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askscience/c6mof77 | 11i50i | Does the theory of relativity apply to everything that has mass? | >would time be even a tiny bit different to every thing that moves on the planet, just as the planet and our star system and galaxy is relative to each other too. Yep Every object experiences time dilation as it moves - it applies to everything with mass as you stated. | 2 |
AskReddit/d6ts26a | 4z8mpo | What is hands down the worst film of all time? | Not sure, but I'm pretty sure the worst one I've ever seen is either Godzilla (2000) or whatever movie-so-lame-I've-already-forgotten-the-title about a half-Viking/Indian in North America fighting Vikings on behalf of the Indians. | 4 |
AskReddit/efn8b1q | amncrc | What can one do to ease their mind and fall asleep? | I put some relaxing music on and I usually contemplate a topic until I fall asleep. Obviously don't overthink things because that's counterproductive but stuff like reflecting about what you did today can help put you at ease. | 5 |
AskReddit/ervgp7j | c496hw | What do you find more annoying than anything else? | My girlfriends dog. He annoys every fiber of my being and I’m a dog person for sure. He just takes the cake as the most annoying dog on earth. Not necessarily bad just annoying af like he knows and does it on purpose. | 2 |
AskReddit/cskg7bp | 3bau4g | What else do you use your computer for? | My computer has blue and white LEDs from the fans on the inside, and the case has a window on the side, so I also use it as a source of light. Also, strangely enough, I like the soft humming noise my computer makes. I find it helps me fall asleep. | 2 |
AskReddit/dznn2pd | 8mgzgt | What are less obvious signs that you should end your relationship? | Gaslighting is a terrible thing to experience. If you go into a conversation with a point to make but find yourself all turned around by the end. you may be in some trouble. I completely lost myself in a relationship by constantly trying to please the other person. | 84 |
AskReddit/c8sspe0 | 19zu38 | What is the funniest movie few people know about? | Grandma's Boy. I'm not sure how many people know about it in general, but most people I've introduced it to had never heard of it before. It's not the funniest movie I've ever seen, but for plain stupid stoner humor it has to be one of the best. | 386 |
explainlikeimfive/chzjp43 | 27cpwt | Why is the Amish religion not considered a cult? | "Cult" isn't a well-defined term. Most religions, if they sprang up out of no existing tradition, would be called a cult by someone if they developed now. (Not that the Amish tradition came out of nowhere.) For example, say there was no such thing as Christianity and that faith started to appear in the modern world today. There would be people out there who would view them as "some strange cult." tl;dr: Any new religion would be called a cult by someone if it had any significant beliefs apart from the mainstream. | 11 |
askscience/c21nrkm | i85du | How did the process of caterpillar to butterfly metamorphosis develop through evolution? | great question that we can really only hint at. But the evolution of wings is a separate question from the evolution of metamorphosis. Wings evolved long before metamorphosis. Some insects develop more gradually and get bigger wings in the final stages. As adults they then have fully formed wings. We think that from this basic life history, the different stages start specializing-- the adults adults and larvae become more different and complete metamorphosis evolves. | 9 |
explainlikeimfive/ctd3960 | 3eakkl | Why do ships with male names (I.e U.S.S George Washington) still get referred to as "her" by its crew? | The people who name ships don't necessarily look at its genitals first - like with kittens. That's only a little facetious. Ships are named by senators, but crewed by sailors. Neither group asks the other for their opinion on the matter. | 5 |
AskReddit/c0bda99 | 949cu | What's the biggest misunderstanding you had with an partner? | So, I had this boyfriend back in the day. He cheats on me and does the honorable thing and tells me about it. Then during the conversation he says " I never promised I wouldn't cheat on you, but I can promise I would never do it again." WTF.so I say, "I would have never dated you in the first place if I would have known that." So apparently, this was a pretty big misunderstanding between us. | 24 |
askscience/dyr50wv | 8idurk | What is the cost input/output of current nuclear fusion designs? | To the best of my knowledge there are no nuclear fusion reactors currently that actually have energy production systems in place. That being said, you can compare the thermal output to the input to get a rough idea. For fusion reactors this is the Q value, the ratio of the fusion energy output to the heat energy added to the reactor to sustain the reaction. ITER is designed to have a Q value of 10, outputting 500MWth from 50MW auxiliary heating. Q>1 is "breakeven", but Q>10 is important for ignition, the point where the plasma can heat itself, mostly from alpha particles, without having to have its energy harvested and put back into the system through some external heating. A good approximation is that electrical output is about 1/3 thermal output, so if ITER achieves its goal it would be able to produce about 167MW of electricity from 50MW. However, in a reactor that can achieve ignition the input energy is only necessary at the beginning, not continuously. | 59 |
explainlikeimfive/cgbkd6g | 21c08h | What exactly does the day after pill do, and why do some people call it an abortion pill? | A pregnancy starts when the fertilized egg implants itself in the uterus. Hormones released when the embryo implants shuts down the menstrual cycle. The "day after" pill is a low dose of a drug called Mifepristone, aka RU-486, and it inhibits ovulation. In this role, it does not cause an abortion - there's no egg in the reproductive tract to fertilize. If the woman has already ovulated and if a pregnancy does occur, the same drug can be used to induce an abortion up to 60 days or so after the start of the pregnancy but the dosage is higher, and it is followed by other drugs to induce uterine contractions and flush the reproductive tract (this process essentially overrides the embryo's hormonal instructions and forces the menstrual cycle to restart). So it is both birth control, and an abortion pill, depending on how it is used. | 2 |
AskReddit/c4gf88m | srst9 | In the future, would our generation be able to cope with new technology, or philosophy better than the older generation? | Technology, I would say so because current generations have seen extreme advances in technology over short periods of time. Philosophy, depends on the nature I suppose. If it was religious maybe not, e.g proof of existence/non-existence of any given religion. I think with anything else we would definately find it weird at first but i'm sure given time we could adapt | 2 |
AskReddit/cc1on3f | 1lq9ow | What popular science shows bullshit all their tests/findings ? | Just read an article about primary cancer research on the pre-drug phase. Turns out that "successful" primary findings can't be replicated in over 75 percent of the cases. Drugs are being developed based on a solid base of bullshit for cancer. Way to waste money, cancer fighters. Just because someone has a PhD and MD does not mean that they do not "fudge" the results that they had decided they will test. Seems to be a case of first the theory and then warp the test to produce a supporting "scientific" study. Even basic research is being corrupted. | 3 |
AskReddit/cnic3qm | 2rqozs | What two things do you think should be sold together but they aren't? | Free insect repellent with every BBQ sold! Condoms and pregnancy tests should be showing up in the whipped cream and chocolate dipping sauce section of the deli. | 5 |
explainlikeimfive/d7f1qkk | 51uav2 | What factors determine whether a cut will heal properly or leave a scar? | I treat wounds for a living (part of my job). The scar formation depends on the depth of the wound. And by depth, I mean how many layers of tissue are disrupted. You really can't tell by measuring alone. This is because the depth of the epidermis and dermis are different depending on location, nutrition, hydration and other factors. Generally, if you get to the dermis you will likely have some scarring (sometimes not so obvious). Superficial wounds that do not reach the dermis are able to heal without scarring. The above is "general". There are many different factors to wounds and healing. Fibroblasts, collagen and inflammation all play a role. Wound treatment is also relevant, as is nutrition and hydration. We like to keep wounds moist (sorry) and if there is large depth we need to fill the wound so that the wound heals from the "bottom up" instead of migration inwards, which usually causes scarring but can also lead to abscess. | 9 |
AskReddit/dkj8rdj | 6opw28 | Have you ever "broken up" with a friend and what led you to that point? | She never listened to me. I got mad at her for it, and decided to take a few day break from her before trying to talk to her about it. Again. In that couple of days she ran into a mutual friend and said she thought the reason I was mad was because she made more money than me. We'd been friends for more than ten years at that point, and I realized she had no clue who I was or what was really important to me. I never talked to her again. To this day she thinks I couldn't handle her making more money than me. | 2 |
AskReddit/e5lqxhb | 9e2z4x | What was your worst experience in a swimming pool? | I was at a friends swimming party and I was on top of the float with someone else and everyone picked it up and flipped it and I ended up under this massive float with everyone surrounding the float and I couldn’t get from under this float cos everyone’s legs were blocking me and of course the massive float was above me. Legit thought I was gonna drown. | 2 |
