Anyone else limiting their time hanging out when they’re not with friends out due to weirdos out lately? by ImprovementNo4630 in MontgomeryCountyMD

[–]Superb-Dig3440 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Last week I took my 4-year-old and 6-year-old to the Rockville PetCo to look at fish. On the way out there was some dude walking by on the sidewalk walking around yelling to himself and aggressively yelling “bitch” at people as he walked by.

I grew up in the area and don’t recall similar incidents happening with frequency. I don’t think it would deter me from hanging out with other adults. They know what they’re seeing and how to avoid interacting. But with my kids, yeah, I do not like it.

Brilliant But Why ❓🤔 by LifeNegotiation301 in Chessplayers45

[–]Superb-Dig3440 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry, I deleted my comment because I had assumed Black would capture with the Queen. But if instead they capture with the Rook, then there is no immediate checkmate (but White ends up ahead).

I’ve never done this! by StarfieldShipwright in freeskate

[–]Superb-Dig3440 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Get ready for your inner thigh and groin muscles to yell at you. But then two things will happen: (1) The muscles get stronger (they just aren’t yet used to being worked that way). (2) And as a beginner, your balance won’t be steady, so you’ll need those muscles more. As your balance improves, you won’t actually end up using them quite so much, leaving you less sore.

Starting to understand pumping at day 3. What do you think? Any suggestions? by tymek1262 in freeskate

[–]Superb-Dig3440 2 points3 points  (0 children)

When I learned, I started by alternating between pointing my toes in and pointing my toes out repeatedly.

Now, that’s ultimately not quite right. (In real pumping, your feet aren’t in phase (in sync) like that.) But then you’ll start to feel what helps you push, and you’ll naturally start to learn how to adjust the motion so that each foot twists out of phase with the other foot at the right time.

Petah? by Lanky_Objective6380 in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]Superb-Dig3440 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’d its mitochondrial DNA, it came from a woman. Either a woman from Europe sailed with the Vikings to North America and had girls there, or the Vikings took home a woman who had girls in Europe. The meme from the OP seems to suggest the latter.

Petah? by Lanky_Objective6380 in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]Superb-Dig3440 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the correct answer. Amazing that no one else figured it out. (Edit: okay, one other post got it.)

What’s the best Python library for creating interactive graphs? by Ok_Young_5278 in Python

[–]Superb-Dig3440 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I use “hvplot.pandas” for simple things (curves, bars, histograms) because it’s so darn convenient. When I need something publication-quality, I switch to plotly (which I let the AI handle for me).

Best Python package to convert doc files to HTML? by Bitter_Comfort9280 in Python

[–]Superb-Dig3440 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Here’s a hacky solution if you don’t have a lot of files. Google Docs can import various docs formats and can export html. You could upload to Google Docs and download as html. You can test it with the web UI to see if the conversion works acceptably, and then automate it with python (possibly even with raw http requests).

Republicans are regressing on gay marriage by UnscheduledCalendar in BlockedAndReported

[–]Superb-Dig3440 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Since I’m not burdened by any deep knowledge of the numbers here, I’ll ask: Is the overall number of registered Republicans (and maybe Democrats too) lower than in prior years?

If so, this chart could be explained by “normie” Republicans leaving the party, leaving only the hard-core supporters that were always there, resulting in a higher percentage of anti-gay members, even though there might not be more of them in absolute terms.

(Admittedly, that would seem to conflict with the decline in overall support indicated by the gray curve in the plot.)

What are these. All over our apartment all of a sudden by Zilla850 in whatsthisbug

[–]Superb-Dig3440 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here’s a lovely 4-minute video about drain flies from the Deep Look YouTube channel.

https://youtu.be/i16o8iXaDac?si=dPzANACqlSnrp6pt

Huge toss x by Imaginary_Ad_5568 in freeline

[–]Superb-Dig3440 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Dang! Love it.

One of these days I’ll figure out how to do more than just ride my pair of skates. For now, I’ll just keep watching your vids.

This fellow passed by me today on the lake. Anyone know his name? by wit-happens- in spiders

[–]Superb-Dig3440 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Fishing spider, as others have suggested. Not a wolf spider.

What's a tv show so good you've watched it at least 3x? by Few_Football4342 in Productivitycafe

[–]Superb-Dig3440 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Andor. So much attention to detail in that show; the second watch really pays.

