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[ATLA/LoK] Is Katara the best water bender in the world? | I can't really think of anyone besides the Avatars and Yakone/his sons that come close.
Is she the best of the best? | 16 | Best bender in general is hard to quantify, water bending moreso than the others because of all of the specialties. She was definitely talented, and was the best healer in the world, but anything beyond that is getting into /r/whowouldwin territory. | 20 |
ELI5: if computers can run millions of data points per second, why do credit card chip readers take so long? | 1,422 | Let's talk about all the things that happen when you put your card in.
The chip card is actually a little computer that the reader can interact with, so there are a few things going on here.
1. The reader authenticates to your card. This it where the PIN is involved. The reader authorizes itself.
2. The reader gets t... | 1,596 | |
[The Mask] is The Mask is Semi-Living Entity? | 29 | I’m pretty sure that it is semi living.It can better be described as an alternate personality of the user.In the animates series there was an episode where Stanley put on half of the mask and the two could talk to each other. | 20 | |
[Staw Wars] What is the purpose of the second Death Star being larger than the first one? | The first Death Star was already strong enough to destroy a planet. Making a bigger one seems like it would use up more resources to build, keep running, and to move around. | 25 | The Death Star was a (super)weapon of terror. It was a slow, cumbersome logistical nightmare but it could blow up an entire planet in one shot. It's use was just as much psychological as it was physical. "Obey or we will literally one-shot your homeworld and kill you and everything you know."
Then the rebels blew it u... | 26 |
cmv: MBTI is overrated and bad tool. | I was in MBTI community for almost a year, yet I think it is just a funny test. We shouldn't use it in schools and work, and it honestly is overrated. While there is a logical framework, there aren't any solid empirical evidence.
This could also be said about enneagram, tritype, etc.
The only good test is Big Five (a... | 41 | These are some common arguments against MBTI and they have some credibility of course, due to the obviously complex nature of cognition, personality etc, but there are also plenty of things it's perfectly capable of doing.
Notably, the 'take/retake' problem you bring up is invariably a larger issue than it is in reali... | 17 |
[Marvel] How do all the different gods work together in the same universe? | There are Norse gods (Thor), Egyptian gods (Khonshu), and even a representation of the Catholic God (The One Above All). How do all these gods from different religions coexist with one another and don't fight over control? | 39 | There are a few answers.
1. They don't.
2. A common enemy (Infinity Gauntlet Thanos, Galactus, The Celestials, Doctor Doom, ect.)
3. A unified goal.
4. The One Above All and/or The Living Tribunal tells them to. (One Above All isn't exclusive to Christianity. One Above All is the literal absolute, omnipotent, uncon... | 35 |
ELI5: How is power restored after an outage caused by damaged poles or power lines? | Near my home this morning, a car crash occurred at an intersection, and a power pole was hit and split in half. The power company said there were power lines in the road. This caused a power outage to about 1300 people. After about an hour, crews had restored power to those affected by the outage, but they said that th... | 17 | They fixed / replaced the wires that were broken, and strung them up between the poles that were left intact, with perhaps a temporary pole or suspension wire to hold them in place until the full sized permanent pole is ordered and placed into the ground.
A residential area is also a "grid" (that's why it's often call... | 11 |
CMV: Libertarianism is a flawed ideology because it oversimplifies the nature of human social interactions. | 135 | You are coming to this conclusion based on the bizarre rantings of a small subset of libertarians that are popular on the internet.
There are several flaws with your reasoning.
There is no "grand unified theory" of libertarian thought. A *lot* of discussion goes on about what does or doesn't constitute "aggression"... | 111 | |
ELI5: Why are we supposed to "adopt, don't shop"? Why does it matter as long as the pet finds a loving home, right? | 32 | The idea is that buying animals in a pet shop encourages bad breeding practices. People churn out animals for profit with no thought for the welfare of the animals being bred.
If you adopt you are taking in an animal that needs a home, but you are not financially rewarding someone for potentially unscrupulous behavi... | 95 | |
[ The Terminator]- Why did the CSM-100 think that it could buy a Plasma rifle in 40 watt range in 1984? | It clearly had knowledge of the available guns in the shop, even though they would have all been 50 years before it’s time. And in T2 the same model has detailed files of Dyson and the history of skynet. So why the slip up? | 83 | It’s possible that they were in early development by the government at the time. That particular detail may have been omitted from the records it brought back with it, so when it checked its files for weapons of the era... | 109 |
CMV: It is not ok to make posts making fun of antivaxxers for dying. | I understand that they are the ones causing the continuous spread of covid and comedy is an outlet. As someone with a younger brother who is against the vaccine it bothers me to see posts celebrating the death of victims. He has been for lack of a better term “brainwashed” by the media and my family tries to change his... | 155 | Your title states "it is not ok to make fun of \_\_\_\_\_" and your reason is because;
>As someone with a younger brother who is \_\_\_\_\_\_\_
So you're now saying we cannot joke about something offensive because you personally experience it. The same could be said about the Holocaust, 9/11, and every other trag... | 122 |
How do you build large structures in violent water? | [E.g.](http://i.imgur.com/hCSs3.gif) | 203 | Concrete sets underwater, so from that perspective submarine and terrestrial construction techniques are very similar, provided the seabed is sufficiently stable. Piles can be driven traditionally, or by vacuum driving hollow piles into softer substrates. Work areas can be isolated with seafloor caissons if necessary. ... | 104 |
[Halo] How do the marines aim using the Assault Rifle if it has no iron sights or a scope? Also, how do they aim Covenant weapons? Do they just spray and pray? | 44 | No, though the MA5B Individual Combat System and the Type-25 Directed Energy Rifle both have models with pop-up sights, the most common models just interface with a soldier's on board electronics suite to display an aiming reticule on their heads-up display. | 47 | |
[The Boys] Is there a polio epidemic going on in the places where doctors administered Compound V instead or is the number of doses neglible? | 15 | The Polio vaccine has never benefited from anywhere near 100% acceptance/coverage. Between religious believes, conspiracy theory (yep, even in the 50's), and people with conditions that make receiving a vaccine dangerous, the percentage has always stayed below 90% and for some decades, closer to 60%.
