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[Harry Potter] Voldemort placed a jinx on the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts so that no teacher could last a year....When he "died" and the teaching position was still cursed, did nobody put 2 + 2 together? | I'm right in thinking the magic dies after the caster does, confirmed by reading [This](http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Jinx_on_the_post_of_Defence_Against_the_Dark_Arts_teacher) which states " The jinx will be lifted once the caster is dead". What do you guys think, was it a secret? If anyone would of known it would... | 187 | I don't think it was ever blamed on Voldemort, and it wasn't even a confirmed curse, otherwise nobody would take the job or they'd try to break it. It was just some rumor that the DADA position was cursed, not taken seriously by the staff. | 170 |
[Dishonored/Dishonored 2] A theory. Is the "Heart" lying to you? The large overwhelming majority of people it talks about have done REALLY despicable stuff far worse than most people ever do. Is it doing this to taunt you to kill them? | Not simply guards or "bad" people. The "common" people too. Almost everyone seems to have either done something REALLY, REALLY bad or is plotting to imminently do so. I can't believe that most people in the world are that evil. Because uh, society would implode, beyond human nature not being that dark.
The Outsid... | 26 | The point is, society *is* imploding as much as it ever tends to... but not even because of that much evil. The point of the Heart is that there is evil in virtually *everybody*, especially in a world as hard to live in as Dunwall or Karnaca. It doesn't have to lie to you, because the idea that "everybody is good" is a... | 35 |
[Marvel] Would the government of a pantheon of extradimensional gods, like Asgard or Olympus, be considered a monarchy or a theocracy? | 43 | Asgard would be a monarchy/meritocracy, since the people who are ruled over don't necessarily worship Thor and Odin and all the rest. They venerate them as heroes and leaders, but they don't seem to have any particular religious practices.
Never forget that it was we humans who decided to worship the Asgardians as g... | 40 | |
[Star Wars] Could you play "Tennis" with two lightsabers and a blaster bolt? | 677 | Blaster bolts can maintain their composition after bouncing off of several objects, for example pretty sure that's what happens when Chewbacca shoots the door of the trash compactor in ANH. But the plasma would fizzle out eventually.
Edit: Han fires the shot, not Chewie. | 473 | |
[Ben 10] can ben 10 watch use a human DNA? | If so how would he look like? What is his power level tier? Peak human? Would that add up some interesting story element? | 28 | The Omnitrix already contains Human DNA, specifically Ben's own DNA. And someone else using the Omnitrix to transform into a human would just become a copy of Ben.
> Would that add up some interesting story element?
Not really? That kind of thing is already explored through Albedo as character. | 25 |
CMV: McGregor does not deserve a title shot vs Khabib | There is no reason why McGregor should get a title shot against Khabib after his performance vs Cerrone for a multitude of reasons. This is in response to Dana White saying that Conor will fight Khabib next.(https://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/28513964/conor-mcgregor-vs-khabib-nurmagomedov-fight-make-dana-white-says)
1... | 49 | I can think of one solid reason, ***money.*** UFC is a business and has never truly cared about the integrity of the sport. Case in point, Jon Jones is still fighting.
McGregor is easy cash, especially if it's a title shot he doesn't deserve since it drives press and he will also play against that given his personalit... | 35 |
Eli5: How do we know that dinosaurs were likely reptilian/avian but not likely mammalian? | 38 | Species that are closely related to each other will share certain anatomical features in common, which they both inherited from a common ancestor.
Other species that are not descendants of that common ancestor — and therefore are more distantly related — won’t have those same anatomical features.
For example, on the... | 74 | |
[Terminator] The machines succeed in wiping out Humanity from the face of the earth, Now what? | so they kill all them humans, now what are they going to do, reach out to the stars and spread, or create the perfect earth, what will happen to all the Machines whos soul purpose was to kill?
| 37 | Skynet was designed for war, one would assume that it is still bound by this. With no enemy left to fight it would probably go dormant.
Of course, Skynet knows the moment the war with Humanity ends then it completes its purpose and becomes irrelevant, so it would attempt to prolong the war as long as possible, utilis... | 39 |
[Avatar: TLAB/LOK] I am a firebender. I want to enhance my firebending as well as dabble into nonbending fighting arts. How can I incorporate the two into one form? | I’m a firebender and I’m currently in high school right now. I’ve been attending firebending classes for my entire life ever since I could create a tiny flame and, according to my friends and teachers/mentors, I’ve become a great firebender and a decent fighter (I’ll be honest, when I was still in middle school, I use ... | 19 | You're well aware of one of the most shining examples of this. As a young boy Zuko was a mediocre firebender. Learning to use broadswords greatly improved his skills.
Remember your fundamentals. Breath control and directed aggression are key techniques for firebending, you will have the best results studying fighting ... | 25 |
[DC/Batman] How does Batman dodge bullets by just leaping back and forth? | 20 | Moving targets are hard to hit. Especially when they're hard to see and moving quickly, while you're scared shitless and about to be very unconscious.
Batman also does his best to never be in a position where he needs to charge a gunman. There's much safer and smarter ways of taking down an armed thug. | 54 | |
Why do we work everyday What are we trying to produce everyday | Productivity has increased a lot why are we still working everyday has it become just a formal thing so we do unnecessary work
I know people like to work on passion projects but most people are doing work just to earn money | 113 | >but most people are doing work just to earn money
That's kind of the point, isn't it.
Anyway. This is called the "labor leisure trade-off". People, on average, prefer to work a little less and mostly have higher incomes instead if their incomes go up. Basically, they prefer to be richer to having more free time.
... | 88 |
[Star Trek] How do phasers work? | Phasers are unique because they're a kind of do-everything weapon. On low settings in can render someone unconscious, or knock them over, I've even seen crewmen using them in art work on stretched-canvas. On high settings, I've heard them talk about how supposedly they can take out a small building, or a neighborhood b... | 98 | They're not energy weapons, they're particle weapons. A phaser fires a concentrated stream of nadion particles.
They have a settable power level which allows for such a large degree of utility. Starfleet favors them over other types of weapons (including projectile weapons) due to this versatility.
