Mathematical games interesting to both you and a five-year-old child - <AUTHOR> https://mathoverflow.net/questions/281447/mathematical-games-interesting-to-both-you-and-a-5-year-old-child <comment><USER3> I imagine that a good portion of HN's readership (and probably MathOverflow.com's) were intellectually gifted as children. Or at the very least, remember themselves that way.

I would therefore caution people on two things: (1) your personal memories of early childhood are often quite distorted, and (2) it's not fair to impose upon a child today the expectations that come from your own ego-distorted memory.

This post caught my attention because I happen to be the father of a 5-year old son, and I myself have been searching for interesting mental exercises to share with him.

It's been an exercise for me as much as for him, teaching me about patience and tempered expectations.

Five years is YOUNG. A generation ago, early childhood educators in the U.S. didn't even typically introduce reading until age six. We start reading in kindergarten now, but typical 5-year olds can generally be expected to recognize repetitive words and basic arithmetic concepts (e.g. 1 + 2 = 3). Even that is limited to short periods of study in each sitting.

Children may vary, but I believe that many of the suggestions on that MathOverflow.com page (as well as comments here about chess, etc) would be better suited for around 7-8 and up. I think it would be unrealistic to expect the majority of 5-year olds to handle much of this, and it would be a mistake to push too hard at that age.

<comment><USER4> I don't have much respect for the school system's standards for what age is appropriate to start teaching different subjects. Children in my family start reading around 3. I consider reading a power tool that bootstraps further learning. If I had waited until school to start learning, I would have been held back in my development for years.

<comment><USER5> Children have wildly different capabilities. I've seen quite a few who probably wouldn't be able to read at age three. As the father of two highly intelligent kids myself (according to a few unprompted remarks by a number of people), I don't see what the rush is either. Kids are kids, let them play! They can be serious the rest of their lives. If they are intelligent enough to read at three they'll be fine anyway....

<comment><USER4> It is because they have different capabilities that I don't respect the standard put forth by the school system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I've been writing little one-page javascript pages to introduce my four- and six-year-old to various mathematical concepts like cardinality, place-value, sets, factors, equivalency, etc, etc:

[http://ideonexus.github.io/Explorable- Explanations/](http://ideonexus.github.io/Explorable-Explanations/)

The boys love some of them (others not-so-much). Based on this article, I'm getting lots of ideas for new ones to code. Most of the code is original, but I try to be careful to give credit to anyone whose code or ideas I build upon.

<comment><USER7> The "Dragon Box" game on iOS is a fascinating way of presenting "algebra" (isolating a variable in a linear equation). It starts with a very abstract presentation of the rules (using cards with monsters on them - <USER2> introducing the rules) and eventually subs in letters and numbers. I suspect it might also be useful for adults who've had anxiety and poor success with more formal approaches.

It's a progressive game, where you have to complete a puzzle to get access to the next one. One thing that was surprisingly effective at motivating my four year old boy (almost five) was that they change the appearance of a cartoon monster at the end of each puzzle (or every 2-3 puzzles). He kept wanting to do the next puzzle to see how it changed.

<comment><USER8> As a footnote to your comment, the Dragon Box game is available on Android as well, and there are actually a series of games for different age groups and different skills.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I like that the game Set is mentioned. I haven't played in a few years but I've always loved that game. The only problem with it is that for whatever reason some people are _significantly_ better at it than others (right off the bat; obviously you can get better with practice, playing with a group of relative noobs and having one of them drastically outshine the other can be frustrating for the other).

<comment><USER10> I'm terrible at visualizing things and I lose almost every game I play. I've convinced my friends who are good at Set to play a variant based on natural numbers and operations in them, but turns out they're a lot worse at that and it's a lot less fun for them...

I think my point is that Set really lends itself to someone with strong visual abilities, and is much much harder for everyone else.

<comment><USER9> > I've convinced my friends who are good at Set to play a variant based on > natural numbers and operations in them

I'm curious about this and would like to subscribe to your newsletter ;)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I've written a game that's a mix of algebra and maze solving. I believe its pretty relevant to this question. There are easy levels but also it can get surprisingly complex even for small mazes. Its called Numplussed and its free on Android or iOS:

[https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/numplussed-number-puzzle- maz...](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/numplussed-number-puzzle- maze/id1193295317?mt=8)

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codeulike....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.codeulike.numplussed&hl=en_GB)

Example of a hard level:

[https://twitter.com/codeulikegames/status/911725658929291264](https://twitter.com/codeulikegames/status/911725658929291264)

some easier ones:

[https://twitter.com/codeulikegames/status/890246328290332672](https://twitter.com/codeulikegames/status/890246328290332672)

</comment><comment><USER12> I'm not sure if this is serious or satire: [https://mathoverflow.net/q/281475](https://mathoverflow.net/q/281475)

I mean, it feels like satire, but who knows...

<comment><USER13> I'm voting for some combination of "honestly oblivious", "ha ha only serious", and "actually this isn't as bad as it sounds" over "satire". My 11-year-old daughter was recently introduced in a school mathematics lesson to a game in this family, which she enjoyed and eagerly asked me to play with her.

It wasn't described in those terms, though. Their class has been looking at factors and multiples, so the game was presented like this: you have the numbers from 1 to 100 written down; one player picks a number (constrained to be no bigger than 50 for reasons as an exercise for the reader) to start with; then each player picks a still-unused number that's either a factor or a multiple of the one before. So a game might go like this: 25, 5; 15, 3; 99, 33; 11, 22; 44, 4; 8, 16; 32, 96; 48, 24; 12, 6; 18, 9; 27, 81; 1, 97 and now the first player has no legal move and loses. (I do not claim that either player played well in that game; I just picked random legal moves.)

If this game sounds like fun to you or your child, you can find an implementation here: [https://nrich.maths.org/5468](https://nrich.maths.org/5468) and you may also see how long a chain of factors-and/or-multiples you can construct (imagine both players are now cooperating to make the game last as long as possible).

<comment><USER14> Interesting game, thanks for sharing.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This one is huge among the kids here in NE Seattle: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopsticks_(hand_game)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chopsticks_\(hand_game\))

The roll-over and splitting variations are standard here, which makes the game more interesting.

<comment><USER16> I've only ever seen it as a drinking game in Singapore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not strictly mathematical, and maybe not exactly 5 year old difficulty (some of these are HARD) but here goes:

[https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/](https://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/puzzles/)

There's an Android version of these puzzles and Linux packages (usually called "sgt-puzzles" or something similar). Apparently (I just found this out) they also work on the browser, which is pretty cool.

