Hacker News: mcphage

New comment by mcphage in "Factorio that you can touch"

mcphage — Fri, 25 Sep 2026 19:14:36 +0000

Until then, there's Factory Fun, and Factory Funner.

New comment by mcphage in "S.F. Democratic Party stands behind Flock surveillance cameras in vote"

mcphage — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 19:16:24 +0000

Both? Both is good.

New comment by mcphage in "Katamari Object Library"

mcphage — Thu, 24 Sep 2026 12:07:06 +0000

Maybe The King of All Cosmos just hasn’t found the right one…

New comment by mcphage in "Lego Brick Sorting Machine Uses AI to Save Millions from Landfill [video]"

mcphage — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 01:58:26 +0000

Who disassembles them all? That seems to be a serious chunk of the effort.

New comment by mcphage in "The LLMs Yearn for the Spines"

mcphage — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 01:53:29 +0000

I would have like to see the graphs for some non-LLM words, to show the more modest 1.5x jump, so we can be sure that these specific words are increasing in frequency, and not just like, all words.

New comment by mcphage in "New evidence for hidden chambers beyond Tutankhamun's tomb"

mcphage — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 00:52:12 +0000

> we also need to remember that rich folks used to uncover mummies in their parties for fun

And eat them, which... that's just like, really fucking weird.

New comment by mcphage in "The Shadows Lurking in the Equations – Underwater Islands"

mcphage — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:07:43 +0000

Do you mean Marching Squares? Or Signed Distance Fields? Both are related, but not exactly the same.

New comment by mcphage in "If materialism is true, the United States is probably conscious"

mcphage — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:01:27 +0000

The problem is that we think of categories as this binary thing, when they're not. We recognize it with adjectives like "Tall"—most people wouldn't say "something is either Tall or it's Not Tall". But the truth is, every word is like that. The solution isn't more and more rigid delineations—the solution is accepting that the borders are wide, and plenty of object straddle them.

To bring up an even more argued about example—is a hot dog a sandwich? Some people say yes, some people say no, but the answer can be (and most likely is) "kinda".

New comment by mcphage in "Anecdotally, programmers dislike "reduce""

mcphage — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 14:38:35 +0000

I agree, although most of the time you do end up needing to consider it with Map/Filter. It's just, it doesn't force you to. Which means either you think about it later, or it bites you in the ass because you didn't consider the empty case. Not always—and for those cases where you don't end up needing the empty case, Reduce is probably not necessary, and Map/Filter is sufficient.

New comment by mcphage in "Online Z3 Guide"

mcphage — Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:22:19 +0000

Shin Megami Tensei?

New comment by mcphage in "Anecdotally, programmers dislike "reduce""

mcphage — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 19:42:35 +0000

> Reduce also forces you to conjure up a "zero" value of the relevant type, which isn't usually difficult but it does constitute some extra mental overhead.

It's always worthwhile to consider what the result will be when you pass in an empty list.

New comment by mcphage in "Anecdotally, programmers dislike "reduce""

mcphage — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 19:39:02 +0000

I like it, but don't care for the name. I find it easier to think about in terms of an accumulator.

New comment by mcphage in "Most people prefer traditional architecture"

mcphage — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:51:29 +0000

Yeah, I agree with you, but I'm not sure the point of polling people in the first place.

New comment by mcphage in "Tiny village votes for 'independence' from UK amid asylum seeker row"

mcphage — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:49:03 +0000

From your link:

> Although their travel to Massachusetts was facilitated by DeSantis, the migrants who arrived on Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday came from Texas. The DeSantis administration paid an aviation company, Vertol Systems Company Inc., $615,000 to transport the migrants from San Antonio to the exclusive vacation enclave.

So Florida spent $615,000 to pick up some people from Texas and dump them on an island in Massachusetts?

...and you imagine that this makes the people in Massachusetts look bad?

Yeah. I don't know what to tell you, dude.

New comment by mcphage in "The American Age Is Over"

mcphage — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:50:17 +0000

> The same was said about W. Also elected twice.

Well, he certainly gave it the ol' college try—and it did take quite a while to recover from his presidency.

New comment by mcphage in "Tiny village votes for 'independence' from UK amid asylum seeker row"

mcphage — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:34:24 +0000

> until it was time to have migrants in their back yards

How did the migrants get to Martha's Vineyard?

New comment by mcphage in "Chopping up books when they're physically too big"

mcphage — Wed, 16 Sep 2026 01:40:45 +0000

> Two page layout. This gives you more context when reading.

That was exactly the reason why I tried out the 12.9” iPad Pro back in like 2016. I used that for 8 years, and now am on my second.

New comment by mcphage in "Most people prefer traditional architecture"

mcphage — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 17:55:32 +0000

It’s interesting how many studies were performed that confirmed this, and yet most (all?) of the time, the modernist building was built anyway. What was the point?

New comment by mcphage in "Suspected sabotage causes major Netherlands rail disruption"

mcphage — Tue, 15 Sep 2026 15:05:55 +0000

> I'm not sure anybody thinks it was anything other than an accident

How do you accidentally shoot down a passenger airplane?

New comment by mcphage in "U.S. in Highest-Risk Category for Civil War, Coup, or Collapse in CIA Model"

mcphage — Sun, 13 Sep 2026 13:43:53 +0000

That was tried, in the 1860s. What you’re suggesting didn’t go well.