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[Beyblade] What are beyblades? What's the big deal about them? | I have seen the first anime, Metal Fusion, and Burst on-and-off yet I still don't get it.
Are beyblade living creatures or not? Why is it such a huge sport? Why does no one over 18 seem to play it?
In the original anime it felt like beyblading as an up-and-coming sport but the other anime make it seem way more important. Everyone is obsessed with it and it's very serious business.
I am pretty sure some bey's have spirits in them, but do all of them do? | 410 | IIRC, Beyblades are pieces of a meteor infused with a soul. Or at least, the faces are.
I think Metal Fusion has a few examples of fake, soul-less Beys.
Doji (user of Dark Wolf) is most likely over 18 in Metal Fusion, by the way. | 238 |
ELI5: What does it actually mean when a state “declares a state of emergency”? | I hear that phrase all the time. Most recently, governor McMaster of South Carolina declared a state of emergency in anticipation of hurricane Michael. I’m just wondering, what does that actually do? Simply raise awareness of the disaster? Does anything more practical happen automatically as a result? Government buildings, schools close, etc? | 112 | A state of emergency waives some legal procedures and requirements that would otherwise prevent the government from quickly stepping in to help affected areas. In addition, a state of emergency can be used to effectively rapidly inact temporary "laws" that otherwise would not be permissable or contradict existing laws.
For example, contractors may be called in to assist cleanup/rebuilding important infrastructure bypassing the competitive bidding process (which is a massive time sink, see the i85 bridge collapse in Atlanta as an example), and the state government can call in federal millitary for assistance if needed.
In effect, declaring a state of emergency typically grants the state/local executive branch of government a lot of powers it normally wouldn't, as the interest of the public demands rapid action. | 111 |
Is Mayonnaise a compressible fluid? | I know it's technically a colloid. I'm working on a question from an eve friend who wants to make a mayonnaise jet pack. | 60 | First some clarifications that are somewhat relevant to your question.
* A fluid exhibits *incompressible flow* if the density of fluid parcels is constant. This implies that div(**u**) = 0, which is roughly a statement that infinitesimal volumes are conserved.
* Something is an (homogeneous) *incompressible material* if the density is constant in time and throughout the entire material.
All incompressible fluids exhibit incompressible flow, but the converse is not true. The density of a fluid can vary throughout the fluid with the flow itself still being incompressible. We very often *assume* the density is constant throughout to make some problems easier or to get a first approximation, but it's important to understand the difference between an incompressible flow and an incompressible material.
(The phrase "this fluid is incompressible" technically means that the fluid is an incompressible material, but it is often interpreted as "this fluid exhibits incompressible flow". So to be absolutely clear, we often either put in the specific word "flow" or just say that the flow is *isochoric*. The word "isochoric" literally means "same volume" and emphasizes the fact that div(**u**) = 0 is an expression of conservation of volume.)
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That being said, you are really asking whether mayonnaise exhibits incompressible flow. Mayonnaise is essentially an emulsion of eggs and oil. So it is a liquid (oil) with solid particles (egg) suspended throughout. Generally speaking, all liquids exhibit incompressible flow. This is not strictly true (e.g., seawater is about 5% more dense at the bottom of the ocean than at the surface), but it is true to a very good approximation for many, many applications. Compressibility becomes important if the flow velocity is comparable with the speed of sound in the material or if you are interested in pressure waves (sound), density waves, or shock waves. For everyday problems with mayonnaise (squeezing through a bottleneck, spreading with a knife), the flow of the mayonnaise can very well be approximated as incompressible.
However, you are definitely right to be suspicious of mayonnaise, as it is very clearly not like other liquids like water or even honey. Suppose you have a jar of water or honey and you tilt the jar to pour out the fluid. The gravitational force is said to be applying a shear stress to the fluid. The water or honey immediately begins to pour out as soon as you tilt the jar, no matter how little you have tilted the jar. Yes, the honey flows much more slowly than the water, but it *does* flow right away. (Honey is said to be more viscous than water.)
Fluids like water and honey are called *Newtonian fluids* and a defining feature is that the shear rate is a linear function of the shear stress. This just means that the fluid flows as soon as you apply any shear stress and the rate at which it flows increases in proportion to the applied shear stress. That proportionality constant is related to the viscosity of the fluid.
Mayonnaise is a *non-Newtonian fluid*, which is simply any fluid that does not exhibit the defining feature just described. There are many types of non-Newtonian fluids. Mayonnaise is an example of a *Bingham fluid* (or Bingham plastic, or yield-stress fluid). A Bingham fluid will flow in response to an applied stress, but only once *enough* stress has been applied. Think of sliding a block on a table. The block doesn't move until you apply a large enough force to overcome static friction. It's pretty much the same idea with Bingham fluids. If you tilt a jar of mayonnaise just a little bit, it will not flow at all. At some point, you will have tilted the jar enough so that the gravitational force is large enough to cause the mayonnaise to flow. (If the mayonnaise is especially thick, it may not even flow if the jar is turned upside down.)
So for a Newtonian fluid, the shear rate and shear stress are proportional. The graph of shear rate versus shear stress is a line through the origin, whose slope is related to the viscosity of the fluid. For a Binghman fluid (e.g., mayonnaise), the graph of shear rate versus shear stress is a line *not* through the origin. It has some positive *y*-intercept. So you need to give two numbers to characterize the fluid: the slope (related to the viscosity once it starts to flow) and the y-intercept (called the yield stress, the minimum required stress for the fluid to flow).
So think of squeezing mayonnaise through a bottleneck. Once you squeeze hard enough to overcome the yield stress, the mayonnaise flows through the bottleneck just as any other fluid with some viscosity. Then it falls under gravity and finally lands on your sandwich. As soon as the shear stress is no longer applied (i.e., once it lands on your sandwich), the mayonnaise stops flowing. This is why when you squeeze mayonnaise out of a bottle with, say, a circular opening, you end up just getting long tubes of mayonnaise on your sandwich, which you then have to spread with a knife to get a nice even coating. (This happens for pretty much all emulsions.)
**Summary:** Mayonnaise is a liquid that exhibits incompressible flow. But it is a non-Newtonian fluid, specifically a Bingham fluid. So it requires a certain minimum shear stress before it begins to flow. | 49 |
CMV: "Borat 2" was a poor-quality sequel | To begin this post, I think it's important to first look at what made "Borat" such a great film in the first place:
1. **"Borat" was, fundamentally, a film about the character Borat.** "Borat" is such a great movie because Borat is such an entertaining character to watch. Visually, Borat is tall, gangly, and stands out from the crowd with his bushy moustache and intense gaze. Personality-wise, he is energetic, naive, simple-minded, and has no sense of shame or embarrassment. As the story unfolds we also learn that he is racist, misogynist, and pretty much any other bad "ist" that you can name. And yet despite all of these negative opinions / beliefs Borat holds, we still love him anyways and root for him (amazingly).
2. **All of the (fictional) characters in "Borat" are undeniably human.** For all of the film's outlandish moments and grotesque extremes, we the audience still fundamentally connect with all of the plot's fictional characters on a personal level. We see our own humanity reflected in their hopes and dreams, their fears, their conflicts, and their romances. Friends fight and then reconcile (Borat and Azamat). Strangers meet and then fall in love (Borat and Luenell). These emotional connections serve to "ground" the viewers and provide a backdrop against which all of the comedy can unfold.
3. **A large portion of the humour in "Borat" is the mockery of "inferior" cultures.** Borat has lived his entire life inside a comically-exaggerated primitive and regressive society, "Kazakhstan", which is all he's ever known. When we tour his home village, we laugh at the absurdity that such an obviously-harmful culture could ever exist. This laughter also comes with a feeling of moral superiority, as we thank our lucky stars that we don't ourselves live in such a barbaric culture. This last point will prove an important groundwork for the film to build on later.
4. **The next obvious part of the humour in "Borat" is watching confused Westerners experience culture shock while trying to interact with the character Borat.** This is probably the most memorable aspect of the film's comedy. However, it's important to point out that most of Borat's funniest interactions actually involve regular, friendly citizens who are earnestly trying their best to be welcoming and accepting of a stranger from another culture. It's this precise dynamic that makes it so funny when the interactions become awkward or go off the rails.
5. **Another famous running thread in "Borat" is the shock at discovering that some (many?) Westerners actually share Borat's harmful beliefs.** This last thread too is one of the most famous aspects of the original film. And the audience, having been lead into a false sense of moral superiority at the start of the film, is now shocked to discover that real-life Western society shares many of the same societal ills which they so mocked at the start of the film.
\*phew\* Coming up with the above list was the hard part! Now for the easy part:
Why "Borat 2" failed as a sequel:
1. **We no longer get to watch Borat.** Aside from sharing screen time with a new co-star, the character Borat actually appears very little in the sequel. Predictably, due to the success of the original film, today nearly all of the United States now recognizes Borat when he's out in public. This forced the story-writers to make Borat don various disguises, alter his voice, and downplay all of his overt personality traits so that Americans would no longer recognize him as Borat. Unfortunately, this also means that we the audience are no longer really watching the character Borat anymore.
2. **The colourful and hilarious supporting characters are missing.** Azamat and Luenell were both integral parts of the original movie's storyline and comedic value. Their characters were written out of the sequel's plot in a slapdash manner, and no new secondary characters were brought in to fill the void left by their absence.
3. **The co-star of "Borat 2" is neither funny nor entertaining.** This point alone really deserves its own post, as there's a lot to say on this topic, much of which extends into hot button topics like equality and feminism. But in short, there are many problems with Tutar's character in the sequel: bad acting, bad writing, poor character development, no clear motivations, no human connection with the audience, etc. Additionally, it seems like we are supposed to laugh at the idea of a young girl being raised in a sex-shaming, infantilizing, oppressive culture. But this feels cruel, and instead we just feel sorry for her character (as does Jeanise the real-life babysitter).
...actually, at this point in the post I'm so bored with the rest of "Borat 2" that I don't have to energy to continue picking apart the exact ways in which it failed to deliver.
On that note, change my view! | 32 | I think you overestimate how much of the point of Borat was laughing at Borat himself. Sacha Baron Cohen has said that the real comedy of his characters comes from the absurdity that anyone could believe they're real people and what people are willing to reveal about themselves when you use the classic agree and amplify approach. For example, getting a room full of people to sing "Throw the Jew down the well" is quintessential Borat, and the second movie is full of that kind of humor. | 15 |
Why do boiled eggs smell but scrambled eggs don't? | This question was posed by a friend and I don't know the answer. She's curious about the smell when you finish cooking eggs by the different methods. I think she may not be able to smell scrambled eggs because of how often she eats them. Please correct me! | 25 | Boiled eggs smell because sulphur compounds in the proteins making up the egg white release hydrogen sulphide when heated to 100 C. When making scrambled eggs (1) the temperature is usually less than 100 C and (2) compounds in the egg yolk (which is kept separate when boiling) react with any hydrogen sulphide thus neutralising any smell. | 21 |
Every summer in NYC, the mosquitoes are surprisingly prevalent. Every winter, obviously, they die off. How do they repopulate? | 77 | They are like flies. They have four stages of life egg, larva, pupae, and adult. Mostly the cycle only lasts for a few weeks, but in cold climates the stages can last for months. Some stages can even be frozen and thawed later. | 33 |
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ELI5: Why does Russia want to invade Ukraine? | I'd also like an explanation on why Ukrainians rebels want to fight to join Russia? | 26 | Crimea was conquered by the Russian Empire during the reign of Catharine the Great in 1783. Russia fought two wars with the Ottoman Empire in Crimea, largely over the peninsula's strategic and economic value. In 1954 the Soviet republic of Russia transfered administration of the Crimean peninsula to the Soviet republic of Ukraine.
However Crimea remains predominantly ethnic Russians. Ethnic Russians, both in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, are afraid of the new pro-Western Ukrainian nationalist government. Combine that with pro-Russian propaganda coming from the east. Russians in Crimea and eastern Ukraine want to be part of Russia again.
