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Are there physiological consequences to cannibalism? | I have no interest in eating a human, but I'm curious about what it does to the cannibal's body. Does he have negative physiological outcomes that would not come from eating, say, chicken? | 67 | Nope. Meat is meat (roughly speaking). It'd be the same as eating any other apex omnivore, like bears. People used to eat bear all the time.
You should balance your diet, of course, by also eating everything from a person's garden after you slaughter them. | 55 |
[Star Trek Voyager] Why doesn't the crew appreciate Neelix more? | Yeah, he's a little annoying. However single handedly cooking for 120+ people 3 meals a day from ingredients they scavenge off of random planets (which he usually has to do since he's most familiar with edible plants in that quadrant) is no small feat. | 15 | I think the crew in general are weary of their situation so they lose their patience when they have to eat things they don't think are appetizing on top of all their other inconveniences. Neelix may be a little stubborn in accepting feedback on his recipes.
He also effectively hitched a ride onto Voyager out of squalor. So he can come off as a bit of a wide-eyed opportunist. He is helping, but Voyager represents an opportunity for him so he's not totally selfless.
You're right though as an effective emissary of another race who has made a broad commitment to help Voyager some crew members could be more understanding.
But then also remember some of the crew were Marquis, or in Tom's case he is somewhat of an atypical Starfleet member. | 13 |
When does interbreeding fail? Can a human's sperm enter and fertilize a goat's egg? Will something start to grow, and die soon after, or will it not even get that far? | 2,397 | Interbreeding fails when organisms are sufficiently different, the more closely related they are, the better chance they have. Typically the organisms have to be within 2 chromosomes of each other in terms of total chromosome count. Humans have 46 chromosomes, goats have 60. Also, if the animals are of different genera it is quite unlikely that they will interbreed successfully. Goats are most closely related to sheep, and sheep only have ~~56~~54 chromosomes, and are a different genus. Hybrids of these are stillborn usually.
The degree to which a potential offspring can grow in utero is quite different depending on how related the animals are. Some will be stillborn, others won't be able to conceive at all (such as humans and goats). There is no real way to broadly generalize the level of potential development.
Edit: lost a word. | 1,353 |
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ELI5: Why does drinking warm water reduce spiciness in the mouth? | 25 | Capsaicin (the hot pot of peppers) is kind of waxy, which is why it sticks to the tissue in the mouth or on the skin. Warm/hot water can loosen this bond, allowing the heat sensation to dissipate. Ironically, though, taking a warm shower after being pepper sprayed (or sprayed by other chemical irritants) also loosens this bond. The big difference, though, is that it allows the irritant to bond elsewhere, spreading the sensation | 20 |
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Hey askscience, can anyone explain this colorful cloud formation? | This picture was taken last year in Sengiggi, Indonesia, on the island of Lombok, and I've never been able to get a good answer as to what it is.
Formation: http://i.imgur.com/VwYCe.jpg
Landscape shot, for size reference: http://i.imgur.com/0Pq5g.jpg | 120 | It's pretty simple actually... just ice crystals acting like tiny prisms, splitting the light from the sun into components and spreading out.
The angle from sun to cloud to you is important, but essentially all that is needed is an icy cloud and sunlight. You just happened to be at the right angle at the right time.
Absolutely nothing to do with earthquakes... yet more internet spawned rubbish. | 94 |
Why do banks lend at interest rates lower than inflation? Don't they lose money that way? | 164 | If a bank sits on cash for a year and inflation is 5%, they lose 5% in real terms. But if they lend the money out at 2%, they lose 3% in real terms.
It's that simple.
If they insisted on flooring interest rates at inflation, they may be left with excess cash as few are willing to pay that much.
Rates are as low as they need to be to utilize their cash to the fullest extent they can, regardless of inflation rates.
One more thing to consider is that banks usually issue loans of 10 years or more, so while momentary inflation matters some, long term inflation expectations matter more for total loan profitablity. | 157 |
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CMV: Drag-And-Drop Programming Generally Acts as a Waste of Time and Is Largely Unnecessary | There has been a rise in the past several years in the popularity of various forms of “low code”, which often come in the form of “drag-and-drop” languages. Two examples of these languages which I have worked with are Scratch and Alice 3. These systems created an enclosed environment in which the user can set a scene, place characters or “sprites”, and drag various pre-made functions into a main method in order to have the sprites do various complex actions. These systems are often used in education, as an “introduction to coding”.
My issue with these systems and their growing popularity is that it often feels as if they cause programming to be more complex and confusing, rather than simpler. This is because, instead of learning a special syntax of English, these systems require users to learn how to use a software and the often complicated user interface it entails.
These systems are even used at a college level sometimes, and I see no reason why they are a neccesary step before learning the basics of standard languages such as javascript, python, or any other easier to learn languages. While I understand the point is to build the “logic” which programmers use, this logic can be built much faster when the user is put into a real, industry-used environment where the possibilities can be endless.
Of course, many argue these systems can be useful when introducing coding to those in a k-8 or k-5 environment. I feel this creates a two-fold problem:
One, it fails to generate interest in coding. Sure, you may teach a child how to make a character say some words or wave at the screen, but that is not the magic of computers. Far greater interest can be created (with similar ease of difficulty) by guiding children through things which they cannot do themselves, such as beginner cryptography, like brute-forcing a small password, or writing scripts to make life easier.
Two: I see no reason why a child cannot just as easily learn a real language, even if it is HTML. Khan Academy and CodeAcademy both have amazing courses on beginner programming with Javascript, HTML, CSS, and several other languages. These systems also explain how to use the languages outside of their environment, so the young programmer can actually make things which they want to make.
Yet, it seems as if these “simplified” programming languages are becoming more and more common. Is there any real benefit to this? | 32 | The main purpose of Drag-and-Drop languages aren't to be programming languages. They exist as toys to allow kids to start thinking about computers as more than a collection of applications and show them that they can change what the computer can do.
Typed programming languages will always be superior to do anything with, but the nature of them having a syntax so distinct from english and yet such familiar terms makes them really hard to get someone to try things. Sure you could guide someone through a simple program and how to write it, but by doing that you fundamentally fail to teach the important parts. By constraining the syntax to a tray of blocks you remove all problems related to not knowing syntax and thus force people to actually think about it as a problem instead of doing what worked last time and asking how to do something. Colour and shapes allow syntax to be intuitive in a way typed languages can never accomplish leaving only the problem solving of programming remaining.
I do think a lot of it used incorrectly. Assignments do often fail to require problem solving and instead request that they animate something or make text boxes appear. That is the failure, not the languages themselves. They work great as a solution to let someone see and learn about the problem solving in the programming without having to teach them syntax. | 17 |
[Star Wars] If Boba Fett had killed Luke on Bespin before Luke had his fight with Vader, would anything have happened to Boba? | 18 | He'd probably be blacklisted from imperial contracts if he was lucky. More likely, Vader would kill him on the spot. Yes, he was a useful tool, but not more useful than a powerful apprentice who is also your son. | 37 |
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[Star Wars] Can you make a lightsaber take on any shape? | So a lightsaber is contained with a magnetic loop right? My question is, could you form that loop into any shape? Could you, for example, make a lightsaber in the shape of a shield? What about a lightsaber pizza cutter? I know you wouldn't actually want to because they would be impractical (you can just use a shield emitter or a pizza cutter) but is it technically possible?
I know in Legends there were lightsaber whips but I'm talking about something like a lightsaber pitchfork with only one single emitter. | 28 | I think you'd be better off getting those electrified "billy-club" batons the First Order had for their specially trained infantry. I'd imagine that there are far more possibilities energizing tesla-coil style weapons as opposed to bending lightsaber plasma. | 21 |
ELI5:Why do butterflies and moths have such large wings relative to their body size compared to other insects? | 8,760 | Big wings means slower flapping to achieve flight - more surface area to push against the air. This decreases maneuverability but gives them more ability to glide/soar (fly without flapping). This makes sense for some butterflies as they're migratory. Also some large sea birds use this same strategy to soar for long distances. | 2,024 |
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Why do physical relationships tend to have small integer exponents? | Are these values just approximations, where a given phenomenon could be better modeled by a more complex relationship? For example, could e=mc^2 actually be modeled more accurately e=m^1.02 *c^1.998, or some other such non-integer values? | 16 | One strong constraint is that the units have to work out. Consider E = m^1.02 c^1.998 . E has units of kg m^2 / s^2 , while m^1.02 c^1.998 has units of kg^1.02 m^1.998 / s^1.998. Since the units don't match up, it is meaningless to equate these quantities and this equation could never be a physical law. However, this doesn't completely rule out weird exponents: you could imagine equations like E = (1/2) m v^3.168 / c^1.618, which does have the right units.
Some small integer exponents are the way they are because we live in an integer number of spatial dimensions. For example, in d spatial dimensions, gravitational and electric forces obey 1/r^(d-1) laws. For d=3, this gives the familiar 1/r^2 laws. | 14 |
ELI5: Why can a camera only focus on one distance at a time, and what occurs inside to change that focal distance? Does the same principle apply to our eyes? | 30 | When an image is formed by a lens, it's only sharp in a narrow range. That range defines the focal point of the optical system. Hold your finger an arm's length in front of your face and shift you focus from your finger to a distant object. When you focus on one, the other becomes out of focus. | 11 |
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ELI5: Why do sound deviations from “normal sounds” like those used in horror movies and games cause a fear response in us? | Thinking of A Quiet Place and Doki Doki Literature Club; not just predator noises and such | 179 | Another factor not mentioned in the comments is that some music is different and dissonant on purpose, not fitting into the rhythm or the harmony of the normal music, making you feel a sense of unease. They feel different and wrong, like it doesn't belong there. This appears in classical music as well, but it's usually used as a passage, with complementary notes played straight after. Meanwhile, using such notes gets you ready for complementary notes that are not going to come, if that makes any sense. It's the heart and soul of horror: suspense. It the same as when in a horror movie a protag explores a dark and creepy place and you expect a jumpscare and never get one, anticipating it more and more. | 65 |
[Animorphs] How much of a threat or nuisance were the Animorphs to the Yeerk invasion of Earth? | 38 | Minimal threat, *massive* nuisance.
There was no chance the Animorphs alone could prevent the invasion.
