Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Size of Life

neal.fun

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 286 posts

Re: Size of Life

#131

Post by compiler-guy »

modeless wrote: post #80
chrismorgan wrote: post #55

The dynamic soundscape is delightful, as it subtly adds instruments and musical texture as you progress. And going back down the scale regresses it to simple again. Smoothly done. It reminded me of Operation Neptune (1991): each level starts with just one channel, probably percussion, and as you progress through the rooms it adds and removes more channels or sometimes switches to a different section of music. It is u…

Man I played Operation Neptune a lot when I was a kid. I wonder if it was the first game to do this style of adaptive music layering. It predates the iMUSE system used in LucasArts games like X-Wing and TIE Fighter. For anyone curious, you can actually play it here: https://archive.org/details/msdos_Super_Solvers_Operation_Ne...

The arcade classic Space Invaders had a primitive soundscape in that every time the remaining invaders advance, it plays a short bass note. As fewer and fewer invaders remain, it takes less time for them to advance, and the note repeats faster and faster, it adds a remarkable amount of increasing tension as each level progresses.

So not exactly the same, but perhaps prototypical. I think Asteroids did as well.

Re: Size of Life

#132

Post by s1mon »

prmph wrote: post #123
jphoward wrote: post #6

It seems to be like some of the scales slightly off? If you are looking at the ladybird (ladybug) with the amoeba to the left, the amoeba isn't an order of the magnitude smaller - it would actually be visible by the human eye (bigger than a grain of sand)? Indeed, the amoeba seems the same size as the ladybird's foot? Similarly, this makes the bumblebee appear smaller than a human finger (the in the adjacent picture)…

Cool visualization, but I also noticed the switch from SI units to imperial. From micrometers to inches, which was jarring and hard for me to compare. I'd suggest keeping the SI unit , or at least having both once we get to the level of inches.

I found that jarring as well. There's a toggle in the upper right to switch to metric.

Even with setting it to metric, it progresses through units based on the scale. I realize that scientists love to work in scientific notation, and progressing from nanometers to micrometers, mm, cm, and finally meters sort of follows that kind of logic. I wonder how it would feel if the whole thing was in constant units or at least there was an option for that.

Re: Size of Life

#134

Post by dsego »

milancurcic wrote: post #31

Neal delivers. I recently learned that viruses are not considered living being, but I'm nevertheless happy they're included here because they're both relevant and interesting in this context.

I was taught in school they were something in between.

Re: Size of Life

#135

Post by albedoa »

earlyriser wrote: post #72
elicash wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I came to the comments to express surprise that amoebas were so large. It appears they vary wildly in size (as small as 2.3 micrometers... but up to 20 cm, or nearly 8 inches). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoeba#Size_range

On the other side, wasps could be so tiny. like you could put thousands of them inside an amoeba volume. "Megaphragma mymaripenne is a microscopically sized wasp. At 200 μm in length, it is the third-smallest extant insect, comparable in size to single-celled organisms. It has a highly reduced nervous system, containing only 7400 neurons, several orders of magnitude fewer than in larger insects."

The males of dicopomorpha echmepterygis are even smaller, with wide sexual dimorphism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dicopomorpha_echmepterygis

I never knew about these either.

Re: Size of Life

#136

Post by anon_cow1111 »

chrismorgan wrote: post #55

The dynamic soundscape is delightful, as it subtly adds instruments and musical texture as you progress. And going back down the scale regresses it to simple again. Smoothly done. It reminded me of Operation Neptune (1991): each level starts with just one channel, probably percussion, and as you progress through the rooms it adds and removes more channels or sometimes switches to a different section of music. It is u…

Anyone find an actual link for the finished track? Credits are mentioned on his site and twitter but I didn't find it anywhere when searching for the artist names.

Re: Size of Life

#137

Post by newman8r »

HelloUsername wrote: post #91
newman8r wrote: post #77

It claims a banana isn't technically living, but a banana has living cells so I'm not sure how accurate that is. I'm not sure when they're all considered 'dead' after harvesting though - maybe some wiggle room there.

I think the banana was mostly added as a joke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiducial_marker#%22Banana_for_...

I got the reference, it's just the 'not technically alive' part that I was calling out

Re: Size of Life

#139

Post by simonw »

setgree wrote: post #78
cs702 wrote: post #44

Beautiful. It's clearly a labor of love. The authors deserve our support. Buy them a coffee via the provided link. Thank you for sharing this on HN.

He has many other cool visualizations! Space Elevator: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45640226 Deep Sea: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21850527

He was also responsible for one of the worst web pages ever created: https://neal.fun/stimulation-clicker/

(It's utterly brilliant but monstrous.)

Post reply on HN