Yes - for a certain narrow definition of "task" - but the reality is much more nuanced and comparing brains to single core processors is oversimplifying to the point of inaccuracy. A human brain has tons of "subsystems", and a given task might use some but not all of them. So some combinations of task are perfectly compatible and do not entail performance drop, while others are fairly impossible to do at the same time. Most people have no problem walking and talking at the same time - but talking and typing different things at the same time invariably results in crossed wires.
If I were to offer a tech analogy - the human brain is like an Amiga, with many specialized helper chips coordinated by a central executive which can sequentially multitask but offers no memory isolation between processes...
1. https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking - Not a study. Focuses on productivity (not health, or perceived well-being, supports the idea that the brain have dedicated structures for multi-tasking.
I am aware that there are cognitive loads on some kinds of multi-tasking. That does not translate to all kinds of multi-tasking though.
To say that "the brain is like a computer, single thread" is misleading. There are scenarios in which the brain exceeds in multi-tasking (playing instruments like drums, playing games, etc), and there is plenty of evidence that we're tuned for it in all kinds of ways (but not all of them).
Furthermore, I'm not defending we should multi-task. I just think the metaphor and the "brain is mono thread" idea is both wrong and dumb.
Thank you. I was overjoyed at the initial response and surprised and disheartened to see it get flagged. I emailed HN's moderators to get clarification and see if there's anything I could have done better.
Great question. It picks a random book first (out of the 66 non-Deuterocanonical books (so far)) and then a random group of 3 back-to-back verses from that book. That way it's not weighted towards books with more of verses, which I wanted to avoid. It doesn't try to equalize between old/new testament.
Based on my initial audience, it's definitely not common. The Christians I know have different levels of familiarity with the books of the Bible.
Personally, I know Genesis/Exodus, Psalms, and the Gospels well. I can recognize Epistles on sight, but identifying the exact one is really just a guessing game. Most everything else I am not familiar with and will take me a while to guess.
I think that's why people have enjoyed it so far, because of the tradeoff of getting a verse you recognize (so you can guess the book quickly) or getting an unfamiliar verse (so you get to expand your familiarity with the Bible).
Perhaps I should make it clearer that correctly identifying the book on the first try is not the expectation. Maybe I will add a clarification that the goal is "as few guesses as possible" or maybe "as few guesses as you can".
It's quite a variable challenge. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not. (Usually it's not.) I appreciate your feedback.
*Despite them both being in the same section. Oops.
Thank you so much for noticing. I didn't even know there was a difference between Orthodox/Catholic and Protestant canons until a week after the site was live.
I spent a decent amount of time trying to add the Deuterocanonical books. Ultimately I put it on hold, because I was worried that adding those books would make a challenging game even harder (at least for my initial audience of 20 family and friends). I also wondered if adding those books would put off any Protestant visitors... but I see their omission has caught your attention, that's Orthodox 1, Protestant 0. I'll find an elegant way to work them in.
And I never thought of adding an RSS feed! I'll add that to the todo!
The Catholic canon has a lot of those, but not all so including just those common to both would still be something in the majority of Christian's Bibles. Not in the canon does not mean valueless or bad so I think a lot of people will still find books not in their denomination's canon of interest and may have read them.
Maybe offer options on which canon? Does not work well with daily format though. OTOH I would like to play more than once a day!
It is difficult. Maybe weighting towards the new testament (i.e. non-random selection) would make it easier? I think a lot of us are more familiar with it.
It's fine to add the books, when you do, I hope the elegant way gives one the option to enable/disable them. Otherwise you're probably going to miss out on one audience or the other.
> I didn't even know there was a difference between Orthodox/Catholic and Protestant canons until a week after the site was live.
That's because you are a believer.
Knowledge of apocrypha and gnostic gospels is suppressed by the power structures of the church.
Hilarious to worry about "putting off" protestants by including orthodox books rather than the whole believing those people will suffer an eternity of pain and suffering because they believe the same god but the wrong way(TM).
Thank you! I've noticed that a lot of other well-loved "daily" puzzle games are more elegant in terms of game design (Wordle, Bandle, LoLdle are some of my favorites) so I'm a bit worried that the current design is a little flat/boring. I've been trying to brainstorm ways to make it more interesting without making it too challenging or unintuitive.
I'm working on a text-based softball league simulator where you forcibly enlist your friends and family to join your co-ed softball team. You play as their manager/coach/fellow player.
Every aspect of the games are narrated in real time so you know what's going on. I'm still in the prototype stage and I've seen some pretty hilarious interactions already.
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