<rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"><channel><title>Hacker News: carlnewton</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=carlnewton</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Thu, 23 Apr 2026 15:43:16 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=carlnewton" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: What's your experience self-hosting in 2026?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I've just moved away from hosting on AWS to buying a refurbished Dell Optiplex 5060 and installing docker compose on it. Traffic comes in using a cloudflare tunnel. The only costs are electricity (it's very low power and virtually silent) and the domain (if you need one), and I'm thrilled with it.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 11:54:51 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47246199</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47246199</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47246199</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Show HN: Habitat – A Self-Hosted Social Platform for Local Communities]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Habitat is a free open-source, self hosted social platform for local communities. It is aimed at fostering local community discussions and discovery of areas of interest. This is why it is built primarily around location. A Habitat instance centers on a specific area, and the local community can make generic posts about that area, or they can make posts about specific locations in that area.<p>For some background reading you can find out:<p>- Why I wanted to build this: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-network/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-net...</a>
- Some of the design decisions: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/</a></p>
<hr>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47210274">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47210274</a></p>
<p>Points: 3</p>
<p># Comments: 0</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 01 Mar 2026 20:20:15 +0000</pubDate><link>https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47210274</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47210274</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: What were the best books you read in 2025?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I enjoyed Piranesi by Susanna Clarke the most this year. It has wonderful world building that was reminiscent of The Library of Babel. I'm currently really enjoying We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor. So far it's a very fun spacefaring adventure.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 16 Nov 2025 20:59:55 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45948358</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45948358</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45948358</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (Nov 2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm working on Habitat. It's a free and open source, self-hosted platform for communities to discover and discuss their local area. The plan is for it to be federated.
I've recently solved an issue with cron jobs that was driving me mad for ages. I feel that I'm pretty much nearing a first tagged release, but I feel that I need to work on branding and messaging a bit before I do. I can't tell if I'm procrastinating that final push to something that makes it more official or not.<p>- The idea: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-network/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-net...</a><p>- A build update and plan: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/</a><p>- The repository: <a href="https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat</a><p>- The project board: <a href="https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 10 Nov 2025 07:36:38 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45873416</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45873416</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45873416</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "AI for Senior Software Engineers"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Every time I see a title like this, I ask myself if I'm not being open enough, if my biases are interfering with any potential progress I could be making when it comes to utilising AI. Then I find out that the content is just more slop and it further solidifies my position on all of this. What a waste of energy. It really saddens me.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 09 Nov 2025 09:22:45 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45864213</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45864213</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45864213</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: What are you working on?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm working on Habitat. It's a free and open source, self-hosted platform for communities to discover and discuss their local area. The plan is for it to be federated.<p>This has been a productive weekend so far. I've recently solved an issue with cron jobs that was driving me mad for ages, and finally feel like I'm close to a first tagged release. I have just popped linting into the GitHub CI.<p>- The idea: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-network/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-net...</a><p>- A build update and plan: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/</a><p>- The repository: <a href="https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat</a><p>- The project board: <a href="https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 02 Nov 2025 14:39:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45790638</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45790638</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45790638</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (October 2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Woah! So soon after the September one?<p>I'm working on Habitat. It's a free and open source, self-hosted platform for communities to discover and discuss their local area. The plan is for it to be federated.<p>Stuck on a frustrating little bug at the moment, once I get through that I feel like I'll probably work on some CI utils to ensure that the code stays up-to-scratch and tag the first release.<p>- The idea: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-network/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-net...</a><p>- A build update and plan: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/</a><p>- The repository: <a href="https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat</a><p>- The project board: <a href="https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 14 Oct 2025 08:50:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45577729</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45577729</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45577729</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (September 2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm working on Habitat. It's a free and open source, self-hosted platform for communities to discover and discuss their local area. The plan is for it to be federated.<p>In the last month or so I've been solely focused on plans and content for my instance for my local town, so there hasn't been any programming for a little while but I'll be jumping back into it in weeks to come.<p>- The idea: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-network" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-net...</a><p>- A build update and plan: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/</a><p>- The repository: <a href="https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat</a><p>- The project board: <a href="https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 01 Oct 2025 06:30:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45434926</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45434926</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45434926</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2025)?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yeah I think established Facebook groups are probably the biggest hurdle. To me, the benefits of not using Facebook are self evident, but a lot of people don't know about the issues around that or don't care. I think creating features that can't be achieved on Facebook could help. Outside of that, I think it's just a matter of providing meaningful content yourself. For Plantshare, I imagine it would be beneficial to be close to you because you, the developer of the app, presumably have a wide variety of plants because that's your interest. And if it's a success for you and your local community, you've succeeded, and any other pockets of success are a bonus. This is at least the way I'm looking at my project here. I still do intend to continue to work on the open source side of things though of course.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2025 10:55:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45385050</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45385050</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45385050</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: What are you working on (September 2025)?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm working on Habitat. It's a free and open source, self-hosted platform for communities to discover and discuss their local area. The plan is for it to be federated.<p>In the last month or so I've been solely focused on plans and content for my instance for my local town, so there hasn't been any programming for a little while but I'll be jumping back into it in weeks to come.<p>- The idea: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-network" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-net...