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ELI5: We know the universe is expanding. What is it expanding, INTO? | 18 | There was a Nobel laureate in physics on Dr Karl's show a few weeks back who pointed out that you're really talking about expanding spacetime, just just space. That being so, he said, you can view it as expanding into the future. | 13 |
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CMV: If you are a good person on the inside but do hurtful things, you are a bad person. If you are a bad person on the inside but do kind things, you are a good person. | Maybe this is the wrong sub to post this, so sorry if I'm wasting your time.
My family is full of people who think highly of one another, who are emotionally supportive of one another and say nice things about you to your face but, in private say and think the most hateful and vindictive shit about one another that you can imagine.
It is literally impossible for a human being to exist that they will not find flaws with, dissect those flaws, and then spread the discourse of those flaws to anyone who will listen.
Furthermore, as you inevitably slide down their shit meter, they will withdraw support from you and refuse to help you with anything, no matter how pressing or urgent the issue.
That is, until they need help from you, in which case their estimation of you will go back up temporarily.
I think that even though they seem to be good people (on the inside, face to face) they are actually horrible people that probably should be driven into a cave and used for menial labor until they die.
Whereas other people in my family will tell you to your face what your flaws are, what they don't like about you, and what you need to change to make yourself a better person in their eyes. They will say this without intentional cruelty, but in hurtful ways.
However, every time you make the slightest improvement, they comment just as positively as they had negatively commented on it.
They are quick to help with anything, be it time or money or an ear to bend, no matter what they say they think of you or how they feel about you in the moment.
Even though these people are universally reviled amongst the other people in my family for the edge of their tongue, I think that they are the only good people in the family.
Am I wrong for thinking this? Are you a bad person for how you make someone feel about themselves regardless of what you say behind their backs or how you affect their lives regardless of what you say to their face?
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 100 | I don't think your title matches your view. Your family DOES perform bad behaviors (the gossiping, the fault-finding, the cruelty)... that's how you know they're bad people. It's not just on the inside. | 44 |
[The Orville] Why do all ship mounted weapons fire only straight forward? | Not even capital ships can fire off to the side or backwards - what gives? Is targeting enemy ships so complex that it's impossible to do so? | 31 | Despite being at war with the Krill for several years they never really designed a warship. Since the primary mission of any given vessel is exploration and diplomacy it really wouldn't serve to cover the ship in guns. Star Trek was similar in design ideologies and only produced two warships seen on screen: the USS Defiant (ds9) and the USS Prometheus (Voyager) | 19 |
ELI5: Why are pistol bullets usually wider than rifle bullets? | A smaller Pistol caliber is 9mm.
While a larger size rifle caliber is only 7.62mm.
Why is that?
| 16 | Bullets have both length and width that contribute to their volume, and therefore weight and power. In a rifle, the magazine can generally be whatever dimensions are convenient for the designer to make them. For a handgun however, the magazine goes inside the grip, and so must fit within a human hand. This restricts the forward-to-back dimension of the cartridge so that pistol bullets need to be short and stubbier than rifle bullets to fit. In order for the bullets to stay big, they just make them wider to compensate.
On another point, because the case, and therefore powder volume of a rifle is so much larger, rifle bullets tend to go close to 3x as fast as a handgun bullet. Even so, at the extreme ranges that a rifle is used, the bullets can fall over 3 feet, making it important to keep that velocity up. Lower bullet mass and narrower bullets help with that. Since a handgun is so much more difficult to shoot accurately, its not really important that it's terribly effective past a few tens of meters.
Thirdly, since the bullets move slower, (this is a little controversial) it has fewer mechanisms for wounding. Rifle bullets will send a shockwave through flesh, damaging organs even far away from the wound channel. Handgun bullets are slow enough that they don't really do that. In order for an organ to get damaged by a handgun bullet, the bullet has to actually pass through it. Making the bullet wider increases this chance.
TL;DR Handgun bullets need to be short to fit in the grip, they are slow because they don't need range, and they are wide so that they still have adequate wounding potential at low energy. | 25 |
ELI5: Why does a projectile's velocity matter more than mass in terms of kinetic energy. | I have a background in long range shooting and am trying to explain to a novice that the kinetic energy of a projectile is 1/2m(v^2) and because of this mass is it as important as velocity when it comes to calculating kinetic energy. No matter what I say to this person, they do not understand that heavier is not as important as the velocity in regards to this function.
Can someone please ELI5 so I can make this person understand that the faster a bullet projectile moves is more important than its weight. Bonus points if you can describe terminal ballistics of an object impacting and transferring energy. | 18 | Kinetic energy is *1/2* times *mass* times *velocity* **times velocity**. That's right, velocity is in there twice, multiplied together. That makes it twice as important.
If you double the mass, you double the energy.
If you double the velocity, you quadruple the energy.
If they don't get it after that, then you need to give up because they've decided that they're right on a political or religious level. This thought is now part of their personal belief system, and nothing you say will change their mind. | 15 |
Does the brain undergo physiological changes while depressed? If so what kind of changes specifically? | 4,305 | Depression can shrink various parts of the brain, specifically the hippocampus (responsible for emotional management, learning, and memory) and prefrontal cortex (complex thought and planning). There's speculation that the amygdala (the fear center and further emotional management, largely "negative" emotion) is altered physically as well, though it's not known whether or not depression shrinks or increases that area's mass over time.
There are other areas of the brain that are debatably affected by long-term depression, but a lot of that is speculation and hasn't been studied enough. | 2,070 |
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CMV: The democratic party should completely drop gun control off of their agenda | I believe that the democratic party should completely drop gun control off of their agenda. They aren't going to lose voters based off of this, because there is no one else for the people for extreme gun control to vote for. The green party is a laughing stock that next to no one will vote for, and they aren't going to begin to vote for the extremely pro gun republicans. This will get the democratic party at minimum a decent number of crossover votes, and this has next to no downsides.
So, Change My View.
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 30 | You could say this about every single position in a 2 party system. Why not drop abortion rights, LGBT rights, and minimum wage laws too? They wouldn't lose any voters because Republicans believe the same thing, its a perfect strategy. | 23 |
[Marvel] Why is She hulk green all the time while regular hulk has two personalities? | 86 | The multiple personality thing has nothing to do with the Hulk powers. Literally no one else that transforms into a Hulk has that issue. Most have some personality changes, but not a completely different one.
The two personalities are solely and completely a result of Bruce Banner's own mental issues. The powers merely triggered a mental break, but they didn't actually create them.
Jennifer does not have those issues. She is a complete well ballanced person and thus able to stay in Hulk form as long as she likes while still being herself. | 131 |
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Tipping is supposed to be voluntary and for exceptional customer service. Expecting or mandating tipping is rude and detrimental to customers and employees alike. CMV | If I'm in an ordinary US restaurant, I don't really know what the prices is... it's whatever's on the menu plust some unspecified amount that's based on shame. If I pay any less than whatever is expected (and the amount varies depending on the kind of restaurant and service), I'm some kind of asshole.
Why? Because somehow restaurants are granted an exception to minimum wage laws *because of tipping* so now they're basically working for free unless I make up the difference. But bad laws aren't my fault nor are they my responsibility.
The next excuse is that it improves customer service, but having standards and holding to them solves that problem. When I worked retail, I helped people to the best of my ability because that's *what you're supposed to do*. If waiters aren't making people feel welcome, then it's not my responsibility to make it known by tips.
Even worse, the employee tips can be affected by the quality and timliness of the cooks, whether the restaurant is understaffed, whether they have to share the tips with kitchen staff or with management... it's just an enormous moronic mess and I hate it.
There's nothing good about tipping and it should be abolished. I would think that everyone would agree, but they don't. What am I missing? | 243 | I think this is simple enough - you would be paying a higher cost for your meal if the businesses paid their employees accordingly and no one tipped anymore. In other words, *you're paying that tip one way or the other* - as it stands now, there's some incentive to do more than "just your job", and allows the patron to determine the final cost of their meal.
You're entitled to not pay them, but if you've ever seen the opening to Reservoir Dogs, you'd get the fact that you're *going* to pay them one way or the other, and they work hard for their non wages.
Should the system be changed so the companies can't "stiff" their employees? Maybe - until you realize most waiters/waitresses make more than minimum wage, some upwards of $20 an hour in posh establishments, but *only*, and this is key, *only* if they provide exceptional service. This differentiates a shitty waiter from a good one. That doesn't mean we shouldn't set a minimum bar, but doing so requires an increase in the cost to the customer one way or the other; otherwise, small businesses die while corporations and mass-service industry can skate the costs on sheer volume.
Long story short, your meal is gonna include that extra 10% no matter what, so you're forking it up one way or the other. This is just the current method our culture utilizes for the transaction. It may not be ideal, but you need to participate. | 80 |
[Endgame Spoilers] How do we know that the main timeline... | was NOT visited by some future timelines avengers to get the stones? Multiple times?
So by natural progression of time, the Snap is inevitable. Which means that if every timeline ran the exact same away, the events of IW and EG would happen in all timelines across the multiverse.
So if the snap and the end of Thanos are both inevitable, does it mean that in the main timeline, in 2012 when the avengers were in New York, a group of future avengers showed up?
Does it mean that the Ancient one knew that it would happen? Or is it something beyond the capability of the time stone? Because if this is inevitable, how would the ancient one not know from her view to the future?
And if she didn't see it, does that mean the main timeline is the only one where things get fixed? If so, why wouldn't other timelines Dr Strange see the 1 in 14m605? | 50 | I think we know the main/first(I'll be calling it the first timeline because it's easier to reference and think of, as these timelines (I believe) are more sequential, than constant.) timeline wasn't visited by future avengers because none of them remember the events happening, like tony having a heart attack, the cap 1v1, and loki getting away. Now maybe in another timeline they did it smoother, but more likely worse seeing as though the first is the 1 where they get it right. | 34 |
[Monkey's paw] What would happen if I made a selfless wish to the monkey's pay? | I mean, something like finding the cure for cancer, or finding the solution to global warming? | 30 | It would still twist your wish to have negative repercussions somehow. The Paw isn't really about punishing you for making selfish wishes. It's about punishing you for messing with fate. A selfless wish is still an attempt to alter fate. | 76 |
Theoretically, what's the farthest back in time a human could travel and still safely breathe the Earth's atmosphere? | With the atmosphere constantly changing, how far back would you have to go before it is unbreathable to humans?
From [this](http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1991/6/91.06.04.x.html#c) article, it says that our atmosphere has been "maintained" more or less since the atmosphere became oxygen rich about 1.4 billion years ago.
