Ask HN: Teach me something new • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#51

Post by tomcam » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:22 AM UTC

amin wrote: post #2

Quantitative easing (sometimes mistaking called "money printing") isn't directly inflationary. Because when central banks buy bonds, they do not pay with normal money. Instead, they pay with a special type of money that can never enter the real economy (as to not create inflation). This special type of money are called "bank reserves". And bank reserves can only be used to 1) settle interbank transfers and 2) buy mor…

So why don’t we just put $100 trillion of that money into the economy? Why not just pay for everyone’s houses and college debt and personal debt this way?

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#52

Post by tomcam » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:26 AM UTC

webmaven wrote: post #46

bovermyer wrote: post #18

Opera singers learn the International Phonetic Alphabet in order to perfectly pronounce foreign languages without having any idea how to speak those languages.

Hmm. Is IPA sufficiently nuanced to represent speech as pronounced by a native speaker without the leeway that would permit a non-native accent? Put another way, it was my impression that IPA was coarse grained enough to permit at least some different accents to be represented by the same IPA "spelling".

Opera singer here. IPA is indeed as coarse grained as you described in the latter sentence. Accents can definitely leak through. Practically speaking most opera singers do not use it, and are expected to take two or three romance languages in college. Accents tend to be ironed out mechanically because you want uniformity (when singing in a chorus) and good projection of the phonemes onstage.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#53

Post by mikelevins » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:28 AM UTC

tomcam wrote: post #50

mikelevins wrote: post #28

I've described this on HN before; forgive me if you've already seen it. I have chronic migraine. It sounds worse than it is; I rarely suffer attacks anymore, and when I do, they're usually mostly harmless, as in the case I'll describe below. Contrary to popular belief, migraine is not a headache. It's something a little more like an epileptic seizure. Intense headaches are one common symptom, but there are a lot of o…

Yes, it was damn interesting. Thank you for sharing. Do you now try to read through all of your scotomas?

I will, but that incident was the last time I had a full-blown one.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#54

Post by tomcam » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:30 AM UTC

larmstrong wrote: post #42

Reptiles (and other ectothermal vertebrates) will “artificially” give themselves fevers by staying in heat sources longer when they’re fighting an infection. It’s called a behavioral fever. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27381718/

So what I did that in middle school all the time. Kidding!

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#55

Post by Turing_Machine » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:12 AM UTC

sin(0) = sqrt(0)/2.

sin(30) = sqrt(1)/2.

sin(45) = sqrt(2)/2.

sin(60) = sqrt(3)/2.

sin(90) = sqrt(4)/2.

You probably knew all of those, but may not have seen it set out in this fashion before.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#56

Post by catsarebetter » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:13 AM UTC

You probably don't have free will, you have no more control of the thoughts that motivate you to take action as you do the thoughts that do not.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#57

Post by creakingstairs » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:14 AM UTC

mikelevins wrote: post #28

I've described this on HN before; forgive me if you've already seen it. I have chronic migraine. It sounds worse than it is; I rarely suffer attacks anymore, and when I do, they're usually mostly harmless, as in the case I'll describe below. Contrary to popular belief, migraine is not a headache. It's something a little more like an epileptic seizure. Intense headaches are one common symptom, but there are a lot of o…

> they're often made up of several more or less independent processes

I’ve recently read “ A Thousand Brains: A New Theory of Intelligence” by Jeff Hawkins and that is essentially what he argues. That our neo cortex had consists of millions of a similar structure and many of them fire up at the same time.

Fascinating book, would highly recommend.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#58

Post by stevenhuang » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:18 AM UTC

The study of unidentified aerial phenomena (UFOs) and the acknowledgement of the extraterrestrial hypothesis (or extra dimensional) will become mainstream.

https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/news/press/release/gillibr...

Soft disclosure has happened already via the USS Nimitz encounter. If UAPs are true, then the floodgates are open and will lead to a forced re-evaluation of other high strangeness phenomena (telepathy, ESP, etc).

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#59

Post by mettamage » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:21 AM UTC

I have tinnitus. Before I had tinnitus I could simply use earplugs. Problem when I sleep: when I use earplugs it presses in my ear and it aggrevates my tinnitus.

Solution:

- Bose QC 35

- Earplugs

Now the earplugs don't get pushed in and don't aggrevate the tinnitus. The bose QC 35 gets pushed onto whatever is directly outside your ear, which is a bit uncomfortable but fine.

This is my new earplugs setup and it works.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#60

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 5:23 AM UTC

mettamage wrote: post #59

I have tinnitus. Before I had tinnitus I could simply use earplugs. Problem when I sleep: when I use earplugs it presses in my ear and it aggrevates my tinnitus. Solution: - Bose QC 35 - Earplugs Now the earplugs don't get pushed in and don't aggrevate the tinnitus. The bose QC 35 gets pushed onto whatever is directly outside your ear, which is a bit uncomfortable but fine. This is my new earplugs setup and it works.

[deleted]