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ELI5: Why are fleas the size of a speck of ground pepper but they can jump so high? | 25 | Part of the answer is the relationship between size and mass. If an animal is half the size, it's one-eighth the weight - so the smaller an animal is, the stronger it is in relationship to their weight. This allows very small animals to perform relatively amazing feats of strength.
Additionally, fleas have a special adaptation for jumping - rather than flexing their muscles to leap into the air, they repeatedly flex their leg muscles to put tension on a "spring" made of elastic protein. Then they release that tension all at once to jump. | 15 |
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CMV: There are no moral issues in training AI art generators using publicly available artwork | The topic of AI text-to-image algorithms has become quite contentious over the last few months. While I'm not super involved in artist communities, I intersect with them sometimes and see a common thread of disdain towards these algorithms. While I can understand some of the fears, I strongly disagree with the front-runner argument of why AI art is bad - that "models are trained on art without the artist's consent (but should be)".
Now, to explain why I think this isn't a strong argument, I'll give a basic outline on how (afaik) training works in a very rough, high-level way. However, while I have some rudimentary knowledge on how machine learning works, things as complex as this are still way beyond my level of understanding.
1. A publicly-available image is downloaded. It, alongside with some supporting data like tags, is fed into an algorithm that trains a model.
2. The image is broken down and passed through the model. In a nutshell, an AI has a wall of a million sliders (weights) - all of which are completely incomprehensible to humans - but if set in just the right way with the right inputs, a legible image can be created. Training "teaches" the model about which "sliders" to prioritize and to what extent. So, when a model is trained on an image, it's imprinted with some data on how the AI "understood" the image - the data that relates the image to its supporting text.
3. The input data can be discarded at this point. Again, all the AI gathered from the image was some human-unreadable information on features and relations of things about the image. This process is destructive - it's not possible to pixel-by-pixel recreate any input image used originally, all that's left in the model is essentially a faint shadow of some descriptive data of that image.
4. This is repeated many millions of times with different imagery to form a finished model.
This simplified explanation should still allow me to lay down some arguments based on it:
1. **Not legally problematic:** now, legality doesn't equate to morality, but I still felt like including this as one of the arguments, with some people claiming that there is a strong legal basis for a ban on AI art in general. Downloading a publicly posted image to your computer (even an artwork that an artist holds the copyright to) is legal. Mangling that image into data that the original can't be restored from is legal. Now consider that the model doesn't even contain the latter, but rather is trained to *roughly* predict new images based on its interpretations of descriptive data of millions of other images.
2. **Vaguely resembles human learning:** while human learning and deep learning are different mechanically, the latter was still strongly inspired by the former. At the moment, I'd say that this is the closest emulation of how a human learns things. That poses a question - what about a human learning from an image is moral, while an AI doing the same is immoral? In my opinion, I don't see a meaningful difference between these two.
3. **Highly transformative:** coupled with the fact that models don't store anything close to individual images, the resulting works they output can be extremely different from those inputs. It's similar to me pulling up some photographs or drawn references of a character to help me draw something - I'm not reproducing the original work, I'm merely using it to understand the way things like anatomy work or how exactly the different body parts, features of a character etc relate to one another to produce a new, unique work. In art communities, it would be considered absurd to ask reference artists or photographers for permission to use their work as art reference, as well as to credit them in the resulting work. So why should an AI do that?
If we agree that when artists post their art publicly (for example, on art-sharing websites) consent isn't required for other people to be able to view, download and directly learn from it, then what is the *meaningful* distinction that makes it needed for AI learning? | 53 | If you replace what you rely on, that's like sawing the branch out from under you.
Hypothetically, let's say that ai art gets good enough to replace most purchases of human drawn art. (this doesn't seem implausible).
The loss of revenue of professional artists decreases the quantity and quality of human drawn art.
The result of this is the suppression of the creation of the very art that the ai relies on to train. The decrease in professionally drawn art deprives the ai training sets of timely art, and the ai art's cultural relevancy decreases (as it doesn't have new data to adapt to changes to culture).
the result is humans getting less culturally relevant art, with AI having supplanted the very content creation that made it good in the first place.
I think this points to something wrong morally wrong with machine learning models replacing the datasets that train them. If your action, if generalized, effectively prevents your own action, then usually there is some degree of hypocrisy to that action. This action reaps benefits that it denies others. | 30 |
ELI5: Why do tires have whiskers? | 160 | Just looked it up. They're called 'vent spews.' When they fill the mold the tire is made in, they want to ensure there are no air bubbles or pockets in the tire, so they have small holes in the mold to allow the air to escape and some of the rubber gets spewed out of those holes, causing the little hairs/whiskers. | 165 |
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[Buffy The Vampire Slayer] Does evil just work better in Sunnydale? Murder-robots, zombies, dark magic, murder sprees? Better chance of working on the Hellmouth? | 49 | Its literally because of the Hell Mouth that evil works so well there. It also draws all sorta of vampires,demons and other various 'evil' creatures to Sunnydale.
The hell mouth's proximity seems to amplify some powers in various beings too. | 31 |
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ELI5 How mitochondria first got replicated during cell division since they were a separate organism. | 66 | Mitochondria divide just like other cells (they even have their own DNA). Presumably, the mitochondria already replicated a few times inside the host cell, so when the host cell split, both daughter cells had mitochondria too. Think of it like adding a raisin (the mitochondria) to a ball of dough (the host cell). The raisin multiplied and distributed around the dough, and then the dough ball got split in half with raisins now in both halves. | 76 |
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[Blade Runner] If “we call it Voight-Kaumf for short“, what the heck is the long name? | 44 | Probably a long technical name. Something like replicant personality detection battery. Just easier to name it after it's creators than to say the entire name of the device as it has no end user name and just the descriptive name. Like when people say Rorschach test instead of inkblot test. | 59 |
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what do you mean by degrees of freedom? | 39 | degrees of freedom refer to what “can” vary with respect to a given analysis. The best analogy I’ve ever heard about it - imagine you’re at a restaurant with 3 friends, and it’s time to pay the bill. The waitress comes back and asks “who has the Visa card?” and then hands it out. “Who has the Mastercard?”. Then “who has the discover card?”. But she doesn’t ask “who has the AmEx card?” - why? Because if the other three cards went to your three friends, the last one MUST be yours. That’s exactly like degrees of freedom - if you’re calculating a mean of a sample, every person in the analysis can be any score, but if you know the mean, the last person MUST be a specific score to make it true that the mean is what you observed (i.e., if you give me the first 19/20 scores on a variable and the mean of the variable, i can mathematically know with certainty what the 20th score on the variable was). That’s what’s meant by degrees of freedom | 91 |
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I don't see anything wrong with someone deciding to commit suicide. CMV. | I think that someone's body is their own, and killing yourself is a fundamental right. I also see the arguments that 'things can get better' or 'think of the people they leave behind' are irrelevant. If someone decides things will not get better, that's their call, and staying alive because of guilt or obligation to other people hardly seems a solution.
I just don't think someone killing themselves should be seen as shameful, and the stigma attached to it that only mentally unbalanced people would consider it seems unfair.
My view is no-doubt effected by my Atheism and the fact that I lost a friend to suicide several years ago, but I just don't see it as some dark, horrendous thing that society should keep hidden and stigmatised. I'm talking about assisted suicide (which here in the UK is illegal) as well. People should be allowed to 'opt out' whenever they wish too, in my opinion. | 66 | Many people who consider suicide are mentally ill in some fashion. Depression is a major factor, and can be treated with therapy and/or medication. These people may not really want suicide, but are sick and need help but don't have the cognitive abilities to know or seek it out themselves. | 19 |
How do electrons get separated from the Hydrogen atom in a Fuel Cell? | I know theres a platinum plate that the hydrogen hits, and a membrane that only the hydrogen ions can pass through, but I don't understand how the electrons separate.
All research only states they "get separated" but fails to explain why it separates. | 2,733 | You can't just look at the hydrogen side, you also have to look at the other half-cell where oxygen, the protons diffusing through the membrane and the electrons flowing through the closed circuit recombine to water. That recombination is what drives the reaction, energetically. Just like H2 and O2 readily burn to form water. A fuel cell does just the same, it only separates the reactions and generates electricity instead of just heat. | 463 |
Eli5: When two mirrors face each other, where does the light eventually "go" so that it doesn't constantly build up? | Also, is there an eventual limit for how many recurrences of the other mirror are in the reflection? | 217 | Mirrors reflect light out at the same angle it came in at. To trap light indefinitely, you'd need light coming in at one mirror at a perfectly straight angle wit h the two mirrors facing eachother perfectly - and then be able to remove the device fast enough (keep in mind we're talking about light) for the light to not hit the light emitting device after it bounces off the first mirror)
Everything else would bounce around a few times and eventually away. | 101 |
CMV: It is not unreasonable to be concerned that Thomas Jefferson's statues will be removed. | I consider myself generally to be a very progressive person, to the point where some folks might consider my positions to be radical. And I am not a fan of the Confederate States of America. The Civil War was indeed fought over slavery, and while I can acknowledge the individual complexities of a Confederate leader like General Lee, I do not see their legacy as generally worth protecting.
That being said, I'm also a history nerd and a huge fan of Thomas Jefferson and most of the other American Founders. I've studied them in depth and I like that they are generally seen as positive figures, although of course I also believe we should remember their imperfections as well. Normally I'd not be agreeing with Trump, but his comments about the slippery slope which may lead from removing Confederate monuments to removing Jefferson does seem potentially valid to me. I want to be proved wrong so that I do not need to worry about this anymore.
I'll put the reasons I am concerned in a list as follows:
1. While, yes, a slippery slope is often a fallacy, that state and local governments are so willing to remove Confederate statues can also set a legal precedent for removing statues of racist figures. This sort of activity shifts the Overton Window, and while I am happy to see the Confederates gone, I worry about where this will take us.
2. To the above point many folks will respond that the difference between Jefferson and the Confederates is that the Confederates betrayed America while Jefferson helped found it. Yes, I agree with this reasoning, but I don't think many of the protesters do. The protesters who are tearing these monuments down don't seem motivated by condemnation of traitors, but rather by condemnation of racists.
3. To that point I add that many of the organizations and lobbying groups who are pushing for this have indeed stated they want Jefferson and Washington taken down as well. For instance, Malcolm Suber, the leader of Take Em Down NOLA, which led the efforts to take down the monuments in New Orleans, has openly stated he wants to see every statue of a racist taken down, including Jefferson and Washington (and, absurdly, Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln's political mentor). Hell, the Democratic Party (the party HE founded) even removed Jefferson from their annual celebrations.
4. Thomas Jefferson has been taking a very unfair beating in recent years. In the Hamilton musical he was portrayed as the villain, and every time his relationship with Sally Hemings gets mentioned there's always a slew of articles calling out supposed "rape apology" (even from Teen Vogue of all places). Even many leftists, Jefferson's ideological descendants, are attacking him today, believing absurd revisionist histories (such as Henry Weincek's, which has been debunked by most historians) about how he supposedly was an ardent proto-Confederate and pro-slavery advocate. Somehow the follower of Thomas Paine, Jacobin sympathizer, and proto-Marxist has been exaggerated into an ancestor of the Nazis.
5. America these days seems to be gripped by hysteria, on both sides of the political aisle. While Trump spouts off his insane conspiracy theories he read on InfoWars, liberals might claim to be different, yet I do not think they really are. The liberal news media these days seems to have grown particularly extreme, doxxing James Damore, Nazis from Charlottesville, and any others they find a problem with. Hell the recent controversy over Joss Whedon and his ex-wife shows that the liberal media is just as prone as Trump is to jump in and seize a scapegoat to blame all of America's problems on. Together with the other points I've made, it seems reasonable to me that one person they might scapegoat is Thomas Jefferson, for this reason:
6. As much of a Jefferson fan as I am, I do acknowledge his flaws. He was a racist, as his writings explicitly stating the inferiority of blacks in *Notes on the State of Virginia* plainly reveal. He did own slaves, and yes, sometimes those slaves were mistreated. And most historians agree that Jefferson did have a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings, who was legally his slave. I, and historians, will argue that all of this can be contextualized and in this Jefferson was not a particularly bad person for his time; hell, he was quite good. But this contextualization requires long and complicated explanations, and in an increasingly hysterical America, nuance too often seems to fly out the window. This can be especially seen here on Reddit: As a history enthusiast of his period I've seen a lot of threads where Jefferson was mentioned. Invariably there are always a few people who show up to attack him and condemn him, and no matter how much I or others try to explain the complexity to these people, they do not budge.
7. The Trust for the National Mall, the organization which runs the monuments in Washington DC, just yesterday announced they would be putting up some new displays by the Jefferson memorial explaining the complexity of Jefferson's slave ownership. While I am not opposed to this, and in fact I think it is a good idea, the fact that the Trust had to take this action (which, as they stated, was a move to preemptively stop protesters converging on Jefferson) seems to me to be a bad sign. That they felt they needed to take action suggests they are concerned, and as it has been said, if you give protesters like this an inch, they'll take a mile.
