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Can an EU country negotiate lower tariffs just for itself? | The EU boasts a [pretty long list](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L:2021:414:FULL&from=EN) of all the duties on "third countries" (that is non EU, non EU teritorries).
AFAIK, these tariffs are negotiated (set) by the European Commission on behalf of the whole EU. But could a single smaller country, say Austria or Slovakia, say "That's it, no more rice import duty", and simply change the rules for themselves only? Or is the tariff paid to the EU directly when entering the area and thus individual countries have no say in it?
As you can see, I am not knowledgeable at all in this area, so feel free to recommend me any books or articles, I'll gladly read it. Thank you for all answers. | 29 | No. The EU is a customs union, meaning that not only are tariffs and trade barriers eliminated between countries in the EU, but they also apply a common customs tariff (CCT) that applies to all goods entering the EU, regardless of which country they enter. That’s a fundamental necessity to making the free movement of goods throughout the EU possible; otherwise, to use your example, a rice importer could avoid a tariff applied in Germany by importing to Austria duty free first and shipping it across the border.
The EU therefore sets the CCT and negotiates things like trade agreements with foreign countries directly, on behalf of all the EU countries collectively. | 28 |
CMV: Israel is under no obligation, morally or legally, to withdraw from it's 'occupied' states | Hello! First off, I should specify that I'm a white atheist who lives in the hills of Kentucky. I don't have a personal stake in the matter, other than a slight prejudice of affection towards the Jews, for instance how I feel really bad about what happened to them in 1945. (Don't bother trying to absolve me of guilt, that's not the CMV)
Secondly, I doubt anyone on Earth is fully educated about all the stuff that goes down over there, let alone some bum in Kentucky, so I could be wrong or over generalizing.
Anyway, it's my understanding that when Israel was created, it was MUCH smaller than today. However, a GROUP (3 I believe) of nations attacked Israel very shortly after creation and when Israel won the ensuing war "with one arm tied behind it's back" they acquired the land around them and nearly doubled their size.
On top of this, the nation itself was created from land 'acquired' through wars we (the allies in WWI and WWII) didn't start. First it came from the defeated Ottomans, then Palestine allied with the axis powers and subsequently lost again.
This seems to me like a clear case of "screwed around too much and got burned". An occupation, to me, is when an aggressor invading army takes control of a country through force but doesn't exactly annex it into the larger nation. (Not a defender) For example, the Nazi occupation of France. (AFAIK the nations conquered by Germany were not absorbed into a larger Germany but instead kept their names as opposed to the Roman empire, the Sengoku period, or the U.S. civil war)
Instead it seems to me like Israel 'won' this land fair and square. And we are using school yard rules otherwise the whole area would get along. This is like someone getting jumped on the playground by three people, fighting them off, then being held liable for hospital bills, or taking their wallets. If someone comes into my house and I fight him off, I'm taking his wallet.
So why, then, do people exclaim that Israel is 'occupying' those lands and should forfeit them? Why do the surrounding people have such hostilities?
I understand that Israel should probably just give it up to ease tension, but I do not think they are obligated to anymore than we were obligated to free Japan (Though of course we did) or allow Germany to remain intact, albeit in two halves, as opposed to that country being annexed into the U.K., U.S., or surrounding countries like Poland. | 33 | What you're proposing is called the "one state solution" where the peoples of the West Bank and Gaza are fully integrated into the Israeli state and have an equal basis in citizenship with all other Israeli citizens. Though most people involved don't like that solution for a variety of reasons, it would certainly comply with the legal and moral imperatives of equality and sovereignty.
It is not however the reality of how Israel treats those territories today. The residents of the West Bank and Gaza are not considered Israeli citizens, nor are they citizens of any other country. They are subject to the control of the Israeli government, but do not have a vote in how that government operates. It is widely considered immoral and unacceptable in modern societies for people to lack any democratic means to influence their government.
> An occupation, to me, is when an invading army takes control of a country through force but doesn't exactly annex it into the larger nation.
This is exactly what is going on in the territories. Israel purposely does not consider all of their land to be fully "Israel" where people born there would be entitled to citizenship. They treat it as effectively a colony where the people are stateless and subject to Israeli control, but not Israeli rights. | 43 |
[Star Wars] What happened to the Clones who disobeyed Order 66? | I was looking though archives from the Clone Wars and one thing that really struck me was how some Clones established deep and long-lasting friendships with their Jedi Commanders. And despite the fact that the Clones were conditioned to follow all orders, there were plenty who rebelled against the chain of command. [ARC Troopers](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Advanced_Recon_Commando) were notorious for disobeying orders and going rogue. While a majority of these Clones were probably hunted down and killed there are records of a Clone named [X2](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/X2) who was very active during the Galactic Civil war. So, I want to know what happened to rest of those who survived? | 27 | In 19 BBY a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Coruscant underground. Today, still wanted by the Empire, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the ARC-Team. | 102 |
Are there any viruses that humans must have in/on our bodies in order to stay alive? | 86 | It’s possible that some bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) are important for keeping gut bacteria in check, though it might be hard to prove that one way or another.
Alternatively, there are parts of the human genome that are theorized to have originally come from viral DNA, so if you count those as viruses still, they are very essential. | 68 |
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[Firefly] Why do some folk on the outer worlds use such outdated weaponry? Where did they get those guns in the first place? | 118 | If you want laser weapons you need clean rooms, high quality silicon foundries, high-tech assembly lines for high-density batteries and perfectly formed lenses. A laser weapon requires a massive technological infrastructure to build.
A slug-thrower gun can be made with 1800s grade technology, which even the backwoods moons have. People with bullet-shooting guns generally work around or behind the Alliance and will only face other bullet-shooting weapons, so there's no real need to get a far more expensive weapon with far, far more expensive ammunition in the form of a laser gun and its batteries. It's just not worth it when a regular gun will do just fine in the same role. | 156 |
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[Harry Potter] Did the Wizarding World have any awareness of the power of the nuclear bomb, and how dangerous it could be? Have Wizards and Witches put in danger or killed by nuclear weapons before? | I'm asking because Ronald Weasley appears to be pretty much one of the only Wizards who is interested in Muggle technology. And yet, it would seem that the Wizarding World (with its bureaucracies and hierarchies, some of which are explicitly kept around in order to keep watch on the Muggle world) would do well do fully understand Muggle technology, given that much of the world around them is disproportionately (in a very physical way) created, and changed, by Muggles using their technology.
So what gives? What about things like nuclear weapons, or Love Canal, and so on, things that affect the natural environment much more than most other things? Would a Wizard/Witch just magic the mess away or something? | 604 | Nuclear bombs specifically haven't been used as actual weapons since the 40s, and even tests are rare. Most muggles consider them more abstract deterrents then something anyone would seriously consider using. You can't exactly blame wizards, who know less about the context and details, for assuming the same thing. Dangerous in principle, but not a threat worth seriously considering.
As for large scale alternations of the world via technology- the wizards know about it, sure. But what should they do? They're pretty secure they *could* magic the mess away, if push comes to shove, and that arrogance means they're mostly content to let the muggles do what they will. | 323 |
ELI5: How do Commercial Hot Sauces Control the Heat in Every Bottle, Despite Peppers Varying Greatly in Their Intensity? | You can bite into one jalapeno and have it taste essentially like a bell pepper, and then bite into another and experience burning hellfire. How do companies that use peppers in their sauces keep uniformity throughout every bottle despite this natural variation? | 18 | I used to work in a lab that tested hot sauce, amongst other things. You can determine how spicy it is by chemical analysis, specifically HPLC, if you are interested. USP has a capsaicin method that is used to determine how spicy something is. | 14 |
Any news about the antibodies created when infected with the new Omicron variant? Since it has multiple mutations, are the natural antibodies from Omicron effective in fighting the earlier variants? | 263 | Pretty sure we’re still waiting for research to be completed on these questions. We’ve only been aware of this variant for less than three weeks. Guaranteed someone is researching this now, but it’ll take a minute for enough data to be collected for them to be able to draw any firm conclusions. | 119 |
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Do hormones in toddler boys and girls really differ much? | As a parent I have heard people repeatedly make comments about how boys are so much harder to raise because of their hormones. I’m not talking about pubescent kids, people make this kind of comment about my 3 year old and even my 1 year old. I always assume this is just sexist thinking but is there a big difference between biological boys and girls at such a young age? Thanks. | 1,301 | There's a phenomenon known as "mini-puberty" where sex hormones increase temporarily early in life. It's far more pronounced in boys than it is in girls. This increase for boys starts at about 6 months and peaks around 2 years before dropping off to baseline by age 6. At 2 years old, testosterone levels for boys is almost half of what it would be at puberty.
Girls also have a mini-puberty, but the spike in estrogen is far lower at only about a 10th of what it would be during puberty.
It should also be noted that babies are flooded with sex hormones during gestation, with girls getting far more estrogen before birth than they do at puberty and boys getting almost as much as during puberty. | 1,579 |
[Frozen/Tolkien] How would the One Ring affect Elsa? | I asked this a little bit ago in the movie's main subreddit, but with this awesome post - https://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/2s1oo8/can_winnie_the_pooh_resist_the_one_ring/ - I thought that it would be fun to ask here:
If Elsa found the One Ring (let's say the morning of her coronation, at the height of her neuroses), how would it affect her? | 27 | Initially she would lose the ability to sing "Let it go".
After that? It's the Galadriel scenario. Out of a desire to protect her lands and people would grow an elemental winter tyrant, capable of plunging the world into biting darkness or covering it in ice. Her legions of snow golems would become the terror of enemy nations. And she might go so far as to make it always winter and never Christmas. | 58 |
[Harry Potter] Can the Chasers outscore a snitch catch? | The Snitch is worth 150 points, and ends the game. If you have zero points and the other team has 160, but you catch the snitch, do you lose? | 49 | Yes.
In 1994, during the Final of the 422nd edition of the Quidditch World Cup between Ireland and Bulgaria, Krum from Bulgaria caught the Snitch, bringing Bulgaria's score to from 10 to 160 and finishing the game.
However, Ireland outscored Bulgaria and finished the game on 170. | 87 |
I think that prices in North America should include taxes. CMV | We deserve to know exactly how much we're paying just by glancin at labels, besides, there's no benefit to the customer whatsoever in not including taxes. | 69 | The benefits of sales taxes being added after prices is that:
1. Retailers can make their price appear lower, and thus more marketable.
2. We, as consumers, can see on our receipt EXACTLY how much is being added as taxes, and thus will be more sensitive to tax changes. If taxes are slowly raised without customers seeing them on the receipt, they will not be truly sensitive to exactly where their money is going.
3. Retailers might jack their prices up slightly when a new tax law is enacted, and people would attribute it to the tax. Say their product was $30 and was to have a $5 tax added on. They might retail it for $36 when the new tax law came out, and consumers would barely know the difference, but are still paying more for the same product.
4. Ultimately, there is no disadvantage to showing sales tax separately from product price, and the advantage it confers is more information: the more information you have on where your money is going, the better. | 42 |
CMV: There's no point in voting (for the major parties) if you and your significant other cancel each other out. (US politics) | I tried looking for something similar, and I'm sure it's been posted, but any key words I punched in didn't seem to bring it up.
Very specifically, I'm referring to the situation where each of the two opposing parties has a major candidate, and you and your spouse (or hell, even a trusted roommate) will be voting for the opposite. Under these circumstances, there's no difference between both voting and neither voting in any discrepancy between two major candidates.
