Ask HN: Teach me something new • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#541

Post by mikelevins » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

remuskaos wrote: post #528

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…

It's fascinating that you were still able to read without seeing! I've had migraines about every two months for the past 12 years, and with very few exceptions they've always followed the same pattern: 30 minutes of scotoma (small to large to small), 30 minutes of peace, then a strong headache for about an hour. I usually still have a mild headache the next day. I've had the migraines mostly while sitting an the comp…

Post your results, if you remember! I'm interested to know what happens.

My N is 1; I've never yet had the chance to test it a second time. I'm actually looking forward to my next scotoma for that reason!

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#542

Post by frogpelt » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:03 PM UTC

elric wrote: post #257

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…

> correlated by how "willing" the notes are to resolve to the mode root (the first key of 7 you hit). I've heard this explanation many times before, and I still don't understand how notes can be "willing" to do anything, or how a note can "resolve" to the root. Can someone ELI5?

Since the notes are just frequencies of sound waves, it makes sense to me that some frequencies sound better together and some frequencies don't quite sound resolved when played together.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#543

Post by mdp2021 » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:05 PM UTC

mongol wrote: post #270

mdp2021 wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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).

Sure, but those colours still «are electromagnetic frequencies». The poster stated that some colours are not.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#544

Post by mikelevins » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:06 PM UTC

randlet wrote: post #485

mikelevins wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your first link is exactly what it looks like to me (except pulsing/shimmering). I can usually sense it before it starts then it starts as a small aberration and gradually grows to encompass almost my entire vision. Extremely unsettling the first time it happened.

Yeah, mine are always pulsing, shimmering, whirling, or moving in some other way--most often more than one way at once. My earliest ones were like a black hole in the middle of my vision with an aurora borealis slowly radiating ouward while color changes whirled around it at high speed.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#545

Post by yesbabyyes » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:08 PM UTC

doubleunplussed wrote: post #353

agumonkey wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I laughed thinking about British empire teaching english to indians who they inherited most the language from. etymonline.com is a nice way to rabbithole time away with fun

Well, English and most indian languages share a common ancestor, but indic languages have drifted just as far as any other from proto Indo-European that you can't really say one branch inherited anything from the other . Indic languages are our cousins, not our grandparents.

Perhaps not just as far though? I don't know how true it is, but I've heard that Lithuanian is considered the living language that is closest to proto-Indo-European.

English is interesting in that it has been mixed up with so many different branches of the tree, Saxon, Scandinavian, Latin, French, etc during different periods. Sometimes it has synonyms coming from eg Norse and French, where the PIE root is the same but the words are quite different, and carrying different connotations.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#546

Post by oezi » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:09 PM UTC

andrei_says_ wrote: post #212

What 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…

Yet, none of these forces are ultimately the primary cause of your decision. Rather they combine with your consciousness (your thinking about these forces and your state of thinking) and chance (randomness) to result in your choices.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#547

Post by leephillips » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:10 PM UTC

FrenchAmerican wrote: post #477

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.

This reflects the abnormally high proportion of people jailed in the USA: - 80K inmates for 68.5M inhabitants in the UK => 0.12% - 1,215K inmates for 331M inhabitants in the US => 0,37% There are therefore around 3 times more people incarcerated in the US than in UK, proportionally. As rapes are very frequent in the US jails (as this terrible report points out) and most of the jail population are men, then indeed, wh…

What does “statistically speaking” mean in your comment? If I say “There are more species of beetle than species of octopus”, does that mean the same thing as “There are more species of beetle than species of octopus, statistically speaking”?

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#548

Post by ffggvv » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:11 PM UTC

arc-in-space wrote: post #130

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…

"Not directly inflationary" does not seem like a very useful thing to say, since QE causally leads to higher inflation. Japan barely had any inflation for a while because their QE program was temporary, and when it looked like inflation might go above zero, BoJ immediately hiked rates, contracting the economy(2000, 20006). This is how you achieve no inflation. By the way, recently they've began trying a more expansio…

the yen is rapidly devaluing compared to the dollar right now too

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#549

Post by ffggvv » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:12 PM UTC

amarshh wrote: post #514

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.

Is this not just because most rapists are men (and sexual assaulters more generally are men), and the only people they can rape in a prison environment are other men? Which is also why prisons are segregated by sex, to avoid women prisoners being sexually assaulted, raped and impregnated by deviant men. If prisons had no such sex segregation, it would overwhelmingly be the women being raped, not the men.

yes but it doesn’t change the fact. the men who are on the receiving side are just as much victims regardless if a member of the same sex or differnt is the perp

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#550

Post by stevenhuang » Sat, Apr 30, 2022, 3:15 PM UTC

mhh__ wrote: post #167

stevenhuang wrote: post #58

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…

The SR-71 was designed in the 1950s, unless progress has stalled I don't see why these reports aren't just DARPA playing with their new toys. And besides, the floodgates will not open, that isn't how the scientific method works. If the little green men arrive, the evidence we have showing everything is mumbo jumbo doesn't cease to exist.

It is unlikely to propose these craft are ours because the basic science underlying the function of their propulsion system is simply undeveloped. You simply cannot hide developments like this from the greater scientific community. Quantum leaps do not happen in vacuum.

Even in the Manhattan project, in the unclassified public work there is active research in nuclear physics. Nothing of the sort is happening here wrt gravitic propulsion/warping of space time.

Floodgates open because in many of UAP encounters, witness testimony relay of telepathic communication initiated by the beings in the craft.

It actually is how the scientific method works. If something that is very unlikely is now true, the likelihood of linked events predicated on this should be re-evaluated because the priors have changed.