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The Learning Thread

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    Donovan PuppyfuckerDonovan Puppyfucker A dagger in the dark is worth a thousand swords in the morningRegistered User regular
    tynic wrote: »
    or boring. I forgot boring.

    Not to me!
    Athenor wrote: »
    The thing I've been warned about with air compressors is that they can get water vapor inside them, which can lead to you spraying water onto the equipment. But I've only heard that a couple times, and I've generally stayed away from them as a result.. so that might be my own paranoia reflecting in the post. :)

    Well, your air compressor should get drained regularly, and also have a condensate trap on the outlet. So this shouldn't be a problem.

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    QuantumTurkQuantumTurk Registered User regular
    Any biology questions I'll be happy to answer! I'm getting a PhD in immunology and love cell bio too, and my partner is doing evolutionary modeling, so between us we should be able to tackle most things you are curious about!

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    BroloBrolo Broseidon Lord of the BroceanRegistered User regular
    edited November 2013
    Any biology questions I'll be happy to answer! I'm getting a PhD in immunology and love cell bio too, and my partner is doing evolutionary modeling, so between us we should be able to tackle most things you are curious about!

    why are chimpanzees and orangutans so much stronger than humans, pound for pound?

    is there any kind of horrific, twisted mad genetic science we can do so I can get monkey strong?

    Brolo on
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    TrippyJingTrippyJing Moses supposes his toeses are roses. But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered User regular
    I would like to request the proper procedure of what to do in the event I get into a car accident.

    b1ehrMM.gif
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    tynictynic PICNIC BADASS Registered User, ClubPA regular
    edited November 2013
    TrippyJing wrote: »
    I would like to request the proper procedure of what to do in the event I get into a car accident.

    1. scream
    2. grab a grape with your left hand
    3. clap your right hand over your eye and shout "my eye, my eye! I think I've lost my eye!"
    4. when the other party in the accident approaches with concern, deftly toss the grape under their foot


    Standard procedure, everyone has a good laugh and it really breaks the ice.

    edit: oh, and carry grapes in your car of course, duh.

    tynic on
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    Speed RacerSpeed Racer Scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratch scritch scratchRegistered User regular
    edited November 2013
    TrippyJing wrote: »
    I would like to request the proper procedure of what to do in the event I get into a car accident.

    in texas at least, you just exchange insurance information with the other party and turn their information into your insurance company

    if the vehicles are undriveable or if either party is injured, call the police. They'll take a report and help get the vehicles towed off, and get an ambulance on the way if one is needed/requested

    in texas the police don't make a report if if it's a "minor accident," which is to say both vehicles are both driveable and no one is hurt. They'll come if you whine enough, depending on the city, but they don't do anything other than verify that both parties have the others' insurance info (if the other party doesn't have any insurance or is refusing to give it to you, call the cops)

    Speed Racer on
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    QuantumTurkQuantumTurk Registered User regular
    edited November 2013
    Brolo wrote: »
    Any biology questions I'll be happy to answer! I'm getting a PhD in immunology and love cell bio too, and my partner is doing evolutionary modeling, so between us we should be able to tackle most things you are curious about!

    why are chimpanzees and orangutans so much stronger than humans, pound for pound?

    is there any kind of horrific, twisted mad genetic science we can do so I can get monkey strong?

    So, I had no idea! But I pondered it as differences in muscle activation and how they contract, but honestly that is silly, as how that works is pretty well conserved across mammals. But I found this cool video:
    http://www.scientificamerican.com/video.cfm?id=why-are-chimps-stronger-than-humans2013-01-11
    So they implicate that the muscles are better connected to the neurons, and thus they are getting a lot more fibers activating for each impulse, at the expense of even having fine control being possible.
    And it seems pretty reasonable to me, especially given that when a person begins working out, they tend to make really fast gains not so much because their muscles actually get stronger, but because their connections strengthen and they increase their muscle recruitment. Obviously weight lifting threadpeople know more about that than I do.

