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ELI5: Why hasn't anyone/won't anyone take militarized action to secure the Ukraine crash site and investigate, with so many countries having had citizens who died in the MH-17 incident?
| 42 |
There are a lot of politics involved, and very large consequences for any military unit violating another nation's borders. Countries may not want to start a war for the sake of a few dozen people.
Additionally, military action isn't something that can happen overnight. Supply lines need to be generated, mission parameters and rules of engagement formulated, and plans made. By the time a mission arrived, there would be no remaining evidence of the incident.
| 26 |
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ELI5: Why is Yoko Ono disliked by so many?
| 19 |
To many, she destroyed the Beatles.
There were a lot of egos and strong personalities in the band, especially after they got big. Manager Brian Epstein was there from early on and respected by all, and was able to resolve disputes and keep them on track. His untimely death was probably the biggest reason the band broke up.
Without Brian, there was no one who would say no, and everyone, particularly John and Paul, did whatever they liked. John was completely enraptured by Yoko, and pretty much did whatever she said. When she wanted greater involvement in the band, since he didn't say no, no one could stop it.
This lead to a *lot* of resentment. Previously, outsiders, particularly girlfriends, were not allowed in rehearsals, but now Yoko was there. She seemed to think her obscure avant-garde artist opinions had the same weight was those who built the most popular band in the world, and John would always take her side. Paul and George couldn't work that way, they were increasingly unable to produce new albums, and eventually the band broke up.
| 49 |
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flair:'Neuroscience' If you were to "mentally practice" tennis, would the parts of your brain normally associated with actually playing tennis (especially movement) be activated as a result?
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If those parts are activated, why are your limbs not actually moving?
EDIT: I accidentally broke my flair first time 'round, sorry.
| 366 |
Similar regions corresponding to that activity would but not the motor neurons. Mental practice is very beneficial however it has to be accompanied with actual practice and going through those motions. Mental practice on its own will not be sufficient.
| 100 |
ELI5: How is my phone able to upload to cell towers that are miles away with its tiny 1W omnidirectional antenna?
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I get how the phone can download from the cell tower, because cell sites use 20-50W directional antennas, much more powerful than the phone, so they can cover a large area.
But the phone's antenna is omnidirectional, usually 1W max. That's as powerful as a Wi-Fi access point. So how can it reach the cell site 2 miles away? Is it because cell site antennas have high gain, so they can pick up a very faint signal?
| 70 |
Cell phone towers have ***much*** larger antennas and much more power available for signal amplification and processing compared to a handheld phone. They also tend to use a number of directional antennas to pick up signals from all directions, which helps their performance.
| 55 |
Why don't metal detectors go off because of zippers and metal buttons?
| 162 |
The detectors have a threshold setting which is often adjustable. They're detecting metal all the time, but only objects that displace the field by a given amount sound the alarm. They keep the threshold high enough that it doesn't go off for things like small zippers .
| 85 |
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[Marvel] Why Didn't Johnny Blaze swallow his pride and just work with Zarathos?
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I've been reading the originals lately and it seems to me Johnny never learned Spider-Mans lesson "with great power comes great responsibility." He just fucking pouts and broods.
Zarathos was tied to him as a consequence of his own stupid actions. He wasn't "cursed" he made a deal!!! Zarathos only punished the guilty and it was always a needless struggle before he let him out to do his thing. In fact sometimes people got hurt because Johnny refused to let Zarathos out. So what gives.
| 15 |
I think you said it - Pride. Johnny didn't like that he had been tricked into the deal and he made it damn clear. His yearly employee evaluations must have been pretty bad.
- Low motivation.
- Does not take initiative.
- Does not look to exceed his role.
I mean, poor Zarathos is bonded to him so they'd get jointly evaluated. Johnny could have through about the well-being of his demon possessor a bit more!
| 11 |
[Mass Effect] Has anybody ever tried to make a cure for the Ardat-Yakshi condition?
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For the unaware, the Ardat-Yakshi syndrome is a rare disease that only appears in pure-blooded Asari where when they mental join with another, thy fry the other person's entire nervous system, killing them. Naturally, they are feared greatly and those who have are given the choice of either living in a monastery in peaceful isolation, or be executed. Others like Samara's daughter Morinth decide that they will be treated as monsters, they'll embrace it and go on killing sprees.
With all of that, has anybody, Asari or otherwise, made any honest attempts to find a cure for the condition, or if nothing else a treatment?
| 162 |
No Asari has, at least. The Asari are often mistaken for a very progressive society, mostly because of their love of other races and cultures.
Within their own culture, they're stagnant. Ardat-Yakshi can only be pureblood, so their solution is stigmatizing pureblood children, and exiling or killing Ardat-Yakshi.
These are not the solutions of a society trying to solve the issue, but prevent it in the first place.
If there were individuals within the Asari trying to fix it, it would be a borderline impossible task. It's only detectable once it's too late, and as we see from the monastery, it's a spectrum, where seemingly not everyone kills the person they meld with.
As for other races... do they even know that Ardat-Yakshi exist?
| 113 |
Is C# really that much better than Java?
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Hi reddit,
I am a CS student and one of my fellow students always keeps saying how much better C# is than Java and what a bad language Java is overall.
Is he right? Are there any objective arguments/proofs that show that C# is superior to Java? What is your opinion?
| 32 |
Programming language slap fights aren't worth participating in. They're tools, and you don't see hammer people getting in fights with screwdriver or wrench people.
If something you need to do is particularly well supported in C#, like making a Windows app or something use it. If you need to work with Cassandra or Zookeeper or something, Java is probably a better choice.
Java and C# are basically the same anyways, going from those to something farther out like Rust, Elm, or Erlang is going to be more fun and educational in the long term.
| 30 |
[Hellraisers] When solving the puzzle box, what criteria determines if the person will be turned into a cenobite (like Elliot Spencer) or simply dragged to hell and tortured (like Frank Cotton)?
| 20 |
The cenobites are sense explorers. They choose to indulge in the greatest of sensory experiences possible. A gnawing hunger drove them to the box and after time within the labyrinth they began to yearn for more. With a malaise and despondent attitude they sought out the gifts of leviathan not for themselves but to give others sensations they no longer feel. They get pleasure through proxy of seeing others experience it as they themselves are otherwise numb to it.
Spencer wanted to have more of it and craved enough to be elevated into the Gash. Frank wanted a more limited sensory experience closer to sexuality and dominance rather than all that the leviathan could offer. He didn't throw himself into the experience and as such wouldn't be able to enjoy it.
The leviathan will allow new cenobites to be created if the Gash becomes too few in number but only those with that seed of craving for more can be used for this. Those elevated without the hunger will inevitably fall into baser desires that are more human and will be abandoned by the leviathan once a more suitable cenobite Candidate is found.
| 28 |
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ELI5:Would it be possible to mine a white dwarf star?
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I actually joined reddit to ask this question, couldn't find the answer online.
| 22 |
Not with science as we know it. We'd have to have some serious gravity/mass shenanigans to even get close to a dwarf star.
If you could create a powerful enough gravity well in the vicinity of a dwarf star, you could possibly syphon off some of its mass. The problem then would be whether the impossibly-large-to-comprehend energy expenditure would be worth the payoff, in addition to mundane problems like avoiding being sucked in yourself.
In short: no way of knowing, with present science.
| 14 |
[MCU] If caps shield completely absorbs vibration, why does bullets hitting it make a sound?
| 68 |
Spider-Man very clearly says it doesn't obey the laws of physics at all. The rules for what vibration it absorbs are unknown, as if it actually did absorb impact and vibration, it wouldn't bounce after getting thrown.
| 91 |
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[Matrix] In the first Matrix how can Cypher plug into the system to meet Agent Smith without anybody else walking past and seeing him talking to an agent?
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And how can he plug in the thing into his neck/brainstem without someone else helping him?
And how can he unplug and leave the matrix without an operator
| 21 |
Never explained, however two reasonable answers:
2) He plugged himself in. We see others being helped because its easier for someone else to stick a long connection in the back of your head
3) Timer. After X amount of time, eject. We can assume they don't use timers normally because theres always a human component able to take you out. Also during long ops you don't want to suddenly leave in the middle of something important.
M: "Do you want to know, what IT is? The matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out the window. . ."
Neo looks out the window, and looks back. Morpheus is gone. Oops, timer up!
| 26 |
Can You Suffer in Your Dreams?
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The phrase "pinch me I must be dreaming" is common enough. Common sense seems to posit that inside of a dream pain can't actually be felt.
You may have a nightmare in which a monster proceeds to gnaw into you. In your dream you scream but the sensation of pain is absent. This may be the typical scenario, but several psychological studies have suggested that when pain is induced in the body during REM sleep, a painful experience is accompanied within the dream. Whether or not perceived pain in a dream has anything to do with actual pain in the body is a topic for debate.
What I am interested is whether or not dream ***suffering*** is real suffering.
I once had a dreadful dream in which I died and went to heaven. Sitting in heaven I saw God pick up and throw away all my non-Christian friends. The implication was, now that I was in Heaven I'd never be able to see these "sinners" (who were so dear to me) again. I woke up in tears.
This nightmare suggested a problem that would have been equally distressing in waking life: Whether or not the people I loved would go to Heaven, Often times though, the thing we are afraid of in our dreams can be perfectly ridiculous. I once had a dream were a small robot was walking towards me, completely non-threateningly, yet in the dream I was terrified.
Was I *really* terrified?
Even if the thing would never really terrify me in my waking state?
Can you think that you are afraid but not actually be? Think you are suffering and not actually be suffering? Does whether or not you are dreaming matter?
| 37 |
Suffering does not have to have any “real,” material basis for its occurrence. You can look no further than mental illness and psychosis to see this for yourself. Suffering experienced while dreaming is still valid suffering—you wouldn’t want to be trapped in a dream made of prolonged suffering, right?
| 44 |
Why does human hair (head) grow continuously as opposed to animals?
| 133 |
Animal hair does continuously grow. All hair does. The limit to the length of hair is the growth cycle.
Basically, every hair follicle has a cycle it goes through. The hair grows, then after a while stops growing, and then falls out. The follicle then rests for a period of time before starting a new hair growth. For human hair, the growth period is on the order of several years.
Fur, like the hairs on other parts of the body, has a much shorter growth stage, resulting in shorter hair.
| 87 |
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ELI5: What does our (user) data actually look like when it is tracked, collected, analyzed and sold?
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I guess this is a multi part question.
First kind of things do Google, Facebook, Reddit track and collect? Is it on a per IP address basis, name basis?
Next, what does the data that look like when Facebook for example sells it to a third party? What kind of information is is available through Google Analytics? Google doesn't sell its own data right, it just uses it to place ads for others right?
And then third parties who do research and analysis of this data, where do they obtain this data from and how do they analyze it and what can this data look like when it gets sold to their clients?
And how does one obtain such data freely and/or from these third parties?
| 122 |
Former ad tech guy here. Your data (cookie or otherwise) is stored and parsed into segments (male, twenties, white) which are used by ad campaign managers to appropriately target you based off of needs and wants for each ad campaign. Campaigns have a target sheet which tells each campaign manager (or computer, now) which segments to associate with that campaign. Your data is sold to numerous vendors, and in the case of ads, typically to an RTB backend who can do something with it.
| 36 |
[Marvel] What information do I need before making a Faustian Deal with Mephisto?
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Can I hire someone like Forge or Shaman to act on my behalf during these negotiations or is it all on me? Is Mephisto the only one who makes these deals or could I shop around with Dormmamu or Chthon? I want to get the best value for my soul here and Mephisto seems kind of weak but he seems slightly more trustworthy then the others.
Whose the most trustworthy person I could sell my soul to? This seems like a dangerous operation and I want to be well informed before making this decision.
| 43 |
No matter what you do you are going to get a bad deal, even if it looks like a good deal it is a bad deal. Maybe you get fame, fortune and you never age. And Mephisto doesn't get your soul until you die a natural death; so after you make the deal Mephisto has someone drop a tree on you. Your best beat might be to sell your soul to Mephisto for something valuable to Dr. Doom. Doom hates Mephisto so if you give him a good enough reason he might just help out, but this is still a bit of a longshot.