<comment><USER18> I gave these to the high school kids that I mentor Robotics for - they each seemed to find different puzzles that they liked, so I consider that a win. These are the same kids who had fun learning binary search as a way to always win "high-low" guessing games, so they were already interested in logic.

My personal favorite from Tatham's puzzles is Net - I have it on my phone, with 15x15 wrapping being a nice way to relax and spend some time.

<comment><USER19> I have doodled away many hours on Net and Pearl :-)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I bought this book last year and found it really interesting with respect to how children interact with math as their brain develops: Math from Three to Seven [1]. There are a lot of little experiments and games that teach kids basic concepts and show how specific reasoning develops. I'm looking forward to doing some of them with my son in a few years.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082186873X/ref=oh_aui_sear...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/082186873X/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?ie=UTF8&psc=1)

<comment><USER21> Book looks like out of print but PDF is here: [http://www.msri.org/people/staff/levy/files/MCL/Zvonkin.pdf](http://www.msri.org/people/staff/levy/files/MCL/Zvonkin.pdf)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> I haven't heard of set yet, but I have a wooden board game with a quite similar premise. All pieces are laying around and two players take terms putting them on a 4x4 grid. The first player to finish a row with 4 pieces with the same feature (there are 5 with two variants each) wins. I am normally quite bad at board games, but I am winning this one nearly every time, as others always seem to overlook one feature.

<comment><USER23> I have this game too, it goes by the name Quarto.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarto_(board_game)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarto_\(board_game\))

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> This is physics, not just maths, but the logic is interesting to all ages.

Why do you need a seatbelt in a car but not on a train?

The heavier mass of the train means the force to you is smaller, so you're less likely to get thrown as far forwards.

(I just explained this to my girlfriend when she asked on the train. Thanks, engineering degree.)

<comment><USER25> Alright.

Why can you see into a house through its windows at night while those inside only see their reflections in the windows. Why is this reversed during the day?

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> 5 is tough. Although I suppose Terry Tao was working out proofs by then ;)

By 8-9, something like the Japanese city-building card game Machi Koro is great for learning about variance, expected value, and optimization.

<comment><USER27> A while ago Terence Tao posted a a problem from his son's Math Circle. It is in his own words _" surprisingly difficult"_:

> Three farmers were selling chickens at the local market. One farmer had 10 > chickens to sell, another had 16 chickens to sell, and the last had 26 > chickens to sell. In order not to compete with each other, they agreed to > all sell their chickens at the same price. But by lunchtime, they decided > that sales were not going so well, and they all decided to lower their > prices to the same lower price point. By the end of the day, they had sold > all their chickens. It turned out that they all collected the same amount of > money, $35, from the day's chicken sales. What was the price of the chickens > before lunchtime and after lunchtime?

[https://plus.google.com/+TerenceTao27/posts/CR1ZoNe9ojQ](https://plus.google.com/+TerenceTao27/posts/CR1ZoNe9ojQ)

EDIT: From what I found online, I believe Terry Tao's son was 10 at the time.

<comment><USER28> Terry Tao seems to be forgetting some of his basic math as he spends most of time on super advanced stuff. He also has a post where he discovered the surprising fact that if you stay in your arrived airplane's seat until most people have exited, after the crowd clears you can walk off the plane more quickly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Hi everyone I make a product called DnsLearning it turns the internet on and off based on progress made on supported sites.

We currently use PhantomJS to login to sites that don't have API support, which is all of them except Khan Academy.

Are any of you guys who run these sites interested in setting up an OAuth API? We are glad to give some love and send users to sites that are improving.

Please respond or email me at email@example.com

I feel bad posting anything like this on HN but it's not often this space is on the front page and in general it's not seen as a sexy enough subject :(

</comment><comment><USER30> Measuring the world around you can be fun and humorous, especially when you are measuring with a peculiar reference object like a kid's shoe.

I find games of math with kids are most interesting when the adult is on a level playing field and doesn't "hold back" effort. In addition to measurement, games of sorting, spacial analysis, numismatics, and cultivating a favorite number can be fun.

In the 1970's, Hasbro made a game called "Something Fishy" which involved solving a spacial problem of fitting plastic sardines in to a tin can.

Many kids love to count money and learn about the different types of money, and calculate value. Be careful, as they may also be crafty enough to keep the money at the end of the game. The best ending is going to the store and letting them pay.

"The Book of Think: Or How to Solve a Problem Twice Your Size" may be a source of inspiration, as may "Brown Paper School book: Math for Smarty Pants".

Do you have a favorite number? Do you have a favorite shape? Did you know 7 is the scariest number?

I believe an early love of math often stems from a love of numbers, the thought that numbers are your friends. One great game to cultivate this friendliness is to simply go out in to the world and look for a complete set of numbers from 1..20 or so together. Numbers are all around.

</comment><comment><USER31> I absolutely love the "prove me wrong" game. It reminds me of Nomic for some reason. Perhaps because both games are very language-based and have almost no rules (it's easy to "think outside the box" in both games). I've been searching for language-based games with a lot of room for creativity like that since forever, does anyone have any good suggestions for where to continue my search?

</comment><comment><USER32> You could teach them chess variation known as minichess or halfchess. I have created a game halfchess.com for adults - but plan to add a learning mode for children in future.

I have given kids crash course on chess and it starts like this.

1\. Ask them, how many squares are there on a board

2\. Tell them about Pawns and make them play on a mini chess board with Pawns. Start with 3 pawns and slowly increase to 4,5,...,8.

3\. Show them the knight. Some possible games with just knight are as follows:-

      a. Puzzles on how one knight can capture another knight placed in nearby squares.

      b. Play a game where one knight has to catch the other knight. The knight that is catching takes two steps every move, the running one takes one step.

      c. You can play above game with a dice and let two players battle just their knights. Even throw of dice gets 2 turns

And so on, introduce them to new pieces. You can tell them stories about each of the chess piece as you introduce them to it.

There are several mathematical concepts that you can teach children via chess - for example backtracking from a solution (when solving the puzzles with knights).

<comment><USER33> I find Arimaa is a fun and much easier game to learn the basics of. And you play it on a chessboard :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Recently i've been trying to find an app like Duolingo but for math. Essentially, a way to practice bite sized pieces of mathematics to keep proficiency up.

Unfortunately the current selection of apps are fairly low quality and only allow very basic arithmetic. Any suggestions?

May just build it myself otherwise.

</comment><comment><USER35> I've been playing IQ Twist with my 7 year old and 3 year old. It is fun for all of us.