Also, I am aware that during the carboniferous period, the Earth had a much higher oxygen concentration, and that ended ~300 Million years ago, but I'm not sure if that means it's too high for humans
Edit: thanks for all the replies everyone!! | 2,007 | Look at the Great Oxidation Event, which was concluded around 2 billion years ago. After that time, the CO2 levels of the atmosphere were much lower, and the O2 levels were much higher. Probably, it would be possible to breath the air any time since then, but you would have other problems (nothing to eat and not many places to stand on dry ground being high on the list). Humans should theoretically be able to breath the air any time in the Phanerozoic (last ~500 million years). | 790 |
CMV: All drugs should be legalized | If drugs were legal, then people could acquire them from reputable, government-inspected sources in a way that's much safer than getting them illegally from a dealer. Of course, many drugs are still inherently dangerous, but at the end of the day, people should be allowed to make the choice to put themselves at risk. Perhaps most importantly, many gang turf wars boil down to drug-selling territory. Innocent people are caught in the crossfire, and legalizing drugs could prevent much of this violence. If you choose to kill yourself with drugs, go ahead. It's when kids are put in danger while on their way to school that I have a problem. Prohibition is widely seen as a mistake today precisely because of the gang violence it spawned. Why is the War On Drugs any different? If anything, it's worse because it disproportionately targets communities of color. Anyway, I think drug legalization would solve tons of problems, but I've gotta be overlooking something. Tell me why I'm wrong. | 276 | Certainly not all drugs though?
Are we going to be allowing college kids to buy roofies?
And drugs like certain formulas of synthetic marijuana provide you with a similar high to cannabis, except you go through withdrawals afterwards and can become addicted. | 103 |
[Deus Ex] Are augmented humans allowed to board commercial planes? Isn’t that a big risk? | How would someone with augmented limbs be permitted to board a plane? In real life, something like a box cutter would be a no-no, but an entire limb capable of potentially ripping off a cockpit door seems like a big risk. This doesn’t even consider if someone had truly weaponized augments like Adam Jensen. Are augmented humans just not permitted on commercial planes? | 39 | Nano-augmentation is probably close to undetectable, and there are probably certain nano-augmentations that *make* it undetectable. So even if there were a regulation banning augmented humans from air travel, it would be mostly useless.
But it kind of doesn't matter. The most successful hijacking in the history of the world was carried out with a dozen box cutters, and the "tiny sharp thing" technology has existed for millenia. The TSA can't even find guns in handbags at the airports today, and they won't be any better at finding guys with tiny robots in their blood in fifty years.
Banning dangerous people from airplanes doesn't make us safe, the fact that most people just aren't dangerous makes us safe, combined with the fact that people will now fight back against anyone that attempts a hijacking. The rest of it is just security theater. | 37 |
ELI5: Why does putting a slice of bread in a bag of cookies make the cookies softer? | So I baked cookies on Thanksgiving and a friend I invited over who doesn't have family out here told me to put them in a bag when putting them away but include a slice of bread.
Now putting the cookies in a bag is nothing new to me, but the bread part sorta made it seem weird. When the cookies came out of the oven and cooled they were sorta hard on the bottom. Not rock hard, but not gooey. After Thanksgiving dinner I put them in a bag and threw in a slice of bread. Come today, I eat a cookie and it's the softest cookie I've ever had, and the hardness from before was gone.
Why and how does this happen? | 31 | Cookies contain a good deal of moisture in them, more than the air does usually, and because nature likes things balanced the moisture in the cookies leaves, to balance things out.
Bread, a lot like cookies, has a lot of moisture and, when compared to cookies, "gives up" that moisture quicker. This means the bread dries out before the cookies! | 17 |
[Pokémon] Has there ever been a documented case of a Pokémon killing a human? | 20 | It happens all the time. Ghost types feed on people's souls, Kyurem is known to eat people, Gyarados goes on wild rampages etc. There is a reason you're not supposed to go into the tall grass alone.
And of course humans use Pokemon to kill others, often through warfare or criminal syndicates. | 25 |
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CMV: Blaming rapidly industrializing nations for pollution is extremely hypocritical | Industrialization is an extremely costly process, one that usually bears the brunt of its price on the environment. Although I am not an expert in the subject, I do have some knowledge, and it usually goes something like this:
1. Breakthrough technology is invented
2. New labor opportunities around this invention begin to open up
3. Cities begin to grow and rural jobs become more automated
4. With this newfound productivity, the nation soon begins to build up infrastructure
However, in the gap between steps three and four, the nation usually produces massive amounts of waste, with no proper means to dispose of it. For example, [sewage in London](https://www.npr.org/2015/03/12/392332431/dirty-old-london-a-history-of-the-victorians-infamous-filth) and [soot in American the countryside](https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/water-and-air-pollution). Now, industrialization obviously takes place at different times when different nations are ready. While we have now developed sufficient means to dispose of our waste, other nations that are just beginning to industrialize in full force have yet to follow (China, India, Egypt, etc.). Thus, it does not seem proper for us to use these nations' pollution as an excuse not to contribute to the environmental cause, as this is a situation that is universal across industrializing nations. CMV that this is a reasonable rationale. | 19 | I think in your two examples they did not know better until they did. Then they fixed it. Now countries DO know better and should be at least attempting to industrialize in a more environmentally safer way. To not make the attempt when we know what we know now is the problem and why they get the blame from me. | 23 |
[Superheroes]Legally, are superheroes allowed to kill super villains in battle? | 49 | That depends on the situation. Vigilantees tracking down supervillains and then killing them in "self defense" would be illegal because they were the ones who created the danger in the first place. For that matter, they're also not allowed to beat up the supervillains, or even enter their hideout. But if the supervillain attacks a group of people then superheroes would be allowed to kill them to defend those people. Also, legally sanctioned superheroes who have a warrant would be able to kill the supervillains in self defense, just like any other peace officers. | 64 |
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What exactly are hash tables? | I’ve recently watched a couple videos of live programming interviews and in almost every one hash tables get brought up. Sorry if this is a really basic question but I can only get convoluted answers from googling hash tables. If someone could ELI5 hash tables it’d be much appreciated! | 32 | Imagine you have a mapping of usernames to user information like this:
* johndoe1 → (name: "John", email: "[email protected]")
* alice → (name: "Alice", email: "[email protected]")
* etc.
You want to be able to do a *lookup* of a particular user using their username. The username, being unique for every user, is called a *key*.
If you were to store this information naively, as an array for example, then a lookup would require you to go through the list one-by-one and compare the username to the the requested username for each entry. So in the worst case (if it's the last one) you'll need to go through the entire list until you hit the user you're looking for.
A hash table is a data structure that allow you to do lookups much more quickly. You create an array of a certain predetermined size (let's say 256). And then you "hash" the username to some index between 0-255. So "johndoe1" might hash to 132, "alice" to 42, etc. And you store the user information at the corresponding location in the array. There are many possible hash functions, a good hash function will be as random as possible but will always hash each input to a fixed hash.
Now, if you want to do a lookup of "alice", you just hash that username to get 42, and then you go straight to the corresponding array index: `users[42]` is your user entry.
A problem here is, since there's only 256 possible "slots", what do you do if you get clashes (for example if there are more than 256 users there must be at least one clash). This is called a hash collision, and there are multiple ways to solve it. Most commonly you will just gather all the users with the same hash in a list, and then go through that list the "naive" way. | 38 |
[Marvel X-Men] Does Wolverine see instant results when he works out? | His powers are obviously accelerated healing.
When you work out, you're damaging your muscles so when they repair, they also grow in mass so they dont continue to tear under similar stress. This is why it's important to increase workout intensity and consume protine, so your body has stuff to build muscles with.
Since his muscles would repair as fast as he is tearing them, would he just continue to grow on the spot? Could he workout for a full day and see those results at the end of the day? How quickly could he get how big? Could he just attempt to lift a mountain, rip his muscles under the strain, and have them instantly repair with vastly more mass? Theoretically, if he continued to lift things that were too heavy to the point of tearing his muscles, he could get jacked in like.... a few hours, if he wasn't already. | 16 | Honestly: yes, he would, but that would have been long, long ago. What “state” he heals to is squishy at best. But yeah.
A couch potato suddenly getting his regeneration would immediately feel amazing, have literally infinite stamina (yes, sexually too) and almost accidentally would get buff over time. | 19 |
How are vaccines delivered via needle? | I've gotten a number of vaccines through my life, most recently the Covid one and it got me thinking.
-why aren't vax shots done in the veins and arteries? Why the arm muscle? If it's in the vein, wouldn't that carry the "product" around faster?
-is the muscle and everything just mass covered with veins so that chances are the needles hit the veins anyways?
-why are vaxes via needles and not tablets like antibiotics?
-if the vax/needle is put in the arm/muscle, how does that product move around the body? Does our immune system just update our OS with the new info and its filed away?
-why the arm soreness? Is it because a needle pierced the muscle? If so, wouldn't that pain happen right away like stubbing a toe? Or does the arm hurt from the product? And why?
Hope these questions actually made sense! And thanks in advance!
Edit: I'm seeing very helpful answers below, thanks to everyone who answered. Other than replying to you all individually, to each comment to say thanks, I don't know how to "like" or "heart" a reply here, or whatever the reddit equivalent is lol. If I have more questions I'll post or reply to the answers. | 69 | They're meant to remain in place for more than a few hours to better stimulate an immune response. Most vaccines have an adjuvant - something to help it stick around longer and further stimulate the immune system, like an oil or protein-based antigen.
Some vaccines are oral (rotavirus, poliovirus), others can be intranasal (some flu vaccines) or even intradermal (I believe the mpox vaccine was given intradermal to get more vaccinations from a single vial).
E: to expand
1) Probably not a good idea to give most vaccines in a vessel. Some are modified live and best kept locally. There are some places you may not want them to go directly. That's why the vaccinator will often pull back on the syringe - to make sure it's not in a vessel.
2) The adjuvant can help keep it around, but most of it is cleared within ~48hrs.
3) Your arm is sore because of the immune response happening there - white blood cells coming in and breaking up the vaccine components and updating the OS as you say. Sometimes, your local lymph nodes may be sore, too (ie in the armpit), because the white blood cells have migrated there to update the OS more centrally. | 104 |
[avatar] If I'm a metalbender, can I bloodbend with the iron in people's blood? | 233 | No. Metalbenders can only bend iron because of the earthen impurities in it (which might be because of elemental silicon, or might be because of weird chi magic stuff). There's nothing that an earthbender would find recognizeable as earth in a human body.
That said, new techniques could be discovered, just like bloodbending and metalbending were. The human body is said to be composed of all four elements. You could (in theory) discover a way to, say, bend a person's bones using modified earthbending techniques. | 228 |
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Okay, so what the hell is dialectics? Anything that I've read about it seems like gibberish. Do any of you have some resources that can aid my understanding? | 162 | Dialectics is an abstract description of the movement that the understanding does. The mind sorts the world in ideas. Those ideas are reasonably good and reasonably clear. However, an idea will always prove to be insufficient or internally contradictory. So the mind will realise this and leave the old idea behind and develop a new idea which incorporates the good parts of the old idea and update it to accommodate the weaknesses previously discovered.
