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[Batman] I am a good citizen walking home from work. What are the chances I run into trouble? What are the chances Batman saves me from said trouble? Should I cut through alleys, or just take the sidewalk? | 24 | It's a big city, the bat can't be everywhere at once.
You could get attacked and he might be in the vicinity and he might save you. But please, don't take tempt fate.
You never know what clowns are lurking in the shadows. | 29 | |
Does your digestive system work like a queue, I.e. first in first out, or can food pass other food in your digestive tract? | If I ate corn Monday, peas Tuesday, and carrots Wednesday, would I poop corn, peas, and then carrots in that order? What if the peas were no good and got me sick, could my body poop them before the corn? | 1,625 | Almost. There can be mixing in the stomach, even over the course of a few hours. But after it moves to the small intestine, it's first in, first out.
So expect to get your dinner appetizer and dessert scrambled and mixed, but breakfast is coming out before dinner. | 1,124 |
Do cables between Europe and the Americas have to account for the drift of the continents when being laid? | 3,363 | I am in the submarine cable business, and can answer: No, there is not compensation as drift is inconsequential (2.5 cm or 1 inch per year). One reason is the bottom of the ocean is not flat - but has mountains and valleys like dry land, so extra cable is 'payed out' (let off the ship) to fill in the valleys so the c... | 3,159 | |
Is protein from meat "better" than protein you get from other sources? | 1,419 | Proteins are made of chains of amino acids. If you take apart the protein, you get a certain amount of each amino acid. Meat/dairy is more "efficient", because the ratios of the different acids are the same from one animal to another. Plants will usually be short on one or two amino acids, so you don't effectively get ... | 1,386 | |
Why is America so hesitant to cut Russia off from the SWIFT banking system? | The only reason I can think of is that cutting Russia off from the SWIFT network would push some countries to adopt a blockchain-based monetary system, which in turn would reduce their reliance on a US-centric international monetary system.
Is this the main fear? Is it the ONLY fear? | 239 | Russia has its own Swift alternative SPFS that it could impose on say the BRICs type countries as a condition for buying its oil. In short cutting off Russia from Swift would mean making cutting anyone else from Swift less powerful in future as there would then be a good alternative. | 107 |
[Mecha] How do Mecha compare against more conventional types of vehicles such as "regular" tanks and planes? | 22 | That depends on where it is on the scale of Real Robot vs. Super Robot.
Real Robot:
They're able to go on rougher terrain than tanks. You can't just drive a tank up a mountain. Planes are even better than that for obvious reasons, but they can't be given as heavy loads.
Mecha pay for this by being much more expensiv... | 20 | |
[Star Wars] Why are there unknown regions in the galaxy? | So apparently (according to other posts I've read on this sub) there's a hyperspace cosmic horror or something that keeps them trapped in the galaxy. But why haven't they fully mapped out their own galaxy, yet?
I get it, space is big. But ships in Star Wars move very fast. [Apparently a fast ship like the Millenium ... | 53 | Because travelling that fast means you don't stop to see the sights.
Assuming their galaxy is similar to the Milky Way, it has at least 100 billion stars in it. If they've had 100 thousand years of interstellar travel, they'd need to survey and map one million a year to get them all. And 100 billion is a low-end estim... | 67 |
ELI5: What happens when you crack your knuckles? | 17 | Your joints are filled with liquid to keep things lubricated and moving properly. Sometimes air bubbles get stuck in this fluid in your joints. When you crack your knuckles you are popping the air bubbles. | 12 | |
[Buffy verse] Why on earth don't vampire slayers wear shirts with crosses on them? | If all it takes to repel them is just two crossed lines; then why on earth wouldn't you put that symbol onto everything you own, wear, and use?
The only excuse I can think of is damaging friendly vamps (somewhat valid but doesn't occur enough to justify the idea being used at least occasionally) and principle; I coul... | 17 | The Watchers keep a relic from the 1600s, the armor worn by a slayer named Jeanette. It was a light plate in the French mode, with blessed crucifixes on each major armor piece. The thinking was that if a vampire should attempt to grab one's arm, one's arm should have a crucifix there to counter it. Fourteen separate... | 27 |
ELI5: When weather cancels 2800 flights, and 50k people are displaced, how to they all get back on schedule since so many of the flights for the next few days are already booked up? | 2,503 | When 50K people can't get home due to cancellations, that means about 50K never left home due to cancellations. A lot of those people are going to cancel their trips, or reschedule them a ways into the future. Their seats become available to help the stranded get home. | 1,678 | |
[Marvel] If Wolverine’s bones are coated in solid metal adamantium, how does his body transport blood? | Wouldn’t the metal coating kill off any nerves or veins going in to his bones?
Does his healing factor affect how his body accepts ot rejects foreign materials?
How can he even walk with all that extra weight? | 24 | > If Wolverine’s bones are coated in solid metal adamantium, how does his body transport blood? Wouldn’t the metal coating kill off any nerves or veins going in to his bones?
Wolverine's healing factor was active and at its most potent when he was given the adamantium coating. As he was given the coating his bones... | 30 |
ELI5:Why does really hot water rinse food off of dishes so much faster than cool water? | 92 | it cleans grease and congealed fat off of dishes faster because it melts it back to liquid form.
Fun Fact though: the temperature of the water doesn't matter as far as sterilization. hot and cold water kills just as many germs with soap. To get to sterilization level of hotness with the water it would have to be well ... | 51 | |
[The Boys S2] What would happen if a Supe enlisted in the military as a soldier rather than as an employee of Vought? | And as a secondary question, in his lecture to Homelander about the founder of Vought, Mr. Endgar mentions that the earlier tests of Compound V were done with Soldier Boy who "killed Germans by the dozen". Assuming he meant German soldiers, it implies that Supes have been in the military before. But since a large porti... | 28 | They would probably have to hide their powers as having them probably would bar one from military service. There may be a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in place regarding supes in the military. They’re likely to explore this more in season 3 since they’ve cast Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy. | 21 |
CMV: Frozen and canned fruits and vegeatables are better than fresh | Frozen and canned have more nutrients due to the shorter time between harvesting and processing compared to the long time for fresh in transport to your home, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1255606/Why-frozen-vegetables-fresher-fresh.html
Frozen and canned tend to be cheaper per unit of usabled food since y... | 29 | Well taste is a major factor when it comes to fresh being better than frozen or canned.
