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[Lovecraft] Does looking at Nyarlathoteps human form make us go insane?
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Looking at any of the eldritch gods makes us go mad, now nyarlathotep can shapeshift, would looking at his human form have the same effect or would it be like looking at any human?
| 16 |
An important thing to keep in mind is that for most Lovecraftian entities, the order of operations isn't "see beasty -> lose mind", it's "encounter odd phenomenon -> be tormented by phenomenon for extended period -> exacerbate erosion of mental stability due to lack of sleep and food plus isolation -> finally encounter the cause of the torment -> snap from the cumulative strain".
Just being in the room with human-form Nyarly isn't going to break you. In fact, the complete lack of context would be a blessing in disguise, because your ignorance of the full ramifications of their presence would take a lot of pressure off; as far as you know, it is just some weird dude, or a hallucination or a dream that can be dismissed when it's over.
| 43 |
How do they detect the direction gravitational waves come from?
| 19 |
A single detector can't, anymore than a single microphone can detect where a signal is coming from.
They use arrival times between multiple sites, just like how you use your ears, to get location.
This is why when there were only 2 ligo detectors the direction of the wave would be spread across the entire sky in a line.
One they had a third detector ( Virgo ) then they can get a much smaller circular spot in the sky.
| 17 |
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How is it I can see through a Diamond, even though it's the densest form of carbon?
|
When something is more dense, its atoms are closer together. If that's the case, then why do the closer-together atoms in a diamond allow more light through than the further-apart atoms of coal?
| 53 |
Atoms are not little opaque balls that block light. Rather, atoms are collections of electric charges (protons and electrons) which can interact with light via their electric charge. The color and transparency of a material is an emergent phenomenon that arises from how the electric field in light interacts with electric charges in the atoms of the material. Whether an object is opaque or transparent is not a fundamental property of its electrons or even its atoms. Rather, it arises from how the electrons are bound in atoms and how the atoms are bound to each other.
Light that encounters a material can either get absorbed, transmitted through, or reflected back. A material is transparent when most of the light that encounters the material is transmitted through. This happens when there is not a strong mechanism in place to absorb or reflect the light. Since light travels forward on its own even when no material is around, transmission is the default behavior for light, i.e. transmission is what always happens when absorption and reflection are poor. Strong absorption and reflection of light by a material usually happen when the electrons in the material couple strongly to the oscillation of the electric field in the light, and are therefore able to redirect the light. The transparency of a material is therefore a function mostly of how strongly or loosely the electrons are bound to one place in the material, and is not a function of how close the atoms are. An extreme example is metals. Metals contain a sea of electrons that are very loosely bound to one place (the conduction electrons). As a result, the electrons are free to respond strongly to the waving electric field in light. Therefore, metals have high reflection and high absorption, and therefore low transmission. In contrast, all the electrons in diamond are very strongly bound, so they cannot interact much with light, so diamond has a high transparency. The whole story is a lot more complex than this because there are so many different ways electrons can form bonds and behave in a material, and because atoms are really quantum objects, but this is a good starting picture.
| 64 |
[Saw] Why did Jigsaw leave Adam to die when he passed his test?
|
Lawrence was supposed to kill Adam by 6 o'clock, but he didn't because he cut off his foot and escape. So Adam survived his test because he didn't die. So why did Jigsaw leave him to die. Also why didnt Lawrence try to get Adam out?
| 16 |
Adam was screwed over by the female assistant. She purposely rigged the test to fail. Lawrence for his part was taken by jigsaw and groomed to be another assistant leaving Adam to die for his inability to save himself. Jigsaw even left the puzzle with multiple solutions so his assistant meddling with one didn't make the test a failure. Adam could have saved himself by cutting his own limb off but chose not to and let Lawrence do it. To jigsaw it showed he didn't have as strong a will to live as Lawrence did and left him to his fate.
| 21 |
[Vampires] If a vampire who cannot enter your house without permission, but is also a police officer, can he enter it with a warrant?
| 1,062 |
You're not going to get a single correct answer because "Vampires" isn't a single, cohesive genre of fiction. Given how popular vampires are, you are going to find examples of this limitation that cross the spectrum:
No Invitation Required - Twilight
Invitation can be implicit (Fright Night, Buffy) or Explicit (True Blood)
Applies to any building, but also anyone can invite in (What We Do In The Shadows) or only privately owned residences (Fright Night)
Invitation is Permanent (Buffy) or can be revoked (True Blood)
The invitation might be restricted to owners, occupants, or anyone that happens to be there.
In the Dungeon's and Dragon's module "Curse of Strahd" one of the unwritten loopholes is that the Vampire Strahd is the feudal lord over all the land and is technically the "owner" of every residence there-in (the people are merely his tenants) and he doesn't need a formal invitation.
The main issue with your scenario is if whether the eminent domain most countries implicitly retain over all property within its borders would count as "permission" or "invitation."
| 782 |
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ELI5: Would it be feasible to make enough solar panels to generate enough electricity for the whole world?
|
[This](http://boingboing.net/2014/06/12/the-total-area-of-solar-panels.html) popped up on my dash recently and I wanted to know if this is or will be possible. This size of the square is pretty damn large though.
| 26 |
The key thing to know about the energy market is that the total supply of electricity at any one time has to match the total demand for electricity.
One of the problems with solar power is that it generates electricity only when it's sunny, and even then only during the day, whereas people tend to use most of their electricity during the evening or at night. That means you need a way to store all the energy that's generated during the day and used later that evening, and storage of electricity is currently quite inefficient and expensive.
| 12 |
ELI5: Why do semi trucks in the United States have front wheels where the lug nuts protrude past the edge of the tire while each subsequent wheel has recessed lug nuts?
|
Currently on a road trip from southern to Northern California and all the trucks we've passed so far have this pattern. Is this an industry standard? Or does it relate to safety in some manner?
| 10,560 |
It's because the front wheels are single (like on your car), while all other wheels are dual. Because of this, the centers of the wheels extend past the edge of the rim. This means you can put two wheels face to face, and bolt them together to the hub. When you look at a set of dual wheels mounted, you see the concave side of the outer wheel, so you see the lugs as being recessed. Since the front wheels are single, they mount them the same way they do the inner wheels of each dual pair, meaning with the convex side facing out.
| 4,785 |
ELI5: Why are Youtube recommendations so awful?
| 42 |
So awful in what sense?
YouTube tries to guess what you might be interested in, but the problem is that this is done by a complex computer program. It is, crucially, not human and thus unable to actually think. The exact algorithms used are not publicly known and are tweaked continually anyhow, but YouTube doesn't have much to go on.
YouTube can't "know" what is actually in a video, but does know about text. So it tries to guess what a video might be about based on that video's metadata, and this includes:
* the video title
* the video description
* the tags
* any closed captions that may be available
* other user settings, such as category, location, etc.
This has no chance of working properly if video uploaders are dishonest, which is one reason why videos can be taken down for "spam, scams and misleading content" if the metadata is designed to try to game the system (never put tags in your video descriptions, that's a common reason for video takedowns).
It also stands no chance of working at all if people don't bother with descriptions and tags, and if they use vague non-descriptive titles.
Even if the metadata is good, there's no guarantee a computer program will understand it. For example, given a title like *Maria and Sandra Make Up*, would a computer program recognise this as a beauty tutorial or an episode in a drama series?
So, already we have lots of metadata that may be incomplete, unreliable or ambiguous, and YouTube has to use that to figure out how all those videos relate to each other.
That's not the only thing YouTube uses, of course. There are other things: other videos you have watched, other videos you have commented on, liked or favourited, what kind of videos your subscribers watch, what kind of videos people you subscribe to watch, and so on and so forth ad infinitum.
At best, it's hit-and-miss.
| 15 |
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ELI5: Why is the EUR falling for the past 6 months? Why is the USD getting stronger?
|
The EUR/USD went from 1.355 in June 8 2014 to 1.200 January 3 2015.
Last time this happened, it was in 2010, when the EUR went from 1.4 (December 2009) to 1.19 (May 2010).
| 330 |
The European Central Bank (ECB) are (or rather have already have been) cutting interest rates to try and boost inflation. This hasn't really worked, so they are printing money. The President of the ECB has just in the last few days confirmed that very soon (probably in January) they will enter into full-blown quantitative easing (QE) in the same manner as the Bank of England, the Fed and the Bank of Japan have done. This increases the amount of money in circulation which in theory will hopefully increase inflation. Increasing the amount of money in circulation weakens that currency.
Conversely, the U.S. Has been experiencing a faster than expected rebound to economic health and cutting back their QE programme, ending it completely in November. Improving US data, especially in wages, employment and GDP has meant that the likelihood is now that they will have to raise rates this year, which increases the attractiveness of the currency as it pays a higher yield.
The result of the above is a falling EURUSD rate.
Also worth noting that the US dollar is what is known as a safe haven currency. It is seen as a safe place to keep your money, so in times of global turmoil (Ukraine, Israel, Greece, Russia, even Ebola to a certain extent) funds follow a flight to safety and the US dollar gains from simple supply and demand economics. Other safe havens include the CHF and JPY.
<edit>Safe haven stuff.
| 113 |
[Earth-616] How smart is Otto Octavius compared to other super geniuses?
|
He must be really damn smart. Guy has Ai controlled arms and could create a mini sun etc. Is he at the top ten?
| 17 |
He is not in the top 10.
Mr. Fantastic, Doctor Doom, Hank Pym, Iron Man, Beast, Bruce Banner, Amadeus Cho, Black Panther, Leader, Beast, and Valeria Richards, Mister Sinister, High Evolutionary, and Spider-Man are all smarter. He's a genius no doubt, but the Marvel universe has its share of geniuses that make Doc Ock look like nothing.
| 24 |
ELI5: Why does the US economy depend so much on growth? Isn't that unsustainable over time?
| 66 |
Five of us are a family. Each day our parents give us $1 to buy ice cream. Each day, the ice cream truck comes by with ice cream bars which we buy for $1. One day our parents have another kid but the six of us only get $5. All of us want ice cream but only 5/6 of us can buy ice cream unless our parents give us another dollar or the ice cream man can figure out a way to make the ice cream for less.
TL/DR - We need GDP growth to match or exceed population growth, anything less is unsustainable. Growth is achieved by: 1. More efficiently allocating resources if it is not currently optimal or 2. Innovation makes resource use more efficient.
Edit - wording
| 29 |
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ELI5: what happens to all of the new cars that aren't sold? Every dealership you drive by has new cars, but all of them aren't sold. I'm curious how the supply of cars gets recycled with new cars filling up dealerships every year.
| 17 |
New cars are owned by the dealership and paid for with borrowed money. So the cars *have* to sell. The dealer might occasionally pay off the loan intending to keep a car, or if the dealership fails their bank will repossess.
But they're not allowed to make some car payments and let others go to repossession. The bank either gets *all* their interest payments or *takes the entire inventory.* Yikes!
