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ELI5: How do antidepressant pills work? | 48 | SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) target low levels of serotonin in the brain, which scientists believe to be the chemical/hormone we make that relates to mood. Lower serotonin, depression. The SSRIs try to level that out. There are many other types of antidepressants, but SSRIs are the most common. Each ... | 12 | |
[Dragonball] How does Picollo become a good guy? | In the original Dragonball, Picollo was literally Kame's evil side; however, after training Gohan to prepare him for the Sayans, he became good. How exactly is that possible? | 18 | A few reasons:
1: The Piccolo that turned good was the evil Piccolo reborn. As we saw with Buu (and as those educated in the various religions that involve reincarnation would know), while you carry the burden of a previous life's sins, you aren't doomed to follow the same path.
2: As Kami stated, Piccolo was aware ... | 32 |
ELI5 the concept of extra dimensions | I don't understand how it's possible to have a 4th or 9th dimension, like those proposed in string theory. What type of shape would these have and how would we interact with them? | 37 | Think of a large SUV moving on a narrow street. Technically, the SUV is free to move in 2D dimensions: forwards/backwards and left/right. But if the street is very narrow compared to the SUV, it can't, in practical terms, move left/right. Essentially, its movement is constrained to 1D, despite it existing on a 2D surfa... | 12 |
[Flash TV] Why doesn't flash just take Captain Cold's gun away from him? | 42 | The actual reason can be seen in episode 9 of season 2. In the episode we see Snart break into Barry's home and when Barry threatens to arrest him, Snart, says that he's rigged the cold gun to explode if he lets his finger off the trigger. So that explains why Barry isn't able to take the gun out of Snart's hands other... | 29 | |
ELI5: Current in a wire flows opposite to the direction of flow of electrons, what exactly is current then, if there is nothing actually flowing? | I know that flow of electrons is not current, it is opposite to the direction of flow of electrons, is it just a convention? why such a convention was chosen if it is one. . Please correct me if you think i have very wrong assumptions. | 47 | * Back when Benjamin Franklin studied electricity, he discovered that current flowed but wasn't sure which way was positive and which way was negative....
* So he guessed.
* Later they found out he had it backwards.
* But they had used his conventions for so long that they kept it.
* So "current" and flowing electrons ... | 78 |
ELI5: In government, what steps must happen for there to be an official declaration of war? What is the standard procedure? | 32 | There is no standard procedure. In the United States, Congress has the power to declare war, and it exercises that power as it sees fit. Nowadays, Congress usually passes resolutions authorizing the president to deploy the military or use force, rather than use the words "declaration of war," since such formal declarat... | 16 | |
Does a computer do mistakes sometimes within the billions of operations they do every second? | It sounds insane to me such intricate circuits flawlessly execute all of these operations all the time correctly, but at the same time it also sounds strange to me the computer could function properly with mistakes within operations being a common thing. I don't think Fermi's approximation could work with computers, bu... | 31 | It might sound insane, but it's true. Modern desktops (built in the past few years) have undetected error rates of less than 1 per month. Detected errors in the CPU get redone. Uncorrected hard disk errors are also rare. Mostly this is all due to the extensive use of parity bits, check-sums and other error-detection.
... | 46 |
Why does getting hit in the testicles have a delayed response before the pain sets in? | Getting hit square on hurts, clearly. But a more glancing blow doesn't hurt until a few seconds pass and then you have to sit down from the immense pain. | 18 | Sadly, this is Ask Science, and you're getting responses composed of abject shite. Layman speculation is just that—adding a comment about Lab work doesn't make an incorrect answer right.
Here: The physical response you experience (or observe on America's Funniest Home Videos) is the somatic reflex arc that happens in ... | 22 |
Ammonium Nitrate, the chemical implicated in the Beirut explosion, is an oxidizer and not explosive. How does improper storage of oxidizers cause explosive mixtures to form spontaneously? | There are news reports today that [yesterday’s massive explosion in Beirut](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/beirut-explosion-death-toll-could-top-100-ammonium-nitrate-stash-blamed.html) was caused by 2750 tons of ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3)
that had been [stored improperly](https://www.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/co... | 29 | Ammonium nitrate is an explosive in it's own right. It has fuel in the form of oxidizable ammonium, and an oxidizer with oxygen in the form of nitrate. At high enough temperatures this decomposes to make no2, no, and water - three moles of gas, generating the expansion of gas that's characteristic of explosions. It's m... | 51 |
Why do rockets throttle down to maintain 4.6Gs even after they've gotten out of the atmosphere? | I've noticed in several rocket launches lately, and during the Atlas launch this morning, that they throttle down to maintain about 4.6Gs. This is well after they've gone past Max-Q and and often at the end of Stage 1 and during Stage 2. I though launches were a race to get to orbital velocity so this doesn't make much... | 22 | Payload and structure are limited to how many Gs of acceleration they can withstand. This is also true for aircraft.
The Space Shuttle was G-limited to 3g, but could handle up to 3.3 (10%) margin for error. In aviation, utility category aircraft are limited to +4.4/-1.76G so that the airframe isn't compromised. These ... | 14 |
What does Heidegger mean by Dasein having a "Vorontologischer Begriff des Seins?" | Heidegger frequently argues that dasein has a pre-ontological or pre-phenomenological understanding of being, but what does this mean? Does Dasein already operate with an understanding of das Sein selbst? But how is this possible? And does this have anything to do with dasein's nature as Existenz and it's Existenzialen... | 17 | Heidegger's method is understood to be "hermeneutical", that means trying to gain understanding of something that has meaning, and it has meaning because someone created it as being meaningful - therefore this someone himself already would have an understanding of this meaning. Therefore you could argue that "hermeneut... | 19 |
ELI5: Why does the moon look so much smaller when you try to take a picture? | 33 | Not physics, psychology. And it's not just the Moon, lots of things that people take pictures of look smaller in the photo. Ever shoot pix at an airshow? Those planes that looked so big flying past are just specks.
This happens because when they were looking through the viewfinder, their brain "cropped" the image to t... | 23 | |
[Star Wars] Do all of these planets only have, like, one or two biomes on them? | Maybe this question has been asked before. What I know of the galaxy is planets like Tattooine, Kashyyk, etc., where it looks like (from the films and games) you can just go to any one planet and expect it to be covered in forests, or deserts, etc. Is that canon?
