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Can you gain more weight than the weight of the food consumed? | 107 | I think you're taking some rules of thumb and extrapolating out as if they were established facts, I.e. that 3500 kcal surplus over TDEE definitively translates to one pound of weight gain. That's more of a guide than a hard and fast rule -- eating 3500 calories worth of olive oil is going to be processed differently from 3500 calories of bread in your body.
That being said, conservation of mass means that you can't eat a half pound of food and gain a pound of mass. Where would it come from?
EDIT: Certainly happy about the discussion this is generating but people seem to be missing OP's point that this is a) not about water storage in fat cells and b) not about your body's theoretical ability to gain weight, but literally just the question, can you eat ONLY a half pound of food and gain a pound of weight? There is no serious argument to be made that this is possible -- compounds added to your mass from breathing air will not contribute half a pound. | 80 |
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[Star Wars] Does every Dark Side user indulge heavily in negative emotions like anger, and fear? | My understanding of the Dark Side and its implications are pretty much that the Sith are on the Dark Side, and idk about other Dark Force users. But scholars are quick to point out that the Sith are/were merely *one* cult out of many, each using the Dark Side for their own purposes.
So what are the beliefs/actions of these Dark Side users, and how did they distinguish themselves from the Sith? Do they all use anger and fear as their primary emotional drives, or is it sometimes more various (i.e. is there a way a person can be happy, cheerful, and nonviolent, but still indulge in the Dark Side of the Force in some way in order to accomplish their goals)?
Thanks | 21 | The Dark Side is inherently about negative emotions like hatred, rage, jealousy, and even fear. That holds true for any who use it.
The Knights of Ren appear to use self-harm as a way of building rage and drawing on the Dark Side, a somewhat novel tactic. We can see this when Kylo pounds on the wounds in his side to psych himself up in TFA, and the original Ren seems to be covered in burn marks and nearly grabs his saber by the active blade during a lecture to his minions.
The main deviation from this duality would be the Nightsisters, who in some ways seem to toe the line between both Light and Dark (and worship a deity for each) and have a very different view of how it works; they frequently use abilities that neither Jedi nor Sith have demonstrated the ability to replicate. | 22 |
ELI5: I understand that color is added to NASA photos, and why, but why can't the telescopes take true-color images? Are we just not there yet? | 131 | They can, but true color isn't always as useful or interesting. A lot of colors would be varying shades of grey and maybe some slight color changes towards red or blue, but nothing like what you see in the ones adjusted to show chemical composition. We can take pictures of our own solar system's planets in true color because there are things to see, but stars will be much more similar to each other. | 178 |
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ELI5: How do cardiologists get past the ribs and operate on the heart? | Do they have to break them and join them back after the operation? | 16 | It's not pretty, but there is a tool designed for this. It's called a rib spreader, and it does exactly what it sounds like. For an open heart surgery, they will actually break the ribs to get access. That's what makes recovery from something like that so hard. You're not just dealing with surface trauma, you're also dealing with multiple broken bones. Standing up or even sitting upright is out of question, sometimes for months.
Source: I've have two open heart surgeries. | 35 |
CMV:I'm scared of self-driving cars. | I am a driving enthusiast. I feel like I'm going to live to see not only the adoption of SDCs, but also to see myself outlawed from driving on public streets. (that's a long way ahead though.) I'm so afraid of what could happen to the car culture and to me in the next ten, or twenty years. There are several reasons behind my fear too.
1.Let's begin with the most obvious one. With no need to learn to drive, the influx of the new blood into the car culture would be severely diminished. The new generations will simply not be excited about the driving aspect of car performance, meaning there'll be no new like-minded individuals to talk to about a hobby. Subsequently, new cars (normal cars that is) would become a niche product, and due to economies of scale, more expensive.
2. It also is my opinion that an internal combustion engine is superior to an electric motor (the advantages boil down to "I love the sound of an ICE", "The concept of containing a thousands of explosions per minute to do something is cool" and "In my country, algae biogasoline, when inevitably available for mass production, is cleaner than all the coal plants providing electric power.) The main problem is that its easier for a computer to deal with an electric motor, which would make the switch to electric motors kinda inevitable. Conversely, internal combustion engines , their parts, and their fuel would become a niche product and due to the economies of...well, you know where this is going. The idea of a hobby becoming too expensive to maintain is inherently scary.
3.The changes in city planning are so gonna make finding a parking space so much more difficult.
4.Most of the arguments for SDC adoption do not seem to justify the consequences of reasons 1. to 3. will have for me. Some are further on the safety end of safety vs freedom scale than I am (In the US, let alone the countries with better driver education, only a percent of a percent of the population dies in traffic accidents each year. I don't consider it to be enough for driving to be unsafe). Some are kinda sketchy to me (It can't be doubted that if there is the same amount of cars on road at a given time, then autonomous vehicles would get a more efficient traffic flow. The increase in efficiency could however be outweighted by cars doing empty miles, increasing the amount of cars on the road, and we don't really know which one outweighs what). Then, there are arguments which simply don't benefit me, or even harm me (Of course I have free time to do other stuff when not driving, but I am prone to getting car sick, meaning I would still have to stare into the road when in SDC, except less engaged and without the felling of freedom or control. That sounds very boring. And of course I could just get home when drunk without having to arrange for DD or a taxi, but I'm teetotal anyway, and my main excuse for not drinking (being a DD, that is) would be gone, making dealing with some people more difficult.)
Guys, I want my fears to be unfounded. Please 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!* | 15 | The reasons you are "scared" of self driving cars doesn't seem to have much to do with safety.. more about culture and concern for car enthusiasts/hobbyists.
35,000+ people die every year in the US... over a million per year globally.
If self-driving cars reduce that number by half the choice is a no-brainer. In reality they are likely to eventually reduce the number by 90% or more. Not to mention the millions of non-fatality accidents that create a cost burden on drivers and local/state/federal government. As well as the non-fatality accidents that leave people disabled for life.
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Look at it the other way... let's say you were born into a society with self-driving cars.. and then one day someone came along and said, "Let's change to manual driving."
That person would be saying, "Let's kill 1 million humans a year unnecessarily so we can do this cool thing called driving! Yes the costs would be massive... yes loved ones would die... but the sound and feel and overall experience of manually driving a non-electric car is fucking awesome! Who's in?" | 37 |
Is ordering from Amazon immoral right now? | Considering Trump administrations neglect to protect workers during this pandemic, would it be immoral to participate in the specific chain of production?
Considering different moral theories would have different interpretations I’d like to hear whatever position you’re coming from | 127 | From a consequentialist perspective, the harm of spreading the virus is probably greater than the benefit bestowed by luxury goods.
The interesting question is whether it is *ever* moral to order from Amazon, e.g. whether the harm caused by worker exploitation is greater than the harm caused by laying off a workforce without alternatives. | 223 |
RNA vaccines question: Could be used to regenerate tissues? | I am reading about the new covid rna vaccine, and I saw the following comparison:
>Brosh said that this does not mean the vaccine changes people’s genetic code. Rather, he said it is more like a USB device (the mRNA) that is inserted into a computer (your body). It does not impact the hard drive of the computer but runs a certain program.
>
>[https://www.jpost.com/health-science/could-an-mrna-vaccine-be-dangerous-in-the-long-term-649253](https://www.jpost.com/health-science/could-an-mrna-vaccine-be-dangerous-in-the-long-term-649253)
Why we can not have RNA vaccines to regenerate for example burned skin, or even heal heart related problems? | 3,595 | mRNA is an instruction to the cell to make a specific protein. As far as we knows, there's no "heal heart" protein. In the case of an mRNA vaccine, the protein your cells are being told to make is an inactive part of the COVID virus, that teaches your body to recognize it. | 1,201 |
[Naruto] Why is there 1, and only 1, girl on each ninja team? | Where are the teams with two girls? Or for that matter, where are the teams with zero girls?
It appears this tradition of exactly 1 girl to 2 boys ratio has been going on for at least four ninja generations. Is there a reason for this? | 23 | The village is essentially an entire population centre dedicated to mercenary work. That combined with it usually being stuck in the middle of violent conflicts means they have high ninja turnover from death/injuries and need plenty of kids to sustain them.
It's not that women are forbidden from becoming soldiers, but men can do the deed and go out for more missions, while women will be out of comission for a few months. Giving birth is a great honour, esspecially given the fanatical devotion each resident gives to their village.
Not to mention the high tax benefits and support systems the village would have in place to reward that devotion. | 18 |
[DC] Has anyone audited Wayne Enterprises? It seems like a lot of defence and law enforcement contracts and developments have ended up disappearing, while Bruce Wayne has a lot of unaccounted expenditure. | 39 | Defense tech is expensive to develop and sometimes mistakes are made in the design process. With such proprietary and sometimes secret designs, it's should be a given that we would destroy failed prototypes so that certain supervillains don't get their hands on them. You don't want the Joker's henchmen with several dozen suits of half functional nano armor now would you?
-wayne tech spokesman probably | 80 |
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CMV: Holding firearm manufacturers financially liable for crimes is complete nonsense | I don't see how it makes any sense at all. Do we hold doctors or pharmaceutical companies liable for the \~60,000 Americans that die from their drugs every year (\~6 times more than gun murders btw)? Car companies for the 40,000 car accidents?
There's also the consideration of where is the line for which a gun murder is liable for the company. What if someone is beaten to death with a gun instead of shot, is the manufacture liable for that? They were murdered with a gun, does it matter how that was achieved? If we do, then what's the difference between a gun and a baseball bat or a golf club. Are we suing sports equipment companies now?
The actual effect of this would be to either drive companies out of business and thus indirectly banning guns by drying up supply, or to continue the racist and classist origins and legacy of gun control laws by driving up the price beyond what many poor and minority communities can afford, even as their high crime neighborhoods pose a grave threat to their wellbeing.
I simply can not see any logic or merit behind such a decision, but you're welcome to change my mind. | 512 | >Do we hold doctors or pharmaceutical companies liable for the \~60,000 Americans that die from their drugs every year (\~6 times more than gun murders btw)?
Yes - look up the Purdue Pharma lawsuit. | 419 |
Why didn't Alan Shepard's Mercury flight lose radio contact during reentry like the Apollo flights? | I'm watching "From the Earth to the Moon" and it seems like Shepard has radio contact the whole time. I haven't been able to find anything that refutes this. Only thing I could think of is that he didn't fly nearly as high as the Apollo flights. | 32 | Shepard's first flight was sub-orbital. The speeds are much lower and the kinetic energy involved is far, far lower (kinetic energy scales with the square of speed). Re-entry at those speeds is much milder and doesn't involve the creation of a "plasma sheath" which requires special thermal protection materials and which also blocks out radio communications. | 27 |
If Pangea existed ~225 million years ago (as we understand it) and the continents began drifting apart, is there any observable measurement of the continents drifting/merging back together? | 513 | Pangaea wasn't the original continent, it was just the most recent supercontinent. There have been lots of cycles of continents breaking up and coming back together - India (with Madagascar for the first bit) was an island continent like Australia from about 140 million years ago until it collided with Asia some time around 50 million years ago.
Using GPS (and other things) we can see how the modern tectonic plates are moving, and from present motions and our knowledge of what drives plates we can make guesses at how the continents might be configured in the future. | 257 |
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[Star Wars] Why does it seem like it's incredibly easy to bring a Sith, who has committed multiple atrocities back to the Light side of the Force? | Luke didn't do anything special for Vader other than talk to him and say that there was good in him.
All Han did was appear to Ben and tell him it's okay.
Dooku simply did what all Sith do and betray Ventress. | 33 | It's not very easy. They have to want it.
Vader was a tormented soul who thought he had no choice left but to be a Sith, and his son changed his mind.
Ventress was basically screwed over by everyone she met, except for the Jedi.
>!Ben's struggle between light and dark is like one of the biggest themes of the entire Sequel trilogy.!< | 61 |
ELI5: Why is driving (or passengering) so tiring? | My kids spent most of the day on a long car ride and came home exhausted. Which I get, because I'm the same way. Driving is more tiring, but even riding for such a long time takes a real physical toll.
Why? I'm just sitting there after all, and if I'm not driving I don't even have to pay attention. Why do I feel physically drained after a long drive? | 261 | Even as a passenger, you're not really just sitting like you would at your desk.
In a car your body constantly has to make micro adjustments to keep you upright, if you let yourself go completely, you move around your seat a lot even with a seatbelt.
So all those micro adjustments that happen in a lot of places in your body (back, neck, etc) wear you down slowly and you don't really notice it until it's 2 hours in and you are exhausted. | 382 |
[MCU] How reasonable was Thanos? | He may not be the sanest bloke around, but his demeanor and way of speech gave out a reasonable presence. Would you dare to come to his encampment politely then proceed to have a decent conversation? | 21 | The Thanos we met in *Infinity War* was madness masquerading as rational, and so far up his own ass that he couldn't see how irreparably flawed his own plan was.
