Hacker News Reader

Whitespaceon Visualising data structures and algorithms through animation

Since it took me a while to figure out, here's a hint: click on the card, then click the disclosure arrow on the lower left, then click around until you see "GO"

Example: http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~stevenha/visualization/sorting.h... » Click the > in the lower left » Sort » GO

Whitespaceon Show HN: 2048 without numbers

Obligatory "doesn't work in firefox" quote here.

As an aside, ever since I switched off Chrome (google is oppressive with google+) for safari/firefox a lot of newer, smaller sites have rendering issues. I guess it's the price I have to pay to be free of the beast that is Google.

Whitespaceon As much Stack Overflow as possible in 4096 bytes

I'm curious if a lot of the customizations re:compression could be similarly achieved if the author used Google's modpagespeed for apache[0] or nginx[1], as it does a lot of these things automatically including eliding css/html attributes and generally re-arranging things for optimal sizes.

It could make writing for 4k less of a chore?

In any case, this is an outstanding hack. The company I work for has TLS certificates that are larger than the payload of his page. Absolutely terrific job, Daniel.

[0]: https://code.google.com/p/modpagespeed/

[1]: https://github.com/pagespeed/ngx_pagespeed

edit: formatting

Whitespaceon How Quora Onboards New Users

I'm not sure if the author is trolling, but that's probably because I've been extremely livid at Quora for the past couple of days. I had an account from years ago, but now I can't do a single thing unless I follow 5 topics. I can't even read the first answer like an anonymous user can, and I can't access my profile page to delete my account. The only option I have is to go into developer tools and delete the modal from the DOM when I get linked to a question.

You can roll your eyes at me all you want, but I'm bring cantankerous for a reason: I have had an account for years and they locked me out, and I find that really rather offensive. I now have a worse experience than an anonymous user, which is just silly.

Whitespaceon Mother

It's been 3 hours and I'm still singing Danzig.

Whitespaceon Why Your Name Matters

Somewhat tangentially related, the company I work for was recently acquired by a very large corporation with 30,000+ employees. They auto-generated login and email addresses for everyone in my company, using the following schema (my legal name is Thomas Takashi Clark, but I go by Tom Clark):

- tclark - ttclark - thclark - thoclark - thomclark - etc.

The first ones being already taken, I got "thoclark" as my login. I'm not sure why, but I became extremely upset at this, almost as if I was having an anxiety attack. I think the reason was that in no way, shape or form did I view "thoclark" as my personal identity, and for someone to assert that "tho" was me was akin to being charged with a crime I didn't commit. I wasn't comfortable with the thought of having to type that in multiple times per day, and I definitely wasn't comfortable telling others what my new professional email was.

They changed it to tomclark after a lot of pleading, but I'm curious as to why I had became so upset. I think the whole process would have been a lot better if I had the opportunity to choose my own login/email instead of someone saying, "hey, this is you now!"

Has anyone here had such a reaction before?

Whitespaceon Meta unveils next version of augmented reality glasses for $3k

I'm sorry to have to say it here on HN, but this wannabe apple.com spin-shit-in-3d-when-you-scroll crap is completely unusable.

I'm on a Retina 15" MBP – a laptop that their target demographic will be using – and I can barely make it through the site to try to piece together information about their product.

Am I supposed to scrounge up an external mouse with a scroll wheel and be impressed by the CSS3 transitions? I'm seeing this more and more and I'm really confused how something like this makes it through QA.

Whitespaceon We Asked a Military Expert if All the World's Armies Could Shut Down the US

Very interesting. I wonder what the numbers are when the analyst from Jane's says:

  And this is where you meet the second primary problem, which is technology. There are not enough aircraft carriers and amphibious warfare ships in the combined navies of the world to force an entry past the US Navy. There are not enough attack fighters to gain air superiority against the US Air Force.  This is how amazingly out of balance the military might of the world is today. "

Whitespaceon Finger binary

I love to teach finger binary to kids but they always start giggling when I hit 4 and they never really ignore it :(

Whitespaceon Women's magazines ignore technology and demean women

How is providing evidence to your claims "[belaboring] the point"? I know it's easier to vomit a seven-word sound bite, but don't patronize me with a bunch of dismissive hand waving and "find it for yourself on google." You said it, now back it up.

When you make a statement like that on a place like this I expect you to do your homework before you click the comment button. You do us all a disservice by making a ludicrous claim and then backing away from it, because it encourages others to pander anecdote as fact.

Whitespaceon Women's magazines ignore technology and demean women

Quoting TFA does not clarify your position at all. "Often" implies women outside of the editorial staff of these magazines. And I fail to see how they are "the worst mysoginists[sic]."

Please clarify.

Whitespaceon Blockchain info for 37,365 BTC seized by FBI

I have no clue or context for what I'm supposed to be looking at, but the transfer of 0.1337 BTC is amusing at the very least.