Now, perhaps you're both voting for the lesser of two evils, in which case you could both agree to not cancel each other out and, instead, vote third party. Still, there's no reason for two people to hold directly-opposing votes, since they effectively cancel each other out. You're just better off finding the common ground on which you agree and voting there, even if it means wasting time with a third party (at least it makes third parties seem a little more viable in the turnout).
This doesn't apply for any elections in which there are more than two candidates, but anyone familiar with the US voting system knows that third parties in presidential elections are just wishful thinking, even the one time they almost worked. | 21 | When you vote, you are *signaling*. Politicians count up the statistics on who votes for what to determine their policies. How often do people in your state vote? How often do people in your county vote? How divided is your district? These are all questions politicians consider.
Lets say the vote is divided 2-20 in an area (counting individual votes). The area is not "divided". Not at all. But what if 10,000 divided couples vote? Then the vote is 10,002-10,020. That's divided. But if two people don't vote, that's two non-voters political parties are not going to account for in making their platforms next year. In the grand scale, it makes a difference. | 13 |
ELI5: How is the infamous housing bubble that the U.S. created different from the current student loan bubble that we are creating as we speak? | 18 | >Eventually banks will realize all these people that drop out or don't pay them back for whatever reason, is just losses. At least with homes there was (although small) some asset for the banks to put a lien on.
This is the difference. The banks will always get their money back. There is no way out of student debt. They can force you to sell your posessions, they can intercept your paychecks, they can do anything short of throwing you in jail to get you to pay those debts. Even if you go bankrupt, you go to court for it, you have literally $0 and no assets besides the clothes on your back, it is illegal for the debt to go away, you must continue paying it with whatever scraps of cash you find, and it will keep accruing interest.
The only way you can ever get out of student debt, is if you die, and even then, the banks will attempt to get their lost money from your family, even though it's technically illegal to ask. As long as you are alive, the banks will get their money back. | 11 |
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ELI5:If a will is written by a competent, mentally stable person, and is handled by a lawyer and all things are in order, how can they be contested and overturned? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the will? | 44 | #1 A will is ambulatory. It has no legal effect until the person is dead. Some states allow a testator (person whose will it is) to have the will be "approved" during his lifetime, thereby preventing any challenges to the will's execution after death.
#2 There are a lot of formalities that must be observed. These formalities vary from state to state. Some of them are silly, some of them are very serious. You must follow the formalities because the state is divvying up your property after you are dead. That is the price they exact for performing that service for you.
#3 If the formalities are not observed, there are a whole load of possible outcomes. The whole will could be invalidated, or only part. The invalidation could cause an older will that was revoked to be revived. There are a lot of possible outcomes. There are also certain provisions that are void, which once again may void the whole will. Such as an "in terrorem" clause, which states that anyone challenging the will is disinherited.
#4 The purpose of a will is for a dead person to control the devise of his property. America favours giving dead people great control. You can disinherit your children if you want. In other countries you cannot, and the courts will be obligated to give a certain chunk to the children - even if they abandoned their parents. Anyways, since the purpose is to allow the deceased to exercise control AND the deceased is necessarily not there, the state wants to be damn sure that this is your will.
#5 Creating a new will, or doing a whole bunch of other acts, can serve to invalidate an older will. The courts are very concerned about what is the true statement of the deceased.
#6 Even if all of the formalities are observed, the courts can still invalidate a will if it can be shown that the will was procured by undue influence. This is because a lot of old people in nursing homes who don't have any family have this odd habit of writing a will a couple of months before they die that leaves everything to the nursing home.
#7 Going back to #4, we see that the purpose is to devise the property as the deceased would have wanted. Each state has a scheme by which property is devised if the person does not have a valid will at death. These schemes are designed to mirror what the state believes the average person would want - this is called intestacy. Therefore, if there is a problem with the will, and no valid will can be shown, then the state is at least comfortable that devising the property by intestacy should mirror what the average deceased would have wanted.
#8 We haven't even begun to discuss pragmatic concerns (dying means all of your assets are frozen, which isn't good if your wife doesn't have money for 8 months to buy groceries) nor the drafting concerns. There can be huge issues with interpretation. Or people devise things they no longer own. So there can be all sorts of ways to challenge a will.
#9 Most states allow a "family settlement agreement" where all parties that have an interest (or those that may have an interest but aren't competent are represented in some way) agree to how *they* want to divvy up the property, thereby negating the will. The purpose of most challenges is to hold up the distribution of the property so that a family settlement is come to. Oftentimes it is much cheaper and quicker to do so.
#10 To limit the problem presented by #9, most states only allow a person who *could* take under intestacy or a prior will to challenge the current will.
#11 Wills are for suckers. If you have over a million dollars in assets everything should be in trusts or corporations. A true Estate planner will create more corporations and trusts than he will wills. | 20 |
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When marine mammals have open cuts or wounds does the salt water sting for them? | I asked this in /r/NoStupidQuestions last night and got no answers so I decided to put it up here; I don't think I broke any rules... | 23 | Yes, almost certainly. But they are to a degree desensitised to it after a life of living and getting injured in salt water. It’s difficult to measure long term discomfort from a wound in marine mammals because, as with most animals, they ignore the pain and just get on with things.
But yes, there is no reason why open wounds wouldn’t sting in the salt water for a while. | 14 |
CMV: Drug addiction is mainly caused by mental health care not being easily accessible |
Depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia are common among drug addicts. That’s because mental health treatment isn’t easily accessible. People think all drug addicts are useless scum, when there are some who are just trying to self medicate. Some people are out on the waiting list for a year before they are allowed to see a professional, mainly because they have crappy insurance and the clinics have a waiting list. I was one of those people. I have bipolar disorder and spent a year in jail for drugs. I was only trying to self medicate and never harmed anyone. | 47 | You're right generally, but there is at least one exception:
Addiction to painkilers / opiates. The reason for addiction here is generally overuse due to chronic pain (which is generally another major problem of access to healthcare, but less of a mental one). | 10 |
CMV: I believe religion is a major reason why transphobia and homophobia still exist | I'm not saying that religion is the only cause of bigotry towards the LGBTQ+ community. However, without it, I think a large population of people would be more open-minded to accepting transgendered and homosexual people. A few important things to note:
•Im mainly talking about how religion is used in the United States, which I realize misses a lot of the world, but it's the only place I know well enough to have this view.
•Excuses such as "I love gay/trans people but 'blank' is sinful" does not count as love. Criticizing an action as sinful is one thing (taking god's name in vain for example) but criticizing somebody's identity is another
•I am a transgender (mtf) atheist. (Figured I should put this in here)
EDIT: my view changed. Originally my argument was that religion makes people closed minded in these issues because their beliefs would be "holy" beliefs as opposed to regular opinions. Through the discussions, I realized that even if religion wasn't involved, people with like minded opinions would have these discussions (about the LGTBQ community) with each other. Whenever brought up, they would still be closed minded due to a)LGBTQ people being "different" and b) only discussing it among themselves
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 161 | How do you think anti-homosexual attitudes and strict gender roles got built into religion in the first place? It wasn't decreed by any gods, it was a reflection of social attitudes at the time of writing the scriptures ... *people* hold those attitides, regardless of whether they believe in any gods or not, and if they are theists, they will attribute their moral values to their god. | 96 |
ELI5: What is dry drowning, and how does it happen? | 651 | I posted this in response to the top comment as their explanation was incorrect but just making a separate post to provide an answer to your question.
Your vocal cords, which sit at the top of your airway, are quite sensitive. In dry drowning, water hits the vocal cords which causes spasm - otherwise known as laryngospasm. In basic terms, the vocal cords snap shut in a protective reflex which seals off the airway and lungs. In reality, the victim suffocates rather than drowns - no water enters the lungs.
Many people here are describing secondary drowning, which is an inflammatory condition caused by water entering the lungs and causing irritation. Fluid build up occurs within the inflammatory response causing pulmonary oedema, or fluid filled lungs.
To confuse things however, laryngospasm can also cause pulmonary oedema. Our breathing works via negative pressure - when we open our rib cage, that stretches the lungs open and creates a small vacuum causing air to rush in. This is how we breathe - we don't 'suck' air in per se, we create a negative pressure environment with the muscles in our rib cage and diaphragm and air rushes in to equalise pressure between our lungs and the external environment.
When laryngospasm occurs, the victim may still be using all of those muscles to try to breathe but their airway is sealed shut. So, they are creating a negative pressure environment in their lungs, but with no way for air to get in to equalise the pressure. The victim then ends up drawing fluid from their tissues into their lungs instead, resulting in pulmonary oedema, or fluid filled lungs.
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CMV: Why should I support the cause for net neutrality in the USA as a foreigner (EU) | Yes, I get why no net neutrality is bad for consumers and small businesses alike in the USA. However, as a european, these downsides are upsides for Europeans. As we do have laws here that protect net neutrality, in a world of competing businesses and with the vast amount of internet businesses located in the USA (due to further reach in their homecountry, and from this established base going worldwide), I believe these barriers for american businesses will help the local economy here and I should be cheering this on.
This ultimately gives Europeans also a way out of the claws of American spies. Due to the fact that pretty much all internet businesses are based in the US, it's not practical to avoid them and fall under american jurisdiction where the government is able to look into european data. [\(Like this bullshit](http://www.computerworld.com/article/2476589/cloud-computing/judge-tells-microsoft--your-irish-email-servers-are-american-expats--.html))
This is my first CMV ever, so if I did something wrong, please point it out.
**TL;DR** So please, CMV, why I, as a European, should support net neutrality in the US?
(in the light of competing businesses, making this a favorable situation for the european market)
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 19 | If it becomes more difficult for smaller websites to start in the US, in the future you won't be able to enjoy their benefits. So you'd be cutting off the possibility of new Internet ideas from Americans. That's a lot of creativity to slow the flow of. | 15 |
Would trash decompose in outer space? | If the trash was sent into orbit around the moon, or on the surface of the moon, or anywhere within the solar system would decomposition be possible? Also could we make a trash moon. | 21 | Decomposition is basically a different process for certain kinds of refuse. If it's organic, or a compound that's "edible" by bacteria (bacteria don't "eat" the stuff they decompose, rather they release certain enzymes and chemicals that break down the matter, then they proceed to consume what they can), and the refuse is in an isolated system like a steel container full of air or something or has pockets of bacteria sufficiently isolated from the cold and vacuum, they can start breaking down the refuse. Like, if you throw a dead astronaut in a space suit out of an airlock, he could potentially (at least partially or internally) decompose.
Other kinds of decomposition require oxygen or acids/salts we have on earth. For instance, iron decomposes on earth due to it being oxidized (rust is oxidized iron), and after a long enough period of time it completely decomposes. Decomposes from its previous shape that is, it still remains as iron-oxide, which can be reworked back into actual iron (some of the biggest iron mines on the planet are based on collecting huge deposits of iron-oxide and reworking them into iron). Those processes take certain chemical reactions to occur.
So, in short, the answer depends on the trash, but all in all decomposition is not disappearance. It's just breaking down.
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ELI5: How does overnight shipping get where it's going faster than a normal package? why isn't all mail just faster now? | 8,007 | To expand what /u/alex11263jesus was saying, most shipping is done in high volume to keep shipping costs low. Consider a standard semi-trailer truck traveling from California to Virginia. Although it does take more gas when the trailer is full, the weight of the truck and trailer itself doesn't change, and once the truck gets going on the highway the weight of the trailer doesn't matter as much. Moreover, the driver is going to take the same amount of time to make the trek regardless of what is in the trailer. So, there is a base cost to send that truck whether the trailer is completely full or just has one small box. To maximize your profit, you want to send as many boxes as possible.
