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CMV: Pit bulls Should Require a License to Own
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In this month alone, 6 people and 9 animals have been killed in a pit bull attack. Many others have been maimed and permanently disfigured/disabled because of a pit bull attack.
Pit bull supporters often say "it's the owner, not the dog." Personally, I disagree. According to Wikipedia,
>The bull-and-terrier was a breed of dog developed in the United Kingdom in the early 19th century for the blood sports of dog fighting and rat baiting, it was created by crossing the ferocious, thickly muscled Old English Bulldog with the agile, lithe, feisty Black and Tan Terrier. The aggressive Old English Bulldog, which was bred for bear and bull baiting, was often also pitted against its own kind in organised dog fights, but it was found that lighter, faster dogs were better suited to dogfighting than the heavier Bulldog. To produce a lighter, faster more agile dog that retained the courage and tenacity of the Bulldog, outcrosses from local terriers were tried, and ultimately found to be successful.
These dogs were bred specifically because they are aggressive, powerful, and violent. Now, personally, I believe all pit bulls should be neutered and the breed should be heavily restricted. But at the very least, I think owners should be required to demonstrate that they are experienced pet owners, carry insurance, and perhaps have taken a dog training course, so they can recognize when their pit is agitated and how to prevent a tragedy.
I also think pit bull ownership should carry a legal duty to reasonably protect others from the pit. "Reasonable" would include measures such as displaying signage warning neighbors and guests that a pit bull lives in the home, not letting the pitbull stay in a yard unmonitored (regardless of fencing), and keeping the pitbull leashed at all times in public.
I would also like to see regulations preventing shelters from "rebranding" obvious pit mixes so that families and owners are not duped into adopting a pitbull mix. Ideally, shelters would need to provide a warning to potential adopters (and of course, adopters would then need to have a license to own a pit).
Before anyone tries, please know that I'm unlikely to be swayed by any kind of anecdotal "but my velvet hippo is a good girl and never hurt anyone" arguments. That's what most owners say when they're being sued for injuries their pit caused a child or another pet. I understand they don't all attack- but it's in their breed, so something could trigger them.
| 19 |
The question isn't "What percentage of dog attacks are from pit bulls," but rather, "What percentage of pit bulls commit attacks."
In the last decade (2010 - 2021) there have been 430 fatal dog attacks in the US. And I'll give it to you, 185 of them (or 43%) were committed by pit bulls.
However, the important thing to remember is that there are *4.5 million pit bulls in the United States*. That means that less than 0.00004% of the pit bull population have committed fatal attacks *in over a decade*.
So yes, pit bulls *do* attack at a statistically higher rate. That being said, over 99% of pit bulls have not attacked. And the ones who *have* are likely either intentionally trained to be aggressive, or subjected to willful abuse/negligence.
| 58 |
Why aren't photons affected by the Higgs field?
| 29 |
By definition!
Photons are by definition the single component of the original SU(2)×U(1) electroweak gauge field that leaves the Higgs vacuum expectation value invariant. This means that the VEV is uncharged for the photon, and the photon aquires no mass.
A little simpler: basically, SU(2)×U(1) is a four dimensional group of transformation. The Higgs is a field which takes value in a four-dimensional (two-complex dimensional) vector space and which is transformed ("rotated") by these transformations. Now after electroweak symmetry breaking the Higgs aquires a vev, which just mean that in all of space it assumes the value of a specific vector in that 4-dim space. This vector is not invariant under the original gauge group, this means that it breaks the symmetry. There is however a 1-dim subgroup of the gauge group that *still* leaves the vev invariant and thus that symmetry remains unbroken. That group's generator is defined to be the photon and the preserved gauge symmetry assures the photon has no mass. The other three generators instead do interact with the vev and acquire mass. They are decomposed in three orthogonal generators by electric charge: W^+, W^-, Z^0
| 19 |
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How come gases are so cold in their pressurised cans?
| 214 |
The gas in a can like spray paint isn't actually cold. Its the same temperature as the can or the air around it. Its when the gas is rapidly expanded that the temperature drop happens. The opposite is also true. When you compress a gas it heats up. Its what makes most air conditioning systems possible.
| 171 |
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ELI5 Why can't certain organs such as the pancreas or brain be transplanted? (what other organs cannot be transplanted?)
| 588 |
It is possible to do a pancreas transplant, but it's indicated only in people who have also a kidney failure, therefore it's a double transplant, kidney and pancreas.
Keep in mind that when you receive a transplant of any kind you'll have to do a immunosuppressive treatment for the rest of your life. It's far more easy and safe to use insulin and enzymes for the rest of your life!
| 772 |
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Why is it that we started building a space station, rather than a moon base?
| 53 |
The ISS is about 1000 times closer to the Earth than the moon, so we can actually move people and things back and forth in a reasonable time frame.
The low gravity could actually be seen as a bonus - we need to study the effects of near-zero gravity on humans so that we know how to deal with the effects long-term.
| 42 |
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[Too Many Cooks] Do the Cybernetic Operational Optimized Knights of Science actually stand a chance against the Beast Rebels of the Hellscape?
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In most iterations of of the "Too Many Cooks" scenarios, the victims have no chance against The Killer. Often, he takes them totally unawares. In the case of Katie Adkins, she is able to notice and at least attempt to escape, but in the end, she is caught and killed.
In the case of the COOKS, it looks superficially different -- the COOKS seem to be aware of what they're up against, prepared, and ready to take on the BRotH. They have big, heavily-armed spaceships, beam pistols, etc.
Is it an illusion, though? Are the COOKS actually just as doomed as all of the previous victims of The Killer? As an analogy, consider Battlestar Galactica. If you looked at a few short scenes from it, you'd see a fairly disciplined, competent crew, piloting a big, heavily armed spaceship ready to go up against the Cylons in battle. However, if you know the full story, they don't really stand a chance: the most they can do is run away. They're outnumbered, outgunned, infiltrated, and logistically desperate. (Of course, BSG doesn't end with humanity's extermination, but not because the Colonial forces are ever able to turn around the basic military situation, IIRC. The COOKS may not be so fortunate.)
Does the BRotH have an overwhelming advantage, and are the COOKS, even if they’re competent and effective as individuals, collectively as helpless and doomed as Katie Adkins was against The Killer? Or do the COOKS actually stand a chance in this one, this being the one case where The Killer faces real, effective resistance?
| 171 |
There may be too many COOKS. Much like the saying "too many cooks" implies, having too many efficient and competent experts can sometimes lead to failure or getting nothing done. Ultimately, the BRotH will be spoiled by how easy it is defeat them due to the fact that there are, indeed, Too Many COOKS.
| 100 |
ELI5: If a wind turbine (or any generator) is producing electricity but no one is using it where does the electricity go?
| 22 |
Nowhere. The effort needed to turn the wind turbine is equal the produced power. The more load is needed the harded is to turn the turbine. If you disconnect the load it will be very easy to turn the turbine. There still be voltage but there will be no currect.
In real life you have to stop such a generator the prevent damage. This is valid not only for wind turbines but any other generator eg. in nuclear power plant. Let's say that eg. power lines to power plant is damaged and the plant is cut away from grid. Then the reactor has to be stopped and steam is vented away from turbine. Withtout load and still huge steam delivery to turbine it would speed up and damage.
| 27 |
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Do you believe in free will?
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If determinism (everything has a certain and traceable cause) is true, then the will is not free, as everything has been predetermined.
If indeterminism is true, then the will is not free either, because everything is left up to chance and we are not in control, therefore not able to exercise our will.
It seems that to determine whether we do in fact have free will, we first have to determine how events in our world are caused. Science has been studying this for quite some time and we still do not have a concrete answer.
Thoughts? Any other ways we could prove we have free will or that we don't?
**Edit: can you please share your thoughts instead of just down voting for no reason? Thank you.**
| 16 |
> If determinism (everything has a certain and traceable cause) is true, then the will is not free...
No, that's not the case. The debate about free will is typically cashed out in two debates: is determinism true? and is incompatibilism true? Incompatibilism is the thesis that determinism is inconsistent with freedom. It doesn't follow from determinism that there is no free will, for we need also to establish incompatibilism. And this is quite significant, since most people who study this issue think that incompatibilism is false.
This gives us three main positions on the matter: hard determinism (determinism plus incompatibilism), compatibilism (determinism plus compatibilism), and libertarianism (indeterminism plus incompatibilism). Technically, one could affirm both indeterminism and compatibilism, so we might want to include a fourth position to be exhaustive, but we usually just use these three positions, since they give us enough to talk about the debate as to whether compatibilism or libertarianism are true.
> If indeterminism is true, then...
The libertarian isn't usually interested in indeterminism in the merely physical sense, i.e. stochastic rather than strictly determinist evolution of physical systems. There is some dispute among libertarians about how exactly to explain the sort of causal event they're interested in, but as an illustration we can use a kind of intuitive sense of libertarian free will, where it seems to us that we can will something to occur, without this will being either strictly determined or merely random, and this willing is a cause of the event. This sort of thing isn't really what you're calling "indeterminism" here, so your critique is missing the mark.
| 25 |
ELI5:Why is there a women's poker league?
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I can understand why sports leagues like the NBA and the WNBA are separated but why would there be two different leagues for poker. Aren't they doing the same thing?
| 22 |
Yes, they are playing the same game.
However, due to the fact that women didn't play poker until very recently (relative to invention of the game) it is an unusual situation to have women play at the same level.
Poker is a game of aggression, and many of the players are people who take that to a personal level, which societally isn't a typical woman's trait.
That having been said, some of the best players in the world are women. And anyone who doesn't acknowledge that hasn't done their homework.
The only attribute that women MIGHT lack to be great poker players is the expectation that they will.
But, because there is still a gender bias, it is difficult for women to begin playing without the condescension and frustrating treatment by the misogynists in the game.
So, rather than fight against it, they quit playing. Which is very sad.
By making a Ladies only game, league or tournament, you are allowing women who haven't chosen to buck the system a place to enjoy the game without having to deal with the idiots. Thereby getting the experience and confidence necessary to join the larger game.
| 17 |
[Alien] Congrats, Weyland-Yutani! You finally got your hands on a Xenomorph. Even better, it's a Queen! So, you're not going to run out of test subjects anytime soon. Now, what uses/applications/scientific breakthroughs can you expect from this extraterrestrial species?
| 434 |
Materials science - the xenomorph's silicon based structure is unlike any complex terrestrial organism. Their excreted resins are remarkably tough/versatile and their ability to survive in extraordinarily hostile environments (hard vacuum) would be invaluable.
Chemistry - xenomorph blood is considerably more acidic than was previously deemed possible.
Energy research - newborn xenomorph's extremely rapid growth as well as their seemingly self-contained metabolic systems
Genetics - some theories point to the xenomorphs being a created species, which is unprecedented on this scale. Their unique ability to alter their own genetic makeup through their hosts also opens whole new branches of genetics for study.
Sensory research - the xenomorphs' lack of obvious sensory organs leaves open questions on how they stalk and find prey. Theories exist on a number of possibilities, including a psychic hive mind.
Urban pacification - I'll leave this one up to your imagination
| 382 |
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[The Truman Show] How did they keep the other kids around Truman from spilling the beans when he was a child?
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This isn't just about child actors' acting skills being a problem; the real question is how they kept the kids from flat out *telling* Truman, or otherwise letting the truth slip.
Kids can be terrible when it comes to dealing with an outsider. If they all knew that Truman was the special kid that they were all working around, then they'd almost certainly start to ostracize him, just as surely as if he were the weird kid in class, and possibly worse, because they all basically have to work *for* him, without his knowing.
Add to this that kids are not great at keeping secrets. You'd think that one way or another, eventually one of them would tell him; either in a fit of anger ("Oh, yeah, Truman? Well you aren't even a real kid! We're all just actors! So there!") or else in a misguided movement towards friendship ("Truman, we're super good friends, so I have to tell you the biggest secret that you'll ever ever hear...")
So how did the producers prevent this from happening? How did they keep the other kids from treating Truman weird for being the only one not in on the big secret, and how did they keep any of them from just telling him the truth?
| 63 |
He _never_ had good, long-term friendships as a child, which is why he's fairly detached and formal with the people around him. He greets his next-door neighbors from twenty feet away, with a robotic and... frankly... _staged_ performance.
This formal, proper upbringing helped ensure that he'd be controllable and acceptable for TV, _and_ avoided getting him in situations like you mention. It was a gamble, of course; it could have turned him into a sociopath, but hey, Dexter turned out pretty popular too, and with some careful editing...
| 49 |
ELI5: What does "nose" smell like? How does your nose ignore itself to smell its surroundings?