As for why vapor... | 63 |
So I have a theory, but I don’t know if it would actually work… | While studying Econ, and learning about the increasing economic inequality in the US as well as the massively growing gap between classes, I have always heard the same argument on how to combat it: tax the rich.
Now, I understand the sentiment and why that would seem like it would be a good idea. If you can afford to ... | 29 | Sales taxes tend to be regressive (takes proportionally more from the people with the least to start with) because people with lower income spend a lot higher percentage of their money just to live. A middle class or poor person can spend 100% (or more) of their income while a wealthy person might spend, for example, 5... | 37 |
How do serotonergic hallucinogens(LSD, Psilocin, DMT) increase brain interconnectivity? | Obviously it's not literally rearranging neurons. That would probably be really destructive to the brain. | 16 | It seems to allow brain activity to be more “point to point” rather that “hub and spoke” , bypassing the default mode network ( the collection of structures that create our ego or sense of self.
See Dr Robin Carhart-Harris’ work and check out Michael Pollens newest book “How to change your mind”
| 12 |
ELI5: How do non-English speaking programmers write code? | Are there translations for popular languages or do they simply memorize what the English words do (like print, for, loop, etc.) | 335 | We code in English using the English keywords but it's common to see things such as method names declared using a mix of words in two languages:
E.g. English and Portuguese:
* 'getContaCliente' instead of 'getClientAccount'.
* 'ClienteDAO' instead of 'ClientDAO'
* 'ContaFactory' instead of 'AccountFactory'
* ... | 400 |
If our body temperatura is 36ºC shouldn’t we only be hot above it? | 48 | This is a common misconception and gets asked often. Our bodies are at a temperature of 37 Celcius, but we are also constantly generating heat from the biochemical reactions taking place in our bodies. That heat must be dissipated to the environment. As the ambient temperature rises, it becomes more difficult to radiat... | 82 | |
[MC/MCU]What is it like in the soul stone? | Is it different in both continuities? Is it ever explained? Do they just not exist? | 21 | In both universes, it’s a pocket dimension that doesn’t contain *every* disembodied soul in the universe/afterlife, but the Gem/Stone can acquire or steal souls individually.
In 616, Soul World creates a bizarre “physical” environment and allows trapped souls to interact with each other (Adam Warlock took a sort of le... | 26 |
ELI5 the Exact Job of a Hollywood Movie Producer | Just how much shit do they have to go through and why is it that they seem to get a lot the credit for the film/musical? | 54 | Simply put, a producer, like Scott Rudin (who has produced No Country For Old Men, Greenberg, The Social Network, etc.), is the person who first reads the original screenplay, decides it's good enough to be made into a film, gathers up funding from various production houses and investors, and recruits the director and ... | 31 |
ELI5: Why does the US give so much in foreign aid but so little to failing US towns and cities? | You could ELI25 | 29 | The US federal government disperses FAR more money to states/towns/cities than to other countries. They only give about $50 billion in foreign aid total in a year. In comparison that's about how much was spent on missouri,about 15 states received more or much more than that. | 38 |
Do you keep your old/unfinished projects on github? | Pretty much what title says. I was wondering whether you guys keep the old projects on your github(or any similar site) or you keep it clean and only have the ones you're proud of?
​
Personally i actually do keep most of the projects i've worked on ever since i started programming (\~6 years) and even thou... | 71 | I’m not suggesting unfinished projects or projects you create early on when learning a language are necessarily bad, but you can choose to create new projects as private and then only make them public when you are happy with them. | 53 |
Take last minute offer or leave academia in the midst of a pandemic? | **UPDATE: It didn't work out.** The position was advertised as teaching 3/3, mainly intro focused but with courses in my area. I was asked about the above in interviews, emphasizing large intro sections. They asked me to give a teaching demo on an intro lecture. After getting an offer, I probed for the exact condition... | 64 | If you are ok with leaving academia, then you can take the job and leave whenever you want. You don't need to stay 3 years. If you dont care for academia, who cares if you burn a bridge?
Go drive there tomorrow and look around. Go see a couple of apartments. Then give them your answer Monday. Its the only way to make ... | 129 |
Why does glass crack like a spider web? | Like when phone screens break and such. | 33 | Glass is actually a very strong, hard, and (if very well-made) not very brittle material. The reason glass is often brittle is because of microscopic cracks within, and on the surface of the glass. When materials undergo a 'brittle failure', the applied stress causes the material to deform slightly, especially where th... | 17 |
ELI5: Why is it often political suicide to "flip-flop" or change one's opinion based on sound argument, evidence, or voter opinion? | It seems like every election cycle this is a negative phrase used by one candidate to the other (both sides being guilty of this). I can think of several times that my personal opinion has been swayed by sound argument, evidence, or strong social movements that I would otherwise not be aware of.
Thus, changing a poli... | 15 | There are a few aspects to this. First is that people like politicians with strong internal principles that they agree with. Bernie, for example, has been hammering the same points for 30 years. You can find old clips on YouTube from the 90s that are almost identical to his campaign speeches. Having strong principles i... | 12 |
Why is a frozen and thawed banana so much sweeter, and how does this change its nutritional value? | 8,206 | Putting together the information here
One of the main processes in bananas (and all fruit) ripening is the amylase dependent conversion of savoury or flavourless starches in to sugar (specifically glucose). Amylase is a common enzyme (also present in your saliva) which converts starch to sugar and is an important part... | 2,534 | |
How does auto adjusting focus "know" when focus is correct? | With our eyes it makes sense, we focus on something and then our brain says "Ok, we are good here" so focus is done. How is that kind of "verification" achieved with automatic means? | 84 | It typically uses contrast to figure it out. When neighboring pixels in the auto-focus area have the most difference between them is when it assumes focus is maximized. This is why you'll find your camera has a hard time obtaining focus when aiming at something without any contrast-y details in it, like the sky. | 76 |
[Terminator] I'm a T-800 model sent back from the future. What is the weakest weaponry that can destroy me? | Assuming I'm just a standard model, what's the weakest thing that can destroy my impressive metal body? | 31 | I think it’s mostly a question of what part of a Terminator would have to be damaged in order for the Terminator to be nonfunctional. So the question becomes, “What weapon could penetrate the Terminator skull and damage the chip there beyond repair?”
