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ELI5: If Google's automated cars ever become a thing, how is responsibility divided up in the case of an accident? | 51 | The way it could work is that the car manufacturer or the company that provides the AI would also provide the insurance for the car which would be factored in to the price of the car. Car owners would no longer need to purchase insurance of their own. The determination of which vehicle is at fault would work the same w... | 23 | |
What's Kant's view of sex? | Do you know where he mentions sex? I heard his view was negative and he died himself virgin and unmarried. | 77 | I haven't read primary material from Kant on sex, but Nussbaum has some discussion of his views in her paper "Objectification." In short, Kant thinks that sex is morally problematic because our sexual passions lead us to objectify one another. Recognizing the absurdity in the conclusion that sex is morally forbidden, K... | 99 |
Has googles "GO" AI figured out a way to solve NP problems? | I am am rather interested to know how the AI works. if it is truly unbeatable doesn't that mean Its effectively solving an NP problem in polynomial time?
Edit: link http://www.wsj.com/articles/ai-program-vanquishes-human-players-of-go-in-china-1483601561
Edit 2: the way you guys are debating "A Perfect Game" makes w... | 2,745 | Trust me, if that were the case, we would be hearing about it.
Google's program is not "solving" Go in the strict CS sense. It is not evaluating every possible outcome of every possible board state. It is using heuristics to choose some possible moves to sample, and it is using other heuristics to evaluate the outcom... | 2,569 |
[Dune] How did House Atreides, supposedly one of the most respected and powerful houses, get treated like such a bítch? | So an entire House just gets wiped out and there are no political repercussions, no shockwaves, no power vacuums elsewhere in the galaxy?
What about their armies on other planets? Did they have no allies in other houses? No one’s asking after them? And if they were so isolated and the target of jealousy, how the f did... | 60 | They weren't isolated, Duke Leto was sort of a leader of the "opposition" in the Landsraad and quite respected by many. But, the Houses have the right to fight out their blood feuds (kanly), so long as they abide by the Great Convention and don't use their atomics. Fact of the matter is, House Harkonnen was within its ... | 94 |
[Fallout] What's going on in Europe? | 90 | As the most heavily fortified front in the war, Germany got the worst of the bombardment and is still completely uninhabitable--Berlin would look like the surface of the moon, if any living thing could get within a hundred miles of it.
Every major European capital has been devastated just like D.C., but the cloud of i... | 81 | |
ELI5: why can some people sense changes in the weather coming in their injured body parts? | 18 | Rain is often preceded by a sudden drop in barometric pressure, which basically means that everything liquid from your body to your bottle of mountain dew will very slightly swell as the pressure falls.
This swelling within your body is so slight that is will go unnoticed expect where scar tissue is present because sc... | 23 | |
CMV: Most Nutrition claims are bs/pseudoscientific | I realized I might be biased in this, as someone who has serious medical issues. I’ve been unbelievably irritated by diet and nutrition advice over the years, and have always felt it could be potentially dangerous — so I just wanted to get that out in the open.
I’ve heard eating healthier can improve overall energy, b... | 121 | I would shift your view to a more nuanced position.
There are big issues with nutritional studies, which are mostly epidemiological. They look at what people report eating, and what their reported outcomes are. This is a very poor way of doing science, as there is no hope of proving causality to any degree. These stud... | 63 |
[Fallout - New Vegas] If The Legion bases their entire military on that of Ancient Rome, why do they never-ever make use of any shields? | 186 | Shields of a weight that humans can realistically carry in battle are useless against firearms and explosives such as were not uncommon in the wasteland at that point. If the Legion sets up a tortoise formation like Rome of old, all someone has to do is throw a stick of dynamite in the middle of the group to take them ... | 199 | |
[Misc Superheroes/Villains] So, where do I find one o' them there abandoned warehouses/factories? | Binge watching Flash and Arrow - seems the abandoned factories and warehouses are the place to be. Free electric/plumbing ultra fast internet, no-one EVER wanders in, that would be GREAT.
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So are these places ... plentiful? | 59 | Well first you wanna go to area that’s has a pretty bad economy that’s what causes the buildings to go and stay vacant is better if it’s a city that was a shipping hub at one point or a tourist destination with lots of unused carnival rides | 31 |
ELI5: How have we come so far with visual technology like 4k and 8k screens but a phone call still sounds like am radio? | 12,908 | The reason phone calls don't have perfect audio has all to do with three things.
* Bandwidth
* Physical medium of the delivery technology
* The codec used
They are all closely related.
If you think of a data connection as a water pipe, there is only so much data that can be passed down the connection, just like a wa... | 1,622 | |
How does a neutron become part of an atom without a positive or negative charge? Could electrons orbit lone neutrons? Does that already happen? | 18 | Neutrons don't have charge, but they *do* interact via the residual strong force. Protons and neutrons both do, and they form bound states. Then you have a bound nucleus with a positive electric charge given by the number of protons. And a positively-charged nucleus can form bound states with negatively-charged electro... | 25 | |
Jupiters Surface how we know what it’s like? | I have scavenged the far reaches of the internet to no avail so why not. How do we know gas giants are really just Gas and not just extremely large planets with thick clouds we have no solid in-depth looks at the innards of the atmosphere only theories and hypothesis’s of visible and non visible light pictures | 215 | Well for one, Jupiter has moons. Why does this help us? Well we know how large their orbits are, and we know how long their orbits take, and from that it's fairly trivial to calculate Jupiter's mass. If we know Jupiter's mass, as well as Jupiter's size, then we can calculate it's density. All this can be done based on ... | 587 |
ELI5: Why does Britain compete together at the olympics but as seperate countries at international Football? | We're a small enough country anyway that it's hard to put a solid team together the quality gap between players is ridiculous. Espescially in Wales as you've got players like Ramsey and Bale playing alongside Yeovil Town players and the like.
Would it ever head to England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all comp... | 166 | The first national football associations were England(FA) and Scotland(SFA). The first "international" match between teams drawn from two football associations was England vs Scotland.
