Hacker News: robinhouston

New comment by robinhouston in "The Enigma of Gertrude Stein"

robinhouston — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 22:26:49 +0000

I haven’t read much of Gertrude Stein, but I often think of her brilliantly eccentric essay on punctuation[0], and especially her musings on the nature of the semicolon, whose crux is:

“They are more powerful more imposing more pretentious than a comma but they are a comma all the same. They really have within them deeply within them fundamentally within them the comma nature.”

[0] https://www.writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/goldsmith/works/st...

The Four Color Theorem with Near-Linear Time Coloring

robinhouston — Wed, 01 Apr 2026 02:53:49 +0000

Article URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.24880

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47596216

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

My prodigal brainchild: Neal Stephenson on the Metaverse

robinhouston — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 17:48:35 +0000

Article URL: https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/my-prodigal-brainchild

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47492778

Points: 4

# Comments: 0

First Proof: Second batch announcement [pdf]

robinhouston — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 20:10:58 +0000

Article URL: https://1stproof.org/documents/First_Proof_March_14_Announcement.pdf

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47404223

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

BrokenArXiv: How often do LLMs claim to prove false theorems?

robinhouston — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 14:19:20 +0000

Article URL: https://matharena.ai/brokenarxiv/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47387615

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Glassworm is back: A new wave of invisible Unicode attacks hits repositories

robinhouston — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 13:08:02 +0000

Article URL: https://www.aikido.dev/blog/glassworm-returns-unicode-attack-github-npm-vscode

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47387047

Points: 303

# Comments: 193

New comment by robinhouston in "ArXiv is establishing itself as an independent nonprofit organization"

robinhouston — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 22:09:03 +0000

This is a job ad for the CEO of arXiv, but it is also the only source I can find for the news that arXiv is separating from Cornell and establishing itself as an independent organization.

ArXiv is establishing itself as an independent nonprofit organization

robinhouston — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 22:09:03 +0000

Article URL: https://jobs.chronicle.com/job/37961678/chief-executive-officer

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47370632

Points: 83

# Comments: 1

New comment by robinhouston in "Completing the formal proof of higher-dimensional sphere packing"

robinhouston — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:59:00 +0000

Thanks for the pointer. I already had Avigad’s paper open on my computer, but I haven’t read it yet.

I take the point about the output – as opposed to the process – being “close to worthless”; though I suspect it’s only a matter of time before some result whose correctness ‘was never in doubt’ is found to be incorrect as a consequence of an attempt to formalize it.

New comment by robinhouston in "Completing the formal proof of higher-dimensional sphere packing"

robinhouston — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 21:11:11 +0000

I’m not an expert on this subject, but I get the impression this is a pretty significant milestone. This is a major result that won Viazovska the Fields Medal fairly recently, with a reasonably complicated proof, apparently formalized entirely autonomously.

Incomplete Open Polyhedra

robinhouston — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 13:56:41 +0000

Article URL: https://incomplete-open.mikael.johanssons.org/

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47166150

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Mathematics in the Library of Babel

robinhouston — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 20:19:36 +0000

Article URL: https://www.daniellitt.com/blog/2026/2/20/mathematics-in-the-library-of-babel

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47104282

Points: 19

# Comments: 2

John Haugeland on the failure of micro-worlds

robinhouston — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 11:20:23 +0000

Article URL: https://blog.plover.com/tech/gpt/micro-worlds.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46911543

Points: 3

# Comments: 1

New comment by robinhouston in "Y Combinator will let founders receive funds in stablecoins"

robinhouston — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 12:10:30 +0000

> if you don't need it immediately, maybe a total market fund

That strikes me as unwise. If there’s a sharp downturn in the total market, that’s precisely when you might need to call upon otherwise unneeded cash reserves.

New comment by robinhouston in "In a genre where spoilers are devastating, how do we talk about puzzle games?"

robinhouston — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:58:00 +0000

Thanks for sharing that talk. Very interesting indeed!

New comment by robinhouston in "In a genre where spoilers are devastating, how do we talk about puzzle games?"

robinhouston — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 22:28:26 +0000

> I’ve met plenty of thinky players who reject any help not contained within the game itself—I’ve been that person—but these days, with so much to play, I simply don’t have the heart to ironman a puzzle for hours and hours just to maintain a sense of pride. I’d rather see more of what a game has to offer. Sue me.

I’m not going to sue the author, obviously; but it sounds as though he enjoys puzzle games in a different way and for a different reason from me, and I find it hard to relate to his feelings about them.

If your plan is to cheat as soon as you get stuck, I can’t imagine why you would choose to play a puzzle game at all. For me, what I enjoy about puzzle games is precisely the immense satisfaction that comes from conquering a well-designed puzzle after a struggle.

New comment by robinhouston in "Shipmap.org"

robinhouston — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 17:43:31 +0000

This is my favourite of the visualisations that Duncan and I made back in the Kiln days. It's lovely to see people are still enjoying it all these years later.

KdK part 4: Carrière's experiment

robinhouston — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 21:15:53 +0000

Article URL: https://nealstephenson.substack.com/p/kdk-part-4-carrieres-amazing-experiment

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46481650

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

New comment by robinhouston in "Rob Pike goes nuclear over GenAI"

robinhouston — Fri, 26 Dec 2025 14:42:48 +0000

Maybe I just live in a bubble, but from what I’ve seen so far software engineers have mostly responded in a fairly measured way to the recent advances in AI, at least compared to some other online communities.

It would be a shame if the discourse became so emotionally heated that software people felt obliged to pick a side. Rob Pike is of course entitled to feel as he does, but I hope we don’t get to a situation where we all feel obliged to have such strong feelings about it.

Edit: It seems this comment has already received a number of upvotes and downvotes – apparently the same number of each, at the time of writing – which I fear indicates we are already becoming rather polarised on this issue. I am sorry to see that.

Puzzle Designers Search for That 'Satisfying Click'

robinhouston — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 21:10:18 +0000

Article URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/22/science/games-puzzle-design.html

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46369497

Points: 1

# Comments: 0