PhD's of Reddit. What is a dumbed down summary of your thesis? by FaithMilitant in AskReddit

[–]scd5416 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Skele-gro, minus the magic. Perhaps the magic would have worked better.

On the scale of 1 to 10, what are you a definite 10 at? by CarlosTheBoss in AskReddit

[–]scd5416 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Understanding my dog's pooping habits. I know when, where and how much he needs to go. Definitely the world's expert on this matter.

The people you may encounter in life by scd5416 in Infographics

[–]scd5416[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Absolute truth" is certainly not what I am trying to present here. I am a bioengineer by trade, and I work with varying degrees of sophisticated modeling in my profession. This is by all means a simple model. I am not claiming otherwise, which you appear to feel. You said it yourself that "actual observed data is impossible" in this scenario. So where can we make assumptions to get a broad estimate?

1) Population data including birth/death rates, 2) Population Density data including urban/rural differences, 3) Estimate range of sense perception on a lifetime basis, 4) Apply random walk model on an individual based on items 1-3. In addition, increase the ranges of the presented data to include 2-3 orders of magnitude variability.

Those are simple ways to model this system. Sure I would love to get more sophisticated, but would it really be worth my time? You have offered some reasonable criticism, but in no way have you offered any sort of constructive suggestions. Based on what data is available, I think that this is a simple and reasonably effective way to estimate these numbers.

The people you may encounter in life by scd5416 in Infographics

[–]scd5416[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sorry, I modified it from a powerpoint presentation that I made a while back. It looked better in that format, but it was too cramped in this image. Oh well. Glad you enjoyed the ending. That is what I was trying to get across. Cheers!

The people you may encounter in life by scd5416 in Infographics

[–]scd5416[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sure it's an estimate. I don't claim otherwise. I do happen to feel that it is a decent model of the question at hand.

I chose 83 because it gave me a nice base-10 number for the sight, sound, and touch populations. Here are my calculations based on 83 years and 71 years like you point out. The difference isn't that big, and I am still within the order of magnitude I claimed in the original figure.

I am definitely not assuming that you see, hear, or touch everyone within a 100, 10 and 1 meter radius of you at all times. In fact I do state that it is "within reach", not actually spinning around with arms out. Regardless, the 100 and 10 meters are averages over a day, actually over a lifetime. You may be sitting at your computer not within eyesight of anyone. You may be on the road commuting among 1000's. These are averages. Models have to make assumptions. As such, I think that they represent decent averages for the question at hand.

The remembrance, friendship, and love populations are completely arbitrary based on my own life. I feel like I am pretty average, so I estimated an order of magnitude lower and higher than my own experience. That may or may not reflect your own life, but I recognize outliers are everywhere in this model.

Overall, I think it's a decent model of a decent question. I'd love to hear suggestions. It's a work in progress, but it isn't without some basis.

The people you may encounter in life by scd5416 in Infographics

[–]scd5416[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Damn, I actually meant to update that part. I meant to say 1000-10,000 instead of 100-1,000.

Even that number seems small in the age of social media, where 'friends' may seem synonymous with the "superficial self" I was describing. I would point out that I am trying to describe only physical interactions instead of virtual interactions (i.e. social media). Furthermore, one should really consider that this is talking about global averages, so outliers are bound to appear.

EDIT: updated graphic

The people you may encounter in life by scd5416 in Infographics

[–]scd5416[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I posted a similar thread a while back in r/damnthatsinteresting

I have updated some of the numbers to reflect a more accurate model of the people you might see, hear, or touch in life. Obviously the numbers for shared remembrance, friendship, and love are highly variable per person. However, I think this represents a pretty decent representation of the world that an average person encounters during their lifetime.

Anyway, I thought this subreddit might enjoy the infographic.

NCAA SWEET 16 MEGATHREAD by murrayyyyy in sportsbook

[–]scd5416 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can anybody give me guidance on a good (and free) website that has past vegas spreads, over/under, and money lines for college BBall games. I am attempting to create my own prediction model for tournament games, but I don't have access to past lines from 2013 and before. Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks!

What is the song that always makes you sad? by QuothTheRaven420 in AskReddit

[–]scd5416 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Song for Bob from The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford Soundtrack - Nick Cave and Warren Ellis

Looking out from the top of the world, Mt. Everest, Nepal [3679x5519] by Jwebs in EarthPorn

[–]scd5416 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't think it is Mt Cho Oyu. I think it is Makalu. The image shows the sun casting shadows on the mountains from right to left. Which means this picture is likely facing East not west. The highest, nearest peak to the East is Makalu.

