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[Daredevil] How does Daredevil even compare to heroes like Spider-Man? | It seems all his powers are just a somewhat more diverse Spidey-Sense... but he's also blind...
It seems that Daredevil would be a hardly on-par Superhero even if he could, y'know, see? His powers are really just hear and smell good, which wouldn't be all that important if he had... eyes...
I feel like he could be a ... | 101 | Why else do you think the Avengers have been pretty much ignoring him?
He *isn't* on their level. He's mostly a detective with specific goals and missions, he's not like Spider-Man patrolling the city of Captain America leading global counter-terror missions. | 153 |
Is there anyway besides suicide to opt out of society? | If society is a social contract how does one opt out? There is no where to go, all land is owned by other people. It doesn't seem that there is any way to survive without partaking in human society on at least some level. | 38 | There is lots of wilderness. For example, Northern Canada has vast regions where no one lives. If you really know how to fish and hunt and live off the land, you could survive in this wilderness all alone, until, say, you break a leg. However, few human beings could survive the loneliness.
The very fact that you a... | 36 |
CMV: Being recorded at work is a huge invasion of privacy and is very degrading. | I've been struggling with this issue for the last 2 days because I started a new WFH job in which a webcam was included in the package sent to me.
I've been WFH for 3 years and have been working in call centers for 4.5 years. I usually last an average of 1.5 years before I quit and move on.
This would be the first t... | 544 | I could use some clarity on the part where you say you are forced to prepare yourself for work, buy groceries and wake up early to organize yourself for the day. Would you otherwise be getting groceries or lunch while on the clock? Are you saying you’d typically be getting ready in the morning after your shift has st... | 181 |
ELI5:What is MSG and why is it bad? | I love Chinese food but I always hear from my family and friends that it's really bad because of all the MSG in it. Is it really that bad for you or is it just a urban myth? | 17 | MSG, or monosodium glutamate, has been used as a food additive for a long time.
Long story short, no scientific study has found any conclusive evidence that MSG has a harmful effect, even in studies conducted on subjects who reported an 'MSG sensitivity.' Studies conducted on lab mice found the lethal dosage of MSG w... | 24 |
ELI5: water storage in aquifer. Is it possible to put water back into a natural aquifer for storage? As it sounds as though we are draining many basins, but also building new water storage projects, can we not just use existing aquifers? | 54 | Yes, this is possible and being done in many areas. In Portland, Oregon, for example, large pumps in the Columbia River inject water into a shallow aquifer during winter high flows which is used for the city water supply in late summer.
Several factors govern the feasibility of this storage method: the depth of the a... | 47 | |
I think drinking is not okay, especially for high school kids. | 1) Drinking only gives you temporary reprieve when you feel awkward in these situations. If you were able to get your own social fears by yourself or find your own courage or learn to relax by yourself, that courage/new ability to cope in social situations would stick with you as opposed to going away when you aren't u... | 25 | I think you mean getting drunk. It doesn't seem like your post says anything against drinking. Do you think there's something wrong with having a glass of wine or a beer or two at dinner or when hanging out with friends? | 16 |
How much delta-v would you need to escape a gravity well like the one in Intersteller? | It seems like no human spacecraft in the present or near future would be capable of escaping such an insane amount of gravity. Would the gravity well that created a 23 year time gap require a planet to be so massive that no human could live for a short spacewalk on it? What formulas and method would you use to calculat... | 44 | That orbit is so extreme that it doesn't even exist. Orbits are unstable below 3 schwarzschild radii.
The velocity you would need to escape from that radius (ignoring the orbit) is immense, it's well relativistic. In this regime, it doesn't make much sense to still talk about Δv. | 19 |
Which programming language will force you to learn the most advanced math as you progress through it? | I was thinking C++ or Haskell.
My goal is to prepare myself for advanced maths (Calculus I/II, Differential Equations) and have something I can throw at research in pharmaceutical research. I heard Pascal mentioned for someone who struggled with math their entire life, but can super focus when they're interested in so... | 19 | The math you implement in a program isn't really dependent upon the language at all. Any language worth its salt is going to support just about any reasonably straightforward operations (eg addition, subtraction, multiplication, logarithms, exponents, etc.) Any extra features beyond these (eg solving systems of equat... | 37 |
Why is titanium dioxide used in supplements? | What other purposes would Titanium dioxide serve in a supplement other than colour enhancement/ whitener? | 31 | I believe that it can also serve as an anti-caking additive, similar to the use of SiO2. TiO2 is a fine white powder that is primarily used as a white pigment and/or visual enhancement additive. No idea if it is actually specifically used for anything other than pigmentation as a food additive, but I'd guess that it co... | 16 |
[The Incredibles 1] why didn't the guy who tried to kill himself just try to kill himself again instead of suing Mr incredible for preventing his suicide? | 37 | Sometimes people attempt suicide when they see no purpose in continuing their life. That man found a new purpose in exposing and curbing the incredible dangers presented by the actions of supers. He probably also developed a grudge against Mr. Incredible and didn't want to die without getting his revenge. | 64 | |
CMV: Companies like Gillette and Pepsi disseminate controversial ads that will upset their consumer base on purpose | The new Gillette “be better” ad sparked backlash from some conservative leaning consumers of their razors/male hygiene products, but will this affect sales in the long term? Companies like Gillette/P&G do not sell direct to consumer or end user of their product, but instead to wholesalers/retailers like Walmart who... | 144 | Not at all. Companies are in it to make money, that is all. Gillette doesn’t give two shits about how men treat women. What they do give a shit about is that right now women are their target audience.
Gillette charges far more for women’s razors than men’s razors, even though they cost the same to produce. Women feel... | 102 |
[General] Why is there gravity inside spaceships? | Why is there always gravity (or what appears to be gravity) inside spaceships. This is prevalent in Star Wars, Star Trek, pretty much every Sci-fi media, and it's always bugged me.
We never see any sign of artificial gravity while inside spaceships, and it seems the instant the characters step outside for a spacewal... | 16 | Most kinds of "artificial gravity" rely on a conceit like Mass Effect fields or "gravity plating".
