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pkbi6w

askbaking_train

What to do with 15 lbs of pre-wrapped caramel? Long story short, I have 15 lbs of wrapped soft caramels in my freezer right now. Most are sea salt flavored, a few are plain. I do also have a few lbs of non wrapped frozen hunks of caramel. It’s too much. I need to use it but don’t know how. Suggestions welcome! Longer story- my kind neighbor works at a caramel factory and takes home seconds. She shares them with us, and I want to make something good but the sheer quantity is a lot to tackle. I’ve made millionaire shortbread, ice cream topper, and banoffee pie but that hardly put a dent in the sheer quantity.

hc4ufkc

hc59dnb

Homemade turtles

Can i buy some off of you?

vm1nbz

askanthropology_train

I want to study social anthropology I have made this major decision in my senior year that I wanna study social anthropology, culture is something I’m really interested in. Something I’m happy that I figured out, so that’s why I wanna ask the people that maybe already have studied it, how it is and what’s expected from me. Eventually some tips? Dearest an anxious senior from 🇳🇴

idz57av

idyviiz

i did it for my BA and loved it. youre expected to read a lot, when i say a lot i mean A LOT (and not just anthropological studies), analyse, think critically, and learn to appeal and speak to people for your field work. those are the skills i most developed during my years. if you dont keep up with the readings you wont be able to follow or participate in seminars. however, i think anthropology is worth it if you want to pursue an academic career. otherwise, you dont really know where youll end up, usually in HR/marketing or something similar.

I’m an anthropology & sociology major When I decided that I wanted to pursue that major and career I announced it it to my first anthropology professor. He encouraged me but he also warned me that I need to comfortable with the insecurity of unknown. You will not know where you are going to end up. If you think you can handle that I’d say go for it without hesitation.

is2za7

askphysics_train

What are your best (worst) physics jokes? Bonus points for higher level material. Here are a few of mine: Whenever my partner and I hold hands, we instantly know what the temperature in the room is. I guess you could say we are a thermo-couple. ​ Two fermions walk into a bar. One says "I'll have a scotch on the rocks." The other says "Darn, that's what I wanted."

g562a9u

g56czwk

Life is like polymer physics: there’s only one way to be straight, but a lot of ways to be kinky

A neutron walks into a bar, he asks the bar tender how much? The bartender says for you, no charge!

xusekp

changemyview_train

CMV: Political ads should be banned from television Midterms are coming up soon. That means it's political ad season. Usually the ads on TV will say something along the lines of "If you vote YES on prop 69, your grandma will die. You don't want grandma to die, do you?" *cue B roll footage of old lady being pushed down the stairs by man in suit* Point being is that these ads are emotionally-driven, fallacy-ridden loads of crap pushed by lobbyists and special interest groups. The end result is that they can spin the marketing however they want, as long as it benefits them. Since these ads are rarely, if ever, informative, then they should no longer be shown on television.

iqy3s4v

iqx80h9

Ah yes, let's have the government regulate political speech affecting who runs the government. Definitely *not* a conflict of interest.

Seems like an odd angle. Why would we simultaneously push for more people to vote while also pushing to reduce the information that people get about candidates and issues?

kxu7q9

askengineers_train

What habits and choices did you make as a young engineer to develop your skills to become a competent and successful engineer? Engineers who are well into your careers, what choices did you make early in your career or daily habits did you start as a young engineer that allowed you to become a competent and successful engineer?

gjca7vr

gjcaiwf

Make sure you're always learning a bit more about anything you touch. Make sure you're paying attention to how it fits into the big picture of whatever system you're working on. In general, pay attention. Absorb information, even if it's not directly "your job" to know / understand that information. Teach others what you are learning / have learned. Always seek better and more efficient ways of doing things - but don't waste 10 hours on a tool that will only save 2 hours. Weigh the present needs, and evaluation from others, against the future benefits. Be willing to help others, and figure out what lines you need to draw to keep your sanity.

Organising my notes and file system to allow access later in life. I can pull up work from 20 years ago with ease. I've got a crap memory but knowing I have stuff I can access when I need it has been crucial to me being any level of successful. That and taking decent notes in meetings to actually put in a file system!

zy9yf5

askhr_train

[FL] New job misled me about offering insurance - is this illegal? So, I started a new job on November 28th as a proposal writer. In the job offer email, they specifically put this phrase in: “In addition to such benefits as required by state and federal law, this position is eligible for the following benefits: Group Medical Plan Group Dental Plan Group Vision Plan” Upon starting, I was told that they don’t actually have any insurance to offer us and that it’s coming in a few months. I feel like the rug’s been pulled from under me. I feel lied to. I probably would have looked around for a different job if I had actually known they didn’t actually have insurance to offer. How legal is this? What can I do?

j24m8gj

j25mvnc

How many full time employees does the company have? I would say “as required by state and federal law” was probably a bit of a red flag. Very few benefits are ever legally required, and they generally don’t even need to be all that good to meet the requirement.

I would do two things in your position. First, immediately begin looking for another job. Don't quit just yet, though, but don't tell them that's what you're doing. Make sure you do it on your own time. Second, ask them for a specific date when the insurance is coming. If they can't (or won't) give you one, move to a new job without prior notice the SECOND you have one. Resign and leave on the spot. If they're gonna pull the rug out from under you, you can do the same to them. It may not be illegal for them to lie to you like this, but it's a dick move all the same. If they can't be punished through the law, they should be punished through turnover.

cavv66

asksciencefiction_train

[MCU] If the engineers and scientists in Stark Industries have the full sized arc reactor with them, with all the technical specifications, plans, etc., aside from not being Tony Stark, what were the other reasons why they weren't able to replicate what Tony did in a cave with a bunch of scraps?

etbgsex

etbstvm

It wasn't practical, more of a showpiece. Tony made it actually produce power efficiently

if a dude walked into the ITER facility wearing a fusion reactor on his cheast, and when asked about it just said "oh its like the one you got in there, just smaller", then i promise you none of the scientists in that building would be able to replicate it either tony managed to not only minituraize something that is the size of a large room into the size of a phone, he also made it more efficent and powerful. in their eyes, what he did was basically impossible.

yg9irl

legaladvice_train

Sister being followed by a drone, need advice for documenting and reporting My sister who lives next door to me on shared family property. She has noticed that every morning when she leaves for work a large drone lifts off from near our property line and follows her to work or anywhere else she goes. Her work is 15 or so miles away, ans irs followed her as much as 40 miles once. Others have seen it too, so it's not in her head. It only follows her, not her spouse, our mother nor me and my husband. She's tried looking for apparently that will show any drones flying nearby so she can track it. But all we've found are for tracking your own drones or ones meant for business security. I've suggested she try affixing a trail cam to her vehicle. Any other suggestions on how we can capture evidence of this harassment? She believes a member of the local police may be involved, so she is afraid to report it to them. Who then would we report it to? We are in an unincorporated area, so would state police have jurisdiction? We are in Louisiana. We appreciate any advice you may have ro give.

iu92dqh

iu9csj6

Unless you’ve seen it yourself it’s probably not happening.

There is a lot to unpack here. But I will start by reiterating what the USG Drone Pilot said: "Every morning when she leaves for work a large drone lifts off from near our property line and follows her to work or anywhere else she goes. Her work is 15 or so miles away, ans irs followed her as much as 40 miles once." This implies a quadrotor drone. To my knowledge, there are no quadrotor drones capable of anything even close to a 15 mile flight range, and the control range would be even smaller. Let alone 40 miles. Only Government drones have that range, and to my knowledge none are capable of VTOL. They require an actual runway/landing strip, and USUALLY fly so high that your sister would not even notice it. So that narrows things down a little bit. It's possible that a smaller drone lifts off each day she goes to work and follows her a short distance before returning. This is creepy, but not necessarily illegal. If done by a Government agent it could be part of some investigation, or even training. Who owns the property on the other side of that line? Note: I do NOT suggest you go and confront anyone over there, or even investigate it yourself. At best you'll find nothing, at worst you end up getting into legal trouble for trespassing, interfering with an investigation, etc, or possibly worse. The drone following her all the way to work or 40 miles is not possible given your description of the events of its takeoff. This next part is not intended to be insensitive or offensive, but I am a realist. Your sister said she was worried that the police are who is operating the drone. Why would she be worried? Is she committing crime of some sort? Does your sister (or anyone else in your family) have any mental health issues? Substance abuse issues? Even in the past? Has your sister suffered any sort of trauma lately (physical, emotional, or mental) or abnormal stress? If so this could be a paranoid delusion or a hallucination. You said others have seen it as well. Did you hear it straight from them or did your sister relay it? If she relayed it, I would suggest covertly asking some of her coworkers if they have seen the drone as well. If this latter possibility seems plausible or likely, I would suggest you talk to your sister and gently urge her to speak to a therapist.

m44n6h

askphysics_train

Burnt out and questioning my degree I'm wrapping up year two of a bachelor's in physics (astro concentration). I'm exhausted and completely disinterested in my studies. I feel hopelessly behind; I had to drop most of my courses this semester, and I was already behind going in. I'm nearly halfway through my degree, and I haven't had a single course I've enjoyed outside of a couple of electives. I haven't been able to find a single other person in my major at my university, and I feel isolated. According to my school's public demographics information, there are other physics majors. I'm just completely cut off from them. I'm also apparently the only woman majoring in physics at my university. The interest that got me to pick this major is completely gone- even things that used to be extremely exciting to me are uninteresting or even borderline upsetting. I can remember making up ridiculous problems and solving them for fun, and researching any little thing that interested me. I'd start my day reading papers way above my reading level for most of high school. Now I can barely make it through a paragraph, and I'm too anxious to re-join communities I used to be a part of. Engaging with communities that I used to love online usually just gets me death threats now anyway. Going into science (especially physics) has been pretty much the only option given to me my whole life. I'm not sure anymore if my love of it was real, or just a way to cope with the pressure. I want to find a way to pick my enthusiasm back up and keep going, but I'm just so hopelessly behind. Even though I usually squeak by with alright grades, I feel like I haven't known what was going on in a math course since 10th grade. Even if I do somehow manage to catch up, none of the careers that could come of my degree interest me. "Go to school for as long as possible and then go into academia" has been my only option for as long as I can remember, but now the thought of it makes me sick. But I've looked everywhere I can, and there just doesn't seem to be any option other than academia or a minimum wage job with a physics degree. This used to be my absolute favourite thing in the world. During especially low points, it was one of the only things that I stayed interested in. But now I'm completely burnt out and I don't think I'm going to be able to get back. I feel like I've lost my last interest and failed at my few remaining skills, and there's nothing left. I don't know what to do. I can't afford to switch majors, and nothing else interests me anyway. I don't have any family to fall back on or anything to be other than a student.

gqsn720

gqskdto

There's no one else in your major? Who else is taking your classes with you then? I would encourage you to seek out those other people even if it's a bit of work. Doing everything alone, in isolation is going to be draining for almost anyone. So much of physics is about exchange of ideas, the importance of talking to other people can't be overstated.

the skillset you gain from physics can be applied to many other areas. spend some time just trying to find another area of study/work that is of interest to you and then see how you could apply your physics knowledge to get there.

ybkd6g

askbaking_train

People who give out cookies for Christmas: When in the month do you usually give them out? Do you give them at the beginning of December? Somewhere in the middle? or the closest to Christmas day?

itish26

itiexu1

Usually a week before Christmas. Last year didn’t do it because I was pregnant and was so tired all the time. I gave notice to the People who usually gets them that no goodies will be made last year. Only family and closest friends knew I was pregnant.

We usually see family the weekend before Christmas or if we have to split weekends the 2 weekends leading up so I'll give them then.

a8c51x

askculinary_train

Can you help us help others on Christmas Day? The last five years, /r/AskCulinary has had pretty successful live culinary holiday hotlines to help folks who run into last minute cooking troubles. This year's Thanksgiving hotline was our biggest, most successful yet with dozens of questions and 45,000 unique visitors. We're hoping for another big day this Christmas, and need volunteers to be by their computers to answer questions. If you know a thing or two about traditional holiday meals and would like to help, please comment here to let us know what hours you can cover. We went 11:30 a.m. - 8:30 p.m. eastern time previously, but most of the questions came in during the first few hours. We're going to start a bit earlier if possible, and then go through at least 3:00. If we can get a couple folks helping each hour, it should well. Thanks!

eca5fl2

ec9l6x5

No plans this year with my family all out of town, I'll be hanging out in the thread while I'm awake

Unless plans change I will be available along with a knowledgable baker to help from 10 am to 3 pm (the baker might sleep in a bit).

jo43ip

askacademia_train

Serious question - do admins really think people are excited to read their regular 20 paragraph emails? Because I rarely get one that has useful info. Why is this a thing? No, I don't care what you think about "mental health awareness" when you provide nothing to support it. No, I don't care what you think about race relations unless you mean it and make meaningful changes. These almost always read like a self pat on the back. /endrant

gb5nrv2

gb67wg3

Somehow ours have a formatting that just doesn’t work well with the university email and Outlook. They try to included staggered indents and bullet points, but they wind up shoved over to the far right of the page, making the emails even more obnoxious to read. You’d think that since every person on campus has to use the same email client and thus (I assume) see the same garbage formatting every time, that they would fix it. But nope.