So, those are the pieces of evidence I've seen to suggest that Jefferson being brought down is a not unreasonable thing to worry about. Again, I want to be proven wrong, as I want to believe that America is better than that; we're not so absurd as to take down the statues of our country's own founders.
I'll also just say that I'm not looking to debate here about Jefferson's legacy, exactly how racist he was, or whether or not taking down his statues and condemning him is a good thing. I have already decided my positions on these topics, and I have ample historical evidence to back them up, so you will not be changing my opinion on these topics. I'm specifically looking to discuss the reasonableness or lack thereof of my concern that Jefferson's statues will be torn down and his legacy condemned.
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 70 | The protesters are mad because lots of Black people really feel icky having confederate statues up all around. The Confederacy is absolutely cemented to "yay slavery" in modern attitudes (and historical fact), which means the statues are very hard to see as not also carrying that message. Seeing a government endorsement of that symbol is especially icky.
Jefferson is a BIT tainted by his slave-owning, but people still see him as famous for lots of other reasons. Therefore, a statue of him doesn't overwhelmingly make people feel icky and unsafe in the same way.
If attitudes DID change, then sure, people might take his statue down. But until they do, it's not a danger on a wide scale. You mistake progressives as mostly driven by disgust, but they're not. They're driven by compassion. (both are perfectly valid moral emotions, but when you mistake one for another, you mistake people's positions) | 47 |
When statisticians say "distribution", do they mean a frequency distribution, a probability distribution, or a plain old list of values? | I find the usage of this term very confusing. It looks like they do most often mean a frequency distribution, but almost none of the material I read or watch makes that clear at *any* point. | 25 | Typically probability distribution, but the context should make it clear. Note you can easily convert a frequency distribution to a probability distribution by dividing all of the frequencies by the sum. | 43 |
CMV: Pet cloning is a waste of science, money, and time | Recently I found out that people pay upwards of $30,000 to clone cats, and even more for dogs.
Sure the clone will be genetically identical, but environment plays a huge role in shaping an individual's personality. It'd be practically impossible to have the "same pet", so why try? I don't find it particularly healthy for someone to delude themselves into thinking "I've had Milo for 26 years" when really Milo 1.0 died 14 years ago and was replaced by a clone. Mourn the pet and move on. Maybe get another new pet, already living, instead of crafting another one. It's not the same pet as before. It's bad for the pet too, I'd imagine, being expected to act exactly like the first version.
It's also a waste of science/resources. I'd rather all of our cloning resources go towards increasing the efficiency of cloning endangered species, or to animal shelters/clinics/etc. | 15 | >It's also a waste of science/resources. I'd rather all of our cloning resources go towards increasing the efficiency of cloning endangered species, or to animal shelters/clinics/etc.
I mean... where would you get the funding for that? This way, you can get cloning research and practice done through the private sector - if some rich person wants to contribute to science by doing completely unneccessary things, it's still better than not doing it at all.
EDIT: Also, quick question: what do you mean with "a waste of science"? "Science" isn't a resource... | 32 |
[Aladdin] What is the backstory for the Cave of Wonders? | 42 | In Arabic legend, King Solomon had the power to command both men and jinn, and built a vast and exceedingly wealthy kingdom. It is frequently said that King Solomon bound many jinn to objects. The lesser such spirits were bound into rings, that they might be available at all times. The more powerful, and often rebellious beings were bound to containers so they could be sealed inside where they could do no harm. After Solomon's death, the jinn had no further compulsion to obey mortal masters, and went their own ways, leaving behind the great treasure of Solomon's kingdom in secret caches.
The Cave of Wonders is the largest, and most famous such cache. | 24 |
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ELI5: Why is collecting rainwater illegal in some states? | Claiming that rainwater harvesting is "illegal. | 19 | Water can be hard to some by in some places. Collecting rain water means that you are interfering with the replenishment of the natural water supply, or artificially worsening the water shortage for neighbors that would normally receive run-off from your property. Essentially, you are keeping water from it's natural course and in a drought condition, that can be devastating for others. | 22 |
What are some fun real world programming challenges to solve? | I wanna do some programming challenges to improve my programming skills and speed. I don't really like doing coding challenges like code golf etc that much even though I've done some. What are some fun challenges that i can solve that would teach me different kind of real world problem solving?
My interests are web application development and I like devops type stuff (I know its a buzz word).
What are some cool problems I can try solve.
Some stuff I've thought of:
1. Web scraper that indexes to solr or Elasticsearch.
2. Do something with AMPQ. I struggle to understand what this protocol is supposed to really be used for.
3. Do something cool with DNS to enrich data
Any other cool ideas? | 49 | Try building a website with microservices backend, sounds like just what you need.
You'll use a Message Broker (AMQP implementation) to wire microservices together, then try deploying it with kubernetes afterwards (and there's your devops).
Granted it's a complex enough setup for a solo project, so keep it small and stupid :).
If you really want to, you could shoehorn elastic somewhere in it. Otherwise I'd keep it simple with a SQL DB. | 15 |
ELI5: Does using the brain burn any noticeable amount of calories, and if so, could you exercise mentally instead of physically? | How many calories does the brain burn and do different mental activities burn more calories than others? | 19 | The brain does consume plenty of calories (when you're resting, it's actually a pretty large part of your energy usage), but the difference between a resting brain and a thinking one is much, much smaller than the difference between a resting muscle and a working one. | 42 |
CMV: Racism isn’t a big problem anymore. It’s culturism. | Please read this through before knee jerk downvoting me.
Racism typically stems from the idea of “a that race has worse genes that somehow makes them dumber/aggressive/lazy” This has been disproven many times by science, and you rarely see a politician make that claim.
However, a (potentially) true statement is that “this culture raises dumber/aggressive/lazy kids.” This could statistically proven, and is very possible.
‘This makes a huge problem. When two different cultures collide in the workplace, is it the employers fault at all?
Say that one culture raises kids who think it’s fine to talk, or scream about any issue they aren’t satisfied with. The culture believes that this will lead to a peaceful resolution, and avoid misunderstanding. Let‘s call this culture 1. Another culture raises kids to internalize problems, and avoid conflict. They believe that this is best for everyone, because it keeps a person from lashing out wrongly at another. Let’s call this culture 2.
Now say that one culture immigrates to another, and vice versa. The company will see the employee from culture 1 as hostile and rude, and from their perspective, rightly so. If you’re speaking with customers who may not be as understanding, they may mistake the person from culture 1 to be rude and short tempered, and question the company’s decisions.
The other way around leads to problems as well. Immigrants from culture 2 will be viewed as cold, and unfriendly when in Culture 1’s country.
These differences make it hard for the immigrant to rise to high management positions in the workplace, due to a perceived lack of human interaction skills.
You can’t truly blame the company. From their point of view, the other employees they hire will be uncomfortable under the immigrant. This leads to suffering on everyone’s part. The immigrant could also become a liability, as a coworker may go to HR making claims that the immigrant from culture 1 was harassing them.
So is it the immigrants fault for not assimilating? Of course not. Asking people to throw away a part of their culture just doesn't sit right.
Culture is many other things, which may have effect outside of work. Maybe its how you discipline your kids, or how you treat your elders.
I think that this is the real root of the issue. 100 years ago, discrimination was based on race. Now it is based on culture, which is often tightly correlated with race. The end result is the same, but the reason is different.
Stereotypes that were injected into people as kids obviously play a role as well though. These stereotypes coupled with culturism creates a disaster.
This is a issue that needs to be fixed. However, because the science isn't there to help, it will be much harder. I don't have any sort of solution, but we will need one.
I'm curious to see if there's something I'm missing.
Edit:
I have come to the conclusion that Black people experience more systemic racism, and less culturalism. Most other immigrant minorities, however, experience culturalism. The difference is most likely because of black people's long history with slavery, and how that left a lasting imprint on their race. | 61 | With Black Americans, you have to ask the question why Americans who have lived here for hundreds of years, who remember nothing of African culture, have a separate culture at all?
Did they all choose to live together in high-concentrated poverty ghettos? Why don’t poor whites also live in these neighborhoods?
Is it part of Black culture to separate themselves from the wider mainstream culture? Or is part of American culture to keep Blacks separated from the mainstream? | 121 |
Should an if-else go in the main or method? | Basically should it be this:
if (football) {
kick()
} else {
throw()
}
function kick() {
ball = 'kicked'
}
function throw() {
ball = 'thrown'
}
or this:
kick()
throw()
function kick() {
if (football) {
ball = 'kicked'
}
}
function throw() {
if (!football) {
ball = 'thrown'
}
}
I imagine it would be a bit circumstantial but I feel like I need some consistency in this regard.
Note: this code is generic. I'm not looking for a solution for this exact code. | 24 | Definitely the first one. Definitely.
The second one hides the logic and the meaning behind what you want to accomplish (it takes more mental energy to figure out). The first one is much much more obvious.
Another way to figure it out is to read them out loud. The first one straight up says what you are doing. The second one comes out all jumbled. Your mind does the same thing when you look at your code a month later.
Easier to read = easier to understand = easier to modify later | 27 |
Is it possible that instead of the universe expanding, the matter inside it is shrinking? | As I understand it, the universe is getting larger because the space between things inside it is getting larger. Its not just that we are drifting away or flying apart, the actual 'space' is getting bigger (inflation).
Does it make sense that matter is shrinking inside a static universe, and that the 'heat death' is the point at which we can't get any smaller and everything just stops? | 15 | No not really. All of the forces that govern matter are distance dependent, so matter can't really shrink. Furthermore not *all* of space is evenly expanding. There are pockets of the universe where matter dominates and space doesn't expand, these being clusters of galaxies and the stuff within those clusters. | 20 |
How close do a particle and its antiparticle have to be to annihilate? | Would it also matter through wich interaction they annihilate by? Since the electromagnetic force has a much further range than say the weak force would electron-positron annihilation be able to then occur further away via electromagnetic interactions rather then weak interactions? | 550 | For any interaction among fundamental particles (whether it counts as annihilation or not), there isn't a sharp cutoff. The probability of the interaction becomes lower as the trajectories of the incoming particles get further apart.
Each individual reaction has a cross section, and if you set that cross section equal to πr^2 and solve for r, that will give you a rough estimate of the distance above which the interaction probability becomes small. | 176 |
ELI5: Why is visa free traveling such an important topic for countries when they are negotiating with each other ? | 180 | Applying for a visa requires filling out paperwork before traveling, which needs to be processed by a bureaucrat and approved. This takes time.
For business travel, this is extremely inconvenient. International business deals and meetings can't be easily rescheduled, might be cancelled on a moment's notice, and can't be convened in an emergency.
The automatic visa for passport holders makes it much easier to conduct international business and trade. | 99 |
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Oxytocin vs. Dopamine vs. Serotinin etc? | I'm always hearing things like "hug your pet, it'll release oxytocin!" Or "high fives are just free serotonin!" Or "kissing gives you a dopamine rush!" These all just sound like pleasurable things to do but what are the real differences between these substances for a layman like me? Do different activities release different chemicals? Will Batman fool the Joker's plan to poison the water supply? So many questions!!! | 15 | Serotonin affects the hypothalamus, and regulates things like mood, appetite, sleep, sexual desire, social behavior.
Oxytocin makes people feel content or attached to another person, auch as a mate or a child. On the other hand, Oxytocin also makes people
less friendly to strangers or outsiders, so it's not exactly fairy dust. Dopamine is sometimes mistaken believed to be a "feel good" chemical, but it's not actually. Dopamine is responsible for motivation, and remembering rewards
It's the neurotransmitter that makes you want to do something or want to do more of it. The actual feel good chemical is endorphins. | 12 |
ELI5: Why is Shockwave Flash so slow, Why is Adobe unable to optimize it, and Why do websites continue to use it instead of moving to an alternative? | 1,433 | Flash being slow is usually the result of a poorly programmed animation, menu, etc.
Adobe has to have its team of programmers support many browsers, patch security holes, and solve bugs, leaving them spending a lot of time on something that does not make them money directly. Hence their decision to drop mobile support. (the subtext is that they might not care about quality that much since it's already on the out, or they don't have the resources invested in it)
HTML5 is considered to be the upcoming alternative to Flash, and since it's an open standard, it's up to Chrome, IE, Firefox to implement it (and the quality of the implementation is now up to them instead).
Back when flash was introduced, it represented a significant advancement in web technology since one plugin would act the same in all browsers (with many competing standards, each acting differently in every browser). In the present, it's kinda out dated, especially compared to its alternatives.
Edit: spelling
Edit Note:
To clarify, HTML5 is not a replacement for flash currently, it represents a possible alternative that might be viable in the (near) future. Flash works for its __supported__ systems. Thanks to the many who mentioned it below. | 546 |
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If there are multiple universes existing, is it theoretically possible for two universes to expand into each other? What would the consequences be? | 20 | This depends on what you mean by "multiple universes".
