post_title
stringlengths 5
304
| post_text
stringlengths 0
37.5k
| post_scores
int64 15
83.1k
| comment_text
stringlengths 200
9.61k
| comment_score
int64 10
43.3k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
[ATLA/LoK] Is Katara the best water bender in the world? | I can't really think of anyone besides the Avatars and Yakone/his sons that come close.
Is she the best of the best? | 16 | Best bender in general is hard to quantify, water bending moreso than the others because of all of the specialties. She was definitely talented, and was the best healer in the world, but anything beyond that is getting into /r/whowouldwin territory. | 20 |
ELI5: if computers can run millions of data points per second, why do credit card chip readers take so long? | 1,422 | Let's talk about all the things that happen when you put your card in.
The chip card is actually a little computer that the reader can interact with, so there are a few things going on here.
1. The reader authenticates to your card. This it where the PIN is involved. The reader authorizes itself.
2. The reader gets the information from the card about account information.
3. The reader contacts the bank with the card information and gets a challenge that only your card can properly answer.
4. The reader asks your card to perform the bank's challenge.
5. The reader then sends the challenge response along with the transaction details to the bank.
So where's the delay in here?
Step 1 is artificially slow. The PIN response by the card is slowed down in order to prevent brute force attacks on it. The card itself will also have things like lockout mechanisms, but artificially limiting the speed of authentication attempts is a real thing to prevent brute forcing (as well as making sure that the delay isn't somehow used to measure *how* correct an answer is).
Step 2 is fairly quick, nothing going on here.
Step 3 involves a network connection to the bank or other card authority. This may involve multiple jumps through interim providers. It is also slowed down by the final server having to do some sort of lookup on the card. These servers are going to be doing thousands or millions of lookups, so they can be a little slow sometimes.
Step 4 is not quite instantaneous.
Step 5 is again slow because you're contacting the bank.
So an artificial slowdown to prevent brute forcing and two different transactions that happen with the bank, along with one bit of computation in between.
Beyond that, credit card readers are often made with fairly cheap products. Spending more money to shave just half a second of processing time isn't a thing most people would do. Unless you have constant lineups at your cash registers, having a small delay is acceptable, so costs are cut there. | 1,596 |
|
[The Mask] is The Mask is Semi-Living Entity? | 29 | I’m pretty sure that it is semi living.It can better be described as an alternate personality of the user.In the animates series there was an episode where Stanley put on half of the mask and the two could talk to each other. | 20 |
|
[Staw Wars] What is the purpose of the second Death Star being larger than the first one? | The first Death Star was already strong enough to destroy a planet. Making a bigger one seems like it would use up more resources to build, keep running, and to move around. | 25 | The Death Star was a (super)weapon of terror. It was a slow, cumbersome logistical nightmare but it could blow up an entire planet in one shot. It's use was just as much psychological as it was physical. "Obey or we will literally one-shot your homeworld and kill you and everything you know."
Then the rebels blew it up and hailed it as this great victory over the Empire.
So the Empire just builds another one. Not only that, but it makes the next one much, much bigger. More guns, more shields, devoid of the original's weakness (or it would have been if finished). It's the ultimate show of force against anyone harboring anti-Imperial sentiment. "Blow up even our most powerful weapon and we'll just build another one. A better one. You can't stop us so it's pointless to try." | 26 |
cmv: MBTI is overrated and bad tool. | I was in MBTI community for almost a year, yet I think it is just a funny test. We shouldn't use it in schools and work, and it honestly is overrated. While there is a logical framework, there aren't any solid empirical evidence.
This could also be said about enneagram, tritype, etc.
The only good test is Big Five (also HEXACO).
I know why this test is so popular. It is easy to relate to 4 letters, it is easy to think you are special among others, while also be part in community.
But when something is wrong... People just ignore it and say you are mistyped.
It has many flaws:
poor validity (i.e. not measuring what it purports to measure, not having predictive power or not having items that can be generalized);
poor reliability (giving different results for the same person on different occasions);
measuring categories that are not independent (some dichotomous traits have been noted to correlate with each other);
not being comprehensive (due to missing neuroticism).
Many people think you should type by cognitive functions, but were is evidence they even exist?
What I also dislike is how instead of giving evidence, a lot of people just quote psychologists, even Myers do this:
Furthermore, the evidence given by Myers for the orientation of the auxiliary function relies on one sentence from Jung:
"For all the types met with in practice, the rule holds good that besides the conscious, primary function there is a relatively unconscious, auxiliary function which is in every respect different from the nature of the primary function."
And how the fuck a lot of psychologists just make up things from their head. Freud, Myers, Jung... What the hell? | 41 | These are some common arguments against MBTI and they have some credibility of course, due to the obviously complex nature of cognition, personality etc, but there are also plenty of things it's perfectly capable of doing.
Notably, the 'take/retake' problem you bring up is invariably a larger issue than it is in reality, precisely because of the dichotomy of the system itself. Anyone who is near the average, and, it's an *average* for a reason... can easily one day fall on the opposite side of the spectrum, because it's not that far of a move.
Also the 'predictive' problem is also generally only a problem when people try to use it to predict something it is not meant to predict.
You don't use a ruler, to weigh yourself, as I've heard said before.
Briggs and Myer stated "any type of person can be successful in any type of job" and that the test was not meant to predict job performance. Which is one of the things people nowadays attempt to use it for.
The MBTI does have some valid predictive ability to correlate job *choice* and job *satisfaction*, and validation studies in the past have shown both predictive effects are observable.
It's never going to predict what you should be doing, but it does have predictive ability on what you will do, and your satisfaction in the choice you've made. | 17 |
[Marvel] How do all the different gods work together in the same universe? | There are Norse gods (Thor), Egyptian gods (Khonshu), and even a representation of the Catholic God (The One Above All). How do all these gods from different religions coexist with one another and don't fight over control? | 39 | There are a few answers.
1. They don't.
2. A common enemy (Infinity Gauntlet Thanos, Galactus, The Celestials, Doctor Doom, ect.)
3. A unified goal.
4. The One Above All and/or The Living Tribunal tells them to. (One Above All isn't exclusive to Christianity. One Above All is the literal absolute, omnipotent, uncontested supreme being of all reality and beyond. Catholicism is merely an interpretation.)
The thing you have to take into account is none of the gods are actually omnipotent (The One Above All excluded ). They can do mind boggling feats that defy explanation, but they're not the only ones who can do it. For an instance, Odin once drained all his power into the Destroyer armor in a vain attempt to stop a Celestial. It didn't work.
EDIT: Forgot to mention. They sometimes will compete for control, but it's less through epic scale wars and more like political negotiations or proxy wars. | 35 |
ELI5: How is power restored after an outage caused by damaged poles or power lines? | Near my home this morning, a car crash occurred at an intersection, and a power pole was hit and split in half. The power company said there were power lines in the road. This caused a power outage to about 1300 people. After about an hour, crews had restored power to those affected by the outage, but they said that they still needed to repair the broken pole and equipment. If they didn't fix the pole yet, then how was the power restored? | 17 | They fixed / replaced the wires that were broken, and strung them up between the poles that were left intact, with perhaps a temporary pole or suspension wire to hold them in place until the full sized permanent pole is ordered and placed into the ground.
A residential area is also a "grid" (that's why it's often called the power grid), which means that there are multiple connections available and they can re-route the electricity much like they re-route cars to go on alternate roads until the main road is re-paved or whatever. | 11 |
CMV: Libertarianism is a flawed ideology because it oversimplifies the nature of human social interactions. | 135 | You are coming to this conclusion based on the bizarre rantings of a small subset of libertarians that are popular on the internet.
There are several flaws with your reasoning.
There is no "grand unified theory" of libertarian thought. A *lot* of discussion goes on about what does or doesn't constitute "aggression". A lot of discussion goes on about what is or is not a necessary component of government.
But your view that libertarianism ignores the messy "patchwork of evolutionary hacks, emergent properties, and game theoretical quirks" that makes up human social life is perhaps the *most* bizarre.
Libertarians completely understand and accept this idea. Indeed, it is statists that seem to want to reduce all human social life to a grand unified theory, because government is exactly that grand unified theory. One monopoly on force that provides one answer to the messy world of human interactions.
Libertarians want to *let* people get on with their messy "patchwork of evolutionary hacks, emergent properties, and game theoretical quirks" without any more interference from government than is absolutely necessary to minimize the aggression inherent in that messy patchwork.
No one can figure that out well enough to "control it" without massively infringing on the rights of individuals in order to promote the collective idea of what is proper behavior. Any time they try, it turns into a disaster. | 111 |
|
ELI5: Why are we supposed to "adopt, don't shop"? Why does it matter as long as the pet finds a loving home, right? | 32 | The idea is that buying animals in a pet shop encourages bad breeding practices. People churn out animals for profit with no thought for the welfare of the animals being bred.
If you adopt you are taking in an animal that needs a home, but you are not financially rewarding someone for potentially unscrupulous behavior.
There are reputable breeders out there of course, but if you are walking into a pet store it's hard to tell if the animal came from one of these. | 95 |
|
[ The Terminator]- Why did the CSM-100 think that it could buy a Plasma rifle in 40 watt range in 1984? | It clearly had knowledge of the available guns in the shop, even though they would have all been 50 years before it’s time. And in T2 the same model has detailed files of Dyson and the history of skynet. So why the slip up? | 83 | It’s possible that they were in early development by the government at the time. That particular detail may have been omitted from the records it brought back with it, so when it checked its files for weapons of the era... | 109 |
CMV: It is not ok to make posts making fun of antivaxxers for dying. | I understand that they are the ones causing the continuous spread of covid and comedy is an outlet. As someone with a younger brother who is against the vaccine it bothers me to see posts celebrating the death of victims. He has been for lack of a better term “brainwashed” by the media and my family tries to change his mind but he is with us about 2 hours a day and at school with people who share his beliefs for 8 hours a day (ty Florida schools). It’s easy to fool someone it’s hard to convince someone they’ve been fooled and I’m sure many parents and siblings tried to warn their loved ones but were unable to save them and I imagine some of them have seen posts of people celebrating/being excited that another nonvaxxer has passed.
