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
|
---|---|---|---|---|
[Columbo] Columbo has wrapped his investigation, Im in the clear, but he turns before leaving and says "just one more thing"... am I definitely goin down?!? | I did do it. He is in full coat and cigar. I am not wearing an ascot, or fancy suit. | 360 | that depends. did you start out being all friendly and helpful when he first turned up, but slowly got more and more tetchy and annoyed as he kept interrupting you at your place of work? did you start wearing a waistcoat and saying things like *"now look here columbo"*? because that's when you really know you're fucked. | 223 |
[Star Wars] Why would the Galactic Empire abandon Clone Troopers? | Like the Spartans of Ancient Greece, all Clone Troopers were adaptive, versatile, and reared from birth for combat - unlike the Stormtroopers, who were either recruited, conscripted, or cloned from less efficient genetic sources.
The base genome for Clone Troopers was Jango Fett. With the exception of the 501st Legion, Clones eventually faded from the Empire's military force.
Why didn't the Empire reboot the Cloning Facilities to produce more? | 55 | They're super duper expensive, and also it's easier to control the galaxy when you sign up a massive portion of its population as your enforcers rather than to create *more* people to enforce those already.
Plus the emperor knows first hand that creating soldiers in a lab leaves the opportunity to secretly implant a chip in their brain to cause them to go haywire at a moment's notice. Probably safer to rely on natural born people and motivate them with money and benefits than to risk something like that backfiring on him. | 89 |
CMV: I do not see how America will transition to the traditional Bernie Sander's(or just general progressive agenda) political positions without an interval of serious destabilization and violence. | First off, I would just like to clarify that I support Bernie and that I do wish that America would embrace a lot of the political ideas that he has. However, this post is in reference to how this would go about. My argument is that America would go through a pretty unstable/violent chapter in history before it came out with more progressive policies. To clarify what policies I am talking about:
* Getting money out of politics
* Changing lobbying laws
* Regulating Wall Street and breaking up the big banks
* Getting away from oil
* Transitioning to clean energy
* Getting away from outsourcing and bringing manufacturing jobs back here
* Universal Health Care
* Decriminilization of Marijuana
* Free(or well heavily subsidized) colleges or higher education
I believe for America to transition to these policies it would require a pretty significant interval of unrest. I wouldn't say a full on Civil War but most likely more violence than the 60's Civil Right's movements.
My reasons being:
* Whether we like it or not, the oil and finance industries have MASSIVE effects on America culturally and economically. These industries have been rapidly growing post-WW2 and are sufficiently ingrained into American Societal infrastructure. Again, I'm not saying it is right or wrong but Oil and Wall Street are significant pillars that uphold the American economy. Taking all of that from the American economy seems similar to taking out the rug from under the table. I think the anxiety behind it all would cause a lot of panic in society.
* Rich and powerful people do not give up their money and power easily. Oil, Wall Street, Pharmaceutical companies, Black market cartels, or well any lucrative company that will get phased out never gives it away easily. I'm specifically worried regarding the Oil industry and Wall Street- they have continually shown a pattern of literally going to war to protect their resources and money. I don't see how they go away quietly as America tries to transition from them whether through legislation or culturally.
* History. Political revolutions are almost always embedded with immediate instability and violence. Very rarely, if ever, does it happen in a peaceful manner. Off the top of my head as some examples: Civil Wars of the Roman Republic/Empire (It's almost eerie to see how many parallels there are between Rome and America), French Revolution, Russian Revolution.
In short, such massive redistributions of wealth never happen without some serious resistance from the elite status quo (could be wrong here as I am not a historian).
_____
> *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!* | 35 | America has had the longest period of peaceful transitions of power. It is one of the best things that we do.
A Sanders presidency would be no different.
And Bernie probably won't get even close to anything he wants. The change would have to gradual since a president isn't a dictator. He would need the support on congress to do anything. If he suggests something that they won't support, nothing will get done.
The change would be gradual rather than massive because it would have to be. | 26 |
ELI5: What's happening with the New Orleans Saints? | 71 | Between 2009 and 2011, the Saints ran a bounty program. The defensive players and defensive coordinator Gregg Williams pooled their money and awarded money to players who caused injuries to opposing players. Head coach Sean Payton and general manager Mickey Loomis failed to stop it and may have even been complicit in hiding it.
This is bad sportsmanship, but it's also explicitly against NFL rules which have increasingly tried to emphasize player safety. As punishment, Williams, Payton, and Loomis have all been suspended. Several high selections in future drafts have also been taken from them. Player suspensions may come as well, but have not been issued yet. | 95 |
|
ELI5: How do balloons half float? | I understand you know, helium is lighter than air, so if the balloon weighs less than the air around it it floats, but what I don't quite understand is how can it stay suspended in mid-air after losing some helium.
Shouldn't it just fall to the ground? How is there an inbetween state between floating up and falling to the ground. If it's light enough to hover in mid-air why doesn't it go all the way up if it's still lighter than air?
[Half floating while not attached to the ground](http://imgur.com/6n8sKQT.jpg) | 142 | **TL;DR**: *It's the string. The more it bends or sits on the ground as the balloon sinks, the less it weighs so the less lifting the balloon has to do.*
Balloons float upward when the overall weight of the entire balloon, including string and latex and air within, is less than the overall weight of the air around it. It gets that lower weight because the helium inside it weighs much less than standard air does. But helium is a gas made out of very small atoms that over time have a tendency to leak through the balloon's surface or knot.
As the helium slowly leaks away, at a slower and slower speed as the balloon contracts, it puts less pressure on the outside of the balloon and so leaks away at a slower and slower speed. So the balloon still leaks and shrinks but at a much slower rate.
It's leaking REALLY slowly when just enough helium has leaked out that it's essentially the exact same weight as the air it displaces, but it should fall or rise, right, even if very very slowly?
This is where the string comes in. The string actually weighs a fair amount compared to the balloon itself, and it BENDS when the balloon starts losing its buoyancy, or it rests on something. For every bit that bends or rests, the balloon sinks a little tiny bit more and is taking a little tiny bit of weight off of the overall balloon because now part of that string's weight is being partially supported now by what it's tied to or sitting on.
So when the balloon falls far enough so the string is a perfect "J" between the tie-off point and the balloon's neck, it's only holding up three-quarters of the string. A little later, at the string being a perfect "U", only half the weight is being supported by the balloon. Same thing if a quarter or half of the string is resting on the ground.
This "give in the system" caused by the changing weight of the string allows the balloon to hover instead of falling all the way to the floor. | 102 |
If a gay person believes in a religion that forbids homosexuality, is it a moral failing of the church or the person? | Let's assume that the person truly believes in a church that forbids homosexuality, yet the person still practices their sexuality. Regardless of whether homsexuality is wrong or not, outside of any religion, would the person be committing an immoral act by practicing their homosexuality?
Has there been any writing on this subject (I guess a moral general question would be is it okay to act against one's beliefs)? | 19 | That depends very strongly on whether their beliefs are right or not obviously. That's kind of the cornerstone of how to determine what things are immoral, yet your question deliberately says to answer as if this didn't matter. Some theories will say that it is wrong, probably especially virtue theories to do what one believes is wrong. But the picture changes based on whether the act itself is. | 10 |
ELI5:whats the difference between a nuke, an atomic bomb, and a hydrogen bomb? | 399 | The first two are synonyms for all bombs using the energy gained from the fission of uranium or plutonium. A hydrogen bomb is a nuclear bomb, but it additionally uses energy gained from nuclear fusion of deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen) and lithium to increase its power.
Basically all nuclear bombs today are hydrogen bombs, since they have far more bang for the buck - literally. | 275 |
|
ELI5: What does the claim that we, humans, share 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees actually mean? | 108 | What is *meant* by the claim depends a lot on who is saying it. Some people feel this has philosophical or scientific significance that others don’t agree with.
But the claim, on the surface, is true, or close to true.
A vast majority of genes are used to carry out basic cellular functions like generating power (converting glucose and oxygen to ATP), cell division to create new cells... even “specializations” like the creation of muscle fibers or electrochemical signaling proteins in nerve cells may be similar between all mammals, or even all vertebrates.
The remaining 1% can account for a huge amount of variation, though. This doesn’t mean humans aren’t “meaningfully” or significantly different from chimpanzees. All the similarity just means we share the basic biochemical structure of our bodies, and even methods of reproduction, etc. | 120 |
|
CMV: At a certain point, most measures to save money aren't worth it | a | 36 | It seems like your CMV is based on 1 or 2 well-to-do couples that bicker a lot, not the virtue/uselessness of frugality above a certain tax bracket?
Even middle-class people could focus on up-tight savings, if it means they get to retire a few years earlier than expected. | 18 |
What biological factors could explain the development of gender identity? | 24 | By itself, biology can't explain the development of gender identity. Taking away the influence of culture, parenting, and peer interaction does not allow us to appreciate the interactive nature of the brain, body, and environment.
That being said, gender identity is influenced at least in part by the various levels of androgens and estrogens that are present before and after birth, though even then variations on the expression of gender-specific behavior is heavily reliant on context.
Source: am Developmental Psychobiology Instructor and Researcher | 36 |
|
Do molecules like water form in supernovae? How was the water on Earth formed? | I wasn't sure whether to post in astronomy or physics | 23 | No, supernovae are far too energetic to allow the formation of molecules such as water. In fact, the electrons are removed from neutral atoms, forming plasma. However, as the ejected matter pushes outward and gradually cools, it can eventually form stable molecules, though this cooling process is very slow. | 10 |
CMV: Gun manufacturers should NOT be held liable for someone’s misuse of their products | With most posts on this subreddit, I can see both sides of the argument, and I can understand where both view point come from. But, this one (in my opinion) is completely asinine.
Some examples of current laws/precedences that align with my view:
1) If person A beats person B with a baseball bat, person B cannot sue Louisville Slugger.
2) If person A intentionally runs over person B in their car, the car companies are not held liable.
3) If person A drinks too much Jack Daniels and, in a drunken bar fight kills person B, person B cannot sue Jack Daniels. | 173 | Gun companies should obviously not be held liable when they are complying with all laws and regulations. However, what about when they start pushing the boundaries on those regulations? Such as intentionally making a gun that is easily modifiable to become fully automatic? And even if you think they shouldn't be held liable for that, is there no line a gun company can cross?
To use your examples, if a driver accidentally killed a pedestrian due to reckless driving the car company would not be held liable. However, if the accident and death of a pedestrian was the result of some defect in the car itself, then shouldn't the car company be held responsible? | 28 |
[Harry Potter] are you telling me that not a single person was worried about Harry’s mistreatment? Like CPS (or the UK equivalent) was never threatened in some way? The Dursleys couldn’t have been that good at keeping Harry quiet. | 420 | They never did anything to him that would leave obvious red flags for the Department for Education (which runs the equivalent to CPS in England and Wales) to investigate. He was skinny but not starved, unhappy but not obviously acting out, a victim of bullying but not bruised or beaten. Unfortunately abuse like this is common even in countries with robust child safety systems. | 419 |
|
[LOTR] Why wasn't Rohan a province of Éothéod in Rhovanion? | Rohan was given as a gift from Gondor to people from Éothéod who came to help Gondor during war. Why wouldn't Rohan be added to the Kingdom of Éothéod instead of becoming a separate country? Something like how Alaska is part of the USA, East and West Pakistan, or the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. | 20 | Because they didn't have the resources to maintain a connection between the two ends of the Misty Mountains that their kingdom would have been spread across and it was feasible to relocate the entire population to the far more hospitable land of Calenardhon. | 18 |
[Kung Fu Panda] If Shen threatened master Ox and master Croc that he would turn the weapons against the city if they didn't surrender, why didn't he do the same for Po and the Furious Five if he was aware that they were in the city? | It just seems to me that he missed a pretty simple solution for his problems. It could have also gave more stake to the story and more character to Shen. | 289 | His fate was tied to Po. Everything he did was to try and spite his destiny, that he'd be stopped by a panda. It wasn't enough to make Po surrender, he needed to prove the fortune teller wrong. But, like the theme of the Kung Fu Panda stories keeps reiterating, *One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it*.
