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Meta's blockbuster trial draws parallels to big tobacco

https://www.economist.com/business/2026/08/18/metas-blockbuster-trial-draws-parallels-to-big-tobacco
131•newsomix9xl•2h ago•88 comments

OpenLogi

https://openlogi.org/en
184•amatheus•3h ago•38 comments

Palomar: A registry of Lean verified mathematics

https://terrytao.wordpress.com/2026/08/18/palomar-a-registry-of-lean-verified-mathematics/
47•matt_d•2h ago•4 comments

The Amazon tax

https://seths.blog/2026/08/the-amazon-tax/
1062•herbertl•15h ago•604 comments

A 3D fruit fly on macOS desktop powered by the real FlyWire connectome

https://github.com/DenisSergeevitch/desktop-fly
212•phoenix120•7h ago•63 comments

Supersonic Trebuchet [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co57SfcT-h0
19•CharlesW•4d ago•0 comments

Cerebras CS-4

https://www.cerebras.ai/cs4
161•sunils34•4h ago•117 comments

Scientists stunned by children's lung recovery in ultra low emission zone

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1l1r1zne1ro
102•dabinat•4h ago•64 comments

The Vietnam Binh Chau (Chau Tan) Late Tang Wreck

https://www.koh-antique.com/client/tangwreck/tangwreck.html
10•teleforce•3h ago•0 comments

Solo – a .so loader for static Linux binaries

https://github.com/pg83/solo
84•zX41ZdbW•5h ago•81 comments

CUDA Shared Memory Swizzling

https://leimao.github.io/blog/CUDA-Shared-Memory-Swizzling/
24•jxmorris12•5d ago•0 comments

How does IKEA come up with names for its products?

https://www.ikea.com/se/en/customer-service/knowledge/articles/6f564c4d-2ccc-46de-b643-545a3948dc...
278•NaOH•11h ago•161 comments

AI usage patterns in software teams

https://linear.app/data
87•giuliomagnifico•7h ago•45 comments

Sticky wage norms and the real wage cost of unexpected inflation

https://bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/BFI_WP_2026-108-1.pdf
336•jplusequalt•4h ago•175 comments

Cursor launches Origin, GitHub alternative

https://cursor.com/changelog/origin-code-hosting
531•tomasreimers•1d ago•391 comments

Turbovec – Google's TurboQuant for vector search in Rust

https://github.com/RyanCodrai/turbovec
222•fittingopposite•11h ago•30 comments

Finger: the 1971 social network that never died

https://en.andros.dev/blog/54572bc7/finger-the-1971-social-network-that-never-died/
161•andros•21h ago•54 comments

And then the men with guns tell you to do it anyway

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/08/and-then-the-men-with-guns-tell-you-to-do-it-anyway/
238•_djo_•12h ago•147 comments

Show HN: Interactive, animated architecture of any HuggingFace models

https://modelmap.cc
60•lizhaoliu•5h ago•7 comments

Memory prices climb 500% in 12 months

https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/ram/memory-prices-climb-500-percent-in-12-months-up-to...
546•haunter•1d ago•451 comments

A 25-year-old video patent just expired, ending a legal headache for Linux

https://www.xda-developers.com/25-year-old-brazilian-video-patent-expired-legal-headache-linux/
133•theanonymousone•3d ago•44 comments

Tiny satellite will use the dark side of the Moon as a shield

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/tiny-satellite-will-use-the-dark-side-of-the-moon-to-eavesdro...
24•NordStreamYacht•4h ago•3 comments

Show HN: Automatically detect and patch walking-dead states in Sierra games

https://github.com/katiahayati/lucasartsifier/
17•wkfauna•3h ago•4 comments

Claude writing a macOS driver for my obscure HP printer built only for Windows

https://twitter.com/kuberwastaken/status/2089377982536388964
157•porridgeraisin•16h ago•141 comments

That Disgraceful, Disreputable, (Wonderful) Form of Punctuation: The Parenthesis

https://lithub.com/on-that-disgraceful-disreputable-wonderful-form-of-punctuation-the-parenthesis/
19•pseudolus•3h ago•7 comments