But they prove time and again they could raise it's cost. Destroying the Kandrona, for example, was a massive blow. And raising the cost, causing delays... that mattered. It cost them...
It cost them a lot.
But it *mattered*. They saved the planet, prevented it from dying without a fight even occurring, and you could even argue that they saved the Andalites, too, because if the Yeerks had gained full control of Earth and all it's hosts, there may have been nothing the Andalites could do to stop them. | 41 |
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ELI5: Why do we zone out? | 47 | Our brain activates a particular set of brain regions when we are paying attention to something, or doing a complex task that uses our attention and memory stores. It activates a totally different set of brain regions (the “default mode network”) when we let our mind wander or zone out. Some researchers think this is because it gives our brain time to process things we’ve learned, store memories, think about ourselves and our emotions, and so on. The same thing is thought with dreaming, that it gives our brain time to process and store memories. | 12 |
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ELI5: Why are vision problems so common in humans? | There are a ton of people who have to wear glasses or contacts in order to see, have humans as a species always had so much of a problem with vision? Are our eyes worse now than our ancestors were? | 61 | humans need glasses to see fine detail, like letters. in a hunter gatherer sense, 99% of peoples vision is probably sufficient. i suspect there are plenty of animals that would want glasses if they were intelligent enough to know they were missing out on something. but since most land animals have a highly developed sense of smell compared to humans, they probably dont care. | 17 |
How much of a person's height is determined by DNA and how much is determined thru health and diet while an adolescent? | 5,356 | We have an extremely good understanding that height is heritable. Tall parents have tall children. When analyzed on a genetic level, 75% of the variation in height is genetic. However, only 10% of that variation (7.5% of the total variation) can be explained by specific genetic factors. The unknown genetic factors are called "missing heritability".
Tl;dr most of it is heritable, but most of the specific factors are unknown.
Source: Exploring Personal Genomics textbook | 1,799 |
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[The Dark Knight] Why does Two-Face seek revenge on the GCPD rather than Joker? | It was Joker who killed Rachel and disfigured Harvey in the first place, yet Harvey took his anger out on the city and police force he once served with his life. What gives? Why not actually go after the man responsible for killing the love of your life? | 90 | Not only did Joker convince him that the GCPD was at fault, but Dent repeatedly voiced concerns about crooked cops in Gordon's unit and Gordon ignored him every time. And then the exact cops Dent was worried about were the ones who kidnapped him and Rachel.
So on top of Joker's manipulation, he had legitimate reasons to be pissed at Gordon and the rest of the GCPD. | 86 |
ELI5: Why do animals sometimes kill themselves? | Is it because they know they are in a lot of pain or in a specific situation where it is better to terminate their life?
I've read online numerous accounts of animals committing suicide. I've personally witnessed a bunny kill itself after I accidentally bumped into it walking backwards while cutting the grass (it flopped violently for about a minute or two).
Are they aware of death? Is it done by conscious or a chemical reaction/signaling/programming? | 19 | I don't know about animals in general but domestic rabbits have been bred to have strong legs because that's where the good meat is. If spooked suddenly, their legs are actually strong enough to snap their backs as they try to hop away.
I wouldn't call this suicide, I'd call it an effect of poor selective breeding. | 23 |
ELI5: What are compressed and uncompressed files, how does it all work and why compressed files take less storage? | 1,768 | File compression saves hard drive space by removing redundant data.
For example take a 500 page book and scan through it to find the 3 most commonly used words.
Then replace those words with place holders so 'the' becomes $, etc
Put an index at the front of the book that translates those symbols to words.
Now the book contains exactly the same information as before, but now it's a couple dozen pages shorter. This is the basics of how file compression works. You find duplicate data in a file and replace it with pointers.
The upside is reduced space usage, the downside is your processor has to work harder to *inflate* the file when it's needed. | 2,387 |
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If we stop traveling through space, would the flow of time be infinite? | I have seen that when you travel through space at the speed of light (assuming you were massless of course), the flow of time for you is paused. So if we take the reverse of the process and somehow stop moving through space completely, would you experience time flowing super fast / infinitely?
Sorry if my understanding of the principle is subpar. | 17 | Nope. It doesn't work both ways. Think of it like this: roughly speaking, your total speed through spacetime is the speed of light. So when you move through space at the speed of light, time stops moving for you (though not according to an outside observer). And when you're at rest in space, you move through time at the speed of light.
What does that mean, "you move through time at the speed of light?" First of all, you can't measure passage of time in terms of a speed, which is distance per time. It has to be time per time (that is, how many seconds pass for you for every second passing for some other observer?). So how do we turn the speed of light, a distance per time, into a time per time? Well, we use the speed of light. It's the universal conversion factor between space and time units. So really this means that if you're at rest, time passes for you at the pedestrian rate of one second per second.
Second, this is a relative statement. You always perceive your motion through time as being one second per second. What we're asking is how time moves for you relative to some other observer. When we say you're at rest, we mean you're at rest relative to such an observer. And so all this "traveling through time at the speed of light" really means is that your clock ticks at the same rate as the clock of someone not moving with respect to you. | 17 |
[Marvel] Does the existence of the Ghost Rider or Spirit of Vengeance alter world religion? | I’ve seen posts talk about how Thor and Loki would make some re-examine their religious choices, but would Ghost Rider be able to confirm or deny is certain things are inherently sinful or wrong? Could Ghost Rider call out religious organizations as being wrong on occasion? Are there other characters that might be capable of pointing out things like that objectively or with proof? | 29 | If anything, religion is messier in the Marvel Universe, not cleaner. Pretty much all religions can point to supernatural evidence in support of their views. The Norse, Greek, Egyptian and Hindu pantheons all coexist with angels and demons of the Abrahamic tradition. And thats not even including Celestials or abstract entities like Eternity.
The meaning of a one true God would likely have to change. While our religions tend to deny the existence of other gods, in the Marvel Universe a worshipper would say their god is superior to all other gods. | 36 |
CMV: Third parties in The United States should not waste their time putting up candidates for the presidency. Rather, they should focus all their energy on local and state elections. | With the United States using first past the post and the electoral college, it is impossible for a third party candidate to get elected president. Under this system, people who vote third party are often voting against their own interests, as they are harming big party candidate they agree with more, and helping the big party candidate they agree with less. Third parties should devot all their money and energy to getting people elected in state and local elections, where they'll actually have a chance of winning, and slowly gaining a degree of power. | 622 | If a third party can attract a really good candidate and put that candidate out there then it's a LOT of press coverage that would advance their cause and give them some name recognition. Even in local and state elections getting past the two-party system is difficult. That's where a charismatic figurehead can play an important role. | 133 |
The voyager1 mission has been traveling for almost 40 years. With current technology could a "voyager 3" be launched in the same path and catch up to it and exceed its distance and have better tech? Also would it be worth doing for what we would get out of the mission? | Hi :) | 35 | In space, as on an automotive raceway, the important insight is: speed costs money. How fast are you willing to pay for? Overtaking Voyager is "just" a matter of money, even with ordinary chemical rockets.
That said, nuclear-powered electrical ion rockets, developed in the last 15 years or so, could indeed allow a probe to overtake Voyager without going to heroic efforts (at least by the inflated standards of space exploration). Political problems with putting nuclear materials in space make that very unlikely.
If controlled nuclear fusion ever becomes practical, it will open up the solar system in the way that jet engines did the planet Earth. It is reasonably likely that in a couple of hundred years Voyager 1 will be Virginia, hanging in the Smithsonian air and space annex, rather than on its way through interstellar space.
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[Star Wars] Why did Anakin go to 'Force Heaven' when he died but Jacen went to 'Force Hell'? | I'm still not entirely sure what afterlife in the force is and this was the closest way I could explain it. | 33 | Did Jacen really go to "Force Hell", though? He self-described the situation as "damnation", but also achieved a sort of peace at the moment of his death - reestablishing his bond with Jaina, and not carrying his dark-side rage into the afterlife.
Arguably, it's possible that Jacen called it "damnation" because he was left objectively aware of all the evil he did in his life. Of course, Anakin Skywalker may have experienced the same - we don't really know. | 34 |
[Star Trek] What's the level of xenophobia in the Federation and Starfleet? | Is it mostly directed toward enemy species like Klingons and Cardassians and Romulans or is there a consider fear or hatred of non-threats like say the Ferengi or even members of the Federation? | 15 | Overall, it's extremely low, but not nonexistent. The Federation was literally founded on a basis of rejecting xenophobia and embracing the differences between individuals in order to make a stronger whole. In its early days, there were certainly problems as the various species worked with each other in ways they never had before. Part of the reason Earth was chosen as the capitol world was because it was neutral ground, and would solve many of the old animosities and xenophobic issues of some other founding members. For instance, the Andorians would have never joined the Federation if the Vulcans hosted the seat of power. But the longer it existed as a single entity, the less those issues mattered until they mostly disappeared.
Starfleet is slightly different. A lot of ships are crewed largely by a single species, probably for ease of environmental control and communications in light of a catastrophic technological failure. (if the universal translator fails, everyone can speak the same language and understand each other's social cues in order to solve the problem without incident) So a lot of cultural prejudices can spread through a ship through a handful of individuals. Consider Captain Solok's all-Vulcan crew supporting his odd racist vendetta against humans.
On the other hand, most everyone in Starfleet has been raised in the Federation's overall culture of open acceptance. So it's still overall quite low, and is mostly down to an individual level. Miles O'brien had problems with Cardassians, but it was because of his trauma surrounding a recent war, not an ingrained xenophobia against individual Cardassians.
On the other hand, there are a few notable examples of larger animosity. Humans still hold the Romulans in low regard centuries after the Earth/Romulan war. (and the later centuries of backstabbing/treaty dodging) And said tension was one of the reasons the Federation was so lax in its response to the supernova that destroyed Romulus and crippled the Empire. | 28 |
ELI5: Are UFC fighters encouraged to drags fight out in a title match or on PPV? Do the fighters or the league lose money when the "12 second" fight happens in a highly anticipated match up or event? | 54 | No and No... this is the reason they use a Pay per View funding format over a commercialized feed... They have no control over the timeline of bouts, be they 14 seconds or 25 minutes.