Newer sci-fi (the Martian, Red Mars, and Halo, for instance) have ships with rotating toruses intended to simulate gravity via centripetal force.
When you move between toruses you experience different levels of gravit... | 25 |
[DC] Do people have theories about Superman's alien-ness? | In most incarnations of the DC universe, Superman is usually one of the first public alien figures. Most people know that he's from a planet called Krypton, the works.
Does the public or the media have theories or debates about him based on his extraterrestrial origins?
Examples:
Does he actually have a human appea... | 39 | In the New 52, when the government came looking for the alien who crashlanded in Smallville, Jonathan and Martha pass off a miscarried calf born with two extra legs as the alien. Years later, when Lex Luthor and General Lane are holding Superman captive, Lex shows him the calf and demands to know if that's his true for... | 49 |
CMV: Automation is something we should be pushing for in society and not discouraging, and in the ENDGAME, more jobs taken by robots is better | TLDR: 10% of jobs being taken by robots is bad for workers, 20% is worse, but 100% is fantastic and should be a goal of countries
Automation is a rising situation in the U.S and other countries, and truck drivers for example fear losing their jobs due to self driving cars. I understand the fear, but the bigger pictur... | 31 | The problem isn't the robots "taking" the jobs. The problem is the companies/governments not changing the way income is generated leaving people without the means to purchase or utilize all the products automation could provide. It's inevitable that 30% of ALL jobs will be automated with in 12 years. Trucks drivers are... | 14 |
CMV: All labels to identify activists or certain groups of people in general (ex.Feminist, ANTIFA, Alt-Right, Liberal) are hurting society more than they are helping. | I strongly believe terms used to identify large groups of people who support a certain cause used to show simply where you stood in the discussion, in recent years, however, they have been used to identify a person.
Social Media has perpetuated this judge a book by its cover mindset, allowing these terms to make 2-di... | 124 | It depends on helping who? Labels help politicians to dehumanize the “enemy” and getting their own faithful to the polls. We are living in time when political discussion is focused on turning out the voters, not changing opinions, and scaring people by pointing out vicious “feminists” or bloodthirsty “gun nuts” gets vo... | 14 |
ELI5: Why do cheap knockoffs slightly change the name of the product (e.g. "Rolex" -> "Rqlex"), when the result it still violating trademarks by using logos and such? If you're going to violate trademarks anyway, why not go all the way? | 18 | One possible answer: at least if you call it something else, you aren't committing fraud. Trademark infringement isn't a criminal issue, but fraud may be, if you are actually tricking people and claiming it is the real thing.
Another possible answer: the people who create knockoffs aren't necessarily the brightest bu... | 19 | |
Would there be a benefit to putting solar panels above the atmosphere? | So to the best of my knowledge, here is my question. The energy output by the sun is decreased by traveling theough the atmosphere. Would there be any benefit to using planes or balloons to collect the energy from the sun in power cells using solar panels above the majority of the atmosphere where it could be a higher ... | 4,120 | The atmosphere is largely transparent to visible light, which is the range most conventional photovoltaics use. If located higher there could be a marginal increase (ignoring other factors at the moment) because there would be a few percent more of that light, however without the atmosphere blocking the more energetic ... | 1,372 |
[Star Trek] What's there to stop civilians or non-Federation species from making first contact with the pre-warp planets all willy-nilly? | 23 | You gotta remember the Federation is a post scarcity socialist utopia. (Hard to tell from all the grimdark interpretations of modern Trek.) There's very little to gain as a civilian to break the Prime Directive. Other Empires will but the 3 "powers" of the Alpha quadrant (Romulans, Klingons and United Federation of Pla... | 31 | |
ELI5: The difference beyween AMOLED and P-OLED? | For example, the Pixel 2 runs AMOLED screen while the Pixel 2 XL runs P-OLED? What's the difference? | 90 | AMOLED stands for "active-matrix organic light-emitting diode", where the AM part means that each LED has an individual transistor driving it, hence "active". Practically all graphical displays these days are active-matrix. The OLED part doesn't specify what kind of organic molecule is used as the light emitting materi... | 66 |
[Lord of the Rings] Both Gondor and Rohan have a period where their respective rulers at the time of the books were "incompetent" - why weren't there other councillors or nobility to help rule the kingdoms? | At the time of the books, both Theoden and Denethor II have long periods (*edit* these periods may not have been VERY long after all, but I think the question is still relevant) where they their rule was plagued by incompetence, possession, and paranoia to the extent that they were working against their own kingdoms. T... | 30 | Well you make a small error in thinking that Denethor was an incompetent ruler. In fact he is was a very capable ruler and was able to hold back the forces of Mordor without any help from any of the other realms. Other nobility didn't step in because up until the very end, he showed he was a wise, capable, strong, if p... | 42 |
How do you get energy from electromagnetic radiation? | Is this even possible, if not, why can't we? Or explain how we already do. | 16 | You can harness the energy in electromagnetic radiation by absorbing it. Photovoltaic cells absorb light and produce electricity. Other systems absorb light and increase their temperature, the idea behind passive solar heating. You can take sunlight and use mirrors to focus the light to heat water and run a turbine ... | 11 |
ELI5: Difference between a heart attack, cardiac arrest, and stroke? | 474 | Heart attack: blocked blood flow in heart, can kill parts of heart
Cardiac arrest: heart stopped, can be caused by many things - including above
Stroke: blocked blood flow in brain, can kill parts of brain
As heart feeds brain and brain controls heart, a failure in one can feed back into the other
Edit: coming ba... | 1,516 | |
How do we know light speed is the universal speed limit? For example, if light moves differently in a gravitational field, we'd never be able to gather any data to the contrary on Earth. | This is something I've been wondering for a long time. However, most of what I can understand (which is written for popular audiences, since my grasp of physics is 2 semesters of college intro courses) when I read about it involves discussing the implications of the light speed limit - not necessarily how we know it. I... | 42 | We only "know" in the sense that it hasn't been proven false yet.
