Mine does happen to be maple. There are big differences in what’s ok for that?

Agree with this! It’s one of those things where if you want to learn to do it, just start doing. (Which it sounds like op is, so keep at that.) You find where the gaps are then focus on learning just enough to get past your roadblock.

I just pulled a valuable card and got it graded through PSA. Wound up not being worth it really for me. But that might be because I paid for a single card. At the very least you save some on shipping if you send a bunch for grading at one time, but the submission fee might lower in bulk too, don’t remember.

The fee tho is based on how quick you want it done. I wanted it back within a couple months, so it cost me like 60 bucks. If you’re patient it’s a good bit cheaper (tho they did just send me an email saying they’re raising prices). My card (fresh from the pack) graded at 9, which in my case looks like it’s going about the same as ungraded, a little bit higher. Even if the card seems perfect, 8/9/10 is basically a toss up far as I can tell. My card went up in value a bit in the months the process took, so I pretty much broke even on the grading vs selling immediately. And PSA will handle the actual selling for you if you want, so that can be nice.

Anyway, that’s just my experience, and it’s n=1 so grain of salt.

From a collection perspective, I don’t really see the appeal in owning graded cards. On a base level, I want someone to enjoy them and I think the grading tombs lower the aesthetic appeal. I don’t want to put more graded cards into the world. But in some cases you just want as much money for your cards as possible. So grading might make sense for the valuable ones if they’re in especially good shape. Check pricecharting for the cards you’re considering for grading and see if there’s a nice bump.

If I remember right, I think Severed required it. Might need buttons too tho, idk.

Pretty cool projects. I played around with the Mandarin one a little. What plans do you have for these going forward?

More languages, custom vocab lists seem like they’d be good additions, but mainly I’m interested in how you plan to improve the game aspects?

It’s bad and seemingly getting worse. And while the headline tries to ‘other’ these kids, it’s not just them. It’s Americans in general that are declining:

The news of Gen Z’s waning literacy comes along with a substantial decline in literary acumen among Americans more broadly. Over the last 20 years, for example, the amount of adults reading recreationally in the US has fallen by 40 percent. Meanwhile, a survey of the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) found that 59 million Americans are reading at a level one competency or below — the lowest level on the PIAAC’s five-point scale.

Reminds me of a similar article from a couple years ago on this same topic: https://slate.com/human-interest/2024/02/literacy-crisis-reading-comprehension-college.html

The professor that wrote that goes on to mention how even among himself and his colleagues, attention and focus is far from the norm any more:

Even as a career academic who studies the Quran in Arabic for fun, I have noticed my reading endurance flagging. I once found myself boasting at a faculty meeting that I had read through my entire hourlong train ride without looking at my phone. My colleagues agreed this was a major feat, one they had not achieved recently. Even if I rarely attain that high level of focus, though, I am able to “turn it on” when demanded, for instance to plow through a big novel during a holiday break.

I always think that when I see this fact - what counts as a shuffle? If I sloppily cut the deck once and reassemble, that’s most likely not unique. I wonder how many moves before a shuffle is statistically close to a random order. I’m guessing just a few, but I don’t really know.

Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here is pretty easy all around and fun to play. You get to do some picking out notes and some strumming. The one caveat is that there’s an intro solo that, while easy, is supposed to be a second guitar.

You’re right that it isn’t, and doesn’t need to be, the most complicated thing in the world.

But there’s a bit more to it than it sounds like. Deck management, customizing flashcards (html/CSS templates), spaced repetition algorithms (including many user-customizable settings), statistics and visualizations.

Most importantly probably are the things they host online. Right now you can freely sync your data between devices, and they have a community portal where people upload decks to share. I’m imagining these will be among the first targets for paywalls (but could always be replaced by the community).

Just read through.

AnikiHub’s page is a little concerning on its own, with ‘we offer AI features!’ blatantly front and center.

More worrying is that in their post they go out of their way to say “Anki’s core code will remain open source” (emphasis mine).

Otherwise, idk, sounds like at a base level they have the right ideals in mind.

Some discussion already at the crosspost and at HackerNews.

The posts themselves from Anki’s creator and AnkiHub look encouraging, but definitely some reasons to be skeptical.

Worth noting this is not a new vulnerability, it’s an analysis of a vulnerability disclosed in December:

Following the security disclosure published in the v8.8.9 announcement
https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/v889-released/
the investigation has continued in collaboration with external experts and with the full involvement of my (now former) shared hosting provider.

According to the analysis provided by the security experts, the attack involved infrastructure-level compromise that allowed malicious actors to intercept and redirect update traffic destined for notepad-plus-plus.org. The exact technical mechanism remains under investigation, though the compromise occured at the hosting provider level rather than through vulnerabilities in Notepad++ code itself.

This is by Shinkiro isn’t it? Great style!

Yeah, I saw. Really good! Also saw that F-Droid should be soon, and that sign ups have spiked. The content on there has already improved slighly in the last handful of days. There’s hope for it!

Here’s how Bruce Schneier approaches it: https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/05/the_eternal_value_of.html

Thanks, good to know.

More interesting, they at least address the decentralization question:

Why isn’t UpScrolled a decentralized platform?

Because it doesn’t work for what we’re trying to build.

UpScrolled isn’t decentralized (yet) because today’s open protocols (e.g., ActivityPub, AT Protocol) don’t reliably deliver what we need for a mainstream, video-forward app: fast global discovery, stable search/ranking, and smooth media. In practice, these stacks still lean on centralized indexing to work well, so we’re shipping the experience that works now—not a theory.

We keep things open and simple with lightweight, common-sense protections—spam/bot filtering, straightforward reporting, and consistent deletes when people remove their own content. We’re building interoperable by design (clean exports, stable APIs) and will add optional bridges to open protocols as they mature, so you can reach more people without sacrificing speed or simplicity.

Which, honestly, fair. Federation does have some issues.

I’m not seeing anything on open source tho, which I have a harder time seeing the justification for not doing. But it is what it is.

Yes! It’s completely silly. A ‘poll’ designed exactly for the people that want a noai option, to be shared in places like this so those people (like me) can get the tiny satisfaction of hitting No.

They were never wondering what the result would be, they were never trying to gauge their userbase’s preferences. It’s just a page they thought people would share to spread awareness of DDG.

easier to discover new apps, also highlighting the most downloaded ones

installation approval before downloading

Sounds great to me!

Is it? That got my interest, but I can’t find mention of it on their site or FAQ

(I know Loops is, maybe I wasn’t clear but I was meaning to ask about the other one.)

I heard briefly about this on Loops actually, lol. I wonder what’s the story with it? Is it some big tech company’s new product, a stand-alone startup? American or some other origin? Decentralized? Open source or proprietary?

Not deadset on any of these as deal breakers, but would be nice if some aspects inspired confidence.