Could I go to Tattooine, for example, and find forests ... | 21 | We see many planets from orbit, showing us what their terrain is like. Tatooine is shown to be entirely desert. While many planets have singular biomes this is hardly true of all of them, Alderaan and Naboo for example. | 33 |
ELI5: Why is chicken soup good for you when you're sick? | 16 | When you're sick, even though you feel awful, it's important that you get plenty of fluids and plenty of your body's normal nutritional needs - calories, protein, vitamins, sodium, etc. And if you're congested (like you would be with lots of common illnesses, say a cold or a flu), then you're not going to have much of... | 52 | |
I believe Internet Piracy is theft and that in no way is it a morally upstanding activity. CMV | I want to preface my argument by saying that I am not opposed to the actual act of piracy. I myself take part quite frequently. In my short life I have had the privilege of growing up with the internet and have illegally downloaded or pirated thousands of songs, dozens of full music albums, hundreds of TV episodes, ple... | 49 | >You're taking from them.
The reason piracy isn't theft is that this isn't true. You're not *taking* anything. They still have exactly what they had before you pirated.
It's still a crime, and it's still morally wrong, but it's not theft. | 43 |
[Star Trek] Why don't Star Fleet soldiers get body armor? | I know it isn't standard equipment for most as a sign of good faith with other species and civilizations, but when Star Fleet is at war with the Dominion, why are they as well armored a Napoleonic era soldier? A metal cuirass looks like it would be better than nothing. | 37 | Phasers (and to a lesser extent disruptors) are *ridiculously* powerful (even a hand phaser can sublimate a humanoid in a single shot when set to maximum power), so outside of exotic metal platings and reactive armor (which is really something you don't want strapped to your chest), very little will actually save you ... | 54 |
CMV: Alcohol Is More Deserving of Schedule 1 Status than Cannabis | Alcohol is equally as deserving, if not more deserving of a Schedule 1 status than cannabis.
A substance is a Schedule 1 Substance if ([per DEA](https://www.dea.gov/druginfo/ds.shtml)):
* The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
* The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in... | 35 | The reality is that we've had the benefits of literally half a century of direct research into alcohol including basic science, experimental studies, and epidemiological studies that have massively increased our knowledge of the harm that alcohol can produce. This includes harms that we would have never guessed before ... | 11 |
Why are Neanderthals considered a different species from humans if we could interbreed and produce fertile offspring? | I've often heard the word species defined as the largest group of organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile offspring, if that is the case why do we consider Neanderthals a different species when many people today have Neanderthal ancestry? | 44 | species are more about having a distinct gene pool with little or no outside interbreeding, and neanderthals had that for a long time and so developed a genetic distinction of their own, becoming a separate species.
basically they are a different species because they formed a isolated group that didn't interbreed exte... | 12 |
If darker colors absorb more heat, why is our skin made to darken when exposed to the sun? | 20 | Because the problem with sunlight is not the heat, but the exposure to UV radiation, which damages skin cells and their DNA, leading to sunburn in the short term, and to melanoma and other problems in the long term.
Melanin, the pigment responsible for the darkening of the skin, is placed above the DNA of skin cells, ... | 22 | |
So, I just got some vaccines and now I’m thinking about them. It seems like vaccines would be more effective if administered intravenously, so why are many vaccines given via the intramuscular route instead? | 25 | There are multiple arguments for that. The reasons are historical, practical and scientific.
1/ Traditionally, vaccines were injected subcutaneously and we thought that the buttocks were an appropriate site for vaccination. Now, we are injecting other muscles like the deltoid.
2/ Some vaccines are meant to be injecte... | 65 | |
How can “objective morality” exist if by definition what “is right” is a product of the mind? | Allow me to elaborate on the title. I have been thinking of the concept of “objective morality” - that what is “right” and what is “wrong” is right or wrong independent of what anyone thinks is right or wrong. However, it seems to me that the very idea of “right or wrong” is a product of human consciousness. There is n... | 95 | If morality is mind dependent then it isn't mind independent, but this seems banal, and is obviously exactly what moral realists dispute. They deny that morality is a mere product of the mind, or 'human consciouness' or whatever. The only kind of suggestion that you make as to why this might be the case is,
>There ... | 87 |
CMV: Too many people who claim to suffer from depression really don't | I don't mean to be dismissive, or suggest that people don't struggle with mental illness, but for gods sake, as Jim Jeffries once said "From time to time we all get sad."
Why is every celebrity all of the sudden "suffering from depression?" I'm not saying none of them are, or that everyone who says they suffer from d... | 50 | Why is chemical depression the only "real" depression in your mind?
What if a person loses their wife and children in a car accident? Or is the victim of a sexual assault? Or is diagnosed with a degenerative illness?
If these people said they were depressed, would your response really be "no you aren't, because dep... | 29 |
ELI5 but if garbage dumps fail to facilitate decomposition due to the lack of an oxygen rich environment, why wouldn't the waste managers bore columns to pump in oxygen and good bacteria to compensate ? | 272 | A lot of facilities have started doing this. But it is not as simple as just blowing air into the ground. There is a big risk of fire at these facilities, even the heat from the microbes can start fires and once a fire start it is very hard to extinguish under ground. Adding to this you would get a lot of smell from th... | 317 | |
[General Fantasy] How come humans are the dominant species in just about every fantasy world despite the existence of other sapient species? | Not counting fantasy settings where only humans exist it’s something I’ve always found weird that when humans share a world with other sapient species it’s somehow humans that dominant everything? How humans have numerous kingdoms and empires while everyone else is relegated to just a handful of cities or a single king... | 21 | Humans have a natural drive to explore, expand and dominate their surroundings. Basically while the elves are bound to their forest and the dwarfs to their montain the humans are willing to establish themselves everywere.
Basically humans have a very good fertility rate, the ability to produce tech and sometime magic... | 43 |
[Star Wars Legends] So after the events of episode VI Obi-Wan contacted Luke as a force ghost several times. As far as I know, however, Anakin never did. What's up with that? | Anakin became a force ghost as well, so I don't understand why he wouldn't contact his son at least once. Did he really never talk to him as a force ghost or did I just miss it? | 30 | No, this is accurate. Vader/Anakin never spoke to Luke again after his passing on the Death Star II.
