rayalez

Looks amazing!

Note that the author also has a fantasy city generator:

https://watabou.itch.io/medieval-fantasy-city-generator

And mansion generator:

https://watabou.itch.io/procgen-mansion

If you're into that kind of stuff, there's a world map generator(by different author):

https://azgaar.github.io/Fantasy-Map-Generator/

and this amazing tutorial on generating maps:

https://mewo2.com/notes/terrain/

----

Also, kinda relevant - awesome talks about modern procedural generation techniques(with AI, Houdini, etc):

How AI will change 3D industry

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FlgLxSLsYWQ

Procedural world generation for Far Cry

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NfizT369g60

Procedurally generating Manhattan for Spider Man

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4aw9uyj9MAE

Mindblowing talks by Anastasia Opara (using cool math, deep learning, and a lot of creativity to create crazy cool stuff)

https://www.anastasiaopara.com/talks

She is the author of the most impressive procedural generation project I've ever seen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7J_9Xf_h_U

----

Also, I myself have made a little tutorial about procedurally generating a 3D landscape in Houdini:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=o3mbIRZhv20

> Everyone ruthlessly exploits everyone else to survive [...] Out here, others are either threats or exploitation targets, not partners.

"Everyone" is a strong word. People are very different. Some are evil, some are admirable and kind, most have a mix of good and bad traits.

To me, a random internet commenter with no horse in this race, this comment sounds really disturbing, it sounds like you're having some problems warping your world view(or maybe you're just hanging out with the wrong people). I'm not usually the one to diagnose random strangers, but what you're saying sounds pretty extreme. Biased, or influenced by some psychological thing, I don't know. Either way, not factually accurate.

Do you have at least one person that you like, that you can talk to about this stuff?

I don't really know what advice to give you. I'm just gonna say that even though it's easy to see all the ugliness and flaws in human nature, there's a lot of goodness and beauty in it too.

Make an effort to see good in people, or to seek out people that are good. There are plenty.

For anyone who's interested in learning PyTorch, here's the best video course I was able to find:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZbbT5o_s2xrfNyHZsM6u...

They explain things incredibly well, videos are easy to understand, engaging, and to the point. Highly recommend it to everyone!

I've also heard that Udacity has some good courses, but I can't vouch for those yet.

So I take it you've turned it into a VR cryptocurrency startup and are closing a $140 million series B round by now?

Another somewhat related thing is "Evaporative Cooling of Group Beliefs":

https://www.lesswrong.com/s/M3TJ2fTCzoQq66NBJ/p/ZQG9cwKbct2L...

When more moderate, reasonable, or relatively skeptical people leave the group, people who remain are, on average, more fanatical and extreme. Which leads to even more extreme viewpoints, which pushes out more and more people who previously might have been acting as a voice of moderation.

> After the [moderate members] escape, the remaining discussions will be between the extreme fanatics on one end and the slightly less extreme fanatics on the other end, with the group consensus somewhere in the “middle.”

So

> This is one reason why it’s important to be prejudiced in favor of tolerating dissent. Wait until substantially after it seems to you justified in ejecting a member from the group, before actually ejecting. If you get rid of the old outliers, the group position will shift, and someone else will become the oddball.

Wow! So cool to see a new post from PG!

Really curious to see what this project will become.

For an amazing and concise explanation of why “just don’t spend money there” strategy is very difficult, check out this post by Scott Alexander:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/22/repost-the-non-liberta...

(search for sections 2.3 and 2.3.1)

Anyone has any opinions on TF2.0? They've released it recently, and it seems like it should be much closer to PyTorch now, but I don't know enough to evaluate it properly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqWsPO8DVXk

Great link!

Now I only wish there were similar resources for Linear Algebra and Probability/Statistics.

Any good recommendations?

Did you get better? What treatments did you use, what did you do?

Thank you very much for your reply!

One thing that concerns me - I don't see math courses within this program. I would need to learn calculus, linear algebra, probability/statistics.

Do you know if they offer those courses? Could I take them in addition to the core program, or instead of something like web development?

Thank you for your reply, I completely agree that self-education can work great for most purposes.

But some Master's programs may require academic credentials. Degrees are also important for gaining work visas in many countries.

Finally, I feel like structured and more "formal" education would be very helpful to me when it comes to understanding math and more theoretical concepts of CS. I had no problem learning webdev on my own, but for more academic-type things, it would just be easier to attend a program that will make sure I have no gaps in my knowledge.

