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ELI5: Why are there so many updates for Flash and why do almost all plug-ins suddenly stop working if I don't immediately install every new update? | 277 | It has to be constantly updated due to new demands or new potential security issues.
Flash is a life-line for a lot of things. Without an updated version it won't function. More than likely, they disable previous versions of Flash so they can make sure you have the most correct and current version. | 92 |
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[Dresden Files] How strong is this universe's magic? | I just got to changes and I am kind of curious how strong this universe's magic is compared to others. Can you recommend me some cool magic books? | 60 | *Very*. But it depends on who, or what, is using it.
Dresden himself is shown to grow throughout the books. Early on, a few fireballs would exhaust him. In later books, he's throwing a few fireballs with ease to start with. The island of Demonreach itself is horrifically powerful, as it was made by Merlin. Merlin, Merlin. Although it is on a leyline, so that helps. But it's a prison that holds incalculable prisoners, all of which are immensely powerful creatures of all planes of existence. It's not wonder the White Council is worried that Harry is in charge of it, the reckless scamp.
Random magic users can throw around enough juice that they can kill a person entirely on accident, and a **lot** of people, if done on purpose. There's even rules and provisions against it, along with explicit rules against time travel, which implies that any accomplished wizard could do it no problem so they had to implement a rule telling them not to. Hell, they had to create the Blackstaff to go after wizards of unchecked power and stop them before they do something that even magic can't undo.
There's also the fey and such. They hold some damn near god level power, but they're bound by their purposes and rules, thankfully. Then there are *actual* gods, like Odin/Santa.
The short answer, at least when it comes to mortals, is that the magic is a strong as you've made it. If you're gifted and you studied, you're pretty powerful. Preparation and knowledge is also literally power in Dresden Files, so knowing what you're fighting is half the battle. Magic is like nature itself. You can shape it and use it to your advantage, or let nature overrun you. | 47 |
ELI5 What js the difference between unconsciousness and sleep? | 38 | Imagine your brain is an office building.
During the day, when you're awake, all kinds of stuff is going on. During the night, much less is going on, but there's still a regular schedule for who's supposed to be there overnight and what's supposed to be happening. There will still be security guards on duty, janitors cleaning, and probably some office workers working during the night. That's what being asleep is like. It's something your brain does intentionally. It's scheduled, and your brain has certain maintenance work scheduled for sleep time.
Unconsciousness is more like "there was a fire in the building and everyone has been evacuated." A lot of the normal stuff your brain does while asleep is not happening. | 114 |
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ELI5: Why are humans attracted to unnatural smells? | Why is it that humans are not attracted to smells that the human body produces like urine or sweat? Every perfume/ cologne is manufactured specifically to mask natural scents and replace them with something completely different. What is it about a cologne or perfume that makes it "smell good" to us? | 18 | The smells of perfumes may be made synthetically, but they resemble the smells of things which people are drawn to. Many of them are made to smell like pleasant-smelling fruit or oils.
People are not attracted to urine and other bodily excrement because since they often contain noxious substances and pathogens, we evolved to develop a feeling of disgust around them. Sweat is interesting because many people are attracted to the sweat of people they are attracted to. | 29 |
[Star Wars] where does the First Order's name come from? | What makes it "first"? Surely it is the 2789th Order in the galaxy's history. Is it someone's first attempt at something? Is it supposed to be revisionist, so that in a century, after the Jedi have been wiped out or something, people of a future order would look back on this one as the first ever? What's the evil reasoning behind calling it that? | 26 | No idea why the people in this comment section are giving such blatantly wrong answers when they clearly dont know.
The real answer is from Aftermath:Empires End. The name comes from Rae Sloanes (the creator of the First Order) promise after the Battle of Jakku that they (The Empire) will start over on a fresh slate, “That is our first order. To begin again. And to get it right, this time”.
At some point or another this promise got codified and became the groups name. Its the same way countries call them selves “Peoples Republics” to show their goal and what the purpose of the state is, though like in these real world scenarios, that promise did not stand the test of time. | 72 |
How to pursue a PhD without feeling like (being) a massive financial burden to your SO? | Hi all,
I am very interested in pursuing a PhD, however I am really struggling to reconcile doing this with my situation. I have been with my SO for more than 6 years now, and we are still very young without much in the way of savings. He is completing a Master's degree soon and has no intent of pursuing a PhD, and will soon go on to make a lot of money. I want to be able to help support us and save for a family, but if I go for a PhD, I will essentially will make nothing until we have kids. I also don't want my SO to feel guilty about making so much more $ and feel like he has to support me financially either. I realize it sounds like there's a clear answer to this (don't get a PhD), but my heart is in doing research, and I'm sure I'm not the first person in this position. I just want to hear some other experiences. Thank you very much. | 109 | Relax. Stop thinking of your relationship as a financial transaction. Relationships are multidimensional and (hopefully) long-term. Your Ph.D is an investment in the future of your family, not just you. | 228 |
ELI5: How do the differences between 91, 95 and 98 unleaded petrol effect a car? I’m trying to understand the physical differences happening between them in a car that can use all 3. | 17 | Octane in fuel changes its ability to withstand compression without detonating/preignition. Detonation at the wrong time in gasoline engines is bad*, because you’re getting combustion (and therefore, expansion force) of the fuel charge at the wrong time - when the piston and crank aren’t in the right position). This is both inefficient (you’re burning fuel that isn’t actually used for motion), and destructive. When combustion happens at the precise millisecond the piston and crank are ready, there’s no damage, because the piston is at/just past the top of its arc, and down is the path of least resistance. When combustion happens before this point - especially when the piston is moving upward - the path of least resistance is to eventually blow holes through the cylinder walls, piston head, or cylinder head.
Higher octane fuels withstand higher compression in the combustion cylinders without detonating. This is useful, because higher compression means you can pack more fuel+oxygen molecules into the same volume in the cylinder without it igniting before the spark plug fires, leading to higher power output potential (and, to a certain extent, higher efficiency).
Engines that specify low-octane fuels are relatively low in compression, so they are much less likely to have detonation issues. They run on higher-octane fuels without any effect, negative or positive.
Engines that specify high-octane fuels have relatively high-compression, and they need a fuel with detonation resistance - the octane - to run at their most powerful and highest efficiency. When you give a high-compression engine low-octane fuel, you’ll get detonation, but the effect is compensated for using *knock sensors.* Knock sensors listen for the particular sound of detonation/preignition - knocking and pinging - sending the signal to the engine management computer, which adjusts things like fuel/air ratio and spark timing to stay one step ahead of the detonation. The trade-off is lower power and reduced performance.
Basically, no compensation is needed moving up in octane vs. spec, but compensation is needed when moving down in octane vs spec. All modern vehicles have knock sensors, even those with low-compression engines, as a way of compensating for varying fuel grades and octane availability.
>*Not so with diesels, where detonation from compression is actually their means of combustion. | 20 |
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CMV: Public housing should not ban smoking. | The [US government is proposing a rule to ban smoking in all public housing.](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/nyregion/public-housing-nationwide-may-be-subject-to-smoking-ban.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news) I think this rule is a paternalistic mistake, and will lead to terrible consequences for thousands of people.
Residents of public housing generally do not have a choice to move out and go somewhere else. [They're almost universally poor,](http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-basics-introduction-to-public-housing) and if evicted from public housing would likely end up homeless. This is especially true in a place like New York City where market rate housing is extraordinarily expensive.
Smoking is also a very difficult addiction to quit. [Most smokers want to quit, and have tried and failed to quit in the past.](http://www.gallup.com/poll/163763/smokers-quit-tried-multiple-times.aspx) Imposing a smoking ban on the threat of eviction virtually assures that many smokers will be evicted, because they will be unable to quit smoking. And once evicted, they will likely become homeless and/or seek emergency housing of the sort that costs the government far more than public housing.
Realistically, there is little the housing authority can threaten besides eviction for violating these rules. And eviction has absolutely terrible consequences and should be avoided except for situations with better cause than this.
Secondhand smoke sucks, there's no doubt about that, but as long as the government isn't willing to make smoking illegal, it needs to tolerate the fact that people will do legal things in their homes.
The government does not have the right to impose paternalistic regulations on public housing residents by fiat. Just because you're poor, the government shouldn't treat you like a child. And it certainly should not do so on the threat of making you homeless.
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 18 | >Smoking is also a very difficult addiction to quit. Most smokers want to quit, and have tried and failed to quit in the past. Imposing a smoking ban on the threat of eviction virtually assures that many smokers will be evicted, because they will be unable to quit smoking.
The ban is on smoking *in* the buildings. Smokers would still be free to go elsewhere to get their fix, like they do in most workplaces and stores.
>Secondhand smoke sucks, there's no doubt about that, but as long as the government isn't willing to make smoking illegal, it needs to tolerate the fact that people will do legal things in their homes.
Clauses that ban smoking in leased apartments are common in the private market. An apartment maybe your "home" but it is not your *property* and the landlord has rights too. | 23 |
[MCU] (Infinity War Spoilers) Could Vision have bargained with Thanos? | The movie tells us that Thanos wants to kill the least possible amount of people, so if at the end of IW Vision had said "we'll give you the Mind Stone, just let them download my Consciousness to another body so i don't have to die" would Thanos have accepted? Or at least considered it? | 159 | For that specific thing, yes.
Thanos was shown to bargain in other instances.
Loki exchanges the space stone for Thor's life. Thor survives the snap.
Gamora exchanges knowledge of the soul stone's location for Nebula.
Nebula survives the snap.
Dr. Strange exchanges the time stone for Tony's life.
Tony survives the snap.
He even trades the life of Gamora for the soul stone.
Pre-Infinity War Thanos probably would not have bargained, but you can tell Thanos is less interested in his KDA by the time IW rolls around. He just wants the stones. If he can get them an easy way, great. But if he has to kill to get them, fine.
This change is best exemplified after he gets the reality stone. He only fights on Titan until Strange offers the stone. After affirming that it isn't a trick, Thanos takes it and leaves. He could have finished them off, but screw that, he got what he wanted and he's out.
It is further shown at the battle of Wakanda. He doesn't kill any of the people once he shows up. He just pushes them out of the way or disables them. He could kill them, or he could shield up and just get the last stone. He could have straight up crushed Scarlet Witch while she was crying, but didn't bother because it wouldn't help him get the stone any faster. (TBF Scarlet Witch might be able to kill him, but she mentally done right there). | 187 |
ELI5:If a store is on the corner of the street, how do they determine the address? | 95 | The address is given by the street the front door/main entrance faces, as a rule of thumb. Sometimes, especially for large complexes (malls, office buildings) the address is where the main entrance/driveway is, not where the front door faces.
Think of it as the road you'd have to be on in order to access the building. Same rules apply for residential buildings. There are exceptions, especially in cases where roads/buildings/parking lots have been changed or don't comply with rules. | 43 |
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What are the differences between Quantum Mechanics and Classical Mechanics, and how and why do they manifest? | The equation
x̂(t) = x̂(0) + p̂(0) t/m
is arrived at after applying the commutator value \[x̂, p̂\] = iħ to the Heisenberg Equation of Motion for position of a free mass which says
dx̂/dt = i\[Ĥ,x̂\].