Our pro vice chancellor sends us a poem every week to motivate us all through the global pandemic 🙃

nus6wi

askbaking_train

How to recreate "whipped" frosting? I'm making a cake for someone, and while I normally stick to a mellow swiss meringue buttercream, the word "buttercream" brings some people bad memories of crunchy frosting that's *way* too sweet. The people ordering the cake want "whipped" frosting (like from an American grocery store bakery). I'm having a hard time explaining whipped frosting doesn't really exist in the homemade frosting world 😅 For those of you who are also #TeamWhipped, what recipes have you tried that come close to that grocery store whipped frosting? I'm hoping for something stable I can make and freeze in advance, and am worried the day of the event might be too hot for a softer frosting. Ideas?

h0ze1vy

h0zc00g

I like Swiss meringue buttercream, I’ve made using this recipe which I thought was excellent and fluffy https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-make-the-perfect-swiss-meringue

I love grocery store whipped frosting. I actually asked this question years ago probably on this sub trying to find a suitable recipe 😂 I’ve never found anything that compares. Ermine frosting and stabilized whipped cream are kinda similar but to someone who wants that whipped frosting I honestly think there’s no replacement because the whipped cream grocery store frosting is industrially made. Maybe you could do something with cool whip? Closest thing I can think of- I hate using processed things like that in my baking so I understand if that’s not what you’re looking for, but it’s kinda impossible otherwise

nqasfi

askculinary_train

Cleaning question: What do you do about food bits and gross water inside a sheet pan's rolled edge? We have a few baking sheets and a springform pan. All of these have a rolled edge that seems to be hollow and open at various points. What's the best way to clean those out? On the springform pan, the rolled edge curls inward, so tiny bits of whatever we're baking will invariably find it's way into the crevice. It's too narrow to get any bristles inside to clear it out, and our sink sprayer has a lot of pressure, but it's still not enough. On the baking sheets, the rolled edges are on the outside boarders, so baking doesn't cause food to get in there, but water gets in during washing. Sometimes, when it's being dried, if you tip the pan in a special direction, a bunch of gross brown (rusty??) water leaks out. Is there a best practice for cleaning these? Are the baking sheets junk now that there's evidence of rust inside? I don't want to have to bake the pans dry after every usage; that seems crazy inefficient. Thanks folks!

h09xjpe

h09xx6n

By far my favourite tool for deep cleaning stuff like that is a steam cleaner. You very much get what you pay for with them , but a good model destroys that sort of buildup.

I use a toothpick on the edges to scrape the gunk out

g6tdbo

askdocs_train

How can I be 100% sure I won't have a sudden cardiac death tonight? Hi all, sorry for the dramatic title but I am at wits end and need this 100% reassurance as soon as possible. I'm a 20 year old male. For the last five weeks, I've been experiencing a super weird feeling in my chest that rarely goes away, like a tightness or a pressure, and recently (the last couple weeks) I've been noticing arrhyhmias, sometimes at rest, but mostly when exercising or laughing. They are extremely scary to me. When I exercise (lift weights, hard spinning) or when I laugh hard, I start to get lightheaded, and my heart rate goes from pounding, to skipping beats, to incredibly slow. I get most scared when I miss beats and it suddenly goes from fast to slow. It is worth noting that I have also been having awful digestion problems, coinciding with these symptoms. I get immediately full right after eating, no matter how little or what it is that I've eaten, and I stay super bloated for hours after the fact. I've passed stool every day, but never had what I consider a normal BM in this five week span, just small ones, and never satisfying so to speak. For the digestion, I've taken Miralax every day for a number of weeks, and spent a week and a half also taking senna. This did not really relieve me of those problems much at all. I also recently started taking an anxiety medication (BuSpar) and don't feel particularly anxious, but for these heart symptoms. Anyway, one night I was sure I was having a heart attack and dying -- I was sitting on the toilet hunched over and it felt like if I were to stand up and move, my heart would give out and I would die -- I felt like something in my chest had ruptured, it was by far the scariest feeling of my life. My legs were shaking like crazy and I was sweating and weak. I went to the ER, but on the drive there I was sure I was going to die and not make it, but sure enough when I made it things started to subside. They gave me an ECG and did some blood work and said everything came out fine, they just told me to get on some laxatives and didn't think anything was wrong with my heart, even though I was so sure I was having some sort of cardiac arrest at the time. Most nights I am so scared of these arrhythmias that they keep me up a large portion of the night. I have two brothers, one who deals with SVT and one who was diagnosed with a cardiomyopathy, who they have told to limit his exercise for fear of sudden cardiac death. Because of his diagnosis, they made me get an echocardiogram and an ECG many months ago, which they said came back normal. Despite all this, I am so terrified and it seems like nobody believes me that anything is wrong. Please can someone tell me everything I can possibly do within my control to ensure that I make it through the nights alive? I am getting a Holter monitor tomorrow to wear for 24 hours, and I am really scared that it will miss whatever's been happening to me and I will have to continue to live in fear. Again, what would you say are all the necessary steps to ensure I will not deal with sudden cardiac death?

focp5x1

foe0wsd

Not a doctor - I too deal with these things, I've had check ups, heart scan, ECG, EKG and all the doctors could ever find was a small calcification in the heart, it was/is apparently nothing to worry about. Also to note, I have low blood pressure and quite severe anxiety. When my anxiety is bad I get "extra" beats or "skips" "flutters" in my chest. Currently I have a pressure feeling in the chest, almost as if something is stuck in my chest... I am told its anxiety but I just want to be listened to, instead of being listened to, I am dismissed as mentally ill. It's unlikely that you will suddenly suffer a cardiac arrest, though I too know the fear of sudden death. I am very much aware that it's something I have no control over. I can't guarantee it BUT I think you're going to be okay 😁

I was going to say, if echo normal you need a holter. The family history is concerning for sure. However, with a normal echo the chances of you going into sudden cardiac arrest is rare at your age. Maybe when you're 70. Echo shows structurally you are ok. Holter will confirm electrically you are ok. I think you are doing everything you should be doing and wouldn't worry too much at this point.

sbzs9p

askengineers_train

How important are internships for graduating engineers? I'm currently in my 3rd year of study for mechanical engineering. A lot of my fellow students are stressing about getting summer internships as I know this will be their only real experience in engineering before they graduate. Before I went back to school, I worked maintenance and operations in the nuclear field for 13 years as an operator/supervisor. I definitely don't claim to be an engineer because of this experience but I would say it should count as engineering experience based on the work I did. Should I be worried about getting an internship? I'd rather spend the summers with my family making up for all the time I missed while I was working but they would understand if taking an internship was important for my career. What do you all think?

hu3teox

hu3ggod

Internships are not important. What *IS* important is that you have something on your resume other than normal coursework. You need something on your resume that makes you different from all your classmates. For many, that "something" is going to be an internship. But it doesn't have to be. Military service was mine. Yours' will be your previous experience. Internships are *a* way to distinguish yourself, but they're far from the *only* way.

I wouldn't fret about an internship, unless you can get one at an employer you'd like to work for- an internship is a 3 month interview. The value of internships is not technical, primarily, they help the student see what a real company looks like, and what real engineering is like. You already have that stuff down pat.

mbe3ad

asksciencefiction_train

[MCU] Just exactly how would Thanos retrieve the stones if the heroes shrunk the ones they possessed down to the smallest-infintesimal size with Ant-Man's technology?

grzuoqw

grzwlb2

In my mind the the shrink tech wouldnt work on the stones.....

Its also a LOTR situation. No matter how well the good guys hide one piece of the victory they control, Thanos has the winning hand if they can't put ALL the stones out of his reach permanently. As soon as he hit Xandar and took the power stone he became an unstoppable juggernaut with an insanely powerful army at his back. Once he got the reality and space stone he was practically a GOD. He didnt NEED the Time/Mind/Soul gems to continue his crusade, it just made it quicker.

psl9gw

legaladvice_train

Border Patrol truck totaled my car, lied to the FD on my behalf and are now being evasive about insurance This happened in Arizona Yesterday, my gf and I were making a left turn with a green arrow and an oncoming truck ran the red light and hit us so hard that we flipped all the way around and hit another car. They weren't in a chase or anything, and didn't have sirens on. The driver was just being negligent. Immediately the BP agent's supervisor swarmed onto the scene with other people in their convoy, making it difficult to tell what was going on. I spoke to one police officer who I think took a statement? Can't be sure. The BP handled most of everything. I asked for proof of insurance but they said it was handled differently, and they only showed me a slip of paper that said they were exempt from something with some legalize I don't quite understand. I took photos of everything and was sure to get a few phone numbers from witnesses who saw that I wasnt at fault, which I gave to the police as well as kept copies of for myself. When the FD came they asked if anything was broken, I said no but we might have whiplash and I'd like to be checked out. They must not have heard me since they immediately got back in the engine and went to leave, and the BP agent wanted to ask me more questions. Later, when when the ambulance came the BP supervisor told them we had denied care, which I told them was untrue and they checked us and took our vitals. The BP wanted me to sign something for them to hook up a computer to my car for diagnostics and I got rather upset and mouthed off a bit about how they were the perpetrators looking to cover their buddy's ass. And if I was going to sign anything, it would be with my insurance and not them. I tried to get a photo of the truck's license plates but the agents there refused to let me leave the side of the street I was on to do so. On the phone with my insurance, the operator said she wasn't sure what to do, and that my adjuster would call me later today. I did go to the ER later that afternoon and got Xrays, and nothing is broken. But my right wrist steel hurts like hell and I make most of my income from digital art and playing bass, which I currently can't do on account of the pain. On top of that I have PTSD from being an EMT and this whole thing has me pretty rattled. Almost checked back into the hospital for psych stuff last night but wanted to stay home to comfort my GF. This whole situation has been painful. What are my options moving forward?

hdra5pb

hdrb2yk

Keep working with your insurance adjustor. There must be some avenue when the other party is a governmental agency -- perhaps use that term rather than BP. I looked around for similar cases and the insurance company had to sue the federal government. But your insurance company should be working with you.

Go through your insurer only. You do not want to be dealing directly with the border patrol.

u3h68b

explainlikeimfive_train

Explain like I'm five years old: Why do double minuses become positive, and two pluses never make a negative?

i4pghzp

i4pn7lh

The true Explain like I'm five years old answer even for mathematicians is that negatives are **defined** as the thing that "negates" or "nots" the "thing" (mostly positives, then negatives). They are a purely logical construct. You can't have negatives unless you have positives first. I mean, you maybe could, but it's never done that way as far as I know. Addition is defined first, then subtraction (as the negative), then multiplication, then division (as the negative / inverse), then exponents, then roots (as the negative / inverse)... **The "negative" or "inverse" of an operation is always defined relative to the "positive" version.** So basically positives are "really" there and then negatives are extra rules that were added so that we can negate things. It's an operation or a "property" added to the numbers. That's their entire point. While for our convenience, we connect the positives and negatives together on the number line (they cross at zero), since negative numbers are not exactly positive numbers, and negation isn't exactly the same as addition in how it works, the rules are different.

Think about the negative sign as “not”. If you say “I’m not not going to go to the park” then you are actually saying you are going to the park. Now let’s say “very” is positive. “I’m very very happy.” That means the same thing as “I’m very happy”. This holds true for numbers. -(-2) or not(not2) is 2.

std4mp

askacademia_train

How do you get over presentation anxiety as an academic? Hi all! I’m a newly admitted Ph.D. Candidate in a humanities field (communications-related). My biggest fear in going into a Ph.D. Program is not the long hours or lack of money, or amount of little reading/writing for the next four years. My fear is that I have crippling performance anxiety when it comes to presentations. Ironic, I know, considering the program I’m going into. I’m not a TERRIBLE presenter, especially when it’s something I’m passionate about, and I have some experience in academic presentations from my master’s degree research. I just get insanely nervous and then this whole negative feedback loop occurs where I’m too aware of the change in my voice and my palms sweating and then my brain starts to black out. And even though traditional academic conferences and the like can be some of the most boring experiences on Earth, I want to be able to communicate my ideas and research in engaging ways, especially if I end up going the TA route rather than an RA route (although I’d like to gain experience in both). Anyway, what tips and tricks have any of you hardened academics learned to be better presenters and/or lecturers. (A friend of mine recommended beta blockers lol)

hx4iaf1

hx4q4h9

~ Benzodiazepines ~

Likely you're giving 20 minute presentations. Research shows that audiences zone out (usually) between minutes 7-12. So, remember: your audience is working hard to stay present and focused on what you're saying, not waiting to eviscerate you. They likely won't remember it all, including little mistakes that feel huge to you. They remember key takeaways. Be clear about those. The rest ... you can practice style, detail, and whatnot over time.

gxu4eo

changemyview_train

CMV: Waving the confederate flag is more disrespectful to the American flag than kneeling during the national anthem. This post probably isn’t for people who don’t think kneeling is disrespectful to the flag to begin with. But I feel there is a portion of the US population in the South that is adamant that you must stand for the national anthem but are also partial to displaying the confederate flag. While the argument about what kneeling is really about has probably been in numerous other posts, some still believe it’s an insult to the American flag as well as the US military. Despite it being made clear the protest is not about the flag or the military people still think that performing the protest during the anthem and while the flag is specifically on display is disrespectful regardless of the intention. In this regard, any display of the confederate flag, other than in a completely unambiguously historical context, is far more disrespectful to the American flag than kneeling is. Flying the confederate flag as a source of pride, even if it’s just pride of your own ancestry, is demonstrating that you are proud of a side that fought against what the current flag stands for now. It’s not to be confused with a state flag or anything like that. It’s a flag that specifically represents a way of life that the current flag is against. I don’t necessarily want this to turn into an argument that the confederate flag isn’t about slavery, my case is that the confederate flag clearly represents a time when the country was divided and the confederate side lost, so still flying a confederate flag shows a continued act of divisiveness towards other Americans when the argument is that the American flag is a sign of unity. It would be similar to claiming you’re flying the Union Jack flag to show American patriotism. The Union Jack and confederate flag both represent losing sides of attempts to make America into something different than what it is now, so any claim to have pride in those flags is not American pride or patriotism, which is indirect conflict with true American patriotism and therefore disrespectful to the idea of what the American flag represents. As mentioned above, I’m perfectly fine with anything being represented in an historical context. History is crucial and required for education. But there’s a pretty clear distinction between historical representation and what I’m talking about, so I’d rather not use this post to debate historical relevance. CMV that if you think kneeling is disrespectful to the American flag then you should also think flying the confederate flag is disrespectful to the American flag, and even more so.

ft85mxj

ft75hs6

To me, and many others, the kneeling wasn't the issue, it was the timing. Protesting is one thing, but it's not simply chants and signs. You have to be tactful, as you are walking a tightrope any time you're protesting. For police brutality, it would make more sense to protest at the police station or outside of a government building. The anthem isn't the government, it's supposed to represent America in its truest ideals, so protesting during that comes across as a protest of that. My issue is simply with the choice of timing. On to the next issue. Hoo boy. So, I do understand what you're saying, and many Southerners, if not most, do have a lasting distrust of the federal government. This is something which is simply ingrained into our culture. We want independence, we want little to no government interference. The Confederate flag is a multifaceted symbol. It's a symbol of pride, not necessarily in what we fought for or what wrongs or rights we did, but in the fact that we were willing to stand up and fight a battle which we were destined to lose. We knew we were outgunned, but we fought anyway, determined to fight until we won or until we could not continue any more. Its symbolic of our heritage from those who lived and died to leave a lasting impression of southern spirit in the face of what we perceived then as tyranny. It's also a symbol of, "We're still here." We aren't as advanced, just like then. We're more traditional, more grass roots and salt of the earth, but we're still here, and we take pride in that. We take pride in the soil that was here under our fathers, grandfathers, and so on. We use it to show that despite the hate, jokes, etc, we will ALWAYS be proud of where we came from and who we are. Most southerners don't equate the Confederate flag to the Confederate ideologies, at least not all of them. We still stand for independence, small government, and of course, guns, but we also recognize that there were things wrong back then. I would like to address the fact that the Confederate flag wasn't a large controversy until the shooting circa 2012 I believe. It's sad that it only takes one misuse to tarnish the symbol and everything it stands for. Another point, I disagree with the point about the south being terrorists. Our own government turned against the other governments, and was willing to secede and be done with it. In my opinion, a civil war is not the same as terrorists. It is the people of a country being unhappy with how that country is run, and they fight to change it. Terrorists have their own agenda, and often aim to spread their goal to everyone, or kill them off. The American flag represents freedom, liberty, life, and revolution. The Confederate states were staging their own Revolutionary War of sorts, just like the thirteen colonies did. Revolution is as American an ideal as liberty, and the two truly go hand in hand.