In 1993, roughly ... | 16 | |
ELI5:Why do the normal bacteria in our mouth attack out teeth and gums,but those in other parts of the body do not attack those parts? | 960 | The bacteria in your mouth are like junkyard dogs. They are there because they are good at breaking down things that are coming into your body, but they are also aggressive and not well-trained. They'll stop someone from stealing stuff from you, but they might also bite your friend they've never met before.
Also, ther... | 851 | |
ELI5:How did the United Kingdom, an area about the same size as Alabama and Mississippi, have the ability to colonize so much of the world? | 77 | Mostly how they could conquer those countries with so little manpower was advanced technology. British had modern guns, railways, ships etc so no one could really stand their power.
They didn't have to bring so many of their own people to those colonized countries too because they created new elite on locals which the... | 54 | |
When you wash your skin with lukewarm or hot water after you’ve been in freezing temperatures, why does it feel like the skin is burning? Is your body actually in danger or are the nerves misinterpreting what is happening? Are there other examples of this situation? | 24 | This happens because when your body gets cold it constricts blood flow to the extremities first so that it can maintain heat in the core areas of the body such as the brain and and abdominal. This causes nerves to shut down in the extremities which is why you don't feel as much pain when you are cold and any pain you f... | 16 | |
Does changing temperature have "inertia?" | When anything with mass, let's say a liter of water, changes temperature, can that change in temperature have any sort of "inertia?" For example, if I boil a liter of water, and then put it in a freezer that is exactly 0°C; does the temperature simply fall to zero, or can it build "inertia," that would cause the water'... | 19 | No, for the reason that changes in temperature require a sink to 'move heat' (**this is not a rigorous way of talking about it**) in or out of. If the water is getting colder, it has to be making something else hotter by giving energy to it. By the laws of thermodynamics it can't be making anything already hotter than ... | 16 |
ELI5: how do we "hear" memories? | i understand how we're able to "see" memories in our mind's eye, but how is it that we're able to "hear" memories and be able to recall people's voices and sounds? does this have something to do with the mind's eye too?
EDIT: it's been great to read all your responses! i've learned a lot, cheers for taking the time to... | 4,875 | Pretty much - but it would be the minds "ear" rather than the minds eye - that is the memories work pretty much the same way but the memories of visual things are processed by the same part of your brain (kind of) that processes how you see things but memories of sounds are processed by the part of your brain (kind of)... | 1,481 |
Why do whales die on land even though they breathe outside water? | 25 | 1. Their bodies aren't designed to be supported by a hard surface. Their buoyancy in water supports the whole body evenly and prevents the crushing of internal organs.
2. They overheat. Whales are very well insulated and rely on the water around them to keep them at a livable temperature. | 41 | |
ELI5: Why do AMD CPUs have way more GHz for the same price? And why is Intel still considered better? | Intel i5 4x3,4Ghz costs more than AMD 6x3,9Ghz but is still considered better by friends rankings and user experiences. | 1,050 | GHz is only a measure of CPU clock speed. It's a good way to compare very similar CPUs but for CPUs of very different design, architecture, and features, differences in clock speed don't really mean much. Simply put, different CPUs do different amount of work per cycle. For example, let's say it takes one CPU 12 cycles... | 673 |
[Marvel/MCU] Has Steve Rogers ever watched the movie Inglorious Basterds? If so, what did he think of it? | Just curious what his thoughts would be as a WWII vet and someone who personally punched out Hitler/The Red Skull. | 35 | He’d probably think of them as brutal psychopaths who take killing Nazis too far.The Nazis were the enemy,but what the Basterds do to them is arguably far too brutal,especially because of the fact that not every Nazi soldier was a piece of shit who deserved it. | 39 |
[DOOM] Why is destroying the argent energy filters such a huge setback to the UAC? | If they built them once, they should be able to do so again. It's not like they destroyed the blueprints after finishing them, and even if they did get lost, they should be able to figure it out again. Plus, there's still the wreckage that should be salvageable to some degree. | 26 | The Filters were designed to channel and then purify Hell-Energy, an energy-form that is exceptionally dangerous to handle in it's raw state. In fact, given how Hell-Energy tends to react to things, it's probable that the Argent Filters actually contained some fragmentary material from Hell it's self. Be it organic com... | 11 |
How are clothes washed aboard the ISS? | 5,041 | They don't wash their clothes -- they get new ones every so often, and dispose of the old ones as waste.
I recall an interview with Chris Hadfield in which he explained that astronaut clothes barely get "dirty" -- the astronauts don't sweat much, their clothes only loosely contact the skin (because of effective zero-g... | 5,646 | |
Why are your ears, nose and throat all connected? | 37 | Because once upon a time your ancestors were fishes.
I'll do this one organ at a time.
**Throat**
Your throat is derived from a structure called the **pharynx**. The pharynx in fishes is essentially the tube between the mouth and the entrance to the esophagus. This tube, in fishes, has holes in the side. These ho... | 41 | |
ELI5: If stomach acid is so strong, how do some foods get through into our stool without being broken down (like seeds?) | 55 | Because acids are strong only with substances they can react to. That's why we kept sulfuric acid in glass and nothing happened.
Now those seeds are made of a material that does not get dissolved or digested very well, so it remains whole through the trip to wave you good-bye. | 105 | |
[Netflix's Punisher] Why did the store owner try to sell Frank child pictures? | The big gruff ass dude comes into his shop buys a police scanner and a fucking shotgun with shells, and this guy decided to see if Frank was a pedo? Like couldn't he read the room? | 84 | He was trying to make a sale. Frank showed he had lots of money and seemed to have zero morals. In most people's experience, sex is one of those things that always sells so the skeezy pawn shop guy shot his shot.
