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[The Lord of the Rings] What would had happened if for example, The Black Riders would had killed the Hobbits and gotten the Ring? | I just want to know what the fate of Middle Earth would had been if that happened....
Let's say, The Black Riders catch the Hobbits at the forest, they execute each one of them, and take the Ring from Frodo's chain...
What do they do afterwards? what happens? | 18 | They're pretty enslaved by Sauron, so they return the ring to him. Assuming he gets it and Saruman doesn't kill them and take it, or the good guys don't somehow recover it...
"The rabble of Gondor and its deluded allies shall withdraw at once beyond the Anduin, first taking oaths never again to assail Sauron the Great in arms, open or secret. All lands east of the Anduin shall be Sauron's for ever, solely. West of the Anduin as far as the Misty Mountains and the Gap of Rohan shall be tributary to Mordor, and men there shall bear no weapons, but shall have leave to govern their own affairs. But they shall help to rebuild Isengard which they have wantonly destroyed, and that shall be Sauron's, and there his lieutenant shall dwell: not Saruman, but one more worthy of trust."
With his formidable powers and huge army he probably defeats Gondor and Rohan, and turns them into North Korea style dictatorships where dissidents are fed to Shelob and her offspring or orcs.
The remaining elves flee to Valinor or die, with Sauron using his ring to corrupt the elven rings. The remaining dwarves hide in their mountain cities and launch a few guerilla style attacks out against Sauron, but are mostly isolated.
He mostly ignores Valinor. He knows their brutal power since he saw them destroy his master Morgoth, and views them as failures who failed to impose order on the Earth.
Sauron builds a perfect society of science, brutal control, and order. He carries out his wild whims as godking, until some remnant heroes slay him or more maiar are sent to stop him.
tl;dr Meat is back on the menu, boys. | 30 |
Where should you store your encryption information ? I.. dont seem to get it. | Greetings,
While working on a personal project, I came to the realisation I am severly misunderstanding some key concepts of security/encryption - and I am horribly embarrassed to ask for help on the subject.
I've got a project set up that reads and writes to an encrypted file (nodejs/nedb) I've been useing dotenv to setup my secret/salt as system variables with dotenv (\*/\*\*) and useing scryptsy to generate a key based on that information(\*\*\*)
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Even tho this issue is about file encryption, my question extends to database entry encryptions.
(\*) How/Why is this secure ? (it does not seem very secure) It seems to me that the only plus side to this as opposed to writing it plain text in code would be it is saved from codedumps/leaks ? - Surely when someone has gained access to the actual server it does not matter where you 'hide' it.
(\*\*) Is not the only real secure way to do this by entering the key manually on server startup via prompt ?
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(\*\*\*) This seems redundant ?
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Edit, wow a lot of replies - Thank you ever last one of you! | 39 | I think you're doing this already, but you didn't say it so just so we're on the same page, you put your secrets into a `.env` file, and then add that file to your `.gitignore`. If you're committing your dotenv file, then you might as well not have one.
The point then, is that your secrets do not live in source control. Your computer has a copy of your secrets, and if someone else joins your team, you give them a copy of your secrets some other secure way (LastPass Teams or
Psono, for example).
If someone has pwned your server _without_ knowing your secrets i.e. by brute-forcing it, then yeah, you're fucked. But with modern encryption methods the chances of this happening are vanishingly small. With a few exceptions, every major attack you hear about now involves the attackers getting the password somehow (e.g. through social engineering).
This is only redundant if the data you're storing has no value. If you're just starting out with back-end services and making a database of cats, then sure, put your keys on GitHub. Nobody cares. But one day you're going to have the keys to your company's whole product just sitting on your laptop. On that day, you'll be glad you developed good habits when you were starting out, and haven't pushed your secret keys to GitHub. | 18 |
Where does the brightness difference in saturns ring come from? | I have just been reading about saturn and it's moons on wikipedia.
Then i wanted to make a photomontage with saturns rings when I noticed something
[Cassini Saturn Ring Photo](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_%28Planet%29#/media/File:PIA08361_Ring_World.png)
[Same photo with brighness enhanced](http://imgur.com/YtqB22i)
Apparently, the black is'nt black in these two areas, it's RGB 12,11,9.
And now my question: Why?
Is it just a lensflare or something? | 218 | It's hard to get your mind around Saturn's rings. They're about 30 feet thick and 175,000 miles wide. Imagine doing a spacewalk on the sunlit side of the rings. Close up they'd look like a huge field of ice and rock stretching to infinity. You could 'stand' on them and see a horizon that was apparently infinite, with Saturn taking up a huge part of the sky, and Titan and Enceladus and Rhea casting shadows on the rings far, far off. No human being has ever seen an infinite horizon.
Imagine turning around in your spacesuit and scrabbling your way *into* the ring. You could gently push your way past the chunks of rock and the larger ice boulders, like a ball pit. After just a few minutes you'd come out to the ringside in shadow. It's so weird to have an object on a planetary scale having such a human scale thickness. | 48 |
ELI5: What is the difference between a Jazz Bass and a Precision Bass? | 54 | The J bass has a pickup on the bridge (bottom part of the guitar where the strings connect) and near the neck (long skinny part where you push the strings to changes notes).
The p bass only has a pickup near the bridge. The pickup is the part of the guitar that "hears" the sting vibrate and turns it into a signal for the amp. On the jazz bass you can adjust the volume of each pickup on their own so it gives you a lot of options in how it sounds. Because the pickups are in different spots along the strings they will hear slightly differently and give the sound a different tone or color. As an aside, a lot of times j bass players will just match the level of both pickups because it rejects a buzzing sound that happens with single coil pickups. But by plucking near each pickup you can change how the notes sound.
The p bass is a little more limited in that sense in that it only has the single pickup, but it's not necessarily a bad thing, just a difference in how the bass works and plays. | 40 |
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[Marvel] How intelligent is the Hulk? | Like, if he could be calm without reverting to Bruce Banner, how smart would Green Hulk be? | 152 | Which Hulk? There are various versions of Hulk that have different levels of intelligence. Doc Green started out at least as smart as Banner (but has been losing intellect). Professor Hulk had all of Banner's intellect (and was, essentially, just Banner in Hulk's body). Joe Fixit had normal level of intellect. World War Hulk was not Banner-level but was relatively smart, clever, and a skilled tactician- even at his most angry he remained of at least average intelligence. | 134 |
What would a good visualization of the Oort Cloud be? | Google results produce a spherical definition, and a disc-like definition. Which of these is more correct? To add to this, being able to "see" through the Oort cloud to other stars etc, what is the approximate density of the cloud? I know we can see out of our own, but when we look into other solar systems, is there any obscurity caused by its cloud? Does every solar system have one? Does it change over time? | 29 | The Oort cloud is a spherical collection of comets and other icy bodies at the very edge of our solar system. Gravity may have formed the bodies into a slightly greater density along the plane of the sun (and the planets) but observations of the cloud are scarce since it is so distant from us. It is different from the Kuiper belt in that it is much further out from the Sun, and contains either very long period comets or comets that do not move significantly from the cloud. The Kuiper belt is much closer, right outside the orbit of pluto, and contains larger bodies and shorter period comets.
In terms of density, the Oort cloud is incredibly scattered. Looking out from the sun, it would be very unlikely that your view would be obscured by an Oort cloud object due simply to the tiny size of the objects and their distance from the us. For this reason, it is uncertain if there are Oort clouds in other solar systems. It is difficult enough to detect other planets in other solar systems, let alone small bits of ice that are on the order of thousands of AU from their star. | 17 |
ELI5: why is it unsafe to take a shower during a storm? | Is that not just an old wives tale? | 16 | So, in the past with copper pipes, which are good conductors of electricity, would cause issues in the correct situation.
If lighting struck part the water system, saturated ground, or a house that is not grounded electricity can run along pipes and alone the water that a person is using. This can electrocute them.
It is not as common now as it was decades ago.
Plastic piping and proper grounding of the homes help this issue. | 23 |
[The Matrix] Can’t the Machines just program the Agents to be completely invincible, like a cheat or a privilege in a video game ? | 104 | Because as explained by the Architect, in the grand scheme of the Matrix rebellious humans are necessary to its existence so the programmers could not allow Agents that are completely invincible but just strong enough to make the life of the resistance really really hard. The One was apparently the only subject who could use actual “cheat” codes until Agent Smith went rogue. | 85 |
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ELI5: What is the difference between VAT and sales tax? | 19 | Sales tax is only collected at the final stage.
Like when you buy food at the grocery store.
An apple is farmed, then purchased by a wholesaler, then given to a distributor to ship, the purchased by they actual grocery store. And then finally purchased by you.
It's not taxed until you buy it.
A VAT is applied at every step where the product changes hands. So in the above example everyone there would be paying a little tax.
In short every time *value is added* there is tax. And each step is supposed to be adding value. Wholesaler makes it easier to ship the food. Distributor actual ships the food. Grocer makes it so you can easily get the food.
One of the biggest affects is that with a VAT is that there is a lot more documentation which means it's much less likely for tax revenue to just disappear.
Like if you have sales tax all you need to do is fiddle with the last step to avoid paying any taxes. With a VAT that is much harder. They also tend to incentivize vertical integration I.e. a single company controlling the entire process so the goods never change hands. | 27 |
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ELI5: Spinoza's proof of the existence of God | 28 | I don't think Spinoza advanced a *proof* for the existence of God. What he did was to reason that God cannot be outside of nature; therefore, God *is* nature.
Or, rather, the entire universe around us is a part of God. There is only one substance, which comes in different forms and has various attributes which we perceive as things like "thought" and "matter". That substance is what he calls "God", or alternatively, "Nature".
Indeed, at the time, many people thought he was *denying* the existence of God, and so he was branded a heretic and an atheist. The traditional view of God was an all-powerful being who *controlled* nature, and had a distinct personality. Spinoza's use of the term "God or Nature" was taken as a rejection of that traditional view -- which, to be fair, it was -- and therefore a rejection of the whole concept of a deity. Spinoza himself was actually deeply religious and believed in God, just not the traditional God everyone else believed in. | 26 |
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If two telescopes far apart on earth are pointed at opposite ends of a faraway star, will the telescopes be angled towards each other since the star appears as a small point in the sky, or will they be angled away from each other since the star is larger than earth? | [So basically this:](https://i.imgur.com/zEiSTFc.png)
I think this is more a geometry question than an astronomy one. | 139 | They'll be pointed parallel, within some uncertainty.
The geometry in your diagrams are good, but you vastly underestimate how far stars are and how well we can resolve stars. The field of view of telescopes is far larger than any single star, so you can't meaningfully use your trick to look at the left vs right side of a star. | 119 |
What makes a good question? | There's some frustration among some panelists here about poorly-formed questions. When I was in grad school, asking a good question was one of the hardest things to learn how to do. It's not easy to ask a good question, and it's not easy to *recognize* what can be wrong with a question that seems to be perfectly reasonable. This causes no end of problems, with question-askers getting upset that no one's telling them what they want to know, and question-answerers getting upset at the formulation of the question.
Asking a good research question or science question is a skill in itself, and it's most of what scientists do.
It occurred to me that it might help to ask scientists, i.e. *people who have been trained in the art of question asking*, what they think makes a good question - both for research and for askscience. | 58 | The scientific method is good at answering questions that boil down to "What is the relationship between *X* and *Y?"*
The precise *way* in which the question reduces to that form may not be immediately obvious. For example, take the question "Why is the sky blue?" Or, stating the implicit, "Why is the sky blue and not another colour?"