In the first two movies, we saw a Terminator be severed with a home ... | 31 |
ELI5: What is death row? Why does it often take so long for someone to be executed? | 33 | Death row is the placed for prisoners who have been sentenced to death. However, due to the justice system's automatic appeals for people under such a sentence, a case can take a long time to go through the courts until final permission is given to kill someone. | 17 | |
[Star Wars] I am a Sith Lord who's apprentice has surpassed me in every way. Still, though, he refuses to kill me. Even when I initiate combat, he merely incapacitates me, pats me on the head like I am senile, and goes about his business. What should I do? | 641 | Congratulations, neither of you are Sith lords, your incompetence has cost the ancient order of the Sith to die. You are not a lord for you have not trained your apprentice in the ways of the dark side correctly. Your apprentice isn't a sith lord, he's a pile of wasted potential that you as a lord should have seen as t... | 784 | |
[Star Wars] "Execute Order 66." - Was that just a secret trigger phrase, or did it have to come from Palpatine himself to work? | When Clone Order 66 was programmed into their inhibitor chips, was Palpatine banking on nobody else possibly knowing about the command, or is it baked into the instructions of the Order that only Palpatine can issue it?
How would a Clone respond if the Order was issued by someone other than Palpatine? Would the effec... | 23 | As of right now it appears that it *can* be triggered by others, but the only other one who activated it required using the Force to do so, whether that's actually a requirement or needed to in order bypass another requirement (e.g. being Palpatine) is unknown. | 25 |
What do software engineers do once an app/website is built? | Realize the absolute ridiculousness of the question to those of you in tech. Just wondering as a casual outsider. Like, once the app/website is built isn't the heavy lifting basically done? What do all the engineers at Facebook/Twitter/Instagram actually work on all day? is it just refining the code? fixing errors? or ... | 45 | Fix all the problems you created in the initial implementation that you didn’t find during normal testing.
Add features that are necessary to sell to more users or make the boss happy.
Find and fix performance issues or security vulnerabilities.
Build internal tools to make the lives of your coworkers easier and... | 98 |
CMV: Modern psychology is horrific. Still at the "let's bleed out the excess blood with leeches" level of healthcare. | Everything about the way it approaches diseases is wrong, starting with classification and extending to diagnosis and treatment.
##1. Classification
To draw a parallel: cancer, like almost every other physical condition in existence, is defined by its root cause.
> [Cancer] is a group of diseases involving abnorm... | 584 | Just checking in to point out that your title specifies modern "Psychology", and yet your entire post is actually about modern Psychiatry. Psychiatry is a branch of medicine, psychology is a social science. Of course, they are heavily related, but clinical psychologists do not treat with medications, which is all of po... | 378 |
eli5 What exactly is Globalism? | I always hear people calling eachother globalists as an insult but I've no clue what it even is | 70 | Globalism, without any context, is the idea of countries around the world working under an integrated political and economic system. It would stand in contrast to Nationalism, which would be the advancement of one country's political/economic interests, without regard to any effect it has on others. So if "globalist"... | 152 |
Why did Plato write dialogues? | Why did Plato write dialogues? And why did he choose Socrates as the main character in those dialogues? | 42 | Plato thinks philosophy happens in conversation. We can't be there to talk with him, so he gave us examples of good conversation.
However, Plato also opposed *writing.*
Plato strongly believed that philosophers should not write down doctrines. He states this in the *Seventh Letter* and *Phaedrus* most explicitly. Bas... | 74 |
ELI5: Since the human body is covered in pores, why is acne mostly concentrated on the upper body? | I'm doing some reading of my biology textbook for homework and the current chapter is the integumentary system (skin, hair, nails, etc.) The book says the body is covered in pores, and then goes onto explaining what acne is, how pores get clogged, etc. But it doesn't explain why acne is (for the most part) concentrated... | 4,549 | Sebum is an oil produced by sebaceous glands. You have a concentration of these glands in your face and on your head. If they produce a little too much oil, your pores get clogged with oil/dead skin cells and you get acne. So, you can get a clogged pore anywhere but it happens more often where you have more sebaceous ... | 3,510 |
Why do soybeans curd? Why don't other legumes curd? | I was looking for alternatives to make tofu. My grocery store doesn't have soybeans. All of the alternative legumes, that can be made into "tofu", are made into a milk, reduced to a paste, and then chilled. Tofu with soybeans is made like mozzarella (when using unpasteurized milk). The soybeans are made into a milk, ... | 2,335 | Curdling is a result of proteins being denatured by acid and clumping together. Soybeans have a significantly higher protein content than most legumes. If you evaporate enough water from other legume milks, you could increase the protein concentration enough to curdle. High protein legumes like split peas and lentils w... | 1,812 |
How does an 8 ounce glass of red wine have more calories than an 8 ounce glass of grape juice? | I did a little research and found that an 8 ounce glass of red wine has a range of between 160 and 200 calories. The same volume of grape juice has about 140 calories. What process leads to the increase in energy in the conversion of grape juice to wine? | 227 | Former Brewer here. The juice that wine is made from (called must by vintners), has a much higher sugar content than regular grape juice. The sugar content (Brix) of regular grape juice would make a relatively weak wine in comparison to the must of wine grapes.
More sugar = higher alcohol (in most cases) | 182 |
[Supernatural] On the origin of the species | Did the species that live on the earth evolve naturally? If no, why do earths scientists think they did? If yes, what the fuck did god and his angels do for billions of years? | 28 | At least once Castiel has stated he preferred Neanderthal poetry. They were around in one form or another.