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Is it something that your brain does to not sense it, or does your nose or body produce something to mask the smell? Could we possibly smell other noses' scents? Is it the same for animals? Or is there even a smell in your nose?
| 21 |
Your brain only has the capacity to notice things that are changing in your environment. Sensory inputs that remain constant (and are deemed not a threat or at least not a source of interest) are not given any attention by the brain.
Your ears, eyes, and skin do the same thing. Moments after you sit down you don't feel the chair on your ass anymore (until you think about it). You didn't notice that the light bulb was buzzing until you turn the light off. etc.
| 28 |
What's that feeling you get when you're stretching
or yawning--a sort of thrill that quickly spreads
through the body?
| 100 |
When you stretch it is basically dilating your blood vessels, which is why athletes stretch before exercise, to ensure maximum blood flow to increase O2 exchange efficiency. E.g. if you sat down for a long time, standing up allows more blood to flow in those areas which have been deprived of sufficient O2, so your muscles don't feel as fatigued as they have a surfeit source of energy provided by the blood flow.
And yawning induces stretching of muscles and therefore to the same effect.
| 12 |
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ELI5: Why do people with british accents seem to lose their accents when they sing?
| 29 |
It's not unique to British people, it happens with basically all accents. An accent is mostly someone putting different stresses on syllables and using a different pacing/rhythm than we're used to. When singing, these (and many other factors that determine accent) are dictated by the song, and deviating can mess up how the lyrics pair with the melody.
That means they switch to a more neutral way of speaking, which just happens to be really similar to what we consider to be the standard "American" accent.
| 21 |
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ELI5: How does sanctioning work?
| 24 |
Imagine there is a store (Russia) in your neighborhood. Who relies on shoppers from your neighborhood (the world)
You don't like the owner of that store, but you cant stop that store from selling it's products (gold, oil, etc))
You do however, control your household (USA) and have tremendous influence over most of your neighborhood (rest of the world).
So you tell your family not to shop at the store, and you warn the rest of your neighborhood to not shop at the store either, and almost all of them listen (sanctioning), because they don't to make you mad.
You didn't stop the store (Russia) from selling it's products, but you stopped most of your neighborhood from shopping there. Which essentially is the same thing.
Sanctioning, if aggressive enough, is basically "cancelling" another country
| 99 |
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[Fallout 4] Why are magazines worth $32.99 in the pre-war era?
| 24 |
Inflation.
Consider that, on average, $1 in 1950 (the approximate point of timeline of divergence) is the equivalent to about $10 today. If we assume a similar inflation rate (not exactly a reasonable assumption, but for the sake of argument it works) by 2077 we'd be looking at somewhere around $25 for the same 1$ purchase.
And then consider the resource crunch leading up to the Great War. While America had basically just solved all the worlds problems within the 18 months leading up to the apocalypse (though kept everything tight lipped) commodity costs sky-rocketed over the previous decade. Things were starting to stabilize in America, sure, but not enough to bring down something like magazine costs.
| 48 |
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ELI5: What do OLED screens do that make them an improvement over LCD screens?
| 40 |
Traditional LCD screens use a backlight, the LCD pixels change the color of that light as it passes through them. The backlight makes these screens thicker, and the LCD pixels can't block all the light from the backlight so the display isn't capable of displaying true black.
OLEDs emit their own light, there is no backlight. This means the screen can be much lighter and thinner (even to the point of being flexible) and can display true black as each pixel emits no light at all when turned off.
| 36 |
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When I am falling asleep, why do I suddenly know that turning over will be more comfortable and can't sleep until I do?
| 1,815 |
These silly answers are way off. Fact is, your body has several systems (sinus, circulatory, etc) that alternate sides while you sleep to keep you turning over every so often to avoid tissue damage from prolonged weight on any certain part of your body.
Ever had a runny nose that kept switching nostrils? Same thing, same reason.
| 1,400 |
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[Dune] If Feyd-Rautha was raised among the fremen would he have become the Kwisatz-haderach?
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Assuming that he was not twisted by life among the harkonnens, and instead raised among the fremen, he would have met the ancient reverend mother and at least learned of the existence of the water of life. Seeing as he was at the same stage of the breeding program, one generation prior to the target, would he also be able to convert the waters and have prescience?
| 47 |
No. The reason that Paul was able to do so was because he was born a generation earlier than intended. This is all allegedly thanks to some wibbly wobbly timey whimy prescient influence from the future. Jessica was supposed to have a daughter with Leto and the daughter was to be married to Feyd in order to conceive the Kwisatz Haderach. Her having a son, Paul, caused the Kwisatz Haderach to be born a generation early.
| 30 |
ELI5: Household water softeners
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I recently visited the US midwest where it seems everyone has a water softener in their house. Growing up with hard water, I was really annoyed at how my hands/body felt really soapy and slick after trying to wash off the soap I used. Also, it felt like the extra soapiness make my skin break out more.
**ELI5:** Why do people use water softeners in the first place? Is there any advantage to having soft water over hard water, or vice versa?
| 24 |
Hard water is full of dissolved minerals in the water, typically calcium and magnesium. A water softener uses an ion exchanger to remove them, and replace them with sodium ions.
Soft water reduces the calcium deposits that form in the pipes and shower glass. It also reduces soap scum buildup on shower tubs. As for that soapy slimy feeling, that's a personal preference issue from soft water, but soaps tend to work better in soft water compared to hard water.
| 15 |
ELI5 Are cows constantly producing milk?
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I just drove past a field of cows and there were babies too. The calfs we're so cute! But it got me thinking... When cows make milk it usually goes to their babies, right? So how is it that we have constant stores of milk and cheese at the supermarket? Do we only get milk from cows who's calfs didn't make it (passed away)? Or is it that cows always have milk so it's no big deal if we take it instead of it going to a calf? Need some dairy farmers to help me out with this one please!
| 23 |
They take dairy calves away from the mothers and bottle-feed them (or sell them for veal). The milking makes her body think the calf is nursing, a lot, and so she keeps producing milk steadily, usually for about a year. Then she has to have another calf to keep the milk supply going.
If you have a small homestead and don't need a lot of milk from your cow, you can let her keep her calf and still milk her, and that will be enough milk for most homesteaders. But it's not profitable for large dairies.
If you saw the calves with their mothers, those are likely beef calves. They used to remove the calves at a certain age to force weaning, so the mother could back get in shape for her next pregnancy, but trial and error showed that caused more losses than it prevented so most beef calves stay in the pasture with their mother until they're old enough to go to a feedlot.
| 70 |
ELI5: If something happens to cause everyone in the world to be infertile, theoretically how long would it take us to find out?
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I was just watching the movie Children of Men, great movie by the way, but I was just wondering what are some logical reasons that could cause infertility of the entire human race, and how fast we would be able to realize it.
| 22 |
1 week, rounding up to the nearest week.
All the OBGYN's would suddenly have no one coming in reporting a pregnancy. They would each probably consider it just a fluke but after talking to other doctors they would realize something was off.
| 18 |
[Superman] Do only certain types of teleportation work on Kryptonians? Eg: Shouldn't Star Trek or Stargate style disassembly/reassembly based technologies fail due to their invulnerability, but space-folding/portal based methods should be ok?
| 136 |
There are precious few cases where teleportation has failed to work on Superman, but your hypothesis seems valid. It is likely that portal based teleportation is the most commonly used in the galaxy, seeing as it's the basis for the Zeta Beam, and probably the Thanagarian Relativity Beam as well.
| 89 |
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Could we provide a stable high-bandwith connection to / from Mars?
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i.e "Internet on Mars"
Apart from the obvious latency issues which would make 2-way real time communications impossible, is it even remotely doable?
| 29 |
It would probably be possible but you'd certainly need some new protocols for communication. That is, just boosting the power and using directed antennas on normal wifi isn't going to do it. Wifi certainly assumes that packets move almost instantaneously, introducing 4 to 20 minute latency is absolutely going to break it even if your transmission power is sufficient to get the signal across the planets. Same goes for the transport layer. HTTP servers probably aren't too amused when the TCP handshake takes something like 8 to 40 minutes.
Suppose you are on Mars and want to get a webpage from Earth internet. You'd probably send a message over some interplanetary protocol to a proxy on Earth. That proxy could then do a normal TCP connection to the HTTP server, on the Earth Internet, and get your webpage, storing the data until it has the entire webpage. Then the proxy would send it back to you, again over the interplanetary protocol.
Then you run into some obvious usability problems. Like you request the front page of a news website. After 8 minutes (in the best case) you get your front page. Then you click on an interesting news item, another 8 minutes pass until you get the page for that. So maybe a better idea would be to get packages of a whole lot of pages at the same time. So you get the front page and all the top news items in one go, even though you might only read one of them. This could be done fairly easily the same way we now have separate sites for desktop browsers and mobile browsers. Just add an interplanetary browser to that mix which has pages that minimise needed HTTP requests.
Or better yet, make a proxy on Mars that has cached a huge amount of stuff on the Earth Internet so that you never actually need to send anything to Earth. Essentially you have a copy of Earth Internet on the Mars proxy server. The proxy server then gets slowly updated by something on Earth. Naturally this wouldn't work with highly dynamic and interactive websites, only real solution there would be for there to be a duplicate web server on Mars.
| 22 |
Eli5: How do color changing cups work?
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I have a cup that changes from white to purple when cold. How does that happen?
| 29 |
They are coated with thermochromic paint. The paint can change colour or become transparent when subjected to heat (or by extension cold). How these paints change colour is a little bit beyond eli5 imo but still in short, heat changes the structure of the paint temporarily allowing it to absorb/reflect different wavelength of lights.
| 21 |
Writing first book - when to approach publishers?
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I'm a mid-career (10 years post PhD) UK academic in psychology, and I'm writing my first popular science book. I've written about 2.5 chapters of 10 or 12. Should I approach potential publishers before I've finished a draft with a proposal? Then they could advise on length, format etc. Or should I wait until I've drafted the whole thing before approaching publishers? Advice from those that have done it before especially welcome.
| 46 |
**STOP!**
Contact some publishers and see if they are interested in your proposal -tell them you have two sample chapters (many require a sample chapter or two) and can provide an outline of the rest.
Do not write a whole book without a contract!!!!!!!
| 80 |
How do you explain to a person 200 years ago that racism is bad?
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Recently in a practical ethics class ( not a major, was just interested ), the topic of animal rights was brought up, naturally, Peter Singer's Animal Liberation was a must-read, and "speciesism" was compared with racism and sexism and called a mere prejudice, instinctively as a meat lover but less of an animal abuse lover, it is hard to accept Singer's stance. Shelly Kagan's What's wrong with Speciesism points out that Singer, too, resorted to instincts in proposing only sentient agents have moral standing.
Shelly Kagan "defended" a view that ( probably ) most of us agree on with the concept of "Modal Personism", but seem to still resort to instincts. While it sounds very nice and convenient for us, it gets me wondering, a person 200 years ago might be able to use a very similar argument to defend racism, and one from our times would find it very hard to accept, then how can one consistently accept Kagan's defence?
I still love my meat, but this remains one problem I find hard to be consistent with, I can just go ahead and be a proud speciesist, or maybe take Carl Cohen's view and say we have a unique responsibility to fellow humans, but it still feels like prejudices Singer suggested.
Is there an actual way to differentiate racism from speciesism, or maybe even sentientism? Or is it in the end really just instincts and culture?
| 81 |
It'd be pretty trivial to convince some 200 years ago that 'In the case of peoples which have no significant difference between them, we should not treat them differently.' The problem would of course be that 200 years ago that people did think there were significant differences between races, something that a lot of people still believe to this day.
>Is there an actual way to differentiate racism from speciesism, or maybe even sentientism?
The traditional defence of 'speciesism' is that there are in fact (morally) significant differences sufficiently strong between us and most animals, such that its permissible for us to use them in basically whatever way we want. The question of whether this is actually true or not is one of the major fulcrums around which discussions of animal rights go around in Philosophy, probably the biggest one.
| 68 |
ELI5: How do we keep in contact with spacecraft such as Voyager 2 that are at the very edge of our solar system?
| 21 |
With very big dishes on Earth, and very sensitive receivers that can find the tiny signal.
Fun fact: the Voyagers' radio transmitters are 20 Watt -- which is the same power as the bulb in your refrigerator.
So we're effectively looking for a flickering fridge bulb, 19 billion kilometres away...
| 38 |
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ELI5: Why do we wake up with morning face?
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Puffy eyes, fat face.
| 22 |
When you're up and about and walking around, your heart has to work against gravity to pump blood up into your face. But when you have been laying horizontal in a bed for 8 or so hours it gives blood the opportunity to "pool" or "settle" in your face, resulting in puffiness. You'll get a more extreme example of this if you hang upside down for an extended period of time.
| 15 |
A reply to the 'fallacy of composition' objection to Mill's proof of utilitarianism?