The idea of *c* being constant in all reference frames is a direct result of special relativity, and being constant in all frames implies an absolute speed limit in the universe. Thus far, no experiment has been performed that suggests special relativi... | 31 |
CMV: I don't see the point in marriage. If two people want to be in a relationship, they don't need an official certificate | Obviously depending on your area/jurisdiction there may be some legal/tax benefits etc to getting married, but I'm discounting them for the purposes of this post. The fact remains that the vast majority of people get married for some other reason, and I can't really fathom why.
A minority of people are insecure and se... | 506 | Marriage offers a lot of benefits.
1) Tax deductions.
2) Visitation rights in prison and in the hospital.
3) The right to make medical decisions when your spouse is incapacitated.
4) Default rights to inheritance.
5) Coverage from insurance policies, right to pension and military death benefits, etc.
6) Leg... | 143 |
[Marvel] Why didn’t Strange use portals to decapitate Thanos? | During End Game, he chose to tie Thanos with magic ropes. | 67 | Thanos is probably too durable to be cut in that way, he was able to use the powerstone on captain Marvel without too much damages to himself and he survived using the IG.
Strange portals are probably waaaaaayy weaker than the powerstone. | 100 |
ELI5: how do game developers create games with graphics so intense that not even the latest tech can achieve those graphics? (Like even the rtx 3090 struggling with CP2077) | 16 | They could create graphics that take 50 hours to render each frame of they wanted to. In many ways it's more difficult to do the opposite, having a game that runs well on a wide range of hardware.
Generally speaking, targeting future hardware isn't too tricky as the progress of hardware is relatively predictable, at l... | 35 | |
ELI5: How my body knows not to shit itself while asleep. | Urination could be included as well. | 63 | When you go to sleep, your brain releases special juices into your body that make it so it won't do stuff, like acting out your dreams. That way if you're running in your dream, you won't start running in real life. This also makes it so if you poop in your dream (5 year olds shouldn't say the S word, mister!), you sho... | 56 |
ELI5: How do seeds know which way is up? | So I was doing some gardening with my 9yo daughter and we moved on to planting some seeds. She was studying them carefully before dropping them into the holes in the compost. I asked her why and she said that she was trying to make sure she planted them the right way up, otherwise they wouldn't grow upwards and flower.... | 12,458 | ELI5: Plants have cells that can tell which way is down. The roots know which way is down. The leaves/stems decide which way is up by sensing the light.
In the most simple of terms, plants have cells called stratocytes in the tips of roots that respond to gravity. They give a signal that releases a plant hormone that ... | 3,377 |
Since everything with mass has a gravitational pull, does this mean that Pluto has a pull on me currently? | To be more specific, I know everything that has mass has a gravitational pull, even atoms. I wanted to know, regardless of how small, if extremely far away planets/stars have an effect on us? It got me thinking that if time is infinite, will everything with mass, every atom, and every quark eventually come together a... | 16 | Pluto has a mass of about 10^22 kg (about 500 times less than the earth), its distance to the Earth depends on where it is in its orbit (since its orbit is quite non-circular) and where we are but honestly it's billions of kilometers from the sun and we're only 100s of millions so our orbit only affects the first decim... | 46 |
[X-men comics] Kitty Pryde and Adamantium | I'm not that knowledgeable about her character, but I just saw a random comic panel of her ripping out Emma Frost's heart while partially in diamond form.
Would Kitty be able to do the same thing to Wolverine and pull out his heart through his adamantium skeleton? Also, would this kill him? Presumably, if he were da... | 21 | In an alternate timeline, where Wolverine was unable to shake his brainwashing by the Hydra (or maybe the Hand), Kitty had to do something like that. She phased her hand into his head, then re-solidified it. She lost the hand, but it remained embedded in his brain, reducing him to a vegetative state.
Simply removing... | 16 |
Is cold water sufficient for ridding fruits and vegetables of pesticides on their surfaces? | The question is in the title. If it is not sufficient, what measures should be taken in order to make sure pesticide ingestion is kept minimal?
edit: To add to the original questions, are the potential health risks from consumption of pesticides serious? Meaning, **based on the average amount of pesticides ingested by... | 51 | Definitely not, most pesticides are not designed to be water soluble. If they were, farmers would have to respray after every rain. They're designed to "stick" to the plants to ensure longer protection.
Using soap to rinse produce is a pretty safe bet. Just make sure that it is rinsed thoroughly after washing, as the ... | 28 |
ELI5: Why does the flesh of an apple go brown fairly quick out in the open? | 73 | It's exposed to oxygen which activates enzymes (Things that break down parts of other things saliva for example contains a lot of enzymes and it breaks down food in your mouth) that turn it brown in the process. It mainly happens when the skin is not protecting the flesh as oxygen starts the reaction. | 36 | |
ELI5: How is "Bait Car" legal? | 27 | When a bait car or bait house is used, no one is forcing the person to break in to the car or house. Entrapment is only in cases where you are coerced by law enforcement to do something against your will or given the incling by law enforcement to break the law when it is outside of your normal activities. The same appl... | 42 | |
Should we value human life that’s hasn’t yet had a conscious experience? | I always thought that abortion was okay since the fetus was something that doesn’t have conscious experience but someone pointed out to me that people in comas also don’t have conscious experience. | 20 | The key question raised by your phrasing of the debate would be as follows: What is a human life that *hasn't* had a conscious experience at all?
A big part of the debate over abortion settles on the question of when a life becomes a life, and there are a number of different ways in which this could be defined. Almost... | 15 |
ELI5:Why is it that most animals seem to survive just fine in the wild due to instincts, but most humans probably wouldn't know how to start? | 21 | Because most people are not in their correct evolutionary niche. Humans evolved, and are adapted to, living in the savanna of Africa - the correct temperature, plenty of available food, wide spaces to see predators from afar. Almost every single technological and cultural advance we've had has been related to coping wi... | 33 | |
ELI5: Why, when I'm watching TV at night, is it easy to doze off, but when I go upstairs to bed in a dark room, I'm immediately wide awake? | 37 | You're relaxed, your mind is in neutral. And you've been sitting there for perhaps half an hour or more. But to go to bed, you must get up, walk the dog, perform your ablutions, etc. By the time you climb into bed, you need some time to get relaxed and in neutral again. | 18 | |
ELI5: Why do we feel weak (as in not being able to lift a heavy object) when we are laughing a lot? | 24 | Someone may be able to correct me on this, but a good ELI5 would be that our core muscles (Abs and such) play a major role in keeping us upright and maintaining posture, and are even more active when we are also lifting something heavy. When we are laughing uncontrollably a lot of that core muscle activity is now invol... | 22 | |
Why isn't RAM disk much faster than a SSD? | As the title suggests, whenever i see all these crystal benchmark comparing a RAM disk to a SSD. The RAM disk numbers just blows the SSD out of the water. Here's the crystal benchmark video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4wJlg53hlQ
But whenever i see RAM disk used in practice it's pretty much neck to nech with a SS... | 16 | Operating systems cache disk contents in RAM, so the only likely benefit to a RAM disk on a system with sufficient RAM is prefetching the data for the initial read.