Edit 1: I did not make it clear, i think it’s ok to make jokes but posting someone’s photo and just their death being the punchline is what I have an issue with. | 155 | Your title states "it is not ok to make fun of \_\_\_\_\_" and your reason is because;
>As someone with a younger brother who is \_\_\_\_\_\_\_
So you're now saying we cannot joke about something offensive because you personally experience it. The same could be said about the Holocaust, 9/11, and every other tragic thing - the whole world can't joke about them because some guy somewhere in Florida is affected because of his brother. Either all offensive humor is okay or none of it is okay and if you believe none of it is okay you should rephrase the post to focus on all dark topics and not focus on anti-vax particularly | 122 |
How do you build large structures in violent water? | [E.g.](http://i.imgur.com/hCSs3.gif) | 203 | Concrete sets underwater, so from that perspective submarine and terrestrial construction techniques are very similar, provided the seabed is sufficiently stable. Piles can be driven traditionally, or by vacuum driving hollow piles into softer substrates. Work areas can be isolated with seafloor caissons if necessary. Otherwise work is conducted from barges where weather permits, or from jack-up platforms (minimal water plane area) if the sea is consistently heavy. | 104 |
[Halo] How do the marines aim using the Assault Rifle if it has no iron sights or a scope? Also, how do they aim Covenant weapons? Do they just spray and pray? | 44 | No, though the MA5B Individual Combat System and the Type-25 Directed Energy Rifle both have models with pop-up sights, the most common models just interface with a soldier's on board electronics suite to display an aiming reticule on their heads-up display. | 47 |
|
[The Boys] Is there a polio epidemic going on in the places where doctors administered Compound V instead or is the number of doses neglible? | 15 | The Polio vaccine has never benefited from anywhere near 100% acceptance/coverage. Between religious believes, conspiracy theory (yep, even in the 50's), and people with conditions that make receiving a vaccine dangerous, the percentage has always stayed below 90% and for some decades, closer to 60%.
In 1993, roughly 80% of children were vaccinated against Polio. So a few dozen or even hundreds not getting the Polio vaccine because, instead they received Compound V, would be negligible.
It might also be possible that they received both in a single shot. The chemistry of Compound V is still not well understood, but perhaps the vaccine and V could be mixed.
Another consideration is: what percentage of supes have at least minor healing capabilities that may prevent Polio infection. There is very little knowledge, outside of Vought's secret files at least, about Supes' immune systems. | 16 |
|
ELI5:Why do the normal bacteria in our mouth attack out teeth and gums,but those in other parts of the body do not attack those parts? | 960 | The bacteria in your mouth are like junkyard dogs. They are there because they are good at breaking down things that are coming into your body, but they are also aggressive and not well-trained. They'll stop someone from stealing stuff from you, but they might also bite your friend they've never met before.
Also, there are other bacteria in your body that are even worse. The stuff that lives in your intestines is like a pack of wolves. As long as they're contained in your guts, they are great at breaking down almost anything that comes through. If they ever get out, though, they'll try to eat everything they come across. | 851 |
|
ELI5:How did the United Kingdom, an area about the same size as Alabama and Mississippi, have the ability to colonize so much of the world? | 77 | Mostly how they could conquer those countries with so little manpower was advanced technology. British had modern guns, railways, ships etc so no one could really stand their power.
They didn't have to bring so many of their own people to those colonized countries too because they created new elite on locals which they used to control whole country. British had for example military forces in India which were consist of Indians but were ruled by British.
| 54 |
|
When you wash your skin with lukewarm or hot water after you’ve been in freezing temperatures, why does it feel like the skin is burning? Is your body actually in danger or are the nerves misinterpreting what is happening? Are there other examples of this situation? | 24 | This happens because when your body gets cold it constricts blood flow to the extremities first so that it can maintain heat in the core areas of the body such as the brain and and abdominal. This causes nerves to shut down in the extremities which is why you don't feel as much pain when you are cold and any pain you feel seems duller. Then when you introduce sudden heat to the area it is a huge boost in energy to these nerves that were pretty much shut down and this energy causes them to surge and reconnect with the central cortex and you experience this as pain. Also, when they are hit by the sudden heat your nerves have to preform a kind of calibration to readjust themselves to what is actually painful. | 16 |
|
Does changing temperature have "inertia?" | When anything with mass, let's say a liter of water, changes temperature, can that change in temperature have any sort of "inertia?" For example, if I boil a liter of water, and then put it in a freezer that is exactly 0°C; does the temperature simply fall to zero, or can it build "inertia," that would cause the water's temperature to dip below zero, and then effectively "rebound" and settle at 0°C? | 19 | No, for the reason that changes in temperature require a sink to 'move heat' (**this is not a rigorous way of talking about it**) in or out of. If the water is getting colder, it has to be making something else hotter by giving energy to it. By the laws of thermodynamics it can't be making anything already hotter than it is even hotter as this would result in a decrease in entropy and that's against well established empirical fact. Hence no 'inertia': changes in temperature always have an external body driving them, whilst in any given reference frame an object's momentum is constant. | 16 |
ELI5: how do we "hear" memories? | i understand how we're able to "see" memories in our mind's eye, but how is it that we're able to "hear" memories and be able to recall people's voices and sounds? does this have something to do with the mind's eye too?
EDIT: it's been great to read all your responses! i've learned a lot, cheers for taking the time to read and reply! | 4,875 | Pretty much - but it would be the minds "ear" rather than the minds eye - that is the memories work pretty much the same way but the memories of visual things are processed by the same part of your brain (kind of) that processes how you see things but memories of sounds are processed by the part of your brain (kind of) that processes how you hear things. | 1,481 |
Why do whales die on land even though they breathe outside water? | 25 | 1. Their bodies aren't designed to be supported by a hard surface. Their buoyancy in water supports the whole body evenly and prevents the crushing of internal organs.
2. They overheat. Whales are very well insulated and rely on the water around them to keep them at a livable temperature. | 41 |
|
ELI5: Why do AMD CPUs have way more GHz for the same price? And why is Intel still considered better? | Intel i5 4x3,4Ghz costs more than AMD 6x3,9Ghz but is still considered better by friends rankings and user experiences. | 1,050 | GHz is only a measure of CPU clock speed. It's a good way to compare very similar CPUs but for CPUs of very different design, architecture, and features, differences in clock speed don't really mean much. Simply put, different CPUs do different amount of work per cycle. For example, let's say it takes one CPU 12 cycles to multiply two large numbers. A different CPU might need only 8 cycles. CPUs have different features, can do multiple tasks simultaneously, have different sets of onboard memory (called cache), are sometimes able to increase their clock speed temporarily above the normal clock speed (overclock). One number is simply not enough to compare different CPUs - you need to look at overall benchmark scores. | 673 |
[Marvel/MCU] Has Steve Rogers ever watched the movie Inglorious Basterds? If so, what did he think of it? | Just curious what his thoughts would be as a WWII vet and someone who personally punched out Hitler/The Red Skull. | 35 | He’d probably think of them as brutal psychopaths who take killing Nazis too far.The Nazis were the enemy,but what the Basterds do to them is arguably far too brutal,especially because of the fact that not every Nazi soldier was a piece of shit who deserved it. | 39 |
[DOOM] Why is destroying the argent energy filters such a huge setback to the UAC? | If they built them once, they should be able to do so again. It's not like they destroyed the blueprints after finishing them, and even if they did get lost, they should be able to figure it out again. Plus, there's still the wreckage that should be salvageable to some degree. | 26 | The Filters were designed to channel and then purify Hell-Energy, an energy-form that is exceptionally dangerous to handle in it's raw state. In fact, given how Hell-Energy tends to react to things, it's probable that the Argent Filters actually contained some fragmentary material from Hell it's self. Be it organic components from some sort of Demon, or some Demon-made construction, it wouldn't really matter, because replacement of something like that would be extremely difficult. | 11 |
How are clothes washed aboard the ISS? | 5,041 | They don't wash their clothes -- they get new ones every so often, and dispose of the old ones as waste.
I recall an interview with Chris Hadfield in which he explained that astronaut clothes barely get "dirty" -- the astronauts don't sweat much, their clothes only loosely contact the skin (because of effective zero-g), their food is eaten mainly from enclosed pouches or wraps and they never really go "outside". | 5,646 |
|
Why are your ears, nose and throat all connected? | 37 | Because once upon a time your ancestors were fishes.
I'll do this one organ at a time.
**Throat**
Your throat is derived from a structure called the **pharynx**. The pharynx in fishes is essentially the tube between the mouth and the entrance to the esophagus. This tube, in fishes, has holes in the side. These holes are called **pharyngeal slits.** In most fishes, there are thin, highly vascularized filaments inside these slits, and the pharynx is used to pump water over these filaments. We call this sort of structure a "gill." In humans, the pharynx is the back part of the throat up to the epiglottis.
**Nose**
The nose develops initially from a pocket that forms in the anterior head of an embryo called the **nasal capsule**. This capsule contains all the sensory receptors of the nose and is tightly integrated with the anterior brain via the olfactory nerve.
In early fishes, the nasal capsule is just a pocket in the side of the snout. Later fishes have a flow-through system, with an anterior and a posterior nostril. When you get to the lineage that leads to tetrapods, the posterior nostril slips inside the mouth, and the flow-through nasal capsule not only becomes a means of smelling things, but a means of getting water into the mouth, where it could then pass over the gills. We call this internal nostril a **choana**. The choana later becomes a means of getting air into the pharynx for passage into the lungs as our ancestors start moving onto land. In most reptiles and amphibians, the choana is perforates the bony palate right behind where your canine tooth is.
Now, in mammals, what we see is that there is what's called a "secondary palate" which is a plate of bone that forms between the oral cavity and the choana to create an actual nasal cavity, which is what we have. You still have a passageway between the nasal cavity and the pharynx, but it's further back now. This, among other things, allows you to breathe while chewing and to avoid getting food wedged up your nose all the time.
**Ears**
There are three parts to your ear: the inner ear, the middle ear, and the outer ear. The inner ear includes a series of canals associated with balance (**semicircular canals**) and a series of tubes and membranes that transduce sound waves into firing of nerves. The outer ear includes the rubbery flap of ear on the outside of your head (the **pinna**) as well as the ear canal. The middle ear contains a series of bones (**auditory ossicles**) that connect the eardrum to the inner ear. Of these, the middle ear is the only part of the ear directly connected to the throat.
Now, there are three bones in the middle ear; the **malleus**, the **incus**, and the **stapes**. You may know these as the hammer, anvil, and stirrup. Fishes have these same bones, but they don't use them for hearing. They're part of their jaws. The malleus is a bone from the lower jaw called the **articular**. The incus is a bone from the upper jaw called the **quadrate**. The stapes is a bone that braces the upper jaw against the skull, called the **hyomandibula**. The upper and lower jaws occurs between the quadrate and articular. There is a passage that runs past the hyomandibula called the **spiracle**, which is essentially a specialized pharyngeal slit. It was used to modulate water flow across the gills.
Now, as our ancestors crawled out of water, they started using these bones in their jaws to carry sound to the inner ear. The articulation between the quadrate and the articular is still the primary jaw joint in most amphibians and reptiles, for example. In mammals, though, a second jaw joint forms called the **temporomandibular joint** (TMJ) and the quadrate/incus and articular/malleus completely separate from the lower jaw. The spiracle slit never opens, leaving a thin membrane across the surface of the spiracular opening. This membrane is the eardrum or **tympanic membrane**. What's left of the spiracle now is the middle ear and the tube that connects the middle ear to the throat, called the **eustachian tube**.
