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      You're not expected to know the answers without doing research. https://britbrief.co.uk/education/schools/king-williams-coll...>The paper carries a telling Latin motto: "Scire ubi aliquid invenire possis ea demum maxima pars eruditionis est" – "To know where you can find something is, after all, the greatest part of learning."In the modern era it is acknowledged that people will use online search engines to find the answers but hopefully we all learn something on the way I know the answer to 1.5. And I know the story behind 1.6, but not the name of the town... That's it :) These ascii art remind me the good old days of internet where we would celebrate holidays and special days sending these little marvels thru our mail client, pine under ibm aix unix terminals. Woah. I didn't know about that. I found it from asciiart.eu. This stuff makes me wish HN supported ANSI. We could have so much fun. (Also PRE or preformatted text would be useful).Merry Christmas and happy new years everyone! But we still miss out on the great ANSI colors.I kinda do want to go back to oldschool bbses, with cool text-mode lightbar interfaces.

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Very nice, the introduction to recursion in university (which was around that time of the year) was drawing a fractal Christmas tree Challenge issued.I wouldn't be surprised if someone comes up with obfuscated C code that looks like a christmas tree and prints out wishes by the end of the day/season.Merry Christmas! ChatGPT did much better but I cannot paste it into this text box no matter how many times I try with different formatting to get the white space preserved. chatGPT also could not figure out how to format it for pasting here. I did recently try to use an LLM to make a twinkling christmas tree quine in the style of qlobe. It didn’t get close, maybe next year! This guy had a lot of involvement in Nazi circles, and was an adamant support of Nick Fuentes and donated an absurd amount of money via superchats to him. On the order of $10k+.Like many things "these" people do, they're doing good to make themselves look good instead of supporting actual policies and positions that would truly make a difference for people.Here's the bitter truth: He was a piece of shit, and a targeted spurt of good activity does not absolve him from the bad choices and positions he chose to espouse.EDIT: Never change HN. A true blue Nazi is is being celebrated and it goes against the narrative of what you want a prolific HN user to be, so you down-vote.If you want to embody the holiday spirit start with honesty and actual compassion, and not theater. Nobody is perfect. I wish we'd stop trying to find reasons to hate everyone who is celebrated, or we'll never celebrate anyone. I don't understand that tweet, I'm not sure if it is something dismissive for you to lose respect over or not? He says it's 'not a disease' but that people with it 'are sick'... I'm not sure if the point is simply that it's not a single well-understood thing with known causes, but more of a description of a state of affairs. (Sort of like 'cellulitis' is just 'a skin infection of some sort'.) But I think that would be correct. Whenever I encounter this idea, I think of a certain Henry Symeonis who is, by this standard, still "alive", even though he died in 1264.There was so much bad blood between him and the Oxford University that Oxford students had to take a pledge never to reconcile with Henry Symeonis upon ther Bc graduation. This tradition stuck for 550 years.https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/culture/bizarre-stor...And we are still aware of him today. Neither an important king, nor a great artist, just a guy who triggered a petty revenge from some long-dead academicians who are, ironically, likely completely forgotten, name and all. And thanks to the magic of computers, we can give them everything you've ever written, and simulate you on the Internet. Forever. Real respect isn't lost over one bad take.Adding my opinion: Especially if he's done so much good and especially if he's calling out Israel. Genuine respect absolutely can - and should be able to be - lost over a "bad take." Whether this instance is one of those is another question entirely.I would even argue that respect that can endure through numerous shitty takes, just because there's one facet of that person that isn't shitty, is far less genuine than otherwise holding that person up to a standard for your respect. Happy Christmas everyone, I’m at 29000 feet on a flight to Hong Kong after a mini version of planes, trains and automobiles and including cancelled planes and taxis to different airports. I’m struck by honestly what a miracle it is that we can travel thousands of miles at hundreds of MPH and have okay internet access and communicate. I don’t think people quite realise how delicate all of the technology is now and how easily it could fail if we don’t all look after each other. I hope you all have a brilliant Christmas and new year! Oh man, I love flying over the Pacific Ocean (during the day). There's just so much nothing but water. It's kind of astounding. Seconding this. If you're into it, it's pretty awe-inspiring to see open water all the way to the horizon, 360°. For a six foot tall person the horizon at sea level is only 3 miles away. You could get that experience on a big lake if it's more than six miles square. If you think that’s the same experience I’m guessing you haven’t done it. Unfortunately my ocean voyage (from Okinawa to California) was when I was too young to remember much. A cruise on the Pacific is felt like being a bug on a huge cup of sea water. During the night the moon feels like an arm length away. o /
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I knew I should have invested in that fancy self-balancing one, oh well. Ah, don't worry. If you just append to one side always and do an anti-balancing one, you get a string of lights. o
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o Mine looks weird but it's decorated: @star @lights @balls def christmas_tree(): n1 = Node() n2 = Node() n3 = Node() n4 = Node() n5 = Node() n6 = Node() n7 = Node() n8 = Node(n1, None) n9 = Node(n2, n3) n10 = Node(n4, n5) n11 = Node(n8, n9) n12 = Node(n6, n7) n13 = Node(None, n11) n14 = Node(None, n12) return Node(n13, n14)

christmas_tree()

May you have a perfectly balanced Christmas h |_ /
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M r y C r s m s .-^-. //_
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||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||| ||||||||||||||| DOOM BSP (XMAS) TREE :p