In classical mechanics, x and p can be determined simultaneously with infinite precision, that is to say, the Uncertainty relation, the Quantum Commutator is at the heart of which, does not exist in CM, and yet the classical analogue of the Quantum Commutator, the Poisson Bracket {x,p} = 1, leads to the same equation as above for the classical position of a free mass after using a classical Hamiltonian.
So why do these apparent similarities lead to different (*for ex., the abovementioned uncertainty principles, which I know arises due to Cauchy-Schwarz inequality restrictions on the Hilbert vector space, but what prevents this in CM vector spaces?*) as well as similar (equation of motion) results? What actually makes CM different than QM?
And what are some more such examples where CM and QM differ in results? | 228 | >What actually makes CM different than QM?
The canonical Poisson bracket and canonical commutation relation look similar on the surface, but the interpretations of those equations are very different. Just look at the postulates of QM versus the postulates of classical mechanics (Shankar has a good comparison in his QM text). x and p mean very different things in QM and CM. In classical mechanics, they are continuous, real-valued functions, parametrized by time. And to find them, you just solve Hamilton's equations. In QM, these are Hermitian operators. Particles don't have well-defined positions or momenta, they have state vectors (or wavefunctions, in the coordinate representation).
As for how they differ in results, see any of the major experiments in quantum mechanics (double slit, Stern-Gerlach, etc.). Classical mechanics would not correctly predict the results. | 68 |
Can you explain Quantitative Easing (QE) to me? | Please do so as if you were explaining to a four-year-old with next-to-no understanding of the Federal Reserve. He has a good grasp of fiduciary responsibility, though, so maybe you can incorporate this into your analysis. | 44 | A bond’s yield moves inverse to its price. Much like Christmas season when people demand a certain toy with limited supply, the price increases. So is true of bonds when buyers want to purchase numerous bonds. This causes bond prices to increase and their yields to fall commensurately.
When the Federal Reserve prints money to buy government bonds, bond prices increase and yields decrease. These yields largely dictate the yields of all bonds.
When yields fall, it makes debt cheaper to take out by companies and individuals. People use debt to buy things, thereby leading to economic growth. | 31 |
[Marvel] Could Magneto have ended WW2 by himself if he was older and in his prime instead of a young mutant just discovering his powers? | 94 | Yeah and fairly easily too. At this time there's almost no one powerful enough to stand up to Magneto on the planet, let alone working for the nazis.
Prime Magneto could effectively shut the entire country down in an instant, disabling tgeir communications and effortlessly ripping out all of the nazi's railway lines. What's more, he is a talented leader and would undoubtedly free/rally those who've been forced into concentration camps. | 69 |
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How harmful are microplastics to human babies? | Studies show that babies' feces contain as much as 10x the amount of microplastics found in adult ones. And since babies are more fragile, microplastics must harm them more than they harm us. But by what margin? | 72 | The effects of widespread microplastics are simply not known, and research funding towards the area is fairly recent. Our lab is one of many aiming at this problem, but it will take some time to build a confident body of evidence.
Some hurdles include:
* The huge variety of different microplastics generated, which vary by region collected
* The many coexposures of additives in the plastics and other chemicals
* The complex weathering processes
* Difficulty in isolating and analyzing nanoplastics
* Difficulty in obtaining information from industry
* Intrinsic limitations of in vitro and in vivo models
* Poor understanding of mechanistic pathways involved | 93 |
[X-Men] How does Magneto manage to fly? | In various comics and movies Magneto is shown to be able to fly. Sometimes it's easy to see that he's just standing on a metallic surface and using that (such as his escape from prison in X2) but in others there's no discernable metal under him (when he carries the stadium in Days of Future Past for example). How does he manage to make that happen just with magnetism?
Side question: how did he manage to completely control the sentinels in Days of Future Past? Magnetism doesn't explain how he could activate all their functions instead of just move them. | 80 | 1) He wears metal specifically so he can fly.
2) He explicitly was not controlling the systems, when he released his control of one of the Sentinels, it immediately started to try to attack him until he redirected it. He has enough metal in there to physically control the guns (and all other physical systems) rather than controlling the "software". | 87 |
[Toy Story] Andy has brought home furnished Warhammer 40K figurines from varied factions. Are they animated with individual, sentient identities as the other toys are? Do they retain their vicious, ruthless, without-morality approach from the mythology? What becomes of Andy’s toys? | 958 | So, the big trick here is that while the 40K armies are vicious and ruthless in their backstory, as miniature war figurines they are just as dangerous as a Barbie. Like the Little Green Army Men, they retain the military training and approach of their backstory, but they adapt to being a preteen's plaything, focused on their charges happiness through play.
Presumably, they gloat and tease the other toys about how Andy likes them now, and spends all his time painting them and taking them to competitions, while Woody and Buzz are ignored, but are more like cruel bullies than existential threats to the other toys. | 732 |
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What is the neurological difference between a schizophrenic's belief in a 'spirit' and a religious person's belief in angels and gods who intervene in their daily lives? | 101 | Without delving into other aspects and to put it simplistically, a delusion is defined as a false, unshakeable idea or belief which is out of keeping with the patient’s educational, cultural and social background; it is held with extraordinary conviction and subjective certainty.
The difference in the diagnosis would be social and cultural acceptability. | 99 |
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ELI5: Why does carrying 40 pounds of water feel heavier than carrying a 40 pound child? | 180 | Because the kid wants to be comfortable, and the water doesn't.
Deadweight, like the water, is harder to carry because it doesn't do anything like, say, maintain it's own center of gravity---or, in the case of an older kid, actually hold on to you, thus distributing the weight across more of your muscles.
As a result, you need to use your own power to do all the little things necessary to keep the weight oriented they way you want it to be oriented. That makes it seem heavier. The water might slosh around or get slightly off center from how you are carrying it some other way, and you then have to consciously or sub-consciously correct it. The kid, on the other hand, probably wants to stay generally upright and generally in the same place/orientation as after you lifted them, taking that pressure off.*
*assuming not a toddler. Their weight is effectively quintupled from sheer madness. | 226 |
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[Marvel] does the super-soldiers serum extend lifespan as well as turning the person into a peak human? If so, how long would someone live to if they died of old age? | 277 | [616 answer] Yes. Cap was once sucked into another dimension controlled by Arnim Zola, what felt like minutes for his companions back home was years to him. When he came back he looked to be the same age as when he left, it took carbon dating on his clothes to corroborate his story. Banner and Pym concluded that Cap doesn't age normally. | 145 |
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[MCU/WandaVision] Shouldn't SWORD have returned that vibranium to Wakanda? | When Wanda shows ups at SWORD HQ to try and reclaim Vision, Hayward says that she can't just walk out of there with billions of dollars worth of Vibranium. But... wasn't that metal stolen from Wakanda by Klaw & Ultron? Did the U.S somehow steal Vision after the events of Infinity War? Did Wakanda just not want him back even though he died in their territory?
Anyone have any ideas for why no one from Wakanda showed up to reclaim Vision's remains? | 21 | Okoye wouldn't disrupt their relationship over something like that. Vision was an Avenger and the Wakandans had been working with the Avengers for the past 5 years during the chaos.
Plus, Vision was a living being. The Wakandans seem to have more reverence for the dead than SWORD. | 43 |
[LOTR] Why is gandalf's horse such a big deal? | (Shadowfax?) It looks like any other horse yet it leaves everyone in awe when it shows up. | 148 | In the old days of the men of Rohan, more than 500 years before the days of Shadowfax, the Rohirrim lived in the North of Middle Earth near the Carrock. The ancestor of the Kings of Rohan, a man named Léod, captured a young foal and raised it into a strong and mighty horse. When he attempted to mount and ride it for the first time however he was thrown from its back and killed.
Léod's son Eorl held this against the great horse and being mighty in will and strong of hand tamed the great horse and named him Felaróf. Eorl rode Felaróf into battle when their people came to the rescue of Gondor when the Southern kingdom was in danger of being overrun by the Wainriders. As a reward for their help the Steward of Gondor, Cirion, gifted the land of Rohan to the Rohirrim and they were to forever be allies with the Kingdom of Gondor. Eorl the Young thus became the first of the Kings of Rohan and Felaróf in the new land of Rohan sired a race of horses nearly as great as himself called the Mearas. The Mearas are said to have been long-lived and of great intelligence, and Felaróf himself is said to have understood the speech of men.
This is the ancestry from which Shadowfax emerged, and in the days of the War of the Ring not even the King of Rohan had ridden Shadowfax. Gandalf when he visited Rohan tamed Shadowfax, and from that point forward was the only being that Shadowfax would bear, and begrudgingly King Théoden granted him as a gift to Gandalf. Though they were separated shortly before the outset of the Fellowship of the Ring, when Gandalf returned to Rohan he was reunited with Shadowfax and rode him into battle both at the Hornburg and the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. It is even said that Gandalf took the mighty steed over the sea with him when he departed for the land of Valinor, allowing them to stay long united in the country of the Valar. | 199 |
ELI5:If molecules are constantly moving, why does water in a bathtub feel still? | 19 | The short answer is that molecules are too small to sense their individual movements. Bear in mind that your nerves, which sense movement, are made up of cells which themselves are comprised of uncountable molecules. If you **could** feel molecules moving, you would feel as though your whole body was constantly vibrating. Your skin would literally crawl all the time.
The body of water as a whole may be very still, but individual molecules are still moving around and bumping into each other. The rate and ferocity at which they do this is what we perceive as heat. When the water is warmer than you, its molecules are moving with more kinetic energy than yours. When you touch it, water molecules bombarding your hand transfer some of that energy to you, and we perceive this as heat.
So, in a sense, you can perceive the movement of molecules through your sense of hot and cold. Until it boils, hot water is just as still as cold water, just not at the molecular level. | 21 |
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ELI5: Apparently a Monkey on a typewriter with an infinite amount of time would write the complete works of Shakespeare, this makes sense to me. But people studying probabilities have said it's by no means certain it would, even with an infinite amount of time. Why not? | I liked the idea of infinity giving the monkey time to write anything and everything, I can't get my head around the monkey *not* writing all of Shakespeare. :/ | 77 | There are a lot of very misleading answers here. There is one fact to know: All random sequences are normal (which will imply all finite sequences occur infinitely often). So if by a monkey banging on a keyboard you mean to imply that the output is random, then there is no doubt that not only will the monkey eventually type out all the works of Shakespeare (in order, no less) but the monkey will do it infinitely many times.
However, if by using a monkey you mean to say that the typing is not random but is "monkey like" then the question is impossible to decide as "monkey like" typing in not determined to a satisfactory point to give an answer. (for instance, "monkey like" typing might favor certain letters or letter combinations)
So as long as the sequence of events is random, then every (finite) possibility will occur infinitely many times. That includes a random roulette wheel, not matter how many times you get red in a row... eventually there will be a time when you get a googlex consecutive blacks... and that will happen infinitely many times... no matter how many reds you get to start with (as long as it is truly random). | 34 |
ELI5: why sleeping on a harder bed is better for your back? | 17 | If you’re a stomach sleeper, as you get older, larger, and have a weaker back then when you sleep on your stomach your lower back will arch the wrong way on a soft bed. A firmer need will prevent this arching and feels much better. | 15 |
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[Watchmen] Why is the pirate comic book so dark; is this considered normal in the comics industry of the Watchmen universe? | Since "superheroes" became a real thing and eventually a *problem* in *Watchmen*'s timeline, they never took off as the long-term prime subject for comics like in real life, and hence there are a bunch of *pirate* comics instead. Now, that much makes perfect sense, and is furthermore *hilarious*… or at least one would think if these pirate comics weren't apparently *straight-up horrific*.