As UFC is actual, unscripted fighting, and the prize money for the winners is significantly larger than for the loser (not even counting sponsor opportunities/support), there is no way any fighter wouldn't be going for the fastest win they can accomplish vs. the opponent they face. | 42 |
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ELI5:What exactly is Military–industrial complex and does it actually exist? | 15 | Basically, there is a triangle of organizations that spend your tax dollars. The military, Industry, and legislators. Companies spend a significant amount of time and money trying to sell their concepts to the military brass. They basically try to sell the general on why he needs awesome new tank X. these same companies will also talk to congressmen and senators about how if project tank X happens, they will get a huge new factory and 10 000 jobs in their district or state.
Basically it is industry driving innovation through artifical means. Tank X might be severly overpriced but it is made in America and creates American jobs. So the company gets their profits, the legislators get ecenomic expansion in their districts, and the military gets a sweet new tank. Everybody wins
......except the tax payer who just payed for 10 000 tank X's at 3.5 million a piece when more careful oversight might have shown that the country really only needed 5000 tank X's with a bit less features at 2 million a piece | 19 |
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[Star Wars] What if Jango Fett had survived the battle on Genosis? | Does he keep working with the Separatists? What happens to Boba? | 20 | If jango had survived geonosis he would be marked for death. He knew enough about palpatine to point any potential captors in the right direction and directly tied the clone wars to being a fabricated ruse by the sith. Dooku and palpatine only needed his DNA and training to start the clones and his bread crumb trail to lure a jedi to kamino. After that he was a liability rather than a asset. But given his pragmatic approach to life he probably would have fled the separatist cause not long after geonosis. He would then either head to nar shadda to find work with the hutts or possibly even work out an amnesty deal with another republic adjacent faction. And if the rumors of his association with the death watch are true maybe head to concordia to join them. | 24 |
ELI5: How severe are "Lashes" as a punishment, like the ones given out in Saudi Arabia? | There was the recent story of the man sentenced to 2,000 lashes. How severe are these lashes; what are the typical effects they have on the criminal? | 408 | A friend of mine was caught drunk driving in Jeddah. He was removed from the public. They didn't even tell his work he had been arrested.
4 months later he comes back into work and told his story.
He was lashed every day. If i remember right he got between 60~90 lashes a day. The guy whipping him held a Koran under his arm and so you can't really get a good swing or put your back into it.
He was shitting himself on day 1 when he was first sent for lashes. When the first one hit he said he tried very hard not to laugh.
On the other hand Saudi prison sounds like a rape hole. He slept in the toilet most days (some prison cells had an on suite, yeah go figure) after 3 guys tried to gang fuck him. The guy was 5'5" and built like a bulldog. They didn't make that mistake again. At least that's what he said. | 207 |
[Marvel] What Super - HEROES do not like Spiderman? | Spiderman seems to be universally liked by people. But there has to be people who arent villains but still dont like him.
Is there anyone like that? | 87 | In his early days, Spider-Man inadvertently stepped on a number of toes because A) people thought he was a showboater/cash-grabber and B) Jameson was a full time negative publicist. The public met "Aloof Celebrity Wrestler Spider-Man" well before they met "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man", and then he did shit like break into the Baxter Building to ask what the salary is for being one of the Fantastic Four (>!fuck-all, because it's just Reed paying all the bills and everyone doing it for the pleasure of doing it!<), and not knowing he was just a kid trying to help out his widowed aunt people thought he was kind of a dick. Then, any time he did something without another hero present, JJ would make it look like he was being a nefarious shit. Over time he's won many over, since it's hard to work with the dude and not pick up on his sincerity, but in the beginning he was no one's favorite. | 86 |
How does evolutionary science explain how fresh water fish ended up in inland lakes? | EDIT: Thanks for all the responses. I'm not arguing against evolution (I believe in it), I'm wondering because I live in a glacial lakes area (with many lakes) and it kind of makes me wonder, where did all these sunfish, walleye, northern pike, etc come from? Are they all descendants (that have evolved) from ocean species, or did they end up in fresh water lakes some other way? | 170 | There are a large variety of fish that can live in both freshwater and saltwater. Some of these fish include salmon, bull sharks, and striped bass. All three species mostly come into freshwater to spawn. (There are other fish that leave freshwater to spawn in the ocean)
There are incidences where man-made dams prevented fish from returning to the ocean. They are now 100% freshwater fish. As Pangea became the continents, it trapped some species and that could explain how some fish went from saltwater fish to freshwater fish.
Another explanations would be flooding. An area becoming flooded and previously barren lakes trapping fish when the flood waters dissipate. | 87 |
[Star Wars]How much power did Darth Vader have over Imperial politics? | Provided he has an intrest in it. For example he has always hated slavery. If he put his mind to it, could he stop the Empire from using slave labour or not? | 40 | Vader wielded a lot of power over the Empire, but in the end the Emperor had final say over his decisions. He was, after all, the second most powerful person in charge.Even he answered to someone. As for stopping something like slavery, only if Sidious had some incentive to let him do so. He is a master manipulator above all and can probably convince Vader to abide by his rules and wishes, which is how he kept him in check all this time. | 33 |
[Halo] Is immortality viable? | Could the average public potentially live thousands of years provided they don't get killed or sick? Or is human lifespan the same as it is today, for some reason? | 15 | Are you asking if humans in 2552 are immortal? No, though the lifespan is likely a fair bit longer.
As for Prehistoric humanity. They weren't immortal either, though they did have a form of extreme longevity. | 10 |
[Starcraft hots] Izsha and Abathur, are they part of the leviathan, or are they just creatures crawling around in its flesh? | 22 | If Abathur in Heroes of the Storm is any indication, he's not attached, he just hangs around inside of the Leviathan.
I'd assume that Izsha is the same way; she could totally leave the Leviathan if she wanted, but she attached herself to it for.... reasons. | 10 |
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What is the science behind isotretinoin commonly know as Accutane? | Just curious on how it gets rid of nodular acne. Bonus Points if you explain why the common side effects happen. | 28 | Accutane belongs to a type of medicine known as retinoids. Accutane alters DNA transcription. This decreases the output and alters the size of the sebaceous glands. It also make cells near the sebaceous glands less sticky so they don't form black heads or whiteheads. And finally it reduces the number of bacteria on your skin.
Most of the side effects are cause by how isotretinoin, the active ingredient affects the body. | 10 |
ELI5: Why does mint make water so much colder? | Every time I chew mint gum or have a mint, water becomes almost painfully cold to my mouth. Why is this?
EDIT: Yes, I understand this has been asked before. I apologize. | 933 | You know when you eat a hot wing and it feels like burning? Cold water helps a bit and hot food intensifies it. It's a chemical and it works the opposite with mint. Mint has menthol in it. Menthol makes your brain think that the area is cold when it really isn't in the same way that capsaicin makes the brain think the area is burning. So, when you drink water, the water pulls some real heat from your mouth and the brain adds the real cooling effect of the water to the perceived cooling effect of the menthol and your brain gets a super cool sensation. | 694 |
ELI5: Why do Tetanus shots hurt so much more than other shots? | I don’t think it’s just me but when I was a kid I felt like Tetanus shots were always the worst ones. They’d hurt more the day of and for a few days after. I’m due up again so I was thinking about that. | 412 | Tetanus is a disease that causes muscles to contract, and the vaccine contains just enough of the active substance to induce a slight but persistent (and luckily temporary) contraction at the site of injection. That's why the nurse or whomever is administering the vaccine asks which arm you want for the shot; it's generally easier to tolerate in the non-dominant arm. | 527 |
ELI5: what is fibromyalgia? it seems like a catch-all for chronic pain. | firstly i do not want to discount people with chronic pain. i cant imagine how difficult that must be to deal with. i am a science minded person, and i haven’t found any root cause for fibro, or general chronic pain. what’s the scientific consensus on this? how does it happen? is it a diagnosis from doctors who just don’t know what else to test for? just curious is all. thanks for your time. | 92 | Fibromyalgia is more a description of a set of symptoms than a specific disease in itself. This doesn't make the symptoms less real, it just means we have a better knowledge that those symptoms cluster than about what causes it. Think about it more like depression or adhd than diabetes - they're real disorders, and have underling biological and social causes, but we still group and describe by symptoms rather than by a blood test result or scan etc. | 121 |
ELI5: Why can't you parallel park going forward? | Why can't you do the same steps, but just forward? | 20 | I think it's because front wheels turn but rear wheels don't.
When you're parallel parking, you use your front wheels to point the back of your car at the curb, and your rear wheels end up parallel to it.
If you're driving in forward, the rear of your car is still pointed to the street, and it takes a lot more maneuvering to turn them toward the curb. By comparison, if you're pulling up next to a curb with no cars around you, you turn your front wheels to the curb, then turn them parallel to the curb, and your rear wheels follow and align. But you don't have nearly enough space to do that when parallel parking. | 29 |
CMV: There is no good enough reason to let parents refuse medical treatment for their children. | Get a second opinion, fine, but if an Md tells you your kid needs something and there’s no verified follow up made within a reasonable amount of time at that point it’s medical neglect and authorities should be required to step in.
My own parents refused to treat my adhd because of misinformation. We’ve got antivaxers and faith healers coming out the woodworks. I understand parents think they know what’s best but clearly that’s not always true.
People feeling entitled to have this right over their offspring as if they’re property is not healthy.
“Gubment can’t tell me how to raise my churn.”
You bet your ass it can and it should!
Edit: so I still think fundamentally that just because a parent says “I believe” that should be irrelevant to any medical care for their child. Freedom of speech/religion/belief be dammed I don’t give a fuck. However I have been shown that there’s a lot of nuance which is what I was hoping to learn about in the first place.
The lack of universal healthcare is a massive barrier, and sometimes there are interesting cases that present complicated ethical issues.
I don’t think the antivax crowd deserves the consideration or to be equivocated with Terri Schavo case, we seem to be worried about overstepping parental rights in this arena which is dumb imo
we also and there have CPS helping as someone said. This service is however underfunded and drowning. | 35 | Some points for your consideration
1: At one point in time gay-conversion therapy was considered real science.
2: In America activities like circumcision are considered the norm and were (for a while) recommended by doctors for genital health of boys.
