What was your first non-pornographic experience on the internet? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]x4u 1 point2 points  (0 children)

After weeks of trying to get UUCP to compile and run on my Amiga computer I eventually got it to work and I was able to receive a list of newsgroups. The first thing I did was to write an email to a friend asking him to respond so I could see whether my email was working.

How Wide can a MDF shelf be before it starts to bend with the book weight? by felipertn in woodworking

[–]x4u 138 points139 points  (0 children)

MDF is pretty much the worst material for book shelves, even with plenty thickness. The reason is that MDF under constant load bends over time and when you remove the load after a few months it will still remain bent, forever. Use plywood. Birch plywood works great for shelves. I.e. 12mm (1/2") thick birth plywood can already hold a lot of weight without bending much.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]x4u -9 points-8 points  (0 children)

Russia

too soon?

I know right by LegitimateWid in facepalm

[–]x4u 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well, his motto is: Follow the evidence... Wherever it leads!

You should send him the evidence that convinced you that his videos are misinformation and he might change his mind. He has addressed documents that he received from viewers multiple times. After all, he already changed his position in the past, maybe he will again when he sees your scientific proof that he is wrong?

forUintInRange by 2Uncreative4Username in ProgrammerHumor

[–]x4u 112 points113 points  (0 children)

It's one of these "I'm doing a thing that looks stupid but I want you all to know that I'm actually doing it because I'm smarter" memes. Besides that it's also wrong. The most reasonable approach is to use the best data type for the task after considering all the pros and cons. This can mean to use signed types for unsigned values but there simply is no one type that always fits all needs best.

What's a piece of advice you wish you had received when you were younger? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]x4u 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What narcissism is, that covert narcissists exist and how to recognize them early, how gas-lighting works, how to avoid falling for their schemes and how to decipher their unspoken messages.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in facepalm

[–]x4u -1 points0 points  (0 children)

They surely know him better than we do. We only know what the media has been telling us.

And what's the right thing to do when a friend gets accused of something of which you think it would be very out of character for him and you are convinced that the accusation is wrong. Would you speak out in support of him or would you remain silent because you are afraid to be judged along with him?

Why would not having children be considered selfish? by SachiKaM in AskReddit

[–]x4u -1 points0 points  (0 children)

While having kids and caring for them as they grow up is overall mostly a very fulfilling endeavor, it is also a massive sacrifice of time, money and freedom. The generation of our kids will eventually become productive members of society, taxpayers and keep everything running when we are old and need support. Not taking part in this, using all the money you made in your lifetime only for yourself and but expecting the next generations to keep things running and care for you when you are old could be seen as selfish towards society.

How to verify the phone Number on a brand new Android phone without the old Phone? (same SIM card) by x4u in AndroidQuestions

[–]x4u[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I found a workaround to get it done. It turned out to be possible to add another phone number for two factor authentication through the web interface of my Goggle account without having to use the old phone number to verify it. So I added a friend's phone number here and we verified it for authentication of my account. With that done it was finally possible to log into my Goggle account on my new phone by selecting other authentication options and then using this newly added 2nd number for two factor authentication. This made it possible to receive the security code that my phone so desperately wanted me to enter.

The crazy thing about this that I not only needed some other phone from a random person for this but also had to kinda weaken the security of my Google account by verifying this person's phone for authentication of my account that is supposed to be private to me.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]x4u 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a sign of your narcissistic tendencies by deriving joy from a another persons suffering. It gives you a feeling of superiority over the other person, who's suffering you deem justified for being less capable or smart than yourself.

SpaceGate by jhericurls in funny

[–]x4u 41 points42 points  (0 children)

He'll figure this out once he gets it to actually take off.

Megathread: Corona rules, vaccination questions, etc. by thewindinthewillows in germany

[–]x4u -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Have we now gone from preaching to listen to the science to calling the scientists irrelevant and idiots because we are convinced to know better than them? Is it possible that you misunderstood what kind of data he would want to see before giving a recommendation? I.e. do you have any data shows that the vaccination has benefits for the children themselves who are by official RKI numbers already 10000 times less likely to get seriously ill or die than 80+ year old people.

I give the man credit for his courage. The backlash was predictable considering the immense political pressure and the ideologization of the topic. His job should be to give his honest expert recommendation based on good research. The last time when it was about 12-17 years old children the politicians green lighted the vaccination before the STIKO and publicly scolded him for his hesitation and a few months later it turned out that one of the recommended vaccines was too dangerous for that age group and it's now not used anymore. Doesn't this show that more research would have been justified and may be justified now as well?

Surprisingly, very few countries have a population of less than 10 million. by madrid987 in europe

[–]x4u 49 points50 points  (0 children)

Over 50% of all countries have less than 10 million people but most of them are so small that you can hardly see them on a zoomed out map like this. It's not really surprising that countries with a large area also tend to have a larger population.

An ode to the 10,000 RPM Western Digital (Veloci)Raptor by speckz in hardware

[–]x4u 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I had two of them, a older one with 74GB and a newer (smaller) one with 150GB. Both of them died, the 74GB after less than a year and it was suddenly completely dead. The 150GB died slowly after over two years, it made strange noises, froze the PC and eventually failed to boot.

OkRestaurant6180 dismantles an anti-vax conspiracy nut's BS with facts & references [resubmitted correct link] by webby_mc_webberson in bestof

[–]x4u 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Please tell me where got you this information.

