5 ms·

I made this last night after being inspired by http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130249425&sc=fb&cc=fp http://www.npr.org/templates/story/sto

I made this last night after being inspired by http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130249425&sc=fb&cc=fp http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1302494... All the calculations are done with Javascript. Let me know what you think!

slug 16y ago
Trying with a value of 1e20 , 1e21 gives interesting results. More curious is that using konqueror I get one value but with firefox i get another. Seems to be some bit flipping somewhere, since with firefox I get Miscellaneous mandatory programs $16068258000000004096.00 4096, 16384 , etc but with konqueror i get: Miscellaneous mandatory programs $16068258000000005000.00 Maybe some bug with the javascript interpreter ?
- riffer 16y ago
  Why do people always try to break things? This is a serious question pertaining to human nature, not a complaint. I've noticed that anytime I demo something I've built, if the person/people I'm showing have control of the demo they go try to test the outer boundaries of whatever I've built. What makes us want to do that?
  - crystalis 16y ago
    You get the one-two of potential insight into the particular workings and potential 'unintended cool thing'.
  - DevX101 16y ago
    Errors at the edge cases are usually the hardest to detect.
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    Because of what it tells us about the design and utility. This particular tool looks like it will keep working through inevitable period of hyperinflation everyone keeps warning me about, all the way up to the when we cross the National Debt Event Horizon, at which point accounting is suddenly agreed to be an entirely new art form, and computing a restaurant tip requires a PhD in materials science.
  - awakeasleep 16y ago
    It isn't just human nature. If you have a dog or a cat or have watched videos of animals on Youtube you'd see it has to do with most animals on planet earth. I have a theory: Things have evolved to try and do everything they can do, because nothing is smart enough to act on foresight alone.
  - MichaelApproved 16y ago
    Testing with crazy figures and data makes sense because it can magnify a bug you wouldn't have noticed with normal use. For example you may catch a math error that's only obvious with big numbers.
- theli0nheart 16y ago
  Ah, bizarre. I'll look into it...
- pkghost 16y ago
  moral of the (as yet untold) story: rocket science and javascript don't mix. browser differences aside, javascript represents all numbers as floats, so as you attempt to store larger and larger numbers, you will find yourself with less and less accurate data. i'd bet that some minor difference in order of operations between the JS implementations of FF and konqueror result in the differences you're observing.
anigbrowl 16y ago
Good idea and good instincts. I hope you have a scalable hosting solution, because the presentation and domain name are so well chosen that I can see you getting millions of page landings by tomorrow. For your own benefit, perhaps some thoughtfully-filtered Adwords or so would help cover those costs and/or make you some ca$h. For the site itself, keep the simple presentation but perhaps add + signs to allow people to break things out if they wish. Any large program whose share of the budget people love to complain about often turns out to include some things they actually support, so it has excellent education potential. Discreet links to more advanced presentations like graphs and so forth could later help to build out that initial traffic to become the 'go-to' site for accessible stats, mich like fivethirtyeight.com became well-known for unbiased electoral analysis. A fun thing might be a time machine that let you look back at tax rates of years past, with the receipt getting increasingly yellowed and/or using more and more antique-looking fonts. By the time you get to 1776 everything is in copperplate :-)
- alexyim 16y ago
  Put it on App Engine
- theli0nheart 16y ago
  > Good idea and good instincts. I hope you have a scalable hosting solution, because the presentation and domain name are so well chosen that I can see you getting millions of page landings by tomorrow. Thanks, I had a feeling people would like this, but had no idea that it'd be this popular. I'm migrating over to Appengine as soon as I can. > For your own benefit, perhaps some thoughtfully-filtered Adwords or so would help cover those costs and/or make you some ca$h. I put them up about an hour ago, but took them down because I couldn't see them. Turns out I had adblock turned on. I just pushed ads live. > Discreet links to more advanced presentations like graphs and so forth could later help to build out that initial traffic to become the 'go-to' site for accessible stats, mich like fivethirtyeight.com became well-known for unbiased electoral analysis. I think these are all great ideas. I do think a site like this is missing, and we could all stand to benefit from it. > A fun thing might be a time machine that let you look back at tax rates of years past, with the receipt getting increasingly yellowed and/or using more and more antique-looking fonts. By the time you get to 1776 everything is in copperplate :-) Hehe, of all the ideas you've had, this is the best. Moving it up in the queue :)
peterbessman 16y ago
This is awesome. I passed along that article to some friends, the consensus was "great idea, never gonna happen." Now I get to pass this link along. That makes me :)
fraserharris 16y ago
FYI Income entry chokes on commas (ie: 50,000)

slug 16y ago

Trying with a value of 1e20 , 1e21 gives interesting results. More curious is that using konqueror I get one value but with firefox i get another. Seems to be some bit flipping somewhere, since with firefox I get Miscellaneous mandatory programs $16068258000000004096.00 4096, 16384 , etc but with konqueror i get: Miscellaneous mandatory programs $16068258000000005000.00 Maybe some bug with the javascript interpreter ?