He started trying selling him reg
sex and normal porn. Frank wouldn't bite. So he... expanded on the ... | 188 |
ELI5: What causes some people to be heavier sleepers than others? | 466 | Kind of piggybacking off this question a bit, but does being calm and stress have anything to do with this? Could trust also be another thing? As in if you felt you were in danger (Living in a warzone or something) you would wake up faster and easier. | 92 | |
I Feel Like My Advisor is Delusional and I'm Losing My Mind | Hello
I am currently stuck working on my thesis proposal. I know what the thesis will be, more or less inside and out. I have a committee, including 'important people in the field'. It's more than half done, I have most of the materials, I just can't push myself to finish it for a number of reasons.
The main trouble ... | 72 | Either you're correct, your advisor is a crank, and you should get out; or, you have an over-inflated sense of your own expertise in the area and are failing to see the bigger picture your advisor is trying to push you towards. Potentially, of course, both.
No one here, given the information you've given, is going to ... | 215 |
CMV: People who post photos of their children on social media are infringing on their privacy | Children and babies don’t/rarely get the chance to tell their parents and family members that they don’t want their photos taken or that they don’t want them posted online.
I’ve heard people say that “It’s for the memories.” But photos getting posted online don’t disappear and what if your child grows up and finds a ... | 118 | They couldn't give consent anyway because they're children and babies. By that same standard, it would be an affront to dignity to wipe their ass, pick their clothes or tell them no. Is it an invasion of privacy to check up on them if they're having a nightmare or pissed the bed?
Yes, there are creeps out there. That ... | 29 |
CMV: There isn't a problem with attempting to be "race blind" in daily life | The intention of being race blind in my opinion is to allow yourself to see all others as equal to you, implying that race is irrelevant to how someone is going to act in their day to day lives, and pushing yourself to see everyone as just another human who goes through painful and difficult situations in their lives t... | 53 | The point though, is that even if we are all equal and we are all humans with the same emotions, we don't experience the world the same way, because race still does exist and we are treated differently.
Being blind to that fact doesn't make it go away. | 44 |
[LoTR] What would the full extent of Gandalf's powers look like? What exactly is he capable of? | excuse my ignorance but isn't he the, or one of, most powerful beings on middle earth. He is only able to use these underwhelming abilities because the valar(?) forbid it? | 119 | Gandalf as you know Gandalf showed his capabilities against Durin's Bane (the Balrog), because he had no choice. The thing is, magic in Middle Earth is generally not flashy or spectacular in the same way other universes treat it. Magic is literally divine energy, Eru's (God) will at work. Such an energy CAN, and did, s... | 142 |
CMV: The human race is doomed. | The world is in a bad state right now. Worse, most people are going in the wrong direction. Soon, the planet will be so fucked past the point of no return.
* The Amazon rainforest is burning
* Siberia is burning
* Trump pulled out of the Paris climate agreeement
* Pollution
* Most people don't know about the effec... | 21 | You do realize the human race has existed when it was much warmer and much colder than it is now, right? During the Viking age, there were settlements on Greenland, with farms, which are now underneath glaciers. We survived more than one ice age, and huge warming cycles after each one. We'll survive whatever comes our ... | 30 |
[MCU] Why do Wakandans speak Xhosa? | [Considering the country's location] (https://www.layar.id/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Wakanda-Map.jpg), they should be speaking Ng'aturkana, Borana, Daasanach, or something close to one of those. Most east Africans are trilingual, so it makes sense for them to speak English, but they should also speak Kiswahili (since ... | 28 | Xhosa is currently spoken in South Africa, but the Xhosa were part of the Nguni, who are believed to have originated in the Great Lakes region, aka right where Wakanda is situated.
In our world the Nguni languages appear to have left the area along with the Nguni people, but presumably at least some of the people of W... | 56 |
[DC] I'm a surgeon at metropolis hospital, after a fight between a hero and a kryptonian, after that I'm told to do the autopsy of the dead kryptonian, what am I looking at that differs from a regular human? | I was given the right tools and the body is somewhat intact. | 42 | I would expect similar internal organ function and recognizable cell structures. Nearly all life in a lot of comics can cross breed. Not every species with any thing/one,.but enough that assuming you haf the tools to do it, you can figure it out in time.
There would likely be a multi chamber heart, similar stomach an... | 27 |
How do the current levels of non-ionizing radiation, from wireless transmissions in city centres, compare with the exposure we normally get from either background radiation or sunlight etc? | I am in the middle of a debate on the effect of RF radiation on humans. While trying to rebut some counter arguments, I came across [this pdf](https://emfscientist.org/images/docs/Script-Introduction_to_the_United_Nations_EMF_Appeal_Delivered_by_Martin_Blank.pdf) from [these guys](https://emfscientist.org/).
Trying n... | 543 | The other answers haven't addressed your question as directly as they should. Your mobile phone in your pocket is actually much brighter than the sun in radio waves. And if aliens were to look at our solar system in radio, they would see Earth as millions of times brighter than the Sun.
However the other responders ar... | 249 |
[Batman] What is Batman's contingency plan for Alfred? | Batman is known for having plans to take down the entire Justice League.
What kind of plan would Batman have if Alfred decides to betray him? (ie. What if Alfred is mind controlled to be evil) | 28 | Well if Alfred is mind controlled to be evil, whoever is controlling him would be likely be aware of Bruce's identity already (why else would they bother controlling the butler of a public billionaire) so Batman's got deeper issues to address. Just take out Alfred and bat-cuff him, then off to go whoop the poor bastard... | 42 |
[LOTR] Did the greatest battles against Sauron actually occur in the East? | We might only hear of the fight against Sauron in the West (e.g. Gondor, Rohan) because the text we have was written by Frodo, who was in the West. However, the majority of the fight against Sauron could have happened in the East since the two Blue Wizards are there and Saruman also spent a lot of time there when he wa... | 55 | If it was, it happened before the war of the ring. Sauron would not move on the west before he was totally ready. Not to mention, from all accounts we hear after the war, the east was united with sauron, we never hear of any Eastern faction helping aragon against rhun or so after saurons fall.