    So far as getting monkey strong, gene therapy still sucks balls. It is not that we can't do it, it is that we are reeeeallly inefficient at it. Which is fine for an experiment, if I can get 1% of the cells in a plate to take up and express the genes I give them, that is fine so long as I have a way to select just those cells so that they are the only ones that keep growing. The problem is, in a person, changing 1% or less of the cells just does not give the results you need for effective therapies.

    Which makes me think of a cool technology you might not be aware of called Fluorescence-activated cell sorting or FACS:
    So what you do, is take cells, and label them with a probe (typically an antibody) that binds just to the surface marker you want to see. This probe has a compound bound to its tail-end that will flash with a certain wavelength of light when you hit it with the right laser. So you use clever fluid dynamics tricks to send these cells in a single-file line through a laser with a detector on the other side. Based on if it flashes the color or not, the cell then gets charged, and based on that charge, electromagnetic plates can fling it towards one tube or another at the end. This lets you do cool things like isolate a single cell type, without doing any genetic manipulation! FACS.gif

    Let me know if that does not make sense!

    QuantumTurk on
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    TamTam Registered User regular
    god damn I love biology

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    mullymully Registered User regular
    edited November 2013
    tynic wrote: »
    tynic wrote: »
    mully wrote: »
    RESUMES:

    for the love of pete never put "Responsible for" on your resume!

    NEVER.

    how about "took charge of this shit, yo:"

    actually genuine question @mully, how would you give an overview of job responsibilities on your resume? I am mostly familiar with academic CVs, which have a different structure, but when I was working up something to hand in for industry jobs I think I just wrote up a paragraph for each position describing my project(s) and my role in it/them. It was a bit of a stab in the dark because university research careers don't map that well into a more generalised format, but now I have an industry job I'm probably gonna need to look at formatting my CV properly to reflect that.

    Well, if it's for the UK or Australia, you're probably alright with paragraphs as you're used to.

    If it's for the US or Canada, however, you need to bullet point. There are a few ways to do this.

    Given your particular position, I'd recommend listing your position, the company, and then separating it out by projects. I'm assuming in your position there are several different projects you work on. I would give a short description (literally one sentence) of the project, and then show your accomplishments within that.

    Example: (would be formatted better but hey we're on a forum)


    ----

    Data Analyst Nov 2004 - Present
    NASA Research Company City, Country

    INDENT> XYZ Shuttle Development Project
    INDENT> Shuttle intended to fly to the moon and back within 1 year time span through temperatures of -90000F with 18 crew members.
    • Provided core temperature requirements for the air lock bay through the breakdown and restructuring of temperatures at 100,000 feet versus preceding human tolerance data gained through the acceptance testing of volunteers.
    • Designed and implemented the instrumentation panel requirements by writing functional code in languages X, Y, and Z to demonstrate necessities, therefore ensuring clear communication.

    INDENT> XYZ Space Station Project
    INDENT> Space station required in order to house 18 personnel for 10 years; main issues are sustenance and oxygen supply.
    • Completed a detailed and comprehensive guide to lunar temperatures through the analysis of received values over a period of 2 years, to be utilized in the station's control room.
    • Ensured oxygen levels to last at least 2.23% times longer than initially anticipated through the re-programming of flow after revisiting human requirements.

    ----

    Now, if you AREN'T doing projects, say your ENTIRE job is that ONE shuttle project, it'd look more like this:

    Data Analyst Nov 2004 - Present
    NASA Research Company City, Country
    • Provided core temperature requirements for the air lock bay within the space shuttle through the breakdown and restructuring of temperatures at 100,000 feet versus preceding human tolerance data gained through the acceptance testing of volunteers.
    • Designed and implemented the instrumentation panel requirements by writing functional code in languages X, Y, and Z to demonstrate necessities, therefore ensuring clear communication to the shuttle controls experts.

    mully on
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    mullymully Registered User regular
    if anyone else has questions about resumes, lemme know

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    TrippyJingTrippyJing Moses supposes his toeses are roses. But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered User regular
    What do I put down if I have fuck all but education that ends with an bachelor's?

    b1ehrMM.gif
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    mullymully Registered User regular
    What kind of bachelor?