The most obvious comment on such a question is, well, it *isn't.* Not always. At night the sky is black, and on overcast days it's some or another shade of grey. And at sunrise and sunset, the sky takes on a wide variety of yellow, orange, red and violet hues as well.
Which means the colour of the sky appears to have *something to do with the sun.* Which allows us to restate the question as, "What is the *relationship* between sunlight and the colour of the sky?"
And next thing you know, you've got Rayleigh scattering. You've just done science.
Of course, one might not have gone that way. One might instead have wondered what the relationship is between the colour of the sky and the weather. Or between the colour of the sky and the time of day. Or between the colour of the sky and the temperature out of doors. In all of those cases, the answer is that there's only an *indirect* relationship … but even *that* is doing science. Discovering that there is no relationship where you thought one was, or that the relationship you imagined turns out to be far more complex and interesting than you suspected, is what science is *really really good for.*
Bad questions are those that don't move you toward a greater understanding of the relationship between two things. Speculative questions, hypothetical questions, what-would-happen-if questions, is-it-possible-that questions, what's-the-deal-with questions, what-do-you-think-about questions, what's-the-purpose-of questions, and worst of them all help-me-win-an-argument questions … these are all *lousy.* Because while they might tickle our curiosity, they don't *get us anywhere.* They don't lead us to a better understanding of how the world works.
Things exist. Things happen. Sussing out the relationships between things that exist and things that happen is what that scientific method is good for. If your intention is to do science — and while it's not mandatory that it must be, that *is* what it says up there at the top of each page in this forum — then toward those relationships is where your attention must be cast. Otherwise it's all just nattery and chit-chat. | 38 |
ELI5: Why do all radio stations end in an odd decimal? | I've noticed all the frequencies in my city end with .1, .3, .5, etc. I don't know if it's just Vancouver, but can someone please enlighten me as to why? | 390 | An FM radio signal doesn't actually get transmitted on exactly one frequency. FM means *frequency modulation*. What that means is that the way the station sends the sound is by slightly varying the frequency of its signal.
FM radio frequencies are measured in a unit called *megahertz*.
It can vary the frequency by up to 0.1 megahertz, in either direction (higher or lower). So, a station at 106.1 megahertz is actually using frequencies anywhere from 106.0 megahertz up to 106.2 megahertz.
That means that all the radio stations need to be put at least 0.2 megahertz apart to make sure they don't overlap.
Why odd decimals instead of even ones? Well, that's just because the frequencies that are set aside for FM radio in North America are 88.0 megahertz up to 108.0 megahertz. That makes 88.1 megahertz the lowest station frequency, and then they go up by 0.2 from there. | 925 |
[Kung Fu Panda] Was the Dragon Scroll always blank? Who trained Master Oogway? Was the entire temple's teachings a lie, for lack of a better word? Like there's no 'trick' to Kung Fu, no deeper meaning? | 15 | Yes. The point is there is no secret technique to unlock Kung Fu. It comes unique to the user.
Oogway discovered Kung Fu by himself and developed it into a style that suited whoever learned it
The discipline that was taught wasn't a lie. The idea that people had that there was "a secret to unlock" was one everyone assumed. | 51 |
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CMV:The Gun control debate will never go anywhere because the pro-gun control side knows very little about guns. | With gun control being "hot" right now I through I should explain why I think this never goes anywhere. The side that favors harsher gun control knows very little about guns and as such can never effectively get its point across.
After every shooting there are calls to ban "assault rifles" and "machine guns" with zero knowledge of what these weapons actually are. "Assault rifle" does not mean military rifle, it means a rifle that fires an intermediate round (between a full rifle round and pistol round). This can be anything forum an AR-15 to a hunting rifle, as long is it fires an intermediate round it is an "assault rifle". Yet other, more dangerous guns, are ignored because they do not sound as "scary" or have wooded parts instead of the dreaded black synthetic. Nearly ever gun control law is ineffective because they are be written by people who not only no nothing about guns but seem afraid of becoming more informed.
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[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)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 41 | Joe Biden ( a notable leader in gun control advocacy) wrote the, "Violent Crime Control and Law enforcement Act." This law is the "assault rifle ban." While it does have a flashy name that makes a great news story, it is actually very particular in what it bans. Specifically it bans 19 specific rifles as well as providing specific criteria for the legality of future manufactured rifles. These specifications include muzzle construction, round weight, as well as the ability to attach certain accessories.
Also, Bernie Sanders is the Senator from one of the most gun friendly states in the union. Half of his constituents are gun owners. He supports gun control regulation. He routinely differentiates between rifles meant for hunting and rifles meant for military purposes in his voting record.
Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden know about guns. Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders are pro gun control. | 32 |
[Marvel] What is Dr. Doom's PhD in? | 33 | Surprising that with 11 comments there isn't a real answer yet. Dr. Doom doesn't have a PhD. He was in school for theoretical physics but he was expelled after a machine he'd built exploded (due to Ben Grimm's sabotage). After he left he just gave himself the title of doctor and no one really disputes it because he IS a genius and far more intelligent than a single degree would account for. | 37 |
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ELI5: What exactly happens when you lose your voice? | 17 | Your larynx is inflamed. In there are folds of tissue that vibrate to make your voice when air passes over it. When they get all swelled up, they can't vibrate like they could before. Think about how difficult it would be to talk if your tongue swelled up, it's a bit like that. | 26 |
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[Bionicle] If a Krana is destroyed after it is launched, what happens to the Bohrok? | 24 | The Bohrok are really just machines meant to house the krana. Although the Bohrok were originally sentient Av-Matoran, once they transform into Bohrok they lose the capacity for independent thought. Without a krana to guide it, a Bohrok will become inert. It will accept basic commands from others (even from Matoran or other beings unaffiliated with the Bohrok swarms), but will take no actions on its own initiative. The Bohrok Va would sometimes attempt to get a new krana to Bohrok that has lost theirs, but during the chaotic conditions of the Bohrok War many "empty" Bohrok ended up being abandoned by the swarm. The Bohrok are nothing if not expendable. | 17 |
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ELI5: Why does 5ghz Wi-Fi penetrate less than 2.4ghz? | Not sure if penetrate is the right word. Basically high frequency electromagnetic waves penetrate more than low frequencies. You can see this with how x-ray machines work ( high frequency x-rays travel through flesh that visible light bounces of). But on the other hand 5ghz wifi has more problems with obstructions than 2.4ghz.
So which is it? Does higher or lower frequency penetrate more? Or is there some lowest penetrating frequency? | 48 | There are two different factors at play here.
Both are very important and could easily be compared to am\fm radio. It's about wavelength. In the case of 2.4 vs 5 gig Hz it's more than twice the wavelength difference.
How does wavelength impact the way the energy travels?
1 the lower the wavelength the farther the energy will travel (so 2.4 gig is better there)
2 the higher the wavelength the less interruptions it will encounter as it moves thru objects (walls Windows doors clouds etc) (so 5 gig is "slightly" better there)
The biggest improvement is the increase in bandwidth by it is offset by slightly shorter range.
But both are up in the gig spectrum meaning they are not going to travel very very far unless you have a really powerful amplifier connected to your wireless router. (Which would be very dangerous for other reasons) | 12 |
How can I become a member of the Justice League? | Is there some sort of application I have to fill out? Tests I have to pass? I was looking into the idea of joining when I realized that I have no idea how to apply or what an application would even consist of. | 49 | When you encounter a current Justice Leaguer a few things to keep in mind.
1. They are mistaken when they attack you when you first meet. This always happens when two heroes meet for the first time in the field. Do you best to not die, and to not kill the Justice League member. Doing either will hurt your chances of future membership.
2. Always be on your best behavior. Superman can hear you swear when you stub your toe in your "secret" lair. Batman most likely has already deduced who you are. Martian Manhunter could scan your mind and learn your true intentions. Make sure to always be working towards being an exemplary hero.
3. Ask yourself, what do you bring to the table? What role could you fill if one of the big guns went down?
4. Make sure to be friendly to current Leaguers. It will take some work, but they really are somewhat of a 'who-you-know' system. Someone has to vouch for you. Very rarely will you have an unknown walk on to the team.
5. Big help, try and get into the Titans, the JSA or one of the other 'feeder' teams.
When the time is right (end of the world and/or the current JLA has disappeared into a void) you'll get a call. Make sure to answer the phone when the caller id says Watchtower. | 48 |
What is "bootstrapping"? Can anyone please explain what this term originally meant to describe? Why boots? Also, how come "booting" means turning on a computer? What do shoes have anything to do with describing a computer process? Where's the analogy / similarity? This doesn't make any sense! | Obviously, I've read [the Wikipedia article on "Bootstrapping"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping) but it didn't help much.
So apparently, the little hold on the back of the boots called a "bootstrap" is supposed to mean a self-starting process? **How??? Why??? WTF???** This doesn't make any sense!
Also, what *is* "a self-starting process"? Without the user's involvement?
(I'm not a computer science major, but the term has already entered other fields as well, and it seems like it originated in computer science) | 21 | Boots, like those worn on the feet, sometimes have a tab/strap/whatever used to help put them on. There's an old saying "to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps", which might be defined as "to succeed only by one's own efforts or abilities".
It's used in a few contexts in computing. A couple of examples:
- starting up ("booting") a computer, where a series of increasingly-complex software processes start the computer hardware and make it ready for a user to interact with.
- when someone starts writing a new language, early versions will be written in an already-existing language. Later versions are usually re-written in the new language, so that the language is "self-hosting". | 25 |
eli5 why do some animals die after mating? | 27 | Natural selection.
You're talking about animals where the male, most likely, isn't needed after mating. The offspring either can take care of themselves or form some sort of colony. Males hanging around doing nothing between mating seasons use up resources that the offspring need. For these animals too going from newly hatched to sexual maturity also doesn't usually take that long.
Now, as to why it's not usually the adult females that drop dead after mating where the offspring can look after themselves? They can reproduce again later. Sure, the males could too but in the sexual evolutionary arms race a very small number of males can fertilise a large number of females.
This is different for humans where males were important to our social groups. They could do things like protect the group as human males are bigger and stronger than female humans, for instance. Plus it takes years for humans to reach sexual maturity so males just dropping dead would actually waste the resources that went into getting them to sexual maturity.
Evolution selects that which works. It doesn't even have to work well. It just has to work better or less shit. | 61 |
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ELI5:Why can't we remember the minute before we fall asleep? | 18 | Because:
1- you cannot understand when you are really sleeping, if you woke up from phase 1 sleep you would deny that you had been sleeping (yet you were sleeping)
2- the memory circuit takes time to work, the information might have to flow more than once... This is impossible if the brain starts sleeping
3- there is nothing worth of remembering about that particular moment | 10 |
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ELI5: When you get a shot in the arm, how can you be sure the contents are being released into a blood vessel? | When you donate blood the needle goes into a large, visible vein in your arm or hand but when getting a shot the needle just goes somewhere in your arm. | 11,422 | Many injections don't have to be directly into a blood vein/artery. Just injecting into muscular tissue alone provides fairly rapid absorption into the bloodstream without the risks of using a vien. | 10,015 |
Eli5: Why don't Macs and PCs use the same type of executable file? | Why do macs use .app files and PCs use .exe files? Isn't it just easier to make both OSes run .exe files? | 30 | There are a few things to consider here.
Firstly, what we typically call PCs are PCs running the Windows operating system, created by Microsoft. Macs are very similar computers running the Mac OS operating system, created by Apple.
