The highest number of births by one woman is 69: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_the_most...
According to the same page, Simon Watson is the father of 800 children.
Ask HN: Teach me something new
261–270 of 782 posts
Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new
#262On Mac/Linux the windows/Mac key + tab switches applications. Windows/Max key plus the ~/` key switches windows in the same application.
I personally cannot deal with the alt tab style switching between all windows this app to app switch works much better for me and I use it constantly.
Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new
#263Opera singers learn the International Phonetic Alphabet in order to perfectly pronounce foreign languages without having any idea how to speak those languages.
In the music department at my university the vocalists had to take two different foreign language classes for this reason, and they were _supposed_ to learn the meaning of everything they sang so they could capture the feeling of the song. Bullshitting your way through those kinds of inflections is the voice undergrad's version of slapping a paper together the night before a deadline.
It is good enough for the Pope :)
Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new
#264We are asymmetrical...
Humans look symmetric on the outside but have stark asymmetries on the inside Thus, we have a spleen on the left but not the right. Our left lung has two lobes, but our right lung has three. Our heart and stomach are shifted left of center, our liver is shifted right of center, and our intestines meander throughout our abdominal cavity with no regard for the midline at all.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/quirks-of-human-ana...
Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new
#265digest field in http contains hash of the file and sha algo used to create hash. You can check this field to know if the file has changed or not and download it only when it is changed.
Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new
#266Very few people know the potent facts about the brain: * your neurons are not in your "brain" 90% of your neurons are not in what you generally denote by brain. They are in your cerebellum. The cerebellum has a distinct neural architecture, that difference is in fact clearly visible with the najed eye. A very poor simplistification would be to call it our GPU. * the spinal cord is huge and is structurally a contiguou…
Fun fact: the brain also has a lymphatic system, which wasn't described until about ten years ago. It's called the glymphatic system, and apparently it was rather difficult to spot.
Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new
#267Some command line tips
https://www.unitedbsd.com/d/308-moritz-systems-bsd-tips-and-...
Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new
#268One 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, followed by 6 verse which is sung once through (3x2 + 3x2), and Bach's chorus mirrors this structure. Bach decided to set the piece in E-flat, which is a key signature with 3 flats. He also decided to make the time signature 3/4, so each bar has 3 beats. There are 3 groups of musicians involved (not counting the obligatory basso continuo): 1) vocal forces, 3 parts (Soprano + Alto + Tenor, the bass mostly doubles the basso continuo and is not independent); 2) strings, 3 parts (violin 1 + violin 2 + viola); 3) winds, 3 parts (oboe 1 + oboe 2 + alto oboe). Also, the opening melody of the chorale outlines the 3 notes of the tonic triad of E-flat (E-flat, G, B-flat), while later on, Bach being Bach, there is a miniature fugato where the three lower voices open with the same 3 pitches in a different order (G, B-flat, E-flat).
I'm usual sceptical of most other numerological readings of Bach's music precisely because when Bach wished to make a point with numbers, he makes it damned obvious, as in this case.
Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new
#269What we call “free will” consists of a multitude of forces we have no control over. Look at your choices and try to find an independent entity making a decision. You will likely notice your conditioning and preferences, beliefs, emotions, thoughts, physiological and psychological state in the moment, your environment, habits, trauma patterns, all collaborating toward one thing or another. “Free will” is a shortcut fo…
I think of it as we have free will, bound by the entity that we are.
We can do what we want, but we can't arbitrarily change what we want.
Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some electromagnetic frequencies are colors, but not all colors are electromagnetic frequencies. That’s why parent stated that color is a brain phenomenon.
> not all colors are electromagnetic frequencies What do you mean? (Outside the detail that "hues" are electromagnetic frequencies, while colours are compositions - there I just simplified.) Which colour is not such?
I would explain it as colors are byproducts of electromagnetic frequencies, but they are qualia generated by your brain. There are many optical illusions that play with this fact. For example, in twilight, the frequencies you would call blue are different than what you call blue during daytime. This is because the brain /eye adjusts to the general light conditions. (As sunlight is generally "redder" at twilight).