This is the same with trains and cargo ships. There is always a base cost, and the more full the vehicle is the more cost-effective it becomes. Of course, not all goods are ordered at the same time, and especially if you're talking about a train or a cargo ship, you probably don't have enough orders in even a week to fill it up completely. The solution is to wait and coordinate so that you take many orders so that you can fill up your shipping container as much as possible.
Another problem is that not all packages are going to the same place. It might be easy enough to take one package and transfer it to a new truck along the way, but that's not really feasible with a truck *full* of packages, all going to different places, all stacked around and on top of each other. Again, the solution is to coordinate shipping so that all of your packages are going to the same region, so they can all head to the same big distribution center to be processed and shipped out just within that region.
And, of course, processing takes time. Packages need to be unloaded from the truck or ship or train and then loaded onto the sorting machines and then packaged together and then loaded again to be shipped to the next distribution point and get unloaded and sorted and repackaged and loaded again.
Overnight shipping ignores a lot of these cost-saving measures. Instead of waiting for a full truck, the package might be put on a partially full truck with other overnight packages. You have to pay for that loss in efficiency. It may also go on a truck headed for the wrong distribution center that is at least in that direction, so the package gets processed and put on another truck headed to the right distribution center.
During the last leg of the journey from the distribution center, all of these cost-saving measures are still used. Mail gets delivered in planned out routes so the trucks don't have to drive all across town. Your overnight package might be put on a truck that has to go out of its way to get to you rather than waiting for a proper delivery route the next day. That extra time means more gas and more pay for the driver.
And that's pretty much the state of all mail. It's just not economically feasible to deliver every letter or package immediately. The more you can deliver together, the cheaper each individual letter becomes, and coordinating the movement of all that mail takes time.
Edit: yes, also planes which are more expensive than trucks and trains. | 4,756 |
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Why can my Shop-Vac blow things that are 5 feet away but it can't suck things up that are 5 feet away? | 692 | When you suck, you pull in air from all around which creates a wide circle of negative pressure rather than a column of negative pressure, so the range is short. When you blow, air molecules are being shot straight out and will only slow down once they hit other molecules, so the positive pressure will be in a column resulting in a longer range. | 766 |
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ELI5: Why can babies spend weeks head down in the womb, but it becomes dangerous to hold them upside-down for longer than a few moments once they are born? | 22 | I asked the doctor about this. In the womb, the amniotic fluid supports the whole body. When the baby is upside down, it's never been right side up. it's heart is used to no direction. when the body has been out for a while, there is no support by the fluid, and the heart rapidly becomes used to prone and upright. | 11 |
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[Marvel/DC] What are some defining points between Hawkeye and Green Arrow? | 35 | Green Arrow
>**intelligent planner**
>trained computer hacker
>Superb archer
>Peak human physical and mental condition
>Highly-trained martial artist, athlete, marksman, and swordsman
>has high tech vehicles, gadgets, armor, and recurve bow with a variety of
>trick arrows
Hawkeye
>Grandmaster archer
>Uses a variety of trick arrows
>Superb athlete
>Exceptional arm strength
>Enhanced eye-sight
>Master martial artist, tactician, acrobat, marksman, and swordsman
>**Experienced pilot**
| 24 |
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ELI5: What's stopping us from fully curing Anxiety disorders? | I've always had a stressed mental life, with anxiety disorder, depression, and the symptoms that come along with them. Loud noises, unexpected contact with others, and even small arguments put me into a panicked state and I can't operate normally. I have adrenaline running through my body most of the day and it leaves me depleted.
I've been on Xanax for the past 6 years because my 2 psychiatrists just threw prescriptions at me for the most part. I've paid thousands of dollars for Neuro-feedback Therapy and it barely did anything for me. I've tried meditation, exercising, and socializing but I have lost control of my mind and body.
Why is Anxiety/Depression such a difficult disorder to find a cure for? | 16 | We don't fully understand the mechanisms that cause anxiety and depression, and we don't fully understand how certain drugs (anti-depressants mostly) work to counter the effects. It really is a case of observing symptoms, applying something, and hoping it works. Then there are individual reactions to different medicines, which mean that you can't just develop one cure and have it work for everyone. | 12 |
ELI5: Why does oil not evaporate like water does? | My face gets really oily and when I touch my glasses in the morning (8 hours since warring them) the oil hasn't evaporated like water would have. Does it just take really really long to evaporate? | 29 | Yes, it takes a long time to evaporate. Oils are usually comprised of very big, rather heavy molecules, which is most of the reason that oil is liquid to begin with. So oils have high boiling points/low vapor pressure compared to water, but oils don't have *no* vapor pressure. Other organic molecules miscible with oils but closer in size to water molecules, like acetone or ethanol, have much much higher vapor pressures and evaporate even more quickly than water. | 34 |
ELI5: After a late night of eating, why do you wake up hungrier the next day? | 37 | Because when you eat a large meal your body releases Insulin. Among many other things, insulin drops your blood sugar level. So by eating a huge meal, you have caused a large insulin response and subsequent blood sugar drop. Now your body needs more sugar and you feel hungry | 32 |
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[Archie Comics] Can someone explain to me the dynamic between Archie, Betty and Veronica? | So these two girls both adamantly chase Archie and seem to be totally in love with him. Do the comics go into why at all or is it just kind of the way it is?
Also they seem to be good friends, are they rivals and competitive with each other? How does their dynamic work? | 23 | It's all about sex and manipulation.
Archie is a straight male.
Veronica is a bisexual female who prefers women.
Betty identifies as a straight female but is secretly bisexual with a preference for men.
Betty and Veronica are friends.
Archie wants to be with Veronica. Veronica wants to be with Betty. Archie knows this, so he dates Betty in order to get closer to Veronica.
Veronica knows Archie's plans and plays along, figuring that one way to get into Betty's pants is through Archie, so to speak.
Betty finds herself oddly attracted to Veronica but chooses to be with Archie because that's how she was raised. She has every reason to shut Veronica out from her life but she doesn't because of this odd attraction. | 22 |
Can oral vitamin B12 work effectively if taken sublingually? | 41 | Oral absorption of B12 is variable and requires several cofactors to transport it across the intestinal mucosa. A sublingual formulation may increase absorption a little, but clinical evidence is really inconclusive on that.
If you have a deficiency your best option is to get your levels up to the normal range via IM or SubQ injection, then you can use oral supplementation to keep those levels where they need to be. | 10 |
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What do you use for your blog? | I'm interested in starting a blog, but I'm having trouble deciding what direction to go. I think I'd prefer a hosted solution, but it seems like most people are using some open source tools and hosting themselves or just going to Medium which is becoming less popular.
What blogging platform/tools/whatever do you use or recommend? | 31 | I would recommend GitHub pages with Hugo or Jekyll. It's very simple to setup (don't even need coding in most cases), configure and post, it's totally free and you even have a subdomain with your username | 14 |
ELI5: why does an air bubble in your blood kill you? | 28 | First let’s cover some basics. Almost every part of your body needs oxygen to survive. Blood is what delivers that oxygen, and here’s how:
When blood comes through our lungs it loads up with oxygen and flows immediately to your heart. To get all that oxygen to your body, the heart pumps the blood through vessels that get smaller and smaller until the blood delivers its oxygen. Once the blood gets through the really tiny vessels, it has delivered all the oxygen and the vessels start getting bigger again and heading to the heart to load back up on oxygen.
This system normally works great, but you can have major issues if something gets into the blood that isn’t supposed to. For instance let’s say a piece of fat come off of the inside of a large vessel near the heart. The piece will keep flowing in the blood until it gets into a vessel that gets too small for it to get through. It gets stuck in the vessel and slows or completely blocks the blood flow behind it. Now the part of the body on the other side of that blockage can’t get oxygen and starts to die. Depending on where the block is, and how big of an area is blocked, this can be REALLY bad. For instance If the blockage happens somewhere in the brain, it’s called a stroke. Parts of your brain are literally dying.
So how does can an air bubble kill you? Believe it or not it does the same thing as the scab in the paragraph above. Our blood carries oxygen from our lungs inside special cells. It won’t form a bubble. But if a bunch air enters our lungs in another way, the air can form a bubble big enough to block a vessel. Depending on what part of are bodies the bubble is keeping oxygen from, and how big the area is, the bubble could potentially kill us. | 47 |
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How would you measure the Marginal product of labor for someone like a janitor? | We learn that wages are paid at the rate of marginal product of labor. However, since janitors don’t really produce anything or contribute to production for a firm, how would you even measure that or determine their wage? Would you simply need to use the market wage instead? | 20 | Presumably having a janitor generates value for the firm, or the rational firm would not hire them. So ask yourself why a firm would hire a janitor. They keep the place clean, which almost certainly improves labor productivity of other workers. People are less likely to get sick or injured in a clean and well-maintained workplace. Janitors will also perform certain repairs, which also improves labor productivity, and potentially the productivity of capital as well. A clean workplace will also attract better employees who are not willing to work in a dirty environment.
So a janitor definitely generates value for a firm, even if they're not 'producing' anything. In theory, estimating how much more productive labor is because you have a janitor is difficult to do. But a market wage would be a good estimate. | 23 |
Why are there more incidences of cancer in developed nations. | Source: http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@epidemiologysurveilance/documents/document/acspc-027766.pdf | 110 | Better medical care means better documentation of cancer.
It's not that developing nations don't get cancer, it's that, with all the shit going on there, knowing who has cancer is the least of their worries. | 115 |
Why are quadcopters not used for full scale applications the way that regular helicopters have been for a long time? | It seems like quad copter drones are the all the rage, ultra stable flight machines for miniature use. Are they useful for applications that regular helicopters are currently used for? Why/why not? | 45 | If your are taking about one a human is piloting the big difference is the computer.
Helicopters and basic planes can be flown with manual controls.
A quadrocoper depends completely on a computer to balance the props.
Now high ends jets also depend on computers but often have three way redundancy and cost a lot of money.
The toys also fly using electric motors with variable speed, there are a few out now that use variable pitch in the blades.
Electric motors probably would be too heavy including power.source at full size. Gas motors would probably work with variable pitch blades but be expensive.
Tl;Dr: safety, power to weight ratio, cost/ complexity. | 24 |
[Vampires] So do they make wounds with their fangs and then suck the blood, or are there straws inside their fangs. And what if I used a needle to inject fresh blood into a vampire's buttcheek, would that satiate them? | 136 | Vampires use their fangs to piece the skin. They drink the blood through a combination of suction and the victims own heartbeat.
injecting a vampire in the butt with a needle is just going to wind up with you missing a face. | 112 |
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Ask Anything Wednesday - Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology | Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on **Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Medicine, Psychology**
Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".
**Asking Questions:**
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Ask away! | 315 | Why is it that SSRIs treat so many things? Is it that depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety etc. are all related in some way, or is it that serotonin modulation just happens to alleviate each of them through different mechanisms? | 16 |
[Half life] How does everyone explain Gordon’s borderline supernatural combat abilities? | Gordon’s a real terror on the battlefield, and everyone knows it. Barely a day after the Resonance Cascade, elite HECU troops are treating him like he’s a massive threat; setting so many traps and ambushes specifically for him that it’s cartoonish overkill.
Somehow, Gordon plows through all of them without serious injury, killing hundreds of elite soldiers and destroying tanks, helicopters, gun emplacements, invisible ninjas etc. Not to mention all the dangerous Xen wildlife and military.
His HEV suit is tough, but as we see from Opposing Force and Blue Shift, it’s not that any stronger than the security guard’s vests and the HECU armour.
Upon his return in Half Life 2, the very fact that he’s alive is treated as some kind of incredible threat by the Combine.
