askscience 内の AutoModerator によるリンク Ask Anything Wednesday - Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science

[–]OrbitalPete 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

We can only date the oldest segment. We can't do a lot more than that. Although there is some hope in using seismic tomography to image the subducting slab as it goes into the mantle to see if any identifiable structures are still visible.

AskCulinary 内の Obti34 によるリンク I want to make the perfect lasagne

[–]OrbitalPete 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

A tablespoon or so. And yes, the bechamel goes on as a single top layer.

atheism 内の [deleted] によるリンク I'm beginning to think that I can't do this anymore.

[–]OrbitalPete 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

Well, 12 years in and still both happy - we'll count ourselves lucky.

AskCulinary 内の Obti34 によるリンク I want to make the perfect lasagne

[–]OrbitalPete 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Without a recipe to go over, here's mine, tweaked over countless attempts and based on one an Italian friend shared with me at university.

Stage 1: Bolognese. Cook off 1 or 2 large chopped onions in fat of your choice. Once they're beginning to brown add a pound of pork mince and a pound of beef mince. Brown this off. Add a couple of handfuls of finely chopped mushrooms Add a glass of milk, cook this off. Now throw in about half a bottle of red wine, a couple of tins of chopped plum tomatoes, dried oregano, a bay leaf or two, and a couple of cloves of chopped garlic. Plenty of pepper, and a couple of teaspoons of brown sugar. I also add a splash each of worcestershire sauce and balsamic or red wine vinegar. Now let this cook for at least 4 hours. If you really have your shit together you'll have done this the day before you're making lasagne. Cook it in the evening, then in the morning refresh it with a bit of cold water to loosen it up, then throw it in a low oven for another 3 or 4 hours. Yes, 8 hours total cook time for bolognese. Just keep an eye on the liquid levels, and add more wine or water as necessary. Season at the end to taste. Add fresh oregano toward the end if you want a slightly more fresh flavour.

Stage 2: When it's lasagne making time ideally make fresh sheet pasta that fits your lasagne tray, but dried stuff is fine too. Give it 3-5 minutes in boiling water just to loosen it up a bit though.

Stage 3: Now, you want layers of bolognese about 1 cm thick (or less). Bolognese, pasta, bolognese, pasta etc. In a decent size lasagne tray you should get at least 3 and preferably 4 layers of pasta in. Top layer should always be pasta.

Stage 4: Now make the bechemel. A heaped tablespoon of butter, similar amount of flour in a pan to make a roux (exact amounts will change with the flour you're using. You can also use other oils if you really want, but who doesn't want to use butter?). Get to a pale biscuit colour then gradually add about a pint of milk. Keep gently heating it, and mix in a couple of handfulls of grated cheese. A mixture of parmesan, mature cheddar and mozzarella works best for me. Give it a good grating of nutmeg. Keep heating and stirring. WHen it just about coats the back of a spoon it's good to go (it will thicken more in the oven).

Pour the bechemel over the top of lasagne, add a little more grated cheese to the top, now throw it in a medium oven for about an hour until the top starts going golden. Remember, everything is basically cooked so you're just waiting for it to warm through and finish the pasta.

Now shove it all in your face.

atheism 内の [deleted] によるリンク I'm beginning to think that I can't do this anymore.

[–]OrbitalPete 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

If love has worn off you're doing it wrong. It certainly changes, but it doesn't go away.

atheism 内の [deleted] によるリンク I'm beginning to think that I can't do this anymore.

[–]OrbitalPete 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

OK, substitute the word angry for 'antitheist'. But you describe it as a 'personal issue with religion', which suggests you ahve the potential to get on a soapbox about it.

And to your second point, it still reads like 'I don't want X but instead I want X'

atheism 内の [deleted] によるリンク I'm beginning to think that I can't do this anymore.

[–]OrbitalPete 8ポイント9ポイント  (0子コメント)

  1. Stop trying to convert everyone you meet.
  2. A successful relationship is not built on trying to change the other person.

In the same way that there's no obsessive religious person quite like a converted one, there's no angry atheist quite like a converted one. I hope it chills out in time for you. But you have to realise that getting angry achieves nothing, and people have to come to their own realisations about faith. If people want to debate you about it, get stuck in. But trying to hold down a relationship in that context is incredibly difficult.

EDIT: In fact, here's a better thought. Simple checkbox for whether you've got a chance of a successful relationship: Do you respect the other person and their opinions? If yes, get on with it. If not, move on.

AskAcademia 内の Coocoocachoo1988 によるリンク Any useful tools for writing a dissertation ?

[–]OrbitalPete 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

What subject? What level (assume by using dissertation you mean UK undergrad?). What type of study? How long is it likely to be? Will you be generating your own figures? Are you presenting your own data?

explainlikeimfive 内の bannerman82 によるリンク ELI5: Why are processor speed measured in hertz?

[–]OrbitalPete 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Actually, that last statement isn't correct; the frequency is simply the number of input cycles there are a second. It's entirely possible for a CPU running at 2GHz to outperform a 4GHz processor with less efficient architecture.

A single processor can usually process about 4 floating point operations per cycle, and a single CPU can have multiple processor cores. So a 4 core CPU would usually max out at about 16 FLOPS per cycle. At 2GHz that's 2x16 = 32 GigaFLOPS

TL:DR don't just look at GHz when you're buying a new computer.

explainlikeimfive 内の bannerman82 によるリンク ELI5: Why are processor speed measured in hertz?