The operating system can be thought of (for ELI5 purposes) as the program on your computer that manages how the rest of the computer works. Your operating system controls which other programs have access to your computer's hardware (for example the CD drive, hard disk, and the CPU which is the 'brain' of the computer) and what kind of order files are stored in, as well as how everything is displayed on your monitor.
All other programs work "on top" of the operating system.
All computer programs are written in a special coded language, which computers can understand (again, close enough for ELI5).
Instead of every program having to include all the code needed to make a window on the monitor, how to write a file to your hard disk, or how to send something to a printer, programs include System Calls. A System Call is a special piece of code that asks the operating system to do something.
For example, a program wanting to print to your printer would send a system call to Windows, or to Mac OS, along with the information it wants to print out. The operating system then runs the part of its program that knows how to send files to a printer.
This is great because there are so many different printers, which all work slightly differently. When you install a printer, you just tell the operating system how the printer works (by installing something called a driver), and every other program just gets the operating system to do the printing.
**So, onto actually answering your question:** Windows and Mac OS use different System Calls.
Think about how a window looks on a Mac, compared to on Windows. Because the window has to be drawn in a different way you need to give a different set of information to the operating system so that it can draw the window onscreen for you.
Because they use different system calls, you need to write the code differently, so to differentiate between a Mac OS program (with Mac OS system calls) and a Windows program (with Windows system calls) the files are named differently.
**Extra info:**
* The other interesting thing about .app files is that they are really just a folder containing several different files, including the executable. So where a .exe is just one file, a .app can contain a few different files. Similarly, .exes often contain more information than just the program code itself, but it is all stored in a single file.
* There are other operating systems than just Windows and Mac OS. Some of these use different executable file formats. For example .elf files are commonly used on Linux and Unix-like operating systems (these can run on 'PCs' too, which is why we need to differentiate between a PC and a PC running Windows). .exe files originated on DOS operating systems. | 35 |
CMV: I can't take the Men's Rights movement seriously until they start working against injustices, instead of just whining on the internet. | 44 | I must say, feminism is bashing the MRM movement pretty bad, which creates a bad reputation, thus the MRM has trouble getting funding. Getting shit done with a bad reputation and little money is very difficult.
They'll firstly have to battle for existence, before they can battle for men's rights. | 44 |
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[Spiderman] Did peter parker make his web shooters before or after becoming spider man? | If he made them after, how long was he running around without them? Did he fight crime without them? | 17 | In the original continuity, he made them after he gained his powers, but he was not at first a crime fighter. Never wealthy, he tried to capitalize on them first by claiming the prize in a wrestling challenge and then tries some TV appearances. He didn't decide to fight crime until a thief who he couldn't be bothered to stop later murdered his Uncle Ben. | 28 |
CMV: Communism resulted in many deaths and suffering historically, but so did capitalism | That's the only argument from socialists that holds any value, to me; they will say that, when people attack communism as being murderous whenever implemented, capitalism surely is brutal and (in)directly for many deaths as well. Personally I still prefer capitalism because I value personal liberty too much, but to deny that a system built entirely on profit and personal gain and individualism is without it's flaws and atrocities and inherently good is also deeply cynical.
I believe that the main thing that sets apart capitalism and communism is the degree of personal freedom an individual has in each system. A society that is capitalist but somewhat regulated seems preferable to me to one in which everyone is, on the surface, equalized but in which all those who stand out are surpressed and pushed down so as to step in line.
Communism cannot be established without a violent revolution, is therefore needlessly bloody and I would say goes against human nature in a sense. But the sink-or-swim mentality of capitalism is also deeply cynical in itself. Looking at the amount of suffering caused both directly as well as indirectly by both systems, I would say they are more or less the same. | 27 | You made a giant flaw in your first sentence equating socialism and communism.
I know that for example a lot of Americans refuse to see the difference between the two, but they are two completely different things | 26 |
[Star Wars] Are hyperspace lanes actually dangerous? | I had the thought that if these lanes are well documented and considered the best way to get from point A to point B, then they must have a lot of traffic?
So is there not a concern of crashing into other ships also traveling in hyperspace? Say, heading the other direction?
As an extra question, when fleets travel through hyperspace together, can they see the other ships around them? | 17 | Well charted hyperspace lanes are very safe. There are few events or objects that are undocumented that can effect travel through a known lane, and if there is a periodic event, like a comet or meteor shower that can cross a hyperspace lane and cause a ship to be pulled out, that would be recorded on nav computers so they can make the necessary calculations to avoid it.
Once you're in hyperspace you don't really have to worry about other ships traveling through it as it seems that they don't really interact with each other, it's just the mass shadow of a large object in realspace that can have an effect. The real danger is the moments as you enter and exit hyperspace. Because for a fraction of a second your motion in relation to realspace approaches relativistic speeds. This is why entering or exiting hyperspace leaves a distinct energy signal that can be detected (it's also why thanks to a huge set of very favorable rare circumstances Holdo was able to do what she did in TLJ). Because of that danger, ships traveling in convoy have to be well spread apart to provide enough room for error in case a calculation was off.
The exception is Purrgil, a species of space whale-like creatures that have a natural ability to travel through hyperspace. They are almost impossible to track and a swarm of them is big enough that they can pull a ship out of hyperspace. | 15 |
Resources on the philosophy of fear? | Since a very young age, I have found this emotion to be one of the most fascinating... especially with how it hinders a person.
If you know of any resources on the philosophy of fear and can share them here, it would be much appreciated! Thank you. | 47 | You might find that, through studying what people who study the virtue 'courage' (cf. Aristotle, the Stoics, or any virtue ethicist, really) have to say, it would help to illuminate the nature of fear. Also, this may be a little different from fear (although it certainly contains it), but *angst* or *anxiety* are crucial concepts in the existentialist tradition (cf. Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, or even certain Buddhist texts). And, finally, of course, the key scholars of the psychoanalytical tradition (cf. Freud, Jung, Marcuse, Irigaray) have some interesting things to say about where fear *originates* and how it manifests itself in one's decisions/actions and general perception of the world. | 23 |
ELI5 How is time to death calculated in terminally I'll patients? | 520 | Usually just an educated guess by the doctors who from experience have seen so many they can give a good estimate based on the condition of the patient, the severity of their symptoms and the rate of decline.
Basically they compare it to lots of other patients with similar diseases. | 808 |
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CMV: Due to the recent developments wit #believeAllWomen and #meToo, as a Man, it is in my best interest to avoid working with women. | Update: Hey guys, thanks for the discussion - I awarded a delta for someone who has shown how I might be able to convert the negative effects I was trying to avoid into a positive - thanks for that - but my fundamental premise remains unchanged.
It's been great, I'm glad that people are at least as bothered by my behavior as I am.
Vote war on this CMV is indicative of a social meme battle lol!
Good times. TTFN
Edit: Obvious throwaway because obvious lol
First, let me say that I fully support EQUAL treatment and opportunity for all sexes, races, creeds, and religions. No one should have to work in a hostile, violent, or coercive work environment. Period.
A baseline stance of automatically believing all claims of sexual harassment without evidence means that there is a significant and persistent risk to my professional reputation and livelihood when I work in an environment where women coworkers (and especially subordinates) are present.
Despite my best efforts and intentions, there is always a possibility that I will be accused of impropriety either due to a misunderstanding or vindictiveness on the part of a teammate or coworker (male or female).
The automatic assumption of guilt in the case of female claims against males means that I am better off as a male to work only in all-male teams, as this ensures that I will at least not have my voice silenced.
This extends to "after work" environments as well, so I should also be sure to not invite any female peers to any work-related after-hours meetings or social gatherings, and refuse to endorse or attend any such events where female co-worker will be present.
This perhaps will have the most devastating effect on the careers of women, because ultimately, over drinks is usually where careers are made or broken....so I feel especially bad about this....but ultimately, my responsibility is to my family, so I choose not to care.
As such, it is also in my best interest to select my work environment to favor exclusively males and transgender women and to carefully (but effectively) exclude females from projects and positions that I may have to directly interface with.
I understand that this may be bad for my company, as it will partially inhibit a sexually diverse viewpoint, but I will try to compensate for this by encouraging transgender women to fill their places. In this way, I will enjoy the protective effects of societal prejudices against trans people, while reaping the benefits of a female perspective. This will also have the effect of balancing my departmental numbers and create a shield against the scrutiny of my behavior, as any investigation can be played off as an anti-trans witch hunt.
I hate all of this, CHANGE MY VIEW
EDIT: I should have mentioned that my job, like the jobs of many c-suite people, sometimes involves making very unpopular decisions....sometimes ones that seriously disrupt careers. I have been slandered and falsely accused of wrongdoing many times, so I do not consider this a negligible risk. Additionally, negative publicity can seriously impact my earning potential.
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[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)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 132 | Just because the hashtag #believeAllWomen exists does not mean people suddenly believe all women. The women you interact with today are the same women you interacted with years ago. Did you think all these women would have lobbied false claims of rape against you before and the only reason they hadn’t was because they lacked a popular twitter hashtag to back them up?
The chances of you being frivolously accused of rape are very, very low. Are you also protecting yourself against other low probability events, like the off chance youth co workers are serial killers, or that your male coworkers will rape you, or will plant child pornography on you l, or accuse you falsely of a crime that is not rape? | 96 |
How does someone "throw" their voice? | 54 | They shout "SUL MEY GUT"! ;)
In all seriousness though, a ventriloquist "throws his voice" using two techniques;
1) The forming of all sounds has to be done with the lips slightly parted. This is especially hard for the labial sounds, f, v, p, b and m, and there is really no other option than to replace them with other sounds such as th, d, t and n. When done skillfully, it's hard to hear any difference.
2) The puppet/dummy is used to divert the audiences attention from the ventriloquists face. Our eyes tend to be drawn to things that moves irregularly, so moving the puppet/dummy helps to solidify the illusion.
A fact is also that most ventriloquism is performed with the audience a considerable distance away, and often using a PA system as well. This diminishes or eliminates the audiences sense of where the sound is coming from. When watching a ventriloquist up close, the sound can clearly be heard coming from the ventriloquists mouth. | 28 |
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How could the proton and neutron have the same approximate mass if the down quark weighs about twice as much as the up quark? (~4.8 vs ~2.3 MeV/c^2) | Does the neutron lose mass when it binds with a proton in a nucleus? | 22 | You may notice that the masses of the proton and neutron are both almost 1 GeV/c^(2), where the sums of the quark masses amount to a few MeV/c^(2).
The majority of the mass of a hadron is "dynamical mass" caused by the quark and gluon dynamics going on inside, rather than simply the sum of the bare masses of the valence quarks.
So the masses of the quarks alone cannot explain the mass of the entire nucleon, and therefore the difference between the up and down quark masses cannot be assumed to fully explain the difference between the proton and neutron masses.
>Does the neutron lose mass when it binds with a proton in a nucleus?
You can consider the protons and neutrons within a nucleus to retain their individual masses, but the mass of the entire bound system will be different than the sum of the masses of individual free nucleons. This difference is all swept into a quantity called the "mass defect" (equivalent to the binding energy by E = mc^(2)). | 34 |
ELI5: What happens when you sue an individual, and they can't afford to pay the amount? | 47 | You can garnish their wages, place a lien on their property, or seize a bank account. Unfortunately, the court is usually not that helpful in collecting money, but these tools can help.
The most important thing of all is to keep track of the debtor, so if they do skip town or something, you can find them and keep up the pursuit. | 21 |
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ELI5: Why do some things burn and other things melt? | 43 | Most things will do both, but one is easier than the other.
