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If each atom has its own spectral lines, how does blackbody radiation cover all possible frecuencies?
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I mean,a copper filament emits according to the temperature, but shouldn't it emit only in the "copper spectrum"?
| 47 |
The natural lines are broadened and shifted by different effects. There is Doppler broadening, which refers to the Doppler effect shifting the emission wavelength, because the emitter is moving. Since the particles have a random distribution of speeds, this converts a single spectral line into a Gaussian distribution. Similarly there are interaction effects (like pressure broadening), a particle temporarily shifts its energy levels (and thus its emission light), while close by another particle. These effects average out the narrow spectral lines and you end up with the black body spectrum.
But no object is a true black body radiator. E.g. if you put copper dust into a flame it will look more greenish than an ideal black body. Or look at fireworks, depending on their ingredient they glow in different colors.
TL/TD: It is a statistical effect, averaging out the emission from many particles being in random states.
| 12 |
[Harry Potter] Why couldn't Harry have used Hermione's Time Turner to go back and stop Voldemort and his parents dying? Thus stopping years of tragedy?
| 64 |
Time travel in Harry Potter doesn't work that way. Rather, it works in causality loops. Harry can't save his parents in the past because they're already dead in the future. This is how the Patronus works in the third book - he knows he can cast one because he already casts one in the past/future.
| 111 |
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How does a hypothetical Alcubierre drive solve any problems with relativity at all?
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It seems to me that the "Alcubierre drive" doesn't actually solve any problems that it attempts to. It's supposed to allow faster than light travel because the spaceship using it isn't actually moving with respect to the space around it, but why does that matter? The space inside the bubble including the ship, would still be moving relativistically with respect to everything else in the universe, and would still be limited by c. Isn't that the only thing that matters?
The contraction of space that an Alcubierre drive creates is kinda like Lorentz contraction, in that it would allow something to traverse more space in less time. Which is how muons created in the upper atmosphere make it to Earth's surface before they decay. However, Lorentz contraction still has an upper limit at the speed of light, and it still requires exponentially more energy the more contraction you want.
I don't get why this was even a popular idea in the first place?
| 1,259 |
It can still be used to communicate back in time as part of a "tachyonic anti-telephone." If two things outside each others' light cones can communicate (it doesn't matter how, or what tricks are used), then with the right choice of reference frames they can communicate back in time.
It also violates the energy conditions of the universe, requires negative-energy-density material, and a host of other issues.
Alcubierre did not conceive of this because he thought it could be made. He did it because it was an amusing trick to do with the mathematics of general relativity. Most of his other work involves simulations of black holes colliding, which is also really cool.
edit: One other thing: people, including Alcubierre, often cite the Casimir effect as evidence of negative energy density. It is not. It is a relativistic van der Waals attraction, which can be derived much more easily in a non-rigorous way using a toy model of negative energy and vacuum fluctuations.
| 436 |
[Always Sunny In Philadelphia] Why have none of the gang faced jail time? How have they not faced jail time? They did community service for a short amount of time and nothing after that... Why?
| 269 |
Frank is a cash cow. He has untold wealth somewhere in the 8 figure range. And they are all white... in Philadelphia. The old saying goes money talks and bullshit walks. The gang has an impressive blend of a financial backing and some strange toonforce. So their bullshit can slide by.
| 235 |
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[MCU] "The Time and Mind Stones are safe on Earth. They're with the Avengers." Exactly how powerful are the Avengers compared to other forces in the universe? Thanos easily defeated Xandar and Asgard within a few days. Did Thor really think the Avengers would be enough to keep the stones safe?
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The last time Thor was with the Avengers was 2015. At that time the roster was Iron Man, Captain America, War Machine, Falcon, Vision (with the Mind Stone), Scarlet Witch, and Hawkeye. In 2017 he learned Doctor Strange held the Time Stone, and he could assume Hulk safely got to Earth via the Bifrost. Did Thor really think this would be enough? When Thor said this Thanos had two Stones and was on his way to get a third. It took less than that to decimate Xandar and Asgard. Did Thor really think the Avengers would be able to fight off Thanos, or was it more of a "They're our last hope for two of these Stones so they'd better be enough"?
| 305 |
I think this is the usual advantage given to humans in fantasy/sci-fi: creativity and/or dedication. Also, they're an entity Thanos is unused to dealing with and one he can't predict. It's not that they're more powerful, it's that they have some traits that may help.
He was right, in the end, while Earth didn't keep the stones safe, creativity and scientific experimentation of humans is what restored the universe, not those other, more technologically and socially advanced groups.
| 197 |
cmv: Man should be able to terminate child support and parental duties if he does it within legal window that the woman could have an an abortion. (Per locality)
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Is this a solid view? Are there any counter arguments?
Im not interested in debating abortion ethically on this one. I'm just saying that IF the woman has rights to an abortion, man should have similar rights.
A man shouldnt be able to force anyone to get an abortion, but he SHOULD have rights to TERMINATE CHILD SUPPORT and other parental duties, if he does it within the time that the mother could have gotten an abortion. And if she doesn't tell him she's pregnant, he should not have to pay at all. Also I would even extend it to -- she must tell him within the first trimester so he can make the most informed decision, because his own ethical concerns about abortion are at stake too.
What do you think?
| 185 |
It's not about giving parents the right to not be a parent, it's about providing an environment for the child to prosper in. Abortion and not paying child support are not the same because in one, you cancel the needs of the child, whereas in the other, you merely ignore them.
| 153 |
ELI5: Embezzlement
| 15 |
Embezzlement covers a rather diverse group of crimes, but let me give you a straightforward, concrete example.
Suppose Bob works at a roofing company, and part of his job is to buy roofing tiles. Bob talks to his friend Charles, who sells roofing tiles, and agrees to let Charles overcharge Bob's company for those tiles. Instead of paying $30,000 dollars for the tiles Bob needs, the company pays $50,000. The extra $20,000 is embezzled from the company.
| 10 |
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I love SPAM. No really, the actual product. How did it become associated with junk email?
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Spam get a bad reputation, however it's really just salted ham and pressed pork shoulder. The Hawaiians are crazy about it. Slice it really thin and pan fry it, it's almost as good as bacon.
| 289 |
IIRC, junk e-mail got nicknamed "Spam" as a reference to a Monty Python sketch in which two women are talking and they mention Spam (the product). Over the course of the sketch, Spam is mentioned more and more frequently. By the end, virtually every word spoken was "Spam".
| 395 |
[General Sci-Fi] Are there any science fiction franchises in which humans inhabit more than just a single galaxy?
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Dune is the only series I have read that encompasses the known Universe, in which humans have inhabited countless galaxies. This concept is far more fascinating to me than just taking over one galaxy and I am almost done reading this series. I am looking for good recommendations. Let me know if there is a better subreddit for such a question... or engage me in a stimulating conversation.
For the record, I am not looking for alternate dimensions or anything like that, just humans living in multiple galaxies at once.
| 15 |
Stargate has humans living in the Milky Way and in the Pegasus Galaxy.
I believe theres also humans in the galaxy the Ori come from and theres the poor bastards that got stuck on the Destiny as it wandered the Stars
| 27 |
[Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings] Is [character] a good guy now? [Minor Spoilers]
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Abomination seems to be on friendly terms with Wong, who is a good guy.
Is Abomination good now?
| 33 |
Abomination until his Harlem rampage was a "good" soldier and didn't turn mindless. There is a good chance the time in Cyro Cells helped him figure out that fighting Hulk was a bad idea and he reformed.
| 40 |
[Superman] what is the daily planets stance on people showing up late?
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Do they get disciplined for it hours cut and such because Clark has been showing up late since day one and here I am sitting in your office Mr. White about to be fired.
| 20 |
Listen, Clark Kent may be the source of a lot of problems at the Daily Planet, but he's also a damn good reporter. Possibly the best we have, next to Lois Lane, and that's only because she's a better writer. He has a knack for knowing the exact details of every disaster, and there isn't a story that he isn't able to research thoroughly and swiftly when we ask him to. He often gets us scoops on stories that nobody else in the city even knows about, and that kind of exclusivity is what keeps the Daily Planet a thriving publication in the internet age.
| 34 |
ELI5: If I could legally build a 10 km² yard extension out of dirt and sod off the coast of new Brunswick, have I officially increased the land area of Canada by 10 km²?
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Essentially? Is Canada (or any countries) land area a fixed number or are people responsible for making sure the number stays as accurate as possible?
| 50 |
Theoretically, but since 10 km^2 is only about 0.0001 percent of Canada's total land area, it doesn't really put a dent in the official number.
The problem with measuring the land area of a country, especially one with an astronomically long coastline like Canada, is that it's functionally impossible to accurately measure to even a relatively large margin of error.
| 28 |
CMV: Modern Feminism is doing the opposite of what they hope to achieve
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Edit: the issue is primarily with the extremist activists who would preach their ideology of feminism under the same banner as a more sensible group. Extremists being individuals who would put down the other gender in the fight for equality.
My view is primarily that the second-third wave of feminism causes more harm than good by causing animosity towards the people preaching it.
It may seem like an overstatement, but any time I hear the word patriarchy spoken seriously, or see that what should be a fight for equal rights is really just a focus on one half of the population, they are causing more of a divide than if they were to say nothing at all.
Saying this, there are very real issues in the middle-east that I can say do warrant feminism as there is a true patriarchy there, and I feel that the western-world's feminist problems are a joke compared to say, institutionalized racism or the middle-east.
CMV.
(p.s. The majority, but not all, of my experience with this issue comes from online, I've only met a couple of radical modern-feminists in real life).
| 26 |
First wave feminism primarily focused on ways in which women were legally oppressed, and made great strides in that.
The problem is that we still have a great deal of *cultural* oppression. The concept of "patriarchy" is perhaps not the best way to phrase things, but it's really not about male-hating. It's about an entire culture designed around women being primarily valuable for their appearance and reproductive potential, rather than as fully actualized human beings.
Sure, plenty of cultures *still* have that legal oppression that is much more obvious (and therefore, actually, much easier to fight). That doesn't mean that there's nothing left for feminism to fight in western cultures. Women still experience glass ceilings, are expected to take primary child care duties, and are rated as more *competent* when they wear makeup.
That's what 2nd wave feminism was focused on, and if you don't think they were successful, then you have a very strange view that culturally the 1950s and 2010 present the same opportunities to women, and there's nothing that has improved with regards to women's actual opportunities.
We're still only *now* seeing the possibility of a female president in the U.S., and as long as the people in power are largely men we'll still have a long way to go even on the things 2nd wave feminism is concerned with.
3rd wave feminism is primarily about how 1st and 2nd wave feminism have largely only improved the lot of (comparatively) rich white women in the modern era.
Indeed, one of their bigger focuses is on *exactly* those legal barriers that women still face in much of the 3rd world, and in subcultures imported from those areas.
Don't confuse the rhetoric of the extremist members of a movement for the goals of the movement itself.
| 40 |
[Star Wars] With Vader constantly murdering higher-ups, how did the Empire function?
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Like, even beyond the problem of killing every tactician you have, historically and in fiction, having your underlings shit themselves with fear of death over minor mistakes tends to make them more inefficient. Like, say, if something goes wrong, it's better not to report, else the giant cyborg wizard will kill you. In what way is that efficient at all? I know Vader's a sith lord, but, we're I the Emperor I'd try reigning that shit in. Better to be loved and respected than feared.
| 211 |
Darth Vader does not have free reign to kill the very top leaders for no reason. The scene in the original (where he chokes the guy making fun of Vader's ancient religion) is an exception since he was being disrespected in a way that he could not let stand. He even lets the guy go which would ordinarily be out of character for him. The people that Vader kills in ESB are well below him enough that he can get away with it.
He generally has to have a good reason for killing important Imperials. If he were weakening the Empire for no good reason then Palpatine would call him out on it.
EDIT: See the Darth Vader comic for more info on how he deals in Imperial politics. All his problems in that comic would go away if he could just force choke everybody left and right.
2nd EDIT: "PM /u/doughboy011 if you want links to the comic".
| 196 |
[MCU/Marvel] Is the full set of Infinity Stones truly omnipotent? Can it bring back dead people who died a long back?
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Like could Thanos just not bring back the titans?
| 31 |
>Is the full set of Infinity Stones truly omnipotent? Can it bring back dead people who died a long back?
Yes. While we've never explicitly seen the stones exhibit that kind of power, (Endgame spoilers)>!Thanos' plan to remake the entire universe, and his vast knowledge of the stones makes resurrecting someone seem relatively trivial. The only exception seems to be the sacrifice made to acquire the soul stone.!<
>Like could Thanos just not bring back the titans?
