alt Hacker NewsMike Tomlin spent 12 years building a Minecraft city
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Y’all really should watch the video if you havent! I think even if you have no interest in Minecraft, or football (as others have mentioned Tomlin was a long tenured NFL coach until this year). There’s something so refreshingly earnest, and joyful about watching someone share something they’ve poured so much time and themselves into.
For those who don't know Mike Tomlin is the former head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the second longest tenured coach in the league, and never had a losing season before resigning his job last year.
The idea of any NFL head coach having time to do this, especially a winning one, is absurd.
A pretty funny analysis I saw:
Before Minecraft city (2007–2013): 5–3 in the playoffs — 62.5% win rate
After starting the city (2014–2025): 3–9 in the playoffs — 25.0% win rate
One of his star players posted this in response.
https://x.com/LeVeonBell/status/2105491655142867280
For those without X, "we were tryna win super bowls and coach T was on minecraft building cities "
I love this, and love listening to how much he's connected to the thing he made. This should remind us that not everything is done with an end goal in mind.
If you're unfamiliar with Minecraft, the build he's showcasing isn't actually advanced when it comes to building. Building in Minecraft is almost an art form, and many techniques have been developed over the years. This is because you have limited control over what you want to express: you are operating at a block granularity (more or less) and a limited number of block types that give blocks different textures.
A tech savvy teen could probably write a Java mod that generates something similar to what he's done, even prior to LLMs. An LLM could take a Google Streets feed of NY and replicate it in-game, etc.
And he wouldn't care! The thing he's made is his own, made under his own constraints, shaped by his own mind.
Perhaps a lesson of meaning in the LLM era?
Best part is that he did this all with a controller + pretty slow sensitivity settings. Aka this probably took 2X as long as someone on a PC doing the same thing
"I started playing Minecraft, man, when my kids were young,” Tomlin said. “I have a Minecraft city in creative that I’ve been working on for like 12 years."
Yeah, it is fun exploring dungeons with my kids. But it seems he clicked the city together? That part always bothered me with minecraft to build anything big, or repetitive.
Well, I love automation, and AI is awesome for that. So now my kids can add details to castles or railwails build by algorithm (But using commands is a big temptation to destroy game balance in survival mode).
I didn’t last 5 minutes trying to play Minecraft on a console, as it felt so tedious. This is seriously impressive.
I think if we had some sort of UBI/provision for necessities this is the sort of thing people would be doing, and it would be great.
I love this and thought I was being trolled when I noticed it trending.
Immediately made me think of this exchange:
Ryan Bingham: [after informing Bob that he has been let go] Your resume says you minored in French Culinary Arts. Most students work the frier at KFC. You bussed tables at Il Picatorre to support yourself. Then you got out of college and started working here. How much did they pay you to give up on your dreams?
Bob: Twenty seven thousand a year.
Ryan Bingham: At what point were you going to stop and go back to what made you happy?
Bob: that's a good question.
From Up In The Air: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkX-TPaodoM