Lighten up dude. The civil war was a long time ago. Let it go. If someone wants to wave a Confederate flag, you’ll have to bite your tongue and accept it, just like I have to accept the fact that some twatwaffle wants to kneel during the National Anthem.

1ww8rm

asksocialscience_train

Are there any predictors of revolution?

cf5y66u

cf63ieu

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/we-are-now-one-year-and-counting-from-global-riots-complex-systems-theorists-say--2

Revolution is difficult to pin down because you need a working definition of revolution that everyone agrees to. If we agree it is a mass movement of some kind that changes society, you can learn a lot from the study of social movements, the study of democratization, and models of rational choice. Revolutions also suffer from "N of 1" problem -- they don't have often enough to get good comparative data. Each are idiosyncratic. Here are some classics of democratization: Theda Skocpol (1979) States and Social Revolution. Argues that a crisis of the state (legitimacy/confidence in the regime) creates the situation which can be exploited by a dominate class. Barrington Moore (1966) Social Origin of Dictatorship and Democracy Argues that the transition to capitalism creates an opportunity for social change. The resulting regime type (dictatorship or democracy) is determined by the presence of the bourgeoisie. Famous for the line "no bourgeoisie no democracy." Reeschmeyer, Stephens, and Stephens (1992) Capitalist Development and Democracy Also argue capitalism causes the demand for democracy, but it takes an alliance of the middle class (bourgeoisie) and the working class to exploit the weakness of regimes. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson (2006). Economic origins of dictatorship and democracy. Argues that elites have to make concessions (taxes, power sharing, etc) to stave off revolution. If they don't make enough there's a revolution. From social movement theory: Doug McAdam(1982). Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency Gave us "political process" model of social movements. Revolutions occur (and succeed) when there's constant demand for change and there's a split in loyalties of the ruling class -- some break off and go with social movement. McCarthy, J. D., & Zald, M. N. (1977). Resource mobilization and social movements: A partial theory. American journal of sociology, 1212-1241 The argument relies on Mancur Olson's collective action problem to argue that it takes someone willing to organize and actively acquire resources (money, physical office space, etc) to get a social movement off the ground. This is off the top of my head so I'm certain I left out a ton of relevant material Here's solid advice if you're serious about learning any topic-- start with the classics and move out from there. Edit: some words

yheqml

asksciencefiction_train

[MCU] In "Ant-Man and the Wasp" We learn that truth serum exists in the MCU. Couldn't they have used it to prove that Peter Parker was innocent in FFH/NWH? If there is truth serum in the MCU, Couldn't they use it in trials? Couldn't they have used it to prove that Peter Parker did not kill Mysterio? Why don't they?

iudgeij

iudz1jc

Sodium penthotol exists in our own world and is sometimes popularly understood as truth serum But it’s not something used in any court to ensure the veracity of a testimony

Peters legal troubles are dealt with pretty quickly. It's his public perception and notoriety that are problematic. Taking the truth serum won't change that. The people who believe Mysterio will just assume the serum is inauthentic.

yxkpku

askengineers_train

Does anyone know how to recalibrate a plumb bob? I have a really old plum bob that is no longer hanging straight down, any quick fixes or do I need to break down and buy a new one?

iwqfssn

iwpai89

Millwright here. Suspend it from the ceiling to a couple of mm off your bench. Spin it like a top and look at the centre. If it isn’t spinning true on the string you can either bend the string hole/suspending tube or grind metal off of the side to balance it. Then decide how OCD you want to get with the precision of that point as it moves in a circle. Shine a light down at 45 degrees and watch the shadow wiggle. Place a piece of graph paper underneath it to see how the point wiggles on a line.

Does your plum bob defy gravity? Haha No but I’m sure you mean it hangs down and it’s crooked right? You have to string it up properly.

pj5unr

askacademia_train

What's the difference between calling someone "Dr. Name" vs "Professor Name" This might be a stupid question, but I'm that meme of the guy being like "I don't know what xyz thing is and at this point I'm afraid to ask." I did my MA at an R1 public university, where all the faculty I encountered had doctorates. We called them by their first names after we had been invited to do so, but the polite, formal thing was to refer to faculty as "Dr. Name." Now, I'm doing my PhD at a different R1 public university, where all the faculty I have encountered have doctorates. Again, we call them by their first names on invitation, but the formal thing to do is to call them "Professor Name." Is this just a department culture thing? Or is there a functional difference?

hbwl2gm

hbwxkho

In the US, Doctor is the more prestigious title to go by, reserved for the more senior academics, despite a PhD meaning everyone is a doctor. Professor is anyone who lectures I think. In the UK where I'm from, professor is the more prestigious title, whereas doctor is the lesser title. In practice, most people go by their first name and don't really give much of a crap.

Dr. Is 'earned' in the sense of having a doctorate, professor is simply an institutional designation. Either reference should be acceptable. I am not familiar with the US context directly, but have Chinese and New Zealand experience. In the case of China, 'professor' is standard as a student reference to faculty, whether they are a lecturer, assistant, associate or full professor. Initially, it seemed a bit odd because in New Zealand students would never call me professor. Sometimes they'd use my first name, other times nothing at all. It's usual for undergrad students to avoid faculty generally so the need for honorifics is largely avoided. Another point is that in the New Zealand system most teaching is done by lecturers and senior lecturers, the equivalent of assistant professor/seasoned assistant professor in the US system (so, above 'lecturer' as used in the US system). While almost all NZ lecturers have a doctorate I've never been called 'Dr.' by a student.

a4huhj

askanthropology_train

Could the ancient Greeks have deciphered modern English? Let's say you were able to time travel, and you send Athens in 500bc books filled with English stories and poems with pictures. How much, if any, English do you think could be deciphered by them?

ebevl5j

ebf1ut2

Although I don't have a very extensive knowledge of linguistics, it's important to know that language also depends upon particular cultural understandings beyond the grammatical structure. Eduardo Kohn does a decent explanation of this in his *How Forests Think* when he explains that really understanding what exactly a greeting literally translated as "Are you still alive?" means. Without knowing any native modern English speakers, would an Athenian understand what we are talking about when we say things like "How is it going?", "Dude", "Woke", or the other numerous idiomatic expressions we use everyday. While classicists have some pretty decent knowledge about Latin and Greek language, we also have the benefit of knowing a good amount of their historical lives. Folks in 500 BC would lack that kind of extra knowledge about us.

Without some way to decipher the alphabet no, i.e. if they just had a copy of Harry potter or something there would be no way to interpret it beyond maybe figuring out if something is a noun, verb, infinitive etc... They'd need some version of the Rosetta stone which is the only reason we can make any sense of hieroglyphics afaik.

wcriyj

askcarguys_train

May sound dumb, but how do you position your side mirrors? Like do you angle it so it shows a little bit of the car body without you leaning/turning your body to the mirror? Do you have it so you can just see the back passenger handle? Any information will help. I think I over angle my mirrors if that makes sense and I need help knowing the general view I should have when looking into them

iif7fok

iiez15z

I lean my head against the window, and put it so I can just see the side of my car, then when I'm sitting straight it shows me the blind spot. You want cars to disappear from from the rear view and immediately appear in the side ones.

Any combination of mirrors is intended as an aim and does not replace or devalue the need to turn and look before proceeding with any intended maneuver. It's purely a subjective aid in whatever way assist you in being an attentive driver. If keeping your vehicle in frame helps you, have at it. If using a rearview as centerstage and adjusting the sides so there's no overlapping view, by all means. They should help you keep an eye on your immediate and impending hazards, whatever angles or scene does that for you. Mirrors are terrible for gauging relative proximity. Do not rely on mirrors alone to determine if it is safe to proceed

