Ask HN: Teach me something new • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#501

Post by onos » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:10 PM UTC

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?

They comment in the report on whether they believe this occurs elsewhere at similar rates within prisons, and they indicate that evidence suggests yes. However, great point that it likely affects more people in the USA per capita by virtue of the large incarceration rate here.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#502

Post by ectopod » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

Timwi wrote: post #163

In Windows, pressing Win+1, Win+2, etc. activates the first, second etc. icon on the taskbar.

Alt+1, etc. selects tabs in Firefox on Linux, with Alt+9 always being the rightmost tab. Ctrl+1, etc. works in Firefox on Windows.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#503

Post by spython » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

vermarish wrote: post #225

An electric guitarist usually has a pedalboard that they use to make different guitar tones. Let's approach this like an electrical engineer might. Time is a straight arrow: call it t. The guitarist plays, and their guitar pickup records a signal. At any time t, measure the value of this signal's waveform: call it x. That signal can go into a pedal that maps each value to create an output signal. Call it f(x, t). The…

Could you link to these communities of people sharing impulse responses?

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#504

Post by ZoomZoomZoom » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:11 PM UTC

kmarc wrote: post #323

Aidevah wrote: post #268

One of Bach's most famous church cantatas, BWV 140[1], was written for the 27th (or no. 3^3, the importance of this will be apparent in a moment) Sunday after Trinity, the last possible Sunday before Advent. The cantata is a chorale cantata based on the Lutheran Hymn "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme", the opening movement is a chorus that is based on this tune. The tune is in Bar form, the first 3 verses are repeated…

Oh he was brilliantly playful with his musical cryptograms. Also see: * BACH Motif: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BACH_motif The letters of his name, B, A, C, H encoding a melody.

Obligatory mention of "In The Name Of Ron" by guitarist extraordinaire Ron Jarzombek. For those interested in creative exploration of musical ideas.

https://youtu.be/YYlzPWEQhLg

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#505

Post by mikelevins » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:13 PM UTC

wrboyce wrote: post #288

chopsuey5540 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The book "The Unfolding of Language: the evolution of mankind's greatest invention" by Guy Deutscher explains this very well and has numerous examples. As a language noob, I found it fascinating!

Appreciate the book recommendation, I have read “Through the language glass: why the world looks different in other languages” by the same author and similarly found it fascinating.

Another cool one is this:

https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Encyclopedia-Language-David...

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#506

Post by CharlesW » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

Van Gogh killed himself one year after Nintendo was founded.

Betty White was born before Anne Frank.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#507

Post by wonderbore » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

goldenkey wrote: post #386

sph wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn’t Midnight Express an English movie? I’m not sure it can be used as source for that.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#508

Post by ajot » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:14 PM UTC

jasfi wrote: post #14

Nim ( https://nim-lang.org/ ) is a fast, compiled language that is as easy to use as Python. It doesn't have the same ecosystem or user-base of Python though, although Python and Nim can be bridged via nimpy.

A very fine and useful project written in Nim is Nitter, a super fast, no-JS, reading-only Twitter frontend.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#509

Post by wonderbore » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

pxeger1 wrote: post #145

Double-clicking on text selects the whole word. Double-clicking and dragging selects text word-by-word. Triple-clicking selects the whole paragraph. Middle-clicking a link opens it in a new tab. Middle-clicking a tab closes it. Middle-clicking in general often has useful functionality!

> Middle-clicking a tab closes it.

Ahh I used a Magic Mouse and trackpad for so long I forgot about this. It makes me a little sad. On the other hand panning and gestures are worth the loss.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#510

Post by photochemsyn » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

There are ghostly individual isolated hydrogen atoms drifting in interstellar space whose effective diameters are about 0.5 mm, while hydrogen atoms in our local environment are more like 1.1 angstrom (1e-7 mm) in diameter.

These are called Rydberg atoms and exist because the electon bound to the nucleus of the these atoms has climbed up to very high excitation levels, a state that is very unstable as any collision with another particle or interaction with electromagnetic fields will cause it to collapse down to lower energy levels. The extreme emptiness of interstellar space allows such atoms to persist for long periods.

The density of interstellar hydrogen clouds is much lower than what can be achieved with the best vacuum systems on Earth, but laser cooling techniques have now made the production and maintenance of such atoms possible, to the point where they can be used as delicate sensors, and have possible applications in quantum computing.