The Resistance even seems to buy into the Freeman legend long before Half Life 2, in Half Life Alyx they thought the prisoner the combine were so frightened of was Freeman, not the G-Man.
Gordon steamrollers through Overwatch and Civil Protection just as easily as the HECU, blasting his way into the most heavily guarded Combine installations and surviving all their ambushes.
Dr. Breen even lampshades this in a speech to Overwatch, he was whining about how genetically modified heavily armed elite soldiers weren’t able to take out one man.
Canonically, Freeman never had military training. At most, he spent a couple dozen hours with basic firearms training to qualify to use the HEV suit.
My head canon is that the Half Life protagonists are all temporarily “blessed” by G-Man to have incredible luck, because of how he can manipulate timelines or probability or whatever.
With G-Man’s favour, bullets miss by inches, environmental “puzzles” always have exactly what is necessary for a quick solution, supplies are plentiful and no one gets killed by freak accidents like breaking ladders, falling debris, getting trapped in a pit etc.
Kind of like the Marvel superhero Domino’s power, except not as glaringly obvious.
Gordon happens to have had G-Man’s favour for long enough that he became genuinely competent at being a one man army.
This is all well and good from an audience perspective, but what did the Combine, Resistance, HECU and Nihilanth think? How did they try to rationalise Gordon’s inexplicable badassery?
Breen seemed confused. The Advisors seemed surprised and frightened. The Resistance don’t say much to Gordon’s face about it, but I’m sure they talk behind his back. The Vortigaunts treat Freeman (rightfully so) as something strange and special.
They all must have their own theories as to how a 27 year old theoretical physicist with minimal combat training managed to become a one man army in less than a week.
And curiously enough, the Resistance treat this so matter of factly that they thought Gordon was better served working as a researcher than as a human wrecking ball
When he reaches Black Mesa East, Eli and Mossman both assume that Gordon’s just going to shuck off his HEV suit and get elbow deep in 11 dimensional equations.
“... we’ll get you out of that hazard suit and back into a lab coat, where you belong”
Really? If Mossman hadn’t given up Black Mesa East and gotten Eli captured, it’s possible that the Nova Prospekt assault, the general uprising in City 17, and the destruction of the Citadel would never have occurred.
Gordon, the human super weapon, would have been tinkering away with the rest of the doctorate holders instead of carving a bloody path through the Combine.
Surely the equations could have waited a few days? It’s not like the Resistance was unaware of how dangerous Gordon was.
EDIT: Ok maybe I should have phrased it better, I was asking how the various factions inside the Half Life universe explained Gordon’s combat prowess. They were clearly aware that he was very dangerous, and that he was also just a dude in some armour that wasn’t any stronger than late 20th century military gear. Yet they seem to take it as a given that he can consistently survive 20 to 1 odds and come out on top. The real explanation probably has something to do with G-Man and timelines. But some factions don’t know that, how do they explain it? | 57 | he is just skilled with a gun, has good endurence, is clever and lucky. he is a intelligent theoreical physicist who has extensive combat training, and the HEV suit does help too. its clear he has trained with guns before, the HEV suit has a ammo counter, and as we see gordon is familiar with guns. And there is a tutoria level in half life source where you run a combat stage, so clearly black mesa did offer combat training
the rest is just, as the G-man says, the right man in the right place.
Also, its not like gordon is invincible. He is captured by the soldiers in half life 1, and he needs to be bailed out by the G-man at the end of both half life 1 and 2. Not to mention the times he is saved by Barney or Alyx. And during HL2, he become a symbol for the resistence, so now he gets help form everyone | 52 |
[MAD MAX FURY ROAD] Why does Immortan Joe want another son? | He already has two sons. (Three if the video game is considered canon.) Admittedly, one of his sons is a mutant, but Rictus Erectus is strong and healthy.
And follow-up question: Who is Rictus’s mother? The five wives all look younger than him. | 51 | Rictus Erectus is mentally challenged with a mind like a child, and his brother Corpus is weak and deformed but has a strong mind.
Immortan Joe wants a healthy son who is both physically and mentally strong. | 106 |
How do Virtual Machines handle Memory Caches? | Let's say I have a multicore processor with three cache levels. On it, there is a hypervisor with two virtual machines running.
As I understood it the hypervisor kind of *pretends* to be a computer with smaller memory to each VM.
I also know that a cache is a faster and smaller type of memory, like RAM relates to the harddrive, but a cache can't be explicitly targeted by an application programmer. Does an operating system programmer handle cache accesses? Or is the cache behavior determined by a even lower level, like directly in hardware?
If the OS on one VM wants to write to the cache, does it tell the hypervisor "Hey I want to write to this specific line/address of my own virtual cache!"? A "virtual cache" sounds weird, because indirection is slow and caches are supposed to be fast. Also, when multiple VMs each have a dedicated space in the cache, these spaces would be rather small.
Therefore, maybe the VM doesn't concern itself with caches and just tells the hypervisor on which vitual adresses it wants to read and write and lets the hypervisor decide when and where to access a cache.
Probably I have misunderstood something about operating systems and it works differently altogether.
The background to this question is that I'm reading the paper ["Flush & Reload" by Yarom and Falkner from 2014](https://www.usenix.org/system/files/conference/usenixsecurity14/sec14-paper-yarom.pdf). They explain that the cache opens a side-channel, where information can leak from one process to another. They write that this also works for cross-VM attacks. I want to have a clearer understanding on how the caches of two VMs on the same host interact.
I would be grateful for even some pointers. | 74 | Caches are usually managed entirely in hardware, with no input from the software. This is true in both traditional (single-OS) systems as well as virtualized systems. There is only one set of caches for the entire system (though multi-core processors will usually have a separate L1 and L2 cache for each processor).
The cache is a side-channel precisely because it is shared between processes (or guest OSes) on a single system. This means that the data from two different processes can reside next to each other in memory. The recent Spectre and Meltdown attacks both demonstrated side-channel attacks that could be used by a malicious process to extract the data belonging to another process.
For example, in the Meltdown attack there is a cache line you want to read the data out of. The hardware is supposed to prevent you from reading this data, and it does, but it can be exploited (tricked) into revealing the data itself. This is done by attempting to use the data and timing how long that process takes. The CPU hardware ultimately denies the request to use the data, but the attacker meticulously arranges memory ahead of time so that the access time reveals the actual contents of the forbidden data. If each byte (eight bits) is one of 256 possible combinations, they need to try 256 possible scenarios, and the one scenario that executes quickly implies the actual value of the forbidden memory.
You can read a lot more specifics in the papers at their websites:
* spectreattack.com
* meltdownattack.com | 53 |
How would/do you feel about having your lectures available for free on youtube? | It just occured to me as an interesting question. | 18 | There's a lot of evidence piling up that simply throwing video tapes of lectures on line is a pretty bad way of facilitating education. In general there's a growing consensus that the best practice for online lecture videos is for them to be produced in 5-15 minute blocks that focus on one single topic. This is a very different setup than a normal in person lecture that tend to thread together several topics over the course of an hour or two. | 20 |
ELI5: "30% chance of rain" | When a weather report says that there's a 30% chance of rain, does that mean that they expect it to rain for 30% of that day (so a 30% chance of rain at any given time during the day), or a 30% chance of getting any rain at all during that day (so it might rain for 10 minutes and be dry the rest of the time) or something else? | 23 | From The Weather Channel:
>The 'Chance of Precip' describes the likelihood of precipitation (maybe not even measurable) in your forecast area. The chance is based upon a series of 100 instances of identical weather conditions.
>For example, a 40% Chance of Precip means that precipitation occurred 40 out of 100 days with the same type of conditions expected in your area.
No way to direct link, but you can go to your city's forecast and click on "Chance of Rain."
| 11 |
When particles collide in the LHC, does it make a sound? | Edit: Thanks for all the replies everyone! | 34 | No. Sound needs a medium to travel through. The LHC pipes are vacuum except for the proton projectiles which are focused into a beam with diameter of approximately 50 microns. The rest is vacuum.
Even then, sound is a macroscopic phenomenon. It involves orders of 10^23 particles moving in a particular way. A proton on proton collision starts as two particles and decays to, at most, 100(not sure, exactly). | 26 |
ELI5: Is a virtual reality headset worse for my eyes than staring at a computer screen? | If the headset is so close to the eyes, is it so much more worse for the eyes? Recommended breaks every 45 minutes or more frequently? | 29 | A decent VR headset will actually set the focus of the screens to infinity so your eyes are relaxed.
The problem with screens and TV are that you are focusing quite close, and straining your eyes. A VR headset has the capability (with projection to project the image so that your focus point is quite far, thus relaxing your eyes).
This infinite focus is seen on Red dot/reflex weapon sights which keeps the red dot in the same place even at different angles of viewing, they also used in HUD in aircraft and cars, so that you can focus in front of you and still read the display. | 11 |
ELI5: Why are we not supposed to rapidly turn lights on and off? | 23 | A lot of lights have a lifetime dependent on the cycle time. For example an incandescent light bulb have a tiny wire that heats up every time you turn the light on and produce light. But heating the wire also makes it expand which puts pressure on it which over time can cause cracks to widen and eventually go all the way though the wire and it will snap. So you only have a limited number of times you can switch on the light before it stops working. It is not true with all types of lights and electronics. You get incandescent lights which is designed for a high cycle count and modern LED lights often have no limits on cycle time. The lifetime and cycle count of a light bulb is often listed separately. | 22 |
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[Harry Potter] If a highly visible child, such as a direct Royal heir in line to the throne was to manifest magical abilities how would that situation be approached by the Wizarding community? | 739 | Assuming that the family was not aware of magic, I'd guess that the standard of "Send someone to talk to the parents and explain what's going on" would happen, and then it'd be up to the parents for whether they wished to send the kid off to school and lie about sending them abroad or whatever, or whether they'd prefer to simply hire someone to teach them in the comfort of their own home where they wouldn't have to be hidden away from the public. | 487 |
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[Star Wars] What is force ghost Obi Wan up to these days? | 26 | I've always pictured that dead Jedi are kind of in a state of Nirvana, being one with the force and just chilling peacefully. Then Jedi with force ghost abilities can conjure up a visible form when they need to but 99% of the time they just go back to being "one with the force." | 40 |
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ELI5: What could theoretically happen if the new fusion reactor has a problem when it's turned on in two days? | 45 | Well, first thing, the new fusion doesn't even fuse (for the moment). It runs on simple non-fusing plasma (hydrogen).
Anyway, the worst that could happen is some short circuit or cooling failure in the superconducting magnets, which results in a few million in damages and a bunch of very disappointed scientists. | 40 |
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Can somebody explain LI5 why computer/calculator random number generators supposedly aren't truly random | 18 | Computers simply follow instructions that tell it what to do: add these two numbers together, check if this number is bigger than that number, and things like that. Computers can run instructions that produce a list of numbers that look like they're random. However, if we were to run the same instructions again, we would get the same "random" numbers again, which obviously isn't very random.
Here's a simple example. You can generate numbers which look random by taking (for example) every 10th digit of pi. By doing that you get 5,6,9,1,0,4,4,9, etc. These numbers look random but obviously they're not really random. This might work ok for some situations, but you wouldn't want to use this to draw lottery numbers because smart people could figure out what the next numbers are going to be by looking at pi.
Obviously that was a simple example, actual "random" number generators use fancy algorithms to make sure that the numbers generated satisfy all sorts of mathematical properties that real random numbers do. But even if they do that, they're not random because it's possible to retrace the steps the computer took to get the same numbers.
