MurphyA/hacker-news huggingface dataset:
by Raph_Koster | 2025-11-08 23:35:24+00:00
"Hard to play" has almost nothing to do with "the underlying game system is Hard in a complexity sense." And both are somewhat orthogonal to the complaint about "adding more stuff" -- doing so may make something more complicated, but that doesn't mean it becomes more complex mathematically.

Adding more stuff in general may very well make something harder to play, but it has more to do with how many of the added things are simultaneously visible. We can go back to the old 7+/-2 rules of thumb on that one.

Candy Crush is Hard in a math sense. So are Battleship, Minesweeper, Pipes, Othello... they are all easy to play. They are fun because they are Hard in a math sense.

Dark Souls is not hard in a math sense, meaning it is not formally complex. It is hard to play mostly because it is a reaction and timing game that presents very difficult challenges, and the ambiguity comes from mastering signals and reactions.

Civilization is complicated, and almost certainly Hard in a math sense. But it has solid onboarding and is not that hard to play.

Dwarf Fortress is complex AND complicated, and has no onboarding, and a ton of stuff in it, and is both Hard and hard. DF is built out of a ton of separate Hard game atoms.
by don_neufeld | 2025-11-08 23:35:26+00:00
I was referring to the same people. The reason I said that is that employing someone who’s undocumented exposes the employer to enforcement risk, so many choose to keep the relationship hidden.

That’s how most undocumented people in the country survive: by working for employers who are breaking the law.

In terms of undocumented individuals benefits, that’s a common and almost entirely false claim.

While it is a complicated space (because of State vs Federal), the vast majority of “Illegals” are not eligible for the vast majority of benefits in the United States, with the exception of some emergency services.

There are some exceptions for victims of human trafficking and there like.

If you want to dig in: https://www.nilc.org/resources/overview-immeligfedprograms/
by encrypted_bird | 2025-11-08 23:35:38+00:00
The same Andrew Forrest whose company were found to have knowingly destroyed hundreds of local Australian aboriginal sacred sites in its mining operations? Also, he's a billionaire. He may not be "scum of the earth", and maybe he's tried to do better in his latter days, but he still got horrifically rich off of everyday workers' sweat, injuries, and hardships (mining is no joke).

Besides, this philanthropy is largely just token restitution, at best. No one needs to be that wealthy to live more than comfortable. If he really wanted to help the world, he would use enough of his wealth so as to no longer be a billionaire.

People vastly underestimate just how much a billion dollars is compared to a million dollars, or even 500 million dollars. He could literally give away 99% of his wealth and still "only" have 10 million dollars. And as of of 2023 he had 33 times that much.

No one needs to hog that much of the world's resources. It is neither just nor equitable.
by andy99 | 2025-11-08 23:36:07+00:00
I don’t know US specifically but I know a bit about Canadian air traffic controllers. It’s a high stress but very well paying job with good pension etc. But I suspect there’s not a lot of opportunity to change to another job and get the same pay and benefits. So I guess I wonder what the end game is in resigning? Is it just people taking some pre-specified early retirement option, is it early career people that just are cutting their losses? Unless I’m missing something it seems like for someone mid career at least, waiting it out seems like the only real option.
by creata | 2025-11-08 23:36:12+00:00
Consider that Python + C++ has proved to be a very strong combo: driver in Python, heavy lifting in C++.

It's possible that something similar might be the right path for metaprogramming. Rust's generics are simple and weaker than Zig's comptime, while proc macros are complicated and stronger than Zig's comptime.

So I think the jury's still out on whether Rust's metaprogramming is "better" than Zig's.
by noman-land | 2025-11-08 23:36:24+00:00
Have you seen the interviews about HPPD that Andrew Callaghan has done? He's a long time sufferer as well.

Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder - 5CAST with Andrew Callaghan (#4) feat. Dr. Wesley Ryan

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9pK4q7_VUc
by fzeroracer | 2025-11-08 23:37:21+00:00
Well, there's one critical flaw which is that Trump is also fucking up with the military. A lot of military members are going unpaid, and many more are going unpaid and their family isn't receiving snap benefits. An authoritarian trying to seize power without the backing of the military is bound to lead to failure, and even though money is being funneled into ICE enmasse they're an untrained legion of goons with little access or ability to use actual military equipment.

If push comes to shove we're not going to get an authoritarian takeover, we're going to get a military coup. Unless they wake up and realize they need the guys with the hardware to do their whole fascist takeover thing.
by Raph_Koster | 2025-11-08 23:37:48+00:00
Towards the end of the article, I say this: "If you just make the same game, the one you know how to make, the players get bored because it’s nothing but problems they have seen before and already have their answers to. Sometimes, they get so bored that an entire genre dies." -- the last phrase links to a video about how MMOs are dead. :D
by LexiMax | 2025-11-08 23:37:52+00:00
HN merely tries to keep up the appearance of being a place of civil debate and discussion. The bias comes out when the subject matter becomes in any way controversial.

You can say some pretty horrendous things on here as long as you couch them in mealy-mouthed modest-proposal language, while there's almost no recourse for having a good faith rebuttable flagged or down-voted.

In theory, the site moderators are supposed to be a check valve on this kind of abuse, but it's quite sobering to look at the age of some of the accounts who behave badly on HN and yet have somehow passed notice.

I can only assume that the moderators are okay with the company they allow on the site, and I think it's worth taking a look around and asking yourself "Is this place _really_ worth contributing to?"
by dangus | 2025-11-08 23:38:00+00:00
Mike Johnson has been speaker for long enough so that the average follower of politics probably forgets the fiasco behind his selection.

He’s really not a very skilled politician at all.

And of course, Trump is beyond deep fried, he’s a full blown dementia patient. He has no ability to navigate Congress. He even gave away his party’s leverage by fighting against SNAP payments, giving Democrats no reason to back down.

Fun fact, the only two presidents without government shutdowns since the modern budget process began have been Joe Biden and George W. Bush.

Joe Biden in particular was a master at navigating Congress and has relationships all over the place across the aisle. The bipartisan infrastructure bill is a really legitimate accomplishment in that sense.
by tim333 | 2025-11-08 23:38:22+00:00
I think he means resources as in compute cycles and the like. Those tend to increase exponentially for the same number of dollars in a Moore's law type way to intelligence should increase in an approximately linear way, something similar to a few IQ points per year.

You can see a similar effect in computer chess ELO scores over time, with the odd blip up see https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1iovlb0/oc... (1985 - 2023) and https://wiki.aiimpacts.org/speed_of_ai_transition/range_of_h... (1960 - 2000)
by sho_hn | 2025-11-08 23:38:52+00:00
It's not that it didn't occur to me. Sure I understand I'm missing the immediacy and the visceral effect here, and I presume the parallel impact on other senses. But then again if I was the sort of person that mattered to, my outlook would probably be different. I'm fine with others having different preferences.

I would say to me these videos work wonders in confirming a little bit that I'm not really missing out. There's a lot of FOMO and myth-making around drugs, I think experience reports and replications are a pretty good way to make everyone's decisions more informed whether it's "for them".

This could totally be some form of confirmation bias at work, but it works for me ...
by defrost | 2025-11-08 23:40:29+00:00
That's the one, and there's the rub.

Are you comfortable blaming individuals like Forrest for the destruction that global consumption of iron, copper, and renewables brings, or would you rather 'fess up to collective responsiblity?

The largest Copper resource in the US currently is on naive American sacred land, and the latest proposal for providing rare earth elements essntial for modern lifestyles would disrupt a river system that spans a land area similar in size to Texas.

Do you wish to blame Forrest for these things, or the end customers and their demands?