                 . * .
                (IDKFA)
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      /  Front   \          /   Back   \
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[SUBSECTOR] ( Node 3 ) [SUBSECTOR] | (Leaf A)| / \ | (Leaf B)| || / \ || [SEGS] / \ [SEGS] ( Gift ) [SUBSECTOR] [SUBSECTOR] ( Gift ) | (Leaf C)| | (Leaf D)| || || [SEGS] [SEGS] Just you mentioning Doom makes me wonder how fast will we get someone to run Doom on individually controlled Christmas LEDs on a Christmas tree. IDKFA = id kicks fking assIDDQD = id delta quit delta (apparently some kind of inside joke)IDSPISPOPD = id smashing pumpkins into small piles of putrid debris *
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||| ||| That's the first tree that rendered properly on my mobile, Merey Christmas and good job! Also nice bottom layer of ampersands, looks really festive for some reason! Lovely idea but please spare a thought for people using a screen reader! Imagine having ASCII art spelt out to you character by character, line by line.This really is a job for a LLM.With apologies to screen reader users: "space tab space space asterisk new line space space tab space new line space space space tab pipe new line ... forward slash o full stop full stop backslash ..."

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merry Christmas to all you people out there :) Merry Christmas! Nice touch with the snow, makes for a cosy and homely atmosphere! (It's 25⁰C here. Please send help >.<) * /|
[ROOT] n=25000 / |
[N] [I] [C] .33 .51 .94 <-- UCB1 winner | | /
[OH] [MEH] [E] [E] coal socks NICE NICE | \
:/ :) :)

   MCTS: Monte Carlo Tree Santa

"in the limit, all children converge to the nice list" - S. Claus

Merry Xmas Nerds! Merry Christmas, everybody!Love seeing the custom HN theme every year. Sometimes after Christmas, I avoid refreshing an HN tab, so I get to see the theme just a little bit longer :)This year is a bit special to me. I recently moved countries for a new job, but I moved a bit too soon. Now I am spending the holiday season alone for the first time in my life. Learned a lot of lessons the hard way over the past week.

