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[general] Why are escape pod emergency releases not inside the pod itself? | So Im in my last year of engineering academy, and I finally get to do my first rotation on an actual starship.
During the Safety induction, they covered escape pod protocol, including launch failure. For some reason I can't fathom, the emergency release is inside the main ship, and the handbook states one person shoul... | 412 | Because the emergency release is a mechanical override for the systems on the ship that hold onto the escape pod.
The ship itself handles holding the pods, AND launching them out. Those systems simply don't exist on the pods side. | 295 |
ELI5: When a baby is in the mothers womb, and is developed enough,does it produce human waste from the nutrients the mother provides to it? If so, where does it go or how does the body adapt to that. | Edit: Thank you for all the info! Much appreciated.
Edit: I woke up this morning and was blown away by the amount of answers and popularity this got. Thanks all and Happy 4th! | 13,862 | Yes. Just a couple of months into their development, little humans begin peeing freely into the amniotic fluid that surrounds them in the womb. Then, foreshadowing all the gross stuff that babies do once they’re born, they’ll consume that urine as they swallow the amniotic fluid. Every last one of us has spent several ... | 9,747 |
CMV: Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets are in aggregate better than Word, Powerpoint, and Excel | First of all, the automatic saving feature is great because I don't have to worry about saving all the time. Secondly, everything is always backed up on the cloud/drive so you don't have to worry about losing files on your computer. Third, it is FREE, as you can use all the google services at no cost to yourself. The s... | 41 | " Third, it is FREE, as you can use all the google services at no cost to yourself. "
As long as you play nice with every Google product. But if you get banned from YouTube suddenly you've also lost all your documents and spreadsheets! That seems pretty disastrous compared to using Openoffice or Word! | 18 |
[Rick and Morty] Why isn't there more automation at the Citadel? | 36 | Because when you have someone doing the jobs, they have less time to think of how to get into your position. The jobs aren't even necessary at all, it's just to keep the people on the bottom at the bottom. | 43 | |
[Pokémon] what makes great balls so much better at catching Pokémon than pokeballs? | 37 | Speaking in broad terms, when you attempt to capture a Pokemon in a Pokeball, you convert it to energy and store that energy in the ball. However, during that process, a stronger Pokemon can fight to reverse it and break containment of its energy. Once it does so, it reverts to physical form.
Great balls/ultra balls/e... | 31 | |
[Dragon Ball Super] Why was King Vegeta so mad that Broly was in the elite nursery? | He calls him a “low ranking baby taken in off the street” but the Saiyan doctors said he was the son of Colonel Paragus. Is Colonel not a high/elite rank in the Saiyan army? | 28 | High rank, but still a filthy commoner.
Vegeta is an aristocrat, if you aren't born nobility you are trash. Sure Paragus proven himself to be a capable warrior, but he still wasn't nobility and his baby hasn't proven shit.
Assuming, of course, their colonel actually lines up to the English rank. Ranks tend to get con... | 53 |
In the attached gif was doesn't the bottom of the slinky begin falling as soon as the top is released? | http://i.imgur.com/aGQpFgV.gif | 15 | Let's forget about how the slinky contracts for now. Let's look at the center of mass - for the slinky, it's approximately midway between the two ends. Note how the center of mass, as expected, falls.
Now, think of a stationary, horizontal slinky with tension applied on both ends. As soon as you remove the force holdi... | 23 |
ELI5: How does self-disappearing ink work? | I got one of these pens for free with a calligraphy practice workbook. After about 5 minutes, the ink just vanishes as if nothing was written. I've tried it on multiple different papers and the same result occurs so it shouldn't have to do with a specific kind of paper. How does this happen? | 289 | Disappearing ink is usually reacting to carbon dioxide in the air around us, creating carbonic acid through an interaction with an agent in the ink, which causes it to "disappear" as sodium carbonate. Sometimes, the ink is photosensitive instead, which will cause it to disappear due to exposure to light. | 154 |
[DC] Could a devolution device (like the kind made by Gorilla Grodd in the Justice League cartoon) be used to weaken Doomsday? | 41 | This could possibly be a viable way to defeat doomsday. Considering how he was created, it could devolve him to one of his weaker forms, maybe even his original form depending on how much power the devolution device has. | 31 | |
How can same volume engines have different HP/torque/etc.? | 156 | The displacement of an engine is not the only factor contributing to work done by the engine. The compression ratio for one will change the power output (the more you squeeze the air and fuel the more power you get out). Intake and exhaust manifolds will affect how effectively air can enter and exit the combustion ch... | 70 | |
I am a firefighter with a fluid dynamics question. When splitting a single 4" diameter supply line to two separate supply lines, why would I get more water from splitting to one section of 4" and one section of 3", as opposed to two sections of 4"? | So were were practicing filling tankers (trucks that carry 3,000 gallons of water each), and noticed something interesting. I will explain our setup. So we had a 10' length of 4" supply line coming off of a hydrant w/ ~60 psi of pressure. There was a manifold on the end of that section of 4" that splits it into two sup... | 39 | I design multiple path processes every day. We've got a rule of thumb that anything less than five psi of pressure drop in the entire system can only be single path because below that point minor differences can cause massive maldistribution of the flow to the point that one of the passes can run dry... Sounds to me li... | 37 |
CMV: Increasing penalties for crimes does not appreciable dissuade people from committing crimes | Often I see writings that talk about the harsh penalties of the past and in other cultures, like taking off someone's hand or being given the death penalty for theft. Simply, if harsh penalties for minor crimes were effective against the human need to commit crimes, these things would never need to occur.
Politicians ... | 120 | Jail is used for three reasons. To rehabilitate, as a deterrent, and to isolate dangerous members of society away from the rest of society for the greater good.