Or as an alternative don't sell your soul; instead fall in love and get married. Then sell your marriage to Mephisto and he will give you pretty much anything you want for it. You don't even have give up your or your spouse's soul. Mephisto just loves being a homewrecker.
| 49 |
[LOTR] What happened to Saruman after he was killed? Since he is basically an angel did his soul just go back to Valinor where the Valar are like “what the fuck bro?!”
| 657 |
> "Whereas Curunir was cast down, and utterly humbled, and perished at last by the hand of an oppressed slave; and his spirit went whither-soever it was doomed to go, and to Middle-earth, whether naked or embodied, came never back."
His body died, but his spirit remained an incorporeal mass, denied entry to anywhere beyond the living world. He also did not have the ability to re-make a physical form like Sauron once could.
What was left of his spirit drifted into eternity, forgotten, unable to interact with anyone or anything again.
| 769 |
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[Harry Potter] Are there any spells of mass destruction?
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Are there any spells that can basically destroy a huge amount of space? Like, a spell that makes an explosion with a 5 mile radius, or a spell that kills everyone nearby, like a gatling Avada Kadavra? Is there any way for a wizard to kill a lot of people, really really quickly? Is there a magical nuke?
| 54 |
What about that cursed fire thingy? Sounds terrible if you put it on a skyscraper.
Otherwise you could transmute something to pure plutonium or something (not sure how that works though, not a scientist)
| 40 |
Is it possible to freeze water while electricity is flowing?
| 19 |
Well, as you may know, water is actually a very poor conductor. What lets it conduct in daily life are dissolved ions which can conduct, and crucially, are very mobile in liquid water. Let's assume you mean water with these ions, of course. As you cool it, conductivity will slowly decrease as in mobility drops.
If fully frozen, these ions become almost immobile (there is still diffusion in solid state, but in time and distance scales that is insignificant). This makes ice a very poor conductor even with ions embedded. If saturated with ions, conductivity would be higher, but still low.
That being said, it could still conduct a little bit, depending on applied voltage/current, size if your piece of ice, etc. But, if you try to pump too much through your ice, the resistivity of the water will cause heating and very easily and quickly melt the ice, which in turn would increase conductivity again.
In fact, some pipe systems have used this effect to prevent freezing, and it's somewhat similar to power lines that use resistive heating to thaw it percent I've buildup. Now, with power lines, the resistance comes from the line itself and not from conduction through water, but it still shows how electrical resistance can generate heat.
| 26 |
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ELI5 : how are the various parts of voyager 1 and 2 still working despite them not undergoing regular maintenance , especially even after 45 years?
| 91 |
They’re designed to be durable, not cheap. Most earth-based hardware can cut a lot of cost by using vastly cheaper consumable parts.
They’re also in deep space - an environment that has certain challenges from radiation and low pressure, but also has some key benefits in zero moisture or oxidizing gases.
The Voyager probe would have been obliterated by corrosion on Earth by now.
With few moving parts and no threat of corrosion, space probes have a good history of running until their power supplies go dead.
| 150 |
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ELI5: Why is it legal that I can google an US citizen and find out he or she was arrested for something?
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Some time ago I met this guy at a conference, we talked a lot and hat some beers. Next day I google him and first thing I find is he was arrested for public intoxication some years back (It happened in Utah...). I was really surprised - not by the fact *this* guy was publicly intoxicated, but by the fact that EVERYTHING was online (and can only be removed for a fee, which sounds like extortion).
How is that legal? What is the rationale behind that? Here in Germany you could probably raise hell if the state made personal information like that public.
EDIT: OK, let me clear this up. I'm not asking why the state is keeping public records on legal processes. I am asking why there is basically an online pillory for misdemeanors.
In Germany for example you nearly always have to hand in an official, printed copy of your criminal record when you apply for a job. This document is regarded highly confidential. So a potential employer can check you. But I can't just google my neighbor and start a witch hunt.
Edit 2: Some quite important words.
| 15 |
The actions of the court system and the police system which are funded by taxpayers are generally considered public information.
Once your actions force the government to punish you, they're no longer really personal anymore.
| 23 |
[Artemis Fowl] How long could the fairy folk remain undetected before humanity finds them, given the rapid advancement of technology over the past century?
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I've just finished the Atlantis Complex. If the above question comes up in the final book, I apologize.
| 15 |
Indefinitely, assuming that the humans never catch the people technologically. The more humans rely on the information they get from their toys the easier they are to fool with false data. Any one who manages to uncover evidence of the people and sounds the alarm about elves living underground will be dismissed as a nut until a mind wipe takes care of the problem. The Fowl Incident was a one time event and the risks of such a thing happening again is negligible.
| 16 |
ELI5: How do Tylenol and Advil destroy your liver?
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Edit: No I didn't ~~watch~~ listen to This American Life the other day. I was having an argument with a friend about the effects of Tylenol and Advil.
Edit: Thank you for all the great responses! I get it now.
| 57 |
Tylenol is acetaminophen.
Your liver metabolizes acetaminophen. The metabolite of acetaminophen is toxic to the liver. It destroys proteins and DNA in the liver. However, there is a compound in the liver that quickly neutralizes this harmful metabolite to something that isn't harmful. Too much tylenol overwhelms this compound. So of course the treatment for an overdose of tylenol is to give the compound that neutralizes the harmful metabolite of acetaminophen.
Advil is ibuprofen. Ibuprofen nor it's metabolites destroy your liver. It will affect your kidneys before your liver.
| 36 |
is it the case that poisonous animals tend to be colourful and if so why is it that they tend to evolve to be colourful moreso then other animals?
| 118 |
The “why” comes down to evolution. Let’s do a thought experiment. There is a population of caterpillars that are poisonous. They look exactly like a non-poisonous species and both are mostly brown. Birds will try to eat both. They notice that some taste great and some taste awful.
Which is which though? You don’t want to make the same mistake twice. There is, of course, genetic variation in coloration. Some of the poisonous caterpillars have small, thin red stripes and some don’t. The birds eat both and notice that all of the ones with red stripes taste bad but only some of the all brown ones taste bad (because some are poisonous and some are the non-poisonous species). They stop eating the striped ones but keep eating the brown ones (and spitting them out). The poisonous ones with no red stripes are thus weeded out of the gene pool and all of the poisonous offspring now only have red stripes. Over time, those red stripes get larger and larger as the caterpillars with bolder red stripes are less likely to accidentally get eaten and thus the genes for bold bright warning colors are more likely to be spread in the gene pool of poisonous animals. The opposite is true for tasty non-poisonous animals. Only those with the best adapted camouflage survive to pass their genes onto the next generation.
| 327 |
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Why do we hear ourselves differently than we actually sound?
| 68 |
Because of where our ears are located and which way they point. Take your hands, cup them around your ears with your palms facing forward, and push your earlobes forward a bit. That's what you really sound like.
| 32 |
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ELI5: What is the mandelbrot set
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Ready...go!
**Update:** [Here's](http://imgur.com/a/ws3WZ#1) what I created with my well explained newly acquired information. And also made this short [video](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEqhqakzkxY).
| 37 |
Imagine you are on a big empty playground that only has merry-go-round in the middle of it. You tired of the merry-go-round so you invent a new game. You mark out and number squares all over the play ground and in each square you put a card with the number of some other square.
The game is look at the card and move to the new square as indicated by the card. Now repeat.
For the Mandelbrot Game you want to use very special numbering and directions for moving. First use two numbers, not just one number. The first number is the distance to the merry-go-round for that square, for the second number you can imagine someone on the merry-go-round pointing at both the school and at you standing on the square. Depending on the square, there will be an angle between their arms. The second number is that angle (so one arm is always pointing at the school house, the other is swinging around pointing at you depending on the square.) Now what do the directions say on them? Just the double angle of the current square and square the distance to the merry-go-round. So if you start on square (3, 30 degrees) you move to (9, 60 degrees). The angle doubles, and the distance squares. Maybe you are at (1/4, 210 degrees), well now you move to (1/16, 60 degrees). Notice that 360 degrees is all the way around, so if you double 210 degrees it is 420 degrees and that is 60 degrees more than a full circle, so you just go to the 1/16 card that has 60 degrees on it.
OK, that is sort of the Mandelbrot Game, you square your distance, and double your angle and move to a new square. But we add a twist. We add a Standard Hop.
The numbers for your first square have a distance and angle (as there are on all the squares) and you will remember those numbers for your standard hop. A standard hop says use your compass, and move that fixed distance by that fixed angle. The standard hop never changes (it is standard), always the same distance, in the same direction.
Now for the Mandelbrot game. Starting from the merry-go-round move to any square. That fixes your standard hop. Check the card for the new numbers. Get to the new square by doubling the angle and squaring the distance, but do NOT look at that card, first take a Standard hop, look at that card. The next new number to move to is the square of that distance and that double of the angle. When you get to the new square you do not use that card, you take a standard hop. Now you repeat the moves. Always look at the numbers for the new square AFTER the standard hop.
So it is a repeating pattern of standard hop, look at card, square distance, double angle, move to new square, standard hop and keep so on. The Mandelbrot set is all the starting squares (and, therefore, all the standard hops) that keep you close to the merry-go-round. With all this squaring distances, double angles, and taking standard hops it should be no surprise that some starting points just get further and further away and never get close to the merry-go-round. Some might be close for a while and then wander off, others might always stay close. The Mandelbrot set is the ones that stay close.
| 21 |
CMV: People are over reacting to the Corona Virus
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Hoping that someone can help change my view on this subject.
It seems as though every year there is some sort of big medical scare, whether it be Bird Flu, Swine Flu, Ebola, Corona Virus, etc.
But in the end these scares often amount to very little. The media coverage just makes everyone terrified and it seems to be worse for this virus than any before.
Upon researching the virus, it doesn't even seem to be that bad? Just similar to a flu, so wouldn't it only really be a risk to older and at risk people? Why are whole countries shutting down?
The flu kills so many people every year, but people are just told to stay off work if they have it, rather than curfewing cities and damaging economies.
I might be wrong on a lot of these fronts, so I'd be glad if someone more knowledgable could help change my view!
| 52 |
Simply put, most of the medical scares over the years have amounted to false alarms because they were taken extremely seriously. When the media coverage makes everyone terrified and gets everyone talking about the latest outbreak, it reduces the chance of an epidemic. If nobody cared and just ignored it, that's when disease becomes dangerous.
| 44 |
CMV: Modern study of Philosophy is essentially worthless, and it is a very outdated practice to be a philosopher.
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EDIT: OK guys... There are a lot of good responses, and there are a lot of bad. A lot of you are saying that you don't know why I would possibly ask this since I said I'm a law student. You clearly have no idea what my view actually is... And if thats my fault, I'll look at my post when I get the chance and try to word it better.
EDIT 2: There are a lot of replies, many of which are tearing apart other replies. If I don't reply to you, then I'm sorry, there's a lot here. But I'm still going to read everything.
EDIT 3: I'd like to give a shoutout to /u/AgnosticKierkegaard for posting this to /r/badphilosophy (a circlejerk subreddit where people go to mock others for holding a different view), then in a number of comments being hostile towards me, judging me, mocking me, and trying to convince others that I am "incompetent" . It looks like many of these comments have been deleted either by him or the mods, but please, do not be this immature. It solves absolutely nothing, and will not change anyone's views. I chose to hide his top comment because someone that immature should not be a candidate for a delta.
FINAL EDIT: I gave my delta, and I think it is a good idea at this point to delete everything I had. About half of you gave good replies, while the other half leaned more towards "I'm going to be hostile to convey my excellent argument!". I don't think that anymore replies are necessary. If you really want to tell me something, PM me.
| 492 |
I think you're really missing the point of a theoretical field of study. And you're also attacking what is taught in introductory courses and then claiming that contemporary work in philosophy is worthless without knowing what people working in that field actually do.
It's much like attacking how basic mathematics can be intuitive, who needs to go over addition so much, mathematicians must be pretty worthless if this is what they're working on. The basic things taught about arguments and fallacies are not what modern philosophers are working on. Those things, along with problems like Theseus’s ships, are introductory topics. As with other fields you must learn basic problems which introduce ideas and terminology before you can move into the more interesting complex problems.
