InstaNerd

http://instanerd.me/

by ashwin_kumar • 12 years ago

139 62 12 years ago

instanerd.me

snegu• 12 years ago

Sources are essential for something like this. Were there links I was missing?

ashwin_kumar2• 12 years ago

I agree. But there are no sources available.

UnethicalHacks3• 12 years ago

really? then where did you get all these facts?

UnethicalHacks3• 12 years ago

These are pretty enjoyable to go through. given the varied size of each panel, perhaps place the next button on the right vs. bottom.

Zikes• 12 years ago

I like the idea, but the branding/execution is a little off-putting. Memorizing obscure facts won't necessarily make me smarter, and honestly I don't know exactly what would be involved in literally making a person smarter, but I would feel smarter if instead of obscure random facts I got obscure random teachings.

Examples:

A brief explanation of A^2 * B^2 = C^2, followed by a link to the relevant Wikipedia page.

A formula for approximating the volume of a cylinder presented as an easy-to-remember mnemonic, like pi * z * z * a where z = radius and a = height.

These are primarily math-based examples, but anything that tells more about how the world works than which movie happens to be the highest grossing or which dinosaur happened to be the biggest would be more what I would expect.

codyb• 12 years ago

"Smart" is so subjective anyways. Personally, I find someone who knows little but is open to new ideas smarter in many cases than someone who might be an expert in an area but is closed off to new ideas. Those people, I might ask for help, say, designing my electron microscope (or high performance network, or quilt design) but I won't ask for general advice.

And then what about street smarts? The ability to experience empathy, to detect emotions and subtle changes in the way people are acting? To be able to connect at a personal level?

Smarts that are applicable only to specific situations I find less "smart" than those skills which may be applied to your understanding of life and your interpersonal relationships. Skills which help you learn more things which are applicable to specific situations fall into the same boat for me.

These are very interesting, but they're like Snapple bottle caps to me.

drzaiusapelord• 12 years ago

In "The Book" Alan Watts discusses how he would write a book to his children explaining things like morality, reality, etc. He decides that things like the Bible, books on secular moralism, etc are pretty useless because they just list a bunch of rules or ideas.

He explains that you can't just say things, valid or not, but that you need to enable the cognitive tools and perceptions to see these things oneself. This is how people really learn, by practice, lessons, challenges, etc via some guiding teacher's hand. Writers call something similar to this, "Show, don't tell." Turns out we like to learn by solving puzzles. We just need to know the basics of how the puzzle works like its mechanics, how to start, and what being solved looks like.

I'm surprised to see this trivial quote generator on the top of HN. Its all the things we make fun of, like the word a day calender your friend owns and everyday uses an archaic word in an ill-fitting way to never use it again. Or how we mock the idiocy of the lazy didactic learner. Or the buzzword memorizer. We're supposed to be doers right? Coders, creators, etc.

I guess the facts are kinda cute, but some of these I've seen debunked in some way in the past or are written in a generalist 'know it all' way that doesn't apply to all examples of the thing explained. Everytime I encounter a person who has these memorized I know I'm not dealing with someone fascinated with nature or science or whatever. Just someone who found an easy way to not be so dull and can't really discuss these things past just quoting the 'fact.' The same way uninteresting young people pretend to have humor by memorizing Monty Python lines and repeating them ad nauseaum.

Unfortunately, this does create 'nerds.' The Python quoting kind I mentioned above. Not the kind up all night excited to play with their new arduino kit or with some new framework or language. I know the above sounds elitist, but the fact that they couldn't be bothered for sources really kills this for me. It just seems like a way to spread disinformation and heaven forbid you try to argue against someone parroting these lines in the future. Afterall, he learned it as fact from a fact site. It can't be wrong!

VLM3• 12 years ago

TLDR: Instanerd is camp (in postmodern sense) WRT a kitsch viewpoint of what a non-nerdy person would think would be nerdy.

hluska• 12 years ago

I love Alan Watts and I'm glad you mentioned him. "What is Zen" was extremely influential on me when I was young and I've been obsessing over his writing ever since.

I've only read "The Book..." once, but you remind me that it's a book I seriously need to read again. Thanks for that reminder and taking the time to write out this comment.

On the topic of the bible, I know I need to read "The Book..." again because I'm drawing a blank on Watts' reasoning. Personally, when I was a kid, my Mom encouraged me to think critically about Christian scriptures and our Catholicism. In that sense, the bible was a teaching tool and my Mom played the role of the guiding teacher. In retrospect, I think this helped me, though likely not in the way she intended. :)

btbuildem• 12 years ago

Maybe they're playing into a popular "nerdy smart" stereotype? Knowing a lot of useless facts would be very nerdy indeed.

jackmaney• 12 years ago

Knowing random bits of trivia does not necessarily make one smart--and definitely does not make one instantly smart.

dang• 12 years ago

We removed "Be smart, instantly" from the title. (The HN guidelines call for changing titles that are misleading or linkbait, and this is arguably both.)

justanotheratom• 12 years ago

Pretty Enjoyable. Let me login using Google etc., and then don't show me the same trivia again.

yid• 12 years ago

You might need some fact-checking.