Shen *had* to win. He was ready to kill Po as soon as he met him (captive in the tower), and then underestimated him as a fool (because he wasn't what he expected). He only barely escaped, and destroyed his tower trying (and failing) to kill Po. His destiny was looming closer and closer, and his pride couldn't take it. He couldn't just *beat* Po, he had to be *right*, he had to *win*. All of his sacrifices and all the terrible things he did had to be *right*. | 186 |
How do pacifists deal with the fact that other people must fight to defend them? | I was reading through some [common questions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objector) conscientious objectors are asked (see: "common questions" subsection), trying to answer them from the perspective of a pacifist.
The one I had immense difficulty seeing a justifiable answer for was "Who is in charge of defending your children in case of an armed conflict?"
What would be a pacifist's answer to that question, and the justification for that answer? | 46 | The argument from Leo Tolstoy's *The Kingdom of God is Within You* is that it's better to die standing for what you believe than to kill or to ask others to kill in your name. Tolsoy followed the philosophy of non resistance. You not only refuse violence, you also do not resist evil. In the latter years of Czarist Russia, many members of his community were subject to conscription. He wrote that if you were drafted you should not go but you should also not flee. If you were arrested you should go quietly even going so far to wear the uniform if you were forced. But, if they still tried to force you to hold a gun or to kill someone you should refuse even if the penalty is dying yourself.
The obvious rebuttal to Tolstoy's philosophy is to insist that a culture like his would eventually be destroyed. His response was that God would be glorified by them following his commands and the world would know of their testimony even if they perished from the Earth. | 51 |
[General] Almost always, if a character has a dual personalities, it is the evil side which is super-powered. Are there any cases where someone has a super-powered good side? | 'Super-powered Evil Side' is a trope, where a character has two (or more) personalities: the good side being more-or-less normal with no powers, while the evil/darker side being super-powered. Are there any examples of the opposite? | 28 | Might not really count but in the classic anime Yu yu Hakusho, the villain of the chapter black arc was a man named Sensui. He had six other personalities, each with their own strengths and techniques. At least 2 of those personalities weren't very nice people with one of them even being borderline sadistic. His original personality, though, was affable, noble, and not really evil; just misguided in a way that even the heroes understood. His original personality was also the most powerful. It served as his "final form" so to speak. | 29 |
ELI5: Why is it that during recessions when GDP falls by very small amounts (2 to 4% etc) most businesses produce huge losses and revenue cuts of 30 to 50% | I understand that businesses have operating/financial leverage and so I see clearly why the drastic falls in revenue leads to big losses.
My question is more why do revenues fall so much and yet GDP only seemingly falls a small amount?
edit: inventory buildup during recession? | 16 | Microsoft is worth $329 billion, The US GDP is around $17 **Trillion**
So a 2-4% drop in GDP is a VERY big number. For reference a 2% drop in GDP would be a loss of $340,000,000,000 or... literally Microsoft.
We should start measuring GDP drops in Microsofts.
Edit: Proofreading | 11 |
My supervisor wants me to modify an article we are writing in a way I don't completely agree with. | As part of my work for my PhD I wrote a scientific article.
I am the first author, my supervisor and two other staff members at my university are authors, too. I wrote 95% of the article by myself, then I sent the draft to my supervisor and the co-authors and everyone proposed some changes.
A section of the paper I wrote has been introduced after I had a discussion with professor X, at university Y (not my university). Even if I didn't see it at first, now I am convinced that the additional treatment in this section is needed to be able to get realistic data. If we don't do it, then we are not modeling a fundamental feature of the system.
The point is that this section doesn't make our theoretical predictions any better, in most cases they are even worse. I addressed this point in the paper, and I concluded that another approximation we are doing is critical: that one must be the culprit for the disagreement. There is also consensus in scientific literature that the aforementioned approximation is critical. It's too complicated to remove this approximation, it's very commonly used but in some cases it might fail.
I proposed that we keep the section, motivating my proposal: I am analyzing a fundamental feature of the system. If we neglect that we may have a slightly better agreement by pure chance, but our description is farther away from reality.
My supervisor has become really aggressive at this point. Usually he is very warm and welcoming in his emails, now he's been criticizing me for everything, like the indentation of my LaTeX code, or the legends of my plots. He made fun of me for being "emotionally attached" to my calculations, even if they are (in his opinion) useless for the paper. We discussed a lot about it, and in the end I wanted to keep the section, while, on the other side, the other three co-authors wanted to remove it; they didn't have any scientific reason to trash it.
My supervisor sent to me this morning his final draft, and the section is nowhere to be found. He wants a comment on that, and then we can submit it.
What do I do? I think that my paper is quite decent even without that section, however I feel like we are not being 100% honest. I explained very clearly my point of view, many times, they know that I don't agree with them; I feel like I cannot insist again on keeping the section. Also, we informally voted on that section and it's me (a PhD student) against a professor and two staff members.
I see no way I could further insist: the general feeling is that we discussed, and my proposal lost...
Also I am now visiting professor X, who suggested the improvement, at university Y; he asked for a preprint of my article. I am a little bit ashamed of showing it to him because he is mentioned in the "Acknowledgements" section, and we thank him for "fruitful discussion", even if now we are completely neglecting his remarks.
Also I have to give a seminar soon at university Y. Am I going to present something I am not fully convinced of? Or am I going to contradict my most recent article in my talk?
Sorry for the wall of text, thank you for your answers! | 25 | Give them a chance. You are an apprentice now, they are masters. The very idea of apprenticeship is that you look at another person, a more experienced person, and try to remember what worked for them, and what did not. Once you are a master yourself, you'll play by your own rules.
Remember their decisions, and their rationale for making these decisions. Later, try to understand whether these decisions were right or not. For example, one of the reviewers may ask exactly for a discussion like that, so you'll bring it back. Remember all that, so that you could decide for yourself in the future whether it was a right approach, and whether you'll follow it when you are independent.
Another option, consider publishing this piece as a micro-article of its own. Is it possible? Pick a low-impact factor journal, add a bit of data here and there, and publish it separately (a separate paper, but keeping your supervisor as a co-author, probably, unless they explicitly bid out of it). Oftentimes it makes a paper better if it is published in pieces.
Science is not only about getting an interesting result, it's also about popularizing this result, and explaining it to people. Explaining things in a way that makes them understood is as important in science as getting the results themselves. And for reaching this goal sometimes, for the sake of clarity, you have to streamline your work, sacrificing some tangentials. Most successful researchers often manage to turn these tangentials in projects / publications of their own, but that's a separate story. | 18 |
CMV: Prostitution Should Be Legal | Prostitution as defined by the consensual practice or occupation of engaging in sexual activity with someone for payment should be legal. Since things should generally be legal unless there is a reason for them to not be, the best way to change my view is by providing a convincing reason for why it should be illegal.
**To address common counter arguments:**
**"Prostitution is not a victimless crime, women are forced into it due to economic reasons. After all no one says they want to be a prostitute when they grow up."**
It is true that no one says they want to end up as a prostitute. It is also true that no one wants to be homeless or work long hours earning minimum wage when they grow up. The prostitute always has the option to be homeless instead. And if they don't have that option anymore due to things like pimps forcing them to stay as prostitutes then it is no longer prostitution - it's rape. By legalizing prostitution it actually gives women more protection because if they do begin to be forced to do things that they don't consent to they can turn to law enforcement and the legal system for help. Currently they don't have this option because they risk prosecution for prostitution themselves or losing their source of livelihood.
**"Prostitution puts women at a significantly greater risk of violence."**
Jobs with a greater risk of violence already exist - being a pizza delivery driver puts you at one of the highest risks of being shot on the job.
Additionally by legalizing prostitution it would make it much safer. The industry could be regulated to create minimum safety standards, safe and monitored facilities could be created, etc.
**"Prostitution is morally wrong."**
Not only should morality and legality be separate issues, but from a secular standpoint what even makes it wrong? Regardless though the law and your morality should be kept separate otherwise you end up with prohibition.
**"Prostitution spreads HIV/AIDS."**
Studies have shown that legalizing prostitution actually reduces HIV infection rates and countries with legal prostitution have a much lower risk of HIV with prostitution. The reasoning behind this is again that prostitutes will have more legal options available to them. Legislation could even be created to heavily penalized individuals spreading STD's through prostitution or with a prostitute to further reduce the risk of STD infections in prostitution.
All this isn't even mentioning the economic benefits of legalized prostitution. Legalized prostitution would provide an economic boost similar to the economic boost seen from states that have legalized marijuana.
Help me change my view, there just doesn't seem to be any reason against the legalization of prostitution with many reasons for it.
| 128 | Are you suggesting prostitution should be legal as in decriminalized (it's simply no longer illegal, and whoever wants to can just do it) or that it be legal as in legalized (made into a regulated industry, where transactions outside that sphere of regulation are still illegal)? | 22 |
[Harry Potter] What would Dark Lords from other Hogwarts houses be like? | The image of Grindelwald and Voldemort, and to a certain extent Lucius Malfoy and even Severus Snape, seems to have heavily influenced the concept of what a Dark Lord is. They appear to be egotistical, brutally ambitious, and extremely fond of unforgivable curses. In order words, textbook Slytherins.
But everyone, regardless of house, has the capacity for evil, even supreme evil. So what does it look like when a representative from Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, or even Hufflepuff takes the top Dark Wizard spot? What do their methods look like, and how are they different from Slytherin Dark Lords?
These need not be direct examples of known wizards gone bad; I'm more interested in your thoughts on what happens when the attributes prized by the other houses are twisted to evil purposes. | 147 | These are examples, not guaranteed 100% would-be-like-this.
Gryffindor - Charismatic warhawk that wants to end the statute of secrecy and conquer the muggle world by force.
Ravenclaw - Schemer, plotter, amoral experimenter, or some combination of the three.
Hufflepuff - Radical that gathers together nonhumans and muggle-borns to overthrow the Pureblood families, the Ministry of Magic, or both. Alternatively, a wizard that works hard their entire life, has one bad day, and snaps. | 178 |
What process occurs for a light bulb to be “burnt out”? | 4,180 | For an incandescent lamp, the tungsten filament evaporates slowly when hot. It is very thin to begin with and parts which are even thinner get hotter and evaporate even faster. Eventually the filament opens because it is just too thin. That often happens when switching the bulb on because the current is much higher for a very brief time. Halogen bulbs slow down the evaporation by redepositing evaporated tungsten onto the filament. | 2,415 |
|
ELI5: Why is it so hard to catch/arrest/block spam/scam callers? | 25 | Because they operate in jurisdictions that have little to no resources or interest in doing something about it, like China or India. Both countries have significantly bigger problems affecting their citizens to actually do something that potentially affects a citizen of another across the world. | 28 |
|
Why do diabetes patients sometimes need their limbs amputated? | Pretty much self explanatory. What happens to their limbs that causes them to be totally unsalvageable? | 20 | Diabetes causes high levels of glucose in the blood, which can damage just about any organ in the body. It affects the nerves in the feet, a condition called peripheral neuropathy, so patients lose sensation. It also causes vascular changes, hardening and clogging the arteries so the feet don't get enough oxygenated blood. That means patients might not feel an irritation until it breaks the skin, allowing bacteria to enter the wound. Because the blood supply is poor, the body has a diminished capacity to fight the infection, so the wounds don't heal. | 22 |
[MCU] Are the Infinity Gems attracted to Earth for some reason, or are they simply attracted to each other and Earth happens to be the point of convergence? | Asgardian library intern here.
We don't have a library anymore thanks to some recent stuff that would take too long to explain. New king wants everything we have on the Infinity Gems, which (if you don't know) are essentially little pieces of what existed before... well, everything. I've been sifting through what we have left and I can't help but notice a pattern.
Asgard has been tracking these stones as their incidents tend to draw a bit of attention. Almost every recent incident of the Infinity Gems has led them on a path through Midgard, or as most of you may know it, the planet Earth. I find this peculiar. Our own politics have intertwined with two of the gems, the Tesseract and the Aether, both of which caused large incidents that concluded in New York and London, respectively. Loki's mind gem, once a part of his scepter, caused a large-scale incident with a self-aware security system in Sokovia. At first I assumed the stones might be tied somehow to Asgard, since these events were so connected to Thor and Loki. More evidence has shifted my theory.
