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Is it possible for an earth-like planet to be the size of our sun? | 109 | The earth is about 4 times denser than the sun. If you scaled it up to the size of the sun, you'd have a sun-sized ball of iron and other elements. The force of gravity would likely collapse the ball. It depends a little bit on the exact composition, and what you consider to be the boundaries of the sun. | 76 |
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How do forest fires start? | Edit: how does lightening start forest fires? | 15 | A bolt of lightning can have a temperature of 5 times that of the sun (50k F vs 10k F). That is hot enough to ignite many (most) substances, especially in situations where the fuel is readily available, in the right conditions (super dry) and collected together (like dead brush.)
You can start a fire with a tiny electric spark on your grill, for instance. A gas engine uses sparks to ignite the gasoline. Now ramp that up to the massive energy involved in lightning, and its not hard to see how to can spark up a fire. I'd say that *most* fire on Earth is electrically started.
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ELI5: Why are employees expected to provide 2 weeks notice when quitting, but employers don't give similar notice when firing people? | 61 | Because firing employees already runs the risk of retaliation of disgruntled employees. And now you want them to stick around for two weeks? With all the physical and logical access they have to company assets and information?
Whereas quitting is mainly you just getting a better offer. The company doesn't pose any risk *to you*, so there is no need for you to severe the relationship as soon as possible. So the two weeks is customary, as it maintains a professional and respectful relationship. After all, they may need to be called upon to vouch for you or you may want - at some point - to return to them. | 43 |
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[Marvel] How can somebody weaponize vibranium? | I’ve seen similar questions posted, but not much in the way of answers.
Vibranium seems to violate the 3rd law of motion, only when it’s convenient to do so.
Does it somehow only absorb/mitigate kinetic energy in only one direction? Wouldn’t vibranium bullets bounce harmlessly off their target, having absorbed/redirected their own kinetic energy upon impact?
For that matter, could you even fire a vibranium bullet? Wouldn’t the gunpowder explosion be absorbed/deflected by the bullet? | 18 | This is why Ultron mocked us, you lack vision.
Just ask the Wakandans what vibranium can do. It's ability to store and absorb pretty much any type of energy is invaluable for either armor or energy needs. You don't physically use it as a bullet or blunt object, you use its ability to absorb the energy and then release it into one mighty blowm | 14 |
Do we know anything of prehistoric fruits and vegetables? | Are there any fossils of plants that were once edible or could be edible by humans today? | 40 | The paleolithic is recent enough that not much is fossilized, but also recent enough that genes haven't drifted much, except by artificial selection.
This means that there exists at least one wild plant that is closely related to a recent ancestor of almost any example of a fruit, vegetable, or grain you might imagine.
Apples and pears? Try a haw.
Carrots and parsnips? See Queen Anne's Lace roots.
Swiss chard and beets? Have a small amount of pigweed (it's too high in oxalate for me to recommend eating very much of it).
Artichoke? Look at a thistle...but maybe only cook its thick, fleshy stem, because the flowers are *super* tiny during the stage of development where one would eat an artichoke.
Wikipedia has taxonomic info in the sidebar of each fruit or vegetable article, and can help you find this sort of relationship for whatever else strikes your fancy. Be warned, some things (potatoes and beans, for example) are toxic in the wild type. | 30 |
[WH40K] Why did the Necrontyr have shortened lifespans after they developed space travel? | According to the lore, the Necrontyr's home star gave out particularly strong radiation (implied to be due to a C'tan), causing the Necrontyr to have extremely short lifespans. It had a HUGE impact on their psyche as a species. When they developed space travel and went to other star systems, it seems as though they continued to have short lives.
Why didn't leaving their irradiated home planet allow them to live longer? For masters of cold science, couldn't they also have turned to genetic manipulation?
| 26 | Millions of years of evolution. Their life cycle had to be short so the species could reproduce before dying. If they were longer lived then their survival rate drops because now you have less time to reproduce. | 21 |
ELI5 why Joe Paterno is guilty of covering up for Sandusky and why the recent punishment handed down from the NCAA was just. | The title says it. | 306 | Because child molesting is pretty darned serious, and Paterno and the other top brass knew that it was happening, yet decided to look the other way rather than upset their winning football formula and risk losing support from students and alumni. The sanctions are a wakeup call to Penn State and other universities that this sort of thing is BAD and WILL NOT be tolerated. It is a step toward making sure that they don't prioritize football over anything that might harm that program. | 632 |
[Star Trek: DS9] I thought the federation got rid of money, how are people buying things in Quark's? | I understand that other races may still use currency, but I see Federation officers buying things in Quark's, gambling, there was even an episode where O'Brien was buying fruit pops on the promenade, but it never showed him paying.
Also, it seems like the replimat is free, and has replicators to make whatever food you might want. Why would you go to Quark's and pay him to replicate food for you? | 34 | Remember DS9 is a Bajoran station operated with Starfleets assistance. That being said Starfleet personnel stationed abroad are given a stipend in Federation Credits that have a set exchange rate with Bajoran, Ferengi, Cardassian and Klingon currancies on DS9. The replimat isnt free but uses rations that are given to personnel and civilians onboard the station. | 39 |
ELI5: Why do most modern helicopters have 4 or more blades, while most older helicopters have only 2? | 1,204 | The Bell 230 and the 212 are mediums that have two blades.
Both those were replaced by 4-bladed versions (the 430 and the 412).
There are many factors that determine the number of blades. But in general, the trend you see in looking at the results of many development programs is this: smaller, cheaper, and slower helicopters have the fewest blades. Bigger, faster, and more expensive ones have more blades.
Notice that the 412 (4 blades) has a max speed about 20 kt faster than the 212 (2 blades).
In general you can say the following:
For hover, low disk loading is most efficient. That means longer blades and therefore fewer blades.
But for speed, more blades are better. The blades turn slower and the tip speed is slower, allowing higher airspeed before the advancing blade tips approach supersonic.
This is illustrated by the 212/412 helicopters.
-The 212 has two blades with a diameter of 48 feet and max weight of 11,200 lb. 100% rotor revs are 324 rpm.
-The 412 has 4 blades with diameter 46 feet and max weight of 11,900 lb. 100% rotor speed is also 324 rpm.
Disk loading
212 = 6.19 lb/ft^2
412 = 7.16 lb/ft^2
Tip Speed
212 = 813 ft/s
412 = 779 ft/s
Vmax
212 = 120 kts
412 = 140 kts
So the 212 has lower disk loading, it should perform better in hover (I don't have data on that). The 412 has lower tip speed and higher airspeed.
Edit: re-wrote it with some numbers to illustrate. | 424 |
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Why isn't the sun used as a gravitational slingshot? | I was just reading about the Helios probes in the 70s, one of which managed to achieve 252,792 km/h (157,078 mi/h) using the Sun's gravity. On the other hand other probes that use a gravitational slingshot use Jupiter/Saturn, and some attain a quarter of the Helios probe's speed. Why not use the sun instead? | 16 | The main reason gravitational slingshots work is because from the perspective of the sun, a ship (traveling with velocity V) will enter orbit around a planet (traveling with velocity U) and leave the planet's gravity well with velocity 2U+V.
The trouble with using the sun is that the whole solar system is already caught in the sun's gravity well. And gravity assist is really only applicable to something entering a system.
Imagine throwing a rubber ball at 30km/h against a train moving at 50km/hr. When it bounces, it will have a velocity of 130 km/hr relative to the stationary thrower. You are proposing doing this while riding the train.
The reason the ball bounces from the train at 130mk/hr is because from the perspective of the train engineer, the ball is hurtling at him at 80km/hr, and then bounces away at 80km/hr (from his perspective) add the 50 km/hr and you get 130km/hr from the kid's perspective, or (V + 2U.) | 41 |
ELI5: Why is it impossible to suck through a straw that's 10.4 meters long? | i understand that when it's too low pressure it starts boiling but what are the numbers as to what gets the 10.3 meters limit, is there any way to increase it through a 0 degree surrounding and a super thin straw? how did they calculate that limit? what are the formulas used? | 73 | The action of sucking does not actually pull on water. Rather, it allows the air on the other end to push by removing the air from the end inside of your mouth.
This means that, since there is only 1 atm of air, you're limited to that much pushing.
As water climbs the tube, gravity pulls it down, generating a pressure to counteract the pushing. This pressure depends solely on the density of water and the height at the top of the water.
So, solving for the density of water, we see that water can only get 10.4 meters above its surface from the action of atmospheric pressure. If the straw goes deeper than the water's surface, then the straw itself can be longer, but the water can only be raised above its surface by that amount.
The formula for hydrostatic pressure is quite straightforward. p = ρ g h
This is the pressure generated by gravity acting on the water, and it is the pressure that counteracts the pressure of air pushing up. Interestingly, the pressure of the air itself can be found using the same formula (although to get an accurate answer you have to modify it with calculus to account for gravity and changes in density). | 83 |
ELI5:If you were stumble across an undiscovered island, what would you have to do to make it your own country? | 19 | Go to the island. Set up what you need to defend it from anyone else who would want to take it from you, which probably involves cannons and missiles. Declare that you are a country to other countries and hope that they agree.
That is pretty much it. What areas are countries is up to who recognizes them. | 23 |
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Is Supply and Demand a law that is only valid within our current economic system or is it an actual natural law? | Probably a very stupid question and even more philosophical than economic, but are there theories or even proof that Supply and Demand is a law that applies to nature as well? | 188 | What an interesting question! One way to look at the law of supply and demand is as a law about what the **optimal quantity** to be supplied based on the benefits to the supplier is. If the supplier produces more than that quantity, they will either have a surplus, meaning unnecessary costs, or reduced benefit, since it will have to discount the supply to get rid of all of it. If a supplier produces too little, they miss out on potential benefits.
From the perspective of the consumer, if they consume below the optimal quantity, they're missing out on a trade that would make them better off. If they over consume, they have spent more resources than they like.