Looking at the "highest recorded temperature": http://instanerd.me/v/97

The 1922 temperature record was recently judged to be most likely erroneous, which makes the Death Valley, CA reading the highest.

http://wmo.asu.edu/world-highest-temperature

hansy• 12 years ago

This is cute. I think the "Be smart, instantly" tagline is meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek because, yeah, probably memorizing a bunch of facts doesn't necessarily make you "smart," whatever that even means.

Simple design. Simple controls. I like how each fact is associated with a picture, which makes reading feel less rote and more of a pleasant experience.

For some pages, I would actually like to see the source. For example: http://instanerd.me/v/81. Was there a study performed that showed people act less irrationally when they see themselves in the mirror?

I'm not displeased with my sunk 10 minutes. Not bad.

untothebreach• 12 years ago

ha, I read the same one and thought, "I would like to see the source for this one..."

joshmn• 12 years ago

There goes the rest of my day.

One UX thing that I thought of when doing this: you may want to take a page out of Facebook's bag of tricks; they preload the next image (when browsing an album).

Just a thought. Love it!

nagrom• 12 years ago

"Tigers, leopards and jaguars" are illustrated by a picture of a cheetah.

LeoPanthera• 12 years ago

"People with crossed arms are closing themselves to social influence."

I cross my arms because I have poor circulation and it keeps them warm. Not everything you read on the internet is true.

dubcanada• 12 years ago

It's funny you should say "Not everything you read on the internet is true." while on the internet and trying to prove something is not true.

VLM3• 12 years ago

I can see where this is headed, and tail call recursion would save us considerable stack space.

There are heuristic ways to get around the undecidability of the halting problem, and in this case we're in danger of an infinite loop

ritchiea• 12 years ago

Cute though the lack of citations is a huge turn off. Not only does it cost you in trust/authority but if this is supposed to actually help users learn more you should offer a way to dig deeper into the subjects.

mercurialshark• 12 years ago

If there were citations, I would not only consider this for our service, but it would indeed allow for further investigation.

alsothings2• 12 years ago

this was my first thought and it's driving me nuts. It's just a bunch of floating assertions.

napolux• 12 years ago

Raw copy of Ultrafacts (and many others) http://ultrafactsblog.com/ These facts, won't make you smarter, just a little bit curious.

Tenoke• 12 years ago

I can't find a reference for 'When people see themselves in the mirror, the chances of them to behave irrationally lowers significantly. That's why it's a good practise to have a mirror behind the counter at a bar or customer service of any kind.'. It seems to be something only quoted on reddit and lifehack blogs as far as I can see.

ChuckMcM• 12 years ago

I find these sorts of things amusing (they come in book form too: http://bookoutlet.com/Store/Details/_/R-9781606521328B?gclid...). And of course they are a trap since if you memorize a bunch of trivia and then pose as a 'nerd' or what ever, when you come across someone who actually learned this stuff because they were fascinated with it, and invested the time, they will rapidly spot you as a 'poser' or a fraud. And then they will be less likely to be friends with you than had you simply not attempted to put on the mantle of 'nerdness' or whatever.

Early in my life my wife pretty much cured me of 'male answer syndrome' which occurs whenever a suitably attractive female asks a question, the male is compelled to respond with an answer, regardless of the depth of knowledge on the subject and present it as authoritative. Sometimes you can pull that off, but if the person you are trying to impress is smarter than you, it tends to backfire horribly :-)

Swizec3• 12 years ago

if the person you are trying to impress is smarter than you, it tends to backfire horribly :-)

That's when you turn on the charm, admit you have no idea what you're talking about, and openly work through the "problem" and try to figure it out on the spot.

Gracana• 12 years ago

If they know more than you, and you try to explain it to them by working it out on the spot... You're just gonna dig yourself a deeper hole.

watwut• 12 years ago

You risk to look sleazy in addition of bluffing previously. Men (or woman really) pretending they know the answer are annoying. The worst is if I really need the answer - then they are both waste of time and source of misinformation.

Trying to charm me afterwords will not help. It is more like huge neon writing over your head: do not trust me.

VLM3• 12 years ago

With all due respect sir I believe you've found a workable solution to the syndrome despite misdiagnosis of the problem.

Someone should create a koan collection in github to help properly answer "Do these jeans make my butt look fat?" and related topics.

(edited to emphasize WRT the above koan, no amount of deep real, or fake trivial, knowledge of spherical geometry will provide the correct answer. "I can provide a trivial proof that the interior angles of a triangle on the provided surface add up to far more than 180 degrees, and I like it that way" is never the correct answer. Nor is an engineering estimate "to one sig fig its circumference remains about two meters" won't work either, on several levels)

Kiro• 12 years ago

User 'instanerd' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)

kreddor• 12 years ago

User 'instanerd' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)

whoops

jisaacks• 12 years ago

User 'instanerd' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)

brainscale• 12 years ago

Oh, I shouldn't have pressed "Next" for so many times, I guess :-0

danbee• 12 years ago

"User 'instanerd' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)"

inportb• 12 years ago

http://instanerd.me/v/48

    It is possible to create a plant that
    grows potatoes above the ground and
    tomatoes below, by grafting a tomato
    plat stem onto a potato plant stalk.

