post_title
stringlengths 5
304
| post_text
stringlengths 0
37.5k
| post_scores
int64 15
83.1k
| comment_text
stringlengths 200
9.61k
| comment_score
int64 10
43.3k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
Is there any evidence to show that setting an alarm or some sort of reminder to an event improves your chances of remember without actually needing the alarm to remind you? | I feel like this would do something with some psychological phenomenon. Is there any research that shows that if you set an alarm to remind you of a future event that you will actually end up remembering that event when it comes up and end up not needing your alarm to remind you?
From my experiences it seems that whenever I assume I can remember something without a reminder, I end up forgetting in the future. But when I decide to set an alarm to remind me in the future (i.e. on my phone) I end up remembering the event without the alarm ever going off to remind me. | 727 | ATTENTION!
Please remember that this is /r/askscience; we ask that you refrain from speculation, anecdotes, and off-topic discussion.
**Unless you are discussing empirical research related to this topic, please don't answer the question.**
Thanks, have a wonderfully scientific day! | 252 |
I believe that fandom or an audience changing (or suggesting changes to) the direction or content of a piece of fiction or art is a bad thing. CMV |
_____
One of the aspects I love about the arts, whether it be paintings, cinema, video games, novels, music, sculptures, comic books, is that they provide an opportunity for artists to express a personal, unique vision outside of our own. This is how we're able to have things like Starry Night, Gravity's Rainbow, Watchmen, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kind of Blue, Deus Ex, etc. Of course, we may not always be in tune with the visions of others, and quite often be revolted and disappointed by them (which is sometimes the intention). But I would gladly take that risk anytime if it means I can get the experience offered by any of those pieces I listed above. Sometimes we may not feel the catharsis that we may superficially want from something tailored to us, but being brought out of your comfort zone is often needed if you're going to experience something original or thought provoking.
The idea of an audience having input is prevalent due to the nature of the internet, where everyone can voice their opinions loudly. And I'm not saying that you have to like something. I think everyone is free to think as they wish about anything. But the idea of people feeling that art has to be changed to suit what they think is opposed to what art should strive for. It was the hoopla surrounding the Mass Effect 3 ending a few years ago that made me think about this, but I really started to contemplate this idea when reading about what [Hideaki Anno](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hideaki_Anno#Neon_Genesis_Evangelion) went through with Neon Genesis Evangelion and its fanbase. I wasn't so hot over the ending of the Mass Effect trilogy either. But as a person who plans on creating something of my own at some point, I would hate to think that if the internet rises up and screams at you, change must be made to your work, regardless of what your vision dictates. CMV
> *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 just downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 38 | Well, art doesn't live in a vacuum. All art (in the broadest sense of the term) is made for an audience. Without that audience, what's the point?
I guess you see art as a person's vision, and you think it's tainted by outside interaction from anyone else. But the creators are only able to create *because* of outside influences in the first place. If their own audience / fans happen to be one such influence, what's the harm? | 17 |
[Mulan] Was Mulan secretly taking her father’s place in the army entirely pointless? | She took his place because her father is too elderly but later we see that Shang tried to kick her out of the army because she was proving to be too weak at the time. Wouldn’t the same thing happen to her father if he went? | 619 | No. Zhou wouldn't have been a green recruit like Ping was, so he wouldn't have stayed behind with Shang for basic training. He'd have gone to the front lines with General Li and been slaughtered by the Huns. And without Mulan, Shang might not have beaten the main force of the Huns, and even if he did he certainly wouldn't have known about the survivors and their plot to sneak into the city and take down the emperor. | 571 |
How does one point of a snowflake synchronize formation with points on the opposite side? | How do they "communicate" so they're on the same page? | 72 | They don't really, they just grow that way because of the hexagonal shape of the initial (microscopic) ice crystal.
Each new molecule of the snowflake is in contact only with its closest neighbors, and aligns with them. These neighbors, in turn, are aligned with their older neighbors, all the way back to the beginning. The local alignment shows up because of the shape and charges on the water molecule, and gives rise to a global alignment.
If you're wondering how come two points on opposite sides look almost exactly alike, it's because they formed in almost exactly the same conditions. Snowflakes are different from each other because the air each flake formed in has a different moisture content and temperature. These fluctuations in the type of air occur over a distance that is much larger than the size of an individual snowflake, so each point on a snowflake experiences the same conditions as all the other points on that snowflake. | 61 |
When a woman dies giving birth, what exactly happens? | 29 | The most common is hemorrhaging. There are fairly big blood vessels connecting the placenta to the uterus. During birth the placenta detaches from the uterus, so if anything goes wrong there, she can lose a lot of blood quickly.
Also possible are heart attacks or strokes induced by the exertion of childbirth. | 26 |
|
CMV: The notion of going to college for the sake of "getting an education" is harmful and obsolete. | Over the years I've heard from many adults in my life that the purpose of a college education is to gain a more thorough perspective on the world, develop critical thinking skills, and to interact with a network of people who share similar academic passions. While I don't disagree that reputable colleges provide this for their students, I think that going to college for the reason of learning these things is a horrible, horrible idea. The purpose of getting a degree--above all else-- is to help land the career you want, not to learn skills that can easily be acquired elsewhere.
Perhaps 20 years ago going to college to "get an education" made sense. Information wasn't nearly as readily available as it is today and so there weren't many options for people who wanted a post-secondary education without college. But now we live in a world of khanacademy, MIT opencourseware, coursera, and countless other free educational resources that make more information more accessible than it's ever been at any point in history. Of course, employers still want people with degrees, which is why college is important, but the skills acquired through obtaining a degree are no longer unique to colleges.
I've actually heard one of my professors say that "even if your degree doesn't land you a job, college is never a waste of time". I don't see how this is true. If your degree doesn't get you a job, then all it did was provide you with some learning skills. Skills that--as stated above--could have been obtained just as easily outside of college provided that you know how to use the internet. The only difference is that you wouldn't be in tens of thousands of dollars in debt if you hadn't taken the college route.
This leads me to my final point, which is that informing students that going to college for the sake of "getting an education" is harmful. College puts students under a relentless burden of financial, emotional, and mental strain. Unless there is going to be a large payoff at the end of the person's education in the form of a good career that would otherwise have been unobtainable without their degree, the person is essentially incurring a huge cost for no tangible benefit whatsoever. Becoming a debt-slave in your early twenties is a horrifying way to start out your adult life, and so students should only be encouraged to go to college for the reason of pursuing their specific career goals.
Please CMV. As a soon-to-be college graduate I'd like to think that my degree has some value outside of the job market, but the realist in me thinks that people just convince themselves of this so that they don't feel bad about not having a job after graduating.
_____
> *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!* | 39 | Information has always existed. If you had access to salons, libraries, or even the local watering hole, you had access to information. There are a few things that college provides outside of raw information.
Direction. Professors understand seminal works and how most to make the connections. You can learn the same in 1 year of directed learning that wouldn't be possible in 3 years without the direction, having to do everything manually.
Critical thinking skills. Being able to regurgitate isn't the focus of education, but understanding why information is valuable, and how to leverage your learning. It is similar to knowing Occam's Razor (or Hanlon's), but not knowing when to properly or appropriately use that principle.
Exposure. Colleges are truly worldly organizations. Experiencing others from outside your culture and social sphere is more valuable than most give it credit for. | 19 |
How could the Big Bang singularity have been infinitely dense? | I was reading [this article](http://www.universetoday.com/104863/goodbye-big-bang-hello-hyper-black-hole-a-new-theory-on-universes-creation/), and I noticed the second paragraph, which said the following:
> The standard theory is that the universe grew from an infinitely dense point or singularity, but who knows what was there before?
I always thought that if something was infinitely dense, or infinitely fast, or infinitely hot, it would need infinite energy to be that. Was infinite energy possible before the Big Bang? How could the Big Bang singularity have been infinitely dense? | 33 | You're right and that article is taking liberties. The "big bang" theory doesn't say anything about the "instant" of creation; the theoretical cosmologists studying it start a small amount of time *after* when there "would be" a singularity. | 22 |
ELI5 - What makes the whites of your eyes greyish / bloodshot when you're super tired? | I haven't slept well in months (cos baby). The whites of my eyes haven't been bright white for a long time now - they're perpetually greyish and feel really rough / sandpapery. Why does being tired make them discoloured? Also, by most evenings my eyes are bloodshot. What makes this happen and why aren't they bloodshot all the time given how knackered I am? | 56 | Your tears have a particular mixture of water, oils, proteins, sugars, and salts to help moisturize and protect the surface of the eye.
As you stay awake longer, the quality of your tears degrades because your tear ducts also get tired. This causes your eyes to dry out easier, causing irritation and redness. It also makes you want to rub you eyes to help smear the tears you have left.
Your tear ducts need shut eye time to recharge and refresh it's production of tears. If you don't let your body sleep, your tear ducts are not able to produce good quality tears. You can substitute with artificial tears (different from the eye drops with medication to reduce redness) but ideally, you should restore your natural tear production. | 25 |
[The Mandalorian] S2:E8 Spoiler Within | Ye be warned.
>!Bo Katan wants the Darksaber to reclaim her place as ruler of the Mandalorians, fair enough. But when circumstances force Mando to duel Moff Gus Gideon, she is visibly riled at the sight of Mando holding the Darksaber. Gideon explains this; the Darksaber cannot be given, but must be won, even as Mando offers it freely as payment for her part in the rescue operation.!<
>!But years earlier, a Mandalorian by the name of Sabine Wren does exactly this, freely giving the Darksaber over to Bo Katan, and absolutely nobody makes a fuss of it.!<
>!Why the discrepancy?!< | 18 | The difference is, Sabine didn't win it in a duel. Also, there is the issue that that happened in the past and we didn't really see the outcome of it. It's quiet possible that there was a lot of pushback against Bo Katan specifically because of how she came into possession of it, and she wants to come back again with a more rightful claim this time. | 29 |
Where was the Big Bang and wouldn't that be the center of the universe? | The way I understand it the Big Bang came from one point that contained everything and expanded from there. Where in space is this original point? | 57 | The big bang happened everywhere in the universe approximately simultaneously.
We have some good reason to believe the universe is infinite in size; and always has been. It's not conclusive, but it's the leading theory at the moment. So if it's infinite now, it was likely to be infinite then. The problem occurs with an ambiguity in language where we have a finite region of space that is our "observable" universe that is only a small part of the rest. It is this "observable" universe that is said to be contracted to a very small region (but probably not an exact point).
Think about it like this... Early on the universe was very *dense*. The big bang is the creation of space between the primordial energy that causes it to be *less dense*. That's the big bang. No explosion. No point ballooning into existence. The initial phase of this space creation was extremely rapid called inflation, but then settled at a more "reasonable" pace. But it happened everywhere at once. Tiny fluctuations in "at once" ended up causing irregularities in the density of the primordial energy that have propagated through the eons and gravitational interactions to give us the large scale structure of the universe. | 67 |
CMV: Robots replacing people's jobs can have a likely positive outcome | Everybody is panicking that when robots and automated scripts take our jobs from us, there will be a giant socio-economic crisis. They do have a point, I must say.
However, what if instead of people losing their *jobs* we start to think in terms of people losing the *time* they spend at work? In other words: since robots will perform more Gross Work on our planet, it may become possible to share the remaining GW between people whose jobs were overtaken by automatisation. Instead a 8-hour-a-day worktime, humans will end up with 4-hour-a-day worktime.
