pdpi
pdpi t1_jabz6p9 wrote
Reply to comment by PastelFlamingo150 in ELI5: Why is it that when fertilizers make their way into waterways, all the oxygen disappears, killing the fish? by Psychological-Dog994
“Can we solve the problem with one invasive species by adding another invasive species?” Is well-documented as a disastrous strategy
pdpi t1_j6i8k2v wrote
Reply to ELI5: what does "salience" mean? by CoatedGoat
Salience basically means "stand out-iness". E.g. a salient issue is an issue that stands out as important. In addiction, it refers to how the thing you're addicted to is constantly at the top of your mind.
This paper describes it well:
> This refers to when the particular activity becomes the most important activity in the person’s life and dominates their thinking (preoccupations and cognitive distortions), feelings (cravings) and behaviour (deterioration of socialized behaviour). For instance, even if the person is not actually engaged in the behaviour they will be thinking about the next time they will be.
pdpi t1_j6gkjb7 wrote
Reply to comment by xCreamPye69 in ELI5: Why does the IRS want your illegal income declared on tax returns? by xCreamPye69
You have to report your income, that’s the law. You obviously don’t want to report the profits you made from your criminal acts, but it would be extremely weird if the law carved out an exception for ill-gotten gains.
pdpi t1_iyckqgh wrote
GOTO is one of a handful of really fundamental, core concepts in programming, you basically can’t achieve anything useful without it. The flip side to that is that, because you need GOTO for everything, you need to read a lot of the surrounding code to understand what, exactly, you’re trying to achieve.
As it turns out, there’s a small handful of uses (if/else, while, for, try/catch, function calls) that completely dominate compared to everything else. Instead of a goto that can mean anything, you can use one of those language constructs instead and say exactly what you mean (this is also why most languages are slowly adopting for x in list
, because it’s the most common usage pattern for for loops). This is easier to read, it’s less error prone (because the compiler/interpreter can handle all the setup and cleanup chores for you).
People do forget that there is a long tail of legitimate use cases for goto, though, which is a bit of a shame.
pdpi t1_iy3eg8z wrote
Reply to comment by Gyvon in ELI5:How did people start calling police officer using a ''nickname''? by PokeBattle_Fan
To be pedantic, he was Home Secretary at the time. He wouldn't become PM for another five years.
pdpi t1_ixy1gfj wrote
Reply to comment by Czl2 in ELI5: Why does it seem to be harder for women to control their bladders? by RandomKidIsMe
There are almost certainly differences in behaviour like what you’re describing that are just down to biological differences. However, you need to be really careful analysing that sort of thing, because culture and societal norms play a massive role in moulding behaviour, and completely drown out the biological differences.
By way of example, you get a lot of US-based people arguing that men are just better at STEM topics than women, but my university (in Portugal) didn’t really match that at all. Overall there were more males than females, but the difference wasn’t anywhere near as big as in the US.
Then you could really see the cultural effects and biases at the department level — maths and physics departments were pretty balanced between genders (both in terms of students and lecturers), electrotechnical engineering and mechanical engineering were almost completely male-dominated, while chemistry and chemical engineering were female-dominated. Biomedical engineering and architecture were female-heavy, but to a much smaller extent.
pdpi t1_ixxzg1b wrote
Reply to comment by kenhutson in ELI5: Why does it seem to be harder for women to control their bladders? by RandomKidIsMe
Thats the point — the uterus also has nothing to do with urine, but actually does interfere with how often women have to pee.
Men’s reproductive organs don’t interfere with their urinary tract because they’re external (except for the prostate, which does join in on the bladder-bothering fun as men get older).
Women’s reproductive organs do interfere with the urinary tract because they’re internal, so they apply pressure on the bladder and just generally take up space that would otherwise be occupied by the urinary system and other internal organs.
I do mean that last bit literally — a friend of mine had a hysterectomy, and it took some time for her innards to adjust to the extra space.
pdpi t1_ixprqn4 wrote
Reply to comment by meginoz in ELI5 - mind theory in regards to child development? by meginoz
Exactly. Also, applying the same logic, she's not "punishing" you, because she doesn't necessarily understand the concept. She's just expressing her frustration, not entirely unlike how a baby cries to express they're hungry or uncomfortable..
pdpi t1_ixpnt1z wrote
Imagine I show you a box of chocolates. I ask you “what do you think is inside the box?”, and presumably you answer “chocolate”. I open the box, and show you that I’ve replaced the chocolates with marbles. Now, your friend comes inside the room, and I ask you “what does your friend think is inside the box?”
Young kids will say “marbles”, because they know there’s marbles inside. Older kids will answer “chocolates” because they understand that their friend sees a box of chocolates and has no way of knowing it’s actually filled with marbles. This is called a “theory of mind” — you have a mental model (“theory”) for how people have separate minds with separate knowledge.
One of the difficulties that come with autism is precisely around developing that theory of mind.
pdpi t1_ixnguua wrote
Seeing as the link is from the UK, there's a hen farm here called Clarence Court that puts paprika and marigold in their chicken feed, which helps make their eggs a really deep orange. They're pretty striking.
pdpi t1_jecpnl5 wrote
Reply to comment by KingseekerCasual in Cyberpunk 2077's Turnaround Just Gave CD Projekt Its Second-Best Revenue Year Ever by JamesAsher12
It’s a competent, stylish shooter, sure. But it’s also a game with quests like Sinnerman, Coin Operated Boy, Don’t Lose Your Mind. There are some games covering those topics, but not many.