MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by HankStallone | 2025-09-29 16:16:56+00:00
Yeah, in the C64 days, when I could afford to buy a game at retail, it would often be an EA game, because they had some of the best. I still remember the logo flashing through the 16-color set, and how you could tell whether the game had a fast-loader by how fast it flashed.

They were pretty universally admired then, as far as I can remember, but not for much longer.
by poppobit | 2025-09-29 16:17:02+00:00
I think in a similar way, though from a slightly different angle. For me, the value of stopping on time isn’t just about avoiding overtime — it’s also about not waiting for a clean break.

When I wrap things up too neatly, the next day feels like a cold start, and that makes it harder to dash into new work. But if I deliberately leave a task half-finished, then the next day I can just pick up where I left off and get moving much faster.
by vkou | 2025-09-29 16:17:32+00:00
From a cursory search, he dunks on mismanagement in EA fairly regularly, but I'm not finding a lot of evidence of him reporting on worker abuse. (Layoffs in a failing sub-studio are shitty, but aren't that. Vision whiplash is shitty, but is also not that. Management mandates to implement features that you know will tank your game are shitty, but are also not that.)

Maybe it's pay walled.

Do you have a source?
by plaidfuji | 2025-09-29 16:17:37+00:00
> The timescale of the project needs to be shorter than the characteristic timescale of the exponential

So the advice is to pick a really fast project. But I feel like there’s a big caveat here: this is the timescale of improvement specifically for general purpose LLMs.

So you could also just… pick a project in an area that has a longer characteristic timescale for improvement. One where you’re not competing with industry researchers backed by literally hundreds of billions of dollars in funding.

AI for the physical world is not advancing nearly as fast. Pair with a robotics group and come up with a better way to generate robust datasets and use reinforcement learning to do real-time control.

I did a lot of my PhD work in image vectorization for complex material microstructures. Very niche. Still unsolved by AI over a decade later and not showing any signs of being solved soon.

Text processing is probably going to be a solved problem and hard to keep up with, I don’t disagree with that. It’s far from the only field of AI, and much less so the overall R&D.
by ATiredGoat | 2025-09-29 16:17:38+00:00
I’ve been working on a project for over 30 years: The Labyrinth of Time’s Edge, a massive QBasic-powered text adventure with over 3,600 rooms and counting. It’s built one room at a time, by hand, with the same energy that drove the old-school adventures we grew up with. What started as a hobby in the early 90s has grown into a living world. Every corridor, NPC, and encounter is handcrafted in QBasic, running on an engine I’ve been refining for decades. It’s slow creation in an era of instant gratification something I think we need more of. This is more than just a game to me—it’s a way of preserving a piece of computing history and proving that text adventures still matter. They demand imagination, patience, and curiosity. They remind us that sometimes the best graphics are the ones painted in your mind.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, and if you enjoy the project, please help spread the word. The labyrinth is vast, but there’s always room for more adventurers. This is more than just a game to me—it’s a way of preserving a piece of computing history and proving that text adventures still matter. They demand imagination, patience, and curiosity. They remind us that sometimes the best graphics are the ones painted in your mind.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, and if you enjoy the project, please help spread the word. The labyrinth is vast, but there’s always room for more adventurers.
by ken47 | 2025-09-29 16:17:42+00:00
And don't forget that physical loneliness, that is, actually being alone, eliminates one major feedback source that something could be wrong with your health, or a source of immediate aid if e.g. you go into cardiac arrest.