And work in those more interesting and complex problems, be they work in logic or another philosophical field, are providing benefits in computer systems, algorithms, math, linguistics, political policies, and interpretation of scientific research.
You asked “what's the point of debating Theseus's ship, who's it helping”? Again, contemporary philosophers are not still debating Theseus's ship, but they may be arguing about a concept related to the one Theseus's ship addresses. For someone that goes on to study deeper philosophy courses it's important to know the history of where a concept came from and how it was changed over time. Philosophy, as with soft sciences like sociology and humanities like literature, isn't as much about “out with the old and keep the new” as it is in hard sciences. Many old concepts and arguments are kept so that you have a large pool of ideas to pull from. When you're trying to research something that is not quantifiable you need to be able to come at it from many different viewpoints. Psychology is a great example of this, how in studying a problem the same researcher may try thinking about it from a behaviorist perspective, or a functionalist perspective. Sociologists can look at a problem from a class perspective, or a feminist perspective, etc...
The benefit of a student learning about Theseus's ship who isn't going on to study more philosophy, is to learn about the concepts the problem brings to light and open their mind to a new perspective. One might say that other fields can also open a student's mind to new ways of thinking, but that ignores that maybe there was a specific insight the class is trying to teach, not just any new concept. One might say that there are other problems or fields that demonstrate the same concept as Theseus's ship. But many older philosophical problems are very simple in a way that anyone can approach them. There isn't much prerequisite knowledge you need to hear and start thinking about the problem than if you were going to try and teach the problem using an example from say physics to demonstrate the problem. Then you'd need to define physics terms that are new to the listener before moving into the actual problem.
The value of theoretical fields of study is to understand reality better, regardless of what you can then apply that knowledge to. However, generally a better understanding of reality will always have practical benefit in that it informs your decision making. In philosophy, when someone can make a good arguement with solid logical form, and no misrepresented or untrue premises, and it leads you to see a very basic truth as being unclear. It's not a novelty of language, it's a sign that there is a problem with your concept that needs to be worked out. Whether you find that there was a problem with the question, or it is the concept itself that was flawed you will have moved closer to understanding the world better.
Historically, philosophy works out the concepts and others who have adopted the worldview of those new concepts bring the useful benefits. The Ship of Theseus problem (along with others) addresses concepts like identity and unity. Being able to break apart our intuitive assumptions of identity and unity are what inspire early thinkers to imagine atoms abstractly before they can even see them. Philosophers debate ideas of class, human nature, and rights, and later once culture has adopted the ideas do we get our human rights movements.
| 284 |
ELI5: why can't scientists program viruses that kill cells with deformed DNA to cure cancer?
| 16 |
Short answer: They're trying, but it's hard. This will probably be how we eventually manage to "cure" cancer.
Long Answer: "Cancer" is a general term which generally refers to any unwanted/out of control growth of the body's own cells. As you correctly said, it's due to deformed/mis copied DNA, which shuts off the protein pathways which prevent abnormal growth (both by stopping cell division, and trigger apoptosis (cell death) in cells which shouldn't be somewhere). There are a couple of things which make this hard to treat by sticking a virus into the body.
Firstly, cancers are not composed of foreign cells and generally have the same markers on their surface as rest of the body's cells, so the immune system doesn't attack them. This isn't always the case, it is possible for the immune system to be "taught" to attack cancerous cells *in vitro* (outside the body). In fact this was recently done by a team using a modified version of the HIV virus and they had some success treating an individual's leukaemia. Viruses are a good approach because they hijack host cell's DNA to produce their own proteins/reproduce, so you can use them to add specific genes to cells. (this is how some GM crops are made). The problem with this is that we are still a huge way from being able to custom design a gene which will produce a protein with function X, so our ability to kill cancer cells using this approach is limited. The team using the HIV cells made some of the body's own immune cells recognise naturally occurring "signals" on the cancerous cells; but this was pretty specific to the type of cancer they were treating.
Secondly, each cancer is different. While a lot of cancers have mutations to certain genes which regulate cell growth, this doesn't necessarily mean that they "look" the same on the outside to immune cells, (especially as each individual has different immune antigens anyway) so a treatment would almost certainly have to be tailored to each individual which is prohibitively expensive (and basically impossible with current knowledge / computers).
Hopefully once we get better at understanding how proteins fold, and hence what function they have, we'll be able to custom design virii which will attack cells with malformed DNA.
| 10 |
|
[Spider-Man 2002] Was Norman really trying to get control of himself from Goblin persona in the final fight with Spider-Man? Or was it all just Goblin till the very end?
|
In the final fight, when Spiderman starts beating up Green Goblin, he starts to plead and then removes the helmet. Then he starts crying about how he's trying to gain back control and asks Peter to not let Goblin take him again.
Is this whole thing a ruse just like the one he pulled at No Way Home? Or is that REALLY Norman begging Peter to help?
I ask because in the end, "Don't tell Harry" bit, that's clearly Norman, so it stands to reason that the real Norman was definitely fighting for control and only achieved it once "Goblin" dies. I'm just wondering if the pleading part was also him or not.
| 464 |
So watching the fight (and movie in general) you can see Osbournes body language and voice change slightly when he switches from Norman to goblin and vice versa.
You can hear the goblin back over as he's saying "don't let him take me again" when he kinda studders and repeats "don't" and then the goblin is pretending to be Norman and offers Peter what he's always wanted, a father
The goblin releases him as he dies and that's the "don't tell Harry" line
| 293 |
Did the construction of the Panama and Suez canals affect the ecology of the surrounding waters?
|
Despite the small overland distance, would connecting two very different bodies of water have a noticeable effect on the flora and fauna of the two regions?
| 58 |
Suez allowed lots of marine organisms from Red Sea to enter Mediterranean Sea. This process is so wide spread it is given a name; Lessepsian migration or sometimes Lessepsian invasion. It effects on Mediterranean ecosystems hasn't been great.
| 20 |
CMV: Illegal immigrants who enter illegally should be treated differently than illegal immigrants who overstay their visas. The former are more dangerous.
|
In the illegal immigrant debate all we hear about is "illegal immigrants". There is no distinction made as to what kind of illegal immigrant the person is.
I argue that the distinction is highly important in evaluating how we feel towards said illegal immigrants and what action if any should be taken to combat the problem.
Illegal immigrants who overstay their visas are breaking the law. However these illegal immigrants were once vetted by our country and we are aware who they are and their presence in our country.
Illegal immigrants who cross the border illegally do not fit into this type of illegal immigrant. We don't know who they are and we never granted them access.
The latter is more troubling.
Having a guest come to your house and overstay their welcome is a different problem then having a stranger come into your house uninvited.
Although most illegal immigrants come here through legal ports of entry and overstay, the real issue should be to stop the illegal immigrants who enter without us every granting them permission. They are far more dangerous.
For some reason people choose to combat the problem at the border by arguing that it is the Visa overstay illegal immigrants that are the problem because they are the majority of illegal immigrants in the country. Considering the examples above and the fact not knowing who enters your country is worse than knowing and staying, I conclude the people crossing into our country illegally are more dangerous.
Please change my view.
_____
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| 144 |
US law already makes this distinction. Overstaying a visa is NOT a crime and the only consequence is deportation which is NOT considered a punishment for a crime. It's a purely administrative matter. Illegal entry on the other hand IS a crime and if convicted you can face jail time *after* which you may be deported. First time offenses aren't considered all that serious being a misdemeanor and the sentence is almost always time served. But, subsequent convictions for the same crime bump it up to felony illegal entry and involve real jail time.
| 108 |
Could we reach T=0 in the center of a huge neutron
star?
|
If all the atoms have been packed into a huge crystal, no electron shells, wouldn't they stop moving? Isn't that T=0, a thermodynamic impossibility?
| 60 |
Actually quite the opposite, as you pack the neutrons closer and closer you *increase* their rate of movement.
Due to heisenbergs uncertainty principle the uncertainty in the position times the uncertainty in the momentum must be > plancks constant. If you pack the neutrons closer and closer together you decrease the size of the "box" you have limited their location to. This decrease in your positional uncertainty increases the uncertainty of the momentum.
It is actually the pressure caused by this uncertainty that holds the neutron star up against gravity. Once these neutrons are being packed so tight that they have relativistic energies, this force is unable to keep the star up against its gravity and it collapses into a black hole.
| 33 |
[South Park] Does Eric Cartman have any genuinely redeeming qualities? Has he ever done a good deed out of true altruism?
|
We all know the kid’s a complete prick. Everything he does is for his own selfish desires, and he’s the antichrist of PC people. But has Cartman ever shown any kind of behavior that marks him as somewhat redeemable? He seems to genuinely love his mom at least.
| 29 |
…In "Major Boobage" he goes out of his way to hide cats (which had been declared contraband) in his attic despite risk to himself. Despite Kyle pointing it out, Cartman does not see any similarities to anything in history.
| 80 |
[Arrested Development] So Tobias is shown having more than one pair of cut-offs, implying that he must change between them. How does he achieve this without ever being nude?
| 35 |
The sensible answer? He wears a long robe of some sort so he can get them off underneath.
The more likely for Tobias? He cuts the cut offs off under a new pair of cut offs so that they can be removed in the most awkward way possible. Or he cleans them in the shower/climbs into a washing machine.
| 66 |
|
Why are most of the large impact craters on the moon located on the side facing the Earth? Wouldn't the other side be less shielded?
| 705 |
There is a very big impact crater on the far side. Probably you meant lunar maria. They formed when impacts were big enough to break the lunar crust and reach the molten interior, so lava came out and later solidified in a relatively smoother and darker surface. The impact on the far side just created a big crater with no mare as the crust is thicker.
There are two theories about this. They do not contradict each other so they could even be both true.
One of them says that when the lunar maria formed, Earth was still hot and emitting lots of infrared. So the near side of the Moon was kept warmer, with a thinner solid crust.
Another theory is based on the giant impact hypothesis. Some background: A Mars-sized body (called Theia) is supposed to have impacted Earth at a relatively low speed. The collision created a disc of debris that eventually coalesced and formed the Moon.
Back to the maria: the other theory says that from this disc of debris it was actually *two moons* that formed. But since they were sharing the same orbit in an unstable configuration, eventually they crashed at a low speed and the smaller moon "pancaked" over the larger one, creating a thicker crust on that side. Then the Moon gradually became tidally locked and the thicker crust happened to be on the far side.
| 297 |
|
[MCU] Why didn't 616 Wanda and 838 Strange have a third eye?
|
Granted, there's not a lot of canon info going around for that, since only two characters have shown the third eye. The common factor being the Darkhold. But 616 Strange barely used it for long.
What do you guys think?
| 18 |
They may have had them, as we see you can close your third eye. But assuming they didn’t have them, Wanda is special and IIRC we don’t know long it was before 616 Strange developed his so 838 Strange may have just died before it appeared.
| 23 |
[Star Wars] Best lightsaber form against Darth Sidious?
|
What form would you choose against Sidious? I think this is a tough one. Ataru was probably a failure. Obviously Vaapad is the best, but with only one master who was dead, it wasn't possible.
Sidious was a master of all the forms, as well as a master of several Sith forms. However, Yoda was also a master of all of them (not vaapad), so perhaps he combind his forms and still couldn't slay Sidious. Unless he fell back exclusively on Ataru? It certainly looked like it.
Perhaps Yoda should have considered using Jar Kai against him.
Thoughts?
| 84 |
There's a very, very strong argument that Sidious' ability in battle mostly does not involve weaponry or martial arts, it's about influence and clouding the minds of his opponent. Did you see how easily he defeated very powerful Jedi, how they seemed unable to defend themselves? There's no reasonable explanation for that aside from them being mentally and/or emotionally compromised in that moment. The only Jedi Sidious had trouble with were Yoda and Windu, both of whom were master Force-wielders and likely had built up defenses against mental and emotional Force attacks.
There's no lightsaber form that can defend against a mental Force attack of the type and intensity of Darth Sidious. For that, you need wholly different training.
| 91 |
[Invader Zim] How does an invisible vehicle that doesn't cloak it's operator work?
|
In the episode "Megadoomer", Zim gets a massive battle robot with a cloaking device that makes it invisible, but doesn't make Zim invisible inside it. So Zim just awkwardly floats in the air while untold destruction erupts around him. How does such a thing work?
| 18 |
The Irken invaders steal technology from planets they subjugate and also enslave the planets original inhabitants. The Megadoomer was likely designed and constructed by one of these planets, it's builders would have sabotaged the design in some way that doesn't technically count as disobeying the irkens and whoever was overseeing the production didn't notice or care about the flaw.