Thank you very much for your advice!

Some people recommend WGU. From what I see, WGU "is accredited by the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities (NWCCU), a regional accreditation". Is having NWCCU instead of ABET accreditation an issue?

Between Regis University and WGU, which one would you choose?

Unfortunately I do not have the strong understanding of theoretical fundamentals of CS, or math. I have practical programming experience, but that's about it.

I'm looking to take the program not just for the credentials, but also to cover all of the math/CS knowledge I will need for OMSCS.

Houdini is the best!

Also Substance Designer and Nuke.

Somewhat related(okay, not really, but still fun) - awesome talks about modern procedural generation techniques(with AI, Houdini, etc):

How AI will change 3D industry

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FlgLxSLsYWQ

Procedural world generation for Far Cry

https://youtube.com/watch?v=NfizT369g60

Procedurally generating Manhattan for Spider Man

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4aw9uyj9MAE

Mindblowing talks by Anastasia Opara (using cool math, deep learning, and a lot of creativity to create crazy cool stuff)

https://www.anastasiaopara.com/talks

Procedurally generating 3D landscape in Houdini (a little tutorial I have made, can't resist sharing)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=o3mbIRZhv20

Does it make sense to have an actual metaverse, a common 3D world with the same mechanics for everybody?

I would imagine that different parts of the metaverse would have different rules and mechanics, because they're used for different purposes - various games, workplaces, software, etc.

And if so - don't we already have that with the internet, reddit, social networks, steam, and MMORPGS?

I would imagine that metaverse as described by scifi authors would have to have some kind of central location with various portals leading to various parts of the world. But I think there's a good chance that what we have now - internet, steam allowing you to download games, and multiplayer games themselves providing various subspaces - might be simpler, more convenient, and more flexible than one unified 3D world.

Hundreds of games already provide their own game unique mechanics, and social networks and reddit already provide unified game mechanics for reputation scores and such.

If we really want the whole thing to exist in VR - maybe there could be a VR "browser" creating a 3D interface for searching and navigating various parts of the metaverse. But the parts themselves would be built by different teams/companies using their own game engines and rules. That version seems more flexible and realistic to me.

Unless AGI can do 1000s years of human thinking in a few weeks. Or, you know, read wikipedia.

All I'm saying is that much dumber people have been known to get much closer to taking over the world.

Obviously "infinite memory" and "taking over the world" are exaggerations. By "infinite memory" I mean "much more than any human have ever had, enough to memorize the internet". And by "taking over the world" I mean "be able to amass enough power to become a serious threat".

Humans, with human intelligence have already been way too close to taking over the world or causing apocalypse or whatever.

If we're talking about non-aligned AGI, we're talking, at the very least, about an ElonMusk+ powered sociopath. Isn't that already a cause for concern?

Or, from a different perspective, imagine a business that employs 100 Elon Musks. The article claims that AGIs already exists and they're "useless". Do they? Are they?

Existence of Elon Musk's brain proves that Elon-Musk level intelligence is possible.

The fact that Elon Musk (and similar brains) already have a ridiculous amount of power and are using it to change the world proves that Elon-Musk level intelligence is enough to gain a lot of power and change the world.

Imagining a team of 100 Elon Musks with unlimited memory/energy/etc/etc taking over the world is not such a stretch.

Just because you can't figure out how to define/test superhuman intelligence, doesn't mean it can't exist.

> If you think you're specific business case might require an AGI, feel free to hire one of the 3 billion people living in South East Asia that will gladly help you with tasks for a few dollars an hour.

How can a person writing an article about AGI fail to understand what AGI means so badly?

You're complaining that the kind of intelligences you can hire for $2/hour aren't useful/powerful enough. What does that have to do with anything?

By your own argument, people have already created very powerful intelligences - Elon Musk, Alan Turing, etc.

100 of those, with unlimited memory, internet access, and faster thinking speed would already be extremely powerful, enough to take over the world and do whatever they wish with it.

The whole idea of human beings being the pinnacle of intelligence always seemed ridiculous to me. We're the dumbest animals capable of discussing the concept of intelligence. What, the first few somewhat intelligent apes happen to also bump into the theoretical limit for intelligence?

