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ELI5: Why is it easier to pull than to push? | 23 | There's a lot that contributes to it. When you push, you lean into the object and you tend to be applying force into a partially downward direction, increasing the resistance of friction, while you lean away and tend to lift up a bit when you pull, lowering said resistance. Due to that same tendency, pushing with that downward force takes some of your weight off of your feet, decreasing traction. The upward force of pulling makes you push down on your feet harder, increasing traction. Basically gravity is the enemy if you're pushing and your friend if you're pulling. | 48 |
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[Half-Life] Why did Black Mesa give Gordon Freeman firearms training? Why was every other scientist so helpless in battle if Black Mesa trained them for it? | [Specifically referring to this part of the training course](https://youtu.be/CJMGXNpXOhU?t=4m42s) we see Gordon doing | 153 | We hear about how Gordon used to race Barney through the vents to see who could get Kleiner's keys from his office. It's safe to say he was a bit of a strange guy before-hand. That's probably what he spent his off time doing, just going out in the desert and shooting guns for fun. | 143 |
What is the non-human animal process of going to sleep? Are they just lying there thinking about arbitrary things like us until they doze off? | 3,050 | Sleep scientist here. We cannot know what they are thinking about.
However, in mice, dogs and cats at least, they become less active and usually move to their "nest" or dog bed. Here they move from an active wake period (a classification of wake), to a quiet wake period. From here they move into nrem sleep. This behavioral state is classified as really slow and big brains waves known as delta waves. REM sleep state happens less frequently than wake and NREM. When it does it happens after NREM sleep.
So animals transition much the same as humans, well depending on the animal, as some do not have REM sleep. Hell, some animals like ostriches have a mixed state of NREM and REM sleep. Really weird.
anyways, with respect to rodents (mice and rats) they transition super quick. Moving form wake to nrem to rem much faster as they spend less time in these states.
I can run down later and run a recording to show you the different muscle/brain activity that helps us differentiate states or just link to papers. | 1,125 |
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[Halo] How did the UNSC become so powerful after the Human-Covenant war and pay for massive ships such as the Infinity? | The war cost humanity billions of lives and lost dozens of planets, some of which were very industrial such as Reach. After a massive war like this shouldn't humanity face massive economic problems that wouldn't allow such military projects to be built? | 20 | Automation?
It's kind of weird admittedly, but the way things sit, they've got huge amounts of leftover Covenant and Forerunner tech, a massive number of refugees, several lost planets and a need to find places to put all these people, human or otherwise. Why wouldn't they sink some cash in to projects like the Infinity, which was designed to go farther and faster than pretty much any ship before? Consider it a test run for a better class of Colony ship. Not to mention it was apparently being assembled mid-war and redesigned mid-way through to incorporate all this new stuff. Using it as a testbed for next generation tech beats leaving it a half-finished white elephant. | 29 |
ELI5: How does the press to test feature work on AA batteries? | On some AA batteries, you can squeeze two points on the battery and it indicates how much juice is left. How does that work? | 17 | They use a combination of colour changing and conductive ink.
The ink is conductive so that when you touch the two points, current can flow.
The colour change occurs with temperature.
So what you do is create a gradually widening strip of the colour changing conductive ink. The narrow part takes the least power to warm up and change colour, and as it gets wider, more power is needed. So it's a way of creating a 'fuel gauge' for the power that's left in the battery. The more of the bar that fills up, the more charge the battery has. | 12 |
ELI5 - If humans breathe in oxygen and exhale CO2, then why does mouth-to-mouth resuscitation work? | 10,799 | We don't JUST breathe in oxygen and breathe out CO2. It's a mix of gases. The air we are used to breathing in only contains 21% oxygen. We breathe out about 16% oxygen. That's still enough to keep someone oxygenated for awhile. | 11,574 |
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[DC]Did Batman actually master ALL the martial arts in the world and if so, how? | **yes, i am going to take a comic seriously. shut up, its my hobby.**
One of many OP aspects of Batman is that he has mastered ALL the martial arts in the world. All of them. And personally, I don't buy it. *At most, I would say he is a master of few, and dabbled in the rest.* And here are my reasoning.
First of all, when the hell did he have time to master it all? I am going to assume that Bruce started training in martial arts after his parents died, when he was like, 10 years old? Even if he started training before that, it probably wouldn't have amounted to much.
And I would think that his training ended when he came back to Gotham and started acting as Batman. Sure he could continue practicing and training, but I would think that is not "learning" a new martial arts.
That would give him, like what, 15 years? to master EVERY SINGLE martial arts ever.
Now let's bring in some pseudo-real science. They say that it takes an average person 10,000 hours of practice to master one physical thing, whether it be a sport, playing an instrument or a martial art. That is a 416 days. Of just training. Add time to eat and sleep and other daily activity, that would be about 6 years.
Now, of course, Batman is no average human, so let's just say that it would take him 1 year to completely master one martial arts.
However, there are literally thousands of different martial arts, all over the globe. Asian, European, African, Scandinavian, etc. It would take some time just to travel to these places, not to mention finding a master to teach him.
Plus there is time spent learning OTHER important things, such as science etc...
So, how can Batman possibly master ALL form of martial arts?
Does he take just a month or week to master it?
Did he go through some kind of matrix thing to learn all of them?
And does knowing ALL of them actually help, as opposed to being a master of some of them? | 42 | It is easy to disprove this point, primarily because we don't even know how many fighting styles there are in existence to begin with. This is to say that it is much more plausible that he has mastered every single prominent martial art known to man.
As per the feasibility of this feat, you have to take into account that all of these fighting styles converge at some point, this is to say that someone who has mastered Judo would probably take less time to master Jiu-Jitsu as the two have a very similar move set (the founder of Judo, Jigoro Kano, was himself a Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, as was Helio Gracie before he founded the art of BJJ). | 29 |
Are viruses alive or dead? | If so, can they die or are they more closely related to a chemical reaction such as fire? | 20 | Virologist here. The alive or not alive thing tends to be a high school thought process in biology class as to what constitutes life. I’m the real world of virology, we don’t worry about that discussion. That being said, viruses are incapable of replication or metabolism on their own and require a living cell to do so. That would mean that viruses are not “life” in the classical sense. Personally, I’d describe them as biological entities, although that would mean that we now have to debate the definition of entity…
Not alive, but they have a function and are not dead “junk” like a dead cell that will reprocessed or excreted. Hope that helps. | 54 |
ELI5: 'Diet' drinks and how they have zero calories. | What is all that stuff in there and how is it, uh, nothing? | 94 | Zero Calorie drink are actually drinks that have less the 0.5 calories. They choose to round down to zero.
Calories are a measurement of energy in food. Not every part of any food item can be used for energy. For example Celery has a extremely low amount of usable energy because of all the cellulose in it (Human can not properly digest Cellulose)
Diet Soda is mostly water, coloring, artificial flavoring and artificial sweetener. A common one is Aspartame which is 200 times sweet then sugar. This means you have to use so little of it that the total amount generates less then 1 calorie per drink. | 66 |
ELI5:How do we know the universe is expanding and what causes it? | 210 | The reason why we know it is expanding is because the galaxies farther away from us are red shifted. Which means the wavelength of light is shifted to the red part of the spectrum. It is similar to the a doppler effect when a sound is moving away from you.
We know that part of the reason why galaxies are moving away is because spacetime is expanding. The redshifted galaxies led to the big bang theory. If the galaxies at far distances are moving away from each other now then at one point they were probably much closer than before.
The acceleration of the expansion of the universe is what we do not understand yet. We know that it is happening because of the redshift of supernovae. We don't know what is causing the acceleration so we assigned the name of dark energy to it until we can identify it.
Dark matter is the unknown matter that is keeping individual galaxies together. | 86 |
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ELI5: What happens to the proceeds of crime? | Say its drug money what happens to it ? After its been taken as evidence, and the case has gone through the courts what actually happens to all the money from crime? Does it go to the state or given to charity ? | 18 | The police get to keep it. It's called "civil asset forfeiture", and it gets rolled into the police budget. It's been a big sticking point lately because it has been used to seize money that almost certainly was not acquired or intended to be used illegally. | 20 |
[Minecraft] How and why do dark, open spaces make those creepy noises? | Sometimes I'll just be minding my own business, exploring a cave or mining for iron, when I hear a rumbling groan or a high pitched whine. Usually, not long after I hear one of these noises, I'll find an unlit cavern not too far away from me.
What causes these noises? Do they serve some purpose, or are they just a naturally occurring phenomenon? | 48 | That's not the rocks, that's the monster that's RIGHT BEHIND YOU! AHHHHH! AHHHHH! AHHHHHH!
But seriously, it might just be the shifting of the rocks as tectonic plates move. The unlit caverns may be due to the sound always being present, but only being audible when their is no soft crackling and popping of the candles. | 28 |
ELI5: How do animals know to look humans in the eye? Why do they do it? | 27 | Even for animals the basic understanding of what eyes are is important for survival. How do you know if that predator is looking at you, or if the fellow animal of your species feels threatened? How does a predator know if it is being observed or which direction the prey is likely to flee? Even fish can recognize eyes which is why the fake eye spots on tails even exist!
So yeah, animals know to look at the eyes of humans because that is what we see with. Some important things they can get from our eyes is our direction of sight, from which they can deduce where our attention is directed. | 32 |
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ELI5: if multiplying by Zero returns Zero, why does division by Zero return 'undefined'? | 158 | Let's use a 1-pound chocolate bar.
Multiplication: if you have a 4 count of 1-pound chocolate bars, you have 4 pounds of chocolate. If you have no 1-pound chocolate bars, you have 0 pounds of chocolate. Makes perfect sense.
