Hacker News: georgeecollins

New comment by georgeecollins in "The Case Against Gameplay Loops"

georgeecollins — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:48:17 +0000

This is a good, thoughtful article.

Fun fact: Jeff Gardiner, who is quoted in the article, was hired by me for his first job in the video games as a junior level designer. Yay me!

New comment by georgeecollins in "I went to America's worst national parks so you don't have to"

georgeecollins — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:13:13 +0000

Just like many popular places it depends when you go. Last time we were there it was off season and a bit cold but pretty empty.

New comment by georgeecollins in "Claude Code is locking people out for hours"

georgeecollins — Tue, 07 Apr 2026 15:58:51 +0000

I think it is telling that this audience down votes this. It's kind of obvious that the thing is being used a lot. Doesn't mean it works as well as advertised. Doesn't mean the business model they have works. Just means there is a lot of demand. You can't ignore that.

New comment by georgeecollins in "Good ideas do not need lots of lies in order to gain public acceptance (2008)"

georgeecollins — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:07:57 +0000

The point the post is making not that good ideas win or lose, its that if you need to lie (that's not better marketing) to persuade your idea probably isn't good and your predictions about the outcomes are false. The context is deceit about the second Iraq war. I think the reason why this post is returning is because we are in the middle of a war where the goals and justifications are being misrepresented and yet people accept predictions about the outcome. "The straight will open itself." ?

Right or wrong, an interesting (and ironic) historical analogy.

New comment by georgeecollins in "SpaceX files to go public"

georgeecollins — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 03:18:08 +0000

But a low stock float. I once had a meeting with a guy who said his company was worth $100m. How did he get that valuation? He sold 0.4 % of stock to friends and family at $400k.

New comment by georgeecollins in "CEO of largest public hospital says he's ready to replace radiologists with AI"

georgeecollins — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 13:46:03 +0000

It would be interesting to start a co-op or non-profit run by AI for the benefit of the employees and customers. If it worked it would have a huge competitive advantage. I guess the question is where would the capital come from, but as a co-op the employees could buy in and just take the profits as a distribution.

Thinking about this some more: US tax laws really favor income from investment over income from wages. So ideally a co-op member would put something in to join, get a wage, and have an appreciating asset in a tax advantaged account.

New comment by georgeecollins in "You are falling behind because you haven't fed the insincerity machine"

georgeecollins — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:40:08 +0000

I really strongly recommend his book You Are Not A Gadget. He wrote it like fifteen years ago and it feels like he is describing last year. Like he's telling you about a lot of the problems of social media today, writing before Facebook had ads.

Why it is worth reading is his thinking about the causes and outcomes is so clear. Its still useful today.

New comment by georgeecollins in "The truth that haunts the Ramones: 'They sold more T-shirts than records'"

georgeecollins — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 15:35:26 +0000

I think all this talk of entertainment economics is missing the point of the article. Yes, today bands more money from tshirts then recordings. However, in the 70s and 80s they typically made a lot of money from LPs and CDs. In the time of the Ramones, that was how bands made money.

The point is that punk rock was culturally very influential but never very musically popular. God Save the Queen was a hit record but that is the outlier.

I think it is useful to consider that a lot things that endure are not the things that were popular at the time, particularly with music. I saw the Pixies at the Hollywood Bowl a couple years ago and it occurred to me that when they had recorded the songs they are known for I saw at venues not much bigger than bars. They were never really that popular. Or Elliot Smith, who was seriously obscure in his short lifetime.

New comment by georgeecollins in "Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls"

georgeecollins — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:39:14 +0000

I wouldn't say it was quixotic. Think about it this way: If fortnite made at it's peak $5.5b, and 2/3rd of that was PC (I have no idea of the ratio, just guessing), Epic would have been paying $1b to Valve in just that one year (3.66* 0.30).

You could spend a lot on developing a store to avoid paying $1b in fees!

Plus, your chance to launch a store is when you have a big product. Valve launched Steam with Half Life 2. It didn't really work that well at first but everyone wanted to play HL2.

New comment by georgeecollins in "Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls"

georgeecollins — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:31:28 +0000

I think if it were a good plan Phil Spencer would still have a job.