Even minor variation in our genes are enough to account for the difference between Elon Musk and a Joe from the gas station who spends his life in a trailer park, sniffing glue and trying to seduce his cousin. And just because there are enough Joe's already, artificial superintelligence can't exist or be useful?

Having said that, even Joe-level AI's would transform the world more dramatically than any invention before that - they would replace human labor.

Most games are played via discord voice chat, often roll20 is used for rolling dice, managing character sheets, and moving tokens over the map. Create discord/roll20 accounts, come up with a character, make a character sheet.

You can find people to play with on /r/lfg subreddit. If you're not ready to commit to a long-term campaign, I recommend looking for one-shots(one-time games lasting 3-5 hours). Try things out, play a couple of games, get to know a few people.

Also, there are a lot of discord servers where people hang out and play together:

https://disboard.org/search?keyword=dnd&sort=-member_count

They often have channels where they announce games, free for anyone to join. My favorite server is:

https://discord.gg/vPFH5sQ

There are a lot of games in there, and people are very friendly and willing to help. Just come over, ask questions. Don't be afraid to just join one of the games and start playing - nobody expects you to know all the rules when you get started, DM and other players will help you out, you will learn as you go.

Quality of games can sometimes be uneven(depending on DM/player skills). I was lucky that my first few games turned out to be amazing, but occassionaly it can get a bit slow/boring. If that happens - don't give up, just give it another shot, it's worth it. Gradually you'll meet and get to know people you like playing with.

Quick tutorial on playing games on that server:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=euClihK7GhI

You can also find a group to start a campaign with right away. Post on /r/lfg and say you're looking for a DM and players, or find a post made by a DM and apply as a player. The biggest challenge here is scheduling - people live in different timezones, and sometimes groups fall apart because people have trouble making it on time. Your group needs to decide on a specific time you can play every week, and stick to it. Some people have trouble with this, but it's easier than it seems, if the first time doesn't work out - just try again. I was lucky to find 3 amazing groups with awesome players right away.

My solution for loneliness - online DnD.

I live in a place where it's very hard to find like-minded people in real life. That plus health issues and social anxiety resulted in me being quite alone for awhile. I'm very introverted so I wasn't unhappy, but still thought that it would be nice to have a group of good buddies to hang out with.

Then I have learned that you can play DnD over discord/roll20, and my god this is so great! A lot of incredibly smart and amazing people, welcoming and friendly community, so much fun! I highly recommend it to everyone!

Evil Corporation > sindustry (sin+industry)

Small Business > slenderprise (slender/enterprise), businessmany (businessman + many), revenuemerous (revenue/numerous)

Boring Movie > screenplazy (screenplay/lazy)

Stupid Idea > retardicle (retard/article)

These are so good!

It's already been done:

http://tiffzhang.com/startup/index.html?s=317698589796

Oh, the elusive myhological doughnut cat. Finally confirmed!

Jesus christ I sure hope it doesn't

http://i.imgur.com/CuGMzhw.jpg

Oh my god finally! I can't believe this! I've been looking for an app like this forever! I was so surprised at how hard it is to find a decent ebook reader for Ubuntu.

All the desktop or chrome apps I've tried miss crucial obvious functionality, or are so ugly and painful to use they make me want to cry and throw things.

Thank you so much for making this project, it looks amazing, can't wait to try it out!

Edit:

I was unable to install it on ubuntu 18.04 because it requires libgranite5. To fix this I did:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:philip.scott/spice-up-daily

sudo apt install libgranite5

Now it works.

Feedback:

This app doesn't allow me to scroll through pages? I can only switch between them with arrow keys? That's a huge bummer, pretty much a dealbreaker for me. Everything else looks great.

Oh, and looks like it completely breaks PDF formatting for me. I love that it adds a dark mode, but it makes them pretty much unreadable. Table of content's broken as well, chapter names replaced with Content #1, Content #2, etc. And some fonts are missing, hard to figure out which, but I can't read some text in the pdf because of this.

Please fix these things, I really wish to use this app!

To avoid self promotion, there just has to be good moderation, clear rules, and perhaps a #show-hn channel.

The silence will depend on how many people will join and how interested they are.

Some DnD groups become extremely active and take off, others eventually become silent and stop playing. As far as I can tell, the only way to know is to try and see if this works or not.

I've heard that when people are afraid of heights, when they come close to the edge of a bridge or a building they feel irresistsble desire to jump. I wonder if these two are related.