Maybe the researcher above touches on these things, but more generally, there should be a standardized probability and statistics exam for ALL aspiring scientific researchers, and a high score should be the minimum cutoff. The influence that a statistically flawed study can have over our collective futures is too dangerous.
by fsckboy | 2025-09-29 16:18:07+00:00
>The author seems to assume causation when the studies only indicate correlation.

once I heard Feynmann say in a youtube video that (paraphrasal) "we don't know what causes gravity, we just know that it exists, it's a property of matter"

then I realized, our experiments never show causation, they only show correlation. gravity has 100% (in our experience) correlation to matter. admittedly, that's a pretty good correlation, but for all we know, gravity causes matter. energy too, apparently.
by gpderetta | 2025-09-29 16:18:33+00:00
The author has a point, but the global ordering of an MPMC queue is not entirely pointless. Assuming the queue marks the messages with the order, the ordering might be used at a later stage in the pipeline to reorder the processed messages and recover the total order.

Also there are implications for fairness. A queue implemented as a stack might means that messages pushed during a spike might never be processed or experience very high latency.

Finally it is actually possible to implement a decent lock free MPSC queue in top of a node-based stack: the consumer would pop all elements on one operation, then reverse the list. This N cost is amortized over N pops so it is actually not bad.
by procaryote | 2025-09-29 16:18:45+00:00
> I could, I suppose, ask each person that I see with a camera “would you mind not including me in anything you upload, please?”. And, since everyone with whom I’ve spoken at games, so far anyway, has been perfectly pleasant and friendly, I’d be hopeful that they would at least consider my request. I have not done this.

I've done this several times in various contexts. If you ask in a nice way, it usually works

If you don't ask, it's very unlikely people will have the telepathy needed to understand what you quietly want

For air-soft specifically it is also very feasible to wear a full face mask and become very hard for regular people to recognise.
Show HN: Terramind- The AI SuperApp
by terramind_com | 2025-09-29 16:20:09+00:00
Hey Hacker News, I am excited to introduce Terramind - The AI SuperApp.

It's an ecosystem of AI-powered apps that seamlessly integrates into your workflows, bringing 'PhD-level intelligence' to real-life use cases.

Its been quite a journey creating these 10 apps (and more) as a solo dev, and i couldn’t be more excited to share these with you and hear your feedback about Terramind.

These are the 10 apps that we are launching today. Its available today but the PH links that i have added will go live over the next 10 days.

Demo Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcj-47ffSsX0IvHnjxpQC...

Terramind: Nexus - App store-like marketplace with specialized AI agents https://nexus.terramind.com

Terramind: Calendar - AI-powered scheduling and content calendar creation with automation https://cal.terramind.com

Terramind: Drive - Centralized file storage with RAG-powered search and knowledge base integration https://drive.terramind.com

Terramind: Code - Talk to and edit any codebase on Github https://code.terramind.com

Terramind: Projects - AI-enhanced project management with agent task assignment and sprint planning https://projects.terramind.com

Terramind: Teams - Collaborative workspace combining AI agents and human team members https://teams.terramind.com

Terramind: Family - Family-focused collaborative chat platform with AI assistance https://family.terramind.com

Terramind: Search - AI search engine with deep research and multi-provider analysis https://search.terramind.com

Terramind: Notes - Conversational AI note-taking with intelligent search capabilities https://notes.terramind.com

Terramind - Core ecosystem hub connecting all apps with memory, multiple models, and advanced artifacts. https://terramind.com

---

AI credits are expensive and me as a solo dev (a broke one) working out of my bedroom is all-in on the promise of Terramind. All accounts get free 25,000 credits for you to try the platform. Tell your friends and coworkers, if you love the platform. For people who wish to show support (and frankly get shit done with terramind) can sign up to one of our paid plans to keep the lights on at terramind, believe me, lots of exciting products in the pipeline. You get access to all the terramind platforms and all features that come with them on Plus plan itself. I am keeping an early supporters list for later when we become a gazillion dollar company. For now, i can just offer this coupon code: HN20 (first 1000 users) applicable on the Plus plan for you to fall in love with the platform hopefully as i have. Really looking forward to your feedback.