Division: If you cut the chocolate bar into 4 equal parts, each part is 4 ounces (1/4 of a pound). But try cutting a chocolate bar into zero equal parts... conceptually that makes no sense. If you say that this means removing or destroying the chocolate bar, that would actually be subtraction. In effect, you want to collapse the chocolate bar into fewer than one piece but still expect all 16 ounces of chocolate to still be present in this space where there is no chocolate bar. | 447 |
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Does temperature of a body affect the light intensity produced by it? | So I have a question asking if a bulb which is at 2,500 K and the sun at 6,000 have different white-light intensities...
Does Stefan's law for black bodies apply to bulbs and stars?
If it does, then what exactly is a black body? | 16 | Yes. The radiated power increases with the fourth power of temperature, so something twice as hot is sixteen times as bright (Stefan-Boltzmann law). The peak wavelength of the emitted radiation has a reciprocal relationship with the temperature (Wien's law). | 10 |
[MCU] So Ultron has defeated the Avengers, wiped out all biological life on Earth. Now what? | What are his goals now? Humanity has been saved. Does he take to the stars? Does he build an entire civilization of himself? | 85 | He repopulates, starting with his biological form. A race of superpowerful superhumans each individually able to defend themselves from an entire Chitauri invasion size event will be much harder to defeat than the current weako fleshbags. | 90 |
ELI5: Why doesn't Ticketmaster have any real competition and why isn't it considered an illegal monopoly? | 174 | Ticketmaster has the name recognition to reach many ticket-buyers, and the computer systems to handle many, many ticket orders at once. Because of this, promoters of events often turn to them to sell tickets to their events instead of writing their own software and running their own web servers. This saves the promoters time and money, and in exchange Ticketmaster gets to promote themselves as the exclusive source of (your favorite band)'s tour tickets. By being exclusive they can charge you for such ridiculous fees as printing your own ticket. The arrangement is profitable for everyone except the consumer.
The reason Ticketmaster hasn't been called an illegal monopoly is because they haven't done anything to illegally restrict the rise of a competitor. They (probably) haven't inserted penalty clauses into their contracts with event venues punishing them for going with alternative services or selling tickets themselves, which would be actions punishable under antitrust law. In addition, event tickets are considered a luxury, and there aren't very many laws punishing price hikes on luxury goods, as opposed to price-gouging laws on food after major natural disasters.
Disclaimer: not a lawyer | 84 |
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[Superheroes] What sorts of drawbacks would powered people have due to their abilities? | Obviously the powers themselves have fantastic benefits, but I'm wondering what sort of short term + long term health effects some superpowers could have. For example, Marvel's Quake experiences micro-fractures if she uses her earthquake powers too much. What sort of drawbacks would other powers have? | 23 | Besides the obvious ones, like Superman and Daredevil learning how to shut out all sounds and smalls on Earth : Decision fatigue is a thing, where people get worn out from answering too many questions. That means Green Lantern would be a mental wreck by the end of the day.
Black Canary's sonic screams means she would never be able to let loose at a concert.
Atom and Ant-Man probably have wild headaches from constantly having to shift their perspective. | 41 |
CMV: You shouldn't be allowed to teach religion to small children. | Before everyone freaks out no i'm not saying outlaw religion i am simply saying that small children are impressionable and believe basically anything they're told by parents/authority figures. Because of this it shouldn't be allowed for those people to tell children that "this" specific religion is correct, and teach them about it. Children should be taught in schools that all religions are unproven, and a matter of opinion, and if parents are religious they should simply tell the children "this is what we think there is no evidence to prove it but we choose to think this". Allow the children to grow up and make they're own decisions about religion rather than be indoctrinated into it at a young age. Not only would this improve the lives of the many people who struggle with overcoming this indoctrination once they're older, but it would lessen the division between people based on religion because people would be more open minded and see that others religions are just as valid (or invalid) as theirs.
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Since i'm sure it'll be one of the main arguments the "but parents can do whatever they want with they're children" argument will not sway me and you are wasting your time typing it it is the responsibility of a society to make sure its children are raised in a healthy and open minded environment and if the parents are incapable of providing this they shouldn't be allowed to raise the child. Not only because its better for the child but because its better for society as a whole as those children grow up to be healthier adults.
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**Addendum:** This would include pressuring attendance of explicitly religious practices like mass or prayer but not ambiguous yet religiously inspired practices think Christmas or similar holidays as long as its framed as a fun social event and not as a "lets praise the lord" thing if the child chooses to go they should be allowed to but forcing a child to attend religious services should be illegal.
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**EDIT:** since im getting so many repetitive comments im going to stop responding to things that dont bring up new points
**EDIT2:** to all of the people who seem to think im advocating for children not even being aware of religions existence and arguing about other things that arent based in facts and if we should teach those things to them please actually read my post before commenting as apparently you didnt the first time | 52 | By this logic, you shouldn't be able to teach children Politics, Philosophy, Ethics, Literature, History, Morals...
Perhaps the better solution is not to keep certain knowledge away from children, but to give them more knowledge.
Teach children to think critically and be open minded. | 18 |
ELI5: When saving a document on Microsoft Word "A file name can't contain any of the following characters: \ / : * ? " < > |". Why? | 24 | Windows uses these symbols for searches, command-line instructions, and the paths that define file locations. If you save using one of these then Windows does not know whether that is the file name or should be performing some other action. | 32 |
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Looking at the the last few hundred years; is it safe to assume that humans will be 8-10 feet tall by the year 3000? Or does the human body have a height limit? | 146 | A lot of evidence suggests our height is increasing due to better nutrition in childhood. Height did not increase continuously through our existence, it really kicked off around the middle of the 1800s, before then it was semi-stable.
For that matter, height has actually declined on occasion in regions and populations where access to nutrition has been severely hampered.
In essence, it seems like we likely have some general 'human height' and that we more often approach the 'maximum' now because a larger percentage of us get adequate nutrition to support growth. | 64 |
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ELI5: Why does battery powered electronics (such as a remote or an electrical toothbrush) lose power as the battery is weakened and not work at full power till the battery is dead? | 46 | A battery's voltage decreases as it is drained of energy.
Think of voltage (electrical potential) as water pressure. You hang up a bucket of water and open a hole on the bottom to shower. The water pressure at the start is strong from the weight of water pressing down. However, as the water drains, the pressure weakens and it gets more difficult to wash yourself.
This is the same thing that happens with the motors and lights powered by batteries. As the battery drains, these parts lose power gradually until they stop working.
One way to prevent this is to put in regulators that fix the pressure/voltage at some level rather than have it decrease over time. Newer electric toothbrushes have this. They will run at full power and only start weakening when they are low on battery. | 57 |
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CMV:I believe when someone close to you dies it is obligatory to tell the people you are with. | Anecdotes time.
1. Today I was working with a co-worker on a project. The co-worker gets me the files he was working on, I look them over and give him some notes. I notice it's taking him an unusually large amount of time to do a routine task and I check in on him. I ask to check out what he has so far to see if it works, so if it doesn't I can save him some time down the line. He says no. Long story short we have conflict (It was utterly ridiculous for him to flat out refuse). At the end of it he says "Sorry man, my friend died today and I'm not at my best work-wise." Great, now I feel like a dick and I was hard on him when he's already dealing with some shit.
2. I'm traveling in London in college with a couple of friends (guy and a gal) who are closer to each other than with me. The guy is straightedge (no drugs/alcohol) but claims he's ok with us drinking. We're at a fish and chips restaurant and we order a beer. We start talking about drinking and I half-seriously suggest he should try it in the way friends do, until he straight up starts crying. The gal asks me to go away while she calms him down, I leave and come back, and we leave. The guy is acting weird all week, and I'm 80% sure he's mad at me. Like, really, really mad at me. Eventually the girl pulls me aside and says "He didn't want me to tell you this, but his grandma passed away and that's why he's acting like this."
I feel like social standards dictate that grieving people have a right to act in nearly any way they want and it's pretty much okay, but I can't help but feel wronged in both these scenarios. I think if someone is dealing with something so profound as death and loss, and is in close quarters with me by nature of work, travel or so on, that I have a right to know that they're dealing with that, and that they have a responsibility to tell me what's happening.
When I think about it without those experiences I'm inclined to believe that grieving people get a carte blanche as long as their grieving process doesn't hurt anyone. But in both the scenarios I experienced, I felt wronged, and a bit pissed at the people who are grieving for not clueing me in. Overall I'm eager to hear what the hivemind has to say either way.
EDIT: Made this post before a party, I thought I would have more time to respond. I apologize and I will get to everyone as I can.
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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!* | 20 | Yeah. Sucks for you. Here's the thing...they don't care. They've just lost someone close and are going through an incredibly emotional period, everyone will respond differently. Some might bottle it up, others will cry, others will passive aggresively take it out on their environment. The point is, it's a complicated thing for them to deal with, and the top priority should be helping them feel better and get over it. If they don't want to talk about it, they shouldn't be forced to talk about it. | 61 |
[Aliens] Why do Xenomorphs kill people? | Do they eat them for nourishment? Just wondering if they have a point besides homicide? | 26 | It's just in their nature. They were designed and bred to become biological weapons by the Engineers to attack and kill anything that could possibly pose a threat to their ecosystem. It's kind of like what happens when you wave around a piece of string or a laser pointer around a cat - it's just instinct. | 42 |
Why is the heat capacity of liquid water so much higher than its solid and gaseous forms? | I am taking AP Chemistry this year, and we're currently studying thermochemistry. During a lecture where we went over the parts of a heating curve, I noticed that the Cp of liquid water (4.18 joules per grams celsius) was significantly higher than the Cp of its solid and gaseous states(both are close to 2 joules per grams celsius). I asked my teacher why this was, but she didn't have an answer.
Why is this the case? Does it have something to do with hydrogen bonding? I get that water is a special case because it has some weird properties, but why specifically?
