DarthKaren

joined 1 month ago
[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Had ours replaced 2 years ago. All on insurance dime as well because of wind damage. Roof was 20 years old though.

I just found out our company is going to start peak hour surge rates that will be double the normal ppkwh. They're also proposing buying up another power company that is under multiple lawsuits for negligence that caused a large wildfire which hit a small town. I expect prices will go up if/when that happens as well. Last thing is, they're getting rid of the 1:1 energy credits, but people with it will be grandfathered in. So now is the time for me.

I ran numbers all day yesterday and I think I have a solution that will benefit me, financially and for energy, on multiple fronts. Hopefully it works out!

With everything going the way it is, I really don't know why more are not putting solar up if they can afford it. It's like renting a house (no solar) with nothing to show for it at the end of the day vs buying a house (putting up solar) and you have something to show for it at the end of the day. Even if the house isn't as good as when you bought it, you at least have something to show for all that investment. Something with a value.

I just talked with a dude from Purelight. He's been cussed out and threatened. Just amazes me how short sighted people are and how they can get angry over something and they don't even really know why.

[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 5 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Which definitely supports my theory that home value will only increase over time.

[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 14 points 9 hours ago (4 children)

I'm working my numbers to add solar right now. Estimates are that we can offset 69% of our power usage. It will return 150% of our investment overall. That's based on a very conservative rise of 5% in energy costs.

Adding solar right now is really no no brainer imo. Prices are only going to rise, and much more than the current 5% annually estimate out there currently. Panels last for a long time, and even at reduced efficiency towards the end of their life span, it is still a net gain. By then they've paid for themselves well, well before this point.

Right now they give an average home value increase of between 6% and 9%. I think we're going to see that rise as energy prices rise. Especially if you can get a low carbon footprint rating on your home.

Things are only going to get hotter. I've been in e wa state for 27 years now. I've never seen the weather as wild as it is. It's been getting steadily hotter and hotter. Breaking triple digits was super rare. Now it's the norm. We're breaking high temp records left and right. Not just summer either. Offsetting that increase energy use is going to be a must for everyone.

[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 4 points 20 hours ago

From "The Hunt for Red October", to "you shouldn't have started the war against russia then."

Red Dawn to half+ our leadership bowing down to him, and a president calling him a good guy.

God damn what a wild ride.

The internet came way too quickly, or at least it evolved way too quickly for us. We should still be on 56k and surfing Limewire for what may or may not be what we're actually looking for. 24/7 access to everyone all around the country, and world, was too fast as well. We can't acclimate that fast. Our brains weren't ready for it.

[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I'd love to do the same but I need to max out my ram before doing so. I have been working with Blender as well, so it'd be a benefit on that front as well. I have been going through the making a head tutorial and reached a point where it maxed out my system resources and I couldn't progress.

I used it to help fine tune a couple short campaigns for other artifact items. I am going to run through those eventually as well.

It's a very interesting usage case imo. DnD Beyond has that 3d campaign program out in beta right now. This would be a good usage for that system to me. Especially for small groups that struggle to find a DM or enough players to run. It could be a help to someone trying to run solo as well.

I'd love to see LLM integrated into video games more to help give the NPCs life and make the game feel more life like. Even enemy NPCs. I'd love to see a game where enemy NPCs wander from their "zone" and try to attack different areas. Maybe even cities.

It's something that DAoC had in it, in limited quantities. I remember one small town would get attacked every so often by a group of NPCs. You could watch them march from their usual camp over to the town. They'd stand outside the walls and the leader would yell that they were in the area first and would yell insults. While this was happening, they'd throw rotted corpses over the walls. It would give you a disease debuff every time you entered, and you could get attacked by giant bugs that were attracted to the corpses.

Eventually they'd retreat on their own. If you could take out their leaders, they'd retreat then as well. If you killed the leader while he was in their camp, it would delay them going to the city until he respawned. If you kept attacking the camp over and over, it would diminish their number so much that the respawns would slow down. You could eventually clear the camp and keep it that way for some time.

[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

What we need is an mmo where you can make a difference. What do I mean by that? How would that work?

For start, the "you're the hero" thing, where 12981891961899 other mother fuckers are in the background doing the same exact thing, or getting the same exact speech as your are, needs to go. Just make me a regular dude that is adventuring. Just like DnD tt.

How do you affect the world then? In DAoC, there were NPC raids on cities. You could go in and kill the leader, then the whole group would disband and run back to their village across the river. There were other similar events like this throughout the world. We need stuff like that. NPCs, or even players if you choose PvP, that affect the world. Instead of staying in one spot and just roaming a set path, they should be attacking the cities that they are mad at or revolting/gathering to revolt against. Make it so they can actually take territory. Take over cities. Assault capital cities. Even just randomly wander on a not set range. What I'd give to play an mmo where I have the chance to be randomly jumped by (level appropriate) NPCs. Even outside of a place they're normally found.

