Hacker News: DrStalker

New comment by DrStalker in "Lab mice have a chill, and that may be messing up study results (2016)"

DrStalker — Fri, 07 Aug 2020 08:11:26 +0000

That was a really great piece of game design that grew out of a problem picked up in playtesting where some players didn't realize they were meant to keep the cube with them to solve multiple puzzles; they'd leave it behind and then get frustrated on the next puzzle.

So they added a heart to the texture and a few voice lines, and not only was that problem solved but they created one of the most memorable moments in the game by making people care about a cube and then having them get rid of it.

"While it has been a faithful companion, your Companion Cube cannot accompany you through the rest of the test. If it could talk - and the Enrichment Center takes this opportunity to remind you that it cannot - it would tell you to go on without it because it would rather die in a fire than become a burden to you."

New comment by DrStalker in "Coronavirus: Trump halts travel from Europe to US"

DrStalker — Thu, 12 Mar 2020 01:43:08 +0000

Someone told Trump they left the EU so in his mind they aren't part of Europe anymore.

New comment by DrStalker in "Mats Järlström’s victorious 6-year battle over yellow lights"

DrStalker — Sun, 01 Mar 2020 23:11:53 +0000

Surely the rules in the US would have to be the same; you can't enter the intersection on a red, but if you're already in there you can exit. Yellow is meant to be "only enter if you can't stop safely" not "if you enter now you'll get a fine if you don't speed up"

New comment by DrStalker in "A popular self-driving car dataset is missing labels for hundreds of pedestrians"

DrStalker — Tue, 11 Feb 2020 23:36:24 +0000

Why pay people to do this when you can make a CAPTCHA that requires them to do it for free?

Google must have a really good data set from all those "click the boxes containing X" tests they make people do.

New comment by DrStalker in "Anti-cheat kernel driver"

DrStalker — Tue, 04 Feb 2020 01:16:12 +0000

Prevent you from playing the game.

New comment by DrStalker in "Some Boeing 737s can't land on some runways with true heading 270 [pdf]"

DrStalker — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 23:41:33 +0000

At this point it would be easier to start a new company and import the positive things from Boeing. They've lost their "engineering first" mentality and that's not something that is easy to get back, and they may not be able to handle the financial losses involved in doing so after running as "money first" for so long.

New comment by DrStalker in "Pantone 448 C"

DrStalker — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 03:59:44 +0000

I can remember it, I think in setups where the TV signal was passed through a VCR (so it could be recorded) and then into the TV. If the VCR detected there was no useful signal it would output a blue image instead of static.

Just showing raw static was much more common though.

New comment by DrStalker in "Centrifugal Machine Guns"

DrStalker — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 04:40:55 +0000

I imagine such a weapon would be more of a suppressing fire tool than something intended to shoot accurately.

New comment by DrStalker in "Centrifugal Machine Guns"

DrStalker — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 04:39:24 +0000

There are also coil guns, which present a different set of benefits and challenges than railguns: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coilgun

New comment by DrStalker in "Show HN: AI Dungeon 2 – AI-generated text adventure built with 1.5B param GPT-2"

DrStalker — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 00:52:45 +0000

Was your character an orc?

New comment by DrStalker in "Battle Chess"

DrStalker — Mon, 25 Nov 2019 01:31:14 +0000

As someone who used the ability to setup custom piece arrangements in Battlechess to see all the animations:

Place the enemy king in middle. Use four rooks at the edges of the board (two on the left, two on the top) to ensure the king can't move off his square. Give him a pawn to move to avoid a stalemate ending. Then place your desired checkmating piece where it can take one move and threaten the enemy king.

New comment by DrStalker in "Windows XP minimal-requirement experiments (2006)"

DrStalker — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 03:00:39 +0000

If he can get DOS installed and CDROM drivers working he should be able to install at least windows 95a. Windows 95b preferred to use its own drivers (or drivers loaded from a floppy disk) for such things, but the early versions felt more like a GUI running on top of DOS.

New comment by DrStalker in "First electric ute engineered in Australia for use in mining and agribusiness"

DrStalker — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 04:03:16 +0000

They also mention reduces ventilation needs; if mines don't have to handle diesel exhaust in confined underground spaces that's another win.

New comment by DrStalker in "It was Bill Joy's password, not Ken Thompson's, that had a control character"

DrStalker — Thu, 24 Oct 2019 06:14:40 +0000

From memory setting a UID to 0 was a way to effectively have multiple root accounts on a system. sudo is a much better solution to the same problem so using uid 0 in this manner is not something I expect to see on any modern unix/linux system.

New comment by DrStalker in "Mark Twain’s Quest to Bring Affordable Watches to the Masses"

DrStalker — Mon, 02 Sep 2019 05:45:16 +0000

I buy glasses online from Zenni optical, who make them in China. (there are other companies that do this, but Zenni is the one Iv'e used) They start at $6 for frames and prescription lenses, and they have multiple styles under $20 that match the shape and look I prefer in my glasses.

It's really nice to have glasses cheap enough that I've got spare sets at home, at work and in the car; and not "my old set with the badly scratched up lenses" spares but "slightly different style frames" spares. It's hard to explain to someone that doesn't wear glasses just how much peace of mind you get from that.

New comment by DrStalker in "Black Beekeepers Are Transforming Detroit’s Vacant Lots into Bee Farms (2018)"

DrStalker — Tue, 13 Aug 2019 00:33:15 +0000

You also become responsible for any unpaid property taxes, because they are attached to the property rather than to the person who owned it when the debt was incurred.

New comment by DrStalker in "Teenager can walk again thanks to Dutch 3D printed spinal implant"

DrStalker — Thu, 25 Jul 2019 01:41:43 +0000

3D-printing ranges from fragile resin pieces to metal durable enough to use as rocket nozzles. This article was about 3D printed titanium, so the resulting piece is likely stronger than bone but weaker than machined titanium would be.

New comment by DrStalker in "Office pranks should not end with the ER, vomit, or tears"

DrStalker — Mon, 08 Jul 2019 04:07:45 +0000

If the victim doesn't laugh with you afterwards then it's not a prank, it's just being an asshole.

New comment by DrStalker in "Lockheed has an opening for engineers with VAX experience for the F22"

DrStalker — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 07:46:14 +0000

Some storage systems work by holding a charge, and electrons have mass.

In practical terms it night as well be 0 but in silly discussions on the internet terms it's a very small non-zero value.

New comment by DrStalker in "Hottest places in the world in the past 24 hours are all in Australia"

DrStalker — Fri, 25 Jan 2019 04:42:59 +0000

Some weather maps added purple to Australian heat maps a few years ago to fix that lack of range.