Sometimes after Christmas, I avoid refreshing an HN tab, so I get to see the theme just a little bit longer :)There's always browser extensions/scripts. Indeed, I didn't notice on desktop (due to my browser extension) but when I saw it on mobile at around 2 or 3 PM Mountain Time I was thrilled!Thanks for continuing such an awesome tradition :-D Yeah, I'm aware of extensions like Stylus and use it on a few sites. But my brain is irrational and doesn't treat it the same as having a snapshot of HN during Christmas. United States to Japan.I was a bit eager to start work after three months of waiting for the HSP 1b visa. Tried to keep myself busy with side projects, and got quite far with embedded Rust. But the lack of a "regular schedule" from a job was making me eager to start "proper work" again.So far, it has been a mixed bag of trade-offs. Made it in time for various events, got to see a few friends for the first time in a while, etc. However, nothing beats the comfort and security of one's parents home, especially during the holiday season.Probably obvious to everybody, but seriously do not schedule a move in December. If it is feasible, spend the time to make memories with your family and loved ones. nothing beats the comfort and security of one's parents home, especially during the holiday season.A bit morbid, but reminds me of this passage by John Quincy Adams:> Everything about the house is the same. I was not fully sensible of the change till I entered his bedchamber [...] That moment was inexpressibly painful, and struck me as if it had been an arrow to my heart. My father and mother have departed. The charm which has always made this house to me an abode of enchantment is dissolved; and yet my attachment to it, and to the whole region around, is stronger than I ever felt it before.Hope you get to spend the next Christmas with your family! ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠀⠀⡰⡇⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠰⢾⠇⠨⡦⠀⠂⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⡀⠀⢈⣹⠜⠻⢾⠃⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⢠⣿⡵⠾⣻⣶⠿⠦⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⠀⢀⣠⣮⣦⡶⠻⠛⢶⣄⡀⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢀⣽⠏⠁⣠⣂⣦⣈⣝⣦⣄⠀⠈⠁⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠁⣠⣾⣵⣾⣾⠟⡙⠟⠿⣍⡉⠀⠀⠆⠀⠀ ⠀⠰⠀⠀⠄⣠⣶⣾⣭⡶⠟⠻⣶⡰⣜⣳⣦⣄⠀⡀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⢀⣠⣴⣿⣋⡴⣪⠎⣄⡙⠻⠿⣯⣉⠉⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠂⠀⢀⣉⡭⢿⡛⣛⣵⠎⠀⠙⢾⣶⣦⣭⣷⣦⠐⠀ ⠀⠀⢈⣙⣿⡿⠿⠟⣋⢅⡄⡄⡐⣄⢤⣉⠷⢦⣄⣀⠠ ⠐⠾⠿⢽⣷⡶⠶⡿⣓⣭⣾⣿⢷⣬⣓⢿⠿⠿⣯⣉⣁ ⠀⠀⠀⠉⠉⠉⠛⠛⠉⢀⣿⢿⡀⠙⠋⠓⠿⠿⠏⠉⠉ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠠⠤⠶⠾⢿⡯⠷⠶⠤⠄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Merry Christmas, HN! Did you forget to double space between the lines, or put leading spaces?Also, I had to turn off firefox's enhanced tracking protection for the font to load. Before that it was unicode tofu. If you're viewing on a desktop, shrink the browser until each line stacks below the previous one, creating a tree. It shows up as a Christmas tree for me on my phone in portrait mode. In landscape mode the braille is messed up. I’m assuming they fixed the formatting since you posted, but it’s a Christmas tree in text art using braille characters.Side note: I assume you can’t call it ASCII art if it uses non-ASCII characters, but Unicode art doesn’t have the same ring. Three years ago I found myself in a difficult situation and at Christmas I asked HN for help. Several people sent me invitations and work appeared right away, so I went off to pay my bills. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34121905My situation was very tough and the job was tough too, so I wasn’t able to reply to everyone by email right away, circumstances worked out that way.Now things have improved and I want to say a big thank you to everyone who came to help, the HN community, Dang and the team for the support.Merry Christmas and I wish humanity to survive in the age of AI!PS: Your invaluable support made it possible to improve my startup https://acpul.org and I have created an open letter for those who would like to join in developing the best programming environment in the world: https://www.acpul.org/blog/Open-Letter Merry Christmas, This has been a wild one. On the way to my sister's house we got a call from her sister saying their dad needs to go into an assisted living place because his pneumonia is not getting better and needs 24/7 care. But this will cut off the income my wife was bring in for caring for him.As the call is on our car throws a red light: Transmission malfunction: Service now. We take the next exit and happen to find a Big O Tire place which is where we get most of our car work done. The transmission is seized, but it's Christmas Eve and no one is open to get an estimate on a replacement. But that's okay a couple of cousins are able to pick us up to get to the party.We get home and find big pile of presents on our doorstep but we find they are addressed to names we don't know. So we bring them in for safekeeping. Today I look around the apartment building and finding one with a dollhouse on the balcony give a knock but its the wrong door but they knew the family which was downstairs so the right family got the presents finally.Now cinnamon rolls are baking for breakfast and starting dinner prep soon.But somehow I have to figure out if I should replace the transmission on a 13 year old car which needs $4500 in suspension work too or replace the whole vehicle.And find a way to make more money since the part-time job I have right now to open up time for caregiving won't be enough for all this, and it looks like caregiving won't be necessary for much longer anyway. Hope things improve for you, and you have a Merry Christmas in spite of it all.For what it's worth, it strikes me as very unlikely that the transmission is going to be less than an additional $4500. But you never know, it could be a simple fault - no sense in trying to make mental decisions before you know the math involved. That's a bittersweet mix of troubles and sweetness. I hope the troubles sort out without too much heartache, and that 2026 brings many good things. So what's the christmas theme? Unless I'm blind, it looks the same as always, except the header color seems to have changed... slightly? Perhaps you've looked at the site so much that you're blind to the numbers at the start of each item. I can’t tell if you’re joking, because I’m looking at the site on chrome on iPhone and there’s numbers. Color me confused, but what do containers add to FreeBSD beyond jails? Jails have their own IP addresses and root filesystem, plus they use the host OS's version of libc and OpenSSL/LibreSSL and all the other core utils.Is it the convenience utilities for building and running container images? But alas, FreeBSD does support OCI container images! It supports Podman and has an OCI-compliant runtime:https://freebsdfoundation.org/blog/oci-containers-on-freebsd...However, I still can't pinpoint what the value proposition is compared to using jails. Is there anybody around here able and willing to shed some light? I know I didn't use Cunningham's Law to start the conversation like a clever netizen but maybe, just this once, a good faith response to a good faith question is possible. HN is a pretty simple, efficient monolithic web application. Some updates might need a restart. It's OK for some web requests to fail during that time. HN isn't life critical with sixtuple nine uptime requirements. Tbh like 99% of web apps aren’t critical - most of them are for buying something or providing infrastructure to make it easier to buy something anyway. It’s fine if your online shop is down for a few minutes (of course the business won’t see it like that but it’s true) A sales site being down might lose you a sale. But the simplicity might save you so muh more than that loses you. And often the complexion of high availability infrastructure results in more downtime than it prevents.For stuff like HN, I like the peek behind the scenes it provides. It's all just software written by some humans and way too often people take themselves and their shitty software way too serious. Steam, +130 million users, biggest gamming store, multi billion dolar company, is offline every week for a few minutes.99.999999 is so overated. It could probably be done with a simple if statement, but I'm guessing that dang enjoys the tradition of doing it manually every year. I feel like this obsession with zero downtime has gotten a bit silly. Sure, for some things it's damn near required (though I imagine that's fewer things than most people think), but it 100% does not matter even a little bit if HN is unavailable for 10 seconds or so. I'd rather restart once (ok, twice) a year than keep that code around in production.It only affects traffic for about 10 seconds. A couple of years ago in early December, we took a trip to Berlin and Strasbourg, and spent our time visiting many Christmas markets. It was a really enjoyable trip.Yes, it was very cold, which is not deal when you're spending 12 hours a day outside (hovering around freezing the entire trip, a small amount of snow a few days). Yes, it gets dark early and the days are short -- but that's true back at home in California too. We do share a hemisphere, after all. And yes, after awhile, the markets all do tend to look the same. But I find it nice to travel, and I love traveling in the off-season.Yes, you can travel at the same time everyone else wants to travel, with long days, long lines, and large prices. But everywhere you go has traditions year round, and the weather and lifestyle changes with the seasons. Every place and every time of year has things worth seeing and experiencing.Or you could travel to the opposite hemisphere when the days are short back home, that's fun too :) Merry Christmas HN! === /
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| | | | ______/ || || || || || || | | | | Merry Christmas to you, too, and to all that read this.A relevant verse about a sometimes stressful day:Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil.- Matthew 6:34 Merry Christmas and happy new year. It's been a tough year with stress about work, immigration, family. This little corner of the internet always gives me joy, hope, and inspiration to work for a better, kinder world.Hope everyone enjoy the break and start 2026 with energy to keep improving yourself and the world. May everyone here discover more and better ways to spread the joy of giving and doing good. * /
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Merry Christmas, HN Merry Christmas, friends. And a special cheers to everyone that makes this community possible. It’s one of the last bastions of all that is good about this internet. Merry Christmas, everyone! Continually grateful for this community: stumbling into it as a teenager changed my life and I never get tired of spinning out about new tech big and small with the folks here. Stay safe, everybody Merry Christmas, everyone!Spread the love, please - try to give everyone around you a metaphorical "▲" (upvote), in HN-speak, to make this world a better place. The Birth of Jesus

[Luke 2] In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. 2 (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 And everyone went to their own town to register [in tax ledgers].