As for how it actually works, there are several methods of attaining a cloak. Make the material not interact with light, project an image of what would be there if the material wasn't, or just convince everything looking at it that it isn't there. In any case it would be relatively simple to leave the pilot on display.
| 10 |
Why are shadows left after being vaporized?
|
When Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed with nukes, why did peoples vaporized bodies leave a shadow?
| 16 |
The initial burst of light and heat from the explosion would bleach things like concrete. If someone was casting a shadow on something, their body would be blocking that portion of the concrete from that bleaching so it remained somewhat unchanged compared to the area around it.
| 26 |
ELI5: What is different about my butt muscle that stops it from cramping!
|
If I tense any muscle in my body for too long, it loses strength, or cramps. But my butt muscle (anus, sphincter - whatever - not my glutes) is "tight" and tensed almost all day. What is so special about it that allows it to remain tense all day without cramping or relaxing? Is there anything about it's abilities that could be used to allow other muscles in the body to work longer/harder?
| 23 |
Believe it or not, your external anal sphincter that you can voluntarily control (skeletal muscle) isn't contracted all day. It is in fact relaxed most of the day. Your internal anal sphincter is contracted all day. When the stretch receptors in your rectum are activated by feces, your involuntarily controlled internal anal sphincter relaxes and you have to voluntarily contract your external anal sphincter in order to prevent defecation.
TL:DR You only use your butthole muscle when you have to actually take a shit.
Btw, The internal anal sphincter is made up of smooth muscle, which works a little differently than skeletal muscle and can work all day without cramping.
| 17 |
ELI5 - Why do detergent pods dissolve in the water in the washing machine almost immediately, but don’t dissolve from the water present in the detergent they’ve been holding for months in the box?
| 43 |
The liquid in pods has a much lower percentage of water than regular detergent. The shell does dissolve a little, but there is only so much that can dissolve in the tiny confined space before its saturated. The much larger amount of water in the wash can hold more dissolved shell so it softens the shell and washes it away.
| 20 |
|
[Marvel] If you cut off Wolverines head would it grow a new body?
|
Also would his now headless corpse grow its own head? So you'd have two Wolverines (kind of like cutting a worm in half?)
| 33 |
Probably not. He has difficulty regenerating limbs because of the metal in his skeleton. In one universe his legs were torn off and he had to climb up a mountain to retrieve them.
The fact that his blood, hair, and skin cells don't stay alive shows that there are definite limits to his regeneration. In theory you could suspend a tissue sample in a nutrient solution and see what it grows into. But that will either turn into mutant cancer (see Henrietta Lacks) or another Deadpool. And nobody wants another Deadpool.
| 38 |
ELI5: Why aren't we using flash on smartphones or new technology anymore, when it used to be a good option for animation?
|
I remember that when the iPhone appeared they decided not to use flash (which seemed awkward cause apple owns adobe), now even andriod has no flash and it's starting to go away faster and faster on new technology.
PS: I don't miss Flash webpages, those are just bad. But banners and different forms of animation where good many times.
| 19 |
apple does not own adobe.
the basic capabilities of flash with regards to animation, streaming and vector graphics have all been included in web standards or have been given special treatment by proprietary browser capabilities.
Additionally, the flash plugin was/is notoriously unstable, responsible for what some said was the vast majority of browser crashes across all browsers.
| 21 |
eli5: On an atomic level, how does an atom ‘know’ it belongs to (for example) a sheet of paper but not the sheet of paper below it. Also how do scissors interact with the paper on an atomic level to cut it into two pieces.
| 16,369 |
>eli5: On an atomic level, how does an atom ‘know’ it belongs to (for example) a sheet of paper but not the sheet of paper below it.
It doesn't. Look up vacuum welding, it's fascinating. When you have two very clean surfaces of, say, aluminium, and touch them together in a vacuum, they will weld themselves together because yes the atoms don't 'know' which piece of metal it's a part of. The reason they don't in your everyday experience is because our environment is full of oils, and dirt, and oxygen corroding the metal, so there are multiple dividing layers between the actual metal.
Of course paper is less simple since it's actually a bunch of fibres mashed together.
>Also how do scissors interact with the paper on an atomic level to cut it into two pieces.
The scissors blades compress the paper fibres until they break apart. Scissor blades aren't lined up for a reason, what they're doing is basically pulling the paper apart, just in a very small area. It's why very blunt scissors don't cut, they bend the paper instead; the area on which they're pulling is too large, and the force of your hand isn't great enough to pull that many fibres apart
| 10,962 |
|
[A Quiet Place 2] - is New Zealand okay?
|
>!Or Madagascar, or any other isolated smaller landmass really.!<
>!It seems they arrived on rather uncontrolled meteorites, and we know they can't swim, so I'm assuming so unless they got a lucky hit in, but did either movie have info (newspaper clippings in the background etc.) about known impacts?!<
| 16 |
Almost certainly, assuming it didn't have a meteorite impact the mainland. Seems like the weakness to water was realized quickly enough that the national guard was able to evacuate quite a lot of people and equipment off the mainland.
Based off what we see in the second film it appears that the apocalypse wasn't quite as total as the first film suggested. For all we know the UK, Taiwan, Ireland, Iceland, NZ, and so on are still doing just fine.
| 16 |
How is the electricity that your brain uses to transmit signals throughout your body generated?
|
EDIT: for that matter, how is any electric signal in any animal generated?
| 150 |
In simple terms, in nerve cells there is a membrane that separates groups of ions (electrically charged versions of atoms) of potassium and sodium. These ions can only pass through special protein gates and do so when triggered by an impulse. When enough ions cross the membrane barrier, an electric gradient is produced because there are more positive ions on one side than the other. Once a certain electric threshold is reached, a chain reaction is produced and the gradient is passed along a nerve. Afterward, protein pumps reestablish the electric gradient by moving the ions back to their original positions and the nerve will be able to fire again.
| 57 |
[Star Wars] I'm an Empire Admiral and I don't understand why the Emperor gives us so few Star Destroyers
|
I'm an Admiral of the Empire in charge of hunting and destroying Rebel Alliance fleets, but I do not understand why my fleet only receives between 3 or 5 Star Destroyers and a couple of support ships. In the records we are supposed to have 35k of them and hundreds of thousands of other types.
| 39 |
Space is like really big. Between defense fleets like those at kuat and scariff and the thousands of anti piracy patrols in the mid and outer rim territories there just aren't enough star destroyers to go around. They aren't meant to be used like destroyers or patrol boats but as force projection ships. Each one carries enough troops and tie fighters and walkers to effectively garrison a single planet each or ensure the empire has a presence in a system that can't be easily ignored by a bunch of pirates. The tarkin doctrine emphasizes superior strength and intimidation factor over flexibility and speed in the navy. While you may find the handful of star destroyers given to you to be inadequate for hunting very mobile single pilot fighter craft just notice how the rebels always run when facing you. It'll take a large effort on their part to face you in a fight and while it may not be a swift victory against the rebel scum eventually they'll run out of hiding places and you'll be thankful for the massive amount of firepower and troops each star destroyer represents in a fight that will give you 3 to 1 odds against any rebel forces you may encounter.
| 68 |
[Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood] If Amestrian Alchemy draws power from tectonic plates, how did Ed transmute from inside Gluttony?
|
It becomes established that Amestrian style alchemy draws power from the movement of tectonic plates, which is how Father is able to interfere with it; he puts an impeding layer between alchemists and their source of power. But thinking back, that means there's a few times that things don't make sense.
Ed transmutes a few things from inside Gluttony. He makes a weapon out of blood, raises a stone circle to camp on, etc. Ignoring any transmutations he does using a philosopher's stone as a power source, how are those other transmutations working? If Gluttony is a separate plane of existence, it shouldn't have tectonic plates to draw from. And even if it *did*, shouldn't it feel noticeably different to Ed?
When Ed can finally transmute without Father's interference layer, he remarks on how much easier everything feels now. If that means that the difference can be felt, then he should have noticed it beforehand during his time in Gluttony. What gives?
| 36 |
I was under the impression that this wasn't actually true, since Father was the one who taught them alchemy in the first place.
It could also be that since the homunculus were also father's creations, it didn't actually feel different for him.
| 22 |
CMV: The first people who will go to Mars will go insane
|
The group that goes first to establish a base colony probably will not be big. They will have to work all day in a hostile enviroment with the same people everyday.
&#x200B;
Most importantly, over time they will realise what they left behind on Earth and that they will not return. They exchanged their life on their home planet for a pioneer status and an unbearable slave life in the desert with no hope of return. They will feel that the glory and having your name in history books is not worth it amd they will miss every trivial thing Earth has to offer.
&#x200B;
This will slowly nag on every single one of them, giving way to conflicts in the group, the atmosphere in the group will become worse and worse over time as you cannot take time off and relax, or leave the group. This will lead to someone snapping and doing something bad.
New people will be sent after them, but no one will be willing to go, because they know they will go insane too. This will be the end of the Mars mission.
| 64 |
This is actually a very relevant concern that NASA has spent a lot of effort into studying. NASA has run a number of isolation experiments where they isolate people from the rest of the world and put them into a confined space alone and in groups and have psychologists study the results. They have done these experiments several times with periods longer than 6 months.
When the chilean mine collapse happened, due to this exact research, NASA had the most qualified psychologists in the world for helping the miners deal with being trapped in a confined space with others for an extended period of time and actually sent those psychologists to Chile to help.
> Most importantly, over time they will realise what they left behind on Earth and that they will not return. They exchanged their life on their home planet for a pioneer status and an unbearable slave life in the desert with no hope of return. They will feel that the glory and having your name in history books is not worth it amd they will miss every trivial thing Earth has to offer.
I think you're likely right that the average person might experience that kind of emotional rollercoaster, but there are people who would also do fine, and so its simply a matter of being able to identify and screen for those individuals.
For example, there are hermits who live in total exclusion and prefer that. As you properly stated, someone who is going to Mars to seek glory is going to end up very disappointed as that initial wave fades. That is why you need to find people who aren't excited about the glory, but rather are excited about doing the actual work. There are people out there that would legitimately love every minute of that kind of hardship and also wouldn't mind having just a handful of companions to do it with.
The kind of people that set out on a solo sailing trip around the world or venture out into a remote area of the woods to build themselves a log cabin by themselves. Another good example of this would be the early antarctic expeditions who for *years* at a time would give up contact with the rest of the world and only be able to be in touch with the other people on their expedition. Being an early explorer of antarctica was probably similarly treacherous as someone on Mars with modern technology. Mars will actually have better contact with earth than someone on an early antarctic expedition.
> worse over time as you cannot take time off and relax, or leave the group.
Some people relax by working harder. People that build boats in their spare time as a hobby or people that workout to relax.
| 83 |
What is the role of reactive power in transmission networks?
|
I've studied electrical engineering for some years, but honestly I'm still struggling with understanding complex AC concepts, especially reactive power. What's its role in transmission networks since reactive power can't do real work? Why is it important for large alternators on the grid?
| 470 |
Reactive power is the flow of energy contained in the electric and magnetic fields of capacitors and inductors during AC operation.
For example, the magnetic field around an inductor gets filled up with magnetic field energy as current passes through it, thus part of the energy and power going through the system gets stored in that field, but when the current alternates through this inductor, that energy in the magnetic field moves back towards the source. Thus, effective power is the amount of power that actually gets to your load, while reactive power is the power required to maintain the fields of the transmission lines passive components (capacitors and inductors) and the fields in the transmission line itself.
Now, although the current associated with reactive power does no work at the load, it still must be supplied by the generator, thus reactive power is important to define when designing a circuit so the right power source can be used, or the right capacitive bank can be used to store that reflected energy and resupply it to the inductors. A higher reactive power means more power must be supplied by the generator to dissipate the same power at the load, something power companies do not like :).