[https://www.amazon.com/SmartGames-SG-480-IQ- Twist/dp/B004TGV...](https://www.amazon.com/SmartGames-SG-480-IQ- Twist/dp/B004TGVNHA)

</comment><comment><USER16> Kakerlakenpoker ([https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11971/cockroach- poker](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/11971/cockroach-poker)) is a game of pure bluffing that even small kids should fine enjoyable. The cute critters on the cards, like spiders and cockroaches, should help catch kids' interest.

The game itself is more about reading body language clues, but you can easily introduce a small amount of game theory mathematics in your deliberations.

(Ironically enough, Kakerlakenpoker has exactly the right structure for a drinking game. Lose a card: take a shot. Lose the round: finish the bottle.)

</comment><comment><USER36> A surprising series of computer games that you might not even recognize are based on algebra (at first): [http://dragonbox.com](http://dragonbox.com)

I play games mostly of pattern recognition; repeating tiles, shape combinations (sets), etc. I mostly let the little ones drive and don't expect anymore than 20 minutes of focus.

What I'm paranoid about is the focus on literacy in schools and how formulaic and uninteresting maths can be. I'm hoping my kids won't be turned off of a beautiful subject just because they're taught in a rote manner to recall formulas and equations.

</comment><comment><USER27> Bret Victor (of Apple fame) made _Alligator Eggs_ which could be fun to play with a five year old. The game represents the untyped lambda calculus. You can download the PDF from Bret Victor's website.

[http://worrydream.com/AlligatorEggs/](http://worrydream.com/AlligatorEggs/)

EDIT: Thinking about it, when I studied Petri nets at university someone showed me a Peri net board game.

[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9727/play- net](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/9727/play-net)

<comment><USER37> Once you tell them that the game represents the untyped lambda calculus, you'll probably need to lock them in their rooms to get them to stop playing, I assume.

<comment><USER27> I only realized after your comment that what I wrote was unintentionally funny. Rewrote my comment.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I am surprised no one has mentioned Monument Valley on iOS or Android. I played it a bit in front of 4 years old and they were instantly hooked. Of course, they will need bunch of hints and help to get through all the levels but it's almost an ideal logic puzzle game I have ever encountered. I also started playing tic-tac-toe where I lose randomly to keep things interesting :). It is surprisingly not easy to teach all rules of tic-tax-toe to (perhaps many) 4 year old. The trick was to show them I play it against computer on iPad for lots of games.

</comment><comment><USER38> I work for a company that makes Math games based on neuroscience research. [https://www.mindresearch.org](https://www.mindresearch.org)

I find a lot of the games very interesting and founded more on actual learning (you're encouraged to make mistakes in this program). Turns out to learn you need to make mistakes and see why you were wrong, more than simply answer correctly.

(Product is currently in Flash but we are working very hard to move to HTML5)

</comment><comment><USER39> I think Set is quite an interesting game, playable by adults and kids alike. I've written a blog post about the odds of not finding a set among the cads on the table. I'll link it here in case somebody is interested:

[https://henrikwarne.com/2011/09/30/set-probabilities- revisit...](https://henrikwarne.com/2011/09/30/set-probabilities-revisited/)

</comment><comment><USER40> I haven't tried Ricochet Robots with children, but it seems like it's a simple enough game to understand. Some of the puzzles might be too hard, though -- I wonder if anyone has come up with alternate board layouts of varying difficulty?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_Robot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_Robot)

</comment><comment><USER41> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Game](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_Game)

Maybe 5 is a bit young for all of multiplication and division (but you could include the face cards). The game is still playable without -- there would just be a lot of "welp we shuffle these back into the deck" situations.

</comment><comment><USER42> I can't recommend go highly enough.

Not only are the rules simple enough for kids (mine are 5-9), but counting the score is directly mathematical (counting for the little ones, multiplication and addition for the older ones).

the key to go for kids is a small board. 9x9 to start, then 13x13. none of them has graduated to 19x19 yet.

</comment><comment><USER43> I think the key to teaching chess is to _gasp_ deliberately lose to the kid a few times. In my experience at the age of 5 I lost (in my recollection) about five times in a row and then lost interest, only to regain interest in my 30s. Not sour grapes at all, just food for thought.

<comment><USER6> I find this very important. I will find ways to turn competitive games into cooperative games just to keep my sons' interested in them. It works wondefully, and the increased engagement has a great payoff in seeing them get better at the games.

<comment><USER43> In Go we have 'pair go' where each side is a team conferring on the next best move. 'Pair chess' might encourage kids similarly.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> Natural deduction for propositional logic? Simple rules, real math. There are lots of good problems of varying difficulty in Logic in Computer Science by Huth and Ryan.

Edit: Perhaps this doesn't qualify as a game per se, but I think it might be a fun activity to work through the proofs together.

<comment><USER45> I don't see why that wouldn't be a game. As a kid (maybe not at 5, closer to 10?) my parents were giving me puzzle books that included puzzles based on deductive reasoning.

Clue is based on this form of logic. Or that's how I played it at least.

[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamecategory/1039/deduction](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamecategory/1039/deduction)

More games of this form.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> Domino is one of the mathematical games, I play with my daughter. You have to make a chain of domino pieces which represent one of 28 possible combinations of two out of 0 to 6. She plays this very good.

She is a little bit too young yet for Backgammon and Chess, but I plan to play these with her.

</comment><comment><USER47> I have been using ixl.com with my 5 year daughter. We have fun solving it together. She always clap when she reaches challenge zone and receives awards. Not really a game but fun way to learn basic Math. Very highly recommend it for kids.

</comment><comment><USER48> Not to sound negative but I think games are inherently mathematical. Any creativity based on rules can be abstracted into some mathematical concept.

<comment><USER14> To some extent, they all are, yeah. If for no other reason than from a designer's perspective of "How many cards should I include? How many components are needed? Do I need to change this based on how many players? How long should the game last? How many turns/rounds/minutes? How to I model this to make sure the game is balanced?" etc. I design both board and video games, and these are questions I have to figure out the answers to for each and every game.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> If your child is 8+, I would recommend trying out my game, SuperMathWorld.com (or for ipad: Mathbreakers.com)

</comment><comment><USER50> Wow this is a really cool question and even better answers!

</comment><comment><USER51> The 5 year old can encode secrets using RSA with low primes using a calculator, and you can try decoding it with paper. :D

</comment><comment><USER52> Mancala</comment>


Forget Academia. Startups Are the Future of Knowledge - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/12/165191/

<comment><USER2> The actual title of this article is "Let's Bring The Polymath - and the Dabblers - Back". Much more grounded, and much less linkbait-y.

