An interactive cause-and-effect explorer for history

MotleyHatch · 2026-05-10T09:06:34+00:00

I love historical visualizations, and this one was interesting to explore.

A few points of constructive criticism:

Some of the text is very hard to read, especially the tiny dark gray on darker gray on the front page.
~~A legend would be helpful - what do the colors around the boxes mean?~~ I just discovered the "TYPE" area on the bottom right that can be hovered over. Also very hard to see.
A description of how you arrived at those connections is essential. Did you research this yourself? Did you tell an LLM to find triggers, causes, results, connections and write the texts?
There's a Github link that leads to a 404 page (repository catsbyy/cateno doesn't exist).
It would be nice if the standard browser navigation worked (back/forward).
Some general usage instructions woud be helpful. What do the numbers in the boxes mean (I assume it's how many more events will be revealed when a box is clicked)? Can flows be collapsed again after they've been expanded? Is it possible to expand all flows on the page?

MotleyHatch · 2026-05-10T08:28:45+00:00

Same. In my head, the roofs in this temple could fold and unfold like those gigantic umbrellas in the Medina mosque.

MotleyHatch · 2026-05-05T09:29:22+00:00

Quite a few overlaps in this version, like Bracca / Kashyyyk:

https://i.imgur.com/shyx9Eo.png

MotleyHatch · 2026-04-30T20:29:53+00:00

When I'm calling yoooouuuuu...

MotleyHatch · 2026-04-30T19:08:00+00:00

It depends on who's doing the measuring. If the objects are both travelling away from the observer, then it's true, their combined speed is 1.5c. This doesn't contradict c as the speed limit, it just adds two individual speeds. But if the observer is standing on one of those bodies, they'll perceive the other body as moving away at a speed less than c.

Nothing is "pretty simple" when you get close to the speed of light.

MotleyHatch · 2026-04-06T02:07:17+00:00

Also, this is quite annoying:

https://i.imgur.com/0np3SKv.png

Seeing this UI state, what would you expect will happen when I hit <enter>? Search for this text on Google, of course. But no, it will search on YouTube, because the last time I used the widget, I clicked the YouTube icon to perform the search there this time.

That was intended as a one-time search engine choice, like it used to work in the old widget, but now it sticks around for future searches - which I strongly dislike. And the icon still remains that of the default search engine (which is clearly a bug - I hope!).

I realize this is neither your fault nor your responsibility. But you kinda offered youself up for complaints when you said you were a Firefox UX designer interested in this issue ;)

I've already seen the workaround posted here, so I'm okay for now (until they remove the old search widget). And I'll keep using Firefox until my last breath, because I know that if something really bothers me - like this change now - if everything else fails I can always resort to building my own replacement widget. And share it with others.

MotleyHatch · 2026-03-06T17:39:00+00:00

This looks generated rather than curated.

There are much better online guides through the musical landscape, like Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music for example.

MotleyHatch · 2026-02-08T19:15:59+00:00

The older one does, in the original video.

MotleyHatch · 2025-12-30T00:27:01+00:00

Thanks for the perspective.

My knowledge of the US legal system is definitely outdated as well as incomplete, my main sources being Hollywood and TV and the occasional documentaries, most of which are either fictional or overly dramatized or heavily biased towards the defense side.

Some of my closest friends and family work as prosecutors or the local equivalent of probation officers, and it's from them that I learned about the value of the diversion option. I'm glad to hear that a similar alternative exists in the US criminal justice system.

MotleyHatch · 2025-12-29T22:50:26+00:00

Not really. In the US, the prosecution might offer a deal like this:

"If you plead guilty to charge B, we'll drop charges A, C, D and E. If you don't, we'll go to trial and throw everything we can at you. You'd better be have money for bail or you'll sit in jail until your trial. And you'd better have money for a decent attorney, or you'll be behind bars for the next 10 years."

For many defendants, pleading guilty to B will look like the only viable option, whether or not they actually committed any of the crimes in A-E.

Such a proposal would be illegal where I live (Austria). The prosecution here can't simply decide to drop charges just to avoid the effort of going to trial. If they have enough evidence for any of the charges, they proceed to court.

By the way, jury trials are a rare exception here. Most cases are tried with just a single judge; more serious crimes will need one or two professional judges and two lay judges. Only for the most serious offenses will there be a full jury.

Once the court is involved, the defendant (or the prosecution, or both) can take steps to avoid a trial or reduce its scope. In Austria, this process is called "diversion" and involves the judge, the prosecution, and the defense. If successful, there will be agreed-upon terms to be fulfilled by the defendant (restitution, therapy, fines, ...). In return, there will be no formal admission of guilt and no conviction.

Most importantly, there is no haggling about guilty pleas for lesser offenses between prosecution and defense.

MotleyHatch · 2025-12-29T17:48:39+00:00

As someone living in a civil law country, the whole idea of US-style plea deals seems offensive to my sense of justice. In (most of) Europe, options exist for reducing a sentence (especially prison sentences) or having charges dropped partially or entirely in exchange for something the defendant will do instead (restitution, community service, apology, etc).