To see how this might play out in nature, consider a flowering tree and a bee. The bees are consumers, using energy to fly from flower to flower (price) in order to consume nectar from the flowers. The tree is the supplier, using energy to produce flowers, and gaining the benefit of pollination from the bees (price). If the tree produces too many flowers, the bees will only visit the easiest ones, so there is a surplus. The law of supply and demand doesn't say that the tree will produce the right number of flowers, or that the bee will visit the right number, just that there is an equilibrium value. | 115 |
ELI5: Why does water taste sweet after you've left it on your nightstand all night? | 53 | your mouth and the gunk in it that sits overnight, stewing, makes your mouth more acidic and so when you drink a base or neutral, it will taste sweeter than the stagnant situation you've been tasting for hours. | 73 |
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ELI5:why does backing every horse, or it's equivalent, not actually work in practicality in gambling? | Thought this recently when a guy put a fiver on for leicester to win the premiership and paid out for (circa) £75000 - could he have put a fiver on at two bookies, one to pay out with and one to leave on in case they actually win? | 16 | Look at the pay out of the lowest odds horse. If there are 5 horses, five on each horse, is a total bet of $25. If the lowest odds horse wins, pay back might be 5+3, or $8. A net loss of $17.
If he bet only $5 on the horse he thinks is most likely to win, and it does not. Net loss is only $5.
This is only a hypothetical, since we don't know the odds of all the horses in that 1 race. But you get the idea. Keep in mind nobody likes to pay out, especially bookies. So the horse with the highest payoff is the one that the bookies and fellow gamblers think is least likely to win. | 11 |
ELI5: How do dolphins, whales, and other aquatic mammals die when they are out of the water? | Is this just stupid? I don't understand it | 194 | There are three main causes of death for beached mammals like whales and dolphins.
1. Collapsing under their own weight. This applies to very large species such as sperm whales, whose skeletons are not made to support their own weight. When floating in the water this is fine, but on land their bodies are so heavy that they crush themselves.
2. Dehydration. This is common for dolphins. A dolphin is not made for being out of the water and loses a lot of water very quickly when exposed to air. If left on a beach for too long, they will dry out and eventually die.
3. Drowning. This might sound strange, but it can happen when high tide comes in. If the whale is on a slope, it's possible the water is high enough to cover the blowhole, but not high enough to submerge the entire whale (allowing it to swim/float). The whale cannot breathe and will eventually suffocate. | 210 |
[Marvel/DC] How can a normal person break a weapon against a super hero's skin? | Even if the hero in question is invulnerable against the weapon, surely the average person wouldn't be powerful enough to actually break it?
[Example](https://youtu.be/y0aDXbi8prk?t=1m59s) | 33 | Swords and knives can actually break pretty easily if you hit them against strong enough material. They wouldn't usually shatter like in that video (they're not typically that brittle), but they can snap in half or warp with surprisingly little force; certainly less than a strong human can apply to them, and the man in that video looks quite strong. Weapons used to break frequently in battle, though, and if that knife was of mediocre quality or made too hard it could possibly even break like that. A very hard steel won't hardly flex at all when it hits something, but the energy still has to go somewhere, so it fractures. It's not entirely unrealistic. | 42 |
CMV: There is absolutely no reason to ever buy med grade gasoline. | Here is the deal. If you car requires regular gasoline, there is no advantage to buying anything better. You car was engineered to run on regular and will gain no performance advantage from anything else.
If your car is engineered to run on premium gas, you will not only kill your performance by putting lesser grade gas in your car, you will run less efficiently negating the cost benefit of the cheaper gas.
I am not aware of any car sold that runs on mid grade.
I would love to know who has a good reason for the existence of this useless product and who buys it and why. | 16 | The “octane” rating is also known as the “anti-knocking index” because it helps prevent knocking (if your engine knocks).
So let’s say you have an old car and the piston shafts are getting full of corrosion. Due to the presence of the corrosion, there is less space in your piston shafts. So when the pistons come down on the gasoline, the fuel is compressed too much too quickly and fires early. This leads to “knocking” sounds in the engine. Switching to a more compressible (higher “octane”) gas will help prevent the knocking.
Now, it may be that you find that mid grade works fine and so you save a little bit of money versus buying high grade. | 16 |
ELI5: How did humans learn to extract metal from rocks? | This is something that has always perplexed me. How the hell did our ancestors learn that putting certain types of rocks in 2000 degree furnaces would yield a useful material for weapons and tools? | 25 | Certain metals like gold, small amounts of iron, etc. can be found in their natural form without smelting. As time went one our ancestors learned that other metals could be extracted from rocks by heating them. Not all metals require insane temperatures to smelt either. Some of the early attempts could also have been accidental as hearth stones that contained ore were heated and we observed that metal came out of them. | 11 |
Will eating a 510g cucumber have the same hydration effect as drinking 500ml water? Why/ Why not? | Since cucumbers are 98% water | 26 | Lets say there is 500 ml or mg water in a cucumber.
So that means there is 10 mg of non water in the cucumber.
Your body will actually use water to digest food.
That means that you will have less hydration effect as drinking 500 ml of water.
**TL/DR: Digesting food costs water.**
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ELI5: the difference in sorting comments between "best" and "top" | 29 | 'Top' is purely 'highest voted', after the up/down delta. 'Best' takes into consideration much more, like how quickly a comment amasses upvotes, down/up ratio (not just the delta) and some other stuff.
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ELI5:Why is romaine lettuce so prone to E.coli? | Thos is atleast the second time this year that and e.coli contamination of romaine lettuce has been in the news? What is it about romaine lettuce that makes it prone to e.coli? | 24 | E.coli O157:H7 comes from one place: cow intestines. Cows are not susceptible to the toxin the bacteria produces. Humans, etc. are. So lettuce has it because cow shit was used to fertilize the plant, or a human who got it from eating contaminated cow meat shit on the plant, etc.
Also, never ever eat ground beef unless it is thoroughly cooked. Always wash your hands very well after handling anything which cow shit or cow intestines might have touched, which is basically any kind of meat or vegetable.
If you give your kids raw milk you should just shoot yourself in the face right now.
Source: kidneys failed due to e.coli. | 43 |
[Dragon Ball Z] What would have happened if Vegeta and Gohan's battles on Babidi's spaceship were switched? | So Gohan's battle with Dabura royally pissed Vegeta off, causing a sequence of events that ended with him becoming Majin. What would have happened if Gohan had the easy fight against Pui Pui and Vegeta was the one to fight Dabura? | 25 | I don't think much would have changed, Vegeta's power lust to surpass Goku wouldn't be wavered by beating Dabura. Vegeta became Majin because it was another path to power, if the offer still stood after he beat Dabura, he would still take it to try and beat beat Goku in the end. | 17 |
Theoretically, what would stay cooler in the sun: a container that is pure white, or a container made of mirror? | Aren't both objects reflecting all light? | 16 | In an idealized case, no difference. The only difference between a mirror and "white" is the *direction* that the light is reflected. The amount of absorption is the same.
In practice, the mirrored one would stay cooler. This is because practical whites are less reflective than high-quality mirrors; part of reflecting light in random directions is that sometimes they reflect light inward and absorb it.
Also, mirrored surfaces usually reflect non-visible wavelengths well. White diffusers more commonly have a limited range of effective frequencies. | 15 |
ELI5: If strings and quarks exist, why are atoms called the building blocks of matter? | 16 | Because the atom is the fundamental unit of *chemistry.* Pretty much everything interesting in the universe happens because of chemistry, and chemistry happens between atoms. The smaller constituent parts — quarks and gluons; strings are just a metaphor and don't actually exist as tangible things even if string theory is valid — do their own thing, but they don't participate in chemistry. | 12 |
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eli5 What is the added value of garmin (and other) GPS navigators | Basically this. Even the cheapest phone has GPS and Gallileo chip capable to track your location. Do standalone navigators offer better precision and reliability? Do they have better anthennas ans more sonsitive detectors? Why do hobby pilots and boat captains always use Garmins?
UPD. We have a lot of ratheer simplistic answers aka "Garmin doesn't need cell coverage" or "Garmin has better maps" which is simply irrelevant since you can install any map on android as well (even official ones from Garmin) and use it offline. I'm sorry for formulating the question poorly, but I meant what are technical differences between phone GPS chip and standalone. Are they better (more accurate and fast) at getting location and how is it achieved. | 77 | If you already have a smart phone, then they can provide a lot of the same functionality as as GPS. If you don't, then GPS units are far cheaper. That said, a dedicated GPS unit has a number of benefits over a GPS app on a phone:
1. As a dedicated device, all of the battery in a GPS is powering a single thing. Thus the battery is likely to last longer than a phone which will have things running in the background and will be constantly draining power as you use it for other things.
2. ~~You can preload GPS units with maps of wherever you are going, which will then therefore work wherever you go. Phones, on the other hand, will have to download maps on the fly, which requires you to have cell phone service or wifi. So if you are in a place with no internet, the GPS on your phone won't do you much good because you won't have the corresponding maps to use it with.~~
3. Since there is little concern about needing the device to fit in a pocket, you can buy GPS devices that are larger and therefore easier to read and use.
4. GPS communication is one way. The device receives information, but doesn't upload anything unless you deliberately and manually do so. So if you are concerned about data privacy, a dedicated device is the way to go. | 118 |
ELI5: If I take a different drug every weekend to get high, will I avoid addiction and my body becoming resistant to the drugs effects? | Why doesn't this work? If addicts are always chasing the first high they got, why don't they take another drug their body isn't used to and experience that first high again? | 26 | If you are constantly using different drugs from a different class that don't have the same method of action then yes, kinda. You will not have a chemical dependency and will not build up a resistance, as quickly. But you will still have a psychological addiction to drug use.
For instance, you can't switch between heroin and morphine because they are both opiates and use the same receptors. When your receptors bind to the chemicals in these drugs, they create more receptors if they all get used up. The more receptors you have, the harder it is go get high. So you would have to switch differently. Between Cocaine, Marijuana, heroin, LSD, mushrooms, Marijuana, Ketamin, Dilaudid, Methadone, Crack, Morphine, Meth, LSD, Cocaine, etc. Rinse and repeat. Do one of those a night and it wouldn't be as bad as being hooked on one drug. | 14 |
ELI5: How is tap water not full of mold and algae when nobody cleans the inside of the pipes that carry it? | Anything wet that I leave outside accumulates mold, algae, and other gross stuff over time. Given that drinking water pipes are not regularly flushed out with bleach or something, how is it that drinking water is not totally filthy from going through dirty pipes?