Once the dealer orders a new car, it *will* sell, even if the dealer takes a loss.
| 11 |
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ELI5: What makes people get horny?
| 16 |
Guys: An attractive female, or thoughts of one, or the idea that there may be one nearby or on TV, or simply the idea that an attractive female exists.
Girls: The world may never know. There are rumors of rare specimens that experience arousal and desire on a regular basis, but none have ever been proven to exist. There are rumors, much like those surrounding the loch ness monster, bigfoot, and the abominable snowman. But all we have to go on are fuzzy stories and half remembered tales of "that one crazy girl from college."
| 14 |
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ELI5: Compressor surge.
| 1,947 |
A compressor surge occurs when the discharge pressure is higher than the pressure the compressor can put out, literally causing a backwards flow/possible seizing of a compressor. This can cause immense damage to a compressor and/or turbine and is why they require surge protection valves.
Imagine a shallow stream flowing gently... Now hit it with a firehose pointing upstream. You've interrupted the flow with a higher pressure and potentially caused damage to the stream's structure.
| 1,043 |
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CMV: Day drinking is optimal.
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I will preface by saying, I am referring to the benefits of being drunk in itself. Being drunk generally feels good. However, alcohol consumption to the point of feeling drunk has negative health effects.
Getting drunk at night, assuming a normal sleep schedule, typically entails falling asleep while drunk. Yet...Your body is still experiencing the negative effects of alcohol while you sleep through the benefits of being drunk. You are incurring the cost of being drunk, while not realizing the benefits. In addition and based on my personal experience, falling asleep while drunk does not lead to waking up well rested.
The obvious arguments against this will be with regards to social life. I completely agree that if getting drunk with your friends gives you additional utility, by all means drink at night. However, if you are simply looking for that strong buzz now and again...Day drinking is the way to go.
_____
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| 70 |
Your biggest argument seems to be that drinking during the day allows you to be drunk without a hangover and you admit that you might lose out on the social side of it. With care it is rather simple to avoid a hangover by doing things such as eating food while you drink and drinking water alongside it. This allows you to be drunk and experience the social aspect with little more fear of a hangover.
| 19 |
Where does Coruscant's oxygen come from?
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Seriously. The whole planet is one gigantic city and from what we have seen there do not seem to be any large wilderness preserves that would generate oxygen via plant life.
Considering the utterly massive population of the planet where is the oxygen coming from?
(thx to 'Bill the Galactic Hero' for inspiring the question)
| 30 |
Contrary to popular belief, the majority of Earth's oxygen is not produced by trees in forests. It's produced by phytoplankton -- microorganisms that use photosynthesis to produce food and oxygen.
On Coruscant, food is made from processed biomatter grown in tanks at huge food production plants. The primary sources of that biomatter? Yeast (for protein) and phytoplankton. Coruscant is a huge city, but there's enough food production going on there to produce oxygen for the entire planet.
| 59 |
[Lord of the Rings] Do the events of LOTR change much if Thorin survived the events of The Hobbit?
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Prior to the Battle of the Five Armies, Thorin gifts Bilbo a Mithril vest. Bilbo instead decides "you know what, *you* have it for the moment. You are about to enter a battle, after all.". The Mithril saves Thorin during his duel with Azog, and Thorin survives the battle. He gifts Bilbo the Mithril vest once more, remarking that Bilbo was right to refuse it at first.
Does much change from this point? Would Thorin be involved in the events of LOTR or would he remain in Erebor restoring his kingdom?
| 19 |
In the grand scheme, nothing would change.
During the war of the ring, dwarven and human forces were besieged by easterlings until they had to fall back to the very gates of Erebor. It was there that superior dwarven defenses and natural choke points allowed the defenders to hold off the easterlings long enough for them to retreat. Ultimately they withdrew from the field, and the ring's destruction ensured they never returned. Dain was killed in the fighting, so it's likely that Thorin would have also perished if he were in charge.
| 21 |
[Pacific Rim] How were they able to give the Kaiju appropriate names without seeing what they looked like first?
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It seems that they assigned codenames to the Kaiju as soon as they appeared on their tracking systems, but they couldn't have known what they looked like until the Jaegers got there and saw them up close and personal. So how do they know to name them things like "Knifehead"?
| 83 |
They had incredibly detailed scanners on the Rift at all times giving them live feeds of the things coming through. This is how they immediately knew the classification of each kaiju. They'd also get silhouettes from multiple angles right off the bat, allowing them to model the creature immediately.
| 88 |
ELI5: Is it more profitable for a music artist to have a song in the number one spot for a short while, or to have a song in the charts for a lengthier amount of time?
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What i mean is that the number one song quickly fades out of the charts if the title is not clear enough.
| 68 |
It depends the number sold and length of time. You can sell 100,000 albums in a month then fall off the radar, or slow burn to 100,000 over a few months. Also, unless the artist is self publishing, they're not making all that much off album sales, at least initially.
| 15 |
ELI5: Antilag systems in turbo cars.
| 54 |
A turbocharger works by using air pressure from the exhaust to compress the fuel/air mixture going into the engine increasing engine performance. Unfortunately, there isn't always enough exhaust pressure to run the turbo at the beginning of the acceleration, so there is a delay (lag) between when the accelerator is pushed and when the turbocharger starts doing its work.
Antilag devices solve this by increasing the exhaust pressure even when the engine isn't doing much work. The essence of how these things work is by burning fuel outside of the engine and sending that exhaust through the turbocharger.
| 16 |
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ELI5: how is time relative? I understand the human aspect of it but how can time pass slower near the speed of light?
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Wouldn't assuming time passes slower near the speed of light be assuming that time and light are related? That assumption seems wrong as time still passes in the complete dark.
| 25 |
You are always moving at the speed of light in 4 dimensional spacetime. Your speed in the 3 space directions plus your speed in the time direction always add up to c. Normally all of that speed is in the time direction, but if you move really really fast you take some speed from the time direction to go in one of the space directions so you slow down in the time direction.
| 12 |
Is the dating app industry a market industry? And does its externalities warrant government intervention?
|
(pls help a tired college senior out) I'm writing a paper on how the market failures of a certain market industry due to externalities require government intervention in the name of social justice. was thinking about how the dating app industry is in a unique position where the users themselves are the buyers and users, and how companies themselves profit off of these users thru advertising revenues and premium subscriptions.
Dating app externalities include:
1) the information asymmetry when users deliberately withhold info abt themselves to appeal to "buyers"
2) physical hazards that come with transacting in an online space, but especially so in dating apps where you get to meet up with ppl, which implies safety risks
3) distorting cultural/psychological notions of love and relationships (e.g. commodifying yourself, assessing yourself the way you do others, instant gratification, exacerbating loneliness etc)
4) involvement of minors due to low barriers to entry
is the way i understand the externalities in this industry accurate? and are these externalities dangerous enough that it should prompt the exercise of police power? would rlly appreciate anyone's input
| 22 |
These are not externalities as conventionally considered in economics. Externalities are ones where people who aren't parties to the transaction are affected. A dating app user who hazards their physical safety is still a participant in the transaction. About the only one you list here are "distorting cultural/psychological notions of love and relationships", and whether distorting our cultural/psychological notions is good or bad is not a question economics can answer, or I'd say any science. Also you'd have to somehow consider the harms of that against the social and psychological benefits to the users from dating apps.
One question, when thinking about an intervention, is do the benefits of an intervention outweigh the costs. There are government failures: goverment officials have limited information, governments have biases in which groups they listen to (e.g. wealthy retirees have more time and resources to lobby than poor parents of young kids), and voters have limited capacity to monitor. Plus there's the monetary costs.
| 31 |
When I listen to a song, do I hear one sound wave, or a bunch of sound waves (i.e. for each instrument)?
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Is there a separate sound wave for say, guitar, voice, piano, bass, etc., or are all of the sounds combined into one wave? Is this even a relevant question or am I missing the whole concept? Does the mastering process have any bearing on this?
| 29 |
All of the waves from the different instruments add together into a single wave. It's actually kind of interesteing that even though they're all just added on top of each other our ears and brain are able to pick the different sounds out from the mixture. Mathematically you can see how this disentangling is performed by a fourier transform.
| 28 |
Is there a name for the phenomena of a person assigning 2 different values to the same asset?
|
So I was speaking with my friend who recently just got tickets to a sporting event. I asked him what the current market price for the tickets were and he said they were hovering around the $100 / ticket point. I asked him if he there was a high enough price point where he would consider selling the tickets. He responded with "No" because he really wanted to go to this event. I then asked him if he would have been willing to buy these tickets at the market price of $100 / ticket and he also responded with "No" since he would not spend that much on these tickets.
This seems to be a somewhat of a paradoxical economic situation: my friend would clearly rather have the ticket instead of selling it for $100. On the other hand, my friend would also rather have $100 dollars rather than spend them on the tickets.
I definitely think there are be many different reasons for this situation, but I'm sort of interested in the following possible explanation: it seems that there is a "psychological inertial" when it comes to transactions where we sometimes prefer to "hang onto" the asset we currently own, even if the transaction occurs at a price point we deem as fair/favorable.
My question: is there a term/name for such a phenomena? I believe this might be something studied in Behavioral Economics and I would love to learn more about it, if at all possible. Sorry for the longwinded post, but I would love any insight or resources anyone could share :)
| 24 |
The specific effect you’re looking for is the endowment effect, which describes the tendency of people to assign greater value to something they already own than they would assign to the same thing if they did not own it.
| 60 |
Wouldn’t UBI devalue the currency?
|
Currency is a form of exchange. A form of trade. I trade my service or goods for that currency. But the reason I trade is because I believe there is value in that currency. And I find value in that currency because it is not easy to come by and I need to work hard for it.
This especially made me think of people who vouch for UBI as AI becomes more prevalent in our society and certain jobs become more automated and people are unable to work. At that point when UBI is given out, what is the point or even value of money. It’s like the government giving out pieces of paper to its people and tell them to go “buy” stuff if no work is being put into obtaining it.
| 50 |
The answer is no, unless the UBI is implemented stupidly. If the government just prints up money and hands it out as a UBI, then yes, that's what would happen. If the government raises taxes, and pays for it out of taxes, then that wouldn't happen.
| 95 |
ELI5: How did the states get their shapes?
|
I actually searched for this and surprisingly it wasn't on /r/eli5 .
I googled it also and just came up with a TV show and no real answers. I guess my question is. Was it just who claimed the land while the states were being formed? Or is it a real reason behind the random shapes of the states?
| 18 |
Sometimes it was geographic boundaries like rivers or mountain ranges. Sometimes it was done via treaty with other countries (and they stuck when the state borders were formed). Sometimes they were just chosen arbitrarily (especially where the straight lines happen).
Obviously there are more details with every state, but the above is a good generalization.
| 18 |
How can we keep a human employed in the future when robots can do everything for cheaper?
