Show HN: How far do I have to go to run into 100k people? • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: How far do I have to go to run into 100k people?

#51

Post by anon48293 » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 10:44 AM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #24

I must be slightly confused about what claims this visualization is making. Are these 5 degree rays supposed to be indicating non-overlapping triangles where each triangle contains 100k population? If so, a full circle (with no triangles missing) would be a population of 7.2 million. And yet, clicking around Los Angeles County you can easily find multiple completely non-overlapping full circles, despite the county po…

Yes, I don’t quite understand this either

Re: Show HN: How far do I have to go to run into 100k people?

#52

Post by cdirkx » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 11:35 AM UTC

joe5150 wrote: post #22

sebmellen wrote: post #18

Really cool. Makes me wonder where the most remote point in the contiguous U.S. is by this metric.

I'm having a hard time finding any place that produces a ray longer than about 900 miles. I found a spot in NW South Dakota whose shortest rays are nearly 300 miles.

Somehow I was able to place a pin in Quebec, which resulted in a ray of 2058 miles to the USA northwest

Re: Show HN: How far do I have to go to run into 100k people?

#53

Post by madcaptenor » Wed, Jul 29, 2026, 5:39 PM UTC

galleywest200 wrote: post #41

Havre, MT has curved rays going east. Is that intentional?

I think the rays are straight but you're comparing them to the US-Canada border, which is curved. (No, it really is! A parallel of latitude is not a great circle.)

Re: Show HN: How far do I have to go to run into 100k people?

#54

Post by joe5150 » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 10:43 AM UTC

furyofantares wrote: post #44

joe5150 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having a hard time finding any place that produces a ray longer than about 900 miles. I found a spot in NW South Dakota whose shortest rays are nearly 300 miles.

Try a little NE of Seattle.

Anywhere that far north seems to be skewed by lack of data from Canada. For example, I clicked NE of Seattle (on Bothell specifically) and got a 1200 mi ray that passes right through Winnipeg (pop. 700,000).