Edit: thanks for all the responses guys! Especially from the water treatment and plumbing experts. Didn't expect to get such a big reaction! | 2,087 | > drinking water pipes are not regularly flushed out with bleach or something
They are, essentially. Drinking water supplies contain a low concentration of chlorine bleach or another disinfectant to prevent germs growing.
Also the pipes are sealed, with valves and taps designed to prevent air containing germs being drawn in, and they're opaque so light algae need to grow doesn't get in.
EDIT: As many people have mentioned, not all places and countries leave the disinfectant in the water. Ensuring that it's clean when it enters the pipes - either with chemicals that are removed or with UV light - along with the pipes being airtight and dark and unfavourable to life is when done correctly enough to keep the water clean. | 1,468 |
ELI5: Why do bomb/mine defusers wear bulky armor and face masks? If that actually going to protect them? | In various movies, documentaries, and videos, i've seen bomb defuses from all over the world is these giant bulky suits of armor when they go to defuse a bomb or a landmine or something. But i'm almost 100% sure that no suit or armor we can currently produce will protect you from a landmine at point blank range. What are those suits for, and how effective are they?
Also, they don't have any gloves? Are you just expected to get your hands blown off?
Edit: Thanks for all the responses! The wikipedia page on Bomb Suits is frankly horribly written and uncited, so I thought i'd give that a shoutout if anyone experienced wanted to take on that burden. | 17 | The suits (called EOD suits) are for protecting against debris from hurting the EOD tech if an explosion goes off near them. Unfortunately if a bomb goes off while someone is working on it the suit most likely wont help since the pressure wave from the explosion will kill them, even if the suit stopped shrapnel from hurting the technician. EOD suits protect against debris, but not pressure waves.
EDIT: They sometimes wear kevlar gloves but most dont because they need the dexterity when working on a device, and those gloves wont protect against much anyway | 25 |
ELI5: How do we actually know what colours other animals can or can't see? | 17 | The rods and cones in your eyes contain dyes, which are the chemicals that do the light sensing. A dye is just a molecule that absorbs a very specific frequency of light. This makes them a particular color, and you can literally just measure the light reflected by these dyes to see what color they absorb.
These molecules also bleach as they absorb light (which is how they adapt to brighter light), so you can also see what color light you have to shine on them to make them change color. | 24 |
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Is a submarine, which is able to withhold pressure from the outside, also able to withhold pressure from the inside, ie. space. | 24 | While submarines are not specifically built to withstand internal pressure, they can withstand an immense amount of pressure, far more than the pressure differential between space and atmosphere.
The pressure of space is 0 psi (no atmosphere) compared to about 14.7 psi (atmospheric conditions) that would be inside the vessel.
Compare that to the pressure under water. Every 10m of depth is approximately equal to one atmosphere increase in pressure. Modern subs have a collapse depth of well over 500m. That is 50 times greater pressure differential than that in space, over 700 psi.
The major difference between the two examples is that the pressure is internal in one and external in the other. While design considerations are made for the two pressure differentials, the substantially larger pressure requirement for subs would mean that it would certainly be able to withstand the pressure differential in space.
One last note: From a practical standpoint, there may be pressure regulators on a sub that are meant to remove pressure from the cabin that would malfunction if outside pressure is too low. | 20 |
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ELI5 what "eye boogers" are, and what purpose do they serve? | My mom used to tell me I still had sleep in my eyes as I was eating cereal before school. When I asked what it was, she said it was dried tears from my yawns.
No idea if that's the real answer, but lately I've had trouble opening my eyes at all in the morning because I've got so much of it.
Where does it come from and is there some biological or evolutionary purpose behind it? | 69 | In a nutshell, "Eye Boogers" ("rheum") is mucus mixed with blood cells, dust, skin cells etc. This mucus is called "Gound". This gound helps seal your eyes in an air tight fashion when they are closed, prevents tears from spilling onto your cheeks, and helps keep tears that coat your eyes from evaporating.
Gound naturally disappears when blinking or on touch, but since you're not blinking at sleep whatsoever, this gound fills up and causes "eye boogers". | 112 |
[Star Trek 3] Why didn't the Enterprise's self-destruct blow up the whole ship? | It seems that the self-destruct explodes the bridge, and then a few seconds later, the saucer section. The rest of the ship tumbles into the atmosphere, which certainly destroys it, but I wouldn't think the computer was planning on that to happen.
A dedicated destruction for the bridge would make a certain amount of sense, but why not just detonate the warp core like the Enterprise-D does?
EDIT: After thinking for a bit, the ship is extremely damaged at the beginning of the movie. It's possible the self-destruct just didn't work properly. | 20 | The primary purpose of the self-destruct system is to prevent sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands. While the complete destruction of the ship is usually the desired outcome, it is not fully necessary (or even possible due to the limitations of the conventional charges in place). The conventional charges on board were nowhere near enough to destroy the entire ship, but they are located to trigger secondary explosions of the ship's warp, impulse, power grid and fuel system.
The 1701-nil had taken significant damage in the battle against the Klingon, and as a result her warp core had automatically shutdown and purged to prevent a catastrophic breach. Without an active core, the self-destruct system was much limited.
The charges in the saucer section detonated the fusion reactors that were still online as intended, resulting in a secondary explosion sufficient to destroy that section. However, it seemed several of the charges failed to go off, particularly those meant to destroy critical engineering section components and breach the antimatter containment system.
It's worth noting that the ship had been rushed back into service after two serious engagements, only to stumbled into a third, so even though the self-destruct system is independent of the main system, it's likely to have seen some damage as well. It's also possible that the self-destruct system had its command and control network poached for spare parts, since the system would've been viewed as expendable in trying to get as much of the ship back online as possible, especially after her 'theft' deprived her of Starfleet technical assistance. | 12 |
ELI5: What is credit score and how does it work | 110 | Its a quick one-number metric used by lenders to judge how able you are or will be able to pay back your debts. 300 is bad. Noone will lend you anything. 900 is perfect. You could walk into a bank and ask for a $500k mortgage and you should have no problem.
How they're calculated is a closely guarded secret. But generally:
- the more you pay off your debts (credit cards, line of credit) = good
- pay off big % of your debts every month (good) vs. just paying the minimum (bad)
- do you have just a few big debts like a mortgage and a line of credit that you make regular payments on? good. Or do you have lots of small debts like 3 credit cards, and 4 store credit cards that all carry balances?
- more outstanding debt = bad.
Of course this is one side of things. If you have a bad score but just got a massive raise, then your chances improve. Or a lender could also say "pay off some of this debt first, then we'll talk about a loan." | 34 |
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ELI5: When light hits an obstacle, where do the photons go? | (Great answers, thanks all) | 23 | Some are bounced off and hit your eye, we call that seeing. Some bounce off and hit other objects. Some do the thing that photons can do where they behave like a wave instead of a particle and get absorbed by the object, heating it up. | 50 |
ELI5: What makes the number e so special and why is it used as the base of the natural logarithm? | 152 | e is so special because the y coordinate of the function y=e^x at a certain point is also the slope at that point. So the slope at x=3 will be e^3. This property of e and the natural log are very useful when solving problems in calculus involving exponents and such. | 89 |
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Is it possible to hold a job without acting in "bad faith"? | Most of us spend 40 hours a week doing things we wouldn't ordinarily do, and saying things we wouldn't ordinarily say. Would Sartre say that we're acting in "bad faith", or does this concept refer to something more specific? | 18 | I think the concept isn't so much about the action, as about your identifying with the action. If an individual earns a paycheck working as a waiter, that does not inherently mean he is acting in bad faith. Bad faith enters when the individual identifies himself as a "waiter", thus reducing the definition of man as expressed in his case to one particular task. Our culture seems to encourage this identification - we ask another person what their job is with the words "What do you do?", implying (be it intentional or not) that the entire activity of an individual's life can be summed up by his/her job. | 18 |
ELI5: Why are clothes of different sizes the same price? Are the price mark-ups from the manufacturer big enough to neglect the cost of the extra fabric in larger clothes? | 47 | The cost of the fabric is only one of many components that go into the price of an item... a $20 t-shirt may only have $2 worth of fabric in it, with the costs coming from labor, transportation half way around the world, distribution to stores, branding and design, mark-ups for the various middle men along the way. So maybe the small has $1.80 worth of fabric and the XL has $2.20 worth. They set the price at the average cost, which is easier than having to set, input, track countless prices for all the different sizes. A store having to spent 4x as much time setting prices would spend far more on labor doing that than is spent on additional fabric. | 22 |
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CMV: Blue Laws surrounding the sale of liquor and beer are old & antiquated, and have no purpose other than to uphold the status quo. | I live in Texas. A state that has extremely outdated Blue Laws that prohibit the sale of liquor past 9PM (M-Sat), and require all liquor stores to be closed on Sundays. Not to mention, you can only buy liquor at a designated liquor store (although you can get beer and wine at grocery stores, convenient stores, etc.)
It makes no sense in a free market, capitalist society (especially in a Red State) that these laws exist. They prohibit the sale of goods to a market that clearly exists, and it feels borderline unconstitutional considering many blue laws have religious origins and/or influences.
This pious paternalism by blue law states has given way to a ridiculous protectionist argument. Look no further than the owners of various liquor stores (or chains) who worry that competition will force them to work harder without guaranteeing a commensurate increase in revenue. Which is bullshit.
It appears the only thing Blue Laws want to protect are the establishment, not the consumers. We can still walk into a bar on Sunday (past noon) and get rip-roaring drunk, etc. So please, challenge me here. Change my view. Why are Blue Laws good? How is this a free market concept? I can vote. I can get drafted. But God forbid I want to buy a bottle of Pappy on Sunday. THE HORROR. | 196 | \> They prohibit the sale of goods to a market that clearly exists
This is, surprisingly, actually a misperception.
It's often not conservative, puritan people who want liquor sales outlawed on sundays, but the *liquor stores themselves* which exist in what they understand as a conservative area. If it were legal, then to compete with large grocery chains, small liquor stores would have to be open on Sundays and lose money as a result.
You could actually argue that these laws protect small businesses from losing to big ones. | 34 |
[Dishonored] How are the talents of a Mark-bearer determined? | Daud and Corvo have slightly different talents from one another. Granny Rags and Delilah both have wildly different abilities to either of them, and yet all of them possess some form of Blink or Blink-like ability.