<comment><AUTHOR> Believe it or not, "Forget Academia. Startups Are the Future of Knowledge" was the original title. I believe the author changed it because of the controversy.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Remote Job Lists – Search and filter remote job listings - <AUTHOR> https://www.remotejoblists.com <comment><USER2> Congrats on shipping!

Love the UI and interface. Did you build it yourself or used an off-the-shelf template?

What's your tech stack?

I run [http://www.visaok.in](http://www.visaok.in) \-- visa sponsored jobs.

Happy to chat more. Email in bio.

[P.S. The link in your Top 30 under 30 in the About page of your personal site links to Topher Bullock. It's off by 1. i.e it's image/4 instead of image/5 (yours) => [http://www.canadianbusiness.com/innovation/developer-30-unde...](http://www.canadianbusiness.com/innovation/developer-30-under-30-gallery/image/5/) ]

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! My tech stack is NextJS w. Express / React / Postgres. Thanks for spotting that broken link.

I built it myself, but it's based on Bootstrap. I'll ping you over email sometime to chat. :)

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hey guys, I'm excited to share a project that I've been building out over the last few weeks. Here's the backstory:

I was helping a family member look for a job recently and spent a lot of time on job sites. Instead of focusing on just his city (where opportunities were limited) we eventually started looking at remote jobs to broaden his search.

It quickly became obvious to me that there aren't too many good ways to search for remote listings around the world. This sucks for both remote employers and remote workers.

To solve this problem, I spent a few long nights building out Remote Job Lists. It aggregates listings across the internet, categorizes them smartly using Machine Learning, and makes it easy to search for a position that is interesting to you.

Technologies Used: NextJS (Server-side rendering with React) Express Postgres

</comment><comment><USER3> Interesting. Is this using APIs to fetch jobs or scraping?

<comment><AUTHOR> Mostly going through RSS Feeds.</comment></comment>


Grandmothers help fight depression in Zimbabwe [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.aljazeera.com/video/news/2017/03/grandmothers-fight-depression-zimbabwe-170314082121081.html <comment><USER2> Having lived in Zimbabwe for almost three years, I'd say that while the average American is better off financially, the average Zimbabwean is happier with their lives. Close knit families and friends seem to be the big reason why.

</comment><comment><USER3> Uganda is almost as bad, youth unemployment is 84% and many graduate students leave university with little chances of employment. Families expect money after paying their university, so graduates are too shamed to return to their home without money in hand, thus end up living in one of the Kampala slums with a group of other graduates.

</comment><comment><USER4> It's interesting how happiness works. Think your situation is bad? In Zimbabwe unemployment is something like 80-90%. However this article proves even in situations like this, something simple like friendship can make you happy!</comment>


Publii – open source static CMS for everyone - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/GetPublii/Publii <comment><USER2> I guess the submission should have been the website, which is more targeted towards users, not contributors.

I spent a few minutes looking for a simple way to install this without all the node/python stuff on the GitHub page, turns out it is only shown on their website: [https://getpublii.com/download/](https://getpublii.com/download/)

<comment><USER3> I guess someone heard you!

[https://github.com/GetPublii/Publii/commit/4758af15f7032b96f...](https://github.com/GetPublii/Publii/commit/4758af15f7032b96f33d5f6dbcea55b307eef385)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I tried this out when it was first released but made a note to come back when the source was published. So I'll be looking forward to digging into it again. Publii solves the biggest downside of static site generators, that they're not really friendly for most end users. I am still a little leery of how it will handle a collaborative work environment (with a Dropbox or similar backend), but that isn't different than any other static site generator. I also previously made a note that the templating system was messy, so I'm curious if that has improved!

</comment><comment><USER5> If looking at alternatives, a close project is Lektor -- static web generator with a web interface and easy cloud sync for non-CLI contributors.

[https://www.getlektor.com](https://www.getlektor.com)

<comment><USER6> It looks a bit complicated for my mother to use, with cli knowledge required even for a basic edit. What i've been looking for since a while is a software that lets me start the project, publish it to github pages, and then generate an executable that i send to my client. The executable would have the user rights embeded in it, and the credentials to push to github would be in it too. My client would just start it, be greeted by a UI, change stuffs and click "save", that would push to github pages. For anything more complex, they'd have to ask me, and i'd do it from my machine with full user rights. The soft would do a git pull at startup, to have an up to date project, and git push at save time. I'm curious of anything fitting that scenario, ideally open source.

<comment><AUTHOR> Download Windows or MacOS Installer ([https://getpublii.com/](https://getpublii.com/)) and install it on your mother's computer. No tech knowledge is required to manage a website with Publi.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > Publii is a desktop-based CMS for _Windows and Mac_ that makes creating > static websites fast and hassle-free, even for beginners.

;)

Love the idea of a full editor. I use Thingamablog and it is ancient and very unwieldy. Any other recommendations for a Linux user?

<comment><USER8> So not really for everyone.

<comment><USER9> The idea was to make a static generator for devs and beginners without any tech knowledge. The Linux version will released with the first stable app version.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Publii and others like Blocsapp interest me a lot.

I know we are back to square one, dreamweaver style. But having a universal super custom web app makes it hard for the business and marketing people to use. And wordpress has a large attack vector..

<comment><USER11> If you're willing to satisfy with a static site, static versions of WordPress(like HardyPress) solve the security issue well.

They still create a problem with dynamic features, but you can implement dynamic features by using third-party services, and get most of the features needed for most small sites that way.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Love it. Reminds me of building sites with iWeb and RapidWeaver back in the early 2000s. They were a great way to get started building sites without having to muck about with databases and whatnot.

It sees to me though I'm happy to be proven wrong, there's a real gap in the market for a powerful but not too technical website-building framework.

For me, Drupal 7 hit the sweet-spot between power and ease of development. I built some advanced sites without being a coder. However with D8 they went for the enterprise and it's almost impossible to get the thing set up without being a serious developer.

Wordpress is hack-prone unless you know what you're doing and anything beyond its basic blog features requires development or annual plugin subscriptions.

I love static site generators, but they do take a developer to set up and the -technical user experience is still a bodge, despite the best efforts of NetlifyCMS, Forestry, Cloudcannon etc.

CraftCMS looks nice, but features like user roles or ecommerce requires the pricey paid version.

Is there anything I've missed? What would you recommend?