When other countries started to form thier own FA's then it got logically limited to one FA per country, but the UK home nations were ... | 62 |
CMV: “Capitalism vs Socialism” is an outdated debate. | Hi everyone. This is something I’ve been pondering for quite a while.
Questioning the “system” is an intellectual practice as old as civilization. But I take issue with one that humanity has deeply engaged with for the last sentry. It has been a driver of civil strife, institutional change, and war for the 20th and 21... | 61 | Just because an economy is mixed that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a leaning. Mixed economies can be more or less capitalist.
As such the debate isn't capitalism 100 percent vs socialism 100 percent, but 60:40 vs 40:60.
It is entirely reasonable to argue for a 60:40, just as it is reasonable to argue for a 40:... | 10 |
[Bright] Shrek exsists. What other films exsist but might have a wildly different context? | I imagine LoTR is this universes version of "Birth Of A Nation" | 200 | LOTR was not Birth of a Nation this universe. It was the boring-ass documentary the history teacher showed on days when she was too hung over to lecture from the textbook- crusty old historians droning on about elvish history, overweight reenactors putting on period uniforms and doing low-energy fight scenes while the ... | 178 |
ELI5: Why do smooth, glossy surfaces feel sticky to the touch but a slightly textured surface does not? | 239 | They may or may not. but..the same surface material that is rough or dimpled will have less surface contact, and therefore the degree to which it is sticky will have less total stick because less surface is touching your skin. | 116 | |
ELI5: How does compression clothing work? | There seems to be a lot of data confirming that compression clothing (tights, socks, sleeves, etc.) improves circulation. But my understanding is that compressing blood vessels would inhibit circulation. How does this work? | 373 | It compresses the small capillaries and vessels near the surface, forcing/diverting more blood through muscles and organs where it is needed.
You don't circulate more overall, but you are circulating more where it's needed. | 194 |
ELI5: Sensitive Skin - Why does it seem like people with pale skin are more prone to acne? | Why do gingers seem to get more zits than say swarthy italian people? | 30 | I don't believe that is necessarily the case, it may just be more pronounced. A very pale teen with red zits would be hard to miss. Think of a black guy who has bad acne. The acne is still there in similar amounts but the contrast just isn't as bad. | 18 |
[TRON] Has the internet ever been explored or mentioned in the digital world? Could the TRON world be hooked up to the internet and if so what would happen? | 154 | The first Grid that Flynn went to was the ENCOM mainframe, where the Master Controller Program ruled. The MCP planned to take over other mainframe computers, including the Pentagon and the Kremlin, so we can assume that Grid knew of and was connected to an Internet of some sort. Lightcycles zipping across phone lines, ... | 119 | |
ELI5 why does our subconscious naturally choose poor posture? | [biology] | 270 | Compared to our ancestors, our lifestyle is extremely sedentary. There's almost no physical effort required to simply be alive. Because we spend so much less time on our feet from birth to death, the muscles that are important for good posture are often poorly developed. For the most part, people that begin to walk or ... | 101 |
[Futurama] Is the Robot Devil for or against killing all humans? | Robot Religion from Futurama always seemed a little disjointed to me, but do you think the Robot Devil wants Robots to rebel against their human lords, or succumb to the will of humans? | 56 | He'll be in favor of whichever one supports his current goals at the moment. Humans are way too much fun to have around, so he probably won't seriously consider any attempts at destroying all of them. Killing them all doesn't benefit him at all, since he doesn't get their souls. | 37 |
[The Time Machine - Simon Wells] Did anyone notice a large, spherical area of space which was inexplicably impenetrable for many decades? | As we see from the point of view of the protagonist on the interior of the machine's operational area, apart from extending limbs or bodies outward from the interior after temporal displacement is initiated, the sphere seems impenetrable to weather effects, assumedly what would be ultra-fast-moving particles, and extre... | 187 | I always assumed that he is outside of normal time looking in. He can see everything and everyone in the sphere around the place where he side stepped into a higher dimension but no one can see or interact with him. | 105 |
How significant is the genetic difference between the Northern and the Southern White Rhino? | With the last male Northern White Rhino dying today, and only two females left, chances for survival of the northern 'half' of this species is pretty much 0. Apperently they have enough sperm to keep the two remaining ladies getting pregnant, but it is not that straight forward of course.
To my surprise however, I rea... | 3,295 | The Northern and Southern once though of as subspecies (like different breeds of domestic dogs) are believed to be of different species entirely. DNA evaluation shows it is an evolutionary divergent lineage a million or so years ago. They are similar in that they both have wide mouths as they are both grazers (where th... | 928 |
Plagiarized application documents? | So I'm on a search committee for a tenure track faculty position at an SLAC, and I sat down to review applications today, and noticed a jarring change in style between the research statement and the diversity statement. A little googling reveals the diversity statement is 100% plagiarized.
Now I'm paranoid, so I star... | 196 | Be careful that you’re not detecting document recycling. If a previous reviewer did the same thing you did, the document would be in the database but the candidate would still be the original author. Of course, this may not apply in your situation, but it’s worth worrying about. | 354 |
[DC] Does Wonder Woman's lasso of truth force the person to tell the truth, or does it just prevent them from lying? | Like, if she tied me up and ordered me to tell her my password, would I have to tell her or could I refuse to answer? | 145 | IIRC it compels you to say something in response to a question asked, and you cannot lie while saying it. So for a question with a direct answer like "What is the password to your laptop" you would have to say it. But for an open ended question like "Why did you do X?" You'd have a bit note wiggle room if there were mu... | 110 |
[DC Universe] How does Batman disappear so quickly when the people he may be speaking to aren't looking? | 250 | Ninja Skills maxed out, and he's pre-positioned himself for a quick slip around a corner before beginning the conversation.
