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  • Showing only topics in ~science with the tag "ask.recommendations". Back to normal view / Search all groups
    1. Can you recommend a simple world weather map that shows weather fronts and upcoming lightning?

      I enjoy a few weather tools. For example, I enjoy blitzortung that shows live lightning. Currently, you can see a long chain of lighting through eastern Germany and up through Denmark, Sweden and...

      I enjoy a few weather tools. For example, I enjoy
      blitzortung that shows live lightning. Currently, you can see a long chain of lighting through eastern Germany and up through Denmark, Sweden and Norway.

      This is expected, since we’ve had very warm weather for a while, and it’s supposed to change to colder weather soon.

      But is there a good website that can show me easily the weather front that is currently creating all those lightning strikes? The sites I know only shows vague colors and you can perhaps implicitly see some change in pressure, wind, temperature etc, but nothing that clearly shows an east front where for example you would expect lightning soon.

      15 votes
    2. Can anyone recommend a specific type of statistics course?

      I would like to find a good Statistics course to do for myself, and also to recommend to others, down the road ... one that specifically focuses on risk, and the discrepancy between actual...

      I would like to find a good Statistics course to do for myself, and also to recommend to others, down the road ... one that specifically focuses on risk, and the discrepancy between actual statistical probability vs humans' intuitive sense of risk.

      I recall a quote, which The Interwebs informs me right now, came from Albert A. Bartlett ... "The Greatest Shortcoming of the Human Race Is Man’s Inability To Understand the Exponential Function".

      Alternately, Mark Twain popularized (but did not originate) the saying "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics".

      That's the kind of course I'm looking for, that focuses on questions like how much should we actually worry about supervolcanoes, asteroid strikes, Covid 2.0, WWIII, Trump getting re-elected, etc.

      There are two parts to this. One, people often (naturally, human nature, how our brains are wired to handle Risk) obsess about a short list of risks in life that are overblown, or appear to be more of a concern than they actually are.

      The other part is, some things have a very small risk of actually happening, but when considered in conjunction with the potential consequences (asteroid strikes, WWIII, global pandemic), are still worthy of aggressive efforts to prevent ... and people often focus on the first element (statistically unlikely) and dismiss or overlook the second piece (devastating consequences).

      Anyway, stuff like that ... ideally an actual, hands-on MOOC-type Statistics course, but even a good youtube video or blog article would suffice.

      As usual, thanks in advance.

      5 votes
    3. Any good resources on Morphogenesis and related areas?

      I recently began thinking about how plants get their shape and discovered "morphogenesis" after some inept googling. It seems like a fascinating subject so I'd like to learn a bit more. I have...

      I recently began thinking about how plants get their shape and discovered "morphogenesis" after some inept googling. It seems like a fascinating subject so I'd like to learn a bit more. I have some A-level university courses in chemistry and microbiology, but never dug too deep. So I am looking for suggestions on what to read up on in order to gain some understanding of how plants and other organisms get their shape. The ultimate goal is of course to plant my own house.

      4 votes
    4. What is a great book to learn high-school level physics?

      That's a requirement for a test I'm going to take. I tend to learn better with well designed, reasonably comprehensive books that don't treat me like a dumbass (not as a genius either!). Please...

      That's a requirement for a test I'm going to take. I tend to learn better with well designed, reasonably comprehensive books that don't treat me like a dumbass (not as a genius either!).

      Please notice that I'm not asking for websites, interactive platforms, videos, or whatever, but about books, preferably ones that I can study on my Kindle (so PDFs are not ideal). I know all the major websites but I just can't follow them.

      I can pay very small amounts but I'm pretty much unemployed in a third world country so free is always better.

      If there are requirements to understand such books, kindly inform!

      I finished school more than 20 years ago and I was not a good student. But I'm kind of a decent learner now that I have a diagnostics (ADHD).

      Thanks a bunch!

      EDIT: guys, I am actually a beginner in the sense that I literally know little to nothing about the subject! I'm also not a math wizard. Advanced suggestions are appreciated but also entirely useless. This is also for a test, so, beyond a very brief introduction, general understandings on the Neil DeGrasse Tyson level is also of little use for me. I don't need to understand the beauty of the cosmos, I need to pass a test. Thanks!

      10 votes