Russia wants that territory back. They ceded administrative control over an area with a great deal of strategic and economic value. Now that area is a part of another, possible unfriendly, country. With Ukraine's new pro-European government replacing their earlier pro-Russian government Russia no longer feels they can trust Ukraine with what they still consider their territory.
Russia sees unhappy ethnic Russians in a territory they still consider rightly theirs which they want back. So they support rebels that will either secede from Ukraine to rejoin Russia or act as counter-revolutionaries and restore the earlier pro-Russian government. When Ukraine tries to stop the rebels Russia claims they are attacking ethnic Russians and steps up support for the rebels. | 28 |
ELI5: The Stock Market and how I can get involved. | 38 | A market is a place (or virtual place nowadays) where people meet to trade things.
A stock market is a place to trade stock (shares of a company). There are commodity markets, bond markets, candy markets (in pre-school classrooms). Pretty much anywhere people have things that they do not need and would value having something else more you'll find a marketplace ready to trade in it.
You can best get involved by doing some research on what kind of company's stock you'd like to own. Once you know this you can contact a broker (or maybe your bank) to open a trade account and purchase the shares.
I strongly suggest that you buy things that are undervalued and sell them when they become overvalued (i.e. buy low, sell high). That strategy seems to work for Warren Buffet. | 10 |
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[Family Guy] Why is Brian an adamant atheist when he’s met Jesus Christ personally several times? | 373 | Because Brian is a pretentious douchebag who thinks he's smarter than everyone else.
The thing is, several times throughout the show we've seen him praying to god ( Usually when there is a real possibility that he's gonna die) so one could make the argument that he's not really an atheist to begin with. | 408 |
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Eli5: the differences between the Little Boy and the Fat Man atomic bombs used against Japan | 185 | Little Boy, dropped on Hiroshima, was a uranium bomb, and used a gun-like mechanism to shoot one sub-critical mass of U-235 into another, creating the critical mass that exploded.
Fat Man, dropped on Nagasaki, was a plutonium bomb, used a sphere of plutonium that was then compressed by ordinary explosives to create the necessary critical density. | 98 |
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I'm a nurse who loved statistics in college... | ...is there a way to make a career out of statistics and the medical field? I know there is, but I have no idea what path is possible or what are common jobs for people in medical statistics, so any info is appreciated. Again, sorry if this is a stupid question. | 28 | Y-E-S is the short answer. Depending on the place you'll probably need to learn R (John's Hopkins has a great intro course on Coursera) or SAS (which I'd personally rather take a bleach enema than work with every day).
You'll probably need a formal graduate degree to get your foot in the door (don't be fooled by bootcamps, nobody hires people who take shortcuts in subjects that require deep expertise IRL). A good stepping stone may be to ask about working on some research at your current job or asking for them to cover a graduate degree part time. | 22 |
Why do the planets orbit the sun on a flat plane? | Why don't they look similar to electrons orbiting an atom? | 22 | 1. Our Solar System was a big blob of gas and dust, and it wasn't ordered in any big way. There was a little bit of rotation.
2. Gravity pulled the blob together, and by conservation of angular momentum that small amount of rotation was magnified, like a skater whose rotation speeds up as they pull their arms in.
3. Now the whole thing is mostly spinning around an axis; the orbits won't all be around the same axis but over time collisions will even them out. It's looking more like a cylinder now.
4. The cylinder flattens along its axis because that's the direction where gravity is unopposed by the rotational inertia of the debris. Bam, you've got a disk. It clumps together into planets and moons because of gravity. | 13 |
[Once Upon a Time] So is the Galactic Republic out there? | How about Asgard? | 52 | Star Wars actually is canonically part of the Once Upon a Time multiverse. At one point (in Once Upon a Time in Wonderland), Jafar and the Red Queen are reviewing a book of monsters to find things to sic on Alice. One of the monsters the read about is the sarlacc, which they say will "digest her over a millennia". | 48 |
Is there an optimal time to have a baby during the career timeline? | The other popular thread today about having a baby during graduate school made me wonder the same thing about having a baby during a post-doc or while going for tenure... Generally, I've heard there is never one "right" time, but is there a time that is easier than others? Any certain milestones that should generally be passed before conceiving, like exams, starting a post-doc, or starting a TT position? What considerations and advice would you recommend to graduate students trying to coordinate career and family timelines? | 54 | The answer to your original question is no. There is never an ideal time and you can always find an excuse to wait. You just have to decide what your priorities are and go for it when you are ready to start a family. It’s what we had to do.
Also, for comic relief, watch the beginning of Idiocracy by Mike Judge. It highlights what happens when smart people wait too long to have a family. Comedy yes, but there’s truth in his observations. | 124 |
Why does life "want" to reproduce? When did this come about? | I know this is a very strange and abstract question and I cannot articulate it as well as I can through text, so here is my attempt.
Given that the general evolutionary reason that life wants to reproduce is to simply "continue" itself, my question tries to stem from a more existential and logistical perspective: the causal core behind why it wants to continue itself, how this idea was conceived, and where this innate drive began. Seeing how this drive to reproduce comes well before the advent of sentience, what exactly caused the first and most primordial and rudimentary being to *want* to reproduce as opposed to... simply **be** and then run its course and end its life.
Did it conceive of the thought that more of itself will provide for something better? How? Did some positive feedback loops come about randomly and thus was born the world of reproduction? Did the rise of competition of, say, certain chemical reactions embed itself into this being and carried forth into reproductive tendencies? When did the first virus or piece of life suddenly say to itself that it would harness the energy or power of certain physical phenomena and proliferate itself? And how did this idea of reproduction carry onto further generations enough to where architectures of cells and viruses are devoted solely to it? | 34 | There was no 'thought', and it started before anything was even 'alive', i.e. reproduction has been around longer than life, as the chemical precursors to life reproduced and evolved.
Things that are good at copying themselves make more copies of themselves than things that aren't good at copying themselves. It's that simple. It is a positive feedback loop, if you like. And things that make imperfect copies of themselves adapt better than things that don't make copies (which don't adapt *at all*): Adapt to changes in the environment or to take advantage of others. | 55 |
[ELI5] How does Wireless Charging work? | 225 | A long length of fine wire is wound into a coil, basically in the shape of a doughnut or garden hose. When electricity (specifically, alternating current or AC) is run through this coil, it sets up a magnetic field around it. If you then bring another similar coil of wire close (but not touching) to this coil, the magnetic field from the first *induces* an electrical current in the second. This is then connected to the battery so that it can be charged. So, the charger will have the first coil , and your device the second.
Edit: Added AC reference. | 113 |
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[Star Wars] C-3PO’s memory is never wiped after Episode III. What changes? | What, if anything, would happen differently or would he do differently? | 31 | Assuming palpatine knows his memory is intact Luke and Leia are snatched up soon as the empire gets their hands on his memories and turned to the dark side at a young age to replace Vader. Outside of that happening Leia would know she has a brother sooner than Return of the Jedi. Probably would go find Luke prior to a New hope and work with obi wan to train both in the force and more directly confront Vader prior to the Death Star becoming active. Best outcome family unites to stop palpatine and the entire original trilogy never happens. Worst case they kill Vader following obi wans instructions despite knowing he's their father and fall to the dark side. 3pos only involvement would be revealing the family relationship and where the twins are at which depends entirely on how close bail organa kept 3po to Leia or if he simply served on the tantative 4 and a new hope was Leia's first meeting with him. | 21 |
Why don't, if two countries are in debt to each other, they forgive a certain amount of each others debt? | If countries X and Y are both in debt to each other, say X owes &5 million to Y (I'm letting & be an imaginary currency, but you can think of it as Euros, USD, or whatever), and Y owes &3 million to X, why don't they cancel out so X only owes &2 million to Y and Y owes X nothing? | 53 | Often when we say, for instance, that X owes &5 million to Y, what we mean is that *private interests* in Y own &5 million of X's debt.
So we might have a situation where Chase is owed $5 billion by the German government, and Deutsche Bank is owed $5 billion by the US government, but we couldn't make a smooth exchange of that debt.
EDIT: Also, what pocketcookies said. | 49 |
[Fallout] So when is this music from? For instance, did the Ink Spots start producing music in 1930's or the 2070's? | In the Fallout universe am I listening to hits from the 1930's or to music that was made just before the bombs fell?
| 24 | It's the Ink Spots. What had happened was a cultural freeze. Politicians in charge made particular decisions which had nasty side effects like a lack of new music.
After all, what do you need that *new* music for? It sounds communist to me. Isn't good old fashion traditional American music like the Ink Spots not good enough for you? If you don't like it, you can go back to communist China, buster. | 22 |
[Star Wars] Anti-gravity technology seems very common, even when a simple set of wheels would have worked just as well. Carbonite Han Solo was antigravitied out for instance. Yoda uses it to float around on. That being said why do quadrupedal, bipedal and wheeled droids even exist? Vehicles too. | 67 | Anti-grav is still more expensive than wheels. Your average R2 unit will just be rolling around the hangar bay between the ship and the maintenance bay. Can you imagine an R2 unit rolling through a Jungle like Endor? It's ridiculous.
Other walking units, like the AT-AT's and the ST's, are made for uneven terrain and fast troop deployment. This means they are heavy and have a lot of room for troops and equipment. Anti-grav tech could help with this, but each emitter would have to be on variable geometry motors continually adjusting with very uneven terrain. Legs work fine, especially since these aren't comfort vessels.
Things like hovering chairs seem like a waste until you consider how needlessly opulent the Jedi were before they attempted their coup. As for the walking holo-emitter used by the Trade Federation, they were thrifty, they knew they didn't need a holo-emitter using grav emitters, it would be a waste of credits. You don't get to be the leaders of the *Trade Federation* by spending on novelties.
Finally, the grav unit used to transport Solo probably needs to be able to transport a large variance of weight, there's probably a few bounties Fett has gone after that have been heavier than a human in a frozen block | 79 |
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ELI5: Does all the money in the world really exist physically? If you added up all the bank accounts, would there be physical money to equal that? | 41 | Not only does the money not physically exist, there is no means to tell exactly how much money DOES exist at any given time.
Let me give you an example.
You have $10,000.
You put that $10,000 in the bank. You still have $10,000.
The bank (being a bank) lends $9000 of that money out to a company.
You still have $10,000, but the company now has $9000, too.
The company uses that $9000 to pay nine of its workers. Each of those workers takes home $1000.
You still have that $10,000, and each of those workers has $1,000.
One worker puts that money into the bank. And the loop starts all over again.
Money is imaginary. | 81 |
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ELI5:Why do new albums on iTunes cost the same as the hard copy in the shop when you're getting less for your money and there aren't any shipping costs involved etc? | 291 | The answer to "why does X cost $Y" is almost always because that's what people are willing to pay you for it.
As a business, what it costs you to sell the product (CoGS) is just a starting point. You poll your typical customer, construct strategy models, compare test results, etc...
Then you price your good at whatever price point you think is going to maximize profits. | 177 |
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[General SciFi] Why aren't more spaceships spherical? | I'm a software engineer collaborating with a team of physicists and other programmers to develop functions to assist in making physical calculations for spacecraft with odd geometry. I don't have to do this, of course, since food and energy are free, but I've chosen to help develop flight software as community service and for personal development.
What bothers me, though, is that this work needs to be done. All my physicist friends tell me the calculations are much easier if you assume the object to be frictionless and spherical, and I know enough about asteroid mining to say that getting the material for round ships isn't that hard. So why the weird shapes? | 236 | Reentry. Unless they stay permanently in space, they will be entering and leaving atmospheres regularly, and that means aerodynamics matter.
Heat. The more power a ship consumes, the more heat is generated. A sphere is optimal for a low-power craft to retain heat, but very inefficient for a high-power vessel generating lots of waste heat and needing to radiate it away. | 224 |
ELI5: Why do some materials ‘feel’ wet when actually they are just cold. | 18 | > Why do some materials ‘feel’ wet when actually they are just cold.
