u/SamuraiGoblin

I'm in the mood for a comedy/satire of 80s/90s corporate world, similar to Office Space or Dilbert. Something that highlights the idiocy of management and the absurdity of buzzwords and red tape.

Hello, I am SamuraiGoblin.

I live in Nara, near the borders of both Osaka and Kyoto. I wanted a place to specifically talk about this beautiful, historic prefecture.

Whether you are Japanese or a foreigner, a resident or a tourist, or just someone who appreciates the beauty of Japan, if you have anything related to Nara to discuss, please feel free to post it here.

This is the sub for the area of Japan in which I live. It was created and then immediately abandoned when the creator was banned.

For example:

Perhaps the Enterprise could go explore Scotty's Dyson sphere properly, reminiscent of Rendevous with Rama?

I'd like to see where Wesley went with the traveller, or what experiences Vash had with Q, or what Tam Elbrun and Tin Man got up to.

Maybe we could have an entire episode with Guinan as the protagonist and learn what that kung-fu Q-repelling stance was all about?

How about you?

So many FP theories rely on the assumption that ALL aliens will think exactly the same and abide by exactly the same rules.

"What if there are many intelligent alien species but they are all hiding from us?" "What if all intelligent species become energy beings or dive into VR?" "What if aliens are apathetic or xenophobic?"

So all members of all religions, governments, factions, hobbies, of every species, over all the time that they have advanced technology, think exactly the same? Not one of them is like 'hey, humans, cool!'?

All we have to do is look at the great variety of humans (a single species) to know that there is no consensus on anything. We have explorers, entrepreneurs, missionaries, practical jokers, narcissistic influencers, reality TV crews, cult leaders, crazy despots, Darwin award contenders, the Amish, hippies, conspiracy theorists, and so on.

To think that absolutely no individual out there of any species would have an incentive to make contact with (or even visit) us is utterly preposterous.

I don't find any of them compelling.

I am working on a game engine that renders LOTS of sprites/billboards in 3D. The textures have smooth antialiased edges, and some of them have non-trivial shaders for things like SDF rendering or parallax mapping.

If I render back-to-front with blending on, it looks great and I don't need depth testing, but it has a terrible overdraw cost that I would like to avoid.

But if I render front-to-back with depth testing, then I lose the smooth edges.

How do people normally deal with this?

One idea I had was to render front-to-back, with depth reading/writing for purely opaque pixels, then a second back-to-front pass for order-correct blending of the edges.

Another thing I have looked into is MSAA with 'alpha to coverage.'

Any other interesting ways I might like to know about?

What do you recommend in this case?

I'm sure this question has already been asked in some form or another, but what exactly is π? It seems to show up all the time in both physics and pure mathematics, in seemingly unrelated areas. What relation is there between Planck's constant and the Wallis product?

Is it some kind of fundamental 'base' of numbers, or perhaps related the the structure of the universe, human pattern recognition bias, or even a big cosmic coincidence? Why does it pop up all the time?

A great premise, interesting story, and fantastic aesthetic. It's got monsters, robots, dinosaurs, alternate history, time travel, steampunk, and an edgy memorable ensemble. What's not to like?

Come on Hollywood! It's ripe for the silver screen. There must be a producer out there with nostalgia for such a fantastic game. Just don't mess it up!

Heck, I'll write the damned thing for you.

Edit: Yes, I know it will never happen. It's just a dream.

Playthings? Ego boosters? Showing off to other deities?

It can't be 'children' or 'pets' because you don't torture your misbehaving* loved ones, especially not for eternity with no chance of redemption.

What exactly, according to your worldview, is the purpose of our existence?

And what exactly is the purpose of Hell? Why wouldn't God give us a chance to redeem ourselves through reincarnation, or simply extinguish our souls and use that energy to try again?

*Note: 'misbehaving' can simply mean, withholding belief without evidence

I just had a silly bug that took me an embarrassingly long time to fix.

I am rendering in wireframe (using DrawLineEx) and needed to flip the camera vertically, but everything kept disappearing. Huh??

I should have realised that raylib would be rendering variable thickness lines behind the scenes using triangle strips, which are affected by backface culling. However, I got started in graphics when OpenGL was fixed-function, so I falsely assumed it would work similar to thick lines using glLineWidth which aren't affected by it.

Doh! Silly me.

Just wanted to mention it in case anyone else makes such an assumption.

Hi there. I have a row of camellia bushes in my garden. Sometimes, when trimming, I come across sprigs where the leaves are swollen and hard and shiny like plastic. The colour is a pale lime green fading to brown.

I assume it's caused by some kind of parasite, like oak galls. Does anyone know anything about it, and if there is a way to stop it?

I wrote TNG fan fiction as a kid, and while I don't do that any more, I love thinking about what stories I would like to tell.

There are so many episodes that introduce new idea that don't ever get brought up again.

For example, I would love to tag along with Wesley and the Traveler on their adventures through time, space, and thought. Or how about hanging with Vash and Q for a while? Or Scotty in his shuttlecraft? Or Tam Elbrun and Tin Man? And I would love to see what Guinan got up to when she was younger and what that strange hand gesture is all about.

There is a sub of the area I live in. It only has two posts from the user who created it, from when it was created 2 years ago, but now that user has been b4nn3d*. Also, you can't even post on the sub because it needs an invite.

I would like to take ownership of that dead sub, since it is completely going to waste. Is there any process for this? To whom would I have to speak?

* sorry for that, but auto bot thinks I am asking how to get myself unb4nn3d.