Also, if you buy from a farmers market, almost all of the advantages of fresh and frozen (besides storing at home) disappear.
But if you are buying from the grocery store, then yes, there are many advantages to frozen and canned. | 27 |
[Spy Films] Volcano Lairs - Feasible? | Hello,
I am an evil crime lord with some money to throw around. Recently, my attempts at world domination have been thwarted by \[superhero/British Intelligence/etc.\], and I am looking for a place to lie low for a while and scheme. There is some really prime real estate on this remote volcanic island in the Pacific, ... | 47 | Of course it's feasible, why do you think so many supervillains have used volcanoes for bases?
First off, you get unlimited free lava and magma. The possibilities with this are endless, from waste disposal to energy generation.
Some people might warn you of "toxic gasses" and the like, but they're just scaremongers. ... | 32 |
[Star Wars] Can people leave the galaxy? | Everyone that wants to hide, goes to the outer rim of the galaxy. No one talks about other galaxies or leaving that one. It's possible? It's feasible? | 56 | The edge of the galaxy features a hyperspace disturbance that makes extragalactic FTL flight impossible. The Outbound Flight project planned to use a cabal of Jedi to force its way through, but this was ultimately never attempted.
And even then, travel outside charted routes is an extremely risky activity. | 70 |
[Star Wars] What is the canonical reason that Anakin & Obi wan didn’t go back and rescue Schmi from slavery, after the events of the Phantom Menace? | If memory serves, Qui-gon jinn just didn’t have enough money on him at the time to buy both slaves, & the plan was to go get some more from the Jedi council & return for her later.
It’s not like they were in the full swing of the clone wars yet either. | 33 | (From the canon book Queen's Shadow)
Qui-Gon probably would have, but he was the only one aside from Anakin. And his death closed one of the best avenues of rescue.
The Jedi simply didn't care. Nor did the Republic feel like messing with affairs in Hutt space. Even a minor thing like taking a slave from a backwater... | 66 |
[Dexter's Lab] Where does Dexter get the resources to build and equip his secret lab? | I mean, it's full of state-of-the-art scientific instruments, not to mention the structure itself with its many secret entrances and vast airplane-hangar-sized spaces. How could an elementary-school kid afford or get his hands on all that? Even a simple collection of test tubes and beakers would be hard to come by for ... | 40 | Judging by his accent, Dexter appears to be from somewhere in Eastern Europe. He was probably sent to the states by his country to build a laboratory in the middle of suburban America, likely to keep an eye on that American genius boy Mandark. Essentially turning the lives of two young children into another cold war. M... | 54 |
What does serotonin do in the gut, why is it there and how closely related is it to the serotonin in brain? | 121 | Increases gut motility, propelling stuff along.
Why is it there? It just is. Serotonin is evolutionarily conserved. Tiny worms use it, fish use it, humans use it. Its functions can vary wildly, but it's always somewhere.
Relation to brain serotonin: Nil. Serotonin can't cross the blood-brain barrier. (The exception i... | 24 | |
CMV: Libertarians are closer to Tea Party Republicans than any other common political group | I hold this view because when I think about Tea Party Republicans, especially in the earlier "grass roots" days of the movement, it is extremely against big government.
This, to me, is the core of the libertarian ideology, that the government should have almost no influence on the economy or on the lives of the people... | 219 | Tea Party uses libertarian rhetoric, because the whole thing WAS an explicitly libertarian grassroots movement before it got co-opted by mainstream Republicanism and corporate interests. Now it contains a bunch of cunts who think war is a good idea and pot should be banned, but still talk the talk to appeal to the unin... | 163 |
Why can't human cells use anaerobic processes to create ATP when in an atmosphere of no oxygen? | I know that some single-celled organisms are capable using fermentation to catabolize glucose and other sugars to create ATP in the absence of oxygen, so what prevents humans from being able to do the same? We have the enzymes necessary and use anaerobic fermentation at times of high exertion, so why can't we use ferme... | 20 | The majority of ATP resulting from respiration is generated through a process called "oxidative phosphorylation" which involves using an electron transport chain to generate a gradient of hydrogen ions outside of the inner mitochondrial membrane and then allowing it to flow back in through a molecule of ATP synthase wh... | 19 |
[MCU] if the chitauri attacked earth again prior to the destruction of s.h.i.e.l.d, would the three helicarriers make a difference or would the results still be the same? | 33 | Could it help? Absolutely. Those Helicarriers are armed to the teeth and have absurd range. Add in the Avengers, still riding high from their first victory and you have a fighting chance.
Would it have assured victory? Ehhhhhhh, maybe. That conversation is more for /r/WhoWouldWin but IMO, it depends entirely on how in... | 42 | |
What causes pictures to appear discoloured after being in direct sunlight for years at a time? | Just clearing out some old Xbox games and the logo on the side of them have turned blue after being in sunlight untouched for several years? | 19 | The effect is called photodegradation.
The part of a material responsible for it's color is called a chromophore. A chromophore is just a group of atoms in a molecule which are responsible for the molecule's 'color' - they have a specific absorption / reflection spectrum.
Sunlight can cause reactions in the molecule ... | 15 |
ELI5: If we all suddenly started driving Teslas, wouldn't the corresponding electricity demand (and coal burning) negate any positive effect of the drop in vehicle emissions? | Maybe I'm missing something in the equation? | 2,124 | Yes, you're missing the fact that a lot of energy is generated in other types of power plants, like hydro, nuclear, solar and wind power plants. Coal power plants are also usually pretty far from city centers, so it would definitely make the air quality in the cities better as well. | 1,440 |
How much energy is released by dropping a pen on a neutron star? | Hi guys. Neutron stars fascinate me. Crushing the mass of 3 suns into a Manhattan sized ball of neutron soup is a mind blowing concept. Anyway it's been said that if you were standing on surface of a neutron star and you dropped a pen it would approach the speed of light as it hit the ground.
it's been well over 15 y... | 2,387 | Dropping a 10 gram pen from 1 meter above a neutron star with a gravitational acceleration of 7×10^12 m/s^2 would yield 70 GigaJoules of Kinetic energy or the energy released by 16.7 tons of TNT.
