Live data from Hacker News

The secret inside One Million Checkboxes

eieio.games

131–140 of 230 posts

Re: The secret inside One Million Checkboxes

#131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me disclaim that this is a work in progress and that I am not a doctor. Part of it was that I had a breakdown. That was unpleasant. But ultimately it was part of the process. (Not to say this is necessarily true of everyone!) This forced me to quit my job. I have a one track mind, so I couldn't really do the work on myself I needed while I was working. I hope this isn't necessary for you or anyone else though. Wh…

Thank you for taking your time to write this, it gives me a valuable insight. Wishing all the best for you, me, and others out there who're struggling.

<3

Re: The secret inside One Million Checkboxes

#132
post #2

This part is so important: > The adults in my life were largely not mad at me. They asked me to knock it off, but also made me a t-shirt. I don’t think I’d be doing what I do now without the encouragement that I received then. Teena need a place to be moderately mischievous, with semi-real social outcomes, but also some boundaries and help to not take it too far. And adults who aren’t authorities over them except ins…

I did almost exactly the same thing at my school (brought down the system with a VB6 script that wrote infinite text files to networked storage). They sent my mum a letter accusing me of terrorism.

At the time I thought I was pretty ridiculous and unfair (lucky my mum agreed), but now looking back with adult eyes I also see it as an almost criminal level of disregard for the job of raising children. Just absolutely irredeemably small-minded, truly pathetic, it makes me so angry to think that there are still young people growing up in that environment and being taught by those people.

Re: The secret inside One Million Checkboxes

#133

Hi, I read the twitter thread and also watched the video. The people are really awesome and creative! I'm just learning about the codes and I did not understand some things, so I'd be very grateful if anyone helps me to understand these things... 1. The 1000x1000 image is the million checkboxes in 1000 rows x 1000 columns right? 2. Do they create the image directly with the checked and unchecked boxes, or we have to…

1. Yes 2. Directly 3. Yes

Thank you for answering. The process is very hard to comprehend for me. These guys are so creative!

Re: The secret inside One Million Checkboxes

#134
This is reminiscent of a story in the New Yorker about Reddit - there is a part of the story that describes r/Place:

Last April Fools’, instead of a parody announcement, Reddit unveiled a genuine social experiment. It was called r/Place, and it was a blank square, a thousand pixels by a thousand pixels. In the beginning, all million pixels were white. Once the experiment started, anyone could change a single pixel, anywhere on the grid, to one of sixteen colors. The only restriction was speed: the algorithm allowed each redditor to alter just one pixel every five minutes. “That way, no one person can take over—it’s too slow,” Josh Wardle, the Reddit product manager in charge of Place, explained. “In order to do anything at scale, they’re gonna have to coöperate.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/reddit-and-the...

Re: The secret inside One Million Checkboxes

#136
post #18
post #7

If this really happened, on both sides - author, and haxor, well, ... there is still hope for this world. Amen.

As one of the people who found the original Discord server back when the site was live, I can attest that this is absolutely true.

You were one of the elites!How did you find the link? Please share... Really interested to find out.

Re: The secret inside One Million Checkboxes

#138
post #57

> The typical ways that folks - especially folks who don’t program - bump into bots are things like ticket scalping and restaurant reservation bots. Bots that feel selfish and unfair and antisocial. This reminded me of how a ski resort, Palisades Tahoe, implemented free but scarce parking reservations for weekend parking last winter. Since it's one of the most popular ski destinations from the Bay Area, you can imagi…

It's a shame because the solution is very simple. You have a period of time where people can register interest which is long enough that everyone can do it at their leisure. After this window closes you draw lots. Whoever wins the lottery gets the opportunity to buy (eg by receiving an email with a magic link). If they don't, you draw another person and offer it to them. Otherwise you have an "auction" where instead…

What stops you from sybil attacking the lottery and selling to highest bidder?

Re: The secret inside One Million Checkboxes

#139

Hi, I read the twitter thread and also watched the video. The people are really awesome and creative! I'm just learning about the codes and I did not understand some things, so I'd be very grateful if anyone helps me to understand these things... 1. The 1000x1000 image is the million checkboxes in 1000 rows x 1000 columns right? 2. Do they create the image directly with the checked and unchecked boxes, or we have to…

1. Yes 2. Directly 3. Yes

Did only one bot acted on the page at a time or multiple bots controlled the checkboxes at once when there were many small pics/elements to form the 1000x1000 image? I meant to ask did multiple people draw on the canvas at the same time or it was only one person/bot at a time?

Re: The secret inside One Million Checkboxes

#140
post #2

This part is so important: > The adults in my life were largely not mad at me. They asked me to knock it off, but also made me a t-shirt. I don’t think I’d be doing what I do now without the encouragement that I received then. Teena need a place to be moderately mischievous, with semi-real social outcomes, but also some boundaries and help to not take it too far. And adults who aren’t authorities over them except ins…

I did almost exactly the same thing at my school (brought down the system with a VB6 script that wrote infinite text files to networked storage). They sent my mum a letter accusing me of terrorism. At the time I thought I was pretty ridiculous and unfair (lucky my mum agreed), but now looking back with adult eyes I also see it as an almost criminal level of disregard for the job of raising children. Just absolutely i…

People are afraid of what they don't understand - Someone, at one point

The adults in that situation didn't understand the full (or rather, how small) scope of what happened, so for them it looks wildly different than to you or me. To them, computers are black boxes that are not to fuck with, and the ones who do, are only out after destruction and ruining things. That's why they react like they do.

Not to excuse the behavior, they should of course have talked with people who understand what happened before trying to address it, but lack of resources, knowledgeable people and understanding often leads to being able to.

Similarly, I at one point (before I'd consider myself a programmer) worked as a customer support agent contracted out to a popular fruit technology company, saw efficiencies in how things were done manually and hacked together a browser extension. At first just me and my colleague next to me was using it. Eventually, it spread and eventually management found out.

Instead of trying to elevate the processes and seeing that things could be better, they decided to eventually get rid of me, too risky they said.

Post reply on HN