Are you an enthusiast?

"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
08/03/2020 at 13:18 • Filed to: None

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DISCUSSION (13)

This is what we'll show whenever you publish anything on Kinja: > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/03/2020 at 13:34

Get your swag right
You can’t wear a white tee more than once
I’ll teach ya how
I’ll teach ya
I’ll teach ya how to stunt

/Papoosepapoose

Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/03/2020 at 13:41

I think I am about halfway there actually. That sounds like an interesting newsletter or magazine or whatever they put out. I would love to read about other people’s eccentric hobbies. I have quite an appreciation for the mundane myself.

Oh, and that Oppo post is a classic. So true.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Who is the Leader - 404 / Blog No Longer Available
08/03/2020 at 13:43

Had to share the video because of the the old Oppo post. =)

Jim Spanfeller > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/03/2020 at 14:00

Confession: I obsessively take pictures of trash cans at Disney parks. Every time I visit one, I have to look around for any unique varieties of garbage receptacle I haven’t documented yet. Whatever group of friends/family I’m in at the Disney park always thinks I’m insane at first, but my enthusiasm is so contagious that by the end they’re asking me whether I’ve photographed certain cans yet and even taking selfies with me with cans! This all started years ago on a trip to Disneyworld where I planned to take pictures of everything so I would remember everything. When I first entered the park, I saw a beautifully decorated cart being used by a cast member to clean up horse poo. I took a picture of it. Then I forgot to take pictures of anything else for the rest of the trip. So my clearest memory of Disneyworld is a POOP CART. After that, my dad joked that I should make it a tradition to take ridiculous photos at Disney parks, like pictures of all the trash cans. But I liked the idea so much that I embraced it, and now my collection of Disney trash cans is probably second to none! I need to share it on Oppo at some point...

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Jim Spanfeller
08/03/2020 at 14:08

This is fantastic...

YES, YOU DO!

TheRealBicycleBuck > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/03/2020 at 14:16

I have two odd fascinations: maps and spreadsheets. I just happen to work with both. A lot. I love it when a spreadsheet has unusual formulas or tabulates data in some interesting way that leads to greater insight into the data. An even better spreadsheet automates something that is unexpected. One of my favorites was one I made that automatically downloaded data from USGS, reformatted it for use with a DOS-based program, exported the data, ran the program, grabbed the results, then automatically entered it into a summary sheet along with all the other data. I was analyzing daily streamflow data from about 15,000 sites (which I identified via spatial analysis in my mapping tools) to search for flow anomalies. Doing it manually took about 20 minutes per site, so I was looking at about 2 1/2 years of work. Setting up the spreadsheet to do the work took a couple of days. Once I set it loose, it took about 2 hours to finish the analysis, including downloading the required data. That’s so satisfying.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > TheRealBicycleBuck
08/03/2020 at 14:34

I bow to your spreadsheet prowess!

I know (some of these) feels...

Taylor Martin > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/03/2020 at 17:49

It’s not odd, but I certainly like mugs. The look of them, the feel, different styles, all that jazz. Wish I was enthusiastic to do laundry, I have a large pile of it stacking up and it’s starting to smell but it’s too much effort to go from the bedroom to the laundry room...

t0ast > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/03/2020 at 18:27

My unusual hobby for a time was Tool-Assisted Speedruns (TAS) of video games. For those unfamiliar, the gist of it is creating a scripted sequence of inputs that can be reliably played back to create a complete play-through of a game that is more perfect and/or entertaining than what can be accomplished by a human. Think of it like a piano roll, but for controller button presses.

There’s a small, dedicated community out there that has helped develop various tools that aid in the creation of TASes that let you do things like view a (100% accurately emulated) console’s memory, save/load various game states, and control the rate at which the game advances. With those utilities, a boatload of patience, some technical and mathematical aptitude, and the mental constitution to survive playing through an entire game one frame at a time, including tens of thousands of little “redos”, one can create a TAS.

After spending a few months lurking on the TASVideos forums and reading through their various resources, I set out to make my own. Most sane people get started by trying to recreate and find improvements for existing runs, but my ambitions got the better of me and I set out to work on Pocky & Rocky, a hidden gem of a Super Nintendo game that had no known existing TAS, but some exploratory work into the game’s internal mechanics already put in by some RTA (Real Time Attack a.k.a. normal human play) runners. The full process of creating it is too much to dive into here, but long story (6 months + 60,000 redos) short, I had a TAS I was satisfied with enough to submit for being published . Check out the original submission link if you want to see the scale of things that had to be considered along the way.

The final result: 18 minutes and 40.17 seconds of 2D action/shooter swag. This is still about one minute faster than any RTA to date, or ~3.5 minutes faster if only looking at 2-player runs. There’s still room to go even faster (at least 15-20 seconds by my estimates), but doing so would require starting the input sequence over from scratch. Some games take to input sequence modifications easily, but this one is stuffed with so much “entropy” that cleanly stitching bits and pieces of different sequences together is nearly impossible. Not long afterwards, I wound up getting into Autocross and wanting to go back to playing video games normally for a while, so I’ve just let it sit for a few years. I know I’ll revisit it at some point and maybe try messing with its sequel afterwards, but I have no idea when.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > t0ast
08/03/2020 at 19:45

Holy crap!! That’s incredible!

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Jim Spanfeller
08/04/2020 at 19:32

From my sis-in-law, a Disney fanatic:

Ha! I love this so much! I LOOOOOVE those washing machines! I want to join the meetings! I certainly qualify to be a member of the DMC....my kinda guys.

You know they sell all styles of miniature Disneyland trashcans on ebay and etsy?? I always have my eye on the Small World one but can’t bring myself to spring for it yet.

Thanks, Dave. This made he laugh out loud just knowing how many other crazy folks like me there are out there!

Jim Spanfeller > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com
08/04/2020 at 19:47

Holy crap, I need this:

Kinja'd!!!

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Jim Spanfeller
08/04/2020 at 20:12

You’re welcome.