Now, a 10 gram pen traveling at .99c would have a kinetic energy of 2.213×10^16 joules or roughly 5.3 Megatons of TNT. | 1,047 |
[Marvel X-23] How much do Laura's forearms weigh? | Logan is buff partially because he's carrying around a heavy metal skeleton but Laura only has the claws. Does she have weirdly strong arms or do the claws not weigh much? | 67 | Adamantium is a strong metal but it's also light. Wolverines bone weight literally only added 100lbs to his overall weight (going from 240lb to 340lbs. If you factor in he's a fully grown male, that's even distribution across his body, it's not that much weight on his arms.
The same would apply for claws. I'd say con... | 58 |
How is testicual cancer (or any cancer in less than vital organs like cervix, breasts etc.) potentially lethal? | Of course, I am going under the assumption that such a cancer will, untreated, ultimately lead to death. I am, however, not exactly sure how.
What I am thinking is that, as organs like the testicles, ovaries, and breasts are (seemingly) not vital to staying alive, it is not that cancer in itself that will cause death.... | 61 | Look at something called Cancer Staging, it will give you some defined framework on how professionals look at things. Here is a quick way to look at it. Lets start with an abnormal breast cell that is the start of cancer. This cell reproduces over and over but due to the mutations in this cell the result is not other h... | 17 |
[Nightmare Before Christmas] Shouldn't Jack be mayor? | Even at the beginning when Jack tries to be humble about their Halloween celebration, the mayor praises him saying that they couldn't have done it without his leadership. What does the mayor even do? Who was mayor before he was elected? Was it Jack? I feel like Jack just sort of does his job for him. You know what, fuc... | 37 | I think the issue is that being Mayor has a lot of other little duties to handle, paperwork primarily, that Jack doesn't want to do. He could be Mayor if he wanted to, but running Halloween is more fun. | 49 |
[Venture Bros] What happens if a villain actually took over the world? Does that break Guilt Law? | 25 | An unspoken part of the guild system is that it acts as a check on unbridled power. Ambitious protagonists are teamed up with ambitious antagonists.
Double crosses are encouraged within the Guild so if someone monopolized the world and had no good guy equal they would face detractors from within.
But it’s ultimatel... | 23 | |
[general vampires] Would a 21st century vampire still hunt humans by night, or would it instead try and rob a blood bank or hospital for blood products? | If a vampire could steal and store a bunch of platelets, FFP, RBC's and just raw blood like from a red cross blood drive, they could probably live a long time without hunting I bet. | 35 | Some lores do admit vampires living of stored blood or even artificial blood, while others don't. Usually in the second case it is hinted that the blood is just a conduit for the victims lifeforce and stored blood will soon lose that.
Even in the lores that do admit vampires feeding on stored blood, though, usually th... | 42 |
[Harry Potter] If the Killing Curse is so hard to pull ff, and literally tears your soul apart in the process of casting, then why does anyone bother with it? | It would be just as simple to levitate a mother fucker three hundred feet up and drop them, or set them on fire, or blast a hole through their chest. Conjure an attack-monster or just straight up stab someone.
Why go to all the trouble of using the special "kill you" spell, when a ton of other basic utility spells c... | 113 | *Any* form of murder rips the soul. It is an act of ultimate evil. The fact that the Killing Curse see such widespread use is because it is cast by Dark Wizards and Witches who *want* to kill, with every fiber of their being, they mean for their victim to die. That and unlike other curses it is nearly impossible to blo... | 149 |
[Harry Potter] Apparently my daughter is a witch? Very concerned about this strange low-tech angle! | I live in London, where my wife and I both work in software development. We're not tech rockstars, but we have the opportunity to spend our days with brilliant groups of people who are doing cutting-edge, important work. It provides a good living for us and our daughter, who — oh yes! — apparently is a witch. A very ni... | 18 | It's not so much an anti-tech angle as the fact that high concentrations of magical energy tend to... interfere with electronics. Unfortunately, this means that any reputable school of magic is simply physically incompatible with your devices. But hey, maybe your daughter will grow up to be the one to crack that proble... | 14 |
CMV: Edward Snowden failed to gain support from the left because he attacked a democratic president and his administration. | If Edward Snowden had revealed NSA secrets during a republican administration, he would have received more support from left-leaning politicians and from liberals and democrats. Because he presented as a libertarian, and was perceived to have attacked the Obama administration, democrats and liberals were not receptive... | 24 | To begin with, you have a lotta people with a lotta different ideas on the left. We ain't all liberals. Hell, despite what the Republicans would you believe, liberals are pretty much in the minority. That leaves a lot of room for people who are more center-left.
People who, perhaps, didn't take kindly to Snowden havin... | 18 |
Eli5: What does epistomology and ontology mean in simple words? | 15 | Epistemology: the branch of philosophy that investigates what knowledge is; what it means to know something; how we come to know things.
Ontology: the branch of philosophy that investigates what kinds of things there are; what it means for something to exist in reality; the status of different kinds of things such as ... | 31 | |
Working in tech industry without a good computer. | Hi, I think the title maybe not straightforward to the real problem but here's the long story.
I don't have (by I, I mean me and my family) enough money, we're even afraid of turning on the ac for long time because it may cost a lot of electricity that we can't even pay the bill, I do have a pc but it's too old I can ... | 32 | Ask your company for a computer/workstation. If they have the money to pay for you labor, they have enough to get you a half-decent laptop. If they push back (for whatever reason), just tell them your current machine is impairing your work. | 33 |
eli5: Why is 70 degree F water so much colder than 70 degree F air? | I can hang out buck naked in 70 degree F outside all day but not touching 70 degree F water. | 19 | It's because of the efficiency of heat transfer--when thermal energy moves from something warm to something cooler. In this case, from your 98.7 degree (F) body to the 70 degree air or water. Water is a better conductor than air, so when you get into the water heat escapes/is transferred out of your body at a much fa... | 27 |
[Civil War] How might things have turned out differently if Thor had been present during the "Civil War" events? | 95 | Probably relatively similar to how things worked out with Black Panther.