Does the Outsider tailor a person's talents? Or does the Mark simply awaken magical aspects already within a person? | 25 | > Does the Outsider tailor a person's talents?
This seems the most likely. After all, the Outsider is very, *very* bored, and basically omnipotent. He might give them abilities matching their wildest dreams so that he can savor the irony of their inevitable defeat. Or he might give them abilities that are likely to cause the most destruction so that he can revel in the chaos and further his ineffable goals. In Corvo's case, it appears to have been both simultaneously (since the Outsider didn't know which path Corvo would take).
Note that the protagonist of Dishonored 2 has been shown to have a kind of grappling tentacle thing, time stop, and some kind of monstrous transformation. Also note that there are some differences in the behavior of Corvo's and Daud's blink abilities. | 20 |
cmv: defunding the police is quite possibly the dumbest PR move ever by liberals. they've taken something almost everyone would support on some level and turned it into a right wing talking point. | usually when you run a marketing campaign, you want people to know your real plans. with the whole "defund the police" movement they've done the exact opposite and, turns out, it's not a brilliant move. people center/right take it literally. and why wouldn't they? it's pretty clear. and there's enough young angry 20-somethings out on the street reinforcing that literal interpretation. clearly their own advocates don't even understand the real message.
if the idea is to shift funding away from expanding police, who treat the symptoms (crime), to investment in strong communities. THEN SAY THAT. and to anyone who actually wants to defund the police, please be an adult. that's not realistic. humans suck. what we need is investment in communities, not prisons. and these asshat "defund the police" commies are completely undermining something this country desperately needs. | 27 | I don't really understand what you expect to happen. There is no liberal PR department. To the extent that the Democratic party is trying to control messaging, Biden has repeatedly said he's opposed to defunding the police.
Right wing news sources will blatantly lie or misrepresent about what liberals do, say, or want. So it's a little annoying to blame "liberals" for being too nuanced when it frankly doesn't matter what they actually say. Trump, Tucker Carlson, etc will just make shit up anyway, or will amplify whatever voices they find convenient, regardless if if those voices actually represent the majority of liberals. It doesn't matter if a million or a hundred liberals are saying something. They can do their segment based off one guy with a sign. | 36 |
ELI5: If the germ theory is relatively new, how do they think fermentation was happening (like wine, ale, yogurt etc.) thousands of years ago? | 627 | That shit just happened and it was cool as fuck. Berries ferment naturally and people figured that out probably by eating them, and started to replicate those conditions and perfect them over time. They began to see what variables changed the flavor and potency and the like. Relatively quickly the enjoyment of somewhat simple to produce very flavorful beverage spread and so more people started to have more ideas about how and what to do. The fact that it’s fermentation is a new idea and cool but doesn’t actually do much to the process overall | 452 |
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[Harry Potter] How does the Hogwarts support hundred of owls? | In Harry Potter, it seems like the majority of students have pet owls. Starting every September, hundreds of owls are brought to Hogwarts, and presumably left to hunt most of the time. How do they grounds support this sudden influx of predators. Even the forbidden forest must get hunted clean after a few months, with so many owls hunting the same areas. I imagine that there aren't usually that many owls concentrated in one forest.
Plus, especially in the winter prey must be scarce, there's no way that there's enough to go around. If they're fed by the school, where does that come from? Is Hagrid importing then slaughtering barrels full of bunnies and rodents?
Also, what happens if an owl flies into the forbidden forest and is caught by some giant spider? Does Hogwarts have a policy for pets that are killed at school? Owls can be expensive for some families.
Edit: Dammit not "The Hogwarts" I meant the Hogwarts grounds in the title. | 16 | someone walks upstairs each day and casts the refilling charm and the scouring charm then after that 10 second chore is over they go back down stairs.
unless of course it is filches job then it takes hours of back breaking work, which he does because he doesn't have any other choice.
edit, owls won't eat pet food but they will eat raw meat and i'm almost sure there is some charm to keep meat fresh. | 20 |
[General] What would it take for a "standard fantasy setting" society (i.e. dwarves, elves, magic, castles, dragons, etc.) to progress past what we today associate with the middle ages? | This is, of course, ignoring industrious dwarves, which appear to be stuck in a neverending Victorian underground nightmare. | 24 | simply put, gunpowder and the blast furnace.
europe advanced because guns needed high quality steel to be more accurate and powerful. This pulled alot of research into making better quality steel, which perfected itself early 1800s with the blast furnace.
Accuracy also demanded the guns be made very precisesly. Again, early manufacturing engineers invented novel methods of measurement ensuring the rifles were made to 1/100 of an inch. This revolutionized manufacturing. All of a sudden, componenets like pipes and screws were being made cheaply in mass quantities rather than being made to order.
Better steel and accuracy are what allowed steam engines to be made.
Of course, none of this advancement would have been possible without the massive boom in resources that came from the conquest of the americas | 17 |
Why pointers? | I have been getting into learning C++. I am not a beginner to programming, but I am only around intermediate, at best.
I have followed many tutorials and videos on how to use pointers and references, and have a pretty good grasp on them. However, none of the videos or tutorials seems to teach when or why they are used or why they are useful.
I've done a lot of searching, but I cannot seem to find a reason why they are such a great thing. I believe they are, but just want to understand the 'why' of it!
So, as my title says: Why pointers?
Edit: Thank you to everyone who chimed in on my post. I feel I have a much better understanding now! | 29 | > Why pointers?
If you have a big chunk of data you need to pass to a function, would you like to create a copy of all that data and pass it (i.e. passing by value), or just pass the address of it (i.e. passing by pointer)? | 49 |
[MCU] We've seen what happens to mere mortals who come in direct contact with the Power Stone. What would happen with each of the other stones if I grabbed them with my bare hands? | 43 | Space: As Red Skull found out firsthand, the Space Stone can send you anywhere in the universe. If you are not precise in your intentions, it will.
Reality: There's a very real risk of becoming trapped in a simulation of your own making as your subconscious feeds the Reality Stone desires. The good news is that it will all collapse as soon as you stop focusing on it, so you'll probably escape eventually.
Time: Obviously, time travel is dangerous. The worst possibility is essentially hell - trapped in an endless time loop or future sight, dilated relative to "objective" time such that every second which passes in the normal world is a trillion years for you.
Mind: The Mind Stone is less dangerous than most until used in esoteric mechanisms, as happened with Ultron and Vision. For simply holding it, your mental capacity will be expanded to vast limits (and, incidentally, give you the ability to use the other stones in relative safety). The risks of this are in that your enhanced mind may also come with enhanced flaws and that you are now enabled to dangerous things. If you had depression, you now have godlike depression. You'll figure out how to build a planetcracker antimatter bomb in your basement if given a week or two to solve all of physics. There are endless ways for this to end badly for yourself and everyone.
Soul: All of the Stones are intelligent. This is dangerous. But the Soul Stone has an intelligence that expresses regular volition and even opinions. This is dangerous beyond words. To get the Soul Stone you have to have committed a horrifying sacrifice - but that does not mean you are worthy of its power. The Soul Stone may well decide to use your mind as a seat of power instead of the other way around - or if you are more fortunate, it may simply hold open your empathetic gates and let all the suffering of the world flow through you. | 61 |
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ELI5 Dust | What is it, where does it come from, etc. | 18 | Dust is particles of various things that are light enough to be kicked about in the air. Dead skin cells, small flakes of things; they are picked up by air movement and travel around. Over time they accumulate on surfaces, which is why the longer something sits somewhere, the more dust ends up on it. | 18 |
[Mad Max] What year is it? | <SPOILERS!!>
How long has the world been destroyed? Also how old is Max? How has he been able to survive the cancers? Everyone else that remembers the world is old and/or horribly deformed yet in the beginning Max says he was a cop, so are there pockets of civilization and Max's fell? Or is he some immortal mutant? | 40 | > Everyone else that remembers the world is old and/or horribly deformed yet in the beginning Max says he was a cop, so are there pockets of civilization and Max's fell?
This is answered in the first Mad Max film - Max was a 'cop', but he was part of the Main Force Patrol, which was formed after society had begun to break down. So he wasn't a cop in the sense that we might know them, but a near-future patrol officer charged with breaking up the biker gangs that terrorised the countryside. With that said, in the first Mad Max film, civilization is still going, albeit limping along. | 30 |
[The Incredibles] Would Elastigirl have the easiest birth? | Since she's so flexible, did she have to go through labor? Or atleast the full pain of labour? Because once she starts experiencing the pains, she probably just stretched super wide and plopped the baby out. Or even reached right in and pulled it out? I'm honestly confused | 19 | Well, it's possible that her body would still produce contractions, and that would hurt, but she definitely wouldn't have any tearing or probably any birth complications related to like the cord getting wrapped around the baby | 27 |
[Harry Potter/ MCU] What would Red Skull call Voldemort? | Inspired by a post about Voldemort on Vormir.
What would Red Skull call Voldemort?
We know that the Guardian uses the most influential person in someone's life like when he called Hawkeye "Clint, Son of Edith" because his father wasn't around much.
So what would he call someone like Voldemort whose parents weren't around and who wasn't adopted? And would he call him Tom, since he doesn't care about Aliases? | 44 | You forget that he called Natasha "daughter of Ivan" when she didn't even know her father's name.
So, in actuality, we don't know the rationale behind what he chooses to call the person. So it would call him "Tom Riddle" son or daughter of whoever. | 51 |
[Futurama] Why are Fry and Enis so similar? *spoilers on 14 yr old episode* | In the episode "Roswell that Ends Well" we learn Fry is his own grandfather by doing "the nasty-in-the-pasty" (love saying that). Logically he should have no real relation to Enis, his supposed grandfather. Why do they resemble each other so much then?
| 108 | As Mildred said, Fry reminds her of Enis. She has a thing for dopey but well meaning guys. She lost one but the very next guy is extremely similar so she latched on. If it wasn't Fry, it would be someone similar to both him and Enis. | 110 |
[Marvel Comics] How much does the average citizen actually know? | There's a lot of weird stuff in 616. Atlanteans. A blue area on the moon. Moloids. Inhumans. Deviants. A new alien invasion every other week in the 60s (or early 2000s if you go by the sliding timeline.)
How much does the average citizen know? What's secret? What's generally known? What's known only to top secret government officials? What's entirely unknown but to the few involved? I'm not just talking about the stuff mentioned above, I mean almost literally everything.