Apps like games tend to be designed to work with the actual read rate of spinning hard disks, so prefetching doesn't help much.
I'd still expect to see s... | 15 |
eli5 Why do food and drink taste different based on their temperature? | 17 | As temperature increases, so does kinetic energy. This means the molecules are moving around faster, bumping into things more often (including your taste receptors).
Also, many of the molecules associated with taste tend to be what we call volatile, meaning they go from liquid to gas easily. As the temperature increas... | 21 | |
ELI5: OLED burn in. We know how it happens, but why does it happen? Do pixels fade away over time or what? | 36 | Yes pretty much, over time (and over use) the pixels age and their properties degrade. As long as all pixels are getting roughly the same use, you will not notice this, but you are actually getting the same "burn-in" over the whole screen.
It's not necessarily a "fade away" though, they will lose max capacity, so on ... | 12 | |
[Guardians of the Galaxy] [spoiler] How does Groot do that cool thing? | [Spoiler] I have a new hypothesis on second viewing about the ressurection of Groot.
In multiple previous threads, it is suggested that either Groot is like any shapeshifter like Inque or Clayface and only has a singular consciousness and chooses to inhabit a specific remnant of their physical form. And that Groot ... | 30 | Judging by the way rocket potted the twig, he expected groot to grow back.
Either he chose a specific twig, knowing it was the live one, or any twig would have worked. He could have planted more and had several groots but groot doesnt want that and rocket respects his wishes | 40 |
ELI5: How do corrosive materials not eat through their containers? Ex: What makes glass impervious to acid? | I've been wondering this ever sense middle school... Does it have something to do with the strength of the corrosive material? What's to stop an extremely strong acid from eating through everything? | 20 | Acids generally work by donating protons, generally shown in chemical reactions as H+, a hydrogen atom that has no electron.
In order for an acid to react with another chemical, that chemical must have free electrons to react with the proton donated by the acid.
Silicon Oxide (glass) is a completely stable chemical... | 10 |
ELI5: Back in the olden days, movies showed the majority to all of their credits BEFORE the actual movie. Now, the credits roll after the movie. When was the official transition between the two, and why did Cinema change it? | 81 | One of the first films to have substantial closing credits was Around the World in 80 Days, in 1956, however it wasn't until the 1960s that it started to become common, and the 1970s when it became standard.
Initially, credits were only shown in the beginning because that was in line with book credits or theater progr... | 39 | |
ELI5: How does a movie do the whole abandoned city thing? Do they tell everyone to stay home or is it all just CGI? | 37 | They shoot in Canada. No joke, lots of abandoned New York is Canada on the weekends... Also cgi etc.
Edit:
Examples: the resident evil franchise, land of the dead, robocop, total recall etc. all shot in Toronto. Godzilla, Day the Earth stood still, the Fog, etc. plus a zillion more empty streets shot in Vancouver
| 30 | |
[The Thing] How to kill the thing? | I only saw a short clip of this movie but I'm unnerved and can't sleep; tell me what is the best strategy to kill this abomination? I must know how to kill it to have peace. Reasonable arsenal permitted. I know from my initial googling you have to destroy it at cellular level and fire is a good means of doing that but ... | 17 | Thermonuclear missiles are reasonable under the circumstances.
If it's confined to one facility in Antarctica and you want to clear it mostly intact...
Tactically you want to keep squad size small, avoid being separated, and have blood checks on the half hour. Carry a mix of flamethrowers and guns. A few incendiary g... | 34 |
ELI5: If SSRIs all do the same thing (prevent the reuptake of serotonin), why are there different SSRI meds that have varying levels of usefulness? | 19 | They don't all do the same thing, really.
SSRIs interact at a LOT of receptors, and with different affinities. They have different pharmacokinetics from drug to drug.
All SSRIs "do the same thing" the same way that all hot sauces "make stuff hot." That doesn't mean every hot sauce is the same, have the same taste, ... | 51 | |
ELI5: What’s the physical difference between a low end budget speaker and a high end pro one? | More specifically I’m wondering about the speaker cone itself. Is it anything to do with speaker cone materials, shape, design, testing, etc, or is the biggest difference found in the drivers? (I realise brand and to a lesser extent quality of electronics makes a difference to price.)
Bonus question: is it possible to... | 23 | First, high-end and professional speakers are not the same. What you hear during concert will never work well at home.
Second, speakers and speaker cones are very important, but it's just part of what makes a high-quality speaker.
Budget speaker cones are made basically from paper with flimsy suspensions and tiny coils... | 11 |
what would happen if someone with severe insomnia just stopped sleeping? would they get ill, would they die? | 37 | They would get ill. We don't know if they would die. There is a disease(Fatal insomnia) that stops some people sleeping and they end up dying but it's not clear if it's caused by the disease rather than lack of sleep. | 41 | |
[Harry Potter] Why not snap your enemies' wands and/or break their arms? | I find it puzzling that - if they refrain from killing - the heroes do not effective immediately snap the wands of any Death Eaters (and other enemies) they manage to disarm.
Why don't they also break their arms for good measure? Sure, wizards/witches can mend bones in a heartbeat, but that can mean the difference be... | 23 | Because it literally never occurs to them.