I overheard Thor himself speaking of a similar aura he felt when he encountered the sorcerer, Doctor Steven Strange. He suspects there may be another stone in his possession, and this would match up with scattered reports of a strange event in Hong Kong; though our scientists involved in Midgard studies were not able to find any direct evidence. Some ancient texts in the old library pointed towards a very powerful artifact of an ancient mystic order that could potentially be an Infinity Stone. If so, it has been located on Earth for a very long time and without intervention from Asgard. We are waiting to ask Thor if the object looks familiar to him from his visit with Doctor Strange; the object is eye-shaped and that is currently a sore topic.
The only stone we have tracked that hasn't found it's way to Earth is an Infinity Gem referred to as The Orb, which sparked a massive battle between the Kree and the Nova Corps. Interestingly, however, it does appear that the conflict was solved by a group of mercenaries that was led by an Earthling named Peter Quill. This, for me, was too much of a coincidence as Earthlings are extremely rare in that part of the galaxy.
My hypothesis is that these Infinity Gems may have a connection to the Earth in some meaningful way. Every Infinity incident thus far has touched the Earth, or someone from it. My other thought was that perhaps the stones actively seek out one another, desiring to be linked due to some cosmic energy shared between them. Perhaps the Earth was just a convenient meeting spot for fate once a few of the stones happened to converge there? Could the stones be somewhat sentient in that case? Did The Orb intend for Peter Quill to reunite it with the other gems?
I need more information to confirm my theories, and much of what we had has been destroyed. If anyone out there has relevant information, it seems to be increasingly urgent that we solve the mysteries of these stones before they cause more massively destructive incidents on Midgard. There is a chance Asgardians will be calling Midgard home in the near future and we would all prefer that no spellbound robots drop our continent out of the sky (long story).
Can anyone aid us in our research? | 91 | Well, Odin (possibly) used the Space Stone to *make* the Rainbow Bridge, then hid it away on Earth, one of the Nine Realms of his domain.
Also hidden on Earth was the Aether, or Reality Stone. Since this was hidden by Bor, Odin's father, and was done so secretly, nobody knew. But, as one of the Nine Realms, it made a suitable hiding place.
Basically, both Odin and his father thought Midgard was the best of the Nine Realms for hiding an Infinity Stone on.
We don't know how the Time Stone ended up on Earth. The Eye of Agamotto was made by the first Sorcerer Supreme, "thousands of years ago". We don't know if that was pre-Bor or post-Bor, but it seems unrelated.
The Mind Stone was sent to Earth specifically *because* the Space Stone was there, in an attempt by Thanos to claim it without showing his hand.
The Power Stone, thus far, has never been to Earth (as far as we know), but has been touched by a half-Earthling.
It's possible that this is Fate, guiding all the Stones towards a certain place in space and time. Perhaps they are destined to be together again, at least once.
But most of them have a good reason for being there, instead of anywhere else in the Universe. | 54 |
ELI5: at the molecular level what is the difference between a dominant gene and a recessive gene? What makes the dominant gene dominant and the recessive gene recessive? | 36 | It depends, but in a simple case if it takes multiple pieces to make the the final time e.g multiple protein "subunits" to make a "protein-complex" then if any of them are defective, the whole thing doesn't work. Think of car tires where one or two of the four tires is flat (from the mutant gene) and the other two or three are fine. The care is not going anywhere with flat tires, so having one good gene does not help. Other genes/proteins work solo and if you have one bad copy the other good copy *might* be able to make up for it. Just one example.
Another way is if you have half as much of the good protein is that enough? If yes then the mutation is recessive, if not it is dominant. | 16 |
|
[MCU] What happens if the Wakandan king rejects a challenge? | I just rewatched Black Panther and noticed that both times he got challenged, T'Challa said "I accept your challenge." First against M'Baku, and then against Kilmonger. What would happen if he rejected one of those instead? Or both of those?
Bonus: does this whole challenge thing even exist in the comics? I heard Churi is Black Panther in the comics, and this might also be the direction the MCU is heading now that Chadwick Boseman tragically passed away. But realistically there's no way she could win any chalenges - she's just a little girl. Plus, she's been purported to be this super genius all along, so there's no way she'd have time to become an expert martial artist alongside that. | 54 | I don't think there would be any official repercussions except losing face when challenged by someone who has a legitimate claim to the thrown.
M'Baku was the leader of his tribe and has just as much right to rule as T'Challa, he just needed to go through the process of proving he was best to lead.
Kilmonger had a blood right to the thrown, and T'Challa felt a responsibility to him since he and his father were wronged by T'Chaka and wanted to make things right. He wouldn't have lost any respect from his people if had turned it down but felt morally compelled to accept the challenge.
As for Churi, She has shown a few times that she doesn't care for the archaic traditions of Wakanda. She'd likely do away with the whole process and attempt to drive the culture forward and officially unite all the tribes under one rule, or possibly form a council consisting of each tribal leader.
Edit; Just remembered that the Black Panther doesn't necessarily have to be the King/Queen. | 60 |
ELI5: How does a private company go public? What is the process and requirements? Is there a set amount of profit that a company has to make before going public? | 96 | You file a certain report with the SEC and then you’re allowed to sell stock to the general public. The report is very extensive, and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyer and accountant fees and takes months to complete.
Then once you are public, public companies are required to make public quarterly and annual reports including audited financial statements along with reporting any significant corporate events, and it can be a crime or result in lawsuits if you don’t properly report them. Private companies don’t have to disclose nearly as much; they just can’t outright lie.
There’s no set amount of profit you need to go public. But if you have a startup company and your business model isn’t working, you might want to stay private as long as possible, because going public forces you to show all of your information and you can’t BS anymore. That’s what happened with WeWork - they couldn’t go public in the end because it would have become obvious that the company’s business model and valuation made no sense. | 86 |
|
[Legend of Zelda OoT] How did Ganondorf build his doom fortress above the old Hyrule Castle anyway? | 28 | Well it's fair to say that the workmen couldn't possibly have done it- in the years between young and adult link, all they managed to achieve was completion of a few Kakariko buildings and the fixing of a bridge. Although some humans, such as Ingo had sided with Gannondorf, it still seems unlikely they could have constructed something of that magnitude judging from their ineptitude (as above) and the fact that the people had been driven from Hyrule Castle Town.
The Gerudo may have done the work, but they are never seen outside of Gerudo Valley/the desert. But according to someone in Castle Town, they did visit at times looking for boyfriends. Gannon's fortress doesn't at all match the one in the desert. It seems most likely they had little to no involvement, as all their manpower is devoted to guarding their own land.
The Gorons probably had the capacity, but they appear to have been otherwise occupied in the mountain, though eventually imprisoned, they weren't necessarily enslaved. They gave no indication to Link that they had been used as slave workers.
I posit that the fortress modifications must have been created by his design and oversight at the hands of what Link would view as 'monsters' and 'enemies'. Whether skeletal warriors of the field, or the redead living in the castle town in the later stage, or maybe moblins or some other bosses or phantoms, Gannondorf had a *massive* amount of manpower and resources at his disposal.
Seeing as he had so many servants to fight for him, it would be only logical that he utilise them in other forms of service, such as construction. | 19 |
|
[Greek mythology] The Minotaur subsisted almost exclusively on human flesh. Would he be more healthy if he ate, say, grass? or even just a normal human diet of bread, dairy, vegetables, wine, and occasional meat? | 42 | It's nearly impossible to say, because we know very little about his level of health to begin with. Certainly, he was able to live quite a long time and could hunt & overpower lots and lots of otherwise fit and active greeks, but was his blood pressure a bit high compared to the average god-spawned half-bull/half-man creature? Did he have diverticulitis? Shin-splints? Who the heck could know?
One thing to consider, though, is that you can't discount the amount of bread, dairy, vegetable matter, wine, and fruit that is to be found in both the supplies carried by people trapped in the labyrinth, *and* contained within their stomachs when they get killed. | 43 |
|
CMV: Our current "world leaders" are incapable of the necessary change required to avert climate change. | In light of the most recent [IPCC report](http://www.ipcc.ch/) and my own reading of [Ugo Bardi's *Extracted*](http://www.chelseagreen.com/bookstore/item/extracted:paperback) it seems clear to me that the only way to avert **more** climate related disasters and catastrophic economic change is to immediately push our economy to be more decentralized and distributed.
My view, which I wish to discuss, is that our current "world leaders" are not going to be able to make the sweeping systematic changes required to make this *inevitable* shift in our economy. Any changes they will propose will be weak and impotent. I believe that it is within their power to do what needs to be done, but they lack:
* The political **courage** to stand up against the institutional (aka corporate, private or monied) power.
* The **will** to dismantle and distribute their own political power
* The **trust** that other leaders will do the same
The assumption I am making is that a **massive restructuring of the economy is going to happen**. Infinite growth is an insane way to operate on a finite planet and *is* going to stop and decline if not collapse.
My fear is that people keep waiting for "world leaders" to do something to soften this transition, to fix this problem, which they are not able to fix.
Change is coming and if we wait for the "world leaders" to lead we will find ourselves following the change, rather than guiding it.
EDIT: great discussion, but very few people even touched on my point. I don't feel that anyone convinced me that world leaders are going to be able to deal with climate change. It seems clear that we, citizens of the world, will be leading the change. Good luck out there.
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your benevolent overlords. 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!* | 260 | What do you mean by decentralized/distributed economy?
Because to me, the solution to your problem isn't decentralization and distribution, it's increased centralization and the nationalization of major industries at the hands of a dictatorship.
As long as you have democracy, you will never have the political will to enact meaningful change in time to prevent environmental catastrophe. Decentralizing political power means that people will pursue their own interests with their increase in relative power, and people in general are awful long term planners.
You make a major assumption that everybody would suddenly commit to an expensive long term goal, and that the only thing preventing this is political power centralization by ineffective leaders. You've got it backwards- democracies are typically *terrible* at long term planning because people in general vote for their interests instead of the greater good. Autocracies, on the other hand, can do it much better because you are relying on one person to make a decision instead of millions upon millions of fickle voters.
This also solves the problem of trust - it's much easier to negotiate with someone who is going to be in power for long periods of time than it is with someone who could be elected out of office in a few years.
Courage and a successful political career in a democracy are unsustainable. If you try and stand up for your beliefs, and those conflict with the interests of your constituency, you are no longer a successful politician. A dictator, on the other hand, can make those tough choices without fear of being taken out of office by electoral means.
You can solve the environmental problem, or you can have a democratic state. To me, there appears to be no way to reconcile the two. | 38 |
ELI5: When you cross two beams of light, e.g. from flashlights, why are they not interfering with each other at all? | 57 | ***TL;DR:*** *Because light isn't really a physical beam so much as a group of little packets of energy that don't interact with each other.*
Imagine you and a friend are standing on a 10 foot wide diagram of a clock, with you at 6 and them at 3, both facing the middle. You both grab a handful of fine but very heavy sand. At a count of three, you both fling and spray your sand toward the centre... and the two clouds of sand pretty much pass through each other. There might be a collision or two that knocks a few grains of sand out of their path, but almost all of the sand would go through cleanly and end up at the other side of the clock.
Light is *a little* like that sand, except the photons (really, little packets of energy) are INCREDIBLY small and moving INCREDIBLY fast. So the odds that two particles are going to impact each other are almost impossibly slim. So the light in general goes through rather than be impacted by a collision.
But where the sand analogy fails is that light 'particles' don't really "collide" or interact anyway, not unless they're under very special circumstances. You can have one photon "touching" another and it doesn't really do anything to either. So off they go, not changing direction or anything, until they eventually blind a deer or annoy a light-sleeping neighbor.
{**edit** to include a second analogy for two photons intersecting}
Toss two pebbles into a calm pond at the same time, about two feet apart, and watch the ripples. You'll see they intersect and touch, but afterward just keep on going. Those two waves don't really CHANGE each other - their direction and speed remains exactly as it was *before* they hit as it does afterward. Same with photons - they'd just pass right through each other and keep going, unchanged from previous. | 43 |
|
Why do objects of varying mass accelerate towards the earth's surface at the same rate? | 310 | Heavier things need more force to move them than light things do.
