PebblesRox

I wonder if part of the difficulty lies in choosing which good option to forgo.

How long did it take people to choose between two disfavored options?

I think a lot of them use phones, electricity, and maybe even computers for their businesses, while avoiding them for personal/home use. They also make a distinction sometimes between using and owning. There are things they do not own but will still use for specific reasons that have been determined by the community to be valid.

My uncle is self-employed as a driver for the Amish. My aunt describes him as the “Amish Uber,” since his customers will call him up on the phone to schedule trips.

I’m not sure if this is the case for all Amish communities, but in our area at least they do not own cars but will hire someone to drive them when the situation calls for it, such as when they’re attending a wedding or other event that’s far enough away to make buggy-driving impractical.

The interface is better than I remember - previously there were little vertical menus for picking the emojis, so only a few were visible at a time.

Edit: I'm remembering a different site with a similar concept: https://tikolu.net/emojimix/

And as someone else commented, there's also https://emojikitchen.dev/

Welltris was great and I loved the music. I think it had more variety than classic Tetris did.

Or maybe an outdoor water wall with tubes and funnels and buckets:

https://www.google.com/search?q=early+education+water+wall&r...

It is mandatory but not everyone follows the rules. Our car has been hit three times in the past 4-5 years and only one of the drivers was insured. (One didn’t even have a license!)

A problem with your insurance incentive is that it only works for people who have insurance. It does nothing to deter uninsured drivers.

The risk of dying in a car accident isn’t enough to stop some people from driving recklessly. Why would a penalty that only applies to the rare occasion when someone causes harm be any better of an incentive for people who seem to already assume they’re not going to cause harm by their behavior?

Reminds me of an HN post from last year about someone recreating a stool found in an Egyptian tomb. I thought the reverse engineering was really fascinating.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28659898

Schools are also off that week so for parents it's a good week to be off even if they don't celebrate Christmas.

I think the point is it's a relative rather than an absolute measurement and you can't compare across time because the number of players in the system influences the scores.

Some USPS locations do offer a Street Addressing option that allows for receiving parcels to a PO Box:

https://postalpro.usps.com/mailing/competitivepoboxes

I have a technical blog where I post detailed instructions for anything I had to figure out on my own due to lack of helpful documentation.

Every few months someone will leave a comment saying thank you - and I love that I was able to help someone avoid the hassle that I went through!

I highly recommend Kidpower [0] as a resource for how to have these kinds of conversations - they're really good at making things really specific and understandable for kids without going into details that are not age-appropriate.

They also have good advice for how to teach and equip kids to be independent while maintaining appropriate safety boundaries at each stage along the way to full independence. [1]

Discussion and trust are important but I think there is a phase where kids do not yet have the maturity for discussion and trust to be enough to keep them safe. In the meantime, they also need supervision and physical boundaries to be safe.

As an analogy, no amount of verbal instruction will allow a toddler to walk safely by themselves near traffic. Until they reach a certain maturity level, children need an adult who is paying attention and is ready to physically intervene if they start heading for the street.

I think there's a similar dynamic at play when it comes to internet safety. We need to teach our kids so that they will be ready for independence but we also need to recognize that they will not be ready for full independence for quite a while, given the complexity of the risks involved.

[0] https://www.kidpower.org/library/article/online-safety-for-y...

[1] https://www.kidpower.org/library/article/preparing-independe...

Here's a post from 3 months ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30931614

You have me thinking about the recent “Every Complex Idea Has a Million Stupid Cousins” submission.

In that metaphor, maybe appropriation is when people go around selling dumbed-down or distorted copies that ignore the complexity and fullness of the original ideas. The original ideas are still out there, but for the people who only see the stupid copies, the majesty of the original idea is masked/overshadowed.

And my understanding is that part of the complaint around appropriation involves outsiders profiting from their use/misuse while the originators of the culture see none of the spoils.

https://apxhard.substack.com/p/every-complex-idea-has-a-mill...

My phone has this feature and now I know about it! :) Never would have noticed the little icon on the wifi settings page without knowing to look for it.

Reminds me of a recent HN comment about the difference between mechanical and mathematical magic tricks.

"A magician I know talks about the three kinds of magic: sleight of hand, mechanical, and mathematical. The first requires a lot of skill and practice (e.g., palming coins, manipulating cards). The second requires a lot of preparation and engineering (e.g., sawing a person in half, floating person illusions). The third relies on the nature of reality (e.g., dividing sets of cards in a known pattern that forces a result, or manipulating numbers that force an unexpected result)."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31924453

This is a good point. On the other hand, drawing a compelling picture of a horse is a hard problem. I could do better than the stick figure but even my best attempt would end up looking pretty awkward and weird compared to a real horse.

I would need a lot of practice and a lot more detailed knowledge of horses to be able to communicate effectively.

This gets me thinking about how it is a lot easier to become convinced of an idea than it is to share it in a convincing way. It's much easier to follow along with a good explanation or argument than it is to recreate one after the fact.

It takes really deep detailed knowledge of a topic and strong communication skills to be able to convey a complex idea in an accurate, understandable and attractive way, especially if the audience is not interested in investing a huge amount of time on a deep dive into all the details.

I can see how it's a lot easier for short-handed versions or simple-but-wrong versions to spread, especially when someone without a deep understanding is trying to share what they've learned from an expert.

Gotta budget for some extra hydrogen to burn the bridges.

I find it valuable in moderation but some days I spend way too much time on it; past the point of diminishing returns. There's also an opportunity cost of what I could be doing with a lot of the time, which often would leave me feeling better than mindless HN reading.

Yes, I know it's time to clean up the playroom when they stop playing with toys and start doing constant mischief instead.

Toys become a lot more attractive once there's space to play and the pieces that belong together are not mixed up with a bunch of random junk.

The other one is when there's some urgent problem in the lego-strewn area - when you need to remove the block from the hand of the kid who's whacking the window or the toddler, there's no time or attention to spare for walking carefully.

I love Kidpower as a resource for how to teach kids important people-safty skills, both for in person and online interactions.

https://www.kidpower.org/library/article/online-safety/

And until they're old enough to understand the explanation and control their impulses accordingly, you use high levels of supervision and hands-on action in order to prevent them from putting themselves in danger.

For children below a certain maturity threshold, taking strong action to prevent unsupervised internet access seems totally reasonable to me.

An acquaintance bought a fancy king-sized mattress and found some minor damage (ripped fabric) upon delivery. They reached out to customer support, thinking maybe they’d get a discount. Instead they were sent a replacement mattress and told not to bother returning the old one.

They had no use for a second mattress, so that’s how we got a free, brand-new very fancy king-sized mattress with minor cosmetic damage!

They’re not necessarily evenly spaced. The middle elevator might be a lot closer to one side than the other.

I'd love to hear more about your experience with con artists!

I don't know much specifically about Scientology but I found an interesting article on how cults in general use propaganda, indoctrination, fear and isolation to brainwash members and impair their critical thinking:

https://aeon.co/essays/how-cult-leaders-brainwash-followers-...

Reminds me of this interesting behind-the-scenes look at an escalator replacement:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28207386