The new idea will also prove to be insufficient and/or internally contradictory, so it too will have to be *sublated*, that is, deleted and reconstructed. | 119 |
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ELI5: How does photo identification work for Muslim women who wear the full face veils? | 35 | They take them off and presumably, smile.
In airport security or anywhere where they are required to show their face, it isn't really convoluted: they go to a private room where a *female* officer identifies her.
The keyword is female.
I live in a country with a native Muslim population and the issue has never really come up. | 44 |
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ELI5:How does "declaring war" on a country work? And how does a country know who is attacking them? Couldn't the US go bomb a country and say another country did it? | 24 | Yes, a country's leader could go attack another country and blame someone else. However, the complexities in chain of command and the number of people that would be required to know are so high that people would find out eventually. Even Russia, which Putin keeps on lockdown with state-controlled news and the like, couldn't keep their invasion of Ukraine a secret indefinitely. With a free press and a division of power like in the US, it wouldn't take long at all for someone to start putting the pieces together.
At the very least, if the President did start to wage some sort of "secret war" without Congressional consent, eventually things like soldiers and ammunition and fuel would start going absent. When it came time for Congress to pay the bills, they'd find out and be pretty upset because it's exclusively their power to be able to formally declare war.
World War 1 was officially declared by the German diplomat to the Russian prince, to give an example. Nowadays it's difficult to say how a country like the US would declare war against an equivalent power, because would you really want to give a nuclear power forewarning that you're about to attack? | 15 |
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ELI5:Why can't you remove the crease from paper? | 93 | Paper is so common we take it for granted. This is a great question. Paper is a mat made from the pulp fibers of wood, and sometimes other plants or materials like cotton, etc. when you crease it you shift the fibers and probably break some. That makes it difficult, if not impossible, to get back to the smooth state. | 85 |
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Could you perceive reality without interpreting it? | Could you "turn off" your human interpretation and still be able to understand what it going on in front of your eyes? | 140 | This is a question that is often asked by people who are skeptics of metaphysical concepts. Philosophers have spent years trying to answer this query, but no one knows how to fully comprehend the answer. However, many philosophers have come up with close approximations.
One philosopher who has tried to answer this question is Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). A philosopher and classical German idealist, Kant believed that humans cannot perceive reality without interpreting it because of their own innate mental processes —our minds are hardwired in a specific way that enables us to perceive and understand reality as we do.
Philosophers will continue to question and answer the idea of human interpretation versus raw data for time immemorial, but no one truly knows how to resolve the question. | 72 |
ELI5: When a multi-billion dollar transaction occurs between two companies, how are the funds transferred/managed? | For example, let's say that American Airlines buys 50 Boeing 787-8 for the price of 50*$211.8M = $10.59B. Does a staff member of AA log in their system, enters the amount, then click 'Transfer' to Boeing's bank account, or is it more complex? Are the funds transferred by gradual amounts or in a single package? Are there special security procedures AA and Boeing must follow? Where do the funds end up? | 29 | Typically by Wire Transfer.
Wire Transfers, unlike checks or regular electronic bank payments (known as ACH transactions in the US), are irrevocable once final -- even in the case of fraud. (That is, if someone authorized to make a wire transfer makes one, even if defrauded or illegally embezzling funds, the accountholder are still liable for the payment. If someone at the bank who isn't authorized to make a wire transfer illegally makes one, the accountholder is not liable.)
The idea is that businesses need finality when they receive payments, they can't just have money disappear from their accounts like if a "chargeback" or "stop payment" is done. If a wire transfer is made and you need your money back, you have to sue the recipient -- you can't just ask the bank to reverse the charge. For transactions between businesses, it's assumed that the need for finality outweighs the fraud protections that checks and nonwire electronic payments provide. (In the US, wire transfers are rarely used by consumers. Also why scamsters try to get you to wire money to them - people wrongly assume that wire transfers have the same protections as consumer payment systems.) Source: The Uniform Commercial Code Article 4A. | 14 |
[Star Trek]can a society be kicked out of the Federation? | Like suppose a society joins the federation, then a fascistic leader takes over and abolishes democracy.
Can they be kicked out? | 28 | The Prime Directive only applies to pre-warp cultures. The Federation would absolutely meddle in the affairs of a member world that is in danger of backsliding. Note that democracy can be just as tyrannical as fascism. The Federation would strive to enforce the vaguely technocratic utopianism that operates the post-scarcity civilizations of the UFP. | 30 |
Universe Simulation Theory-How do we know that the cutoff point in crystal lattices is indicative of the universe behaving like a computer rather than a computer behaving like the universe? | I apologize for my very poor wording and overall lack of knowledge on this subject. I am referring to [this article](http://www.technologyreview.com/view/429561/the-measurement-that-would-reveal-the-universe-as-a-computer-simulation/) . From what I gather (it's very complex and I clearly don't understand it well), if we can find the cutoff point of crystal lattices, it could be evidence that the universe is actually run inside a giant computer, because it works the same way a computer works. So my question is, why do we know that this would be indicative that the *universe* is behaving like a computer instead of **computers** being structured the way the universe is structured?
Again, I'm sorry for my lack of clarity. I'll do my best to re-word and re-explain if you don't understand. | 31 | We don't. These arguments are not sensible. First, as you say, our universe might just be dsicrete. Furthermore, if our universe is a simulation, we have no ideas what the laws of physics would be like in the "real" universe. Thus, the fact that computer simulations are discrete in our universe tells us nothing about what simulations would look like in some hypothetical "real" universe in which we are a simulation, because it is only within the simulation that discretization is a feature of computers. | 18 |
CMV: People in the U.S. need to stop trying to solve most issues through the federal government. Most issues should be solved through state legislation. | I'm talking healthcare, education, gun control, drug reform, etc.
Many of the issues we see in U.S. politics stem from, I believe, people trying to push too much legislation through the federal government.
I think both sides are guilty of this (liberals more so in my opinion), and that doing so creates a situation where people from more liberally/conservatively minded states try to impose their ideas of government down the throats of those with different views from different states. Creating such a situation is a mistake, as it makes people who live in states that are on the receiving end feel alienated and threatened, leading them to vote for extremist federal representatives (both congressional and presidential) that will fight tooth and nail against what they perceive as a legislative takeover. If such conflicts were relegated the individual states, we wouldn't see such a country-wide meltdown in civility.
Take gun rights as an example. When liberals try to push gun regulation on the federal level, those from more conservative-minded states will naturally feel as though their ideas of what constitutes proper gun regulation are being threatened. Such an issue should be left to the individual state, since if those from a certain state feel they need to modernize their laws gun regulation they absolutely have the power to do so. For example, the liberally-minded state I live in banned bump stocks before they were banned federally, and as I suspected, the federal ban was much much more controversial among people in conservative-minded states around the country than the state ban. If those from such conservative-minded states felt like banning bump stocks was important, they would have pushed for the legislation themselves, instead it was forced down their throats.
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I get that doing things on the federal level is a more efficient way of pushing one's agenda, but just understand that you're gonna piss off a lot of people who will inevitably elect extremists as a form of political backlash. | 135 | A democratically-elected government creating policy through the proper legislative process isn't 'imposing ideas down the throats of those with different views'; it's the normal operation of a government. If we consistently applied this reasoning that any minority voting bloc that objects to policy ought to be able to void or ignore it we'd rapidly have no national policy at all.
Most issues *are* in fact solved through state legislation, but some issues affect people across state lines and this is why the federal government is granted substantial power to regulate interstate commerce.
The pre-Constitutional iteration of the federal government did not have such powers, and long story short it didn't survive very long. | 76 |
ELI5:How do geologists know whats located below Earth's crust? | 118 | When you ring a bell sound waves travel through it, bouncing from one side to the other in the hollow cavity creating that ringing echo.
When an earthquake occurs, seismic waves do something similar with the entire planet - bouncing around the interior and deflecting and changing as they travel through different materials.
Using detector stations on different parts of the planet you can detect a few things about the earth just from how the waves travel through it:
Waves that travel *near* the center are curved and distorted as if they’ve moved through a metallic liquid for a while, and then back into rock.
Waves bounce off the very center, as if it’s a giant sphere of solid metal.
Waves that don’t travel near the center aren’t distorted, suggesting they’re only traveling through rock.
By measuring these waves and the paths they take, you can draw up a diagram of approximately where the different material layers in the earth’s innards are located.
Measurements of earth’s density and magnetic field support these models of a liquid metal outer core and solid metal core. | 98 |
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What is the safest form of nuclear power we have today? | What is the safest form of nuclear power we have today? Would wide-scale nuclear power be possible or probable for the next 20 years? | 21 | All of today's PWRs and BWRs are tremendously safe through redundancies in the system, inherent safety, and safety policy. The biggest probelm with scaling nuclear power up (it is currently at about 20% global and domestic) is public fear and the aforementioned safety policy. A perfect demonstration of how safe nuclear power is today is the Three mile island incident. Everything that could have gone wrong, did, and no one died or was injured. And that was 40 years ago. | 14 |
ELI5: Why was the US happy to invade Iraq over supposed weapons of mass destruction, however now that North Korea are literally shouting about how they have WMDs, the US is not considering it? | Surely North Korea needs 'saving' more than Iraq does. I know that Iraq had oil etc. but what how do the politically justified reasons differ between the two situations? | 35 | North Korea has a long lasting relationship with China. Although China have been more critical of North Korea recently, they wouldn't abide a US invasion. Not just because they value North Korea's friendship but more because if South Korea took control of North Korea, the US would have a strong military presence right on China's border. At the least, China would try to beat the US to Pyongyang so they could have control over the new government. It's a little bit like post WWII Berlin.
The whole question of what would happen in a post-invasion North Korea is really fascinating.
Iraq and Saddam Hussain had pissed off all the major powers in the Middle East so the US knew they could invade without anybody stopping them. | 29 |
[Dexter's Lab] If Dexter's lab is supposed to be a secret, why does he wear a lab coat and gloves everywhere? | Alternate: why don't his parents notice the massive power bill? | 154 | I can't explain how the parents don't notice the bill (I don't remember them as all that bright, but that would be nearly impossible not to note) though if Dexter was able to build a lab like that alone, it's not unthinkable that he's simply stealing power from somewhere.
As for the outfit - that one's really easy: he's a little kid. Anyone who cares at all probably assumes it's just a quirk/phase. Tons of kids play dress up, and if he happens to be more attached to playing scientist than Batman or the Flash or whomever, so what? | 114 |
[Marvel] Has vibranium ever been found on alien planets? | On Earth, virtually the only major source of vibranium comes from an asteroid that landed in Wakanda. Earth being hit with the *only* chunk of vibranium in the universe seems pretty implausible though. Has vibranium on other worlds ever been touched on in the comics? | 37 | Short answer is that we have no idea, it hasn't been revealed.