The platform is in early preview and i acknowledge that there will be a lot of bugs. Here is the link to make the platform better for all of us: [https://terramind.com/feedback.](https://terramind.com/feedback.)
by aurizon | 2025-09-29 16:20:30+00:00
We have had a number of disruptions over time, discounting war based - iron tips swords versus bronze, the first one in the West was Gutenberg's printing which allowed the elimination of religious control schemes where small pamphlets/books to become mass markets that spread knowledge about religious corruption. In time we had the fine machinery revolution which led to the spinning jenny, and mass cloth production as well as identical mass part production allowing separate parts makers to collect diverse parts to make machines - the Ford Model A and T as well as rifles etc at low cost in huge volumes. And it continues - we have heard of the Luddites - who were composed of spinners unemployed by the spinning Jenny https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite Will we have 'Codites' = unemployed coders due to AI coding? We all know AI makes 'slop', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_slop We have all seen the press releases = microsoft lays off 10,000 coders etc. Many of these coders were lower echelon people = human slop makers. AI can make slop, but we now have better AI that detects/culls slop, so in a few years slop detection/culling has the raw speed to examine cross-associatively millions of lines of code to end up with acceptable, then better, then good and we will soon have free standing AI coders whose products have been fuzz-examined exhaustively for bugs so we will end up with better code. This will create a hierarchy of excellence where only the top coders/architects survive. So there will be a reduction of coder jobs - however, the huge mass of good and low cost code will enable far more complex machines/tasks at far lower cost so their work product will enable a larger numbers of jobs suited for people. This is what happened with the printing/spinning/industrial revolutions etc and that is what AI is now starting to do for humans.
by dehrmann | 2025-09-29 16:20:35+00:00
Found this:

> The investors are betting that AI-based cost cuts will significantly boost EA’s profits in the coming years, people involved in the transaction told the Financial Times.

It halfway makes sense. EA is priced at current game production costs, but if that goes down, it'll be worth more. The other side of that is that someone might be able to vibe code with "make the next iconic video game franchise in the vein of Zelda or Pokemon." If EA's sports license moat is strong enough, this might not be an issue, but otherwise, it feels like that cuts both ways.
by Sohcahtoa82 | 2025-09-29 16:20:38+00:00
> Video game players are hilariously, pitiably dramatic.

I'm a gamer and I 100% agree with you.

The simple fact is, AAA game prices have been stuck at $60-70 for 30 years. Despite $60 in 1995 being worth ~$127 today, games are still $60. They haven't kept up with inflation. Games are relatively cheap while development costs for AAA are ridiculously high.

A typical SNES game had 10-30 people working on it and would have it done in 1.5-3 years. AAA games will have typically 1,000-3,000 and could take 3-7 years, so we're talking 100-200 times the development cost.

Now, compare the best-selling SNES games [0] to the overall best-selling games [1]. Modern AAA games barely reach 10x the unit sales as old SNES games.

Margins are thinning.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_Super_Nin...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_gam...
by terramind_com | 2025-09-29 16:20:45+00:00
Building these 10 platforms seems a lot, if i think about it from an outside perspective. But i absolutely loved it. It was a lot of work. Possibly the most work than i have done in my life. To put in perspective, in the last few days for the launch, i as a solo dev, yes “dev”, had to create 10 demo videos with voiceovers and sync the audio to whats on the screen in fcp (had to learn for this), and write these descriptions and create social media channels and handle legal and while creating a demo video, when the feature i wanted to show didnt work had to first go debug and then come back to the video and so on. Along with approximately 100 images for product hunt. I am not even talking about what went behind actually building all of the 10 platforms. But i loved it. I loved building Terramind. Ik it might sound obnoxious but it was art to me. I define art as anything done for its own sake. Now ofc i want it to succeed, would love the fruit out of it and really hope that you guys love it and that i create a business out of the “art”. But my point here is that i loved the process of creating it. In the moment i wanted to make Terramind for Terramind. And thats why i have worked at it for 16 hr days for months at end. And ik its hard to explain to someone as they will say so ok you didnt want the money then. But this para is for the few of you that might understand what i am saying. This is my “what looks like work to you but feels like play to me” (naval). I am grateful to work on something that i love. To create Art. And with your support i will try and build more technology, be more innovative and solve harder problems as i have more resources. But i feel that these apps are a good starting point with the last left few hundred dollars left with me. For someone who has read till here. Thank you. And stay tuned. I have quite exciting products in the pipeline.
by tarwich | 2025-09-29 16:21:01+00:00
Yup. It's not the learning AI or prompt engineering is bad in anyway. A similar writeup https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45405177 mentions the problem I see: when AI does most of the work, I have to work hard to understand what AI wrote.