Melting is a state change from a solid to a liquid. This requires enough energy (heat) to raise the temperature high enough for the current atmospheric pressure. Some materials simply require too much energy or too low of a pressure for this to happen easily in normal life.
Burning is a chemical reaction between fuel and oxygen. It also takes energy to start (heat), but usually releases even more energy which makes the reaction continue. For some materials, this initial energy is too high to happen easily in normal life.
It gets more complicated when your substance isn't a single material. For example, wood. While we generally think of wood as "burning", there are a lot of other materials in a piece of wood that will melt or evaporate while the cellulose (woody part of wood) burns.
So essentially, it comes down to which of the two needs less energy for the current conditions. This is known as the combustion temperature (burning) vs the melting point (melt).
A somewhat familiar example is magnesium: this is a solid metal at room normal temperatures and pressures that is commonly used in firestarters because it is so flammable and easy to burn. However, if you put it in a non-oxygen environment at the same pressures, it melts rather easily. | 37 |
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ELI5 how a amputee controls a bionic arm. | 46 | There’s electronics that picks up the signals sent to the remainder of the arm and translates this to movement.
When you tell a muscle to contract you send a very weak electric signal. The bionic arm will have EMG sensors that pick up the potential difference between a reference point and the signal source (usually the head of a muscle). Data from multiple sources is used to detect the desired movement. | 34 |
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[40k]If your ship is becalmed in the Warp what prevents you from just exiting the Warp? | Read a couple stories where ships were becalmed in the Warp, i.e. the raging currents they were riding stopped and they just had to sit tight in Hell and wait to get moving again. Much drama was derived from paranoia over how the Gellar Fields were holding up and *if* they had, in fact stopped working and the passengers were just slowly going insane.
There were no reasons given as to why the ship didn't just exit to realspace and wait things out there. Seems a better option than sitting it out in the most hazardous surroundings imaginable.
True, they wouldn't be at the destination they were supposed to be traveling to, but they would probably be orders of magnitude safer while they were waiting. | 65 | Moving from the warp to realspace is complicated and dangerous. The Immaterium is a complex slurry of psychic energies and waves of emotion and thought. Every single being with a soul causes ripples and eddies in the heaving mess. Greater entities like psykers and daemons create massive fluctuations in the warp and the storms presented there can rip a ship apart in an instant. Even when the warp is "physically" calm, simply being there is fraught with peril. Daemons and spirits can only be held back by a Gellar Field, else the crew will be possessed, corrupted, or rapemurdered to death by the denizens of the Immaterium. Only Navigators can steer a shit through the shifting tides of psychic energy towards their destination, and only the Gellar Field protects the crew's bodies, minds, and souls.
Basically, traversing from the warp and realspace is less like stepping from the sidewalk to the street, and more like jumping through a brick wall covered with venomous snakes. You can try it, but you might not survive the attempt. | 47 |
[Dishonoured] Why do people pray to the outsider? | While I am not a religious person and so don’t entirely get prayer in general, in the dishonoured universe there are several shrines and people who worship the outsider despite it being illegal. I think in one of the games you can even find people tortured or killed by the Abby of the Everyman. Also the outsider states he only gives out his mark to a select few people, only about 10 or so at a time I believe. So why do people worship him if they get nothing out of it? | 21 | Desperation.
Dunwall is a horrible place, a festering oppressive slum run by authority figures who at best don't give a shit if you live or die and at worst actively aim for the latter. The dominant faith tortures and kills on the slightest pretence, the streets are violent and run by brutal crime lords, and the only measures taken against the the plague is making sure it doesn't interfere with the aristocrats parties.
If you're the average common person, never mind someone poverty-stricken,your odds of living a long life and dying a peaceful death are already rock bottom. Your odds of becoming the next corvo or granny rags may be one in 20,000, yes, but that doesn't necessarily rule it out as being your best shot. | 37 |
ELI5: Why does your vision continue to spin even after you stop spinning? | You know, you get in a swivel chair and spin around really fast and then stop but you're vision still seems to "spin"? Is my brain catching up or something? | 157 | Our sense of balance, motion, and direction come from what's called the vestibular system, which is located in our inner ears. Part of this system is 3 small tubules filled with fluid. When when move or spin or change directions, this fluid moves as well, and our brain interprets those signals to determine our orientation and acceleration, sort of like a gyroscope.
When we spin real fast, that fluid in the tubules spins too, and when we stop suddenly, it takes a few seconds for the fluid to stop. Think of it like stirring a cup of coffee. Even after you stop stirring, it takes a few seconds for the coffee to stop swirling and come to a stop. The same thing happens in our vestibular system. Our eyes see us motionless, but our vestibular system tells us we're still spinning, so it causes momentary dizziness until balance in restored. | 78 |
[Dark Soul] How is it that I, a lowly undead is able to fell giants, lords and ancient heroes of the age of fire by merely hacking at their ankles repeatedly? | 65 | You can easily defeat powerful beings from the Age of Fire because the Age of Fire is at its close. The Fire fades and gives way to Dark, and you are *definitely* a creature of the Dark that is gathering power and growing stronger while they weaken. All of them are mere shadows of their former glory.
Also, quite a few of them might be imposters. | 71 |
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How does a program like blender (which is written in cpp and python) run with no installation? | You can load blender onto a usb stick and just run it from there. Also, since it's partly written in python, does an interpreter get packages with the software? If not, does the software require an interpreter to be installed on the running system? | 26 | Installation means copying the files from somewhere to your computer. If the files are already there, like on a USB stick, then what's the difference if they are copied to your computer or not? They can run the same either way.
Blender includes all packages, interpreters, and other dependencies it has with it, so it doesn't need to get them from anywhere. | 38 |
What's the difference between "metaphysical" and "ontological" in contemporary usage? Do two things with the same ontological status necessarily have the same metaphysical status? What about the reverse? | To elaborate: If I make a claim like
>"there is no a priori ontological difference between what is human and what is not"
what would be the difference in substituting "metaphysical" for "ontological"?
Or if I were to claim,
>"logical possibility entails metaphysical possibility"
how is this different from if I had used "ontological" instead of "metaphysical"?
Thanks dudes! | 18 | Metaphysics is more general, ontology is more particular. Ontology is a branch of metaphysics. So something's ontological status is *part of* its metaphysical status. But ontology doesn't exhaust metaphysics. For instance, another branch of metaphysics is mereology, being the study of the relationship between parts and wholes. Consider the ontological status of the City of Gold with its mereology. The City of Gold, presumably, is made up of a whole bunch of city part make of gold--some mixture of golden buildings, golden streets, golden pavements, golden lamp posts, and so on. The city is the whole made up of a bunch if city parts, and this is a metaphysical fact about the City of Gold, where it to exist. But all of that happens independently of whether the City of Gold exists, that is, its ontological status. That's an example of how there is parts of something's metaphysical status which is not part of its ontological status. | 29 |
ELI5: Why is it sometimes a flame does not emit any smoke, but after the flame is extinguished there is a lot of it? | 20 | Smoke happens when the fuel doesn’t completely burn. The flame appears because the fuel is burning at full temperature with proper air flow. If either of those is removed, the flame will be extinguished, but residual heat continues to inefficiently burn the fuel, which creates smoke. | 26 |
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How does a neutron emit an electron when it consists of quarks? | What is this alchemy? | 25 | A neutron is heavier than a proton, which makes it unstable outside of a nucleus; if a particle is heavier and there is an interaction that allows it to decay to another it will eventually. It decays into a proton, an electron, and a electron anti-neutrino. It's actually one of the down quarks that decays into an up quark along with the electron and the anti-neutrino. This decay is described through the weak nuclear force and it doesn't always happen inside a nucleus because strong nuclear interactions between baryons make neutrons more stable,this is precisely the mechanics of beta decay though.
Why that particular decay? Well a few conservation laws have to be obeyed. A neutron turns into a proton because the number of baryons has to be conserved. But uh oh! You've gained charge, so an electron has to be made so the decay has so there is no change in charge. Oh no! You gained a lepton, so an electron anti-neutrino has to be made that way there isn't a net change in the number of leptons. The resultant particles also have their resultant momentum (where they're going and how fast) determined by the laws of conservation of energy and momentum.
Tl;dr: not alchemy, just the weak force in action. | 17 |
How to ask critical questions nicely at a conference | When I ask a question after a conference presentation, sometimes it’s critical in nature, but I don’t want to sound too aggressive or hurt the presenter’s feelings. So I want to sound as nice as possible and add comments like “thank you for your presentation, it’s very interesting…” before getting into the question. But sometimes this feels too superficial, and I was wondering what would be a more natural way to sound nicer when asking a critical question at a conference. | 144 | Go into it with the assumption that they considered what you're about to ask and have a good reason for having done it their way instead.
Instead of essentially phrasing "I think you should have done Y instead of X" as a question, ask "can you elaborate on your rationale for doing X instead of Y" or "what are your thoughts on also attempting this via Y" or "what do you think are the pros and cons of doing this via X vs Y."
I've seen questions asked this way a lot and answers ranged from a jovial "great idea, let's collaborate" to a thorough explanation that probably left the questioner feeling quite stupid because they were wrong (lol), to an interesting discussion about data availability/integration issues (I got to a lot of talks that are studying very large public datasets) that is helpful for many in the audience and occasionally helpful to the author as well. | 298 |
[Fantastic Four] Reed Richards is the smartest man on the planet so why can't he fix Ben Grimm? | Reed has been shown to be the smartest man in the ~~MCU~~ Marvel Universe and ever since their accident has told Ben that he would change him back from being "the thing" but has never succeeded. Why can't he figure out those damn cosmic rays? | 247 | The Fantastic Four (who do not yet exist in MCU so this is 616) were on an experiential space flight that was bombarded by cosmic radiation, when a solar flare temporarily boosted the intensity of the ionizing radiation in Earth's Van Allen belt.
The effects mutated their bodies, changing their very beings and making them "mutants" without being mutants. They lack the Homo superior X-Gene, but their bodies have been mutated anyway.
This means that there isn't really a "normal" to go back to, they have been changed from one thing into another and that first thing no longer exists. It's like asking why you can't make toast back into bread - the original thing simply no longer exists as its nature has been changed.
A reality warper could do it, as they can change the nature of reality from one thing to another, or just grant him a new body, but Reed works in science and even for all of his ability there are still limitations. He *has* had some success over the years, but it has been mostly temporary.
So Reed may be smart, but he has his limits, when something is fundamentally changed it sometimes can't, or is very *very* hard to change back. | 198 |
Would abolishing the “Tampon Tax” make a difference to prices paid by consumers? | In the UK there is a debate as to whether the VAT tax of 5% (applicable to sanitary products) should be abolished, as it is seen as an unfair tax on women. Necessities are not taxed, but luxuries (under which tampons come) are.
Would the retail price paid by consumers actually change much on such an inelastic good? I’m assuming that retailers just employ a demand based pricing model for such goods, rather than cost plus pricing model.
What would the effect of this policy in terms of intended and unintended consequence? | 25 | > Would the retail price paid by consumers actually change much on such an inelastic good?
I expect that the demand is fairly inelastic. But, that doesn't mean that the change to the tax won't have an effect. Sellers, such as supermarkets are in competition with each other. If one of them doesn't pass on the reduction in tax then a competitor would. | 29 |
ELI5: What causes animals to die of old age? | Like why would an otherwise healthy being just die all the sudden? Is death of “natural causes” an actual thing or is it a catchall term for more specific things that just tend to happen as animals get older? | 36 | The cells in your body are constantly replicating themselves and then dying off. Your hair and nails are made of these dead cells (and that's why your hair and nails grow).
