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CMV: Public education should be 100% federally funded. | Today about 9% of the average public school’s funding comes from federal sources. About 58% comes from state sources. And about 22% comes from local property taxes. (Source: ppic.org)
As a result, there are *massive* differences in the funding and quality of public schools between red states and blue states, rich dist... | 40 | I agree that school funding shouldn't come from local property taxes, but putting the entire education system in the hands of the federal government seems like a risky move. What if they just decide to slash funding across the board? Then *all* schools across the country will be underfunded and struggling. | 24 |
ELI5: How does a VPN change my location and IP address, even though I'm still going through my router? | 24 | A VPN will create a connection between two machines over the internet and send other traffic over that link where it is routed to the open internet on the other end. Think of it as a mail forward service. You can send an envelope within an envelope to your mail forward service and they will take off the outer envelope ... | 23 | |
When someone gets blood drawn and tested for STD's, such as HIV, how many infected cells need to be in the sample for the test to show up positive? | From what I understand, if someone recently infected with an STD gets tested it may come back negative (because the virus has not spread to enough of the body??). So basically my question revolves around this concept (which I am not sure is even correct); how many cells would need to be infected for there to be a good ... | 36 | Typically, when we do infectious disease testing for viruses (I am thinking HIV here but Syphillis and HCV are largely tested in basically the same way) we aren't actually testing your cells at all. The blood is drawn and centrifuged- which means it is spun very fast. The cells move to the bottom of the tube and there ... | 11 |
CMV: The current US bailouts for all the large companies is unfair to both the US taxpayers, small businesses, and every company that responsibly managed their money in recent years | Recently, the US government has given out trillions in bailouts to the airline, retail, hospitality, etc industries. However, as a tax payer, I'm outraged that these large corporations are getting these handouts from the government and getting rewarded for their greedy behavior. The bank bailouts of 08 made me sick and... | 8,816 | Bailouts aren’t about “fairness,” they’re measures taken to minimize the damage of a steep economic downturn.
Should hundreds or thousands of employees really suffer because executives made some bad decisions? Certainly THEY should be held accountable but all the people on the front lines? Not to mention the countles... | 650 |
What is the sensation I get in between my eyes on my forehead when I hold something like a pen or my finger close to it? What causes it? | 164 | This is a more scientific answer than it sounds: it's all in your head.
Try having a friend hold a pen there randomly half of the time. You guess when it's there, the more you guess the closer to chance you should get. | 20 | |
[Warhammer 40,000] Could any of the Chaos gods touch upon my fascination with Xenos? | I'm a member of the Ordo Xenos.
I'm fascinated by Xenos, and I will never pass up an opportunity to learn more about the myriad of species that the galaxy has to offer. Their biology, culture and society, technology, weaknesses and battle strategies...
If I ever get a chance to see one - alive or dead - in the flesh,... | 46 | Sounds like the taint of Tzeench to me, you filthy heretic. Lust for knowledge is his forte, as is fascination with the new and different. And what xeno could compare in sheer novelty and amazement with a change demon? This quest for knowledge will drive you to madness and ruination, unless you return to the safe and b... | 51 |
Why are electromagnetic railguns not used to launch rockets into space? | 28 | Because then it wouldn't be a rocket, it would be a bullet.
But seriously, many people have considered this approach and put together designs to do just that. The biggest barrier to their implementation is that with a railgun you need to impart all the kinetic energy into the payload before it reaches the end of the ... | 38 | |
ELI5: If a mosquito sticks his "needle" into someone with AIDS, then into someone who doesn't have AIDS, why doesn't the second person not get AIDS as well? | Wouldn't it be almost identical to sharing a needle with someone who has AIDS? Other blood-based diseases spread with Mosquito bites, so why not this one? | 33 | Very few blood-based diseases spread via mosquito bites. The main one is of course malaria, but the malaria parasite is an organism that actually needs to be inside mosquitoes (as well as inside humans) to live.
HIV, the virus which causes AIDS, cannot live for long outside of a human body. What's more, mosquito bites... | 12 |
CMV: Celebrities and politicians that believe in climate change should adopt extreme lifestyle changes and donate bulk of their $ to the cause. | (I actually do believe in climate change, FYI). Many mega-rich celebrities and politicians love to talk about climate change, but most of these same people seem to make little to no significant change in their personal lifestyle or use their considerable resources to effect change.
Of course, there are many ways to ca... | 35 | > if you truly believe in something then you should follow through with it
I think your main flaw here is that you think "following through" on believing in climate change means making drastic individual changes, when in reality climate change is not that kind of issue, and raising awareness of the systematic issu... | 15 |
CMV:Buying one, and only one, lotto ticket is a worthwhile venture | Have had this conversation with a couple of friends and my partner, and I wanted to know if my reasoning is flawed. I believe that the lotto is, a.) in general, a tax on poor people, b.) of an infinitesimally tiny chance of winning, and c.) a tremendous waste of money.
All that applies above, but with the caveat of s... | 92 | >One ticket (infrequently bought, say, once a year) buys you in for the possibility that you might win. You won't, but you might. It's like qualification, and, at the cost of $1.00 (or whatever small monetary amount), it's a small price to pay for the chance. That seems like a worthwhile purchase to me.
You can act... | 73 |
What does an economy of scale mean in a tv show sense? | I was reading the Black Mirror Wikipedia page when it said “The series was expensive for Channel 4, as the anthology format meant there were no economies of scale.” I looked up what an economy of scale meant and the video made sense in the context of making bread, but how does it apply to a show? I guess it means the h... | 61 | If you take a long running TV show like, say Game of Thrones, although it may be hugely expensive in terms of building sets, designing special effects and employing actors and crew, you get eight seasons worth of show for your investment - hence you have economies of scale in production of a lot of shows with the same ... | 82 |
ELI5: Why does (did) static on TV look like that white snow? | Back in the days before streaming, if there was no signal, TV would be a dynamically changing, usually black and white, blank image. How did the lack of signal translate from the antenna/cable input into that image? (And why was it called "static" if it wasn't actually static--not changing--anyway?) | 18 | When you tune any receiver to any particular frequency, it's going to pull in the strongest signal. Older analog TVs would show the station when it was close enough, but the farther away the source, the lower the signal strength. If that signal couldn't overcome other signals on that frequency, including the cosmic bac... | 12 |
Eli5. Why do you only get dandruff on your scalp and not anywhere else? What causes flakes to happen | Since your scalp is just skin like everywhere else like your arms etc why do we get dandruff up there, since it’s just skin, why does your scalp that gets all those flakes?