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The charge of a fallacy of composition against Mill's Utilitarianism is essentially an objection to his jump from 1) Each person ultimately desires their own happiness (a sort of hedonism) to 2) Everybody desires everybody's happiness, and so the good is a maximisation of the general happiness (not just your own happiness). This logical move is important to the theory as it argues why the moral action is that which maximises the general happiness (the principle of utility) not just the action that maximises your own happiness (A sort of ethical egoism).
My question is, this seems like quite an obvious/strong objection to Mill's 'proof' of utilitarianism, but I cannot think how he could justify this logical jump, as it seems clear to me to be a fallacy of composition (attributing some feature of the members of a collection to the collection itself). So, How do utilitarians reply to this objection?
| 20 |
I think Utilitarians would argue that they are not actually committing it. Mill is not arguing that happiness is merely desirable, he is arguing that it is *worthy of desire*. Namely, Happiness is Good - specifically Mill is claiming that Happiness is *the only* Good.
"[x] is desirable to me, therefore it is desirable to all," is only a fallacy of composition if we mean by desire "capable of being desired." But Mill does not mean that. He thinks Happiness is objectively Good. To put it Platonically, it is The Good.
Sidgwick defends the move by explicitly claiming that "The good of any one individual is of no more importance, from the point of view...of the Universe, than the good of any other.'' He is following Bentham here who says "Each to count for one."
Mill is making the same move in different words. Good is Good, not for *you* specifically. So when you say:
> 2) Everybody desires everybody's happiness,
Mill is saying "Everybody *ought* to desire everybody's happiness." Or, more carefully, "everybody ought to desire, on aggregate, a maximization of happiness in terms of quantity and quality."
Why? Because happiness is the only Good.
| 13 |
ELI5: What is Rove vs. Wade and what would it take for it to be overturned?
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Hi guys. I know I could look up the first part of this question, but I want it real simple like. Also the second part is important too. I heard someone saying something called 'personhood' could lead to it geting overturned, but I'd like to know a little more. Thanks!
| 16 |
Karl Rove once challenged Dwayne Wade to a 1:1 basketball game. Wade was obviously the overwhelming favorite, but Rove convinced Wade that the best way for him to win was to let Rove's points "trickle down" into Wade's basket. Rove won 184-2.
| 23 |
ELI5: What is the common cold?
|
I had an idea that it was just an extremely common virus that we can't cure. However, upon looking it up some sources say that there are over 200+ viruses that cause the common cold. Does that mean the common cold is just some blanket term we have for viruses that cause these symptoms?
| 30 |
The common cold is a syndrome (a constellation of symptoms) which can be caused by several different viruses. It's difficult to count the number of viruses because of how many strains, variants and subvariants exist if each. But it's thought that the most colds are caused by rhinoviruses, while many of the others are caused by non-SARSCoV2 coronaviruses.
It can also be caused by respiratory syncitial virus, adenovirus, coxsackievirus, parainfluenza virus, influenza and of course SARSCoV2 (covid-19), but there are several other potential viruses than can cause similar symptoms. Many of these virus also can cause more several disease, whereby most people wouldn't call it a cold any more. These are more appropriately called flu like illnesses, which unfortunately some get mixed up with the stomach flu, which usually has nothing to do with influenza at all.
| 27 |
[Stuart Little] Stuart is a talking orphaned mouse who finds himself in an orphanage with humans. He has the voice of a grown man, but is probably 6(?). The littles have a cat who can speak to the mouse just fine, but only sounds like a real to his owners.
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There’re also other mice who can speak English just fine *and* two birds who can communicate like humans.
If I go to petco, will the animals start talking to me? Why are cats not able to talk like the rodents and birds? Why is no one afraid of these animals with near human intelligence?
| 15 |
Honestly, given there's one in the orphanage, it seems they're just a part of life.
Mice and birds are kinds of person, and take part in society, and humans aren't scared of them because they're not racist.
| 10 |
[General Scifi] Why can you talk through a prison force field.
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In most settings there are no intercoms in the cells and they can just talk right through it.
Most of these cells even have a separate air supply, so it is not air circulation.
| 16 |
The particles that make up the forcefield still vibrate when the soundwaves hit them, transferring the energy to the air molecules on the other side and allowing the sound to keep traveling.
Same basic principle of talking to someone through a glass window, only in this case the 'glass' is extremely thin so not as much energy is lost in the transfer from one medium to another, so the voices don't sound muffled.
| 28 |
How exactly does a stimulant, like adderall or concerta, calm down a person with ADHD?
| 49 |
The neuropharmacology is a little complicated, but the analogy is a bell curve. If you imagine that a given person might function optimally with a neurotransmitter level of X in a certain region of the brain that is responsible for attention, then someone with less than X has inattention. A stimulant increases that number to X, so that people with ADHD essentially reach a "normal" level of neurotransmitter responsible for attention. Those who previously had normal levels (i.e. X) already won't benefit from ADHD medications to the extent that those who have ADHD do.
| 18 |
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[Spiderman] Throughout the various versions of Spiderman, is his spider sense actually explained extensively?
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Is it based off his increased senses, with the spider sense simply his brain constructing a simulation of potential outcomes based on sensory data? Is it a sixth sense, possibly psychic/clairvoyant in nature? This has always kinda bugged me.
| 40 |
So there's this thing called the Web of Life and Destiny, which consists of the strands of everybody's path through life all woven together. They are woven by a giant cyborg spider god in another universe called the Great Weaver. The weaving is mostly done without thinking about it, but sometimes the Weaver consciously joins or snaps a thread, or moves it, if he wants some particular result to happen.
The Weaver has avatars throughout the Marvel Multiverse, known as Spider Totems, a group which consists of everybody with spider-themed superpowers. Some Spider Totems, most notable every incarnation of Peter Parker and his various clones, have a special attumenent to the Web of Life and Destiny which allows them to sense certain changes - specifically dangers to their own lives.
That's what spider sense it.
| 62 |
ELI5 why is it easy for kids to learn language while it is very hard for adults?
| 22 |
While brain mushiness is definitely part of it, another thing to consider is that when kids learn a language it is generally because they are immersed in that language. As an adult, it is fairly rare to be in a situation where you are immersed in a foreign language for any real amount of time.
Adults absolutely can learn new languages, but it is very hard to replicate the conditions that kids go through in order to pick up new languages.
| 23 |
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Why do space shuttles need to be vertically launched into space on a launch pad instead of going into space like an airplane?
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Launching a shuttle in space costs a lot of money. Wouldn't it be reduced by a lot if it didn't need a launch pad and go to space like an airplane?
What is the reason why they don't do that?
Is it possible to go to space in an other way than vertically?
What are the problems we are encountering for not being able to do so?
Thanks in advance for your answers.
| 17 |
Air launch doesn't buy you much when you have to get going 17,000 mph to orbit. If you have a rocket launched from an aircraft, it's not going to be going much faster than 500 mph when it lights, and it's not going to be more than 6 or 7 miles up at that point. There's the Skylon spaceplane being developed in the UK, but that has some pretty steep technical challenges to overcome.
Getting up to 17,000 mph is always going to take a certain amount of fuel, and you have to bring the fuel with you as you're getting there. So the end result is powerful rocket engines that take you up out of the atmosphere quickly, and then you turn sideways to get into orbit. Actually it's a gradual turn that begins immediately after liftoff, so it's not really vertical for long.
| 13 |
How come shower water at a given temperature feels lukewarm on my back, but extremely hot on my face?
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I understand that the skin on the face is more sensitive than on other parts of the body, but why is that?
| 20 |
The explanation of the greater sensitivity of the face as relative to other body parts has to do with the density of sensory nerves. The face, the fingertips, the genitals, and some other parts of the body have a very high density of nerve endings. This is why you can differentiate between two pinpricks close together on your face, but not on your back.
Basically when hot water hits you, your back is like this:
----ow----ow----ow----ow----ow----
while your face is like this:
--ow--ow--ow--ow--ow--ow--ow--ow--
The next thing you need to understand is HOW nerves communicate pain to the brain. Since the action potential that sends an electrical impulse down the axon to the brain is always the same, nerves cannot communicate the intensity of a sensation by varying the intensity of the nerve impulse. Instead, nerves communicate intensity by varying the frequency of impulses; the more intense a sensation the more frequent the pulses.
Since there are more nerve endings in the surface area of the face relative to the surface area of the back, the face is able to convey the sensation of "YO, THIS WATER IS HOT!" more intensely than the back.
| 21 |
Are there any other viable power sources available to us other than electromagnetic induction and photovoltaic technology?
|
When I make a lost of every source of power generation I can think of, everything comes down to either photovoltaic technology, or spinning a turbine which causes electromagnetic induction. Do we have any other way of powering our homes?
| 41 |
Fuel cells and thermoelectric generators are two less known ways. Fuel cells generate electricity through reacting oxygen with a fuel, often hydrogen, and have no moving parts similar to a photovoltaic cell. Thermoelectric generators use a strange property of metals called the seebeck effect, where two different metals at different temperatures connected at two points will cause a current to flow though them.
Fuel cells are really only used for energy storage, because we don’t have an easy source of hydrogen without electrolyzing water, which takes energy. Thermoelectric generators aren’t very efficient, so we don’t use them often either. Though, in space they’re pretty handy because you can put radioactive plutonium pellets in a chamber which heats it up, and the outlet side can be cooled by radiating its heat to space, effectively giving you a constant power source for many years.
| 48 |
[Incredibles] Why aren't heroes covered by Good Samaritan laws?
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After Mr. Incredible saves the jumper and a train, he is sued by both the jumper and the passengers. Wouldn't this principle make him immune to legal action?
| 18 |
Typically good samaritan laws assume that the individual was acting for the well-being of another and had sufficient training or skills to do good. Someone who has never done surgery is more likely going to do harm if they try to help someone in the street in urgent medical need (say they were shot in a vital organ and the bullet needed to be removed), but a trained Dr could do it.
This comes down to recognition and registration. Supers are not recognised by the law, they are not trained, they do not get tested or audited, they are a vigilante. So good samaritan laws will not cover them.
It wouldn't be long anyway before some criminals took advantage of this cover. Creating a fixed brawl downtown near a bank and conveniently smashing open the vault before the "criminal" escapes with the cash while the "hero" claims immunity as they were trying to do good. These loopholes have to be covered otherwise we need to define what a hero is.
| 24 |
ELI5: Why were the Native Americans so technologically far behind the English?
|
I'm watching a documentary on the development of America, a story I'm sure we've all heard before, and it seems so off to me that America, a nation of so many people would have such a comparatively simple way of life when compared to the technologically and economically complex civilization in England. Anyone have theory or fact to explain this discrepancy? Thanks.
| 25 |
Read: guns germs and steel, it seems like it's a complicated read but explains why continents became the way they are
Major reasons are: access to large domesticable animals, axis of direction of the continent, ease of domesticating local plants
Humans got to the Americas late meaning they were already skilled hunters so large animals had little chance to survive (as opposed to Africa where humans started and hunting skills developed alongside animals giving them the opportunity to evolve a fear of humans)
America (the americas) are situated vertically meaning climate varies greatly across the continent (think northern cold vs southern heat) whereas continents orientated horizontally (eurasia) makes climate much more even throughout (doesn't change that much east to west) this makes growing crops much easier
Hunter gatherer tribes have to all contribute to feeding the tribe whereas in a community that uses intensive farming allows a small number of people to feed a large number of people ( requires large animals like horses in eurasia) this large number of non working people allows specialist crafts like jewellery creation, soldiers and scribes
The assumption is that these peoples (native Americans, australian aborigines, tribes of South America and africa) are somehow stupid but the reality is geographically they were at a disadvantage they are still intelligent in their own way: they learn from a young age to build shelter, catch wildlife and have a huge inventory of which native plants are edible and have which medical properties, knowledge most of us don't have when given the opportunity to learn how to use electronic equipment or complicated tools they usually have no problems learning to use them
| 19 |
Eli5: How do peers and leechers in pirating on Utorrent work? Do any other site use them?
| 21 |
If you've copied someones homework at school, you are now also a point that someone else can copy homework from, as long as everyone who copies the homework copies it identically (this is done by hashing a torrent's content and checking it against the source) it doesn't matter who you copy from, so if there's a 100 people in the hallway u can copy homework from you can essentially copy the first answer of 1 guy then the next answer from a guy 10 feet down the hall later and when you bump into someone who needs one of the questions you have already copied he can copy from you.
If many people seed and few people leech then you can quickly find someone to copy from, if many people leech and few people seed then you'll be in a crowd and things will slow down.
| 64 |
|
If you freeze blood, how long will the DNA in the blood maintain its integrity?
| 56 |
~~Red blood cells do not contain any DNA, so all the DNA in your blood is contained in white blood cells~~. DNA on it’s own is a relatively stable molecule owing to the double helix and (in eukaryotes) chromatin structures. A pure, dry DNA sample with no contaminants will survive for quite a while at room temperature and in fact this is how DNA is typically shipped in the mail. However long term DNA preservation is not always trivial because of sensitivity to handling and environmental contaminants.