The heroes are taught how to fight in dueling class, where there are strict rules and the fight is over as soon as the opposing person drops his wand. This has pretty much taught Harry and his friends that they won as soon as they disarm the other person, so use that time to ... | 39 |
If cheap, low quality meat and vegetables were banned and food standards were raised so that there was none, would quality produce become as affordable? | I'm talking about things like frozen burgers and chicken which are like 60% fat and the rest is practically gristle, bone and beak, and flavourless, low nutrient content fruit and vegetables | 61 | No because then you would have an increased waste. The way many companies get their competitive advantage that allows them to reduce costs is by reducing waste. For large examples of this you can read about waste in VCM. For a specific example you can read about the growth of the Standard Oil company. And for a concept... | 54 |
ELI5: Why do humans look so diverse? | From Africans to Asians to Caucasians to Semitic people, and more, humans have such a diverse range of features, and it seems no other animal of the same species looks nearly as diverse as we are, from our skin tones to nose shapes to eye shapes to hair type and so forth.
How come we look so much more diverse as a sp... | 17 | Have you seen dogs? They're pretty friggin diverse
A Chihuahua and a St Bernard are the same species
People look really diverse to you because your brain needs to differentiate individuals so you are very very good at picking up on differences between individuals and groups of people. If you were a Baboon you would... | 43 |
ELI5: Why do most laptops still have a 1366x768 screen resolution while most smartphones are already at 1920x1080 and up? | 15 | Resolution is also about viewing distance. You can get away with a lower resolution display if you are sitting further away. However, when trying to make out text on a small 5" screen 1 foot from your face it helps to have a higher res screen. A lower resolution on a larger display that you sit 2 feet from is more a... | 12 | |
[Marvel] If he had access to a DVD set from our universe, what would the 616 Reed Richards make of the Venture Bros' Richard Impossible? | 32 | Probably nothing - 616-Reed had seen some shit, including a whole dimension of other Reeds. At this point to Reed it would be just yet another supervillain version of him, far removed from baseline to boot. | 34 | |
[MCU] Why are Iron Man's Strength and durability levels inconsistent? | Ok, this is going to be long...In the first Iron Man movie, Iron Man's armour was able to survive getting hit by a TANK shot, crash through a jetwing at fast speed, with barely any damage.
Even in Avengers 1, he was able to take hits from mjolnir and thor and still continue fighting,
But what I dont get is this, by... | 650 | Seems like he sacrificed a lot of durability in favour of armour that could be equipped quickly and stored conveniently.
This armour can be carried around in a suitcase and quickly attach itself to Tony in segments.
The previous models couldn't do that.
Eventually he moved to nanotech based armour to get the best... | 767 |
Is it actually true that the left hemisphere of the brain is logical and the right is creative? Or is that just pseudo science? | We've all heard about this, but is it actually true?
| 19 | It's pretty much rubbish based on extremely broad generalization. So maybe it's not exactly pseudoscience in its own, but just a very poor interpretation of actual science (the study of lateralization). In general the brain is very symmetrical in both anatomy and function; but there is some lateralization in specific c... | 12 |
ELI5: What would happen to the Cartels and organized crime in the US if marijuana is legalized. | 56 | Marijuana has always been easy to grow even in a closet. It can be grown in the US very easily and has been forever. It's also cheap as fuck, so the risk:reward to smuggling it over the border in any significant quantity is a no go. That's why cartels primarily deal in meth, cocaine, heroin, etc. because those are m... | 39 | |
Bitcoin price hit its new record high, what is the economic explanation of Bitcoin value? | Why does it have value? Is it all artificial value? Does it have real value for economy?
I'd like an economic view that could explain bitcoin's value. | 103 | We could go into a lengthy discussion on the technology and potential uses - but lets not. The answer is really quite simple. It is worth whatever somebody else is willing to pay for it.
> Why does it have value?
Because some people are willing pay for it.
> Is it all artificial value?
Yes or no, depending... | 111 |
ELI5: Why can humans eat almost anything, yet so many foods like chocolate, grapes, and xylitol are dangerous for dogs and other mammals? | 68 | The premise of your question is basically flawed. We can't eat almost anything. About half of the red berries in existence are poisonous to us but not to birds, for example. The same is true about mushrooms.
Also, not everything that is edible is food. Uncooked grains are edible, but you would eventually die if that's... | 84 | |
ELI5: How come, given we hear ourselves differently from how we think we sound, we can reproduce musical notes accurately by singing, just by ear? | I mean, shouldn't we be slightly out if we hear ourselves and think we've hit the note?
Same goes with mimicry, I guess... If we think we are replicating a sound of someone's voice, wouldn't it be different to everyone else hearing it? | 52 | So, there are sort of two different things going on here.
Nobody sings a single musical note, note really. When we sing, speak, or play a note, there are a bunch of different pitches that blend together. These give us the tone or *timbre* of the note. The thing we think of as the pitch of the note is the lowest or ... | 43 |
[MIB] Since they technically don't exist to the governmwnt, have no identity, no fingerprints, and have Neuralyzers. Could MIB agents easily get away with robbery, murder and other crimes? | Edit: I'm saying if one of these agents decided to be a serial killer without telling the agency. | 30 | If they're only trying to get away from regular law enforcement, sure, they'd be uncatchable. But you're forgetting the *interplanetary law enforcement organization* they work for, whose technology level far exceeds traditional police forces on Earth, and whose agents are allowed a great deal of freedom to disintegrat... | 53 |
ELI5: How do NASA scientists know that a spacecraft is completely air sealed before it goes into space? | 1,231 | The same way we test any other pressure sealed system, raging from big tankers to tanks, to the gas pipe systems. Every valve and opening is sealed, then we pressurise the system, if the pressure doesn't drop then it is sealed.
Once they close the door to the spacecraft, they can pressurise it and check whether the... | 1,007 | |
ELI5: If omega 3 fish oils are so good for you why don't we just fry everything in that? | 21 | You can cook with it, but: "However, due to its high concentration of polyunsaturated fats, fish oil should never be used for cooking. It’s best used as a supplement, one tablespoon per day. Keep in a cool, dry and dark place."
