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Comment by tome | Hacker News Reader

How does the astrology bit actually work?

  import System.Random (randomRIO)
 
  pick :: [a] -> IO a
  pick xs = fmap (xs !!) $ randomRIO (0, length xs - 1)
 
  main = do
    x <- pick lifeAdvice
    print x

If you are only familiar with Sun sign astrology, you would probably be surprised at how mathematical and complicated astrology actually is. Though canned astrology often disappoints me, it at least doesn't tell you that you are going to have the same events as millions of others born within the same 30 day period.

We start by using NASA data to get the precise positions of the planets. Then we assign semantic meaning to these raw data points using the rules of astrology (i.e what significance the Moon has, what the different signs mean, etc). And lastly, we combine them together into human readable text which we show to the user.

Which astrology rules are you using? Greek or Indian? I have done some preliminary research into Indian astrology and it have amazed me at times on how accurate it is. Though most of the HN crowd can think I am stupid, even I thought astrology is stupid until I stumbled on few things and I applied the same rules to my friends life to predict their good and rough patches fairly accurately. The data set is very small to call it a scientific study, but I am planning to run the rules on a large data set to figure out the possibilities of it.

Great to see someone having a successful business with astrology. Good luck

Same as someone selling a religious app or any other entertainment app.

The only issue I have is when people take astrology too seriously. I hope you’re putting some sort of an “*” that it’s for entertainment purposes and people shouldn’t make serious life decisions on what you say.

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