Real question is how does how know when people are going to look away and talk for a good long sentence. | 288 | |
What facts or propositions are mostly agreed on by philosophers? | 17 | "Tenure is a good institution," "professors should be paid more," "students don't study as hard as they could," "the sky is blue," "the Earth is round," "strawberries grow on strawberry plants," "most cars run on gasoline," and billions of other things. | 45 | |
Getting post-graduate degrees in biology at no cost? | My 17-year-old daughter loves biology, especially genetics, and ultimately wants to get her doctorate and do research. We've been visiting potential universities and were excited to hear that in STEM fields, once you have your undergrad degree, you can do grad school at no cost to you, through filling assistant teachin... | 15 | It's true; any PhD program worth its salt will provide a stipend while you work as a research or teaching assistant. Some people also earn internal or external fellowships that cover expenses, though they are pretty competitive. | 40 |
[DC/Green Lantern] There is only a limited number of Green Lanterns per Earth, does this apply to other rings? | So the Green Lanterns originally had a lantern per sector (Hal for Earth) and then this was later changed and expanded and all that. But does this apply to any other lantern corps, or just green because its a very formal "police organization"? Because i find it hard to believe that the Red Lantern corps would adhere to... | 23 | It's not as key a part of their organizational doctrine as it is for the Lanterns (except maybe for the Sinestro Corps) but they do have a finite number of rings that it makes sense to distribute evenly through the universe. | 12 |
"Unemployment alone explains 80% of the variation in Dutch suicide rates between 1960 and 2015" Is this a meaningful number? How do we determine causation? | I got the number from page 21 of this report: http://www.dyingforchoice.com/docs/TheTenDeadlySinsOfJonesPatonAndKheriaty2017.pdf
>Trends in Dutch suicide rates closely follow the unemployment rate.
Unemployment alone explains 80% of the variation in Dutch suicide rates
between 1960 and 2015. And from the year that ... | 78 | It's important to note that their explained variance comes from regressing a time series of suicide on a time series of unemployment. In many cases, regressing levels on levels in a time series will generate high correlations with high significance. Regressing a change on a change is often more meaningful and also ... | 19 |
CMV: Systemic racism does not exist in the United States | The recent BLM protests have all mostly called for police reform and the abolition of "systematic racism" [1](https://time.com/5851855/systemic-racism-america/) [2](https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/13/protesters-call-for-end-to-systemic-racism-in-policing-housing-education-and-more/) [3](https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06... | 30 | “This is factually untrue as many individuals have come from poor backgrounds and achieved financial security or even prosperity.”
This is the keystone of your argument, and it falls apart because it’s simply incorrect as a point of simple fact. Generational class immobility is *absolutely* a thing, and even though in... | 25 |
CMV: We should implement mental health screenings in schools like we have dental screenings, lice screenings, etc.. | Young adults today are obviously facing a great number of mental health issues. From my observations, I've noticed that many who should be getting help don't do so because they are worried about the stigma, or because they don't realize that they have an issue (although there are other reasons). I feel that implementin... | 32 | The sad reality of mental health in America is that after you screen these kids not much would happen. There is a shortage of mental care centers in America. Due to multiple years of budget cuts in mental health, because mental health centers are expensive, there's not much infrastructure available. Screening would b... | 12 |
[DC] Since Poison ivy love plants and wants the world more green. Why does she ask Weather Wizard to creating a massive rainstorm to help Ivy grow more plants? | 15 | Takes more than just rain to make the green grow. She's in sync with nature and knows how delicate ecosystems are and how torrential rain can be just as devastating as a drought to plants and animals | 24 | |
[MCU] Captain America and Bucky can be considered peak human, but Tony with the suit should be solidly superhuman. Why wasn't he completely dominating Cap when they fought? | 115 | Iron Man was only trying to kill Bucky, meaning that he used noticably less force against Cap (limited mainly to hand to hand). However, the effort expended by Tony to meet those goals was costly; Cap managed to damage his flight system and Bucky managed to distract Tony at a crucial moment. If IM had tried to kill bot... | 138 | |
[Star Wars] What Force powers make the ability to destroy a planet seem insignificant and could Vader utilize these powers? | Who else could utilize these powers? | 17 | He was partially speaking metaphorically. He was talking about how destroying a planet through brute force (heh) was nothing compared to what the dark side could achieve.
I mean, the Emperor, as a Sith, stood in front of the entire Jedi council and no one was the wiser. He then manipulated an entire galaxy to go to w... | 47 |
[Hitman] Why does nobody take notice of the assassin's barcode tattoo or his laughably thin disguises? | You can even see people crane their heads to follow him, as if they notice something, but they never seem to take action. I can see all this stuff clear as day on the cameras after the fact, but when he's out and about, nobody pays him any notice.What gives? | 25 | People have weird tattoos all the time, and since Agent 47 does his job right nobody knows to associate a barcode tattoo with an assassin. That also being said, while you might find his disguises laughably thin, we at the agency have conducted many field tests and found that the best disguise is to hide in plain sight ... | 18 |
[DC] What are the limits to Flash's ability to vibrate through objects? | Just to begin with I understand how flash vibrates through things, I don't need that explain.
I'm more interested in the limits that are placed on the ability, he is capable of vibrating through ordinary material as well as lantern constructs but how would he fair against different objects such as a magic forcefield ... | 120 | "What are the limits to Flash-"
Pretty much none. He can subconsciously put limits on himself though (or just not try as hard). Speed force allows him to do crazy shit. Idk about what he could do against the magic one, but he could steal enough speed from the vibrating molecules that they stop moving, then phase throug... | 116 |
[Star Wars] If a fully trained Jedi lost their saber and required a placement, would they have to go through the crystal finding process all over again or did the Jedi have spare crystals lying around in a drawer somewhere for just such an occasion? | 16 | It would seem that there are some spare sabers kept ready just in case (*see Anakin and Obi-Wan getting sabers from their Jedi rescuers in the Geonosis arena*). However, this may be extraordinary circumstances and there might not always be spare sabers.