This is a stupid question, please no hate. I have autism and perseverate, wonder about weird things and I don’t always comprehend well. :) | 35 | You do get dandruff everywhere on your body (I believe you shed all your skin every two weeks or so). The reason we seem to see more dandruff on our heads is because the skin gets trapped by your hair. | 45 |
How are telescopes and space observatories arranged at the L2 Lagrangian point so they do not interfere with each other? | 28 | Spacecraft placed at a Lagrangian point are not literally parked at that singular point in space. In reality, they are placed in orbits with the L-point at their center.
For example, the JWST will orbit L2 at a distance of about 800000 km (500000 mi). There is plenty of room. The L2 region is essentially empty... | 17 | |
Would it be possible to jump off of Ganymede? | Friends were playing the CCG "Wars" and debating whether the dinosaur creatures could simply leap off of Ganymede rather than needing a spaceship. I am not smart enough to answer this query I hope that reddit can help. | 142 | Gravity on Ganymede is about 15% of that on Earth, only a little less than the Moon. Escape velocity is 2,741 meters per second, so, like the Moon, you'd need a small rocket to escape.
Deimos, Mars' smallest moon only has surface gravity of 0.003 m/s^2 (as opposed to Earth's 9.81), which gives it an escape velocity o... | 162 |
[Marvel] How and why were Black Widow and Hawkeye selected to be on a team with superpowered beings such as the Hulk, Thor and Captain America and Tony Stark's armor? Aren't they hopelessly out of their league? | Even in the movie, Scarlett Johansson's only role was ass and character development for Hawkeye, and Hawkeye's only role was shooting shit with fancy arrows, while the other hero's did the ass-kicking and name-taking. So why were they even considered, let alone selected, for the Avengers Initiative? | 111 | Hawkeye and Blackwidow were not part of the Avengers Initiative. They are shield agents who were assisting those members of the Initiative that accepted the call to assist when the asgardian attacked. | 215 |
[Harry Potter] Which of the professors could take on the Basilisk and win? | That is after we exclude Dumbledore (away at the moment) and Snape (who would have to maintain his cover). | 22 | I think Flitwick or McGonagall could do it if they knew what they were up against. *Maybe* Sprout too, we never see her do much spell casting, but one would expect a head of house to be pretty skilled. On the other hand, she deals mostly with plants. | 30 |
ELI5: Does the body 'decide' between diarrhea and vomiting during gastric infections? | Hello guys,
I have diarrhea right now, and sometimes I feel like I have to vomit, but when I arrive at the toilet, welll, it comes out the other end.
From what I have read the body tries to get rid of any germs in the system. Now my question: Does it matter which end it comes out or is there a decision process the bo... | 56 | Like a lot of things in nature, it's not about whether your body "knows" where the bad stuff is. It's that the bad stuff is near something, and that something reacts a particular way to bad stuff. Your organs form systems that by themselves have a lot of processes that don't involve other organs.
When you eat somethi... | 56 |
CMV: I believe the Collegeboard is a scam | As I said in the title, I believe the Collegeboard is a scam. The reason I say that is because they are slowly taking over the US educational system. Public schools are paying the Collegeboard for having AP® courses in their schools. Some schools pay for students taking test, as it will make the school look good. Peop... | 352 | If Choate and Municipal High both offer dual credit courses, MIT isn't about to give college credit for both of those. It knows that Choate has a good dual credit course, so it might accept Choate's course. But Municipal High's "dual credit" course might not be at that level. Right now, MIT can say that an AP course... | 128 |
ELI5: How do bodies of water exist above ground? | How come bodies of water (lakes, rivers, wetlands, oceans even...) exist above ground instead of the water simply being absorbed by the earth? | 862 | 1) They *do* sink into the ground. Eventually it'll hit an *impermeable* layer of dense bedrock that the water can't go through. The ground will become saturated and no more water can drain down.
2) The ground slows the water down: imagine a cup with small holes in it. The water will drain out, but as long as water go... | 1,085 |
What textbook or general interest book would you recommend for people with an interest in your field? | 33 | Dan Ariely's *Predictably Irrational* and *The Upside of Irrationality* for general interest books. Anderson's *Cognitive Psychology and Its Implications* and Baron's *Thinking and Deciding* for textbooks. | 17 | |
Atmospheric pressure is 14.7 psi - does that mean the true psi of my car tire is the difference of the tire pressure from the atmospheric pressure? | 2,776 | Normal tire pressure is 30-33 psi. We describe that as "Gauge" pressure. The "Absolute" pressure would be 30-33 + 14.7 psi, which is the pressure in the tire and the pressure of the atmosphere.
Therefore the pressure in the tire is 44.7-47.7 psi (a) | 1,652 | |
ELI5 why the US has in interest in keeping drugs illegal in other countries. | I see it a lot. I know it has to do with trade agreements and whatnot, but what does the US stand to gain from something like pressuring a harm reduction heroin clinic in Europe to be closed?
Edit: fucked up the title, first in should be an. | 31 | If those drugs that the American government doesn't want Americans to use become more available anywhere in the world, they will also become more available in America, since it will be easier for people to obtain them in other countries and then smuggle them into the US. The concern about a harm reduction heroin clini... | 15 |
ELIF: Why do cats knock shit off tables and counters? | Is it some instinctual thing related to hunting or raising their young? | 27 | Domesticated animals tend to retain a lot of their infantile characteristics, and that includes playfulness. Playfulness *is* (at least in part) kittens learning skills that'll help with hunting, and batting things around is part of that. Knocking things off shelves simulates the prey escaping. Also it looks cool. | 16 |
[General/The Fermi Paradox]What would a "predator civilization" look like? | One of the proposed solutions to the Fermi Paradox is that other civilizations don't broadcast their existence for fear of "predator civilizations".