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I figure that if robots/automations become cheaper than paying for human workers, then why hire people at all? Also, you don’t have to worry about things like liability in high risk jobs. What are robots going to do to the job market? What will keep humans from becoming completely reliant on them? I see obvious potential for computer science/engineering/robotics jobs, but it seems like we are on our way to letting robots take the wheel so humans don’t have to lift a finger.
| 20 |
There are a few basic scenarios:
- Post-scarcity economy: As pointed out before, robots do all of the work. Everything beyond what is needed to live is strictly optional. Economics will consist of things which are artificially scarce (intellectual property), innately scarce beyond the need for labor (front seats at a concert), or produced purely to say a human produced it (art, handmade tools, organic produce). Jobs will consist of computer scientists and roboticists creating new robots, performance art, producing things by hand because people will pay for that, etc. Everyone will be able to live the lifestyle of what we consider today to be the idle rich, similar to how the modern-day welfare recipient still lives better than most kings did a thousand years ago.
- Mass die-off: Suppose the oligarchs in control of existing wealth decide they don't want to provide the fruits of their robots labor for free. Huge swathes of the population can no longer gain useful employment because there's no demand for their skills. The wealthy have no obligation to employ these people, and don't even need them to exist. Either Charity, family support, and existing public institutions allow them to exist until they die, or they starve to death in the streets.
- Revolution\Militarization: People don't like the idea of dying in the streets, especially when roboticization means they don't have to. They violently oppose the policies of the wealthy, and take control of the means of production. Down with the Bourgeoisie, up with the proletariat, revolution! Revolution!
| 31 |
[WH40K] Say Horus is never injured, the Heresy never happens, and Horus decides to integrate willing xenos species into the Imperium after contact with the Interex. What does the galaxy look like now?
| 17 |
You're essentially asking a Best-possible scenario... But I'll bite.
Without the Horus Heresy, the Imperium continues to spread, solidifying the Emperors control over the Galaxy. Invasion of the Webway increases Human FTL and trade, but bring the Imperium more in conflict with the Dark City.
Realising they have no choice, many Eldar join the now more tollerant Imerium, their technology and that of other Xenos causing tension with the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Emperor is forced to enact his final solution and anihilates the Machine Cult. This heavily damages Imperial production, but Eldar and Interex technology quickly closes the gap.
The use of the Webway, and the psychic knowledge of the Eldar rapidly accelerates humanities Psyker manifestation, making Psykers far more common and safe.
The increased stability and peace weakens the Chaos Gods. The stability of the Eldar may even cause their gods to re-exert themselves, tearing Slaanesh appart from within.
The Eldar warn/manipulate the Emperor into at striking against the sleeping Necrons. The Rogue C'tan are hunted and destroyed. The Necron Dynasties are shattered before they can awaken.
The Tau may not ever come to exist. If the Eldar and Interex can convinced the Imperium to spare them, they may develop and one day join the 'Galactic Imperium'.
The Orks cannot be erradicated, but they are once again contained.
When the Tyranids arrive, they find a far stronger, though also far more populated galaxy. They arrive in greater numbers than before. The enevitable outcome is still uncertain.
| 29 |
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[Batman] I Want to get Piss Drunk With The Joker
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I asked this question about Darth Vader, and now I'm asking again. So I want to get drunk with The Joker. How do I get him to drink with me, and more importantly, how do I survive?
| 17 |
Well, Joker’s nigh-immune to toxins, so alcohol wouldn’t phase him. Not sure if that would make it too boring for him to agree or an incentive to join. However, he finds pain and suffering at the expense of someone other than himself hilarious, so be prepared to get embarrassingly, humiliatingly, violently drunk and hungover. Pray you’re a funny drunk, but not in the way of cracking jokes and being the center of attention; he hates having someone else try to steal his thunder.
As for how you’d stay alive, there’s really no hard rules for situations in which the Joker might spare you, so good luck.
But on the off chance you happen to be Batman (the real one—he’ll know if you’re not), you’ve got this in the bag. It’d be such a chaotic and unorthodox thing for Bats to do that Joker could never resist enabling it.
| 17 |
ELI5: Why is it that when we watch footage from the 70s a lot of times it looks better than footage of the 90s?
|
I don't know what it is, but it looks good and sharp despite being pixelated.
Example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFfnlYbFEiE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFfnlYbFEiE)
&#x200B;
edit: oh shit, this blew up. Thanks for all the answers. I learned a lot! =D
| 24,354 |
Video from the 70's was all recorded on analog film. Film actually has an incredible resolution - sometimes better than 4K - so as long as you have the original film you can go back and re-digitize the footage and get high resolution videos.
Video from the 90's was often recorded on magnetic tape - like a VCR - which had _terrible_ resolution. There is nothing we can do to go back and get high-res videos from that tape, because the source material isn't good enough.
| 23,764 |
What does a grad student gain by having me present a poster of their work at a conference?
|
(Social psych) Beginning of last spring I began assisting a graduate student in one of my labs with a project. All I've really done is fill out and submit the IRB, create some study materials, and put together the survey. I've done some background reading, read her project proposal, and I definitely understand the purpose of her study and her hypotheses. Months ago, when I started working with her, the intent was for me to be able to present a poster of her work at a national conference. This was framed as her helping me out, giving me some presentation experience, and having something to add to my CV. I would be first author on the poster.
Since then, over the summer I had the opportunity to do my own work in a different lab on a completely different topic... that I am actually interested in. (I guess I should mention that I have no actual interest in her project, and I think she knows that, it was just about her having some assistance and me getting some experience.)
Now, with my own project done, I would really rather not present her work - I would like to present mine. However, this grad student has been really helpful throughout my time in the lab, I like her as a person, and me working with her was for the purpose of having me give a poster of her work.
How rude would it be for me to not present her work? This probably seems obvious to a lot of you... but as an undergrad I have NO IDEA how SHE benefits from having me present a poster of her work. I hinted in an email about presenting my own work instead, but she basically ignored that I had mentioned it.
TL;DR
Grad student wants me to present a poster of her work, but I would rather present my own work. Is this rude?
EDIT: Everything worked out fine. I asked her and she was super warm about it. I'm pretty sure I was just getting weird vibes from her because I was giving off weird vibes. I'm presenting my work at a regional conference, and hers at a national conference. (Although I am going to try and present two posters at each.)
| 19 |
She's a co-author on the poster of her work. Is she a co-author on the poster of your work? If you present her work she gets a new item for her CV. If you present your work (and she's not on it) she gets nothing despite investing time in you.
If you want to present your work submit an abstract with your work. If it's too late to do that, it's also too late to change the presentation topic.
| 12 |
ELI5: What's the difference between nihilism, misanthropy and antinatalism?
| 21 |
Well they're 3 completely different things.
Nihilism is the acceptance that life is without greater meaning or purpose. It's not a negative philosophy but rather the appreciation that nothing you do "matters", but that that's only because nothing at all "matters" and so there's no obligation for anyone to do anything aside from that which they choose in the moment.
Misanthropy is a negative philosophy that views humans as a net negative on the universe and advocates humans as a villain in a greater story. It supports the notion that humans have innately "bad" qualities and that even our attempts to overcome those qualities are guided by selfish intent.
Antinatalism is simply the view that having children is ethically pauce for one reason or another; it can stem from misanthropy or it can relate to current economic, political or physical climates. It's just the notion that bringing a child into this world is a bad thing, whether for the world or for the child.
| 53 |
|
[Superman] Is Clark REALLY weak to magic, or is his brain merely limiting his powers?
|
Clark has mental blocks in place on his powers. Is it possible that one of these blocks causes his weakness to magic?
| 22 |
Superman is "weak" to magic not because his powers have some special interaction with it but because magic (especially in DC) tends to not factor in physical durability at all. Magic often describes the end effect rather than the process that achieves it. For example, a spell that causes everything to burn as if it were made of paper would burn Superman to a crisp, but a spell that heats things to 500,000 degrees wouldn't harm him because that amount of heat wouldn't normally harm him.
| 61 |
[MCU] How exactly did Strange keep track of fourteen million possible outcomes while ensuring there were no duplicates?
|
He didn't have pen and paper or a computer, so how did he even count that exact number, much less know he was trying something completely different each time?
A million alternatives is probably impossible to keep all in your head no matter how good your memory is.
| 18 |
1. He had the power of an infinity stone, the time stone to be precise, so human limitations don't matter.
2. It doesn't matter if some of the outcomes are duplicates, he only looked for one where *they* win, everything else was obviously a failure for him
3. He is a sorcerer, he does magic and maybe there is a memory spell?
| 37 |
Visiting Scientist making up data (looking for advice)
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Throwaway account because some people at my school know my other one.
I'm a PhD student in chemistry in my 3rd year at a large public flagship university in the USA, collecting data for later processing for a paper to be published (much) later. Some wild stuff has happened, and I'm looking for some advice on what you think I should do about this. Long story for all the context with a TL/DR at the end. Thanks!
Yesterday while checking over the instruments I noticed a loose bit of tubing, and after double checking the manual for the instrument I was sure that without this tube connected, the instrument would not be collecting any data. It would still run like normal, but no sample would be collected. I promptly reconnected this tube and asked my (other PhD student) coworkers about it. They all told me that they had also seen the loose tube and that one of our lab's visiting scientists had set it up and left the tube off, telling them not to mess with the instrument.
Now, this particular instrument has been running for the past month. That tube has not been connected the entire time, meaning this instrument has not collected any samples for the past month when there should have been 1-2 per day. This could be an honest mistake by the visiting scientist, but we (the grad students) are not feeling very generous towards them because they have a history of being very rude to us and asking us to do things they just don't want to do.
Today, the visiting scientist sent me a figure comparing our data to the data of a nearby environmental sensor, showing that we have good agreement between our measurements. These data have been entirely falsified and I have the evidence. Now that the instrument is properly connected, the data look quite different, and I have eyewitness and some photographic evidence that the tube was never connected, so no sample could have possibly been collected. The data were recorded in a notebook and spreadsheet and look like a random distribution, which is to be expected as it is really a variety of blanks. After asking the visiting scientist for the data to go with the figure, I can see their numbers are, for the most part, totally different from what is in the spreadsheet.
This visiting scientist has also hassled one of the other grad students about "doing \[their\] data processing wrong" and then when asked to show how to do it correctly, picked and chose random cells in the spreadsheet to get the values they wanted instead of filling down the rows and using the correct (though blank) measurements.
This is obviously a major breach of academic honesty, but there are a few important details that make me uncertain of what to do:
* Visiting scientist has their PhD and has published quite a few papers (others with falsified data perhaps?).
* Visiting scientist is not from my home institution or my home country and I don't know anything about the system over there.
* My PI is extremely nonconfrontational, and I'm afraid they might choose to ignore the problem instead of addressing it since Visiting Scientist will only be with us for another two months or so.
* We are in the early stages of this study, nowhere near publishing. This figure was not presented in a manuscript or at a conference or any kind of formal presentation, so I'm not sure how "academic honesty" kicks in yet
Thankfully, this data is not a big part of the study, so it's no real loss if we don't include it and scrap that part of the project. That being said, making up data is completely unacceptable. My fellow grad students have already been warned to not take a co-authorship of any paper that Visiting scientist decides to publish later.