-- https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%202&version=NIV I became a parent of two this year and my oldest is now 3 years old. One of the greatest things in life has to be a newborn baby. And more than ever for me, it makes sense that the greatest thing would be if God came as a newborn baby.¡Feliz Navidad! Enjoy the journey, make the most of as much of it as possible. The present can feel as if it moves very slowly, but the future arrives incredibly quickly. My two are 18 and 16 and it feels like only five minutes has passed (I'm sure this is how you feel about the last 3 years). I miss their unrestricted toddler personalities, but I'm also incredibly happy and proud of who they've both become as, essentially, adults now. Ⓜerry

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♠ ♣ ♥ ♦ ♨ ⤴ ⤵ ⬅ ⬆ ⬇ ⬛ ⬜ ⭕ 〰 〽 ㊗ ㊙ ⏏ 🟰 ‼ ⁉ 〰 ⭕ 〽 © ® ™ *⃣ 0⃣ 1⃣ 2⃣ 3⃣ 4⃣ 5⃣ 6⃣ 7⃣ 8⃣ 9⃣ ℹ Ⓜ ㊗ ㊙ 󠁧󠁢󠁥 ♨ ♟ ⌨ Not gonna filter your emojis on Christmas but I'm impressed how many of our restrictions you routed around :) Hope everyone has a healthy, rewarding and prosperous year. Special thanks to @dang and team for keeping this community a great place everyone wants to come back to. I love coming back here every day.Merry Christmas to all! Merry Christmas, dear HN Community!Being super-lonely this year, I hope all of you are much better off than me - this year contained some catastrophic external events in my life, which led to permanent change on some "layers" of my live (not only material, but also in psy etc.)I hope the next year will bring the luck to re-align some things and bring them backs on the track, otherwise next year I will write the same post and add that Im in huge (final) trouble...Enjoy the time with your family if they are near to you! Merry Christmas to you. You are not entirely alone, in the sense that other people have gone through loss and hardship and have come out of it eventually, better, happier, and stronger. Also, there are strangers like me who wish you well. I hope that things will work out for you soon. For now, here's a warm greeting and a smile for you. :) Merry Christmas to everyone.Being a non-Christian and it being Christmas time, I am sharing one verse from the New Testament that is, in my opinion, useful - or at the very least, insightful - to anyone, regardless of religion.Luke 16:10: He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much. I'd consider myself more spiritual rather than religious, but do pray to a god of my understanding. Just wanted to say thanks for sharing this, I haven't actually read the whole Bible but, as the other reply states, I'm sure there are so many little nuggets like this in there that many ignore. Truth. You can evaluate a lot about someone from the details they give attention to, and what they ignore. It's not a hard and fast rule, but helpful in determining who you can trust with work, important things in your life (including your self), etc. That's like how you can evaluate someone's character by whether they return supermarket trolleys when they're done with them Thank you for sharing this one! It's from a beautiful parable found only in Luke's gospel, from which only "no slave can serve two masters" seems to have entered the popular lexicon. Your quote, or the closing line "you cannot serve God and wealth", better speak to the spirit of the passage.For anyone interested in approaching the Bible this season, perhaps as part of a New Year's resolution, there are many wonderful free and paid resources to do so. It's easy to get bogged down in a comparison of translations and tools, or to ambitiously pick a Bible in a Year reading plan and get waylaid in the pentateuch. Instead, I'd recommend starting with the Berean Standard Bible (a modern, public domain translation with good footnotes) and Mark (Matthew is my favorite, but it starts with a genealogy and requires some Old Testament knowledge to fully enjoy.)Here's a link: https://biblehub.com/bsb/mark/1.htm The Bible is full of fun stuff like that verse. Much of which modern day Christians perfectly ignore.Thank you for sharing. Merry Christmas to you. There are 2 kinds of Christians: Those who actually follow the faith, and those who only show up for Christmas and Easter.There's a German term for that 'Uboot Christen' - submarine Christians. They only emerge twice a year. Considering Christians took the Christmas celebration from what they call "Heathens" or "Pagans", I think it is fair. Eastern celebration probably the same. Merry Christmas to all. On the note above, there is not a lot of Biblical Christianity seen today, as many do not read the Bible. It is very sad to me, and why I like to make a distinction. It is lovely to see such cheer in this thread overall though, and if you are a professing Christian I would urge you to be reading and studying your Bible. Weeks ago a local newspaper had the headline:"keep the big bang until later for your children, the bible is really a great set of fairy tales"Im not religious at all, actually "implicitly fighting against it", though I have to admit: This sentence made sense and Im thinking still until today about it, because actually I think its quite true - for smaller children, the storylines in the bible are much more "real" and understandable than the story of: "hey, there was a big bang, all molecules were created then and you are consisting today of these molecules" The Bible and the Big Bang theory are not mutually exclusive. The Old Testament is a very symbolic book and gives no specific details on how exactly the world was created, other than the seven days of creation. We know that the 7 days weren't referring to our current concept of a day. There's also no water above the sky. It was written like that, because it would be easier for people to understand. Science wasn't a thing back then. If it were written in 2025, it would obviously be very different and probably much more detailed.Modern Christians know that religion and science can go together. Science researches how something works. Religion answers who created it. The Big Bang theory is actually accepted by them today. The big bang theory isn't just "accepted by them today," it has been since the beginning. The father of the big bang theory was a catholic priest. So you're saying that the Catholic Church also accepted the Copernican Sun centred model of the universe formulated by Nicolaus Copernicus "from the beginning" as Copernicus was also a Catholic cleric?Perhaps it's possible that the beliefs and propositions of individual members of a greater body don't always align with the official stance of the greater body.