What would such a civilization look like? Just a conquering empire, like we've seen on Earth, or something more alien? The empires of Earth have generally made a lot of... | 40 | Realistically? Without a form of FTL, a "predator" civilization would almost have to rely on mass production of Von Neumann machines — self-replicating machines with the sole mission of exterminating life they encounter. They would 'seed' the stars with thousands, millions, or billions of these machines.
Upon arrival ... | 45 |
ELI5:There's a fresh tomato orbiting earth at 4.8 miles per second, 230 miles above our heads. Since space is a vacuum, will this tomato ever become rotten assuming it never re-enters earth's atmosphere? | Inspired by [this front page](http://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/1rczfn/yes_this_is_a_fresh_tomato_orbiting_in_space_at/) thread on Reddit, it sparks the question if organic material can rot in orbit or not. Space is a vacuum, so does that mean that organic materials such as that tomato that's in orbit, will nev... | 72 | It probably would not rot in a biological sense. There would be no oxygen available, and the tomato would become freeze-dried fairly quickly in the vacuum of space. These are both conditions used in commercial food packing to prevent spoilage.
However, it would degrade rather quickly for other reasons. Space is a hars... | 34 |
[The Matrix]Does the limitation that no physical mass can reach the speed of light exist in the Matrix Universe? Did the Machines simply put that into the Matrix so that the humans don't leave the planet which would require additional processing power? | I don't mean the actual Matrix. I mean in the real world. In the real world outside of the Matrix, in The Matrix movies. | 262 | Probably not.
They wouldn't need to mess with physics to keep humans on earth - the Matrix is set in the 90s, and there's no way humans develop to the point they can leave the solar system before the Matrix gets rebooted anyway.
The speed of light is actually pretty intimately tied to a lot of things - it's an essen... | 158 |
Is the form of a galaxy influenced by the black hole in its middle? | 445 | There are many things that determine the morphology of a galaxy, one of them being the black hole at its core. There is a well known relationship between the mass of the black hole and the mass of a galactic bulge- namely a spherical conglomeration of stars in the middle of the Galaxy. Black hole mass is correlated wit... | 76 | |
[40k/other sci-fi] what are some units that are comparable to 40k space marines in other sci-fi settings? | i was roaming the subreddits and was reading about [this](http://www.reddit.com/r/whowouldwin/comments/1wnk0h/what_is_the_minimum_number_of_spartan_ivs/) post from /r/whowouldwin on how many spartan ivs are needed to kill a space marine
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some discussions are very interesting and one of the things that many 40k fans ... | 17 | I think the Mobile Infantry from Starship Troopers are pretty close to even with 40k Space Marines. They have superior power armour and mobility which probably makes up for the genetic enhancements of the Space Marines. In fact aren't Space Marines Based on the Mobile Infantry?
*edit: Starship Troopers the book, not t... | 24 |
CMV: I think labeling personal reactions to incidents of domestic abuse / rape / other crimes as "victim blaming" is often both incorrect and counterproductive | To be clear upfront, I am not blaming victims of crimes: the perpetrators are responsible for their actions. I do, however, often find myself thinking things such as "Why didn't she leave?" or "Why did she get herself into that situation?", and I think these can be natural, innocent, and productive questions.
When he... | 18 | There's a big difference in connotation between the question "Why is it that victims of domestic abuse stay with their abusers?" and "Why didn't *this particular* victim of domestic abuse leave her abuser?"
The first question can seem as literally asking for information because the asker isn't familiar. While the seco... | 11 |
[Star Trek] What are the transporter's limits? | Throughout the various shows, films, and shorts, the transporter is often shown as being capeable of transporting people of various races, and objects of various sizes. This process is often explained as breaking something down to it's atomic structure, and then reassembling said structure in another location.
What I'... | 54 | There are several limits:
* Range: You can beam down to a planet from orbit, but you can't beam across a star system.
* Size: Something needs to be small enough to fit on a transporter pad. "Site to site" transports without a pad are a bit of a misnomer, they're actually 2 different transports where they first beam yo... | 38 |
ELI5: How are we able to hear more than 1 sound at the same time? | How can I hear two sounds at the same time when my eardrum can vibrate at only 1 frequency at a time? How can my brain decipher that 1 frequency into its component sounds? | 23 | Because we aren't just able to pick up one frequency at a time as such. All the frequencies mix together ( as it's all moving air) and it produces sort of a frequency that keeps changing rapidly and that's what makes up the sound we hear. | 11 |
[Men in Black]Oh my goodness I have so many questions about the end of Men in Black. They luminosity of everything outside of the marble is far brighter than the luminosity of the galaxy itself, why can't we see it with telescopes? MANY other questions? | Here is the end of MIB. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kVUPZ8_UJ4
A question in another thread had me looking at the end again and oh my goodness do I have so many questions. As we discover at the very end of the movie, the entire galaxy is in some kind of marble. It is important to note that this is the galaxy, n... | 16 | The marble-playing aliens are outside space-time as we experience it. Each marble is a pinched off pocket from our larger universe with no physical space between corresponding other marbles. A light beam or starship traveling to the edge of our marble would instantly and seamlessly continue its journey into the edge ... | 26 |
Is it possible for a terrestrial, life-sustaining planet to have rings? | 88 | I don't see why not although it would make sustaining life much harder as ring particles and materials would periodically hit the surface of the planet. Additionally a terrestrial planet would have a much smaller gravitational force than say a gas giant planet, which would mean that the actual rings would be smaller an... | 16 | |
ELI5: How can it be profitable for AliExpress merchants to sell and ship an item across the world, for just $1 | It blows my mind why anyone would do it, when you gotta factor in order processing, delivery to couriers, the shipping services, etc. | 60 | Think of it as there is this container already planned to go your city, on a specific date, from the shores of South China. It is booked on every ship, train & lorry it needs to get there. The company merely puts your extra item in the container. | 61 |
ELI5 - What makes someone a morning person? And the same with night owls? Is there a scientific explanation behind being one or the other or is it simply a lifestyle choice? | 17 | The scientific concept is 'circadian rhythm' - basically you have an inner clock that gives you a sense for the time of day. Unfortunately for most people, the inner clock is not set to 24 hours exactly.