AskReddit/cbbmo7n | 1j6oia | What do you have that's limited edition, sold out, not available to the public anymore, etc? | I want that poster. Bad. We once found a spermwhale tooth on a beach in Norway, that thing is massive. I guess you can count that as limited edition as they aren't sold anywhere and no company produces them anymore. | 2 |
AskReddit/etyfz05 | ce4cja | What are ways we can make income in the future if AI is doing most of the work? | I think this is one of the stronger cases for a minimum basic income. You make money by existing (because we value human life, thus by living we create value). I think (and hope) that wealth and excess will be things of the past. | 3 |
AskReddit/d7fd1rf | 51w41h | What addition would you make to a game to make the game a lot more fun, difficult, etc? | I made a Monopoly game with stocks and bonds one time, it was fun but the game went on forever. Each time you pass go your bond increases by 10% if you cash it out before passing go 10 times you lose 50% of it's value. Stocks were purchased on utilities and rail roads. Each time someone landed on them you got a portion of the profit. | 2 |
AskReddit/col7l1y | 2vva4i | How would you describe earth to intergalactic tourists? | It's really hard to describe Earth without anything to compare it to. I would need to know what the other planets they've visited were like to have some frame of reference. My best attempt would be: Wet. Geologically active. One sapient species, with a pack-like social structure and high level of territoriality. | 2 |
AskReddit/cythomo | 40e23i | What was your experience in High School like? | I apologize in advance, but my post is more about the minutiae of human messiness that was my high school social life and the drama that went along with it rather than high school in general, but I've been waiting to post this story so here it goes. In freshman year I was a bit of an outcast. I had never actually hung out with anyone outside of school in my life, and no one talked to me. I had zero social life. It probably didn't help that I had no idea about fashion and was a huge know it all. I was in theatre and had two lead roles that year though, which is great. Regardless, everything changed midway through sophomore year when I met my best friend who we'll call Teddy. We always talked a bit every day during geometry class, me him and a pot head. The pothead was the popular kid type and in our conversations of occasionally often ask Teddy what certain things meant. I was a bit of an annoyance to him, I think, until one day I made an off handed League of Legends reference that I was sure no one would get until he made it clear that he got it, corrected my pronunciation of "Shaco" and called me a dumbass. That was the start of a beautiful friendship. We played video games together, we raided together, sometimes we even- uh never mind. I think it best to describe Teddy before I discuss the daily slogs of high school, as my friendship to him was, up until I tore it from the bowels of the ship and set adrift amid the waves of constant despair and drama, a large anchor in my life. He was the perfect mix of popular kid and nerd. He was the guy that all the girls (and some guys) school swooned over and tried to court, but alas, until our junior year, he wouldn't have a significant other. This significant other though wasn't the head cheerleader, hot theater girl or any other stereotype you'd expect someone of his popularity to date. Instead, it was a girl in among an online group of friends that I introduced him to. A very sweet but nerdy girl, the two got along extremely well and before a month had passed of them having met them started "dating", as much as Skype and cellular devices would allow two people thousands of miles apart who had never met to date anyway, and it was quite the relationship. It was a bit of a secret of his though, he didn't want to deal with people either not believing that he had an out of state girlfriend or any such pressures that went along with it. Still, throughout junior year we were the best friends, always at each others side. I was often said to be Teddys shadow, and was introduced to the world of having a social life through him. I will never forget that gift, that gift that I would eventually callously throw away to save my own skin. In the summer before senior year I auditioned and made it into one of my high schools two elite theater programs and made friends with people who were in it. Myself and three others formed a strong bond, and called ourselves squad. Squads members were a bit more rough than Jordan and we'd constantly do stupid things, but we didn't really get in trouble. This extra friendship I had put a bit of a time strain on my friendship with Teddy though, as by hanging out with squad more and more I hang out with Teddy less and less. Still, even if I was hanging out with squad Teddy and I still considered each other best friends, up until March. In the beginning ofFebruary Teddy had let out a (false) story among the school that he and his internet girlfriend had broken up. They found out about her around September I believe that year, and I confirmed it for those that doubted him so it wasn't an issue. Still, the day he told this false story to people he drove me to Mcdonalds where we sat, ate and talked for two hours. It was a nice moment, to be able to catch up. He then told me to keep a secret. He told me he and his girlfriend were still together, which I knew, but he broke up with her so he and another girl in town could date. This girl was very into him, and everyone was kind of upset at Teddy for not just telling her know. She like his internet girlfriend was extremely sweet and in a few ways the two were very similar. He really didn't want to let the girl in town down, so he hatched a plan to make it look like he and his internet girlfriend broke up so he could make the girl in town happy by dating her. All the while his internet girlfriend knows of the situation and is okay with it while the girl in town was blissfully unaware. While it may sound like he wanted to cheat for himself, he honestly thought what he was doing was in the best interest of both girls. He told me this and made me swear to keep it secret, so I did. | 2 |
AskReddit/elom0bu | bgu6az | To Redditors who have lost their pet due to natural causes, how was their last day? | I have several stories, having had pets all my life, so here goes. I don't know how much this one counts as natural causes, but. About a week or so ago, my (fairly young) dog's health had been deteriorating rapidly. I'd thought it was some sort of stomach bug, so I took her to the vet. Their assessment was, she had ingested something that had blocked up her intestines, preventing her from using the bathroom. They spent the day giving her fluids and trying to flush it out of her system while I went home and agonized over whether or not I was able to afford surgery if it turned out she needed it. It wasn't an overnight clinic, so I picked her up that night when they closed. They thought that it would take a few days and rounds of fluids, etc. to completely dislodge whatever was in there, so I'd drop her off in the morning for another day. I was feeling pretty relieved, honestly, because the vets were very positive and hopeful that Holly had a chance of recovering. That night, I stayed up to stress-clean the kitchen while my Holly slept on the floor. I planned to go to bed at about 11:30 or so, but close to 10:45, she seemed rather restless, which was new since she'd mostly been sleeping over the past couple of days. I decided that I'd stay downstairs with her until she settled, but by 11:30 or so, the poor thing would begin to cry for about five minutes, then she'd adjust her position, and a few minutes later she would be crying again. She was a pretty big sheepdog, so it wasn't easy to keep her still; I ended up leaning against the pantry door with her cradled in my lap. I didn't know what to do since the vet was closed and there isn't a 24-hour emergency clinic anywhere near here (that I'm aware of), but as a child, whenever I was sick or unhappy, I would spend time with my grandparents. In order to comfort me or as a bedtime ritual, my grandfather would read me a poem-a pretty long one- after which my grandmother would sit at the foot of my bed and sing lullabies until I fell asleep. My grandfather read me that poem so many times that I can recite it by heart, though it does often take over 10 minutes or so to go through the whole thing. So I sat with her on the floor of the kitchen in the dark and recited the poem, I sang her all of those childhood lullabies, I pleaded with her to hold on, and told her about all the things I still wanted us to do together. She quieted down around 4:00 am and I stared at the clock above the microwave until 5:30 or so when I must have nodded off. The alarm on my phone went off at 6:00, and I left the house for the vet at 7:15. They did another x-ray, and I waited to see if there was anything the vet needed before I headed off again. Only this time when they brought her back, instead of a course of action, he told me, "I think our best option is to put her to sleep." I was absolutely shocked, but I signed all the paperwork anyway. Whatever she had eaten tore a hole in her intestines overnight, and fluid and such had seeped into her abdominal cavity, basically making it septic. At that point, not even some expensive surgery would have helped. I curled up on the dirty floor and pulled her into my lap while they gave her a sedative. They left the room to get the drug that would stop her heart, but they didn't need it; she was too far gone, and the painkiller/sedative was all it took for her to let go. I stayed there on the floor with her body in my arms for around 15 minutes or so until my mother came and pulled me away. I left her there to be taken off for cremation. It's been a week, maybe two, but it hasn't exactly sunk in. I refuse to believe it, and I still refer to Holly in the present tense, as if she's just gone for a week or so and will be back any day now to resume her place by my side, which she rarely ever left. | 2 |
