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I was about to recommend Caves of Qud, being a traditionally inspired rogue-like. However, it encourages slow and careful play over fast play. The game is brutally difficult and the main story long, so a run takes a long time, especially experience the content off the beaten path.

I don't think what it's you're looking for, but I do think it is an incredible game, and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in it.


Programmatically determining the region of an AWS EC2 instance using the metadata API was very annoying in the past; there was no endpoint for it. Instead, devs used many methods to determine the region[1], primarily by dropping the last letter off of the availability zone, (e.g. `us-east-1a` -> `us-east-1`) which was queriable.

At this point, AWS has updated the API to allow querying for the region as one would expect. See my answer on the afore-footnoted question[2].

[1] The number and variety of answers on the topic is both hilarious and terrifying: https://stackoverflow.com/q/4249488

[2] https://stackoverflow.com/a/62664161


> We don't know if pi is a normal number.

Sure we do. There are plenty of proofs out there that pi is an irrational number.


Irrational does not imply normal. For example, 1.01001000100001... is irrational but it's certainly not normal.


Technically, 1.01001000100001... can be normal depending on what ... stands for. :)


Well, obviously. But presumably the ... is meant to imply that this is the summation of 1/(10^(x(x+3)/2)).


Or what 1 or 0 or . stands for.


Actually I'd argue the example you provided is normal, as long as you authorise a particular encoding where every number n you're looking for is encoded as a string of n zeros.

It's then trivial to see that every number you can think of is encoded in there, and therefore any data, piece of music or movie that ever existed.

(I'm not sure we're allowed to fiddle with the encoding, but since we allow ourselves to represent a piece of music into a number, we're already talking about encoding anyway, so it doesn't seem like cheating to me...)


Normality of a number is with respect to number bases, so your trick with encoding is invalid. Otherwise, every computable number could be considered normal - take an algorithm for generating of it, supply a random string (this is the encoding), disregard the random string, and you have a perfectly valid normal representation of your number. So it is cheating.


I agree that normality is a specific formalized concept, but you could always require that an encoding function like this is injective.


Encoding doesn't count. Normality is a very specific mathematical concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_number

Also, 1.01001000100001... is a good example of a number that is both irrational and transcendental but not normal.


Normal in this sense means that all the frequency of all digits approaches a uniform distribution as the length of the sample increases towards infinity. Basically if we could see "all of" π and count all the 0s, 1s 2s, 3s, &c to 9 all the counts would be equal.


That on its own can't be right, because 0.12345678901234.....

According to wikipédia, you gave a definition for "simply normal", and for normal numbers the distribution of any sequence of digits is uniform. So 00, 01, ..., 99 each occur uniformally too.


Moreover you need to consider it with regards to all other bases than 10 too.


> As a kid, reading aloud in class was always nerve wracking because of this.

Yup, reading out loud was the absolute worst. I have different issues though, and because of my reading's tight associations with speech(1), I couldn't even read ahead. I think my "only-when-read-out-loud" stutter comes from the social anxiety I developed here.

(1) i.e. To read words with my eyes, I have to mentally speak them to myself.


Through concentration and compensation skills we've acquired over the years, some dyslexic people can read _almost_ normally. At least, that was the case for me. If I really mentally exert, I can often force myself to read fluidly and read almost as if proficient. The problem is that it is costly to do so and highly conditional.

For example: Doing reading comprehension tests in school, I would often perform well, if not a bit slowly. Given a book report, however, I would not be able to keep up such effort for very long; reading that way was very strenuous. Furthermore, when tasked with reading out loud, I slow to a crawl, begin to stutter, and translate inaccurately.

Anyways, my point is that, we can sometimes read normally, it can just be extra difficult.

As for this example specifically, I can't speak to its authenticity since I don't have the "moving characters" symptoms. My issues mostly revolve around poor eye tracking.


I can't find them either. I'm wondering if they only released them for streaming in Japan.


> their ROI must be incredibly low.

Not according to [this reddit user's analysis](https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/dgvmkk/crazy_...).