Heavier things experience more force from gravity than light things do.
It turns out that these *exactly balance out*. The extra force you get for being heavier is exactly the amount you need to cancel out the fact that you need more force to accelerate because you're heavier. So everything accelerates at the same rate. | 512 |
|
[Star Wars] To avoid the Rule of Two, can a Sith Lord choose NOT to get an apprentice? | Was there any Sith Lord in Legends or Canon that did this? | 24 | Absolutely not! Let’s hear it from the man himself.
> “Choose someone as a successor and you will inevitably be succeeded.
Choose someone hungrier and you will be devoured.
Choose someone quicker and you won't dodge the blade at your back.
Choose someone with more patience and you won't block the blade at your throat.
Choose someone more devious and you'll hold the blade that kills you.
Choose someone more clever and you'll never know your end.
Despite these cautions, an apprentice is essential. A Master without an apprentice is a Master of nothing.”
-Darth Sidious
The constant one-upping and treachery is there to make sure the Sith constantly evolve and grow stronger! If you can’t train an apprentice good enough to kill you, you’ve failed as a Sith Lord! | 87 |
CMV: People Shouldn't Try To Convince Others To Join Their Religion. | Let me start of by saying, that I am a Hindu. I love my religion/culture. And I find it weird that in some religions, people try to get other people to join their religion.
That’s another reason why Hindus or other Indian religions don’t evangelise/proselytize.
Imagine if you went to a different country/region and asked the people there to live by your culture. They would probably think “no, we are not from your country,, we have our own traditions and values”
Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, Buddhism etc is part of Indian culture. Unless someone wants to adopt it, why we want them to?
Like you wouldn’t tell a foreigner to live by your culture just because you do?
So, we don’t tell people to adopt our traditions - unless they want to. They are ours.
I find it strange and very rude that people would want to convert others to their religion. It's extremely condescending and disrespectful that some people want everyone in the world to join their religion. One of the things that makes this world great, in my opinion, is different cultures, faiths and traditions - if you erase all but one, that takes a lot of the beauty of humanity away. I find that really sad.
You might say that in some religions, they have a command to spread their faith - this is true, but I say that it goes against the teaching that lots of religions have, which is respect, and respect should, in my view, is more important than how many people you have in your religion. The number of people you have in your religion, does not make it more true. That would be an ad populum fallacy, also known as appeal to popularity.
You also might say that people try to convert people to save them from torture. Well, if that sort of theology is true, I would question if that belief comes from God or humans, and would still not want to convert people. I see proselytising and evangelism almost as bad as murder. It goes against my ethical values completely.
Hindu religion believes that no particular religion is better than another; all genuine religious paths are facets of God's pure love and light, deserving tolerance and understanding. Hindu Sanatan Dharma not only teaches tolerance for other religions but respect as well. Everyone is entitled to their own path, and none should be mocked or persecuted. H The often quoted proverb that conveys this attitude is, "Ekam sat bahudha Vedanti" which means, "Truth is one, paths are many." No one path is correct; we are all striving for the same goal in our own unique way. It is this tolerance and belief in the all-pervasiveness of Divinity that has allowed India to be home to followers of virtually every major world religion for thousands of years.
Change my view so I can understand the other perspective please. | 253 | Your religion doesn't require you to convince others, so you follow your religion. There is nothing at stake, nothing at risk by your not preaching your religion.
Christianity believes otherwise. The bible states that the blood of an unbeliever will be will be on their head if they fail to speak to someone who could have been saved yet they failed to speak up. So, there is something at stake, something at risk.
For Christians, they believe that they are trying to convince you to get into the lifeboat before you drown. Would you not wake a sleeper in a burning building? To fail to speak up is callous and unsympathetic to the danger.
Now, you may refuse to wake up and leave the burning building You may refuse to get into the lifeboat because you do not believe the ship is sinking. That is on you.
This is the Christian point of view. You may not agree with it but it makes sense to them. For the Christian faith, converting unbelievers is out of kindness.
Now, organized traditional religion has not always done a good job of conveying this sentiment. But that means that your complaint is with some interpretations and executions of the message, not the message itself. | 122 |
CMV: Star wars series, even originals, are overrated. | I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but I would like to know the reasons why they are hyped.
I have just seen original star wars trilogy. I think they are simply overrated. By that I mean people get more excited about the series and value it more than it should be.
May be it's just nostalgia and people watch it with rose-tinted glasses of the past. May be it's just people jump on to bandwagon.
Story is decent but comes nowhere near hype it gets. It gets quite boring at points.
To get across my point, compare the story to Lord of The Rings. Lore and story in star wars doesn't go as deep as LOTR.
Change my view.
_____
> *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!* | 447 | You have just seen the originals. The originals were produced starting in 1977, almost 40 years ago. At that time, the story was new, the special effects were new, the idea of a space opera was refreshing.
Are you using a modern lens when you assess these, or are you taking them in the context of where they were, where society was, where the movie industry was when they were produced? Every movie and valuing of that movie is a reflection of society at that time. That is the difference between popular and "timeless." A movie can be popular without having lasting qualities. | 352 |
Why can influenza infect a person multiple times, but once a person is infected with measles, they gain lifelong immunity? | 135 | Primarily because there are multiple strains of influenza that circulate differentially depending on a variety of factors. Influenza also has a high rate of mutation, which the means the prevalent strains circulating at in given season have changed enough that your immune system doesn't recognize them. Also, immunity to pathogens varies significantly depending on the antigen molecules (usually) on the surface of the virus or bacteria: Some are more easily recognized by the immune system than others. | 108 |
|
What ethics would you say the (anti)superhero Rorshach is following? | Was pondering that yesterday and I am not sure. He is wiling to torture "underworld" people to get information, so that points towards a utilitarian. (The criminal's pain caused by me breaking his fingers is outweighed by the net gain of happiness by me stopping a criminal plot with the information I got from him.)
But at the end of the series/movie, he is willing to risk the fate of the entire world rather than letting a criminal go. This seems very deontological to me. (Ozymandiaz saves the world from nuclear war by criminal acts; Rorshach wants to expose the plot, thus reactivating the potential for nuclear war. Ozymandiaz plot is btw a clearcut utilitarian scheme; sacrifice a few million lives to protect the lives of the entire planet.)
So I'm not sure about it. I wonder if there were some ethically competent people that knows the Rorshach character. It is off course a possibility the character is not coherent, but the series reads like he is. | 69 | Rorschach believes that those who have "sinned", in his judgement, deserve punishment. So, aptly, he's a desert retributivist. This doesn't conflict with his hard-line deontology; in fact, it compliments it. This is why, in his mind, he's able to torture people for information without contradicting his strong, rules-based morality. The people he tortures *deserve* to be tortured, to him.
He's an extreme, diseased manifestation of deontological justice. He was meant to take the Batman vigilante archetype to its natural conclusion, which is that of a conspiratorial fascist. | 46 |
CMV: The right to bear arms is the most problematic, outdated and idiotic law in the USA and causes so many problems that I cannot understand how anyone could be in support of gun ownership | I know the whole gun debate is a hot topic in the US right now, but as an Irish person who lives in a country with extremely strict gun laws, it cannot seem more black and white to me. Guns cause nothing but problems. All you need to do is pick one up and pull the trigger to end a life.
The main argument seems to be that guns are for safety and protection. I just read a story about a woman who was in full support of gun ownership and she got shot in the back by her four year old son. So Option A: have guns lying around the house, waiting for an accident to happen. Option B: lock the gun away and defeat the purpose of having it around to protect yourself.
With all these mass shootings in America, with 5 year old kids being involved in massacres, I don't understand how the laws have been changed straight away and why it's so hard for (some) americans to see how truly awful guns are. In other countries with strict gun laws, you still have maniacs who cause mass stabbings with significantly lower rates of casualties.
And the phrase " guns don't kill people, people kill people". What even is the message here? OF COURSE guns kill people. They are chunks of metal that with one trigger pull, release a high speed bullet that penetrates the body causing death or serious injury. It is so, so easy to kill someone with a gun as opposed to a knife or baseball bat. It's a sad fact that there are maniacs out there, or people with serious mental health problems, and they should be supported, but what do people expect when it's so damn easy for them to access guns? People can talk about mental health awareness etc all they want, but the fact of the matter is, easy access to guns are a huge factor in why these mass shootings are so easy to pull off.
I was in Florida a couple of years ago and saw a gun shop and the idea of it seemed so bizzarre and unsettling to me, that anyone can just walk in and buy a pistol or whatever. The fact you could be strolling around a shopping mall and some heart broken man or woman can release rounds on a machine gun while you're doing your supermarket. Sure it's really rare, but even the possibility of it happening is so disturbing.
Here in Ireland the gun laws are extremely strict, there are no casual gun shops around, and they're really only used for the army and hunting. It freaks me out that in a lot of states in America, anyone can buy a gun really.
I may sound passionate about my views, but I really am curious to hear the opposing side, the one that supports gun ownership. I don't know any americans personally so I'd love to hear the opposite argument. Why are relaxed gun laws better than strict gun laws? Is it the fact that it's too late to change, too many people own guns and it would cause more problems?
Also, please correct me if I'm wrong or misinformed on anything I've said!
_____
> *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!* | 119 | Perhaps if Ireland had legal gun ownerships it would not be so easy for England to dominate your country for centuries.
During Irish War of Independence, lack of weapons was a huge problem for Irish, and a lot of early activity involved capturing weapons from British forces. | 92 |
ELI5: how does sword swallowing work? | 16 | It's one part illusion and one part a lot of practice.
First of all, they don't use battle-ready swords. They're not at all as sharp as a weapon should be. Half of of the trick is making them *look* like swords.
Second, your neck needs to be straight as an arrow and, after a lot of practice, you can just kind of slide it down and hold it down.
| 28 |
|
would Solar Panels work if our Star was a Red Dwarf instead? | Just curious if we visited a red dwarf system and decided to setup a station there, could we gather solar energy via solar panels (photons) like our Sun? | 69 | We would likely need a different set of solar cells to get the best efficiency around a red dwarf. The output of such a star is considerably less than our Sun and the spectrum is shifted to the infrared. Our current solar cells are tailored to work with mostly visible light, that is the photons in the visible spectrum have the right amount of energy to excite an electron across the band gap and generate the exciton needed for the whole concept to work. If you just hit our normal cells with infrared light the incoming photons would not have enough energy to bump up the electrons over the band gap and you would get no current flowing.
We should be able to build solar cells that work though, and ours would work to some degree as there are still photons in the visible region but the amounts will be significantly less. | 24 |
Do octopuses have a dominant right or left side? | I'm drawing an octopus right now, and I'd really like to know. | 700 | From "The Soul of an Octopus" by Sy Montgomery: "University of Vienna researcher Ruth Byrne reported that her captive octopuses always choose a favorite arm to explore new objects or mazes... Tank-bound octopuses, at least, are known to have a dominant eye, and Byrne thinks this dominance might be transferred to the front limb nearest the favored eye." However, as others have stated in the thread, all eight limbs act somewhat autonomously. The author in this section actually refers to the possibility of "bold" and "shy" arms, describing how some arms will display curiosity when presented with a new object while others retreat. | 603 |
[Animal Crossing] Is Tom Nook actually as bad as he's made out to be? | So, I'm no animal crossing expert.
But my friends who play it are pretty evenly divided between "loan-shark slum lord" and "fair and compassionate businessman who's unfairly demonized". And the fandom discussions I've seen are basically the same.
So now, as someone who know little about the game, I'm curious. *Is* Nook the corrupt corporate banker pop culture portrays him as? Or is he just a hard-working raccoon who's the victim of cruel slander? | 589 | Tom Nook has, for decades, provided interest free loans with no due date, to complete strangers. In the past, he has offered employment (and training). In one of his earliest investments, Nook built four houses, and he was willing to basically give them away to the first four strangers to ask.
