Recent submissions

Comment · 2 months ago
Where are you? I am in BC and can’t find them in grocery stores
Comment · 4 months ago
Amazing! Sorry I meant if the boats turned more slowly I think it would encourage more planning (and the enemies wouldn’t turn on a dime either)

In that mac game, there was a tradeoff between speed and the number of cannons / health too

Comment · 4 months ago
This brings back some memories! I used to play the Ancient Art of War at Sea on my dad's Mac Plus as a kid. Having never sailed, it was fun to learn about tacking while trying to broadside spanish galleons. Years later, I lied about my experience to convince a resort to let me check out a tiny catamaran. I made it back to shore!

One recommendation: make the boats not turn quite so fast. It allows you to outmaneuver other vessels by planning ahead or gaining speed ahead of time.

I still don't know much about sailing, but I have a lot of kitesurfing experience. Do boats really travel that slowly downwind? I assume that crosswind is faster, but downwind should still move at the speed of the wind.

Comment · 5 months ago
I don’t play much, but some people who play the “commander” format build decks that are carefully balanced against each other. My buddy and I had a blast collecting most of the Lord of the Rings set and playing games of Hobbits vs Sauron, Gandalf vs Galadriel, etc.

That’s how I first played it when I was 14 too. My friend hand a deck of each color and we just took turns playing them.

You might be able to find someone who has built 4 balanced commander decks and you can just play

Comment · 6 months ago
There are other RPGs with light rules that are WAY more fun than D&D. I've been playing "Blades in the Dark" recently, where the players run heists in a victorian ghost industrial city. It's an absolute delight.

D&D is better as a video game. Try Baldur's gate. It has the side benefit of teaching you the rules if you ever want to jump in to a local game

Comment · 6 months ago
You’ll never be blown too high. Rocks can be dangerous, but only in certain places and only if you make bad decisions: there are many safe locations around the world. It’s probably about as safe as skiing overall?

Quite weather dependent, but there are places around the world that have very reliable wind during certain seasons. My home area in BC is good almost every day in the summer. Brazil is fantastic all fall, etc

Comment · 6 months ago
One can take many good ideas from less wrong, yudkowsky et al without adopting a rationalist identity. Sure, it attracted wackos and they made a cult or two. But that could happen to anyone!
Comment · 6 months ago
I work remotely, and my schedule is flexible. I live in Squamish BC all summer which is great for wind. In the winter we are in UT but my friends take lots of kiting destination vacations.

I’m fairly late in my career though (44yo), so I’ve opted for a lower salary, low stress and flexible job.

Comment · 7 months ago
Not sure if you were looking only for indoor hobbies, but I picked up Kiteboarding recently, and it is the most outrageously fun thing I've ever done.

It's like being a kid and jumping off the house with a bedsheet, except it works. Most mistakes are laughed off by splashing in the water. I'm 3 years in and I can jump 7-10m then fly like a bird for 5-10 seconds without consequences.

Even as a beginner, sailing around or just feeling a kite pull you around is such a blast. Keep in mind it's really difficult and pretty much requires 10-20 hours of private lessons.

Comment · 1 year ago
I have heard that phrase a million times and never understood it until your example. Thank you
Comment · 1 year ago
A lot! Maybe it's obvious, but I've long thought that religion's primary function is to help people process death (and other suffering). Now that life isn't constant suffering, many of us have discarded religion, but then we are blindsided by death.

I was very religious for 30 years, and have a very religious family. I've been athiest for more than a decade now, and it's sad to me that to leave religion behind I had to give up all my family traditions to process death. Those traditions are still there, but I can't relate to them since they are based on a belief I no longer agree with

Comment · 1 year ago
I’ve been athletic most of my life. At 42 I feel much older than at 32. Chronic injuries add up! Be careful out there everybody
Comment · 1 year ago
The adaptive optics system for the DKIST solar telescope actually deforms each point of the mirror at 60Hz or something to do wavefront correction!
Comment · 1 year ago
Evolution doesn't care at all if we get to the top of the food chain. I think that we, as the dominant species on the earth, mistakenly assume that we are the most evolved since we are in charge. Which is more evolutionarily successful, the human or the wheat plant?

If another mass extinction occurs, we are toast (See "The Ends of the Earth"). Relatively minor ecological changes may even destroy us. Sapience has not yet proven to grant any long-term advantage.

Comment · 2 years ago
For anyone else who discovers they are a fast metabolizer of coffee: try eating a big breakfast before drinking coffee to slow absorption.

I wanted to be a coffee drinker for YEARS, but it made me really high, and I felt super tired later in the day. I don't know why I didn't connect the dots until I searched my genome, but once you know whether you are a fast or slow metabolizer you can play all sorts of games. I can now drink coffee before dinner, and the crash hits right at bedtime.

Live from the official Hacker News API

A modern reader for Hacker News · SvelteKit + Skeleton