a4yc1v

askhistorians_train

Meta] I wrote my PhD dissertation on AskHistorians! Buckle up for Part 2, on the cultural and technical impacts of Reddit on AskHistorians (and AskHistorians, on Reddit) #“I run the world’s largest historical outreach project and it’s on a cesspool of a website.” For those of you who may not have seen my [last post, my name is Sarah Gilbert, and I wrote half of my dissertation on AskHistorians. For those of you who are interested in checking it out, it can be accessed here. I've written three posts highlighting some of my findings and this is the second. In the last post I briefly touched on challenges associated with sharing knowledge in AskHistorians. In this post I’m going to address what I see as a major source of those challenges (and others): the divergence of reddit's norms from those of AskHistorians, and the technical features of reddit that enable, and even exacerbate, these challenges. As with the previous post, before I get into the details of the cultural and technical impacts of reddit on AskHistorians I’m going discuss aspects of my own experiences on reddit that impact this work. **Positionality** The prior post provided a brief overview on the methodology I used in my dissertation work. Since this post is long and the data sources and analysis are the same, I’m not going to include that information again. However, my position relative to the work shared in this post is a bit different. To recap, positionality is a process undertaken by qualitative researchers so that they can be more aware of and attempt to mitigate biases that might come from demographic characteristics and lived experiences. I have both demographic characteristics and lived experiences that influence how I’ve framed this post, and even the fact that I chose to write it. As a woman user of a site that hosts misogynistic communities, I identified with the experiences of other women and felt a great deal of empathy towards participants who were affected by sexism, racism, and bigotry. While my identity as a woman likely led to some bias, I believe that, overall, my experiences as a reddit user played a positive role in conducting research in this space. Truth be told, metasubs are my guilty pleasure, and I find controversy that relates to reddit itself fascinating. I have a good idea of how reddit and its culture has developed over the years because I was there (since 2012 anyway), with metaphoric popcorn, as many of these developments unfolded. Much of this post was not written as an outsider looking in, but as a reddit user (and AskHistorians reader) myself. This post is organized in three main parts: first I provide an overview of AskHistorians’ norms and describe how these norms establish the sub as a public history site. Next, I provide an historical overview of reddit’s norms, primarily as they pertain to speech. Finally, I describe how reddit’s norms and technology are both problematic and advantageous for AskHistorians as a public history site. **The development of AskHistorians as a public history site** A common joke made in meta posts (usually on AskHistorians’ birthday or in reference to the 20-year moratorium) goes something like this: “so in x years will someone write the history of AskHistorians?!” It’s a good joke– however, an early history of AskHistorians has already been written by u/agentdcf in this post. It’s fascinating and I recommend everyone take a look. However, for those who might want to avoid falling down an AskHistorians rabbit hole, the takeaways from his post that are most relevant here are: * For the first six months AskHistorians was, for all intents and purposes, lawless: flair was awarded based on an honor system; rules weren’t formalized, at least not in writing; answers often veered from the topic of the question; norms developed so that answers were long, detailed, and well sourced; and moderation was light, relying on users to enforce community norms through voting. * In 2012 the sub underwent a fast period of growth: those who appreciated the long, detailed, and well sourced answers began to share them on aggregation subs like DepthHub and BestOf, which drew traffic and subscribers (side note: this is how and when I found AskHistorians). Between March and May of that year, AskHistorians began its ‘Eternal September.’ * Rapid growth necessitated change: The influx of new users meant that not all of them enculturated existing norms on their own. This led to the development of rules to formalize these norms, and the establishment of a mod team to enforce them. So, while the strict set of rules we know to today weren’t established from the beginning, many (such as providing in-depth, well-sourced answers; avoiding jokes; and maintaining civility) existed informally though the norms of the community right from the beginning. It’s also these rules and norms that allow AskHistorians to function as a public history site. What is public history? According to The National Council on Public History, public history is defined as “history beyond the walls of the traditional classroom” (n.d.). I’m in no position to go into more depth about what is, or isn’t public history, as that’s not my area of expertise. However, in our interview u/mimicofmodes described why AskHistorians stands out as a public history site: >. . . it's the most direct method of public history out there. At a living history site you have site interpreters . . . between the public and the curators/researchers; a book is a one-way street, as is a museum exhibition, whether the recipient is passively taking the information that's handed out and possibly unable to get the specific information they're looking for. Supporting the mission of public history is incredibly important to the people who manage the sub: in fact, contributing to public history was not only the motivation that was most frequently described by mods, but it was also most often described as their primary motivation. In my interviews with them, mods described several reasons why AskHistorians’ role as a public history site is important. First, they see that AskHistorians provides justification for the study of history: >The humanities does, as a whole, a very bad job of justifying its continued existence. . . We need to do a better job of that and I see AskHistorians as . . .a stepping stone towards a resolution of being public intellectuals, being public historians, justifying our reasons for our research. And I think the ability to bring in both enthusiasts and hobbyists, and professors, and master’s students into a history project, one of the larger history projects that’s on the Internet is my reason I guess, for doing that (Josh). There are a few keys points I’d like to highlight from Josh’s statement: first is that the sub’s popularity is demonstrative of a widespread interest in history– and not just any history, but good history. Although funding for the study of the humanities is decreasing and humanities departments at universities are downsizing, interest from a massive audience shows that history is important to people. Second, is that AskHistorians is egalitarian. While its rules and norms may mirror those established by academia, anyone who is interested can participate, even if it’s as a reader. Second, mods described how AskHistorians can help combat disinformation spread by bigoted groups: >I do see this enormous, really problematic, deeply dangerous, in my opinion, misunderstanding of history, often a misappropriation of history by political groups and people with often very nasty agendas. And I see AskHistorians as basically the best historical outreach program that basically anyone has come up with so far. And I’m more than proud to be a part of that, just for the mission it represents there. It’s teaching millions of people who might never have given a hoot about history all about it (u/Elm11). That AskHistorians can do this is tied to its rules and norms and their enforcement. As one former mod put it, >The AH mod team sees the deletion of such bad comments as ‘curating the sub’, akin to pulling out weeds so flowers can grow. The weeds are off-topic discussion, anecdotes, jokes, abuse and harassment, and poorly sourced or misinformed responses. The flowers are comprehensive responses that get to the heart of questions asked. **A short history of ‘free speech’ on Reddit** The rules that establish AskHistorians as a public history site are in direct contrast from the norms of the wider reddit-community. In AskHistorians, all rule-breaking content is removed. While it’s certainly not universal among all subs, there exists a general expectation on reddit that content promoted and hidden should be determined by users through voting, and otherwise, speech should be free from sanctioning. In this post, when I discuss free speech this is what I mean– I’m discussing reddit-style ‘free speech’ where speech should be free of consequences, not freedom of speech as guaranteed by the US Constitution. Reddit users’ expectation that speech on the site should be free from consequence exists for a reason. The idea of reddit as a bastion of free speech comes from above: the admin and their (lack of) policies. The following is a general timeline of speech related policy development. * **2005**: Reddit is founded; there were no official limitations on what kind of content could be shared. * **May 2011**: The first site-wide rule is created when administrators officially announced that posting personally identifiable information would result in being banned from the site. The announcement came after Gawker published an article detailing an incidence of reddit-style vigilantism that targeted an alleged scammer. * **October 2011**: Media outlets, such as CNN and Gawker, publicized r/jailbait, a subreddit dedicated to posting sexually provocative pictures of young, often underage, women. After it was revealed that the subreddit had been used to exchange child pornography it was removed by administrators (Morris, 2011). To my knowledge this is the first instance of a subreddit being removed by the admin. * **October 2012**: the creator of r/jailbait and a host of other pornographic subreddits, u/violentacrez, was doxxed on Gawker. * **October 2012**: In a leaked communiqué to moderators (and shared on Gawker), reddit’s then CEO, Yishan Wong defended free speech on reddit, saying: >We stand for free speech. This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it. Nonetheless, the trend of removing offensive subreddits continued. However, subreddits were not banned for their content; rather, they were banned for breaking other site-wide rules. * **June 2013**: r/n*****s was banned for brigading and vote manipulation (Todd, 2013). * **September 2014**: r/TheFappening, and spinoff subs were banned for copyright infringement. In this blog post, Yishan Wong again made a statement supporting ideals of free speech and placed responsibility for determining content seen on the user-base: >We uphold the ideal of free speech on reddit as much as possible not because we are legally bound to, but because we believe that you – the user – has the right to choose between right and wrong, good and evil, and that it is your responsibility to do so. * **May 2015**: Reddit admins create an anti-harassment policy. In the policy, users who are harassed are encouraged to contact reddit’s admin; however, the announcement does not outline what, if any, sanctioning harassers will face. * **June 2015**: r/fatpeoplehate (along with 4 smaller subs) is banned for breaking the anti-harassment policy. The decision is unpopular– the announcement post was heavily downvoted, although gilded 33 times, and reddit users began circulating a petition calling for then CEO, Ellen Pao’s, resignation. They also began harassing and threatening her. * **July 2015**: Steve Huffman, CEO and cofounder, makes a statement that seems to walk back on the ideal of free speech: >Neither Alexis nor I created reddit to be a bastion of free speech, but rather as a place where open and honest discussion can happen. . . . despite a seemly contradictory statement made by cofounder, Alexis Ohanian in May that year: >We made reddit so that as many people as possible could speak as freely as possible. * **August 2015**: r/C***Town and several spinoff subreddits, were banned because they: >exist solely to annoy other redditors, prevent us from improving Reddit, and generally make Reddit worse for everyone else (Steve Huffman, 2015). This decision is largely supported by reddit users– the comment in which the ban was announced was highly upvoted and gilded 16 times. * **October 2017**: Site-wide rules are updated, taking action against content that “encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people” or encourages the abuse of animals. * **November 2017**: r/incels is banned as a result of the new policy. So, to recap, reddit has an evolving relationship with the ideal of free speech. Typically this relationship is reactionary as admins take action after receiving bad publicity, rather than when they become aware of the problem (this long-held belief was confirmed in this interview with former admin, Dan McComas). While more recently administrators have relaxed their hardline stance on reddit as a bastion of free speech, actions ostensibly limiting some forms of speech (such as hate and violent speech) have not been rationalized by an appeal to morality (i.e., hate speech is wrong and we don’t want it on our site) but to appeals to law, personal privacy, and site growth. Whatever their reasons for removing subs may be, a recent study by Chandrasekharan et al. \(2017\) found that these actions had a generally positive effect on reddit, finding a site-wide decrease in types of hate speech associated with r/C***Town and r/fatpeoplehate after the subs were banned. Nonetheless, ‘free-speech’ remains the norm and prejudice and bigotry continue to be problematic for reddit and its users. This, in turn, affects AskHistorians. **Challenges of maintaining a public history site on reddit** In this comment, u/Elm11 describes the effect of reddit on AskHistorians: > culture and popular perception of Reddit absolutely does have an impact on our activities. Reddit shapes the people who come through our door, the questions which are asked here, the issues which arise in threads on /r/all. His comment highlights the major themes I’m going to highlight in this post: how the differing norms and upvoting system affect new users’ enculturation into the community, and how reddit’s demographic (and its technology) shapes the scope of the sub. *Guaranteeing quality in the context of reddit-style ‘free speech’* The key to ensuring that users get high quality responses to their questions is in the rules (posted in full in the wiki). Anyone who’s interested in why AskHistorians has the rules they have should check out the wiki. It includes what each rule means, what forms of sanctioning will result should the rules be broken, and links to discussions explaining why each rule was developed. On the other hand, reddit has guidelines in the form of reddiquette; however, sanctioning for violating these guidelines is only indicated for three actions: posting personal information, off-reddit requests for votes, and spamming. These broad guidelines have the advantage of allowing considerable freedom to establish how subreddits are run. However, it also means that subreddits themselves are not required to have rules beyond the guidelines established by the site. In many cases, particularly subs with millions of subscribers (r/science being a notable exception), rules are generally pretty lax. The problem isn’t so much that reddit has loose guidelines and that many subs follow suit; the problem is that when loose guidelines are framed as ‘free speech,’ moderation is seen as censorship. For many reddit users, such as the one who made this removed comment, any and all censorship is bad– site destroying bad: >11,000 upvotes. All the comments are deleted because of censorship. This post is a ghost town. Reddit is dead. R.I.P The full log shared with me by the mods was a thread in which the vast majority of comments were removed. The conflation of moderation and censorship was a common theme in the removed comments, with several people expressing their belief that the mods had gone mad with power, even going so far as to compare them to dictators: >Mods on this sub read too mucb about Hitler, huh? The majority, however, ask where the comments are or complain about how many comments are removed, like this one: >wtf happened to all the comments here? and this one: >Everything is banned on this subreddit? What is this cancer mod work? Occasionally, in meta discussions, users will express their dissatisfaction with the moderation style, such as one user in my recruitment post, who stated: >I'd just like to see all the answers and let community votes do the decision making, personally. Most regular AskHistorians readers support the rules and their enforcement; in fact, this census showed that 91.6% believe the mods’ efforts are just about right. Nonetheless, users new to the sub and a minority of regular users are more supportive of reddit’s ‘hand-off’ approach to moderation. While letting the upvotes decide is congruent with reddit’s free-speech norm, interview participants described three reasons why this doesn’t work for AskHistorians, and those reasons are tied to the sub’s mission of public history. First, comments posted first are likely to receive the most upvotes (see this post, by u/llewellynjean for more info). Because well sourced responses can take hours to write the highest quality responses are easily buried by lower quality but quick to write responses. This is frustrating for readers and experts alike. For example, when describing why he likes AskHistorians, Matt (a lurker) highlighted the importance of deleting low quality responses: >I don’t want to have to search through a bunch of people making Alexander the Great puns. I like going in and seeing one really good post from a flaired commentator . . . and then a whole bunch of crap deleted underneath – that’s beautiful! This is a wonderful part of the Internet! As is reflected in his first sentence, good information can be difficult to find amid jokes and other comments that neglect to fully or reliably respond to the question. Highly upvoted yet poor quality answers are also frustrating for flaired users, such as u/MrDowntown: >Something that I’ve encountered a couple of times in the last year to my frustration is that I won’t see a question for three or four hours and then somebody once had a college class that read a chapter about this topic will have given what I would consider a C- answer. Something that is only tangential to the central question that’s been asked, but by the time I get to the question they have been upvoted 30, 40 times, and my, what I think is a better answer only] 8 or 10 people see it. This leads to the second reason free-speech/let the upvotes decide doesn’t work for AskHistorians: most users are not experts in history and thus not qualified to assess the quality of a given response via upvoting. Not only is seeing poor answers more highly upvoted than your own answer frustrating to experts, allowing users to determine what they think is the best response by upvoting can promote and propagate harmful misinformation, an example of which is provided by u/commiespaceinvader: >The frequently brought up argument that the ideas of Holocaust deniers will be easily defeated in the „free market place of ideas“ is to me as someone who deals with the subject an incredibly misguided one since: A.) lying is always easier than debunking lies. People who deny the Holocaust will simply say „crematoria don’t produce smoke! it is all a lie!“ and for those debunking them, it is necessary to actually make an argument based around how crematoria actually work, which is not something most of us have ever expected to deal with. And B.) it assumes that all people are rational and will follow the better argument (hello again, white, male, patriarchal notion of knowledge), which as current politics illustrate is decidedly not the case. People will believe what fits their world view. Another issue (also reflected in commiespaceinvader’s statement) is that not only may non-historians not be able to fully assess the quality of responses, but that voting often reflects users’ biases. This was also observed by [Mills \(2018\), who, in his study on political advocacy on reddit, found that highly upvoted comments often reflect users’ consensus on a given topic. This leads to the third reason letting the upvotes decide is problematic: in a system where voting determines what content is seen and what is hidden, and where voting often reflects bias, this means that the biases held by the prevailing demographic are those that will be promoted. Reddit, and AskHistorians, is predominantly young, white, and male. This affects not only what’s upvoted (and thus seen) but also what questions are asked. In other words, upvoted questions and answers often reflect interests and assumptions typically associated with young, white, men. The people I spoke to highlighted a number of ways the question asking and voting patterns of the demographic affected their participation. First, those whose expertise falls outside the interests of the prevailing demographic described rarely having the opportunity to answer questions in their field and when a question did touch on their area of expertise, it may not be from the perspective that most interested them, as was stated by u/mimicofmodes: >Most of my questions are about menswear (which I honestly don't care as much about as women's and children's dress), why don't we wear hats, why do we wear ties, etc. etc. While there are plenty of women who know nothing about fashion history, if there were more of them in the sub, they might at least ask about more interesting whys (when did we switch from stockings to tights, what's the history of pockets in women's dresses, did women of all classes wear corsets) - and maybe the rest of the fashion history community would be interested in asking each other questions here. This pattern of interest is described by moderator, u/sunagainstgold: >What is undeniably true, however, is the rarity of questions about women's issues (and swap in black, LGBTQ+, etc) and the patterns in which they tend to fall. Basically: rape, sex, marriage age, and rape. And rarely from women's perspective. Similarly, when asked about the role of the demographic, moderator u/searocksandtrees responded: >I think what it reflects to me is that there’s a lot more boyish topics that come up, whether it’s war and weapons and video games, and then a lot of really insensitive questions about rape. This pattern of question asking (i.e., questions are rarely asked and when they are, it’s without sensitivity) also applies to questions about the history of the global south, as was described by a former mod: >I hoped to use my position as mod to encourage people interested in African history, South Asian history, and other under-represented areas to get involved and apply for flair. However, there was never much success attracting people to apply for flair on those regions. I think that is because questions on those regions are rarely asked, and tend to receive fewer upvotes, so there is less opportunity for knowledgeable people to comment before the posts fall off the front page and are not seen by the sub's audience. In any case, my inability to promote those sorts of discussions and find more experts was disappointing. This quote highlights that this is not just a factor of demographics, but also of technology. If questions about the history of under-represented areas and people aren’t upvoted because they aren’t interesting to most users, they will get buried by questions that are. And one more sociotechnical factor that exacerbates the issue: most people (64.5%) enter AskHistorians through their front page (including me). This means that most people are only seeing questions asked that have a certain amount of upvotes, creating a feedback loop of hiding and promoting questions that appeal users in the majority demographic. In addition to the topics covered (or not) through question asking, the way questions are asked can also impact participation. In my last post I noted that some participants described learning how to detect bias from the way questions are asked. However, this bias can also, at times, discourage people from providing responses or continuing participation. That sentiment is reflected in this comment: >East African here. Most of us are not on Reddit and enjoy discussions on a different forum. Reddit in general doesn't have a good reputation. >I lurk quite a bit and would probably be able to answer a few questions, but the way they are negatively worded is a turn off. I find myself expending too much energy dispelling negative stereotypes so I opt not to comment. u/Commustar provides a few examples of what this looks like. Questions like, “Why was Africa less developed when Europeans started colonizing?” and “What was Nelson Mandela really like?” make certain assumptions: first about what is considered ‘developed’ and what is not, and second that history and the popular press present Nelson Mandela in a false light. Others ask about Africa through a European lens, such as “what did European explorers think of the African societies they encountered.” In circumstances in which biased or insensitive questions are asked, moderators are tasked with making the decision to let the question stand or delete it, and experts with the decision to respond to the question or ignore it. Moderator, u/Elm11 described deliberating whether or not to delete a highly upvoted, yet contentious question as the text accompanying the question contained a link to nude photographs of women: >We had a discussion about removing it because the pictures are incredibly . . . exploitative . . . And we just felt so shitty as moderators, because here was our community, which is meant to be giving people answers about the past, but what it’s doing is providing redditors with porn. And that’s what it ended up doing. And that’s why people have ended up looking at it and it’s it become a platform for these poor women to become humiliated again, like 80 years after the event. Again. Ultimately, they made the decision to let the question stand. Questions such as the examples shown above arise so often that the mods have an explanation for why this occurs. u/sunagainstgold outlines the phenomenon in this comment: >. . . it illustrates a distinct empathy gap, a socially-conditioned inability to default-extend intellectual personhood to people "different than us." One of the absolute most-asked questions on AH is "Did ancient soldiers have PTSD?" Sometimes we get to hear questions about knights having PTSD, too. Anyone want to take a swing at, in comparison, how many times people have asked about rape survivors and PTSD? (And when you search for it, be sure to filter out the questions that ask about the *soldier-rapists developing PTSD from massacring and raping civilians)* italics in original]. Above I showed examples of this empathy gap in questions asked. It’s also reflected in responses given – responses that are often removed by mods and thus invisible to regular users. A few examples from the thread containing the pictures of nude women include jokes like this: >Theyre going to get sandboxes. and this: >A standard new England clambake , as done in French Indochina during the war. as well as insults, such as this: >. . . In addition, women (and many men) were known to have an increased level of pancakes (a.ka. “flapjacks) in their diet during the war . . . hence the nature of the “pancake-tits” seen in the photographs This ties back into why letting the upvotes decide is not a model that works for AskHistorians. The women at whose expense jokes were made and bodies ridiculed were real, living people. Allowing comments like these to stand would fail to exhibit compassion. *Effects on AskHistorians participants* Because boundaries between subreddits are permeable, there’s only so much clearly defined and strictly applied rules can do. Mods have no control over users’ voting practices, the content of private messages, or comments made on other subreddits. While the work of the moderators creates a safe space within AskHistorians, women and other minorities are nonetheless aware of the potential consequences of being minority on reddit. Of the six women I spoke with, four described altering their participation (e.g., through identity management and self-censorship) due to negative encounters they personally experienced or witnessed on reddit. For example, one lurker described one of her reasons for not actively participating in AskHistorians: >popular subreddits can be pretty hostile sometimes. AskHistorians is EXTREMELY well-moderated, but I just don’t want to deal with the unnecessary stress that comes with submitting a post. As another example, one moderator described her rationale for participating, ostensibly, as a man: >It’s mostly because you get enough shit thrown at you as an AskHistorians mod without it becoming gendered. I mean I have received death threats and people threatening to murder my family not knowing that I even had a family. And I can just imagine what kind of disgusting rape comments and sexual harassment comments I would be getting if I was actually openly female. Some of the mods are openly female and I don’t know how they do that. In an email exchange with one openly female mod, Ruth expressed that she did, indeed, receive gendered abuse once harassers realize she’s a woman: >Yes, I get the occasional nasty PM when it becomes apparent in a thread that I'm female--I don't hide it; I want people to know there are women hanging around. In addition to altering participation on AskHistorians due to its location on reddit, participants also reported hiding their participation in AskHistorians from people they knew ‘in real life’ (or feeling embarrassed talking about it) because of reddit’s reputation. Despite participating in the largest online public history forum, professional, amateur, and student historians often did not feel comfortable sharing this with others. For example, when describing how he explained AskHistorians to a history professor at his university, u/Elm11 said: >you’re treading so carefully because you can’t just say, ‘look, I run the world’s largest historical outreach project’ . . . But I’ve gotta say, ‘I run the world’s largest historical outreach project and it’s on a cesspool of a website.’ However, this was not the case for everyone. AskHistorians moderators and panelists have presented on their participation in AskHistorians at multiple national conferences. Other participants included participation on their CVs. As u/sunagainstgold explained in [her presentation at the National Council on Public History's Annual Conference conference: >The quality of work being produced on AskHistorians is often astronomical. We need to get over our own anonymous user accounts and claim it.  **Strides forward and positive impacts** Although AskHistorians’ location on reddit is, at times, problematic for the sub, there are also advantages. While highly upvoted posts often expose the sub to disruptive users en masse, upvoting also exposes these new users to AskHistorians. This screenshot shows the impact highly upvoted posts have on subscribership (those spikes correlate with posts that hit r/all). Mills (2018) describes how ranking posts by upvotes creates a positive feedback loop because other users mimic what they see upvoted. In AskHistorians, mods have created a new “Great Question” flair that I’m hopeful will circumvent this phenomenon by providing qualitative feedback of what a good question is, rather than relying on upvotes alone as indications of quality. Further, regular features, such as Monday Methods, and meta] posts highlight pertinent issues that may not arise organically through question-asking, such as [this recent example on how ‘free speech’ enables Holocaust denial. Further, AskHistorians’ panel of experts, are, well, experts, in addressing misconceptions through their responses, such as this example in which u/chocolatepot explained why bras used to be pointy (spoiler alert: it’s not because women used to have pointy boobs!) While questions and upvotes might reflect the interests of the majority demographic, the community itself is incredibly receptive to learning new things and rewarding comments that demonstrate divergence from reddit’s norm. For example, one commenter in my recruitment post stated: >Answers here have helped me inform my political opinion, my thoughts regarding issues such as LGBT rights and feminism (it was actually an answer here that made me fully consider patriarchy theory!), colonialism and and sic] its very subtle effects on today's society, and last but perhaps most importantly, have had an influence on my overall thought process and problem solving. Comments banning users for using homophobic slurs have been gilded, and one participant told me about how a very feminist comment she’d written was not only highly upvoted, but also submitted to best of. AskHistorians’ success as a public history site may not only have a positive effect on individual users, but [as described by u/restricteddata, on the rest of reddit and online communities more broadly: >AH is sort of a "killer app" for "what the Internet could be if people are willing to put the effort into it" and I think that's very positive. The fact that the rest of Reddit can be so awful in so many different ways only underscores the contrast — if Reddit can be made to be non-awful, what else is possible in the world? Indeed, in a recent study AskHistorians was used as an example of a well moderated site in an attempt to identify abusive behaviour using machine learning techniques (Chandrasekharan et al, 2017). AskHistorians’ rules are derived from norms established within academic history and modified to include a broader audience. Thus, the exact style or approach may not work for all other subreddits or communities. However, in carving out a regulated space in which readers can access trustworthy information about the past, and engage with it through question-asking, follow-up, and debate, AskHistorians is an apt model for promoting civil discourse online and at scale. This could not be maintained without the monumental efforts of the mod team. Their experiences are the subject of the next, and last, post. **References (peer reviewed)** Chandrasekharan, E., Pavalanathan, U., Srinivasan, A., Glynn, A., Eisenstein, J., & Gilbert, E. (2017). You Can't Stay Here: The Efficacy of Reddit's 2015 Ban Examined Through Hate Speech. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 1(2). doi: 10.1145/3134666 Chandrasekharan, E., Samory, M., Srinivasan, A., & Gilbert, E. (2017). The bag of communities: identifying abusive behavior online with preexisting internet data. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 3175-3187. doi: 10.1145/3025453.3026018 Massanari, A. (2017). #Gamergate and The Fappening: How Reddit’s algorithm, governance, and culture support toxic technocultures. New Media & Society, 19(3), 329-346. doi: 10.1177/1461444815608807 Mills, R. A. (2018). Pop-up political advocacy communities on Reddit. com: SandersForPresident and The Donald." AI & Society 33(1), 39-54. doi: 10.1007/s00146-017-0712-9