But if Wakanda received that much vibramium from one measly asteroid, logically speaking there should be quite a bunch of it in the universe. Of course, it's possible that Earth just got insanely lucky and Vibramium is actually super duper rare, but the chances that the asteroid just happened to crash into our part of space and doesnt exist anywhere else in the universe is like one in a trillion. | 34 |
ELI5: How do explosions kill people? | I guess it makes sense when you're standing in extremely close proximity to the actual explosion. What I don't quite get is how people in the general area of a bomb explosion get thrown into the air and killed. | 62 | First, the whole "getting thrown into the air" thing is just a Hollywood stunt effect. You're not actually going to be lifted off your feet more than a couple of inches unless the explosion is underneath you.
The primary way an explosion will kill you is the shockwave. A wall of compressed air comes racing away from the explosion at high speed. When this shock wave hits your body it's going to damage your internal organs.
Secondarily, you can be hit with shrapnel and debris. For example, grenades don't generally kill with the explosion itself. The metal shards around the explosive fly off in all directions and will kill you that way. | 117 |
[WH40K/Mass Effect] How would the reapers react to a necron incursion ? | If through some warp fuckery a fleet/tomb world of necrons appeared in the mass effect galaxie and maybe started harvesting it, what would be the reapers reaction ? Would they approve and try to approach them and form an alliance or would they be enraged at the complete genocide ? (from what i uderstand the reapers only "reset" the galaxie they don't purge it completely) | 31 | The reapers are like gardeners, removing plants only when they get too invasive and threaten to take over an ecosystem. The necrons on the other hand are more like locusts, they destroy without creating. A necron incursion would certainly draw the reapers involvement, and they'd do everything in their power to contain the spread. They *may* even ally with life in the universe, but not as an equal of course. | 44 |
[LOTR] How does Sauron regain strength after his defeat? | Is it just a simple timer for his spirit to recharge until he can retake physical form? Does he do anything to get stronger faster? | 100 | There is one thing you should bear in mind: if you're most familiar with the movies, then you're probably working off the assumption that, after he lost his Ring, Sauron lost his body and became a giant flaming eye ghost.
That's not suggested in the books. They mention a flaming eye, yes, but in context it seems they're just talking about a heraldic sigil or something. A metonym.
By all indications, Sauron didn't lose his physical form, but, demoralized and having lost his Ring of Power, retreated to lick his wounds for a bit from his catastrophic defeat.
The "power" he's growing in is probably political in nature; alliances formed, siege engines manufactured, ranks of orc swelling and brand new deadly breeds hitting the market. | 99 |
How did the Jedi come to hold their position in the republic? | And is there an official title for their position? Enforcers? Peacekeepers? | 17 | The Jedi Order formed after the fracturing of their "parent" order, the Je'Daii Order. The Je'Daii were concerned with the balance of the Light Side and the Dark Side, and gave no particular credence to either. There were followers of both among the Je'Daii, and they mostly worked together. Eventually, though, disagreements arose and led to more and more problems. Finally, several hundred years before the formation of the Republic, the followers of Light and Dark, or Ashla and Bogan as they called it, split. There was a series of conflicts called the Force Wars, and the Bogan users were eventually defeated at the cost of the Je'Daii's home planet Tython. The Ashla followers then formed themselves into a new order led by a High Council, called the Jedi, and fled into Wild Space, hoping to avoid the new Republic that was forming.
The newborn Jedi Order colonized a planet named Ossus, founding an academy but mostly keeping themselves isolated from the rest of the Galaxy. They spent most of their time experimenting with Ashla. Sometimes Force users would find their way to the Jedi and would be welcomed, often being assimilated into the Jedi philosophy while enhancing it with their own traditions. They Jedi also took this time to enhance the Force-infused durasteel swords they used as ceremonial items and weapons while also improving upon the Je'Daii version of the lightsaber, making it more efficient and viable as a personal weapon.
By 25,000 BBY, the Jedi Order had elected to join the Republic, as they agreed with the Republic's general goal of galactic peace. This led to more visitors arriving on Ossus from around the Galaxy, and these visitors and their philosophies had a profound effect on the Jedi way of life. Most prominant were a group of Caamasi who preached the teachings of the Caamasi philosopher Hespecia Tik'kla. These Caamasi taught the Jedi Tik'kla's views on Justice, and these teachings paved the way towards the Jedi wanting to take a larger role in bringing about galactic justice and becoming peacekeepers.
It was around this time that the High Council started pushing harsher restrictions on the Jedi, leading one man named Xendor to peacefully break from the Jedi and form his own academy. Many Jedi who felt their individuality was being repressed by the High Council followed him. The High Council declared that these people who followed Xendor strayed dangerously close to Bogan, and formed an army with which to annihilate them. Xendor's followers, called the Legions of Lettow for the planet upon which Xendor's academy was formed, were forced into an open war. Xendor struck first with a preemptive attack, landing ships on Ossus. The Legions of Lettow were quickly repelled into the Core. Xendor then began spreading propaganda around the Republic, claiming the Jedi were not the peaceful monks they said they were. The Republic didn't believe Xendor, and rushed to the aid of the Jedi. Xendor himself was eventually killed in battle, and the Legions of Lettow fled into deep space. Over time, they were hunted to extinction.
After this brief alliance, the Jedi returned to their isolationist ways. This lasted up until the Tionese Wars, which took place around 24,000 BBY. The Tionese states formed a loose confederation to invade the Republic, which they saw as technologically superior but had almost no military capabilities. The Jedi found that the Tionese were building a large fleet, and warned the Republic. The Republic ignored the Jedi's warnings and were unprepared for the invasion. The Jedi, unable to dissuade the Tionese, returned to Ossus and contemplated the war, the Republic, and their place in it. Eventually they decided to enter as commanders into the Republic Army and help the Republic repel the Tionese. After the war was over, the Republic Army was disbanded but the Jedi set up a series of fortress worlds on the border of the Hutt and Tionese territories.
This cycle of isolationism, then aiding the Republic in a war, then back to isolationism but with slightly more respect for the Republic and more participation in galactic events. The biggest step for the integration of the Jedi occured when the Jedi decided to construct a large temple on Coruscant for the Jedi who directly aided Republic officials. The relationship between the two entities grew steadily from there, eventually resulting in the peacekeeper role they had in the Republic. The Republic then grew slow, corrupt, and sickly. The Jedi were so heavily intertwined with the Republic at this point that they were dragged down with it, and the two of them imploded with a nudge from Palpatine. If Luke Skywalker is even slightly intelligent, he'll return to the roots of the Jedi Order rather than what it turned into.
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CMV: The Whole Johnny Depp Trial is Unimportant | The only reason we are told to care by social media (on a daily basis it seems) is because the persons involved are famous. I get that it's important to bring about awareness about physical abuse from both sexes but honestly, I think everyone IS already aware. Instead why aren't we promoting resources links or something local instead of just click bait trail clips of Amber crying/lying/talking about dogs stepping on bees? I'm not trying to make this seem like a rant about me getting reminded on the daily through YouTube or Reddit about the case, all Im saying is that this trial is not important (aside from those involved of course) and it only gets put on display like a new Netflix episode because it's Johnny. | 370 | > The only reason we are told to care
Nobody is telling you to care.
If you do care (personal choice) you can follow the trial. If you don't, you can completely ignore it.
It is important to some people, unimportant to others. Everything that happens in this world is not a personal offering to you. | 357 |
[DC/Batman] If called as a witness, would Batman testify at a trial? | Would his testimony be admissible under the pseudonym "Batman"? | 33 | In the DC Universe, masked crimefighters are covered by a special provision in the law. In 1961, Congress passes the Keene Act, delineating the parameters of official authority over superhuman activities. (SUICIDE SQUAD #1, 1987) Prior to this, most superheroic activity was regulated to some degree as almost all superheroes were members of the government funded All-Star Squadron, although the HUAC and McCarthy deregulated that in the early '50s. Additionally, Batman and his associated have been given ranks of "official deputy" of Gotham City, granting them most of the police authority, while retaining the anonymity of wearing masks. | 44 |
ELI5: what is one psychological benefit to keeping traditions such as Santa, the Tooth Fairy and others alive and what does it do to a developing kids mind? | 38 | The idea that Santa keeps track of the good and bad things you do reinforces the principle that your actions have moral significance and long-term consequences whether or not you are "caught" or rewarded immediately. This is a very abstract concept that would be impossible to explain to a 3 or 4 year old child, but early childhood is when our understanding of our place in the world is formed. So the Santa story makes this concept concrete for them.
It is also an extremely important principle for a healthy functioning society. If you look at the news, you see what people do when they think they can get away with stuff indefinitely. We need more people who have internalized the moral significance of their actions.
It also gives them a worldview where they are noticed, and their actions matter to someone --personal and relational agency. Children who believe that nobody notices or cares what they do feel invisible and insignificant, and they act out in an attempt to be recognized. Of course, parents and teachers can and should give them that recognition all the time, but extra reinforcement is a good thing.
The tooth fairy story reinforces that growing up and the resulting changes in their body (that can be gross, uncomfortable or scary) are normal, good, and something to look forward to. | 80 |
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ELI5: If a civilization relied on the sun to tell time, what did they do on a very cloudy day? | 94 | Until the modern age(locomotive trains, and telegraphs), knowing precisely what time it was, was not very important. Only when communication and travel between groups of people in different places became the norm, did accurate timekeeping matter. | 100 |
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ELI5: Why aren't white people in the United States referred to as "European Americans" like how blacks are referred to as "African Americans?" | 489 | The term "african american" came about as a deliberate attempt to reduce discrimination by making race about ethnicity and not about skin color, to get away from the racist connotations associated with the term "black". As there were no comparable negative connotations associated with "white", there was no real need to change the term. | 227 |
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[Fallout] Culture progresses incredibly fast in the modern age, typically undergoing major changes on a decade-by-decade basis. What caused America to remain aesthetically, socially, and politically 50's for upwards of 70 years? | Edit: I fucked up the math a bit. The world ended in 2077, so that would actually be closer to 120 years of cultural stasis. | 275 | Is there any proof that it did, or did society change over the 70 years and then come around again to the 'good old days' of the 50's as a cultural renaissance to draw comfort from as society started to get strained from the looming resource shortages? | 136 |
[Star Wars] What exactly makes clones better than droids? | I get that clones have some advantages, but droids have far more advantages, such as:
- They don't feel pain
- They are incredibly disposable
- They don't need food or water
- They just do what they're told without emotions getting in the way
- If destroyed, they can be rebuilt
- They don't get tired
- They have absolute loyalty and won't switch sides willingly
- They can shrug off injuries such as amputation
- They can enter dangerous situations with no fear whatsoever
So, aren't droids better overall? | 64 | Clones can improvise on the spot, changing tactics to match the situation. That adaptability gives them an edge in combat - one clone can take out an entire unit of clankers on his own, and would be able to deal with threats like Droidekas as the need arose.
