PlaygroundRichard Powers
Playground
by Richard Powers · first published 2024
5mentions
2recommended by
4HN commenters
2024–2025first – last mentioned
50% recommend50% neutral
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My favorites that I read this year were: - Playground by Richard Powers: the ocean reminds us that we, along with our obsessions and rivalries, are small - Orbital by Samantha Harvey: a book were not much happens, but a lot goes on below the surface - Hum…
on “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” ↗I'm reminded of "Playground", the extraordinary novel by Pulitzer-winning author Richard Powers, which includes a close look at phosphate mining in French Polynesia. Highly recommended.
on “Massive amount of rare metal deposits found off remote pacific island in Japan” ↗Speaking of book recommendations, Pulitzer-winning author Richard Powers wrote a terrific (Booker-nominated) novel about the ocean, "Playground"[0]. 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playground_(novel)
on “'Dark oxygen': a deep-sea discovery that has split scientists” ↗Not enough. Going to try to rein in some sustained attention in the new year. - Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - Playground by Richard Powers - Designing Data Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppman I'm curious how much AI-generated stuff I read this year... likely at least a book's worth, but it would be more like one…
on “Ask HN: What did you read in 2025?” ↗…player, hardly known for theatrics, got up and left the table. This is an incredibly minor nitpick, but I recently went down the rabbit hole of move 37[1] after reading Richard Powers' latest novel, Playground, and Sedol didn't get up, he was already away from the table. He did, however, take far longer to make his next move (iirc something like 12-15 minutes instead of 2-4). 1: A good start, maybe is <https://www.wired.com/2016/03/two-moves-alphago-lee-sedol-re...>…
on “Ben Affleck's surprisingly comprehensive take on LLMs for video” ↗