Cool stuff. However, something mostly entirely offtopic that I genuiunely wonder about: it seems everybody registers a .com just to make a HN post. What's the point of this? Why not post the same data on your blog?
I can't speak for everyone else, but in this case we were hoping to create something that could stand on its own and (hopefully) grow over time as more datasets are added. The domain wasn't registered just to get on HN - the idea lent itself to a simple site of its own, so why not use a fitting domain name?
Benford Law applies to anything where values appreciate or depreciate exponentially. Kind of weird to see it relate to passcodes (where it isn't really Benford's Law at all, but instead is simply numeric proximity), but for monetary values, forces of nature, population counts, etc, Benford's Law will always apply to a large enough set, for reasons that become very evident once you understand the reasoning.
Comments
Cool stuff. However, something mostly entirely offtopic that I genuiunely wonder about: it seems everybody registers a .com just to make a HN post. What's the point of this? Why not post the same data on your blog?
I can't speak for everyone else, but in this case we were hoping to create something that could stand on its own and (hopefully) grow over time as more datasets are added. The domain wasn't registered just to get on HN - the idea lent itself to a simple site of its own, so why not use a fitting domain name?
Benford Law applies to anything where values appreciate or depreciate exponentially. Kind of weird to see it relate to passcodes (where it isn't really Benford's Law at all, but instead is simply numeric proximity), but for monetary values, forces of nature, population counts, etc, Benford's Law will always apply to a large enough set, for reasons that become very evident once you understand the reasoning.
http://blog.yafla.com/Demystifying_Benfords_Law
Best page I've seen on it.
What better way to get your new website to show up in relevant search results?