Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Our Chess Champion Has a Home

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 88 posts

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#61

Post by wallace_f »

Dangeranger wrote: post #50
Bodell wrote: post #35

I cant remember the exact years, but I won two state championships in Idaho somewhere between 12-14 years of age (so early 2000’s I think. I would love to find some correlating information about this, but it seems the online records don’t go back that far). I even tied a game with a master who was 30-40 years older than me in a rated tournament. From what I remember I was the only one younger than 25 in many tourname…

You are right. One person's action to improve the life of another without any preconception of glamor is far greater than the fulfillment of donating to a heartwarming story, or hearing about a successful fundraiser. Our (American) attention is too easily focused on the next shiny thing and we pat ourselves on the back for cheering a worthy cause, without consideration of those left out of the spotlight. This story w…

I can give a little perspectives from someone who was traditionally successful and is kind of near the homeless thing, and experienced extreme adult bullying, stalking, and abuse.

I don't mean to disagree with your ideas about spreading the wealth for children which need help.

Personally I would just say I dont ever want any money from someone, but that one place maybe our backs are turned is I would say we need more public accountability ensuring people's rights, opportunities or freedoms are not being violated. It seems like the ACLU and IJ are barely able to mend just some of the really egregious, blatant abuses.

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#62

Post by nl »

m0zg wrote: post #28
Dangeranger wrote: post #23

Tani’s family has an apartment, near his current school, paid for one year by an anonymous donor. They will be donating 10% of the GoFundMe to their church and the remaining 90% will become a trust to help African migrants seeking asylum in the United States. While Tani has been offered scholarships by several elite private schools in NYC, his family has decided to stay loyal to the school Tani is currently attending…

> “Maybe a computer”. Whereupon, sadly, he will discover social media, and all his progress will come to a screeching halt due to FANG PhDs gaming his dopamine cycles for a buck. I wish I was wrong, but looking at my 15 year old, I'm not hopeful. He used to be pretty good at chess, too, before he started spending all his time watching bullshit on Youtube.

The irony of this post complaining about BS Youtube videos when the next comment down posts the Youtube vid of the game itself along. The comment seems relevant:

agadmator is one of the few YT chess channels that I enjoy watching on a daily basis. Love his analysis, and it has helped to improve my chess thinking and strategy.[1]

(I say this as someone who was banned from watching TV, and ended up wasting lots of time reading trash novels as a teenager instead)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19479225

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#63

Post by jinfiesto »

rjf72 wrote: post #55
m0zg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Maybe a computer”. Whereupon, sadly, he will discover social media, and all his progress will come to a screeching halt due to FANG PhDs gaming his dopamine cycles for a buck. I wish I was wrong, but looking at my 15 year old, I'm not hopeful. He used to be pretty good at chess, too, before he started spending all his time watching bullshit on Youtube.

It's unbelievable this is getting downvoted, because it's 100% true and a very major problem in society. I've taught lots of young players and success or failure has 0 to do with intelligence. It's a matter of who can stay focused and actually do the work it takes to improve (which at that age/level is tactics tactics tactics). The second they "discover" social media or the endless stream or inanity on e.g. YouTube,…

I stopped teaching piano for much the same reason. The level of focus just isn't there any more (obviously there are exceptions.) Not that I blame the students, If I'd grown up in this day and age, I certainly would rather be gaming or jacked into social media than practicing.

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#64

Post by pkaye »

Bodell wrote: post #35

I cant remember the exact years, but I won two state championships in Idaho somewhere between 12-14 years of age (so early 2000’s I think. I would love to find some correlating information about this, but it seems the online records don’t go back that far). I even tied a game with a master who was 30-40 years older than me in a rated tournament. From what I remember I was the only one younger than 25 in many tourname…

> The $200 dollars loaned for refinancing, to help a single mother leave a job that holds a car note over her head, for a better one (one that can pay for the rent and food and a good Christmas for a son), never asking to be paid back.

If someone would like to help with this sort of thing, one opportunity is r/Food_Pantry/ or /r/Need on Reddit. There are plenty of people in a bind with simple needs like $20 of food or paying a late bill due to unexpected expenses.

