post_title
stringlengths 9
303
| post_text
stringlengths 0
37.5k
| comment_text
stringlengths 200
7.65k
| comment_score
int64 10
32.7k
| post_score
int64 15
83.1k
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
Is it possible that Mars once had significant life on it? | We're literally only scratching the surface of Mars at the moment, is it possible that full civilisations were once on Mars, got wiped out by an asteroid or something, and slowly over a million years the buildings and evidence disappeared under dust?
PS I hope the answer is yes. | What would be the best way to show an onlooking intelligent life form that life once existed a billion years ago on our planet. For example, say earth was slowly dying (technically it is), what would be the longest lasting beacon of life we could build for onlooking intelligent lifeforms? | 17 | 100 |
ELI5: Why do cameras on 0x zoom produce images that seem further away than what you see? | A "normal" lens is what yields approximately the same angle of view as the eye. It has a focal length about equal to the diagonal measurement of the sensor or film format. To go back to the old 35mm film standard, a 50mm lens is considered to be a normal lens. A shorter lens will yield a wider angle of view, making images look farther away, and a longer lens will bring things closer.
A point and shoot digital camera might mention a 5X zoom. Typically in 35mm equivalent, it will be something like 30mm-150mm. Meaning that it starts as a slightly wide angle lens, and zooms in through normal and on to a maximum of about three times magnification. | 11 | 48 |
|
ELI5: How are video game AIs programmed? | Normally.by a mix of states and branching decision making. Depending on what's recently happen it will be in a certain state ie cautious, searching, patrolling, aggressive etc. Then based on their state it will have a decision tree to respond to situations for example in an FPS it may be:
State [In combat]; underfire? No, enemy location known? Yes, Enemy on range? Yes, in cover? No. Outcome: Find cover the attempt to kill enemy. | 17 | 23 |
|
ELI5: Why does ice reduce swelling? | Your body restricts blood flow to cold parts of your skin to conserve heat. When you dramatically cool down your skin with ice, your body reacts as if it's in a cold environment and constricts blood vessels flowing into that area as if to conserve heat.
Swelling is the result of blood vessels dilating to bring additional blood and resources to a part of you that has been damaged. The constriction to "conserve heat" counteracts the dilation in response to damage so overall less blood flows into the area and swelling is reduced. | 6,287 | 8,035 |
|
Are there any texts that describe why some people are drawn to deeper meaning? I’m thinking of the scientist/artist/philosopher. | It seems ultimately more painful to follow an innate curiosity for the unknown. But for some reason, many are drawn down a path that requires a confrontation with the undiscovered to reach some kind of fundamental truth. | There are two psychological traits that might be relevant to your question.
The first is Openness to experience, one of the Big Five personality traits. People who are high in Openness are naturally more curious and likely to seek out new experiences and knowledge. Part of that trait is a greater tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity. That, in turn, might contribute to greater interest in questions that typically lead to uncertain or ambiguous answers, compared to low Openness individuals who bow out when things get unsettling.
The second is Integrative Complexity, which is a cognitive trait reflecting a tendency to see things in black & white terms or shades of grey. High IC individuals are able to tolerate more uncertainty and seek out more information before making decisions. Low IC individuals prefer quick decisions but avoid uncertainty.
There are interesting evolutionary perspectives on why there is a diversity of tendencies around these traits that have been maintained over generations, mainly because there are trade-offs with all of these traits.
In short, there's a selection bias that weeds out people with low Openness and low IC from being scientists or philosophers (not sure about artists). For them, there's less 'pain' in the unknown. | 23 | 65 |
[Cyberpunk] I am almost fully cybernetic and now I want to go back to being (mostly) organic. Is this possible? | Depends on what point in the timeline you're at. By the Time of the Red and out to 2077, bespoke high-speed organ cloning is a mature enough technology to have put most conventional organlegging out of business, so getting your cyber parts replaced with organic parts that are a close match for your original meat. Prior to that (4th Corporate War and earlier) the tech exists, but is more or less the exclusive toy of the very, very rich, so it's still an option but it's going to cost you. | 31 | 17 |
|
ELI5: What's the difference between general relativity and quantum mechanics and how come they don't work together? | General relativity describes the effects of gravity on the motions of matter and light. It works well when really massive objects, like the sun or other stars, are involved. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, involves elementary particles such as electrons, and works on very small scales. When you try to make both theories work together, the math breaks down and the results don't make sense.
In order to figure out how to reconcile the two theories, scientists would need to have a way of testing what actually happens when the effects of both theories are present. For example, looking at an object that is extremely massive but very very small in size (such as a black hole or neutron star) can and does give clues about how matter behaves in sufficiently extreme conditions.
The problem is, there are a very limited number of ways that scientists can make good enough observations to be able to bring general relativity and quantum mechanics together. So for now, at least, there is a gap in our knowledge.
Edit: grammar | 27 | 80 |
|
ELI5: Where gold gets it's worth from and why it's so valuable to economies | If something is useful, then it's valued more.
If something is hard to find, then it's valued more.
If something is shiny, it's valued more.
Since Gold is useful, hard to find, and shiny, it is very highly valued.
A few reasons Gold is used:
* for jewelry and awards, because it's shiny and has a nice color.
* for making computer parts, because it conducts electricity and is easy to mold into many shapes.
* in spaceships by NASA as a lubricant between mechanical parts, because it can withstand harsh space conditions.
There are plenty of uses for gold now, and the list of uses will grow, which means it will get even more valuable. And as Gold supplies get used up, fewer Gold will remain, *further* increasing it's value.
And that is basically why Gold is so valuable. | 12 | 24 |
|
[Pokemon] What is the course of action if a strong pokemon ends up somewhere it shouldn’t be? | Say a level 80 Salamence decides it wants to hang out just outside of Littleroot town and terrorize all the new trainers setting off on their journeys?
Who deals with that and how? | Some of the lore implies that Gym Leaders are meant to be some kind of pillar in the community, an outstanding citizen who leads the town through its hard times. The anime seems to show the police, Elite Four, and even champion being more competent and solving problems when there, but the Gym Leader is most likely the first line of defense. | 191 | 210 |
ELI5: Why when looking for life on other planets is water a prerequisite? Isn't it possible that some alien life forms can exist without water? Or is "life" just a very specific term? | I've just always wondered why it's assumed that all life forms necessarily need water, or maybe I've just got the wrong end of the stick. Either way, feel free to enlighten me. | Water can dissolve a huge range of things in it, and living things will (probably) require a lot of complex chemical reactions that will need to happen in a solution. For instance, our own cells are more or less little bags of water with lots of chemical reactions happening inside that wouldn't happen if they weren't in a liquid.
Is water absolutely necessary? We can't know. But it seeks like the best bet to look for, since it has peculiar properties that allow for a lot of interesting chemistry, and also because it's a very simple molecule, made of two very common elements, so it's all over the place. It's very possible though that there is life out there at very low temperatures that uses liquid methane or something. | 29 | 16 |
[General Sci-Fi] Why are aliens always attacking Earth for its resources when mining the Sol System's asteroid would be more economic? | Seriously. I've listen to enough science podcasts to know that asteroids are full of the minerals and metals that high-technology societies want...and they aren't covered with pain in the ass nuke-wielding ape-men. | Aliens heading for Earth are usually here for the humans or for the environmental resources. Sure, there's a lot of big rocks for the picking, but the only place you can grind humans into bloody mulch to plant your horror fungus is on Earth. | 15 | 16 |
[MCU] What makes the people of Wakanda so special? | Wakanda is described as having Vibranium, the special herb, and isolation from the outside world. Why is their technology and society advanced as compared to everyone else? Are the people in Wakanda the smartest, most talented people on Earth and because they were left alone could develop in peace?
Are we to assume that would have happened anywhere, that Iceland would also be so advanced if they'd just isolated themselves? Or is there something special about the people in Wakanda? Has the Vibranium had an effect on them which increases their intelligence and creativity, or is it that particular bunch of people are overall the smartest people on Earth?
The movie suggests that white interference in Africa has caused problems for other Africans and that's what's held them back as compared to Wakanda, then why aren't white countries as advanced as Wakanda? | The first real use of metal in tools started about 5000 years ago, and was critical for the development of early civilizations. Similarly the development of iron, and steel were critical to technological development.
Wakanda was able to develop advanced technology with vibranium, bypassing bronze, iron, steel, and aluminum and producing tools that were significantly stronger, more durable, than other civilizations.
Not only did this allow them to develop mathematics before anyone else, they had a scientific revolution and industrial revolution before anyone else, and never went through a dark ages period. | 56 | 18 |
ELI5: Why are binoculars and riflescopes expressed in magnification, but camera lenses are expressed in focal length? | Binoculars and rifle scopes are additional lenses in front of our camera system: the human eye. They change our innate view by the magnification.
Camera lenses are just one part of the camera system. The overall camera properties depends on the lens focal length and the size/specifications of the image sensor. | 51 | 105 |
|
CMV: I believe that local councils shouldn't have the power to approve or decline the construction of major projects, as it always leads to NIMBYism | I believe that local councils should never have the right to decide on whether or not they will permit the construction of projects which affect an area far bigger than their own district.
For example, if an airport wants to add another runway they shouldn't have to ask the permission of the local citizens. Rather the city government as a whole must vote on the issue. If the issue is even bigger and affects the whole country (e.g. a huge nuclear reactor), then the country's government should vote on it, leaving zero power to the locals.
The reasoning is that people are extremely selfish and will always rejects proposals that lower the local property values, leading to years of legal battles and multi-million losses over uncompleted projects, also known as NIMBYism. | There are a few problems with this view. First of all, how do you define what affects an area bigger than the district? An airport is one thing, but what about the development of a mall? Or building a giant Tesco in a greenfield outside of a village? At what point do you say the impact of a development is bigger than what a council can decide? The developers will have a massive incentive to overstate the economic impact of their development in order to get outside of the local jurisdiction.
Second, the people who will be most affected by a development need to be considered. If Heathrow builds its third runway, there are plenty of people who will now live under an active flight path, the noise of which will drastically reduce their quality of life and the resell value of their homes. Why shouldn't they have a say in this, if only to ensure that they have the power to ensure that they are properly compensated for the losses associated with a development.
Balancing the local vs larger needs of a community is very difficult. But removing local planning authority is a very bad way of dealing with it. Your idea won't strike a balance between local and non-local needs, it will completely remove locals from the debate and subject them to the whims of a community who will not experience the negative externalities of the development.
| 17 | 21 |
ELI5: How much do we sweat during and after taking a hot shower/bath? How clean are we really once we step out? | This isn't really a good ELI5 type question because the answer depends on a lot of different stuff.
How clean you are completely depends on what kinds of dirt were on you before you got in the shower, what you used for cleansers, and how well you rinsed off.
