MrSparkle666

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Today my girlfriend told me that she would never have kids with a guy with tattoos because she doesn't want her kids born with the tattoos of the father, as if they were passed genetically. What are some ridiculous science-related ridiculous misconceptions you've had the displeasure to observe? by oldspicerolldadicein AskReddit

[–]MrSparkle666 0 points1 point ago

She's an actual practitioner. As far as I know, she can't actually prescribe homeopathic treatments, but she sure as hell has a lot of influence over people and their medical choices.

Today my girlfriend told me that she would never have kids with a guy with tattoos because she doesn't want her kids born with the tattoos of the father, as if they were passed genetically. What are some ridiculous science-related ridiculous misconceptions you've had the displeasure to observe? by oldspicerolldadicein AskReddit

[–]MrSparkle666 0 points1 point ago

I have a good friend who has two master's degrees, one in computer science and another in nursing. She studied at Harvard. She is well respected in her field and has even been involved in medical research. She believes in homeopathy. I kid you not. And it's not just some random uninformed mistake either. I have had many heated arguments with her over this. She continues to insist that homeopathy is real. It's fucking unbelievable.

That makes so much more sense now (x-post from r/gifs) by sml6174in math

[–]MrSparkle666 -5 points-4 points ago

Really? This wasn't obvious enough without the animation?

That makes so much more sense now (x-post from r/gifs) by sml6174in math

[–]MrSparkle666 1 point2 points ago

If you haven't seen it a hundred times before, you've been living under a rock.

That makes so much more sense now (x-post from r/gifs) by sml6174in math

[–]MrSparkle666 0 points1 point ago

The animation basically assumes you've already seen the original puzzle a dozen times already. Honestly, if this is the first time you've seen it, you live under a rock. The original has been circulated in every corner of the internet for years now. It's probably the most well known geometry puzzle ever.

What trivial act would you like to ban or make illegal? Personally, I would like to outlaw public speakers who start off by saying, "I can't hear you!" or "Let's try that again!" by danger_mcboomin AskReddit

[–]MrSparkle666 1 point2 points ago

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people say that something they don't like should be made illegal. We have enough goddamn laws already. Fuck that.

What trivial act would you like to ban or make illegal? Personally, I would like to outlaw public speakers who start off by saying, "I can't hear you!" or "Let's try that again!" by danger_mcboomin AskReddit

[–]MrSparkle666 0 points1 point ago

Sometimes I don't flush in public bathrooms, but it's only when I eat A LOT of beets. I just can't let a toilet bowl full of dark red shit and water go to waste. I want the next person to use the stall to be all like "OMG it's full of blood!" It's just too hilarious not to.

In experiments at six public universities, students taking courses that relied heavily on “machine-guided learning” software did just as well as their counterparts in traditional human-taught courses by Sidewinder77in education

[–]MrSparkle666 0 points1 point ago

I can already see how this would go down:

At first it would be awesome. Through thousands of hours of painstaking research, early pioneers in the field develop teaching software that turns the process of learning into an exact science. Students are shown to almost universally perform better thanks to the new automated teaching methods. University professors can focus more on research and they can stop having lousy T.A.s teach all the lower level courses. All standard 100 level classes become software-based and face time with the professor is limited to 1hr/per week question-and-answer sessions. This actually benefits the students, because they are no longer stuck in a giant lecture hall with 100 others. It's more intimate and they can actually focus on discussion. Apart from the unfortunate job contraction in the teaching field, everyone benefits. The quality of university education improves all around.

Then, a few years pass. Textbook publishers start to panic as they see the current model of teaching turned upside down. They scramble to get into the teaching software game as quickly as possible. Within a few years they develop their own teaching software for every subject. It's basically just reading assignments and multiple choice exams crudely pasted together by programmers from outsourcing companies in India. The quality of these new products is terrible, but they have one key advantage: they are cheaper. The heads of departments at universities don't really know the difference, since all of this is new technology. The research just says that "students perform better with automated teaching". It doesn't specify which product to use, so they go with the inferior products. Thanks to aggressive marketing and government lobbying on part of the textbook companies, administrators don't really have any other options anyway. The market quickly becomes dominated by inferior products, and the original pioneering companies either join the orgy of shit or die.

Now, it's ten years later. Students' performance has started to drop dramatically. People grow nostalgic for "the old days" when professors actually taught classes. Everyone has started to realize that there is a problem but they don't know how to fix it. Where did it all go wrong? They obviously can't go back to the old way since they are now entirely invested in these new technologies, but how do they make it work again?

Committees are formed, the issue is investigated, and the result is that a new government body is created to monitor the quality of teaching tools. What used to be a capitalist enterprise, driven by innovation, is now an industry that needs strict government oversight and regulation to ensure the quality of teaching software. The government invests billions in researching these tools to determine the same things that the innovators in the industry already discovered ten years earlier. The price of all of this new government regulation is that all of the money that was originally saved by hiring less teachers is now funneled into a giant government bureaucracy. And the cost to students has gone up too, since now the teaching software has tripled in price due to all of the red tape that software companies have to wade through.

In the end, the new system costs the same or more, the quality is still mediocre, and everybody bitches endlessly about the old days. Nothing changes, except that the bureaucracy keeps getting bigger and bigger. Talented people will keep trying to develop new innovations to make education better, and their ideas are great, it's just that they are doomed from the start, because the system is so fucking broken that it will always turn their best laid plans into shit.