He was right about the state of the universe, about too few resources and too many many people fighting over them. And he was even right about the ability of the Infinity Stones to fix this issue.
But his plan to end half of *all* life, to cull the birds and the trees along with the men that would harvest them, made no sense, and he refused to listen to anyone who argued otherwise. The greatest minds on Titan couldn't convince him that he was wrong, and he took their resistance as a personal insult.
The Thanos we meet in *What If* was different, but we don't know if that's due to something in that Thanos' mindset, or if it was due to the eloquence of that universe's T'Challa. For whatever reason, though, that Thanos *was* rational, and *was* able to see the madness in his plan.
The Thanos of *Endgame*, however, the Thanos that saw his goals accomplished and realized that the sun did not, in fact, rise on a grateful universe, was fully, irredeemably mad. He believed the universe owned him gratitude, and when he was confronted with mere mortals that had the audacity to not only deny him his glory, but actively fight back, he decided to strip the universe to atoms and rebuild it in his own image.
That is not the response of a sane man.
It would appear that, at least in most cases, Thanos is a madman with a calm veneer. He is intelligent, well-spoken, and often calm, but at the very core, he is a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur, as well as a madman who managed to steal enough power to inflict his will on the universe. | 67 |
ELI5:What is the difference between face cream/hand cream/body cream/foot cream? Are the skin cells in those parts of the body so different from each other that they respond better to certain chemicals or is it all a marketing ploy by the cosmetic industry? | I was recently gifted a cosmetic set that had different creams for different parts of the body and I checked the ingredients to see what made them so different from each other but the ingredients are all chemical names I know nothing about. Would I be harming my skin in anyway(especially long term) if for example I used a face cream as a body cream or vice versa? | 19 | A foot cream might be a little more intense since the skin on the bottom of your feet is thicker, and thus more would be needed to penetrate all the layers.
A face cream might make sure that it doesnt leave a shiny residue after it is absorbed so it doesnt look like you have oil all over your face.
However, at their core, there is no difference between any of them expect perhaps scent. As long as your products arent some sort of "intensive care treatment", there should not be any long term affects regardless of what you use where. | 13 |
Can gravity set up concentration gradients in a solution? | If we take a perfectly mixed salt solution and leave it at rest indefinitely so the only mixing process is molecular diffusion, will the solution remain perfectly mixed or will the force of gravity set up a (small) vertical concentration gradient? | 43 | At ordinary temperatures, "regular" gravity is not enough to set up a concentration gradient, as diffusion processes greatly overwhelm the effect of gravity.
However, if you subject solutions to high "artificial" gravity (i.e. in an ultracentrifuge at 450,000 *g*) you can set up small concentration gradients. This technique is called density-gradient ultracentrifugation and was used historically to make some key discoveries in molecular biology. The centrifugation medium is usually a concentrated solution of cesium chloride or of sucrose. | 51 |
What was the most impossible task your manager asked you to do? | Edit: also say how you responded | 46 | Had a little program. Every time the device shuts down due to loss of power or power surge (e.g. lightning, bad power supply, high temperature, etc.), it has to send a UDP packet. Telling how the device lost power.
After the power loss begins, there's not enough supply left to run this packet. Instead of being an absolute guarantee, it became probabilistic. About 2% chance of packet ever leaving the wire. It was impossible without hardware mods like additional super capacitor.
3 years and the war is still on. But no victory in sight. We gon lose this customer too :(
**Edit**: Every comment in this thread is absolutely possible. When time, money and/or meaningfulness gets factored in, the seemingly possible task becomes near impossible. | 54 |
Why don't they use jet engines for the first stage of rockets? | I just learnt about specific impulse and how the specific impulse of jet engines is much higher because they don't have to carry their own oxygen. And that made me think; why don't they use jet engines for the first stage, when there's still oxygen around? Wouldn't that be much more efficient? | 26 | Some of the problems:
Jets are only efficient at a specific designed air pressure and density. This is bad for vertical movement, where those parameters constantly change.
A rocket will quickly leave all altitudes where there's enough oxygen to burn. This means that the first stage would barely be used, which is a horribly inefficient thing to do.
Air consists primarily of nitrogen, so you need to separate the oxygen from the rest of the air - while in flight.
To get enough specific impulse from oxygen, you need to liquify it first, otherwise it's density is far too low to carry enough momentum. That means you need *a lot* of oxygen, which is difficult to come by if you fly very slowly (which you *do* at launch).
All of that under very cold conditions, which makes the processes even more complicated. For example your heat exchangers might freeze.
Tackling all these problems usually makes the rocket way heavier than just taking the oxygen and a normal rocket engine with you. It's also expensive as hell, considering your tech will be lost after one use. Unless you are SpaceX that is. | 39 |
CMV: Hiragana are superior to Kanji | By superior, I mean more practical/usable as a writing system. I do not mean to argue about the aesthetics of the two writing systems.
Background: I am a weeaboo, so I elected to take Japanese for my college language requirement (3 quarters). I don't feel like I have all that great of a grasp of the language, but grade wise I received 3.9, 3.9, 3.8 so its not as if I am just completely awful at it. Towards the end of the course though, I found Kanji to be frustrating. Early on we learned simple kanji such as 一, 二, 三, 上, 下, and 中 (these mean 1, 2, 3, above, under, and inside respectively). With these it wasn't had to see how the character corresponded to the meaning. Towards the end though, we were learning kanji with many strokes to express one syllable, and I couldn't see any connection between the kanji and the word - take for example 勉強 (to study). With this, let me outline my points
1. It is easy to entirely memorize Hiragana, and difficult to do so for Kanji: There are ~50 Hiragana, and ~3000 Kanji. Just by numbers, its clear that the former would be easier to learn. Kanji characters in general being more complex than Hiragana ones compounds this issue. Even native Japanese speakers study Kanji through highschool. Furthermore I'd wager a lot of the more complex Kanji don't seem to be very tied to their meaning. This is to be expected given that abstract concepts, colors, etc are difficult to express through said strokes, but even if its to be expected, it still increases the difficulty of memorizing Kanji
2. Hiragana directly correspond to how something is pronounced, Kanji do not: This has several benefits. If you know how to pronounce a word, then it is simple to write it in Hiragana, not true for Kanji - you have to have memorized the Kanji. Furthermore, say you are reading and you come across a word that you don't know. There are two cases - either you can guess the meaning of that word from the context, or you can't. I argue that it is better if the word you don't know is written in Hiragana. With Hiragana, you can simply type out that word and search for it, either verifying your guess, or learning what word it is. With Kanji, it is harder to search precisely: since you don't know how the word is pronounced from reading a Kanji you don't know, you can only search for 'your guessed meaning + kanji' and see if they are the same. If the sentence has multiple possible meanings, or your guess of the meaning was wrong, you are simply out of luck: Consider a sentence like "X event occured, so Y person felt ___". Without knowledge of Y's thoughts regarding X, any number of emotions could fill in the blank, and so searching by meaning isn't going to be effective.
3. While Kanji may use fewer spaces/characters to express a word, it makes writing things more time consuming. Say you wanted to write Sunday. In Hiragana this is にちようび、in Kanji this is 日曜日. While the Kanji is 3 characters rather than 5, the middle character which replaces よう is a large number of strokes, it is faster to write the hiragana, and the tiny strokes in that Kanji make it difficult to write or read when you want your text to be small.
Disclaimer: My argument isn't predicated on any hard statistics or linguistic background (I have never taken a linguistics class, don't have the room for one in my course plan), just on personal thoughts. However, if you do have input for the argument in the form of relevant statistics, or the perspective of someone studying linguistics, then I'd appreciate hearing it. However, if you don't have
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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!* | 24 | It is impossible to write Japanese with just hiragana, because Japanese has a very very limited number of sounds and a high frequency of synonyms. Plus, there are no actual spaces or divisions between words. You need kanji to be able to tell words apart and from each other. | 16 |
ELI5: Throughout our lives, how much food goes into our lungs and how is it disposed of? | 15 | Hopefully not very much at all. If food were to make it all the way into the lungs your body would attempt to violently remove it via coughing. Particles that couldn't be removed that way would slowly be pushed out of the lungs by tiny hairs called "cilia". Millions of those tiny flapping tendrils create a flow of mucus up and out of the lungs to be coughed up. | 26 |
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[MCU] Obligatory Endgame spoiler warning about Captain America | Seriously. Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie yet. Don't do it.
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How much more powerful does Captain America become from wielding Mjolnir?
According to the enchantment Odin put on it in Thor 1, "Whosoever wields this hammer, if he be worthy, shall possess the powers of Thor." Obviously the lightning control counted, but what about other things? Like most Asgardians, Thor is significantly faster, stronger, and more durable than the average human, and seems to best Cap in those regards throughout the movies too. Did the hammer give him those power-ups too, or does the enchantment ignore those since those are traits every Asgardian has? Does he just become Captain America with lightning powers, or does that include every single one of Thor's abilities that are superior to the individual wielding it? If it does include them, then do they stack with Cap's previous enhancements? For instance, lets say Cap is 3x as strong as a normal person, and Thor is 4x. Would Mjolnir's boost just bump him up to Thor's 4x, or would they stack to 7x? Does Thor's physical condition have any impact on it? Thor hasn't had a fight in half a decade by the time Cap lifts the hammer, is the boost he gets there less than it would've been if he had lifted it when Thor was at his peak? Does Cap keep the powers when not holding Mjolnir so long as he remains worthy, or would he lose them if he spent long enough without wielding the hammer?
I appreciate any answers! ~~NoobMaster69 sends his regards.~~ | 30 | Most likely he doesn't possess all the powers of Thor, or if he does, he doesn't know how to to use them. One of the main things Thor is able to do with Mjolnir is fly, but Steve never does this, which leads me to believe he either can't do it, or doesn't feel equipped to do it. | 32 |
[What We Do In The Shadows] Was Nandor a vampire when he was part of the Ottoman empire? | Nandor says that he was born in southern Iran in 1262. The Ottoman empire wasn't formally established until 1299, and at that point it only really had a foothold in Anatolia. Nandor appears at most to be early 40s when he "died". So he would've had to have served the Ottoman empire as a vampire. Especially considering that he and his army supposedly destroyed what would become Nadja's village in Greece.
Then again, Nandor and his roommates are very clearly not the most intelligent vampires around. Is it possible that he is misremembering history and that he was a soldier for the Mongols, and not the Ottomans? | 25 | I think you might actually be on to something here. Nandor does mention that he was from Southern Iran, and the Salghurid dynasty which pre-dated the Ottoman Empire did fall under the Mongol empire roughly around the time Nandor would have been a human.
Getting the two empires he fought for mixed up would certainly be in character for Nandor. | 20 |
ELI5: Why do they sell blu-ray and dvd in the same pack? | I'm looking to buy a series but the only option is to buy a blu-ray and dvd combo pack. I haven't got a blu-ray player so I won't buy it but I got me thinking, other than a marketing ploy us there a reason why they sell both together? .
I mean the blu-ray has everything the dvd has so why have both in the same pack? | 27 | Making the actual discs is very very cheap. It's so cheap that it's cheaper to just pack and sell both the BR and the DVD discs together, rather than making two separate production and distribution lines for the BR and the DVD. | 34 |
[Star Trek] The Kobayashi Maru is a pointless test if you decide not to engage | Suppose I'm doing the Kobayashi Maru test. I decide not to save the merchant ship. Maybe I say that we must remain true to the Neutral Zone agreement. Maybe I say that civilian vessels should understand the risks that come with doing business in the Neutral Zone. Whatever reason, I do nothing.
Hooray, that was the most pointless test ever! You just sit and don't do anything. They say the test is supposed to judge how you act in an unwinnable situation, but what's the point of it if you decide not to rescue the Kobayashi Maru? | 67 | And at the same time, you just put treaty enforcement ahead of saving lives. Congrats on your new desk job, you will never captain a star ship.
If you choose not to rescue the ship, you show a lack of drive and willingness to take risks, particularly in the preservation of lives. Remember what happened when Picard rewrote his little fight as a cadet?
Whatever the outcome, the test is one of character, not of the ability to make decisions under fire. Whatever you choose gives results. | 100 |
CMV: Government budgets should be due a month early, with no pay for congress if they can't pass a budget. | Government shutdowns are a damn mess.
While I'm not against a shutdown in practice, typically it's just a giant waste of time and resources, since after the new budgets get passed, federal employees get reimbursed for the furloughed shutdown time. This means we've entertained a period of time with a standstill of most government productivity, which we then have to pay for later. Given the inefficiency of government action, this is just not acceptable to slow it down further.
Instead, congress should be completely responsible for passing these new budgets in a reasonable amount of time. Perhaps 2 months before budget would kick in, we enter the critical zone. In the first month, congress top priority should be passing the budget.