What kind of world do they think they live in? | 43 | Like time travel, this is one of those fictional subjects that you best not scrutinize too deeply or else you'll get frustrated. Or, if you're like me, you'll be reminded by how lovably stupid comic book worlds are.
For example, at one point the public knew that Peter Parker was Spider-Man. Then he made a deal with the devil or some shit like that and now nobody knows who's in the spider tights. What was common knowledge to the average 616 citizen in 2006 was back to being a secret in 2007.
Also, the entire Marvel multiverse just got destroyed and rearranged. So what the public knew before the universal collapse likely got changed as well.
Then there's stuff that the public *should* know if we went by real-world logic, yet they don't because it would screw things up for comic book writers. For instance, many of the things invented by Marvel's geniuses - Hank Pym, Reed Richards, Tony Stark, etc. - get flown around major cities on a daily basis. The Fantastic Four has a flying car. Stark has an army of robots doing various tasks at his company. Doom has his Doombots. Pym created an AI that regularly tries to take over / destroy the world. Etc.
You'd think the public - at least those in NYC - would have access to flying vehicles, or the police would be carrying energy weapons supplied by the Avengers or something. You'd think NYC would be a technological utopia like what we see in *Star Trek*. Nope! John Q. Public is still driving around in Honda Civics; those poor beat cops still try and use revolvers to stop Electro when he breaks into a bank; Hell's Kitchen is still a shit hole; and NYC overall looks like what readers can see in the real world.
TL;DR: What the average citizen in a comic book world knows changes regularly. And what they do know doesn't make sense. | 31 |
ELI5: The Associated Press (AP). What the heck is it? Do they have their own journalists? Are they a news agency? Where do they get their stories from? | 23 | Okay, you're a hotshot news editor for the Middle School Times, right? There's a friend that you have that also owns a news paper in the next town over, the Middle School Edition. Then there's a third paper, the Middle School Chronicle, that has a story that you and your friend want for your respective papers. So you go to the Chronicle and cooperate with them, creating a newspaper organization that allows you all to share stories with each other, re-writing or tailoring parts of the story to fit your specific paper but keeping the bulk of the story. Additionally, this new organization hires specific staff to write general stories for the three papers to all use. That's what the AP is, a cooperation of a lot of papers radio and tv stations throughout the country, which allows it's members to use stories from various locations and written by various individual news organizations that are part of the cooperation. | 40 |
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ELI5: If a battery sits without being used for a long time, it loses charge. Where is this energy going? | 31 | 90 percent of the time, if you aren’t sure where your missing energy is going, it’s being used to create heat. In the case of batteries, this is slow enough that you wouldn’t notice the increased temperature without using one of the most precise thermometers available and heavily insulating the battery. | 49 |
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Eli5: how does sunscreen wear off? | Why do we have to reapply sunscreen? Does the sunscreen rub off or chemically break down? How? | 64 | Mostly sweat. The clothes will soak up some. Swimming obviously.
If you have dirt on your skin, and you don't wash it off, it doesn't stay on you forever. Your skin sweats and flakes and eventually the dirt is gone. Well sunscreen works the same way | 57 |
CMV: Islam is not a religion of Peace, and the calls for violence in the Quran are a significant cause for the majority of terrorists worldwide being Muslim | I keep hearing from otherwise perfectly sane people that Islam does not teach violence, that the Quran explicitly bans suicidal terrorism, and that jihadists are not "true muslims".
I'm sure that in 99% of mosques, the base message is very similar to other major religions - Praise God, Give to the Needy, Perform this harmless ritual etc.
But I don't think anyone can deny that the Quran contains horrific orders that direct followers to kill practically anyone reading my words right now. And all Muslims - outwardly at least - believe the Quran to be the perfect word of the creator of the universe. Following this, surely the terrorists are the "true muslims", as they are taking the book's orders to heart and actually following its guidance. Any non-terrorist Muslims are blatantly ignoring its orders and therefore are apostates.
The same argument, of course, applies to most other religions. I would argue that the Quran is worse in terms of directed violence, but clearly other factors apply to the moulding of terrorists or Christians would still be murdering people with tattoos - I am currently certain however that the Quran is a significant cause of terrorism.
CMV!
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> *This is a footnote from the CMV moderators. We'd like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | 41 | I am a Muslim, and no Islam is not a religion of peace, not entirely anyway, HOWEVER you are exaggerating, we are not being ordered to kill anyone on sight but rather defend ourselves and attack if need be, is it logical for someone to try and kill you and you just stay put and tell him, hey man lets hug?
anyways a lot of the Ayat or verses in English are telling a story of war times, and people take it out of context, also they translate it wrong failing to point out key info to understand these verses.
and even in war times there are rules, it is forbidden to burn trees, murders women and children or anyone who is not holding a weapon (ie meaning to attack), we are not permitted to attack any place of worship or the people in it, basically it is a fight among soldiers, of course you have to keep in mind many people confuse old cultural practices with actual Islam, some people in old times did somethings that were justified in their own times because it was the normal back then, that does not translate to it being right during our times.
also in Islam the worst thing you can do is take another's life,regardless of who because we believe all of us have the chance to turn to god at one point in our lives, killing another person is not only horrifying but the killer is also depriving that person of his chance at life and the after life.
now lets see organizations like ISIS, ISIS is creating their own radical Islam, many groups are like them in the Muslim world but they are quickly shut down, they are extremists and before ISIS hardly anyone would listen to them, ISIS take these verses that we already know the meaning of and twist it around according to the situation, for example in Islam it is forbidden to kill anyone by fire, torture, mutilation even after death ...etc and ISIS went and took the advice of one man who is not a prophet, just a regular man who said it was ok and burned a Jordanian Sunni Muslim soldier called Moath Al-Kasasbeh.
(Note: that man was obviously wrong since in Islam we don't have clergy men, we don't follow the rules of one man)
so look at what they are doing, they are violating everything that Islam is standing for, they are killing Muslims, look at Moasel - Iraq, they are murdering all these Muslims just because they wanted to escape!!!!! this isn't Islam, this is terrorism and just because a terrorist is a Muslim does not mean Islam advocates terrorism and honestly? everyone fails to see how the majority of terrorism Muslim victims are Muslims. | 34 |
[LotR] Why would Elrond allow Boromir, a man who has clearly shown interest in the Ring, to join the Fellowship? | I know that Boromir was a noble man and an excellent fighter, but still... This is a quest that's already borderline impossible, and it seems like a massive risk. | 22 | Politics - Boromir was the rightful representative of the Kingdoms of Men, sent personally by the Steward of Gondor. Elrond had no authority to prevent the Fellowship from forming nor does he control its composition - hence why Merry and Pip are allowed to join with a minimum of consternation. | 33 |
ELI5: Why is dry firing a bow so harmful but adding an arrow makes it safe? | How does adding an arrow change the weight? | 678 | Normally, the potential energy stored in the bow by the action of pulling back the string is all applied to the arrow you shoot.
If you release the string with no arrow to receive all the hullabaloo, this energy is instead transferred to the bow itself, which cam be enough to break or shatter it, causing splinters in the eye or even a cut up hand or arm. | 886 |
ELI5: Why our eyes redden when we cry even when we don't rub them with our hands? | 30 | The process of crying involves inflammation, size increases in the blood vessels in the eye (vasodilation) and water retention.
It might also involve thousands of tiny salt knives chopping up your eyeballs, though. Who knows. | 23 |
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If pushed, would a frictionless marble roll across a surface or glide? | 16 | If it was pushed in-line with its center of mass it would glide, and if it was given some torque as it was pushed it would have a rolling component, but it wouldn't roll without slipping, which is what most people mean when they think of rolling. | 16 |
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[The Good Place] Doug Forcett's Points | How was Doug Forcett still able to accumulate points after he became aware of the system? It's explicitly stated that Doug's entire goal is get as many points as he can in order to get into the Good Place. It's also explicitly discussed that angling for moral dessert is a corrupt motivation, and doesn't net any points. Yet Doug still manages to have a pretty hefty point total compared to other people. How? | 36 | Cause he still didn't actually know for sure. He was just putting his faith in a guess about how the universe and afterlife could work, like most everyone else on Earth.
It just happened to be the most extraordinarily accurate guess in human history. | 66 |
[LOTR] If the first king of Numenor encouraged scientific research, how would the events play out by the time of the last alliance? | Assume subsequent kings also supported research. | 28 | What makes you think they didn't?
The Numenoreans were *by far* the most advanced civilization throughout the stories we see. Their construction of buildings alone would make them this, but the also made great advancements in ship building and medicine. | 18 |
ELI5: How do game programmers develop a game for console if it’s not playable on PC. Mainly in testing if the code is working, is there a developer console that bridges the gap between pc code and actual consoles? | 24 | Yes, console manufacturers make developer consoles. Usually you can load games over the network, attach debuggers, take screen caps, gather performance data, and such like that. They may actually have more RAM and CPU power than a normal console, in order to support these functions while your game is running.
Of course, you usually can't connect to any online services with them because it would allow massive hacking. | 32 |
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Can you fuse any two pieces of the same material in space just like metal? | We know that on earth here when we cut two pieces of metal the freshly cut surface oxidizes preventing the metal from joining back together,
Though in space the metal does not oxidize and is able to fuse back together into a single piece of metal,
My question is, is this the case for all material? For example wood, (I don’t know why we can’t fuse that back together on earth) if we took a piece of wood to the vacuum of space could we fuse it back together just through pressure?
And if we can’t, can someone explain why we can’t? | 32 | For this kind of cold-welding process to work, you need a few things to happen:
1. The two surfaces have to come into atomically close contact, with relatively few gaps between the materials, to form a strong bond at the interface to be joined. In other words, the atoms or molecules have to be in close enough contact to form a chemical bond.
2. Once in close contact, a large fraction of the atoms have to be chemically capable of forming bonds with each other.
Metals often satisfy these two conditions because they behave something like atoms floating in a “sea” of electrons, with a lot of flexibility in the spatial arrangement of the atoms. This makes the metals malleable (edit: and more importantly, ductile), so the interfaces can be smushed together to remove most gaps or imperfections at the interface, especially if there is no air in the way. Can’t do that with wood, which has a more rigid structure (made mostly of organic molecules that are much more specific in their spatial bonding geometries) that can’t be deformed much from its equilibrium structure.