It may or may not work as a deterrent, but that's nit why the law is there. The penalties get worse to make the prison sentences longer, in order to protect t... | 22 |
Is the way of making philosophy based on "first principles" dead? | I read somewhere that Quine's "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" invalidated the pursuit of "first principles" from which truth could be determined and a system of philosophy could be constructed from. It is true? Are there philosophers still working in this way? | 22 | Systematic philosophy is alive and well, though it certainly is not as popular as in the early modern period. Just for a few names, in the analytic tradition there is Mario Bunge, and in the continental tradition you have Alain Badiou. Overall the continental traditions nowadays is much more amenable to systematic ph... | 13 |
ELI5: Why do people use 0-60 mph to benchmark the acceleration of cars? | Why not use 0-50 and what is significant about going to 60 mph? | 40 | Because the actual benchmark is 0-100 km/h, which get's rounded down to 60 mph. 0-100 is a nice round number, and since everyone except the US uses the metric system that's the standard. So the significance is that 60 miles is about 100 km. | 79 |
ELI5: If I died on an alien planet that was possibly habitable but was void of life, would my corpse spark life? | Would the introduction of organic material kick start life on that planet? I imagine bacteria in our guts or something could make it. | 41 | You'll get better answers over in /r/asksciencediscussion.
The answer is it depends a bit on the planet. Most planets other than Earth are simply not very good places for life; bacteria would freeze, burn, or be irradiated.
However, if this planet is even relatively friendly to life but currently life-free then your ... | 22 |
CMV: The international community should cut all ties with China until they stop the mass genocide of Uighur Muslims | It’s inexcusable that the vast majority of the world still maintains ties with China as they do the worst mass genocide since the Holocaust, and the only mass genocide that can compare to it. China needs to be held accountable and we need to send the message that this isn’t ok. The best way to do so is to cut all ties,... | 17,837 | Unfortunately, not all countries have problem with genocide - there are so many countries that don't mind killing minor tribes in their own land. In reality, only portion of countries would mind such noble concept.
For other countries, the attempt would be seen as another power seize. To make matter worse, quite the n... | 949 |
ELI5: US Presidential election 2016 megathread | Most of the common questions have already been asked multiple times, and searching the archive is recommended.
Other wise, this post will serve as a location to repost past questions, and any new ones. | 84 | Why is the Electoral College still a thing? Has there been any effort to move away from it?
Seems odd to have a system that allows a President to win while losing the popular vote. Why not award proportional amounts of votes from each state to their results? Has there been an effort to move away from the system?
| 50 |
[Fairy Tales] What was Rumplestiltskin going to do once he got the baby? Also what is he and how did he get his powers? | 44 | It's implied that he's a fairy/Fair Folk. They're often known for kidnapping children and sometimes even adults. What they do with the kids isn't really known. Some stories claim that they eat the children. Other stories like Thomas the Rhymer say that they just hang out with their captives, not really doing anything h... | 44 | |
ELI5 - when people cut people open in surgey, why dont they bleed everywhere? | i mean i know there's some blood loss involved in surgery but when people get cut at home etc theres usually blood every where. [this is the sort of stuff im talking about] probably NSFW (gore) (http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/v2kz5/underneath_the_skin/)
is it a drug thing or just techniques? | 599 | Seeing as the highest rating comment is removed, let me restate what it said in a way I'd tell a five year old.
Sometimes doctors need to open people up to fix them, and to do that, they have to cut them. There are tiny tubes that carry blood throughout your body. Blood carries air, and if you lose too much, you die, ... | 621 |
ELI5: Synthetic meat | Does anyone know what has happened to the synthetic meat we were all promised many years ago that would be just as good as the real thing (One step closer to Blade Runner ). It's now 2018 I haven't seen one synthetic burger.
and is it really that good for you... or not ? | 736 | No one has figured out how to make it cheap enough yet. Consider the price of ground beef, if you have a multimillion dollar lab making lab-grown beef then you're going to need to make millions of pounds to have it pay for itself.
There are a bunch of companies work on it, but none of their products are commercially ... | 404 |
ELI5: if black friday is all positive revenue why don't they do deals and stuff more often than once a year? | If 'being in the black' is profit for companies, why do they limit their deals to one day of the year? | 24 | Deals and discounts are usually done for two reasons.
1. To get rid of any long standing inventory to free-up room for new orders
2. In anticipation of high volumes of demand (surge in amount of customers)
When demand is expected to be extremely high, companies can afford to mark down items and offer sales, the mini... | 18 |
What physically happens to SSD drives that make the memory blocks wear with each write operation? | It's common knowledge that SSD drives have a limited number of writes and it must minimize the amount of times each memory block is rewrited, to make it last more, bla bla bla.
But, why does it happen? I mean what is the physical reason behind this? What is happening inside the drive that make the memory blocks wear ... | 17 | Flash uses a floating gate transistor that permanently stores a charge in a totally electrically insulated floating gate that isn't connected to anything. Hot carrier injection or tunneling is used to force electrons though the insulator and into the floating gate at very high voltages where they are essentially trappe... | 47 |
[Harry Potter / General science fiction and fantasy] How does the Avada Kedavera work? Does it work on types of inorganic life? | Does it stop the heart? Cease brain functionality? Flip all of the target's cellular "alive/dead" switches at once? Perverse quantum immortality into a sort of quantum suicide? Depending on how it happens effects the second question: who can it kill?
Could you stop the Terminator with it? (It's a universal kill sw... | 24 | When Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort duelled in the Ministry of Magic, Dumbledore animated the centaur in the Fountain of Magical Brethren to use as a shield, which exploded when struck by a Killing Curse. That said, a decent *reducto* would have had a similar effect, it's possible that the statue broke because it was ph... | 17 |
If you mix oil and water in a bowl and wait for a while, you will see gravity seperate them and put all of the oil on top. How is this consistant with the law of increasing entropy? | 22 | I probably won't explain this fully or with the highest degree of articulation, but here we go...
It minimizes the surface area where water and oil interact, which frees up the the largest amount of molecules from restrictive interactions, thus giving maximum entropy.
If you imagine a single oil droplet in water, a l... | 22 | |
ELI5:How did the ancient Polynesians find places like Tahiti, the Cook Islands and Hawaii | I visited Hawaii for the first time this year and I am fascinated with Polynesian culture. How did they look out at the ocean and know how to sail to such small remote islands? Obviously, their astral navigation was extremely sophisticated but how did they know something was...out there... | 44 | There are whole books on the subject.