Although he had found enough peace at the end of his life to become one with the Force, his legacy and relationship with his children was still very tumultuous. Anakin appeared to Leia exactly once - an impetuous appea... | 66 |
[Predator] What are the Predator/Yautja's relations to technologically advanced species that are too physically weak to provide an entertaining hunt? | Think like Brain in Jar sorts of aliens, who are spacefaring and possessing powerful technology, but have absolutely no autonomous means of defending themselves without being reliant on their tech.
Would Predators still hunt them? Would they have peaceful relations with them, or just ignore them entirely? | 82 | The Predators are drawn by chaotic violence; they only show up on Earth in the most brutal warzones. If the Brainjarians are living in some kind of utopia, and violence is more or less unheard of, the Predators would probably ignore them entirely.
That doesn't mean the Brainjarians would ignore the Predators, though. ... | 63 |
ELI5: Where does the air go afterwards that has entered our body during open surgery? | When open surgery has taken place on someone they are opened up and exposed to the 'air'. When they are stitched back up there must be some amount of air that remains inside the body. What happens to this air and/or how does our body get rid of it? | 17 | It goes three places.
1. Some of it is absorbed into the surrounding tissues. The oxygen gets used, the nitrogen gets used (some of it), and the rest gets excreted as waste through your digestive system, just like any other foreign body.
2. When they stitch you up, it is standard procedure to squeeze you (don't worry ... | 15 |
[MCU] How do people travel between galaxies? | If the Kree homeworld is in the Andromeda galaxy, how did they get to Earth in the Milky Way? | 16 | Probably the same tech they use for interstellar travel. It seems to be little trouble for people in the galactic community to rapidly cross the galaxy with their jump gates or other fast travel tech, and the distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda is only about 25x the distance it takes to cross the Milky Way. | 19 |
[The Descent] What is the evolutionary history of the Crawlers? | 18 | They're descended from the earliest human settlers in the area around 10,000 years ago. These people quickly discovered the deep natural cave systems carved by meltwater from the retreating glaciers. Originally they used them for religious purposes and shelter. However, they soon found that the deeper portions conta... | 21 | |
ELI5 Sand River | https://youtu.be/I4XW6m1IWC8 | 36 | What is happening here is all this water from a flash flood event caused by torrential rain fall upstream has picked up a lot of sand. This sand that you see in this video is very light sand and is riding on top of the faster flowing water underneath. The sand its self is being constantly picked up by the front of the ... | 13 |
What's the difference between antibiotic, antiseptic and anti-bacteria? | 953 | 'Antibiotic' refers to a class of drugs designed to kill and inhibit the growth of bacteria and/or other microorganisms within the body.
'Antiseptic' refers to any substance which is administered topically on *living* tissue to do same. Its mechanism of action is generally limited to the area upon which you apply it. ... | 491 | |
ELI5:How did the first white people happen? | When humans moved from Africa to Europe their skin didn't need to protect them from the sun as much any more.
But that's not how evolution works right? Your genes don't just change to suit your environment. Was there a mutation that lightened the skin? If so how did we go from a full dark population to a full whit... | 2,332 | >Was there a mutation that lightened the skin?
Yes, but there are more than one that alter the complexion of skin tone.
>If so how did we go from a full dark population to a full white one in those regions?
People with these mutations bred with one another to create offspring, and eventually the phenotype re... | 1,739 |
ELI5: Are mentally ill people aware of their current mental state? | Do mentally ill people know and understand that they are mentally ill but cannot help what they are doing? Eg. schizophrenia, bipolar, ~~autism~~
Also, can you be truly insane if you are self aware you are being insane?
Edit: Autism is not a mental illness but rather a mental disorder. | 62 | It depends on what mental illness and how bad it is.
Minor forms of mental illness like Depression are different from Schizophrenia. Depressed individuals know that not everyone is depressed like they are. Same with people with OCD.
Severe mental illnesses like Schizophrenia have various subtypes so it depends what t... | 54 |
[Star Wars] Were the clone Troopers sterile? | And if not... they were stationed across the galaxy. Is Fett's DNA the widest spread in human history? | 28 | We don't know if they're sterile. There's probably a large stigma against being with a clone after they were forced out the military.
We only know of one Fett clone that had a family, a Twi'lek woman who had had two children from a previous relationship with a human, so we don't know if the clones are sterile or impot... | 24 |
[Firefly] Can the Reavers make more of themselves? | I was with a crew flying a "delivery" for some respectable businessmen on the outer ring when we came upon a dead ship that had obviously been attacked by reavers. We went in to do a bit of salvaging (we figured saving was unlikely) and we found what we think was a survivor. He had gone crazy what with cutting his own ... | 39 | Not exactly. We now know that the actual Reavers were created on Miranda by the Alliance. The specific experiment with the "Pax" is unlikely to be repeated (we hope), so we won't get any more ACTUAL Reavers - and thankfully, these ones are all likely to die off from radiation exposure in a decade or so, if not by other... | 33 |
[The Truman Show] Why is the world so interested in this show especially since Truman lives such a routine life? | 26 | There was the initial spectacle of it all. A corporation legally adopting a baby!? And broadcasting his ENTIRE LIFE 24/7!? Even people vehemently against the whole thing would have watched just to see if anything illegal happened. There would have been endless debates over whether or not Truman was a slave, or if he ha... | 48 | |
do planes travel "faster" when they fly against the earth's rotation? are the air and ground speed the same? | 27 | No, because the air is moving with the earth. Jetstreams and winds are the reason it can be faster going one way on a flight than the return trip.
The Earth's rotation does, however, come into play when it comes to rockets. That's why they're launched East (in the direction of the Earth's rotation). | 12 | |
[Bourne films] Why was Jason Bourne so much better than the other agents? | He always came out on top in the fight with the other agents, but why did he come out on top? He was always the better fighter, but was it because there was something different about him as an agent? Was it luck?
| 31 | He wasn't the best. He wasn't the best fighter, specifically. But he was really good.