Once we enter the second month, if there is no budget passed, all congressional pay should be immediately suspended until the budget is passed. Only elected reps should have no compensation during this timeframe, no other government agency or employee should be affected. It is unacceptable that currently our congress still gets paid when they fail to do their jobs, and instead we get government shutdowns.
After that timeframe passes, if still no budget, we can continue with normal government shutdown antics, but with the additional change of still no congressional pay.
So instead, with this new plan, the burden of a shutdown impacts the congress first. And if they fail to pass budgets they will lose all compensation for a full month, since they are failing to perform in their job. This would be a non-refundable deduction. | 51 | so we should incentive sloppy budgeting and make them more susceptible to bribes?
because lets face it while this might work in other fields in politics they can and will screw over millions for a higher pay check | 21 |
[String theory] If energy is simply vibrating 1-dimensional points, what powers these vibrations? | 124 | Whoa, there's a lot of words in this question. Energy is energy, it's just a conserved number that doesn't have a physical realization, string theory doesn't change that in any way. But let's talk about particles first in order for you to understand what exactly string theory is about.
In string theory, particles are modes of vibrations of tiny strings. Think of a guitar, if you strum one of the strings you will produce a very rich spectrum of harmonics. This spectrum is characterized by a set of integers that are the multiples of the fundamental harmonic. Or in other words, once you strum a string, you can produce a "zero mode", which is the fundamental, or you can produce a mode that has twice the frequency, or 3 times the frequency... and so on.
A string in string theory is very similar. It has a spectrum, but this spectrum is what you associate with particles. Each particle carries a mass that is the frequency of its associated harmonic. If you strum this string very lightly, you will produce a "zero mode", in case it exists. If you strum it harder, you will produce an excitation of the first harmonic... etc etc. But in order for you to produce this first harmonic excitation, you need to give the string a minimum energy, and this threshold energy is the mass. Whatever excess energy you give, will result in moving the string around, which is kinetic energy. But notice that once you give energy for the string to produce this first harmonic, it won't lose this vibrational energy since there is no friction. It will just keep on oscillating forever or until this mode decays through some interaction. So in a sense, you just need to power the initial vibration (which is, give the energy to create the particle), and then if the particle is stable, it will vibrate forever.
If you're a distant observer, you won't really observe the tiny string. What you will observe is that if you collide some particles, sometimes the decay result will be a light particle, sometimes it will be slightly heavier, and even slightly heavier, so on... you can observe the "spectrum" of the particles and check that it matches what you calculated from the spectrum of the string. | 73 |
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ELI5: Why do humans wanna jump from high places? | Standing in a shopping mall looking down to the floors below and think to myself. “Jump” In no way do I want to kill myself but when I brought this up a lot of my friends had been through the same thing. Ive started to see memes about it online. So what’s up? [jump! ](https://d279m997dpfwgl.cloudfront.net/wp/2018/06/0629_reddit-void-main-1000x1425.jpg) | 15 | They are called "intrusive thoughts". They are thought to be as a way your brain creates fear of something you shouldn't do: you see a height, you think about jumping, then you think about yourself splatting on the ground, the result is you don't do it and gradually you developed a mild fear of height, which increases your chances of survival.
Think of it like a simulation your brain runs to see if something is doable. | 28 |
[Star Wars] Why do the dark side call themselves the dark side? | Im still a star wars newbie (Only seen eps 4 and 5) so Im sorry if this is mentioned in the later movies but I just thought of this, why does Darth Vader consider the side he is on 'The Dark Side' I mean shouldn't he think he's doing the right thing, that he's on the right side? | 18 | Just because they may think they're doing the right thing (for themselves, mostly) doesn't mean that they don't also acknowledge the fact that the power they have decided to mainline is decidedly darker in nature than the alternative. | 29 |
Why do other people's excrement's smell worse than my own? | Why do other people's excrement's smell worse than my own?
I'm fine with the smell of my own excrement, but when i'm sitting on a toilet and someone forgot to flush it stinks like crazy. Why? | 249 | Its just because while you are shitting, the stink rises gradually and you get accustomed.
Try this: After you finish your job, don't flush. Go and smell some perfume. Now come back and put your head in the pot. Surprise! | 238 |
ELI5 Why can we hear a voice and then copy it (to some degree of success) and how come we can read a sentence in Morgan Freeman’s voice even if we never heard him say the words in it? | 25 | Because everything we perceive is really a construct of our mind. We don't perceive reality in the first place, we interpret it from various sensations. Our brain is incredible good at imagining things since it literally does this all day long. So, your initial perception of Morgan Freeman was based off the signals your brain got from your eyes, ears, etc. Now that it has that image, it doesn't actually need real input to simulate it in your head.
TL;DR: Your brain always interprets reality and can fake it easily. | 20 |
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ELI5: How come nobody talks about the dangers of acid rain anymore? | When I was a kid in the 1990s, school taught us all about this environmental scourge. (I remember thinking literal acid was going to fall on me). Now, it's not. What's happened to eradicate the problem? | 54 | Countries around the world, especially industrialized countries started to set limitations for sulfur emissions from combustion engines and power plants. It is still an issue, but not a huge one. But for example currently there are efforts to limit sulfur emissions from marine traffic for the same reasons.
On a related note we don't talk about the ozone layer that much either, because governments started limiting the use of ozone depleting substances, allowing the ozone layer to start recovering.
Now, let's hope governments would agree limiting greenhouse gases. | 42 |
ELI5 Why are MRI machine so loud? | Whenever I take an MRI there are always a ton of weird sounds and lots of noise. Why and where do they come from? | 160 | An MRI scanner contains a huge magnet. However, to make images, it has to alter the magnetic field.
If you couldn't alter the magnetic field, you could only "see" 1 pixel. So to make an image, you need to warp the magnetic field to focus on a different region and then change the focus, so you get multiple pixels (actually, it's more complicated than that, but that's good enough for ELI5).
So, to warp the magnetic field in a controlled way, you need an electromagnet. Two magnets may attract or repel, depending on their alignment, so the controllable electromagnet gets attracted or repelled from the main magnet.
This is exactly what happens in a loudspeaker. You have a permanent magnet, and an electromagnet. The electromagnet is connected to the loudspeaker cone, and the force on the electromagnet gets transmitted to the cone.
In an MRI scanner, the electromagnet isn't connected to a cone, but because the forces on it are so huge (many tons) that it actually causes vibrations through the whole body of the scanner and magnet, so effectively the whole body of the scanner acts like a giant loudspeaker.
You get different sounds according to what particular type of scan is being performed. Some scans are down a row of pixels at a time, then there is a rest period of a second or so, so that the magnetization of the tissue being scanned can reset - these give a clunk...clunk...clunk.. sound, as there is a strong vibration as the magnetic field is warped to start a line. Some scans need to be done much faster, to the magnetic field is swept backwards and forwards without a rest period, this causes a beeping sound, as the warp magnets get a sine wave signal. | 59 |
Why do we itch? | What’s happening in our bodies when we get that really deep itch that we can’t get? Is it a misfiring nerve? (I’m not asking about the itch you can get rid of by scratching - I mean when you scratch and scratch and there’s no relief) | 33 | The underlying cause of an itch, believe it or not, is not too well understood. While typically a stimulus will cause you to react and itch, It will probably be due to a reason. Constant itching can be due to irritated skin from a toxin or other reagent that causes a stimulus. In our bodies we have whats called tonic and phasic receptors. A phasic receptor is a receptor that will respond to a stimulus and adapt if is a constant stimulus. (Like our shirts constantly touching us, but we ignore it eventually) A tonic receptor will respond as long as the stimulus persists. Pain and itch come from the same type of receptor, where it will continue to signal until the stimulus stops (tonic). | 24 |
ELI5: What happens when a double yolk hatches? Do you get twins? | 30 | Could in theory become two very runty chicks if they made it, in practice they'll unfortunately likely die as not enough space and nutrients to support both of them.
Also, just to clear this up: double yolk eggs happen naturally in about 1 in 1000 eggs, there's nothing genetically engineered about them. | 17 |
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[DC] Why didn't the Guardians just give Superman the Green Lantern Ring? | He fills all of the qualifications and then some. Plus if a yellow lantern weakened his ring he would still be Superman. | 44 | Because he does not fullfill the requirements.
Being all goody and morally is a nice start but the basic and most important quality for a Green Lantern is the ability to overcome fear.
Superman as a demi-god never faces true fear, he knows deep down after a life of fighting and testing his powers and heaving powerful allies on top that he will defeat the thread before him.
He never tasted true, unadulterated, willpower-robbing, hope shattering **FEAR** and this is the kind of fear you have to overcome by yourself to be considered a candidate for the Green Lantern Corps. | 79 |
[Star Wars] With his supreme instincts and knowledge of the force, would Emperor Palpatine have been a decent pilot? | I.e. would he have made a difference in the first Death Star I battle, or the space Battle of Endor? | 16 | Probably could have been, had he put his mind to it.
That said, what the Battle of Yavin or the Battle of Endor needed wasn't one more really great pilot. The Emperor's battle meditation was far more effective than anything he could have done as a starfighter pilot.
If he couldn't win the day doing what he was doing, he certainly couldn't have won the day in the cockpit of a TIE fighter. | 23 |
Is there any way to accurately test/verify the age of a living bonsai tree? | I have heard of carbon dating on dead things, but never anything about living things. In bonsai i hear claims all the time that trees are "X" years old, and want to know. Is there any way to verify those claims scientifically? | 120 | Yes. You have to drill through it/kill it/sample it.
But anything substantial enough to test will be a pretty big chunk out of that tiny tree.
The closest you can really get is estimating it based on price and what you know about the person. | 23 |
ELI5: wireless charging | 18 | So wireless charging is also called inductive charging. The end goal of charging is to move electrons from the negative pole (where they have lowest energy) to the positive pole (where they have a lot of potential energy) of the battery you're charging. The basics of any charger involves creating a pressure (called an electric potential) high enough to push electrons between these poles.
Wired chargers transmit this pressure between a power source (another battery, power outlet, etc.) and the battery via wires. The electrons are pushed through the wires until enough pressure is obtained and they can jump up to the high energy pole of the battery.
Wireless charges again create this pressure, but in a different way. An electromagnetic field is produced by the wireless charger. The battery feels the pressure created by this field and the pressure makes the electrons move between the poles.
Imagine that you want to move water from one bucket to another. You could place pipes in between them (wired charging) and set up a pump to pump the water. Or you could set up a fan that blows some of the water from bucket A into bucket B without the two buckets ever being physically connected. The air flow between the two buckets represent the electromagnetic field (wireless charging).
Hope this helps! | 11 |
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In quantum entanglement, how do we know that the entangled particle pair do in fact "interact" over a distance, and wasn't just aligned when they first interacted? | I don't know anything about this really, except for what I've learned from watching clips on youtube and reading wikipedia. But I'm sort of stuck with this question, and can't find an answer. It says everywhere that the attribute of the second particle measured is always opposite to the first one, almost no matter how close together in time the measurements are made, and how far apart they are in distance.
Sounds to me like they were aligned oppositely the whole time, after interacting with each other the first time. How do we prove this is not the case? | 53 | This is addressed by a result known as Bell's theorem.
In short, Bell's theorem proves the following. Suppose you build a theory in which particles' observable properties or attributes really do have definite values at all times (call this assumption R, for "realism"), and that nothing that takes place at one region of space can instantaneously affect the results of a measurement at some distant region of space (call this assumption L, for "locality").
Bell showed that, assuming these two results, the degree of correlation between the outcomes of two distant measurements of systems whose states were prepared in the same place is bounded by a certain number. So if your suspicion is true, and one can say the spins were aligned oppositely the whole time (that is if R is a good assumption), and assumption L holds, then when we actually carry out this experiment we should see correlations that do not exceed this certain bound.
However, a quantum-mechanical calculation of the results of this experiment predict a degree of correlation that exceeds that for the above case, when R and L hold. So if we do the experiment, and find that the correlation exceeds Bell's bound, then one of the assumptions (R,L) must be false, favouring the view of quantum mechanics, where things just don't have definite properties before measurement.
Finally, many such measurements have been carried out, and it is found that Bell's bound is exceeded, favouring the standard quantum mechanical view. However, two things should be noted:
1) many of these experiments have minor loopholes, and so don't technically show completely that the assumptions (R,L) taken together fail
2) even if the violation of Bell's bound is experimentally shown without any loopholes, we may still drop ONE of the assumptions (R,L) and have a theory consistent with quantum mechanics. For example, we can drop the locality assumption, L, and build a theory that satisfies realism R, which means that things do really have objective attributes before measurement, and still agree with the predictions of quantum mechanics. Such theories exist, the Bohm-de Broglie "causal interpretation" of quantum mechanics being one such notable example. In this interpretation of quantum mechanics, causal influences really do travel instantaneously. At this point, it is a matter of taste which interpretation one chooses. | 21 |
[Korra] Why.. Why didn't Tarloc simply murder the avatar gang? He blood bends people. Just give everyone an anurism. Seriously. Why didn't he? | 124 | That level of fine control is often beyond benders. Bloodbending tends to be a broad-stroke power; it's not smooth or specific or natural. They're only pushing and pulling mass-quantities of blood in general directions.