DNA in buffered solution can survive indefinitely at -20 C or -80 C even in non sterile conditions. At these temperatures, enzymatic activity by DNA degrading proteins is essentially zero. The main issue with frozen DNA is actually the process of thawing it when you want to use it - repeated freeze/thaw cycles can cause excessive shear on the DNA strands that mechanically rips apart the molecule.
As for the case of blood, where the DNA is contained in the nucleus of white blood cells as well as in solution, proper cryo storage will require extra measures to protect the integrity of the cells. This involves chemical preservatives like glycerol and EDTA. These frozen stocks are viable at -80 C for an indefinite amount of time, although you may see a decrease in extraction yield as time goes on. This is attributed to cell lysis, which is extremely slow at low temperatures and in a preserving environment, but nonetheless still occurs at a non zero rate. For short term storage, 4 C is sufficient.
Edit: several people have pointed out that DNA does actually exist in the blood outside of white blood cells
| 34 |
|
[Masters of the Universe] What happens if He-Man instead of aiming the energy at Cringer hits Orko?
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Would it work and increase his abilities? If so, would it follow physical increases or an increase in his overall default abilities thus making him a more powerful magic user?
| 20 |
I don't know if it would increase his magic abilities. This would depend on how his magic interacts with the power of Grayskull. Physically Orko would be unchanged. He-Man and Battle-Cat aren't really more muscular than Prince Adam and Cringer. Orko might gain a slight pump, as if he's just been lifting weights, but that's it.
The most important change is psychological. Those under the influence of Grayskull become much more aggressive, to the point that a cowardly lion is transformed into the most badass mount in fiction. Orko would find himself using the most destructive spells in his arsenal.
Finally, there's the wardrobe change. Lots of red leather, but not enough to cover his rippling abs, bulging biceps, and proud nipple rings.
| 12 |
Has there been any carnivores that evolved into herbivores, and vice versa? Plus how would it be possible?
|
Probably a stupid question
| 41 |
In 1971 scientists moved 5 pairs of insectivorous Italian wall lizards to the tiny island of Pod Mrcaru \[sic\] off the Croatian coast. War broke out, so the scientists left. They returned in 2008 to find that the native lizards were gone and the 5,000 descendants of the transplanted lizards were now herbivores, having developed cecal valves that slowed digestion in a fermenting chamber, allowing bacteria to break down cellulose into volatile fatty acids. They also developed a harder bite. This new species evolved within 30 generations in 37 years.
| 75 |
ELI5:Why do famous and influential people have so much dirty laundry?
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I realize that there is a lot of attention on these famous people but it seems that the higher you go the stranger the lives and the more unsavory the company. I wonder if it has something to do with the amount of aggression and drive that is necessary for people to get to the top that spills over in negative ways. I know that you could take almost all of the friends I've ever had and the dirt you'd find on them would be negligible compared to the high profile people we hear about daily. Maybe average and boring is OK.
| 15 |
It has more to do with how much money they have.
Imagine you win the lottery. What would you do? When asked this question, most people say things like buy a house and travel and give it to friends. But, some people think things like have lots of sex with attractive people, travel and do crazy things, party, experiment with drugs, do things that rich people might get away with.
Now imagine that on top of money, you are a celebrity. You get into the best clubs and restaurants without waiting, you have your own plane where you can fuck and drink your way to Paris whenever you want. AND, you have people sneaking around trying to get pictures of you every time you so much as fart.
A lot of people would do things that might end up looking pretty bad on the cover of People Magazine.
| 11 |
A perspective/scale question: In a hydrogen atom, if the proton was the size of a tennis ball, (say 6.5 cm), on average how far away from the proton would the electron be orbiting?
| 20 |
A hydrogen atom is 1.1 angstroms in diameter, a proton 1.7 x 10-5. so the atom is 64706 times bigger than the proton. That means your scaled up atom would be 4206 meters across, or about 2.1 km from center to "orbit".
| 23 |
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[Rick riordan series] do all the gods exist in the same universe
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Do the Egyptian gods and Greek gods exist in the same universe or are they in different universes. Is that ever really answered
| 60 |
The Greeks, Egyptian and Norse pantheons all explicitly exist in the same setting, but they go out of their way to avoid encountering each other. The Egyptian pantheon sticks to Brooklyn while the Olympians reign in Mannhattan, and they do their level best to avoid butting into each other's affairs because their mutually exclusive cosmologies create headaches.
Percy has teamed up with the Kane siblings, and Magnus chase is a direct blood relative of Annabeth.
| 80 |
CMV: I don't want kids because I don't believe in the future of our planet.
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I don't think we will be able to save the environment from ourselves. I don't think it's responsible, fair or right to put children in this world, because there will continually be people, companies and nations that would rather have short term money, than work to do what is right.
I already feel like we have inherited a natural world that is fucked. Not to speak of the global society, that is fraught with egoism and stupidity. We have developed way to far into something that I don't wanna pass on. I've been a part of global pollution as well, and I guess that will be my legacy.
I actually pinched a tear writing this out. :(
Edit: I'm about to go to work, but I will start responding in about 8 hours. Keep it coming!
| 218 |
I guess the simplest response is that if we all thought like you, our planet *would* have no future. It's tantamount to just giving up. How is denying future generations the right to exist at all more responsible, fair or right? *They* might want to keep trying to make the world better.
Part of this is, yes, we've got some environmental problems to address. Part of this too, though, is your perception of it. You weren't around for life 400 years ago, or a thousand, or during the last ice age. You talk of egoism and stupidity as if that was unique to our current condition. It may look in the news like things are all going from bad to worse, but the world is more peaceful, prosperous, and productive now than it ever has been.
If you don't think the environment is salvageable, well... ok. Not much to do about that other than to say that a lot of us--most of us--haven't nearly given up yet.
| 108 |
If the surrounding temperature is higher than a surface's temperature, does radiation occur ?
|
I know that q_rad = C*(T_s^(4)-T_surr^(4)), but I'm not sure about what happens if the object's temperature is lower than the surrounding temperature, is it considered irradiation in this case ?? meaning that heat transfers into the object ?
| 90 |
That equation is about the *net* radiation from a surface. If the right side is positive, the surface has more radiation leaving it than it is absorbing. If it is negative, there is more radiation being absorbed than emitted. In the negative case, there is still radiation leaving the surface in the form of photons leaving, there's just more energy inbound.
If there was no outbound radiation at all, then, for example, you would not be able to see an icecube in a warm room, and a hot stovetop in a dark but very hot room would not glow red.
| 21 |
ELI5: Volt, Watt, Ampere, Ohm
| 20 |
Use the water analogy.
* Volts are water pressure. How hard the water is shooting out of the pipe.
* Amperes (amps) are the amount of water. How much water is shooting out of the pipe.
* Ohm is resistance. If you put rocks in the pipe, the resistance goes up. Remove the rocks, it goes down. With rocks in the pipe, the voltage decreases, as does the amperage. Less water can get out, and when it does, it can't shoot out as hard.
* Watt is the overall power of the water, how much work it can do. A high wattage system would be like a fire hose, or the Mississippi river. The fire hose has high voltage, but relatively low amperage. The Mississippi river has low voltage, but extremely high amperage. A low wattage system would be like your bathroom faucet.
| 52 |
|
When you lose weight, where exactly does most of the mass (in your fat cells) go?
| 21 |
You breathe it out. The average person at rest exchanges about 1 kg of CO2 for about 0.8 kg of O2 every day via the lungs, for a net loss of .2 kg, or about .44 lbs. The CO2 comes from cell respiration. The carbon comes partly from glucose which is 40% carbon by weight, and partly from fat, which is about 80% carbon by weight. It also comes from other sources, but these are the main ones.
When you're engaging in physical activity you can increase your breathing by 7 to 10-fold, depending on how athletic you are.
| 30 |
|
[LOTR] How would the movies change if Saruman had not joined Sauron but instead aided Frodo and Gandalf?
| 139 |
**Fellowship of the Ring:** Gandalf is never imprisoned, reaches the Prancing Pony on time, and the early escapes from the Black Riders are much easier with his help. Frodo doesn't get stabbed. The Fellowship never needs to even try Caradhras or Moria, instead advancing south across the plains to Isengard itself, catching Gollum in the process and locking him away. Saruman has already invited Celeborn and Galadriel to Isengard, where they hold a Council of Saruman mirroring the Council of Elrond. The Fellowship receive their gifts; Aragorn and the wizards and elves retire to pool information and plot their course, while the hobbits are dismissed to raid the kitchen.
This is when Boromir tries to steal the Ring. He's infuriated that Aragorn is allowed to sit among ancient powers while he's literally sent to the kids' table. He finds a willing accomplice in Wormtongue, but Gimli and the other hobbits drive them off. Boromir grabs Gollum from Orthanc's dungeons to act as his guide and flees into the night with Wormtongue in tow.
Meanwhile, fearing that the "big four" upstairs are being tempted by similar greed and are about to come down and take the Ring, Gimli and the hobbits hop on some minecart or other fast vehicle of Saruman's and head out. The movie ends with Team Frodo in the lead, Team Boromir behind, and Team Wizard wondering where the hell everyone went.
**The Two Towers:** At long last, Sauron raises his hand. The eastern gates of Moria open wide, and orcs, trolls, and tentacle monsters without number pour forth onto Fangorn, Lorien, and Isengard. The middle of Middle-Earth is now a complete mess. The Balrog rips his way up from underground to lead the Siege of Orthanc.
But to the east, with no Uruk-Hai and with both Gondor and Isengard helping to defend against Mordor orcs, Theoden and Rohan are in good shape militarily. The problem is that Boromir is a prince of Gondor, Rohan's ally, and spins a tale that has the Riders out looking for a dwarf warrior and four hobbits who are part of the total hideousness happening right next door. Fortunately, the first to find Frodo is Eomer, who, like Faramir, realizes this temptation must be removed and speeds the hobbits on their way.
As a relief expedition arrives from Rivendell, the defenders of Orthanc counterattack, killing the Balrog and scattering the orcs enough to make a way out. The elves go back to Lorien; everyone else heads toward the White City.
**The Return of the King:** Denethor's mind is now even more corrupted by the Palantir than in the movie. The Ringbearer at first moves through his lands unimpeded, but when Boromir arrives and reports, Denethor insanely redeploys his army to keep the wizards and their escort of Riders from catching up to Frodo, while Boromir and a few henchmen gallop east to grab the Ring.
Mordor sends forth its legions. Denethor realizes too late his mind was not his own. Mordor orcs and ringwraiths kill Denethor, invade Minas Tirith with little resistance, and rename it Minas Ortheri, the Tower of Conquest.
Everything becomes about keeping pursuers from the Ringbearer. Aragon and the wizards lead the Riders in a costly, militarily useless attack on Sauron's new city, drawing his attention and forces away from his borders. Merry and Pippin separate from the group to lure most of the Rangers out of position so Frodo can get past. There's an awesome duel in the woods where Gimli kills Faramir to keep him from Frodo.
Again with Gimli's help, Frodo and Sam get past Shelob and cross the wastes.
Boromir stages his final bloodbath. He backstabs Wormtongue and Gollum, brushes aside a weakened Gimli, and follows Frodo and Sam into the mountain. Sam fights him and even breaks his sword, but still Boromir pushes on. Frodo claims the Ring; like Isildur before him, Boromir cuts it from his hand with the broken hilt. He falls into the Cracks of Doom; Sauron and all his works are destroyed.
90 minutes later, the movie ends.
| 306 |
|
CMV: Middle Easterners Are Not White
|
Inspired by a recent AskReddit post (I would link, but I'm on mobile).
In the United States, Arabs, Turks, and Persians are legally white. In the US Census, we must check the "white" box.
I don't believe we are white. First of all, we are not treated as white. There are more assumptions made based on the way we look than any other group within "white". Second, our culture is not similar to European culture. Middle Eastern culture is vastly different in all aspects: food, music, religiosity, acceptable public behavior, etc. Third, we don't look "white" -- we range from very dark to brown (most commonly) to olive.
In the current system, we are considered white without having any of the benefits of being white. We aren't treated "white" by police, we aren't treated "white" by the community at large, and we certainly aren't treated "white" by employers. In order to be on a level playing field with whites, we must be better groomed, must present ourselves better, must be very mindful of our language & body language, and must (by and large) try harder. We are not eligible for minority scholarships because we are not a valid minority. Some may argue that this is due to wealth, but in reality, most of us are escaping extreme poverty in the Middle East (and are overshadowed by the influx of rich Saudi students attending US universities on government scholarship).