explainlikeimfive/cev0iz7 | 1vr61l | What accounts for the variation in type of music that different people like to listen to? | TL;DR: A combination of (1) different personality types, and the kinds of emotions different people prefer to experience, and (2) association of kinds of music to individual experiences, and to specific cultures. (1) Some people love to feel relaxed, calm, and safe, so they probably enjoy softer, quieter music. Others like to feel stimulated and energised, so they probably like harder, faster music. Melody and harmony are probably the most important aspects of music, and are almost a language in themselves, because they directly affect emotions. Some people prefer emotions associated with love, dedication, sadness, surrender; others prefer bliss, fun, decadence; others prefer adventure, otherwordliness, disassociation. (2) Music genres are strongly associated with different cultures, and experiences people have had. You may like 20s jazz, renaissance, or middle eastern music far more than otherwise, just because you like the connection to those cultures. You may love grunge, trance, or new wave more than otherwise simply because you had years of great experiences listening to that. So, the first kind of influence is an objective trait of the music itself: it creates certain primitive mental reactions, that individuals find either pleasant or unpleasant. The second kind of influence is pure association with other aspects of life, that again individuals find pleasant or unpleasant. | 4 |
AskReddit/c973tay | 1bj3q4 | What is the most unexpected thing you have found in your house? | I found several turn-of-the-century tools within the walls at my house when I was renovating. Also, when I peeled up the old flooring, there were several newspapers under there from 1939, including the entire Sunday comics section in one - all were still in pretty good condition. One day I will frame the cooler pages and put them up. In my shed, I found several old bottles. There are some cool old Mountain Dew bottles that have the old "It'll tickle your innards!" slogan on them, with the little hillbilly guy. | 4 |
AskReddit/ddfcd9u | 5sin62 | What instantly puts you in a bad/good mood? | Music can instantly change my mood! I definitely have some happy songs and playlists for days I'm feeling less than stellar. My all time favorite happy song is Perfect Day by Hoku (totally embarrassing, but also totally mood boosting). | 2 |
explainlikeimfive/duxoopl | 80rih7 | Why did people think Beanie Babies would be valuable in the future, and why aren't they? | Collectibles tend to go up in value over time, as they get rarer and new collectors want to get older items. Because of that, the oldest or "first editions" of collectibles tend to be the rarest and therefore the most valuable - like how a Spider-Man #1 comic can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. So Beanie Babies tried to play into that by limiting their runs of toys and retiring designs after a few months. Because of this, people started to think "Oh, people like these things. I'll bet they'll be around for a while. If I hold onto a few of these 'early run' toys, they'll be worth much more in the future." Seems like a solid plan, right? But there's two big issues that ruin that plan: Since thousands of people were hoarding these bears, the "scarcity" requirement for a collectible didn't really exist. There are a small number of good-quality Spider-Man #1 comics available - these were sold to kids in the '60's. Most of them were ripped up, drawn on, spilled on, and tossed away. The few remaining ones are the exception, and that creates value. Since the majority of buyers were adults trying to collect them, there wasn't much of an emotional connection made. Other collectibles (comics, toys, baseball cards, etc) tend to have some emotional value - we loved them as children, they're an important part of some memory or an icon of history, etc. Kids weren't really playing with Beanie Babies because adults were buying them for themselves, so nobody grew up with fond memories of playing with their Beanie Babies. So because of that, while their value has increased over time, they didn't scale the way people thought, and the idea that they'd be worth thousands or millions over a few decades didn't pan out. | 7 |
AskReddit/c2yqz7q | m7mx6 | How many of the stories that stand-up comedians tell are completely made up? | I think it is likely a combination of truth and fiction. Every now and again they experience something that is 100% truth and is hilarious as it is happened. The rest of the time, the comedian just needs to give some exaggeration to a significant detail to make it funnier. The art is blending the two so seamlessly that everything sounds as if it could happen to anyone. | 3 |
AskReddit/dihzw4c | 6fgmwt | When does life start getting good? | I believe life starts to be good when you decide you will make it good, in however way you think this is the correct way. There will not always be a certain point in life when it starts to be good, but when you can decide for yourself that you will enjoy every bit of it it will be as good as possible. | 11 |
explainlikeimfive/cvjzrb0 | 3n0z7g | If Iceland was able to arrest the bankers responsible for their economic collapse, why can't the US do the same? | Evidence is required to convict. Especially with high level lawyers that these bankers would employ, you'd need very solid evidence. Moreover, it isn't worth it. Bankers were only one third the problem. The other two, corrupt government guaranteeing terrible mortgage securities, and the federal reserve's easy money policy, those are equally to blame. | 2 |
AskReddit/dm2ozb9 | 6vs8ws | What has been your most painful experience? | I have broken my nose, nearly snapped my arm, had my ankle sprained 6 times, and various other injuries relating to sports. By far, the most painful thing I have ever experienced was a yeast infection. | 2 |
AskReddit/c40igc2 | qtuy1 | How do you remove a security tag from clothing? | Retail manager here - doesn't have ink in it. Its removed by a strong magnet. That being said, if you are concerned about the ink - stick it in the freezer first before trying to remove it. Brute force should work, that being said you risk damaging/tearing the clothes more than anything. They are a pretty generic type tag, maybe you know someone who works in a clothing store who can take it off for you? Otherwise, try your closest retailer. LAST SUGGESTION, sometimes in the past, because ultimately as the retailer we are at fault here if this was a genuine mishap and you did infact purchase the item, I've had customers mail the item back to us, removed the tag, then mail it back. You might have to pay for postage one way, but it seems like it might be more convenient for you? Call them and suggest this. | 2 |
AskReddit/cmr8onl | 2owq3w | Can you summarize the story of the Bible for me in 50 words or less? | I'm sure you're about to get some circle-jerky answers from Christians, and non-Christians alike, and I would put strong money on the fact that non or very few of those people have actually read the book cover to cover. The reason I say this (speaking as a non-Christian, but one who has read the book cover to cover. a few times.) is that you'd be surprised at just how non-coherent the bible actually is. It wasn't written all at once by one person. The people who claim "it was written by God" clearly have never read it. It's a collection of stories, told by lots of people, over hundreds of years, and it's not trying to hide that fact. After reading it, I would guess that it was less about "hey, lets tell one long, epic story about this God fellow" and more "hey, lets go find any story anyone has ever told about this God fellow, and mash it up into one, all purpose book." This is why over the course of it's lifetime, stories have been added in and taken out. This is why it contradicts itself so much. This is why anyone, Christian or otherwise, trying to tell you "what it's all about" is clearly off their rocker, or all around just doesn't get it. Sorry that this is longer than 50 characters and doesn't give you a summary, but I thought you deserved to know that any answer anyone gives you that actually fits your criteria is going to be bullshit. There are simply too many varying stories with different people, settings, plots, points, and meanings, to make one overarching "yup, this is how it all goes" claim, and a very large number of the problems that surround Christianity involve people trying to "prove the point of the bible" having very clearly never read it. Pinning down "the point" would be subjective at best, and very hard to do. Edit - just to use the other answers in this thread to back my statement up The top comment of this post barely paraphrases Genesis and Exodus, in a way that suggests that the poster may well not have read either. Even if they gave a good rendition of Genesis and Exodus (which they didn't), to give you an idea of how many books they left out, the list is: Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, Both Sams, Both Kings, Both Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemia, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Eccelstians, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekial, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. That's just for the old testament. The new testiment, they only did a small paraphrase of the Gospels, leaving out Acts, Romans, both Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Laodiceans, both Thesselonians, both Tims, Titus, Philemon, Hebrews, (could possibly include James), Peter, John, Jude, and Revelations. The second comment is a Douglas Adams quote. Some of the books are just rules. Some of them are so dense with many, and complicated stories (such as Judges) that it would be very difficult to summarize even that. Sorry to break up the circle-jerk, but once you've actually read the whole thing, it becomes SUPER easy to pinpoint the people that haven't. | 9 |
