post_title stringlengths 5 304 | post_text stringlengths 0 37.5k | post_scores int64 15 83.1k | comment_text stringlengths 200 9.61k | comment_score int64 10 43.3k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
[Star Wars] How difficult is it learn to pilot the average space ship? | In real life, I assume piloting any sort of space craft is fairly difficult, considering all the training astronauts having to go through, and how they have entire crews and the assistance of some sort of mission control. And yet in Star Wars, not only are their entire militaries of people capable of piloting, but rand... | 23 | Apparently, not only is it easy to pilot one, it's easy to build one by doing odd jobs in the sub levels of Coruscant while trying not to lose your rented shop because your sister is an idiot trying to make a buck. | 35 |
[W40k] I've been recruited into the Astartes, but I have a terrible secret | I'm a 12-year old warrior living on a feral world and I've just gotten word I've been selected as a recruit in the Space Marines! (I've omitted my planet's name as well as the Space Marine chapter name for privacy) It's a tremendous honor on my world and I'm incredibly excited! I know they say Space Marine training is ... | 28 | GOOD NEWS, RECRUIT!
By the time the Gene-Seed is done with you, Your sex organs may or may not be completely vestigial, if they don't just fall off! Your sex drive will be sublimated into your combat protocols, and Brotherly devotion is seen as just another virtue to the Astartes!
So long as you don't make things we... | 79 |
ELI5:Why is Xenon more soluble than other noble gases? | 48 | Lets say you can fly, you're 100 metres in the air and you're holding a ball. You see a basketball net below. The chances of you shooting the ball and getting it in the net is pretty low.
Now imagine below you, there're 1000 basket ball nets. Now the chances of you getting the ball in one of them is higher.
Terrible... | 19 | |
CMV: "'Blazing Saddles' Couldn't be Made Today" is a bunch of hooey | I know this is probably beating a dead horse.
But someone please explain to me how, in a decade where Quentin "Dead Ni\*\*er Storage" Tarantino has made, not one, but two movies featuring openly racist white cowboys as major characters (and is about to come out with a movie featuring the frigging *Manson Family* murde... | 24 | Both of those Tarantino films feature the openly racist white cowboys getting revenged to shit by legendary black actors. Not to mention, those are views espoused by the characters and comedy in a Tarantino film is a side effect, not the aim.
Blazing Saddles is a comedy movie that uses race to comedic effect througho... | 24 |
ELI5: How does the Quartz in a clock keep accurate time? It's a dumb rock! | 2,686 | Quartz resonates at very regular frequencies when you pass a small current through it. The watch then monitors that frequency and converts it into hours, minutes, seconds. Since quartz crystals of the same size can always be predicted to resonate at the same amplitude regardless of temperature, this makes for very accu... | 3,028 | |
[GoW and 40K] Kratos becomes the servant of Khorne, where is he in Khorne's hierarchy? | A champion? Maybe around bloodthirsters levels? | 26 | I'd say he'd be a Daemon Prince, seeing as he himself has slain actual gods (including a literal War God). Then again, he's been rather indifferent about using magic, and Khorne isn't a fan of that because sorcery is primarily the domain of that dishonorable mollusk Tzeentch.
| 38 |
ELI5 : This paragraph taken from the Principles of Macroeconomics | This paragraph is was taken from Page 7 of the Principles of Macroeconomics by N. Gregory Mankiw, and discusses principle # 7 : Rational people think at the margin.
*"Consider an airline deciding how much to charge passengers who fly standby. Suppose that flying a 200-seat plane across the country costs the airline $1... | 24 | The marginal cost is simply the cost difference when something goes up by 1.
If it costs the airline $100,000 to fly that plane, then that's...just how much it costs. If there's an empty seat, then it...still costs them $100,000. If they fill that seat, then the cost increases, because now it's $100,000 + another ba... | 46 |
What is going on in a banana when it becomes ripe? | I imagine that something is going on chemically to make the fruit sweeter. How does it do so on its own? | 28 | The fruit is starting to decompose as soon as it is disconnected from the plant. Enzymes and microorganisms in the fruit are no longer suppressed by the fruits own enzymatic defense, and start to break down the molecules. The sweet taste comes from long carbohydrate chains, fibre, which is not digestible by humans. Fro... | 15 |
ELI5: How many earth-like planets can aliens see in our solar system using our technology? | For example if Aliens lived on a planet around Alpha Centauri, how much would they be able to tell about our planets?
 
Would they think the probability of life on earth and mars (and venus) are pretty much the same?
Or would they say that mars is "probably" just a rock and earth has water and atmosphere? H... | 38 | On one hand, they would probably have trouble seeing Earth, since we have several gas giants on the outer edge of our solar system; most Human technologies for detecting planets has to do with gravity's effects, and having large gas giants can obscure the smaller gravity wells of the inner planets.
But, if we were a h... | 16 |
Is James Bond a codename given to 007's or is it supposed to be the same character, just with different actors? | I always thought it was a codename to go with 007, for the sake of calling someone a name, and for the sake of ID/passports so on so forth, but my friend believes he is always the same person just played by different actors.
We're only talking movie world in this.
His argument is if it was many codenames, a country... | 36 | James Bond is the Batman of spies. Just like we are not still watching the Adan West Batman show, we are not watching George Lazenby as Bond. If you notice, in several of the books and movies, there are repeat characters such as Felix Lighter, the other double O's, M, Q (who isn't in many of the books), and Money Penny... | 22 |
[Assassin's Creed Odyssey] Why didn't Kassandra kill Hitler? | Yeah, yeah, keeper of the staff.
But the Holocaust killed a shitload of people. Surely that's a reason to come out of hiding? She wouldn't even need to. She's a Grecian murder ninja with a few thousand years of training. She's literally older than Jesus. She can turn invisible! She could have stealthily killed Hitler ... | 38 | Killing Hitler wouldn't have stopped the war, only delayed it. Remember that this universe has the war being an international Templar plot, with Henry Ford being in on it at a high level.