NB: I've things to attend to now, I'll be back in some hours if you've an interest in all this.
by al_borland | 2025-11-08 23:40:30+00:00
The Daylight DC-1 tablet. I’m in the Apple ecosystem, so it’s on an island. I wasn’t a fan of the default launcher, so I replaced it, and now it just feels like a silly Android tablet with a black and white screen that I don’t really have a use for. One of the big things (gimmicky) things that sold me on the pre-order was the fabric case in almost all the marketing photos. I thought it would be nice to have tech that wasn’t all plastic, metal, or glass… then it showed up as a plastic and glass slab and that case didn’t actually exist for sale. I was upset and should have retuned it, but thought I’d give it a chance since it is a new company. That was a mistake. It was something like $700, and I feel like it should be around $249. It’s got a bunch of buttons that don’t even do anything. I do like that the stylus doesn’t need to be charged, but that’s about it. I really wish Apple went this route on the Apple Pencil.
by topspin | 2025-11-08 23:41:24+00:00
> This is clearly not about public safety but about

To me, this looks like the culmination of many years of ad hoc censorship breeding cadre of favored censors. They've all grown into a system of expectations where they can just finger frustrating bits of counter-narrative and have it disappeared.

The Powers That Be don't care to hear pesky details about jurisdiction. As such, there is no one around with the temerity to point out the inherent absurdities. So they pursue "offenders" despite the obvious futility, because not doing so means explaining difficult things to people that will not listen.

As I recently wrote[1], there is no metaphysical certitude that Ofcom and its intentions will be forever futile: all that is necessary is for the political vectors to align optimally (as they inevitably will,) and the LEOs of the US would be happy to oblige.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45622304
by themafia | 2025-11-08 23:41:49+00:00
> no absolute need to consider aviation fees to be taxes and collect them through a federal agency.

What if you collect too much? The fund is subject to appropriations.

> financing their local ATC as they see fit

We already use mileage based overflight fees:

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/international_aviation/overf...
by dylan604 | 2025-11-08 23:41:52+00:00
It makes sense though. Our brains are constantly trying to recognize familiar out of everything it sees. The DeepDream from Googs does essentially the same thing. Starting with static, it "finds" patterns that then leads to seeing even more patterns that start to be recognizable. Or the other system that kept finding Ryan Gosling in images he clearly was not in. The DeepDream starting with static definitely reminds me of closing my eyes and watching the show with a head full of something.
by nandomrumber | 2025-11-08 23:42:10+00:00
Most airports in the middle of nowhere aren’t controlled.

There are something like 530 ATC towers in the USA out of 5000 or so public airports. 20,000 if we include anything that can be described as an airstrip.

Your wider point still stands though, probably something like 20% of the airports handle 80% of the traffic.
by CSSer | 2025-11-08 23:42:17+00:00
I remain convinced that RSC and the SSR craze was a result of someone (or multiple) people needing a raise and their friends wanting to start a company selling abstract compute. Statically hydrated, minimal React was pretty great when served over good CDN infrastructure. Then I watched the bundle sizes and lock-in balloon. That second article is a dragon slayer. It really lays out the problem with React. In marrying itself to Next.js and embracing the server, it's betrayed the platform. Meanwhile, the platform itself has matured. React practically built my career, and I just don't have a reason to choose it anymore.
by encrypted_bird | 2025-11-08 23:43:31+00:00
I would rather blame both.

It is our collective society's fault, yes, but the billionaires are the ones who exploit it. They are just as bad, if not worse.

Also, apologies, but I edited my above comment, and wasn't able to submit it before you replied.

And no worries. Good luck on your things. Honestly, I'm kinda done with this conversation, as interesting as it has been. It feels like it's run its course.