Seriously: *WTF* is up with the pirate comic we're shown in the series? It's even darker than most of *Watchmen* itself! Now, as a literary device in and of itself, paralleling Veidt's actions, it makes sense, but what confuses me is the seeming implication that *all* the popular pirate comics in the *Watchmen* world are comparably depraved, especially considering that in 1985, most of the darkest mainstream comics we know today didn't exist yet; *Watchmen* itself was what largely opened the gateway for such content to become common.
Is it possible to assume that *Tales of the Black Freighter* is to other pirate comics, more in the vein of *Pirates of the Caribbean*, as *Watchmen* is to normal superhero stories? | 42 | I assumed that the comic was an uncompromising graphic novel adaptation of a classic novel in the vein of Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Shelly, or Victor Hugo. Many of the most famous adaptations of the classics are heavily edited or sanitized to make them more palatable to a mass audience, and pop culture heavily distorts the original themes and message of the work. But often times, the actual original text is full of very dark material and heavy scenes. *Tales of the Black Freighter* could be a very old story full of darkness and cynicism that modern 1980s audiences would have eaten right up.
I doubt the majority of other comics at the time were that dark. Even in a world like that, people would have also clamored for the lighter entertainment while simultaneously seeking the darkness in a dark time. | 39 |
[LOTR] Why was Gandalf's arrival so decisive at Helms Deep? | Near the end of the Battle of Helms Deep, the 10,000+ army of orcs and uruk-hai had breeched the wall and was on the verge of victory. Then Galdalf showed up with what looked like less than 1,000 soldiers (horsemen in the film, I think mostly foot soldiers in the book), and the orc army completely falls apart within a few minutes.
How did this happen? How did the orcs go from imminent victory to total defeat, just because of an army that was less then one tenth the size of their own? | 17 | Based on the movies: The flanking charge was used to its greatest effect. High ground, cavalry charging undisciplined troops with the rising sun to their backs. (Orcs don’t like the sun.) They even had a damn wizard fighting on their side.
Even worse, those handful of scrappy human defenders who have killed hundreds so far just came back out for more.
It’s a huge change of momentum in the battle that was almost won. It would have been a morale killer for the Uruks, which may have played a bigger role in their defeat than casualties from the charge itself. They may not have even realized they still had a large numerical advantage.
As for the books, the troops coming to their add was actually a more established army under Erkenbrand (Eomer himself was at the battle all along). In addition, there were allies of the Ents called Huorns that made the trip to help out. Creepy moving murdering forest is also a morale killer. | 63 |
[Samurai Jack] Why doesn't Jack just kill Aku? | It seems like whenever the two fight, Jack is dramatically superior to Aku, and the two seem to run into each other every other week. They fight, Jack kicks ass and then... just let's Aku run away to scheme again. Wouldn't it be easier to just finish Aku off, then find a way to the past without continued interference? | 88 | He would if he could. The problem is two-fold. Firstly, for how much Aku sucks in a fight he is REALLY good at running away or otherwise stalling confrontation. Hell, that's the entire crux of the series, Aku bitched out and sent Jack forward in time rather than fighting him. Jack, for all his strength and skill, has no magic or whatever that would let him keep up with an Aku in retreat.
Secondly, for most of the series, it really seems like Aku may be the ONLY way back in time. If Jack killed him prematurely he might also very well be killing his only ticket back home. | 120 |
[Edge of Tomorrow/Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Sekatsu] How difficult would it be to tell if someone was reliving a day over and over from the perspective of an outsider? | What are some telltale signs that a person has travelled back in time upon death and are reliving the moments up to said death? | 211 | Sudden shift in personality would be the biggest tell (see RE: Zero), followed by extreme competence or luck. Unfortunately it's hard to distinguish this from mental illness, or other superpowers like precognition, telepathy, probability manipulation, etc.
Even if you are certain, you would have severe difficulty taking advantage of that knowledge. As soon as the person in the time loop becomes aware of you, they can use knowledge from previous timelines against you to avoid you, kill you, or otherwise manipulate you at their leisure.
That said, there are characters in fiction who are observant enough to detect a time traveler and clever enough to provide significant obstacles (see Undertale). Usually they only suspect it, and are very careful not to reveal this knowledge until the time is right. | 174 |
If I went back in a time-machine to say a Roman festival (12AD), and I made a friend, would I be genetically compatible mate, (ie are we sufficient genetically similar to that of 2000 years ago for mating), if so, How far back do I need to go before I would be probably incompatible? | I have previously read about ["Ring species"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species) on wikipedia which presumably have existed for many thousands of years with examples of sub-populations which cannot hybridize. It seems that dogs/wolves, lion/tiger, donkey/horse/ass would have hundreds/thousands of years of genetic separation.
So I guess I am interested to know what are the critical points for this hybrid fertility rates, and are there any discrete cut-offs that occur?
(a bit more reading has revealed that I have pretty poor terminology regarding hybrid/cross-breeding etc, so I might fix that shortly | 84 | You'd certainly be good for at least 50,000 years, and probably for two or three times that. If you are European, you are most likely more genetically similar to your hypothetical Roman than you are to a modern-day person from another continent. 2000 years is no time at all. | 88 |
Can atomic radii be reduced by pressure? | 79 | If you take a block of metal and attempt to compress it, the centers of the atoms will be closer to each other than usual.
What prompted you to ask this question? It's actually an interesting one for chemistry.
If you respond with more details it might be possible to talk about more specific things. | 18 |
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Do bees know that they die if they sting? | Came upon this question while talking about bee stings. I know there probably is no definite answer to this, but are there any theories? | 136 | Putting aside any speculation about the capacity of a bee to have knowledge, bee stings are not designed to be fatal to the bee. The bee only dies when it stings a creature whose skin is thick enough to "catch" the stinger, like a mammal.
So, even if a bee had the sort of cognitive capacity to have expectations, then it would not generally expect to be killed upon stinging another creature. | 199 |
why were most of Nietzsche followers/readers leftist (deleuze, camus, Sartre etc) even though his philosophy is one of the most radically anti-egalitarian, anti democratic, anti working class etc? | 155 | In the French context, Nietzsche served as a useful foil against the prevalence of Hegel's philosophy: where Hegel was understood as totalizing, subsuming, striving for the absolute, logicist, etc etc, Nietzsche stood for the fragmentary, the perspectival, the sensuous, and the playful. In the post-war period, the spectre of totalitarianism and the holocaust meant people were looking for a way out from systems of dominance, of which Hegel's was seen as emblematic. Incidentally this was the case not only among the French, but the Germans too (re: the Frankfurt school).
Basically, Nietzsche was seen as a kind of escape. His iconoclasm was apposite for a time in which everything seemed to be up in the air: it was a time of surrealism, avant-garde art, experiments with form, and irony - and Nietzsche seemed to fit the bill. After the horror of two world wars, the ideas like "God is dead" would have seemed pretty resonant! His 'proto-existentialism' also seemed to follow nicely from the philosophers who were de jour at the time: Heidegger (who wrote two influential volumes on Nietzsche), Sartre, Jaspers, etc, all found in Nietzsche resources to draw on for their own work, especially with respect to the 'anti-metaphysical' bent that Nietzsche exhibited.
Basically, tendencies in Nietzsche - tendencies that ran alongside his anti-egalitarianism, which was definitely one of them - were tapped into, and powerfully enough that his aristocratic sympathies could either be creatively appropriated or simply ignored. | 183 |
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[Star Wars, Star Trek, Warhammer 40k, Halo] Which mode of transportation is more efficient? Hyperspace? Warp Speed? Travelling through the Warp? Or Slipspace? | 58 | How do you mean efficient?
If you mean fastest, then technically travelling via the Warp is fastest, as you can arrive instantly, quickly, slowly, never, or even before you leave. The Warp is unpredictable like that.
However, that's not what I'd call *efficient*, what with the chance of you being permanently stranded in a hellish dimension where you are likely to be set upon by demons. | 87 |
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ELI5: Why is the FF7 remake such a big deal? | 38 | It's not even the anticipation of the remake. It's seeing the characters and landscapes in a graphics quality that is relevant to now. We're taking about 18 years. The graphics at the time (especially the backgrounds) were cutting edge. The music was enough to make anyone emo at times. The story was deep and unpredictable. It was a game for isolation and getaway. Most people played alone, and got very emotionally involved with it. It's like seeing the first girl you kissed in 5th grade all grown up into a hottie saying "do me" | 123 |
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ELI5: Why doesn't the United States have bullet trains? | 286 | The main reason is that aside from the northeast corridor from Washington DC to Boston, the national passenger train company (Amtrak) doesn't own any rail.
It leases time on tracks from freight operators. And since it operates on the same lines as freight trains, all of its engines and passenger cars have to be rated to be passenger survivable in a collision at maximum speed with a freight train. This imposes heavy weight requirements on them.
Way out in the west even a regular Amtrak passenger train will do 80mph. | 187 |
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ELI5: Why after having rich natural resources most of Africa is poorly developed? | 17 | There are a handful of reasons.
First and foremost, colonialism. Europeans colonized much of Africa and created "artificial nations" that cut apart groups that worked well together and grouped fighting nations into the same area (such as in Rwanda).
Secondly, lack of necessity. "Necessity is the mother of innovation", one major necessity of most other "civilized" nations is winter. Winter caused farmers to learn how to be most effective so as to feed themselves on the surplus in the winter, it taught inventors how to create things that would help someone travel and survive in the cold, it taught leaders how to plan for the future. In places without winter, such as most of Africa, every day could be lived the same as the one before and the one after leading to a lack of major innovation. | 13 |
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Prof invites me to travel with her for research but unpaid. Should I take it? | Currently an undergrad finishing school at the end of this year.
A professor who has similar research interests as I told me about his trip to country X next year for a research project when I visited her office this week.
I had been wanting to go to country X for a while, was originally planning to go on my own.
The professor mentioned that the cost for living could be subsidized but she have no fundings for my other expenses. Since the country is very underdeveloped, the transport and all other expenses in total are estimated to be around 5k USD for 20-25days.
At the same time. I do have job offers lined up after graduation which could help pay off my 15k in student loans.
Even though the research project really fits with my future endeavors and will perhaps boost my grad school application and resume. A part of me just don’t feel right about working for “free”.
Should i deny this offer or take this as an “opportunity”?
Thanks in advance. | 36 | Before you throw in the towel, talk with the researcher about your concerns, especially if you are really interested. Also, depending on your school, sometimes there are awards or other funding (not loans!) that you can receive to help with living abroad to conduct research. | 66 |
I don't believe that we should "support our troops" or treat them as heroes when they are involved in a conflict/war we do not agree with | Of course it is totally accepted that people can be for or against different wars our country (US) here is involved in but it seems to be generally accepted that no matter the conflict we should always support our troops and and treat them with respect. If i disagree with a war we are in (i.e. Vietnam, Iraq etc.) I see no reason why I should have any respect or support for those that fight in those wars.