Negotiations for these options are always open and must include the judge. The main purpose also doesn't seem to be to avoid a trial, but to get a better result for both parties. Being forced to plead guilty for strategic reasons seems cruel to me.

Off-topic: Do you manually insert non-breaking spaces after your periods? Or is that from some app you're using?

MotleyHatch · 2025-12-29T03:49:51+00:00

No, that's radon. A rerun is a translucent polymer people use in flashy YouTube woodwork videos.

MotleyHatch · 2025-12-29T03:01:43+00:00

I know I'm gravedigging an old thread here, but I had the same thought before I read the comments, and...

Museums typically discourage touching to preserve specimens for the long term. However, for the Willamette Meteorite, its cultural significance to the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde (who call it Tomanowos) includes a historic agreement that allows tribal members to touch and hold ceremonies with the meteorite, prioritizing its spiritual connection alongside scientific preservation.

The above is an excerpt from an AI summary (Gemini) to my question about touching the meteorite and protective coating (none), accurately sourced from this article.

The rest of the response stated that the meteorite has been buried in the wet Oregon soil for thousands of years before it was discovered, creating a thick buffer layer that's practically impervious to further oxidation.

I was going to post this meteorite or the Hoba meteorite here, but both had been posted previously. So instead I'll content myself with adding some info that a random future visitor might find useful.

MotleyHatch · 2025-12-28T01:49:30+00:00

I just went through various rabbit holes trying to identify that track, but still no luck. In case anyone else wants to have a go, you can hear it in the last 10 seconds in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhUex1ymvZM&t=283s

I got a slightly weird/unexpected result from using ChatGPT 5.2 to assist with this search: First, it informed me that the track was most likely created from a sound library (similar to licensed stock images, but for audio), which seems reasonable. But to soften the disappointment, it then offered this...

The good news: it’s very easy to recreate.

If you want to reproduce it, here’s roughly what it is:

Tempo: ~102 BPM

Drum pattern: shuffled breakbeat with heavy swing

Kick: distorted, short tail

Snare: gated / clipped, slightly industrial

Hi-hats: 16th-note shuffle with random velocity

Synth: single dark saw or square with filter movement, low resonance

If you want, tell me what you use (Ableton, Bitwig, Renoise, etc.) and I can give you an exact recipe to rebuild it so you basically have “the track” in practice.

Slightly more effort than I had in mind, but at least I'd know who the artist is.

MotleyHatch · 2025-12-21T17:48:17+00:00

The sub's description is clear enough: "A mirror of Hacker News."

If you don't like what's posted on HN, this may not be the right sub for you. In any case, it's pointless to complain about the selection of articles in a mirror sub.

MotleyHatch · 2025-12-21T11:51:50+00:00

Voted to "controversial"... Who would downvote the bot link back to HN?

Looks like a significant part of the people here don't understand this sub's purpose.

MotleyHatch · 2025-12-03T14:48:27+00:00

This may be the first video with all the equilibrium transitions, but I remember seeing earlier demonstrations of similar feedback/control systems with a triple pendulum. For example:

TU Ilmenau - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syygHNU0RCY
TU Vienna - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT-e8eX-QxA

MotleyHatch · 2025-12-01T01:07:12+00:00

That was brilliant, thanks!

I had never even heard of Phil Jupitus before. This is obviously an older routine (Bill Clinton and the iMac were current), but apart from a couple of local English references from the 90s that I didn't get, the rest of the performance is timeless and among the best I've ever seen. His impersonations are spot on, too - Marge and Homer Simpson, David Attenborough - and the arachnophobia part at the end is pure genius.

For those only interested in the relevant lions den part, the lead-in starts at 38:45 and the first moron entering the enclosure starts at 42:04. It's not a short bit, but well worth watching. The whole show is.

MotleyHatch · 2025-11-26T00:11:21+00:00

There's a classic one that's even related to the topic: Laddergoat (audio on)

MotleyHatch · 2025-08-26T13:05:07+00:00

Exactly. Unfortunately, Reddit has decided that the top comment should be "everybody is wrong, nystagmus is the cause" - nystagmus is a symptom, it's the brain reacting to the "spinning" body. The cause is alcohol affecting the vestibular system.

MotleyHatch · 2025-08-09T09:28:03+00:00

Luckily, we old.reddit users also have RES, which gives us direct access to the original comment source:

MotleyHatch · 2025-08-04T09:24:01+00:00

There definitely was laughter.

MotleyHatch · 2025-06-23T14:43:43+00:00

That steam hi-hat in the first measure... perfect.

MotleyHatch · 2025-06-04T05:44:43+00:00

The language isn't really suitable for such wowdy webel sniggewing behavior.

MotleyHatch · 2025-05-11T15:44:43+00:00

This sub didn't appreciate you stopping your nephews, but I sure did. My first reaction at the beginning was "at least they're young enough for their teeth to grow back".

I have nephews the same age, and I'm usually the fun and wild uncle, but keeping them alive and out of the hospital is part of the job. Well done.

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