If you're talking about multiple *observable* universes, then yes, but since an "observable universe" is an observer dependent construct, not a lot happens. This is just the statement that as our observable universe expands, we'll be able to see more stuff.
If you're talking about multiple universes in the sense of the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, then no. These "worlds" already occupy the same physical space and shouldn't really be thought of as "other universes".
If you're talking about multiple universes in the sense of large extra-dimensional string-theories, then again no. Expansion is an effect that occurs within the 3-dimensional spatial slice of a 3+1 dimensional spacetime; it doesn't in any way bring two such universes "closer". That said, there *is* a sense in which such universes (called branes) can collide. In fact, there are some speculative models in which our own "big bang" was actually the result of a collision between two such branes. | 17 |
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What does it mean when you "throw out your back"? | I've never actually done it, and googling the question returns no useful results.
At a biological level, what happens? | 19 | It's not really a specific condition, but more so a general way of describing (typically lower) back pain. There can be a lot of things at play here. Usually it's just a strained muscle and will heal with just some basic rest, but sometimes it can be something a bit more serious like a herniated (slipped) disc. When this happens one of the discs in your (again usually lower) back has torn part of its fibrocartilage and has a bit of the softer inner squishy bits protruding from it. Usually quite painful, but will often heal on its own given enough time (occasionally requires surgical intervention).
Muscle strains are a fairly straightforward process (over exertion causes muscle tear), but actual vertebral injuries are almost always a result of prolonged "wear and tear". Too much pressure over too much time causes something to shift where it shouldn't be shifted. Pretty natural part of the aging process (but overall your lower back is a champ), but clearly doing hard physical labor can significantly speed up the process.
And that, kids, is why you always lift with your legs. | 10 |
How close are we to end aging? | 117 | We're a long way away.
The point we're at right now is that it is no longer really viable to continue increasing the ability of the body to continue living if we cannot get the mind to live past 80 or so. The mind is much more complicated than the body, and a part of the reason for our absurdly high healthcare expenditures is that we as a country are spending a lot of money keeping old, demented people alive who retired at 55 and are now in their 80's. So it's not economically viable.
It's also not really viable in terms of the quality of life tradeoff. Geriatric medicine today takes a huge toll on quality of life. So there's a lot of cost-benefit analysis that needs to be carried out there too.
I'd guess that we, the Millennials, can be expected to live a good deal longer than the preceding generations just due to sensible eating habits, basic consumer protections implemented in the 80's and 90's, and the benefits of modern medicines, but "forever" is still a long way in the future. | 63 |
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[MCU] Could Goose (the Flerken) have eaten Thanos? | What if, at the end of Endgame, Captain Marvel had shown up with everyone's favorite Flerken and had him eat Thanos? A Flerken has a 'pocket dimension' in its mouth which can clearly swallow and contain things of enormous power like Infinity Stones (The Tesseract). Could it have contained Thanos? Could it have swallowed him before he realized what was happen and could defend himself? | 24 | i think thanos could literally tear through goose. yes goose is able to hold the tesseact but the tesseract isn’t trying to punch it’s way out. simply holding the tesseract like a purse isn’t that powerful of a feat. all it needs is immunity to radiation, but its flesh is still soft. | 28 |
ELI5: Why Discovery Channel and similar knowledge channels are replacing their programs for non-knowledge related ones | 72 | It's less about ratings than it is money. They typically replace intellectual shows with reality TV (in one form or another), which is *dirt cheap* to create and comes with little risk for a production company. Fewer people need to watch reality TV with any dedication for it to be profitable.
Few to no well-known actors are hired for any length of time, little scripting is needed outside of guiding participants in the direction that's best for advertising and/or cliffhangers, settings requirements are often minimal and are built in with advertising agreements, etc. If the show bombs, it doesn't matter, because it didn't cost much of anything to create. If it's an unexpected success, advertisers will flock to do product placement and sponsoring, making it a cash cow.
**TL;DR:** Quality educational programming isn't where the money is. | 67 |
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[Harry Potter] If Harry uses the invisibility cloak backwards.. What does he see? | Let's assume the invisibility cloak works only on one side. If Harry puts the inner side out, what does he see? | 60 | To give a slightly different answer, it's possible the magic of the cloak can detect the shortest distance between its two surfaces, and uses that to work out which the "inner surface" is. So regardless of which way round Harry wears it, it will always be the smaller volume (ie him, as opposed to the rest of the world) that will be invisible.
Another implication of this theory is, if the cloak is laid out flat, both surfaces are infinitely far apart from each other, so nothing is made invisible. | 52 |
What is the value in publications prior to entering a PhD? Is it worth it? | I am studying within the Australian university system and am currently completing an honours project within a health field with the goal of first class and publication. My supervisors have approached me regarding one of my assignments and want to progress it into a publishable systematic review or meta-analysis.
If I go down this route I would have 2, potentially 3 publications before entering into a PhD and experience on conducting a published systematic review or meta-analysis. However I am a little concerned about the potential detriment to my honours grade (First class is the most realistic chance for PhD scholarship), and my financial wellbeing where I am currently working 25 hours and doing honours full time. I questioned waiting until I am a PhD student so that I can actually be paid for the work but they did not want to wait that long.
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My question is what the potential career gain and benefit from contributing to this type of paper compared to the potential negatives, given I would like to pursue a career in academia and at the very least, research. | 15 | The value is that you are more likely to get a PhD place with funding. This can vary with country and field but many PhD programmes are incredibly competitive so the more evidence you have of research experience the more chance you have of being accepted. | 29 |
Can a planet orbit a blackhole inside of the event horizon? | Not even light can escape a black hole once inside the event horizon but what about orbiting within the event horizon? Could light or a planet orbit inside the event horizon so that it couldn't escape but also wouldn't fall into the singularity?
Edit: Thank you for all your responses. Some great discussions are going on. | 1,779 | No. The innermost ~~stable~~ orbit is the photon sphere, at 1.5 times the event horizon, where light can orbit in a circle. Inside that but outside the horizon, things can either fall in or escape to infinity. Inside the horizon, they can only fall inwards.
edit: The photon orbit is not stable, any perturbation will send it off-kilter. | 994 |
[Pokemon] What exactly is a TM, and how does it work? | Technical Machines, Hidden Moves, and Technical Records have been in every Pokemon game, but what are these devices? How do they teach Pokemon unusual moves outside of their natural type and abilities?
They appear to be discs. Are they just instructional videos that teach Pokemon how to tap into powers they already have? Is there some innate magic to Pokemon that lets them use such a wide variety of moves?
In the most extreme case, many Normal Pokemon can tap into a diverse variety of elemental powers. Has this unknown energy source ever been discussed in a Pokemon game? Even a passing mention that it's odd a Pokemon can learn these moves?
Do we know who invented TMs and when? Finally, are HMs a game-only concept or do we see Pokemon in the anime who cannot use their innate, natural abilities such as Surf or Cut without HM guidance? | 217 | As Pokemon are stored in PokeBalls and computers as energy, and TM and HM moves are stored on physical media likely as digital data, we can guess that Pokemon learn these moves digitally and not practically.
More closer to holding the TM or HM against them so that they can "scan" the data signature on the disc, rather than physically viewing and practicing the move contained on the disc.
I believe we've seen a TM used in the anime before and it was essentially just held to the Pokemon's forehead and the disc disappeared. | 154 |
ELI5: How do smoke detectors know that there's smoke around? And how do they make it infinitely reusable? | 21 | Inside a smoke detector, there is a small amount of radioactive material between two electrically conductive pieces of metal. The radioactivity causes the air between the plates to ionize and conduct electricity. When smoke enters the detector, this ionization is interrupted. This causes a change in current between the plates, which the detector can sense.
ETA - This is also why the detector is reusable. There's nothing about this setup that would change after smoke is detected. The half-life of the radioactive material in the smoke detector is about 400 years, so you don't have to worry about that part either. | 33 |
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[Star Wars OT era] Why are there so few aliens in the rebellion? | The imperials make sense for being human only. They're racists.
But wouldn't the rebels have great success recruiting Wookies and other species that have been enslaved by the Imperials? Why does it seem like most pilots and foot soldiers are human?
| 26 | Reminder that what we see in ANH and ESB is only one cell of many. Not every cell is going to be full of nonhumans, and not every cell is going to be pure human either.
RotJ features many aliens among the Rebellion, as it's the first time that all the cells have finally gathered for one big confrontation. | 35 |
[Fallout 3] Why is Washington DC a barren desert while Point Lookout is a swamp? | Washington DC and Point Lookout are only about 60-70 miles away from each other. Washington DC was also built on a swamp. Without constant maintenance to keep its current climate, the swamp will once again reclaim the area.
Nuclear war of course would interrupt regular maintenance of the waterways, and once these failed, Washington DC should be a flooded swamp with humidity through the roof. However in Fallout 3, Washington DC is depicted as an arid, barren area seemingly devoid of water. And yet Lookout Point, only 60-70 miles away, is a lush area teaming with plant life.
Even assuming that the radiation from so many bombs being directed at the capitol of the US during the Great War makes it almost impossible for anything to grow there, it should still be a swamp, albeit a dead swamp. Its still going to be very wet and humid from both rainfall as well as from the waters of the Potomac.
Why is Washington DC so dry but Point Lookout nearby is so wet? | 27 | >Even assuming that the radiation from so many bombs being directed at the capitol of the US during the Great War makes it almost impossible for anything to grow there, it should still be a swamp, albeit a dead swamp.
It is possible that the shock from the impact of that many nukes altered the course of some rivers and underground water drainage patterns to dry out the DC area.
Another possibility is that a combination of the heat and impact from the nukes altered and compacted the soil, making it harder and less porous. This would cause more rainfall to run off down the Potomac and into the ocean instead of pooling in a swampy area. | 12 |
ELI5:Is there a limit on how sharp a knife or piece of metal can become? | If so what it is it? | 32 | Yes. Eventually you will get to a point (no pun intended) where the metal is so thin that it can no longer support itself against any resistance. This is why learning how to properly sharpen a knife is important. If the angle formed at the edge is too small the metal won't have enough strength to hold up against the pressure you apply when cutting and will fold over rather than cut.
Stronger metals (generally) can be made sharper than weaker metals. For example, stainless steel has other metals added and undergoes heat treatment that make it stronger and less brittle which means you can put a sharper edge on it and it won't bend or chip. That's why they use it for things like scapels and razors which have to be very sharp. | 20 |
ELI5: On the treadmill at my gym, the calories per hour estimate jumps from 353 at 4.4 mph to 647 at 4.5 mph (roughly the border between a brisk walk and a light jog), and anecdotally I've noticed that a slow jog is much harder than a fast walk even if the difference in actual speed is small. Why? | 60 | Jogging slowly is a very inefficient way of transporting yourself compared to walking. Let's say that "walking fast" and "jogging very slowly" give you the same speed. When walking fast almost all your movement contributes towards transporting you in the walking direction. When you jog very slowly, you will notice that just spend a lot of energy moving yourself up and down, and less energy moving yourself towards the direction you are running. | 93 |
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[Star Wars] Are R2D2, C3PO, HK-48 and the other "Protagonist droids" more than the rest of the droids in the SWU? Are they more sentient? | 36 | The way droids are programmed leaves room to develop sentience via an extended version of the "personality development" part. This takes time, however.
To forestall this, most droids are mindwiped with each sale, effectively giving them a factory reset. C-3PO's personality would thus have come from his work with Princess Leia Organa, even though he was much older.
R2-D2 was a special case, having escaped all mindwipes he would have been subjected to. | 26 |
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[Pokemon] How intelligent are most Pokemon? | As in problem solving skills, and if possible, IQ. I know there are outliers like Abra and Mewtwo, but what about most of the Pokemon who can understand English and empathize? | 38 | Pokemon vary fairly wildly in terms of intelligence. Most are kind of dumb. (Not necessarily stupid, just not smart) Some are a bit more clever. They don't recognize speech they way that most people assume; They recognize the intention behind the words, and, with training, know how their trainer expects them to act.
Problem solving skills are limited. They can solve whatever issues crop up in their day-to-day lives, but if put into an environment they're unfamiliar with they won't exactly flourish. There's actually a rather advanced system in the PokeComputer (PC) network that releases Pokemon to their natural habitat, just so we don't end up disturbing ecosystems (For instance, by letting Gyarados loose in a local fishing hole)
As for IQ, well, those tests are designed for humans, so they won't exactly apply. There are some psychic Pokemon who perform well on IQ tests, which sounds impressive until you realize that those tests are proctored by someone who knows what the correct responses are, and that Psychic types can read minds.
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[Star Trek][AMA] Federation Cultural Exoanthropologist here, Ask me Anything! | Greetings, 21st century humans!
Due to a number of temporal anomalies, information about the 24th century has been leaked to historical humans under the guise of "fiction." This no doubt has made you all curious about how things work in the 24th century.