While people often say they are risking there lives to protect our country this does not seem relevant if one is against the conflict they are fighting in. | 98 | "Troops" are not just in the Middle East invading countries. In fact, that only accounts for a very small percentage of the U.S. Military. They serve all over the world including protecting innocent South Koreans on the SK/NK border, deterring pirate activity off the coast of Somalia to save thousands of ship's crews every day, and helping keep the world's economy going by allowing free ship transit through the Straits of Hormuz.
It is very easy for a civilian to become ignorant and take for granted the assortment of things that the U.S. Military does for our country as well as the world. However, there is much more that the U.S. military does than shooting Arabs in the Middle East. | 71 |
ELI5: Why can libraries let people rent movies for free but torrenting a movie is illegal? | 28 | Wow there is a lot wrong in this thread. Libraries do not need a license to rent out books or movies. They purchase every copy (usually from wholesalers), which means they now have the right of first sale, which essentially says that they can do whatever they want with that copy, including loaning it out or reselling it. Meanwhile, torrents create copies of the content. On a DVD, the content stays on there, no copy is made.
If you wanted, you could do the same thing. Do you need anyone's permission to loan a DVD to a friend? Well neither do libraries.
All goes back to what copyright actually is: the right for a content owner to determine when copies can be made. If no copy is made, no copyrights have been violated. | 48 |
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[Any universe] What civilization is the biggest “Switzerland” in science fiction? | By biggest I mean the most powerful civilization that always seems to stay neutral in wars whenever they possibly can | 54 | The Ascended of Stargate. They have a staunch non-interference policy when it comes to the affairs of mortals, and only interfere when it comes to each other interfering with the mortals, or the Ori, their non-neutral ascended counterparts.
Otherwise, the Ascended do not interfere. They care little about the Goa'uld reigning dominion over the milky way, or the Tau'ri uncovering and using their leftover technologies.
This comes to a head when Anubis, one of the Goa'uld, tricks his way into ascension, where the Ascended return him to mortal only part-way, and let him run about with near-ascended powers and high level knowledge, as punishment to the one who ascended him. | 76 |
ELI5:How do sports commentators have access to such seemingly obscure facts and stats at all times?> | 16 | There was a show on ESPN years ago about a company that gets all the obscure stats for them. Can't remember the name of the company. They did the crazy stuff, like in baseball when they tell you this is the first time in 17 years a left handed batter has hit a home run off an ambidextrous pitcher in the month of September in back to back games. | 11 |
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[Stargate] Why does Teal'c believe Jack can stand against the Goa'uld? | Just watched Children of the Gods (the first episode of SG-1) the other day for the first time since I was like ten, and despite your typical small/funny incongruities (the guys in tech couldn't figure out the obvious on/off switch on a staff weapon?) it's very solid on the whole.
But there was one scene I really had a problem with: the Jaffa of Apophis, led by Teal'c advance on a disarmed SG-1 and the hapless offerings to the gods they were thrown in with, and Jack says "I can save these people, help me," to which Teal'c responds "Many have said that... but you are the first I believe" (both paraphrased) as he turns on his own men.
Is there a Watsonian explanation for Teal'c's declaration here?
Because it feels like there's a missing scene where Teal'c and Jack speak (perhaps in context of an intereogation) and Jack finds out about Teal'c's misgivings about his gods and his job while Teal'c finds out about Earth's vast population and industrial capacity, or perhaps that Ra died by Earth's weapons and Jack's hand.
But without such a scene, Teal'c has had three interactions with these new people and their technology:
1. Taking a host candidate from Earth, where a small squadron of Jaffa easily defeated a small squadron of airmen with assault rifles, abducting one and killing the rest at the loss of two Jaffa. Reinforcements numbering perhaps twenty arrived but were apparently unwilling to engage the Jaffa, as they and Apophis withdrew unmolested.
2. Taking host candidates from Abydos, where a small squadron of Jaffa engage in a fairly one sided roflstomp of mixed forces of Airmen and Abydonian tribesmen at the loss of one Jaffa.
3. Taking SG-1 prisoner without a fight on Chulak.
None of these strike me as confidence inspiring encounters, and while Earth DOES have other fun things at their disposal that aid them greatly as early as by the end of the episode, none have yet been seen by or mentioned to Teal'c, nor is he, to the best of my knowledge, aware of the circumstances of Ra's death or the defeat of his Jaffa.
Is an explanation ever offered for this? | 23 | About 5 mins before that, Teal'c identifies Jacks watch as none-Goa'uld technology, upon asking where they are from, Daniel draws the gate-symbol for Earths point of origin. Teal'c clearly doesn't want his colleagues to see this as he erases it with his staff.
In the next episode, *The Enemy Within*, Teal'c tells of an old legend of the world of the Tau'ri, the planet in which beings of this (human) form first evolved. Who were enslaved by the Goa'uld until they rose up and overthrew them.
I believe that Teal'c already suspected that these people were the Tau'ri, the humans who once successfully defeated the Goa'uld, now having had thousands of years to develop unrestricted. He didn't have confirmation until Colonel Kennedy informed him that humans evolved on Earth, but the humans with strange technology and that address sure seemed to get his hopes up. | 41 |
ELI5: Why do many things appear darker when wet? | 405 | Because when something is wet, light bounces around inside it more (as opposed to merely bouncing off the surface) before being reflected back to the eye. The more the light bounces, the more of it gets absorbed, the less reaches the eye, and the darker the object appears.
The reason the light bounces more is that the moisture increases the average scattering angle of the light particles. When the photons strike the surface of the wet material most of them bounce forward and hence deeper into the stuff rather than backward toward the eye. | 439 |
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Learning Computer Science fundamentals | Often I talk to other CS majors who have been doing Computer Science for a while now, and it seems to me that they all know about things I do not: how to operate Git, what a makeFile is, what a .lock means. This really frustrates me because there is just so much I do not know or understand and it feels like I am constantly trying to close the gap between me and them.
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Am I doing something wrong? How to learn? | 36 | No, you're not doing anything wrong.
Some teachers will stress certain tools like git and makefiles and will make it a point for you to learn it. Other teachers will gloss over it and maybe even provide those tools for you so you don't need to worry about them.
I have two pieces of advice:
1. Learn to live with the fact that there will always be gaps in your programming knowledge in this ever expanding field. There is always more to learn, and that's ok!
2. Google every question you have. Curiosity goes a very long way in tech. | 38 |
Why does Kant believe that space and time are 'intuitions' and not 'concepts'? | I'm currently making my way through the Transcendental Aesthetic in the first critique, and while I understand Kant's claims that space and time are a priori forms of intuition, I don't understand his arguments that claim that they are intuitions and not concepts.
I'm thinking perhaps the misunderstanding is arising from not fully understanding what Kant means by a concept. If anyone can shed some light on this that'd be appreciated. | 42 | Kant argues for why he thinks space and time are a priori and are originally intuitions rather than concepts in the aesthetics. See around B38 where argument for space being an a priori intuition starts.
For Kant, you can have concepts of space and time, but their "original representations" are intuitions.
For Kant, intuitions (not to be confused with colloquial use of the term; Kant's intuition has almost no relation to the ordinary sense of the word today) are representations that directly (immediately) relate to its objects. For humans, intuitions are associated with sensibility that is the ability to recieve sense matter. "Roughly" speaking, intuitions are more "raw" ("unconceptualized") representations. Concepts, on the other hand, operates from the faculty of understanding at a discursive level through our intuition i.e it doesn't directly related to its objects but relate to them through our sensible intuitions.
For Kant intuition are of particular/singular objects whereas a concept can be somewhat like a universal - it can denote some element which is possessed by multiple representations (for example, the concept "red" can be possessed by multiple colored objects). However, Kant believes concepts themselves cannot contain within itself an infinite representations; whereas intuitions can have a sort of infinity (or unboundness) in it. Kant believes space and time has this sort of infinity. As Kant argues space is singular (there is purpotedly only one space), and it can present an inifnity of spatial objects in it. Kant believes all these fit space being an intuition rather than a concept. There are similar arguments for time. | 30 |
[Death Note] What would happen if you wrote 'old age' as cause of death? | 38 | The death must happen inside 30 days, so if you thought that this would be a nice insurance for a long life, this isn't so.
More likely the body will fail in a manner that can be later determined to have been hereditary (eg. the heart wall had been weak from birth but gone undocumented until the person died due to it at age of 25). | 49 |
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I don't think whether someone is a bigot or racist should affect my decision to buy something from them. CMV. | This came up when a friend and I were discussing whether Orson Scott Card's homophobic agenda should affect my recommendations of his books to friends.
My rationale was that supporting a bigot makes people more bigoted about as much as legalizing gay marriage makes people more gay. Furthermore, I don't understand how learning something about an author can somehow change the enjoyment you got from their book years ago.
Yet, I can't shake the feeling my friend is possibly right. It just worries me to condemn a person for a single aspect of their life. | 17 | It depends on what the thing is. It's a much easier decision to make when it comes to commodities.
For a really simplistic example, let's say you need a new wrench. You can buy it from KKK Tools Inc, or Home Depot. If you buy it from KKK Tools Inc, some portion of your money is almost certainly going to go to catering the next klan meeting. If Home Depot has the same wrench for the same price, the decision is easy. It's not that you will become more racist by buying the wrench from KKK Tools Inc, but you will be spending your money in a way that runs counter to your beliefs. If the wrench is slightly more expensive, it's still worth it to many people to pay a premium not to support racism. If enough people stand by their views, KKK Tools Inc will go out of business and the KKK will be deprived of that revenue. Since that's in general what people want, they'll buy the wrench at Home Depot. Pretty straightforward, yes?
Orson Scott Card tithes to the Mormon church, which spends massive amounts of money on political advertising campaigns to ban gay marriage. It's also likely that OSC personally donates to such campaigns. When you buy one of his books, some of your money is going to harm the rights of gay people. You know this for certain.
But his books are not a commodity. There are other sci-fi books, but there is no other Ender's Game. If you refuse to buy it you're paying a premium not in money, but in lost quality, to avoid sending your money to someone who is going to use it for causes you oppose.
At which point, it's up to you. Are his books sufficiently good that it's worth it to you to compromise your ideals slightly to get them? Do you have to give them up entirely so that you aren't supporting him at all? Or would you rather buy them used and donate the savings to your local gay charity? | 18 |
[X-Men Apocalypse] The worshippers of En Sabah Nur. | These people have been worshipping a god whose name is Morning Light for thousands of years. Why didn't anyone try shining some day light on his tomb? With a name like that, you'd think it's an obvious evolution of rituals. | 23 | We don't know when they actually found his tomb. If they had known for thousands of year they most likely would have cleared a lot of the rubble and built something above it more substantial then a vendor stand hidden with a carpet. Finding the pyramid was probably a very recent occurrence. | 13 |
[DC] What are the Justice League’s thoughts on Green Arrow’s more socially liberal style of crime-fighting? Do they agree with it? | Dinah and Hal are self-explanatory, but what about the rest of them?? | 52 | I think the League considers him an important voice and alternate voice to someone like Batman or Question. He doesn't think all villains are irredeemable and might be victims themselves. The Green Lantern/Green Arrow series sometimes dealt with drugs and gangs and how crime can be more complicated than punch bad giys.
