Hacker News: coldcity_again

New comment by coldcity_again in "Xs of Y – roguelike that names itself every run. Written in 4kLoC"

coldcity_again — Wed, 13 May 2026 17:48:31 +0000

are you familiar with the actual game Brogue[1]?

1: https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/

New comment by coldcity_again in "dBase: 1979-2026"

coldcity_again — Mon, 11 May 2026 18:23:56 +0000

dBase was one of my first exposures to databases. As a largely penniless computer-obsessed kid in the late 80s/early 90s I was big into sending off for any freebies offered in the ads of the pages of UK BYTE.

Somehow I scored a (stripped down?) copy on multiple floppies that I couldn't even use, as an Amiga owner - but incredibly, this freebie came with a fantastic paper manual which I devoured.

New comment by coldcity_again in "How Fast Does Claude, Acting as a User Space IP Stack, Respond to Pings?"

coldcity_again — Mon, 11 May 2026 14:08:37 +0000

I like that. And if poetry can be defined as succinct use of language (perhaps a dubious assertion), then code can be poetry.

New comment by coldcity_again in "How Fast Does Claude, Acting as a User Space IP Stack, Respond to Pings?"

coldcity_again — Mon, 11 May 2026 14:03:50 +0000

Yes, very much so. A ping is a request, a pong a response.

New comment by coldcity_again in "Mouse Pointer as a Mere Mortal"

coldcity_again — Tue, 05 May 2026 13:50:59 +0000

I hoped for a moment this was a mouse pointer replacement that adds a tiny human character, who starts the day with energy and vigour... only to become more decrepit and worn out as 5pm approaches.

New comment by coldcity_again in "Hear your agent suffer through your code"

coldcity_again — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 21:58:57 +0000

There are certain usage tracking anomalies that can be advantageous.

New comment by coldcity_again in "Hear your agent suffer through your code"

coldcity_again — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 21:43:30 +0000

It goes! Great, thank you!

New comment by coldcity_again in "My audio interface has SSH enabled by default"

coldcity_again — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 21:36:42 +0000

Nice writeup and great domain. I don't know Zola and don't know if this is a common template or a custom jobbie but it's lovely.

New comment by coldcity_again in "Hear your agent suffer through your code"

coldcity_again — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:29:39 +0000

I really want this! Any chance of a Cursor version?

New comment by coldcity_again in "Artemis II Launch Day Updates"

coldcity_again — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:40:22 +0000

glad to have been wrong on this one!

New comment by coldcity_again in "Fast and Gorgeous Erosion Filter"

coldcity_again — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 10:38:06 +0000

Bryce! One of the most fantastic[1] UIs.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryce_%28software%29#/media/Fi...

New comment by coldcity_again in "NASA Artemis II moon mission live launch broadcast"

coldcity_again — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:54:44 +0000

Can't understand why there doesn't seem to be much wider excitement at all, around "our Apollo 8", that I've been waiting decades for (late 40s here).

Apparently here in the UK our schools are hardly even hyping it.

New comment by coldcity_again in "Artemis II Launch Day Updates"

coldcity_again — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 19:43:35 +0000

I'm watching it rapt, but also wondering which KIND of leaky will result in a scrub..

New comment by coldcity_again in "Take better notes, by hand"

coldcity_again — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:34:24 +0000

Thanks, though I think part of longhard feeling labourious these days is RSI sadly. I did try to correct my scrawl for effort and legibility a while ago, but it just wouldn't stick!

New comment by coldcity_again in "CodingFont: A game to help you pick a coding font"

coldcity_again — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:03:39 +0000

I got PT Mono in the game, but this gave me the kick I needed to remember about ProggyClean[1] and track it down. Used to love it many years ago, time to give it another spin and see if it holds its own.

There's a vector version[2] now too!

[1]: http://proggyfonts.net/

[2]: https://github.com/bluescan/proggyfonts/tree/master/ProggyVe...

New comment by coldcity_again in "Take better notes, by hand"

coldcity_again — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:10:12 +0000

I love taking notes by hand for better retention, but (my) longhand is just too slow. It's also an inconvenient format for representing a hierachy or graph of connections.

Anyone else into what my high school biology teacher loved referring to as "pseudo-arachnomorphic diagrams" (Mind Maps[1] / Spider Diagrams)?

They're still my primary paper-based realtime note taking method. They seemed to get a lot of attention a couple of decades ago, but I don't hear them mentioned much recently.

Lots of online/local Mind Map tools available, but I've never really gelled with them (though you do get self-organisation of the nodes!). Once in the digital realm I'm more likely to make notes in Markdown.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_map

New comment by coldcity_again in "In Math, Rigor Is Vital. But Are Digitized Proofs Taking It Too Far?"

coldcity_again — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:05:20 +0000

That's very helpful and clear, thank you

New comment by coldcity_again in "Sand from Different Beaches in the World"

coldcity_again — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 17:53:19 +0000

This is lovely. I'd hoped to see The Coral Beach on the Isle of Skye[1] featured. In retrospect the bits are maybe a bit large[2] to be called "sand".

I'm sure it's very much frowned upon these days but somewhere I have a 35mm film canister full of the coral fragments.

[1] https://www.isleofskye.com/skye-guide/top-ten-skye-walks/cor... [2] https://www.isleofskye.com/skye-guide/top-ten-skye-walks/cor...

New comment by coldcity_again in "Gummy Geometry"

coldcity_again — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:22:03 +0000

Bit twitchy indeed but still fun. Instantly took me back to "rubber glenz vectors" in classic Amiga prods[1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZTnR3FpUEA&start=413

New comment by coldcity_again in "Fatal Core Dump Game"

coldcity_again — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:14:39 +0000

Really cool idea, will try to have a play later.

The concept reminds me a little of some books available in the 1980s that combined a story with little BASIC type-in programs[1].

More modern alternatives along a similar line are also available[2] but kiddo here is more interested in learning Lua for Roblox :)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_Adventure

[2] https://cfiesler.medium.com/novels-to-get-kids-and-teens-exc...