The same amout of people will end up doing half of the work they had been doing so far. And the rest will be done by the robots. I mean, isn't more free time what we all are striving for? | 30 | It can have a positive outcome if and only if we establish ways to care for those who are unemployed and create jobs in other fields. If automation occurs too rapidly and we have not done both those things yet then there will be suffering. | 27 |
ELI5: Why is raw egg white okay to drink in fancy cocktails but considered dangerous when eating raw cookie dough? | People always freak out about eating raw cookie dough for fear of salmonella due to the raw eggs.
Yet raw egg whites have been a common ingredient in fancy cocktails for ages and its never been questioned or regarded as dangerous.
What gives? | 11,694 | They put that on cookie dough containers so that those companies aren't liable if you get sick. But, in general, raw egg is pretty safe in moderation. The uncooked flour in the dough is probably more dangerous than the egg.
I make ice cream using raw egg all the time. Mayonnaise is also made with raw egg, if you make it at home. | 8,805 |
CMV: The Facebook "whistleblower" is doing exactly what Facebook wants: giving Congress more reason to regulate the industry and the Internet as a whole. | On Tuesday, Facebook "whistleblower" Frances Haugen [testified before Congress](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/10/05/technology/facebook-whistleblower-frances-haugen) and called for the regulation of Facebook.
More government regulation of the internet and of social media is good for Facebook and the other established companies, as they have the engineers and the cash to create systems to comply, while it's a greater burden for start-ups or smaller companies.
The documents and testimony so far have not shown anything earth-shattering that was not already known about the effects of social media, other than maybe the extent that Facebook knew about it. I haven't seen anything alleged that would lead to criminal or civil penalties against Facebook.
These "revelations", as well as the Congressional hearing and media coverage, are little more than setting the scene and manufacturing consent for more strict regulation of the internet, under the guise of "saving the children" and "stopping hate and misinformation."
[I have no solid view to be changed on whether Haugen herself is colluding with Facebook, or is acting genuinely and of her own accord.] | 1,148 | Facebook makes more money in an unregulated space, and they don't currently suffer from any small competition; why would they be willing to make less money to halt non-existent competition from forming? Do you believe they will somehow make more money in a more regulated social media space? | 455 |
Is consuming dairy products while sick actually harmful? | I've heard people tell me that dairy products increase mucus/phlegm production. Is this actually true? I made a couple google searches but I could only find a bunch of opinions without any real evidence. | 52 | Phlegm is the thick, sticky mucus that drips down the back of your throat when you have a cold. Although drinking milk may make phlegm thicker and more irritating to your throat than it would normally be, milk doesn't cause your body to make more phlegm. In fact, frozen dairy products can soothe a sore throat and provide calories when you otherwise may not eat.
-James M. Steckelberg, M.D.
Source: Mayo Clinic
edit: Source | 32 |
Does an octopus favor a tentacle in the same way that a human favors a hand? | 74 | Probably not, or at least not the same way as in humans. What causes it for us is specialisation of hemispheres, which makes them better or worse at controlling motor activity if their respective limb.
Unlike humans, octopuses don't have a "specific limb" controlled by a specific part of the brain, nor do they have two hemispheres that operate independently. Octopus brain appears to be a "decision making" unity while all the direct motor control is performed by peripheral nervous system of the arms. Which contain about two-thirds of the neurons of octopus.
So yeah, they may prefer they forward or rear arms for different tasks, same way as we prefer our legs and arms for different tasks, but there is no lef-right division | 35 |
|
ELI5: How do some people survive a direct lightning strike to their body, while others die due to simply mishandling an electronic appliance? | (not sure what flair to use so I chose physics)
I see stories of people surviving lightning strikes. How is it possible for someone to survive one? | 32 | It really depends on the path the current takes. If it goes through the brain or heart, you're done for--but you can survive even very high currents with just burns and minor nerve damage if it takes a less dangerous path. That will depend on your body structure, your clothing, the source of the current, etc. | 25 |
CMV: Smoking should banned in ALL public areas. | I believe smoking in ALL public places should be illegal. It is accepted fact that smoking, and second hand smoke, in ANY amount is harmful to the health of those inhaling it. These negative health effects are a legitimate public health concern.
Cigarette smoke is an unnecessary pollutant (as opposed to pollutants that are required to add value, such as motor vehicle exhaust), it creates additional litter in urban areas, and is an irritant to others in the area.
There is no ~~ethical~~ reasonable rationale for allowing smokers to pollute public areas for their own personal pleasure. Many laws are currently in place that limit personal freedoms in public for the betterment of society. Examples include public nudity laws, littering laws, open carrying of firearms, traffic laws, public intoxication, etc.
[~18% of US citizens currently smoke](http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm#use) and the current tolerance of smoking in public places is a convenience allowed to a minority at the detriment of the majority.
To address some possible arguments:
PERSONAL LIBERTY/FREEDOMS: In US legal history, there is a strong precedent for outlawing or banning activities based on the concept of improving public health even in the face of personal liberty. A strong example is the wearing of seat belts in cars and helmets on motorcycles. (The ethics of these laws could be argued, but the precedent has been set as fact for the basis of this CMV)
ENFORCEMENT: Practically, enforcement of such a ban would be logistically difficult, but the same could be said about the example used above of seat belt laws. Lack of practical enforcement measures is not a reasonable argument for failing to enact an otherwise sound and needed law.
SLIPPERY SLOPE: Additionally, smoking laws have been developed to ban smoking in restaurants, within specified distances from doorways, and in some general public ares such as parks or playgrounds. The next logical step is to ban it in all public areas.
In fact, [according to a somewhat recent Gallup Poll, most Americans support a ban on smoking in public areas.](http://www.gallup.com/poll/174203/americans-favor-ban-smoking-public-not-total-ban.aspx)
ALLERGIES: I have heard arguments comparing smoking to eating peanuts in public. A few things with this, firstly, [only 1.3% of Americans have a peanut allergy](http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=15618) so the population affected by public peanut eating is incredibly small, whereas the population affected by public smoking is 100% of those in the area. Secondly, peanuts are not harmful to those ingesting them (unless that person has an allergy for some reason). Smoking is harmful to everyone's health, including the person smoking. Lastly, fatal peanut allergies are rare enough that public peanut eating is not a significant public health concern.
TO BE CLEAR: I am not suggesting banning smoking completely! People that would choose to do so would still be able to smoke in their home, car, or private property.
Also, I searched the CMV reddit and a similarCMV was posted about 1 year ago, I think my view is slightly different and more supported than the previously posted thread. Also, 1 year is a long time ago in internet years.
_____
> *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!* | 26 | In California, a restaurant with a patio can't have a smoking section and non-smoking section, it has to all be one or the other. The vast majority of restaurants choose to be non-smoking, but a small small handful have smoking patios. Smokers congregate at these places and non-smokers choose not to patronize them upon seeing a patio full of smoke. Why can't the smokers have their few areas, knowing that non-smokers get the vast majority of areas? | 10 |
CMV: The best version of the song is, "If your're happy and you know it and you really want to show it..." | <To be read in a with a tone that is a mix between Seinfeld and Paulie Walnuts from the Sopranos>
>If you're happy and you know it, ***then your face will surely show it...***
Who thought of this? They are out of their mind and don't know what they're talking about. What's the point of clapping your hands and stomping your feet if you can just let people know you're happy just by looking at your face? It makes the whole song irrelevant. Ridiculous! They may as well sing, "If you're happy and you know it, just smile and then we're done here because everyone knows it <end song>"
>If you're happy and you know it, ***and you really want to show it...***
Now we're talking. This line binds everything together. Being happy, clapping your hands, stomping your feet. It gives me the motivation to do the actions in the song. Why should I clap my hands? Because I want to show you how happy I am. Look 👏 how 👏 happy 👏 I 👏 am!
I dont want to have to whack all these children's singers that are singing the wrong lyrics. Even if they deserve it because they're singing nonsense, it'll just make the kids cry more. CMV.
Sincerely, a New Yorker whose 15-mo old son just got into music. | 26 | The "face will surely show it" is only for the first stanza ("smile at me"). When you are clapping your hands, your hands will surely show it. When you are stomping, your feet will surely show it. Etc. One should certainly not repeat the same line stanza after stanza. That way lies sheer drudgery.
Good luck with your toddler! | 10 |
[The Walking Dead, The Zombie Survival Guide, Etc] Zombies appear to be immortal, not requiring warmth, oxygen, or food. Could you put one on a treadmill and extract free energy? | You would have to have some mechanism to hold their torso in place and some sort of bait for them to try to shamble towards of course.
There's also the possibility of extracting the brain from a zombie and using it like a potato battery. | 222 | Zombies are not immortal. Both the outbreak of the Walking Dead Virus and the Solanum Strains have a documented decomp rate, although it is much slower than regular human corpses.
So your system would likely be more efficient than a horse drawn motor, but the law of Conservation of Energy would still be held as all of the energy applied comes from the slow decomposition of the organic tissue within the infected. | 117 |
ELI5: I just watched Coffeezilla about the Logan Zoo-Crypto-Scam. Can somebody explain me, how something can be worth millions of dollars, when no one is trading it? The whole stealth launch I don´t understand. Where does the value come from? | 17 | Of course, there is no value. The scam works something like this:
You create, say 1001 crypto coins or tokens. Then you sell 1 for $10, maybe to a friend or a sockpuppet. Now your coin is trading at $10. So you say that your 1000 remaining coins are worth 1000 times $10 because that's what you would supposedly get on "the market".
The real question is why anyone falls for that. The answer is that it makes sense for stocks and some other things. Here's how it makes sense:
When you take out a loan, you get a sum of money and pay it back in smaller sums in the future. The money you get is the present-day value of those future payments you make.
Stocks work on the same principle. You give money to a company which uses your money to build factories and stuff. Later, you get a share of the profits. The value of the stock, should be the present-day value of those future profits. So the value of all stock combined, should be the value of all the future profits.
With crypto, that calculation makes absolutely no sense. There is just nothing behind it. But people who don't realize that may be fooled because they know it from other investments. | 26 |
|
How do antibodies find viruses? It's not like they can tell from afar that there is one and then "swim over", can they? | Is it just a game of chance, where there's enough antibodies produced that they are bound to "bump" into a virus? | 1,768 | Yes. It is a game of chance.
This is where molecular affinity comes in. Antibodies have regions that are highly specific for their target on a virus, or whatever else they have been raised against. If they bump into it they have a high probability of binding and have a low probability of falling off.
About the closest thing in our bodies to a "swim over" situation is chemotaxis of certain cells. This is when a cell detects a concentration gradient of a molecule and that triggers the cell the move in direction of greater concentration. By moving towards the greater concentration the probability it interacts with whatever it needs to increases. If you've ever seen the video of the white blood cell chasing the bacteria this is how it happens.
&#x200B;
Edit: slight elaboration | 1,284 |
[Star Trek] Why can't the Borg pre-emptively adapt? | So generally in Trek, the Borg adapt to weapons frequencies, rather than the weapons themselves; If they get damaged by a phaser shot, they adapt to that phaser frequency and then you can't use it again. But why can't they analyse the weapons frequencies they've already been hit with, think "Well, the enemy will probably use frequencies close to this one" and adapt to those as well before getting hit. | 26 | It actually takes the Borg quite a long time to adapt to just one frequency. Changing the frequency by 1 Hz is a completely new threat to deal with and would take just as long to adapt to as the original frequency. 1 difference is nowhere near the original and has to be recalculated from scratch completely. The range of frequencies that can be used is massive, to preemptively guess which ones would be used is hard. And anyway, the modulating frequency usually jumps around the scale by quite large intervals. | 10 |
When I take 2 hammers and hit the heads together, they appear as though they don't really touch each other. What's happening? | 540 | Hammer heads usually aren't flat, they're slightly convex. You're seeing two points on those curves touch, then bounce away - but to your eye, it (correctly) looks like most of the hammer heads aren't coming into contact.
