M
Mark J. Nelson
kmjn.org · Personal blog · on HN since 2010
Mark J. Nelson, a game AI researcher, writes notes on patents, programming languages, Wikipedia, and algorithms.
What HN saysHN links his notes on the Tapper videogame patent, broken Wi-Fi access points, and Wikipedia notability; a commenter also mentions his cheap static hosting costs.
20HN people shared it
5linked it in comments
62stories submitted
1.6Kstory points
6 months agolast shared
2010people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The 'Tapper' videogame patent (2015)4 people · 96 points · first shared 2015 · 7 comments on HN
- 2Why did Prolog lose steam? (2010)4 people · 7 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 3The convergence of notability and verifiability on Wikipedia4 people · 5 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 4This Message Does Not Exist3 people · 825 points · first shared 2024 · 260 comments on HN
- 5Soviet gamification3 people · 42 points · first shared 2011 · 49 comments on HN
- 6NP-hard problems aren't always hard3 people · 2 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 7Weirdly broken Wi-Fi access points2 people · 178 points · first shared 2016 · 173 comments on HN
- 8Operator precedence by textual substitution2 people · 103 points · first shared 2022 · 26 comments on HN
- 9Retention of early Slashdot users2 people · 29 points · first shared 2011 · 13 comments on HN
- 10Search-oriented tools for Unix-style mail: mu and notmuch2 people · 4 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
- 11Game metrics without players2 people · 4 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 12Cyano-View Copenhagen2 people · 3 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 13Automated and Assisted Design (2011)2 people · 2 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 14Porting microgpt to Futhark, Part I2 people · 2 points · first shared 2026 · discussion on HN
- 15Geographically densest Wikipedia coverage2 people · 2 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
mjn · 2013-05-05
I'm quite happy with them as well. For a static site without big media files it's almost free: hosting http://www.kmjn.org/ there costs me an average of $0.50/mo ($0.10 storage, $0.40 bandwidth).
Having ssh access and quite a bit of tech freedom, for either CGI stuff or just manually run command-line processing, is also quite nice. And although not everyone likes it, I like their idiosyncratic custom web admin panel.
_delirium · 2011-09-17
Isn't forcing yourself to emulate an expression pretty weird, though? It reminds me of the companies that demand everyone be "enthusiastic" and love their "fun workplace", rather than just allowing people to be quietly good at their job (http://www.kmjn.org/notes/funsultants_and_gamification.html).
pizza234 · 2018-02-05
Although this clone is clearly not the case, and I'm not aware any (high profile) cases, it is actually possible to patent the design of a game.
There is a very interesting read about a video game patent:
http://www.kmjn.org/notes/tapper_videogame_patent.html
titled (drum roll) "Video game in which a host image repels ravenous images by serving filled vessels".
jeeva · 2016-09-16
You may be interested to read this, though the end result is somewhat disappointing / amusing: http://www.kmjn.org/notes/broken_wifi_access_points.html
idonthack · 2011-05-24
A significant portion of articles on any wikipedia are about cities, towns, local governments, local businesses, minor celebrities, landmarks, &c. For major locations like New York or Berlin, there will of course be articles in many languages, but other things that are insignificant outside their locality are likely to only have an article in their native language. Take for example the Catalan wikipedia, which contains a large number of stubs with basic info on locations in rural Catalonia. [1] The English-speaking world is vastly larger in land area and population than the German-speaking world, so I speculate that the difference in size is due to the number of location-relevant articles.
[1] http://www.kmjn.org/notes/geographically_dense_wikipedia.html