What he did have is a lot of experience, and home territory in all his fights. Also, his only goal was to survive. The agents sent to kill him had an extra burden of needing to kill someone. So... they were forced to extend, while Bo... | 47 |
ELI5: Why is it that bright colours in plants are an invitation, but bright colours in insects and animals can be a warning? | 64 | Bright colors in plants are to attract bees and insects for pollination. Bright colors in animals/insects make them easily spotted by predators, so these bright colored animals/insects die out - except for the very venomous/dangerous ones, i.e poison dart frog or those with low selective pressures, i.e birds where cam... | 18 | |
CMV: I think Nintendo should ignore the competitive realm of Smash Bros because they represent a tiny chunk of sales. | With Smash 4 quickly on the way and with the footage that was leaked thanks to the Smash Invitational, I think it's a good time for Nintendo to think about what direction they want to take the game in during these last few months of development.
Now then, let's take a look here and analyze who, at the moment, makes u... | 39 | >If you analyze the list of best-selling games on the Wii including Wii Sports, Mario Kart Wii, Wii Sports Resort, New Super Mario Bros. Wii and of course Wiifit, you'll see a trend: These are all games that were either created FOR casual players, or very casual entries in an existing series.
I think this right he... | 28 |
[Star Wars Canon] Is Vader's movement still limited? | Like, does he still rely on the mighty glacier technique he had in the Old EU, or has it been established that he's capable of the acrobatics Anakin performed?
| 56 | Rebels and some other comics/novels have shown that he's not limited at all in his movements, and he's physically stronger than he used to be with his mechanical augmentations. He still moves in his trademark "vader" way when walking around and not engaged in combat, but it seems to be an intimidation tactic rather tha... | 68 |
CMV: We should vote in ideas instead of people | (Edited to clarify popular questions/debate topics)
\*\*The Proposed System:\*\*
Instead of voting for people, we could be voting for ideas/stances. Why do we even have elected leaders? What is the point? It seems like a relic from time past when we tried to make dictators less able to be oppressive, so instead of re... | 30 | Democracy can be slow. Holding a referendum, and going through potential court challenges, takes time.
Many issues, can wait, but many cannot. Especially as it relates to national defense, and foreign policy.
Military decisions, often need to be made in the moment. Do you take the shot or not, the target will only ... | 12 |
ELI5: Why can't we use \ / : * ? " < > | in windows files names ? | Really, it's bothering me every day. | 17 | Here is a simple example of why you can't use these characters.
This is a valid path to a file:
C:\SomeFolder\SomeFile.txt
Now imagine the backslash "\" character was allowed in the file name, and your file was called:
Some\File.txt
The operating system would now look for:
C:\SomeFolder\Some\File.t... | 21 |
ELI5: Secular Humanism vs. Humanism vs. Atheism | I've been searching all throughout the Internet and I keep getting all the complex and confusing definitions when I really just want to know the main differences better all these. I consider myself an atheist (anti-religious, not non-religious) for sure, but I think I am also a humanist. However, it seems saying you're... | 16 | Atheism is simply believing gods don't exist. It makes no statement what you should do about it.
Humanism is the belief in the betterment of mankind, as opposed to attaining some spiritual goal. Mother Theresa, for example, as not a humanist, as she was more concerned with getting people into heaven than helping the... | 18 |
What is the most isolated animal taxonomically? | I've read that some species is the only species in its entire genus, or even entire family. What's the most extreme example of this? | 58 | The microscopic (about 0.1 millimeters long) animal species *Limnognathia maerski*, which was discovered living in warm springs on an island off the coast of Greenland in 1994, is the only known member of Micrognathozoa, a clade which has been described variously as a class, subphylum, or phylum. The almost equally tin... | 40 |
ELI5: What do the attacks on the Libya and Cairo embassies mean for global politics? | It may be too early to ask this and I understand there are probably many variables involved, but I'm curious as to what a more informed person's opinion is on the matter. | 47 | First of all, there is more to this story than is currently known. The timing is interesting on this series of events.
Secondly, Lybia and Egypt just recently ousted dictators and are still in varying states of turmoil (the dust has not settled yet). The world will probably not turn their backs on them because of th... | 10 |
[Star Trek] Of all the nations in the Galaxy with access to replicator technology and abundant energy, why is it that only the Federation has developed a truly post-scarcity, free, and equal society? | The Ferengi have remained capitalist, dividing and hording wealth as if it were still scarce.
The Dominion, Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans are warlike, hierarchical, fascist societies which still use slave labor.
| 110 | its all to a point of view, whats utopic for one is a disater for another
Ferengi capitalism is part religion, part culture. They roleplay a lifelong game of monopoly with their latinum
Klingon culture is based off a warrior society,
Imagine how horrified the Borg must be when they see the primitivism of the Feder... | 92 |
[The Incredibles] What if Elastigirl hadn't activated the homing beacon? | So I was rewatching The Incredibles and realized that up to the moment Elastigirl activated the homing beacon to know Bob's position he was in a perfect position to stop Syndrome. [Clip can be seen here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dK_OKGELcn0).
He was assumed dead, the robot hadn't been activated yet and he was s... | 48 | Probably he would've underestimated Syndrome and wound up captured anyway.
His major blunders were:
* believing he could overpower the robot with brute strength
* not appreciating the full range of gadgets Syndrome had as his disposal, like the Zero-point Energy
* thinking Syndrome cared about Mirage
Nothing he... | 54 |
ELI5: Why is scarring of the liver from alcohol permanent? | The liver has amazing regenerative abilities, but scarring is just too much for it to handle, why is that? | 545 | It’s not just because of alcohol. Any substance that damages the liver including viral hepatitis will do the same thing.