ebkmc7o

ebizv89

What a fantastic series of posts, and I can't wait for part 3. This was definitely the one I was most interested in reading after the great scroll through the first one. The kind of stuff the mods have to deal with is beyond belief. I've been a bit evangelical among my friends/family/coworkers about AskHistorians so I've noticed all kinds of responses about 'reddit' or even just the internet. My family especially is very big into history, so I started emailing them links to good answers, or in the case of some older relatives I even printed some off for them to read. (They can have a hard time reading stuff on a screen.) What I've found interesting is that to most of my older family or friends, they think it's just another forum. Trying to tell them about reddit usually just ends up with them telling me about the glory days of forums back in the 80's or 90's or something. Some might have heard about reddits scummy reputation, but to them that's pretty part and parcel for an online forum. It's among my friends my age or a bit younger/older that the reputation seems to have more of an effect.

Thanks for this great post, lots of the information I already knew from (like you) being a reader here for years (almost from the beginning - another account), specially the difficulty of running a great place like this here in reddit, but it's great seeing all in on good post, together with those interview, saving it. Also like some other users you mentioned, this place changed some of my bias and views for the better. I would also love for this to move to another platform to encourage more diverse questions (African, Asian, woman issues, etc), but I understand why the mods are very reluctant to do it.

o7fxnt

askculinary_train

flour EVERYWHERE Hi r/AskCulinary! I recently got a job making and laminating dough for \~10 hours a day. Flour is abrasive on my arms and clogs my pores/eyes/nostrils even after I shower. Is there some kind of industry secret that can a) prevent this from happening and/or b) a good method for flushing/washing it off later? Thanks in advance! And sorry if this isn't within the guidelines. I'm not sure where else to pose this question... yours truly, crusty

h2z1ih9

h2yxv2v

QSHE here. *Please* wear PPE. Get a comfortable dust mask, goggles and wear as much covering you are comfortable with (possible sleeves up until mid forearm and hairnet) If you need help with choosing the appropriate ratings / models, let me know where you are and I can check the local standards :) Particular emphasis on the dust mask. Any kind of particulate can be dangerous to your health when inhaled, especially with long-term exposure, better protect yourself as much as possible. Also worth noting that those should be provided by your employer (together with the guidance on how to use them) at no cost to you

Wear a mask!! Might help with the sinus thing, but more importantly, might help with the lung disease you might develop at a later age due to all the inhaled flour.

uii87g

askacademia_train

Is it still impostor syndrome if you’re objectively not good enough? I like to think I do good work, but my group just had 6/7 submission rejected for not being good enough. I’ve put in nearly 20 years, but my citation count is still only as high as fresh PhDs. I can act like I fit in with peers, but the objective measures clearly show I don’t. Anyone else face this? Any advice?

i7ew39r

i7f4975

Six of seven is a lot of research but you don't say if your group is seven people. If so six academic peer-review refereed articles is a lot when one article might take a year or longer. Did you have statistically significant results? Did your hypotheses add to the literature? Were there reviewer comments to be addressed? Hard to say without more info but if you have worked 20 years with inadequate number of publications re-think what you are researching as well as who you are, or not, working with on research.

Don't listen to those who say you aren't doing well, it's positive gaslighting which leads to complacency. Try to get better, or focus on other areas you can contribute to like teaching and service.

otd2a0

askculinary_train

When frying, why do you start at the right temperature, add food, then wait for the oil to get back up to temp. Why not start higher, add food and let it go to the right temperature? When frying at home, I don’t like using a ton of oil. So when I add a lot of food, it cools down a lot. I could of course add less, but then cooking takes forever. Is there anything wrong with overshooting the heat?

h6w3u3g

h6vlfyw

I'm just going to chime in on the not using tons of oil. If you're not using enough oil to maintain a good frying temperature your food is actually absorbing more oil than it needs to. Fry with the correct amount of oil for what and how much youre frying. Using more oil does.not mean your food absorbs more oil.

I usually let anything im about to fry come up to room temperature. Right after breading i let it hang out on the counter for a bit. Maybe 20 or 30 minutes depending on what it is. Also heating up the oil beyond the smoke point degrades the oil.

9zh1e6

askengineers_train

Engineers of reddit, what side projects (non-job related) are you working on and where do you go to get resources (technical information, mechanical tools & parts) to build these projects? Just curious what types of projects engineers spend on their spare time and where do you get the resources to start this projects. Also, if you would like to be specific, why did you start these side projects?

ea99c0s

ea98xkn

I’m a mech eng and currently learning python. It becomes something of an addiction. Using it for automation tasks in my job (Project engineering) and plan to submit my program for an internal innovation competition with potential spoils of 12K. It’s not for the money though. I’ve done the paperwork for hours on end some days and it needs to improve in efficiency. Can be rolled out across the office and will greatly reduce spent man hours on menial paperwork of which there is lots (Pharmaceutical client). Plus python is free. Only investment is time.

My biggest hobby is shooting. Most projects beyond normal household things like remodels and appliance repair revolve around shooting. I reload for all centerfire rounds I shoot so that takes up a bit of time not only with the actual reloading but press setup and maintenance. There is also gun maintenance, modification and building. I just recently finished up a 10/22 steel challenge setup. Before that was an 80% Glock build. I've put together three ARs and am now complimenting my fourth.

rllun0

askscience_train

Is it possible for a planet to have only ONE polar ice cap? Does it depend on how far the planet is from the star & the planet's tilt on the axis & other factors? Or is it only possible for the planet to have two ice caps? I'm doing this for worldbuilding, & the ice cap is at the southern part of the planet.

hphdf7p

hphlzu9

The most recent ice age on Earth began first in the southern hemisphere and remained that way for millions of years before the onset of northern glaciation. So between about 35 and 15 million years ago, this is how the Earth would have looked. In the longer term, there's not really any particular reason to think that northern hemisphere glaciation had to be inevitable once the southern had begun either. Southern glaciation is commonly attributed to the development of the Anatarctic Circumpolar Current as Australia and South America separated from Antarctica. On the other hand, the more global glaciation that includes the northern hemisphere may be attributed to the loss of several low latitude seaways, like the final closing of the late Tethys, the rising of the Panama Isthmus, and narrowing of the Indonesian Through Flow. These events were separate by many millions of years and there's no necessary tectonic connection between them and the formation of the Antarctic Circumpolar, so no reason that northern hemisphere glaciation had to develop at all.

Here on Earth, the geological climate record shows that the south polar ice caps covered most of Antarctica 28 million years ago and reached more or less their present size 14 Ma ago. But the Greenland ice sheet only started forming 3 million years ago. So that's about 25 million years when Earth had only one polar ice cap. On a planet with oceans it's mainly down to presence of land at the poles. Oceans are much more resistant to freezing over.

p6g60d

askbaking_train

An atypical question for this subreddit :) Fellow bakers: do you bake your own cakes for your birthday? Since I started making cakes I always make my own! I am curious how everyone else is: do you make your own cake?

h9d88tw

h9dqqly

Nope. My mom always wants to try and whether good or bad I always love them ❤️

I have for the past few years! I enjoy it because I can make something exactly how I want it and try flavors that I’m particularly interested in / want to experiment with. Sometimes what I want doesn’t exist in a bakery anyway and often making it myself it way cheaper than buying too!

rqgmjq

explainlikeimfive_train

Explain like I'm five years old: Why are planes not getting faster? Technology advances at an amazing pace in general. How is travel, specifically air travel, not getting faster that where it was decades ago?

hqb4zn8

hqa1cjz

As a sidebar to the main answer, it may seem like passenger aircraft haven’t changed much in 60 years: same basic shape, similar speed. But there’s one huge advance that isn’t obvious: fuel efficiency. Today’s aircraft are **10 times more fuel efficient** than they were in the 1950s, in terms of fuel used per passenger per km. This has been achieved through bigger planes with more seats, but mostly through phenomenal improvements in engine technology. Planes *are* getting better, just not in a way that’s obvious to passengers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_economy_in_aircraft#/media/File%3AAviation_Efficiency_(RPK_per_kg_CO2).svg

>Technology advances at an amazing pace in general. How is travel, specifically air travel, not getting faster that where it was decades ago? They *were* getting faster to the point where there was consumer-grade supersonic travel. Then the consumers voted with their wallet against that (they didn't use it), indicating that speed is not a consumer priority when it comes at a higher cost.