If you were in my shoes, what would you do? Have you ever encountered something like this before? What kind of punishment does this conduct incur? I'm going to tell my PI, of course.
TL/DR:
Visiting scientist is flagrantly making up data, but I'm afraid my PI will just choose to ignore the problem instead of getting involved.
| 197 |
Even if your PI is non-confrontational, they need to know about this. ASAP.
What she or he does with that information may not all be handled "publicly", but you don't want your PI to unknowingly put their name on false data (which blows back on the lab as a whole if discovered), to encourage you to include or reference the visiting scientist's data, or to pursue research directions within the group based on false data.
| 215 |
ELI5: Why do some .gif files take longer to load than a better quality, even longer, video?
| 339 |
Ok, so first you're going to need to know a bit about compression. Say you had a text file that's full of nothing but the letter A over and over, for like a thousand A's. You could represent that in a lot less space by writing "A x 1000".
In a GIF file, it's stored sorta the same way. Instead of going "green pixel, green pixel, green pixel, blue pixel", it stores it as "green pixel x 3, blue pixel", saving big patches of the same color as one big block of that color, instead of recording each pixel individually. This works really well for simple, cartoony images, with large sections of the same color, but it doesn't work very well for photographic images with lots of shades to them. GIFs are just plain bad for photographic images, which is what high quality videos are made from.
On top of the fact that GIF is bad at photos, proper video codecs are optimized not only for photographic images, but they can compress images through time. In a GIF file, each frame is a separate picture, compressed individually, and no matter what's on the next frame, it compresses the same, whereas video codecs can compare similar frames, figure out which parts are moving faster than others, and not have to store parts of the background for each frame.
| 271 |
|
[Hitman] How come no one ever suspects you with the tattoo?
|
47's signature barcode tattoo seems like it would be a very obvious tell of who was 47 when he's wearing a disguise - head covering obviously excluded.
| 29 |
If we assume that 47 is good at his job, he is probably getting Silent Assassin on every job. In-universe, this would be making every job look like an accident or just not being outed in whatever disguise he is in.
Let's give a hypothetical from the hotel mission where 47 hits Jordan Cross. Let's say you are the receptionist. This is a classy hotel. You're used to seeing guys who don't look the part, but they're dropping big bucks, sometimes even tipping you with good money. You're not getting paid to criticize or bother guests, plus if one of these guys complains, you're out of a job because it is easier to replace you than to replace the guest.
So a middle-aged white guy comes in. He's bald, blue-eyed, has a funny tattoo on the back of his head, but he speaks the language well and wants to be left alone while he is here. Fair enough, you've met a hundred guys just like him, except for the tattoo.
Now you have to make sure the bellboy takes his luggage to the right room. Oh, and room 410 wants a meal from room service. It technically isn't your job, but your job is to keep the guests happy within reason, and it isn't too hard for you to pass the order to the kitchen. Now room 316 needs more towels. Now 241 is going to be late because his flight was delayed. 136 is complaining because his window faces east and it is waking him up early every morning. Someone from Jordan Cross's entourage is bothering you again, asking if there are any messages for him. Then Jordan Cross's body falls from the roof about 15 feet in front of your desk. You look up to see how he fell and you can barely make out a black shirted dude, the shirt is sleeveless and has a floral pattetn, he has a satchel, and he's wearing a hat. He reminds you of that guy Jordan said was coming. You took notice because he told you several times to let the guy in. He runs off the top of the atrium and disappears.
Now tell me, do you even remember 47 checking in to the hotel after all that? There would be no reason to connect that guy to Cross in the first place, let alone make the mental leaps required to pin it on 47.
I mean, sure, there are better arguments that some people would remember his face andwhat not, and there are missions that are less-convenient for this narrative, but it really boils down to, if you, as an average citizen see a nondescript white dude and a local important person dies on the same day, guess which event you are remembering?
| 42 |
ELI5: How is the height of very high mountains measured accurately?
| 21 |
Today they just go up there with a GPS receiver or scan the earth with a satellite based radar.
Prior to those technologies you could triangulate the height. Create a triangle using the peak of the mountain as one point, and two fixed and known points on the ground as the other two.
So long as you have the distance between the two known points, and can measure the angles it's simple trigonometry.
| 21 |
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CMV: As a voter in an uber-blue state, my decision not to vote for Joe Biden will not contribute to the re-election of Donald Trump
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I'm feeling very conflicted about the 2020 election. I'm very opposed to Donald Trump, do not want to see him re-elected, and do not personally want to contribute to his re-election. However, I'm also finding it difficult to vote for Joe Biden (though I would have happily supported a number of other candidates from the Democratic Primary). I don't believe my reasons for not wanting to vote for Biden are relevant to this CMV, so I won't be addressing those.
As of today, I am not planning to cast a vote for president in the 2020 election. I vote in a very, very blue state, and barring some black swan event it's not going to Trump (should that change between now and election day, my calculus on voting would change). I plan to keep this position to myself until after election day (with the exception of this CMV) to avoid swaying anyone else against voting for Biden.
I do not believe my decision not to vote will contribute to the re-election of Donald Trump. CMV.
| 40 |
I'll change a different part of your view: that you should still vote. Not for any specific candidate. Not even for any candidate. It's absolutely your right to abstain from voting, and it's reprehensible for people to try to guilt you into voting for any candidate.
However that does not mean you should not vote. Abstained votes are still counted towards voter numbers. When the parties see high numbers of voters but an increasing number of abstained votes, it's a much more powerful message than not voting at all. If you don't vote at all, it's easy to justify that you wouldn't have voted amyhow regardless of candidates. An abstained vote says you wanted to vote but no candidate was worthy of the vote. Abstained votes are taken seriously by the party national conventions. Those are the votes they do the most for.
So instead of not voting, convince as many people as you can that aren't going to vote to send in an abstained ballot. That's how change can happen.
| 64 |
The Role of Judas in the Bible Dismantles the Belief in a Loving Christian God. CMV.
|
It's been noticed by many readers of the bible that the acts of Judas are difficult to judge. If Judas had never betrayed Jesus, there would have been no path to the crucifixion. There would have been no resurrection. No redemption. He did betray god, but that was part of the plan. Someone had to do it.
What does this mean for Judas? He was guilty of the greatest sin. He denied the living god. The bible is clear that this is one of the most unforgivable sins, but maybe Jesus would have a more compassionate tone for this man given his necessary role in god's plan and the redemption of all mankind...
>...but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.
No, it appears Judas is not spared. Judas will suffer eternal separation from god. Or "hell" as they've named it. This is from the mouth of Jesus that Judas is condemned. God's plan demanded that someone betray his son. And it appears that Jesus was always aware of who it would be. This wasn't a random individual who would carry this burden. God condemned one man.
>'But there are some of you who do not believe.' For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.
One person was going to be sacrificed to save mankind. But it wasn't Jesus. The bible makes this clear. Jesus would be resurrected after his death and returned to his father to live forever again in paradise. It was really Judas that would be sacrificed. Judas is the one who has actually lost something in this story. He was the one given to the gates of hell so that all others could have a chance at eternal life. An infinitely cruel act. At least Lucifer was given a choice. Judas never had a chance.
Given this reading of the bible, I don't see how it is possible to consider the Christian god to be a loving or compassionate god. He seems to have designed all of creation to hinge on the eternal torture of one unfortunate soul who is explicitly condemned for his predestined role in it all. CMV.
| 115 |
There are a few inherent flaws in your theory, based upon what appears to be (not to be condescending) limited familiarity with the Bible. First, the damnation of Judas is still undetermined. There is no Biblical indication that Judas was actually damned, but we'll assume that he was for debate.
The traditional understanding of the Bible indicated that Judas, wracked with guilt, took his own life after the crucifixion. That would be reason for his damnation. Under Christian belief, life is the greatest gift God gives to man, and to take your own life is a murder for which one cannot repent.
The other relevant theory is that Judas betrayed Christ at his instruction. Knowing that he needed to die in order for the world to live, Jesus selected Judas to "betray" him. Judas complied, but the guilt was still overwhelming.
| 23 |
[Fury] Isn't there better ways to attack a non-moving tank?
|
What the hell happened? It seems more like an elaborate german suicide ritual than a competent army.
Why would the germans attack an inmobilized tank from the front? Or set up machine guns? against a TANK.
And for that matter, why would a whole batallion approach a tank that hasn't been checked out? Isn't that the whole point of having scouts?
Edit 1: what would be a realistic strategy for the germans?
I'm thinking of halting the main army while a small squad throws smoke bombs from the forest line and use the cover to fire their shaped charges.
| 222 |
Yeah, well like with the earlier Tiger scene there's a lot of tactical oopsies.
Machine guns were regularly used to attack tanks, tanks aren't fully encased and actually there are little slits for the crew to see out of which is what the machine guns would be aiming at per doctrine. This might necessarily kill the crew but it could prevent them from looking out and seeing what was going on. It definitely would have been more practical to send up a small force equipped to deal with the downed-but-not-out Sherman but through plot required awesome the crew of Fury were just so bad ass they could take care of all of these guys.
Real life they probably would have just ditched the tank, something which often happened to disabled tanks.
| 99 |
Why doesn't the orbital period of Saturn match what the math predicts?
|
The [orbital period of two masses orbiting each other](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_period#Two_bodies_orbiting_each_other) is supposed to be
2 * π * √(a^3 / (G * (M + m)))
where a is the semimajor axis of the orbit and M and m are the masses of the two bodies. If I plug in the values for Saturn and the Sun (a = 1.43353 \* 10^(12) m, M = 1.9885 \* 10^(30) kg, m = 5.6834 \* 10^(26,) the result is
2×π×√((1.43353E12)^3÷(6.6743E-11×(1.9885E30+5.6834E26))) = 935,970,871 seconds, or 10,833 days
This is several months away from the [actual period](https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/saturnfact.html), which is 10,759 days. Where is the error in my math? Or are there other factors not captured by Kepler's Third Law? I'm trying to write a virtual planetarium using the recent great conjunction as a test case, and I suspect this is a source of error.
| 77 |
For one thing, the numbers you're using are all rounded up. For an orbital period that long, even 100 days can still be a rounding error.
And, perhaps more importantly, Saturn and the Sun are not a two body system. It's in a system with many other bodies that influence its orbit, like Jupiter.
The Kepler equation is pretty close to the right answer, but if you want a really precise solution you need to take all the other bodies of the solar system into account.
| 149 |
[DC] Batman has contingency plans for every member of the Justice League. Does he have plans that will do the opposite? (Amp up each hero in case of a SERIOUS threat)
| 62 |
I don't think so.
When anyone needs an amp, they usually amp themselves.
Batman has a fuckton of mech-suits.
Superman just flies into the Sun.
Green Arrow gets his big arrows.
And so on.
| 66 |
|
Why is the age of sexual consent 16 but the legal age to watch porn 18?
| 107 |
The age of consent varies widely across state lines, however there is still a charge referred to as "corrupting a minor". This makes it a crime to provide certain things to those under the age of majority.
