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With bitcoin-like cryptocurrencies, how does a person know whether the blockchain they have is up to date? | I understand that the blockchain of a cryptocurrency is essentially a public ledger of all the transactions in that currency, and that it's used to prevent duplicate transactions from occurring as well as tracking all the balances. How can a single client know whether or not the blockchain that it has contains the full... | 15 | Bitcoin and other similar crypto-currency protocols are operated by a network of nodes using peer to peer communication. Transactions and transaction blocks are broadcast to every node. Each bitcoin client connects to many nodes when it is started and it requests to many different peers all the transactions and blocks ... | 13 |
ELI5: How do restaurants manage to keep sliced avocados green for hours, but 5 minutes after I cut mine at home, it starts to turn brown? | 19 | You coat them with something acidic to prevent the oxidation that causes the brown color. This can be lemon/lime juice (like you use in guacamole) or ascorbic acid (vitamin C) or other acidic food items. You also restrict the oxygen from getting to it by covering it with plastic wrap. | 27 | |
ELI5: Why do so many organisms, like mammals, need sleep to a degree that it makes it a requirement to live like food and water, while other organisms don't sleep at all? |
Sleep does a lot of things here and there, but has there been a thesis pin pointing the exact thing that absolutley requires sleep? Could it be that the brain, even the ones not as evolved as the human ones, can not go on for long without rest due to their bio-chemistry or something like that? Very primitive "brains"... | 26 | No-one really knows for sure why we sleep, but it’s not just mammals that sleep. The most compelling theory that I’ve heard is that sleep is when your brain is able to get rid of waste products that build up during your waking hours, however most organisms, including those that don’t have brains, have some kind of day-... | 20 |
ELI5:How does the Bible explain dinosaurs? | According to the Christian faith, God created man and woman. How does that explain dinosaurs?
> Wanting actual advice, not hating on relgion
> > I'm just curious | 21 | Worth pointing out that the bible is made up from texts that are about 1900 years old. Dinosaurs have only really been recognised in the last 200 years. The area in which the bible came about is not somewhere with particularly good fossil bearing geology so it's not a theme the bible ever had to deal with. | 61 |
What makes plastic so cheap and easy to produce as opposed to any other material? | 76 | Polyethylene, polystyrene, and most plastics are made from leftovers after fuel is produced from oil. Plastics are effectively subsidized by gas sales, and are effectively a waste stream.
One of the interesting consequences of moving towards renewable energy will be higher plastic prices. It will be interesting watch... | 83 | |
ELI5: Why are graphic cards so expensive? And why do AMD and Nvidia not have much competition? | Why are there no 'Chinese' knock-offs for graphic cards? If there was more competition, the big two (AMD and Nvidia) would have to reduce their prices. If there are so many Chinese phones on the market that do reasonably well, why not for graphic cards? After all, it's just hardware, just like in phones. | 69 | The key to a graphics card is the graphics chip (the GPU), and as you rightly note, there are only a couple of major players for graphics cards. (Intel is also a major player for integrated graphics chips to go onto PC motherboards.) These chips are very difficult to design and make, and the 2 big companies are rapidl... | 47 |
Why is light the only thing that travels at the speed of light? | I know that there is nothing that goes faster than the speed of light. But why is light the only thing that goes that fast? Is there anything that goes just as fast as light? | 32 | The thing is that the speed of light isn't just some arbitrary speed that light moves at and then nothing can go faster than it. You could say the speed of light (approx. 300,000 km/s) is like a universal "top speed." Anything without mass will travel at that speed, with electromagnetic waves (light) being the prime ex... | 21 |
[New Vegas] Where do the ghouls' tickets end up? | Aside from the optional crasharoni ending, where are the rockets designed to take the cult to? Does a 12% accuracy increase make much of a impact for them? | 18 | It's not explicitly stated where they're going, however from what Jason Bright says some people have theorised that he is alluding to The Glow, a West Tek research facility in Southern California (where Fallout 1 takes place). It would make sense from a Ghoul's point of view for a holy site (where better than a heavily... | 28 |
ELI5 how are DVDs mass produced. | Title says it all. | 60 | It's hard to think about at first because everyone has a CD burner now. You think "how can they make millions of these" without spending a ton of a bunch of CD burners.
But CDs made in factories are actually different than CDs you burn. CDs in factories are actually full of tiny little bumps. It's actually basically t... | 65 |
[Harry Potter] I just acquired a House Elf... I have a few questions... | Namely - I was informed by the seller that I musn't give my house elf clothes, else he will become free. He told me of one instance of a well known wizard losing his House Elf by giving it an old book with a sock in it - he didn't even mean to?
With this in mind, how do I safely get my house elf to do my laundry witho... | 71 | Ok, the house elves and clothes thing is kinda open to interpretation, on the part of the elf. Most elves are quite happy to be subservient, they have a biological drive for it after all. Dobby wanted to be free, and chose to interpret Lucius giving him that sock as letting him go.
That said, just don't pass it the la... | 98 |
CMV: Accusations of Mansplaining or Whitesplaining are inherently Ad Hominem attacks, and therefore should not be taken seriously in the context of a discussion or debate. | Much has been written about tendencies within the Social Justice movement to censor or limit the expression of viewpoints with which they do not agree. One of the ways this is done is through the concept of Mansplaining, or the more recent Whitesplaining. The idea is that there is an often occurring trope of men speaki... | 46 | These terms are colloquial ways of describing particular phenomena. It's in a similar vein to describing someone as being on an Ivory Tower. It's not something another person wants to hear about him or herself, but it's not designed to insult the listener. There are definitely subject matters where perspective is ge... | 16 |
ELI5: Who owns the internet? | 15 | You can own a connection, but not the entity. In much the same way you can say this part of the planet is america's - but you can't say the entire planet is america's (thought that won't stop some people from trying to say it).