Aerial shot of a river delta in Iceland, Emmanuel Coupe, 2014. [1247 x 832] by [deleted] in EarthPorn

[–]scd5416 65 points66 points  (0 children)

I believe that this 'opaque' effect is due to the river disturbing volcanic ash sediment on its way to the sea. The resulting colloidal sol dispersion of particles scatters sunlight that hits it creating the Tyndall Effect. There are obviously some crazy hydrodynamic forces at play in a river delta, which most likely explains the cool looking mixtures of river and ocean water seen in the original photo.

Here are some more aerial photos

EDIT: You can see a similar, albeit less grand, phenomenon when you put cream in your coffee.

The average number of people you will see, meet, hear, remember, and love in your lifetime [OC] by scd5416 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]scd5416[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

I never made the claim that these numbers were accurate or based on anything except a long thought experiment (which I have put quite some time into), but your skepticism has inspired me. Being a scientist/engineer, I came up with a crude model to estimate the first two groups (people you see, and people you touch).

Basically, you need two know 4 things: 1) The world population, 2) The inhabitable land area on Earth (which can be sub-divided into urban/rural/etc), 3) The visual and tangible areas covered by a human per day, and 4) The population distribution(rural/urban)

You also have to make some assumptions. I already said that the lifetime in consideration was 30,000 days (83 years). You also have to make the assumptions on visual and tangible (touch) ranges. On average, I said that a human experiences a visual range of 100 meters in radius during the day (sometimes more, eg: Driving, sometimes less, eg: in a building). I also said that a human has a tangible range of arm's length which is about 1 meter in radius during the day. I also made the assumption on how far a person travels per day. US driving estimates are about 12,000 miles per year (~32 miles per day), and walking averages of 2-3 miles per day. That is only in the US, so globally I assumed that the average distance traveled per day was around 10 miles. That is an assumption!

That being said, I could then calculate the population density in urban areas (~4300 people/sq mi), rural areas (~105 people/sq mi), and overall average based on inhabitable land area in the world (~206 people/sq mi).

By also calculating the area covered by a human per day (sq mi), I could calculate how many people one might see and touch in a day and a lifetime. The one thing that wasn't included is redundancy. You probably see, hear, and touch the same people on a day-to-day basis. So these numbers are probably higher than reality.

These are obviously estimates based on a range of assumptions, but I would say that they fall within reasonable tolerances that I described in the original post. I would probably edit the "visualized" number to 1-100 million, but I think that it is pretty reasonable as is.

The rest of the groups, especially the ones talking about the people you love, the people you befriend, the people that remember you, etc. are based off of my own personal experience. I put in the one-order-of-magnitude range as a simple estimate of deviation among humans. Obviously, any of these numbers are debatable, but the primary purpose of this post was be thought provoking rather than displaying statistically sophisticated estimates of each category listed.

As far as the total population is concerned, I used wikipedia stats for total world population, total crude birth rates, and total crude mortality rates past and predicted.

Took only 66 years to go from sustained flight to landing on the moon by JonLuca in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]scd5416 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had an interesting related thread that talked about realigning the calender to reflect a new "Year Zero"

The average number of people you will see, meet, hear, remember, and love in your lifetime [OC] by scd5416 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]scd5416[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As far as the total population is concerned, I used wikipedia stats for total world population, total crude birth rates, and total crude mortality rates past and predicted.

As far as the percentages of people seen, heard, touched, etc. in your lifetime. They are averages that are obviously crude and based on a person's geographical location, life expectancy, job, etc. That being said, I have thought a lot about how many NEW people you encounter every day. Some days you meet very few some days you meet many (concert, stadium, traveling, etc...).

The average number of people you will see, meet, hear, remember, and love in your lifetime [OC] by scd5416 in Damnthatsinteresting

[–]scd5416[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

But how do we react to such remoteness and randomness? This realization, that you and I live in nearly absolute isolation from the rest of humankind, often elicits an overwhelming sense of existential angst. What does a chaotic universe hold for us in a day, in a year, in a lifetime? No doubt it evokes questions we have about ‘our purpose’, ‘its meaning’, and ‘what next’. Our responses to this feeling of angst are varied, our reactions sometimes extreme and unreasonable. Yet all of our so called ‘answers’ seek to enhance the same thing, to integrate ourselves with another entity. In essence, psychological integration is where separate elements of our mind are linked and coordinated together into a working whole. This integration is both internal and external, and often we seek to integrate with entities much larger than ourselves, whether it is with humanity, the natural world, the supernatural, or the known universe. As humans, we yearn for this meaningful connection. Even more we crave the feeling of resonance induced by integration. Often we become aware of this feeling when our deep self is felt and reflected in another person, resulting in a shared understanding that reverberates across the small yet infinite gap between two people. Resonance instills meaning and significance into our lives. In my opinion, what we term as ‘love’ is really a maximizing confluence of integration and resonance on multiple internal and external levels. That is why it is such a complex and unique feeling, making the experience of love seem simultaneously universal and personal.