Reddit, make me believe that we should be classified as white.
| 29 |
Not too long ago, Italians, Greeks, Jews, Spaniards, hell even Russians and the Irish were not considered "white."
The definition has been ever expanding as more people and cultures assimilate and are accepted into mainstream American society.
It also highlights the fact that "races" are completely made up and are useless from a scientific standpoint. And we should get rid of them anyway!
| 62 |
I think politicians should be legally required to do things that they promised to do before the election if they win. CMV
|
In the UK each political party puts out a manifesto before the election stating what they would do in government. I think this should be made legally binding on the MPs, so they would have to, at some point before the next election, vote for the policies that they said they would support. They could put conditions on their promises (e.g. we will cut income tax as long as the economy is growing by at least 1%), and they would be free to say "we will consult experts about what to do and follow their advice" if they weren't sure how to vote, or they could just leave it out of their manifesto. Individual MPs could release their own manifestos saying how they would vote differently from their party (e.g. they could promise to vote against gay marriage if their party was for it). The punishment for not doing this could be a fine, or being barred from standing at the next election. If the whole party voted against something then only the leadership of the party would be punished, but if it was just a couple of MPs then they would be punished individually. An independent panel could be set up to rule in cases where it was uncertain, or where there was an unforeseeable problem that meant they couldn't vote for what they promised. I think this would force politicians to be more honest and help to increase trust in politics.
| 300 |
The problem is that you'd be electing something like a computer program without the ability to "debug" it in production. They could promise two policies that conflict with each other in practice, and in a way that's difficult to foresee that far in advance.
Running for office also does not mean you get access to classified information (from MI5 or CIA, for example) that might complicate your stated goals.
If they add enough qualifications to their manifesto to handle unforeseeable problems and surprise information, they'll quickly get to the point where the manifesto is meaningless because it can be interpreted any way they want.
The main goal of communicating with an electorate is to give them a sense of what kind of values you have and, depending on the position, how you respond to challenges. Voters mainly want to know that a candidate is someone who thinks like they do, and manifestos and campaign promises are ways to show that.
Unfortunately, as Helmuth von Moltke the Elder once said about war: "no plan survives contact with the enemy."
| 165 |
AskScience AMA Series: I study the mutualistic relationship between alligators and wading birds in the Everglades. AMA!
|
Hi everyone!
My name is Wray Gabel, I'm a Masters student at the University of Florida advised by Dr. Peter Frederick.
A little about my research--my thesis explores the mutualistic relationship between nesting wading birds and the American Alligator. Basically, wading birds get protection from nest predators (like racoons) and alligators get food from discarded nestlings. I'm looking to 1) better understand what alligators might be getting out of the deal and 2) how this mutualism might be changing wading bird colony location preferences when alligators are not around. I conducted my field work for part 1) in the Everglades and used existing wading bird colony location data from North and South Carolina for part 2).
A little about me--I actually grew up wanting to become a paleontologist, which was really what ignited my passion for field work and biology, but ultimately I found currently existing animals to be more fun than rocks.
I got my undergrad degree in Biology from Skidmore College, and after graduating I worked with seabirds in Japan (Hokkaido University), wading birds/waterbirds in San Francisco (San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory), and seabirds in Maine (Audubon's Project Puffin).
I'm mainly interested in the conservation of coastal and wetland ecosystems and hope to do something with wading bird, waterbird, and/or seabird monitoring in my future career as a wildlife biologist. I also minored in Studio Art while at Skidmore and plan to create an illustrated version of my thesis, and I'll be attending an Art-Science residency this fall! I've always been passionate about bridging the (artificial) divide between the two disciplines.
In what little spare time I have I enjoy hiking, traveling, playing video games/board games/rpgs, listening to/collecting music, and doing crossword puzzles!
I am doing this as part of an AMA series with the [UF/IFAS Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation](https://www.facebook.com/UFIFASWildlife/). I'll be on at noon (ET, 16 UT), AMA!
| 292 |
Do alligators still eat the birds given the opportunity? If so, is that still mutualistic? Don't the birds just nest in alligator habitats because fewer climbing predators are present? Maybe alligators are just opportunists.
Or is all that what mutualism is?
| 18 |
ELI5: how can my cat find my cup of water at night if water has no taste or colour?
| 50 |
I suspect you mean smell, not taste. (If it's tasting water, it's already found it.)
Water does have a smell, it's just that humans don't smell it. We don't need to, and it's better for us to be able to smell anything that's polluting the water (these smells would be drowned out if we were smelling the water). It's possible that other animals, such as cats, could smell water.
Also, it does have *some* color to it, but that's not really relevant. Even colorless things that are transparent can still be seen. You can see if a glass is empty or full. So can your cat.
Your cat has also probably learned that glass shaped things often contain water, so it doesn't need to look for water specifically, it needs to look for a glass. This is like when you want to go find water, you don't try to see the water or smell it, you look for tiled floors, because you know that's the kitchen and where water comes from.
| 46 |
|
ELI5: What exactly causes snot to be green/yellow when one has a sinus infection?
|
It just seems like a silly color. Neon green doesn't exist that often in nature.
| 21 |
Bacteria can be all different colors, but because they're so small, it's only obvious when they're in large groups. That's also why if your nose is running from just allergies or a viral infection, it tends to be clear - few or no bacteria means no color.
Color can actually be used to help identify bacteria - generally, yellow is *Staph. aureus*, green is *Pseudomonas* and white is *Strep.* There's even a bacteria used in microbiology classes that's bright red, called *Serratia marcessens.*
| 11 |
ELI5: Why do we feel uncomfortable in hot weather, but feel comfortable in hot water (shower, hot tub, etc.)?
|
The title says it all.
| 22 |
What matters is not the temperature, but how fast heat is leaving your body. Air is not that good at taking heat away, so at around 27 degrees Celsius there comes a point where you can't get rid of your body heat as fast as it builds up without some other strategy, like sweating.
If the air is moving, it is better at removing heat, so it "feels" colder. Water is much much better at removing heat then air so the comfortable temperature is closer to your internal body temp, somewhere around 33 degrees.
| 11 |
What do antivirus scanners on your PC actually look for in a file?
|
Obviously they search for a virus but what attributes of a file gives away thats its a threat to the system?
| 1,133 |
Virusscanners use two approaches: Signature-based scanning and heuristic scanning.
**Signature-based** scanning involves looking for specific elements in a virus program. Some virus authors in the past left messages in their program which could be scanned for. Alternatively, certain filenames were used. Or simply the entire file contents (or a hash value thereof). The idea is that the developer of the virusscanner receives a new virus-program and adds its signature, whatever it is, to the scanner definitions.
The downside of this is that virusscanners will always be one step behind virus creators, since the scanner can only respond to threats that it has been programmed to recognize. Additionally, some virus developers will incorporate code to change the virus software automatically when it spreads, making signature-based recognition much harder.
**Heuristic** scanning on the other hand looks at the behaviour of a program. It scans the file in order to see which instructions it contains and then matches that with sets of instructions that are considered harmful. For example instructions that exploit a known software bug in order to obtain administrative privileges.
Heuristic scanning can detect new viruses that haven't been identified before. It's also more effective against malware that modifies itself automatically. On the other hand, if the scanner is tuned too aggressively, it could get many false positives. Tune it too passively and viruses that don't behave too badly will slip by it. Heuristic scanners don't need to be updated as often (though they still need updates, because virus behaviour changes over time).
Most scanners use a combination of both techniques. Signature-based scanning is primarily aimed at spotting known threats, while heuristic scanning offers some level of defense against new ones. Some scanners also include features that monitor access to certain system resources (such as the Windows Registry) and will warn the user when a program tries to access a monitored file or system.
| 572 |
ELI5: How and why do people create viruses?
| 26 |
In the past, most viruses were bored, intelligent teenagers showing off how much smarter they were than whoever designed the system they were hacking. Those people still exist ("script kiddies"), but modern hacking more often done for profit, by either individuals or organized crime. Some viruses are also created by spy agencies for spying.
The most common and general type of profit-driven malware is something called a "botnet." This is when a virus gets the rights to run software on your computer. Then, the hacker makes money by renting out your computer to a third party. A hacker will usually do this to a few million computers in order to get enough computing power to sell, and so that no one infected computer is working too much extra for their real owner to notice. The people who rent botnets are usually doing criminal with them (like breaking passwords), and that's why they're not renting a normal server farm or clould platform like Google, Amazon, or Microsoft.
Another common general type of profit-driven viruses is scamware: a program that tries to get you to pay someone with a credit card. These generally throw up advertisements, and will sometimes hijack your internet connection in order to replace real links with their own links. Sometimes they'll convince you that they're an antivirus. I've also seen some that will start encrypting files on your hard drive, and hold them ransom for the decrypt key. These viruses have the redeeming quality that they let you know they're on your system.
Another common profit-driven virus is one that tries to steal financially-sensitive data. If you've ever heard of a "keylogger," that's one type: they view your websites and record your keystrokes, and try to sniff your email and bank passwords. Depending on the virus, they also try and nab social security numbers or credit card numbers, that sort of thing. If the virus finds it, it sends it back to the hacker, who sells it.
A different type of virus is used when the hacker's target is a specific person or organization. These viruses are generally intended to find specific pieces of information on a computer or network, and "phone home" with this information. Getting a virus like this onto the right computer is a challenge, and often requires physical work, like sneaking into a building to install a hardware component, or targeting someone with fake emails.
How viruses actually work: It's a computer program, doing computer things. Downloading a program from the internet and running it is a perfectly normal thing for a computer to do. That's what Steam does, when you get a game. That's what Flash does. Hell, that's what a web browser does, every time you view a web page with JavaScript on it. The actual work that a virus gets done is just a normal program, like any other program on your computer. The thing that makes a virus different is that the user doesn't want the virus, and the author of the virus is trying to trick the user.
Modern computer systems have a crapton of security systems, that are supposed to make it so that if a program wants to do something (install software, access the internet, etc), it's because the user actually wanted that to happen. All those annoying pop-ups on your computer that want you to click OK before doing something, that's your computer's security system making sure the program is legit and not a virus.
A virus needs to get past those security features. There are two general ways of doing this: Social engineering, and exploits. Social engineering means "tricking the user." Lie to the user, and have the user tell the OS that the program is ok. If your grandma has ever downloaded a cat screensaver from a Belorussian website and ended up infected, that's how it happened: the virus claimed to be a good program, and the user told the computer to let it do its thing.
Exploits means finding a bug in the computer's security features, and bypassing them with sneakiness. Computer systems are immensely complicated structures, built by thousands of individuals over the course of decades, and trying to fulfill hundreds of different (and sometimes contradictory) goals. To put it bluntly, they're not perfect. All of the pieces don't always fit together exactly perfect, and sometimes someone is trying to make changes to a piece of code written twenty years ago that they don't fully understand. And to make it worse, security wasn't even a thing until like ten or fifteen years ago, so whatever security features are there were bolted on to the side of a half-understood juggernaut of code from the crustaceous era.
Point is, it's possible to find bugs in the OS's security code. And if you find the write bug, you can write a program that does something it's not allowed to do. Like installing software or connecting to the internet without warning the user.
Most viruses in the wild actually combine social engineering and exploits. If you've ever gotten an email/text/IM/facebook from a fake name with a stock porn photo that says "ey bb u wan sum fuk" with a link to a web page, that's social engineering. The web page they link to will use an exploit to try and install a virus.
| 39 |
|
[Game of Thrones] How much power in Westeros would Daenerys instantly gain if she started from burning the Red Keep instead of landing on Dragonstone?
| 15 |
So the main challenge for Daenerys is getting the nobility on her side.
If she incinerates the Usurper Cersei, she eliminates the person still holding the Lannisters together (against all reason and logic), and shows her power and control over the dragon.
Rest of her troops land outside king's landing, the city surrenders, and then all the lords bend the knee. There's no real reason not to. Cersei wasn't popular, the Lannisters weren't popular, and Dany has a legitimate legal claim.
All Dany needs to do is go defeat the whats left of the Lannister army, and be generous in victory and everyone but the north and the iron islanders will probably happily swear loyalty again. Staying Queen will be a bigger problem over time, but with her Dragon WMDs and her Unsullied, she can essentially just intimidate the other Lords. Add Dorn and the Tyrells in, and she's pretty much got no real problem.
| 16 |
|
ELI5: How do bots work and why can’t retailers easily stop them?
|
I’m constantly hearing about bots being used to snag up everything from PS5s to Sneaker Drops. How do these “bots” work, and why can’t retailers prevent their use?
| 20 |
The bots are just programs that people have designed to order things off retailer’s websites. They can work in a million different ways (acting exactly as a human would, using a browser, or just hooking more directly into the retailer’s site’s systems).