Call me a pessimist.

What has caused you to say "no" to an attractive woman trying to sleep with you? by rockstar_jesusin seduction

[–]MrSparkle666 4 points5 points ago

She just laid there like a dead fish. We were half naked, and well on our way to sex, but she was just so goddamn boring in the sack. There was absolutely no reciprocation at all. I was doing 100% of the work. I might have still gone for it, but she seemed kind of crazy and clingy, so I said "nope" and ended it there. I just got up and turned on the TV. Not fucking worth the hassle for bad sex.

TIL the actress who plays Talisa from "Game of Thrones" is Charlie Chaplin's granddaughter. by jay4523in todayilearned

[–]MrSparkle666 0 points1 point ago

I guess I'm not the only one who googled her immediately after watching that episode.

Here's something I've never said in my life... by MKorostoffin seduction

[–]MrSparkle666 14 points15 points ago

You've obviously never been charged with sexual harassment.

IAMA Street musician who just got summonsed because I had an open guitar case. Do I have a defense? by sko0macatin WeAreTheMusicMakers

[–]MrSparkle666 0 points1 point ago

Depends on local laws. It completely varies from city to city.

IAMA Street musician who just got summonsed because I had an open guitar case. Do I have a defense? by sko0macatin WeAreTheMusicMakers

[–]MrSparkle666 1 point2 points ago

Salvation Army employees don't just randomly go out into the street asking for donations. They get all the proper permits, keep records, and have to answer to the government as a licensed charity. It's not the same thing at all. Many places have laws against busking. Basically, you have no clue what you are talking about.

Wind Tunnel Portraits by MMasterpasquain offbeat

[–]MrSparkle666 0 points1 point ago

The last one was a real winner.

Girl here. Guys rarely approach me. Seddit, why do you choose the girls you choose? by girlwithaquestionin seduction

[–]MrSparkle666 11 points12 points ago

That's the risk you have to take. A guy is taking a MUCH bigger risk of feeling awkward and foolish every time he goes and cold approaches a girl. Is it too much to ask for a smile?

The news items are very vague and don't seem to be filtering through to my searches - or they don't exist - so r/askscience, what's going on at Fukushima? What do people NEED to know right now about the situation there? by phidel_kashflowin askscience

[–]MrSparkle666 2 points3 points ago

I talked to one of them. I don't know if he's going to immediately stop taking iodine, but he seemed genuinely interested and at least somewhat convinced.

Nikola Tesla Wasn't God And Thomas Edison Wasn't The Devil by DisgruntledAlpacain geek

[–]MrSparkle666 2 points3 points ago

It's more complicated than that. The main reason why AC is so great for transmission is because it's easy to step up and step down the voltage using transformers. That way you can send the same amount of power using less current by stepping up to a high voltage for transmission, and then stepping them back down at the delivery location. Generally you don't want to have a lot of current on transmission lines because it heats up the wires and leads to power loss.

But AC has it's own disadvantages, such as skin effect and stability problems. Generally, DC has always been the most efficient method of transmission if you can find a way to step it up to a high voltage and back down to a low voltage efficiently. Unfortunately, there is no DC equivalent to a transformer, so it is impractical to use DC in electrical grids.

However, When you are sending large amounts power over long distances between electrical stations, DC becomes more practical. This requires converting the current from AC to DC and back to AC again, but this process is less costly than the losses that happen from transmitting AC over long distances. It's not really due to any new amazing type of technology, it's just that we are transmitting more power over longer distances than ever before, so High Voltage DC transmission lines are suddenly becoming common.

Nikola Tesla Wasn't God And Thomas Edison Wasn't The Devil by DisgruntledAlpacain geek

[–]MrSparkle666 6 points7 points ago

Thank god someone is saying this. This is how I feel every time there is a Tesla loving, Edison hating circlejerk on Reddit. I always try to point out all of the great things Edison did and I get downvoted into oblivion. The amount of hatred directed at of such an important historical figure is just insane. I can't wait for this fad to die.

The news items are very vague and don't seem to be filtering through to my searches - or they don't exist - so r/askscience, what's going on at Fukushima? What do people NEED to know right now about the situation there? by phidel_kashflowin askscience

[–]MrSparkle666 0 points1 point ago

That's bullshit. There have been elevated levels of radiation in many food sources ever since the incident. Whether or not you think it's worthy of taking extra precaution is another debate. But it's flat out wrong to say that there hasn't been any detectable radiation.

Guy imports MS Paint into an audio program. Cool sounds result. by 067714877063in electronicmusic

[–]MrSparkle666 1 point2 points ago

I've done this a lot before to a bunch of random files and never heard anything this interesting come from it. Usually you get a few cool snippets and the rest is annoying garbled noise. Nice find.

The best video tutorial I've seen on mixing. by whateveryallin WeAreTheMusicMakers

[–]MrSparkle666 0 points1 point ago

I didn't even realize you could do mid/side processing with an eq like that. What an incredibly useful tutorial.

The best video tutorial I've seen on mixing. by whateveryallin WeAreTheMusicMakers

[–]MrSparkle666 4 points5 points ago

This is virtually unreadable. Never use jpeg compression for black and white text.

the new Orange guitar amp...also a PC by sevenwordstingin WeAreTheMusicMakers

[–]MrSparkle666 0 points1 point ago

This is just incredibly stupid.

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