If you have a short circadian rhythm, you are likely a morning person because your subjective days are shorter and ... | 16 | |
[Half Life]So what happens after humanity beats the Combine? | 42 | Well, after the Combine Citadel was destroyed, they had no means of retreating or calling in reinforcements. This put them into a corner, which was further reinforced when the portal storm was shut down by the Black Mesa satellite network.
We don't know how many Combine there are, nor how distributed their forces are ... | 33 | |
ELI5: How come the file size of my camera's photo are always different even though the same amount of pixels are being recorded? | When I take lots of photos with the same picture size (8megapixels for example) some photos are 6MB file size and others are 2MB. I know that the pictures are different, but in every pixel the information is recorded the same way, and I get very different file sizes. Why does that happen, if the amount of pixels being ... | 20 | not an expert but this is what i would think.
your camera captures and stores images using file compression. it is not storing raw data straight from the image sensor.
if there are many pixels that contain similar data (same color/exposure/etc), the group of pixels can be compressed by storing the color/exposure data... | 10 |
ELI5 If diamonds and other gemstones can be lab created, and indistinguishable from their naturally mined counterparts, why are we still paying so much for these jewelry stones? | EDIT: Holy cow!!! Didn’t expect my question to blow up with so many helpful answers. Thank you to everyone for taking the time to respond and comment. I’ve learned A LOT from the responses and we will now be considering moissanite options. My question came about because we wanted to replace stone for my wife’s pendant... | 33,840 | Marketing and monopoly. Diamonds are not unique or rare on this planet. The DeBeers corporation has a long standing monopoly, and an incredible marketing campaign stressing that you should spend 2 months salary on a ring if you really love your future wife.
Truth be told, lab grown diamonds are so perfect at this ... | 19,736 |
[Borderlands] Do all these gun companies have specific models? Could you buy two of the same gun? | All of the guns in Borderlands are so diverse and all over the place, do the companies just spam out random firearms or do they have specific models? How does that shit work? | 32 | In fact, each company has a strict set of design philosophies, models, and styles that no other company can replicate. Mostly because of legal issues, but also the fact that one company can always send a battlefleet to the HQ of another and bomb them to the stone age if they try.
However, the insane/genius (insaneous... | 41 |
Bitcoin's supply limit | If one can purchase fractional bitcoins, then how exactly is bitcoin supply-constrained? | 43 | Ten apples are ten apples, even if you can in theory slice them into an infinite amount of slices.
Just taking smaller parts doesn't change the amount that exists.
Or, let's say for the sake of making an example that the total number of bitcoins that exist right now is 2. Can you buy 3 bitcoins? No, you can't. Becaus... | 86 |
ELI5 Why PS2 emulation is harder than Wii emulation. | 26 | the PS2 runs the "emotion engine" which is 8 processing units that run simultaneously. trying to emulate 8 processors in software is a lot harder than emulating the processing power of the wii, which was designed more like a computer. | 21 | |
where in our bodies is heat generated? | i’m just curious | 100 | Heat is generated by some chemical reactions, most of it by the conversion of ATP to ADP, adenosine triphosphate to adenosine diphosphate. That's about 30 kJ/mol of energy released.
ATP is used throughout the body, but the body only has control over ATP use by the muscles. If the body needs more heat, it will increase... | 86 |
Is it possible to compute your latitude and longitude based on your surroundings like the sun, the moon and the stars? | 46 | Latitude can be calculated from the stars. More particularly, the angle at which you see the northern star gives you an indication how far north you are (works only on northern hemissphere).
Longitude cannot be calculated without a precise clock, because any indicator west or east of you, rotates as earth rotates (and... | 32 | |
ELI5: Why do some small engines (like my lawnmower) take 100% gasoline while others (like my weed whacked) require a special mix for fuel? | 206 | 2 stroke engines require gasoline-oil mixture
4 stroke engines do not.
The reason is that 2 stroke engines are much simpler such that the oil mixed in the gas will reach all the important parts that need lubrication.
A 4 stroke engine is much more complex. Oil needs to get places that a gas/oil mixture would never ... | 199 | |
Writing a Book for Public Consumption | Does anyone have experience in writing a book on their field for the masses? I wish to do so for my field to better inform them in a short book but I don't know how the process works. My best guess would be I have to sell the publisher on the idea and then give them a rough draft and rework it til they accept it. Kind ... | 17 | I work in publishing. Happy to answer any questions. Generally speaking, you send a proposal following their guidelines for submission (usually on their website), and then if they're interested, they'll invite a chapter or the whole manuscript and review it. If it's an academic publisher, the review is likely external ... | 10 |
ELI5: why does 3G use so much battery life on my phone while wifi barely uses any. | 1,147 | Like you're 5: The phone's wifi is talking to your wifi router, which is in your house. So it can just talk to it without using much energy. But the 3G system is on some telecoms tower that might be miles and miles away, so your phone has to yell really loudly to talk to it, which uses a lot of energy. | 1,760 | |
[General] Through some magical fuckery, I die very publicly, am confirmed dead, and insurance money is paid to my family. One month later I am very publicly resurrected and yay it's a miracle. The question is, does my family get to keep the insurance money or do they have to pay it back? | Edit: Let's say I come back 1 month after benefits are received. | 25 | Hopefully you had a really good policy, because most of it would go to legal battles. Life insurance is (barring bureaucracy) paid out when you're legally dead which in this case you are. But after you come back, you wouldn't be issued a returned-to-life certificate, your death certificate would be rescinded. You would... | 25 |
[The Mandalorian] Is the whole rule about never taking your helmet off something only Din’s clan does or was it a new rule created for all Mandalorians ? | 47 | His clan is more orthodox than others. There may be more clans like his that follow the rule, but it’s not culture wide. (Well, presuming there are many of the others left out there)
Edit: probably should have led with this tbh but it’s actually stated in a current book that came out recently. *The Star Wars Book*. | 52 | |
[Doctor Who] When the Cybermen's emotional inhibitors are disabled, the humans inside collapse in horror at what they've become. What would happen if one such human thought becoming a badass cyborg were pretty frickin' sweet? | 47 | I believe there are a few examples of people being committed enough to duty and honor that they were able to take constructive action post-conversion and post-inhibitor failure. Though it was less "yay, dope metal body" and more fighting through the pain and terror on raw gumption.