The other thing is that her role isn't to go use the Staff to intervene, it's to *safeguard the Staff* so Layla can take it. With o... | 25 |
Does every layer of the atmosphere have the same angular velocity as earth's surface? | By going higher in the atmosphere, gravity decreases but how does that effect atmosphere's angular velocity? | 381 | No. The convective currents cause the atmosphere to circulate, and drive weather patterns. Angular velocity varies as a result.
Space does not impart significant rotational drag on the atmosphere counter to the rotation of the earth. The atmosphere doesn't "lose angular velocity" at altitude, if that's what you're ... | 112 |
Which theory about the end of the universe is most likely to happen? | I remember when I was reading about the end of the universe, I saw that there are several theories about it. There's:
- The Big Crunch
- The Big Rip
- The Big Freeze/Heat Death
I don't know if I'm missing anything but I am just wondering, is there a theory which is most likely true or most widely accepted? | 200 | Based on the data we have today, there's no reason to believe there will be a Big Crunch or a Big Rip. This isn't to say these things won't happen, just that the simplest available theory which fits all the data suggests these won't happen, but rather that the Universe will keep expanding at an ever-faster rate ad infi... | 116 |
How are the sine and cosine functions derived? | I understand that for certain angles, using the relationships between the sides of 30-60-90 and 45-45-90 triangles can be used to find the value of sine and cosine.
But what I don't understand is how those functions are found for different angles, like 11 degrees. In practice you use a calculator, but the calculator's... | 17 | There are a few different ways, but one way is to look at the circle. Take a unit circle in the *x*-*y* plane (i.e. the graph of *x*^2 + *y*^2 = 1). Any point point *p* on the circle forms a right triangle: the three sides of the triangle are formed from the line from the origin to *p* (Line R), the perpendicular line ... | 12 |
ELI5:What are the most recognized theories of what was "there" before the Big Bang? | 137 | That's the whole point. There wasn't any "there" before the big bang. There wasn't even a "before" the big bang, that was the thing out of which both space and time spew forth.
Think of the north pole. Anywhere on earth you are, going north will take you there. All points are south of it, and talking about what's ... | 198 | |
CMV:The media are fulfilling ISIS' requirements by producing endless amounts of "terror porn" for them. It would be helpful if they didn't do it | Terrorists by nature are trying to cause the maximum amount of shock in order to achieve their goals. Be it for religious or geopolitical reasons the end goal is the same, scare as many people as possible.
The media are responsible for going above and beyond factual reporting with lurid fear-inducing headlines like "... | 301 | One of the main strategies we learned in WWI was to paint your enemy as an inhuman baby killing evil monster. Germany instead used restraint in showing their enemies war atrocities in their propaganda believing it would create fear of the enemy. Most agree that it was a huge mistake on the part of Germans and one the... | 26 |
ELI5: what is being discussed in contemporary philosophy? | Is there something like one common problem that a lot of people try to solve? | 41 | A famous modern philosopher is Zizek, who ponders (among many other things) the philosophical and sociological implications of today's economy - especially regarding capitalism.
It could be argued that some of the more famous economists (Hayek, Keynes) are, in a sense, also modern philosophers. They are polymaths; expe... | 16 |
[LOTR] How do the orcs in Moria know that a random noise come from adventurers and not from normal stuff you can find in an abandoned mine? | Do they get worked up everytime there is a noise? What activity are they doing while waiting? Tens of thousands of orcs and a few cave troll must make noise from time to time right? | 588 | They didn’t know, as such, and yes, they do react like that to any unfamiliar noise.
Do you have any idea how boring it was, hanging out in Moria? Nobody to fight, nothing to eat, no one to steal from - except each other. It’s been decades since Balin’s group dropped by, and since then it’s been nothing but friendly k... | 532 |
ELI5:You know when you have to poop really bad and are trying to hold it in and then you get that kind of bubbly feeling in your bowels and don't have to go as bad anymore? What has physically changed that relieved some pressure? | 91 | Contraction of bowel into the anal canal is peristaltic meaning it comes in waves. The first anal sphincter is involuntary so when you need to go it relaxes letting poo to the canal. Then you tense your voluntary one. When the peristaltic wave passes you mo longer feel the urge even though the canal itself is full. | 31 | |
ELI5:Why is there a delay for turning on lights but not turning off? | IDK what category this goes in | 19 | Many types of lights/lamps do not turn off instantly - there's a glow or fade to full off. Likewise, some types of lamps do turn on pretty much instantly. Because there are many different types of lamps, fixtures, power supplies, and controls. | 11 |
What do ambassadors do? Why are countries removing Syria's ambassadors? | So obviously its a reaction to recent horrible events in Syria. But is this anything more than a token gesture or might the action of removing Syria's ambassadors have genuine results.
I don't really know what ambassadors do in the first place to comment on the effectiveness of kicking one of them out. | 18 | 1. Ambassadors present in a country means that you have diplomatic relations of some sort with that country and can communicate directly with it via the ambassador. It generally signals a net positive relationship between two countries.
2. The building the ambassador resides in is considered to be sovereign territory ... | 10 |
Why are there spiral galaxies? | Shouldn't they all be elliptical because objects orbiting closer to the center of the galaxy move faster and pass up the stars on the end of an arm. | 39 | Most galaxies are formed as disks out of massive gas clouds. These gas clouds have some angular momentum (asking why they are endowed with some spin is a whole other question, one that is be happy to answer...). As the gas cools through a process called "atomic line cooling", the gas generally doesn't want to lose that... | 26 |
[D&D] How long has Asmodeus ruled the Nine Hells? | Yeah, I know there's many different interpretations of his origin but just saying. Has he been the supreme lord of the Hells since the very beginning? Or was he a relatively young (by devil standards) fiend that climbed the ranks and usurped the previous ruler of Hell? | 16 | Asmodeus is the one who made evil mortal. Before him there were evil beings in the Nine Hells, but they were the castoffs of creation, eldritch and unnamed by the gods in their paradise.