That being said, many computers ARE capable of generating truly random numbers by getting randomness from input devices, such as looking at which microsecond you touch the key or move the mouse. | 21 |
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[Avatar] Is Koh still stealing faces or did Aang squash that bug? | He could pretty big threat and could cause a lot of mayhem if he chooses to. He definitely seems like a problem that needs to be stopped before he becomes a major issue. | 32 | He's still out there. While Koh may be malevolent and has made himself the enemy of the Avatar before, he isn't outright hostile. He, like most spirits, has rules that he plays by, and these rules don't necessarily make sense to the mortal world. Aang even receives important wisdom from Koh; he just needed to play by Koh's rules to do it.
Some spirits, like Father Glow Worm, were actually contemptuous of Koh for being so willing to help mortals who were able to pass his tests. Koh is one the of the oldest and most knowledgeable spirits in existence, seeking out his wisdom is often worth the risk.
Likewise, Koh tends to only actively seek out a fight against people who deserve it. (Albeit, he's willing to harm innocent people to achieve this goal.) One of the reasons Kuruk's wife had her face stolen was because Koh had became angry with the Avatar for his campaign against the spirits. Stealing Ummi's face was a punishment, and Kuruk wasn't able to kill Koh in the end because he realized doing so would also permanently take Ummi away from him.
Killing spirits is no easy task, either. The Kyoshi novels make it clear that killing even relatively minor spirits poisons your own spirit. Part of the reason Kuruk was thought to be so useless as an Avatar, and why he died so young, was because he spent most of his time hunting spirits under the belief that he was protecting the world. He kept much of this to himself, including the mental and spiritual damage it caused him. The only way to deal with spirits and not eventually die from it is to either appease them, as Aang did most of the time, banish them, as Korra learned to do, or imprison them, as Wan was able to do.
But even so, most of the time appeasement is the easiest and most effective strategy.
Tl;dr: Koh's still out there, and not really a threat. Koh plays by different rules to humans. Don't piss him off and he won't be a threat, unless you're trying to get something from him like Aang. | 61 |
eli5: Why does working out helps so much with mental health? | I have OCD and working out ALWAYS makes me feel better whenever I have spikes. How does that work? | 890 | Exercise had been shown in many studies to promote the production of serotonin and dopamine, the two neurotransmitters responsible for making you feel good. Evolution has selected for physical activity to make us feel good, making it more likely for us to be physically active, which promotes our physical health. This is called a positive feedback loop, and is an example of one of the many, many positive feedback loops employed in your biochemistry. | 1,110 |
[Samuri Jack] If Aku has access to advance technology, why doesn't Aku just nuke Jack. | I'm assuming he doesn't care about environmental effects and collateral damage. | 15 | Same reason you don't burn down your house if you see a spider. Aku fought for the world. He considers it (and everyone who lives in it) his property. He enjoys people's fear and respect and loves making them put up statues of him. And at the end of the day, he doesn't take Jack all that seriously.
If it were a total war situation Aku might nuke his own territory, but he clearly doesn't consider it that kind of situation. | 30 |
ELI5 What exactly happens to the brain/body when someone gets hit so hard that they’re knocked unconscious? Why does this occur? | 4,725 | We're not entirely certain about why you lose consciousness from a knockout blow, we think it has something to do with the force of the blow cutting off blood flow to the brain or compression of the brain stem. We know that professional boxers building up their shoulder/neck muscles somehow allows them to sustain harder blows to the head without being knocked out, we also know most knockouts come from a uppercut/jab to the jaw that causes the head to whip around quickly.
Sorry this isn't the best answer, but most of it is still speculation. We can't exactly put someone in an fMRI then hit them really hard in the head. | 4,349 |
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[Pokemon] What kind of government does the world of Pokemon have? | And does it differ by region? | 38 | I always thought that the government of pokemon was based off the strongest trainers in each region. The gyms are local authority, the elite 4 overrule the gyms, and the champion acts as the dictator of everything.
This explains why towns with gyms seem to look towards the gym leader as the local authority, and why trainers attempt to reach the elite 4 and become the champion themselves. | 39 |
Question regarding using the blood plasma of recovered people to treat sick people: When the plasma is injected, is it just the antibodies in the donated plasma that attacks the virus, or does the body detect the antibodies and create more ? | 5,060 | I don’t see the right answer yet so:
The plasma contains antibodies from the donor. Presumably there are antibodies in the donor that have neutralized the virus. Antibodies are just proteins that latch on to a target and help flag it so the hosts immune system recognizes the problem and eliminates it.
The donor antibodies will circulate for weeks to months in the host, but they cannot make more of themselves — they are just proteins originally made by B cells in the host. Therefore plasma infusions for these critically ill patients are just a temporary measure until their own bodies hopefully learn to eliminate the virus without help. | 3,104 |
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ELi5 Why are dental X-rays dangerous enough that you have to wear a lead apron for protection, but ok to blast them into your face? | 146 | It's often the case that you take a necessary risk but avoid taking an unnecessary one. There is every reason to x- ray your jaw if you have a problem but there is no reason to let even a small amount of stray radiation irradiate other parts of you while doing so. In particular the parts involved in reproduction, the testes and ovaries due to the remote posdibility of genetic damage. | 259 |
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Economists, what’s your opinion on the state of the worlds economy? A bank in Germany has introduced negative interest rates. | Not sure how negative interest rates works anyway?sounds like a theory that isn’t great in practice as I’d rather incur no interest than being charged.
<edit elaborate comment>
I should have mentioned, if you had savings, they’d charge you and hadn’t consider the alternative, if you had a loan. | 58 | you're not being charged. They would give you money to take their money.
The reason this happens is because the ECB rate is negative too so as long as the banks charge higher than the ECBs rate they will still make money (even if their rates are still negative). A couple months ago a Danish bank started paying people to get a mortgage.
The answer to your question is no on really know because we haven't seen such low interest rates for such a long time. The question becomes what use would monetary policy in the case of a recession i.e. since rates are so low, how effective would it be for central banks to decrease interest rates in order to stimulate growth? | 13 |
Considering the Higgs field permeates all of space how is it related to a vacuum? | Is the Higgs a by-product of a vacuum? I've read that the Higgs is "the energy of the vacuum from which all else came." Can someone explain this? Why did a vacuum exist in the first place? Does the universe exist within a vacuum? Any thoughts on the idea that matter is a 3-D representation of 2-D information? | 52 | In field theory, we work with it being given that there are space and time. The *vacuum* is the field configuration that minimizes the energy. It turns out that it takes less energy to have a non-zero value of the Higgs field throughout space than it would to have no Higgs field. Thus the vacuum in the Standard Model is space filled with a non-zero Higgs field.
| 17 |
Are stretch marks permanent? | There are a lot of products and home remedies, but what does science have to say? | 272 | Stretch marks are similar to a scar from a wound. What happens is the skin is stretched by rapid growth (example: growing tall quickly or gaining weight quickly).
The skin (all layers) are stretched beyond the physical limitations of the cellular composition of the tissue. The skin and is unable to grow to keep pace. This causes subtotal tearing. It's not a open wound, the internal/external barrier is still intact (although weakened).
The body responds to this in a damage control response. Simply; Fibroblasts migrate into the voids left by the stretching and crudely begin to proliferate to increase the thickness of the barrier to the external environment. This is different than normal growth because these cells are not derived from semi-differentiated stem cells which are capable of forming more specialized cells. The various stem cells are able to form multiple cells of different types and give an organ like the skin its complexity. This is different from scarring as collagenous fibroblasts replicate and form cell types of limited complexity; these are unable to emulate skin that formed in utero.
This 'patch' never fully returns to its original state before the damage. The stem cells and underlying tissues are damaged, missing or both. However, over time the scaring becomes less pronounced as long as additional damage does not occur. These patches also have limited tanning, sensing and protective capacities.
Some topical treatments may increase the "elasticity" of the skin, causing it to pull in on itself more also reducing the size of the scars. If the marks are from rapid weight gain, weight loss may reduce their appearance. Exercise in general tends to make tissues more dense and stronger. Even the skin. | 206 |
Eli5. Why can’t robots be programmed to click a box that says “I am not a robot”? | 21 | The button checks the micro movements of your mouse to see if it's predictable like a robot or random like a human. That being said, robots can defeat all types of captchas with reasonable accuracy, but defeating the ones that make you click on images of stop signs takes more expertise and is a higher barrier of entry for would be spammers. | 45 |
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ELI5: How do antibiotics and hormones make you gain weight. | I have heard that antibiotics and hormones are used to make cattle larger. I have also observed in my own experience that when I have taken antibiotics I gain a lot of weight without changes to diet and exercise. | 78 | Depends on the antibiotic you're using. Some do cause an increase in appetite, but generally the newer ones have less side effects like that. Hormones are completely different. Depending on the hormone, you will see an dramatic increase in appetite. Some hormones cause water retention as well this creating an increase in weight. Not sure if that helps. | 28 |
[MCU] Why didn't Captain Marvel snap away Thanos? | She is much stronger than Hulk or Thanos (maybe even combined) and absorbing radiation is kinda her thing. If any of the Avengers could use the Infinity Gauntlet without repercussions it would be her. | 28 | The mission at the time Carol had it was playing keep-away. They were planning to fling it into the quantum realm using the portal in the back of the van, not snap Thanos away. The goal was to get it to the van.
It only got to that point of Tony snapping when that original plan failed and Tony's snap was the last ditch effort. By then, however, Thanos had the gauntlet on his hand and Tony had the stones which he fashioned into his own nano suit. There was no further opportunity to get the gauntlet off of Thanos' hand and the stones to Carol. | 41 |
ELI5: If your body needs a certain amount of sleep why doesn't it just go to sleep and wake up after that amount of time has passed? | 57 | Whole tribe goes to sleep at the same time, except for weirdos.
Predators come and attack because they notice this. Weirdos are awake and get away, sleepers are eaten.
We're descendants of these weirdos.
edit:grammar | 69 |
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[Supernatural] When Lucifer and Michael were set to fight it was supposed to be world ending, how come fights involving even more powerful beings are so lackluster? | So two archangels are supposed to set 90% of the world on fire and kill most people. but
* Gabriel vs Lucifer didn't even knock a chair over
* Leviathins vs angels/eve/ etc were similarly low in scale
* Confrontation between Death and Castiel+all purgatory souls = no disruption
* Literal actual God with an army of demons, the hosts of heaven, the most powerful witches and an archangel against God's Sister the Darkness doesn't even break a window in the warehouse they chose to throw down in.
So what gives? | 60 | Lucifer and Michael are more than just archangels, they're sort of on their own level. While Gabriel could have perhaps put up a fight, he really didn't stand a chance, which is why he gambled on tricks. We never got to see a real Gabriel vs. Lucifer fight.
Similarly, when we see leviathan fighting angels, it's full-on leviathans fighting lower-level angels. It took God to bottle them up, and even he couldn't destroy them. For leviathan, it was a cakewalk.
And perhaps that's part of the problem. When we see fights, often it's asymmetrical, so the more powerful being is just toying with the less powerful being. Or they have such different methods of fighting, like a witch vs. Lucifer, that they can't really meet in battle any more than an eagle can engage in battle with a virus.
As for Das and Death, was that even a fight?
...now don't get me started on the scythe and Death's death. Wtf... | 42 |
Why do planets tend to orbit their stars along roughly the same plane, rather than be circling around their star at all kinds of different angles? | 31 | Stars form from big clouds of gas and dust. The area of that cloud from which the star forms has some rotational motion; the angular momentum (and therefore direction of rotational motion) of all the particles is conserved as the cloud collapses.