Anyways, the retailers could deal with the bots; they could implement smartly designed reservation systems to ensure only real customers can get stock.
But, they don’t really need to do that. The retailers make the same amount of money whether or not they’re selling to scalpers. A sale is a sale. The effort is simply not worth it in implementing systems to prevent scalping.
One could say that it ruins the retailer’s reputation with customers, but it really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
| 39 |
ELI5: Positive Discrimination in the US and how it is positive.
|
I have lived in the US after moving from the UK a few years ago, I find the concept of positive discrimination baffling. In the UK we don't really follow the concept much if at all but here in the US South it seems to cause some bitterness.
I find the concept of positive discrimination to just further work to separate races and focus on differences rather than to just focus on being 'People' rather than races.
| 62 |
Because if you just focus on the 'People' then Jeff in HR who secretly doesn't really like asian women that much may subtly never hire any asian women for the company. Or Susan is convinced that all Muslims are terrorists, and therefore she makes sure to shred all the applications that have 'funny names'. The fact that there are plenty of modern studies showing that applicants who 'sound' white or have 'regular' middle class white names get a huge percentage of callbacks for jobs- EVEN WHEN THEY HAVE LITERALLY THE SAME RESUME as someone with an 'ethnic' sounding name- means that it is still impossible for the workplace of the US to simply 'focus on the people'.
Discrimination happens, and the majority still comes out on top in terms of hiring and wages, so all the people bitching and moaning about how it really hurts race-relations are only saying that because they're in the majority and they've never been on the other side of the fence, because it doesn't benefit THEM or their family and friends in any way, so therefore clearly it must be bad.
| 90 |
ELI5: Eric Holder was held in contempt of Congress by a vote of 255-67. Why does Eric Holder still have a job?
| 29 |
**Practical Answer** - Contempt of Congress is not automatically disqualifying from government employment, nor does it require one be fired. More importantly, the Attorney general is an extremely important position in statutes and regulations. If Holder were to leave his post---whether he resigned or the President remove him---he would need to be replaced, which requires senate confirmation.
This replacement process would almost certainly become rapidly bogged down in political fighting. It would further sap the president of political strength, further paralyze Senate activity, and ultimately gain the president very little, since the administration doesn't have much time remaining. The political and non-political issues caused by the contempt action do not outweigh the issues that would flow from the replacement process.
**Cynical Answer** - The fight between the political parties has tainted everything they do. Maybe the Attorney General is a profligate lawbreaker who should be removed but is protected by a foolish or equally profligate president. Maybe Holder is just a convenient target for an angry opposition party pushing normal political and policy disagreements well beyond historical boundaries to win points with an equally angry base. But either way, the system is so poisoned that unless one party can literally force the other side to take some action, no matter how warranted, base politics always wins.
**Systemic Answer** - There is an expectation that Congress and the executive will disagree significantly on major policy initiatives. Although Contempt of Congress is an important power, automatically removing an executive officer for that contempt would interfere too much with the executives ability to run its own affairs.
Although executive officials should take Congressional opinion into account, and of course should remove bad actors, we should expect that often the two sides will disagree. If Holder really did need to be removed, then Congress could do so through impeachment, a higher standard to ensure its existence does cause the problems above.
| 36 |
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CMV: Critical Thinking / Philosophy should be a core discipline in modern school systems
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Communication is essential, which is why school in the United States has an English class as one of the four core disciplines (English, Math, Science, History)
Everyone communicates, but many do it poorly... So we deem it absolutely necessary to at least attempt refining ones ability to communicate through the education system as a vehicle.
Philosophy is parallel to this.
Everyone uses philosophy, adopts philosophies, spouts philosophies.... but the average person does it quite poorly.
Abstract thought, being able handle big questions... these are skills we should be beginning to equip people with at an early age.
Philosophy has a bad wrap because in a production/consumption society it has no tangible value--- but the value of philosophy as a discipline is intrinsic and can effect everything we do.
Just a few obvious applications and benefits to adopting critical thinking / philosophy as a core discipline are:
1) Child Rearing:
You bring a person into the world and are tasked with guiding them the best you can through the infinite chaos of life. What is the best way to do this? How much should you intervene? Understanding your actions have tremendous influence on their developing minds.... how should you try to act and communicate?
These questions (and many more) are abstract in nature and could be argued to be essential for any prospective parent--- but so many of us are not equipped to tackle such large issues. We commonly say things like "I dont even want to go there..." or "thats too deep for me..." when touching upon huge, philosophical quandaries.
A society which encourages critical thought and teaches us how to approach abstract questions from an early age will eventually birth a a generation of (by average) more prepared parents. The effects of this could be immense.
2) Bullying :
A child is caught bullying another child.... the bully is called into the guidance counselors office and is asked "Why did you make fun of Johnny?"
The bullying child will likely be rolling his eyes and saying whatever it takes to get out of the guidance counselors office at this point... and the bullying behavior will likely continue.
In a society where critical thinking skills are taught from an early age, the child will be used to answering "why" questions, and thinking inward. In more circumstances by average than would likely happen now, the bullying child may actually benefit from the counseling.
3) Conformity :
Organized religion, media, peers etc. all have tremendous toxic weight on society. Freeing slaves, allowing women to vote, allowing homosexuals to marry, allowing people to smoke weed..... these topics take far to long to filter through tradition.
Critical thinking skills arm the populace with the notion of asking "why", and not accepting things at face value. Systems of control would have a much more difficult time normalizing the opinions of the masses.
Of course the volume of examples could be vast but I assume if you are still with me you get the gist of what I am suggesting.
Over the course of time, a society that values critical thinking and philosophical thought as much as quantitative and linear thought would be a society that would evolve quicker and more efficiently with considerably less conflict and arbitrary systems of control.
_____
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| 766 |
The problem with making it a *core* discipline, is that philosophy devoid of context is incredibly abstract and abstract concepts are boring to children of school age.
What we should be doing is teaching logic... in math classes. And to a degree we do.
And teaching ethics... in English class and History class. And again, we do.
And teaching epistomology... in Science class. Ditto.
And teaching critical thinking (which isn't really a field of philosophy, but whatever), in all classes.
Probably theology should be skipped in public schools... and metaphysics, largely for the same reason.
Trying to teach philosophy in primary/secondary schools is a recipe for some teacher thinking it's actually a good idea to teach that Heidegger quote that /u/Bulvye mentioned. It's a recipe for people hating philosophy even more than they already hate it.
Could we use more emphasis on some of the fields of philosophy in schools? Sure. What we *don't* need, and really should avoid, is teaching it as a *discipline* before college, except as perhaps an elective for kids that show an interest (guess what, we do that already too in many places).
| 147 |
ELI5: How does rendering work?
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Is it like a painting being painted 60 times a second?
I'm asking about real-time or somewhat real time rendering, in games or in certain animation studios.
| 37 |
"Rendering" is a general term for converting a *general* "high level" description of something in to a *specific* instance. In the graphics example, the high-level description is a 3D model held in computer memory, while the rendering is a specific view on to that model. If it's a first person view, the "virtual camera" is at the player's location and has a fairly human-realistic field of view.
Another example: printing is rendering. A PDF document is a rendered (printed) version of a word processor document. That's why PDFs have fixed page sizes and are hard to edit: the high-level document information has been converted to specific page-level data by the rendering process e.g the addition of margins and page breaks.
| 18 |
[Marvel] Are there any drawbacks to Iron Man not keeping his real identity a secret ?
| 36 |
In *Iron Man 2*, Ivan Vanko almost kills Tony Stark during a motorsport race because his attendance was very publicly known, and therefore easy to anticipate.
In *Iron Man 3*, Tony Stark's home is obliterated by gunship helicopters. This almost kills Tony Stark *and* Pepper Potts.
Yes, there are drawbacks to pissing people off on a superhero level, then having your public appearances trackable.
| 93 |
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ELI5: In school we learnt that honey doesn't spoil. So how is it that packaged honey, even those that claim to be "pure", have an expiration date?
| 185 |
They don’t spoil but they do lose flavour, smell and water. If you store honey in fridge, some times you might notice it crystallises. This will happen in room temperature after a couple of years. So the expiration date is really a best by date.
| 200 |
|
ELI5: How does youtube meet the incredibly high demand for storage required for all the uploaded videos?
|
I read that if you tried to watch every video on youtube, for every minute of video you watched, you would fall one week behind due to all the uploads that would take place in that one minute.
So this raised the question - how does youtube (or Google) meet such an incredible demand for storage? Are there algorithms that make video storage size smaller? And even if such algorithms existed, wouldn't there still be an absolutely atrocious amount of data that would need to be stored?
| 15 |
By having entire buildings filled with servers and hard drives.
How many terabyte drives can you fit in a million sq ft datacenter? Google has over 20 datacenter worldwide.
And you continuously add more drives. By the rackful.
| 15 |
ELI5: Why can an ant fall from several feet up and live to walk away, yet if a person fell from the same relative height they would die?
| 24 |
In physics, there exists a term called terminal velocity. It describes the max speed of an object will fall taken into the effects of gravity and air resistance.
An ant has a very low terminal velocity, where on the other hand a human has fairly high terminal velocity. To put into perspective the difference, imagine this: in order for an ant to reach terminal velocity, it only needs to fall around 1 story, or around 4 meters, whereas a human needs the entire height of the Empire State Building to reach terminal velocity.
Just imagine dropping a piece of paper and a bowling ball, where the paper is the ant and the ball is you.
| 11 |
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[Warhammer 40k] Do the people in charge actually believe the whole Emperor religion thing?
|
Like, is this a 1984 thing where the terrible society is self perpetuating because everyone believes in it, or is it a case of the upper classes spreading a useful lie?
| 15 |
If by 'in charge' you mean the High Lords of Terra, then generally they do. Remember that followers of the Imperial Cult did manage to wrestle control of the Imperium from the High Lords during the Age of Apostasy. But here's a breakdown of each High Lord:
Permanent seats:
The Master of the Administratum - Believer
The Inquisitorial Representative - Depends on the Inquisitor
The Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum - Space Pope
The Fabricator-General of the Adeptus Mechanicus - Mechanicus don't really worship the Emperor anyway. But that doesn't mean they don't seem him as divine.
The Grand Provost Marshal of the Adeptus Arbites - Believer
The Paternoval Envoy of the Navigators - Navgiators can actually 'see' the light of the Astronomicon so they generally do believe that the Emperor is divine. But do note that the position is called 'Envoy' for a reason, the Paternova has the real power but whether or note the highest echelons of the Navis Nobilite believe in the Emperor's divinity is another thing.
The Master of the Astronomican - Astropath, so believer.
The Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum - Not enough information, as we don't know how the Grand Master is chosen (if among the ranks of the assassins or not) no reliable guess can be done. He's definitely not a Eversor or a Culexus though.
The Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica - Astropath, so believer.
Other seats:
Lord Commander of Segmentum Solar - Chances are he went through basic military training, and has a copy of the Imperial Munitorum Manual. So yes, believer.
Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard - Same as above.
Cardinal(s) of the Holy Synod of Terra - Space Cardinals
The Abbess of the Adepta Sororitas - Oh definitely a believer.
Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes - None Believer.
The Chancellor of the Estate Imperium - Believer
The Speaker for the Chartist Captains - Believer
Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Navy - Same as the Lord Commander.
By and large the Imperial Cult extends to the ruling and not only the common class. Honestly Space Marines are probably one of, if not the only group in sizeable numbers who generally don't worship the Emperor.
| 36 |
ELI5: The lyrics to Hotel California
|
Edit: Wow, I never expected it to be this popular. Thanks, everyone!
| 493 |
I always thought that this song was about drugs, and that the "hotel" is the metaphorical place you go when you are high.
He is felling depressed about something (dark desert highway) A girl introduce him to drugs (she showed me the way), it's great at first (such a lovely place, any time of year, etc ...).
He meets other drug addicts (some dance to remember, some dance to forget), have parties with the captain, and slowly take the road of addiction (we are all just prisoners here, of our own device).
At some point he realizes that drugs is not a solution to any of his problem or in fact any problem (they just can't kill the beast).
So he's running for the door, and tries to quit drugs. You can indeed try to quit drugs for some time (you can check out anytime you like), but you will have that addiction deep in your body and mind for the rest of your life (you can never leave [the hotel])
So TIL that there are other reasonable explanations.
| 563 |
[Dont be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood] How was Loc-Dog able to obtain a Soviet nuclear warhead?
|
[Scene](https://youtu.be/F1Bhl3yjzsQ) in question.
| 32 |
After the collapse of the Soviet union several nuclear warheads went missing. The CIA has been running Operation Buyback ever since to acquire or destroy these missing warheads. Nukes aren't the most marketable assets and many weapons dealers will happily give them away rather than try to find a government in need of one that wont screw them over. Selling one to an ice cream man in the hood is an easy way to score free ice cream and ensure that no crazy terrorists end up with it. Loc either stole or bartered it off the ice cream man since radiation melts ice cream no matter how good it is at keeping the children in line.
| 26 |
Can't seem to get a boolean expression for the life of me
|
I was given a circuit diagram with 2 !!! outputs and i can't seem to find the expression for it. I used logisim to draw the circuit https://imgur.com/Bs9viQS and it gave me two expressions for two outputs : one for x : https://imgur.com/uXsD4lu and another for y : https://imgur.com/Pv59CMc
HOW am I supposed to combine the two expressions??