Side note - be careful when you're doing this; sometimes tools shatter. | 586 |
|
I don't believe in privilege. CMV | 1 | 18 | I think it would be appropriate to change your title to "I don't believe privilege is deterministic."
>Now one may easily complain how it's not fair. Well, the world is not fair.
This is pretty much the definition of privilege. You aren't arguing that you don't believe it exists, you're arguing that discussing it has no merit and won't actually solve any problems, especially on an individual basis. This is a totally different argument.
Apologies for the somewhat meta nature of the comment. | 35 |
[Alien/The Thing] What would happen if the "Thing" tried to consume and assimilate a xenomorph? | 39 | The Thing doesn't really consume or assimilate, it takes genetic samples and mimics. So, provided it could safely extract a genetic sample, it would just do what it does best... Imitate the Xenomorph (provided it was advantageous to do so).
The issue is more about whether or not it could safely extract any usable genetic material without harming it's self. It hasn't really been shown to be resistant to Acid, so trying to harm or sample a Xenomorph safely would be like trying to take a blood sample from a fire elemental. | 32 |
|
How much does the sun's gravity influence our pull towards the earth? | I've included [a picture](https://i.imgur.com/9aILuWE.jpg) to help my question.
Person B is pointing exactly at the sun. Person A is on the exact opposite side of the earth.
Assuming person A and person B are exactly the same in mass, let's say 100 kilograms, does the sun's pull make person A weigh more than B?
If so, how big is this difference between them? | 16 | The gravitational acceleration towards the Sun felt at 1 AU (AU = Astronomic Unit, a measure for the distance between the Earth and the Sun) distance is 0.593 cm/s^2 . Compare to the gravity of the Earth at its surface: 9.81 m/s^2 , 1600 times more.
The difference in distance to the Sun between people standing on opposite sides of the Earth (on the line connecting both objects) is equal to the diameter of the Earth, about 12,000 km. This causes a difference in gravitational attraction to the Sun of 0.016%.
Putting it together, it means that the total gravity experienced by someone on the side closest to the Sun is approximately 0.00001% higher than for someone on the far side of the planet with respect to the Sun. | 12 |
[Star Trek/Hellraiser] The Borg find a Lament Configuration and proceed to have a drone solve it. Given that they are a hive mind and that it is desire - not hands - that calls them, how would they respond to suddenly finding themselves among countless Borg of a single collective mind? | 46 | I believe it hinges on why the Collective tried to open it. If they were just like "it's a box, let's open it", the Cenobites likely won't show up; they'll just end up with a solved puzzle. If the Collective *knows* the Configuration is a gateway to something, and *wants* to get that something, then things get interesting.
Once they're through, they're probably going to be extremely excited at what they find. A single entity connected to the nerve endings of an entire nation? A gestalt being whose individual parts are endowed with sensory capacity that extends so far beyond human norms that it makes an eagle look blind? Oh, yes, they have such sights to show the Collective...
As far as the Collective's response, (Picard spoilers) >!odds are good they'd give whatever cube the Cenobites were at the same treatment as the derelict Romulan cube, severing it from the Collective to spare the entirety of the Borg the bizarre and alien sensations coming through the connection. Of course, this would leave the Cenobites with a massive pile of inert but alive drone bodies as well as an entire cube worth of tech; no doubt they'll think of something *interesting* to do with it.!< | 23 |
|
[The Office] Was the finished documentary 9 seasons’ worth in-universe or is the Watsonian version condensed? | If a full 9 seasons, did they still release it all within one year between the timeskip? | 20 | We saw EVERYTHING that they filmed, no cuts no nothing.
Then they condensed the 9 seasons in a documentary that shows some of the best stuff.
Example, the double christmas episode where Michael comes back with 2 chinese waitresses gets axed for sure. Its incredibly funny but not apt to the documentary | 25 |
[MCU] Why were the kids that returned after the blip required to complete extra schooling? | So I watched *Far from Home* the other night, and I noted that the kids were annoyed that they had completed their "Mid Terms" before the blip.
Now I'm not American, so I had to Google what a mix term was, and it said:
>A midterm exam, is an exam given near the middle of an academic grading term, or near the middle of any given quarter or semester. Midterm exams are a type of formative assessment, to measure students' grasp of the course materials and identify areas that need work.
Now I then asked an American friend, and the way they interpreted that was that basically you've completed a fair chunk of schooling, and given that the Snap happened in "Spring 2018" in Wakanda, it would be the last mid terms before summer. Given that Wakanda is north of the Equator, spring is before the middle of the year.
Ok cool, so we have some context, we'll assume that the Snap happened around the end of May, given that Northern Hemisphere Summer happens on the 1st of June.
So you assume here, ok, the kids had ~5 months of school, that's cool, the rest of the world loved 5 years, that's cool, then the kids come back in October 2023 with the Blip.
Now cool cool, everyone else lived 5 years.
The bit I don't get, is that to those that were snapped, they *did not live that 5 years, to them, 2018 was just yesterday, it was just a few seconds ago*
So it's not like the kids *forgot* what they learned, so why make them restart the whole school year? I mean, it's not like it was 1 or 2 kids and it would just be easier to not change the curriculum.
It was 50% of all kids, a fairly substantial chunk.
To me, it seems like it would make sense to stagger the year by 50%, 50% of the kids are half a year ahead if their peers, and now that 50% graduate mid-year compared to the other kids.
So give them 2 months off until January the following year, and start them off with what they would have learned Mid-Year forwards. Then those that were in their final year will graduate at the end of June, the new School year for those that were snapped now starts mid-year.
I mean, yeah it's a bit convoluted, but it's 50:50, and realistically, it'll only matter for what? 10 years? 15 years? When do you start schooling in the USA? Google says you start at 5 years old in New York, and Finish at 18 years old, so that's 13 years you'd have to run a dual system for. Seems a long enough time that the investment in setting up that system would be viable.
Like, it's not as if it's only a 2 year ROI on your effort, you'll have 13 years where that system would need to run. | 29 | Because they were killed halfway through/towards the end of their school year, it means that said academic year was considered a complete write-off due to possible changes to the curriculum, among other things.
Remember, they do change things on tests and course material quite a bit, including reading material in English classes or what questions are asked in an exam. And with scientific advancements, particularly in the crazy world of the MCU, a lot of things could be considered just plain wrong or would include material that wasn't taught five years prior, such as the physics of space travel. | 68 |
[Star Wars] Why aren't there any Strong or even Weak Godlike artificial intelligences yet? Why do people live in fragile biological bodies instead of in matryoshka brains? | Did the technology never develop or is there some other reason? | 52 | It seems that droid brain is sort of a black box of artificial intelligence in Star Wars. It's in essence can be a completely self-aware intelligence, but very very rarely it is protrayed as something massively superior to ordinary living beings. Some droids can be plugged into massive intelligence and control grids, like The Core on Raxus Prime that basically a one big artificial intelligence that governs a junk planet, but that'd pretty much as big as it goes.
Considering that Raxus Prime Core still wasn't smart enough to cobble itself some starships out of PLANET OF JUNKED SHIPS, I'd say we're safe from being enslaved by robot overlords for now.
> **Why do people live in fragile biological bodies instead of in matryoshka brains?**
Entechment techology is banned as inhumane, and it doesn't really work. One girl thought that she could save her boyfriend by uploading his brain into a human replica droid, but all that accomplished was a droid that thought that it was her boyfriend with uncanny valley size of Maw Cluster. | 38 |
[Dark Souls 1] What the hell happened? | I've played quite abit of this game, and made alot of surprising progress. But seriously. I'm almost tempted to say "What story"?
It's obviously different in its presentation. So seriously. What happened? Who am I? What's going on? | 18 | You were fed lies.
There is no chosen undead. You're not special, you're just driven enough to achieve what needed to be achieved and to gain power. What you do with that power is entirely up to you.
Either you perpetuate the flame, sacrificing yourself in the process (either because you we're fooled into believing you'd be lord of fire, or you knew what would happen), or you let the flame die and rule the dark.
Those are your choices. What happens is what you make happen. | 29 |
ELi5 Why do belly buttons collect lint?? | 24 | Most hairs on your belly are growing in the direction of the belly button. When wearing clothes that are susceptible to generate lint while you are moving around the lint can only travel in the direction of the belly button, eventually collecting there.
Having a smooth, hairless belly should therefore also reduce lint accumulation. | 34 |
|
As a free market economist is there anything that can be done regarding discipline/restrictions against China for how they are treating Turkic Muslims? | I feel like I’ve answered my own question by putting “free market” and “restrictions” in the same sentence, but from an economic perspective only is there something that can be done that would incentivize China to stop?
Mods I’m sorry if this comes across political. | 15 | Controversial political opinion aside, this is essentially a game theory problem. You can sort of break it down into several games, but the key is to assess the payoff dynamics from the Chinese side. This would stand even if you were trying to discipline the Americans for how they treated Iraq/Afghanistan or anything else really. There are many many strategies and it can be a real rabbit hole, but here's a teaser.
The first to consider is the basic static two-player payoff matrix. Let's assume you have China on one hand, and the West on the other. China can continue (C) or stop (S), the West can punish (P) or do nothing (N).
We have four possible payoffs expressed as China/West in arbitrary units, C-N gives +5/0, C-P gives +2/-2, S-N gives 0/+2, S-P gives -3/-2. These ultimately reflect that China derives +5 political etc benefits from its actions, and the West incurs a -2 cost in order to deliver -3 damage to China's economy. In this situation, China's dominant strategy is obvious, as playing C is strictly preferable to playing S. Knowing this, the West should play N, as playing P results in -2 loss vs 0.
The solution to this is to change the payoffs. But the way that many activists attempt is to place political pressure on the West, without significantly affecting China. We can show this by having a -5 political pressure payoff attached to the N decision, giving S-N (0/-3) and C-N (+5/-5). Note that this payoff only applies to politicians, and people are getting the payoff we depict above. This is relatively easy to do as American politicians are extremely insular as a result of the political system and can be quite easily swayed to prioritize any vote-winning issues. You now have P as the dominant strategy for the West, which might seem to have achieved the goal. However, this is a strategic failure since the dominant strategy for China knowing that P is dominant for the West is still C. In practice, all you've done is achieve C-P, which still results in China continuing.
Consequently, the ideal solution would target Chinese payoffs. But that's prohibitively difficult given how resilient the political actors are to external influence. So we're back to targeting the West. One way is to do a repeated game using something called a trigger strategy. There are multiple trigger strategies, but let's talk about the grim trigger, which basically says that the West commits to playing N, but once China play S, the West will play P in every future period. We can also dramatically ramp up the punishment so that the West incurs -6 damage to inflict -8 damage to the Chinese economy when playing P.