This garbage dump of the universe proved the ideal place for Asmodeus to consolidate his power, as he with the *consent* of the gods... | 28 |
[The Matrix] What was the little bug that smith put in Neo? | Near the beginning of the movie, Agent Smith puts a bug in Neo, and it's heavily implied that it is some kind of tracking device at the time (this being before it is revealed what the matrix actually was). Was it a like a "tag" of machine code that could be used to somehow track Neo's position while in the matrix? What... | 23 | It was a program. Within the Matrix every program a program can't just exist as ones and zeroes, in stead it has to manifest in some sort of physical form. It's how the Matrix reads these objects that interact with the actual flow of data that is ordinarily hidden from all the copper tops.
That tracker was essentiall... | 33 |
[Marvel] What would Daredevil's eyesight/vision be like had it been enhanced like all of his other senses? | Based on the augmentation his other senses, such as hearing and smell, went through after the accident, what abilities/traits would his sight gain? How much help would it provide Matt in his pursuit as Daredevil and what impact would it have on him overall? | 81 | There's a Daredevil villain named Ikari who is basically what you're asking for. He has Daredevil's senses and he can see (how well he can see no one knows). He pretty much schooled Matt in every fight lol | 56 |
[General] I have a bit of a ghost problem. I also have a 4 foot long rod of silver. Could I just beat the ghost into leaving my house? | From what I remember Ghosts and other paranormal forces are generally susceptible to silver.
Now I can see this fucker every so often. With his dumb stupid face and constant extra-dimensional horrors that are comparable to lovecraftian deities. But jokes on him, I'm not getting any more mad.
So if I just pick up thi... | 28 | Assuming the rod has the same diameter as the American Silver Eagle you're waving around almost thirty pounds of silver with a market value of about $7,500. Besides being a poor choice of weapons it seems like a strange thing to have around the house. Why are you being haunted again? | 28 |
[Avatar: TLA/K] Where does the firebenders' fire come from? | Firebeding doesn't seem to be like the other bending arts. Airbenders can only bend the air around them, earthbenders the soil and ground beneath their feet/in the area, and waterbenders need to have water handy to bend.
Firebenders, on the other hand, conjure gouts of fire from their fists and feet. Since fire is the... | 35 | All bending stems from a bender focusing and releasing their chi into their natural element through mental and physical exercises. For earth, water and airbenders, this makes nearby pieces of said element move or change depending on the bender's need.
Firebenders are theorized to be most closely related to the ancien... | 59 |
ELI5: Why are a lot of my childhood memories feeling like dreams as I am older looking back? | 27 | They're more distant, and you're further from the context they came to exist in. It's harder to really identify with who you were after so much change in who you are. The experience of 10 year old you is very different from the experience of 20 year old you.
You aren't remembering you, you're remembering you as you w... | 13 | |
[Stargate] What does the SGC think of Giorgio Tsoukalos? | Giorgio Tsoukalos is perhaps most known, at least here on Reddit, for being [the 'Aliens' guy](http://i.imgur.com/lLxCoWM.jpg) from the History channel. We mostly think he's silly because obviously, from our perspectives, the Pyramids were no more built by aliens than they were built as grain silos.
But the US militar... | 51 | Hair guy is a moron and thus provides excellent plausible deniability by espousing viewpoints similar to the truth in an absurd and unbelievable manner.
No reason to shut him down when he helps us maintain cover. | 35 |
[Star Wars] Non-force users | What's the "best" or "proper" approach for a non-force sensitive being to take? Could someone like Han or Admiral Ackbar quiet their mind and listen to the force at all, or is that only for those with force potential? Should they defer all important questions to the Jedi ubermensch and get out of the way? Should the... | 17 | The Force flows through all things. And it guides all of us. Even if you ignore it, the will of The Force will shape your destiny. Luck and chance are just The Force at work, and even if you aren't sensitive to it's ebbs and flows, it works through you. | 20 |
ELI5 : Why do we get irritable when hungry ? | 82 | It has something to do with blood-glucose levels. When you go a long time without food the blood-glucose levels sink and your brain perceives it as life threatening. Also when your blood-glucose levels are low, the body will send out hormones to try to increase glucose levels. Those hormones can also make you feel stre... | 64 | |
ELI5: Why do most people talk to pets with a higher pitched voice? | Most people that I've met talk to their pets, or animals in general, with a higher pitched voice. Why is that? | 15 | Habit and social convention mainly
But pets (especially dogs) tend to respond more positively to higher pitched sounds than lower pitches. Most likely it has to do with the lower pitched sounds (like growls and deep barks) being more aggressive/negative then higher pitcher sounds (yelps, howls, playful barks) etc in t... | 10 |
[Marvel] Danny Rand was the protector of K’un-Lun, a Hero for Hire, and the CEO of Rand Enterprises all at once. How was he able to manage that busy of a schedule? | 20 | You think that's bad? Wolverine was on 2 X Teams, an Avenger, did guest appearances in other people's adventures, solo adventures, and taught and ran a school. He told the Avengers his mutant power was "time management." | 43 | |
ELI5: what is the best analogy explaining vaccination to laypeople? | [edit formatting] I've been trying (for about 2 years now) to come up with a good analogy for the vaccine debate... it's really quite difficult. I'd love to hear others' thoughts.
There are a few important components, and we'll refer to the analogy of vaccination as the "action" being considered for analogy, including... | 15 | Think of your immune system as a bunch of soldiers in a fort. If enemy soldiers get past the patrols and attack the fort, your soldiers might fight them off (you get well) or they might not (you get very ill and possibly die). Going to the hospital to be treated for the infection (calling in reinforcements) can often... | 18 |
[Predator] What does Predator eat and drink while on earth? Can he drink water? | I know he ate frozen beef in the second film, but thats not his preference i assume. and is water a natural drink for him? | 15 | They can drink water fairly easily. Each hunter brings some small provisions with them but usually forages for local food. Anything with meat they usually will eat apparently being obligate carnivores. One IIRC had a small supplement they added to water while with humans but never explained what it's purpose was. If we... | 19 |
What's the name of the phenomenon that happens where you theoretically like or admire characters with similar personalities because you yourself might have these traits? | I saw a thread on twitter of that topic and I found it very interesting but I lost the thread and I forgot the name of the phenomenon | 41 | It's a Freudian concept known as "identification". Where we take positive attributes we observe in others or people we we like/want to become and assimilate them in order to strengthen our sense of self(self-concept). | 30 |
If inflation is the comparison of this year's price vs last year's price doesn't that mean that next year inflation will be much lower? Because we're comparing prices before the war in Ukraine and Supply Chain issues and next year we're comparing prices that already have this priced in? | 67 | For some prices like commodities where pricing is very flexible and moves around a lot, we could definitely see that. In reality, pricing is often very rigid for the vast majority of items. Once prices go up, they often stay up.