it's possible that the beliefs and propositions of individual members of a greater body don't always align with the official stanceIt is, and where they depart from or twist binding doctrine, it would be a matter of heresy.But FWIW, the Catholic Church didn’t and doesn’t have a stance on the question of heliocentrism. Why would it? It is not a question with any religious importance. Who cares which orb rotates around which? Copernicus wasn’t doing anything forbidden (nor had he vindicated heliocentrism) and had high ranking friends and acquaintances in the clergy (including cardinals like Cardinal Schõnberg and Pope Clement VII) who took an interest in his work. De Revolutionibus was itself dedicated to Pope Paul III. If anything, Copernicus was wary of other academics who held to the Ptolemaic view at the time. Plus ça change…No doubt, you have in mind the oft-repeated Galileo affair which has become one of those stubborn black legends that seems to stay afloat despite the lack of facts supporting it because of its instrumental value for sticking it to the Church. The Galileo affair was not about heliocentrism. It was about a clash of egos and personalities (Galileo’s being of them, as he liked to pick pointless fights, including some nasty personal attacks on his friend and benefactor Urban VIII) that spanned decades. It isn’t as piquant as the story as typically told would have you believe. If we are free to interpret the Bible that way, does that mean the resurrection of Christ is also a metaphor? Maybe they just meant that he is alive in our hearts.What part of the Bible are up for interpretation, and what parts are considered to be fact? Every part of the Bible is up for interpretation. Which parts you interpret as fact will depend on what worldview you're trying to justify (or which church you're trying to be a member of). Ah, this is a good question. And a big one. Here’s a start, anyway.Contrary to the historically recent error of sola scriptura, the Bible does not interpret itself. And contrary to the modernists, it is not whatever you want it to mean.First, what is the general nature of Scripture? It is not meant to be a scientific text. It is meant to communicate, above all, revealed truths about God that are not available to unaided reason (obviously, it also contains things we can know through unaided reason, but the unique value proposition is in what we cannot know by our own wits).Historically, the tradition of knowledge, indeed the content of Scripture itself, preceded the biblical canon. You needed that tradition to make the determination of what is canonical and what is not. Similarly, you need that tradition to determine the nature of a given book: is a historical in structure, poetic, etc? This unbroken tradition, scholarship, literary analysis, etc. tell us the nature of a given text.In the case of something like the creation accounts in Genesis (and there are two accounts, which differ), it is clear under such an examination that these are not scientific descriptions. They are written using the language of a pre-scientific culture. They do not tell us in scientific terms how the physical universe was formed. They do tell us that creation is ex nihilo, or out of nothing. (This is not a question of a big bang btw. The big bang is not necessary. It is a question of casuality. God as the Logos - eternal Reason - is the per se - rather than per accidens - cause of the universe’s existence, sustaining it in existence at every moment. God is not some Paley-style watchmaker arranging parts into a watch out of some primordial chaos, and the universe is not the result of some clash of opposing forces.) Genesis also tells us that there was a first human couple and that original sin can be traced to the first freely chosen immoral act. There are no binding or definitive claims about how exactly this all occurred in a historical sense. We don’t know, and as interesting as that question is [0], for the relevant purposes of the text, it doesn’t matter.The Gospels of the New Testament, however, are very much historical in character. They are eye witness accounts of Christ’s ministry, and the canonical four were deemed to be the only reliable ones. They aren’t figurative, and the early Christians, the many witnesses of Christ’s ministry, and new evidence all align with the received and continuous tradition (indeed, one of the responsibilities of the Catholic Church is to safeguard tradition from “innovation”). Figurative interpretations of the Gospels also tend not to be compelling either, especially in light of tradition.Obviously, biblical hermeneutics is a big topic that goes beyond an HN post. I’ve included links to a couple of texts that should introduce the material with greater depth and expertise than I can [1][2].[0] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/09/modern-biology-and-o...[1] https://a.co/d/4xdAc9Y[2] https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/apost_exhorta... I'm sure there are some that think that but I was taught the earth is 10,000 years, the creation story in Genesis is the literal truth, and people spell Christmas "Xmas" because people are trying to take Christ out of Christmas. None of these are fringe positions in the US. There are so Christians that believe science is real but we're very much the minority. We know that the 7 days weren't referring to our current concept of a day.We don't know that. Some Christians believe that because they believe the Bible is univocal, which it isn't, and because they want to use other unrelated scripture like "a day for God is like a thousand years" to support a framework for Genesis which they believe is validated by current science.But I see no reason to believe that when the ancient Hebrews wrote about creation taking seven days, that they didn't mean seven actual days.>It was written like that, because it would be easier for people to understand.A supposition not backed up by evidence, and one that assumes the author of Genesis had a modern understanding of astrophysics, which they did not.> Science wasn't a thing back then. If it were written in 2025, it would obviously be very different and probably much more detailed.OK. So as I suspected you believe that the Genesis creation story (or at least one, as there are two conflicting creation narratives) represents literal truth, but that the account itself couches this literal truth in metaphor.I suppose that's better than the Biblical literalists who insist that Old Testament genealogies prove the world is only 10,000 years old and that therefore things like carbon dating are fake, but I do wish Christians would just accept that Genesis (along with the rest of the Bible) is entirely mythology and that they don't have to "make it fit" with modern science. It just didn't happen.