You do sweat some in the shower but it's just slightly saltier water that gets washed away with everything else. But if you had a really hot and long shower that raised your body temperature and you're stepping out into a hot room, you'll continue to sweat some as you exit the shower, at least until your body cools down. | 31 | 90 |
|
Can someone explain the differences and similarities between Epicureanism and Stoicism | I'll assume that you're presently more concerned with a comparison in their ethical theories rather than metaphysical ones, since thats usually what most people are invoking when they compare the two. A brief summary would be as such
The Epicureans believed that the good life consists of 'eudaimonia' or 'happiness'. The 'happy life' however is not one of trying to just pile as many "happy moments" on top of each other as you can like some wild hedonism party. This is because since these types of short-termed intense hedonistic happinesses often lead to greater suffering later on, with the standard example being that of someone who gets heavily intoxicated and then suffers from a terrible hang-over the next day. In addition to obviously avoiding immediate pain and distress, one should also avoid the fleeting pleasures that lead to them. Additionally, the more things you come to find pleasurable the more things you desire, and if any of those things are taken away you will fall into grave pain or distress. Thus the "happy life" is a simple one which is free from pain and distress but which also enjoys modest pleasures such as gatherings with friends fueled by good conversation rather than good alcohol.
The Stoics agreed with the idea of living a simple life but for different reasons. The good life for them was not defined by having the proper formula for acquiring proper "happiness" but was a purely defined just by freedom from pain and distress. This freedom they called "apatheia". The person who has attained freedom from suffering acquires it by living in conformity with the will of the Universe or Nature. The only thing which we are fully in charge of is not the circumstances we find ourselves but rather how we view and judge these circumstances. If you want things to happen in a way that contradicts Nature then you will suffer, but if you instead want Nature to happen as it happens then you will be free from suffering. So for the Stoics the good life is determined by how one views and judges their circumstances. If they judge in accordance with their Reason and follow Nature, they will not suffer but if they follow their irrational Passions and desire that which Nature will not bring then they will suffer. Hence the Stoic quote "Men are not disturbed by things but by the views they take of them". | 13 | 16 |
|
I don't believe that a married couple is any more legitimate, committed, or loving than any other long-term couple who doesn't want to get married, CMV. | I think marriage is kind of BS, obviously it's beneficial b/c of tax breaks and benefits, but I don't think it will change the way I feel about my SO. | it's like how certain cultures have a ritual of adulthood. it represents a passage from one phase to another. it is up to the person to feel a change or not. but to many, such a ritual can effect their view. "i'm married now, i have to be more dedicated" or "i'm a man now, i have to act like one" etc. it might not be that way with you but it does have an effect on many. | 31 | 65 |
[DC Comics/Batman] What does Poison Ivy eat? | She's obsessed with saving/protecting the plant life of the Earth (likely other worlds...). Seems to me she'd have a hard time eating fruits and vegetables. So, does she focus on eating mostly meats and dairies? Or is she vegan? | Thing to consider about Ivy not wanting to "harm" plants is that she'd be *extremely* aware of the fact that fruits are intended, by the plant, to be eaten by animals as a way of spreading the seeds. So eating an apple is simply participating in the tree's lifecycle (as long as you dutifully spread the seeds, afterwards) | 41 | 21 |
[Arrival] Why doesn't Ian learn the heptapod language as well so he can see his daughter? | We're told the reason Ian eventually leaves Louise is because she gives birth to their daughter despite knowing she is going to die. This is made worse by the fact that while Louise has the ability to go back and "visit" her daughter in a sense, Ian can't as he doesn't seem to know the language in the future. My question is why not? He worked on the language right alongside Louise, and his wife even wrote a book teaching people about the language. Shouldn't he be able to see time non-linearly too and know the truth about Hannah? | It's not just that she learned the language, but that she became so deeply involved in it that it changed the way her brain processed the world around her.
The short story goes into this phenomenon more, setting it up with examples like a culture that doesn't use relative directions (left, right, etc), only absolute (North, South, East, West), and as a result, seem to have an innate awareness of those cardinal directions. But it's not from simply learning the words of the language, but from the way the language requires you to think. | 40 | 25 |
ELI5: How water gets around to the rest of my body after I drink it. | So cells all have a membrane, which acts like a border. This membrane separates what's inside the cell from what is outside. If you're looking to get into the cell, you have two ways of doing it.
The first is called passive transport, and it involves things like water. Passive transport requires no energy on the part of the cell, so in this context it's similar to holes in the fence that let in certain things (bugs, air, etc), so the border patrol doesn't have to get up and open the fence.
There's also an active transport system, which does take energy. There are a bunch of types of active transport, the specifics of which aren't completely necessary to know right now. This would be like how someone from the outside would have to go through customs to enter the country, or a citizen with special clearance. Sometimes, your country feels like invading another one, so they move the fence to encompass the new area. This process uses energy, as the doors to the border have to be opened, and closed, and you have to pay the staff, and sometimes you have to move the whole goddamn fence!
Now, onto osmosis. Water is a hipster molecule. It wants to go to the places where it doesn't really exist in high concentrations. So let's say you take a pot of water and separate the pot into two with a special filter that will let water through between them, but nothing else. Then let's say you pour a bunch of sugar into the first half of the pot. Remember, the filter lets water flow freely, but the sugar can't. The sugar is stuck in the first half. So now what you have is a difference in water concentration. There's a much higher concentration of water on the second side, the one that has no sugar. So water really wants to even out its concentration and flows into the side of the pot that has all these sugar molecules floating around. It does this until the concentration of water is relatively the same in both sides. This is called osmosis, and this is usually how water gets around the body.
In the body, water flows into areas with a very low concentration until there's an even amount everywhere. But sometimes, some areas need to be free of water. This is where active transport comes in. If there's too much water in a cell, active transport is the border guard that kicks the excess water molecules out. Sometimes, when an area is really sensitive to water, the cell builds a membrane that is impermeable to water, which is like building a wall that goes 100 meters below, and above ground.
**TL;DR: Water is an illegal immigrant, and the cell has very efficient border patrol**
**Edit: Spacing, TL;DR, wrote down more stuff, etc.** | 16 | 21 |
|
Why is there no precise weather forecast for very short timescales, very narrow locations? | I know why the weather forecast for 2 weeks away is usually worthless, and ~3 days is the max at which we can get a pretty good to get an estimate of the weather. But what about going in the opposite direction? Short period, precise location, precise weather?
I know the weather for my city for today is intermittent rains, about 50% cloud coverage. But why can't I find out if my street address will have sun or rain in half an hour? It's currently raining. Does it make sense to wait for it to stop within next hour or so, or should I call a taxi home?
I can find "possible thunderstorms in the evening" a day ahead, but I can't tell if I have 15 minutes to roll my BBQ and hide before everything's drenched, or the heavy dark clouds I see rolling over the city will pass me to the side and leave my area dry.
With current technology it feels like it *should* be easy enough to predict weather for a specific spot. Sure there will still be situation when the prediction is uncertain; the cloud passes just by, it may go 200m west or 200m east from me and I'll get rain or not. But in most cases it should be perfectly predictable that a cloud raining here, moving in this direction, at this speed, will rain there, in x minutes, and with this size it will take that many minutes to pass.
[That scene from Back to the Future 2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h07KpxXchuc), when they arrive in a downpour, Doc looks at his watch, waits a moment, the rain cuts off, and Doc comments "right on the tick" - what prevents our smartwatches from displaying "Minutes until rain ends"? | Look up the weather radar for your city. In Australia we have BOM. You can see where it's currently raining and if it's heading in your direction. They are very accurate for current rainfall but you will not be able to tell if the current rain is going to actually make it to your location or get heavier before it does, or if a passing cloud is going to suddenly decide to drop its load directly on your house. Works really well for storms though! | 84 | 43 |
Is there a theoretical minimum size for a living cell? | I know that mycoplasma and rickettsia are among the smallest cells known, but is there a theoretical size smaller than these below which a cell could never be viable? What is the limiting factor? | An interesting answer from a physics perspective was given by Schrodinger in "What is Life." He begins by asking why atoms are so small, by which he means why are organisms so large compared to atoms. The answer he gives is that life requires "exact physical laws." If you don't have enough atoms, statistical fluctuations will be too large for life to develop. | 903 | 2,019 |
ELI5: The difference between 32-bit and 64-bit. | imagine you're adding numbers like in school where you write
1 3 5 3 1 6
0 5 1 2 5 6
_________
1 8 6 5 7 2
That's how a computer adds numbers too. A computer with "more bits" can work with longer numbers at once.
But more importantly, because it "knows bigger numbers" it can use more storage:
Every tiny bit of storage has an address. The processor shouts the address like a cook in a restaurant kitchen, then the storage with that address gives whatever it had stored.
More storage-addresses is like a Gordon Ramsay who can shout at 64 instead of just 32 different cooks to get him lamb sauce. The storage/cooks still work the same speed each, but a *Rordon Gamsay* who can handle 32 at a time get's half as much lamb sauce as Gordon 64-bit Ramsay. | 26 | 19 |
|
ELI5: why can kids pick up a new language and speak it like a native with no accent but adults cannot? | Assuming an equal amount of language immersion as a 10 year old who moves to a new country, why can't a 30 year old pick up the language to the same extent? | Human beings have what is described in linguistics as a language acquisition device, wherein exposure to language before puberty, will result in a native tongue; after puberty the mastering of inflection within the language is rarely successful and certainly not easy. This is what we were taught in linguistics at university anyway. | 296 | 803 |
How do you avoid allowing philosophy to paralyze your ability to say anything about anything? | My initial goal in studying philosophy was to clarify and edify my thoughts and beliefs. I wanted to open my mind to new ideas and be able to articulate those ideas effectively to others.
But ive found that as ive exposed myself to all sorts of new and contradicting ideas, I feel unable to hold a position or narrative or approach with any degree of certainty. I also have a hard time making claims or stating what I personally believe to others, because I feel disingenuous or close-minded in doing so, knowing that there are plenty of credible arguments against what i am saying.
Basically my dilemma can be summed up in a quote from Mark Twaine: "Education is the pathway from cocky ignorance to miserable uncertainty." Maybe it's like the Dunning-Kruger effect?
Has anyone else felt this way? How can I use philosophy to express myself confidently in the world, instead of being paralyzed by doubt and indecision? | Research the idea of “philosophy as therapy”. There’s an entire tradition of philosophers who have addressed exactly what you describe. There are a couple of helpful books and papers too. They’re all influenced by the way Wittgenstein did philosophy. It might be helpful to study modal philosophy for a bit too, especially its epistemology. And make sure to go and touch grass. | 79 | 417 |
Why are venomous and poisonous creatures more prevalent in hotter climates? | Aside from the questionably-dangerous Massasauga Rattlesnake in Ontario, there don't seem to be many venomous or poisonous creatures in temperate or colder climates. These traits seem much more common the hotter you get - tropical and desert climates seem to house many more such dangerous creatures. Why is that? | As far as vertebrates go, the vast majority of venomous and poisonous species are reptiles and amphibians. The diversity of both groups is highest in the tropics, and they are generally excluded from climates that are cold the majority of the time because reptiles and amphibians are both ectothermic (cold-blooded), meaning that they cannot be active when the ambient temperature is low. The fact that most venomous vertebrates are snakes combined with the higher richness of snakes in warmer climates means that most of the venomous vertebrates tend to be found in warmer climates.