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    TrippyJingTrippyJing Moses supposes his toeses are roses. But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered User regular
    BS in Computer Science

    b1ehrMM.gif
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    MetalbourneMetalbourne Inside a cluster b personalityRegistered User regular
    mully wrote: »
    What kind of bachelor?

    Hey what's with the hard questions here?

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    mullymully Registered User regular
    Computer science is probably the easiest of them to fill a resume with.

    1) Your skills. Be sure that you are always learning more. Use CodeAcademy, if you aren't familiar with some of those. Always add to that skills list.
    2) Your consulting business. "What consulting business?" you ask? YOURS. Welcome to "TrippyJing Consulting" wherein every question you've ever been asked about a computer becomes a client. This is, in fact, work experience, and if you can find someone you aren't related to to vouch for you - BOOM, reference.
    3) Projects. Web apps. Web sites. Just little scripting things you've been messing around with? It all counts for something, it's all about how you present it. And even better if you do it for someone else because then you can jump it up to the previous section.

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    cabsycabsy the fattest rainbow unicorn Registered User regular
    TrippyJing wrote: »
    I would like to request the proper procedure of what to do in the event I get into a car accident.

    Also depends on what kind of car accident, too. I got in an accident with a tree and the property owner didn't really care, so we just called a tow truck even though my car was completely totaled - I suggested calling the police because I thought that was standard procedure and she said it wasn't necessary and would just get me a ticket.

    First and foremost though, you should do kind of a quick inventory of yourself to see if you're injured at all. You may not realize at first that you are injured, because car accidents can cause shock and you're just so adrenaline-d up that you don't realize you're bleeding from your face or you've got a concussion or whatever. Then you can go check the other party, if there was another party, for the same thing. I keep non-latex gloves and plenty of napkins in my car at a minimum so that if someone is bleeding I can provide pressure on a wound without freaking out about getting blood on me or causing a latex allergy reaction in someone else. You might think you would immediately notice if you're injured, but as the unfortunate participant as both passenger and driver in a few accidents I can tell you you generally are so distracted by other things you don't realize you've gashed your face open and are covered in blood until someone points it out to you.

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    TamTam Registered User regular
    that life and thought arose from atoms is bar none the coolest shit that has ever happened

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    Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    The only car accident I was ever in, my first thought after nearly getting t-boned was "Gotta get this car out of the intersection," which I then attempted to do until someone came up and asked if I was okay

    The car, mind you, was going precisely nowhere at precisely 0 mph because the front right wheel was totally pushed in

    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
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    BaidolBaidol I will hold him off Escape while you canRegistered User regular
    edited November 2013
    Typically, when molecules get drawn in two-dimensional form like, say, on a web forum, the fact that molecules are actually three-dimensional structures tends to get lost. For example, take the following molecule.

    Naproxenrac_zps3ffd20df.png

    Looks pretty simple, right? (Trust me.) Now, take a look at the red carbon atom on the right side of the molecule. Attached to that carbon is a blue-labeled hydrogen atom and a purple-labeled methyl group. This is where we run into the trouble of drawing three-dimensional structures in a two-dimensional manner. Let's go ahead and add some 3-D details. Doing so yields two possibilities, structures A and B.

    naproxenA_zpsd6b4166e.pngNaproxenB_zps8498a754.png

    In the above structures, a solid wedge indicates something is coming out of the screen towards you. So, in structure A the hydrogen is coming towards you and in structure B the methyl group is coming out towards you. A series of dashes indicates something is going away from you. So, in structure A the methyl group is going away from you and in structure B the hydrogen is going away from you.

    The consequences of this are not immediately obvious if you observe the physical properties of A and B. The two structures have identical melting temperatures, solubility in water, and spectroscopic information (in other words, hit them with certain types of energy and they react the same way.) With all that being true, why does 3-D structure matter?

    Go find yourself a pair of gloves. Put your left hand in the left-handed gloves. Fits like a glove, yes? Now put your right hand in the left-handed glove. How does that work out compared to using your left hand? Less well, I assume. This is an example of chirality, which is a consequence of asymmetry. Each of your hands has the exact same parts connected to the exact same other parts, yet, for some reason, only one hand fits well in the glove. This is because your hands are three-dimensional mirror images that, critically, cannot be superimposed on each other. In other words, you cannot put the bottom of your right hand on the top of your left hand while keeping the thumbs and pinkies on top of each other simultaneously.