The internet is similar, it's not confined to any single space or machine, it's an enormous... | 11 | |
CMV: Engaging in a relationship that is knowingly susceptible to being dysfunctional is unethical as it can cause more suffering than being alone. | To be more specific, I'm talking about relationships where one or both parties have extreme anxious and/or avoidant tendencies that can make it be susceptible to dysfunctionality and abuse, even if it is unintended. My argument is that because these characteristics hold so much destructive potential in relationships, i... | 15 | I can't speak on neurological based mental disorders like schizophrenia, but several personality and mood disorders like anxiety are actually improved with time and exposure and support from others. That is to say if a anxious person or someone with BPD or whatnot wants to get to the point where they can be in relation... | 12 |
Will the continents eventually connect to recreate Pangea? | 67 | Not Pangaea, but another supercontinent. There have been multiple supercontinents in the past and plate tectonics probably aren't stopping any time soon.
Not all supercontinents consist of all 7 of today's continents, but there were still supercontinents before Pangaea that did. Pangaea is notable mostly for being the... | 65 | |
ELI5: How do we distinguish the sound from two different instruments playing the same tune when they produce the same frequency? | On a physical level, what's the difference between sound waves from two different sound sources that produce sound of the same frequency? Do the sound waves from a piano have some inherent difference to those of a violin or a trumpet? | 166 | Basically, the frequency we assign each note on an instrument is only the main, or loudest, frequency that's being produced. If you listen to a sine wave, what you're hearing is just a particular frequency and nothing else. When you listen to something like a piano or a violin, you're hearing that particular frequency,... | 78 |
[Star Wars] I'm a parent who wants a nanny for my children. Is it cheaper to buy Shmi Skywalker or a servant droid? Which is a better choice? | 15 | Shmi is cheaper, of course, but will cost more in the long-term in fuel and repairs. She also might be hard to discipline (slaves are notoriously resentful). Any decent protocol droid can handle most nanny functions. They can clean diapers, but usually get some of it in their joints. Just get one of those oil baths.
B... | 29 | |
Why does America(among others) have different laws for different states and other countries just have the same laws throughout the country. | 42 | Federalism!
American federalism emerged from the particular way in which the states declared independence from Britain-becoming, in effect, separate countries-and then joined together to form a confederation and then a single nation. Recall that the framers of the Constitution turned to federalism as a middle-ground... | 44 | |
ELI5: Why is the production of iron atoms a sign that a star is dying? | If I’m not mistaken, most elements were forged in the cores of stars at the beginning of the universe. Supposedly, when a star starts making iron atoms, that means it’s dying. Why is that? | 23 | A star is big and shines bright. Most stars have hydrogen, element #1. Stars are so big and strong that they can squeeze four hydrogen atoms together to make element #2: helium. When stars fuse atoms together, usually it releases energy that makes the star shine bright. The star keeps doing this and they can make all s... | 40 |
[Star Wars] during the Clone Wars how did Count Dooku justify using the droid army and that campaigns against the night sisters and against Darth Maul. when both of those they probably lost thousands of troops that were probably needed on the front lines against the Republic. | 32 | Part of the reason the droid army was seen as an equivalent fighting force to the superior trained clones, able to hardline the Republic in the initial year of the war and maintain a heavy presence throughout, and could have won had they not been part of a puppet war designed to centralize the opponent into an Empire i... | 39 | |
ELI5: How do we know the exact position of our solar system in the Milky Way? | I have always been amazed by this pictures portraying our location in the Universe. I know that this pictures are representations but, how the scientists know in fact that we are located in that exact place in the Galaxy?
| 287 | Imagine you live in NY. You can know your distance to Chicago, to Washington and to Tulsa, and you know the distsnce from all those cities to the other ones. You can draw a triangle knowing three of these distances, so you can draw a map of all the cities (I am 'supposing' here a flat Earth, to simplify).
So science ... | 68 |
Was Apollo 11's route precalculated and launched independently or did the crew have to fly it manually? If so, how much impact did the crew have mid-flight? | 32 | The trajectory was pre-calculated and monitored by the ship's computer and ground control in Houston, but the crew still had to make course corrections. The ship was placed on a free-return trajectory (as were several previous flights), which was chosen so that in the event of a major systems failure, the craft would l... | 36 | |
[Terminator] why aren't Terminator programmed to make threats or do shows of strength before they demand things of humans, usually clothes, so as to reduce likerlyhood of non compliance and need for force (text possibly NSFW)? | If Arni in his prime told me to get naked or he'd turn me into a vaguely human shaped bruise, I'm pretty sure I'd just ask if I could keep my phone after he was .........*finished* | 122 | Terminators are primarily infiltration units, meant to seamlessly blend into human groups and be as unassuming as possible until the moment comes to strike. Going around intimidating people and sparking confrontations would be a great way to get them spotted and destroyed long before they got to their target.
Also, r... | 86 |
[Guardians of the Galaxy] When did Star Lord become "the 80s hero"? | The first time someone wrote about him was in 1976, and so surely he wasn't billed as "the spaceman stuck in the 80s" back then.
However, somehow over time he grew to fill that role.
My question is less about him and more about literally *every other* hero from that era that was pulled away from earth. Why did they ... | 39 | Quill doesn't want to return to Earth, but he doesn't want to let go of his memories there either. The memory of his dead mother is most likely what motivates both choices, and keeps him from moving forward. As a character, his growth has been stunted in several ways by that moment in his life. His choices in style and... | 49 |
ELI5: What are Parole Board Members suppose to be looking when assessing whether an inmate should be Paroled or not? | In light of the OJ Simpson Parole hearing today.