The evolution was probably nudged along in the direction they wanted it to go, but it seems like not everything was by their design. | 25 |
Best books on logic and reasoning that will increase my ability to analyze news articles for falsehoods | Like the title says I want to know the best books that will catch me up to speed on being able to identify falsehoods in news articles and video feeds of the media. I want to be able to find the false comparisons, break downs in logic that will highlight where rhetoric is being used in place of truth and reason.
| 42 | These seem like two different questions to me. Identifying a false statement is different from spotting illogical reasoning. The first is fought with fact-checking, the second is developed differently.
Are you perhaps referring to wanting to be able to discern when an article is using devices like appeals to emotion r... | 21 |
CMV: Schools create too many leaders and they do it by making the leadership less about leadership. | So hello everyone, today during my school assembly I realized that everything is being called a leadership now. During my years of changing schools and attending different events I saw people started using word leader more as a good person, but not the definition of it like a person who leads people after them. The p... | 19 | Do you mean leader as in "one who leads" or "one who is in a position of authority"?
Someone who leads by example, like the piano player, is a leader. She encourages others to develop new skills.
Alternatively, she isn't in any position of authority, so the isn't a leader in that sense. | 11 |
[General] Would one timeline diverging into two timelines that later converge back into one timeline make sense? | In my story, the actions of the villain end in two outcomes, one where he annihilates the main cast and wins, and one where he wins but doesn't completely dominate everyone. The story would follow both timelines, the one where the antagonist completely demolished everyone would follow a new set of characters, while the... | 15 | Kind of. There’s actually a concept from the Elder Scrolls called a Dragon Break where linear time breaks down so multiple timelines are all happening at once. Eventually the timelines merge back into one but everyone still remembers the other timelines happening. To use an example from the Elder Scrolls at the end of ... | 21 |
CMV: It is inconsistent to oppose both White Flight and Gentrification at the same time | White Flight is understood as the racial or socio-economically motivated departure from urban centers to suburbs by moneyed whites. It is opposed because a shrinking tax base and programs that whites demand impoverish the urban centers.
Gentrification is understood as the purchasing of the now low-cost residential ... | 29 | Both of those are ways to to keep white people and black people separate. In white flight, the white people leave. In gentrification, they force out black people. In both of these examples, all you are doing is moving rich people around. There is no growth, you are just cutting the pie up in slightly different ways.
T... | 16 |
ELI5: Why is it legal to drink 1 beer and THEN drive, but illegal to drink 1 beer WHILE driving? | I understand that you aren't "allowed" to drink beer while driving due to the "open container" law, but what is the reasoning behind this? You'd have just as much alcohol in your system either way. | 26 | I always figured it was because it's not very practical to pull someone over and ask,"Is that your first beer? Okay good, just checking. Have a nice day."
Easiest way to enforce that law is to have a 0 tolerance policy on open containers/drinking & driving. | 25 |
CMV: Referring to a white person as "Colonizer" is a racial slur | First of all, let me start by saying *of course I am white.* That's why this issue has been bothering me.
A few days ago a woman of an unspecified race referred to me as "colonizer" in public. I instantly took offense, I know how horrible the acts committed by those who colonized the world were, and it was clearly bei... | 339 | It might be helpful here to examine why racism is wrong.
What makes racism morally wrong is the substitution of the individual for the archetype. She saw a white person and made assumptions.
That's prejudiced and quite possibly racist. But that's not the same thing as a "racial slur". It's an accusation. One that i... | 93 |
ELI5: How is it possible for Netflix to crack down on all VPNs/Proxies in an effort to curb users accessing content outside their countries? | Netflix has announced plans to restrict users' access to content outside their home country (http://www.theverge.com/2016/1/14/10767982/netflix-blocking-proxies-vpn-country-restrictions, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35320436), which has upset many international viewers because their content selection can be very ... | 77 | They can never be 100% effective. Hulu has been doing this for years.
Basically they maintain a blacklist of known VPN IP addresses and forbid them from accessing Netflix.
It's fairly easy for a VPN provider to just get a new IP address, so it will never be completely effective, but it can significantly reduce the am... | 37 |
CMV: it is not possible to have an entirely "non-offensive" existence. | You can please some of the people all of the time.
You can please all of the people some of the time.
You cannot please all of the people all of the time.
Offense is sometimes given/intended, and sometimes taken/unintended.
It's possible to go through life and deliberately choose to not engage with things you know ... | 15 | Isn't this just a subset of the paradox of tolerance?
The very act of being non offensive is offensive to some, see just admitting the existence of LGBT. And that's ok.
Who is seriously proposing an existence where you offend literally noone? | 14 |
[Harry Potter] Why was the Half-Blood Prince so much better a teacher than Snape? | Based on how much Harry improved when given the Half-Blood Prince's notebook, AND also how poorly other students, including Hermione, do in Snape's class, it seems clear that Snape is a terrible potions teacher, and worse even than the Half-Blood Prince.
What happened? Why is the teacher so much worse than the student... | 164 | The Half-Blood Prince's textbook was basically a cheat sheet. It didn't "teach" Harry any potions knowledge per se, it just gave him some answers and tips for how to make specific potions. As demonstrated by the exercise to make an antidote for the blended poison, Harry's potionmaking abilities were not significantly... | 224 |
[Star Wars] Anakin is a second too slow and becomes a red smear on Darth Maul's bitchin' hoverbike. What happens now? | 46 | * No Anakin means the command ship isn't destroyed, as none of the other pilots are aware of just how good a trick spinning truly is. The droid army defeats the Gungans, likely killing Jar Jar Binks in the process, before returning to Theed to drive out Padme. The Trade Federation win the day.
* Meanwhile, the duel wi... | 52 | |
CMV: Eating fast food to gain weight is not bad | 19 | **IIFYM!!** (if it fits your macros)
However, if you are eating in a caloric excess to purposely gain weight, you should be doing some sort of resistance training (/r/fitness, /r/bodybuilding, /r/bodyweightfitness, /r/powerlifting, /r/weightroom, /r/weightlifting)
If you do not do some sort of resistance training, al... | 18 | |
How did English become the international language? | There are easier languages and there are languages with more native speakers, so why is English the language that everyone in the world is expected to know? | 17 | Historical accident. In the past, other languages like Latin and French have served as the "international language." It just happens that we've had two successive English-speaking nations as the most powerful in the world - first Great Britain, then the United States.