So, in other words, the reason these organs are all connected is because of a combination of how these organs develop and the evolutionary history of these organs in our distant fishy ancestors.
Hope this helps.
**tl;dr: because once upon a time our ancestors were fish and these organs did very different things** | 41 |
|
ELI5: If stomach acid is so strong, how do some foods get through into our stool without being broken down (like seeds?) | 55 | Because acids are strong only with substances they can react to. That's why we kept sulfuric acid in glass and nothing happened.
Now those seeds are made of a material that does not get dissolved or digested very well, so it remains whole through the trip to wave you good-bye. | 105 |
|
[Netflix's Punisher] Why did the store owner try to sell Frank child pictures? | The big gruff ass dude comes into his shop buys a police scanner and a fucking shotgun with shells, and this guy decided to see if Frank was a pedo? Like couldn't he read the room? | 84 | He was trying to make a sale. Frank showed he had lots of money and seemed to have zero morals. In most people's experience, sex is one of those things that always sells so the skeezy pawn shop guy shot his shot.
He started trying selling him reg
sex and normal porn. Frank wouldn't bite. So he... expanded on the available options he had available. *That* triggered Frank's interest. Shop keeper misread that interest and kept upselling.
So yeah, dude fatally misread the room in his rush to make some shady money. | 188 |
ELI5: What causes some people to be heavier sleepers than others? | 466 | Kind of piggybacking off this question a bit, but does being calm and stress have anything to do with this? Could trust also be another thing? As in if you felt you were in danger (Living in a warzone or something) you would wake up faster and easier. | 92 |
|
I Feel Like My Advisor is Delusional and I'm Losing My Mind | Hello
I am currently stuck working on my thesis proposal. I know what the thesis will be, more or less inside and out. I have a committee, including 'important people in the field'. It's more than half done, I have most of the materials, I just can't push myself to finish it for a number of reasons.
The main trouble I have is that I think parts of it (parts that are really important for motivating it and pushed hard by my advisor and important to motivation to the thesis/funding) are largely 'crank-ish'. That is to say, I think they are really grandiose, nonsensical, and delusional. I can't make much sense of these claims when I actually look into the details of how it would work. When I ask him reasonably basic questions about the problem it is addressing, it's mostly apparent that he doesn't understand basic aspects of the problem and how they could or couldn't work. Generally speaking, I feel like someone working with a scientist from a science fiction movie where they say cool sounding future stuff, but when I look up what they're talking about it's mostly gibberish or reheated ideas that aren't quite coherent.
I have also had problems more than a couple times in the past where his skills/opinions don't line up with his claimed past in pretty brazen/flagrant ways. I don't want to get too specific, but stuff has been flubbed in ways that really shouldn't happen to anybody who isn't a complete beginner, and he'll get angry or deny it when I point out the obvious mistake that is happening. On the other hand, I can totally say the opposite as well, where I can say almost for a fact that he has to be brilliant in some categories, even if not when it comes to basic skills/critical thinking in others. This just makes things more confusing, since I pretty regularly hear things I know are 100% wrong or nonsensical in categories that are more well understood.
I really don't know what to do. Just trying to talk to people (including my advisor) over their egos is super intellectually exhausting to begin with, and now there is an added layer of me feeling potentially coached to pretend that what I'm working on makes more sense than it actually does or becoming delusional or a crank myself, which I really don't want. It's wreaking havoc on my mental health and sort of feeding itself as a problem on my psyche, and making it harder and harder to make progress. I don't want to get up in front of people and try to argue it's a good idea in ways that I don't think make sense, but I also want to get a PhD to make good on all the time I have put into this, and it's tearing me apart.
I am seeing a therapist/taking medication now, but it's only helping a tiny amount. I just really don't know what to do. | 72 | Either you're correct, your advisor is a crank, and you should get out; or, you have an over-inflated sense of your own expertise in the area and are failing to see the bigger picture your advisor is trying to push you towards. Potentially, of course, both.
No one here, given the information you've given, is going to be able to figure out the truth of the matter. You're going to get a lot of advice towards the former; however, that's because we only have your side of the story here, lack most critical details, and lack your advisor's perspective.
Realistically speaking any feedback you receive here is guesswork at best and self-interested projection at worst. Sorry. | 215 |
CMV: People who post photos of their children on social media are infringing on their privacy | Children and babies don’t/rarely get the chance to tell their parents and family members that they don’t want their photos taken or that they don’t want them posted online.
I’ve heard people say that “It’s for the memories.” But photos getting posted online don’t disappear and what if your child grows up and finds a photo of them they didn’t want online? And what if by some chance, some creep gets ahold of the photos? Their agency gets taken away before they even learn what consent is.
I’m all for taking photos and creating personal photo albums, but idk why they can’t just be kept for the people close to you?
I’m open to any counter arguments to this view. | 118 | They couldn't give consent anyway because they're children and babies. By that same standard, it would be an affront to dignity to wipe their ass, pick their clothes or tell them no. Is it an invasion of privacy to check up on them if they're having a nightmare or pissed the bed?
Yes, there are creeps out there. That doesn't mean though that you don't have to send any pictures to family or loved ones as long as you're following common sense. While looking at what ifs, what if a person breaks in and gets hold of those pictures. Hell, since most crimes against children are by people known to the child, does this mean you shouldn't even take pictures? | 29 |
CMV: There isn't a problem with attempting to be "race blind" in daily life | The intention of being race blind in my opinion is to allow yourself to see all others as equal to you, implying that race is irrelevant to how someone is going to act in their day to day lives, and pushing yourself to see everyone as just another human who goes through painful and difficult situations in their lives that may or may not be because of something like race, or gender. Of course discrimination and racism still exist but is the solution not to help everyone understand that, despite the past, we are all humans, with minds that experience the same emotions. | 53 | The point though, is that even if we are all equal and we are all humans with the same emotions, we don't experience the world the same way, because race still does exist and we are treated differently.
Being blind to that fact doesn't make it go away. | 44 |
[LoTR] What would the full extent of Gandalf's powers look like? What exactly is he capable of? | excuse my ignorance but isn't he the, or one of, most powerful beings on middle earth. He is only able to use these underwhelming abilities because the valar(?) forbid it? | 119 | Gandalf as you know Gandalf showed his capabilities against Durin's Bane (the Balrog), because he had no choice. The thing is, magic in Middle Earth is generally not flashy or spectacular in the same way other universes treat it. Magic is literally divine energy, Eru's (God) will at work. Such an energy CAN, and did, sink continents and literally reshape the world, but for the most part it's subtle and "natural". As in, most magic can be seen in every day things, like the sun rising or life growing and spreading. Gandalf can tap into these things and make them "better". Think about (in the film) when Gandalf put a crystal on his staff and blew into it, treating it like a small fire, before it illuminated the caves into Moria. That's the kind of magic he does.
Gandalf wasn't always an old man walking the earth. He was created as Olórin, a "lesser angel", but still very wise. Olórin would have likely been spectacularly "powerful" (though not on the level of Sauron), but he knew better than the flaunt it. It's why, when he came to Middle Earth with the other Istari, he was singled out and given one of the three great rings. His "real power" is actually his great wisdom, and the desire to travel and learn more to add to said great wisdom. Above all else, that's why he alone accomplished his mission. | 142 |
CMV: The human race is doomed. | The world is in a bad state right now. Worse, most people are going in the wrong direction. Soon, the planet will be so fucked past the point of no return.
* The Amazon rainforest is burning
* Siberia is burning
* Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreeement
* Pollution
* Most people don't know about the effects of climate change and very few people are doing a thing to curb these effects.
Soon, humanity would have procrastinated so much that it would have waited until the last minute to get their shit together. By that time, it would be too late to save the planet, the ice caps would have melted, all food sources would have been depleted, and humanity would get an F on their assignment to not take the planet for granted.
CMV
Edit: Thanks for changing my view. I think humanity is slowly but surely moving forward with technology and innovation, despite the media contributing to fears of climate change. | 21 | You do realize the human race has existed when it was much warmer and much colder than it is now, right? During the Viking age, there were settlements on Greenland, with farms, which are now underneath glaciers. We survived more than one ice age, and huge warming cycles after each one. We'll survive whatever comes our way, and we'll learn from it. | 30 |
[MCU] Why do Wakandans speak Xhosa? | [Considering the country's location] (https://www.layar.id/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Wakanda-Map.jpg), they should be speaking Ng'aturkana, Borana, Daasanach, or something close to one of those. Most east Africans are trilingual, so it makes sense for them to speak English, but they should also speak Kiswahili (since those two are the *linguas francas* for most of east Africa). Why would they speak a language from the [southern part of South Africa?] (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/95/South_Africa_2011_Xhosa_speakers_proportion_map.svg/1200px-South_Africa_2011_Xhosa_speakers_proportion_map.svg.png) | 28 | Xhosa is currently spoken in South Africa, but the Xhosa were part of the Nguni, who are believed to have originated in the Great Lakes region, aka right where Wakanda is situated.
In our world the Nguni languages appear to have left the area along with the Nguni people, but presumably at least some of the people of Wakanda are descended from Nguni who didn't join the migration. As such, their language would probably bear a fairly close relation to Xhosa (although without the later Khoisan influences).
It being close enough to sound identical seems unlikely, but with modern communications this may have been a deliberate choice by Wakandan educators, to better facilitate future communication with one of the major powers of Africa. | 56 |
[DC] I'm a surgeon at metropolis hospital, after a fight between a hero and a kryptonian, after that I'm told to do the autopsy of the dead kryptonian, what am I looking at that differs from a regular human? | I was given the right tools and the body is somewhat intact. | 42 | I would expect similar internal organ function and recognizable cell structures. Nearly all life in a lot of comics can cross breed. Not every species with any thing/one,.but enough that assuming you haf the tools to do it, you can figure it out in time.
There would likely be a multi chamber heart, similar stomach and intestinal tract, Lungs, muscle and skeletal structure.
They might not all be in the same place. Heart may be more centered, the way intestines flow etc. The key difference is kryptonians ability to absorb solar radiation. A similar process to plants photosynthesis. | 27 |
How do the current levels of non-ionizing radiation, from wireless transmissions in city centres, compare with the exposure we normally get from either background radiation or sunlight etc? | I am in the middle of a debate on the effect of RF radiation on humans. While trying to rebut some counter arguments, I came across [this pdf](https://emfscientist.org/images/docs/Script-Introduction_to_the_United_Nations_EMF_Appeal_Delivered_by_Martin_Blank.pdf) from [these guys](https://emfscientist.org/).