Nice though platforms like Squarespace are, it'd be sad if the simple-but- powerful open source/self-hosted space was completely conceded to paid services.

</comment><comment><USER13> The "Opt out of tracking" link in your privacy policy [1] goes to a 404 page [2] at the moment.

[1] [https://getpublii.com/privacy-policy/](https://getpublii.com/privacy- policy/)

[2] [https://getpublii.com/privacy-policy/opt- out%20of%20tracking](https://getpublii.com/privacy-policy/opt- out%20of%20tracking)

</comment><comment><USER14> This will be nice if it integrate with popular static site generator, like hugo, jekyll and/or gatsby.js. It is useful for developer to quickly build the site in Markdown, and give this frontend to business people to add post or whatever custom content they want.

</comment><comment><USER15> I've played Publii and it's awesome. It works offline. However, it won't start unless I'm online (v.0.23.3).

Clicking the settings or about menu tends to get me lost for a few seconds. Soln: A back button, Escape, Backspace, Close button maybe?

</comment><comment><USER16> \- python (>= 2.5.0 && < 3.0.0)

That's... that's a really weird build requirement.

<comment><USER17> Doesn't seem that odd to me. It's not Python 3, but requires a not-ancient version of Python 2.

<comment><USER16> Most of the times it's python 2.7+ or 3.3+.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Clean, simple UI. I may steal a couple ideas for Jekyll+ [1].

1: [https://github.com/Wiredcraft/jekyllplus](https://github.com/Wiredcraft/jekyllplus)

</comment><comment><USER19> Deleted, was [wrong stuff]

<comment><AUTHOR> Tomte, you can download the installer for Windows or macOs from the app homepage: [https://getpublii.com/](https://getpublii.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> It looks very interesting but how hard is it to just create your own static site generator really? Just need to use mustache.js for templating and write a few html pages ...

</comment><comment><USER21> Been a drupal and wordpress user for years I have a problem with the static site generator or static site itself calling themselves CMSes.

If you can not classify the content per user, i.e. certain users can only access certain content, by login, you're not really a CMS, just call that a static html site.

CMS was designed to be very different from static html sites, normally it has database, login, dynamically generated content under full ACL management, as what Drupal, Joomla do.

stop calling static website CMS please,you can not even support multi-user login.

<comment><USER22> It's a system. That manages your content. What would you prefer we call it?

<comment><USER23> The term "manage" should imply more than CRUD.

See [https://www.enterpriseready.io](https://www.enterpriseready.io) and check out some MVP content "management" options in e.g. TextPattern.

Notice the user roles:

[https://blog.arvixe.com/textpattern-admin-tab-a- primer/](https://blog.arvixe.com/textpattern-admin-tab-a-primer/)

<comment><USER22> So we have different definitions of CMS. To me, it's just a system that allows CRUD ops on content by non-technical personnel. It often does other things too, like access/role management and editorial workflow, but I personally don't see these as core to the definition.

Can we maybe agree to call this a "static CMS"? Just saying it's "not a CMS" feels like we're taking away a useful way of talking about tools like this — in exchange for some vague sense of semantic purity.

<comment><USER23> Not semantic purity. Business need. Once your company is big enough to have some people who tell other people what to do and sign off on it, you have management, and the M in CMS is about being able to mirror that management.

I think you're describing not a CMS, but a web UI for content authoring for a static site generator. That product category is described by Prose.io, a web UI for Git-backed static site generators:

 _"Prose provides a beautifully simple content authoring environment for CMS- free websites."_

[http://prose.io/#about](http://prose.io/#about)

Notice the phrase "CMS-free", as in, if you just want to author and edit content, you don't need a content management system.

Forestry understands this distinction, the first paragraph on their "Managing Content" docs talks about Roles. If you jump to pricing, and follow across, you see identity and access "Management" is the feature that grows with price.

[https://forestry.io/#/](https://forestry.io/#/)

[https://forestry.io/docs/editing/](https://forestry.io/docs/editing/)

[https://forestry.io/pricing/](https://forestry.io/pricing/)

// Footnote: _My interpretation is based on having built a commercial private label web-based CMS in late 90's, predating Red Dot's web based live editing released in 2001, and following static site gen ever since._ [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenText#Content_authoring](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenText#Content_authoring)

<comment><USER24> There is no standards body who formally define and enforce terms like "CMS" or "WCMS". It's probably not worth battling over such terms, other than in a speculative sense.

I've spec'd out potential CMS features, and there are a lot of features that various orgs may or may not need for their Internet sites and/or intranets. I don't see any solid line(s) between CMS and "CRUD": it's often a fuzzy boundary. CRUD tends to be for a specific domain need, whereas a CMS is intended to be more general purpose: for different departments or groups in a org. What's a show-stopper in terms of missing features for a given org depends on the org.

Slapping CKeditor on top of a database or dynamic file/folder creation system can get you a quick-and-dirty self-rolled CMS. You can add groupings and org hierarchies as needed using typical relational modelling. But in the longer run, one tends to end up reinventing wheels already found in formal CMS's, I find.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


The FCC has no idea how many people don't have broadband access - <AUTHOR> https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2019/08/the-fcc-has-no-idea-how-many-people-dont-have-broadband-access/?comments=1 <comment><USER3> ISPs: Looks like we're not serving high speed broadband to a lot of people! We've got work to do.

FCC: Yes you do! Mr. Government, would you mind giving us 40 billion dollars to improve internet infrastructure, this is a massive undertaking and we really REALLY want to help get broadband to under-served regions.

Government: Sure, here's the money! Don't spend it all in one place!

FCC:

ISPs:

Sounds like this happened 20 years ago and now they're going to try and do it again with this as an excuse to get more money

<comment><USER4> [https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hgSJiY...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:hgSJiYFg_3IJ:https://www.huffpost.com/entry/the- book-of-broken-promis_b_5839394+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

<comment><USER5> There have been some questions raised here before as to the accuracy of that book. See:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7709556)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7864766](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7864766)

<comment><USER6> The book isn't inaccurate, in the sense the data is wrong. It's that the book draws conclusions from that data on questionable premises, and then people take the headline number and misrepresent what it means. The article linked above actually makes the theory behind the book quite clear:

> By the end of 2014, America _will have been charged_ about $400 billion by > the local phone incumbents, Verizon, AT&T and CenturyLink, for a fiber optic > future that never showed up.

The premise is that pre-1992 regulated rates are the proper baseline that reflect the "correct price" of service. The theory then goes that ISPs conned the government into deregulating rates by promising fiber which they never built, which allowed them to raise prices beyond what the regulated rates should have been. In other words: "an iPhone XR should only cost about $250, reflecting a 10% profit margin, so anything Apple gets beyond that is an overcharge."