EDIT: dammit I forgot a "for" | 15 | There are 8 criminogenic risk factors that can be used to predict the likelyhood someone will recidivate. Of those factors, 5 are directly linked to criminal behavior and 3 are supporting, but not directly linked. Factors include criminal history, education/employment, financial situation, housing, family/marital situa... | 14 |
ELI5: Why are biracial black-and-white people referred to as black but never as white in America? | 15 | The US Census and laws played a huge part in this. The so-called "One-Drop Rule" made it to where legally, if an individual had a drop of black blood in them, they were considered black. This was clearly a tool used to disfranchise people of color. This is an interesting policy to juxtapose with laws regarding status a... | 13 | |
ELI5: why are car navigation and voice controls so clunky when we have the technology in phones to be very smooth? | 24 | Siri and all those like it ship the audio off your phone to a server at Apple/Google/wherever to do the speech to text processing. They have huge farms of optimized servers for that. Your in-dash navigation system has to do it all itself with a relatively slow processor. | 23 | |
ELI5: How can we deduce the life cycle of stars, if humanity hasn't existed long enough to witness it? | 16 | Because there are a lot of the stars in the sky, all in different stages of their life.
It’s like if an alien came down to earth and had to figure out in a day what the life cycle of a human was. You just take a bunch of humans all in different stages of their lives and line them up in a way that seems to make sense. ... | 19 | |
[The Shining] Why doesn't the Overlook Hotel play up during the months it is in use? | 73 | It actually does play. Guests have reported a lot of strange things, and staff know well enough to try and avoid a certain room...
The Overlook only really gets excited by folks who shine. Jack and Wendy both shine a little, but Danny is the one it's really interested in. People who shine are like satellite dishes (th... | 68 | |
ELI5: How are you able to feel wetness through latex gloves without getting wet? | 37 | You can feel the lubrication that moisture provides between the glove and the other surface. You can feel evaporative cooling as the moisture evaporates. You can feel the heat transfer from your skin through the gloves yo the (presumably) cold liquid prior to evaporation.
All three are the same phenomena that you woul... | 60 | |
Why does anxiety cause digestive issues? | 87 | The hormone cortisol is released in response to stress, be it physical or emotional. It also has many other functions such as immune suppression, waking the body from sleep, blood pressure regulation, and glucose homeostasis. Another function of cortisol is preparing the body for digestion by causing the liver to incre... | 27 | |
CMV: The Kurds are going to ditch the US, ally with the government and the Russians for an autonomous region within Syria | Which is already unfolding, but still.
The US is a poor ally for the Kurds. They armed them and helped them, but only against IS because the Kurds abandoned oilfields of American companies in Northern Iraq. This forced Obama to intervene.
But US has too much at stakes within Turkey (airfields, nuclear weapon storages... | 49 | Russia's biggest allies in the region are Iran and Syria. Supporting any push for Greater Kurdish autonomy or independence would greatly anger both Iran and Syria who have historically been opposed to Kurdish autonomy and nationalism. | 15 |
[Fallout] Why is there so little variety in weaponry in the Commonwealth as opposed to the Mojave desert? | Even the slightest incursion into Boston can tell you that it was a bustling hub for the prewar military-industrial complex, like Cambridge Polymers, HalluciGen Inc., etc. but it seems like every other raider has to make their own guns literally from scratch?
As an example--there are only *two* choices of generic (non... | 312 | The Commonwealth was a hub of prewar activity sure, but the Mojave has Gun Runners making and selling new firearms. The NCR presence has something to do with it too, they're obviously using gear from prewar military stores and there isn't a comparable military outfit in the commonwealth. | 252 |
[Strange question] Do chips get damaged by bacterias and biological viruses ? | So i was watching some introductory video on ssd hardware and like always got mesmerized by the marvel that moderns computers are.
Then i realized that the size of a v-nand is simply some nano-meters and that it's about the size of real life viruses. I wonder if viruses get zapped and can for example block ports or i ... | 20 | Those chips are sealed inside casing that keeps microorganisms out. It also keeps dust and other bad stuff out. If they were actually exposed, the chips would be more at risk of having dust particles settle on them and cause electrical interference or short-circuits, which does not require any microorganisms to be invo... | 19 |
[DC] If a Power Ring from the Lanterns Corps selects someone to be his new wielder, can that person deny it? | if a ring from one of the Lanterns corps chooses someone to be its new bearer, can that person deny it? or is she forced to become a lantern and go to her spectrum home planet and learn about them.
Situation: A green lantern Ring just shows up in my house, scans me, and says i'll become a Green Lantern, can i say **NO... | 439 | Green Lantern? Yes, you can say no.
Red: nope. once the ring is on your finger your choices are Lantern or Death.
Orange: Theoretically you can say no, but it brainwashes you so you don't want to say no.
Yellow: You can say no with great effort (Will).
Blue: You can say no.
Indigo: You cannot say no.
V... | 484 |
[Fantastic Beasts] Why were the criminal goblin's fingers curled backwards? | 57 | An aspect of goblin physiology is their apparent deformities (by human standards). These vary from goblin to goblin, such that no two goblins are alike. The gangster, Gnarlak, possesses an especially unnerving "deformity" which may perhaps mark him as especially powerful or important. | 29 | |
ELI5: When you feel guilty about something why do you feel something in your stomach? | 58 | The exact reason hasn't been determined because the idea of guilt is a mental thing, and we've got a long way to go to really understand definitively the brain.
That being said, think about the circumstance and only that. Let's say you are playing in the hallway and accidentally smash your grandma's vase. It's her fav... | 18 | |
ELI5-How did Germany go from losing two world wars to being the economic powerhouse of Europe? | 7,633 | Caveat: This is somewhat debated amoung economic historians.
But a mix of:
* Marshall plan
* Strong institutions (think of paperwork in bureaucracies / rule of law sometimes being very good for growth)
* Strong education system (German universities were world-class pre-wars and good to very good post-wars)
* Luck: Th... | 4,983 | |
CMV: Tipping "culture" is toxic and shouldn't be indulged | I believe no one should tip unless the one being tipped has genuinely impressed you with their service.
Servers' wages shouldn't be differed to compensate for tips. I believe that by not tipping we/I protest against it as over time more and more people won't take those positions, forcing businesses to restructure thei... | 16 | Your plan is ridiculous and self-serving. It is entirely meaningless and ineffectual as a form of protest, and the fact that it *just so happens* to save you money *while* being totally ineffective suggests you're at least succumbing to motivated reasoning.