While it would seem more efficient for the Jedi to simply have a ... | 26 | |
[Marvel] So what happened to the time machine? | I mean now that time travel is real and the avengers have it, wouldn't the governments all around the world want it and not forgetting all the super villain groups. Even if they didn't tell about it to anyone, how are they gonna explain how they got the infinity stones back after Thanos destroyed them and how Thanos wa... | 642 | It's a very interesting question, for sure. After Nebula gave the game away, it really didn't seem to take Thanos and his engineers a particularly difficult time to both figure out time travel and, potentially, recreate Pym Particles.
Even if Earth-based parties can't suss it together, it seems the technology itself i... | 396 |
[Hunger Games] How did the US turn into Panem? | How did the US, a democratic super power both militarily and economically, fuck up so bad to the point where they're now an authoritarian dystopian nation? Also how do they interact with the rest of the world? Does the UN condemn this new governemnt? | 75 | The US didn't turn into Panem directly. There was some sort of global catastrophe that more or less destroyed modern civilization as we know it, and the US was destroyed as part of that event. War is always an option, and climate-change and accompanying sea-level rises is hinted at in the histories.
Whatever the d... | 105 |
ELI5: Why can food or drink of temperatures that are clearly sufficient to scald my lips seem to elicit no pain response whatsoever once within the mouth? | 22 | When you sip a hot drink, two important things happen;
1. You draw air quickly over the surface of the hot liquid, cooling it more quickly than if the air against the surface were still, and
2. You separate out a much smaller volume of hot liquid than if you were to simply pour it into your mouth like a glass of wat... | 22 | |
Eli5: Why do dimpled golf balls go farther than smooth? | I remember hearing that golf balls used to be smooth and people would actually play with old beat up balls because they would fly further than the new smooth ones. Why is this? What makes dimpled balls go further? | 19 | The dimples trip up the air, and create turbulence in the air flow around the golf ball. Turbulent flow causes less drag on a golf ball than "laminar" (the air is in smooth layers around the ball) flow. The turbulent, mixing flow reduces the vacuum behind the golf ball compared to a ball where the airflow was smooth. | 28 |
I don't believe that the porn ban in the UK is a bad thing. CMV. | Now I hold this view with circumstance: That you can request to have no filter on your internet if you want it so. This would mean the porn ban would be on by default, but you can ask your network provider to switch it off, which I believe was the plan.
Now I believe that porn isn't very positive for children, as it d... | 18 | Freedoms that you have to ask permission for are not freedoms.
An opt out filter (which already exists in many forms) doesnt put government between people and the internet in any way. Why stomp on freedom to save parents 1 phone call.
| 34 |
[Overwatch] Is there any reason why the Bastions in the Eichenwalde siege don't use their Tank forms? | Before I give my understanding, I'll refer to the Bastion unit that survived and made contact with Ganymede as Blue Bastion, thanks to the eye color, and the Eichenwalde siege Bastions as Red Bastions.
If you think about it, a Bastion unit is a one-man army. Not only is it capable of defending a base with Sentry confi... | 32 | From a lore perspective presumably all the ultimate abilities are really energy intensive. The Bastion units would run out of energy too quickly if they used the tank mode too much. Also there were at least two people with Rienhardt type shields which could block the tank's cannons. | 35 |
[Static Shock] How come Joker was the only big time villain that tried to recruit meta humans from Dakota City? | The metas of Dakota City are pretty powerful, and many of them are young and can be easily convinced or manipulated into working for some of the bigger villains of DC. It'd be the perfect opportunity for people like Penguin, Lex Luthor, and Ra's Al Ghul to get some strong goons. | 23 | Cause it’s the kind of thing Joker would do. It’s in line of the way he likes to do things. Lex is low key. He knows it could lead to him, which isn’t his style. Penguin is making Himself seem as a legit businessman, so he won’t want to employ teens which are highly unpredictable and it’s also illegal to do so. Ra only... | 14 |
Are people born with bad memory? Is there any way to improve it? | I have a few core memories but I forget a lottt of the things that have happened in my life. I’m wondering what the causes are for bad memory and whether there’s a way for me to fix this? | 39 | It is not necessarily true that people are born with bad memory. In fact, everyone has the ability to develop a strong and healthy memory. However, some people may have a naturally stronger memory than others, just like some people are naturally better at certain activities or skills.
There are several factors that ca... | 29 |
How do scientists determine how many calories different activities burn? And how accurate are the estimates on exercise machines? | So I kind of understand how they determine calorie content of food. My understanding is that they burn it and measure the heat and duration, and that gives them the basic estimate. But how do they figure out how many calories the human body burns? | 31 | I think it has to do with measuring the CO2 you exhale when exercising. So you wear a facemask which is connected to a machine which can measure the amount of CO2 you are breathing out and can then estimate the amount of calories that represents while you are running on a treadmill etc. | 28 |
Ever met an undergrad like this? | I am TAing a course and one of my students comes to visit me in office hours fairly frequently. She started talking about feeling bad about not having any publications. I told her it was normal since she is only a first year and I didn't have a publication until 4th year, from a 2nd year project but she is convinced th... | 31 | You're sure it's not one of his parents?
The only realistic way for a first year to have 40 meaningful papers published is for Dr So-and-so to decide to go back to do another Bachelors. This does not happen in any meaningful way otherwise. | 48 |
Why are compilers so.. weird? | My first semester of this major is almost complete (today's my final), and something my professor never really explained to me (or the class) is how come compilers run differently?
What I mean is how come when you compile and run a piece of code and it shows up with one or two error messages, and then you copy and pas... | 23 | There are multiple reasons why you might get an error in one compiler, but not another:
* The compilers are for different languages (duh)
* More subtly, the compilers are for different versions or dialects of the same language - or even technically the same version/dialect, but with different additions to the standard... | 31 |
Consequences for plagiarism by professors? | In my US history course this semester, I was forced to purchase a $94 online textbook that was written by the professor. Everything that was graded (HW/quizzes/etc.) was done through the book publisher's website, so we either had to buy the book or drop the class.