We don't have "wetness sensors" on our skin. We can detect pressure and changes in temperature. Typically speaking water is difficult to change in temperature and a good conductor of heat so it feels cold. But things like metal can also be good conductors of heat and without texture cues to determine the difference it can be confusing if something is wet or just cold. | 13 |
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[Marvel] Were any beings strong enough to resist the Gauntlet’s snap? | Just wondering if there were beings who could resist being erased by the infinity stones… like The Living Tribunal or similar? | 47 | Yes, the Living Tribunal is beyond the power of the infinity gauntlet. He proved so when Adam Warlock was brought before him in possession of the infinity gauntlet. Warlock got angry and erased all the abstract entities in attendance except for the Tribunal, who brought back the abstracts immediately with a thought.
Pre-Retcon Beyonder would also certainly be stronger than the infinity gauntlet. | 67 |
ELI5:How'd people in the past train birds to fly messages to locations. | Honestly this still baffles me to this day. You couldn't send a person to a place they don't know but these birds flew back and fourth all over. HELP ME OH SMART ONES | 19 | They didn't.
Homing pigeons naturally return to their nests. So what they did was establish rookeries where there were lots of nests of pigeons at key locations. They would then send those pigeons in cages to other key locations and when you needed to send a message you picked a rookerie closest to your target location and the pigeon would fly home. That rookerie would then send a human messenger (if it were not the destination location itself) to the recipient. | 21 |
[Neo Genesis Evangelion] What happened to Shinji and Asuka after the Third Impact? | I know Shinji and Asuka were the two people left after the whole Third Impact, but I wanna what exactly happened. Were they just left there? I am also not sure if Asuka died or not after Shinji decided to kinda, choke her for some reason, and they show presented showed her as still alive, I think? I am not sure, I know about the rebuild series and the time loop thing though, but I am not sure if the time loop happened immediately after or after a long time after. Is there even a specific time loop that occurred after the first? I am trying to figure this out still and it's a little confusing, so an explanation would help.
(I put this as a spoiler because since Netflix put the show up on their website and now people are watching it. People might get into the series and other stuff that way so yeah, I don't wanna spoil it for newcomers.) | 49 | They were the first two, they might not be the only two. Anyone who can self-actualizes and choose to live despite the possibility of pain could come back if they want to.
Now they have to learn how to live with each other, knowing that they can hurt or comfort each other.
The time loop thing is a theory, not yet explicitly confirmed.
The manga shows a somewhat different end result, which ends up with the world mostly having been recreated as it was before the Angels, except that Gendo and Rei are still gone, and shows Shinji and Asuka meeting again for the first time with no memory of each other. | 27 |
ELI5: When I feel pain from a burn I feel the instant pain then a brief period before throbbing pain starts, are there two different pain receptors? | 41 | When you burn yourself, an immediate reflex occurs to make you pull your hand back. This isn't pain, and it isn't even processed by the brain, but directly by the brain stem. When that reflex is occuring, you haven't had enough time for the pain signals to be transmitted and processed by the brain yet. When those signals get there shortly after, your brain processes them and then creates a pain response localized to that area, essentially telling your hand "Hey, hand! You should be hurting right now!" Your obedient hand then says "Ok! I'll keep you updated on how much this hurts too!" And then your hand hurts like a bitch. | 37 |
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Why do shaving cuts bleed for so long? (i.e. why doesn't the blood clot normally?) | When I get normal cuts, the bleeding usually stops in a few moments depending on the damage. Smaller cuts stop bleeding faster, larger ones need a bandaid to help.
But when I slice myself with a razor while shaving, it seems to bleed for nearly an hour before finally clotting. No matter if I use a bandaid, piece of paper towel, etc.
Why is that? And what can I do to speed up the process? | 26 | Layman: Until someone with more knowledge chimes in, I'll just say that the face has more blood vessels per area than any other part of the body (except maybe the genitals). Also razor wounds are not jagged, they are narrow and sharp, so there is less skin "teeth", for lack of a better term, for the clot to adhere to. | 12 |
ELI5, why does compressed air get colder as you use it? | 34 | > why does compressed air get colder as you use it?
Probably what you are familiar with is "canned air" such as in computer cleaners. They aren't really compressed air but rather a chemical with a low boiling point and low vapor pressure. This allows them to pack a high volume of gas into a container without it needing to be exceedingly strong.
When you release some of the gas out of the container the liquid within will start to boil in order to restore the vapor pressure within the container. The change in state from liquid to gas requires energy which is absorbed in the form of heat, cooling the walls of the container. | 23 |
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Why do high temperatures damage hardware, specifically cpu's and gpu's? | I've searched everywhere and haven't been able to find a straight answer as to why heat will make processors fail.
Specifically temperatures >100C.
What is actually happening on a microscopic and macroscopic level that is causing damage? | 17 | At the microscopic level, a CPU consists of hundreds of millions of transistors. A transistor is, at the most fundamental level, multiple layers of semiconductor material with different types of impurities. The transistors are only a few nanometers across, so the impurity atoms don't have to move far to render it useless, and higher temperatures aid atomic diffusion. The stress, caused by thermal expansion in a constrained system could also cause atomic-scale defects to form, which would affect its electrical properties.
At a macroscopic level, CPUs are made of several different materials. There's silicon, copper interconnects, dielectric materials like silicon dioxide, and plastic or ceramic packaging. All of them have different thermal expansion coefficients, so parts may begin to crack. | 23 |
ELI5: How does an iPod to tape player work? | For example, one of these: http://www.amazon.com/Macally-PodTape-iPod-Cassette-Adapter/dp/B0001YXWNM | 18 | An audio cassette is just a reel of magnetic tape with information stored on it. What this adapter does is it creates a magnetic field where the tape player's reading head is, so tape player thinks that it's an actual tape. It also thinks that the tape is spinning, because the information coming out of the adapter is constantly changing. There is no actual tape in this adapter. Also, it works with any music player, as long as it has a headphone socket. It can even be another tape player. | 10 |
[Ready Player One] How in Gods name does the economy even work? | So, as I see it, people can spend irl money on credits, and vice versa. Ok, sure, fine. After all, the virtual environment of the OASIS is better than the standard living conditions. But if you can get credits from just killing rng-ed enemies, then you have a theoretically infinite amount of credits and you break the economy from inflation. Is there a set ammount of credits that won't increase or decrease, but has their value change like bitcoin? But then, is the drop rate of a credit super low, like a premium currency in a ftp game? Why isn't there just a bunch of indentured servitude, like some guy buying a ton of consoles for some kids in the third world for them to farm credits. Or is this just not something Ernest Kline thought of? | 28 | For the Oasis currency to have value and be transerable to real world currency doesn't mean it has to be fixed. Take WOW gold, for example. There is an infinite amount that can be mined in the game, it has a market for its real world conversion price, and does have people that farm it.
Botting, just like nearly every multiplayer game, is prohibited and the program has ways of identifying them.
Running a gold farm, even in countries where the labor is dirt cheap, doesn't make an extraordinary amount of profit because competition keeps the conversion price down. | 36 |
Why do some ants get scared and run like hell when I discover them, and others don't really seem to care? | Do different species of ants have different survival instincts? Does the size/age of the ant matter? Does it matter if the ants are in a group? | 19 | Ant behavior is largely determined by pheromones. Ants themselves have over 20 different pheromone glands on their body.
One of the first pheromones to evolve was the "alarm" pheromone. This pheromone is released, in most cases from the mandibular gland, whenever an ant feels threatened or is killed (crushing an ant leaves the chemical out in the open.) As it is a volatile compound, its chemical signal disperses very quickly and doesn't last for very long, in most cases under two minutes.
As it disperses, all other ants in the colony receive the signal in a matter of seconds. Once they do, they get "scared and run like hell" as you put it. An alarm pheromone normally tells everyone to evacuate the colony and for the soldiers to start biting whatever they can find. Flooding and predators are two good examples of events that may trigger this response.
So, in answer to your questions:
1. While different species of ants do have different survival instincts, all ants have some sort of alarm pheromone, that once emitted, causes the colony to evacuate.
2. The size/age of the ant: All types of ants can release alarm pheromones, but the size/age may determine what they do once they receive the signal. The large soldiers will move to attack, while the younger ants will run. In some species of ant, the worker only becomes a soldier once he is a certain age, as the more dangerous jobs are better fitted for the elders (evolutionarily speaking)
3. Yes, the signals emitted by others significantly impacts the behavior of a specific ant.
So, if you are able to spook an ant enough for it to release its alarm pheromone, it will get "scared and run like hell" as will all of his little friends.
Hope this helped | 16 |
If helium rises, and we've "used" nearly all of it that we have, and it's a noble element, shouldn't their be a bunch of helium being held against the inside of our atmosphere? | [inspired by this thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/qvtjx/til_earth_will_be_virtually_heliumfree_by_the_end/c40wmqb?context=3) | 149 | Helium actually escapes the atmosphere. Keep in mind there is no magical barrier that defines the boundary of the atmosphere - it's all held together by gravity. Helium is light enough that it floats to the top, and gravity is too weak to retain it.
Also, from the thread you linked to - helium used for balloons is a very, very small percentage of total usage, so reducing that usage has next to no effect. | 171 |
ELI5: If games can render near photo-realistic graphics in real-time, why does 3D animation software (e.g Blender) take hours or even days to render simple animations? | 20,850 | Games use a lot of tricks to fake the photorealism at less cost than doing it for real (compressing textures, popins, etc.). The most important one is the lighting. You may notice that shadows don't always look right in games. You know how when you hold something colored under a light, it starts to glow that color? Games don't do this because they don't simulate the light for real, they change the textures to make shadows and light.
Real animation software takes no shortcuts and renders things with full textures and full detail. This software often calculates the path of each ray of light bouncing around the area until it runs out of steam. This calculation is what takes all the time because there are millions and millions of light rays to trace.
Fun sidenote: a few weeks back, Nvidia managed to make real-time Ray tracing possible using some new technology they're developing, but so far it still take colossal amounts of power to run. | 15,850 |
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ELI5: what's the purpose of electronically signing on a credit purchase especially when most signatures are not the person's actual signature or lazy scribble that doesn't resemble letters and In what ways are they used? | 452 | There is zero security in a signature. No one checks them, and only a very few are able to detect what is a genuine signature and what isn't.
The best they can do is provide evidence if the holder of a card who did a transaction tries to charge it back. Then the recording of the signature can be verified by real experts, or, more importantly, video of them signing for the transaction produced in court to support a fraud charge. Similarly, the record of a fraudulent signature will be an extra fraud charge if they catch someone who uses someone else's card. | 210 |
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ELI5: What caused the financial crisis in 2008? | 35 | The United States slipped into a minor recession right after 9/11, so the government used its control over how much money is circulating to make it cheaper to borrow money. Because interest rates were low, people borrowed a lot of money and used much of it to buy houses.
While this was happening, home prices were increasing year after year, and everyone assumed this would continue forever.
But then the government decided the 9/11 recession was over and decided to raise interest rates nationally.
Suddenly people owed creditors more money each month for their home loans, because their personal interest rates were not set in stone and instead were set to fluctuate with national rates.
As the cost of paying creditors back increased, a lot of people all at the same time found themselves without enough money to keep paying for their homes. The creditors responded by taking ownership of these houses with the intention to sell them to someone else.
But all of these homes going up for sale at the same meant that houses were suddenly abundant. With everyone looking to sell newly acquired houses, home prices fell.
For people still paying their mortgages, payment schemes reflected the old, higher home values, so many individuals simply allowed creditors to take possession of their homes rather than pay creditors more than their homes were suddenly worth.
As these houses went up for sale, home prices were driven down even further and created a self-perpetuating cycle.
The continued fall in the home prices affected homeowners and those still committed to paying off their mortgages because the worth of their most valuable asset dropped.
Importantly, the banks that originally arranged the mortgages that so many Americans were unable to pay or had walked away from no longer owned the debt of their one-time customers. They sold the right to people's future interest payments to larger financial institutions that put the mortgages of many, many people together and allowed investors to in effect invest little slices of these huge mortgage bundles. This meant that investors were betting that people would keep paying their mortgages and would earn money so long as that was the case.
