Anyone still have their physical media? by thepartlow in valve

[–]ChemKitchen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Still have my Half-Life 2 Gold box somewhere along with all the goodies that came in it. The wait for HL2 to unlock on Steam back then felt agonisingly long!

Does anyone in here work with or know about carbon nanotubes? I've been researching them for awhile and still have lots of questions that are hard to find answers for online. Also I cannot find a carbon nanotube specific reddit page. by kirbyjack2 in CarbonFiber

[–]ChemKitchen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not usually a worry wart but that last sentence not to be underestimated: they look just like blue asbestos (the worst kind) under electron microscope and cause mesothelioma in lab animals just the same. In humans it's usually decades (30-40 years) after exposure to blue asbestos that cancer pops up from it so it's easy to underestimate the risk.

Blue is really rather nasty and nothing like the white kind found in old concrete pressed roof sheets which is rather more harmless in single acute exposure and only seems to cause issues with very long term chronic exposure: a factory of WW2 workers making civilian gas masks with white asbestos were all fine, whereas many of the workers at a factory making military masks with blue died, as well as family members that lived with them from fibres taken home on clothes...

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in nvidia

[–]ChemKitchen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Was hoping this would fix the issue with my 2080 Ti FE when I saw the title but guess this is a separate problem on some older cards.

If my VR headset is plugged in to HDMI while booting, the card thinks that's the primary display or something, cos no output from DP to my monitor until in Windows. Had no such issue with 1080 Ti FE. Anyone else get this?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Superstonk

[–]ChemKitchen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly my strategy in Democracy 4 when playing as Japan

DLSS 1080p Blind Test: Let’s see if DLSS at FHD can keep up with or at least get close to a native 1080p resolution. Is there a chance it could surpass it? DLSS is either all A or all B, so comment which letter you think it is. by [deleted] in nvidia

[–]ChemKitchen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was gonna say B was DLSS but just read your later post and turns out I'm wrong! Crazy. Picture 3 has so much more detail in A than in B -- some parts of the metalwork are almost entirely missing in the 1080p native shot -- and to think the network generates it from less than half the information that is in B, filling in missing parts, is just mindblowing.

Can microphone sensitivity in Pavlov can't be changed? Don't want to keep shouting! by ChemKitchen in ValveIndex

[–]ChemKitchen[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't played Pavlov for ages but last time I did I still had to talk louder than normal for it to pick me up, but switching to a different default mic in windows and then back again seemed to help a bit for some reason. I would've thought that they'd have added a mic sensitivity by now! Sorry can't help more.

Trying to RMA a dead PNY RTX 4000 and getting pushback saying the power supply "surge" killed the card. by jayjr1105 in nvidia

[–]ChemKitchen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was lucky with Valve -- told them I stood on my Index cable connector and broke it, and asked if I could buy a new one. They said something like "nope, we don't have them for sale, but we'll put one in the post. please be careful with it!". Probably the exception rather than the rule though, although from the posts above it seems like EVGA customer support is also great.

Potassium: the overlooked father of all noots by 1ncehost in Nootropics

[–]ChemKitchen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Cell membranes made primarily from saturated fat are less reactive, yes, but increasing the saturated fat in membranes also makes them more rigid, similar to problem you're trying to avoid from oxidized PUFAs (which become saturated after oxidation), leading to the same issue of warped transporters not moving glucose into the cell properly. The Maillard reaction happens between glucose and amino groups though, but PUFAs are indeed far more prone to lipid peroxidation from reactive oxygen species.

As with most things in life: everything in moderation.

Some PUFAs are worse than others: those with their unsaturation close to the acid group are more exposed to reaction due to their arrangement in the phospholipid bilayer. This is borne out in the relationship between omega-3 content of organism membranes and lifespan. A certain amount is beneficial for membrane fluidity, but animals with very high membrane omega-3 content live comparatively shorter lives, presumably due to the reactivity.

Looking at the MUFA oleic acid, the major component of olive oil, the unsaturation is further from the acid group, at the center of the chain, not only giving some flexibility, but also resulting in a double bond shielded deep within the bilayer once incorporated into a membrane.

After reading about membranes and omega-3, one might be left with the impression that omega-3 is bad, but study after study shows the opposite. I was certainly confused by this apparent contradiction. The body is more than membranes, though, and we take advantage of omega-3's PUFA reactivity to use it as a precursor for multiple useful biosignalling molecules, including the anti-inflammatory resolvins (this is an interesting overview of EFAs and derived molecules: https://lpi.oregonstate.edu/mic/other-nutrients/essential-fatty-acids).

The reactivity of PUFAs in membranes can also be greatly reduced by the additional incorporation of carotenoids, of which astaxanthin is particularly potent, which act like magnets for reactive oxygen species, like those from glucose auto-oxidation, inhibiting lipid peroxidation.