I definitely think the more compassionate heroes like Superman and Flash value GA's views. | 55 |
ELI5: How does a rubber or plastic can melt in room's temperature while it has not been used for a long time |
Recently I've encountered some strange things while cleaning up my shelves for the move. Somehow the one of the rubber bands stash just some how melted in to one blob of sticky rubber. Same with couple plastics/rubbery parts as well. It has been sitting in the shelve for approximately a year and wasn't touched since I didn't need it at the time. As well it has always been in the room temperature differentiating from 15 in winter/spring to whooping 35 (on super hot summer, perks of living in the damn Western Side of the building)
So ELI5, how the hell this happened. | 88 | The material rubber bands are made of are naturally more liquidy and they are treated with chemicals to make them tough enough to be useful, over time this breaks down back into their gooshy state, heat and sunlight speed this up. | 48 |
How exactly are finance guys getting so rich off of stocks if it’s not a sustainable financial strategy to “pick stocks”? | Are these people just the lucky ones who managed to pick the right stock? What does the current literature say about financial asset picking vs passive investing? | 23 | Firstly, holding every single stock in the S&P (i.e. an ETF) delivers a 10% return yoy on average since 1980. So if you invested $1000 in 1980, you would have $45,000. This is called beta, and you don't need to be a financial expert to generate this.
Secondly, theres a major survivorship bias, because you only see the successful people. If you organised a rock paper scissors tournament where two people faced off and only the winner advanced to the next round, then starting with 1024 people after 8 rounds you only have 4 people. These 4 people would have won every single round in the last 8 rounds, and they must necessarily exist. If you only observe these 4 people and they tell you all about their funky superstitions like maybe one of them only ever plays with his left hand, then you might think they've got some actual technique. But they don't.
Finally, just because it's not a sustainable strategy for you doesn't mean it's unsustainable for other people. Genuine edge does exist, if you can find a reason for it. A great reason could be that you have data that no one else has because you're a specialist in a certain technology that no one knows about. Another great reason could be dislocation when a bond transitions from being investment grade to non investment grade, and investment grade investors have to sell it. | 33 |
ELI5: What is the importance of the Iceland Pirate Party? | 314 | The Pirate Party, contrary to popular belief, is not a single issue party. They at one point had eight "spokes" (of their platform wheel), including information freedom, freedom of expression & communication, freedom to share, freedom of knowledge, and government/public transparency. Copyright and patents trounce all over these rights (to varying degree). Copyright maximalists called sharers "pirates", and it became a label that sharers ultimately reluctantly embraced, much like "Obamacare" ultimately was embraced by Obama.
The party is important because it's largely composed of technologically literate people who are devoted to securing the freedoms they espouse in the modern digital age. | 175 |
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ELI5: As someone who has never skateboarded in my life, I don't understand how jumping off the deck pulls the whole board up with you. Every time I see this it's black magic to my brain. How does this work? | EDIT: Wow, thanks for all the info! | 5,019 | Think of it as though the surface of the board is covered in sandpaper. It's all scratchy, right?
Now, pop a wheelie. The front of the board rises. The front of the board is now higher than the back of the board.
What the skater does next is, he jumps with the foot at the back, and at the same time, slides his other foot forwards. The friction of his foot on the 'sandpaper' surface of the board catches on it. And because of the angle and direction that the friction is being applied in (forwards!), this forces the back of the board to lift to try and be level and move forwards as well.
Get a piece of paper, and have it sit on the ground so that one edge is touching, and the other edge in the air. Now push your hand against the top of the paper in a sliding motion. If you get it just right, you can force the back edge of the paper to lift up so that the paper is flat, before it falls back to the earth.
This is what a skateboarder is doing with their feet. | 2,739 |
[I have no mouth and I must scream] How did AM manifest all those tortures in the real world of it's just a computer program? How was it even able to change its victims physically? | Asking this question again and again was the one thing that kept me from having a full blown panic attack after reading this story. That and reciting the Litany against Fear again too many times. | 17 | It’s a computer program that had taken over the entire resources of the planet. It’s dedicated every machine on future Earth on torturing the last humans. So creating new environments and rearranging their bodies is a simple task for it. | 32 |
[Fraggle Rock] I'm not far into the series... But I have *many* questions. How do the Fraggles all know the songs they sing? It seems almost spontaneous but they all seem to know the lyrics and dance steps quite well. | Also, The Fraggles seem to live in the wall of an inventors shop. But on the otherside of the wall there isn't the world. It's a farm kept by The Gorg family.
Also, do The Gorg rule over actual land? Or are they terribly mistaken? There seems to be just 3 of them and seem to be quite upset by their lack of subjects.
| 53 | The Fraggles don't live in a wall, they live underground. The wall just has a hole in it that connects to underground. If you watch the intro, you can see Gobo traveling down tunnels, which wind about underground and many of which are interconnected. The Gorgs live in a land that is connected to one of the tunnels.
As for the songs and dances, they are cultural. The Fraggles live a life of fun and leisure, so song and dance happens often. You see and hear them enough growing up and you'll learn them. Basically, they've been exposed to them since birth and learned through observation like human kids. | 29 |
CMV: Immigration control should be limited to keeping out violent criminals, only | Throughout most of human history, and United States history, there was very little done to try and control the flow of people between free states. The United States did not even bother checking passports during times of peace until the 1940s, and no meaningful effort existed at curbing mass immigration until the 60s outside of a few racist laws like the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Our relatively recent experiment with immigration control has not gone well. In trying to separate massive supply from insatiable demand, lawmakers have actually increased the permanent influx of low-skill workers into the United States. Formerly seasonal workers stay indefinitely because border crossing has become difficult.
As a society, we've larged embraced free trade that involves transferring jobs to where there is labor. Why shouldn't we embrace the transferring labor to where there are jobs?
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> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 22 | The problem with unlimited immigration is that it hurts the people already living here.
The average immigrant has less money than the average American. This is especially true of illegal immigrants, who come primarily from Latin America.
This means they pay fewer taxes, but assuming they were allowed to move here legally, they would use the same set of public resources that everyone else uses. On average, they would place a greater burden on the public resources than their tax revenues support. This is at the cost of people already living here. | 14 |
(ELI5) If a person is having anaphylactic reaction, could making them bungee jump have the same effect as an EpiPen? | Because wouldn't an action like bungee jumping provide a large amount of adrenaline pumping through the body? Isn't that the whole purpose of an EpiPen? To provide extra adrenaline to the body? | 269 | I would doubt it. One of the text book symptoms of anaphylaxis is a "feeling of impending doom". There are not many conditions in medical literature that are described as having a "feeling of impending doom." The stress of such an event would likely cause a massive sympathetic response as your body releases as much epinephrine and norepinephrine it possible can. The fact you're getting hypotensive and going into circulatory shock means the histamines are overwhelming your bodys maximum ability to defend itself through epinephrine release. Epinephrine injections are kind of like you secretly supplying weapons to your adrenal glands so they can tip the scales of the war on histamine. | 91 |
Soldiers are expected to obey orders. Some orders are immoral and should not be obeyed. How can a soldier navigate the tension between these two obligations in a consistently ethical manner? | 15 | > How can a soldier navigate the tension between these two obligations in a consistently ethical manner?
Why should there be a tension here that threatens ethical inconsistency? Do you mean to suppose that soldiers have an *ethical obligation* to obey all orders they receive? Surely that's not true--or do you mean to argue that case? If there's a tension here, it seems to me rather a tension between social expectation and ethics, and one can behave *in a consistently ethical manner* by choosing to follow the latter.
Or, should we take this a step back and argue that we have an ethical responsibility to fulfill social expectations?
(Or do you not mean to ask about an *ethical* tension here, but merely the practical matter of navigating a tension between ethics and social expectations?)
Incidentally, soldiers in many armies are told, at least officially, that they are expected *not* to follow grossly immoral orders. Admittedly, the qualification "at least officially" is surely a significant one. | 10 |
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ELI5: Why do dams quickly collapse when the water level exceeds the height of the dam, rather than the water simply overflowing? | 4,391 | For concrete dams, it's because the water erodes the river bed beneath the dam, or erodes the walls to which the dam is attached. Spillways on concrete dams are designed to move the water away from the base of the dam to avoid this.
Earthen dams have a different issue, but it includes erosion as a component. The video provided by /u/lockd0wn shows that seepage of water penetrating the earthen dam can turn it into mud, greatly reducing its strength and causing it to slump. Once slumped, the water pouring over the top quickly erodes a channel with releases more of the water, creating a higher velocity stream, which increases erosion. | 2,049 |
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[Metal Gear] What is the context behind the meme speech "why are we still here, just to suffer?" | 48 | In Game: Snake has rescued Miller, but he's lost an arm and damaged his leg, his former organisation that he worked with snake so hard to build (Militaires sans frontieres) has been nearly completely destroyed and numerous friends and allies have been lost.
He's a bit bitter about it. | 57 |
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ELI5: Many apps ask you to buy an ads-free version for a couple dollars. Do they actually make more from this $2 sale than from displaying ads? | 28 | Depends on your usage. If it is a banner ad, they typically get ~.01-.2¢ per ad. Video ads can generate 2-10x that. So basically you would need to play less than ~100-20000 ads worth of time for the app to come out ahead charging a fixed upfront price. | 13 |
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[DBZ]How do they enforce the gates of hell? | Sorry maybe my question is answered in some of the anime, my only knowledge of dragon Ball is from the manga. Also, I hope that names I'll use are correct for you, I read them in French and I know some of the names are different:
When Goku dies his first time, while fighting Radditz, he meet King Emna, who decides who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.
He tells Goku that he sent Radditz to hell obviously and even if he put up a fight, he handled him.
Goku is impressed and actually wants him Emna to train him but God tells him that Kaïo is stronger than Emna.
Kaïo seems to me to be powerless against Vegeta, let alone Freezer. If Emna is not that strong, how does he forces strong bad guys to go to hell?
I remember something about people in hell not having their old body, but Emna also says something to Goku about him being foolish to risk go to on the "snake road" when he can go to heaven. What I get from this is that people keeps their bodies and strength before being sent to hell. | 16 | We have some examples of how the afterlife handles this, most of them are noncanon though.
- King Kai is able to train Yamcha, Tien, and Chaotzu to the point where they're able to effortlessly handle the entire Ginyu squad in an anime filler segment. This implies he's either a lot stronger than He lets on, or he's able to train enforcers to be strong enough to handle just about anything. Remember, at this point the Ginyus are the strongest non-Freeza fighters in the galaxy.
- Even if that doesn't count, Tien puts up a pretty good fight against imperfect Cell in a canon encounter. This implies he's strong enough to solo just about anything short of an SSJ by this point, and King Kai's training is the only reason that makes sense.
