ericbomb

So my entire life has been extreme boredom, followed by finding a book/videogame/hobby I find interesting, doing nothing but that for awhile, then never touching it again.

I'm debating maybe trying to make a rule of not doing something two days in a row. Like I just found a video game I liked and played it all day yesterday and today, and while I still wanna play I already feel its shininess wearing off.

Curious if anyone else has tried to space out their dopamine buttons and if it helped. So maybe like instead of just playing the same game tomorrow, I'll need to try other games, or maybe try to find a new book series to hyper focus on...

So I'm a database engineer taking some computer science courses and got an assignment to write about symbol resolution. The only reference to it I could find was this https://binarydodo.wordpress.com/2016/07/01/symbol-resolution-during-link-editing/ then a stack over flow of someone asking a similar question to this. I took that to mean "Linking names of any variable, object, etc. in a program to the object in memory" and rolled with that. Hoping someone can clarify if my understanding is correct! Would ask teacher, but weekend and wanting to get this done today.

Here is what I wrote so far.

Symbol resolution is the task of taking something that was referenced by name in a program, and connecting it to the specific item in memory. In a program you can call functions in the program, functions in other programs, objects already created, variables, or even variables created by other objects. All those items are going to exist in memory, on the hard drive, or might be moved to the registrar of the CPU. Symbol resolution is the converting of the names of the items in the program to pointers the computer can use to modify it whenever that name is referenced. When you update a variable, it will need to know where in RAM it is stored, and converting the name of the variable to that address everywhere it is referenced is the process of finding it. Effectively binding an address in memory to that reference.

By doing this, software can work with the exact same variables multiple times, as it it looking in the same place. If a variable is updated, it will know as it’s looking in the proper place in RAM. When working with Object Oriented Programming, it is what defines the differently named objects of the same class as separate parts of memory. Object A of Class Object1 will be bound to a different bit of memory than Object B of Class Object2.

When it goes through resolving symbols, it has to do it in the same order every time, otherwise the programs would run inconsistently. In python for example, it follows the LEGB rule (Scope Resolution in Python | LEGB Rule, 2018). So when trying to find if a variable is the same as another variable, it goes in order of Local, Enclosed, Global, Built In. So it tries to match the reference to anything local, anything in the function, anything global, then tries to match any reference to built in keywords or functions.

As an example:

# Global variable
greeting = "Hello"

# Function that uses global variable
def say_hello(name):
    return greeting + ' ' + name

# Another function that has its own local variable with the same name
def say_hello2(name):
    # Local variable 'greeting' shadows the global variable
    greeting = "Good day"
    # Here, 'greeting' resolves to the local variable instead of the global one
    return greeting + ' ' + name

# Main block
if __name__ == "__main__":
    print(say_hello("Alice"))       # Resolves 'greeting' as global
    print(say_hello2("Bob"))         # Resolves 'greeting' as local within greet_formally

We can see we have two variables both called “greeting”, but they hold different values. In this case using symbol resolution it is able to resolve the “greeting” inside of say_hello2 as having the value “Good Day”. Then it resolves “Greeting” inside of “say_hello” as “Hello”, because when looking for where to link it followed the LEGB rule. In say_hello2, we had a local “greeting”, so it connected to that one and stopped looking for a connection, never making it to the Global “greeting”. If we had an external file we connected with “import” it would then check inside the imported file to try to resolve the names of any variables, functions, or objects. By doing it in this order it will always get the same result and have consistent outcomes, which is essential for programs.

Scope Resolution in Python | LEGB Rule. (2018, November 27). GeeksforGeeks. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/scope-resolution-in-python-legb-rule/

I know it's a longer post, but thank you for your time!

My favorite is Bog king from Strange Magic - Has a song talking about how evil he is. But all he does is prevent the spread of dangerous mind control magic, and quarantine people under the effects of said magic. Yes he greatly annoys people doing so, but honestly? If I get hit by a love potion, please quarantine me.

