offsky
Re:Redesigning Source Control at Anthropic
on Tuesday October 13, 2026 @08:12PM (#50080753)
30,000 code changes per day and yet I still can’t change the email address on my account?
Re:Japanese used bookstores see 5x sales surge as books are being boug...
on Thursday September 24, 2026 @07:26PM (#49838170)
Business plan: Use AI to write fake old books. Make a used bookstore to sell these books back to AI for training.
Re:Dark Pattern Games
on Monday November 17, 2025 @01:36AM (#45951308)
Clearly reciprocity is a good part of social interaction. So it’s not necessarily a dark pattern. But it can be if games use it as a mechanism to get you hooked. Maybe by punishment or guilt, or by encouraging extra in app purchases so you can donate to your guild mates. This is addressed a bit in my FAQ.
https://www.darkpattern.games/faq.php
Re:Dark Pattern Games
on Monday November 17, 2025 @01:22AM (#45951253)
It’s meant to look like an old NES game controller.
Re:Dark Pattern Games
on Monday November 17, 2025 @01:15AM (#45951225)
It’s always shocking to see one of my sites pop up on HN.
For context around my motivation to make the site. I was really addicted to a certain mobile game to the point that it was affecting my work and family life. I stumbled upon an article about how game companies hire psychologists to make the games more addicting. This led me down a rabbit hole of researching dark patterns. It was very eye opening and by learning about the dark patterns they lost their power over me. I was able to quit playing the addictive game. I still play games, I just pick better games and the dark patterns don’t work on me anymore. The research and education that I gave myself was so helpful in restoring balance to my life that I wanted to share it with others. Hence the website. It’s about 7 years old.
The most important part of my site is the text descriptions of the dark patterns. The crowd sourced game reviews are probably spam and rubbish and I’ve been meaning to remove them. I had written code to scrape the iOS and android stores to automatically add new games but this code broke ages ago and I never fixed it. The game listings are years out of date. I had plans to include console and pc games but never got around to it. I moved on to other projects.
I have received many emails over the years from people who say that my site has helped them stop or avoid playing addictive games. This makes me happy.
Re:Cory Doctorow on how we lost the internet
on Wednesday May 28, 2025 @11:59AM (#44117451)
The thing I don't understand is how unethical stuff like this comes to be built. Take the example where nurses with debt get lower wages because they are desperate. Some manager had to come up with this idea and then get various people to agree and then get a team of engineers to implement it. Thats a lot of people agreeing to do something so clearly evil (to me at least). Are there that many people who just don't care? Whenever I read stories similar to this I always wonder how many people went along without objecting.
Re:Vacheron Constantin Breaks the World Record for Most Complicated Wr...
on Saturday April 12, 2025 @09:21AM (#43664144)
I became interested in complicated watches several years ago and knew I could never afford one, so I made a website with simulated watch dials. Just for fun and education. It was also a great way for me to learn svg animations.
https://www.complication.watch/
Re:Mandelbrot Set Explorer
on Sunday March 16, 2025 @12:07PM (#43380083)
I tried adding deep zoom to mine, https://www.zazow.com but it became way too slow. Arbitrary precision math is just orders of magnitude slower, at least in the way that I understand it. I am not a mathematician.
Re:Cross Views
on Wednesday February 26, 2025 @10:30PM (#43191024)
Is there a way to turn Apple special photos into cross view images?
Re:Apple Launches Apple Invites
on Tuesday February 04, 2025 @02:07PM (#42937091)
It would be cool if Apple made something like this for public events with a way to browse local events. I acknowledge that moderation of spam would be an issue.
Re:WebGL Fluid Simulation
on Sunday December 29, 2024 @10:51AM (#42540627)
I would love to see a lava lamp simulator with this type of quality. I’ve tried before to make one but alas I don’t have the math.
Ask HN: Which tech-stack requires the least knowledge and complexity?
I am rebuilding the website for my hobby club (currently wordpress). I would like to add some new features for members, but I also want be mindful about future maintainers who may not be technical.The top 2 criteria are: 1) It has to be super simple for certain elderly non technical members to add items to an events calendar and upload a PDF of the monthly newsletter for members to download....
Re:Apple is launching its own password manager app
on Monday June 10, 2024 @05:13PM (#40639176)
If I lose access to my Apple account (via hacking, being banned or otherwise), do I also lose access to all my saved password? Thats what I want to know.
Re:Empty S.F. office tower formerly valued at $62M sold for $6.5M
on Wednesday April 24, 2024 @09:41AM (#40144291)
I wonder what the annual maintenance, utilities, taxes and other upkeep would be on that.