So if there was a anti s... | 50 |
Eli5: How is the Chinese military such a threat to the US when the US spends roughly 3x the $ on their military budget? | 268 | The US defense budget is highly misleading. China and the US actually spend roughly the same on actual military spending. It’s just that the US pays its people way more and includes a lot of things in the defense budget not actually related to defense— but the pay is most important. China pays people like nothing. The ... | 659 | |
How did the Big Bang not form a super massive black hole? | So, when a star's mass exceeds a certain threshold, it collapses into a black hole.
In the beginning, all the mass in the universe was in close proximity. How could all that mass not trigger a black hole collapse? Surely there was more mass in the local area of the blast than exists in a black hole, and light (a mass... | 272 | The Big Bang singularity isn't the same as a black hole. A black hole is a point in space time with infinite curvature. The Big Bang singularity was the entirety of space time. And the entirety of space time expanded.
That being said. We have no working theory of black holes or the Big Bang. We just see that our mode... | 144 |
[Batman] I feel like there is a lot of public trust in Batman because he is very good at what he does. What are some times Batman has messed up big time? | 18 | That time his anti-Justice League contingency plans were stolen by Ra's al Ghul.
That time he created a global security AI called Brother Eye to monitor metahumans and then it went all Skynet/Ultron/etc and started an evil robot apocalypse. | 34 | |
[Star Wars] Did at any time Vader or Sidious consider eachother friends? | I mean, sure, Anakin considered Palpatine a friend, but when they were both sith, did they have any sort of friendship? | 23 | No, they both knew what they were to each other and simply held a pretence in place to hide the cold truth; Vader was simply another tool of the Emperor and it had cost him everything to become so. The closest thing that Darth Vader held to a friend during the Empire was probably Grand Moff Tarkin and even that could h... | 38 |
ELI5: What are the benefits of hacking your wifi router? | I saw a post about it being OK'd by the FCC. I didn't even know that was a thing? Come some one please explain? | 138 | You know how companies sometimes have multiple routers that they make that have different speeds and prices? A lot of the times, the cheaper ones are basically the same as the more expensive ones, but artificially slowed either through a simple wire connection somewhere, or through firmware. They wanted to make it il... | 78 |
CMV: Governors of states have no business "calling" for the death penalty for the perpetrator of a crime. (At the moment, I'm looking at you, Nikki Haley.) | Governors execute the laws that their legislatures pass, they respond to disasters, they act as a backstop to the judicial system if someone is harshly punished through pardoning people, they guide economic policy, they are chief cheerleader for their state. Basically, they have plenty to do, and plenty of places to sh... | 311 | The Governor is the Head of State, and is (up several levels) the Prosecutor's boss.
Look at it this way:
* The Prosecutor is allowed to call for the death penalty, right?
* The Attorney General, as the Prosecutor's boss, can have the Prosecutor call for the death penalty.
* Keep on down the chain, and the Governor... | 52 |
Why is water to steam always the source to turn a turbine to generate power ? Why is it not the liquid that expands the most when vaporized? | I was just thinking that in energy generation methods such as geothermal & nuclear they always heat up water to produce steam in order to turn the turbine. Wouldn't it have greater energy yield if it was a liquid that expanded more than water upon vaporization and had a lower boiling point/ heat capacity than water... | 213 | As you allow any vapor to expand as it does work, it cools down. As the vapor cools, the amount of 'usable work' that can be done decreases. So we want a substance that not only expands a lot when heated but also carries away a great deal of thermal energy so it can be used to do the greatest amount of usable work.
W... | 153 |
Why does jerking a table cloth quickly from a table not disturb the plates but if you do it slow they all come off? Shouldn't there be the same amount of friction whether you pull it fast or slow? | 51 | If we look at Newtons second law: F=ma, we can clearly see that force is proportional to acceleration. When we pull the table cloth away quickly, a higher force is required to accelerate the dishes with the table cloth. The force of friction is given by u*Fn, where u is the coefficient of static friction (depends on th... | 35 | |
CMV: Adoption should be free and Foster care should count as a Job. | As always happens when I get searching on the web about "How does Canada do this" or "How does Europe/EU do this" I realize the grass is greener and we only have Hay here.
In Canada and Europe Adoption is 100% free, but they make you go though a rigorous process to make sure you are capable and trust worthy enough to ... | 218 | I don’t agree with it being a job, yes you should get benefits and tax breaks for having children, but having it replace a job could cause people to adopt children for selfish reasons rather than their kind-heartedness.
All people should have to work unless they are disabled, children aren’t an excuse to not pay incom... | 62 |
[DC] Can Harvey Dent/Two-Face be cured? | 33 | Yes, it's possible to alleviate his mental condition, as well as eventually repair his face - in fact that had been done at least once, and probably more in publishing history.
Unfortunately, Gotham is not the city where skeletons stay in the closet forever, so eventually SOMETHING is bound to happen that would push ... | 40 | |
Discussion: What do you think is the biggest problem in academia right now, and what do you think will be the biggest problem in the future? What needs to change in academia to make it function better? | I've read quite a few articles talking about the different problems that are encountered in academia, and I was curious, in your opinion, what is the current biggest issue with academia (as well as any potential solutions there are), and what looks like it might become the biggest problem in the future.
Also, what ar... | 24 | Funding & hiring need to be based on more than impact factor. There are no incentives to be good mentors or supervisors, to teach well, to get involved in campus life or the general well-being of the department.
The main benefit of academia is the fruitful interactions among intelligent people. Funding & hirin... | 28 |
How is time synced? | We sync clocks to a central clock, but how is that clock kept accurate? | 28 | It's not one central clock, it's a large number of highly accurate atomic clocks around the world. These clocks are synced against each other periodically by averaging the tiny differences between them. This global average is called UTC or coordinated universal time. | 17 |
Was CMBR visible light in earlier periods of the universe? | If Cosmic microwave background radiation was once gamma but red-shifted to microwave, does this mean that at some point the photons we are receiving would have been within the visible spectrum of light in earlier period in the universe?