He could. He chose not to.
| 54 |
ELI5: the Christian relationship to the Old Testament. If the New Testament came along and changed much of the OT's doctrines, why is the OT still considered just as valid? Why isn't Christianity just based on the NT?
| 67 |
This is actually a pretty big question in some Christian communities. There is a question as to whether or not the Old Covenant is still "legally" binding to Christians. There are generally three trains of thought;
1) Christ's New Covenant was sealed and put into effect at the Sermon on the Mount, nullifying the Old Covenant.
2) Christ did *not* nullify the Old Covenant at the Sermon on the Mount, and the New Covenant only came into effect either at the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and/or after he rose from the dead after the three days, at which point the Old Covenant was nullified, and the New Covenant sealed, with the Last Supper being the traditionally held moment of importance. This is also the primary view held throughout most Christian denominations.
3) The Old and New Covenants are both binding, although the New Covenant obviously takes precedence if there's a conflict of doctrine.
This also calls into question what nullifying the Old Covenant means; some believe it means that literally everything in the Old Covenant is no longer important (other than the bits that the Rabbinic Jews refer to as the Seven Laws of Noah, which are basically covered in the 10 Commandments), while others believe that the Old Covenant should still be respected even though it's not important anymore. Furthermore, there are some that believe that the moral codes of the Old Testament are still binding, but the ceremonial codes aren't (which is how you get shellfish-eating homophobes, as well as other cases of people selectively following Old Testament rules).
So in short, to many Christian communities, the Old Testament *isn't* as valid, and is merely taught as a background needed in order to understand the New Testament and the New Covenant (particularly given that Jesus' authority at least partially comes from the prophecy of the Messiah, which is given in the Old Testament).
| 34 |
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[Game of Thrones] After Sam's greyscale treatment, did Jorah still have a functioning dick/balls?
| 15 |
First of all the precise status of Jorah's dick and ball is not made explicitly clear in the show. Also, the greyscale hadn't reached his entire body yet, so we don't even know if his dick and balls were even affected in the first place.
| 18 |
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Could an electric vehicle stand a chance in a racing event?
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Telsa released their new roadster just a bit ago, which is a very powerful car, and completely electric. Would an electric vehicle have any benefits in a race? Fuel efficiency or decreasing the weight of the car maybe?
| 18 |
The energy density of batteries is much lower than that of gasoline (or similar fuels). So to bring the same amount of total energy, an electric car will be heavier than a fuel-powered car. In addition, as the race progresses, fuel is burned and the fuel-powered car gets lighter. The batteries stay at the same weight, full or empty. So even though an electric engine is more efficient than a combustion engine, you'll need to drag more mass around the track for it to work.
However, electric engines do have a large advantage over combustion engines that could be useful in racing. A combustion engine produces it's highest torque in a specific RPM range. When accelerating from low speeds with a combustion engine, it may take some time to reach the point of maximum torque. Electric engines, on the other hand, can deliver their full torque immediately from the start. This difference is so significant that a modest full-electric vehicle can match high performance fuel-cars at a typical traffic light sprint.
So in a race that covers only a short distance (not much battery needed) and has many sharp corners that have a large reduction in speed (so the value of rapid acceleration is extra noticeable), an electric vehicle may come out ahead. In longer races with larger sections of straights or high speed turns, their advantage is rapidly nullified.
However, some race and sports cars use the best of both worlds. Many of the high-end sports cars are becoming hybrid-electric, using the electric engine for that extra punch, but relying on the good old fuel-burner for the longer haul. Formula 1 engines have incorporated a hybrid electric system for several years now (with battery management and deciding when to employ the electric boost becoming relevant skills for a driver).
| 43 |
CMV:I dont understand gay pride parades
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I'm im not homofibic and im sorry if I offend you, I really dont want to offend any one.
I dont understand the point of the parade, I mean I understand being proud of your sexuality and I completly support that but I just dont understand why a parade is necessary? I mean I get that if you go around with other people that are also a part of the lgbtq+ community could make you feel more confident and accepted, but is a parade the best way to do that I mean I dont think any homofobic persone will change is mind about the lgbtq+ cummunity seeing a parade so why not have a event or a convensain insted? I would love to hear some good resons to have a pride parade becauseim sure I must be missing them.
| 32 |
For decades and decades being gay was something to be horribly ashamed of.
It was looked down upon, it was seen as a perversion, and being outed as gay was akin to being outed as a perverted freak with severe consequences.
Pride parades started in part to push back against this massive cultural shaming of gay people, and instead of hiding their sexuality like they had done for decades, people openly flaunted it. Because why should they have to hide it?
Pride parades have been enormously successful in bringing attention to the intense injustice faced by the LGBTQ community, as well as serving as good bases upon which to call for political action and reform.
Now that being gay is more accepted by the year their initial purpose is less relevant, but there's still an intense amount of bigotry and discrimation even now.
Plus, parades are fun. It's a celebration of people being who they are and not being scared of it. What's so wrong with that? No one who doesn't like them has to go.
| 89 |
How do dolphins leap so high out of the water?
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They seem extremely capable of jumping great heights too, almost as if there is some evolutionary purpose.
As a bonus question if I may, WHY do they jump out of the water?
| 23 |
It's just a function of being able to swim fast.
Compare it to the ability to jump high by NFL tryouts.
They don't need the ability to hump high per se, but it comes with training for high speed running.
They even can jump higher than NBA players...
| 18 |
ELI5: In the United States, why are positions like Attorney General, Secretary of State, etc. appointed by the president at the federal level but elected by the people at the state level? Had it ever been proposed to do this differently?
| 215 |
The federal government was designed to primarily be a representative of the States, while the States would represent the People.
This is apparent in how the Federal Senate was initially chosen by the state legislatures (prior to a constitutional ammendment), and the Electoral College was initially also selected independent of the popular vote (that's screwy ATM because of state-level laws). Indeed, the House of Representatives still gets 0 say in federal nominations, appointments, or treaties.
As the State governments were viewed to be much closer and more relevant to the People, their state constitutions generally reflected this in directly voting in many more positions.
| 27 |
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[LOTR] How are they always getting sausages to eat?
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Throughout the films you see the hobbits cooking sausages at least 3 times. Where are they getting the sausages from? Don't they spoil?
| 52 |
Smoked and dried sausages last a very long time, being fairly effectively sealed away from bacteria and preserved. They make decent travel rations, not as long-lasting as hardtack or lembas, but still quite good.
| 94 |
[Marvel’s MCU Black Panther 2018 Movie] Earth’s resources are not evenly distributed. Some places have oil, others gold, etc. How does Wakanda seem to have all the resources needed for an industrial society? They don't trade with other nations, so are they just building everything out of Vibranium?
| 973 |
Wakanda has a couple things going for it. It is in one of the most resource-heavy parts of the world. Sub-Saharan Africa is DENSE with natural resources. And Wakanda is the most resource-filled part of that section of the world.
They also *do* trade with outside nations, they just pretend to be poor. Their largest export is textiles, so they do have some sort of trade going on.m
Their technological development was also built around Vibranium, so it's probably that they just didn't go the combustion engine route and never needed oil.
| 849 |
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ELI5: Why is the word "used" pronounced differently with different meanings? Ex: I used the bathroom (yoozed) VS I used to go there (yoost).
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Google doesn't seem to turn up anything. It boggles the mind.
| 30 |
It's not because the meanings are different, it's because of the word that follows them. When "used" is followed by "to", it's easier to make a "t" sound at the end of "used".
This is just us being lazy.
| 35 |
ELI5: Why does nipples sit differently on the chest on women and men?
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I tried drawing something that was SFW: http://imgur.com/a/zF7ZM
| 35 |
They actually sit about the same, the shape of the breast changes where the nipple lies, which is altered by both fat and muscle. If you compare a flat chested topless female to a male who has similar muscle tone in their chest you will see the nipples lie in roughly the same location.
| 40 |
ELI5: I read that North Korea is "entering a state of war" with South Korea, but few believe North Korea would risk "full-out war". What is the difference between a state of war and a full-out war? Aren't they both bad?
| 133 |
Until the North Korean army starts bombarding Seoul, you don't really need to worry.
Entering a state of war means that they're preparing for war, while being in full-out war means they are at war. You can prepare to go to war, and then change your mind.
They're both bad, but getting ready for war isn't as bad as having a war.
| 94 |
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If we express different genes through our lives because of epigenetics, does that means we transfer different genes to our kids depending on the time of our lives we had them?
| 26 |
No (but sort of yes).
What you're describing is epigenetics, which are not genetics per se, but does influence which (and how) genes are expressed through epigenetic markers usually made from proteins. It has been found that (at least some) epigenetic markers can be passed to offspring; so while the genes that are passed won't change through aging, the epigenetics may.
One pertinent example of this is the finding that extreme stress can leave epigenetic changes that are passed to offspring (in mice).
| 18 |
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ELI5: Why is it normal/okay for rent to increase 2% per year but asking for a 2% per year raise is ridiculous?
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Fairly straightforward, what makes one seem okay while the other can get you fired?
Edit: the "fired" line seems to be a bit hyperbolic. I am wondering what makes it so that a raise in rent is seen as normal but employers don't generally increase wages without it being asked/fought for. (Though from the comments this might just be in my and my families experience)
| 58 |
Asking for a 2% raise isn't ridiculous, and if just asking for it gets you fired, you had a terrible job to begin with. That's not to say that lots of people don't have terrible jobs, but even for them, the usual answer is, "no, we're not raising your wage" instead of "you're fired."
| 70 |
ELI5: Why are electric chairs not able to kill people instantly?
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You see stories of people getting accidentally electrocuted in everyday life and dropping dead instantly, why aren’t electric chairs engineered with that amount of power?
| 67 |
Electricity kills you quite randomly. Sometimes it stops your heart, sometimes it doesn't. There have been cases where people survived touching high voltage lines with their face and skin burned off.
The amount of power required to guarantee immediate death is basically the amount needed to cook/evaporate you. It would get very messy that way, with no recognizable corpse left. At that point you could simply drop a truck on people for the same effect.
| 194 |
How is an actual memory different from a memory of an imagination or fantasy?
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For example, if a person is given a lie detector test and instead of focusing on his actual memory the person focuses on an alternate imaginative version of that memory. Will this person's body still react as though he is telling the truth or will it react like he is lying?
| 209 |
Lie detectors, atleast modern ones, do not determine whether your memories are correct or not but rather it's a form of pseudoscience of measuring how your body reacts to both external and internal stimuli.
An "actual" memory can be, in completely technicality, no different than a memory of an imagination or fantasy if you believe the latter mentioned to have truly occured. To add, we humans have extremely flawed capabilities of keeping memory since they change in detail (adding/removing/editing elements) each time we recall them, so in a way they always end up being imagination of how our brains perceived said events and later processes them in the future.
It all depends on how your brain categorizes said memories in the first place. An interesting fact is that this is why some frequent lucid dreamers can sometimes not tell apart their dreams from actual reality.
Background: Masters programme in Biomedical Engineering.
Did this answer your question?
| 91 |
[Marvel] How did Captain America react whenever he was thawed out of ice and he saw black people eating in the same restaurant as him?
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I don’t know much about Captain America, but I do know that he was alive during the WW2 time period. This means that he was a caucasian American male, and most likely, even if he didn’t intent this, was racist.
Back in those days you were brainwashed to be racist almost, it was literally everywhere. Every restaurant, bus, water fountain, etc., divided. To think that Captain America was on some moral high-ground just because he’s our most patriotic superhero is asinine. He was born and raised in racist America, there was no way he wasn’t even a little.
Do you think Captain America was shocked to see this, or shocked to see anything else when he came back?
| 110 |
Steve Rogers definitely was born and grew up during the period of segregation - but he was in Brooklyn, when New York City was one of the most multi-ethnic, cosmopolitan urban spaces on the planet. He entered a military that was largely segregated - and was sent overseas where American forces came up hard against local conditions, because Black British were *not* treated in the same way as Black Americans, and much the same could be said about France. Captain Rogers even served in an integrated unit - Nick Fury's Howling Commandoes being an exception to overall US military policy at the time.
So while he may have noted the difference, as someone who probably never shared any deep racial prejudice against black people, who had served alongside black Americans that fought and died for their country, I'd like to think that he welcomed the change that had come over his homeland.
It is also to be remembered that some years later, Captain America discovered that an African-American man, Isaiah Bradley, had been used as a guinea pig during an attempt to re-create the super-soldier serum - and suffered permanent disability when the untested, unrefined slowly crippled him over time. He learned of this from that man's grandson - the superhero known as Patriot - and visited his counterpart in an effort to reconcile and face that part of America's past.
| 251 |
I don't believe the mayor of a major city should be expected to resign simply because he smokes crack. CMV
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As many have guessed from the title of the post, I'm referring to Rob Ford (current mayor of Toronto), though I think the principle could apply to any mayor of a major city. I disagree with pretty much every single policy of Rob Ford's. I think he's a complete idiot. I believe he's done some shady things that should have got him kicked out office.
