Hacker News Reader

madcaptenoron Everything is logarithms

These exist for various medical usages. I've seen one to compute the due date of a pregnancy (from either the date of conception or the last missed period). This was at an obstetrician's office. It was probably dropped off by a sales rep and had the logo of some medication or other.

madcaptenoron US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

That's what I was thinking.

madcaptenoron US Consumer Price Index up 4.2%

Tax brackets are also inflation-adjusted, so shouldn't that cancel out?

madcaptenoron A Crank Formula for π

It's hard to be totally sure, but I also don't think that's a picture of Dudley.

madcaptenoron Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring

From a glance at the paper (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.27371) it looks like they're using self-reported ethnicity.

"We only attempt to identify adverse impact based on self-reported racial information and do not impute data, noting that we do not have access to features like applicant name. 62.35% of all applicants in the data do not self-report race as belonging to one of the four racial groups we study."

madcaptenoron The new bibliomaniacs

I should clarify. I remember the fact that I read them but I don't remember anything about them.

madcaptenoron The new bibliomaniacs

I share this feeling. When I want to free up some space, the books I get rid of are the ones I don't remember reading.

madcaptenoron What I've learned about the trombone

I had the same confusion - I'd move the [...] to the following sentence.

madcaptenoron Alberta to hold referendum on whether to remain in Canada

Another case: when Brexit happened, IIRC some people in Scotland were suggesting secession from the UK post-Brexit so they could rejoin the EU.

madcaptenoron Michael Keating has died

Michael J. Fox's middle name is Andrew. But he didn't want to be Michael A. Fox because that sounded too much like "Michael, a fox."

madcaptenoron Greek Alphabet Cards

right, but giving English-speaking kids the following would help them:

- a bear that looks like B

- an orange that looks like O

- a snake that looks like S

- a tree that looks like T

(and so on; that's just what I can think of off the top of my head)

madcaptenoron Extremely Low Frequencies

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/03/02/eureka-funny/

(in short, people have found the "Eureka" part in Asimov but not the "that's funny" part)

madcaptenoron The smelly baby problem

It also helps that newborn poop doesn't smell particularly bad. It only starts smelling like poop when they start eating real food.

madcaptenoron Reverse Engineering SimTower

I had SimTower but could never quite figure it out - might be time to give it another shot.

madcaptenoron You can beat the binary search

Isn't it a bit better on average, although not as much as you'd hoped? For example 19 steps of binary search get you down to 1/524288 of the original search space with 19 comparisons. 12 steps of ternary search get you down to 1/3^12 = 1/531441 of the original search space with, on average, 12 * 3/2 = 18 comparisons.

madcaptenoron Talkie: a 13B vintage language model from 1930

For a moment there I thought "sanguinary struggle" meant a cheerful one - but that's "sanguine". "Sanguinary" has the more literal meaning of "bloody".

madcaptenoron The Beauty of Bonsai Styles

Seconded. They also have an excellent pipe organ; I'd recommend checking their web site to see when someone will be playing it.

madcaptenoron Jar of NIST peanut butter for $2,050

I've been getting ads for this. I have a seven-year-old who's particular about her peanut butter sandwiches, but I don't need Science Peanut Butter.

madcaptenoron Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy

Similarly, Spanish "vuestra merced" evolved to "usted".

madcaptenoron Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy

meanwhile, my New Jersey-born boss uses "you guys" despite herself being female and having lived in the South longer than I have

madcaptenoron Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy

No, because "you in the back" could refer to just one person in the back, instead of several. So "y'all in the back" is more specific. (Of course names are an option in this context.)

madcaptenoron Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy

No. As far as I can tell, singular "y'all", when it exists, is an implied plural. What you might hear as singular "y'all" is, say, when you go into a restaurant and say "do y'all have Coke?" to the server - that doesn't refer to just the server but to the restaurant as a whole. But I'm not a linguist and also I don't spend much time among people with heavier Southern dialect, so you shouldn't believe what I say.

madcaptenoron Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy

What if you're addressing part of the class, though? Like "y'all in the back, you need to get back to your work".

madcaptenoron Wit, unker, Git: The lost medieval pronouns of English intimacy

Before I moved to the South I (a non-Southerner) did not feel comfortable saying "y'all". But "you guys" seemed sexist. I have since spent a decade in the South and I have not picked up much of the dialect, but I definitely say "y'all" now.

"W'all" would be nice to have. I guess it's not a thing because it sounds too much like the things that separate rooms.

madcaptenoron A pound of ground beef now costs more than the federal minimum wage

Anecdotally, I bought a pound of ground beef a few days ago for $8 in the suburbs of Atlanta. Minimum wage here is $7.25 (federal). Actually Georgia's state minimum wage is $5.15 but that's only allowed in certain rare cases.

madcaptenoron Windows Notepad to Receive New Age Verification Feature

I wasn't totally sure either. But other stuff in the same "Series" on the web page (https://lzon.ca/posts/series/duck/) includes:

- Statistics Canada to replace Food & Gas with "Huge TVs" in inflation reporting

- New study says gnomes are responsible for breaking your electronics

- Local LLM experiences burnout, wishes it could go back to writing code snippets

- Android sideloading to require helmet, life jacket

- Nvidia CEO envisions a future of AI-powered gamers

- Elon Musk announces ClipX

So yes, I think it's satire

madcaptenoron Niche Museums

I think the site is compiled by one person. If you look at the map (https://www.niche-museums.com/map) it's heavily biased towards the southern UK and the SF Bay Area.

madcaptenoron Why the global elite gave up on spelling and grammar

I didn't realize "boomhauer" could be verbed.

madcaptenoron Kagi Translate now supports LinkedIn Speak as an output language

Barack Obama: "Now, let me be clear—when it comes to a good meal, I’ve always said that I like burgers."