As such, you cannot provide pornography to a minor, in the same way that a minor can't be in a pornographic film. That said, the Internet has made it pretty easy to obtain.
| 38 |
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[Halo] On High Charity, where are the archived Forerunner artifacts kept?
|
As I understand it, the Covenant have tons of Forerunner (and some human) gear stored. These range from Sentinels, to malfunctioning ancillas (or the semi/non-functional remnants of ancillas they've discovered over the centuries), and no doubt a range of other artifacts the Covenant couldn't crack or didn't know the purpose of, such as old suits of power armour, medical machines, specialized sentinel subvariants, monitor shells, personal craft and other miscellany.
Presumably there's a single, heavily-guarded location where these objects are kept in case they prove useful down the track? Where on High Charity were these artifacts physically kept? On-board the *Anodyne Spirit*, the Forerunner Dreadnought? Specially-reinforced vaults underneath it, or in the upper city area?
I've trawled Halo lore, I can't find a definite answer. I guess it comes down to opinion or extrapolation. Your answers are greatly appreciated.
| 38 |
At the very core of the Forerunner Dreadnought that High Charity was built around. In *Halo: Contact Harvest*, there was a San'Shyuum named "The Philologist" who was in charge of categorizing and studying these artifacts.
| 19 |
If you placed a drop of warm water in the core of infinite mass of ice kept at exact freezing point temperature, would the water freeze or the ice melt?
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Assuming the pressure in the system stays constant and the temperature of the ice isn't lower than freezing point.
To clarify: It's a sealed system. The ice is not actively kept at the same temperature, but the total sum of energy in the system stays the same.
| 15 |
There wouldn't be enough energy in the drop to cause a phase change over more than a very small quantity of the ice. So you'd get a little localised melting, and then the droplet and surrounding water/slush would re-freeze as their excess energy was transferred away and averaged out across the mass of the ice.
| 12 |
[Pokemon Anime] Does Ash still have Pikachu's pokeball?
| 22 |
Yes. There is an episode where Pikachu gets taken by some flying thing. Ash tries to return it to its ball with the return beam thing but misses.
There's also other things like he needs to hold onto the pokeball to ensure Pikachu stays "his" and registers in the computer system which allows him only 6 pokemon.
| 27 |
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[LOTR] How was Saruman able to breed orc hybrids?
| 24 |
It's probably not too difficult, though unpleasant to think about. We don't know exactly where or how Orcs came into being, but it's likely that Men and or Elves were twisted into Orcs or used as inspiration in some way (4th wall break: Orcs from twisted Elves is a common misconception. Tolkien never decided on a firm origin for them). Orcs breed like Humans/Elves/Hobbits, and if Men and Elves can interbreed then it stands to reason that Orcs and Men can interbreed.
Any more specifics are best left out I'd assume.
| 23 |
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ELI5:Why would US Marshals auction off bitcoin?
|
The US Marshals office is in the news lately, because they are [auctioning off "20 million dollars worth of bitcoin,"](http://www.usmarshals.gov/assets/2014/dpr-bitcoins/) retrieved from the recent [SilkRoad bust](http://www.engadget.com/2014/11/17/us-auctions-silk-road-founder-bitcoins/).
Why? If the US Marshals already possess "$20 million worth of some currency," why would they auction it off, in essence exchanging it for "less than $20 million worth of another currency"?
Don't bitcoin have an exchange rate? Couldn't they just keep the $20 million, rather than auction it off?
In another scenario; would the US Marshals office auction off "a large stack of $20 bills," or would they be able to just keep money?
| 20 |
Basically, BTC isn't good for anything the Marshal's Service needs. You can't pay government contracts in BTC, any more than you can pay them in yen or euros. So, that "$20 million worth of bitcoin" isn't actually worth $20m **to the Marshals.** It's only worth $20m to magic bean tycoons. So they sell it off to them.
>If the US Marshals already possess "$20 million worth of some currency," why would they auction it off, in essence exchanging it for "less than $20 million worth of another currency"?
Generally, they wouldn't. Generally, a foreign exchange market has enough room to accept $20m in new trades without much of a blip, so they'd get $20m for the currency they listed, minus exchange costs. However, BTC is not a foreign exchange market, not really. It's a mixed speculative commodity market and quasi-currency/barter market, and it can't bear that type of open-market unloading without collapsing, because of all the HODL madness and its general unusefulness as an actual currency. See, e.g., BearWhale, who tanked the price from $375 to below $300 with a listing not even half the size of the amount the Marshals are set to auction off.
| 17 |
Why can I touch tin foil the moment it's removed from the oven?
|
It doesn't seem to get hot when shoved in a 200°C oven while covering a tray and food which do get hot. What gives?
| 27 |
It does get hot from being in the oven, and aluminum (not actually tin) is very efficient at transferring heat. The thing is, it's so thin that there's just not that much total heat there to be transferred to anything else. It cools pretty quickly on contact with air when you remove it from the oven, and even faster if you touch it with your skin.
| 12 |
ELI5: Why are electric cars able to deliver power instantly, but gas engines take more time to build up power?
| 4,969 |
Electric motors drive like Iron Man flies. He just turns on the engines and he goes.
Combustion engines drive like Thor flies. He has to spin up something heavy to a certain speed before he can use it to carry him forward.
| 4,970 |
|
[Legend of Zelda]Why is Hyrule's topography constantly changing?
| 84 |
The versions of hyrule that you know are actually spanned across several points in time, and across several timelines.
IIRC, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess we're both the chronological future of Ocarina of Time, yet one timeline had a massive flood.
Geography can change significantly over centuries/millenia, and when major catastrophes happen/don't happen.
| 58 |
|
ELI5: Why do I enjoy certain types of music, and dislike others?
| 1,222 |
Music is largely pattern recognition so listening to the same songs over and over again will increase the chance of you liking it. Once familiarity is established, similar melodies, chord progressions, instruments will also become more appealing. That's why you'll tend to like genres that are closely related or melodies that are similar.
| 900 |
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ELI5:How do rockets move and change direction in space?
|
I asked a science teacher this years ago when I was in school and he just said 'they have thrusters on the side'
So every action has a equal and opposite reaction right? So how can a a machine in space (mostly a vacuum with atoms floating around) change its course if there is nothing much to push against?
| 119 |
Because there's no friction in space, once a spacecraft is moving it keeps moving on its own. The effect of earth's gravity keeps it in an orbit around earth (or around whatever other body it's orbiting).
In order to change it's path, though, it has thrusters, as your teacher said. The thrusters eject gas out of the spacecraft. Gas accelerates one way, so the spacecraft accelerates the other way. So yes, as you say, equal and opposite actions.
| 61 |
ELI5: What's an OLED display and how is it different than a regular LED one?
| 44 |
A real LED display is like what you see on billboards, where the display is made up of thousands of individual LED lights. An OLED display is sorta similar, only on a much smaller scale. Each pixel is an individual LED that gives off light, but they're "grown" in that a chemical reaction deposits a matrix of tiny LED pixels.
Any laptop or TV marketed as having a "LED display" though, is really just a marketing term used for LCD displays that are backlit with LEDs. The way LCD displays work is they're a sheet of glass that can be made opaque when voltage is applied to it. So, you have a bunch of lights behind it, and the color and brightness of the pixels is determined by how you block out that light. Back in the day, they used fluorescent bulbs for this, but they had issues like flickering, dimming, and outright dying. They weren't replaceable, so when they died so did your screen. That's why LEDs are better for backlights.
Since LCDs are blocking out light you can't get really dark blacks. Since OLEDs are actual bulbs that turn on, when they're off they're 100% pure black. LCDs are far cheaper to manufacture, especially for large panels, which is why you mostly only see OLED used on phones not TVs.
| 10 |
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ELI5: Why do we count down from 3? And why do our brains like the ‘rule of thirds’?
| 21 |
I believe it’s cause we need three numbers to establish a pattern.
1...0 isn’t clear when the zero will come
2...1...0 is still tough to predict because we don’t know for sure that the gap between 2 and 1 will be the same as 1 and 0
3...2...1...0 is helpful. If the time between 3 and 2 is the same as the time between 2 and 1, then we have a pattern and can infer the amount of time between 1 and 0. Using three numbers allows us to know when 0 is and thus when the event or action will occur.
| 16 |
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CMV: Banning alcohol makes more sense than banning guns.
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Alcohol is responsible for far more death and violence than guns are, yet very few people are in favor of banning booze. Every argument I've heard for banning guns seems to apply even more so to alcohol, and there isn't a very clear distinction why one should be legal and the other illegal.
For example: Australia banned guns, and has less gun violence. Great! Saudi Arabia banned alcohol and has fewer alcohol deaths. Even during the US's experiment with prohibition, alcohol consumption dropped considerably. That's hardly an argument in favor of prohibition.
_____
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| 17 |
The US did this. It failed horribly, caused organized crime to greatly increase in power, increased violence and death, cost the government millions in lost taxes, and millions more in costs to attempt to stop smuggling.
| 24 |
Class meeting time will derail my PhD
|
Hi all,
Need some advice. One of my required courses is meeting at a time (2:30pm-5:15) when I need to be available to pick my daughter up from school (3pm). With traffic, it's about an hour trip. I've contacted the professor, who has told me that, yes, the lecture will be recorded, but if I miss the first hour, I'm at an extreme disadvantage for the rest of the class. My husband's work schedule is extremely unpredictable in normal times, and even more so in Covid times. We are damn lucky he's still working, so I need to be the flexible parent right now.
What can I reasonably ask for here? This is a PhD level course, it's required and it's only offered during the spring (as far as I can tell). I don't want to register for a course where there's a good chance I won't be successful in learning the material or participating. I don't want to drop out. I've emailed the department director and my advisor explaining the situation, but feel very self-conscious for making a stink. My little family (it's just my husband, my daughter, and I) have all worked so hard to make this program work for me. We live in a place that has been just gutted by this pandemic (Vegas), and we know how lucky we are that my husband gets to work. I feel so defeated that this part of being a mom during strange times is having such a huge impact on my academic goals. And I feel like I'll be a black sheep in my department if I ask for special accommodations.
Any insight or advice is so welcome. I'm hoping that I'm just overthinking the whole situation, as I am prone to do. Thanks in advance and Happy New Year.
| 33 |
Ask for special accommodations. These are not normal times. Speaking as a former grad program director, in the best of times we would do our best to make it work for you. We would try even harder right now. But please also understand that it is not always possible to accommodate everyone’s family situation, no matter how much we want to. We cannot, for example, schedule classes around people’s personal schedules. We also cannot change degree requirements for individuals based on their circumstances. Right now, however, asking to do a class asynchronously or to take it a year later is 100% reasonable.
| 97 |
[Star Wars] Getting R2D2 to speak...
|
Was it ever possible for Anakin or Captain Antilles to add a voice vocabulator to R2 or is his droid model not compatible?
| 22 |
It's possible to add one. The problem is most r2 units are very limited on space so it's a choice between keeping potentially valuable tools or giving the galaxy's most foul mouthed droid a voice to scream obscenities with.
| 39 |
[The Princess Bride] Why doesn’t Westley reveal himself to Buttercup upon rescuing her from Vizzini? Why continue to pretend to be the Dread Pirate Roberts instead of her true love?
|
Westley basically takes the opportunity to fuck with Buttercup’s head a bit before revealing who he was after she pushed him downhill. Why put his true love through that? Especially when she already thinks *he’s dead.*
| 46 |
He says it in the movie. Did she wait a week before moving on after she learned that he was dead or overnight? Did she truly love him? Or can she really love at all, and is just using the Prince for power?