With permission from Starfleet's Temporal Enforcement unit, I have been authorized to answer questions pertaining to my field of research: Cultural Exoanthropology.
Similar to your time's field of Cultural Anthropology (the study of human societies and cultures), Cultural *Exo*anthropology extends that to extraterrestrial species. My focus is on contemporary (mid- to late 24th century) Alpha and Beta quadrant cultures.
Ask me anything!
P.S. I will attempt to answer any question I can, even those outside my field of expertise. | 21 | What does everything smell like?
We primarily know of our future with written and audio/visual media, things we call books, movies and television. We lack any sense of smell.
Do Vulcans smell at all? Do Klingons have a strong body odor? Does an Orion slave girl smell sexually arousing? Does a wet Tellarite smell like a wet terran dog or pig? What do the many foods we see smell like? Do replicators replicate smell? Do Vulcans fart?
Tell us about all the smells (and tastes and feels, but mostly smells) of Tomorrow. | 14 |
ELI5: When a video/text is claimed to have been written by a AI that has been fed thousands of exemplars as models, what's actually happening? How does an AI read or watch exemplars of video or text and then abstract enough meaning from them to make one of its own? | 16 | AI, even really advanced AI, doesn't really deal with "meaning." It's just executing instructions.
A really basic text generation algorithms works probabilistically. It needs a first word, so it goes through and looks at all the first words in the model text and picks one at random, with more weight given to words that appear more often. Suppose it chooses "the". Then it needs a word that comes after "the", so it goes through and looks at all the words that come after "the" and picks one, and so on. More advanced AI try harder to do things like binding words together into syntactic units or taking into account where in the sentence/paragraph they are. | 16 |
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[Inception] How did Cobb's team get a hold of the technology to let people enter shared dream space? | In the movie it's military technology and I don't think they had it on a sale with mattresses. | 26 | Given that businessmen routinely hire people to teach their subconscious how to protect itself against dream invaders, this means the dream technology must have leaked, so it's not a military secret. Even if it's illegal, it can be obtained in the black market. | 22 |
ELI5: The Hunger Games | 27 | There are 12 districts in different parts of what used to be America. The population is drastically reduced (never explained why). The people in each district all perform essential duties which fuel the other districts as well as the Capitol (Denver, Colorado... though they never call it that). District 12 (West Virginia area) is the poorest area and in charge of fueling the country with it's coal mining.
Due to a past war where the Districts tried to overthrow the Capitol, every year the Capitol holds a "Hunger Games" as a form of cruel punishment to the Districts. Each District is required to send 1 male and 1 female aged 12-17 to compete. The competition is a battle to the death, only 1 member of the 24 sent survives. They compete in an arena filled with hidden cameras so that the entire country can enjoy watching the children kill each other.
In the book a girl from District 12, Katniss Everdeen, is followed. She has been hunting in the woods (illegally) since she was a little girl with her father. When her father died in a coal mining accident feeding the family fell on her. As such she is an amazing archer and knows how to hunt/move through the woods. This gives her an advantage in the Hunger Games as a large portion of the arena (many square miles) that they battle in is essentially a forest.
I will stop here and not spoil the ending nor most of the plot unless you request it. | 32 |
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CMV: Hate speech shouldn't be illegal. | For context, I am trans and very much a leftist. I do not believe that "social justice has gone too far" or any such thing. However, here is why I think hate speech should be legal. (By the way, I live in America and am talking about it.)
I believe that hate speech should be punished socially rather than legally as I think people should be able to say what they want without fear of legal repercussions. I do not believe policing a social issue should be the job of the state.
However, there is another, and much more important point.
**Banning hate speech creates a framework in which people can be arrested for whatever the current government's definition of dangerous speech is.**
Unless someone is unable to escape harassment safely and easily (for example, if they are being followed, stalked, or cornered, if it is happening at work or school, or if it is coming from a parent), it may be a form of abuse, but the government should not be able to control what sentiments people can express.
Were a law to be passed that banned hate speech, a quick alteration of the law, possibly only changing a list of terms, would lead to things like the forbidden words list sent to the CDC by the Trump administration on a national scale.
Activists could be arrested far more easily for campaigning for the rights of minority groups. Propaganda would become much easier to spread with opposition to it being punishable under the law.
Political opponents could be slapped with a criminal record and have their rights stripped as a result. The punishment could also easily be increased, leading to unprecedented levels of government control over public discourse.
In addition, these laws would be heavily influenced by the rich few, potentially leading to a ban on discussing wealth redistribution.
I do not trust the state to control public discourse, and therefore I believe hate speech should be legal.
Does anyone want to CMV? | 48 | In the United States there is no hate speech laws though. Certain private places have hate rules that can get you fired or kicked out of school, but their not laws, their private places making decisions on who they want as part of their organization. The number of people across the country who are in favor of hate speech laws in the United States is incredibly low, and the people who are in favor of it have no idea how to accomplish it. It violates the first amendment, congress shall make no law and all of that. Nothing can change that but another constitutional amendment, which is essentially impossible considering the near complete lack of support on both sides of the political aisle for it and amongst the electorate for it.
And that is outside of the difficulties in practice with a new constitutional amendment, which is remarkably unlikely in the current political climate. The last amendment was the 27'th, which delays laws affecting Congressional salary from taking effect until after the next election of representatives, and that quite procedural amendment happened in a much more cohesive time for the government. The 26'th amendment was in 1971, and reduced the voting age from 21 to 18 across the country, that is the last time an amendment was passed that actually affected the people.
I simply would not worry it too much, a hate speech law is wildly unconstitutional in a way no court has ever implied can change, and there is nothing remotely like the political will to change the constitution and fundamentally change the nature of the first amendment. To do it would require either a two thirds majority in the congress and senate both, and a President willing to sign it, or a national convention that can only be called by a two thirds majority of the states insisting on one through their own state legislatures. There is a case to be made for hate speech laws in principle.
Check Canada's hate speech legislation wikipedia page, in 40 years there have been 9 criminal trials for hate speech ever, all of the most severe and egregious cases imaginable, and only 7 were convicted. It can be done in a way that takes civil liberties seriously, in a way that simply does not affect normal peoples rights to engage in even shocking or cruel speech really at all. But it hardly matters for the United States, its not constitutional at all, no court has ever said anything like it, the people do not support it at all as a group, and it really is nearly impossible for such hate speech legislation to happen in the foreseeable future, or really almost at all considering the sheer number of difficulties with the idea. | 10 |
CMV: As a male who showers and changes his underwear every day, I believe it would be more hygienic for me to wash my hands BEFORE peeing rather than after. | Two points that are used to form my view:
1.) I know exactly where my penis has been all day after I shower: inside of a fresh pair of boxers. Barring sweat on hot summer afternoons, my penis is completely clean.
2.) I couldn't readily remember all of the things that I've touched with my hands throughout the day (subway poles, stair railings, elevator buttons, door handles, other peoples' hands, etc.). Barring the few scant moments after washing my hands before touching the next germ-ridden object in life, my hands are presumably quite dirty.
It seems much more logical to wash my hands prior to peeing, as my hands will still be in the same state of cleanliness post-pee since point A established that my penis is clean throughout the day.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that the Public Health 101 argument is something I've considered, and is on its own not enough to change my view. If I haven't pissed on my hands somehow, then my hands are in the same 'cleanliness state' (if not more so) after touching my penis than they would be after touching, say, my forearm. I also forgot to mention that this view holds only for self-flushing urinals (as I wouldn't be touching a handle to flush afterwards). | 39 | Washing your hands after you use the restroom is more about other people than yourself. You probably wouldn't want someone shaking your hand, cooking your food or folding your clothes with their own urine or excrement on their hands - it seems fair to afford them the same courtesy.
While you may be right in that your hands come into contact with more germs during normal life than from touching your genitals, nothing precludes you from washing both before **and** after so as to satisfy both sets of conditions. | 19 |
ELI5:The deal with Mont Blanc pens? | Ok so I try to be open minded, but I still can't really understand why people would pay hundreds (or thousands?) of dollars for a pen. I get that they're probably really great pens, but seriously? | 35 | High End pens are like high end anything else. Quality and prestige drive up the value of the product. Pilot makes some really nice pens for about $20 each. Compare that to the bank teller's Bic you swiped that probably cost under a dollar. The Pilot is likely to be significantly better (more comfortable to write with, better quality ink refill, sturdier design, aesthetically pleasing, etc.). Now imagine an even better pen (fountain pen, less mass produced or more hand made elements) with a rich history of craftsmanship.
Mont Blanc pens, Ferrari cars, or Rolex watches, or whatever are generally among the highest quality product in the industry, but also (and more importantly) have the deepest history associated with the product. A perfect car example, Volkswagen made a $90,000 vehicle called the Phaeton. It was a marvel of automotive engineering and was designed to be the peak of luxury (after all, VW borrowed heavily from sister company Audi). Yet no one bought it. Why? No history, no prestige, no brag factor. You can't walk into a bar and throw down your VW key fob and expect anyone to be impressed. No one cares about a $5,000 Timex. And Bic could never charge $100+ for a pen.
I'd venture to say that the actual quality of a pen tops out around $50. After that, it depends on the materials it's made of. As those materials get better/rarer, the price will continue to climb. Then add a multiplier for the prestige of the company. I'd say a Mont Blanc pen is at least times more expensive then a comparable Pilot. | 26 |
ELI5: How and why does a word like 'bi-monthly' exist as it does? It simultaneously means twice a month and once every two months, which is an incredibly important distinction. | Surely no one could ever actually use it in any capacity given the conflict. It couldn't have originated as it exists now, could it?
**Edit:** Because some comments are insisting there's only one definition for it https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bimonthly
1. occurring every two months
2. occurring twice a month | 182 | Bi- as a prefix usually means every two (as in bicentennial=200 years), but using it as "twice per" seems to have crept into usage as a malapropism. The more correct and less confusing way of saying "twice a month" is "semimonthly". The error might arise because "bi-" can also be used to denote "a pair of" like bipedal=having two legs and bimonthly by analogy meaning "a pair per month". That's just speculation though.
The same issue is also found in biennial incorrectly used as "twice a year" but semiannual is the right way to say this. Car dealers seem to get this right often in their semiannual sales. Good on them. | 99 |
How to deal with an otherwise competent programmer with a belligerently weird style? | I work on a 5-person programming team (plus one supervisor). It's not a standard programming language and it's a small enough community that I am not going to name it here for the sake of anonymity.
We have a code style guide that we settled on which is mostly industry standard best practices, with a few extra additions specific to our company. Most of the guidelines had little to no opposition among the team when proposed, but there was two specific areas where one of the team spent well over an hour arguing over the superiority of his preference compared to what is the industry standard, and in the end our supervisor intervened and basically told him that he'd been outvoted and we, as a company, were going to do things the way the rest of us preferred and that was much more standard to do them.
Again, I can't name specifics, but I assure you that this isn't a small thing; it's effectively the equivalent of the ["indent with semicolons"](https://i.redd.it/1jh2k8j4dzo71.jpg) code style, but in the specialized language that we use. Sure, you can make a few arguments as to why it helps (like, sure, it does mean that you can never forget a semicolon at the end of a line, and you can visually see the indents so you don't have to check if they are spaces or tabs) but in the end it's so visually jarring compared to normal code and takes such a weird amount of extra work to do that it's definitely not worth it. And he's been here long enough that he's writing code that is now starting to be integrated into the company code libraries, thus making the rest of us now have to see and often debug code written in his weird and annoying style.
The problem is that this guy, with the exception of his fixation on this one bizarre code style, is actually pretty good at what he does, and it would be really difficult to replace him because not only would we have to find someone who knows the somewhat obscure language at a high skill level, it would take weeks or months for them to reach his level of familiarity with company-specific systems. And hiring anyone right now is difficult enough what with the world being the way it is...
So I ask you all, is there anything in general that you can think of that could be done here? I've considered writing a script to parse his code and remove the weirdness, but he could just revert it back in source control plus my boss would call it a waste of time. Because he's writing otherwise good code, he won't get fired over this. The best I can think of is that on his next review he gets marked down for not being a team player, and gets a sub-par raise, and either quits or changes his mind, but I don't see that as a strong possibility. I have talked to our supervisor already, who talked to the guy, who basically said that he is still convinced his is the better way and he's not going to stop doing it despite being outnumbered 5 to 1.