Maybe the technique will be possible someday, but not yet. Thousands of years of bending culture and nobody until Toph Bei Fong realized that metal bending was possible. | 107 |
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CMV: I'm very disappointed in my country for electing Donald Trump. | Edit: Wow this received a ton of responses. I guess the conclusion is I shouldn't be disappointed in my country but instead the two party system and the Democratic Party for choosing Hillary to go against Trump. Thanks everyone for the thoughtful responses.
---
I'm very disappointed in my country for electing Donald Trump as our next president. I feel like this might be because I'm influenced by living near a major (mostly Liberal) city and by the news I read; and Reddit seems to have a more liberal leaning.
I'm disappointed because of how he carries himself as a character. I respect the "keep your mouth shut and carry a big stick" and after seeing all these ridiculous tweets, I can't respect how he handles conflict.
I'm disappointed how anti-science he seems. Tweets about vaccinations causing autism, thinking climate change is a hoax, etc.
Although these might be two valid reasons I'd like for someone to change my view and think otherwise.
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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!* | 58 | I am against Trump but let's make the case for him.
Trump is the primal scream of the Forgotten Man. He is the hick in West Virginia who lost his miserable coal mining job due to natural gas fracking and environmental regulations. She is the administrative assistant in Ohio whose son still lives at home and whose niece died of a heroin overdose. He is the gas station attention in Pennsylvania whose town hasn't been the same since Bethlehem steel left in the 1980s. She is the former Detroit autoworker who now works at Denny's after her plant closed down and moved to Mexico. He is the redneck in Arkansas who has voted Republican because of his love of God, guns, and the Confederate flag, but has never really benefited from the tax cut trickle down policy of small government conservatism.
These are people who see themselves as the losers of society. In the past 40 years they have been on the losing side of everything. They may not be the worst off, but they see everyone else gaining at their expense. They see a ruling political and media elite in Washington that stopped caring about them a long time ago. Once, they were the heart of the country. In the Obama years, they have been looked down on as poor, ignorant, uneducated, racist and sexist. They turn on the TV and see the biggest problem as being whether transgender people can go to the bathroom of their choice, when they look around their communities and see that young people don't even want to live there anymore.
Trump is their candidate. He is their man. His gruff manner pisses off these elites. He acts like everything they are accused of, only he gets away with it. He has the wealth, the power, they don't have. He has the wherewithal to beat these elites, that they never had. The way the elites react to him, merely reaffirms their choice to believe in him. He is their chosen one and avatar. He finally gives them a voice.
Trump's election is necessary because it is a big segment of our society standing up to be counted. That, in itself, is a good thing, because this segment of society is a large one and deserves to be heard. Until we can grapple with that, we'll not be able to beat this man. | 93 |
[Aliens] Is there any animal I could implant using a Facehugger (eg: Koala or Penguin) that would result in a Xenomorph passive or tame enough to become an exotic pet? | 348 | No. The alien adopts some physical traits from the host oranism, but its own hyper-predatory drive to kill and reproduce isn't really effected. An alien hatched from Mother Theresa would be just as deadly as one hatched from Jeffery Dahmer.
Edit: fuck, alright, replace Theresa with Ghandi if you like. Or Mr. Rogers. | 283 |
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ELI5- How do Sea Monkeys come to life from a packet? | 17 | Sea monkeys are actually brine shrimp. The eggs they lay can dry out and remain viable for years. The stuff you pour into the water are the eggs and when exposed to salt water the eggs hatch and the shrimp start growing. | 14 |
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CMV:In a clinical setting only Medical Doctors should be called Doctor. | I am a Chiropractic student as of moment and I firmly believe that only Medical Doctors should hold the title of doctor to reduce confusion to as what the practitioner can treat.
This extends to anyone with a doctorate in the medical profession though. A doctor of physical therapy, anyone with a doctorate in nursing or pharmacy or anything else for that matter. If you haven't gone to medical school and graduated with a M.D. you shouldn't be referred to as doctor in a clinical setting.
This reduces confusion to as what everyone does and firmly implants in the patients mind what your specialty is and your scope of practice instead of ambiguously being called doctor.
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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!* | 19 | I don't know how it would really reduce confusion over what the practitioner can treat. Sure, you'd get chiropractors, dentists, podiatrists, etc. out of the mix, but it still wouldn't help you differentiate between a psychiatrist and a vascular surgeon. MD encompasses an enormous amount of vastly different specializations, and it's not like the title "doctor" is ever going to be a very specific label. Therefore, you might as well show due respect to anyone who has put in the work to obtain a doctorate in any field, whether its an MD or not. | 12 |
CMV: If the US should go metric, Europe should switch to periods instead of commas for the decimal point. | **The premise:**
The international standard is SI units. America uses imperial units, and it's a big headache for everyone who has to use imperial and metric units in tandem, and has [cost american taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars](https://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov/weekly/6Page53.pdf).
The majority of the world uses the [period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_stop) for the [decimal separator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator) ("period-decimal system"). The comma is widely used as a list separator, notably in CSV files. [Most of Mainland Europe and many other countries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Usage_worldwide) (I will just say "europe" for simplicity from now on) use the comma as the decimal point ("comma-decimal system"). This is not only written, but also spoken. The fraction 3/2 in decimals in English is "1.5", spoken "one point five", but in Europe it is "1,5", spoken "one comma five" (translated literally from local language). This is a headache if Europeans store numbers electronically in this format and it needs to be converted.
**Change My View:** If you believe the US ought to switch to the metric system, then for similar reasons, you should also believe Europe ought to switch to the period-decimal system. It's hypocritical to believe one but not the other.
If you're confused by the premise or wording, see my disclaimers at the bottom.
**My argument** (When responding, please let me know which part of my argument you're debating, ie "in response to your argument 4.1...". If you change my mind on any of these you'll get a delta)**:**
1. I, as well as many others, strongly believe that America should adopt the metric system and are exhausted by imperial units. It affects people outside of America, whether by watching American youtubers or having to work with American companies, and in America itself, it causes problems, by lost productivity or by projects that failed because of a unit conversion error that was never caught until too late. **This is not the main point of this CMV post, I'm just bringing it up for context**. For similar reasons, I strongly believe Europe should switch to the period-decimal system. I thought most Europeans would agree for the same reason.
2. However, most of those people who I meet from Mainland Europe, who believe America should adopt the metric system, are completely defensive of their use of the comma-decimal system, not giving any ground. Europeans of Reddit, change my view here, is it true that most Europeans defend the comma-decimal system? I only have my anecdotal experiences.
3. If Europeans expect Americans to change (by going metric), but aren't willing to change themselves (by switching to the period-decimal system), that's hypocritical.
4. It would be just as hard if not harder for America go metric as for Europe to change to the period-decimal system.
1. **Imperial units are intertwined** in language (expressions, like "walk a mile in their shoes") and culture (sports), as well as historical documents, land plot appropriation, etc...
2. ...just like the word "comma" being verbally used to denote the **comma-decimal system is intertwined** in European languages, historical documents, etc.
3. Lots of American physical infrastructure is built in round intervals of imperial units so the transition period would take a while...
4. ...similarly, all European computer systems that work based off the comma-decimal system would have to switch to the period-decimal system.
5. In their **day-to-day life in colloquial conversation,** Europeans would have just as much trouble/resistance switching to period-decimal as Americans using to metric units.
6. The transition for both could be achieved without any tyrannical means. The government could simply require all its contractors use the new system (construction contractors use round metric intervals, software contractors use period-decimal data protocols). Packaging/advertising requirements would use the new system primarily (listing quantities in period-decimal/metric units). In a couple generations these kinds of policies will trickle down to daily life.
5. Counter argument: The metric system is **more universal** than the period-decimal system, so Europe shouldn't switch based on that alone. The metric system is a bonified ISO standard with the US being the only real hold-out, not even 5% of the world. However, lots of countries representing about 30% of the world use the comma-decimal system. My rebuttal:
1. International standards are **tending toward period-decimal.** [According to wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Current_standards), ISO 8601 used to say comma-decimal was prefered, but that has since been removed, and ISO 80000-1, while saying both the comma- and period-decimal are acceptable, **says period-decimal should be used** throughout the standard itself.
2. Countries using period decimal represent over 60% of the world, the clear majority.
3. All major computer systems in the world use period decimal by default, only some large softwares like excel have the resources to offer the alternative comma-decimal, and doing this can cause all kinds of issues if you're not really careful.
4. If anyone tries to develop a computer system that uses comma-decimal syntax, it's doomed to fail.
5. Given that the period-decimal is already the clear international standard, it only hurts ourselves by not using it everywhere. There is lost productivity when things have to be converted, software has to be made to allow for both possibilities. Some innovation or data analysis will be lost or have errors due to incompatible data. Transcription softwares will have to waste time with another semantically distinction for the same thing.
6. A very fundamental and basic file type, CSV (comma separated values), has been made complicated by workaround CSVs that used semicolons instead of commas, [like this (last example in link). It even says this is not compliant with some standards.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values#Example) This is the **sloppy workaround that makes the comma-decimal system possible** and should never be have been used anywhere in the first place. If anyone is like "what? There are CSVs that don't use commas as the separator??". YES THERE ARE and that's my point, we need to stop it.
7. For example, downloading your bank transactions as a CSV from a european bank. Some banks will use a true CSV, meaning commas are used to separate values, and the numbers are period-decimal. Other banks use the workaround CSV, meaning semi-colons are used to separate values, and the numbers are comma-decimal. In excel, the default list separator can be set to a semicolon, and the default decimal separator can be set, so you can still have it read both these formats, but you have to go into the advanced settings and do some digging. Good luck doing all this without getting a bug somewhere. Even if you do get thru successfully, still way more work than it should be to manage personal finances.
8. What if we just make semicolons the default list separator? Then commas can be the decimal separator and everyone is happy? NO, semicolons are already the standard to end lines of code in too many programming languages.
6. Sometimes Europeans use the **period as the multiplication symbol**. Even when typing. Like they will write 2.3 = 6 for "two times three equals six". NO! We have plenty of options for multiplication already, theres the asterisk (\*) U+002A (most common), or if that doesn't work the middle dot U+00B7. Or the letter "x". Those are fine, I think there's even more, like for the dot-product of vectors. Programing languages absolutely could not handle the period being the multiplication operator. This is **a symptom of the comma-decimal system**, and please, Europeans, y'all gotta stop doing this.
7. I am **not** only saying this because the comma is used as the **thousands separator** in America. For the thousands separator, the international standard is whitespace and I think everyone should use that as well.
8. Counter argument: Going metric is **more important** than adopting the period-decimal system **because** it's much easier to work in tandem between period-decimal and comma-decimal **than** between metric and imperial. So, there's no point in Europe switching, but there is for America to go metric. My rebuttal:
1. American and European companies collaborate all the time. Engineers from all involved companies should be used to the same systems to reduce the risk of error, for the same reason they should all be used to the same units. I don't have any statistics if data sent in comma-decimal format ever caused a major project to crash and burn but I'm sure it's happened.
2. It's just another cultural barrier that doesn't help anyone and sometimes causes misunderstandings. How many times have you (Americans of reddit) seen someone on the internet talk about some number like "its 23,7% more likely..." and you're like "wtf a comma? Typo? do they mean 23%, 7%? idk".
9. Counter argument: Versioning, like "we just released version 1.10 of this app". Version 1.10 is not version 1.1, by using periods only for versioning and commas for numbers, this distinguishes them.
1. Rebuttal: Usually versions are longer anyway, like 1.10.3040.7 which would never be confused with a number. Or, there's always using letters: version 1k3040g or something.
2. Also, just save the version as a string instead of as a number.
10. There also might be some people who think America shouldn't go metric, but still think Europe should switch to period-decimal. I'm not sure many people would argue this point but if you do, it's hypocritical for all the same reasons thinking America should go metric but Europe shouldn't switch to period decimal is hypocritical.
Alright! Let's have a nice and civil debate.
**Disclaimers** (I might refute one of your points by saying "see D#5" - meaning see disclaimer five).
1. "period"="dot"="baseline dot"="point"="full stop"="full point"="U+002E"=unicode character 46.
2. "decimal separator" is the thing between the ones place and the 1/10ths place in the number, for example the period in "1.5".
3. "list separator" or "delimiter" is the thing that separates items in a list, like in CSV (comma separated values) files, or arguments for a function in excel. This is a comma (,) in most computer systems in the world by default, the alternative being a semicolon (;).
4. the **period-decimal system** is where a period is used as the decimal separator, like in America. In this system, the comma is the list separator. I made up this name for this post.