At the height of British power, it was literally t... | 22 |
CMV: if your friend texts while driving you should pressure them to stop | Wikipedia gives the overall impression that it's as bad or worse than driving while intoxicated.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texting\_while\_driving](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texting_while_driving)
One time in college my housemate came home from a work shift and gleefully mentioned that he had driven home... | 1,567 | It's a fine line to walk. People often think that pestering someone constantly and being a huge dick about it = the most effective method to "help them".
In reality, those people often are not only reinvigorated by your disaproval "you think your better than me?", or may enjoy it annoys you.
It's kinda how over-prot... | 217 |
ELI5: Why does heat alter our perception and create a "wavy" effect. | For example, the area above a strong heater. | 759 | Heat changes the refractive index of air (due to expansion), and as currents and eddies of air pass through a heater – or over a desert – there's an uneven heating effect, causing slight but visible waves of differing refraction.
| 284 |
Is there like a guide on programming languages? As in what works best for what kind of project? | I have a somewhat solid understanding of some programming languages, but I’m having some trouble which language might be better for a type of project. As in like, is python better for a simple chess game than Java. | 50 | As always with any “Engineering” question which is what this is, the real answer is, it depends.
Most answers should be “go with what you know best” so if you know python then use that.
Thinking about your project up front can dictate what technologies you use including language.
Is a static type system important, ... | 24 |
[Star Wars] Could Palpatine have just eroded the Jedi council's political power while working to disillusion the younger generation of knights instead of purging them from the Galaxy? | Obviously, his plan worked, so it's hard to argue with the results. But it seems as though Palpatine's plan was needlessly convoluted. I imagine that discrediting and undermining the council probably would've been easier and more full proof than starting a war that you're running on both sides, trusting that an entire ... | 108 | Palpatine didn't want to slowly wither away the Jedi, he wanted them to be eradicated in one violent, fell stroke. He wanted to see death and destruction. He wanted them to feel betrayed by those they thought closest to them. And above all, he wanted to pull it off in a way that proved he was the master manipulator. Re... | 100 |
[God of War/Mirror universe] What would the mirror Kratos - the one *without* the goatee - be known for? | Would he still play a part in the Titanomachy? | 15 | I think mirror-universe Kratos would just be a standard Greek hero. He hits most of the checklist:
* Tragic background
* Divine parenthood
* Supernatural abilities
* Great warrior
* Weapons bestowed by a god
So basically, he'd slaughter everything evil instead of just everything. | 23 |
[Star Wars] Okay, Palpatine was an evil bastard, but wasn't he correct that the Republic needed to centralize power? | Obviously not to the extent of making it a theocratic dictatorship like the Empire, mind you, but the Republic before Palpatine's reforms was clearly to brittle and fragile, and would not be able to weather crises effectively. Palpatine intentionally worsened these problems to gain power, but they would have still exis... | 15 | Lasted for a thousand years, and it still took most of a generation to bring down from within by a concerted conspiracy involving several actors all with immense power within and without the Republic.
The centralization of power is largely *what brought about* the crises that were ultimately leveraged to kill it. The ... | 32 |
ELI5: Why are ALL (except equestrian) Olympic events single sex? | I understand, I think, events like swimming, gymnastics, weight-lifting, etc. Why do events like fencing, badminton, archery, even basketball, have to be single-sex only? | 18 | Because men and women are built differently and have different athletic abilities. So to keep things 100% fair men compete against men and women against women so that the only X factor is skill, not gender differences. | 15 |
LI5: Can someone explain what's allegedly happened with Murdoch's phone hacking scandal, and why it's so important? | All I can gather is something about the integrity of newspapers and such. What's going on exactly? | 32 | Police were investigating a girl's murder. One small detail of the case was that her family insisted she was still alive (possibly run away, kidnapped, whatever) because phone records showed her voice mail was still being remotely checked regularly and some messages were even deleted.
It turns out a News of the World ... | 25 |
Why do we keep trying to find new heavy elements if they only snap into existence for milliseconds? | Would these super-heavy elements have some use? Is it self-assurance?
Thanks for the help, I'm only a sophomore in high school, but I'm super interested in this kind of science so try not to use to big of words, I think I have a somewhat basic understanding though.
Again, Thanks! :) | 4,176 | Science isn't always about finding applications. There have been many discoveries throughout history that didn't have practical applications for decades or centuries.
These super-heavy elements won't have applications because they're too short-lived. But they're useful for testing our current theories on nuclear phys... | 3,457 |
ELI5: what happens to the water used to make concrete? | Can the concrete degrade, until the water escapes? | 30 | Concrete setting is a complicated process and depends on the materials used. But part of the process is the hydration of the ingredients. The water actually becomes part of the ingredients. The water remains but is part of the chemical components. Concrete is also produced which will set under water. The Romans underst... | 24 |
CMV: Nonbinary people are not trans (a trans pov) | I'm a trans woman who transitioned from male to female 13 years ago socially and 8 years ago medically (my family prohibited it, so i had to wait). Ive had "the surgery". I pass as a natal female (regardless of makeup/clothes/hair/etc.) 100% of the time (to where i live my life stealth). And genuinely this is because i... | 42 | I think it’s more so that Gen-Z just has a different experience of being trans.
For a long time, for Gen-X and older millenial trans people the ultimate goal was to be stealth, to blend in perfectly amongst cis people and to not have anybody know that you are trans.
Gen-Zon the other hand, due to growing up in a tim... | 22 |
Everyone says to not write a csv parser from scratch. But if your language doesn’t have one, how do you do it the right way? | 34 | >Everyone says to not write a csv parser from scratch
Everyone says to not write a csv parser from scratch if your language already provides a decent one.
FTFY. If you need or want to write one for yourself then just write it to parse your particular delimited file. If you want to create and publish a library th... | 32 | |
ELI5: Why is it recommended to drink lots of milk after swallowing bleach ? | 22 | There is a protein in milk, one protein structure called lactase (kind of like a microscopic arm made of legos) is responsible for making bleach less harmful when swallowed.