</a><p>- A build update and plan: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/</a><p>- The repository: <a href="https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat</a><p>- The project board: <a href="https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 26 Sep 2025 06:35:02 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45383420</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45383420</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45383420</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: What Are You Reading?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>For some reason I've been really enjoying stories with endless and well described repeating rooms. Borges' Library of Babel got me started, I have just finished Susanna Clarke's Piranesi - which was so wonderfully described, I don't know if I'll find anything to beat it. I'm now on A Short Stay in Hell by Steven L. Peck,  which outright mentions Borges' novel. If anyone has any similar recommendations I'd love to hear them.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 19 Sep 2025 16:44:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45303706</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45303706</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45303706</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: I got fired from 100k job so I've made a game and it failed"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Since writing this comment I've given it some more thought and decided that I wasn't being constructive enough, so here's something a bit more positive:<p>Given the issue described above, if we were to add a translation task to the player, this would feel more like a puzzle. For instance, if instead of a downward facing arrow, we had a blue tile. Blue tiles move down, orange tiles move left etc. This way, we can use the exact mechanic you've built here but start the player off with a 1x2 grid, and progressively grow to a larger grid with more colours/rules. This to me seems more fun than what it currently is, and it lends itself to a more compelling art style -- even Tetris pops with colours. Going off the art idea I had in my previous comment, perhaps blue frogs are always eaten by the frog below them, green frogs are always eaten by the frog to the left of them. It could be called Frog Eat Frog or something.<p>Wishing you the best of luck with your project.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 02 Sep 2025 17:03:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45105838</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45105838</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45105838</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: I got fired from 100k job so I've made a game and it failed"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Hey, I hope this comment doesn't bring you down. You asked for feedback with the aim of doing better -- I'm not going to pull my punches.<p>In my opinion, your game isn't performing well because the gameplay isn't very compelling. In best combo mode, I can see a grid of arrows, I'm informed that clicking one of these arrows will clear more than the others. It says that I should find "creative ways" to clear the grid. I'm not sure that such a thing is possible. At worst, this is a game of guess the 1/25 arrow to click. At best, it's a game of tracking backwards through the arrows. As somebody who enjoys puzzle games, I don't personally find this a fun mechanic.<p>My initial thought was that the art might be the problem. That perhaps if these were frogs that ate each other in order or if these were bubbles that popped in a satisfying way, this might be more enjoyable, but if you haven't got compelling gameplay, dressing it up isn't going to help. My recommendation is to focus on creating challenging and enjoyable gameplay first.<p>Perhaps play some other puzzle games and ask yourself what it is you're enjoying about them.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 02 Sep 2025 13:30:56 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45102877</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45102877</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45102877</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2025)?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm working on Habitat. It's a free and open source, self-hosted platform for communities to discover and discuss their local area. The plan is for it to be federated.<p>- The idea: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-network/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-net...</a><p>- A build update and plan: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/</a><p>- The repository: <a href="https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat</a><p>- The project board: <a href="https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 27 Aug 2025 12:59:42 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45039045</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45039045</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45039045</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: Any experienced devs who use AI extensively in their work?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I couldn't quite tell from the wording of your question if you want to hear from developers who avoid the use of AI as well, so sorry if my comment here is unwelcome in the discussion.<p>I'm a senior web developer and help maintain hundreds of PHP repositories for work. I avoid the use of AI as best I can. When I do ask questions to an LLM, I feel that I'm partaking in a dirty habit that I should quit. I don't have anything for that installed on my machine/integrated in my IDE. I feel that using LLMs to understand and solve problems is unreliable, a barrier for my personal development, a threat to the future of the industry I work in, unfair to those who wrote the content it is trained on, and bad for the environment.<p>I also largely feel the same way about other AI products, such as image generation.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 27 Aug 2025 11:11:33 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45038016</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45038016</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45038016</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: Do You Believe in Aliens?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Intuitively it seems likely that alien life would exist elsewhere in the universe, but I tend to favour evidence over intuition, and I haven't read any compelling evidence. The Wow Signal might be the most interesting thing we've observed in that regard, but it's still not enough for me personally.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:56:49 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45037918</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45037918</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45037918</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Out of curiosity: what kind of people use this "forum" (I mean Hacker News)?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm a web developer in my late 30s. I've been working mostly with PHP for the past 8 years, but have been a web developer since 2009.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:51:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45037883</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45037883</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45037883</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: Ask HN: What bug made you laugh after hours of frustration?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I was looking into a syntax error. It seemed to be taking issue with a line that looked fine to my eye. Copying and pasting the line resulted in the error, but manually typing it didn't. I started pasting fragments of the line about to find out what it took issue with and it was just a function name. Something like getResults. While I sat there scratching my head, I mindlessly tapped the left and right arrows on my keyboard over the characters and noticed that I'd have to press twice to get between two of the characters. This was my introduction to the zero-width space.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 17 Aug 2025 22:07:14 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44935344</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44935344</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44935344</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by carlnewton in "Ask HN: What are you working on? (July 2025)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I'm still working on Habitat. It's a free and open source, self-hosted platform for communities to discover and discuss their local area. The plan is for it to be federated, but that's a while off yet.<p>- The idea: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-network/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/location-based-social-net...</a><p>- A build update and plan: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/" rel="nofollow">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/building-habitat/</a><p>- The repository: <a href="https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat">https://github.com/carlnewton/habitat</a><p>- The project board: <a href="https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2">https://github.com/users/carlnewton/projects/2</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 28 Jul 2025 08:08:01 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44708460</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44708460</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44708460</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Mapping Out the Library of Babel]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/library-of-babel/">https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/library-of-babel/</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44617087">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44617087</a></p>
<p>Points: 2</p>
<p># Comments: 0</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 19 Jul 2025 16:49:29 +0000</pubDate><link>https://carlnewton.github.io/posts/library-of-babel/</link><dc:creator>carlnewton</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44617087</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44617087</guid></item></channel></rss>