However, I don't believe smoking crack is one of those things.
I believe the mayor of a city should be able to smoke crack or use any recreational drug of their choosing so long as it doesn't demonstrably affect their work performance. While it would be pithy to claim that Rob Ford's idiotic policies are a result of him smoking crack, I haven't seen any evidence of that, and I believe Rob Ford's policies would be just as stupid if he didn't smoke crack. I.e., his work performance is not being affected by his drug use.
I should say I'm fairly ignorant about crack. I have no experience with it at all. I've never come across anybody in my life who's used it (to my knowledge). I've heard the sentiment that anybody who uses crack necessarily has their life in disarray and can't sustain a productive life. I don't know if that's true or whether it's possible to be a "high-functioning" crack user or not.
I really dislike the man and would like to see him go, which is why I'd like my view changed. The principle of the thing is more important to me, though, and my principles right now tell me a democratically elected man shouldn't be forced to step down simply because of what drugs he uses on the weekends. I use recreational drugs (albeit not any illegal ones) and I feel it would be hypocritical of me to demand my mayor not use any recreational drugs.
| 16 |
Suppose you are a wealthy and have servants, like cooks, butlers, gardeners etc. You are satisfied with all their work.
Now suppose someone told you that you saw the cook hanging around questionable people and said that he saw him smoke crack. You address this with the cook and he say says that he doesn't smoke crack. A little later, a police officer tells you find out that he did smoke crack. It appears that the cook lied to you.
Now this cook has control of your money (to buy food and other kitchen goods) and has full access to your home and feeds yourself, family and guests and works with your other staff members.
Do you let him go and find someone else that can cook to your satisfaction or continue on with him working for you?
| 21 |
ELI5:Why do TV news camera people carry around gigantic shoulder mounted cameras when there are so many smaller options?
| 63 |
It's certainly be possible to make broadcast-quality cameras much smaller and lighter than those used by news crews, but there's not much point. Even a 1 inch sensor will have ample performance and the high-quality, high-ratio zooms required will be expensive but not very large.
As long as you have a guy who's one job is to be the camera man then that's all he's going to be carrying about anyway. Having it large has advantages:
* Carrying a large camera makes it obvious that you're media (mostly, but not always a plus);
* Large, heavy objects are more stable so there's less camera shake;
* Shoulder-mounting is a comfortable way to shoot so the camera needs to fill the space between your shoulder and your eye;
* There's space for large, discrete controls for everything. Cameramen don't want to be delving through a maze of menu options to change their settings;
* You can have a big, comfortable and high-quality viewfinder; and
* You can comfortably attach big video lights.
| 93 |
|
How do lasers cool things?
|
I've always been under the impression that lasers exclusively transfer heat to a subject ("I expect you to die, Mr Bond"), but with the recent article about the force microscope allegedly multiplying it's magnification via laser cooling, I have to wonder how that works? Can anyone help?
| 16 |
The basic principle involves using the absorption spectrum of a specific material. If you shine a laser that is at a slightly lower frequency than the absorption spectrum then atoms that are moving towards the laser will 'see' their own absorption spectrum due to the relativistic doppler effect. Through this mechanism we can force atoms to be having opposite momentum to the photon as it is absorbed so each absorption event results in the loss of momentum from the atom.
The atoms then emit photons spontaneously in a random direction which the net result of which is zero change in average motion. If you apply this technique from several directions you end up lowering the average kinetic energy of the atoms and by definition their temperature.
| 15 |
What makes Doctor Strange so powerful?
|
I'm limited on knowledge but he is still just a man so what makes him stand out so much from those who have studied magic their whole life?
| 35 |
What makes him stand out from others who study magic, like Doom, is that he has both studied longer and harder and has a greater natural aptitude, so much in the way that anyone becomes the best at anything, he is the best at magic.
He was also lucky enough to study under the previous Sorcerer Supreme, so he was taught by the best.
In addition to these advantages which might only put him a little bit above the second best, by virtue of being the best he get's access to a bunch of other stuff. He has access to various extra dimensional entities, like Cyttorak that will only deal with "The Sorcerer Supreme" because everyone else is beneath them, and he is entitled to certain magical artifacts, like badges of his office. These include, but are not limited to, the eye of Agamotto, the cloak of levitation, and Books of Vishanti.
TL;DR he got to be the best the same way anyone gets to be the best at anything, but his job comes with a ton of perks once you get to be the best.
| 37 |
CMV:Pokemon GO is a disappointment.
|
Coming from the perspective of a massive Pokemon fan, I'm not happy with what we got.
Take a look at this trailer. https://youtube.com/watch?v=2sj2iQyBTQs
For starters, there is nothing but Gen 1 Pokemon. As someone without a nostalgia for Gen 1, many will disagree with me, but I have always found Gen 1 Pokemon to be underwhelming in their design. Pokemon Go was, I assume, trying to connect with Pokemon's 20+ audience by using only generation 1 Pokemon. This was a mistake. It removes from the amount of diversity that makes Pokemon great. With only 151 Pokemon available your experience in the game is severely limited from what could have been.
The game also lacks things that were shown in advertising. You may have noticed that in this trailer, two trainers trade Pokemon. This feature does not exist in the game. Also in the trailer, two players battle side by side or with each other (It is hard to tell.) Neither of these features are available. Now it's possible that these things will be added in the future, as is the benefit of a mobile game. But these are essential parts of Pokemon. The game shouldn't have left them out for launch.
Pokemon Go did training wrong. Perhaps the central feature of a Pokemon game is training your team to be stronger. This is made strange by the method chosen to do this. You have to capture duplicates of your Pokemon which earn you currency (Also available through IAP, pay to play much) which you can use to strengthen Pokemon. Ths is very strange and is much more of a deterrent to long time players or returning players than including all 6 generations of Pokemon would be.
Of course this could probably all be put to blame on the company Game Freak outsourced to create the game, the creators of another augmented reality game, Ingress. Ultimately Pokemon Go suffers from a lot of the same problems Ingress does. If Pokemon Go had gotten the attention from Game Freak it deserved, maybe this tragedy could've been averted.
I love Pokemon, and the idea behind Pokemon Go. It was just executed poorly. If Pokemon Go was made to be a more natural Pokemon game, with mechanics reflecting on the actual games instead of a reskinned Ingress, it would've been amazing. Unfortunately people are letting their Pokemon nostalgia trick them into thinking Pokemon Go is decent, and I'm afraid Nintendo will look at Pokemon Go as a success for the wrong reasons, allowing it to seep into other Pokemon content. Sorry for rambling a little, it's 3 am. I look forward to changing my mind.
_____
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| 31 |
Perhaps the game is underwhelming because it's still in its infantile stages. Developers plan to add more Pokemon from later generations as the game is refined and updated (if you see to your medals in the menu there are locked accomplishments that indicate gen 2-3 Pokemon will be available in the future as well as the accomplishment titled 'catch 500 different Pokemon) the app is still evolving and has only been out for a few days!
| 33 |
[James Cameron's Avatar] After Jake becomes the Toruk Makto, what happens to his other ikran?
|
I was rewatching the movie last night and this question immediately popped into my mind. You have the scene where he and his ikran attack Toruk from above. And then later Jake flies in on Toruk at the Tree of Souls, but you never see his ikran again the entire movie. What happened to it? Would it leave to join the other wild ikran? And secondarily, can a Na'vi only be bonded with one ikran at a time? So since Jake bonded with the Toruk would he not be able to ride his previous ikran? Just a few things I'm wondering if anyone has the answers to. Thanks!
| 31 |
At the end of the movie, they explain Toruk was released as Toruk Makto was no longer needed, and it shows the beast flying off into the sunset. Within that same ending sequence, we get a shot of Jake and Whatsherface riding their ikran togethr once more, though it's only for a moment.
| 31 |
Are there any parasites that inhabit a valuable ecological niche?
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Do we need parasites? Are leeches and ticks necessary? If we eradicated botfly would another species suffer?
| 2,172 |
There is some speculation that the eosinophilic aspect of the human body which functions to target parasites (and is also responsible for the development of allergies, asthma, and other “histamine” related conditions) needs exposure to parasites and other infections to be properly trained.
In the modern world, we have barely any exposure to parasites, so the theory is that the eosinophilic arm of the immune system doesn’t have anything to target, so it’s more prone at targeting the “self” which contributes to allergies and asthma and eczema, etc.
This is corroborated by the finding that the developed world has significant rates of these conditions whereas parts of the world that are much less developed and do regularly encounter parasites have minimal rates of these conditions.
| 1,670 |
How do magnets REALLY work?
|
Their power is unlimited. How are they made? Where does the charge come from? How can they be so powerful? Do they work with the Earth's own magnetic field or are they separate?
So many unanswered question which I hope AskScience can answer.
Thanks.
| 120 |
A moving charge creates a magnetic field. You can treat an atom has having an electron moving around in a circle (this isn't literally the case, but it can be useful to look at it this way). This means each atom may have a little magnetic field associated with it. If you have many atoms together, all the fields will point in different directions and cancel out. In certain materials, however, the atomic spins align with each other, so there is a net magnetic field.
| 64 |
ELI5: Why did Barack Obama win a Nobel Peace Prize?
| 126 |
There is a lot of confusion as to why a president could win a Nobel Peace Prize into their first year in office. It is especially confusing when there are so many people around the world who are dying for peace, and have arguably made a greater impact.
**Contrary to popular belief, Obama was *not* awarded the Prize due to him being elected as a black president and people getting "caught up in the moment". It had a lot to do with what he *said* and *did* leading up to October 2009. We must look at the Norwegian Nobel Committee's reasons in order to understand why he won.**
The Norwegian Nobel Committee says that they gave him the prize **"for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."** What are they referring to here? It takes several months for Nobel Committee Members to write up a report to nominate and select someone for the Prize. Obama gave a very important speech to Egyptians (called "A New Beginning") in June 2009 at Cairo University. He was selected in October 2009. So the Cairo speech had a lot to do with what they refer as "international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples".
How did "A New Beginning" foster international diplomacy and cooperation? After 9/11 and the prolonged Iraq War, one of the most hostile relationships in politics was between the United States and the Arab World. The Israel/Palestine issue is one of the most difficult problems to solve. Egypt is the largest Arab country, and seen as the centre of the Arab world and influential in the outcome of Israel/Palestine peace. So Obama shot for the stars. He went to Egypt to try to ease US-Arab tensions, and kick off a strong Israel/Palestine peace process.
But there's more! In the past, American presidents have used very strong, unapologetic language, like that of President George W. Bush. In "A New Beginning", Obama didn't do that. His speech was one of mutual respect, something an American president hasn't done in a long, long time.
He also quoted from the Quran! But so what! What does that mean anyway? Well, the concept of recognition is crucial toward building trust. By quoting from the Quran, Obama is implying that he *recognizes* Islam and respects it. Respect is the first step toward peace as it opens up diplomacy.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee also said that Obama's **"vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons"** was a reason. This is not particularly important because a lot of presidents have talked about reducing nuclear stockpiles internationally. Particularly, in 1991, there was a treaty called START which started this process. The Nobel Committee saw that Obama was taking this *even further*. He started writing and talking about a new START treaty to reduce nuclear weapons even before his "A New Beginning" speech in June, so the Nobel Committee had a lot of time to consider it. If Obama let the last treaty expire in 2012, more nuclear weapons would spread around the world. Although he criticized Iran here, he was sure to be fair. And his efforts to be fair were astounding: he admitted that the United States overthrew a democratically elected leader in 1953, which was very fair. The Nobel Prize committee saw this as him being the "bigger man" about the problem.
Also, the Norwegian Nobel Committee said he got the prize because as a result of his speech, **"democracy and human rights are to be strengthened"**. Obama talked a lot in Cairo about human rights, religious freedom, and the rights of women in his speech. And in Hosni Mubarak's front door step as well! That takes nerve. Did his speech have an impact on the Arab Spring? Certainly. The Egyptian youth were listening to this speech. They wanted democracy before Obama came in, but Obama's speech gave them support. Obama didn't create the Arab Spring by any means, but it helped a little and set the tone in the Arab world: an American supports and respects Muslims, so how bad could democracy be? The Norwegian Nobel Committee certainly didn't predict that this would lead to the Arab Spring, but as a group of politicians and students of international relations and political science, they sure understand the impacts that such a speech could have.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee also felt that Obama is helping the USA play **"a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting"**. There is very little evidence of Obama addressing climate change in time of the October 2009 decision, but by September, Obama proposed new regulations on industry polluters to curb emissions--something George W. Bush wouldn't have done, or didn't do. He strengthened the EPA.