The planets form out of the same cloud, all from gas and dust that had similar angular momentum. So, not only do the orbits of planets tend to be in one plane, they are all circling the star in the same direction, so the angular momenta of their orbits line up. On top of that, the spins of the planets, and the orbits of their moons, also tend to have directions that "line" up their angular momenta as well. (Note: collisions can mess this up.).
So, if you know which way the earth spins, you can figure out which way it orbits, and you can also figure out which way our moon orbits the Earth. They all have (roughly) the same "sense of rotation", which we physicists call the "same direction of angular momentum". | 58 |
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How does the immune system store state? | Immunity and allergies are acquired, so the list of things to react to can't be stored in DNA. Where and how is it stored? | 79 | After every "attack", some of the cells we use to defend ourselves turn into memory cells. These cells are basically trained to recognize and fight the thing they fought last time, and they just wait around until it comes again.
Immunizations are basically giving you just enough of the illness to cause your body to fight and create memory cells for it, but not enough for you to actually get too sick, so you can fight it a lot easier next time. | 22 |
[Marvel] Is it true Iceman is an Omega level mutant? | If so how?
What would he be able to do?
Has he ever displayed this before?
Who knows this?
Who discovered/said/theorize/lied about it first?
| 51 | It was really exploited back in the '90s/Early 00s, when Frost jumped into his body during a freak accident. Then she basically found out that he'd been lying about a LOT of things because he'd been afraid of his powers.
She basically rode him like like a skinsuit, exploiting his abilities in way he never dared stretch himself, and revealed just how badly he'd been letting his own fears cap his powers.
It actually sets the stage, on a character development level, for the iceman is gay reveal that happened this year. It was heavily implied that she knew a lot of his secrets, and that he was hiding more than just that his powers were far more vast than he was letting on. She was not outting him because she either felt sorry for him / was saving it for blackmail material, depending on which writer was handling it at the time. | 65 |
ELI5: How does “Solvent Abuse” involving aerosol cans, kill the user instantly, as is warned on the cans? | 5,740 | It depends. You can die in multiple ways from solvent abuse.
There’s lack of oxygen, frostbite, and cardiac arrest or failure. Most commonly is aspiration of vomit while they are unconscious and lack of oxygen.
It really depends on what one is inhaling, what methods they are using (using a bag is much more dangerous than just sniffing because you are limiting the flow of oxygen) and the condition they are in.
There are safer ways to get high than sniffing gasoline. | 3,760 |
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When you close your eyes and press on them with your fingers, why do you see weird patterns/designs? | I close my eyes and press on them with my fingers, after about 3 seconds I start to see weird moving patterns, like an optical illusion. Like http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18dn0kik4y440jpg/ku-xlarge.jpg that but actually moving. | 451 | The photoreceptors in your eyes, in addition to regular light, are triggered by, though less sensitive to, pressure. The effect you see is your photoreceptive cells being stimulated, despite no light being present. | 275 |
[Slasher Movies] Why do people run away from the killer after briefly knocking them out? | Slasher movies have this trope wherein the killer gets knocked out momentarily, and their victims just run away. Why not end it there? Stomp on their face a few times, put that adrenaline to good use.
I think the only time I've seen somebody take the opportunity was in Scream 3, when Patrick Warbuton beat the tar out of Ghostface before dying to the knife that was already lodged in his back. | 19 | You're right. The monkey reflex is to just keep hitting until the target is no longer a threat. (It's one reason self-defense with a knife is so problematic.) The best explanation in this case is that slasher-movie villains pick their prey really well. The victims are so skittish they run even when they have an advantage. | 34 |
[generic zombie question] Even if the dead were somehow reanimated, how could they be strong enough to burst through six feet of packed Earth, not to mention emerge from the inside of a sealed casket? | Google says that dirt weighs 2,000 # per cubic yard. That means there's at least 4,000 # of dirt on top of a coffin. How could a zombie even open the casket? | 42 | Most zombies don't start in caskets. They start on the surface.
Even then, they have an advantage that humans don't. Being, they're already dead. Depending on your casket, it is, technically, possible to break out, but you then have to dig yourself to the surface, suffocating the entire way. Zombies don't have to concern themselves with air, and are able to continuously tunnel with no regard for pressure, discomfort or oxygen.
It would take a LOT of work, and no small amount of luck, to properly displace the earth in order to dig yourself out of a grave... but it is doable. | 45 |
ELI5: Why do guys have nipples? | It just randomly struck my mind, mid-walk. They have no function, surely? Help or I'm going to lose sleep over my pointless, pointless nipples. | 38 | Nipples develop in the womb before the fetus is 'sexed', the nipples have already firmly positioned themselves before that process starts, so prior to the fetus becoming male or female, they already have nips. | 61 |
[The Lord of the Rings] The gates of Mordor are quite impressive. Who designed/engineered them? | 124 | Mostly gondorians who still remembered crafting mastery of Numenor. Black gate, towers alongside it, and Cirit Ungol were al built by gondorians to keep remaining forces of sauron inside of mordor after the war of Last aliance.
They were all maned by solders of Gondor that kept watch over the land of Mordor. But some 1000 years (not completly shure about the time) prior to events of LOTR a great plague decimated the population of Gondor and it could no longer properly guard pases to Mordor. | 133 |
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[General Superhero question] Tony stark admits that he is Iron Man. Thor, at least in MCU, is Thor with no alias. Everyone knows who captain America is and Black widow has no real ‘costume’. | Some have a secret identity and some do not. Why is it any different for someone like Spider-Man or Batman. People can’t tell the difference between Superman and Clark Kent and all he needs is a super suit or a pair of glasses. Why do some heroes wear their name on their sleeve and others do not? Hasn’t spidey had to fight off another heroe’s villain a few times? | 268 | There are three primary reasons why superheroes adopt an alias/secret identity in the first place:
* So they can maintain a civilian life without constantly being hounded by supervillains or fans;
* So they can protect their family and loved ones from vengeful enemies;
* So they can protect themselves from the law, as vigilantism is quite often a crime in and of itself (especially when enforced via the methods employed by most superheroes) and their actions would normally make them quite liable for collateral damages and such.
Not having a super hero identity is the exception rather than the rule, so let's look at a few prominent cases:
* MCU Tony Stark - Ego. Pure ego. This explicitly puts him and his companions in danger which he later comes to regret and is motivation for a lot of his future ideas and upgrades. But at the time he "came out" it was basically narcisissm.
* MCU Thor - Thor lives on Asgard and his human friends are mostly superheroes. Those that aren't are offered protection by SHIELD when a Thor-related threat arises. So there simply isn't a need for him to adopt a secret identity.
* MCU Captain America - has no friends and family of note that aren't super heroes themselves that need special protection.
* MCU Black Widow - Black Widow is basically *only* a "secret" identity. She has no public persona that would need hiding or protection.
* Fantastic Four - Since the entire family and friends circle was made superhuman, there was simply no need to adopt secret identities for protection. They are sufficiently rich and powerful that they can distance themselves from the public without being needlessly harassed and generally deal in things at such a high level that legal entanglements are rare and they can afford lawyers to deal with the odd ones that crop up. | 300 |
ELI5: What more megapixels give you and what they do not (or, why more megapixels isn't necessarily "better") | 15 | More megapixels means that you get images with more pixels. This means you can make a larger image at a given resolution, or have better resolution for a given size. Most people don't make prints large enough for this to really matter, as most cameras have plenty of megapixels.
More megapixels can be bad when you have to cram a bunch of them onto the camera's sensor. This is a silicon chip that detects the light and makes the image. If you try to squeeze in a bunch, you can limit the quality of the pixels. For a point and shoot camera, it doesn't make sense to try to put in more than 12megapixels or so, because the camera's sensor is quite small.
A fancy DSLR will use a bigger sensor, some as big as 35mm film. There are many reasons this can be better. One of them is that you can increase the number of megapixels without degrading the quality of the sensor. There are also optical advantages that allow for higher resolution.
None of this really matters, though. There are other factors that are far more important than megapixels, like lens quality and skill. Learning what sort of light is good for shooting or how to use fill flash will both get you better images than any number of megapixels. | 11 |
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ELI5: What happens when a non-fully grown tattooe'd body grows? | Does the ink stretch? Does it get some 'empty spaces' in its pattern?
I'm wondering this since a couple of days, but don't have any knowledge on the matter. May you explain me like I'm five?
Cheers! | 70 | The ink of a tattoo continually 'spreads' throughout the life of a person. As cells divide or die off, the bigger chunks of the pigments/metals in the skin will break apart and generally migrate. This just results in a blurry/faded tattoo. That's why tattooed old folks have blurry tattoos. The human growth isn't usually rapid enough to cause visible separations in the image... but rapid weight gain and pregnancies can do just that. A stretch mark has the ability to completely ruin a tattoo. | 38 |
Why does visible light not cause eye damage? | Since visible light is higher on the EM scale and has more energy than Infrared, then why does visible light not damage our eyes while infrared does (at long exposures) | 16 | Because you blink if it's too bright. Infrared doesn't make you blink. In fact, if you're in the dark, your iris could be wide open letting in more infrared.
You start to notice problems after the damage is done. It needs to be very intense to cause damage. Anything which is incandescent enough to burn your eyes will also be bright in the visual range.
If the source is a laser diode, there's increased danger because the coherent light can be focused onto a very small area. | 14 |
ELI5: Why is Olive Oil always labeled with 'Virgin' or 'extra virgin'? What happens if the Olive oil isn't virgin? | 9,531 | Virgin refers to how many times the olive mash has been processed to extract the oil. Extra virgin olive oil can be skimmed right off the top immediately after the olives are mashed. Lesser qualities of oil are produced by heating the mash and performing other chemical processes to extract the remainder. | 6,463 |
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I feel MORALLY obligated to argue with those whose views I see as harmful. CMV | First of all, I believe that if you witness something harmful, and do nothing to stop it, then you are just as bad as the person who is doing the harm. Ex. You see someone being bullied and don't make any attempt to intervene - you are just as bad as the bully.
Second of all, I believe that opinions are more than just intangible thoughts floating around in somebody's head - opinions can cause tangible harm and therefore should be subject to the same intervention as actions. Ex. The opinion that same-sex marriage should be illegal leads one to vote in opposition of same-sex marriage, causing harm to same-sex couples.
Given these two conditions, I believe that I MUST intervene when I see an objectionable, harmful opinion, or else I might as well have expressed that opinion myself.
That being said, I *hate* arguing. Arguing is one of the least enjoyable activities I can think of and it causes me a lot of anxiety. I was physically abused by more than one authority figure during my childhood, and if the person I'm arguing with starts to sound even the least bit hostile or condescending, it always reminds me of the arguments I had with my abusers, trying to convince them not to hurt me. I know that's awfully dramatic, but it's true - I have literal flashbacks, something I can't control. If I could avoid ever arguing with anyone again and be morally okay with that, it would be a HUGE weight off my shoulders.
But I can't. NOT arguing with someone who I see as having a harmful view leads me into a pit of guilt that can stick with me for a week or more. I constantly think of myself as a monster, because I equate myself with the people I did nothing to stop, people with the most hateful, racist, homophobic, sexist, transphobic etc. views. This self-hatred is a worse pain, to me, than having to relive my child abuses, because I'd rather be a victim of evil than be evil. I have always felt this way.
So all in all this leaves me trapped in an almost constant emotional discomfort – either I’m arguing with someone and reliving my childhood or I’m letting people get away with their harmful views and beating myself up for being a useless, evil piece of shit. Perhaps you could help to ease that pain by changing my view. | 142 | You mention that you feel obligated to verbally intervene when you hear someone saying they are against gay marriage. you want to change them in order to help good people. Very noble :) however, be honest. have you ever really changed someone's opinion about an issue like gay marriage through argument? Do you ever really believe that our hypothetical fundie here will accept homosexuality simply because you voiced your disagreement?