Basically, if you live on the sea and can read the signs, you can tell that an island is near even though you are hundreds of miles away. It has to do with the cloud patterns, the birds, the wave patterns and the wind.
For example, if waves are passing an island, they will be dis... | 31 |
ELI5: If the USA is now the worlds biggest crude oil producer, why are gas/petrol prices still so high? | Info taken from [this article](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-04/u-s-seen-as-biggest-oil-producer-after-overtaking-saudi.html) posted several days ago. | 57 | Oil is traded on the world market. Oil produced in the US is sold to the highest bidder. The only thing domestic production does is shave off a few cents in shipping costs. Oil companies have no allegiance, they just want to make as much money as possible.
China and India are growing at *insane* speeds & they h... | 51 |
[Avatar: TLA] Do you think the Avatars influence will dwindle over time? | If we take from real world examples, the growth of technology and the human population itself could start to overshadow the Avatar. Would they even need the avatar then? How would the avatar handle a world where nuclear weapons exist? | 47 | A world where nuclear weapons exist will either use them, and end, or not, and not. They're a null factor when it comes to the Avatar, and the main effect they'd *have* on the Avatar is giving them something else to worry about.
The thing with the Avatar is, as long as people respect and believe in them, there is no ... | 61 |
Since most devices nowadays operate on low voltage, would it be more energy efficient to have a separate low voltage DC circuit per house? | Apart from appliances in the kitchen and some other household appliances, I don't think there are many devices left that operate directly with 230V (or 110V) AC.
Even modern TVs, while not necessarily being low power, seem to at least be fairly low voltage for me.
Yet, each household only has a (comparably) high volt... | 38 | Because the voltages are lower, the currents are higher and the resistive losses will be higher. This leads to several problems, the wires get hotter which can become a fire risk and the voltage at the other end of a wire is much less than was put into it (so where you put in 5 volts you only get say 4.5 volts out). ... | 14 |
ELI5: Why is the recent drop in gas prices a bad indicator for the overall economy? | I tried to read several news articles about this, but none of them actually explain it.
**Edit:** To clarify, I have a pretty good understanding of *why* the price is going down. Supply/demand, speculation, liberal conspiracy theories and all that jazz. My question is how does this impact the economy negatively, as s... | 2,509 | It's because oil prices are a fairly good indicator for how well people think the economy is doing.
The central idea is that everyone, and every business uses some form oil to conduct operations. As such, higher oil prices tend to reflect an increase in business activity and lower prices reflect a slow down. (if 1 mi... | 2,530 |
[Spider-Man: Homecoming] What powers Spidey's suit? | Minor spoilers:
What is the power source for Spider-Man's Stark-provided suit? There's enough juice to run a JARVIS-level AI, a holographic HUD, various enhanced sensors (like thermal and x-ray vision), cameras that record everything the mask sees, a spy drone ...
It's Stark-tech, so my first guess would be an arc re... | 135 | A mixture of dynamos and the ultra-efficient batteries that Stark uses to power most of his silly gadgets like the glovewatch and his glasses.
Peter has Super-Strength. Tony designed the suit to resist Peter's movements to a degree, both as a way to charge the suit's batteries through kinetic force and to restrict his... | 106 |
ELI5: Why is increased sucidal thoughts or actions always a side effect in antidepressants ? | Seems counterproductive | 84 | To start, it's not a common side effect.
The first theory is that since antidepressants tend to resolve the physical symptoms of depression before emotional or cognitive symptoms, people suddenly have the energy to act on thoughts of suicide.
The second is that it is simply a paradoxical reaction. For example, there ... | 54 |
[Terminator] What would be the most rational, effective way to IRL survive a Terminator being sent after you? | T-800, doesn't look like Arnold but looks and acts equally unnatural. | 37 | The Terminator only knows your name and can only look you up in the phone book. Change your name and get an unlisted number, and tell your friends and family to say "never heard of them" if a large, heavily armed man stops by asking about you. | 29 |
In the 'Light Echo' images of the V838 Monocerotis star why are the leading edges blue? | In [this image](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/V838_Monocerotis_expansion.jpg), the light pulse seems to have blue light reach the outer extremities first, and the red light seems to trail behind. What causes this? | 26 | The spectrum and intensity of the pulse could very well have large variations in time; but most importantly be very, very aware that the RGB channels you see in these images don't map to literally red, green and blue. They could even be shuffled. Only with the info about the meaning of the colour channels we could star... | 11 |
[King of the Hill] Did Cotton genuinely believe that Hank worked as a pump jockey, or was he just trying to tick Hank off by saying that? | Given that Buck claimed that he "used to knock skirts with" Cotton, I'm leaning towards the latter.
Edit, one month later: Changed placement of quotation mark. | 36 | Someone on here a while ago suggested that Cotton continues to rag on Hank because he never lives up to his full potential. We see Hank display an impressive array of skills throughout the series, even being able to run heavy equipment, yet he works for a scumbag who doesn't respect him and often puts his own company a... | 53 |
ELI5 if standing up straight is supposed to be proper, why does slouching seem so natural? | I try and stand/sit up all the time but it always feels forced while slouching just feels right and comfortable. How is that? | 36 | Proper posture is better for your body in the long run. Slouching feels easier because you're using less muscle to stay upright. But decades down the road, slouching may be your only option if you don't avoid it now. | 25 |
ELI5: Why does it cost money to do a reverse lookup on a phone number, or a person, when a lot of information is readily available for free? | 28 | It's because
A. The company collects all this info in one place to save you the time. That's what you're paying for, not the number owner's details.
B. It's a service that people are willing to pay for, so there will be people willing to provide it. | 15 | |
Does HFCS really "turn off the body's ability to know when it is full" by shutting off the body's ability to recognize leptin? | People keep claiming this but I can't find any science or research.