When people either couldn't pay their mortgages or decided it was smarter to just stop paying, investors who had bet on these mortgages came to realize their earlier bets were much riskier than many of them had understood and lost a lot of money. This was the collapse of the investment banks and their related insurance organizations.
It wasn't just investment banks who had a stake in these mortgages, though. Many ordinary Americans' savings were to some extent tied up them through stock ownership and where their pensions were invested. As a result, many people became poorer than they had been only a few months before and reacted by spending less.
Now Americans were spending less because their homes were worth less, their stock was worth less, and their savings were worth less. Businesses reacted to decreased interest in buying their products by producing fewer products. Because businesses were earning less revenue, they lowered salaries and fired employees no longer necessary for lower levels of production.
As people across the country adjusted to lower incomes and joblessness, they too cut back on their spending, which compounded the situation and led even more businesses to lower salaries and fire workers.
This brings us to pretty close to where we are now. As a country, we have begun creating more jobs each month than we lose but just barely. And these new jobs pay much less than the old jobs did and are largely temporary as businesses wait to see if Americans' demand for their goods increases to levels that justify permanent hiring.
There's a ton more to the story about exactly why everyone was so sure housing prices would keep rising, where regulatory organizations failed, how banks encouraged reckless lending, and a bunch of other really important stuff, but this is a chain of cause and effect at the center of a lot of the mayhem. | 41 |
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[Lord of the Rings] If elves have such keen senses, why would they need to make weaponry that alerts them to the presence of orcs? | In the films, Sting doesn't give them much lead time before the orcs appear. They don't seem particularly inclined to be stealthy, in any case, always charging in. | 31 | It might have been used as a component to a strategy of terror - rather than alerting the elves using the weapons, it would alert the orcs that the wielders are elite warriors with fine weaponry, and would likely cause the orcs with less moral to flee rather than engage.
Orcs are cowardly and unwilling to attack without overwhelming force, even at night. If faced with a force of elite elvish warriors with glowing swords, it would be devastating to their morale.
Especially considering the Elves likely ambushed the Orcs repeatedly before facing them in direct battle. | 66 |
ELI: If humans originated in Africa, how did we also develope on remote islands like Japan? | Did humans travel to japan in boats from china and after a while forget they came from the mainland and created their own origin stories? Or, if not, how did we get to japan? | 18 | The former. Humans radiated outward from Africa in several waves, and over time colonized pretty much every place that could support us. Sometimes they ended up in places that later became islands after sea levels rose, and sometimes they used rafts or boats. You can even use genetics to work out roughly how long ago different populations diverged and when they first arrived wherever they ended up. | 19 |
[MCU] What's the hierarchy/order of command in the Avengers? | 45 | There's no real hierarchy.
Fury started it and Stark kept it going through funding. Rogers kept people motivated because he wanted to get rid of Hydra. Ultron happens, authority is imposed and the group basically breaks up.
Civil War shows that there's no leader. People happily abandon Stark. Doesn't matter if he's playing the bills. The group running with Rogers don't call themselves the Avengers. They're fugitives.
After Thanos, Natasha is the one keeping everyone organized. But she's literally running on peanut butter sandwiches.
Fury is right. The Avengers isn't an organization. It's an idea. It's a group of people who sometimes decide to work together to do something. | 81 |
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ELI5: Why does your body feel really hot inside or has this weird feeling for like 1 second after you stumbled or maybe even nearly dropped something important? I guess it has something to do with adrenalin but what does really happen? | 21 | Yes, it does have to do with adrenaline. Adrenaline is released in your body, which causes your heart to beat faster which brings more oxigen to your cells which causes them to burn that oxigen more intensely increasing metabolism and increasing your body temperature in the process. | 11 |
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ELI5: Why does 81° water feel so much colder than 81° air? | Edit: 81° Fahrenheit | 2,584 | for the same reason that objects in a "room temperature" room all seem to be different temperatures, the air or a piece of wood might not feel cold, but tile might. in actuality, they are the same temperature. Varying degrees of thermal conductivity make us perceive that some things are colder than others. Water and air which have less energy in the form of heat than your body are able to pull this heat energy from your body, but at different rates. the higher the rate, the colder it will feel to you. | 1,736 |
[Marvel/DC] Out of the various super-teams, which ones would actually have you concerned from a security standpoint? | Let's say your taking the role of an operative of ARMOR or some similar organization. For those who don't know what ARMOR is, it's an arm of SHIELD that focuses on observing alternate realities.
So out of the following Super-teams, which do you think is the most dangerous in both terms of power and any psych profiles you can gather on said team members:
Justice League (Assuming that it's only made up of the 7 founders)
Avengers (The 6 original founders from the comics plus Captain America.)
X-Men (Only the team members that we see in the 90's cartoon)
Fantastic Four (Only the original four)
The Bat-Family (Includes all the previous Robins and any of the previous Batgirls but NO Batwoman or anyone else)
Edit: The gist of the question is: "Which super-team would be the most likely to go rogue and how dangerous would they be?" | 28 | All of these teams present an end-of-the-world level threat if they went bad, so the one that worries me most is the one that would be hardest to stop.
That is, very easily, the Justice League. Of the original seven, Superman, Martian Manhunter, and Wonder can end the world individually, and all are extremely difficult to damage. Green Lantern isn't quite at their level, but he's close. Flash, if he was using his powers intelligently, is nigh impossible to contend with. Batman, despite being a mortal, has the capability to killing all of them, which puts him at a very high danger level, as well, because if a guy can kill Superman, there isn't a whole lot that will stand in his way. Aquaman is the least dangerous of the seven, but he is the King of seventy percent of the earth.
The Bat-Family is second on this list only because Batman is also part of the Justice League, and if the entire league goes rogue there are no contingencies that will be effective. The Justice League *is* the contingency for Batman going rogue, so there's at least a chance that the Bat is taken down if it's just him and his various Robins.
The X-Men are next on the list. Again you have a number of individuals who could end the world solo; Xavier with Cerebro could mind-flay the planet, and Ice Man could turn the entire world into a 0-degree Kelvin wasteland. You've also got a chick who is prone to becoming the avatar of flaming, psychic destruction, and she's dating a control freak and the least polite Canadian on the planet. However, there are technologies, like Sentinels and anti-mutant manacles, that can slow them down or stop them outright.
The Fantastic Four are the next most dangerous, primarily because of Sue's force fields, which are nearly impenetrable, and Reed's technology, because Reed can ass-pull a planet killer if you give him a tin can, a ball of twine, and twenty minutes. Still, you've got guys like Tony Stark and Victor von Doom who would be able to give them a real problem if things went south.
The Avengers are probably the least dangerous. Thor could kill the earth with his Godblast, but aside from that the most directly dangerous is Hulk, who's a city-buster under most circumstances. The real danger is Tony going bad, but then you're looking at a dictatorship, not an end-of-the-world scenario. | 40 |
[Futurama] Why is the world so misinformed about the 2000s? | Shouldnt there be enough heads or frozen people to give a good picture of what happened? | 45 | Not that many people talk to the heads in the head museum. As you saw when Fry hid in there, there was barely anyone in there. The heads *also* have become a bit eccentric, and aren't generally treated with much respect. Frankly the only ones with any semblance of respect comparable to what they had in their home era would be Nixon and some select icons. And Nixon is pretty crazy in his own right, so what do you think that does for the image of heads on the whole?
Sure people could trust these heads from the 20th century. But why bother? The information is largely invalid anyway due to the mental breakdown shown by many of the heads as they become quirky (and in Nixon's case, maniacal and insane). As most people don't give a toss about the barbarians of the 20th century anyway, why bother trying to get the proper story of how things work? Especially when Fry (a living specimen of the 20th century) explains what life was like (sometimes incorrectly), and he's not exactly someone 30th century folk would want to know more about. It's like if we revived someone from 1017 and found out they were a peasant who ate shit and slaps donkey testicles for fun. Not prime research material. | 41 |
[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles] What exactly is the Ooze or mutagen? | So what exactly is the ooze or mutagen and why does it turn animals humanoid? Or turn human's into humanoid animals. Where does it come from and how does it work? Can it be undone once mutated? | 19 | It depends on the Canon. In some cases the Ooze is extra terrestrual/dimensional and has origins relating to krang and his people in others it is created by humans via unknown methods and has a mixed bag of effects. | 17 |
How are toll roads legal? I thought that taxes payed for roads? | Question in the title plus a bonus: can you get a ticket for using the fast pass or pike pass lane without having the pass? | 101 | You pay a premium on certain frequently used roads/bridges/tunnels in order to supplement the general taxes. This keeps people who use the road more (though not entirely) financially responsible for contributing to upkeep. As opposed to raising taxes on everyone all the time.
LY5?
Every person in your neighborhood has access to dial-up Internet because they live there. If people want faster Internet, they can pay a "boost fee" for a speed boost. This speed boost makes things faster, but maintenance on the boosters costs a lot of money. The internet company uses the "boost fee" to make the boost lines all better without making everyone in the neighborhoods pay for all the repairs.
| 78 |
[Super Heroes] Okay, let’s put this to bed: which Superheroes DO go down on their partners? | Assuming that Batman doesn’t (which I don’t personally believe but whatever) and Green Arrow does, who else is eating that pie in bed? | 1,046 | Not only does **Daredevil** go down, his ability to sense the heart rate and internal physiology of his partners means that he plays them like a fiddle. And he only gets better each time.
**Cyclops** probably does not. Since his eyebeams can punch holes in mountains, it’s too much of a risk. | 892 |
CMV: The free market isn't going to save the planet | Let's be real, all these "green" ´products and no straws/plastics bags are just for show, they don't do anything meaningful against climate change.
We are too far gone to expect the free market to come up with solutions that we needed to implement decades ago. And that's assuming corporations even want to solve it at all, most seem on the path of make money and screw the planet.
Right now our best chance is massive government intervention, something like a ww2 homefront situation where rationing and other measures are taken. For example, this could help reducing the massive demand on meat that drives deforestation, water pollution and many other problems. Same with air travel for tourism.
Governments during ww2 didn't give a crap if you couldn't eat whatever you wanted all year long or travel long distances to visit relatives.
Their answer was "we are on a crisis so deal with it", that's what we need right now. | 127 | The free market optimizes within the constraints set by the government.
If the government isn’t creating the right incentive structure, yeah - we’re gonna have a problem.
But the free market is still a powerful force even if government isn’t optimal. The tipping point to a greener technology becoming cheaper creates a lot of good - and we’re seeing that with green energy and batteries, as well as artificial meat and more efficient lab farming. | 52 |
[MCU] So what exactly is the difference between sorcery and witchcraft? | In the new movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, they talk about how the Scarlet Witch is capable of powerful witchcraft, but treat it like it’s a different skill set that sorcery. Strange even confers with Wanda at the beginning of the movie because he considers her an expert in the field. So what then, is the difference? What could one be able to do with Witchcraft that can’t be done with sorcery, and vice versa? | 128 | The films seem to imply that sorcerers are normal individuals who learn to manipulate magical energies over time, and anyone can learn to do this with the right teachers. But witchcraft is magic that is innate to the wielder, they are basically a magical person whether they learn to wield it effectively not | 166 |
[The Matrix] How did the first person hack out of the Matrix? | In the movie, we see people pulled out of the matrix by people who are already outside of it. How could you get out if there were no one to pull you out? | 25 | >"When the Matrix was first built, there was a man born inside who had the ability to change whatever he wanted, to remake the Matrix as he saw fit. It was he who freed the first of us, taught us the truth - As long as the Matrix exists, the human race will never be free. After he died, the Oracle prophesied his return and his coming would hail the destruction of the Matrix, end the war, bring freedom to our people. That is why there are those who have spent our entire lives searching the Matrix looking for him.".
-Morpheus to Neo. | 26 |
CMV: Conservative parties don't help the world. | I have yet to see any conservative political party that genuinely wants to help normal people and not just their own group. Not talking about individuals because I know there are some.