> Obviously, there are a lot of caveats here. Numbers such as the DLC Revenue Percentage (relative to non-DLC revenue) and profit margin are completely made up by me

LOL. Even otherwise, without factoring in the percentage of operating expenses devoted to supporting Linux, trying to calculate profit numbers is meaningless.


A Linux fan making up numbers for their favorite platform is meaningless. I've shipped Linux games. It's never been worth the ROI.


Valve


When was the last time they actually released a game though? From Wikipedia I can see:

Nov 2018 - Artifact (Collectible card game on Windows/Linux/MacOS)

Apr 2016 - The Lab (Windows only)

Dec 2014 - Left 4 Dead: Survivors (Arcade game?)

Oct 2014 - Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies (Windows only)

2013 - Counter-Strike Online 2 (Windows only)

Heck even their new tentpole title Half-Life: Alyx is Windows only. Those aren't really big Linux credentials to boast about.


I'd think Proton is something to boast about.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton


Proton is kinda the admission that even on Linux, Windows is still the better platform though.

I’m 100% not complaining because Proton has enabled me to play a libraries worth of games that were previously unavailable but it’s not exactly a victory Linux. The future might look like devs testing a little bit in Proton as “Linux support.”


I would disagree; "Better Platform" != "Supported Platform".

While it is an admission Linux gaming was hardly going to take off on its own from a cold start, it allows people to use the platform that makes more sense for them. With the increased capability of Linux+Proton as a platform, its horizons are pushed and it makes more sense for more people.

The only possible downside here is the potential for a developer to neglect Linux support now that people "can just run it in proton", netting Linux users a couple losses of what-would-have-been native ports. However, I believe the increase to the viability of Linux gaming overall makes up for it.


Especially, considering that more linux gamers increase ROI for a native linux version.


Not by much, considering the results of Steam's hardware survey.


Maybe, but a fairer statement would be "even on Linux, Windows, without the Microsoft, is a better gaming platform."


Not exactly, the the correct obvious admission is that Linux is a better Windows, as an extra translation layer for Win32 API to Linux/POSIX still has better performance (most games I play on Proton) than native Windows.


They launched Artifact in 2018, Underlords in 2019 all with first class, first day support for Linux.

Half-Life Alyx is coming in 2020.

The meme that Valve doesn't make games isn't real.


HL:A is still Windows-only last I checked; haven't seen anything official indicating that Linux support is to be expected.


Probably because steamVR on linux is still pretty buggy and missing core features.


Artifact and Underlords are both mobile-style 'board games'.

So sure, Alyx is coming. But before that is a six and a half year gap in major games.

And if you discount CS:GO and Dota 2 as remakes, then you're looking at Portal 2 all the way back in 2011.


The meme might not be real but they're also not doing themselves many favors. People want a certain couple games, value does whatever they can to avoid it.

Even to hold people over they could have resurrected HL:DM and made it F2P.


You're missing counter strike: global offensive and dota2, which do work on linux natively. They're definitely in the top 3 in terms of general popularity for their genres.

All source games work on linux, but the new half life game might be the first exception. Proton works pretty well for other games, but there are hard blockers on some (for ex: the anticheat in pubg)


They have been providing a lot of tooling to help other people release games on Linux. Or attempt compatibility


They've had an autochess game in early access for a few months. It officially comes out next month.


^^ These parts of the article also bothered me, and tainted many of his other possibly/probably valid points.

> ...we have seen the development of machine learning tools that can perform in minutes the same analysis for which a human com­puter science major required hours or even days.

Statements like this just demonstrate an obvious lack of understanding of how the field of computer science works. Guess who developed those machine learning tools? A machine learning engineer _who more than likely studied CS._

It's just hard to trust the author on other topics where I'm less familiar, seeing the data clearly driven toward a predetermined narrative.

It reeks of cherrypicking to me, regardless of how well justified it is or isn't.


> ...we are entitled to do the same with the copies of it.

No, that's not how copyright works.


Copyright was a conspiracy of English book printers in the 18th century: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne

It's amazing that some people consider it legitimate today still.


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