The Nineteenth Byte

Not sure about other parts of the world, but I bet if I ask 100 people on the street if they know about Nethack, TBBT, and D&D, they're all going to answer no, yes, and no/yes, from TBBT.

quartata

Or just try it on a monster

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

True

DrMcMoylex

@Dennis I'm positive that's true here in the US also

Doorknob

2:35 AM

@Maltysen Hmm. Not a very semantic class name, then :P

El'endia Starman

I've seen The Big Bang Theory described as a show for stupid people about smart people, and from what little I've seen of it, I'm inclined to agree.

Dennis

Well, gee, thanks.

Gabriel Benamy

tutant meenage neetle teetles

Maltysen

@Dennis I would've thought that D&D was more famous than TBBT, but idk

Dennis

Really? I don't know a single person irl who has played it.

(Including myself.)

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

2:37 AM

@Dennis so US shows are common in Paraguay?

Maltysen

@Dennis o_O

DrMcMoylex

I know a lot of people IRL who play it. Almost a dozen maybe

quartata

Speaking of DND anyone read OOTS?

Conor O'Brien

some data: most people in my 10th grade class (15 to 16) know about TBBT, few know about D&D (only a few smarter people), and no one knows what nethack is. east coast america

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@Dennis I know 8, but tbf I know more than 8 people

Conor O'Brien

2:38 AM

I know 2 people outside of my brother who play D&D or variants thereof

Dennis

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ It's either that or Latin American soap operas.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

We get those here also, don't worry. :P

Maltysen

@Dennis you've got to get some culture into whichever south american country you live in (I forgot) start a local D&D group or something. That is an appalling situation

2

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

Paraguay iirc

quartata

@ConorO'Brien Wow. That's surprising

Dennis

2:40 AM

Board games aren't exactly popular here.

Conor O'Brien

@quartata *IRL

quartata

It's not a board game

Maltysen

relevant thread: escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.236899-Starting-a-D-D-group

quartata

@ConorO'Brien Still surprising

Sherlock9

Yeah, my university is small and that's the only place I've met people who were even interested in D&D

The group never really got off the ground

Oh wait. My dad played in college

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

2:41 AM

How big is the uni?

How many people

Dennis

@quartata OK, tabletop role-playing game. Not sure I know the difference.

1200 people

That's pretty small

Yep

@Dennis 1 is played with little statues, the other....uhhhh little statues.

Dennis

2:44 AM

Thanks, that clears it up.

Maltysen

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ but its way more freeform

you can use whatever markers you want

Sherlock9

My brother's smaller but he goes to a more specialized college for animation, design, sound, that sort of thing

Maltysen

and the thing is just a grid

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

Ik

Maltysen

and half the time you either don't use it / use it in a large scale its there for reference way

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

2:45 AM

Was an oversimplification as a joke

H Walters

The rule book for board games is thin enough to be used as a coaster, if that. The rule books for RPG's are hard bound volumes.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

I have a paperback one on my shelf, thank you very much.

Sherlock9

@Dennis You can use a grid and markers to map out where your characters and the bad guys, but a large portion of the game is playing a role (barbarian, thief, etc) in a game where the story is directed by the Game Master, but is largely up to the players' imaginations

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

Tl;Dr: fantasia with more lotr

Sherlock9

Think Telltale Games with multiple decision makers

Maltysen

2:48 AM

its good because the players make up the entire thing as they go (or as the dm prepared it) but there are structured rules that ensure that the entire thing remain balanced and fun

Sherlock9

Assuming that your group isn't full of chuckleheads

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

@Maltysen old man Henderson ftw

DrMcMoylex

Or potheads

Sherlock9

My group never really got the hang of playing the roles. The battles took so long that the role playing was squeezed out of our sessions, and we were too new to figure out to squeeze role playing into the battles

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

:/

H Walters

2:50 AM

Another difference: With RPG's, you play with masters. With board games, it's just bankers at best.

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

I think Dennis is somewhat sick of hearing about DND by now.... ;P

Maltysen

@EᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏIʀᴋ omg this is hillarious

I feel bad for the GM

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

Yes

@quartata uses for an amulet of poison resistance, when I'm naturally resistant?

Doorknob

polymorph

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

K

fire ants

Rip

And it was a new record for actual run also :/

@quartata is there anything I can do while being chased by 4 soldier ants?

Nvm, dead

quartata

3:10 AM

In general questions of the form

> being chased by xyz

Have a fairly predictable answer:

> elbereth

For extra variety though I could have also suggested digging

New Meta Posts

3:26 AM

0

Q: Answers written in "joke" languages

As an answer to this question, I wrote an answer in the "programming language" 2014 (screenshot). The answer was deleted, accompanied with this note: I'm temporarily removing this post in compliance with our policy about answers not meeting the challenge specification. Please feel free to edi...

mbomb007

@feersum The OP said he'd give another 500 rep for one. I'm interested, because I read stuff about cracking the Mersenne Twister. I also looked at the source of the Python random module. I'm still not exactly sure how it works with an unbounded integer as the seed.

I was writing some Python code for reversing the MT, but idk that it'd help when you don't know all or almost all 624 random values in a row.

PhiNotPi

I know probably a dozen people who've played D&D, myself included.

mbomb007

Someone mentioned on SO or Cryptography.SE (can't remember which) to try using the fact that the MT is periodic to find the first occurrence of the necessary sequential bytes and figure out the seed from there.

