Top all-time · #4212
Hall of Impossible Dreams
Personal blog · hallofdreams.org/postsgamesprogramming
Hall of Impossible Dreams is a personal blog at hallofdreams.org about games and programming. Since 2022, 18 different Hacker News readers have linked it 30 times, most often “Getting the World Record in Hatetris (2022)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-11-01, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (7) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog for its HATETRIS Tetris world-record post, plus pieces on backdated AI-generated forum posts, Trackmania and programming ants. Commenters single out the HATETRIS post.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 7 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A repository of code, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Most-linked posts?
- Getting the World Record in Hatetris (2022)9 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2022-08-12
- PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2025-01-24
- Losing the World Record in Hatetris3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-07-02
What Hacker News says?
I have heard of a forum (I believe it was Physics Forums) which was very popular in the older days of the internet where some of the older posts were actually edited so that they were completely rewritten with new content. I forget what the reasoning behind it was, but it did feel shady and unethical. If I remember correctly, the impetus behind it was that the website probably went under new ownership and the new ow…
Comment linking /posts/physicsforums/
on “Search tool that only returns content created before ChatGPT's public release”Submitted Getting the World Record in Hatetris (2022) as a story · 285 points
HN discussionThe problem I see with any date after the popularity of the internet is that you just can't be sure of the right date. A lot of traditional web forums now have backdated forum posts that are clearly made by LLM with an implausible date: https://hallofdreams.org/posts/physicsforums/
Comment linking /posts/physicsforums/
on “Using generative AI as part of historical research: three case studies”Submitted PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory as a story · 264 points
HN discussionSome context about why http://hallofdreams.org/posts/trackmania-1/
Comment linking /posts/trackmania-1/
on “Trackmania Nightmares”Submitted The History of Machine Learning in Trackmania as a story · 123 points
HN discussionI wrote a... slightly substantial writeup: https://hallofdreams.org/posts/agents-and-ants/
Comment linking /posts/agents-and-ants/
on “Show HN: Swarm – Program a colony of 200 ants using a custom assembly language”Submitted PhysicsForums and the Dead Internet Theory (2025) as a story · 112 points
HN discussionThere was a time when lots of people read and wrote poetry that was meant to be enjoyed. With modernism this on ramp of poetry that was accessible disappeared, leaving only poetry enjoyable by wannabe poets. Poets, like literary novelists, write for their own pleasure or that of those who can offer them jobs (teaching MFAs, writers in residence, spiritually similar things). There’s no source of genuinely popular con…
Comment linking /posts/the-death-of-poetry/
on “Things to argue about over the holidays instead of politics”Submitted Trackmania Nightmares as a story · 89 points
HN discussionI just went down a rabbit hole with this excellent blog post on using data structures, search algorithms, and maybe some machine learning to try to beat the previous world record of 66 lines: https://hallofdreams.org/posts/hatetris/
Comment linking /posts/hatetris/
on “Setris – Tetris with Sand Physics”Submitted The Death of Poetry as a story · 22 points
HN discussionOne of my favorite online stories is about hatetris: Getting the World Record in HATETRIS - David & Felipe https://hallofdreams.org/posts/hatetris/ https://corecursive.com/hatetris-with-david-and-felipe/
Comment linking /posts/hatetris/
on “Cheating at Tetris”Submitted Getting the World Record in Hatetris (The Hardest Version of Tetris) as a story · 12 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting the World Record in Hatetris as a story · 10 points
HN discussionSubmitted Losing the World Record in Hatetris as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting the World Record in Hatetris as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting the World Record in Hatetris as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Agents and Ants Antagonists in Assembly – The Swarm Challenge as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted I Fixed My Coworker's Alignment Problem as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Losing the World Record in Hatetris as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Trackmania III – The Eyes as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting the world record in HATETRIS (2022) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Losing the World Record in Hatetris as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting the World Record in Hatetris (2022) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting the World Record in Hatetris as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting the World Record in Hatetris as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Ant-Ssembly Line as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted The x86 Inferno – A Descent into Advent of Code as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Getting the World Record in Hatetris (2022) as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