Let's say the person who is against gay marriage is confronted by you, and also shares the belief that they should argue against someone who believes something harmful. From their perspective, they likely see you as someone who is defying God and allowing sin to encompass His world in the form of homosexuality. Of course he would argue with you. And you would argue with him. And neither of you would change each other.
> You see someone being bullied and don't make any attempt to
> intervene - you are just as bad as the bully.
Intervening when someone is being bullied is different than arguing against an opinion. When you physically or verbally intervene in an instance of bullying, you are immediately stopping the harm being done. When you argue against an opinion that is harmful, you are trying (and often failing) to change someone's motivation for inflicting harm. Even if someone stops a bully from hurting someone, they haven't stopped the bully from *wanting* to hurt someone.
Changing someone's view on a political issue like gay marriage or stopping someone from bullying is more difficult than commenting on CMV. That's why you don't see "I think we should tax the wealthy CMV" on this sub a lot. Even when you do, no one's view is really changed. Arguing to change someone and physically stopping harm are two very different actions that often have two different outcomes.
Standing up for what you believe is very noble, but speaking up isn't a guaranteed way to change someone. Homophobes are harming gay people, and they will continue to harm gay people whether you openly disagree with them or not. Don't stop fighting against people you disagree with. But because arguing makes little significant impact, feeling obligated to fight someone every time you see their views as harmful is only going to invoke anxiety. | 41 |
ELI5: If electricity generation is the number one use of water in modern society, why are there no calls to conserve electricity in California? | [Union of Concerned Scientists](http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/energy-and-water-use/water-energy-electricity-overview.html#.VYgcMnLbLbg) points out that electricity is a huge user of water - probably more than the lowly almond farmer. Why the focus on farmers and not the energy use (and lack of conservation) in the state? Why no calls to conserve electricity? | 25 | Because there are 3 kinds of liars: Liars, damned liars, and statistics. The truth is that farming consumes the vast majority (~70 percent) of perishable fresh water... the actual resource that matters here. | 44 |
Would all intelligent life in the universe evolve using the same visible light spectrum as us to see? Is our slice of the spectrum innately superior for vision? | 18 | I'd say it's the most effective general range - yes, some creatures go a bit higher or lower than humans, but it's pretty close.
Visible light is pretty good at going a good distance through the atmosphere without diffusing too much. It's passive - ambient light is used and we don't have to project anything and reveal our presence to a predator. The wavelength is small enough that the sensory organs don't have to be particularly large.
I'd say given A) the spectrum of the light given off by the Sun and B) the atmosphere of Earth that it was more or less inevitable HERE.
Elsewhere? Tell me what the most abundant wavelength of light is that reaches the creatures in question, with a high enough frequency to allow for small eyes... I'd suspect it'd be near our range, but maybe not identical. | 12 |
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ELI5: What makes the body decompose? What is it that prevents us from decomposing while alive? | 19 | Decomposition is the breaking down of tissue and/or organic matter by microbes like bacteria. Your body, while alive, has an immune system to kill bacteria, as well as the capability to heal and repair any damage (within reason). Once you’re dead, the immune system and healing stops, which means bacteria grow unchecked and whatever damage they do doesn’t get fixed. | 31 |
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CMV: It's Acceptable to enjoy art despite the artist having despicable political views | I believe that it's acceptable to be able to enjoy art despite the political views of the artists. It's my belief that the audience should be able to separate the expression in the art from the real life of the artist. What brings this up is that recently, [Phil Anselmo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Anselmo) (vocalist for bands such as Pantera, Down, Superjoint Ritual) was seen on stage given a drunken Sieg Heil and White Power, and has had a history of giving other such racist comments.
While there's some question of whether he is actually racist or simply a drugged out drunken idiot, it brought up the thought with me that a lot of the artists I've enjoyed have been undoubtedly racist or have had other terrible thoughts and ideas not related to their art. [H.P. Lovecraft](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft) was also racist, [Varg Vikernes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varg_Vikernes) is perhaps the vilest human being I know of outside of internationally wanted criminals. [Mel Gibson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson) is famous for his drunken anti-Semitic rants.
Regardless, I don't think that my ability to enjoy and appreciate the art that these people have put out should be hampered by their views on subjects that frankly don't apply to what they do. The music/books/movies aren't the actors, and the actors aren't their medium. | 670 | I think the the problem with enjoying their art is the consequences of that. Obviously the more popular they are, the more success they gain which reinforces them, sanctions them even which is bad for society as it is seen to be ok, people will still love you, you will still be a respected member of society.
Like Roman Polanski - he is a paedophile but because people enjoy his art, he is wealthy, powerful and probably feels justified as popular culture appears to forgive him for what he did and probably still does.... | 128 |
[Starship Troopers] I'm writing a paper for my Moral History class. | It's about the history of the Terran Federation, I've been instructed to use FedNet for information.
How did the Terran Federation form, what size territory does it control, and what caused the formation? | 32 | Nobody really can say where the terran federation came from it just kinda grew. See at the end of the XXth century many governments were collapsing and this created a vacuum of power which the veterans stepped in to fill. The first known case was in Scotland when some veterans got together as vigilantes to stop rioting and looting they had to hang a few people (including two veterans) and decided not to let anyone but veterans on their committee because they didn't trust anyone else. What started as an emergency measure became constitutional practice in a generation or two. | 10 |
[Star Wars] Does the empire pay exceptionally well? What is my motivation to become an Imperial Officer? | I mean forget regular job security, I have a good chance of being force choked to death by my commanding officer if I make a mistake.
Why would I enter such an environment? Are all officers megalomaniacs?
Why wouldn't I just be chill and go work in a bar on Tattoine, Coruscant, or Naboo? | 29 | The vast majority of imperial military is actually a pretty good gig. Guaranteed pay food board and travel. Something like 90% of the imperial enlisted forces are from worlds where the military offers the best chances of getting off their planet and out of living paycheck to paycheck. The core worlds are well off and people have a decent amount of disposable income to pursue their passions and desires but the majority of imperial forces come from mid and outer rim territories. Out there pirates and marauders are a common sight alongside slavery and extreme poverty. The empire offers at the minimum a chance to leave your homeworld and the possibility to bring order and stability to help others avoid the fate you've escaped by joining the empire. At best you'll serve honorably and bring law and order to the worlds near where you've enlisted from and be generally seen as a positive force in the galaxy. At worst you'll be sent to operations overseeing genocide or slaving operations or be sent far from your home to perform any number of unsavory tasks from death squads to interrogations to wholesale slaughter of aliens. Only the upper echelons of imperial command and elite units had to work in close proximity to the moffs and vader and palpatine where the general murders happened. So long as you stay below the ranks of Admiralty and General's you'd be able to truly help and be supported by the empire at large. There's plenty of stories of soldiers being forced to fight losing campaigns on backwater planets but there's just as many have been assigned to aid the populace and ensure things like piracy and smugglers are out of business. | 39 |
How did scientists know the first astronauts’ spacesuits would withstand the pressure differences in space and fully protect the astronauts inside? | 6,360 | They built vacuum chambers on Earth large enough for people to fit inside. That way they could test the suits, with people inside them, in a hard vacuum before they actually sent anyone to space. If something went wrong during one of the tests the could open the door to the chamber and instantly repressurize it. | 5,013 |
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ELI5: Langrangian points | 15 | Lagrange points are special points found within what is called a three body system, where there are 3 different massive objects. These are points where if two of the objects are orbiting each other via a barycenter, the third, if placed at one of those points, will orbit the same period as the other two without entering into their orbital paths.
So how do they work? First, let us establish that the closer an object is to a massive object, the stronger the gravitational pull. The stronger the gravitational pull, the faster the orbital period
This is going to use the Sun and Earth ad the objects, but really anything can be used.
First of these points is L1. This is found slightly (1/100th of the distance between the Earth and Sun IIRC, if they are the other two objects) within the orbit of the Earth and is directly between the Earth and Sun. This ends up with the Sun pulling on the object, but the object also has a slight pull from Earth in the opposite direction, weakening the sun's grasp on it, boosting it's orbital period to that of the Earth.
Next is L2. This is found on the opposite side of Earth than L1, but this time both the Sun and Earth are pulling in the same direction, boosting the pull, enough to lessen it to the point where it matches the orbital period of the Earth. So the goal here is to have the pull of the Sun, coupled with that of Earth, be the same as the pull of the Earth from the Sun.
Then is L3. L3 is found on the opposite side of the Sun, slightly outside of Earth's orbit. Since they are aligned, both the Sun and Earth pull on it from the same direction, compensating for the more distance from Earth's orbit, to the point where it matches the Earth's orbital period
Then come the interesting ones, L4 and L5. They are both found in such a way that the distance between all 3 objects is identical and makes an equilateral triangle. L4 is found ahead of the orbit of the Earth though slightly inside its orbit. This has the effect that the pull by the Sun should be more than that of the Earth, because if is found closer, thus the orbital period should be faster, but the Earth is found directly behind the direction of travel, which pulls the object back, slowing it, making the orbital period the same. L5 is the opposite, it is found behind but slightly outside the orbit of the Earth, slowing it, but it is sped up because the Earth is ahead of it, pulling it behind it slightly, boosting the orbital period.
Only L4 and L5 are stable (if something leaves it, it will pull back), the rest are unstable and require correctional maneuvers to compensate. The interesting thing about Lagrange points is that it is possible to orbit the actual points due to the fact that if an imbalance occurs perpendicular to the line they are on in L1 through L3, or somehow else in L4 and L5 (I forget how), it pulls it back to the Lagrange point, which can be used to make an orbit, an orbit around nothing, called a halo orbit. | 11 |
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[MCU] Cost aside, how efficient would a vibranium car be? | What if all the metal in a normal car was made of Vibranium instead? How would it handle collisions? What about performance compared to a normal car of the same make and model? | 33 | Well, you could have an extremely lightweight chassis (maybe even 1 mm thick), but to be honest covering the outside would be a complete waste, unless safety is your main concern. Yes, in a collision the energy would somehow be transferred away from you and into the vibranium, with minimal damage to the car, but even so the momentum from suddenly coming to a stop would still hit you, so you could still need air bags and other safety devices.
Unfortunately, the energy absorption properties of vibranium make using it in the engine a non-starter, as the pistons need to be able to release the stored energy, which vibranium cannot do, so it would have a totally normal engine. However, you could just put vibranium on the disk brakes, but you would still be limited by the rubber wheels wearing out.
tl;dr: Would be very safe if put around chassis, very wasteful though, you would be better off using vibranium disk brakes. Would be useless in increasing the efficiency of the engine. | 22 |
[General] How would someone with the ability to tell when someone is lying register a statement that is literally untrue, but may or may not be metaphorically true? | Like, if Darth Vader said "Anakin Skywalker is dead. I killed him", how would that be registered?
Perhaps it would depend on whether the speaker really believes what he is saying. | 27 | >Perhaps it would depend on whether the speaker really believes what he is saying.
This is the only real way for lie detection to work. Otherwise you could use your magic lie detector, and have someone make wild guesses about basic physical facts until you discover all truth in the universe. | 66 |
ELI5: Why is it better to get uninterrupted sleep than the same number of hours of fragmented sleep? And why do some people require more sleep than others? | I'm tired, Reddit. | 26 | Not all sleep is the same. You go thru stages over the hours, from light sleep (alpha) to REM.