Nook is a capitalist in what is (effectively) a post scarcity society. Most of his goods are QoL, not necessities. He runs his business for fun, and donates most of his profits to an orphanage. | 833 |
ELI5: Why is it that sitting for extended periods can cause blood clots but laying down sleeping for 6-8 hours a night doesn’t? | 15,482 | When you sleep your blood does not have to flow upwards, your body is mostly straight and you are still moving alot in sleep. So If your leg is broken and you can't move a little your chance developing cloths is higher. That's why they give you shots in hospital every day. While sitting the legs aren't moved much, they are angled and the blood have to flow upwards. | 4,914 |
|
ELI5 why can babies have water in formula but not actual water before 6 months? | 12,826 | Think of a person as being made out of chemicals.
A baby is a *very small* pile of chemicals.
Basically, you don't want to dilute the baby too much.
Breast-milk/formula contains relevant chemicals so that a baby stays roughly stable, but pure water will dilute them.
(More details would include stuff like electrolytes and stomach size and osmosis and so on.) | 19,672 |
|
[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?] so, is Toontown the only place where toons live, or are there other towns and cities where toons inhabit the place, or are there towns or cities where humans and toon live side by side? | 57 | Toontown is basicly a Ghetto for the Toons of LA. It can be seen as a Toon Version of Harlem, but as a Whole Town with it's own Low- and Hight Income Neighborhoods.
Also noteworthy is the fact that Toons seem to only work in the Entertainment Industry. | 50 |
|
ELI5: Why does the sky turn green(ish) when heavy thunderstorms / tornadoes are imminent? | 24 | Tornadoes typically happen around very tall storm clouds, which scatter light and make the sky mostly blue, and they typically happen later in the day with the sky tinted yellow/red from the sunset.
​
You mix the deep blue with the yellow red and you get a greenish sky | 15 |
|
[X-Men] If Wolverine fell into a pit of lava, would he survive? | I was thinking about this the other night, his bones are covered in Adamantium and Adamantium is not able to be melted again once it hardens. If Wolverine only needs 1 cell to regenerate(if I remember correctly), then all of this bones would be safe because his bones are covered in Adamantium, but if he is in a pit of lava wouldn't all of his flesh, muscle and organs be destroyed? I know he has survived an atomic blast, but falling in lava I think would more destructive because it is a "liquid" and is constantly burning him.
If someone were to pull him out could he survive or would he out heal the burning and be able to get out? Also, would he be regenerating enough that he would be conscious but not able to move and keep feeling the pain of the lava essentially burning him over and over? | 75 | His skeleton once survived a nuke(ish) and he regenerated from that, but you gotta pick up the skeleton from the lava first. In the lava he wouldnt regenerate fast enought, it would burn away as soon it grew back. He can regenerate from bones only, as there still is stuff inside the bones. | 57 |
Why is it that the moons gravity is able to direct masses of water in different directions but yet we, ourselves cannot physically feel the affect of the moon's gravity? | ^ | 3,455 | Tidal forces are essentially due to the *difference* in the gravitational field between two sides of a body. If you consider the difference in the moon's influence between our head and our feet, it is essentially null. If you consider the difference between one side of the Earth and the other, it starts to become significant. | 3,133 |
[Hellraiser] It seems like everyone who becomes a cenobite ends up enjoying it. Are there any downsides to being a cenobite? | 204 | Once that level of pain is fun, not much else is going to elicit any emotional response. Eventually you'll have to put fish hooks through the 36 killing points just to get enough motivation to get up in the morning. That's very time consuming and makes putting your shirt on inconvenient as heck, what with all the snags. | 261 |
|
ELI5: how to timeshares work? | Really curious how timeshares work | 19 | There are many ways to timeshare. You can buy a single, a small group, or an international timeshare lot. The timeshare format is basically this, you invest into the property. You have to pay for assessments (garbage, landscaping, etc). The property management company distributes time for you to stay depending on your package. You visit when you can get away, and it feels like a costless vacation.
Instead of saving up $5,000 and watching it burn in the form of flights, shuttles, all inclusive resort package and all that, you just finance a chunk of "property", maybe $30,000, over 20 years. In the long run, you can take maybe 20 vacations for only $30,000 plus travel expenses which is really pretty cost effective.
However, timeshares are not as popular as they once were because of the incurring expenses that you risk getting hit with. If disaster strikes, you're fucked. It all goes up in smoke. Random assessments for maintenance and repair can really make it sour.
The pro about timeshares is that they are ownable, just like a house, they should hold value and are worth something when you pass away, they can be inherited by a family member or sold off as part of the estate.
Timeshare sales pitches are pretty tough. They drag you in with incentives, spend 90 minutes with us and you will get a free nights stay plus dinner. 5 hours later, you're stuck in the meeting regretting the decision to go on with it and they pop you with an outlandish sales figure of $150,000. They make you feel like a hero who wants to be Mr. Family Man and it sort of turns into a used car sales process. You can probably shake them down to about 90% of the initial offer and get yourself a good deal.
Alternatively, vacation clubs are becoming more popular. Instead of investing into property, you just sign up for 20 years. You can easily finance it in only 3 years. Vacation clubs give you access to tons of resorts and awesome hotels all around the globe. You wont have free stays but you will get insane rates and high end rooms wherever you stay. They throw in tons of incentives, yacht access, cruise vacations, all inclusive resorts, and you only pay $450 for an entire week of stays, instead of paying about $200 a night. Same deal with the timeshares and the infinite sales pitch and negotiation process. You don't have to pay assessments and taxes and all that timeshare shit. But you can't exactly pass this on or sell it.
Great thing with both programs is that you can share it with friends or family or whoever. They will love you for making travel so affordable. You just make a reservation in their name.
If taking an awesome vacation in say the Rocky Mountains every year is your thing, you might want to consider a timeshare. If traveling to all different places of the world twice a year is your thing, look into vacation clubs or RCI exchange. | 13 |
[DC] Do superheroes actually reduce crime rates at all? | I'm talking about fictional superheroes in general, not just DC. The goal of a superhero is to reduce crime, but do they actually achieve it? In Nolan's Batman movies, crime actually escalates due to Batman. In captain America: civil war: Vision proposed a theory that the avengers attract more villains. Do superheroes in general reduce crime or does their existence only escalate crime and produce more supervillains? In other words: is [the theory of escalation](http://ltoflevisweeney.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-theory-of-escalation.html?m=1) correct? | 544 | Sometimes it is the chicken and sometimes it’s the egg. Gothams’ mundane criminals lost the bulk of their power due to the bat. The super criminals filled that niche, however. Batman’s presence reduces organized crime by 90%, has a negligible effect on circumstantial crime, and increases super crime by 3000%. The 90% reduction in organized crime far outweighs the 3000% increase in super crime. Batman reduces crime but increases spectacle, and spectacle gets clicks and moves copy.
In Metropolis things are different. Street crime is negligible due to the public’s awareness that Superman is nigh omnipresent. Super crime is at the same level as Gotham, but not as great a menace due to Supes’ raw power. Metropolis is the Shangrala of organized crime, however. Superman can’t bust up a protection racket, a human trafficking ring or a drug cartel with his powers alone. If Superman wants to expose corruption he needs to do so as the investigative journalist Clark Kent…. He’s okay at doing this, but not as good as Lois. | 348 |
[Star Wars] Why were the jedi council/ jedi as a whole ok with leading, training and organising an army of slaves? | Clones were literally bred to be disposable soldiers. Several high ranking jedi noted that they could feel that the clones were individuals in the force. So why were they so ready to use slaves to fight the war against the seperatists? Since when were the jedi willing to choose the lesser evil? | 360 | The aren't.
They weren't even ok with leading armies in be first place. But they were left no choice when Dooku, a confirmed Sith, surprised their ass with countless Droid forces. Jedi also treated their clone forces with respect and embraced their diversity and personalities. | 403 |
[LOTR] Had Gandolf and Saruman worked together, would it have been possible to break Sauron's control of the One Ring? | Let's say that instead of going to Mount Doom, the fellowship agrees that it is a fantastic idea to just bring the ring to Saruman. Upon arriving, Saruman has Frodo place the ring in a specially prepared container that he and Gandolf worked together to create with the intention of insulating them from the ring while they work on a plan. The fellowship then aids the two wizards as they work together to find a way to subjugate the ring so that they can use it without succumbing to it's control. Assume that Frodo is sufficiently monitored to prevent him from trying to take the ring as a result of the corruption he has already been subjected to. Is there any chance of the outcome being something other than the ring easily corrupting Saruman and Gandolf? | 20 | No there isn’t. That was why Gandalf and Elrond called together the council in the first place. There was no power in Middle Earth that both had the power to overcome the ring and be trusted to actually help.
Tom Bombadil has the power but not the interest. Smaug had he been alive might have been tricked into melting the ring (by incinerating the unfortunate bearer) but was no guarantee of success. The next most powerful being aside from Sauron himself was Galadriel who admitted that she would have fallen under its sway.
That’s the insidious nature of the one ring; it twists your intentions to bad ends, it feeds your ego and will to dominate. The power works faster the more powerful you personally are. Any attempts to uncouple Sauron’s essence from the ring would have met in failure and ruin. Any being capable of such a feat would have nothing to fear from Sauron himself and the first age is a hard lesson on what happens when such beings strode Middle Earth.
Even sailing west with the ring would have ended In failure. The gods would not let that viper into their house.
Remember that the wizards power wasn’t in raw might but in wisdom. Originally they were beings not much different than what Sauron was but they willingly gave that up because the Valar learned that the people of Middle Earth already had the ability to save themselves, they just needed someone to show them the way. | 35 |
[Star Trek TNG] Why are more melee weapons not employed against the Borg? | If not melee only, then more conventional firearms or something that uses a slower-moving projectile (since shooting guns on a starship could understandably be disastrous). It reminds me of Stargate when the guy had a personal shield like the Borg so O'Neill just throws a knife through it since it wasn't calibrated to stop slow-moving objects, just projectiles. Bullets are going to move slower than beams of light (plasma? I'm not sure what phasers shoot) Worf had luck with his mallninja knife in First Contact, Picard did ok with a Thompson. I wonder if it's a case of keep it simple, stupid. Granted the Borg are portrayed to be very strong in comparison to humans, but it seems like they also move kind of slow and giving your guys a chance with blades is better than having them stand there wondering why their phaser isn't working until they get assimilated. | 27 | They would adapt, and then all melee/projectile weapons would be useless. Star Trek shields are capable of stopping physical objects.
At least phasers can have their frequency changed, giving the weapon another chance to be effective, melee weapons have no such capability.
Add to that, getting that close to a Borg drone is a great way to get yourself assimilated, after all you're in arms reach with a melee weapon.
(I'd also avoid comparing Star Trek shields with Stargate's. Different tech, different results, strengths, weaknesses.) | 40 |
Does my friend running water on his roof really cool the house down? | I live in Thailand as a volunteer English teacher currently and my friend insists that it's cooler if he has these little sprinklers creating artificial rain on his roof. He says it's something to do with it creating a gap of air or something but it sounds to me like really bad science as I really don't feel any cooler in the house when this rain is running... So my question is whether there's actually any truth behind what he says or whether it's just bad science/the cultural norm around here ( a lot of households do it and everyone i have been in has still be really hot! ) | 22 | Yes, this can work. The air gap thing sounds like BS though.
When his roof is damp/wet, some of that water will evaporate into the air. In doing so, it will take some heat with it. Every bit of solar energy 'used' to evaporate the water is a bit of solar energy that isn't heating the house.
For a simple experiment, put room temp water in a spray bottle and mist yourself with it. Now blow air over where the mist landed, and your skin will feel cool- cooler than when you blow on dry skin. That's the evaporation effect at work.
HOW WELL this will work depends on a number of factors. Your friend will experience a greater cooling effect on windy, low humidity days (which promote the most evaporation) and the least effect on calm, humid days (when evaporation will happen much more slowly). | 11 |
ELI5: How some banal paintings can be worth millions of dollars | Probably the best example is the one of the most expensive paintings ever sold, which is [this one](http://pds9.egloos.com/pds/200805/23/58/c0029158_4835ad7cb4570.jpg).
WHY?!
| 259 | A simple, but still accurate answer is: because someone is willing to pay that much for them.