    Why do you care? Let us go back to compound A and compound B. Your body is filled with things like enzymes and proteins and other chiral three-dimensional structures (gloves) that will interact with chiral small molecules such as A and B (hands), possibly causing some kind of response. In the case of compound A, the result is a poisoning of the liver. In the case of compound B, there is an analgesic effect. Compound B is sold as Naproxen, and you may know it under the name of Aleve.

    Baidol on
    Steam Overwatch: Baidol#1957
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    Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    That is so cool! I didn't know that!

    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
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    TamTam Registered User regular
    Hallelujah! Witness! Organic chemistry motherfuckers!

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    Peter EbelPeter Ebel CopenhagenRegistered User regular
    edited November 2013
    The shit nerds who are running my numerical differential equation course are making me model a zombie outbreak. At least I have whisky.

    Peter Ebel on
    Fuck off and die.
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    QuantumTurkQuantumTurk Registered User regular
    Oh Baidol, you and your accessible, coherent lessons.

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    AthenorAthenor Battle Hardened Optimist The Skies of HiigaraRegistered User regular
    About half a year ago, I bought a book called Teach Yourself Powershell in a Month of Lunches. It is an incredibly awesome book for anyone who intends to spend a lot of time in the command line interface of Windows - and that should be most higher-level sysadmins, due to how powerful the CLI is.

    I can't recommend the book enough.

    I'm going to teach you the most valuable thing from the book.

    First, download the latest version of Powershell. Windows 8 came with Powershell 3.0, I dunno if 8.1 upgraded. Don't worry, you can have multiple versions of powershell running next to each other.


    When you fire up Powershell (always as administrator), clicking on the menu in the upper-left gives you access to a properties screen where you can adjust the width and character buffer on the window. Crank those up - the default 80 character width sucks. 200 works better, and the buffer can be quite long.

    Then, run this commend: "Update-Help." That's right. Powershell can be updated over the internet if you are running Powershell 3 or newer. But that's not even the most valuable command.

    The most valuable command is "Get-help."

    The command by itself will show you usage.

    "Get-help *" will show you all the powershell commands you currently have loaded (which you can expand by importing modules, such as Active Directory or SQL server)
    "Get-help object" Will show you all the powershell commands (cmdlets) that contain the word Object. In fact, if you type in any partial commands, it'll show you all the commands that may contain that.

    "Get-help <cmdlet>" will show you the basic syntax of the command, what it is used for, and a couple examples of the command.
    "Get-help <cmdlet> /full" will explain what every single variable of the command does, and give you 5-6 in-depth examples.
    "get-help <cmdlet> /example" will show you just the examples for reference.
    "Get-help about_" will show you the helpfiles. The helpfiles are not commands, but rather long technet-based articles on various aspects of Powershell and how to use them.

    Most Powershell cmdlets will accept a /whatif flag, which will show you an example of what you are doing but won't actually do it. Almost all commands can be "piped" into another one, and the help files can assist in lining up piping from one to the other. But that's way more advanced than I can go over here.

    I can't believe I'm saying this, but Microsoft's help files are actually GOOD these days. Take advantage of the time people have spent pouring into this system, because the fact that Microsoft has taken the time to unify almost all its command line interface stuff and make it language-independent is pretty awesome. Also, never forget that they tried to take away the Graphical User Interface for 2012... so it's obvious they are pushing this.

    Bonus time: Pressing tab will autocomplete whatever you are typing. Pressing tab multiple times lets you cycle through things. And Powershell ISE, while a bit of a resource hog, just makes powershell usage so easy...

    He/Him | "A boat is always safest in the harbor, but that’s not why we build boats." | "If you run, you gain one. If you move forward, you gain two." - Suletta Mercury, G-Witch
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    furlionfurlion Riskbreaker Lea MondeRegistered User regular
    edited November 2013
    Random biology time!