>Science researches how something works. Religion answers who created it. Religion also makes just as many claims about how as who and why.Religion doesn't answer anything of the sort, it claims to answer it, a priori, without evidence.And of course there are countless religions with countless such "answers." You believe only one answer is valid, again, without evidence.This is not an opportunity for you to proselytize to me. If you think the Bible is childish, then I can only assume you've never studied it in earnest. These aren't fairy tales. They are a collection of books written in numerous styles and languages belonging to various genres drawn from many cultural contexts spanning thousands of years and whose canon was determined by the Catholic Church in the 4th century (most famously, at the Council of Rome when the 73 books were listed). Theologians, philosophers, and biblical scholars are deepening their understanding of this text to this day.Just look at something like John 1:1: «In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.» Most adults aren't in a position to comprehend that, never mind a child. It is one of the most profound sentences ever uttered (those with sufficient philosophical and theological background might find this recent book on this topic of interest [0]). Or consider Exodus 3:14: «God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”». If that doesn't knock you off your feet, then you have not understood it. This is an incredibly sophisticated metaphysical statement, the meaning of which was unknown to the ancient pagans. (A good, short introduction from a philosophical angle can be found here [1].)But more importantly, both you and the author of that article have committed a very basic category mistake. The Bible is not in the same business as the physical sciences. It doesn't answer the same questions. The Bible is not a scientific treatise, and the physical science are not a path to salvation from sin.The Bible is also not a text of mere parables and life lessons. Indeed, this is one of those distinguishing features of Christianity that many fail to appreciate. In other religious traditions, it doesn't really matter where the truth claims come from or who said them. You could accept the claims without knowing or caring about the author. But you cannot do that with the figure of Christ. You cannot say "Oh, I accept the lessons of the New Testament, I think Jesus was a wise teacher. I just don't accept his divinity or the resurrection or the miracles or all that other stuff my bourgeois sensibilities can't stomach." Those claims that are uniquely Christian are about Christ and rooted in the authority of Christ. It is Christ who saves - a person - not knowledge, not some method, not a technology, but a person. Christ calls himself the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all creation, eternal, the Almighty, and the source and completion of history and salvation.That's not just some "fun" or "cute" passage. The point is that - if Christianity is true - it is through Christ that Man's relationship to God is restored and elevated. It is through Christ that man is ennobled. Man is invited to participate in his divinity, and unlike other traditions that maintain Man can attain divinity through his own efforts alone, the Christian says "no", it is not in Man's power to do that, to pull himself up by his own bootstraps; only God can do that, and the way is by answering "yes" to his offer, by cooperating with him so he can accomplish that divinity in us. To do that, God humbled himself through the Incarnation to share in our humanity: «the Word became flesh and dwelt among us». He entered the pathology and disorder of the world to liberate it from it, to be the path out of it.That is what Christianity teaches. That is what Christmas is about. Either that is true, or Jesus was a liar or a madman. What he wasn't was merely another "wise teacher". Either Christmas celebrates this momentous historical event of the Incarnation, or it is ridiculous.[0] https://a.co/d/1QtQWCP[1] https://a.co/d/bSqgkXq Merry Christmas everyone. If you are not Christian, then seasons greetings, hope you got the day off anyway! merry christmas everyone! HN has been the first site i open up every morning with a cup of tea for the past 10 years or so. Cheers to a great community of builders & thinkers. Merry Christmas, everyone! Treasure these moments you get with those you care about it. Time is our most valuable asset. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!Thank you HN and HN community for sharing the most interesting places of internet, ideas, discussions and points of views. Learned a lot and hope to learn more. Merry Christmas everyone, from France.This not so little corner of the internet keeps delivering year after year, thank you all for the quality of the submissions and discussions! Merry Christmas! HN Christmas theme is always great to see * /_
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||| ||| Merry Christmas to one of the last great internet communities that I actually like to interact with Folks who have some extra time this Christmas, do check out the tv show Pluribus on Apple TV. It’s not your typical action packed sci-fi show but is very slow burning, philosophical kind of show which I found very smart.Turns out my best 2 tv shows of last couple of years are on Apple TV: Severance and Pluribus Luke 2:14 [14] “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!” I think I do prefer the KJV here. Has the classic familiarity.The ESV is the translation I have used since it came out for personal reading and study, though. Reading some of the translations for the quoted verse, it's really interesting how so many different sentiments can be expressed with very little changes of words/phrasing.“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men of good will.”https://biblehub.com/luke/2-14.htm There are 2 competing textual varients in the Greek sources. The word for "good will" (eudokia) shows up in the nominative and the genitive. If it's genitive it modifies humankind if it's nominative it's parallel to the first half of the sentence meaning, in Heaven let there be glory to God, on Earth let there be good will to humankind.That was fun! I read that verse earlier today and I didn't know about the version with genitive case. Merry christmas y'all and happy holidays. I can't put in to words how much I appreciate the culture on HN and the conversations I've been a part of. It's the only social media site where I enjoy reading my historical messages, I can see exactly how much I have grown and learned. I am thankful for the moderation and self-moderation.I will continuing trying to give back in a small way, what the HN community has given me. Happy holidays. Merry Christmas!And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.- Luke 2:10-11 Linus van Pelt has entered the chat.Fun tidbit: The Charlie Brown Christmas animators had Linus drop his security blanket when he said, "fear not".(I'm an atheist, but as an official GenXer™, I could almost recite this speech from memory.) I’m exceedingly thankful for this site. I turn here (as many of us do) for a quick escape, tech news catch-up, deep dive and inspiration. Proceed and be bold in 2026. Merry Christmas y'all. Glad to spend time with the fam bam and to spend some time resting. Also I'm getting my back nerves burned finally after trying to get a pain remediation surgery for a long time. Better late than never.