If so when? | 102 | Yes. The cosmic microwave background is an almost perfect blackbody radiation and its origin lies in the recombination phase, a time when free protons and electrons cooled down enough to form neutral hydrogen. At this time, the gas was around 3000 K hot, so the light was primarily red. Before that, that plasma was opaq... | 19 |
The mRNA vaccines use a seemingly roundabout method for creating the spike protein: inject mRNA which is then read by cells which then create the spike protein. Why not cut out the middleman and inject the spike protein directly? | 2,116 | You can, that is usually how we make a subset of vaccines. There are actually several COVID vaccines in the works right now that are using cell culture and large fermenters to make lots of spike protein.
The problem is that you need to purify the spike protein out from the cell goop, and you need to prove to the FDA t... | 3,518 | |
[Inception] What would make for an absolutely deception-proof totem? Even something like a dungeons and dragons die has a small chance of being successfully faked. | 88 | In the way that the totem is *supposed* to work, literally nothing. Since you know all the elements of how your totem works, then eventually your subconscious can be made to reveal those elements to any skilled thief, exactly the same way any other piece of information can be uncovered.
What's worse, because of the ... | 78 | |
[Wall-e] How are the blob-people actually paying for all the stuff they are constantly buying? | The Captain of the ship seems to be the only one with a "job" that he would be getting compensated for, so how is everybody else aboard the ship able to buy things?
Was passage on the ship *ridiculously* all-inclusive?
Are the passengers just running up monumental bills to the point that they will be indentured to Bu... | 57 | You're still thinking in terms of capitalism. In the future, we did away with such primitive concepts, along with the concepts of "exercise" and "productivity". We have robots for those kinds of things.
Instead we simply get our allowances. They determine what we can and cannot buy. | 45 |
How do shape-shifters get the accent right? | This has always bothered me. Shapeshifters like Mystique are able to turn into someone they've never spoken to before and look exactly like them. They can also speak exactly like them. How? Identical twins would sound different if raised in seperate places to seperate families...
Also, if a shapeshifter changes into s... | 23 | Practice.
In all seriousness, many shapeshifters have, by necessity, a low-level psychic field that lets them transform into a perfect copy, down to the fingerprints, retinal patterns, and dental thingummies of anyone they transform into. It's not telepathy, it's more of a perfect awareness of who and what you're abou... | 24 |
ELI5: Time. | So from what I learned, time is a dimension, and so is space. We move through both. When we move through space we change our position relative to other objects in space, but how does time come into play here?
What is the effect of time and how does it affect space? How is a rock that is standing still in space, but ... | 22 | From a scientific perspective, time is infuriating. We haven't been able to come up with a definition of time that doesn't rely on circular logic.
However, we are fairly certain that time exists, and is not just a part of our perception. The reason we believe this is because the mathematical functions that rely on tim... | 24 |
[StarTrek] Why do [only] StarFleet ships have deflector dishes? | As I understand it's basically a focused shield generator to deflect interstellar particles in the ship's path, but why would you need them when a ship already has regular shields?
It just seems weird that only Star Fleet ships have deflectors, and no other alien race use them. On the other hand, they seem like a g... | 17 | Only starfleet ships need to use their deflector dishes to shoot an inverse tachyon beam routed through the transporter buffer to re-stabilize the Heisenberg compensators through the warp coils.
"I don't know. Something like that has never been tried before. It's extremely complex and these separate systems weren't en... | 12 |
ELI5: What are those dust motes we see floating around made of? How do they form? | 18 | Most of the dust particles that you see wafting around in the sun are organic. These come from plants or animals that have dried out and can break down into smaller and smaller pieces over time. Because these eventually very tiny bits are usually not made out of heavy atoms like the kind that are in rocks and stuff, du... | 12 | |
Do insects have a sense of hearing? | They certianly make a lot of noise - so i suspect some speicies do.
But what about a beetle or a bee?
And if the answer is yes - how do they hear? Do they have ears? | 19 | Yes. They hear by means of ears (a tympanic membrane with nerve fibers attached) and by very delicate hairs (trichobothria, sensilla) that respond to vibrations in the air. Sound is very important to insects in courtship. | 19 |
If Japan has been in stagnation for so long, how are they still the top 3 economy in the world? | Title says everything.
With everything I hear about Japan's economy, it leads to me to believe that its been in utter Sh*t for the past 20 years since 1996 or so. However, if that is the case, how were they the #2 economy for so long only to be taken by China if their economy is in "stagnation"?
Do all the other coun... | 52 | Bear in mind that the population of Japan is very large compared to most other G7 'developed' countries (for example it's comfortably more than twice ours in the UK), which naturally means a large economy. | 25 |
ELI5:Why do pixels on certain digital devices like old calculators cast a shadow? | I've just noticed how the black pixels on monochromatic, non-backlit screens like digital radios and calculators cast a shadow on the screen itself, how is that happening? | 50 | i believe the device you're referring to is a LCD liquid crystal display. basically its a clear liquid that turns solid and opaque with the applicaation of a minor electric current. so that opaque segement is actually blocking light, casting a shadow on the reflector behind it.
| 34 |
CMV: GMOs aren't a bad thing | I constantly hear people trashing GMOs, but I can't find any reason why they're actually bad. When I ask them, a lot of people talk about Monsanto, but I believe they're bad because they use shady business practices (child labour, hijacking prices, forcing farmer to commit suicide, etc.), not because they grow GMOs. Th... | 42 | GMOs aren't inherently bad. They are simply extensions of selective breeding techniques designed to bend other species to our needs and desires. The problem doesn't come from nature of the thing, it comes from when we inevitably make a mistake. The thing with traditional modification techniques was that they took a lon... | 22 |
[Star Wars] Why thermal detonators are never used? | As i know the clone/stormtroopers has a thermal detonator on their back. Why they never use it? | 28 | Because they're rarely in a position where that would be a good idea. A high explosive in an enclosed space is a Very Bad Idea. And if they'd set Endor on fire, they probably would've had a hard time dealing with it. | 30 |
ELI5: is it possible to not have citizenship of any country? | For example i get expatriated from the US and i don't get a citizenship to for a example Sweden. | 139 | Short answer: yes, it's possible. The repercussions are that any nation can declare you persona-non-grata which means you can be arrested simply for being present in their territory.