AskReddit/eymbz9o | cxnybk | What’s something that happened that made you think “I’m better than this” ? | My roommate used to be my everything. We were best friends and then we dated. Things happened and everything got complicated. He spent a long time messing with my head and feelings. He told me he was going on a date. I've done my best to be supportive and help him figure out what to do and what he's gonna say, despite it breaking my heart. He told me I wasn't being supportive and that I was being a bad friend. I asked my sister how I could ruin his night without ruining his date's night also. I realized about an hour later that I wanted to be his friend and be supportive, even if he wasn't seeing it. I know I'm better than dropping to his level. I felt really bad for even considering ruining his date. | 2 |
AskReddit/c4yszsc | uuxs0 | What do some people find OK that you disagree with, or make you uncomfortable? | I really dislike when people talk about their sexual exploits around me. I feel like that's a very personal topic, and I don't need to know what you do behind closed doors. I really don't like to kiss and tell, and I'd appreciate if other people respected that. Sadly as soon as people find out about that particular trait of mine they have to go through every sexual encounter they've ever had. | 13 |
AskReddit/dnhwv2l | 72enyw | What would you say is the reason so many can't tell the difference between fact and their own personal opinion? | Many people have opinions based on facts which makes their opinions seem more like fact. Say you watch a documentary on Climate change and it's 2 hours of proof about different areas of Climate change. You know for sure Climate change is real and happening. You formed an opinion based on 2 hours of presented facts. Then someone gets in an arguement and shows a fact that says "The Nasa sattelite has shown no increase in temperature at a larger rate than before humans existed" You have no answer to this information because it came up suddenly, but you know out of the 200 scientists that went in on the documentary one of them would have known about that and mentioned it if it were relevant, so you assume it isn't relevant and continue believe your opinion over the facts. If you mean the more literal sense of not understanding the difference of the words where they say something and can't fathom how what they think isn't fact, I'd say it's just a lack of basic understanding. Some people stop wanting to learn and instead switch to the mentality of teaching, which means they believe their knowledge and opinions are worth more than others. | 5 |
AskReddit/c7v0wyw | 16dju7 | What has been your biggest attempt to gain Reddit Karma that failed, also which has succeeded? | My biggest fail was writing a very detailed account of the weekend I got my duck tattoo. Got one. My biggest Karma gains have all been two words "Tug Burn" made over 2400 karma while the parent comment was about 2000 points. Then Today I gained over a hundred by the words "Hot Pocketssssssss" | 2 |
askscience/d078xmd | 46qc7x | Do black holes block or absorb gravitation waves? | My understanding is that it would just pass "through" it. Bear in mind that a gravitational wave isn't a form of matter. The fabric of spacetime itself is what the wave rides. A blackhole resides in spacetime, and the wave disrupts spacetime. It might slightly disrupt the gravitational energy being emitted from the black hole, but that's about it. | 3 |
AskReddit/d8hunht | 566o1g | What is the most hilarious Wikipedia page you know of? | The page for my hometown! Sorry, I will not link it, because some Wiki-warrior will undo the edits we made all those years ago. I edited the page under "Notable Persons" to include my friends for some absurd deeds. I gave us a bunch of titles (Sir PhD Lord Esquire kind of bullshit) and said we had presented the town with a bunch of fictional awards. Well no one caught it, ever. It's a very small town. Then a few interesting things started happening - a real estate publication would regularly put that info in the newspaper when trying to talk about how great the area is. It turned up in a local newspaper article about hometown pride once. And most amazingly of all, the town got their website rebuilt a few years back. The web developer, in need of content, copied everything verbatim off of Wikipedia on the official "Town History" page. When I noticed this, I recursively cited my lines in Wikipedia back to the official town.gov website as a source, so now it is more or less an official piece of history! Probably makes me more famous than anything I will actually do in real life. | 3 |
AskReddit/djl36cp | 6kcua8 | What is it like to be in a wheelchair? | My sister is wheelchair bound for the rest of her life and I've talked to her about it. She says the worst part is the number of people who treat you differently because of the chair. She can tell that people go through extra jumps just to be nice and helpful. She has even had people tell her that I should be nicer to her and that I should be getting things for her. It bothers her that people think that her relationship with friends and family would change because she needs a little help. She says the best part is being able to do wheelies while she's staying still. | 3 |
AskReddit/el3zqho | be97ut | What was the worst wedding planning you've ever seen? | This breaks me. My brother spent upward of 25,000 usd on his wedding. Beautiful venue. Decent food dispite the bride being allergic to everything under the sun. Awesome cake that took up a good deal of budget. There were no speakers at the venue. The music was played over an i pod speaker. You couldn't even hear the wedding march. The wedding party just walked down the isle in silence. The whole wedding was quite. Have you ever been to a party without music? Awkward. | 3 |
AskReddit/ei3dqpz | ayuqxg | What’s something you thought was normal, but later realized definitely is not? | My childhood. I thought it was normal but as I have gotten older and met more and more people from other areas of the country, I have found it definitely was not. When I tell stories about stuff I did as a kid, teen, and YA the looks I get are just hilarious to me. So there ya go | 2 |
askscience/c2datbu | jmcin | Could someone please explain (like I'm 23) how the rotational motion of a turbine shaft produces electricity? | A conductor and a magnetic field in relative motion create an electric current in the conductor. Properly arranging magnets and coiled wire, you can make a generator which converts rotational motion into electricity. | 2 |
AskReddit/d9rwoq8 | 5bwx51 | What's a shallow reason you wouldn't date someone? | I used to have two big deal breakers: I wouldn't date anyone allergic to cats, and I wouldn't date a smoker. My husband--a former smoker--is allergic to cats. Don't let stupid, shallow things stand in the way of finding love. | 596 |
explainlikeimfive/c9mmnsx | 1d3wza | What exactly expires when a water bottle has an expiration date? | nothing. some states, like new jersey, have laws that require all food and drink products to have an expiration date. rather than print several different labels at additional cost, the company that makes or distributes the water only has one, and it has an expiration date. | 9 |
AskReddit/drj3xjt | 7l330a | Why is everybody mad at the tax plan if Trump is saying it’s going to put money in our pockets? | Don't know if this is a serious question or not but it's not going to put money in the pocket of the average person. Sure it may lower your tax by 2 percent, but they are completely gutting deductions which will cost people more money than their percent rate decrease. We get bread crumbs, meanwhile the estate exemption is doubled. Businesses and corporations get the best breaks, and by giving them breaks the debt is increased by 448 BILLION dollars over the next 10 years. This is why most people hate it. | 6 |
AskReddit/ew4jn7w | cmtfsy | What feeling hurts you the most? | Emptiness. I had depression for a while and the empty feeling that came wirh it hurt so bad. I didn't smile at things that normally would make me breathless from laughing, and I didn't care what anyone was showing me, or what anyone thought. That was terrible. What made me notice was when I did laugh, it felt really unatural. Like I was doing something wrong, I hadn't done it in so long. It wad just. bad. | 2 |
AskReddit/dsxleoa | 7rkkx7 | What do you do when you are feeling there is no point in anything anymore ? | Not to be an edgelord here, but there really is no point. That doesn't mean there can't be happiness and joy in your life, it just means there's really no "endgame" to strive for. Define what success means for yourself and do you boo boo. Edit: Obviously there should be a distinction made between embracing the futility of life and having depression. Feeling lost and searching for meaning in life is not the same as being depressed and searching for a reason to carry on. If the second applies, get help. | 2 |
AskReddit/cj9knd2 | 2bwdzx | What movie actually had an unexpected ending? | Most indie movies have an unexpected ending and by unexpected ending I mean most of them just ends abruptly, leaving you to question why you just wasted 80 minutes of your life watching a movie with no story or plot. | 2 |
askscience/cphy2ux | 2zdo8l | What is exactly making the "clouds" seen in galaxy pictures? | They're nebulae (which is Latin for "clouds", as it happens) and like most everything in the universe, they're made of hydrogen and helium with a smattering of other elements. The darker, gray and orange parts of that image are mostly molecular gas with a bit of dust, which is very effective at blocking light. These molecular clouds are the environments in which stars form. Dense clumps of gas attract more and more gas, which gradually increases the pressure and temperature within the protostar. Eventually the protostellar clumps will reach the temperature range where they can maintain fusion in their cores, and they'll start the process of blowing away their gas envelope. Most star-forming regions have both cold, dense, opaque molecular clouds as well as regions where young, bright blue stars have heated up and ionized the gas, making it lower density and transparent. Without knowing the particular wavelengths that this image is taken in, it's hard to say much specific about it. | 80 |