The single most important determinant of inflation is actually wages, which informs not ju... | 38 | |
ELI5:Why is masturbation viewed as something you shouldn't do? | Why is masturbation viewed as something bad, that you should hold yourself as much as possible from doing, isn't it a healthy habit?
Howcome such a normal activity become a thing that gets shamed upon? | 23 | Primitive cultures knew that sex made babies, and that semen was ejaculated into the woman during sex. However they had no idea about sperm; semen was seen either as pure "life force", or to actually be composed of tiny infants. Both of these formed fears about there being a limited supply available to a person, such t... | 56 |
ELI5: What's so good about those really expensive complicated watches ? | Title | 75 | Come check out /r/watches.
There are varying degrees of complication/expensiveness.
The short answer is - most of these watches are mechanical rather than battery operated. Essentially they are entirely mechanical, no electricity, and require a high degree of engineering. People (myself included) find this fascinat... | 54 |
(Star Wars vs. 40k) Is there any chance that the Empire could defeat the Imperium in an all out war? | It seems to me that the 40K universe doesn't ever lose, so is there a chance for the Galactic Empire to defeat only the Imperium? i feel like it would be a great fight regardless of the victor. | 41 | The Imperium's Space Marines would completely devastate the Empire's Stormtroopers. Stormtroopers are clones of Jango Fett, and that's about all they have going for them. Space Marines are something else entirely. Here's a list of the genetic implants that a Space Marine is given in order to become a Space Marine. I've... | 38 |
Why is it so difficult to reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity? | What exactly is quantum mechanics and what about it opposes general relativity? I read that it has to do with gravity, but I couldn't find an easy-to-understand explanation. | 97 | You haven't found an easy-to-understand explanation because there isn't one. General relativity and quantum mechanics are themselves quite elaborate theories, and trying to understand why they can't simply be merged is a complicated, technical issue.
What can be said is that given a classical force law, there is a st... | 47 |
[Star Trek/Star Wars/General] How do Shields work? | I'm just wondering how these things are supposed to work? What kind of energy creates an invisible physical barrier that can stop physical objects, and particle beams, yet still lets sound and light through? Since sound and light go through, does that mean they can develop weapons that go through shields as well?
Also... | 79 | Different universes use different methods for energy shields.
The simplest is usually based on simple electrostatic repulsion without a proton-based nucleus. You know how solid matter is solid, as in you have to apply a lot of force to go *through* it? Well, a significant component of that is electrostatic repulsion. ... | 64 |
ELI5: How does a spinning drum of concrete keep it from hardening? | 19 | It doesn't.
If you're wondering why cement trucks rotate their drum it is to keep the contents well mixed. Continuous mixing helps delay setting by not allowing any one part to get drier than the whole mass. It will still harden eventually though no matter how much you mix it. | 10 | |
[sitcoms] Why are all these apartments laid out so strangely? | Every apartment has these weird floor plans with strange closets and hallways that seem to lead nowhere. What is going on with these apartments? | 57 | Have you ever wondered why the rooms in sitcoms or usually so brightly lit, even when most of the lights appear to be off?
Or how a bunch of twenty-thirty year olds with odd jobs that give them so much free time can afford spacious, multi bedroom apartments in Manhattan?
All of their apartments are so messed up tha... | 81 |
[Stargate SG-1] Why didn't the Asgard used older DNA samples for there cloning? | As we know the Asgard used cloning as means of procreation or rather sustain there species.
Sadly since they where using the DNA provided by the previous clone there species started to deteriorate. Carter compares it to "making a copy of a copy of a copy".
I know that when they started to use cloning they didn't kno... | 19 | DNA is only part of the problem. The other problem is that Asgard bodies (as they existed in the early 21st century) were the only kind that could safely house Asgard *minds*.
The Asgard have spent millenia copying their memories and personalities into cloned bodies to achieve immortality. They can't survive any othe... | 18 |
Is there a measurement scale for stickiness? | 491 | The technical term would be "tack" or "tackiness".
Measurement is force per unit area, in case of tensile tack.
Generally used with viscoelastic materials, whose properties are often affected by shear rate. So, tack can depend on the properties of the substrate(s), the adhesive(s), geometry, and the rate at which th... | 358 | |
I think taxes are good for freedom, and libertarians have been tricked by the rich. CMV | There was a long facebook thread on this point after the Pope started shit talking capitalism, and it made me realize something. I no longer understand people who tell me that they think taxes should be radically lowered and most government services privatized.
I think that everyone who holds this opinion has been mo... | 203 | Let's first agree upon a definition for "freedom", e.g. "the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action".
By that definition, taxes, by their very nature, limit freedom, in that you must pay them, and are threatened with force if you choose not to pay. | 107 |
If I move both my index fingers at once, am I sending one signal to both hands, or am I sending 2 individual signals? Is there a signal queue? | 26 | Lots of signals!
How are you moving your index finger? Just a quick movement and then stop? Sustained goal-tracking? Sustained proximal extension?
There is a swirl of signals operating between prefrontal cortex (probably both sides), supplementary motor cortex (probably both sides) and primary motor cortex (primarily... | 21 | |
ELI5: No Child Left Behind Act? The Good? The Bad? Everything? | 29 | *How do we measure results?* Standardized testing.
*When do we measure results?* Why not every couple years, starting in third grade.
*But third graders don't know how to take standardized tests.* Teach them how.