And droids might not switch sides, but they can definitely be reprogrammed (that was even the basis for an episode). | 96 |
ELI5: How units of time (seconds, minutes, hours, etc) became seemingly universal around the world while other units like weight or distance did not? | 156 | Weights and measures were independently developed all over the world. Timekeeping, on the other hand, with accuracy beyond "mid day" or "late afternoon" only got serious with the advent of precision clocks, almost all of which were developed and spread from Europe during exploration. Since everyone was trying to steal from/copy/improve on clocks for several reasons, not least of which was accurate sailing in the middle of the ocean, timekeeping was sort of easy to standardize on. | 133 |
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[Dark Souls] Where are all the other undead champions? | I busted out of the Undead Asylum and this guy near the bonfire told me many had come before me to try to do whatever I'm supposed to do here, but aside from a very small handful of delightful weirdos, all I've seen are undead natives. If they all went hollow, where are they? We can't die permanently, so shouldn't they still be shambling around somewhere in Lordran? | 41 | I believe they're the other players. As the sun guy mentions, time's gone a bit wonky and him and you are doomed to kind of randomly fade in and out of each other's reality and the ghostly images of other players sounds a lot like that almost happening.
This can be circumvented by summoning like with the white soapstone he gives you and, wouldn't you know it, that's exactly how you initiate co-op. | 51 |
[Star Wars] Do the blades of light sabers have weight? | Is all of the weight in the handle? Do the blades experience any air resistance? | 17 | There's no noticeable weight to the blade. However, the mechanism that allows the plasma to "loop" back at the tip of the blade toward the handle reportedly creates strong gyroscopic forces, which is part of why the lightsaber is so difficult for non-force-users to wield. | 37 |
[DBZ] How does Goku retain his increased in physical strength attained from the gravity training? | Before the Frieza fight, Goku trained in the rocket chamber under the effect of 100g. After that, he spent most of his time on planet yadrat and then Earth. Won't his body acclimatise to the Earth gravity and lose any strength gained from the training? | 27 | Not necessarily. Human muscle does that to cut costs when the muscle's not in use, but many animals on Earth have muscle that behaves differently - bears, for example, don't lose muscle mass when they hibernate for months. Saiyan muscle probably has similar properties. | 50 |
ELI5 - whatever happened to acid rain? | 224 | Acid rain is primarily caused by specific kinds of air pollutants. Legislation in North America and Europe successfully limited the emission of these pollutants--for example, through the establishment of a "cap and trade" system that limits the total pollution and requires companies to pay more to buy the a greater share of that cap. That's why it's not nearly as serious of a problem anymore in the West and you don't hear about it: the solutions are working.
In many industrializing countries, however, like China, acid rain is still a serious problem. | 201 |
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[Futurama]In the time lapse in the first episode we see New York City destroyed twice by UFOs. The world is seemingly rebuilt in a medieval style. Old New York City is entirely underground by the time of the series. How did Fry remain stationary? | For the entire medieval was there just one single skyscraper just hanging around? And even if it was, wouldn't it have been buried alongside the rest of the city?
Fry does not appear to have moved at all during his cryosuspension, how does that work given the information above? | 472 | The time lapse goes by too quickly to see the construction of bomb-shelter level wall replacement, and high definition screens replacing the now bricked over windows.
Fry awakens in the 5th level basement. | 245 |
ELI5:How does a modern touchscreen actually works? | 43 | There are actually several types of touchscreens in use today, but most fall into one of two categories; capacitive or resistive.
Capacitive touchscreens are what you see in your phone, tablet, and MP3 players. These are glass covered with a thin coat of a transparent, conductive material. When the human body part (I won't judge) touches this coating, the bodies own capacitive properties change the capacity of the screen at X and Y coordinates. The phone reads the change at those coordinates and tells the software.
Resistive touchscreens are similar, but have two films that are separated by a gap. When you press against the screen, it compresses and those two films touch at X and Y, the hardware reads it and it's off again.
Resistive are much more resilient and you can use them through materials such as gloves, so you're likely to see them in places where they're going to get a LOT of use (factories, hospitals, restaurants), but they wear out faster and are generally less precise.
Capacitive are pretty much the exact opposite.
tl;dr They make an electrical contact at point x,y on the screen and the hardware tells the software. | 39 |
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[X-Men] If Wolverine was given the adamantium coating on his bones when he was a boy, how would his body adapt to or develop with his healing factor, while trying to grow over the years? | 118 | Seems like the bones would be in a constant state of almost breaking/warping. Maybe just become really dense which could affect marrow. That could probably affect immune system which probably wouldn't matter much. Maybe affect red blood cells in a way that also affects the efficiency of circulatory system carrying oxygen. A lot of maybes | 50 |
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Are there any real photos of Black Holes, or are all "pictures" simply artist renditions? | I cant seem to figure out if there are any *real* pictures of a Black Hole. I was thinking that becasue no light can escape it, and all light that touches it enters it, would it even be posible for us to see a black hole, or would we just see everything around it and infer that their must be a black hole there? | 16 | No, not yet. There is a series of telescopes collectively called the Event Horizon Telescope that are attempting to make an image of the black hole in the centre of our galaxy. But it will basically just look like a dimmer spot on a bright backgroun. | 18 |
ELI5: Shared networks. How can someone sharing an unsecured wifi connection view information from my computer? | 17 | like you're five:
Using an insecure wifi access point is like shouting to your friend on the other side of the coffee shop, everyone can hear you and what you are saying simply by listening to you.
Using a secure wifi access point is the same thing, you're still shouting across the room to your friend. However, you and your friend are speaking a made up language that only you and her know. Everyone can still listen in, but they don't know what you're saying. | 12 |
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ELI5: Why it pounds when you roll down a window in a fast moving car. | Why does it happen in some cars and others not? Also I have noticed it happens mostly in back windows, why is this? | 43 | There is a low pressure vacuum around your car due to the fast moving air. This vacuum naturally sucks the air out of the car but is not powerful enough to totally equalize the pressure. The popping is a result of the air inside the car quickly alternating between a high and low pressure state.
Suck the air out of your cheeks and then open your mouth. It makes a nice pop. The cars windows are basically doing this real fast. | 16 |
Does charge come in discrete chunks smaller than the charge of a single electron or proton? | I know that the charge of an electron/proton ±1.602x10^-19 C.
But I was wondering if there's any subatomic particle that carries a charge less than that, maybe some configuration of quarks or something? Or is e^- truly the *fundamental* unit of charge?
I'm reading in my E&M book, and it claims that the permeability of free space is an exact number, rather than an empirical constant, which defines the ampere and then, in turn, the coulomb. But if it's the case that the charge of a proton/electron is truly fundamental, why isn't the coulomb defined in terms of a certain number of electrons/protons? Would that not make more sense? | 61 | Sort of. Quarks can come in +/- 1/3 or 2/3 of the fundamental charge, but they are only found in groups where the total charge adds up to an integer value of e.
SI units are defined the way they are so that they are easily replicatable, not because they are inherently fundamental (there's nothing special about the kg brick in France). The ampere is defined based on forces between wires, which allows the magnetic constant to have an exact value. It is easier to measure this, than to try to count a gigantic but exact number of electrons. | 18 |
[Dune] Why was Baron Vladimir Harkonnen so blind as to the true nature of the Fremen? | Baron Harkonnen was, in nearly every respect, a cunning and dangerous man. His defeat of Duke Leto Atreides was a masterful series of maneuvers, he frequently anticipated and thwarted attempts on his own life (including from within House Harkonnen), and he was even able to manipulate a master Mentat to his own ends. Yet in always refused to consider the Fremen anything more than rabble. He refused to consider that they numbered in the millions. He refused to consider that the Harkonnen losses where the result of anything but incompetence. He refused to believe them a match for the Imperial Sardukar, despite the Sardukar themselves considering the Fremen a threat. Even when Thufir Hawat, one of the greatest Mentats to ever live, explained their abilities and their danger, the Baron *still* thought of them as rabble (even though he followed Hawat's advice towards how to recruit and train them). What led to the Baron having such a huge blind spot? | 49 | He's a racist. In his mind: Harkonnen > noble Houses > natives. He is born and raised as a noble, so he's trained to anticipate subtle political maneuvers. However, if we look towards Giedi Prime, we see an oppressed population which speaks of his very low opinion on the worth of the common people. Even after moving to Arrakis, his lifetime of oppressing the natives biased his viewpoints that the natives could not possibly be any sort of threat that his House soldiers could not handle.
Consider the fact: he knew Duke Leto made overtures to the Fremen, at the advice of Thufir Hawat. Baron Vladimir however, allied himself to the Imperial Sardaukars, and nearly decimated House Atreides in return. After this master stroke, how could he have seen the value in anything Thufir had to say about the Fremen when he had Sardaukar under his command? | 50 |
ELI5: I've heard you can't "catch up" on lost sleep. Does this mean I'm going to keep adding to the mountain of exhaustion that is my life until my dying day? | 29 | Not quite. If you simplify and say that our body needs 8 hours of sleep for every 16 hours awake. If you miss out on some of that sleep then you may have some symptoms, one of them being exhausted. If you finally get a full 8 hours of sleep most of your symptoms go away. There may be some health affects still remaining but for the most part you are good to go. It is similar to how you need a regular oil change in your car. If you skip an oil change you may have issues with your car like overheating and lower performance. However those go away once you finally do an oil change. But there will have been some extra wear on your engine and doing two oil changes back to back will not do any good. | 37 |
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Does all the nuclear fuel in an atomic bomb undergo fission, or is some scattered before it can go critical? | Is it possible that some fissile material is blown away by the force of the explosion before it can start reacting itself? On a related note, could the detonation of a nuclear weapon in close proximity to a reactor's fuel rods (unshielded for this hypothetical) cause them to explode? | 86 | Most of it does not undergo fission, only a small fraction actually does.
It takes about 0.22 Moles of fission reactions to produce 1 kiloton of energy. So for the nuclear weapon that destroyed Nagasaki (21 kilotons) it took about 4.6 Moles of fission reactions to produce that amount of destructive power. Pu-239 has an atomic weight of... 239 amu, so 4.6 Moles would weigh very close to 1.1 kilogram (about 55 cm^3 or just under 2 tablespoons). In comparison, about 6.2 kilograms of Plutonium were used in that bomb, so only about 17% of the fissionable material underwent fission.
In the case of the "Little Boy" bomb dropped on Hiroshima about 0.8 kilograms out of 64 kg of Uranium fissioned, or about 1.25% of the total.
As far as a bomb going off near fuel rods, there are interesting aspects to that. The thing that makes a fission bomb "go" is that the population of neutrons grows at a geometric rate. And this occurs because when the bomb has been assembled and is detonating a neutron produced via fission is about as likely to run into another fissionable nucleus as it is to escape from the core. This is as much a function of density as it is of sheer size, which is what implosion assembly (which increases density) is all about.
