Hackers' Pub

Syntax	Description	Examples
`"` keyword `"`	Finds the string within quotes, including spaces. Case-insensitive. (Escape quotes inside with `\"`)	`"Hackers' Pub"`
`from:` handle	Finds content written by the specified user.	`from:hongminhee` `from:hongminhee@hollo.social`
`lang:` ISO 639-1	Finds content written in the specified language.	`lang:en`
`#` tag	Finds content with the specified tag. Case-insensitive.	`#HackersPub`
condition condition	Finds content that satisfies both conditions on either side of the space (logical AND).	`"Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
condition `OR` condition	Finds content that satisfies at least one of the conditions on either side of the OR operator (logical OR).	`#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" lang:en`
`(` condition `)`	Combines the operators within the parentheses first.	`(#HackersPub OR "Hackers' Pub" OR "Hackers Pub") lang:en`

Dan Piponi @dpiponi@mathstodon.xyz

6/21/2025, 8:29:18 PM

Public

Dinosaur fights seem impressive but they're just a bunch of matrix multiplications.

We can model dinsosaur fights from the AD&D Monster Manual (1e, of course) as a Markov chain that you run until they hit one of two clusters of final states: one where one has zero hit points, or the other.

The matrices were pretty fiddly to get right but I got there in the end in Mathematica.

I compared the results to two completely independent methods (Monte Carlo simulations in C++ and an experimental Python DSL, all agreed to as many decimal places as you might expect.) so I think I can now reveal the dinosaur league table...

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