*What results were we measuring again?* Uh, ability to pass standardized tests. | 25 | |
ELI5: how does a computer trackpad or a phone screen tell if a finger is touching it or a brick? | Im asking because a finger will work, but no matter how hard you push with a brick nothing will happen. | 27 | Basically, behind the screen is a big grid of tiny capacitors. As our finger gets close to them, the electrical current changes due to the interaction with our body. Our charge reacts with their charge. The system is optimised to respond within the ranges that we produce. | 29 |
What are some obvious issues in academia, nobody wants to talk about? | Like inter-departmental politics, everybody knows but people rarely talk about it to resolve it. | 211 | Expectations that a single academic will do everything - teach, do cutting edge research, manage people, do admin work, write papers, communicate science to general public, service equipment and so on. No support staff, no division of work between people, you need to do everything and be excellent in every aspect. | 341 |
ELI5: How a mortgage works | 28 | You want a house. But you don't have $125k or so.
A bank says "here, take $125k, buy that house, and you can just pay me over the next 30 years".
So you agree, because you want a house, and you pay them a certain amount every month over 30 years. You'll end up paying them more than $125k though because of interest,... | 24 | |
[LotR] what happened to all the ent wives? | It was a comment made by Tree beard that he had lost them. What happened to them? | 56 | The Ents and Entwives both loved all growing things, but where the Ents preferred to live among the wild trees of the forests, the Entwives preferred to plant and tend. So the Ents stayed in the forests, but the Entwives had great gardens where they lived. Because they lived in the open, the Entwives were much more wid... | 82 |
I just read that space has a near absolute zero temperature but wouldn't a vacuum technically not have a temperature? | Temperature is a measure of the motion of particles in a mass and space should be a vacuum which has no particles. Am I missing something? | 18 | Space is not a vacuum.
> Outer space is the void that exists between celestial bodies, including the Earth. It is not completely empty, but consists of a hard vacuum containing a low density of particles: predominantly a plasma of hydrogen and helium, as well as electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields, and neutr... | 15 |
Eli5: the differences between decibels (dB) and weighted decibels (dBA) | 99 | Decibels (dB) is the "raw" measure of sound, whereas dBA take into account human perception. A person with normal hearing will not perceive all the frequencies of a sound equally. So dBA takes into account the natural filter of the human ear to give a more realistic idea of the sound's impact on your health.
dBA us... | 88 | |
[Demolition Man]How did Taco Bell win the franchise wars? | 16 | The history of Demolition Man differs slightly from our own. In their world, Taco Bell never got in trouble for using less than the required amount of meat in their "beef" (20%) and as such, never raised quality, which raised their expenses. Because meat patties need a higher amount of beef to keep a meat taste and s... | 15 | |
How is adblock plus able to remove the ads that stream before youtube videos? | Also I believe it removes ads that are overlayed on top of the video. How does it do that? How hard would it be for youtube to detect and prevent this? | 55 | > How does it do that? How hard would it be for youtube to detect and prevent this?
Adblock programs work by reading the instructions to build the webpage, and telling the browser not to follow certain ones.
To prevent that, YouTube would need to make the ads indistinguishable from other content, to the browser. | 28 |
[Fallout 2] Help! My home invader won't leave me be! | Please help, I am in a desperate situation. I have a small, humble home in klamath, and there was this wastelander claiming he was the "chosen one" or whatever, damned junkies. Anyway, this particular junky got himself a full suit of power armor, and he won't stop rummaging through my shelves and asking me more questio... | 18 | Cry me an irradiated bloatfly infested river. Most people contend with super mutants gangs, or roving ghoul hordes, or even actual armies of those power suit guys, and your problem is one dude and his buddy who just wants to go through your stuff? He’s obviously insane but at least he won’t kill you immediately like ev... | 16 |
[DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE] if Jekyll had not been such a repressed Victorian, would Hyde have been a mere rascal? | 16 | In the original fiction, yes.
Jekyll wasn't a good person- or to be more accurate, he was only a good person because he was scared of consequences. Mr Hyde wasn't a hulk style alternate personality- it was Jekyll but unaccountable. He was doing what he always wanted to do, secure in the knowledge that any consequences... | 23 | |
ELI5: How long do you have to be exposed to an environment where viruses are active to actually catch cold? | 19 | A cold is a virus, which is a tiny little creature that is not quite alive, which you usually breathe in or eat.
It only takes one individual viron to infect you, but first it has to run the gauntlet of your body’s defence system.
You have a whole army ready to defend you against viruses. The first is in your no... | 26 | |
CMV: Telling an underrepresented group in any media (games/movies etc) to go "make it their own stuff" is a completely valid option. | Asians underrepresented in media in the West? Well they got Korean, Chinese, Indian and Japanese cinema/media. Not only that but these became global phenomenons and attracted tons of interest to the respective countries. We have all heard of K-Dramas, K-Pop, Bollywood, Anime, J-Dramas, J-Pop and various martial arts mo... | 28 | > Secondly, why would one group want another group to attempt to represent them properly?
They are Americans. Those K-dramas and Bollywood are representing Koreans and Indians, not minority groups in America.
> For a more western successor story with regards to this, look no further than Marvel’s Black Panthe... | 18 |
[Avatar: TLA and LoK] Which form of bending would be most conducive to "single-time" counters? | "Single-time" describes [moves that simultaneously defend against the opponent's strike and delivers an attack, all in one motion.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLZafalHG1E&list=LLGdAAwXpUEIbE8q-x9Quk_A&index=476) The closest thing I could find was "jing", which describes the general tactics and strategies u... | 54 | To be clear, all forms of bending can accomplish this sort of maneuver. However, some are more philosophically suited to it.
Firebending, for example, uses aggression *as* a defense. Because their element in so dangerous to come in contact with, constant aggression actually provides a defensive zone as well: if a fire... | 68 |
[Star Wars] How does an Astromech Droid fit into the sockets of the Aethersprite- and Actis-class Starfighters? | Seriously. Their entire lower half just disappears, and I doubt they just take-apart and re-assemble the droid just to make it fit. | 17 | In terms of the original Aethersprite, they didn't. The fighter could not accommodate a full sized astromech, so they commonly used truncated astromechs wired directly into the figher's systems. Later, the Delta-7B was introduced which made room for a full sized droid socket.