In your model, I give enough guidance to generally know what AI is doing, and AI is finishing what you started.
by tiahura | 2025-09-29 16:21:07+00:00
I think the generational fracture may cut the other way. My impression, consistent with the polls, is that the younger generations are much more willing to embrace authoritarianism when it advances their personal values and interests. They think that the threat of violence from the state to prevent others from forming an opinion of them based on information they don't control is perfectly acceptable. Laissez-faire is passé.
by iamnothere | 2025-09-29 16:21:17+00:00
> You have an identity though. You use other things as an ID in the end. Often shoehorned into fulfilling that task and mostly very cumbersome.

My exact point, glad we agree. Very cumbersome indeed, and not centralized enough to use for turnkey totalitarianism. (Slow, plodding, inefficient totalitarianism, sure. But see my above post for why that isn’t as much of an existential threat.)

> There's nothing about an electronic ID that would make this different from now. It makes no practical difference for oppression. If you don't have an SSN then other things about you are unique enough for identifying you. I'd say that's why it's even vaguely tolerated anyways.

False. Electronic ID provides the means to tie together multiple systems that must currently be matched manually, with frequent false positives/negatives. It creates the means to quickly build a system that could “switch off” a person’s ability to function in society, and improves the ability of security services to pool data about individuals from disparate sources with a high level of confidence.

Nothing prevents oppression of individuals today, true. It’s a question of scale and accuracy. What we need to defend against is a system where oppression can be quickly, efficiently, and accurately targeted towards large groups. That’s the essence of turnkey totalitarianism. It can’t be built without a centralized ID system that’s applied consistently across other key systems. Current systems do not do this.

Myths about the US system:

* Every citizen has an SSN

* Every citizen uses the same name when dealing with different agencies and private businesses

* A person’s SSN always remains the same

* Citizens don’t register different addresses when dealing with different agencies and private businesses

* Government agencies use SSN as a primary key

* Agencies and businesses have a centralized, highly accurate way to determine who is deceased

* All citizens have a REAL ID license/ID

* All citizens have a license/ID

I hope this gives you a sense of how the US approaches ID. It’s extremely messy. Yes this enables things like identity fraud, guarding against this is part of the cost of our safeguards against totalitarianism. A price I’m willing to pay, given the behavior of our political establishment and the recent attitude of my fellow citizens.
by nasretdinov | 2025-09-29 16:22:00+00:00
I kinda agree with the author — as a person with more than enough coding experience I don't get much value (and, certainly, much enjoyment) from using AI to write code for me. However it's invaluable when you're operating in even a slightly unfamiliar environment — essentially, by providing (usually incorrect or incomplete) examples of the code that can be used to solve the problem it allows to overcome the main "energy barrier" for me — helping to navigate e.g. the vast standard library of a new programming language, or provide idiomatic examples of how to do things. I usually know _what_ I want to do, but I don't know exactly the syntax to express it in a certain framework or language
by fusslo | 2025-09-29 16:22:02+00:00
I think about 2 months ago my company got a license for Cursor/claude ai access.

At first it was really cool getting an understanding of what it can do. It can be really powerful, especially for things like refactoring.

Then, I found it to be in the way. First, I had to rebind the auto-insert from TAB to ctrl+space because I would try tabbing code over and blamo: lines inserted, resulting in more work deleting them.