Also, since metal atoms can easily form metallic bonds with many neighbors, which are often the same kind of atom, one part of the surface will look much like any other, and you don’t have to “match” the surfaces perfectly with respect to binding partners. Every atom at one surface could pretty much bind any atom of the other surface, with little reorganization needed. Wood, on the other hand, is a complex mixture of organic molecules comprising carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, phosphorus, and other elements that bond with each other in rather specific ways. For any given atom on a surface, it’s unlikely it’ll find itself next to an atom on the other surface that is capable of binding to it without significant input of energy (and probably catalysis of some kind).
So, with wood, there will be significant gaps throughout much of the interface, and most of the parts that do touch won’t be reactive with each other. So, no bond will form. | 39 |
Now that banks have zero reserve requirements, how will this amplify the money multiplier effect? | I've read that the money multiplier formula is 1/r. When the RR was 10%, $1 in deposits = $10 created in the banking system. If the reserve requirement is 0, then won't this allow for unlimited money creation? | 18 | We have different ways of regulating banks now.
We don't have a "reserve requirement" but we have max leverage and regulatory capital requirements that effectively require banks to hold reserves sufficient reserves. | 16 |
ELI5: How did no one notice that tens of millions of cars were not meeting their emissions standards until now? | 123 | They were meeting their emission standards. That's the whole scam.
I assume you're asking about the VW situation going on now.
The software that runs in the computer that controls the engine and emission control systems was written to detect when the emission tests were being performed and *only while the tests were being performed*, to reduce the car's emissions. During the periods of emissions testing, when the computer put the car into low emissions mode, the performance of the vehicle, mileage, acceleration, etc., went way down. When the software did not detect that an emissions test was being performed the computer boosted performance and emissions went through the roof. This meant that when they were doing emissions testing they got great emissions results and when they were separately doing performance testing they got great performance results. They advertised both the emissions and performance results and people expected, reasonably, that the configuration of the vehicle was the same in both tests which it was not. | 56 |
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Who has a greater epigenetic contribution, the mother or the father? | My limited understanding of epigenetics is that it refers to changes in gene expression, not due to changes in the DNA itself but instead via mechanisms such as DNA methylation and histones, and that these changes may be heritable. It is therefore possible for behaviors during an individual's lifetime to alter the gene expression of that individual's offspring. As far as I can tell, both parents contribute to epigenetics.
I was wondering, since the sperm and ova are quite different, are the epigenetic changes equally well preserved for both parents? To put it another way, does the prior lifestyle of either parent have a greater bearing on the gene expression of the child? | 53 | I think you're asking the question too early - we only know a handfull of imprinted genes, in which the gene from one specific parent is always disabled.
But yes, epigenetic changes are equally well conserved, in that you always get one set of marks from your mother, and one set from your father - however, which parent's epigenetic marks make the greater impact is something we won't know for a while.
Source: work in an developmental epigenetics lab as a bioinformatician. | 22 |
Why is Iran so heavily forested in the north? | Looking at google maps, Iran seems to have a stark change in it's climate and ecology just north of Tehran. What causes this? | 252 | There's a low point from the Caspian Sea that leads south to a mountain range. Most moisture from the sea comes down here as rain.
The rest of Iran doesn't get much precipitation, and the places that do mostly get snow. | 263 |
CMV: The first woman president getting there because of the 25th Amendment is not a good look for female empowerment. | I've seen conservatives on Twitter trying to invoke the 25th Amendment after a clip of Joe Biden at the end of a press conference "looking confused" and the staffers asking the reporters to leave.
I don't think Kamala Harris, potentially the first female president getting to that office would be considered a success for the female empowerment movement. There would be a side note on her that detractors can say "she only got there because a man had to drop out". This would be similar to Mackenzie Bezos being the richest woman because she got half of Jeff's fortune. Detractors are saying that the man did all the hard work.
It would be better if the first woman president runs a successful primary campaign and wins the election as that says more about the nation than getting there through some roundabout back door.
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edit: I wish I could see comments on why this is getting down voted. | 217 | Regardless of how a woman becomes the first president, there are going to be people complaining about how it happened. Yes, in this case people would say "blah blah only the 25th", but if she got elected in a campaign there are going to be people saying "blah blah, she only won because people voted for a woman, not because of her competence, sexism against men blah blah".
And becoming president by the 25th isn't some "roundabout back door", it's explicitly written into the system. She got elected Vice-President with and thus as a possible successor to Biden if anything happened. | 173 |
What would space look like if WE were the furthest planet in the furthest galaxy in the universe? | I think the answer to this is 'no one knows', but I thought I would ask you guys to be certain.
As we are in the middle(sort of) of a galaxy in the middle(sort of) of the universe, when we look out to space via telescopes or the naked eye, we see stars and galaxies and black/nothingness.
My question is what if we were the furthest galaxy, on the edge of the known universe? What would we see when we looked up and out?
Nothing? An unknown?
My way of thinking is that because we would be closer to the edge of the universe, light would not yet have travelled to the point we would be looking at. Am I right in thinking this? So therefore we would be unable to see past a certain point? | 25 | It would *most likely* still look more or less the same. If we were to be on the edge of our presently observable universe, we'd be at the center of some other observable universe. There would just be more galaxies and stars. As it stands, we are in fact, at the exact *center* of our observable universe. But every point in space is the center of its observable universe, that's kind of the point. The observable universe is just all of the points in space-time that have had a chance to send light to your point in space-time.
It gets debated on here *ad nauseum* but the scientific consensus view is that the universe is *very likely* to be infinite in size. | 35 |
ELI5: Why does putting lemon/ lime juice on fruit keep it from browning? | I've always wondered why lemon juice slows the browning of fruits (apples, avocados). If this had something do do with the surface being exposed to air, wouldn't any type of liquid/ solid barrier work?
Thanks! | 25 | Oxygen reacts with a chemical (polyphenol oxidase) in plants, this reaction leaves the fruit brown (kind of like rusting). Lemons and other acidic fruits have ascorbic acid which also reacts with oxygen. The oxygen reacts with the ascorbic acid instead of the polyphenol oxidase until the acid is used up. | 13 |
Why is Luke dragging Vader in the end of Return of the Jedi? | I just learned of this sub (thanks to bestof) so I thought I would ask a question that has bugged me since the 80's. I'm not a huge fan of science fiction but do enjoy some so excuse my ignorance.
Question: Why in the end of Return of the Jedi does Luke drag Vader while trying to get him off the Death Star? Why doesn't he just use the force to carry him? | 25 | Even by that time, Luke was not proficient enough in the force for such fine control like that. He received very little formal training, almost a crash-course in being a Jedi. He'd lifted rocks before but not consciously and with any control, and his emotions broke his concentration and he dropped them.
He was very emotional at the time, just having witnessed his fathers act of redemption and mortal wounding. He was in no mindset for such control. Mentally exhausted,not to mention being physically exhausted. | 49 |
[Matrix] How did Neo use his abilities outside of the Matrix? | 63 | Remember the Architect's Speech at the end of Reloaded? He says Zion is a holding pen for the people who can't conform to the Matrix. That never sat right with me. The machines just let the humans into the real world? Where they could do real damage to the machines? No, they created a second Matrix, one that has a different programming that will allow the rebels of Matrix Prime to conform. Neo realizes this, but doesn't reveal it to anyone (it would invalidate everything the People of Zion fought for) thus allowing him to use special abilities in the "real world." | 77 |
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How do animals think if they can't speak? | I mean, I know how they think, they think with a brain. But do they speak in language or pictures? An English person thinks in English. A Russian person thinks in Russian. A Chinese person thinks in Chinese. A Spanish person thinks in Spanish. Bugs, mammals, insects, animals in general, cannot speak. They make noises occasionally, though. But how do they think? Do they think in pictures? If they can't speak they probably don't know languages, so they don't think in languages, right? How do they think, or do they at all? | 56 | Well, first think about your thoughts. Do you always think in terms of language, or do you sometimes think in terms of wants, and wishes? Such as, you feel thirst, and the image of a glass of water flashes in your mind, and it pleases you. Or you need to jump across something, and it just doesn't feel like you could make it. Not all thoughts are complex enough to require language. | 65 |
Do cellulose based plastics pose any of the same hazards as petroleum based plastics? | If not, is the only reason for not switching to primarily cellulose plastic money? | 4,139 | Cellulose-based plastics were some of the first "plastics" discovered. Although there are constant innovations, the cellulose backbone just doesn't work in all the situations we need it to. That's why we made others. Further, many of them are not biodegradable and most require petrochemicals to make anyway. | 1,687 |
Did not receive all the reviews for a rejected article.... | /rant, sorry!
Waited 4 months for peer review at a pretty prestigious journal. Got a rejection... The rejection letter said
"The Reviewers' comments on your work have now been received. You will see that they are advising against publication of your work. Therefore I must reject it."
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BUT they only provided reviewer 3's comments and they were pretty favorable. I am NOT salty about the rejection (I kind of knew it was a long shot).. but to not provide comprehensive feedback from all the reviewers is a miscarriage of the whole peer review process, IMO.
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Then I get a feedback form (generic) from the publisher - a survey about author services. Many strongly worded comments were made.
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EDIT: Yes, I have asked twice, using the 'correspondence' function in the editorial manager - with no response at all. Am thinking now I may need to go another route, maybe find an actual email address and reach out? Thoughts? | 25 | I know for a fact (Elsevier's review workshop) that the Editors are recommended to cut out very harsh reviews for obvious reasons. That could be one issue.
Another possibility is that the reviewer wrote directly to the editor pointing at a fundamental issue with the submission without referring to the authors.
It is also common that the handling editor does not wait for all reviews and rejects as soon as one of the well-trusted reviewers of the journal rejects.
The other possibility is that the editorial office mistakenly did not include all review letters because, for example, some reviewer did not fill out the online form but instead sent the review letter per Email's attachment. | 27 |
If it's my ball, there is nothing wrong with me taking it and going home whenever I want. CMV | The phrase "I'm going to take my ball and go home" is usually used to deride someone who doesn't get their way, so they leave whatever activity they are doing.
