Top all-time · #2333
czep.net
Personal blog · czep.netdataeconomicscareer
czep.net is a personal blog at czep.net about data, economics and career. Since 2016, 33 different Hacker News readers have linked it 44 times, most often “52 Factorial”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-04-14, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (24) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link it for a thought experiment on how large 52!, the number of ways to order a deck of cards, is: count down seconds from 52! while walking the equator. Also linked for a post on a static site generator.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 24 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
work, data, and working_with_data
Most-linked posts?
- 52 Factorial17 people · 21 mentions · first linked 2017-08-06
- 52 factorial5 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2016-01-04
- Obfuscating Your Primary Keys4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-05-08
- Legion of Lobotomized Unices (2017)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2018-10-21
- Linux from Scratch on EC22 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-10-19
What Hacker News says?
I found a text version of the same (?) thing: https://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “Every V4 UUID”Submitted Don't call me a '5:01er' (2015) as a story · 97 points
HN discussionIt was 52!, the number of possible permutations of 52 cards: https://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “Every V4 UUID”Submitted 52 Factorial as a story · 90 points
HN discussion52! even has its own website: https://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “First images from Euclid are in”Submitted A Response to Paul Graham's “How to Make Wealth” (2012) as a story · 79 points
HN discussionA small tangent over to describing how many different permutations you can have with deck of cards Taken from https://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html So, just how large is it? Let's try to wrap our puny human brains around the magnitude of this number with a fun little theoretical exercise. Start a timer that will count down the number of seconds from 52! to 0. We're going to see how much fun we can have before the tim…
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “Programmers generate every possible melody in MIDI to prevent lawsuits”Submitted 52 Factorial as a story · 8 points
HN discussionI mean, the links are going to be a template either way, so you can change the identifier part to change the item; it's just a question of whether the identifier portion is the internal rdbms PK, or something else. It's considered undesirable because it's basically an "implementation detail", it's good to let the internal PK change without having to change the public-facing URLs, or sometimes vice versa, when there…
Comment linking /21/obfuscate.html
on “Lesser-known Postgres features”Submitted Linux from Scratch on EC2 as a story · 4 points
HN discussionI've thought long and hard about this very question as I often wondered how I'd maintain my skills when my kid was born. I remember reading the Preface of some technical book where the author said he's glad he never had kids because he would always be afraid that in a competition for his time, "the computer would always win." I feel that way sometimes, I just want to study, learn, write code, because I love this fie…
Comment linking /15/ceo-family-man.html
on “Ask HN: Developers with kids, how do you skill up?”Submitted Obfuscating Your Primary Keys as a story · 3 points
HN discussion> The mind boggles This may help[1] [1] https://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “Gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger observed by LIGO and Virgo”Submitted 52 as a story · 3 points
HN discussionYou could witness https://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html 3748508088259971967302999598973478215811072000000 times until then. Frankly, I'm terrified.
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “Wild turtles age slowly, and some basically don’t age at all”Submitted A Response to Paul Graham's "How to Make Wealth" (2012) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionI assumed your link was going to be this one about a "graspable" description of the number 52! (factorial). https://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html Start a timer that will count down the number of seconds from 52! to 0. Then walk around the world along the equator, at the very leisurely pace of one step every billion years. The equatorial circumference of the Earth is 40,075,017 meters. After you complete your round th…
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “Graham's Number Is Too Big to Tell How Big It Is”Submitted The Incomprehensible Scale of 52 Factorial as a story · 2 points
HN discussionOr maybe this https://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “Shortest bit sequence that's never been sent over the Internet (2017)”Submitted Obfuscating Your Primary Keys as a story · 2 points
HN discussionThey were referring to the link in the comment to which they were replying, namely, this one: http://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html The address you provided here is correct, but is for the submitted article.
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “To approximate 52! by hand, compute 54! and divide by 3000”Submitted Legion of Lobotomized Unices (2017) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionActually, the page section mentioned ("The Details") is on the czep.net page. http://czep.net/contact/ is empty.
Comment linking /contact/
on “To approximate 52! by hand, compute 54! and divide by 3000”Submitted Legion of lobotomized unices as a story · 2 points
HN discussionNo discussion of 52! is complete without [1]. A somewhat condensed version of one of the illustrations from the site. 52! is the number of different ways you can arrange a single deck of cards. Let's try to wrap our puny human brains around the magnitude of this number with a fun little theoretical exercise. Start a timer that will count down the number of seconds from 52! to 0. We're going to see how much fun we ca…
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “To approximate 52! by hand, compute 54! and divide by 3000”Submitted Linux from Scratch on EC2 as a story · 2 points
HN discussionHow big, you ask? This big: https://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “The Math of Card Shuffling”Submitted 52 factorial as a story · 2 points
HN discussionAnd there are 80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000 possible shuffles of a pack of cards which is also mind blowing but really just an excuse for me to wheel out this excellent link again https://czep.net/weblog/52cards.html
Comment linking /weblog/52cards.html
on “God's Number Is 20 (2010)”Submitted This time is no different as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