Second, I found that I'd spend more time reading the ai generated autocomplete that pops up. It would pop up, I'd shift focus to read what it generated, decide if it's what I want, then try to remember what the hell I was typing.

So I turned it all off. I still have access to context aware chats, but not the autocomplete thing.

I have found that I'm remembering more and understanding the code more (shocking). I also find that I'm engaging with the code more: taking more of an effort to understand the code

Maybe some people have the memory/attention span/ability to context switch better than me. Maybe younger people more used to distractions and attention stealing content.
by ThrownOffGame | 2025-09-29 16:22:05+00:00
Clandestine weddings have presented a huge problem for Church and State authorities at various points in space and time.

A clandestine wedding would often leave significant doubt about the facts of the ritual, the participants, and their actual state of mind. In most places it really is not legal to conduct a clandestine wedding without strict regulation and some sort of documentation, before and after the fact.

No officiant: invalid. No witnesses: invalid. Prior bond: invalid. Duress or coercion: invalid. These are all really, really important reasons for public ceremonies attended by, essentially, randos off the street.
by GJim | 2025-09-29 16:22:17+00:00
> The comment I am responding to initially had some sort of "who cares" type question

It most certainly did not!

My only edit is clearly identified and is asking why a comment I believed to be correct was downvoted. I want to know if I've made factual mistake so I can be corrected (no, I don't give a toss about imaginary internet points).

However, it does appear my post is correct.
by Maro | 2025-09-29 16:22:25+00:00
As someone who works in the Middle East at a large company, I expect that next step will be a small army of current and ex-McKinsey MBAs to arrive at EA to "set strategies", "implement operating models", "run transformation exercises", "track value creation", and so on.

On the upside, maybe they will release a new AAA Dilbert game though!
by mothballed | 2025-09-29 16:22:33+00:00
After the police agencies in California threw such a fit that the courts made concealed carry 'shall' issue, the government threw such a fit that they wholesale published the names, addresses, and DROS details of everyone in California with a CCW, including say DV victims that might be in hiding and even hilariously judges and prosecutors [].

They tried to make it sound like a 'leak', but it was published on a polished government website that let you filter and aggregate the results.

[]https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-06-29/californ...
by forgotoldacc | 2025-09-29 16:23:02+00:00
Tariffs on any game that fails to meet some specific condition that EA does. Pump the stock on EA. Drop stock prices on other companies. Buy them up. Repeat.

Plus you can pull a Facebook/YouTube/Tiktok and use it to push impressionable people politically towards you. Media made for viewing is all a state enterprise at this point. Interactive media (games) have been looked over, but it seems that won't be the case anymore.
by WhereIsTheTruth | 2025-09-29 16:23:04+00:00
The 19th century German coinage "antisemitism" was never a neutral label for "opposition to Judaism", it was a racial science slogan that recast Christian anti-Judaism as a biological war against "Semitic" Orientals

At the time it had no connection with Zionism

Because the word now circulates without that historical packaging, many people take "Jew" to be a racial category and imagine Jews, not Arabs, Assyrians, or other Semitic language communities, to be the only Semitic group, an assumption that reproduces the very Nazi racial taxonomy the term originally served

Its very design, framing Jews alone as the quintessentially "Semitic" target, censors every attempt to talk about the Middle East, because it buries the shared Semitic matrix (Arab, Assyrian, Hebrew, Aramaic, etc.) under a racialized badge that only sticks to one side

Once the vocabulary itself encodes a single victim story, any mention of parallel or overlapping suffering sounds like denial instead of description, and the conversation stalls before facts can even be named
by Wowfunhappy | 2025-09-29 16:23:10+00:00
It doesn’t work for decimals. It also doesn’t work for pi, or most dates. That’s okay. Supporting those cases would require “reading your mind” / trying to guess what the user wants by applying opaque rules. I certainly don’t want that.

Treating consecutive digits as numbers is a simple modification (I still think it’s quite simple) that is easy to understand and supports 99% of real-world use cases.