You see, the act of becoming a Cyber... | 41 | |
[40K] How Can I Destroy a Space Hulk? | Hey guys, Guardsman here! Just wondering if, hypothetically, a Space Hulk to appear in orbit of the planet I'm stationed on, what could we do to stop it?
Could for example, boarding it and detonating cyclonic torpedoes destroy/heavily damage it?
This is all of course, pure speculation. Thanks for your attention. | 25 | It depends. Space Hulk is a loose term for drifting, massive pieces of metal that drift between the Warp and realspace. Their size vary massively and so do their cargo.
Most likely the Navy will blast it from afar.
DO NOT BOARD IT. That job should be let to the Space Marines. ...Or Inquisition... Who knows what kin... | 35 |
ELI5: Why, despite having a majority on both house and senate, President Obama had such a hard time passing legislation | I know the issue had something to do with the GOP's power, or threat of, fillibuster, but if I am not wrong, the GOP never really used this all that much. Many thanks in advanced for putting this in plain words and providing sources if possible. | 47 | Two main reasons:
1) No party will have a solid 60 person majority; the country is too divided. Even if you have 60 "D" or "R" senators, a decent amount of those are going to be moderates that won't always fall in line with their party. This is because a few of these people will be D's in places that usually elect R's... | 26 |
AskScientists - what is the significance of Watson's performance on Jeopardy? Is this a man on the moon moment for AI, or a gimmick? | 41 | If it is a man on the moon moment is debatable. The major significance of Watson's performance is the natural language understanding, and information search related to that. To most, it will not seem like anything, but then again, we have been living in the world and learning language for years. Computers don't have... | 40 | |
Why is it that when you dig a hole and put some water in it it disappears, but it doesn’t do the same with ponds? | 33 | It does do that with ponds. If you keep filling your hole with water, you will eventually saturate the soil in the area and it will start to fill. Just like when it rains and doesn’t flood, the total amount of water matters. If there is a long dry period the pond will dry up, and hosing the area down will have the same... | 45 | |
Are there any "solved" topics in philosophy? | Okay. So, first, folks do forgive me if my post contains erroneous misassumptions regarding philosophy. I don't know much about it, but my (possibly wrong) impression of the field is that it's very, well, diverse. Lots of different viewpoints regarding different problems and questions - so not really "objectively" defi... | 132 | A pretty endless list of questions in Political Philosophy no longer have any defenders on one side of the question. Should we have an absolute monarchy, should we practise the institution of slavery, should women have the same rights as men, should our society be dominated by aristocrats etc. etc. | 147 |
CMV: Internet should be free or easily obtainable | So, recently I've been noticing certain internet providers have been having issues with their connection/screwing over their customers. I feel that no company should be able to make fast internet exremely expensive. The reason for this is because so many jobs and other things are done online.
It's 2015, we need to em... | 29 | What does "internet should be free or easily obtainable" actually mean?
That the government should treat the internet like roads and taxpayers should fund the infrastructure (and presumably the individual connections as well)? Should they also provide computers to everyone so that they have something to connect with?... | 22 |
Why did mammals lose the ability to lay eggs? | I wonder why all mammals, (except monotremes) lost the ability to law eggs. What was the evolutionary benefit? | 35 | Technically we still have eggs, they're just not eggs in the same sense as what we see with reptiles or birds.
Think about it this way: fish have eggs and fish fertilise externally by ejecting both sperm and eggs into the water where they can interact. The young then develop in "eggs" in the ocean. Mammal reproduction... | 14 |
Can you feed a bird so that it gets too fat to fly? Or would it die from health complications before it ever reached that point? | 310 | I remember hearing at a lecture about birds given by a guy who runs a conservation that some types of vultures will eat until they can't fly because they don't find meals that often, and will just walk on the ground until a predator appears, in which case they will vomit in its face to distract/blind it, thus lowering ... | 203 | |
[Star Trek] Are there any other races in the Klingon and Romulan empires? If not, how is this possible given the large scale of both empires? | The Federation has at least well over 100 member worlds [sources vary, but it's at least 150 worlds in the TNG era], and we commonly see many different species from all across the Federation.
The Romulan and Klingon empires are smaller than the Federation, with maps of different sources varying to a great degree. H... | 44 | The Remans are part of the Romulan Empire. Kriosans are a part of the Klingon Empire. The reason you don't see a lot of the "client races" of those Empires is because they are not allowed to serve on their starships alongside Romulans or Klingons. | 34 |
When somethings travels at 99.9999...% the speed of light, does only it contract in length, or does the entire universe experience the same length contraction from its perspective? | 36 | From an outside observer, the moving object is length contracted, and the moving object's clock ticks slower. From the perspective of the object, the Universe is length contracted and everyone else's clock ticks slower. | 12 | |
Why do our voices "crack"? | 92 | The pitch of your voice is determined by a number of things: the length (and thus thickness) of your vocal chords, the size of your larynx and (for a lesser part) the position of the larynx and the shape of your pharynx.
When going through puberty, the larynx, pharynx and oral cavity all grow/change. This has a large... | 31 | |
Eli5:why is it that when a clear item(like clear wrappers)is crumpled it turns white? | 121 | A clear substance becomes white when tiny cracks, localized crystalline structures or other impurities are introduced due to strain.