Any help in answering this question is greatly appreciated! | 1,633 | All liquids generally have a higher heat capacity than their solids. The heat capacity is the amount of heat needed to raise a gram (or mol) of solid by 1 degree. In a molecular solid the heat goes to making the bonds vibrate faster. In a liquid the heat goes towards making the bonds vibrate faster but also to rotating and moving the molecules - you need extra energy to do this | 587 |
Random Number Generator | Most applications and methods I have found that generate random numbers are pseudo random number generators (RNGs).
From what I understand these RNGs use a seed that, when known, can be used to reasonably predict the random number and if you can reasonably predict what a random number will be before it is generated, it's not truly a random number (that's why they are called pseudo random number generators).
A "true" random number must be generated using a method that can not be predicted.
Those are some things I think I understand about RNGs, so here's my question. If you use a pseudo RNG with a seed that isn't known to anyone except the RNG, is that enough to say the number generated is "truly" random?
TL;DR
If no one knows the seed used in a PRNG can it be considered a true random number? | 18 | By definition, no. A true random number generator uses some physical process to generate truly random numbers, a PRNG uses an algorithm to approximate a sequence of random numbers. At least in principle, one can always determine the next number in the sequence of a PRNG even if you don’t know the initial conditions — of course, it might not be practical at all, but it could in theory be done. It’s also possible in many cases to analyze a sequence of numbers and determine if it’s truly random or if it’s the output of a PRNG | 17 |
ELI5:Why do we see same sex marriage being accepted globally so much recently? | 16 | Increased networking and globalization. Rather than being small communities scattered across cities and towns, they're not able to be heard as a more unanimous voice.
Plus as /u/okayifimust said, older generations dying out and giving rise to younger generations that tend to be more open-minded about these things. | 14 |
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I'm thinking about learning server-side subjects. | Recently, I'm interested in SQL and server-side subjects.
So, I'm thinking of turning my old HP laptop which has N3060(very weak CPU) in it, into a toy server laptop with Ubuntu-server or any other Linux. It has only 4GB ram, but surprisingly it works with no problem. Just extremely slow for web browsing.
The question is 'is that weak laptop also good for a newbie for studying server-side?'
&#x200B;
\[EDIT:0\] Thanks everyone who replied! This is why I asked you before I go with my laptop. There were a few alternatives that I didn't know came up. I'm too newbie to have confidence! :) Thanks again!
&#x200B; | 27 | Hell, i work with Raspberrys Pis as a server and they are weaker than your laptop.
If you have a linux pc with a cpu and 1GB of RAM, you can already do a lot of server stuff on it.
You are not going to be handling hundreds of requests at the same time, so you are good to go | 10 |
Is there any reason to suspect or way to find out if COVID-19 could cause adverse side effects long term after recovery? | Chicken pox, for example, lays dormant in the body for decades before potentially manifesting as shingles.
Any clues as to weather COVID-19 could do something similar? | 17 | We simply don’t know yet. In general this virus kills through complications (compounds other health problems, increased chance of pneumonia etc). It might be hard to tell if the virus, or others things will cause long term damage. | 10 |
ELI5:Why is it so hard to properly replicate the quality of restaurant/takeaway food such as curries/chicken/pizzas at home? | 20 | The biggest thing is that your home kitchen sucks. A commercial pizza oven will be running at 7-800 degrees while most home ovens top out at 550F. The wok burner in a Chinese restaurant is rated something like 100k BTU of heat while your home range puts out 5-10k. Fried chicken restaurants have specialized chicken deep-friers while, at home, you have a little pot of oil that gets cold again as soon as you add the bird to it.
After that, the next biggest difference is that most home cooks don't put anywhere near enough butter & salt in their food. | 50 |
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ELI5: Roman architecture is so revered for being one of the strongest and best engineered. Yet, so few of their important buildings remain. What happened? | 90 | A couple factors: **Age**, **Location**, **history**
* **Age**: Rome was founded almost 3000 years ago. The colosseum was built almost 2000 years ago. In that time materials physically fail (wood rots, concrete erodes). People also broke roman structures down for materials from time to time
* **Location**: Rome is still a city, and most of the Roman cities are now major metropolitan areas. In that time demands for land forced people to destroy the old to make room for the new. This is why we see miles of Hadrian's Wall, a 1900 year old structure, still standing today.
* **history**: We have the human factor too. These cities were sacked in wars, and sometimes razed to demoralize the citizens. There were also accidents: fires that destroyed sectors of towns, earthquakes, and mudslides.
TL;DR So much can go wrong with time that it's amazing anything they made is standing | 52 |
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ELI5: why do we see colors and patterns when we close our eyes? | 360 | Your eyelids may be closed, but your eyes are still on. You're looking at the back of your eyelids and whatever light that is seeping in. Skin is made up of tiny patterns. Also, when there is a lack of light, our brains try to fill in the gaps. If you've ever tried a psychedelic, closing your eyes will produce the most visuals.
Sorry for the shittyELI5. | 242 |
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The false vacuum theory and energy levels of fields? | So I have been reading a little bit about the false vacuum theory and am a little confused. From what I have read, the theory states that some mathematics suggests that the Higgs field is not in its ground state energy level and if something were to bump it out of the current stable state that it is in, it could fall to its ground state energy level and that would bring about all sorts of havok.
My question is this: Do fields, like the Higgs field, have actual ENERGY states? Much like an electron has discrete energy states in an atom and prefers to be in its ground state. The idea of a field having an energy level is confusing to me. I feel like it would not be an "energy level" like the energy levels of electrons that I am fairly familiar with.
EDIT: Spelled Vacuum wrong in the title... | 17 | >have actual ENERGY states?
Fields have energy, though it isn't discrete like bound states (because you can also have unbound states).
You have to remember that every particle is an excitation of a field, so if a field couldn't have energy neither could a particle. | 13 |
[Batman TDKR] Where was the Joker during the events of The Dark Knight Rises? | 33 | Because most of his crimes were terroristic, and the federal courts use the M'Naughten test for insanity while Gotham courts use the irresistible impulse test, John Doe AKA the Joker was tried in federal court and convicted. He was moved under extreme guard to a super-max prison in Kansas, where he remains in administrative segregation to this day. | 52 |
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CMV: Gender-neutral pronouns reinforce the gender binary | Gender roles are outdated and there is no realistic reason in America for people to confine to a gender norm or gender roles. It is socially acceptable today in mainstream culture for both men and women to do many things that once traditionally belonged to only one gender. For instance, it is becoming more acceptable for men to show feelings, enjoy crafts, or to take on the role of homemaker and childcare. It is acceptable for women to wear pants, work outside the home, and abstain from childbirth and/or from being the primary caregiver of their children.
If we accept the notion that gender is a societal construct, then gender has been progressively becoming less defined through these changes. By identifying oneself as non-binary or "they," a person is implicitly defining what a woman (she) or man (he) is. This in turn reinforces the notion that to be a "real" man or woman, a person needs to have certain characteristics. By saying that you identify as "they," you are claiming that these characteristics do not define you...but in order for that to be true, you need to have a set idea of what it *means* to be a man or a woman. If "man" and "woman" (taken as gender) do not have set definitions, then "they" is a meaningless pronoun. | 306 | >By identifying oneself as non-binary or "they," a person is implicitly defining what a woman (she) or man (he) is. This in turn reinforces the notion that to be a "real" man or woman, a person needs to have certain characteristics.
Can you explain more as to why you think it does this? These things seem completely unrelated to me, as using the word "they" doesn't mention any characteristics. | 111 |
ELI5: How does the Options market work and can you use a lifelike example of a put / call position which is relatable? | 21 | You can see Options as a "price guarantee" for something you want to buy / sell in the future, but you want to agree on the price in advance.
**Put Option Example**: You are an American company and get a contract from an EU company. You'll get the payment of one million EUR for your work in one year. Today, 1 EUR is roughly 1.10 USD, but you don't know what the exchange rate will be in a year.
If you want to "insure" that exchange rate, i.e. make sure you really get 1.1 million USD in a year, you can buy a put option on the EUR/USD exchange rate. A put option on EUR/USD with a strike of 1.10, expiring in one year and a total contract of 1 million EUR will guarantee that you at least get the 1.1 million USD in one year. This put option gives you the right, but not the duty, to sell 1 million EUR and receive 1.1 million USD in return. If the exchange rate were to rise, then you just let the option expire (i.e. you don't exercise your right), and do the exchange at the current rate.
**Call Option Example**: For this job above, you'll need a part from a Canadian company which costs 100k Canadian Dollars (CAD). Today, that's 75k USD. You'll need that part in 6 month, which is also when you'll pay the Canadian company. Again, if you don't want to gamble with the exchange rate, you'll get a call option on the USD/CAD at strike 1.33 (current rate), expiry in 6 months, total contract of 100k CAD. The Call Option gives you the right, but not the duty, to buy 100k CAD for 75k USD in 6 months. | 12 |
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[Warhammer 40k] Has there been or is it possible to have a ship to ship battle within the Warp? | 35 | I think the question really is whether there would be any point to it. The answer is: unlikely. The extremely volatile and unpredictable nature of the Warp would not only place both ships in extreme danger, but the fact that most known laws of physics are altered might very well render their weapons utterly useless. If somehow they did manage to get shots of it's entirely possible they'll end up blowing each others gellar fields out and being chewed up by hungry demons.