Tl;dr: Some of the input energy to a circuit is stored in the electric and magnetic fields, and then returned to the source during the next current cycle. This means not all of your power gets dissipated in the load, which we call effective power, thus we call the power that returns to the source "reactive power".
Reactive power is the imaginary component. Effective power is the real component.
Edit: So many great explanations in this thread! Edited various parts to include other peoples superior additions. Thank you u/helios210!
| 184 |
[MCU] Vulture has no abilities of any kind without his technology handy. How could he be so delusional as to sit four feet away from a kid with superhuman reflexes and strength, and threaten to murder his whole family, to his face?
| 415 |
Because, at the end of the day, Peter's still just a kid. Despite being superhuman, some stuff like being scared of an angry adult just doesn't go away so easily. Hell, look at Cap - dude is a godlike hero and he still has a hard time talking to girls because of how he was a scrawny shrimp who never got the time of day from one before the war.
| 394 |
|
ELI5: If an atom splitting causes a nuclear explosion, could a natural coincidence cause one?
|
I suppose this question boils down into two factors:
A) Are nuclear explosions something only mankind can do (a specific reaction that may never happen naturally)?
B) If not, does that mean an atom could suddenly be split by some freak coincidence and create a nuclear explosion, possibly in a populated area?
Thanks in advance!
| 20 |
Instable atoms split all the time in nature.
What causes a nuclear explosion is a chainreaction where one splitting causes multiple more.
This is only possible if you have enough instable material gathered in one place (critical mass) wich will instantly explode. Thats how they are triggered. Take something below critical mass and smack a little more Uranium on it.
It's a statistical property but the chance of Uranium below the critical mass getting a chainreaction going is just too low to think about it. Imagine you roll a dice and whenever you have a 6 you roll 2 more times. How high is the chance to get a billion throws before each chain ends?
Atoms lighter than iron (so most we see in our daily life) do not release energy when they split. Other heavy atoms do not split spontanously because they are stable. It's really just a few radioactive materials that work for this process because they are large and instable.
| 43 |
[Batman] What would happen if Batman swapped Two-Face's coin with one that always landed on its non-scarred side?
|
In Batman the animated series, Batman once swapped Harvey's coin with a trick coin that always landed on the edge and Harvey nearly ran off the side of a building flipping the coin again and again.
But what would happen instead if Batman swapped Two-Face's coin with a trick coin that was weighted towards the non-scarred side? Would Two-Face eventually catch on to the trick or just believe it to be random chance each time?
| 60 |
First, let's realize that Dent is kind of fixing the results anyway. For example, in Nolan's The Dark Knight when he is in the car with Maroni, he flipped a coin. It spared Maroni's life. But, in a "do-over", he flips it again and gets the result he wants, but excuses it that it's for the driver, so kills him, resulting in the car crash. -- So even without a fixed coin, he strives to get the result he ultimately wants. That said...
Dent isnt stupid. Even he would know that the coin cant land on the same side 100% of the time if it isnt fixed. Eventually he'd figure it out. But for the sake of argument, let's assume he doesn't and continues to believe it to be still random, just extremely coincidental... he'll eventually re-fix the process in his favor.
For example. --- if you flip a coin, catch it in the palm one hand then flip and slap it on the back of your other hand, you're in essence changing the flip of the coin from the way it landed in your first hand.
So, he would then just orchestrate the toss and the catch and (depending on how it's fixed) either flip it onto his backhand, or not -- however he decides to achieve whichever outcome he actually prefers.
If it landing in his palm results in non-scarred side up, and he wants the scarred side, he can slap it onto his backhand (flipping it to the scarred side. -- or if it was fixed to land in his palm scarred side up (so that flipping it would result in the non-scarred side up) then he can just chose to not flip it and let it rest as it landed in his palm.
Either way, the outcome is rigged by his choice versus the coin's land.
| 67 |
[Marvel] Who is the least virtuous/unworthy to lift and utilize Mjolnir?
| 20 |
Superman. He used it briefly when the Justice League teamed up with the Avengers to stop the mad Guardian of the Universe Krona from using Galactus' corpse as a weapon to destroy everything.
It turned out that Mjolnir lowered her standards of what counts as worthy because it was an emergency, and after the battle ended Superman was no longer considered worthy.
| 32 |
|
CMV: Israel's government should be held accountable for its crimes but Israeli citizens should still be able to live in the land
|
Israel has been a home for the Jewish people since biblical times, I believe there should be a two-state solution to allow palestinians and Israelis the same land and areas like the kotel should be neutral territory. I think this over just giving the land over to Palestine because Israel has been a nation since biblical times.
I'm open to changing this view because Israel as a state is relatively new and there were Palestinians living there at the time of the creation of the state. I do not understand the reasoning behind wanting to dismantle the state of Israel or give all the land to Palestine. CMV.
| 18 |
What crimes are you suggesting Israel be held accountable for?
The nation exists because of European anti-semitism and its borders were originally drawn out of a sparsely populated area of a collapsed empire by the UK & France.
The two state solution never came to pass because pan-Arabic leaders (Nasser & Sadat) repeatedly attacked the state, which created Palestinian refugees that were never absorbed by the Arab states of that coalition.
Out of those refugees came terror organizations whom failed to negotiate the Oslo accords because they demanded the effective end of the Israeli state (right to return) and trading developed land for a promise to end terror is a raw deal.
You simply cannot look at the conflict though the very simple lens of Israel is technologically advanced country and Palestine is not, therefore conclude Israel is oppressor and Palestine oppressed and therefore conclude Palestine bears no responsibility and Israel all. That would be an absurd take.
| 19 |
Why/how does resetting a router fix so many connection issues?
| 73 |
Longtime computer tech here.
This is a very wide open question! The rebooting of the router can resolve DNS resolution issues on both the WAN side and the LAN side. Your modem may require authentication between the router and the modem and that has failed, thus rebooting the router allows the modem to resync with it.
It goes on and on:
Routers, like any computer system, has software on it that may be in a glitched cycle that it cant get out of.
Every time a router boots up it goes through a form of POST (just like the first few images you see on your computer, the Power On Self Test) that can detect and remedy several issues.
Sometimes the problem is on your computer and rebooting the router fixes it because the connection is shut down for a moment allowing the OS to resolve its issues.
It goes on and on. It mainly has to do with what the problem was that interfered with your internet connection to determine *why* the rebooting of the router resolved it.
| 55 |
|
Why do some places only have 2 tidal changes per day as opposed to 4?
|
A friend of mine stays in thailand at the moment, and told me, that high and low tide only occured once per day.
I was very doubtful and suspected false observation (tidal change during night time or something like that), since i know from holidays at the sea that two high tides appear each day. But she was insisting her observation is correct, so I checked and apperently she is right:
Koh Chang, one high tide per day:
[https://www.tidetime.org/asia/thailand/ko-chang-tai.htm](https://www.tidetime.org/asia/thailand/ko-chang-tai.htm)
Kiel, Germany (a place I´m familiar with): 2 high tides a day:
[https://www.tidetime.org/europe/germany/kiel.htm](https://www.tidetime.org/europe/germany/kiel.htm)
&#x200B;
Can someone explain this difference to me?
| 42 |
Tides are a dynamic phenomenon. Imagine a big, wide bowl partially filled with water. Now imagine tipping the bowl slightly back and forth (meaning: tip it very slightly to the right, then tip it very slightly to the left, and so on). This is analogous to tidal forces, you're changing where the "flat" level of the water is in relation to the bowl. You can think of the high and low spots on each side where the water level ends up as being "tides". If you move the bowl very slowly, the water will stay fairly flat all the time, and the tides will be very simple and predictable if you tilt the bowl the same amount every time. But once you start to tilt the bowl faster then the water starts to slosh. If you had a complicated bowl shape, this would add further complications.
This is basically what happens with Earth's tides. The tidal forces from the Sun and Moon drive the tides, but they do not entirely dictate them. How the water "sloshes" and interacts with the local coastline effects how high and low the tides will reach.
| 30 |
I believe that human needs are always more important than animal rights. CMV
|
Note that I used the word "needs" very broadly in this context. When I say needs. I meant anything that would give a human or humanity even the slightest amount of benefit or comfort.
Now I hold mostly libertarian values, which means that I support the notion that anyone should do anything they want when it does not hurt or disturb another person. This, again can be interpreted in a manner of ways, but in the context of animal rights, it is pretty straight forward. Because no human being is being harmed, then the action although appalling, should not be illegal. Many of you may argue the "animal abuse leads to human abuse" argument, but its really a slippery slope fallacy, and even you were right most of the time, its still irrelevant because we have laws against harming another human being. We should arrest people who harm humans, not individual animals. Just because some action may lead to a crime, doesn't mean it warrants an arrest due to an generalized assumption.
I do not however support killing animals to the point of extinction. I care about the collective existence of animals as a whole as it pertains to ecological stability and public ownership. I do not support the hunting of endangered species because I value their continued existence as a whole, not because I care about their rights. I believe that humans who kill endangered species are destroying public property and disrupting the ecological balance in some cases, and thus their actions are harming other people. This is why I believe that factory farming and sustainable whaling are perfectly fine, while poaching engendered animals is not.
I mentioned factory farming in the last paragraph. Factory farming has, without a doubt, made meat a cheaper to the average consumer. I acknowledge that livestock is being tortured for meat, but because it benefits, or at least does not harm humanity, I still believe the practice is perfectly legitimate. Some of you may argue that factory farm meat may have certain health problems, and that is a reasonable argument, but it doesn't really address my main point. If you think factory farming shouldn't continue because it produces poisonous meat, then you may have a point, but if you oppose factory farming for the treatment of animals, then I would not consider your argument with any seriousness.
Some of you may argue that treating animals with respect is a part of human empathy, and I agree with you. I would never torture an animal, and I find the act rather appalling, but I believe the state should not intervene and arrest a person which has done no harm to another person. If someone enjoys harming animals, then all we should do its criticize, but in the end, human needs should always trump animal rights.
| 498 |
Why?
You wrote that entire explanation and never stated why you actually think this difference should exist. All you did was describe the difference. You started off saying that human needs should trump animal needs. Then you listed a few areas where you think that should happen, but nowhere did you explain *why* you think human suffering counts more than animal suffering. Nowhere did you give an actual argument. You just told us what you believe as if believing it and stating it was justification enough.
| 250 |
ELI5: Why can "waves" of gasoline fumes emitting from the pump be seen in the shadow of the pump on the ground, but when looking directly at the pump in the car, these waves are not visible?
|
This was a hard question to word. But basically I was pumping gas into my car the other night. The fluorescent lights were on above me, and I looked down and noticed the shadow of the pump in my car on the ground. In the shadow I could see that there were obvious waves/ripples seemingly coming from the sides of the pump. When I looked back up at the actual pump in my car and looked closely, I couldn't see anything similar. I'm assuming they were fumes from the gasoline, but what I want to know is why was I able to see them in the shadow, but not the actual thing?
| 243 |
gasoline vapor has a slightly different density than air. as light passes through the vapor, it changes direction slightly as it passes through the areas of differing densities. we see this as the visible shimmer, and the shadow thereof. Heat shimmer and rainbows are caused by the same mechanism- light changing direction (refracting) at the interface between two materials of different density.
Lighting and position will affect whether or not you see the effect, but it is still there.
| 68 |
[Spiderman] How committed to the truth and journalistic integrity is Jay Jonah Jameson and the Daily Bugle?
|
We all know that Jameson has it out for Spidey and will spin every story he can to make it look like Spidey is a menace. But I also remember in the 3rd movie that he printed a front page retraction when it was brought to his attention that his gotcha article was based on doctored photos. Just how far is he willing to stretch the facts to crucify spidey and where does he draw the line?
| 20 |
The Daily Bugle is at times seen as National Inquire level trash but most often it is newspaper with strong integrity. JJJ doesn't publish his rants as actual news articles but as editorials which lend a lot more leeway.
| 27 |
CMV: The DOJ can and should effectively ban chokeholds without constitutional action by prosecuting officers who injure or kill suspects by using them.
|
The officers involved in the Floyd case has already been indicted by the DOJ, and they likely came close to indicting the officer who killed Garner (although they wound up getting stalled by anti-indictment career prosecutors until a Republican could take office, and a later judge ruled the chokehold to be unintentional - which would make reopening that one difficult). Using the logic in the Floyd federal indictment as well as those prosecutors and elected officials (including the sitting Vice President and much of the Civil Rights Division) who supported charges in Garner, the US Department of Justice should make it clear that chokeholds that kill or injure will be treated as a civil rights violation.
| 35 |
The issue is that doing so removes one of the few uses of force that police have that is by design non lethal. You leave police with tasers, which often fail, or riot control ammunition that most groups already seek to ban. Do you expect them to just let someone go when they resist? At this point you leave them with faulty nonlethal gear or an incredibly lethal firearm. Chokeholds, when taught and used correctly, are the perfect nonlethal technique to be used on a resisting suspect. Chokeholds temporarily cut of blood flow to the brain forcing unconsciousness while also leaving no detrimental aftermath.