The white look is due to the same dynamics that make clouds and seafoam look white. That is, the scattering features involved are the same or bigger than the wavelengths of light and so ... | 60 | |
[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze 1991] Is Vanilla Ice already aware of the turtles and/or planned his rap in advance OR just the best free style rapper of the 90s? | The intro verse alone implies he knows of them and their exploits:
*Yo! It's the green machine
Gonna rock the town without bein' seen
Have you ever seen a turtle get down?*
How is this even remotely possible? | 16 | Either are possible. On one hand, it would be impressive to free style and make lyrics that fast, but on the other hand despite being ninjas the foot clan aren't really stealthy and according to shows the turtles have epic mech battles in the streets every couple months or so, so it would make sense people know if thei... | 11 |
Dad wants to know - Does the claimed science behind Simple Water Fuel (HHO) produce legitimate results? - xpost from askreddit | Hey Reddit. My dad owns an auto repair/body shop and is interested in testing if Simple Water Fuel works to improve car mileage. Judging from the [extremely scammy looking website](http://simplewaterfuel.com) I'm already doubtful. ["How To" PDF](http://www.mediafire.com/?dyz1wpxu9maa135). What I would like explained is... | 17 | This is not absolutely a scam, but it's pretty close.
What they are leaving out is it's a mixture fo hydrogen and oxygen that's being burnt, which is all well and good. But what's being left out is where the hydrogen and oxygen come from and how much energy it takes to accomplish this. If you include this energy t... | 10 |
[Scooby Doo] How CAN I get away with it, now that those meddling kids have arrived in town? | Hello all. Old Man Whithers here.
After thirty years of thankless work of scraping by as a street sweeper in my small town, I've decided to enact a sure-fire scheme to finally get myself a retirement fund so I can get out of this depressing place and live by the beach. My plan involves dressing up as a menacing ghost... | 97 | I think I've seen these kids driving down the freeway, and at a few rest stops.
I say the best bet is to give them something else to worry about than you. It is definitely animal abuse to be hotboxing that poor dog, and he *never* has a proper leash. A report to the right authority should have them heading for less re... | 41 |
Why do large clouds form with flat bottoms but small ones are irregular shaped? | Here's an image of what I mean: https://imgur.com/gallery/qxfiN5u | 4,216 | The lapse rate. As warm moist air rises it will cool. In this case once the air parcel hits a certain height where the temperature is equal to the dew point the water vapor will condense. Where you have an expansive flat bottom cloud you have a somewhat flat layer where the dew point is somewhat all at the same hei... | 1,301 |
Would it be possible to use gravity as an energy source? | If you could "capture" the pull of gravity somehow, could you use it as a power source? | 169 | we already do it.
Hydro electric power.
We use different level of water to make some kind of waterfall and put a turbine under the falling water.
Hydroelectricity is the term referring to electricity generated by hydropower; the production of electrical power through the use of the gravitational force of falling ... | 272 |
[Avatar] Post Finale Pro-Bending Question | Hey all, first time on this sub. I was directed here from the avatar sub since its not doing so hot over there unless you're really into korrasami fan art by which case enjoy. I would love to bounce some ideas off you guys, I had a few interesting ones on the other post but this is a much bigger community so lets see w... | 16 | Since there's no good way to limit or even measure access to air in the context of pro bending, I'd imagine air benders would be limited in their techniques. Tournament rules would either whitelist moves that are roughly equal to other bending capabilities, or else blacklist overpowered techniques as they find them.
A... | 16 |
Why do accents disappear when people sing? | 23 | singing is different from speaking because it uses sustained sounds. this changes the way we pronounce words because its drawn out, and it also changes the way the audience hears the words we sing because it exposes every little part of each syllable.
good vocal technique is very focused on vowel shape and diction (c... | 21 | |
Why do people deny the holocaust? | Is there any credibility at all in the denials? | 43 | Back in the 1930s and 1940s, there were no easy way of telling how exactly many people lived in any one place, and wars, as you might know are very destructive things that make good record keeping even more difficult. People that are called "Holocaust deniers" are people that question the generally accepted belief that... | 58 |
ELI5: Why does cheaper alcohol give you a worse hangover? | Someone help me understand why I feel like I got hit by a truck | 56 | Cheaper alcohol has a higher percentage of congeners like methanol. Methanol doesn't break down as easily in the body as ethanol does and some of the metabolites created during the process are really bad (formaldehyde).
Also a lot of the cheaper booze tends will have more sugar to mask the fact that it tastes really ... | 54 |
CMV: People who are Pro-Life or Anti-Abortion (specifically those who oppose abortion at any stage) have an obligation to adopt at least one child. | **Note:** *I do not want to argue on whether a fetus should be considered a human or at what stage a fetus is considered alive and has the right to life.*
How many children are brought into this world to parents who are in no way capable of handling the responsibility of raising them to successful adults? How many of... | 21 | A person's belief that something is wrong is not and cannot be grounds to obligate them to fix it.
If someone is against ISIL, it is not their moral duty to go to the Middle East and fight ISIL directly. If you start to apply this standard life quickly becomes impossible for everyone; there are simply too many proble... | 23 |
ELI5: Why can't saltwater fish survive in fresh water? | 39 | Simply put, saltwater and freshwater fish have different systems for maintaining the right amount of water in their bodies. Think about salt, if you sprinkle it on a slug it makes the slug dry out, killing it. The same thing would happen to a freshwater fish if you plonked it in the middle of the sea. saltwater fish de... | 11 | |
Why is there a distinction between the sounds of voices in humans (Females have higher tone, males lower) but not in other animals, like dogs. | Also, what animals (if any) have distinction between their voices for male and female. | 306 | Let's say you have two dogs. They are brother and sister. When they were puppies their voices were pretty high pitched because they had small throats. As they got older their throats started to get bigger so their voices got deeper. Now the brother, let's call him Spot, has a special part of his body that makes che... | 200 |
ELI5: Why do random little moments that I haven't though about for years, pop into my head at seemingly random moments? | Like, not even embarrassing moments. I'll be sitting at my desk, and suddenly remember being in a carpark with my friend 15 years ago.. | 27 | You know how you can often see or smell something, and it triggers an easily recalled memory associated with it? The easiest way to understand involuntary memory recall is that its exactly the same as any other memory. It is triggered by something.
The difference is you are not aware of what the trigger is. Unlike thi... | 11 |
How effective are microwaves at sterilizing objects? | Let's say I drop a slice of apple on the ground. It is now covered in germs. I have always assumed i could throw it in the microwave oven for a few seconds, and that would instantly kill any bacteria on it.