In short, no matter how badly you need to catch someone, waiting for them to emerge from the Warp would be the better choice to going in there after them. Immaterium's a fuckery place, yo. | 32 |
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[MCU] If Marvel obtained the rights to Mutants, is there even room to feasibly introduce them at this point in continuity, or does their absence so far after so much world-building effectively preclude their existence? | (See post title) | 84 | Apocalypse could've been active in ancient times. Wolverine and Sabertooth could've been wandering the earth. Magneto and Professor X could've had adventures in WW2 and beyond. As *Ant-Man* showed, there's an entire secret history when it comes to powered beings in the MCU. They could easily say that mutants have always been around, although very few in number. They're just now beginning to appear in greater numbers. Expect a lot of teenagers. | 96 |
[skyrim] Why is it that nobody tries to do anything about all the dangers on the roads and cities? | I mean, why didn't anyone try to deal with the skooma dealers in riften and the like? | 21 | This is actually a recurrent problem in medieval settings- when the world is huge and your most effective communication/co-ordination tool is "yell", you just have to live with bandits. You send guards patrols (and you see them) but, ultimately, the bandits can just hide in the woods/mountains/etc and there's not much you can do about that.
The best analogy might be, in our modern world, internet conman. Are people trying to do something about them? Absolutely. But, ultimately, there's too much internet, too many ways to hide and not enough people to check all of it. So we just acknowledge it as fact of life.
Same here. People are doing what they can but when there's countless miles of unmontitored wilderness, bandits are just a fact of life. | 55 |
ELI5: Losing Fat (When does it happen?) | Why can you weigh less when you wake up, and when does fat actually leave your body? Do you process it out (waste) or what?
Edit to clarify: I don't want "how to lose weight" or "your body burns it off". Looking for the biological process of "burning it off" or what happens. | 34 | The actual elements making up your excess weight are excreted through 4 main channels: Sweat, breathe, urination, and pooping.
Most of it, surprisingly, is your breathe. You breathe out CO2. What's the C? Carbon. | 25 |
ELI5:Why is the 3.5" floppy disk still being used as the Save icon in programs? Hasn't an entire generation now been raised that has never seen, used or had knowledge of a floppy disk? | Wouldn't an icon of a usb thumbdrive, SD card, external HD be more appropriate and culturally relevant? | 72 | That same entire generation you speak of has been raised with the knowledge that a floppy disk icon = save.
Plus if you intend to change universally accepted icons or practices for that matter you will likely run into a lot of resistance. Look what happened when Microsoft tried to "update" the start button. | 91 |
Why does heterochromia seem to be so common in house cats, when compared to other kinds of pet animals? | 531 | Animals are more likely to be born with heterochromia if they have the gene for white fur. Cats just happen to be more likely to possess that gene.
Heterochromia in cats starts when they are kittens. Kittens are born with blue eyes and their true eye colour only begins to show at around 7 to 12 weeks old when the amount of melanin in their eyes begins to change. When an adult cat has blue eyes it means there's an absence of melanin.
The gene that creates white fur stops the melanin from being able to reach one of the eyes during the kitten’s development. In cats who have heterochromia, the melanin doesn’t spread fully through one eye which leaves it partially blue.
As someone else pointed out, Huskies and Australian Shepherds also commonly have heterochromia. Why? Because those are two dog breeds that often have the gene for white fur. | 391 |
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[DC] Why is Batman so convinced he'd become evil if he were to ever kill for any reason? | 104 | Batman is aware of how unstable he is and how he "isn't a good person". Once you kill, it's easier to kill again. It's really easy to fall into the habit of killing or start doing things worse than killing. It's better to draw a strict line in the sand so that this doesn't happen. | 155 |
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ELI5:the difference between a singer and a vocalist. | My so called musically inclined friends say there is a difference between the two. Suposedly a singer sings in tune and with the music, while a vocalist is like a screamo or rock singer who instead just lays their vocals over a track. I dont fully trust their info. But if this is true then what would a rapper be? | 37 | A singer is someone who sings.
A vocalist is an umbrella term. It could be a singer, a rapper, or a screamer. You only say "vocalist" when you're referring to someone in a band or ensemble that involves other musicians.
For example, it would be weird, but not incorrect, to say that Lady Gaga is a vocalist. She is, but she doesn't really perform with other musicians. She's just her own artist. | 12 |
[Dragonball] Why didn’t Future Trunks use the main timeline’s Dragon Balls to resurrect all the people that the androids killed in his timeline? | 56 | Considering timelines in DBZ are basically entirely separate universe's, I'd imagine Shenron and Porunga's powers aren't strong enough to do so. If they even were able to transcend dimensions (?) like that, there's still the limit on how long someone can be dead and still be able to be brought back.
I imagine going after the Super Dragon Balls would probably kickstart interuniversal combat considering no one outside of U7 Earth would give a shit to fulfill that wish. | 33 |
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ELI5:The Victorian prevalence of fainting, such that they needed fainting couches and fainting rooms. | 15 | It was a bit exaggerated, as women were not discouraged from seeming weak. However, a real factor was that women's clothes (notably, corsets) were dangerously tight and actually did limit breathing, circulation, and cooling -- so some women were actually being caused to faint. | 20 |
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[Evil Dead] Why is Ash so superhumanly resilient? | 16 | Ash is the only one to survive the Necronomicon Ex Mortis. He wasn't always so durable, but his initial exposure and dumb luck gave him a measure of the durability of the deadites, even though the dark powers sealed in the book are unable to take his mind | 21 |
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What happened to Maverick and Goose's F-14 that caused it to go into a spin and lose control in Top Gun? Is it plausible? | 21 | When Iceman pulls away to let Maverick take the shot, the jet wash from the engine disrupted the airflow into one of the engines of Maverick's jet. Because of this the engine had a burnout, meaning that it stopped working. Because of this, the plane was not getting an equal amount of thrust. This caused one side of the plane to go faster than the other, meaning that it started to turn (yawing). This yawing action was too rapid and powerful and rapid for Maverick to recover and the plane stalled. | 12 |
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What's the optimal volume of fluid in a cylindrical container to maximize turgidity from shaking the container? | So, I'm cleaning a lot of baby bottles lately.
Usually, we'll use a bottle 2-3 times before it goes through the washing machine.
In between uses, we fill the bottle with scalding hot water and shake it vigorously to give it a "quick cleaning". What I haven't figured out yet is, how much water is optimal to put into the bottle to create the max cleaning effect through shaking?
If I put in too much water, it doesn't shake around much. If I put on too little water, it sloshes around without scrubbing the inner surface.
**EDIT:** Answering a few common questions:
- The bottle is cylindrical, but with rounded corners (and some irregularities at the nipple end).
- Experientially, I've found 1/3 to be a good volume for cleaning.
- Clean, for me, is when I can no longer smell the previous contents of the container.
- Cleaning fluid is just tap water at it's hottest setting (enough to hurt skin, not hot enough for tea). | 279 | The maximum volume of fluid which allows for full range of motion- i.e. all fluid moves during a slosh to a place which did not have fluid before the slosh- is 50%. That would seem like a decent starting point for empiric investigation. | 38 |
How does the body determine how high to raise a fever? | Is it simply just based on the severity of the illness? | 1,652 | Someone smarter will come along... but the body does not really determine how high to raise its temperature in infection. Its really a product of how whatever insult... be it bacteria, virus, fungus etc triggers immune cells to release cytokines (one way immune cells communicate) and the inflammatory cascade. There are times when this process gets out of control and can lead to sepsis and shock that some people won't survive even in an ICU. So... while the immune system is an amazing evolutionary development, it can be over-reactive and set off a "bomb" when a lesser immune response may have been sufficient. | 872 |
ELI5: Memory Leaks | 829 | Let's say you have a nice empty bookshelf. You go to the library, take out a few books, bring them home and put them on your bookshelf. You read all of them, and you just forget to pack one up when you go to return them. The book stays on your shelf. You go get more books from the library, you put them on your bookshelf, you read them, and then you forget another when you go to return them.
If you keep doing this, eventually, your bookshelf that started out as empty and shouldn't have any books on it becomes full, and you don't have any room to put the books you just got from the library.
A memory leak is similar. When writing in very low-level languages, you have to actually allocate memory, and then you have to release it when you're done. If you forget to release memory, it just stays there locked by your application, but not doing anything useful. If this happens in some looping process, you will keep doing it over and over again until your system runs out of memory. | 2,418 |
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ELI5: Why do people like awkward jerks on TV so much but probably wouldn't be able to stand them in real life (Sherlock, House, Sheldon, Will graham etc.) | 16 | In short bursts they're kind of funny, but when dealt with on a daily basis they get grating. In addition, there's no consequences with things that happen on TV. House snarking at an actor who's pretending to have cancer is funny. Your real doctor doing it to you is incredibly insulting. | 29 |
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ELI5: Why is the skin on our lips a different color than the rest of our face? | 26 | Because the skin in the rest of our face has more melanin to give it color. In areas like the lips, there’s less melanin, so you can see the blood cells more clearly, and that’s why lips look kind of reddish. | 16 |
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ELI5: How were subway systems built in cities like NYC, Rome, etc. without the buildings above them collapsing? | 121 | Massive amounts of engineering, and braces are installed in the tunnels as they are being bored out. Usually big reinforced-concrete casings are added to each successive length of tunnel.
There is a lot that goes into a subway system — the tunnels usually have to allow for drainage, and they have to account for the groundwater levels, as well. It complicates things when the groundwater level isn’t below the tunnel. | 116 |
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ELI5: Why do some big-budget movies, for instance 'The Grand Budapest Hotel,' open only in 'select cities' before wider release? | 99 | It serves as a good measure for how big the demand is going to be when they release it nationwide. If it performs poorly in New York and LA, it probably isn't going to be worth it to send 30 prints to Topeka. | 35 |
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Does stomach acid just sit in a pool at the bottom of your stomach? On the ISS, does it form a bubble? | I'm trying to digest the implications. | 1,538 | Yes, but 'just' is a little misleading because it's also at the top, the edges, and any other nook and cranny that your stomach might be folded up into. As soon as there's unfilled space above the gastric juices, what you actually have a stomach with gas that's ready to come out of you at the first opportunity. That's exactly what happens when you burp!