This protein "lego arm" binds onto the highly reactive chlorine atom and the highly reactive OH (hydroxide) molecule in the basic bleach, when i... | 27 | |
ELI5: how do ants in ant colony know what’s their role? Are they trained for these roles (soldiers, farmers, etc.)? Are there ants that go through “career changes” and switch roles? | 52 | Some roles are just based on body type. A soldier is never going to become a queen. But others do actually change roles. Ants communicate through chemicals and if an ant in one role goes awhile and doesn’t encounter much of a chemical associated with a role, it can change to that role. So, imagine half the foragers get... | 39 | |
ELI5: why are people harder to pick up as "dead weight" as opposed to when they're letting you lift them? they don't really change weight | 53 | They don't change weight, but they do shift and support their weight to make it easier for you to grab and maintain balance.
That's also why a 45 pound block of wood is easy to lift but a 45 pound bag of water is a nightmare. You can't grab or balance the water and its center of gravity is constantly shifting as you ... | 129 | |
ELI5:If a piece of food beings to rot, is the whole thing bad or just the spot where it spoiled? Can I just cut that spot out and eat the rest? | 38 | The reason molds/fungi/bacteria are bad and that you dont eat the food they have colonized, is not because those organisms are necessarily pathogenic to you, its because the byproducts of their metabolism of certain things are highly toxic to you. Take Clostridium botulinum for example, its not the bacterium that harms... | 19 | |
Parents doing a PhD, what does your schedule look like ? | Hi !
As a parent of young kids ending my first year of PhD, I'm turning to you for inspiration on what are your routines, tools, or else that helps you stay on top of things ?
Either studying method, note taking, food planning, etc.
Thanks !
​
EDIT : Thanks all for your replies. This is really encouragi... | 83 | Treat your PhD like a job. Regular hours. 8am to 5pm. You are in class, at your desk or in your lab working. Set those expectations early with your adviser. Reading papers? That's to be done at work, during work hours. Class assignments? Done during work hours. Grading papers as a TA? In the office during work hours. O... | 239 |
Why can't you ever have truly monochromatic light? | 22 | Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The wavelength of light is related to it's momentum, and quantum objects (such as light particles) cannot have their momentum defined with infinite precision. That's why a photon cannot have one exact wavelength, instead it has a range of possible values for it's wavelength. | 12 | |
[Marvel/DC] What would happen if various superheroes got shot in the chest? | Assume:
* Their powers are functioning properly.
* They're wearing their standard gear.
* They're immobilized or taken by surprise (regardless of how implausible this is) so they can't use shields, weapons, wristbands, etc. to deflect the bullet..
I know the really obvious ones. Bullets bounce off of Superman, and t... | 30 | 1. Thor laughs
2. Hulk smashes the offending shooter into the ground
3. Wonder Woman shrugs it off
4. Spiderman has a hole in his chest
5. Batman has serious bruising and may have internal injuries depending on the caliber of the gun
6. Iron Man shoots back
7. Capt. America has a hole in his chest
8. Bucky Barne... | 69 |
ELI5: How can we measure, define, or even estimate the surface area of something like activated charcoal when the coastline paradox makes the length of a nominally 2D surface difficult to reckon? What about less regular surfaces like intestinal lining? | I imagine it's derived indirectly by comparing the physical and/or chemical properties of unprocessed and processed samples, but what about other microscopic structures, like intestinal lining, that don't have as straightforward properties to test?
And more to the point, what do we mean when we say "surface"? Where's ... | 42 | Despite what some have said, when defining the surface area of a porous surface like activated charcoal, you absolutely do run into something directly akin to the coastline paradox. One measures the surface area of a porous surface by essentially covering it in molecules of a known size and shape. The amount of molecul... | 33 |
ELI5: Does touching bones(for example if I had a deep cut or a bad break that exposed bone) hurt? | 24 | You can literally palpate your bones through your skin. Does it hurt when you do this? No. Any sensation is the nerve endings in your skin. With that being said, once you enter the bone, you can feel pain. In certain emergency situations, the inside of the bone has to be accessed in order to administer life saving medi... | 31 | |
Eli5: What causes that feeling in your stomach when you drive quickly over a steep bridge / go down a steep drop on a roller coaster? | 19 | It's literally your stomach moving up in your torso. Our organs aren't rigidly held in place; they're more floating in your torso, anchored by ligaments here and there. Usually you don't notice it, but a sharp change like what you describe can cause perceptible movement. | 22 | |
[Nintendo/Kirby] What is Kirby? | I'm told he is bar far the most powerful Nintendo character and regularly fights and defeats galaxy ending events as part of his norm. What is he? Why is he so powerful? What's MetaKnight? | 65 | Nothing confirmed, but what I've gleaned from /r/kirby's spoilers for Star Allies, it's speculated Kirby's a positive outgrowth of the Void that permeates dimensions. No confirmation on a link between Void Termina, Kirby, and the Knight entities, but given that Meta and Kirb have the same face/body structure, it looks... | 41 |
[BSG] If the Twelve Colonies possessed FTL jump drives that were capable of crossing significant portions of the galaxy, why didn't they expand further before the Second Cylon War? | I understand that jumping long distances is dangerous, but surely they sent explorers or surveyors to new planets at some point?
The colonials have been spacefaring for at least 2,000 years after all. | 133 | The Colonies were extremely unusual in that they were several habitable worlds in really close proximity to each other. In contrast, it took weeks of searching further out from Colonial space than they had ever gone for the Galactica to find ONE barely habitable planet.
Calculating jump parameters is also an involved ... | 106 |
Why did the moon lander vehicle look like it was wrapped in (golden) tin foil? | Re-watching Transformers: Dark of the Moon, and in other media, it's always shown like this, but it looks rather flimsy and easy to peel...
