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Only pirates get to keep their games forever.
Re:Minetest: An open source voxel game engine on Monday May 01, 2023 @08:31AM (#35771892)
The undeservedly little-known Planet Explorers¹ has a rather nice voxel engine and is using it well. Mine anything, dig tunnels in any shape, modify terrain, etc.

Without the cuboid look.

¹ https://store.steampowered.com/app/237870/Planet_Explorers/

Re:First clean water, now clean air on Monday May 01, 2023 @08:19AM (#35771773)
The Thames is still very much opaque. Not near-opaque.
Re:Datomic Is Now Free on Thursday April 27, 2023 @10:42AM (#35728896)
Where's the source? Why does it say "Pricing" on the website if it's free? This isn't free, it's just an attempt at free publicity.
Yup. In the sense that the unstoppable guillotine blade is descending slightly slower onto our necks. Yay!
Privacy is a human right, LEARN IT.
That depends. If you're on a slow connection, the 40 minutes to unpack something are nothing in comparison to the week it took you to download it. If used by the game publisher, the decompression could happen during download (I believe this is how steam does it).

If you're on a metered connection (common in many of the more forgotten parts of the world), the bloated download costs you real money or is simply not possible (or you have to spread it over several periods of data allowance).

Well, whatever the repackers (e.g. Fitgirl) use seems to work a lot better than what the game publishers use (often no compression at all).

Original Size: 93.1 GB -> Repack Size: from 35.5 GB [Selective Download]

Original Size: 3.1 GB -> Repack Size: 844 MB

And these are lossless, bit for bit reproductions. In many cases assets (audio, video, images/textures) could be using lossy compression for even greater reduction in size with no significant loss in perceived quality (but maybe some loss of advertising/bragging rights).

The downside is, some effort is required packing it: https://fitgirl-repacks.site/new-compression-algorithm/

Re:Making a Keyboard Layout on Sunday February 26, 2023 @07:34AM (#34945044)
I've relearnt keyboard layouts once and know I can do it, but I also remember how long it took to get fast on the new one and how I don't want to do that again.

Not to mention all the other issues with getting your new fancy layout to work in every operating system and app and then being really thrown when you try to type on any other "normal" person's keyboard for a minute.

It's already hard enough spending 15 minutes in every new computer game to change the default WASD keybinds to the superior ESDF.

Re:Kraken to end on-chain staking services for U.S. clients on Friday February 10, 2023 @10:54AM (#34741311)
You put your money into something called "Kraken" (other than rum perhaps) and this surprises you?
Re:Gen Z Netiquettes on Sunday February 05, 2023 @06:55AM (#34664155)
Wonderful.
Re:30k lines of SwiftUI in production later on Saturday January 28, 2023 @07:27AM (#34557031)
To me that seems like an incredibly huge amount of code for an app user interface. Turbo vision certainly was much more efficient, or even wxWidgets.
Re:“My chest fridge consumes about 0.1 kWh a day.” on Friday November 04, 2022 @06:04AM (#33464124)
This has never bothered me until moving on a boat, where top-loading fridges (often ice boxes with a compressor kit retrofitted) are the norm. Because energy supply is very limited. They are integrated into the kitchen work surface and double as a temporary workspace when closed.

So it's possible to save space _and_ energy.

Now the standup kitchen fridges in houses really bother me. Every time I see someone open one, I imagine seeing all that cold air being sucked out by the opening door and falling on the ground.