AskReddit/er0z03m | c04i0i | What are the illegal things that should be legal? | Psychedelic drugs. FACT the government lied about how dangerous they were to get them illegal in the 70-80s so now people use actual dangerous but legal replacements. Real self licking icecream cone. | 3 |
AskReddit/dnfsi9u | 7257fr | What movie has a profound message or ending? | Fight Club is amazing because it builds up a coherent philosophy only to completely disprove itself at the end, which is a pretty accurate description of mental illness, which I believe is the main theme of the movie. Everything seems to finally make sense with this new way of life nobody else understands until it all comes crashing down. | 3 |
AskReddit/dylongm | 8hqa56 | How do you separate fact and opinion? | I feel like you're trying to ask what separates opinion from reality.? No? Facts can usually be easily proven, opinions are usually just beliefs held by certain people or groups of people but have no evidence or anything to back it. | 2 |
AskReddit/ctofa57 | 3fe7wi | What's the hardest question to answer? | The question OP just asked. Think about it, there are so many hard questions to think about when answering it. You have to go through them all, and debate which one is the hardest to answer. Then you post it, and see the other answers. You start to regret your's. On top of that, one thing that is hard for one person could be easy as pie for the next. That is why this question is hardest to answer. | 2 |
AskReddit/cpj3yyb | 2zi5q7 | Is it hard to get a job without college? | No, there are just certain jobs that require a college degree. You shouldn't have too much trouble finding jobs that don't require a college education, but for the more high end paying jobs, generally a college degree is either required or helpful. | 2 |
AskReddit/clpcglu | 2kwk20 | What are some food combinations you grew up with that other people find odd? | My grandparents all grew up during the Great Depression, and so they learned a lot of "creative" ways to stretch a meal. For instance, they would make this dish that was just sugar, half-cooked rice (still a little crunchy), and milk. It was like cereal.but.just rice. It was incredibly filling, though. Also: bread and super thick gravy. Just bread and gravy, on a plate. If the gravy was thick enough the bread wouldn't get too soggy. I don't eat these things anymore, for obvious reasons, but I didn't think twice about them when I was a kid. | 2 |
AskReddit/e6l7yw5 | 9io4gm | What are some instances where riffs that a band wrote were reused later in a different song by the same band? | Paul McCartney collaborated with Steve Miller on a song that came out on Miller's "Brave New World" album in 1969 under the title "My Dark Hour." Steve knew a good riff when he heard it, and kept developing it into various songs and forms over the next several years. Six albums later, that riff got recycled and rewritten as "Fly Like An Eagle" in 1976. | 2 |
AskReddit/ci17y33 | 27isen | What are some items that are referred to as the most popular brand as opposed to what the item actually is? | I am not 100% sure about this but I have heard that all soda in the southern United States is referred to as coke. Example: Bob- Can you get me a coke? Jim- Yeah, what kind of coke? Bob- Dr. Pepper | 2 |
AskReddit/db6o6h9 | 5iaj2t | What makes you smile and sad at the same time? | Dogs! We've basically forced captivity on the descendants of slightly socially dysfunctional (by wolf standards I guess) wolves, forcebred them to whatever iffy purpose someone wants and a lot of people treat their dogs and other pets like basic biological toys. On the other hand, I love dogs and they are awesome and seeing one makes me want to get one. | 2 |
AskReddit/c1qahlf | gu0sj | How can I begin building credit? | I started building my credit by saving up $1000, going to my bank and asking for a secured card. Basically they took my $1000, put it in a CD, and used that as collateral for my credit card, which had a $1000 limit. After a couple years they let me withdraw my CD if I wanted. Aside from that, find someone who can co-sign a card for you. I let my girlfriend be the primary cardholder on a credit card that I am the co-signer of. | 2 |
explainlikeimfive/e9b4tdh | 9vcqzs | Why aren't Puerto Rico, Samoa, Virgin Islands, NMI, Guam, & DC states? | One of the reasons is that approval required consent of the other states. And doing so would upset any power balances on place. Do you think Puerto Rico would be a red or blue state? If it isn't going to favor the right party, they won't approve. | 2 |
AskReddit/cwftggb | 3qjt8d | What's your favorite movie score to listen to? | Jurassic Park I've probably listened to it hundreds of times. I remember I got it when the movie came out back in 1993 and played it on repeat in my room for hours. Pretty sure it was one of the first CDs I owned. | 375 |
AskReddit/ed279mo | abpy9s | If you had to choose between being blind or deaf, which would you choose? | Here is one reason I would rather be blind. My grandma who raised me used to work with deaf people, and she also had a blind friend who I used to drive around for some occasional cash. In my dealings with both of these groups of people, blind people were much easier to communicate with and to exchange ideas and refer to any topic. Deaf people generally were simpler people, for the same reason I think they were difficult to communicate with. If you can’t sign, you have to write or type everything out, and that is exhausting. With a blind person you can just talk. For this reason I’d rather be blind. As a blind person you’d miss out on a lot less of what is going on around you in social settings and could easily deal with phone conversations in getting what you need and whatnot. Deaf people definitely have the benefit of being more independent but I think the missing out on social ness with people who had all there senses definitely outweighs that, I dunno. Both would suck. | 2 |
askscience/cga3e8d | 214qik | Do coiled up extension cords experience any noticeable inductive effects? | The long answer is No, they don't. Remember that an extension cord contains at least three internal wires - hot, cold, and ground. The ground usually runs as a cable shield, and absorbs some of the EM radiation coming out of the wires. The hot and cold wires run right next to each other, and create an equal and opposite magnetic field, since the electrons will always be moving in opposite directions through those wires: if the hot is bringing energy from the wall to the device, the cold is returning it to the wall, or vice versa. They are in close enough proximity (usually a twisted pair) that their fields cancel. Any field that is created by a net difference between the two is weak, and will be absorbed by the ground. Since the loops have very little EM radiation that actually escapes the cable, relatively speaking, it can't build up a strong overall field, and its inductance is negligible; for all intents and purposes, it's not there. | 3 |
AskReddit/c7ogkcg | 15oz5o | Does anyone have a favorite weird house paint name/color? | One time, me and my Dad were at Home Depot, looking at paint. So we found a color we liked, and it was called Elephant Skin. He accidently called it Elephant Foreskin, so we have called it that ever since. | 2 |
explainlikeimfive/c9u708m | 1dvem0 | Why can dishwashers both wash and dry dishes, but clothes washers cannot wash and dry clothes? | Because clothes can't be tried as easily by just making them super hot like a dishwasher does. Since dishes don't absorb water, and they also don't burn. Dual machines for clothes can and do exist, but they're more expensive, and more prone to failure. Since the two jobs are really quite different (and plenty of clothes can be machine washed but not machine tried) it just makes more sense to buy them separate. | 7 |
AskReddit/dzd7cub | 8l6fbl | How far away does someone have to live from you, to not be your neighbor? | I live in a condo. I think of everyone on the first floor as my immediate neighbors. I think of everyone in my side of the building on the upper floors to be my neighbors. Everyone else in my community is like a distant neighbor. But there are folks living down the hill in single-family homes outside my community's common property. They live closer to my unit than people who live in most other units in my community. But I don't think of them as neighbors. | 2 |
explainlikeimfive/dchuchg | 5oan5c | What does a university accreditation do? | Accreditation for a university says "this place doesn't just SAY it provides a university-level education -- it actually does so, as validated by a jury of its peers. You can trust a degree from this place to have covered the usual topics, be graded at the usual level of difficulty. This is not a scam or a place where you can just buy your degree and not learn anything." Accreditation is what separates schools that advertise in the back pages of magazines from places which hire PhDs. | 9 |
AskReddit/efccj61 | alaj24 | What’s something horrifying you’ve been told by someone you’ve just met? | Not someone I’ve just met, but similar. I was in the car on my way to a rugby game with a teammate that I barely know (exchange pleasantries, talk to each other in class, barely know her) and she starts telling me about how her uncle molested her. I’m not making light of the subject— I was just SHOCKED that she thought it would be a good time and place to confide in me, someone she barely knows, in a car full of people she barely knows. | 2 |
AskReddit/dgpljjj | 67dk8f | What is one thing you have always wanted to try, but never will? | Always wanted to throw everything I own in my truck and just drive until I find a new place to settle into. Loved the idea in my early 20's when I had a little money and no responsibility, but never did it. Now I have an amazing wife, two fantastic kids, and some shiny, golden handcuffs. Wouldn't trade my life for anything, but that ultimate freedom is still romanticized in my head. | 2 |