Here is the truth table if it helps : https://imgur.com/eCgxULj
| 15 |
Really look at the expressions for x and y. Think about what they mean and how they relate to each other. Don't rely on software to tell you what the expressions are, either do it by hand or derive it yourself from the truth table.
The truth table is a dead giveaway for how you're supposed to 'combine' the expressions.
Spoiler: >!x and y are exactly the same.!<
| 13 |
[DC] How can the Anti Life Equation and the Life Equation exist in the same universe when they both "prove" inherently contradictory truths about the universe?
|
The Anti Life Equation mathematically proves that life is meaningless and not worth living, while the Life Equation proves the exact opposite. But they're both undeniable proof of ideas that cannot exist in the same reality with the same basis of life. There can't be a universe where 2+2=4 and 4-2=3 can coexist, so how can both Life Equations?
| 121 |
Different axioms.
If you run the numbers from one set of premises, you calculate that life is meaningless and has not capacity for more then slavery to darkseid. If you run from another, you calculate that all people have value and deserve freedom.
One could say the entire point of all of DC comics is a discussion over which starting premises are more reasonable.
| 140 |
[Marvel/DC] So many characters are geniuses. If every superhero and villain with genius intellect had instead average intelligence, how would their worlds be different? What events would have changed?
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This is assuming everyone keeps their non-smart powers.
| 45 |
Most of Marvel never happens. The FF never go into space, because Reed hasn't invented an experimental rocket ship. Bruce Banner never invents the Gamma Bomb and doesn't become the Hulk. Tony Stark never becomes Iron Man. Hank Pym never invents Pym Particles and doesn't become Ant-Man, or make his girlfriend the Wasp. Professor X doesn't invent Cerebro, and has a harder time tracking down mutants. Doctor Doom is just a powerful wizard.
Despite the best efforts of Thor, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange and Professor X, this world gets eaten by Galactus.
| 64 |
ELI5 - Google's new privacy policy
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I just don't get what all the fuzz is about?
| 69 |
Google will now take all the things you read, write or click in any of the Google products and use them in order to show you targeted advertisements.
The big difference is that (1) the information from all products (search, G+, docs) is combined, which didn't use to be the case - this will allow much more accurate profiling which in the end will basically identify you. No matter if you tell them your exact details, they might know who you are, where you live, etc - no matter if you surf in private mode, from different computers, etc. As long as *something* connects the information (e.g. one gmail account, same computer, same IP) Google will try to match these information.
| 24 |
Why are prices of goods lower on Black Friday, when demand for Christmas gifts begins to surge, than After Christmas (Boxing Day), when demand sharply declines?
| 78 |
The surge in demand around Black Friday is well anticipated by stores, who preemptively increase their supply in order to capitalize on the increased demand. This helps keep prices from increasing for most things as the supply rises to meet the demand, but creates increased pressure for the stores to attract that increased demand to their products specifically, resulting in the numerous sales, as well as tactics like loss leaders (steeply, often unprofitably, discounted items meant to get people in the door where they will then buy other, more profitably priced merchandise at the same time), or more cheaply made versions of expensive items like TVs that can be sold at a discounted price without cutting into profits.
Likewise, stores aren’t ordering extra stock to replenish what is sold during the holiday season for the post holiday, because they know ahead of time that demand is going to drop off sharply.
Increased and decreases in demand tend to raise or lower prices as supply tries to catch up to the change in demand. Since the demand changes are predictable, suppliers can anticipate those changes and plan accordingly, which somewhat or entirely negates the effect of the change in demand on price.
That said, it should be noted that unexpectedly hot items during Black Friday will often fly off the shelves very quickly and then see a spike in prices on resale sites, while stores that fail to sell off their excess stock during the holiday season may be left in a position that they need to steeply discount their supply to get rid of it in the post-holiday, so in that sense the changes in demand still do have their intuitive impact on pricing.
For the most part, good planning prevents this from being too much of an issue as retailers attempt to capture the increased demand, though.
| 29 |
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[Japanese Mythology] Ok, why are people against me marrying a Kitsune?
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Just curious becuase... I mean, who wouldn't want to have a superpowered wife. I'm pretty sure she isn't deceiving me or something because I'm just a farmer and all and people are acting like crazy.
| 272 |
Look goddamn it we have lost way too many viable husbands and fathers to the temptation to touch the fluffy tail.
you know the problem is that when a man and a kitsune make babies they are always kitsune babies and because of all the kitsune being ludicrously attractive and affectionate we are having problems keeping the population of humans up.
| 256 |
[MCU] Does Thanos have any special feats besides being smarter and stronger Hulk?
| 196 |
Well... he's pretty resistant to infinity stones, which seem to kill anyone else that uses them ;-).
But yes, if you consider a Titan's strength, durability, speed, reflexes, and longevity to just be "a stronger hulk", then sure, probably longevity is the only true "extra" power that isn't just massively greater than Hulk's.
Being 1,000 years old gets you a lot of experience at fighting when you're a Titan.
Not clear he's smarter than Bruce Banner, though.
| 235 |
|
How would a neutral bouyant object or person experience acceleration if the fluid around them was accelerating with them. Think throwing a fishbowl.
|
A colleague mentioned that lots of stuff in Star Trek is scientifically viable. I challenged this by saying "inertial dampers."
His response blew my mind.
Put a man in a fishbowl in a SCUBA suit, and accelerate that inside a rocket ship.
While it's clear that he wouldn't be flung to the back of the fishbowl, I know in my engineering heart that the diver would still experience acceleration.
Can someone help me out?
| 56 |
It would be the same effect as accelerating in a car. The fluids inside the body would still experience the sudden change in force (an object at rest will stay at rest untill acted upon by an outside force)
Inertial dampeners on Star Trek actually apply an opposite artifical gravity against the force of acceleration. Such that the people inside are being subjected to "neutral forces" in the sense that all parts of them are being pulled in opposing directons with equal force at the same time.
| 14 |
CMV: the economy is massively rigged, and that’s the way it’s going to stay
|
The top 1% owns 56% of the stock market. The top 10%, 88% of it. In the past the mistake a lot of people made was assuming the stock market would keep going up indefinitely, and that was a great way to lose a lot of your money. But with the numbers above, the rich will always make sure the stock market is propped up (look at where the vast majority of the stimulus money went, while people got a $1,200 check if they qualified).
I’m generally pretty optimistic-I still think you can come up from nothing and change your life, get to the middle class from poverty, my family was on food stamps when I was young and I have a high paying job now-but when it comes to the truly rich or even the top 10%.. “It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.” - George Carlin.
Edit: not saying it’s impossible to get to the top 10%. Zuckerberg, Bezos got into the top 1%. But let’s be realistic here. Also, I understand anyone can invest in the stock market. But my point is just that it’s really rigged, not that it’s impossible.
Also, not sure if it matters but I work in finance, invest in stocks, and understand finance pretty well overall even beyond my job (I read a lot about it, it’s interesting to me). I know how to make progress and know it can be done, I just think it’s rigged.
| 37 |
I would agree with you, except for the rising number of millennial millionaires, millennials are currently set to become one of the wealthiest generations in recorded history based on statistics. Currently speaking baby boomers are still number one, but these millennials millionaires are born from hard work, not from inherented wealth, so there is hope.
| 11 |
Eli5 Why does our breathing affects our heartbeats speed when we do nothing?
|
If breathing is mostly done by lungs so why does breathing affects the speed of heart beats.
As from what i understand, lungs inhale and exhale oxygen and heart pumps oxygenated blood. Then why?
| 188 |
When you breathe in, you may notice your heart beat start to go faster. This is what we call respiratory arrhythmia and is a physiological phenomenon. The reason is that when we exhale, there's higher intrathoracic pressure i.e. Compression of ghe lungs forces air out. This increased pressure stimulates the Vagus, a nerve, that - among others - causes the heart to beat slower. So exspiration ==> pressure go brrrrr ==> Vagus stimulated ==> Vagus make heart go less brrrrr
When we inhale, it's basically just the opposite effect, the expansion of your ribcage increases the volume of your thorax, so the pressure drops. Thus, the vagus is stimulated less, and so your heart starts to beat slower.
To sum this up: Inspiration ==> pressure go less brrrrr ==> Vagus less stimulated ==> Vagus not make heart go less brrrrr as much as before ==> heart go more brrrrr
| 81 |
ELI5: Whats the difference from those big bulky cameras you'd see at movie sets and tv shows ,and the normal small portable cameras?
| 85 |
The main reason is those cameras carry physically larger lenses and the sensor inside the camera is larger as well. These are larger both to enhance quality and to work well in low light situations, such as when actors are talking indoors. They also have a bit more electronics to send a lower quality version of the video over a radio link, across the stage to where the director typically watches on a large monitor, and technicians record this temporary version so the director can play it back as many times as they like to decide if the shot was ok.
The lenses are engineering marvels themselves. They have geared focus rings so the focus is controlled by a second operator. Different focal length lenses from the same manufacturer have the focus rings in the same place so the lenses can be quickly swapped without having to realign the focus mechanism.
| 59 |
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ELI5: Why can't Android get updates like Windows does, bypassing the phone's manufacturer?
|
Both Windows and Android have to deal with vast number of devices of various manufacturers, but Windows can update itself while Android can't. I thought this might be caused by how phones need to be optimized for power and performance, but so do laptops.
Edit: In short, why doesn't Android devices get updates at the same time like Windows does?
| 46 |
first of all, every manufacturer (besides of nexus series) is tinkering with android. so there is almost no "pure android" besides of official google products. this means that every manufacturer needs to change android.
second thing, drivers. windows have many drivers, many things is plug and play, it doesn't work that way with android. android needs to be light, needs to be optimized for hardware. they can't add drivers for every part, it needs to be tested and needs to work on particular phone (or sometimes series of phones).
edit: there can be even more delay if it's changed by operator. in this case it looks like this:
google is releasing new android -> manufacturer is changing it (like TouchWiz) -> operator is changing it (like adding even more bloatware).
i'm not sure it's big case in USA, but probably is.
| 18 |
ELI5: How are video game AIs programmed?
| 23 |
Normally.by a mix of states and branching decision making. Depending on what's recently happen it will be in a certain state ie cautious, searching, patrolling, aggressive etc. Then based on their state it will have a decision tree to respond to situations for example in an FPS it may be:
State [In combat]; underfire? No, enemy location known? Yes, Enemy on range? Yes, in cover? No. Outcome: Find cover the attempt to kill enemy.
| 17 |
|
ELI5: Which transmission gives more mileage and why?
|
I drive a manual transmission car and I find my mileage to be comparable if not lower to an automatic transmission car. While activating cruise control, my mileage rises by a few kms because of this I have always wondered which transmission for my next car would be the best, considering mileage to be an important factor.
| 48 |
The blunt truth: Driver skill/style is 10x more important than transmission.
If fuel consumption is a priority:
1) Drive at the speed limit. EVERY car (other than sports cars perhaps) will be a LOT more fuel efficient at 65mph or less. This can easily save 10-15% on fuel consumption on highways.
2) Accelerate gently and anticipate slowing down and coasting to more gentle stops. In stop and start traffic, this again easily saves 5-10% on fuel consumption.
3) Maintain tire pressures, tire alignment and maintenance of engine.
The differences in fuel consumption between a modern automatic transmission and a manual are small, if any, if a driver practices the above.
This is a very easy thing to test. Drive slower and less aggressively and monitor mileage. Do the comparison.
| 132 |
[Star Wars] it's the first day of high school (or whatever is equivalent). What sort of classes would an average teenager expect to take during the time periods of the prequels, original trilogy, and new trilogy?
|
Would there be a planetary history course as well as galactic?
Are the jedi brought up at all? Would the text books change after order 66?
I am assuming in an empire this big, there would be much more to learn. Would children be required to go to school longer than us on earth?
Would schools on other planets be under the same district or are they seperated?