Whitespaceon CrossFit's Dirty Little Secret

Where did you read that the instructor pushed me? I pushed myself that hard, plain and simple. And then afterwards I did even more lifting (moving apartments).

I overexerted myself, plain and simple.

Whitespaceon CrossFit's Dirty Little Secret

I wholly agree with you that dumb people exist in every sport/field/hobby/interest, but I think the comparison is unfair.

Obtaining fitness is generally a universal goal, whereas obtaining skill/popularity/fame in street racing fringe to begin with.

To me, the issue that many people seem to have with CF is that it's "unsafe" for most people despite it being marketed as such. And this being due to the irregular quality of the coaches (which is apparently related to the way HQ runs itself).

Personally, I think if you're lifting some multiple of your BW in any capacity you're not part of the norm, you're several deviations away from that, even if most people have the capacity to become that strong if given the time/training/discipline.

Whitespaceon CrossFit's Dirty Little Secret

My experience with rhabdo involved no pain (outside of really sore muscles).

I am not a doctor, but I think what you experienced was what rhabdo leads to if untreated: myoglobinuria (kidneys poisoned due to excess myoglobin) which then leads to acute renal failure (kidneys fail).

The normal treatment for rhabdo is intravenous saline (I had 5 days of saline), whereas myoglobinuria or acute renal failure require dialysis, since your kidneys have shut down.

In any case, that sounds absolutely frightening in the worst way imaginable. Any long-lasting side effects?

Whitespaceon CrossFit's Dirty Little Secret

Ok, let's verify:

Go to: http://games.crossfit.com/leaderboard Click on #1 person: http://games.crossfit.com/athlete/11435

HOW I TRAIN I workout mostly at a CrossFit Affiliate I workout mostly at home, work, or a traditional gym I incorporate CrossFit.com workouts I write my own programming

Stop looking as counter-example was found.

Whitespaceon CrossFit's Dirty Little Secret

No problem; I'm glad that people can get something out of my experience.

I originally wanted to write everything down and be a primary source of information on exertional rhabdo (there isn't a lot of useful information out there regarding hospital stay, CPK levels, etc.) but it got written down on a long-lost TODO somewhere and forgotten.

Whitespaceon CrossFit's Dirty Little Secret

TL;DR: I got rhabdo from crossfit last year. My CPK was 100,000 and I spent 5 days in the hospital. I wasn't overweight but I wasn't fit when I got it, and I got it during the first day of a beginner course.

Ask me anything.

==============================

I did crossfit for a couple of months in 2010 and loved it, but I had to stop since I moved to a new apartment and the gym times wouldn't work with the longer commute. I always wanted to go back, so in June 2012 I started up again, taking the two-week beginner course (I wasn't in the best shape and I wanted to ease into it).

During the first day back, we went through a lot of basic movements and listened to the instructor talk about what crossfit was like. In the hour-long class, we spent the last ten minutes talking about rhabdomyolysis; what it is, the symptoms, the danger, common ways to get it, etc.

The workout of the day was tabata squats (20 seconds of as many BW reps, then 10 seconds of rest, repeat 8 times for a total of 4 minutes and 2:40 of exercising), tabata pushups, and tabata situps.

The squats were the one that got me.

The next morning, I couldn't walk, but that was expected since it was my first day back. I pushed myself quite hard (knowing what crossfit was like), but I wasn't competing with the people in my class, I was competing with myself. I took it easy and rested.

The day after that, I couldn't really bend my legs because of the extreme soreness, and walking down the stairs was neigh impossible. It took a while, but I took the subway to the office where there's a gym with a stationary bike, as slow biking was the only thing that would ease the soreness in my quads.

After 6 hours at work, periodically biking and reading online, I noticed my urine was coca-cola colored, and that it was the telltale sign of rhabdo. I knew that because the crossfit instructor drilled it into my head two days earlier.

I looked online for a hospital that my insurance covered, took a cab, checked myself in saying I had rhabdo, and I began a 5-day stay where I received lots of saline solution (1000ml 6x a day, IIRC) to help flush the myoglobin out of my body. Luckily for me, the hospital saw a lot of cases of rhabdo from not crossfit members, but prisoners. They have little else to do than workout extremely hard, and the hospital saw dozens of prisoners a year.

My creatine kinase was almost 100,000 (excess myoglobin is the problem, but high creatine kinase is a proxy for high myoglobin, and CPK levels are commonly checked). TFA is right in that the normal is < 100. IIRC, the doctors estimated I dissolved 5 lbs of muscle tissue into my bloodstream to get a CPK that high. I was bored in the hospital so I charted my CPK to determine when they'd release me: http://imgur.com/18HYKNr

==============================

Many tests afterwards showed my kidneys are fine, and I haven't noticed (or read about) what the TFA describes as "flabbiness" or some sort of water retention in my legs. I also haven't noticed that my legs are weak; on the contrary, after lots of biking over bridges my legs are stronger than my squat days (at least when it comes to endurance, not power).