However, every time a cell replicates, it's not exactly perfect. There's a piece of the cell that acts almost like a timer. Every time the cell replicates, that timer piece gets a tiny, tiny bit shorter.
Have you ever photocopied something? You know that the photocopy isn't quite the same? There's always a slight be a degradation.
Well, that's what happens with a cell. So eventually, the degradation becomes so bad that the cell can't perform it's function correctly. That's why we get symptoms of old age as well.
Then eventually, the replicated cells just start to fail and that eventually leads to death. | 66 |
[Futurama] How does Earth's military go from being so hopelessly inept to being capable of blockading Omnicron Persei 8? | The Omnicronians are a society so adept in warfare that they consider planetary conquest something young Omnicronians achieve for a merit badge, and Earth's ineptness at combat has been demonstrated countless times -such as when the entire planet surrendered to a single Omnicronian child trying to earn his merit badge. But shortly after that, in retaliation the Earth forces effectively blockaded Omnicron Persei 8. How was such a proven inept force capable of blockading such a proven overwhelming force? | 56 | Earths home defense forces, headed by Captain Zapp Branigan, are hopelessly inept, and thus kept close to home. The expeditionary forces on the other hand are devastatingly effective. This is because president Nixon is far more interested in offense than defense, also because Zapp is in his good ole boys circle. | 91 |
ELI5: Why can I think about moving my body, but not move it? What's the difference between thinking about moving a body part, and actually moving it? | 156 | It's because the parts of your brain that processes though/cognition are separate from the part that controls movement (the motor cortex). Only when the two communicate are the appropriate messages sent to your muscles to force movement. As an interesting side note, there is evidence that simply thinking about performing an action can make you better at said action. | 53 |
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[The Matrix] When people connect to The Matrix, Don't they need an un-hung phone somewhere to appear out from as they need to answer a phone to jack-out? | 34 | They need a "hardline" connection, but the signal causing the Matrix representation of the phone to ring is enough to ride on in order for the initial connection, transfer of consciousness, and generation of a Residual Self Image.
The "ride out" requires picking up the phone as a way of engaging the carrier wave for pickup, but the "ride in" just needs the initial connection. This can be seen when the crew of the Nebudchadnezzar goes to visit the Oracle, and they all appear around the ringing phone, still in its cradle.
IOW, a particular landline phone ringing might be a signal that someone is about to appear from thin air to kick your ass. | 35 |
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[Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series] Why are people so insistent about calling Arthur some form of simian or monkey, when no one does the same to Trillian? | I've only read the first two books, but it irks me that Zaphod and others will only call Arthur out. Any help would be appreciated, thanks. | 21 | Despite being told in the third person, the HGttG series is about Arthur and his point of view. We see much less of Trillian's story (and if you keep reading, several books don't include her at all). For all we know, she was constantly called "some form of simian or monkey" until Zaphod and others got used to her. | 20 |
People who are receiving government financial assistance should not be allowed to purchase certain products. CMV | As a recent high school graduate this is something that confused me through out my entire school career. There was the free and reduced lunch program at my school and at least half of my grade was on it. The only way for a person to get on that list was to be in a family that had a low income. However i noticed that almost all of the people on the list came in every week with a brand new phone and brand new shoes. And Im not talking about a trac phone, they would come in with brand new Iphones each week because they broke their old one at a party they had over the weekend. And on the day of the Samsung Galaxy release at least 15 people came in the next day with it only to break it and get another one a few days later.
Same thing with shoes people would have a $300 pair of shoes each week and then wear them for 2 days never to wear them again, or if they got dirty then they would throw them away.
What i dont understand is how if you are living on a low income you can afford to buy such expensive items.
The same thing goes for adults. I was in the store one day and a woman who was in front of me was wearing about $800 worth of designer clothes, and about $2000 worth of jewelry. She then proceeded to pay for the food in her cart with food stamps.
I believe that if you have to use food stamps and rely on welfare you shouldn't be allowed to buy certain items. | 71 | Well, first of all, as others have noted, your examples are absurdly unrealistic. You're describing kids that are getting $500-600 of stuff each week. Even if somehow that weren't a ridiculous exaggeration, that's obviously not coming from welfare.
Now, putting aside your claimed observations, you should consider the kinds of actual situations that can easily arise.
- If you see someone with designer clothes in the grocery store paying with food stamps, consider the possibility that they used to have a very good job. You shouldn't expect them to sell all of their stuff as soon as they go on unemployment.
- If a low income kid shows up at school with a fancy new gadget or a new pair of shoes, consider that he's only on the reduced lunch program because *his* parents poor. If he's got an uncle or grandparent that gave him something nice for his birthday, good for him.
- Finally, people can still save a little bit even if they're poor if there's a luxury item they want. A kid whose parents are on welfare might still get a $10 allowance for doing chores. If he saves up for a year, he should go ahead and buy something cool. On that note, especially in high school, a kid might have a part time job. This isn't going to pull his family out of poverty, but it gives him some cash to throw around.
tl;dr Your story doesn't sound like it matches reality at all, but in general, there are plenty of perfectly acceptable reasons why people on welfare can still have some nice things, and you shouldn't be so quick to judge if you don't have the full story. | 99 |
ELI5:What prevents kick starter funds from being spent on things other than what they are meant for? | 439 | Nothing really. Kickstarter is not an investment scheme and doesn't give you any rights. There's also no guarantee the project will succeed.
Kickstarter is just about trying to help something you like get made. You shouldn't expect to get anything in return. | 418 |
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[Star Wars]Was there any forms of lightsaber combat invented by the Sith? | According to this holochrome, there are 7 forms of combat. Are there any more,possibly invented by the sith, untaught to padawan like me?
(http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lightsaber_combat) | 18 | While these are the seven generally-accepted formal lightsaber forms, that doesn't mean lightsaber users couldn't invent their own styles or variations. It's just that these special variations were generally never codified into an official form.
For example, Darth Sidious's lightsaber style was largely self-created. It combined elements from multiple forms, such as the acrobatics of Ataru, the aggression of Juyo, and the thrusts and stabs of Makashi. | 18 |
ELI5: Does an overweight person outlast a physically fit person in a starving to death scenario? | 31 | Short answer: probably.
Long answer: it depends on more than just their relative body fat percentages. But, starving to death is not very common outside the developing world and few people there are overweight to begin with.
The nearest common scenario is something like cancer. People who are very thin tend to die more frequently than people who are overweight. When you have a wasting disease, the more body reserves you have the better, and cancer treatment often interrupts your ability to feed yourself adequately. | 20 |
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[Monsterverse] What caused all the titans to become dormant for millennia? | 21 | Three major events. The first being a lack of solar radiation as the planet formed more completely wiping out most of the titans. Those that survived were wiped out by the Alpha Muto incursion with only a handful surviving their millennia long breeding cycles. Still some managed to survive to be driven into hibernation by the appearance of monster zero and it's devastating effects on the globe. Some are still hibernating as the planet cannot support them still and they will awaken once ambient radiation levels return to higher amounts or called up by an Alpha Titan species.
The vast majority of the titans did migrate into the hollow earth as the surface became uninhabitable to them. Only the weaker species have remained on the surface in dormancy hiding from Kongs, Godzillas, and the Mutos that all preyed on them. | 18 |
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[Lord of the rings] What happened to Saruman after the events of Two Towers? | Since he is one of the Maiar, did he expect to be regenerated like Gandalf was? Or did his defection to Sauron doom him to the same fate? | 41 | Saruman eventually escaped the tower, and made his way to, of all places, The Shire, with Wormtongue and some lackeys along for good measure.
They take over the shire for a while, until Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin return, raise the Hobbitry in Arms, and drive them out.
Ultimately, Saruman is killed by Wormtongue stabbing him, before Wormtongue is slain by Hobbit arrows.
Following this, his spirit was blown away on a gust of wind, and was denied entry into Arda, cursed to roam as a malicious, but ultimately harmless, spirit.
This is all available through the Red Book, called "The Return of the King," graciously transcribed from the original sources by Dr. Tolkien. | 91 |
CMV: If wages weren't stagnant, one family member could afford to stay home, take care of the kids. Reducing pressure on schools to provide childcare for their communities. Wage control backfired | This whole argument about whether or not we should go back to school and the morals of all of that aren’t really about school at all but it’s really just about work.
In 2004 Elizabeth Warren wrote ““The Two-Income Trap,” which was about the ways the rising incomes of households with two full-time employed adults belied the heavy costs of essentials like child care. Warren thought child care costs were among the reasons the American middle class was in an economic crisis.”
My point is that if wages actually scaled with production or GDP or inflation lots of issues would be improved. Primarily the whole “both parents need to work to afford a good life for kids” shtick.
If one person made enough money to provide for their families which was traditionally the case, then the other member could be the homemaker for lack of a better term. But the point is that they would be able to look after the children.
A society with these constraints would be better suited for the situation we are in now. There would be significantly less pressure for children to return to school so their parents can return to work.
Wage control backfired. These corps that conspired to stymie wages for decades in their pursuit of profits over people is making life difficult. If they had provided wages to keep society healthy then the machine go brrrrrrr. Now what?
Source disclaimer: I read this in the shower when I had this thought, not claiming this idea as my own > [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-it-took-so-long-for-politicians-to-treat-the-child-care-crisis-as-a-crisis/](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-it-took-so-long-for-politicians-to-treat-the-child-care-crisis-as-a-crisis/)
\*edit: Cost of living increases are a significant factor when wages are flat.
\*\*edit: when I mentioned wage control, I didn't mean from a government regulation perspective, just that corporations conspire to keep labor costs low. | 113 | I just want to point out: One of the major drivers of need for more income is the extreme rise in rents or prices of houses. Sadly no change in the way we organize income will change that, because this rise is caused by over-urbanization and simple lack of living space. | 19 |
What are the problems of Stoicism? | 134 | Classical Stoicism held that Nature was ultimately good, and that all actions in accordance with nature would bring about the good. Marcus Aurelius asserts in Book 2 of Meditations that “nothing natural is evil.”
Stoicism then runs into the same trap as some religions that put faith in an omnipotent and benevolent deity - how do you explain horrible events? Alasdair MacIntyre summarizes the Nature problem in Stoicism quite succinctly: “Nature is conceived of as an actively benevolent agent; nature is a legislator for our good” (After Virtue 217). | 89 |
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ELI5: why Asian porn is usually censored | 85 | Kinda the same reason American TV has such a fit over nipples-culture. Japanese law forbids showing of genitalia in any medium, and it's been kind of a taboo for much longer.. which led indirectly to the use of sea creatures as a stand-in for phalluses in Japanese erotic art. Having an eel or octopus wrapped around or sliding over a naked female body was a suitable sexy image for medieval Japanese nobles, and that tradition led to the tentacle porn we all know and love today. | 182 |
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ELI5: Why is Bruce Lee so famous in comparison to the thousands of other top martial artists before and after him? | 106 | Uh, well he was not just a martial artist. He was a movie star, which garners a whole lot more fame and fortune than martial arts alone. Besides being a legendary martial artist we was a great actor and a genius of directing and performing action scenes in movies. He partially or fully directed the action scenes of many of the movies he starred in.
His movies were also very good and had totally badass fights. They were kind of a sweet spot of kung fu movies that really appealed to American audiences in the 70s. They had a lot of style and created a lot of the tropes we see in martial arts films. | 87 |
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If I drop LSD into an aquarium, will the fish be affected in any way? | 19 | I think you'd need quite a bit when diluted in a fish tank. I'll let the real scientists calculate that. If the concentration was high enough, the LSD will impact the behavior of the fish though -- not sure in which way. I've dosed crayfish with LSD before--they would become aggressive at low doses, and get "locked" in an aggressive stance at higher doses. | 26 |
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CMV:I think that there is sufficient justification that reality is deterministic and that free will (in the philosophical libertarian sense) is false. | Now this is a CMV where I would *dearly* love to change my view on this, but I think that there is no reasonable way to have 'true free will'.