All over the world I always see that it's the conservatives against fact checking or againts helping the environment. Or the conservatives filled with controversy or corruption more so than more liberal political parties. (That's not to say that liberal parties are all good either I know there is corruption in alot of them but it always looks worse with conservatives.)
It genuinely looks like they are againts helping people. While at least more liberal parties look like they try or have a half assed effort.
CMV | 17 | Conservatives are for a Free Market approach to an economy.
Go look at any Quality of Life metric and see how many countries with the highest quality of life DONT have a Free Market economy. Almost all of them do (if not all).
>It genuinely looks like they are againts helping people.
Having a high quality life with safety and security is about the best the government can do for you. Which is what conservatives ultimately want and advocate for. | 28 |
[DC] I have done nothing with my life but train to lift heavy objects. Am I stronger than someone like Batman or Bane? | Okay, so I have spent every moment of my life training to give myself the absolute max of human strength. If I wanted to I could easily get to the olympics and bring home gold for my country. Every waking hour of my life has been spent weight lifting, bulking up, or lifting more weights.
I should be stronger than either Bane or Batman, right? Batman and Bane have to spend hours upon hours doing things that aren't getting stronger. They have to get book smarts, they have to prepare for plans, Bruce has to keep up public appearances every so often, do some detective work, heal wounds that he gets during battle, Bane has to spend time in prison, get more venom, etc.
So will me spending my entire life for strength make me physically stronger than these people?
I'm not asking if I could beat them in a fight, only if I'm stronger than them. | 26 | Probably, though it's worth noting that they have really good genes and you may not. Also note that you would be better at the lifts you practiced, but not a better fighter. Also weaker then Bane when hes on venom. | 32 |
CMV: The mission to recover bodies from White Island is stupid and needlessly risks lives. | >The [New Zealand](https://www.theguardian.com/world/newzealand) military will deploy to White Island at first light in an attempt to bring eight bodies home to their desperate families – despite a serious risk of the volcano erupting again.
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/12/new-zealand-volcano-police-may-do-rushed-body-retrieval-despite-eruption-risk](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/12/new-zealand-volcano-police-may-do-rushed-body-retrieval-despite-eruption-risk)
This mission makes absolutely no sense. They are sending living people into an incredibly risky situation not to rescue people who need rescuing but simply to recover bodies. The people they are sending are highly trained and represent a large investment for the state. On top of that they are living, breathing human beings presumably with families of their own who will mourn them if anything goes wrong. What they are bringing back is essentially of no value: sacks of charred meat and bone. It is not unusual to have a funeral in absentia for people who die in natural disasters and this occasion should be no different. This operation will cost a huge amount of money and potentially has a high cost in human lives too.
What happens if the volcano erupts again while they are on the island? Will another party be sent to recover *those* bodies as well? When does it stop? | 48 | > What they are bringing back is essentially of no value
This is what you get wrong. These bodies have enormous emotional value to their loved ones. Being able to bury a body instead of an empty casket is a enormous difference. To you it might not mean anything but to the loved ones of those people who passed away it obviously does.
And these trained professionals you're talking about are just that, trained professionals. They will not put themselves in unacceptable levels of danger. They know perfectly well what they can and cannot do. | 25 |
ELI5: What is the difference between carbs and sugars if carbs are broken down into sugars? Also why are sugars so much worse than carbs for the gut microbiome if they end up as the same thing? | 33 | If you think of your metabolism as like a campfire, then carbs are wood.
Sugars are twigs and leaves. You can just pick em up and start a fire with them. Glucose is one of the simplest sugars. This is basically leaves. Sucrose might be like twigs, since it's a little more complicated and takes a bit of work to get burning.
Starches are like small logs. It's difficult to start a fire with just chunks of wood, but doable. You gotta put more work into it. However, they burn for longer. You can't create a useful campfire with just twigs and leaves, so if you only eat those, you're gonna struggle in the long term.
Fibre is like trees and big logs. You straight up can't make a campfire with these, they're too big. But you can break them up into small logs, twigs, and leaves, and use those. Generally, you can't do this by hand, though, you need a tool: an axe. And some trees are so tough that they're just not worth the bother. They form an important part of the ecosystem though.
We can't directly digest fibre and some complex starches, but many bacteria in our gut act like axes for us, and break down the fibre and starches. Other fibre is just too complex and we don't digest at all. But it's important to our digestive system because it helps flush stuff along. | 102 |
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[The Expanse]how long can the ships create linier gravity through acceleration before they max out on speed and have to stop and start again? | 56 | ...there is no max speed other than the speed of light.
The fastest, although least fuel efficient, way to travel in space is max burn for half the distance then flip over and max burn for the other half. | 113 |
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CMV: Gun Control Proponents undermine their own argument | I was reading this article from the NYT [How They Got Their Guns] (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/03/us/how-mass-shooters-got-their-guns.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0) and Slate (How Mass shooters got their guns)[http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2015/10/how_roseburg_newtown_and_other_mass_shooters_got_their_guns.html]. Had a few thoughts about how there is little logic in the idea that increased gun control legislation would fix the issues.
Most of these people had no legal history that would prevent them from not owning a gun. Of the 14, 2 had a drug offense (misdemeanor possession and paraphernalia), 2 had domestic violence charges (2002 and 2006 respectively). One of each SHOULD have disqualified them from purchasing a firearm, but the departments in charge of those cases failed to report the charges to the databases used to conduct background checks. One had a charge from kicking a hole in the wall at a bar and the other had several settled small charges since the 90's (undisclosed, so this one is useless to analyze, if anyone can find out i'd like to know). None of these past events of these people can be reasonably used to develop a background check system that WORKS.
Then from the mental health angle, many of these people had done nothing at all other than being a loner, possibly dealing with issues that were half treated but became clear warning signs AFTER they did unspeakable things.
Someone please point me to a logical argument and change my view.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 18 | The main issues you're naming don't actually affect what most people are talking about with gun issues. The most/basically all gun deaths happen outside of mass shooting. We've no idea how many of those people would lose their gun access, but surely it isn't 0%. Stopping those many people would be more than good enough to enact new laws.
As for mental health, we need a better system throughout the country for the mass shooting issue, as well as many others. We need to encourage people to get mental health treatment, and to encourage parents/friends/loved ones to speak up about those who are acting in some kind of manner like this. It would definitely help many people outside of gun issues, and how much within is unknown, but almost definitely not 0%.
And let's remember the fact that countries/states with more strict gun laws/control have less gun deaths overall, both homicide AND suicide. You're not going to stop all people who want to kill someone else, but the less suicide should be massively important as well. And it'll be much harder to kill a lot of people if you cannot get a gun, as most other first world countries prove. | 16 |
[Star Wars] Should the Naboo have been suspicious when the Gungans put together a well organised and equipped land army in an afternoon? Who exactly were the Gungans planning to fight before the Trade Federation showed up? | So in the Phantom Menace, after a little encouragement Boss Nass, calls his banners and immediately has a large well organised and equipped land army at his disposal. They are armed with shields and weapons capable of putting up at least some fight against the Trade Federation, who are much stronger than the Naboo guard. An army like that must have taken years of training and manufacture to put together. Who were they planning to use it against? It can't go into Space so was it for other Gungans? Or should the Naboo be a little suspicious of their allies in the swamps? | 73 | This is a bit like asking if Mexico should be suspicious of the United States' military. Probably yes, but there isn't a lot they can do about it.
The Gungans have a proud military tradition, and (prior to the Battle of Naboo) were pretty xenophobic. Their army was also more of a militia than a standing army, its primary role was to stop the bigger fish from trashing their city. In addition to that, the Gungans (again, prior to the Trade Federation getting involved) weren't really allied with the Naboo. The two groups were only allies in the sense that the Gungans didn't care enough about the Naboo to wipe them out. | 68 |
ELI5: Why are razors in apples the most widely-known danger of Trick-or-Treating, when there's no documented case of it happening? | 26 | Its an amazing example of media fear mongering. When theres no news, you create news. Whats a better way to get viewers than a special horrible thing everyone will have to hear about to be safe. Bonus points because you can attribute your coverage to it not happening anymore (even though it didnt happen in the first place) | 22 |
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[Harry Potter] If the Sorting Hat in it's wisdom placed Draco Malfoy into Gryffindor how might things have turned out for him? | 32 | Well, he wanted to be a Slytherin, and almost all the Gryffindors would either bully him or just refuse to associate with him. He's kind of an entitled dick.
McGonigal is not a horrible person, but she doesn't respect the way Draco does things. He has to wait until second year before trying out for Quidditch.
He's a decent player, with a high-class broom. Not a better Seeker than Harry, but he may be good enough to be a teammate. Depending on how that goes, he could get a grudging friendship with Harry going, or at least earn some respect from his fellow Gryffindors. Remember, Quidditch score translates to House Points (for some stupid reason), so helping win the House Cup is well appreciated.
However, I'd predict being isolated from the Slytherins and ignored by the Gryffindors would turn him bitter and even easier to turn to the Death Eaters after the Dark Lord's inevitable return. | 28 |
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Do we have a handle on the number of diseases that go undiagnosed and contagious? | A Chinese doctor discover COVID 19 was circulating. However, we all get sick and go to the doctor to discover we don’t have COVID or Strep and there is no attempt to figure out what is making people sick. (The two things doctors test generally).
Meanwhile lots of people are getting sick and if it progresses to something worse it is defined by what it caused, such as pneumonia or bronchitis.
I find it odd at any university in the US a dozen students in each class are out sick then the next week or two another dozen. Each absence is costly, yet even at Universities when the students go to the doctors on campus they make no attempt to study “what is this illness” and whether warning classes about what is spreading or attempt to isolate it or stop it. When it knocks these young adults out for a week it could be a terrible “bug” yet the doctor’s reaction is “it is just some sort of bug.” | 52 | It's worth researching if people are A. getting so sick they need to go to the hospital B. They die.
The amount of resources it would take to figure out what every single person is getting sick from, when they can get back on their feet at home and with rest, is far more than any government is willing to pay.
People who get a little sick for a few days could also be hundreds of things other than contagious diseases.
The reason covid was such a big thing, was because hospitals were backed up, and people were dying. If it was "only" contagious and everyone got sick for a few days and then were good, it wouldn't have been as big of a problem as it is/was | 74 |
[FMA:Brotherhood] Does Al know more about human transmutation because he sacrificed more of his body compared to Ed? | In Ed's case, he went through the Gate and was shown everything but was cut off. Then he mentions he's almost there to knowing the secret to human transmutation but his sacrifice (his leg) was not enough of an exchange.
I assume Alphonse also went through the same thing and since he sacrificed his body, does he know everything? If he didn't go through the same ordeal, then what did he and the Truth talk about? How can he transmute without circles? | 25 | I believe when Ed is talking with Izumi they agree Al must have seen more of the Truth than either of them because he lost his entire body. However, the ordeal was intense enough that Al cannot remember it. He does eventually remember some (since he no longer needs to draw Transmutation circles), but it's unclear just how much he remembers and whether or not it is more than Ed and Izumi. | 24 |
ELI5: Why does the whole stream change it's course when you run water from the faucet and barely touch the side of the stream? | 142 | The viscosity (the way the water particles try to stick together) of the water means that when a few particles are diverted, they pull on the other particles around them and it turns into a chain reaction of movement. Imagine pinching a tubular curtain about halfway between and the floor and the ceiling and pulling it up. The bottom of the curtain would hang under your hand and the other side would move similarly, because it is all attached. A choppy analogy, but a visualisation none the less.
Also, it has a lot to do with the differing currents of the water stream pushing it all around. | 41 |
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Since electromagnetism is so much stronger than gravity, why doesn't it have more of an effect on large celestial bodies? | Since bodies like Earth, Jupiter and the Sun all have powerful magnetic fields, why do we not see the orbits of large bodies shifted by the magnetic fields of one another? Indeed, *do* we see this at all?