Grim trigger strategies have relatively complex solutions involving discounting future payoffs, but the messaging here is that given a sufficiently large punishment, China would find that playing C gets +5 in one period and -3 in every other period and would find that undesirable; so instead it prefers to play S from the beginning and get 0 in every period. The problem with this strategy is that a miscalculation results in the worst possible outcome where the payoffs are -3/-6 forever (grim triggers are commonly identified with Mutually Assured Destruction). This also means that such a strategy is inconsistent, in practice you can just flip in the next period, and since the West is now incentivised to just flip from P to N which gives a better payoff, getting back to C-N but only after inflicting serious damage to itself. Even if it promises not to do this, it is completely incentivised to. In fact, we have up to now treated the West as a single entity, when its really a gigantic group of individual countries, each with multiple parties, and hence multiple competing interests (which makes this more like a cartel game).
There are many other strategies, and the dynamics depend on the payoff numbers you use. The takeaway is that you can absolutely assess what politicians are doing based on how likely they are to be successful. Simply pushing politicians to attack and punish China is not helpful to the situation (though it might make you feel better) because it doesn't change the Chinese dominant strategy. Neither is threatening to forever sanction China because it's not a consistent strategy. The best way is still to change the payoffs for the Chinese side by either lowering the benefits of C or raising the benefits of S. | 14 |
ELI5: why 1 by 49...499999 results in powers of 2? | Hi,
I was trying to understand why dividing 1 by 49 or 499... 499999 results in all the powers of 2 only varying by the 0 in between. Does 49 has any special quality in order to get those results? Thanks.
[1/49](https://i.imgur.com/nNVJguy.png)
[1/499999](https://i.imgur.com/SBN1YAt.png) | 146 | This is a fun quirk of the **formula for the sum of a geometric series**.
Sum (a r^n ) as n -> infinity is a / (1 - r) when the absolute value of r is less than 1.
Set a = 2/100 and r = 2/100 and you get (2/100) / (98/100) = 1/49
or 1/49 = 2/10^2 + 4/10^4 + 8/10^6 + 16/10^8 + ....
Set a = 2/1000 and r = 2/1000 and you get (2/1000)/(998/1000) = 1/499
or 1/499 = 2/10^3 + 4/10^6 + 8/10^9 + 16/10^12 + ....
Setting 'r' to a small multiple of 1/100 or 1/1000 or whatever makes the sums look really cool in decimal form. | 124 |
CMV: I think a technocracy is preferable to a Democracy as we have it today. | Technocracy, for those who do not know, is essentially instead of elected officials from parties running the State a group of experts running specific parts of the Goverment, for example Economists running the Economy, etc.
Democracy is a failure because it tricks people in to a vote every four years on a irrelevant topic, and hopes the nation goes to sleep while the government does as well. On top of that you can see with all national Crises, or just overall that everything gets politicized and a efficient democratic government is impossible because of partisanship. Of course under a Technocracy there would still be regular referendums to ensure popular support, but not actual election campaigns.
People fight over Ideologies instead of uniting over important issues and allowing experts to make better judgment. Why should the common Man decide if climate change is real or a wealth tax is effective or not?
As a last note before the discussion, I'd like to use a quote from Socrates. He points out the “flaws of democracy by comparing a society to a ship.” If you were going on a sea voyage, “who would you ideally want deciding who was in charge of the vessel, just anyone, or people educated in the rules and demands of seafaring?” Unless we wish to be obtusely contrarian, we must invariably answer the latter. Why then should just any of us, without regard to level of skill, experience, or education, be allowed to select the rulers of a country? | 16 | Socrates' ship analogy conflates fundamental decisions with strategic ones. We trust the captain to make strategic decisions about piloting the ship, but you'd never board a ship where the crew weren't beholden to the passengers on fundamental decisions like where the ship is going in the first place.
The fundamental problem you face with a technocratic system is what prevents the technocrats from simply acting in the interest of technocrats and disregarding the needs of the public. | 22 |
ELI5: The Grand Jury subpoenas. | I don't understand much about politics and even less the legal system. What does this mean? Why is it happening? What will this change in the grand scheme of things? | 307 | A grand jury hears the available evidence and decides if it's even plausible that a conviction can be reached. They then decide if it's worth going forward with a prosecution & deeper investigation.
They don't decide decide guilt, they just decide if it makes sense to issue a formal indictment or whether the proceedings should be dropped because they'd be a waste of everyone's time & do nothing but harass the defendant. . | 104 |
eli5: How do parrots copy humans on what they say, how does that work? | 102 | So the short answer (being "how") is actually relatively simple; their tongues are so large and complex that they can use them to produce exceptionally distinct sound waves, reproducing not only human speech patterns, but the patterns of animals. Hell, any sound really, as there's been cases of domesticated parrots mimicking household appliances.
As to "why," the answer gets a bit more complicated. What's known for certain, and this is true with many species of avians, is that they have to learn or adjust to the 'local' mating call to find a mate. Imagine, if you would, you travel to a new country and now have to mimic their accent to even be seen as a viable mate, or even human. Weird, but that's how birds work particularly when their mating calls are from a distance.
Aspects of mimicry outside of mating are a bit theoretical, as it can be assumed to be bonding/play, or simple attempts at communication.
Hope that helped. | 103 |
|
ELI5: Why are elementary schools so much smaller than middle schools, than high schools, etc? | In the area where I live in the US which I'm going to assume is generally emblematic of most areas in the US there are a ton of small elementary schools, often really close to each other, some middle schools, and a handful of high schools across the entire state.
Why are elementary schools made to be small and yet densely packed in an area compared to a high school? | 23 | Several factors together:
Little kids tend to need more individual attention (smaller student:teacher ratios), so you need more classes at the elementary level. That means you need more classrooms. You could just stuff them all into one bigger building but...
Little kids don't do as well with long bus/drives, and they can't drive themselves. It's a lot more convenient for middle/high schoolers to walk/bike/drive/bus (far) to school than little kids. So you want the elementary schools close(er) to the students. That means a big number of relatively small buildings spread around, rather than one huge building.
And middle/high schools tend to use much larger/specialized/expensive resources, so you want to concentrate people to make best use of them. You're not going to build a 400m competition track, pool, mid-grate theater, full chemistry lab, machine shop, etc. at every elementary school. | 57 |
[Marvel/MCU] Could JARVIS be considered sentient? | 54 | Sci\-fi tends to make a distinction between "really good AI" and "actually sapient AI". The difference is largely a matter of individuality. JARVIS may seem like they have a personality that can respond to virtually anything off the cuff, but he's simply programmed to act like that. He can't truly think for himself.
Of course, stories where the line blurs are classic to the point of almost being cliche. Vision basically leaped past the ambiguity straight to being an actual person with his own thoughts and feelings. | 50 |
|
[Marvel] What makes Venom so different from other symbiotes? | Symbiotes seem to have other traits that make then seem more powerful while Venom seems almost bland with the only traits he has are similar to other symbiotes. | 36 | It's said in the Lore that Symbiotes offspring are usually stronger than the parent, and most Symbiotes in Marvel are descended from Venom, so most symbiotes are actually stronger than Venom.
But it also depends on the host, while they can and will bond with anyone, they tend to have a "proper" host, a host who syncs with the symbiote, Peter Parker is actually Venoms perfect host, Cletus is Carnages.
But, as said, the next generation is always stronger than the last, and usually gains more varied abilities due to their first compatible host, Venom uses Spider-Man's powerset because of their compatibility, Carnage can create weapons out of his mass because Cletus is a serial killer.
But 1000th generation ymbiotes are supposed to be extremely powerful regardless of host, and insane, Carnage immediately tried to kill Toxin, his "son" because of that and Cletus's misogynistic tendencies (the act of "giving birth" disgusted him). | 48 |
[Marvel/Star Wars] Is Obi-Wan Kenobi worthy to lift Mjolnir? | Obi-Wan is considered to be one of the greatest Jedi of all time, seen as the embodiment of everything the Order should strive to be. He’s powerful in battle and willing to fight if need be, but always looks for the peaceful option first and is renown for his skills in negotiation. Considering all of these traits, would he be worthy enough to wield Thor’s hammer?
Alternately: would any other Jedi, or even any Star Wars character, be worthy? My bet is on Luke, but I’d love to hear others opinions. | 26 | The guy saw his master die infront of of him, someone who was basically a father to him. Later he saw the woman he love get killed a few centimeters away from him by the same guy who killed his master. Then he saw someone he considered to be a brother to him help kill children and destroy the order he had served for his entire left. And then he spent nineteen years in a desert doing nothing but protecting Luke. And after all of that he didn't turn to the darkside.
If Mjolnir doesn't consider him worthy after all of that, then it's just nitpicky. | 40 |
If Padme died during childbirth, then why does Leia say "She was very beautiful, kind, but sad" when asked what she remembers of her mother in Return? | 62 | Leia is known as Leia Organa, not Leia Amidala - the woman she speaks of is her Alderaan mother. Obviously, the lie was maintained for her protection, the same way Luke was told his father had died.
At this point, Leia still doesn't know of her true nature. | 73 |
|
Is Sagan Wrong? | "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
I recently read that this is flawed, but I'm not sure how. I'm thinking that the main issue here is that "Sagan's Razor" is only semantically true, but not necessarily logically. It seems contextual. Feedback? | 17 | It is not clear what Sagan means by extraordinary . He is probably critisizing unscientific explanations to understand how things work . But it can be risky to dismiss some claims just because it doesn't fit current paradigmas . | 14 |
ELI5: When a car traveling 50mph hits another car head-on also traveling 50mph it hits it with the force of a car hitting a brick wall at 50mph. Why isn't it more forceful? | 18 | If both cars are a similar mass, then they will both stop. Both cars will have a speed change of 50 MPH. The change in speed is what causes the forces in a crash, so coming to a stop by hitting a wall, and coming to a stop by hitting a car are the same. If a 50 mph car hits a 50mph 18wheeler, the car won't stop. The car will be pushed backwards because the truck weighs more, and it will have a larger than 50MPH change in speed. The truck will not completely stop in this collision, and it won't have as bad of a crash as if it hit a wall. | 46 |
|
ELI5: How can the majority of people be below average? | I've been told that the majority of people have below average intelligence. When I asked how that's possible they said something about statistics and bell curves but that I am "too dumb to get it" so they didn't really explain
So I'm asking you to explain it like I'm five. How can the majority of people on earth be of below average intelligence? | 272 | So on a smaller scale let’s think of intelligence as 0-10 with average as 5.
Let’s use five people as our example.
The first has an intelligence of 2, the second of 3 and the third of 4. The fourth has an intelligence of 7 and the final an intelligence of 9.
2+3+4+7+9 = 25. 25/5 = 5. Which is our average intelligence, however 3 out of 5 people are below average, which is more than half.
Which is how the curves work, outliers can change data quite a bit | 724 |
[Contact] Why do the aliens send back Jodie Foster with no evidence of her trip? | So the alien in the form of her father tells her this (introduction to new species presumably) is hows it been done for millions (billions?) of years. But why would they only have introduction to one life form from the planet and have almost no evidence of the contact (bar the hours of static on the video recording) she could bring back? | 16 | It's all about faith, that's the message of the film. Due to her father's death and her nature in general, Foster claims to reject faith and religion, she dedicates herself to science. There is no God, no nothing.
Yet we see that despite her anti-religious stance, she is not dissuaded by the lack of evidence that there are other intelligent creatures in the universe. She spends her time listening for messages from people that might not exist, she's trying to prove that her belief that something else is out there is true. Foster's character actually wants to believe in something she can't see, so is using science to justify her faith. She claims she's unwilling to accept God because there's no proof, yet she's willing to believe in other intelligences in spite of there being no proof.