3ab3gl

askengineers_train

How do they "ruggedize" electronics for military equipment to withstand the shock of battle? What is different about a circuit board in a tank than a circuit board in your computer? How do they make sure things like solder joints don't pop off as easily after an artillery strike? Do they use different pcb substrates, different types of components, different manufacturing standards, etc?

csax8lv

csazc91

And does it include protection from EMP?

I used to work for a company that did just this. The basic concept boils down to putting "springs" under or hanging items from "springs". These "springs" are basically rubber blocks that dampen or slow down the shockwave, sometimes the actual circuit board does not even need to be ruggedized as the springs will reduce the shock from the explosion.

jbtzqe

askbaking_train

How to stay sustainable while baking? I could find a similar thread here, but maybe I just didn't look hard enough. I love baking, but I feel kind of guilty when I bake too much. Heating up the oven uses a lot of energy, cleaning up afterwards uses lots of water, and sometimes I need to use animal products or one-use equipment such as parchment paper. I'd love to bake more and improve as a baker, but my impact on the environment prevents me from doing so. The question is - how can I be more sustainable while baking (and working in the kitchen in general)? Give me every tip you have. Personally I try to use reusable parchment paper or re-use regular one until it gets too dirty, and I try to bake a few things at a time when it's possible. My father said we are going to get solar panels soon, so I'm looking forward to that.

g8yqhef

g8xuamr

Heating up the oven takes very little energy. Compared to using a stove top, ovens are insanley efficient. Putting more stuff into the oven isn't going to significantly increase the efficiency at which you're using the oven. Remember that the heating element is turning on and off to maintain temperatures, and that everything you add into the oven needs to be heated to a certain temperature, so the only energy you save is the pre-heating energy, and maybe a little bit of the waste loss as a result of imperfect insulation. It's probably not worth thinking about saving this tiny amount of energy. Cleanup should be as minimal as possible, minimizing dishes is very important for that reason, and baking requires cleaning less then most other things I do. I can make a pie crust and dirty nothing else then a bench knife and the workbench. I use fat-shortenning, its a fat which can be used much like lard or butter, but it's plant based and has a much higher melting point then butter, which makes it more practical for me. Parchement paper is paper coated with silicone, which I usually avoid, and use fat-shortening instead. Silicone pads wouldn't be much better. Other then that, plastic warps are actually going to be less wasteful then cleaning the dishes, so I tend to use them when it makes sense.

I don't know where you are, but I'm in Italy and I casually found a brand of parchment paper which is compostable. Now I only buy that. I can't imagine why they don't write this information as big as the entire box, nor why they don't even advertise it. It's a small start, but it's better than nothing. And I know someone makes compostable piping bags, but I haven't found them here yet.

17zlbl

asksocialscience_train

Can someone who has studied economics explain how it has changed and shaped you view of the world?

c8aca92

c8ad5rf

Studying economics has left me utterly floored by how little the people in power actually know about managing a large economic system. The things some of them say simply leaves me floored.

Incentives matter. This comes up in public policy a lot. Some guy proposes a tax on X and thinks, well everyone is just going to sit there and pay up. Nope, people will start doing less of X and more of Y. When you make something cheaper or easier, people do more of it. When you make something expensive or harder, people do less of it.

pb29ae

askengineers_train

For those who are graduated with a GPA of 2.3 and under ... how is everything ? I’m headed in that direction, and not sure if I want to continue. So just wanted to know if anyone has had a hard time with jobs / self well-being / in general .. Anyone on reddit want to share ? PS im in m.eng…

haah3vb

haagxzb

I'm am EE that graduated with a 2.31 major GPA, and 2.58 total GPA, and honestly the only people who didn't want to take me right away because of GPA was Rockwell, but I had head hunters from everywhere coming to me. As long as you have some experience in the area you want, from internship or co-op, you'll be just fine. Plus there are plenty of companies out there that don't much care for GPAs. I've heard GE Healthcare only looks for a minimum GPA of 2.0. So there is a chance that you can cut your teeth AND get GE on your resume. Just do your best, and someone will give you a chance. Keep your head up, or face in the books. Hahaha! Good luck! Edit: If you have ANY hobbies DO NO FORGET TO PUT THOSE ON YOUR TRANSCRIPT / RESUME / CV! Employers LOVE them some hobbies that apply to the position!

Nobody ever asked me about my GPA in my engineering career. Just show up, have confidence, and get the job done.

azt33u

changemyview_train

CMV: You can’t expect those working for the minimum wage to do more then minimal work I’ll try to keep it short because I can ramble. I may just be acting like a disgruntled retail employee but this is my view on this. I’m not debating minimum wage rates or anything like that, I realize even at a living wage a minimum wage salary is just going to get you by not put you in a position to save, etc. so my point would probably stand despite an increase in minimum wage. If an employee is being paid what is deemed as the lowest amount legally able to be paid to an employee you can’t expect than the lowest possible effort they can get away with from those employees. A lot of minimum wage employees have other things on their mind, such as advancing economically, they may have a side hustle or be a student, both of which are probably way more promising (as far bringing them a meaningful career and satisfaction from their work) then whatever minimum wage job their currently working. That being said, I totally respect those individuals who give everything their all and will go above and beyond for little or no reward. That’s definitely a positive quality for someone to have IMO but it’s unrealistic for the average individual raised in American, watching countless people make millions off BS, to be satisfied living paycheck to paycheck making minimum wage and therefore give maximum effort in position with little possibly of raising the ‘corporate ladder’ and a good chance you’ll be constantly in fear of company restructuring, lay offs, etc. To sum up my point, most people (unless your one of those fine individuals truly motivated by helping, improving thing, etc.) especially those working for minimum wage are solely motivated by money so for a company or even customers of a retail business (or any business not motivated by extra tips for good service) to think an employee is suppose to be go above and beyond or even really care that much is u realistic and somewhat delusional considering all the factors.

ei9vfca

ei9vcxq

An employer has the right to seek his appropriate employee. An employee has the right to not take that job with its requirements. There is no standard for minimal work; you either do it appropriately for the job you were hired for or you need to leave by firing or by choice. The flip side of course is that an employer hiring staff with too high a threshold of responsibilities and not enough pay will find it harder to find employees willing to work for him. The alternative is to realign the duties of the staffer or across all employees, or pay higher for the position.

The whole "minimum wage means minimum effort" is the best way to stay at minimum wage. This might not matter to a college kid but for plenty of people a minimum wage job is the first rung on the economic ladder.

6d3a4b

askscience_train

Discussion: MinuteEarth's Newest Video On The Geographic Origins Of Different Foods Hello everyone! Today on AskScience we're going to learn about where our food comes from! No, not just the ground, but the geographic origins of different foods! You can check out MinuteEarth's new video about the topic here. We are joined by the video creator Alex Reich (/u/reichale) as well as two experts on the subject. Colin Khoury (/u/Californensis) is a research scientist at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the USDA National Laboratory for Genetic Resources Preservation. He studies how changes in global crop diversity affect human health and the environment, and is particularly interested in the wild relatives of food crops. Nathanael Johnson (/u/Nathanael47) is a Grist staff writer and the author of two books. Nate specializes in stories about food, agriculture, and science. He has written pieces for Harper's, This American Life, and New York Magazine. He lives in Berkeley, California. Feel free to hit them with username mentions in your comments.

dhzm8p9

dhzhsqh

Hi! Thanks for taking the time to do this. My question: When and how did humans first learn to preserve food for long periods of time, and did it differ by geological location?

so i just finished watching the episode about different foods and i was wondering; why is North America so so food boring for food that originated here

y4n0gf

askculinary_train

what's that "smoke" flavor in the seasoning? tldr: how do I best fake that smoky woodfire bbq flavor? whenever I'm out grocery shopping, I would buy a bottle of those premade seasonings / rubs. Each visit, trying a different brand, flavor, etc to test out and see what I like. recently, I've been trying a lot of the ones that are labeled as smoky, smoke, hickory, mesquite, bbq, cowboy, western, or any other variations along that line. My goal was to try and find one that would substitute the use of liquid smoke (on a steak cooked on a gas grill). They all look and taste very similar-- red in color, tastes like smoked paprika or has a cumin kind of flavor. I nearly gave up because my steaks were almost always coming out tasting like chili or tacos haha, which was definitely not what I wanted! Then, I came across "Smoky" Montreal Steak seasoning. I was familiar with the Montreal steak seasoning, but had never noticed the "smoky" version. I tried it, and it had a very pronounced (more than the other seasonings I've previously tried, at least) smokiness to it. What's giving off that smoke flavor? How is that achieved? Is this "smoky" ingredient available as a stand-alone? I'm testing these on ribeyes on a Weber Q gas grill. I'd usually do a coffee rub to give it somewhat of a charred/smoky flavor... but what I'm really after is that woodfire/charcoal smokiness. So, how do I best fake it?

isg7i8d

isewfxr

Liquid smoke, smoked salt, and smoked paprika all work for different dishes! My parents always threw liquid smoke in their bbq sauce (doctored up bottled sauce). And also as part of the prep for ribs and steak going on the grill. I like to a bit of smoked salt for finishing. And smoked paprika in stews and chilies and dry rubs.

You don't need to fake it. Get a smoke tray and some wood chips. Works great with a gas grill. Otherwise use liquid smoke. Be careful because a little can go a long way

m1ffyj

askbaking_train

Cakes for "Purple Day" Hello! Every year at work, we hold a "purple day" to raise money for asthmauk in memory of a colleague who passed away after an asthma attack. Every year I am asked to take in cakes, and this year I'm drawing a blank! I've previously done cupcakes with purple decorations, entremets with purple collars, purple cheesecake, blackberry eclairs... If you were given the theme of "purple", what would you do? It's also worth bearing in mind that due to work patterns, purple day is held on a Wednesday, and I work Mon-Fri so only have evenings to do fresh cake for the Wednesday, unless I make something at the weekend and keep it for the Wednesday. I have to do enough for two offices, one of approx 10 people and another for approx 20 people.

gqdcv2p

gqe6j9j

How about lavender?

I have seen some really beautiful ube cakes including this ube leche flan cake: https://newgenbaker.com/ube-leche-flan-cake/

8z105y

asksciencefiction_train

[general fantasy] why are humans generally weaker then elves and dwarfs?. how come elves/dwarfs always seem to be superior to humans in someway e.g elves are really good at magic and can live forever or how dwarfs are good blacksmiths and can although not immortal usually live longer then humans, why is that?.

e2fgye3

e2fky5a

in lotr, elves are more magical than humans, ergo they are generally better in every single way. but the elves are tied to the fate of the world, while humans, if they wish, can just ignore their fate and go do whatever they wish. if an elf is told "this is your destiny" he says "well shit, guess you're right, im gonna go die over there then", since he knows that its his fate and he cant change shit. if a human is told "this is your destiny" he has the option to say "fuck that, im gonna go and be a farmer, or a pimp, or whatever" and just ignore it. humans have more free will. atleast thats what i think, the elves are said to be tied to the fate of the world, im not sure how hard that goes. it means atleast that even when dead, they cant totally leave it. _______________________________________ in generally tho, its the curese of the immortal civilizations. if you live forever and have access to strong magics, technology just doesnt seem that intressting. dwarfs, who lives longer than humans, generally does tech better than humans, but they are more limited as they live under ground and have lesser numbers.

I can't speak for general fantasy, but in Lord of the Rings and the rest of the Tolkien Legendarium, the race of Man isn't completely inferior. In fact, they have some distinct advantages: 1) Strentgh: Men seem to be physically stronger than elves (even though both races tend to become weaker as history progresses), and dwarves as well, despite dwarves' larger force-to-weight ratio. 2)Mortality: Humans know they will die soon, no matter what they do. While that doesn't sound great for each individual human, it creates the potential for truly special feats of courage, as sacrificing your life is much easier when that's just a few decades. 3)Breeding: Humans reproduction *much* faster than elves, which allows them to colonize new lands or recover from a war without much trouble. I don't know if there's any information on dwarven reproduction, but I would guess they are also slow breeders, albeit not as slow as the elves. 4)Adaptability: Elves are very attached to the land they inhabit, usually in proximity with nature, but even that attachment is weaker than the "Call to the West", the irresistible desire all elves feel to sail out of Middle-Earth and into Aman (more specifically Valinor), where they are destined to live forever with the gods. Dwarves prefer to live underground, in caves and mines. So most will be confined to living under mountains, like Erebor and the Misty Mountains. Men, on the other hand, don't have a natural habitat, so, while the elves live in their forests and dwarves in their caves, humans are free to colonize the whole world, without prejudice.

gr5qpd

askacademia_train

Do professors view students interviewing them as an inconvenience? TL;DR- Will professors view me asking to interview them about their career as an inconvenience? I am doing a project that requires me to reach out to contacts all around my academic field and interview them regarding their career. However, when I reached out to some of my professors, most were willing to provide me contacts from their networks, but one came back and said that he discourages me from interviewing people within the field. He said that often times professors or other professionals view students asking to interview them as an inconvenience. Is this a common consensus? I feel discouraged to continue with this project now because of this.

fryga7z

frxvfhr

Be open and honest when you reach out, provide time and be understanding if they decline. Perhaps more important: show real interest, don't interview in a way that makes it seem like you are just checking boxes off for an assignment (even if that is all you are doing). Find a way to make it worthwhile for *you*, to learn things that you would like to know about working in various fields related to your own. Some people will find it inconvenient; that is true of anything though. Fact is, professor's are there for students. Students are why they have jobs. Some may hate teaching (which bothers the hell out of me) and instead only care about their research, thus minimizing interactions with students based on their own personality. There are a good number of academics that fit this 'model' but more that don't - thankfully. Any professor who blows you off or, worse, tells you that you are being rude or inconveniencing educators for working on your educations - then *they are the problem*. That professor sounds like someone who shouldn't be a professor, based on what little you've said. As long as you aren't pushy, show interest, and allow them time I think most will be happy to talk with you.