Trying not to cringe at the sensationalism and the fear-mongering, i came across this paragraph:
> Before Edison's lightbulb, there was very little electromagnetic radiation in our environment. The levels today are very many times higher than natural background levels and are growing rapidly because of all the new devices that emit this radiation.
Is this claim true? How do "natural" sources of radiation compare to our artificial ones, in intensity and danger to our health? | 543 | The other answers haven't addressed your question as directly as they should. Your mobile phone in your pocket is actually much brighter than the sun in radio waves. And if aliens were to look at our solar system in radio, they would see Earth as millions of times brighter than the Sun.
However the other responders are correct that if you look at the energy output from the sun, it is much brighter at higher energies of light. And these are far more dangerous. Apart from specific microwaves that excite water (in a microwave), the radio end of the spectrum is very low-energy and harmless. So while our devices are comparatively very bright in radio, they carry a tiny amount of energy and negligible risk to humans. With ~billions of people exposed to radio waves every day, it would be completely obvious by now if we had a problem.
TL;DR: Are artificial radio waves intense compared to the sun? Yes, they can be.
Are they dangerous to humans? No. They have very little energy and don't interact. | 249 |
[Batman] What is Batman's contingency plan for Alfred? | Batman is known for having plans to take down the entire Justice League.
What kind of plan would Batman have if Alfred decides to betray him? (ie. What if Alfred is mind controlled to be evil) | 28 | Well if Alfred is mind controlled to be evil, whoever is controlling him would be likely be aware of Bruce's identity already (why else would they bother controlling the butler of a public billionaire) so Batman's got deeper issues to address. Just take out Alfred and bat-cuff him, then off to go whoop the poor bastard who thought this was a good idea. | 42 |
[LOTR] Did the greatest battles against Sauron actually occur in the East? | We might only hear of the fight against Sauron in the West (e.g. Gondor, Rohan) because the text we have was written by Frodo, who was in the West. However, the majority of the fight against Sauron could have happened in the East since the two Blue Wizards are there and Saruman also spent a lot of time there when he was good. Requiring the majority of Wizards early on and permanently needing two of them seems to indicate that the fighting in the East is intense. There might have been large populations of good Easterlings such that the majority of Sauron's forces might have been committed there, which otherwise would have been sufficiently strong enough for an overwhelming and easy victory against the West. Maybe the Eastern resistance was responsible for both allowing Frodo's quest to even have a chance of success and preventing Gondor from being conquered centuries earlier.
This seems similar to how Americans believe they did the bulk of the work to defeat Nazi Germany in World War 2 on the Western Front but the vast majority of fighting and casualties actually occurred on the Eastern Front with the Soviet Union.
https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year-campaign-to-convince-people-the-usa-and-not
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/05/08/dont-forget-how-the-soviet-union-saved-the-world-from-hitler/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/12/04/why-its-time-give-soviet-union-its-due/ | 55 | If it was, it happened before the war of the ring. Sauron would not move on the west before he was totally ready. Not to mention, from all accounts we hear after the war, the east was united with sauron, we never hear of any Eastern faction helping aragon against rhun or so after saurons fall.
So if there was a anti sauron faction, it was either small and in hiding, or it had been crushed before sauron moved west | 50 |
Eli5: How is the Chinese military such a threat to the US when the US spends roughly 3x the $ on their military budget? | 268 | The US defense budget is highly misleading. China and the US actually spend roughly the same on actual military spending. It’s just that the US pays its people way more and includes a lot of things in the defense budget not actually related to defense— but the pay is most important. China pays people like nothing. The US pays contractors and it’s military and civilians very competitive wages. The difference may seem a lot on paper, but it’s actually very similar in real world parity.
China is a regional power. Their goals and aims are there and specifically geared towards fighting close to home which is a massive advantage and towards specifically fighting the US and Taiwan. They are heavily specialized. The US instead is setup for all types of various conflicts, China is just one of them. They are a less specialized tool.
China could not beat the US. But they could cause a lot of pain to the US and it’s allies in east Asia.
And at some point. Many people on all sides and those not involved feel the US and China will eventually come into conflict in Asia. And China’s power is growing much more competitive every year. The bigger issue in China is that they haven’t fought a battle in forever. There is concern they don’t really know how to employ their forces. No one knows what to make of that though. Military experience is beyond value in conflict. | 659 |
|
How did the Big Bang not form a super massive black hole? | So, when a star's mass exceeds a certain threshold, it collapses into a black hole.
In the beginning, all the mass in the universe was in close proximity. How could all that mass not trigger a black hole collapse? Surely there was more mass in the local area of the blast than exists in a black hole, and light (a massless particle) is a lot harder to suppress than actual mass. Therefore, it should have been impossible for any matter to have escaped the Big Bang (?!).
What am I missing...
EDIT: Front page! Thanks reddit! | 272 | The Big Bang singularity isn't the same as a black hole. A black hole is a point in space time with infinite curvature. The Big Bang singularity was the entirety of space time. And the entirety of space time expanded.
That being said. We have no working theory of black holes or the Big Bang. We just see that our models asymptotically reach these points. We can't explain what actually happens at these points, though. | 144 |
[Batman] I feel like there is a lot of public trust in Batman because he is very good at what he does. What are some times Batman has messed up big time? | 18 | That time his anti-Justice League contingency plans were stolen by Ra's al Ghul.
That time he created a global security AI called Brother Eye to monitor metahumans and then it went all Skynet/Ultron/etc and started an evil robot apocalypse. | 34 |
|
[Star Wars] Did at any time Vader or Sidious consider eachother friends? | I mean, sure, Anakin considered Palpatine a friend, but when they were both sith, did they have any sort of friendship? | 23 | No, they both knew what they were to each other and simply held a pretence in place to hide the cold truth; Vader was simply another tool of the Emperor and it had cost him everything to become so. The closest thing that Darth Vader held to a friend during the Empire was probably Grand Moff Tarkin and even that could have changed in a heartbeat; the friendship was also rather weird, after all when Tarkin owed Vader a favour the latter asked him to collect a crew of bounty hunters and hunt him down.
The teachings of the Sith doesn't allow for friends, you're either the master or the apprentice and the apprentice should always be looking for ways to upgrade his status. The fact that Vader didn't was one of many reasons why he disappointed Sidious, the other primarily being the mental block that stopped him from reaching his full potential.
No, they weren't friends and there weren't any games nights, they fell into the true roles of a Master and Apprentice and that's all there was between them until Vader knew of Luke. | 38 |
ELI5: What are the benefits of hacking your wifi router? | I saw a post about it being OK'd by the FCC. I didn't even know that was a thing? Come some one please explain? | 138 | You know how companies sometimes have multiple routers that they make that have different speeds and prices? A lot of the times, the cheaper ones are basically the same as the more expensive ones, but artificially slowed either through a simple wire connection somewhere, or through firmware. They wanted to make it illegal for people to hack their routers to be faster. That's moot though, the main point here is that it shouldn't be illegal for you to modify things you own. | 78 |
CMV: Governors of states have no business "calling" for the death penalty for the perpetrator of a crime. (At the moment, I'm looking at you, Nikki Haley.) | Governors execute the laws that their legislatures pass, they respond to disasters, they act as a backstop to the judicial system if someone is harshly punished through pardoning people, they guide economic policy, they are chief cheerleader for their state. Basically, they have plenty to do, and plenty of places to show folks that they are leading through doing leadership things in a very leady way.
They shouldn't be inserting their opinion into a system that has police, district attorneys, prosecutors, and judges who all have their own roles to play. It's bad enough that juries are already tainted by the media coverage of a story, but now your own governor is telling you what you ought to do.
I feel like consoling the people by throwing despicable criminals under the bus is a cheap and dishonorable move. | 311 | The Governor is the Head of State, and is (up several levels) the Prosecutor's boss.
Look at it this way:
* The Prosecutor is allowed to call for the death penalty, right?
* The Attorney General, as the Prosecutor's boss, can have the Prosecutor call for the death penalty.
* Keep on down the chain, and the Governor can direct the Prosecutor, through the chain, to call for the death penalty. | 52 |
Why is water to steam always the source to turn a turbine to generate power ? Why is it not the liquid that expands the most when vaporized? | I was just thinking that in energy generation methods such as geothermal & nuclear they always heat up water to produce steam in order to turn the turbine. Wouldn't it have greater energy yield if it was a liquid that expanded more than water upon vaporization and had a lower boiling point/ heat capacity than water? | 213 | As you allow any vapor to expand as it does work, it cools down. As the vapor cools, the amount of 'usable work' that can be done decreases. So we want a substance that not only expands a lot when heated but also carries away a great deal of thermal energy so it can be used to do the greatest amount of usable work.
Water has an extremely high heat of vaporization and specific heat capacity (it is the reason why steam burns a lot worse than hot water, trust me I've been burnt by an autoclave before) which means water must absorb a lot of thermal energy before it vaporizes. Which also means steam can do a lot of work before it cools too much to be unusable. This work can be extracted from the steam in an 'adiabatic expansion' process. (Its hard to make anything perfectly adiabatic, but you get the idea)
Add to it the fact that water is easily available, free, can be released into the environment, and not corrosive, its a win win. | 153 |
Why does jerking a table cloth quickly from a table not disturb the plates but if you do it slow they all come off? Shouldn't there be the same amount of friction whether you pull it fast or slow? | 51 | If we look at Newtons second law: F=ma, we can clearly see that force is proportional to acceleration. When we pull the table cloth away quickly, a higher force is required to accelerate the dishes with the table cloth. The force of friction is given by u*Fn, where u is the coefficient of static friction (depends on the two materials in contact) and Fn is the normal force, so like you said, the force that can be provided by the friction does not change, however it is not high enough to move the plates with a fast enough acceleration when we pull the cloth away quickly.
Also, once the cloth begins to move relative to the plates, we no longer use the coefficient of static friction, but rather the coefficient of kinetic friction, which is even lower. Once the cloth begins to move out from under the plates, theres even less frictional force. | 35 |
|
CMV: Adoption should be free and Foster care should count as a Job. | As always happens when I get searching on the web about "How does Canada do this" or "How does Europe/EU do this" I realize the grass is greener and we only have Hay here.
In Canada and Europe Adoption is 100% free, but they make you go though a rigorous process to make sure you are capable and trust worthy enough to raise a child/newborn. That means lots of background checks, living situation checks, making sure you have a stable income and safe living environment and have no problematic past that would make you a risk to the child. If you pass all this then you are free to adopt children and BABIES free of charge vs the 10s of thousands in the US for healthy babies.
This is 100% the way it should be, get those children into homes asap and stop messing around!
Now for Foster care I should explain what I mean by count as a job. Aside from the stipend that you get to use for things the child needs, someone should be allowed to work part time (20 hours) and then get SNAP and other assistance if they are fostering.