5. The **comma-decimal system** is where a comma is used as the decimal separator, like in Mainland Europe. In this system, the semicolon is the list separator, and I will call CSVs that use semicolons "workaround CSVs". I made up these names for this post.
6. For simplicity, "American"="English"="Imperial"="US"="USCS" (="our"="us"="we" because I personally am american, I will try to avoid these pronouns but might make a mistake).
7. For simplicity, "Metric"="SI".
8. Again, this is **not about** whether or not the US **should** switch to metric. I'm 100% sure there's already been a CMV for that. This is about people who **already think** the US ought to switch to metric, they should **also accept** that Europe ought to switch to period-decimals.
9. I know imperial units are defined by metric units and that some industries in America already use metric completely. I know in Europe they also use point-decimals to a certain extent. I am talking about metrifying America **moreso than it already is**, and Europe using period-decimals **moreso than they already are**.
10. This is also **not about the political practicality** of either. "should" = "ought to" = "would be nice if they did but they won't". I don't care whether or not you think the US **will** ever metrify or if Europe **will** ever switch to period-decimal because of how popular it is in the general public, I care whether or not you think they **should**. (You should however try and convince me one would be easier to implement than the other, from a logistical standpoint, given that a democratically elected government decided to do so). | 442 | > If Europeans expect Americans to change (by going metric), but aren't willing to change themselves (by switching to the period-decimal system), that's hypocritical
Europeans do not expect Americans to change, literally the complete rest of the world except for Liberia and Myanmar expects Americans to change in addition to the own American scientific and engineer community that has dealt with the pains of conversions when working with international partners.
Regardless of that, your post kind of misses the point. Americans shouldn't change to metric in order to "concede" the system fight to the rest of the world and expect the rest of the world to concede a part in exchange (this part being the decimal separator). Americans should change to the metric system because they would benefit from doing so and leaving behind an ancient and nonsensical system as is the Imperial System, there shouldn't be any expectation of the rest of the world conceding anything for Americans changing to metric system. | 235 |
ELI5: Why do some things burn while other things melt? | 20 | Melting is a state change in the absence of chemical reaction. In brief, heat up a solid enough and it will become a liquid, and heat it up more and it will become a gas. However, this means that the material isn't exposed to anything else that can cause a chemical reaction.
That "anything else" is, most of the time, oxygen. Atmospheric oxygen is very volatile and molecules of it can be broken down for more energy. You know how you'll often see oxygen written as O2? That's because the oxygen in the air is made of two oxygen atoms bonded together, and it's because of this bond that it can break apart, release energy, and then the atoms combine with other nearby materials to make new materials. That's the chemical reaction. So, if you heat up the material, and it's the sort of thing that oxygen can bind to, then you get a chain reaction where the oxygen molecule breaks apart, binds to the heated material, releases that energy in the form of more heat, so more oxygen breaks apart and binds, and so on, which is how things burn.
When you're heating ice, it's never hot enough to get the oxygen to do its thing and the ice just melts. When you're heating iron, the oxygen can't really bind all that well to the iron in that case, and the iron melts. You might see some burning of material on or around the iron as it melts, but not the iron itself. When you're heating wood, the oxygen can bind to the wood, breaking down the cellulose and other components of wood and make ash, releasing its extra energy in the process, and the wood burns. This is also why things don't normally burn underwater, too; there isn't enough free oxygen to keep a chain reaction going. However, as you can tell by boiling food, those chemical reactions can still occur with its own materials, transforming raw food into cooked food.
Incidentally, this property of oxygen is why breathing is important, too. We use this break-apart-for-energy technique to stay alive, in a whole bunch of other, different chemical reactions. | 20 |
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ELI5: Why do India and China have such massive populations? How did that happen? | 177 | The Ganges and Yangtze rivers are very fertile (and destructive) due to periodic flooding off the Himalayas.
Even today Egypt has a higher population than Germany and the Nile river only floods a bit except at the very end. | 54 |
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[Star Wars] What exactly does the Stormtroopers' armor protect against? How would modern weapons fair against them? | It seems like stormtrooper armor is pretty useless. Lasers and lightsabers make quick work of them, and the Ewoks' forest weapons were rather effective as well. How well would stormtrooper armor protect against, say, a close range shotgun blast to the chest? | 177 | It's been covered multiple times, but essentially stormtrooper armor is incredibly effective. More effective than anything we have.
Direct blaster shots can punch through the armor, but glancing blows are deflected. Ballistic weapons may as well not be a factor. If you were to, to take your example, aim a shotgun at their chest and unload both barrels, you'd knock him on his ass. He might have a bruise later, maybe have to wheeze for breath for a moment. But his armor wouldn't be cracked (discolored and scratched, sure, but no loss of integrity), and he'd be able to pop you one in the face immediately after.
Also, stormtrooper armor was environmentally sealed. Like, 100% sealed. They could stand in a perfect vacuum and not be bothered until their air supply ran out. Troopers on Tatooine and Hoth would have been comfortable. Maybe a little hot, maybe a little cold, but nothing serious. They wouldn't suffer heat exhaustion or frostbite.
Now, Ewoks... Like /u/WippitGuud said, they're built like chimps. They look cute and fuzzy, but they're solid muscle. And incredibly accurate. The stormtroopers they killed with their bows and arrows were hit in the joints between armored plating. The body sheathe is only there to protect against the environment, not arrows fired by miniature Wookies. | 149 |
ELI5: Why do rockets look like they're going so slow? | The speed needed to beat gravity is so fast but when you watch a rocket launch the rockets look like they're going so slow. | 62 | an object going 100 mph, 20 feet away crosses your entire field of vision in a few fractions of a second. this makes you think "wow, that was fast".
a rocket, going 11,200 km/h .. (escape velocity), several dozen miles away, doesn't appear to be moving that quickly, because it's moving a much much smaller fraction of your field of view.
it only appears to be going slowly because you can only watch it launch from miles away. if you were stood next to it, you'd be thinking "wow, that's fast". (presumably right before you though "wow, that's noisey" and "why am i on fire")
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In terms of classical economic theory, is China's economy still defined as a centrally-planned economy? Or has it evolved pragmatically or in theory to something else? Something new? | 69 | In economics, we really have no reason to "define" China's economy, except as a set of institutions. However autocratic Chinese politics are, it's still true that the CCP is not outright planning much of the economy in a centralized way. | 68 |
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Is procreation a violation of Kant's categorical imperative, since parents are treating their children as a means to an ends? | I understand this lies on the admittedly loaded presumption that parents only have children for their own sake and hopes of fulfilment. But this egoist claim would seem to be a more plausible explanation for our drive to procreate than another such intuition which would assert that we only have kids for the sake of kids. | 16 | This might help:
> And hence, in the practical relation, it is quite a correct and even a necessary idea to regard the act of generation as a process by which a person is brought without his consent into the world and placed in it by the responsible free will of others. This act, therefore, attaches an obligation to the parents to make their children- as far as their power goes- contented with the condition thus acquired. Hence parents cannot regard their child as, in a manner, a thing of their own making; for a being endowed with freedom cannot be so regarded. Nor, consequently, have they a right to destroy it as if it were their own property, or even to leave it to chance; because they have brought a being into the world who becomes in fact a citizen of the world, and they have placed that being in a state which they cannot be left to treat with indifference, even according to the natural conceptions of right.
*The Science of Right* (1790) | 21 |
ELI5: What’s is the difference between a sales tax and VAT (value added tax) | ELI5: A politician in the UK has just said that he wants to remove the VAT system and replace with a new sales tax. What is the difference between the two and what would be the benefit of scrapping VAT for a sales tax? | 584 | VAT is paid at each stage of production by the people "adding value" to the product. So you start with a raw material, you make it into something (say a flat sheet of metal), you charge VAT on your part of the job. The next company who takes \*that\* and turns it into, say, a metal pole does the same for the work \*they\* did to it.
At each stage, you pay VAT on the product you bought, and charge VAT on the product you sold so the only tax you're actually paying is on what \*value\* you added to the product.
A sales tax is, quite literally, just an end-tax on the final product.
This means that sales taxes are paid by the consumer, and the "other" tax along the way is not collected but is "paid" because of the higher prices charged by each person along the way because they can, and limited only by what the consumer spends.
VAT is difficult and expensive to administer and audit, sales tax is easier. VAT taxes everyone involved with a product along the chain. Sales tax charges the final customer (which affects demand, no doubt, but that's about it). VAT is charged on imported goods, etc. too so you can't just make things cheaply in Europe and out-compete local businesses while only paying tax once in the end country, sales tax isn't (though there may be other import duties).
Basically, sales tax is a lazy tax that misses the big picture of employment in the country you're in, local industry, complete taxation of every stage in the process, etc. VAT is more complex but helps to even the tax burden among all producers along the chain and encourages you to not just produce things cheaply abroad and claim that you added a ton of value to a particular good for performing a simple action (if you get given cheap materials, then do little to them, but charge a fortune to the next guy up the chain for your end result, you have a \*ton\* of VAT collected, almost none given out, and the difference has to go back to the taxman - basically the more you pretend what value you added, the more VAT you have to pay).
Gove is an idiot trying to distract from political finger-pointing in his direction by gaining the support of "big business" who don't want to have to pay or administer VAT, and gain support from "the little man" who just sees a "20%" figure on everything he buys. Gove knows perfectly well that those people don't care/realise that a sales tax of even a lesser percentage means that the country ends up taking less tax and encourages losing jobs, shipping manufacturing abroad, and cutting corners, in an unregulated environment which favours profiteering and inflating the prices of products.
It's literally a distraction technique because the news for the last two days has been about him doing cocaine. | 507 |
How does electricity know the path of least resistance before it gets to its destination? | I have a very basic knowledge of electricity, but I'm puzzled by how and why a current takes the path of least resistance. Why does lightning differentiate between striking a metal tower versus the ground 20 feet away? | 50 | Others have addressed your second question (about lightning). Let me address your first question: electrical flow in a conductor.
> a current takes the path of least resistance
That's an over-simplification that us electrical engineers make, and state as fact, when that's not actually what happens.
Current flows through all conductive paths between two points with a voltage differential, in varying amounts. The question is not "where does the current flow?" but "how much current flows in each path"?
Once you ask the right question, then the answer becomes clear: a lot of current flows more easily along the path of least resistance, a bit less in the adjacent path, and so forth, until you get to the extreme edges, where, yes, some current does flow, but not enough for us to consider in our analysis.
For an analogy, think of the classic image of metal filings between the two poles of a magnet; they are not lined up in a thin line between the poles ("the path of least reluctance"), but instead are spread out in a ellipsoidal area between and even around the poles.
For another analogy, think of a stream. It's not that all the water flows in the top and middle of the stream. Yes, more water flows there, but water flows in the entire cross section of the stream, just less so along the edges, because of higher resistance there.
You don't ask "how does a water molecule know where the flow is easiest?". The water molecule doesn't "decide" where to flow. It just flows slower or faster based on the resistance to the flow it happens to encounter where it happens to have ended up.
By the way, the path of highest current flow is not necessarily the one of least resistance: with AC, most current flows in the path of least impedance, which may have more resistance, but less inductance.
Search also for "skin effect".
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Where in your body does your food turn brown? | I know this is maybe a stupid question, but poop is brown, but when you throw up your throw up is just the color of your food. Where does your body make your food brown? (Sorry for my crappy English)
Edit: Thank you guys so much for the anwers and thanks dor the gold. This post litteraly started by a friend and me just joking around. Thanks | 10,821 | Brown color also comes from bilirubin which is a byproduct of hemoglobin from your red blood cells breaking down. Bilirubin is processed in the liver and excreted in bile. It's also filtered by your kidneys, making urine yellow. | 5,300 |
Why didn't all the dead trees burn during the Carboniferous? | What I think I know:
* There was extra high oxygen, increasing as the trees absorbed CO2 and didn't burn
* Microbes and insects hadn't learned to eat lignin, so trees didn't decompose.
* Some trees burned and turned into charcoal in Pennsylvania.
Obviously dead trees didn't just stack up in piles like cordwood for 50 million years. How long would you have to go without a fire before trees could be fully weathered away or buried in swamp or dirt? Is that plausible, when only fifty years of fire prevention in the US has led to huge fires? Why didn't all the trees burn and coral take over instead? | 56 | Neil DeGrasse Tyson touches on this in the remake of Cosmos from last year - but the gist is:
* trees in the carboniferous period made extensive use of lignin, and had bark to wood ratios of between 8 to 1 and 20 to 1 (vs modern trees, with ratios of below 1 to 4 on average)
* the bark was between 38% and 58% lignin, which is insoluble and was at the time indigestible by bacteria or other organisms
* since the carboniferous period experienced lower sea levels than the previous Devonian period, lowland swamps and wetlands became more prevalent which resulted in many of these trees being preserved in the muddy swamps and bogs for fossilization
* due to higher O2 levels in the atmosphere (about 35% vs 21% today), many paleontologists agree that small wildfires would have been more common - but a single sparked fire wouldn't mean the destruction of the earth's entire supply of trees. The reason that wildfires burn so large and out of control today is actually in part due to human fire prevention - healthy forests rely on detritus on the forest floor burning away periodically, to make room for new plant life or even to trigger certain seeds to germinate. Because of human fire prevention, forests stack up much more debris on the forest floor than normal, and so when a fire is eventually sparked, it burns much more out of control than would have happened naturally.