Edit: General response to the ~50% of responses suggesting plugins/linters/whatever to automatically reformat his code or reject it before committing: With this language and the development environment we use, that isn't possible with the source control we use. If I want to "correct" any of his stuff, the only option is to get his last commit, alter it, then submit that as my commit, and it's only partially automatable. I'd end up spending roughly 25% of my time reformatting his stuff. | 21 | The correct thing is for your supervisor/manager to deal with it. If that doesn't happen though, there's an obvious technical solution: set up a repository hook to reject non-compliant code at commit time. | 26 |
CMV: It would be benificial to start using the term 'GSM' instead of continually adding to the classic 'LGBT' | *EDIT: Thanks for the replies, everyone. My view isn't changed yet, because while there are some issues with the acronym GSM, I don't think they outweigh the growing problem of inclusiveness in the term LGBT+. Additionally, as I felt like I wasn't clear on this, but I feel that adding to LGBT+ makes it difficult to "advertise" because it alienates and makes it, admittedly, seem like every group is being pandered to individually.*
*EDIT 2: I feel like I've been unclear with this, but the way I would very specifically proposer introducing this term is to sparingly use the full term to help provide context, and then use the acronym to refer to the idea. My goal wouldn't exactly to eclipse the usage of 'LGBT' in a short period of time, but rather push towards using an end-all term to group together people with common goals/who are commonly oppressed. A new acronym isn't simply used without context, it's used to shorten up an already established idea. I don't think of GSM as an acronym, I see it as a change in descriptor to point more directly to the goals.*
*EDIT 3: As stated below, SGM (Sexual and Gender minorities) curbs the problem of GSM already being popularized through cell phones. So that's, in my mind, not really a valid reason anymore. Sorry :(*
*EDIT 4: I awarded a delta to SanityInAnarchy for a post that immediately made it clear that I was already excluding a group in my proposed solution. While adding to LGBT might not be good, on it's own it seems effective right now. Good night!*
Hello denizens of CMV. I've been lurking around LGBT spaces online for a while now, being a trans woman and all. I've not been involved much in LGBT spaces in real life, but I've been planning to at the start of my current school year (now that I'm presenting female full-time).
My main belief/view is that it is probably harmful to continue adding to the 'LGBT' acronym. For example, my university's pride office uses the term 'LGBTQPIA2+' to refer to GSMs (Gender and Sexual minorities). For those not in the know, that's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/Transexual, Queer/Questioning, Pansexual, Intersex, Ally/Asexual, Two-Spirited, and more.
I think justice and awareness for all these groups is extremely important. Whether it's regarding bisexual erasure, anti-trans violence, coercive assignment of intersex people, and the media confusion (locally anyway, in northern Ontario) regarding two-spirited people. And obviously, that all goes far beyond gay marriage.
But there's a big difference between LGBT and LGBTQPIA2+. One of these acronyms is extremely effective for communicating what you're talking about, and the other looks like a mess. And while constant usage of the latter will eventually make that problem go away, if another group needs to be included for awareness reasons, we're back at square one.
However, using 'Gender and Sexual minorities' is automatically inclusive of anyone who might be a victim of the problems that LGBT people face. Additionally, it's much easier to include further groups. This is why I think the usage of GSM to refer to these groups is a much better way to communicate what any of these groups might be persecuted for, whether locally or worldwide.
As a side note, some people claim that the term GSM might be too inclusive of people who are into BDSM and the like. What's the problem with this? Awareness for any group is a good thing if it's used to curb public opinion towards a more positive light.
So anyway, Change my view!
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 254 | In addition to what others have said, GSM is an important acronym in another area. Particularly, it is the acronym used for the main cell phone technology in the world, the Global System for Mobile communications.
Because GSM is a widely used acronym already, it will create confusion because people will think you're talking about cell phones. | 81 |
[Medicine] Why are stimulants, such as amphetamines, which hype up the body, used to treat disorders like ADD and ADHD? | 586 | Stimulants either increase the release of certain neurotransmitters or block the reuptake of these neurotransmitters (dopamine, norepinephrine). This promotes more neurotransmitter in the synapse of a neuron which in return is believed to transmit messages more effectively. By increasing the efficacy in areas of the brain where attention, focus, and memory play a role, you alleviate symptoms of ADD | 152 |
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Why is it sometimes hard to distinguish between very hot and very cold water? | In the shower this morning, I realized I couldn't tell if I was being burned alive or frozen to death, but I knew it was one of the two. | 48 | **Pain** can be categorized. The scenario you're describing is a sensation via the skin (under the umbrella of the autonomic nervous system). This is known as visceral pain.
**Pain** is often defined as when the offending stimulus exceeds a threshold, in your case, it's high and low temperature. When this threshold is met or exceeded, **specific receptors** for temperature will transmit signals along a pathway that the brain interprets as pain.
**Specific receptors** are sensory neurons that are often not specific for particular types of stimuli. Oftentimes (I say oftentimes because there are receptors that are highly specialized in what they solely do, ie. the pressure-sensitive receptor, Pacinian Corpuscle), one receptor can contain several **ion channels** that are sensitive to different types of incoming stimuli.
There are a couple of **ion channels** in your skin that are sensitive to temperature. In the case of heat, there are TRPV4-1 transmembrane proteins that further divvy up certain heat ranges such as to "feel" heat with more granularity. The ion channels are named as such because they open and close to regulate the flow of calcium and sodium ions (why rubbing salt into a wound is painful). One of the proteins named TRPV1 is also activated by capsaicin which is the oil most commonly found in spicy dishes.
In the case of cold, different ion channels are involved. The proteins involved here are TRPM8 for moderately lower temps (and cool tasting menthol) and TRPA1 for bitter cold. But really, the take away point is that these temperature-sensitive ion channels and their respective proteins sit in the same neurons and travel along the same neural pathways. That is, their axons pass into the dorsal root ganglion where the neuron cell sits. It then goes into the spinal cord where it's off on its way to the brain to tell you "ouch". So while there are specific proteins governing the actual affliction of being too cold or too hot, the actual pathway on which the resulting synapses of being hot and cold converge, and the brain receives rather indifferentiable information from its nociceptors (pain receptor).
Edit: engrish | 10 |
Why exactly do objects make "wooshing" noises when I drive by them with my windows rolled down? | What exactly causes this sound? Is it related to the Doppler effect? | 20 | I suspect that you may be talking about something other than what SausageMcMerkin addressed.
Do you mean the quick "whoosh" sound caused by passing stationary objects by the roadside that don't make noise themselves (like mailboxes, parked cars, etc)? If so, what you're hearing is simply a reflection of the sound made by your tires combined with your car's engine noise. The noises generated by your car bounce off the relatively-flat face of roadside objects and are directed back toward you. You should notice that this effect is more prominent with larger objects, objects closer to your car, and objects with very flat faces. | 19 |
x-post from /r/academia. Has your mentoring approach changed since your were assistant professor until you became associate/full professor? If so, how? | 62 | I have moved from telling people what they should do, to asking questions in such a way as to make them think more carefully about what they can do, and to see possibilities for their own work that they did not see before. | 31 |
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CMV: Aborting a fetus that has a severe disability shouldn't be looked down apon | I think it is completely reasonable for a pregnant woman to terminate their pregnancy if an ultrasound has concluded that it will have a life-threatening or severe disability. Like if the fetus has a disability that would make them unable to be independent when they get older and must rely on a lot of other people in order to just TRY and live an ordinary life. I would hate to live as a vegetative state, and be a burden on other people. What is the point of being alive at that point. I wouldn't be able to contribute to society in any way.
I know this seems like a "hateful" or "horrible" thing to say, but it is actually a reasonable viewpoint in my eyes.
EDIT: Sorry for the misspelling in the title. Haven't had much sleep.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 441 | I agree with you, but in the spirit of changing views:
I read something a little while ago on a Buddhist discussion board, some folks had come across a cow or something that was mortally wounded and dying. The conversation came to putting the cow out of it's misery. "Someone should just kill it and end it's suffering" people said.
Others said no, it is not our place to dictate and control the suffering of other beings. We care for and support those who are suffering, but it is not our duty or our right to decide for another living thing how they will suffer.
All things suffer. Should we kill them all? | 146 |
[40K] Can a sufficiently high ranking officer of the Imperial Guard dismiss/relieve/discipline a commissar? | Commissars are pretty bad ass and very good at what they do. However, they're still human. Is there any circumstance where an officer of the Imperial Guard can dismiss or relieve a commissar for poor service or other reasons? | 40 | Commissars are outside the IG chain of command, so no, *technically* an IG officer cannot touch his commissar.
If a commissar is incompetent or corrupt or heretical enough, though, their IG unit might remove them from their post. This removal generally takes place on the battlefield in an unfortunate friendly fire incident. | 71 |
CMV: I think calling the situation in Europe a "migrant crisis" is purposefully misleading | Unless you've been living under a rock, you're probably aware that Europe is facing what's being called in the mainstream a "migrant crisis."
Many on the right in Europe are calling for bans on immigration, even going so far as to suggest selectively banning only those coming in who are Muslim.
What I don't see is how this situation can be called a "migrant crisis" at all. [If you look at the statistics](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/European_migrant_crisis#/Statistics) the top countries that people are leaving from are Syria (civil war and ISIS), Eritrea ("[A UN report last month said the Eritrean government presided over forced labour, torture and other rights violations](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/07/eritrea-blames-migrant-exodus-human-trafficking-150731053318736.html)"), and Afghanistan (ISIS and other militants)
Migrant is an umbrella term that describes all sorts of reasons why someone leaves one country for another, including economic immigrants and refugees. But clearly, most of these people who are leaving their countries come as refugees fleeing death and human rights abuses.
I think by calling it a "migrant crisis", the right in Europe can ignore the underlying issues that cause these people to flee, and start using the idea that they're only coming to "take our jobs" or "mooch off of us." Given that a lot of the far-right anti-refugee groups have neo-Nazi ties, I wouldn't be surprised if the anti-refugee groups are using this as a political opportunity to ensure that their nations are closed off from "those brown people" to make sure that their country becomes a "white nation."
tl;dr I think that this situation should be renamed into a "refugee crisis", and calling them migrants is deliberately misleading to the average person
| 24 | I live in Italy.
We have all reasons to call it "crisis" because we simply cannot treat those people decently nor according to our own laws about migrants. We don't have time, money, space nor the workforce required for such a task.
Yes, it is widely known that they aren't coming here for shit and giggles, but to escape horrible situations. And frankly, nobody cares. Whether they are escaping from countries with terribly low quality of life standards or from a civil war, the result for us is the same. We get more people in with little to no knowledge of our language and laws, and as you can imagine that is not the easiest thing to deal with | 15 |
CMV: Extraterrestrials, if they exist within range of us, have no reason to ever visit Earth. | We have nothing to offer them here and they would be about as interested in meeting us as you are interested in traveling to the middle of the desert to check out an ant hill. Any raw materials that can be found here can be found in absolutely super massive quantities in space, so much so that it would not be worth coming here for that. Our technology is primitive and would be useless to anything advanced enough to get here. Life itself would not be that interesting to a species so advanced it could make it in a lab easily or simulated in an extremely detailed simulation, or have an AI figure out whatever could be learned from studying life without ever coming here. We would not make good slaves, we are weak, unruly, and primitive, an AI would be infinitely loyal and a far better worker. Slaves would be useless.
At the very best we might be a mild curiosity, but that hardly seems worth traversing the vast super desert of space for, unless perhaps there is a very easy way to quickly travel unimaginably massive amounts of space we do not know about. Even then they likely have come here, found nothing of interest, and left long before human evolved. It would be a very long stretch but maybe a human or other earthling would make a neat excotic pet, but then again it might just be much easier to just make an exotic pet in the lab.
I find the ideas of cover ups very difficult to believe at best. They have never been here, and if they did come they would make their presence pretty obvious, not just hover over blurry cameras. A cover up would be extremely expensive, difficult, and likely to fail, and would have pretty much no pay off to try and cover up in the first place and in the off chance there is some kind of cover up, it would have to be an extremely poorly executed cover up for it to be possible that any civilian could find information on the internet about it. I just do not find any of the cover up talk convincing in the least. It seems people believe in cover ups simply because they want to believe, not because of solid evidence.
We are but tiny specs in a vast endless universe. Nothing about our spec is particularly unique if life does exist elsewhere in the universe as it could easily be made in the lab by any advanced lifeform (if life does not exist elsewhere then we are actually the most amazing thing in this entire universe, as single day here is absolutely extraordinary if nothing else is alive out there). Anything advanced enough to get here would have no reason to be interested in us. The one stipulation is that we can not know how or what they think so trying to predict their motivations is difficult, but from a rational standpoint there is really nothing here on Earth.
Edit: this blew up \*way\* faster and bigger than I thought it would. I appreciate all of your time but I will not be able to answer everybody. I will do my best to answer as much as I can. | 37 | >We have nothing to offer them here and they would be about as interested in meeting us as you are interested in traveling to the middle of the desert to check out an ant hill.
Why do you think they would care about what we have or don't have to offer them? We're a new species. Even on this planet, we have people absolutely fascinated with newly discovered species, even dedicating their lives to studying them, even though those new species don't have or might not have anything to 'offer'.
As for not having anything to offer, what exactly do you mean? Just new technologies they may not have?
We have people willing to not only travel to the middle of a desert to that anthill on Earth today but they do it as a career. They have intense interest in it, especially if the ant is an entirely new species.
>Any raw materials that can be found here can be found in absolutely super massive quantities in space, so much so that it would not be worth coming here for that. Our technology is primitive and would be useless to anything advanced enough to get here.
