jonp's comments

On: Understanding and avoiding visually ambiguous char...

[jonp]

Actually, 53^8 = 62,259,690,411,361 (not ..360)

On: How to win Monopoly in the shortest possible time

[jonp]

Here's a collection of the shortest finish in many games: https://www2.stetson.edu/~efriedma/mathmagic/1112.html

On: Barnacle gosling’s terrifying cliff tumble

[jonp]

"You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes" - JBS Haldane "On being the right size"

http://irl.cs.ucla.edu/papers/right-size.html

[mersault → jonp]

It wasn't the initial jump that concerned me, it was the ass over teakettle action all down the rocks at the bottom that concerned me.

On: Earnest – A writing tool for first drafts

[jonp]

It looks like there is a way to delete: select a section of text (using Shift and arrow keys) then press Enter.

On: The new YC batch is from 23 countries

[jonp]

"UK" doesn't seem to be shown on the map. I think "UK" should be replaced by "GB" in the URL.

[raldi → jonp]

Fixed, with just moments to spare.

On: Startup lessons

[jonp]

I'd come across a similar suggestion in a political context. Saying "we want a fair tax system" is meaningless, because any political party could say that.

Saying "we want higher taxes on the wealthy to help the poor" or "we want lower taxes on the wealthy to encourage investment" is meaningful and distinctive.

On: The $10K Memory Competition: learn to remember a s...

[jonp]

The world record stands at 21.19 seconds

(http://www.recordholders.org/en/list/memory.html#cards-speed)

On: Factorization diagrams in Haskell

[jonp]

Here's a JavaScript/HTML5/Canvas version.

You can view the first 100 diagrams in a grid or view the diagram for the N of your choice. There's also an option to view an alternative diagram where the drawing starts with the smallest prime instead of the smallest.

http://jsfiddle.net/FEKX2/3/

[gwillen → jonp]

I noticed the author speculating about color, so I colorized it based on the identity of the largest prime:

http://jsfiddle.net/HEHHj/2/

It actually uses the last prime drawn, so it's only useful in 'smallest first' mode. That ought to be fixed, but I was lazy about it.

Colorizing the image based on the largest prime makes the pattern intelligible a little bit longer, before it becomes impossible to tell the big primes apart.

[Almaviva → jonp]

> var PI = 355 / 113;

You know about Math.PI?

[smcl → Almaviva]

I'm curious about this line, too. I wonder if it's maybe just a wee joke

[Almaviva → smcl]

If it's a droll reference to that thread last week about how there are no useful rational approximations, then "whoosh" and well played, sir:)

[cocoflunchy → jonp]

Arg! You beat me to it.

On: Fizzbuzz, Interviews, And Overthinking

[jonp]

A tweetable (140 character) single line of Python:

print '\n'.join((lambda x:(''.join(x) if x else str(i)))([w+'zz' for (n,w) in ((3,'Fi'),(5,'Bu'),(7,'Ba')) if i%n==0]) for i in range(1,100))

On: Public Pensions Have Assumed Rates of Return That ...

[jonp]

Although you also "enjoy" inflation of over 6% pa. In both the US and SA returns are lagging behind inflation by around 1% pa.

[lusr → jonp]

That's deceptive. Inflation over which goods? As an upper-middle class income generator, inflation doesn't affect me in the same proportion as it does the lower income class, for instance.