In addition to the Massasauga, the copperhead (*Agkistrodon contortrix*), cottonmouth (*Agkistrodon piscivorus*), timber rattlesnake (*Crotalus horridus*), western rattlesnake (*Crotalus viridis*), and Pacific rattlesnake (*Crotalus oreganus*) all occupy temperate habitats in regions of North America that get fairly cold.
edited for clarity | 29 | 64 |
[ELI5] Why is Japan's shrinking population such a huge problem? | Like most developed countries, Japan has a social program that the younger workers pay into to assist the older, retired population. It may not be sustainable in its current form if the number of young workers paying into the system keeps shrinking while the number of aging, retiring individuals that are drawing benefits from the system increases. | 16 | 16 |
|
ELI5: What is laparoscopy and how does it differ from conventional surgery? | Edit: Thank you all for the inputs, me and my family are trying to get the basic differences in terms of recovery and procedure and decide which route to take.
Once again, much appreciated | Laparoscopy uses a device called a laparoscope, basically a long thin tube with a camera and a light attached to it to explore organs in the abdomen.
It differs from conventional surgery because the incisions are much smaller (as only the thin tube goes inside), so both the surgery time and the recovery time are much shorter. | 33 | 18 |
[DC] How come the villains never follow the bat signal? | Has this ever happened in a comic? It doesn’t make sense why Batman can track the signal, but never the villains. Kinda seems like a good way to kill Batman. | What do you mean, track the signal? It's on the roof of police headquarters. That's not a sensible place to go if you're a criminal.
Bad guys *have* gone there to try to intercept the Batman (including a Yautja in one of the Batman vs Predator series), but Batman doesn't just rush in without checking the area first, so it tends to end badly for them. | 124 | 60 |
ELI5: How are birthmarks formed? | Also, I'd always assumed that with age, a birthmark would 'fade' as the skin cells are broken down, is this the case? | There are two general causes of birthmarks: either due to abnormal pigment forming melanocytes (the brown/blue colored marks) or due to vascular changes (the red colored birthmarks)
The link that /u/wishyouamerry provided is a good overview of birthmarks. Some of these birthmarks can be associated with various syndromes, like the cafe-au-lait spots are associated with neurofibromatosis and the port wine stain can be associated with Sturge Weber syndrome.
Do not freak out if you or your child has these markings, they are not diagnostic for these diseases by themselves. As long as the pediatrician knows they exist, the doctor will rule out these diseases. | 67 | 267 |
Why corporate tax? | So with the Inflation Reduction Act, there is now a 15% minimum corporate tax. It got me thinking though, why do we even have a corporate tax at all? At the end of the day, all taxes are paid by individuals. Taxing a corporation just means taxing the shareholders, as the tax will be reflected in the share price of the company. It seems like it's objectively worse than just raising capital gains tax instead. My reasoning is this: Say there are two rich guys, Rich Guy A and Rich Guy B. Rich Guy A owns $100K worth of stock in a $1B company (0.01% share of company A). Rich Guy B owns $10M worth of stock in a $100M company (10% share of company B). Company A will be paying more corporate tax than company B, therefore Rich Guy A will be paying more tax than Rich Guy B, despite Rich Guy B being the wealthier of them. It seems like just creating higher brackets in the capital gains tax would do a better job at targeting the wealthy. | Firstly, your premise is wrong - if the companies have identical earnings profiles, then the earnings per share and therefore tax per share will be identical
- Let’s say both companies are valued at 10x earnings before tax and the tax rate is 20%
- Company A will have $100m of EBT and pay $20m of tax, so $80m after tax. However, Rich Guy A isn’t entitled to 100% of the company, he only own 0.01%, so his share of net income is just $8k. If you abolish corporation tax, his income doesn’t go up by $20m, it goes up by $2k, so
- Company B will have $10m of EBT and $8m ok net income. Rick Guy B’s share is $800k, on which he effectively paid $200k of tax.
- Rich Guy B has 100x the assets and paid 100x in tax as Rich Guy A
Secondly, you’re assuming all the shareholders are US tax residents. If Rich Guy B is neither a US citizen and not a US resident, they will pay $0 in tax if you abolish corporation tax. | 60 | 77 |
ELI5 What the Russian diamond announcement means to the diamond market, the global market as a whole, Russia, and DeBeers. | This seems like a huge announcement. What does this mean? | 1. Some smart people found some really hard rocks in the ground 40 years ago.
2. Things in the ground are hard to get out of the ground. Especially when they are really hard rocks.
3. Some other people decided not to tell anybody about the rocks in the ground because they were busy "playing" with their "friends" and had already decided to make their own really hard rocks.
4. They finally told everyone about their cool rocks.
****
5. The rocks are still going to be really hard to get out of the ground and it will take a lot of time.
6. The rocks aren't very pretty so they'll mostly be used for really big machines that need really hard rocks.
7. There are A LOT of these rocks. More than anybody has ever found before.
8. **This means** that once they get them out of the ground, lots of people will be able to use them in lots of different big machines (especially big machines that get very hot or that cut very hard things) and that those machines will create useful things for everyone.
9. But again they still have to get them out of the ground.
*****
Some other people (like DeBeers) mostly deal with the really pretty and shiny rocks. They already have plenty of those anyway so even if there are more nice rocks in Russia, they probably won't want any more. They certainly won't want to sell their rocks for less money. | 511 | 396 |
Is there a difference in doing 100 pushups in the course of 5 minutes and doing 10 pushups 10 times a day, in terms of health benefits and muscle development? | There are two standards you can judge the two activities by: muscle build-up, and cardio (calorie burning).
Its questionable whether doing 100 push-ups in a row would burn more calories due to increased inefficiency of the muslces--it makes intuitive sense, but research also suggests that the extra calories burned are negligible.
In terms of muscle-building, it would be better to do 100 push-ups back-to-back. When you exert force on the muscle, it creates micro-tears--fixing these is what makes the muscle stronger. If you do 10 push-ups at a time throughout the day, the tears will be smaller and will probably heal-up between sets if there is enough time. 100 push-ups in a row, however, will create larger tears, and thus will build back up stronger.
Of course, make sure you don't do more than your body can handle. Going from not working out to trying to do 100 push-ups in a row could result in spraining, or worse.
-EDIT- Put in new info from commentators below | 57 | 185 |
|
Academia is toxic. Why? | I hear this quite a bit on here. I will be starting a PhD soon, and I'd like to understand this concept and it's origins. | While our academic model has been extremely successful for a long time and continues to produce outstanding results, some of the things that make it work can also facilitate a toxic environment:
\- Academia is a meritocracy. It's not about how hard you work, how deserving you are, how much you have sacrificed, how well you work with others, etc., it is about results--publications, citations, external recognition, etc. Many people see that as unfair and it can lead people to treat others poorly in pursuit of their own career success.
\- There is a power imbalance between faculty and everyone else. Tenure and academic freedom make it hard to punish anyone for all but the most egregious abuses.
\- It is hard. Succeeding in academia is hard work. The work is relatively low paid, the competition is fierce, and it takes a lot of sacrifices to excel in that kind of environment.
\- It attracts extreme people. Ordinary people don't choose academia as a career path. Those that do are by definition extreme. Extremely smart, extremely motivated, extremely self-confident -- extremely something. That makes for an extremely ... interesting ... workplace. | 314 | 200 |
CMV: Mentally ill people that kill are inherently evil people. | I myself am mentally ill and have had voices tell me to do terrible things such as burn down a church, stab an aquatence, shoot up my old school. I fought these voices and didn't do what they tried to convince me to do. I told the voices it was wrong, and the closest I came was almost killing myself so the voices would stop. I think the people that listen to the voices and kill were always evil people and they just used the voices as an excuse. I'm open to changing my point of view, but currently I think if I told the voices no, why couldn't they? | I think that you are approaching this from a very specific viewpoint: that the people who are mentally ill and hurt people are doing so because they hear voices. But there are a lot of different ways to be mentally ill, and pretty much every case of severe mental illness is unique. For instance someone can also have visual hallucinations. Are they an evil person if they stab someone who looks like a monster to them, and who they believe to be a monster? Or a lot of people have paranoid delusions, which can lead them to take actions which they believe to be in self defense due to said delusions. Do you think that's evil - to do hurt someone when you wholly and completely believe it is in self defense? | 28 | 30 |
ELI5: Why do languages have homonyms? | Bat and bat, muñeca and muñeca. I'm sure there are a ton more in all languages, but why? Did we run out of words so we have to start using some twice? Note, this is not homophones, which sound the same (raise, raze, rays), but homonyms, so the exact same word.
EDIT: Also, [this is a fun list](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_true_homonyms). | There are two ways for a single word to have multiple meanings:
* One word branched off in the past and the connection between the different meanings is now secondary or obsolete.
* Two different words converged on the same sound by coincidence.
The word "hard" is an example of the first: It can mean strong/rigid, or difficult. The concepts are related - it's *difficult* to break something that's strong and rigid - so it's an example of a single word with divergent meaning.
Another example of the first would be "book." Someone makes a reservation, the reservation was recorded in a book, ergo they "booked" the reservation. Reservations today are not typically recorded in books, but they're still booked.
The second (convergence of multiple words) usually happens with simple words - especially ones that are a single syllable. An example would be "mole", which converged from different roots describing either a blemish on skin or a burrowing animal. There's a bunch of other meanings too. | 209 | 378 |
ELI5: Why does the inverse square law show up so often? | The inverse square law describes how a set amount of something (a field, or a total emission of radiation) is diluted over area as it expands in three dimensions. Since we live in a universe with three spatial dimensions this can be expected to show up rather frequently. | 45 | 24 |
|
ELI5: The Difference Between the Use of the Army and the Marines | Traditionally:
* the army had soldiers stationed on land who fought on land
* the navy had soldiers who were stationed on ships and fought other ships
* the marines had soldiers stationed on ships who fought on land
This lead to the development of the marines a small, fast, elite force. These days, the distinction between the military branches is blurred...aircraft has provided alternate means of rapid deployment. There is no reason why a marine like force couldn't be part of the army, that's just not the way it evolved. | 284 | 341 |
|
[Star Wars Episode 3] How can the force be used to keep other people from dying like Senator Palpatine explained to Anakin? | In Ep3, Senator Palpatine told Anakin that the force could be used to keep other people alive and of course Anakin wanted this power so he could keep Padme from dying during child birth.
But could that really be done? And is there any source in the canon where that's been done before?
I know about [force ghost](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Force_ghost), but that doesn't sound like what Palpatine was talking about.
Or was Palpatine just lying to Anakin to get him to convert to the dark side? | There is some evidence that you could extend your natural lifespan with sufficient knowledge of the force, mostly just from what we know about Darth Palagious. However, there's nothing that suggests that the force could be used to save someone from any kind of acute trauma, like complications during child birth.