We're used to it. For several years running our incoming freshmen were required to interview a faculty member that wasn't teaching any of their classes as part of their first year experience class. I usually enjoyed those conversations. As long as you make an appointment in advance it wouldn't be an issue. Pretty much everyone on my campus does it multiple times each fall.

djnn3g

asksciencefiction_train

Futurama] Bender can stay "on" for untold periods of time. What kind of power source could permit such an existence? In [Roswell that Ends Well, just his head is stuck in the dirt for 1000+ years before the crew comes and finds him. In Bender's Big Score, his ability to wait out time in the limestone caverns beneath Planet Express is a major plot device. In The Futurama Holiday Spectacular, during the second of three stories, Bender is effectively just "chilling" for 500 MILLION years, and seems to be completely oblivious to the passage of time! What gives?

f478ggt

f475em1

Bender obviously has multiple power sources. While his primary is alcohol, the energy density of alcohol is insufficient for the amount of time he has been shown to be active. Even a Radioisotope Generator would have some difficulty outputting a sufficient amount of power at the 500 Million year mark. This leads to a few possibilities. 1. Unobtanium, I think it is likely that Bender has some form of unobtanium based fuel that works on a principle absolutely incomprehensible to the 21st century mind. 2. Matter/Antimater reactor. Bender has a small reservoir of antimatter that he can release slowly to mix with found matter. The antimatter matter energy is so potent, that if his reservoir was the size of a golf ball, he still has plenty left. 3. Zero Point Energy. Bender has the ability to harness the spontaneous generation of particles/antiparticles from space as an energy source. While this reaction is officially energy neutral, as the particles antiparticles are created and destroyed in pairs, Bender can bend this reaction (hence his name) so that the pair do not annihilate each other, but instead provide Bender with fuel. The waste of this process, a beam of anti-particles, is slowly destroying the universe, and damaging everything and everyone in his vicinity. Bender is aware of this fact, but knows if he tells the people around him he is slowly killing them they will destroy him, so he instead acts like an asshole to keep people away from him.

Well, canonically he's powered by alcohol (like most robots) and even has the knowledge of how to brew or distill his own if necessary if no other sources can be found. He just presumably is able to hibernate without using power if necessary. Likely his systems, memory, etc. are solid state, and sufficiently resilient to remain functional for thousands of years, then it isn't an issue. Really, it's more that whatever *stores* the energy would have to be very efficient to be able to still hold a charge after such a long time.

xx0pv8

changemyview_train

CMV: The “nobody is putting a gun to their head and forcing them to do X” is an absurdly low bar for justifying particular conditions This is an argument I see expressed from time to time, especially with regards to working conditions or wages. I get that it’s hyperbolic and not to be taken literally, but I think it represents an underlying view of the world. So a typical exchange will go something like this: “It’s awful that workers at xyz big corporation are treated the way they are or paid the amount they are” “Yeah well nobody is putting a gun to their head making them work there” To me it seems this way of thinking is blind to the fact that there are different types and levels of coercion. A gun to the head is an extremely immediate and high level form, while social pressure from family is a lower form, for example. Most of us would probably happily say “people would never work for xyz large corporation under those conditions but they have a gun to their head so we should create a system where nobody has to make those choices” and yet we seem to be unwilling to say “people would never work for xyz large corporation under those conditions unless they were a few months of no wages away from eviction, inability to pay bills or even homelessness, so we should create a system where nobody faces that choice” Basically, my view is that the impending threat of immediate death should not be the bar by which we measure whether or not people are being unethically compelled to live their lives in particular ways, I’m curious to see if anyone can change that view

irau409

ir9eqdl

Calling it coercion comes off as entitled. Anyone living in the first world today has more options than the vast majority of people in human history. Millions of people abandon their friends and family at home and even risk their lives just to get a job that's harder and pays less than a Amazon warehouse job. Calling it coercion also downplays the amount of money the government and charities spend on aid. The government spent $2 trillion during the pandemic on stimulus checks and extended unemployment, yet a lot of people treat it as an entitlement rather than a opportunity to improve their condition.

>Most of us would probably happily say “people would never work for xyz large corporation under those conditions but they have a gun to their head so we should create a system where nobody has to make those choices” and yet we seem to be unwilling to say “people would never work for xyz large corporation under those conditions unless they were a few months of no wages away from eviction, inability to pay bills or even homelessness, so we should create a system where nobody faces that choice” Because the difference is very clear and extremely important. In one situation the workers are being coerced due to a factor inflicted by the people doing the coercing. In the other situation, the workers experience negatives inflicted not by the people employing them but by biology. The need to intake calories to create energy requires people to eat. Eating requires food. Food requires labor. The way we compensate labor in society is through money. The way many people acquire money is through work. Therefore for many people, the need to intake calories requires work. The two situations are incomparable. People have a right to not be threatened with death in order to coerce them. People don't have a right to the labor of others in order to survive. If someone is suffering it is generally a good thing to help them. But if you did not cause that suffering you do not have a duty to help them unless you put yourself in a situation where it is your responsibility to help them. In short, putting a gun to someone's head and forcing them to work is coercion. Hiring someone for a job they wouldn't otherwise do if they could afford to not work isn't.

7z3xvl

askculinary_train

How do chefs at Indian restaurants ensure that the rice in Biryani dishes is: a.) so long and b.) not sticky at all while also not being dry? I LOVE Biryani, specifically the rice and the way the grains are incredibly long and skinny and do not stick together at all but are still tender and delicious. I've never tried making Biryani, but whenever I make rice, I aim for that texture. However, even if I buy long or extra long grain rice, the rice grains are never quite as long and skinny as they are at Indian restaurants. Is it an issue of ingredients or technique? When I make rice I usually use 1 1/4 cup of water to a little less than 1 cup of dry rice (either "long grain," "extra long grain," or basmati), bring to boil and then simmer, top on, for about 15-18 mins. It usually turns out "alright" but never as nice as I've eaten in Biryani dishes from professional kitchens. Help!

dulkwff

dulq4ir

I use this rice (below) and I use Shan mixes. The directions on the Shan mix makes rice in the style you desire. Essentially you cook it like pasta. Restaurant quality biryani every time! Shan’s recipe: http://www.shanfoods.com/product/recipe-mixes/rice/biryani/ The Shan mix itself: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004VIBBGE/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_dXyJAbQCFZ8CV Nice extra long grain biryani: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0056JWEX6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_xLyJAbVGJC7K8 This is how most of my Indian coworkers told me how they cook biryani. The Shan spices are always super fresh, I assume it has something to do with the very thick foil packet.

I spent six months at a biryani restaurant, so hopefully I can answer this. Very good quality basmati rice is used, I can't remember the exact variety we used but it was expensive. The rice is soaked for a long time, this removes the starch and enlarges the rice, lengthening it. The rice is then boiled in a lot of water (I think this makes a huge difference because the rice isn't confined whilst cooking) but only to about 70% doneness. Oil is added to the rice boiling water along with spices. We would then drain it and chill it down for use during service. The rice is sealed in the degh with the meat and other ingredients and baked. This water inside evaporates and finishes cooking the rice. This however is just one method of cooking biryanis (the awadhi method I believe, could be wrong) there are other methods which involved raw ingredients being out into the degh and cooked for a much longer time. Let me know if you have any other questions, I can give you a full method/recipe if you'd like.

6apjl9

explainlikeimfive_train

Explain like I'm five years old: Why do so many websites (mainly news sites) now have a "continue reading" button a few lines down the page? Why not just show the whole article to begin with?

dhgex09

dhgwc5u

I've wondered this - have to assume there's a useful metric to be collected and an extra dollar to be made. Maybe to measure engagement, based on headlines/opening paragraphs/etc..?

A way to track popularity of the article. If they just count the number of people that access an article then they would count people who clicked wrong and didn't read the article. Also, they want to filter out people who don't read past the first paragraph or two. This metric is much more accurate about how popular the article is. And can give information, when compared to total accesses, about how poorly their site is designed by identifying number of miss-clicks.

sao1mj

asksciencefiction_train

[SW/The Mandalorian] Why did Mandalorian groups such as the Tribe continue to hide after the Fall of the Empire, and is Mandalore still under Imperial Rule even with the rise of the New Republic?

htve6o1

htvo8fm

They're remnants of the Deathguard IIRC, they mention that in season 2 when he meets other Mandalorians, that have different "traditions".

The group that Din is apart of is literally called “Children of Watch” which aren’t confirmed to be direct descendants of the survivors of Deathwatch, are heavily implied to at least be offshoots. This puts Din’s tribe to be an equivalent to a off shoot of ISIS. Back during the Clone Wars Deathwatch with the help of Darth Maul managed kill Dutchess Satine (Bo Katan’s sister) and plunge Mandalore into such chaos that a Republic invasion force was necessary to reclaim it. This all happened right at the end of the Clone Wars leading into an Imperial occupation. Then fast forword a couple of years Bo Katan manages to get the Darksaber from Sabine (different character from Rebels) whose family had some claim to the throne of Mandalore. But Bo Katan was gifted the Darksaber and her already weak claim to the throne was further weakened by not winning the Darksaber. There is nothing but pure hatred from Bo Katan towards Deathwatch and her followers share a similar hatred. Deathwatch is indirectly responsible for the Great Purge of Mandalore and I imagine the common citizen of Mandalore shares a lot of hate. So with the history of Deathwatch it’s no surprise offshoots or direct descendants want to stay hidden. Even if they know they can do better than their ancestors there’s so much bad blood and so many enemies both Mandalorian and non-Mandalorian it makes sense they want to stay hidden to build strength.

yns6fo

explainlikeimfive_train

Explain like I'm five years old: hydrofluoric acid (HF) is one of the most corrosive substances, but fluoride (F-) is present in most toothpastes. Acid liquids contain H+ ions. Why isn't it instant disaster when, say, one drinks tomato juice or a Coke (both fairly acid) after brushing one's teeth ?

ivajswm

ivat6yu

This problem comes up a lot, which is "why is it this element is not dangerous in this molecule but it is in this other one." The answer in a "big picture" perspective is that dangerous chemicals tend to be unstable and highly reactive- they also take a good deal of energy and effort to isolate or to make them that unstable. In turn, most of the substances you run into are pretty stable unless they were very intentionally made not to be. In your example, the fluoride rapidly reacts when applied in the toothpaste, and also the loose H+ in the coke also reacts. The H+ is generally in the form of carbonic acid, which is much more stable than Hfl. The reaction won't happen because the H+ has much less reason to bind with the Fl than remain in it's current state or to bond with something else entirely.

There's some pretty bad answers in this thread talking about the difference between atoms and molecules which is not really relevant here. When people think about HF as an acid, they're generally thinking about it in a water solution. And when people think about fluoride in toothpaste they're generally thinking about NaF (Sodium Fluoride... it's not always exactly NaF... but the difference isn't very relevant here), again in solution in the toothpaste. Neither of these are "molecules" with covalent bonds that pair the atoms together in a specific configuration/structure. The individual atoms don't pair up into molecules at all in these two cases, it's like a big ionic soup with the ionized atoms floating by each other very loosely/fluidly. So if HF and NaF both act as ionic solutions, why does one melt your teeth fairly immediately and the other slowly reinforce them? The difference is the left-half of those combinations. - For not-eli5-able reasons... Fluorine atoms REALLY want one extra electron, and there are very few things that a fluorine atom is incapable of stealing an electron from. In both HF and NaF this is what it's doing. - Na (sodium) is the absolute opposite of F. It REALLY want to get rid of an electron, and there are relatively few things it's incapable of dumping an electron into. In the case of NaF, the sodium wants to ditch an electron, and the F want to grab one. Both the sodium and the fluoride get what they want and so the result is not very reactive. Together they become a stable salt (or ionic solution in water) - The H in HF is hydrogen. Atomic hydrogen is sort of middle of the road in terms of electron attraction. It's most stable in a covalent bond where it kind of shares an extra electron with a buddy. You CAN steal an electron from it (and fluorine does), but the resulting H+ ion is pretty reactive and there's a lot of stuff it will try to get into trouble with if it can. So the difference between HF and NaF is not at all about molecules vs atoms, and it's not about the Fluorine behaving differently. In both cases, you have ionic solutions where Fluorine is stealing the electron it wants from pretty much whatever happens to be handy. The difference is how stable the OTHER thing is once Fluorine has torn an electron off of it. An Na+ ion is as stable as an F- ion in a water solution and together they behave very similarly to table salt (NaCl, which has very similar chemical properties for very similar reasons). An H+ ion, on the other hand, is not stable at all. It would really like to get into a covalent bond with about 1.5 electrons under its influence... and there are a lot of molecules/atoms/ions it will react with to do it. If those molecules happen to be in your teeth or face, it's rather uncomfortable. *Edit: Another major factor I'm seeing from subsequent answers is the difference in concentration. There is such a small concentration of fluorine ions in toothpaste they may well be able to use HF as the source of them without making the toothpaste meaningfully corrosive because it's a drop in the ocean. But for the reasons I outlined above, any industrial toothpaste making process will prefer to handle NaF (or other non-corrosive fluoride sources) in their factory over HF.*

fzvsv2

askengineers_train

How hard is the FE exam? (Texas, USA if it matters). Be the time I'm ready to take the FE, I will have been an engineering student for about 6 years (not because I failed classes, but because I've been trying to protect my GPA: 3.59). I know the FE exam is 6+ hours, but I wanted to ask you guys what your personal hardest questions were (so I can plan studying? I'm a ME engineer, but if the exam is different for different sectors of engineering, please put your experiances too!

fn6usbn

fn6p5ps

The test has a 70% pass rate and a 30% failure rate for first time takers. It's doable but you should study a bit for sure. The exam gives you a detailed list of topics that will be asked about. Be sure you know exactly what to study so you don't waste time!