What is it? | 15 | That's actually a thermal insulation material called multilayer insulation (MLI). It just looks ruffled because of forces in transit and landing. The way out looks may also have to do with how it wraps around the contour of the lander components. | 11 |
ELI5: Why do all soda companies have the same size and shape of can/bottle? | Wouldn’t companies have variance between products? Or is there some sort of standard that causes all of these cans and bottles to be manufactured the exact same way? There are some other examples of this but soda is just the first that comes to mind. | 20 | While it is true that a different company takes care of the packaging, this doesn't stop them from requesting different sizes and shapes. Or even building their own packaging facilities.
However most soda companies would try to stick to the standard. That's party because they don't want to lose potential sale from thi... | 20 |
ELI5: Everyone in the world raises their arms/fists to represent success and victory. Why is that? | Every culture (to my knowledge), every country, and every civilization that all developed independently of eachother, and yet everyone raises their fists or arms up in the air to proclaim 'yes!' or 'victory!'.
Why is that? | 94 | It is just a human reaction. Recently, saw a video on TEd talks about body language. It said there was a study done and when someone who was blind and has always been blind won a challenge they raised thier hands up in the air, in victory. Even people who have never seen that done, react that way. | 63 |
How can the universe have a single age? | According to wikipedia, the universe is estimated at 13.3 to 13.9 billion years old, but I haven't been able to figure out what exactly that means. If you take two objects and ask them how long ago an event they both witnessed was, you would get two different answers depending on gravitaty and velocity. Objects that ha... | 33 | When you zoom out to the cosmological scale, where anything smaller than a galaxy is too small to resolve, it turns out that nothing moves very fast. It's true that the proper time in a moving reference frame will differ from the proper time in a notionally stationary reference frame, but unless the relative velocity b... | 30 |
ELI5: If fires go out when oxygen is removed, how is the Sun burning? | 23 | Short answer: the sun is not burning. It is too hot to burn.
The sun is a nuclear fusion reaction (mostly hydrogen into helium), which is far and away a higher energy than simple oxygen combustion. | 103 | |
[Halo] How the hell did the Home Fleet with 200 S-MAC guns fail to destroy the Fleet of Sacred Consecration during the First Battle for Earth? | You are talking 100+ ships vs 15 (13 cruisers + 2 CAS carriers), now, lets say for a moment that the 100 ships ain't that good, the SMAC's alone should have torn the entire enemy fleet to shreds, an SMAC can put a round straight through 3 covenant capital ships.
During the fall of reach, there were 20 SMAC's, and they... | 15 | I believe the storyline of the first mission is that they aren't in the killzone, they're staying outside of effective range and launching boarders. If most of those SMAC stations were destroyed without firing a shot, it would explain how Regret's carrier made it past. | 23 |
ELI5: When eating food like mashed potatoes, and you swallow a big bite causing it "sticks to your ribs", what is actually happening? Why does it feel like I'm suffocating when the food should be on its way to my stomach, not caught in my air pipe? | 54 | Your air pipe has soft tissue and firm tissue that makes it up. Cartilage rings in your air pipe (which keep it from collapsing when you inhale) are shaped like the letter C, with the open part of C facing the back of your neck. There is obviously not an opening in the back of your air pipe but the tissue back there is... | 40 | |
[Fallout 4] I used to live in the Capitol Wasteland and had to run regular maintenance on my gun. Now I live in the Commonwealth and the gun never breaks. What gives? | 16 | One of the first things the Institute created were maintenance nanites. They can repair minor damage at a molecular level, keeping things running longer without the need to tedious maintenance. But, they aren't self replicating, and if something suffers too much damage, they 'write it off' and focus on something else.
... | 25 | |
[ATLA/LOK/Harry Potter] I am a fully realized Avatar who has been given a regular old stick disguised as a wand. How many spells can I preform using only my bending abilities and no magical knowledge? | Essentially, how many HP spells could be replaced by bending to achieve identical effects without the magical world discovering my true identity?
Assuming I have access to all bending subsets. | 377 | That depends heavily on who you're trying to fool. A well trained wizard would recognize that you aren't actually performing magic. Magic has a distinct feel to it that you can't quite recreate with bending.
As far as recreating the effects of magic, firebending should be your go to. It's easiest to direct and shape ... | 211 |
ELI5: Why does the taste of something diminish rapidly? Example, swirling a fruit yogurt drink around the tounge quickly becomes tasteless, yet swallow and immediately take another sip and it is bursting with flavor again. How is the taste sucked out? | 17 | It's called neural adaption. You are sensitive to changing stimuli. Constant stimuli are filtered out by your nervous system. All of your senses have this quality. For instance, your eyes constantly move even when you're looking straight ahead in order to negate this. Otherwise, your vision would fade just like the ta... | 11 | |
ELI5: Why are torrent sites and it's torrenters not being attacked/arrested? | I've always wondered why nobody, such as the federal government hasn't really cracked everyone down including its users
I am aware of he takedowns of megaupload, the pirate bay and also demonoid (which I'm sad to see go down right now since I'm an avid user)
ELI5 please :) | 17 | Regularly going after individual users doesn't really make sense, because it costs a lot more to prosecute people than the damage you do just by downloading. But going after the *providers* isn't likely to work; torrent sites get all the protections that search engines do, which means that as long as they don't activel... | 10 |
ELI5: The science behind "Red skies at night: sailors delight. Red skies in morning: sailors take warning." | 737 | It wholly depends on where you live, in tropical regions this makes no sense at all but in temperate climates weather systems move predominantly west to east.
Red skies are usually caused by sunlight reflecting off the underside of cloud cover. If there's red sky in the morning, the sun is shining from the east hittin... | 559 | |
How does this work? Water floats? | Water and sound? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uENITui5_jU | 32 | It's due to the syncing of the sound frequency (24 hz, or 24 oscillations per second) with the frame rate (24 frames per second). This is essentially the same effect as you get when propellers or car hubcaps appear to be stationary on film footage. | 33 |
ELI5: How is it that homework help websites such as Chegg and Coursehero are somehow able to remove all other answers from the internet? | Before these sites were around I would have no trouble googling my problem and finding help on a solution. Now, all of these answers are behind a paywall and rarely seem to be able to find anything anywhere else. | 350 | It is nearly impossible to remove something completely from the internet. Your answers are most likely still there. If they're not it could be because the hosting Website is no longer online.