What do I mean by free will?
Well, I mean the existence of original thought that is bound to the will of the individual. When a person does an evil act or a good act, they are taking advantage of their intellect and shaping their reality in accordance with their will - they choose to impart an evil act. What happened up and until that act is irrelevant, because in that moment the person chooses to become good.
I think that this is an illusion.
Determinism merely states that every micro-instance has an antecedent. We are all shaped from a sub-quantum level of micro instances cascading upwards from instant to instant that shapes our fundamental essence. From every observable action that we take, it is the background of the person that shaped that action 'good' or 'evil' based on the subjective morality of every individual person around them.
To wit - if every single background event from a persons conception all the way up to their current state, with every decision being met, it would be possible with near perfect certainty to predict their next move. You could argue that there is a slight possibility of the entire universe (ie reality) completely fracturing in an unknowable way, but the only rational explanation for that is that there is an outside force - which is, i suppose the argument for the existence of god.
Given that we have no evidence to suggest that this could be the case, the only rational and logical explanation is that reality is deterministic.
There is, undestandably, a group of philosophers calling themselves compatiblists who argue for free will to logically be preceded by determinism, because even if we are able to draw a logical line from existence of the universe to now, we are unable to use that to predict the future, which exists as choice in the mind of the person. I would call that soft determinism; because the part where compatiblism falls down for me is that they don't take into account the persons free choice as a consequence of their determinism.
Tl;DR - reality is deterministic. Free will is an illusion.
Please hit me with your hardest philosophical take downs, i am 100% eager to hear them. | 37 | > if every single background event from a persons conception all the way up to their current state, with every decision being met, it would be possible with near perfect certainty to predict their next move.
I think you are wrong on this one. Even at the smallest level we can currently understand (sub-atomic level), we have absolutly no way of knowing what happens, and what will happens.
Look at chaos theory, and quantum phisics to know more, but basically, randomness is something much more present than what you can think.
And if a lots of things are random, even at the smaller level, how can anything be absolutly determined by previous knowledge, given that something random will interact with it ?
So, whatever free will is a thing or not, at least determinism isn't an absolute answer either. | 16 |
ELI5: How are glitches/exploits/secrets found in video games, surely people don't spend hours and hours trying to find them with only a small chance there's actually something to find? | 18 | That’s exactly how they are found, that and dumb luck.
The larger / more game breaking ones are usually found in the QA process which is literally doing repetitive motions over and over and over. A few test cases might be something simple like
Jump over the box 50 times. Or there might be jump over the box 50 times while unsheathing your weapon mid air and spinning your camera around.
| 30 |
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Having a bit of a problem with feminist epistemology (not what you think) | Recently I picked up "Feminist Epistemology" aggregated by by Alcoff and Potter. It's an interesting discussion and I'm always willing to look at something that questions my worldview.
I'm kind of lost on what article within it though. In Helen Longino's essay "Subjects, Power and knowledge" she goes at such a length to say something that it gets a bit convoluted.
>One way to articulate the distinctions I am urging is to treat analysis of the context of discovery as a primarily descriptive process of how hypotheses are generated and to treat analysis in the context of justification as involving the normative or prescriptive analysis regarding the appropriate criteria for the acceptance of hypotheses.
Is she suggesting a more holistic approach to forming a hypothesis? Is she perhaps suggesting much more weight in the qualitative data than of the quantitative?
Please help. I feel a bit overwhelmed. | 22 | Longino is arguing that there is a big difference between the "context of discovery"--what scientists do in the lab and the "context of justification" what scientists write about what they did in the lab (journal articles, etc). This part of a broader feminist critique of traditional philosophy of science, specifically normative theories about what makes good science good science. Such normative theories (e.g. logical positivism, falsification) are built on what happens in the regime of justification. That is, scientists write that they have a hypothesis that they did such and such to test it and it produced such and such results. But if you ask any scientist about how well the write-up reflects what actually happened in the lab, they laugh. The lab is a messy, messy place and the context of justification pretends that its clean. The end of all this is that Longino and others are arguing that philosophies of science built on the context of justification are built on fictionalized accounts of how science happens and, as such, not appropriate to the reality of scientific practice.
And this is only the beginning. If all context of justification is fictionalized then it doesn't make any sense to talk about the "accuracy" of findings. And if it doesn't make any sense to talk about the accuracy of findings, then it doesn't make any sense to develop a normative philosophy of science based on accuracy. | 12 |
ELI5: What is a derivative? Why are they important? | In Calculus with a teacher who hasn’t been able to explain the basic concept on a derivative. The internet has given me only complex answers and they haven’t helped me. Can you help? | 32 | In algebra you learned to calculate the slope of a straight line. y = mx + b, right? m is the slope.
But what about a curved line? Then the slope isn't constant. It changes: it's higher when the line is steeper, and lower when the line is flatter. So instead of a single number, the slope is a function of x. At any given x, your line has a certain y value, and a certain slope.
Calculus is the set of math tools that allow you to find the slope function from the original function, or the original function from the slope function.
The derivative is finding the slope function. For example the derivative of y=x^2 is y'=2x. That means a basic parabola has a slope of 2x.
Later you will learn about integrals, which are the opposite: they allow you to reverse the derivative, finding the original function from the slope function. | 37 |
[MCU/Iron Man 3] How did Stark pay at the hardware store? | He's believed to be dead (and he's obviously trying not to be recognized, with the hoodie and sunglasses), so his credit cards probably wouldn't work. And considering he had to leave in a hurry from what was left of his house on Malibu Point, he likely didn't think to grab any cash, and he seems like he's not the kind of person to carry much with him; he probably uses credit everywhere. So how did he purchase all that stuff to build things before he went to the Mandarin's mansion?
EDIT: And how did he get a hotel room? | 192 | In addition to his personal credit cards, Tony probably also has some business credit cards for Stark Industries that would still work fine.
It's possible that he also carries some other forms of payment for when he doesn't want to be recognized or tracked. | 239 |
ELI5 - Why do clones (usually?) die quickly. | 140 | Its pretty damn hard to explain like your five, but here we go.
Clones are made from young to adult organisms. Since we are not giving birth, but copying them, that means the clones cells are the same age as the original being. Meaning it will die earlier in life because it has the same amount of time left as the original organism.
If you want the scientific answer(probably not, seeing as you are on ELI5, but fuck it.)It has to do with telomeres. Every time a cell in your body divides, it snips off a part of DNA, almost always a useless pair of information. Telomeres protect this from happening but eventually they cease to work or even be present on a chromosome. During this time, cell division begins to cut off a part of the DNA sequence that helps assist in the functioning of an organ or hair growth. This is essentially how aging is. The older you get, the less functioning cells you have.
If a clone is made from a 21 year-old man, the cells in the clone would have chromosomes as if they split and recombined for 21 years. Making the cells in the clone the same age as the cells in the original.
EDIT: Reworded and spelling | 107 |
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[Star Wars] How strong were Plo-Koon and Ki-Adi-Mundi? | Not as strong as Yoda, Sidious, Windu, or Dooku I think.
But compared to; for example Obi-Wan, Anakin, or Maul? | 56 | Plo-Koon was supposedly one of the *finest* swordsmen the Order had ever produced and ontop of that extremely humble and wise, even for a Jedi. One of Qui-Gon's closest friends and allies (even mentor? Can't remember).
Even **Darth Maul** credited him as *"one of the most powerful duelists in the Galaxy"* even though he actually never faced him. He was also known to be of of the few Jedis to *ever* defeat **Grand Master Yoda** in a duel.
He was a master of the form Shien (fifth?) which countered Ataru to a degree (while not as good as the variant Djem so), so **I absolutely believe he could take on Anakin in a straight fight.**
So he was a pretty fucking big deal, who died in a spaceship turkey shoot because his clones weren't manly enough to face him directly.
Edit: Formatting | 58 |
What would Nietzsche think about modern day medicine and drugs? (Everything from ibuprofen, to meds for bipolar/schizophrenia, to marijuana, to the "Limitless" movie drug... how do these substances contribute to the Übermensch? | Last semester in Ethics I asked my philosophy professor what Nietzsche would have thought about the drug in the movie "Limitless," you know, the one where the guy gets a drug that makes him amazing at all this stuff, super smart / motivated, etc. She said she honestly wasn't sure, because on one hand, it's man made, a "creation," but also could help develop the Übermensch.
So this semester, I have bioethics with the same professor, and I decided for my extra credit project to really analyze this question I asked a while ago. Here's some ideas I have, but please correct me where I'm wrong, and feel free to offer opinions, passages, quotes, etc. I really want to go all out on this. I've only read The Gay Science and half of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
* I know Nietzsche used some type of opiate to get rid of the incredible pains (stomach issues/headaches...), so I'm *assuming* Nietzsche would have been okay with taking medicine that helped cure illness. I also know he took some type of sleeping drug that helped him sleep.
* I know he was clearly against alcohol from his famous quote... right? Or was he just against the abuse of alcohol when it came to avoid suffering?
* What the hell would he think of drugs that better you? Like steroids, the Limitless movie drug, speed (in cases like Jack Kerouac abusing benzadrine to write his famous novel in two weeks)...? | 18 | Neitzsche seems more concerned with people’s motivations than with their overt behavior. Especially their unconscious motivations. For instance, he negatively evaluates Christian morality on the grounds that it is an expression of deep-seated cruelty, self-hatred, and inappropriate pity.
Given this, Nietzsche would likely be interested in why people are taking these drugs and whether the motivations are healthy or rather symptoms of decline. This would probably differ in a lot of individual cases. | 14 |
[Batman] Would Batman's no-kill rule been different had his parents been tortured to death? | Say similar to how Dick got tortured by Joker, Batman had to witness his parents get the same treatment. But before the killer could finish him off, the cops show up and rescue Bruce as the killer is cuffed away. Waynes are pronounced dead.
Does this change Bruce's ideologies as Batman? Does Batman now excessively torture his enemies? Maybe as Bruce Wayne he hires the most sadistic doctors to run Arkham and then as Batman he sends his rogue gallery there to get tortured endlessly?
And heck, maybe he kills the Joker after he finds Dick Grayson dead.
Basically, does the prolonged and excruciating death of the Wayne's change how Batman would deal with criminals? | 23 | Batman's no killing rule ultimately comes from a desire to not be as bad as the man who killed his parents. It's more a trauma response then a moral code in the conventional sense.
So if anything, it's the opposite- the more sadistic Joe Chill was, the higher standards batman has to hit to not be like him. A batman who's parents were tortured to death might well be an outright pacifist, unwilling to cause pain and trying to talk his villains out of it. To him, torture is the thing the Evil Man Who Took His Parents did, just like killing is to canon bruce, and he'll go to the same extreme lengths to avoid it. | 27 |
ELI5: If we die in space will our body still decompose or will it float around relativly uncomposed? | As in title, if you get detached from your ship in your suit and just keep floating away into nothingness, once you die will your body decompose (maybe from the bacteria that is naturally in the body) or will it stay relativly "untouched" and just float around? | 35 | Bacteria gets killed by the cold. There’s nothing to decompose you, but, freed of a suit (and perhaps regardless anyway) half of you is frizzling with pure solar energy cooking you up nicely, while the lee side freezes in the cold emptiness of space.