The Actis was designed for a full astro... | 14 |
ELI5: How do heat-seeking missiles work? do they work exactly like in the movies? | 9,506 | Early ones were really simplistic and just pointed the missile to the hottest thing it sensor could detect, be that a planes exhaust, the sun or flares (decoys). They had limited steering ability and only worked when shot at a plane from behind it (called "rear-aspect"), and even then weren't that reliable.
Modern o... | 7,007 | |
If a radioactive isotope is accelerated near c, will the decay slow down or remain the same relative to observer? | I would assume the decay would slow down, but the more I think on it, the less I'm confident. | 82 | It will be slower.
For example, when cosmic rays hit the atmosphere, they can produce muons. A muon is more or less like an big electron and its lifetime is only 2 µs.
So if you don't consider the time dilation, a muon cannot travel more than 2 µs times 300000 km/s = 0.6 km. So you wouldn't expect them to reach the gro... | 153 |
[Doctor Who] Why all the fuss over how awesome the Tardis is when a Vortex Manipulator can do Time Travel so much better? | Jack and River swear by it. No losing it, no turning up in the wrong time, portable, easy, better. Makes the Time Lords tech look pretty crappy. | 87 | >no turning up in the wrong time
What are you talking about? One of the first times we see one used, it misses its target by about 150 years and then breaks.
The Tardis can go anywhere and anywhen and do things like take the full force of a supernova without any damage in order to make the equivalent of a long-di... | 91 |
ELI5: Why does it feel good to crack your back? | Like after sitting in an awkward position for a while or something, why does cracking your back feel so good?! | 21 | > Like most of the joints, there are calcium bubbles that build up in the joints. When you crack a joint, you release these bubbles which, in your case, could relieve the pressure and "feel good".
No, calcium is a metal it doesn't form bubbles:P
You are referring to calcification, which is the accumulation of calc... | 11 |
[Marvel] Where's my hovercar / jetpack? Iron Man is just around the corner. The Fantastic Four have a building in Manhattan. I suspect the SHIELD helicarrier is hiding underneath the Hudson. Why can't I buy a hoverboard for my morning commute? | Let's say I work in an office in Manhattan, NY. I live in New Jersey, and I take a bridge or a tunnel in to work, which means my commute is terrible, but it's just too expensive to live in New York. One wall of my cubicle is an exterior wall, so I'm lucky enough to have a window. I've lost count of the number of tim... | 18 | You know what else is common with the spandex crowd? Money and resources, and lots of it. Even your SHEILD operatives have lots of backing that the average Joe doesn't have.
If you want a jetpack, they are out there for you to get. They're just too expensive for retail production at a price point that makes them a... | 14 |
ELI5: Why is ice so slippery? | 6,564 | According to live science:
>A century and a half of scientific inquiry has yet to determine why ice can make you fall down. Scientists agree that a thin layer of liquid water on top of solid ice causes its slipperiness, and that a fluid's mobility makes it difficult to walk on, even if the layer is thin. But there'... | 5,138 | |
ELI5: If we can store up to 128GB on a micro SD card, why are we still using big bulky hard drives in computers? | Why not just use SD cards for all storage purposes?
Also, if we can compress files and make them way smaller than their original size (.zip), why don't we just store files that way all the time? | 1,237 | * they are more expensive
* they wear out more quickly
* we do, they are called solid state drives (SSDs)
* SD *cards* typically have slower read and write speeds (as pointed out by brunoa)
As for zip files, they are kind of like a toolbox. When you aren't using them, everything is packed away neatly. But while you ... | 924 |
ELI5 - Why is there an inner (Rocky planets) and outer (Gas planets) ring system? Why are they different and how were they created? | 60 | \*Roughly\* speaking the general model is that our solar system formed out of a cloud of gas and dust, which collapsed under the influence of its own gravity (possibly after receiving a nudge from, say, an exploding star). It was spinning, and because spinning things spin faster as they contract (like an ice skater pu... | 51 | |
Why does the shadow of a bottle of water show up as a "dark" shadow even though water is clear, and the bottle is clear. | Context:
I was holding a bottle of water and looked down at the shadow of it and it was showing up as a "shadow" and not like I expected. The shimmer was showing up on the ground, but the shadow was basically like if I had motor oil in the bottle. Weird question, but it doesn't make sense to me. | 16 | A bottle of water is basically a sort of misshapen lens. If you take a proper lens and try the same thing, you'll see it casts a shadow except where it's focusing light. The light that would shine where the shadow is has been diverted to the bright spot. The effect is just less obvious for the bottle, because it's f... | 18 |
I don't know how hard this is to answer but... About how many healthy people would need to survive the Apocalypse to repopulate the earth without inbreeding? | 37 | If you survive and just a fraction of humanity remains, inbreeding should be the least of your concerns.
Bottlenecked populations will go through inbreeding depression, but then will generally recover over geologic time.
An effective population size of 100 is pretty good for avoiding the worst effects, 1000 is quite ... | 31 | |
CMV: Black Panther (i.e. the movie itself, the hype surrounding it, and its very positive reception) was first and foremost about politics and the actual quality of the film was an afterthought. | So I'm not a big fan of theaters. Too expensive, too crowded, and if I want to drink during the film I have to smuggle in a flask. Bleh. Not my cup of tea. As a consequence I didn't get around to watching Black Panther until recently when it was added to Netflix. So I'm a little late to the discussion, but hopefully th... | 79 | >If you could box up the whole MCU collection and ship it off to an alternate reality where people didn't really care about race and had no conception of racial history and contemporary racial tensions (aside from what they learned in the movie), Black Panther wouldn't stand out in the slightest.