Definition: A gaming dark pattern is something that is deliberately added to a game to cause an unwanted negative experience for the player with a positive outcome for the game developer.

Learned about it from another lemmy user! it's a newer website, so not every game has a rating, but it's already super helpful and I intend to add ratings as I can!

While as an adult I think it'll probably be helpful to find games that are just games and not trying to bait whales, I feel like it's even more helpful for parents.

Making sure the game your kids want to play is free of traps like accidental purchases and starting chain emails with invites I think makes it worth its weight in gold.

EDIT: Some folks seem to be concerned with some specific items that it looks for, but I've been thinking of it like this:

1 mechanic is a thread, multiple together form a pattern. It's why they'll still have a high score even if they have a handful of the items listed.

Like random loot from a boss can be real fun! But when it's combined with time gates, pay to skip, grinding, and loot boxes.... we all know exactly what it is trying to accomplish. They don't want you to actually redo the dungeon 100 times. They want you to buy 100 loot boxes.

Guilds where you screw over your friends if you don't play for a couple days because your guild can't compete and earn the rewards they want if even a single player isn't playing every single day? Yeah, we know what it's about. But guilds where it's all very chill and optional? Completely fine.

Games that throw in secret bots without telling you to make you think you're good at the game combined with a leader board and infinite treadmill, so you sit there playing the game not wanting to give up your "top spot"? I see you stupid IO games.

But also, information is power to the consumer.

I do like having games on my phone, but it's always a struggle looking for games with 0 microtransactions. So would like a game I can out right pay for, or one with ads. The ability to disable ads for $5 is chill though.

I've played a lot of games that you can "have fun being f2p" but some days I just get really sick and tired of games I play trying to sell me things every 30 seconds.

So do you guys have any?

If not I may go back to playing GBA games on my phone XD

EDIT: Oh selling like expansions is probably fine if it's legit like a full other game. I'm on android

New home owner who has never had to hire a contractor before. Want to have chain link fence replaced and want to have put in white vinyl fence to match connected town home.

It is just a 40 foot length I need replaced and will need to have one gate. As I get quotes, what kind of price should I expect to pay? What's considered fair and what's considered a rip off?

EDIT: Thanks for all the feedback! I think I'm not in the right tax bracket to hire people to do this, so probably going to try to do it myself.

So I went to my doctor and was like "yeah my counselor said I should ask about the process to get tested for ADHD because of XYZ"...

He then had to gently explain that a year ago he had referred me to a local pysch for testing because I already took the ADHD assessment.

Anyway, long story short, after doing testing (which I showed up for on the wrong day the first time) I got an official ADHD diagnosis.

After months of reminders in team meetings on how to do this properly, supervisors have sicced me on the department.

I have been informed that if the issues continue, supervisors will start pulling people in for chats on why they can't follow directions that were laid out.

Pray I am the only monster you meet, for I am the kindest.

Eating the proper amount is hard. Eating when you have low time, money, mental energy, or education on cooking is even harder.

This book assumes nothing. Do you know how to turn on your stove? You are properly prepared to use this cookbook.

Just want to share it with more folks!

My two are:

Making sourdough. I personally always heard like this weird almost mysticism around making it. But I bought a $7 starter from a bakery store, and using just stuff in my kitchen and cheap bread flour I've been eating fresh sourdough every day and been super happy with it. Some loafs aren't super consistent because I don't have like temperature controlled box or anything. But they've all been tasty.

Drawing. I'm by no means an artist, but I always felt like people who were good at drawing were like on a different level. But I buckled down and every day for a month I tried drawing my favorite anime character following an online guide. So just 30 minutes every day. The first one was so bad I almost gave up, but I was in love with the last one and made me realize that like... yeah it really is just practice. Years and years of it to be good at drawing things consistently, quickly, and a variety of things. But I had fun and got something I enjoyed much faster than I expected. So if you want to learn to draw, I would recommend just trying to draw something you really like following a guide and just try it once a day until you are happy with the result.