Although not directly mentioned by the Committee, Obama also launched the debate on better healthcare in 2009, and talked strongly about closing Guantanamo Bay and ending the Iraq War.
Herein lies the problem of giving the award to Obama for many people. Before ending the Iraqi war, the war was scaled up. Indefinite detentions were scaled up by 2012, not retracted. And the Obama administration took up a smaller role on renewing the Kyoto Protocol than many had expected. Although Obama did **a lot more for global diplomacy and democracy by October 2009 than many presidents in their entire term** (which the Norwegian Nobel Committee noticed), in retrospect of three years, a lot of this has been undone by drone strikes, the relative failures of the Copenhagen summit on climate change, and the passing of the National Defence Authorization Act. This is why people like to wait before awarding a Nobel Prize, and why there was criticism.
**TL;DR: The fact that he's black and liberal usually overshadows Obama's achievements up to October 2009, when he was selected. The truth is that he has done a lot of good in the international community through his speech in Cairo, ratcheting up the reductions of US/Russia nuclear stockpiles, and scaling up emissions regulations through the EPA. A lot of other Peace Prize winners did a lot more in earning their Peace Prize, but some others have done a lot less than Obama to earn their's.**
**EDIT**: People will inevitably want an analysis on the individual views and biases of those individuals on the Norwegian Nobel Committee. This doesn't mean much because it's speculative, and the Committee members have no reason to lie in their original report, but lets take a look.
**Chairperson Thorbjørn Jagland** is a politician for the Norwegian Labour Party. He is pro-European consolidation and president of the Council of Europe. He is known to have preferred the European Union for the Nobel Peace Prize since 2008. If he had it his way, the EU would've beat out Obama.
**Deputy Chairperson Kaci Kullmann Five** is a politician for the Norwegian Conservative Party. The Conservative Party is a neoliberal party for tax cuts and smaller government. Ironically, despite all the socialists on the committee, **she is responsible for championing Barack Obama for the Prize**.
**Sissel Rønbeck** is a politician for the Norwegian Labour Party. Her expertise lies in how she is the Minister for Environmental Affairs, and deputy director for the country's body on Cultural Heritage. She is a socialist.
**Inger-Marie Ytterhorn** is a politician for the Norwegian Progress Party. The Progress Party is the main *right wing* party in Norway and supports the growth of the oil industry and lower taxes. It supports a Christian heritage, and relatively anti-immigrant.
**Ågot Valle** is a politician for the Norwegian Socialist Left Party. The Party is pro-environment and advocates for larger government responsibility.
**TL;DR 2: There are three socialists and two right-wing leaning politicians on the committee that selects the Nobel Prize Laureate. Ironically, it was a right-wing politician that championed Obama for the Prize, while the Chair was championing the European Union. There was no clear consensus between the committee members as to whether Obama should be chosen as the winner.**
| 227 |
|
Is inflation just an increase of prices? Supply and demand?
|
I’m new to the study of economics. But from what I understand, prices increase when either demand increases, or supply decreases. So if inflation is just an increase of price, then the cause of inflation can only ever be a decrease in supply (which has many causes) or a increase in demand (which also has many causes)?
| 50 |
It's somewhat more complicated. Inflation is typically defined as an increase in prices for some bundle of goods, yes, but your pronouncement about supply and demand is really about *real* prices.
As an example: say that everyone tomorrow collectively agreed that a quarter was now called a "dollar" and a "dollar" was now called a "fourd". Inflation has happened because the nominal price level as increased (the currency was devalued, at least in theory) but the ratio of prices might very well be the same.
The supply and demand charts that you see with "price" on the y axis are really saying some sort of relative price because nominal price level doesn't matter for the utility of consumption choices, only the consumption bundle itself.
Therefore, devaluation of currency can be a cause of inflation.
As others have aptly noted, decreased in supply or increases in demand *can* be causes of inflation though; if relative prices change as a result of demand or supply disturbances, this can change the nominal price level of the reference bundle of goods as well.
To further complicate things, there are frictions in the economy which means revaluations of currencies have *real effects* because it takes a while for people to adjust prices, so the inflationary effect may also be somewhat real and not just nominal as well.
Hope this helps.
| 24 |
[WH40K] I want to be an engineer but I think the Admech and their worship of technology is nonsense. What can I do?
|
Let's say that I, Imperial Citizen number 90B12V750Z, want to be an engineer, and I have the aptitude to become one, as I am good with tinkering and understanding how machines work and I'd love to do research and development work.
However, the Admech's dogmatic stance towards technology is offputting for me, as I want to do research, not just keep old things working without ever making questions about *how* they work. Also, I think that Techpriests in general are creepy, elitist jerks.
What can I do to realize my career ambition? Is there some scientific organization that do research independently from the Admech?
PS: I'm still a loyal Imperial citizen and I absolutely won't consort with either Xenos or Chaos.
| 29 |
So if you're lucky and already showing tremendous talent you'll be picked up by an unorthodox tech-priest who will mentor you in the ways of true engineering while simultaneously training you to *keep your damn mouth shut about this.* This is what happens to one of the protagonists of the Mechanicum novel.
This is a bit of a crapshoot however. The tech-priest in question makes it clear most people who talk about this kind of heresy openly just get turned into servitors.
| 49 |
Did not get accepted for NYPD post doc position and totally discouraged.
|
Hello everyone. I am posting this on behalf of my supersmart sister (In NJ in the USA) who holds a graduate degree (PsyD), in Forensic Psychology. 8 weeks ago she had an interview with the NYPD for a postion which would have paid her 75k and allowed her to be supervised and accrue said need postdoc hours. She found out today she did not get it and is totally broken. (We are in NJ). She exclaims that there is nothing else available and that this position is exactly what she wanted to do. I highly doubt it is the ONLY position being hired for within a 70 miles radius from us though. Would any of you know how I could help her get back on her feet and how to search more efficiently for such positions? As well as any extra tipos such as how to cold call or something, to try and land positions of this nature? Thank you all
| 31 |
Have her search on LinkedIn for people who hold the position she wants or something very close to it. That’s a good way to find which places hire for that position and start reaching out to those places for openings. You may find a lot that way that might not be posted on traditional job boards
| 33 |
[D&D 3.5 Epic rules] I just saw a guy squeeze through a keyhole. How did he manage that?
|
He was in jail, and there was an antimagic field. He's a really good adventurer, but he's not a magic-user. The keyhole was only two square inches. And after that, he somehow passed through a wall of force, which is water tight. I understand that some people are better contortionists than others, but how do you [fit through a hole smaller than your own head](http://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/skills.htm#extremelyTightSpace)?
| 78 |
The short version is, there's no such thing as not a magic-user. Every successful adventurer, whether it's intentional or not, gathers ambient magical energy and fragments of the souls they have slain into their own being, throughout their career. This is why, for example, you can find an adventurer who can punch someone in the stomach and decapitate them; when you've absorbed enough power, you start gaining the ability to directly alter reality, without the use of traditional magic.
| 67 |
I think Ive made a terrible mistake. Wondering (hoping?) if any faculty can give me advice
|
I recently quit a cushy, well paying, secure job to take a tenure track position at a university. Although my previous job was well paying and cushy, it was very depressing and offered no room for growth, so I bailed.
So I accepted the uni job in summer, and I have an idea of what classes I'm teaching in the fall, but nothing confirmed. Due to some circumstances that could have been prevented, there was a mandatory overload that all teachers had to deal with. Long story short, come the first day of classes, my schedule has changed 4 times, and I am signed up for 17 credit hours (2 grad classes, 1 undergrad, a few labs ). The last change was the day before classes start. I have never taught before, and 2 of the classes I never even took in school. The material is very technical, so its not something I can wing.
So I am in the first lecture, completely unaware / unprepared, and fumbling along and 30 people are just staring at me. I just stopped for about 15 seconds and starting freaking out - there is no way I could do this for 17 credit hours. Ive done some tough projects before and can hustle, but that course load is too much. I literally thought, and highly considered, just picking up my bag and leaving/quitting. I didnt, but had one foot out the door. Ended class early since it was the first day.
By the end of the day I am down to 11 credits plus advising time (I am only supposed to have 9 as a first time teacher). So I have a manageable schedule, but now I am having second thoughts about if I made the right decision. The other faculty were professional and supportive, and definitely looked out for me. What is really messing me up is the fact that they even had me for that many hours in the first place. Now that the dust has settled and I can think about the situation, I am pretty pissed off that it even happened. Its amateur hour! I was excited to start this job, but now I have this awful taste in my mouth I cant get rid of.
| 16 |
You're in this now, might as well make a go of it. Don't panic, the stuff is way harder the first time around than ever after. Here are a few things life has taught me:
* It takes about 3 hours to prep each lecture hour. Plan accordingly.
* You only really need to be one textbook chapter ahead of the students. So do that.
* Get another textbook of the same course, and use that one for your examples given in lecture. That way you're not lecturing right out of the textbook, and it might help you understand the material better as well.
* Many textbook companies have auxiliary materials, and those can help in prepping lectures and tests. Make sure you have those (see above about finding another textbook for the course, you can use it for auxiliary materials as well).
* If find yourself totally lost in a lecture, that's fine. Move on and say something like "we're going to cover this in another lecture, so we'll move on for now". Or "I have an appointment, so we'll have to stop early today". Really, it's not the end of the world as long as you don't do it every day.
| 72 |
my dad says i will never be programmer because i am bad at math and physics
|
i said its not true but maybe it is? i dont know, i havent seen any serious math and physics in programming
&#x200B;
maybe in game development where you have to talk with graphic card to make some 3d graphics, but game engines and game frameworks handle this for you
&#x200B;
i was good at english (my second language) and syntax isnt an issue to me. my only issue is that my focus is very low and i code for 5min then browse reddit for 10min etc and after week i switch to another thing/project/language
&#x200B;
if not that maybe i would be good by now
&#x200B;
i need help
| 38 |
Well strictly speaking logic is a sub-field of math. But if you mean what people generally refer to as math (i.e. algebra) then it's plain bullshit.
PS: Also, really, don't let other people tell you what you can do. The biggest part of being good at something is not "having talent" but hours and hours of hard work put into it.
| 70 |
Why don't doctors get sick more often?
|
Why don't doctors who work with contagious patients get sick more often? Are their immune systems superior or do they simply protect themselves to the utmost extreme?
| 45 |
Well, we wash our hands all the time, use antiseptics and such, we're required to take flu shots among other things, and most importantly, if we do become ill we stay home.
Granted, if a patient came in with a very contagious very serious infection (something like VRSA) we would take extra precaution around that patient.
| 46 |
[Fistful of dollars] Can a metal chest plate really protect you from the guns of the wild west? What is the minimum thickness required to not gain a few new bellybuttons in a gunfight?
| 102 |
The case of Ned Kelly in Australia says that you can armor up against mid/late 1800s firearms. Hell, Civil War officers wore half-cuirasses.
The part where it gets unlikely is not that the plating works, but that the shot *only* hits the plating. This is where they finally got Kelly, too- he didn't armor his *legs*.
| 105 |
|
What is the mechanism for alcohol dependence?
|
It seems like alcohol (along with opiates) are rare in that withdrawal can actually cause harm, like seizures or even death. From what I understand, things like nicotine or cocaine, or caffeine; while not being pleasant aren't going to physically cause you harm if you go cold turkey in basically any case.
My friends and I were talking about this and realized we didn't have any idea what was going on in our brains to cause this type of severe dependency. Opiates seem to make more sense since the opiates are bonding with specific neurotransmitters; is something similar happening with alcohol?
| 113 |
Opioids are one of the safest drug classes when it comes to withdrawal. While withdrawal can be mentally and physically unpleasant, it is not considered unsafe and going cold turkey with just supportive care (i.e. treating symptoms not underlying cause) is almost always a valid option (the notable contraindication being pregnant women). In fact the first treatment for emergency opioid overdose is an 'anti-opioid' that causes the patient to go through an extreme very fast very painful withdrawal.
Alcohol, benzos, barbituates, and other GABAgeric drugs are commonly considered one of the most dangerous people commonly withdraw from. Cold turkey is not usually a valid option and a slow tapering plan is almost always prescribed.
As for the neurobiology behind it all...
The pleasurable opioid receptor is the mu-opioid receptor (endogenous compound being endomorphine). To put it simply, with consistent opioid use the receptors become less sensitive and less endomorphine is created - the defence against feeling physical and mental pain. With cessation of exogenous opioid use, when one should feel normal pain (i.e. basically no pain), they feel a lot. The physical withdrawal symptoms are due to the PNS that opioids affect (muscle aches, digestive rapidity) but in the brain it is mostly how one "feels pain" and it isn't dangerous.
GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter. Gabageric drugs (including alcohol) act on GABA or the GABA receptors in different ways - either bind at GABA sites or increasing the amount of GABA in the brain. With a lot of alcohol use the brain has to get use to acting with more inhibitory neurotransmitter so it learns to act more excited as they dull it down. With cessation of alcohol use the up-regulated GABA receptors in the brain put it into a hyper excited state which can lead to seizures, delrium, and death.
edit:
tldr regarding the CNS;
Opioids make you feel good, you get used to feeling good i.e. feel normal, now stopping them doesn't make you feel normal but you feel bad.
Alcohol slows down your brain, your brian gets used to being slowed down by going fast so it cancels out and it acts normal, stopping it makes your brain go super fast possibly killing you.
| 43 |
What is the difference and/or relation between the 4 dimensions of spacetime and the 4 dimensions involved in the notion of objects like tesseracts (4 dimensional cubes)?
|
I have a very basic conceptual knowledge of the two ideas but I never really considered them together.
When we talk about tesseracts and their 4 dimensions are we really implying that they have at least 5 dimensions (x, y, z, w, and t)? Any insight or resources would be greatly appreciated.
| 40 |
a minus sign.
To be specific, say you want to find the distance between a point and the origin in 3 space dimensions: ds^2 = dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2 . And you could keep tacking on additional space-like dimensions if you wanted with more plus signs.
But when we deal with time, and we want to know the distance between an "event" (point in space at some time) and the origin (origin of space coordinates and at time=0) then ds^2 = -dt^2 + dx^2 + dy^2 +dz^2 .
| 20 |
CMV: Paying attention to people's intelligence is not necessarily any less shallow than paying attention to their looks.
|
Much like attractiveness, intelligence also lies on a spectrum.
When "intelligence" is marketed as something to aspire for - I wonder if it is necessarily any different than "attractiveness" as a quality.
If I choose to associate myself with people I judge more intelligent than me, am I not being "shallow" in a sense.
This is most definitely a problem, and one need only look to very academic cultures like India and China to see what a premium intelligence has.
When such is the case - is it necessarily fair to those who don't want to take the effort to appear more intelligent, or are simply content with being "pretty" or "handsome"?
How is dismissing someone who "isn't intelligent" any better than dismissing someone who is "not attractive"?
Clearly these are both things that matter to people, and they do have impacts on how people live their lives.
I don't know what would be a good way of judging people, and perhaps it is all "shallow", or there really isn't a good way to judge people.
One could argue that people can learn more, and get smarter - but one can also get more attractive my dressing better, having better social graces, exercising and styling.
It "feels" like somehow intelligence is "better", but I can't justify why.
Perhaps one can argue that intelligence makes the world "better", but so do more attractive people.
And even if this were the case - should there be a negative weight attached to people not actively making the world better - irrespective of their intelligence?
Thanks and CMV
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| 148 |
Attraction and being attractive are not, in and of themselves, shallow things. We call people shallow when they are obsessed with these things, for example the "airhead" (not gender specific) who cares about nothing but their looks and social status.
This applies to intelligence. You'd consider someone in your university classes shallow if they lusted after the lecturer, based solely on his/her qualifications ("*Two* PhDs? Hawt."). In this case, they know almost nothing about their lecturer, and to pursue anything with them would be shallow ("I don't care about your biodome collection [biology professor], let's bang").
On the other hand, you can be attracted to someone for their intelligence, but still appreciate the rest of them. Say that guy who painted a beautiful vista in your art class, that's an attractive feature. You start there ("Your painting is amazing, let's talk about it"), and eventually segue into other topics about them ("What do you think about [historical thing/politics/new technology]"). With that attitude, you're beyond being shallow.
TL;DR
It's only shallow when you only care about a small portion of the traits of a person (for example, their IQ), and ignore or otherwise don't appreciate the rest of the person for who they are.
| 70 |
Does light that barely escapes the gravitational field of a black hole have decreased wave length meaning different color?
| 2,995 |
Yes.
In particular, shifted towards the red, or... redshifted. That's gravitational redshift. That's for going up; going down it's blueshift. You don't need a black hole, btw, you can do it in Earth's gravitational field, read up on the Pound-Rebka experiment.
| 1,537 |
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ELI5: Why are certain foods (like sugar) nearly universally pleasing to the human mind, but other foods can be delicious or disgusting to different people?
| 31 |
Prehistoric humans didn’t have a ton of options for food because there was no agriculture- most of the fruit and veg we eat are created by humans. And spices def weren’t a thing.
So we love fat because when they had a successful hunt they had to gorge themselves- get as many calories as possible since there was no guarantee of their next meal. Same with sugar- when fruiting plants were in season and ripening they had to eat as much as they were physically able - they had limited time and many of the nutrients weren’t available to them any other time of the year.
That’s why it’s super easy to plow through a bag of chips or a pint of ice cream but not over eat other foods that might be tasty but not sugar or fat heavy. We’re literally genetically engineered to binge on fat and sugar.
| 32 |
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ELI5: Why is it not necessary to refrigerate peanut butter? It seems like such an ideal environment for bacteria/mold to grow.
| 16 |
It might seem so, but it's not. While peanut butter seems liquidy, it is that way due to peanut oil. There is virtually no moisture within peanut butter and a high salt content. This makes it a difficult environment for bacteria. It's also so dense that bacteria can't move around in it.
| 34 |
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When sliding a pipe into another pipe that’s a tight fit, why do we rotate the two?
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Like the title says, when sliding a tightly fit pipe into another one, why do we often rotate them to push in further? Why is it often easier to do so rather than to just push straight in?
I was speculating that this might have something to do with static/kinetic friction, and that by rotating the pipes that overcomes the force of static friction and makes it slightly easier to push in further? Although I’m asking to see if anyone knows the real reason. Thanks!
| 1,290 |
It does have to do with friction, but not in the way you think. Friction always acts opposite the direction of motion, and so when you try and slide it in directly, it will oppose it 100% in the opposite direction. But adding a twisting motion adds a rotational component to the friction, as it must resist that as well. As a vector, it will be pointing at an angle now, so you only need to fight the component of that vector facing along the pipe, which will be smaller than the previous vector that was pointing along the pipe.
| 1,053 |
ELI5: How did the first watchmakers know how long a minute, second, hour, etc. was?
| 132 |
Timekeeping is older than watchmaking. Aside from the popular sundial, another ancient mechanism for timekeeping was the waterclock. These worked by having a vessel of water with a tiny leakage. The water drips out very slowly and consistantly, and by measuring how much water has flowed out, you can measure the amount of time passed.
From 4000BC until the 17th century, these were the standard for accurate timekeeping.
Even back then, there were 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute. In fact, these divisions are typically ancient: babilonians, for instance, had a counting system going to 60 instead of our system which counts to 10. And 24 was two times 12 - again a system of counting which is very old. Why 60 and 12? Because these numbers are very easily divided further. No other numbers can be divided more easily without introducing ugly fractions.
Had timekeeping been invented in the 17th century, we would probably have chosen a decimal system with 10 hours a day and 100 minutes an hour.
There is a caveat though: back then (until about 300BC), the length of the hour depended on the length of the day. The time between sunrise and sunset was divided into 12 equal hours. But of course in winter days are shorter than in summer. So the length of an hour was shorter in winter and longer in summer. And "night clocks" were different from "day clocks" because of course in winter the nights are longer.
The Greeks changed this and made the length of the hour fixed while the length of the day varied throughout the years. The length of the hour was now defined as the time between two sunrises, divided by 24.
So to sum this up:
- the length of the hour was decided upon some 6000 years ago, when they made the first clocks.
- they chose to divide days into 12 hours, because this was a normal division for them and because it was easy to divide in your head.
- minutes and seconds were divided into 60 because of the same reasons: it was common and it was practical
- around 300BC they changed the definition of the hour to make it independent of the length of the day
| 94 |
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CMV: The USA should reduce spending on the military from 24¢ on the tax dollar to 21¢ on the tax dollar.
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Currently, according to multiple independent sources that track US tax spending public education gets 2.2¢, law enforcement is buried under several different areas, and vet benefits are about 6¢ per tax dollar. We still would have the largest military in the world, seconded and by less than half currently by China. We would still be over prepared for literally anything the world could throw at us.
The money could be used to fund so much more educationally, and literally increase all schools budgets by 30%+. This could help solve some states like Arizona who have teachers with only high school diplomas doing emergency certifications entice highly qualified teachers with better pay, increase student learning with better funding for technology, and education programming.
Additionally, it would allow psychologists and social workers to expand into law enforcement and bring much needed training and extra support for law enforcement. It simply isn't fair to expect police, detectives, agents, and other officials to also be well versed fully in mental health and social/emotional issues. Let's get them the funding they need to be better supported, paid, have more of them, and have the staff positions they need to do this. They make almost double their salary in overtime. We are asking highly stressed people to be as effective on your 80 as they are on hour 20. How about no?
Also, increase in spending on vets can only help them with retirement, health benefits, and being taken care of after serving their country.
Someone please tell me why any of this is a bad idea.
| 186 |
I doubt it... but are you taking into account federal versus state versus local spending?
Because a vast majority of schools are fully funded off the property tax by those who live in the area. The education part of the federal is lower because not all school require federal funding. They are able to take care of themselves. Many state public colleges/universities are also able to take care of themselves with local and state tax funds, tuition fees as well as alumni donations.
Failing schools are the ones that will request federal aid to make ends meet. And if a school is failing, there are probably many more issues in that community.
Law Enforcement is in the same boat. The feds will cover all the federal law enforcement, like FBI, ICE, DEA, ATF, SS, US Marshals & so on. City, town, county and state police are funded on the local level. Again... if they need help, they can also request federal aid. Not all of them need or want federal aid. If it is their own money, they are able to do with it what they want.
So when it comes to education and police, that funding is not handled by the feds. So if you increase the spending for those area, it would only be for the cities and towns that are struggling. Not everyone needs or even wants federal money.
| 41 |
Why do smart TVs decrease in price while smart phones increase in price? There is a lot of overlap in their functionality as technology improves for both, but yet changes in price diverge overtime. Why?
| 97 |
Good question. It's a phenomenon which is pretty unique to the particular products and the technical barriers to each of them.
The overwhelming largest cost in a smart TV is the display, not the other components, and not even the product design. The display in a TV today comes in one of two forms: LCD or OLED. The market dynamics of these two forms essentially guarantees that prices will fall over time. The top end of both these markets are made from two Korean companies Samsung Opto-Electronics and LG Display, who used to dominate the entire industry. The LCD market is no longer dominated by them, as the emergence of Chinese manufacturers with equivalent capabilities but cheaper production has basically squeezed them out. The OLED market was still dominated by them, with Chinese companies unable to match their technical expertise. This was quite short-lived with the emergence of BOE Tech, a Chinese company which is rapidly ramping up OLED capacity. As a consumer this just means we get cheaper TVs at the same or even higher quality.
The other components in a TV are relatively inconsequential. Much of this is because of the size of the TV, which is so large that your components can be whatever size you want them to be really. Also with an external power source, you can basically also make them as inefficient as you want without worrying too much.
A smartphone on the other hand, has component costs which are increasing in every generation. There are so many components, all of which are top-end, that it's difficult to pinpoint exactly which components are responsible. Broadly, you have new components which were not in the previous generations; for example the iPhone 12 features a LiDaR module manufactured by Lumentum, which gives it the ability to measure distance by shooting lasers. You have components which you've had to add more of; for example the five cameras in a Samsung Galaxy S21, or the multiple extra antennae required to enable MIMO technology for 5G connections. You have components which need to become more high-functioning; for example, the most cutting-edge commercially-available chips in the world are 5nm chips manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor or Samsung. Today they are almost exclusively used to make processors (CPU/GPU) for Apple, Samsung, and Huawei.
A lot of this has to do with the size of a phone. As components get more numerous and more powerful, they consume more power. Improvements to battery efficiency have lagged the increasing power requirements, so most phones have resorted to increasing the size of the batteries since they can't increase the size of the phone. About 70% of the space inside an iPhone 12 is just the battery, up from 40% in the iPhone 6. Interesting solutions have been devised to cram more modules into a smaller space; for example, by stacking two boards on top of each other from the iPhone X onwards. However, the fact remains that components need to get more efficient, higher performance, more numerous, while taking less space - which means more expensive.
| 99 |
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ELI5: If sweating is supposed to cool you down, why is high-humidity heat more unpleasant or draining than "dry heat"?
| 82 |
Both of those are true because your body tries to cool itself by having water evaporate off the skin. Your body creates sweat so that the sweat will evaporate, taking heat with it and leaving the skin cooler than before. When the air around your body is *already* high in humidity, then the air is saturated and won't "take" or absorb the sweat as easily. So the sweat sits on your skin, instead of evaporating away, and you don't get any cooler.
| 116 |
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How would Nuclear Propulsion work?