Some links:
http://foxfitness.com/the-truth-about-high-fructose-corn-syrup-and-why-i%E2%80%99m-outraged-its-being-renamed/
http://www.yelp.com/topic/los-angeles-should-there-be-a-ban-on-corn-syrup-and-high-fructose-corn-syrup-would-you-support-a-boy... | 90 | Sucrose and HFCS are chemically very similar. From a dietary perspective, both are pretty bad for you in large amounts. Especially in the amounts that many of our processed foods contain. It's awful, really.
The reason HFCS gets such a bad rap is because of its economics.
People like sugar, therefore (so the thinkin... | 58 |
What happens when a government goes bankrupt? | In the talks about the bailouts for Greece the goal seems to be to prevent the Greek Government from going bankrupt. But what happens if they would? I posted some numbered questions to better display my confusion.
1: Do the countries assets get seized by the creditors?
2: Does the country descent to anargy?
3: Do th... | 30 | 1. Government debt isn't backed by any asset, it's not like a mortgage backed with a house. Even if it were you'd need an army (most likely) to go get it.
For the rest of the questions countries can't go into bankruptcy like an individual, Governments default on their loans, not declare bankruptcy. What the bailouts a... | 18 |
If there are, as most philosophers believe, objective and real moral facts, and if it is true that experts in ethics know what those facts are, then why do we still make decisions about society democratically rather than through philosophers and other experts? | For instance, if there is a consensus in academic ethics that eating meat, especially from factory farms, is objectively, factually, morally wrong, then what possible reason could we have to still allow people to choose to eat meat? Why do we allow people the freedom to be ignorant, immoral, and wrong when the experts ... | 21 | If there are, as most scientists believe, objective and real facts about global warming, and if it is true that experts in science know what those facts are, then why do we still make decisions about global warming policy democratically rather than through scientists and other experts?
The answer is that politics is n... | 33 |
[DC] I'm a normal citizen of Gotham and I want to thank Batman for all his work. What's the best way I can do that ? | So he would notice it. | 417 | Write to the justice league, and send your thanks that way.
Otherwise, you could also thank the Batman for his work by making his job easier, and help improve Gotham even more, so he has less work to do, or it's less difficult for him to do it. | 346 |
ELI5: Why are there so many different bolt and screw designs (Hex wrenches, flathead, etc.) ? Wouldn't it be easier to have one universal tool? | 218 | No, All have different uses, and in turn are optimum for different types of jobs. Moreover cost can also be a driving factor for what to use. And lastly whether your screw driver, impact driver, hammer drive, etc... will slip should also be considered.
For instance Lag Bolts (Giant screws with hexagonal 'nut' ends) a... | 80 | |
[SCP] If SCP-682 adapts to anything, what happens if you take its blood and put it into a human being? Would it kill them, turn into human blood, or do some weird third option? | 87 | This guy thinks like a scientist. Theres no data on this currently and any data that might exist would no doubt be protected by mimetic kill agents.
​
This SCP exist solely to destroy. If its blood was injected into someone the chances are that someone would die in the most painful way possible. Im not ta... | 73 | |
[Despicable Me] Are Gru's minions paid? Does he give them free housing and food? How does Gru get the money for this? | 62 | >Are Gru's Minions paid?
As far as we can tell, no. But, according to the Minions movie, the Minions don't want to be paid. They're biologically wired to serve the biggest and meanest person they can find to the best of their ability. It's actually shown that Minions that don't serve a villain wind up with sever... | 65 | |
If my salt intake is too high, can I just drink a lot of water to cancel it out? | 604 | Salt (Sodium) makes you retain water.
Adding water to a high salt diet means you'll be retaining lots of water.
This makes you hypertensive.
Hypertension (high blood pressure) is bad for pretty much everything.
Sorry, this turned out more ELI5 than science. | 383 | |
ELI5:When does light stop? | Today i was walking along a lake on a beautiful sunny day. I noticed the reflection of the mountains off the lake. I realized that what i am seeing are photons bounced off the lake, but then i realized they were 1st bounced off the mountain, and they came from the sun.
When does the photon stop? | 62 | Whenever light hits something, some of it is absorbed and gets converted into another form of energy (heat), while some of it is reflected. When you the light hits your eyes, it is absorbed by your retina. | 34 |
[FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF/GROUNDHOG DAY] If caught in a Groundhog Day style timeloop, would Edward Rooney finally be able to catch Ferris (and would that break the loop)? | 104 | so you're asking, if Rooney had literally infinite chances to catch Ferris (who would never adapt or change his plans) would he catch him?
Yes, absolutely. Bill Murray managed to rob a bank. Catching a child is significantly easier.
However that wouldn't break him out of the loop. Bill Murray broke his loop when he... | 91 | |
[Vampires] In general fiction, what would happen if a vampire was forced into a house ? | There's the lore saying a vampire cannot enter a house uninvited.
But, what would happen if he was forced into a house ? Maybe while he was sleeping or something ?
Also, what would happen if a house was built around a vampire ? | 99 | The vampire would not have "entered" the house, it would have been "placed" there.
Besides, if the human dwelling in the house placed him there that would count as an invitation.
Nothing would happen if a house was built around a vampire as a vampire is only forbidden from "entering" a house he has not been invited... | 154 |
Why do mammals such as canines and felines tend to give birth to a large litter of 3-5. When mammals such as humans, primates, and even cows only have one baby at once? | 17 | From an evolutionary standpoint:
In the wild, the main goal of animals is thought to be "survivorship", or passing down their DNA to future generations. With this goal in mind, there are two main strategies.
1) Give birth to a small number of offspring, and care for them for a long time before allowing them to be i... | 10 | |
ELI5: How can ministers affect public opinion as alluded to multiple times in The Wire? | Hey all! Stupid question, possibly, but I just finished S4 of The Wire and a common issue for the mayor is how a given policy is going to play out with the ministers of Baltimore, reflecting on their ability to sway public opinion.
I was under the impression, however, that political proselytizing, as it were, was verb... | 25 | In the US, a church cannot openly endorse or campaign for a specific political *candidate* without putting their non-profit status in jeopardy.