askscience/cfupife | 1zlauf | If matter equals energy and energy equals matter, can a bolt of electricity be made into solid matter? | I think you misunderstood what E = mc^2 actually means. It's NOT "matter equals energy and energy equals matter". It's Energy = Mass times the speed of light squared. and it's NOT a magic incantation for converting energy into matter, but rather, a way to determine how much energy you can potentially get from a quantity of matter. Maybe someone else can explain it better?. | 7 |
AskReddit/ch6s4zx | 24g4ef | Should women that falsely accuse men of rape face the same consequences as a convicted rapist? | No but the charges should be heavy enough that women dont think this is something that they can get away with. False accusations wreck lives - the men accussed can lose jobs, friends and have families turn against them. Women who do this make me disgusted and it muddies the waters for juries having to make decisions on real cases. | 2 |
askscience/coyjymh | 2x6ptn | Is freezing point elevation possible? | Substitution of heavier isotopes will result in a higher freezing point. For example, you'll get roughly +0.04 °C elevation in the freezing point of water for every mole % increase of Deuterium. Freezing point elevations in other isotopomers, however, are generally smaller. | 4 |
AskReddit/dp68or3 | 7a0rqi | What was the happiest moment of your life so far? | Can the last 5 years if my life with my fiancé count? He makes me so happy. If I had to choose a specific moment, I would say it was very recently. My great grandma was about to pass away. and there was 6 generations of family in one house. I was happy in the saddest sort of way. I was happy because this women is what made every person in that room possible. Not many families can even stand each other. I am blessed to have a relationship with many of my family members. | 3 |
AskReddit/c20iwwq | i3893 | Can I request reimbursement of "Union Dues" if I was hired to a company for a 2-3 month probationary period? | If anything, you should be contacting the Union to see what they can do to help you if they gave no reason for you being fired. I'm in CA in the states, where you cannot be fired without reason (which, in your case, would mean they have to have proof of poor performance). However, I don't know if that's the case for Toronto, so your Union would be the best to ask. But no, you probably can't get those dues back. You'd have to check whatever contract you signed, but it's immensely unlikely. | 2 |
AskReddit/c53dafs | vcwmx | To all the childless Redditors: you've just found out you're going to have a daughter, what are your top three names for her? | Thank you for not picking something with -lynn or -leigh at the end. I'm so sick of that trend. That and the -ayden trend with boy names. Hayden. Kayden. Brayden. Jayden. Oh, and also spelling names in ridiculous ways to make them more "unique". I have a friend who named their son Faelynn. Yes, they named their son something that sounds almost identical to "failing" As for your question. I have a son, but if I'd had a girl, here are some names we kicked around: Sarah, Elizabeth, and Jennifer | 3 |
AskReddit/el90425 | bew5hz | What would you consider to be a wasted life? | Personally, I would consider a wasted life to be when someone is too afraid to follow their dreams, try new things, meet people, etc. Life is all about getting out of your comfort zone, so when you stay in that safe place for your whole life, you really aren’t living at all. | 3 |
askscience/c8uqcz7 | 1a72ih | What was the radiation exposure per year for a "Radium Girl", who painted clock dials with luminous radium-based paint in the 1920's? | Here is a very rough calculation which excludes the decay products of Radium: Assuming 500 microCuries( .005 Ci) of nothing but alpha decays from radium through out the year and an alpha particle energy of around 5 MeV according to Wikipedia then we get a total absorbed energy of 9.210^7 MeV/sec or 1.4 10^-5 J/sec or 441 J/year , and it all will be absorbed because alpha radiation has a penetration depth measured in millimeters. For the whole body dose(this is wrong, all the dose would have been in the mouth and so much higher) over a year we will assume the woman masses 75 kg. This leads to a dose of 5.8 Sv for the year in whole body exposure or 98 Sv for the year all focused in the head. I can make a more detailed post on my calculations if anyone wants a better accounting, I skimped typing out some steps. edit: thetripp says for references that I got in the ballpark, go me. Wow, I can't believe how high that is. I'm almost crying thinking about what would happen to those poor girls. | 11 |
explainlikeimfive/cefw93o | 1u9iz1 | Why do cops not sit outside of bars and arrest anyone getting into their car? | My criminology/criminal justice professor used to be a police officer and he did something similar to this when he was hired out by Mothers Against Drunk Driving. He was one of the few highly educated officers who knew Sir Robert Peel's principles of policing, the first principle being that the main goal of the police is to prevent crime. If you can prevent crime, you don't need to control or arrest anybody. So for an entire month he went to the area of town with the most bars and drove around in the police cruiser with the lights on, drawing as much attention to himself as possible. Because he did this, everybody would walk out of the bars, see the police officer, and find a way of getting home without drinking and driving. He made no arrests that month because he prevented all drunk driving. Mothers Against Drunk Driving never hired him again because they really didn't want to stop drunk driving, they just want to see people being arrested for it. I realize this kind of a digression but thought it might be interesting in this thread. | 424 |
AskReddit/cm5ly7a | 2mmir3 | Why do soap and shampoo bottles put Aqua as one of their ingredients instead of Water? | Image, basically. A lot of brands use the Latin names for ingredients purely to sound fancy or make their product seem more luxurious to the uninformed consumer. | 2 |
AskReddit/eoppkia | bss2ya | What word did you use to think meant something different than it actually means? | I used to think "approximately" was a synonym for "exactly". Maybe it was the "x" in the word, but it always made sense. "I will be there approximately at eight o'clock" means they are showing up EXACTLY at eight. I was big reader with a large vocabulary but this one slipped by me until I was probably about twelve or thirteen. | 3 |
AskHistorians/cp7uvy1 | 2yakrx | Why was Cuba immediately granted independence after the Spanish-American war while the Philippines remained under US rule for decades? | If I recall it may have been because there was already a rebellion going on in Cuba against the Spanish. Sending in troops to help their war of independence was the reason given for America to throw its hat in the ring in the first place. This didn't mean Cuba was altogether independent, as it was the United States forces that negotiated the treaty with the Spanish after on behalf of the rebels, and they refused to let the rebel forces enter the capitol until they agreed to adopt a constitution written for them by the Americans. Not to mention, Cuba was unable to sign any treaties with other countries, and Guantanamo Bay was to become American. To me, Cuba seemed like a kind of proto-neocolony, with formal independence, however its foreign policies as well as its industries would be under the hegemony of another country or another countries' business elite. This would basically be the same basic model for all former colonies after they were ceded at the end of the world wars. I think that the reason Cuba was given formal independence was because there was already a nationalist fighting force in full momentum at the time of US involvement. It probably would have been costly to have to police a country as a colony while much of the population was already in full flex independence fight mode. If the US is going to have control over their exports, have the power to take command of their military, have the final say over their foreign policy, why have to fight to keep it a colony? | 8 |
AskReddit/c87l64n | 17oz49 | What's your biggest "false alarm" moment? | I was at a party one night with a friend and ended up making out with a girl. Three days later I was at a lecture and felt a pain near my lip, I reached up to it and felt a sore. I suddenly start mentally freaking out, I'm remembering the words of my teacher from long ago in high school freshman Health class. "You can even get herpes from kissing, mouth herpes, mouth herpes, mouth herpes" the words echoing in my head throughout the day. I go home and immediately text my friend to check his face for sores as I knew he was with her ten minutes before I was, he texted back that he didn't see any. So still freaking out about if my dating life was completely over, at the end of the week I go to the clinic. After explaining everything to the nurse, she calmly sits me down and explains to me about cold sores and how they are a form of herpes but different. I came back refreshed, knowing that my life wasn't completely over and it was just mainly a false alarm. | 21 |
AskReddit/cvayedd | 3m0ne9 | How would different movies change if their main characters switched genders? | Female Darth Vader would know if she had a second child. The dark side characters wouldn't have to focus solely on (female version) Luke. Not to mention it is significantly more difficult to hide/save the children in the first place if the pregnant one is the dark side commander and the one running to safety is the guy. In fact, I think you just broke Star Wars. | 3 |