Also, taste. Do you want your french fries to taste like fish? | 15 | |
[MCU] Does HYDRA still adhere to Nazi ideologies? Specifically the Nazi views on race and genocide. | So, HYDRA was formed as Hitler's research division and Red Skull later went rogue with it and it more or less became its own thing. But it still started within the Nazi party, so did these beliefs carry over into the more modern version that managed to infiltrate SHIELD?
Are their goals just standard bad guy stuff or... | 231 | I believe you have been mislead by poor shield intelligence. Hydra and the organization that spawned it predate the Nazis by a significant margin. Red Skull took the Nazi research division and twisted it to suit Hydra's needs, not the other way around.
As for their views on racial superiority, they are much more foc... | 231 |
ELI5: Why do content creators/ streamers get dmca strikes when they play games and music plays? The music artists gave their consent for their music to be used in games which the streamer then plays so why do the streamers get striked? | 34 | Most of the time it's an automated system. The music is copyrighted, though allowed for use in certain media. However an algorithm that can spot a certain track being played is a lot easier to program than an algorithm that can spot if a certain track is being played, then recognise the context in which it is being pla... | 28 | |
[Star Wars] Why does Kyle Ren seem to use the Force to read people's minds in interrogations but Vader doesn't? | Why does Kyle Ren seem to use the force to read people's minds in his interrogations but Lord Vader doesn't? Vader instead uses torture droids and uses the Force to choke people out of their aspirations. | 21 | Because it can backfire. Note how Rey (a natural talent, but completely untrained) managed to glean information from Kylo's mind nearly as much as he got from her. Good old fashioned analog torture doesn't carry that risk, and can be supplemented with force-based mind techniques after wearing them down in body and spir... | 72 |
ELI5: I've seen tons of "music videos" that predate the 80s. Where would people watch these videos before MTV? | 60 | The earliest videos were often just of the band doing a number and weren't really a 'story'. They'd often be shown as part of a TV special such as them being a guest on a variety show. Some were part of a dedicated movie. The Who's "Tommy" in 1975 or some of the Beatles and Elvis films were examples.
Later on as 'vid... | 29 | |
Why is crime such a gendered activity? | Its well known that the majority of criminals are men, statistics show us that 83% of arrests in the UK are male and that men make up 94.5 percent of the prisoner population.
What's less well known is the cause of this gender disparity, my suspicion has always been that it was the result of the different way in which... | 119 | I unfortunately don't have time for a long involved answer. But Freda Adler, an important woman in criminological history, put forth a simple explanation for the gender differences in crime. Women have less social access than men. When she was doing her research in the 60's and 70's many or even most women still filled... | 46 |
ELI5: When searching for jobs online, I almost never see an amount (whether hourly or salaried) of how much a company will pay an individual who actually gets the job. Why is that so? | 24 | they want to get away with paying the minimum amount they can, so they usually ask you for your past salary info and make a slightly better or similar offer.
they don't want to start the salary listing higher than they need to. | 21 | |
What does it really mean that the electromagnetic force and weak force converge at high energies? | I did my undergrad in physics at MIT, so I'm pretty solid on quantum mechanics and E&M, but I've never had a good intuitive understanding of what it means that the electromagnetic force and weak force converge at high energies (the eletroweak force). I've encountered this idea in pop-science books and it was touche... | 66 | Yeah hard to explain without maths thought. There is some tool called gauge transformation, when you input a symmetry and do the transformation you can deduce the equations of motion of a particle and the fields associated.
For example: we know the group of symmetry related to the equations of electromagnetism (math... | 19 |
ELI5: when you take pain meds like aspirin or ibuprofen, does it go treat the pain at the location or is it a general dulling of pain in your whole body? | Edit: Thanks for all the great answers guys! | 976 | Once NSAIDs such as aspirin are absorbed, they are widely distributed throughout the body. The drug doesn't all localize to the site of inflammation, and it's not as though there is some substance that binds the drug and carries back only to the injured cells. Unlike opioids which act centrally, however, NSAIDs act loc... | 303 |
ELI5:If motion is relative, then why is light speed the speed limit? | If I'm off in space somewhere with nothing around me, then how would I determine whether or not I was moving? How would I determine whether or not I was accelerating, or what speed I was moving at?
So some object comes whizzing by me at half the speed of light. If I decide that it was stationary and I was moving at ... | 21 | The concept of "moving" only exists when comparing two things. So if there is nothing to compare yourself to, "moving" and "stationary" are the same thing. It's not just that you can't tell if you're moving or not, there isn't any distinction between the two at all.
The concept of the speed of light is very confusing... | 16 |
CMV: You cannot be a social progressive and against freedom of speech. | Most social progressives, love democracy, and so it is of relatively little surprise to me that as they have achieved a majority (in Reddit and the West), that they want to exercise their new-found power over reactionary groups. I would offer, however, that at one point in time they were a minority, and with the adve... | 291 | Can you help clarify your post by answering a few questions:
1. Why are you open to changing your view on this matter?
2. What are a few examples you see of social progressives being anti-freedom of speech?
3. What types of arguments may help change your view? | 77 |
How does asexual reproduction avoid the negative effects of inbreeding? | 103 | Inbreeding and asexual reproduction isn't the same thing.
The main problem with inbreeding is that most organisms, including us, carry a large amount of recessive traits that are harmful, but as they are recessive it's only a problem if both parents have the gene and pass it on, which of course is more likely if the ... | 60 | |
What is the fireball of a nuclear explosion composed of? | I assume it isn't the bomb itself due to the sheer volume of it. | 32 | The 'fireball' from the explosion is from the surrounding matter which has been vaporised by the energy released from the fission.
The nuclear fission releases ~~most of it's~~ energy in gammas and x-rays (and kinetic fission fragments and neutrinos and neutrons). This energy get absorbed by the surrounding matter (r... | 28 |
Are proofs of the law of excluded middle circular? | I cannot think of a way to prove the law of excluded middle without a proof by contradiction, which seems a little circular since proofs by contradiction rely on the premise that if a proposition leads to a contradiction, then its negation must be true. | 17 | Well, the law of excluded middle is not a tautology of intuitionistic logic. Which means that to prove it, you'll have to make some additional assumptions. The proof by contradiction you mention can be viewed as an application of double negation elimination (assume A is false, that leads to a contradiction, therefore A... | 10 |
ELI5: What does it mean when a song/album is remastered and how is it done? | 33 | When talking about recordings on Vinyl, the initial "Master" copy of the vinyl will be of the highest quality, every subsequent copy will be of lesser quality due to things like dust, scratches and what not that each get passed down to any subsequent copies of that copy. And the degradation that happens to a disk when ... | 14 | |
ELI5: Why doesn’t the water in lakes and rivers get absorbed into the ground? | 40 | Some do lose water due to seepage. They lose more or less depending on what kind of rock and sediment lies beneath the lake. A rocky bottom holds water better than a sandy bottom.