As an alien sovereign, they have no explicit authority over Thor, but they can maneuver things around him to their interests and his.
Thor is short tempered, but he's not about to go to war with most of Earth's governments. He's also not going ... | 86 | |
CMV: The Defund-the-Police movement is potentially dangerous and may end up doing more harm than good | A few things to clarify off the bat: (1) I strongly believe that the US has a systemic racism problem, specifically with police and more broadly in our society. (2) There definitely needs to be criminal justice reform in the US. Particularly, the privatized prison system, the "War on Drugs", police militarization, etc.... | 27 | >People talk about police needing to be better at things like de-escalation and community engagement. Guess what, that doesn't happen without more training hours being spent on each rank-and-file police.
One of the ideas is to save money by moving this responsibility away from police entirely. When you have communi... | 25 |
Is UUID collision free? | I’m using uuid libraries for things like user id, task id, property id etc. to be more specific these are some of them:
* js - [https://www.npmjs.com/package/uuid](https://www.npmjs.com/package/uuid)
* go - [https://github.com/google/uuid](https://github.com/google/uuid)
I know its hard to get a collision because the... | 22 | A bigger problem with GUIDS is that people think they’re truly random 128-bit integers. They are not. There are more deterministic versions of GUIDs (non v4) that have date/time/network data encoded within.
The 6 and 8 bytes have some very specific requirements in v4. As hex it means that the third clump must start wi... | 21 |
ELI5: Why does American fuel have less octane than European fuel? Aren't we driving sort of the same models that should require the same kind of fuel? | e.g. I live in Germany and our *Premium* fuel has 100 octane, regular has 95. Amercian gas stations I've seen sold gas with anything between 89 and 93 octane (which was considered *Premium*)
What's the reason for this?
/edit: An answer has been provided, see [tracingspirals](http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/... | 732 | ITT: tons of people act like they know what they're talking about.
Octane is a measure of a fuel's resistance to burn. Higher octane gas does not contain a different amount of energy, it's just harder to burn. This is advantageous for higher compression motors as it reduces pings and pre ignition.
As far as the dif... | 906 |
Why is the air mixed? | Air consists of Nitrogen, CO2 and O2, right?. These molecules have different weight (mass). Why doesn't it stack up layers with the heaviest in the bottom? | 69 | Thermal motion. Gas particles have enough energy to fly around in the air, rather than just being confined to the ground.
Because all the different atoms and molecules collide with each other and exchange energy/momentum, they end up diffusing and mixing together rather than being sorted by mass or type. | 33 |
ELI5: What exactly is anti matter? | How did it come to be, how is it different on an atomic and physical level, why isn't there any floating around my house? You get the point | 88 | Anti-matter is just like ordinary matter, except with opposite charge. An anti electron is positive. An antiproton is negative. Opposites charges still attract. Like charges still repel. Put an anti-electron with an anti-proton and you'll get anti hydrogen. Put two anti hydrogen with an anti oxygen and you get anti H2O... | 56 |
ELI5: Why can horses and cows eat grass alone yet still pack on muscles while humans need more than just vegetables to bulk up? | 511 | Grass has plenty of proteins. The problem, for humans at least, is that the cell walls are cellulose which the human digestive system can't break down. Cows have several stomachs. One of them called the rumen has a wider variety of bacteria to help break down cellulose. Cows also regurgitate what they eat and then chew... | 381 | |
[MCU] It seems like the Jarvis AI isn't really around anymore, but why is that? He just agreed to copypaste his entire OS into the Vision body, right? Did that somehow delete the original? | 220 | However Jarvis was designed, it definitely doesn't seem to follow normal computing conventions. He needs to be manually uploaded/downloaded into the suits from the home for the first suits, reinforcing that he can only exist in a single "node" at a time. While we see multiple automated suits/Ultron drones more than onc... | 175 | |
ELI5: Where do the rockets that a spacecraft leaves behind go? | If they fall down to earth does that mean they come crashing down on land or sea? And isn't that dangerous threat to people who may be on ground or maybe a ship like a Cruise ship? | 19 | >If they fall down to earth does that mean they come crashing down on land or sea?
Yes
>And isn't that dangerous threat to people who may be on ground or maybe a ship like a Cruise ship?
Not really, no. We can predict the crash zone, and plan the mission to make that zone an empty patch of ocean. The location... | 26 |
ELI5: Dungeons and Dragons | Hows does it work, and why do people take it so seriously?
I recently heard a story where a group of friends played D&D all the time together, and had been working on their characters for years, and then one day the person in charge killed all their characters, and they can never use them again, and these people n... | 17 | That would be like your mom and dad giving you and your siblings cute and fluffy and UNIQUE toys to play with that no other kids in the world have. You have them growing up. Years and years you've played with these toys. You've grown attached and formed a special bond with it. Then when you reach high school, they take... | 20 |
[MCU][Marvel Comics] Does Ant-man ever help cure a disease? If no, why not? | He can go subatomic, so I assume he can go cellular and just cut out tumors. Or bring back a virus for closer study. Or punch a bacterial infection. Is there anything stopping him from doing this? | 21 | I don't see how that would actually accomplish anything, unless the tumor was deep inside and hard to reach. We can cut out most cancers with machines easier than Ant-Man could, we can pretty easily get samples of a virus to study, and there is so much bacteria that him punching lots of them would make no difference. | 34 |
[Star Wars] Was Darth Vader's origin widely known in detail before the prequels? | To what extent was the origin of Darth Vader known? Are there any comics that were retconned by the prequels? | 16 | Lucas had said "final battle with Obi-won on a volcano planet" in interviews before the original trilogy. Now, the prequel era was purposefully left vague by the comics and novels after the original trilogy concluded.
Some comics and novels got rewritten, mainly the really early ones that had Darth Vader and Anaki... | 27 |
Taking a year out from academia? Pros/cons | Brief summary. At the end of a three year postdoc, I don't have a job lined up for the fall. I'm waiting to hear back for several positions so this question may be redundant but I'm exploring all options. I am in a physical science.
My PhD advisor has offered me a temporary postdoc if I don't end up with anything. Pro... | 19 | You're considering a academic-career ending decision. If you want to stay in, now is the time to fight.
God damn it! Fight and submit another round of applications. Also, be willing to move anywhere globally.
| 21 |
If we applied the same selective breeding to humans, that we use for dogs, for 10 000 years or more, could we achieve comparable variety of shape and sizes while keeping them as one species? | 36 | Yes, but possibly not to the same extent that dogs do. Its believed that humans went through a genetic bottleneck resulting a major decrease in genetic diversity when we left Africa so we might have less to work with. But you could definitely amplify pre-existing traits to the point that there would be clear "breeds". | 18 | |
ELI5: Why do car doors have those “checkpoints” when you open them that causes the door to swing back if you don’t get it just right? | 37 | There is a spring-loaded wheel with notches at specific points. It is good at holding the door steady with no effort by you, but the side effect is that it pushes the door *away from* spots between the steady spots. | 33 | |
CMV: Being Trans is not inherently mental illness | Prior to about 1 or 2 years ago, I was of the opinion that all Trans people are mentally ill, due to the fact that they tend to have gender dysphoria. However, I've found a few points of reason that make me lean towards believing that Trans people aren't mentally ill, however I'm still not convinced of one or the eithe... | 16 | How would you define "mental illness"?
For example, here is the definition from the Australian Department of Health site (first result from google)
>A mental illness is a health problem that significantly affects how a person feels, thinks, behaves, and interacts with other people. It is diagnosed according to sta... | 18 |
CMV: it should not be 'teethpaste'. | [A recent screen grab I've seen](https://cdn.dopl3r.com/memes_files/stephen-atstephenjmolloy-atmerriamwebster-can-you-add-me-so-l-can-dm-you-a-suggestion-it-should-be-teethpaste-and-you-know-it-739-pm-start-a-message-gif-you-are-blocked-from-following-atmerriamwebster-and-learn-more-ABLHA.jpg) states that 'toothpaste' ... | 145 | Tooth isn't an adjective in the word toothpaste.
It loses that designation when combined.
Toothpaste is one word, and it's a noun
As a noun, it should describe its referent in a way that makes it clear what it is, and having less modification to its components makes a compound noun more easily understood, and it IS ... | 31 |
Does a condition in which the human body produces too much/more blood exist? | 15 | It depends on what you mean by “blood”. There are a number of components of blood, like red cells, white cells, proteins, and water, among others.
Overproduction of red cells is called polycythemia vera. If, however, you are discussing the total volume of blood, an overall increase in total volume is most usually cau... | 19 | |
[Discworld] How did (alternate) Ankh-Morpork lose the war so quickly? | Partway through _Jingo_, Vimes grabs a dis-Organizer belonging to a version from him from a different pants leg of time, one where he didn't go to Klatch to stop the war from happening. As a result, we're treated to a terrifying view into what would happen - Klatch invading Ankh-Morpork and killing him and everybody...... | 35 | Klatch Army and Navy is probably prepared and just around the corner. Its the actions of men like Vimes and Ahmed that prevented a massacre of An-Mo...and in a few years down the road, complete conquest of Klatch by AM merchants from within.
Klatch was ready to annihilate Ankhmorporkian military, but was woefully unpr... | 12 |
[The Lord Of The Rings] Who is the Mouth of Sauron? | Is he a some sort of ringwrath?... a Nazgul?.... why is his name "Mouth Of Sauron"?... and why is Gandalf so concerned about him watching the hobbits in sorrow? | 76 | He's a Numenorean who speaks for Sauron and is the steward of Barad-Dur.
As far as Gandalf is concerned, he got told that the Hobbits were being tortured to death, that Sauron has the Ring and he doesn't know if it's the truth. | 82 |
Is it just a coincidence that the powers of 11 can be read off of the rows of Pascal's triangle? | I remember being amazed in my maths class last year when I saw this demonstrated but I never got an adequate explanation as to why it occurred | 17 | The Nth row of Pascal's Triangle are the coefficients of (x+y)^(N).
* (x+y)^(0) = **1**
* (x+y)^(1) = **1**x+**1**y
* (x+y)^(2) = **1**x^(2)+**2**xy+**1**y^(2)
* (x+y)^(3) = **1**x^(3)+**3**x^(2)y+**3**xy^(2)+**1**y^(3)
* (x+y)^(4) = **1**x^(4)+**4**x^(3)y+**6**x^(2)y^(2)+**4**xy^(3)+**1**y^(4)
* etc
Compare th... | 25 |
CMV: Athletes that use their platform to promote a political message aren’t doing anything wrong | Every aspect of the world has some intrinsic political integration. Sports are no exception. Athletes like LeBron James with the Shut Up and Dribble movement, Colin Kaepernick with his legacy of kneeling during the anthem and countless other massive public figures are using their platform to promote a message.
The va... | 37 | Lets put the shoe on the other foot. An Athlete or other celebrity that uses their fame to push a racist ideology is doing something wrong. They should rightfully be condemned for it, and their fans that object to racism should punish them for it.
Its not objectively wrong to use your fame as a platform to advocate fo... | 10 |
ELI5: How can people ejaculate twice in quick succession? | How do people do this? The second time someone ejaculates there is still cum left. Why wasn't that shot out in the 1st time? | 27 | The majority of semen is secreted by several different glands in the male reproductive tract during arousal/stimulation. It's not stored. Sperm cells are the only part that gets depleted and needs to be replenished, but even those won't all be gone after just one ejaculation. The quality of sperm does deteriorate with ... | 23 |
ELI5: Why do some helicopters have two rotors on top of one another while others do not? | 18 | The main rotor of a helicopter also causes the body of the helicopter to rotate in the opposite direction. Normally, this force is countered by a rotor on the tail. However, you can accomplish the same task by having another rotor on top that is rotating in the opposite direction.
At low speeds, two top rotors are a... | 16 | |
[Star War] What was the difference between Anakin becoming a Sith instead of a Dark Jedi? | I've always wondered why it was that when Anakin turned he became a Sith when we have seen other dark side user's such as Kylo Ren [](#s "who was originally a jedi but was turned by Snoke yet didn't become a Sith.") | 57 | To become a Sith, you require training either directly from a Sith, or from a Sith holocron.
Kylo had neither.
The Sith are a specific group of dark side users who have their own knowledge, techniques, rituals, and beliefs that were unique to the Sith. | 124 |
Guidance w/ Open Source Contribution | I have tried looking for projects for months to contribute to. But every time I open a project I get overwhelmed and dont understand where to start and how to begin. I am quite proficient in python, django, js..
I am having trouble getting started. Can you suggest project where I can start and connect me to someone... | 17 | I honestly think "I want to contribute to open source software, so I've got to go find a project to do that" is the wrong approach.
Just use open source software. You will eventually find some program you use a lot that has a bug that annoys you. _That_ is a perfect place to start: you've got the motivation to fix it ... | 12 |
ELI5: What is the difference between dubstep, house, progressive, trance, electro, and techno? | I need to know. | 28 | Without sounding biased, here goes:
--Dubstep: usually around 140/70 BPM and more emphasis on the bass rhythm than actual melody.
--Progressive House: Around 120-130 BPM, primarily focused on having an evolving melody that builds and releases tension.
--Electro House: Usually between 125-130 BPM and is generally ... | 20 |
Is is possible for an asteroid to enter Earth's atmosphere, not land at all, then just leave Earth's atmosphere? | I know it would have to be going very fast and that it would definitely get sling-shotted by the Earth with the possibility of hitting the Moon. But is it still possible and what would the conditions have to be like for something like this to be possible? | 102 | Yep. It depends a lot on the angle of entry, it can just skip back out. A Chinese space probe did just that late last year, it dropped off a lander to Earth, then it skipped back out, and is now up orbiting the Moon. | 34 |
[Transformers G1] Why didn't Soundwave stop Starscream from throwing Megatron out of Astrotrain? | In the Cartoon Soundwave was made out to be one of Megatrons most loyal Decepticons. So much so that he retained his position under Galvatron, and Galvatron even had Soundwave rebuilt after Blaster destroyed him in the Headmasters series.
Yet Soundwave didnt do anything when Starscream threw out Megatron. Why is this? | 30 | Decepticons are survival-of-the-fittest. If Megatron couldn't stop Starscream himself, Soundwave wasn't going to help him. Soundwave is loyal to the Decepticon ideal, not to Megatron alone.
Look how fast he tried to take over. If he wasn't such an uncharismatic boor he probably would've. | 15 |
CMV: It's not sexist to have the masculine gender as default. | I will talk about languages here. My native language is Portuguese, one of the many languages with gender-based grammatical classes. Those who only speak English may not understand it very well, so I will show an example:
> Michael has ten wives. They live in a big house.
Translating it to Portuguese, it ends ... | 20 | Language programs expectations and assumptions.
Using masculine as the default normalizes masculinity and makes everyone else a variant of masculine; anyone who's not a man becomes a subset of men.
Using language that way creates an underlying picture of the world where men are in the middle, with everyone else ran... | 41 |
ELI5 - why can telescopes see millions of miles away but can’t see the surface of such planets? | I’m meaning further away planets as opposed to the Moon/Mars | 19 | the things that telescopes see tend to be either huge and/or emitting a lot of light or other EM radiation
planets are small and don't emit light
it's like driving at night and seeing the lights of a distant city. The city is huge and glowing so it's easy to spot against the night background. But a black cat crossi... | 72 |
[Assassin's Creed] How come Haytham Kenway wears the same outfit every time we see him? | 44 | Because he makes it look good.
Alternatively, he didn't always wear the same outfit, but he's portrayed that way to save storage space. (Assassin's Creed is one of the only fictional settings where that can be a Watsonian *and* a Doylist answer.) | 93 | |
ELI5: why do digital thermostats have both heat and cool settings, as opposed to a singular temperature control | (e.g why does 70 degrees on “cool” feel colder than 70 degrees on “heat”)? | 122 | Depends on the thermostat, but generally cool is connected to an AC unit while heat is connected to a furnace. When heat is on the temperature might go above the selected temperature and when cool is on it might go below the selected temperature. It would be extremely inefficient to make the temperature be exact since ... | 84 |
ELI5: Why can airlines have the movie rights to recently released movies so quickly, but it takes a lot longer for Netflix and other streaming services to add new movies to their catalogs? | Sometimes they even have movies that are still in the theaters of the country they are flying to/from. The question is, how can they get it so fast and why does it seem easier for them to get the rights to stream those new movies if Netflix seems to have a larger public?
I might be mistaken in some aspects (the fact t... | 387 | Streaming services are the last to acquire rights to the video because they represent the customer segment with the lowest profit margins.
Why should a customer pay more to see the movie in a cinema/airplane when they can watch it at home anytime they want? The airlines are willing to pay a higher price per customer t... | 308 |
Is there at least 1 molecule of Dealer Gas in my car after 10 years? | I've heard some intriguing stories lately indicating just how many molecules are in volumes of liquid. So I came up with an interesting problem. I can't remember my high school chemistry enough to remember how to solve this question, although I'm sure its at a grade 11-12 level. Maybe Askscience can help me?
Does my c... | 257 | The solution is relatively easy, as what you're doing here is no different from a serial dilution (assuming homogenous mixing after each fill up):
You have 1 tank, and you're doing 1:10 dilution 520 times. This gives a dilution factor of 10^520.
Your original tank of 50 L of gasoline (we'll further assume it's pure o... | 376 |
ELI5: If SMS is not encrypted, why do companies send 2FA over text instead of email or something else? | Couldn’t someone intercept the text and get into my account? | 632 | As mentioned in another comment, SMS isn’t as secure as a dedicated authenticator app. But it has a couple of advantages.
- Not everyone has a smart phone and so can’t install a dedicated app.
- Authenticator apps can be a pain when you move to a new device. Some will transfer over, others may not. SMS doesn’t ha... | 659 |
I believe that pay and salary information for every worker should be public and easily accessible for everyone to see. CMV. | There are a few different reasons I believe this.
* Discrimination and pay-inequality would be much more apparent and easily identified.
* It incentivizes a more merit-based employment system. If everyone can easily see that Bill is making $20k more than me, but I do all the work, employers and managers will have to ... | 158 | I think that people have a right to privacy, and this means the ability to not let people know how much you make, benefits to society be damned.
But in terms of drawbacks, I'd be worried that if this info was easily accessible on some website or something, it would lead to price discrimination. So if Amazon knew your... | 78 |
Why does electricity always hum at a B-flat pitch? | Whenever I pass a power plant or hear a lot of electricity running through my house, I always hear that pitch.
Edit: To those asking, I am a musician.
| 15,038 | Electricity is run on an alternating current (AC) which reverses voltage in the pattern of a sine wave. In the US, the frequency of this alternating is 60 Hz, which is a B flat (more of a flat B or sharp B flat, really). Sometimes interactions with surroundings, especially at high voltages like in transformers, can cau... | 12,823 |
ELI5: What is happening when a person rubs their eyelids and momentarily loses vision? | After a person rubs their eyelids, with a bit of force and then re-opens them, their vision appears to come back from total black and then grows in size from a circle of light in the center (this normally only lasts a few seconds). Almost like the vision is re-calibrating or the eyes have some sort of safety measure. W... | 78 | rubbing your eyes increases the intraocular pressure by quite a lot. normal intraocular pressure is between 10-21 but rubbing for eyes can make it go up to 80-100. if the pressure increases enough then it prevents blood flow to the optic nerve and retina thereby causing loss of vision. once the blood starts flowing ... | 45 |
Probability Question - If you roll a set of traditional set of RPG dice (d4, d6, d8, d12, d20, and d100), what is the probability that at least half of the dice (3 or more) will end up with any combination of 1's and 0's? | This is a oddly specific (and selfish) question. But I'm creating a board game which uses a traditional set of RPG dice. I'm planning for the answer to this question to be part of the game rules and mechanics. In the rulebook, I would like to include the probability of this happening.
---
d4 = 4-sided die with valu... | 16 | There are 2^(6)=64 ways to choose any subset of the dice, 6C0+6C1+6C2 = 22 ways of which have fewer than three dice, and 64-22=42 ways in which you have at least three.
Since 22<42, it will require fewer computations to compute the probability that you don't get three or more dice that qualify, but either would be ... | 10 |
ELI5 When a company gets fined $100,000,000 by the FCC, when do they pay out the money, where does it go, and what is it used for? | 2,155 | **US code Title 47, Section 504(a)**
>The forfeitures provided for in this chapter shall be payable into the Treasury of the United States.
So basically, it goes to the treasury and becomes part of the US Budget. | 3,031 | |
[DC] Why doesn't another hero, without the inhibitions against killing, "take care" of The Joker? | 264 | Let's assume you're one of the handful of good guys in the 'verse that *does* kill and is still allowed to operate (feasible, but rather rare).
Let's then assume that, through some fashion, you're capable of tracking the clown down (for sake of argument we'll narrow it down to Gotham, but that's still a huge city with... | 347 | |
Why do some metals rust and some dont? | 15 | All metals except precious metals will oxidize when exposed to electrolyte and oxygen. If you are referring to stuff like stainless steel, it has chromium in it which reacts with atmospheric oxygen, forming a protective layer that protects the steel. | 31 | |
Is the steam emitted from a nuclear power plant radioactive? | 63 | Nope. It's just regular steam as the water does not come into contact with anything that is radioactive.
Nuclear is one of the cleanest forms of energy we produce with very little waste and a lot more reliable than other clean energy sources and produces much more energy for its footprint size. | 184 | |
[Milkshake] Kelis has brought all 3.5 billion boys to the yard. What happens now? | 502 | The sheer mass of so much humanity in one place causes death and denaturing from the heat of compression alone.
All the hydrocarbons are slowly rendered from the now-geographically-classifiable deposit.
Humanity goes extinct, except for a small band that have survived the Kelis Migratory Extinction Event because the... | 586 | |
ELI5: Why doesn't water hurt when it touches our eyeballs | Why is it when we get something in our eyes we can use water to clean it out and water doesn't hurt out eyes | 17 | Our eyes are naturally lubricated by a "saline solution" (essentially water with a bit of salt in it). It's what your tear ducts give off when you see something like when Eve saves Wall-E. :)
Water is just saline solution without the salt, so pure water is harmless and non-irritating to eyes because they're bathed in ... | 17 |
[LOTR]If only greater divine beings can resist the Ring, if the Ring Wraiths caught Frodo early in his journey and took it, wouldn't one of the Wraith's keep it? What would the wraith do then? | 167 | For all their power, the Nazgul are actually puppets to the will of Sauron. Sauron seems to have a thing for bending the mighty to his service, and the Nazgul - while individually fearsome and collectively almost unstoppable - are one of Sauron's favourite toys.
He forged the nine rings of power that made them what t... | 155 | |
ELI5: Why is it that when watching a movie at 24 frames per second it seems perfectly normal, but when playing a video game it is almost unbearable? | 333 | Film frames can capture motion blur of fast moving objects, essentially the object is appearing in several places at once.
Video games render a series of still images of objects in a single location at any point in time (for the most part).
When viewed at full speed, the motion blur captured on film is much more plea... | 134 | |
[X-MEN] How exactly can people discriminate against mutants in a world of superheroes? | They already co-exist alongside people who have gotten their powers through freak accidents, being government lab rats, or even magic for fuck sake. How can the average person tell the difference?
If someone found out I had the ability to transmutate any base metal into gold just by touching it and then I told them I ... | 47 | A hero is created by random happenstance. A twist of fate that's unlikely to be recreated ever again. A mutant is a genetic abnormality that is both capable of reproducing more mutants and thanks to years of propaganda and scientific research the next step in human evolution. Imagine waking up to find out your grandchi... | 57 |
ELI5: If modern chess was invented around the 10th century when women's status was.. not all that high, how come the queen is the strongest piece on the board? | 1,133 | Chess was "westernized" a bit, the queen piece was originally called an advisor for the king who often wielded the true power while the king held a more ceremonial position. Like Jafar from Aladdin.
| 959 | |
ELI5: Why is the uvula such a sensitive gag reflex point? | 31 | The gag reflex happens due to something in the nervous system known as a reflex arc. In a reflex arc, sensory nerves transmit information to the spinal column. In the spinal column usually information travels upwards towards the brain in order to be interpreted. In a reflex arc, the interneuron in the spinal column imm... | 13 | |
ELI5: If I was in a plane travelling just behind the speed of sound, if I ran forwards at the necessary speed, could I break the sound barrier? | 23 | No. Breaking the sound barrier requires you going faster than the air around you. As the air in the plane is travelling at the same speed as the plane you could not break the sound barrier by running down the aisle. | 43 | |
Are there stars in space "Independent" from Galaxies? | Stars, Planets and a bunch of other stuff make up Galaxies, but how common is it that some stars dont belong to any Galaxies at all? Do they even exist? Just there all by themselves millions of lightyears away from anything else? and if they do, is there a possibility of a Blackhole exisiting seperately from a Galaxy? | 138 | Yes, they do exist. It's hard to say how many there are, since they're hard to find. Stars can be thrown out of galaxies by gravitational interactions with other stars; it's hard to think of a scenario where a star could form in intergalactic space, though. | 75 |
Little Boy v Fat Man: why were different cores used? | LB was a uranium bomb and FM was a plutonium bomb. Why wasn't the same design used for both drops? | 41 | This touches on a core aspect of the Manhattan Project and how exceptional it was as an R&D project. Compare to a more normal R&D project like the Apollo Program where scientists and engineers work together to come up with the best design for a system, build it, and ultimately work towards making it operational... | 59 |
ELI5: Why are people more likely to become carsick when riding in the backseat? | 19 | Motion sickness comes about when the brain receives conflicting sensory signals. If you sit in the back of the car and stare at the head rest in front of you, read, play on your phone, whatever, your inner ear is sensing the motion of the car, but your eyes aren't passing that same information on - as far as the eyes a... | 31 | |
[star wars] Coruscant is covered by a single city, Galactic City. What are the municipal politics of Galactic City like? | Washington D.C., Ankara, Mexico City and pretty much every other capital city have all have a municipal structure separate from their national government; each has a mayor along with their country's head of state. How does Galactic City function? Is there a mayor? Does the functioning or the form of municipal administr... | 198 | Complicated.
The whole planet-city has to be as big as it is to support all the different species from all over the galaxy that come there, either as part of the galactic government or with the hope to find work or riches among the most powerful beings in the known universe.
Because of this complexity and the sensiti... | 80 |
ELI5:Why can't the police and military forces in places like El Salvador and Honduras control the gangs in their countries? | 53 | The same reason the Afghan National Army can't fight off the Taliban. A "gang" in this context isn't a bunch of hoodlums running around with handguns; they are highly organized and well funded organizations | 24 | |
[DC] Do Batmans villains evolve to counter Batman? If so, what are some examples of this? | 66 | The Penguin countered Batman by.... going mostly legit. He's still involved in smuggling, information brokering, and various soft crimes, but he has abandoned theft, murder, etc. All the things Batman actually cares about stopping.
He can't beat the bat, but he can stay off the bat's sonar. And most of the time he... | 92 | |
Could the rings of a planet like Saturn eventually either all fall into the planet itself or compact themselves into a new moon? | 73 | > Could the rings of a planet like Saturn eventually either all fall into the planet itself...
They can only do that if they lose enough angular momentum, which can only happen via friction. So yeah, over time they may thin out, but it seems there is not much friction between the objects in the ring happening, so... | 26 | |
What's the difference between being knocked out and being unconcscious when you sleep? | 18 | Sleep is a complicated, organized process in which your brain slows down but does not stop working. Many parts of your brain remain active while you sleep.
For example, you might sleep through a quiet conversation in the same room, but then suddenly wake up when someone says your name. The part of your brain that pro... | 27 | |
ELI5: Why do all animals have natural animal instincts that allow them to nurture a child but humans need parenting classes and support when raising a child? | 25 | In traditional village (or nomadic) living conditions, children frequently see nearby parents raising other children. They learn by watching, and—when they are asked to help—they learn by doing. Often they were helping with their own younger siblings, or maybe with cousins, or maybe even the children of their older bro... | 46 | |
[Dragonball]why did Vageta let Bulma cut Trunk's tail off sometime between birth and the Android Saga, in Saiyan culture that's almost analogous to castration? | 45 | Because after his long stint on Earth he learned that the tail wasn't the source of a Saiyain's strength it was a crutch, and in fact their biggest most easily exploited weakness.
He also didn't care much for Trunks since he didn't even look Saiyain from the get go, so it was a lot easier for him to let go of any pote... | 58 | |
[The Matrix] Why didn't the machines, with all their technology and power, colonize space? | 96 | Why are we assuming they didn't / haven't?
We know that they honored the accords and kept most of the human population alive and in a simulated reality when we surrendered to them, and that the remainder ran around a small chunk of mostly-underground Earth without any astronomical observational tools.
Quite reasonabl... | 69 | |
ELI5: What are some of the most common editing/composition techniques used by TV shows/movies that make scenes seem higher quality than what amateurs produce? | Professional film quality always looks better than anything I could ever shoot. How? | 70 | They use higher quality cameras to start with, they also have the budget to have higher quality set-design, props and costumes than an amateur. In terms of composition that really depends on the director. But one key difference is that they have more time and larger teams to do things than someone not paid to do it. Th... | 38 |
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