AskReddit/dgp8atp | 67bxle | What are some good board games to play with my SO? | I am a very big board game. Me and my girlfriend play many as well. The answer varies tremendously based on what user experience you like to get out of a game (i.e. Is it just for pass time, is it for heavy competition, is it for cooperative bonding?) Since you're talking two player games, me and my girlfriend prefer cooperative games (games where we're on the same team) or low competition games where you don't wanna murder each other at the end. A lot of the games we like are really meant for 4 players but if you're just playing for fun, some 4 player games can be scaled down to be fun for two people. Some games we like (in no particular order) Taboo (we take turns just seeing how many we can get) Codenames (favorite game) Scattagories Forbidden island Pandemic Heads up 500 piece jigsaw puzzles Keep talking and nobody explodes (other favorite) | 3 |
askscience/eirtt48 | b1l8np | How long can an adult be anesthetized? | For obvious ethical reasons, the limits of duration haven’t been pushed. I’d be comfortable saying at least days are okay, even into the realm of weeks depending on depth of anesthesia. Some examples are the extended anesthesia during the Milwaukee protocol, and “medically-induced comas”, which is really just protracted but light anesthesia/sedation while a person is intubated. Propofol is a common choice for this, along with some other agents. Anesthesia is not like sleep, and doesn’t substitute for it. You’re much more responsive to external stimuli when asleep than when anesthetized. For that reason, you can anesthetize FFI patients, and they wake up just as bad as where they left off, and some agents actually accelerate their symptoms. Anesthesia is a true unconsciousness (vs. “reduced consciousness” of sleep), i.e. you cannot wake an unconscious or anesthetized person. Hope that helps! | 2 |
AskReddit/ddq8wtg | 5tzwek | What's something extraordinary that you've seen but didn't have a camera with you at the time? | When i was 16 i was playing outside with my basketball when i spotted a huge common house spider just making his way across the path. I sat and watched as he stalked along are freaky like. Then out of no where this wasp of some sort (it was all black with electric yellow antennas) flew in at top speed crashing into this now panicking spider. They were full on brawling at this point rolling along the cement. Im just sitting there with my mouth now agape bewildered at what i was watching. It got even better when the wasp seemed to pin the spider down and began to start ripping off its spider legs one at a time ! 16-year-old me, with my jaw now touching the ground couldnt believe what i was seeing. Then the wasp flew away leaving only 8 black hairy legs. It was at that point that i realized the bug world is well scary. And i wished i had a camera. | 2 |
AskHistorians/ch252sv | 23yron | Why was Ancient Athenian democracy so successful? | Not a historian but I could argue that Athenian democracy succeeded despite itself. It gave significant power to a segment of the population that was usually ignored but the assembly would then go on to make some horrible decisions. Firstly I would note that Marathon was in 490 BCE but was forever be looked at as the ideal for the conservative elements (i.e. elites) who despaired about Athens being ruled by demagogues and the mob. Marathon was a victory by the landowning segment of the population (and historians like van Wees argue was dominated by people who owned enough land and slaves to never need to work it themselves), when the hoplites dominated politics rather than the lower-class navy. Democracy looked instead to Salamis which was won by the (primarily) lower class navy. The Athenian democracy, while revolutionary in the power it gave to the ordinary citizen, still had some problems. It was dominated by those who lived near the city - if you were a poor farmer who lived a day away then you rarely (if ever) would get to the Pnyx to vote. So it would be dominated by people who lived in the city or the immediate vicinity. Secondly it was dominated by demagogues - usually elite men (or 'new men' such as the often bashed Cleon) in the office of strategoi. These men would have been trained from birth to lead, have the training in rhetoric to be able to speak pleasingly (and probably the voice training to communicate clearly to thousands of people without a microphone). While any individual could technically stand up at the assembly and make a speech - can you imagine yourself standing up among 6,000 of your neighbours and citizens and after a trained speaker, it would take considerable stones to do that. So yes, the Athenian democracy was an incredible thing (and one could argue more democratic than our system today were we cede our decision making capability to some schmuck we elect every 4-5 years and hope they do what we want) giving each citizen the right to decide on every facet of the state: do we make war, or peace, or send ambassadors to Persia? Now the dark side of Athenian democracy - it was tempestuous and schizophrenic. The assembly voted to send a massive expedition on the doomed Sicilian Expedition (egged on by demagogues who said it'd be easy) which wiped out Athens' navy and army. The assembly voted to execute all males (and sell off the women and children) of the rebellious Mytilenes and sent off a ship with that order, on the following day they reconsidered and immediately sent off a second ship to countermand the previous order and only execute the ringleaders. Later in the Peloponnessian War when another revolt occurred, the assembly voted to execute the men and enslave the women and children of Melos - and there would be no reconsidering this time (late in the war and Athens was much more desperate). What shows the turbulent nature of Athens democracy is best shown by the reaction after the naval battle at Arginusae. After the Scilian Expedition had failed and Athens entire fleet was destroyed, the city used emergency funds (including raiding their own temples) to build up a new fleet and they defeated the Spartan navy in a key battle at Arginusae. Unfortunately a storm blew up after the battle and prevented the Athenians from recovering survivors or the dead - and lack of a proper burial was not a good thing. So when the strategoi (admirals/generals) returned they were prosecuted. However the generals managed to explain why they failed to recover the dead/survivors and were let off. Then a little later at a religious festivals, the dead sailors came up again and emotions got heated and the strategoi were again prosecuted, found guilty, and executed. Then a few days later when things had cooled down, the assembly went after the man who had pushed for the executions. Worse, the executions of so many experienced leaders left newer and inexperienced strategoi in charge who contributed to the destruction of the Athenian navy a little while later at Aegospotami. This was the Athenian democracy, warts and all. Edit: I should have added something that explained a bit about how the democracy lasted so long from the elite perspective. Democracy was another system of government that developed due to the constant competition for power and dominance among elites. Ancient Greece being a very agonist society, your standing only rose if somebody else's fell. So elites were constantly fighting for power which caused considerable unrest. Things like oligarchies were solutions to this problem. Athenian democracy succeeded because they channeled that elite competitive drive into other areas. There was still the office of strategos that they could be elected to repeatedly. There was also the courts where elites could compete against each other through lawsuits and accusations. But also liturgies like the theatre: elites competed as the best playwright in comedy or tragedy, or as the best choregos (producer) for the best play. It was a brilliant system, to harness all that competitive drive and funnel it away, thus protecting the democracy (though aristocratic coups did occur from time to time). | 11 |
AskReddit/czt5302 | 44v36w | What do you do if you are being Framed by the Government? | I feel like proving your innocence would be near impossible at that point, so just ride it out, let loose. Your reputation would never be recoverable anyways, be bad/evil. Try to be a mastermind and be ahead of them every step of the way. Don't try to hurt/kill innocent civilians, but I'd probably try to take out the government officials behind it. Make them regret they ever framed you. I would just make sure I wouldn't be caught alive. | 2 |
AskReddit/dl357xn | 6r8b55 | What's the coolest story you have of your parents/grandparents? | The Klan ran my maternal grandparents out of a small town here in NC because they thought (mistakenly) that they were an interracial couple. This was back in the late 1940s when Jim Crow ruled the South. My grandfather shot at them, which wasn't what you did back in those dim dark days. His White boss had to help them flee before anyone got hurt. | 2 |