I think that this is a flawed way of looking at it. By using my ball,there is an implied agreement that using my property entitles me to dictate the parameters of the activity we are doing. If we do not play the game or do the activity in a way I can agree to, I have every right to refuse participation in the activity, and refuse the use of my property (the ball) in the activity as well.
I have never understood why this phrase exists to ridicule people, whether on the playground or otherwise. While I can understand the phrase being critical of people who are overly petty with results, I think the fact that they own the property entitles them to act as petty as they want to, and that their decision in that matter should be respected, not looked at with scorn.
I am applying this to situations both on the playground and in the adult world.
CMV. | 37 | I think that most people would agree that you *have the right* to walk away with your ball.
However, just because somebody has a right to do something, it doesn't mean that others are required to like it!
To put it another way, you *have the right* to take your ball, and the others *have the right* to think you're a dick for doing so. Maybe walking away with your ball reveals something about your personality to these people, and they don't like what they see? | 68 |
How did the Nazis misinterpret Nietzsche? | I've always heard people say that the Nazis misinterpreted Nietzsche and used him as part of their justification. Why is this?
Thanks | 29 | In a few ways:
* They took his overman principle and twisted it in to something unrecognizable. First, it has nothing to do with race, and as a side-light on the Nazi issue, Nietzsche all but disowned his sister for marrying an anti-semite. Only after his mental breakdown and the passing of his mother when he was helpless and insane did he & his sister "reconcile" when she started caring for him. The overman is an idea of self-overcoming, indeed something more than human; as an ape is to man so are we to the overman. We are merely a bridge to the overman who is yet to come, and to debase this concept and reduce it to a sort of mere racial superiority is to fundamentally misunderstand Nietzsche.
* Nietzsche was highly critical of the German people, and considered himself a European first and foremost. The Nazis, on the other hand, considered Germany the pinnacle of civilization and culture and in this they disagreed considerably with Nietzsche, while at the same time citing him as an example of German superiority.
* Another sense in which the Nazis misunderstood Nietzsche is in the case of socialism. They called themselves "national socialists" and while there is certainly a difference between what we would consider socialism today and what they were up to, the Third Reich does share more than a few important traits with prototypical socialism, including the overarching power of the state, the reduction of the importance of the indvidual in society and a near obsession with the working class and working class values. We typically think of socialism and fascism as being polar opposites on the political scale of left to right, but this is a false dichotomy (although that is another topic altogether). The thing is, Nietzsche despised socialism in all its forms, and stated his views quite clearly in a number of places. He would have been appalled at the Third Reich for many reasons, and certainly one of them would be the degree of socialism present in Germany in this period of history. His view of the "herd mentality" should be enough by itself to show how he would have felt about Nazism.
There are many other points on which Nazis failed their Nietzsche 101 class. In general, they selectively chose bits & pieces of what he wrote to fit their agenda, and tarnished his image while giving legitimacy to their own. History has, thankfully, largely ironed out both of these errors in the popular consciousness, though Nietzsche's legacy will never entirely be free of it. | 24 |
[Final Fantasy VI] Why are there so many random animals encountered that can use very high level spells despite most inhabitants can't use a link of magic? | While adventuring through the land I discovered a forest full of Dinosaurs. I fought many Tyrannosaurus and Brachiosaur while in there and was pelted with many a Meteor spell and Ultima spell. How is it that these random animals know such powerful spells while I can only use my weapons provided. Are these Dinosaurs espers or something? | 56 | Yes, magic-using animals are all part-Esper. They've either been directly breeding (as we saw with Maduin and Madonna, Esper breeding is magic-based, rather than biological) - or they've eaten bits of dead Esper.
The "Dinosaurs" You're seeing are actually a kind of Dragon, and Dragons are a species of Esper. They're not quite as powerful as the great dragons responsible for the Crusader seal, but they're significantly more numerous, and still a force to be reckoned with, as you've discovered. | 24 |
ELI5: Why are sim cards still used? Couldn't they just be done in software with modern smartphones? | 15 | The entire point of SIM cards is to have a hardware component that is replaceable and tied to an account. This is not a flaw in the design, it's a key feature.. It allows account switching on devices without tying up valuable phone company employee time. The account is tied to the SIM, not the phone. | 45 |
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ELI5: Why do some appliances say not to plug them to an extension cord but rather directly to a power source? | Also to add, will there be a difference if it’s plugged directly to a power source vs it is the only thing plugged to an extension cord? | 41 | Appliances that draw large amounts of current (like a microwave) can potentially exceed the rated current of a wall outlet if there are multiple other things plugged into the outlet. They might also draw more current than a (cheap) extension cord or power strip is rated for. Mostly, though, they just don't want you using an extension cord or power strip because it'll encourage you to plug more things into the outlet.
If you have an extension cord that is rated 15A or higher, then you should be able to plug just about any 120VAC household appliance into it without an issue (just don't leave a long extension cord coiled up while you use it- they can overheat that way). | 44 |
[Star Wars] How do they keep Droids from becoming true sentient AIs and killing everyone? Were there ever truly sentient AI machines? | 18 | So why does everyone assume a sentient AI is going to kill everyone? There were plenty of sentient droids around. For the most part they're friendly and enjoy their work. Droid rights aren't really what you'd call adequate in the Republic and certainly not the Empire, but droids get along anyway.
And beyond that, even if a droid got it in his head to start killing everybody, the same things that protect against biological sentients from doing that are still in effect. | 35 |
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(Marvel) How do Asgardians know English? | I am wondering because they know English but they are Norse Gods. | 26 | They aren't actually Norse Gods - they're a race of aliens so advanced that their technology, for all its Viking motifs, appears magical to us. This includes their implementation of Universal Translators. | 25 |
[Santa Claus] How damaging is Santa's activity to the legitimate manufacturers and retailers of toys? | It is common knowledge that the night before Christmas Santa Claus visits the home of hundreds of million (if not billion) children providing them a variable amount of toys for free with the sole condition of them being considered "good" on his personal evaluation.
Interesting enough, Santa is not only a distributor of toys: his headquarter in the North Pole houses a state of the art factory where a workforce composed entirely by elves produces directly the toys that are being carried by Santa on his slay. Considering that to please modern children Santa no longer delivers generic toys (teddy bears, wooden trains, rag-dolls) but branded toys from major companies (Barbie Dolls, Lego, game consoles) we can deduce that Santa's toy factory is capable of producing perfect imitations of all the toys on the market (including boxes, serial numbers and instructions) violating every conceivable laws of intellectual property and copyrights.
That being said how hard are damaged the legitimate companies producing and distributing toys by the unfair competition provided by Santa? The old man distributes toys for free to hundreds million of households in a period where the general public is in a spending spree, denting severely the market share of the toy makers and distributors and, even worst, he produces perfect imitations of established brands.
I can begin to quantify the amount of the economic damages produced by Santa, someone could speculate on it? | 26 | Despite the long and proud tradition of Santa's elves working tirelessly to make toys for all the good little boys and girls of the world, hardly *any* of the toys are manufactured at the North Pole facility anymore. It's been that way for several decades now.
The toy manufacturers and retailers of the world get significant tax breaks by donating some of their inventory to Santa, and it's pretty good for their public relations. The manufacturing parts of Santa's operation are currently more focused on building and maintaining high-magitek sleighs that can haul such large amounts of gifts without sacrificing speed or safety. | 32 |
Why didn't American companies outsource to Latin America instead of to East Asia? | 57 | They did. US companies had many facilities in Latin America already, and they've been there a long time
In the 80s however China was completely untapped, and poorer than any Latin American country. And therefore labor there was cheapest
Until the 70s China was a "'closed" country, much the way North Korea is today. China was the best investment opportunity the world had ever seen | 44 |
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ELI5: What's the difference between intensive care medicine and emergency medicine? | 19 | Emergency care is about stabilising people so they can be treated for the problem whether that's a cast on a broken leg or emergency surgery following a car accident. They are about treating what is found and immediate life saving or harm reduction and moving people on either to further care or home one treatment competed
Intensive care is very high dependency care usually 1to1 nursing for someone who is very seriously ill or in a condition that needs constant monitoring. So following complicated surgery or sepsis or ventilation required for example. People can be on itu/icu for long term treatment or just a few hours during surgery recovery. They are likely discharged to a normal ward or high dependancy ward for further recovery. (high dependancy may be 1to 3 nursing for those who need more care than a ward but not as much as icu) | 28 |
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ELI5:What does Aspirin do to us? | 15 | So aspirin has a couple of therapeutic effects. It is known as a salicylate (this is important later on) and a NSAID, non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. To start it is an antipyretic, also known as a fever reducer, much like Tylenol.
It is also an anti inflammatory, aka stops swelling, and an analgesic, aka stops pain.
It’s most common use though is for anti platelet which means that it lowers the platelet amount in your body in order to prevent clots, which can wreak havoc if they get to the lungs or brain. In the lungs it causes a pulmonary embolism and in the brain it causes a stroke. It also is used to prevent heart attacks due to these properties. If platelets are higher than 450,000 per microliter of blood, there is an increased risk for these clots. Aspirin will lower the function of platelets sticking together and prevent coagulation.
However, you cannot give aspirin to a child as it can cause Reye syndrome, which is deadly. If you’d like me to go into depth about the other three effects let me know, but there are much better options for those, including for children.
Edit: misspoke, evidence of comment down below. Sorry guys, doing multiple things at once! | 18 |
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ELI5: What causes flu season? Where does it go during the summer months and how does it come back? | 21 | It is not so much that it is a "season, but rather the conditions that occur. The easiest way to spread the flu is to be is close contact with people. During the colder winter months, people stay inside more often and that causes exposure to more people that might have the flu. Compared to summer where people are outside more often and although they may come into contact with someone who has the flu, they are not constantly exposed to multiple people who have it. | 11 |
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[Halo] Roland has clothes, but Cortana doesn't. Was Halsey in a nudist stage of her life while designing Cortana? Why doesn't she have clothes? | Besides the obvious, I mean | 57 | Smart A.I. Choose their avatars.
Araqiel was just a floating skull.
BlackBox preferred a featureless cube.
