Hacker News: abbadadda

New comment by abbadadda in "Harvard study predicts most suicide attempts a week in advance"

abbadadda — Wed, 09 Sep 2026 12:30:17 +0000

In 2025 I was on a road-trip with my then girlfriend of a few months. Life was then, as it is now, a lot. I’ll spare the details, but at some point she asked “what’s the worst case scenario?” Calmly and casually I said, “Worst case scenario is I take my own life.” I was going to continue going, and was just matter of factly stating that suicide was a “ripcord” or last option. This apparently triggered her and she said, “if you feel that way I might was well jump out of the car right now.” I was pretty shocked to hear this, and perceived it as a general lack of support. And I felt ashamed for sharing this. But after unpacking things I learned her mother used to threaten self-harm as a matter of routine and her default response became to threaten to leave the situation, or something.

I’m not sure exactly why I share this, perhaps I think some comments about suicide being an “escape hatch” resonated with me. I’ve since sought support, going just short of self-hospitalization, and I was on a SSRI until recently switching to a non-antidepressant.

While life remains Messed Up, I keep telling myself two things: (1) If you’re really considering killing yourself, try “ killing yourself” in the gym (often super hard exercise makes me feel infinitely better); and (2) “Wouldn’t it make a better story if I didn’t (kill myself)?”

I’m getting through, day by day, and I’ve got some strong “protective factors,” however they’re not invincible or bulletproof so I need to remain vigilant and avoid doing anything impulsive. And just try to remember that if I keep making good decisions one day at a time things will get better in the long-run.

New comment by abbadadda in "What Happened to Yoga?"

abbadadda — Tue, 01 Sep 2026 09:15:39 +0000

LOL, replace “Yoga” and “Wellness” with whatever relevant subject and OP could use the same text verbatim on almost any submission.

New comment by abbadadda in "Doctors are finally learning to manage antidepressant withdrawal"

abbadadda — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:57:39 +0000

Oof, this tracks with my experience on the NHS… it seems like extreme busyness comes off as a lack of due care.

One time I met a psychiatrist after moving to a new area. In our very first meeting he takes me off a medicine I’ve been on for nearly 7 years, cold turkey. Then? _Zero_ follow-up, no check-ins, and I can’t get an appointment on my own for months. The decision may have been wise, leaving out specifics here, but the lack of follow-up really was negligent.

New comment by abbadadda in "Overcooked? Why robotic pizza makers are failing"

abbadadda — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 09:41:28 +0000

> "Making" the pizza with a premade dough and pre-cut toppings is just a 1 minute operation to spread sauce and throw some toppings on it isn't it? Not much bonding there in my eyes.

I bet you’re fun at parties!

New comment by abbadadda in "Malicious Rust crate Arrayref runs a build-time payload"

abbadadda — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 14:43:08 +0000

Are there any plans to more seriously develop the standard library in Rust? Or is the plan to remain in this status quo where users of Rust import nonsense and the dependency tree explodes (or users are forced to invent their own wheel?).

Are there any comparisons between the state of the stdlib in C++ vs. Rust? I’d think that would serve as an excellent jumping off point to start chipping away.

New comment by abbadadda in "Malicious Rust crate Arrayref runs a build-time payload"

abbadadda — Thu, 20 Aug 2026 14:38:58 +0000

What purpose does “undeniable” serve here? This tips over into hyperbole, in my opinion, whereas “it’s foresight” is much simpler and stronger. YMMV.

New comment by abbadadda in "Everything you do is being recorded"

abbadadda — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 02:11:44 +0000

Song lyrics for those curious: https://genius.com/Dire-straits-on-every-street-lyrics

New comment by abbadadda in "Google Hates You"

abbadadda — Thu, 28 May 2026 19:56:49 +0000

It is probably worth noting Drew very much does have his own brand as a co-founder of Defector.com. While not as popular as Levine’s money stuff, Defector.com survives on user subscriptions alone and a lot of URL requests are direct. Drew freelances for SFGate, and with that said I think he’s writing from the perspective of his “freelancer hat” and lamenting the impact “Google Zero” will have on websites around the world dependent on Google’s traffic.