Irrespective of whether you like it or agree with it, tippin... | 13 |
[The Suicide Squad] is Polka-Dot Man actually the crazy one? Why does he think he is? | There’s a Peacemaker [quote](https://youtu.be/pQ12RvjIidE) that prompts Rat Catcher to say to Polka-Dot Man “I thought you were the crazy one” to which he replies “I am”.
As the film goes on though, we find out that PDM is actually a hesitant yet caring dude. Meanwhile, Peacemaker wears a toilet seat on his head and ... | 163 | Well, he sees his mother literally everywhere and clearly has a lot of trauma/neuroses to work through.
I think, everyone else is like, "Supervillain crazy." They're megalomaniacs, they're over the top theatrical and violent. King Shark isn't really human, so you can't hold trying to eat people against him.
PDM is ju... | 225 |
[W40K]Greetings fellow Tech Priests of the Mechanicus. I've noticed that when a machine is not working, turning it off and on again may sooth the machine spirit and fix the problem. Well, The Golden Throne is failing, have we considered maybe just turning it off for a second and see what happens? | 306 | Which part, acolyte of the Omnissiah? The life support creche? The thousand and one devices that calibrate and align the psychic energies? The Capacitors that store that energy? The Emitter arrays? Do you suggest we just jiggle the handle on the golden throne?
Do you think we haven't tried it? That we haven't reboote... | 291 | |
How does nicotine, amphetamines, and coffee act on sympathetic nervous system yet still make me shit my brains out? | I understand these substances work via the sympathetic nervous system which would cause all the affects except one: Why must I be near a bathroom when these kick in. I take adderall and when it kicks in, I have to shit so hard. Doesn't the parasympathetic nervous system control SLUDD (salivation, lacrimation, urinat... | 18 | This is a fairly complex question, especially if we look at each drug individually. That being said, there are two important concepts. First, there is more overlap and redundancy in the autonomic nervous system then the simple "sympathetic does this, parasympathetic does the opposite." Secondly, although those drugs... | 14 |
Does the entropy inside of a chicken egg decrease? | I am under the impression that eggs are a closed system and that once it leaves a hen, the insides develop from a yolk to a chick. Doesn't this imply that the entropy inside the egg somehow decreases while it is incubating? | 113 | The egg is not a closed system. Oxygen enters the egg which the developing embryo uses for cellular respiration. Carbon dioxide leaves the egg. Heat transfer occurs between the egg and the environment.
In addition, the egg is initially in a highly organized state containing plenty of nutrients that is burned by the ch... | 106 |
CMV: the idea of "white privilege" is racist. | By "white privilege," I mean the idea that white people have better off lives than minorities. To me, the assumption that white people live easy, privileged lives is no different from assuming that all black people grew up in the 'hood, join gangs, and are lucky to even graduate high school. Not all African-Americans g... | 68 | White privilege is not "white people have it easy." It's "white people have it easier when compared to a person of a minority in extremely similar situations."
Also, the concept of white privilege is not a treatment, it's an idea.
As President Lyndon Johnson said in 1965, "You do not take a person who, for years, ... | 106 |
If blood is screened for blood-based diseases prior to transfusion, why is it that men who have sex with men (and other groups) are barred from donating blood in Canada? | This article is the motivation for my question: [Canadian Blood Services](http://blood.ca/CentreApps/Internet/UW_V502_MainEngine.nsf/page/MSM?OpenDocument&CloseMenu) | 424 | The reason why it is/was usual to not accept blood of people who have a higher risk of having certain disease (the definition of exactly what constitute these risks, frequently changes according to the health authority of the country) is that for most tests (including HIV), there is a period/window that happens between... | 253 |
CMV: In Mass Effect, there is no reason why the galaxy at large should’ve switched to thermal clips for their weapons | This is pretty obscure, but I’m hoping I can get a good conversation about it. I don’t really think you need to know much about the games to give your take, but I will provide context if you need more.
Essentially, in the first Mass Effect, all weapons had no ammo limits, but could overheat. This was later changed due... | 31 | I would argue you're just not looking at it in quite the right way. So thermal clips increase ability to put rounds downrange, yeah? Let's think of it as a simple math problem.
Soldier A has a coolant weapon, Soldier B has thermal clips. The weapons are otherwise identical.
Both of them fire downrange for, let's say 3... | 10 |
[Halo] Would two graveminds that developed independent of each other work together, combine into a singular gravemind, or fight each other to obtain resources the other controls? | 28 | There is only one Gravemind, though it may have many bodies. It is the overriding , malicious intelegence behing all flood, linking them together over unfathomable distances through the living consciousness of Space-Time.
Two bodies would work in concert, as two limbs of the same great beast. They could meld, increasi... | 32 | |
ELI5: How are school lockdowns effective? | In schools that I have attended, the protocol was to turn off the lights, close the blinds, and stand/sit in a corner of the class away from the door quietly. If all classrooms did this, how was this effective? Surely, the intruder knew that all the classrooms definitely weren't empty at the time and what if the intrud... | 38 | It spaces student pretty evenly throughout the school and puts a barrier in front of every 30 or so.
Having students leave the building bottlenecks them to hallways, stairwells, and exits.
This also leaves hallways open for police to move around identify and engage the suspect
Once protocols go in effect the cou... | 38 |
ELI5: How Do You Retain Memories if Cells Keep Dying? | If I understand biology correctly, you are not made up of the same cells you were 10 years ago or even 5 years ago. They're constantly dividing dying, etc.
How then are you able to retain memories if all of your neurons are dividing into new ones and then dying. Where is everything stored? Thanks. | 88 | The common trope of cells turning over every 7-odd years is just an average.
The lifespan of a cell will vary greatly depending on what kind of cell it is and where it’s located.
Your front-line cells in your skin and blood and stomach turn over every month or two.