When she encounters the father/alien, her faith is rewarded. She believed something was out there, now she can prove it. There are aliens and she's talked to them. But when she returns, there is no proof, there's seemingly no evidence that her story is credible. Foster spent the day with an alien who claimed he took the guise of her father, she is now trying to get everyone else to take it on faith that she's being honest about her encounter. Can she convince everyone that it's possible to believe something you can't prove? Don't believe in God the father, just believe in Foster's alien father?
When we learn that there's a blank recording that matches up with the experience she claimed, we know that her contact was real. Is her claim that she had contact with aliens more valid than the apostles' claims they witnessed the Resurrected Christ? The alien suggests that there will be further contact in the future, a second coming of the aliens, will people be in a better position to understand them then or will we still insist on rejecting things we can't yet explain?
That's the message of the movie, that without believing in things you can't see, you can't discover them. Foster rejects God but it's her faith that leads her to discover that were are not alone in the universe. Her belief that there was something more led to the discovery of aliens. | 24 |
[WH40K] Is it possible to rise to the top in terms of combat ability if you are a normal human? Can a guardsman take down a Daemaon Prince. Does a normal Traitor marine like Kharn the Betrayer stand a chance against a Bloodthirster or any other Greater Daemon? | 202 | Imagine a slug.
Imagine the fucking Batman of slugs. It's literally the strongest, smartest, toughest. fastest slug on earth. Any other slug it meets? It fucking wrecks them. Slug critics accuse it of being a mary sue. It is the best slug to live or to have ever lived.
It fights you, and you step on it. Because you are a human, and it is a slug.
Same here. There's a reason the two main Imperium troops are "massive swarms" and "engineered to the point of only nominally being human". Unless you have massive modifications or overwhelming numbers, you are a slug. Some fights you simply physically cannot win. | 321 |
|
Why only some plant cuttings grow when put in water? | There are some plants that will happily grow roots and be perfectly happy when put in just water, like some vines. Put just a bare section from a willow tree in a jar of water and it will grow roots and a new shoot of leaves from the top. But a branch taken from a birch will first grow leaves but then start to wilt within a week.
Why don't all plants or trees be like willows? | 3,498 | Well pretty much any plant can grow roots in water, it's just that plants that aren't woody grow them much easier and faster. Most woody cuttings need some rooting hormone to help them grow roots in water, but it's still possible. Willow contains lots of indolbutyric acid (which is an auxin) and salicylic acid which both help in growing roots. Some people use willow extract to help other cuttings root as well. | 1,355 |
This is likely a very stupid question, but who is the narrator in The Republic (Plato)? | The book opens with "Socrates: I went down to the Piraeus yesterday with Glaucon, son of Ariston..."
But then continues later on with "I turned around and asked him where his master was"
So is the opening line quoting Socrates or indicating that "I" refers to Socrates? The reason I ask is because even though the text is written by Plato, I have not seen him mentioned once. Is he just writing it through the first person point of view of Socrates? | 16 | 'I' refers to Socrates. It's the character Socrates narrating the dialogue in these passages. Plato is the author, but not a character nor the narrator. So, yes, Plato is writing it through the first person point of view of Socrates. | 16 |
[Marvel] Who is more accurate, Bullseye or Hawkeye? | I’ve seen many people state that Bullseye has more ridiculous accuracy feats, but I haven’t really checked Hawkeye’s top tier feats out. Is Bullseye legitimately more accurate than Clint, or is Hawkeye just as accurate, but his morality and preference for a bow prevents him from pulling off the same feats as Bullseye?
I’m aware that Ultimate Hawkeye has looser morals than the 616 version. After all, the 616 version of Hawkeye vocalized his beliefs on the sanctity of human life in Solo Avengers issue 8 (I believe, haven’t read Solo Avengers in a while).
I’m referring to both the comics and the MCU versions. Any versions, really. | 618 | the main difference is that bullseye has an actual superpower that makes him accurate, while Hawkeye is 100% a "normal" human.
Bullseye has the better feats, but he's also extremely reliant on his ability. | 484 |
CMV: The Apple Watch is not revolutionary. People who think it will be as significant as the iPhone are getting ahead of themselves. | Back when the iPhone was revealed, it didn't have the greatest feature set or anything, but almost everyone (except the usual contrarians) agreed that it had a great design, and a cool (if laggy UI). And from that it truly revolutionized smartphones.
Here, it doesn't seem like the Apple Watch is that significant. It may be a good product, it doesn't have anything that is leaps and bounds better than Android Wear devices. I don't think anyone can doubt that. It's hardly more attractive, the UI is not substantially different, and the software set is not all that different.
So anyone who thinks that Apple Watch, on its own, is going to "revolutionize" wearables in the same way the iPhone revolutionized phones is flat out wrong IMO. They are stuck in Apple's reality distortion field. CMV.
_____
> *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!* | 118 | The watch might do the same thing that happened with the iPad. Tablets weren't anything special when the iPad was released, but apple seems to have some combination of market share, public attention, user friendliness, cool factor, and tech that it makes produces take off. | 47 |
AskScience Open House [meta] | The time is ripe to look back and see how things are going for AskScience, and to look forward and see how we want things to go in the future. Here's your opportunity to voice your opinions on things going on in AskScience, things affecting AskScience, and things that AskScience affects.
Please bring up anything you want - we're here to listen.
We're interested in hearing what *you* have to say. In the comments, we'll also share our own opinions, we'll explain what our current policies are with regards to any issues, our motivations for them, and how they are implemented. Meanwhile, we hope to learn more about how all this is perceived by our readers and the panelists.
The purpose is just as a community health checkup, and to hopefully spawn some ideas for how we can serve our community better.
Thanks for contributing!
p.s. One concern I would like to nip in the bud is our overactive spam filter. It creates a lot of extra work for us, and we don't have control over it, and we don't like it any more than you do. The best thing for you to do is to check /new when making a post, and then let us know right away that the spam monster got it (provide a link!). Thanks!
p.p.s. Oh yes, here are the [traffic statistics](http://i.imgur.com/gEbeH.png). | 98 | Brain Doc already said this, but I'd like to reiterate it. **The spam filter eats the majority of new posts.** We do not control this. If your post doesn't show up, it's not because we're science Hitler. Message us with the link and we can fix it. Don't go on a tirade because the automatic bot automatically botted you.
For those of you who are new to askscience, please note our sacred rule: **if you don't know the answer, don't post.** Don't make shit up, don't say "wow what an interesting question!," just wait for somebody who does know to show up. You can, of course, ask followup questions.
Other than that, keep being awesome. | 48 |
Why (and how) do the cheese curds used in poutine squeak when eaten? | The best poutine in Québec is produced with fresh salted cheese curds, which produce a distinctive squeaking sound when chewed (to the extent where it is often referred to as "squeaky cheese"). What properties of this cheese make it so? | 17 | Fresh cheese curds have more elasticity than stale ones. As the curd material rubs against your teeth, it vibrates due to that elasticity, making the squeak. It should be noted that "fresh" in the parlance of cheese curds is usually considered to be 12 or fewer hours old, though some retain their squeak for a day or two.
The elastic squeak is why refrigerating cheese curds kills the squeak even if they're fresh - the cooler temperature reduces the tendency to vibrate. And that's why newcomers to the upper-midwest USA are often surprised to see bags of cheese curds in grocery stores sitting out on a table instead of a refrigerated case - the locals demand that squeak.
| 13 |
Profs, how long/well do you know a student before you write them a great letter of reference? | The other day there was someone posting on my university subreddit asking on advice for getting a LOR from a prof they haven't even met. I didn't know that was a thing and I always expected chatting up the prof a few times and getting to know them before asking.
Profs, how long/well do you usually know a student before you write them a fantastic LOR?
EDIT: By chatting up, I meant just asking questions and interacting with them during office hours as opposed to literally having no other interaction with them other than being in their class | 34 | you're not going to get a letter of recommendation by "chatting up" the prof a couple times in the hallway, if that's what you're asking. not unless you want it to say "I met this student in the hallway and he seems very knowledgeable about the weather" | 80 |
ELI5 - Why is it that when we look at an object in motion, our eyes can follow it flawlessly, yet when looking at a static object our eyes move point-to-point? | 97 | What you're talking about is a "saccade". It happens because the portion of your visual field which is sharp and clear is actually far smaller than you think it is--the larger clear picture you see is built up by your eyes darting rapidly over the image, building up a larger, clearer picture in your head. If you're following a moving object, on the other hand, you don't have time to do that so you just keep moving your eyes to follow the object. | 30 |
|
Why do Cockroaches die on their backs so frequently? | Around my school I often avoid stepping on a dead roach, but for some reason these dead roaches are always on their backs. What would compel an insect with a microscopic brain to flip over before they die of natural or possibly otherwise causes? It seems a pointless habit and yet Every dead cockroach I have ever seen does that. Is there an evolutionary advantage to such a strange occurrence? | 4,604 | There are two basic reasons. Cockroaches have a slightly rounded and greasy back, and a flat body that helps them squeeze and hide in narrow cracks and crevices. Their long legs give them a high center of gravity, meaning they carry most of their weight around their backs. When a cockroach is dying of old age, its high center of gravity pulls its back toward the floor, and its rounded back and weakened muscles prevent it from righting itself, particularly on smooth surfaces.
The insecticides we use to kill roaches can have the same effect. Most of these insecticides are neurotoxins – poisons that can trigger tremors and muscle spasms, eventually causing the cockroach to flip on its back. A healthy cockroach can easily right itself, but the tremors, lack of muscle coordination and, again, the rounded back and high center of gravity cause the intoxicated cockroach to get stuck that way.
Credit to MARLA VACEK BROADFOOT AND COBY SCHAL | 4,675 |
ELI5: In terms of cyber security, what are the differences between Mac and PC? | My fiance has been watching the Jim Browning YouTube videos regarding the scammers overseas who use call centers. We were also watching ScammerRevolts who usually gets access to the scammers computers and deletes their files or syskeys them. It's been noted in both of the channels that some call centers use Macs and some use PC/Laptops. Is one more protected than the other? | 25 | It’s not that one is a whole lot better than the other but the reason you hear people say that macs don’t get viruses is because the people making the viruses have a lot more potential victims if they make it for windows since more people use windows | 48 |
[The Walking Dead] Does the virus lower most people intelligence / makes them suicidal? | Now I've been watching the documentary of Rick lately and it becomes pretty clear that Walkers by itself are very easily beatable. Rick woke up from a coma and minutes later he had figured out not only what a walker is but also how to do deal with it. In the documentary largely untrained, physically unfit and even children are able to kill dozens of walkers without much of a sweat.
Now this fact stands in glaring conflict with the world of the walking dead were all military bases and police station got utterly destroyed by walkers. None of the million of service personal that died to walkers seemed to was able to deal with them despite it his skill set making him, at least in theory, much better suited to kill unhealthy. After a few soldiers turned and bitten other soldiers, the hundreds of remaining soldiers should have been able to figure out, that a) you have to get away from the walkers, that b) the walkers are dead (something that should have been clear after the first guy discharged his service weapon into the body of a walker and c) you need to shoot them in the head.
This leads me to the only logical conclusion : in the majority of people the virus leads to a significant reduction of intelligence and deduction skills as well as alters their behavior to be much phrone to high risk behavior. The survivors we see are immune to these effects to the virus (with many famous exceptions).
