Top all-time · #3966
Jason Cole
Personal blog · jasmcole.com · on HN as jasmcolesciencemathdata
Jason Cole writes Almost looks like work, a personal blog at jasmcole.com about science, math and data. Since 2014, 19 different Hacker News readers have linked it 40 times, most often ““The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason””. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-11, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (3) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Jason Cole's posts on analysing keyboard layouts (Swype), signed distance fields, and the maths of rolling shutters. Commenters point to them as explainers on those topics.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 3 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
A blog about physics, mathematics, statistics and data.
Most-linked posts?
- “The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason”3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2017-09-21
- /2019/10/03/signed-distance-fields/2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2020-03-16
- A Decade of WiFi2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-10-20
- Rolling Shutters2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-10-12
- Helmhurts: Placing a WiFi router with the Helmholtz equation2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-08-26
What Hacker News says?
https://jasmcole.com Started 6 years ago now, occasional investigations into maths, physics, and data.
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What is your blog and why should I read it?”Submitted “The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason” as a story · 710 points
HN discussionI wrote an Android app based on a blog post of mine which got popular: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.jasmcole.w... http://jasmcole.com/2014/08/25/helmhurts/ It reached the reddit front page for a day, and earned £3,000 during that day. Since then, it's averaged ~£150 per month, with only small input from me (minor updates)
Comment linking /2014/08/25/helmhurts/
on “Those making $1,000+/month on side projects – what did you make?”Submitted Rolling Shutters as a story · 708 points
HN discussion> I've been tempted to run some analysis and try find a keyboard layout that minimises errors You should check this out; https://jasmcole.com/2017/06/04/swype-right/
Comment linking /2017/06/04/swype-right/
on “FUTO Keyboard”Submitted Designing Stereographic Lampshades as a story · 190 points
HN discussionSee also the blog post here discussing this project: https://jasmcole.com/2024/10/18/a-decade-of-wifi/
Comment linking /2024/10/18/a-decade-of-wifi/
on “WebGPU-Based WiFi Simulator”Submitted England and Wales House Price Analysis as a story · 153 points
HN discussionI went deep down the art of code rabbit hole on YouTube, a great channel for learning about shaders. I wrote this blog post on writing interactive SDF shaders: https://jasmcole.com/2019/10/03/signed-distance-fields/
Comment linking /2019/10/03/signed-distance-fields/
on “Getting started with shaders: signed distance functions”Submitted Helmhurts: Placing a WiFi router with the Helmholtz equation as a story · 145 points
HN discussionNice. I had a quick look at this effect in an old blog post, it's surprisingly simple to derive the existence of waves in traffic flow (given some simplifying assumptions) http://jasmcole.com/2014/09/14/only-a-fool/
Comment linking /2014/09/14/only-a-fool/
on “What Are Traffic Waves and Why Do They Happen So Much?”Submitted Wait ages for a bus and then two come along at once as a story · 86 points
HN discussionWhat are signed distance fields? https://jasmcole.com/2019/10/03/signed-distance-fields/ …very decent blog post!
Comment linking /2019/10/03/signed-distance-fields/
on “MagicaCSG: A lightweight signed distance field editor and renderer”Submitted The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason (2017) as a story · 83 points
HN discussionHere's my take on the same problem (+ animations) https://jasmcole.com/2017/01/02/the-travelling-artist-proble... There are also more details+references on the algorithm which spreads the points evenly and aesthetically (Voronoi stippling).
Comment linking /2017/01/02/the-travelling-artist-problem/
on “Solving a math problem to create art [pdf]”Submitted The moon blew up without warning and for no apparent reason (2017) as a story · 76 points
HN discussionI'm still not sure if this is "republished with the author authorization" or simply plain blogspam. The original article is linked at the bottom: http://jasmcole.com/2014/10/12/rolling-shutters/ and it w previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8446932 (705 points, 5 days ago, 41 comments)
Comment linking /2014/10/12/rolling-shutters/
on “The Math Behind the Rolling Shutter Phenomenon”Submitted Cooking the Books: Optimizing Purchase and Use of Ingredients as a story · 62 points
HN discussionThe fastest path involves a small dip, though deriving that fact is non-trivial! Here's one of my old blog posts where I do the derivation: https://jasmcole.com/2020/04/13/briechistochrone
Comment linking /2020/04/13/briechistochrone
on “That time when I failed the Microsoft interview”Submitted On which shaped planet am I the heaviest? as a story · 25 points
HN discussionNice! I made a quick'n'dirty Typescript notebook with React + Plotly as a Matlab clone a few years ago. I was impressed with how everything you need to compile and execute TS was built-in to Monaco, using web workers etc. https://jasmcole.com/2021/05/19/matslab/ https://jasmcole.github.io/Pages/MaTSlab
Comment linking /2021/05/19/matslab/
on “TypeCell, open source TypeScript notebooks live programming environment”Submitted Simulation of light passing through a raindrop as a story · 14 points
HN discussionSubmitted How thick is a three-sided coin? as a story · 13 points
HN discussionSubmitted Simulation of light passing through a raindrop as a story · 10 points
HN discussionSubmitted Annealing the Underground as a story · 9 points
HN discussionSubmitted London House Prices as a story · 5 points
HN discussionSubmitted Taskmaster as a Thermodynamic System as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Bayes vs. Paul the Psychic Octopus as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Decade of WiFi as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Are You Really Losing Weight? as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