You shouldn’t be advocating the banning of chokeholds and should instead be advocating for the proper teaching of chokehold techniques.
| 20 |
[Fairly Odd Parents] Why doesn't Tootie have Fairy God Parents?
|
It's said multiple times that she's more miserable than Timmy is since she lives with Vicky.
| 92 |
Why does Superman stop bank robberies instead of any number of humanitarian problems he could solve in an hour? It's all a scam, man. Fairies go to kids who are unhappy, but not so unhappy that their wishes would change the status quo. It's all about placating the middle class.
| 134 |
Why does water cause iron to rust faster? Are water molecules directly oxidizing the metal or is the water catalyzing the reaction with oxygen in the atmosphere?
|
Just askin'.
| 31 |
Rust is a form of corrosion. Corrosion consists of a transfer of electrons from the anode to the cathode. For rust to occur, there needs to be a donor of electrons (the metal) and an acceptor (oxygen). However, oxygen in the air is in the diatomic form of O2 and will not readily accept electrons. It is actually monoatomic oxygen dissolved in water that will accept electrons by the following equation:
1⁄2 O2 + H2O + 2e- --> 2OH-
Water is actually required for iron to rust, and it also results in the production of OH-. As the iron gives up its electrons to oxygen, the surface becomes positively charged. These iron ions are soluble in aqueous solution and will combine with oxygen to create rust.
So there are two things required for iron to rust: water and oxygen. Deaerated or nitrogen-saturated water will not rust because oxygen will not be able to dissolve into the water and receive electrons.
| 32 |
If the universe is expanding and there is nothing outside of it, then where do parallel universes (multiverse) exist?
|
I read on /r/askscience a few days ago that the universe is expanding into itself but that there is nothing outside of the universe. If that is true, where can a multiverse exist, seeing as there is nothing outside this one?
Note: I am asking solely from a physics/cosmology standpoint.
| 21 |
I'll say first of all that there is *not* any kind of scientifically accepted multiverse theory. At best, extra universes can be invoked as a philosophical interpretation of the mathematics of quantum mechanics, but this question can also be resolved exactly as well in many other ways. We really have no information at all about what might be beyond the universe, if anything. There's also the semantics point about whether, if we can aquire information about something, that thing is part of the universe anyway.
To actually address your point, don't think of it in terms of 'where'. The concept of position really only makes sense within the physical laws of the universe as we know it. An adequate analogy might be that we can describe everything on the surface of a balloon with two numbers...a latitude and longitude if you like. As you blow up the balloon, your question is like asking 'if the surface of the balloon is expanding and the latitude/longitude lines fully describe position on it, where is it expanding to?'. The resolution is that your existing variables describe the surface in question, but are not a full description of all of reality - the balloon is simply expanding along another axis.
| 28 |
[Despicable Me] Are minions immortal? And how come they speak some amalgam of Romance languages when they predate civilization?
| 102 |
The language spoken by the Minions is actually the original form of Proto-Indo-European, as spoken by the Neolithic steppe dwellers of the Kurgan culture. The Kurgan, of course, learned it from the Minions.
As such, it's not so much that Minions use Romance words, but rather that the Romance languages echo the Minions' ancient tongue.
| 115 |
|
ELI5: What is diplomatic immunity exactly?
| 39 |
Its a legal immunity that protects the diplomats from the laws of the country they are sent to. They cannot be prosecuted under the laws of the host country if they are accused of violating them. They can only be expelled from that country.
| 21 |
|
What exactly does acetaminophen do your liver?
|
I notice my bottle of Tylenol (aka acetaminophen) says to not take more than a recommended dose or it’ll hurt your liver. So what happens to your liver if you take too much?
| 15 |
When you take a normal dose, it enters your gastrointestinal tract and is absorbed into your bloodstream. It starts to take effect in 45 minutes for most oral forms, or up to 2 hours for suppositories. Eventually, it’s broken down (metabolized) in your liver and excreted in your urine.
Taking too much Tylenol changes the way it’s metabolized in your liver, resulting in an increase in a metabolite (a by-product of metabolism) called N-acetyl-p-benzoquinone imine (NAPQI).
NAPQI is toxic. In the liver, it kills cells and causes irreversible tissue damage. In severe cases, it can cause liver failure. This triggers a chain of reactions that can lead to death.
References:
FDA.gov
Healthline.com
| 31 |
[Sonic the Hedgehog] How did Sonic and his animal buddies develop powers when most other critters stayed the same?
|
Are their origins the same - some alien chemical bath that transformed them all at once? Or do Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, and all the others whose names I don't know gain powers separately?
| 38 |
Sonic was a fast, but otherwise ordinary talking hedgehog on planet Mobius. One day Sonic was testing some new speed sneakers for the genius doctor Ovi Kintobor, when there was an explosion (involving a rotten egg and some time travel) Sonic became super-fast and blue, Kintobor became the insane Dr. Ivo Robotnik.
Miles Prower was one of the many fox inhabitants of the Nameless Zone, often teased for his genetic mutation which gave him a second tail. Miles Prower (AKA Tails) decided to seek his fortune in the Emerald Hill Zone, but accidentaly ended up face down in the Swampland Zone, where he was rescued by Sonic, and soon realised that he could spin his tails to fly.
Knuckles the Echidna is the last of the ancient race of Echidnas. He lived alone for a long time, Keeping the floating island hidden and guarding the powerful Chaos Emeralds.
Source - Many years of collecting Sonic the Comics
| 30 |
ELI5: Why do pregnant women get specific and unusual cravings? Do they serve a biological purpose?
| 302 |
There are two thoughts on why it happens, both are probably somewhat correct. One is that hormone production changes during pregnancy and that stimulates the desire for certain things. For example, as a woman's insulin levels drop or rise their body wants certain things that will adjust those levels. Some women report that they experience changes in tastes or desire for food in relation to menstruation, another time that hormones fluctuate.
The second reason is that pregnancy is very physically demanding and it's necessary to increase both blood volume and nutrients. The brain is a very greedy organ and initiates cravings to not only supply the body and baby with nutrition, but to meet its own needs.
| 116 |
|
[Dark Souls] Why are some people like Gwyn, Vendrick, and Lothric so much bigger than you and the friendly NPCs you meet?
| 33 |
Dark Souls goes through different ages kind like alternate universes where different peoples/species rule. A lot of them literally just aren't the same kind of being you are and thus are huge.
Gwyn and his Kin are gods from a previous age. And you're... A human kinda?
| 31 |
|
[MCU] So who exactly are the members of the Avengers as of now?
|
There were so many people who either died, retired, or went on a temporary hiatus in the wake of the events of *Avengers: Endgame*, and with all the Disney+ shows out now, I don’t know who’s still left. As of today, which characters are still active Avengers?
| 348 |
I think as of End Game the 'Avengers' are an ad-hoc team who are 'on call' more than anything else. They don't have a compound, a backer (like Tony), a strategist/leader (like Fury, as he's in space. Though he does seem to be keeping tabs on things after Spider-man FFH).
If someone needed to assemble a team of Avengers, they'd contact their local associated hero who would try and get the gang back together.
Earth-bound we have:
- Captain America (Sam)
- Bucky
- Spider-Man
- Bruce/Hulk
- Dr Strange
- Shang Chi (possibly)
Off-world/On-call (as we see at the end of >!Shang Chi!< they can still be contacted)
- Thor
- Captain Marvel
- Nick Fury (in spaaaace)
- Monica Rambeau (working with Nick Fury and Captain Marvel. in spaaaaace)
- Guardians of the Galaxy
- Though with them they might ask for payment if need be
| 182 |
ELI5: How can ISP's tell when you're downloading legally (e.g., iTunes) vs. downloading copyrighted files (torrents) ?
|
I just downloaded around 20gigs worth of a TV show from iTunes. In the wake of the recent news that ISPs will start to send warning letters to those who allegedly download copyrighted files, how can they differentiate?
| 34 |
When you torrent, you basically ask a bunch of other computers for small parts of the file. To do this, you have to give them your IP address. Anyone else who is downloading or uploading that same torrent can see your IP address. The company who owns the copyrighted material hires people to find and sit on those torrents and record every IP address that connects. They then send cease and desist letters to the ISP, who then usually passes it on to the user.
| 22 |
Why do some allergies only affect certain parts of the body?
|
Many allergies seem to only affect the respiratory system or the digestive tract. Why can the same allergen be rubbed on skin in some cases and no reaction occurs, or post stomach not cause reactions throughout the rest of the digestive systems?
I am assuming there is no reaction after leaving the stomach due to the acid denaturing the protein responsible, but why is this the case for other parts of the skin/body?
| 258 |
The antigens have to be bound to IgE and then end up activating immune cells (mast cells especially). That's just much easier to accomplish in the respiratory and digestive tract. Unbroken skin is an excellent barrier for entry, and the respiratory and gastrointestinal tract make up most of the rest of the barrier between "outside" and "inside" of the body (the gut lumen etc. is topologically outside the body).
| 34 |
CMV: Obese or overweight individuals lack discipline.
|
G'day, I'm completely new to this subreddit so i would like to start with my strongest opinion.
I personally believe that an obese or overweight individual lacks the self discipline to control their eating and exercise regularly.
To clarify my opinions,
I do accept that there's all ways going to be legitimate medical cases which differ, but for the general populous my opinion stays the same.
I also understand that their might be a lack of education and misinformation when it comes to living a health lifestyle.
I don't condone fat shaming or mistreating a person due to their weight.
Edit1* I am mainly talking about people in which their weight comes tangled with negative health impacts and other negative issues.
_____
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| 110 |
I'd say you're only undisciplined when you can't achieve your important goals because you can't make yourself take the necessary steps to do it. If your goal isn't to be a doctor then being unwilling to study medicine and all that goes with it isn't seen as lack of discipline. Likewise if your health and appearance are of moderate or no importance to you and eating a lot is important, you are not undisciplined for not trying to reduce what you enjoy for the goal you don't care about.
They might be very disciplined in the areas that matter to them but are less obvious to the observer (work, a hobby, meditationot, anger management ....)
| 106 |
Can we get a consensus on whether Captain America is peak human or superhuman?
|
I feel like we either have to call his above peak human feats PIS/WIS or we have to stop calling him peak human.
| 32 |
Well it was called the *Super* Soldier Serum. But, the Marvel wiki says
> The Super-Soldier Serum (SSS) metabolized and enhanced all of Rogers' bodily functions to the peak of human potential. Dr. Reinstein described this potential as being "the next step in human evolution," while still remaining completely human but often called the "Perfect Man."
***
> Rogers has no superhuman powers, although as a result of the Super-Soldier Serum, he was transformed from a frail young man into a "perfect" specimen of human development and conditioning. Rogers is as intelligent, strong, fast, agile, and durable as possible for a human being to be without being considered superhuman.
At the same time, though
> This strength also extends to his legs, enabling him to leap 6mt/20ft out in a single bound and 10ft/3 meters into the air without a running start. He can snap steel handcuffs and chains, and is capable of breaking through wooden walls and steel doors with a single kick.
Which sounds pretty ridiculous.
> He can run at speeds of up to approximately 48 kilometers per hour (30 miles per hour) or higher, and has run a mile (1.6 km) in 73 seconds (49 mph/78 kph). When under duress he can run a mile in just over a minute (60 mph).
30 mph is the fasted speed Usain Bolt has hit, so that's believable as peak human. The 60 mph, though...