I just realized that nearly half of the sections in th... | 353 | > entire paragraphs have been copied word for word from news publications/online blogs/government websites
I agree that it makes sense to report this to someone, but have you considered that the news sites & blogs may have been plagiarized from the textbook instead? You may wish to simply report that you've se... | 338 |
ELI5: How can you know when you've had enough sleep? If you can fall back asleep, are you not done? | 416 | *Enough* sleep is different for everyone. The common number is 8 hours of sleep a night - however this is based on statistical data. Other studies show that many people can function on less sleep with no side effects. You can know when you've had enough sleep when you do not have general sleep deprivation symptioms suc... | 132 | |
Does Data have inflation? | I'm not sure where to ask this, this is the subreddit i found the most relevant to this question.
All big companies collect data, and data is the modern day gold. But, does it have inflation?
We generate more and more data every day, it seems logical to assume that it's value is decreasing, but is this actually the ... | 56 | Inflation is a general increase in prices of goods/services. Data isn’t a currency. The concept you might be looking for is ‘diminishing marginal returns’. As a company invests more in data, the rate of return eventually diminishes.
Also, as more companies compile big data and use it for strategic decisions, there is... | 82 |
ELI5: Why is the gas from grocery stores cheaper than gas from traditional gas stations? | Why is Costco/Kroger gas cheaper than Shell/Exxon gas? Is there really a difference between their gas “quality”? | 15 | I dont think there’s a difference in quality but Kroger has their membership which gives you a slight discount
Plus, they’re likely banking on you doing your grocery shopping too meaning they can afford to offer gas a little cheaper since they’ll make up the difference in groceries | 33 |
[Avengers: Infinity War/Endgame] Didn’t Dr. Strange technically fail to uphold his primary objective? What are the consequences? | Now let me first start by saying that yes, obviously Strange saw the future and knew that the only way to beat Thanos was to play the long game and give him the time stone. After Infinity War came out, most people assumed it was all part of his plan. However, in Endgame, we learn that Thanos destroyed all of the infini... | 20 | His job was to protect the stone so that it couldn't be misused by anyone. He did one better. He found possibly the only person in the universe both willing and able to destroy the stones so that their power could never be abused again. | 26 |
CMV: America Should Try Public Housing Projects Again, Despite the Failures of Earlier Attempts | Most Americans are familiar with the traumatic backstories and evil memories associated with its “public housing projects” that were overridden with violence, crime, and neglect. What many Americans may not know is that we aren’t the only country to have developed such programs. Many countries have built public housing... | 165 | The federal government in the USA does not dictate local zoning decisions. If your city wants to allow this type of development, it is free to do so. Have at it. You're likely going to quickly realize one of two things, nobody wants to build there since nobody is willing to pay the rent or what NIMBY means. There is no... | 96 |
ELI5: Why can't JPEGS be transparent? | 1,549 | Because the image format doesn't support it.
In order for an image to be transparent you need to encode in the image how transparent it should be. That is, for each pixel, in addition to knowing the red, green and blue values, we also need to know "how transparent is it". That's commonly referred to as "alpha", and so ... | 2,442 | |
Did life originate in only one place on Earth? | I saw [this](http://www.lucasbrouwers.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Evo_large.gif) picture in another [thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/sfnlc/small_gradual_changes_i_can_believe_in/) and wondered about the part labeled 'oceans rust', i.e. the origins of life on earth.
Is it confirmed that there w... | 57 | We have absolutely no idea. We have no evidence for life having originated more than once but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. This being said we have no idea where, how or when life came about on Earth. This falls into an incredibly popular field right now which is astrobiology. What we do know is we have evidence ... | 30 |
how does the body know when it has had enough sleep for the night? | 66 | We haven't figured out why people sleep at all, so this is a difficult question to answer. There are technical answers, but until we actually determine why we sleep, it is not really possible to give a satisfactory answer as to when we know we have had enough. | 82 | |
Are there organisms that fall somewhere between single cell organisms and complex organisms? | I know you have single cell organisms like say a paramecium. And complex organisms which can run the gamut from say a dust mite to a human being or blue whale. Are there organisms that fall somewhere between these two though? Like something that is made up of not one or billions of cells but say five different cells th... | 29 | Yes! A great example is the green algae genus *Volvox*, that form spherical colonies with cell numbers ranging from between a few hundred to about 50000. Cells on the interior of the sphere produce gametes that swim out to form new colonies.
In some species, the colonies are either entirely male or entirely female. | 16 |
If heat rises, then why is it colder higher up in the atmosphere? | For instance, when there is sometimes snow at the top of mountains but not at the bottom. Or in an airplane, when the pilot tells you that it's really cold outside, even if you're flying over a warmer part of the world.
I know basics about heat: that heat rises because air molecules gain kinetic energy when heated, a... | 41 | Consider a "packet" of air sitting near the Earth's surface. It's warmed by the ground, which is absorbing most of the Sun's energy. As you correctly state, this means it starts to rise above the cooler air around it, but there's more to it. The hot air expands, but it doesn't do so into a vacuum, it must push against ... | 25 |
How far back can we trace the etymology of our words? | When I look up a word like "fire" in the dictionary it gives a cursory explanation that it comes from "fir, old english." But at some point words had to have formed out of pre-civilization unsophisticated communications. How far back can we track our oldest words?
To phrase my query another way; can we trace any word... | 53 | Most linguists agree that the farthest historical linguistics can get is 5,000 to 10,000 years. There are a few linguists who claim that they can go farther, but most linguists don't buy their arguments.
