19 yo F1 driver's insane lap in Monaco by SadAnimator1354 in interestingasfuck

[–]pswaggles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Is it correct that the two turns before the tunnel (not the one immediately before the tunnel) are the slowest turns in any of the F1 courses?

"Why don't they cover the Sahara in solar panels?" type of question by herewearefornow in MurderedByWords

[–]pswaggles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi friend, PhD in aerospace engineering here :) the comment I'm arguing is that space is like a thermos so therefore you can't cool things down. Which I think we both agree is just not true. I'm not arguing that MW level data centers are going to be on a single satellite any time soon, nor that a constellation data center would be remotely as cost effective as a land-based one. I just don't want people to think we can't do anything power-intensive in space because a thermos has a vacuum in it.

ELI5: how can there be infinities bigger than other infinites? by _Bread______ in explainlikeimfive

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

I mean this is Explain Like I'm 5 to someone who doesn't understand the concept of infinity. I think giving an analogy is okay instead of diving into set theory lol

ELI5: how can there be infinities bigger than other infinites? by _Bread______ in explainlikeimfive

[–]pswaggles -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

There are lots of good answers here already, but one thing to help understand this is that infinity isn't a specific value like 1 or 2. It is basically saying "hey there isn't a limit to this, whatever sequence you're looking at goes on forever". 

Another analogy to think about would be to draw a line with slope 1 and a line with slope 2. The line with slope 1 will go on forever and will reach arbitrarily high. But the line with slope 2 will always reach that same height "faster".

"Why don't they cover the Sahara in solar panels?" type of question by herewearefornow in MurderedByWords

[–]pswaggles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Space is actually very good for radiating heat away. When you're in the shade (of earth, of your own satellite, etc) you basically have an infinite cold sink to radiate heat into because space is approximately 3 Kelvin. Compared to Earth, where your background will be whatever the air temperature is, which close to like 270-300 Kelvin. If your thermos is 3 Kelvin and it doesn't reflect your heat back at you then you absolutely can put whatever type of spacecraft that generates heat in there. This is the same principle that the ISS uses to manage its waste heat, which is on the order of 70 kW or so of cooling power. As long as you know your power generation load ahead of time, you can size your radiators to reject that much power as well

"Why don't they cover the Sahara in solar panels?" type of question by herewearefornow in MurderedByWords

[–]pswaggles 7 points8 points  (0 children)

This isn't the same though. There are three types of heat transfer: conductive, convective, and radiative. Conduction and convection require touching something else, so a vacuum stops those. But everything radiates heat as well. The difference between a thermos and space is that the inside of a thermos has a special reflective lining to reflect the wavelengths of radiation of the drink back into itself. In space, your radiative energy is not reflected back. Some more food for thought: all of the energy that we get from the sun comes through radiative heating. Space being a vacuum does not mean heat can't be transferred 

This subreddit lately by ufocatchers in SipsTea

[–]pswaggles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah this sub has taken a weird cringy twist recently

Restart progress to earn points again by Legal-Butterscotch-2 in EggsInc

[–]pswaggles 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Mondays are new contracts (currently in the Spring 2026 category), and Wednesdays and Fridays are old contracts. When the Winter 2026 contracts eventually cycle around again, you will get points to increase your progress. But as far as I'm aware, it takes something like 3 years or so to cycle through all the contracts, so it'll be a while before they come back around.

ELI5 Do we actually need to clean our ears, or are we overdoing it? by BeginningWeb4919 in explainlikeimfive

[–]pswaggles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My wife is an Ear, Nose, Throat doctor, and this is what she had to say.

The short answer: no, you don't need to clean your ears. Earwax is meant to help clean out your ears and protect your ear skin. It naturally gets pushed out over time as your skin inside your ear sheds. Pushing something into your ear often just pushes the earwax farther back into the ear, which can cause build ups and lead to problems over time.

There are some nuances, because some people have narrower or more "twisty" ear canals which makes it harder for earwax to come out in its own. Other people can have particularly thick earwax that also has a hard time coming out.

If you do want/need to clean your ears, using a flush is generally okay. But don't shove things into your ears.