By staying in character, she won't put on an act for him. If she was only pretending to love Wesley, and he revealed himself to be Wesley immediately, then she would just pretend again. Since he is supposedly someone she hates, she has no problem telling him the truth.
She believes the Prince, asshole that he is, will rescue her, and that she is only in a moderate amount of danger (she believes she's being held for ransom or bargain, otherwise they just would have killed her at the beginning), thus there is no reason to lie to yet another kidnapper.
He gets the truth from her the moment he's distracted by the Prince on the horizon, and the next moment he's rolling down a hill.
| 81 |
[LOTR] During the third age, were there enough Dragon breeding pairs to continue the species?
| 53 |
Yes.
Dragons existed well into the Third Age. They mostly lived in the northern wastes around the Grey Mountains and the Withered Heath. They fought the Dwarves that settled in the Grey Mountains after the fall of Moria, and later drove most of them away.
Smaug was the last of the "great dragons". We don't really know how that separates him from other dragons. He was probably bigger and smarter.
So yes, it's highly likely that dragons even existed into the Fourth Age. We can probably assume the Dwarves ended up wiping them out at some point, considering they lived closest in proximity to them.
| 36 |
|
What is happening when you get helicopter car? (Popping noise when you open car window)
| 17 |
The air in your car is resonating. You know how when you blow across a bottle you get a specific tone? The same sort of physics is happening, but now the bottle is your car. The analogy actually generalizes pretty well - a more full bottle has a higher pitch, and a more empty bottle has a lower pitch (i.e. coke bottle vs milk jug). The car is like a giant bottle, so the pitch is really really low, which makes that miserable popping. Since it's a sound wave, you're really just experiencing wide swings in pressure, which is why you can really feel it in your ears.
There's an easy way to get rid of it too - crack a window on the other side. It's like drilling a hole in the bottom of your whistling bottle. If you've got a hole on the other side of your car the pressure can equalize, and you can't set up that resonance.
| 17 |
|
ELI5: What image quality do our eyes see in? Is it possible to give this a value in pixels? If not, how does our brain process each tiny piece of colour?
| 19 |
Your highest angular resolution is about 1 minute of arc(20/20 vision), and your vision spans 114 degrees so that's roughly 6840 "pixels" wide, but you don't get this resolution across the whole field of vision. You have really good central vision with far worse resolution and color sensitivity on the peripheral vision so the real resolution will be more along the lines of 4000 wide with it being much better in the middle.
Your eye has rods(light/dark sensors) and cones(color sensors). Each cone only sees one color and is grouped with other cones of different colors so you can treat each triple group of cones as a pixel. Each rod is a pixel on its own but generally doesn't function in daylight. Rods are very sensitive to light and tell you if it's light or dark but in bright lights they get overwhelmed and stop.
Your brain receives signals from all your rods and cones and processes it into an understanding of your surroundings, ignoring things it finds not helpful (a closed eye or the side of your nose)
| 12 |
|
ELI5: how can my cellphone flashlight damage some art piece while their always on 100 W halogen laps pointed right at the painting don’t do anything?
| 91 |
Cell phone flashes which are glorified LEDs probably aren't that damaging, but the rule of "no flash photography" originated from a prohibition against true camera flashes. Those flashes are very powerful, to the extent of if you colored a piece of paper with a black sharpie and flashed it point blank you could start a fire!
Establishing that rule makes a lot of sense because those kinds of flash will indeed cause more damage over time than the 100 watt halogen lamp. The museum doesn't want to try to bother explaining the difference between different kinds of flashes or trying to draw a sensible line between damaging flashes and those which are probably safe, so the ban is universal. Besides, the 100 watt halogen lamp is probably enough that you don't need a flash anyway.
| 144 |
|
[Pokemon] Is the water from Water Type Pokemon drinkable?
|
I’m sure you’ve all seen the meme where they’re in a desert somewhere without water and it’s like “So? You have three Water Types, just use those!” Is that something they can actually do?
| 632 |
You could feasibly drink it, but you probably wouldn't enjoy it at all. Coming from the body of a pokemon, it should be full of all sorts of bacteria. It might be a last resort type thing, like drinking someone else's urine.
| 522 |
CMV: Harden's comment about 7 footers in the NBA is actually true
|
Height and athleticism are literally cheat codes in the game of basketball that allow you to get away with being less skilled.
For instance, compare KD and Curry. In my opinion, KD is called incredibly skilled even though his height and length allows him to have an ungaurdable set point on his shot. KD literally doesn't even have to create space for his shots. His height allows him to take any shot on the floor that he wants regardless of defense.
Curry on the other hand has to develop an arsenal of soft skills around his insane shooting ability to allow him to get open either through clever off ball movement or incredible handles.
In general, I'm trying to argue that's it's just way more difficult to play basketball at a smaller size and as a result, bigger players tend to be less skilled because they don't need to be in order to score or rebound.
I can't deny that there have been legitametely skilled seven footers though such as Hakeem and Kareem that don't just rely on brute force and size. The no skill seven footers I'm talking about are guys like Clint capella, Damian Jones, Mo Bamba. Guys that literally are there to set picks, rebound, catch lobs, and dunk...you can take literally anybody decently in shape and make them 7 ft and they would be able to do the same things...
| 442 |
It’s pretty unfair to Giannis though, it’s not like the guy isn’t skilled or like he was just naturally that big. He was. Scrawny when he came into the league. He posts, he handles, he passes, his shot has steadily improved, he puts a ton of effort in on d and it’s impossible to compare Harden’s motor to Giannis’s.
I’d also argue that developing foot work, a handle and etc is harder when you’re that tall. You just don’t have the same natural coordination as some of the smaller guys.
The game isn’t just easy for Giannis because he’s taller. He’s also put in a ton of work, plays hard and has molded his body into what it is to today.
| 158 |
ELI5: How does time actually help us recover from traumatic experiencies such like a heartbreak or death of a close one?
| 18 |
Memories are VERY powerful. Traumatic experience is a particularly powerful collection of memories. To understand the power of memories, know that a physical injury heals, and you can not have a recurring injury without the cause of injury. But one can relive a bad experience with full intensity if one is able to recall it vividly, even if the event is not occurring anymore. In fact, one cannot create a false injury with the power of mind, but one can live an entirely fake experience as good as real, by creating false memories, and so vividly that one doesn't know that it is real or imagination (called delusion).
Thus, memories are powerful. What these memories result in is feelings. There is an intermediary level of hormones that we are not discussing. Feelings are what we call depression and heartbreak.
So, experience -> memories -> feelings of sadness.
Every once in a while, when you are free or having a good time, the memories come flying by, flooding your mind with associated emotions and feeling of sadness. And just like that, you grow sad out of the blue in the middle of the day.
Usually, memories fade over time, and they don't recur that frequently. When they do occur, you don't recall the vivid details. Additonally, your logic has regrouped enough to help you reason your way out of sadness. Over time, like the memory of anything that happened in the past, it fades away. This is called getting over a bad experience.
This is not related to only sadness. You may feel anger and fear too. When the feeling of anger, sadness or fear is very strong or real due to the memories of past, and not only are you living through the traumatic experience again, but its uncontrollable recurrence affects your lifestyle, it is called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which affects the rape victims, witnesses of violence and war veterans.
| 22 |
|
ELI5: When my stomach "rumbles" what's it actually doing?
| 31 |
Your stomach and intestines are constantly working and therefore moving. When your stomach is empty the only thing it is moving around is air. Moving air inside a resonating body (your empty stomach) results in sound.
| 27 |
|
[Harry Potter] What are the Room of Requirement's limitations?
|
The room was able to add a route out of the castle and in to hogsmeade for Neville Longbottom and co, so what if I walked pasted to with a desperate need to get to somewhere in Spain?
How big can it get, what are the limits to what it can create, etc?
| 30 |
I think the more magic and difficulty of accomplishing a task, the room requires you to have an equal amount of need for it. So to get to spain you would probably REALLY need to.
Also it might cheat with things like that.
Need to get to spain? Here's a broom and a map.
Need to get laid? it doesn't provide a ho but a book on how to woo women and the RoR turns into a gym.
| 37 |
CMV: Sometimes pirating content is fine
|
I recently tried to play a version of The Elder Scrolls Oblivion (not the PC release) released for old, Java flip phones. This game is next to impossible to find, set up the emulator for J2ME, and actually play. I had to run the emulator within a Linux VM just to get it working at all. It was released in 2006 for around $5. For those who don't recall, the "app stores" of the time were run by the cell provider, not Google or Apple or Microsoft. Any purchases you made would be added to your phone bill. And none of these stores are operational today. So finding most of the stuff that was put on there is essentially impossible. I can see an argument for why Nintendo/Sony would not want people emulating old games, since they may want to release it on a Virtual Console type platform. But in this case, this game is never getting released. It is an obscure game, in what was at the time an obscure series, released for what is now an obscure platform. I could literally not give them my money if I wanted to (which I absolutely do).
| 15 |
It's using someone's intellectual property without their permission. It might not negatively effect, but it's still using someone's intellectual property without their permission.
You can try to justify it all you like but the real reason that you're ok with it is because you get what you want and are unlikely to get caught.
It's stealing. Just accept that you're ok with stealing sometimes.
| 12 |
Could one bend light with magnetism?
|
Since light is an electromagnetic wave, it stands to reason that it would be affected by a magnetic field. The problem, it would seem, is that the magnetic field oscillates, which I presume means the light is alternately repelled and attracted by a static field.
But what if one were to oscillate the magnetic field at the same frequency as the beam of light? Would that then either attract or repel the light and thus alter its course?
And if so, would it even be possible to do this with current or forseeable future technology, at the frequencies at which light operates?
| 21 |
magnetic fields exert forces on *charged* particles *in motion* and the force is proportional to the velocity and charge and field strength and directed perpendicularly to *both* the field lines and the velocity direction.
Light is not charged, and thus is not affected by magnetic fields at all.
| 13 |
ELI5: Why are western nations criticised if they don't take in refugees, but others aren't?
|
In light of the refugee crisis in Europe, I'm wondering why it's expected that Europe should take in migrants, but other wealthy countries seem exempt from criticism, specifically countries like South Korea and Japan, and to a lesser extent China.