Universal health coverage could save $1T and 114k lives a year: study

https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/universal-health-coverage-could-save-one-trillion-dollars-and-...
795•karakoram•1d ago•853 comments

Being ambitious and being a dad

https://nicholascharriere.com/blog/being-ambitious-and-being-a-dad/
376•nichochar•2d ago•230 comments

Beware Management Consultants

https://about.iceland.co.uk/our-story/the-dark-ages/beware-management-consultants/
488•KolmogorovComp•9h ago•125 comments

The 90-year history of the binoculars bolted to scenic overlooks

https://www.dpreview.com/news/the-90-year-history-of-the-binoculars-bolted-to-scenic-overlooks/
43•sohkamyung•6h ago•7 comments

How a giant battery is transforming a town centre in Cannington, Ontario

https://betakit.com/how-a-giant-battery-is-transforming-a-town-centre-in-cannington-ontario/
38•builtbystef•4d ago•12 comments
Open in hackernews

Show HN: Automatically detect and patch walking-dead states in Sierra games

https://github.com/katiahayati/lucasartsifier/
17•wkfauna•3h ago
Hi HN, I've become lazier in my old age and struggle to replay my favorite Sierra games from the 80s and 90s because I keep getting into those situations where I need an item from 3 acts ago, I have no save game handy, and now I gotta make dinner.

So I'm building the Lucasartsifier: a static analysis tool that decompiles Sierra resource files, automatically finds those states, automatically generates code to prevent the player from getting into those states, then emits loose patch files that can be placed alongside the original game resources. There's no game-specific code involved; all the logic is generic, though of course Sierra introduces new idioms and mechanics in every game so every new supported game needs a bunch of engine work.

So for example in Leisure Suit Larry 2, the patched game prevents you from boarding the cruise ship until you have both the sunscreen and the Grotesque Gulp. Without them you die on the raft 3 play-hours later.

So far this works on Leisure Suit Larry 2 (SCI0), King's Quest 4 (SCI0), King's Quest 6 (SCI1.1), and Laura Bow 2 (SCI1.1). I'm currently working on King's Quest 5 (SCI1.0).

This is work done with Claude -- I do the design and playtesting and it does the rest :D

Any feedback, play testing, and suggestions would be great!

Comments

vunderba•2h ago
Nice job! I actually wrote a blog article about my love/hate relationship with KQ4 in particular - with a particular shoutout to my incredible irritation with the whole golden bridle scene [1].

Without spoiling anything, are you accounting for stuff like a player saving in the Minotaur's Labyrinth without a... shall we say crucial item necessary for a trap scene?

[1] - https://mordenstar.com/blog/kqiv

wkfauna•1h ago
Yes I'm with you on that bridle! And you can only get it by typing "look down", which is infuriating! I'm also discovering, working on KQ5, that it is really evil in allowing you to use items in certain ways that look fine at first (the action succeeds), but bite you in the butt later because you needed that item for something else and there was an other option you could have used. For example, throwing the leg of lamb at the cat to chase it away will work... but then good luck surviving the mountains. I love these games but MAN.

In KQ6, the patched game prevents you from returning to the Labyrinth entrance unless you hold everything you need for inside. Stepping on the mountain will just not work. So you can save inside... you should be "safe" at that point (as safe as you can ever be in a Sierra game, lol).

dafelst•57m ago
This is so cool, what a great project!

I remember using a single save game and soft locking myself in Space Quest 2 by not getting the glowing gem, and in Space Quest 1 I think by not picking up the shard of broken glass, and being so pissed off about having to replay.

The LSL dip and sunscreen issues you fixed were particularly egregious, by that point I feel like they should have fixed things.

While Sierra should absolutely be recognized for spawning an entire genre of games that were legitimately fun, it is crazy that they were fine with shipping games with these broken states, when it was eminently preventable.

wkfauna•16m ago
Thanks!! I mean, I can kiiiinda see it as a design philosophy... It does make games harder and make them feel higher stakes. What really gets me is some of the later games that look like they would be safe, but aren't. For example Gabriel Knight 1 has a day structure that looks like it would prevent you from getting stuck... but it doesn't, you can trigger a day's end without getting everything you actually need. That's just, like, evil haha