The unique thing about many forms of art, especially paintings, is that the supply of any work is usually just 1 - so any demand can drive the price sky high under the right conditions - all you need are 2 rich collectors who really want to own that specific piece (for whatever reason), and the price is then only limited by how rich they really are, since in the end only one of them can have it.
The reasons why someone might be willing to pay any sum of money for anything, but especially art, do not always have to be rational, and can be very subjective.
Often, the pieces that sell for huge sums are either themselves widely considered significant pieces of art history, or at least created by artists considered significant, and their ownership comes with attached prestige that appeals to many wealthy people. Or they might simply be pieces that appeal to certain tastes and aesthetic sensibilities of some rich art collectors - maybe they exactly match the sofa in their parlor. | 193 |
[Westworld] How much debt would a 7 day holiday at Westworld put me in? | 34 | Westworld's most basic package is 40,000 dollars a day, so, let's do the math.
40x7 = 280,000, not including travel expenses there, so let's chalk up another thousand.
281,000.
All expenses in-park are gratis, so food and board and equipment is free. All the price comes down to admission.
| 40 |
|
[Dredd Film 2012] Did Judge Dredd know the detonator wouldn't go off? | In the 2012 film Dredd did Judge Dredd know that the detonator on Ma-Ma's wrist would not have enough range to blow up the Block or did he take the gamble when he threw her out the window? | 39 | Nope. Didn't have a clue. He didn't exactly have many options, though.
If he tried to take her into custody, it would have been impossible to transport one of the biggest drug lords in Mega City 1 to the Halls of Justice. Even worse, she'd probably try to off herself out of spite.
If he killed her stone dead, he was definitely not walking away from it.
His only real option was to get her out of range or interfere with the signal as quickly as he could, and gravity presented the fastest facilitator. He gambled on it being enough. | 48 |
Why are there laws when it comes to war? | It's people killing eachother, so I have no idea, how someone could make laws about it. | 22 | There are two separate questions here - why and how.
I think the 'why' is fairly obvious - there are some pretty horrific methods of warfare and ways of carrying out violence. In the past it was simply accepted that as an army passed through an area it would rape, loot and steal everything not nailed down, prisoners taken would be tortured and forced to work or fight for the enemy. This largely is no longer the case. Chemical and biological weapons are more or less unused, certainly by major powers, as are mines and cluster weapons. We consider these things too horrific or non-specific - that is, they mostly target innocent civilians. There was no such thing as a war crime before the 20th century - now we have a somewhat functional justice system capable of holding people to account for their actions during war.
As to how these laws are enforced - it's entirely possible. More or less by mutual agreement, gas weapons were never used in world war 2. Chemical weapons have never (with the arguable exception of Vietnam, but that was officially 'deforestation') been used in open conflict without the total condemnation of the international community, similarly with biological agents. It works because the amount of damage using such a weapon would do to a country's diplomatic prospects (trade sanctions, general mistrust from other countries, maybe even war) is just not worth the risk. Often these 'non-conventional' weapons, warfare targeting the civilian population, and similar strategies are used in response to the other side using them. So by taking them off the table entirely, countries no longer need to stock up on chemical or biological weapons in the first place because they know with fair certainty that nobody else is either. | 26 |
CMV: There is no morally correct reason to deport non-violent illegal immigrants from the U.S. | So I posted [this](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/29njzg/cmv_i_believe_that_all_illegal_immigrants_need_to/) a few days ago to see if there was really any argument for deportation. Most of you shot down the points I could think of, which brings me to another argument. Is there anything morally correct about deporting illegal immigrants?
I see [these](http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/29p4ow/california_town_turns_away_buses_of_detained/) [threads](http://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/29lyam/antiimmigration_protesters_block_undocumented/) saying how we need to either deport them or kill them to get them out of country. Are you fucking kidding me? Do you have any idea what it's like living in a third world country? It ain't the same as living in the shitty parts of a U.S. city, *people are lying dead in the streets.* Gangs kill innocent people to set an example. And chances are, if you have money and a career, someone's gonna threaten your life for it.
"But he wasn't born here." Well shit, sorry he wasn't born in the right country. I guess your birth right gives you more entitlement then he does. By the way, what exactly have you done for this country? Serve in the army after you turned eighteen? Get stationed in iraq? Kill and risk your life for this country? Or have all you ever done is vote?
Bullshit. If all you have to say that your American because you were born here, it's bullshit. Have you gone six days crossing the desert like my dad did? Did you spend six months in an immigration detention facility, where you get less human rights then violent criminals, like my cousin did? Did your brother get killed after getting deported back to his country like my uncle's did? Oh, and yes, all this shit happened before they turned eighteen.
So tell me, what is one morally correct reason why non-violent illegal immigrants should get deported. Just one. Because I'd really love to hear it. | 42 | Morally correct - how on earth would you define that?
Why just the U.S.? Why not Argentina, Namibia, Japan or any other country? Does the US have some kind of special obligation?
In any case what you're arguing for is an open world without immigration checks of any kind. It would be silly to have hoops for legal immigration if illegal immigrants have it much easier and no risk of being deported. There're probably about 500 million people that'd get up and move to the US today if they could. It's just not possible. It'd destroy the US. Morally correct or not. | 39 |
Is there a difference in the quality of happiness experienced from 'engineered' activities like video games compared to the happiness experienced from 'natural' activities like rock climbing? | I've been thinking about the types of activities people fill their lives with in modern times compared to what people did in the past and wondered if there is any way to differentiate the levels of happiness or satisfaction obtained from those activities. Things like video games and content streaming sites have been designed to make people feel happy, and as a result people keep coming back to these activities, but it seems that, personally, these things do not give the same 'quality' of happiness or satisfaction as something like riding my motorcycle in the mountains. Why is that? | 55 | In terms of reward experienced during these activities, no. Studies have shown that the neural reward experienced from gaming can be similar to or greater than that of other highly enjoyable activities, such as sex or even drugs. Happiness, however, is very multifaceted, and you could argue that certain engineered hobbies like gaming may produce less happiness because of their negative consequences such as obesity, loneliness, etc. | 23 |
Why doesn't the neutering of animals affect their growth and development like being a eunuch does for humans? | According to Wikipedia regarding humans, *"Males with testicular agenesis tend not to produce the reproductive hormone 5aDHT at any stage of their lives. As a result, they tend toward prepubescent appearance, with infantile skin texture, developing little body hair particularly in the crotch area, even vellus hair. ... Also muscular development is retarded and testicular agenetics are of rather frail build with short limbs and small hands and feet."* Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penile_agenesis_and_testicular_agenesis
Why doesn't this happen to animals in their own way? How can male animals get neutered, and yet not suffer stunted development? | 15 | It does. It affects bone growth and development and neutering before a year of age is generally not recommended in large breeds. You can see it in cats too - if they are neutered they will not develop the large 'tom cat' cheeks/head. | 28 |
ELI5: How does the US have Trillions in debt but is still considered wealthy? | It doesn't make any sense to me. Also, how is the US able to operate with such debt and how come other countries don't ask for their money? IS this impacting Americans individually? Is there any hope we are going to pay this anytime soon? How has our economy not collapsed? I know I am asking a lot in this post, and I appreciate all explanations. I would also appreciate am article/Youtube channel/video that goes into more depth if you have one that answers this. Thanks so in advance Reddit! | 25 | > Also, how is the US able to operate with such debt and how come other countries don't ask for their money?
They do, of course. The US has debt structured with many entities. These structures include payment timeframes. The US pays on those time frames. It does not simply generate debt and sit on it. Nor does it make checks willy nilly. It pays a decided upon x amount at y time.
>How does the US have Trillions in debt but is still considered wealthy?
Because it has a massive economy that can, so far, support trillions of debt while still making payments regularly.
>Is there any hope we are going to pay this anytime soon?
It is constantly being paid. If you mean, pay it off so there is no more debt left, it is unlikely, because the government does not have a goal to become debt free. Debt allows for flexibility, and is not inherently a bad thing. Unsustainable debt is a bad thing.
>How has our economy not collapsed?
Because the debt is not, so far, unsustainable. | 32 |
Best way to install multiple programming tools while keeping everything "clean"? | I just got a new laptop and in my previous one I found myself many times full on garbage files of different frameworks or programming languages and sometimes I had issues when trying out some new tool because the other things that I had installed were getting in the way, what is your alternative to keep your PC clean while working with multiple technologies?
An idea I've been looking into was making virtual machines for different technologies, but maybe there are other solutions. | 19 | Creating separate VMs for each language or framework sounds like overkill to me.
A lot of this comes down to using the right packaging tools. For instance, npm in Javascript; Maven/Gradle in Java; pip+virtualenv in Python; "go get" and vendoring in Go. The idea is to keep all of your dependencies scoped to the specific project that uses them.
Your project directory (and your version control repository) should contain all the information needed to build the project, without requiring anything to be installed system-wide except for the language and runtime environment itself. If you decide to uninstall a language that you're not using, you can just reinstall it later and you won't have lost anything important. | 17 |
ELI5: How/why do old games like Ocarina of Time, a seemingly massive game at the time, manage to only take up 32mb of space, while a simple time waster like candy crush saga takes up 43mb? | Subsequently, how did we fit entire operating systems like Windows 95/98 on hard drives less than 1gb? Did software engineers just find better ways to utilize space when there was less to be had? Could modern software take up less space if engineers tried?
Edit: great explanations everybody! General consensus is art = space. It was interesting to find out that most of the music and video was rendered on the fly by the console while the cartridge only stored instructions. I didn't consider modern operating systems have to emulate all their predecessors and control multiple hardware profiles... Very memory intensive. Also, props to the folks who gave examples of crazy shit compressed into <1mb files. Reminds me of all those old flash games we used to be able to stack into floppy disks. (penguin bowling anybody?) thanks again! | 3,780 | A large chunk of a game's size comes from things like textures and audio files. Older games had very small, simple textures if they used them at all. In contrast, newer games tend to use high-resolution images that take dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of megabytes just by themselves. Likewise, audio in old games was pretty simple. Older systems synthesized sounds, allowing the game to just supply some basic instructions to control them. Now, audio is typically recorded and stored with the game, making the overall size larger. | 3,733 |
ELI5: I open a big bag of chips, Family sized. I take my portion, and also fill 3 zip lock baggies with those freshly opened chips. TWO DAYS LATER the chips I put in the zip locked bags are STALE. 2 WEEKS later, the chips in the original bag are not stale. | I thought I would be saving money, saving the chips in fresh zip locked bags, but no. Stale as Hell. I am old. I don't do it anymore, I'm just wondering why, when I leave the family sized bag folded over/barely closed, WHY do they still taste fresh, and my "freshly" sealed goes bad within 2-3 days? Cheers! | 24 | Bags of chips are not full of air, they are full of nitrogen (I think) or some other chemical mix that keeps things fresh and reduces moisture and bacterial growth. As soon as you open the bag this dissipates. | 12 |
Could someone explain the difference between who and whom LI5? | 145 | *Who* is a subject, while *whom* is a direct object.
To compare, look at another pronoun:
*He* is a subject, while *him* is a direct object.
Examples:
*Who* let the dogs out?
To *whom* did you write the letter?
*Edit:* Thank you to thearchduke (below) for further simplifying! | 68 |
|
If you were to put 10 box fans in a straight line all facing the same direction (like dominoes); would the air coming out of the last fan be stronger than a single box fan? | I know there are probably a lot of variables to deal with here but I'm not sure what they are.
| 1,796 | Sure, each box fan causes a pressure drop from one side to the other. The magnitude of this drop is roughly related to how much kinetic energy is imparted on the air (i.e. how fast it ends up going). 10 box fans won't cause 10 times the pressure drop of a single fan but it will certainly be fore than a single fan. | 959 |
[CMV] I think car alarms are a waste of money and don't prevent theft | These days, when you're walking through a parking lot, and you hear a car alarm go off, which is your first thought?
A. Some dumbass set off his car alarm.
B. Some dude's getting his shit jacked!
I'm sure most people would say A. Now, if a car alarm has been going off for 20 seconds, which do you think:
A. Some dumbass's car alarm went off for no good reason.
B. Some dumbass can't figure out how to shut off his alarm.
C. Some dude's getting his shit jacked!
I'm more inclined to think its A or B.