Imagine you get a cut on your skin. The cut will eventually heal but it’s not a perfect 100% replica of the original undamaged skin. There’s some scar tissue that forms which is just fibrous protein... | 767 |
ELI5: How is it that water at the bottom of the oceans doesn't freeze, if it's colder at depth? Why is it that water freezes downwards in large bodies of water? | 8,248 | Assume that we're talking about a body of water where the air temperature is constantly below freezing. The important thing to know is that is that water is MOST dense at about 4 degrees C. The reason for this has to do with the shape of the water molecule, but that's not necessary to answer the question. As water gets... | 6,770 | |
Do gravitational waves exhibit constructive and destructive interference? | 262 | Sort of. Any system which is linear, meaning that the sum of two solutions is, itself, a solution, will exhibit constructive and destructive interference. The field equations for gravity aren't exactly linear, so two waves that meet will interact non-trivially. However, we see gravitational waves specifically when stud... | 90 | |
CMV: What stops "neckbeards" from socializing and being sexually active is not looks and money, it's their failure to thrive socially when they were younger. And that one is definitive | During the news cycle about the Isla Vista shootings, one thing that was often said (though I can't seem to find the reddit posts about it, not even those I saw in SRS) was that the fact that the murderer was a rich and rather-good-looking guy who was a virgin at 22 was proof that the RedPill's/neckbeards' idea that wh... | 28 | Social skills are just that, *skills*, and like all skills they can be improved with practice. Some people are more naturally socially adept, so they've never had a problem socializing or fitting in, other's are more inept, so they either have to work harder at it, or don't have any friends that they could relate to. ... | 23 |
[Star Wars] How does the torture device used on Han Solo in ESB work? | 68 | It wasn't a torture device, it was an ore analyser Vader decided to repurpose.
The analyser used small electrical charges to determine the makeup of mined samples. Since electrical shocks can be painfull, they just strapped him to the analyser and let it do it's thing with the samples substituted for his face. | 75 | |
[MCU] Are Captain America's bones unbreakable? | I understand the superhuman aspect, but a lot of what happens to him in the movies seems to indicate indestructible bones such as:
Winter Soldier:
* Drops feet first directly into the ocean, from a height at which impacting the water would be the same as landing on concrete
* Falls on his shield escaping SHIELD HQ ... | 55 | >so does that mean Cap's body is strong enough to withstand physical blows from Thanos?
Well, yeah. His body withstood physical blows from Thanos.
His insane durability and strength are self-evident -- what he doesn't have is strength feats that are *egregiously* strength feats the way Hulk bringing down a skyscra... | 60 |
ELI5: Donnie Darko | It must have been 10 years since I first watched it. Every time I watch it I spend the next week thinking about, then finally thinking I get it only to realize I don't.
What happens in Donnie Darko? | 45 | I assume you don't really need a plot explanation, more of a meaning explanation, right?
There's a boy named Donnie who most people think has trouble telling the difference between what's real and what's pretend. He has an imaginary friend who wears a bunny suit, named Frank. Frank takes him for a walk. Frank tells hi... | 56 |
[Harry Potter] How did students get to Hogwarts before the invention of the steam engine? | 17 | Prior to the Hogwarts Express, they'd all arrive individually by whatever means of conveyance they chose. Broomstick, Portkey, attempts at Apperation, or by cart or carriage were all common.
The issue was that as Britain faced drastic population growth and increased urbanization among both Muggle and Magical populatio... | 30 | |
CMV: 25 is NOT young for a woman who wants children | I always hear young women in their mid-20s being told "Oh don't worry; you're so young!" if they express worry about a breakup etc. Am I the only one who thinks this is incredibly naive? Let's assume that you want to have kids by 35, which I think is a reasonable age (yes, I know there are plenty of women having them l... | 39 | Does being worried make it more likely you'll find the right man and jointly decide to get married? Or do you have a higher likelihood of success with those two tasks if you start from a place of happiness/hope? | 30 |
ELI5: How is our economy going to remain sustainable with many jobs at a high risk of automation in the near future? | This question stems from something I read over on /r/futurology . Many jobs are soon going to be replaced by machines, and I'm sure this trend will continue at constant or exponential rate after conception. So with automation contributing to elimination of jobs in an already tough market, how are everyday workers (and ... | 108 | Automation of jobs have been happening since the invention of the steam engine - and so far our economy has managed.
Remember that this kind of change doesnt happen overnight. It's a slow outphasing allowing the economy to slowly adapt. | 47 |
ELI5: Why do certain objects (let's say a rug) feel warmer than others (the floor) although they should have the same temperature being in the same room. | The rug I put on my floor feels much warmer on my bare feet than the floor. I wondered: Why is it that for example steel feels much colder than other objects in the same environment?
Why do certain objects (let's say a rug) feel warmer than others (the floor) although they should have the same temperature being in t... | 64 | Thermal conductivity. Rugs have poor conductivity (the ability to transfer heat) compared to wood or metal. Since your body temp is around 37C and room temp ~25C anything conductive that you touch in that environment will immediately start transferring heat away from you in an "effort" to equalise the temperature betw... | 76 |
ELI5: How much of a performance hit do gaming PCs take to run Windows in the background? | I've been watching YouTube videos lately where people are testing new CPUs and GPUs and they always have a little status indicator program at the top of the gaming display showing, among other things, FPS count, CPU/GPU temperature, and RAM usage. Does having to run Windows in the background, behind the game, impact th... | 28 | Yea, games would run better if they didn’t have the bloat of some background processes/programs of an OS. Unfortunately, this is kind of impossible because the OS is what causes the game to be able to run. | 50 |
CMV: When someone wants their back scratched, the scratchee should be responsible for moving their back around the scratcher's stationary hand | People who find themselves with an itchy upper back require help to get the relief they desire. Traditionally, this is accomplished with a conversation like:
>Could you scratch my back?
>
>Higher. Left. Left. No, more towards the shoulder. Almost. No, a little bit back the other way.
This is frustrating ... | 37 | It's not always feasible for the scratchee to move to the scratcher's hand. Suppose, for instance, that the scratcher put their hand on your back somewhere between your shoulder blades, but your itch was actually much lower. You could stand on your tippie toes and still not be able to get your itch into position to be ... | 19 |
ELI5: If you're not supposed to ever button up the lowest button of a suit, why do they exist? | Fashion dictates that men never button the second button of a 2-button-suit or the third button of a 3-button-suit. Then why are they there? If it's just for "style", why not have the button, but no hole? | 2,092 | It's a silly reason, really.