So, Palpatine wasn't lying outright, but he was being intentionally misleading. | 63 | 56 |
ELI5: How is it possible to snipe someone from 2000+ meters away? | I'll admit that I just watched American Sniper and became curious about long distance sniping. With all of the factors that must be accounted for (wind, gravity, etc) how is it possible to hit a person with one shot from that distance? | Practice, practice, practice.
They have to take into account lots of variables -- *wind speed/direction, gravity, size of bullet, explosive load of bullet, distance to target, curvature of the earth, rotation of the earth, and several others* -- in order to make a successful long-range shot.
They also have spotters with them to help range the target and establish wind patterns. The spotters also track the shot after it's fired and give data on where it hit, so that a second shot can be adjusted for better accuracy.
Again.... practice, practice, practice. | 78 | 57 |
ELI5: If remote controls use infrared light, why does it appear blueish when recorded on a cellphone? | Near-Infrared light, such as what is used by infrared LED remote controls, appears purple/indigo/blueish when recorded by a lot of cameras because the engineers who programmed the image processing algorithms for those cameras chose to map infrared to an indigo colour in order to preserve the colour balance of photographs taken outside in full sunlight.
If the infrared light we can't see were mapped to a red colour in the photograph, then photographs taken in full sunlight would be disproportionately reddish.
By mapping it to blue (which has a lower intensity in sunlight due to being naturally scattered by the atmosphere), the engineers found a simple way to "dispose" of the signal. | 60 | 56 |
|
When an adult learns a new language, does their brain store the words in the same way as when they learn new words in their native language (i.e. expanding their vocabulary)? | There are two methods of learning words. The meaning-based method is used by childeren learning any language and adults learning new words in a language that they have a reasonable grasp of. New words are linked to the idea or object they represent. You think of that idea or object and the word will pop up in your mind. Adults learning words in a new language that they don't have a good grasp of yet will tend to use the word-based method. They will think of the idea or object, the word from their own language will come to mind and then they will try to remember the corresponding word in the other language. Normally once an adult has a sufficent grasp of the language they will automatically switch to the meaning based method. While speaking the other language they will no longer translate to their own language first. Only when they come up empty in the new language when thinking of an idea or object will the word from their own language pop up.
So to answer your question: initially they are stored differently, but with enough practice in the new language they are stored simmilarly. The only difference will be that a fluent multilingual person can have multiple words from the different languages connected to the same idea or object whereas a monoligual person will only have one word connected. | 1,341 | 3,318 |
|
ELI5: How does acid dissolve things? | Can't understand what Google gave me :(
EDIT: Thanks for the help! | Basically, aacids are really attractive to other molecules/atoms, to the point where they will leave their current bonds to combine with the acid. As parts of the material break off to bound with the acid, it dissolves | 63 | 25 |
CMV: Robots replacing people's jobs can have a likely positive outcome | Everybody is panicking that when robots and automated scripts take our jobs from us, there will be a giant socio-economic crisis. They do have a point, I must say.
However, what if instead of people losing their *jobs* we start to think in terms of people losing the *time* they spend at work? In other words: since robots will perform more Gross Work on our planet, it may become possible to share the remaining GW between people whose jobs were overtaken by automatisation. Instead a 8-hour-a-day worktime, humans will end up with 4-hour-a-day worktime.
The same amout of people will end up doing half of the work they had been doing so far. And the rest will be done by the robots. I mean, isn't more free time what we all are striving for? | It can have a positive outcome if and only if we establish ways to care for those who are unemployed and create jobs in other fields. If automation occurs too rapidly and we have not done both those things yet then there will be suffering. | 27 | 30 |
ELI5: How do the underground pipes that deliver water for us to bathe and drink stay clean? Is there no buildup or germs inside of them? | Without any regard to the SOURCE of the water, how does water travel through metal pipes that live under ground, or in our walls, for years without picking up all kinds of bacteria, deposits or other unwanted foreign substances? I expect that it's a very large system and not every inch is realistically maintained and manually cleaned. How does it not develop unsafe qualities? | The water supply contains sanitizers once it has been treated for use. If you have a sealed system that you're constantly pumping sanitized water through, it's unlikely to get contaminated barring some failure of the sanitation or the piping itself. | 2,657 | 3,441 |
Do objects physically change the wavelength of light or just absorb certain wavelengths and reflect others? | Also, how is light physically absorbed? What happens to it? Does it just hit the electrons and cause them to vibrate more? | When light hits an object, certain wavelengths are absorbed. In the process, the material's molecules move into a higher energy state (electrons go to higher energy orbitals).
The molecules stay in those higher energy states for a variable amount of time (which depends on the material) and then "relax" down to their original state. In doing so, the energy initially added by the light either gets converted to heat, in the former of increased molecular motion, or, more rarely, is given off by emission of a new photon, which we call fluorescence or phosphorescence.
Substances are coloured because their molecular structures lead them to absorb (and convert to heat) certain wavelengths of light and not others.
There are cases where substances "scatter off" light at a different wavelength, but this effect (called the Raman effect) is incredibly weak and not detectable without specialized equipment. | 16 | 17 |
[Harry Potter] Could Voldemort have made anything a horcrux? Like Hogwarts Castle or a mountain? | So Voldemort can turn a ring, a locket, a cup, a diary, a diadem, a snake and a boy (even if inadvertently) into a horcrux..
But what about something that’s got a little more lasting power? Like a mountain for instance? Almost guaranteed to live on forever there…
Or the Castle? I know it’s incredibly magical, but so was everything else that he turned in a horcrux, so I’m not sure if that should automatically negate it. | sure but consider that there for sure a lot of unknown factors about the process. For example, the diary proves that the process hardens any material used, but how much? is that hardening consistent or is it effected by how magical something already is or its size or its other properties?
Like, imagine that he made a mountain a horcrux and the hardening is constant but only a small amount of damage is required to "destroy" the horcrux. Everyone knows there is something wrong, that mountain started spawning monsters and stopped eroding so now a piece of black marble the size of a mountain is just sitting on the English country side. Harry finds out that it is a horcrux and destroys it with a basilisk fang thrown out a car window because he only needed to make a scratch. | 365 | 498 |
ELI5: When measuring the blood pressure nurses often say numbers like"120 on 80". What exactly do those numbers mean and why do you die when they coincide? | The first number is the systolic pressure (when the heart is actively pumping), and the second number is diastolic (when the heart is resting).
120 over 80 is the a borderline healthy measurement on the high side.
High blood pressure is bad because it puts an undue strain on your heart, and comparing systolic and diastolic numbers can help determine exactly what the problem is. | 39 | 58 |
|
ELI5: How does looking far help relax the eyes when our vision is 2 dimensional? | Your eyes are controlled by muscles as almost anything else in your body. Looking at screens makes your eyes fixate very close spots, narrowing down your field of view both mentally and physically. By looking far, you allow your eyes to use their muscles in another way and leave a tense state as well as your brain to process different signals.
See it this way: After spending a day with your head turned to the left, looking straight or even right will feel very relieving. | 38 | 22 |
|
Why are amalgomations of objects around a gravity source roughly disc shaped/flat? (ie Saturn's Rings, the Solar System, or the Milky Way)
| I would not necessarily expect gravity to align randomly distributed objects into the disc shape that seems so prevalent. Will objects distributed in a random spherical shape around a large gravity source always eventually collapse to a disc shape in a way that is calculable based on the initial distribution of the objects? Or is there something else at work?
| You're really talking about three different things.
Consider a galaxy. It can be nearly any shape you can think of: spherical, elliptical, lens-shaped, or just blobby, like a cloud. Some galaxies in particular have a spiral appearance. These are the ones you were most likely thinking of when you asked the question.
As to why a spiral galaxy has a disc shape instead of any other shape, it has to do with angular momentum and self-interaction. A collapsing cloud of uniformly distributed dust will inevitably have some net angular momentum. As the cloud continues to collapse under its own gravitation, the dust interacts with itself such that particles with orbits outside the plane of the cloud's overall angular momentum tend to get perturbed into orbits that lie within the plane of that angular momentum.
The solar system is thought to have formed in basically the same way; not from a truly uniform cloud of dust, but the overall principle is the same. The planets in our solar system lie in a plane — mostly — because that's where the *stuff* was from which the planets congealed.
As for Saturn's rings, there are two conflicting theories about where they might've come from. One theory says the matter that makes up the rings used to be a moon — a moon with a name, believe it or not; it's called Veritas — that dipped too close to the planet and was pulled apart by tidal forces. In that case, the rings occupy a plane because the moon was orbiting in a plane when it came apart.
The other theory is that the matter that makes up the rings is stuff left over from when the planet and its moons first formed, but because of its proximity to Saturn it was unable to congeal together into a moon. In that case, it occupies a plane because the same principle that pulls spiral galaxies into a planar shape also pulled the protoplanetary cloud that became Saturn into a disc.
So basically it all boils down to conservation of angular momentum. Once you set something in rotation, that rotation doesn't go away, and due to self-interaction of clouds of stuff, it in fact tends to become more and more well defined as time goes on. | 25 | 24 |
[Starcraft] Why have the terrans never attempted to utilize protoss shielding technology? | Even lowly robotic protoss probes have shielding tech, and they are plentiful in number. Why have the terrans not attempted to capture, reverse engineer and utilize shields for themselves? The tactical benefits of having essentially doubled survivability and regerating durability would certainly be useful. | In sc2 you could do research on a nugget of protoss crystal, the ubiquitous basis of a lot of their technology. This simple material (to protoss engineers) totally blew the humans away, it could do things they didn't even know were possible, and they had no idea how it was doing it.
They're not employing protoss tech not as an oversight, but because they've no idea how to.
Imagine a faction in medieval Europe got a hold of some digital technology, maybe a server stack, what could they do with it? They couldn't even power it correctly let alone benefit from it's function.
Terrans are medieval compared to the protoss, so don't yet have the foundations required to use their shizzle. | 82 | 77 |
Why is g++ saying my header file does not exist? | I am trying to use g++ to compile a program that uses header files I created in the same directory as the .cpp file. The cpp file is titled "pgm2.cpp" and the header file is "cardDeck.h." I have made sure to add #include <cardDeck.h> to the cpp file, but when I run the command "g++ pgm2.cpp" I get the following error:
&#x200B;
pgm2.cpp:12:10: fatal error: cardDeck.h: No such file or directory
12 | #include <cardDeck.h>
| ^~~~~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
Is there any reason why this is happening?
&#x200B;
EDIT: Found my issue. Should've used quotes instead of angled brackets, so my include line should have been #include "cardDeck.h" | Including a file with angle brackets tells the preprocessor to look for that file in the system include path, or in directories specified with the -I directive when invoking the compiler. This does not search the local directory unless you have asked for the local directory to be searched with `-I .` or equivalent.
That's what you'd use to include system headers like <vector> or <iostream>, but shouldn't be used for user defined headers like cardDeck.h. For that you should use quotes, which first searches the local directory and then goes on to search all the places that including via angle brackets would have.