Re:Tesla Recalls All Cybertrucks for Faulty Accelerator Pedals
on Friday April 19, 2024 @03:18PM (#40090926)
This is surprising to me too because I saw 3 different Cybertrucks on the road yesterday. I guess I live in a hot zone.
Re:Device stopped working because your medical prescription has expired
on Sunday April 14, 2024 @11:27AM (#40031793)
Here is a migraine headache therapy that works on the same principle.
It’s really difficult to get prescription and insurance to line up and then they mail you a RFID card that you scan to “refill” the device.
Re:Introducing Kagi Search's New Design
on Thursday April 11, 2024 @09:48AM (#40002118)
Why is sales tax being applied now? Is there some new tax law or is Kagi offering a new benefit that requires taxation?
Re:Framework: We don't want to have to make a printer, but wow
on Thursday January 25, 2024 @11:14PM (#39138891)
My brother laser worked great for years. Then I decided to save money and get generic toner. A week later my brother printer bricked itself. It won’t even turn on. Probably a coincidence, but still makes me angry.
Re:Ask HN: Reddit died, nothing took its place. What will happen when ...
on Wednesday December 20, 2023 @09:20PM (#38716300)
If HN suddenly dies there will be 1000 former HN users who will create a clone in a weekend.
Re:Ask HN: How to figure out a good direction/goals for the year ahead?
on Monday December 18, 2023 @12:29AM (#38679534)
I did this exercise last year called “8760 Hours” which is a series of prompts to help refine your values and goals for the year. I then reviewed my answers at the beginning of each month to make sure I hadn’t strayed off target. It was very helpful for me and I’ll do it again for 2024.
Re:Why doctors pay millions in fees that could be spent on care
on Tuesday August 15, 2023 @05:24PM (#37139455)
I was recently at a museum and I had two choices to buy a ticket. Buy a paper ticket from a real person or use a self-service kiosk which emails me a ticket for a $5 electronic delivery fee. Why??
I am always baffled by fees for electronic delivery of anything.
Re:Farmworkers thought a new overtime law would help them. Now, they w...
on Friday July 21, 2023 @05:26PM (#36820025)
This is exactly what I thought. Or maybe 1 farm will split itself into two separate corporate entities and employees will work 35h for each one and nothing changes.
Re:Ask HN: How do you find high quality mobile games?
on Sunday June 25, 2023 @02:40PM (#36471321)
https://www.darkpattern.games/
My site to track games with dark patterns and those without.
Ask HN: Is Flutter/Dart safe from the Google chopping block?
I was just about to invest considerable time and effort into learning Flutter and building a cross platform app. I’m well aware of Google’s propensity to cancel products, but the Google Domains news was still surprising to me because it seemed central to their GCP business. Now. I’m not so sure that Flutter won’t be canned next year. I mean, Google isn’t making mega money directly from Flutter,...
Ask HN: Insurance suggestions for SaaS side project?
I am preparing to launch a side project in the saas space. As with all saas projects, I will be storing customer data and I want to protect myself from data loss or data leaks either through my own stupidity or through malicious actors. I already have an LLC to protect my personal assets and I already have language in my T&C to do what it can. However, I also need insurance and that is...
Re:Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (May 2023)
on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @12:59PM (#35790654)
I recently joined forces with some web dev/designer friends to start a team for hire. Collectively we have a ton of experience building and shipping websites of all kinds. We are looking for clients who need help building early stage SaaS products, or similar.
Location: USA
Remote: Yes, we are a remote team spread around the US
Technologies: SQL, PHP, Python, Node, JS (all flavors), HTML, CSS, UI/UX, etc
Résumé/CV: https://www.omegacollectiv.com
Email: [email protected]
Re:Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (May 2023)
on Tuesday May 02, 2023 @12:58PM (#35790630)
I recently joined forces with some web dev/designer friends to start a team for hire. Collectively we have a ton of experience building and shipping websites of all kinds. We are looking for clients who need help building early stage SaaS products, or similar.
Location: USA
Remote: Yes, only
Willing to relocate: No, we are a remote team spread around the US
Technologies: SQL, PHP, Python, Node, JS (all flavors), HTML, CSS, UI/UX, etc
Résumé/CV: https://www.omegacollectiv.com
Email: [email protected]
Re:Ask HN: How do I keep my elderly father safe on the internet?
on Sunday April 02, 2023 @05:12PM (#35415264)
That gives a new meaning to "parental control". I like it!
Re:Thinking hard makes the brain tired
on Sunday April 02, 2023 @10:51AM (#35411075)
Can someone please explain the picture at the top of the article?