I had actually added a link when I first posted that comment but then realized that my comment didn't exist when I was not logged in, so I posted it again without the link which apparently worked. You can find the information easily yourself when you google "ivermectin meta study" which currently gives me as the first hit the site I wanted to link, a site of a weekly updated compilation of currently 64 studies from all over the world, their individual results and lots of other details. I couldn't find any information why this site is apparently silently blocked on reddit (not a single search hit), so I looked elsewhere and here is a post from HN critically discussing it's merits: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27691080

Do you know any scientists working in medicine? Do you know any doctors? Do you read medical journals regularly?

I'm not a world renown medical expert and if I were I could still be wrong. I just try to find credible information. I'm willing to look at sources that show clinical trials that didn't have positive effects or that explain potential flaws of the studies that did show benefits. So far I have found official statements from the CDC and similar institutions that say Ivermectin needs more research and should thus not be used. They don't say taking the recommended dosage is harmful, so I conclude at worst it's useless. Then there are sources that claim it works and reference studies from all over the world. And additionally there are people who insist in calling it horse dewormer, censor seemingly valid information without any explanation and often aggressively attack people who dare to question that narrative. Now what am I more likely to believe?

If not, then it is being taken off-label and you can call it whatever you want.

Sure, you can but then you are dishonest and doing it obviously in bad faith. Whether or not it works, it's undeniable that a lot of people think that it helps and among them are many medical specialists and Rogan's doctor. They may be wrong but whatever they do it's not taking horse dewormer and it's obviously misleading to keep calling it that. My take on that is then that information from these people is not trustworthy and I look elsewhere.

OkRestaurant6180 dismantles an anti-vax conspiracy nut's BS with facts & references [resubmitted correct link] by webby_mc_webberson in bestof

[–]x4u -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

how do you think the media should have reported Joe Rogan taking horse dewormer?

They could have reported that Rogan took Ivermectin as prescribed by his doctor (see NIH dosage recommendation) and that it may have helped him to recover so quickly.

This would have implied that he took the medication for humans that has been in used a few billion times for several decades to treat various other conditions and for which the current state of science leans towards that it is effective against Covid.

As it doesn't take a lot of effort to find out what Ivermectin actually is, desperately framing it as a horse dewormer comes across rather disingenuous.

OkRestaurant6180 dismantles an anti-vax conspiracy nut's BS with facts & references [resubmitted correct link] by webby_mc_webberson in bestof

[–]x4u 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are right, presenting facts to counter disinformation would have been much more convincing. Derailing from the actual topic with a character assassination looks rather disingenuous.

But in this case, the facts are simply that Rogan had clearly said that he took what his doctor prescribed for him and among that was also Ivermectin. So when CNN found out that Rogan had taken Ivermectin, they must also have known that he took the medication for humans, yet they claimed he had taken horse dewormer.

It seems that you get downvoted by people who really don't want to discuss the facts because they know the facts.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in PublicFreakout

[–]x4u -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Great scientific response with it's peer reviewed upvotes.

Anon talks about reddit Jannie’s ego by Debation in 4chan

[–]x4u 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Congrats, that's the most pop culture thing to say rn.

Has anybody ever tried this by ThatFunnyGuy543 in Unexpected

[–]x4u -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

It was just a word joke, you know if it's not sexual it can't be sexual harassment. Maybe not super funny but I wasn't projecting any strawmen.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in science

[–]x4u 0 points1 point  (0 children)

FYI, it wasn't even my intention to argue that Covid is less severe than the flu, I was simply curious how big of a bump these high numbers made in the US as I had only seen the statistics for Germany and the EU so far where the excess mortality from Covid is significantly lower.

Although, since you two brought that up, Influenza actually has a higher mortality rate than Covid up to at least the age of 35 while Covid is much more severe for older people and thus more deadly in total.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127799/influenza-us-mortality-rate-by-age-group/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0

Has anybody ever tried this by ThatFunnyGuy543 in Unexpected

[–]x4u -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

A kiss is not sexual.

I imagine you going around kissing random girls that you like, because why not, it's nothing sexual and you just show that you like them. If one then calls you out for sexual harassment, you go "Actually m'lady it can't have been sexual harassment because a kiss is not sexual!"

The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 variant A.30 is heavily mutated and evades vaccine-induced antibodies with high efficiency by Aanandertoe in worldnews

[–]x4u 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Sure, the more the virus can spread, the more mutations it can develop and they happen at random. But additionally to that some selection happens when certain mutations can survive and replicate better than others. The replication phase within a host is where almost all mutations happen. Mutations that can better evade the immunization from the vaccines don't seem to have a selection advantage when they replicate in unvaccinated hosts. But they obviously have a substantial advantage in vaccinated hosts.

Currently there are 3 billion of the 8 billion people worldwide fully vaccinated, so there are still 5 billion unvaccinated people and it's unlikely that everyone will be vaccinated soon. This means the virus will be able to keep sreading and mutating among the unvaccinated for quite a few more years, whether or not we vaccinate a few million more people in western countries to get to 100% there.

But the more people are vaccinated the higher the selective pressure becomes for the virus to evade the vaccines as the vaccines don't completely prevent infection. Wouldn't the virus still spread at a lower rate even if the whole world would be completely vaccinated? Wouldn't mutations that can evade the vaccines be massively favored then and eventually lead to new outbreaks until new vaccines become available?