Additionally, you would be legally considered an alien anywhere you were, and have to deal with the local issues. | 87 |
Why does vomiting relieve nausea even when the nausea is not caused by something in your digestive tract? | For example, nausea caused by drug use via insufflation or unsettling images. | 53 | Nausea is a response due to cues that evolution has shown our biology to be indicators of something you've ingested being toxic. The relief of nausea from throwing up isn't necessarily connected to the cessation of those cues, just trying sensation of your vomiting. Which leads to the awkward situation of you throwing ... | 43 |
I think that most, if not all republican politicians are motivated by greed rather than in helping country (US) CMV | I was raised by a pretty radically liberal mother (she was at woodstock). I don't necessarily agree with liberals either, but I believe they are at least focused on the people and not their money. I really want to see the other side of this | 18 | I hate to break it to you, but all politicians are focused on money. Not just Republicans. Liberals too. They may have a social stance you agree with more, but at the end of the day fiscal matters reign king. Social matters gain votes. | 35 |
[Star Wars] How does Darth Vader poop? | We never see him take any part of his suit off except the helmet, so are there systems in place to handle waste products from what's left of his actual body? Or does he have to take some part of his suit off and shit like a normal person? I know he's "more machine now than man" by the time of the OT but presumably he s... | 125 | Since the suit is primarily a life-support system, and we see that it's more or less a 24/7 thing, it stands to reason that both nutrient intake and waste extraction are handled by it. If your nutrient intake is that heavily controlled, it's probably close to 100% energy-efficient nutrition, meaning there's probably c... | 91 |
[ELI5] Why anesthesia makes you go to sleep so easily? | Hey everyone !
Even when you countdown from 10 you are falling asleep at 5. Also why this kind of drugs act so fast! What kind of chemical reactions happens in our bodies.
Thank you 🙏🏻 | 15 | Anesthesia flows through the blood into your brain, where it interrupts specific brain cell connections that keep you awake.
Your body makes a natural (weaker) kind of anesthesia when you are falling asleep as well. | 12 |
[DBZ] Exactly how much does the average person know about super powered humans? | Seems like they woul be kind of a big deal | 17 | Old school martial artist might know it's at the end of their training, but like, the *very* end, but normies probably don't know much. In one of the MMOs; Gohan writes a book about ki manipulation post Buu Saga and it becomes a best seller. Tien starts a school for it since he heard about how Goku defeated Kid Buu wit... | 15 |
[Last Airbender] Did the world really live in harmony before the fire nation attacked? | There's always conflict is there not? Hell Korra deals with 4 separate crises within about a 3 year period in which war almost (and did on some occasions) broke out. It goes to show its not exactly uncommon for there to be war in the Avatar universe. Is Katara just exaggerating? | 304 | Yes they lived in harmony, but also yes there was still conflict. One doesn't completely cancel out the other.
What Katara is saying is that before the fire nation went full on conquering dictatorship all the nations were of equal standing in the world. Before the war an Air Nomad could happily glide through the fire ... | 340 |
How do my nerves decide when to tell my brain that something is painful? | 23 | Your body uses a plethora of receptors throughout your body to keep tabs on its current condition. In particular, there are a class of receptors known as nociceptors that function solely to warn the body of when there is a "painful" stimuli.
If you care for more detail: For instance there are nocireceptors dedicated ... | 13 | |
[Warhammer 40000] What would be the aftershocks of the Imperium of Man gaining access to Covenant level Slipspace Travel? | For those that don't know such slipspace ftl drive , from halo, allows a ship to travel at 912.2 light years per day for a maximum duration of 60 days before it must stop. Furthermore it is not effected in any way by warp beings and works at pinpoint accuracy, thus allowing ships to appear in perfect formation.
Assumi... | 48 | Utterly devastating and crushing against everyone. Although this system of travel is slower than warp travel (it takes one year in the warp to cross the galaxy but 3 with rhis method) it is more predictable. No longer will travel risk having the ship reach its destination 100 years late and no ships will be lost in t... | 50 |
ELI5: why do the waves of the 2004 and 2011 tsunamis only look like 10-20 some odd feet high in the videos as they made landfall but reports say that they were hundreds of feet high? They don't look like it videos. Sorry for customary units. | 20 | You're thinking of the kind of wave that you could surf on, but that's not what most tsunamis look like.
The distance between the top of one wave and the next is about 10 or 15 miles, so it doesn't look like a huge wall of water. Out at sea, the wavelength is even longer, so the amplitude -- the height of the waves --... | 34 | |
ELI5:Why does using a fly swatter make me so much more effective at killing flies? | 300 | Flies can detect very small changes in pressure around them and your hand coming at them is a very obvious change in the air around them.
A fly swatter is designed so it does not disturb the air as much (all the tiny holes) and makes it harder for them to detect that something is coming at them. | 388 | |
[Star Wars] (possibly NSFW) Does Darth Vader have functional genitals (post-RotS of course)? | 58 | From a physical perspective, no. Short of his leg-stumps, Anakin's balls were the closest things to the lava proper when he ignited on Mustafar. When he was immolated, the damage was severe enough that he required several machines simply to continue living (replacing respiratory function, assisting cardiovascular act... | 67 | |
Can a gravitational locked planet outside the Goldilocks zone support life on the side facing the star? | I have read that based on a stars size the Goldilocks zone will differ from star to star.