riffer 16y ago
Why do people always try to break things? This is a serious question pertaining to human nature, not a complaint. I've noticed that anytime I demo something I've built, if the person/people I'm showing have control of the demo they go try to test the outer boundaries of whatever I've built. What makes us want to do that?
- crystalis 16y ago
  You get the one-two of potential insight into the particular workings and potential 'unintended cool thing'.
- DevX101 16y ago
  Errors at the edge cases are usually the hardest to detect.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  Because of what it tells us about the design and utility. This particular tool looks like it will keep working through inevitable period of hyperinflation everyone keeps warning me about, all the way up to the when we cross the National Debt Event Horizon, at which point accounting is suddenly agreed to be an entirely new art form, and computing a restaurant tip requires a PhD in materials science.
- awakeasleep 16y ago
  It isn't just human nature. If you have a dog or a cat or have watched videos of animals on Youtube you'd see it has to do with most animals on planet earth. I have a theory: Things have evolved to try and do everything they can do, because nothing is smart enough to act on foresight alone.
- MichaelApproved 16y ago
  Testing with crazy figures and data makes sense because it can magnify a bug you wouldn't have noticed with normal use. For example you may catch a math error that's only obvious with big numbers.
theli0nheart 16y ago
Ah, bizarre. I'll look into it...
pkghost 16y ago
moral of the (as yet untold) story: rocket science and javascript don't mix. browser differences aside, javascript represents all numbers as floats, so as you attempt to store larger and larger numbers, you will find yourself with less and less accurate data. i'd bet that some minor difference in order of operations between the JS implementations of FF and konqueror result in the differences you're observing.

anigbrowl 16y ago

Good idea and good instincts. I hope you have a scalable hosting solution, because the presentation and domain name are so well chosen that I can see you getting millions of page landings by tomorrow. For your own benefit, perhaps some thoughtfully-filtered Adwords or so would help cover those costs and/or make you some ca$h. For the site itself, keep the simple presentation but perhaps add + signs to allow people to break things out if they wish. Any large program whose share of the budget people love to complain about often turns out to include some things they actually support, so it has excellent education potential. Discreet links to more advanced presentations like graphs and so forth could later help to build out that initial traffic to become the 'go-to' site for accessible stats, mich like fivethirtyeight.com became well-known for unbiased electoral analysis. A fun thing might be a time machine that let you look back at tax rates of years past, with the receipt getting increasingly yellowed and/or using more and more antique-looking fonts. By the time you get to 1776 everything is in copperplate :-)

alexyim 16y ago
Put it on App Engine
theli0nheart 16y ago
> Good idea and good instincts. I hope you have a scalable hosting solution, because the presentation and domain name are so well chosen that I can see you getting millions of page landings by tomorrow. Thanks, I had a feeling people would like this, but had no idea that it'd be this popular. I'm migrating over to Appengine as soon as I can. > For your own benefit, perhaps some thoughtfully-filtered Adwords or so would help cover those costs and/or make you some ca$h. I put them up about an hour ago, but took them down because I couldn't see them. Turns out I had adblock turned on. I just pushed ads live. > Discreet links to more advanced presentations like graphs and so forth could later help to build out that initial traffic to become the 'go-to' site for accessible stats, mich like fivethirtyeight.com became well-known for unbiased electoral analysis. I think these are all great ideas. I do think a site like this is missing, and we could all stand to benefit from it. > A fun thing might be a time machine that let you look back at tax rates of years past, with the receipt getting increasingly yellowed and/or using more and more antique-looking fonts. By the time you get to 1776 everything is in copperplate :-) Hehe, of all the ideas you've had, this is the best. Moving it up in the queue :)

peterbessman 16y ago

This is awesome. I passed along that article to some friends, the consensus was "great idea, never gonna happen." Now I get to pass this link along. That makes me :)

fraserharris 16y ago

FYI Income entry chokes on commas (ie: 50,000)