3: Forced medical procedures HAVE been used by the US government to sterilize minorities and native Americans. | 12 |
ELI5: Why do so many people have seafood/shellfish allergies, yet red meat/ poultry allergies are so unheard of? | 30 | Most seafood allergies are a reaction to proteins in the fish or other seafood. We have much more in common with poultry and beef than we do with fish. We share a lot of the same proteins so an allergic reaction to one of those would have killed you because you're made of it. So we are more likely to have a reaction to fish than other meat because we have less in common with it so there are more things you could potentially react to.
Another factor is cooking. Heating breaks down protein that in its uncooked form could trigger a reaction. You wouldn't consider eating a raw burger or chicken breast but sushi is commonplace. This is also why you hear more red meat allergies than poultry. No one wants undercooked chicken but a rare steak is usually preferred. | 15 |
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[Warhammer 40K] How would the knowledge and capabilities of a real life scientist/engineer be regarded in the 40K universe? | How educated a real life scientist, physicist or engineer would be considered in the 40K universe, compared to the average Techpriest or random citizen?
For further clarity, the scientist in question should be really competent in his field, maybe working for high tech or advanced research facilities. | 57 | Even an extremely competant engineer dropped into the 40K universe would be more or less helpless at the beginning. Its the same way a modern car mechanic (e.g. a talented, but mostly average citizen) knows more about machinery than Archimedes, one of the most famous inventors of the classical era.
Techpriests would be on an entirely other level compared to anyone from the 20th century. They do have vast amounts of legitimate scientific knowledge, they're just bogged down by the accompanying religion, bureaucracy, and threat of chaos.
A 20th century scientist wouldn't be able to help much. It's not that people with a philosophy of truly understanding technology and innovating dont exist in 40k. They just tend to get killed by the vast danger inherent in pursuing that sort of thing. | 71 |
[All comics] Do superheroes still have adrenaline rush? | 23 | The true superpower is that, after facing hundreds or thousands of death-defying experiences, most heroes don't suffer from reduced cortisol levels like combat veterans and career police officers and firefighters. They also seem to be immune to the problems of PTSD, depression, weight gain, substance abuse, and heart disease. | 14 |
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I was rejected by four universities in London in the last year - What to do? | Greetings, people of Reddit,
It is out of sadness and sorrow that I write to you today, and also with some kind of feeble desperation. I am a native Italian speaker with a 1st Honours degree in Communication, awarded in my town of birth (Palermo). My dream is to become a professional writer, and my plans involved doing a creative writing / screenwriting MA to at least develop my skills in the craft. However, I was first rejected by two private film schools last year for screenwriting, and by Goldsmiths and Birkbeck this year for Creative Writing. I found some more courses I could apply to, but it’s proving quite hard to believe in myself after what happened with the last two - and I definitely don’t want to lose another year.
I now have been living in London for more than six months, I have some years of writing experience and I translated most of my written works into English so far, plus having worked on some projects entirely in English. I was the first in my class for my English skills, and everyone at my current job praises me for my communication and language skills. What might I be doing wrong?
Thanks, guys. Every comment will be hugely appreciated.
| 21 | Beyond your degree, what experience do you have that is relevant to screenwriting or creative writing?
A good friend of mine went to the London Film School, and got in with a 2.1, but he was an outstanding candidate due to having acted in half a dozen, directed several and written and directed his own play during his undergraduate career, including taking a show on tour in China and taking a show to the Edinburgh Fringe every year.
Like the STEM subjects looking for lab experience, you need to build more experience than just your degree, which in your case isn't in itself particularly creatively focused.
Also, you don't really need an MA to become a professional writer. Join a writing group, practice writing creatively, do NaNoWriMo, enter some creative writing competitions for feedback - it's all perfectly possible without an expensive postgraduate degree.
Edit: ironically, spelling. | 35 |
ELI5: Why does "I'm on my way home" sound fine, but "I'm on my way work" sound weird? | and vice versa - "I'm on my way to work" sounds fine, but "I'm on my way to home" sounds weird. | 20 | Because the adverb home (go home, be home) is derived from a germanic word in the accusative case (a grammatical thing that says the word is your goal or intended destination). The noun work meaning the location at which one works is simply a zero derivation from the verb work (like school the place was taken from school the action).
Like you're five: The word home originally meant "to home" or "at home" in old German, and we didn't translate it very well. The word work is just a short way of saying "the place where I/you work." | 21 |
ELI5: How does one ‘arm’ of a snowflake know what to look like to match the others? | 36 | It doesn’t, but the way the crystals grow is affected by a bunch of little factors that are shared more or less across the flake so they grow the same way. This isn’t always the case, so many flakes grow asymmetrically or are deformed before they get to us. | 27 |
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CMV: lt is wrong that Dancing with the Stars actively avoids conversations about weight but calls extreme attention to other physical differences. | I'm overweight. That is my thing to deal with on my own. However, I see "stars" on Dancing with the Stars that have gained weight over the years and it goes unmentioned. However, in previous seasons physical and mental disabilities are constantly mentioned. Fine, I suppose. The most current season has a triple crown jockey as a dancer. EVERYTIME he is on screen they mention his height! How is that fair? They even "jokingly" stood him on a glitter step stool to reach the height of host and dancer...then poked fun at it.
If we put one of those overweight celebrities on a glitter SCALE, I'm sure all hades would break loose. Why is this acceptable? | 72 | You're talking about "stars" that are on the show due to their celebrity, not their size - if they criticize those celebrities' weight, it's going to be a lot harder to get celebrities to continue to come on the show. | 21 |
ELI5: How did chocolate, vanilla and strawberry become the "standard" icecream flavors? | By standard, I don't mean best flavors, but the most widely available flavors. Is there a historical reason? | 30 | the flavors are very robust and easy to extract.
the easy comparisons are pear and banana. pear juice (also apple) is used as filler in many drinks specifically because other tastes over power it.
bananas on the other hand, have a very strong flavor but separating the the essence from the pulp is difficult. this is why natural banana icecream tends to have the consistency of concrete.
vanilla flavor comes from simply soaking the bean in alcohol. chocolate is a ground up bean. strawberries are obviously a watery fruit. you'll notice the pattern generally holds for other candies as well.
although today we have the technology to do basically whatever we want, icecream is also a milk product and dependent on aeration. many high-acidity fruits (oranges) would risk curdling the milk. mint is notable for destroying the property of dairy that allows it to form air bubbles.
these various factors made a lot of types of icecream unviable for long enough that the 3 primary flavors have simply become too well established. | 38 |
ELI5: Are Jurassic dinosaurs related to Triassic dinosaurs? There was a mass extinction between periods, did the Jurassic dinosaurs "start from scratch"? | 596 | Not an expert, but, yes. The mass extinction at the end of the Triassic wasn't an extinction of dinosaurs; in fact, it was what allowed the dinosaurs to take over the same way the Cretaceous extinction created an opportunity for mammals.
To answer your specific questions, it's hard to know, because we don't have the full dinosaur "family tree." The earliest known stegosaur, *Huayangosaurus* in the middle Jurassic, is still pretty developed. It's generally accepted that stegosaurs and ankylosaurs have common ancestors in the early Jurassic *Scutellosaurus* and *Scelidosaurus.*
*Stegosaurus* does not have any relatives in the Cretaceous period presumably because that group went extinct, being out-competed by others.
Edit: words | 169 |
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ELI5: What causes the audible electric 'buzzing' sound from high voltage power lines? | 6,574 | It's oxygen molecules being charged with electricity. When the charged particles give back that energy they emit light and with a high enough charge the energy transformation of these particles can also be heard as a buzzing sound.
The extreme example would be lightning - particles charged up to a million volt that will make a big boom when discharging, that is the thunder you will hear accompanying the lightning bolt. | 1,899 |
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ELI5: Pointers in programming. | 43 | imagine you have a big store, like an amazon deposit. every shelf and box have a set of coordinates assigned (otherwise good luck finding the correct item there...)
a box is the data.
a set of coordinates (for example written on a piece of paper) is a pointer to the data.
So a supervisor could do 2 things:
1) give you a box and tell you "open this box and put a book inside it" (accessing a variable directly)
2) give you a piece of paper and tell you "open the box at these coordinates and put a book inside it" (via a pointer)
| 35 |
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ELI5: How do electrons stay suspended in orbit? | Okay so I understand that electrons are orbiting the nucleus of an atom, but what keeps them from crashing into the protons in the middle like some wayward meteor striking earth? And why?
Also I searched for my question in ELI5 but didn't find an answer to what I was asking specifically. If it exists and I am simply a failure of a researcher, can I get a link to the post? Thank you so much! | 19 | They don't orbit. The notion that they do is a simplification used in very basic chemistry to make it a bit more manageable intuitively. The real description - and all serious chemistry - requires quantum mechanics to understand. | 14 |
ELI5:Why it is easier to sit with a hunch than your back straight? And how to sit with back straight without feeling uncomfortable? | How I'm sitting right now:
http://imgur.com/pHkmKbt
If I noticed I'm hunched (middle of my spine starts not hurting but feel pressure? ) I try to sit up but sitting up like this can get really uncomfortable.
Why is it more comfortable to sit hunched when its bad for you? And how exactly is it bad for you. And what are ways to sit up straight. Just force myself? | 532 | Long story short, because you're used to it. Since you sit with a hunch all the time that's naturally how you're the most comfortable. Your back isn't used to sitting up straight so when you do make an effort the muscles that aren't used to being used tired quickly, if you made a long term effort to correct your posture it'd get easier as your body adjusts.
Apparently the "proper" way to sit up straight is to put your weight on the two pelvic bones at the bottom of your butt/top of your thigh with your back straight while slightly leaning forward, shoulders relaxed and not hunched. All relaxed of course, sitting like you're strapped to a board will just tire you out more quickly. | 139 |
If we built a more powerful telescope, could we eventually see the Big Bang? | I know the Hubble can see into deep space, where we can already see these blurred formations at it's farthest reach. Would it be possible, with a powerful enough telescope, to see far enough back in time and space and prove the big bang? | 23 | The CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background) is the earliest light we can detect. The CMB was about 370,000 years after the Big Bang.
Prior to the CMB the temperatures and density of the universe was too great to allow photons to persist. Once the universe cooled and inflated enough, photons could persist and that is what we see in the CMB (now red-shifted into the microwave spectrum).