This adds dynamic change to the world. It's not a static area. It makes it so that beginner zones are abandoned as soon as most level out of them. You need to make sure NPCs don't take over the city because you need that flight path/horse route/etc.

We could even have animal infestations. People aren't killing farmer bill's rats? They take over the farm and whatever he supplies isn't available in the local city's stores.

There are so many things that can be done with NPCs to make the world feel alive and more dynamic. Again, I'm not the hero here. I'm just an adventurer, a normal mercenary, that is trying to keep the enemy in line or the rat population from getting out of control.

[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

My man, I watched an accident yesterday in a grocery store parking lot. A raised up truck was backing out and a car was behind it. The car honked. Laid on that horn. It was a loud horn. Truck didn't even flinch. Backed right into it.

I've been passed by "loud" motorcycles many times. I saw them in my mirrors. I have a tiny blind spot, but I tracked them the entire way. What I didn't do is hear them. Especially at highway speed, they're undetectable.

[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

It would add to the price, which would suck, but I'd love to see some sort of HUD assist system. Even if it was a wire frame or something that appears as a HUD on the windshield. Not bright enough to blind you or be in the way, but enough to see. User could adjust the color (within limits to maybe not negate the system). To me, we don't take enough advantage of HUD tech and different types of vision that a computer could do that a human can't. Make it come on with the headlights or something. That way it's not on during the day.

[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

I'll add onto the answers already. I lived in both an inspection state (Virginia), and a non inspection state (Washington state). I was in Va for about 2 years. I never saw more janky ass cars on the road and broken down ones. I saw more in those 2 years than the 20+ years I've lived here in Wa.

When it came time for mine, all my neighbors sent me to a mechanic down the road. It was a long ass line, but moved pretty fast. No appointment needed. "WTF is this?" I thought. I got to my turn. The guy was in a short stool, like a dr's one. He didn't even leave it. I was in and out in 5 minutes. I'm anal retentive on our vehicle maintenance. So I'm not a danger, but man, I know how others are.

One of our neighbor's friends brought his car by one time. When it was off, oil was flooded into the spark plug holes. I swore it would never start. He cranked it. It turned over right away and all the oil sucked back down into the engine. I've never seen anything like it, nor since. I'm still flummoxed by it.

I saw one car where the person cut the roof away from just behind the driver's seats. Regular old car. They half ass put a piece of plywood and, what I assume, is plexiglass to act as a wall. The "bed" of the vehicle was now the passenger seat area. It also had some janky work going on back there.

Our inspection system is really shitty, even in the states with them. There are so many, "I know a guy", things going on that they might as well not have them. Then there are exemptions as well. Year ranges exempt. They do no real good if they're there. Completely defeats the purpose.

[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 7 points 2 weeks ago

Everywhere I look, assholes! /s

We'd be fucked. My memory sucks and I'm on a heavy dose of neuro meds for pain. Flying would also be a no. I have a constant vertigo sensation.

That said, I'm usually pretty good at keeping upbeat and friendly. Not greedy. Don't care how you dress, what you worship, what you call yourself or identify as, and think you should have your own agency over your body. So at least there's that.

Sexy time would be weird too. Do I call my own name?

Oh! And I can do that mirror prank endlessly!!

[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 6 points 2 weeks ago

It's like he's writing a performance report and desperately trying to pad the bullet points because he doesn't have enough to fill the required "what have you accomplished" area.

[–] DarthKaren@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

Watch them become the new Epstein for the rich and powerful. tRUmp still has the jet iirc.

 

I decided to test DS's ability to act as a DM. I have a small campaign that I had an outline for.

First, I ran the outline through DS and had it create a campaign out of my outline.

I next uploaded the outline and had DS run as DM. I played 2 characters. DS added a ton of flavor in there. Names, some general backgrounds and attitudes, names of places, etc.

The interactions were pretty good. It acted out the interactions with my characters. The interactions stayed in character, relevant to the world, relevant to the character's background, and relevant to the current events that had happened both in world and with my characters.

I ran it as 1 continuous chat. No parsing. No summary. I wanted to test the limits of DS and see how far I could push it until it majorly stumbled and went completely off the rails.

To my surprise, I was able to finish the entire campaign (short)! There were a couple of stumbles. Mainly in initiative order. I had to remind it a few times who's turn it was. There were 2 other places that I noticed outside of combat. All instances of stumbles only occured later in the campaign.

It started to try and voice for my characters. I reminded it not to and it didn't again.

When I returned to the beach of the island I landed on, the ship I came on was wrecked. That one I'm on the fence on. The waters around the island were treacherous, and it is completely within reason that the ship could have beached itself while I was gone on the island.

There is a story I had written that I had it make into a campaign. That one is a bit longer but still short compared to many other campaigns. I will try to run that one next. I'm downloaded all of the LLM sizes right now. I am probably going to try that locally hosted with the 158g one. I'm going to end up adding 128g ram soon. I will try the larger size DS LLMs after that.

I'm really curious to see just how far I can push it until it completely breaks down.

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