I imagine micro abrasion from flying sand particles would eventually wear you down and in time I’m pretty sure you’d wind up getting sucked into a gravity well, perhaps eventually descending to the surface of whatever body that is, most likely being dealt with by whatever atmosphere exists there. | 41 |
ELI5: why can't we produce synthetic gasoline ? | We are able to make complex molecules in labs, so what's the reason for this ?
Edit : I know it wouldn't be a leap toward ecology, just wondering if it has been done and how. There is surely a powerful lobby which could benefit from such a technology. | 66 | In addition to the cost involved, it's important to remember that gasoline is a molecule that can be burned to release energy. In order to create that molecule you have to put an equal amount of energy into it. That energy is stored in the form of chemical bonds. So burning the fuel breaks up the bonds and releases energy. But to create the fuel, you would have to put those bonds together, which means putting energy into it. If it's not biofuel then that energy would have to come from some other conventional source. Since our technology is not flawless, creating the conventional source of energy results in a net loss. Meaning that more energy is put into a power plant than comes out.
So to create gasoline with a conventional power plant we would have net energy loss. | 71 |
I want to teach at a liberal arts college. How much does prestige of grad school matter? | I'm getting my PhD in chemistry, and I hope to become a professor at a liberal arts college. I have been accepted to three schools. One is top tier, one is mid tier, and one is bottom tier. (All three are RU/VH.) I'm having a hard time with the decision, and I need some insight.
- I want to be close to family:
Bottom tier school is 30 minutes away. It's in my home state. I would be happy to teach at some of the schools in my home state.
- Research is not the most important thing in my life:
I am not a workaholic. I will not stay awake thinking about my work until the wee hours in the morning. The top tier school is a pressure cooker, and I'm more likely to have mental health issues if I go there. Mid tier is slightly more laid back, but it's still grad school. 5th year grad students at the bottom tier school said that 40-50 hours a week is the norm. It is a very relaxed department.
- I want to like the research at least a little:
Top school is amazing. Everything is awesome. Funding and resources are not even a little bit of an issue.
Mid school has cool stuff happening. I would be happy doing that work.
Bottom tier school has only one professor I would want to work for, and even that research wasn't that exciting to me.
**tl;dr** I would go to a bottom tier school if I could be guaranteed the job I want at a liberal arts college. Leaving my family makes me sad, but I feel I may have no choice for the sake of my career.
Any words of wisdom?
**Edit:** I chose the top tier school. It was the right decision. | 16 | Like any tenure-track position, jobs at teaching-focused liberal arts schools are fiercely competitive. You seem to be under the impression that you can lowball grad school and slide into a teaching position. That isn't going to happen: if you can't publish, you won't get a job. So, you need to be thinking very seriously about what your publishing prospects look like at the mid- and bottom-tier programs. If you lack resources or talented advisors at either school, it's not an option.
You will also need teaching experience in grad school, so consider which schools would allow you to TA and (ideally) be the instructor of record of a course at some point. | 33 |
How did it come that japanese economy is smaller than it was 5 and 25 years ago and it seems noone cares and does anything? | I looked for the dynamics of Japanese nominal GDP. It was $4,9 trillion in 1994, and now it's 4,8$ trillion, not speaking about 6,2$ trillion in 2012. Though, throughout the last 25 years the trend seems linear and horizontal, because it fluctuates a lot. This year it grew by 600 billion and after that it fell by 700. How Japanese and everyone kinda okay with that and doesn't pay much attention? I mean their economy is smaller than it was more than 20 years ago and they don't seem accomplishing much in tackling that.
Don't the Japanese react? Change policy? Elect other party and government? Social protests? Though it's only nominal GDP, and PPP grows, I guess it's really a sign that not only indicates current situation but also shows that there's going to be something worse in the long term, if they don't solve it.
...or maybe Japan has reached it's slowly growing potential GDP and just fluctuates around it? | 16 | You should not be using nominal GDP in dollars in your comparison, as the exchange rate fluctuations with respect to the dollar and inflation will have disproportionate effects on the numbers you quote. Importantly, Japan experienced deflation throughout the 90s and 2000s and even in the early 10s, making the comparison flawed since a lower nominal GDP would not necessarily mean a smaller economy but rather one in which things get nominally cheaper.
When you look at real values in local currency (chained 2011 yen), Japan’s GDP was 425 trillion yen in 1994, 511 trillion yen in 2014 and 536 trillion yen in 2019, indicating positive, if mild, growth. In fact, Japan has experienced positive real growth rates pretty much every year since the 80s, except for the years of the Asian Financial Crisis (1998-1999) and the Great Financial Crisis (2008-2010). | 10 |
[Death Note] Inspired by a previous post, what can death note do if a person doesn't have a name like cavemen or really uncivilized indigenious tribe people? | 109 | Well, indigenous tribes often have ways of talking to one another so they would have names but just not in a common language. Cavemen would likely use whatever name the book came up with. Shinigami Eyes show someone’s name regardless of if they have a conventional one | 109 |
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[MCU] In AoU Captain America said they couldn't leave a single person left to die on Sokovia. In Civil War he says you can't save everyone. What changed his attitude between these events? | 99 | You can't "leave" a single person to die. You try your best, save everyone you can. That's why, in the First Avenger, Cap goes to save the captured soldiers. Sure he might not save everyone, but he's going to try.
Things like Sokovia show him that not everyone can be saved. Huge, extinction level events can happen, and you can't save everyone. But so long as Cap is still alive, he'll keep trying.
> This job... we try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody. But if we can't find a way to live with that, next time... maybe nobody gets saved.
You can't save everybody. But if you stop trying, everybody dies. You have to *try*. No one gets left behind on purpose. | 166 |
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[DBZ] When Goku and Vegeta removed MajinBuu from Super Buu why did he revert to Kid Buu and not Evil Buu? | From what I remember Kid Buu became Majin Buu after absorbing Grand Supreme Kai. But that had occurred so long ago the process was irreversible. So when Majin Buu got rid of his evil energy he formed Evil Buu and not Kid Buu. And to form Super Buu; Evil Buu absorbed Majin Buu. So I mean logically when they removed Majin Buu from Super Buu he should have gone back to Evil Buu rather than Kid Buu. | 40 | Evil Buu was comprised of a portion of the original's power without the grand supreme Kai's influence. He was Buu but not enough Buu to form Kid Buu. When Goku and King Vegeta removed Fat Buu, evil Buu had a higher concentration of the original's power and became Kid Buu.
This raises an interesting side question, How much more powerful was the original Buu than Kid Buu? Considering that Fat Buu still had some of his power during the final battle: | 22 |
ELI5:What Einstein meant when he said, "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." | 132 | He was referencing the idea that it is impossible to prove that anything exists other than what's in your mind. So, reality can be viewed as only what is in your mind - which can be viewed as an illusion. | 70 |
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ELI5 Why is there five different oceans if it is a single big water body? | First of all, i have tried finding answers on internet and ELI5 too using google. But either everyone is talking about measuring sea levels and the acceptance of fifth ocean or i am not using correct keywords.
**My question is** if ocean is a single water body, then why it is divided into 5. What's the basis of division? Does two different seas have difference in water? Because i have seen a photo some years ago about 2 Ocean meeting but not dissolving. Is that thing real?
Edit: THANKYOU ALL OF YOU FOR YOUR ANSWERS | 46 | The earth is a big place and there's a whole lot of water on it. The oceans are actually quite different from each other despite all being connected. The weather patterns, plants, animals, and chemical properties all vary significantly just like how it does on land. The Indian ocean is subjected to the Asian monsoon weather patterns for example which is a whole lot different than what you'd expect in the Artic ocean. The artic will also have a different salinity due to the fresh water ice that is melting.
It's no different than how land masses can have different biomes over distances too. The US has deserts, mountains, prairies, forests, swamp, etc but it's all one land mass. Just cus it's connected doesn't mean it can't vary enough to warrant a different name. | 94 |
Why is the mRNA vaccine more expensive than the "classic" vaccines? | My understanding of the process was, that not only the mRNA vaccines are faster to develop, but also easier to scale up in the production. But the prices are between ~20 and ~40 for the mRNA and the AstraZeneca around 4. Why is that so?
Is it only because the production process is new and the factories have to create new production lines for it? | 504 | New production lines, paying for R&D, the storage requires colder, more expensive to buy and operate freezers, and therefore more expensive shipping too.
There's also a level of risk present that many other vaccines don't necessarily face that could also factor into pricing. | 330 |
Dumb question, but if water is a bad conductor of electricity, then why do hair dryers and other bathroom appliances have warnings about not using them in water? | I learned from chemistry class two years ago that water isn't a good conductor of electricity due to its inability to create ions. With that in mind, where is the danger (besides the ones obviously depicted on warnings) in water making contact with bathroom appliances? Do the metal parts and wiring pose a bigger threat, perhaps?
(I'll delete this question if it's too rudimentary, but the thought of this popped into my head recently and I don't quite recall my chemistry too well) | 19 | Pure water is not a good conductor of electricity, but most of the water you have in a bathroom is not pure, and those impurities are mostly ionic in nature, making it a much better conductor.
Even then, it's not a very good conductor, but it is still a much better conductor than air, and it helps bridge the gap between the much more conductive inside of your body and the isolating barrier that is the surface of your skin. Water is not a good conductor, but it's _good enough_ to be dangerous | 40 |
Does human vision have a better horizontal resolution than vertical resolution? | Does having eyes in a horizontal line result in better horizontal resolution in humans or is it same in both horizontal and vertical directions? Also, what is the aspect ratio of human vision? Is circular, elliptical or something completely different?
I have recently studied few video coding standards and wondered why we have more resolution in horizontal than vertical in most standards. | 228 | Simple answer: each eye covers an area taller than it is wide, but combining the two human binocular vision is 200⁰ wide and 135⁰ high.
Complex answer:
There's not that much difference in the up/down vs the left/right distribution of photoreceptors, but most of your "resolution" doesn't really come from them in a practical sense.
Your visual perception isn't really light entering your eye. You perceive a model of the world that exists in your visual cortex, this creates an imagination of the outside world dreamt by flesh and guided by sensory input and visual memory; it holds an internal perceptual "canvas" that is "painted" by your eye glancing at parts of the scene.
The high resolution part of the eye is the macula at the centre of your vision, it sees an area about the size of a large coin at arms length, and as you look around it paints in most of the detail and colour into your imagined world. Given enough light and 20/20 vision, its practical resolution is roughly that of 8k cinema screen, but it's 360p and blurred within a few degrees.
Human eyes constantly dart about to keep the canvas fresh, and like a pigeon jerking its head about you're actually blind during these "saccades". The movements are driven by the visual attention system, which gives the burning feeling that something must be looked at, and that is in part driven by the outer areas of the eye that detect movement. Force your eye to keep still for too long and the canvas will gradually descend into a dreamlike chaos; visual memory is transient and depends on constant change. Hallucinogenic drugs massively reduce this time window, if you're into that sort of thing.
So while eye resolution and field of view is part of the picture, eye movements and visual memory drive most of what you actually perceive. The canvas itself still seems wider than it is tall unless you shut one eye, but its characteristics are that of a window into a subjective, imagined 3D dream of the world, rather than being based solely on eye hardware. | 343 |
[Batman in general] Why does Batman leaves his mouth and nose exposed and without make up even though one of the main objectives of his costume is to give the illusion he's a monster bat and not human? | Even if he needs to show he's human underneath when rescuing civilians or talking with cops or making out with Catwoman or whatever; surely the genius billionaire could have added a mechanism to remove parts of a full face mask to reveal what's underneath.