So if you have a hunk of fissionable mass nearby that isn't at the proper density you aren't going to magically be able to get it to start magnifying the number of neutrons just by throwing more at it. If that could happen it could happen with the number of neutrons already in the reactor.
However, that doesn't mean nothing happens, something actually will happen. If you increase the neutron flux on fission fuel rods you won't get them to spontaneously have fission chain reactions that spiral out of control. But what could happen is that for some of the neutrons that left the bomb they could multiply their energy release by causing a fission reaction.
In general you'll have on the order of as many neutrons produced as the number of fission reactions that have taken place, so if you have a huge amount of fissionable material packed tight around a bomb you could easily double the yield in this way.
Note that because we're just talking about one off fission reactions from fast neutrons and not multiplying neutrons this can happen even with natural U-238.
And this is exactly how real bombs work. Often they use a "tamper" of heavy metal round the core of the bomb to delay the bomb blowing itself apart quickly (so that the nuclear reactions have more time to run before everything is too spread out). And if a natural Uranium tamper is used then you can increase yield.
The Tsar Bomba bomb, for example, was designed to use Uranium around the 3rd fusion stage, to make use of the neutrons produced by the fusion reactions. Such a design would have doubled the yield of the bomb (to 100 MT). But in testing the Soviets decided to avoid producing so much radioactive fallout from all of those fission reactions and instead used a different material for the tamper, resulting in a 50 MT yield in the test. | 32 |
[Marvel/DC] Steve Rogers was born on July 4th. If other superheroes/villains had thematically appropriate birthdays, when would they be? | 870 | Bruce Wayne on December 21, the winter solstice aka the longest night of the year
Tony Stark on June 5th, 6-5, F-E, Fe, Iron (it’s a bit of a reach)
Thor on October 9th (Leif Erikson Day)
Thanos at Noon on July 2 (the exact middle of the year, perfectly balanced, as all things should be)
Edit: Leif Erikson day was a shitty viking joke. The comments saying Thor would be born on Thursday are much better answers | 865 |
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[Harry Potter] What is the afterlife in the world of Harry Potter? | Full disclosure, inspired by [this post.](https://reddit.app.link/Xb3ToE3hBO)
Spoilers for a twenty year old global storytelling franchise below.
Harry Potter dies and goes to the afterlife in The Deathly Hallows. He’s in some kind of ethereal train station. He understands himself to have some kind of body and uses it to navigate some kind of perceived physical space. He visits with Dumbledore, who is sentient and helps Harry work through his next course of action. He sees Voldemort’s withered soul. He’s then resurrected back to life.
Souls and life after death clearly exist in the Harry Potter universe. So what is it? How does it work? | 15 | We don't know.
Harry isn't in the afterlife. Not really. He is in the place where he decides if he wants to go to the afterlife. Dumbledore tells him that if he does not want to go back, there's a train coming (paraphrased)
We also know from the ghosts (mainly NH Nick) that it's a choice to stay behind as a spirit, and once it's taken you can't change your mind. Nick also says that he does not know what the afterlife is like, because he didn't die properly. | 25 |
ELI5: What happens if I don't click "I accept" on these cookie-prompts on webpages? | Are cookies not being stored until I accept or is it all just a bunch of smoke and mirrors trying to give me the sense of control? | 50 | Nothing happens, cookies are stored the moment you load the page. These banners are only there because the eu passed a law that makes it mandatory to inform users if the site is using cookies, which every site does | 44 |
ELI5: The European Union - what does it do and how does it work? | 47 | The European Union is a group of countries that think it would be better for them if they treated eachother in way that isn't *that* different to how the states work in the US.
This means that many European countries use the same kind of money because it makes buying things from eachother easier.
Also, citizens from these countries are allowed to move between them very easily and work in them with very little paperwork. So moving from France to work in Germany is no more difficult than moving from California to Utah, whereas without the European Union it could have been as difficult as moving from the US to Australia.
The EU also helps out its members if they fall on hard times, and often makes some member countries feel ripped off because they are being made to support someone that they think doesn't deserve it, or to give away more money than they want to.
In a nutshell, it's a group of countries that trust eachother enough to have open borders to members and a "we got your back" attitude. | 72 |
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ELI5: Why does rain come down in droplets and not a steady stream? | Why is it that rain falls down in tiny droplets, instead of a raincloud extruding a constant stream of water? | 34 | In order for it to pour down in a stream like that, there would have to be a floating pool of water overhead. Such a pool would be very heavy, so it could never float.
Instead you have a bunch of tiny droplets of water that are just small enough and light enough to float around in the air. When the conditions are right, they start to merge together into larger drops and the instant the drop becomes too heavy to float in the air, it become a rain drop and falls down. Well, usually it's a snowflake that melts as it fall down (it gets cold up high in the air, even in the summer), but same principle either way.
Because they fall down the instant they become too heavy, they always fall, depending in temperature, in individual drops, or snowflakes, or sleet. Pouring would require hundreds of times more liquid in a single mass than the atmosphere could ever hold up. | 61 |
[Marvel] If wolverine got a tattoo | If he got a tattoo and the part where the tattoo was got destroyed would he heal it back or would just regular skin heal back | 15 | The ink is now gone, but the a scar *may* remain. If your navel is your first scar, and Wolverines navel always comes back, the scars he got pre healing factor will heal back like regular scars.
If that's worded confusingly, the gist is that the same way his navel heals back as a scar, his tattoo will heal back as a scar without any ink. | 11 |
ELI5:what would happen if someone injected themselves with a "Eppie Pen" if they didn't need it? | 18 | An epipen injects you with a dose of epinephrine (adrenaline). Your heart beat is going to get crazy high and your breathing might deregulate. That is why you need to get to the hospital ASAP after any injection with an epipen. Additionally, epinephrine constricts the blood vessels around the injection site, so depending on where you got injected with it, they are going to want to monitor that you are still getting enough blood in that location.
*Edit*: One other thing. This above is what happens if it has been correctly injected in a muscle. If you accidentally inject it in a vein, you might just die from ventricular tachycardia. Which is your heart beating so quick that shocking you with two giant paddles seems like a good solution. | 18 |
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ELI5: What exactly happens inside our body that gives us cramps around spleen level while running? | 27 | There’s no clear answer, but the diaphragm has generally been ruled out because swimmers get it and their muscle use doesn’t put the same pressure on the diaphragm. In walking and running, it is almost always caused by uneven pacing. If it ever strikes, try focusing on making every step the same pace. It will generally fix it. There’s a reason why it hits the less fit kids (running at the end of the line, stopping, then hurrying to catch up, then slowing, then speeding up again) more than, say, track and field athletes. | 14 |
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ELI5:What is the most accurate meaning of Nihilism? | I have been having a debate with a friend on what is actually the concept of Nihilism, and ended up entirely confused on it's meaning after our conversation. I thought Nihilism meant believing that everything is meaningless and hence not doing anything. My friend says that it is more like Nihilism is questioning the meaning behind everything and accepting that we are the ones giving meaning. My take makes Nihilism seem like a bad thing, his take makes it seem really endearing. But what does it actually mean? I did check out earlier posts on this , but did just end up becoming more confused. | 62 | Nihilism is a way of thinking which rejects concepts, meaning, or life. It is a philosophical position or condition. Nihility means "nothingness", and "nihil" is the Latin word for "nothing". Nihilism can mean the belief that values are meaningless ideas. It can also mean the belief that nothing has any meaning or purpose. In fact, there are many different beliefs that can be called nihilism.
The German thinker Friedrich Nietzsche wrote many things about nihilism. What he wrote is often called the most important explanation of nihilism. Nietzsche wrote that nihilism comes from questioning traditional values until they fall apart. This is called "value destruction".
The Russian thinker Mikhail Bakunin inspired a lot of nihilists because he believed this kind of destruction was good. The word "nihilism" was then made popular by a Russian novel called *Fathers and Sons* by Ivan Turgenev. The hero of the story is a nihilist named Bazarov. Some other Russian thinkers such as Dmitry Pisarev also wrote good things about this kind of destruction. Russian nihilism inspired many revolutionaries, such as Sergei Nechaev and Vladimir Lenin. The Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky was almost also a nihilist. But he became an anti-nihilist after ten years in exile. He wrote about nihilism in many novels such as *Crime and Punishment*.
Nietzsche thought value destruction could not be avoided, even though it has bad results. He also thought Christianity was a source of this value destruction, and was therefore a kind of nihilism. According to the French writer Gilles Deleuze, he thought Christianity was nihilistic because it was life-denying, meaning it has a negative and unhealthy attitude towards living. Religious thinkers have instead thought that nihilism comes from rejecting religion. Some parts of Buddhism have also been called a kind of nihilism, even though other parts strongly reject nihilism. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the word "nihilism" was mostly used against people who rejected religion or believed in nothing. Either way, nihilism is often seen as a word for life-denying beliefs. | 65 |
[The Culture or other post-scarcity utopias] How are raw materials secured and how is growth managed to prevent such a post-scarcity civilization from overrunning the universe in search of said raw materials? | 31 | In the Culture specifically, they have solved all of their energy requirements through a combination of antimatter and grid energy (energy siphoned off from the medium between universes), which is for all intents and purposes limitless.
They are able to manipulate energy at such a file level that they can read a human mind from light-years away. They generally *don't*, but they could. They can also transform matter into new states. For example, if a Culture vessel is going into battle, it might reformat the bulk of its mass into propulsion or weapons systems, and then undo this after the battle.
So basically, limitless energy gives them all the building blocks they need, and their technology then allows them to create whatever *else* they need, essentially from scratch. | 37 |
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ELI5: The conductor in classical music | I don't get the point of him standing there guiding the music with his *item that you can tell me the real name of* when the majority of the band is reading sheet music the whole time. How does it help the band? | 37 | Sheet music doesn't keep track of the beat. When the orchestra is large, the back row might be out of sync with the front row and everyone might have an interpretation of how the music should be played. To avoid anyone being out of sync everyone look at one person's direction instead. (In very large theaters there might even be a second person copying exactly what the conductor is doing, he is not in the orchestra pit but on the balcony so the back row can see him). Also many music pieces involve different sections playing at different times, the conductor will remind the orchestra who should be playing by gesturing towards that section. | 33 |
[MCU] What likely went down during the time between the Battle for Earth and Tony's funeral? | Did the Earth's defenders just go home? Was there any sort of group recovery period where wounds were tended to and the dead collected? | 25 | You imagine that everyone had different things to do.
Scott Lang, for instance, had to track down the Pym-Van Dyne’s as well as Cassie. Pepper had to make funeral arrangements. One assumes that Spider-man called Ned, and Aunt May. Someone called the kid from IM3, obviously, probably Pepper or Friday. Tchala had a whole country to get updated on, while Hawkeye had a family to get reacquainted with. Thor was also putative king of a population that would be welcoming people back. Fury had a SHIELD to solve and a world to figure out.