But churches absolutely can and do actively support or oppose issues, and that's not illegal. In fact, many of the great movements of social change were driven by churches. | 10 |
[CMV] I believe that prejudice can sometimes be justified. | I know what it means to be prejudiced. More importantly, I know what racism is. I know that in almost every situation, they are ignorant and unjustifiable. But I've been pondering something for a while now that I frankly don't see as all that unreasonable.
I like bowling. I go bowling non competitively a lot. There ar... | 21 | Prejudice is forming opinions without evidence, and then (often as not) ignoring evidence when it conflicts with your prejudice.
You have some evidence: inconsiderate bowlers who appear to be from India. Here's what you can say without prejudice: people at your bowling alley who appear to you to be of Indian descent... | 28 |
ELI5: Why is the apology of the US Sailor seen as a negative thing? | If our boat drifted into Iranian waters then shouldn't we apologize? Seems like it would be the diplomatic thing to do. I don't even understand why somebody higher up hasn't apologized. It wouldn't have to be elaborate or anything maybe just issue a statement that amounts to: "Hey. Sorry 'bout that. Thanks for not bein... | 30 | > It wouldn't have to be elaborate or anything maybe just issue a statement that amounts to: "Hey. Sorry 'bout that. Thanks for not being dicks about it."
If after examining the testimony, and boats themselves that was what happened, yes Iran should be thanked for coming to the aid of our Sailors.
But it should n... | 27 |
[Witcher] What qualifies as a surprise in the law of surprise? | You could have many things qualify as having something you don't know you have at the time of the offer of the surprise. Your wife could be pregnant and also have obtained a valuable while you are away, plus you probably obtained some things with little value.
How do you determine which of these items to surrender und... | 40 | It's what is genuinely a surprise to you. If you knew your wife was pregnant when you made the pact then it's not a surprise. If she has twins and you thought it was one child then it's a surprise. If your pregnant wife gives you a gift from her late cousin that's a valuable trinket then it's a surprise to you. Trying ... | 53 |
CMV: Where possible, picking up items with your feet is superior to picking up items with your hands. | There are a bunch of benefits to picking up items with your feet:
* Can be a lot more convenient when since your grabbing appendage has to travel less distance
* Your hands can be used for a lot more than grabbing things that are below your waistline
* Great for when your hands are full
* Is a lot more fun as you can ... | 46 | While maintaining balance ability in one's old age is critically important, picking up items with one feet in old age may cause unnecessary risk of falling or twisting a joint poorly. At least for the elderly picking things up with hands or with the aid of a grabber is considerably safer. | 15 |
[General Zombie Media] What are some legit tactics that Marines and soldiers can utilize against zombies? | (For reference, we’ll do both slow, walking Walking Dead-type zombies as well as the freakishly and inhumanly fast zombies from Train to Busan/Peninsula/Kingdom. Also, we’re not going to use the zombies from the World War Z novel. As much as I love that book (definitely check it out if you haven’t already. Absolutely r... | 23 | I mean realistically what we do now works fine. Modern soldiers are very precise and shouldn't have any issues with head shots especially if the zombies are slow.
Assuming it even reaches that point. Zombies have no air defense, don't know how to scatter when artillery is inbound, and frankly have zero countermeasures... | 36 |
ELI5: Why do humans forget important things, but maintain embarrassing things like when we called our teacher mom? | 28 | Negativity bias. For whatever reason, the brain seems to put more emphasis on negative things than positive things, even when both things are equally intense. For example, losing $20 will seem more significant than gaining $20.
Because negative things seem more significant, they are more easily remembered and weigh mo... | 13 | |
How does space have a temperature if it's just vacuum? | 16 | Remember that "temperature" is a pretty handwavey concept. We can't measure temperature directly. We can measure *changes* in temperature, by seeing how something metallic expands or contracts over time for example. Or we can measure the radiation coming off an object and make a guess as to its temperature based on how... | 14 | |
CMV:"(Don't Fear) The Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult Needs More Cowbell | August 1976: Sunshine Records' Blue Oyster Cult, an American Rock Band, were on the verge of laying a new track down, called "(Don't Feat) The Reaper".
Music Producer Bruce Dickinson (yes, THE Bruce Dickinson baby, cock of the walk) has clearly stated that the song has the potential to be a dynamite track. Dickinson i... | 19 | "The Reaper" is known to this day for one sole reason. It needs more cowbell. Had it been recorded w/ the appropriate level of cowbell, it may have broke Billboard's top 10. Maybe even hit #1. But it would likely have been forgotten in the 90s. Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night" (which was #1 when "The Reaper" peaked ... | 14 |
ELI5:What is the difference between an atom bomb, a hydrogen bomb, and a thermo nuclear bomb? | 53 | * An atom bomb derives its energy from enriched uranium or plutonium undergoing nuclear fission.
* A hydrogen bomb uses an atom bomb to initiate nuclear fusion in lithium deuteride or other fusionable substance. Obviously the atom bomb contributes some of the energy.
* "thermonuclear bomb" is roughly a synonym for h... | 31 | |
CMV: Game developers can do whatever they want in their games and making marketable content regardless of it it's objectifying is totally their right. | I would like to start by saying I am left-leaning, but this is one thing that always bothers me.
My opinion is that it doesn't matter what game and entertainment companies do. If people have an issue with it, just don't play that game. There are way more games out there that aren't like that, allow customization, and ... | 22 | SO what exactly is the problem here?
Game companies are allowed to do this.
And people are allowed to complain about it.
The company is absolutely 100% free to act on those complaints or not as they wish.
Decisions by corporations are financial decisions. They choose to listen to complaints because it will... | 16 |
What exactly happened with the Federal Reserve and the 7 millisecond thing? | I think I understand, but I'm not quite sure. | 60 | The decisions that the Federal Reserve makes have very large effects on the stock market. If you know what the decision they are going to make is ahead of time then you can make a lot of money. Because of this, they are very careful to not release the information early. They decided that they were going to release t... | 55 |
CMV: Inconsistent treatment of TV personalities who make rasist remarks, actually makes racism worse. | CMV: I started thinking about this topic this morning when I read that the future of Megyn Kelly's show is in doubt following her ill advised blackface comments. This reaction is in direct opposition to the result of Don Lemon and other panelists referring (multiple times) to Kanye West as a" N\*gro several weeks ago. ... | 77 | >I believe that if use of a word is offensive to a specific race, that word should not be used by ANYONE.