It might be possible to probe prior to the CMB using non-photon based techniques. | 30 |
Why do all stars almost look the same size when they are so far away and apart? | Follow up:
Should not the suns ratio to the stars be diffrent? | 16 | The vast majority of stars are either so far away or so small (relative to their distance) that their light simply can't be resolved as more than a single point of light. Only stars which are large enough or close enough can be resolved to more than a single point, and even these stars have apparent diameters on the order of <60 milliarcseconds
(1 milliarcsecond = 1/3,600,000th of a degree; 1 arcsecond is 1/60th of an arcminute which is 1/60th of a degree).
As an example, Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Sun, has 1/7th the radius of the sun, but is just over 4 light years away, which is pretty close in astronomical contexts. It has been resolved with a diameter of about 1 mas, whereas a star like Betelgeuse which has a radius 630 times that of the Sun but is around 650 light years away has only been resolved to a angular diameter of about 50 mas. | 13 |
CMV: I am going for a degree based on how financially lucrative it is, Instead of chasing a passion. | A few more details.
I am in my early 30s , never went to college and worked all kinds of jobs and eventually opened small businesses. I have done ok but now want to go for something more stable.
I’ve been told for over a decade to go to school and chase a passion but honestly my only passion has been art, I am sure you know the value of an art degree.
I am thinking tech because I actually do ok with math, and I don’t hate the field. I am comparing the financial value of different tech degrees and planning to go for which ever one makes the most money as long as I feel I can meet the demand of earning that degree.
Every time I discuss this people immediately tell me to find something I am passionate about instead and that this is a bad plan, but I feel like if I have not found it by now I can’t really wait around forever and it be better to just get something that makes money so I’d at least have that going for me. | 26 | Most tech fields *require* passion as well. An engineering degree in itself is just a starter kit - they will teach you basics, and how to obtain more knowledge; what you learn at a university will not be enough for your job! No matter which area, technology evolves rapidly, and to keep relevant, you need to be genuinely interested in it and constantly educate yourself. It's not a job which you leave behind when you leave the workplace.
So, "doing ok with math" and "not hating" is not enough. In a couple years in the industry, you will have a choice: Either force yourself to continuously learn new things which don't interest you, or fall out of the circulation. | 29 |
ELI5: What is the difference between Maoism, Communism and Socialism? | 42 | Socialism is a big bunch of different ideas and movements over the past two centuries. What they have in common is that they are all, in one way or another, about *people owning things together as a group.* But is is a really wide range of views and people and movements. Like, some of them are peaceful political parties that want the government to run the economy better; others are violent dictatorships; others are religious sects. It's like a tree with many branches, that is also entangled with other trees.
Communism is a particular big branch of socialism, originally having to do with organizing industrial workers into a single political party and taking over the government to run the economy. The ideas of Communism were put together by Marx and Engels. But the Communist *movement* split into lots of smaller movements once Communist parties actually started getting political power in places like Russia and China.
A lot of those splits weren't about disagreeing on political principles as much as they were about trusting particular movement leaders, or about taking influence from particular countries. This is a really important distinction. It's like the difference between "What should the laws be?" vs. "Who should be the sheriff?" ... or "Are we playing cops-and-robbers or are we playing sandcastles?" vs. "Are we playing the game Joe wants to play, or the game Mary wants to play?"
Maoism is a particular branch of Communism, based on the movement led by Mao Zedong that took over China. One way it's different from other Communism is that it was historically more interested in peasants than in industrial workers. Another is that the Maoist movement was very violent after it took over the government, even more so than the Bolshevik Communist movement in Russia. | 19 |
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ELI5: Why can’t you email “large” files? | You can send 10 minute videos through text but when you try to email, it can’t even handle a less than one minute video clip. Why? What is holding it back from sending through? It doesn’t make sense to me | 55 | Email was invented in 1971. It is almost 50 years old. It far predates digital audio or video.
MMS was invented in 2002. It is less than 20 years old. It was specifically designed to deal with multi-media (hence the name) content that the original SMS spec did not.
As others have said, some/most email systems will prohibit sending or receiving large files because it uses up storage space and can clog networks. However, this isn't inherently true of ALL e-mail systems. | 64 |
ELI5: Why are there feminine/masculine words in many European languages? | 406 | The languages you are talking about are the Indo-European languages. Almost all languages in Europe are part of this language family. The original language that all of these descended from (Proto-Indo-European) had gendered words like that, so almost all of the languages that came from it also have it. Originally, there were three genders: feminine, masculine, and neuter. Some languages, like Russian and German, still have this. Some other languages, like Swedish, merged the feminine and masculine words to make a 'common' gender along with neuter. The Romance languages have gotten rid of the neuter gender and have the feminine/masculine words you were talking about. Funnily enough, English also used to have feminine, masculine, and neuter words, but over time people just kind of got rid of them, and now english is almost completely genderless. | 114 |
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ELI5: Why is it that biking requires a lot less effort than walking, yet when the slope gets steeper, it's easier to get off the bike and push it? | 10,607 | Because you can’t ride a bike as slowly as you can walk. There will be a maximum speed you can maintain up a hill depending on your fitness, you and your bikes combined weights and the steepness of the hill. If that speed is below a certain level (maybe 2mph) then you won’t be able to balance your bike and will find cycling very hard. Obviously you don’t have a minimum speed when walking so you can reduce your speed as much as you like. | 6,322 |
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ELI5:How does the boat in this gif not tip over with a sail that big? | https://i.imgur.com/jk8ZE3y.gifv | 26 | It is called 'trim'. See how all the crew is one side at the beginning? Then they start to move a few at a time to the other side as the ship tacks across the wind. While the sail is huge, the crew controls how much wind it traps, spilling the rest to help maintain trim. | 11 |
ELI5: Why is 2.71828183 so important it's known as e and not just 2.71828183? | Like, why 2.71828183 as opposed to 4.5549867549867837432? | 110 | It so happens that **e** is very important in trigonometry, probability, statistics, and differential calculus. It's also not 2.71828183 -- it's actually an irrational and transcendental number, like pi.
Why is **e** so important? That's hard to explain in LI5 terms. But it shows up everywhere, kind of like pi.
One of the more famous equations in mathematics is this one:
**e^(i * pi) + 1 = 0**
This relates the 5 most important constants (e, i, pi, 1, and 0) in a single equation. | 90 |
ELI5: Why is it that there are cases of people falling from INCREDIBLE heights and living, yet people getting hit by cars going ~30mph die? | 18 | The force and location of the impact can be wildly variable in these cases. Generally speaking, if someone survives a fall from incredible heights, it is because they landed in something fantastically soft and/or otherwise had their fall broken before impact.
Most people who fall from incredible heights die.
| 27 |
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Bayesian Texts - Rethinking (McElreath) vs Data Analysis (Gelman) | A very basic question. Can any Bayesian Statisticians summarize the difference between McElreath's Statistical Rethinking and Gelman's Bayesian Data Analysis? | 17 | They are nothing like each other.
Rethinking is a great introduction to practical Bayesian data analysis and thinking about statistical ideas, with heaps of worked examples and a sense of humour.
BDA is a dry math-intensive reference that goes deep into the details. Very thorough and rigorous, but IMO only something to consider if you’re maths inclined and really want to get deep into Bayesian stats.
Get both! | 22 |
[Indiana Jones] Legal/Political Ramifications of the events of 'The Last Crusade' | The Last Crusade takes place in 1939, and it seems obvious that it's pre-Poland Invasion.
However, given that the political situation between Nazi Germany and the rest of Europe, would travel to/from Germany have been as easy for Indy who was presumably carrying an American passport?
The US embassy in Germany had been closed since 1938, but when Indy, his dad and Marcus get back to the States, surely their revelations would be startling to the American leadership who would be debriefing them, right?
Speaking of, how did they get back to the US? The French ceded the port of Iskenderun (presumably near the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, given it was the city where Marcus was captured) to the Republic of Hatay in 1939, so did they just get aboard a French merchantman? | 15 | Indy carries several different passports for traveling. Treasure hunting is a dangerous game, and Indy is not always doing it legally, so he often travels incognito to avoid undue attention. Plus there is the difficulty of trying to get treasure through customs, so he may avoid traditional commercial travel when it's convienent to do so.
As for "spying" on Germany we find out in The Crystal Skull that Indy joined the military during WW2, so it's likely he was recruited specifically because of his insider knowledge of the Nazi military and infrastructure. | 15 |
CMV:Fearing death doesn't make any sense. | First of all, the "you" you identify with is probably the summation of biological activity in a complex and ordered fashion in such a way that produces consciousness.
Secondly, when speaking of self-centered or "selfish" fears, you can only rationally fear that which you may possibly experience. Further, It is only rational to fear possible experiences as they would be experienced by you *at the time they can or will occur*.
Thirdly, experience terminates before or when the biological integrity of your being terminates. This is death.
Conclusion: Since death requires an end to experience, you cannot rationally fear experiencing the absense of experience. Fear of an end to experience is therefore irrational.
| 27 | I don't think death as you've defined it is the part that scares most people. It's fear of some combination of:
* uncertainty
* helplessness
* loss
I would say that 'fear of lack of experience' is a pretty convoluted fear to have, but fear of an uncertain future, an uncertain time until you die, or an uncertain ability to accomplish important things BEFORE you die is pretty reasonable. Fear of being helpless against aging or leaving your loved ones alone is also reasonable. Fear of losing things, people, and experiences that are important to you are also reasonable.
I would guess that most people who fear death fear the consequences it has for their life, not some ambiguous non-experience. | 26 |
Is the Royal Bank of Scotland state-owned? | I'm 99% sure the answer this is no. But I'm a little confused because.
1. Why else would it be named in such a way that suggests it's nationally owned
2. it merged with the 'National Commercial Bank of Scotland' in 1969, which was in turn formed by a merger 'National Bank of Scotland' and 'Commercial Bank of Scotland' in 1959. I can't find anything stating explicitly that these banks are state-owned, but based on their names, I feel like they must be.
If the answer is no, then why are they named as such?
&#x200B;
I'm trying to determine if it's in anyway comparable to banks like KfW Bankengruppe in Germany, or even the 'Scottish National Investment Bank' in Scotland itself.