After all, even a tiny magnet can defy the gravity of an entire planet by lifting a kilogram weight off a table, and an electromagnet in a scrap yard can lift an entire car. Why, then, does this apparently-more-powerful force not propagate out into space more effectively than gravity? | 16 | Excellent question. The fundamental reason is because there is no such thing as negative mass. Let me explain. Electric charge can come either as positive or negative, and opposites attract. This means that free positive charges will tend to attract free negative charges until they bind to form neutral atoms and molecules (or more exotic composite objects). When bound together, the electric and positive charge are so close to each other that for the most part they cancel each other's effects. To a first approximation, a system with an equal amount of positive and negative electric charge acts like an electric dipole. The electric field of an electric dipole dies off with distance according to 1/r^3 . In contrast, the electric field of a bare electric charge dies off with distance according to 1/r^2 . On astronomical scales, r is huge, so that that the electric field due to a dipole (and by an extension, a neutral molecule) is far weaker than the electric field due to a bare charge. Since opposites attract, most of the electric charge on a planet is bound up in neutral atoms/molecules. For molecules that have a weak dipole moment, the electric field falls off even faster than 1/r^3 . The situation is even worse for magnets. Magnetic poles *always* come in pairs, so that the magnetic field of a magnetic object always dies off as 1/r^3 or faster (as long as you are sufficiently external to the object - inside magnetic objects/systems you can get all sorts of fields).
Now let's turn to gravity. Since there is no negative mass, there is nothing to partially cancel the gravitational field of positive mass. Therefore, the strength of gravity of a localized mass always dies off dominantly as 1/r^2.
In summary, electromagnetism is stronger than gravity, and they both fundamentally die off with distance at the same rate (1/r^2 ), but due to the existence of negative charges/South magnetic poles and not negative mass, in most practical situations, electromagnetic fields die off much quicker with distance than gravity. The distances involved on astronomical scales are so large that gravity dominates.
In principle, if we could make an entire planet out of just electrons (if we found someway to turn off their mutual repulsion), the electric field of this planet on astronomical scales would be immensely strong, far stronger than gravity. | 19 |
[Halo] How were energy shields distributed to covenant forces? | I’m kinda confused on how the covenant handled energy shields. I’m talking purely lore now. I don’t read the books so maybe there’s a clearer answer there. In Reach when noble team first encountered the elite zealot team, we see that their shield can take a lot bullets before dropping. In the Halo 4 intro, we see that the regular elite shield just dropped after one or two bullets. So does the higher ranked elites get better shields? Similar to how human special forces gets better equipment than regular infantry. Did other races receive energy shields too? | 52 | Yes, there are lots of different armor models. This should be pretty obvious. In Halo 2 one of the elites comments that the Arbiter's antique armor can't cloak as long as their armor. In Halo 3 brutes start using shields because the elites defect. Jackals are issued portable arm-shields instead of full-body shields, likely because they're easier to mass-produce. | 25 |
How was it decided where astronauts would land on the moon? | 29 | Based on what a professor in a planetary science class explained to me:
* Step one: Send unmanned orbiters to take large, low-resolution photos and make a global map
* Step two: Give the map to the geologists and rocket engineers and have them argue about the most interesting vs. safest place to land, come up with a list of candidate landing sites
* Step three: Send more unmanned orbiters to take high-res photos of the candidates
* Step four: Same as step two, with more information on each site
Of course there's other constraints and tools used as well. Since the moon is so close you can get a lot done with ground-based telescopes. On the other hand they knew they would be landing on the near side of the moon so they could have a direct line of sight back to Earth for communication. Stuff like that. But this same basic process is used for exploring any planet, whether it's Mercury or Titan. | 12 |
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Why does electricity usually spread itself in a zig zag pattern when there's no concrete path to follow? | 186 | I assume you're talking about things like lightning. Ordinarily, air is extremely resistive to electrical current flow. But, when the electric field is strong enough, a narrow channel will ionize and conduct current. This allows charge to advance a short distance, where the electric field builds up again, causing another ionization to occur. Each breakdown happens in a semi-random direction (more or less following the background electric field, but not completely) and creates a narrow ionized channel. This means that the full path taken by the current is a series of short, semi-randomly oriented steps--a zig-zag.
Importantly, following the path of least resistance is not very helpful for describing this. By ionizing the otherwise resistive air in steps, it CREATES the path of least resistance, and does so in a chaotic way. | 55 |
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[Mostly Marvel, but some DC] Why do so many villains wear purple and green? | Galactus, Green Goblin, Kang the Conqueror, Mysterio, the Joker, the Riddler, the Leader is pretty green, Magneto (no green, but plenty of purple), Dr. Doom (no purple, but plenty of green)...and I'm sure I'm missing some others. Anyone have any good ideas why all of these baddies prefer green and purple?
My working hypothesis is that it's to balance out the overabundance of red and blue in the superheroes' uniforms, but I was wondering what others had to say about it...? | 102 | Purple it a color traditionnally associated with royalties. It instinctively give a feeling of power and authority. Therefore, villains who often aim at controlling the world are naturally attracted to thsi color.
Green on the other hand is a color that reflect greed and envy. Feelings also very strongs amongst villains. | 115 |
How large will a human fetus get if the mother never goes into labor or gets a Caesarean section? | Will the baby continue to grow until the mother dies from the size? Is it possible that a mother give birth to a child that is a few years old? | 48 | No - in fact, if the child stays in the womb much beyond 40 weeks, they will die. The placenta gradually stops working as you get beyond 40 weeks or so, and without this, the child gets no food or blood (among othr things).
This is why obstetricians will generally induce delivery or perform a Caesarian once you get past 41-42 weeks (depending on local practice). | 60 |
ELI5: what would happen if i stood on a train going at the speed of light, and took a step forward? Would i go faster than light, or would it be physically impossible? | 23 | You can't actually travel at the speed of light, so for this question, let's assume your train is going 1m/s slower than light.
At that speed, time would be stretched by a factor of about 300,000,000.
Then you start walking/running at 2 m/s, which seems like it should take you faster than light. But due to the stretching of time, you're only moving about 7 nanometers per second faster than the train. (2 m/300,000,000 s)
So nothing would be different. | 36 |
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How is "you only dream of people you've met in life before, and your mind can't make up new people" even testable? Is this really true? | 63 | This is a common, but annoying, claim. There's no way of testing its veracity, for several reasons.
First, the question is ill-posed: what does "make up new people" mean? If a person is composed of pieces of others, then do they qualify as "new"? In any case, that's not an accurate representation of how memories work -- instead, some salient details of an event or person are recalled and then the brain fills in the blanks on the fly.
Second, we don't remember most of our dreams and have imperfect recall of those that we do, so there's no way of comprehensively studying all of the people that appear in dreams.
Third, we have no way of cataloging everyone that we've ever met, and certainly no way of comparing such a catalog to people that appear in dreams (even if such a catalog did exist). | 103 |
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ELI5: How is Chernobyl still dangerously radioactive but Hiroshima and Nagasaki were being rebuilt not even a decade after the atomic bombings? | 76 | For a few reasons. The Fat Man and Little Boy bombs detonated several hundred feet above ground level, and in doing so expended only 2 pounds each of their plutonium and uranium fuel. The Chernobyl reactor accident was at ground level and the reactor contained 180 TONS of radioactive fuel. | 48 |
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[Harry Potter/DC] Would the Marauder's Map reveal Joker's identity in Hogwarts? | Simple question, really. In light of recent debates in this subreddit about Death Note vs Joker, I thought Harry Potter might be able to chip in and help if he had his Map readily available. If i recall correctly, the Marauder's Map only works within the boundaries of Hogwarts, thus would it reveal the Joker's true identity? Yes/No question, but I wanted to see if there's any canon counter-evidence if any. Also, I think someone somewhere said Batman actually knows Joker's real identity. Not sure if true or not, but irrelevant with this question. | 46 | Magic isn't quite bound by the same rules as human logic. The map could discern a person's identity very easily unless confused by some sort of magic meant to conceal the user; simply calling yourself by another name would mean nothing to the map, as an alias is a thoroughly non-magical form of concealing one's identity.
Case in point: Peter Pettigrew. He was living as a rat at the time, under the name of "Scabbers". Definitely an assumed identity, yet the map labeled him by his true name with no trouble.
Now, your question begs a more interesting hypothetical, namely "How would the map react to a person who had never been named?" For example, a newborn baby whose parents had not yet had the chance to name him or her. | 49 |
ELI5: Why do a lot of animals love good pats on their head, even when they are NOT domesticated? | There are videos of a lot of wild animals getting a good pat on their head, seemingly enjoying it. Or maybe its a good stroke over their necks, or being cuddled. Preys and predators alike. What evolutionary advantages drive them to act this way?
| 20 | Rubbing or nuzzling is often a sign of affection or bonding for a large number of mammals. Even birds can preen each other to bond, in some cases. But not all wild animals get any kind of good feeling for rubbing. For example, most lizards and fish do not care at all about that kind of attention. A dew fish might do some grooming to remove parasites so those ones might enjoy some touching since it would normally mean they are being cleansed of parasites, so they have an evolutionary pressure to seek out (and thus enjoy) such situations.
Of course, non-domesticated animals are usually (and *should* typically be) timid around humans, so they usually aren't just going to walk up looking for pets. | 17 |
ELI5 Brute Force password attacks; wouldn’t they get locked out? | I understand how password length and character exponentially increases the time necessary to brute force the answer.
Question is how do the attackers get around all the various hurdles and lockouts that every site seems to have? If they don’t have some trick for getting around the lockout, wouldn’t the account just get locked within the first few tries and they’re done?
Wouldn’t somebody on the backend notice all the attempts? | 38 | Generally speaking, people aren't brute forcing passwords by shoving them into a webform.
Instead, here's what will usually happen.
First, years ago you will have signed up for some random website that has moderate security at best. The email address and hashed password are part of that site's database.
Then, that site gets exploited in some way, and that database of emails and hashed passwords is made available for the right price.
Then, someone buys that database and starts cracking passwords. They try password after password until they can match what's in the database. There's no lockout system here, since that's a software layer put in top by the website that would normally be using this database.
After they've cracked enough passwords, they'll sell known email/password combinations. Other people will try those email/password combinations on other websites, hoping that you reused the same password in multiple locations. | 145 |
[Dragonball] Humans shed cells all the time, cells regeneration only requires a few cells, how is it even possible to kill him in the first place as wouldnt he have cells just lying around? | 23 | Skin cells are already dead when you shed them, so presumably everything outside the gigantic Kamahameha was already dead by the time Cell got blasted.
They can't stay alive and viable for regeneration indefinitely, otherwise there would be a
million Cell clones hanging out within a week or two. Sorta like an Ork infestation. | 40 |
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Why do eyelids tend to close when the tongue tastes something really sour? | 190 | The function of the disgust expression is to stop noxious stimuli in the environment from harming us by entering one of the orifices on the face. That's is why the nose wrinkles, the tongue protrudes and the eyes close.
This physiological function was first proposed by Darwin (1872). | 94 |
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ELI5: Why are land/real estate lease agreements often for 99 years? | Everything from Hong Kong, Daewoo in Madagascar, to housing in Singapore. Why exactly 99? | 15 | In much of the English speaking world, or at least parts of the world where the judicial system has some connection to merry olde England, an old legal doctrine called the Rule Against Perpetuites was part of common law. There is no way to properly ELI5 the RAP other than to say it was designed to stop the "dead hand" from controlling property more than a generation or so after the original owner died. In order to conform to the RAP, a 99 year lease was developed, and in most cases, it was deemed not to violate the RAP. In modern times, the RAP is more or less defunct, but the tradition of a 99 year lease was established and continues mostly due to practice and convention. | 19 |
How does physical manipulation (e.g. massage) relax muscles? Does pressure create physiological changes in the tissue? | Maybe another way to put this might be: How much of muscle relaxation is physiological and how much is psychological?