@PhiNotPi I've played D&D (Pathfinder 3.5, actually)

and I'm playing D&D for real tomorrow

PhiNotPi

mbomb007

Sometime, I want to run a campaign of the RPG called Paranoia.

@PhiNotPi ehh. Big Bang Theory has lots of "smart jokes"

El'endia Starman

3:39 AM

@PhiNotPi Ah, yes, that's what I saw a while ago.

El'endia Starman

3:50 AM

One of the things I find quite off-putting about comedy shows like The Big Bang Theory are the laugh tracks. I dislike being told to laugh, so to speak. If a joke is funny, you don't need to tell me. Adding a laugh track does not make a joke funny and actually ruins the experience for me.

DrMcMoylex

Couldn't agree more.

That's why I really like the office and parks and rec

quartata

Are there actually modern shows that use laugh tracks?

PhiNotPi

yes, unfortunately

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

^

@PhiNotPi I love how futurama is in the middle.

quartata

Wow. That actually comes as a surprise to me. I can't name anything I've watched in the past 5-10 years that used one

unless ironically

*made in the past 5-10 years, that is

Dennis

4:04 AM

I'm so used to laugh tracks, I couldn't say which of the shows I watch have them and which do not...

Eᴀsᴛᴇʀʟʏ Iʀᴋ

over now, but AMA by adam savage

@Dennis that's kinda saddening

Jester Tran

Hi

El'endia Starman

Probably worth noting that I didn't watch TV at all for seven years, give or take, and now I live in a house where people do watch TV. It's weird.

Jester Tran

What is something small that I can do for 1 month?

and has applications.

Shell scripting?

El'endia Starman

Learn web programming. That will serve you for a long time to come.

Jester Tran

4:21 AM

@El'endiaStarman what if I never need to make or modify a website?

Forgot to mention that I do have programming experience

El'endia Starman

@JesterTran I personally try to accumulate skills from a wide variety of fields. Very often, there will be lessons or principles you learn that you can then apply elsewhere. I was able to solve a problem that one interviewer (many months ago) didn't know was solvable because I had taken Multivariable Calculus. My knowledge and expertise with making websites helped me get the job that I'm starting on Monday because it allowed me to respond to a test in a unique manner that really showed my skills.

I probably won't be doing all that much website work at my new job, but those skills still came in handy.

New Sandboxed Posts

0

A: Sandbox for Proposed Challenges

Wordsearch programming cops-and-robbersgrid (Todo: example submission + format) Your task Write a full program that takes no input and prints a message of finite length to STDOUT. Arrange your program into a wordsearch puzzle. Post the wordsearch and language, along with the desired output. ...

Jester Tran

Right, @El'endiaStarman. Do you recommend what language I should learn for web dev? Assume I know the basics of C, Shell and Perl.

El'endia Starman

@JesterTran Those will be your backend languages. Find a web development framework for Perl (I think that's your best choice). Then learn HTML, CSS, and Javascript. Finally, make something small to show to other people.

Jester Tran

Ok, thanks @El'endiaStarman

El'endia Starman

4:32 AM

Oftentimes, a JS library like jQuery is used along with vanilla Javascript because it makes writing code easier by handling the differences in how browsers implement functions and capabilities.

H Walters

What sort of programming experience?

Jester Tran

@HWalters Data structures and algorithms in C, small shell and Perl scripting involving regex

New Main Posts

4:58 AM

0

Q: bouncey-edged XY box with a marker at Z

long time lurker first time poster here. Write a program which takes 3 inputs: X, Y and Z. X = Rows Y = Columns Z = Location Marker (not bigger than X * Y) The program should then print a visual grid (any character except "+" to represent this is fine) X across and Y down. Each 'location' ...

code-golf grid

betseg

The clouds are in a nice pink, but my camera sees them as orange ;_;

H Walters

So tempted to answer How does one pronounce "fng"? with Just start to say fnord but stop at the g.

Angs

5:31 AM

@betseg correct it in post-processing?

(And always take raw images)

betseg

Too late ._.

Angs

:/

betseg

Saw Kelvin-Helmholtz instability thing cloud but it collapsed while I was trying to get my phone ;_;

Angs

wow

But hey, you saw it, that's more important than the photo

I don't think I've ever seen one

El'endia Starman

@betseg Wow, that's cool.

betseg

5:49 AM

Is there a meteorology/climatology SE?

Qwerp-Derp

Hey does anyone here know Clojure?

betseg

6:16 AM

@El'endiaStarman where does x-1/2=-x come from?

Qwerp-Derp

6:27 AM

Hello?

Qwerp-Derp

6:37 AM

(ns test.core
  (:gen-class))

(defn power [m n]
  (if (= n 1) m (* m (power m (- n 1)))))

(defn -main []
  (println (power 10 3)))

betseg

@Qwerp-Derp no

Qwerp-Derp

Feq

ETHproductions

Whenever I code in Jelly I use 6 tabs at once: 1 for PPCG, 1 for TIO, and 4 for the Jelly wiki :P

betseg

@Qwerp-Derp FAQ

Qwerp-Derp

7:00 AM

So no one here knows Clojure? :(

ETHproductions

I, for one, do not

Destructible Watermelon

8:13 AM

Hi?

orlp

8:30 AM

who wants to feel old?

2006 was 10 years ago

New Main Posts

0

Q: Compute the height of a radix tree

Introduction A radix tree, also known as compressed trie or compressed prefix tree, is a tree-like data structure for storing a set of strings. The edges of the tree are labeles by nonempty strings, and each node is either terminal or nonterminal. The strings that the tree contains are exactly t...