Do you think raw materials or tech is the only thing we might have to offer an alien species? Do you think that's all an alien species might be interested in?
| 44 |
CMV: Shifting to an 18-year US Supreme Court term would have substantial benefits that would outweigh the drawbacks | I think we would be better off if Supreme Court justices were nominated to 18-year terms rather than lifetime appointments. My vision for this would be that a seat would come up every other year, at the beginning of odd-numbered years. If a justice were to retire from their seat or die during their 18-year term, a new justice could be appointed to fill the remainder of their term.
The benefits I see of such an approach:
* Supreme Court nominations become slightly lower-stakes: Right now, when you nominate a justice in their 40s, they could conceivably serve on the bench for 40+ years before dying or retiring. This makes every nomination an apocalyptic event. I don't think that issue would go away entirely with 18-year terms, as that's still pretty long, but it would lessen the stakes somewhat.
* Supreme Court nominations become more predictable: We currently live in a world where we never know when a seat will come up to be filled; before Scalia's death, we had 4 justices who could decide to retire or come into ill-health at any moment (Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy, Scalia), raising the possibility that one president could potentially re-shape the judiciary dramatically if he/she got lucky. *Edit* as an added benefit, the phenomenon of SCOTUS justices deciding whether to "wait out" certain Presidents they don't like or retire under Presidents they do like would go away, which I think is a good thing.
* More democratic responsiveness in the Supreme Court: The prevailing philosophy on the Court can and does change over time, but it can take a very long time for that to happen with lifetime tenure, and the role luck plays in the timing of SCOTUS openings. With more predictable openings, if the public spends 10 years pushing for the court to move in one direction through their votes in elections, they can actually re-shape the Court. (I know this is a double-edged sword, because in theory the Court isn't always considered an institution that is supposed to be particularly democratically responsive).
* Removing SCOTUS battles from election cycles: If you could have the vacancies occur at the beginning of every odd-numbered year, they would be as far from the next election as possible, diminishing as far as possible the incentive to wait until an election before confirming a justice. And every time people went to the polls, they would know that their vote was directly impacting a SCOTUS nomination within the next few months.
* Less disincentive to nominating older judges: Not that nominating young judges is a *bad* thing, necessarily, but because of the stakes of lifetime appointments, there is a big incentive to look for really young justices rather than necessarily the best person to fill the role. In today's world, it's impossible to imagine nominating a justice who is 60 or 65 years old, because you could be giving up 10-15 years of their service on the back end relative to a justice who is 45-50. With an 18-year term, politicians would have more flexibility to choose slightly older and more experienced justices if they wished.
I know this would require a Constitutional amendment, and I know that will never happen, but I wanted to float it as at least a thought experiment. What am I missing? CMV!
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 1,667 | The judiciary’s entire job is to be consistent. Although the position of the court is subject to change, it doesn’t very often. Because of one case in the 80’s, abortion is still around today, despite numerous attempts to change that.
Keeping a consistent bench is important to the stability of the United States government. A bench that changes too often can lead to reversals of opinions over and over again, which makes it very hard to argue a case based on previous outcomes.
Also, the Judiciary is what keeps the other two branches of government in check. Giving the president additional power over the courts will just make them more like the president.
The system we have today makes the courts a more fair environment. We have 4 generally conservative justices, and four generally liberal justices, with Justice Kennedy a swing vote between the two.
Keeping the Supreme Court like it is today helps preserve the balance that the government relies on.
Edit: Made a typo while trying to refer to Roe v. Wade, which was in fact in the early 70s. | 460 |
is stoicism just for privileged people who don't know the real hardships of life? | I've read this meme somewhere which basically said stoicism is often adopted by people who are privileged in the way that they don't come around hardships of life so they have the privilege to say "bad things happen, just move on" in Marcus Aurelius' way. The meme went on like "Jake, a son of a lawyer and a doctor living in Beverly hills, who graduated from ivy league college says "stoicism is the way to life mannn"".
It kinda disrupted my belief in stoic philosophy because I am pretty much privileged myself (like upper middle class in a developing country). Is there any defense or counter argument to this? | 226 | Consider Epictetus, Stockdale, and, while not a Stoic, Frankl with a similar perspective. All three undisputably knew real hardship and all three advocated for Stoicism or a similar perspective. Zeno of Citium founded Stoicism after losing everything, and the Stoics drew heavily on the Cynics, who voluntarily lived in total poverty.
Stoicism has been employed successfully under real and extreme hardship.
Edit: thanks u/throwawayphilacc for providing the context below:
> To add context for those unfamiliar with these characters, Epictetus was enslaved on a galley for half of his life, Frankl survived the Holocaust, and Stockdale was a POW in the Vietnam War. None of these people had an easy life.
Note that two of the three lived within the last century. | 199 |
Do languages that read from right to left think of time as progressing from right to left? | As an English speaker I, and I assume most people, think of time progressing in the forward direction to the right. For example when plotting a time line, the most recent events would be to the right, and historic events to the left.
Does the direction of reading affect this? | 16 | "Not the answer but related". In English, people think of the future as ahead of you, and the past behind you but in some other languages the past is in front of you and the future behind you because you can see the past and it can give you clues about the future but you can't know for sure whats behind you/in the future. | 43 |
[Superman]Could superman still use his heat vision if were blind? | 44 | Yes. Vision is based on the ability of the eyes to absorb light reflected off objects.
Superman's heat vision is a misnomer, he's not using it to see, so it's not vision. He uses it to emit light, which is the opposite of vision, and is what light bulbs do. | 29 |
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ELI5: Why does "he was all but confused" mean "he was extremely confused", but if you take the sequence of words literally, it means " he was everything EXCEPT for confused"? | I never understood this English form. I'm using the word "confused" as filler, but any adjective might do there.
I dont understand why when someone is "all but XXX" they are understood to be "extremely XXX."
Didn't we just say they were ALL BUT that thing? | 20 | The phrase "all but X" is an idiom, and idioms should not be read literally. Throwing a book at someone doesn't literally mean throwing a book. If you miss the boat ordering a cake for a birthday, you haven't literally missed a boat.
The phrase "all but X" means that practically, things are so close to being X that they may as well be X. For example, the "match was all but decided" means that the end result from the match is almost certain.
If, however, you had a basket of eggs and broke all but one, this is a literal construction and you can replace the word "but" with "except" and the phrase still makes sense. | 17 |
ELI5: How does toilet paper not become damp from the steam produced by a shower? | 20 | TLDR: Your shower doesn't produce THAT much moisture, and it doesn't last long enough to cause considerable damage.
Basically paper has to be splashed with water or soaked in it to get damp. Moisture in the air isn't enough for paper to get what we would consider damp.
Just looked this up on a few sites talking about archiving paper. Even at 100% humidity and room temperature paper only absorbs about 20% moisture content. That's enough to start causing curling but not enough to get it wet.
Generally speaking a shower wouldn't be enough to cause this on it's own. You are more likely to get paper damaged by water if you live in an area that has 100% air humidity on a regular basis. | 13 |
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Why can your brain simulate sensory sensations during a dream but not while awake and day dreaming? | For example, a kissing sensation feels real while asleep and dreaming but not daydreaming. | 32 | One theory of dreaming states that one part of your brain is overactive during REM sleep. It makes random signals which get sent to the other areas of the brain. Those other areas then try to make sense of these random signals by using already-known information, which leads to weird ass dreams. | 27 |
Does Earth get energy from stars other than the sun? | I know the sun is our biggest source of energy on Earth, but do we also get some energy from all the other stars out there? We can see them so we're at least some light is getting here, but are they contributing any even remotely significant amount of energy to us? | 50 | If by energy you mean light and heat.
Then essentially yes as being able to see the stars at night is there light (which is a form of energy) reaching us. But in the main way earth 'uses' the Suns energy, photosynthesis other stars do not contribute at all really. Could go far more in depth but not really sure if this is what you mean. | 22 |
ELI5: Why our face looks slightly different after we wake up from a sleep? | 28 | During the day you generally keep your head up at the top of your body, and your body gets used to having to pump blood way up there, and you look normal.
At night, you position yourself horizontally and stay that way for hours. Blood flows much more easily to your head and that extra blood in there (it's not pooling up, there's just more in there as it's moving around) makes your face a little puffy n' stuff.
Then once you get yourself upright again after a bit everything settles back down under gravity's constant tug, and you look normal again. | 42 |
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ELI5: How much more "data" does a QR code have, compared to a regular "bar code/UPC code"? | I kind of understand how a UPC code works, but how is a QR code capable of "storing more data"? | 160 | If you think about what a UPC code is, it's just a series of black and white lines, right? Each of those lines can be represented as a binary digit, a 1 or a 0, depending on whether it's black or white. If you only cared about a binary string, that's all you'd need. You could make a barcode that was 4 digits long by having 4 lines. If B is 0 and W is 1, then 4 lines of BWWB will be read as 0110. However, this isn't super convenient, so UPC organises these lines into blocks of 7, and uses the order of the lines to represent a decimal digit. 1110010 for example represents 0.
But, those lines don't actually need to be very long. The vertical dimension in a UPC code is doing absolutely nothing in terms of the information it delivers, it's just making it so the line of light from the barcode reader doesn't need to be perfectly aligned - it's making it much easier to scan. So, you could squish a barcode down to be potentially even just 1 atom tall if you really wanted to and could invent a reader capable of seeing something that small. With the shift to cameras, which can see the actual image and not just detect the red line bouncing off it, the height of the barcode can be shrunk down immensely. This is pretty much what a QR code is doing - by shifting to squares instead of lines, it can fit a lot more information in, because it frees up the vertical dimension to contain different information to the bits of the code above and below it. | 66 |
ELI5: How is the fact that milk is good for your bones a myth? Isn't calcium good for bones; and isn't milk filled with it? | 33 | > milk is good for your bones
This is marketing exaggeration at best, courtesy of the American Dairy Association. Their goal is to sell milk, not to promote health.
It's been accepted as fact for so long that studies actually demonstrating benefits are probably lacking. Such studies are also likely to be funded by the dairy industry, a conflict of interest. Studies looking into drawbacks from milk consumption (such as increased fractures or osteoporosis) are starting to appear.
Simply having calcium in your diet doesn't guarantee stronger bones. The body uses Vitamin D to absorb calcium from food. Bone health is associated with strength training—if your body isn't put under strain, it won't feel the need to make bones stronger. Phosphorus is also needed for bone formation, though the average diet usually contains a suitable amount. Calcium is also used for other purposes, mainly as ions along signalling pathways. | 47 |
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What makes an object or surface sticky/smooth? | I feel silly asking this question but I've always wondered! | 23 | This is actually a very complicated topic, so I'll start with a basic overview of some key points. You can ask about any parts you want more detail on, and we'll take it from there.
Stickiness and smoothness are derived from a number of factors, including surface chemistry and structure at the very core. Chemistry or the makeup of a material is obviously crucial. Stickiness is a macroscopic form of attractive forces, while smoothness is basically about a low friction surface. These are not exactly opposites, but they do run counter to each other in many ways.
At the molecular level, a surface can be sticky towards different things based on any number of forces or interactions. Electrostatics (positively and negatively charged molecules or parts of molecules) can stick things together, as can ionic interactions, hydrogen bonding, Van der Waals forces, and a bunch of others. You can also have chemical reactions that form covalent bonds between two different materials, but that's usually more permanent. Velcro-like entanglement can also happen with longer polymer molecules, for instance.
Smoothness, chemically, is about reducing attractive forces and often increasing (but not necessarily) repulsive forces. This reduces the observed frictional forces. The most well known materials like this would be Teflon and similar perfluorinated compounds, although there are many others as well.
One important note about the chemistry component: nothing repels or attracts everything. It's always targeted based on the most important interactions you want to control.
Structure is however equally important. A piece of steel can feel smooth if polished, but very rough if it's scraped up. There is also the famous example of gecko feet, which have thousands of tiny hair like structures, each of which are a tiny bit sticky (via Van der Waals forces). Add up those thousands of little sticky forces, and geckos can climb walls. Or the famous lotus effect, a structural form of water resistant coating based on the structures observed in lotus leafs. By optimizing the surface area (either to reduce it maximize it) and angles, you can greatly affect the surface interactions of a material, but it's hard to give a universal rule for this. It must be examined in the context of a specific material and it's interesting with specific substances. | 15 |
[Marvel/DC] Why are there far more villains than heroes? | 16 | Because people tend to be self-interested, and if you hand them enough power to get whatever they want that's what they do. That's why they say that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The flip side of that, the idea that with great power comes great responsibility, is rather more rare. | 29 |
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ELI5: Is quality of sleep affected by how you wake up? | For instance, I wake up every morning to about 5-15 minutes of alarms because I'm a very heavy sleeper. Does waking up this way change the amount/quality of my sleep? | 48 | Kind of. Your body runs through 90 minute cycles when you're asleep. You go from light sleep to very deep (REM) and back again. If you wake up during the deep sleep part of your cycle, it is much more difficult to wake up and you feel very groggy. If you wake up during the light part of your cycle it's usually much easier.
