mchaver

Great story and very nostalgic. I remember pre-ordering an N64 with my brother and getting it on launch day with Mario 64. We were blown anyway. Then Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid, FFVII, Panzer Dragoon Saga and so on. Great time for a video game nerd to be growing up. What are some of your favorite games on more modern consoles?

¡Quick reminder! We are in the golden era of big company programming agents. Enjoy it while you can because it is likely going to get worse over time. Hopefully, there were will be competitive open source agents and some benevolent nerds put together a reasonable service. Otherwise I can see companies investing in their own AI infrastructure and developers who build their own systems becoming the top performers.

This is the VC funded startup playbook. It has been repeated many times, but maybe for the younger crowd it is new. Start a new service that is relatively permissive, then gradually restrict APIs and permissions. Finally, start throwing in ads and/or making it more expensive to use. Part of the reason is in the beginning they are trying to get as many users as possible and burning VC money. Then once the honey moon is over, they need to make a profit so they cut back on services, nerf stuff, increase prices and start adding ads.

This is why I think they work so well with strongly typed languages like Haskell and OCaml. You say do this until it compiles and passes a set unit tests for business logic. I find I am using even more verification tools like JSON schema validators. The more guardrails and hard checks you give an agent, the better it can perform.

Great work. I've put it on my to read list for this year. I currently use Haskell and OCaml/ReScript (with Emacs!), but I always enjoy reading Lisp books and imagine my self building systems in Lisp and exploring code in the REPL. Could you talk about some of your experiences of building software in Lisp?

I see a lot of projects repeated: screen capture tool, LLM wrapper, blog/newsletter, marketing tool for reddit/twitter, manage social media accounts. These things have been around for a while so it is really easy for an LLM to spit them out for someone that does not know how to code.

I think HN is a very particular group of people and not representative of the market for a lot of the products we make. We tend to like open-source things, ask lots of technical questions and complain about minute things. Also, Show HNs tend to perform better if they are quick to use (no sign in required, don't need to download, etc.).

I've always understood hackers to be a subset of users at HN. Maybe there were more in the early days, but with the growth of the startup business model, a lot of different users were attracted to the site. The core value seems to be interest in technology and the cultures around it. Emphasis own the plurality of cultures because I think there are multiple, competing ones. Though, as per guidelines, any story interesting to users is acceptable for submission.

I don't agree. That may be your experience, but it is annoying to have someone act as a prophet for all things and disregard what everyone else says. Emacs is still relevant in my daily work even with heavy use of LLMs.

There is a program for Basic Income for artists in Ireland, but it obviously assumes you are a legal resident of Ireland. It is limited to 2,000 artists and there are more applicants than there are spots. Property rental is expensive in Ireland. If there are people seriously interested, these links should clarify the details of the program.

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/unemploymen...

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...

https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-culture-communications-a...

I knew a company, StorySense, and their main product WhatsTheNumber used Lisp (maybe Scheme?) for the main logic in the back end. One of the founders previously worked at MIT Media Lab. Interestingly enough their competitor, Whoscall, was acquired by Naver. I wonder if they also used Lisp and if LispE is related to that product at all.

https://www.cw.com.tw/article/5067306

(Article in Chinese)

It's not too bad. I like it! Haskell uses "$" to do the same thing.

In one use case, it is kind of a verbal exclamation point, but it has more meanings and uses than just that. Likely originates from Hokkien, but it has evolved into it is own thing. If you are curious, more details here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singlish

Our data in the cloud, hallowed be thy computation, your kingdom come, your will be done, on our devices as it is in the cloud. Give us today our daily feed.

> There should never have been an "artisan era".

Firm no. There should be and there will continue to be. Maybe for you all code is business/money-making code, but that is not true for everyone.

> We use computers to solve problems.

We can use computers for lots of things like having fun, making art, and even creating problems for other people.

> You get paid to get stuff done, period.