I'm not against immigration, particularly since I come from a country where emigration has been a feature for centuries, but when these kinds of crises occur, it seems 'the West' are the ones that are expected to open their borders while similarly rich countries are exempt. If a European country or the US/Canada had the same immigration and naturalisation policies as say Japan, they'd be widely criticised by the UN and others as racist and xenophobic.
| 113 |
In addition to the other comments, countries like China have a terrible track record on human rights and so no one is surprised when they don't step up to the plate to help out at a humanitarian crisis.
| 51 |
[General JRPGs]Has there ever been a good explanation offered for why the quality of equipment for sale at a shop scales with the shop's distance from the protagonist's home town?
|
Why doesn't the high end stuff get exported every where?
| 30 |
Generally, the protagonist starts off in a hum-drum town and goes to bigger places. It makes sense you could get better stuff in a major city then a small town, and better equipment then that in a magical pocket dimension of enlightened elves.
Generally you only get high-end weapons in weird places in the endgame. At that point, the planet is usually visibly ending so the demand for powerful weapons suddenly went *way* up everywhere at once.
| 47 |
Why do we not cough in sleep?
|
Hello! First post here so bear with me.
So, ever since I recovered from covid in May 2021, I've had this long covid wheezing and coughing it's not extreme just a little bit don't worry, anyway I was thinking, I just woke up from a night's sleep and I was coughing last night and now this morning. Why do we not cough in our sleep? Does coughing require consciousness? Or is it something else, maybe it could be related to our breathing patterns? Like when you try taking deep breaths to stop wheezing but cough bad while you exhale? Idk, I don't have anything near a biology background.
Thank you in advance!
Ps:This may or may not be a stupid question so again, bear with me.
| 839 |
Since body movement, or rather nerve transmission down the spinal cord, is inhibited during sleep, you can't cough or sneeze. Your body does, however, enter a wakeful state very briefly to cough/sneeze but you won't remember it happening.
| 1,334 |
eli5 - how come EU countries have plug sockets and light switches in bathrooms?
|
I'm from the UK, and in a UK bathroom you can only fit a socket for an electric shaver, and a light switch from a pull cord.
When traveling I always wonder why it's ok to fit an EU style plug socket cms away from a sink in a bathroom, or have a standard wall mounted light switch in the room?
Is this a case of tighter safety standards in the UK? (I find it especially confusing as all UK sockets have an earth and sometimes EU sockets don't.)
Or is this just more legacy bullshit we have to put up with.
| 94 |
The reality is that UK kinda has some unnecessary protective safety standards for plugs. As long as you use a RFI (also know as GFCI) outlet anywhere near running water, then the chance of shock is very low.
| 129 |
Why do the nucleotides in DNA occur in pairs on the double helix? isn't the second strand redundant since there's only a one other unique nucleotide (I.e. adenine and thymine) for each nucleotide
| 346 |
You're right, the information is indeed redundant.
But the second strand has significant benefits in terms of the structure and stability of the DNA molecule. A double-stranded DNA molecule is much more physically and chemically stable (and, therefore, less prone to mutation) than a single-stranded DNA or RNA molecule. Further, with a second strand in existence, there's a template that can be used by DNA repair enzymes to repair mutations in the DNA.
| 189 |
|
[Ace Attorney series] So does the crime of perjury not exist in this universe?
|
One of the central features of the series is finding contradictions in witness testimony and pointing them out to show that their testimony is false.
Sooo, what happens to these witnesses who willfully lied? Are they charged with obstruction of justice or allowed to move on with their lives?
| 21 |
According to Wikipedia:
>Despite a tendency of American perjury law toward broad prosecutory power under perjury statutes, American perjury law has afforded potential defendants a new form of defense not found in the British Common Law. This defense requires that an individual admit to making a perjurious statement during that same proceeding and recanting the statement. Though this defensive loophole slightly narrows the types of cases which may be prosecuted for perjury, the effect of this statutory defense is to promote a truthful retelling of facts by witnesses, thus helping to ensure the reliability of American court proceedings just as broadened perjury statutes aimed to do.
Since they always cop to their lies in the end and the setting is ostensibly America, it seems like they get to go unpunished.
| 26 |
How do they provide astronauts with oxygen on the ISS?
| 36 |
They fly it there with re-supply missions. For practical reasons it is flown up as water, which is ~90% oxygen by weight and much easier and safer to store than compressed or liquid oxygen. Some additional water is recovered from the sweat and urine of astronauts, but they also need water to drink, so that's not a net gain. On the ISS the water is split into oxygen and hydrogen. Some oxygen can be recovered from the CO2 the astronauts exhale. Doing that needs hydrogen (the carbon becomes methane, CH4) - and, conveniently, that is the waste product of the other oxygen source.
| 54 |
|
How are widespread cold fronts (such as the current one in the US) consistent with global warming?
|
Disclaimer: I accept global warming as fact. Not trying to debate the concept itself. But as most American redditors know, our entire country is freezing its ass off right now (except Florida and Hawaii). I live in Colorado and the weather's been in the single digits (Fahrenheit) for almost a week, which is unusually cold for December. And apparently there have been record cold temperatures in some places.
I also understand that weather =/= climate. But lately I've seen some far-right folk laugh at the pro-global warming crowd with all this cold weather we've seen lately. And to be honest I'm not totally sure how to explain this extreme cold weather in light of global warming.
| 35 |
Global warming is a misnomer, it is really truly climate change, some parts of the world will appear to get colder while others get warmer, but the global mean temperature continues to rise which is why a lot of places still call it global warming.
| 33 |
CMV:If any country intervenes in a state with civil unrest, it should support the better established government.
|
In the case of civil unrest, e.g. Syria, Ukraine, Lybia (2011), Afghanistan (1978), any responsible government should be expected to support the national government that shows the greatest ability to secure the territory. The reasoning is that anarchy, more often than autocracy, leads to terrorism, crime, and interstate war. Furthermore, governments may use economic punishments and incentives to mold the behavior of one another, but can do little to affect the behavior of a revolutionary group. The atrocities committed by governments may be frightening, but they are still preferable to the alternative.
_____
> *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!*
| 26 |
Lets say there is an evil government that the people are rising up against. All responsible governments should support the evil government because they are best suited to secure the territory (since they currently control the military)?
Why should any responsible government support any government who controls the military?
| 10 |
Why isn't it possible to speed up the rate of radioactive decay?
| 573 |
It is possible in select circumstances. These are in decays that go by internal conversion. Since the decay depends on electrons, changes to the electronic environment can change the half life. This has been seen in numerous isotopes. U-235m is an example.
The reason why this is not true for most decays is because the decays depend on characteristics of the nucleus. It is very hard to change aspects of the nucleus that matters for decay because the energy levels involved are usually in the keV to MeV region. Those are massive shifts. That is unlike shifting electronic shells around, which have energies in the eV region. So intense magnetic or electric fields can easily change the shell structure and thus the rates of electronic decays.
| 229 |
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ELI5: Why is CPR for drowning different than CPR for people who collapse from heart problems? e.g rescue breaths are recommended for one but not the other.
| 249 |
When you drown, you're drastically decreasing the available oxygen in your body/lungs as it all gets spent as you suffocate. When you collapse from heart problems, you tend to have available oxygen still in your lungs, as well as in your blood, so the priority of CPR is to circulate the blood until emergency response gets there. Sometimes pausing and taking a breath burdens the effectiveness of the CPR, but it could be necessary in someone who drowns (or else you're circulating spent blood). So if there is oxygenated blood in the body already then breathing can do more harm by pausing CPR compressions
| 132 |
|
[Stargate SG1 and Atlantis] Why are so many planets' Stargates in areas that look extraordinarily like British Columbia?
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It just seems a bit odd that the Ancients would choose areas so oddly specific. Is there something particularly advantageous about the climate?
[Yes, I know it's because they filmed it there.]
| 46 |
At least in the Milky Way galaxy, at least some planets were terraformed by the Goa'uld, specifically to create suitable climates for human slaves to live in. Although the Goa'uld don't much care if humans die, sending a few thousand slaves to a planet where they'd die within a few days isn't going to result in much nahquadah being mined. Terraforming is therefore in their best interests, and you can always rely on the Goa'uld to act in their own self-interest.
Temperate woodland is ultimately a good climate for humans to live in, being neither too warm nor too cold. People *can* live in a variety of climates, but temperate areas have the advantage of mild summers *and* winters, which is ideal for cultures that don't have access to air conditioning or central heating. It's thus a suitable climate to terraform a planet into, or else a sensible place to position a Stargate when the planet doesn't need terraforming. There *are* Stargates in the middle of deserts or ice fields, but those are less likely to have nearby settlements, so there's less reason to send the SGC's/Atlantis' flagship teams to investigate. We do nevertheless see SG-1 exploring planets with other climates on a fairly regular basis, when there's something interesting there for them to investigate.
It's also highly likely that the Ancients purposely put Stargates on worlds that were similar to Earth, and specifically in temperate areas, for pretty much the same reason - the combination of mild summers and mild winters. They wanted planets where people could live comfortably, It is, after all, worth remembering that British Columbia isn't the only place on Earth with that particular climate. There are places in Europe and Asia with similar woodlands.
| 33 |
CMV: I don't think we should colonize Mars.
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I feel like colonizing Mars would be a fruitless attempt at trying to fix a problem. Surely we should work on trying to make our planet more sustainable rather than just trying again on a different planet.
Furthermore, Mars' atmosphere is not inhabitable. We would need to alter a lot technologically and I just somehow feel that we don't have a right to do that to a beautiful planet.
Basically I'm probably a completely naive teenager who hopes that the world will just get better. I'm all for living peacefully and appreciating the world we live in. Change my view.
_____
> *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!*
| 34 |
It's easy to have a narrow mindset and say "Hey, why worry about Mars when we can't even handle Earth." But the truth of the matter is, Earth won't be with mankind forever. If and when humans have to leave Earth, we want to be prepared and ready to face the trials and tribulations of inhabiting another planet. Colonizing Mars is a step in that direction.
It seems like a needless task right now but the effects and knowledge it will have on future generations is immeasurable
| 80 |
Why are there almost no volcanoes in India?
|
Compared to other plate boundaries, the Himalaya and the rest of India seem awfully quiet when it comes to Volcanism. Sure there are a few small ones and some further north in Tibet, but compared to the Pacific Ring of Fire, Italy or the East African Rift, contemporary India seems almost dead in that regard.
| 19 |
That is because in the Himalayas, a continental plate is pushed under a continental plate, while in the ring of fire, oceanic plates are submerged. These are much heavier and sink deeper, thus melt easier. The composition of the material, including a lot of water, then makes the molten surface of the submerged oceanic plate rather 'volatile' (for the lack of a better word), so it ascends and forms volcanoes. Continental crust is pushed rather flat under the upper continental crust since both crusts have a rather light density, so the surface is not heated up as much and does not sear through the layers above.
| 18 |
ELI5: Why does power saving use grayscale?
|
Companies such as Samsung use grayscale but doesn't that use more power than RGB? I thought so as gray is made up of all three elements but blue is just using the blue led? Why is this?
| 18 |
LCD screens have white backlights that are filtered through basically tiny colored foils.