Do we have any information to confirm my theory? What do we know really about the virus? | 36 | I think they handled the initial zombie outbreaks quite easily. However, they probably didn't realize that everyone was infected.
Their main losses came from random people dying and immediately turning into zombies. No barricade would be safe from that. If a soldier dies in his bunk while everyone is asleep? Congrats you now have a bunch of zombies. In the chaos it was unlikely that anyone would realize that *everyone* is already infected, and the only people who did found out too late, and decided to off themselves instead.
So the main problem here is not that the zombies aren't easily handled (in fact, much like DayZ, humans are the real threat after season 1), it's that zombies can ambush you or that anyone can become a zombie. | 36 |
ELI5: If the brain relies on the eyes to "see" images, how in holy hell can I "see" my dreams (and, related to that, how is it always in the first person perspective)? | 86 | Eyes don't produce vision. Vision happens in the brain.
Your eyes are just an apparatus for collecting light. Turning the information about that collected light into what you see is the brain's job.
Your brain is most certainly capable of producing images without your eyes telling them "there's some light here" whether it's dreams or hallucinations (which are surprisingly common) while you're awake.
| 90 |
|
[The Truman Show] What happened next? | Truman walked off the set of a TV show whose budget, according to Christof, approached the GDP of a small country. And from Truman's perspective, he went from being a nobody to the most famous man in the world. How did this all play out? | 115 |
After his dramatic exit from the sound stage, Truman disappears for a time. Police records indicate that he was detained by studio security for 7 hours before being remanded to Police custody under undisclosed charges. Mr. Truman was immediately released to a then unnamed law firm. His whereabouts after that time are unknown for the next two years.
The studio suffered a serious shakeup of leadership with the loss of their biggest star. Timeslots for the Truman Show broadcast reruns, and specials on the most memorable moments of the show. Initially, the dramatic ending was downplayed. Six months later, Christof retired from his position as chief creative director.
Under new creative direction, a movie documentary was put together by the studio with previously unseen footage, and interviews with cast and crew of the show. The film made the case that Truman's actions were heroic, and that the deception surrounding his life was morally suspect, but that no laws had been broken.
Meanwhile, the law firm responsible for Mr. Truman's release from police custody filed suit against the director, the studio, the show distributor, broadcast companies, and every sponsor that ever appeared on the show. After 2 years of court appearances, and negotiations, they settled the case for an undisclosed sum rumored to be in the billions.
The Truman Show returned to the air some years later with a number of spinoff shows revolving around other characters from the show, and continuing secondary story lines. These shows were largely short-lived, with the exception of "Truman University Beach" that ran for eight seasons with scantily clad starlets and shallow plot lines.
Mr. Truman himself never appeared on the public scene again. Investigations suggest that he lives in a variety of European estates, under assumed aliases, and surrounded by doctors under treatment for mental health disorders and periodic drug abuse. | 98 |
Where is the warmest place in the known universe? | 1,773 | There are a few contenders for hottest known temperature, depending on your exact definition:
- 4 trillion K (4 x 10^(12) K): Inside the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Lab. For a tiny fraction of second, temperatures reached this high as gold nuclei were smashed together. The caveat here is that it was incredibly brief, and only spread amongst a relatively small number of particles.
- 100 billion K (1 x 10^(11) K): As a massive star's core begins collapsing inside a supernova explosion, temperatures will skyrocket, allowing endothermic fusion to produce all elements past iron/nickel. Again the caveat is that this doesn't last long, but much longer than within a particle collider (minutes instead of nanoseconds) and that temperature is spread across a very substantial amount of mass.
- 3 billion K (3 x 10^9 K): Lasting a bit longer than a supernova (about a day), a massive star at the end of its life will reach these temperatures at its core, converting silicon into iron and nickel.
- 100 million K (1 x 10^8 K): In terms of sustained temperatures outside of stellar cores that last longer than a few months, the Intracluster Medium takes the prize. The incredibly hot hydrogen/helium gas that permeates throughout galaxy clusters is very massive (many galaxies worth of mass)...but also very thin. We're only talking about 1000 particles per cubic meter here, so while there's far more total mass than what you'd find in a stellar core, it's also much less dense as its spread out across a much, much larger volume.
EDIT: Correcting a F/K mixup. | 1,301 |
|
ELI5 When modern computers connect to Wi-Fi, do they still essentially do the same screeching thing as dialup, only quicker and silently? | 99 | Sort of yes and sort of no. That was essentially a handshake: the two systems negotiating what connection characteristics, communication protocols, etc., they could use to talk to one another. That still happens, but the process is very different. Modems screeched and shrieked because they used sound to transmit data--they worked over the standard voice phone lines--but wifi uses RF signals instead (and modern networking software uses electrical pulses). | 97 |
|
ELI5: Why does smoke only come off matches after one is put out? | 26 | This is actually a really good question!
Smoke from a fire happens when the fire isn't really working well.
Fire requires three things:
* Heat
* Oxygen
* Fuel
In fact, this is called "The triangle of fire." Yup, there's a saying for that.
Now, a really good fire is really hot. And it gets really hot because the ratio of oxygen and fuel is *just right*. When it's just right, there is no smoke. Like when the stove is lit. Notice no smoke? This is because the amount of fuel and oxygen is just right.
When there is more fuel than oxygen, some of the fuel doesn't burn completely. And we can see that as smoke. Stuff that could have burned, but didn't. Because there wasn't enough oxygen.
When a match is put out, the heat is lowered and the fire quits. But it's still really hot. It's just not hot enough for the match to burn with the right fuel / oxygen mixture. So, it smokes until it cools down. | 34 |
|
Do animals have a sense of time as we do? | Im not talking about a sleep cycle or anything, maybe more along the lines of do they comprehend time as flowing, like the present and past. etc.
| 96 | Dogs have been shown to grow anxious as the time draws near for their owners to return home. This would seem to indicate some understanding of the future as a possible event that has not happened yet. | 57 |
[Black Panther] Does Wakanda really have the cure to major diseases? And if so, why don't they share it with the rest of the world? | * I can understand the Wakandian government's hesitation to share advanced technology with other countries on the grounds that it could be abused, but how could they justify keeping the cures to diseases like cancer or aids?
* While I can also understand why they distrust other countries and their leaders to their history of violence, I feel that the people who are suffering from diseases shouldn't be punished for the sins of their ancestors and leaders. | 53 | They're xenophobic isolationists.
Just like we don't spend our resources on saving mosquitoes, they have no interest on saving non-Wakandans. They're just not very nice people, pre-T'challa at least. | 78 |
[Star Wars] Does Tatooine have a temperate zone, closer to the poles? | Or does scorching desert abruptly turn into freezing desert? | 75 | Neither. There is only a small habitable zone in the northern hemisphere, which is where the few towns are. The rest is inhospitable, because the Rakatan Infinite Empire glassed the planet 25,000 BBY. | 83 |
[Star Trek] why don’t Starfleet ships come equipped with automated internal defense weapons in critical areas of the vessel? | If I were employed by Starfleet’s engineering department, I would suggest installing some automated turrets aboard their vessels. Given how frequently ships get boarded by hostile forces, I think it would be a valuable investment toward better security.
Particularly when they were preparing for large scale conflict with the Borg, who were known to board ships and also be difficult to kill.
The turrets could be set to automatically target, or could be manually controlled by security. | 40 | I don't think they get boarded all that commonly. Yes, those are the stories we typically hear about, but you need to understand that, for every story of an enemy party boarding, there are thousands of other ships that have never had anyone board them.
Also, if enemies have managed to board then that means something is wrong with the defensive systems of the ship. So if defensive systems are down or compromised, that would include turrets.
As far as the Borg, the Borg adapt. You proposing an entire defensive system that's going to be able to get two or three shots at the most.
And, lastly, for every boarding attempt there is also some sort of energy being or alien virus or what have you that takes over the computer system. Now you want to arm it? | 54 |
ELI5: Why do we instinctively walk around, pace, or play with something while talking on the phone? | 36 | Your brain is wired to receive aural and visual stimuli during a conversation. Not being able to look at your conversation partner‘s face causes a slight apprehension, which you subconsciously ease by fidgeting/pacing/etc. | 31 |
|
[Skyrim] Are the Ideal Masters more powerful than Akatosh? Seems the magic of the Soul Cairn > Dragonborn's ability to absorb Durnehvirr's soul upon victory over him. | Upon slaying Durnehvirr in combat, I'd have assumed that the Dragonborn would have absorbed his soul as per the usual Dragonborn action of absorbing dragon souls. Hell it should even be automatic, as the Dragonborn doesn't even realise they're different until defeating (and absorbing the soul of) Mirmulnir.
But instead, Durnehvirr disappears, and reconstitutes outside the Boneyard as would be determined by the curse of the Ideal Masters. Does this prove that the Ideal Masters' curse is superior to Akatosh's divine gift/Dragonblood, and therefore the power of the Ideal Masters is beyond that of Akatosh? | 22 | I think it's a similar situation to Miraak's, who you also aren't able to eat. Durnibro's soul was already spoken for.
Fun fact though, if you come at him before killing Mimjhrh3g5oj, he says he feels an urge to call you a fellow dragon though he can't explain it. He still names you Vanquisher in the end though. | 22 |
ELI5 Allergies: Why does exposure from allergy shots make you less senstive, but regular exposure to the actual allergen doesn't? | 320 | Think about working out. If you lift weights and put them under a little stress, they get stronger. If you lift so much weight that you tear the muscle, the muscle isn't going to get stronger.
The same idea applies here. Allergy shots are tiny amounts of the allergen. They're designed to get your body's immune system to recognize the allergen as something that isn't dangerous. Eating the actual allergen is a much higher quantity, and (much like tearing a muscle) elicits a dangerous reaction. | 205 |
|
Why does grated cheese often taste better than a chunk of the same cheese? | 279 | Oxygen exposure has a lot to do with it. Many types of food taste better if it has a large surface area that is being oxidized as you chew it, which is why many chocolate bars have hollow or wafer-like structures. This effect is more significant if the food has recently been oxidized which is why freshly grated cheese tastes better than grated cheese sold in bags. | 150 |
|
[The Stand] I am a historian, in the post plague year of 2050. What's the deal with all this stuff about how the Vegas dwellers were literally governed by the devil? | Is that just propaganda?
Was the Boulder Free Zone really founded on the mandate of God?
Was the nuke in Vegas really God's will?
I am not a particularly faithful person.
Now, I'm trying to teach an objective class here, and... to be honest, I don't know how to separate the myth from the people.
Is it possible that this... Randall Flagg... was really as bad as he was told to be?
Is it at all possible that a woman around a hundred could effectively organize a state that would conquer the world?
Is it really true that Flagg was in some measure responsible for unleashing the virus? All pre-plague records seem to have no knowledge of him.
Now, I'm not some Neo-Flaggist, but... it seems pretty ridiculous to me, as a man of science, that one man could have caused such a cataclysm.
Does the truth lie in the middle?
Lord knows that I'll be stripped of my post by Abagailists if this ever gets back to my university.
And if they ever see my tattoo, may the Crimson King help me. | 61 | The issue we run into here is that the testimony of every original resident of the Boulder Free Zone includes at minimum one incident that can't be readily explained; a vision of Mother Abigail, rallying them to Boulder. Trying to be completely objective on the subject means confronting that elephant in the room, either to explain it away or to acknowledge it quickly and move along. *Something* beyond pre-Superflu science prodded that situation along, and it would be irresponsible to turn a blind eye to the existing something.