People had things to do, both those who were snapped and those who weren’t.
It couldn’t have been more that a couple days before they had the memorial for Stark. Maybe a week. | 24 |
[Matrix] Why block out the Sun? | Like, I understand the basic principle, machines get most of their energy from the Sun, but humans do too. Hell, we rely on it even more. And even if it’s out of desperation, why was it done so early in the war? Blocking out the Sun is the ultimate scorched earth policy, why would humans do this first when their armies and economy was fresh? | 529 | The human didn't block the sun.
Morpheus tells this story, but he's repeating a lie.
He doesn't really know what year it is (the matrix as been resetted numerous times.
The "history" Animatrix episode which tells this story has a propaganda feeling that makes you wonder if it's the truth.
The machine don't need humans for energy. That's a lie the humans believe.
The planet was dying, humans couldn't survive, and the machine are keeping them alive the best way they can.
The perfect paradise of the first matrix was a disaster, and with each new try, they came up with this. A story struggle of good vs evil, based on everything the machine could learn about human psyche.
That's why this story is filled with religious hints. It's a story the machine concocted to distract the human from the truth. | 443 |
I'm aware that the earth is not a "sphere", but, rather, a heptoloidal zircosumfered something or another, however, the Sun sure seems to be very nearly spherical to me. Is it or is it not, and why, in either case? | 19 | Earth and the Sun are both oblate spheroids, which means they are spheres squashed along one axis (the rotation axis). The reason for this is ultimately the same in both cases: a spinning ball of stuff will tend toward hydrostatic equilibrium. This means the surface of the ball should be an equipotential surface for an effective potential, which includes gravitational potential, centrifugal potential (arising from the rotation of the ball), and pressure. The latter is much more important for stars than for planets.
The Sun turns out not to spin very fast, so its oblateness is very close to 1 which means it is very nearly spherical. Indeed, if the Sun were scaled to the size of a beach ball the difference in the polar and equatorial radii would be something like the width of a human hair. Contrast this with a planet like Jupiter that has a rotation period of only about 10 hours, and so the polar and equatorial radii differ by about 7%. The very nearly spherical shape of the Sun is not too surprising actually. You can work out analytically what the oblateness of a star with a given mass, radius, and uniform rotation rate should be. For the Sun it ends up being extremely close to the true value. (The Sun does not rotate uniformly by the way; the rotation rate depends on the latitude.) | 31 |
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ELI5: How do seedless watermelons continue to be available if they don’t have seeds to create the next crop? | 1,527 | Seedless watermelons are the result of coming two varieties of watermelon, both of which produce seeds and can propogate on their own. However if you breed them together you get a variety that does not have working seeds. As long as you maintain ability to grow those other 2 varieties, you can make more seedless watermelons
Similar with mules. They're made by mating a producing female horse with a producing male donkey. The mule is infertile, it doesn't have a working reproductive system. As long as you have breeding populations of horse and donkey, you can make a new mule. If you take a male horse and breed it with a female donkey, you also get an infertile baby called a hinny | 1,585 |
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CMV: White people portraying other races without the use of cariacatures or stereotypes is not blackface. | I have yet to understand why a straight actor can portray a gay character while can't the same be same for white people portraying other races. If an unknown white actor portrayed black character with a rounded story, un-cariacatural appearance, etc., and slipped under the radar, why should there be any problem if people find out the actor was white.
Even though I understand why the minstrel shows of the past had been racist, if a black (or any other race) character had been thought to be well developed, not-racist without the context of the character, etc. I don't think it should be comparable to blackface.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 143 | It deprives non-white actors of work. There's very few roles for non-white actors. There are plenty of roles where the character needs to be white. Plenty of "open ethnicity" roles go exclusively to white people. So you're taking the very few roles specifically for actors of color and giving them to white people as well. | 58 |
[40K] Before the birth of Slaanesh, did the emotions normally associated with him like pleasure, passion, and decadence flow to the other Chaos gods? | 40 | While the Birth of Slaanesh was a single apocalyptic event in our universe, it was a slower, "deliberate" (as far as anything can be described using that word in regards to the warp) process on the other side. The single creature we know as Slaanesh is more of a gestalt entity. The core personality began as little more than the strongest and most clever warp entity that fed on the relevant emotions. The powerful emotions of the Eldar prompted a feeding frenzy that would nourish these demons with a nearly infinite supply of food, allowing them to grow without bound.
It warred with other, similar entities, consuming them, their power, and their share of emotional energy until only it remained. It's "birth" is nothing more than the moment it passed the threshold from being merely a powerful demon, and into godhood.
| 37 |
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ELI5: What is [currently] the most widely accepted scientific explanation for why we dream? | I've read a lot of different theories, but is there any one theory that is more widely accepted than others? | 190 | Generally, the one most accepted is that it is a way to sort out memories. The dreams create links in your brain for the new memories and attach the links to other memories so you can recall them in several ways. That is why you can get weird combinations in your dreams, like eating ice cream with a dinosaur on a pogo stick. | 79 |
[MCU] What would be the timeline of Super-Soldier research now? | From the top of my head right now, I tried to trace
Erskine original formula, used on Red Skull and perfected on Steve - ultimately lost.
The concoction Zola used on Bucky - which I'm not sure was ever written down anywhere - still in Bucky and probably unreplicable.
With Zola being snatched by Americans, it's likely that the his research was fused with attempts to replicate Erskine formula.
With release of Falcon and Winter Soldier it seems >!Isaiah Bradley!< fits in this time frame - while the research that used on him was unspecified, he was probably the ultimate victim of continued Zolas experiments.
It's also unclear what sort of research went into the serums that Howard Stark had on him, which were ultimately stolen by Winter Soldier and used on a bunch of HYDRA goons. It was definitely later results and seemingly universally successful, since none of the test subjects died on HYDRA side.
It's also unclear what sort of serums Emil Blonski got doused with, they seemed to be on ice for a considerable amount of time, and since they had some really odd side-effects on his body, I think it probably wasn't the Stark version, and probably one of Zola's experimental ones. Maybe.
And now in the end we have the perfected Power Broker serum, which seems to have no side effects... Well, at least not obvious ones. And this one >!seemingly also lost now. !<
Am I missing something? | 22 | Banner made his own version of the serum, which is what him and (probably) Blonsky were given. He didn’t know it was the super soldier serum though, he thought it was supposed to make people resistant to radiation. Because he thought it was for radiation resistance, he used gamma radiation with it and that combination was what turned him into the hulk. Blonsky presumably then got that same serum minus the radiation. | 17 |
ELI5: How come cheese is sometimes aged for month, but when you buy it and open the package, it expires after a few days? | 563 | Cheese is aged in a large wheel with a thick, hard rind. The rind protects it from unwanted bacteria or fungi. When it is cut, the clock starts ticking on spoilage. Packaging buys you time, but once that’s open, it is vulnerable | 482 |
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CMV: suicide should be legal | I hope that no one will resort to special pleading in the comments.
As for the view that it is illegal so that cops can stop it, there is nothing preventing a law that says that cops are allowed to use their discretion to prevent suicide.
USA should make it legal to carry a suicide pill with you (akin to those found in Mexico). It would be useful in circumstances of certain painful death (such as 9/11).
Also, a painless way to commit suicide should be made available to those who have a legitimate reason (in a vegetative state, ridden with poverty, dying of starvation, poor quality of living)
We as a society should stop looking at death so seriously. It is inevitable so why does it matter if it occurs sooner rather than later? You won’t regret missing out on anything when you’re dead because you’ll be dead. It’s the same thing as being unborn. | 74 | >We as a society should stop looking at death so seriously. It is inevitable so why does it matter if it occurs sooner rather than later?
This makes no sense. Since when has the inevitability of something meant that timing isn't important? We know that winter comes each year and yet it's disastrous if there's a cold spell that wipes out crops earlier than people expect.
You're also ignoring the fact that being dead in itself isn't always the main fear of dying, but the implications like not being able to be there for others. | 45 |
ELI5: why do hairs that grow from skin blemishes, like moles, grow faster, thicker, and darker? | 44 | Moles are basically cells with a lot more melanin, in addition to their structural differences (being raised off the skin). Melanin is what makes your skin dark. The hairs themselves just have more melanin, and thus appear darker/thicker. | 19 |
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ELI5: Why don't we dump our trash in volcanos? | Watching Samsara, my girlfriend sees the huge mounds of trash cities and slums have created. I told her the toxins and gases from our burned trash would destroy the atmosphere, but she said volcanos are already very toxic and maybe the heat alone would kill most pollutants. Have we humans tried this recently and come to a scientific conclusion that this is not a good idea? | 3,053 | 1) It is prohibitively expensive to move all of the world's trash to the top of volcanoes.
2) Burning trash produces pollutants. No, volcanoes don't get hot enough to kill pollutants. That's like saying you can kill gasoline or bleach. *
3) The volcano gods would be really pissed.
*So, the temperature lava is typically at is hot enough to break down pollutants to less harmful components (credit to /u/FosteredWill). Serious scientific experimentation is needed to see if tossing large quantities of garbage into lava will burn it all up quickly, or just start a garbage fire in the lava pit (which could release harmful toxins). | 3,448 |
Do we have the ability and resources to launch an object with a decent chance of hitting a planet in another star system? | How would we do it? What would it cost?
EDIT: Great discussion everyone, thanks! | 319 | In the near future it may be possible to get into orbit of a star, but a planet would be quite hard. The real issue is the centuries it would take to get to the nearest planet out of our solar system. | 91 |
Learning higher level programming | Hello
I've been programming for about 5 years now, and I have a decent understanding of several language (mostly C/C++, as well as some assembly and python).
While I do feel that I have a decent knowledge of the detailed, technical stuff (algorithms, data structures, languages and concepts, etc), I'm lacking in the higher level program... design. How do I design and structure larger applications?.
For example, how would I know if I should design something as an object or function? What should I run as separate threads, and how do I figure these things out on my own?
Links or references to informative litterature or articles are highly appreciated, as well as comments!
Thank you in advance. | 29 | Looking for literature and articles is your mistake. You need to start \*BUILDING STUFF\*.
You're caught in the student-trap, like many before you. Stop reading and start writing. It doesn't have to be anything magic, try making a calculator with a UI or something. A text based RPG, a URL shortener, anything.
Start writing software, that's it. | 26 |
CMV: I genuinely think Breath of the Wild is an overrated game. | Greetings!
I think that Breath of the Wild (for either Wii U or Switch) is an overrated game which is exclusively appreciated by the nostalgic fanbase, and I think it fucking sucks.
Let me just say that I DO have the game for Switch, but it's the worst 60€ I ever spent. I hate the graphics and the fact that the game is too slow at times. I also hate that every single weapon breaks in very little time (even though it is not like that moving on).
I could ignore all of this stuff if it wasn't for the extremely low framerate (it's between 30 and 20), and it's literally unplayable because of that!