If you OWN the house/condo then you shouldn't have to work at all and they should give you food and gas assistance because it's not that much money and you are helping children in need out.
Obviously this brings the issue of people who don't actually care for the children going into foster because they just don't want to work. To get around this, people who want to take the job root should be required to do check ins to confirm what they are spending money on, how much time they are actually at home, if they are taking them to places they need to be and so on. Not that much to ask tbh.
Basically I wish they would turn the system from hay to grass pls. | 218 | I don’t agree with it being a job, yes you should get benefits and tax breaks for having children, but having it replace a job could cause people to adopt children for selfish reasons rather than their kind-heartedness.
All people should have to work unless they are disabled, children aren’t an excuse to not pay income tax. | 62 |
[DC] Can Harvey Dent/Two-Face be cured? | 33 | Yes, it's possible to alleviate his mental condition, as well as eventually repair his face - in fact that had been done at least once, and probably more in publishing history.
Unfortunately, Gotham is not the city where skeletons stay in the closet forever, so eventually SOMETHING is bound to happen that would push him back into one extreme or another. | 40 |
|
Discussion: What do you think is the biggest problem in academia right now, and what do you think will be the biggest problem in the future? What needs to change in academia to make it function better? | I've read quite a few articles talking about the different problems that are encountered in academia, and I was curious, in your opinion, what is the current biggest issue with academia (as well as any potential solutions there are), and what looks like it might become the biggest problem in the future.
Also, what are new solutions and ideas that are helping to change the way academia works?
I'll reply too in a little while, but I'll do it in the comments so as to not create any initial bias (also I need time to think about it!) Looking forward to hearing everyone's opinions! | 24 | Funding & hiring need to be based on more than impact factor. There are no incentives to be good mentors or supervisors, to teach well, to get involved in campus life or the general well-being of the department.
The main benefit of academia is the fruitful interactions among intelligent people. Funding & hiring practices need to focus on them. That probably means that administrators and governments will need to get their head out of their ass and think about ways of incentivizing good academics rather than publication factories - which is why it'll never happen | 28 |
How is time synced? | We sync clocks to a central clock, but how is that clock kept accurate? | 28 | It's not one central clock, it's a large number of highly accurate atomic clocks around the world. These clocks are synced against each other periodically by averaging the tiny differences between them. This global average is called UTC or coordinated universal time. | 17 |
Was CMBR visible light in earlier periods of the universe? | If Cosmic microwave background radiation was once gamma but red-shifted to microwave, does this mean that at some point the photons we are receiving would have been within the visible spectrum of light in earlier period in the universe?
If so when? | 102 | Yes. The cosmic microwave background is an almost perfect blackbody radiation and its origin lies in the recombination phase, a time when free protons and electrons cooled down enough to form neutral hydrogen. At this time, the gas was around 3000 K hot, so the light was primarily red. Before that, that plasma was opaque, so no light from earlier times can reach us. | 19 |
The mRNA vaccines use a seemingly roundabout method for creating the spike protein: inject mRNA which is then read by cells which then create the spike protein. Why not cut out the middleman and inject the spike protein directly? | 2,116 | You can, that is usually how we make a subset of vaccines. There are actually several COVID vaccines in the works right now that are using cell culture and large fermenters to make lots of spike protein.
The problem is that you need to purify the spike protein out from the cell goop, and you need to prove to the FDA that you did a very good job at reliably getting a very pure final product. We know how to do this, we have known how to do this for a very long time, the problem is that the entire process takes time to develop and validate.
mRNA we can just synthesize from scratch, so we know that the final product is pure because we know everything that we put in. This means that we can rapidly generate the vaccine for testing without spending all that time on purification. | 3,518 |
|
[Inception] What would make for an absolutely deception-proof totem? Even something like a dungeons and dragons die has a small chance of being successfully faked. | 88 | In the way that the totem is *supposed* to work, literally nothing. Since you know all the elements of how your totem works, then eventually your subconscious can be made to reveal those elements to any skilled thief, exactly the same way any other piece of information can be uncovered.
What's worse, because of the conceit that your totem will only work "correctly" when you're awake because no architect would be able to correctly construct its particular flaws, then if someone *really* wanted to mess you up, all they really would need to do is steal your actual totem in the real world and replace it with a copy which works like a perfect version of that thing... in which case you'd go for your totem to check that you're out of the dream, see it not doing whatever it is supposed to do when you're awake, and conclude that you're still dreaming. At which point, you're likely to lay down on some traintracks or something.
However, people with some severe psychological flaw of some sort actually have a built-in fool-proof totem system, because their subconscious tends to intrude upon whatever dream they happen to be sharing, even if it is not their own or they're not the architect of it. Hence, Mal.
So a skilled dream-infiltrator can always be assured that they're definitely in a dream when the object of their intense traumatic experience shows up. And, conversely, if the thing that terrorizes their nights and gives them insomnia **doesn't** happen to show up randomly, then they can be certain that they're actually awake.
At least until the full-blown psychotic break hits. | 78 |
|
[Wall-e] How are the blob-people actually paying for all the stuff they are constantly buying? | The Captain of the ship seems to be the only one with a "job" that he would be getting compensated for, so how is everybody else aboard the ship able to buy things?
Was passage on the ship *ridiculously* all-inclusive?
Are the passengers just running up monumental bills to the point that they will be indentured to Buy-n-Large for generations after the ships land? | 57 | You're still thinking in terms of capitalism. In the future, we did away with such primitive concepts, along with the concepts of "exercise" and "productivity". We have robots for those kinds of things.
Instead we simply get our allowances. They determine what we can and cannot buy. | 45 |
How do shape-shifters get the accent right? | This has always bothered me. Shapeshifters like Mystique are able to turn into someone they've never spoken to before and look exactly like them. They can also speak exactly like them. How? Identical twins would sound different if raised in seperate places to seperate families...
Also, if a shapeshifter changes into somoene, are they as strong as them? | 23 | Practice.
In all seriousness, many shapeshifters have, by necessity, a low-level psychic field that lets them transform into a perfect copy, down to the fingerprints, retinal patterns, and dental thingummies of anyone they transform into. It's not telepathy, it's more of a perfect awareness of who and what you're about to transform into.
Most of them aren't aware of this and don't really ping as 'psychic', since it seems to be merely another sense that is nearly unique to shapeshifters. | 24 |
ELI5: Time. | So from what I learned, time is a dimension, and so is space. We move through both. When we move through space we change our position relative to other objects in space, but how does time come into play here?
What is the effect of time and how does it affect space? How is a rock that is standing still in space, but moving at maximum speed through time different from a rock that's moving at the speed of light and not moving through time at all? | 22 | From a scientific perspective, time is infuriating. We haven't been able to come up with a definition of time that doesn't rely on circular logic.
However, we are fairly certain that time exists, and is not just a part of our perception. The reason we believe this is because the mathematical functions that rely on time to describe other things all work out. Granted, that's not proof.
Time is essentially one-dimensional. We believe that it is possible to change the rate at which something experiences time, but strangely, it doesn't seem possible to go in the other direction. For some reason that has eluded us, it seems that the universe is compelling everything to only move *forwards* in time. | 24 |
[StarTrek] Why do [only] StarFleet ships have deflector dishes? | As I understand it's basically a focused shield generator to deflect interstellar particles in the ship's path, but why would you need them when a ship already has regular shields?
It just seems weird that only Star Fleet ships have deflectors, and no other alien race use them. On the other hand, they seem like a great bullseye for enemies to target (I'm thinking of that Galaxy-class that got rammed in its deflector dish by a Jem'Hadar ship). | 17 | Only starfleet ships need to use their deflector dishes to shoot an inverse tachyon beam routed through the transporter buffer to re-stabilize the Heisenberg compensators through the warp coils.
"I don't know. Something like that has never been tried before. It's extremely complex and these separate systems weren't engineered to handle that kind of interlacing energy signatures."
"Make it so."
*boop boop beep*
"Got it." | 12 |
ELI5: What are those dust motes we see floating around made of? How do they form? | 18 | Most of the dust particles that you see wafting around in the sun are organic. These come from plants or animals that have dried out and can break down into smaller and smaller pieces over time. Because these eventually very tiny bits are usually not made out of heavy atoms like the kind that are in rocks and stuff, dust from organic sources is often very light, and so it pretty much floats given the lightest whiff or current of air.
Humans and their hairy pets produce a lot of dead flakes of skin and tiny bits of hair that really can contribute to household dust. The next time you have a thin sliver of sunlight coming into where you live, some of the bits that are floating around in there... are very likely yours. | 12 |
|
Do insects have a sense of hearing? | They certianly make a lot of noise - so i suspect some speicies do.
But what about a beetle or a bee?
And if the answer is yes - how do they hear? Do they have ears? | 19 | Yes. They hear by means of ears (a tympanic membrane with nerve fibers attached) and by very delicate hairs (trichobothria, sensilla) that respond to vibrations in the air. Sound is very important to insects in courtship. | 19 |
If Japan has been in stagnation for so long, how are they still the top 3 economy in the world? | Title says everything.
With everything I hear about Japan's economy, it leads to me to believe that its been in utter Sh*t for the past 20 years since 1996 or so. However, if that is the case, how were they the #2 economy for so long only to be taken by China if their economy is in "stagnation"?
Do all the other countries suck and not know how to play catch up to a country that has been deemed "a hopeless black hole" economic wise?
THanks | 52 | Bear in mind that the population of Japan is very large compared to most other G7 'developed' countries (for example it's comfortably more than twice ours in the UK), which naturally means a large economy. | 25 |
ELI5:Why do pixels on certain digital devices like old calculators cast a shadow? | I've just noticed how the black pixels on monochromatic, non-backlit screens like digital radios and calculators cast a shadow on the screen itself, how is that happening? | 50 | i believe the device you're referring to is a LCD liquid crystal display. basically its a clear liquid that turns solid and opaque with the applicaation of a minor electric current. so that opaque segement is actually blocking light, casting a shadow on the reflector behind it.
| 34 |
CMV: GMOs aren't a bad thing | I constantly hear people trashing GMOs, but I can't find any reason why they're actually bad. When I ask them, a lot of people talk about Monsanto, but I believe they're bad because they use shady business practices (child labour, hijacking prices, forcing farmer to commit suicide, etc.), not because they grow GMOs. The actual science of the matter doesn't appear to have any conclusive data either, and the scientific community doesn't seem to be addressing GMOs any where near as intensely as they do things like climate change, disease, etc.
So why do people hate GMOs? Is there any legit data out there that's been swept under the rug? Or is this just a sheeple fad that's going around, and people just hate GMOs because that's what's "in" these days?