What's most likely happening is that pages like Chegg and Coursehero have a higher rank on the search engine and thus being dis... | 285 |
[Blade Runner 2049] How many real humans exist compared to replicants/non-humans? | 22 | Almost impossible to tell.
Off planet who the fuck knows. On planet it might be as high as 10%
The real issue here is how much "behind the scenes" labor is done by replicant.
It looks like Batistsa at the beginning was hiding as a human on the giant farm. If we assume everyone there was human it might be dramatic... | 21 | |
[Elderscrolls] What are the Khaijit's views on cat ownership? | 20 | The Khajiit aren't that big on Ownership in general. Culturally, things are largely shared with no direct individual control, which is why Khajiit typically get a bad rap for being thieves. They take what they need, regardless of who 'owns' it.
There is a bred of Khajiit, the Afliq, which is almost indistinguishable ... | 34 | |
ELI5: How are we able to hold and engage in conversations, seemingly without thinking? | When someone strikes up a conversation we are able to respond quite fast. There's usually not much of a pause when it's the other person's turn to speak. Is this just reaction? Every conversation is a bit different, yet no deep thought ever seems to cross our mind when engaged in conversation. | 135 | You _are_ thinking, deeply and intensely, when engaging in conversation. But this thinking is something your brain is innately wired to do. It's as natural a human behavior as walking, or looking out on the world and recognizing what you are seeing, or using a tool. All these are really intense and difficult problems ... | 77 |
CMV: College students who had their classes moved online do not deserve tuition refunds | Students at my university and many others are petitioning to have their tuition reimbursed because the quality of their education has dropped due to classes being moved online. I think this is downright silly, and it makes us all look extremely entitled.
First, we are still getting units for our work, and these credi... | 35 | There are international students who live in dorms that have been shut down that have no alternatives of living in the country. A peer's girlfriend was essentially required to move from the United States to Japan. She may not have internet at her home. How is she not entitled to a refund if she cannot complete her clas... | 62 |
[Avengers] What happens when Hawkeye runs out of arrows? | It can’t be possible for his quiver to hold more than fifteen arrows. Some of the battles he participates in take hours. And I’m talking about the pre-*Endgame*, non-Ronin Hawkeye, with no sword to also use as a weapon. So, does he just stop fighting altogether? Does he use his bow as a melee weapon? | 782 | He did run out of arrows, in the first *Avengers*. He scavenged more arrows from the corpses of his enemies, used his bow as a staff, and acted as a spotter for the others. He's also really good with a sword. | 960 |
[Marvel]What are the least friendly and the least neighborhood versions of Spider-man? | 206 | An alternate-universe comic had a guy who was bitten by the spider going completely off the deep end - he became a psychotic monster who devolved into a giant spider-monster, engaged in cannibalism and impregnated his girlfriend with spider eggs, which ripped her apart and devoured her body.
Morlun shows up at the end... | 191 | |
ELI5: Why do ears start bleeding if a person is in a free-fall in a plane? | What I'm referring to is this article https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/travel/2018/07/passengers-ears-bleed-as-depressurised-plane-plummets.html
What's the process behind this? | 58 | Your ear has an enclosed ear space between the ear drum and the inner ear. This is known as the middle ear, and it contains 3 small bones that transfer vibrations from your ear drum to the vibration detection hardware in your inner ear. There is a small passage between this space and your nose to balance pressure, but ... | 54 |
CMV: The United States should base the elections solely on the popular vote. | The claim that the electoral college was set up to avoid populists winning elections may have been true, but it was set up in a time where political parties weren't a thing in the US and frankly, it also makes it seem like it was set up due to fear of the average person's stupidity. All the electoral college has done i... | 39 | The whole point of EC, is that you vote for electors - not for President. The assumption was that the populous was too stupid, too busy, and too uninformed to make a decision about the Presidency, and that they would vote for a local town elder, who would then go to Washington DC and meet the candidates and decide on t... | 29 |
CMV: Businesses do not have the right to manipulate online reviews | I once saw a therapist who had an extremely detrimental effect on my mental health. I decided to leave a brief online review on Google Business about my experiences with the therapist. "Mysteriously", the honest review somehow got deleted, restoring her to a five-star rating... thanks to a flawless review authored by h... | 22 | >I believe that for any business, online review manipulation is dishonest, highly unethical
The flip side is highly unethical too though. The general public manipulates reviews all the time. Usually this is for product releases and not services, but the point stands. Businesses have a right to protect themselves fr... | 11 |
Eli5: If heat from the sun is radiated onto Earth, doesn’t that mean multiple layers of air are being heated up? If so, why isn’t the top layer really hot and the lower ones cold? | 11,687 | Air is not good at absorbing radiation, which is evident from the fact that you can see very clearly in the air. This is possible because light waves pass through the air with little interference. The same is true for infrared radiation, which is what heats up Earth mostly. Rather than being absorbed by the air it’s ab... | 10,835 | |
ELI5: They said "the water doesn't have an expiration date, the plastic bottle does" so how come honey that comes in a plastic bottle doesn't expire? | 19,891 | Whoever said that is wrong.
The FDA and IWBA can't find any evidence that age matters to plastic water bottles. The FDA has ruled that there is no limit to the shelf life of bottled water, and no company has even insinuated that the expiration is related to the plastic.
In 1987, New Jersey passed a law requiring all ... | 14,345 | |
ELI5: What's the difference between ©, ® and ™? | 944 | When you make something creative (a book, a website, a painting), you get something called *copyright*. This means that you have a right to determine how people copy it; if they want to make a copy, they have to ask you for permission. The C-in-circle symbol means that the thing it's printed in/on/whatever is copyright... | 589 | |
Why do whales breach? Is it to draw attention to themselves or to a certain area? | I never understood why they do that. It just seems like it takes a lot of effort on their part to do a “bellyflop” | 20 | The best guesses are that it's done in relation to hunting for food or attracting mates (some species have been observed to breach more frequently during mating season)
It's also very likely it's a simple form of play and they do it because it's fun | 43 |
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