[–]OrbitalPete 20ポイント21ポイント  (0子コメント)

Very simply because Hz is a frequency: a number of things per second. So you can talk about all sorts of things in Hz.

AskAcademia 内の CognitiveAdventurer によるリンク What would you say is the scientific field that requires the most creativity at an academic level?

[–]OrbitalPete 6ポイント7ポイント  (0子コメント)

Science funding gets prioritsied for novel research. That means very little effort goes into replicating the results of previous studies to ensure they're sound.

This is certainly a concern, but it;s worth noting this is somewhat remedied by the fact that research is generally built on previous work and if something doesn't work in later works, problems in earlier works get found out in most fields relatively easily.

explainlikeimfive 内の TheDeadlyFuzz によるリンク ELI5: Homeschooling

[–]OrbitalPete 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

golfclap

I hope you don't home educate your children with that inability to engage in discussion.

explainlikeimfive 内の TheDeadlyFuzz によるリンク ELI5: Homeschooling

[–]OrbitalPete 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

From the double poost:

"Some people find that Schools run by the government don't actually educate their children."

Include the whole sentence for context. And I am saying that our modern 'education' system is and has been a massive joke for decades and there is no reason to pretend otherwise.

The implication of the whole sentence "Some people find that Schools run by the government don't actually educate their children" is that individual government schools educate some children but not others. And that surely must be a land of conspiracy and stupidity.

explainlikeimfive 内の TheDeadlyFuzz によるリンク ELI5: Homeschooling

[–]OrbitalPete 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Schools run by the government don't actually educate their children

armed guards and metal detectors are as common as graduating high school illiterate

Those are specific and inaccurate claims. I'm not saying the system is perfect, but don't use hyperbole. ALso, pics aren't reliable sources. Google image searches definitely aren't. In fact, having no direct experience of the US system at all, I wouldn't be surprised to find that metal detectors and armed guards - as far as student experience is concerned - are far more common than graduating illiterate. Which almost certainly makes your first point wrong immediately.

explainlikeimfive 内の karankaushal によるリンク ELI5: What does board mean in room and board?

[–]OrbitalPete 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

TIL that in some places 'room and board' doesn't mean food and lodgings.

AskAcademia 内の CognitiveAdventurer によるリンク What would you say is the scientific field that requires the most creativity at an academic level?

[–]OrbitalPete 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

The only parallel I can think of is that some fields have less quantitative data so there's more room for you to voice your opinion, rather than dealing with analytical data. But that's creativity in a way that - I at least - view as somewhat meaningless when comparing cross-field.

AskCulinary 内の ccspondee によるリンク Thicken premade marinara?

[–]OrbitalPete 5ポイント6ポイント  (0子コメント)

I agree with this. It doesn't take long to reduce it down a little, and there are few tomato sauces that don't improve with a little more cooking.

AskCulinary 内の upstanding_pillar によるリンク Give us your tips for the ultimate roast potatoes

[–]OrbitalPete 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

Pick pretty much any floury potato. Peel and chop into reasonable sized chunks (aim for something about half the size of a large tangerine)

Parboil and shake as you ahve been doing. But before the shaking, sprinkle with polenta. Season the whole lot heavily with salt and pepper, maybe some rosemary.

Have a preheated tray filled with a 50-50 mix of vegetable oil and butter, or duck or goose fat. It needs to be up to about 220 C (425 F) or a bit more.

Gently put the potatoes in and turn them with tongs to make sure they get covered. Be gentle otherwise you cover yourself in stupidly hot fat.

Now roast in a 200 C (400 F) oven for about an hour. You'll need to turn them once halfway through. At this point you can add a little garlic (not earlier because it will burn)

atheism 内の Bman409 によるリンク Do any atheists believe in ghosts?

[–]OrbitalPete 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

It's totally different. Dark energy was indeed 'invented', in the same way that any model might propose a mechanism we do not yet understand. However, the dark energy and dark matter models provide predictive statements. If dark energy is real then we could observe X and Y under conditions A and B. This is how you prove and disprove hypotheses, and is the crux of how science works.

The supernatural by definition does not do this.

atheism 内の Bman409 によるリンク Do any atheists believe in ghosts?

[–]OrbitalPete 1ポイント2ポイント  (0子コメント)

No, dark energy and dark matter are not being attributed to something beyond understanding. Dark energy and dark matter are things which have been described by science; we have models which infer some of their behaviours. But it is fair to say that they are controversial topics even within science.

Ghosts on the other hand are completely handwavey nonsense - there is no predictive test for them, there is no measurable way of proving they do or do not exist.

atheism 内の Bman409 によるリンク Do any atheists believe in ghosts?

[–]OrbitalPete 0ポイント1ポイント  (0子コメント)

A thing attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding.

in other words, if something can be described by science, it is not supernatural. Ghosts have never been observed in a controlled manner and there is no evidence that they are even there to measure, let alone how you would go about it. They are totally resistent to the scientific method..They are supernatural. We have as much evidence for their existence as the imaginary friend of a 3 year old.

AskAcademia 内の CognitiveAdventurer によるリンク What would you say is the scientific field that requires the most creativity at an academic level?

[–]OrbitalPete 3ポイント4ポイント  (0子コメント)

Not that I can think of. I think you maybe need to be a bit more clear about what you're looking for.

AskAcademia 内の CognitiveAdventurer によるリンク What would you say is the scientific field that requires the most creativity at an academic level?

[–]OrbitalPete 13ポイント14ポイント  (0子コメント)

What type of creativity? You'll never have success as a researcher in any field if you can't be creative in the way you approach problems or identify research topics.