Ask HN: Who is hiring? (September 2025)

  (()=>{const T=1;window._u0=window._u0||update;update=function(){const W=gameCanvas.getBoundingClientRect().width,dist=0.92*W,vx=Math.abs(ball.speedX)||INITIAL_BALL_SPEED;let n=(dist/vx)/(60*T);n=Math.max(1,Math.min(20,Math.round(n)));for(let i=0;i<n;i++)_u0();};})()`

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bentt · 8h ago

That was my assumption as well and I'm sort of shattered that it doesn't work like this.

albert_e · 21h ago

I thought that was the idea and felt the seconds seemed tab bit longer :)

chrisweekly · 8h ago

tab -> tad

(for the sake of non-native English readers)

schoen · 3h ago

I don't understand either of those words in this context!

(Maybe "a tad"?)

wkjagt · 21h ago

I like to imagine two actual people controlling this game, and it's their job to control time. If one misses by accident, time for everyone on earth advances a little too quickly.

conception · 18h ago

Ah! Reminded me I have one of these in storage some place.

https://www.sandermulder.com/pong_clock.html

You can still get the screensaver.

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ChrisMarshallNY · 9h ago

The theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNAdtkSjSps

tombert · 23h ago

I have an old TV that I bought in 2015. It's in this kind of weird situation where it's "too good to throw away but not good enough to actually use". All I have been using it for in the last six years is plugging it into servers that only have a VGA port, and I don't have any of those anymore.

I've thought about mounting it to a wall plugging in a Raspberry Pi and have it constantly rotate fun different types of clocks. Something like this seems like it could be a fit.

BobbyTables2 · 21h ago

Wow, my only TV is from 2012!

tombert · 19h ago

I mean none of my TVs are top of the line, I don't own any TVs that cost more than $600, but I did feel like the upgrade to 4K was worth it back in ~2018.

The TV I was referring to was extremely cheap even in 2015. It's not even 1080p, and I'm not even 100% convinced it's even 720p, despite what it says. It served us well enough when I was broke working for academia, but I upgraded everything when I was able to afford it.

Still, this TV is relatively small and could still be kind of fun for a virtual clock, so it might be nice to get a bit more life out of it.

theden · 17h ago

Pretty cool! You can force a miss by setting these vars in the console

  scoreMinute += 1

  forceMissPaddle = rightPaddle; // or leftPaddle

empressplay · 23h ago

Cute, I love it! Thanks for sharing this.

It would be just a little bit better though if the paddles just missed the ball when the time changes rather than entirely stepping aside.

But still wonderful, nevertheless.

waltbosz · 21h ago

It took me a while to figure out that the time would advance when one of the paddles missed. I was also disappointed by the way it missed by intentionally moving to the top of the play field.

I wonder how difficult it would be to code it so the miss was more convincing.

mspreij · 15h ago

I spent longer than I care to admit trying to find the player keys..

stevage · 21h ago

Thanks for the hint about what is interesting about this.

yodon · 23h ago

Thank you for bringing a tiny bit of joy to the day

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ajd555 · 23h ago

This is great, congrats on getting it out!

mlcq · 16h ago

So cool, very creative.

stog · 23h ago

Out of curiosity, are you Scottish?

cyberpunk · 13h ago

I hope so, otherwise he’s in a bit of a disappointment if someone ever explains to him what his domain means in Scotland ;)

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GauntletWizard · 15h ago

I feel bad for the guy playing the left side; 0 - 55 is a heck of a deficit to come back from.

shmeeed · 9h ago

Yeah, the left guy's pretty bad. I admire his persistence, though!

They seem to play with a made-up rule set with a handicap: every time the left guy lands a goal, the other guy's score is reset... So left usually starts in the lead, but then quickly loses out again.

I estimate he's behind roughly 89% of the time.

(For a fun exercise, ask Google for that percentage. It's astonishing how wrong the AI answers can get.)

GauntletWizard · 4h ago

My "AI" response was actually pretty good; It summed up the number of minutes per hour, making only one (glaringly obvious but understandable by some metrics) error:

> Hour 12: The hour (12) is never greater than the minute (0–59), so the time is 0.

Misunderstanding how human clocks work, but right for this clock.

It then doubled that, because there's two 12-hour periods in a day, which was useless but reasonable, and finally divided by 1440 minutes in a day, and got an answer of 9%

Then I asked again, and while it got the same answer, it used totally different "reasoning" that was wrong in a unique way.

afandian · 10h ago

Left player is playing the long game.

cramcgrab · 21h ago

Better not let Atari see it, you’ll get a takedown notice.

pretzellogician · 6h ago

This is true. At least in the past, they've been pretty protective about the "pong" name. Example: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/21161/does-a-pon...

johntopia · 22h ago

this is actually entertaining