    @Baidol reminded me of something interesting with his lesson on chirality. Every action in a living organism is carried out by proteins of one form or fashion. They come in millions of shapes and sizes and are usually highly tailored to the specific task they do. In order to create a protein, rRNA recruits amino acids and links them together in long chains. The point I am getting at has to do with these amino acids. There are twenty one of them used by all living organisms on earth(more or less). That alone is pretty crazy, every protein is formed by the bending, twisting, and rotating of these amino acids around each other after they are linked together. However there is something else that is even more interesting about them. Like many chemicals these amino acids can exist as stereoisomers, forms of the chemical with the same formula but different three dimensional structures. Specifically amino acids can exist as enantiomers, left and right hand versions. But the interesting thing is that, except in one or two cases, only the left handed version exists in nature.

    Now the right handed version can exist. In fact we can and do make the right handed versions synthetically. The theory is that somewhere way back in the evolutionary tree an organism picked one over the other and everyone else followed suit. After all the two versions are not interchangeable since when it comes to proteins, structure is very important. So if one organism is making the left hand version in abundance other organisms can save energy themselves by just eating that organism and reusing the amino acids. So basically it was a coin toss and the left handed version won.

    Also just because it is one of my favorite biology facts: The female spotted Hyena has a pseudo penis that is virtually indistinguishable from the male penis by sight alone.

    furlion on
    sig.gif Gamertag: KL Retribution
    PSN:Furlion
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    FyndirFyndir Registered User regular
    If you are a corporation in this day and age it is generally considered advisable to have a social media presence. However you must beware, and learn from the lessons of your fellows, for the denizens of social media are swift to anger and slow to forgive.

    Do not, for example, be like Kellogs*.



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    TheStigTheStig Registered User regular
    Hey, you know the rules of the game.

    If you don't tweet this shit you have only yourself to blame. These kids are starving because of you.

    bnet: TheStig#1787 Steam: TheStig
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    Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    TheStig wrote: »
    Hey, you know the rules of the game.

    If you don't tweet this shit you have only yourself to blame. These kids are starving because of you.

    this reminds me of the one about the U2 charity concert in Edinburgh where Bono's like "every time I clap my hands, a child in Africa dies of hunger" and then starts rythmically clapping

    a minute passes before some red-faced drunk guy stands up, enraged, and bellows "THEN STOP FUCKING CLAPPING"

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    InquisitorInquisitor Registered User regular
    How to make Cuban Coffee/Espresso at home

    0. Procure some Cuban coffee, Bustelo, Pilon, La Llave, etc will all do. If you can't find that try dark roasted Colombian coffee ground for espresso.
    1. Get your moka pot out.
    2. Fill the bottom chamber of the moka pot with water to just below the pressure release valve.
    3. Put in the filter
    4. Scoop coffee into the filter, pack it down some with your scoop, but you don't need to tamp it down or anything. Make a solid enough biscuit, but remember the water from the bottom chamber has to pass through the grounds.
    5. Put the top on the moka pot, leave the lid up, and put the moka pot on the stove under a low heat.
    6. While you wait for it to brew, prepare a container with demerara (natural brown sugar). How much sugar you put in is up to you. The traditional Cuban approach is A LOT. I tend to scale it back because I like some bite to my coffee, but, it should be sweet.
    7. Watch the moka pot, when the first, dark bit of coffee begins to come out immediately take it off of the flame and pour this initial coffee into the container with the sugar.
    8. Return the moka pot to the heat and close the lid.
    9. Grind the first bit of the brew and the sugar together to make a thick foam called espumita. Grind, grind, grind away.
    10. When all the liquid has gone up into the top chamber (you should be able to hear a marked difference in sound) turn off the stove.
    11. Keep grinding the espumita if required.
    12. Pour the coffee into the container with the espumita (the espumita should rise to the top).
    13. Pour the cuban coffee into one, or several cups and serve, depending on how caffeinated you want to be.

    How to make a Cortadito or Cafe con Leche

    1. Heat milk in either a pan, or, with a milk steamer if you have that. If you heat the milk in a pan make sure to stir it.
    2. Add a dab of butter and a pinch of salt to the milk, make sure it dissolves and mixes thoroughly.
    3. Mix the milk 50/50 with the coffee for a Cortadito, or pour the espresso into a cup of milk for a Cafe con Leche.

