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Ask HN: Teach me something new

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731–740 of 782 posts

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#731
post #119

In drug development, a lot of the engineering goes into making sure the pharmaceutical compound -- having been developed -- actually reaches the target area of the body. If the compound is a relatively large particle that needs to get into the blood stream, a nasal spray might result in the compound being deposited at the bottom of a person's lungs without ever getting absorbed. If stomach acids break the chemical do…

Grapefruit juice can also increase the amount of a drug absorbed into the bloodstream. It blocks an enzyme in the small intestine that breaks down many types of drugs.

I read something similar about THC (weed) and mangos. The fruit either accelerated or enhanced the drug effect.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#732

Take a few minutes to learn the NATO phonetic alphabet Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo, Lima, Mike, November, Oscar, Papa, Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform, Victor, Whiskey, X-ray, Yankee, Zulu Gotta spell anything over a voice line? Use it. No more screwing around with "B.. like Bryan, and then U, like .... under". s-c-r-o-l-l-a-w-a-y: sierra charlie romeo oscar lim…

I’m more of P is for Pterodactyl kinda guy.

I always do L like Elisabeth and N like Enigma.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#733

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hrm. I had similar experiences beginning a few weeks after a 'mild' TIA in the lower right part of my cerebellum in 2002. But it manifests itself slightly different. My whole field of view, both eyes disintegrates into something of a mix like a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_puzzle or one side of an unsolved https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubik%27s_Cube , 'scrambled' into about 250 to 400 fields. Not quadratic, and…

That's all super interesting; thanks for the description! It's probably totally unrelated to any of this, but I also think primarily (though not entirely) nonverbally, and expressing myself always involves translating nonverbal thoughts into words. And, for what it's worth, I'm a native English speaker trained (but horribly out of practice) in German (and Latin and Mandarin and Tibetan and Hungarian and Greek and Esp…

Wow. So many languages. I've got only English as second language. Sometimes I miss Russian and French to research old 'roads not taken' in programming languages, computer architecture, and general algorithms.

Latin and Greek would be good too, of course. For the classics, or classical education I didn't have. Went totally technical early on.

"Fachidiot", so to speak ;-)

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's all super interesting; thanks for the description! It's probably totally unrelated to any of this, but I also think primarily (though not entirely) nonverbally, and expressing myself always involves translating nonverbal thoughts into words. And, for what it's worth, I'm a native English speaker trained (but horribly out of practice) in German (and Latin and Mandarin and Tibetan and Hungarian and Greek and Esp…

Wow. So many languages. I've got only English as second language. Sometimes I miss Russian and French to research old 'roads not taken' in programming languages, computer architecture, and general algorithms. Latin and Greek would be good too, of course. For the classics, or classical education I didn't have. Went totally technical early on. " Fachidiot ", so to speak ;-)

On the other hand, you can talk with me in English, but I can't do much better than a young toddler in German, unless I first spend some serious time and effort to reacquire some fluency.

In my defense, I've had some decent fluency a couple of time in the past. I ran into a German couple in Athens once and we had a nice conversation. They said nice things about my German :-).

But now in all those languages except English I'm just a dabbler.

At least I know that I can acquire some fluency; I've been able at different points in the past to carry on basic conversations in German and Hungarian and Mandarin, and read some of the easier classical texts in Latin and Greek and Tibetan.

The idea of improving my skills in any of them (or all of them!) is appealing enough for me to occasionally work on them (especially on Latin and Greek), but my attention inevitably gets captured by my numerous other interests, and my language skills fade again.

Worse, there's a long list of other languages that I think are really interesting, and that I would no doubt acquire if only it were quick and easy enough. As it is, though, I mostly just read about languages because they're so interesting. Well, and construct them. Conlanging is a hobby, too.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#736

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. So many languages. I've got only English as second language. Sometimes I miss Russian and French to research old 'roads not taken' in programming languages, computer architecture, and general algorithms. Latin and Greek would be good too, of course. For the classics, or classical education I didn't have. Went totally technical early on. " Fachidiot ", so to speak ;-)

On the other hand, you can talk with me in English, but I can't do much better than a young toddler in German, unless I first spend some serious time and effort to reacquire some fluency. In my defense, I've had some decent fluency a couple of time in the past. I ran into a German couple in Athens once and we had a nice conversation. They said nice things about my German :-). But now in all those languages except Eng…

Hrm. I had that interest when I've been younger, but not anymore.

Btw., the English lessons I had in school were rather boring and uninspiring. I didn't really learn it that way, that happened when I had to read Neuromancer by William Gibson, and didn't get it. So I bought a small to middle dictionary from Langenscheid and read it again with the dictionary at hand. Then it somehow clicked for me.

That worked for reading, hearing not so much. That came later by watching movies, news(BBC/CNN), listening to radio(BFBS), and having at least some fluency in speaking even later, because of work.

Nowadays I'm only caught slightly off guard when someone is unexpectedly speaking to me in English in daily life, like people asking for the way, to some location, or things like that. Sometimes I need one to two seconds until it registers what they said, or asked. Sometimes not at all, instantly.

Oh, and under stress my German is getting worse, I'm at a loss for words, have to really 'search' for them, while I could speak it in English without any problem.

So strange...

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#737
post #119

In drug development, a lot of the engineering goes into making sure the pharmaceutical compound -- having been developed -- actually reaches the target area of the body. If the compound is a relatively large particle that needs to get into the blood stream, a nasal spray might result in the compound being deposited at the bottom of a person's lungs without ever getting absorbed. If stomach acids break the chemical do…

Grapefruit juice can also increase the amount of a drug absorbed into the bloodstream. It blocks an enzyme in the small intestine that breaks down many types of drugs.

A nice word for this is potentiation.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#738
post #730
post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in zsh, there are also !:1 for the first argument, et cetera with the rest of natural numbers, and something like !:* for all the arguments without the command. The generic form is !n:m for n-th last command line and m-th argument, with an omitted n being a shortcut for the last line. Not sure if all of this works the same in bash.

I use zsh so this is also going in my toolbox. I think I've reached for !:* in the past and didn't know it so this is useful

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Another cool thing about LTI systems is that when you chain multiple of them together, the order does not matter. Reverb, delay, EQ, and wah are all LTI. Delay and reverb may be LTI in your definition, but they very much do matter what order they are in, every time. Delay before reverb is going to give a more staccato sound, whereas the reverb before delay is probably just going to wash the whole thing out if you’r…

I suspect you are right when it comes to analog circuits, but they are definitely LTI in a typical digital implementation. I checked this by adding reverb+delay and delay+reverb to two copies of a track in REAPER. I inverted the phase of one, played them together, and they cancelled out.

I would be very surprised at that! I have no time currently but I can put together a example for you to illustrate what I mean if you’d like.

Re: Ask HN: Teach me something new

#740
One of the most deceptively dangerous projects that a DIYer can take on is bathroom wall tiling re-grouting. Tiles may not have a strong bond to their substrate and once you remove the grout may fall into the tub/floor, usually breaking. Then, when you search for tile replacements you find no perfect match for your old tile. Always put a heavily padded rug or blankets over the tub before doing tile work so that fallen tile do not break. Also, if you re-tile, buy a lot of extras and keep them stored safely. Oscillating multi-tools are the best for removing old grout, but their vibrations will shake the wall, loosing tiles that you've removed grout from.
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