**Edit:** Please provide credible sources if possible. Perhaps understandably, this field is full of personal theories without scientific support, so if you could provide links to appropriate sources of research, that would be extremely valuable | 2,455 | Stimulation of mechanoreceptors in the skin/muscle/fascia tissue can also activate inhibitory interneurons in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. This dampens the activity of A-delta and C pain fibers, resulting in short term reduction of pain. This obviously is only a small part of how a massage works physiologically, but its all that i can contribute | 786 |
CMV: I find it flattering if people from other cultures want to celebrate my culture and use elements of it | I'm Middle Eastern but I live in Europe. I always found it flattering when people of other cultures, for instance white people, took an interest to my culture. I think that sharing each other's culture is a beautiful way to connect with each other and tear down cultural segregation and develop more understanding between each other.
I don't see the big deal with white people wanting to maybe dress up in traditional clothes from my culture for a costume party for instance. It's a good way for people to learn about other cultures and my forefathers didn't "invent" the traditional clothing to be an exclusivity thing. They intended it to make people happy and if it brings joy in people to dress up as other cultures, then I don't see how that is wrong and I would find it flattering that they took an interest in my culture. I just find the whole drama about cultural appropriation to be stupid and cause more segregation between us, which is bad.
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I certainly think people have the right to misrepresent other cultures if they want to, but it's still useful to at least consider how your actions portray other people's culture and to even consult with them to attempt to portray those cultures in respectful ways. The point being that all borrowing of cultural ideas and stereotypes are not equal and some can be harmful. | 233 |
Eli5 Why we cannot build a sleep surplus? | A previous posters question raised another question for me. I understand that human beings can experience sleep deficit, but why can we not build up a sleep surplus? | 2,680 | One of the main purposes of sleep it to allow our bodies to recover from the day and do a bunch of normal "maintenance" tasks that need to get done. Some of that stuff just needs to be done every day.
Like, imagine you generate one trashcan's worth of trash every day. You can empty it once a day and be fine, or you can empty it twice a day and be just as fine.
What you _can't_ do is empty it twice today and skip emptying it tomorrow - by the end of the third day, trash will be overflowing everywhere. No matter how many times you empty it in a day, it still can only hold one day's worth of trash. You can't build up an "empty trash" surplus. | 5,650 |
[Warhammer 40k]Why do eldar make everything so unnecessarily complex? | Lets look at their night spinner anti gravity tank's main gun.
>The Night Spinner grav-tank mounts a Doomweaver atop its sleek chassis, a weapon that spins threads of monofilament wire into a lethal web that is launched high into the air. This monofilament mesh is made from an organic polymer compound. The compound is kept in a liquid state within a magnetic reservoir, and when released through the thousands of microscopic firing ducts, it is woven into a web-like cloud by spinning gravity clamps. This substance is incredibly thin, and yet so strong that nothing can stop its inexorable descent towards its victims. Indeed, the threads are known amongst the Eldar as the "Chain of Vaul," named after the unbreakable bonds of legend. Anyone or anything unfortunate enough to lie under a Night Spinner's ghostly web will be shredded by the simple actions of gravity drawing the cords downwards. The strands can even cut through steel, so vehicles caught by the web are likely to be snared and damaged, if not destroyed. It is not uncommon for the monofilament threads to shear clean through turrets and weapon barrels.
This sounds like a lot of trouble at the field. So many things to go wrong.
Why not just use a god damn laser based weapon or just shells? | 37 | Because the Eldar had millennia of boredom of which to invent unnecessarily complex devices. Sure they could just “get the job done” but the Eldar haven’t had to deal with resource scarcity, actual enemies, or mortality since the War in Heaven. So they spent those years seeing how far they could push. Sure sticking explosives into a metal shell kills stuff just as good but isn’t using molecule thin wires to cut everything in an area into ribbons cooler? And if you don’t have to worry about actually loosing why not just invent cool shit to use against the lesser races? | 53 |
ELI5: How is Grand Theft Auto 5 able to have such a large map, but little if any load screens? | Most games I've ever played have to load every time I enter a new area. How does Rockstar bypass this? | 185 | All of the map's data is available, but not always loaded. Instead, the game loads only what is pertinent to the player and the information is left behind once it becomes irrelevant. You can truly notice the effects of this when travelling very quickly across the map, such as in a plane or helicopter. You'll notice structures start to appear on the horizon of your vision as the game loads them. The faster you're travelling, the more abruptly these objects will appear to load, because you're giving the game less time to load them!
This explains why many of your actions seem to be reversed if you leave an area for a little while and then return--what's happened is that the game has discarded the information from your last visit and has reloaded everything. GTA V cannot be a truly persistent world for this reason. | 132 |
ELI5: The Missing Dollar Riddle. | Three people check into a hotel room. The clerk says the bill is $30, so each guest pays $10. Later the clerk realizes the bill should only be $25. To rectify this, he gives the bellhop $5 to return to the guests. On the way to the room, the bellhop realizes that he cannot divide the money equally. As the guests didn't know the total of the revised bill, the bellhop decides to just give each guest $1 and keep $2 as a tip for himself. Each guest got $1 back: so now each guest only paid $9; bringing the total paid to $27. The bellhop has $2. And $27 + $2 = $29 so, if the guests originally handed over $30, what happened to the remaining $1? | 36 | The $27 paid includes the $2 tip, so adding them makes no sense but the riddle confuses you into thinking that it does. The original $30 is made up of the $27 paid ($25 to the hotel plus $2 tip) and the $1 each they got back. | 35 |
ELI5: why do computers sometimes make horrible buzzing sounds when crashing/locking up? | Just had this happen to me for the first time in a while and it always catches me off guard.
To give my example, I was listening to music on my PC, and mid-song the PC completely locked up and a loud buzzing sound came through my headphones. I've had it happen in the past with other PCs and with game consoles as well, but why does it happen? | 31 | The sound hardware in a PC is designed to work with as little interference from the CPU as possible. To that end, it's generally set up so it can play a chunk of audio from memory without interference--all the CPU needs to do is update the location the audio hardware is playing from every now and again. If the system has completely locked up and is no longer responding, the audio hardware will often just keep playing the last little bit of sound it was told to over and over again--depending how long that sound fragment was you might get an obviously repeated bit of music, or just a buzzing. | 41 |
ELI5: If someone mails me illegal drugs, why can I be arrested? | I asked this question in my law class, and it led to a HUGE arguement about whether or not intent is required to have something be considered a crime.
I live in NY, and if the police see a package addressed to you that contains illegal drugs in it, they CAN arrest you once you receive the package, even if you had no idea who the package is from or what was in it. | 90 | It needs to be proven in a court of law that you knew you were recieving drugs in the mail. The police have the power to arrest someone on reasonable suspicion a much lower standard then what is needed to find you guilty in court. Its pretty reasonable that if you got drugs in the mail you knew they were coming since people don't tend to randomly send out drugs to strangers. | 83 |
How are dams able to be constructed against the constant push of flowing water? | Secondly, how exactly does a dam hold back a constantly accumulating amount of water without simply overflowing? I know they drain some water through spillways, but it seems like the vast majority of water is still trapped above the dam. Where does it all go? | 47 | Usually the river is redirected around the site where permanent dam construction is taking place. A temporary dam may be used to assist the redirection.
A hydroelectric dam routes some of the water through the turbines within the dam to create electricity. Excess water exits through spillways.
When the lake upstream of the dam has reached the target level, the dam engineers allow water to flow downstream, else the damn would overflow. So at some point in time, the water exiting through spillways (and turbines) is equal in volumetric flow rate to the amount of water entering the lake that has formed above the dam. | 36 |
CMV: Governments no longer have the power they used to over companies. | I believe governments no longer have the power they used to over companies.
Some companies have near bottomless resources and hold monopolies across various sectors and nations. I will refer to these companies as super companies.
Super companies can no longer be controlled by the government. Only hindered. A super company can hire experts to legally find ways around legislation and laws. As well as legally avoid tax. Sometimes even evading tax through global schemes.
Not only can governments not control super companies. Super companies now hold leverage of governments. They have more resources and power than most governments. They lobby and influence political candidates. They often hold upper hands in negotiations with public sector.
Super companies hold more power over workers than the government holds over them. In negotiating contracts and setting job requirements. To sacking employees and imposing working conditions and environments.
Super companies can not be held accountable to the law. The government simply doesn't have enough resources to hold all companies accountable. The government can set examples on some companies but they can't regulate and govern every company they don't have the resources. | 56 | >A super company can hire experts to legally find ways around legislation and laws.
That doesn't mean the government has less power over companies, it means they're writing poorly worded laws
>They have more resources and power than most governments.
Speaking as someone in the US, The US budget is around 4T a year.
Amazon's 2018 revenue was 280B. The government is still 14x larger than Amazon, which is one of the highest revenue earners in the US. The company does not have more power or resources than the company.
At the end of the day, the government could pass a law and come down and stop Amazon. They could freeze their assets. Without their money they're going to quickly collapse. Amazon can not do this to the US government, so I'd argue the US government still has far more power than the company. | 35 |
Do you have an internal monologue? | I have one constantly myself. I’m always thinking to myself. I thought everyone one earth always has been and always will be like this, but I found out yesterday not everyone has an internal monologue. Some people don’t have one at all. This BLEW my mind. I can’t imagine what it’s like to not have one. I can’t figure out how the other side of the coin works, or functions, or processes.
I’m curious to learn more about this.
I’m curious how my monologue compares to others monologues, and I’m curious to know how people without one tick.
I want to know if those without an internal monologue can comprehend or fathom having one, as I can’t comprehend not having one.
Shoot me a message and lemme know if you do or if you don’t, if you do how active it is! | 72 | Ok, it’s like this, hear me out.
What people don’t realize is that, we sorta still do have one, but one that most people aren’t very conscious of. But you can think if it like, instead of it being in the language of English, it’s by another language we’ve learned. We think in the language of feeling.
Here’s sort of an example. If specifically YOU looked at the stove and wondered “what’s cooking on the stove?”, you would probably hear yourself asking in your head. But what invoked you to think that? For a brief moment even you had a period between looking at the stove, and asking yourself the question. In that moment you FELT curious, which invoked you to ask yourself.
That feeling is usually the end of the line for people. Most people can interpret that feeling for what it is, but if you can’t for whatever reason, you’re brain will have you interpret the feeling into a sentence to better understand it. | 28 |
Shouldn't the existence of consciousness scare us? | Assuming the following points:
a) Consciousness exists and can be created by the universe
b) Your consciousness was created once, either by random chance or any other process (which process has no importance). This means the same thing could happen again in the future, or it could even have happened in the past. You can't be sure this is the only time (this life) you have been experiencing subjectively.
c) There is no agent looking over the universe and keeping morals in check (the holocaust happened)
**From these points we can conclude that an apathetic, possibly random agent (let's say the universe) can cause innocent beings to experience feelings that can be horrible.** If you look at history, the majority of lives lived to this day have had a lot of suffering, I would even go so far as to saying more suffering than pleasure. We are constantly in a state of unrest, worrying about staying live or the next meal or keeping warm.
This is a terrifying truth of reality. **Life is forced subjective experience of possibly horrible feelings. The option of suicide or sleep can easily be taken from you**, even without going too far in thought experiments. Someone would simply have to strap you down.
**My conclusion is that consciousness is scary. I would even go so far as to describe it as a nightmare.**
There is no current scientific theory of consciousness, and the early ideas are that it is a basic property of the universe, similar to gravity and other kinds of forces. This can mean that either there is one single consciousness from which we are a division of, or each one of us is a consciousness among an infinity of them. Either way, these early theories of consciousness imply we are stuck in reality for as long as it exists (eternity?).
Please go ahead and counterargue, I have been "studying" this topic for quite some time and believe I can further defend my points in more detail. I have very high standards for my reasoning and make sure I'm being rational in my conclusions.
