[HN Gopher] Inside the weird and delightful origins of the jungl...
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Inside the weird and delightful origins of the jungle gym, which
just turned 100
Author : geox
Score : 49 points
Date : 2023-11-08 17:04 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| cjauvin wrote:
| I'm pretty certain that I saw somewhere recently that Sebastian
| Hinton is in the same family tree as Geoffrey Hinton (deep
| learning pioneer), along with an impressive number of other
| illustrious people (George Boole!).
| __rito__ wrote:
| The family tree in this article:
| https://analyticsindiamag.com/geoffrey-hinton-its-all-in-the...
| screye wrote:
| Same family as the 'everests' (of Mount Everest) and the guy
| who coined the term tesseract, and the Voynich family of the
| Voynich manuscript.
|
| https://twitter.com/deliprao/status/1719598749146624481?s=19
|
| It's turning into a "Steve Buscemi was a firefighter in 9/11"
| level memetrivia, but that makes it no less interesting.
| doctoboggan wrote:
| Tom Scott has an interesting recent video on this topic as well:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn_8GXNN7_Q
| irrational wrote:
| > Few things last 100 years. Children's toys seem particularly
| fickle. Pet rocks, pogo sticks and scooters have all had full
| boom and bust cycles while the jungle gym -- unflashy, workman-
| like, no fuss -- keeps children coming back. Why is that? It may
| be that the act of swinging and climbing in the jungle gym
| contains just enough risk...
|
| Or, maybe it is because we are primates and it is in our DNA.
| db48x wrote:
| Doubtful. DNA only codes for biochemistry, and the biochemistry
| has nothing to do with swinging or climbing in any obvious way.
| Besides we share so much of it with every other living thing on
| earth.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| If DNA didn't allow for code "greater than the sum of its
| parts" we wouldn't be here.
| cultureswitch wrote:
| It's likely we developed specialized parts of our brain to be
| very good at swinging from branches specifically.
| inanutshellus wrote:
| > 'Please do not climb on this artifact. It's not safe.' ... >
| offer a lot of challenging and also risky play, which is a good
| thing
|
| tricky thing, that. "risky play is good" followed by "don't play
| on it, it's not safe".
|
| I suppose in this particular case it's because it's rusted all to
| hell, but I can't help but think of all the play grounds I played
| on as a child that were bulldozed and named "unsafe".
|
| I'm curious - what's the modern version of this "risky play"?
|
| You see someone swing across the monkey bars, but your grip
| strength and arm reach isn't good enough, you fall, you cry,
| repeat. 4 months later you're the fastest monkey in the
| playground.
|
| What's the modern "risky play is good but only if it's safe"
| version of this?
| jareklupinski wrote:
| > swing across the monkey bars, but your grip strength and arm
| reach isn't good enough, you fall, you cry, repeat. 4 months
| later you're the fastest
|
| replacing the asphalt i fell on with rubber or something soft
| would probably make it take 6 months, but would also remove the
| 'cry'
|
| managing risk through minimizing losses _when_ they happen
| staplers wrote:
| Some new playgrounds near me have implemented recycled rubber
| matting on the surface (mitigate falls) while having difficult
| to climb/traverse shapes/ropes/etc on a slight slope without
| being too high off the ground.
|
| Kids seem to enjoy them and it certainly provides problem-
| solving exercises for the body.
| graphe wrote:
| Play game like GTA and reload your save. In real life
| everything risky is online now, it's similar to the "game" of
| downloading discord and baiting child predators them into
| giving you free things.
| Clubber wrote:
| >I'm curious - what's the modern version of this "risky play"?
|
| Touching grass.
|
| >You see someone swing across the monkey bars, but your grip
| strength and arm reach isn't good enough, you fall, you cry,
| repeat. 4 months later you're the fastest monkey in the
| playground.
|
| I did this, we'd have contests to see how far someone could
| jump and grab the furthest cross bar. I overestimated my
| abilities and got the wind knocked the hell out of me. It was
| over sand though.
| Fricken wrote:
| Skateparks offer many tacitly permitted opportunities for
| excessive physical risk taking amongst the young.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I first learned about this while researching references in _From
| Hell_ by Alan Moore. Hinton wrote an article called "What is the
| Fourth Dimension?" which plays a part in the story.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| I have some childhood memory of climbing in a jungle gym like
| this. I remember it being challenging. Not falling to the ground,
| but bumping my head on the bars and then being very careful.
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(page generated 2023-11-08 23:00 UTC)