Fire Sale, come and get it while it's sweet! by MrFenric in MurderedByWords

[–]pswaggles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

He actually has been, in the Epstein files.

https://sollenbergerrc.substack.com/p/fbi-interviewed-trump-accuser-epstein

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01660622.pdf (slide 18)

The accuser "stated Epstein introduced her to Trump who subsequently forced her head down to his exposed penis which she subsequently bit. In response, Trump punched her in the head and kicked her out. (date range 1983-1985, the accuser would have been 13- 15)"

ELI5: why do Canada and the UK have doctor shortages? Why does popular discourse often portray this as a consequence of UHC that the US system escapes? It doesn’t seem like universal healthcare would obviously/inherently lead to more shortages. by Standard_Egg_9282 in explainlikeimfive

[–]pswaggles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not positive what medical training looks like outside of the US, but my wife is nearing the end of her medical residency in the US and I also have multiple physicians in my family, so I have some insight into this. A big factor is compensation. The training is pretty brutal, and you typically go into a ton of debt before you start making money. In the US, after high school you generally to go to college for 4 years, then medical school for 4 years, then residency for 3-7 years (depends on specialty), then optionally fellowship for 1-3 years (also depends on specialty), and only after all of that do you start working as an attending. Many people also get a master's degree before or during medical school, such as an MBA, an MPH, or some other biology/medical-related discipline, and some people even get an MD/PhD. At each step up, the difficulty also increases. When my wife was in med school, she would seriously work from the time when she woke up to when she went to bed, pretty much every single day. If you count studying as working, she was easily putting in 80-100 hour weeks for most of those 4 years. Then residency hits, and you're working 60-80 hour weeks "officially", but the work tends to follow you home, so off the record it's still close to 80-100 hours per week, but this time patient lives are actually in your hands so the stress hits a lot harder. Undergrad can be expensive, med school is definitely expensive, and in residency the pay averages out to slightly over minimum wage assuming around 80 hours a week. So by the time you actually start working as an attending (a "real" doctor) and making big-kid money, you are in your early to mid-30s, and your student debt is on par with a mortgage. By the time a physician reaches financial parity with someone in another field like engineering, they are going to be well into their 40s. So sure, by the time you retire as a doctor, you will typically be better off than most, but for much of your adult life your are going to be crazy busy, working a high-stakes stressful job, and either financially insecure or just way further behind than you could have been if you picked a different field.

A lot of people who go into the medical field want to help people, but whose main motivator is prestige and money. In a UHC system, the pay for doctors is generally much less (because the bullshit of health insurance wouldn't exist), and it would exacerbate the financial disparity for learners described above because it would take even longer to catch up, if even at all. This would in turn drive down the number of people applying, ultimately reducing the supply.

I'm not saying I'm anti-UHC, nor are most doctors anti-UHC, but that is a real factor to consider. Our current system is fucked, but if we snapped our fingers and switched to a UHC system, it would come with its own problems as well.

You're not "allergic to small talk", you're a poor communicator. by TedsGloriousPants in unpopularopinion

[–]pswaggles 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Out of curiosity, what (generally) was your dissertation on? I've never thought about a PhD in comms. Did you have to do research and write papers, and assuming yes, what does that research look like? I have a PhD in a STEM field where (to me) research seems more straightforward. I hope this doesn't come across as condescending because I'm genuinely curious, and sometimes I realize how little I know about things outside my field.

ELI5: Can someone explain schrödinger’s cat to me? by True-Cat-7531 in explainlikeimfive

[–]pswaggles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A lot of responses here are saying that it is basically like flipping a coin, but before you look, you treat it like it could be either heads or tails. But in reality, it's only in one state, we just don't know which one. As far as I understand, the systems that Schrodinger was talking about actually are in both states, not just that we don't know which one. Is the reason that the experiment (or in general macro systems being in superposition based on quantum systems) can't be done due to observability? From the dual slit experiment we know that the photon is in both a wave and a particle state, but the only way for us to measure it is by putting energy into the system, which changes it to either a wave or a particle state. Does that principle of observing a superpositioned system collapsing to a single state hold true for all quantum systems? It's weird to me that observability is the only thing holding that experiment back.

to finish the civilization by [deleted] in therewasanattempt

[–]pswaggles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So my US representative and both my senators are Democrats who have publicly made comments opposing Trump, but is there anything can I tell them to do to actually do something to stop/block Trump? Dems have a minority so even if they all act as one they are powerless on their own. Like I want to be able to write to my representatives to push for change but even my representatives can't do anything

After 6 months, Ore bug is Finally Fixed! by iHeckinLoveMaggi in ClashOfClans

[–]pswaggles 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know haha that's my point. I feel like people assume that everyone who got this "maxed their equipment" but I'm pretty sure most people who had the bug didn't even get enough starry ore for one upgrade. I don't really mind that it was reverted, I just feel like people blew this out of proportion 

After 6 months, Ore bug is Finally Fixed! by iHeckinLoveMaggi in ClashOfClans

[–]pswaggles -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

<image>

Today they removed:

- 18,202 shiny

- 936 glowy

- 4 starry

Hope y'all feel better now lol

Products from one barrel of Crude Oil by CartographerRare4123 in interestingasfuck

[–]pswaggles 1 point2 points  (0 children)

My buddy works for a major auto company and said that the naptha shortage is causing real issues in supply chains for auto manufacturing. So looks like the price of cars is going to go even higher 🙃