Would rich kids have to travel the galaxy to go to the best schools in the galaxy?
| 21 |
Your education experince would change depending on what planet you are from. Most worlds would apprentice you, or have you start working at a very young age. The core worlds would likely have a general schooling, to prepare you either for the workforce, or for the best and brightest, to be sent to the imperial academy.
| 17 |
Why does stellar fusion last so long?
|
Even if fusion is only occuring in the core of a star, what is the hydrogen doing that is not undergoing fusion? Even the largest stars with lives of 100 million years seem long-lived. If hydrogen fused into helium in the core, what stops it from continuing to fuse into heavier elements immediately?
| 39 |
Stellar Evolution takes place in a really cool state of equilibrium. So, as you probably know, the fusion only happens at high temperatures. Also, the fusion creates a lot of energy, which in turn creates radiative pressure, which "pushes the star" keeping it large. These two forces keep each other balanced as such.
As pressure is increased on the core, the temperature of the core is heated, which makes fusion more likely to occur. If fusion is more likely to occur, more radiative pressure is created, thus expanding the size of the star, thus decreasing the pressure, thus slowing down fusion. If fusion is slowed down too much, there is less radiative pressure, the star shrinks a little, increasing the pressure, causing more fusion to occur, which then leads to more radiative pressure, expanding the star, cooling down the core. Stars are in a state where this is equalized. This is also why larger stars burn for a shorter period of time, their equilibrium state is one where there is, on average, higher pressure in the core, thus increasing the rate of fusion.
Continuing, temperature is a very "macro" concept. If you only have a couple of particles, temperature doesn't really mean anything- but it is a measure of the average energy of the particles. So, the temperature of the core isn't actually hot enough for two average particles to undergo fusion. But that's just the average, there are lots of particles with less energy than average, and a lot with more energy than average. Only the particles on the high end of this spectrum have enough energy to fuse. This helps explain why it is a slow process.
And finally, fusing lighter elements takes less energy than fusing heavier ones. Thus, while the lighter elements are fusing, the core is not hot enough to fuse the heavier elements. It is only after the lighter elements stop fusing, causing the star to contract slightly, that the core then gets hot enough for the heavier elements to fuse.
| 60 |
[Fight Club] What the hell happens after Durden blows up the buildings?
|
Blowing up 9 buildings would kind of put anyone on a most wanted list. What would happen next?
| 31 |
He is institutionalized, he believes himself to be dead and in heaven trying to convince god that people are not perfect unique snowflakes or piles of infectious human waste they just are and that is ok.
The people from the self help groups still write him and tell him that they hope he will get better and project mayhem continues to give him assurances of their commitment to the cause and that they are continuing his work in his absence.
| 22 |
[Skyrim] Why am I the "Last" Dragonborn? Will there never be another?
| 163 |
It's a point of contention. We aren't even entirely sure how the Dragonblood works. The one source that says it's not hereditary is deeply flawed, and all the evidence that it IS hereditary is either out-of-universe or circumstantial.
It's highly probable, however, that the Dragonborn have served their primary purpose. Stopping Alduin from turning the Kalpa. Whether Akatosh ever finds a secondary need for them or not, they've done what they were designed to do.
| 123 |
|
Quitting the PhD and how to proceed with the exit strategy?
|
Hi guys, this is a follow-up to my previous post almost a year ago:
http://www.reddit.com/r/AskAcademia/comments/yyrts/need_advice_on_how_to_proceed_with_a_terrible_lab/)
Anyways, since that time the lab has really not improved. Our last grant expired a few months ago and we're running on fumes. The lab is still a miserable and dismal place and an incident that occurred after my last post convinced me to start looking for another position. Essentially, I found notebook evidence of falsified data from the previous post-doc. He wrote in his notebook that he gave a group of animals treatment (including dosage volume, weight of animals, date of dosage, etc.). However, on his excel data and in the later pages of his notebook, numerous animals in his treatment group were thrown into the non-treated/control group because I assume the treatment failed. Furthermore from reading his previous publication, he claimed that he used n=20 per group. In the folder that contains all the excel data for his paper, he only has 5 per group. However the mean's and SEM's in the excel sheet all correspond to the published paper's mean's and SEM's.
This was extremely annoying because many of us in the lab have projects that are extensions of his paper and if his treatment never worked, it would explain why almost none of us can replicate his data and have been getting confounding results. I proceeded to gather up all this evidence and presented it to my PI in a very diplomatic manner. I showed him how in one page of the notebook the animals were clearly treated and on the next they were thrown into the non-treated group. At this news he acted very concerned and told me to gather up any other data that I found suspicious and that he would talk to that former post-doc. Feeling a ruse, I told him that that was it. I told him very specifically that I did not want to accuse anyone of falsifying data and that I was just bringing up something that "didn't make sense" and was "confounding". I wanted him to make the final call.
A week later, I was called into the office and yelled at for over an hour straight. I was told that I was an incompetent child trying to sabotage the lab and his reputation. That the postdoc was beyond reproach. He talked to the postdoc and explained how there was (get this) a piece of towel paper that the postdoc had written on and left at his house correcting that the animals were not actually treated. At this stage I realized that either this guy was in cahoots with the postdoc or just batshit insane to beleive such BS. Either way, he threatened to kick me out of the lab, report me to my department head, etc. I ended up apologizing while secretly being furious. The postdoc's notebooks were taken and have completely disappeared from the lab though a general rule of thumb is everyone, including past lab members, must leave their lab notebooks to help in data replication.
Words cannot describe how incompetent and stupid my PI is. I am actually surprised he ever made it this far. During the year he has degraded me by making me write his kids' essays for college and grade my fellow PhDs' written qualifying exams (which he is supposed to grade himself). I have given scores to abstracts for large conferences and even reviewed manuscripts that are meant only for my PI's eyes. My comments need to be broken down into incredibly simple language so that he can understand them (non-native English speaker) and he becomes infuriated when my sometimes page-long reviews are too complicated for him to understand. I have saved e-mail exchanges of him requesting all of the above.
Anyways, fast forward a year. I have done pretty well. I won an internal grant, which I ended trading up for a very large national external grant. My PI still attributes this to his "mentorship" although he has never given me any useful advice in his life. The day that I won this large grant, he called me into his office and told me that he thought I won this grant due to luck and his mentorship. He then proceeded to tell me that I had too much free time on my hands and was not a hard worker...on the day that I won a huge national grant. I responded that I was teaching this quarter (I did awesome and had stellar reviews because I dedicated a lot of time to it). He snapped back that he was patient with me this quarter, but he expected more work out of me in the coming months. I was understandably pissed.
All that is coming around though. I planned my escape route after being yelled at a year ago by applying for numerous jobs and other programs. I basically have large standing offers from numerous avenues in and out of science. I don't want to list them here, but I will say that all of them either pay incredibly lucratively or are acceptances at top 5 medical institutions.
My question is how do I quit in a way without making too many waves? I consider the bridge with my PI burnt as he is not a reasonable person at all and will take any attempt to leave (especially with a huge grant) as a grave insult. He has also not ever graduated a single PhD student so it will hurt his standing. I do not want him going batshit insane and slandering me with lies so he doesn't look bad losing a student(though actually I am fairly ready for this to happen). I do have backups of all data and email exchanges so I guess I could totally nuke his reputation if I heard he was trying to destroy mine.
I am planning on telling him that I am disillusioned with science and was given a high paying offer to work and that it is nothing personal: I just want to work and make money. I am planning on doing this soon and giving only a few days notice because I know he will flipout and kick me out immediately. However, I am also planning on scheduling a preemptive meeting with the head of my department, who is a much more reasonable person, and telling him the truth of why I am leaving (crazy insane PI).
| 27 |
If it were me, I'd just be honest. Hand him a resignation stating you're not happy at the organisation and want to be elsewhere.
Don't make threats, don't make a drama, just plain and simplle.
If he gets his back up over it, then there's ways of escalating. But low key minimum fuss is the way forward.
| 23 |
Are viruses like colds and flu different depending on where you are?
|
In the UK I tended to get colds infrequently and very mildly. Since spending time in and then moving to the US it seems like here I seem to suffer much worse.
I figured colds and flu tend to travel pretty far and wide and wouldn’t vary much place to place.
However several people have suggested that my immune system is less equipped for variants here.
I’d love to know if it’s just been bad luck or if it’s just going to take a while to adjust.
| 3,154 |
Yes you are being exposed to variants you aren't yet immune to. However there are other factors. If you are in a place, like a transport hub where there are loads of people bringing in new strains of disease you will get ill more often, also the environment can weaken your immune system, so if the climate is harsher or if there is more pollution.
| 1,519 |
[Stranger Things] Why don't ALL the people of Hawkins just leave the city if they see all this weird stuff happening? Or why doesn't some agency try to evacuate the city?
| 164 |
The same reason people don't leave Detroit, or Beirute, or any other real-world hellhole.
- Leaving a place costs money that a lot of people don't have
- People fall victim to inertia or fear; it could always be worse somewhere else
- The belief that "it won't happen to me" is very strong
And when you're dealing with an otherworldly entity that kills like three or four people a year, even in a town of like 30,000, "it won't happen to me" is honestly fairly accurate.
| 124 |
|
How are age groups decided for the COVID vaccine?
|
The Pfizer-BioNTech might soon be approved for 5-11 year olds. How are these age groups decided? Is it largely arbitrary or historical? By expected weight? Or is the 'maturity' of an immune system by a certain age a factor?
| 38 |
That's kinda the line between toddler and school age for development for lots of other studies. School age is also important for the economic and social impacts of not being vaccinated and being in a classroom with a bunch of other people. Immune system maturity doesn't really play in so much as risk vs benefit analysis. There's some weight based determinations and safety things with lowering the age slowly that they are studying, but those are kinda arbitrary because age doesn't correlate with weight or height which could have been used as requirements
| 29 |
[General] If you combine the DNA of two different species to create a race of super monsters, how do you classify it taxonomically?
|
I'm cloning a race of tarantula/grizzly bear hybrids as a funny joke and to reign terror upon my enemies, but I don't know how to classify it when I publish my findings.
They're morphologically more similar to grizzlies, but have about .003% more tarantula DNA (as well as a little sea cucumber "filler" DNA). What should I do?
| 43 |
It's not really necessary to classify your new organism unless you plan to create a large, stable, breeding population or if you plan to patent the genome. For now just calling them transgenic grizzlies (*Ursos arctos*) is sufficient.
If your creations are able to interbreed with each other, produce viable offspring, and manage to establish a population in the wild, then you might start thinking about taxonomy.
| 46 |
ELI5: Why do large, orbital structures such as accretion discs, spiral galaxies, planetary rings, etc, tend to form in a 2d disc instead of a 3d sphere/cloud?
| 9,117 |
The really ELI5 answer. Everything wants to make a single ball of stuff because of gravity. But just like a centrifuge, spinning makes things want to go to the outside. Since they are only spinning in one direction, they only move to the outside in one direction. So you have a ball that is spinning and spitting out stuff in one direction, making it 2D. It is kept 2D because things attract each other, and the closes thing is in a 2D plane with it, so it keeps it in the plane.
| 3,825 |
|
CMV: I think anyone who claims America was founded as a "Christian nation" is either lying, or willfully ignorant
|
I think this goes beyond just being wrong about something.
It's extremely easy to confirm this claim. Just go online and search our country's founding documents. Obviously if America was *founded* as a christian nation, then we'd expect to see references to this in the *founding* documents.
But there is literally zero mention of the word "Christianity" or "Christian" (or any other kind of religion) in any of the founding documents. Even "God" can't be found.
Not only that, but in written correspondence from the founding fathers they specifically point out that America is *NOT* a Christian nation. This is a quote from a letter Jefferson wrote to a church: *Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.*
Okay, what about "in god we trust" on our currency? Just look that up, the idea was first implemented in 1864 on a single piece of currency, then added to all paper currency in 1957. This is well after our country was founded. "Under God" in the pledge...1954.
So my view isn't exactly that America was not founded as a Christian nation (but I'm open minded to being wrong about this if you feel I'm incorrect). My view is that the evidence is so objective and so obvious that a person must either be intentionally lying when making the claim, or they are just willfully choosing to be ignorant. No person that is reasonable could come to the conclusion that America was founded as a christian nation.
_____
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| 33 |
>Just go online and search our country's founding documents. Obviously if America was founded as a christian nation, then we'd expect to see references to this in the founding documents.
You do see references to it. While others have quoted the Federalist Papers, you don't even have to go _that_ far to find references. The Declaration of Independence has these lines:
>the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them
>they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights
>with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence
Now, unless were are going to argue that the "Creator" referenced is the parents of the author, it is clear that "Divine providence", "Creator" and "Nature's God" are reference to a spiritual entity. Given the religious backgrounds of the Founding Fathers, that spiritual entity could only be the Christian God.
While it is certainly true that they didn't want the new nation to be a theocracy, they did believe that they freedoms and liberties that the nation was founded on were gifts from God Himself. In that sense, we very much are a "Christian nation" if you believe that to mean, "A nation founded by Christians based on Christian principles".
| 21 |
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