The premise is ignorant, but there is no reason to believe the underlying data is wrong. However, whether the conclusion is right or not, the underlying theory is, by its own terms, a theory of overcharge. (Prices being roughly 10% higher than they should have been over a 22 year period.) It's not a documenting of some money transfer from government to providers.

<comment><USER7> Apple wasn't previously a government regulated monopoly and iPhones aren't a vital service in a developed country. Government regulated monopolies are different though. Regulations forcing a specific price, or even a specific "profit" margin aren't unheard of. Thus, the premise isn't entirely unreasonable!

There are details to be quibbled over, but the history of AT&T is _where_ that premise comes from in the first place! (In particular, the 1982 DoJ mandated breakup and resulting fallout from that.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Maybe a good question to put on the census?

<comment><USER9> It would be much better if the ISPs in a given census block were required to list the offered packages and prices; that could then be submitted to those polled (along with some fake options to detect those who just don't know).

The citizen would be asked to fill out one column of check-boxes "from packages reportedly offered in their area" to see which they've been offered by the ISPs, and another to select the level of service they're currently getting.

<comment><USER10> Offered and available are two different things.

For instance, the COs are too far apart to drive high speed DSL to the edges of the areas they serve, so DSL 'broadband' is a dalmatian pattern even in an urban area. So you have cable, which is oversubscribed and has ulterior motives. Until your neighborhood has fiber the 'has broadband' question is pretty much on a block by block basis, and in some instances house by house.

<comment><USER11> If a company advertises (offers) a service and then backs out, is that grounds for false advertisement complaints?

<comment><USER12> If they advertise aDSL with "speeds up to" and an inherent limitation in the system (distance to CO or line quality), I suspect they're in the clear legally (and morally IMO)

<comment> munk-a If only we had some sort of Federal Working Group - or Commission on Communication... then perhaps that group could ban the practice of advertising "speeds up to" and require that plans be reported with minimum speed guarantees (with some allowance for craziness, like an SLA - 95% of the time monthly the speed will be at least 30Mb)

<comment><USER12> Does banning the advertising of ADSL (in practice) benefit or harm consumers in total in areas where that's the fastest terrestrial option? I believe it harms them (in that advertising the cost and availability of ADSL is better than remaining silent on the service). ADSL line performance is hyper- localized to the individual service recipient.

<comment><USER13> I think the point is that measuring real, possible ADSL speeds can and should be done. There's no reason the price couldn't be prorated based on the maximum achievable speed at your household. Good luck getting that at the moment though.

The other issue is fluctuating speed at peak times. This is far, far worse IMO, because companies have oversold capacity and should be considered false advertising.

<comment><USER12> "Our service is prorated at $100/mo per 1Mbps download. For customer convenience, we also cap the monthly bill at $75/mo. You always pay the lower of the two prices." Done.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When we moved to central VA a few years ago, there was a house we really, really liked but did not purchase because there was no option at all for broadband. The truly sad thing is that the house was about 1 mile from the i95 corridor, where a ton of fiber sits, going to the northern VA datacenters.

We wound up in a more established, less rural area, where we have exactly one choice in internet providers (Comcast).

<comment><USER15> The good ol' local monopoly

<comment><USER16> The First Honest Cable Company | Extremely Decent [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ilMx7k7mso) (profanity)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Wouldn't it be easier to figure out how many people do have broadband and subtract from the population to get a rough guess? ISP's report subscription numbers. It won't be super accurate but maybe that is sufficient.

<comment><USER18> Would this handle multi-person households?

<comment><USER19> Incorporate avg number of people per house...?

<comment><USER15> Do we really have no record of how many houses are in the US? I hate how absolutely inefficient government is

<comment><USER19> We have excellent data on this

<comment><USER15> Then I don't see the issue of why we can't calculate like the parent said to figure out how many houses don't have service. If we know how many houses there are and the ISPs know the homes they serve, then you can figure out the difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> munk-a Don't forget that a common argument that ISPs use to suppress muni broadband is that the muni will cover highly profitable customers while leaving the ISP needing to support only extremely rural customers... even though genuine private competition could do the same thing and the government has already footed the bill for that rural build out.

</comment><comment><USER20> I've seen lots of apartments only offer some 3rd party cable company and 3rd party dsl, that the owners would get kick packs. (Millenium as an example). One place I was at, they only had cable and no internet. I had to use ISDN then IDSL after I moved in. About a year later enough people complained and they put in comcrap with real cable modems.

My folks live in a small town with 1 tower for the town that has verizon, thats the only internet, and its slow.

This one time work put in frame relay to employees homes, they asked for my address and didnt ask if I was a owner, I was renting the house. One day a crew showed up and ran copper to my computer room. I had instant access into the servernet for work. (it was decades ago...)

I'm really looking forward to Sat internet like spacex, so I can sit in a cabin away from everyone, and still work. Someday soon I hope.

</comment><comment><USER21> I've always scratched my head at this. ISPs really don't have this information so beating chest about ISPs needing to supply better and better data is nonsensical. Do you know who has this information? Amazon.

<comment><USER11> > ISPs really don't have this information so beating chest about ISPs needing > to supply better and better data is nonsensical.

Do you really think that ISP's marketing teams don't have this information?

<comment><USER6> Often, yes. They know where they have plant. They don't necessarily know where they don't have plant. If your house doesn't already have service, it can be complicated to figure out if it can get service. Maybe you just need to extend an existing node one block over. Or maybe you need to trench half a mile. Until someone actually rings up and orders service to a previously unserved address, they don't try to figure this all out.

I saw this in action when I ordered Comcast Gigabit Pro at my house. They looked at a map and figured there was a place close enough where they could splice fiber. Then they sent out someone to do a ground survey, put together an estimate, and then some bean counters decided whether they would eat the up front cost. The whole process took a month or so (followed by a couple of months to get permits and two full days for a four-person team to actually pull the fiber).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The FCC should visit the data at [https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov/](https://broadbandusa.ntia.doc.gov/) ;)

</comment><comment><USER23> What would we do with that data if we had it? Would we force the ISPs to build out unprofitable infrastructure? Would we direct some funding to the ISPs to do that? Would we incentivize rural folks to move to better served areas?

It just seems like more politics to yell at the FCC to gather this data - <USER2> do we want it?