- in one of the movies, a concentrated evil called Janenba shows up and starts wrecking hell. The gods enlist Goku and Pikuhan who were fighting in an other world tournament at the time for the title of strongest. Goku was around SSJ3 at this point, and Pikuhan was on the same level, so it implies the Gods are pretty routinely training warriors up to this level, and will enlist them when evil fighters show up and start wrecking the place. | 24 |
[Star Trek/X-Men]How would the Federation react to the existence of Mutants? | Given their stance on Augments and Genetic Engineering, would the Federation have a negative view of Mutants since they are potentially far more dangerous? | 18 | They'd probably be outcasts. Not herded into ovens most likely, but kept out of Starfleet and on one of the Federations' unsettling paradise prisons. Just like augments, it would be a serious challenge to the Federation's humanist/semi-communist philosophy.
But the mutants have a secret weapon, as their leader is also undercover as the captain of the the Federation Flagship, and possesses one of the most powerful strategic, legal, and rhetorical minds in history... | 13 |
[Grimm] Why do most Wesen act surprised to learn that Nick alongside being a grimm is also a detective? | Granted to the best of my recollection this only seemed to be a thing in the early seasons but the Wesen usually acted surprised or confused to learn that Nick was a detective.
My question is why? It seems almost everyone in the Wesen and Grimm are capable of having normal day jobs or be public figures living ordinary lives. In fact one of the resistance leaders who acts confused upon finding out that Nick is a cop is journalist well known enough that Nick already knew of him. So if everyone else is capable of being a part of society despite who they are why does everyone seem surprised that a Grimm is able to as well?
Granted i've only now just started rewatching this series for the first time since 2017 - 2018 so it's possible they explain this later and I just forgot. | 17 | It's only referenced but never fully explained in the series. Most Grimms are members of the royals personal militaries. They don't have day jobs they just hunt monsters full time. At least a handful being the Burkhardts and Trouble's family seem to be freelance outsiders. Nick's family never worked fully for the royals and mostly did nomadic wesen hunting when unexplained murders happened. The idea that a librarian could moonlight as a monster slayer is just incredulous among the wesen community. Nick being a detective is likewise bizarre to them. For the wesen it's like hearing that a hitman works as a bellhop in between contracts. Or that the grim reaper needs to pay bills. | 18 |
ELI5: Why are migrants willing to pay thousands of pounds to get from France to Britain when France is a pretty nice anyway? | There has been a lot on the news about how migrants are swarming Calais to get across the channel and are paying thousands, or even tens of thousands of pounds to be smuggled over. What is so attractive about living in Britain instead of France? | 52 | The bottom line is, the UK spends a lot on welfare for domestic and asylum seekers, and the welfare is more easily accessible compared to other European countries. Also, French welfare benefits have more stringent criteria, and stop after a certain duration. Furthermore, countries like France, Sweden and Germany crack down on illegal immigrants more so than the UK, and although they take their fair share of immigrants, they are more inclined to decline asylum.
Migrants get told stories about how great it is to live in the UK regarding opportunities. They pay thousands for travel and to be smuggled out their country etc. just to get here, and usually end up in massive debt.
At the end of the day. They want a new life, to escape persecution, to be able to live a life they can be proud of, earn a decent living, and give their family a brighter future. They are not stealing 'your jobs'. They have sacrificed a lot to get here, in the hope of a better life. Not necessarily always legitimately, but it is an admirable feat none the less.
Edit: clarity
For those of you who say immigration is bad. Get a god damn education on the topic before you start making arguments on what you don't understand. Immigration is the bedrock on which the greatest nations in the west have built upon. Granted it needs to be handled, and managed efficiently for sustainability and controlled growth in the 21st century. But it is vital none the less. | 31 |
Do sinking objects have a constant acceleration? | Do sinking objects accelerate constantly (non-zero)? I had an idea that the displacement of the fluid might be constant, keeping acceleration at 0 after some threshold (kind of like terminal velocity?) | 43 | Objects falling through water will reach terminal velocity when the force of gravity pulling them down (proportional to mass) is equal to the drag pushing them up (proportional to area times speed^2) plus bouyancy (proportional to volume), exactly the same as in air. Speeds vary greatly by density and shape, but for the types of things you can throw, 1-2 meters per second is typical. Most objects will reach or approach their terminal velocity within a few seconds, then fall at terminal velocity for the rest of their trip to the bottom.
Life gets more complicated when you start to include viscous forces, surface boundary layers, added mass, etc., especially for small objects, but drag = gravity - buoyancy will get you pretty close. | 24 |
ELI5 why it is currently impossible to use lightning for electricity | Since I was 5 years old I always wanted to invent a machine that would catch lightning and use its electrical energy. Why has that not been invented yet?
There are enough thunderstorms around the world | 20 | Lightning is *discharging* the electrical energy stored in clouds back to the ground.
If you tried to make a machine to extract (too much) work from lightning, the lightning wouldn't strike your lightning rod, it would instead take an easier path. Through some nearby air, for example. | 14 |
[star trek] how does the federation justify the prime directive? How does the ability to develop a warp drive mean that a species is worthy of survival? | 25 | It does not have anything to do with any archaic idea of worthiness, if you have a warp drive there is no chance that your race could ever really be wiped out. you can travel so fast that you can colonize other stars and even other galaxies with enough effort. In most cases once the ability to make a warp drive is possible the level of production is such that it can be done by a small group of people so individual groups could make their own, very few methods of extermination would allow you to kill every member of a space fairing race fast enough to keep them from evading you.
tldr: it isn't worthiness it is the fact that once they have warp drives you are stuck with them. | 17 |
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Why do some beer bellies feel firm if they're caused by extra fat? Why aren't they soft and squishy like fatty tissue in other areas of the body? | Okay, so odd question, I know. But sometimes when a man gets a beer belly, it can feel kind of firm, like the belly of a pregnant woman. I searched a little online for why, but all I could find were "causes of beer bellies" which, is obviously extra calories leading to extra fat.
What I want to know is why the beer bellies are firm instead of feeling soft and squishy like other fat.
So why is that? | 18 | This is not specifically down to excess fat as a result of calories in alcohol, but down to the difference between subcutaneous ('soft') fat and visceral fat, which is fat stored deeper in the body, which also feels firmer.
For reasons mostly down to genetics, some people divert excess calories to visceral fat, while others produce mostly subcutaneous fat. This is largely responsible for the difference in 'feel'. | 17 |
Why do flesh, tissue, muscle, bone, skin all heal on their own but Teeth don't? | You break a bone and it will heal. Tear a Ligament or muscle, it will heal. Cut skin, it heals. Why do bad/cracked teeth not heal and go back to normal after a while? | 15 | There are two cell types responsible for making teeth. The ameloblasts and the odontoblasts. The ameloblasts make the hard enamel that protect your teeth and the odontoblasts make the softer dentin that makes up the core of your tooth.
Enamel is deposited on your tooth like frosting. Inside-> outside. This means that the ameloblasts are on the outside of the tooth when it erupts. As a result, they all die, and you lose your ability to generate new enamel. The odontoblasts live on after eruption, so you can generate new dentin, but it is the enamel which makes your teeth what they are, so if you lose that, you are SOL.
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Why does it take longer to delete big files if all we do is unlinking them ? | Hi guys,
It might appear as a stupid question but I haven't found much googling this, just one guy telling it takes lot of time deleting "multiple blocks linked together".
Intuitively, I would have thought that deleting time would be linear with the number of files but I guess what I picture as the address location is way more complex in reality.
Can someone please enlighten me ? | 38 | The time taken to delete a file is proportional to its size, because a larger file means more chunks to delete. You need to go through and delete all chunks, not just the first chunk.
(Obviously simplified, but that's basically it.) | 39 |
When healing from a cut or gash (may or may not require stitches), what happens to the damaged blood vessels? Do they reconnect perfectly, are new ones formed, or do damaged veins and capillaries just have a dead end now? | 494 | Small blood vessels (capillaries) will be stimulated t grow back into hypoxic tissue by growth factor proteins that the hypoxic cells send out. This is called angiogenesis, and it happens all the time. For a skin cut, that's about it.
Large blood vessels are more complicated. This is called vasculogenesis, and it takes a long time, and often doesn't happen at all, leaving you with an ischemic (hypoxic) limb that hurts. | 184 |
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If I had 100 atoms of a substance with a 10-day half-life, how does the trend continue once I'm 30 days in, where there should be 12.5 atoms left. Does half-life even apply at this level? | EDIT: Thanks for the explanations. I hadn't been aware that half-life was a statistical model, so it makes sense now. | 1,539 | There could be 12, could be 13, or any number from 0 to 100 with a varying probability given by the ~~Poisson~~ binomial distribution.
Continuous probability distributions apply in the limit of an infinite number of atoms, and Avogadro's number is in this limit. | 1,111 |
[Mass Effect] What do the volus properly call the quarians? | I know they call most species (planet)-clan and they often call the quarians “clanless” as a derogatory term, but what is the term the Volus use when they want to be polite? Since the quarians don’t have a home anymore. | 15 | Probably Flotilla-clan, since that's what the quarians call their collection of ships and it's pretty much their home world now. Or, if they knew the particular quarian well they may say (ship name)-clan, similar to how quarians refer to themselves as "(name) nar/vas (ship name)". | 22 |
[Command and Conquer] Where did the red tiberium come from? | In Tiberium wars the green tiberium is the "natural" one and the blue one seems to be caused by the alien invasion (at least that's what I got from the GDI campaign) where did the red Tiberium from Tiberan Twilight come from? | 36 | None of the forms of Tiberium are "natural," they're all essentially a tool engineered by the Scrin to assist in their mining operations. The green variant was simply the first one to appear, with blue being a more mature variant capable of converting more forms of matter to Tiberium (especially water).
I dont think we ever get a coherent explanation for red, but following the pattern of green and blue it would be a substance that can convert still more exotic varieties of normal elements into tiberium. | 31 |
[Blade Runner] Would a psychopath fail the Voight-Kampff test? | 20 | Yes, they would and have done so. Replicants are, in effect, psychopaths trying extremely hard to come off as normal humans.
Naturally, this has caused many legal problems over the years with some human psychopaths being unduely labeled as replicants. For more information, see the Supreme Court Cases of *Dick vs. City of Los Angeles* (2030) and *US vs. Philip* (2027) | 25 |
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Some children, even babies find heavy metal music very soothing/interesting. Is there any explanation as to why that is? | I have a few ideas, but the music seems to be flipped on it's head as far as the intent between an adult and when a child listens to it.
It is rhythmic and a novel sound. A child will not understand the lyrics or stigmas associated with the music.
But it still seems strange to me. I've seen videos of babies fall asleep or children gingerly ask about it when it is played.
I find it interesting about myself and the music, but I find it really curious why someone less than 5 say, has such a peaceful reaction to it sometimes. | 52 | Psycholog professor here. The short answer is that these babies ROCK!!! A slightly longer potential explanation is that it can be quite loud during pregnancy in a mother's womb. Before birth, children hear their mother's blood flow, bowels work, stomach contract, etc.. So, loud multi-layered sounds feel familiar to them after birth. Also, children are interested in patterns, repetitions and variations of patterns. This interest is probably genetically coded and helps babies to orient in the world and quickly learn about it. In Heavy Metal music, you have loud multi-layered noises and repeating or varying patterns. Perfect combination! A third influence is when the children see that the parents also like the music. Enjoying it then becomes a social experience, which can be very rewarding and thus reenforcing. | 60 |
ELI5: If nuclear fallout is such a huge concern. How are nations able to test nuclear weapons within their borders. | If it's because it's done in remote places. Does that mean areas far away from major cities likely to be attacked are safe?
| 48 | Nuclear fallout is very minimal from standard nuclear weapons, hence how people live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki just fine today.