In any case, I hope you have a good day!
by IAmGraydon | 2025-11-08 23:43:56+00:00
>If we manage to build it, LLM would probably the tool it would use to communicate

But that's the thing - LLMs are just a probabilistic playback of what people have written in the past. It's not actually useful for communication of new information or thought, should we ever find a way to synthesize those things with real AI. They're literally just a search engine of existing human knowledge.
by metalman | 2025-11-08 23:44:44+00:00
at a certain point, rebooting ATC could become exceptionaly difficult, as the whole aviation comunity, flys. And no, you cant train new AT controllers, they learn on the job, and what a job it is! as part of our pilot training they took us into a controll tower, which is a radicaly modern, high tech, high security environment, and let us hang around, the senior hand started chatting with us, while directing air traffic, ground traffic, confering with coleages, talking on the phone, telling us a joke, all at once, and his timing was so good, that the joke was still funny......these are guys who can do other stuff
by sebastiennight | 2025-11-08 23:45:00+00:00
A major part of the plot of The Every[0] is one protagonist's belief, akin to yours, that precipitating things to their worst outcome could be the fastest way to snap public opinion back to sanity.

I don't want to spoil the suspense, but I'll say that I do see the logic in hoping that a quick fire would call everyone's attention to the fire hazard. What you're failing to ask here is "What could possibly go wrong with this plan?"

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Every
by OptionOfT | 2025-11-08 23:45:03+00:00
If I recall correctly, this is how the GDPR works. If someone to who the GDPR applies to visits a website, a website cannot record any information about them, regardless of whether that website actually is based in the EU, which is why certain US websites block traffic from the EU.

Source: https://gdpr.eu/companies-outside-of-europe/

1. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data in the context of the activities of an establishment of a controller or a processor in the Union, regardless of whether the processing takes place in the Union or not. 2. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data of data subjects who are in the Union by a controller or processor not established in the Union, where the processing activities are related to: (a) the offering of goods or services, irrespective of whether a payment of the data subject is required, to such data subjects in the Union; or (b) the monitoring of their behaviour as far as their behaviour takes place within the Union. 3. This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data by a controller not established in the Union, but in a place where Member State law applies by virtue of public international law.

E.g. the website in this article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45819635 does not work when you visit it with a European IP address. You get an error 451.
by burnt-resistor | 2025-11-08 23:45:41+00:00
A bold claim without evidence.

And, the focal plane is the same as a regular monitor because it appears to lack optics to create a larger virtual image several meters away.

The same thing could be done with a portable helmet-mounted display with proper optics, take up zero dedicated desk space, and not require external lighting to operate. A smaller/lighter AR HMD might be more useful, practical, and robust than solutions emphasizing all-in-one VR or are static displays. I think the Quest and Vision VR all-in-ones are doomed because VR is a cursed category that's not practical enough by itself without also being in a very lightweight AR form-factor for everyday other uses.

I don't see who wants to buy this except someone who has a Balans chair and a DataHand Pro II in Dvorak layout. No offense, but that's a tiny, tiny market. I think underground and geodesic homes are cool too, but these are hard to square with zoning and permitting requirements.
by landl0rd | 2025-11-08 23:45:52+00:00
No, one has chosen to make something available for contact within one country. One is not actively himself reaching across borders to do so. One cannot reasonably be required to take any affirmative action to fulfill the whims of a foreign government.

Also, Britain isn't important enough to make this stick against e.g. an American.

If someone writes me a letter asking a question about material that is prohibited in his own country, that is not my problem. It is his responsibility to comply with local law and that of local government to seize material that is illegal there. They cannot deputize me to act, unpaid and without consent, on their behalf.
by etothet | 2025-11-08 23:46:16+00:00
To each their own. This syntax actially resonates with some people, which is why template-based frameworks like Vue and Svelte are also popular. In fact, at first glance this reminds me a lot Vue in some of its approach and syntax.

BTW - with Vue you can use entirely JSX of you dislike HTML component syntax (I don’t know enough about Svelte to know if it allows the same).
by pwthornton | 2025-11-08 23:46:28+00:00
The two longest shutdowns in the history of the United States of America have occurred under Donald J. Trump.

Trump is hosting Great Gatsby parties, traveling, golfing, and doing everything except trying to end the shutdown. He doesn't seem to care that much that it is happening. And the entire reason it is happening is because Trump's Big Beautiful Bill did not contain Affordable Care Act subsidies.