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#65

Post by starpilot »

A tidbit about the kid's work ethic:

> “The average kids do 50 to 100 puzzles a week. (Tani) does like 500 puzzles a week,” [his chess coach] Martinez said.

https://fox4kc.com/2019/03/22/homeless-8-year-old-who-learne...

Pretty amazed at that effort. Far outstrips anything I did when I was 8 years old, I believe I watched a lot of cartoons.

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#66

Post by m0zg »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #56
gowld wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of Dijkstra's complaints was that American computer scientists, with all their wealth and non-WWII-bombed cities (vs Europeans) , spent too much time and money playing with computers instead of doing computer science.

That play time seems to have been more valuable than what the defunct European computer industry focused its energies on.

I'm all for a clever snark, but you're posting this using the medium invented by an European computer scientist, Tim Berners Lee. Whatever they were doing turned out to be pretty valuable, too. Like "the backbone of the information age" grade valuable.

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#67

Post by masonic »

rayiner wrote: post #39
fcarraldo wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what Western democracies are the right combinations of luck and talent not potentially life changing? The only uniquely American part of this story is that the boy was homeless in the first place.

He was homeless because his family came over as refugees. That’s uniquely American because, for the most part, the rest of the developed world hasn’t accepted refugees and economic migrants at the rates the US has taken them. (Very recently that’s changed in places like Sweden, but it’s already causing those countries to go into right-wing coniptions.) But this kid was in a homeless shelter. That’s how most countries…

  changed in places like Sweden
Sweden is rejecting almost 70% of refugees after their first case review (2018 stat) [0]

[0] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#68

Post by m0zg »

rjf72 wrote: post #55
m0zg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Maybe a computer”. Whereupon, sadly, he will discover social media, and all his progress will come to a screeching halt due to FANG PhDs gaming his dopamine cycles for a buck. I wish I was wrong, but looking at my 15 year old, I'm not hopeful. He used to be pretty good at chess, too, before he started spending all his time watching bullshit on Youtube.

It's unbelievable this is getting downvoted, because it's 100% true and a very major problem in society. I've taught lots of young players and success or failure has 0 to do with intelligence. It's a matter of who can stay focused and actually do the work it takes to improve (which at that age/level is tactics tactics tactics). The second they "discover" social media or the endless stream or inanity on e.g. YouTube,…

Needless to say, I agree that it's a major problem, and one the full extent of which we will only experience 10-15 years in the future. One thing is for sure: something _has_ to be done now.

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#69

Post by eastendguy »

nostrademons wrote: post #58
Invictus0 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't write this about your kid man. We all wasted our time as teenagers, it's part of growing up.

I mean, I wasted hundreds of hours playing online games as a middle-schooler. Got so addicted that I decided I wanted to learn to make one, so I taught myself C, then C++, then Java when it came out. One thing led to another, I got a few internships, then a job, a CS major, another job, and 15 years later I was one of those Google engineers gaming dopamine cycles for a buck. And the cycle completes!

Unfortunately you are the exception, not the rule. I know a few truly addicted computer gamers. They are in their 30-40s now, still sitting in their little room playing all day. Lonely, no friends, no social life. Like drug addiction, it is not pretty to see.

But lucky you, you will never meet them on the Google Campus. FANG is Tobacco industry, V2.0.

Re: Our Chess Champion Has a Home

#70

Post by moomin »

tuesdayrain wrote: post #11
crushcrashcrush wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great point. This is also the reason we can't pass meaningful taxes on the wealthy - including cap gains. Because everyone in the US believes they'll one day be a millionaire.

I don't find that to be true from my conversations about this topic. The people I've talked to are afraid of increasing taxes on the wealthy because they're afraid that the wealthy will just choose to relocate to another country, potentially even taking businesses with them.

It’s worth bearing in mind this is literally a talking point thought up and promoted by the rich. There have been studies in this. They suggest the exact opposite: there just aren’t many Saverins in the world.

Equally, business location seems to have very little to do with personal taxation.

This all funnels down to a fundamental misunderstanding of the source of wealth: it starts with a working economy where people buy stuff and work. The rich, like it or not, don’t do much of either relative to their wealth.

Post reply on HN