Thanks! <3 | 25 | It’s an ordinary commercial bank. The parent company is Natwest plc. The UK government does have a high shareholding in it, but that’s purely because it nearly died in the last financial crisis, so got bailed out - the government is slowly settling down its stake. | 27 |
[MARVEL 616] If I were Odin and playing a game of eugenics; what Race could I realistically I marry Thor to, to ensure his successor is even more powerful or has a wider skill set? | 37 | A mutant human. Humans are the most capable species and live in the center of the universe. A guy that can stretch and a woman that can make herself invisible created a god-like being equal to Galactus in strength. A guy that can read minds had a kid so powerful they literally had to prevent him from being born to stop him, and that was only because he was too delirious to stop them. | 65 |
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[Spider-Man] Why does Spidey pull his punches against Rhino? | So we know that Spidey pulls his punches because he could probably kill your general run of the mill criminal with a single punch, but when it comes to fighting villains who can take more punishment like Rhino or Tombstone or Kingpin why does he still pull his punches where it takes him so many hits to actually bring the guy down? The guy can stop a train, hold up buildings, etc. he must be able to use a little more of his strength against Rhino and be more efficient about it, right? | 474 | Well whose to say he **isn’t** pulling his punches against rhino? It’s much harder to do something when you’re actively trying to figure out the upper limit at the same time. It’s possible with every punch he’s judging whether he can go harder without hurting Rhino.
Also it’s quite possible Peter just doesn’t like violence. He might accidentally let go. Or he just doesn’t enjoy beating up people. | 421 |
[Harry Potter] What happens to muggles bitten by werewolves? | 18 | While Gilderoy Lockhart himself has been discredited, the experiences he plagiarized appear to be accurate-- his victims have all been positively identified in the last 21 years. According to *Wanderings with Werewolves*, Muggles bitten by werewolves generally lack the ability to reverse the transformation-- a notable case occurred in suburban Toronto in 2000 where a pair of Muggle sisters, Ginger and Brigitte Fitzgerald, were attacked by a werewolf. The younger sister managed to delay her own transformation using Aconite, the active ingredient found in the Wolfsbane Potion. Unfortunately, she too ultimately succumbed to her lycanthropy and had to be put down by officers of the Department of Magic and Wizardry, Canada. | 15 |
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If time slows down proportionally, the closer to the speed of light you travel, does that mean that time has no existence to a light wave in a perfect vacuum? | I've been getting WAAAAAAY into the cool parts of science lately. Rewatched every through the wormhole episode, currently halfway through "Physics of the Impossible" by Michio Kaku, watched tons of episodes of Nova, and one question I haven't seen answered(yet), is whether time exists at all for a light wave travelling in a perfect vacuum? | 47 | Do you understand mathematical limits?
If you take the function, then yes the limit approaches "zero" or "no time".
**HOWEVER**, nothing moving at c can have a valid reference frame, because the equations are undefined at c.
So the answer is "light waves in a vacuum cannot have a reference frame", and also "as you get closer and closer to c, time slows down more and more to a complete standstill, but never gets there" | 22 |
Why are gold and copper the only metals that, in their elemental form, have a different color from the rest of the silvery grey metals? | Gold has a yellow color and copper is reddish-orange, but why are they the only metals that aren't silver or grey? | 16 | Usually, a metal has lots of freely moving electrons. If you try to pass an electromagnetic wave through it, the electrons will follow the electric field, unless the frequency is so high that the electrons can't respond fast enough. For basically all metals, change in behaviour happens somewhere in the UV. This is why basically all visible light is reflected, causing the silvery colour.
Copper and gold have their colour because in addition to being metallic, an electron needs fairly little energy to jump to a higher orbital (from 3d to 4s in copper, and 5d to 6s in gold). So their colour comes from the photon energy associated to these electronic transitions. | 15 |
Will the forces that is expanding the universe ever get strong enough to expand the space between atoms atoms? | 29 | There isn't a force expanding the Universe, there is a force making the expansion accelerate, and it's due to dark energy. This force acting between two objects a given distance apart (such as nucleus and electrons) is a constant in time, it does not get bigger. It's very small. | 10 |
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ELI5: What did AMD do wrong and why did they fall behind Intel in terms of processors? | 80 | The history between AMD and Intel is extremely interesting. AMD was actually only able to make x86 chips because of IBM, who wanted to use the Intel 8086 chips in its IBM Personal Computers, or PCs, and required two manufacturers - much like how Apple today has multiple manufacturers of all of the components in their phones and tablets.
So AMD piggy backed in a way on the innovations of Intel, providing clones of their architecture and chipsets. However, after a decade of licensing Intel's architecture, AMD had to stop producing new clones of Intel's designs, meaning that AMD had to design its own architectures that may, or may not, have included compatibility with Intel's. Ironically, modern 64bit processors are of AMD design: Intel had designed the original x86 architecture, but was pushing "Itanium" for theri 64 big instruction set, called i64. However, AMD extended the x86-32 architecture (32 bit x86 - it had already been extended from its original 16 bit) into the x86-64 that's in common use today.
But even with Intel adopting and licensing their instruction set, Intel as a company is simply better at two things: chip design, and chip naming. Intel's chips work and are stable, throughout the whole range of their chips. AMDs work, usually, but are less stable, and underperform when compared to Intel chips of similar spec. Intel's naming and marketing is very phenomenal - They use simple series names with revision numbers to help people know what's next, and give specs like "Cores", "Clock Speed" and "Cache Size" to help people quickly and easily compare chips or figure out what the chip can do. As such they're favored by businesses because they are significantly more transparent with those figures than AMD is. And even among non-techies, Intel is a known brand name that they can trust when they go and buy a computer.
At the moment, AMD is struggling to try and define a market, creating their own terms like "APU" instead of CPU with GPUs. While they've made strides to be more transparent with frequencies and capacities, they still feel to professionals like they're trying to pull a fast one: their current A-series APUs, for instance, list "Compute cores (CPU + GPU, total count)" instead of treating the two separately. As any professional can tell you, those aren't the same and need to be treated separately! But at the same time, they are a good "cheaper alternative" for consumers who will never know (or never need to know) the difference, and their competition in the market place keeps them alive and drives innovation.
AMD IS however doing really well with their ATI graphics division, which they acquired a few years back: it's still just as well known as Nvidia, and often as reliable. | 49 |
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CMV: Abortion should remain legal | Abortion should be legal in my opinion for 4 main reasons (I understand there are more, I am just offering up 4 of my own).
1: Pregnancy’s affect on the female’s life
2: Relationship between fetus and host
3: Pregnancy circumstances
4. Overpopulation (yes, I went there)
Pregnancy’s Effects on the Female’s Life:
When you are pregnant, if you would like your baby to be healthy, there are plenty of things you should/shouldn’t do, which can drastically alter your lifestyle. You may have to quit a lot of your favorite hobbies. You may not be able to work your job anymore. You’ll be physically restricted in a lot of ways. This process lasts around 38 weeks. You also gain weight, which takes a while to lose after the baby is born and can cause a lot of self-consciousness issues in females directly following child birth. You will most likely have lower back pain/soreness or problems with posture once your belly begins to increase in size. Your day to day life will not be as physically involved as usual, which can affect your career and health, depending on what activities you were accustomed to performing before you got pregnant. In the gym, you are no longer supposed to live heavy weights, or perform high-impact exercises. This can be a problem if you are an avid gym goer. You can’t scuba dive, water skii, do contact sports, and it’s recommended to not eat too many seafood options due to high mercury content. Some people live as if they were going to die the next day. Those people tend to live lives full of extreme sports, fun, and danger. If you are one of those people, would you not want to be able to remove the limiting factor from your life by getting an abortion?
Relationship Between Fetus and Host:
In scientific terms, a parasitic relationship is classified as a relationship in which one organism, the parasite, lives in or on another organism, the host, and is harmful to it. Well, a fetus is harmful in the sense that it detracts nutrients from the daily food you eat, similar to a tapeworm. Additionally, pregnancy can cause fatigue, nausea, tender/swollen breasts, heartburn, constipation, increased stress levels, mood swings, bouts of sadness, decreased sex life, increased risk of iron deficiency anemia, increased stress on the heart, hearth rhythm issues, heart valve issues, congestive heart failure, worsening of asthma, increased risk of developing blood clots in legs if you have atrial fibrillation, back pain, severe depression (if a miscarriage occurs), anxiety, shortness of breath, leg cramps, decreased sleep, breast growth, contractions (duh), spider veins, frequent urination, vaginal discharge, food aversion/cravings, and in worst case, death. Yes, death due to pregnancy is still a real thing.
"over 600 women die each year in the United States as a result of pregnancy or delivery complications" - the CDC (yeah yeah I know it's not really a CDC quote but i'm lazy and it was on the CDC website)
Clearly, a fetus does not have a healthy impact on the body. Some pregnancy’s go off without a hitch, and are relatively pleasant in comparison to others, but the pregnancy process generally affects the body in a couple severe ways.
Pregnancy Circumstances:
A woman can get pregnant in many different ways.
If a woman is raped, and becomes pregnant, should she be forced to keep the child?
If a woman has a one night stand while using birth control, and becomes pregnant, should she be forced to keep the child?
If a woman has a one night stand and the condom breaks, resulting in her pregnancy, should she be forced to keep the child?
If a woman lives on her own, with absolutely no living relatives, family members, and a deceased partner, who impregnated her before his death, and her career is a career that will be lost, or severely hampered by pregnancy, should she be forced to keep the child?
If a woman does not have the financial means of supporting a child, and becomes pregnant, should she be forced to keep the child?
If a lesbian couple decide to have a baby, and one of the females becomes pregnant through insemination, and then they break up, or they both decide they don’t want the baby, should a baby be forced upon them?
If a woman is pregnant, and is scared of the outcome of the pregnancy, or scared of death (although rare, it still happens), should she be forced to endure childbirth?
If a woman is pregnant, and no longer wants the baby/regrets her decision to get pregnant, should she be forced to suffer the pains of childbirth, and the side effects of pregnancy?
My answer is no to all of these. Your opinion may differ, but I believe it to be a woman’s right (and if a man could somehow get pregnant, a man’s right) to have control over her own body. If I had a tapeworm inside of me, I would want it removed. If I somehow ended up having a baby puppy inside of me, that was going to take 38 weeks to come out of me, and could potentially kill me or hurt me, I would weigh my options, look up statistics, and depending on the risk factor make a decision based on the outlook of my future and my current desires. Perhaps I would keep the puppy and life would be great, or perhaps I would not keep the puppy due to the impact it would have on my life. Either way, I would want the freedom of choice.