On the ISS it won't be pulled towards your feet any more, but your stomach will fold down accordion-style so that it snugly encompasses any gastric juices all the same, waiting for the next meal.
(N.B. Off-topic and onto science communication, but a true 'bubble' is technically a grouping of gas particles held together by pressure from a fluid that surrounds them. In that sense, were your stomach to have a lot of gas in it, the gastric juices would potentially be able to float in the centre in the form of a 'droplet'. There'd have to be an aaaawwwful lot of airspace to allow the gastric juice to ball up in the centre and float; more likely it'd just coat the inside of the stomach due to surface tension (maybe a physicist would have a more accurate name for the forces holding it in place), like the soup that's left clinging to the sides of a bowl after you've eaten the majority of it.) | 490 |
[Heroes] How does Sylar steal powers? | So, the character Sylar cuts open peoples heads and take their powers. When we see him do i on Claire, he scrathes a bit of the brain, but it's not really explained. Also, why does he steal the brains after he's done?
| 24 | Sylar possesses a power The Company has come to call "Intuitive Aptitude": the ability to understand something perfectly just from studying it closely enough, to the point of being able to copy it fully. He can learn anything by studying it closely, including how to use a biological mutation.
Intuitive Aptitude is actually a more evolved form of Empathic Mimicry, an abilty once posessed by Peter Petrelli. Sylar does not realize this initially however; the ability to understand everything creates a deep desire to know everything, which results in him taking the most direct route: killing people so he can examine their brains directly. Once he examines exactly how their brain is altered (to allow their power to work), he can use it to its fullest extent.
Since his ability is a more evolved form of Empathic Mimicry, he can still use an empathic connection to access someone's power, but he won't be able to use it on a level of understanding as if he had studied their brain.
However, empathic connections are much stronger than simple learned knowledge: this is why, even after having his powers "muted" by The Company's efforts in the past, when he regains his base ability, he still has access to Telekinesis. Although he did study Brian Davis' brain to originally learn the power, it was his first kill. The raw amount of guilt he felt over killing Brian after just learning his name and ability actually formed an empathic bond to the power, not a simple knowledge bond.
He most likely steals the brain just in case there's someone else like him (in his first encounter with Peter, he recognizes that their abilities work off of the same base). Beyond his power, Sylar has a drive to be unique - "Special" - and that means he doesn't want others having the same abilities he does. | 11 |
ELI5: how do self-filling/gravity fed pet water bowls not overflow and spill everywhere? | 282 | Same reason when you put your finger over the top of your straw and pull it out of your drink, the liquid doesn't pour out of the bottom of the straw. When you block the flow of air, air can no longer replace the space that's occupied by liquid. This creates a negative pressure zone that essentially holds the liquid in place.
With a gravity water bowl, when the bowl fills up it also blocks airs path up into the tank. This is essentially the same as putting your finger over the end of the drinking straw. | 269 |
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ELI5: How do civilizations first learn a new language | How did the Spanish figure out how to communicate with the Aztecs or how did the Portuguese first start communicating with the Japanese when they'd never interacted with such a language before? | 19 | It's not ask that hard, just more symbol based at first until you catch on. Friend went to Spain for an internship (his company was English based). In the heart of a Spanish speaking country. He would point to a beer he wants, bartends says cerveza? Quántos? And hold up one finger. Uno? Friend shakes his head. Dos? Friend nods.
From that small interaction he learned how to say beer, how to ask a quantity, and how to count a few numbers. | 15 |
CMV: Black Culture and Behavior is Largely Responsible for Black Issues, not Societal Oppression. | Let me start by saying this: I believe that police are more violent towards black people, even innocent ones - I've seen data that proves it. I understand that black people do experience more trauma. However, I do not believe this is the main cause for the issues that plague the black community. It definitely makes them worse, but I do not believe that it is necessarily the main cause, or even a major one. Success in life is based partly on luck, but nobody can deny that talent is a major factor. The IQ data says that blacks average 85, whites average 100, and (Northeast) Asians 105. Which race on average makes the most money in this country? You guessed it, Asians do. When individuals are matched by IQ, wealth disparities almost completely go away. In fact, some blacks outperform whites of equal IQ in terms of wealth. However, IQ doesn't even tell the whole story. Matching for IQ, blacks still are less conscientious. Blacks have higher average psychoticism (see Hans Eysenck), a trait which encompasses aggression, egocentricity, and lack of empathy, but on the flip side creativity. The creativity (and egocentricity) benefit of this trait helps explain why a disproportionate number of blacks succeed in music, acting, and certain other creative professions. As a caveat, this is much less solid data than the IQ data. So we have a case for genetic causes of black issues. There are also cultural issues. Black culture discourages academic success, encourages promiscuity, and glorifies violence. In the ghetto the bad messages are even stronger.
A normal person living there could be influenced to do bad things by their peers. I will say this about the culture stuff though: I could accept that the whole thing was started and influenced by white people, and that a lot of the problems are caused by a deep sense of shame and insecurity. However, I still believe that oppression is not the biggest factor. The Ashkenazi Jews (average IQ of about 110, by the way) have been oppressed for hundreds, if not thousands of years. They have been through pogram after pogram and yet, in every country they live in they are disproportionately represented among the educated and the elite, and have been since the middle ages! Some people respond to adversity by rising above, some respond by falling into despair, and some respond by becoming the oppressors themselves. Everyone reacts to events in their own way, guided by their individual personality and the culture in which they have been raised. I do not think that black people are at fault for their problems, as most of them are caused by things outside of their control. Do we even have free will? That's a question for another day. | 24 | > The IQ data says that blacks average 85
IQ is impacted by nutrition, premature birth, pollution, education, etc. Growing up in poverty can lower IQ. It is not just genetic. Disparities caused by current racism and the effects of previous racism cause disparities in IQ.
> Asians 105
If you look at the history of the US, the ethnically asian population of the US are predominately descended from Asians with the financial means to immigrate here (correlates with higher income, better access to healthcare, etc.).
Look at immigrants from Nigeria. They, on average, are high income skilled immigrants, like many Jewish and asian immigrants who have come to our country. And, they do well in this country.
You are incorrectly attributing results of systematic oppression and poverty to genetics. | 26 |
[Epic Rap Battles] What sort of world do these figures live in, and why are all conflicts solved through rap? | 24 | A nexus of time and space only meant for two opposing parties to meet and rap battle.
All conflicts are solved through rap because that's all the continuum exists for. One only goes there to do that. Everyone else is just fated to watch and judge. | 33 |
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ELI5: Is it incredible that we only see the same side of our moon or is this common in the universe? Why doesn't it rotate and is there an explanation? | 34 | It's not really incredible. It's a relatively common situation called "tidal locking". A bunch of other moons in our solar system work the same way.
Basically the earth pulls on a bulge on the moon slightly stronger which changes it's rotation just slightly over a long time until it matches the orbit and becomes tidally locked.
Pluto and it's moon are actually tidally locked to each other like the moon is towards the earth! | 32 |
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[Harry Potter/James Bond] As we know that the Wizarding World maintains an official relationship with the UK Muggle government, under what plausible situations might we see Aurors working in joint operations with agents of MI6 and how might they view one another? | 18 | Most likely none, the wizarding world is very adamant about keeping their community separate from the muggles as much as possible, the only person in the muggle government that knows about wizards is the prime minister and he has absolutely 0 input into the comings and goings of the Ministry of Magic.
Just read the first chapter of The Half Blood Prince and you get a very clear picture of how the 2 governments interact with Minister of Magic only seeing the muggle Prime Minister when they first get elected to fill them in and to give them a heads up when something very serious is happening in the wizarding world that could affect the muggles.
If a job ever got too big for the aurors then there is nothing the muggle government can do to help, just look at the the second Wizard War, and the aurors would view the MI6 agents as useless and prefer to just do it themselves. | 18 |
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[Kingsman, The Secret Service] How many people died when Valentine's signal was activated? | 92 | Difficult to estimate.
Assuming 7 billion people, nearly all affected, for...what, five minutes or so?
It's surprisingly hard to kill another person if you're not trained to, and they're actively resisting. However, it's extremely easy to kill someone if you're in a car and they're not. So most people probably had 0-1 kills, but a significant fraction of people could have body counts in the tens or more.
Anyone with a gun could easily get upwards of twenty, depending on ammunition supply and availability of targets. | 67 |
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ELI5: Why do they use a hose to splash water during high dive competitions? | 51 | It makes the surface of the water visible, so the diver can see where it is as they are aligning to go through it. If the water was still, it would be very hard to see where it started. As others have said, it also ripples the surface, giving a little smoother transition from air to water and air to water. | 100 |
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[Spider-Man] If Spider-Man is stronger and tougher than Kingpin, why does it feel like it’s the other way around? | Every time they fight it’s like he’s fighting the Hulk or something. Every Spider-Man/Woman acts like this, especially Miles in Spider-Verse and Pete in the PS4 game. Are they pulling their punches just to not kill him? While Kingpin himself doesn’t care if he kills Spidey or not? | 919 | When Peters identity became public knowledge Kingpin put out a hit on him from prison and Aunt May took the bullet by accident. With zero fucks given Peter breaks into the prison and demolishes Fisk in hand to hand telling him he’s just a fat man waiting to die if May doesn’t make it. He even threatened to empty his web cartridge into Fisks lungs if that happens and he has to come back. For me that was the defining moment as a Spidey fan that he’s ALWAYS holding back and even he can get pushed too far. Kind of like when Superman tells Darkseid he’s always held back and people are like paper to him.