On the subject of both Abigail and Flagg, neither was the be-all, end-all of their respective faction. On Abigail's front, she mostly served as a figurehead and spiritual leader, while the actual nuts and bolts of building and running the Zone was performed by the residents. Flagg, meanwhile, was mostly working with tools built and mismanaged by the United States Military, and rode the wave of chaos created by their failure to contain and manage the Superflu. He nudged, and he prodded, and he drew people to his banner much like Abigail, but he wasn't micromanaging the downfall of human civilization.
The "middle", as it were, is that the Superflu and the resulting Boulder/Vegas conflict was a human issue, and while supernatural influence was in play, most of the big action was made by normal people. The forces beyond this would could nudge, and prod, and direct, but it fell to humanity to actually make the choices and take the actions at hand. | 22 |
ELI5: If depth perception works because the brain checks the difference in the position of the object between the two eyes and concludes how far away it is, how can we still see depth when one eye is closed? | 3,626 | Because that isn't the only piece of information your brain uses. It basically collates a bunch of different pieces of information:
1. Your eye is always moving slightly and when your eye looks in different directions, it sees different things based upon the relative position of objects in your 3D environment.
2. Over the course of your life you have lots of experience with seeing various objects and your brain develops an expectation of their size. So something that your brain believes should be large but looks small will be interpreted as being further away, and something that your brain believes should be small but looks large will be interpreted as being closer.
3. The parallax created with two eyes can be replicated simply by moving. How things change relative to other objects as you move laterally, and how their size appears to change as you move back and forth, gives your brain information with which to construct a perception of depth. | 3,249 |
|
ELI5- [physics?] firing a gun from a moving train. | So lets say I'm of the front of a train traveling 200mph (it's a special train that goes 200 mphs). And I firing me gun directly ahead of me. Does this add or subtract from the speed of the bullet? Also, if I was on the rear of the train and fired that direction would it have a different effect? | 64 | In relation to the train, bullet would go at the speed of a bullet.
In relation to someone standing near the tracks, it would go at the speed of a bullet + speed of a train.
If you were to shoot opposite to the direction of a train, your bullet would go at bullet speed - train speed.
If you were to shoot at an angle, you would have to do some trigonometry to calculate its speed and exact direction.
EDIT This is an approximation that works only on normal speeds. When you start adding speeds of light, then you need another equation because time and space do very weird things at these speeds. | 42 |
[Star Trek: The Next Generation era] Does the Federation have a zero-tolerence policy regarding genetic engineering? Do they allow parents to fix things like Down's Syndrome, or repair faulty genes that cause severe inherited genetic disorders? | 97 | No. The Federation does not have a zero-tolerance policy regarding genetic engineering.
* They use it for scientific and research purposes (TNG: Unnatural Selection)
* The Federation allows for a more "natural" form of genetic engineering via Eugenics practices (TNG: The Masterpiece Society)
* Yes, genetic modification is allowed to fix conditions or diseases (VOY: Lineage)
* Extreme genetic modification of a fetus is discussed for cosmetic reasons and denounced, not on legal reasons, but because there was no valid medical reason (VOY: Lineage) | 80 |
|
Do animals demonstrate traumatic responses to "sexual violence"? | I've read that much reproduction in the animal world is what we would consider rape if they were humans. I was wondering if there are any studies that examine the response of females before an after forces reproduction / "rape". (I put the phrases "sexual violence" and "rape" in quotation marks because I don't want to act as if human sexual assault is "no worse than" as animal reproduction, it obviously is horrible.) | 62 | The other poster is correct that we cannot measure subjective experience in non-human animals. That said, however, we *do* indeed see trauma responses in mammals (someone else will have to contribute for other animals) in response to situations that humans would consider "sexual violence".
As an example of this, kittens can be overpowered and "raped" (quotes for the same reason as you have used them, OP) by adult male cats before they reach a year old. This is known to stunt their growth if they have kittens of their own as a result. Female cats to whom this has happened also have a tendency to exhibit fear, aggression, and avoidance behaviors around male cats for the rest of their lives. | 63 |
Would a "starship" traveling through space require constant thrust (i.e. warp or impulse speed in Star Trek), or would they be able to fire the engines to build speed then coast on momentum? | Nearly all sci-fi movies and shows have ships traveling through space under constant/continual power. Star Trek, a particular favorite of mine, shows ships like the Enterprise or Voyager traveling with the engines engaged all the time when the ship is moving. When they lose power, they "drop out of warp" and eventually coast to a stop. From what little I know about how the space shuttle works, they fire their boosters/rockets/thrusters etc. only when necessary to move or adjust orbit through controlled "burns," then cut the engines. Thrust is only provided when needed, and usually at brief intervals. Granted the shuttle is not moving across galaxies, but hopefully for the purposes of this question on propulsion this fact is irrelevant and the example still stands.
So how should these movie vessels be portrayed when moving? Wouldn't they be able to fire up their warp/impulse engines, attain the desired speed, then cut off engines until they need to stop? I'd assume they could due to motion in space continuing until interrupted. Would this work? | 872 | In reality, a space ship can coast for a very long time. Space is almost, but not quite a vacuum. A ship will eventually slow, but it's likely (unless flying through a gas cloud, asteroid field, or gravity field) that the crew would die of boredom before seeing a significant change in velocity.
Also, in lieu of any kind of atmospheric braking, don't forget it takes the same amount of "burn" to slow a ship down as it takes to get it up to speed.
Warp fields haven't been created yet, so to speculate how a ship should be "portrayed" is purely up to the creator of the media... the closest we have is alcubierre's theory, which still has a bunch of theoretical problems associated with it. Most speculative fiction or projections rely on bending or skipping the intervening space/time between two points in order to overcome C.
In answer to your question, for traditionally powered ships... yes they should only fire their engines when they need to change their velocity, and will coast for all practical purposes on short term trips | 679 |
The moon, Jupiter and Venus were all in a line last night. Was this line the "plane" of the solar system? | I took [this](http://i.imgur.com/2pZH0PP.jpg) picture last night of the moon, Jupiter and Venus. I noticed that all three astronomical objects were in a line... And then later that night, I saw that Saturn fell on the same "line" as them as well! So I got curious... Is that "line" the plane of the solar system? And is the angle that "line" makes with the horizon some combination of the Earth's axial tilt and my location on the earth?
Thanks for any help! | 158 | The line the planets form is the plane of the solar system.
The moon doesn't orbit the Earth around the equator or in the same plane as the planets orbit the sun and obviously appears much bigger so it doesn't have to fall in line. (The moon is slightly above the "line" in your picture)
| 43 |
[Star Trek TNG / BSG Reboot] How would Captain Picard handle running into the Colonial Fleet under Adama, with the Cylons in hot pursuit? | This takes place after Best of Both Worlds in TNG, and before the discovery of New Caprica in BSG. Assume the BSG Colonies all exist in an uncharted corner of the Star Trek galaxy.
How would Picard and the Federation respond to an aggressive force like the Cylons? Would he offer sanctuary? Military assistance? | 32 | Federation technology is so far ahead of the Cylons they can essentially do whatever they want.
It'd be like the original Enterprise trying to fight the Borg.
Anyway Picard would step in but would avoid declaring for either side given that he has the power to basically bitch slap both sides in perpetuity. It would likely end up with Picard giving a grand speech which ends up with Cavill killing himself while all the women Cylons all have sex with as many humans as possible. Something like that. | 19 |
If you are campaigning for president and explicitly lie about a topic publicly and you win the presidency you should be impeached and possibly removed from office. CMV | So, for example, lets say President A said "I will lower unemployment to below 6% by November of next year." If the President does this, then it is all fine and dandy. However, if he does not he should be impeached. The senate should then decide if he is worth of being removed from office. I think this would work because it would force the President A to state how he is going to get unemployment below 6%, instead of just saying blatant lies. It would also add some transparency to the President and U.S. Government, instead of everything being "hush-hush." I agree, some things have got to be kept quiet but blatant lies should be punishable. | 113 | The president doesn't just get to "do" things he wants to or promised. He can influence legislation but as far as the actual drafting and passing of bills that's all about Congress. He can strive to change tax rates but at the end of the day what he can and cannot accomplish is hugely tied up with the other two branches of government (for good reason) and so it would be unreasonable to base his job security on things outside his control.
Most candidates, at least successful ones, do lay out plans they'd follow to carry out their campaign promises. Unfortunately they need everyone on board to actually carry out the plan which rarely happens. | 69 |
ELI5: Why are alot of train stations in major cities (mostly north american cities) are all called Union Station. | 60 | Basically a station is called a "Union Station" when tracks and other facilities were shared by more than one railway. It's always a passenger terminal.
This allowed passengers to quickly go from one service to an other, when railways were more regional. So, for example, you took one train to Chicago, and jumped on another train from there to Los Angeles.
In Europe they're called "Joint Stations". | 32 |
|
[MCU] Did Thanos ever at any point care about Nebula? | 34 | Thanos cared about all his children. We can see this towards the end of Infinity War when he realizes they're all dead or dying, and his heart is barely in it to keep going.
The issue with Thanos is that he's insane, and sincerely believes he's being a good father to his children and helping the universe with his slaughter. | 55 |
|
ELI5: If fans just circulate air, then how do they cool us down? | I only set the flair to “other” because I wasn’t sure if this counts as biology or engineering | 20 | The body release heat by sweating, and to be exact, it's water evaporating off your skin that draws heat.
The fact is that the air can only have a certain amount of moisture in it, and if air does not move around you, it's getting pretty quickly saturated with your sweat.
Once saturated, no more water can evaporate, and therefore you can't cool down properly.
Fans are just removing the layer of air saturated around your body, allowing you to sweat more and to evaporate more water.
Edit : this is exactly the same reason why drying clothes will be way faster on a windy day, even if there's not sun. | 35 |
ELI5: What gives aspartame and other zero-calorie sugar substitutes their weird aftertaste? | Edit: I've gotten at least 100 comments in my mailbox saying "cancer." You are clearly neither funny nor original. | 9,304 | Sucrose is considered “clean” and has no aftertaste (clean meaning it only activates sweet receptors). Other sweeteners activate both sweet and bitter receptors. However, because artificial sweeteners are so powerful, they quickly overwhelm the sweet receptors. The bitter receptors still scale up though with greater mass for longer. That is why aspartame you consume is actually mostly filler ingredients, because otherwise you would be overwhelmed by the bitterness.
Edit: If you are particularly affected by/don’t like an artificial sweetener feel free to avoid it. | 3,915 |
ELI5: What is a 401(k) and how does it work? | 229 | It's a type of tax-advantaged retirement account available in the US, set up by employers for their employees to use. The employee controls how much money gets put in, up to a certain amount ($18,500 for this year). The money is withdrawn straight from their paycheck to deposit in the account. The money is usually invested rather than just sitting in a savings account. In some companies, the company will match part or all of an employee's contributions to the account. You have to pay a penalty if you withdraw money from the account before you're 59.5 years old.
There's two ways to put money in: either traditional (you don't pay income taxes on the money now, but you do pay taxes when you withdraw the money in retirement) or Roth (you pay income taxes now, you don't pay any income taxes on the money when you withdraw in retirement). | 118 |
|
[Pokémon] What happens to the Pokémon in the PC when a trainer dies unexpectedly? Are they trapped forever? | What happens to orphaned Pokémon anyway in this situation? Left in wills? Donated? Released? Given to the state? | 66 | From the *National Trainer Handbook*, chapter 17, section 2:
"In the event of a trainer's injury or incapacitation (see section 3, *Blacking Out*), the trainer's Pokedex notifies the nearest Pokemon Center, which is capable of teleporting the trainer to the Center for emergency care.