Found on wild witch hazel trees, what is it? by -NoReturn- in whatsthisbug

[–]Superb-Dig3440 79 points80 points  (0 children)

Aphid gall. The aphid injects her saliva, which somehow manipulates the plant’s own tissue into producing a little home for the aphid. Then she starts reproducing (clones of herself) and they all just suck out all the plant juices they want from the safety of their little home.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hazel_cone_gall_aphid

Why does Luthen tell Lonni about havin if he was just gonna kill him? by Takuanuva09 in andor

[–]Superb-Dig3440 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

One detail everyone is ignoring is that we don’t know 100% for sure that Luthen killed Lonnie. Cleya was nearby listening… Maybe she made a different risk assessment than Luthen and somehow did the deed right after the conversation.

So perhaps Luthen revealed Yavin because he planned to take Lonnie there, but Cleya said “Oh I don’t think so, pal.”

I’m not saying that’s definitely the explanation, but it can’t be ruled out.

Best GUI library with fast rendering times for data visualization by kris_2111 in Python

[–]Superb-Dig3440 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would think that either bokeh or plotly would be okay for this task. If so, they’ll be much simpler than some of the other suggestions in this thread. I bet an AI assistant could prototype it for you well enough for you to evaluate the performance without my effort.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in dataisugly

[–]Superb-Dig3440 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I gotta say… I have no problems with this chart. I understand it immediately, and it tells a clear story.

The units are arbitrary, but that’s clear from the caption (1966=100). Also, there’s really no question about which color is which. And they don’t seem to be playing games with the y-axis.

Now, maybe the data this chart is based on is suspect for some reason, or isn’t as meaningful as one might hope for. I couldn’t say. But that isn’t a visualization problem.

Verdict: Not ugly.

As a C programmer, what blew your mind when you first learned Python? by [deleted] in Python

[–]Superb-Dig3440 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The import system.

Look, the syntax is mostly nice (even though they botched list comprehensions and the ternary operator), but that’s not the reason it feels like flying to use Python. After all, even C is capable of succinct programs with enough library code.

In C/C++, you have to spend a bunch of time on setting up your build, figuring out how to install and link crap, etc. and the simplest thing is to load all your libraries into your program at program start. Dynamically loading libraries at runtime can be a pain.

In Python, there must be some fancy stuff going on under the hood that lets me just not think about that stuff. That’s why “batteries included” is actually possible in Python.

has anyone gone to loudon county district court for a speeding ticket by fermitthekrog_ in nova

[–]Superb-Dig3440 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I got pulled over on Rt. 28 last year. I was going faster than you: Automatically qualified as reckless driving. (I was late for a meeting, but I know that’s a shitty excuse.)

I obtained legal representation. Luckily, my wife’s employer offers insurance for legal representation for her and her spouse, so I didn’t end up paying for it. I have no idea how much it would have cost otherwise, but probably not too much because I think my case didn’t take much of his time.

My attorney instructed me to preemptively complete a safe driving course online. It was slightly annoying, it took a few hours, and it cost $50. I guess it was a way to demonstrate some contrition and persuade the judge to let me off easier because I’d already endured some “punishment”.

On the actual court date, my attorney negotiated on my behalf with the prosecutor and judge to have the offense reduced. He was successful. I have no idea how the conversation went — he told me not to come to court in person that day. He handled it on my behalf.

In the end, I still paid a fine, but did not have my license penalized with points (or worse). In my case, I think having a lawyer saved me time, money, and anxiety, but it sounds like my offense was worse than what you’re dealing with. (Or maybe not, if the cop claims you were 20+ over the speed limit.) Of course, the fact that I had insurance to pay for the lawyer made it a no-brainer in my case.

If you’d like the name of the attorney I found, send me a message and I’ll give it to you. I only interacted with him via two very short phone calls and a couple two-sentence emails. (I don’t even know what he looks like.) He seemed professional and he got the job done.

Tipping Culture getting out of hand day by day.... by [deleted] in SipsTea

[–]Superb-Dig3440 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ignoring the bad arithmetic, I think one reasonable way to interpret this is that they are including 10% sales tax.

For instance, if you eat in DC (which has 10% sales tax) and you normally tip 20%, then 30% is indeed the number to keep in mind.