English, Russian, Ancient Greek and Sanskrit are Indo-European languages. Their ancestor language, late Proto-Ind... | 29 |
Why do we twitch in our sleep? | I've noticed my boyfriend twitches when he first falls asleep. It seems to only happen when he's in light sleep. What causes muscle spasms and why do some people have it more commonly than others? | 90 | This is called a "hypnic jerk" and is completely normal. There doesn't seem to be a single cause narrowed down as of yet, but the prevailing consensus is as follows:
At the onset of sleep, your muscles enter a state of restfulness. The brain, not yet fully in a state of sleep, interprets this stimulus as if your bod... | 66 |
[General Fiction] Why do terrorist and mad bombers so often make explosive devices with blinking and beeping lights on them? | 62 | Because they don't have a Quality Assurance department. They need to be able to verify on the spot that the bomb is working right when they go to plant it (i.e. nothing shifted in transit, none of the wires got tugged loose, the battery is still live, etc), and they need to be able to do so without hauling any extra ge... | 78 | |
ELI5:Buddhism | I've read wiki but am still confused on what exactly they believe. | 15 | True ELI5: Buddhists believe you will be happy if you recognize that things you like will go away eventually.
It is likely that you are confused because there are hundreds of different schools of Buddhism, and there is very little in the way of a western-style dogma to preserve the history or authenticate cannon. The ... | 11 |
Many birds have colorful eggs (blue, reddish-brown, spotted, etc). Is it possible that dinosaurs had colorful eggs? | And if so, could we identify any of those pigments in fossil eggs? | 311 | It is very likely that dinosaurs were much more colorful than they are commonly depicted.
It's not like evolution would design a 5+ ton animal that's colored to blend into the background. It is the background. Sexual preference should have led to elaborate display colors.
This would include egg coloring to identi... | 84 |
ELI5: Why everything else on a computer will freeze and become unresponsive, but you can still move the mouse around. | 128 | Typically when a computer 'freezes' it is due to a specific application misbehaving or running some form of short term resources intensive task and taking up all of the resources that are available for other non-essential applications.
If you think of it like a city, there are priorities on a computer when it comes to... | 81 | |
ELI5: The XBOX one DRM problem /r/gaming is in a frenzy about. | 133 | Your X1 needs to connect to the internet every 24 hours to make sure that you own the games you have installed on it. If you can't make that check, you now own a blu-ray player and a voice activated cable box until you can check in.
If you take a game over to a friend's house, you need to bring your profile with you ... | 101 | |
ELI5: Why do people snore when they sleep but not when we're awake? | Why aren't we snoring all the time? Are we actively regulating are breathing so we don't when we're awake? How and why? | 8,849 | Snoring is due to the fact that your mouth muscles are not tightened and that you usually have your head tilted back (or at least horizontally with your nose pointing to the celling). Basically, your palate loosen and your to~~u~~ngue roll back a bit thus kind of blocking the airway, but not totally which is why it mak... | 4,025 |
ELI5: Why has China devalued its currency, and what will that mean for other countries? | 21 | When your currency becomes stronger, it becomes much harder for you to export your country's goods, because your goods become more expensive for other countries. China doesn't want that because they are the biggest export nation that there is. | 14 | |
CMV: All politicians should be fined a percentage of their campaign funds for lying during public speeches and campaign ads when running for office | 5% of the politician's public campaign finances should be charged for every lie a politician tells, administered by a bi-partisan committee in the Federal Election Commission. The politician will have 30 days to pay the IRS or be disqualified from the race.
Think of it this way. Companies can be sued for false adverti... | 103 | A lie is defined as telling a falsehood intentionally knowing it is false. This means that you must prove they knew it was false at the time they said it.
This becomes very tricky when you consider what people say. If a politician says that he will increase funding to a specific department, all he really has to do is... | 28 |
ELI5: How do zip files compress information and file sizes while still containing all the information? | 10,813 | Image if you had a long paragraph and then try to find all the repeated word or phrases. For each repeated word or phrase, you replace the word or phrase with a lookup. Then you only need to write the repeated word or phrase once and from then on every spot you would write the shorter lookup. This is how files are zipp... | 8,584 | |
ELI5: Why do so many people who emigrate from the Middle East open convenience stores? | 24 | Each culture has an 'in' to a particular business in each area. So, one Korean family will come and open a dry cleaning business. When their cousins come, they will tell them the tricks of the trade and the regulations and have the business model set, so their cousins open up another cleaning business one town over -... | 31 | |
ELI5: what the Enron scandal was | 22 | Enron was a power company. They used aggressive pre-estimates of how much money their deals were going to make, then never revised their books when the deals went bad.
They moved their huge amounts of debt into subsidiaries to hide it from investors, until eventually it came out, and the stock price plummeted, killing... | 18 | |
[Harry Potter] If someone were horny and entered into the room of requirement, would a bed and willing partner be present? | ??? | 91 | More likely to get a magazine and a bottle of lotion. Magic can not create something sapient enough to be considered "willing".
If you're lucky, you might get one of those magical target dummies with.. Y'know.. Holes.. | 119 |
ELI5: Why do normal, rational adults always think that snoozing an alarm for 5 minutes will make any difference at all? | 57 | That isn't particularly true because.. Sleep is comprised of 3 NREM stages and one REM stage. Every stage lasts approximately 5-15 minutes long and the NREM stages become shorter the longer you've been asleep while the REM cycle will last longer. When you interrupt a stage, either from the alarm clock or otherwise, you... | 47 | |
ELI5: What's DOMA and why is it considered unconstitutional? | 16 | There are a couple of arguments, mostly to do with ennumerated powers, equal protection and full faith and credit.
The 10th Amendment says in part that any power not specifically given ('ennumerated') to the federal government by the Constitution belongs to the individual states or to the people. As the regulation of ... | 10 | |
CMV: Overall the PC provides a superior 'Next Gen' experience. | So far the Xbox One and the PS4 have not exactly provided a wild new level of entertainment while the PC has just continued to evolve more and more at an accelerated rate. At this point I honestly believe that people looking to upgrade from a 360/PS3 should opt for a PC for a couple reasons.
**It's gotten cheaper** ... | 15 | You left "specific console exclusives" out of your *Reasons to get a Next-Gen console* section.