    Enjoy! A great beverage for winter.

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    TefTef Registered User regular
    Oh hey, Trippy was asking about what to do in a car crash and I train people in defensive driving!

    Okay, first thing I have to say that there is no substitute for experience. Defensive driving skills need to be practiced and refreshed because during a real incident, you are going to be so stressed and things are going to be happening so fast all that will get you through is your reflexes, which you have practiced. A good rule of thumb would be to practice a lot (an hour a fortnight for the first 3 months) and then once every 3 months from then on.

    Rule The First: ALWAYS LOOK AT WHERE YOU WANT TO GO AND NOT AT THE THING YOU WANT TO AVOID. This is a big one. Your natural reaction will be to look at the tree/pedestrian/other car because that is what you perceive as the danger and your brain is going, ‘oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck don’t let me hit that tree!’. Unfortunately, by focusing on the danger, you will actually be inclined to drive towards it! Sounds counterintuitive, but it is true! Aim for the open road or the road shoulder and it will help you in actually driving towards it

    Rule The Second: LEARN HOW TO THRESHOLD BRAKE, THEN RELY ON YOUR ABS. Threshold breaking is the principle of apply just enough braking power that you will slow down as quickly as possible, without your wheels skidding. You want to do this because when you are skidding, you haven’t got full control of your vehicle and increase the chances of the situation going sideways (literally and figuratively) very quickly indeed. How do you threshold brake? It’s actually very simple. Slam your foot on the brake pedal as hard as you can, then immediately start releasing until you reach the point that the wheels are no longer skidding. This point is the titular threshold. It will take practice but it is a very good skill to have. Now having said all that, did you notice that when you slammed on the brake in the first part, that the vehicles started to shudder? Well, you’re in luck! Your vehicle is fitted with an ABS, or Automatic Braking System. A lot of car manufacturers have realised how important threshold braking is and have taken steps to remove operator competence from the equation. Essentially, an ABS is the perfect threshold braking system because it automatically engages and releases the brake pads on the wheels, taking you to that threshold much faster and with a higher degree of control than a human foot can ever hope to achieve. Check your owner’s manual or simply take your car out and see if your car shudders when you hit the brakes to find out if your car is fitted with an ABS

    Rule The Third: STAY CALM. Yeah no shit, that’s what we always say in emergencies, right? Arguably, in no other situation is it more important than in a potential car accident. The tenser your body is, the more likely you are to do serious damage to yourself on impact. A good idea is when the situation occurs and you know it’s on for young and old, exhale and look towards open space (see Rule The First). The only other advice is, get some practice in so you can be prepared.

    Rule The Fourth: POSITION YOURSELF AND YOUR SEAT PROPERLY. Related to Rule The Third, this will help you maintain control of your vehicle as well as mitigate any injuries you may sustain in an accident. Here’s a few tips on positioning:
    Your back seat rest should only be a few degrees back off the vertical. If you lounge back in your seat, particularly on anything past a 45degree angle, you will end up a crumpled mess in the foot well (the bit where the pedals are).
    When you are sitting back comfortably in your seat, put your hands on the wheel. Your seat should be close enough that your wrists are resting on the wheel, not your hands. The reason for this is that you will naturally tense up in an accident and if you’re further back, your elbows will lock in and you will get fucked up, simple as that.
    Where your goddamn seatbelt, jesus Christ

    Rule The Fourth: TURN INTO THE SKID. I get this one a lot, so I will touch very briefly on what to do in a skid. As the rule states, always try and turn into the skid. What this means is, if the rear of your car is skidding out to the left, SMOOTHLY (DON’T JERK IT AROUND, THAT IS BAD) turn your wheel to the left. Try not to lock up your wheels. If your wheels do lock up, you will often find that by releasing the brake and thereby gaining control of the vehicle again, the car will whip around the other way. This is part of why I’m hestitant to give full advice on managing a skid because I believe it is something best learnt in training and in training in a controlled environment. I just want to touch on why it’s important to correct smoothly – your natural reaction will be to either:
    a) Let go of the steering wheel (don’t do this)
    b) Yank it around to correct the skid (don’t do this)
    The first one is bad for fairly obvious reasons; you have no control of the vehicle. The second one is dangerous because you risk overcorrection. Next time you see some skid marks on the road have a close look at them. What you may find is that the person has drifted off the road/gone into a skid in one direction and then overcorrected and ended up crashing on the other side of the road. Keep that in mind when you are practicing skid management in a controlled environment with your instructor