It is incorrect to say that what is happening is common under all administrations. This dysfunction is uniquely Trumpian.
by sn9 | 2025-11-08 23:46:41+00:00
> My cardiologist tells me that the conventional wisdom of "diet and exercise" is almost entirely disproven to have any meaningful effect on lipids these days (though i havent researched deeply).

I would be immensely skeptical of this unless he was talking about something much more narrow, like how there's a fraction of people who have really unfortunate genetics and can only improve their blood lipids with medication.

We have mountains of data showing that diet can massively improve lipids, and the combination of diet and exercise are our largest levers for reducing the risk of heart disease for most people. (There are always some fraction of people who can do everything right but have outlier genetics that require medication anyway, just as some people have outlier genetics and can smoke a pack a day their whole lives and reach their 90s.)

I'd check out the Barbell Medicine podcast for anything related to the intersection of lifestyle and health. They're extremely evidence based with a preference for measurable improvements in outcomes over hypothetical mechanisms.

Relevant to this thread are their episodes on testing and screening, hypertension / high blood pressure, cholesterol, fiber, and the new PREVENT heart disease risk calculator.

I'd also check out the episodes on diabetes, Alzheimer's, fatty liver disease, and health priorities.
by Raph_Koster | 2025-11-08 23:47:08+00:00
https://www.raphkoster.com/2008/07/09/a-game-designers-core-...

which leads to

https://www.raphkoster.com/2014/01/15/a-vision-exercise/

and its critique counterpart:

https://www.raphkoster.com/2014/01/06/how-i-analyze-a-game/

and crucially, the observation in here that you can start with either end -- the experience you want or the systems -- but you gotta make them meet in the middle.

These days, game design is generally taught as "decide on your experience, and fit systems into that." But I favor being open to starting from either end, and also in general think that focusing so strongly on the experience has a LOT of dev pitfalls:"

https://www.raphkoster.com/games/presentations/rules-of-the-...

Lastly -- starting at this end is just as artistic as starting from a chord progression, a cool synth sound, a color palette, or a piece of wood with interesting grain. Just as with any other craft-centric view on things, it's fine to start at a formal or an experiential end -- both are artistic.

FWIW, I have an MFA. :)
by phantasmish | 2025-11-08 23:47:27+00:00
This is true on multiple levels.

AFAIK this kind of situation is a result of a novel interpretation by an AG of a much older law some time around 1980. I don't think it's ever been tested in court, and we'd operated for decades under the old interpretation before then.

Trump could just say "we're going back to the old interpretation" and at-minimum buy several months of runway while court challenges happened (if they even did). This would be among the least questionable "stretches" (to be very generous) of presidential power he'd exercised.
by pbhjpbhj | 2025-11-08 23:47:28+00:00
So the author repeats that the SaSu site was geoblocked but simultaneously note that all UK are idiots that don't realise a geoblock is imperfect and claim...

>The UK regulator has now publicly confirmed that the “mirror” site for my client’s site is not accessible in the UK.

The writer then proceeds to describe the way in which the spinning up of a mirror lead to the site becoming available for people in the UK. And the author protests that:

>The reasons why SaSu had a mirror are SaSu’s alone/none of Ofcom’s fucking business; [...]

The way it is written makes for a string suspicion that SaSu thought they could obviate OSA with a cheeky mirror (standard fare for torrent sites - who also wish to bypass censorship - I gather) and got caught. I can't see why else the author would be so vociferous, nor how the mirror wouldn't block the very same UK addresses as the main-site except by design.

Suicide is illegal here (there is movement on this, thankfully). Helping people do illegal things, also illegal. Facilitating such help, also illegal. There seems no need to stoop to imagining some weird conspiracy or blaming a cabal of shadowy figures.

I guess you could think of it like we treat helping people kill themselves like USA treats UK people facilitating copyright infringement.