Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | cfmcdonald's commentslogin

This seems like an opportunity to celebrate great children's books created with craft and care by humans.

I'll start: John Rocco, How We Got to the Moon. (http://www.howwegottothemoon.com/)


I recently discovered Shinsuke Yoshitake:

"I won't give up my rubber band" is a sweet, imaginative, thoughtful exploration of the thing we get attached to in our lives. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/58739625-i-won-t-give-up...

"I wonder where I am" is a exploration of maps in various forms, a bit over my 2.5 year old's cognitive abilities, but I think it's great. Can't wait until he's able to get it.: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204810909-i-wonder-where...

The books from Julia Donaldsson are classics. I am partial to Gozzle:

Gozzle https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gozzle-Julia-Donaldson/dp/152907641...

The snail and the whale: https://www.amazon.com/Snail-Whale-Julia-Donaldson/dp/150983...

My kid had a loooong "The hospital dog" phase: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hospital-Dog-Julia-Donaldson/dp/150...

I skipped some of the native romanian books we read since there are no known translations that I am aware of. One of the main reasons I want to teach my toddler english is so that we can appreciate a wider selection of books, because there are many books not translated in Romanian.

I also noticed that the quality of the translation matter immensely, probably more than for normal books. And a lot of books just don't translate all that well because they rely on rimes or alliterations.


The Complete Calvin and Hobbes anthology by Bill Watterson - a formative part of every kid's childhood growing up in our house.

  Dad: How's your math coming?
  Calvin: I don't do math anymore. I decided I'm more of a "visual" person.
  Dad: Good. Visualize being the only 45-year old in first grade.


obviously, David Macaulay, The Way Things Work

So mainstream, it has a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Way_Things_Work


I’m so lucky to have had a copy of this as a kid. Loved that book. It really let you understand how all kinds of things worked, with beautiful illustrations you could pore over for hours. Thanks for reminding me of it.


keeping on theme: Tomi Ungerer, moon man https://www.amazon.com/Moon-Man-Tomi-Ungerer/dp/0714855987


Margaret Wise Brown's Goodnight Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodnight_Moon

( with bonus book ban credentials:

  From the time of its publication in 1947 until 1972, the book was "banned" by the New York Public Library due to the then-head children's librarian Anne Carroll Moore's hatred of the book.

  According to children's literature expert Betsy Bird, Moore criticized Goodnight Moon due to the fact that she believed it lacked a meaningful narrative structure and educational value.

)


That is a great book. All my kids loved it.

"Good night little house and good night mouse, good night comb and good night brush, good night nobody, good night mush"

My kids loved the mush part. I still remember it more than a decade after I last read the book for the bajillionth time, often more than once per night, to a kid that wouldn't go to sleep.


She’s not wrong. But it’s still a great book for kids, for reasons entirely unknown to me. (Parent of 7)


Locomotive, by the similarly named Brian Floca, is also a masterpiece of detail and charm.


While writing this post I actually got an itch to buy a Commodore 64 Ultimate, even though I never owned a Commodore 64 before. (I believe I used one once at friend's house.) Nostalgia by contagion.


The Ultimate sounds great. I have the lesser C64 Maxi. Would be nice if it could emulate the Plus 4 or the C16.


I think it's instructive to compare the U.S. and Soviet stances in Europe after WW2. To maintain a military presence in Eastern Europe, the Soviets had to rely on repression, coercion, and occupation. This was expensive and fragile and eventually fell apart. The U.S. was openly welcomed into Germany and other countries in Western Europe. This was the value of "soft power."


This video [0] shows someone using Gopher (and other common pre-web Internet tools) in the early 90s.

I used Gopher when I did a high school summer science camp at Indiana University in 1994. It was a really interesting time of transition when the graphical Web was just coming on-line with Mosaic, but most tools were still textual/command line (FTP, pine/elm email/Usenet clients, MUDs, etc.)

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDV4zrex18o


Yes, I suck at titles. I'm glad you enjoy the blog.


Author of the OP here. The "spray" technique was known in the early 80s, if not earlier. It's mentioned in Michael Tomczyk's "Home Computer Wars":

> The solution came in several forms. One way was to embed ferrite balls in the plastic case. Another way was to spray the inside of the case with a metal coating. But the best way was to encase the offending electronics in a small metal box inside the case, which is what was done with the VIC-20. [0]

Why a metal box is the best way, he doesn't say and I don't know. My best guess is that it was more effective/reliable at passing the tests.

[0]: https://archive.org/details/the-home-computer-wars/page/205/...


I think the GP's point is there is no meaningful nutritional difference between a from-scratch cake and a box cake. Both are pretty unhealthy and should be eaten only as special treats. "Ultra-processed" is not a useful way of separating healthy from unhealthy foods.


That is precisely the point that should be discussed because, from what I've read, UPFs are much worse than plain fatty or sugary food cooked by human hands.

The extra stuff in UPFs interacts with your body in ways that you are not prepared for and some of them are designed to make you consume more. The first example that comes to mind is the sodium added to make you tolerate more sugar.


They may not differ much in terms of calories or nutrients, but there absolutely is a difference - the ultra processed cake has preservatives and additives that are way harder on your gut microbiome, which affects your body's ability to process other food.


It looks like the trend started circa the 1920s in the U.S. Kotex (1920) [0], Kleenex (1924) [1], Kool-Aid (1927) [2], Kool (1933) [3], Krispy Kreme (1934) [4].

Kraft might look like one, but isn't, it's named after James Kraft [5], which presumably traces back to the german word Kraft.

I'm curious if there are older examples.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotex [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleenex [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool-Aid [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool_(cigarette) [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krispy_Kreme [5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_L._Kraft


Not a brand name, but "ok" is widely believed to be from a meme from 1838 where abbreviations were comically misspelled. "Ok" being "Oll Korrect":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OK


Author here. Yes I could be more accurate here. It was called just "Apple Computer" in some contexts, e.g. this ad [0]. This manual calls it "Apple-1" on the cover [1], but "Apple Computer" in the contents. But you are definitely right that it was often called the Apple-1 in 1976 and into 1977.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I#/media/File:Apple_1_Ad... [1]: https://s3data.computerhistory.org/brochures/apple.applei.19...


> on the cover

And in the schematics towards the end of the manual



Author here. Thank you for the reference, this is very helpful. The name "Colonel Whitney" came from a 1984 Stan Veit article: https://www.atariarchives.org/deli/computer_magazine_madness...

Obviously he misremembered the name. I wasn't able to find other references to corroborate more details of the scam, but of course now I know that I wasn't searching for the correct name.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: