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ELI5: What exactly is a Zero Hour contract, and why is it causing such a split in the working community? | So many people seem to think they're either great, or the devil's work.... What exactly is all the fuss? | 22 | A zero-hour contract is one where the minimum hours you can be expected to work in a month is zero, but you still have to be available for work whenever the company needs you. You will not be compensated for being on call, only for the hours you have actually worked.
If you have an amicable relationship with the compa... | 23 |
ELI5: Why aren’t there any medicines against the flu? And in general, against many viruses? | 19 | Viruses aren't alive so they're impossible to kill.
Bacteria are alive, they have to take in nutrients and have many chemical processes that go on, and antibiotics are chemicals that actively disrupt those chemical processes. A virus is inert, there's nothing to turn off and they don't "eat" so you can't make them ta... | 17 | |
If two or more countries owe each other money, can they cancel out their mutual debts? | Hi everyone,
My question about economics is inspired by this post:
http://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/3bjy51/til_the_us_owes_less_to_other_countries_than_its/
It seems that the governments of most nations owe a lot of money to the governments of other nations. If we lived in a simplified world with just tw... | 21 | Hypothetically yes but most countries would have no desire to do so, they hold debt of other sovereigns for good reason (EG playing a forex game, ensuring a flow of foreign currency etc).
They would not cancel the debt but rather hold it until maturity, when the coupon payment is made its made to itself and zeros. Thi... | 12 |
ELI5: Why does the severe weather alert system that broadcasts over your television sound like I'm logging on to the internet in the 90's? | We are having severe weather here and they just did a test over the tele and it got me wondering. | 261 | It's actually quite intentional.
The Emergency Alert System is designed to be broadcast in case of any emergency, whether it's a weather alert or a Presidential Alert. The system doesn't differentiate where the signal is sent, and is broadcast nationally for each alert, but you don't see the ones that don't apply to y... | 172 |
I guess I don't understand evolution. It is 100% purely random mutation? | So, I feel like a fucking idiot, here, because this has always confused me. I thought I understood the theory of evolution, but years ago I had my understanding of the concept turned upside down when someone explained to me that evolution does *not* mean that a species evolved in order to adapt. Rather, species evolv... | 90 | Evolution is not goal-oriented in the sense you originally thought. It has no agency. Mutations are definitely random. But the process of evolution that acts on those mutations is not really.
Natural selection (the mechanism of evolution) is often described as survival of the fittest. Another way to think of it (that... | 119 |
Eli5: Why does jumping off two legs result in roughly the same height as when using one leg? It would seem 2x the upward force should result in a much higher jump. | 76 | Most people can jump higher off of two legs. All people can jump higher off two legs if they are standing still. The reason “leaping” is a thing and some people can get really high off of one leg is because they are moving forward. When a basketball player makes a running leap, he converts some of his forward motion in... | 126 | |
I don't think these 'black boxes' that are in many new cars, and that will be required by the end of 2014 are a very big privacy issue. CMV. | I've been seeing quite a bit about these event recorders lately. They're currently present in 96% of all new cars sold today, and will be required in all new cars by law by the end of the year (I can't recall the exact date off the top of my head.)
From what I understand, these devices have a buffer that usually holds... | 18 | What about a future software update for your car that increases this recording time from 5 minutes to 30? And the next one which uploads this data to the manufacturer's servers for permanent storage. Oh and the 300 page agreement you signed during purchase enables them to use this information as they like to "improve y... | 16 |
[The Muppets] I’m a human associate of the Muppets. But do I live in the real world, where Muppets are skilled thespians, or do I live in the fourth wall breaking fictional world that is the Muppets films about versions of themselves. | 24 | Are you asking if you're a very manly muppet, or if you're a muppet of a man?
But to answer the question, if you're interacting with muppets, you live in the muppet world, not the meta-world that watches muppet movies but does not include actual muppets. | 18 | |
How would an atom bomb effect us if blown up in the sky? | As stated, how would an atom bomb effect us if blown up in the sky?
I understand the radiation would get to us, but what about the shear force from the bomb itself?
EDIT: Meaning in the sky at a high altitude, I did not realize that nuclear bombs were detonated around 500-1000 meters above ground level.
EDIT2: I app... | 17 | Atom bombs are _supposed_ to blow up "in the sky" to maximize the explosive power. E.g. "Little Boy" (Hiroshima) detonated at an altitude of about 600 meters/2000 feet.
It's true of dropped bombs in general, since WWII they've mostly detonated using a proximity fuze rather than a contact (impact) fuze.
| 36 |
[Marvel] What would happen if captain America, Black Widow, and Hawkeye were absent during the battle of New York? | How would the battle have gone differently if it was all down to Stark, Banner, and Thor? | 26 | There would probably be a few more civilian and police casualties due to The Cap not interacting with the people. But really there would be about 200 more aliens for the rest to dispatch and Bruce Banner would probably just appeared as The Hulk instead of just casually riding in on a motor bike. | 28 |
eli5: why is the ocean salty but most lakes and rivers are not? | 18 | Water moves in a cycle. It evaporates into vapour, which condenses into clouds which the rains onto land. Salt is left behind when water evaporates.
This rain travels over or through the land, and where lots of water collects together, that flow forms streams and rivers, which can flow into lakes. Further water can th... | 28 | |
ELI5: Why do lawyers specify that they are “attorneys at law?” Are there some attorneys that are not “at law?” | 927 | Yes. An attorney is just someone that represents you and make decisions on your behalf. This could be in a legal, business or medical context. You can grant anyone "power of attorney" and make them responsible for making decisions that are legally binding on your behalf. This frequently happens when people are too old,... | 1,830 | |
Can someone give me a Halo world overview? | I know the basic story in Combat Evolved, but i have no idea what has happened before it or after. | 15 | Long story short: It's the year 2550 or something and human kind has spread out over the stars, colonizing worlds and fighting some small wars against itself. The Human Government is the UNSC (United Nations Space Command) and it's HQ'ed on Earth. The UNSC's largest military base (aside from Earth) is a planet named ... | 24 |
Given that asteroids from Mars are found of Earth, would asteroids from Earth be found on Mars? | And, if we find life on Mars, how would we show it wasn't just seeded there from Earth from one of these asteroids?
I know that we have found chunks of Mars on Earth in the form of some very rare asteroids. The thought being that pieces of Mars could be thrown into space during large asteroid collisions. Could this h... | 19 | Sure, but it's much much more unlikely. Earth's gravity is a lot stronger than mars, 9.8 m/s² compared to 3.7m/s², so that already makes it harder for chunks of earth to leave and go flying around aimlessly. Earth also has a much thicker atmosphere, so most meteors won't be enough to leave a crater on earth, nevermind ... | 21 |
[Marvel] How is Iceman considered an omega-level mutant? | I have read one of the biggest things he can do is produce a mass ice over of the Earth killing everything, but that doesn't seem too sound to me.
Another I though of was just moisture absorption and dry everything out maybe.. | 37 | Remember in elementary school how we learned that when liquid water molecules are slowed down they turned into solid ice (and turns into vapor when sped up)? That. **Iceman doesn't JUST create ice--he's controlling energy at the atomic level.**
WHOA.
Now how's that for Omega-level? | 25 |
CMV: I think churches should pay taxes. | > "And Jesus said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's..."- Mark 12:17
I was ordained as a minister in the [Universal Life Church](http://www.themonastery.org/) maybe 15 years ago. I registered online and it took 5 minutes. With a little creativity and some paperwork, I could apply for [tax ex... | 133 | I think the best argument that I've seen for not taxing churches is that if churches do not generate revenue directly for a government then that government does not have a strong incentive to encourage churches, and therefore it helps keep the relationship between church and state more neutral.
If churches were a sign... | 54 |
How do we know that things like murder and rape are obviously wrong? | 110 | u/Voltairinede gave an account of how to *explain* the wrongness of murder and rape. But the question is how we know these acts are wrong, and the answer to that seems to me -- along with a bunch of philosophers -- "It's common sense".
In fact, many counterexamples to ethical theories like utilitarianism or even Kant... | 62 | |
[Starwars] Are the storm trooper's helmet the reason why they lose to the ewoks? | 25 | No that wasnt the reason, The reason they lost is because their armor stood out against the foliage, Where the ewoks could blend in, the ewoks outnumbered the imperials at least 5 to one, and the inperials were stationed to repel a rebel ground assault not an uprising of the native populace
Keep in mind the Ewoks, whi... | 59 | |
Why don't other viruses nearly eradicated by vaccines not evolve to evade immunity like Covid does? | Covid-19 has seen lots of variants that evade the immune response from prior variants, either acquired from the virus or from vaccines made based on their spike protein characteristics.
Measles is incredibly infectious but historically we were able to nearly eliminate it in the Western world. Why did it not evolve to ... | 20 | Flu is able to swap large sections of its genome, since it is segmented. It also travels through various different species (birds, pigs, human etc), so flu can and does mutate quite a bit. More than CoVid, by far. CoVid and measles mutate at the same rate on a molecular level, but the measles spike protein is very h... | 15 |
[LotR] Is elves being twisted into orcs a reason for the Elvish kingdoms decline? | 25 | No. For one thing, it's uncertain what the origin of the orcs actually is; the idea of orcs being corrupted elves is only one of several theories. Beyond this, even if orcs are descended wholly or partly from elves, they reproduce biologically, in the same way that any of the other races do. The origin of orcs lies far... | 31 | |
ELI5: Why people recommend breathing in a bag when nervous. | 20 | The bag traps some of the carbon dioxide that you're exhaling. Carbon dioxide levels in the bloodstream tend to lower when you feel stressed out or anxious. Breathing in some of that recycled co2 will raise the level in your blood, making you feel better and more balanced. | 14 | |
[MCU] So what's the deal with the fake infinity gauntlet/timeline of invasion of Nidavellir? | So in the first Thor (2011) we see the Infinity Gauntlet in Odins treasure room. At the end of Age of Ultron (2015) Thanos grabs his gauntlet and says he'll do it himself. Then in Thor Ragnarok Hela,imprisoned for a millennia, tells us its a fake. In Avengers: Infinity war we learn Eitri forged Thanos's Gauntlet aft... | 86 | No. The one in the treasure vault is a fake - we just don't know how Hela knows it - likely she knows that Odin knows. There already is a mold in Nidavellir, but we don't know if that's related to the fake. That doesn't imply she knows there is a real one. That could have been commissioned by anyone.
The one that ... | 72 |
ELI5: Arcade "Kill screens"? | 17 | The simplest way to describe it is to say that a killscreen comes from being asked to perform a task that is impossible from a strictly literal perspective.
Lets say you have a simple task--moving sand from pile A into pile B using only a spoon. You have a time limit of five minutes to do this, and you are only able... | 10 | |
ELI5: How does a flash bang work? Does it actually blind a person, or cause impaired hearing, or both? | Always been curious as to how these things worked. Not just because of CoD, but because of a friend who entered the army and talked about them.
Edit: Wow! I did not expect these types of great responses. A huge thanks to /u/Moobs_like_Jagger for his excellent explanation on the finer aspects of a flash bang. And bein... | 1,920 | it's very bright. it temporarily blinds the eyes. there's nothing much you can do about that. it's basically like if you shine a really bright LED flashlight into your eyes or look into the sun for a bit (DO NOT TRY!)
it's very loud. 170-180db loud. a pistol gunshot is about 140-150. the decibel rating sy... | 1,082 |
Why does our bodies get stiffer as we get older? | Basically the title. | 24 | As we age, the elastic-y proteins in our tissues and joints (namely collagen) slowly break down, causing skin to get wrinkles and sag and joints/muscles to get stiffer. This is paired with the commonality of arthritis in old age, which is when the connective tissue that cushions our joints wears down and causes bones t... | 11 |
ELI5: How does the human body know when it has reached growth or developmental stages? | How does the body know when it's time to start puberty, or when to stop a growth spurt, for example? A lot of these things are pretty hereditary, so presumably it's mostly genetic rather than environmental, but how does the body measure time? How does it know "this is tall enough"? | 80 | It doesn't. There are no countdown timers in your body that signal when certain developmental steps should start or end. It's just feedback loops and certain processes triggering other processes.
Let's consider height. During childhood, your bones are able to get longer because they have growth plates at the end wher... | 23 |
How is facebook exploiting me? | I keep reading it in memes and all over reddit. How? Thanks! | 44 | Basically anything you submit to Facebook becomes their property; Pictures, personal information, everything.
People complain about privacy and then go and spill every single detail of their life to Facebook, thus Facebook is "exploiting" idiots. | 23 |
ELI5: How can gravity exert a force without expending energy? | Every other thing in the world, if you want to accelerate it, you need to spend energy. But not gravity, which pulls distant objects like meteors down without spending any. Doesn’t this violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics or something?
EDIT: Thanks for all the great answers and discussions! Apologies in advance if I... | 171 | > Every other thing in the world, if you want to accelerate it, you need to spend energy.
This is not true. Something with a positive electric charge will accelerate toward something with a negative electric charge. No energy input required. Acceleration does not require energy. Kinetic energy is a function of *vel... | 202 |
[Halo]How did the forerunners 'fake' human prehistory? | To clarify, as far as I can understand, ancient humans were obviously de-evolved by the forerunners after their war. But, what I don't understand is how did the humans that rose up afterwards, not notice anything odd; Because in my mind, that would imply to me that the forerunners were able to plant fake fossils or som... | 25 | The majority of the forms the Forerunners devolved ancient humanity into had already existed earlier in mankind's evolutionary chain. A few were mutations but from a historical perspective that would just like a species diverging with a few missing links.
Before activating the Array, the Forerunners covered every life... | 21 |
I've seen alarmist TV shows making conspiracy theories that "Fort Knox is actually empty" . Would that even have any actual economic implications? | 41 | > Would that even have any actual economic implications?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: The US gold reserves (310 billion USD) are about 1.6% of GDP (19.4 trillion) and about 1.4% of total national debt (22.4 trillion). The gold reserves correspond to less than two weeks of the total economic output of the US, and... | 47 | |
ELI5 what is dynamic programming? | I’ve been encountering problems lately where the solution requires a dynamic programming solution, but I can’t wrap my head around how that works. Can some ELI5 it? | 60 | Dynamic programming is a way of breaking problems up into repeated subproblems, then solving the subproblems from the bottom up, reusing any answers that you’ve already figured out.
Consider a naive recursive Fibonacci function:
```
fib(0) = 0
fib(1) = 1
fib(n) = fib(n - 1) + fib(n - 2)
```
I’m on mobile so I’ll use... | 67 |
ELI5: Why, after taking long showers, do we feel dried out? What makes the moisture leave our skin? | 130 | Imagine an extremely hot and humid day. Once you step outside, you'll be drenched in your own sweat immediately.
Being in a hot shower/bath/pool is almost the same environment. You're still sweating large amounts but you don't feel it because the sweat is washed away immediately.
Since you are losing water through sw... | 77 | |
I can't shake the stereotype that the American South is still filled with racism and backwardness. CMV | First off, I absolutely know this view is wrong; I have visited a few places in the south, have relatives who live there, friends from that region I love and appreciate, etc, and I do NOT mean to offend anyone or slam anyone, so I'm sorry if I have, but I can't help that every time I think of the south I associate it w... | 17 | Stop thinking North vs South and start thinking Urban vs Rural. Major urban centers are generally more progressive in every way than rural areas. It's just when you think of the north you think of NYC, and when you think of the south you think rolling Alabama cornfields. Think of Atlanta instead. | 31 |
[Harry Potter] Could a wizard conceivably make it into low earth orbit, board the ISS, and return to Earth safely using only spells, potions, and magical apparatuses (e.g. a broomstick)? | Assume Apparating onto the station is prohibited, and any restrictions on Wizard-Muggle contact don't come into play.
What sorts of spells etc. would a wizard need to employ to reach the ISS safely, and how long would it take on a broomstick? | 198 | I believe so. We don’t know all of the different spells and potions that exist, but given that it was possible for wizards to travel to the bottom of a large lake we know that there’s some magic that can allow wizards to endure harsh environments.
They’d probably just need something that obviates the need to breathe,... | 110 |
ELI5: Why is/was the federal mail service (USPS) in debt and on the brink of financial failure, while independent services (UPS, FedEx) remain profitable? | 53 | Congress got it in their heads that since emails became popular and would only become more popular, the US Post would eventually have a lot of problems staying profitable. Worried that a majority of their workers would retire at the peak of people no longer using the Post Office, they said that the USPS needs to make s... | 63 | |
[Overwatch] How does Sombra hack things? | She seems to just be some odd tech-guru that would even leave Technomancers scratching their heads. When she was younger, she seemed to have to be in physical contact with a computer, but now she has all this fancy holograms and stuff, so any ideas on how it all works? | 16 | For most of the combat "hacking" it's probably less of an actual "hack" and more like a brute force overload that takes the targeted machine a few seconds to compensate for, or the owner a few seconds to troubleshoot/repair. The only really innovative thing is probably her ability to affect things that should be airgap... | 20 |
[Doctor Who] How are the Weeping Angels not breaking the laws of time, by sending people from the present into the past they are giving them the chance to change history with their future knowledge thus breaking the very rule that the Doctor keeps harping on about? | And this is going on a lot. | 432 | I mean, they are. They just get away with it.
It's like going "Why is that person speeding? That breaks the laws! He could cause a lot of accidents and make problems for everyone!" Yes, the Weeping Angels do things that can cause paradoxes and mess with the fabric of time. They're BAD. | 454 |
[marvel] can someone explain how a human can breathe with an Adamantium ribcage? (the ribcage needs to move with the lungs) | 445 | How does *your* ribcage move? Bones don't flex.
The ribs may be adamantium, but the cartilage and tendons which connect it together are not. That is what allows a ribcage to flex, be it bone or indestructible metal. | 538 | |
CMV: We need a world-wide moratorium on viral Gain of Function research and to place strict restrictions on DNA synthesis. | This CMV is NOT about covid. I will not speculate as to the origin of SARS-CoV-2 except to say that the possibility of it having been leaked from the lab has [not been dismissed](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bies.202000240) and there are [more](https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj0016) an... | 15 | So how would scientists understand virus and figure out ways to get a head of the curve to prevent another pandemic events and create vaccines for them?
​
If they don't fully understand the nature of the virus how can they make vaccines and how can they create any predictive models to try and stay a head o... | 12 |
I believe that the Federation's laws against genetic enhancements are ridiculous. CMV | First of all, for those of you who do not know, the controversy in the Federation about genetic augmentation spawned from "the Eugenics Wars" in the late 20th century Earth. Some augmented super humans took control of the world from the shadows, and were probably responsible for most of the wars throughout the 21st cen... | 166 | Julian Bashir provided an alternate argument against genetic enhancement, analogous to those used against performance-enhancing drugs on Earth in the pre-warp era. If genetic enhancement for children became the norm, parents would be pressured to have their children genetically engineered as well, just to keep up. Tw... | 32 |
ELI5: With UAVs being common throughout the world, why aren't there many unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) being used for military applications yet? | 76 | It’s easier to navigate when there are no obstacles, so the ocean and the air is simply easier for unmanned craft to manage. With modern developments in ML that’s changing, but it’s a fundamentally harder problem being *in* the terrain than over or under it. | 176 | |
CMV: Saying all White people are racist is racist/bigoted | Firstly I'd like to point out the title says "racist/bigoted" due to differences in how we define racism, younger generations believe there has to be a systematic element where as older generations will not need this element to be present.
So. I've seen numerous times, mostly from the left, people argue that all whit... | 763 | How would you feel about the idea that all people are racist? Everyone makes prejudicial assumptions based on appearance, even if subconsciously, and after sex, race is generally the first thing we notice about someone.
This is just how people work; we’re very visual creatures. It’s not anything to feel terrible abou... | 346 |
ELI5: What is the reasoning behind how trains are loaded? | I see trains everyday and I’ve never understood how/reason behind how rail cars are organized. I see 3x fuel cars then 2x box car, and finally more fuel cars. Why not all the fuel cars then box cars? | 23 | They are generally arranged by how they are picked up and delivered. It's much easier to pull into a place and unhook the last five cars, then go to the next place and unhook the next 8 cars, etc., then to have to go to each place, unhook cars 1-6, and cars 7-12, then connect to cars 7-12, then move them, then disconn... | 34 |
Feasibility of warp drive under M-theory | 82 | TL;DR *If* there are compact extra dimensions and *if* you have the ability to change their radius by factors of trillions and *if* you have access to several Jupiters worth of antimatter and *if* you can get a negative mass-energy density, *then* you can get a working warp drive. | 38 | |
CMV: Considering the majority of society aren’t adequately educated on the criminal justice system, jury trials are an ineffective way of delivering justice. | For example, if somebody is facing the death penalty or a life sentence, it is unfair to have someone’s life hanging in the balance of legally uneducated people. Surely legally trained professionals are far more capable of deciding whether somebody is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Letting someone’s life be shaped b... | 116 | The job of a juror really doesn't require much legal knowledge. You really only need an in-depth understanding of the law in order to know what to charge a person with or how to make a case for or against them, which is why lawyers are responsible for those parts. A juror's job is not to interpret the law at all but on... | 39 |
ELI5 Why can't each state run the voter rolls through the SSA death index database to get rid of the 'dead people who vote'? | 235 | (1) They should.
(2) The SSA death index isn't always 100% accurate (though it should be), and people get very upset if a single voter is denied access to the polls.
Further, any attempt to clean up the poll books is met with accusations of deliberate voter suppression. (Some of them might actually be attempts at ... | 79 | |
[DCEU] Why did people hate Superman when he was alive but love and mourn him when he was dead? | Throughout Dawn Of Justice, and I think during Man Of Steel(I haven't watched that one in a while), Superman was something of a pariah, people hating and fearing the power at his disposal and even the government themselves wanted to bring him in dead or alive. But in the Justice League movie, after his sacrifice agains... | 18 | Dying is always the best PR move, and in a heroic sacrifice against a giant monster? Plus the fact that he *died* proved that he wasn't a god, just a powerful man, which quelled a lot of people's fears and criticisms of him. | 23 |
ELI5: Why are domesticated cats generally so afraid of water yet wild cats like pumas, lions, etc. regularly cross rivers, lay in the rain, and don't seem to be bothered by it? | 39 | It has a lot to do with the nature of their fur. Domestic cats get soaked in water, and really lack the lose skin and shaking reflex of a dog. Other animals have guard hairs and oils that keep the inner fur dry.
If you wash a kitten in warm water, dry it straight after, it will not mind this - it doesn't link getting ... | 22 | |
ELI5:Why don't we see riots in Belarus, when there are riots in Ukraine? | The latest riots in mainly Kijev has been triggered by heavy russian influence in the country, and the pinching between Russia and EU.
This leads me to think: wouldn't that imply, that this dilemma between staying Russia-influenced or moving towards EU would move on to a country like Belarus. It's known as the last d... | 15 | Belarus was already effectively a dictatorship, and the government would never, ever have permitted a protest movement to develop and take over a public square for months. They'd have sent in the military on day one. And everyone living there knows it.
So there's no protest movement. But hey, the situation was simila... | 10 |
ELI5:Why is that animals can sense things like earthquake before they happen while were left totally clueless? | 29 | Earthquakes produce two kinds of waves, P-waves and S-waves. P-waves travel faster through the ground than S-waves, and aren't destructive, or even easily noticed by humans.
The leading theory is that some animals can sense the minor vibrations caused by the P-waves, which alert them to the incoming S-waves (which ar... | 25 | |
How are Calcium(+2) ions able to form ionic bonds with 4 atoms at once? | How would this affect the overall charge of the molecule? I understand that calcium has a +2 charge, but when observed in structures such as calcium hydroxyapatite, it is able to bind to up to 4 oxygen atoms. Similarly, other alkaline metals such as Magnesium(+2) are able to bind to EDTA with the same 4 bonds occurring... | 15 | Even worse, Ca2+ is octahedraly coordinated (6 bonds) in lime!!! The reason this works is because the attractive part of an ionic bond is essentially just the Culomb force. Since this force is omni directional the energy of an ionic system tends to be minimised when as many anions (Or in the case of EDTA, negative char... | 14 |
[Invincible] So did Urath never contact the Coalition of Planets where their evaluator was? | Allen the alien has been going to Earth for fifteen years, where an evaluation hapen every three years, so Urath missed at least five evaluations and never asked the coalition where the evaluator was? They can obviously contact them because they need that to start the mandate in the first place. | 16 | It's possible Urath didn't know what the schedule of evaluations would be. Given there are species out there that can see multiple decades as a pittance in terms of lifespan, it might not have registered as odd that no one came to fight them for 15. | 20 |
ELI5: The significance/obsession of USA citizens with prom and high school graduation. | Is there something that I'm missing here?
I thought it's normal to finish high school and prepare to go to pre U than Uni.
But after seeing limousine being rented, hundred plus USD dress, another hundred plus USD for shoes, and top that with another couple of hundred USD for other necessary stuff, I'm questioning m... | 52 | TL;DR: We've lost most of our developmental milestones and coming-of-age rituals. So high school prom and graduation are a major milestone for most people, often the *only* milestone. They're an important cultural event and ritual that signals a transition from childhood to adulthood. People want to mark the occasion a... | 57 |
[Aliens] Why are alien planets *always* unified politically? | Every time I see a sci-fi in which another planet is shown, there's always just one government ruling the whole planet and no other political divisions. Given that has never happened in the history of the earth, why do we assume that it'd happen on other planets? Any examples of a sci-fi alien planet that has multiple ... | 371 | In startrek most races have conflicting political parties. That being said they still act in unison for the most part when attacked by outside forces. An example of this would be the Klingons. They have a consul of honorable families that have power and there own political goals. That being said most scifi that deal w... | 328 |
CMV I believe /r/news and /r/worldnews should ban links from FoxNews.com and anything related to Fox News | Why I'm in favor of this:
Fox News has repeatedly been shown using biased reporting and reports pseudo-science constantly. They are nothing more than a spokesman for the Republican party. I'm not saying that Fox News can't report the truth, but most of the time they don't. Or they distort it to meet their own agenda.
T... | 20 | To specifically cut out Fox News would imply that they are the only ones guilty of biased journalism. People should check *all* articles and news reports for bias. Don't let your guard down just because it's not Fox News. | 30 |
How did we come to know that our galaxy is spiral? | 58 | There are a number of factors.
Partly because lots of other galaxies are spirals, and the difference between spiral and elliptical galaxies is quite pronounced, in terms of the types of stars they contain.
Plus the Milky Way looks like a disc-shaped thing plus a bulgy thing in the middle from side on.
And nowaday... | 29 | |
What do Kierkegaard and Hegel mean by infinite absolute negativity? | I was reading Kierkegaard’s “The Concept of Irony: With Continual Reference to Socrates”
and couldn’t find any sources to unpack the Hegelian definition of irony. Can anyone explain it to me like I’m five? | 83 | Maybe this? "Infinite Absolute Negativity": Irony in Socrates, Kierkegaard and Kafka Author(s): Reed Merrill
Source: Comparative Literature Studies, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Sep., 1979), pp. 222-236. :
“…Infinite absolute negativity fully expresses Kierkegaard's dialectic of opposites, and irony provides the mode of its prese... | 19 |
[IT] Can IT eat unsalted meat, AKA, "fearless"? | So fear salts the meat, according to Pennywise. But a person can eat unsalted meat, it'll just be bland.
If confronted with people who don't fear It, are they just bland, or impervious to being attacked?
If they can be eaten without the neccesary fear, why not kill them at It's convenience? | 30 | Yes. It's fully capable of killing people without terrorizing them first, and it can eat those it didn't properly scare, either.
However, people that don't fear it have the capability of turning their belief and conviction against it, and using those psychic weapons as very potent methods of injuring, if not killing,... | 32 |
ELI5: What Is Stoicism? | 17 | I believe it’s a philosophy from the Ancient Greek era that preaches ideas along the lines of ‘don’t concern yourself with what you cannot control’ and that you are in control of how you react, your emotions etc. | 38 | |
Two offers for an Assistant Prof. in Engineering. What start up resources should I request? (also AMA) | So, I am currently in negotiations with two schools for a position in an engineering department. Both are top 30 schools (one is ranked much higher than the other). They both know that I am getting an offer from the other school, so they are trying to offer a competitive package.
My problem is that is my research is a... | 27 | Don't forget to ask for money that can be used for:
* Books
* Memberships to professional organizations
* Travel to conferences
* Registration for professional institutes/training sessions/etc.
* Supplemental summer income and/or course buyout for research purposes | 13 |
ELI5: How can scavenger animals (that feast on often diseased, rotten flesh) stomach such meals? | What makes their digestive system so unique that they are classified as "scavengers"? | 11,029 | In addition to highly acidic stomachs, scavengers also have short digestive tracts. Their food spends less time in their body\*, so whatever may have survived the stomach has less time to multiply in the intestines and become a problem.
\*they can afford this because rotten meat is basically pre-digested. Tenderized. | 9,507 |
Why does Starkiller use a reverse grip? | Starkiller's training came from Vader (who used a standard grip) and a combat droid using simulations of dead Jedi, most of whom would have used a standard grip. Why did he chose to use a fighting style that he likely had next to no training material on to work with? | 25 | Marek was originally trained primarily in Form V, which is all about creating your own openings, acting unpredictably and keeping the opponent off-balance. The reverse grip (despite the decreased versatility and possible health risks of introducing your forearm to your lightsaber in while in combat with a physically su... | 39 |
[Doctor Who] Did the Tardis originally come with a Perception Filter installed or was this added later to compensate for the broken Chameleon Circuit? | 49 | I believe this is a standard feature. The primary function of a TARDIS is to allow timelords to travel to other worlds and observe them without disturbing the inhabitants.
The camouflage features are there to protect the place it travels to, not the Tardis itself.
As well as the chameleon circuit and the perception f... | 40 | |
ELI5: How are impurities and other garbage taken out of the water inside sewer systems, and what happens to the waste after the water is cleaned? | 18 | I went to a waste treatment plant several years ago and this is what happened:
* The water flows in and is run though a gate. The gate picks out most of the larger stuff, and the flow of the water is slowed occasionally to allow people to clean out the gates.
* Then the water is run through a grate. Sometimes the wa... | 12 | |
(Pokemon) Is a Pokeball a weapon? | Could you consider it a weapon? | 27 | Not really, the League-approved ones can't realistically cause harm other than blunt trauma. Pokeballs use the low-end of the matter-energy spectrum so there's not much raw energy to work with. You could try to jury-rig the ME ray to cause damage, but most likely you'd run out of battery before killing anything. And re... | 28 |
I don't believe married, home owning, or procreating people should get tax breaks. CMV. | These three things are all your own choice. None of them help society as a whole. Being a an unmarried renter who hasn't knocked anyone up, it makes me upset that I never get much back on my tax returns (a couple hundred dollars on 40k a year), when I see my friends with kids getting back thousands and thousands of dol... | 41 | Having children is really, *really* expensive. Without some form of subsidies the only people having children would be people who are 1) rich, or 2) bad at planning/making decisions. There are a lot more people in the second category. | 31 |
ELI5: Why have humans evolved so far as to lose their thick coats but still grow hair on their heads and faces? What purpose does it have? | Just confused as to why we all still grow hair if it doesn't really do anything. | 46 | In short because as humans evolved from arboreal dwelling primates to plains dwelling proto humans it was more important to keep cool, and since we sweat to keep cool those who were less hairy tended to cool off better and hence survive better to pass on the less hairy genes. Hair on the top of the head remained becau... | 15 |
[Terminator] Can humanity beat Skynet? | Looking through years of records fighting Skynet bots I've uncovered a pattern in their behavior, they are not "terminating" but toying with us.
Terminators throw people around, miss bullets (impossible for a machine, they wouldn't have fired if they were going to miss) and never going for human weak points like the h... | 21 | There's really been no evidence that Skynet thinks at all. It's certainly not a Singularity AI, and it doesn't seem to have any sense of self or subjectivity that would lead to innovative thought. It's just a military program run amok, following pre-programmed eventualities and adhering to specific tactics with little ... | 24 |
[Kung Fu Panda] Why didnt Oogway give the scroll to Tai Lung and explain it to him? | Why didn't Oogway just give Tai Lung the scroll and explain the lesson of self-worth? It was, apparently, the only thing he was missing from his training; if Oogway knew that Tai Lung and Shifu had been working towards making him into the Dragon Warrior but missed something crucial (like humility and self-esteem?), sho... | 30 | When the student is ready, the master will appear.
Contrapoint: if the student is not ready, the master should remain hidden.
In the philosophical tradition Oogway and Shifu were part of, stuff like 'questioning' and 'explanations' and 'just fucking tell him what's going on you secretive old asshole' are pretty much... | 39 |
ELI5: How does the air recirculation in car AC work? | Also, is it safe to use the feature for long time? If the air inside the car is always recirculated, won't it be saturated with carbon dioxide as we breath? | 17 | If cars were sealed to the point that one could suffocate themselves by not opening a window, it would be difficult to open your door, and then when you closed it your ears would pop.
Setting the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and AC) in your car to recirculate just means it will draw the majority of the air it is using ... | 24 |
The Federal Reserve and why some people think it will be better if it's eliminated. | 296 | The Federal Reserve is basically the National Bank of the United States. We used to have an actual "Bank of the United States", until Andrew Jackson decided banks were evil and shut it down (Apparently, he was part of the hipster "Occupy the 1820s" movement).
The Federal Reserve works by loaning money to other banks, ... | 181 | |
ELI5: If exercising is good for your heart, why is being overweight bad for your heart even though it works your heart out? | 66 | Copy paste of an old response of mine about high blood pressure :
"Oh you are right, it gives your heart a workout, but not a good one.
High blood pressure means that your heart will need to work harder to pump blood, which makes your muscle heart, specially the left ventricule ones, get bigger and bigger. Problem i... | 64 | |
ELI5: No idea if it's crappy design or malicious design, but I've noticed that packaging never wants to tear open where the perforated line is. Why is that? | 21 | Most likely the blade that makes the perforations is either worn out or not adjusted properly, so it just marks the packaging a bit instead of significantly weakening it.
To fix it, the manufacturer would have to regularly take a sample and see if it tears easily where it's supposed to, then stop the production line ... | 17 | |
ELI5: How does a Chameleons colour change work and how does it activate it? Also, is there any colours it struggles with and can it change into colours beyond our visible spectrum? | 41 | Chameleons aren't the masters of color and camouflage - for that you need to go to the octopus, the cuttlefish and the squid.
Chameleon are mostly greens or browns and shift to lighter and darker colors. Some do have red or yellow markings as well and they have UV markings as well. When they get angry or threatened th... | 13 | |
Why do cars idle at about 1000 rpm? Why haven't engineers developed a car that idles at or near zero? | I understand that the engine runs on combustion and that must occur to keep the engine running. However, what is keeping engineers from developing a car that brings the rpm down to 0 or near 0 when idling? | 38 | In theory, you can "idle" an engine at 0 rpm if you have a valve train that offers very fine control to the ECU, and a direct injected system (also controlled by the ECU, the fuel injector has its own socket in the cylinder head like a spark plug does). To do so, the ECU just squirts some fuel into whichever cylinder i... | 84 |
ELI5: Why doesn't chicken, beef, or any other processed meat go through rigor mortis when being prepared at a factory or even in the days afterwards? | Is there some kind of chemical applied or process introduced that keeps this from happening? | 52 | Hate to break it to you, but they do.
Rigor mortis, depending on conditions (animal health, size, temperature, etc) takes 2-24 hours typically. In processed meat, it's already in a package by then. Sometimes, the process is allowed to complete, as it can actually result in more tender meat.
