I see the name "dang" discussed here quite a bit; it seems to be an internal code name for a highly effective algorithm for surfacing relevant content. Whatever it is, it seems to be far more intelligent than any other automated system I've seen. Has HN somehow created a sentient recommendation system?
The algorithm is actually quite old. While dang is the result of numerous modern innovations, the approach has roots in a 1770 technique due to Johann Wolfgang Ritter von Kempelen de Pázmánd, who is perhaps better known for his work on speech synthesis.
While you may see other users talking about "him" in a personal manner, any appearance of sentience is, I assure you, entirely ineluctable.
General answer: anything that you're interested in.
You are in the middle of a large body of water. Swim towards any island that looks close. Make sure you get to an island before choosing a different one to swim to. You'll find that becoming a stronger swimmer was the main benefit of the journey.
Personally, after 10 years in the industry, I'm convinced that psychology is going to be extremely important in the coming years. (But maybe this is a budding middle-manager in me talking.)
The CS+X model that CMU, Stanford and UIUC pioneered is the best middle ground imo.
You need both technical AND "liberal arts" skills as interdisciplinary study is a fundamental part of CS (and a major reason the field even became a thing - look at the work Turing, Simons, etc did).
Tbf I did a double major in CS and Government years ago so I have my biases.
Depending on the context, probably? During my suspension of disbelief of the narrative, it might make me say "I don't like this destruction!" and to root for whatever might be mitigating the destruction
Honestly, outside the context of a movie or education, I find it pretty off-putting altogether. The videos of brand new cell phones being destroyed, TV's kind of less so but still, cars being crushed or vandalized, etc. If I put my psychoanalysis hat on (always dangerous when your subject is yourself, but anyway) I feel two big things:
1. A part of me just does not like waste. I'm keenly aware of our rampant consumerist culture's slow and continuing march towards collapsing our biosphere, and one of the ways those thoughts manifest themselves is being really upset with people buying products simply to turn right around and destroy them, while barely using them, usually for profit in the attention economy but sometimes seemingly just because they're wealthy and bored.
2. And another part: growing up poor, I'm keenly aware of how valuable things can be for people like me, who didn't grow up with much. Maybe that old computer that works fine that you're going to run tannerite through for a YouTube video means nothing to you, but I vividly recall many points in my life I could've really used it, and I know I'm the absolute opposite of alone in that fact.
The "artistic" angle that a lot of the outrage this is drawing didn't really hit me as hard as these things did, but that's just my subjective experience. I respect people who love these beautiful things and don't want to see (probably) completely functional, or even repairable, useful things destroyed so a multi-billion dollar company can sell more products. (And let's be honest, given the nature of video production, the ones we actually saw destroyed were likely a fraction of the ones actually destroyed.)
The artistic angle I do understand though is if it's done for something like a movie, it doesn't hit the same for me. When it's done to make other kinds of art, even schlocky hollywood crap art, at least that has... a result, I guess? It's destruction to create something. This was destruction for... another fucking ad. That will be forgotten in probably 2 weeks.
Edit: The more I've thought about it, the more gross it feels, and I find myself really sympathizing. Times are pretty tough right now and artists have it rough during good times. How would you feel if you, as a piano player, who hadn't gotten to play in years (or maybe even ever!) on a piano like that, how would you feel seeing Apple buy one that at least looks to be in perfectly good working order, and smash it, in the service of selling you a stupid iPad? I really think this is impossible to comprehend without taking into account that everyone is hurting right now: inflation, Bidenomics, whatever it is you want to call it: people are broke, our expenses are going up, and our salaries remain the same. Yeah, I totally understand why this ad in this cultural moment hit a nerve: a whole ton of people, especially creatives, are struggling right now and here's Apple, buying up a ton of awesome things, and smashing em to bits and being like "here, you don't need a piano, you need an iPad!" Yeah, no shit people are upset.
I remember Obama's "Cash for Clunkers" program where people were paid to pour sand in engines and run them to destruction.
This was all supposedly in the service of replacing them with more fuel efficient cars. The trouble was the numbers weren't run. To equal the emissions from manufacturing a car, a car would have to be driven 20,000 miles. One can easily see that the increase in fuel economy didn't add up.
Then there was the "create new jobs" fallacious reasoning, akin to the broken window fallacy.
I can agree with the article's framing during performance reviews and periods of heightened scrutiny. But for the day to day, frequent collective appreciation and recognition has mattered a lot to me.
"You did well on this grunge work" is a death sentence only if it's contrasted by silence. Maybe I have a blind spot here, but even if the compliment had to stand alone, does the receiver really have so little agency to not reframe or rebut any unintended consequences of the compliment?
Does frequency cheapen compliments? Maybe. Does every piece of praise need to be so weighty? I don't think so. "Please" and "thank you" might not mean much but I still like it when people are polite. So too effort can be recognized.
There are a few notable inventory improvements, but the most important is that BG3 is much less gear/stat dependent than DOS2. You don't have to sweat trading stats for each slot and character building is simpler (no skillbook type of progression beyond wizard spell scrolls, and that's optional). You'll still get engaging, difficult, beatable combat. The inventory is kludgy and there are a lot of items but it's much less important to focus on than DOS.
No lone-wolf mode made me wonder if the game would be too fiddly for me, but there are other ways to streamline combat. Champion fighters, berserker barbarians, non-arcane trickster rogues are mechanically simple subclasses that are fun to play. 5e is forgiving for party composition in a way DOS2 isn't.
This is how I confuse french people. Join a server and say slt, then later mdr. That's basically the only french I know but it keeps up long conversations.
For russians, closing parentheses are the weapon of choice)) Elegant weapons for a more civilized age, some say (obligatory https://xkcd.com/297/). (Edit: I just realized this can be taken as a comment on them being currently uncivil; I did not mean to refer to the war, actually. I only meant to quote XKCD. Not sure if I should self-censor and remove this... /edit)
Really interesting information here. I’ve definitely noticed that I tend to write significantly more typos when I’m feeling less brain-foggy or distracted.