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I want to know how it would work. But most of all, how it could successfully be done without damaging the ship. Also would it be in space or on the ground?
| 28 |
The most basic form of nuclear propulsion is a Nuclear Thermal Rocket (NTR). There was actually a program to develop this back in the 60's it was called NERVA. In this case, all you do is use a nuclear reactor to heat an inert gas (like CO2) and blast it out the back. So an NTR is really nothing more than a nuclear powered flying tea kettle.
You do however, get performances 2 to 4 times better than the best chemical rocket engines, so there's that.
Another very basic, but amazingly effective, idea is to use nuclear warheads. Project Orion would geared towards this before Cold War treaties banned the use of nukes in space. The idea is simple, have a rocket (with a huge buffer on it) drop nukes behind it which would then explode, and push the rocket forward. Provided they explode fairly close together (about 5 per second) then the acceleration is fairly uniform its not jarring. Its also one hell of a propulsion system. It's quite feasible for an Orion rocket to get up to 4 or 5% of light speed.
It would, obviously, only be used in deep space you couldn't use that on the ground, but since there's plenty of radiation in space anyway, setting off nukes isn't an environmental hazard.
| 11 |
ELI5: Why does watching flash videos/streams in Google Chrome slow down other tabs?
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AFAIK Google Chrome runs each tab in a separate process. So if something hogs one tab, other tabs remain responsive.
Why is it that watching twitch streams slows down my other tabs. For example it's especially noticeable when twitch.tv is open in one tab and i'm scrolling down reddit in another tab.
When i use another browser to stream twitch then Google Chrome tabs remain responsive.
| 87 |
I first had a very technical explanation which was very hard to understand i will now try it with an analogy.
Imagine your computer is a supermarket and every CPU core is check-out. Every customer is a process and the things they buy are the commands which every task needs to execute. If a task like the twitch tab needs to execute many commands it can block the check-out for longer therefore other processes need to wait longer and feel slower.
One of the techniques to mitigate this problem (so that one process can't hog the CPU core for to long) is scheduling.
It works by setting a limit on how much goods at a time can be checked out so that other processes get some time as well.
I hope this makes things a bit clearer and feel free to ask questions and i try to answer them as good as i can.
| 10 |
ELI5 Why does skin heal more slowly the older you get?
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I'm turning 40 this year, and I'm noticing that the nicks and cuts I'm used to getting which have always healed really quickly are leaving more scars and lasting longer than they have in the past. Im outdoors active, and accrue more than a few cuts often on my lower legs. Is this a natural part of growing old, which is in line with my observations of my parents' skin as well, or am I not caring for my skin well?
| 1,290 |
Think of your cells dividing as a printer making paper copies. A copy can only be as good as the original but usually you lose a bit of quality.
Over time, the original document wears out and you're making copies of copies. Each copies need to be a certain quality level or else they're rejected. As you make more and more copies, the reject rate increases over time.
Your dividing cells undergo a check to make sure they're copied properly. If they fail, they undergo planned cell suicide (apoptosis) and are recycled. As you age, a larger percentage of dividing cells fail the check because of DNA wearing out from copying, making it harder to increase the number of good cells to heal a wound.
| 1,109 |
Why do two icecubes freeze to each other in a glass of water?
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If i place two ice cubes in a glass of water, after a short while they will be stuck together. Why does water between them freeze to connect them?
| 66 |
Usually ice is done at -20°C.. when you put them in water they can suck up heat from the surrounding layer of water so, before they melt, they can freeze a thin layer of water. If the layer is thin enough (cubes touching), the ice they create is enough to glue two of them.
| 45 |
ELI5: How does the Internet weigh around the weight of a strawberry if it's just data, how can the data have mass?
| 52 |
Data is stored as magnetic charge (on a hard disk, SSD, SD card,etc).
Magnetic charge is a collection of electrons.
Electrons have mass.
Meaning Magnetic charge has mass.
Meaning Data has mass.
| 132 |
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Is the world outside our eyes blurry?
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We have lenses that bend the light to our retina, but if those aren't set up properly everything is blurry. So if the lens is what makes us see sharply, does that mean the light on the outer side of the lens blurry? Does the real world look more like a gaussian blur in Photoshop?
| 91 |
Without a lens to focus light on a point or a cavity to limit light detection to a certain direction, a photosensitive cell would only be able to detect light intensity. The world would appear essentially featureless, as photons from any object within the incident angle would all be detected at the same time. If an object were extraordinarily close to the photodetector, so that it would block the vast majority of light from other objects, some blurry details could be made out.
If you take photosensitive cells and put them at the end of a cylinder, still without a lens, the world would indeed appear blurry, but featured. Objects within the diameter of the cylinder would be detected by all the cells, while objects within a cone outside the cylinder's diameter would be detected by only some of the cells.
If a large field of photosensitive cells were behind an opaque membrane with a small opening, a fairly decent amount of detail could be discerned even without a lens. Each cell would only detect light from a very specific angle, and though it would be a blurry image, it would likely be detailed enough to navigate and manipulate objects. However, there's a tradeoff between the sharpness and intensity of the detected image, as narrowing the opening to increase sharpness would decrease total incident light, and vice versa.
Edit - forgot a word.
| 65 |
What would happen (in terms of gravity) if you stood in a spherical room, underground, in the center of a planet, such as Earth?
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i have been thinking about this for a while, and i have no idea what would happen. would you float, like in space? would you be pulled to all of the walls at once? would you float into the center of the room, and be stuck there?
i have asked most of my friends this question, and everybody just gives me one of the answers above.
| 120 |
In a spherical room at the centre of the Earth, there would be no gravity at all. You'd float anywhere in the room. This is because inside any spherical mass distribution, mass that is at a larger radius than you're at combines to pull on you in such a way that doesn't affect the gravity you feel at all. Or, in other words, only mass below you contributes to the gravity you feel. So, if you're in a spherical room at the centre of the Earth, there's nothing "below" you ("below" = at a smaller radius), so you feel no gravity.
The *reason* why it works like this is a little harder. First, imagine you're exactly at the centre of the room. All the walls pull on you equally, so you float there. This is hopefully clear. Now, if you move to the side, you get closer to a portion of the Earth (call it portion A), and further away from another portion (portion B). Now, this would be easier with a diagram, but portion B is actually larger than portion A. So B is a "large and far away" mass, and A is a "small and close mass". It should be obvious that these two objects pulling opposite to each other might cancel each other out, and if you work through the maths, it turns out that they do. This works anywhere in the room, and in fact you could have an entire hollow Earth and feel no gravity anywhere inside it.
| 243 |
ELI5: how original parts or models of machinery is made.
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How are machines parts made so exactly. I assume there is a master model that all lives are made from but how are those master models created so precisely and how are they measured.
| 15 |
There's a variety of manufacturing methods used to create machine parts.
The "simplest" is to create the parts from stock material in a workshop, piece by piece, using lathes, mills, etc to precisely machine down each piece to the required specifications.
When designing a machine, the entire thing will be modelled in CAD, with each part being inspected for conflicts with other parts.
From this CAD model, parts will be assigned tolerances, which will determine the minimum and maximum size each part can be and still work.
As for measurement, measuring tools are calibrated against known standards, so that each tool agrees with each other. There is some tolerance in this process, which needs to be understood.
This is a very simplistic look at design and manufacture.
| 22 |
How are NOAA's storm chaser planes able to fly through hurricane Irma and not go down? I'd think the propellers and/or the windows would take a serious beating. How are they designed to handle the intense wind and rain and keep the crew safe?
| 18 |
Hurricane winds are by and large horizontal in nature while thunderstorms have vertical winds like updrafts and downdrafts. These are far more dangerous because aircraft lift is a function of angle of attack which changes as the wind hits the wings at different angles.
Aircraft that fly at over 200 knots is analogous to wind hitting a static plane head-on at 200 knots. This is the case seen by aircraft in hurricanes.
| 32 |
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Why does Israel have such a huge impact on the United States' foreign policy affairs?
| 242 |
Ok, so this is probably going to get buried, but here goes.
A lot of what's being said is that the US allies with Israel because of cultural similarities, and the large, pro-Israeli lobby in the United States. These factors cannot be overlooked, but they miss some of the larger picture: Israel plays such a large role in America's Middle Eastern policy because Israel is America's only consistent ally in the region.
Going back to 1683, the Muslim, Middle Eastern, powers were beat up on by the Europeans. The Ottoman Empire was the cultural Muslim stronghold, and over the centuries it was taken apart and carved up piecemeal by the Europeans. To give you some idea how bad it was, imagine if Canada and Mexico annexed all of the US east of the Mississippi. So when WWI came around, the Ottomans allied with the European powers who would help them - Germany - and got demolished.
Britain and France took over control of the Middle East after WWI, and managed to royally piss off a large amount of people living there; the Muslim Brotherhood started to take off about this time as a reaction to British and French aggression. When WWII came, the Middle East tried to ally with Nazi Germany to throw off the Western Imperialists. That went about as well as could be imagined.
After WWII, the state of Israel was created by UN mandate - crucially, the Arab League did not agree. The entire Middle East banded together in an alliance to destroy it, but the entire armed forces of the Middle East were defeated by 400,000 Jews with bolt-action rifles. Every single leader who took part in that fiasco, on the Arab side, was killed or deposed.
The regimes that arose following that disaster naturally hated Israel; they also hated the West that had colonized them for generations. Note that it is the governments that hated the West, not the people. This led to the Middle East allying with the Soviet Union.
Of course, the specter of the Middle East going communist probably caused Washington to shit its pants. They scrambled around for allies in the region, and they found one: Israel. Add in a couple more wars, revolutions, and alliance switching later, and the only constant for America in the Middle East is Israel. The Arab states switch sides in whatever game of geopolitics is happening based on what's best for them - what's best for them is often not best for the US. Israel, on the other hand, faces danger at the hands of these Arab states every day, causing it to ally with whoever it can get its hands on.
tl;dr The US-Israeli alliance is one of convenience, though the problems in the Middle East are so intractable that it may as well be permanent.
| 91 |
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[Star Wars - The Mandalorian] Is the Razor Crest the ship's name or class/model?
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Is Din's ship named the "Razor Crest" or is that the ship's model, ala yt-1300? I feel like characters in the show have referred to it as "a razor crest" but other times more as the ships name, and outside sources seem to refer to it as a name.
| 46 |
It's heavily implied to be a Razor crest model gunship. Pre-imperial regulation. Din doesn't seem to care to name his tools personally and keeps some level of detachment from his equipment. For something to be named it must be worthy of a name by deed.
Granted the only indication that it is a model and not a ship name is the character from the first episode naming it as such and the lego tie in set naming a razor crest model gunship.
| 41 |
ELI5: When a baby is born with an extra limb, or the recently craniofacial duplication, how do doctors know if it's a birth defect, or a poorly separated twin or 'absorbed' twin?
| 75 |
There are a couple of ways to Diagnose this.
E.g. if its an absorbed twin its fused differently with the rest of the body as it would be if its outgrowth of the body. Often the twin tissue/organs are weirdly connected to the rest of the body and lack certain but normal connections.
Otherwise the cellular make up of the absorbed twin is also likley different, with certain cell clusters being present as residues of the former twin. E.g. stem cell clusters were they should not be, or randomly differentiated cells. Aka the cellular make up of these limbs makes no sense.
Lastly if they are non-identical twins the genetic make up of the extra tissue will be different.
Though human chimeras (aka a human with two different sets of cells) can go undetected, if the twins cells are seamlessly incorperated into the body. Because in this case its just a regular human.
Funny/tragic anecdote: a british women ones gave birth to a child but wasn't the genetical mother. The father however was. They got in a bit of trouble for some legal reason, until it was discovered that the womens womb was made up of different cells.
As an embryo she absorbed a twin whose cells formed her reproductive system.
| 37 |
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[Star Wars] What could the Jedi have done to prevent the rise of the empire while still maintaining the Senate's respect of the Order?