Originally, jackets were *supposed* to be done up all the way. But at some point, people decided it looked better if they 'flared out' around your waist (since this was typically the widest part of the body... at least if you're a wealthy over-indulgent Earl). Having the fabric pulled in a... | 1,661 |
[Marvel] Is there an in-universe explanation as to why the 616 public adore superheroes but hate mutants? | 326 | When you send your children to school, you expect that they'll be a safe place. You hope they'll learn and play with their friends without fear or worry. Yet there may be a timebomb hidden in your children's classroom. That timebomb may be form of their classmates, their friends, even themselves. It could come in the s... | 411 | |
What will happen to a galaxy towards the end of its existence? | Will the universe eventually just be comprised of a bunch of "dead" galaxies? I hear some galaxies will collide and interact. If a galaxy were to never collide or interact with another space entity, what would eventually happen to it? | 63 | The galaxies will just get dimmer and be full of dead bodies, as no more stars can form in them. Spacetime will still allow for gravity so it will still be bound. Eventually though the galaxies themselves will cease to be as they go through proton decay - this won't be until the black hole era - when only black holes w... | 14 |
[Physics] Do stars have a North pole and South pole like Earth? | 26 | If you mean magnetically, stars typically have irregular magnetic poles that change extremely frequently in their number, orientation, and strength. Plasma actually has a tendency to get trapped in the arcs formed by the irregular magnetic fields and is later released, creating solar flares. | 28 | |
[Marvel] Did anything meaningful other than Deadpool and Wolverine ever come about due to the Weapon X project? | 16 | that depends.
Are you talking about the American/NATO Supersoldier program, of which, Weapon X was the tenth successful product? If so, Captain America, some of the research into replicating Doctor Banner's hulk condition, Fantomex, "The World", and a number of other successful "weapons" have been developed as part o... | 24 | |
[40k] Malcador once suggested to the Corpse God that he should've made sisters for the Primarchs in order to avoid rivalry, would anything have changed if some of the Primarchs were female or all of them sisters? | Here's the quote from Malcador "You brothers – such a nest of rivalries. I warned him to make you sisters, that it would make things more civilised. He thought I was joking. I wasn’t." | 43 | Events would likely stayed pretty much the same.
As sisters of battle and female inquisitors have shown, women can just be as fanatical, ambitious, and ruthless as men, and fall to Chaos just as easily. And Chaos gods, who have set the whole thing into motion since the beginning, would not care about gender.
Now if E... | 54 |
ELI5: What’s the difference between a 32 and 64 bit processor and why we can’t just jump to a 128 but processor? | 22 | Having more bits means that a processor can work on larger numbers and allocate larger amounts of memory.
32-bit processors are limited to about 4gb of RAM while 64-bit processors can theoretically address up to 16 exabytes of RAM.
32-bit means that a microprocessor can execute 4 bytes of data in one instruction cycl... | 49 | |
[DC] Some questions about Lex Luthor. | Hello, I am trying to write a biography on a Mr Alexander Joseph "Lex" Luthor and while my research is going quite well I still find myself not knowing the true motivation behind Mr Luthors ideals. Can any of my fellow scholars give any insight into what Mr Luthor wants for the world and why he has so much hate for the... | 16 | Mr. Luthor believes Superman is dangerous to human advancement. Superman wants to inspire people through his actions, but Mr. Luthor thinks that the presence of such a powerful alien on Earth stifles us. We don't need to do things for ourselves if the Last Son of Krypton can always save us. Knowing Superman isn't even ... | 23 |
[40k] How do Gork and Mork interact with the Ruinous Powers? | Given the nature of Orks, Gork and Mork have to be real, right?
When an Orc kills, does that empower Khorne, Gork, Mork, or all of the above?
Do Gork and Mork exist in the warp? Or merely in the hearts of greenskins everywhere?
Is there any canon sources on Gork and Mork every actually *doing* anything? What myths a... | 15 | Gork and Mork are the most powerful gods in the setting, as Orks are the most powerfully psychic and most populous (not to mention most religious) race. Thing is, they are equally matched (as one is brutally cunning, while the other is cunningly brutal, though no one is quite sure which is which, and holy wars have be... | 20 |
Are Infrared lamps red to make us believe that they are working? Or is it just spillover to visible light? | I just want to know if the red colour of infrared is just there so we can tell it's working or because the light spectrum it produces spills over into the red visible part of the spectrum.
How about other lights? How controlled are their emission spectra?
Does the method of lighting create very varied results?
EDIT: ... | 297 | You're thinking of heat lamps, which produce EM radiation at wavelengths of 500nm to 3000nm. Visible red light is about 650nm, so some of the radiation from heat lamps is visible as red light. Yes, these are designed to be visible for convenience.
There are also "far infrared lamps" which do not produce visible ligh... | 112 |
[War of the Worlds] Did the Martians wipe out all bacteria on their homeworld? | I know it was written in the 19th century but yeah just curious. Like do they have their own equivilant to gut bacteria? Was it all microbes they wiped out or just harmful ones? | 20 | That's the prevailing theory, but no one on Earth knows for sure.
A quote from the book (emphasis added):
>"At any rate, in all the bodies of the Martians that were examined after the war, *no bacteria except those already known as terrestrial species were found*. That they did not bury any of their dead, and the ... | 30 |
ELI5: Why do CPUs and GPUs perform better when cool | 264 | There is no such thing as a zero resistance conductor outside of superconductors. Resistance means the electrons are slowed down as they move through the wire or component, almost like friction, and that generates heat. The more electricity you try to pass through a thing, the more heat is generated. At some point, the... | 203 | |
ELI5: Torque Vs Horsepower | I still struggle to easily define the difference between the two, any help appreciated!
EDIT: Thanks for all the answers! | 142 | Imagine you're roofing a house and you need to get 100 bundles of shingles up a ladder and on the roof. Torque is how many bundles you can carry at a time, while horsepower is how quickly you can get all the bundles on the roof. If one person can carry one bundle up in a minute and another person can carry two bundles ... | 170 |
[General] What atmospheric phenomenon causes graveyards to always be foggy at night? | 26 | Ah, they are open areas with grass. So you can see the fog. Forests are foggy too but there are leaves in the way.
Oh, and behind gravestones are fog machine retirement communities. They make fog knowing people will get freaked out and leave them alone | 26 | |
ELI5: Why do bugs like moths and flies love light sources so much? | 26 | A lot of bugs navigate by keeping the sun at a constant angle.