I have also read that if a Planet has one side locked facing the star with in the Goldilocks zone it wouldn't be able to support life because it would be too hot.
So what if it is outside the Goldilocks zone but the side facing... | 520 | There are multiple definitions for the habitable zone around a star, depending on various assumptions. The classical model doesn't include atmospheric effects, which obviously have a significant influence on surface temperatures. It also doesn't account for a tidally-locked planet, or the possibility of alternative typ... | 146 |
does the amount of tension a wire is under affect its ability to conduct electricity? | If so is it only to a minute extent? | 31 | Yes, mechanical strain affects the resistance of a conductor three ways.
The resistance of a wire is (rho)L/A, where rho is the conductivity of the metal, L is length and A is cross-sectional area. If you stretch the wire, L goes up, A goes down, and rho goes up because the molecular bonds are being strained. The eff... | 22 |
[Star Wars/Marvel] How would a Lightsaber be if an Infinity Stone is used in place of a Kyber Crystal? | Assuming that the Infinity Stones are also attuned to the Force | 33 | The only one that would operate like a standard lightsaber is the Power Stone.
Power Stone: You have a purple lightsaber, that can also fire energy beams and absorb energy. It would be capable of destroying just about anything.
Reality Stone: It would be a red lightsaber that would move more like a viscous fluid th... | 24 |
ELI5: Why are DVDs encoded differently around the world (i.e. Region 1, Region 2, etc.)? | 27 | They're not encoded differently, they're just locked to that region by the firmware on DVD players. A Region 1 DVD player is technically capable of playing a Region 2 DVD, it's just got a little software switch saying "only play Region 1" set inside it. It's possible to get region-free players or hack some models to ... | 40 | |
CMV: Strict religious communities are inherently harmful to children and are inferior to liberal societies. | Examples of said "strict religious communities" range from Old Order Armish to conservative Islamic communities. By integrating their religion into their way of life, and forcing it upon their children, they are jeprodising their child's autonomy. My argument highlights that this is morally wrong for numerous reasons: ... | 22 | So your view is basically that harmful religious communities are more harmful than non-harmful non-religious communities. Okay...but are those the only two options? What about non-harmful religious communities and harmful non-religious communities? Surely things that are harmful are more harmful than things that are... | 10 |
[DC] Why does the Joker never get the death penalty? | I've seen the question asked many, many times: "Why doesn't the Bat just finish him off?" Well, why doesn't the judicial system? He's definitely guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt. And while he may be legitimately insane, would that still keep him safe in Arkham after his kill count reaches the triple digits? Or qua... | 27 | What exactly are you suggesting? At Arkham, we are devoted to the rehabilitation of all mentally Ill. Whether that be helping the depressed feel better, or helping the extraordinarily Deluded get a glimpse back into reality. "The Joker", as you seem to be fond of calling him, is a mentally Ill man. It is true that he c... | 59 |
ELI5: Why does singing sound good when you put together a group of bad singers? e.g. a fifth grade choir. | 18 | It's all about "blend". A good choir teacher will encourage their group to blend well so that there are no individuals that are way louder than others, and any of the "not as good" singers might be asked to sing a little softer to help with the blend. | 11 | |
CMV: Belief in an idea should solely depend on your ability to debate it. Failure to debate an idea should result in you automatically accepting the counter argument. | It's very common for people to hold views that they cannot defend in debate. It is my view that the only rational way to define your views is to put them to the test. You debate them in an argumentative way and you have to defend them. If at any point you lose a debate and have no retort the only honest thing to do ... | 19 | I think what you're advocating is too prone to fall victim to the false dichotomy fallacy.
Just because you're no longer convinced that you're right doesn't mean that you should accept the counter argument. There's nothing wrong with a period of "I don't yet know" as you learn and expose your beliefs to critique and d... | 38 |
ELI5:Why won't companies ship to P.O Boxes? | Just overall, I am wondering, I tried to google it, and could not find a easy answer, but why won't most companies ship things to P.O Boxes? | 37 | The law says only the United States Postal Service may deliver to post office boxes. Also, if the package needs to be signed for, a PO box cannot do this.
On the other hand, it's not unusual for companies such as The UPS Store, FedEx/Kinko's (not to mention many mom n' pop stores) to offer mailboxes that don't belong... | 14 |
ELI5: Why copyright lawyers and legal departments don't just Google mp3s exactly the way we do, and shut down the websites where they are hosted? | Beemp3, mp3skull, etc. It's not like these sites are hiding..What legal restrictions preclude companies from demanding that these sites be taken down or prosecuted? | 47 | Let's say you live in an apartment complex, and someone found 50 people dealing drugs, selling guns, doing [insert illegal activity]. Do you think they apartment should be bombed down and the owner sent to prison? Unless the owner takes part in those actions, then only the users are the ones to blame. | 32 |
[Spider man] How strong is Doctor Octopus without his arms? | I saw Doc Ock shrug off a brick and punches from spiderman like they were nothing but Aunt May hitting him in the back of the head with an umbrella, that somehow manages to stun him. Any other inconsistencies? | 15 | Depending on WHEN you’re jumping in he’s physically a normal human. While as of late he’s been using an armored suit, he’s, at his core, a human.
Spider-Man is known to pull his punches so him only mildly roughing up Doc Ock isn’t so surprising. | 11 |
[Pirates of the Caribbean] How did Davy Jones and the rest of his crew become so deformed? | I've been rewatching the series and I'm slightly confused on how these pirates become so deformed when the only conditions of their service seems to be relative immortality for the 100 years or so.
I understand Bootstrap Bill Turner becoming deformed since he was at the bottom of the ocean presumably for months/years,... | 61 | The deformity was an aspect of the curse that happens if the Captain of the Dutchman refuses to do his duty (i believe ferrying souls?) When Will Turner became captain by killing Davy Jones, the starfish falls off his father's face and the crew returns to human form. Had Will stopped doing his duty, the curse would def... | 68 |
[Aliens] What else do the Colonial Marines do? Are there other less dangerous aliens they kill? | Obvs theres still plenty of human conflict for them to be so well equipped, but during the briefing Hudson (i think) asks if the mission is "another bug hunt", and their first dropship thats destroyed had "Bug Squasher" painted on the side.