Re:“My chest fridge consumes about 0.1 kWh a day.” on Friday November 04, 2022 @05:59AM (#33464097)
They're very common here in Europe. Although when shops get remodeled they usually are replaced with newer models that have doors (and now doors that close themselves, because people). Seems the energy costs have risen sufficiently to make them care.
Re:Taking Lichess to the Next Level on Saturday October 29, 2022 @12:22PM (#33385477)
A necromancer who voluntarily became undead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lich
Re:Taking Lichess to the Next Level on Saturday October 29, 2022 @05:58AM (#33382566)
I always read lichess as female lich. Then I get confused when I click on it and see chess boards. Probably played too many fantasy games.
Re:Ask HN: Is it still possible to live in a terminal? on Friday October 14, 2022 @03:33PM (#33207864)
No, you need food and water.
Re:Transmission 4.0.0 beta 1 is out on Friday October 07, 2022 @05:42AM (#33119200)
Yup, downloading stuff reliably over lousy internet connections (packet loss, high latency, intermittent uptime). HTTP really sucks with that.
Re:Lazarus IDE – write once, compile anywhere on Sunday September 11, 2022 @05:09AM (#32798068)
getlazarus.org appears to be a fan site. The builds are unofficial, but unlikely to be harmful. Might be safest to get the software from the official site or your distro packages though.
Re:Queen Elizabeth II has died on Thursday September 08, 2022 @05:51PM (#32772545)
Imagine being groomed to do this job from birth, with no real way to opt out[1]. You wanted to breed horses, become a blacksmith or start a business? Get that nonsense out of your head, you're a princess!

Then, when you're 25, your daddy dies aged only 56 and after a rather brief period of mourning you get pushed into taking his job in a pompous ceremony. Now you're going to be doing this until you die. No retirement! I bet there were times where Lilibet just wanted to go to her room and cry.

I wouldn't have wanted her job for all the wealth and power that came with it.

[1] Well, you could make a big scandal about marrying an American divorcee, but that didn't go down too well for the last guy.

Re:Johnny Mnemonic in Black-and-White on Monday September 05, 2022 @05:48AM (#32722375)
Yeah, absolutely hated the Ozark (TV Series) look. Heavily desaturated, brightness turned down and shifted heavily into blue. Ruined what looks like pretty scenery in the background on photos.

Compare that to Outlander, a cheesy romance show I mostly just kept watching because of the beautiful (saturated) landscape shots.

Re:Johnny Mnemonic in Black-and-White on Monday September 05, 2022 @04:43AM (#32721933)
I absolutely hate monochrome. The trend of removing colour from something and calling it an improvement. In photography, in film, everywhere.

Is it just me? Is there something different with my visual perception that makes me prefer colour over monochrome after we worked so hard to evolve the right photoreceptors in our eyes and the colour in photography, film and computer screens? Or is it just my general low tolerance of pretentious bullshit?

Most of us will have illegal, unregistered phones then, running hacked firmware. Just look at Russia, China or all the illegal satellite dishes on Saudi rooftops.

It's an arms race all the way to the collapse of the system (or revolution). Rinse, repeat.

At some point it'll be easier to run it as TOR hidden service, on Freenet or I2P and stop caring about the bullshit legislation.
Re:Ask HN: Should I checkmate my employer? on Sunday August 28, 2022 @04:41PM (#32631866)
What's your motivation, you just want more money? Do you like working there? Do you like the people? Then go talk to them, tell them what you want (but figure out what that is first), explain how you're going to have to go look for it somewhere else if it can't be achieve with them.

If it's just money you want, go brag up the CV and spam applications. Something will stick eventually and you can climb the career ladder until you realize the uselessness of this endeavour.

Re:Ask HN: Lost in My Career on Sunday August 28, 2022 @04:37PM (#32631831)
Quit job, moved country, got stuck in another cycle of dumb jobs. Quit those, bought a sailboat, moved on it, sailed the world for the last, uhm, 6 years now (time loses importance in this life).

Found a wife on the way, learnt a lot of new things, and even more about myself and the world.

Next I think we'll change the boat for a farmstead and grow some food.

Career? It can stay lost.

Oh, because you're gonna ask what I do for money: Not much really. Tiny bit of passive income, some savings. The key was to massively reduce the spending instead. It's enough.

Prevention. I don't let it get stolen. Never leave it laying around unattended or where it could easily be grabbed by someone.
So use a differently named Firefox, like LibreWolf. While you look for a proper job.
Re:FreeBSD on the Framework Laptop on Tuesday August 23, 2022 @03:56PM (#32570582)
> wifibox essentially spins up an Alpine Linux VM using FreeBSD's bhyve virtualization technology, and allows you to passthrough your machine's wireless card

Jesus christ.

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