When it comes to big anima... | 37 |
ELI5: Why aren't turboramjets (like those in the SR-71) used for other aircraft? | I understand the SR-71 had to deal with a lot of issues in order to keep its speed (special fuel which leaked on the runway, titanium fuselage and probably other stuff). But wouldn't the same type of engine be able to power a relatively slower fighter jet capable of easily cruise at match 2-2.5, so it doesn't have to d... | 563 | Turboramjets are substantially larger and heavier than a standalone turbofan engine. You basically have to build two separate engines, then stick the turbojet inside of the ramjet. That also leads to the engine being much more expensive and difficult to maintain than a standalone turbofan.
Also, the ability to go th... | 752 |
ELI5: When I need to pee, and I'm standing there waiting, but nothing is coming out, what's happening in my body that's making me wait? | Shy pissers unite! | 30 | You brain is good at knowing when the appropriate time to "go" is, so much so that it lets you be largely in charge of it. This happens because of 4 different types of nerves controlling the urinary mechanisms: Sensory (afferent) nerves, which tell you your bladder is full; sympathetic ("fight/flight") nerves which rel... | 18 |
CMV: Women in the military should have to shave their heads, or men should be allowed to grow out their hair. | I decided on this issue after reading a recent story about black women in the military saying that their hair is incompatible with hair regulations.
With the recent push to make women serve equally in the military, I believe it only makes sense that they be subject to the same hair standards as men. Consider this:
1.... | 200 | Combat doesn't mean dick. The grooming standards are for a professional appearance. We're told that we have to be clean shaven in order for our gas masks to work, yet SF guys, the guys who have the highest chance of actually USING a gas mask, are allowed to grow beards.
The rules are there because long hair looks prof... | 89 |
[Cyberpunk Genre] Are there Independent Shareholders or Holding Companies that hold ownership in rival Megacorps? | In some of the more hardcore settings, Megacorporations are all encompassing entities with fingers in every pie that compete against each other to the point of almost open warfare and its employees with the most stake in their companies treat their Corp as its lifeblood. Does that leave any room for people to be able t... | 34 | The upper level, uber-wealthy leaders of the megacorps would absolutely invest in each other's ventures if it even hints at increasing their wealth. Even if they publicly decry everything the rival corp stands for and engage in actual turf wars via mercenaries and street thugs. That kind of corruption is the absolute l... | 12 |
Mitosis: Which is the Original? | When a cell divides by mitosis, could it be said that either of the two daughter cells produced is the 'original' cell? Or would it be better to say that the original cell no longer exists and has been replaced by two brand new cells?
I understand this may be more a chicken-and-egg style philosophical question, but I ... | 954 | When there was still active discussion about DNA replication, there was a famous experiment (the Meselson-Stahl experiment) where cells were grown in media that only contained the N15 isotope of nitrogen. This meant all the nitrogen in the DNA was N15 instead of the more common N14.
Then the cells were put in regular ... | 480 |
ELI5: What is the difference between the roles of a Director, Producer, and Studio, in the making of a movie? | 283 | Director makes the artistic decisions; who plays who, how shots get taken, what the edit looks like.
Producers do the heavy lifting on the organisational side; contracts, locations, etc
Studios put up the money. Producers may well be involved in negotiating other income streams as well. | 144 | |
[Avatar: The Last Airbender] What's up with those animal names? | I mean, there are all these hybridized names, but we never see any normal names. I mean, we hear of koala sheep, but not koalas or sheep, for instance. No ostriches or horses, but they do have ostrich horses. | 23 | (I think the 4th wall reason is that the mixed animals are a joke about how, in Chinese, many animal names combine the characters for two other animals. For example, pandas are "cat bears". But, trying to answer in-universe:)
This is a translation issue.
In the Avatar universe, the language is much like Chinese, an... | 33 |
CMV: Head-first diving technique should not be taught to anyone but competitive swimmers. | It is estimated that 800 spinal injuries occur per year from diving head first into a body of water ([Link here](https://www.health.ny.gov/environmental/outdoors/camps/aquatics/minimum_water_depths_for_head_first_diving.htm)). There are a number of regulations in place to avoid diving into shallow ends of pools and la... | 15 | Are you sure head-first diving *is* being taught? Perhaps those 800 injuries per year all came from people who were diving head-first who had never been taught how to do so properly and safely. Perhaps a swimming class that goes over head-first diving would have *prevented* those injuries. | 24 |
ELI5: What exactly is Ebola? | 26 | Ebola is one of several viruses known as *Hemorrhagic*. Hemorrhagic is a big word that means bleeds a lot. Bleeds a *scary* lot.
The way this virus kills a body's cells is it ruptures (explodes) the cell walls. All of your cell walls begin exploding. The cells guts leak out. This effect begins in your blood and w... | 32 | |
ELI5: Why do people get so hungry they feel like they're gonna throw up? | Basically what the title says. I'm just lying in bed trying to sleep and I haven't eaten in hours. My stomach is grumbling, but yet I also feel sorta pukey. Why does this happen? | 26 | Someone commented but they may be shadowbanned, just letting them know.
So what a hungry person is feeling is the stomach acid acting on nothing, as your stomach is basically digesting acids. The nausea is caused by your body trying to get rid of the excess acid in the stomach. | 13 |
[Star Trek] What is the effective range of a phasor? | 25 | Yay for Starfleet Technical Manuals.
On the type 1 phaser they were: stun - thirty meters, heat - two meters, disrupt - twenty meters, dematerialization - ten meters. On the type 2 phaser the ranges were: stun - ninety meters, heat - six meters, disrupt - sixty meters, dematerialization - thirty meters. Setting dials... | 20 | |
ELI5: how come if your left nose is plugged and you turn to lay on your right side your left nose unplugs? (and vice versa) | Edit: y’all, didn’t you know we have two noses and one nostril sheesh 🤧 | 1,226 | Your nose has a rhythm where it engorges one side with blood, restricting airflow, while the other breathes clearly. If everything is going well, it switches back and forth over time without you noticing.