_____
> *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!* | 42 | GMOs aren't inherently bad. They are simply extensions of selective breeding techniques designed to bend other species to our needs and desires. The problem doesn't come from nature of the thing, it comes from when we inevitably make a mistake. The thing with traditional modification techniques was that they took a long time, and the unintended side effects become clear long before that cultivar becomes commonly utilized. Genetic Modification techniques collapse that development process to a matter of years, which might not be long enough for problems to become clear. There's a lot of reasonable risk when it comes to crop loss or hybridization.
Then there's the potential that GMO crops "escape" into other cultivars resulting in massive legal snags or make it hard or impossible to recover cultivars in the event that the modification made is bad as it has crossed into almost all available populations.
GMOs are getting a worse rap than they are warranted, but there are some reasonable concerns. | 22 |
[Star Wars] Why thermal detonators are never used? | As i know the clone/stormtroopers has a thermal detonator on their back. Why they never use it? | 28 | Because they're rarely in a position where that would be a good idea. A high explosive in an enclosed space is a Very Bad Idea. And if they'd set Endor on fire, they probably would've had a hard time dealing with it. | 30 |
ELI5: is it possible to not have citizenship of any country? | For example i get expatriated from the US and i don't get a citizenship to for a example Sweden. | 139 | Short answer: yes, it's possible. The repercussions are that any nation can declare you persona-non-grata which means you can be arrested simply for being present in their territory.
Additionally, you would be legally considered an alien anywhere you were, and have to deal with the local issues. | 87 |
Why does vomiting relieve nausea even when the nausea is not caused by something in your digestive tract? | For example, nausea caused by drug use via insufflation or unsettling images. | 53 | Nausea is a response due to cues that evolution has shown our biology to be indicators of something you've ingested being toxic. The relief of nausea from throwing up isn't necessarily connected to the cessation of those cues, just trying sensation of your vomiting. Which leads to the awkward situation of you throwing up but the nausea returning because the cue causing it wasn't related to what's in your stomach. | 43 |
I think that most, if not all republican politicians are motivated by greed rather than in helping country (US) CMV | I was raised by a pretty radically liberal mother (she was at woodstock). I don't necessarily agree with liberals either, but I believe they are at least focused on the people and not their money. I really want to see the other side of this | 18 | I hate to break it to you, but all politicians are focused on money. Not just Republicans. Liberals too. They may have a social stance you agree with more, but at the end of the day fiscal matters reign king. Social matters gain votes. | 35 |
[Star Wars] How does Darth Vader poop? | We never see him take any part of his suit off except the helmet, so are there systems in place to handle waste products from what's left of his actual body? Or does he have to take some part of his suit off and shit like a normal person? I know he's "more machine now than man" by the time of the OT but presumably he still experiences bodily functions right? | 125 | Since the suit is primarily a life-support system, and we see that it's more or less a 24/7 thing, it stands to reason that both nutrient intake and waste extraction are handled by it. If your nutrient intake is that heavily controlled, it's probably close to 100% energy-efficient nutrition, meaning there's probably close to 0 solid waste. What little there is could easily be handled by a suit like that. | 91 |
[ELI5] Why anesthesia makes you go to sleep so easily? | Hey everyone !
Even when you countdown from 10 you are falling asleep at 5. Also why this kind of drugs act so fast! What kind of chemical reactions happens in our bodies.
Thank you 🙏🏻 | 15 | Anesthesia flows through the blood into your brain, where it interrupts specific brain cell connections that keep you awake.
Your body makes a natural (weaker) kind of anesthesia when you are falling asleep as well. | 12 |
[DBZ] Exactly how much does the average person know about super powered humans? | Seems like they woul be kind of a big deal | 17 | Old school martial artist might know it's at the end of their training, but like, the *very* end, but normies probably don't know much. In one of the MMOs; Gohan writes a book about ki manipulation post Buu Saga and it becomes a best seller. Tien starts a school for it since he heard about how Goku defeated Kid Buu with a spirit bomb, so he thinks anything can be taken out with a strong enough ki attack. People are hyped up about super powers, and eventually it's a world wide thing. AT said he liked it, but it's not canon to anything. | 15 |
[Last Airbender] Did the world really live in harmony before the fire nation attacked? | There's always conflict is there not? Hell Korra deals with 4 separate crises within about a 3 year period in which war almost (and did on some occasions) broke out. It goes to show its not exactly uncommon for there to be war in the Avatar universe. Is Katara just exaggerating? | 304 | Yes they lived in harmony, but also yes there was still conflict. One doesn't completely cancel out the other.
What Katara is saying is that before the fire nation went full on conquering dictatorship all the nations were of equal standing in the world. Before the war an Air Nomad could happily glide through the fire nations archipelago, a firebender general could take a relaxing vacation in Ba Sing Se without people being terrified for their lives.
It wasn't all peace and hugs before the hundred year war but whatever peaceful lives they had changed when the fire nation attacked. | 340 |
How do my nerves decide when to tell my brain that something is painful? | 23 | Your body uses a plethora of receptors throughout your body to keep tabs on its current condition. In particular, there are a class of receptors known as nociceptors that function solely to warn the body of when there is a "painful" stimuli.
If you care for more detail: For instance there are nocireceptors dedicated to detecting temperature. At a certain temperature, these receptors produce an action potential that coincides with around 42 degrees Celsius, or the known heat-pain temperature. The produced action potentials can then be integrated in your central nervous system to processed in your brain. | 13 |
|
[Warhammer 40000] What would be the aftershocks of the Imperium of Man gaining access to Covenant level Slipspace Travel? | For those that don't know such slipspace ftl drive , from halo, allows a ship to travel at 912.2 light years per day for a maximum duration of 60 days before it must stop. Furthermore it is not effected in any way by warp beings and works at pinpoint accuracy, thus allowing ships to appear in perfect formation.
Assuming the imperium gains such technology how does this change the Warhammer 40000 universe and how does to effect everyone, other factions included? | 48 | Utterly devastating and crushing against everyone. Although this system of travel is slower than warp travel (it takes one year in the warp to cross the galaxy but 3 with rhis method) it is more predictable. No longer will travel risk having the ship reach its destination 100 years late and no ships will be lost in transit due to failed Gellar fields.
The ability to arrive in formation means the Imperium could start a battle with a few ships, see how things are going, assemble a formation one half light year away, then slip in to the battle in formation.
This method of travel is more universal than the webway and faster than the Tau. Xenos will see the bureaucracy of the Imperium suddenly appear removed as ships appear with consistency. | 50 |
ELI5: why do the waves of the 2004 and 2011 tsunamis only look like 10-20 some odd feet high in the videos as they made landfall but reports say that they were hundreds of feet high? They don't look like it videos. Sorry for customary units. | 20 | You're thinking of the kind of wave that you could surf on, but that's not what most tsunamis look like.
The distance between the top of one wave and the next is about 10 or 15 miles, so it doesn't look like a huge wall of water. Out at sea, the wavelength is even longer, so the amplitude -- the height of the waves -- is perhaps three feet, too shallow and too slow for ships to detect. Only when they make landfall do the waves bunch up, but they're still far apart and moving quite slowly. ("Tsunami" is Japanese for "harbour wave", so called because boats out at sea would not notice anything unusual, but would return home to discover the harbour destroyed by the wave.)
If you were standing on a mountain watching the tsunami coming in, you wouldn't see anything in the distance. You might see a strange-looking swell nearer the coast, but the first obvious thing you see is the water receding *away* from the coast. But then the water returns -- not in one huge wave that breaks at skyscraper height, but just water coming in... and coming in... and simply not stopping. It can take several minutes for the wave to reach full height.
If the water is forced into, say, a narrow bay, it gets squeezed and so rises even further -- that will be why reports talked of the 2004 tsunami reaching 80 to 100 feet in places.
It's not like a 100-foot-high wall of water: it's the sea level rising 100 feet. | 34 |
|
ELI5:Why does using a fly swatter make me so much more effective at killing flies? | 300 | Flies can detect very small changes in pressure around them and your hand coming at them is a very obvious change in the air around them.
A fly swatter is designed so it does not disturb the air as much (all the tiny holes) and makes it harder for them to detect that something is coming at them. | 388 |
|
[Star Wars] (possibly NSFW) Does Darth Vader have functional genitals (post-RotS of course)? | 58 | From a physical perspective, no. Short of his leg-stumps, Anakin's balls were the closest things to the lava proper when he ignited on Mustafar. When he was immolated, the damage was severe enough that he required several machines simply to continue living (replacing respiratory function, assisting cardiovascular activity, stimulants and painkillers to manage the never-ending agony of having your eggs scrambled, etc.). Considering that several organs and tissues encased in solid layers of blood, muscle, and bone, odds are good that the seeds of the dark side were roasted beyond recognition.
From a pscyhological perspective, also no. Emotionally, Darth Vader is not capable of arousal, often cited as being entirely too loaded with self-loathing and coldly-burning rage that he can't feel the need to ready his lightsaber and keep it activated. He's hard, but he can't *get* hard. His wife died by his own hand, his children were dead, everything he believed in had been crushed and he was the crippled slave of a sociopathic master. All in the space of a few days. People (in fiction and out, many of whom have their balls in perfect working order) have gone mad from less. Even if Anakin had been blessed with XL magazines, Darth Vader didn't have the will to pull the trigger on the love cannon (or, post-RotS, love peashooter).
On the plus side, the certain complete lack of gonads and almost certain lack of penis means that - thankfully - Darth Vader can only metaphorically fuck you. | 67 |
|
Can a gravitational locked planet outside the Goldilocks zone support life on the side facing the star? | I have read that based on a stars size the Goldilocks zone will differ from star to star.
I have also read that if a Planet has one side locked facing the star with in the Goldilocks zone it wouldn't be able to support life because it would be too hot.
So what if it is outside the Goldilocks zone but the side facing the sun has all the things needed for life.
Would the science support the possibility that life could be possible?
Would this planet also need a moon orbiting around it to help create tidal currents on the liquid side and helping the tectonic as well?
And perhaps if the planet also needs to turn would it be possible that instead of turning in relation to the sun like our planet does but on a tilt it spins in a way that one its poles are facing the star.
Yes I have no idea what would cause a planet to rotate like that, but my question is basically can a planet outside the known habitable zone with a single side always facing the star support life and does the math allow for this? | 520 | There are multiple definitions for the habitable zone around a star, depending on various assumptions. The classical model doesn't include atmospheric effects, which obviously have a significant influence on surface temperatures. It also doesn't account for a tidally-locked planet, or the possibility of alternative types of biochemistry (meaning life based on a solvent that is not water).
All that to say, the habitable zone concept is more of a loose guideline than a precise limit on where life could exist. The planet you are describing is theoretically capable of supporting life, despite not being exactly within the habitable zone. Since we have yet to find extrasolar life, there's no validation for any version of the theory, so take it with a grain of salt. It's more of a best-guess as to where life is likely sustainable that a hard limit on where life can reside.