Cortana's avatar is very simplistic. Her designed Avatar is actually covered in equations and mathematical prompts that are influenced by what's she is working on. She's not so much naked as she is always covered by code, like a morph suit. | 80 |
Bergson and neuroscience | In *Matter and Memory* Henri Bergson seems to propose that human beings unconsciously retain 100% of our experiences in memory and that a failure to remember a particular \`something\` is more of a mechanical/physiological error on the part of the brain specifically than a non-existence of the memory. I will say that I am not an experienced scholar in this area of study so I may be misunderstanding his position. I would like to know whether there is any empirical evidence in modern neuroscience to support his claim? I understand that in many of Bergson\`s ideas he gives very little reasoning or explanation in the first place but I do feel as though there is some truth to the idea and have had similar thoughts about memories that seems to appear out of nowhere. | 43 | That's not really what Bergson is arguing. Bergson is a dualist (though a very unique one); what he wants to show is how pure experience surpasses the brain so to speak, and that it's the brain that funnels or filters this pure experience into the experience that corresponds with successful bodily/practical action in the world. He has a very functionalist account of how the mind works *at the level of cerebral activity*: the brain isn't a box of memories, but a collection of operations or a set of rules to use pure experience (or pure past time) in a way that allows us to function in the world. | 11 |
Why does the oxygen absorber that comes with the frozen pizza get really hot after I remove it from the package? | To clarify; I open the pizza bag, remove the pizza, and take the absorber off the cardboard bottom of the pizza. I set it down and a few minutes later it’s hot to the touch. Happens every time.
Thank you for sharing your wisdom! [usually they look like this](https://imgur.com/a/nr2oq62)
Edit: out of curiosity, we [opened it](https://imgur.com/a/nOrbEHN) this was opened the morning after it was removed from the bag.
I’ll try to post when I get a new one to compare results
Edit 2: bought a new one, tried to [get it open](https://imgur.com/a/tyKftfd) ASAP after removing it from the pizza bag | 1,061 | Oxygen absorbers typically work through the oxidation of iron contained in the package. The oxygen in the air bonds with the iron to form iron-oxide (rust). Along with iron, the package typically also contains other substances, such as sodium-chloride (salt) which serves as a catalyst to greatly speed up the reaction.
The oxidation reaction is exothermic, which means that it produces heat. So when you take the packet out of the closed pizza box (which, by now, is low on oxygen) and expose it to regular air with regular oxygen levels, it will rapidly start the oxidation process and produce heat. | 806 |
How do they make decaffeinated coffee? | I would really like to know. | 132 | You know the gas, carbon dioxide (CO2)? If you squeeze it really tightly--put it under very high pressure--it actually behaves kind of like a liquid. Like a liquid, it can dissolve things, like water can dissolve salt. Imagine you have a toy that's covered in salt that you want to get rid of. A simple way of getting rid of the salt would be to toss the toy in some water. The salt dissolves, but the toy is intact, and you end up with a salt-free toy.
Coffee decaffeination works in a similar way, except instead of water, this liquid-like CO2 is used. This CO2 can dissolve caffeine, but not other things in a coffee bean. So if you run this special CO2 over a batch of coffee beans, you'll take out all of the caffeine, leaving you with caffeine-free coffee beans. And, as a special bonus: you also get a bunch of pure caffeine dissolved in this special CO2, which you can sell to companies that put caffeine in their products! And getting the caffeine out is really easy. In the salty toy example, if you wanted to get your salt back, you would have to evaporate the water that the salt was dissolved in. That can take a long time. But with the special CO2, you simply un-squeeze it, and then it becomes normal gaseous CO2, leaving you with your caffeine. | 248 |
How do we know how big neutron stars are? | I've heard they are around 20 km in diameter. But how on earth do we know this when they are so far away? Is it just a guess based on their mass? | 101 | We don't.
It's a big open question right now.
We know how massive they are, we can get that from observations of orbiting binaries.
To get their radius, we have to interpret other observations, or use theory. For example, we know what neutron stars are made of, so we can predict how 'squishy' the neutrons and protons in their core are. Knowing this, we can calculate the radius of a neutron star of a given mass. But we don't know *exactly* what they're made of, and we don't know *exactly* how squishy that stuff is. So we're modeling them. At present, we know they're about 11-13 km in radius or so, but hopefully we'll know it to within 10% once the NICER mission gives us some results. | 54 |
I think the anti-bullying crusade will have some negative consequences. CMV | I think anti-bullying will consolidate a hierarchical authority structure. It causes kids in particular to appeal to authority whenever they encounter social problems.
Furthermore, the accusation of bullying becomes just one more way to persecute people. As a substitute teacher several years ago at a school with an aggressive anti-bullying stance I noticed that accusations of bullying had become a method of penalizing students that were not liked. Students would pick on "the bully" and when the bully inevitably erupted[it was often a student with developmental problems] the cry would rise up that the student was bullying someone.
The term will become overused until it is just another tool that kids can use in the inevitable social warfare that is childhood. | 29 | Research shows that kids who bully more are more popular among their peers, and popularity has a high correlation with many types of success. Re-framing and emphasizing that bullying is a reprehensible trait from a young age should result in a social flip-flop of those that achieve success and power. We may begin to see individuals being hired for their intellectual merit rather than for projecting deluded American over-confidence. A more accurate treatment and eventual eradication of bullying could revolutionize the school system and the management/power structure currently used.
All your example describes is disability bullying and group accusation bullying. The victim would just be accused of something else if bullying was not convenient. The teacher has to be able to discern the truth in conflicts between their students. If bullying accusations are being abused to disguise bullying or for reverse-bullying, the teacher should simply punish the guilty party. The term children use to gang up on or label a victim does not complicate the judgment process. | 14 |
[Final Fantasy X] Does the water have anomalous properties or are some people just really, really good at holding their breath? ...Gills? | In the blitzball spheres, in the sea... Everyone seems to just jump in and stay underwater indefinitely, even through intense activity and combat. | 30 | The water contains pyreflys, which work with the machina that make the water float in a sphere. They help support the players while they play, although it also does require training and impressive stamina. | 13 |
[MegaMind] MegaMind is serving 85 life sentences, does this mean that he has killed at least 85 people? | 33 | US justice system sometimes has brainfarts by combining the years from several convictions, so there were cases where people got sentenced to six hundred years in jail or some shit like this.
Considering that MegaMind is very adept at causing mayhem, it's likely some judge had enough of his shit and just counted every violation for max time and summed it up together. | 54 |
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Why do you sometimes temporarily lose your hearing when yawning? | Edit: more of an impairment that a complete loss of hearing, I can still hear it’s just muffled and quite. | 19 | When you yawn you end up flexing your tensor tympani muscle, a muscle in the ear that is used to dampen loud sounds like when you chew food.
Some people can flex this muscle independently of yawning. One way you might be able to do so is by shutting your eyes very tightly and kind of scrunching your face as you do so. It should sound like a low rumbling sound. | 22 |
[X-Men] Why are so many mutants blue? | As opposed to other possible colors? | 56 | Maybe the genetic markers for the X-gene predispose to blue coloration in some kind of link, like red hair and freckles or needing more paint medicine, or blue eyes and higher alcohol tolerance. Or, y'know, lots of people have relation to Apokalypse. | 46 |
ELI5: what was WWI fought over? | It's fifteen minutes into Remembrance Day here, but I don't know what I'm remembering. I know that millions of soldiers and millions of civilians died and that everyone basically pointed the finger at Germany at the end of the war, and I'm somewhat familiar with the Gallipoli campaign and the ANZAC legend, but that's the extent of my knowledge.
What went on there? | 47 | If World War 1 was a bar fight
Germany, Austria and Italy are standing together in the middle of a pub when Serbia bumps into Austria and spills Austria’s pint.
Austria demands Serbia buy it a complete new suit because there are splashes on its trouser leg.
Germany expresses its support for Austria’s point of view.
Britain recommends that everyone calm down a bit.
Serbia points out that it can’t afford a whole suit, but offers to pay for the cleaning of Austria’s trousers.
Russia and Serbia look at Austria.
Austria asks Serbia who it’s looking at.
Russia suggests that Austria should leave its little brother alone.
Austria inquires as to whose army will assist Russia in compelling it to do so.
Germany appeals to Britain that France has been looking at it, and that this is sufficiently out of order that Britain should not intervene.
Britain replies that France can look at who it wants to, that Britain is looking at Germany too, and what is Germany going to do about it?
Germany tells Russia to stop looking at Austria, or Germany will render Russia incapable of such action.
Britain and France ask Germany whether it’s looking at Belgium.
Turkey and Germany go off into a corner and whisper. When they come back, Turkey makes a show of not looking at anyone.
Germany rolls up its sleeves, looks at France, and punches Belgium.
France and Britain punch Germany. Austria punches Russia. Germany punches Britain and France with one hand and Russia with the other.
Russia throws a punch at Germany, but misses and nearly falls over. Japan calls over from the other side of the room that it’s on Britain’s side, but stays there. Italy surprises everyone by punching Austria.
Australia punches Turkey, and gets punched back. There are no hard feelings because Britain made Australia do it.
France gets thrown through a plate glass window, but gets back up and carries on fighting. Russia gets thrown through another one, gets knocked out, suffers brain damage, and wakes up with a complete personality change.
Italy throws a punch at Austria and misses, but Austria falls over anyway. Italy raises both fists in the air and runs round the room chanting.
America waits till Germany is about to fall over from sustained punching from Britain and France, then walks over and smashes it with a barstool, then pretends it won the fight all by itself.
By now all the chairs are broken and the big mirror over the bar is shattered. Britain, France and America agree that Germany threw the first punch, so the whole thing is Germany’s fault . While Germany is still unconscious, they go through its pockets, steal its wallet, and buy drinks for all their friends. | 171 |
[Harry Potter 5] In Harry's trial, why is the fact that Dudley already knows about magic never brought up? | In Order of the Phoenix, why is the fact that Dudley already knows about the existence of magic from things like Hagrid's visit in Book 1, the cake incident with Dobby in Book 2, and Harry's accidental magic as a child not brought up? It probably wouldn't be enough to change the outcome on its own, but surely it might away a few people to know that the Muggle in question already knew magic existed and the secret was kept with him and his family? | 660 | Because it's kangaroo court. Harry was a known dissonant by the administration for claiming the return of Voldemort. They gathered a full wizengamot for a minor charge and shifted the time in an effort to trip up the defense. The point was to get Harry on a technicality, and the law is performing magic in front of a muggle, whether that muggle has previously had the same violation occur with them is immaterial to the charge. | 648 |
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