> His bones and muscles are denser and harder and so are amplified to the highest human potential, which makes him very durable compared to a normal human. He is durable enough to the point that if a person beats him with a thick wooden stick, the stick would eventually break and Rogers would show little discomfort.
That sounds more than peak to me.
> This level of durability is how he survived other forms of extensive punishment throughout his career such as falls from several stories like when he landed on a car from 6000cm/200 feet with no discomfort.
200 foot fall *with no discomfort.*
> Rogers' reflexes border on superhuman level. His reaction speed is 20 kph, which makes it possible for him to dodge gunfire even in point blank range from multiple gunners at the same time.
Once again, they keep *saying* he's peak human, but then giving examples that sound pretty super human.
> He once said that he is able to dodge bullets because he sees faster than them.
ಠ_ಠ
> The SSS dramatically slows Rogers's aging due to extensively healthy cells. Sersi once stated because of this it is possible that he may indefinitely maintain his youth.
This is another one of those times where they *say* that it's peak but it's not. Slower aging is peak. Immortality is super.
It also says Fury ranks him at power level 8. I'd like to see how that compares to other humans and super beings.
| 35 |
Are some cells more greedy than others? Do some cells use more resources than their benefit to the organism?
| 68 |
Yes, this is what happens in cancer. Essentially, through mutation and selection, cancer cells have lost their "restraint". They consume nutrients and grow in a way that benefits the cancer cells (temporarily) at great cost to the host body.
| 20 |
|
Why do we hear that they discovered water on Mars every month? What is different each time?
|
It seems like once a month or so, evidence of water on Mars makes headlines.
Why is something that has been known for a while newsworthy? What additional information is being discovered each time?
Even just a few examples would be helpful, if possible.
| 58 |
There are lots of different types of water, and different types of evidence. The evidence can be more or less persuasive, and imply water existed at different times.
So, you can find evidence of ancient, brine like water. Or ancient, acidic water. Or ancient, neutral pH water (note that evidence of all of these have been found). Or modern subsurface ice. Or modern subsurface brine. Or features indicating rare occurrences of liquid on the present day surface. Or clay minerals that are probably formed in water, but we can't be sure. Or evidence of water eroded features like rivers and lakebeds. And so on. Each tells a different facet of the history of water on Mars, and the planet's potential habitability.
| 41 |
[Pirates of the Caribbean] Is the Kraken the only one of its kind?
|
If so, where did it come from?
| 111 |
As far as we know, the Kraken is the only leviathan of its kind. No other PotC movies or books have even shown other leviathans, so it may be the only one in existence for all we know. The Kraken simply is. Asking where it came from is like asking where did Calypso or any number of gods come from, which considering there's such thing as magic, gods, and monsters it may have simply poofed into the ocean one day.
| 84 |
How is the environment/ecosystem affected by the energy that is removed by wind and solar power?
|
Wind and solar power convert solar and wind energy into electricity. This energy is removed from that ecosystem. Instead of sunlight hitting the ground and heating the ground up, it hits solar cells to generate electricity. Instead of the wind blowing dust and seeds around, it is used to blow wind turbines to generate electricity. Is the energy removed negligible? Is the effect measurable? How is that ecosystem affected by this removal of energy?
| 42 |
I actually took a class on this in University 2 years ago. There is very minor local effects on the environment, the biggest problem with wind power is birds, and bats flying into the low pressure behind the turbine and exploding. Otherwise there is no major effect wind power. Solar power is only useful right now, in places like Nevada where they get a large amount of sun year round, nothing grows there so the absorption of the sun energy affects nothing majorly. Both these power generation techniques are still in their infancy and in time we may start to see larger effects; however at the moment they are the cleanest and friendliest power generation techniques.
| 13 |
[SW] Darth Vader's powers don't seem useful for anything on than for killing people. What exactly IS Vader good for?
| 57 |
He's the living embodiment of everything the Empire stands for - discipline, technology over nature, technically human, and authoritarian in the extreme. He's basically the Empire's equivalent of Captain America.
With that in mind, his actual purpose is keeping the senior military in line. You can't run a colossal military dictatorship without some fools trying it on and he's the guy you send to sort it out. It's one thing to disobey some mad torturer, but Vader *is* the Empire, standing in front of an Imperial officer, asking him if he's loyal. *Ultima ratio Imperator*, the last argument of the Emperor.
| 126 |
|
CMV: The concepts of human rights is harmful to debate
|
Having watched/read numerous debates about politics and morality over the years, I have come to the conclusion that the concept of human rights, civil rights or rights are generally used as a means of shutting down argument.
This is not to say I disapprove of rights as a concept within law, but rather than illustrating a person's point of view it is used as a trump card to stifle the opposition. This is true whether the concept is used correctly, as in when a US citizen says "I have the right to freedom of speech", or incorrectly as in when a US citizen says "You have no right to say that" when that person does have a legal right to do so.
An assertion of a right in a debate begs the question, and is often used as rhetorical gloss so the speaker does not have to justify their point of view. As a case in point, on a British panel show called Question Time a woman said that the public "had the right to know" whether Tony Blair promised George Bush to join the coalition against Iraq. In doing so she avoided having to explain why the public deserved to know such things, and what the parameters of that alleged right were.
Despite the generally move towards secularism there appears to be a sense that rights are, if not God given, certainly outside the realm of worldly debate. This is harmful to democracy and debate, allowing us to forget that laws are imposed by man, and thus subject to change.
CMV.
Edit: Forgot to proof the title. My bad.
_____
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| 23 |
>As a case in point, on a British panel show called Question Time a woman said that the public "had the right to know" whether Tony Blair promised George Bush to join the coalition against Iraq. In doing so she avoided having to explain why the public deserved to know such things, and what the parameters of that alleged right were.
Do you really think an hour or half an hour long TV show has the time get back into some Lockeian theory of the social contract? The issues surrounding the invasion of Iraq are large and complex enough that there just isn't the time also start debating the very foundations of republican government in such a format. All debates are framed by their participants perspectives and assumptions. In that case, don't you think it's fair in that debate to assume that a head of a democratic republican government is responsible to answer for major national decisions to the populace considering that:
1) I'd say 99% of the viewers would agree with such an assumption
2) It's in the foundational documents of the country.
| 16 |
Are there any works on the philosophy of war?
|
Preferably not Sun Tsu
Edit: Wow, thanks all for your comments.
| 55 |
This just came up a few weeks ago!
There are many. Clausewitz, Aquinas, Augustine for some older reads. Walzer, McMahon, and Frowe for contemporary. I'd recommend starting with Walzer, as it is the most straight forward and understandable.
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a good article on War
| 36 |
[Hobbit: Bo5A] What's up with Galadriel when she turns all dark?
|
After ensuring that Gandalf is safe with Radagast, Galadriel gets up to bansih the spirirt of Sauron. She turns green and her hair & dress turn black. Is this some kind of dark magic she can summon or a second personality of some kind, maybe? I'd just like to know whats going on
| 79 |
Some elves, the Noldor, had a great spiritual presence in the unseen world. At the ford of Bruinen, Frodo witnessed a particularly powerful Noldo, Glorfindel, stand against the Nazgul, and he appeared to him as a being of light. Galadriel, too, is one of the Noldor, and when she dismantled Dol Guldur she directly channeled a lot of her power in both the seen and unseen worlds, so much so that it was apparent even to someone who existed firmly in the seen.
| 79 |
[DC] Since Gotham has so much crime and so many villains and methuman villains, why hasn't Batman asked Superman to lend him a helping hand?
| 15 |
Because all Superman could do is put a band-aid on it.
He could fly around stopping crimes all day and all night, and it would do nothing to resolve the causes of crime - the poverty and lack of prospects that so many Gothamites face, and the massive amounts of organised crime that has roots in the city.
Remember, Batman is primarily a detective who happens to be good at punching, not a punching machine who happens to fight criminals; he spends much of his time going after criminal networks and evil conspiracies.
And further remember, Batman is only half of what Bruce Wayne does; the efforts of the Wayne Foundation in alleviating poverty and providing opportunities for Gothamites are just as important in his war on crime.
| 29 |
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CMV: Being technologically non-savvy in 2022 is not excusable for most people, nor should it be a badge of pride.
|
Here's the background story that sparked this:
I have a planned meeting today with a future employer. For the last 5 or 6 days, the mutual understanding was that this meeting was to be held virtually, presumably over Zoom or some similar software. I called the assistant today a few hours prior to the meeting to confirm all details and the assistant asked
- "Do you have an iPhone?"
- "Nope, I have a Windows PC and an Android phone."
- "Oh. Is it possible for you to get your hands on the iPhone?"
- "That's not possible."
- "Oh, okay. Do you think you can come in to the office in person then? [Employer] is not really quick with technology, basically I just set it up so I Facetime him and he answers."
- "So we can't just do a Zoom call?"
- "No, you're going to have to come in person to meet with him if you can't Facetime".
This post isn't about me being mad about an in-person meeting; I'm honestly fine with coming in, and the office is located pretty close to where I live. It's only a minor inconvenience. And they have a right to change the location of the meeting. This really isn't a rant about what just happened to me, that just the background info for what sparks this rant.
All little more background about me, so you know my perspective. I'm a mid-to-late Millennial born in 1993. I remember a time before we had a modem in the house, but I had Internet access for most of my childhood. I have owned a smartphone since I was a teenager and I believe I registered a Facebook account in 2008 or 2009.
Now you might argue that this employer deserves some credit for at least owning an iPhone, and knowing how to swipe to answer a call, but that is, I would argue, lower than the bare minimum that can reasonably be expected in 2022, for someone being paid to work in an office. This employer can't be older than 55. It was clear from the assistant's explanation that the assistant has to go out of his way to set up virtual meetings so that the employer just has to answer the phone with a swipe of his finger, otherwise it's not possible.
My opinion is that this is absolutely unacceptable in the modern age, for those who live with regular access to technology. If you argue that "Well, this company obviously doesn't require this employer to embrace technology, so he's off the hook", I'd say that you're missing the point of my opinion.
This line of reasoning brought me to the second part of my title, thinking about those people who express pride in not being proficient in the use of ubiquitous technologies.
By this statement, I don't mean people that dislike/distrust social media or other tech trends (TikTok, etc.) and are proud of it. I myself no longer use Facebook and have even been recently cutting myself off from Reddit, the only real "social media" site that I use. I think there are so many good arguments against the regular use of social media and I don't blame anyone who avoids it.
I'm talking about people like my law school professor, who is in his early 40's and "doesn't bother with email, I don't understand it and I'm proud of it." Meanwhile, the course I took from him last semester was very unpleasant, because contacting him was nearly impossible, and required a combination of a phone call to his office number (he owns but almost never uses a cellphone) and very good timing. My classmates and I were up in arms about this lack of communication, but he was set in his ways, as a middle aged man, and refused to glance at his email. There is absolutely no excuse for this. This man is an instructor. I think many of you probably know someone like this. I would say the same of, say, a schoolteacher who still doesn't know how to use Zoom and just laughs it off and says it's "no big deal", even though learning how to use Zoom is now arguably a crucial part of every schoolteacher's job.
Now there are exceptions, obviously. Your 103-year-old great grandmother doesn't have the same expectations as most other people. Although I would warn you that my grandparents, in their mid-80's, are extremely proficient with technology and use their smartphones regularly to play games, video chat with their relatives, etc. So you might have a hard time convincing me that automatically, boomers and older generations = technological incompetency, and that's just a fact of life.
Another possible exception may be someone who lives a genuinely secluded life and doesn't have daily interactions with people might have no reason to own a cellphone, because they are not immersed in modern technology. I'm not trying to claim that this rule is for everyone, just mostly for the people who live a normal life and interact with others at work, among friends, etc. but remain ignorant of basic technology use.
You might change my mind by re-contextualizing about the actual scope of this issue. Perhaps these type of people are so rare that it's a silly point to bring up. Or, you may redefine "proud" or "technologically incompetent" in a way that changes how I view the issue. Anyway, that's my opinion. Thanks for reading!
TL;DR People who interact with others on a daily basis and live an otherwise normal life, but who remain obstinately and proudly ignorant in the use of ubiquitous, essential technologies like email or Zoom (though not social media).
| 89 |
People take pride in difficult accomplishments. As technology becomes more and more a part of life, being able to function without gets harder and harder. Therefore, continuing to function without technology becomes a difficult accomplishment.