Edit: I’m pretty sure that was from the Spider-Man Back In Black graphic novel. | 824 |
[Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar] Between the Dwarfs and the Skaven, who's more technologically advanced? | 16 | A lot of the skavens technologies are only possible due to warpstone, which is just solidified warp stuff, magic, so depends on if you count that as more technological or less because its cheating.
But in pure technology on what it can do, the slaven can do more. Better explosives (due to warpstone) longer range guns (pretty sure jezzels outrange dwarven rifles) and more advanced technology like the doomwheels, doomriders and a *freaking tractor beam that pulled down the moon*.
But again, all this is just possible due to warp stone, and none of it is safe or stable, always close to exploding | 21 |
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What does Marshall McLuhan mean by "the medium is the message"? Is this idea useful in current times? | 16 | It is useful, but you need to be willing to extend credit to McLuhan and do some heavy lifting on the exegetical side, mainly since he isn't around to do any of that work himself.
The phrase "the medium is the message" means essentially that a given form of media communicates/transmits something to you irrespective of its content. That is to say, the characteristics of the medium itself carries a cognitive payload. Whether a medium is slow or fast, whether it contains pictures or text or sound, whether it is high or low resolution, whether it is interactive and to what degree, whether it is a private or shared experience, whether it is information dense, and so on. All of these questions can be asked of a given medium without even beginning to consider questions of "content". McLuhan suggests that these characteristics are, in fact, more important than so-called "content" with respect to the effect it has on us and our behavior. | 20 |
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Which element on the periodic table WOULDN'T kill me if I drank it in liquid form? | 103 | Gallium. Do a search on gallium spoons for examples of people actually drinking it. The Wikipedia article for gallium states that "Gallium has no known natural role in biology". It melts at 29.76 °C (85.57 °F). | 80 |
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ELI5: Why is everything so cold? Why is absolute zero only -459.67F (-273.15C) but things can be trillions of degrees? In relation wouldn't it mean that life and everything we know as good for us, is ridiculously ridiculously cold? | Why is this? I looked up absolute hot as hell and its 1.416785(71)×10(to the 32 power). I cant even take this number seriously, its so hot. But then absolute zero, isn't really that much colder, than an earth winter. I guess my question is, why does life as we know it only exist in such extreme cold? And why is it so easy to get things very hot, let's say in the hadron collider. But we still cant reach the relatively close temp of absolute zero?
Edit: Wow. Okay. Didnt really expect this much interest. Thanks for all the replies! My first semi front page achievement! Ive been cheesing all day. Basically vibrators. Faster the vibrator, the hotter it gets. No vibrators no heat. | 4,466 | The more atoms vibrate the hotter the temperature. The slower they vibrate the lower the temperature. They can vibrate as fast as they want but once they stop vibrating the temperature doesn't go any lower.
In other words, the lowest temperature means they are standing still. But they can always vibrate even faster no matter how fast they are vibrating right now. | 2,298 |
What is it is called when a powerful company in one sector runs an unprofitable business over the long term to capture a market? | I remember learning about monopolies and one subject that came up in undergrad was that a powerful player in one market may do things like sell a cheap way of entry and then more expensive products as accessories. Razor blades, printers, etc. But what is it called when a company that makes, say coal, enters a market for consumer goods like TVs, and sells them way below cost to gain majority market share? So it’s not a closed system, even if they make a little back on sub auxiliary revenues like expensive repair services or licensing. It could not be profitable without the main revenue stream in coal, and thus no one could enter the market and copy the business model with a better product. | 79 | generally it's called "dumping", from PoV of international trade (and as such you'll see it mentioned in international law - EU...)
in terms of pricing strategy (from perspective of domestic trade and names usually used in management / marketing theory) it's "predatory pricing", which is an extreme form of "penetration pricing" (because of focus on penetration of the market, to quickly gain market share) | 50 |
I think women should be able to go out in public topless CMV | If men can do it why can't women? It's sexist. | 58 | Where are you from? Because in Canada it is legal for a woman to go topless. Personally think people should be allowed to go naked in public. Obviously not recommended for obvious reasons, but it should still be allowed. | 32 |
ELI5: What is "irreducible complexity" in regards to the theory of evolution? | I've read a few things but still don't think I get it.
1. What does the term originate and what does it mean?
2. Why do creationists use this as "proof" against evolution?
| 24 | One of the main ideas of evolution is that small changes add up, resulting in big adaptive changes over time. For instance, fish using fins to crawl across land to new mud puddles, fins get bigger, blablabla legs.
Irreducible complexity is saying, "Well how would a creature incrementally evolve a wing? Half a wing won't help you fly, so it never would have been selected for in the first place. And what about an eye? 'Half' an eye is completely useless, so obviously a creature born with half an eye would not be selected for by evolution."
So, its saying that things like eyes and wings are "irreducible complexity." That is, they cannot be any 'less' and still have function. The conclusion being that incremental changes, as theorized by evolution, would never result in their existence. | 21 |
[DC] Can superman combine all of his types of vision? | Superman has all kinds of Vision; xray, telescopic, microscopic, infra, EM Vision can he combine them all into or atleast some of them and have some sort of Super Vision? | 15 | He can. In the story All Star Superman, Lex Luthor was able to obtain Superman's powers for a small amount of time. While Luthor is powered up, he talks about all of the things he can see, and this leads him to some sort of epiphany about the universe. | 27 |
[WH40K/The Matrix] Would The Emperor have revealed himself, and if he did, how would he destroy The Machines? | Do his powers as a psyker have any effect on machines? Would he be able to fight them when the war started? | 22 | Being a psyker in 40K goes far beyond being able to read minds and see the future. More powerful psykers can summon warp fire, project their consciousness across light years, crush buildings, mind-control thousands, and manipulate living biological tissue.
The Emperor is the most powerful psyker to ever exist by an extreme margin. Not only would he be able to fight them, he could obliterate every single one of them single-handedly. | 38 |
ELI5: How are butterflies/moths able to remember what they learned as caterpillars? | There was a study years ago where caterpillars were taught to avoid ethyl acetate by shocking them every time acetate was in the environment. They let the caterpillars transform into adult moths, and then tested the moths again to see if they still remembered to stay away from the ethyl acetate smell. It turned out that the moths still avoided acetate.
How is this even possible? During the metamorphosis, the caterpillar essenntially turns into a liquid goop and the nervous system turns into gloop. How does the goop get reconstructed into something as complex as a memory? | 579 | > How does the goop get reconstructed into something as complex as a memory?
How does the goop get reconstructed into something as complex as a butterfly?
Well, it never really turns into "goop" in the first place. There's still plenty of structure within the chrysalis. It breaks down what it needs to to form the new butterfly parts, but it's hardly a matter of "dissolve" then "reform". It's a very controlled process. | 224 |
CMV: Marriage equality (gay marriage) does not threaten or endanger marriage for religious, traditional and straight couples. | Marriage is not in need of protection and gay marriage does not threaten marriage.
UPDATE: Thanks to some posters I better sympathize with why people feel the recognition of an expanded definition of marriage feels threatening. Among other reasons, that is attributed to
\*gatekeeping
\* losing the authority to set the definition as it applies themselves
\* the loss or dilution of legitimization of their religious/moral code
These reasons are difficult to recognize in one's discomfort and probably why it's hard for me (and others) to find the blanket statement of "'marriage' is threatened " justifiable. Thank you all who participated.
(Edit: if you agree with me, please respect the rules of the subreddit and not echo. I just don't think it's a threat. If you think it's a threat to marriage, I want to know why)
I understand and accept that religious and 'traditional' people might not support marriage for same-sex couples. My view on supporting gay marriage is not up for being changed.What I find no logical support for is the argument that marriage as an institution is undermined or threatened by gay marriage. A US Representative, in her arguments against the US Marriage Equality Act, pleaded, " “Protect religious liberty. Protect people of faith. And protect Americans who believe in a true meaning of marriage." Since I am convinced there is nothing under threat, traditional marriage still exists and is equally recognized, there is nothing to protect. I cannot find any legitimate arguments that marriage itself is under threat and consequently becomes a validated reason to stand against gay marriage.
Civil marriage, which is the marriage that is enacted by the government, is rather simply, a legal contract. Originally, one way to keep 'traditional' people happy, from feeling threatened, was to introduce 'civil unions' for same-sex couples that mirrored 'marriage'. To not have to reinvent the \[marriage\] wheel, it makes sense to include any two consenting adults wanting to enter into a civil marriage contract with each other. Religious marriages are defined and recognized by that religion.
Civil gay marriage does not intrude and it does not threaten traditional marriage. | 1,584 | Historically, "marriage" as an institution was not created as a private matter between two people, or as a love matter. The old and new versions of marriage are representative of the shift from a communal to an individual view of ourselves and of society, and the new version of marriage does threaten the communal view of society, and therefore threatens the identity of those who share that view.
People, historically, have seen themselves as members of a group more than as individuals. In Ancient Greece, banishment was considered a fate worse than death, because you were cut off from the group, from your identity and purpose.
Marriage was part of that - it was primarily a way for two families to become one, as part of a deal between the families. Part of the deal was children, because children ensure continuity, can contribute to the welfare of the new united family, and are a living representation of that union.
A marriage that is no longer about families uniting but about individual people uniting, a marriage that isn't about children, is a completely different thing, a thing that doesn't make sense in a communal society but makes sense in an individualistic one.
That's what religious people are REALLY upset about. A communal society only works if everyone follows the same rules, so when some people are following other rules, that's a threat to their view of the world and identity. | 369 |
How do scientists know that 1 Billion crab went missing ? | If they are tracking them that accurately it seems like fishing then would be pretty easy, if they’re trying to trap them and just not finding any it could just be bad luck.