It isn't the use of the word that is offensive, though.
It's the context the word is used in.
This is demonstrable in your own stating of the facts- black people (in general) are not offended by the word when... | 43 |
My web app works on my localhost... now what? | 29 | Next, you want to make it face the internet at large. That means either hosting it on a server in your house, and port forwarding and putting up with awful data rates and such, or renting some cloud hosting space. Then, if someone knows the IP address of the server, they can visit your site. Then you'll want to get a d... | 21 | |
What would the results be if the United States eliminated all agriculture subsidies? | Not just limited to some farmers going out of business but wider effects in the United States and worldwide. | 89 | New Zealand did this in 1984. It resulted in significant changes to raising meat more efficiently. A quick Google can provide details.
Today, New Zealand products enjoy a price premium in China due to their reputation for producing quality food products. In other words, they're competing on quality instead of pr... | 33 |
How Is adderall related to meth? | I saw that the adderall has amphetamine salts but I’ve never taken a chemistry course so I’m wondering what exactly does that mean to it’s relation with meth.
How are they the same? Are they different? | 20 | Chemical structure is highly similar but that ultimately means very little because changing even one part makes for a drastically different substance.
It’s kinda like how humans share a ton of genes with bananas but we are nothing like bananas because the differences we have in our genes (I believe we are 41% similar... | 13 |
ELI5: After world war 1 Germany was dirt poor but how did they manage to get such huge army and inflict huge damage in world war 2 ? | 74 | Massive deficit spending and outright not even paying for anything.
The German economy under Hitler was a house of cards. It's not the economic miracle people pretend it was.
Hitler cooked the books. Borrowing money was hidden. Deferred payments were written to German industry which were then deferred over and ove... | 172 | |
ELI5: Does anything actually stop a foreign army from invading a 'Neutral' country? | I'm not sure if ELI5 is the correct subreddit for this, but I figured I'd give it a shot.
I don't even really know how to ask this without answering my own question. What actually stops a foreign country from invading and taking over a Neutral country? I've been doing a little research on what makes a country, such a... | 43 | The same reason you already said: money.
If any developed country gets invaded, other countries have everything to lose. Also, politics don't work that way in developed countries. Allies, treaties, UN. The UN might not do much, but the countries in the UN will have something to say about it.
So, you can invade, ... | 15 |
What are the oldest species that we could (in theory) bring back from extinction, given the half-life of DNA? | 1,089 | I do not believe that we are capable of truly bringing any species back. With out a parental cell then even if a " " was cloned, by using using an egg from a common ancestor, it would be a hybrid and not a pure " ". DNA is not the blueprint of a creature, it is more like the library of information, of which a c... | 554 | |
[star wars] What was the public reaction to Alderaan's destruction? | How did the public react to the utter annihilation of a peaceful planet by a weapon of incomprehensible devastation controlled by power hungry psychopaths? | 82 | The Destruction of Alderaan was the largest and costliest mistake in Galactic History. To fully understand why we have to fully understand just what Alderaan represented to the Galaxy as a whole.
Alderaan was, above all else, a peaceful world. It was a beacon of pacifism, hope, political discourse, and strength thro... | 117 |
ELI5 Why does the body, as a self defensive response to some sicknesses, swell the nose so you can't breathe? | 69 | Swelling is part of the body’s response to fight viruses and other bad guys that try to make us ill. The swelling (inflammation) increases blood flow which brings tons of good bad-guy-fighting material (like white blood cells). It also increases heat to the area which helps speed up chemical reactions.
Once the bad g... | 47 | |
[MCU] Is the eternal flame more powerful than an infinity stone? | In Thor Ragnarok Hela walks by the tesseract and goes "that's not bad" but she says that the eternal flame is an example of real power. | 38 | The ability to resurrect the deceased and also retain all of their memories and combat skills is an example of real power. Without the Power Stone or an innate ability of real power, the Space Stone is a glorified car. | 57 |
CMV: Men having children after the age of 50 is unfair to the child | The average life expectancy for a male in the U.S. is what, 75 years old? That means if a man has children at age 55 he'll potentially have 20 years with them - assuming he's in good health. He might be able to squeeze out an additional 10 - 15 years old life which means that he'll be leaving his kids behind when they'... | 27 | Life expectancy is an average. The main reasons male life expectancy is lower than females is because of reckless activities, work place deaths, and suicide. Men are roughly twice as likey to die in an auto accident, five times more likely to die on the job, and 50% more likely to commit suicide. Most of these deaths ... | 84 |
Why do mitochondria have their own separate 'mitochondrial DNA'? | Do other cells or organelles have their own separate DNA? Is it some relic of the very distant past? | 20 | It is in fact a relic of the past. Early in the history of life, we believe the eukaryotic ancestor enveloped an aerobic bacterium, but rather than digesting it, it lived within the cell. Eventually, the eukaryote and the bacterium would exchange genetic material, and the two would become interdependent on one another.... | 46 |
[Star Wars] My world just joined the CIS, what now? | We felt that the Republic was corrupt as balls and kept giving us the shaft, so Parliament voted to join the CIS. What's life gonna be like for us now? | 53 | You dun goofed up, guys. The Republic are almost garanteed to show up and "liberate you from Your Confederate opressors."
Not sure how your millitary is, but if it is sizable, prepare to go all in with the CIS millitarily. if not, just bend over and hope the Republic is gentle when they "retake" the planet...
