Dropbox also has LAN sync if you're all on the same "team" account. Works wonders between local computers.
I love seeing targeted solutions like the one posted by OP, but I can't shake the feeling that the application of distribution game files is only the surface of it's applicability.
There's a certain irony that the primary feature separating smart phone cameras and traditional cameras is the ability to purposefully make "blurry photographs".
Wait till you hear about cameras which primary feature is the ability to purposefully make photos you cannot even see until days later, much less edit in any convenient way. You must fully replace storage every couple dozen of shots and dynamic range is just awful compared to my phone's HDR. (Sarcasm ofc, love film)
Recommendation: Start with the story and narrative elements. You can abstract away all the rules, and math as need be, and re-introduce them over time.
What are your thoughts on Dungeon World (PbtA)? For rules-lite, classic D&D-themes, and easy for newbies, I've found it to be a good choice for my group.
Coming from a long background in D&D 3.5/5e/etc TTRPGs, Dungeon World and thus the PbtA systems feel like a breath of fresh air! Especially for a rules-lite, narrative-first game.
However, I will admit... The actual Dungeon World book is pretty bad. Great rules, great player sheets / printables, rather poor book as TTRPG books go.
If you haven't read Ender's Game, I highly recommend it based on this topic.
I think the tricky part is - if it's an unsolved problem, how does the game know when a task is complete? Feedback loops are a core element of game design, and part of the reason tedious tasks can be satisfying, but unless it's directly manual labor, I'm unsure how to create a proper feedback loop
I thought the same. Ender's Game and the cell classification task have something in common: the end status to achieve (whether to eliminate all opponents or identify something that's known). If we think this way, these two tasks could still be treated as machine learnable tasks (albeit poorer solution possibly). A genetic algorithm for example, could be trained to derive the means to achieve the goals. In cases where we don't know the end goal of the game, how do we train ourselves towards an unknown objective or without guidance of known answers.
I understand when products are compared directly: Uber vs. Lyft, Uber Eats vs. Grubhub, etc. Often consumers are looking at the exact same product and purely deciding based on price. I can see what a company would add that dark pattern to squeeze every dollar they can get.
AirBnb, Turo? I don't get it, are folks comparing the purchases directly to "other" products?
My haphazard guess from zero evidence: they may have ran some A/B testing on their platform that compared showing full price vs hiding the fees, and have come away with the conclusion that their conversion rate is x% higher when deploying the dark pattern. What such studies fail to measure is the cost of eroding brand trust, but this is just one possible scenario.
> AirBnb, Turo? I don't get it, are folks comparing the purchases directly to "other" products?
Sometimes to hotels and car rental chains. But also people glance at these sites to ballpark the cost of a vacation, get their hearts set, and come back later (maybe after booking flights) and only then see the full price.
IMO: The mind blowing element, is that in the grand scheme of things It's not actually that much money.
I'm not sure if anyone knows the true amount, but estimates put the number spent on lobbying around a few million dollars. Opensecrets.org estimated ~$3.2m lobbying in 2021.
Politicians are surprisingly cheap, so long as you're talking about topics that don't get a lot of press.
And thanks to Citizens United and similar decisions that have driven up the cost of US elections, US pols are very expensive compared to their counterparts in other countries.
It does make me wonder about the efficacy of standing up a lobbying fund to lobby to Do The Right Thing about something. This would be a prime example - I would happily pay $100 to compete with Intuit's lobbying here. I'm also certain there are 31,999 other people in the US who feel the same way.
I just don't have the energy to do the work of learning how to set up the corporate structure around that to make it legal.
I completely agree that politicians are not cheap at all. The reality is that so much of the money that's invested in influencing politicians is through means other than campaign contributions.
It's through season tickets to the network of friends that know the politician, it's through donations to the university that gets their child into college, it's through pacs and issue groups, it's through lining up and bundling donors to max out their individual donations to a politician's preferred presidential candidate, it's through flying them out to special events, it's through hiring their best friend, it's through investing in their brother in law's new business, it's through buying things at their husband or wife's charity auction, it's through arranging a job for them after they retire from politics, it's through finding them a buyer for their investment property, it's through an entire network of investments one or two degrees removed from the politician.
The only sliver of that that people typically cite is the amount directly spent on campaign contributions which (1) mistakenly makes it seem like politicians are cheap and (2) is underwhelming, to people who cite those numbers sincerely believing that that's the only economic dimension to political influence.
> standing up a lobbying fund to lobby to Do The Right Thing about something. This would be a prime example - I would happily pay $100 to compete with Intuit's lobbying here. I'm also certain there are 31,999 other people in the US who feel the same way.
Congratulations, you just independently invented the concept of a Political Action Committee.
Depends on what I'm looking for. If it's something small (under like 20 bucks for me, substitute whatever for your comfort level), I don't even bother. I just go to Target and pick up the 2nd or 3rd cheapest whatever.
Now if it's a bigger ticket item, it gets dicey, because then the best strategy, in my experience, has been to determine what about said item really matters to you and then find a group of people who share that and ask their opinion. The problem with this is that those people have the best information, but also very exacting standards and aren't very sympathetic to arguments like "But I don't HAVE hundreds of dollars for a coffee maker."
Honestly, more and more in the past few years consumer products and services in the world has just been like a race to 'get something past me' and I've just started making my own stuff, buying vintage, or borrowing because I'm tired of being sold crap.
Australians have www.choice.com.au that use a subscription model to monetize rigorous product comparisons for big ticket items. I'm not sure what the options are in other countries. Obviously there are special purpose publications like DPReview and Anandtech
I find things like CR or choice really good if your needs align with the standard consumer's.
One example is I'd probably recommend you look at office chair recs from them if you were a male between the 20th and 80th percentile in height (or a female in the male ranges) and weight who only uses the computer for work. If you were like me, a woman who's 5'3" with the legs of somebody 5'1" who sits at the computer for hours, those recommendations wouldn't work. (They also wouldn't work for Yao Ming).
Too bad wirecutter is very hit or miss. I have definitely bought their recommendations and regretted it.
Searching for query + reddit is an OK means of looking for recommendations
What would be nice is a store (like amazon or target) that only sold reputable items. I'm not looking for 3rd party marketplace (like walmart or amazon offers). Maybe costco (brick & mortar) offers this curated selection, but even costco's products are hit or miss.
Not really what you're asking for, but I saw this[0] a while back and it's made me actually think about can openers a bit now. You might find it interesting, too.
I just default trust Wirecutter for everything these days. I know they might not be optimal - there's probably a better alternative for my specific usecase if I spent the time on it but I'd rather just let them make the decision on trivial things.
The only real option is to spend more time, cross reference against many sites and forums, and use your intuition as to which comments and reviews are authentic. Also pay attention to negative reviews.
Dropbox also has LAN sync if you're all on the same "team" account. Works wonders between local computers.
I love seeing targeted solutions like the one posted by OP, but I can't shake the feeling that the application of distribution game files is only the surface of it's applicability.