If you want red. You shut the blue and the green subpixels.
And since the whole light comes from the backlighting, you basically shut out 2/3 of the generated light.
With greyscale, all subpixels are „opened“ equally and you get the most of the backlight, alowing to dim it and save power.
| 20 |
Will learning logic tech me how to reason?
|
Will logic teach me how reason (better), if so how will it do that and where should I start in learning logic?
| 34 |
Formal logic will help you reason *better,* but it won't finish the job. The main thing it's going to be doing for you is helping you learn how to evaluate an argument's structure and the force of that argument. To be really useful, that reasoning needs to be backed up with some wisdom, like recognizing what are good sources to use, who to trust, how to interpret things contextually, and so on.
Traditionally, logic is the first thing you need to learn in philosophy. The first books on logic ever written by Aristotle were later called the "organon" or "tool" because that's how logic was treated. Logic is a tool that you bring into other disciplines to help figure them out. Now the exact status of logic as a mere "tool" can be disputed itself since logic will often get mixed up into metaphysical problems (e.g. if future statements are true or false, does that mean determinism is correct?). Still, logic certainly *is* a useful tool for wherever you plan on using it, and learning it first seems like sound advice.
I would start with syllogistic logic, then propositional logic, and then maybe symbolic logic. You could even read through Aristotle's original works if you want, although that's not necessarily the easiest user-friendly method.
| 35 |
How does a tiny spider bridge a 3 foot gap between trees to build a web? ( and in the process infuriate me on my morning dog walk)
| 54 |
Ever seen a spider hanging vertically on a single thread? That's the beginning, it's waiting for some wind to blow it to another tree (or anything) where it can attach the end it's hanging onto.
I read that some spiders do it the other way around - they sit still on the tree and hanging a sticky empty thread down, waiting for it to attach to something randomly (I guess larger spiders do that, as they will not blow far in the wind).
| 43 |
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[DND/General Fantasy] I've been sentenced to death. If I were to be magically resurrected later, is my sentence considered served or does justice demand I stay dead indefinitely?
| 506 |
Depends - were you sentenced to *death* or *execution*? Most places where resurrection is cheap have some sort of precedent or policy for what to do with resurrected criminals (generally, the trick is to destroy the body so they can't resurrect later). In places where resurrection is generally unknown, or considered a miracle, the justice system would rule on a case-by-case issue. Some polities deliberately refuse to set policy on the issue, because resurrection spells are so rare and expensive that only the nobility can afford them, and they don't want to close the loophole in case a member of the nobility needs to slip through it. Rank has its privileges, after all.
Just to give one example: in the Dragaeran Empire, resurrection is cheap and reincarnation is a known fact. There are three levels of death penalty - killing the body (resurrection allowed, penalty ends with execution), final death (no resurrection allowed, body sent down the river to the halls of the dead), and the annihilation of the soul. This last penalty is considered so loathsome that it's only used, in general, on lower-ranking people who have deliberately destroyed someone else's soul (nobility and their servants get a pass, because, again, RHIP).
| 330 |
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ELI5: Why can you feel the air blowing out of a hoover from about a meter away, but the suction on the end of the pipe can only be felt a couple of inches away?
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Its the same quantity of air moving, so why the difference?
| 53 |
The suction isn't directional in the same way. The air just next to the pipe is sucked in, and air from all directions moves in to replace it. When air is blown out, it's being pushed in a particular direction and carries on in that direction rather than spreading in all directions. In that one direction, you can feel the effect over a longer distance.
| 24 |
ELI5: how did species like felines not overrun the Earth before we learned how to neuter?
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I have personally known several housecats who had more than 25 babies in 12 months. I do not understand how that is sustainable.
| 33 |
Because they have a stupidly low survival rate and a ton of natural predators. It is a strangely common misconception that wild animals somehow survive as well as domestic animals. Of those 25 the expected survival rate is like 2-4.
| 48 |
ELI5: What are the consequences for a country to declare bankruptcy?
| 172 |
Unlike a person who goes bankrupt, a country which cancels its debts has one major advantage: an income stream. A country which has built up so much debt that it cannot repay it without serious fiscal consequences can cancel all its debts and start again. The banks can't repossess its house or car. Short of hiring a mercenary army (ahem, Cuba 1920s), they can't do much about it. What they can, and do, do, is factor the risk into their new loans.
All countries need to borrow money to pay their bills in between tax revenues. Therefore, they all need to pay interest - just like companies. This is why you may have heard of 'ratings'. The US Government is AAA+, Argentina is CCC-. All this means is that lenders are entirely confident tha, short a catastophic, species ending event, the US will, eventually pay its bills. Argentina, on the other hand has, due to corruption, influence peddling and a sole-resource economy, has a habit of just saying 'fuck it' and cancelling its debts.
In short, the US pays 1% interest, Argentina pays 15%. Every day.
| 95 |
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ELI5: What are the nations of power today? Which are our allies, neutral, our enemies, with a brief 1 or 2 sentence description as to why? (Non political)
| 22 |
We have no allies. We are the greatest nation. All other nations learn from us how to be perfectly efficient and good to citizens. Our great and powerful leader is the only ally we need. Long live Kim, glory to Korea.
| 57 |
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[General] If I'm a vampire-cop, does a warrant count as invitation to enter a house?
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On a related note: If I fired a vampire from a cannon at my (open) front door, what would happen? What about if I stapled a warrant to him?
| 803 |
A warrant is the legal right to enter the house, it is not an invitation to enter. You'll still need to get an actual invitation from the resident. It'll be pretty easy to word your presentation of the warrant such that you'll almost certainly get the invitation, but you do still need the resident to say the words.
| 438 |
[The Rock] Why did a civilian chemical weapons expert accompany the doomed Seal team during the raid on Alcatraz?
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Surely the military has people who know how to dispose of chemical/biological weapons. Why not send one of them? Why did General Kramer tell FBI Director Womack to find his "best chemical/biological man?"
| 15 |
Chemical/biological weapons are extremely rare and the army concentrates its resources on the the most direct and applicable threats. Their research into chemical warfare extends to how they protect themselves. Any chemical weapons used on soldiers will be speeding towards them in rockets already.
As was seen when weapons inspectors were sent into Iraq in the 1990s, the expertise lies in the civilian sector, scientists and people who devote their lives to understanding chemical and biological attacks and how to counter them. The FBI is more likely to be dealing with a chemical bomb, so it is more logical that they would have someone like Doctor Stanley Goodspeed on the payroll, who it should be noted had expertise across a wide field of topics.
When the army needs someone that can get in and disarm VX gas–armed M55 rockets, they turn to the FBI as they have someone like Stanley on the payroll, he's likely studied that exact weapon and he's the person with the best chance of getting the job done.
| 10 |
[Star Wars] Are Imperial Star Destroyers painted white?
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Now in old canon there was a certain legendary outlaw fellow, named Booster Terrik. With some help from Rogue Squadron, this bad dude got himself a Star Destroyer. And the man had a dream - to paint his star destroyer BRIGHT RED. Unfortunately, it wasn't as easy as it sounds, since it turned out that it's somewhat hard to procure such quantities of red paint, and a remark was made that only paint that was produced on such massive scale was "ISD White".
But it might have been a joke. I can't tell. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if Star Destroyers weren't painted at all, and are just bleached white by cosmic radiation.
| 25 |
They're canonically painted grey/white, and in Legends it was called "Star Destroyer White".
On the Errant Venture, given the galaxy's manufacturing capability, it's more likely war time shortages and the New Republic's lack of resources to spend on such things than there actually not being enough red paint (the Republic put red all over their ships), seeing as Booster did get the Errant venture painted red in the end.
| 31 |
ELI5: Why do we use the £/$ symbol before the number but we say it the other way round?
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E.G.£10 we would say 10 pounds not pounds 10
| 598 |
The currency symbol is on the left to prevent modifying checks and ledgers in old-style, paper-only record keeping.
If you're keeping the books for a business, and write down that you paid out "10$" to another business for supplies, an unscrupulous business partner could steal a bunch of money, and then modify the ledger to say that you paid "110$" by simply tacking a 1 to the front of the number, thus hiding the fact that they're skimming money.
But with the currency symbol on the front, the worst they can do is steal a few pennies by adding some cents at the end.
| 299 |
[General]I'm a vampire and I want to live forever without hurting anyone. How do I overcome all my limitations and weaknesses and live a fulfilling un-life?
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Basically, Rational Vampire with No Desire to Harm Anything. Say all vampire weaknesses are present; yes including the stupid ones like can't cross running water or having to count individual grains of rice when spilled.
What measures can one take as a vampire to live forever, to the fullest, without getting staked, burned, forced into horrible conditions, etc.
| 61 |
Run a charity shelter for the homeless. Free food and boarding, as long as they donate a pint of blood every week. That's the day job, holed up in an underground office somewhere running a network of shelters all over the world.
Night job: run a private investigation firm. With your keen vampire senses, you can find things better than everyone else, such as where the local mob bosses stash their loot. Steal as much as you can without being detected. Use the loot to fund your shelters.
It'll be difficult to paint you as an evil bloodsucker if you are the one responsible for housing and feeding thousands of homeless and orphans all over the country.
| 90 |
CMV: The Mindset behind /r/enlightenedcentrism is toxic and further devides political camps
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I feel a big problem, in our political climate is the worsening split between groups of people with different political views, making compromise and discussion difficult.
But phenomena like the Intellectual Darknet and more people identifying themselves as centrist are a good development.
I do agree that these centrist are often right leaning, and often very far from a political center. But building up a strawman and stereotyping centrists to be right wing and allways go the (illogical) middle road*, helps noone.
*For Example: https://i.redd.it/zspl05uzra331.png
https://i.redd.it/3ed6flwpjn321.jpg
https://i.redd.it/sqwpkf9vekd21.jpg
| 36 |
>I feel a big problem, in our political climate is the worsening split between groups of people with different political views
Why should there not be a split between these views? Why is compromise inherently good? Is it not the views themselves that are more of an issue?
Also the centre of what? How is that defined? And as you say it means to the right and inaction so what to stop it slipping further right?
| 29 |
Is there a philosopher that engages with the idea of being remembered after death?
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I vaguely remember there being some ancient philosopher—Roman, I think—engaging with this idea. I'm trying to mention it in an essay and I'm wondering if anyone can offer some philosophers/philosophies that are relevant here.
| 25 |
Rousseau was heavily concerned with how he would be viewed after his death. He became extremely famous during his lifetime, then many countries and religious institutions condemned him for his writings. He was exiled and vilified for decades and only made the situation worse by his behavior and likely mental illness. He wrote a number of books trying to convince the public and posterity of his innocence and goodness in the face of widespread derision. In many letters, The Dialogues, and The Confessions he tries to show why he has lived the life he lived and why he was not evil or malicious. Then in his last book before his death, The Reveries of the Solitary Walker, he abandons this project and he argues that being remembered is not central to happiness and the good life.
| 24 |
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