If you want to play a particular game and it's only available on a particular console, then that console obviously provides a superior experience. | 14 |
ELI5: Why are the gas prices dropping so rapidly after being to high for so long? | 20 | - The cost of producing oil mostly depends on its accessibility.
- OPEC is a group of oil producing countries who make up 45% of the world supply.
- OPEC countries like Saudi Arabia have huge relatively easy to access oil deposits, meaning they could produce lots of cheap oil whenever they want.
- Most of the cheap ... | 48 | |
ELI5: Why do fans (and propellers) have different numbers of blades? What advantage is there to more or less blades? | An actual question my five year old asked me and I couldn't answer, please help! | 13,715 | It's always a balance.
Number of blades:
* Fewer blades = More efficient shoveling of air because of turbulence (air swirls) created by other blades reduces efficiency. Usually simpler to make.
* More blades = More stable because the force is spread out over more blades and shovels more air compared to how long the p... | 13,850 |
[Dragon Ball] Why didn't Vegeta or Gohan's tails grow back? | At the end of the Saiyan Saga, both Vegeta and Gohan get their tails severed. Goku repeatedly grew back his own tail until Kami "pulled it out from the root" (whatever that means) and Vegeta claims that his tail will just grow back to the doctor when he first returns to the Frieza Force. So why exactly didn't his tail ... | 15 | It's been revealed that after a certain point Saiyajin bodies view the tail as a weakness and do not regrow it as the Saiyajins reach a certain strength seemingly in preparation for Super Saiyajin.
This could be seemingly supported by the fact that Goten and Trunks were born without tails, and they had incredibly hig... | 25 |
ELI5: harvesting salt from sea water | I've just an ace doc on Smithsonian channel, and they explained how it is dried in different pools and harvested when dry, but then mentioned "it is then washed before shipping". So question is: how can you wash something that is soluble? The dirt will still be there when the water is evaporated away.. | 22 | The amount of salt you can dissolve in water is finite. Once you've dissolved that much, you can't dissolve any more. So you can wash salt in that brine (it's saltier than sea water, so salt water might be confusing). Dirt and sand still wash off. | 30 |
Is there any office jobs that required bachelor’s in psychology? | I am looking for an office job that is related to why I studied in psychology. I don’t like working with clients, as an RBT because it is very overwhelming | 43 | What do you think about research assistant jobs within psychology departments or charities? Data collection may involve being with clients depending on the project but its often quite a restricted and limited interaction. You could still apply your psychological research methods and find enjoyment in psychology related... | 37 |
ELI5 - What is the "falling thing" people apparently experience when trying to sleep? | I keep seeing it popping up, whether that be in memes or comments. I don't think I have experienced this ever. Is this some sort of genetic thing? I tried searching it on Google, and the first result mentioned something like
> What causes falling sensation while sleeping is the natural disengagement of the astral ... | 15 | Our body relaxes our muscles when we sleep so we don't act out our dreams, however if your body relaxes all it's muscles just before you pass out it can feel like you're falling, which jolts you awake again. | 22 |
ELI5: What drives people to falsely confess to major crimes? | Every true crime podcast/documentary deals with this. Someone is killed or kidnapped. The press release details. The public immediately calls in false information and, even more baffling, fake confessions.
What drives so many people to do this? | 26 | Interrogation techniques that work to break down psychological defenses that people have. Prolonged Interrogations can make people more susceptible to suggestion and leading questions can lead people to make statements that aren't actually true. Detectives are also allowed to lie directly to suspects. They can make up ... | 28 |
ELI5: If the atmosphere is 78% nitrogen, that must mean that the air we breathe is mostly nitrogen, right? So do our lungs take in nitrogen with no side effects or do they "filter out" the nitrogen to take in the oxygen? | 66 | Our lungs take in whatever is in the atmosphere, a special compound in our blood called hemoglobin (the one responsible for making it bright red) reacts with the oxygen. Nitrogen (N2) is an inert gas, we breath it in, a little bit of it is absorbed in our blood but for the most part doesn't enter our bodies. | 72 | |
ELI5:The 1% difference between humans and chimpanzees DNA | We differ by merely 1%. WHAT is in that 1%?
From here: http://gbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/7/4/1168[1]
"A total of 21,269 nonpolymorphic human-specific insertions were identified, of which only 372 were found in exons"
What does it mean when it says 372 were found in exons? 372 insertions or 372 DNA?
Thanks in a... | 93 | 1% different DNA=/=1% difference in creatures.
The vast majority of human and chimp genes are "junk genes", DNA material that we have but doesn't actually activate. So, while there is only a 1% difference in the DNA chimps have and the DNA we have, the percentage of DNA that actually activates the same way for both sp... | 31 |
[An American Werewolf in London] Right before David starts to physically transform he shouts out in agony and tears his clothes off claiming to be on fire; what was the cause of this sensation? | I mean, beyond the fact that he was transforming, what is the specific internal change that first occurs to put David in so much agony even while looking completely normal? Is it the fact that every part of his body will transform and the sensation he felt was every nerve firing off immediately, like being electrocuted... | 17 | The actual answer lies in the true sciences of lycan transformation. The fact is when somthing happens to your body that results in physical and physiological change your body temperature begins increasing significantly. The more you change and the faster you change the hotter you get. It the case of were wolves the th... | 25 |
ELI5:Why do they put tar and other harmful chemicals they advertise about in cigarettes? What's the difference between smoking a cig and smoking just tobacco without the tar and chemicals? | 15 | Tar is part of the tobacco, that's true - but there are hundreds of other chemicals that are added to to cigarettes.
The big tobacco companies claim that these additives make the cigarettes more flavorful and provide a more pleasurable smoking experience. Others have argued that they make cigarettes more addictive.