* it's also important to note that coal isn't the result of burnt trees, it's the result of dead plant matter transformed into peat, lignite, and coal under pressure and over millions of years. The reason we have coal is precisely because a lot of trees died and were preserved rather than having been burned or broken down by fungi and bacteria.
* there is also evidence to suggest that large swathes of coal deposits from carboniferous period trees were ignited by and contributed to the extinction event known as the Great Dying, the Permian-Triassic extinction event, which ultimately was responsible for killing off about 96% of all species on earth at the time.
TL;DR: there were wildfires that would have destroyed some plant life, as well as larger events like the P-Tr extinction event that destroyed even more plant life, but ultimately coal deposits from carboniferous plant life were large enough and widespread enough throughout North America and Europe that many deposits lasted long enough to be discovered by humans and used for fuel. | 20 |
[DC Comics] Yesterday I found a Batarang on the ground on my way to work. How much does one of these things go for? | I figure there's got to be some collectors or something. Is it worth selling on ebay? Times are tough here in Gotham with bourgeoisie fat cats like Bruce Wayne getting all up in everyone's business. With Batman being so cool and such an inspiration, I almost feel bad wanting to sell it. But I need the cash. | 52 | Good luck selling it anywhere besides the black market if you want a good price. Everything left behind by Batman is considered evidence in the case against him since he's a vigilante. Anything that's found is seized by the Gotham City Police Department.
I just wonder how large the evidence locker for Batman alone is. | 44 |
Why is the unemployment rate in European countries, such as UK and Germany, still so low? | It currently stands at 3.9% for UK and 3.5% for Germany which seems very low considering the COVID-19 impacts. | 83 | Germany has a program called "Kurzarbeit" (short work). The way this works is that the employee receives reduced hours and the State pays 60% of the lost wages. So an employee put on 50% time would receive 80% of their typical wage.
This program gives a number of benefits.
* Germany doesn't have at-will employment. Firing workers is more difficult than in the US. Alternatively, getting one's company to be part of the Kurzarbeit program is quite easy.
* There's no benefit to the company to lay off an employee; the company can just put them at 0 time, and the State will pay them 60% of the wage. Then, when the company is able to rev up, they can ease that person back up to 100%.
* There's no downside to the employee. The employee remains in all the normal programs (healthcare, paying into pension, etc.) while still drawing a paycheck. In fact, many employees loved working a fraction of the time while receiving most of their monthly paycheck.
Germany also had a larger per capita bailout program than the US did. | 135 |
Why is the Fed hiking interest rates while simultaneously reducing their Balance Sheet? This is a missed opportunity to study causation. Wouldn't it be better to do one at a time? | Wouldn't it be best to try QE tapering first, and then a rate hike, or vice versa? So that the effects can be more accurately studied? Doing both at the same time makes it harder to attribute which tool was more effective. | 64 | The Fed does not really experiment on the economy. They do things with an expected outcome. It is extremely difficult to do what you said because you can not hold variables in the economy stagnant. Sure you could try QE first then study the result. Then do a rate hike. But whats to say the QE wont affect the rate hike results?
Furthermore QE tapering raises rates indirectly to begin with. So isolating one from the other is a pain | 10 |
ELI5: Can you get to a point where it's not possible to get better at a skill? As in genetic cap or something? | I heard people say things like "if you aren't getting better, you reached your skill level" I really don't find this makes sense, can someone explain it to me? | 74 | your body (and also your brain) is only capable of some things. Imagine you start lifting weights. You train, go to the gym, and get better at it as your muscles build up. You take adequate trainings and change your diet to help the process. At some point, you will reach a limit. Your muscles can't grow eternally and your skeleton isn't made from titanium so even if your muscles can keep up, your bone structure probably can't.
With your brain it is similar. You are limited by what is possible, and what is given to you. You can't really change how intelligent you are, how fast you learn and how much time you need to spend WITHOUT studying to give your brain time to adequately process the information. You are limited by hours in a day that you can actually use to study, and you are limited by your capabilities. At some point, you might have to study 500 hours to get a 0.1 point increase at a test (hypothetical example). | 47 |
[X-Men] Quicksilver saves an old lady from being hit by a bus a split-second before it impacts her. Even if he did it as slowly and gently as possible, he still has to move her 10 feet in 1/100th of a second. Wouldn't being subjected to like 800Gs of acceleration just unavoidably liquefy her? | 816 | All abilities like that have sub powers that make the ability function.
His clothing should also be ripped to shreds or burst into flames from the sheer friction. He shouldn’t be able to move bullets with a finger either.
One of those sub powers allows him to move other people without their bodies going through the g forces | 713 |
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ELI5: Can life we haven't yet found, perhaps extraterrestrial, be made up of something other than DNA and cells? | Or does life in any form require DNA? Or is it not possible to know yet? | 480 | Life as we know it requires several things, including the ability to use energy, replicate, grow, etc.
DNA (and RNA) are the only information encoding molecules known to us, but some proteins can perform self replication directly without needing DNA/RNA and hypothetical cell *ancestors* could have existed long before DNA (replicating lipid bubbles are one such theory). Complex life will likely need something to act as information storage and replication but it doesn't have to be DNA. RNA itself is interestign because given sufficient peptides RNA can replicate all by itself without all the extra baggage of a "cell"
Non-DNA based life is only theoretical at this point, but there is no reason all of the requirements for life "as we know it" could not be met with some sort of crystaline, sulphorous, ammonia, or who knows what else. | 174 |
[Halloween]What does Michael Myers get out of killing, if anything? | Michael Myers doesn't seem to be a revenge killer, the way that fellow silent masked murderer Jason Voorhees is, but Michael, due to never being seen without his mask, doesn't seem derive pleasure from it the way Freddy Krueger or Chucky do. Michael doesn't laugh at their pain or fear, he makes his kills mostly relatively quick, and as mentioned above, he never seems to smile at his handiwork, or may be does. So what exactly does Michael get from his slaughter fests? | 20 | Depends on which timeline you're looking at. In most hes simply a machine without a soul. He gets from point A to point B and kills anything and anybody that gets in his way. There's no malice or joy in it. Just trying to get home and killing anyone that keeps him from getting there.
In another hes a being possessed by evil to kill as many as possible. He doesn't enjoy it because he's an instrument for another evil thing.
And in one hes just a sociopath. He doesn't feel anything for anyone and kills simply to be left alone and left to do whatever it is he feels like doing. | 22 |
ELI5: How are Hiroshima and Nagasaki habitable? | 191 | The bombs were detonated half a kilometer high up in the air to maximize the shockwave and blast patterns. So most of the "fallout" would have blown away from the blast site.
Second, the bombs were small. This isn't like a nuclear core meltdown where there's tons of primary and secondary radioactive dust and material. This was just a few kilograms of fissionable material that vaporized, and since it occurred over such a wide area the radiation hazard declined fairly rapidly. | 171 |
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ELI5: why do people scream when they’re frightened? | I’m genuinely curious about this because it seems like every time I see footage from a disaster, shooting, etc. All you can hear is screaming when, in all honesty, it would be disadvantageous to do so (specifically in regards to aforementioned shootings) since that would draw more attention to one’s self. | 17 | It's an alarm system. It ensures everyone is paying attention, and any and all friendlies or neutrals can hear and either move to help or secure themselves. It's not a rational reaction, it's an instinctual one. | 45 |
[MHA] Why is All For One so damaged in the present day? | All Might said there were quirks that halt aging, and thanks to Recovery Girl we know healing factor quirks exist. So why didn't All for One just steal a healing factor and an agelessness quirk? | 50 | Most healing quirks like Recovery Girls don't actually fix the wounds. They just rapidly increase the rate at which the body heals, which is why Deku can't keep breaking his arms. They don't get reset to perfect, they just are naturally healing at a sped up rate. With the damage to both All Might and AfO after that fight, it's frankly a miracle either of them are still alive, let alone walking around. All Might lost most of his digestive tract for gods sake. AfO was durable enough to survive, but with severe injuries. Over time he healed up naturally, but the damage was so extensive he wouldn't ever be the same without a regeneration quirk. However he didn't discover the regeneration quirk used in the USJ Nomu until he was mostly healed, so regeneration would only restore him at best to the point he was when he first acquired the quirk. They touch on this a bit when first introducing AfO in the anime and manga.
The short answer is such a quirk wasn't found until it's use was inconsequential for his major injuries. The nature of the other quirks in his toolbox, especially the agelessness quirk, can only be guessed at for now, as no one but him know what they do at this point. | 46 |
[Torchwood] Where was the Doctor during the events of Miracle Day? What happened to his companions (specifically the Ponds and Sarah Jane's gang)? | 25 | Perhaps because the event was so Capt Jack centered, intervention would result in the Doctor encountering Capt Jack, something the TARDIS hates as he is an impossible thing (and maybe by extension all humans impossible things, due to the events of the day). If we believe that the TARDIS chooses where the doctor needs to be, it simply sorta steers him away from this event. | 23 |
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CMV: Getting a tax refund is not a good thing and people should file their taxes differently if they are receiving gigantic returns | In my opinion, getting a tax refund just means you gave the government an interest free loan. People are always saying "Oh I got $4k in taxes how great is that" but in actuality you could have had an extra $75 each paycheck if you are paid weekly, thats approx $300 a month lost to overpaying the government.
Even if you didn;t need an additional $300 a month, you could have invested that money in literally any other way and you would get more return on it, resulting in more overall money.
I file my taxes in a way that I owe about $100-$200 this way Im the one getting the loan. Am I the crazy one here? | 3,088 | The kind of financially illiterate people that do this instead of some kind of actual savings account face considerable *risks* using your approach, though...
Because messing incorrectly with your W-4 form is one of them more common ways people get hit with audits and fines... because it's one of the more common forms of *tax fraud* as well.
So yeah, ideally... but if you're just going to put it in savings anyway, or invest it *safely*, it's not really much of a difference, because rates of return are historically poor the last couple of decades (and not looking to head higher soon).
So as a way to "save up for a night on the town" or something, it's really not that bad a choice. Perfect? No, but easy and safe. | 972 |
How does a developing embryo know which side is left and which is right? | Today I heard about *Situs Inversus*, a disorder in which the internal organs are reversed left/right, and started wondering: how do the embryos know which side is which to begin with in the first place? Why isn't this random, with half the population one way and one the other way?
[Wikipedia mentions some proteins are different on the different sides which signals the necessary development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situs_solitus), but how did *they* get separated like that in an appropriate way?
As a physicist I'm supposed to be afraid of anything that violates [parity symmetry](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parity_(physics\)) other than beta decay, but I doubt that's involved. | 85 | It happens because cilia beat asymmetrically, and ciliary motion of fetal cells therefore creates an asymmetric flow of fluid around the fetus, thus creating asymmetry to chemical signaling during fetal development. Situs inversus is caused by ciliary dismotility. | 38 |
ELI5:Game engines | 33 | A game engine does all the stuff nobody likes to think about during game creation.
Writing/story, maps, texture and all that sort of stuff is part of the game.
A system to keep track of story progression and side-quests, to allow for linking one map to the next when you go through a door, how to specify that an object can be interacted with and how, etc are all game engine stuff.
Bethesda gives us a great example because they've used their engine to put out 3 TES games and 2 Fallout games... and it's plainly obvious that these 5 games all have a whole lot of commonality in their technical implementation because they've used the same game engine for each. (With updates every time, mind, but still the same.)
The engine pretty much gives the game developers cookie cutters for everything. It has the definitions for NPCs, quests, item, static object, animations, etc. The game itself just makes specific instances of all these things to create a full world. | 15 |
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Why does certain metal such as metal shelves and the metal lip on microwavable soup cans not cause sparks when microwaved? | 104 | Metals in a microwave only spark when they are pointy. That's because the metal is acting like an antenna, the microwaves inducing an electrical potential in the metal. If the metal has a pointy edge, that electric potential can exceed the dialectric breakdown threshold for air, resulting in sparks (non-pointy objects spread the charge around, which means the voltage at any point is too low to cause arcing.)