Yeah it's really not that bad, as long as you familiarize yourself with the reference manual and do some practice problems/exams.

ze6ok9

askbaking_train

How do you reconstitute Buttermilk Powder.......in metric? Sorry my American friends but I have no mental visualisation of this and it's making me feel a bit stupid. The instructions say. "Blend 1/4 cup of powder into an 8oz glass of water." I know that 8oz is a cup but if I **blend a quarter cup of powder into an 8oz glass** and the glass is full it's obviously going to be displaced by the powder....so what they actually mean is "blend 1/4 of a cup of powder into a cup that is 3/4 filled with water and mix it up and if it hasn't reached the top of the cup then top it up with water and if it spills (because you are trying to mix a cup that is almost filled to the brim) then too bad" Or do they mean "Mix 1/4 cup of powder with 8oz (a cup) of water into a separate container that can hold more than a cup?" The difference in volume would be quite significant and the power of the buttermilk would be different. One is around 3/4 cup of water to 1/4 cup of powder, and the other is 1 cup of water to 1/4 cup of powder. Someone please help me. Metric would be so lovely. Thanks to the nutrition facts box I know that 1/4 cup of powder is 30g, so that's sorted. The brand is "Now Real Food" Fresh buttermilk is extremely uncommon where I live. Only powdered. Thank you so much for helping with what must be such a simple concept for you. I don't have any experience or history with buttermilk so I really am clueless.

iz5ae77

iz5lq4r

Do you have creme fraiche where you live? I could be wrong but I think the cultures are similar. I've used them to make the other and vice versa

> and if it spills (because you are trying to mix a cup that is almost filled to the brim) then too bad FYI l, in the US, you will hear people refer to a “liquid measure” (measuring cup for liquids) vs “dry measure” (typically a set of scoops or spoons that are precisely sized to contain a specific volume of dry materials, which can be leveled off with a knife or finger to the exact amount by scraping the excess off from the top. So if someone is measuring 8 oz of water or 1 cup of water, they would use a liquid measuring cup (as opposed to a one-cup dry measure) that has extra volume so it doesn’t spill over the edge and you could mix in other ingredients to it if needed. Similarly, you wouldn’t use a liquid measure for flour, because you wouldn’t be able to easily level the contents to make sure you have the right volume (if you shake the liquid measure to even it out across the top, the flour will end up too compact and you’ll have too much). Here is a good article that explains liquid vs dry measure and shows some pictures (specifically, the first picture after the conversion table).

elwhru

asksciencefiction_train

[James Bond] I'm an up-and-coming super rich international criminal. Where the fuck do I find a contracting company who can build me a super cool, weaponized, and hidden lair that will both take me seriously and won't go blabbing about it? Hey guys! Like I mentioned, I'm an extremely wealthy criminal and I have some really great ideas for a new world order I want to implement, and I'm really trying to get my name out there with the international crime community. But at the last big Major Criminal Meetup, alot of the other big villains were making fun of me for running my criminal empire from an office in a Kansas office park. One asshole even said the world wouldn't hear of my activities "for months." Anyway, I found this sweet-ass island out in the Pacific with an inactive volcano that would be perfect for a cool base so the rest of the underworld and the world's governments will finally start paying attention to me and my demands. Ive approached several major construction firms about getting the place built, but I'm having no luck. Alot of them lose interest when I tell them I want the volcano hollowed out and want retractable doors installed in the crater for my Osprey (I painted it black and red, so people will know I mean business!). Even the ones who claim they can do that wind up backing off in horror when I start talking about the laser turrets I want hidden among the rocks and plants, or the silo for my stolen nuclear weapon (Ive got it in a Uhaul storage shed right now). A few of them even tried calling the Police/FBI/Department of Defense and it has cost a bundle in bribes and staged accidents to get that all taken care of. I even tried e mailing those SPECTRE snobs to ask if they had recommendations. They just sent an email back that said "Haha" and contained a virus that set off the fire suppression on my military-grade luxury yacht and killed five of my favorite body guard s. Seriously! I have the money to pay for this thing! Why is it so hard to find a good contractor who doesn't mind a little major international crime and can keep their mouth shut?? Who can I talk to about getting Mechanic's Bay* built? *Name is a placeholder for record-keeping purposes and I am open to suggestions.

fdl0cj4

fdkrwap

You’ve got the right idea in the first place, hiding in plain sight is an excellent idea, and an office park in a boring location offers many advantages. Running an office park gives you an excellent way to launder any money you may have gotten from less than legitimate means. If you haven’t already, buy the entire office park as well as any local strip malls. Give tenants a discount if they pay in cash. Try to attract cash heavy businesses for your strip mall, maybe get a laundromat , a dry cleaner and a GameStop there. Boring businesses a secret agent-or IRS agent-would EVER bother to check. Those 007 types live for exotic locations, swanky resorts and beautiful women. Do everything in your power to ensue nothing more exciting than a Chili’s and a Holiday Inn open up nearby. Not only does this help you stay under the radar, it also ensures that if you DO come to their attention, they sent a rookie agent after you-the real pros would never take a mission so boring. Of course you still need to put on appearances, for both your work friends and the world. So you’re going to use that island. Easiest way to get it to look like a super villain lair is an above board reason to WANT it to look like a super villain lair. And for that you’re going to need to go to Hollywood. The guild has a list of Guild Approved directors(after all, SOMEBODY has to direct your video demand to the UN or White House). They may not be evil themselves but they’ll take most video work so long as they don’t get their hands dirty. Inform them you’re a wealthy benefactor with a new production company, and you’ve lined up a deal with one of the 20 streaming companies for a series about villains and secret agents. Give the director a barebones script, some mockups for set design, and let them do the rest. Of course your lair will be only for show-there won’t be functional lasers or alligators, but you can probably buy what you need from Aliexpress and swap them out. After that, dismiss the director with a handsome severance payment and take over yourself. Demand constant reshoots to keep the actors on set. Keep at it until the agents show up, think the acting is real, beat up some actors and run away thinking they saved the day, while you sit comfortably safe in your office chair.

Find people that have a terminal illness and the special skillset you require. Many of them will be swamped in medical debt because of being dropped from insurance companies so they will be quite receptive to a one time top secret cash paying job that will ensure their families are taken care of. With their pay being a yearly compensation to their families with the caveat that any cut corners discovered later will immediately put a stop to said payments, you get people motivated to do the job right. Encourage their input and listen to their advise, these guys are professionals and they are invested in seeing you succeed so their families have a nest egg when they are gone. The icing on the cake is that none of these guys are going to live long and will be taking their knowledge to the grave without you needing to intervene or cover anything up.

yd4izn

askculinary_train

Types of cheese acceptable to blend into ground beef meatballs? Last night, I chopped up some standard American cheese slices (Kraft singles) and blended them into a basic meatball recipe (baked). I think it all melted out because I couldn't taste any of it. Which types of cheese are acceptable for blending into ground beef? I'm assuming I need more of a dryer / less melty cheese to have it not just melt out of the beef during cooking? If so, what are some good readily available options? Thanks in advance.

itpyl52

itq3fw3

Park or Romano. I’ve also used feta.

Acceptable? Please, elaborate. It depends entirely on what you want the end product to be.

92ib5v

asksciencefiction_train

Raimi Spiderman 2] Doc-Oc kidnaps MJ and tells Peter to find Spiderman "or else". He then flings Peter across the room so hard that the brick wall shatters behind him. How was Peter supposed to find spiderman with a broken back? [This scene right here At this point in the movie Doc Oc doesn't know Peter is spidey. Any normal person would be pulverized by that throw. Why would such a genius cripple/kill his only means to find spiderman?

e366sfi

e368pg4

Even ordinary humans in the Marvel (and DC) universes tend to have superhuman toughness to blunt force trauma (not to helpful against being shot, though). This is why common criminals aren't being turned into fine red mist after an encounter with a superhero's fist, and why superheroes don't accidentally break the back of the falling damsels they catch, and why there aren't higher casualties from all those collapsing buildings. It's also why Doc Oc felt free to toss around Peter without worry.

Why do people always assume smart is the same thing as logical? Octavius was a genius, yes, but he was also insane. I see the same thing happen when people try to pick apart Iron Man movies. Stark may be among the smartest people in the MCU, but he's also one of the people most ruled by ego and anger.

hkevuw

askacademia_train

What’s life like Post-PhD? Does one feels less dumb? Only interested in unpopular opinions.

fwsp2oy

fwsm244

Lol I got rewarded with a pay cut for getting my PhD. Yearly raise mandated by the union contract at my PhD school + 8 years to finish my PhD meant I was making more than the NIH minimum postdoc salary by the end. Whole thing was a bit anticlimactic. Maybe the PhD students respect me a bit more but that's about it.

See the Wizard of Oz, the scarecrow after getting the diploma

mtfqun

askengineers_train

I get depressed about school. Dose this mean engineering is not right for me? I have a weird love hate relationship with my major so far. I enjoy problem solving and figuring things out but when I have a lot of trouble with something I get frustrated and depressed because I feel like I won't be able to figure it out. I'm also a perfectionist so that doesn't help.

guziki7

guzry3n

Take it one day at a time. What you learn in school, is only a small fraction of what you will learn in the field. Engineering school is difficult because you have alot to learn. Even the skills that are not formally taught, will be self taught. Like organization, note taking, time management, problem solving etc. Make friends in school. Study with them. Ask them questions and so forth. Engineering isn't just independent work. There is also a large amount of group work and collaboration. Especially inter-discipline.

**The issue isn't engineering — the issue is how you respond to problems, which is a mental (and mental health) issue.** Struggling through some parts of your engineering program is something you should expect to encounter over and over again as a student because that's how you learn the material, and eventually that's how you become a better engineer when you start working as a young professional. Nobody is born knowing how to do engineering, that's why people go to university to learn about it. So what does this mean you should do? It means you need to start accepting failure as part of the process, and that everyone sucks at everything when they first start out, including you. Instead of perfectionism, adopt an attitude of continuous learning and growth. Avoid beating yourself up when you fail or don't do as well as you want, and reflect on how you can improve to do better moving forward.

i1yiik

changemyview_train

CMV: The pro and anti-pineapple pizza debate is meaningless so long as the real enemy of the people continues to exist: Big Anchovy Back in the 80s and early 90s, if you wanted to gross someone out with pizza, you'd put anchovies on it. In theory, fish shouldn't be terrible on pizza. Maybe a nice salmon bake, maybe some crab. It could work. But it didn't. But did Big Anchovy remove the product from market? No. The contracts were already in place. Pizza suppliers already owned the fish so they did their best to use it. Once the contracts ran out, though, Big Anchovy wasn't doing so well since pizza places weren't ordering any more. But what's worse, anchovy pizza's been totally demonized and no one... NO ONE is buying it anymore. The last thing Big Anchovy needs is their respective brands being hated on. So they come up with an ingredient that could never work and start marketing it: pineapple. The idea is, if Big Anchovy can get people to hate on pineapple pizza more than anchovy pizza, they can distract from all the hate they get and keep out of the negative attention and bide their time for when Big Anchovy can do a relaunch, maybe in a few years. The problem is, for some reason, people ended up loving pineapple on pizza. Now, I'm not here to argue for or against pineapple on pizza. I get the idea behind the flavor combinations. I get why some may like it and others not and for the purposes of this post, I'm taking a completely neutral stance on it. Big Anchovy, though, is still up to their old games. They constantly make posts and memes taking both sides of the argument in the pro/anti pineapple debate, increasing rhetoric and polarization simply for the purpose of misdirecting the hate of the people away from anchovy pizza. And it's working. Friends have fallen out. Marriages ended. Families torn apart. And for what? So a Big Anchovy company's stock can increase by a quarter of a point.

g00ye72

g00qb7r

It doesn’t matter how much you rail against a specific ingredient, you cannot save people from themselves. A couple nights ago, I saw someone order a pizza with barbecue sauce, pineapple, green olives, and pepperoni. There is no god. Life is a painful nightmare, and no matter how much better it gets, it always will be.

The pro and anti pineapple pizza debate is the backbone of this society change my mind

u4acyv

askbaking_train

Your opinion on silicone sheets for the bottom of cake pans I currently use parchment paper for lining the bottom of my cake pans, but I am trying to reduce waste. What's your opinion on the silicone rounds/squares that are designed to go in cake pans? What are the benefits (beyond waste reduction) and what are the drawbacks? Thanks!

i4uczom

i4uqj5h

I’ve never tried lining with silicone, however, I just discovered that Reynolds’s has an unbleached compostable parchment paper if you compost! Picked some up at Target. Also, love that you are thinking of sustainability! I made a ton of fondant recently and was not happy with the amount of cling wrap I needed.

I tried to convert to silicone. But I put them in the dishwasher, and the detergent clung to them. So for a while, my food would have some weird soapy taste. And then it dawned on me why. I read that you should boil them to get rid of the smell/taste, but that didn’t work for me. So I guess I have to buy new ones and only ever boil them.

lg8osf

askdocs_train

4 emergency doctors can not diagnose me. Hello. Male, 26, no medication, no issues before this. 9pm initial contact. Made out with an ex that did not look healthy at all. 36 hours later. large sours/blisters back of tongue. Small red dots front half of tongue. NO PAIN 42 hours from initial contact. large sours/blisters back of tongue. Small red dots front half of tongue. HEADACHE. MAJOR FATIGUE. DRY COUGH 84 hours from initial contact. large sours/blisters back of tongue. Small red dots front half of tongue. Headache. Major fatigue. Dry cough. LOWER BACK PAIN. NO BOWEL MOVEMENT. SKIN YELLOW/GREEN My mother ( who i kissed on the lips. Traditional European) has also started developing symptoms. 96 hours (4 days) from kiss. I went to the emergency. They did a blood test and urine test. Everything came normal. MY CONDITION IS DETERIORATING They said its just the flu. I have never had a flu like this. Can anyone shed some light? what my mouth looks like

gmql9zk

gmpylia

No bowel movements for such a long time is concerning. Yellow skin can be a symptom of liver failure. Your picture fits with swollen lingual tonsils. An infectious cause fits best. Swollen tonsils, jaundice, fatigue and headaches fit with Epstein-Barr viral infection, also known as mono and "the kissing disease". Onset is very rapid however, were you exposed before that? The incubation period for EBV can vary from weeks to months. Other things to consider are acute HIV infection, CMV infection, toxoplasmosis, streptococcal infection and other viral infections of the throat. You don't need to see the doctor in most cases, but if the lack of bowel movements continue after drinking lots of water you should see a doctor. If I were you I'd give your family doctor a call anyway so they know what's going on, can give advice and get you tested if they deem it necessary. Unfortunately, there is no treatment for mono. You need to stray hydrated and can take OTC pain medication (Tylenol/paracetamol/acetaminophen, ibuprofen) if needed.

I'm sorry, I have no idea what it is or whether it'll clear up soon, but in general the emergency doctors won't diagnose you, you'll have a lot better luck speaking to your GP.