There are apps you can get on your phone which monitor your sleep pattern, and try to wake you up during a light-sleep period closest to your wakeup time. These can help make your mornings a little easier.
This is also why, if you're taking a nap, you want it to be shorter than 30 minutes. Any longer than that and you start going into the deeper stages of sleep that are hard to wake up from. Then your nap leaves you groggy instead of refreshed. | 30 |
Is Jean Grey an Omega level mutant due to the phoenix force? | If she had no ties to the phoenix force would she still have enough power to reach Omega level status? | 62 | Absolutely. Jean Grey is literally more powerful than she can even manage.
When she was a child, she was so strong that she Professor Xavier had to retard her abilities. Her telepathy was completely turned off, and her telekinesis was ramped down to allow her to grow. The strength was reintroduced to her as she grew.
At her maximum potential, her raw power is basically unmatched. She has the strength to pull objects out of orbit and the finesse to manipulate objects at a subatomic level. Telepathically, she can cut off individual senses, communicate with animals, project astrally, and kill with her mind.
She wasn't so powerful because she became the Phoenix, she was so powerful THAT she became the Phoenix. | 85 |
[Avatar: The Last Airbender and Legend of Korra] Can benders only be born in their respective nations ? | Is in some way were you are born connected to the type of bending you will receive, like fire benders can only be born in the fire nation, water benders in the water tribes etc. Is in some way your bending associated with the real world borders ? If the fire nation had won and conquered the world everybody that would born in the now world controlled by the fire nation would be a fire bender ? And if you are born in the Replubic City from Legend of Korra since it's a neutral territory you could born with any type of bending ? | 20 | Probably has more to do with genetics than national boundaries
In Republic City we confirm mixed race couples can produce benders from both cultures represented
(And Bolin’s unique abilities are not fully explained but may be because of said mixed ancestry) | 34 |
ELI5: What makes the human mind dwell so easily on embarrassing experiences even after a long time since they occurred? | 18 | Embarrassment usually happens when you perceive yourself to have messed up in some way (especially when others witness it). Humans are social creatures, and our group is really important. We don't want to lose our group because they think we are screw ups, so the brain tries to hammer home every mistake so that we don't make it again.
Does that make sense/answer your question? | 13 |
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[Transformers 2] Why didn't the US Navy blast the Sun Harvester with that new railgun? | It took out that massive NBE like it was nothing. It's pretty damn accurate if it can hit a 70-90 foot target from miles away.
Why the fuck didn't it shoot that damn machine!? And don't give me any bullcrap about running outta energy. My buddy was in one of the planes that tried to shoot that thing!
Why were they even flying so close when we had that wondergun offshore? | 28 | Power issues aside (They are, actually, a concern), HEATING would also be a very serious problem. A shot from that would cause so much heat in the barrel that they'd have to give it time to cool off, otherwise we're talking missing the shot as a least dramatic possibility, and the rail gun outright exploding as a worst-case scenario. | 12 |
[Genies] I've written up a catalogue containing 100 items and I say "I wish for everything written in the catalogue to be granted to me." Am I granted 100 items or 3? | 28 | It can depend on the genie.
If you've got a friendly Aladdin-type genie who likes you, then there's a good chance you'll get all 100 items. After all, Aladdin got a whole bunch of things with just his "I wish to be a prince" wish (seventy five golden camels, fifty three purple peacocks, ten thousand servants and flunkies, etc).
If it's a neutral genie, he'll probably point out your error and tell you that you can't do that. Or he'll just follow the letter of the law and give you the first three things in the catalogue.
If it's a malevolent djinn, he'll give you all 100 items, but will drop them on your head all at once from a sufficient height to kill you. | 48 |
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ELI5: Does milk really help you grow taller or is it a myth? | Is milk still reasonable to drink just for a healthy growth or its all a myth and your height growth only depends in genetics and your diet (meat/fish, rice, veggies, water etc etc..)?
| 21 | Not having malnutrition helps you grow taller.
Milk is a good source of some minerals that were traditionally hard to find. However, if you live in a developed country and are well fed, it is not likely something you need to worry about. | 23 |
ELI5: How do those lame porn advertisements make money, and why do porn sites continue to host them? | e.g., "Local singles want to fuck in your area!" "Grow your dick with this simple trick!" | 22 | They make money because there's a sucker born every minute. If *somebody, somewhere* wasn't clicking them, the company wouldn't pay to keep them up. It's also why spam emails are still a thing, for a lot of people. They still work on enough people to make a profit. | 15 |
[Beetlejuice] If the living must never be allowed evidence of the afterlife, why does "The Handbook for the Recently Deceased" include the ritual (with incantation) for trapping ghosts? | And why does the handbook have anything written for the living at all when it's never supposed to fall into their hands? | 33 | Bureaucratic bloat. There are so many rules and governing agencies associated with the afterlife that contradictory regulations will inevitably arise over time.
It is both illegal and mandatory that a print version of the manual for the living be provided to certain households, depending on who you ask and which regulations you consult. It's probably also an outdated version because somebody somewhere has authorized a new revision. | 12 |
[Star Wars] Why didn't the Jedi Council send more backup to Naboo when they knew a Sith Lord was running around? | The Jedi were not in a war during this time so they weren't starved for resources like they constantly were during The Clone Wars.
They found out that a Sith Lord was running around for the first time in 1000 years but they send Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan back to Naboo alone. Why? Qui-Gon got killed and Obi-Wan would have been killed as well if Darth Maul hadn't been so cocky.
During the celebration ceremony on Naboo, the whole damn council showed up to stand around even though nobody there even cared about them. Why couldn't they haul their asses to Naboo before? | 39 | Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan encountered Maul on Tatooine, not Naboo, so there wouldn't have been much point sending backup to Naboo, from the Council's perspective. And nobody knew Maul was a Sith Lord, Qui-Gon suspected that he was from their encounter, and he passed those suspicions on to the Council. You have to remember, for a Jedi, Qui-Gon was a bit of a loose cannon. He very well may have reported a Sith Lord every other week. | 55 |
ELI5: Why do guitarists sometimes use different guitars for certain songs causing them to switch instruments mid-set? | 68 | besides the different tunings, different guitars have different sounds. Guitars are made of different materials, different woods, different pickups (which capture the vibrations of the string), and different circuitry inside of the guitar and pickups. So a guitarist may want a "Strat" sound for one song and, say, a Les Paul sound for another. | 46 |
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[Fallout] Does the Brotherhood have the manpower to simultaneously occupy DC and Boston without relying on a local militia or swelling its ranks with a whole lot of rubbish recruits? | Question inspired by the ability to simultaneously become a Sentinel and a General. Logically, that turns the Minutemen into Brotherhood auxiliary militia, which actually sounds like a smart idea. | 39 | The BoS under Maxson made some important recruiting changes. Besides the "be born in the BoS" route, if a wastelander is young enough they can join or if a established BoS memeber (such as a Paladin) vouches for the recruit they can join. In just 10 years this policy has flooded the BoS with a lot of decently trained soldiers. The expedition to Boston has 500+ members iirc, which is already larger than the Mojave BoS before Operation: Sunburst and that's not including the forces left back in D.C. | 33 |
CMV Mace Windu is the main reason the republic fell | In Episode III, Mace confronts Palpatine and after a fight, has him cornered. Anakin tries to convince Mace to spare Palpatine and put him on trial. Mace ignores Anakin and is killed. If Mace had spared Palpatine, Anakin wouldn’t have become Darth Vader and the whole mess would have been avoided. The Empire would’ve never existed and the Seperatists would’ve been defeated. Mace defied the Jedi way and messed up the galaxy so therefore is responsible for all the issues that occurred. Whilst he isnt the only reason, he is the main one and he led to the creation of Darth Vader which led to the downfall of the Republic and the rise of the empire. | 30 | Let’s say Mace Windu followed the Jedi Way and did not attempt to kill Palpatine. The journey might have changed, but would the result be any different?
Hypothetical #1: Palpatine already had the Senate spun around his finger. It is extremely conceivable that Palpatine would have just manipulated the Senate and Anakin into finding him not guilty and blamed everything on the Jedi Order. Anakin would still become disenchanted with the Jedi Order and ultimately turn into Darth Vader.
Hypothetical #2: Palpatine is put in prison, but before his trial, Palpatine, being the master manipulator he is, convinces Anakin to spring him free. Palpatine is now free and Anakin still becomes Darth Vader.
Conclusion: Anakin was on the path to becoming Darth Vader with or without Mace Windu’s choice. The Senate was crumbling and Palpatine had two armies at his whim (both the Droid and Clone Army). As controller of both armies, the only way the Palpatine doesn’t win is if he is killed. Therefore, Mace Windu made the correct call. | 26 |
ELI5: Why do busy city roads take longer to degrade than lesser used county roads? | 38 | Former paving contractor here. Busy city roads are usually built to a higher standard and get more maintenance than low-use country roads.
To the causal observer, roads all tend to look the same. But underneath the black asphalt you see, busy roads are built stronger. More gravel base, and often a layer of concrete provide a strong long lasting structure that can support lots of traffic.
But this strength is expensive. Municipalities often cannot justify the extra expense of building this strength on country roads that do not get used much. So they sometimes degrade more rapidly. | 52 |
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[Friday the 13th] Why don't people near Crystal Lake believe in the legend of Jason despite every few years a bunch of people keep getting killed off there? | 15 | First time was Mrs. Voorhees and no one saw it coming. She died and that was that, the survivor had a PTSD induced nightmare of her drowned son immediately after.
The second-fourth movies all happen over the course of a couple days, there wasn’t enough time between the second and third act to properly warn everyone, and the police probably had nothing to go off of. The fourth one begins with everyone involved and the police believing Jason to be dead, he then kills over the next 2 or 3 nights before finally dying for real.
The fifth happens years later and is a copycat killer who was killed.
The 6th is when Jason becomes supernatural, but it is shown that the locals try to cover up the Jason legend as much as they can. Jason is dispatched once again in this movie.
Years later in the 7th, Jason is revived by psychic energy and the evidence of his return is covered up by the psychiatrist. Jason is later brought down by the revived corpse of the father.
The 8th movie has Jason killing teens on a ship heading for New York. They have no reason to believe it is the Jason of legends because they aren’t at Crystal Lake anymore.
Jason X has no reason to have anyone be aware of the legends.
Jason Goes to Hell has the FBI deal with Jason finally themselves.
In reality, Jason went on one relatively short, but bloody, killing spree in the 70s before dying. He inspired a copycat killer who then also died. Then years after his death he revived magically and went on sporadic killing sprees every few years, the only issue was that the locals in the know did their best to cover them up, and the survivors always assumed they saw the last of Jason. Most victims are those who don’t live in the area or who recently moved there, they’d have no reason to believe in an urban legend about a dead mass murderer even if they did hear about it. | 13 |
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[Robocop] If almost all of Murphy's brain was destroyed when he was murdered, does the robot adopt his identity as a way of coping with its existence as a piece of police equipment? | 39 | Without the brain, the robotic portion wouldn't have enough intelligence to need to cope with anything to begin with.
That Murphy feels the need to cope at all is proof that he *is* Murphy, and not a machine adopting an identity. | 37 |
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CMV: People should only give money to charities recommended by places like GiveWell | I believe that people (morally) ought to give money to charities recommended by independent charity evaluators (such as GiveWell, or GivingWhatWeCan) instead of giving to whichever personal charities they happen to like (or using any other criteria for selecting a charity to give to).
To represent the least pleasant version of my view, if you imagine a person who just lost a parent to some terrible cancer, and they want to make a donation to a charity that deals with that terrible cancer, and giving that donation would help them cope, and bring them happiness, I *still* think that they should instead donate to a charity recommended by an independent charity evaluator.
My main reason for thinking this is a simple one: money should be spent in the most effective way possible, and if it takes £10,000 to save 1 person from bowel cancer, but that £10,000 would save hundreds of people if spent on something else, it should be spent on that something else instead.
Now one possible objection might be that billionaires frequently don't donate to charities on those lists, instead collecting together a bunch of advisors and experts, but first, I don't think that this is really different in kind to going to an independent charity evaluation website, and second, I think that quite often this does lead to the bad consequence of them choosing a 'vanity' project, that is a problem that they have some personal connection with rather than the one on which the money could be best spent.