The critical neurons and cardiac muscle cells in yo... | 86 |
ELI5: How did we find out that black holes even exist, if they absorb everything near them (energy, matter, light, etc)? | 22 | We did not discover them by finding one, we worked out the math and possibility of them. The question of “what if you just keep making a star bigger” is intriguing, and when a smart enough person set out to figure it out (friggin Einstein), he was able to work out what one would behave like. We looked for the signs (ac... | 25 | |
[MCU] I'm a mental health professional in the MCU specializing in post-snap/post-return post-traumatic stress disorder. What are most of clients dealing with and how the hell do I convince them a normal life is even possible? | 45 | So the actual blip event didn’t appear to be particularly traumatic from the point of view of the blipped. Getting snapped, alarming and confusing as it might have been to watch their bodies fading into dust, didn’t actually appear to be particularly painful for most experiencing it.
The problem is afterwards, when th... | 51 | |
ELI5: How can Pandas survive on a diet of 99% Bamboo while humans have to eat a diverse range of food?. | Humans are told that they require various types of food to ensure optimum health. Why is it that Pandas are able to thrive on diets solely based on Bamboo when they are quite large animals. | 155 | Pandas are peculiar animals because they're anatomically carnivores, but they act like herbivores. The reason they're able to do this is because pandas have *symbiotic bacteria* in their digestive systems that allow them to digest something called *cellulose.* Cellulose is a chemical made up of many thousands of *gluco... | 110 |
[Star Wars] A Sith Apprentice would always have to kill his Master, as it is the only way of succession and a Sith Master can kill his apprectice if he found a stronger one. Has this always been the case? | So how can the Siths live with this, knowing full well that one day they will kill one another. I mean, why would they even bother training an apprentice if the master were to be killed by the apprentice?
Or is there a "Code" one that the Sith honors? | 57 | No.
Used to be that the Sith where a much larger organisation, or at least a loosely collected rabble of masters and their apprentices, however the constant inner fighting and backstabbing prevented any one individual from becoming too strong.
Power was shared, and while occasionally you'd have one rise above and get... | 66 |
[Lord of the Rings Two Towers] What was the great battle that took place in the bog ? | 46 | During the War of the Last Alliance that brought down Sauron at the end of the Second Age, the forces of Elendil and Gil-Galad met the forces of Sauron before the Black Gate, on what came to be known as the Dagorlad - the Battle Plain. The battle lasted months, but in the end the forces of the Alliance were victorious.... | 63 | |
[MCU] So... is the Vision the only Avenger that hasn't killed a lot of people? | 53 | Has Thor ever killed any people? Frost Giants, aliens, dark elves, yes, but is there any reason to believe he's ever killed a human?
Not to say that Frost Giants aren't people or anything, just curious. | 39 | |
Why don’t clouds get blown apart? | How do clouds stay together in (mostly) the same shapes in high winds? Why doesn’t the wind just disperse the clouds like a cloud of smoke? | 28 | Wind itself wouldn't disperse smoke either, you need wind *shear*, which is a change in the wind's speed in the direction perpendicular to it, to disperse something. While us surface-dwellers encounter high wind shear almost any time there's wind due to the ground, trees, buildings, or just about anything else that get... | 18 |
Every computer program is compiled (or interpreted) by another program, called the compiler or interpreter. This includes compilers themselves. Is there a "common ancestor" compiler of all high-level programs today, and if so what is it? | I assume the first compilers were written by hand in machine code. Then subsequent compilers can be written in the language implemented by that first compiler, etc. Is there a single hand-written program that basically "birthed" all high-level code we use today? | 1,100 | No, not really. The methodology of programming is similar, but there is no single ancestor. You need to understand how the CPU works at the very low level. It fetches data from a memory location. That data contains a bunch of bits that represent an instruction. That instruction can be an add, multiply, jump to a m... | 394 |
ELI5: Why does kissing feel good? | 33 | When you kiss someone, your brain begins to release 3 chemicals which make up something called dopamine. Dopamine makes us happy. One of those chemicals is called oxytocin which is the one that makes us become sexually aroused which then raises the other chemicals and just makes you super happy all around. | 29 | |
Can you explain 'Gödel Escher Bach - an Eternal Golden Braid' to me LI5? | 24 | It tries to answer a question about mind: "Does mind follow rules?" and the related "Is Artificial intelligence possible?"
While explaining this, Hofstadter references art, music and logic through the works of Escher, Bach and Godel.
Another important theme is the concept of what he calls **Strange loop**, for example... | 12 | |
ELI5: Why do no companies make battery operated kitchen appliances? | almost all major tool companies make lithium-ion powered tools, many have a universal battery to power everything from drills to tablesaws. Why then are there no companies with a similar system; all my appliances are mains-powered... | 47 | Why would you want that? A kitchen utensil is pretty much guaranteed to stay in the kitchen, and usually there are loads of power sockets there... Batteries are expensive, heavy, and have to be charged regularly. What advantage would it give you? | 100 |
ELI5: World's wealth is growing at 2.5% rate. How is this possible? Where does "new" money come from if "everybody" is wealthier now? | 700 | Money is one thing, which /u/K3zzeR covered, but actual, tangible wealth is another thing that can also increase. With every person born, the world's labour force increases, and more work can be done. New resources can be discovered and used, new goods and services can be invented, automation can allow less workers to ... | 339 | |
Do children who speak different languages all start speaking around the same time, or do different languages take longer/shorter to learn? | Are some languages, especially tonal languages harder for children to learn? | 2,542 | Basically, all the languages in the world have approximately the same difficulty level, so you'll see that child language development happens at the same rate regardless of the language being learned. It just seems to us that some languages are harder because of how different they are from the language we grew up with.... | 1,150 |
ELI5 Why do SSRIs take up to 2 weeks to kick in, but only 2-3 days to wear off? | 28 | Imagine an empty swimming pool being filled with a hose. To be allowed to dive, you must fill the pool to the 8 foot mark, so you put a plug in the drain. It takes many hours to fill up 8 feet of water. The water level needs to rise 8 feet, to reach the 'effective level'.
