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Comment by bsaul | Hacker News Reader

Is there a rational explanation on why there seems to be a HN article answering the weirdest questions i had in my mind just a few days ago ? Only yesterday i wondered how did CPU performed division. I didn't ask or type anything about it. It was just in my mind. And now this.

Are we part of a collective mind ? Do social networks algorithms shape society that deeply that we all end up having about the same random thoughts ?

This is really scary in a way.

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Not sure if it has a name but often there’s a trend of “one thing leads to another” related articles on the HN front page.

Yesterday there was something similar that might have planted a seed in your mind like it did for other people.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46735133

Right. Or it could be frequency illusion. Once you become aware of something, it appears to be more frequent:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion

I definitely noticed this trend of article chaining, bu it must have been something else in this case, because i have absolutely 0 memory of seing that post yesterday. Actually, i think my thought came from an instagram video in my feed of a guy showing human division algorithm using sticks on a whiteboard.

or probably just some kind of preference/selection bias.

You own a red Mercedes now and suddenly you see only red Mercedes' on the streets.

This is probably just availability bias / frequency illusion at work. Thinking about something once makes the brain suddenly notice it everywhere. The coincidences stick, but all the misses don’t. Feels like magic, but it’s just how attention and memory play tricks.

I may have the answer. This website nand2mario and something like this article was here on HN a while ago. Maybe a month or two months ago. So maybe then you were busy and didn't read it fully but your mind caught it somehow from HN or coworkers/friends and now when you are relaxed you can register the stuff nicely. Typing 80386 in the search doesn't gets me that exact post.

The mind data-mines.

No, no, no.

I think it's actually really simple. We tech nerds sometimes think a lot the same way.

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