Note that this behavior is not specified in the standards--both `#include <filename>` and `#include "filename"` search in an implementation defined manner. This answer is specific to g++, though it's a common design decision on how to interpret angle brackets versus quotes. At a minimum clang has the same behavior. | 15 | 16 |
CMV: I don't believe that identifying as a gender actually makes you that gender | I believe that gender is a simple matter of sexual organs and horomones, and that if you are biologically a female, no amount of gender identification could make you male (or vice versa). A lot of girls will say that they identify as males, and they truly feel they are males, therefore they are males, but I think that that just makes them transgendered, and that they shouldn't make others refer to them as male. Anyways, this opinion bothers some people and I don't really passionately defend it, so I was wondering if you guys could change my view.
Edit: Thanks to everyone who commented, you are all very good at this.
Edit 2: That first edit was made pretty early on. Some of you are awful at this | Generally, we separate "sex" (which is your biological sex, i.e. sexual organs and hormones) and "gender" (which is what you personally identify as). Identifying as a different gender doesn't change your biological sex. Nothing can change the biological sex in your DNA - you either have a Y chromosome or you don't - but there are of course medical means that can change the sexual organs and hormones. So it gets complicated.
Western society only has two genders: male and female. There are some other cultures that have three or four socially accepted gender orientations. For instance, many Native American and First Nations tribes have "two-spirits", the Balkans have "sworn virgins," and Southeast Asia has "hijiras." Many sociologists believe that there should really be a minimum of five gender orientations. But western society only accepts two, and two genders just aren't always sufficient. Anyone who falls outside those two categories is automatically marginalized.
What if a female-to-male transman *looks* completely male, is taking testosterone supplements, and has a sexually functional penis? Should he still have "female" written on his driver's license? Should he be prohibited from using male restrooms? If he lives in one of the many countries with separate retirement ages for men and women, would he retire at the male age or at the female age? What if a male-to-female transwoman is taking estrogen supplements and has had breast implant surgery, but she still looks noticeably "mannish?" How will the many legal and social effects of gender apply to her? Do you feel that she should be treated differently because they can't "pass" as female? | 168 | 309 |
[Warhammer 40k/Halo] Do Spartans and Space Marines serve similar combat roles, and which is better used by their governments for their purpose? | Spartans are a precision tool for completing important missions and defending key installations. Space marines are shock troopers meant for frontline duty. While there is overlap tactically between their roles the two forces are deployed very differently. A Spartan is sent to an area where they'll have the greatest impact or be able to do what a 100 soldiers can't. A space marine is sent into the thickest part of fighting to cause as much damage as possible while achieving their objectives. One's a sniper round the other is a bomb. In terms of usage it's debatable since both fight radically different wars but space marines are more easily produced and more widespread in application and effect than Spartans are. | 22 | 18 |
|
How do I get better at philosophy without majoring in philosophy? | I'm a politics major. I'm almost done but I'm realizing how important philosophy is. I'm assigned snippets of political philosophy but I'm realizing how all of philosophy is important.
It's honestly amazing how much the humanities overlap. I need a deep understanding of philosophy to perform well. I kind of regret my major but it's too late, I see now why philosophy majors score higher than politics majors on the LSAT.
I spent much of my teens engaging in "scientism" (Dawkins, hitchens, Harris) and I'm realizing how incorrect that is.
My professors are helpful but I feel like I'm really lacking. So my question, who are the most influential philosophers that I must read and what philosophers are most involved in political philosophy?
I was taught history, math, science in highscool but not philosophy. I feel like I barely have a foundation. | The philosophers you need to know to understand politics are the major historical ones like Plato, Hobbes, and Locke. Reading contemporary academic political philosophy will have a smaller payoff in that specific respect, because it has had less time to influence the culture. | 19 | 35 |
In a biological way, how are hallucinations really created? | With all the light on the retina and everything, it's like the inverse process- the brain sends message to the eyes to create something that isnt there. How does that happen? | Normally the eyes send signals to the brain to interpret. When you see hallucinations, your brain is either creating signals spontaneously which it tries to interpret, or your brain interprets real signals wrong. | 11 | 23 |
How did you make money on the side through grad school? | I will have a job at the school, but I'm looking to do more than just pay the bills. (Hey, conferences are expensive!!) What tips can you share for earning spending money? | TAing, RAing
helping out with admin stuff (handing back papers, helping at open days)
I worked at other uni offices in admin
freelance work at big crowdsourcing companies (I did some translation work)
tutoring
apply for external funding (charities etc.)
Did all of the above for three years and paid for tuition fees (Europe) and rent. | 24 | 29 |
ELI5:What does Aspirin do to us? | So aspirin has a couple of therapeutic effects. It is known as a salicylate (this is important later on) and a NSAID, non steroidal anti-inflammatory drug. To start it is an antipyretic, also known as a fever reducer, much like Tylenol.
It is also an anti inflammatory, aka stops swelling, and an analgesic, aka stops pain.
It’s most common use though is for anti platelet which means that it lowers the platelet amount in your body in order to prevent clots, which can wreak havoc if they get to the lungs or brain. In the lungs it causes a pulmonary embolism and in the brain it causes a stroke. It also is used to prevent heart attacks due to these properties. If platelets are higher than 450,000 per microliter of blood, there is an increased risk for these clots. Aspirin will lower the function of platelets sticking together and prevent coagulation.
However, you cannot give aspirin to a child as it can cause Reye syndrome, which is deadly. If you’d like me to go into depth about the other three effects let me know, but there are much better options for those, including for children.
Edit: misspoke, evidence of comment down below. Sorry guys, doing multiple things at once! | 18 | 15 |
|
ELI5: Why does Southeast Asia have such a high concentration/reputation for lady-boys in regards to the rest of the world? | First, that area (Thailand in particular) has a long history of cultural acceptance toward transgenderism. Or, at least, more social acceptance than more countries. Transgender people are more free to be open with their gender and sexuality, and therefore, a greater percentage of them are. In itself, this wouldn't account for a worldwide "reputation," as other countries probably wouldn't care unless people take an active interest in the region's culture. But when you couple the nation's desire to attract tourism and boost its economy, this sub-culture has been touted as a point of interest for cultural tourism and sexual tourism, exploiting an otherwise innocuous part of their society as something more "exotic" and taboo. It's kind of a shame, since this could have been a shining example of gender acceptance for other countries to follow, but has instead only further promoted transgenderism as something weird or fetishized. | 57 | 44 |
|
[Iron Giant] What is the world like after the movie ends? | A talking 100 ft. tall metal robot from space got blown up by a nuclear missile. News had to travel fast.
What is the world view on this? How does it affect national and economic relations? | Obviously, the military had time to examine and analyze that piece they found. Using rudimentary techniques, they eventually extrapolate the rough designs of the machine and begin construction. In this universe, it's more than likely the transistor isn't invented. Computers remain large and bulky. Nuclear energy is utilized and compartmentalized and the two techs are brought together to realize a weapon of enormous value.
Liberty Prime. Democracy is non-negotiable. | 183 | 120 |
What is the DSGE Model? | I'm a 2nd year undergrad student at economics, and despite knowing a bit about the terminology and the history, the wikipedia page (that usually helps) couldn't really help me understand the basics of the DSGE Model, and its implications for policies and macroeconomic research. This is despite being a bit familiar with the critique of Lucas. Do you have any recommendations for me to better understand the DSGE Model? | you are just a 2nd year undergrad so don't worry if you don't know it. we typically don't learn it that early (if at all, for some undergrad programs).
DSGE stands for Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium, and it's a modelling standard for macroeconomic models. more specifically, a model needs to be dynamic, in the sense that the agents make decisions taking into account all future periods, it needs to be stochastic, in the sense that some variables are determined also stochastically (random error terms in some equations which then are carried over all the way to the equilibrium solution, and are used to make predictions or to evaluate the model with impulse response functions), and general in the sense that in the model all types markets and agents will feature in the model and they will all be at equilibrium at the derived equilibrium.
take for example the simple ISLM model, i assume you are familiar with (if you aren't, all the better for you tbh). it's not a DSGE, because the model is not dynamic, the variables dont move through time, it's not stochastic since there are no stochastic terms, the variables are all exact points on graphs, and it is a "general" equilibrium model in the sense that the markets it has clear, but it's not a general equilibrium model in the sense that it is not microfounded (with households, firms, intermediate firms, banks, or what have you) | 33 | 28 |
I’ve been perusing Wikipedia pages on hurricanes after Michael and have found detailed accounts of hurricane development for storms back in the late 1800s. How were these accounts recorded and/or constructed? | Mostly by observing the change in barometric pressure of a passing storm from multiple locations along with witnesses and damage when and if it came ashore. All ships carry a barometer and depending on off it is falling and the direction of the wind you can tell which quadrant you were in and which direction the storm was heading. Also with no radars ships would not have advance warning so there were more instances of ships being caught in and around storms thus more reports of pressures. It was a very imperfect science and lots of people died.
| 1,499 | 5,416 |
|
ELI5: How does a camera know when the image is focused? | When you half-press the shutter, the camera adjusts and you physically see the image become slightly less / slightly more focused until it's done - how does it know that what it's showing you isn't blurry? | 3 main ways:
Contrast Detection Auto-Focus (good enough)
Phase Detection Auto-Focus (best)
Laser Auto-Focus (eh)
When the camera picks what the objects it needs to focus on:
Contrast Detection looks for the focus level where there is the most contrast (difference between white and black), as that means there is no blurriness, where they fade into each other.
Phase Detection splits the light into 2+ beams and each beam goes into 2 sensors, and both sensors are focused until they are both "in-phase":
> When the light reaches these two sensors, if an object is in focus, light rays from the extreme sides of the lens converge right in the center of each sensor...Both sensors would have identical images on them, indicating that the object is indeed in perfect focus.
Laser Autofocus is just sonar with light, a beam of light is emitted from the camera and the time is takes for the light to bounce back to the sensor is used to determine the focus. | 197 | 680 |
I think we should combine feminism and men's rights movement into one, CMV | So, where I'm from the feminist movement is not in favor of females, but is fighting for equal rights for both sexes. They do fight strongly for women but I don't feel left out. I'm really proud of it to include rights for men as well as women.
International feminism is defined as "the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes." according to Google definitions.
The feminist movement overshadows men's rights movement and each factions tend to get bad reputations every now and then. Why can't we just have one to rule them all? | People who fight against racism are also for equal rights between all people. People who fight against discrimination against the disabled are also for equal rights between all people. People who fight for gay rights are also for equal rights between all people. By your reasoning, all these people should be combined into one movement.
The problem is that women face different forms of discrimination than men. Black people face different forms of discrimination than the disabled. Gay people face different forms of discrimination than he elderly. In theory they may be all fighting for the same thing but in practice they all have different concerns. So it makes sense that they form separate groups.
| 80 | 74 |
Is PEMDAS a human invention, or is there some mathematical logic that says it must be done this way? | It’s a hierarchical schedule of what is implied in ambiguous representations in how mathematical expressions are written.
For example the expression 2x^2 means twice the square of x, not the square of twice x.