It's now 8' 1".
Someone removed the drain p... | 21 | |
[Ren and Stimpy] Is "Log" really just a piece of wood well marketed at children or is there a legitimate function "Log" provides that the discerning consumer cannot live without in these trying times? | 29 | It has many legitimate functions including:
* It rolls down stairs, alone or in pairs.
* It rolls over your neighbor's dog.
* It's great for a snack.
* It fits on your back.
* It's big.
* It's heavy.
* It's wood.
* It's better than bad.
* It's good. | 59 | |
ELI5: why is 12 volts very common? Why not 11 or 9 volts? | 16 | The voltages produced by a single cell of a battery is determined by the battery chemistry. For lead-acid, this is ~1.5V. 8 of those cells produce 12V.
In terms of "why not 11 volts?", you can't build an 11V battery from a cardinal number of 1.5V batteries. In terms of "why not 9 volts?", it's simply a matter of the p... | 20 | |
[Harry Potter] If I look at one of the moving paintings with a good magnifying lens while they're moving, would I see the paint itself moving, or just changing colors? | Or would it be something more trippy, like having the motion neurons activated while the conventional image neurons are not perceiving any change or vice-versa? What if I touched the painting, would I feel the texture of the layers of paint changing as they morph into new strokes? Would I feel my skin being dragged alo... | 308 | A paintings are materially non-homogenous. Colors are of uneven thickness, different materials, and often formed by layers of paint. As such, the materials would need to be moving or transmuting in place, of the two, the first seems much easier. The top layer is likely a varnished for preservation, masking movement... | 76 |
[Elderscrolls: Online] What caused the Imperial City to rotate 30 degrees to the left? | 35 | The Elder Scrolls are all legends! Surely you don't believe that, every few hundred years, one being, who's race and gender change depending on the story teller, comes into great physical and magical power as well as leads one or more guilds, and then vanishes from memory? If the story of how Emperor Martin fought an... | 23 | |
ELI5: How does a camera sensor detect an image? | 16 | It is both very simple and very complex. First, it can be helpful to know about an extremely simple type of old-fashioned film camera called a pinhole camera.
A pinhole camera is simply a piece of film in a tightly sealed box. On the side of the box opposite of the film, there is a small pinhole that is covered. Wh... | 10 | |
ELI5:If there are an infinite number of universes, wouldn’t there be one where a machine was invented that could travel to ours? | 347 | Well there's the idea that an infinite number of something doesn't mean every variation of it is possible. For example, there are an infinite number of numbers between 1 and 2, but none of them are 3, because it isn't possible. | 596 | |
[Batman] Is the Ventriloquist insane, or is the scarface doll he has sentient? | In *The Batman* cartoon, the Ventriloquest and Scarface doll seem like their both sentient at times. At times it seems Scarface is controlling him, while at other times scarface seems just like a split personality of the ventriloquist. So what is it? | 72 | The Ventriloquist is insane. Anytime the Ventriloquist does something he doesn't want to he is arguing with himself. It's been awhile since I've seen those though. Does something happen that contradicts insanity as the explanation?
(Out of universe: it's important to note the character is based on theories of mental ... | 60 |
ELI5: Why do lions live in prides if cats in general are solitary animals? | EDIT: Wow, was not expecting so many responses!
This is probably a separate question altogether, but every pride I've seen in a nature documentary has one male and a bunch of females. Does that mean that there a whole lot of single males roaming the savannah? Or do these males necessary get killed off by other dominan... | 60 | They are different species which have evolved different patterns of behavior. Those behaviors persist because they are successful. A pride of lions, for instance, can bring down prey that would be difficult or impossible for a single lion to bring down.
Your house cat is not descended from a lion, or vice versa, thou... | 53 |
ELI5 what does the death of Kim Jong-il mean for North Korea/the rest of the world? | 360 | It's very hard to say at this point. There is very little information out about Kim Jong-un and we have no clue whether the regime will be better or worse under him. One of the many problems that analysts have outlined is that it isn't just the outside world that is unfamiliar with Kim Jong-un. Most North Koreans, outs... | 132 | |
ELI5: How are nuclear weapons tests underground without destroying the land around them or the facilities in which they are conducted? | **edit** FP? ;o
Thanks for the insight everyone. Makes more sense that it's just a hole more than an actual structure underground | 9,753 | An underground nuclear test is essentially a bomb in a deep hole or mine shaft. It goes boom, a portion of the surrounding ground is vaporized, and a lot more is superheated. If the hole is deep enough (it should be, as we've done this sort of thing for a while) all the radioactivity and the blast is contained undergro... | 4,400 |
[Judge Dredd] Why are/were there Councillors and politicians in Judge Dredd? | I've been reading *JUDGE DREDD: THE XXX FILES* and just reached the issue titled "Sleaze. In it,Dredd busts a councillor and a lobbyist exchanging a bribe. I thought there wasn't any real form of Democracy in Mega City One and that the Judges more or less held most of the power. Am I wrong? They had mayors and committe... | 26 | There is nothing inherently democratic about mayors and councilors.
A councilor is just a member of a council, which is an advisory, deliberative, or legislative body of people formally constituted and meeting regularly. Mayors, as we know them, are traditionally elected, but there is nothing stopping people from usin... | 19 |
What is instantaneous periodicity? | There of course is an average "velocity" which is simply displacement upon time. Or there is an instantaneous velocity, or v = dx/dt. However, I have never understood what instantaneous frequency is? For example, if frequency is expressed as a function, then it gives me the frequency at a point of time. I am not sure w... | 59 | Frequency is change in phase over change in time (with a factor of 2π):
mean(f) = (1/2π) Δϕ/Δt
Instantaneous frequency is just the infinitesimal limit of this (the same as with average velocity vs instantaneous velocity):
f = (1/2π) dϕ/dt
You can try this with SHM: x = cos(ωt), where ωt = ϕ. You get f = ω/2π, which... | 14 |
[Matrix] Why could Neo fly, but the rest and even Agent Smith could'nt? | 84 | Agent Smith learned how to in Matrix Revolutions. As for why the others can't it's probably because they can't rewrite the laws of the Matrix in the same way Neo can. As Morpheus says in the first movie the Matrix has rules like gravity, some can be bent other can be broken. Neo can break all of them though.
