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Ask HN: Teach me something new

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Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#381

Post by mikelevins »

mijoharas wrote: post #362
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…

I'd recommend the book "the man who mistook his wife for a hat" by Oliver Sacks which I seem to remember digs into some phenomonon like these. There are very interesting differences between certain lesions in the left side of the brain, and in the right side. For instance there are some people that are blind, but do not believe that they are, and vice versa, which lines up with your experience.

I've read the book. It's an old favorite. Thanks for suggesting it, though.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#382

Post by ebingdom »

sph wrote: post #272
_zywo wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infinite loops are considered undefined behaviour in C++.

Infinite loops are undefined (actually, undecidable) behaviour in any Turing machine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

That's not what undefined behavior means.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#383

Post by tejohnso »

beanlog wrote: post #223
ToJans wrote: post #110

I watched a piano/music teaching video from the 60s yesterday that made it all "click" [1] Most modern music chords patterns are easy to find out on piano. Start on any of the white keys, and play 7 white keys left to right. That is called a mode: a series of notes separated by certain intervals to compose a song. Different modes have different vibes. Atmosphere of the song ( sad or happy) is directly correlated by h…

Ever since I learned that the frequency ratio between adjacent keys on a piano is always a constant twelfth root of 2 regardless of whether you're going black-white or white-white, I've been sort of frustrated with the way pianos are designed. Transposing a song to a different key could have been effortless if keys were structured differently, such as with uniformly alternating white and black keys, rather than the 2…

You may be aware, but what you are describing depends on temperment[1].

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_temperament

Be sure to check out the "See Also" section if interested.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#384

Post by LandR »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #219
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…

Interesting. I get these scotomas about every 6 months or so, usually lasting for 30 or so minutes. I was told they were called "ocular migraines", and a cursory glance over the internet doesn't seem to help me differentiate between the two, although I will say that [0] is a very accurate depiction of how it looks when it happens to me. I normally just take a break from whatever I'm doing and go for a walk. The first…

I get these every couple of months!

Sometimes with accompanying headache, sometimes without. That picture is a great representation of what I see. Although I would say its usually more silvery and shiny. Dunno what triggers it, I've had it sitting watching TV, tryjng to work on computer (which becomes impossible) and just sitting in a restaurant eating lunch.

Normally lasts half an hour or so. Also sometimes I can be left feeling fuzzy and foggy for a day or so after.

Like you say reading just becomes impossible!

Have you found any good medication that helps when they trigger?

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#385

Post by mikelevins »

CGamesPlay wrote: post #219
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…

Interesting. I get these scotomas about every 6 months or so, usually lasting for 30 or so minutes. I was told they were called "ocular migraines", and a cursory glance over the internet doesn't seem to help me differentiate between the two, although I will say that [0] is a very accurate depiction of how it looks when it happens to me. I normally just take a break from whatever I'm doing and go for a walk. The first…

The image you linked is what I'm calling "flickering". My full-blown scintillating scotoma is much more vivid and fully-formed. In the incident I'm reporting, it was a 3D physical-looking structure of triangular prisms made of white light, with zebra stripes of utter blackness sweeping rapidly along them, surrounded by an aura that looked like a cross between the sun's corona and the aurora borealis.

These links are closer to what mine look like:

https://i.imgur.com/mbW2UZY.jpg

https://optometrui.tumblr.com/image/132973031235

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#386

Post by goldenkey »

sph wrote: post #256
leephillips wrote: post #99

Most rape victims in the United States are men: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison/report.html Caution: that’s hard, explicit, distressing reading.

I assume it applies uniquely to the United States, given the high percentage of incarcerated people?

Midnight Express gave me reason to believe it's other countries too like Turkey.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#388

Post by bitwize »

smallerfish wrote: post #374

In the western/european world, we have access to maybe a couple of dozen types of fruit (including various berries); try listing all of the fruit you know. That is just a small fraction of the (estimated) 2000 types of fruit eaten across the world, particularly in the tropics. Relatedly, in central and south America, _sapote_ is the native american term for (roughly) "edible fruit". The word has nothing to do with th…

> Relatedly, in central and south America, _sapote_ is the native american term for (roughly) "edible fruit". The word has nothing to do with the taxonomy of these plants. European colonists made the mistake of adopting the word "sapote" for various different tree species ("what's this called?"; "sapote"), which has led to a lot of subsequent misunderstanding. If you google for "sapote" you'll find some results which naively attempt to give a latin classification to the unqualified "sapote". Now we have fairly useless english names for a variety of these regional fruits, such as (read "sapote" as "edible fruit" in these examples): "green sapote", "white sapote", "black sapote", "yellow sapote", "sun sapote", "south american sapote", and so on - although many of them also have more distinctive names (such as "canistel" or "chupa chupa"), which are much less ambiguous and should be preferred.

This is fairly common with Asian or any "exotic" language. The Japanese word sake means "alcoholic drink". If you walk into a Japanese bar, the bartender may ask you "Osake wa?", or "what would you like to drink?" (My favorite sake to consume in Japanese bars was a rum and coke, which is called a "Cuba Libre" outside the USA.) The fermented-rice beverage we know as sake is called in Japanese nihonshu, which simply means "Japanese liquor".

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#389

Post by loceng »

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…

"A scotoma is a blind or blank spot in the visual field. "

Oh, I've had those - though not as lasting or opaque as they sound for you. I always thought it was one step prior to the "blinding" pain level I'll get from different nerve compression syndromes and injuries I have/had; for obvious reasons I try to manage my life to limit agitating the nerves and to not reach the blinding pain level - where for at least a few moments I can't see or don't experience anything but the pain; quite the short circuit mechanism to grab one's full attention.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#390

Post by mkl »

beanlog wrote: post #223
ToJans wrote: post #110

I watched a piano/music teaching video from the 60s yesterday that made it all "click" [1] Most modern music chords patterns are easy to find out on piano. Start on any of the white keys, and play 7 white keys left to right. That is called a mode: a series of notes separated by certain intervals to compose a song. Different modes have different vibes. Atmosphere of the song ( sad or happy) is directly correlated by h…

Ever since I learned that the frequency ratio between adjacent keys on a piano is always a constant twelfth root of 2 regardless of whether you're going black-white or white-white, I've been sort of frustrated with the way pianos are designed. Transposing a song to a different key could have been effortless if keys were structured differently, such as with uniformly alternating white and black keys, rather than the 2…

The Janko layout does this and has been around since the 1800s: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janko_keyboard

I have one, in the form of a Chromatone keyboard (https://chromatone.jp/chromatone/index.html, no longer available). The uniformity does make it harder to play by touch, but it otherwise has a lot of advantages. I have been experimenting with different colours and tactile markers (little rubber feet intended to stick on the bottom of things) but I haven't settled on anything yet.

I have commented on this a few times before: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Others have too, and jacquesm has even built a Janko keyboard retrofit.

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