Only a textbook would deliberately create a sloppily ambiguous monster like -x^2 and make you decide if it means the square of negative x or the negative of the square of x. But if 2x^2 means twice the square of x, then by analogy -x^2 must be the negative of the square of x, the exponent applying only to the symbol it’s attached to.
So the OOO is not about math but about the grammar of written representation. | 71 | 53 |
|
Is the eyesight of small animals like mice and snakes as poor as ours would be if our retinas were the size of theirs? | Better or poor are tricky descriptors. Animals evolve their senses to be suited to their environments. Humans’ colour vision is amongst the best in the world and have some of the most detailed up close vision in bright light. The trade off was poor low light vision. Other animals prioritize low light vision over perceiving colours. Humans have sharp vision in a tight area directly in front of them but the trade off is poor peripheral vision and no vision behind them. Other animals have an almost 360 degree field of view, but lack a region of extreme sharpness. Each of these different sets of abilities is “better” in a particular set of living conditions. | 123 | 98 |
|
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 preparing the website/app to work as the web, OS, and other things evolve? | 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 more automated.
Depending on type of work you might even assist in helping onboard high value customers.
There is no “done” | 98 | 45 |
[English History] Why did Henry VIII break off from Catholicism? | Because the Pope at the time, Saint Francis-Pauljohn XV, discovered that the Royal Bloodline was carrying a notable disease, apart from hemophilia and weakchinedness.
The Pope was visiting his faithful Archbishop in London for the annual wrestling match that determined who would be the Pastors of the more desiralbe parishes in the UK, when he happened to visit on the palace on the night of a full moon. There, he witnessed the members of the Royal House turn into Werewolves, and he was only able to escape with the assistance of the noted monster hunter Van Hellsing.
Once the nobles had come to their senses the Pope confronted Henry VIII, engaging him in an epic duel that ended with the Great Fire of London, the Pope dead and Henry VIII having to start a new church to ensure he would have someone to witness the vows as he married new wives (his old wives coming down with a sudden and unfortunate case of headlessness after failing to produce for him an heir.) | 12 | 20 |
|
Why are some US grad students on food stamps? | I often see on Reddit mentions of grad students living on food stamps - how common is this, and how come this is a thing?
To put my question in context, I’m not from the US and I’ve been led to think that US grad schools are well-funded unlike the UK. If there’s funding, why do students have to rely on food stamps? I’m confused! | Funding levels differ dramatically; at some institutions they are adequate to support a grad student, and possibly even minimally support children of a grad student, but at other institutions the pay is absurdly low. It's a real mess and (imo) a disgrace on academia. | 228 | 216 |
[Star Trek] Can the Borg actually assimilate any biological abilities? Or just technology? | "We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."
Chilling words, but how much is true and how much is meaningless boasting? As far as I can tell, they don't add any biological distinctiveness to the collective. The biological organisms they assimilate don't seem to be used as anything more than corpses adapted to carry the borg's advanced technology.
I suppose the drones' extreme strength and lack of dying of old age could be partially biological adaptations, but they're almost surely augmented by technology. We know that the Borg are simply unable to assimilate some races with bizarre biology like Species 8472. It also seems like they've never assimilated other biological abilities like the psychic powers inherent in Betazoids, Vulcans, etc. Thank God.
Are there *any* biological abilities that have been assimilated? Even on a microscopic scale? Or are the Borg only after technology and not really interested in biological distinctiveness on anything beyond a cosmetic level? | The Borg do alter the genetics of the assimilated lifeforms, these artificial Borg genetics are a combination of the most desirable traits found in the assimilated lifeforms to date, new traits can be added once found and deemed useful. The alterations idealise the biology of the assimilated lifeform for assimilation, implantation, and service.
The Borg use both biological and non biological alterations to augment the drones.
Biological alterations serve to create the ideal base for cybernetic augmentation, and to turn individualistic specimen into hive drones harmonized with the hive mind.
Observed changes in the biology are a uniform biochemistry, thus adapting all drones to the same life support conditions, and the psionic capacities used for communication and vessel regeneration.
>We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your *biological* (true) and *technological* (mostly recycling, but sometimes interesting ideas are picked up) distinctiveness to our own. Your culture(what little is not deleted/suppressed. It is more efficient than saying 'species/race/faction/alliance/political and or biological unit/whatever/organisation that builds and/or controls what we are about to assimilate') will adapt to service us. Resistance is *futile**.
*^(one cube short of being true) | 13 | 23 |
Netherlands, I have difficulties finishing my master thesis because of my research questions and methods. I am not an expert on the methods but I don't really have too many options because it was "assigned". | I am an international student from a developing country where the education is only for getting papers. I have difficulties when I write a thesis and these difficulties are not only with language problems, English. I also have problems making it concise and more critical. I read the research that many Asian countries have this problem due to their education system. In my experience, my country is always descriptive and explains as much as we can when writing a thesis.
My topic is about the environmental impact that happens because of tourism. My problem is about the topic itself and the supervisor, but I guess I cannot undo this. It is like I get assigned a certain supervisor and topic even tho I don't like it or I am not an expert on that.
My thesis uses fuzzy cognitive maps, it is like a mind map and it is obtained with a participatory approach. My rationale for using this because my supervisor excels in this. It was his will. If I want to use another method then I need to choose another supervisor but I cannot do that. I won't explain it here because this is a long story. In short, it is due to my previous explanation about the assigned topic and supervisor. I can choose another topic and supervisor but I need to pay for the fieldwork where I cannot pay. Unfortunately, I don't really understand how the method works.
I should make my research questions more specific but I already gathered the data, and it cant be more specific. I don't have any idea how to make it more specific. For example, my SPV suggests making it narrow with spatial issues, but it is clear to me because of tourism. So I don't get why I need to use my method/participatory. I think it is better to use a satellite and see it with eyes compared to 10 years ago with now. I think there is something that lies behind why my SPV wants to use it and wants me to be critical but I cannot see it. So during data collection, I collected all data not only restricted to spatial analysis, but I have a problem analysing it. I believe something is missing.
I tried to use a tutor not from NL because I cannot afford it. They have a bit different approach that is more conventional (similar to my country, strict to descriptive) and it makes me more confused. They are from South Africa. So I wonder how to solve this. I spoke with my SPV and study advisor but they told me to study more. | Arrange a meeting with your supervisor and come prepared:
\- Tell them that you are struggling to understand the method and carry out the analysis. Ask them for study materials, or people that can give your guidance.
\- Tell them that you prefer doing things another certain way and why you feel it's better. Don't make it sound like a demand but more of a suggestion. However, stand your ground if their answers are not sufficient for you. In the end, it's your thesis to write.
\- You are not supposed to pay anything for your master's project. Maybe the supervisor has some means to cover it.
Final point: just in case you are similar to me and also have a personal fall-out with your supervisor: they are supposed to guide you and you are supposed to ask. Send them emails, ask them for office hours, and document everything. Always cc your study advisor, the project coordinator, and the PI in every one of your emails. Make sure they know the situation before it's too late. | 20 | 44 |
ELI5: Why does tap water feels colder when touching it than when drinking it ? | The temperature of water relative to your body temperature vs the temperature of water relative to what you perceive as cold drinking water. Another example would be getting into a pool of "cold" water. The water may only be 60 degrees, which is cold when you submerge yourself into it, but you would not think it is cold if you drank water the same temperature. | 33 | 198 |
|
[Star Wars] it's the first day of high school (or whatever is equivalent). What sort of classes would an average teenager expect to take during the time periods of the prequels, original trilogy, and new trilogy? | Would there be a planetary history course as well as galactic?
Are the jedi brought up at all? Would the text books change after order 66?
I am assuming in an empire this big, there would be much more to learn. Would children be required to go to school longer than us on earth?
Would schools on other planets be under the same district or are they seperated?
Would rich kids have to travel the galaxy to go to the best schools in the galaxy?
| Your education experince would change depending on what planet you are from. Most worlds would apprentice you, or have you start working at a very young age. The core worlds would likely have a general schooling, to prepare you either for the workforce, or for the best and brightest, to be sent to the imperial academy. | 17 | 21 |
ELI5: How did we measured the radius of earth and sun? | The circumference (and by extension the radius) of the Earth can be measured by comparing the angle of shadows of vertical objects at different latitudes (same longitude) at identical times.
The radius of the sun was a little more complicated and there are a variety of methods. One was to measure the ratio of the distance to the moon and the sun (using trigonometry during a half moon).
Based on this ratio, and the size of shadow the Earth casts upon the moon during an Eclipse, you can estimate the size of the sun. Similar and different methods have been used over the years, but they basically boil down to: shadows and math. | 10 | 16 |
|
ELI5: How are logic chips (AND/OR/NAND/etc) actually built to work like their chosen logic gate? | Like with an AND gate I understand how it works in that an input of 1 AND 1 make an output of 1, but how do the logic chips actually perform the function? How would you build a logic gate without using logic chips? | The basic building block of electrical/electronic gates is the transistor. You can think of a transistor as an electrically operated switch. This switch has an input, output and a "switch" (also an input). If the switch is "on" it connects the input to the output, if the switch is "off" the input is disconnected from the output.
By differing configurations of this switch (several transistors connected in different circuit patterns), all logical gates can be constructed. | 23 | 28 |
CMV: We Should Significantly Lower the US Military's Budget | # I believe that the seven-hundred billion dollar US defense budget is extremely excessive and should be substantially less.
I have this view for three main reasons: wasteful spending, obsolete army bases and development of useless technology.
**There is a lot of wasteful spending in the US military and unaccounted money.**
>A staggering report by the Defense Department’s Inspector General last summer found the [Army](https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/army/) made $2.8 trillion worth of wrongful adjustments to accounting entries in one quarter alone in 2015, and $6.5 trillion for the year. The [Army](https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/army/) lacked receipts and invoices to support those numbers or simply made them up.
>
>[Source](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/7/us-military-wasting-money/)
>
>The Pentagon, for example, employs [more than 600,000](https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2015/10/08/pentagon-needs-to-cut-shadow-contractor-work-force) private contractors. There are so many of them and they are so poorly monitored that the Pentagon (as it has reluctantly [acknowledged](https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2015/10/08/pentagon-needs-to-cut-shadow-contractor-work-force)) doesn’t even have an accurate count of how many of them it has hired. What we do know is that many are carrying out redundant tasks that could be done more cheaply by government employees. Cutting the contractor work force by 15 percent—theoretically an easy task but light years beyond anything presently imaginable—would save a quick [$20 billion a year](http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/01/nyt-misses-elephant-in-the-room-defense-service-contractors-.html).
>
>[Source](https://www.thenation.com/article/heres-where-your-tax-dollars-for-defense-are-really-going/)
They also overpay for parts, having once spent $264 for a helicopter part worth $8 — even when they already had a surplus of the supplies in military warehouses. This is a ridiculous waste of money that simply cannot be justified.
**They maintain obsolete army bases** that should be closed. If the bases aren't doing anything, they shouldn't be sucking up tax money. (FYI this is my weakest point so I'm most open to change here.)