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Let's limit actions to after the birth of Palpatine. So nothing like assassinate Chancellor Palpatine Mace Windu style since it's an extrajudicial killing without hard evidence. I'm thinking of things like being more careful before doing missions like going to Galidraan, Sifo-Dyas having enough discipline to obey orders and not create a clone army, sending more help with Qui-gon to Naboo after they learn of Maul on Tatooine, going back for Shmi, etc.
| 37 |
Unfortunately, probably nothing. There was no one thing they did wrong - it was a cascade of some poor decisions and errors, as well as an insanely well put together plan by Palpatine that stretched over decades. The flaw wasn't in any particular action, but in some of the founding principles of the Jedi Order itself, something that would have had to be changed ages ago.
| 37 |
[MCU] Tony Stark ran into a crisis wherein the palladium core of his arc reactor was poisoning his body. Why not replace it with a low-tech alternative instead? Even a magnet connected to a car battery was initially effective.
| 480 |
He used it as a fail-safe to prevent the reverse-engineering of his suits. Stark is convinced at the beginning of Iron Man 2 that he has a monopoly on his arc-reactor technology, the only thing that can keep his suit sufficiently powered. Only Rhodes and Potts have access to a spare. So he'll tolerate being poisoned as long as it means he's the only super-powered individual during his lifetime.
But then Whiplash comes along and throws a wrench in the works.
| 331 |
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[MCU Infinity War] why didn’t Iron Man continue hitting Thanos after “all that for a drop of blood”? Why didn’t Iron Man fly out of melee range after Thanos flipped him or punched him a bunch?
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Thanos broke free of Iron Man’s restraint then beat the crap out of him. Why didn’t Iron Man’s jet boots ever kick in? Seems like when Thanos flipped him would have been a great time to fly out of melee range
| 538 |
Tony used just about every ounce of power he had in his suit in that attack. As soon as Thanos turned back to offense, Tony had so few nanites left that his suit quickly crumbled. Tony went all-out and was left with few options as a result. With limited power on an alien world facing a mad titan, where exactly could he fly?
| 463 |
[Inglorious Basterds] Why not just kill him?
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#Spoilers ahead, obviously
So, at the end of the Movie, the Lt. gives Hans his signature mark. But why? The guy can play it off as (for example) something the Nazis did to him. It's established earlier that the Basterds aren't known outside of the Nazi forces, and even if he met someone who *did* know what it meant, he could still claim that - I don't know - they did it in retaliation.
But beyond that... **why didn't they just shoot the guy**? The only people who know about the deal are Hans, the Lt., an unnamed General and the other american whose name I can't remember. Nobody will ever know, or care, that they betrayed a despised Nazi officer.
| 252 |
Lt. Raine is a career hardcase; "I've been chewed out before". To be a guy like that and have a field command instead of running a kitchen patrol somewhere in the asscrack of Nebraska or bouncing a ball off your cell wall for a decade in Fort Leavenworth, you have to know how far you can push it, where you can take liberties, and where you need to pump the brakes.
Raine knows he can shoot Landa's henchman, even though a deal was specifically made for that henchman's life; Supreme Headquarters doesn't give a fuck about some random enlisted guy. He also knows he can mutilate Landa, even with the promise of safety; Supreme Headquarters want's a top ranked SD officer who can give them the dirty details, and whether or not he can win a beauty contest is irrelevant. But if Raine shows up with two corpses and no prize then he's going to wind up in 12 gallons of hell, no matter what excuse he cooks up.
I imagine Raine really, **REALLY** wants to make that Nazi wear his balls as a hat. Operation Kino was all but a total party kill for what was left of the Basterds, and leaving that smug asshole not just alive but profiting off the action must have rubbed him quite raw. And since a big part of Landa's reward was being able to fuck off and pretend he was *never really a Nazi* with the Allies backing his claim to be a career-long Allied double agent, no doubt Raine was super keen on getting some kind of retaliation. Thus, he carves his masterpiece...
| 298 |
How does the candle relighting trick work? the one where you light the smoke trail?
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As shown in this gif http://i.imgur.com/2uo8IcD.gif
| 2,024 |
In order for something to burn, you need to vaporize the fuel. So when you light a candle, it takes a second or two to melt and vaporize the wax before it can ignite and become self-sustaining.
When you blow out the candle, the residue heat from the wick keeps vaporizing wax. The "smoke trail" you see isn't smoke - rather it is vaporized wax. So by bringing another flame close to the fuel trail, you can reignite the candle.
| 1,112 |
ELI5 Do we all taste the same things?
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Do we all taste the same tastes and just do not like particular tastes? Or do we taste everything differently and thus do not like the same tastes?
| 24 |
This is called qualia. It's about subjective experiences. It is completely unanswerable. There is no way to know how another being experiences reality. We can't go inside someone's consciousness to see.
| 55 |
[Ghostbusters] Do we all turn into horrifying monsters when we die?
| 76 |
Good news: most ghosts aren't the immortal soul of a person trapped on the wrong side of the veil. They're manifestations of psycho-kinetic energy (PKE), a part psychic, part electromagnetic phenomenon caused by humans interacting with the world. It's basically the psychic equivalent of a footprint in the sand; the person who left the print is long gone, but the trace remains. Normally these traces are undetectable, and you can only experience them in places (natural and artificial structures that channel energy) and times (the Tunguska Incident and the two big spikes seen in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2) when the energy is high, and they tend not to be playing with a full deck, mentally speaking. The Librarian from the first film likely does not have a full set of the original, living librarian's memories, for instance.
There are exceptions. Occasionally a human can persist beyond death as an spiritual entity distinct from a common ghost. Vigo the Carpathian is the most prominent example; the entity in Vigo's painting was, for all practical purposes, the man himself, 100% in thought, will and intention.
| 81 |
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[spiderman] Would Spiderman's spider sense alert him in a virtual reality game?
|
So I've heard that this Spiderman fellow has a spidey-sense that warns him of danger. If I stuck him in a VR helmet in an immersive game, would he be able to sense "danger" in the game if he was immersed enough, or was tricked into thinking it wasn't a game?
| 55 |
No, because there is no danger in a VR environment.
In the past Spider-Man has been "tricked" into thinking that he's in danger (Mysterio likes to use illusions to trick him), but he was ultimately able to figure out the real danger vs the false danger by relying on his spider-sense which reacted to the real danger but not to the false danger.
| 61 |
CMV: Employers shouldn’t discriminate against people with tattoos/piercings.
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Studies have shown that most consumers could care less about this sort of thing. It’s one thing to have incredibly distracting piercings or visible offensive tattoos, but having a stud in my eyebrow or non-offensive tattoos should not hinder my ability to get work. Having body art should not be seen as “unprofessional.” If someone goes to a job interview and presents themselves well with a clean-cut wardrobe, good hygiene, etc. I don’t see why an employer should decide not to hire them because of body art. Simply having tattoos and piercings says nothing about a persons responsibility, work ethic, ability to learn or attitude. Discrimination against tattoos and piercings in the work place is old fashioned and needs to end.
| 22 |
>Studies have shown that most consumers could care less about this sort of thing.
'Most' isn't very reassuring to a business owner, a 10% drop in customer satisfaction can be the margin between solvency and bankruptcy for many businesses.
| 67 |
ELI5 why do pimples (zits) on the inside of your nostrils hurt so much more than any others?
|
Guess what prompted me to ask this question. Ouch. Fucking zit.
| 2,090 |
Real answer:
The tissue inside your nose isn't very thick and has tons of specialized nerve cells right at the surface, which means that when a pore swells with infection (a zit), the skin is pulled tight and the pressure under the already thin tight skin pushes against all those nerves, causing signals to fire and increasing the painful sensation.
Plus there just isn't much space in there.
| 1,088 |
CMV: Capital Punishment is consistent with the way modern nation states claim sovereignty over the life and death of their citizens, and in special cases such as in war, of non-citizens. Capital punishment isn't cruel and unusual; it's a logical extension of the powers granted to nation states.
|
Some things to consider:
* If killing an enemy combatant is morally or legally permissible, then shouldn't capital punishment also be morally or legally permissible? If I agree in principle that the State I belong to has the authority to claim the life of another human being, say an Iraqi or an Afghani, how can I argue that it does not have that authority in my home country? Is the life of an Iraqi or Afghani somehow less valuable than mine?
* If a State can draft its citizens and throw them into the firing line (with legal justifications), and if a State requires soldiers to obey commands that may lead directly to their deaths (also with legal justifications), then shouldn't that same State also have the authority to kill its citizens (with legal justifications) in criminal courts? If I grant that a State may kill its citizens with legal justifications in some circumstances (in war), than how can I argue that it cannot do so (again with legal justifications) in others (in criminal courts)? Why the artificial border?
| 103 |
I don't think this is really the right way to approach the subject. Nation states have clear sovereignty and the power to make laws that:
* Forbid alcohol
* Forbid drugs
* Forbid singing, dancing, and paintings of Muhammad
* Forbid leaving the country without permission, or even forbid movement within the country without permission
* Etc, etc.
However, just because a nation state logically has sovereignty over its citizens and the legal right to make laws on many subjects, it doesn't mean that such laws should exist, or that they're a good idea.
IMO the matter of capital punishment is whether capital punishment is something we want our society to have, rather than whether the government has sovereignty to create laws about it.
| 32 |
[Marvel] Exactly how fast does Mjolnir travel when Thor summons it? Does it have a summoning range?
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Whenever we've seen Thor summon Mjolnir, sometimes it takes a moment to travel to his hand. Does it have a set speed? Can Thor increase or decrease its speed at will? If he went to Earth and forgot it on Asgard, how long would it take to get back to him?
Also, is there a set limit for how far he can summon it? If he did forget it on Asgard, is it now too far and he'd have to get closer to Asgard?
| 37 |
To add into the other comment about Thor 2, that film gives us the only clue as to Mjolnirs actual flight speed — it gets from a high orbit back to the UK in about five seconds. That was probably from an altitude of about 400 miles at a quick guess, so say at least 250,000mph.
| 33 |
[Diablo 3]Why does Tyrael tearing off his wings make him, an angel, into a human? Humans are the offspring of humans and demons, him tearing off his wings should just make him... a wingless angel? How does that give him demonic blood?
| 16 |
He's not *really* a human. He symbolically cast off the trappings of his old life, and literally de-powered himself in order to live among the humans. He has no demon blood in him (otherwise he would have died when Malthael took the black soulstone), it's really just a human mask on top of a very weak angelic core. When he dies, Tyrael's energy will be reborn like all angels, though the new being will not be Tyrael as he was.
As for why he LOOKS human, you can see that angels have a basic human body plan aside from the glowing wings. And even some demons, especially Lilith, look remarkably human with just a few accents. So the basic human form is really a blend of angelic and demonic traits that they've had since their creation. Humans probably have more of Inarius' looks than Lilith overall.
| 27 |
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[Hunger Games] What would the QuarterQuell twist have been in the 75th hunger games if Snow didn't change it?
|
Obviously the concept was changed after Snow decided that he wanted to get rid of Katniss. What else might they have done?
| 19 |
I thought at a previous quarter quell the number of tributes was doubled. He could have tripled them instead, only selected one gender, only reaped from kids who were eligible for the first time. There's lots of way to punish the districts.
| 30 |
ELI5: Why do people stress eat?
| 25 |
Eating, among other pleasureable things like having sex releases the hormone dopamine, also known as the pleasure hormone, that like you might have guessed makes you happy. The dopamine then relieves some of the stress, making you feel better by eating.
| 35 |
|
eli5 What does "Overqualification" mean when it comes to employment?
| 21 |
Basically your skills and experience are way beyond the requirements of the role.
This can be seen as a negative by employers because they think you’re going to treat the position as a stopgap, or will get bored, or won’t be a great fit in a junior role where you’d previously been in a senior one. Basically they’re worried that, one way or another, you’re not going to be around for long and they’ll have to go recruiting again.
| 96 |
|
Many people seem to find foreign accents sexually appealing. Why might this be the case?
|
And some sub-questions:
- Within my North American context, the accents I've most typically seen described as sexy are Russian/General Slavic, French (France-French, though, not Quebecois) and Australian. Spanish/Latin also makes an appearance, but far more often among women than among men. What might be going on here?
- What about corresponding phenomena in other countries? Are there accents that those living in other parts of the world find both foreign to their context but sexy nonetheless? Are the guys in Romania going nuts over girls with that Flemish lilt? Do French women like a man with an American twang?
- Why would French or Russian be so frequently cited, while Japanese or Hindi (and countless others) hardly ever seem to come up at all?
I want to be clear that I do not intend for any question of comparative **value or merit** to inhere in this - I just wonder what's going on.