Am i right? Does microwaving an object sterilize it? | 20 | Microwaves can sterilize by heat - the radiation isn't at a toxic wavelength (i.e., doesn't pack enough energy) to kill most organisms. Microwave sterilization time would vary by the amount of moisture in the food, and wouldn't work to clean macroscopic dirt particles from food. | 13 |
ELI5: I get sunburnt, I start to shed my skin. Why aren't my birth marks losing their top layer? | If I peel off some skin around a mark, I get a nice film of skin, with a hole where the mark is. Why isn't the top layer of the mark coming off with the rest of the skin? | 30 | The stuff that makes your skin dark (it's called melanine)
stops you getting burnt.
Your birthmark is darker (more melanin) and so it won't get as burnt as the pale skin around it.
imagine it like putting a big spot of sunscreen in the middle of your back then sunbathing
| 35 |
ELI5 how come in shows when a plane door opens up, everyone gets sucked into it? | Idk how accurate it is, but whenever a plane door opens in a show or a movie, it’s like some sort of gravity vortex gets activated and everyone is trying not to get pulled into it. What gives? | 16 | At high altitudes, the air pressure and density are extremely low, making it hard for people to breathe. Passenger planes pressurized the cabin to be of a pressure equivalentish to earth’s surface. This means that the air pressure win the cabin is constantly pushing outward. If a large hole is made, all the air will ru... | 18 |
ELI5:How come shrimps are pale and semi-translucent when raw, but when cooked are turned red? | This goes for lobsters and crabs, as well. | 69 | It's a pigment called Astaxanthin! It's red, and is present in the shells of those crustaceans, as well as in fish like Trout and Salmon, which is why those fish are reddish-pink as well. As for why Crustaceans don't turn red until you cook them, that's because in their shells Astaxanthin is bound up in other protein... | 53 |
[Yu-gi-oh / Marvel] Would Seto Kaiba and Tony Stark respect each other in a business meeting? What would their conversation be like? Both their companies used to make weapons that affected people's lives and both have egos. | 17 | Tony is willing to put aside his ego and every personal concern when it comes to others. For example, he literally sent his suit of armor away and onto Pepper when he thought it would protect her more.
Kaiba is just not capable of that level of thought, consideration and operation. | 12 | |
When you cross 2 different colored lights they make a different color. (ex: red + green=yellow). Is this due to a physical effect or just due to how our eyes are made? | I'm wondering if the light waves or photons somehow combine to make a wave of a different color. | 1,032 | Short answer: it's due to how our eyes are made. Yellow light stimulates both the red-sensitive and green-sensitive receptors in our eyes. What we perceive as yellow can be true yellow-wavelength light, or it could be a mixture of green and red, or it could be all three. You can use a spectrometer to measure the int... | 534 |
ELI5: Why is it that when my tv remote "dies", I can pull a battery out, put the same one back in, and it suddenly works again? | 1,121 | The battery contacts and the contacts in the remote control corrode very slightly due to the electricity flowing through the connection. When you move the batteries (you can just roll them in place for the same effect) you clean the contact points slightly and allow better electrical flow. The batteries are still proba... | 692 | |
CMV: Trophy hunting is unethical and should be internationally banned. | The hunting of animals for the main purpose of collecting trophies is a practice that causes massive amounts of damage to ecosystems, drives our most beautiful animals to extinction and is unethical not only on this basis, but on the fact that it is needless murder of a sentient being.
This applies particularly to Afr... | 37 | Ill start by saying by saying i hate people who hunt for trophies, how much of a bitch do you have to be to be lead out and shot another animal like that. Im not even a fan of killing animals for food.
That being said, from a consequentialist point of view trophy hunting can be seen as a net good, because the main dan... | 26 |
ELI5 What are skin tags and why do we get them? | 39 | A skin tag is actually a benign tumor that usually forms where skin creases, like the neck or armpit, and sometimes the eyelids. They are almost always harmless. They're very common (moreso in women than men), and thought to be formed by skin rubbing on skin, but the exact cause is unknown.
They're safe to leave and ... | 14 | |
ELI5: How some restaurants make a lot of recipes super quick? | Hi all,
I was always wondering how some restaurants make food. Recently for example I was to family small restaurant that had many different soups, meals, pasta etc and all came within 10 min or max 15.
How do they make so many different recipes quick?
- would it be possible to use some of their techniques so cookin... | 9,080 | The kitchen is always running, starting from the morning to after closing, even when the restaurant has not yet opened. There's a lot of prep work that happens out of sight. The chefs do everything short of actually cooking most food in order to save time when orders come in. Long lead items like soup stocks get starte... | 7,251 |
If a photon doesn't have a an anti- counterpart because it is a boson, does that mean that a Helium-4 atom also don't have a anti- counterpart? | In the newest episode of PBS Spacetime ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvgZqGxF3eo ) they called He-4 a boson because it has a total spin of 0.
Does that mean that it doesn't have a anti particle counterpart? | 39 | It's not true that bosons can't have distinct antiparticles. A photon is a boson, and is its own antiparticle, but those two facts are not related to each other.
^(4)He is also a boson, but it does have a distinct antiparticle. | 36 |
ELI5: Why does cold alcohol seem to go down easier than when hot/warm | 19 | You generally don't taste things as well when they are cold, so cold alcohol is a bit easier to take that warm. You actually taste it just a bit less. This is the same reason why melted ice cream at the bottom of the bowl is just so darn yummy. One of the theories behind this is:
Your tongue sends signals to your brai... | 26 | |
[MCU] Are there any people that are skeptical of Wakanda's power? | Is it likely that crazy people in the MCU would think that Wakanda simply cannot be as powerful as it is?
And what other conspiracy theories would people have regarding Wakanda? | 18 | Literally everybody was skeptical of Wakanda's power because until 5 years ago the idea that Wakanda was anything more than a few poor farmers was a closely-guarded secret.