[Source](https://www.cheatsheet.com/culture/states-cities/the-disturbing-ways-we-waste-money-our-military-budget.html/)
**And develop mostly useless new technology** such as the F-35 stealth fighter jets that are only effective 26% of the time and my never be ready for combat. [Source](http://www.pogo.org/straus/issues/weapons/2016/f-35-may-never-be-ready-for-combat.html). This project costs almost 400 billion dollars and most likely will be 400 billion dollars down the drain.
Regardless of what the military is doing, its budget is far too high and there is to much waste for it to be justified.
After saying all this however, I am open to change(which is why I'm posting on this sub). | The U.S military is the part of the U.S government that actively funds and develops all the fundamental research for the high tech economy.
Satellites, computers, GPS, cellphones, land lines, the internet, nuclear energy, commercial planes, and so on.
The only way we as a society have figured out how to fund research that either doesn't pan out (like the plane you think was a waste) or doesn't provide any kind of clear benefit until decades after that massive spending, is to put it in the "we NEED this research/project/technology or \[insert arbitrary enemy to rattle our sabers against here\] is going to totally kill you and everyone you care about!!!!" category. | 13 | 33 |
When you lose weight, where does it go? How does the mass leave the body? | I've been trying to get fit lately, and have lost three pounds. It got me thinking - where does "the weight" go when you lose it? In other words, how does the mass leave your body?
I understand that when you lose fat, the fat cells shrink, but the actual mass must escape the body somehow. I can only think of four ways mass could possibly escape the body - through the excretory system (urine or sweat), the digestive system (defacation), or the lungs (in the breath). So, when you lose fat (or muscle, in the case of muscle atrophy), where does it go?
Before you laugh, let me say that I'm pretty sure you don't *exhale* fat. But I'm curious. Do we know? How does it happen?
Thanks. | With the help of oxygen, cells eat carbon containing molecules like glucose and fatty acids, and respire CO2 and H2O. The CO2 is in solution in your blood and travels to the lungs, where you exhale it in exchange for more O2. A 140 lb person exhales about 1 kg (2.2lb) of CO2 each day from basal metabolism, more if they are active. The H2O either gets used in other places or goes out through your urine. The net loss is about 270 grams of carbon, and around 110 grams of H2O, per day. | 13 | 17 |
ELI5: How and why people develop irrational fears and phobias? | There are many people among us with Irrational fears, like fear of spiders "Arachnophobia" (Not like normal fear which is common but really exaggerates one, people that can literally fade if they see one)
or fear from the ocean, or Ancraophobia or Anemophobia Both terms are used to define the fear of wind, I'm sure there is many more examples.
So how this is happen and why?? | Phobias are the typical example of the manner in which the brain exhibits a One Time Learning or a Single Type Generalisation. Usually, it takes a minimum of 3 experiences to generalise for the brain to learn.
Fear is something which is essential for survival. Fear protects us. However, with fear, the brain responds contextually. For example, if you burn your hand by touching a hot stove, the next time you're going to be careful about it. This is because your brain learns that a hot stove is going to burn you. At the same time your brain also knows that it is safe to go near a stove as long as you don't touch it. Further, your brain may also learn that it is also safe to test touching the stove really quickly, to check whether it is hot or not - and if it is not hot, then it's perfectly safe to touch the stove.
Now, if your brain has an overwhelmingly strong response to the first time you touch a hot stove - either because you burnt yourself so extremely badly that you had to undergo tremendous trauma and stress or because you were punished by someone so severely that you underwent extreme trauma or stress, the chances are that in future, every time you see a stove your brain begins to undergo the same trauma and stress, resulting in a phobia. Your brain is no longer in a position to contextualize the learning.
In extreme phobic cases, just looking at a photo of the stove may result in the phobic response. | 30 | 25 |
How do pure C programmers deal without some sort of STL containers? | Hi all! Being interested in programming in pure C I wonder how pure C programmers deal without having some sort of containers in the C std. Vector may be replaced with C-style arrays, although with some limitations, but what about queues, trees, hashtables and other interesting data structures? Do the C programmers have to implement them every time from scratch? How does Linux kernel deal with it, for example? | There are a couple of strategies:
* Implement reusable data structures that always store the value as a `void*`. Basically like you did in Java before you have generics and had to use Object for everything. This is pretty common, but you lose some performance and type safety. In return, it's simple and you get code reuse.
* You *can* implement reusable generic data structures using big preprocessor macros if you really want to, but it's kind of a chore. Some codebases do that.
* Many others just implement the data structures they need for the types they need. You only implement the actual functions you need for each particular use of a data structure. So if you need a hash table but don't need to ever delete anything from it, don't bother implementing a delete function.
You'd be surprised how few different data structures you actually need and how few operations on them. | 24 | 23 |
CMV Just as women have the right to have an abortion or give up the baby for adoption, men should have the right to give up all custody at birth, without any continuing financial obligation | Women currently do and should continue to have the sole authority over their bodies - especially related to pregnancy. Abortion is very safe, but it is a medical procedure. Keeping a baby is also on the whole safe, but comes with a boatload of hardships throughout the pregnancy - spmething that I'd never want to go through. After birth there is again a decision, with adoption of new borns being very easy in the US - demand far outstrips the number of babies up for adoption, and the standards for adoption r very high (maybe too much so).
Legally in most states however if the woman chooses to keep the baby the man is expected and obligated to atleast help financially support the child. Here on Reddit especially I have seen the argument that its just not the same, and after the mother has decided to raise the baby the father has a responsibility to the child. I agree that the kid's life is worse off with an absent father.
With multiple options open to the mother to forgo the hardship of raising a child though, why is there no option for the father to relinquish any and all custody and rights to the baby at birth, if the mother is knowingly taking on the physical and financial responsibility to raise them?
Note that I do believe whether a woman choses to abort or carry the baby to term the man should help with atleast 50% of the costs involved either way, as the risk of pregnancy is
Edit: I made some inherently sexist assumptions when I wrote this, unfortunately can't change the title. To clarify my view - I think that it is unfair for either parent to be unable to give up their parental rights at birth. I understand that plenty of fathers have full custody as the mothers did not want to be a part of the baby's life - those mothers should also be able to relinquish parental obligations. The fairly robust adoption system present should mean that if a single parent does not believe they can raise the child all on their own they have the option to pht the baby up for adoption at birth. If they think they can do it, then the other partner should be able to walk away from the numerous physical and financial burdens of a child. | Do you think that women should also have the right to do this (i.e. to relinquish all financial obligations and place them on the father of the child, who then has the option to place the child for adoption or to raise the child with no support from her), or do you think that only men should have this right? | 16 | 19 |
Is there any philosophy that critiques the notion that the reduction in crime / overall safety of citizens within a society is the ultimate end goal of that society? | Arendt argues that providing for basic physical needs of citizens is a precondition of a well-functioning society. For her, society's end goal is enabling citizens to express their freedom in the public political forum. | 34 | 50 |
|
ELI5: Why are there flat head and Philips head screws and screwdrivers? Are either better than the other? | Each has it's own advantages. Flat heads have the advantage that they're simple to make, and in a pinch can be worked with other flat metal objects.
Phillips heads screws are specifically designed so the bit slips if too much torque is applied. This is especially important for electric drills, so that if a screw gets stuck it doesn't damage the motor. | 56 | 86 |
|
ELI5: Why do all government-negotiated contracts with businesses in the UK seem to be ridiculously bad value for money? | Every government contract that makes the news seems to involve giving some companies inordinate amounts of money to do a shitty job, and recently with clauses preventing future governments from ending or changing the contracts. Is the government truly the worst negotiator in the business world, or is it just media hype? | 1 - not all of them are, you hear about the overspends and failures disproportionately to the successes that come in on time and/or under budget.
2 - change requests. A bud is received and accepted for X work. When it comes time to produce X the users are involved and note a few things they will need that are not in the original bid, perhaps not designed correctly or a change on regulations or a new law that has been implemented between bid time and production time. Capita /Serco et al know how the government works, so they bid low, beating out other bidders. But they know they will make it back on change requests, these costs are much higher than they need to be but are usually not a major consideration in bid assessment.
| 11 | 33 |
[Community] Why did Abed take the Who's The Boss class, if he was so convinced he knew who the boss was? | Abed has an interest in the systemic study of pop-culture. This is a pop-culture class.
He didn't come in intending to contradict the Professor, but when the professor appeared to be explicitly *wrong*, he saw no reason why he shouldn't correct him. | 39 | 18 |
|
ELI5: How are chords made from a scale? | There are four major types of chords: major, minor, augmented, and diminished.
**Major**
Major chords are the basic chords that make up any song you listen to. Every other chord is just a major chord with a little bit difference. That being said, the major chords are the simplest of all the chords. A major chord, or major triad, starts with a root note like a C note. The next note on the chord is the third note in the scale of the root note. For example if the root note was C, the next note would be an E note. The third and final note of the chord is the fifth note on the scale. In the example of a C scale, the fifth note would be a G note. When you put them all together you get a chord with the note combination of 1-3-5; a C chord will have a note combination of C-E-G.
**Minor**
Minor chords are major chords in which the third not is taken down a half step to make it flat. In the example of a C chord the note combination would be a C-E flat/F sharp-G. This creates a more mellow and deeper sound and creates a more sorrowful feel to the song.
**Augmented**
Augmented chords take the major chord and increase the fifth note by a half step, making it sharp. For the C chord, the note combination C-E-G sharp/A flat. Augmented chords kind of sound weird and are used in songs that are not very harmonic. A good example of this would be "Oh Darling" by The Beatles.
**Diminished**
Lastly, diminished chords take a minor chord and make the fifth note down a half step, making it flat. The note combination for a C chord would be C-E flat/D sharp-G flat/F sharp. Diminished notes create a very flat tone and makes songs sound deep and sad.
**<TL;DR>**
Major chord note combination: 1-3-5
Minor chord note combination: 1-3 flat-5
Augmented chord note combination: 1-3-5 sharp
Diminished chord note combination: 1-3 flat-5 sharp | 20 | 17 |
|
Does 'mastering' fusion mean making current fusion reactor designs a lot more efficient, or is there a different design or process we are hoping to figure out? | You hear people talking about the amazing potentials if we master or 'have' easy fusion, while current designs are struggling to be positive in net energy output. Does 'having fusion' just mean making the current design a lot more efficient, or is there a specific design, process or way of approaching fusion we don't know how to do yet? | The difficulty of fusion is that the constraints are pretty tight from an engineering perspective. Throughout the years the questions you ask have been driving ones: is it just a matter of getting the engineering right, scaling things up, etc.? Or are they barking up the wrong tree, is there a better approach? The answer is... we don't really know yet. We haven't achieved true breakeven yet except in thermonuclear weapons. We _have_ achieved fusion reactions, but they consume more energy than the system requires to get started. Inertial confinement fusion looked like it was going to take the prize a few years ago... and then it turned out it was harder than they thought. Scaling up magnetic confinement fusion (the ITER project) is looking promising, so we'll see, in a few years, when they start doing real experiments with it. Will it ultimately work, or will it create new engineering problems that will have to be solved? We'll see, we'll see. Are there better ways to do it? Some people and companies are betting on other approaches altogether, and, again, we'll see, we'll see. | 31 | 55 |
[Harry Potter] Why are there no wizard colleges or universities? | Very few students would want to go into that level of education, plus the fact the role is taken by apprenticeships similar to how medieval blacksmiths or bakers were trained.