And th... | 54 |
ELI5 how does the same hormone exert different effects in different target cells? | Sorry if this is a repost. I couldn't any similar questions. | 122 | Think of a hormone as a key that turns that flips switches and turns on chemical pathways of cells. The switches they turn on are called cell receptors. Think of them as on and off switches that are turned on by the turning of the hormone key. Hormone (keys) flip very specific switches. Some cells have switches that ca... | 11 |
Does anyone know why the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn't report wages over $100/hour? | It just has a # symbol in the downloadable data or a footnote on the occupation's page on the website indicating that the wage is over $100/hour or the annual salary is over $208k/year. | 20 | For publicly available datasets, the answer will almost always be that there are few enough people in the category to make them individually identifiable from the data that is publicly available. E.g. if you combined that wage data with other data available from BLS you would have a high probability of being able to fi... | 18 |
eli5: Waves come in at New York, and waves come in at Europe. What happens in the middle? | 7,741 | Waves are not current. Waves are really just pulses of energy and can pass through each other. They are mostly generated by wind. They can reflect and refract like light.
In the middle of the ocean, most of the waves travel in the direction of the wind. When the wind changes direction, the already generated waves ... | 4,600 | |
[DC/LoTR] Could Dr. Manhattan, at the height of his aloofness, resist The Ring? | The Doc's own powers don't give The Ring much bargaining leverage, and his disillusion with humanity makes it seem like he couldn't be appealed to with delusions of grandeur. | 34 | He returned from Mars because he cared. Adrian pointed out that Jon had regained interest in human affairs, and he didn't disagree.
Tolkien was exactly on point when he said Frodo was the best possible candidate for resisting the ring. Assuming Sauron's magic is strong enough to affect him, Jon would be straight up sp... | 23 |
[Superheroes] So, I'm a giant destructive monster. What now? | Good news! I won the genetic lottery and I just developed superpowers!
Bad News! I'm 50 ft tall, covered in missile-proof chitin and have a mass of biological armaments, and everyone is running away screaming for superheroes. I'm trying not to hurt anyone, but I'm 50ft tall and I'm pretty sure super strong, so if thin... | 20 | There was a science fiction story about a human who crash landed onto an alien world and was thrown from his space craft. His injuries 99% paralyzed him from the neck down, and was going to die.
Then he heard a voice. It spoke to him, and eventually he realized he was speaking telepathically with a tiny creature near ... | 27 |
Is it possible that all elements are radioactive at some point -- even if it took the age of the universe for just one atom to decay? | How do we know that all elements aren't radioactive? It seems rather arbitrary that some elements are radioactive while others are not. Wouldn't proton decay be a form of radioactivity? What makes one element radioactive while another element or different isotope is not? | 15 | The possibility of proton decay is one of the biggest questions in science. They have been able to put lower limits of 10^34 years as the half life of the proton. Is the proton stable or does it have a really long half life? We don't know yet. Of course that also makes us wonder if the proton in other elements will ... | 20 |
How did older spacecraft take and develop photographs and then beam them back to Earth? | For example, how did Voyager 1 take such awesome pictures of Saturn? I'm assuming the photographs were taken on film. Are there photochemicals onboard the spacecraft to develop AND a scanner to turn them into digital info for transmission?
Were the cameras actually just really early digital models? | 19 | Early spy satellites would take shots on film and then send the film back to earth in a pod and it would then be developed.
The cameras on the Voyager craft were similar to TV cameras of the day and were in a way between modern digital cameras and film based cameras. The data they recorded was sent in a digital 8bit f... | 10 |
Is it possible to synthesize an atom above atomic number 118, where the current periodic table "ends"? | This would require another orbital, correct?
Also, should element 118 be considered a Noble gas? | 17 | Yes- possible, but very difficult. Right now we don't have the techniques to make them. We would expect no. 118 to behave as a noble gas, since it would have analogous electronic structure to the other noble gases (full valence).
As a side note, physicists have theorized that there is an "Island of stability", or gro... | 10 |
CMV: I'm not convinced non-binary is a real thing | The title speaks for itself. I'm interested in hearing from people who think it is and can give me reasonable definitions for what they think it means or is and why they think it's real.
So far I've heard nothing to make me conclude it's anything other than a label that refers to nothing. Taking it literally it's a n... | 30 | >There's no third option in binary.
You're absolutely right. The concept of nonbinary rejects the idea that gender is intrinsically a binary. Nonbinary people (and others!) may support a vision of gender as a spectrum or may reject it as a useful concept altogether.
Socially, gender has been constructed as a binar... | 23 |
Why is your mouth much more sensitive to cold water after brushing your teeth or chewing mint gum? | 8,693 | the culprit is a protein called "TRPM8". It's ion channel is the main molecular transducer of cold sensations in your mouth. It can however also be activated by the presence of menthol which is found in mints and tooth paste for that "cool & fresh" feeling. So if you drink cold water after chewing mint gum you'll g... | 5,274 | |
[Star Trek] Why don't ships from Star Trek use fighters in they're space/fleet battles? | 16 | You've hit upon the legendary "fighters vs missiles" debate in science fiction.
The short version is that fighters often don't make practical sense in most science fiction settings. If you want a small craft loaded with weapons, you don't want to put all the equipment necessary to keep a human alive on it, you just w... | 49 | |
ELI5: Why did Wall Street crash in 1929 and why did it affect the whole world? | 60 | To give insight on how "buying on margin" worked:
Let's say you wanted to buy $10,000 worth of stock. In the 1920s you could do this with a $1,000 down payment and signing a note for the remaining $9,000 with your brokerage or a bank.
The 1920s were an exceptional boom time in the US. Electricity was going in everywh... | 27 | |
Is it far that my PI expects the some students to work over the weekend/holidays when the some students basically get the same days off? | About half of the research group are composed of religious shabbat-observing Jews. PI pesters the non-religious students and the foreign students to work over the weekends and is also somehow ok with the religious students to remain quiet over the same time period.
Is this acceptable behavior? | 18 | Stop worrying about other people. Really no one should be forced to work over the weekends, but he certainly can't force observant religious students to work on Shabbat. No one should have to violate their religious beliefs in order to do their PhD. | 46 |
[Batman] Why doesn't Alfred wear mask when he's out to save batman or others | 98 | Even if he gets seen, he's just a dude in plainclothes helping a masked vigilante into his car. Maybe they know each other, and maybe the guy saw an injured stranger and decided to help. Alfred wearing a mask would confirm that Batman has accomplices.