New comment by abbadadda in "A successful Japanese trial of a ramjet engine designed for Mach‑5 aircraft"

abbadadda — Tue, 26 May 2026 09:41:52 +0000

I actually learned about what a ramjet is after looking up the definition of “scramjet” when watching the _Top Gun: Maverick_ movie with my son. This is at the beginning of the movie when he is flying the Dark Star plane designed in conjunction with Skunk Works from Lockheed Martin. Well, we are obviously a ways away from Mach 10 reached in the film by the SR-71 Blackbird descendant, the new technology pushing Mach 5 and into high hypersonic is pretty impressive.

> A scramjet is a variant of a ramjet airbreathing jet engine in which combustion takes place in supersonic airflow. As in ramjets, a scramjet relies on high vehicle speed to compress the incoming air forcefully before combustion, but whereas a ramjet decelerates the air to subsonic velocities before combustion using shock cones, a scramjet has no shock cone and slows the airflow using shockwaves produced by its ignition source in place of a shock cone - Wikipedia

New comment by abbadadda in "The User Is Visibly Frustrated"

abbadadda — Tue, 26 May 2026 09:31:07 +0000

So am I not supposed to be typing “WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO???” in Slack to my colleagues?

New comment by abbadadda in "Uncle Bob: It's Over"

abbadadda — Sun, 03 May 2026 18:17:26 +0000

An AI search summary tells me “racist and misogynistic” remarks.

New comment by abbadadda in "Uncle Bob: It's Over"

abbadadda — Sun, 03 May 2026 16:56:53 +0000

I thought this was about Uncle Bob being “canceled.”

New comment by abbadadda in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (April 2026)"

abbadadda — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 08:19:01 +0000

ComputerPoker.ai is a website where users can play simulated poker tournaments against GTO Bots to learn GTO poker strategy in a fun and low-risk environment.

My motivation for creating CompterPoker.ai was feeling a bit overwhelmed by some of the professional poker tools out there for learning GTO play. For some tools, learning how to simply operate the tool itself felt like a second job. With ComputerPoker.ai players can play against bots themselves simulating GTO play to learn what it "feels like" to play GTO vs. GTO opponents without having to turn any knobs or dials (feedback is real-time as you play).

The Beta tester code for HN Users is: HackerNews2026. All feedback is welcome! Please send suggestions for improvement or bugs to contact@computerpoker.ai or alternatively leave a comment below. Any questions I will do my best to answer.

As for the product offering the website is designed to teach players how to play optimal poker strategy (GTO) in simulated Texas Hold 'Em poker tournaments. Our value proposition is that if you can consistently beat the bots then you will fare well in live poker tournaments (of course adjusting for your opponents' play).

In addition to GTO pre-flop quizzes and pre-flop charts, users have the ability to simulate poker tournaments from start-to-finish and get feedback on their decisions _in real-time_ in a fun and low-risk environment.

For those interested the tech stack is Django deployed on AWS via Terraform and SaltStack, the database uses a Postgres RDS backend, and the frontend uses HTMX with WebSockets via Django Channels and Redis (Nginx serving as reverse proxy with CloudFlare DNS and SSL). During the project I used Claude Code to aid with various boilerplate aspects of the code base including building out the repos for Terraform and SaltSack and of course speeding up Django development.

Users are graded pre-flop based on the covered pre-flop scenarios (two-ways only for now). Post-flop users are graded on a residual MLP PyTorch model. We have built an in-house solver in Rust using the discontented CFR++ algorithm. The PyTorch model approximates GTO play post-flop (again only two-ways currently) based on training data with raises, EV, and realistic ranges for OOP and IP players. Because the post-flop decisions are based on a model that will always be a work in progress I refer to these decisions as GTOA (or "GTO Approximate").