To come back to the example of the person with the parent who died of a form of cancer, I think that even though it might provide solace to donate to some ineffective cancer charity, it would be better if the person could find solace in donating to an effective charity, because then it would not just be the person themselves benefiting. I also think that this type of argument is not talking about the same kind of "should" as was originally in the question. It is making a person's happiness an unnecessary hostage to their poor decisions, when in reality, I think that most people could be convinced that helping the most people possible would do a greater service to their dead loved-one than some comforting, but ultimately ineffective gesture. **When people give to charity, they do so because they want to *actually do* good things, not because they want to *think* that they are doing good things**
You can imagine fantastic scenarios in which some villain says that they're going to commit genocide unless you donate to this ineffective charity, but I feel that that sails past the point too: Under *normal circumstances* people should only give money to charities recommended by places like GiveWell.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 62 | >When people give to charity, they do so because they want to actually do good things
I'd modify that and say that we want to do good things, ie help other people in part also because it makes *us* feel better. A prime example is Make A Wish Foundation. They don't cure cancer or treat diseases. Their motives are just to improve the lives of children who are suffering. If the focus is saving lives, then the make a wish foundation is a total waste of money. Why spend money improving the life of a terminally ill child if they're going to die anyway?
So we spend money on charity to make ourselves feel better. One way to do that is to give money to people who need it, and it's easier to empathise with people who have gone through a situation similar to what we, or people close to us have gone through. It might be that even if donating to a charity which is more effective with their funds with regards to savings life. people are not inclined to donate as much money as they would to a charity whose cause they can identify with. Going back to your example with the billionaires "vanity" project. Those funds might be better off going to a charity which is a relative low hanging fruit with regards to saving lives, but if only given the option to donate to that charity and not donating, they might choose not to donate, or only a small amount. | 13 |
ELI5 Is there a root oriental language | ELI5: as western languages have a Latin or Greek root, do Asian languages have a root language? Most Asian countries have a fairly rich history, so it wouldn't surprise me if they didn't. But why are Asian languages so structurally different to western languages? | 24 | none of your assertions are correct, but that's fine.
there is only a single language with a greek root: greek. modern greek evolved from older greek forms.
a subset of western languages, called the romance languages, came from latin. those languages are, among others, french, spanish, italian, portuguese, and romanian. these languages evolved from latin.
english does not come from greek or latin. it's related to those languages, and it's notable for having borrowed a lot of words from latin, greek, and french (which DOES come from latin).
latin and greek are related, which means they share a common ancestor. however, the only real similarity between latin and (classical) greek is grammatical structure and some cognate words. most latin and greek words are, for our purposes, completely unintelligible to each other (consider the latin root 'aqua', the greek root 'hydro'; they both mean water).
to answer your question: do asian languages have a root language? we must actually look at what 'asian languages' mean.
asia is really fucking big. it's the biggest continent, after all. asia has languages that are related to english (like hindi, persian, and punjabi). asia also has languages that are related to hawaiian (tagalog, indonesian).
whoa whoa whoa. all this 'related' and 'evolved' talk may be making your head spin. what does it mean?
'related' means that the languages are likely to have a common ancestor. we demonstrate this by looking at similarities and looking at how certain features of the language (pronunciation, grammar, tones, etc.) came to be in their present forms.
'evolved from' means that the language is actually a NEWER form of that language. languages change, a lot. think of new slang words that didn't exist 10 years ago. think of the way some people may 'misuse' grammar in english (i ain't got none of that!) well, imagine that happening multiple times over thousands of years. that's how languages change and evolve.
so... asian languages. some asian languages are related. others have evolved from older forms of a pre-existing asian language.
but i'm gonna wager a guess: you're thinking of chinese, japanese, vietnamese, and korean.
none of these languages are related as far as we know.
we have been unable thusfar to establish any sort of common ancestor between these languages.
however, because of the point you brought up about rich history, there are somethings that are very similar.
i don't know if you've ever studied chinese or japanese. but chinese is structurally very similar to english. this is a coincidence.
chinese and vietnamese are structurally similar to each other, as well. this is less likely to be a coincidence, because while chinese and vietnamese cannot demonstrate a common ancestor, they still have something like 60% of their words in common.
japanese and korean are structurally similar to each other, but completely alien to chinese and vietnamese. however, both japanese and korean have many words (again, something like 60%) in common with chinese.
how can this be the case? well, the answer is, essentially, empire. the chinese were very good at establishing spheres of influence throughout their 4000 year long history. they took with them ideas, language, and the written word to places where writing had never even been attempted.
chinese writing, though, is very restrictive. so the japanese and koreans came up with their own solution. the vietnamese, which actually fits the chinese characters a lot better, just decided to listen to the french and write their language with the roman alphabet.
(you might be asking about the mongols, where do they fit into this? well... they don't, either. their language is just as alien to the rest of the east asian languages. they had their own writing system, unrelated to that of the chinese. they now write their language in the cyrillic script, which you might know as the 'russian alphabet'.)
long ass history lesson. why are they do structurally different to western languages? well, in the case of chinese and vietnamese... they're not. in these languages, the order of words is the same as in english. grammar is very similar (if you've ever taken a french, spanish, german, or god forbid latin class, you'll know that these languages have relatively complex grammar compared to english)
but their sounds might as well be alien to us (seriously, go do a vietnamese lesson and try to pronounce those words. that language might be one of the hardest to pronounce for english speakers.)
japanese and korean are very different to english structurally. the words are not said in the same order as english. expressing ideas is a little bit 'backwards' in these languages. but they do demonstrate similarities with turkish, hindi, and several other languages.
i know i'm skirting your question. you're asking why.
the answer is an unfortunate... it is what it is. they evolved differently. the east and the west had basically no contact until the persian empire. that's millennia upon millennia of language evolution.
**tl;dr no**
EDIT: when i say 'chinese' i do mean mandarin, but everything applies to the chinese dialects that derive from middle/classical chinese. | 47 |
ELI5: How is information transmitted through wires? | Take a simple USB cable. It’s just a small array of conductive contacts and metal wire. Obviously the computer/device decodes the information but how is that information communicated? Morse code? | 111 | For copper/metal wires like that its basically morse code, you just toggle the electricity on and off real fast. In a usb cable and other such cables there's also often multiple wires woven inside the isolating sleeve to allow for more information traveling simultaneously.
What's really interesting is fibre optic cables. These ones are made from (i think plastic) transparent fibres, and instead of running a current through it, you shine light into the fibre in a particular angle, such that it bounces off the walls of the fibre and stays inside, so you can see the light coming out the other end. These cables carry a lot of information, because not only can you wrap many of these fibres into one cable, you can also shine multiple different colours (wavelengths) of light into a single fiber, and they won't interfere with each other. Then you again just toggle the different colours in each fibre on and off really quickly to transmit information.
Also note that its not actually morse code, its simpler because in computers all data is already in the form of ones and zeros, so you just transmit it raw. | 111 |
[Marvel] What would be the easiest way(s) to kill Carnage and Venom? | They're "weak" to fire and sound, but it's (as far as I know) shown that their comic counterparts can often shrug those off relatively easily. So how can you kill them?
And, even more importantly, what's the easiest way of doing so? | 50 | There's a pheromone that repels symbiotes and prevents them from attaching to their hosts. Assuming they're willing and able to kill the host, anyone wearing it could do so to either symbiote.
Of course, said pheromone is only available in the future in another dimension (Earth-8009) so "easiest" is relative. Women there are genetically engineered to emit this pheromone, to keep back what they call "the Black Bloom." | 47 |
The most idiotic rejection reason so far | Hi All!
Let's have a fun and post the most idiotic rejection reasons.
The weirdest reason I've came across so far is:
"we have decided to focus on papers which are related to previous work published in our journal.
And this does not seem to be the case with your paper since you are not citing articles of XXXXXX"
This God-forsaken journal, which nobody is reading, publishes only papers that are citing it! | 99 | I once had a rejection like "the results of this article are solid but unsurprising. It would be more exciting to see X or Y."
X was actually in the article, and Y was a hugely important open problem that, if we'd solved it, we'd have submitted to a much fancier journal than the one who rejected us. | 117 |
Before Darwin wrote in length about the Theory of Evolution, had science produced any other versions on the origin of life that were backed by science? | Other than the religious explanations for where man and all other life came from, had science produced any explanation for the origin of life? Were there any hypotheses that had a big following? Were any backed by actual science? Or did everyone stick with what their religions taught them as the true origin? | 19 | I'd like to point out that evolution isn't really an "origin of life" thing. It requires life to already be present. Origin of life would fall more under abiogenesis or extra terrestrial seeding or the like.
But as others have said the Lamarckian ideas were used prior to Darwin's. | 28 |
ELI5: Are sound waves as big as they are in diagrams? | How big are sound waves?
You’ve got all these kinds of waves, square, sine, saw blah blah. At least when I was getting into sound design you spend some time looking at the supposed sound waves. Also on diagrams where you see sound waves, are they actually that big going into your ear? | 19 | The wavelengths of audible sound are between 17 mm and 17 m, but sound travels as a compression wave, not a sin wave like light. Thing is, compression waves are hard to visualize or write down, so a sin wave is used with the same wavelength. Best visualization I’ve seen for sound waves is a Slinky stretched out, then you pull and release a portion from one end and watch the ripple travel along its length.
So if you’re talking about “are sound wavelength large enough to see (if they were visible at all)?” Then yes. | 41 |
CMV: MRAs are wrong when they argue that feminism is the mainstream perspective | This past weekend, I watched the documentary *The Red Pill,* a film that features interviews with many prominent MRAs as well as feminist critics of the men's rights movement. I appreciated the film for identifying a lot of important issues that disproportionately affect men. However, I was perplexed by some of the films other claims.
For full disclosure, I am a cis heterosexual White male working in the field of men's studies, and identify politically and theoretically as a feminist.
Several of the film's key voices, such as Paul Elam, argue that feminism is the "mainstream" perspective on gender. For example, they point to the apparent dominance of a view of women as victims and precious and men as oppressors and disposable.
My objection here isn't that this view isn't a predominant perspective. My objection is that this view is actually an *anti-feminist* perspective, one that trades on the sexist stereotypes that once justified preventing women from becoming lawyers or politicians because those careers were too cut-throat for women's supposedly gentle temperaments. I'd argue that most feminists actually oppose the view that women are always passive victims and men are always active aggressors.
Of course, there *are* self-identified feminists that claim that all men are oppressive. Feminism is an incredibly diverse movement. But this view is by no means representative of most feminists and by no means a mainstream view. | 38 | > I'd argue that most feminists actually oppose the view that women are always passive victims and men are always active aggressors.
It isn't about *always*. Everyone will agree that there are exceptions to the general rule.
But the "general rule" for feminism is that women are oppressed and men are the oppressors. In fact, that the *whole point* of feminism. If that isn't the case, then feminism has zero purpose. | 23 |
ELI5: Why do petrol prices change so often but not other things like food and other stuff that's imported. | 26 | Oil is a commodity and has few alternatives, which its price makes it very sensitive to changes in its supply. Food, on the other hand, can vary - usually you get the manufactured good which has more alternatives | 10 |
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ELI5: How does numbness work? Why is it so hard to move a body part that's numb? | 113 | Numbness isn’t always tied to lack of blood flow like has been described. A nerve itself can be compressed or pinched or otherwise impaired so that signals can’t properly be sent. Like if you slip a disc in your back and a nerve is pinched. Or if you get inflammation in your wrist from overuse and the swelling puts pressure on the nerve. | 57 |
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Why is breath cold when you blow in an 'o' but warm when you breathe out with a wide mouth? | 907 | Take a sheet of paper, and roll it into a tube. Now, blow through the tube with an 'o' - shaped mouth, and put your hand on the other side. Once you push the ambient air out of the tube, you will feel your warm breath.
When you blow a narrow stream of air out of your mouth, ambient air is dragged along with it. This mixture of breath and ambient air feels cold. When you breath with a wide open mouth, the air stream is much wider (and slower) and doesn't grab as much ambient air.
Blowing through a tube prevents the ambient air from entering the stream. | 978 |
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[General / LOTR] If elves are immortal, why don't they have an overpopulation problem? Why doesn't each elf have a thousand offspring? | Do they have really low fertility rates? Can they only have offspring for a very short part of their otherwise unlimited lifespans? Do they have little to no sex drive or do they just have more self control than men? | 89 | It's a mix of biological and cultural factors. As immortals, elves are willing to wait a while to have children - if there's a war or other hardship going on, why not wait until things are safe before having kids? There will be plenty of time, and it's best not to risk one of the parents dying while the child is still very young. Also they are *very* monogamous - even if a spouse dies, elves do not remarry.
Furthermore, the fëa (spirit/soul) of an elf child draws its strength from its parents. Most elves simply do not have the spiritual strength to have more than a few children. Fëanor had seven children, by far the most of any known elf, and Fëanor was probably the most powerful elf to ever live - his own mother died after giving birth to him because it took too much out of her. So there's a hard limit on how fast the population can grow. | 165 |
ELI5:How did ancient armies manage to provide food for massive armies over long campaigns? | I tried searching for this and didn't find anything. I keep reading about military campaigns of thousands of men over months. Wouldn't they run out of food? What did they eat? How did they replenish? How did they know how much they needed to pack? | 90 | the pillaged from the enemy. steal the food from the farm fields. the goats. the women. if none was around then they would hunt/gather food from the wilderness the last step if no alternative was to ship food in from transports. | 55 |
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