Regarding requiring a moon, that delves too far into speculation to be really meaningful.
| 146 |
does the amount of tension a wire is under affect its ability to conduct electricity? | If so is it only to a minute extent? | 31 | Yes, mechanical strain affects the resistance of a conductor three ways.
The resistance of a wire is (rho)L/A, where rho is the conductivity of the metal, L is length and A is cross-sectional area. If you stretch the wire, L goes up, A goes down, and rho goes up because the molecular bonds are being strained. The effect of rho changing is small in metals, but much larger in semiconductors.
All three of these effects, taken together, are why we can measure stress and strain on objects with strain gages -- a subject well worth googling. | 22 |
[Star Wars/Marvel] How would a Lightsaber be if an Infinity Stone is used in place of a Kyber Crystal? | Assuming that the Infinity Stones are also attuned to the Force | 33 | The only one that would operate like a standard lightsaber is the Power Stone.
Power Stone: You have a purple lightsaber, that can also fire energy beams and absorb energy. It would be capable of destroying just about anything.
Reality Stone: It would be a red lightsaber that would move more like a viscous fluid than a blade. It wouldn't be great for cutting through people since it kills through poisoning, but while active you'd be able to control reality around you.
Time Stone: Green lightsaber, it would operate like the remote from Click. You'd be able to point it at things and rewind or fast forward.
Mind Stone: Yellow lightsaber, it could cut things like a lightsaber, but would also substantially boost your mental abilities like telepathy.
Soul Stone: Orange lightsaber...no idea how it would work, but it'd probably be spooky.
Space Stone: Blue lightsaber, could cut things and make portals. | 24 |
ELI5: Why are DVDs encoded differently around the world (i.e. Region 1, Region 2, etc.)? | 27 | They're not encoded differently, they're just locked to that region by the firmware on DVD players. A Region 1 DVD player is technically capable of playing a Region 2 DVD, it's just got a little software switch saying "only play Region 1" set inside it. It's possible to get region-free players or hack some models to ignore region codes.
Why do they do this? Money.
The movie business has a long & complex history of studios giving exclusive distribution rights to distributors in different parts of the world. The Japanese distributor has a contractual monopoly on movies from studio XYZ and doesn't want the Bolivian distributor trying to undercut their business, so the DVD standard included region codes. This also allows companies to sell movies much cheaper in poor markets (eg - India) than they would in rich countries (eg - United Kingdom) without having to worry about movies from India getting moved to the UK and getting sold on the grey market.
This is the same reason that services like Netflix have different titles available in different countries. | 40 |
|
CMV: Strict religious communities are inherently harmful to children and are inferior to liberal societies. | Examples of said "strict religious communities" range from Old Order Armish to conservative Islamic communities. By integrating their religion into their way of life, and forcing it upon their children, they are jeprodising their child's autonomy. My argument highlights that this is morally wrong for numerous reasons:
- It deprives children of the basic freedom to follow their own religion, and by proxy lead their own lifestyle.
- It sets children up for a definite disadvantage later in life. They might be more likely to unnecessarily abstain from certain practices, like using automobiles, or consuming pork. Also more likely to deny certain scientific fact.
- It encourages a group think approach to thinking, and fosters a narrow mind.
They are inferior because in a liberal society these issues are significantly less likely to occur.
I would also argue that these sorts of communities are almost always given a free pass, despite the incredibly harmful effects they have on children. And I will say this for two reasons:
1. Any sort of solution would involve removing the children from said communities, for many this is too great an implication, and people prefer to tolerate them.
2. It is perceived to be a "victimless crime" - I say this because the children who grow up in such communities rarely speak out as they do not perceive themselves to have been wronged.
_____
> *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!* | 22 | So your view is basically that harmful religious communities are more harmful than non-harmful non-religious communities. Okay...but are those the only two options? What about non-harmful religious communities and harmful non-religious communities? Surely things that are harmful are more harmful than things that aren't harmful.
Your premise (as I've digested it) is wrong because because with two variables, there are four possible categories, not just two.
Consider the old slavery debate. There were faith-based arguments and science-based arguments. There were also pro-slavery arguments and anti-slavery arguments. This results in four possibilities: Faith-based pro-slavery arguments and science-based pro-slavery arguments, as well as faith-based anti-slavery arguments and science-based anti-slavery arguments. All of which existed. | 10 |
[DC] Why does the Joker never get the death penalty? | I've seen the question asked many, many times: "Why doesn't the Bat just finish him off?" Well, why doesn't the judicial system? He's definitely guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. And while he may be legitimately insane, would that still keep him safe in Arkham after his kill count reaches the triple digits? Or quadruple? | 27 | What exactly are you suggesting? At Arkham, we are devoted to the rehabilitation of all mentally Ill. Whether that be helping the depressed feel better, or helping the extraordinarily Deluded get a glimpse back into reality. "The Joker", as you seem to be fond of calling him, is a mentally Ill man. It is true that he can at times be a danger to himself, even others, but there are countless patients who are the same way! If we allow someone like the Joker to be executed, then that opens the door to executing anybody who enters our doors that might have the potential to harm anybody. How Dare you, sir. How DARE you suggest that the best treatment for the Mentally ill is murder.
From the Desk of Dr. James T Baker. ~Arkham Rehabilitation Clinic | 59 |
ELI5: Why does singing sound good when you put together a group of bad singers? e.g. a fifth grade choir. | 18 | It's all about "blend". A good choir teacher will encourage their group to blend well so that there are no individuals that are way louder than others, and any of the "not as good" singers might be asked to sing a little softer to help with the blend. | 11 |
|
CMV: Belief in an idea should solely depend on your ability to debate it. Failure to debate an idea should result in you automatically accepting the counter argument. | It's very common for people to hold views that they cannot defend in debate. It is my view that the only rational way to define your views is to put them to the test. You debate them in an argumentative way and you have to defend them. If at any point you lose a debate and have no retort the only honest thing to do is to accept the counter argument as truth. A person can always re-debate a topic at a later date and adjust if necessary. The biggest thing is that our views should be defined solely on how well we understand them. Not on how we feel emotionally about something.
I have practiced this philosophy for many years now and it has allowed me to really understand my views and scrap out the crap. Many of the biggest views today, especially in politics are so easily defeated in debate and people still believe them. Many will lose a debate and just shake it off like the person they lost to is nuts. But that's not honest and if you can't debate something you believe you really shouldn't believe it or at least not appear like you do.
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 19 | I think what you're advocating is too prone to fall victim to the false dichotomy fallacy.
Just because you're no longer convinced that you're right doesn't mean that you should accept the counter argument. There's nothing wrong with a period of "I don't yet know" as you learn and expose your beliefs to critique and debate. | 38 |
ELI5:Why won't companies ship to P.O Boxes? | Just overall, I am wondering, I tried to google it, and could not find a easy answer, but why won't most companies ship things to P.O Boxes? | 37 | The law says only the United States Postal Service may deliver to post office boxes. Also, if the package needs to be signed for, a PO box cannot do this.
On the other hand, it's not unusual for companies such as The UPS Store, FedEx/Kinko's (not to mention many mom n' pop stores) to offer mailboxes that don't belong to the USPS, and one can have packages *not* shipped by the USPS delivered to such boxes. And during business hours, there *will* be someone there to sign for the package. | 14 |
ELI5: Why copyright lawyers and legal departments don't just Google mp3s exactly the way we do, and shut down the websites where they are hosted? | Beemp3, mp3skull, etc. It's not like these sites are hiding..What legal restrictions preclude companies from demanding that these sites be taken down or prosecuted? | 47 | Let's say you live in an apartment complex, and someone found 50 people dealing drugs, selling guns, doing [insert illegal activity]. Do you think they apartment should be bombed down and the owner sent to prison? Unless the owner takes part in those actions, then only the users are the ones to blame. | 32 |
[Spider man] How strong is Doctor Octopus without his arms? | I saw Doc Ock shrug off a brick and punches from spiderman like they were nothing but Aunt May hitting him in the back of the head with an umbrella, that somehow manages to stun him. Any other inconsistencies? | 15 | Depending on WHEN you’re jumping in he’s physically a normal human. While as of late he’s been using an armored suit, he’s, at his core, a human.
Spider-Man is known to pull his punches so him only mildly roughing up Doc Ock isn’t so surprising. | 11 |
[Pirates of the Caribbean] How did Davy Jones and the rest of his crew become so deformed? | I've been rewatching the series and I'm slightly confused on how these pirates become so deformed when the only conditions of their service seems to be relative immortality for the 100 years or so.
I understand Bootstrap Bill Turner becoming deformed since he was at the bottom of the ocean presumably for months/years, so the side of his face getting coral on it sort of makes sense, but what about the rest of them? One of them literally has a sharks head | 61 | The deformity was an aspect of the curse that happens if the Captain of the Dutchman refuses to do his duty (i believe ferrying souls?) When Will Turner became captain by killing Davy Jones, the starfish falls off his father's face and the crew returns to human form. Had Will stopped doing his duty, the curse would deform them all again. | 68 |
[Aliens] What else do the Colonial Marines do? Are there other less dangerous aliens they kill? | Obvs theres still plenty of human conflict for them to be so well equipped, but during the briefing Hudson (i think) asks if the mission is "another bug hunt", and their first dropship thats destroyed had "Bug Squasher" painted on the side.
However its obvious the Xenomorphs are something theyve never seen before, but is there some other chitinous extraterrestrial species they routinely and more easily have to exterminate more out of annoyance than potential extinction? Something maybe in between Martian Buggalo and Klendathu Arachnids? Something... uh young... Predators cut their teeth on before Xenos and Humans? | 61 | One thing to keep in mind is that "xenomorph" is *not* the name of the Aliens' species. When Lieutenant Gorman says that "a xenomorph may be involved," in the movie *Aliens,* he is not referring to a specific type of creature. He is using a fancy five dollar word which just means "alien," but he doesn't actually know what specific creatures they are dealing with.
So to me, that means that, yes, the marines are somewhat used to dealing with alien life, or at least aware of the possibility that it may happen, and they are used to dealing with other *xenomorphs,* although not the specific ones they encounter in the films. | 72 |
CMV: People convicted of a road-rage related offence should be banned from driving for a substantial amount of time. | Road rage has become a huge problem in this country (USA). The solution i'm thinking would work would be to make it mandatory for these people's liscences to be taken away for a substantial period of time (months, years or permanently for the worst and/or repeat offenders). I have been personally affected by others commiting road rage... I think an example might help. Heres a short story of when i was affected by a road rage incident as an example:
\----start of story---
When i first started driving years and years ago. I was a pretty frightened and overly cautious kind of a driver. To the annoyence of everyone else on the road, I had decided that going 5 mph under the speed limit everywhere i drove was a wise idea (it was dumb). Well, so one day i was driving down a back road doing 20 mph on a 25 mph speed limit stretch of road like i usually did (there was a train of about 10 cars behind me at one point). So i get to an intersection after about 10 minutes of driving and this guy pulls up next to me and starts screaming about i had so inconvienienced him by my slow driving. It was terrifying. And just when one would think a situation like that could not get any worse... my friend who was sitting in the passanger seat decides to flip the guy off. Oh man, he went from screaming, to sounding like a screeching unhinged diabolical entity of some description. It was beyond terrifying. At one point he even blocked my car in (false imprisonment in my juristiction) so he could countinue to screech at me (couldnt understand anything he was saying) for several more minutes. This horrific behavior and harrassment of his went on until I yelled the apparently magic-to-his-ego word "Sorry!". This defused the situation and he finally let me drive off and escape from his harrasment.