Wouldn't stand out... | 25 |
[MCU] How well can you hear Tony talking to Jarvis/Friday if you're standing next to Iron Man? | 203 | Not unless he turned on his external speakers, no. Which, being Tony, he's likely to do - the bigger the audience, the better. But if he was trying to get his AI to setup a sneak attack or something that required privacy, then no: he doesn't have to be heard by those nearby if he doesn't want to. | 167 | |
ELI5: What instrument/equipment is disrupted by my active cellphone when flying on a modern airplane? | 76 | None.
Aircraft instrumentation may have been possibly affected by early cell phones and walkmans etc., **but now they're designed with cell frequencies and interference in mind.
No, the reason why they want you to put your devices away is so you're _paying attention._ Paying attention to the safety briefing, paying... | 117 | |
ELI5: How does concrete work on a molecular level? It goes from powder to chalky to wet to rock hard - what exactly is happening that makes it so shapeable and suddenly strong? | 33 | The chemical principle is called “water of hydration”. Concrete doesn’t dry out like paint. It cures by combining the water into a chemical bond. The reaction is also highly exothermic, meaning it gives off heat, a LOT of heat. If concrete can’t give off the heat, it remains liquid. When Hoover Dam was built, they... | 38 | |
[Star Wars] Which religion should I join? | I'm force-sensitive. The Jedi are trying to recruit me, but Jedi aren't allowed to fall in love and it really doesn't look like much fun. And there's a member of Sith that came to my house in secret and tried to recruit me, but apparently I'm supposed to kill my master and later be killed by my apprentice, and I don't ... | 44 | The Jedi aren't trying to recruit you. You obviously weren't born in the Republic and trained as a youngling, and they aren't going to train you now, you're being played. Real Sith are as creepy and evil as this guy who came to your house appears to be. But there is no reason for a Sith Lord to show up at your house an... | 61 |
ELI5: Why does hollywood produce these straight to video movies which are clearly terrible and how do they manage to get good actors in them? | 171 | Another often overseen aspect of this is to keep the "side-industries" busy and flourishing, because the studios depend on them so badly for their major blockbusters. And this could include everything from hair stylists, to on-set catering services, animation artists, CGI modelers, camera and gear lenders etc.
For the... | 62 | |
ELI5: why is is still hard to fall asleep when you’re sleep deprived? | 59 | When you're sleepy but want it need to stay awake, your body will produce a bunch of chemicals that will help you do so - adrenalin and others, depending on a number of factors.
When you finally want to go to sleep, but your body is still flooded with those, is going to be pretty hard until they're reabsorbed. If you ... | 48 | |
ELI5: How are we able to measure space? | For example, I read about the Pillars of Creation and how they’re 4 light years tall and that equates to something like 23 trillion miles long. How do we know that it’s 4 light years long?
Or another example, the galaxy that we’re in is 100,000 light years wide or something like that. How do we possibly know that?
A... | 136 | There are several methods to calculate the distance of a celestial body. Which one is used depends on the exact circumstance. Here are some of the most important methods:
---
* **Parallax**: Earth orbits the sun. In the process of this orbit, we change our position in space relative to a celestial body (just like you... | 89 |
ELI5:How do physicists use complex equations to explain black holes, etc. and understand their inner workings? | In watching various science shows or documentaries, at a certain point you might see a physicist working through a complex equation on a chalkboard. What are they doing? How is this equation telling them something about the universe or black holes and what's going on inside of them?
Edit: Whoa, I really appreciate all... | 1,306 | Imagine you have a box with two holes. You can't see inside of the box, so you're limited to interacting with it through the holes. But you want to learn about the box.
You see that if you put a marble in one hole, half a marble comes out of the other. You notice that if you put eight marbles in one hole, four marbles... | 1,979 |
[Star Trek]Is it accurate to describe the Ferengi as Anarcho-capitalists? | 19 | No. The Ferengi Alliance has a very powerful and intrusive centralized state whose rules and regulations permeates throughout the entire Ferengi alliance and touches upon any contract between Ferengi. The very rules of Acquisition (which are legally binding) are contrary to the "anarcho" part of anarcho-capitalism (AC)... | 47 | |
Are there any good resources to study Foucault's Madness and Civilization? | Spark notes leaves out a good amount of content in each chapter and I find it generally lacking in the book. Are there any supplemental resources to hell make sense of what Foucault is saying? | 62 | There is a podcast called Philosophise This which covers Foucault extensively, as well as most other philosophy topics (it's a long going podcast). Things are looked at seriously, with quotes, explanations, counter arguments etc. You can find it on Google Podcasts and just look for the Foucault episodes. | 21 |
Is there a fundamental difference between tornadoes and dust devils, or is it *just* a matter of size? | Are they formed by similar (yet differently scaled) causes, or are they, at their root, different beasts that merely *resemble* each other?
Does there exist a smooth spectrum (continuum) of possible sizes, or is there a clear jump from dust devils to tornadoes, with nothing in between? | 43 | Tornadoes begin a rapid rotation of extremely powerful super cells. The rapid rotation concentrates and accelerates, and wind shear causes it to descend to ground level. Dust devils are small low pressure vortices caused by rising thermals and the backfill of air along the ground. Fairly benign, but in theory could ... | 12 |
ELI5:Why does soup make you feel better when you're sick? | 28 | It's easily digested and generally warm which needs less energy to absorb. It provides fluids, nutrients, and calories very easily. On to of that, the placebo effect from having been told your whole life that it works. | 47 | |
Why are the violent drug cartels not considered terrorist groups? | 40 | A "terrorist" is a person who is trying to use terror (fear) to influence politics.
The drug cartels aren't in it for the politics. They're in it for the money. So that makes them not terrorists, just regular criminals.
| 38 | |
[Pokemon] How strong are the regional Champions in comparison with each other? | So each region has a Champion who theoretically has done everything the player has to get to their position: beat all the gym leaders, the Elite Four, and probably the previous reigning champ if there was one. The exception to this is Alola, where Elio/Selene is the first person to reach that rank and just has tonight ... | 55 | /r/whowouldwin probably would give you better answers. (If you do repost it there let me know, I’d like to see the responses.)