    There is much more to it around general driving behaviours, preventive maintenance and a raft of other thing that I might type up later, if people are interested.

    help a fellow forumer meet their mental health care needs because USA healthcare sucks!

    Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better

    bit.ly/2XQM1ke
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    Grey GhostGrey Ghost Registered User regular
    I guess a lot of people don't know what red-green color blindness is all about, so I'll try to say a few words about it from the perspective of someone who suffers from it. I was going to consult the Wikipedia article for help but that page is a goddamn mess so I'll try to muddle through it here.

    The breakdown is this: color blindness is (usually) a sex-linked trait, passed on through the X chromosome. So, while my father has the condition as well, I actually got it from my mom (who was just a carrier). It's been years since I actually spoke to a doctor about this - by which I mean I was like, five - but my particular defect is dichromacy - one of the three types of cones in my eyes does not function properly. And within that classification, I'm pretty sure I have deuteranopia, which is sometimes called "green weak."

    Now this is all well and good, but doesn't help you understand what my day-to-day is like. I should stress that this affects literally every color I see to at least some extent. Certain dark shades of red, green and brown can easily be confused for one another; green sometimes appears gray to me, and vice versa; blue and purple likewise; sometimes very light pastel shades of blue, pink and green can be hard to differentiate. And this is all based on the lighting conditions, particular shade, and how far away the object is.

    You've all seen the Ishihara color test:
    600px-Ishihara_11.PNG
    That is absolute gibberish to me.

    The overall effect is that all colors are less vibrant to me than they are to you; the world is just a bit less bright. I've seen photos that have been color corrected so deuteranopes can see what you normals do, and let me tell you, it's really something.

    It's not like I can't function in society; the first question people always ask is how do I read traffic lights. Leaving aside the fact that there is no condition which would cause me to get the top light mixed up with the bottom one, the fact is that the shades of green and red used in traffic lights are completely different from one another. The green appears very pale to me, shading up towards a greenish-white. But I don't pick up on subtle color combinations in people's clothing, or my own clothing sometimes, and a lot of visual art doesn't pack the same punch for me (which is why I'm such a fan of Van Gogh, because something in the way he used color is able to get through even to me and that's very rare).

    It's not all bad! There are some studies that indicate that we may be slightly better at seeing through camouflage patterns; I'm hazy on the details but I think it has something to do with the fact that we're forced to learn to see objects based on things like shape and texture, so we just sort of bypass the camo and focus on those other qualities. I've also heard that we have better night vision, though I don't really have a guess as to why that is, but I have definitely had experiences where I was able to find my way around in low light better than people who were with me, so there may be some truth to that.

    So there you go! Now you know what's up with dichromacy. Questions?

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    KakodaimonosKakodaimonos Code fondler Helping the 1% get richerRegistered User regular
    I could dig up directions on how to field dress a deer.

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    Grey GhostGrey Ghost Registered User regular
    What I am saying is you can hide in the darkest corner of the deepest forest and still I will find you

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    Crimson KingCrimson King Registered User regular
    i don't know how to make anything right now

    i know how they made a bunch of stuff in the renaissance

    for instance, if you wanted green paint you lined an oak box with copper, coated the copper with honey and salt, filled the whole thing with boiling vinegar and buried it for a couple of weeks in cowshit

    but these days you'd probably just do chemistry to it

    (i have no idea why the cowshit was a necessary element)

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    Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
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    BelruelBelruel NARUTO FUCKS Registered User regular
    I probably know how to do some things. I wish I had my chainmail tool bag here, I could teach a basic euro 4-in-1 or something.