**In other words: Please prove me wrong cause I don't want to be scared :)** | 17 | It seems like your argument is based on a negativity bias. Consciousness also enables you to experience pleasure, peace, and fulfilment. By your reasoning, consciousness could also be exciting, strange, intangible, or just about any other emotive. Conscious experience is not entirely pain and terror, even if it includes those things. Without having had all conscious experience ever, how could one determine if the bad outweighs the good? | 10 |
Eli5: how does a toaster only click when it’s connected to electricity? | It seems so simple yet I can’t seem to find an answer anywhere. | 195 | the mechanism relies on the electromagnetic field created by the current flowing through the switch you close when you press the lever
so it holds down as long as the timer allows for and if it switches off the electricity, the electromagnet opens and releases the main switch in turn killing the whole circuit
if you really want to learn more i highly suggest watchin technology connections' video on toasters. he explains it in great detail | 259 |
What exactly is Particle-Wave Duality of Light? | I have read a little bit about Quantum Mechanics and this is a bizarre phenomenon(for someone who didn't take GCSE Physics) that I've come across that isn't explained very well.. So I was wondering if someone can perhaps provide me with a more comprehensive explanation with suitable analogies so that I have a better intuitive understanding of the subject. | 16 | Waves and particles are concepts that have quite different properties.
The following are simplistic representations of some of the classical properties of waves and particles:
Waves are considered to be entities that don't have a single position, but are instead spread out over an area. In addition, two waves can interfere with each other and depending on the conditions, this interference can amplify the wave or even extinguish it. A wave can even interfere with itself, for example through it's reflection (throw a pebble in a body of water and you can see the interference of the wave with it's reflection off the edge of the water).
A particle is a discrete unit. You can count them. They have a single, well-defined position and direction. While different particles may interact, they do so in an intuitive way, according to classical mechanics. A good analogy for particle behavior and interaction is a pool table, with the balls (particles) moving around and bumping into each other and the walls.
Whether light consists of particles or waves has been a back-and-forth matter in science. In the 1800s it was discovered that light is a form of electromagnetism and through the work of Faraday, Maxwell and others, light was established as a wave phenomenon.
However, in the early 20th century quantum theory reignited the notion of light as a particle phenomenon. Work by Einstein and later Compton revealed that light had properties that could be explained through particle theory, but not with wave theory.
Eventually quantum physics evolved and the differences were reconciled with the conclusion being that light exhibits properties of both waves and particles. Depending on exactly what you're looking at, you'll find light behaving like a classical wave, like a particle or like something that's neither of those two.
For example, in the dual-slit experiment, a light source is directed at an opaque surface with 2 parallel slits in it. The light passes through the slits and is projected on a surface behind it. Doing this reveals interference patterns that are consistent with classical wave theory, but can't be explained with pure particle theory.
On the other hand, in some instances, light can be measured not as a continuous wave, but instead as discrete units of energy, as if they were separate particles. One instance of this is the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon where certain materials emit electrons when exposed to light. This phenomenon was first explained by Albert Einstein (for which he won the Nobel prize), by considering light as discrete "quanta" of energy.
So there you have it. Particle-wave duality of light means that light behaves as both particle and wave, depending on the situation. However, classical particle and wave theories are insufficient to completely describe light, which is where quantum mechanics comes in.
And as an encore: It's not just light that exhibits particle-wave duality. It's everything. The aforementioned dual-slit experiment also works with electrons, for example. In general, the heavier/bigger something is, the less pronounced its wave aspects are, which is why we don't have to consider the wave properties of macroscopic objects at all. | 25 |
[Home Improvement] How has Tim survived into adulthood being as accident prone as he is? | 15 | I assume doing the show increased his rate of accidents by a ton, since he seems to get viewership by being somewhat willing to get into crazy accidents. Even if he is not doing it intentionally, he does continue to work on the show which requires him to do _potentially_ dangerous work on a regular basis. It's possible that prior to this he didn't directly involve himself in this type of work frequently. | 16 |
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CMV: Anita Sarkeesian is a horrible person, a sexist and a liar. Her examples of discrimination are easy to disprove. | You may be able to change my view, which I hope, but you will never be able to change the fact that Anita Sarkeesian has lied and over exaggerated things more times than necessary.
[I feel everyone should watch this video before they attempt to change my view, as it presents most of the information I get my opinion about, along with other information, all of which has been reported by multiple sources and is highly likely to be true.
](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuRSaLZidWI)
Firstly, let me start off by saying that the sexism in the gaming community is tiny compared to the sexism present in hyper-conservative countries, and I'm not talking about Christian ones or only Muslim ones, but even countries like India, my home country, are full of sexism (but not rape. Stop the rape stuff). Anita and the feminists should be focusing on those. Which raises the question “Why do you give a shit?” That's because, it's affecting me tons, which I'll talk about later.
Sexism and racism aren't defined by “prejudice+power,” because if I go to a restaurant run by blacks and aren't allowed in because I'm brown, I will be more than pissed, and Indiana anyone? My point is, discrimination against someone's gender is exactly that, and I hate the entire “it's against women ONLY” attitude. There is nothing wrong with being male, it is something we are born into. So saying it's virtually always men committing school shootings is one thing. Calling masculinity “toxic” is another. There's nothing “toxic” about masculinity. It's not even always men committing these shootings; contrary to what you'd think, there's not that many school shootings, so the fact I can mention at least four female school shooters off of the top of my head, [not including that one the Boomtown Rats based their song off of](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Don%27t_Like_Mondays), and six male school shooters (two of them part of the same shooting). So, it's nowhere closed to “virtually always' being men.
This is also because, psychologically, men tend to act out based off of their emotions, whereas women are hurt a lot easier physically and tend to bottle these up, feeling insecure a lot easier. That's just psychology. That does help say that men are more aggressive, however, but to dish out real violence (remember, violence is different from agression) requires serious problems in the brain that females are also likely to have.
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I used to feel bad about my lying habit, especially when I lied about things that didn't matter a lot. Then I realized I am more honest than a calculator when you put me next to Sarkeesian.
Let's analyze her, I'm sorry, but nitpicking matters a lot. Firstly, context is everything, so when you accuse a game of promoting prostitution and objectification, and show a scene where the hero is freeing human trafficking victims, you come off as nothing but a liar, worst than those who splice together clips of random interviews to change the meaning of what is being said.
Secondly, she admits to being a fan of videogames, and that she's one who holds the opinion they are the future. Next to her “nervous stuttering” present in the video, which is obviously faked to help Anita with her victim complex, she is twiddling her thumbs on a controller – one that's not even turned on. The buttons she presses do nothing in all video games I can think off (literally for an hour I tried to analyze what she was doing), and the fact that she steals gameplay footage instead of filming some herself shows that she really couldn't care less about them.
[
Here is a one minute video of her stating she is a huge fan of videogames alongside a video of her stating that she finds the violence in games gross, and that she is \(a verbatim quote\) “not a fan of video games, I actually had to learn a lot about them in the process of videogames” alongside a video where she says “I-I love games, I'm-I'm a fan of games.” Long sentence there, but you should be getting the point by now.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW-69xXD734) Sargon mentions a Confidence trick, something you should have heard of before.
[
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Now, more lying. About Hitman:Absolution. Firstly, she mentions that some bodies in the game are only there to be used as background props – which is true for most people in the game, no matter their gender.](https://youtu.be/WuRSaLZidWI?t=110) [Those guys on the train in City 17, only one of which talk to you? Only there to give you a sense of depression and a London Calling-type theme to the world. They serve no purpose, and the game itself would be the same without them \(not without the fighting guys though\), but they're only there to show you the harsh treatment present in the fictional world.](https://youtu.be/y_3vMUOayyc?t=62)
[
This is the exact quote she uses: “Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters.” Your gameshow buzzer would go off at that point because you forgot one very important fact: the game penalizes you for killing them, and you're not supposed to do so. In fact, you're meant to sneak past. Everyone's bodies in the games, even the fully clothed ones, can be killed and the same perverse acts \(by that I mean dragging them around or putting them in boxes\) can be performed on them.](https://youtu.be/WuRSaLZidWI?t=110)
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And as to why it's affecting me. Well, firstly, she pulled the entire “videogames cause violence” card, which has been bugging me my entire life, and secondly I CAN'T JUST FUCKING TELL SOMEONE I PLAY VIDEOGAMES IF THEY'VE HEARD OF ANITA SARKEESIAN.
I believe Anita Sarkeesian has ruined people's identities and hobbies for her personal gain.
I invite you to change my view, please.
_____
> *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!* | 16 | OP, can you elaborate on your claim that women are more likely than men to have "serious problems in the brain"?
Are you talking about organic brain damage? Mental illness? Something else?
What is the foundation for this claim? | 17 |
ELI5: The Pros and Cons of Universal Healthcare. | 220 | Pros:
* Everyone has health care coverage.
* Catastrophic illnesses or accidents no longer bankrupt families.
* Theoretically, the state could drive preventative care programs as a way to reduce costs.
Cons:
* It costs money. Someone has to pay for this with taxes.
* The state gets even more involved in your private life.
* There may be moral hazard attached to getting something for free. | 171 |
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ELI5: With the amount of space debris orbitting the planet, how do satellites and space stations mitigate against impacts? | 15 | "Space debris" is a continuum. The frequency of a piece of debris is directly related to the size of that debris - small particles are significantly more likely than huge chunks of matter. Satellites and space stations are just built with enough external shielding to survive the constant onslaught of tiny particles (mm scale and below).
Larger objects than that are **actively tracked**, and if something is on a collision course with a space station we have enough of an advance warning to move the station out of the way using its onboard thrusters. These happen every so often, maybe once every few years.
Also, there's not actually as much space debris as you might think. Space is a big, big place. Even down in low-earth orbit, the chance of getting pummeled by space debris is only really a concern for very long-lived projects like the ISS that survive in orbit for many years. And this is the "high risk zone". Out in the far reaches of geostationary orbit (many times the altitude), space debris is a non-issue. This is where most satellites live, especially communications satellites. | 12 |
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How does electricity "know" which path has the least resistance? | 16 | Imagine you have a circuit with two different resistors in parallel, connected to a battery. At the moment you close the circuit (i.e. turn it on), you will have electrons leaving the negative side of the battery. They will push against the other electrons on the wire, which will then push on the next ones, etc. See, the thing is, electrons do not move fast. The "drift velocity" of electrons is of the order of mm/s in DC current.
So what you have isn't something really "flowing" through like cars or a river, but things "bumping against eachother", like people rushing in a Walmart on Black Friday. The bigger door (smallest resistance) will have more people (electrons) going in.
| 17 |
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ELI5: what are birthmarks and why do they appear? | 173 | A birthmark is a congenital, benign irregularity on the skin which is present at birth or appears shortly after birth, usually in the first month. They can occur anywhere on the skin. Birthmarks are caused by overgrowth of blood vessels, melanocytes, smooth muscle, fat, fibroblasts, or keratinocytes. | 53 |
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ELI5 - Why is it bad for money to have a fixed value over time? | What's the harm in a dollar's worth being constant? Why is an inflation rate of zero bad? | 158 | Having inflation increases investment, it makes it disadvantageous for you to have tons of cash just laying around. In fact a big problem now is that companies and people are hoarding cash, with inflation there's a big push to invest in things such as an expansion or hiring new employees, because you effectively lose money if you do nothing with it.
0% inflation isn't necessarily bad, its just not optimal, but negative inflation is terrible and was one of the biggest issues in the Depression. Farmers were burning their crops because the prices were so low it wasn't even worth selling them, while people in the cities starved. You can see something similar today with the housing market, where no one wants to buy because the prices keep falling. | 69 |
ELI5: When watching a painful video (ex: a bicycle crash), why do our nerves seem to become active, as if we are feeling the pain ourselves, for a split second? | Not sure this is common but it’s not always pleasant. | 21 | 2 possible reasons.
1) Humans have special kinds of neurons called mirror neurons that allow you to "feel" in a limited sense what other humans are feeling. This is helpful to build empathy and lasting relationships.
2) Our brains are also constantly learning and trying to simulate the effects of the environment on ourselves by observing other humans. For example, if you can learn to avoid a lion after seeing what happens to another human being mauled by a lion, then that's good for your survival. If you "feel" the other guy's pain, you will learn to avoid the lion in the future. So in a sense, when your brain sees a terrible accident happen it simulates the effects to some degree on your own body in order to teach itself to avoid the said danger. | 16 |
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