<comment><USER24> You get that the government is controlled by politics right? The FCC Chair is quite obviously a political appointment based on politics. ISPs get to dig in the public right of way. They have access to what is a natural monopoly of plugging into peoples' homes. Unprofitable infrastructure? How about the fact that these companies take all their cap-ex and throw it into CONTENT then beg the federal government to allow them to throttle their customers so they can charge for the content. Force indeed.</comment></comment>


The World Spends 0.2% Of Its Time On Facebook - <AUTHOR> http://static.matthewlmcclure.com/s/2012/08/12/the-world-spends-2-tenths-percent-of-its-time-on-facebook.html <comment><USER2> And of course, the number will be higher per-person for people who actually use Facebook, because you have to exclude those without it or without internet.

<comment><USER3> Higher? I believe it will be much higher, which is quite concerning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is this another one of those stats that is supposed to divert people's attention away from facebook's inability to produce income at a level that justifies its valuation? Because even if it's one of those, it's not very impressive.

</comment><comment><USER5> If they are including tab/window open and idling, then it's not really fair. It's kind of like presuming that a magazine is being constantly read from the moment it enters your house to the moment it leaves in the rubbish bin.

</comment><comment><USER6> Another obscene stat - We've Spent 5.93M Years Playing WoW... <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiE2czrG0MI>

Jane McGonigal, author of Reality Is Broken, points to the 3 billion hours the world invests every week in online gaming as a clear indicator that many people are not being sufficiently challenged in their day-to-day lives. "5.93 million years is how long people have spent tackling unnecessary obstacles in World of Warcraft," says McGonigal. "We've spent as long playing World of Warcraft as we have evolving as a human species."

<comment><USER7> >"We've spent as long playing World of Warcraft as we have evolving as a human species."

That's obviously a meaningless and unfair comparison (world time vs. cumulative individual time). Here's a better one: how much cumulative time has been spent watching and playing baseball? If it's more than 5.93M years, is baseball evidence for the same thing? Is any form of recreation evidence that reality is broken?

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> From the numbers on the site, it works out to 90 seconds of Facebook per day.

No really. This is useless.

Even if you assumed that 20% of the population uses 80% of the Facebook time, amongst that 20% you're at ~6 minutes per person per day.

Still useless. I spend at least that amount of time sitting on the toilet. More than twice that time waiting for public transit. I 'waste' 20 minutes every night lying in bed waiting to fall asleep. It takes me 5 minutes to make 'instant ramen'.

Ok, finally. Facebook claims 800 million users. Let's assume half of them are fake. That gives an overall average of just over half an hour per person per day. If we apply the 20/80 rule, the top 20% spend an average of 105 minutes on Facebook a day.

I guess that's a bit better.

The world spending 90 seconds a day on one task is... not really that ridiculous. I mean, I bet the world spends 90 seconds a day praying towards Mecca. (By rough math, it would require each Muslism in the world to spend roughly 10 minutes a day praying...).

<comment><USER9> > Ok, finally. Facebook claims 800 million users. Let's assume half of them > are fake.

I'd assume the 800M is active (non fake) users. They probably have billions of accounts.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I think a more useful statistic would be time spent per active Facebook user.</comment>


Latest DRM Goes From Horrible To Slightly Less Horrible - <AUTHOR> http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120122/08260517502/tales-ubisoft-drm-latest-drm-goes-horrible-to-slightly-less-horrible.shtml

<comment><USER2> Funny I had no DRM problems with the pirated version. Hmmm what does that say...</comment>


Is Uber getting too vital to fail? - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-38252405 <comment><USER2> So who's down to make an open source Uber and get paid for consulting with municipalities that want to implement it (a la VA Linux). Anyone?</comment>


Credit Scores and Committed Relationships - T-A http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2015/10/02-credit-scores-committed-relationships-dokko <comment><AUTHOR> This is a very interesting study. Anyone who has worked in the consumer credit industry will know that credit scores are correlated with a whole bunch of things -- your standard credit default to insurance claims to employment. Anytime you need to identify 'responsible' individuals, credit scores can act as a pretty good proxy although using credit scores is legally kosher only in certain situations.

I think their trustworthiness hypothesis is probably weaker than other parts of their analysis. I have my own hypothesis based on my experience working in this industry: Staying in a committed relationship may not be really about 'responsible' behavior but could be due to similarity of financial management styles. Most marriage counselors talk about 'sorting out your finances' before getting married; credit scores are essentially capturing that issue -- people who have very good credit scores tend to be savers (although credit scores do not use income or wealth into account) and ones who have poor scores tend to be financially poor and for the large part spend more than they can afford. Also people with good scores tend to be manage finances in a particular way -- pay bills early, monitor balances regularly, etc. -- while the ones with poor credit scores do not usually pay much attention to finances and miss payments frequently.

When you have two people with two different styles of managing money, it can lead to a strained relationship and subsequently lead to separation.

<comment><USER2> To me, it's simpler. You have people who 'believe' in the current system and their role in keeping it stable and sustainable. And, you have people who don't believe or just don't care.

I am unfortunately a believer. I've always wanted to disregard the whole silly, archaic system, but I can't. I'm very 'responsible' by nurture. My spouse is also a believer. We have a very stable relationship, we're very responsible, trustable, and, of course, have perfect credit scores all because of our silly beliefs.

<comment><USER3> >You have people who 'believe' in the current system and their role in keeping it stable and sustainable.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'believe' but it makes it sound like there aren't obvious, objective benefits to paying bills and having a good credit score. I don't like the system either, but it results in me not having to pay higher interest rates on loans, not having to put down large deposits for rent, getting to purchase things on credit, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> >Credit scores and match quality appear predictive of subsequent separations even beyond these credit channels, suggesting that credit scores reveal an individual's relationship skill and level of commitment.

From an economic perspective this looks like time preference. Individuals who place a greater value on enjoyment in the present compared to enjoyment at some time in future are less likely to save money for the future, preferring to enjoy it now, and are also less likely to persist through the difficult parts of a relationship in pursuit of some future benefit from having a lasting relationship. I prefer the economic perspective as it's more impartial, and doesn't make the assumption that lack of "relationship skill" is the cause of relationship failure.

<comment><USER5> I thought credit scores were more influenced by payment promptness and reliability rather than saving propensity. Isn't one of the problems with people with high savings and no debt is that their credit score is lowish purely because they don't have any evidence of prompt payment of debt?

<comment><AUTHOR> While your statement about payment promptness is correct, people with good scores tend to save more than others (scores do not use savings or income or wealth into account, however).