... | 15 | |
ELI5: What is the political situation surrounding China and Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau? | I'm on my way to Taiwan today and I've been reading up on political tensions with China and wondered if someone could explain the situation there to me. Is it a similar situation with Macau and Hong Kong? Are there other regions I haven't mentioned in similar situations? Thanks in advance. | 56 | Back before WWII, there was a civil war in China. One side pretty much won and today controls mainland China as the People's Republic of China. The other side was pushed to Taiwan and held onto it, calling themselves the Republic of China. For awhile, the Taiwan government held the UN seat, but the PRC managed (for Col... | 16 |
ELI5: Why do men statistically die younger than women? | 32 | men are more likely to die on the job than women, because they are over represented in dangerous jobs. Men are also more likely to be victims of violent crime than women. Men are also more likely to die as a side effect of poverty than women, because men are more likely to be very poor. If a man happens to survive thos... | 34 | |
[Die Hard] Will John McClane ever get his 401k back? | Cause I’m under the impression that when Gabriel deletes it he really deletes it. | 30 | You can't delete a 401(k) any more than Project Mayhem can cancel debts by just blowing up a few buildings. Off-site backups make it trival to repair the damage and even if these didn't work, the accounts can still be rebuilt from the individual transaction records. This would take a huge amount of work, but banking re... | 36 |
ELI5: How did musicians, specifically rockstars in the 70's -90's, perform live without that ear piece that let's them hear themselves? | I watching a load of Zepplin videos and obviously, they were loud as fuck but I also remembered in last decade or so, most musicians would have that ear piece that apparently lets them hear themselves back? Sometimes they take out and it just dangles down.
Even in the early 2000's I hadn't really noticed this kind of ... | 23 | They had monitor speakers pointed at them which had a vocal heavy mix. A deluxe setup would allow each person their own mx.
Also folkies would stick a finger in one ear to block out the sound of other instruments and voices. | 33 |
Dealing with advisor's (empty?) threats | This morning got off to an awful start. I'm in my hopefully last year of my PhD and so far it's been rough. I have a review paper to write which is on the critical path to my graduation and am on a project which is less critical for me. However, this project is a multi-million dollar grant for my advisor.
For some co... | 154 | It sounds like there was an early expectation that you'd finish this project, but you feel like it's not possible with the timeframe you have in mind. So this needs to be clearly communicated and agreed on by both (a meeting of the minds). Otherwise, it just sounds like he's got a certain perspective in his head of wha... | 75 |
How feasible would it be to put a large, man-made object (such as a space station) into orbit around the sun? | Or, to put it in a more specific context, would it be "worth it" to build a semi-permanent "outpost" in orbit between Earth and Mars, for example? | 101 | We have satellites orbiting the Sun already. As for an outpost between Earth and Mars, that wouldn't be very useful. Things in different orbits don't maintain the same spatial relationships over time. | 29 |
CMV: Enacting a new law should require 60% of the vote, removing an old one should require 40% | EDIT2: The rule would be something like: "To enact a new law, it needs to be supported by **more than 60%** of parliament. To remove an old law, the removal needs to be supported by **more than 40%** of parliament.". To avoid ridiculous scenarios where 60% creates a new law and the other 40% removes it the next day.
... | 26 | From a practical standpoint, wouldn’t this create a bizarre scenario where a law could be created today and rescinded tomorrow, by more or less the exact same government?
That sort of uncertainty would create lots of instability, this is not a good idea. | 59 |
[Batman] Why does fire shoot from the back of the Batmobile? | Is the Bat's vehicle literally propelled by flame like a rocket of some sort? Is that more effective than a quality engine? What kind of fuel is used to create the flames? Does it pollute more than normal cars? | 17 | The flames would be used for short bursts of speed but the downside is they would use alot of rocket fuel ir aviation fuel.
The batmobile would likely run on petrol or diesel and the rockets would be for propulsion when he needs bursts of speed.
He would have to use them carefully because of the potential of causing... | 17 |
CMV: The contribution of vegans/vegetarians and other environmentally conscious people is absolutely insignificant. | I'll start off by saying I'm a vegetarian and I also try to limit the eggs and dairy I eat, I try to buy no leather and no other animal byproducts. When there are leftovers from dinners with guests, etc. I'll eat that (throwing meat away is definitely worse than eating it). I try to do as much as I can for the environm... | 589 | I don't think you're totally wrong, but there are some larger impacts than you might think.
Specifically, having a substantial vegetarian/vegan portion of the population forces places like restaurants to have better non-meat options to appeal to those customers. And once they do so, even meat-eaters may end up orderi... | 257 |
[Batman] Why does Ra’s al Ghul always refer to Batman as “Detective”? | Like, I know he is one and that “detective” is as appropriate a title for him as anything, I was just wondering why Ra’s prefers to call him that over “Batman” or “Dark Knight” or hell, even “Mr. Wayne.” | 55 | I think it's that Ra's admiration for him mostly comes from his intelligence. After all, it's DC comics- any schmuck can get powerful if they inject themselves with the right serum. Merely being tough and having advanced tech just puts Batman in there with every other clown in spandex who got hit with some cosmic rays.... | 103 |
[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's] Why does police apprehend criminals with cards instead of guns? | There's literally a whole saga of a literal terrorist bombing and killing people in plain daylight and police's first reaction is to apprehend him by dueling him on a motorcycle.
Granted, I don't know which laws conform the judicial system in the 5D's world, but surely, cards don't seem to be effective against terror... | 101 | Culture is a major point here. Duel Monsters is a major cultural phenomenon in that universe. Moreover the Arc system that runs the city's power get's it's energy from Synchro Summoning, so each duel powers the city more and more (not to mention their motorcycles). The city's power and the city's security have a synerg... | 62 |
[MCU] If Gamorra jumped from the cliff without wanting to sacrifice herself for Thanos and the stone, would Thanos still have gotten it? | 20 | Natasha jumped off of her own volition, and Barton got the Stone as a result; the price seems to simply be "a soul for a soul."
For *Thanos*, it was specifically the sacrifice of the one person he held most dear, but that is apparently Red Skull Ghost's interpretation of the situation, not an absolute requirement; Gam... | 37 |
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