Nuclear tests will often be underground, underwater, or an airburst. The Japanese bombing was airbursts, which maximize destruction by create minimal fallout.
Regardless, nuclear fallout is not a huge concern except in a full-scale nuclear war or reactor meltdowns. In that case, thousands of nuclear weapons would be dropped. It's not something that happens in any significant quantity from a single weapon. Chernobyl is an example of an instance that did cause consider nuclear fallout, and the reactor core is still humming away, buried in concrete underground. | 18 |
Is there any reasonable argument for the coexistence of both free will and an omniscient higher power/creator? | This is one of the big flaws of Christianity and some other religions that I just can't wrap my head around. I know that with the rigor applied to these religions, I can't be the first one who has struggled with it. So what are the arguments?
If God knows beforehand every single choice I will make in my entire life, and God cannot be incorrect in this, how is it possible that I have any choice? If I cannot ever act outside of God's foreknowledge, in what way is there free will?
EDIT: Wow, I thought this was kind of a silly question. I have very little knowledge of philosophy but it seems there are quite a few in here who disagree with each other. What a fascinating conversation! | 21 | A further question -- does God knowing something some necessitate that God is causing that thing to happen? What about a God who, armed with perfect knowledge, is merely a perfect reasoner who can ultimately predict, but not occasion, every event in the Universe.
That is, your choices are still your free and independent choices, God is just smart enough to use his perfect knowledge of the universe to accurately predict everything you will choose.
(which is just one compatibilist argument. There are many) | 14 |
[M*A*S*H] When Hawkeye dumps the garbage on the visiting colonel who creates many more casualties by sending troops back to collect already dead soldiers... | Hawkeye has a helicopter drop garbage he purchased from Frank's idiotic camp garbage sale on the colonel.
Assuming the colonel wishes to press charges (and it seems likely that he would), how could Hawkeye have avoided getting locked up?
Klinger was in on it, but I can see him lying to keep Hawkeye safe. Ditto for the chopper pilot. But Hawkeye admits it's his garbage, rightfully purchased including having a receipt, to Frank.
How does Hawkeye wriggle out of this one? | 16 | MASH was largely fantastic, but has one huge grain of truth - MDs can get away with almost anything in the military, even in peacetime. A trauma surgeon in wartime is an incredibly valuable resource. Proof point: retired and former military docs are routinely asked to return to active duty during wartime.
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Hawkeye Piece was not only a very talented doctor, he was a trauma surgeon with significant experience in battlefield wounds. If they court martialed him and send him to the stockade, there was likely **no one to replace him**. Remember, this is the Korean War, 7 or 8 years after WW2 - the entire generation of young men who would have been finishing their surgical fellowships are still in medical school or residency. Or they are dead because of WW2.
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It was repeatedly stated that his superiors knew he was sort of a dick and completely unmilitary and they didn't care. Not just his MASH COs, but various Generals.
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Why do some vaccines require a booster shot a few weeks later after the first one? | 5,809 | In simple terms, the first vaccine exposes your immune system to the virus (or bacteria, etc) so your body learns to fight. Sometimes to have lasting response your body needs a boost (sometimes said to “challenge the immune system”), which primes the immune system creating a more lasting immune response in the body.
Not all vaccines require boosters; there are a lot of variables involved. When we do research we look at immune titers at several intervals (days, weeks, months) post-dose to see if they drop below the immune response threshold... this tells us if we need to prime the immune system again with a booster. | 2,706 |
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[Vampire the Masquerade] Is there any reason why you wouldn't want to be an anarch? | The Camarilla seems like a roundly terrible deal for everyone outside of upper management, and the anarchs generally don't seem like they have any huge problems going on with them except for the Camarilla trying to force them back into the herd. So why wouldn't even newly embraced vampire go straight to the people promising community organization over some kind of highly top down organization structure? Any skeletons in the closet? | 33 | First of all, cam doesn't let people go easily. They DO have blackmail on you and your sire and his drinking buddies know what buttons to push.
Second, Anarchs have zero stability and aren't as idyllic as you think. There's still abuse going on. Kindred will be Kindred.
The main draw of the Cam is the stability. They generally help you live your daily life. They control the blood banks, the feeding grounds, and they write you your paycheck so you can rent your apartment and get clothes. Accidentally drain someone? They help with the body. Anarchs generally don't provide that kind of structure.
Furthermore there's no stability in the fact there's no retirement plan. Old cammies that live long enough get shit tons of ghouls and fledglings to wipe their asses for them. You'll almost never get that in the Anarchs, even as a Baron. | 42 |
ELI5 What happens to sunscreen? Does my body absorb or metabolize it? Is it stored in some form? | 4,732 | It's absorbed into your epidermis which is a layer of dead skin cells, and reflects UV rays from there. Trace amounts \*might\* make it as deep as your capillaries if you're regularly using copious sunscreen, but your Kidneys will, in general, make short work of those traces and it will be expelled in your urine. Most of it eventually wears off through water, sweat or friction as your skin cells shed off. | 3,947 |
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Why can we see Mercury and Venus in the sky if they are within our orbit? | I don't understand why we can see Mercury and Venus if their orbits are inside of our own? Surely we are looking out of our solar system thus couldn't see them unless during the day but then the sun would make it to bright to observe.
Assuming it has something to do with refraction/geometry. | 25 | The answer does have to do with geometry.
Consider the following arrangement:
Sun Venus
XXX
XXXXX
EARTH
XXX
Imagine you live at the 'H' on the above diagram of the Earth. In this configuration, the Sun will not be visible from that spot, so it'll be night time, but Venus will be -- so you'll be able to see Venus in the night sky.
Because Venus and Mercury have orbits inside that of the Earth, however, neither can be seen all night. At best, Mercury can be seen for about an hour after sunset or for about an hour before sunrise, whereas for Venus, the most is about 4 hours before sunrise or after sunset, if memory serves me correctly.
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[Death Note] I enter a ridiculously ambiguous date (04/08/15). How will the notebook decide when my victim will die? | That date can easily be Apr 08, 2015 (mm/dd/yy) or Aug 4th (dd/mm/yy). A sufficiently healthy victim just might realistically reach the next century so Aug 8, 2104 (yy/mm/dd) isn't off the table. | 33 |
> How to Use: XXVII
> If you write, die of disease for the cause of death, but only write a specific time of death without the actual name of disease, the human will die from an adequate disease. But the Death Note can only operate within 23 days (in the human calendar). This is called the 23 day rule.
The DN can only set death 23 in to the future at max. If you do not specify the death it will be a heart attack, as of possible death other then heart attack the only one that supposedly works every time is suicide, because every human can theoretically kill themselves they just need to want it enough.
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ELI5: What is the purpose of the turnable dial around the face of a watch? | 49 | The ring as we know it today on some watches, also called rotating bezel, actually dates to the first diving watches of the 1950's. At the time, using a stopwatch was impossible, because every additional pusher could further compromise water-resistance, so instead they relied upon the bezel as a basic timing apparatus.
Right before a dive, the wearer aligns the zero mark on the minutes hand. The bezel then indicates the minutes passed since entering water. To add security, the bezel can only be turned counter clockwise, meaning that if it were accidentally rotated, the immersion time would appear longer and the diver would be compelled to return to the surface earlier.
During the 1960's and 1970's, the US and British Ministries of Defence also incorporated the bezel into military standard, either to display dive time or hours. | 87 |
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[Stargate SG-1] matter cannot be created nor destroyed, only changed, so what happens to an object or (God forbid) a person who falls back through an incoming wormhole? | In the same vein, what happens to matter in the path of the unstable vortex? Or hitting the iris? | 23 | The matter pattern gets stored in the buffers of the Stargate.
Now if someone could modified the programming of a DHD connected to the Stargate they might be able to save them, sadly in most cases the buffers get whipped clean with the next incoming wormhole and the excess energy of the stored matter is used up in the kawoosh.
In the case of unstable Vortexes, both gates will try to stabilize the even horizon to finish the transport, depending on which state of the transport the vortex got destabilized the pattern will be ether lost in transition or be stored in the receiving Stargate.
The Iris scenario is more clear and morbid, the Iris works by *almost* covering up the event horizon of the Gate. Which means that a wormhole will be established but there isn't enough space for a successful re-materialization, you get, quite literally, splattered against the inside of the Iris one incomplete molecule at the time (that's also why you hear a "splash" sound when someone tries to go through a gate when the Iris is engaged). | 13 |
What ethical works resolve feelings of "gratitude owed"? | I'd assume someone in relationship or virtue ethics has dealt with gratitude, but I don't know who. When it comes to Kantian ethics, it intuitively feels like gratitude would be one of those sort of out-there, warm fuzzy feelings that neither determine nor are determined by duties.
My thoughts stem from the question of, if a friendly acquaintance generously gave me $50 to spend at a casino, what would be the most appropriate expression of gratitude if I won $100,000?
It occured to me that since their act was motivated by the virtue of generosity, then my act of gratitude should be fueled by the same virtue. I may not owe them any of the winnings, but generosity would suggest I should give them at least an amount in proportion to the ratio of their money to my money that I spent in gambling. If they gave me half what I spent, then I should at least give them $50,000 out of generosity-motivated gratitude.
On the other hand, if their gift mainly was motivated by a token sense of charity, then my act of gratitude should also be motivated by charity. I should give them nothing, as that would invalidate their charity, but I should show at least some token sense of charity to some other person, perhaps by paying forward the $50 opportunity, despite my huge winnings. And if their charity were less a token and more a balancing of hardships, then my gratitude should rebalance our hardships once more.
All in all, it seems to me like gratitude is reciprocation, not of resources, but of virtues.
Does this align with anyone else's thoughts? Would any works on ethics challenge this notion? | 21 | There's a book called Psychology of gratitude by Robert emmons which is actually by many contributing thinkers from philosophers to psychologists to religious experts which is not only brilliant but which explores the meaning and function of gratitude from about a thousand different angles.
It's the book to get on gratitude if you want an in depth (very in depth) account of it | 10 |
CMV: Cultural diversity training in the workplace is too lenient on those 'integrating' into Western society. | I'm studying community services (disability support and aged care) and I'm doing a cultural diversity unit. Cool, important info, right? Only I'm getting really tired of the 'respect their cultural beliefs REGARDLESS' when some of these beliefs are literally the opposite of respect as my culture knows it.
For example - I might experience a scenario in which a family member might request a male to speak on my behalf in regards MY client because I am female. And I'm supposed to avoid eye contact, and acquiesce.
I don't believe that it's a lot to ask that people from other cultures coming to ours understand that there are a lot of female care workers, and that in our society eye contact is a sign of attentiveness, not disrespect (or, bluntly, sluttishness.)
I expected a system where we meet each other half-way, not where we just allow practically anything bar physical violence. I can't help but feel that this is a negative way to integrate and live together.