That is a strange assumption. Plenty of people are writing code without being paid for it.

Having distinct icons is nice. People can learn. It's cool to have cultural relics live on in some way. My kids recognize the floppy disk as save, but they have probably never seen one in real life.

I think images and representations of no longer used artifacts still live on in our cultural knowledge. They don't necessarily have to be a part of everyday lives. Think of children's stories and fairy tales. I don't see swords and shields in every day life very often but I can recognize them easily. I've never seen a komodo dragon in person but could recognize one if walked down my street.

As a small software business, do you have other approaches to ads?

Can you discuss more about Mentava's approach to gamification? I am working on a math practice application and considering adding some, but I don't want it to be annoying.

I wonder about having gamification as something you can turn off. I am working on a math practice web application. I have not added any gamification to it. I am ok with minimal gamification like Math Academy does with experience points or the sound effects and trophies you get in Khan Academy, but Duolingo is too much. A friend told me he would like gamification in it. Any thoughts on making gamification something you can opt out of?

As a life long language learner, I wanted to say this is a unique and clever approach, but I also agree that it is really challenging to monetize. Especially in a way that is respectful to users because they are creating a lot of content with very personal data.

It's a fun little game. I didn't like that dying makes you start from level 1 though.

I am working on two things.

The first is a customizable digital math workbook. Currently the demo covers fourth grade math. There is a practice mode where you can select the skills you to want practice. There is also a customizable dashboard where you can setup your own widgets to practice math skills in different ways. I am working on some pre-made dashboards to help users get started. The next plan is to cover fifth grade math skills. My plan is to cover first grade math up to Calculus and High School Physics. I envision it as a companion tool for Khan Academy/Math Class/Math Books. Check out the demo. No signup required. Progress is only stored locally.

https://demo.numerikos.com/

The second thing I am working on is an application to practice Cangjie. It's a Chinese input method that has been around for a long time. It is based on a visual decomposition of characters. Each character is represented by one to five codes and the majority are unique. My application teaches Cangjie like keyboarding (QWERTY) is taught to young students. You learn the location of the keys, then some basic words, then start typing sentences. I also have a free demo for it as well.

https://demo.cangjieworkbook.com

Feedback on either project would be appreciated.

I wasn't familiar with that book. For other users, I think the book they are referring to is Introduction to Algorithms A Creative Approach by Udi Manber.

You can do it. Just create the submission with "Ask HN: What would you like to work on?" and add some details about the kind of things users should discuss there.

Nice job. The order options don't seem to work when searching.

Two thoughts on solitaire.

1. I don't like how if I already place an Ace and then reveal a 2 that matches it suit, it then automatically moves it over. While mostly trivial, it still takes a way one move from the player and automates it.

2. Would you be willing to expose the value that seeds the game? That way any particular game of solitaire is replayable or sharable with a friend.

Yes, it is a little bit further down in my todo list, but I think for teachers (and students who like worksheets), worksheets would be a nice feature.

This is really cool. Can you describe more about the scenarios you define and how you manage them over time? I can imagine if you end up with a lot of them, then it becomes time consuming to perform all of the visual tests or handle the human-in-the-loop part.

I wonder if you could do some automated diffing between the scenario results. If they are pretty similar and they were previously considered in a good state, then you don't necessarily need a QA person to review it.

Your homepage https://flotte.sh/ is showing a Welcome to nginx message.

I've been working on a digital math workbook. Currently the demo covers fourth grade math. There is a practice mode where you can select the skills you to want practice. There is also a customizable dashboard where you can setup your own tasks. There is still a lot of work to do with improving the UI, but I think it is a good start.

I am currently working on fifth grade math. My plan is to cover first grade math up to Calculus and High School Physics. I envision it as a companion tool for Khan Academy/Math Class/Math Books. It is inspired by Chris McMullen's math workbooks.

Check out the demo. No signup required. Progress is only stored locally. https://demo.numerikos.com/