    A basic tip for opening/closing jump rings (small metal rings for jewelry and other things).
    1. You need two pairs of pliers (teethless for soft metals like aluminum and copper, teeth help for stronger, harder metals like stainless steel), one in each hand.
    2. Hold the ring in one of the pliers, with the gap in the ring facing up.
    3. Grab the other side of the ring with the other set of pliers
    4. TWIST one set of pliers towards yourself slowly, while the other set twists slowly (gently, people) away from you
    5. To close it again, gently twist the two ends of the ring back together, sometimes wiggling it a little bit back and forth helps the ring close nicely.
    6. Never try to open them like a claw or a fortune cookie. This warps the metal and makes the ring unworkable

    There's a bit more to it that involves 'saw cut' rings versus machine cut, basically saw cut rings have a small gap between the two ends, so as you close the jump ring you can push the ends slightly together to get a flush connection. Machine cut (or rings you cut yourself using diagonal cutters or bolt cutters) don't usually have this problem. Non-saw cut rings also look less seamless though, so there are pros and cons to using both types.

    vmn6rftb232b.png
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    Dongs GaloreDongs Galore Registered User regular
    Grey Ghost wrote: »
    I guess a lot of people don't know what red-green color blindness is all about, so I'll try to say a few words about it from the perspective of someone who suffers from it. I was going to consult the Wikipedia article for help but that page is a goddamn mess so I'll try to muddle through it here.

    The breakdown is this: color blindness is (usually) a sex-linked trait, passed on through the X chromosome. So, while my father has the condition as well, I actually got it from my mom (who was just a carrier). It's been years since I actually spoke to a doctor about this - by which I mean I was like, five - but my particular defect is dichromacy - one of the three types of cones in my eyes does not function properly. And within that classification, I'm pretty sure I have deuteranopia, which is sometimes called "green weak."

    Now this is all well and good, but doesn't help you understand what my day-to-day is like. I should stress that this affects literally every color I see to at least some extent. Certain dark shades of red, green and brown can easily be confused for one another; green sometimes appears gray to me, and vice versa; blue and purple likewise; sometimes very light pastel shades of blue, pink and green can be hard to differentiate. And this is all based on the lighting conditions, particular shade, and how far away the object is.

    You've all seen the Ishihara color test:
    600px-Ishihara_11.PNG
    That is absolute gibberish to me.

    The overall effect is that all colors are less vibrant to me than they are to you; the world is just a bit less bright. I've seen photos that have been color corrected so deuteranopes can see what you normals do, and let me tell you, it's really something.

    It's not like I can't function in society; the first question people always ask is how do I read traffic lights. Leaving aside the fact that there is no condition which would cause me to get the top light mixed up with the bottom one, the fact is that the shades of green and red used in traffic lights are completely different from one another. The green appears very pale to me, shading up towards a greenish-white. But I don't pick up on subtle color combinations in people's clothing, or my own clothing sometimes, and a lot of visual art doesn't pack the same punch for me (which is why I'm such a fan of Van Gogh, because something in the way he used color is able to get through even to me and that's very rare).

    It's not all bad! There are some studies that indicate that we may be slightly better at seeing through camouflage patterns; I'm hazy on the details but I think it has something to do with the fact that we're forced to learn to see objects based on things like shape and texture, so we just sort of bypass the camo and focus on those other qualities. I've also heard that we have better night vision, though I don't really have a guess as to why that is, but I have definitely had experiences where I was able to find my way around in low light better than people who were with me, so there may be some truth to that.
    So there you go! Now you know what's up with dichromacy. Questions?

    what if you're the normal-sighted one and we're the ones seeing messed-up colors

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    Crimson KingCrimson King Registered User regular
    also if you want to make red gold you have to boil up the ashes of a basilisk with the blood of a native american, then add that to some copper and gold

    the first two ingredients are of course of the utmost importance

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    Lost SalientLost Salient blink twice if you'd like me to mercy kill youRegistered User regular
    RUVCwyu.jpg
    "Sandra has a good solid anti-murderer vibe. My skin felt very secure and sufficiently attached to my body when I met her. Also my organs." HAIL SATAN
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