Don't people usually want tomatoes above the ground and potatoes below?

mikeash2• 12 years ago

That seems like a quintessential nerd factoid to me. It's clever, unusual, almost practical, and displays a knowledge of obscure topics while completely ignoring common sense knowledge like the fact that you don't grow tomatoes under the dirt.

Curmudgel• 12 years ago

'Factoid' was coined by Norman Mailer to mean something that appears to be true but really isn't. If this really works, then it isn't a factoid.

SomeCallMeTim• 12 years ago

Don't people usually want tomatoes above the ground and potatoes below?

It's more than just wanting things that way; potatoes grown above the ground (and exposed to light) turn green and are poisonous to eat. I'm sure tomatoes grown underground would rot as well.

Came here exactly to post this mistake.

tarekmoz• 12 years ago

User 'instanerd' has exceeded the 'max_questions' resource (current value: 75000)

ooops

squegles• 12 years ago

The one thing I would probably add is a source citation for each fact.

quotient• 12 years ago

I think this little toy could benefit from Wikipedia links. Take http://instanerd.me/v/17, for example. Wouldn't you want to know what this Dinosaur was actually called? A Wikipedia link would be helpful. This seems to be the case for most of these flashcards.

Ensorceled• 12 years ago

The facts are questionable ....

"Beer can reduce the risk of heart disease, by slowing down the digestion and absorption of food and reducing cholesterol levels. A liter of beer contains an average of 20% of the recommended daily intake of fiber and some beers can provide up to 60%."

http://instanerd.me/v/28

Guinness has 0 grams of fibre.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/food/calories/guinness-draught-s...

christopheraden• 12 years ago

A lot of these "facts" seem like they came from a Quora article from several months ago. Even the wording is similar on some of these, including "If you ask someone a question and they only partially answer, just wait. If you stay silent and keep an eye contact they will continue talking" which is word-for-word what was posted there.

I mention this because some of these seem dubious, and I'd have loved sources. If they came from potentially unsourced Quora answers, the dubiousness just gets passed along.

Link: http://www.quora.com/Tips-and-Hacks-for-Everyday-Life/What-c...

jmspring• 12 years ago

The interface, at least on Safari on a 13" MBP, requiring scrolling to go to "next" is a bit clunky. I stopped looking after a couple of the items because of it.

alsothings2• 12 years ago

First thought: Why are there no references anywhere? Second thought: Must be because it's so difficult to put links in a webpage.

coldtea• 12 years ago

Doesn't have anything to do with being "smart" or getting smarter. At best, it's a trivia site (and of not very interestign or thinking enhancing trivia at that).

Also: "Genghis Khan was the founder of the Mongol Empire. He was responsible for the death of so many people that the Earth's carbon level dropped by almost 700 million tons".

Really? I seriously doubt that -- including doubting the fact that it uses a meaningful metric.

bushido• 12 years ago

I found this to be curious(and interesting): http://instanerd.me/v/55#you-made-it

   WWOOF is a international program that allows you to travel the world, with food/accommodations covered, in exchange for volunteer work.

That was the only page with that message in the url. Made me wonder if that page is the point behind the website.

Genius move if it was.

tricolon• 12 years ago

It was different for me: http://instanerd.me/v/93#you-made-it

meseznik• 12 years ago

Warning: mysql_connect(): User instanerd already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections in /hermes/bosnaweb04a/b1254/dom.mightyalexcom/public_html/instanerd/db.php on line 2 Warning: mysql_connect(): User alex already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections in /hermes/bosnaweb04a/b1254/dom.mightyalexcom/public_html/instanerd/db.php on line 7 Could not connect: User alex already has more than 'max_user_connections' active connections

josephschmoe• 12 years ago

Typos and no sources. Why not just go to random Wikipedia pages?

jitl• 12 years ago

  [[citation needed]]

I would like this site more if I could click through to a Wikipedia article or something containing the fact.

NanoWar• 12 years ago

It's not right is it? http://instanerd.me/v/61

macromaniac• 12 years ago

#84 advocates giving loaded questions http://instanerd.me/v/84

josh_nyc• 12 years ago

I kept expecting it to turn into some kind of message-retention quiz. The kind that would prove we only absorb 10% of what we're shown, or some other counterintuitainment.

Nice typography and highlight hue.

joliv• 12 years ago

Fingers prune underwater not because of them absorbing water or washing away oil, but because of an evolutionary trait caused by the brain to enhance the grip of your finger underwater.

Are those mutually exclusive? Can it not be an evolutionary trait AND be caused by some process?

InstaNerd

Related Stories