I'm certainly not an RPG fanatic, but I love games like Skyrim and Fallout 4.
Though, I love the tutorial because it was perfectly structured and gave me a huge insight on how the game is like. However, I don't feel that it deserved the Game of the Year award.
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 19 | Understand that everything and anything that can be judged is subjective. Meaning the experience of the subject (Breath of the Wild) varies depending on the individual’s personal perception of it. To call something underrated/overrated is superfluous. Try not worrying about what others think about something and only concern yourself with how *you* feel about it. No one’s going to change your view about something that’s subjective.
| 14 |
[Jumanji] How in the hell did pre-teen Alan survive 26 years or so in Jumanji? What skills or abilities did he possibly have that could allow him to make it past a day or two? | 85 | Jumanji can be a very deadly game, but it is still a game - it's intended to have a winner, not kill everyone playing. It subtly influences the challenges to make them 'winnable' by the current player, or at least survivable. As Alan got older and more experienced, the game matched him. It kept him challenged, but didn't overwhelm him. | 106 |
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What kind of treatment would someone with schizophrenia have received in the early 70s? | How well was the condition even understood then?
Edit: Some really great answers here, guys, thank you. If anyone has any information on the second question "How well was the condition even understood then", that would be great also. Anything you can give me, however small, would be helpful. Thanks
Edit 2: For the two people who recommended me the books, the semi-autobiographical one and one that I think began with the word edan, I think the mods blocked your comments from going through. I'd be very grateful if you could pm me the titles. Thanks
Edit 3: whoever just left that "your smile makes" comment (that was all I saw of it), I think the mods blocked it from going through. Pm me it, it looked interesting. | 908 | Thorazine and later haldol were the main antipsychotic drugs at that time. They were probably used in much higher doses then we use them now, which caused a lot of people tardive dyskinesia—an often permanent disorder of abnormal involuntary movements. When you see an old homeless guy on the street and he’s moving his tongue in and out constantly, or grimacing repeatedly, good chance this is what he is suffering with.
People with schizophrenia probably also received a lot of benzodiazepines as well, things like Valium.
In some cases they would’ve received electroconvulsive therapy.
The 70s also marked the tail end of long term institutionalization for many. State hospitals were starting to be closed at that time due to a combination of factors— the overzealous belief in the efficacy of the newer antipsychotic drugs, empty coffers across the United States, and the effects of the civil rights movement. Whereas prior to the 70s people with very chronic and severe mental illness could be institutionalized in what would hopefully be a therapeutic community, after the 70s, the “home“ for people with severe chronic mental illness increasingly became the prison system and the streets.
Edit: to answer your second question, it was unfortunately understood then about as well as it is understood now, which is to say, not very well. We still don’t really have anything solid to point at in terms of genetic underpinnings, causation, pathophysiology, etc. Certainly nothing that has resulted in significantly better treatments. There are some newer antipsychotics with better side effect profiles than the old stuff, but they come with their own issues. Many of the newer antipsychotics unfortunately have a propensity to cause weight gain, dysregulated blood sugar, etc. “pick your poison.” Of note, ECT is very rarely used in this day for psychosis, but that probably has more to do with protections most states have put in place regarding consent for treatment. Very hard to give involuntary ECT in the United States whereas in the past it would only take a single physician’s order in most cases. | 443 |
[Farscape Series 3] So John Crichton was "twinned" in this series. Question is which JC was the original, the one that stayed on board Moya ( green shirt ) or the one that took off on Talyn? ( black shirt ) | And it's no good saying that they are both equal and the same, that's nonsense. That's just the show having it's cake and eating it. One HAS to be the copy that got pulled out of JC, the other is the original the copy gets pulled out from.
But which was which? | 20 | Neither and both.
The "original" John was effectively split in two, the two new Johns are both originals and equal in every way, both to each other and the pre-twinning "original" John, who ceased to exist when he was twinned. | 25 |
Why is the the global population predicted to stabalize at ~10 billion when it has more than doubled in the last 50 years, and quadrupled in the last 100? | Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-Population-1800-2100.svg
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-living-outnumber-dead
"And the U.N. predicts the world population will stabilize at 10 billion inhabitants sometime after 2200. At this rate, the living will never outnumber the dead."
| 111 | Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Overall fertility has been declining for a long time, and is expected to continue to decline. The figure of 10 billion is arrived at by looking at this decline in fertility.
Replacement rate fertility is 2.1 children per woman, or 21 children for every 10 women. Many countries, mostly developed ones, are now below replacement rate, some as low as 1.3 children per woman. Mexico has dropped from around 4 children per woman to 2.3 in just a couple of decades, and other less developed countries are expected to follow suit as poverty declines, healthcare improves, and education becomes ubiquitous, especially among women. Studies have shown that the most effective deterrent to fertility is the education of women. | 60 |
How does a 3 chambered Heart work vs a 4 chambered heart? | Im in a veterinary assistant program, and I learned that reptiles and amphibians have a 3 chambered heart. My teacher didn't go into much detail since I won't be working with a lot of reptiles, but I was just curious.
How does the 3 chambered heart function if it only has one ventricle?
How does "double circulation" work? | 16 | basically, in an amphibian heart there are two atria and one ventricle. Now as you'll know, humans have two ventricles to keep oxygenated and deoxygenated blood from mixing before it is pumped to the appropriate place. However, in amphibious hearts, there isn't an interventricular septum so you might think the blood mixes and the frog or whatever is going to be continuously cyanotic. It works though because there are ridges (trabeculae carnae) on the endocardial walls which turbulate and direct the flow of the blood to the appropriate vessels. Minimal mixing of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood occurs and everything's fine. In humans there is a rare congenital condition called 'cor triloculare biventriculare' in which there is just one atrium (i.e. a common atrium). you'd think that this would be very bad indeed but patients with this condition are pretty much asymptomatic and regularly get into their 20-30s undiagnosed. Yep, we have trabeculae carnae too. Without these 'meaty ridges' (as the latin literally translates to), the blood would stick to the walls, which is why we need the turbulation. | 10 |
[DC] Is the creation of The Batman a universal constant or are there any realities where Bruce Wayne handled the trauma of his parents being killed in front of him in a different way? | I know there are Elseworlds which have resulted in different outcomes for Bruce but these were the product of a change in circumstances, even a slight one. What I am asking here is given the exact same circumstances without any outside influence, has there ever been a version of Bruce that went on to do something totally different to becoming The Dark Knight or similar. | 43 | I believe there's an Elseworld where the Wayne family fortune was destroyed in the Great Depression. Bruce, craving justice but not having the resources to seek global training or fund a 1-man campaign, instead became a good, honest police detective. | 42 |
ELI5: why humans, and some animals, stretch their limbs when they are tired. | 64 | When you use your muscles they break down in a way. This process creates a product that tends to sit around your muscles. When you stretch you move your muscles in a way that promotes the byproduct of your muscles breaking down to move away from your muscles. | 25 |
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Why are companies taxed on profit but individuals taxed on income | Is there any economic rationale behind this ? Or is it a policy decision thats more like "it was always like this" ?
How would things change if people were only taxed on their net income, like corporations ?
Edit: I want to clarify here that I am not asking a political question. I understand there are different ways to structure taxation and I just wanted to understand the history and rationale behind this particular taxation strategy. I felt professional economists would have probably thought about this before so I wanted to get their opinion of what issues might be encountered in an alternate regime of taxing net income. | 205 | People aren't businesses, they for the most part don't earn a profit.
>How would things change if people were only taxed on their net income, like corporations ?
They are taxed on their net income from their labor. | 120 |
[LoTR] How would the world of Arda change if Melkor hadn't been evil? | 17 | Even Melkor's theme was born of the theme of Iluvatar. His evil has purpose, and no mortal nor immortal can fully understand the full theme of Illuvatar until it is revealed. Melkor was made the way he is for a reason. If Illuvatar had made Melkor differently, his entire purpose of Arda would be different. Since we cannot understand Illuvatar's current theme, we could not speculate one without Melkor. | 25 |
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ELI5: Why do some websites need you to identify trucks to prove you're human when machine learning can easily allow computers to do so? | 1,545 | Machine learning can't do it without feedback telling it whether its prediction was correct.
And that's what you're providing.
Google can take a bunch of images from streets around the world, run their own machine learning software on it to try to guess which ones are trucks, and then they ask you to pick out the ones with trucks on them.
And hey, they've gotten you to provide error correction for their machine learning *for free*! Isn't that great? If their software guessed wrong, they'll see you point out "that one is not a truck", and they can feed that back to their software to make better guesses next time.
Meanwhile, they can monitor your mouse movement and response time to see if you're reacting like a human. | 2,084 |
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ELI5 : How a vending machine knows when you insert counterfeit money? | 61 | Wrong size, wrong weight, doesn't respond the way it should to an electric current, etc. Coins and notes/bills all have exacting technical specifications, and if something inserted doesn't meet them, the machine is often going to be better at determining it's a fake than the human eye. | 44 |
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CMV: Rule of Law in the US is coming to an end | I make this CMV in light of the death of RBG.
My view is that the Rule of Law, as we understand it, is coming to an end. With a blatantly ideological SCOTUS, hundreds of young Federalist society judges filling the judiciary, and an attorney general whose view of the law is a weapon to be wielded against anyone the Republicans dislike, I do not expect the Rule of Law as we understand it to survive in the US.
The Republican party is attacking the Rule of Law itself with the excesses of the Trump administration. So far as I can see, the new Rule of “Law” is going to be arbitrary, capricious, and authoritarian to the benefit of right-wing ideology.
Would a Biden election change my view? No. The reforms necessary to maintain the Rule of Law will be successfully blocked by conservatives until they come into power, either by maintaining control of the Senate or motivated decisions made by the conservative SCOTUS.
Some miscellania:
I will be using the following definition for “Rule of Law”
>An independent, impartial judiciary; the presumption of innocence; the right to a fair and public trial without undue delay; a rational and proportionate approach to punishment; a strong and independent legal profession; strict protection of confidential communications between lawyer and client; equality of all before the law; these are all fundamental principles of the Rule of Law. Accordingly, arbitrary arrests; secret trials; indefinite detention without trial; cruel or degrading treatment or punishment; intimidation or corruption in the electoral process, are all unacceptable.
Any comment along the lines of “The Dems are doing this too” or “What about the Democrats” or “Aren’t you biased against Republicans?” are not convincing to me. Try harder. | 28 | Fundamentally both parties will choose judges that Align with their political belief system. Ideally though, the judges should be chosen to be “neutral” in their decision making. This is operational. ALL people will have personal ideas, leanings, etc but a person that things logically should be able to set aside biases and think rationally.
The problem that most people don’t get is that many issues are ideologically charged and this ideology needs to be addressed bc it is fundamental to the decision making process. Meaning that some issues cannot be separated from their ideological base.
This is not a loss of “Rule of Law” but a difference in foundational belief systems. | 42 |
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