Smooth metallic objects are not at risk of this arcing. Forks, in particular, have a tendency to spark, while spoons generally will not. Note that in any case you shouldn't stick metal objects of any kind in unless they are known to be microwave safe, but not all metal objects are hazardous. | 55 |
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Eli5: why do things in space orbit other things in horizontal planes? Why is everything in our solar system essentially in a flat plane? | 37 | As a solar system comes together from gas and dust, it forms a disc shape called an *accretion disc*. Anything going too slow will "fall" into the star, anything going too fast will spin away. Gravity causes the diffuse stuff to start forming into a spiral and it's the residual spinning of that disc shape of dust and gas that led to turning orbits. When things form into solid planets, they can later be knocked around or nudged into other angles. | 16 |
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[Star Trek 2009] Was the canyon that young James Kirk crashes the sports car into a quarry or part of the scar from when the Xindi attacked Earth? | 15 | It was a quarry. Riverside Quarry outside of the city of Riverside, Iowa, to be specific. The scar from the Xindi attack is a few hundred kilometers to the south east, in Florida and stretching over 4000km down to Venezuela. | 20 |
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What happens to a virus if the host that it lives in dies? Does it decompose with the body? | 2,484 | Most viruses don't last long after the death of the host - minutes to hours scale. They require living cells to sustain themselves and with the death of the host and decomposition it's similar to their survival time on any other inanimate object.
A few animal viruses can persist for a very long time in rendered products like sausage - like African swine fever and classical swine fever - it's just one reason you're asked if you have any animal products when crossing international borders. | 2,020 |
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Why didn't the Vikings unleash apocalyptic plagues in the new world centuries before Columbus? | So it's pretty generally accepted that the arrival of Columbus and subsequent European expeditions at the Caribbean fringes of North America in the late 15th and early 16th centuries brought smallpox and other diseases for which the natives of the new world were woefully unprepared. From that touchpoint, a shock wave of epidemics spread throughout the continent, devastating native populations, with the European settlers moving in behind it and taking over the land.
It's also becoming more widely accepted that the Norse made contact with the fringes of North America starting around the 10th century and continuing for quite some time, including at least short-term settlements if not permanent ones. They clearly had contact with the natives as well.
So why the Spaniards' germs and not the Norse ones? | 353 | To understand this you need to understand the nature of epidemic diseases and the Viking voyages of exploration (as opposed to the later ones of Columbus).
Epidemic diseases in general do not persist well in small isolated populations. They tend to spread rapidly, making everyone immune or dead.
The Vikings did not sail directly from Norway to North America. Their ships probably weren't up to the task of making the crossing all at once, at least not reliably. Instead, they colonized Iceland, and a small group colonized Greenland, and a subgroup of that group went to North America. The population living on Iceland was fairly small, and the number living on Greenland was very small. As a result, it would have been quite difficult for a disease to make it all the way across. Some ship would have had to carry the disease to Iceland, where it would have had to persist in the population long enough for someone infected to get around to sailing to Greenland (and not die on the way), where it would have had to persist in that population long enough for someone to sail over to North America, where some unlucky native would have had to catch it and spread it from his tribe off of Newfoundland and out into the rest of the continent. That's a lot of low probability events, especially since ships did not pass all that frequently to Greenland or even at times Iceland. Contrast this with Columbus et. al. leaving from populated, disease-ridden cities in Europe and sailing right over to the Americas. All you need in that case is a sick sailor to make the passing. | 290 |
[Star Wars] What's profanity like in the Empire? | So, where does Nerf-herder lie on the sliding scale of profanity?
What if I really want to insult someone, what do I call them in basic? | 16 | Nerfherder is a real profession. It's used as an insult by Alderaan high society. It's like calling someone a "peon" or "useless."
The word "kriff" would be analogous to the English curse "fuck." So, motherkriffer would work. | 25 |
ELI5: Arguments for and against The Federal Reserve. | I know there are some politicians who want to dismantle it while others see it being vital for the nation. I want to better understand both sides of the argument. | 32 | I'll take the "pro-federal reserve" side of the question, I'll let somebody else handle the anti-federal-reserve side.
So let's say there's three guys on an island, Fred the Farmer, Tom the Tailor, and Chad the Carpenter.
But today, they have a problem. Fred needs clothes from Tom. Tom needs his roof fixed by Chad. Chad needs some food from Fred.
Unfortunately, when Fred bumps into Tom, they fail to make a deal, because Tom needs Chad's help, not Fred's help. That's the problem with "barter," which is direct trading. If you bump into somebody, and they have exactly what you need, unless you also have exactly what they need, you can't make a deal! The likelihood that two people will bump into each other, and they both have exactly what the other person needs, is pretty slim.
These three guys, together, have everything they need. But they can't organize a trade.
So that's why money exists: to help people trade. Let's say they get together and make three "dollars" using three slips of paper and a green pen. They each get a dollar, and they each agree that they'll accept a dollar for whatever it is they do.
Now here's what happens: Fred bumps into Tom, and buys clothes for a dollar. Then, Tom bumps into Chad and buys a roof repair for a dollar. Then, Chad bumps into Fred, and buys food for a dollar. Now everyone has what they need. Interestingly, everyone still has a dollar.
Now for a while, life is good. The three of them buy thousands of dollars worth of stuff from each other, using their three bills. This is possible because when you use dollars, they're not used up - they just circulate. Each bill can be used over and over.
But one day, a new person, Mary, lands on the island. She has a ship full of video games, food and clothes. And she lives on her ship! So she doesn't need anything from these three guys at all. But she's nice, so she offers a video game each to Tom, Chad, and Fred. She accepts a dollar from each of them, even though she doesn't really need Fred's food, Tom's clothes, or Chad's repairs. She figures she'll hold onto the dollars, because maybe she'll want sexual favors later.
Now Mary has three dollars, and the other guys have nothing.
Then, all of a sudden, Fred needs clothes from Tom again. Tom needs his roof fixed by Chad again. Chad needs some food from Fred again. But Mary has all the dollars!
So they go to Mary, and they try to get some dollars from her. But Mary has everything she needs. She still has a ship full of video games, her home is in great shape, her clothes are nice, and her fridge is full of food. She thanks the guys for the kind offer, but she decides to keep the three dollars in case she needs them later. She's not being mean, she's just being sensible. But Fred, Tom, and Chad are in a bind.
Fred, Tom, and Chad want to trade with each other. They have plenty of stuff: Fred still has food, Tom still has clothes, and Chad still can fix houses. But they have no dollars. They vaguely remember that it's possible to trade without dollars, and they consider going back to the barter system.
But that's a bad idea. If they're smart, they'll get out their paper and green pen again. It would be silly for them to go back to barter, when they have a better way. When this whole thing started, they just made the dollars. They can do it again, and they'd be foolish not to.
Mary will be angry, because she gave up three video games for her three dollars, and the three guys will just be making dollars "for free" using paper and pen. She has a point. She correctly thinks that her three dollars might be seen as less valuable, if they aren't the only dollars around.
But it's also not reasonable for Mary to expect Fred, Tom, and Chad to go back to the barter system. They need to compromise.
The Federal Reserve's job is to balance those two needs against each other. Chad, Fred, and Tom need to have enough dollars to be able to trade without bartering, but then again, the reserve shouldn't make so many dollars that Mary's money becomes worthless.
Now, some people think there shouldn't be a federal reserve. In that case, Mary would have the dollars, and that would be that. Fred, Chad, and Tom would have to go back to bartering with each other.
| 13 |
ELI5: Why is it that after an argument with your partner is settled, a lot of time, both partners feel emotionally closer and sexually more attracted to each other? | 26 | Because she is sexy when she is mad.
If the argument is of an intensely personal matter, the ability to openly communicate feelings you normally wouldn't is the definition of intimacy. Most people aren't ready to 'go there' until it has gotten so stressed that you end up in an argument and you absolutely have to 'get there'. | 15 |
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What happens if we mix vaccines of two different diseases and inject It in our body? Are we going to develop antibodies of the two diseases? | 1,928 | Yes. The MMR vaccine and DTaP vaccine each induce antibody production against three different agents. MMR for measles, mumps, and rubella. DTaP for diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis.
To be technically precise, the antibodies induced by the tetanus portion of DTaP works against the toxin, not the causative organism. The rest are effective against the organisms themselves. | 1,686 |
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[MCU] Could Wakandan technology have healed Doctor Strange's hands? | Shuri had no issues healing Everett Ross from what would have likely been permanent paralysis. If the events of Black Panther took place before Strange's accident and Wakanda was known to posses such tech, would he have become a sorcerer in the first place?
The same goes for Extremis. I'm sure the government confiscated all the remaining samples after the events of Iron Man 3, but could its regenerative properties have healed him as well? | 17 | If we take Strange's word as truth and not just arrogance or desperation, *he* could have healed his own hand using the tools at his disposal as an American surgeon. Or rather, a surgeon with his level of skill. And wakandan medicine is much more advanced than what he had to work with.
Granted, he's not exactly an unbiased source. But it seems likely compared to some of the other feats we've seen from Wakandan medical tech. | 39 |
[Ed Edd n Eddy] What is the value of a quarter? | Throughout the series I notice that the kids treat 25 cents like it's a lot of money, like they literally will tear apart an entire sidewalk in order to get a single quarter, or the kids will hound the Eds in order to get their quarters back as if the quarter is their soul. Now the time period of Ed Edd n Eddy is very ambiguous, like there is tv, but no video games, and the phones are all old fashioned, also the Quarters can buy huge Jawbreakers the size of Basketballs. This leads to my question, what is the value of a Quarter in Ed Edd n Eddy? | 25 | About 25 cents. It's implied the show is set in the 70s or 80s based of the creator's own childhood and various references seen in the show. 25 cents may not seem like a lot now but back then 25 cents was enough to get a child sized amount of candy. | 34 |
[Stargate] So, in SG-1, in season 1 the Jaffa armor seems to be pretty tough. Six jaffa or so are able to abduct a soldier and shrug off rounds. In every other season, they are extremely weak. Why? | The way I've internalized it is basically 1 or 2 things, or both.
1. The armored Jaffa in the beginning of the first season are Serpent Guard, so they'd probably have tougher armor,. All his other plebs can die en masse for all he cares, but he needs pretty strong armor on the people who actually watch him, and
2. The P-90, which isn't used in that scene but is the main weapon used by SG-1 later, was specifically designed as an armor-piercing PDW for non-combat troops during the Cold War. It was one of many created so that, if a war ever kicked off, troops that do things like logistics or other things far from the front lines would be able to defend themselves against Soviet paratroopers, who would likely wear body armor and use light vehicles. Ergp, we could assume that impacted it.
Plus, every other weapon could just be using armor-piercing rounds, whereas the troops in the first scene were in the middle of a mostly unused facility in the middle of the U.S. - They probably weren't issued armor-piercing rounds, and .223/5.56 is notably a small round anyway. | 25 | The Jaffa used in season 1 were apophis' best troops. He was absolutely not taking any chances with the world that no one knew about that suddenly showed up thousands of years after vanishing and killed the most powerful system lord with a small team of soldiers. His own forces would have needed a massive army and likely would have failed accomplishing a similar feat.
The soldiers guarding the decommissioned stargate facility were packing weaker rifles and ammunition that are fine for guard duty but worthless against armored targets. In later episodes and seasons they switched to more powerful rounds and specialty ammo meant to punch through armored targets at close range as a counter to Jaffa tactics.
Later Jaffa encountered are weakened by years of civil wars and goauld overconfidence. They're still deadly threats but rarely wear full armor outside of ceremonial positions. Many of these Jaffa have armor and tactics focused on fighting other Jaffa and energy based weapons. The projectile weapons of earth are able to break through the armor at weak points and more accurately hit the unarmored body parts that staff weapons and zats are unable to accurately hit.
And finally there's the possibility that apophis allowed his Jaffa to use personal shields for their early missions. He felt the potential risk of earth was worth giving access to technology normally reserved for goauld exclusively. He later revokes this access to prevent traitor jaffa or the sg soldiers from acquiring the technology for themselves. Given the extremely territorial and secretive nature of the Goauld his shield technology wasn't known to other system lords until later after his deaths and defeats and acquired by rival lords unable to mass produce the devices for their jaffa. | 32 |
Why do people continue to hold false beliefs even when presented with overwhelming evidence of the contrary? | For example, why do people continue believing that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated by the government? Or why do some people believe in conspiracy theories regarding a one world totalitarian government controlled by a small group of people (e.g. illuminati, elders of zion, jesuits)? | 31 | Others have mentioned cognitive biases that contribute to this, but essentially we dont necessarily hold our beliefs because we acquired them through rational consideration. Many beliefs are tied up with a certain worldview (research shows that if someone believes any given conspiracy theory, they're more likely to believe any other one--the content almost doesn't matter; look up work by Brotherton or Lewandowsky). Beliefs are also emotional and cultural--they allow us to self-identify as part of a group, or as a certain kind of person. Challenging these kinds of beliefs with evidence doesn't do anything except threaten how a person sees themselves. Festinger wrote about this as cognitive dissonance, where when experience conflicts with an important belief we will discount the evidence to protect ourselves. He famously observed this amongst members of a doomsday cult--after their doomsday had passed uneventfully. He wrote about that in When Prophecy Fails.
Basically, evidence doesn't change beliefs that aren't held because of evidence. | 23 |
CMV: I don't think the idea that increased gun restrictions decrease mass shootings in the US is so self-evident that debates should start from that point. | The key issue here is that debates seem to begin from the idea that the only way to reduce mass shootings is to increase gun control. I don't see this as being self-evident to the point where debates should start from there.
- Gun restrictions in the US have increased over the last 50 years, but so has mass shootings. If gun restrictions are the answer, why do we have more mass shootings now than 50 years ago when we've made gun control laws stricter over that time?
- After mass shootings, no single person on the left ever says something like "well, it's a good thing people can't access fully automatic weapons or RPGs; There would be a lot more mass shootings if we didn't have that kind of common sense gun control".
- The position on the left seems to be 'one is too many'. Thus, as long as someone can still go into a school with a pistol and a few clips and kill a few or more people, they will never see this issue as "solved". So really we're talking about a complete ban on all guns, or nothing at all. This is as opposed to 'common sense gun control'.
I want to repeat again that my view *is not* that the idea of gun control to reduce mass shootings doesn't have merit. Just that it isn't self-evident and conversations/debate should not always start from that point. 'You don't want to increase gun control, thus you don't want to reduce mass shootings' essentially.
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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!* | 24 | Commercial air travel began in 1914, and modern skyscrapers have been around since the 1930s. But it wasn't until 2001 that somebody used a plane to knock down a skyscraper.
Now that someone has invented the idea of using a commercial airliner as a missile, we have to take measures to prevent planes from becoming missiles, however. The possibility has always been there, but we didn't feel the need to guard against it until someone made that possibility a reality.
That's not as weird as it sounds. Things in the world have a near infinite variety of potential uses. Most of that potential, positive or negative, is unrealized. It takes someone to give something a try before a potential enters into reality. And then you get copycats ...
Gun violence has been around since guns were invented. But the idea of walking into a mall or a school and just opening fire is new. And since we can't just erase everybody's memory and shove that use back into the unrealized potential space, we may have to look at changing the laws around guns to prevent that sort of thing from happening.
One potential fix is to ban "assault weapons." The idea is that mass shooters (in the media sense of "mass shooter") are attracted to the aesthetics. They want to go in with a "cool" looking military style weapon and live out some sort of dream of being a glamorous killer. That just doesn't work as well if they're using a boring looking hunting rifle, even if the differences between a semi automatic hunting rifle and an "assault" weapon are mainly aesthetic.
Of course, that's a long winded way of starting a debate. It's a nice shortcut to just cut to chase and figure out what sort of reasonable laws we can make to prevent the problem of mass shootings, even if the potential for them has been there for a while. | 17 |
[The Shawshank Redemption]At the time the film is set cons often used cigarets as currency and consequently were very good at hiding them. That being the case isn't having them work with tar yards away from disinterested guards, kind of really dangerous? | 20 | Guards are aware that smokes are the prison's form of currency. They will even used smokes to pay a prisoner to do... less scrupulous activities. You get an example of this when a guard in Phoenix pays a prisoner to exact revenge on Lloyd Heinreid in The Stand (as it's a Stephen King book as well, the same rules most likely apply) | 18 |
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ELI5: If the smell from something can reach your nose, does that mean that you are being exposed to bacteria from that thing? | 2,561 | Not necessarily, and in fact, not usually.
Our noses are sensitive and only a small number of airborne molecules can give it enough information to "smell" something. We can smell forest fires from miles away as an example.
But light molecules like that are very very easy to carry around in the air. Bacteria are composed of billions of those molecules jammed into an organism, and they aren't. And most of them are not designed to be removed from a surface and blown around anyway - they transmit around more by touch or by being carried around on dust or in raindrops or sneeze particles or on the feet of flies or stuff like that.
So the odds that you're breathing bacteria from that dead skunk on the side of the road that you've just driven by are very slim unless you go right up to it and breathe in a big nostril-ful. (You could try it if you wanted.) | 1,334 |
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ELI5: Why did the Icelandic PM want to dissolve parliament? | 27 | Dissolving Parliament would mean that there is no Parliament to hold a vote of no confidence in the PM; it would also mean snap elections to elect a new Parliament, and give the PM an opportunity to continue to govern if his party managed to win them.
As it is, the Icelandic President refused the request and the PM walked before he was pushed. | 11 |
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After the COVID vaccine is out will we still need to social distance and wear masks? | Oxford said that by the end of 2020 there will be millions of doses of the vaccine available to the public. With all of those doses out and millions more coming in the following months, when will all of the restrictions be lifted and we can return to normal life?
Edit: Wow, I was not expecting this to blow up like it did. Thank you mysterious redditor for the gold! | 12,519 | Yes. It will take a long time for the vaccine to deploy, especially to countries that have poorer economies and inadequate healthcare systems. In addition, if travel is less restricted, community transmission will continue to be a risk. Nobody really knows when the right time to open up will be. | 4,896 |
ELI5: Why does it matter when others play the “wrong” move at a blackjack table | The odds of the other person getting a card they want doesn’t necessarily change, so why does it effect anybody when a player doesn’t play by the chart | 321 | It doesn't matter because no one knows what card is coming. All you do is increase the house edge over the long run by not playing basic strategy.
But gamblers will always say "you've taken the dealer bust card" and conveniently forget when that "wrong" move actually helps them. | 462 |
How does one rogue hair grow abnormally longer than all of the others? | 124 | It's similar to moles growing "larger and faster" than the rest of the skin.
It's believed to be that the hair stem cells (cells at the base of your follicle that secrete keratin) in these follicles are just over active somehow. They're probably not cancer precursors, but do behave weirdly (like different color, and fast growth). | 27 |
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How does a boomerang work? | 135 | Aerodynamics! A boomerang is basically two wings joined together at their root at an angle, facing opposite directions. When it is thrown, it rotates around its center of gravity which is offset from its center of lift, this causes it to bank in one direction. Just like in a plane, if you bank in one direction long enough, you make a complete 180, and that's how boomerangs come back to you. | 48 |
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ELI5:Why do beer companies advertise so much? Is it really necessary for them to spend that much on commercials? I could never see another beer commercial for the rest of my life, I'm still going to remember to buy beer. | 1,017 | The beer companies want you to buy their brand of beer specifically, not just whatever beer strikes your fancy that day. Maybe you have a brand and always buy the same, but even that status has to be maintained. If you prefer Bud Light and have drunk it for years and have no intent of changing, but they stopped advertising while Coors Light did not, you might eventually try some Coors just because their commercials were so funny/cool/sexy/neat. | 499 |
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[Hellraiser-Ghostbusters] If the Ghostbusters were called to the home of someone who unknowingly solved an arcane puzzle box and is now being pursued by the Cenobites, would Dr. Venkman, Egon, Ray, and Winston be able to use their proton packs to trap Pinhead and his friends? | 18 | Cenobites are not ghosts, they're demons or something of that nature. They are supernatural entities from another plane of existence, true, but they appear to have corporeal bodies, not ectoplasm. There's no guarantee the proton packs would work the same way. They might still be useful as a distraction, but considering the whole weird sadomasochistic vibe of the cenobites, perhaps not the same kind of distraction the Ghostbusters are used to (with the possible exception of that freaky horndog Venkman).
The proton packs didn't really work on Gozer either, at least not in the traditional way, that was just a lucky coincidence that deliberate misuse of unlicensed nuclear accelerators can cause catastrophic effects for whatever universe it happens in, and Gozer happened to be operating from another universe with a convenient open portal...
All that said, the Ghostbusters have a **LOT** of paranormal reference material, and they're smart and willing to try very strange things if the evidence supports them. So even if their standard countermeasures don't work against Cenobites, there's a good chance they could come up with something effective. The fact that the Cenobites are physically present in a way that ghosts are not might even make things easier. | 20 |
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[Star Wars] Was Sheev actually speciesist, or was that just a great way to gain power through sowing fear? | I know the separatists were also industrial/economic giants, was speciesism the easiest way to dismantle them? | 50 | More than anything, Palpatine was pragmatic and opportunist. He wouldn't reject somebody useful to him just because they weren't human. His Sith master was non-human (Legends?), as was his first Sith apprentice, his closest advisors in the Senate, and later one of his most trusted admirals.
Palpatine let the Empire become xenophobic because he thought it was useful to his goals, nothing more. | 76 |
ELI5: How do they make ice for ice sculptures crystal clear? | 32 | first and foremost...water quality.
second....circulation of water during early stages of freezing, this creates a more uniform temperature throughout the mass and reduces early ice crystal formation.
third....rate of freeze...freezing too fast or too slow can both result in cloudy ice formation. | 18 |
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CMV: I don't think someone can be too rich for conflict of interest | Just because someone has lots of money doesn't mean they don't want/need it. Many rich people have massive obligations. Their lifestyles are inflated (multiple homes, private jets) and they probably support many people including their family, a handful of personal employees, and probably close friends and extended family as well.
Also, it's not all that uncommon for very rich people to go bankrupt and become straight up broke; I can come up with quite a few examples off the top of my head. While it's less likely for them to end up in that situation than the average person, and it's easier for them to recover than the average person, there is always going to be that fear that propels them to make more money.
Even someone who has stopped caring about their net worth will still have conflicts of interested related to money. They've made relationships with people who've helped make them rich, or who are close business partners. That person may even depending on some of these people to stay rich or maintain his/her lifestyle.
So isn't it silly to argue that you can be too rich to have conflicts of interest?
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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!* | 44 | Since you refer to Trump in one of your responses, let me first point out that he's not a "typical very rich person". They generally have pretty diverse portfolios with a lot of stocks and bonds and other holdings. While they often have a particular industry that was the source of their wealth, it's generally more abstract. Trump's money is mostly in real estate, which is highly subject to market volatility and regulations. Warren Buffett, on the other hand, benefits in general from a better economy, not so much for any one transaction.
Now, when you have a Bill Gates, who has pledged to give away the vast majority of his fortune (but still be left with plenty) what's his motivation to do something corrupt? Having more to give away? How does that make sense? | 14 |
ELI5: what is a director/maestro doing with his hands? | Everybody has his sheet of music, so what is he doing? | 28 | In the most basic sense... you have a group of 40 people that all need to start playing their instruments at the same second. Without the director, they'd basically never know when to start, or the start of the song would ve extremely choppy as people are trying to catch up or figure out when to start. Unless someone yelled out "ok start" and then began playing. The director is that role.
And then, the director keeps tempo and signals coming changes in music. Again, if he wasn't there, you wouldn't know how fast or slow to play. You'd need to just hope that someone is staying on beat and that you can follow them. The director centralizes that. He is leading. Not some random person who should be focused on playing their music. | 32 |
[MCU] Are there two infinity gauntlets, and if so, why? Aren't there only six stones? | Dumb question time! I read a glimpse of something which suggests that the gauntlet in Thanos's possession is not the same one as the gauntlet seen in Odin's vault. If that is so, why would there be two, when ostensibly there are only enough gems to fill one? | 40 | Apparently Thanos has an empty left, while the one in Odin's treasure room is an empty right.
Presumably there's something (what?) about the infinity gems that makes a gauntlet the best way to contain/combine them? I've never heard anything to that effect, but the most direct explanation is that other powerful beings have had the Infinity Gauntlet plan over the millennia, and Odin stopped one of the earlier attempts. (Or even *made* one of the earlier attempts!)
We do see how Ronan putting the stone in a weapon was dangerous because that weapon could still be destroyed, so... you could say that lines up with the need to keep the stones close by wearing them as opposed to holding them? | 33 |
[Marvel] Does Galactus only ever have one herald at any given point? | My previous understanding was that Galactus had several heralds at the same time to seek out planets to consume, but upon further reading it seems as if there’s only one true herald at a time. Even if individuals retain their cosmic powers they are not true servants nor are they considered a herald of Galactus.
Is this right or am I misinterpreting it? To me, it would made more sense if he had multiple heralds searching the universe simultaneously rather than just one. | 24 | He only has one at a time.
Assuming the herald is doing a good job, a single planet every Earth week or so is enough to keep Galactus nourished and a top-tier cosmic entity.
The reason why there are so many former heralds running around is that most of them usually end up regretting their activity or not being competent enough, and Galactus is a cool enough guy to let them keep their powers after they have been discharged. | 26 |
ELI5: why do things hurt more when the temperature is low (e.g., getting hit in the face with a ball)? | 26 | You have little things in your dermis (second layer of your skin) called "thermoreceptors", which is a mechanism that is specialized in detecting temperature. You have a much greater density of cold receptors than hot ones. A cold environment causes less blood flow to your skin for obvious reasons, and causes these thermoreceptors to become more sensitive. Past a certain threshold, this is interpreted as pain. When you smack your hand, or in your case hit in the face, when it's cold outside, your hand was already sensitive to the temperature, and you just added on the sensory shock of hurting it. Your brain then is receiving inputs from two different sensors simultaneously, and interprets it as increased pain. | 16 |
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