Lakes are also subject to evaporation from their surfaces – especially in a dry places – for example, the American West.
So why don’t lake... | 38 | |
ELI5:Difference between "Starring", "Also starring", "Guest/special appearance", "With", "And", "And X as Y" in a TV show intro. | Sometimes an actor is credited as "Special appearance by..." yet their character is seen in a lot of back to back episodes or even the majority of a certain season. Is this somehow money related? Do actors have a special clause in their contract for this? If there are a lot of superstars in a TV show, how does a networ... | 474 | The order that the names appear is called billing, and it's a very big deal in Hollywood. Generally, the top stars are listed first, and that's a negotiating point with the agents and the studios.
Sometimes if there are multiple big names, one or more might be "last-billed." While first-billed is best, no big star wan... | 291 |
ELI5: Why are download speeds measured in megabits? Why not just measure everything in megabytes? | 23 | Three reasons.
1. When computer storage was first made, an 8-bit byte was one of the smallest units of measurement that actually had any use. You could get a rough idea of the number of characters in a file by the file size.
2. In the telecom world the service provider doesn't care about the actual data that is being... | 14 | |
What makes the electron shells of the atoms between Scandium and Zinc seem to go haywire, while suddenly regaining a stable outer shell increase from Gallium to Krypton? Why does this pattern repeat throughout the periods? | http://ptable.com/ | 1,882 | This has to do with orbital theory. Electrons are filling up d orbitals in that middle row, and electrons will always go to lowest energy configuration. Sometimes it's more favorable to fill other orbitals first and other times it's not. | 312 |
School is really inefficient and the value of a university degree is baffling CMV | I can learn anything that I want to from the internet. The time for independent learning is now, there is no need to go to class and get spoon fed information like babies. But I still go to class because this bunch of pointless bullshit will hopefully help me keep my standard of life a little better at the expense of m... | 32 | "The internet" is not a replacement for formal education. It is a huge fallacy. People think because they looked something up on the internet, they've become an expert in that field and in no way is this the case in any subject. University isn't made to teach you regurgitated facts, this is only a small part of the uni... | 52 |
[Marvel] Is there a reason for Kingpins unnatural strenght? | I just started Spiderman PS4 and when I saw Kingpin slamming me through walls I just thought...wtf, aren't you supposed to be a guy who sits in his office and let others do the job? I also hit him with metal or stone pieces in the face and the boss fight still took nearly 10 minutes. Is this just game-play, or why is h... | 149 | In the comics it's established that he trains every day against several foes and he gets mad when they don't go all out.
He's not a mutant, but he is as large and strong as a normal human can be. Think The Mountain with fight training and near psychotic rage.
edit =several foes all at the same time | 198 |
ELI5: If it's possible for animals to be born with instincts and behaviors (like bees knowing direction using the sun) could there be some advanced civilization somewhere that is born knowing calculus (for example). | I was wondering this since I've been thinking about all the animals out there that sort of just "know" how to survive already, coupled with the fact that there are planets out in the universe that have existed many times longer than earth, and likely have civilizations that have evolved on them as well.
On another not... | 61 | Sure, it is possible, but it would likely be quite a burden on the poor creatures. The great advantage that humans have had over other organisms on Earth is our tremendous adaptability through our ability to learn brand new ideas which our genetics don't provide. If this generation calculus is useful, but next generati... | 43 |
Why do we say that the electromagnetic and weak forces are unified into a single force at high energies? | The unbroken electroweak gauge group is a product of two simple groups, SU(2)*_L_*×U(1)*_Y_*, each one acting differently for different particles. There are still two different coupling constants, and two independent charges (hypercharge and isospin) above the EWSB scale. So there is not a single electroweak interactio... | 38 | Everything you say is correct. It is a matter of usage and terminology.
Given that electromagnetism comes from a combination of the underlying SU(2) and the underlying U(1) and that the Z^0 likewise comes from a mix of gauge fields and has a mass different from that of the W bosons, we see that the electromagnetic an... | 18 |
I believe that the only way to end world hunger is to allow those suffering to starve. CMV. | I'm not saying that it's fair or that we shouldn't try to help other countries as much as we can, but an influx of relief (i.e. food and other supplies) from an outside country usually sees a raise in the population of that region. Aren't we ensuring that people are able to reproduce and raise the next generation of st... | 29 | This is your argument:
1. Sending food to poor countries exacerbates overpopulation which is the root cause of hunger.
2. Therefore, the only way to end world hunger is to allow those suffering to starve.
Even if we accept that your first premise is true, there's still a big leap in logic here: isn't it possible that... | 27 |
If salt raises the boiling temp of water, is there additive that will let water freeze at a higher temp also? | 1,243 | Adding salt depresses the freezing point of water - that’s why municipalities salt the roads in the winter where it is snowy and icy.
Both the boiling point elevation and freezing point depression are types of colligative properties (in case you want to read more - use that term).
Colligative properties are about how... | 732 | |
ELI5: Where did the social expectation of only girls wearing dresses come from? | 16 | About three thousand years ago, when the fashion was robes (because technology) men who were going into the field to work, or going to battle would "gird up their loins" by taking the hems of their robes, and tying them up around their legs like pants. This continued for quite a while, the styles started to change, ro... | 41 | |
AskScience AMA Series: We are earth scientists with the IRIS Consortium (www.iris.edu) and we study earthquakes and seismology. Ask us anything! | Hi Reddit! We are Danielle Sumy (seismologist) and Wendy Bohon (geologist).