Credit scores only penalize you when you don't have any credit but most of these good score folks tend to have (or had) a mortgage or have had auto loans, etc. Just because they are not actively opening new accounts does not mean they will be penalized -- credit scores look at pretty much everything in your report and they get credit for their historical good behavior.

Another thing to consider is that good credit scores leads to a positive cycle: you don't pay high interest rates on your loans and the extra money saved here allows you to pay down obligations faster, which in turn allows you to save more in the long run.

<comment><USER5> What about people with no debt? If you own your home and don't carry any consumer debt then you look like a bad credit risk despite being one of the best risks.

<comment><AUTHOR> It depends on what you mean by 'no debt'. If you mean, they have never ever had a loan then they will most likely not even have a score or a poor one (they will be categorized as a 'no hit' or 'thin file'). Don't have stats top of my head for this group but my hunch is no-hit / thin-file are people with poor access to credit and not many actively avoid debt altogether.

If you mean, they had debt but they paid it all off, then they will still get a lot of credit for it. Credit scores look at your 'oldest tradeline' and maintaining good credit over many years is viewed favorably. Their scores will not be as high as someone who had recent credit transaction and managing it well (all else being equal), however, it will still be very good. If you look at the FICO Score, anything above a 760 or 780 is usually just bragging rights -- it hardly changes your rates on mortgages or loans.

<comment><USER6> I'd lived in the US for about five years before I bothered to get a credit rating. I remember when I was renting an apartment the agent looked shocked that I didn't have one.

"How can you not have a credit rating? Don't you have a car? Or a phone?"

I said "Uh yeah, I paid cash for my car, and my phone is prepaid".

I had a helluva time convincing him that someone who never has to borrow money (and can buy brand new cars for cash) is a _better_ credit risk than someone who borrows money all the freaking time.

Eventually I gave in and got a credit card for the sake of miles. Sheesh!

<comment><USER5> It is amazing this isn't it. Being rich enough to not need to borrow makes you a bad credit risk.

We seem to have some very knowledgable people here so why is it that credit scores don't start at a default value and go up or down based on your credit history. Why is a rich person with no debt and huge amount of assets more of a risk than an undischarged bankrupt?

<comment><AUTHOR> >> Why is a rich person with no debt and huge amount of assets more of a risk than an undischarged bankrupt?

Good point and as mseebach points out absence of information is a signal and these type of no-debt cases are very rare that is hard to build a model around.

At our start-up SimplyCredit, we look at things holistically, not just your credit score and that should help with your concern. However, it is harder to do this effectively without proper data at scale. I wish the govt. made different types of data about the borrower available to lenders (with permission from the borrower of course) -- for example, it will be nice to know electronically someone paid for mortgage outright or their income statements, etc. Right now people attempting to use this information have to resort to approaches that Mint uses (scraping, partnership with banks to not block them, etc.).

That said, credit scores actually work in a manner similar to what you suggest. Credit scores are 'centered' around a value and good things get you +score1 and bad things get you -score2, bad things you didn't do +score3, etc. It is not exactly what you suggest as no-hits don't automatically get neutral rating -- most case those apps will get rejected.

<comment><USER5> People without a credit score fall into three categories which really have nothing in common in regards risk. 1. The unbanked (i.e. very poor). 2. The very wealthy or the moderately wealthy with an aversion to debt. 3. Recent immigrants. While I suspect 2 is relatively small, both 1 and 3 are quite large pools. Treating all three as a greater risk than someone with a history of poor debt management seems perverse.

The risk profile of a recent legal immigrant with a PhD and a high paying job is very different to someone that has never had a bank account and who has worked for cash in hand. Why treat them the same? At the very least let someone with no history of credit establish a credit score baseline based on their international history, current income, and assets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Credit scores are like g in that they are highly predictive of a wide range of seeming unrelated human activities. I am always amazed at how humans are so predictable from such simple scores.

</comment><comment><USER7> So we need to make a new dating app that matches you by your credit score?

</comment><comment><USER8> Companies in America repeatedly charge people $10, $50, $200 or more than they should have, and then you either have to pay to hire a lawyer or pay them. If you don't then you get a bad credit score, and all the other companies that use the credit system will charge you more.

In Austria, credit bureaus like in America are seen as corrupt and criminal. China also doesn't have a central credit bureau.

I feel bad for every american when I hear intelligent people muse about making it more complex. You are just increasing the ability of companies to walk on the poor. This creates a bad bottom end of society, which America suffers from and Austria does not.

America has crumbling cities like Detroit, and it's because of the criminal thieving credit bureau, but here in this thread we have lots of people talking about the credit bureau without even taking civilization into account.

<comment><USER6> That's rather a long bow to draw based on the occasional overcharge (which you should be able to get your credit card company to reverse anyway).

<comment><USER8> No its not. I imagine there are millions of lower class people in America that get charged an extra $50-$500 every month with a dare to hire a lawyer or take a hit on their credit score, of which they can take neither, so they pay a thief his made up fees. There's probably other examples of this I could imagine. Without even speaking about the psychological trauma that is present here, it looks about as criminal as stealing lunch money from random people.

This isn't civilized behavior and it should not be tolerated in the USA.

<comment><USER6> Statistically if it's never once happened to me it's unlikely that it happens to millions of people a month. I'm not sure where you're getting your information from.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Firefox WebExtension that adds rel=noopener to all external hyperlinks - <AUTHOR> https://addons.mozilla.org/nl/firefox/addon/dont-touch-my-tabs/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's not perfect yet since it uses jQuery instead of pure JavaScript, but: This is my first (tiny) project in over a year. I was inspired by a HN post I saw some weeks ago and thought I'd share this with others since I'm quite proud of how well it's working.

This also gave me the inspiration of focussing on learning how to code. This will be a very useful skill since I'm a software tester for a PHP (and JavaScript) based web application.

(I am yet to add it to the Chrome Extensions, but Google asks 5$ which isn't a lot, but they only allow Credit Card, so this will be on hold until I aquire one.)

<comment><USER2> Thanks for releasing this, but it would work only properly (and be more efficient) if you checked for window.opener directly in new documents instead, and simply set it to null before document scripts are run (using the beforescriptexecute event is one option).

I do the same using a "@run-at document-start" userscript, but I'd be glad if I could point people to a proper firefox extension.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's a very good point, thanks for sharing!

I will take a look into this because this sounds very interesting. I am new to "this" though, so it will take me some time to figure out how to implement this into, perhaps, a v2.0, but I'm surely taking up the challenge to learn more about this, so thank you for the tip!</comment></comment></comment>