Likewise, if this is not an appropriate question for this subreddit, I apologize.
| 55 |
If you're hearing someone with a foreign accent, they are likely to be wealthy, educated, bilingual, and adventurous. If you're the one traveling, they will be in a position to appreciate your worldliness. Culture shock is an endless source of conversation and conceals how boring the two of you may be.
| 49 |
[The Thing] Why didn't the Thing assimilate Clark when it was alone with him for over an hour?
| 128 |
In the book it did. Clark was the first assimilated and then the first to be outed as a Thing and electrocuted. Like the other dozen or so Things he wasn't important, the only one who was was Blair. In the movie there are less people and Clark is still immediately cast into suspicion because of the time he spent alone with the dog. The reason it didn't assimilate Clark might be because it knew that instance of itself would be almost guaranteed to die. Palmer and Norris were allowed to operate with a lot of agency (relatively speaking) while everyone was suspicious of Clark. He ended up serving a much better role as a decoy than another pair of hands.
Tl;dr: The Thing has a self-preservation instinct and Clark would've been a liability.
| 69 |
|
How much is time slowed around a black hole?
|
If gravity is space/time being dragged by the mass of an object and black holes have an amazing amount of mass. How much does time slow down in or around a black hole?
| 17 |
Exactly at the event horizon, time is effectively stopped-- or as close to stopped as makes no difference.
If you're far from the hole and you throw a clock in, it will tick slower and slower as it falls. As it reaches the event horizon, its time will be so slowed that the next "tick" will take longer than the lifetime of the universe.
Note that this means you can never observe something fall "into" a black hole! Objects can get arbitrarily close, but if you wanted to watch something pass *through* the event horizon, you would have to wait an infinite amount of time.
| 11 |
[Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater] Why did they let Snake keep his radio both during and after Volgin's torture?
| 17 |
*FAN THEORY TIME*
The Boss convinced Volgin to let Snake keep the radio during the torture on the basis of having it broadcast to Snake's support team during the torture, so as to let them *hear* every last horrible thing happening to the FOX agent (and effectively *also* be tortured by proxy). Needless to say, Volgin not only agreed, he got a little bit hard upon hearing the Boss's torture-ception proposal because he's a murderous, sadistic freak.
As for letting Snake keep the radio *after* the torture, that was just a *major* oversight by Volgin and Johnny (which the Boss and Ocelot were more than happy to let go uncorrected).
| 20 |
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ELI5: What, or Who determines whether the Dollar/Euro/GBP etc rises or falls in value?
|
I see in the news everyday the fluctuating value of the USD, especially againt the Australian Dollar now, and I am wondering who or what determines this?
Edit - Thanks for all the responses! Really quite helpful =)
| 50 |
The demand for those currencies. If people buy more Australian products, or more iPods (or let's be real, Treasury Bonds,) or more German cars, then they need the currencies of those countries to make their purchases. The increase in demand for a currency increases that currency's value.
| 19 |
[Fallout 3] Why does Talon Company keep hassling me? I just want to keep my head down and do good things. So confusing.
| 89 |
If by "doing good things", you mean killing raiders and slaver parties, then you're making a lot of enemies and costing some very nasty people a lot of caps. Some of those people reckon it would be cheaper to put a bounty on your head and get you killed sooner rather than later, and Talon Company mercs are more than happy to try and claim it.
| 82 |
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If the planet was shaped like a donut, how would gravity work in the middle?
| 9,289 |
Depends on the relative diameters of the donut’s ring and donut hole... but assuming that the ratios are such that the structure is stable enough to exist as a donut and not crush into a ball...
The center of gravity would exist as an annulus sitting slightly inside the core of the donut towards the central point. Inside the core because the gravity of the rest of the planet would still have some impact, like the moon does on the earth.
You would be slightly heavier on the outer edge of the donut, slightly lighter on the inside, but able to stand on the donut surface.
Satellite orbits would be more complicated to calculate but they could travel in a variety of paths including a winding path around the donut annulus.
Edit: lighter on the inside not heavier
| 3,729 |
|
How relevant are the classic philosophical texts to answering philosophical queries today?
|
Philosophy, like many other disciplines, has a rich history of influential thinkers writing important works. Philosophy has Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Kant, Mill, Nietzsche, Russell, Wittgenstein, Popper, to name a tiny fraction of what I consider the biggest name Western philosophers. Physics has Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, Einstein etc. Mathematics has Euclid, Leibniz, Newton etc. All of this is to be expected.
But also like other disciplines, in the age of modern academia philosophy research has become vast, with academic papers becoming the main way research is initially published. And as with other disciplines, textbooks (on and offline) summarise historical ideas and debates.
But unlike with other disciplines, students are often encouraged to go back and read the original classic texts. And these texts are sometimes seen as a necessary point of engagement for many questions, and subsequently are often referenced directly.
My question is: In general, how important is it for philosophers today to read and engage with the classic texts to produce good research? Is it ever/often sufficient to understand their ideas from textbooks, and then focus one's engagement with contemporary philosophical papers? Or another way to put it would be: for an essay on topic X, is it more valuable to read the classic books on X, or to read the same number of pages of textbook entries summarising the classic books and contemporary papers on X?
Time is money after all, especially in an academic's life.
| 27 |
It would vary from text to text, of course, but at the very least the historical philosophers would probably shine some light on contemporary questions. That being said, since the historical philosopher's insights might have been incorporated into the body of knowledge that contemporary philosophers bring to bear on a question, there might be nothing gained from reading the historical philosopher -- even though, technically, he or she does illuminate the question. But you can see why it would very from text to text, then, because in some cases, contemporary philosophers might not be fully appreciating the insights of historical philosophers.
| 14 |
[Invincible show] What the hell was that baseball made of??? it should have exploded into dust from the force they used necessarily to toss it around the planet
| 98 |
"super strength" is what it looks like they're doing, but in reality it's much more complicated than that. Consider how they use their flight to get leverage to punch, and how they fly without displacing matter in the opposite direction, in short they're pulling energy out of nowhere and applying it in ways that *often* defy physics as we understand them.
In short, you simply could not replicate the feat of throwing a baseball around the planet, not with force at the point of *launch* alone. But they do it, easily and instinctively even. The Ball and the bat didn't explode for the same reason an airplane doesn't collapse when a vilitrumite carries it even though it shouldn't be able to be supported from the single point of stress of where the vilitrumite is carrying it from. Or appears to be carrying it from. Clearly there seems to be some form of telekinesis at work, though one apparently tied very closely to the vilitrumite's physical motions and intents, sorta like bending from avatar in a way.
| 90 |
|
What is Psychoanalysis insofar as it is related to philosophy, and why is it important?
|
A few days ago on /r/philosophy I made [this](http://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/24tkhb/slavoj_%C5%BEi%C5%BEek_slovenian_psychoanalyst_on_the/charru3?context=3) reply which was apparently uninformed since psychoanalysis is quite different from philosophy. It seems to me that Zizek makes unsupported claims, and yet everyone told me it was ok because it wasn't an argument but rather "psychoanalysis". Yet I still dont see any reason to buy into what Zizek was saying.
Of course, I realize that the confusion is likely on my part and so I'd like to learn where I went wrong and what psychoanalysis is/does. If anyone could give me a brief rundown or suggest any short readings (I dont see anything in SEP except for Lacan) I would appreciate it. I would prefer a brief rundown from one of you however.
| 21 |
> I'd like to learn [..] what psychoanalysis is...
Psychoanalysis is a tradition of psychotherapy that was founded by Sigmund Freud and his colleagues around the turn to the twentieth century. It was developed throughout the twentieth century, so that there are now a variety of theoretical and clinical positions within the general tradition of psychoanalysis, some of which are critical of various Freudian ideas or procedures. Sometimes the term *psychoanalytic* is reserved to describe only those clinical procedures which adhere to certain technical guidelines laid down by Freud and later psychoanalysts, while the term *psychodynamic* is used in a broader sense to refer to approaches to psychotherapy which adapt psychoanalytic ideas and procedures but do not necessarily adhere to those strictures. Psychoanalytic/psychodynamic therapy has also influenced a variety of other psychotherapeutic traditions, like Jung's analytic psychology, Adler's individual psychology, and Beck's cognitive therapy. Since it's founding, it's been one of the main, and for a time the dominant, orientation in psychotherapy, especially long-term psychotherapy.
> .../does.
Psychoanalysts see patients in their clinical practices, supervise other clinicians, write case studies on their patients, teach psychoanalysis, and write articles on theoretical or clinical topics pertaining to the same.
| 10 |
[digimon] if you cut open an animal like digimon, Vemon say, would you find blood and guts or a jumble of electrons masquerading as a tetrapod?
| 32 |
If you cut one open it would dissolve into digital energy.
That's the nature of Digimon. They are pure digital energy given form. If their program is damaged too much they revert to a less evolved form. If they are very severely damaged they lose their firm entirely and they're reborn as a Digi egg
| 27 |
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ELI5: Why does the anesthesia given during wisdom teeth extraction make you loopy upon waking while other surgical anesthesia does not?
|
Perhaps this is just me but having been "under" several times I only felt goofy and euphoric after my wisdom teeth were out.
| 22 |
All anesthesia can make you loopy upon waking. Ketamine is a particularly bad example of this, which is why it is no longer often used as an anesthetic for surgery even though it has other great properties, like being less prone to unsafe changes in blood pressure than many anesthetics. But the bottom line is that ANYTHING that disrupts consciousness can make people confused/loopy/combative. This happens in post surgical recovery units all the time. It might not be as well publicized or depicted in social media where people in videos act strangely after the dentist, but this is likely because after people have general surgery, they are not as likely to be allowed to leave as soon as your average dental patient.
Edit: it has been pointed out to me that ketamine has fallen out of favor as a general anesthetic in the USA, but is still very much in use worldwide, especially in developing countries.
| 37 |
ELI5: An objective explanation of the Standing Rock Sioux and Dakota Access Pipeline controversy
| 117 |
There's a company called Energy Transfer Partners (ETP) which is a big and complex company that owns in whole or in part a variety of energy companies and about 70,000 miles of gas and oil pipelines in the US.
ETP came up with a proposal to build a pipeline that connected the Bakken and Three Forks oil fields in northwestern North Dakota to a port in Illinois 1200 miles away, from which is could be shipped by tanker to refineries. The original plan ran the pipeline through Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), but the people of Bismarck objected, since a rupture in the pipeline could easily contaminate the Missouri River and make Bismarck's drinking water undrinkable.
ETP designated a new route for the pipeline that move it hundreds of miles south, running across the northern edge of the Sioux Nation Reservation, under the Missouri River, along Lake Oahe, and into Illinois, which they ran by the Army Corps of Engineers since it would cross a lot of federal land.
The Army Corps of Engineers sent a notice to the tribe asking if they'd like to weigh in on the pipeline, as required by federal law. The tribe alledgedly responded twice saying "yes" and also requesting an archaeological review of the areas affected. After the Sioux received no response, they publicly accused the Army Corps of Engineers of trying to circumvent their requirement to involve the Sioux in the process.
The Army Corps of Engineers then issued an environmental assessment that no land of interest to the Sioux would be affected, which drew criticism from the EPA and the Department of the Interior as being incomplete and even absurd. At the same time, other tribes further down the proposed path of the pipeline also notified the government that they had not been consulted either.
The American Council on Historical Preservation (not affiliated with the Sioux) lodged a formal complaint on behalf of the Sioux Nation, and the Army Corps of Engineers stood by their findings, issuing permits for 200 sites in 4 states, concluding the pipeline with have no impact on the Sioux.
The Sioux then filed a lawsuit to get an injunction against the Army Corps of Engineers and have the permit for the area bordering the Sioux reservation withdrawn, and ETP responded by suing the Sioux for stalling and blocking the building of the pipeline.
Protestors from the Sioux and other tribes along the pipeline route then showed up at the pipeline construction sites to stage a sit-in and prevent construction. The number of people grew to the thousands, and Homeland Security decided that to prevent the situation from growing untenable, they would have trucks providing water to the protestors removed.
Not wanting to wait for the courts the ETP construction crews began bulldozing a portion of the land the Sioux had identified as burying grounds, enraging the protestors (and on the anniversary of a massacre of Sioux on the site by the US Army in 1863). Private security forces hired by ETP then responded by attacking the protestors with dogs and pepper spray. Two days later, a judge calls a halt to the construction.
By this time, there are members of 100 different tribes on the site. Jill Stein vandalizes a bulldozer for a photo-op and an arrest warrant is issued for her. In anticipation of a court decision and potential unrest, the governor orders the National Guard to the site to keep order. A district judge denies the Sioux petition and OKs continuation on construction, but the DOJ, Army, and Department of the Interior issue a joint statement refusing to authorize further construction -- asking ETP to halt construction until it is determined whether it is in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.
A district judge turns down an appeal from the Sioux to halt construction and ETP ignores the DOJ/Army/DOI request to stop and instead resumes construction. Now, several Senators and thousands of people are petitioning the President to halt construction on the pipeline while the Sioux and their supporters continue to peacefully protest (despite being beaten by private security and arrested by local sherriffs).
| 122 |
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