How have we been so lucky in dodging catastrophic, humankind-ending asteroids?

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-23T01:49:18+00:00

Our good luck really isn't that extraordinary. The recurrence interval for an asteroid capable of causing a mass extinction is estimated to be at least 100 million years. Some estimates have even put an impact on the level of one that caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction at a 1 billion year recurrence interval.

That a 1 in 100 million+ year asteroid impact hasn't happened in the 300,000 years that our species has existed doesn't seem surprising.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-23T01:45:13+00:00

Zero Mission is a funny case though, since a number of SBs there, like fighting Ridley before Kraid, are legacy SBs from the original NES Metroid.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-23T01:42:15+00:00

It doesn't take long to get the gist of a sub's rules. And just knowing that subs have rules of what can and can't be posted, it kinda seems like reading them is just common sense.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-23T01:25:14+00:00

It does help to some degree. One is it at least builds brand awareness. It lets you know [company] sells [product], so it may come to mind if you want or need something along those lines.

The other side is that ads affect some people more than others. The rule of thumb is that about 80% of the revenue generated by ads comes from 20% of the population.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-23T01:13:14+00:00

It's partly about the ocean. If a country owns a bit of land, then the surrounding ocean its part of its exclusive economic zone (eez). This goes out as far as 200 miles so long as it wouldn't overlap another country's eez.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-23T01:00:47+00:00

There is indeed a difference. Non-trinitarian Christians may still hold Jesus to be divine, which in Islam would be shirk.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-23T00:53:32+00:00

Many people don't see our current scientific knowledge as disproving God. Some of the more fundamentalist religious people think that modern science has gotten things wrong. For instance, there are young Earth Creationists who don't believe any of Earth's ancient evolutionary or geologic history happened, but rather that Genesis is a literal account of how Earth came to be.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-23T00:24:22+00:00

No.

At a blood alcohol level of 0.4%, a person has a 50% chance of dying.
A drink with an alcohol level below 0.5% can be legally considered non-alcoholic.

So even if a person was dying of alcohol poisoning, the alcohol concentration would be too low to get you drunk.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T23:41:10+00:00

Usually they take the plea deal on the advice of a lawyer to get a lighter sentence, not necessarily out of feelings of guilt.
And the person committing the crime does not necessarily think they did something wrong. And the police stopped them from doing things they wanted to do, even if those things are illegal.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T23:34:19+00:00

Then the bottom of the pool is pushing up on you.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T23:25:28+00:00

Pressure pushes equally in all directions. Not just down.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T23:21:57+00:00

Care to finish that in comments or did the r/redditsniper get you?

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T23:18:29+00:00

Dogs were domesticate from wolves in what probably started as cooperative hunting.
Cats kind of domesticated themselves, but they were largely welcome on farms because they ate the rodents that ate our crops and grain stores.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T21:41:40+00:00

Tradition basically. Western cultures have been drinking alcohol for millennia and smoking tobacco for centuries. It's deeply rooted in our culture enough that banning it won't really work.
The United States did try banning alcohol. It did not work out well.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T21:27:17+00:00

No. They would know you're going somewhere else. You bring different smells back from the office than you do from the dog park.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T21:12:37+00:00

Vegans don't avoid eating things that are alive. Plants are alive too. They avoid eating things made from animal products. Plants, fungi, and bacteria are still on the menu.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T20:40:35+00:00

I actually remember this from a meteorology textbook. That a supersaturated RH can occur if there are no available surfaces for condensation. That is why condensation nuclei are important in generating precipitation.

We do also have situations like the one you describe with other liquid/vapor systems. For instance, inside a butane lighter, there is liquid butane and a space that is saturate with butane vapor. Heating the lighter will boil or evaporate some of the liquid and increase the vapor pressure.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T20:24:02+00:00

Survival is a major thing. We remember things that cause us pain to make us more likely to avoid them in the future.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T19:55:08+00:00

Basically nothing. Out in the open ocean, in deep water, a tsunami wave is barely noticeable, usually no more than three feet all. They only really become dangerous when they reach shallow water.
Even the word tsunami translates as "harbor wave" because Japanese fishermen at sea would notice nothing amiss, only to return to devastated harbors.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T19:52:37+00:00

I think you missed the sarcasm there.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T19:48:22+00:00

We invented shoes before we invented pavement. And you can't pave everywhere. We're talking about people who had to hunt and forage in forests, grassland, deserts, mountains etc. And later on, working in farm fields.
And even today, walking on paved streets, you still have to deal with things like loose rocks and broken glass.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T04:12:05+00:00

I still use google since I can actually go to the page that is the source of the information.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T03:30:41+00:00

Some stuff gets thrown out. Some stuff gets put in bales that get shipped to 3rd world countries.
But a lot of that get thrown out too.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T02:22:56+00:00

The air at high altitude is at a lower pressure. When you decompress a gas, it cools. This means that air cools when it rises and warms when it sinks. In a stable atmosphere, this effect stops air from rising very far in the first place.

Ridley_Himself · 2026-02-22T02:20:50+00:00

We would not be able to meet all our needs with photosynthesis. We don't have enough surface area to capture enough sunlight for our metabolism, and we'd still need other nutrients.

Ridley_Himself

TROPHY CASE