asteroidb612's comments

On: Ethereum Goerli testnet merge goes live before move to proof-of-stake

[asteroidb612]

This is a recent guide that attempts to cover everything in depth: https://members.delphidigital.io/reports/the-hitchhikers-gui...

[thematrixturtle → asteroidb612]

Here's the first paragraph of actual content:

Hopefully you’ve heard by now that Ethereum has pivoted to a rollup-centric roadmap. No more execution shards – Ethereum will instead optimize for data-hungry rollups. This is achieved via data sharding (Ethereum’s plan, kind of) or big blocks (Celestia’s plan).

I've been following crypto for years and could probably explain Bitcoin in a pinch, but I'll cheerfully admit I have no clue what that means.

On: GM scales back partnership with electric truck startup Nikola

[asteroidb612]

Well done

I haven't logged in in years, but this was so well done.

On: Ask HN: Who is hiring? (August 2018)

[asteroidb612]

Unhealthy Brains, do they show things? What do they show? Let's find out!

On: Chatbots were the next big thing: what happened?

[asteroidb612]

Have any recommendations?

[the_af → asteroidb612]

The best place to look for cool and innovative (and free!) IF games is the Interactive Fiction Competition [0].

Anything by Andrew Plotkin [1] (aka Zarf) is guaranteed to be interesting. Other indie authors of renown to look for are Emily Short and Adam Cadre. But also look for new authors! Mind you, modern IF focuses less in puzzles and more in narrative or exploring the boundaries of the medium.

One of my personal favorites is "Spider and Web" by Zarf, because I love its Cold War-esque setting. Mind you, it can be difficult! The best IF games also explore the console interface itself, such as in "Fail Safe".

An example of a particularly innovative game is "Rematch" [2]: it's a single move game (i.e. you win or fail in a single input, which can be quite complicated and shows off what modern parsers can do). It's sort of a "Groundhog Day" where you must prevent a disaster in a single move, and if you lose you replay it again, and again, and again, till you get it right.

Many of these games can be played in a browser, without installing anything.

----

[0] https://ifcomp.org/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Plotkin

[2] http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=22oqimzgf8snv002

[throwawayjava → the_af]

For anyone else interested, I'll save you five minutes:

        sudo apt-get install gargoyle-free;
        wget http://mirror.ifarchive.org/if-archive/games/tads/Rematch.gam;
        gargoyle Rematch.gam

[asteroidb612 → the_af]

Thanks so much!

[shpx → asteroidb612]

Zork is one of the first games in this genre and it's surprisingly good at parsing commands.

You can play it at https://classicreload.com/zork-i.html or http://textadventures.co.uk/games/view/5zyoqrsugeopel3ffhz_v...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zork

[jhbadger → shpx]

The Infocom games were actually after a lot of earlier games like Colossal Cave (aka "Adventure") and the Scott Adams (not the Dilbert guy) adventures. As such, their parser was actually pretty advanced compared to the 1970s games and understood whole sentences rather than the traditional two words.

On: How to Learn Hacking

[asteroidb612]

I read ESR's How to Become a Hacker about 10 years ago, and it was what turned me from a kid who spent a lot of time on computers and was interested in them into a programmer.

On: The Next Generation of Gesture Control

[asteroidb612]

This could be used to create the greatest Avatar the Last Airbender game ever.

On: Ask HN: How to License My Program

[asteroidb612]

The IP is mine, as all of the code has been written by myself or is available under the MIT License. My friend is the owner of the company, does not claim the IP at all.

The nature of the program is that it is useful in that given a period of time, it can tell the user various statistics of their dealings. Target users would want to be able to generate this data at will, and so I don't think a subscription service would be useful.