Canceling the crab season is a big deal so they must know this with some certainty. What methods do they use to get this information? | 7,138 | There are a lot of ways you can estimate the population of a species. In fisheries we usually do surveys exactly the same way every year to get a general idea of the population size and trends, and mark recapture studies. If you tag 100 Cod and then next year you catch 100 Cod and three are tagged, that would suggest that you tagged about 3% of the population. Actually it's a lot more complicated because you have to correct for things like the tag causing mortality but that's the gist.
The big one though is catch per unit effort. You track the number of boats fishing in a certain way, how many hours they spend fishing, and how much they catch. If it takes three days at sea for a guy with a fishing rod to catch a Cod one year, and the next year it takes six, the population was probably cut in half.
Obviously 100 fish or one guy with a rod is a tiny, tiny number compared to the amount of data that actually gets collected- it's usually tens of thousands of tags or data from every fishing boat in a fishery. Even that ends up being a tiny sample of a commercially harvested species numbers though, so often fisheries management ends up depending on fairly imprecise estimates of population sizes. It's far better than managing with no data at all though, and a drop of 90% is large enough that they're almost certainly right that the fishery is imploding. ☹️ | 5,435 |
Does having non-academic publications in garbage outlets make you look bad? | I have a popular article I wanted to publish, but it was only accepted at opinion/blog sites (sort of like HuffPo) that will pretty much publish anything as long as it's coherent and well-written.
My advisor gave me some advice when it comes to academia: never publish in garbage journals. He does a lot of hiring for the [philosophy] department, and he told me that if you have academic publications in journals that will publish pretty much anything, that's a massive red flag. The way he put it was something like :
"It's better to have published nothing at all than to have published in crap journals. If you publish nothing, you might have potential. Your unpublished stuff might have to cycle through the major journals, but it could find a home one day. If you publish in trash journals, that tells me that somebody (either you or the reviewers) thinks that your work just isn't good enough to publish in a decent journal."
I'm wondering if the same rules apply to non-academic publications. I don't think any of the stuff I say in the article would hurt me. It's something I'm happy to discuss with people and to have my name attached to, I'm just worried if people judge non-academic publications like they judge academic ones. | 30 | There's a major distinction between putting something into questionable "academic journals" - like those which have a horrible reputation because they only have a veneer or peer review or because they will "publish" anything if you pay them, and something intended for mass consumption (like HuffPo).
You are tailoring your writing for both audiences, right? Because if you put most journal articles into mass media publications verbatim they simply wouldn't be read. | 49 |
[MCU] Why didnt Cap Marvel take the gauntlet and just, fly away? | The Sanctuary 2 was down. Leviathans cant fly fast enough to catch her. None of the Black order can fly. neither cant thanos. If a ship from Thanos' army chased her she could have just blasted it into bits.
Why stay in the battlefield when the obvious solution to the problem is to just run away? Wanda could have killed Thanos herself after that. | 173 | Tunnel vision.
One of the biggest problems in any emergency/combat situation is that people become focused on the goal at hand and not the bigger picture.
Carol had been told to get the Gauntlet to Tony. Deviating from orders wasn't going to happen. | 225 |
ELI5: is being a morning person genetic or a choice? | I have long been a night owl, and I can't for the life of me get used to being a morning person, in my culture sleeping early at night and waking up early in the morning is a must, but as I said I just can't get used to that, so my question is, can a person get accustomed to being a regular morning person with no issues if he chooses to, or is it something that one needs to be born with?
I am new to this sub and reddit in general, so please let me know if I need to fix anything. | 17 | People can adjust to living in a different time zone, and we can switch from working days to working nights with varying degrees of difficulty per person (but it is possible).
To make yourself more like a morning person, you should go to bed sooner which will directly help you to wake up sooner as well. Do not train yourself to rely on coffee or other stimulants because this will just make it harder for you to stay awake in the mornings naturally.
Alternatively, screw what your culture says. Somebody has to watch over the city at night. | 18 |
[Harry Potter] was there a scene where one of the Dursley’s were told off in some way by someone close to Harry about how they had one task, to take of him, and couldn’t even do it with a shred of love? | I’ve been searching google and I swear I’m not making it up, because I have this tiny half memory of someone confronting the Dursley’s about their treatment of Harry and how they could have just been kind because they were all he had. They were family after all. But they didn’t because they’re awful people. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? | 341 | Yes, it was Dumbledore when he came to pick Harry up at the beginning on Half-Blood Prince.
>You have never treated Harry as a son. He has known nothing but neglect and often cruelty at your hands. The best that can be said is that he has at least escaped the appalling damage you have inflicted upon the unfortunate boy sitting between you. | 595 |
Is it possible to cold weld the repelling ends of magnets together? If so, would their magnetic fields align? | 245 | Magnetic fields are due to the spin of electrons within the magnet. Placing two magnets together would not change the spin of the electrons, so the magnetic fields would not align.
However, over a long enough period of time, if you keep magnets near each other, the magnetic fields from one will affect the spin of the electrons in the other, so eventually the magnetic fields will align. This can take several weeks/months or even years if the magnets are weak. | 92 |
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[MCU/Dr.Strange] In the film, the sling rings are said to allow travel through the multiverse, yet all we see Strange do is travel to different parts of Earth. Why not use them to open a portal to a timeline without Thanos? | So I found it weird that it is mentioned the sling rings could allow the user to traverse through multiverses, but Strange merely uses it as a teleporter within the current universe, going from point A to B.
Why not use the rings to their full potential and go to a different timeline altogether? Certain threats and outcome could've been avoided that way, no? | 15 | The "multiverse" in _Doctor Strange_ isn't the "alternate timelines" kind that's common in sci-fi, where there are lots of universes that are basically the same but with slightly different histories. The alternate dimensions that Doctor Strange has access to are ones like the Mirror Dimension, the Dark Dimension, and the Dimension Where Everything Is Just Hands. | 21 |
CMV: The Federalist Society is the real judicial "deep state" that conservatives try to claim liberals and leftists control, yet they are actually the ones controlling it. | Six of our Supreme Court judges are members. Every right wing Supreme Court judge appointed in the last 30 years has been a member. They exist at almost every law school and are trying to control future political sentiment by pushing conservative ideals on those campuses. Half of all of Bush's nominees for appellate court judge positions were Federalist Society. According to Senator Whitehouse (could not find independent corroboration) "nearly 90% of Trump's appellate judges, and both his Supreme Court justices, are members of the so-called Federalist Society."
How is this not a judicial "deep state?" | 49 | The “deep state” implies some sort of hidden government trying to subvert the will of the visible government.
The Federalist Society, and their tendrils in the judiciary, aren’t hidden and aren’t subverting anything. They’re openly the ones in control. | 35 |
[American Dad] So how many people outside of the Smith family know about Roger being an alien? | 122 | A couple, but not many. The one that leaps to mind is Bob Todd Williams, the guy on the mountain who makes moonshine in “For whom the sleigh bells toll”. Roger walks up to him and he instantly goes “well if it ain’t an alien in a wig” and roger replies “what you say is true, sir”. | 126 |
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CMV:Severe gender dysphoria (the desire to surgically change one's sex) should be treated as mental condition, not a physical one. | Severe gender dysphoria (if there is an exact word for the condition of wanting to surgically modify the sex organs, please enlighten me) should be treated as a mental condition.
Gender dysphoria is an internal conflict. It is not a conflict with societal values, or social pressures, like the triggers that led some to consider homosexuality a mental disorder. People who want to surgically change their sex would have this conflict in any society.
I think that these individuals would be happier if we worked to develop coping mechanisms and medication (like we do for other mental conditions) instead of treating them surgically.
Surgical solutions are imperfect, and an observant person can almost always tell the difference between a transexual and a person who was born with that sex. This hinders their romantic and social prospects, and often leads to that person being ostracized from normal society. Even as technology develops, transsexual people will necessarily require lifelong, expensive treatments with many side effects to keep "passing" as their new sex. I'm not sure how the actual sexual organs work for people who have undergone this, but I'm almost certain that they wouldn't work as well as the sexual organs that they were born with.
I see treating people with severe gender dysphoria with surgery as avoiding the mental condition (I don't mean this as a value judgement, only to say that their physical body is not at fault). People with other body dysphorias are generally persuaded to seek mental treatment instead of getting the surgeries they think they need. I don't see why it should be different for gender dysphoria. I have an anxiety condition(and I'm on the autism spectrum), and with mental treatment, I can function pretty well in society. No one would recommend that I do what I physically desire and never go outside or interact with other people.
If mental treatments are even moderately successful, they would result in a person who is at least somewhat comfortable in their body. I see this outcome as preferable to lifelong physical treatments to a body that barely resembles the preferred sex of the transgendered person. I'm not certain that the mental condition can be "cured" completely, but that isn't the criteria we use in the treatment of other mental disorders.
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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!* | 23 | We tried that. It didn't work and led to even higher suicide rates. Transition is the only treatment that has proven to be effective, many medical communities agree on that, and it's not like trans people don't go to psychological therapy to be approved for medical transition anyway. | 48 |
How do astronomers determine masses of planets and other celestial objects? It's not hard to scale their volume, but it's not enough to find mass out. Do they define prevailing materials and substances and speculate on the density to calculate mass using volume or what? | 15 | Usually masses are determined by observing the orbits of things around them, in the case of planets it's usually the planets' moons that are used. A lot of stars are in binary systems, and the binary orbits were used to understand the relationship between brightness and mass, which can be used to determine the mass of solo stars. For more distant things like galaxies, we can see how much the light of even farther objects gets deflected by gravity, and use that to calculate the mass. | 15 |
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ELI5: How do animators sync video and audio so fluidly? | 86 | It's easier than you think, with animation tools, you can play 1/30 a second of sound to know exactly what sound the voice actor is making, and draw based on that. With practice, you can do this very intuitively. Mimicking the words IRL helps with what mouth shapes you need to draw, and with most animation you dont need to be extremely accurate.