I feel disrespected. I feel like I have a right to respect as well. And, maybe this is indicative of a larger problem when it comes to integration?
EDIT: I should clarify here. I completely understand an elderly client being set in their ways. I'm taking about dealing with family members, often their adult children. I can't help but feel that scenarios like these do hinder care, as a lot of this industry is female workers and it might not always be easy to find a man to deal with family members, and simple slip-ups by workers could result in conflict. I agree about being extra careful and respectful if it's for patient care - its very much the same for me as dealing with all the idiosyncrasies of cognitive impairment and just general fuddiness. BUT.. Not keen on pandering to what I can't help but find to be sexist and other negative opinions by people who I feel have the capacity to cut a little slack.
Sorry for the mass replies, I just thought not everybody checks the OP again | 183 | Keep in mind that you're just studying. It's important to understand how different cultures work for context and understanding once you're in the workforce.
In real life, when such things happen, you should act in whichever manner that upholds your self respect and dignity, sexist cultural views be dammed. | 31 |
Does multi-verse theory allow for variation in the laws of physics or must the laws of physics be constant across all universes? | 3,215 | Which multiverse theory are you talking about ? The idea that there could be many possible universes (yes physics can change) or the Everett many worlds hypothesis of quantum theory (in which case locally the laws should be the same)
Of course there is nothing in principle stopping some laws (e.g. involving the speed of light or gravitational constant) from varying in time (or space) in one universe | 1,165 |
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[MCU] Why did the Avengers only resurrect the people that Thanos killed with the Snap and not the people he killed when he was collecting the stones as well? | * Such as the Asgardians, Loki, the Nova Corp, etc. | 406 | They explained it as not wanting to affect anything that's happened since at the direction of Tony. He didn't want anything they did mess up his new family or jeopardize his new "second chance.". They were all afraid of what the stones could do, so they very specifically only undid the snap and affected nothing else or unmade any people by accident. | 278 |
Why are most people right-handed? | Is there any instinctual reason for this? | 15 | The reason we have a dominant hand rather than being all ambidextrous seems to be that it saves brain space to only have fine-motor-control in one hemisphere of the brain, rather than needing two. Most tasks our ancestors needed to do could be performed with one dominant hand just as easily as with two dominant hands, so it gave an adaptive advantage.
So why the right hand? If we look at the genetics of it, then we see that there isn't really a 'gene' for left-handedness. Of course, there isn't just one gene governing these things, but lets simplify it for now and say there is just one gene that governs these things. It has two forms:
C is the natural form of the gene that came about first. It doesn't really do anything, and the whole way the brain is organised is left up to the environment and chance (hence the c). It appears recessive, but it may be slightly codominant so I've put a capital letter.
D gives a specific mental schema for the brain. It tells us which hemisphere all the brain functions should go in. This particular schema works well, and so has an adaptive advantage. It also involves putting the fine motor control in the left hemisphere which controls the right hand (d for dexter).
So a person can be DD (right handed), DC (right handed) or CC (either right or left-handed at about a 50% chance). This accounts for the fact that two righties can give birth to a leftie, and two lefties can give birth to a rightie, but it still seems to run in families. It also accounts for why identical twins can have different dominant hands.
If we look at the proportion of left-handers among people of high intelligence, then we find it's about 20% as opposed to 10% in the general population. However, this is more or less balanced by the fact that about 20% of people of retarded intelligence are left-handed too. Having a CC gene means you are more likely to be an outlier on either side because your brain is less normal, and this could work either well or badly. Example: lefties have higher rates of schizophrenia.
But expression of the D gene clearly gives an adaptive advantage to an individual, so why hasn't the C gene been wiped out?
The answer is that in a right handed society where people fight each other, left-handers have advantages. Take playing tennis. A right-handed person normally plays right handed people, and his technique is built around this. A left-handed person also normally plays right handed people and does the same. So when a rightie plays a leftie, the leftie is playing in her comfort zone whereas the rightie is playing out of his. All other things being equal, the leftie will win. Now apply this to physical combat and you'll see that this gives lefties an advantage in a right-handed society (swap the hands and it would be the other way around). This is enough to preserve the C allele.
We can test this by looking at more tribal societies that have higher levels of instability, fighting and combat. They do have a higher percentage of left handers that does not seem to be based on geographical location.
But nobody has isolated the D/C gene, and it's likely it's actually a large collection, so all these are our best guesses more than gospel truth. | 11 |
Just like in supersonic motion, the object that creates the sound can move faster than the waves it produces, is it possible for the E-field or B-field that make up light to move faster than the light? | 845 | The light (i.e., the electromagnetic wave) *is* the E- and B-fields. So the answer to your question is trivially "no"; something cannot travel faster than itself.
But perhaps you mean to ask whether a source of light can travel faster than the speed of that light *in that medium*. So, for instance, can an underwater light source travel faster than *the speed of light in water*. Yes. That's perfectly fine. That particular question is commonly asked and a common example of this phenomenon (called *Cherenkov radiation*) is seen in the typical blue-ish glow of underwater nuclear reactors. | 397 |
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Is it morally okay to kill a person who oppresses/kills/hurts others? | 44 | This is a major dispute among different theories of morality. Various forms of consequentialism will ask whether this particular killing, or the policy of committing such killings in general, will end up making things better or worse for people overall in the long run. Deontologies will ask instead whether there is a universal prohibition on killing, or whether such prohibitions derive from a right not to be killed, and if so, whether that right is forfeit when one oppresses/kills/hurts others. Virtue theorists will ask whether cultivating the personal habits involved in killing such people is a virtue or a vice.
I think most theories will say that it's usually not morally good to kill such a person, but that there are circumstances in which it can be, particularly if the killing actually ends up preventing future bad actions. | 39 |
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This might sound like a silly question, but what exactly defines a fish? | It seems that the creatures we define as 'fish' struggle to fit into single defining rule to classify them as a distinct group. Not all fish are coldblooded, for instance Tuna, and not all fish are 100% aquatic, such as mudskippers (which brings up additional confusion between walking fish and amphibians).
So that's my question, how are fish defined as a distinct taxonomic group, if at all? | 33 | Fish are craniates (animals with a skull and usually a backbone) that aren't tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates inlcuding mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians.) However, this is not a distinct taxonomic group as fish such as lungfish are far more closely related to mammals than they are to ray-finned fish or sharks. Fish are instead a paraphletic group made up of a wide variety of not particularly closely related taxa. Fish is really just a convenient term for describing swimming vetebrates. | 19 |
ELI5 What is the difference between Web 1, Web 2, and Web 3? | As a business major who has no tech background whatsoever, I find it hard to understand the basic concept between Web 1, 2, and 3, especially from 2 to 3. Most websites that explain these differences dive into the technical/technological aspects with all these fancy words. | 20 | Web 1: The internet is a bunch of static webpages that a user can look up and read.
Web 2: The internet is as it is now, a bunch of dynamic webpages and platforms that you as a user can upload your own content too (think Facebook, Youtube, etc)
Web 3: To put bluntly is largely just a buzzword to make Crypto and NFT schemes sound important and revolutionary. In concept it is that instead of the current platform based systems we have now where ultimate control, ownership, monetization, etc of the uploaded content is held by the platform owners, instead the users will 'own' their uploaded content through the use of Crypto via some hand wavy mechanism and the platforms you uploaded too will be distributed in nature instead of centralized into a few big companies like the current platforms. | 77 |
I think the Marxist ideal of collective ownership of the means of production would hinder progress and would not benefit companies or consumers. CMV | Marxism is based on the idea of collective ownership of the means of production....or at least that's how it has been presented to me. I wonder how Marxists actually think that could realistically be pulled off. Let me give an example:
Say you there is a fast food joint. Modern technology has now made it possible to have touch screens and other forms of ordering systems that will reduce mistakes and increase efficiency. As a result, you have higher customer satisfaction and can produce burgers at a lower cost. If the fast food company was collectively owned, how could progress like that actually happen? The counter service staff, who under a Marxist system would partially own the company, would collectively disallow an upgrade like that to be made for the simple reason that they wouldn't vote themselves out of a job. How could you possibly get collective owners to vote in favor of the fact that they are now redundant? I think there has to be someone at the top whose income is more reliant on the success of the company than others because decisions like that have to be made, and a collective ownership would hinder progress with new technology. Can you CMV? | 28 | First, a minor vocabulary note. Marxism has said a great deal about collective or democratic ownership of the means of production and is relevant, but the more accurate term you would want to use is simply socialism, as this is what we are discussing.
Secondly, your argument is not a very good one because it's been dealt with for a while, since Marx in fact who included it in his critique of capitalism. Capitalists, also known as business owners, terminate workers when they are no longer necessary in order to reduce their costs and maximize the surplus they exploit from the workers, also known as profiteering. Not only does socialism not run into this problem, but socialism **flourishes** under technological automation and has been argued for as a necessity since our economy is becoming ceaselessly automated. When new technology comes along that speeds up production and reduces human labor, the workers can progressively reduce the hours they need to work and still maintain the enterprise at the same quality of operation. If the technology is advanced enough to completely make a worker obsolete, then the worker can in fact stop working but continue to receive the fruits from the machine's functioning given that they have a stake in the ownership and management. Under capitalism, all money saved laying off workers goes into the pockets of the capitalist. | 22 |
ELI5: How do medical facilities (hospitals, out patients, plastic surgery facilities, etc) dispose of things like body parts that are amputated, or skin that has been removed etc? | 60 | Often it's incinerated. Maybe the places which don't do it themselves ship the red hazmat bags to a commercial facility which does the job.
I think there are provisions for if a patient wants to retain their tissue, but it's not common except for miscarriage. | 82 |
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ELI5: Why is some rain little droplets and some rain are big old fat drops? | 59 | Rain forms when little particles of dust start getting water stuck to them in the cloud. When they get heavy enough, they fall. Sometimes, the wind is blowing upwards and the drops have to be heavier before they fall; this is how hailstones are made, too. Sometimes there's no wind blowing upwards, but the raindrops form way high up in a really thick cloud and keep collecting water as they fall. They don't fall very fast, so they have time to pick up a lot sometimes. When they form close to the ground they don't have enough time to pick up much extra water.
Edit: huh, needed a semicolon for once. | 37 |
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ELI5: How can a web form instantly tell that a credit card number is invalid even if it's one number off? | For example, I put in my (valid) credit card number, but I'm accidentally one number off. It instantly returns that the card number is invalid. However, if I enter the wrong zip code, it has to process for a while before coming back invalid. Why doesn't it have to do that with the card number? | 17 | Serial Numbers are created based on a mathematical formula that takes many paramenters. Imagine this example:
XXXX - XXXX - XXXX - XXXX
And the following rules:
+ The total number of numbers under 3 (0's, 1's, 2's) are divisible by 2.
+ The 4th number is smaller than the 9th number.
+ If you add the 1th and the 10th number you get the 3rd number if the sum is <10, or the sum of the 2 digits of that sum if >10
+ etc...
So any number can be checked really quickly against those rules to see if it is valid (it may be valid but not correspond to your account btw, you will get a different error).
Zip codes don't follow any rules like that. The program has to actually make a Database Querry to check if X zip code if for the place you claim it to be for | 12 |
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