Live data from Hacker News

B. Traven

en.wikipedia.org

31–40 of 41 posts

Re: B. Traven

#31
post #26

The Treasure of Sierra Madre is a very good introduction to game-theoretic decision making. In fact in our graduate game theory course, our instructor recommended watching it. It was far ahead of its times.

Have you seen the 1948 film? If so, how does it compare to the book?

Re: B. Traven

#32
post #26

The Treasure of Sierra Madre is a very good introduction to game-theoretic decision making. In fact in our graduate game theory course, our instructor recommended watching it. It was far ahead of its times.

Have you seen the 1948 film? If so, how does it compare to the book?

Both are good. The book of course has more details. But the acting of Walter Huston and Humphrey Bogart adds an extra dimension.

Re: B. Traven

#33
post #4

I'm experiencing a weird Baader Meinhof Phenomenon variant right now...I just started reading 2666 , which concerns itself with (among other things) a mysterious German novelist in Mexico. Very odd to see this story here right now.

Me too! I was just reading this article from this week’s issue of The Nation.

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/b-traven-sierra-ma...

Re: B. Traven

#34
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to even go there. Elena Ferrante got made a few years ago simply by tracking royalties payments. Most lit pseudonyms are broken by simple gossip.

Is Ferrante known with certainty?

The publisher continues to deny but it’s an open secret by now that she’s Anita Raja. The only question is the degree of involvement from her husband Domenico Starnone (also a writer), since his style is very close to her style; but Raja has also been a long-time editor for Starnone, so the overlapping might be entirely organic.

Re: B. Traven

#35
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to even go there. Elena Ferrante got made a few years ago simply by tracking royalties payments. Most lit pseudonyms are broken by simple gossip.

I think the thing that makes it so truly rare, even in history is that very few people can resist getting even some recognition for their work. At the very least, most authors have a handful of literary minded friends they discuss their ideas and the machanical aspects of their writing with. It's just incredibly hard for most people to never breathe a word of something that eats up so much of their mind like writing…

Did you read “Crime and punishment” by Dostoevsky? It’s about this very thing. What is crime without attribution - of success as much as of guilt...?

Re: B. Traven

#36
post #4

I'm experiencing a weird Baader Meinhof Phenomenon variant right now...I just started reading 2666 , which concerns itself with (among other things) a mysterious German novelist in Mexico. Very odd to see this story here right now.

offtopic: The word Baader Meinhof needs to be retried. Besides reminding us of terrorists and being pseudo-intellectual, it wastes time and attention (and co2) by having to google its meaning. The better terms, "Frequency illusion" or "selective attention bias", however are quite self explanatory.

Re: B. Traven

#37
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to knit pick a bit, if you were to dig deep into capitalism or socialism or anarchism, you would see those are explorations of the human condition. Politics then is drama woven around that. Maybe I'm being overly poetic. My point is that those concepts and phenomena that are sometimes so hotly debated are not somehow inherently adverserial or tainting, for the lack of a better word. There's no such thing as a da…

Might as well go meta here: you mean "nit pick".

You're right. I always presumed that nitpicking refers to picking at loose threads in something that is knit (as in something you can't help not doing). Apparently, nitpicking refers to picking nits off someone; nits as in flea eggs.

Re: B. Traven

#38
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to knit pick a bit, if you were to dig deep into capitalism or socialism or anarchism, you would see those are explorations of the human condition. Politics then is drama woven around that. Maybe I'm being overly poetic. My point is that those concepts and phenomena that are sometimes so hotly debated are not somehow inherently adverserial or tainting, for the lack of a better word. There's no such thing as a da…

The greatest irony is they're just another throwback to Platonic thinking, and completely---I mean truly---worthless in practical application (i.e real life, vs. academic theory). People organize themselves in "capitalistic," "socialistic," and even "anarchistic" manners depending on the context, and level of scale (informal, local, global, etc.); many times even pushing one way, then the other; and finally ending wi…

Platonic thinking is a new term to me. Seems to be summed up by "tell me how it is and I will tell you why".

I think people problems, to an extent, have to do with what we identify with. Am I a male, a national, a church member, a political partisan, a human, an animal, a piece of life, a body, a mind, etc.? All those identifications are fine if you can switch between them. Problems start when you're stuck with one, even if it's not useful anymore. It's that loss of freedom or flexibility that fascinates and perplexes me.

Re: B. Traven

#39
post #4

I'm experiencing a weird Baader Meinhof Phenomenon variant right now...I just started reading 2666 , which concerns itself with (among other things) a mysterious German novelist in Mexico. Very odd to see this story here right now.

offtopic: The word Baader Meinhof needs to be retried. Besides reminding us of terrorists and being pseudo-intellectual, it wastes time and attention (and co2) by having to google its meaning. The better terms, "Frequency illusion" or "selective attention bias", however are quite self explanatory.

[deleted]

Re: B. Traven

#40
post #4

I'm experiencing a weird Baader Meinhof Phenomenon variant right now...I just started reading 2666 , which concerns itself with (among other things) a mysterious German novelist in Mexico. Very odd to see this story here right now.

offtopic: The word Baader Meinhof needs to be retried. Besides reminding us of terrorists and being pseudo-intellectual, it wastes time and attention (and co2) by having to google its meaning. The better terms, "Frequency illusion" or "selective attention bias", however are quite self explanatory.

I did a research paper on Baader Meinhof long before the phenomenon came to my attention.

It was two years after that paper before I came across any other mentions of them.

The very next time anybody mentioned them to me it was in the frequency context and I'd had exactly the opposite experience of the "phenomenon." No frequency illusion at all.

I have no idea why we'd name a phenomenon after a thing that made some guy have a certain feeling this one time. It's a moronic name.

Post reply on HN