Overpopulation:
The title of this section explains itself. There are way too many people on the planet right now. Earth’s resources are limited, we should not be growing the population anymore, in fact we should probably try to slowly decrease the population to a stable and more manageable number. There is no need to explain anything here about overpopulation, this is about abortion. Overpopulation is a huge problem for the environment and our planet, and abortion is one way of reducing population growth. That is why this is one of the 4 main reasons I believe abortion should be allowed.
http://www.broitsablog.com/?p=181 | 17 | The abortion question comes up all the time here and it always boils down the the exact same question:
_When do you feel it stops being a lump of cells and starts being a person?_
If you say "on day one" then you are against abortion. If you say any other day, then you are for it.
You, clearly, are in the second camp since you support abortion. Unless there is a feasible way to move you to the first camp, there is no progress to be made here; history has shown us that all too well. | 12 |
Could a Babel fish (Hitchhiker's Guide) translate Tamarian (Star Trek)? | The Babel fish supposedly translates by regurgitating pure thoughts into the brain of its host. Would that work with a language like Tamarian, which is entirely metaphorical? It seems like it would work, because the meaning would be converted into thoughts by the fish. | 27 | I think the language itself might be immaterial right? It transmits its info brain to brain right?
It might be more interesting to wonder whether having a babel fish in your ear might even vastly improve communication in your native language because the fish could send meaning between two people without involving language. | 14 |
What causes large crowds to move slower than the average individual in the crowd? e.g. traffic jams. | If everyone is trying to move in the same direction why is that everyone ends up moving slower? | 33 | Crudely, cars and people can only go as fast as the cars and people in front of them. This limits flow if there is a chokepoint.
Cars on roads are especially interesting because the throughput (measured in cars per second) past a particular piece of road is governed by how people drive (specifically, how close they drive to the car in front of them). Experimentally, it peaks at about 30 mph in most places -- so road speed is unstable under heavy traffic conditions.
You can treat traffic as a flow of fluid, with the individual cars acting as molecules of the fluid. If you do that, you get a bizarre version of hydrodynamics since the interactions between cars are so nonlinear.
Pedestrians have the same general issue: if you pack them too closely, they can't walk effectively (trip over each other), so there's a sort of side-to-side shuffling gait that people adopt in crowds. It's much slower than free walking, and can cause similar jamming behavior in narrow walkways.
| 11 |
Why are camera lenses the size they are, and why can't they be scaled down to phone-size? | In more detail, SLR cameras with the huge lens attachments take stunning photos, while mobile phone cameras have always been sub-par at best.
Why can't the exact design of an SLR camera lens be made smaller? Why is 35mm (?) the standard size? Does it have to do with surface area or something? How much light is captured? Is it just cost that's holding the industry back?
What would pictures look like if those exact lenses were shrunk from 35mm to 5mm or 3mm?
Sorry if these are stupid questions or if I'm asking too many questions at once.
Edit:
Thanks for the solid responses, reddit. TIL
Edit 2:
Alright, I didn't realize the mm measurements were focal length, not diameter or radius. I don't know how to camera | 231 | Miniaturizing the fancy lenses on SLR cameras would be a lot of work—they require extremely precise optical glasswork and tons of fiddly mechanical gizmos for focusing and such.
The really insurmountable difference between big cameras and small ones, though, is sensor size. The sensors used in digital cameras have tiny electronic "photosites" which convert photons into electrons. Making these smaller has a serious adverse effect on the quality of the images you can produce, for physics reasons.
There's nothing magical about the 35mm size, of course. That just happens to be the size of the imaging region of standard photographic film, so lots of equipment was made to that standard for a very long time. When digital SLR cameras hit the scene, photographers and manufacturers wanted to keep using their old lenses, so they kept the same physical layout and just replaced the film with a digital sensor of comparable size. | 117 |
CMV: We should be calling for police reformation. Not defunding then. | I realize there are some people who mean reformation by chanting, “defund the police”. But it’s causing needless confusion on a matter that really should be as clear as possible.
I suppose you can argue that chanting, “defund the police” has a better ring than, “reform the police”, but to me, and a lot of other people, defunding something is not the same as reformation.
Reformation means to change something for the better, whereas defund means to take away money. Something that I would argue we need to keep so the police can actually get the training they need.
If you need to see proof, just look at what’s happening. There are people calling the movement “stupid” and saying it’s a terrible idea. A lot of them are very progressive people. So why would they be calling police reformation a stupid idea if it clearly needs to and can happen?
Change my mind by telling me why shouting about taking money away from police is better than shouting about reallocating it. | 67 | >whereas defund means to take away money
But that is what people are asking for.
They want to remove funding from the police departments and reallocate it to other social services. Rather than have a cop deal with the homeless, send a social worker. Rather than have a cop deal with a suicide, send a psychologist. Rather than have a cop deal with a rape victim, send a counselor. Take some police resources and send them to people in a better position to help.
We ask the police to do _so much_ and we can't expect them to be experts at every task put to them. If we reallocate their funding _and_ reallocate their tasks, we won't need as many police officers. We can then spend time training this smaller force for the tasks that _do_ need a police officer, which will make them more effective at their job. | 44 |
[SW:TFA] Why hasn't Anakin appeared to Kylo Ren in Force Ghost form to set him straight? And what does Ren mean by "show me again" when taking to Vader's helmet? | In the scene where Kylo Ren is taking to Vader's helmet, what do you think he means by "show me again"?
We know from the end of ROTJ that Anakin returned to the light side and was/is capable of projecting himself in Force Ghost form. Since Kylo Ren seems to look up to his grandfather much, why hasn't Anakin appeared to him in Force Ghost form to set him straight on the fact that Ren is doing everything that he is doing for the exact OPPOSITE reasons that Anakin did? Anakin turned to the dark side and became Vader to protect his family (which as we know, failed) but never the less, that was hit motivation. Maybe we will get answers to this in the next 2 films. | 413 | Communication through the living Force is a tenuous prospect at best, and likely temporary.
On the flip side, the cave on Dagobah shows us that dark side actions and influences can leave imprints on physical objects.
Given those two factors, it appears that Ren has tapped into the imprint of the helmet itself, and mistaken it for the presence of Vader/Anakin. Meanwhile Anakin has become too absorbed into the living Force to have the ability or desire to reach out to Kylo in the form of a Force Ghost. | 287 |
ELI5: How did a phone connect to another phone overseas pre-1950's? | 1,691 | Major cities had a "long distance switchboard" which had access to overseas telecom lines (typically cables running under the ocean). You had to call the operator and ask for "long distance" and then talk the the "long distance operator" and tell them what country you wanted to call. They made the connection through very primitive means, sometimes literally by plugging a wire into a socket. | 1,016 |
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Is nuclear power safe? | Are thorium power plants safer and otherwise better?
And how far away are we from building fusion plants?
Just a mention; I obviously realize that there are certain risks involved, but when I ask if it's safe, I mean relative to the potentially damaging effects of other power sources, i.e. pollution, spills, environmental impact, other accidents. | 52 | Yes. There have been three major accidents in the last fifty years, and only one of them was seriously major. Compare that to fossil fuels, where, for instance, the entire gulf of Mexico gets covered in oil, or just last week when 19 miners died in a coal explosion.
We're at least 20 years from fusion plants, probably a lot more. Maybe it'll be like SimCity2000 and we'll have them by 2050. | 77 |
[Pokemon] What are inside Pokeballs? What do captured Pokemon experience within them? | 15 | Essentially they experience stasis. As they are converted to digital code, their consciousness becomes inactive. Simply put, their biological processes such as the ability to form conscious thought are impossible (their entire being becoming code after all).
So the last thing they see and experience is whatever they see before they get captured or returned to their Pokéball, and then the next thing they see and experience is whatever is in front of them after the Pokéball reconstructs their digital code into their biological form. Imagine it like the Transporters from Star Trek, but the travel time being inconsistent depending on how long it takes for the Trainer to send out that Pokémon again. | 10 |
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What would far left and far right platforms look like if they were well informed by objective economics, but still had their normative values? | What would far left and far right platforms look like if they were well informed by objective economics, but still had their normative values?
To what degree is neoliberalism normative?
Can it be separated into objective factual believes, and fundamental moral believes? | 73 | I can't answer, sadly — but great question. I'll be following closely to see if someone qualified can answer.
Two clarifying questions, though:
* Can you give an example of a far-left platform that you think isn't, or may not be, informed by objective economics? Are we talking Bernie Sanders or Nicolás Maduro — or do you mean really far left; Mao and Stalin?
* What do you mean by "far right"? Are we talking Neo-Nazis or do you just mean free-market, small-state economics taken to its furthest extreme, without necessarily any nationalist component?
EDIT: I'll also be interested to see what economists make of whether or not economics is objective. | 23 |
[MCU] Why didn't other Titans leave their homeworld or try to conquer other planets? | Why did the Titans stay on Titan if they knew they were on the brink of disaster? Thanos has become the scourge of the entire galaxy by himself, surely an army of Titans could have easily taken another survivable planet for themselves. | 21 | I thought that was part of their downfall, they never expanded into the universe, became stagnant and ultimately ran out of resources.
It was a pradise for a while but not one that could be sustained. | 30 |
ELI5: Why do motorcyclists rev their engines at stops? | 23 | back in the day (pre fuel injected bikes), you had to worry about your carb being tuned properly. if it wasnt, your bike might die/stall out at a light. so the easiest way to fix this was to 'blip' the throttle when the bike needed a bigger sip of gas (to stay running).
today, its mostly because people either:
1) want to hear their exhaust
2) dont understand that they dont need to blip their throttle, but do it anyway
3) force of habit from riding a non fuel injected bike
source: i ride. also, i am one of the moderators over at /r/harley, /r/hogfornoobs, and /r/fuckharley. this question would get some interesting responses over on /r/harley. | 61 |
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ELI5 Why referring a pakistani 'paki' is a racial abuse? | Aussie, Brit, Indian, African is all okay but 'paki' is so wrong. Why? | 39 | Slurs of any kind become wrong because of they way they are used. Once the word has been used in a hateful or derogatory manner enough times, the word itself can be used to imply hateful and derogatory things without them having to be explicitly mentioned. This makes the word itself offensive, and thus bad. Often, once it becomes taboo, the offensiveness creates a feedback cycle, making it worse and worse to use.