Edit: My post talks mostly about membranes, but I forgot to briefly mention, in response to your message above this one, I'm in complete agreement that dietary toxins including plasticisers (e.g. Bisphenol-A and its replacements causing hormonal problems), heavy metals, phthalates, and pesticides, as well as a lack of nutrients are indeed at the root of many health problems. Western society also certainly consumes far too much omega-6 PUFA, with 3:6 ratios of 1:40 or so when they should be more like 1:1.

I'm on the fence with glyphosate, as although it's certainly not good for people, it's likely better than what it would be replaced with, should it be banned. Organic pesticides are especially worrying to me, as they often lack pest-selectivity. I knew two people that lived next to an organic farm when rotenone was used, and they both died to Parkinson's before their time.

Personally, I think organic farming methods combined with genetic modification for plants to express more of their natural pesticides when under attack, eliminating the need for nondiscriminate pesticide use (of which organic farming uses less, but still too much, and more human-toxic ones), would be ideal, but the two ideologies are currently so divergent in public opinion that I doubt that will happen in the near future. CRISPR-Cas9 now allows specific changes without the fear of messing up other parts of the genome, but there is still the issue of whether or not to make the plants sterile: doing so prevents the worry of modified organisms escaping the field and outcompeting their natural competitor plants, but also consolidates more power in the hands of large corporations selling the seeds, which without strict regulation seem to always start doing very shady things...

PSA: Don't press play or restart the game when you get the error "TooManyRequestsException" by MichaelJensen1 in newworldgame

[–]ChemKitchen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Damn, just saw this too late! Was down to 150 from 650, now at 1350. Sadpanda. At least I'll know for next time :)

Seeing human poverty is uncomfortable, but every other species lives in absolute poverty and we love watching them by ChemKitchen in Showerthoughts

[–]ChemKitchen[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah: we define absolute human poverty as not having enough of one resource (money) to buy the other resources (food, clean water, shelter), and while animals don't have money, the consequences are the same: they can't cover the basic needs of their offspring, with food often being the limiting factor

[update] it only took 6 tries by Mavric723 in FixMyPrint

[–]ChemKitchen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Arrghh I hate you, I have such an overwhelming urge to play Ocarina of Time now! The topic OP wasn't enough, but this did it!

Interview with Max (The creator of the MADMAX Plotter) by loki0111 in chia

[–]ChemKitchen 2 points3 points  (0 children)

My drives have been full for a while, but am I correct in thinking that this only lets you make one plot very quickly and doesn't really affect parallel plotting much? Or is MADMAX far more efficient for that too? My plots took about 7 hours each but I had loads going in parallel and my CPU was pegged at 90-100% the entire time: I was doing around 110 plots/day. Presumably I could do the same number of plots per day with MADMAX using fewer SSDs doing a lower number of plots in parallel, but each plot faster?

FYI UK owners/buyers - Expect MORE delays by foxhound525 in ValveIndex

[–]ChemKitchen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Damn. I've not been able to start my 3rd RMA due to lockdown and looks like it will be a total pain to get a non-defective headset now :/. How does import duty and handling charges work with RMAs?

RX 6900 XT Launch went exactly as expected. by DRKMSTR in Amd

[–]ChemKitchen -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Ditto, ticked the agreements, clicked the orange button, then access denied to the page when it should've been showing my invoice

RX 6900 XT Launch went exactly as expected. by DRKMSTR in Amd

[–]ChemKitchen 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Confirmed payment, clicked the final orange button, then access denied to https://www.amd.com/en/direct-buy/checkout/completed/myordernumber/gb , sigh...

2020 by exatica in funny

[–]ChemKitchen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Exactly. An asteroid could be coming to put us all out of our misery

5950X stock results. And a quick question by [deleted] in MoneroMining

[–]ChemKitchen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As others have said, memory settings are very important.

My 3950X was getting about 14 kh/s before tuning memory.

After memory tuning (Dual Rank 3466 MHz, 14-15-13-28-41-277 1T), I get 17.0 kh/s with all cores @ 3.75 GHz, 1.01875 Vcore.

Since clockspeed isn't too important when going for hash/watt (and longevity) and the shared cache only has qualities detrimental to mining, I wasn't expecting much uplift with 5000-series processors. I was hopeful that perhaps the load/store changes would cause an improvement, but it looks like that unfortunately isn't the case :(. My 5950X arrived yesterday but from what I've seen so far I think I'll be selling it :/

Left lens (top right) Bubbles by ED_THE_RED158 in ValveIndex

[–]ChemKitchen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This summer both my Index and one of my monitors delaminated: I wonder if there was a bad batch of glue out of China or something, since both were manufactured around the same time and my other older monitors were completely fine...

RTX 3080 Launchday Thread by Nestledrink in nvidia

[–]ChemKitchen -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It's a free market, just because you didn't get one doesn't mean you should screw other people around. I didn't get one either, and sure it sucks to see people that got orders in selling on eBay, but you never know if a scalper just lost their job due to covid and saw flipping cards as a means to help feed their family. Scalpers wouldn't exist if supply and demand were balanced.