Also I'm getting my back nerves burned finally after trying to get a pain remediation surgery for a long time. Better late than never.Best of luck with this. Back (and neck) pain really, truly sucks. Very under-treated in the U.S. as well. IME, completely stifles the ability to enter a “flow” state of cognitive function. Just noticed that color of the HN top bar is more red which I never noticed in previous years.Merry Christmas to everyone. (note the red and green story numbers as well)(this is an old pg tradition btw) Merry Christmas! This great community has changed my life so many times. Let’s go for more! I am alone. I haven't seen my family in many, many years for reasons that I don't want to get into. I am a founder. I check Hacker News every day and have learned an immense amount from all the commenters, articles, and discussions over the years. I thank you all for that. I am truly grateful.I wish you all a Merry Christmas full of joy, and I hope you can all appreciate, share, and express love for those around you, be it family, friends, or strangers on the internet. We are all very lucky to be part of the HN site and community. I have been here for about 15 years (at least that is what it feels like) with my other accounts that I don't want to dox.Glory to God. For believers in Jesus, may the light of Christ guide you as it does me in difficult times. Wishing you all His peace and joy. Merry Christmas, friend! I am sorry to hear about your family situation and that you are alone. If it is any comfort, know that I, and I'm sure others, are thinking of you. Thank you for your reminder to rest in the Light of the World. Merry Christmas friends! I have a C64 Ultimate under the tree this year so looking to have a bit of retro fun that would make the HN community proud (after assembling all the kids stuff, of course). Merry Christmas!"An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.”"-Luke 2 To some it is, to some it isn’t. Regardless, nonexlusivity has always been built into its core. Merry Christmas everyone! My friends and family are on two different continents so it's very quiet this year.I hope everyone has a wonderful, relaxing, and joyous time. Merry Christmas!Here’s a quad tree:1111—0110011011110110—0000000000011000000110000011110001111110111111110001100000011000 Merry Christmas HN! Whether you celebrate it or not, hope you get some time off to spend with friends and/or family! Due to illness, I've stayed home while my whole family goes to be with the grandparents. I will join them later today, with a mask.It is strange and sad to be alone this morning.If you are in the same situation, know that you are not alone: I'm thinking of you.Merry Christmas. There are so many. Muppet Christmas Carol, of course. Emmett Otter's Jugband Christmas is a classic. White Christmas, a bit cliché but I love it. Bishop's Wife (with Carey Grant) is also a classic. Home Alone for the funny.And probably a hundred others. My first Christmas with mom gone was really tough. Stuck alone during COVID in 2021 in a really bad place. I couldn't sleep. And I happened to turn on the radio in the middle of the night and there was an Amy Grant interview. I almost turned it off, oh no, christian stuff I thought. But she talked about her first Christmas without her mom. Then they played her song about it. If I had been 5 minutes more trying to sleep, or given up on sleep 5 minutes earlier, I would have missed that.Anyways, in case anyone needs to stumble upon something similar, I couldn't find something so perfect but...hearing it now it's not as amazing as it was that night I needed to not be alone in grief, but here it is:https://www.npr.org/2016/12/25/506715971/amy-grant-on-faith-...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LOqLV6Om4AMerry Christmas to you! I'm a chronic lurker for most of the year but this is a good time to say this. I'm so thankful for this community that provides so much without succumbing to enshitification as some other parts of the Internet. Whether I'm passing time on a train or escaping an annoying group discussion, this is by far my favorite algorithmic feed to do so. Merry Christmas everyone! It took me a moment to realize you replied to yourself and thought you were randomly attacking a commenter =) * *** * /
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===[ MERRY * CHRISTMAS ]=== Christmas is always a very hard time of year for some people, if you are struggling, just know you are not forgotten and I hope you can still have yourself a Merry little Christmas time. <3 I hope you celebrate with your loved ones and have joy and warmth in your hearts. Last but not least, let's not forget those who are suffering, sick, or elderly, and let's do a good deed when we have the opportunity.Merry Christmas to all! Merry Christmas everyone! ———“At the very moment that Augustus is making decrees as the ruler of the known world, and Herod is seething in his palace, God enters stage right. Not on the clouds, asserting his power and dominance, not with all the strength and might he rightly has. But in humility. Doing so with a profound statement that he is turning all our preconceived notions completely upside down.One of the most beautiful, yet often overlooked, components to this story is Mary’s reaction to the news of her Son. In church tradition we call her carol The Magnificat:“My soul exalts the Lord, and my spirit has begun to rejoice in God my Savior, because he has looked upon the humble state of his servant.For from now on all generations will call me blessed, because he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name; from generation to generation he is merciful to those who fear him.He has demonstrated power with his arm; he has scattered those whose pride wells up from the sheer arrogance of their hearts.He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up those of lowly position; he has filled the hungry with good things, and has sent the rich away empty.He has helped his servant Israel, remembering his mercy, as he promised to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” (Luke 1:46-55)Amidst all the interpretations of Christmas that we hear at this time of year from clergy, advertisers, politicians, and journalists, we might benefit from listening to the mother who sits at the centre of it all. According to Mary, Christmas is about God scattering the proud, bringing down unjust rulers, lifting up the humble. It’s about God turning things upside down— which ironically is the right way up to begin with.And God accomplishes all of this not “from on high,” like the decree of Augustus, or the brutality of Herod; instead, God achieves his purposes from below in the lowliness of a manger. With shepherds, livestock, and foreign magi as the first witnesses.Christmas is about God turning things upside down—which ironically is the right way up to begin with.Every detail about the Christmas story (and the subsequent life of Jesus as well), states that God will reverse the mess and do so by first getting his own hands dirty. God conquers by humbling himself, he will heal by being wounded, he will save us by sacrificing himself. The manger is a throne, and works as a beacon of how God intends to turn everything upside down.Grace triumphs over dominance, mercy over force, and Mary’s song will be the world’s song.Joy will pierce through the sorrow and sadness, fully and forever.”- Wes Huff eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJtZXNzYWdlIjoiTWVycnkgQ2hyaXN0bWFzIiwidG8iOiJIYWNrZXIgTmV3cyJ9.Lg_fp5WWKGLpbxI_YbRY-CfQiXe-gLXzDFMiChkXzY0 Just in case anyone does not know, that is a Base64URL-encoded string. Used by JWT. Happy winter solstice! I used to like Christmas but current version of geopolitics and christo fascists really nerfed the joy of Christmas. Maybe they'll release a patch fix by next year I feel like Christmas is so secularized and commercialized that it doesn't have a lot to do with Christianity anymore.I'm not saying this as a bad thing; I'm not and have never been religious but I still love Christmas. Twas brillig, and Santas toes were freezing in the sleigh.All icey were the Reindeer hooves, moody and unlikely they were to play.Then Christmas Eve did come about and, Santa, mounted slay he did.Present bag taken firm in hand, one for each and every kid.Down-down-down chimney stacks around each and every town.Milk and cookies, warmth and hearth.Every present for every home. Boys and girls light and dark.Good or bad, used to matter. But Santa had a change of heart.We all mess up sometimes. And, sometimes, we need a brand new start.Enjoy the gifts! Santa yelled, as the reindeer took off once again.Be kind to one another all, and try to make new friends.Merry Christmas! Different times yes. It's also a political thing with people not wanting to call it or claim people don't want to call it Christmas (but holidays) and Ukraine changing their date a few years ago due to them not being Russia.Merry Christmas everyone. Prompt: create a christmas tree in ascii but that is a merkle treeAnswer: Here’s an ASCII Christmas tree that is also a Merkle tree (Each parent node is the hash of its two children; leaves are the “data blocks”.) MERKLE TREE