And on top of the image concerns; there's also the fact he is often targeted with melee attacks and gas based weapons; both of which are significantly more effective against exposed mouth and nose. | 39 | He’s not actually trying to trick people into thinking he’s a giant bat monster, if he was then he’d definitely opt for a more anatomically bat-like cowl. Probably with fangs and other creepy imagery. He instead is opting for a spooky silhouette that creeps criminals out when he stands in the shadows or they catch glimpses of him as he attacks.
Also he does sometimes carry a gas mask for specific situations but it would probably hinder his normal breathing to wear at all times. | 44 |
ELI5: Why people sell to the pawn stars when the item is way more valuable than the money they are getting. | Can't the sellers just sell to auction houses like the pawn stars? They're being ripped off hundreds of dollars and they act like its a norm. Can't they sell to antique stores, it just seems so silly how much money they are getting when the actual value is way higher. | 20 | Most pawn shops don't operate like Hardcore Pawn or Pawn Stars. Pawn stores generally don't buy items. They pawn.
You go to the pawn store and give them your guitar/diamond ring/gun/whatever and sign the paper work. They give you money. You have X amount of time to pay that money back. If you pay it back, you get your item back. If you don't, they keep it and sell the object.
The shows you see are pretty much lies. Real pawn shops are miserable places where peoples broken dreams are on sale. | 25 |
ELI5: String theory | It has been a year since the last post. Let's have some new perspectives! | 154 | The illustrations of strings and such that you'll see if you google this subject are almost irrelevant in an explanation of string theory. In physics at the moment, we have two big theories which both produce very accurate experimental data: quantum theory and general relativity.
Quantum deals with very small stuff (sub-atomic level particles), and general relativity deals with space-time and gravity.
Scientists are searching for a Theory of Everything, which would either make quantum and relativity theories coherent with each other, OR it will completely supersede both of those theories.
In quantum theory, the smallest 'things' are elementary particles (including the old favourites - electrons, photons, bosons, and several more). String theory suggests that those elementary particles are made up of *strings*, so called strings because they have only 1 dimension.
Combinations of these strings allow us to build up our usual three spatial dimensions, plus several more. The maths involved has thus far been consistent, and compatible with our understanding of the universe at large. However, we'll see in the future whether string theory can produce accurate experimental results. Due to the scale involved, experiments involving strings are very difficult to put together! | 49 |
[Spider-man homecoming] If Stark is pro-registration, why doesn't he have Peter registered? | 31 | Everyone here is missing the point of Stark being "Pro-Registration." He isn't. He really, *really* isn't. He is a massive fan of the idea of oversight over the Avengers, preferably on the scale of what SHIELD used to be or the World Council or the UN still is, but he definitely thinks that the Accords are *not the way to go.*
What they are is the first step there. They aren't the be-all, end-all, they're a step in the path to be discarded the *moment* they're no longer needed. Stark thinks in terms of the future, and plans, not in terms of the here and now. If they ignored UN mandate with the Accords, there'd be no opportunity to sign an edited, looser, *actually effective* version later on. Peter doesn't need to sign because, frankly, he's not relevant to the plan yet. Sure, later on, (when he's no longer a minor) he'll sign an updated version, but why bother when he's not famous, not well known, not under international scrutiny, and not under constant threat of international/inter dimensional threat?
The kid works out of Brooklyn and is basically internationally irrelevant (or so Stark's lawyers would have you believe if ever questioned). The Accords are basically a first draft of a first draft. Combined... Why would he *ever* have the kid sign them? | 53 |
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Baby birds are helpless and mostly drably coloured to blend in. However, chicks and ducklings are walking yellow highlighters. Is there some advantage to this colouration? | 154 | It has more to do with how they're raised. Ducks and chicks will often follow their mother at a young age, and being a bright color makes it easier for their mother to find them. Wild birds, especially those that fly, usually stay in their nest until they're old enough to be on their own. Plus, yellow colors appear more often in domesticated birds. Wild chicks, especially ducks, are more drab colored. | 123 |
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ELI5: What would happen if all of the countries decided to forgive all outstanding debts with other countries? | I asked my government teacher, and she said that she had no idea. Any Economics people out there willing to share? | 377 | Then the countries that owe more soverign (national government) debt than they are owed would have more money to spend, and those that owe less than they are owed would be screwed.
It's worth noting that **a lot** of government debt isn't owned by governments. | 94 |
If plants are constantly exposed to the sun, why don't they develop cancer? | Is there something special about plant cells that shields them radiation that is harmful to humans? It it possible for a plant to "develop cancer" or any sort of harmful mutation? | 213 | Plants do develop cancer. But their lack of a circulatory system makes cancer not very harmful to plants. Note that, in humans, cancer is usually only deadly when it is able to spread through the bloodstream and start growing in many sensitive areas of the body at once (such as the brain). In plants, cancer just manifests as a local growth. | 330 |
If neo-nazis follow nazism as an ideology and see nazists as heroes, why do they deny the Holocaust? | 19 | They want to dress up the idea of Nazism to make it more publicly palatable. Regardless of your views, murdering six million people in cold blood is a hard sell to people and even hardcore neo-Nazis buy into this idea as a way of insulating themselves against how scary the history really was. | 23 |
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ELI5: Why does water make things slippery, but licking my finger helps me pull out a cigarette or turn a page? | 16 | Water also has a trait called adhesion, which makes it clingy. This is why you can shake your hands really hard after washing them and they'll still be wet. Water sticks to paper and to your finger, *voilà!* cigarette. | 10 |
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[Batman Vs Superman] If Batman can stand up to Superman in a fair fight (using a specialized suit) isn't his whole argument that Superman is to dangerous to live obviously stupid and hypocritical? | 422 | Not really. It's not as if Wayne just builds a SupeBuster armor and whoops up on Kal-El. In *The Dark Knight* books Wayne has to arrange a master plan around hugely circumstantial conditions that only *have a slim chance* of putting Superman at a critical disadvantage and would only work because Superman had become so confident in his power to overcome any human opponent. Bruce has *one chance* to use multiple layers of surprise and misdirection to get the job done, and if he misses the mark Supes would *actually be careful* in the future and pretty much reduce his chances of being bushwhacked to nil.
Edit: To clarify; Wayne *does* build a suit of SupeBuster armor, it's just not for beating Superman, its to *keep Wayne alive long enough to distract Superman from what's actually going down...* | 454 |
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[Matrix] Why do people resist the Matrix? It seem pretty chill in there and reality is screwed anyways. Whats the point? | 46 | For most people it's just that you that something is kinda wrong. The world seems weird and you just keep looking for why. For most that's as far as it goes, just a weird feeling you never quite lose, but for a very few it goes further.
Luck, certain skills or chance encounter means that you get contacted by attractive people who tell you that there is a secret and the world is hiding it from you. They say you're special and offer you the chance to learn the secret. It's appealing to believe them, to follow them, to look for more information.
For a few poor disillusioned souls they go through with a deal they can't possibly understand and wake up in a nightmare world, where humanity is a fragment of its past and they are a tiny worthless cog in a new human world. One much shitter than the one they left.
They didn't mean to leave, they didn't know what they were giving up, but then it's too late and they either have to accept it, try for a job on a ship to get a few moments back in the world they left, or kill themselves.
People don't know they're resisting the Matrix, they just are going on their instinct that something is weird in the world and for a very, very few they get to see a different world and most likely hate it.
That's what you get for resisting and it's an important lesson. You're better off ignoring those feelings, put them away as part of the human condition and go have a slice of pizza. It's not so bad in here and while you could keep looking, what's the point? Go read a book, watch a play, eat an apple, feel good? Then don't worry about it, you're fine where you are. | 58 |
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Is there a philosophical term for holding symbols higher than the ideas those symbols represent? | Some examples: In the collective american consciousness, the flag represents freedom, liberty, etc. but when someone does something involving the flag that people don’t like (Kapernick) they seem disregard the idea that he has the freedom to do what he’s doing. Another example: The Bible and Cross represent Christian beliefs in the teaching of Jesus, but many simply value the symbols without actually learning what the teachings of Jesus were. I guess there’s a similarity between this and the shadows in Plato’s cave, but I can’t think of a term for it. | 151 | In semiotics, there's a concept of the 'floating signifier,' which is a kind of signifier that lacks a strict signified, so can refer to any number of different things by different people and/or nothing at all.
I think that's what you might be looking for. | 128 |
ELI5: How can space bend? or have curvature? | Where is coming from: I have a stress ball in my hand... I was squeezing it...then I started thinking about space while watching the stress ball now I'm confused as hell. I don't have sufficient knowledge to frame the question succinctly so I will explain.
If space can bend i.e.is "pliable", does this mean it exists "within" something else? What does it bend into?
If a two-dimensional "space" object can only "bend" by moving through a three- dimensional space (like bending a piece of paper?), does this mean that a three- dimensional space can only "bend" through the fourth or fifth dimension?
Please ELI5 so I can get back to work.
| 48 | Whether or not our universe exists within something else is unknown at this time, and likely will not be known given our current understanding of physics, simply put, the boundary is accelerating away from us too fast for us to ever catch it.
What is often meant with "bending" of space time is how gravity distorts the path of objects.
Imagine, for example, rolling a marble across a perfectly flat friction-less surface. If no one else touches the marble, we can expect that it will move in a straight line forever.
When space-time is bent, it changes the outside perspective of what that straight line is. So if we have a massive object (a planet / star / black hole / galaxy / someone's mom), it bends space-time due to it's gravity. An often used analogy is the bowling ball on a trampoline. If you roll that same marble across a bent surface, you're still imparting the same energy on the marble, but from your perspective, it does not move in a straight line.
Now, with a trampoline, we see that the surface has a slope, but empty space cannot have a slope as it's not actually made of anything. Thus we say that space-time is bent, as forces unseen are acting on the marble and altering it's path. It is often said that gravity is not a force (such as hitting an object with another object, or magnetism, etc.), but a consequence of mass existing in an uneven distribution across the universe.
[Physicists; I've deliberately simplified a few things to make it a bit easier to understand in ELI5 style, be kind.] | 27 |
ELI5: Why are bullet trains shaped like a rounded bullet? Shouldn’t a sharp tip like a spearhead make it more streamlined? | 54 | Aerodynamics can get quite odd at high speeds. A needle-sharp point isn't always the most efficient shape. There are also important concerns other than top speed and efficiency, like noise and overall length. Bullet trains need to be quiet, because they pass through a lot of populated areas. Sharp points and steep angles can increase wind noise. Trains also have a maximum non-articulated length that dictates how long any single car can be and still be able to make the turns in the track. The pointier the nose is the less internal volume is left over for all the stuff that needs too be in a locomotive. | 111 |
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ELI5: How can polls be representative if only the kinds of people willing to talk to pollsters respond? | I'm pretty sure if I got a call asking me to participate in a poll or survey, I'd just hang up. My friends and family say the same. | 116 | A good poll accounts for this--there is data available on the kinds of people that are likely to respond to polls, and the pollster should weight the results to be more representative of the population polled. For example, many polls undersample young people, so giving more weight to the young people who did respond (considering their proportion of the population) corrects this bias.
This is one reason that it is very important to check a poll's methodology before considering the results. A poll that is poorly conducted is worthless. Since it is political polling season, it is worth noting that even the best of polls are bad indicators of how people will vote--people say one thing, but when they are in the voting booth it is often quite something else. Hence why so many in the Republican field are hoping for a primary win despite polling low. | 44 |
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