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Rabidgremlin's Soapbox
Personal blog · blog.rabidgremlin.comprogrammingculture
Rabidgremlin's Soapbox is a personal blog at blog.rabidgremlin.com about programming and culture. Since 2009, 11 different Hacker News readers have linked it 30 times, most often “Procedural content generation: creating a universe (2015)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-07-25, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (5) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link posts on procedural content generation, including L-Systems and generating a universe, plus using 4 Little Words to reach seized domains, boarding pass design, and the MeterRec app.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 5 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A little soapbox for me to stand on and rant from.
Most-linked posts?
- Procedural content generation: creating a universe (2015)5 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2015-01-14
- Procedural content generation: L-Systems3 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2014-12-24
- /2008/11/01/mpass-is-live/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-04-20
- /2010/11/28/4-little-words/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2010-11-27
What Hacker News says?
Elite (1984) generated its maps on demand, in real time: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2015/01/14/procedural-content-g... Admittedly, a few specks on a black background does not take a lot of generation!
Comment linking /2015/01/14/procedural-content-generation-creating-a-universe/
on “A thread on on the beauty of procedurally generated maps”Submitted Procedural content generation: creating a universe (2015) as a story · 140 points
HN discussionYou can also do these in 3D. See pics at the bottom of this post: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2014/12/09/procedural-content-g...
Comment linking /2014/12/09/procedural-content-generation-l-systems/
on “L-systems”Submitted IE10 won't run Flash unless website is whitelisted by Microsoft as a story · 100 points
HN discussionNice! reminds me of the "4 little words" thing I put together a few years ago http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2010/11/28/4-little-words/
Comment linking /2010/11/28/4-little-words/
on “Show HN: Use any text as a domain name”Submitted Mobile version of IE10 won’t run Flash by default as a story · 45 points
HN discussionI can't help but to do a shameless plug: the author also have an article about L-Systems [0] which inspired me to create my own interactive generator [1]. There isn't a release yet, but it is mainly functional and I already have some awesome results! Here is a video demo [2] and some produced L-Systems [3]. [0] http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2014/12/09/procedural-content-g... [1] https://github.com/epholys/procgen [2]…
Comment linking /2014/12/09/procedural-content-generation-l-systems/
on “Procedural content generation: creating a universe (2015)”Submitted Procedural content generation: L-Systems as a story · 43 points
HN discussionIf you are interested in some code and more examples: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2014/12/09/procedural-content-g...
Comment linking /2014/12/09/procedural-content-generation-l-systems/
on “L-System”Submitted Ask HN: Do all techies have a huge list of pet projects? as a story · 14 points
HN discussionPlant shapes animate particularly will. See the example about halfway through this post: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2014/12/09/procedural-content-g...
Comment linking /2014/12/09/procedural-content-generation-l-systems/
on “Show HN: Animating randomized L-Systems in real time”Submitted The viral spread of my privacy check app for Facebook as a story · 7 points
HN discussionpretty cool? See the 3D examples at the bottom of this post: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2014/12/09/procedural-content-g...
Comment linking /2014/12/09/procedural-content-generation-l-systems/
on “Evolving Lindenmayer Systems”Submitted Creating easy to remember passwords as a story · 4 points
HN discussionThe entire universe was procedurally generated because you couldn't hold all the data in the memory of an early microcomputer. I have a write up on how it worked here: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2015/01/14/procedural-content-g...
Comment linking /2015/01/14/procedural-content-generation-creating-a-universe/
on “Elite's crazy tokenized string routine”Submitted Procedural content generation: Creating an entire universe from three integers as a story · 3 points
HN discussionWTF? Email and SMS are not even remotely secure channels for transmission of data. Granted SMS is harder to get too but your telco typically stores all your messages (for a period of time) for law enforcement reasons and everything is passed in the clear for emails. You are better off using a trick like this one: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2009/12/28/tip-creating-easy-to... to create a unqiue but easy to remember…
Comment linking /2009/12/28/tip-creating-easy-to-remember-passwords/
on “Passwords are obsolete”Submitted Procedural content generation: Creating a universe as a story · 3 points
HN discussionPlaying with my son, DIY on the house and of course hacking: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/projects/
Comment linking /projects/
on “Ask HN: How do Hackers kill time when bored on weekend?”Submitted Procedural content generation: L-Systems as a story · 3 points
HN discussionI'm not sure why it looks that the URL is through the coral cache, and it's making the site really slow. http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2010/11/28/4-little-words/ It's a nice idea, though the word list may be refined a bit, and there could be larger word lists and something that takes account of nouns/verbs to create more cohesive sentences.
Comment linking /2010/11/28/4-little-words/
on “Using 4LW to reach sites with domains seized by the DHS”Submitted Procedural content generation: creating a universe as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI worked on this for Air New Zealand, it downloads your flights to your phone and displays a barcode that can be scanned at the check-in kiosks and at the gate. iPhone App: http://itunes.apple.com/app/air-new-zealand-mpass/id30485120... J2ME app: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2008/11/01/mpass-is-live/
Comment linking /2008/11/01/mpass-is-live/
on “Increasing the design efficiency of airline boarding passes”Submitted Procedural content generation: Creating a universe as a story · 1 points
HN discussionI have a bunch of plant examples here http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/tags/l-systems/
Comment linking /tags/l-systems/
on “L-System Simulations”Submitted Building a modern web app, tricks & tips as a story · 1 points
HN discussionWell its been a few years but the RIM Java framework was very messy and its J2ME support was average. Last thing I built that had Blackberry support was this http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2008/11/01/mpass-is-live/ Blackberry devices had the most support issues :(
Comment linking /2008/11/01/mpass-is-live/
on “Ask HN: How important is it to have a "lite" version of your mobile app?”Submitted How to be an architect as a story · 1 points
HN discussionClickable: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2010/10/17/meterrec-released
Comment linking /2010/10/17/meterrec-released
on “Ask HN: How important is it to have a "lite" version of your mobile app?”I use this trick to generate (in my head) a unique password for each site: http://blog.rabidgremlin.com/2009/12/28/tip-creating-easy-to...
Comment linking /2009/12/28/tip-creating-easy-to-remember-passwords/
on “Poll: How do you manage your passwords?”
