<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: qsort</title><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=qsort</link><description>Hacker News RSS</description><docs>https://hnrss.org/</docs><generator>hnrss v2.1.1</generator><lastBuildDate>Sun, 01 Nov 2026 10:25:30 +0000</lastBuildDate><atom:link href="https://hnrss.org/user?id=qsort" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"></atom:link><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "Show HN: Gemini 4 Argon plays StarCraft"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's beyond insane that Astra achieves above 50%. Are models allowed to "play against" the specific bot they're up against? What explains the fact that it drops to single-digits against strong bots?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 16 Oct 2026 15:03:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50119253</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50119253</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50119253</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "With most information hidden, the game Stratego had stumped AI until now"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Sure, but you can do Monte Carlo with a double-dummy solver.<p>The point is that, especially for games perceived as being lower-status like MTG and other board games, I'm more inclined to believe the answer is closer to "nobody is willing to pour in the resources to seriously try" as opposed to "we definitively cannot with current science and technology."</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 03 Oct 2026 06:41:30 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49941889</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49941889</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49941889</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "With most information hidden, the game Stratego had stumped AI until now"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>There are very few missing pieces for a game like MTG. The main reasons we don't have a Stockfish for MTG is that it's a PITA to implement the rules and that nobody cares (or at least not enough to make it happen.)<p>There is nothing that, in principle, makes MTG different from poker or bridge, and we have superhuman engines for both.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 02 Oct 2026 19:54:07 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49937838</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49937838</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49937838</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "Walking Men"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I suspect tech has little to do with it: we all mostly miss being 20 years younger and not having gray hair.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:01:24 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49896499</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49896499</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49896499</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "Walking Men"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>No Ampelmann???<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampelmännchen" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampelmännchen</a></p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 29 Sep 2026 16:11:44 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49895765</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49895765</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49895765</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "CEO of Mistral: AI is software. It can be controlled"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Literally the "AI is just computer" argument</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sat, 26 Sep 2026 13:45:22 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49856501</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49856501</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49856501</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "Claude Opus 5.5 Intelligence, Performance and Price Analysis (Max)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Yes, but crucially, in ways that are increasingly decoupled from any practical pattern of usage, considering that I wouldn't see how you can argue that Astra is worse than Opus 5.<p>One man's modus ponens is another's modus tollens I guess.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 22 Sep 2026 17:51:58 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49805381</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49805381</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49805381</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "Claude Opus 5.5 Intelligence, Performance and Price Analysis (Max)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>I am begging you on my knees to please stop posting this cringe.<p>The model is just out. It could be good, great even, I don't know. But I do know that this index has Opus 5, one of the worst releases of 26, ahead of <i>Astra</i>. What information are we supposed to deduce from number having gone up?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 22 Sep 2026 17:36:43 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49805129</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49805129</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49805129</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "Chess Atlas"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>It's endlessly fascinating how culture, religion and even language influence stylistic choices, even though Chess is a purely abstract game.<p>The obvious ones: in Western sets the king has a cross on top, and Islamic traditions only use abstract shapes. But I wonder if the "usual" designs aren't at least somewhat influenced by the English language specifically. Bishops have a stylized miter and Rooks are a tower with crenellations, but e.g. in Russian Bishop is "elephant" and Rook is "boat". Even in many other Western European languages "Bishop" as in the piece is not the same as bishop as in the religious office, e.g. "fou" in French, "alfil" in Spanish, "Laufer" in German.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 20 Sep 2026 07:18:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49773319</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49773319</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49773319</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "How big are factorials?"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> (This approximation should be familiar to many from an algorithmics class.)<p>You need both sides though :)<p>What makes it interesting for estimating algorithmic complexity is that \log{n!} \in \Theta(n \log n). One side is obvious as you note, the other less so, but there's a famous trick to do both at once:<p>\log{n!} = \log{\prod_{h=0}^{n} h} = \sum_{h=0}^{n} \log{h}<p>Therefore,<p>\int_0^n \log{x} dx \le \log{n!} \le \int_0^n \log{x+1} dx<p>with both integrals trivial by parts.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 16 Sep 2026 15:56:04 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49728984</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49728984</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49728984</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "A warning about 'model welfare'"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>is claude not a man and a brother</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:59:23 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49728075</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49728075</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49728075</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "There are only twelve 4x4 sudokus (and a cool trick for finding minimal subsets)"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Can't you just describe the group that defines those transformations and use Burnside?</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 15 Sep 2026 13:06:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49711963</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49711963</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49711963</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[Teaching a fruit fly to play chess]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Article URL: <a href="https://flychess-hq.vercel.app">https://flychess-hq.vercel.app</a></p>