During periods of relaxation, while still awake, our brain waves become slower, increase in amplitude and become more synchronous. These types of waves are called alpha waves.
The first stage of sleep is characterized by theta waves. The difference between relaxation and stage 1 sleep is gradual and subtle. As the sleeper moves to stage 2 sleep theta wave activity continues.
Stages 1 and 2 are relatively "light" stages of sleep. In fact, if someone is awoken during one of these stages, he or she will often report no being asleep at all. That's why fragmented sleep is not good, you don't go beyond stage 2.
As you continue to shut down your brain patterns change to delta wave patterns. Delta sleep is our deepest sleep, the point when our brain waves are least like waking.
After that you sometimes get to REM (rapid eye movement). It's theorized that REM helps the brain clean up memories accumulated during the waking periods (dreams). For that reason hormones are released so the skeletal muscles of a person during REM sleep are effectively paralyzed so you don't act out your dreams.
REM sleep a sleepers brain waves demonstrate characteristics that are similar to waking sleep, a combination of alpha, beta, and desynchronous waves.
In a normal night's sleep, a sleeper begins in stage 1, moves down through the stages, to stage 4, then back up through the stages, with the exception that stage 1 is replaced by REM, then the sleeper goes back down through the stages again. **One cycle, from stage 1 to REM takes approximately 90 minutes**. This cycle is repeated throughout the night, with the length of REM periods increasing, and the length of delta sleep decreasing, until during the last few cycles there is no delta sleep at all.
So you sleep for less than 90 min you don't complete a full cycle and without a few cycles you don't feel rested because your brain cleanup is not done.
>And why do some people require more sleep than others?
Genetics. Nothing you can do about it. | 14 |
[ELI5] Why do I need to go to bed and sleep? | 22 | Think about yourself as a battery. Throughout the day you use your charge, and sleep is your recharging period. This may seem odd because you'd assume that eating food and water would be able to keep your "battery" charged. Well, when you sleep, your body just shuts down, and no longer has to focus on physical actions. It basically takes this downtime to make sure the immune system is doing just fine and to let it recover after keeping you germ free for so long.
Why do you think doctors tell you to "stay in bed" when you're sick? It's not because you feel like shit and therefore should not be walking around. It's because sleeping helps your immune system get back on track. Not sleeping leaves you more susceptible to disease and getting sick.
It's also important to sleep because your mind is reorganizing your thoughts from the day and days past.
Why do you think people tell you to get a good night's sleep when you have a big test the next day?
If you don't get a good sleep at night, say you stay up for 5 hours and get two hours of sleep after cramming for a test, you're not going to remember half of the things you crammed. This is why teachers advise against cramming. It's not because cramming is bad and doing it all in one night will overload your brain, its because the brain needs time to organize thoughts and ideas and learned information over night.
Think of your brain as a warehouse full of boxes and constantly getting new boxes. Every night little workers go in and organize the boxes, making sure you can find the information easily the next day. The boxes are all different sizes. Big boxes have big events in your past in them, like a traumatic experience. Small boxes are things that didn't impact you or you didn't pay much attention to, like what you ate for dinner six months ago today. As time goes on, these small boxes become of less interest to the brain and find their way in the back of the warehouse, gathering cobwebs (some people have brains that never do this, they're really cool and have photographic memories), while other boxes remain at the forefront. If you don't get a good nights sleep, you're not going to remember much.
There are other reasons why you MUST sleep, and if you don't sleep you'll go crazy in two days and DIE in two weeks (I think that's the length). Of course, your body will probably have forced you into sleep by then, so no worries.
People that don't get enough sleep didn't have enough time to let their brain organize the boxes without more and more boxes flooding in (because we constantly take in new information during the day). That's why they go crazy.
So remember, get a good night's sleep! It's very important.
| 22 |
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[Superheroes] What's the distinction between just a criminal and a supercriminal? | I'll take batman because I feel it's got the best examples at all levels, but you can do the same thing with virtually any super's rogues gallery.
* So on the one extreme, you have, say, Poison Ivy. She's a criminal, she has superpowers. She's unquestionably a supercriminal.
* Then you have Scarecrow. He's a normal human with advanced tech. Theoretically, anyone could have a vial of fear gas. But he's still able to do things normal technology can't. That's pretty super.
* Then you have The Riddler. He's very flamboyant and dramatic, but he's got normal tech and no powers. He's got a lot of showmanship and his crimes are clearly above and beyond normal criminal activities, but he's just a dude.
* Then you have The Penguin. He's just a crime lord. No powers, no tech, no gimmicks unless you count "liking birds and umbrellas" as a gimmick. He's just a mundane crime lord with a nickname.
Now, we know that supervilliany is a concept in universe (the phrase super-crime is thrown around in comic, and they talk about batman fighting supercriminals), and it seems all of batman's rogue gallery (and the less powerful flash rogues and Kingpin and the Toymaster and other such relatively mundane criminals) are considered supercriminals in universe.
So at what point do I stop being a standard criminal and become a supercriminal? Do I need a costume? A name? A gimmick? An archenemy? Where does my plan to rob gotham bank go from "call the police" to "call Batman"? | 42 | In the words of Megamind, "PRESENTATION!" You gotta have a gimmick. Powers are optional. If you do not pick your own name, the press will pick one for you. An archenemy will turn up eventually if you hang around long enough. But first, you really need a gimmick. | 64 |
[Vampires] Do I have to be inside my house in order to invite a vampire inside, will a handwritten note suffice | Like if I were at a party and invited vampires to go in my house etc.
If yes, could I forge a note from an enemy of mine to invite vampires to their home? | 25 | You definitely cannot, under any circumstances, invite vampires into other people's homes.
An invitation by writing might work if it was specifically directed to the vampire. No general public party invites. | 12 |
ELI5: Why is growling such a common way to show aggression in the animal kingdom? | 3,025 | Growling in dogs isn't a show of aggression. It is a show of unease - you're invading its space or you represent a threat and (s)he wants you to back off.
It's actually a sign the dog would prefer for this to not evolve into conflict.
Aggressive dogs attack without any growling. | 3,113 |
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I believe agnosticism is the most intelligent position to "believe" on the religion/atheism spectrum CMV | My view sits on a foundation of logic like this:
1. Atheism: The way science goes about disproving something is by finding evidence to the contrary. Many religions can be put down through evidence pointing otherwise but some cannot as of yet. Since all religious claims cannot be refuted it's respectful to the scientific method to not completely denounce religions plausibility.
2.Religion: There is no definitive proof of a God or supernatural force acting on the universe anywhere (no, m-theory doesn't count). That being said, faith is what allows people to hold religious beliefs. I think these people aren't being responsible to themselves because faith simply is a delusion.
Those points being stated I think holding a position of admitted ignorance is both respectful to the possibility that faith is necessary in life and the notion that delusions are not a great thing to incorporate all over your life. CMV. | 73 | A very, *very* tiny minority of atheists actually think that god is disprovable.
Agnosticism is not typically considered as a position on the same axis as athism/theism. In fact, there is no spectrum there, it's a binary choice. A theist is someone who believes in at least one god. If that statement does not apply to you, you are without theism, or an atheist. That's literally what atheist means, the prefix a- means 'without'.
Gnosticism/agnosticism is a statement about whether or not you believe the existence of god is provable. There are people out there who believe in god, and furthermore believe that his existence can be proven true. They would be gnostic theists. Then there are people who belief in god, but acknowledge that they can not prove this belief, they are agnostic theists. Most atheists are agnostic atheists, who don't believe in god, and who believe that proving his non-existence is impossible.
| 101 |
What are the pros and cons of unions? | Also, what can be done to fix the cons of unions?
Can you provide examples of when unions helped/hurt a country/industry and why it happened?
Are there differences between public and private sector unions that affect their usefulness? | 18 | I find it better to think of it as organized labor in the same way that corporations are organized capital. Neither is inherently good or bad (though they should increase efficiency). When either side has too much power, it's bad for the economy as a whole.
Corporations and unions, being run by people, will both tend to try to exploit the other for personal gain when they have the power to do so.
As such, having one without the other tends to be a serious problem in the long run, unless there's government mechanisms to keep their power in check. And the government has a historically bad track record with that, due to these groups' ability to influence politics when they do become powerful. | 30 |
If matter can't be created or destroyed, how do pairs of quarks just "pop" into existence? | I was watching a video on subatomic particles and the narrator mentioned if two quarks get too far apart from one another, an entirely new quark will appear to form two pairs. How is that? | 19 | There is energy in the field between the two quarks. As you pull the quarks apart, you are doing work on the system, and so increasing its energy. Eventually that energy is large enough to create a quark-antiquark pair.
| 16 |
CMV: Starting a Post With "Throwaway Account to Remain Anonymous" Followed By an Incredibly Unique Story Is Silly | I see this all the time. Someone posts a story and starts it off with "Throwaway account because I dont want anyone knowing this is me" and then they post an extremely unique or specific story that will obviously be recognized by the person/people they're referencing. Like do y'all really think having a burner account keeps you anonymous when your story is something like "My husband threw my child in an octopus tank and then ran naked through the aquarium, should I divorce him?"
This actually just makes me chuckle more than anything but am I missing something here? Has anyone who's done this and ended up on the front page ever actually remained anonymous from those they're trying to hide from? And I'm referencing those AITA posts or AskReddit that blow up. Not saying throwaways don't work ever. But I have a hard time believing you stayed anonymous when the story you provided could have been an oscar winning screenplay. | 1,928 | It's to protect the secrecy of your main account. People may know whose husband ran through the aquarium naked, but they won't know all her dirty secrets from the stuff she posts and upvotes from her main account. | 1,534 |
ELI5:Why are asian language scripts much more complex than european scripts? | 47 | different culture, different way of doing things. All cultures have their quirks. English for example is an odd language in that it's grammar rules are complex and have a lot of exceptions.
East Asian languages (Japanese, Vietmanese, Chinese, etc) all have roots in the Chinese script (Except Korea, they're weird). This stems from China at some point owning pretty much everything around them at various points in history. They were also the cultural dominator in the region for a very long time - Think ancient times US level of cultural dominance. Written Chinese was the universal language, the English of today, back then. Everyone knew how to read and write it, even if when they spoke different languages.
That said, written Chinese is pictographic. It's just how the cultures chose to write and that evolved. To those unfamiliar with it it's incredibly complex and makes no sense. To those that are familiar with it there's a system behind it. It's not as simple as an alphabet, but it has advantages.
Since they are pictures, the characters represent what they actually are. For example, the character for person looks like a torso and 2 legs. Fire and water are stylized fire and water. The character for door looks like a door. One of the symbols used in the characters for student looks like a person wearing a hat.
Built on this, more complex characters are usually made up of other characters. A word describing a type of person may contain a modified person character in it. Basically, the parts of the character conveys meaning about what the character is. As a result, you can often figure out what a character is based off of the parts of the character and the context of the sentence around it. There are a number of these common elements and they are used in Chinese dictionaries to look up the meaning of characters. | 10 |
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ELI5: how does the moon gravity only affect tidal forces and not anything in the land? | 49 | It does affect the things on the land, but water is a more fluid substance than rocks and people, so it is capable of being pulled up higher than something more rigid.
This is because the moon isn't lifting the whole ocean. It is lifting a whole bunch of water molecules, which drags in more of them up. This creates a change in the pressure which rises the water level a bit, and lowers it where the moon's gravity is not affecting.
But land is stiff and bones are rigid, so when it tries to pull on stuff that is not as liquid as water, there is not as pronounced of an effect on the body. | 70 |
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