From Dr. Sumy: I wanted to study earthquakes since I was 10 years old. I started off working in marine geology and geophysics, particularly studying fluid movement and small earthquake along mid-ocean ridges. I now study induced earthquakes an... | 1,536 | I've seen conflicting studies on the theory that fracking can cause earthquakes. What are your thoughts on this? If you do believe that fracking can cause earthquakes, do you believe that using something similar to preemptively cause smaller, more frequent earthquakes along major fault lines might be used to keep large... | 60 |
ELI5: Why in some species of animals is the female typically larger than the male, and vice versa in others? | 21 | It depends what the purpose of the male actually is. Females are the staple members of any given sexually reproducing species, because they're the ones that can have the babies. The males have a much more flexible role. In species that have quite small males, the male typically only exists to act as a sperm bank. In sp... | 33 | |
ELI5: Why, when you rub your eyes really hard, you are transported into a swirly pattern galaxy? | 18 | You stimulate your retina when you rub your eyes which causes it to produce some sort of visual noise.
Try looking to one side as far as you can with your eyes closed. Then slightly touch your eyeball through your eyelids on the edge of the opposite site for some circular visuals. :)
Edit: eyes closed all the time..... | 15 | |
How valuable is sterilization of a knife used to cut raw chicken? | The guidelines for cleaning a knife after cutting raw chicken typically advise to sterilize with something like a chlorine bleach solution after washing with soap and water. Conversely, the guidelines for washing your hands after handling raw chicken are to thoroughly wash with soap and water for 20-30 seconds.
If was... | 23 | I think what the CDC, FDA, WHO etc. are attempting to accomplish with guidelines is really just the best balance they can come up with to statistically reduce (not eradicate) the occurence of food borne illness.
Why dunk a knife in bleach solution to sanitize it? Because you *can* - the knife doesn't care, and bleach... | 52 |
[Game of Thrones] What's the point of being King of Westeros if local lords can send their armies without asking for permission and wage wars, like Tywin Lannister did in first season? | Kingdom seems decentralized to the point where its King is more like ruler of King's Landing | 442 | I mean, you have kind of just identified one of the major reasons why the Iron Throne is actually a pretty weak authority, compared to, say, the kings of England during the high and late Middle Ages.
Westeros was not unified for thousands of years. Aegon unified it with his dragons. For a century and a half lords wer... | 477 |
ELI5: Why do I need more dish-washing liquid for greasy plastic kitchenware than for metal/glass/ceramic? | Does the plastic make the dish-washing liquid less effective? Does grease stick better to plastic? Or does the plastic just feel more "greasy" for some reason? | 77 | Plastic is like grease - it's hydrophobic, so grease sticks to plastic like grease sticks to grease. Detergents are amphipathic, ie they have a part that likes water, and a part that likes grease. So, the part that likes grease sticks to the grease, and the part that likes water pulls the whole thing into the water. ... | 89 |
CMV: The incompetent villains in the Pokemon series makes it boring. | While I do want to go back to watch Pokemon for nostalgia reasons, I do think that the series is very stale. The fact that the villains, Team Rocket is so incompetent ruin the series for me.
Every episode they appear with an extremely dumbfounded goal and failing every time. I think the creator could have done better ... | 43 | It's not Team Rocket's incompetence that makes *Pokémon* boring, it's the fact that characters like Ash don't get to have genuine arcs and development because of the need to recycle the series for a new set of younger viewers every few years. Sure, Ash has changed somewhat over the course of the series due to changes i... | 22 |
ELI5: Why do browsers re-download an image when you click "save-as"? | 75 | Poor programming. Whatever browser you are using, the developers just found it easier to implement the feature that way. The big browser makers are competing with each other with more and more features, they aren't as much concerned with making sure the basic features work better, so minor stuff like this will go unfix... | 22 | |
[Star Wars] How did the wampa get Luke attached to the ceiling of its ice cave? | Wampas don't seem to possess any kind of advanced heating / cooling technology. Luke appeared to have his feet embedded in ice. Affixing a fully grown human to the ceiling, using nothing but ice, seems like a fairly delicate process: just mashing handfuls of snow in around his feet while holding him up there doesn't se... | 35 | Wampas urinate at extremely high pressure, and in great volume. A jet of wampa urine can easily reach the ceiling of one of their lairs, where it will flash-freeze. They can use this remarkable ability to "glue" their prey to the walls or ceiling of their larder. | 53 |
ELI5: How does a country lend money to another country? | I've been reading about national debt, so I wonder, when a country lend money to another, I picture trucks loaded with tons of money, since it is millions or billions of dollars, so it's really like that or just a E-transfer? | 22 | Countries rarely set up specific loans at all. Most debt is that the country creates a treasury bond and says "buy this for 100 dollars and in 5 years you can turn it in for 105 dollars" type deal. Then one country just buys a bunch of those. Very rarely is it set up as a specific loan like you'd take from a bank. | 22 |
[Frozen] When Elsa made that ice castle, wouldn't the moisture required to create all the ice have adverse effects on the surrounding environment? (x-post r/NoStupidQuestions) | Like, I'm thinking either the snow underneath/around her would have gotten dry, or the air would have gotten dry. In either case, what would have happened? | 161 | Technically yes but in reality no. Elsa's abilities allow her to create snow and ice out of nothing. Hence why she could fill her ballroom with mounds of snow or blanket her entire country in winter without removing any noticeable amount of water from her environment. | 123 |
[40K] How strong are the Chaos Gods? | Are they as strong as the Emperor? Stronger? How many primarchs does it take to kill one? | 38 | The Chaos gods are inconceivably vast amalgamated intelligences created from the thought and emotions of mortals reflected into the immaterium.
They can be hurt, diminished, and changed, but so far as we know they can't truly die. No more so than you could kill a portion of the night sky. | 45 |
ELI5: How can someone be a director and star in the same film? | Forgive me for my ignorance, but I always pictured the director behind the camera, not in front of it. | 17 | They are behind the camera - they have an idea of how they want the shot to look like and can provide director guidance to the other actors, work with the cinematographer (the guy who actually aims the camera, frames shots etc.) and the rest of the crew.... once the shot is set up exactly how they want, they can step i... | 11 |
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