<p>Comments URL: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49693068">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49693068</a></p>
<p>Points: 1</p>
<p># Comments: 0</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Mon, 14 Sep 2026 07:17:17 +0000</pubDate><link>https://flychess-hq.vercel.app</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49693068</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49693068</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "Romania soccer introduces black card to 'combat abusive behaviour' from parents"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Quoting from the official website:<p>>>>>>><p>The new procedure targets inappropriate behavior by parents and spectators directed at children, coaching staff members, referees, match officials, or other parents and spectators. This includes, but is not limited to:<p>Verbal abuse (insults or profanity), as well as physical assault or shoving of one’s own children;<p>Verbal abuse, physical assault, or shoving of staff members of one’s own team;<p>Verbal abuse, physical assault, or shoving of players or staff members of the opposing team;<p>Continuous challenging, verbal abuse, physical assault, or shoving of referees and match officials;<p>Verbal or physical altercations with other parents or spectators.<p><<<<<<<p>If that's the situation in, and it can't be stressed enough, a <i>children</i> soccer game, then yes, abandoning the match is probably the right choice. I assume they are only defining a formal procedure for practices that already exist.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Sun, 13 Sep 2026 17:59:21 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49686718</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49686718</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49686718</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>A lot of people have explained how that would happen, in excruciating detail. The reason why this wasn't a major part of the discourse is that most people (including myself) did not believe jumps in capabilities like those we have seen in the last few years were likely.<p>For a superintelligent AI trained with methods anywhere close to what we are doing now, killing all humans is the default outcome. I actually think researchers are downplaying the risks to make their arguments more normie-friendly.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2026 18:16:05 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662847</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662847</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662847</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "OpenAI considers slowing advanced AI development, Sam Altman tells employees"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>Humans not dying would be an excellent feature for the future to have. Not a hard requirement though, we'll see if there are some story points left in the sprint.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 11 Sep 2026 18:04:03 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662655</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662655</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49662655</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "IBM Bob"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>To be fair Codex and Claude Code don't have a lot of secret sauce either. This is not to say that the harness doesn't matter at all or that you can't do any better, but whenever they benchmark it always turns out that you don't lose <i>that</i> much with even a very minimal agent. If a different harness makes better sense for your workflow I don't see why you wouldn't switch (or make your own if you have the resources to do so).<p>I'm also sticking to first-party agents, but that's more because I feel no compelling reason to switch and CLI agents fit well with my spartan technology choices. YMMV.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:58:32 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49564759</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49564759</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49564759</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "IBM Bob"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>markdown as a service is crazy</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Fri, 04 Sep 2026 13:50:54 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49564657</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49564657</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49564657</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "GPT-6 Astra"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>> The ARC-AGI-3 scorecard is extremely misleading (...)<p>True.<p>> Regardless, the result is still valid (...)<p>If you think the game is rigged, the virtuous thing to do is to point that out and refuse to partecipate; making up your own rules is something I just don't understand, especially since the rule-abiding result would still have been SOTA.<p>> in the sense of passing the most famous benchmark designed specifically to measure AGI progress<p>The benchmark does not measure AGI progress or progress towards superhuman intelligence, as explicitly stated by the creators.<p>On the AGI question: surely you realize this depends on how we define the term? For example, one of the definitions OpenAI originally gave is "capable of doing most economically valuable work", which almost certainly Astra, as impressive as it is, would fall short of. I'm not saying it's a good definition, but as far as I'm concerned it's as good as any. More importantly, I don't think that it would change much if we said yes or no. I'm only bothering to take a position if it amounts to something.<p>This can feel as "moving the goalposts", and to some extent it is, but if done honestly "moving the goalposts" is how you make progress. Had you asked me 10 years ago I would have said that anything that could hold a conversation like GPT-4 could would probably have been wildly superhuman at almost everything. It shouldn't be hard to find ways GPT-4 was lacking, though. We see new things, we reassess and try again: that's how it's supposed to work.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Thu, 03 Sep 2026 20:58:53 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49556887</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49556887</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49556887</guid></item><item><title><![CDATA[New comment by qsort in "OpenAI restores 5-hour Codex and Work limits for ChatGPT Plus users"]]></title><description><![CDATA[
<p>They now give out resets you can choose when to use, but with a "best before" date. With Anthropic you don't even know what model you'll have access to next week. A few months ago I wanted to try a subscription to Gemini but I couldn't figure out how to give them money. The other one thinks he's Mecha Hitler.<p>To an extent I get it, this is not like a normal SaaS where you just buy seats, but their commercial offerings, especially B2C ones, feel like complete amateur hour. If they were selling literally anything else I'd have ran for the hills a long time ago.</p>
]]></description><pubDate>Tue, 25 Aug 2026 14:41:48 +0000</pubDate><link>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49435019</link><dc:creator>qsort</dc:creator><comments>https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49435019</comments><guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49435019</guid></item></channel></rss>