Now, let's take it a step FURTHER. What if someone is driving down the road in a car that has an alarm going off?
A. That dumbass can't get his alarm to shut off!
B. Some dude's getting his shit jacked!
Again, I'm less likely to think B.
I think the extreme number of false alarms on car alarms has made them completely ineffective and anybody that actually thinks an alarm will stop a theft is delusional. Change my view. | 47 | Court testimony and gathering nearby attention.
If somebody's car was stolen from a parking lot, or broken into, suddenly you have valuable information that you previously categorized as useless. Not only that, but car alarms are loud and gather attention. The last thing thieves want is attention, and certain cues can tip you off to someone who does not own that car. If you look over and see something suspicious, you could be a valuable witness even if you write it off as some dumbass who doesn't know how car alarms work at first.
| 40 |
All time zones converge at the earth's poles. So for scientists working near either the north or south poles, what time zone do they actually use? | Another way to say it: what time/date is it at the location of the north and south poles right now?
How did scientists determine this time/date as the official time to go by at the poles?
| 17 | At the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station, they decided to use New Zealand time (UTC +12), because all official travel to the station comes to Antarctica out of Christchurch.
Since the North Pole is an iceflow in the Arctic Ocean, it does not have a permanent settlement that would require them to figure out a time zone standard to live by. | 21 |
ELI5: Why is everything bigger in America except the bathtubs? | As an American visiting the UK, one notices everything is just a bit--sometimes quite a bit--smaller. Coke cans, roads, cars, houses, all hit with a shrink ray. Makes sense, since there's less room to work with over here.
That is, until you get to the bathroom part of the house.
There you may luxuriate in the bathtub, which normally is long enough for average Britishers to submerge their entire bodies in water ***without having to scrunch their legs up like every American has to do!***
On noticing this, I feel I've been cheated. It's not like we don't have the space for these huge tubs in our houses. So ELI5: why did North American builders make this pact with the devil to only install small tubs in houses? Why, oh why?
| 116 | Most American adults don't take daily baths, so the bathtub is mostly there for kids and so that the realtors and assessors can check that box saying they have a tub to raise the value of the home. Bigger tub = more floorspace taken up = less room for other activities. | 86 |
Blocking wifi or bluetooth with a Faraday cage, what size holes? | I'm thinking of a concept device that requires the viewer to see the electronics and stuff inside of a box. But, I want the viewer to be assured that there is no possibility that a wifi or a bluetooth (or any other common communication frequency) can be sent to and from the electronics inside the box.
My question, is this possible? What would the largest (but relatively safe) sized holes be?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage
I was inspired by the stainless steel wallet (http://www.stewartstand.com/pages/rfid-blocking); but, something for electronics.
| 110 | Both use the 2.45GHz band because it's unregulated (to a degree). A microwave oven uses the same band for the same reason. Look at your oven. For the 5GHz band make the holes half as large.
I don't know what you mean by largest to *completely block* a signal. Completely isn't ever possible. A microwave oven transmits at 1kW (60dBm) but the power outside of it is roughly -30dBm. That's 90dB of attenuation which may or may not satisfy *completely.* | 13 |
CMV: A business is justified not hiring women of childbearing age. | I think the goal of a business is to make money. I think it makes sense when a business doesn't want to hire women of childbearing age because they worry about the cost of healthcare or hiring temporary workers. It seems like a legitimate financial expense that a company could worry about to the point that they do not want to take that risk.
I also believe that this is a good argument for why healthcare should NOT be connected to businesses, but I think that's a separate question.
tl,dr: Businesses should be expected not to hire women of childbearing age because of they are primarily profit motivated. Change my view.
Edit: To clarify and elaborate, I am mainly interested in the hiring process and the question of "is this discrimination or not." I understand the societal impacts and the fact that what I'm suggesting is currently illegal. (Or is it? Seems to depend on scale.)
/u/Banana_bee "Discrimination is "treatment or consideration of [...] a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing is perceived to belong to rather than on individual merit."
This is my main point and it was poorly captured by the title. When the issue is individualized it is justified by businesses. In a general way, saying you won't hire women between 18-40 (which are ages others have been using) is silly. But in a decision about a single individual I can see the business being justified in their actions.
A solution would be to ask women and men about their plans...but I believe that is currently illegal. My hypothetical scenario that pushes my view to the extreme was summarized in a comment as follows: Say our company is hiring. I approach you with the two finalist. 25 year old female and 50 year old female. All things being equal in terms of skill, ability to do job, likability and cohesion with team. The one difference being that when asked "what is one of your life goals (or some other banal shit)?" The 25 year old says she is excited to be a mother. The 50 year old says she wants to put her kids through college.
Would a business ever choose the younger woman? Why? And is it valid that they don't? Is that discrimination?
~~~
I know that really pushes the line and is a little hyperbolic. So it goes. In that circumstance, how would you respond or should a business be faulted for choosing based on likelihood to become pregnant? | 29 | There are many things we as a society have decided are more important than allowing business to gather a maximum amount of coin. Abolishment of slavery, protected classes, safety standards, paying taxes etc.
Without them businesses would undoubtedly have better numbers, but there are more important things in the world than that. | 138 |
[CS:GO] Why does a molotov cocktail cost $400? | It's just a bottle filled with gasoline or alcohol with a rag soaked in oil. Do the terrorists only use the finest liquor for their molotovs? | 117 | It's actually a highly advanced model that :
- can be set alight indefinitely and only explode upon throwing
- can be put away safely to use later if you light it too early
- has been wind-tunnel tested for maximum aerodynamics and consistent throwing
- includes the latest in glass-compound technology giving it its anti-shatter and bouncing properties
- weight saving design that doesn't slow you down for carrying it
...so naturally it'd carry the price tag. The terrorists only want the finest when blowing up wooden crates in empty villages. | 191 |
[Marvel] Can Matt Murdock/Daredevil eat spicy food? | This applies to both comics and MCU. In the Netflix version, Murdock at one point notices Claire has opened a cut on her back from across the room because he tastes copper in the air.
So, with a sense of taste *that* heightened, can he eat anything remotely spicy? Or would even a few drops of sriracha be completely debilitating? | 37 | Human have much more detailed vision then other species- comes with being highly intelligent fruit eaters. Other species tend to see better at long distances, but what to most mammals is muted fuzzy shades is to a human a brightly coloured mass of details. So are we overwhelmed by the sheer amount of color and patterns around us?
Generally no. To us, everything's a normal amount of colour.
Same here. It might have been an issue after he first got his powers, but at this point its his normal. Spicy food tastes, to him, exactly as spicy as spicy food normally does. | 30 |
How Do People Balance So Many Paradigms At The Same Time? | I'm a recent graduate and I'm trying to balance C++, MySQL, React, JS, PHP, Front end web design all at the same time. And by balance I mean, become proficient at.
I honestly have no idea how people do this. It's like playing 10 different musical instruments a day and you're switching instruments every hour. And we know nobody does that. People just stick to 1 instrument. Especially when there's so much depth within each of those paradigms.
I feel like I cannot become a master in any of those if I'm doing all of those at the same time. The best I can manage is basic level understanding and can't go that deep.
But so many people do it and its considered the bare minimum to become a proficient in at least 4-5 paradigms. How? | 35 | Software engineering is not about "writing code", it's about "solving problems", and while a musician doesn't switch between many instruments (though some do), a carpenter would be pretty terrible if all he could do was swing a hammer.
Your work product is not the code you write, but the problem you've solved. A musician's work product is the music itself, played or written. | 50 |
[Star Trek] Why does everyone in the Star Trek universe fight by putting both fists together and slamming them into people. You almost never see this move in any other universe/real life fights but according to Star Trek it's a highly effective super punch | 369 | It's a special punch that was developed by Vulcans who realized that Humans and other species who lacked their psychic talents wouldn't be able to use a Nerve Pinch. Instead, the Two Fisted Slam was intended as a way for humans to contribute using what they are good at, raw force. This special Vulcan created martial art is taught at the Starfleet Academy, though knowledge of it has spread throughout the Galaxy. | 217 |
|
[General] So I just figured out that a major catastrophe is about to happen near me and I am not part of the main cast. What can I do to survive? | 28 | Whatever you do, do NOT become romantically involved with anyone important. Vaguely defined loved ones are always on the chopping block.
*Expanding a bit, you want to be recognisable enough that they know you by name, but not so close that anyone in the core group is emotionally attached to you. Your potential death shouldn't affect any of the main cast, but they should be able to recognise you if they encounter you. | 33 |
|
What's wrong with scientism? | I am physics student who is very new to philosophy. So, please forgive my ignorance. I have noticed that on a lot of philosophical subs tend to be hostile towards scientism. Not to mention "Stemlord" jokes and so on.
And on the other side, if you read Hawking he would say philosophy is dead and so on.
Since both of the field are based on rationalism, why is there antagonistic relationship between them?
And finally, can you recommend books to get better view of this schism from philosophical perspective. | 30 | > Since both of the field are based on rationalism, why is there a so antagonistic relationship between them?
There isn't: when people criticize "scientism", they aren't criticizing *science*, they're criticizing the view that *there is no significant theoretical inquiry other than science*. And they're critical of this view, as it seems evident to them that there *are* significant theoretical inquiries other than science, like mathematics and philosophy. | 75 |
ELI5: What is physically different between a high-end CPU (e.g. Intel i7) and a low-end one (Intel i3)? What makes the low-end one cheaper? | 11,368 | The process to make computer chips isn't perfect. Certain sections of the chip may not function properly.
They make dozens of chips on a single "wafer", and then test them individually.
Chips that have defects or issues, like 1/8 cores not functioning, or a Cache that doesn't work, don't go to waste. They get re-configured into a lower tier chip.
In other words, a 6-core i5 is basically an 8-core i7 that has 2 defective cores.
(Just for reference, these defects and imperfections are why some chips overclock better than others. Every chip is slightly different.) | 5,076 |
|
ELI5: Data Compression. How can information be reduced in size and still be the same? | 18 | Let's do this in a really simple, visual kind of way. Here's two ways of expressing the same thing:
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
17 W's.
Now, they both show the same thing. But the second takes up only 6 characters (including the space), while the first takes up 17 characters
The same basic idea is how data compression works. If you've got a piece of information that repeats itself a lot, you can compress it like that. | 47 |
|
Not a programmer (don’t know where to ask this) sorry if this breaks some rule | Why didn’t old (pre internet) games—like disc/cartridge games—need to be patched?
I feel like every game comes with a day one patch, or frequent updates/patches, but old games just worked, like out of the box. I don’t remember encountering bugs back in the day. I’m not saying they didn’t exist, but I can’t really remember anything significant.
What voodo magic is this?
edit: thank you guys | 37 | Those games had bugs, they never got fixed.
Patching a bug was fixing it and applying the fixed version to all newly created physical media, so people buying it going forward would not have the bug. If you always got a copy of the game that was made a few years after release, it might have fewer bugs.
Those games were much less complex, much easier to test thoroughly before release.
Games are released incomplete now because its profitable to get people paying as early as possible, and they know they can push fixes out to everyone. before the internet, if your game an unplayable word would get around and nobody would buy it. Now people will pre-order and wait for the first major update. | 53 |
ELI5: When Charlie Sheen was fired why didn't the producers just sue him for not doing his job and not have to pay him ridiculous amounts of money to end his contract? | 219 | Entertainment contracts are... complicated. And Charlie and his team know how he could continue to meet the demands of his contract and get paid. The contract probably (read: it absolutely did) have termination payments and such for various reasons and clauses for outs for both sides.
For whatever reasons, the producers decided to go the firing route, preventing him from riding out his contract and causing conflict. | 85 |
|
Eli5 How do mirrors in videogames work? | Especially in RPG type games where a mirror can reflect your custom character in whatever combination of clothing/hair you can think of. | 27 | Actual game developer here.
Depends on the type of mirror. There are many methods of making mirrors in games, it’s a notoriously hard thing to do.
One method is where you make the mirror actually render out the scene a second time from a different perspective inside of the mirror, doing some wacky things with render textures and messing with the near-clipping plane of the secondary camera to make it all look right. Coding this is a pain in the ass and it basically doubles your rendering load, but the results look super good making it great for RPG character creators.