New comment by georgeecollins in "Epic Games to cut more than 1k jobs as Fortnite usage falls"

georgeecollins — Wed, 25 Mar 2026 04:28:50 +0000

They have shown its a wildly successful model. They would be very crazy if they changed it, and it would make them vulnerable to Epic and the Windows store. It's more likely that your OS/ hardware will change in a way that isn't supported by an old game.

New comment by georgeecollins in "'Your Frustration Is the Product'"

georgeecollins — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 14:12:14 +0000

It kills programmatic advertising, not sponsorships or subscriptions. I always subscribe to the four or five sites I use most and use a blocker. If HN had a subscription tier I would pay it to support them.

New comment by georgeecollins in "US SEC preparing to scrap quarterly reporting requirement"

georgeecollins — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 01:30:07 +0000

The SEC is not the only one who gets a say. Their are rules that SEC does not require that have been required for certain exchanges or indices. For example, no dual class shareholders or certain board compositione have been required for listing.

Let's have an exchange or heck , even an ETF require quarterly reporting. I would invest in that and I am sure many wouldn't. It will trade at a premium or it won't.

New comment by georgeecollins in "A new Bigfoot documentary helps explain our conspiracy-minded era"

georgeecollins — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:45:40 +0000

I believe you but is there a source that you can refer me to? I guess I just believed abuse was more common in the Catholic church but your post made me realize my impression had no facts behind it.

New comment by georgeecollins in "US private credit defaults hit record 9.2% in 2025, Fitch says"

georgeecollins — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 15:08:52 +0000

I'm old, so I am a stopped clock. However, I have invested my whole life including good times and bad. I believe that for a retail trader -- someone who doesn't get paid to trade other people's money-- options are bad. OK yes there are special cases like when your job requires you to hold a lot of one stock etc. I'm not going to make the case why here I am sure it has been argued to death.

I do remember smart friends getting interested in options at different times in the last thirty years because they make higher returns. Then they have a period where make lower returns, or have a real problem. I don't think its worth the attention and the trading cost for most people, even people who understand what a short is. You can't argue with a person who has been doing really well with them for five years but it always seems like people stop.

New comment by georgeecollins in "“This is not the computer for you”"

georgeecollins — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 04:13:28 +0000

I second that! This is also how I feel about Raspberry Pis. There's so much they can't do, and yet in a way they can do everything. It's not the power of the machine, its about how much control you have or how close you can get to the metal. At least that way you learn about why you need more powerful hardware.

Chrome books and phones teach nothing.

New comment by georgeecollins in "US private credit defaults hit record 9.2% in 2025, Fitch says"

georgeecollins — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 03:53:47 +0000

This is sensible advice for most people. I see some thoughtful quibbles but I wish you weren't down voted. If you are a normal retail investor, please listen to pocksuppet.

New comment by georgeecollins in "BMW Group to deploy humanoid robots in production in Germany for the first time"

georgeecollins — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 00:10:37 +0000

Because so much infrastructure is in humanoid form. If you can make something that can manipulate two hands on arms that are positioned and moved like human arms, you could just put that torso into a lot of situations to replace a human without a lot of retooling. That's the dream I think.

New comment by georgeecollins in "Why No AI Games?"

georgeecollins — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 17:58:15 +0000

I agree that AI is not as good as people at being entertaining. And everybody looked at putting LLMs in their games as GDC circa 2022 or so. It seemed like a good idea until you realized the server cost or the performance hit. So this is right.

But.. as someone who works in the business of games.. how sure are you that AI hasn't been there all along in ways you may not realize? Companies are very disincentivized to let you know when they are using it.

New comment by georgeecollins in "Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS"

georgeecollins — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 14:25:19 +0000

I don't think they have to reach the average consumer for this to work. The world is big, and while 99% probably could care less there are more than one reason to own an open source phone. If the lenovo hardware runs Android and Graphene, it's not like they have to make a big investment in it. And the Graphene users could give them some pricing power.

If you are a phone manufacturer looking to differentiate your product, this is cheaper than inventing a display that folds four times or what have you.