In case you're a literal 5 year old: If you call someone a name in a mean way long enough, that name will remind them of the mean things that go along with it, and so they might have their feelings hurt if you call them that. | 41 |
ELI5: if we're conscious of our own addictions why do we still act on them? | Things like pornography, alcohol, nicotine are what common addictions are. If we are not proud of them and want to quit why do we still fall in the trap of them even if we are truly conscious of our own behavior at the time of consumption? | 18 | Probably because of the PHYSICAL discomfort that comes with the absence of certain addictions. Alcoholics feel terrible if they don't drink because their bodies need the fix at that point. Smokers don't feel "pain" by quitting but their emotions do end up being thrown out of whack in the early stages of quitting. Sometimes it's easier to just smoke the cigarette instead of yelling at your friends/family. Not too familiar with porn addiction but that doesn't seem like it would kill anyone or ruin anyone's life either way. | 14 |
[James Bond] It takes 2 kills to become a 00 Agent. Why? | Does this mean if any agent who wants to become a 00 has to go out and kill 2 people, or is he ordered to assassinate 2 before he can be promoted? Also, what if a lesser agent kills people by accident? Is that against MI6 regulations? | 319 | Its ordered by command as a test, that you're capable of doing the deed and still function normally afterward. Someone could be the best at sneaking around but completely fall to pieces after the first kill, so they make you do two to be certain you won't break in the field. | 303 |
[Batman] So did The Dent Act mention Batman at all? | In the 8 years that have following since Batman cruelly killed our wonderful white knight Harvey Dent, we;'ve seen sweeping new powers incarcarate many criminals, without parole. But my question is, and I'm too lazy to read it myself, did The Dent Act contain any new laws regarding Batman? | 42 | No. DA Dent, while agreeing with the Batman personally, always maintained that he was an illegal vigilante, that would one day answer for his crimes. The Dent Act itself was solely focused on combating organized crime. | 30 |
[Dr. Who] Why did every race show up to Trenzalore to stop the Doctor from bringing the Time Lords back? | I thought the Daleks were the only other race in the Time War. What are the Sontarans (sp?) and Cybermen doing there?
Somewhat related: Why were the Daleks and Time Lords even at war in the first place? | 46 | The others are worried what the return of the Time Lords would mean. The Dalek's cannot accept loss or stalemate, and the return of the Time Lords would mean that the Dalek's last major enemy was still around. It would mean, by necessity, that the Time War begins again. That's not good news for anyone.
As for why they fought in the first place? It's not exactly clear... likely because the Time Lords were an affront to the Dalek's and their perceived perfection. | 47 |
What in the brain gives certain memories for a rememberer a sense of 'sureness'? | How are some memories rated by witnesses to an event from unsure to sure? | 29 | You can think of it as listening to the chorus of a room full of people. If everyone is saying the exact same thing in synchrony, it will be loud and clear and you will be sure of what you are hearing. The less synchronized everyone is, the more there will be other voices saying something else, or just plain noise, and you can no longer hear a single loud and clear chorus and you become less and less sure. | 14 |
ELI5: How come, most regular users can type without looking at the keyboard, but can not recite the order the letters are in beyond QWERTY? | 26 | It's called muscle memory. It's a subconscious nerve+brain+muscle pattern that has been learned where we can easily repeat behavior. It's the same reason why practicing shooting a gun at targets improves our ability or how playing a game improves our abilities. Or more specific to why this exists: why we can throw a spear at a target better after practicing a lot. | 34 |
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ELI5: For example, we have a bottle filled with water to the point when there’s no space left in that bottle, is the water still moving as we shake the bottle? | 122 | Mechanical engineering PhD here with significant study in fluid mechanics.
Yes the fluid will move around internally, mostly due to any rotation of the bottle. It you rotate the bottle at all (i.e. anything other than perfect linear motion) the inner walls of the bottle will cause drag against the water that’s closest to the edge. But the water in the middle of the bottle will be stationary due to inertia. The difference in momentum (edges are moving, center is stationary) will cause internal currents.
Note that this can be due to even very small-scale rotations to the point that this will always happen in the real world.
If you don’t believe me... put some food dye in a full water bottle then seal it. Shake it up and you’ll see the food coloring move around very quickly.
If you’re more interested in this, two important concepts are “Laminar flow” and “viscous drag”. | 188 |
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ELI5: what is the difference between rubbing alcohol and drinking alcohol | EDIT: to specify I am asking mainly about the chemical difference. | 360 | First, all alcohols are poisonous; ethyl alcohol (booze) is just the least poisonous, and our bodies are able to clear it out before it kills us, unless we try very hard.
Rubbing alcohol is either a different alcohol (commonly isopropyl alcohol), and/or it is "denatured," which means that something vile has been added to it to make it taste bad and/or be more poisonous.
You really don't want to drink rubbing alcohol. | 235 |
CMV: Communism is a fundamentally unworkable economic system | To start with, I am defining communism as an economic system where all property is publicly owned, and resources are given to citizens to fulfill their needs, as described by Marx.
This system, however, has a number of fundamental flaws that are inherent to it and cannot be escaped.
Its largest problem, by far, is that it stifles innovation and growth. If your rewards are guaranteed, and are guaranteed to be equal, then there's very little motivation to work harder and innovate more, because there's no personal reward from it.
To provide an example, I'll use chickens and eggs. If you're a farmer with a chicken coop and you make enough eggs(let's say 100 a month as a totally arbitrary number) to fulfill your quotas, off of 20 hours a week of work. You *could* raise more chickens, maybe bump it up to 200 eggs, but why would you? You would need to build a bigger coop, spend more time caring for them, shovel more waste out and more food in, and it's just generally a lot more work. Maybe if you did double the number of chickens, you'd be fed up and you'd try to make an automatic chicken feeder, so it took less time for you, and maybe you'd even bump it up to 300 eggs with this new-fangled chicken feeder, but if you're on 100 eggs, there's just not much pressure. The entire point of communism is that whether you get 100 or 300 eggs, you are still rewarded about the same, so why put in the extra effort?
There are, of course, proposed solutions, often quotas- but those have a very poor track record, for the simple reason that setting quotas is *really hard*. Set them too high, and your citizens can't reach them and they hate you, and set them too low, and just don't get very much stuff done, and figuring out how much is too high or too low is really, really difficult. There's a million factors that go into determining the maximum amount that a person can reasonably produce, and such a top-heavy approach simply cannot account for them.
&#x200B;
To step higher up, planned economies like this(and communism does demand a planned economy) have *really* bad track records. Markets and environments change dramatically and quickly, and it's very hard for top-heavy economies to respond well to those sorts of changing circumstances. It's very hard for people to respond to change, generally, especially if there's no personal stake. If the central planner goes home at the end of the day no matter what, then they probably aren't gonna get super invested in whether or not all the stuff that they're responsible for is performing optimally.
Additionally, they're simply much worse at creating that innovation that drives the world forward- as outlined, they decrease personal desire to innovate, but even for the people who *do* want to make something new, it's much more difficult. Creating something new and exciting is, at the end of the day, going to take resources and time, and if you have to petition a bureaucrat a hundred miles away to let you do this, that's a huge barrier to entry. | 1,356 | > Its largest problem, by far, is that it stifles innovation and growth. If your rewards are guaranteed, and are guaranteed to be equal, then there's very little motivation to work harder and innovate more, because there's no personal reward from it.
People innovate and work hard all the time without getting lots of money from it. This is just knee-jerk cynicism, assuming that the only thing that'll motivate people is personal, financial gain. | 1,322 |
[DC/Injustice] Why did majority of the Justice League join Superman's world dictatorship? | Green Lantern, the Flash and Wonder Woman, among MANY other league members, have been heroes for a long time so why exactly do they decide that joining Superman's dictatorship is a good idea? I get the idea that when you see an insanely strong person forcing others to do their bidding that you'd be tempt to join rather than fight, but these aren't regular guys they're the JUSTICE LEAGUE. Their whole point is to fight for the greater good and stop tyranny, why would the turning of one man (albeit one of their brethren and one of the most powerful among them) cause them to give up all the ideals that they've stood for for so long?
Also Bonus Question: Why didn't Batman use his contingency plans for rogue League members from JLA: Tower of Babel? | 75 | Because they are or at least see themselves as doing more good now than they were before. All wars have ended. Crime is at an all time low. The world is technically at peace.
Bonus: Remember, this is a different world from the regular one. Batman probably never developed any plans in this world. | 76 |
ELI5:Where do comets come from? | 55 | Same place the planets did: interstellar dust and gases.
The universe started out as almost pure hydrogen, the simplest atom out there. Stars began to take shape by clumps of hydrogen collecting and mashing together so tight that the hydrogen started turning into heavier atoms like helium, lithium, oxygen, carbon, silicon, and Icouldgoonforalongtimeium.
Those early stars eventually reached a point where they blew up, scattering all those new more complex atoms into space... and some of those new atoms combined into stuff like other stars, water-ice, dust and rock.
Clumps that were close to new stars became planets like our Earth, and clumps that formed way far away from the stars became comets... and there are lots of them.
There's billions and billions of water-ice and dusty bodies way, way out there past even Pluto, hanging around in a very loose formation called the "Oort cloud" (cool name ain't it?)... and once in a while when one bangs into something or gets pushed around by gravity, it falls toward the sun and heats up to start boiling away, and make a long bright tail that we can see. | 35 |
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If I were stranded in space, could I propel myself throwing rocks? | Imagine I'm floating in space, trying to reach a space station 20 km away. Lets assume I have unlimited water, food and oxygen supply thanks to the unobtanium reactor in my backpack. I have a bag of rocks, samples from my mission. Could I reach the station throwing rocks in the opposite direction? if so, how many rocks would be required?
Edit: grammar and such. | 153 | It would require a single rock (assuming you have really good aim). There is no friction in space, so as long as you are willing to wait a while, throwing a single rock will give you a non-zero velocity that will get you there eventually. Let's say the rock is 1 kg, and that you weigh 70 kg, and that you can throw the rock at 20 m/s. Conservation of momentum tells us that you will recoil with about 0.3 m/s which will get you to the space station in just 18 and a half hours. | 81 |
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