                   H(ROOT)
                  /       \
             H(0-1)       H(2-3)
             /   \         /   \
          H(0)  H(1)    H(2)  H(3)
          / \    / \     / \    / \
        D0  D0 D1 D1   D2 D2  D3 D3

But that's a little too tidy to be a proper Christmas tree — so here’s a more “tree-like” version with ornaments, while still preserving the Merkle structure: H(ROOT) /
H(0-1) H(2-3) / \ /
H(0) H(1) H(2) H(3) / \ / \ / \ /
D0 D0 D1 D1 D2 D2 D3 D3 (leaf)(leaf)(leaf) (leaf)(leaf)(leaf)

Notes (so it’s actually Merkle-y)D0–D3 = data blocks (your “presents” )H(0) = hash(D0 || D0) (duplicated leaf for balance, common in Merkle trees)H(0-1) = hash(H(0) || H(1))H(ROOT) = hash(H(0-1) || H(2-3))If you want, I can:generate a bigger tree (8, 16, 32 leaves),make the hashes look like real hash strings,or format it like a perfect triangular Christmas tree silhouette while keeping the Merkle parent/child layout.-- Prompt: format it like a perfect triangular Christmas tree silhouette while keeping the Merkle parent/child layout.Answer: You got it — here’s a perfect triangular Christmas tree silhouette that still preserves the Merkle parent/child layout (parents directly above their two children, leaves at the base). H(ROOT) /
┌────────H(0-3)────────┐ /
┌────H(0-1)────┐ ┌────H(2-3)────┐ / \ /
┌─H(0)─┐ ┌─H(1)─┐ ┌─H(2)─┐ ┌─H(3)─┐ / \ / \ / \ /
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7

If you want it even more like a Christmas tree (full silhouette + ornaments)Here’s a slightly more “filled” version while keeping the structure valid: H(ROOT) /
──────H(0-3)────── /
─────H(0-1)───── ─────H(2-3)───── / \ /
───H(0)─── ───H(1)─── ───H(2)─── ───H(3)─── / \ / \ / \ /
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7

Edit: Note the emoji ornaments did not come through. Saturnalia isn’t related to it other than coincidence of dates, no?Either way, merry Saturnalia to you! (Off-by-one day :D)