You can simulate this by going outside and pointing at the sun, then walking while not moving your arm and keeping your arm pointed at the sun. You'll walk in a straight line (so long as the sun isn't directly overhead).
This works because the distance ... | 49 | |
CMV:We should never see Master Chief's face. | The Halo franchise has provided exciting,deep, and fantastic games throughout the years.
The protagonist (or semi protagonist as Halo tells stories about humanity and other characters like the arbiter)
Is a man who is usually quiet and faceless.
But the characters actions say enough.
That being said I feel li... | 169 | >Is a man who is usually quiet and faceless.
Only the second part of this is true. Granted that the Chief never says anything during gameplay, during cutscenes he is as loquacious as any other character. He makes statements, expresses emotions, and even quips a joke from time to time. The character already has an ... | 48 |
[DC] How many times has the Joker found out Batman's identity and what has he done when he finds out? | Was just watching clips of the HBO Harley series on youtube and in one Scarecrow unmasks Batman in front of the Joker, who promptly just gets mad at Scarecrow for ruining the mystery and said he hadn't unmasked Batman on purpose, then angrily demands Bruce give him the electric car he put a down payment on.
Kinda curi... | 27 | He found out at some point prior to the events of Death of the Family, implicitly a very long time ago. He has kept the secret and refused to even consciously acknowledge Batman's identity as Bruce; he dislikes any reminder of that fact, just as much as he hates anyone prying into his own past.
Joker has major delusi... | 40 |
What is a VPN? Should I use one? Which one? | 56 | Think of data traffic like road traffic, with your data being freight on the back of pickup trucks. Think of your home network as an island, with a bridge connecting it to the mainland (built and maintained by your Internet provider). If you want to send stuff to someone, or get stuff sent to you, the stuff gets loaded... | 56 | |
What's the "proper" way to avoid duplicating a lot of code for very similar, but performance-critical functions? (C++) | I have a program where speed is of the essence. It has a number of different "output" functions, specialised depending on whether certain conditions are met. What I've done at the moment is define some macros to use in the most critical parts:
#define C _mm_min_ps(_mm_max_ps(_mm_load_ps(pointer++), zeroes), maxe... | 20 | Inline functions and template functions... or even both at the same time.
Yes, "inline" is merely a suggestion in C++. But unless you're writing assembly, you're already putting a lot of faith in the compiler to generate reasonable code. | 15 |
ELI5: What causes 'house noises', and when does it become dangerous? | 20 | Homes heat and cool over the course of the day, and the structure of most wood frame houses will creak a bit because the heating and cooling tends to be uneven (it's typically warmer in the upper floors of a house).
It's only dangerous if the house is actually improperly built and is structurally unsound. | 31 | |
Is the stomach basically a constant ‘vat of acid’ that the food we eat just plops into and starts breaking down or do the stomach walls simply secrete the acids rapidly when needed? | Is it the vat of acid from Batman or the trash compactor from the original Star Wars movies? Or an Indiana jones temple with “traps” being set off by the food? | 6,297 | One big thing to note is that when the magic school bus took you on a tour of the body and showed you the stomach as a giant cavern with a lake of acid at the bottom, a hole in the top, and showed you food coming tumbling down out of it to splash into the waters below, they may have been playing make believe for effect... | 3,223 |
[Ready Player One movie] Why is Wade poor, despite being a skilled gamer | We know in the RPO world Oasis is THE thing in society, so skilled gamers are probably the hottest commodity even more so than doctors, engineers etc.
Wade doesn't want to sell out to IOI, but there are plenty of other ways utilizing his skills, like grinding credits in deathmatch, races or other tournaments and excha... | 76 | He is a skilled gamer, but lacks the right equipment to actually compete.
The only thing that he has (and the only reason he has it) is a basic connection to the Oasis for school. The bare minimal hardware requirement. He's not able to compete actively in games because he is using the default wireless link to the Oasi... | 93 |
CMV: It's Extremely Dangerous to Police "Hate Speech" | Our First Amendment is supposed to guarantee us free speech in the U.S. That means pretty much any speech that doesn't encourage violence or cause chaos - like the example of shouting "fire" in a movie theater when there's no fire. Because of this, I am extremely alarmed by this trend of "woke" young people who think "... | 37 | What do you mean by "police" hate speech. What kinds of actions would be taken? The context matters a lot. Does "policing hate speech" mean throwing these people in jail, or does it mean private individuals shunning them in public?
When you say "don't authorities involved" are you talking about the literal police, sch... | 11 |
I believe we are living in the best era of humanity, thanks to fossil fuels, and it is all downhill from here. CMV | By "era" I mean roughly a few centuries. We are somewhere within this era, unclear if beginning, middle or end.
Fossil fuels are "stored sunlight energy", from the past few billion years, which we are now burning through in a few centuries.
Fossil fuels are great not just because of the energy the give us for free, bu... | 91 | For perspective, you might look at the history of petroleum in the United States:
Before petroleum, people lit their lamps every night with whale oil. Yes, oil from slaughtered whales. When the whale population got very low, the price of whale oil shot up and everyone started worrying.
The price kept going up, up... | 72 |
[Star Wars] Why not carry two lightsabers? | In the Star Wars universe we sometimes see people picking up a second lightsaber in duels, as for example at the end of episode 2 where anakin takes obi-wans lightsaber to fight against dooku or in some of the cinematics of the old republic. If you are a jedi or sith and feel like you are stronger in combat with a seco... | 63 | Because not everything revolves around potential DPS.
Those who do feel more confident with two blades - carry two blades, or a saberstaff. Some carry two saberstaffs even. Most jedi feel confident enough with one. When you're skilled enough, amount of blades won't matter. | 87 |
ELI5: How does Adderall (and other similar substances) make one focus so effectively? | When one takes adderall, they are able to focus quite intently on what they are doing - sometimes for hours on end. How does a substance allow one to do that, especially if they have such easily-distracted tendencies? | 475 | Adderall and similar drugs belong to a class of drugs known as **amphetamines**. You may have heard this name as part of the slightly less beneficial **meth**amphetamine. Yes, crystal meth is chemically very similar to Adderall. The more you know.