The issue with pride is that the accomplishment doesn't have to be useful. Defeating a video game with a silly handicap can be a source of pride. All that's needed is difficulty.
| 24 |
ELI5: why do mirrors reverse left and right but not top and bottom?
| 8,322 |
They don’t reverse left-to-right *or* top-to-bottom. They reverse front-to-back, such that the distance to the mirror is the same for an object and its reflection, except in opposite directions.
Stand in front of a mirror and point left/right/up/down, and your reflection will point the same overall direction. Point towards or away from the mirror, and your reflection points the opposite direction.
| 10,202 |
|
ELI5 how countries like Egypt and Jordan can seek and destroy ISIS within days/hours after their countrymens' executions, and yet the US and other more powerful enemies of ISIS seem to have trouble locating them?
|
You really don't have to explain like I'm five. I just didn't know where else to post this. It seems like anytime ISIS releases a video or information regarding an execution, within days or even hours, we hear about how X country has bombed and killed X ISIS members or positions.
If ISIS can be bombed days or hours after an execution, why can't they be bombed as easily before? All of these reactionary strikes seem to come with such ease. So why is it so hard to kill ISIS members in the meantime?
| 44 |
Most of the time we have no problems finding who we are looking for. the problem is how to deploy troops to go resolve the problem. in a lot of cases we find them in a "not so internationally friendly way" so we have to create a story to allow us to engage the mission or wait until we have a story or a reason to be in that area. talking to them in some instances isn't as easy as it would seem because they may have informants within the ranks. Source: Former 96B
| 19 |
what would happen if a healthy (stable) person took a shot from an EpiPen?
| 829 |
Elevated heart and respiratory rate, mostly.
It actually happens more than you'd think. Plenty of badly trained first aiders (or properly trained first aiders acting under intense stress because they are aiding someone they care about) inject themselves with the stuff by accident. The most common mistake is to put the thumb at the end of the stick when pressing against the thigh of the casualty, if they try to insert the wrong end (yes, it happens), then the needle pops out in their thumb. It's not life threatening by itself, but in the meantime the casualty is suffocating.
| 588 |
|
Does your brain hold all the memories of your life but only chooses to show you a few hundred, or does it overwrite itself, "painting over" the older memories with newer ones?
| 77 |
As far as we know, our brains are capable of storing unlimited amounts of information. The problem is that each time we remember, the memory will be decoded, experienced and encoded once again. During this proces, information gets lost or changed. The next time you remember, it will be a different memory, but you’ll still think it’s the real deal (not all lies are on purpose).
Memories are stored across your entire brain. A certain memory may involve sounds and feelings which, when remembering, will activate the same areas of the brain as were active the moment you encoded the memory. These areas are connected to each other, but as time passes without activation, these connections grow weaker.
At times you may find yourself remembering something you thought you had forgotten. This is due to something around you (anything you senses pick up) triggering the connection that got weakened. The information is never truely lost, but you might need some help remembering.
| 61 |
|
If I'm in a noisy room, when I open the window will sound escape and make the room quieter?
| 512 |
Yes, if reverberation is making it louder in the room in the first place. If you were in a mostly anechoic room, opening the window to a street would make it louder inside the room. So really depends on the room in question.
| 136 |
|
[Star Wars] If the Trade Federation BattleDroids are all remote controlled by a central computer, why do they need to talk to each other?
|
When the Droid Control ship is destroyed in the Battle of Naboo, they immediately stop moving. If they have a constant, wifi like data connection to the control ship, why would they use verbal communication, which is much slower and less accurate?
| 45 |
The droids have some degree of autonomy to adapt to battle conditions in the field, which is why there is a command hierarchy. The central computer in orbit handles the stuff that generals and support would, like battlefield intelliegence, strategy, mission objectives, etc.
| 30 |
Does antimicrobial resistance (AMR) apply to viruses? Or is it just a bacteria thing?
|
I understand the general concept of AMR and how it arises when microorganisms gain resistance against antibiotics. It seems many AMR cases involve bacteria though, like *E. coli*. Can and do viruses also become resistant to antimicrobials?
| 99 |
Antimicrobes dont work on virus's as they are not cells and not living. So no, AMR does not develop within them.
However virus's can evolve to bypass defenses. Hence why immune systems and vaccines can be bypassed with enough time. So in principle yes, virus's can undergo selection pressure and develop resistances to thinhs that stop them.
EDIT: as some replies pointed out, even though virus's are not microbes, antiviral medication is still an antimicrobial. So its not just in principle, they actually can get AMR!
| 39 |
ELI5: Why do I crave extremely hot food (like jalepenos, hot sauce,spicy salsa etc) but my gf will throw up if she even smells spicy, let alone tastes it?
|
I love hot food. The spicier the better, I wanna sweat while I'm eating. But my gf prefers tasteless or bland food. If I was to eat a curry too close to her, she would literally start gagging. Why is this and can it be changed?
| 88 |
Although /u/LIBGOV's answer is certainly interesting, research has shown that while there is a correlation between the location of ones ancestral heritage and a fondness for spicy food, the main determining factors for whether one likes spicy food or not are a) cultural rather than genealogical and b) neurological rather than genealogical. That is to say, if you live near or within a culture where spicy food is prevalent, then you will try it more and be more encouraged to like it and build a tolerance to it. The origin of one's ancestry does not play into this. As for the neurological effects, when the active ingredient in what we consider spicy foods (Capsacin) meets with our tongues, it causes a sensation of pain and inflammation. Although this hurts, it also triggers our brains to release small amounts of adrenalin and dopamine as our bodies natural response to pain, giving us a teeny rush of pleasure and excitement with each bite of spicy food. As we get used to the rushes that we feel from spicy food, we develop a tolerance requiring spicier and spicier food for the same rush. However, for those who have not had much Cultural experience with spicy food, that pavlovian cycle of pain/pleasure/reward caused by eating spicy food is never initiated, so their tolerance never goes up beyond the natural human baseline tolerance for capsacin.
**tl;dr** you like spicy food because you've been exposed to it more/ have been more experimental of an eater and are now addicted to it, your gf does not like it because she has no pavlovian pleasure response to its effects and thusly, no developed tolerance.
| 38 |
[Lord of the Rings]How would things have changed if they sent Faramir instead of Boromir?
|
Gondor sends Faramir to the fellowship meeting, How do things change?
| 21 |
Boromir finds a boat wading down the Anduin River. He sees the body of his brother Faramir, to his utmost grief. During an ambush on the Haradrim, he stumbles upon Frodo and Sam. He is surprised and takes them to questioning. Frodo identifies himself and Sam as Hobbits from Imaldris, alongside Faramir and the rest of the Fellowship.
Boromir eventually discovers the presence of the One Ring. He takes it from the Ring Bearer and manages to fight off the Orcs at the Battle of Osgilliath. He enters Minas Tirith to celebrate his victory with his father Denethor, the Steward of Gondor. Days later, Gandalf bears news of Rohan to Gondor about the movement of Sauron. He finds a new king has been crowned, one who bears a *precious* power. A new Dark Lord arises.
| 28 |
ELI5: If oil is a naturally occurring substance found in the ground, why/how does it pollute nature?
|
I'm sorry if this has been asked before
| 25 |
It is found deep underground and typically locked off from the water table. If it is released into the water table or the ocean, or any other typically natural environment, it is toxic. To ask why something natural is toxic is not the right question, as many examples of this exist. Lead and mercury, for example are both naturally occurring and found in the ground. Both will kill pretty much any animal and most plant life in sufficient quantity. Back to oil, how does it pollute? Aside from being a simple carcinogen to most animal life, it floats on water and coats animals that break the surface of water. Birds are heavily affected by this. Their feathers get coated and they lose their ability to fly, and stay insulated. Mammals can become overheated because they no longer have the ability to sweat (not all mammals have the ability to sweat, of course, but many do). And all of this ignores the massive health hazard posed by ingesting it. In short, oil is simply a toxic chemical that is derived from decomposition and pressure over extremely long periods of time. It pollutes because it's toxic.
| 22 |
[Batman/Marvel] How would Joker react to having these superheroes as his archenemy instead of Batman?
|
These heroes are
Spider-Man
Daredevil
Punisher
Captain America
Wolverine
Hulk
Black Widow
Deadpool
How would Joker react to having one of these heroes as his archenemy?
| 60 |
> Spider-Man
Badly. Joker went from completely dismissing Terry McGinnis (Batman Beyond) to raving lunacy when Terry started heckling him. Since Spidey makes up quips easier, Joker will be gunning to kill him instantly.
> Daredevil
Probably the same as Batman.
> Punisher
Would be interested due to his no-nonsense attitude, but unlike Batman Punisher *doesn't* have a no-killing rule which takes away most of the fun he has with Batsy.
> Captain America
Joker's entire schtick here is going to be making Steve see that America is a total shithole that doesn't need saving. It won't work on Steve since Steve is patriotic enough to try and save the values the country was founded on.
> Wolverine
A toy that fixes itself after it breaks?! Joker's going to have a field day with this one!
He's also going to be dissected alive and screaming by a very pissed off Canadian, but that's a minor inconvenience.
> Hulk
Joker likes to get into people's heads and fuck with them, meaning Bruce Wayne is a massive target - force him into a public place, piss him off and run while Hulk tears it apart. Effectively, he's going to use the Hulk as a bomb to commit terrorist acts. This will have everyone from the police, SHIELD, the military and other heroes gunning after the Joker *with express orders to kill him*.
> Black Widow
This is a tricky one. He'll try his mind games in order to screw with her head and it'll get under her skin... or so he thinks. She's known for taking the demoralising rant of other villains and using it against them (see what she did to Loki in *The Avengers*) so it will be a massive cat-and-mouse psychological game between the two of them.
> Deadpool
Here's the thing - Deadpool is kind of like a male Harley, in that he's a chaotic character who loves causing destruction and mayhem. Hell, he once sucker-punched Shadowcat with a Shuryuken in order to goad Wolverine into a fight. Joker will want to *recruit* Deadpool.
But he made the mistake of threatening Spidey, so for that he must die.
| 97 |
[Fallout 4] How can a fusion core power a building for hundreds of years, but it can only power a suit of power armor for a couple of hours?
| 100 |
Are there any actual buildings that are powered by fusion cores? In the game, if you take a core out of one of those generators, the lights in the building dont turn off. One nearby will flicker but the rest of the building remains powered. It could be a back up generator of sorts. In which case it would go unused barring damage/loss of the buildings main power source.
| 59 |
|
ELI5: Why don't we point Hubbles and/or all other "magical" telescopes to our closest celestial body and show everyone once and for all, the artifacts of human Lunar landing?
|
If we purport to see something more than 13 billion light years away, we should be able to a lunar lander if not the flag, right?
| 291 |
The distant objects Hubble can see are inconceivably huge. The flag on the moon is not. Hubble could resolve approximately a football field sized object on the lunar surface but it's nowhere near powerful enough to resolve the flag.
| 203 |
[LotR] Why couldn't Arwen just leave on another boat to Valinor later on in life?
|
I'm watching Two Towers right now, and the whole tragic bit with Arwen and Aragorn just went by, when she is talking to her father about either leaving for Valinor or waiting for Aragorn. He talked about her living forever in Middle Earth after he aged and died.
But, doesn't another boat leave for Valinor at the end of the War of the Rings? Why couldn't she just tell daddy, "No, it's cool, I'll live here until Aragorn dies, then head on over to Valinor." Do you only get a once in a lifetime boat ticket, as it were? What gives?
The wiki for the story of Arwen and Aragorn tells me nothing about this, and it just seems so weird to me.
| 61 |
She can't.
By marrying Aragorn she chose to share his fate of mortality and eventually leaving Arda. She is still half-elven but her 'affinity' is that of man, thus she is mortal but long lived, effectively a Numenorean in all but name.
The path to Valinor is cut off to mortals except for the very few with a special dispensation (Frodo, Bilbo, Sam and arguably Gimli). She wouldn't be able to find the path even if she had a boat, she could sail the ocean west for the rest of her life, but for her all paths are bent and the world would be round.
| 75 |
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