Repeatedly following a fixed algorithm by hand can be relaxing - simple Sudoku problems, Solitaire, simple Rubiks cube solutions, simple crosswords and math problems, word searches, etc.
Meanwhile social games are fun even if they are extremely simple - rules-lite RPGs, Guess Who, Pictionary, etc.
This seems to exist at an intersection of the two. It's interesting that following a mindless algorithm with a group of people sounds so ridiculous and pointless in principle, but it's actually fun. Our brains are somehow wired to find it rewarding.
Extreme luck has the benefit of bringing everyone to the same level regardless of age or background, whereas e.g. chess, Counter-Strike or boxing is much less fun if one person is 10x better than the other. The more skill a game requires, the more it needs separate leagues for differing levels of ability.
Maybe there's also ironic enjoyment in playing a horse-race gambling game when most people playing have likely never watched a real horse race, let alone bet on one.
France, Germany, Sweden, Estonia and India already have government id. However, this being hackernews there will never be a link to a well researched article on the pros and cons of introducing id cards (digital or otherwise), only conspiracy theories and confident declarations that id cards are a surefire symbol of authoritarian states. I don't know what I think, I lack sufficient knowledge to have an opinion. But I still know approximately 10,000x more about UK politics, economics and immigration than 99% of the people commenting here.
France Identité app is closed source, requires GMS and Play Integrity, and is only available on closed stores. It is not yet mandatory but who knows when it'll happen. No thanks.
The root of the issue is a mistrust of a Govt that has suddenly decided to rush through something, that was never discussed prior to the election, on the grounds that it will tackle illegal immigration, which it clearly will not.
The original author submitted it, then when it didn't get traction it looks like two fans of his blog both submitted it around 12 hours later. Whether for internet upvote points or because they personally thought the article particularly great, I don't know.
Personally I generally enjoy the blog and the writing, but not so much this post. It has a very clickbaity title for some results which aren't particularly impressive.
It's hardly original, but my take is that vibe coding works brilliantly for personal projects (or potentially for tiny startups that need to rapidly churn out CRUD boilerplate, API integrations, etc), but terribly for most large commercial systems.
I'm having fun with Claude Code and Vibe Kanban on personal projects, and before that I spent a lot of time with both the Windsurf and Cursor agents. It's making me literally 10x more productive on personal projects, maybe even 50x.
On personal projects:
- no-one but me needs to decide on requirements
- no-one but me needs to make decisions
- no-one but me needs to maintain the code going forward
- much of the time I'm intentionally using languages and frameworks that I am somewhat clueless about, and an LLM providing continuous ideas (even if sometimes entirely silly ones) stops me getting stuck
- I don't mind if there are large chunks of useless or half-working code
On commercial projects:
- every line of code is a massive liability. Every line needs to be reviewed by another engineer, and every developer who joins the project needs to be aware of it, take it into consideration when making changes elsewhere, and potentially debug it if something goes wrong
- senior engineers are almost always hired to work with languages and technologies they are already very familiar with, meaning for many tasks it's often quicker to write out the code by hand (or perhaps with Cursor's auto-complete) than guide an LLM to do it
- much of the time is spent in meetings trying to unearth the real product requirements or providing updates to stakeholders
- much of the time is spent reading old code and working out how to implement things in extremely large and complex systems in a minimally disruptive way
- a lot of time is spent reviewing other people's PRs, and getting infuriated when people (often either very junior or very senior) produce 1000 line PRs consisting of unnecessary changes, excessive boilerplate, half-finished experiments, and things that clearly haven't been tested properly. This was the case long before LLMs, AI just makes it ever more tempting for people to act this way.
- trying to avoid or gently negotiate political games over who is in control of the project, or who gets to makes technical decisions
if we have to put numbers on it, I'm attempting projects I wouldn't have, because the startup cost was too high, so does that make me infinity times more productive on that project because the denominator otherwise would have been zero?
Yup entirely this. The biggest sign of this is Tommy Robinson, who has blatantly committed outrageous cases of stalking, harassment, and contempt of court, for which he has been convicted. But because his schtick is complaining about Muslims he is then treated as a hero of the US right, gets invited on right-wing talk shows and gets bigged up by Elon Musk. I recently had a guy sit next to me on a plane bring him up as supposed proof of the UK being an authoritarian state.
I go absolutely out of my way to avoid politics nowadays, which makes it all the more frustrating when this nonsense is shoved in my face by idiots on HackerNews or dimwits sitting next to me on the plane.
Black Mirror is the new 1984. Right wing people think "this is a parable of what left-of-centre politics gets you, look how clever I am". Left-of-centre people know that the author of 1984 fought for the socialists in the Spanish Civil War and that the author of Black Mirror is a Guardian journalist.
I like the animations and general appearance, and how snappy it feels. Would prefer if mistakes required a backspace though, and also more than one word at a time. Also unclear if the timer starts when the word is shown or when you start typing.
Meanwhile social games are fun even if they are extremely simple - rules-lite RPGs, Guess Who, Pictionary, etc.
This seems to exist at an intersection of the two. It's interesting that following a mindless algorithm with a group of people sounds so ridiculous and pointless in principle, but it's actually fun. Our brains are somehow wired to find it rewarding.
Extreme luck has the benefit of bringing everyone to the same level regardless of age or background, whereas e.g. chess, Counter-Strike or boxing is much less fun if one person is 10x better than the other. The more skill a game requires, the more it needs separate leagues for differing levels of ability.
Maybe there's also ironic enjoyment in playing a horse-race gambling game when most people playing have likely never watched a real horse race, let alone bet on one.
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