\---end of story---
My view with that is: No matter how much of a turtle-power driver I admittably was at the time.... I or anyone else do not deserve to be cruely harrassed by some angry dude who has no business behind the wheel of a car. Why cant guys like that simply have their liscense taken away? I think if the guy who falsely imprisioned and verbally assaulted me had his liscense taken away for say.... one year. I bet 100 dollars that he is never going to mistreat another driver again.... Of course there is also the consideration that even unreasonably angry people need a way of getting to and from work, the grocery store, the gym, etc. But then again can't Mr. Angry just take public tranportation or ride a bike for a year? I mean, it would be hard to feel sorry for them when they brought it upon themselves. And honestly i think they could learn a lesson from it... that or they will only become angrier and angrier and soon become now known as Mr. Very Angry or something (hard to say, really.. not everyone is wise enough to learn from their mistakes i guess \*sigh\*)
Of course what if within that year Mr. Angry goes and does some yoga and takes anger managemnt classes... should his liscense be given back early? Or is it more important to protect society from his potential for anger problems behind the wheel?
And if Mr. angry gets his liscense back after a year and then gets back on the road... Good for him! But if Mr. Angry decides to commit another act of road rage... maybe then his liscense should then be taken away permanantly to protect society and other drivers from his apparently incurable anger problem?
Also yes i am aware that road ragers do sometimes get sentanced by judges in court to be banned from driving for certain and significant periods of time. But my view is a little different in that I think that a very long ban or permanent ban should be automatic and mandatory even for first-time road ragers.
I just want my overall road experience to be peaceful and calm and i'm sure that is what most others want.
My overall view at this point is that banning road ragers from the road for significantly long amounts of time would be benificial for me and other calm and collected road users. | 49 | A study done in Florida in the 90 showed that people going too slow were more of a problem than people speeding. It leads to min speed limits in many places. So it is all about perspective. The reality is people will drive without a license because frankly we need to do so to get to work in so many cases.
The real fix is people learning to handle life differently and not provoke each other. If you're not comfortable going the speed limit then don't drive that road. And if some one gets aggressive walk away. | 16 |
ELI5: Why do people disagree with stem cell research? | am i missing something here?? | 82 | Two reasons:
1) Often because their understanding is poor, and scientists often do a horrible job of explaining. Many people think embryonic stem cells from abortions, which is incorrect. In fact they come in-vitro fertilisation (i.e. artificially injecting donated eggs with sperm). When couples go for IVF, because they can not conceive naturally scientists fertilise several eggs (usually around 20) in a dish. Obviously nobody wants to be implanted with 20 fertilised eggs, so there are spares left over. They would either go in the bin, or they can be used for research. That's where scientists get their stem cells from.
Embryonic stem cells are only present during very early stages after the sperm fertilises the egg. This is called the blastocyst. If this was taking place inside a woman, she would NOT be pregnant at this stage. A woman is only pregnant after the fertilised egg implants into the uterus wall. Thus, embryonic stem cells are not in any way related to abortions.
2) Technically, a fertilised egg *could* be considered as the start of life. The egg carries one set of chromosomes (23), and the sperm carries the other (23). So when fertilisation takes place and the chromosomes combine (giving you 2x 23 chromosomes) and the cell divides, this technically is a brand new combination - an individual - i.e. all of the genetic instructions required create a unique human being. So it's fair to say that by harvesting stem cells (thus destroying that embryo), you are removing all potential for life. However, it's worth saying that without implanting into the uterus wall, development into a foetus would never have been possible.
So IMO there is one ridiculous argument, and one realistic one. | 94 |
ELI5: How do planes/subs know when missiles have a 'lock'? | Or have I been watching too many movies | 240 | Missile systems generally consists of a radar to detect where the target is and send commands to the missile to tell it where to go. The radars have several modes which have their different use cases and a target can detect the signals from the radar to see what mode it is in. A radar might start out using low frequency and large sweeping scans to detect the rough placement of all planes in the sky. However this does not give accurate enough and frequent enough updates to be able to hit anything. So they change to a higher frequency radar with a more narrow sweep. This means they can only detect the airplane in the direction they aim the radar but they will be more accurate. This change of mode can be detected in the target airplane but still have to be interpreted correctly. A lot of radars had different modes of operation in peace and war so that the enemy would not be able to analyze their signals before the war. | 142 |
[A Quiet Place] Why wasn’t Regan allowed in the basement? | The title says it all. | 20 | It clearly wasn't very sound proof, and the girl can't hear. There's a lot of electronic equipment that's very noisy, as we see in the end. If she were to accidentally turn even one thing one, she wouldn't notice until it's too late and They be screwed. | 25 |
[DC] Why can't the flash end all crime | Flash is far beyond the speed of light so why doesn't he run around and end crime? | 59 | Here his superspeed is a hindrance.
So, he catches all the criminals doing crime right this second. But it's literally just this second. Because of how fast he goes, he's done in milliseconds- which means if you start your crime spree *a single second later*, you've missed the flash's crime-fighting wave.
Also note he doesn't have any sensory abilities other then "run and check", and again, he has to do so at this instant. Same "start 5 seconds later and you're fine" issue applies.
To end all crime, he'd need to be *constantly* running around the world, at max speed, all the time. He'd have to literally always be fighting crime. No hobbies, no social life, no job, nothing. Just constantly running to every spot on earth,over and over, until he dies.
I feel we can excuse him not doing that. | 56 |
[Toy Story] How different would the Toy Story movies have been had Andy collected Warhammer 40k instead of Army Men? | 742 | It's probably less interesting than what would happen if they were 40k toys placed in the cupboard from Idnian in the Cupboard. Unlike in that movie, the toys in Toy Story don't get the powers/abilities that the characters they are based off of have. Their weapons won't actually work, but there's no way to know if it would be consistent for any psychic powers to also work or not (I'd lean towards not).
When Toys First get unpacked, they apparently possess the personality of their character a la Buzz Lightyear, and as a result any Space Marines are unlikely to ever believe that they are in fact toys as it would violate the fundamental essence of their characters on a more fundamental level than your average toy including Buzz Lightyear. Which means anything thay doesn't conform to their beliefs must be destroyed.
Without working weapons though, they are stuck fighting hand to hand. Of we can assume they at least keep their prowess in this area, then they simply tear apart any of the toys they consider to be mutants, aliens, or heretics.
Andy would likely come to his room to find his non40k toys in pieces, with any opposing faction 40k toys still battling each other. | 391 |
|
How does Quantum Entanglement work? | How do the particles that are entangled manage to always do the opposite of the second one? Are they communicating with each other if so how? Otherwise is it some kind of force? | 3,055 | There is no known mechanism by which the particles "send a message" to one another. The phenomenon is the result of creating a system of two or more particles whose wavefunctions depend upon one another. By measuring an aspect of one particle, its wavefunction is collapsed to known value, which causes the other particle's wavefunction to be known as the other value.
For example, take two electrons that are known to have a total spin of 0. Each electron has a 50% chance of being measured to be either spin-up or spin-down. If you separate them, each will still have a 50% chance.
However, if you separate them without changing their spin, and then measure electron 1 to be spin-up, then you will find that electron 2 is spin-down 100% of the time. How does it know that electron 1 is spin-up? Nobody really knows. It's an active area of research, however. | 1,819 |
ELI5 the pentagon papers content and while it was so negatively viewed | Can someone please ELI5 what the pentagon papers actually said that was so upsetting to the American public.
No matter where I search, nowhere can I find a detailed and understandable explanation as to what the papers said, that wasn't part of the deal the US entered Vietnam in the first place. | 34 | Here's a quote from the New York Times concerning the Pentagon Papers:
>They demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance.
Basically the Pentagon Papers disclosed that the government had been lying about the aims, causes, and scale of the Vietnam War.
A modern equivalent would be if the War in Iraq really was for oil, Bush lied about the WMDs, and that the US had also secretly bombed Iran and Syria. | 22 |
Is it actually possible to see the curvature of the earth while standing on its surface? | I hear many people say at various times that some area is so flat they can see the earth's curvature. Isn't the earth too big for that? Wouldn't any "curvature" observed just be a localized landscape that doesn't actually represent the earths profile? | 29 | It's most apparent in the ocean when there's no terrain to block your view. You can see the top of distant ships before you can see the bottom. It's the same with distant mountains. People have known the Earth was round for a long time. | 36 |
ELI5: Can chemists follow formula like a recipe? | For example, Salt has the chemical formula NaCl, so if you bond sodium with chloride, you will get salt.
Could a chemist apply this same principle to say Insulin (C257H383N65O77S6). Using the chemical formula alone to replicate the substance in question?
If this is the case, why are knock-off drugs not more common, couldn't a rival lab (or illegal labs) just take the publicly available formula and replicate it at a fraction of the c0st? | 17 | No. That’s not how chemistry works.
Saying that c^(6)H^(12)O^(6) is sugar is kind of like say a particular LEGO model is 6 red bricks, 12 blue bricks, and 6 yellow bricks. There is not enough information to build the model even though you know the ratios. | 71 |
ELI5 Why do some injuries hurt at the moment of impact while others hurt the day after? | For example let's say you fall and you can't move for a a few seconds because your knee really hurts, peter griffin style, but the next day what really hurts is like your back or your shoulders. Why is the pain at that moment so sudden and goes away quickly while the other will come a while after? | 56 | There are two types of pain:
* an immediate severe one to make you escape closest danger (e. g. you'll reflexively remove your hand from a flame or a sharp object);
* afterwards a different, long-lasting, deep ache if you have been seriously hurt. Its function seems to be to send you (or any animal) into a safe place to heal, and also to limit exercise while getting better. | 39 |
[Harry Potter] What laws of physics does magic defy the most? | And by laws of physics I mean science plus the universe as well. | 57 | The first law of thermodynamics is that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred from one form to another.
All spells (travelling through time, flying on a broomstick, healing broken bones) would require energy - sometimes huge amounts - but it's never clear where that energy is coming from and it appears to be 'created'. | 100 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.