AskHistorians/cvmvum5 | 3nc7qg | What was the immigration of the Germanic tribes like during the Migration Period (Völkerwanderung)? | I'm going to recommend People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy by Patrick Amory. It should give you at least some picture of Germanic ethnic identities existing alongside Roman ones. Your actual question is incredibly vague. What was an immigration like? Any answer would have to be very very broad, and writers at the time didn't worry so much about the details of cultural assimilation. Today, we understand that ethnic identity is fluid, and that means we have peoples who are in some nebulous state between Germanic tribe and romanized polity that is still distinct from the empire. The Vandals, Suebi, and Alans crossed the Rhine in 406. They settled in Hispania, briefly. The Suebi stayed, while the Vandals and Alans invaded North Africa. None of these migrations and settlements were sanctioned by Rome. We have records of Vandalic still being used in North Africa, and its unclear how assimilated the Alans (an Iranian speaking people) were with the Vandals. After Belisarius defeated them, they were dispersed and ceased to exist as a cohesive ethnic group. Likely, Vandal and Alan identity would not have lasted more than a generation or two after that. The Suebi remained in Hispania and were eventually absorbed by the Visigothic kingdom. After a certain point, it becomes difficult to tell whether certain historical figures with Germanic names from the region were Suebi or Visigothic, or if anyone even cared. The Ostrogoths were sent to take Italy from Odoacer. Theodoric the Great ruled ostensibly as a viceroy from the Eastern Roman Empire, though today we acknowledge that he was effectively independent and talk about his kingdom as a separate state. We know that the Ostrogothic army contained Huns and Rugians, and the current trend in academia is to make a case for them being multiethnic, but I haven't found any reason to believe non-Germanic presence among them was terribly significant. We have land deeds from Italy in Gothic, and it seems likely that the language was still in use in Theodoric's Kingdom, though most Ostrogoths would have likely spoken Latin also. Goths and Romans were treated separately by law, with Goths serving in the military and Romans filling administrative roles. Both farmed. We know that they intermarried, but this doesn't seem to be the norm. After Justinian defeated the Ostrogoths, they were dispersed like the Vandals. Some went off to join the Franks, some took up service in Justinian's armies, and some settled in Northern Italy and the Balkans, integrating with the local populations. The Visigoths and Franks both served Rome as foederati. This means that their armies served as armies for Rome in exchange for land to settle and farm. The Visigoths themselves had a hand in creating the need for foederati, having destroyed the Roman army at the Battle of Adrianople. Their presence within the borders of the empire was sometimes welcome and sometimes not. By the time the Visigoths were given the land that would become their successor state, most of them had spent much of their lives within the empire. They would have spoken Latin and been fairly acclimated to contemporary Roman culture. Whether or not the Visigoths even spoke Gothic at all at this point is something hotly debated by gothicists. They became the ruling class in Visigothic Spain, but over time the locals began adopting Gothic names and the ethnic distinction between Goths and Romans began to blur, becoming more of a legal/class distinction. Some of the distinction between Goth and Frank also began to blur in border regions. The Visigoths absorbed the Suebi, converted to Trinitarianism, and were defeated by the muslims. Visigothic idenity remained for quite a while afterwards, with muslim sources referring to locals as goths, and many noble families claiming Gothic descent. Religion was perhaps one of the largest cultural differences between migrating Germanic peoples and Romans, particularly when many of these Germanic peoples were already Latin speakers. Romans were usually Trinitarian Christians. Most of the Germanic groups we see entering the empire had already been converted to Arian Christianity. They maintained separate churches and a separate clergy. The Franks are notable for being the only Germanic people we see converting to Trinitarianism right away. The Anglo-Saxon invasion is a whole other matter entirely. Bede would have us believe the invaders massacred all the locals and took their land, but genetic studies (see Brian Sykes) show that this isn't the case. It's more likely that they killed or drove off the local Brythonic nobility and the locals assimilated into their culture. King lists show early Anglo-Saxon kings with Brythonic names, and one of the first things ever written down in English was by a man with a Brythonic name, Caedmon. It's interesting to compare the Anglo-Saxons with continental Germanic peoples, because in England we see the ruling class assimilating the locals, but in Hispania and Frankia we see the locals assimilating the ruling class. | 3 |
explainlikeimfive/dhey648 | 6aja4l | How did Japan stop other countries from trading with them when they closed off japan a few hundred years ago? | They made it illegal for anyone to enter or exit Japan without permission. There were likely a bit of illegal trading but since Japan is situated on islands it is hard to smuggle goods across the oceans without being spotted by the coast guard or the police. The ban was not only a ban on trade but a ban on the exchange of culture. | 3 |
Ask_Politics/d2r8vzx | 4hnr0c | If Republican politicians continue to not endorse Trump/Cruz, how much would that impact their chances in the general election? | It most certainly will impact their chances in the general. Party apparatuses are crucial aspects of campaign work- and lackluster support from party leaders has cost many a candidate their dream job over the years. Now, since the field has winnowed significantly over the course of the primary, both Trump and Cruz have won a handful of endorsements- but mostly they have won a lot of "I will support whomever is the nominee". Party enthusiasm is definitely not behind either of them, but neither is a large system of direct sabotage. Traditionally this would translate into turnout/money issues in the general election. However there is a slight chance that, since this is likely going to be a negative vote election (people turnout against Trump or against Clinton) that the individual candidates' popularity is not as important to turnout numbers as in previous years. Basically, there are many factors at play. But it can be definitively said that it certainly won't help. PS: The converse of how the nominee will affect downballot races is much more clear. The national electorate is putting a lot of congressional Republicans in unenviable positions this November. | 2 |
AskReddit/c2cio4k | jj0c0 | If I turn off a power strip, is it still drawing energy, or do I have to also pull the strip plug out of the wall? | Flipping the switch breaks the circuit, so the electrical devices connected to it can not pull any current, which means you have used no power. If it has an indicator light, then that requires energy, but not an amount you will ever notice on your bill. | 4 |
askscience/c6aegfg | 104pkw | What areas of the earth would best weather global warming? | The Great Lakes region in the US and Canada would be ideal for people to live. In this region, we don't have to worry much about droughts, or floods, or hurricanes, or tornadoes, or our water supplies drying up. The lakes moderate temperatures, but can't rise much above their current levels, unlike rivers and oceans. And we're far enough north that temperatures wouldn't ever get too high for people. The worst consequence, as it relates to human life, in the case of global warming, would be droughts, since we need rain to grow our crops. Rising sea levels could be held back by levies, like in New Orleans, for instance, or the Netherlands. So the best areas to live would often be places that have high annual precipitation, like the Pacific Northwest. | 5 |
explainlikeimfive/d090du0 | 46zfnh | Why is a frozen computer not considered a malfunction? | Computers usually freeze because a program is using all of the computers ability to process things. For sake of the argument, I'm going to refer to this as the computers attention. All of the attention is being given to the one guy who keeps screaming "I NEED HELP NOW!" and it gets occupied with that one guy so nothing else can done until it is finished with that one guy. Most of the time, the computer gets done with that guy and moves to the next person. Sometimes, the guy hands the computer a task that can't be done, i.e. infinite loop, so the computer will use all of its attention to focus on this one task and nothing else. It will continue to do this until done with the task, which because the task is infinite, it will never be done. | 9 |
explainlikeimfive/c6mn6wt | 11hzd7 | Can someone explain in simple terms how Lagrangian points work and what their importance is to space exploration? | Lagrange Points are points in a gravitationally bound system (ie any group of large bodies that are orbiting around each other eg the Earth-Moon system) where the force exerted by one body on the other and vice versa cancel out. It's difficult to explain this without mathematics because humans aren't used to thinking about forces as diminishing over distance - because the distances they diminish over are so vast compared to us. But the basic idea is that because gravity diminishes over distance, at some point regardless of the relative mass of any two bodies (eg the Earth is much heavier than the moon) as you leave one object (A) travelling towards the other (B) object, the force from A on you will diminish and the force from B will increase. There will be a point at which they are both equal, and that is the Lagrangian point. At that point you are gravitationally 'stable' - you aren't being pulled one or the other, you are just kind of 'sitting there' with no gravitational force on you. These are important because it allows us to put things in an orbit that is 100% stable. The ISS is constantly having to fight to maintain its orbit by reboosting itself because even though it is in space, it is still deep inside the Earth's gravity field and so is constantly falling towards Earth. At a Lagrange Point, we can have a perpetual space station that is completely free of both the Earth and the Moon's gravity. It dramatically simplifies building a space station if we don't have to worry (as much) about keeping it 'up' in space. | 3 |
explainlikeimfive/cdp5fsf | 1rny5n | If blood takes time to circulate around the body, how is it possible that IV administered drugs can work almost instantly? | it doesn't actually take all that long for blood to circulate through the body. i believe it takes around a minute for all your blood to make a full loop. it also matters what the medication is for. if you are giving a medication for the heart and you are pushing it from an IV in your elbow, you only have to wait for the blood (which is already on the return trip to the heart) to travel from your elbow to your heart, which is a pretty short trip. | 2 |
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