Amphetamine is a stimulant. Stimulants range from caffeine to nicotine ... | 382 |
Why is it called the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" when it's not a democracy or a republic? | This also goes for any other countries who do this. | 93 | Your mum wants to get you to eat some food you don't like, so instead of just calling it cabbage, she calls it delicious super tasty munchy fun time. But the cabbage is severe famine and human rights violations. | 288 |
Is there a way to "see" beyond the observable Universe? | I understand that the observable universe is simply light that has had time to reach us, and that without such we cannot really observe outside of it. I was wondering if there's any theoretical means by which we can extend our vision, so to speak? | 35 | No. That would require something to propagate faster than light, and nothing we know of does that. The closest thing we can do is see the effect of as-yet-unseen objects on what we can see, so it's a sort of "seeing by proxy" effect. Dark flow is an example of this. | 12 |
[Star Wars] If you completely removed all their Force abilities, exactly how good would the Jedi and Sith actually be as swordsmen or fighters? | Assuming they were fully trained, and then had their connection to the Force completely severed, for whatever reason. | 87 | "Take the greatest Jedi Knight, strip away the Force, and what remains? They rely on it, depend on it, more than they know. Watch as one tries to hold a blaster, as they try to hold a lightsaber, and you will see nothing more than a woman – or a man. A child."
Keria, KotOR:TSL | 147 |
If languages continue to borrow words from one another- is it foreseeable that humanity will every agree to or create a single language? | I know politically a universal language isn't really achievable. However if languages like English and Spanish and Japanese keep taking loan words from one another and general linguistic knowledge of the world's populations continues to diversify, what is the possibility of all languages becoming so similar, or words b... | 42 | Convergence is a real phenomenon but it is far outpaced by the rate of language replacement. Not to mention that not all languages are converging - and sometimes we see loanwords replaced with words formed from native roots, i.e. divergence. In other words, it's more likely that the most populous languages will begin t... | 20 |
[Death Note] How did Light expect to get around Ryuk killing him? | Let's assume Light won in the end and killed the task force and everyone just gives up on trying to catch him.
I imagine it wouldn't take much longer for Ryuk to off him as there is no longer a game to be entertained by Surely Ryuk wouldn't just wait and let him kill random criminals unopposed for his remaining natura... | 16 | Ryuk has been "alive" forever for a long time. Light's entire life is a relatively short amount of time for him. It doesn't really cost him much to let Light stick around a little longer to see where it pans out.
Light was already one of the most entertaining humans for him by a long shot and Ryuk really lucked out w... | 24 |
[Overwatch] What's the deal with Mcree? In this day and age why is he a relic of the old west? | 24 | Cause he thinks it's cool. We're talking a dude with BAMF written on his belt, clearly he's not overly concerned with what people think of him.
Not to mention, cowboy hats and ponchos serve a practical purpose. And at that point, you might as well go all the way and get the spurs. | 49 | |
If ever you switched from a dynamically typed to a statically typed language for your work, how did it feel? | If you ever did the reverse that counts too. I've read suggestions that dynamically typed is more suitable for small programs. Personally I'm used to Python and have yet to have any issues with it *that I've noticed*. | 22 | always feels like a breath of fresh air for me whenever i can get out of dynamic-land and back into static-land.
don't have to check types of everything in order to be safe. don't need to rely on reading documentation to understand what types of values a function takes as parameters or supports. | 23 |
eli5 - How/why do bubbles form in carbonated beverages and why do they only seem to come from the bottom of the bottle? | 24 | So... Carbonated beverages are an unstable solution kind of like a wagon stacked sky high with swaying boxes. Even though this system is unstable though it does need something to trigger the instabilities to make the boxes fall. In the case of the wagon its tiny bumps in the road or imperfections in the wagon's whee... | 21 | |
I teach high school Econ, but it’s very basic and relies heavily on content from before the Great Depression. What are some current theories an Econ 101 should include? | I focus on the basics; being a business, taxes, government spending - but I know that economics has changed beyond basic supply and demand/ rational actor. I just don’t have a sense of priority with more modern content. | 44 | I would just suggest a textbook? (Mankiw, Krugman-Wells, Goolsbee-Levitt-Syverson, etc.) Supply and demand is still very relevant, but most textbooks do have modern content (even if "modern" means "from ~10 years ago," that's still modern relative to "before the Great Depression") | 38 |
[Karate Kid] Why wasn't Daniel disqualified for using the crane kick if kicks to the head were illegal? | 186 | The ref was too busy busy looking around going "What's with all these drums?" so he missed out on Daniel landing the illegal hit and simply saw that one of them was down, so he called the match.
Alternatively, Mr. Miyagi employed the ancient technique of bribing the guy. | 198 | |
[Star Trek]Why is intellectual property still a thing in the 24th century? | remember that time the Doctor had the legal dispute with the publisher of his holonovel about whether or not holograms can own fictional works they produce.
The thing I never got about that was Why would the idea of stories being something you can own still be a thing in a society where money and the profit motive su... | 74 | There are things you can do with intellectual property other than selling it. It's your creation, and you might well care about how it is used. Maybe the Doctor doesn't want his novel to be turned into a porn movie, or a holodeck world that doesn't fit with his creative vision. | 81 |
Is this language regular and how do I tell? | 𝐿 = { 𝑎\^𝑖𝑏\^𝑗| 𝑖 > 2𝑗, for 𝑖, 𝑗 ∈ ℕ}
Any help appreciated | 20 | No. Pumping lemma will prove that it isn't regular. As a heuristic, you can remember that DFAs have finite "memory" since they have a finite number of states. Since, your i's and j's can get arbitrarily big, your DFA would need to "remember" an arbitrarily large i to check for valid j but it cannot do that. | 21 |
Is it possible to have genetically identical children that aren't twins? | If half of a person's genes come from the mother and half from the father, couldn't the exact same genes be randomly selected the second time a couple conceives, resulting in a genetically identical child as the first? | 103 | It's theoretically possible, but not exactly feasible.
The human genome is composed of 23 pairs chromosomes (each pair contains one copy of the chromosome from your mother, and one copy from your father). Each gamete (sperm or egg) gets a random selection from each pair. Thus, for one individual (and ignoring mutati... | 80 |
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