Edit: It'... | 81 | |
Is there a reason why bigger animals tend to have bigger eyes. What advantage is it having eyes in proportion to body size? | 183 | Bigger eyes generally mean better visual resolution and better light-gathering abilities. It's basically the same reason that big telescopes are better than small ones. For example, on the reef at dawn and dusk big predators come out to hunt. They have the advantage over small reef fish because their larger eyes all... | 116 | |
[DC] When Krypto is around different colours of Kryptonite he just uncontrollably does standard dog things. When Superman is around Kryptonite he just fucking dies. Does this mean Krypto is stronger than Superman? | 161 | I mean, when *you're* around kryptonite, it does absolutely nothing. You can rub it on your face all day long. Does that make you stronger then both?
Krypto is a different species to Superman, and is affected differently by different things. Superman is still stronger, even if he has a biological weakness a dog does... | 93 | |
[Marvel] Why doesn't the Red Hulk have a mustache? | Thaddeus Ross has a big white mustache. However, when he transforms into the Red Hulk, the mustache disappears. How do we explain this? Shouldn't the Red Hulk have a mustache? | 73 | One theory is that the red hulk, like the green hulk, is a completely separate body from the host. This means any similarities between the two bodies is purely coincidence and not telling of how either the host or the hulk will or should look.
So basically he looks different because he is different.
Edit: the theory ... | 39 |
[WH40K] So what was the plan after humanity took over the galaxy? | What did the Emperor have planned once humans took over the entire galaxy? | 15 | Guide the natural evolution of humanity to a point where they would all be as individually powerful as he was. The Primarchs and the Emperor are genetic blips that show humanity what its own future contains. | 26 |
Will an object rotating in a vacuum which has no contact with another external object, rotate infinitely or will it gradually lose its speed? | Until yesterday, I thought if there is no friction force with a rotating object, it will never lose its spin, but I read somewhere that even under such conditions, the object will gradually slow down (but the reason was not specified). So, which force slows the rotation speed?
Moreover, does the Earth lose its average... | 29 | An asymmetrical (around the axis) rotating object will radiate gravitational waves (symmetrical ones will only drag space without radiating), but that would take billions of years to have an effect on most objects. | 40 |
[Star Wars/general Sci-fi] Interplanetary Internet? | Persay I want to play space WoW with my friend, I live on Coruscant, he lives on Corellia, is this even possible? Can i email my crazy estranged uncle on tatooine?
In BSG how would I keep in contact with a friend on one of the other colonies?
Same thing for other mainstream sci-fi universes? | 18 | In Star Wars, they have an interstellar Holonet, connecting at least all of the core world, and with limited access beyond.
In BSG, interplanetary communication is typically conducted through couriers, or laser burst communication. It is not real time and suffers from some significant delays.
In 40k... No one really... | 24 |
ELI5: If the brain signals for moving your hand and thinking of moving your hand are the same, what is the physiological difference that causes your hand to actually move? | Edit: In a Tom Scott video, he was describing an experiment on a zero-g flight by some neuro researchers testing their CBIs in zero-gravity. One of the researchers said the brain signal for moving your hand and thinking of moving your hand is the same hence my question. | 30 | The main reason thinking about moving does not move your arm is the 'strength of the signal'. Ie that you just *thought* about it is not enough for movement. The signals (electrical messages) your brain have to reach a particular threshold for actual movement.
What is really cool is that there is growing research into... | 15 |
[Pacific Rim] what does it mean when a Jaeger runs on an Analog System | I was going over the field reports about the hong kong incident. A Kaiju used an emp like device that knocked out all electronics in Jaegers, The Shatterdome, and the immediate vicinity.
Only Gypsy Danger was able to operate due to running on an analog system, compared to others which ran on a digital system. Despite ... | 51 | Gipsy Danger had self-contained power plants. Believe it or not, the newer Jaegers actually ran on hugely advanced power cells, which were fried when the EMP-ish attack went off. Basically, the EMP blasted anything with active electrical current in it at the time of the explosion. Gipsy was powered down. Further, Gipsy... | 35 |
[Pacific Rim] Is there a reason Jaegers fight without any support? | By support I mean an array of drones/boats to do surveillance, drop flares, missiles, smoke, etc.
Main battle tanks go into battle fully supported but giant billion dollar robots can't get any?
By that I mean, why would a jaeger ever fight fair?
They should be supported by drones and planes dropping flares/smoke alm... | 21 | The kaiju aren't monsters, they're weapons. Think of them as such.
The first monster to emerge faced conventional warfare like you're positing above; planes, drones, tanks, the works. And when it finally fell, the creators would've taken note and improved it. For us, the kaiju would have fun little nicknames. But ... | 28 |
[Portal] If one were to weld a pipe, end-to-end through portals, then close the portals, where would the pipe cut off? | Would it change size?
What if it was vertical and an object were to fall through it, why are there no infinite energy generators in portal? | 21 | It gets cut at the portal. The section of the pipe that's in the orange portal is the same as the blue portal, that's how the portal works.
So it gets cut there and the pipe is the same size as it ever was.