However its obvious the Xenomorphs are something theyve never seen before, bu... | 61 | One thing to keep in mind is that "xenomorph" is *not* the name of the Aliens' species. When Lieutenant Gorman says that "a xenomorph may be involved," in the movie *Aliens,* he is not referring to a specific type of creature. He is using a fancy five dollar word which just means "alien," but he doesn't actually know w... | 72 |
CMV: People convicted of a road-rage related offence should be banned from driving for a substantial amount of time. | Road rage has become a huge problem in this country (USA). The solution i'm thinking would work would be to make it mandatory for these people's liscences to be taken away for a substantial period of time (months, years or permanently for the worst and/or repeat offenders). I have been personally affected by others com... | 49 | A study done in Florida in the 90 showed that people going too slow were more of a problem than people speeding. It leads to min speed limits in many places. So it is all about perspective. The reality is people will drive without a license because frankly we need to do so to get to work in so many cases.
The real fix... | 16 |
ELI5: Why do people disagree with stem cell research? | am i missing something here?? | 82 | Two reasons:
1) Often because their understanding is poor, and scientists often do a horrible job of explaining. Many people think embryonic stem cells from abortions, which is incorrect. In fact they come in-vitro fertilisation (i.e. artificially injecting donated eggs with sperm). When couples go for IVF, because th... | 94 |
ELI5: How do planes/subs know when missiles have a 'lock'? | Or have I been watching too many movies | 240 | Missile systems generally consists of a radar to detect where the target is and send commands to the missile to tell it where to go. The radars have several modes which have their different use cases and a target can detect the signals from the radar to see what mode it is in. A radar might start out using low frequenc... | 142 |
[A Quiet Place] Why wasn’t Regan allowed in the basement? | The title says it all. | 20 | It clearly wasn't very sound proof, and the girl can't hear. There's a lot of electronic equipment that's very noisy, as we see in the end. If she were to accidentally turn even one thing one, she wouldn't notice until it's too late and They be screwed. | 25 |
[DC] Why can't the flash end all crime | Flash is far beyond the speed of light so why doesn't he run around and end crime? | 59 | Here his superspeed is a hindrance.
So, he catches all the criminals doing crime right this second. But it's literally just this second. Because of how fast he goes, he's done in milliseconds- which means if you start your crime spree *a single second later*, you've missed the flash's crime-fighting wave.
Also note ... | 56 |
[Toy Story] How different would the Toy Story movies have been had Andy collected Warhammer 40k instead of Army Men? | 742 | It's probably less interesting than what would happen if they were 40k toys placed in the cupboard from Idnian in the Cupboard. Unlike in that movie, the toys in Toy Story don't get the powers/abilities that the characters they are based off of have. Their weapons won't actually work, but there's no way to know if it w... | 391 | |
How does Quantum Entanglement work? | How do the particles that are entangled manage to always do the opposite of the second one? Are they communicating with each other if so how? Otherwise is it some kind of force? | 3,055 | There is no known mechanism by which the particles "send a message" to one another. The phenomenon is the result of creating a system of two or more particles whose wavefunctions depend upon one another. By measuring an aspect of one particle, its wavefunction is collapsed to known value, which causes the other particl... | 1,819 |
ELI5 the pentagon papers content and while it was so negatively viewed | Can someone please ELI5 what the pentagon papers actually said that was so upsetting to the American public.
No matter where I search, nowhere can I find a detailed and understandable explanation as to what the papers said, that wasn't part of the deal the US entered Vietnam in the first place. | 34 | Here's a quote from the New York Times concerning the Pentagon Papers:
>They demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance.
Basically the Pentagon Papers disc... | 22 |
Is it actually possible to see the curvature of the earth while standing on its surface? | I hear many people say at various times that some area is so flat they can see the earth's curvature. Isn't the earth too big for that? Wouldn't any "curvature" observed just be a localized landscape that doesn't actually represent the earths profile? | 29 | It's most apparent in the ocean when there's no terrain to block your view. You can see the top of distant ships before you can see the bottom. It's the same with distant mountains. People have known the Earth was round for a long time. | 36 |
ELI5: Can chemists follow formula like a recipe? | For example, Salt has the chemical formula NaCl, so if you bond sodium with chloride, you will get salt.
Could a chemist apply this same principle to say Insulin (C257H383N65O77S6). Using the chemical formula alone to replicate the substance in question?
If this is the case, why are knock-off drugs not more common, c... | 17 | No. That’s not how chemistry works.
Saying that c^(6)H^(12)O^(6) is sugar is kind of like say a particular LEGO model is 6 red bricks, 12 blue bricks, and 6 yellow bricks. There is not enough information to build the model even though you know the ratios. | 71 |
ELI5 Why do some injuries hurt at the moment of impact while others hurt the day after? | For example let's say you fall and you can't move for a a few seconds because your knee really hurts, peter griffin style, but the next day what really hurts is like your back or your shoulders. Why is the pain at that moment so sudden and goes away quickly while the other will come a while after? | 56 | There are two types of pain:
* an immediate severe one to make you escape closest danger (e. g. you'll reflexively remove your hand from a flame or a sharp object);
* afterwards a different, long-lasting, deep ache if you have been seriously hurt. Its function seems to be to send you (or any animal) into a safe place... | 39 |
[Harry Potter] What laws of physics does magic defy the most? | And by laws of physics I mean science plus the universe as well. | 57 | The first law of thermodynamics is that energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred from one form to another.
All spells (travelling through time, flying on a broomstick, healing broken bones) would require energy - sometimes huge amounts - but it's never clear where that energy is coming from an... | 100 |
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