't I watch all of the coverage? The race was happening right here in Viva Las Vegas!
Not sure exactly when it was that I found out about the NYC Midnight writing competitions, must have been at least a few years ago now though. Probably around COVID, which would make sense because it's the type of thing that people were doing while they were locked in their homes... I'm also not sure what it is that brought me back to it this year. But I made the decision to finally pony up the entry fee and actually get serious about it.
Two years ago I signed up for a front-end web development class. Granted, I've had plenty of experience over the years with building websites and whatnot, I've been playing around with that kind of stuff since I was in grammar school. Nonetheless I'm still interested in learning more, especially when it comes advanced programming techniques, new technologies, and different methods for building websites. React was the one popular method that kept coming up. So that's what I decided I should learn. Yet, in over two years, I haven't built a functional website using React (other than the demo project we put together in the boot camp I did). That being said, the project just before my final project was a virtual Tarot deck. This post is both the story of, and the reflection on, that project.
Keep in mind though, it's still a work in progress. I'm still developing it and adding features to it as well as improving the interface. But the current version accomplishes what I wanted; it's a mobile-centric web app that anyone can access.
Everyone keeps talking about how we should forgive all the student loan debt. I see a post about it on Reddit at least once a week, if not every couple of days. Not only would that be incredibly expensive, but it would also be incredibly inequitable. No need to give a parachute to someone who is flying around just fine. The more realistic option would be to simply amend the Federal Bankruptcy laws so that student loan debt can be discharged, or at least some of an individual's debt load proportionate to that debtor's ability to pay in accordance with appropriate revisions to the Means Test (Federal Forms: B 122A-1 / B-122C-1). In doing so you help the people who need it the most, as well as identify the real issues with our institutions of higher education.
TLDR: Let people discharge student loans in bankruptcy.
Playing Little Kitty, Big City at my niece's birthday party a month or two ago sort of set me off on a path of playing a bunch of short and cozy games, walking simulators, light puzzle games, things of that nature. I've played quite a few of them in relatively quick succession recently. I had known about Little Kitty from IGN's Justin Davis, who mentioned the game on their podcast “Game Scoop.” But I didn't really have any intention of playing it. Meanwhile my wife found out about the game from her TikTok feed and encouraged us to check it out.
When I was done with Little Kitty, I moved on and played Return to Grace, and I thoroughly enjoyed pretty much everything about that title. Sort of like Firewatch, except it's set in an alternate future where atomic age sci-fi aesthetics have dominated interior design, but then I finished that game. And then I moved on to and finished Botany Manor. And then I played and finished A Short Hike. Now I'm playing an indie game that is sort of a Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes inspired game called Merge & Blade. All of these games are relatively short, most of them don't take more than about four hours to play, so you can get through them in a single evening.
I won't be talking about A Short Hike because that's a relatively old game at this point, but I figured I might write about the others because they're much newer, and might not have as much hype surrounding them. Not only were they concise, but they were well thought out, and have a lot to offer even though they're packed into such small and short presentations.