I’m thinking Steven’s got a pretty good chance for the top slot. Multiple mons with Sturdy and a mega Metagross are nothing to sneeze at. Cynthia’s also top-tier with her nasty Garchomp, ba... | 39 |
ELI5: How do magnified mirrors work? And why do they seem blurry if you look into them from a distance? | 17 | A lens is a piece of glass that bends light so that the rays converge to a single point. If you bend a mirror it will make all the beams converge in the same pint, so it’s the same as a lens, only instead of passing light through, it reflects it, so both the observer and the object are on the same side, or in this case... | 13 | |
Why is Ebola so successful this time around? | Ebola has appeared many times, killing less than 100 people each time, and then it is gone. Why is it killing so many more people today? Is this a new strain with better propagation characteristics? What has changed? | 25 | Africa has changed, not Ebola. There are now more than a billion people in Africa, in the 80's, less than half that. With more people packed into bigger cities and more people pushing out into the rural areas, and with faster transportation between the bush and the cities, it was only a matter of time before Ebola go... | 26 |
ELI5: If two photons approach each other, what is their relative velocity? | 43 | You'd initially think that they'd perceive each other as double the speed of light, but that's actually not true. The speed of light, in a vacuum is the same for all observers no matter what their speed is. So, two photons approaching each other at c (speed of light) will perceive each other approaching at c and their ... | 34 | |
Heidegger's the nothing | Can somebody give me a relatively straightforward account of Heidegger's concept of nothing? Especially in relation to his essay What is Metaphysics?
| 23 | The key to this text is the line where Heidegger says that the sciences "look at beings a whole, an nothing else," and repeats a similar line three times. He then says: "Yet what is *this* nothing?" That is, the "nothing" indicated by this phrase "nothing else." As the essay eventually reveals, in reference to Hegel's ... | 26 |
[Marvel] Would the restraints binding Scarlett Witch at the end of Civil War actually be able to stop her? | If she could escape what would the chances of her being able to free the rest and mounting an escape without the help of Cap? | 23 | In that moment it evidently was enough, but MCU Scarlett Witch seems to still be scratching the surface of her power potential, at least if we assume she's suppose to be as potentially powerful as her comic counterpart.
If the ceiling for her abilities is as high, then she'd potentially could escape given enough time... | 13 |
[Game of Thrones] King Tommen's inability to act. | So I'm really confused by this whole King Tommen situation. He's the ruler of the Iron Throne. He had a huge powerful army behind him. So he just have dozens of high level military officials and advisors to aid him.
So why are his mother and his wife still locked up by some crazies? why hasn't one of his Generals com... | 20 | Do you not remember the Riot of King's Landing? And that was *before* hordes of refugees from the war streamed into the city - zealous refugees at that. Once again the city is pretty much ready to burst and its only those advisors that are keeping the balance and stopping everything exploding again.
If Tommen waged wa... | 43 |
[Spider-Man: Far From Home] Why would he trust Peter with...? (Spoilers) | Why would Tony trust Peter (of all people) with the entire Stark Global Security Network (of all things)? Here's a refresher of what EDITH tells Peter when they first meet:
> I have access to the entire Stark global security network, including multiple defense satellites, as well as back doors to all major telecomm... | 195 | Peter was the only person Tony could trust with that level of power; everyone else, even those closest to him, had flaws or personality quirks that made them untenable.
Pepper has never loved Tony's adventurism. She's happy as CEO, and was willing to don a suit when the literal fate of half the universe hung in the ba... | 185 |
ELI5:Why and how are bats able to hang upside down for long periods of time without all the blood rushing to their heads like it would for a human? | 77 | Due to gravity, blood is pulled towards your feet. Because humans stand up perfectly straight (a trait unique to us amongst mammals) your entire vascular system is designed to pump blood towards your head stronger than towards your feet; this counteracts gravity and results in healthy blood flow.
Because bats spend so... | 61 | |
ELI5: Why do schools in the U.S punish their students so harshly? | I've been seeing several posts about how schools in the U.S suspend and expel their students for what appear to be minor misdemeanours, here in the UK when I was at school you really had to go out of your way to get suspended for longer than a day. | 42 | 3 major reasons.
1) Everyone became somewhat insane because of school shootings here, so they can put the color of sense on stupid approaches to school violence. So having an overkill policy about "weapons" is not treated as being as dumb as it ought to be.
2) Schools can be sued by parents, and often are, for stu... | 65 |
How are we able to locate and measure planets hundreds of light years away yet unable to see the hypothesized planet beyond Pluto? | Based on gravitational pull some scientists have proposed a possible 10th planet that lies beyond Pluto which should have a sizable mass. Given this technique has been used successfully in the past to discover Neptune before we had been able to see it, that would suggest it is somewhat plausible there is something a... | 47 | The way we observe exoplanets is quite different from how we observe planets in our own solar system.
For a planet in our own solar system, we either have to observe it directly by registering the light coming from it, or deduce its presence because of the impact its gravity has on objects that we can see directly.
T... | 92 |
Solution for combating eye-strain? | On Friday I read over 100 abstracts and just about killed myself. What would you suggest to help combat eye-strain?
​
I'm trying to work in eye-breaks, but it's tough when I'm "in the groove". A friend suggested LASIK to keep me from being dependent on my glasses. I also thought a new laptop with a higher ... | 40 | Let me suggest to you:
- Install F.lux
- Every 30 min make a brake, move you body and look at distance
- have small external source of light thats not your monitor. Buy lamp with option to dim the light, have light in different colors
- put antiglare coating on your glasses
- put cotton wool soaked in tea from c... | 44 |
[MCU] After the events of Civil War, Peter Parker decides to train his body to be stronger and faster while seeking out someone to teach him how to fight. What would be the best and most logical way he can go about in completing all these things? | Tell me your thoughts. | 498 | Just adapt non-weightlifting techniques. Spidey's strong enough that finding heavier weights to lift would be a waste of his time.
Wanna be faster? Do sprints. Do shuttle runs. Push harder every time. Go webswinging and challenge yourself to cover the same ground faster and faster. The goal isn't to beat the time some... | 424 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.