You still need to explain why this case creates a positive feedback loop rather than a negative one. I mean left/right fuel intakes in cars and male/female ratios somehow tend to balance at 50/50.

Regarding gender ratios: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher's_principle

There's exceptions, but they tend to be colonial animals in the broadest sense e.g. how clownfish males are famously able to become female but each group has one breeding male and one breeding female at any given time*, or bees where the males (drones) are functionally flying sperm and there's only one fertile female in any given colony; or some reptiles which have a temperature-dependent sex determination that may have been 50/50 before we started causing rapid climate change but in many cases isn't now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature-dependent_sex_dete...

* Wolves, despite being where nomenclature of "alpha" comes from, are not this. The researcher who coined the term realised they made a mistake and what he thought of as the "alpha" pair were simply the parents of the others in that specific situation: https://davemech.org/wolf-news-and-information/

Temperature-dependent sex determination may not be at equilibrium now but is not an exception to Fisher's principle. The temperature at which sex determination switches is variable based on the parent's genes, and it will try to re-equilibrate with the environment temperature to obtain 1:1 ratios just like in other animals.

Indeed, that is why I wrote "may have been 50/50 before we started causing rapid climate change".

It's still not a violation of Fisher's principle, long term we would see natural selection move the threshold temperature upwards.

products of an asymmetric reaction performed without enantiomeric control can selectively catalyse the formation of more products with the same handedness -- this is called autocatalysis. so the first full reaction might produce a left-handed product (by chance) but that left-handed product will then cause future products to be preferentially left-handed. see the [Soai reaction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soai_reaction?wprov=sfla1) for an example of this.

as mentioned by others this is conjectural but it is a popular (if somewhat unfalsifiable) explanation for homochirality

As someone with a right side fuel intake, that’s certainly isn’t true in the US. Left side fuel intake dominates completely and when the 8 pump station I prefer is busy, I only ever see left hand intake cars being fueled from the “wrong” side.

Wrt amino acids and sugars I personally don't have to explain as a good many others have already.

eg: For one, Isaac Asimov in the 1970s wrote at length on this in his role as a non fiction science writer with a Chemistry Phd

> male/female ratios somehow tend to balance at 50/50.

This is different to the case of actual right handed dominance in humans and to L- Vs R- dominance in chirality ...

( Men and women aren't actual mirror images of each other ... )

> left/right fuel intakes in cars

Are I believe chosen by intelligent humans who are deliberately trying to keep the lines at gas stations balanced.

I wonder if you could measure the difference in power consumption.

I mean, not for zeroing because we know from the TFA that it's special-cased anyway. But maybe if you test on different registers?

The internet reports that D100 is impractical to use but it's cool if your game design calls for a relatively rare "ritual value".

We had such a ritual in our games back when I was in high school: the start of the campaign luck roll.

The idea was that your starting circumstances would be modified by the d100 zocchihedron roll.

One time, my buddy rolled a 2; our DM grimaced. "Well, you aren't starting off dead... but you might wish you were".

His starting conditions?

Naked. In total darkness. Sealed in a coffin. But at least he wasn't alone: he had a rat nibbling on his toes!

> The internet reports that D100 is impractical to use...

It's a nice novelty but it's not terribly practical. Despite having a d100, 2d10s are invariably more comfortable to use and easier to read. My d100 was purchased back in 1998-ish for its novelty and nostalgia value, not its functional value.

Xor swap trick has perfect profile for underhanded C contests. It generally works until a specific condition triggers its failure. The condition is "the arguments are aliases", so for example XOR_SWAP(a[i], a[j]) when i=j.

TFA mentions this as an issue for the trick, whereas you rightly point out it's an evil feature instead.

Iran messaging: we got attacked by mad apes but we are cool and funny and we carry on unbothered

USA messaging: UNGA BUNGA BIG EXPLOSIONS

> Heck you could build some large bodies of water and boil them from time to time.

Some suppliers already do that. When a power plant also supplies the city heating, it makes sense for them to put the power surplus into pre-heated water which they can store and later distribute to the buyers of the heat.

Obviously this needs some huge and well insulated tanks.

Here's an article (in Polish) about one built in Warsaw, 10TJ capacity: https://globenergia.pl/najwiekszy-wodny-magazyn-ciepla-w-eur...

Here is one in German for one in Berlin https://group.vattenfall.com/de/newsroom/pressemitteilungen/...

I remember playing a version of this game on ZX Spectrum but I cannot find it on the internet. I remember it had bees that you had to avoid and a boat which you were able to untie so that it floats down a stream.

Anybody remember this one?

A regime driven by a weird religious cult and murdering their own citizens is battling a regime which is driven by a weird religious cult and is murdering their own citizens.

I think in this situation it is okay to cheer on both sides.

You can't go back. When Trump goes away, the conditions that let him rise to power are still there.

Some 120 million americans currently approve of the Trump II administration :)

EUBRICS, but it also includes Canada but not Russia and it's really more like "sane countries readjusting their politics against a mad ape".