"Use of this emergency system is not billed to the trainer's account, but excessive incidents may cause a safety meeting to be called on the trainer's behalf. Continued use may void the trainer's status as a legal Pokemon Trainer.
"Since its implementation, there have been no confirmed trainer deaths in the field. However, it is impossible to accurately gauge the mortality rate of illegal trainers in the field, who refuse to maintain their legal status in exchange for the many programs offered by the Pokemon Center." | 72 |
[Hunger Games] I snuck outside of District 12 with a friend of mine and we found a flag with a blue rectangle in the top left corner with I think 50 stars and 13 red and white stripes. My friend also found this book on this think called the “Constitution”. What is it, and what do we do? | So me and a friend of mine were just walking around outside of 12 when we found the things listed above in the title. It looked pretty cool and the book has some weird writing and lingo, but it has a really nice leather cover so I’m keeping that.
But what should we do with the flag and this book? Should I report it? Sell it at the Hob? Keep it? | 20 | Think we went over that for a chapter in history class. Has something to do with one of the old governments that went to shit and destroyed the world, before the Capitol reined everyone in. I'd just toss it. | 36 |
[Star Wars] Why did Obi Wan blow 20 years of hiding on Tatooine by using his lightsaber to cut off the arm of the guy who hassled Luke at the Mos Eisley cantina? | I was just watching clips from A New Hope and a certain scene jumped out at me. In the Mos Eisley cantina when Obi Wan takes Luke to meet Han, Obi Wan uses his lightsaber to cut off the arm of a guy who was hassling Luke.
So Jedi have systematically been hunted down throughout the galaxy and Obi Wan has been in hiding on Tatooine for the past 20+ years, successfully evading the Empire, but now he just blows all that by whipping out his lightsaber and maiming some lowlife thug who could have easily been dealt with in a much quieter manner? And in an establishment filled with bounty hunters and criminals who would no doubt report the presence of a Jedi for a reward no less? Why draw attention to himself like that after all those years, especially since he was trying to get himself and Luke off-world rather covertly.
I know it's probably irrelevant, but it just seemed kind of odd to me. | 317 | Because he was going to Alderaan anyway to initiate a Rebellion against a Galactic Empire. And this drunk peon on some shit hick planet is getting rowdy with the enemy Sith lord's kid, his past padawans kid, who is now under his protection. He's Obi Wan. He was making a statement. Bitch, the jedi aren't dead yet. We're just getting started. | 372 |
Could a gradual (but accelerating) slowdown of the
speed of light account for the appearance of an
increasingly expanding universe? | First, please understand that I am NOT referring to the c-decay theory that young-earth creationists try to use to reconcile astronomical evidence with the notion of earth being only maybe 10 millennia old. I am instead asking how we could (and presumably do) know that the acceleration of the expansion of the universe is due to the actual expansion of the universe and not the the fact that our meterstick (the light-year) got shorter over time?
Consider a universe with only two bodies; a star and an observing planet a great distance away, stationary to one another. Then assume that the speed of light decays over time, and the rate of decay increases over time; not the lifetime of the light in question, but all light in this particular universe. Would not the light from the star appear redshifted to the planet? Each photon that came out would be slightly faster than the next to come out, which would be slightly faster than the one that follows it, and so on and so on. As the decay of the speed of light grew, the apparent redshift would also increase, without any necessary movement on the part of either body.
But even if that was the case, how would we KNOW? Assume the planet has a ship that can travel at relativistic speeds, say .9c; as the speed of light decreases, .9c also decreases, and so the trip would take longer each time, which, for all intents and purposes I can think of would seem to be identical to an increase in the distance between the two bodies.
I'm just a dabbler in phsyics and astronomy, but I can't see how this result would fail to stand if extended to our universe; the rate of c-decay would be very slow (probably requiring at least geological timescales to be noticible), but it would still make sense. It also seems to me more plausible for c to decay (a form of entropy) than objects accelerating away from us with no visible input of energy (anti-entropic behavior)(although I realize both notions are based off probably-inapplicable analogy rather than a proper understanding of the relevant physics).
I'm sure that someone has proposed it and there's good reasons for dismissing it, but I can't think of any way we could tell the difference between acceleration and c-decay. Help! | 17 | No.
You mention doppler shift based purely on time of arrival of photons. An analogy to your example: If we had a pulsar and its pulses were growing further apart then we could say either it's rotation is slowing or it is accelerating away or more unrealistically the speed of light is slowing down. However, if we have a spectral line for which we expect to be a certain colour then it doesn't matter how spread out the photons are they are ALL the wrong colour.
| 10 |
[Canon] How are the giants from GoT able to sustain their body mass in an area with little food? | 57 | Large animals can definitely survive in cold lands. There is probably more food up there than you think just little for large immobile cities. Slow metabolism is most likely a part as well as a broad omnivorous diet. But think of polar bears, moose, wooly mammoths, etc. All live in similar climes and are quite large. | 54 |
|
ELI5: Why is it so bad to turn off a computer by the physical on/off button? | Edit: As opposed to Start --> Shutdown | 30 | Depends what you mean. If you press the button and let the system go through its shutdown process everything should be fine. If you hold it for a few seconds and force the system to just shut down in the middle of what its doing you risk data corruption. | 26 |
ELI5: Why vehicles depreciate in value so quickly as soon as you leave the lot? | 163 | Imagine if somebody just bought a new computer and within a few days tried to pawn it off on you. Would you take this as a generous offer, or would you assume there's something wrong with it?
Cars might be made in factories, but there are a number of moving parts that can go wrong, or worse, it could be a lemon. Within those first moments of going off the lot, you can only have things go wrong. If you want to resell it, why? You obviously aren't going to get the same price you bought it for, so you aren't trying to flip it for profit. Statistically speaking, there is something wrong with that car.
Now lets say you waited a year. The new models of cars have come out and there could be dozens of reason one wants to sell last years car. Even if it was a lemon, the resale value is much higher than it was right off the lot if only because it's more reasonable for somebody to get rid of such a "fine" products. Unless the model in question had several recalls and/or a particularly bad reputation, you can expect a higher resale value than you would get had you sold it right out of the lot.
One last thing of note is, practically everything about selling cars is a headache of many people in the know selling to a customer they hope is ignorant. Sales people will try to mark up everything where they can, well past the actual value of the car, and sometimes up-sell things that are assumed standard in a resell market as "features" to wriggle even more money from customers. It is fairly rare that cars are actually sold at their proper value as even people who are good at negotiating a fair price get fatigued by tenacious sales practices. One of the reasons cars depreciate so quickly, is because they were never actually as valuable as the price they were bought for. | 108 |
|
Why can you see fog in the distance, but not right in front of you? | I always wondered, why 50m+ near me I can see the fog, but not closer to me. | 16 | Fog is water particles in the air. When you’re looking in front of you, you notice the particles in a low volume (just in front of you). When you look in the distance you observe a higher volume and by extension a higher number of particles. The higher number becomes noticeable and you”see” the fog. | 31 |
[Harry Potter] Why are there no wizard colleges or universities? | 26 | Very few students would want to go into that level of education, plus the fact the role is taken by apprenticeships similar to how medieval blacksmiths or bakers were trained.
When a wizard or witch wishes to take a career path they must ask a wizard / business within the field to take them as an apprentice in order to pass down the teachings and training. Certain government professions, such as Healer or Auror, have you assigned to a senior to train but in the private sector it's entirely at the digression of the person you are seeking apprenticeship with.
Of course there are rules primarily governed by the union / guild that the business owner must follow such as taking at least one apprentice and breaching these rules can lead to fines or union / guild support seizing. | 29 |
|
[WH40K] Aside from Malcador the Sigillite and his Space Marine legions, did the Emperor ever employ other immortals like himself? | I know he had designs for John Grammaticus, but he unfortunately died in battle and was snatched up by the Cabal before he could take the Emperor up on his offer. | 34 | First, a correction. Space Marines and the Sigillite are not known to be immortal. Space Marines suspect themselves to not die of old age, but they always die in combat and no one has any idea about the Sigillites past.
His gene-son Vulkan was a perpetual like the Emperor. He also directly employed another perpetual, Alivia Sureka, to watch over the warp gate in Molech. Ollanius Persson also fought for the Emperor in the Imperial Army, but their exact relationship at that point is unclear. Persson had retired from the Army before the Heresy and was trying to be a farmer, before the Heresy put a stop to that. | 27 |
Can Gender Dysphoria be caused by gene expression/inhibition ( methylation) ? | http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/42555/title/Female-Brain-Maintained-by-Methylation/
*“Male hormones need to be there during the critical period to masculinize the brain, whereas interfering with methylation can actually override patterns of methylation that had previously been established and masculinize the female,” Nugent explained. “Females need to keep high methylation levels in the brain to maintain the female phenotype and suppress their inner male.”*
So, is it possible with that kind of effect happening, a resulting dysphoria could occur? | 159 | This is a little like asking: "is winning an Olympic gold medal caused by eating?". Yes, because athletes need proper nutrition, but it's information that doesn't really help understand what's going on. | 38 |
ELI5: What is a credit score, how does it work, and why is it so important?? | I’m sorry if this basic knowledge, but I honestly don’t understand any of it. | 32 | A credit score is a number that financial institutions use to judge how likely you are to pay back any loans or credit extended to you. The higher the score, the more stable and trustworthy they view you.
The score is important because many large purchases in life usually require a loan. For example, a car loan or a home mortgage. The better your credit score, the better terms the bank will extend you on the loan. | 24 |
[Marvel Cinematic Universe] Can Antman punch the coronavirus to death? | 46 | He technically could punch individual virus "cells" (virions) into pieces. However he'd be overwhelmed by the number of individual virions even a single infected person would have in their body.
Edit: A typical infected cell can release 1000 virions per day, and each virion creates another infected cell. Typical incubation time before symptom onset for coronavirus is 11 days, so that's at least 10^32 individual virions that he'd have to punch. | 69 |
|
When was the cosmic background radiation in the visible spectrum? | And how long ago did it fade out of visible? | 221 | The CMB was in the visible spectrum when it was emited. The universe was at roughly 3000 K (For comparison: The surface of our sun is 5800 K) at that point, which means it would seem red to us. From this point on it was shifted to the current value of approximately 2.7 K. | 45 |
ELI5: If the Gregorian Calender (Common Era) uses the birth of Christ as a reference for year numbering, why isn't Christmas celebrated on 1st of January? | 17 | The Gregorian calendar (1582) has nothing to do with year numbering. It was just a small revision to the Julian calendar (45 BC) in order to account for the fact that a year wasn't *exactly* 365.25 days. In other words, the calendar was set in place before Jesus was even born. We had the same amount of days in each month as the emperors of Rome had.
Christmas is on December 25 because the Romans wanted the pagans to become Christian, so they sorta set Christmas up on the same day as the pagans' solstice festivals, to make it easier for them. This was sometime in the 300s or 400s AD. But the AD system wasn't invented until 525 AD (*after* Rome fell), when Dionysis Exiguus determined that Jesus was born in 1 AD (he was off a few years though). The date of Jesus's birth was already "settled" by then...just not the year.
You are assuming that the religious holidays would have been set at the same time as the year numbering system (and at the same time as the calendar was set). They were all different times. | 12 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.