Given Alfred's theatrical background, it's also likely that he use... | 82 | |
[Fallout] Where are the cats? | Fallout is famous for its post-nuclear apocalyptic wasteland, however one of my favorite species is just gone, poof. | 25 | You know how cats will sometimes sprint madly into another room, stop and stare at a blank spot in space?
The FEV finally accelerated their latent psychic talents to the point where they could predict the wormholes with enough lead time that they all caught their rides off world. Every last feline has left the planet... | 57 |
ELI5:What exactly is shadow banking? | 46 | Shadow banking is the collective term for organizations that offer bank like services, but aren't regulated as banks.
Because banks take deposits from the public, they allow multiple people to have a claim on the same money. This is a very important role banks play in the modern economy, and because of this role, t... | 18 | |
[Castlevania Netflix] How many people did Dracula kill with his genocide? | Is there ever a specific number or estimate mentioned? What percentage of Wallachia is likely to have survived? | 23 | A specific number was never given, but likely it wasn't a lot.
Dracula's genocide didn't really last that long, many places were still untouched and it sounded like few even took it seriously.
Likely it was a couple of towns and cities. | 29 |
If microprocessor manufactures are able to get more transistors on a processor why do they make them smaller? | I understand that power and efficiency are factors they have to consider but if you're looking for all out performance why not make the processor bigger so that you can fit more transistors/cores/memory etc on it to make it faster? | 16 | three things: propagation time, power consumption and (to some extent) price.
The first is that the electrical signal only goes so fast, slightly less than that of the speed of light. This seems fast until you realize that in one clock cycle at 3GHz light only travels 10 centimeters. Chips are usually less than this b... | 20 |
[WH40K] One day, without warning, all humanity vanishes from the galaxy along with Chaos. What happens next? | 19 | Orks start dying from boredom. Tau can expand, but will eventually get crunched by all the major powers. The Eldar keep going about their business. Ultimately, the galaxy becomes the stage for the epic Tyranid-Necron war. | 24 | |
Is the microbiome of one ear significantly different from the other? | Sometimes I'm guilty of using q-tips. Is there every a chance of cross contamination between ears? | 27 | Medical literature cites a case of a person who only got repeated ear infections in one ear. The infections stopped after the patient took ear wax from their other ear and put it in the ear prone to infection.
There is also such thing as ear wax transplants for people who are prone to ear infections. They take wax fro... | 14 |
[Starcraft] In the Brood Wars intro, does the UED drop a detachment of marines just to watch them get eaten by zerglings? | Were they UED soldiers?
Was there mission just so that the officers could be like "wow damn they're getting brutally killed down there, time to leave"? | 21 | It was a Dominion colony and therefore Dominion soldiers. As Gerard explains they were there to so Stukov could see how the Zerg operate in action so that he would have real, first-hand experience with the Zerg since they were planning on using them as a weapon against the rogue human colonies. | 20 |
[X-Men] Can Magneto bend adamantium? | In the first X-Men movie, when Wolverine finds Rogue on the train after she runs away, Magneto comes along to capture her. Magneto uses his powers to restrain Woverine, and appears to actually bend his claws somewhat. Is Magneto powerful enough to actually bend adamantium? | 21 | In the comics, he once removed the adamantium from Wolverine's bones, causing his powers to go into hyper mode and thus transforming him into a beast-like creature for a while.
In the second movie, he says: "Stryker is the only other person besides me who can manipulate adamatium." | 38 |
How does one distance themself from others’ worldviews and create their own? | I am a young (20) man, still in the process of developing my fundamental views on basically everything. I cant escape the feeling that things I believe in are not really my ideas, but copies of things I’ve read and heard throughout my life. In the spirit of Emerson, I try to analyse and question things I believe and ta... | 27 | >I am a young (20) man
There's your problem right there. Just read more and grow older, independence doesn't come from avoiding writings for fear of falling under an author's spell, but from reading widely and deeply enough so that the relative pull of one author on you won't be too large. Besides, there's nothing ... | 67 |
What happens to the global economy if i burn 1 billion $? | Serious question.
I study chemistry and I am also decent at physics. So there is this universal low, principle of conservation of energy where if for example i burn something, the energy is released but never lost.
About my question now, if I burn that billion, that means I never actually got to spend it, so it did... | 96 | Current m0 (physical money) dollar supply is 6328 billion, which means you're removing 0.0158% of physical money denominated in dollars. Would argue that this would do nothing because most money isn't cash and its such a small amount. Furthermore a larger amount of dollars get made every year. Now lets just say you rem... | 141 |
ELI5: Why are there so many talented musicians on YouTube who can sing amazing acoustic song covers that never get picked up? | While there are some artists like Selena Gomez are horrible live which shows their lack of singing talent yet they can make it so big? | 23 | The music industry has little to do with music and everything to do with industry. It's not about selling an artists talent - it's about selling the artists.
That's not to say all famous singers are talentless hacks - Just that it's not that important. | 46 |
[Troll Hunter] How are trolls able to smell the blood of Christians? | Or perhaps the question should be, what makes a Christian's blood have a unique smell that is difficult to mask with troll stench?
It appears that people who are not Christian are generally safer around trolls than those who are. Everyone else in the documentary, the atheists and the Muslim girl, seemed to escape any ... | 23 | I dunno. Magic, probably. But there's a rational explanation for the sunlight thing so maybe it has something to do with brain chemistry and hormones. Would be nice if we could pay some scientists to figure it out, right?
Could be an evolved trait in response to troll-slaying knights from centuries ago. Or, much scari... | 12 |
ELI5: Why does a battery's storage capacity decline over time? | 26 | Over charge cycles and due to external factors like temperature, the batteries begin to have wear and tear.
Every time that you charge the cell, an electrical current pushes lithium ions from the battery’s cathode (made of lithium cobalt oxide) to a graphite anode. When you turn on your device, the lithium ions flow ... | 13 |
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