But, if something aggravates your nasal passages (say, a cold or allergies) then there will inflammation and one o... | 798 |
[Game of Thrones] How did Robert Baratheon survive as king for so many years before the start of the series, only to die in such a stupid way shortly thereafter? | Given the very short general life-expectancy of Westeros' monarchs as demonstrated by Robert's successors, and the general characterization that Robert was supposed to be an idiotic and terrible king, how did he manage not to get killed sooner? Did he have to deal with any other major conflicts during his reign subsequ... | 83 | Robert was far from idiotic, Robert was actually pretty sharp and knew how the world truly was instead of seeing it as white and black as most people do. The only reason he was a bad king because he was a fighter not a diplomat, Robert was born to live on the battle field not sitting on a throne hence why he took to d... | 156 |
ELI5: Why can't we use stainless steel flask to store whiskey for longer than few days? | It contains a lot of alcohol like 40%+ so any bacteria shouldn't grow inside. Can it poison you or kill you or does it only affect taste or something? | 22 | Alcohol is fermented in stainless steel barrels, so this is a good example of irrational herd behavior.
Most humans act by copying other humans that have been successful at something. When humans copy something they rarely understand *why* they're doing it, they just understand that it "needs" to be done. What this ... | 79 |
Can someone explain to me how a computer processor works....like i'm five? [ELI5] | I have never really understood this device that I use on a daily basis. I know it is very complicated and I am not asking how does it pull up this program or this program...I am more interested in the 0's and 1's and the electricity running through it and how it makes its most basic function happen which is turning a 0... | 45 | Logic gates are the main tool used for dealing with binary, there's a handful of them:
* Not gates, which take in a 0 or 1 and output the opposite
* And gates, which take in 2 numbers, and output 1 if the inputs are both 1, other wise it outputs 0
* Or gates, which take in 2 number and output 1 if either of the inputs... | 21 |
[MCU] So far we have only really seen the Mind Stone and the Power Stone used to grant or enable individuals to have access to super-powers. Would any of the remaining Stones be capable of similar feats and if so what potential powers might be manifested by them? | With my question I'm not counting individuals who gain temporary abilities by using a Stone directly such as Malekith, Thanos or Doctor Strange, but rather individuals who are permanently changed after an encounter with a Stone or it's energies such that they continue to exhibit unique powers even afterwards? | 137 | It's the Space Stone, rather than the Power stone we see give anyone powers (Captain Marvel).
It's not really clear how that works, anyway. For Wanda, the Mind Stone only unlocked and enhanced existing powers. That makes sense if you think of her being limited by her own mind.
But the Mind Stone giving Quicksilver su... | 106 |
CMV: If a girl hates gender roles and wants everything to be equal between men and women, she can't complain when I leave the seat up | I'm not saying I wouldn't respect someone's "put the goddamn seat down" rule, but if I have to lift the lid up when I pee, girls should have to touch and move the seat just as much as I do. The inconvenience (if it really can even be considered as an inconvenience) should be equal.
I hold this belief because every tim... | 46 | Why don't you just both put down the full lid? It looks much cleaner and nicer. You also both have something you have to lift up/put down then, too.
I think most women don't like when men leave the seat up because it looks trashy, to be honest...
Also, this seems like a pretty small equality issue compared to other... | 62 |
Do we live in a time of low wages, or high asset prices? | We might be living in both but I am not an economist, so don’t I have the answers which is why I’m asking others who are more intelligent. So do we live in a time of low wages, or just over inflated asset prices?
In a lot of countries workers are striking, there is a rise in antiwork sentiment, working people who are ... | 32 | The economy isn't a video game where you can dial some knob somewhere to turn wages up or turn prices down. Prices are being set by millions of people buying and selling goods and services, each individually making their own decisions about how much to sell something for and how much they're willing to pay for somethin... | 21 |
ELI5: trying to find a simple answer the birthday paradox and how having 23 people in a room means a 50% chance of two people sharing a birthday. | 89 | "share a birthday" is not a property that a person has, it's a property that a pair of people have. With 23 people in a room there are 253 pairs of people (maths calls this 23 choose 2). There's only 366 days that could be shared by each of those pairs, so it's quite unlikely that they're all distinct.
Those pairs of ... | 143 | |
For light to qualify as a laser does it have to be emitted in a beam or does it just have to be of one wavelength? | If it does have to be a beam, what is the maximum spread it can have and still qualify? | 2,775 | Laser has nothing to do with colour or beam divergence. Lasers are just good for making tight beams, and they inherently make a rather monochromatic source. You can have a really wide laser beam, and you can have a rather narrow focus with lenses or mirrors.
L.A.S.E.R. is actually an acronym. It's Light Amplificati... | 1,693 |
Martha Nussbaum on the profesor of parody | Martha Nussbaum writes a criticism of Judith Butler works, and more importantly her "way" of arguing and theorizing.
> Feminist thinkers of the new symbolic type would appear to believe that the way to do feminist politics is to use words in a subversive way, in academic publications of lofty obscurity and disdainf... | 29 | > Regardless if you disagree with Nussbaum she is clearly no hack or bad philosopher, so can someone tell me what characteristics shares those works that she is criticizing? what do they seem to offer that other kind of analytic and rigorous, less based on personal experiences, work lacks?
Both Nussbaum and the phi... | 11 |
[Matrix] When Neo woke up, why didn't the robots kill him. | When Neo first awoke from the Matrix why didn't the robots just kill him (and all humans that woke up) before 'flushing' the pod? | 16 | Because as we learned in the third movie, the machines were allowing the humans to escape and were waiting for the appearance of The One to destroy Zion and let Neo and his chosen group start it over.
I don't know what reason the humans had established for the machines not killing them, or what the logic was before th... | 30 |
ELI5: Schrodinger's Cat | 30 | Quantum mechanics can be said to describe reality, but not in the concrete terms with which you can describe the fall of an apple from a tree. Descriptions of the quantum world come in the form of probabilities.
Schrodinger's cat is an analogy which is meant to point out a basic absurdity in this idea. In his model, t... | 19 | |
[Harry Potter] What does "Abracadabra" do? | 56 | Fun Fact. In the wizard Community, "Abra Kadabra" is the linguistic equivalent for "Duh" in Muggle culture, as something you would say when someone else said something incredibly stupid.
A number of years ago, some young Wizards used their magic to perform what would look like Ordinary Magic tricks to Muggles, presum... | 61 |
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