HN Explorer

15 comments

[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 45.5 ms ] thread
pg
That is fascinating. Admittedly probably more to me than anyone else. What do the red titles mean? Could you make a version that plays at half the speed? It would be interesting if the background changed color to show day and night PST.
timmorgan
It says in his explanation -- green stories made the front page; red did not.
[deleted]
(comment deleted)
brent
Actually, he says green are on the front page and red are not. They could have been on front page at some time.
mjtokelly
Thanks!

The #1 story is bright green, changing to dark green until it's off the front page. Then it turns red, with alpha = 1 / (rank - 30)

Sure, I'll be glad to put up another video. Will reply again when it's ready.

Or, could send you the code and data if you want to play around with it.

mjtokelly
See

http://www.broad.mit.edu/~mokelly/other/hn.avi [mp4 format]

Half-speed, with PST day-night cycle (6am-6pm). Printed timestamps are still EST, as in the original.

pg
Quicktime doesn't seem to want to play it. What's the standard way to play an avi file on a Mac?
mjtokelly
Give this a try:

http://www.broad.mit.edu/~mokelly/other/hn.mov

It still uses the mp4 codec, but with Quicktime's prefered container format (if I understand correctly).

pg
That is great, thanks. BTW, Trevor also found this very interesting.
mjtokelly
You're quite welcome! Glad to hear it.

Anyone with questions about using/changing the source code is welcome to contact me at mokelly@hlcam.com. I'd be very proud to have this incorporated into HN...

lacker
VLC is good for pretty much every format of video on OS X.
[dead] reveldave
This would work brilliantly as a weekly digest for someone who's been to busy to catch up. It really gives the feeling of watching ideas enter and exit the collective conciousness.

Plus, its lovely and relaxing to watch.