You can do infinite falling objects with properly oriented portals. | 26 |
ELI5: Why do many African Americans speak Ebonics while most French speaking Africans in former colonies speak clear, standard French? | African Americans have been speaking English in their regional variation for many generations now, but I've found that most African French speakers use clear, standardized French in countries such as Senegal. Although their may be some regional words, most people speak the textbook version of French. In Haiti, French ... | 34 | Ebonics (which is more properly called African-American Vernacular English) has had more time to develop. Black people have been living in America for close to 400 years, and that's a lot of time to evolve their own distinctive dialect of English. French speakers in Africa are more recent, only about the last 125 years... | 29 |
ELI5: Why I have to sign my credit card receipt when I can scribble just anything on there? | 34 | The signature isn't about confirming that you are you. They're never going to check your signature against the one on your card or the one on your credit card contract.
In short? A receipt, in itself, is a contract between you and the person you're buying from. You can make any mark on the line and it legally constitu... | 20 | |
ELI5: What's the diffrence between diffrent bloodtypes? | I'm just a little curious. | 18 | Interesting username.
Anyways, all cells, including red blood cells have signalling chemicals on them so other cells, namely your immune system, can identify that cell as yours, as oppose to an invader cell.
For the sake of an insane analogy, imagine each blood type was a language that only that cell spoke. Your immu... | 44 |
ELI5: Why do people go bald on the top of their head and still have some on the sides and not vice-versa? | 5,642 | While many say it's just genetics, there isn't enough data to give a conclusive answer. Of course, genetics play a large role in everything. There is some evidence that mechanical stress is involved in the common pattern of male pattern baldness. The skin on the temples and crown of the scalp are "tighter" than the oth... | 1,284 | |
[Pokemon] Why are paved roads so rare? | 15 | Trainers on their first Pokemon adventure are usually too young to drive, and are encouraged to stick to pedestrian paths and bike trails. Besides, the nation's highways are elevated with all tall grass cleared far away from the road to prevent collisions with Pokemon. | 28 | |
[Star Trek: The Next Generation] Starfleet developed a Borg-disabling virus in the form of a seemingly paradoxical geometric design. Why didn't they incorporate that design into all of their uniforms, ship designs, et cetera? | 24 | It'd probably only work once, and Data and Geordi explained it *couldn't exist in our space-time*. They were going to install it on a part of Hugh's optical analysis computer thingemy, so that it would bypass the usual filters etc, and get passed around the Collective as an unsolvable puzzle. The shape would also spawn... | 67 | |
[Star wars] Where did grievous get his first lightsaber. | 46 | From the corpse of a Jedi of course. The first of many in his collection.
It's not like it's impossible to kill one, Jango Fett killed several on Geonosis. Grevious likely took his first one fighting Jedi in the Huk War. | 96 | |
ELI5: How did the US "accidentally" bomb a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan? I know that mistakes can be made, but that seems like a pretty big mistake to me. | 18 | Well. The story has changed a bit.. the afghans called in a fire support mission on the hospital, because they said they were taking fire from it. So we bombed it for them. ( the fire support missions are supplied by the us, but the targets are supplied by the Afghan military ) this is probably also why, the afghans w... | 21 | |
How does spin allow objects to fly straight? Bullets and frisbees for example. | 26 | When an object spins around an axis, that spinning force will resist any changes in orientation. This will help the bullet keep pointing in the same direction (forward) so that it remains aerodynamic instead of just flapping randomly and deviating. Same thing with the frisbee, it will stay horizontal instead of wobblin... | 17 | |
How do we determine the intelligence of an animal? | 39 | We apply an arbitrary human-centric metric to it. Seriously.
Have you ever heard that 'dolphins are as smart as a third-grader" or "ravens can figure out more complex puzzles than the average 10-year old"? We can't measure a species' intelligence as that species because we value human traits. Unless we create a metric... | 14 | |
ELI5: Why is the British Pound worth much more than the USD, when it seems like the equivalent goods cost the same face value amount? | 100 | Point of sale costs, government services and methods of taxation all matter.
When you buy X in the UK you're buying all of the labour along the chain. So if the guy who delivers the package to the store, the store clerk etc. all get paid more in the UK you're paying more money for the same product otherwise.
It's no... | 35 | |
[MCU]Could Hela escape Strange's Mirror Dimention? | 57 | Doubtful. The Sorcerer Supreme herself seemed dependent upon a sling ring to escape, as did all of the Masters. Strange is still wearing the ring as of *Infinity War*.
Combine that with the fact that Hella needs to Bifrost to travel between worlds, and lacks the innate ability to summon it herself, and it's a pretty g... | 50 | |
ELI5: Why do our eyes jolt around when looking around, instead of smooth transitions? | 23 | Your brain actually conveniently "forgets" the inbetween. You saw what was there, but your mind didn't "play" the transition. This is because when your eye darts around, there is a fast blur. Because seeing blurs all the time is annoying junk information to the brain, you end up seeing and remembering only the clear vi... | 25 | |
[Star Trek] Why did the Picard family vineyard move to the completely opposite side of France at some point between the 20th and 24th centuries? Does the climate of Bordeaux no longer support grape production? | As of the 20th Century, [Chateau Picard](https://www.mahler-besse.com/en/chateau-picard/) was located in Saint-Estèphe, which makes sense as Bordeaux is basically the wine capital of France (and, dare I say, **the world**). However, in the 24th Century the Picard wines are produced in La Barre, which is [clear across t... | 27 | France was especially devastated in the Third World War. After the world descended into an exhausted peace, the UK, in a ~~blatant act of petty revenge~~ noble humanitarian gesture, in a took it upon itself to reconstruct France. Unfortunately, the British brought their cuisine and knowledge of winemaking with them, an... | 35 |
CMV: While both groups deserve full rights and protections, LGB and TQ+ are separate communities facing different challenges. | The first group is about the right to love whoever you want. It wants protections so that the only people who care who is in your bed are the consenting adults in it. It needs for society to normalize relationship with a different combination of genders than the traditional male/female
The second is about the right to... | 2,794 | Feel free to head back in time to tell the bigots obsessed with gender and what it all means and convince them to separate them, then. A big part of why they're grouped together is because the people targeting them, who also happened to hold a lot more power in society, grouped them together simply because every single... | 1,075 |
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