Version 8 of the PyTorch model is the first one that I am happy with and actually find it quite difficult to play against. If you manage to beat the bots please do let me know how many tries it took! For those curious the PyTorch params for the most recent run are below (I trained on a gaming PC via Linux WSL2 using an AMD GPU).

The website is live in Beta mode as I gather feedback on how things are structured and work out any bugs/kinks. If you have any suggestions for improvements I’d love to hear them. Subscriptions are live so if anyone wanted to test the Stripe payment processing flow I certainly wouldn’t mind! ;-)

p.s. This is a side gig for me. I am currently looking for full-time work either fully remote or on-site based in London, UK (this LLC that runs ComputerPoker.ai operates out of USA but I am based full-time in the UK and authorized to work in both UK and USA). If you or someone you know is looking for a SRE with strong software engineering skills please let me know!

Show HN: ComputerPoker.ai – Learn GTO tournament poker strategy vs. GTO bots

abbadadda — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 18:03:39 +0000

ComputerPoker.ai is a website where users can play simulated poker tournaments against GTO Bots to learn GTO poker strategy in a fun and low-risk environment.

``` (venv_rocm_native) $ python3 pytorch_model.py --data-dir unified_v8_raises/ --aggression-embed --predict-ev --d-card 64 --d-model 256 --n-attn-layers 3 --n-trunk-layers 4 --dropout 0.2 --weight-decay 0.05 --epochs 30 --batch-size 4096 --lr 3e-4 --steps-per-epoch 10000 --output gto_model_v8.pt

Training on cuda … … … _30 epochs later_ Saved best model (val_loss=0.3865) Training complete! Best model saved to gto_model_v8.pt ```

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47604325

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

New comment by abbadadda in "We haven't seen the worst of what gambling and prediction markets will do"

abbadadda — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 21:25:01 +0000

“There’s a sucker born every minute, and we’re gonna take ‘em for all they got” - Harry Wormwood in Matilda

At least in the book/movie(s) Harry Wormwood faces consequences. The enablement top down is the problem. The system is rotten and no one faces any real consequence only a slap on the wrist at a fraction of revenue many years later.

New comment by abbadadda in "Meme Buildings"

abbadadda — Sun, 22 Mar 2026 15:22:27 +0000

During summer road trip vacations growing up my family would always stop by “the big fish” for a family photo of the kids: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Fish_(roadside_attract...

New comment by abbadadda in "Games with loot boxes to get minimum 16 age rating across Europe"

abbadadda — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 10:14:35 +0000

Great. Now do Roblox. In the game "Steal a Brainrot" the kinds of things kids can spend money on in the game that's supposedly safe for seven-year-olds is disgusting. £29.99 for a "secret lucky block" - and that's BEFORE price discrimination. Literally wiring the brains of kids as early as possible to have a tendency/preference towards "random variance rewards." I am really pleased to see any government doing something about this and protecting kids from this disgusting, predatory, and exploitative behavior.

By all means game developers deserve to make a living... However, if they're going to operate a casino, they should be treated and licensed as such.

New comment by abbadadda in "Tinnitus Is Connected to Sleep"

abbadadda — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 21:41:10 +0000

I’m sitting in a restaurant and didn’t notice the ringing until I read this article… but it is there. Usually I only really consciously notice it while falling asleep, never really thought anything of it.

New comment by abbadadda in "OpenAI – How to delete your account"

abbadadda — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 14:37:59 +0000

The lament I think is more that this is a kind of "dark pattern" that's not really regulated. IMO it should be as easy to delete an account as it is to sign up. To my mind, this is very similar to subscribing/unsubscribing which IIRC is regulated now.

The overall point I'm making is that it is "gross" when companies do stuff like this and yet there's zero accountability. Or when it comes to reliability of account deletion tech companies put up their hands and say "whoops technology is hard."

New comment by abbadadda in "OpenAI – How to delete your account"

abbadadda — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:45:34 +0000

Same thing on Safari as on Firefox 45 minutes later… I’ll have to try from the laptop when I’m home.