And in most cases, lip syncing is done after the voices have been recorded. | 40 |
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ELI5: "The only thing to fear is fear itself" | 27 | Fear causes panic. In his famous speech he was stating that we should not be afraid of our enemies but rather be afraid of being afraid. For when one panics they make bad decisions, rash decisions, and lose light of the original objective. | 27 |
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[Harry Potter] Vampires in Hogwarts | After reading the unholy grail of fanfiction about a certain vampire oc, there are little denial that it doesn't actually stick to canon.
That got me thinking, let's say there indeed was a witch roughly the age of Harry Potter who got accepted into Hogwarts. Said girl was so unlucky to be bitten and turned by a vampire yet still lucky enough not to be banned from Hogwarts. (Dumbledore has canonically shown tendency to make exceptions like: Hiring Lupin a werewolf or Firenze a centaur not to mention Hagrid) And that this work wasn't written by Tara Gilesbie but someone who actually knew the Potter universe. How would her life be?
Finally, this witch-vampire will most likely become familiar with the Society for the Tolerance of Vampires at some point in her life.
Edit: After reading the comments, I think another question is: Is their any way for her to survive Umbridge? | 29 | Life would suck.
The witches and wizards of Hogwarts are by and large *not* accepting of even minor differences. Yes, Professor Dumbledore is progressive and sees the humanity in everyone, but he does not reflect the student body. The vampire would either have an incredibly hard time trying to hide that she's a vampire, or she'd deal with taunting from the other students. There would be zero tolerance for her to actually act on her vampirism, if she attempted to bite another student a professor would cast a sunlight spell. | 30 |
ELI5: Why does the campfire smoke keep following me? | 12,621 | Hot air rises...So when your campfire creates warm air, it will rise above it...The cooler air around the fire gets drawn in towards the rising air...Because you are near the campfire your body blocks the path of the air heading towards the fire which causes lower air pressure and thus pulling the rising smoke and warmer air towards you... | 20,144 |
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CMV: Mobile phone usage in cars (without bluetooth, i.e. holding the phone to your ear or texting) is not punished fairly when considering other things you do in your car are not punished. | So this is a bit of a weird way to phrase it, but I'm struggling to get the words right. Essentially, the way I look at the issue is the following. Either:
* There should be less harsh punishments for people who use their phones in cars, or;
* There should be more harsh punishments for people who do other things in cars. I'll detail these "other activities" in a bit more detail below, as well as explaining my reasoning.
Here in Australia, we're 'cracking down on road safety': http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-01/double-demerit-points-for-drivers-using-mobile-phone/6739508 . Now I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but I think punishments for phone users behind the wheel are disproportionate when considering the fact that you aren't punished for:
* Eating hot food at the wheel (really consumes your attention and could spill on you and result in an accident)
* Playing with the radio while driving (I really think this is pretty much the same as phone usage)
* Drinking beverages (most likely requires you to tilt your head back meaning it's harder for your eyes to focus on the road)
* Having fighting kids in the car (I think I would be driving better if I was driving and texting than if I had 3 kids screaming in the back seat)
* Having animals in the front seat (I know people who do this and I think it could result in bad accidents)
I'd like to say that I don't condone mobile phone usage in cars, but I think it's absolutely ridiculous that I could get a ticket for texting at a traffic light, but it's absolutely okay for someone to be doing 110kph on the highway while eating a curry.
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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!* | 38 | Do you really think that putting your head down to *type something,* which demands all of your attention is on par with eating, which is a fairly simple task? Also, could you please show me data suggesting that eating and drinking at the wheel is dangerous? See, all this stuff is based on accident statistics. You can't just say, "uuuummmm well it seeeeeems dangerous!" Because 1) no, it doesn't and 2) "seems" isn't evidence. Show us evidence. | 19 |
ELI5 Why do so many juvenile animals, including juvenile people, experience so much hyperactivity? | 33 | All animals must learn to survive as rapidly as possible. One way this happens is through mechanisms in the brain that reward curiosity and learning. When an animal makes new discoveries, it gets a powerful sense of reward.
Over time, animals also learn about dangerous things. That generates fear, and fear tempers curiosity. As a result, animals that live in very safe environments will tend to be very curious. Animals that live in extreme fear will stop being curious.
Babies with protective parents will feel safe and display a lot curious, stimulation-seeking behavior. | 40 |
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ELI5 : "if an alien 65 million light years away is looking at us through a telescope right now, he'll be looking at dinosaurs". | I have come across this quite often and never understood it, i'd appreciate if anyone would help | 134 | Light travels quickly but still at finite speed. A light year is the distance that light travels in one year. Sixty-five million light years is the distance light travels in sixty-five million years. As such, if one were actually able to look at that light after it has traveled so far, it would be light reflected off the earth sixty-five million years ago.
One could theoretically look at the state of anything at any point in the past if they could travel quickly enough to a point in space that had a line of sight to the object that was far enough away. | 68 |
[Star Trek] What is the Borg endgame? | Ok, so let's say you're the Borg and you've assimilated the entire universe. Every single sentient being is now part of the collective and is stuck in full BDSM gear and an eye snorkel. What now? | 94 | Their end game is perfection. They want to become the ultimate species, and the assimilation of cultures is their means to that end. If they were to actually assimilate every species in the universe, they would probably turn their resources toward full-time experimentation on individual drones, attempting to improve their biology or cybernetics. | 103 |
ELI5: How come solid state drives (SSDs) are mostly only available at storage spaces of 64, 128, 256gb and hard drives are available at more "rounded" spaces like 150, 500, 600gb, etc.? | Sorry if this is terribly worded, but I couldn't think of a good way to word this. | 4,056 | Let's say you have a swimming pool and you want to fill it with candy. How many pieces of candy fit? Maybe it's 1,000,000 pieces.
You decide that you want to fit as many pieces of candy into the pool as possible without making the pool bigger, so you make the candy smaller (to your five-year-old self a piece of candy is a piece of candy, no matter what size it is). You start finding ways to make the candy smaller and smaller until you can fit 1,500,000 pieces of candy in your swimming pool. You tell all your friends about that feat, then you go back and try making smaller and smaller pieces of candy.
That's an analogy for the manufacture of hard drives: there's a certain physical space that they have and they're trying to fit as many bits on a platter as possible. When they hit certain milestones they push that design into production. There's no preference for numbers that are nice and round in binary, so they stick to numbers that are nice and round to humans.
*******
Now imagine you go into the candy production business. You release a pack of candy that has 8 pieces of candy in it. It's popular, but all the kids on the block want more pieces of candy. To satisfy that demand you release a package that just has two of the previous packages in it, wrapped together. This new 16-piece package sells great, so you fix up your machines to make the 16- piece packages the standard.
Over time the demand for candy increases so you do just what you did before: you tie two packages together and sell that as a new product. Now you're selling 32-piece packages (which we know are just two 16-piece packages tied together, each of which are two 8-piece packages).
Repeat this cycle several times. As you move to larger and larger packages you streamline the packaging for the smaller packages ("this unit not marked for individual sale"). Eventually you're selling 64-billion-piece packages and 128-billion-piece packages (where "billion" here is actually 1024\*1024\*1024).
This is the analogy for flash memory (SSD) as well as things like RAM. You have a design for a single bit of data storage, then you copy/paste that and add a bit of control logic and you have a two-bit memory cell. Then you copy/paste that and add a bit of control logic and you have a 4-bit memory cell. Repeat that process a few dozen times and you may arrive at an 8 GB memory chip. Put a few of those on a board with some control logic and you have a 64 GB drive.
******
The real key difference between these two setups is that with hard drives you have a blank slate on which you try to write as much as will fit, while with flash memory you're constructing the memory cells individually using a repeating pattern. | 2,187 |
[MCU] Why did the Infinity Stones punish Red Skull? | We've seen multiple people holding one or more Infinity Stones. We've seen multiple people trying to assemble them. We've seen multiple people using one or more stones for evil/selfish reasons. But only Red Skull was punished for this. Only he was cursed by the stones. Why? Loki tried to do worse things than Red Skull, and he was holding 2 Stones. Why wasn't he punished? In IW, Thanos wanted to kill half the universe, and in EG he wanted to use the stones to destroy the whole universe. Why didn't the stones punish him for this? Why only Red Skull was punished by the stones? | 60 | In a way, Red Skull *wasn't* punished. He grabbed the Tesseract, seeking to use it as a weapon against Cap. He didn't understand its power, so when he activated it looking for a weapon, it opened a gateway and sent him to the most powerful weapon in the universe: one of the other stones.
Presumably he then sat on Voromir for a while, foiled by the fact that the only thing he loved was power & himself. In a way, he made his one punishment. | 140 |
ELI5: why is it a good idea to talk to children like an adult | 24 | Children treated with respect, expectations, dignity, and presented with matter-of-factness of the challenges of everyday life become adjusted to them faster, learn faster, get ahead in school and in life faster, and stand alone as whole adults when they grow up.
Kids who have to waste time and resources trying to figure out why their parents are babbling nonsense at them, or who no longer seem to care about them since they're no longer behaving in an infantile manner, face a choice between acting out a masquerade for the sake of their parents' egotistical preferences, or losing parental support (or worse, facing parental condemnation) for developing as humans.
TL;DR: What kind of eighteen-year-old do you want? Kids aren't props nor property. Train a human being, not a babydoll. | 44 |
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ELI5: How is a saw stop able to tell when a finger comes into contact with it? | 586 | It works similar to a lamp with a touch switch. The blade has a very low electrical current in it. It can detect when it contacts something conductive. That signals the block to release and jam the blade in place. | 570 |
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