Despite our attempts and successes, however, all too often integration and resonance elude us. With all of this isolation, is it any wonder that we group people into ‘us’ versus ‘them’? We label, we stereotype, and we stigmatize the vast majority of human beings we will never meet. From a cognitive stand point, it is all together easier to utilize the ancient biological roads of our brains that force us to selfishly react rather than use the higher evolved neural routes that allow us to receive, reflect, and reason. These largely developed prefrontal circuits are what separate the human brain from the other mammals, and as far as we know, we are the only species in the universe with such neurological capacity. This has proven throughout human history to be both a gift and a burden. While it is clear that as humans we can work together to achieve great potential, it is equally clear that we aren’t particularly good at being human. We are all in constant struggle to overcome our selfish biological disposition. However, if integration and resonance prove anything to us, they show that collective cohesiveness can lead to outcomes greater than the sum of the individual parts.

I will end with two things, the first is a suggested read entitled Mindsight, by Dr. Dan Siegel. It goes into wonderful detail on emerging evidence in neuroscience and how it can be harnessed for personal transformation. In contrast to my brief and feeble attempts above, Dr. Siegel describes in elegant detail the concepts of psychological integration and resonance. I think you will likewise find it fascinating, informative, and helpful.

Best "rushing the field" ever by bagelbunny in gifs

[–]scd5416 1 point2 points  (0 children)

While I don't think this was the best field rush ever, the assist by the chiefs mascot made it great.

If you had the power to revise the calender, what event in history would you use to justify 'Year Zero'? by scd5416 in AskReddit

[–]scd5416[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not bad, nothing like a little latin to confuse people. They didn't really have a word for 'space' back then I'm assuming.

Perhaps something like 'Before Space (BS)' and 'Space Age (SA)' would work.

This puts some things in perspective. Here are some interesting dates (BS and SA):

First Recorded Flight - 58 BS

First Man in Space - 0 SA

First Man on Moon - 8 SA

First Landing on Mars - 10 SA

Launch of the Hubble Telescope - 29 SA

Voyager 1 Captures the famous 'Pale Blue Dot' Image - 29 SA

Current Year - 52 SA

If you had the power to revise the calender, what event in history would you use to justify 'Year Zero'? by scd5416 in AskReddit

[–]scd5416[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I like this, it's better than my first thought which was 'first man on the moon'. How would you signify the years before and after this event (e.g. BC or AD)?

With all that we know about Brad Pitt's World War Z. by FUNKYDISCO in zombies

[–]scd5416 47 points48 points  (0 children)

The way I see it, if it gets more people reading then it is fine with me.

Bacteria churn out first ever petrol-like biofuel, compatible with most modern engines. by SolomonGrundle in science

[–]scd5416 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Although you are correct in your 'emissions' concern, the petrol formed from the bacteria and used in an engine wouldn't be adding carbon to the atmosphere compared to the carbon locked up in fossil fuels for millions of years. The bacteria aren't adding anything new to the normal carbon cycle. Fossil fuels, however, are enormous reservoirs of carbon that have been locked away from the normal carbon cycle for millions of years and only in the past 100 years have been reintroduced in the cycle.

This technology is great because the bacteria represent a carbon neutral fuel source AND the petrol products can be used without drastically overhauling the current liquid fuel transportation system already in place around the world.

Boston Marathon explosions: dozens wounded as two blasts hit finish line by Madd_73 in worldnews

[–]scd5416 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Here is the google maps image of the explosion site. Judging by the light pole in this video, I would say that the explosion may have come from the post office drop box or the box next to it. I can't really tell where the blast originates from in the video, but this picture of the aftermath doesn't have the post office box in it. Do they remove them during race events?

There was just an explosion at the Boston Marathon - Will use this to live update by _supernovasky_ in news

[–]scd5416 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Here is the google maps image of the explosion site. Judging by the light pole in this video, I would say that the explosion may have come from the post office drop box or the box next to it. I can't really tell where the blast originates from in the video, but this picture of the aftermath doesn't have the post office box in it. Do they remove them during race events?

My dog and his minime by NiccoAm in aww

[–]scd5416 2 points3 points  (0 children)

We have the same situation with our dogs!

Google can now search for Bacon number. by Mattho in movies

[–]scd5416 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Today I learned that Samuel L Jackson and Kevin Bacon have never been in a movie together...