After that it was plainly impossible to deny-- they landed a spaceship in the middle of Oakland. | 17 |
Are the terms big government and small government used in social science? | These terms get thrown around a lot in politics, but are they useful in academia? I've been thinking about it and they seem kinda ill defined. Like, a medieval monarchy is theoretically big government because the king has complete authority over the lives and property of his subjects. But in practice he can't even perf... | 26 | No, because they don't mean anything. You're correct that they're vaguely defined amorphous terms. There's no point in using a term in political science if it's only going to obscure your point.
And beyond that, academic writing on political and economic systems doesn't lend itself to such overt and meaningless pejor... | 24 |
ELI5: Why don't transgender people simply get counseling on their feelings and learn to accept their bodies as they are, rather than getting life altering surgery to fix their mental state? | 2,004 | The explanation I've been given is that being transgender is like having a mismatch between your OS and your hardware. Your brain continues to create error messages like "ESTROGEN LEVELS LOW!" or "Pinging Vagina - ERROR VAGINA NOT FOUND." Counseling can help some people deal with the dysphoria, but in many cases we've... | 1,920 | |
ELI5 why do muscles spasm or twitch? | 37 | Your muscles are like electric motors. They are controlled by nerves, which are just like an electric cord you see attached to your living room lamp.
Sometimes the chemicals in your body are not balanced well, especially your potassium and salt. Too much salty food or too much sweating can cause this problem. Oth... | 21 | |
ELI5: What are the lightened spots shown on this picture of the moon | http://i.imgur.com/TWRI2SA.jpg
Since the moon doesn't have any light of its own and the light is reflected, what causes those brighter spots of light. Can someone please explain this in detail than you! (I hope I'm posting in the right place) | 126 | They're craters. Just like Earth's surface, different types and textures of Lunar soil and rock have different reflectivity. The bottoms of craters are relatively smooth and face directly upwards, so they reflect more light than the rougher, less homogenous areas. | 49 |
[DC] How would Lex Luthor take it if someone else took down Superman? | We know Joker considers batman "his" and gets very unhappy when someone kills Batman without him. Does Lex Luthor have the same relationship with Superman?
If some random thug who stumbled onto some kryptonite killed superman, would Lex's reaction be more "finally that alien is gone" or "how dare you deprive me of fin... | 28 | Publically he'd make sure that the hood was arrested and sent away. Then he'd make sure the guy had a nice cell and plenty of conjugal visits.
Privately he'd be planning his next move, either a hit on Wonder Woman or stealing Green Lantern's power ring.
[btw, considering that Lex's greatest power is his indominable ... | 36 |
[Marvel] What if Black Bolt stubs his toe? | Just imagine one Monday morning Black Bolt wakes up with a terrible hangover from the weekend and is all groggy and hasn't had his cup of coffee yet when he **nails** the bedroom door with his little toe. Does he have like a charm or something on him to prevent sudden outbursts like this? Or is his pain tolerance/self-... | 29 | A single tear might escape his eye, and his wife might bolt out of bed from the intensity of his emotion, but other than that, naught but silence.
His default mental state is simply to not ever utter a sound. Where you make noise as a matter of nature, he does not. It may not even occur to him to make noise because of... | 31 |
ELI5: What is the Illuminati and what is the big deal surrounding them? | I've googled this but none of the answers are making sense to me. Can someone help me out? | 144 | The Illuminati, contrary to the current top comment, are not a fictional group of people. Whether they still exist today is debatable, but they were at one point a very real, and semi-secretive group of men (lead by Adam Weishaupt) who formed an order of sorts with the stated intent of bringing "Illumination" to the w... | 70 |
[Sabrina - the Netflix version about a teenage witch] With all of history to chose from, why and how did the demons settle on Victorian England Royalty as the preferred style of dress? | 38 | Demons and the supernatural typically look down on humans as inferior beings, but sometimes you just gotta respect the drip. Humans do sometimes create some pretty good stuff, that particular clothing style just so happens to be one such example. | 33 | |
[PokemonGo] Why are Pokeballs not re-usable? | I don't get it. I tossed a Pokeball at a Zubat I found in some grass, and missed - but now it's gone forever! I swear I saw exactly where it landed, it couldn't have rolled far... | 116 | Okay, so part of the way a pokeball works is that it actually draws in a pokemon that's thrown at it and creates a temporary pneumatic seal to hold it in. As you can imagine, this is quite energy-intensive, and because the companies that make pokeballs need a source of income, they use proprietary batteries that cannot... | 68 |
[The Culture/various Sci Fi] The culture invites various sci-fi factions for a meet&greet/ party aboard an orbital, interactions/reactions/first impressions to the Culture? | The culture invites various sci-fi faction representatives to a tapa party aboard an orbital for a first impression of The Culture, how will they react to the culture? (no active fighting, not VS)
factions of your choosing, but a few:
star wars: Palpatine/Anakin/Jedi
trek: Picard/Khan/the Borg/klingon/vulcan
40K: E... | 31 | Star Wars: The Jedi look on in bemused pity at a society built entirely on the concept of hedonistic pursuit. They also react with horror to learn that the entire society is under the complete control of super droids. Palpatine tries his old tricks and is immediately slapped droned.
Star Trek: While Picard and crew g... | 46 |
[Star Trek] Whenever Picard is talking to an alien that is having their speech translated, sometimes he'll say something to them in their language as a gesture of respect. Like, to a Klingon: "Qapla!". But since the translator is still working, do they have any idea that he knows that word? | 152 | When the crew of *Enterprise-A* hijacked the vessel after "Operation Retrieve" was vetoed, they are forced to manually translate a message to get past a Klingon surveillance post, because if they'd used the UT it would have been obvious in some way.
They don't go into the specifics, but apparently there is some tellta... | 99 | |
[Waterfalls-TLC] What's wrong with chasing waterfalls? If I miss, I'm still bound to run into a river or a lake that I'm used to. | 15 | While waterfalls are powerful and exciting, they're also dangerous. People underestimate their ferocity, and how quickly the edge comes upon you when you're caught up in the waterfall's tide. You may run into the river or lake that you're used to, but you'll be destroyed by the overwhelming forces along the way. | 16 |
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