Another method is raytracing. This only works if you are using a raytracing based render engine in the first place, the way raytracing works is that the camera shoots out a virtual ray at each pixel, and wherever it hits it shoots out rays to each light source in the scene to figure out how that point is lit. The results look very good, though it can also be very computationally heavy to render a game that way. With that method it’s actually super easy to make a surface that reflects rays that hit it, and from there everything just works out.
Another rare but still sometimes used method that could be used if they’d geometry permits it is just creating an entire second copy of the world behind the mirror and make the mirror just be like a window. From there adding in another character model that mirrors the original isn’t hard.
Other methods exist that have less fidelity. Reflection mapping for instance is super common for objects in game worlds made out of a reflective material like metal or the surface of water, this involves displaying parts of a pre-rendered skybox (which could even be made based on the object’s surroundings) based on the relative angle of the camera and the normal vectors of the mesh. This is nice because it looks pretty damn good for what it is but it’s also super easy on the GPU. | 74 |
Does anyone know what the deal is with Nature having a maximum article length of only 5 pages? Doesn’t that seem unreasonably restrictive? | So I was looking at [Nature's guidelines for authors](https://www.nature.com/nature/for-authors) and they list 5 pages as the maximum article length. Exactly what is the point of this limit? To me it just seems like it would be restrictive on content and what can be discussed. | 77 | Nature publishes short, data-dense reports on robust findings of extremely broad interest and significance, i.e. the sort of studies that are expected to have major implications for many workers across multiple subdisciplines. As such, Nature wants manuscripts to be honed down to just the information that is of interest to that audience. So, you won't necessarily get a thorough and exhaustive examination of the problem and data, but you'll get the greatest hits and the central takehome message.
People may complain about that, but realistically journals like Nature, Science, Cell, etc exist because no one can read everything and we need quick easy access to studies which may force us to rethink our approaches or assumptions in adjacent research fields or may force us to update lectures, textbooks, etc. | 138 |
[Halo] Is the UNSC officially the strongest faction in the known universe post war? | I recently finished the Kilo-Five book trilogy, there was a part when the Infinity was "helping" the arbiter with the civil war and margaret parangosky said something along the lines of "Oh that's cute, he still thinks they're the ultimate power in the universe" and that got me thinking.
Obviously the Infinity is one of if not the strongest vessel in operation that we see, granted we never see it go up against a super carrier or anything but it the odds seem in its favor. But Id have to imagine that the majority of fighting age humans are dead and the UNSC must be having major economic ramifications after decades of fighting a losing war against aliens and human elements.
Do you guys think that the UNSC could be considered the strongest at the moment? This is before the halo 5 thing btw. | 275 | Post war, everyone is hurting.
The UNSC has a crippled military, only able to project its might through Forerunner retrofits of older vessels and a few new designs incorporating the most advanced technology in the galaxy.
Civil unrest is rife, and ONI oversteps its power often, leading to discord inside the high command.
Their main advantage is that their technology is home grown, they know how to build it, they can rebuild it. With a little time, the UNSC will recover.
The immense Covenant fleets are spread out amongst warlords, lacking in maintenance and irreplaceable. The Sangheili are starving, with little infrastructure or the ability to build it.
The Jiralhanae and other Covenant Loyalists have little materiel or military might, they are a sideshow.
The UNSC, Separatists, and Loyalists are three men in a hospital ward. Mr UNSC just survived a serious illness, and is getting better, Mr Separatists just went through a traumatic injury, and is still in critical condition, and Mr Loyalists is terminal.
| 241 |
ELI5- Do muscles grow and physically appear during a workout or do the effects take place in the time afterwards? | I’ve wondered this for so long but don’t know how to articulate it well and also feel like it’s potentially a very dumb question but thought this would be a good place to ask it.
Essentially- while I’m working out, are the muscles building themselves during that time or is it a situation where you’d be able to see the effects afterwards like in the coming days? I hope that makes sense. | 21 | The answer is both.
After a workout your muscles will temporarily appear enlarged. This is due to an increase in blood flow to the area.
The muscle physically grows in the days after a workout when your body is recovering. It grows a very very small amount, but it does grow. Compound this effect for 6 to 12 months and you have significant muscle growth | 48 |
I can't help but feel that the United States has only made the world a worse place to live since the 1950's. CMV! | I've recently been doing a major project in school in which I study how the US has treated Third World countries during the Cold War and what I've found is truly disturbing to me. I'm a history buff, so I already knew that we were never really great at supporting democracies, but I recently discovered that a lot of governments that we propped up killed mercilessly and used death squads to maintain power. And worse yet, a lot of the dictators that we supported were even worse than the Communist governments we were trying to stop. I've read a great deal about how dozens of pro-US, right wing dictators murdered thousands of people all over the world, but with the exception of Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot and Kim-Il Sung, I can't find a lot of Communists who did the same. | 34 | The question you should be asking is, compared to what?
What other post-WWI power would have done a *better* job of maintaining a modicum of world stability? The Soviets? God no. Germany? Of course not. Britain? Not possible, Britain was a shadow of its former self. China? Not an industrialized power, did not have global reach. France? ditto Britain. | 35 |
[Tiny Toons] Why is ACME University a respectable learning institution when its parent company can't even make a reliable pair of spring-loaded shoes? | 32 | ACME products actually do work properly. They are just props that the toons use in ways to make something funny happen. If that means a certain coyote gets pancaked into the side of a mountain, so be it, or if it's funnier or moves the plot along to the next joke for the device to work as you are expecting it to then it works as intended | 20 |
|
CMV: I think the gender pay gap is consistently overstated. | I strongly and enthusiastically consider myself a progressive and a feminist, and most of my friends do as well. While I agree with them on most issues, I did some research a couple years ago and found several government studies purporting that women make over 90% of what men make when factors like difference in job choice are accounted for, rather than the 78% figure that's thrown around a lot in progressive sources.
A big part of me wants to believe the 78% (for the same job, qualifications, and amount of hours worked) line because it fits in more with the whole narrative, but I can't bring myself to do it in the face of some of the facts I found. I don't really feel comfortable talking with some of my friends about this, either, especially since I mainly see them post stuff about it from Buzzfeed or Huffpost and other sites like that. Can anyone help me change my view?
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 19 | > when factors like difference in job choice are accounted for
And what causes those factors to be different between men and women?
Let me give you an extreme hypothetical. Imagine a world where women are banned from higher education and can only get high school degrees. Suddenly the ban is lifted and strict regulations are put in place to ensure that men and women get identical pay for identical jobs. But all of the women are less qualified than men and therefore work jobs that pay less. There is a wage gap here but its all accounted for by differences in career choices! No problems at all!
Now obviously this is an extreme example. But lots of activists believe that it is a harmful culture that causes women to work jobs that pay less, get promoted less frequently, and take more time off to raise children than men. They believe that even if the pay gap vanishes when accounting for these differences, *the differences are still problems* and that by changing the culture we can create a more equitable society. | 17 |
[Marvel] Would Daredevil be as effective if he had become deaf as a child instead of blind? | I've watched up until episode 7 of S1 of Netflix's Daredevil series, and I'm rather impressed with Matt's ability to use his other senses to essentially map out his surroundings to more or less 'see' to the same (or possibly greater) extent of someone with healthy eyesight.
I just read on an /r/answers thread (the one about schizophrenics hearing voices) that some deaf people can still feel the vibrations in a room from low pitch noises and deep voices. Could an alternate Matt Murdoch (the same albeit for getting the chemicals spilt on his ears and losing his hearing) learn to work as a lawyer and as Daredevil without his sense of hearing? Would be be better or worse than his blind counterpart? | 52 | I don't think his radar sense would work for one thing, it might depend on the kind of deafness he had. If the bones in his ear that pick up vibrations were intact and working he might still have it.
If he had super eyesight he'd be a different kind of hero,I could imagine him as some sort of gumshoe detective hero instead of a backflipping ninja. | 33 |
ELI5: Why is it that every week "This Week in Science" tells us of all these amazing breakthroughs in health and technology, yet none of them ever seem to materialize into real-world solutions for humanity? | 162 | It's either (a) Totally over-hyped, (b) still underdeveloped and won't be ready to be widely used for a very long time, (c) it's very cost-inefficient or difficult to manufacture/use (take graphene, for example, you can't mass-produce that stuff yet,) or (d) it's totally over-hyped. | 92 |
|
why in programming languages we need constants? | I mean, to a newbie like me it seems insignificant to tell that a value IS CONSTANT, when I can just declare as a variable and give it a value and then not change it at all during the process, I'm quite sure that I'm wrong but I couldn't find someone that can make that clear to me. | 19 | Most things aren't really NEEDED in programming, it's all about organisation and showing your intent so that it can be maintained easily.
For example, we just as easily could have everything in one file. There's nothing really stopping us right? But we still bother to separate everything out into separate files so that it is easier to maintain. The same applies to constants. They are showing our intent (that the value should never change), meaning that if someone is reading our code they understand this.
As a side note, it can also be useful for the compiler for doing some things (where it actually becomes a necessity). | 40 |
[300] Who was that giant dude and why was he a member of the Immortals? | Did he do badass shit that merited a promotion? Did Xerxes like him a lot? He seems out of place, in my opinion, in the midst of all these black-wearing swordsmen, especially since they have to chain him up to take him to battle. | 49 | Do you believe *everything* that Dilios told his soldiers about the Battle of Thermopylae? Remember, he was the lone survival of the 300 and was tasked by Leonidas to tell the story and rally the rest of the people to war against Persia.
So he made a few embellishments to make Persia look bad. So what? | 56 |
ELI5: If child molesters or killer of children have a tougher time once in prison, why can't they lie about what they when asked by inmates? | 47 | Word gets around. Criminal convictions are public records in most places, and it's not hard to get a friend outside to look up what a guy is in for if you're suspicious of him. A lot of people do try to lie about it, but if anyone really gets suspicious, it won't work well. | 66 |
|
ELI5 Can someone please open my mind to the crazy things going on in Saudi Arabia? Specifically with regards to women's rights? | I always try to see the other side of the coin when it comes to issues I may not agree with. But every once in awhile something comes up that I really just can't understand.
Take for example [this article](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/13mvnr/saudi_arabia_implements_electronic_tracking/) about Saudi Arabia implementing tracking devices on women. Stories like this make me think of Saudi Arabia as a crazy backwards country that refuses to acknowledge the rights of women. However I know that this view is heavily distorted by the media which only report on the craziest most sensational stories. I don't want to jump to false conclusions, but it does seem like almost every piece of news to come out of that country is just crazy.
Can anyone out there enlighten me on the "bigger" picture? Maybe fill in the holes that I don't understand about why this country is like this or tell me where my perceptions are wrong? | 23 | No, Saudi Arabia is actually a crazy backwards country that refuses to acknowledge the rights of women.
This is for two reasons. They're completely ruled by the royal family, so they don't have to respond to democratic pressure. And they have a lot of oil, so nobody wants to apply that much international pressure. | 20 |
ELI5: How does the electric meter on your house keep track of the energy you've consumed? | 15 | The standard electric power meter is a clock-like device driven by the electricity moving through it. As the home draws current from the power lines, a set of small gears inside the meter move. The number of revolutions is recorded by the dials that you can see on the face of the meter. | 20 |
|
[Wedding Crashers] Did the Clearys think that Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson were their relatives? | Were they just all cool with incest? | 16 | Presumably they assumed they were from the groom’s side (even though they sat on the bride’s side IIRC) so it wouldn’t be incestuous.
That being said, being the sons of “Ned, the brother of Aunt Liz” doesn’t necessarily mean a blood relationship. Aunt could be a term for a cousin or even a close, non-blood female relationship.
Alternatively, they were in the elite upper class. Maybe closer blood ties to keep the bloodlines pure aren’t as rare and antiquated as we think. | 16 |
[Majora's Mask] Why does the moon have a face? | 21 | Because Majora is an insane spirit of terror, not subtlety. It's implied by several people in Terminia that the face on the moon didn't always look so horrifying, and after Majora's defeat the moon disintegrates. It's likely (though unconfirmed) that Majora's influence over the moon deformed it. | 34 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.