TFA is being a bit sensationalist and anecdotal about rhabdo being crossfit's "dirty little secret." To add another anecdote into the fire, everyone I know that does crossfit knows what rhabdo is, and rhabdo is mentioned in beginner classes multiple times; not only what it is, but the symptoms, what to do when you get it, and how, if left untreated, myoglobinuria can lead to acute renal failure and death.

I haven't been to crossfit in over a year, but TBH I'm itching to go back. I'm the kind of personality that will really push myself hard – probably harder than most – but now I know a little better and will hold back a tiny bit, especially when doing high reps of low weight.

==============================

Update: My first crossfit experience was at Crossfit Virtuosity in Brooklyn, NY and I got rhabdo at The Black Box in NYC.

Also, my memory isn't so great as I thought. I took the class on a Friday and, that same night, moved into a new apartment. The combination of crossfit and carrying lots of boxes/furniture on the same day was probably the cause.

Whitespaceon Why does Hackbright only accept women into the program?

If they accept only women, I have no problem with that. The can make up whatever rules they want, and the people here who are huffing and puffing about that should go and make their own club with their own rules and write about them in their own blog posts.

What I'm curious about is their stance of only accepting the top 5% of applicants.

She says that there aren't a lot of women in tech because they don't have a lot of friends, and that most women don't know about what programs are available to women in tech. To combat that, they go ahead and reject 95% of women who _did_ find out about their program.

Sucks for you, lower 95%.

And then she talks about how that's promoting the idea that women are as good at CS as men, but wouldn't the top 5% of GENDER_A in _anything_ wipe the floor with the average GENDER_B in that same thing? How is that promoting the idea that men and women are equal?

This all seems really strange to me and damaging to the brand (I've never heard of it before). What's the goal of this post, to help or to harm Hackbright?

Whitespaceon O(n) Sorting Algorithm: Quantum Bogosort

More information about bogosort: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogosort

Whitespaceon Study: Women performed better on a math test when using someone else's name

If your comment goes to the top of this page, will it have a priming[0] effect on commenters to have more fruitful discussions?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)

Whitespaceon Study: Women performed better on a math test when using someone else's name

> There's an unfounded gender stereotype that says women aren't as good at maths as men. Reminding them of this prior to a maths task usually undermines their performance - just one example of a harmful phenomenon known as stereotype threat.

I taught [remedial] maths in college where the girls outperformed the boys (I suspect because they tried much, much harder), so this topic always piques my interest.

I recall reading in several places that both genders do worse when one is primed (boys and girls do worse at math when you say 'boys are better at math'), but I couldn't find the studies.

Does anyone have a link to the study/studies that show both genders do worse when one is primed?

(While searching, I found some interesting criticism of stereotype threat due to "publication bias,"[0] which seems even more fascinating to me.)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype_threat#Criticism

Whitespaceon Signs of a Stranger, Deeper Side to Nature’s Building Blocks

It wasn't clear in my comment, but I wasn't addressing the parent's "extraordinary claim" comment, but the "some guy" part.

TBH I didn't get through the article because my BS-meter went off.

Whitespaceon Signs of a Stranger, Deeper Side to Nature’s Building Blocks

James Simons is a billionaire and ran one of the world's most successful hedge funds[0]. It's not directly related to physics, but he did donate a lot to SUNY Stony Brook's science departments (Renaissance Tech is next door to USB)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Simons

Whitespaceon Ask HN: Freelancer? Seeking freelancer? (July 2013)

SEEKING WORK – NYC – $210/hr – I will help your site scale

I'm a backend developer – mostly rails but I'm open – with lots of production experience running systems of 30+MM users, 50+MM PVs, and hundreds of servers.

I will take your slow endpoints and make them faster, and I'll even show you how to do it yourselves!

email: <HN_USERNAME>@gmail.com

Whitespaceon Omni: The "Oculus Rift" of 3D Treadmills

The parent wasn't "spreading nonsense about serious medical problems [they] know nothing about," they were talking about the shoes in video and how they could perhaps be modified to be more comfortable or applicable to other shoe designs.

Your medical issues sound serious and I'm sorry they cause you excruciating pain, but please don't assume people know of and/or were referencing your particular issues before you specified what those issues were.

Whitespaceon Speculative Lock Elision in Varnish Cache

Care to elaborate?

Whitespaceon NSA.gov is down

I'm curious, why the https? Muscle memory?

Whitespaceon Product Managers, Stop Pissing Off The Engineers

> Become female and learn how to sit on a desk.

Are you fucking kidding me? I don't have enough karma to downvote you, someone please do the honors.

Whitespaceon AeroFS (YC S10) exits private beta

I was just saying the same to a coworker of mine. Not to take away from the announcement of what seems to be a really great product, but I'm really confused why a lot of companies do this. It shouldn't frustrate/enrage me, but it does, almost as much as: Three. Word. Motto.