When a wizard or witch wishes to take a career path they must ask a wizard / business within the field to take them as an apprentice in order to pass down the teachings and training. Certain government professions, such as Healer or Auror, have you assigned to a senior to train but in the private sector it's entirely at the digression of the person you are seeking apprenticeship with.
Of course there are rules primarily governed by the union / guild that the business owner must follow such as taking at least one apprentice and breaching these rules can lead to fines or union / guild support seizing. | 29 | 26 |
|
ELI5: Why does food stick so strongly to plates or frying pans after its sat out a few hours compared to when it's fresh? | I was doing dishes today and had a couple particularly old stubborn smears I had to clean off. Even food items that were never hot (like guacamole or sour cream) seem to bond abnormally strong to dirty dishes after a night's rest in the sink. Why are they so stubborn!? | When food is wet, it tends to be soft and goopy. In this liquidy state it can seep into microscopic cracks and such. As it dries out, it loses moisture and both shrinks and hardens. As it shrinks and hardens, it solidifies its grip on the surface as if it were clenching its fists. Once it's hard, as all hard things are, it becomes difficult to move and thus to clean. | 12 | 62 |
Eli5: Why does the eye need a moment to "get used" to the dark to see properly? | There are two main things that dictate how well you can see in low light:
First is the iris. It expands or contracts fairly quickly to let more or less light in.
Second is a special chemical in the back of the eye that increases light sensitivity. This chemical is destroyed by bright light and it takes 20-30 minutes for the body to produce more after it gets dark. | 48 | 29 |
|
How can economics be used to make the world a better place? | I want to become an economist because I´ve always loved economics. I am also very interested in politics since I really do want to make the world a better place before I die. I understand how naive this sounds but will be really grateful if you could throw me some ideas. | Understanding the actual economic effects policies will have according to theory, and understanding how to best craft policies in order to effect incentives in a way that efficiently and effectively accomplishes its goal is as you can imagine very important
Also if you want to become an economist you should look at the career advice on the sidebar | 35 | 18 |
ELI5: How come when we close both of our eyes, our eyes can still perceive darkness, but when we only have 1 eye open, we can no longer "see" the darkness out of our closed eye? | Why are we able to "see" the lack of light behind our eyelids when both eyes are shut, but how come when only 1 eye is open, it feels like our closed eye just no longer exists? | What you "see" is not just the raw data coming in from your retinas. Your brain constructs your vision by adding a lot of neural processing to these images. Deleting the effect of a single closed eye is part of this processing. | 13 | 32 |
How do metal detectors work? | To clarify, why does not all metal set off a detector? Such as zippers on jeans, or metal buttons? Do these detectors not detect certain kinds of metals, or do they just need at least a certain amount? | A metal detector makes a varying magnetic field in an area using an electromagnet. Conductors such as metal will temporarily block magnetic fields from entering them due to the skin effect. The driver used to power the electromagnet will be affected due to the presence of large amounts of metal, since it has less space to fill with magnetic field. The power being supplied to the electromagnet will be noticable different, but the amount of difference depends on the conductivity and volume of the material, as well as how close it is to the electromagnet. The distance issue is why an airport security officer will sometimes use a hand wand, since it can be placed much closer to the body.
Conductivity varies a lot between metals. The skin depth is proportional to the square root of conductivity. Stainless steel is 45 times less conductive than copper, so the thickness of stainless steel that is "invisible" to a metal detector is 6.7x more. These thicknesses will still be incredibly thin, at 1MHz the skin depth of stainless steel is 0.5mm. | 11 | 20 |
CMV: Employers should not be in the business of providing insurance (health / dental / vision / etc). | I believe that all types of insurance should be extracted from the "benefits" of employment altogether. Instead, the benefits of employment should only be cash income (to the amount of your current salary plus whatever your insurance costs to your employer were). This would put consumers collectively in control of which insurance plans they want to purchase on an open market (something similar to the ACA's online marketplaces perhaps? ... or exactly those?) instead of being subjected to the plan selected by a single human resources manager or a small committee of colleagues. This would serve to make the marketplace much more competitive, as there would be hundreds of millions of consumers making purchasing choices. The cost of the monthly premiums could be written off by the taxpayer, instead of the employer taking advantage of a big chunk of that tax write-off. This idea will only work under the condition that the employee is compensated by employer for the full value of the benefits that s/he is no longer receiving, and this is the angle from which I am making my argument, so please consider this when making your argument.
Thanks! Looking forward to reading the responses.
_____
> *Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to* ***[read through our rules](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/rules)***. *If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which,* ***[downvotes don't change views](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/guidelines#wiki_upvoting.2Fdownvoting)****! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our* ***[popular topics wiki](http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/wiki/populartopics)*** *first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to* ***[message us](http://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/changemyview)***. *Happy CMVing!* | Here's an analogy using labour unions. Think of the following two types of employees:
1. Unionized employees: Generally get higher pay, better benefits, and are collectively able to force changes in a company. They can strike if things get really bad. Since this can be devastating to an employer, an employer will try hard to make the union happy and prevent a strike. **Edit:** Often, you have to be in the union and pay dues in order to work for your employer. Regardless, employees rarely object to this condition given the benefits of a union.
2. Un-unionized employees: Lower pay. Lack of benefits. Difficulty in forcing a company to make policy changes because you're only one person. If things get really bad, the worst you can do to your employer is quit. Considering you're only one person, your employer probably won't try that hard to keep you.
Now, consider that when your employer buys a group plan they are like a labour union, except instead of employment, they deal with insurance.
Firstly, your employer can guarantee a lot of people will be insured and thus get a "bulk" rate, which is likely lower than all the employees could get individually.
Secondly, your employer has much more leverage than an individual:
Insurance company denying too many claims? Insurance company not providing timely customer service? Increase in rates? If you were an individual customer the only leverage you have against the company is to threaten to switch, but the insurance company wouldn't try that hard to keep you, since you're only one person/family. However, consider that when you get insurance through your employer your employer can "strike", and threaten to move hundreds or even thousands of people to a new insurance company, which is considerably more leverage. The insurance company would try really hard to keep a 1,000-employee company happy by giving better service and preferential rates. | 67 | 319 |
ELI5: What do the astronauts on the ISS actually do up there? | Mostly research. In order to best study an environment with little to no gravity, the best place to go is space.
Research includes tools and procedures for spacewalks, procedures for operating in minimal gravity areas, and any other microgravity research.
Other than that, astronauts are sent there to maintain and operate the systems onboard the ISS | 14 | 18 |
|
ELI5: How do humans go from having no concept of language as a baby to being able to speak whatever language they learn fluently | First, babies learn to recognize certain categories of noises. As this gets fine tuned, they start tracking which sounds appear together and mentally cutting up streams of speech into individual words. Then they start babbling and trying to mimic the noises they hear. At about two years old, babies have about 100 words. After that, vocabulary increases exponentially over the next few years.
That said, there is apparently a big debate over whether or not babies start off having "no concept of language" or if we're born with some inherent concepts behind grammar. | 19 | 18 |
|
Where do saltwater mammals such as whales, seals, etc, get drinking water? | Do these animals not require water in the same way land mammals do? What about fish and other sea creatures? | They primarily get water from food, both as water in the food and as a byproduct of metabolism (plants use water and CO2 to make food, and those come out again when the food is broken down). Some may drink some water, but most of the water comes from food. There are land animals that also get their water that way, particularly desert ones.
Saltwater fish, on the other hand, do drink (a lot). They excrete excess salt through their gills.
Some other marine organisms have salt concentrations roughly the same as their surroundings, so they don't need to drink. | 30 | 60 |
We are four Stanford students looking to improve academic publishing and we want to hear from you! | We are four students (incl. three MBAs and two PhDs), all of us fed up with academic publishing and embarking on a project to improve the process. But before we start building anything, we want to hear from as many scientists as possible. We'd love to hear your thoughts on what the biggest issues are. (The amount of time it takes? The opacity of peer reviews? The Elsevier racket?)
Please leave your comments below, or PM me to arrange a short interview. | Anonymous submissions and a transparent review process will improve accountability and reduce editorial decisions based on factors beyond the quality of the work. EMBO has taken great strides towards this end by publishing reviewer and editor comments. | 23 | 49 |
What's wrong with these Homeopathy studies? | I've always believed homeopathy to be a pseudo-science, but yesterday someone provided me with a link to studies on homeopathy that seem to show that it has valid medical applications.
List of all the studies: http://knol.google.com/k/scientific-research-in-homeopathy
Here are a couple of examples from the list:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15016577 - Triple blind trial, Significant improvements in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome using homeopathic methods
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2886%2990410-1/abstract - Double blind trial, found that homeopathy improved hayfever symptoms
Most of these studies show that homeopathy works at least better than a placebo, and in some cases leads to significant improvement.
I don't understand how this can be the case. Homeopathy seems to violate everything I know about chemistry, but these studies show that it works.
What's your take on these studies? | The first study states in their abstract that the results were not statistically significant. In any clinical trial you have errors due to the random nature of human response to treatment, so your sample size must be large enough to show that there is a statistically significant difference between two treatments. Imagine flipping a coin 100 times, and it comes up heads 52 times and tails 48. Even though heads came up more, you wouldn't say that the coin is biased, because the difference is so small. This is basically the result they got in this study. | 96 | 46 |
[ELI5]: How do calculators find out the square root of a number? | Depends on the calculator, but here’s one approach, illustrated for square root of 100
1. Make a first estimate (eg half it, your calculator might make a better guess though) = 50.
2. Add that guess to your target divided by that guess, and halve. So (50 + 100/50) / 2 = 26. That’s your next estimate.
3. Continue until the difference between succeeding estimates is small (again depends on your device).
50 -> 26 -> 14.9 -> 10.8 -> 10.03 so it’s getting there very quickly.
Edit: as the other poster said, the actual algorithm used by any given calculator may be a lot more sophisticated. | 18 | 23 |
|
ELI5:What exactly is happening when a program is "not responding" but continuously consumes large portions of CPU and memory? | In a graphical environment like windows, programs receive input like mouse clicks and keystrokes and they are required to respond to requests like redrawing the graphics in their window. When a program starts failing to do that in a timely manner, the os deems it "not responding" and gives users options to wait or kill it.
Sometimes that happens because the program is calculating something complicated... but only when it's a shitty program. Using threads and other techniques it's possible to have a program work on a big task without becoming non-responsive.
It can also just mean that the program has crashed, that is, gone into some kind of loop that it will never escape from. There's no way for the operating system to tell the difference between those two cases, which is why it asks you. (And there never will be.) | 190 | 502 |
Subsets and Splits
No saved queries yet
Save your SQL queries to embed, download, and access them later. Queries will appear here once saved.